Murder In The Thirst - First Season

and the people who would do anything to get there.

These are tales of the desperate thirsts

that drive people to murder.

Viewer discretion advised?

Hell, yeah.

She was a pit bull in Prada.

Danita Tate: She was a fighter, she was beautiful,

and she was gonna get the last word.

A hotshot attorney, smart,

successful, and stylish.

Lessie Hookfin: The cars, the clothing, the shoes--

she was just that person that wanted to be more.

Everybody envied Chiquita Tate.

Now the party can start. Chiquita Tate has arrived.

Someone wanted her life so bad,

they were even willing to kill her for it.

She was butchered. She was cut in her face.

I've never seen a crime scene this brutal,

this violent, this bloody.

Who killed Chiquita Tate?

Someone who wants to look you in your eye and watch you die?

It was personal.

A fistful of weave at the scene.

Could it have been a woman?

Was it one of her clients?

She took on the worst of the worst.

Accusations of a lesbian love triangle.

I was like, "Okay, the hits keep coming."

A secret recording from her past.

Operator: 911, what's your emergency?

Chiquita: He choked me, and I think he broke my arm.

It's a twisted trail that leads to murder in the thirst.

To everybody in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

Chiquita Tate was a star--

smart, successful, stylish.

But the beginning of her story was much more humble.

My mom had seven kids, and Chiquita was number four

out of the seven.

Her mom died, and she was ultimately raised

by her grandmother and a very loving sister

who became the matriarch of that family, Danita Tate.

As a child, she always was right,

always had to have the last word.

My grandfather, he used to tell her,

"Girl, with that mouth,

you better be a preacher or a lawyer when you grow up."

Chiquita was the first to go to college in our family.

Hookfin: She was a law student at Southern University Law Center.

She was determined to be an attorney,

and Chiquita wanted to be that first person in her family

to strive to that next level.

Prem Burns: That woman passed the bar the first time,

and within a very short time

did something that is absolutely unheard of even to this day--

s single female who was of African-American heritage

in the South beginning a law practice.

Faith Jenkins: As a young African-American woman,

going out, starting your own business,

it's not easy to do.

But she did it, and then she did it well.

Let me tell you this, it was clear

nothing was gonna hold this girl back,

and all her hard work started paying off.

Burns: She initially started out

as a family and personal injury attorney,

but she loved criminal work

and became a criminal defense attorney,

recently winning a very large

half-million dollar verdict in a civil case.

Chiquita knew that to be a success,

you had to look like a success.

Danita: Chiquita always had designer bags.

She always had designer shoes, and she always dressed nice.

She loved the high heel shoes. Oh, my gosh.

And I could not understand how she walked in them.

She always wore stilettos, and you'd hear those stilettos come into the courtroom...

...hear the door open.

She always made an impression, and you remembered her.

One day after court, a lady saw one of those infamous pairs of stilettos

that she had on, made the comment to her,

"Those are beautiful shoes."

Chiquita's reaction?

To take the shoes off and to give them to that lady.

She was generous.

Elvin Howard, Jr.: And Chiquita was a very classy lady.

The building that she worked on Third Street

is prime real estate.

When someone walks in that office,

she wanted them to know that they're walking into

something of a high stature.

Hookfin: We're constantly getting calls every day

from people who wanted her to represent them.

Criminal, whatever. It didn't matter.

They wanted Chiquita.

Burns: There was nothing that would stop her.

There was no case that was too hard for Chiquita Tate.

Everybody wanted Chiquita to represent them,

and then suddenly they would start saying,

"Chiquita, that's our ghetto superstar.

That's our ghetto hero.

Get Chiquita because she's not scared.

She's not scared. She's gonna go up against them,

and she don't care."

Everybody just wanted Chiquita.

When you met Chiquita, you just knew you wanted her on your side.

She was all work, all the time,

didn't leave much room for a social life,

and she really wasn't looking for love.

But it sure found her.

By her being so feisty,

I never imagined her being in a serious relationship.

Juantonja Richmond: She was trying to get her career established first.

I don't think Chiquita was looking for anybody,

and I think that's why she ended up with Greg

because she wasn't looking.

He just kinda snuck up on her.

And you know, that's kinda when it hits you,

when it just sneaks up on you

and you're not looking for love.

Chiquita told me that she had met this guy at a red light.

And she said, "And guess how I met him."

And I said, "How?"

She said, "I was ready to beat him up

'cause he cut his car in front of me."

And she cursed him out about pulling and cutting in front of her.

They had passed words and whatever,

and they exchanged numbers.

Whatever she said to him, it must have turned him on

because they ended up dating after that.

He probably said, "Ooh, Lord.

This is a nice-looking lady and a Corvette, too?"

Oh, he was ready.

Richmond: Every woman wants to feel like a queen.

I think Greg made her feel special.

Greg just wasn't another male trying to get at her

because of who Chiquita was.

He had his own job.

He was a contractor making a good bit of money.

And that probably won her over, too.

Before long, Chiquita moved in with Greg,

and she was ripe and ready to give her man an upgrade.

Richmond: She was like, "Well, I'm gonna fix up the house

to where it doesn't look so much like a bachelor pad."

Chiquita Tate was the one who put her income

into redecorating the home

and making it a very beautiful showplace.

She made that house into the home that it became.

She gave to him a beautiful Hummer

that had a personalized plate on it.

She was generous.

Hookfin: She ultimately fell in love with him,

and there were some glowing days.

She was ready.

She was looking for someone who could come in

and they would be able to just flow together.

Richmond: She said, "I think I'm gonna marry him."

"You gonna ma-- you?

Chiquita Tate is gonna marry somebody?"

She's like, "I think I'm gonna marry him."

And I was like, "Oh. Okay, well, invite me to the wedding."

One minute, you curse a man out,

and the next minute you marry him.

Greg was happy to have Chiquita as his wife.

Operator: 911, what's your emergency?

Okay, can you give me an address?

Howard: On February the 20th, Baton Rouge Police Department

received a 911 call from a male who advised

that his wife hadn't come home from work the night before.

He worked on Third Street at her office,

and he requested that someone go in and check on his wife.

Operator: So your vehicle is still there?

Christopher Johnson: He tried with a great effort to get inside the building.

About that same time, a police officer was driving by.

He advised that his name was Greg Harris

and that his wife was Chiquita Tate.

Her office was on the third floor,

and he asked the patrol officer

to go up and check on his wife

because she did not come home the previous night.

Johnson: The police officer went upstairs to the third floor,

and once he entered her office, he saw her body on the floor.

It was pretty apparent that Chiquita Tate, the victim, was deceased,

so he backed out and secured the scene.

Hookfin: When I got there and parked, I see all this yellow tape.

And I looked across the way, and I could see her family

just pacing back and forth, back and forth,

hugging each other and crying and carrying on.

And then I see another police officer friend,

and I said, "What has happened?"

He said, "Someone stabbed her."

I said, "Is she alive?"

He said, "No."

Danita: And they was like, "Ma'am, you can't go in there."

And I said, "My sister."

I said, "I gotta get to my sister."

And they said, "You can't go in there."

So I just started screaming.

LisaRaye: Can you imagine that feeling?

Can you imagine that loss?

I know what I'd be thinking.