After a 5-year courtship, on January 9, 2021, Catharine and Lew Hudgens married at Watercolor Resort in Destin, Florida.
On January 11, 2021, they boarded a plane in Pensacola, Florida headed to Bozeman, Montana for their dream honeymoon. They were on their way to Rainbow Ranch Lodge, a known “wedding destination” in Big Sky, Montana.
Little did they know there was a malfunctioning gas-powered boiler in the next room to theirs, that was emitting large amounts of Carbon Monoxide into an unventilated space.
When they woke up on Tuesday morning, January 12th, Catharine was dizzy and had fallen and Lew had a mild headache.
After incessant calls from family members to hotel management, to do a ‘wellness check’ on them, finally…. the General Manager of the hotel, Scott Nelson, found Lew w dead in the room and Catharine was incoherent, suffering from traumatic brain damage.
When Nelson entered their room, he discovered that the bracket that should have contained a carbon monoxide alarm was empty, he again left the room to retrieve a new carbon monoxide alarm.
It was then he called 911 and reported the situation claiming that drugs could be involved…he just didn’t know. He returned to the room to install a new carbon monoxide alarm, told Catharine he had called for help then left, closing the door behind him again.
Scott Nelson silenced the alarm, removed it from the wall and attempted to coverup his lies by removing the carbon monoxide alarm from the room but was stopped by Law Enforcement.
He then explained to the Deputy that he had found it dismantled by Lew and Catharine in the room, and he replaced the batteries and hung it back on the wall.
But this was all a BIG LIE, as Nelson later confessed to what really happened, as he admits in this video deposition.
But as any good lawyer and investigator knows, “The Devil is Always in the Details”
One of the smoking guns in this case that cemented the truth which unequivocably proved Scott Nelson was an absolute liar, was a serendipitous and innocuous video of the interior of their honeymoon suite filmed by Catharine upon arrival.
She was so excited by the beauty of the suite, she filmed it upon arrival captured an empty bracket on the wall where a carbon monoxide detector had been installed.
Today, our Justice in America Network TV Producer and Host, Steve Murphy sits down with the amazing lawyers, Skip Finkbohner and David Cain, of Cunningham Bounds, who tried this case to a landmark jury verdict, of $15,000,000, beating a record that stood for 20 years in this venue.
Skip and David have earned reputations as unyielding trial lawyers who repeatedly represent individuals and families against big companies and the Goliaths of the world. And repeatedly win.
And their amazing courtroom skills and headline grabbing success rate continue to provide their clients with the results they need……And the results they most deserve.
You can contact Skip Finkbohner & David Cain @ Cunningham Bounds LLC https://www.cunninghambounds.com/ and 251-471-6191