But when her father told her he might have to shutter all his stores and file bankruptcy unless he found a way to go toe-to-toe with the competition, Melanie hit the books, eventually identifying an inconsistency between the consumers of do-it-yourself TV programs (women) and the targeted audience for home improvement marketing (men). After convincing her father that women were the most important and underserved segment of the market, they decided that she should oversee the corporate transformation personally. Richard gave up his partnership at his white-shoe law firm and moved to Wichita, where he was lucky to argue two federal appeals a year, while Melanie went from behind-the-scenes politico to the public face and eventual CEO of one of the largest retailers in the country.

According to a gossipy former friend, it wasn’t only their job titles that changed with the move. Whereas Richard used to pull in more than 80 percent of the household income, his earnings became a mere afterthought given the family largesse. He resented his wife’s success, and she resented the resentment. The same gossipy friend told reporters that Melanie had once mentioned matter-of-factly that it had been years since the couple had sex, leaving the friend to wonder whether Richard had other arrangements. The couple reportedly had no prenuptial agreement, meaning that Richard would own half of everything, including LockeHome, in the event of a divorce—no matter which of them was to blame.

The article went on to outline a conspiracy theory that Melanie not only had her husband killed, but also bribed the police to clear her publicly—a theory seemingly backed by the fact that the lead detective in charge of Richard’s murder investigation was later named chief security officer for LockeHome’s headquarters.

One point that both law enforcement and Melanie’s critics agreed on was that the only thing missing from the house was a silver necklace. After an initial walk-through of the property with police, Melanie concluded that nothing had been stolen. It was the couple’s daughter who corrected the record. She had been snooping around her father’s office in anticipation of her upcoming birthday when she found a small blue gift box in his desk drawer. After her father died, she returned to his desk to claim the necklace he had chosen for her, but it was gone.

The prevailing law enforcement theory was that the burglar or burglars started in Richard’s downstairs office. They would have found both his gun and the jewelry box. When they heard Richard’s car, they ran out the back door, shot Richard in the driveway, and then fled.

Those who were convinced that Melanie was behind the murder saw the necklace as yet another piece of evidence supporting their theory of the crime. They opined that Melanie did in fact know about the necklace in her husband’s desk drawer, because she had found it herself and had concluded that Richard was cheating on her.