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than twelve hours after the homicide, he had just closed a deal and was expecting a “sweet
payday for the big man.” On August 19, Ms. Pittman sent Mr. Cotham an email with
attachments pertinent to obtaining a passport, the waiting period for a passport, and
Barbados. She sent him information about the lack of an extradition treaty between the
United States and Barbados on September 17.

        Ms. Addington testified that she took Mr. Walters’s nine-millimeter handgun and kept
it in a maroon cooler in her van. A cooler matching the description was recovered from Mr.
Cotham’s SUV. Forensic evidence established that shell casings recovered from Mr.
Walters’s farm and the crime scene were fired from the same nine-millimeter weapon.

       The Defendant also had a financial motive for the victim’s death. He was the
beneficiary of her $550,000 life insurance policy and filed an insurance claim three days after
her death. The victim would have been permitted to designate a different beneficiary when
the divorce became final. The Defendant told the police the divorce would have been final
about three weeks after the date of the victim’s death. The Defendant was having financial
difficulties and had applied for a large loan. He planned to use the loan proceeds to finance
business endeavors with Mr. Cotham involving purchasing and selling sports jerseys and
starting an adult website.

      According to Ms. Looch’s testimony, the Defendant approached her at the jail in
February 2011 and said he had been attending