Woman married 5 times before she was 30-years-old
COLUMBIA -- A Columbia murder will be the focus of Saturday's episode of 48 Hours Mystery.
The episode, titled "Temptation", tells the story of a mid-Missouri love-triangle that ended in Murder.
The story centers around Tausha Fields (Morton), 34, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the shooting death of her husband, Mitch Kemp.
Investigators say Fields manipulated an ex-husband, Greg Morton, to kill Kemp in 2004. Four years later, Fields led investigators to a Boone County farm where Kemp's remains were buried.
During the murder trial, held in Columbia in the summer of 2010, prosecutors said Fields kicked and spit on Mitch Kemp just before he died.
Fields is described by investigators, prosecutors and her ex-lovers as a manipulating seductress who often lied and cheated on her boyfriends.
"She definitely makes you feel like you’re the only person in the world for her," said ex-boyfriend Dwayne Barrentine.
"It’s almost like magical," said another ex-boyfriend Keith Jones about Fields' ability to make men feel special and loved.
Fields had been married five times by the time she was 30.
Perhaps none of the men in Fields' life had it quite as bad as Mitch Kemp, the man she married while living in Columbia in 2002. The two had a daughter together, named Lexi.
The relationship was rocky, Kemp's family said it was Fields' controlling personality that drove them to divorce after only six months.
"The way she changed him and the way she manipulated people," Tracy Kemp said. "I told Mitch, 'You need to get away from this girl'."
"It was a marriage that shouldn’t have ever happened," Fields said of her relationship with Kemp during the 48 Hours interview. "We were more friends, I mean I loved Mitch but I wasn’t in love with him."
Fields moved-on quickly to marry another man named Greg Morton. However, Fields continued to see Mitch, causing outrage in Greg, who became resentful towards Mitch.
Then, Kemp mysteriously disappeared in 2004. Investigators searched for 4 years and found virtually no evidence, until they began digging up Field's past.
Many of her former boyfriends came forward with the peculiar lies and stories that she had told them.
"She just lies like she breathes," Barrentine said. "She lies more efficiently than she breathes."
"She’s a pretty dangerous person, because she doesn’t look it," Jones said.
Soon, investigators were able to create a case against Fields, forcing her to reveal where Kemp's body was buried. In court, prosecutors said Fields convinced Morton to kill Kemp by saying that Kemp had raped and abused her.
"I had a gut feeling that something bad had happened and she had something to do with it," said Tracy Kemp.
But Fields insists she's not behind Kemp's death.
"It's not my fault," Fields said in the 48 Hours interview. "I don't have it in me, I'm not the mastermind of a crime."
Fields never took the stand during her trial, instead, prosecutors played videos of her interviews with police where she contradicted herself numerous times.
If she had taken the stand, court analysts say she would have further damaged her credibility.
Greg Morton confessed to the murder but struck a deal with prosecutors to testify against Fields.
Morton was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
KRCG's Mark Slavit contacted producers for CBS' 48 Hours Mystery during Fields' trial to alert them to the story. Producers quickly came to Columbia to watch the rest of the trial.
48 Hours Mystery airs at 9 p.m. Saturday on KRCG.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKRCG