[man 1]
at the Lexington County Sheriff's Department
in our Technology division.
She started back in 2011.
She would help officers when they were having problems
with their computers.
She could help to do installs,
she could help to do software
and debugging.
Lindsey was a very regimented person
at this point in her life.
She watched what she ate,
she made sure that she was getting her morning workouts.
Our office has a shower at it,
so she would hit her morning workout,
she would get into the shower,
she'd blare this loud music
and get ready, and she'd be sitting at her desk,
eight o'clock, beaming and happy and ready to go.
My desk was right next to hers,
and she would come in there, and you just felt like
the sun was shining on you in your little cubicle.
And on this Tuesday, the team came in,
and there was no music,
and there was nothing in the hallways.
At eight o'clock,
she's not sitting at her desk,
and that isn't right, it's not Lindsey.
[dramatic music playing]
[woman 1]
to try to see what is going on.
Did she oversleep?
Why is she not at work?
There's gotta be an explanation.
They show up, her car's in the driveway.
Being law enforcement officers,
they touch her car to see if the engine is hot.
It's cold. That means the car
has been sitting there for a while.
As they make their way to the back door,
they notice it's ajar,
and it looks like someone has forced their way inside.
As soon as they come in,
the only thing they hear is running water
coming from the bathroom.
[water running]
So they go to the bathroom,
and the curtain to the tub is drawn,
so they slowly pull back the curtain,
and that is when her co-workers see
Lindsey laying in the tub coffin-style
with a huge six-inch gash to her neck.
[tense music playing]
They immediately cut off the water,
get out of the house, and call for backup.
My boss actually calls
and says, "Hey, look, the word's come back now.
Um, I want you to know,
everything's not okay."
So the officers that were on scene
know that Lindsey works with them
and we don't want a conflict.
And what we called in is our State Law Enforcement Division.
[woman 2]
commonly known as SLED,
is a statewide agency.
And we provide manpower and technical assistance
to local agencies if they need help.
We have agents all over the state, so I think I got there
within like 20 or 30 minutes.
So we had a team pulling video surveillance.
We had another team interviewing Lindsey's family.
We had another team interviewing Lindsey's co-workers.
And almost immediately, we find out about Jason Lee.
[man 2]
first boyfriend that I knew of, anyway. [chuckles]
And, uh, and that was her husband.
She got married in 2010.
[Hecker]
being around Jason and they feel like Lindsey
has found her soulmate in Jason,
and you can see that when you watch their wedding video.
Jason is visibly crying
as Lindsey comes down the aisle to meet him.
Very, very emotional guy.
[Sexton]
she also mentioned that Jason wanted to be part of this too.
I knew that they wanted to try to work on it together,
to lose some weight, and they wanted to try
to make something that they could support each other on,
but he just didn't pick it up
or didn't continue to put the work in it like Lindsey was.
[man 2]
And, uh, she did much better than Jason was doing at it.
I think that made him jealous,
and from what I could tell,
I think that's what really started, uh,
the downhill turn in their marriage.
[Sexton]
she had been separated from Jason for 11 months
and was one month out of her divorce being finalized.
[Sykes]
about the history of Jason
and Lindsey and their background
and, you know, we start finding out
some money things.
Jason is in the process of being evicted
from his apartment.
[Hecker]
He's maxed out his credit cards.
He owes Lindsey about $1,300
by the time their divorce is set to be finalized.
[Sykes]
typically, if you are still married
at the time of someone's death,
you potentially and most likely get all those assets.
Jason Lee would have gotten the proceeds from the house
that she had on the market for sale.
[Sexton]
so we could download his phone.
[Sykes]
Those guys are kind of like, you know,
I call them the Geek Squad on steroids
because they know everything.
They actually do the analysis on Jason's cell phone,
and there's a ton of data on it.
[dramatic music playing]
The day after Lindsey's death,
we found several things that he had searched.
Defense attorneys,
the media coverage of her death,
the listing for the house that was for sale
that she had lived in.
Little bits of pieces of information.
Then we learn that Jason has a Fitbit,
and I went back and analyzed the prior month.
A Fitbit is also an important piece of digital evidence
because not only does it track your movement and your steps,
but it also helps to establish patterns.
Does this person wear their Fitbit daily?
Does that make it then odd that it wasn't on
or was inactive for 12 hours?
So it's not just about tracking your movement
that day in particular,
but were you or were you not moving
when you should've been moving?
[Sykes]
in the prior month leading up to her death
is he wore it all the time,
he would wear it at night, um,
he would even wear it, like, he would have several steps
in the middle of the night as if he'd gone to the restroom
or got something out of the fridge.
He wore it all the time.
He never was without it more than like six hours.
Well, surrounding her death is a black hole.
Again, we had no data for the Fitbit.
Where Jason's going dark and we can't track his whereabouts
is exactly when Lindsey goes dark
and she ends up dead.
Who would've ever thought that a Fitbit
would be so crucial in this case?
[tense music playing]
[Hecker]
[man 2]
when we saw him come in and sit down, you know.
[Hecker]
from a man who was facing life in prison.
None. Never one tear
fell out of Jason Lee's eyes during that trial.
Baby! [laughing]
[Sykes]
and it's very disheartening to see all these young women
murdered at the hands of someone who loved them.
You know, we tell women,
when you leave, it's the most dangerous time.
This is what Lindsey was doing.
Lindsey was leaving him behind.
I think Jason saw
a happy, well-adjusted, empowered woman
that he could no longer control,
and he saw her moving on with her life,
and it bothered him.
She didn't need him,
she had left him,
she was able to take care of herself,
and his life was falling apart,
and without her, he didn't have anything.
And so, he decided
that no one else was gonna have her either.
[solemn music playing]
[man 2]
within an hour, less than an hour.
[Jason]
and I will be appealing this and coming back on appeal.
I did not murder Lindsey Lee, and I want that on the record.
Ultimately, Jason Lee was found guilty
of murdering Lindsey Lee.
[man 2]
He deserves to be where he's at
for as long as he lives.
[sniffles] And that's where he'll be.
He's not getting out, so,
that's comforting to know.
[Sexton]
uh, for the family.
It was emotional,
but there was no script, and it just flowed out.
You heard the word "bubbly" by I don't know how many people,
and it didn't matter what time you caught her,
if you brought her in at two o'clock in the morning to work
or you caught her at seven o'clock in the afternoon,
she always was excited,
and you couldn't take that, but he took that from us.
[somber music playing]