It wasn't just that a partner in one of Atlanta's oldest law firms—also a politically prominent Republican—had inexplicably shot his wife while stopped at a traffic light at the entrance to a city park.

It was that the story kept changing.

Each new tweak to the tale of how Diane McIver was shot to death by her husband, Fisher & Phillips senior partner Claud “Tex” McIver, stoked a public chorus of growing suspicion. Soon, county prosecutors added their voices.