In Reno, Nevada, 38-year-old Tim McClure lived with his mother Terri off and on throughout his twenties. Tim and his mother were often seen together at the slot machines or dining out. Even after Tim moved away, he remained close to his mom:

"She'd do anything for anybody. She'd give you the shirt off her back or last nickel to anybody. She was just… a real kind-hearted woman."

In 1983, Terri McClure was 62-years-old and living alone. She was thrilled when Tim called to tell her he was getting married. His wedding took place on Friday, January 14, 1983, in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The wedding party celebrated by doing a little gambling. Then at around 10 PM, Tim walked his mother to her car. She planned to drive straight home to Reno, which was about an hour away. The next evening, when Tim and his new bride stopped by to visit Terri, they noticed signs that she had not made it home:

"It just appeared as though she hadn't been home and it was at that point I just had the strangest feeling that something was wrong. There I was you know, on my honeymoon, after getting married and she'd taken time off from work and did not find her at home. I just, I couldn't understand it."

Her son Tim was a prime suspect

Tim called various family members and friends of his mother. Since no one had seen or heard from Terri, Tim called the police. Three days later, on Monday, January 17th, Terri McClure's car was found in the parking lot of a Carson City casino. It was a half hour drive outside of Lake Tahoe. The keys were in the ignition, the doors were locked, and Terri was sitting upright in the front seat. She had been shot twice in the head. The day after they found the body, Carson City detectives questioned Tim. He was shocked when they asked him if he wanted to have an attorney present. It soon dawned on Tim that he was considered a suspect:

"I started to feel like a victim and I thought why should I have an attorney? I mean this is my mother's death. You should be investigating it on another level rather than thinking of me as doing it… I couldn't understand why.

Tim told the police that on the night of his wedding, he walked his mother to her car and then returned to the casino. He said his wife was still gambling with her parents, so he gambled alone for two hours. He then rejoined her and they went out dancing until dawn. Tim also told the police that, two days before his mother's body was discovered, he searched the main highway between Lake Tahoe and Reno. Detective Sergeant Burau of the Carson City Sheriff's Office became suspicious when Tim said he was looking for Terri's purse:

"We again found this odd that he would attempt to retrace his mother's steps for the purpose of finding something that nobody knew was missing. On the 16th nobody had any idea her purse was missing."

Tim also drove through the parking lots of the casinos along his mother's route. According to Tim, he proceeded at a slow crawl through the lots of every casino except one:

"Sometimes you get a gut feeling. You could maybe think of the holy spirit… guiding you. There was perhaps a feeling of keeping me away from there to save me from finding her. I thank God I didn't find her. It would've destroyed me to find her."

It was the same casino parking lot was where Terri's body was found two days later, on Monday, January 17th. Police estimated that Terri had been dead since Friday, the night of Tim's wedding. Police were also puzzled by a call Tim made to cancel one of his mother's credit cards. The credit card company said Tim made the call on the Friday before his mother had disappeared. However, Tim claimed he made the call on Monday the 17th, the day Terri's body was found:

"I had reported her credit cards missing, I called on Monday. The woman had written down that I called on Friday which I couldn't understand. It's just one of the strangest things I have ever heard of, because I called on Monday and how she could've mistaken that for a Friday and then mixed up my words like that, saying she had been murdered. I had no idea she'd been murdered. All I knew was she was missing and that's what I told them."

Investigators also discovered that, six months before Terri McClure was murdered, she had taken out a $10,000 insurance policy on her life. Tim and one of his sisters were named as co-beneficiaries:

"I didn't think my mother would take out an insurance policy. It just wasn't like her. I mean, they're thinking that I, you know did this for a reason. I mean, my share is only $5,000. I mean that's ridiculous."

On February 14, 1983, one month after their wedding, Detective Sergeant Burau asked Tim and his wife to take a polygraph test:

"The results of those polygraph examinations would strongly suggest deception on both the part of Timothy McClure and his wife. And in the interviews they had no response. They could not respond to why the machine was telling them they were being deceptive. They had no answers."

All the circumstantial evidence was eventually submitted to the Nevada D.A., but he deemed it insufficient to arrest Tim McClure. Eventually, Tim McClure was arrested for the murder of his mother. However, the D.A. ultimately decided not to prosecute. The case was dismissed "with prejudice."