On a September evening in 2016, 64-year-old Diane McIver was shot while riding in the front passenger seat of a Ford Expedition in Atlanta. The vehicle was driven by close friend Dani Jo Carter; Diane’s husband of 11 years, Claud Tex McIver, rode in the back seat. A single .38-caliber revolver in Tex’s possession fired, the bullet struck Diane in the back, and she died during surgery at a hospital. The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide and found the fatal bullet had not passed through any intermediate object before striking her, contradicting accounts that it fired after passing through the seat.

Tex McIver was arrested and prosecutors argued the shooting was intentional and motivated by his financial problems. In April 2017 a grand jury indicted him on charges including malice murder. At trial he was acquitted of malice murder but convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and influencing witnesses, and received a life sentence.

What details about that night or about Diane’s life might help explain how a single shot killed her and led to such a protracted legal battle?