Indiana woman says tea laced with pills given to ex-fiancé was a chemistry experiment

It was in the early morning hours of January 12, 2020, when a 31-year-old man Shea heather was found clinging to life on a rural road in Jay County, Indiana.

Briar was unable to communicate and first responders were initially unsure what had happened to him, but when he arrived at the hospital, medical staff discovered a gunshot wound to his back.

“There was no exit wound…It was actually in his heart,” Jay County Sheriff’s Detective Ben Schwartz told “48 Hours” correspondent Anne-Marie Green. “He…died.”

Green reports on the case in “Coached to Kill,” an all-new “48 Hours” now streaming on Paramount+.

An investigation was launched and police quickly received a call from a woman named Kristi Sibray.

Sibray was an acquaintance of Briar’s former fiancée, Esther Jane Stephen, 29. Stephen, who went by the name EJ, was a softball coach at a local high school. She and Briar shared a young daughter together.

Sibray, a former police officer, told detectives that in the months before Briar’s murder, Stephen came over often and she was accompanied by her assistant coach, 19-year-old Shelby Hiestand.

During these visits, Sibray said Stephen would confide in her about the problems she was having with Briar. Stephen and Briar had recently broken off their engagement, and Briar had filed a motion in court to establish parenting time for the daughter they shared.

“He wanted to provide for herself … and he just really wanted to have visitors,” Tracy Hoevel, Briar’s mother, told “48 Hours.”

But according to Sibray, Stephen wasn’t happy about it.

“She didn’t want to share the baby. It was her baby. It was her child,” Sibray told “48 Hours.”

Sibray told investigators that Stephen would discuss ways to get rid of Briar, but that she wasn’t thinking about it at the time.

“I really thought she was letting off steam. I didn’t think it was real,” Sibray told “48 Hours.”

And Sibray said she had the same mindset when, over time, the conversations became more detailed — and various methods were discussed. At one point, Sibray said Stephen and Hiestand told him they had put pills in Briar’s tea.

“They crushed some ibuprofen, I think… And he drank the whole glass, but nothing happened to him,” Sibray told “48 Hours.” “I’m like, ‘Are you serious?’ …I didn’t even…believe her. …Because I just didn’t see her doing that.

But when Sibray learned of Briar’s murder, she said she immediately saw all those conversations in a different light.

“I felt like I had failed, because how could I have missed this? How could I have missed these signs?” Sibray said.

A day after speaking to Sibray, detectives interviewed Stephen and Hiestand.

After initially denying any involvement in Briar’s murder, they both admitted to taking him on that rural road and that Hiestand shot him in the back.

Hiestand told detectives she lost consciousness and then shot Briar.

EJ Stephen and Shelby Hiestand were arrested and charged with murder, but they later pleaded not guilty and when Stephen went to trial, she placed all the blame on Hiestand.

Stephen spoke up and insisted that she had no reason to want Briar dead. And as for those pills in Briar’s drink, Stephen said it was Hiestand’s idea and she only agreed to it because she thought it was an innocent chemical experiment.

What would a jury think?