This story initially broadcasted on Jan, 28. It was refreshed on Nov. 19.
Simply 90 minutes after Seth Perrault said his 44-year-old spouse, Amanda, shot herself directly before him, he was battling to recount his story.
SETH PERRAULT (to Sheriff Howard Ledges): I’m in shock. My significant other of eight years, that I love more than anything in this world…
SETH PERRAULT (to Sheriff Ledges): I don’t know even where to begin, sir. … I’ve lost everything in my life.
Perrault, 44, then, at that point, a cop for the City of Eatonton, Georgia, let Putnam District Sheriff Howard Ledges know that his better half Amanda had shot herself in the head.
Anne-Marie Green| “48 Hours” benefactor: What did he say occurred?
Sheriff Howard Ledges: He said that they were sleeping and … they were arguin’ … And afterward out of nowhere, she just created the firearm outta slight air and executed herself.
SETH PERRAULT (to Sheriff Ledges): I just stayed there and watched my significant other execute herself.
Sheriff Howard Ledges: In the entirety of my long periods of addressing anyone for … self destruction … I have never heard anyone utilize the expression “executed.”
Angie Johnson: I realized she hadn’t. I realize that he was lying.
All along, Angie and Alesha Johnson say they had questions regarding what has been going on with their sister Amanda.
Alesha Johnson: We had better sense than that. We knew our sister. … Amanda cherished life.
Angie Johnson: She wouldn’t put us through this.
Around eight years sooner, in the fall of 2011, an as of late separated from Amanda met Seth Perrault on the web.
Alesha Johnson: I recollect her being somewhat amped up for it. … he treated her uniquely in contrast to a portion of the past connections she had been in where, you know, she wasn’t regarded.
Seth, engaging disease and jobless at that point, appeared to succumb to Amanda quick and hard.
Angie Johnson: And they moved in genuinely speedy. Like, he had her move in the span of a half year of them meeting.
Seth was carrying on with an hour away, with his mom, who was really focusing on him. In any case, Angie says Amanda would rapidly assume control over the job of Seth’s guardian.
Angie Johnson: When she moved out there … he didn’t believe that she should work.
They say Seth’s folks were paying the couple’s all’s bills – and assisting with costs for Seth’s girl from a past relationship.
Anne Marie Green: Anyway, Seth was essentially reliant upon his loved ones?
Alesha and Angie Johnson: Without question.
Furthermore, Amanda was subject to Seth.
Angie Johnson: For quite a while, similar to, he wouldn’t allow her to have any sort of … telephone, PDA or any such thing … It would be his telephone or a landline.
Sheriff Howard Ledges: She didn’t have a vehicle to drive. He observed her continually.
As time went on, Alesha and Angie say they saw less and less of their sister.
Angie Johnson: He kept us from bein’ ready to see her.
Alesha Johnson: She didn’t come to, similar to, any of our Christmas occasions, or like, any of our occasions since she needed to have for his family and cook for every one of them.
Amanda lived with Seth for a considerable length of time. Then, on June 23, 2017, the couple astonished everybody when they discreetly went to the neighborhood town hall and got hitched. Angie and Alesha accept the main explanation Seth wedded their sister was to assist him with getting guardianship of his little girl.
Alesha Johnson: That is the reason I feel like he requested that she wed him.
Seth’s guardianship fight had been happening for precisely a year by then.
Anne-Marie Green: Do you suppose Seth wedding Amanda assisted him with acquiring care?
Justin Kenney: Totally.
Seth’s lawyer, Justin Kenney is Seth’s lawyer.
Justin Kenney: Assuming Amanda would have been available in his girl’s life they needed to get hitched … I feel that was one of the central issues for him to acquire authority.
Kenney says Seth adored Amanda — and his little girl — and was simply attempting to do his thought process was best for everybody.
Justin Kenney: This was a person that spoiled his little girl. He was a family man. … he would spoil his better half. … I simply thought he was a — a stand-up person.
A couple of months after Amanda and Seth were hitched, he was conceded guardianship of his girl. A little over year after the fact he was employed by the Eatonton Police Office, and his dad got him a house close to Lake Oconee.
Alesha Johnson: She adored their new home.
Anne-Marie Green: This ought to have been all that she expected.
Alesha Johnson: No doubt, it was. You know, aside from the relationship.
Alesha and Angie say they didn’t know exactly the way in which terrible things had gotten, yet were hearing an ever increasing number of accounts of battling, filled by liquor.
Justin Kenney: I’ve heard stories and meetings that, you know, when they were clearheaded, they were cherishing toward each other. However, it’s when liquor came in with the general mish-mash … that is the point at which it became poisonous.
Barely a year subsequent to joining the police force, Seth tumbled down certain steps at the couple’s home and needed to go on clinical leave. Presently, alongside the liquor, there were torment pills, and the sisters say the battling appeared to be raising.
Angie Johnson: You could hear it, as, on calls.
Alesha Johnson: His tone and attitude around her.
Angie Johnson: I would inquire. … “do you believe I should call 911? Might I at any point call 911?”
Alesha Johnson: She would tell you, “No, no, don’t call.” You know, “We’ve recently been drinkin’. We’ll be — everything’ll be alright later on.” … Perhaps she realized her circumstance would turn out to be far and away more terrible, you know.
Then, at that point, things deteriorated. On Jan. 28, 2020, only days before her demise, Amanda called 911.
911 DISPATCHER: Putnam Area Sheriff’s Office will you hold please?
AMANDA PERRAULT: Indeed, bless your heart.
Angie Johnson: She had blockaded herself in … a back room.
AMANDA PERRAULT (emergency call): It’s my better half, and he’s putting his hands on me.
Angie Johnson: She wound up havin’ to run nearby.
AMANDA PERRAULT (emergency call): He kept me out of the house and I’m simply attempting to get my things out of the house, please.
911 DISPATCHER: She’s at the neighbor’s home at the present time.
Another sheriff’s dispatcher was cautioned.
SECOND 911 DISPATCHER: And she said her better half is … an official with the Eatonton Police Division.
That subsequent dispatcher said he knew Seth Perrault and said he had a standing.
SECOND 911 DISPATCHER: I should know this … however he’s been unemployed with his back and evidently, he’s over their whoopin’ up on her butt.
Seth stood out as truly newsworthy when he was captured on charges of straightforward battery and family brutality.
Angie Johnson: She … told me … could I come get her the following mornin’? What’s more, I told her indeed, to try to pack everything, have it prepared.
All things being equal, Amanda chose to go to Seth’s bond hearing. At the point when the adjudicator consented to deliver Seth on bail, he inquired as to whether she needed a “remain away” request added. Amanda said no, and afterward let Seth get back home.
Alesha Johnson: Because she was frightened. … She realized he was frantic, she realize that it was … public that he had been captured. “He’s a cop … You know, I need to bring him home and make this right.”
Alesha Johnson: I conversed with her the day he got out. Furthermore, … I said, “How are things?” And she said, “He’s bein’ surprisingly pleasant.”
Alesha says she questioned Seth’s new demeanor and felt that under he should be fuming — knowing that assuming he was sentenced on misuse allegations, he was at risk for losing authority of his girl and his work.
Alesha Johnson: He realized it planned to humiliate his family … And he had previously placed himself up here on this platform like he was best. And afterward to be embarrassed before individuals … I think it drove him extremely mad.
Alesha says Amanda was scared and searching for an exit plan.
Alesha Johnson: We were all on — a chain message … and we were tellin’ her, “Simply get out … separate from him, let his dad know that you need nothing yet a vehicle.” … And … she said, “I’m making an effort not to wind up dead.”
Only five days after the fact, Amanda was dead.
QUESTIONS RAISED
Sheriff Howard Ledges expresses that all along of his examination concerning the passing of Amanda Perrault, he wasn’t getting her better half’s story.
Sheriff Howard Ledges: I knew somethin’ was off-base the day I strolled in the house.
First of all, the place of Amanda’s body — portrayed beneath in a “48 Hours” movement in light of the crime location photographs — left Ledges sure that Amanda could never have shot herself.
Likewise of worry to Ledges was the way the Smith and Wesson .380, which had a place with Seth, was tracked down lying close to Amanda’s body with its magazine catapulted
Amanda, he said, likewise understood what a decent cop he was, and the way that attack charges would demolish both their lives.
SETH PERRAULT: She h — hated to see my standing obliterated on the news because she understands what a decent cop I’m. … And she was so stressed I’d lose my little girl. … She needed to descend here and mislead you that it was.
Seth demanded that Amanda had lied the day she called 911 and regretted it that she needed to admit to prevarication.
Sheriff Howard Ledges: He said that she had composed something that she planned to bring to me, abjuring everything she had said to the delegates. Furthermore, he let me know where it was.
A manually written letter was found in Amanda’s end table. It peruses to some extent:
“I Amanda Perrault might want to withdraw my assertion … My significant other never placed his hands on me of all time. I feel horrendous for the embarrassment I have put my better half and my family through. I’m willing to take any discipline I might merit for what I have done.”
Sheriff Howard Ledges (shows Green the letter): I don’t deny she composed it. Be that as it may, check the handwriting out. There’s not the smallest blunder of any sort.
Sheriff Howard Ledges: What we have here is an unpracticed cop directing what’s to be composed.
Like Ledges, Amanda’s sisters are sure Seth was behind the letter.
Angie Johnson: She composed it, yet she was trained. … I think everything that he was saying to her — “I want you to compose this to get me in the clear.”
In any case, Seth told Ledges he was not going to allow Amanda to admit to deceiving specialists.
SETH PERRAULT (to Sheriff Ledges): I knew whether she descended here, it was a misleading assertion and a lawful offense. I knew it.
However, as per Seth, Amanda couldn’t take the culpability any longer, so she put his weapon to her head and pulled the trigger.
SETH PERRAULT (to Sheriff Ledges): She took a gander at me and said, “Please accept my apologies. Please accept my apologies I put you through this.” Blast. … I was unable to try and say a word, Sheriff. It was finished.
Seth attempted to persuade Ledges that Amanda committed suicide, since her call to 911 had possibly demolished their lives. In any case, the sheriff didn’t consider that to be a justification for self destruction; all things considered, he saw a thought process in murder. Accepting that Amanda could never end her own life, this sounded good to her sisters also.
Alesha Johnson: He needed to make it appear as though she ended her life so he could be gotten free from this bad behavior.
Sheriff Ledges says he was persuaded that Seth Perrault was some way or another associated with his significant other’s demise, yet that day, he believed he needed more to capture him.
Sheriff Howard Ledges: I needed to check whether I could get some more proof. Furthermore, I did.
