Deleted cellphone data helps reveal murder of Indiana fireman

When Evansville, Indiana, firefighter Robert “Robbie” Doerr was discovered shot dead in his driveway on Feb. 26, 2019, after picking up an additional shift, Doerr’s colleagues could not have known how heartbreaking and personal the night would become after joining first responders at the scene.

“The ones that were called to the scene, they all knew Robbie,” Doerr’s best friend and fellow firefighter Larry Wildt said. “The last image they got is Robbie laying there dead on the sidewalk."

Wildt said Doerr was someone who always wanted people to smile. “He would do whatever he could to make someone happy,” Wildt remembered about the 28-year veteran of the department.

A new “20/20” episode, “Fire & Vice,” airing Friday, Nov. 8, at 9 p.m. ET and streaming the next day on Hulu, examines the case.

Doerr’s daughter, Lindsey Griffin, described to ABC News’ Matt Gutman her father’s unfaltering commitment to support his family.

“[He] was my best friend, and now he’s never going to meet his grandson,” Griffin said.

Doerr also worked full time on his days off at a local fast-food restaurant, where he met Elizabeth “Becky” Fox. The two had been friends for 11 years and married in Panama City, Florida, shortly after they decided to date.

Fox-Doerr recalled in an exclusive “20/20” interview how her husband “treated [her] like nobody had ever treated me before.”

But the picturesque romance, Fox-Doerr's sixth marriage, was not as it seemed, according to Griffin.

“My dad seemed happy at first,” Griffin said, “but then he started to feel insecure. He started to think she was cheating on him.”

“He'd been cheated on from my understanding, but so had I. I tried to reassure him that that's just not gonna happen,” said Fox-Doerr, who added that she had never been unfaithful to Doerr or any of her previous husbands.

The couple would sometimes go on double dates with Fox-Doerr’s younger sister, Amanda “Mandy” Fillmore, and her fiancé, Larry Richmond Sr.

Richmond Sr. was good looking and charming, according to Fillmore, but he had a dark past. In 1996, the then-17-year-old was convicted of shooting and killing a 70-year-old man, resulting in two decades behind bars.

Though his past was alarming, Fillmore believed Richmond Sr. was a changed man.

But during an examination of the Doerr case, investigators would eventually find evidence they alleged connected Richmond Sr. to the crime scene.

They discovered that Doerr was hit with two different types of projectiles. They began a search for stolen guns in the area, particularly a Taurus Judge model, which is capable of firing both shotgun and pistol ammunition. One such gun had been reported stolen from a pawn shop, coincidentally where Richmond Sr.’s son, Larry Richmond Jr., was employed at the time the weapon was stolen.

Detectives brought the father and son to the police station for questioning. Richmond Sr. said he didn’t know anything about the murder of Doerr and declined to speak more to them, invoking his right to an attorney.

During Richmond Jr.’s interrogation, he eventually conceded to investigators, “I don’t know anything about the murder, but I did take the gun from my workplace.” Richmond Jr. also revealed that Richmond Sr. had buried guns in Fillmore’s backyard.

Authorities dug up Fillmore’s yard and recovered several guns with obliterated serial numbers but did not find the firearm suspected in Doerr’s death. Richmond Sr. was charged with four counts of felony possession, two for his status as a felon and another two for the scratched-off serial numbers. Fillmore told police she did not know about the guns buried in her yard and faced no charges.

Meanwhile, suspicion was mounting against Fox-Doerr. An initial search of Fox-Doerr's phone revealed nothing suspicious, but once investigators received the raw extraction data from her cellphone carrier, they discovered there was a deleted phone call record that was time-stamped before the 911 call she placed to report her husband's shooting.

According to investigators, the deleted record showed a call with a contact named “Larry Ali.”

Detective Jeff Hands of the Evansville Police Department pressed Fox-Doerr about the phone call she received just 15 minutes before her husband was shot.

After 90 minutes of questioning, Fox-Doerr told the detective Richmond Sr. called her and they had spoken just before her husband’s shooting. She denied any allegation of an affair with Richmond Sr. or that she knew about her husband’s murder and claimed the call was related to an earlier conversation between Doerr and Richmond Sr. about outdoor lights.

Fox-Doerr was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice for deleting the phone call record and false informing for lying to investigators in her initial interview when asked about the call. She pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Taylor Barrett, one of Fox-Doerr's sons, told “20/20” he witnessed that his mother “deletes absolutely everything” from her phone.

Fox-Doerr’s charges were dropped seven months later.

Additionally, Nathan Guthrie, another son of Fox-Doerr, says he made a discovery while sorting through condolence cards shortly after Doerr’s funeral. In an interview with investigators, Guthrie reported that he found a slip of paper in the card from Fillmore and Richmond Sr. that he said Richmond Sr. gave to Fox-Doerr at the funeral, scribed with the message, “We need to talk,” a phone number and the name “Larry” at the bottom. Fox-Doerr denied knowing anything about the message.

One year after Doerr’s murder, the Evansville Police Department announced Larry Richmond Sr. was a person of interest and investigators issued a search warrant for his cellphone data.

Jonathan Carter, an investigator with the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office, said Richmond Sr.’s location data “put him near the scene of the crime approximately 20 minutes prior to the murder."

Detectives claimed Richmond Sr. also checked police scanner apps and Doerr’s social media the night of the murder.

In August 2022, Richmond Sr. and Fox-Doerr were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Fox-Doerr vehemently denied any involvement in her husband’s killing. “I had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all,” Fox-Doerr told “20/20.”

“Other than one phone call from Feb. 26, 2019, law enforcement gained no evidence against Becky Fox-Doerr over the course of the next five years prior to this trial date to allege or show that she had any involvement,” Fox-Doerr's defense attorney Rob Phillips told “20/20.”

Ultimately, Fox-Doerr was found guilty of both murder and conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to 90 years in prison.

Larry Richmond Sr.’s trial is scheduled for 2025. Neither Richmond Sr. nor his attorney responded when contacted by ABC News for comment.

For Doerr’s loved ones, Fox-Doerr’s conviction comes as a relief after years of heartbreak, but their loss remains.

“I don't get to have the laughs, the conversations, and the, ‘I love you,’” Griffin said. “After five years, trying to remember the sound of the voice gets harder and harder each year.”

ABC News' Joseph Diaz, Chris Kilmer, Abbey LeVine, Emily Moffet and Mike Repplier contributed to this story.