Hilary was a stunning 19-year-old secretary at Grant's company, which then was based in Mesa. She had started dating Doug in the fall of 2000, and the two were an item up until the day of his startling remarriage to Faylene on July 27, 2001.
Doug heeded his wife's weird instructions and married Hilary just three weeks after Faylene was buried in Mesa. The act immediately ratcheted the suspicions and ire of Faylene's family.
Gilbert police detective Sy Ray
Veteran county prosecutor Juan Martinez
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Now, seven years later, Doug Grant stands accused of murdering Faylene as her three youngest children slept nearby in their home on East Michelle Way in Gilbert.
By the summer of 2005, Gilbert police Detective Sy Ray had persuaded county prosecutors to move forward against Doug Grant.
Ray was confident of his case, even though his potential star witness, extortionist-turned-police-snitch Jim McElyea, had failed to lure a confession from Doug months earlier (see Part 1 of this story, "Death Wish," in last week's issue).
Ray also had interviewed Doug for more than seven hours in July 2002 at the Gilbert police station without squeezing a confession out of him.
On July 12, 2005, the detective and Deputy County Attorney Frankie Grimsman appeared before a county grand jury in downtown Phoenix.
Ray would be the state's only witness.
The one-sided, closed-door proceedings usually are legal breezes for prosecutors, who only have to show "probable cause" that a crime was committed.
Detective Ray began by testifying about the "fairly serious relationship" between Doug Grant and Hilary DeWitt in the summer of 2001.
"And did he in fact spend a weekend in Las Vegas with Hilary DeWitt?" Grimsman asked him.
"Yes, that's correct," Ray replied, saying that the couple had stayed at the Riviera Hotel and Casino on the weekend of July 14.
Ray said Doug and his then-ex-wife Faylene had flown to Texas one week after that to attend a settlement conference involving a civil case in which both were plaintiffs. During that trip, Ray said, Doug and Faylene broached the possibility of reuniting as a couple.
Faylene then traveled to San Diego to pray about it at an LDS temple, because the Mesa temple was closed for repairs.
Ray said Doug and his two sons by Faylene joined her in San Diego a few days later to learn of her (and God's) decision firsthand:
"They . . . decided they would remarry," the detective testified. "Drove directly from San Diego to Las Vegas. [It was] back to the Riviera, where they were married that weekend."
This is the same hotel where Doug and Hilary DeWitt supposedly had stayed a few weeks earlier.
Grimsman asked whether Doug spoke with Hilary after the remarriage.
"This is from Mr. Grant," Ray said. "That he spoke to Hilary. He explained to Hilary that he was concerned about her, didn't want her to get back together [with] an ex-boyfriend in the area. Told her just to be patient, wait for him. To watch a movie by the name of First Knight."
The detective gave his synopsis of the 1995 film and how it related to the murder case at hand:
"Lancelot and Guinevere are actually having an affair while she is married to King Arthur. [Grant] explains himself to be similar to the role of Guinevere and Hilary is Lancelot. Faylene would be King Arthur."
(Actually, Lancelot and Guinevere weren't having an "affair" in this version of the Arthurian legend, though Lancelot did have deep, if guilt-ridden, feelings for her. Arthur catches the pair in a passionate embrace after what was supposed to be a goodbye kiss, which leads to a charge of treason against both. But Arthur later is wounded in battle, and he asks Lancelot on his deathbed to "take care of her for me." He seems to mean both Guinevere and Camelot.)
Ray testified that Doug Grant said there had been an illustration of Lancelot on a wall at the Excalibur in Las Vegas, which "kind of got the whole thought started with him."
But the detective claimed that Doug and Faylene had not stayed at the Excalibur and that there wasn't any record of the couple "using the wedding chapel to be married there."
The detective alleged that Faylene Grant's life insurance policy had jumped from $300,000 to $860,000 just before her death, and Doug was its sole beneficiary.
But in response to a question from the prosecutor, Ray said the extra $560,000 hadn't been paid out because the policy had not yet been formally approved.
Grimsman asked Ray if Doug had been aware of the status of Faylene's policy.
"It's unclear what his actual understanding [was]," Ray said.
Briefly, the detective got into Faylene's nasty spill in Utah on September 24, 2001: "While they were hiking, Faylene is standing out on a ledge and accidentally falls off."
Ray said the Grants flew home on the afternoon of September 26. Doug soon phoned physician assistant Chad White and requested a house call for his injured wife.
White came by and gave Faylene a shot of a "muscle relaxer" and wrote prescriptions for Soma (another muscle relaxer) and the painkiller Darvocet.
"As Chad is preparing to leave, Doug explains to Chad that [Faylene] is having trouble sleeping," Ray told the grand jury. "Any chance Chad could also prescribe a sleeping medication?"