Saturday, October 30, 2004 at 6:37 a.m. shots rang out through the quiet streets of the West End neighborhood of Kingsley, Virginia, an affluent bedroom community suburb of Richmond. At 1515 Hearthglow Lane, Fred Jablin, a University of Richmond professor, lay dead in his own driveway, gunned down while retrieving his morning paper.

Piper Ann Rountree had once been a student in Fred's communications class when Fred taught at the University of Texas in Austin. Piper was eight years younger than Fred and they were complete opposites in every way. Fred Jablin was no longer her professor when they began to date.

Piper was seen as "odd" and described as "different". After graduating from UT Piper went on to study law at St. Mary's Law School in San Antonio. On October 13, 1983 Fred and Piper married. Piper graduated from law school in the spring of 1986.

In 1994 Fred took a position at Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond in Virginia at nearly double his UT salary. From the outside the Jablin family appeared to be a happy family. However, Piper never fit in with others in the community and her erratic behavior began spiraling downward. Fred and Piper's marriage unraveled and their bitter divorce and custody battle made The War of the Roses pale in comparison. Fred eventually gained full custody of their three children. Piper, true to form, blamed everyone and everything but herself for the decision.

Once the authorities began to investigate Fred's murder the evidence against Piper began to accumulate and accumulate and the pieces of this puzzle begin falling into place.