Erin Moriarty
Appearances
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
I do want to point out why we stay on these stories. If you're going to properly report on it, legal cases like this, these complicated medical issues that involve possibly a coerced confession, that takes time. So if you're going to really report on these issues, you've got to stay on it. And so I know this probably won't be our last installment.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
We're waiting to see what the governor's office says decides, what the governor decides. At this moment, there has been a confidential recommendation made by the Prisoner Review Board, but there's no deadline for the governor.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Well, I'm going to tell you, Anne-Marie, that I encountered something with this case I had never encountered before. Right away, I saw issues. I started asking Melissa questions, and I realized she wasn't quite understanding what I was asking. Now, I had known that she had cognitive issues. That came up during the trial and later on.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
But she'll have to start all over again. That breaks my heart. We see this over and over again. It just takes a long time. And I understand why Melissa's defense attorney went this route, but this is a long shot, too. Yeah. But Anne-Marie, I should point out that at the hearing, and we were all touched by it, Ben's parents, his mother specifically, but his dad was there as well, spoke.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
They believe he was murdered by Melissa. They spoke very movingly about how hard it's been for them. Ben was a twin, and they mentioned how difficult it was for his surviving twin sister to deal with it. So that is an important issue that the governor will weigh as well and may also play a part in where this case goes. I mean, that's what's so hard.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
There are the facts that sometimes are hard to get to, and then there are the emotions in these cases. Sometimes justice is somewhere in between.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Well, remember, Melissa is their baby. And so they feel they've lost, even though they can visit her, they've lost a child too. They feel great pain. They never had a lot of financial resources to begin with. And so they have... spent probably close to everything they have. They live very, very modestly. They still have faith, which is astounding to me.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
They believe she will come home, and that's why they're keeping her room the same. They want her to come back. They have her artwork. She's a wonderful artist. She really is. And so they have her artwork on the walls, and they have not lost faith. And, you know, that's hard because... We see them and then we can leave. But we know they're left with that heartbreak.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
All of them, you know, the King and family and the Kaluzinski family.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
more recently, she had actually been diagnosed with borderline intellectual functioning. And so knowing that and seeing her in this interview with me, I kept thinking, oh my gosh, if she's having trouble understanding me, what went on in that interrogation room? Did she really understand what was at stake, what they were asking, what she needed to tell them?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
That's what came to my mind after interviewing her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
You know what? I've got to point out here that much of what she says first came from the detectives. The detectives are the ones who first say, "'Throw on the floor.'" And they say to Melissa, we're hearing from the pathologist that there's a skull fracture.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
So these detectives are trying, at least it appears from this interrogation, to get her to come up with a scenario, which they come up with on their own. You can hear them come up with it that would explain a skull fracture.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
When Melissa tried to give other explanations, they won't accept what she's saying. They want her to say what they believe happened. You know, an expert also said that because of her low IQ, both Salkasin and other experts who looked at this said that she may not have even understood really what was going on in that room.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Starting from the beginning, when they read her rights, when you watch them read her the rights, she just says, sure, yes. Did she understand them?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
What we understand is her parents were looking for her. But remember, Melissa was an adult. And Melissa thought she was helping police, or at least that's what she told us. Because I did ask her, why did you talk to them? She said that she loved Ben Kingan and was devastated by his death and she wanted to help.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Can I just first tell you why those x-rays matter so much? As Stephanie had mentioned, whether there was a skull fracture or not is really, really crucial to this case. And at trial, according to the prosecution, only x-rays they had were dark. They handed over the defense.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Those x-rays were taken during autopsy, but that pathologist at trial testified that he couldn't read them, that they were readable. So none of the experts, neither the defense or the state, say that they saw clear x-rays. And as Stephanie mentioned, we now know that at least one well-regarded expert said that if there was a skull fracture, it would be on that clear x-ray.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
And they're not seeing it on that x-ray. So imagine that that was not at trial and didn't come out until this anonymous phone call.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
This is one of those very complicated cases, so an opportunity to talk more about it. I'm in.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Are you the one who made that anonymous phone call? No, I did not. I mean, will you swear to me you weren't the caller?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
I mean, obviously somebody let Paul Kalyuzinski know those x-rays existed. The bottom line is clear x-rays did exist on the coroner's computer.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
Well, this is when you're talking about what are the rules of the court system and what your heart says. So the state still stands by the idea that there's a skull fracture, although there are a lot of individuals who, including the pediatric neuroradiologist, Dr. Zimmerman, who says if there was a skull fracture, you'd be able to see it on those x-rays and they're not there.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
But never dealt with these findings that someone may have manipulated evidence that was not given at trial. He never even addresses that.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
But she ended up talking to us. I went up to her and I asked her to speak with us. And she did not want to initially. But I said, sit down. We'll just shoot you from behind. So viewers were not able to see her face. We agreed to that. And we also agreed to only call her by her first name, Brenda. But it was helpful.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
It really was helpful to know that there's still a lot of questions about what happened in that daycare center before Melissa even worked there. I hope people realize it's undisputed that Ben Kingan had some kind of injury. It could be a bump in the head or it could be more serious than that. But that's not disputed at all. And it happened in the daycare center.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | Unraveling the Case Against Melissa
It happened three months before he died. And Melissa was not working there at the time. So that's why that's significant. Mm-hmm.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
The only clues we have are from the warrant because this is pretrial. And those warrants talk about a security video from Dale and Dee's farm. And they had observed Dale looking for something near the welding equipment. And that, you know, stuck, it seems like, with investigators. That happened, you know, the week she went missing.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Some other evidence that's in the warrant talks about how there were witnesses who saw Dale painting a tank the week after Gee went missing.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah, they took it to the border. There's a border crossing to Canada at Detroit. And they put this tank on a flatbed truck. And you see video, the local affiliates were there. And you see the truck leaving with that tank. And apparently they drove it to the border and used, it's called a radiograph. I didn't know that term before working on this story. But they say they saw a body inside.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
And the family says they saw that image. Oh, my gosh. It got to be a really profound moment. Oh, yeah. As Erin was talking about, they believed her to be dead. And so I think on one level, having it confirmed was a relief. But on another level, it was this incredible grief that had not been complete before because they had uncertainty. And now that changed.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah. And I think also when we were talking to her brother, Greg, He was frustrated that he wasn't learning more about the investigation. And Erin and I kept saying, that's very normal. It's really what they do. And it really probably would drive me crazy, too. But they have to protect the integrity of the investigation. So Greg's in the dark.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
He doesn't know what's going to happen, even after they make an arrest, what will come of the case in court without physical evidence, because they didn't have it at the time. So I think there was a thinking in his mind and, you know, among some of the other family members to kind of do concurrently anything they could do to kind of advance things.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
You know, you can have a wrongful death case in civil court once someone is declared dead. So, yeah, it was a step in that direction potentially, too. Where do you think stand with this case?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Dale has pleaded not guilty. We were in touch with his attorney a bit. I got to meet her when we attended the preliminary hearing when we'd been hoping she would sit down for an interview. She ultimately declined, which is very normal pre-trial, after Dee's body was found.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
She emailed me to say that Mr. Warner maintains his innocence and we're prepared to vigorously fight for him in court and present his defense. And then she went on to say, but we think it's best presented in court at this point and not to the media. So that was important to hear, especially in the context that the preliminary hearing was all before her body was found.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
So they are not shifting in their defense of Dale.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah, I mean, obviously, it became a murder case when they arrested Dale, which was November 2023. But that's just the charge. That's not a conviction by any means. So, you know, police made that arrest two and a half years after D was reported missing.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah, Cindy went out to Lenawee County in 2022. So she had been traveling back and forth. The family had vigils and rallies, various things happening in the community to try to get publicity for the case. And Cindy was present for a lot of that and just in contact with them for those couple of years.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
And that longevity you talked about when we first started this conversation, that's part of how we do our stories. And it was definitely part of this one and pretty critical.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah. And, you know, it connects back into how Cindy Caesar, our colleague, got involved in this case. But Dee's sister-in-law, Shelley, was watching 48 Hours. She's a regular viewer, which we appreciate. And she was watching 48 Hours. story about a no-body homicide. And this investigator, Billy Little, in that episode says, you don't have a body, so what?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
You don't get to get away with murder because you're good at disposing of bodies. And Shelley tells Erin, she's like, I woke Greg up. You got to see this. And that's how they came to be connected to Billy Little was after watching that show.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
I think there were some inconsistencies. Dale gave different accounts to different family members as they related it to us, and they also just felt like the threads of the stories weren't making sense to them. He had told them that Dee had had a migraine the night before, and they knew she got migraines. But when you have a migraine, it's pretty all-encompassing. You're pretty debilitated.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
So she's somehow leaving the house early on Sunday morning with the migraine. I think her family members, when they were talking to us, just thought, this doesn't quite add up.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah. So the night before Dee's reported missing, her daughter had stayed at her cousin's house. And the mom, the cousin's mom, had come over to pick Dee's daughter up and take her away and, you know, then was in touch with Dee later that evening by text to check in on her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
She doesn't get an answer right away, and then she gets the letter K. And now I don't know about you, but when I get the letter K text from someone, I'm like... What's up? Are we OK? And this was not a way that any friends or family of D ever experienced her to communicate.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah, there were a lot of things that didn't sit right. I think her brother said, you know, she knew where the cameras were. If she were going to walk through to leave her ring, she would have had her middle fingers up and like, you know, march right in, I think is how he characterized it. Like it didn't sound like his sister.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
And also no note, no communication after that strange letter K. Dee's family said, you know, it was a lot of things that weren't adding up.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
And that connects, I think, back into the fact that using the press was a strategy, going out in public and the press being part of, you know, the public conversation was strategic and intentional for Greg Hardy, but also for the rest of the family. I think they saw the the power of it.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
I mean, we were really surprised to hear this. It was actually Billy Little, the investigator who came to court. help Greg Hardy, who told us that no body conviction rates are actually higher. We ran it down and found a source that said 86% conviction rate. And we were really surprised to read that. But keep in mind, prosecutors decide which cases to prosecute, right?
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
So I think the thing about circumstantial evidence is it's usually an aggregate. You have to add things up and see what the picture is. And the more pieces you have, the more clear things, you know, hopefully become for a jury. And I think in a circumstantial case, there's that much more kind of diligence and attention. So maybe that's the reason. But we were totally surprised by that.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | The “No Body” Case of Dee Warner
Yeah, so text messages were introduced at the preliminary hearing. The friend had shared these texts with the detective, and among them one where Dee had texted, I literally thought he could kill me. You know, he, quote, threw me at a dresser and describing her injuries. I have a large goose egg on my head and a sore neck. So there is some substantiation to this from those text messages. Yeah.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
He became very jealous and then the thing that caused me to end it was he broke into my apartment in the middle of the night.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
Mace and a hammer. I felt like I don't know what this man is capable of.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
The mystery deepens. A missing Virginia Commonwealth freshman, 17-year-old Taylor Beal, seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
Taylor's missing, and I know Ben, and I know Taylor, and I want to talk about it.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
I realized they were looking for someone who was dead. They weren't looking for live Taylor anymore. And then they started showing me photographs that had been pulled off his computer, and they said, do you recognize this one, the one that you've got in your hands?
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
They said, oh, I just got chills, and I got goosebumps. And he said, that place is going to be important. We need to go there.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
I'm thinking, God, I feel so bad. I'm wasting their time. They could be doing other things. They could be doing something important.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
I said, yeah. It smelled like the end of something. The officer saw her before I did. He said, we found someone.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. There was no way to know. My name is Erin Craville. I was a student when Taylor disappeared. I think that she was just a normal college girl and got mixed up with the wrong person.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
She was a teenage girl, but she was still a responsible teenage girl. Taylor's VCU friend, Erin Crable. She wasn't the kind of person who would just go, hey, that motorcycle guy looks cool. I'm going to go drive off down the block with him.
48 Hours
A Campus Mystery Unraveled
You were the only person in the world. All of his attention was on you. And he had all these crazy stories. He would steal cars and break the law, but he was reformed. He was your bad boy. He was the expert.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Which is why Diane Fanning called her book her deadly web. Is it possible that Rainella Leith is just a very unlucky woman?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Prosecutors decided to try her for David Lee's murder first. In 2009, six years after his death, Raynella finally went on trial. But it turns out that was only the beginning. The jury deadlocked. 11 to 1.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
A year later, Raynella was back in court for trial number two. The case was the same, but this time jurors were unanimous. Raynella was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
So were prosecutors. With Raynella behind bars, they dropped the murder charges for the death of her first husband, Ed Dossett, never expecting what came next. I would describe her as lucky. Very lucky. After she served six years, Raynella's conviction was tossed out. The reason? The trial judge had been seriously impaired with a drug addiction and was kicked off the bench.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Fourteen years after the death of David Leith. Call the jury in, please. It's now trial number three.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
And prosecutor Steve Crump's turn to try Raynella Leith. Is there a way to describe this case?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It's May 2017. Everyone is ready. The trial, one of the last of senior judge Paul Sommer's career, is set to begin. First to present, District Attorney General Steve Crump, in what all sides hope will be the last trial in this case.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
He argues Raynella's murderous plan unraveled the moment she fired that first shot and missed.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
For the prosecution, the gun, a Colt 38 police special revolver, reveals some of the most important clues.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
This picture of the cylinder was taken at the scene. The three fired rounds have small indentations or hammer strikes in the center of the casing. The unfired rounds do not.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Prosecutors say that clockwise rotation of the cylinder tells the order of the shots.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
The first two cartridges are from silver Remington bullets. Fragments of those were found in the wall and David Leith's head. But the third is different. It's a gold Winchester found shot through the mattress. If that gold bullet was fired last, as the prosecution believes, that means it came after David Leith was already shot in the head, severing his brain stem.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
None whatsoever. Next, prosecutors turn to the blood spatter. These round drops of blood on the wall tell investigators that David's head had to be raised nearly a foot above the mattress when the bullet was fired.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
But the defense insists that the same evidence points to David Leith as the shooter.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Raynella's team consists of Knoxville criminal attorney Josh Hedrick, along with Rebecca Legrand, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer with a background in science.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
With no clear motive presented by the state, the defense starts with those three shots.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
But even if the prosecution's order of shots is correct, Kentucky State Medical Examiner and defense consultant Dr. Greg Davis says David Leith still could have been the shooter.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Which is what he believes Dr. Milucinic should have done in this case. Remember, within 24 hours of David Lee's death, Dr. Milucinic called it a homicide. She had not yet seen records from his neurologist or received a complete medical history.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
In a previous trial, Dr. Malusik testified that medications found in David's system would have rendered him, and I quote, incapacitated. In other words, he would have been unable to kill himself. But in trial number three, Dr. Milucinic did not repeat that claim.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Dr. Malusnik declined 48 Hours' request for an interview, but in Raynella's third trial, she stands firm that David Lee's death was a homicide.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
in a final and dramatic attempt to convince a jury of suicide the defense brings the blood-stained bed to the courtroom still preserved if the record could reflect i'm pointing to the hole in the middle of the headboard defense forensic expert celia hartnett i've marked the portion shows jurors how david leith could have fired all three shots
48 Hours
The Black Widow
But for the prosecution, the most incriminating evidence isn't at the crime scene. It's at the barber shop, where Raynella called Cindy Wilkerson on the morning of the shooting. Raynella had already left David at home. She made the call from Park West Hospital, where she was visiting David's mother.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
The prosecution says the call was part of Raynella's elaborate alibi to prove she wasn't at home with David, but they say she miscalculated. Remember, Raynella told police she put breakfast by the bed and left the house around 9.30. She made the call to Cindy just 20 minutes later.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Have you seen your father today? That's the question the prosecution wants burned into jurors' minds as both sides make their final case.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
As all eyes turn to the jury, there are things about Raynella Leith they'll never hear. They don't know about Ed Dossett. and they don't know about Steve Walker.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Steve Walker's ex-wife was Ed Dossett's secretary. Their relationship, as it turns out, was more than just professional. In 1995, three years after Ed's death, Steve found out during divorce proceedings that the son he raised was actually Ed Dossett's biological child. It came as a terrible shock to Steve and Raynella. I mean, in some ways you felt that you were on her side.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
He could not have been more wrong. According to a police report filed by Raynella, on the morning of May 26th of that year, she found Steve, quote, acting psychotic near Ed's grave on the farm.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
She told police she began firing warning shots into the ground to chase him away, and that Steve then took the weapon and fled on foot. But when Steve filed his own report, he told a very different story. He says that same morning, Raynella picked him up at the auto shop where he works and drove him to the farm to talk about the affair.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
When they got to Raynella's barn, Steve says she suddenly pulled out a revolver. In a police interview, Steve told investigators Raynella then said, I'll kill you, you son of a bitch. Then I'll raise the son.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
But the former marksman missed. Steve started running, but tripped and fell.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
The police believed Steve Walker's story, and Raynella was arrested and charged with attempted murder. But she took a deal and pled guilty to a lesser charge of assault. After six years, her record was cleared.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Twenty-two years later, she's hoping to walk away again. But as the jurors are ready to have their voices heard. As jurors, you are the ones that will decide the case. Something happens that no one sees coming.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
With her daughter by her side, Raynella Leath arrives at court for the final time.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Before the jurors can decide her fate, there's just one more piece of business.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
A routine request made in nearly every trial to throw out the case for lack of evidence. In most cases, the judge simply denies the motion and gives the jurors the case. Only two words are required, either motion granted or motion denied. But then, like so many times in the story of Raynella Leath, something completely unexpected happens.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Not guilty. The judge, on his own, acquits Raynella Leath of murder. After 14 years of suspicion, six years behind bars, and three hard-fought trials just like that, it's all over. As the defense celebrates.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
David Lee's daughter Cindy sits stunned. The prosecution does too. I don't understand it. I don't have an explanation. And under Tennessee law, there's no appeal either because the judge made his extremely rare decision before the jury began deliberations. These jurors, initially shocked, become angry.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
So we asked Judge Summers, now retired, to make his case to 48 hours. And he agreed.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Judge Summers believed that there was enough evidence for the jury to decide a homicide may have occurred, but he was convinced the prosecution didn't meet its burden to prove that Raynella Leith had the time or the opportunity to commit it.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
If you were so sure that there wasn't enough evidence for the jury to convict her beyond a reasonable doubt, wouldn't the jury have come to the same conclusion?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Judges sometimes make these extraordinary decisions when they fear jurors might be swayed by emotion and not evidence. And that may have been a factor in this case. While we will never know for sure what the whole jury would have done, we have a clue. If you had gotten to vote, how would you have voted?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
For William McMichael, Jesse Capps, and Michael Persicano, it was the gun that pointed to Raynella as the killer. There's no way David Leith fired that third shot. And you don't believe the defense witness who said, well, you can have this spasm after death that pulled the trigger the third time?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
What most convinced you, Jesse, that this wasn't just a murder, but that Raynella Leith was the one who killed her husband?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It wasn't just these three. They say shortly after the judge's decision, a majority of jurors gathered near the courthouse and came to the same conclusion. Admittedly, they did not deliberate, but they would have found her guilty.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Some in this town will always call her a black widow, but for Raynella Leith, none of that matters.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
So you're not saying that Raynella Leith is innocent. You're saying not guilty.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Best-selling author Diane Fanning has written about this case and the players.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Raynella Leath, a 68-year-old grandmother, is at the center of this extraordinary tale.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
And ever since 2003, the former nurse has been the prime suspect in the death of her second husband, David Leith.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It was Raynella's 911 call on the morning of March 13, 2003, that sent police rushing to the Leaf home.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Listen to investigators as they begin wondering about that death called in as a suicide.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Detectives wanted to establish where Raynella had been all morning, and she agreed to talk, the only time she's spoken on the record. She remembers watching television with her husband David that morning before leaving his breakfast on the nightstand.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It was close to 9.30, she says, when she headed to the hospital to visit her mother-in-law. When she arrived home shortly after 11, she found her husband laying in a bloody bed with a gunshot to his head.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
The gun was believed to have belonged to David's parents. David's sudden death left Raynella a grieving widow for the second time. Her first husband, Ed Dossett, had died 11 years earlier. Raynella and Ed met at East Tennessee State University, where she was on the rifle team and studying to be a nurse. He planned to go to law school. What drew those two together?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
They married and moved to Ed's 165-acre family farm in the tight-knit community of Solway, just outside Knoxville, where they raised cattle. and three children, Maggie, Eddie Jr., and Katie. Raynella was extremely protective of her children. They became the power couple in town when Ed was elected Knox County District Attorney General. Raynella was Director of Nursing at Park West Hospital.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
But their lives took a tragic turn when at the age of 43, Ed was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Nine months later, he died, not from his illness, but in a freak farming accident. But Raynella wasn't a widow for long. Six months later, she shot friends and family when she remarried. David Leith was a local barber and Ed Dossett's best friend and neighbor.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
David's daughter, Cindy Wilkerson, and his cousin, Beth Roberts, say the whirlwind romance was all the talk in Solway. What do you think he saw in Raynella? She's charming.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
But Rainella's newfound happiness was short-lived. Less than two years after she remarried, her 11-year-old son was killed in a car crash.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Cindy says she began seeing changes in Raynella and her father's relationship. They didn't seem as happy as they were when they first got married. Five years later, more heartbreak. David was hospitalized. He began seeing a neurologist for signs of dementia and depression. In early 2003, Raynella says David's behavior became more erratic, concerned. She began making notes in a private journal.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
On January 19th, she wrote, Dave hateful today. I cried and cried. Three days later, things hadn't improved. Dave hateful, controlling, his way or no way. I cried. Seven weeks after writing those words, David was dead. What did you think had happened to your dad?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Every haircut, every styling in the middle chair at this Knoxville barbershop reminds Cindy Wilkerson of her father, David Leith. It's the same chair he used for 39 years.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Cindy inherited the chair in 2000 when her father suddenly retired at the age of 54. What he kept secret were all those visits to the neurologist. If he was suicidal over dementia, Cindy never saw it. When Raynella said your dad committed suicide, did you initially think, well, Well, maybe he did, but it's just hard to believe.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
And Cindy questioned why her right-handed father would have used his left hand to shoot himself above his left eye. He was totally blind out of that eye. As her doubts soared, so did her suspicions about her stepmother's role. And she wasn't alone. Within 24 hours, Dr. Dorinka Milucnik, the Knox County medical examiner, discounted Raynella's claim of suicide and ruled David Lee's death a homicide.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Raynella became the focus of attention. It was clear to David's family what should happen next.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Remember, Rinella was the widow of a district attorney general. Crime writer and 48 Hours consultant Diane Fanning says that was the problem.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
finding an outside prosecutor to take the Leith case dragged on. Making things more difficult, no one could figure out the motive.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
With the criminal case stalled, in March 2006, Cindy filed a civil suit against Raynella to stop her from inheriting David's estate. Prosecutors took notice. Three and a half years after David Lee's death, Raynella was charged with his murder. And that's when old suspicions surfaced about the death of her first husband. Ed Dossett had been found in a field in July 1992, surrounded by his cattle.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
He had apparently been trampled to death. Did anyone wonder about how Ed Dossett died?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
What's more, folks wondered how Ed, weak with cancer and heavily medicated, even managed to get all the way from his house to the cattle.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Diane Fanning says there had been a theory going around Solway that Dossett's death was actually about insurance. Raynella and the kids would get a bigger payout if it was an accident instead of cancer. It might have even been Ed Dossett's idea himself.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Nearly a year after Raynella was charged with David Lee's murder, the same medical examiner who ruled that death a homicide reviewed Ed Dossett's file. Dr. Malusnik determined it wasn't cattle that killed him. It was a morphine overdose. It was a huge story. The widow of a district attorney general was now charged with murdering two husbands.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Crowe gave Chris Bishop a white 1985 Nissan pickup like this one. But when Bishop went to register it at the DMV, there was a problem. The truck belonged to the long-missing John and Linda Soas. Police in San Marino wanted answers and asked the Greenwich police for help.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Lieutenant Dan Allen was a detective in Greenwich back in 1988. Within days, Allen discovered that Chris Crowe was also Chris Chichester and was no longer in Greenwich. He had moved to New York City. Crowe had talked his way into another job at a large brokerage house and was living with a girlfriend, Mahoko Manabe, who hoped to marry him.
48 Hours
The Imposter
When Detective Allen called the number he had for Crowe, it was Manabe who answered.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But over the next few days, with his girlfriend's help, Crowe kept dodging Allen. If you had nothing to do with the death of John Solis, why wouldn't you talk to Detective Allen?
48 Hours
The Imposter
Oh, you had no idea? How would I know? But here's what Mahoko Manabe said at trial.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Now that Crow knew that the police were on to him, it was time once again to disappear, leaving Allen at a dead end. Did you ever meet him face to face? No. Did you ever talk to him on the phone?
48 Hours
The Imposter
Crow laid low for about three years. And in that time, a Rockefeller was born.
48 Hours
The Imposter
When you were growing up, did you get most of your ideas about America from watching movies and reading books? Books. Books?
48 Hours
The Imposter
You once mentioned The Great Gatsby. Yeah, that's one of them. And of course, there was television. One program in particular.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Perhaps unconsciously. That was your idea of what a blue-blooded American would sound like?
48 Hours
The Imposter
Sometime in 1992, his riskiest, most outrageous identity was unveiled when the congregation at St. Thomas Church on New York's swanky Fifth Avenue met Clark Rockefeller.
48 Hours
The Imposter
It was through friends at church that Clark Rockefeller met a bright young Harvard Business School student named Sandra Boss while playing a game that, coincidentally, involved fake identities and murder.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Boston Rockefeller quickly became an item and later moved in together. She says she simply accepted his odd and eccentric behavior.
48 Hours
The Imposter
while a Rockefeller courted his soon-to-be wife in New York. Back in San Marino, the mystery of John Soas' disappearance was about to take a sharp turn.
48 Hours
The Imposter
The grave site was directly behind the guest house where a young man named Chichester once lived.
48 Hours
The Imposter
The remains were so decomposed that they couldn't be officially identified, and the coroner wouldn't rule it a homicide.
48 Hours
The Imposter
The TV show Unsolved Mysteries recreated the scene and even posted a picture of Christopher Chichester calling him a person of interest, but no one called him with a tip.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Gerhard Schreider, who was now hiding out in plain sight as Clark Rockefeller, and telling everyone that he had just inherited what they would all come to believe was a multi-million dollar art collection. Writer Walter Kern remembers the first time he laid eyes on it.
48 Hours
The Imposter
That artwork was one reason that Kern never doubted Rockefeller until years later when the whole world would learn that the art was expertly forged.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But they stayed together and even had a daughter. In 2001, Ray Storrow Rockefeller was born. But five years later, Sandra Boss filed for divorce. And when things got contentious, her husband's con finally unraveled.
48 Hours
The Imposter
On July 27, 2008, FBI agent Tammy Hardy got a call from headquarters that a Rockefeller living in Boston had kidnapped his seven-year-old daughter during a supervised visitation.
48 Hours
The Imposter
For six days, Rockefeller eluded even the FBI by changing his identity once again.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But it all came to an end when a real estate agent in Baltimore saw the fake Rockefeller on the news. She realized he was the man she had just sold a house to. The FBI surrounded that house. And when they were certain the child was safe, they arrested her father without incident.
48 Hours
The Imposter
At his kidnapping trial, the world met Christian Karl Gerhardschreiter, a German immigrant who had come to America as a young man and created a life that was complete fiction. Gerhard Schreider was tried and convicted.
48 Hours
The Imposter
And actually believed he was a Rockefeller. But that's not the man Federal Agent Tammy Hardy met the night he was arrested.
48 Hours
The Imposter
In California, detectives Tim Miley and Dolores Scott were also convinced Gerhard Schreider killed Linda and John and were working against the clock to prove it before he could serve his time on the kidnapping charge and then disappear again.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Unmasked at last, Christian Gerhardtschreider now has a new identity, inmate number 2800458. Which persona did you like the most? Who did you like being the most?
48 Hours
The Imposter
Gerhard Schreider, aka Clark Rockefeller, was serving a four to five year sentence for kidnapping his daughter when he was suddenly on the move again, hauled from a Massachusetts prison to a California jail, where he would now face charges for the murder of John Soas. LA County Sheriff Detectives Tim Miley and Delores Scott led the cold case investigation.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Did you know what you were getting into when you first started this investigation?
48 Hours
The Imposter
The detectives had to determine exactly how John Soas died. The problem was all they had to work with was the victim's skull, and it was in pieces and had to be reconstructed by a special lab in Hawaii.
48 Hours
The Imposter
And that's when forensic pathologist Dr. Frank Sheridan was finally able to determine how John Soas had died. He had been viciously bludgeoned. How do you know that? How can you tell?
48 Hours
The Imposter
Dark edges, says Dr. Sheridan, mean the fractures occurred at the time of death and not when the body was unearthed.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But now, how to prove the killer was Gerhard Schreider. Soas was buried just feet from the guest house where Gerhard Schreider once lived, and his body wrapped in plastic bookstore bags traced to colleges that Gerhard Schreider had attended. Yet no DNA, no fingerprints belonging to the defendant were found.
48 Hours
The Imposter
In an L.A. courtroom in March of 2013, Christian Gerhartsreiter went on trial for the murder of John Soas.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Gerhard Schreider's defense is that Linda Soas is the one who killed her husband and is alive and hiding from authorities. The proof? These postcards in Linda's handwriting that were sent to her family and friends from Europe after she disappeared. But to Walter Kern, this was classic Gerhard Schreider.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Like a scene from a Hitchcock thriller, Kern says, the defendant carefully concocted the couple's disappearance.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But even after nearly three decades, Linda nor her body have been found. Isn't it possible that Linda's out there just under a different name doing what Chris did?
48 Hours
The Imposter
Detective Miley says that Linda couldn't have sent the postcards. DNA taken off the stamp doesn't match Linda's, but it also doesn't match the defendant.
48 Hours
The Imposter
John Soas' younger sister, Ellen, attended the trial every day and says there is no way that Linda would have killed her brother.
48 Hours
The Imposter
And how did he miss someone burying the body right behind his house, when according to trial testimony, it would have taken the killer several hours? If Linda, in fact, killed her husband, wouldn't you have seen her burying the body?
48 Hours
The Imposter
As the case goes to the jury, Gerhard Schreider is feeling confident. I believe it because I know for a fact
48 Hours
The Imposter
As a packed courtroom gathered to hear the verdict in the murder trial of Christian Gerhardt's writer, the man who once called himself Rockefeller looked confident, while the prosecutor, Habib Balian, seemed nervous.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Walter Kern, who recently wrote Blood Will Out about his former friend, attended the trial for the New Yorker magazine.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But it's a bittersweet victory because a painful question still remains. Where is Linda Soas? Do you believe then that Christian Gerhard Schreider also killed Linda? Yes.
48 Hours
The Imposter
I was curious how the jury felt about Linda and had the opportunity to ask the foreperson. Did you feel Linda had anything to do with it?
48 Hours
The Imposter
So did you believe at the end of the trial that if Christian Gerhardt Schreider killed John, he probably killed Linda, too? Yes. Do you think we'll ever really know what happened to Linda Savas?
48 Hours
The Imposter
America has long been the land of opportunity. And in 1982, there were few places more inviting than San Marino, California, an opulent suburb of Los Angeles that felt like a small town. It was sort of an Andy Hardy existence. Like a wealthy Mayberry? Well, that could be. and the perfect setting for English royalty. You knew him by what name? Christopher Chichester the 13th.
48 Hours
The Imposter
The 21-year-old baronet had a posh accent and old world charm and made sure that he was properly introduced.
48 Hours
The Imposter
And the most prestigious, the perfect place to charm his way into San Marino high society.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Vanity Fair reporter, 48 Hours consultant, and author of The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, Mark Seal.
48 Hours
The Imposter
So much so that he started making elaborate plans for the city, none of it setting off any alarms among the trusting folk.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Police say that you are a con artist, a con man. What do you call yourself? Who did I con? If not a con artist, what would you call yourself?
48 Hours
The Imposter
It was through friends at church that Chris Chichester reportedly met wealthy divorcee Ruth Soas, better known as Dee Dee. Dee Dee had a small guest house in the backyard of her San Marino home. Legally, she wasn't allowed to rent it out, but the 65-year-old had been running out of money. So when she let Chichester move in, it had to be their secret, something that suited her new tenant just fine.
48 Hours
The Imposter
But all the while, he lived here in this guest house, where authorities believe he turned from con man to killer.
48 Hours
The Imposter
While the young con man was living in their backyard, John and Linda got married and made plans to move out on their own. For more than two years, Dee Dee, John, Linda, and Chichester seemed to have coexisted without a peep. Did she ever express any concern about the tenant? Nothing. Linda's best friend, Sue Kaufman. But your memory is that she thought he was creepy.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Well, you were living in that guest house for almost two years while they were living with John's mother.
48 Hours
The Imposter
It was early February 1985 when something very strange happened. John and Linda Soas disappeared. At first, no one was really worried. Just days before they vanished, Linda told several people that she and John were going off on a secret government mission to New York. Did Linda tell you what government agency was hiring her husband?
48 Hours
The Imposter
At any point, did Linda seem worried about this trip to New York or about this job that her husband was offered? Not at all. She didn't say how he got offered the job?
48 Hours
The Imposter
The real story wouldn't come out until 28 years later, when the state of California put Chris Chichester, also known as Clark Rockefeller, on trial for the murder of John Soas. The prosecutor believes he also killed John's wife, Linda.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Aaron, don't put any words in my mouth. And efforts to get to that secret are met with resistance. Judy, Judy, we gotta stop this. Whenever I got a little too close, he tried to get 48 Hours producer Judy Ryback to stop me. You know, you gotta stop that, Aaron.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Sometime in May 1985, four months after Linda and John Soas vanished from San Marino, Christopher Chichester did the same. About a month after that, 3,000 miles away in Greenwich, Connecticut, Christopher Crowe appeared, once again in church.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Twenty-seven years later at the trial, Chris Bishop took the stand to describe the man he knew as Chris Crow.
48 Hours
The Imposter
In the 1980s, the classic series from the 50s was remade. And sure enough, there was a Christopher Crowe in the credits. Of course, it wasn't this Chris Crowe. But no one seemed to question the 24-year-old's story.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Nor did anyone question him when two years later, the television producer evolved into a bond trader on Wall Street.
48 Hours
The Imposter
Because we always start this way with an interview. Could you introduce yourself, saying, I am?
48 Hours
The Imposter
You took a job with a securities company as the head of a corporate bond department with absolutely no experience.
48 Hours
The Imposter
How unusual is that? Impossible. It took the better part of a year, but Crow was finally fired from Nikko. Meanwhile, back in California, Dee Dee Soas died heartbroken, believing her only son John had abandoned her. Shortly afterward, Chris Crow of Connecticut did something that would eventually put Chris Chichester of San Marino back on the radar in connection with the SOA's disappearance.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Tamar Hodel must have felt a similar chill when as a teenager in 1949, she ran away from her father's home. She told police what had been going on there.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
The well-known doctor was put on trial, charged with offering his 14-year-old daughter to several of his friends at an orgy.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But in the courtroom, a parade of family members testified that Tamar made up the story.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But George Hodel's troubles with the law were far from over. During the incest investigation, police got a tip that Hodel had known Elizabeth Shore before her murder. Tamar believes her father knew he had become a suspect.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
When all of this was going on, Steve was just a kid. But as an adult, it began to make sense. It's when he began sorting out the details of his father's past and the Black Dahlia case that he found the two stories merging.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Steve Hodel was convinced the photos in his father's album were indeed of the Black Dahlia.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But what did catch Steve Hodel by surprise was one of the many taunting cards and letters the killer sent to newspapers. It was this one, written by hand. Turning in Wednesday, January 29th. Had my fun with police. Black Dahlia Avenger.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Steve Hodel took his suspicions to an old friend, Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Kay tracked down the Black Dahlia file in the DA's office, a box of investigative notes and transcripts that no one had touched for over half a century.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
When investigators for the Los Angeles DA's office began questioning Tamar Hodel about her father, it was clear there was more than the 1949 orgy on their minds.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
but she never told her younger half-brother, Steve. So years later, when going through the DA's file on the Black Dahlia case, Steve Hodel got the shock of his life. In 1949, two years after Elizabeth Short was murdered, the district attorney had begun to zero in on a suspect.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kaye says that in the file is information from a female witness who told authorities that George Hodel definitely knew Elizabeth Short. Do you remember the Black Dahlia case?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And then there's Walter Morgan. He's 90 years old now, but back in the day, he was a young investigator working for the LA District Attorney who took over the Black Dahlia investigation in 1949.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But that's not all he did. In fact, he did something then he couldn't do today, at least not legally. Morgan, along with police detectives, came here to the Franklin house, using a plastic identification card to open the door. The cops slipped into the house and surreptitiously planted eavesdropping devices in here.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
For the next 40 days, 24 hours a day, detectives listened to hundreds of Dr. Hodel's private conversations.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
While the recordings no longer exist, the transcripts are in the DA's file.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
The secretary was Ruth Spalding. Her death certificate blames a drug overdose. Despite the statements captured on wire recordings in the spring of 1950, the D.A. abruptly stopped investigating George Hodel. Even more surprising, the chief investigator of the case, Frank Jemison, summed up the evidence saying it tends to eliminate this suspect.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Do you believe that at least the lieutenant in charge, Jemison, really thought that George Hodel should have been eliminated as a suspect?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
So why did the DA stop looking at George Hodel? Perhaps the answer is also in those secret recordings.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
What do you think he's referring to there? Paying off someone in the DA's office?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But it sounds like you think there may have been a cover-up of some sort.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
In fact, 48 Hours has learned that in 1950, both the DA and the LAPD stopped pursuing the Black Dahlia case, even though several investigators later told their relatives that they knew who the killer was.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And actor Jack Webb... My name's Friday. who played a cop on television and had close friends on the force, told an acquaintance that the chief of detectives had specifically described the Black Dahlia killer as... A doctor in Hollywood who lived on Franklin Avenue. The very street where George Hodel lived.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And it's important to remember that back in 1949, the LAPD was a dirty department rocked by scandals involving cops and gangsters, prostitutes and payoffs. A time and a place crime writer James Elroy knows well.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Before she was known only as the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short was just another struggling young woman.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
She was, says Steve Hodel, like so many dreamers before her who had come to post-war Los Angeles.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But that clean-cut image of Elizabeth Short did not sell newspapers. Crime novelist James Elroy. How was Elizabeth Short portrayed in these years since she was killed?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Mary Pacios was a neighbor of Short's back in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Her beauty certainly entranced men. After Short was murdered, a lot of the men she knew became suspects. Among them, Mark Hanson, a nightclub owner reportedly obsessed with Elizabeth Short. And Glenn Wolf, one of Short's landlords, described to police as a sexual maniac. But they can be eliminated, says Hodel, for one simple reason. the condition of Elizabeth Short's body.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
48 Hours decided to put the theories of Steve Hodel, the former homicide detective, to the test.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
We asked Dr. Mark Wallach, chief of surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York, to look at the crime scene photos as well as the autopsy.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
While Steve Hodel's father didn't actually practice surgery, he excelled at it in medical school.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
There are other pieces of the puzzle that convince Steve Hodel his father was the killer. Take the handwritten notes the killer sent newspapers right after Elizabeth Short's murder.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Let's take a look at the uppercase forms of the letter N. We then asked John Osborne, one of the most respected document examiners in the field, to compare letters that killers sent to the newspapers with examples of handwriting from Dr. George Hodel.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And what about the photographs of the mystery woman found in the album, the ones that started Steve Hodel on his investigation in the first place?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Suni Chapman is a forensic artist who uses and distributes E-Fit, facial identification software that helps create detailed sketches of suspects for police investigations.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Chapman was able to compare one of the photos of the mystery woman to a picture of Elizabeth Short and initially saw a lot of similarities.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
You mean you actually entertain the possibility that those two pictures that started you on this investigation might not be Elizabeth Short?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But you still then, even if you started for the wrong reason, you ended with the right result. Exactly. That's because Steve Hodel says he's uncovered yet another clue that points to his father as the killer. This photo done by Dr. Hodel's close friend, the artist Man Ray.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Steve believes his father posed Elizabeth Short's body to mimic this classic art photo titled The Minotaur, the mythical beast that devoured young maidens. Her arms were positioned like the horns.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kaye not only agrees with Steve Hodel's theory, he thinks the cuts found across the victim's mouth and face were meant to mimic another Man Ray work, The Lovers.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
After Steve O'Dell published a book, the LAPD was willing to hear his theories, but not to open the original police files on the case. Until now.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Steve Hodel's theory continues to fascinate and intrigue readers, despite the questions raised by 48 Hours.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Hodell still has powerful allies. Assistant District Attorney Stephen Kaye believes Hodell's father was the killer.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But there are also plenty of skeptics. Do you believe that Steve Hodel has solved the murder of Elizabeth Short? No. You don't? No. Mary Passios believes that Hodel relies too much on speculation in the case against his father.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And the Los Angeles Police Department agrees. A year and a half after the district attorney opened his files, the LAPD finally revealed in an off-camera briefing the secrets of its own Black Dahlia investigation. No surprise, Dr. George Hodel was at one point a major suspect, but police say he was only one of 22 major suspects, seven of whom were doctors.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Police also contradicted Steve Hodel and claimed there was no proof that his father even knew Elizabeth Short. But the Los Angeles Police Department has its own credibility problems. The LAPD now admits that in the years since Elizabeth Short's murder, virtually all the physical evidence in this case has disappeared. The police aren't sure how, but it has simply vanished from the files.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
The bottom line, LA's most famous unsolved murder may never be solved.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
To crime writer James Elroy, the brief life and horrific death of Elizabeth Short is a classic American tragedy known as the Black Dahlia case.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Shocked and angered by the LAPD's response, Steve Hodel also dismisses the findings of two handwriting experts, our own and the LAPD's, who both said they were not convinced that the handwriting in the killer's letters matched Dr. George Hodel's.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Most people would be happy to hear that the LAPD doubts that his father is a killer. Why aren't you? Why are you so determined to prove that he was in fact the black Dahlia killer?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Whatever the truth about Dr. George Hodel, he is still causing pain for the people closest to him. There is Steve, the son struggling with conflicting emotions for the man he believes is both a monster and his father.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Was there any sense of revenge against your father by publishing this?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And there is Tamar, Steve's half-sister, who never got over the trauma of being molested at age 14 by her father, Tamar's old friend, Michelle Phillips.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And if Steve Hodel is correct, the ultimate victim of his father was Elizabeth Short.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
A story about love and loneliness, murder and madness, played out in the city of dreams, Los Angeles.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And again, almost six decades after her brutal killing, The Black Dahlia, the feature film, is set to play upon a mystery.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And now real movie stars like Scarlett Johansson. You mark? Hillary Swank. You know, not being able to solve a murder of that caliber, I think was a pretty big deal. And I think that was the infatuation that people have.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And action! They will become part of a new story that's already a Hollywood legend.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
We may never know for sure who killed Elizabeth Short or whether George Hodel was the Black Dahlia killer. He fled the United States just days after the district attorney stopped investigating him in 1950. not to return until 40 years later, when the search for the killer had long gone cold.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
A mystery, but to crime writer James Elroy, one with a perfect ending.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
It's the most famous unsolved murder in Los Angeles history. A beautiful young victim, a cunning psychopathic killer, a real life mystery that's inspired countless movie makers and writers. from Double Indemnity to Chinatown to L.A. Confidential. Even the nickname The Black Dahlia is straight out of the movies. The Blue Dahlia was a nightclub in a 1946 crime film.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Newspapers adapted that title to fit the Elizabeth Short case. And the Black Dahlia legend was born. The mystery behind the legend continues to inspire great storytellers. Director Brian De Palma. Cut. And a cast that includes Hilary Swank. What do I have to do to keep my name out of the papers? Scarlett Johansson. I'm scared. And Josh Hartnett.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Once again brings the twisted tale of the Black Dahlia to the big screen.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Steve O'Dell was just five years old when Elizabeth Short was murdered. The crime scene. We're just coming up here now. As a cop, he worked the same Hollywood streets Elizabeth once knew.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
For over 17 years, he investigated 300 murders. The Black Dahlia case was just another cold case. But after he retired, it would come to haunt him.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
The killer got what he wanted. For weeks, a terrified city watched as the search for the murderer unfolded. There were dozens of false confessions, hundreds of other suspects questioned and cleared. The killer even wrote letters taunting the police and also sent Elizabeth Short's personal address book to a local newspaper.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
But after the biggest manhunt in LA history, the murder was listed officially unsolved. It stayed that way for 58 years.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Mary Pacios has never forgotten Elizabeth. Elizabeth was her babysitter and idol in their working-class neighborhood of Medford, Massachusetts, outside Boston.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
A vibrant young woman growing up in a dark, drab time, the height of the Depression.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Post-war Los Angeles was a boomtown, overrun with ex-servicemen, starstruck wannabes... Here's a gorgeous number in blue knitted wool. ...and hustlers.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
then as now a place where pretty faces were a dime a dozen and life could be tough most of the girls are applauded thanked and then quickly forgotten until the next contest comes along she was broke and she was borrowing money elizabeth became a hollywood hanger-on going out on the town each night
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
usually with a different guy, to places like the Frolic Room, which looks pretty much the same now as it did back then.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
It's a Wonderful Life was playing at Hollywood's Pantages Theater. Around dawn the next day, a mysterious black car was seen at the spot where Elizabeth's body was later found. A black car, very similar to the 1936 Packard owned by Steve Hodel's father, Dr. George Hodel.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
George Hodel was a brilliant man with an IQ of 186, a point higher, he would say, than Einstein's. He began as a child musical prodigy, studying in Paris with Madame Montessori. After a stint as a newspaper reporter at the age of 16, he sailed through medical school, studying surgery,
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
He settled in Los Angeles, running the county's venereal disease clinic, where it was rumored he treated some of L.A. 's top brass. A man with family money who lived in an exotic house in the middle of Los Angeles that was as eccentric as its owner.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Tamar Hodel was one of 11 children the doctor had by five different women. She and her half-brother Steve remember their father's house as a place where artists and movie people came for flamboyant parties, presided over by the dynamic George Hodel.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
George Hodel's charm was certainly not lost on his son Steve. The two remained close until 1999, when the doctor died in his high-rise apartment in San Francisco at the age of 91.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
To this day, Steve O'Dell isn't sure what it was that made him compare pictures of the Black Dahlia to snapshots his father had saved of a mystery woman.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
The search for answers became an obsession. Steve spent months combing through newspaper accounts, talking to old timers, and traveling back to his childhood.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Where he and his brothers lived off and on with their father in the late 1940s. When we were living here, there was nothing but a large white polar bear rug in here. He suspects one of the pictures from his father's album was taken here.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Complete with a secret room where the children were never allowed to go. Lo and behold. What did your father use this room for?
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
It was in this fortress of a house, Steve says, that his father could do what he wanted, no matter how immoral or illegal.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Assured that sex between father and daughter was normal, Tamar had anything but a normal childhood. She remembers the doctor's friends, among them, famous photographer Man Ray.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Man Ray became the family photographer, a perverse family photographer.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
A frequent house guest was John Huston, the famous movie director.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
And there were always women. Tamar remembers a constant stream of young, beautiful women.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
Michelle Phillips, former singer with the Mamas and the Papas, has been Tamar's friend since 1958.
48 Hours
The Black Dahlia Mystery
It wasn't until some years later, after one of her concerts, that Michelle Phillips met George Hodel for herself. I felt a chill.
48 Hours
The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner
That was not unusual for your mom to pack her bags and disappear for a day, right?
48 Hours
The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner
When you're driving through here, are you still wondering where Dee is?
48 Hours
The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner
Anybody had access to that cylinder. Someone could have come into his own. barn and put your mom?
48 Hours
The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner
It was parked in the garage. So all your mother's cars are there? Yes. And she's not responding to any kind of calls or texts?
48 Hours
The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner
Can you think of a day when no one knew where your mother was? A full day?
48 Hours
The Black Widow
The person who delivered that fatal blow was the defendant, Raynella Leith.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Once she missed, it changed the whole dynamic. She ended his life with that second shot, and then in an attempt to cover up, she fired that third shot to get gunshot residue on him.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Yes. That's what I think she is. We'll show you what's been marked previously as Exhibit 36 and ask if you can identify that.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
The second shot occurs, and he falls straight back down to where he was found. You cannot lay in this bed and face that direction and get that blood spatter on the wall. Blood doesn't turn corners.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
There was a first indication on March 13, 2003, that anything was unusual about David Lee.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
There would have been no reason to say, have you seen him? There would have been no reason to ask if he'd worked out. And there certainly would have been no reason to say he didn't eat his breakfast because there's no way she could have known that unless she had been there and unless the only reason she knew he hadn't eaten breakfast was because he was dead.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
It's the only explanation. Rinella Lee is guilty of the first-degree premeditated homicide of David Lee.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Oh, I gotta breathe. No matter where we think we're going here, that can't be how this ends.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Does that make it worse? Yeah, I guess so in some ways. But in another sense, it tells me I did the right thing. And more importantly, our work as trial attorneys was spot on.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
State will show that on March 13, 2003, David Lee was killed by a single gunshot wound to his forehead. The report on the 911 call was that he'd shot himself.
48 Hours
The Black Widow
Raynella Leaf. He was shot almost in the middle of his forehead, but right above his left eye. There were no signs of forced entry. There were no signs of a struggle. And there was no one else at the residence but the defendant.