Erin Moriarty
Appearances
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Do you have any question in your mind that Jane Dorotick killed her husband? No. Absolutely none. It's prosecutor Bonnie Howard Regan's job to convince a judge there's enough evidence to take Jane Dorotick to trial.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
According to the prosecutor, Bob Dorotek never went out for a jog on that cool, wet Sunday afternoon in February. Instead, she says, he was killed in his own bedroom.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Investigators say they found minute drops of blood all over the bedroom.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
It was after Bob was killed that investigators believe he was dressed in his jogging clothes.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
This would be his normal route? Remember how Jane says she was driving along this road, searching for her missing husband when it got dark? I thought, well, maybe he fell off the side of the road. Prosecutor Howard Regan says that's when Jane dumped Bob's body here. The tire impressions at the scene match Jane's truck.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The prosecutor claims Jane disposed of the evidence at this shopping center, where on the day Bob disappeared, a friend saw her driving to an area behind the stores.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But the most damaging evidence by far, the one piece that seems to directly connect Jane Dorotek to the murder, is a syringe found in Jane's bathroom.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But this syringe had Jane's fingerprint in Bob's blood. How can you explain that?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
At this point in the court proceedings, Jane is not allowed to respond to the evidence.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
So we gave her a chance to try explaining some things, like the blood found in her own bedroom. Do you have any other explanation of how that blood spatter could have gotten there? Not really. On the ceiling, on the window, on the walls? No. What about the large amount of blood that was on the other side of the mattress? I don't know. Jane can come up with only one explanation.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
So do you still think that that blood could have come from a nosebleed? I think some of it could have come from it.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
And what about pieces of a rope? Much like the rope found around Bob's neck that were on Jane's porch and in her house.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Yet there is evidence someone cleaned up. Bob's blood was found on a bottle of cleaning fluid and there was wet carpeting with blood stains underneath. Kerry, who else would kill Bob there and then clean up afterwards?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Another problem. Stories told to investigators by Bob's former co-workers.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
After three days of testimony, there are still a lot of people who insist Jane simply couldn't have killed Bob.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The judge suddenly raises Jane's bail to $3 million, one of the highest ever for a spousal murder in this country.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Unable to raise that kind of money, Jane goes back to jail until her trial. Isn't it going to be very hard for the jury to believe that somebody else killed Bob, then cleaned up, and then moved his body somewhere else?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Bob Dortek's murder took more than a life. It destroyed his entire family.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Accused of his murder is his wife of 30 years, Jane, who now sits in county jail.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Jane's daughter, Claire, has been forced to put the family ranch on the market.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
It's very hard on her. It's very hard. But what concerns Claire and her mother even more is that neither Alex nor Nick have come to see their mother in jail. Does that make you sad? Yes, of course.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
You are very sure about your mom's innocence, but it doesn't seem like your brothers are quite as sure. Why do they have doubts?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Jane's sons won't say why they've stayed away, but the evidence in this case is damaging. It points to a killer who knew the victim, who had a reason to kill him, who also had a reason to clean up the crime scene afterwards. But Jane's attorney says she's not the only one who fits that description. Who does he say killed Bob Dorotek?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The beauty and drama of these foothills northeast of San Diego no longer give Jane Dorotek any comfort.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Claire Dorotek, Jane and Bob's 25-year-old daughter. It is a shocking development that Kerry Steigerwald and his associate, attorney Cole Casey, say they intend to prove in court. When did you first start thinking that it wasn't Jane at all, but her daughter?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
He could be a jerk sometimes. In an earlier interview, Claire said her relationship with her father had been strained.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But was Claire angry enough to kill her own father? As proof, the attorney points to a letter an irate Claire wrote to her father. I know that I have been resented by you always. It doesn't have to be more than she just didn't like her father to kill him in that brutal manner.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
As Steigerwald sees it, Claire, who is devoted to her horses, became enraged when her father threatened to sell them.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
I'm just gonna pound this up. Jane's life has not been the same since her 55-year-old husband Bob disappeared.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Your history of betrayal of trust, lack of respect, and vicious threats cannot ever be forgotten. The letter was written about a year before Bob Dorotek was killed. So what do you think happened?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Prosecutor Bonnie Howard Regan confirms the letter exists, but reads it very differently.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Claire has always said she was in Long Beach, two hours away. Claire was with me Saturday night. And her Aunt Bonnie backs her story. Is there any possibility in your mind that Claire might have killed her dad?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Steigerwald says that Claire changed details of how she got to Long Beach. Even what she did when she got there.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Do you think it's at all possible that Claire could have hurt her dad? I absolutely don't. But if Jane really believes that, why would she allow her attorney to point to her daughter as the killer, the daughter Jane clearly loves?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
I trust Carrie. I hope we get what we need. but this is pointing a finger at someone in your own family. You know, the prosecution has already gone there, so it's not news to them. But is this just a trial strategy? Do you honestly believe that Claire killed her dad, or is this just a way to confuse the jurors and to get Jane off?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
As for Claire, suddenly the center of a media frenzy. She's not speaking to anyone. I have no further comments.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Are you at all concerned that the jury will wonder about a woman who would allow herself to be defended by pointing the finger at her daughter? Could that work against the two of you?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Bob, an engineer and avid jogger, says Jane. Very competitive, very methodical and logical. Went out for a run on a rainy Sunday afternoon and never returned. That's our wedding picture. Jane had lived almost half her life with Bob.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Coming up... Claire, can we ask you some questions? Will Claire take the stand? And the prosecution's surprise witnesses against Jane Dorotek.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Jane Doretic's murder trial is unlike any other in San Diego County.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The defense will try to convince jurors that it was Claire who murdered Bob Dorotek in his bedroom.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But it's a tricky maneuver. Do you run the risk that the jury could hear this and think that both Jane and Claire killed Bob Dorotek? and convict Jane and then have Claire later charged.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The syringe with Jane's fingerprint in Bob's blood and the tire tracks from Jane's truck in the area where Bob Dorotek's body was found.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Faced with such damaging evidence, the defense has only one option, to put serious doubt in the minds of the jurors. First, by proving Jane wasn't physically capable of committing murder. And then, by convincing the jurors, Claire is.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But right away, Carrie Steigerwald runs into trouble. Ms. Claire Dortek, please step forward. With a jury outside of the court, Claire takes the fifth.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
which means jurors will never see or hear from Claire and never be told why. Ms.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The most Carrie Steigerwald can say is that Claire is unavailable. You are excused at this time. Isn't the jury going to wonder? You've been talking about Claire, and the jury never sees her and never knows why she doesn't appear.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The defense can still let the jurors hear from Claire through the angry letter she wrote to her father one year before he was killed.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
At the same time, the defense wants the jury to believe that Jane couldn't have murdered her husband.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But there's contrary evidence in court. All jurors are again present. And it comes from the most unlikely source. Ms. Howard Regan, you may call your next witness. Jane's own sons. Alex?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
They broke my heart, you know, they just broke my heart. Kerry thinks it's too risky for Jane to take the stand.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Claire, then 24 years old and the only one still living at home, was away the weekend her dad disappeared.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
He's worried about prosecution questions that he knows Jane can't answer.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
I really can't. I'm sorry. But there are questions the prosecution can't answer either. Here at the location where Bob's body was dumped, footprints were found, but none of them were Jane's. And there's a witness who says she saw Bob alive on this driveway the day he disappeared. The defense hopes those questions will raise reasonable doubt as to who really killed Bob Dorotek.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Do you have any statements you'd like to make about the verdict? It's a terrible defeat for Carrie Steigerwald, who hoped the jury would believe an angry daughter could have committed the crime.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
What if, in fact, she killed her husband? And there was nothing you could do.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
As Jane remembers it, it was a busy day at her ranch with thoroughbred horses to feed and expectant mares to watch.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Since we last aired this broadcast, neither Alex nor his brother Nick have spoken with or seen their mother.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
The verdict officially ends speculation that Claire, not her mom, killed Bob Dorotek. But it doesn't answer all the questions.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Weeks later, when Jane is sentenced, Judge Joan Weber wonders out loud.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
It's hard to keep going. In a noisy, crowded jail, Jane Dorotek is all alone.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Just before she left the house, Jane says, she saw Bob in the living room.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Three hours later, when Jane returned to the house, she says she was surprised that Bob hadn't returned. Were you concerned at that point?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
This is the same route, Jane says, she took that late afternoon to search for Bob, driving up and down the steep hill where he sometimes ran. This kind of scares me just looking out in a car.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
As police began a search and rescue, concerned friends and family gathered at the Dorotek House.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
And then, in the pre-dawn hours of February 14th, Deputy Blackman turned into this driveway.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
On Valentine's Day morning, Jane learned that the man she had been married to for 30 years was dead. They said they thought he had been hit by a car. The hardest part was telling her children.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
As Jane and her family began coping with the news... I got there a little after 7 in the morning. Police Detective Rick Empson was called in.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But the biggest shock was yet to come. Three days after Bob's body was found, the police made an arrest.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
In a matter of days, 53-year-old Jane Dorotek went from well-paid health care executive and wife to widow to accused murderer.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
She's being held on an unusually high $2 million bail. But today, she hopes a judge will listen to the people who are here to support her, her children.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
She's leaving the ranch she shared with her husband until he was brutally murdered.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Helping are her sister Bonnie Long and two of her children. I think we have all the boxes up here. Nick, her youngest, a construction worker and competitive snowboarder. And Claire. Where are the boxes? A personal trainer and horsewoman who is also in school getting her master's degree in psychology. Jane's oldest son, Alex, is away in law school. Good horses. Is there...
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Any question in your mind whether your mom's innocent or not. Any question at all.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Jane and Bob got married in 1970. She was a nurse. He was an engineer working for Lockheed. How would you describe Bob?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Despite the demands of her job as an executive, Jane's horse operation grew.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
And the money that went into the horses became a source of contention between Jane and Bob.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
This and other strains in their marriage led Jane and Bob to split up in 1997.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Jane and Bob had been back together as a couple a year and a half when he was killed.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
According to police, the motive was money. Jane's money. They contend her marriage was in trouble again. The prosecution is going to say you killed your husband because you thought you'd have to pay a large part of your income if you got divorced.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
But more important than motive, police say, is evidence. Evidence that shows Bob wasn't killed here where his body was found. His body was dumped here after he was killed. And where was he killed? In his own bedroom.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
What first led Detective Rick Empson to suspect Jane was seeing a piece of rope hanging on the porch.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
And when they got to the master bedroom, they found some blood. This is the master bedroom. This is the alleged crime scene. Actually, police say a search of the room revealed massive amounts of blood. Massive?
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Is there any way that you can adequately describe what you've been going through for the last 5 months.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Free on bail but living under suspicion Jane door to camp believe the sudden turn her life has taken.
48 Hours
A Deadly Family Secret
Jane is about to find out. At her preliminary hearing, Jane and her family will see and hear for the first time the evidence against her. Carrie has said this is going to be your worst nightmare. Carrie is Carrie Steigerwald, Jane's attorney.
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
We're waiting to see what the governor's office thinks 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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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...
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Well, remember, Melissa is their baby. And so they feel they've lost, even though they can visit her, you know, 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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
All of them, you know, the King and family and the Kaluzinski family.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Thank you. Honestly, thank you for letting us talk about this.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
That's what came to my mind after interviewing her.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Those x-rays were taken during autopsy, but that pathologist at trial testified that he couldn't read them, that they weren't 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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
We love being here. This is one of those very complicated cases, so an opportunity to talk more about it. I'm in.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
So that's still a big, important issue.
48 Hours
Post Mortem | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
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 just 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 | A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
It happened three months before he died. And Melissa was not working there at the time. So that's why that's significant.
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
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But on the stand, Vanessa stuck with her story until this question.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Nearly three years after Carrie's death, Crawford Long had all the proof he needed to finally indict Matt Baker. Oh, my gosh. It was unbelievable news for Linda Doolin.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
In March 2009, Matt Baker was re-arrested and charged with Carrie's murder.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And the state star witness? Vanessa Bowles. I don't think she stole everything.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Carrie's mother, Linda, is surrounded by her family. To me, he looked smug.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt has always denied that affair, so no one in the courtroom was quite prepared for what his defense attorney, Guy James Gray, had to say.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
When did you realize that Matt was lying about his involvement with Vanessa Bowles?
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
That doesn't mean Gray says that Mack killed his wife. Instead, Gray goes on the attack and tells the jury that Carrie was in a precarious emotional state.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Assistant DA Crawford Long expects to get help from a surprising witness.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt Baker himself. Matt was unusually talkative in the years before his trial. You're not nervous about talking. If it ever goes to trial, something you might say here could be used against you. And if it is, then you deal with it at the time. And that time is now. Matt's contradictions and lies are coming back to haunt him. She was awake? Correct. She was talking and she said goodbye to you?
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
While a defendant can't be forced to testify, everything Matt said already can be used against him at trial. There are interviews with 48 Hours. Did you have an affair with Vanessa?
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt's claim that Carrie was a despondent, dysfunctional parent is disputed by witness. To me, she never seemed better. After witness. To me, she seemed excited. Even her grief counselor.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
You solemnly swear the testimony you've given this matter will be... Three days into the trial, Carrie's mom, Linda Doolin, finally comes face to face with the man she has convinced killed her daughter. I am... I'm sorry.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Linda testifies that after her daughter died, Carrie's grief counselor told her that Carrie had found crushed pills in Matt's briefcase. Carrie feared he was going to harm her. Linda later confronted Matt.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
It was not reported. And there's Matt's claim that in the time it took paramedics to arrive, around four minutes, he managed to dress Carrie in her shirt and panties.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
All while cradling the phone on his shoulder. Do you believe that he is moving her at all while he's on that 911 call? I don't even think he's in the room. Pictures taken the night of Carrie's death also contradict Matt's story. He told investigators that he found Carrie's body with both arms stretched out flat on the bed.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
The proof? Crime scene photos, which show an uneven pooling of blood, or lividity, in Carrie's arms. The fact there was more lividity on her left arm as opposed to her right said what?
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt visited online pharmacies, searching for the sleeping pill Ambien. Is your business, your internet business, a library or a store?
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
This witness, who flew in from Spain, says that pharmacy has one purpose.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
He says Matt attempted to buy a generic form of Ambien and placed it in his online shopping cart. But when cross-examined by defense attorney Gray,
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And there's no evidence that he bought Ambien anywhere else or that he forced Kerry to take that or any other drug.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But the defense's biggest challenge is yet to come. I do. When the state star witness takes the stand.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Four days into Matt Baker's trial, the moment everyone has been waiting for.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
On the stand, the prosecution's star witness, the self-confident, almost smug, 27-year-old teacher, Vanessa Bowles. Were you worried the jury might really dislike her? Oh, yeah.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Assistant DA Susan Schaefer has another problem with the witness.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
No, I didn't admit to it. For years, Vanessa Bowles lied to everyone about her relationship with Matt Baker. The jury might just dismiss her as a liar. Sure.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
One time I was sitting by myself in the church. Vanessa begins by telling the jury how she met Matt at church in the fall of 2005.
48 Hours
A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
In early March 2006, Matt invited Vanessa to continue counseling. at his house.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
I was extremely remorseful. I couldn't believe what just happened. But still, the affair continued, and so did Matt's bitterness towards his wife.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Just a few weeks later, Carrie was dead. Within days, Vanessa says, Matt told her exactly how he did it.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Under the guise of a romantic evening, Matt gave Carrie a mix of wine coolers and pills he said were sex stimulants.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But Vanessa says Matt had filled the capsules with crushed Ambien to knock his wife out.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt thought Carrie was dead, Vanessa says. So he was startled when Carrie suddenly gasped for air.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Even more devastating for Linda Doolin, her daughter didn't have to die. Vanessa admits she knew Matt was plotting to kill Carrie.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Vanessa even knew the day Matt intended to murder his wife, April 7, 2006. And you didn't report that to anybody? No. Vanessa could have saved your daughter. Yes, I know it. I know it. She knew what day your daughter was going to die. I know. And she never told anybody. I know. Two weeks later, a smiling Vanessa Bulls was by Matt's side, helping to chaperone Kenzie's 10th birthday party.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Has it not occurred to you that if he killed one wife, he might kill another?
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But Matt Baker's lawyer, Guy James Gray, says Vanessa is a liar, pure and simple.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And when it's his turn to cross-examine Vanessa, Mr. Gray? Gray attacks her credibility.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
When the defense presents its case, Gray only calls one witness, a forensic expert who speculates that traces of DNA found on the suicide note might be Carrie's.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
As they deliberate into the night... We have a note from the jury. ...the jurors have a series of questions for the judge.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
especially in this case, after prosecutors lost their chance to put Matt Baker on the hot seat.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Defense attorney Guy James Gray couldn't risk it, he says, and for good reason.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
The trap? This fireman's dummy at just about Carrie's weight when she died. This is very close to what Matt faced trying to move Carrie. Yes, quite close. The prosecution's plan? To have Matt Baker demonstrate in front of the jury what he claims he did after he found his wife dead and naked in their bed. 911, do you have an emergency?
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Phone to his shoulder. Her lips are blue, hands are cold. Dressing her without sounding out of breath.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Because Matt didn't testify, the jury never got to see him do the demonstration. And as the hours ticked by, it seems like Gray made a wise call keeping Matt off the stand.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Incredibly, the attorney who once so believed in his client stopped trusting Matt once he confessed to the affair.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Still, Gray says he defended Matt the best he could under the circumstances.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt Baker's sentence... 65 years with the possibility of parole. Are you finally ready to admit that you killed your wife?
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
The Doolins ordeal was not over yet. Kenzie and Grace were still living with Matt's parents.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
A year and a half after Matt went to prison, Jim and Linda were back in court, seeking custody of their granddaughters. The odds were not in our favor. To their surprise, they won. This is Grace's room. Thank you.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Linda and Jim Doolin are convinced that their daughter Carrie was murdered by the man they once embraced as a son-in-law, Baptist preacher Matt Baker.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt has always claimed that his wife committed suicide, just as he told the 911 operator a little after midnight on April 8, 2006. It was 911.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
He said he went out to get a video and gas for his car. When he arrived home, he found his wife lifeless on the bed, an empty bottle of Unisom, and a suicide note on the table.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Their daughters, Kenzie 9 and Grace 5, were asleep in nearby bedrooms. Matt says it was because of another daughter, Cassidy, that Carrie took her own life. She never stopped grieving for Cassidy, who had a brain tumor and died seven years earlier.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But Carrie's mom and her family did not believe that Carrie would have abandoned her living children. And that suicide note, it was typed, even the signature. Linda grew more suspicious when she discovered that there were numerous phone calls between Matt and a young parishioner named Vanessa Bowles.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt certainly didn't seem like he had anything to hide. He voluntarily spoke with the Hewitt police a few months after Carrie died.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And he wasn't shy about airing his grievances against the Doolins, who had been pushing the police to investigate.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And that, it seemed, was the end of the police investigation. Linda was frustrated and felt the only way she'd know what happened to Carrie was to find out herself. So she hired attorney Bill Johnson and his team of investigators.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Matt said he was only gone for about 40 minutes. But Kerry's body showed signs of lividity, the pooling of blood after death. The experts said it was unlikely that Kerry could have ingested drugs, died, and reached that state in such a short period of time. Moreover, records salvaged from Matt's workplace server were incriminating.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Johnston felt the police drop the ball, but he was hamstrung. There was no autopsy, and the death was classified as suicide.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Johnston turned to Matt Cawthon, an old friend who was a member of the Texas Rangers, the statewide law enforcement team. Cawthon agreed unofficially to help.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
To get those documents, Cawthon needed the district attorney's help. He was turned down flat.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Cawthon persisted and finally convinced the authorities to conduct an autopsy three months after Carrie died. It was too late to test for drugs in her blood, but they did find Unisom in her muscle tissue, along with traces of Ambien, a drug Carrie was not known to take. The manner of death was changed from suicide to undetermined.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
In September 2007, a year and a half after Kerry died, the police now felt they had a homicide on their hands. Matt Baker was arrested and charged with murder. He was released on bond thanks to powerhouse attorney Guy James Gray, who took the case pro bono.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Six months after Matt Baker was arrested, his fate changed again, dramatically.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Assistant District Attorney Crawford Long had decided it was too risky to take Matt to trial, so he dropped the murder charges.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But Matt wasn't off the hook. Kerry's mother, Linda Doolin, had decided to sue him for wrongful death.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Linda's attorney Bill Johnston and his investigators were hoping any new evidence they might dig up for the civil case would help rebuild a criminal one.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And Johnston had an advantage. In a civil case, he could depose Matt Baker under oath and on camera.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
What Matt didn't anticipate was that Crawford Long and fellow prosecutor Susan Schaefer weren't giving up because they too believed Matt killed Carrie.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
All the evidence prosecutors had was circumstantial. What they really wanted was the testimony of this woman. Vanessa Bowles, whom they suspected was Matt's lover before Carrie died. How important is Vanessa Bowles to this case? She's key. Key because prosecutors believed she knew some of Matt's secrets. So far, Vanessa has had little to say to law enforcement.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
The only thing she admitted was that she dated Matt and only after Carrie died.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Did you believe her? No. Prosecutors had the phone records and a jewelry store clerk who saw Matt and Vanessa checking out wedding rings just weeks after Carrie died.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Working with prosecutors was Abden Rodriguez, a savvy investigator with a reputation for convincing the most reluctant witnesses to talk.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
And for good reason. Rodriguez knew Vanessa had everything to lose if she admitted knowing anything about the crime.
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
But after interviewing her, Vanessa was still holding back. So the prosecution gambled and subpoenaed her to testify before the grand jury. Was that a little risky?
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A Preacher's Secret, Part 2
Crawford Long gave Vanessa immunity, promising not to use her testimony against her. Abdon Rodriguez added a warning.
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A Toxic Relationship
But wouldn't somebody notice it if somebody is pointed in juice or in some drink?
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A Toxic Relationship
Most of the ethylene glycol cases she's investigated were in fact suicides. But Dr. Mainland believes this was a murder and that Julie was poisoned sometime Tuesday night, two days before she died.
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A Toxic Relationship
But at first, toxicology tests showed no sign of ethylene glycol in Julie Jensen's system. Frustrated, investigators confronted Mark Jensen with Julie's accusing letter.
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A Toxic Relationship
Mark seems a little stunned. But finally... Mark denies he had anything to do with Julie's death. Like the police, Jam Boys believes Julie's words prove that she was murdered.
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A Toxic Relationship
But others read the same words very differently. What do you think this letter was?
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A Toxic Relationship
It takes more than two years and three labs, but tests finally reveal a small amount of ethylene glycol in Julie Jensen's stomach. You do not believe she committed suicide? Out of the question. Assistant DA Angie Gabrielle and Bob Jambois, now a special prosecutor.
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A Toxic Relationship
In March of 2002, Mark Jensen was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of his wife, Julie. I absolutely do not believe he did it. Mark's parents believe the police have it all wrong, that as a trained nurse, Julie is the one who knew all about drugs and poisons. How do you believe Julie died?
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A Toxic Relationship
Dan and Florence Jensen say that Julie, after going on the home computer to do research, took the small amount of ethylene glycol herself, but never intended to die.
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A Toxic Relationship
You're saying that Julie Jensen didn't mean to commit suicide and that she wasn't murdered, but that she basically was trying to make it look as if she was being poisoned by Mark so that he would go to prison and she would end up with the kids and the house.
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A Toxic Relationship
But the Jensens aren't the only ones who think Julie may have orchestrated her own death. A forensic pathologist hired by Mark Jensen's defense called the letter contrived, unbelievable, and self-serving. What matters is what jurors will think of the letter. And they may never see it. By law, Mark Jensen is entitled to confront his accuser in court. But Julie Jensen is dead.
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A Toxic Relationship
So before trial, Jensen's attorneys argue that the letter should be thrown out of court. And shockingly, the judge agrees.
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A Toxic Relationship
Jambois decides to fight for the letter. His appeal, which takes another five long years, goes all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
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A Toxic Relationship
The state Supreme Court agrees. Julie's letter can be used at trial, but only if the state can show at a preliminary hearing that there's enough other incriminating evidence to point to Mark Jensen as the killer. Almost nine years after Julie Jensen's death, free on bail, Mark is now married to his lover, Kelly Labonte.
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A Toxic Relationship
As the hearing begins, he is looking and feeling confident, until suddenly, a surprise witness takes the stand. Your Honor, the state calls Ed Klug to the stand. Ed Klug, who used to work with Mark... Could you point to him? ...now claims that three weeks before Julie died, Mark told him he was looking up ways to kill her.
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A Toxic Relationship
Wait a minute, suddenly he talks about going on websites on how to kill his wife?
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A Toxic Relationship
Yet Klug never reported the conversation to the police. So you find out that Julie Jensen dies a month after Mark Jensen tells you he's looking up ways to kill her.
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A Toxic Relationship
I mean, your life was busy, but we're talking about a possible murder.
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A Toxic Relationship
But you never told him you had a conversation with Mark about killing his wife?
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A Toxic Relationship
In fact, Klug only became involved because one of his co-workers tipped off the prosecutor. Klug was then ordered to testify.
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A Toxic Relationship
Do you believe that Mark did discuss with Ed Klug that night? No. The research he was doing or the idea of killing his wife?
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A Toxic Relationship
But the judge believes Klug and suddenly raises Jensen's bond to more than a million dollars.
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A Toxic Relationship
Unable to pay it, Mark Jensen hugs his son goodbye and is taken to jail to await trial for murder.
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie Jensen's brothers struggle to understand why Julie never shared her fears with them. The defense says Julie planned this whole thing. She was going to commit suicide and punish her husband with it because he was having an affair. Isn't that a possible reason why she didn't tell anyone?
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A Toxic Relationship
But will it make sense to 12 jurors? More than nine years after Julie's death, Mark Jensen goes on trial for her murder. And at the heart of the case is her letter. The judge will allow it in as evidence.
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A Toxic Relationship
Special prosecutor Bob Jambois wastes no time letting Julie speak, but he also begins the trial with a bombshell. Jambois no longer believes that poison alone killed Julie Jensen.
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie Jensen was suffocated? Why, after more than nine years with Jam Boys, suddenly change his theory of how Julie died? Because of this man, Aaron Dillard, and what he has to say.
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A Toxic Relationship
Just months before the trial, Aaron Dillard suddenly came forward with a shocking story. He says Mark Jensen confessed that he had killed his wife, that at first he tried to spike her drink with a small amount of ethylene glycol.
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A Toxic Relationship
Dillard's story makes sense of something that has troubled investigators all these years, the odd position of Julie's face when her body was found. What do you mean her nose and mouth were pushed to one side?
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A Toxic Relationship
The prosecution still believes that Mark Jensen poisoned his wife's drink.
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A Toxic Relationship
And in a rather startling demonstration, the Kenosha County medical examiner tastes a minute amount herself just to show the jury why Julie wouldn't have noticed she was drinking a poison.
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A Toxic Relationship
Sweet. But Dr. Mainland has changed her opinion on what actually killed Julie Jensen.
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A Toxic Relationship
All because of this man. But there is a serious problem with Aaron Dillard. And how did you meet him?
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A Toxic Relationship
That's right, Aaron Dillard is a jailhouse snitch with a long record of fraud. He's got seven criminal convictions?
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A Toxic Relationship
But you're gonna put him on the stand and rely on winning over a jury in this murder trial on the guy that you wouldn't buy a car from?
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A Toxic Relationship
Defense attorney Craig Albee goes after Dillard, who was released from jail in exchange for his testimony.
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A Toxic Relationship
The defense says that this whole story is just your get-out-of-jail-free card and that you made the whole thing up.
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A Toxic Relationship
To establish a motive for murder, the prosecution calls Kelly Jensen, Mark's former mistress, now his wife.
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A Toxic Relationship
But the defense says the affair wasn't a motive for murder. It was the reason for suicide. It's why Julie took the ethylene glycol herself and tried to blame it on Mark.
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A Toxic Relationship
And that's when another surprising witness is called, Julie's own brother, Patrick.
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A Toxic Relationship
Reluctantly, he admits to the jury that at age 16 and angry at his father, he cut his wrist.
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A Toxic Relationship
Was there a side of you concerned that because of something you did so long ago, that could make the jury find Mark not guilty? Yeah, I was very afraid of that. Mark Jensen is the only person who really knows what happened to Julie Jensen.
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A Toxic Relationship
The mystery of Julie Jensen's death has taken so long to resolve that both sides are ready for some answers.
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A Toxic Relationship
In closing, Special Prosecutor Bob Jambois uses Julie's letter to convince the jury that she was poisoned.
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A Toxic Relationship
While the defense argues that the letter is the work of a sick woman who wanted to punish Mark Jensen,
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A Toxic Relationship
Determining the truth was rougher than any juror could imagine. Eight of them and one alternate say they didn't believe the prosecution's new theory that Julie Jensen was suffocated. How do you believe Julie Jensen died? And suffocation? which means they also didn't believe the prosecution's star witness, Erin Dillard. Did anybody believe Erin Dillard? No. No.
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A Toxic Relationship
And even after seven weeks of trial, they still found Julie Jensen herself a mystery.
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A Toxic Relationship
Guilty of first degree murder. What do you think Mark was feeling inside? Devastated.
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A Toxic Relationship
In the end, Julie turned out to be the most important witness. The jury believed her letter was truly a cry for help. How important was the letter?
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A Toxic Relationship
This list was in my husband's business daily planner, not meant for me to see.
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A Toxic Relationship
Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. It's about an hour north of Chicago on the western shores of Lake Michigan. It booms in the summertime. But when the Wisconsin winter settles in, the village becomes a cold, bleak place. No one who lived here was quite prepared for what happened on December 3, 1998.
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A Toxic Relationship
But also in court is Mark and Julie's oldest son, David, now 18. And there is another letter, this time written by David and his brother, read by the defense attorney.
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A Toxic Relationship
For the first time, Mark Jensen shows emotion, but the judge is unmoved.
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A Toxic Relationship
Mark Jensen is sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
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A Toxic Relationship
Patrick's loving tribute to his sister, an album dedicated to her life.
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A Toxic Relationship
Bob Jambois, then the Kenosha County District Attorney, had a lot of questions about what he found inside the house on Lakeshore Drive.
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie Jensen, a wife and mother of two small boys, was still in her bed where her husband Mark had found her. So you did consider that she might have committed suicide?
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie's husband Mark also struggled to explain his wife's sudden death.
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A Toxic Relationship
Mark had been with Julie for 20 years, since they had been high school sweethearts.
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A Toxic Relationship
They started college together too, but Julie dropped out just one semester short of a degree in nursing.
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A Toxic Relationship
What drew Julie to Mark, say her brothers, was his drive, a young stockbroker on the move.
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A Toxic Relationship
On April 13, 1984, the night before Mark and Julie got married, Julie's mother, June, suddenly passed out.
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A Toxic Relationship
It was the first time that the Jensens realized that Julie's mother was battling alcoholism and depression. Was Julie afraid of ending up like her mom?
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A Toxic Relationship
Shortly after Mark and Julie's first child, David, was born in 1991, their marriage was rocked by a revelation.
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A Toxic Relationship
Well, what was your reaction when you heard that Juliet had an affair?
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie filed for divorce, but changed her mind after she and Mark went to counseling. I never pried.
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A Toxic Relationship
They had another son, Doug, in 1995, but the Jensen marriage was strained. By the fall of 1998, Mark began telling friends that his wife was depressed. He was overwhelmed by this depression.
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie went to see her family doctor, who prescribed an antidepressant. Two days later, she was dead.
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A Toxic Relationship
With no obvious signs of injury and an inconclusive autopsy, the cause of Julie's death could not be determined. She was miserable. She was distraught. Isn't it possible that this was just a very low time and she took her life?
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie had never talked about suicide, and she didn't leave a note. But as it turns out, she did leave a letter.
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A Toxic Relationship
In the fall of 1998, Julie Jensen blurted out an unusual story to a woman she barely knew, her son's third grade teacher, Terese DeFazio.
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie also shared her fears with Ted and Margaret Voigt. When did Julie actually say to you, I think my husband's trying to kill me?
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A Toxic Relationship
Julie's accusation shocked the Voights, who have been the Jensen's next door neighbors for seven years. Did they seem happy together?
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A Toxic Relationship
But Ted says in August of 1998, after taking a new job, Mark Jensen seemed to change, becoming very critical of Julie.
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A Toxic Relationship
Two months later, Julie said Mark was acting suspiciously, searching the web for poisons and writing bizarre notes, which Julie photographed.
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A Toxic Relationship
To tell you the truth, I didn't know what to think of that. But by early November, Margaret and Ted had become very concerned about Julie.
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A Toxic Relationship
And Therese suggested Julie go to a woman's shelter. Again, she said no.
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A Toxic Relationship
On November 21st, Julie handed Ted Voight a letter to give to the police if anything happened to her. Did you read the letter? No, I didn't.
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A Toxic Relationship
A little more than 24 hours later, Julie was dead. The Voights took Julie's letter to the authorities. Assistant District Attorney Angie Gabrielle. I took this picture and I'm writing this on Saturday, November... Julie's letter referred to the photo she took of a list, the same list she had mentioned to Terese DeFazio.
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A Toxic Relationship
District Attorney Bob Jambois grew even more suspicious when experts examined the Jensen's home computer. Someone had tried to erase its history, but not everything was gone.
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A Toxic Relationship
Kelly Labonte is a woman Mark met at his new job, and the email spelled it all out for investigators.
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A Toxic Relationship
Just as Julie had reported to The Voice, the computer's history revealed search after search for various poisons, including ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze.
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.
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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.
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The Imposter
When Detective Allen called the number he had for Crowe, it was Manabe who answered.
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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?
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The Imposter
Oh, you had no idea? How would I know? But here's what Mahoko Manabe said at trial.
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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?
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The Imposter
Crow laid low for about three years. And in that time, a Rockefeller was born.
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The Imposter
When you were growing up, did you get most of your ideas about America from watching movies and reading books? Books. Books?
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The Imposter
You once mentioned The Great Gatsby. Yeah, that's one of them. And of course, there was television. One program in particular.
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The Imposter
Perhaps unconsciously. That was your idea of what a blue-blooded American would sound like?
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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.
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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.
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The Imposter
Boston Rockefeller quickly became an item and later moved in together. She says she simply accepted his odd and eccentric behavior.
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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.
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The Imposter
The grave site was directly behind the guest house where a young man named Chichester once lived.
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The Imposter
The remains were so decomposed that they couldn't be officially identified, and the coroner wouldn't rule it a homicide.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Imposter
For six days, Rockefeller eluded even the FBI by changing his identity once again.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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The Imposter
Did you know what you were getting into when you first started this investigation?
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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.
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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?
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The Imposter
Dark edges, says Dr. Sheridan, mean the fractures occurred at the time of death and not when the body was unearthed.
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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.
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The Imposter
In an L.A. courtroom in March of 2013, Christian Gerhartsreiter went on trial for the murder of John Soas.
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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.
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The Imposter
Like a scene from a Hitchcock thriller, Kern says, the defendant carefully concocted the couple's disappearance.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
At Melissa's trial, Dr. Choi had told the jury he observed no sign of an old injury. But according to Dr. Rudd, Dr. Choi had simply missed it. He called in Dr. Nancy Jones, a well-regarded pathologist, for a second opinion.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
and she agreed with dr rudd and noted that the old injury had been healing for about two or three months a time frame consistent with that bump on ben's head that was noticed at daycare how they let that go is beyond me like the defense experts at trial doctors jones and rudd believed that the old injury was further exacerbated by ben's head banging
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Dr. Rudd phoned the now-retired Dr. Choi, who signed a sworn affidavit conceding that he had missed that Ben had suffered an old injury. But he crossed out the word significant, and when asked if he would have changed his testimony at trial, Dr. Choi said, no.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But Dr. Rudd suspected that Dr. Choi may have also been wrong about another major issue in the case, that alleged skull fracture.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Dr. Rudd believed what Dr. Choi and the other medical experts thought was a skull fracture may have instead been a normal part of Ben's growing skull, but he couldn't prove it. Then in 2015, Melissa's father said he received an anonymous call that there was a set of x-rays at the coroner's office that had never been turned over to the defense.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
When Dr. Rudd's staff searched the computer archives, they came across these startling images that were never shown at trial.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
In 2015, four years after Melissa Kaluzinski's conviction and shortly after those clear x-rays of Ben Kingham were found, Dr. Rudd changed the manner of death on Ben's death certificate from homicide to undetermined. By this point, defense attorney Kathleen Zellner had taken on Melissa's case.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Zellner, who has built a career on getting the wrongfully convicted out of prison, was intent on getting Melissa's conviction overturned. And in 2016, Melissa was granted an evidentiary hearing to present what Zellner argued was new evidence before Judge Daniel Shaines, the same judge who presided over Melissa's trial.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Remember, the state gave Melissa's trial attorney, Paul DeLuca, a disc containing these dark, unreadable x-rays before trial. At the evidentiary hearing, Dr. Rudd testified about finding the clear x-rays, x-rays that he and other defense experts said showed no skull fracture, x-rays that Zellner argued would have changed the outcome of Melissa's trial.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But at the evidentiary hearing, prosecutors argued that this wasn't new evidence in the case. They said the discs provided to DeLuca had software that could enhance the X-rays and that he simply didn't do enough to brighten them. DeLuca says he couldn't even open the software.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Zellner, with the help of an imaging expert, argued that it didn't matter what DeLuca did, that the x-rays that he had been given had been modified and were inferior to the ones on the coroner's office computer. She also called a witness whom she believed raised more questions about the prosecution's case, Paul Foreman, the deputy coroner during Ben Kingan's autopsies.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Foreman disputed the testimony of one of the most important witnesses at Melissa's trial, Dr. Manny Montez. Remember, Dr. Montez was the state's final witness who testified that he felt a fracture in Ben Kingan's skull. But Foreman, who said he was there when Montez came to the coroner's office, testified that Montez never physically examined Ben's body, or actually touch the child's skull.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Could he have somehow gone in and looked at Ben's body, examined the body without you knowing?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The state tried to discredit Foreman by questioning his memory as well as his mental health. Foreman told us he had been treated for bipolar disorder and depression.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But Foreman wasn't the only defense witness who raised questions about Dr. Montes' testimony. Dr. Robert Zimmerman, a renowned pediatric neuroradiologist who examined the readable x-rays, testified that if that skull fracture had existed, it would be clearly visible.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But prosecutors stood by their trial witnesses, Dr. Montes and Dr. Choi, who said they saw and felt a skull fracture. We reached out to both doctors for this broadcast, but they did not respond to our request for comment. When the evidentiary hearing ended, Judge Shaines ruled against Melissa.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
In his ruling, Judge Shane stated that he didn't find Paul Foreman's testimony regarding Dr. Montes credible, and he agreed with the state that Paul DeLuca could have brightened the x-rays and made them readable. It was another letdown for Melissa and her family. You clearly made a mistake. I just don't understand. Zellner appealed the ruling, but again, a disappointment.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And then four years later in 2022, there was a development that few saw coming. Eric Reinhart, a new state's attorney in Lake County, the county where Melissa was convicted, had taken office. Zellner says he wanted more information on the discrepancy over the x-rays. So he recommended she retain the digital forensics company Garrett Discovery.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Andrew Garrett is the CEO of Garrett Discovery. Brian Bowman is a digital forensics expert who works for him. They concluded the x-rays were manipulated by someone using a software tool used to view x-rays. How did Paul DeLuca, the defense attorney, end up with these very dark pictures?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Is there any evidence that corroborates the confession that Melissa made?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
On the coroner's computer? On the coroner's computer. Bowman agrees there was little DeLuca could do.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But if Ben Kingan's x-rays were manipulated, who didn't? In their report, Garrett and Bowman pointed to the state. You put in here, the state adjusted the settings of the images that resulted in black, washed-out images. You're saying that either the prosecutor's office or the coroner's office, but somebody representing the state did this.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Hello Melissa. Hi Erin. It's been, boy, more than a decade since I first met you. When we first met, did you ever think you'd still be here this long?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
In late 2022, when Lake County State's Attorney Eric Reinhart met with the forensic experts, experts he recommended, and learned of their findings, attorneys Kathleen Zellmer and Paul DeLuca were also there.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But nothing happened, say Zellner and DeLuca. And as the months stretched on, Zellner decided to also look more closely at Melissa's confession.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Zellner asked Dr. Saul Kasson, a psychology professor and leading expert on false confessions, to review the case. Dr. Kasson had first analyzed the interrogation back in 2016 when he was a CBS News consultant. He told us then and now that it appears police went into that room determined to get a confession.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Remember, a detective reported that during the autopsy, the pathologist, Dr. Choi, told him that Ben had a skull fracture and that the injury was recent and was caused by another person using strong force. They did an autopsy on Ben. Yeah.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
I wasn't paying attention and slipped out of my pants. But that didn't satisfy the detectives, who had left the room periodically to phone Dr. Choi.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
After nine hours in that room, the investigators were finally getting Melissa to tell a story that could account for a skull fracture.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Like a fracture. Then they gave Melissa a scenario of why she got angry.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The detectives who interrogated Melissa did not respond to our request for comment. Dr. Casson raises concerns about how long Melissa was in that room, approximately 10 hours, and how particularly vulnerable she was. About two and a half years before Ben Kingan's death, Melissa had reported she was raped.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Somebody took x-rays that were completely clear and turned them into unreadable images.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The defense recently had Melissa evaluated by a psychologist and psychiatrist. They diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder. They also assessed her as having borderline intellectual functioning. She scored at a 4.8 grade level in sentence comprehension. which could help explain why she believed she could go home, even after she had confessed to murder.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The jury at Melissa's trial heard about her low IQ, but the judge would not allow a false confession expert to testify. Zellner believes that testimony might have changed the verdict. If Melissa Kaluzinski had not walked into that room as she had insisted on attorney, would she be in prison today?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
So you're saying that either the prosecutor's office or the coroner's office, but somebody representing the state did this?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But if Melissa didn't harm Ben Kingen, what happened to the toddler? It raises more questions about that earlier injury, the one that was discovered at the daycare months before his death. Several employees there remembered a co-worker.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And the defense was never able to track her down. But we did. A number of people have said that Ben was hurt when he was with you. Melissa Kaluzinski was interrogated for hours about the injury Ben Kingan received just before his death. But what about the daycare worker who was reported to be with Ben a few months earlier when he got a lump on his head?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
She didn't return our calls, but when we located her, she agreed to speak to us on the condition we obscure her face and identify her only by Brenda, her first name. On October 27, 2008, there was a report of an injury on Ben Kingan. Do you remember that? No, I don't. The way it's been described from some people is that Ben was with you, and you were putting him in the bed.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
They heard a bump, and then he had a bump on the back of his head. No. Did that happen with you? No.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
No, it didn't happen. Brenda has never been charged with harming Ben, intentionally or accidentally. But attorney Kathleen Zellmer is adamant that Ben sustained a serious injury that day.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
And according to these police reports, it wouldn't be the first time that the daycare allegedly tried to cover up the seriousness of a child's injury. The daycare was shut down by state authorities shortly after Ben died. In April 2024, more than 12 years after Melissa's conviction, with no success in the court system, Zellner filed this clemency petition asking Illinois Governor J.B.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Pritzker to exonerate Melissa or release her for time served.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Before a scheduled hearing, Lake County State's Attorney Eric Reinhart spoke to an attorney representing Ben Kingan's family. And then he wrote this letter to the Prisoner Review Board, stating his office strongly opposes Melissa's clemency petition. Were you shocked by that? Totally.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Reinhart would not do an on-camera interview or speak to us on the record. But in that letter to the board, he stated that there is no new evidence in the case and that Melissa's petition for clemency does not establish innocence. On July 9, 2024, Zellner went before the Prisoner Review Board to make her case for Melissa's freedom.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
but also they are making an impassioned plea for Ben Kingan's parents.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Amy and Andy Kingen declined our request for an interview. Following Amy's statement, Zellner was then given the chance to respond.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
After the hearing, it was up to the Prisoner Review Board to make a confidential recommendation to Governor Pritzker as to whether Melissa should be released. If you had a chance to talk to Governor Pritzker yourself, what would you say?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Holly, who worked at the daycare with Melissa, believes her, so much so that she wrote this letter to the governor.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Melissa Koyuzinski has served 16 years of a 31-year prison sentence for the death of Benjamin Kingen, a 16-month-old whom she cared for at an Illinois daycare center. She has long insisted she is innocent.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
We've been covering this case for more than a decade. And over the years, Melissa's appeals have failed. But she and her attorney, Kathleen Zellmer, are not backing down. Now they're taking their fight out of the court system and straight to the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, and his prisoner review board.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The story began on January 14, 2009. Melissa, then 22 years old, was working as a teacher's assistant at the Minisubi Daycare in Lincolnshire, an affluent suburb of Chicago. Ben Kingan attended daycare there, along with his twin sister and their two older siblings.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Late that afternoon, after the kids were fed a snack and cleaned up, Melissa says she put Ben down on the carpet and he crawled into his bouncy seat on the floor.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The teacher working with Melissa stepped out of the room briefly, leaving Melissa alone with the children. That's when Melissa says she noticed something wrong with Ben.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Melissa called for help. Her older sister, Crystal Kaluzinski, also worked at the daycare at the time.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Paramedics responded. Ben was taken to the hospital. He was pronounced dead an hour later.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
An investigation was launched According to this police report, during an autopsy, the pathologist, Dr. Yupil Choi, told a detective that he observed a skull fracture, extensive bleeding inside Ben's head, and that the injury was caused by another person using strong force within hours prior to Ben's death. And yet, Ben had no cuts or obvious wounds on the outside of his body, no serious bruises.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The pathologist listed the autopsy as pending further studies. Police brought in the daycare workers who had been with the toddler on the day of his death, determined to find out what happened to Ben. After Melissa was read her rights.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Melissa denied over and over again, more than 60 times, doing anything to Ben.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
All these years later, Melissa still remembers what it was like being in that room.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
After nine hours under pressure and without an attorney, Melissa changed her story. She said she thought if she told the investigators what they wanted to hear, they would let her go home.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
You weren't thinking of the consequences of doing something like that?
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A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Yeah, really hard. When Melissa was taken to another station for booking, she repeated the same story to another investigator. After spending 14 hours with police, Melissa Kaluzinski was arrested for the murder of Benjamin Kingen. Even though she almost immediately took back the story she told police.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Melissa's parents, Paul and Cheryl Kaluzinski, still remember receiving the news. And I said, what? Did you think possibly she had hurt this baby?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But Melissa had told investigators that she did. And after that, the manner of death on Ben's death certificate was listed as homicide. Law enforcement announced they had solved the case.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Melissa's family would make it their mission to clear her name.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
They had no idea how much of a fight they were in for.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
In November 2011, nearly three years after the death of Ben Kingan, Melissa Kowalczynski went on trial for murder. The state argued that Ben was a perfectly healthy toddler leading up to his death. Matthew Demartini and Steven Scheller prosecuted the case.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Dr. Choi, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy, testified about that skull fracture he said he had seen and how he believed the child's injury was recent and consistent with having been thrown to the floor by someone. But Melissa's trial attorney, Paul DeLuca, told the jury about a head injury Ben had previously received. It was noticed at the daycare three months earlier.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
After Ben's death, multiple people, including daycare teacher Nancy Callenger, told investigators about it. But prosecutor Stephen Scheller argued that the earlier injury was insignificant.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
That's not what defense experts said. They noted that after the injury, there were possible signs of head trauma. Medical records show that in the days after the injury, Ben was lethargic and had a persistent fever. And another daycare employee, Holly, who asked that we identify her by her first name only, testified for the defense about the last time she saw Ben.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
But the defense maintained that Ben's prior injury was so serious that any new impact could have had major consequences. And Ben did have a habit of throwing his head back.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Nancy Callenger recalled that Ben had done that twice on the day of his death.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Do you believe that Melissa Kaluzinski had anything to do with Ben Kingan's death?
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
Prosecutors told the jury that the fall was so severe it caused that skull fracture. At trial, they mentioned a skull fracture more than 30 times. But was there one? Well, most of the experts who testified from both sides agreed there appeared to be a fracture in autopsy photos. One defense expert said she couldn't say for sure. And according to Melissa's attorney, Paul DeLuca,
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The x-rays the prosecution had provided before the trial were unreadable.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The state's final witness, pathologist Dr. Manny Montes, gave the most vivid and damaging testimony at trial. He said he examined the body and felt the fracture with his bare hands.
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The jury deliberated for seven hours before convicting Melissa Kaluzinski of aggravated battery of a child and first-degree murder. My heart sunk. I know I didn't do this. Melissa's family remained determined to prove her innocence. I didn't accept the verdict. I knew it was wrong. And in 2012, a year after the conviction, Dr. Thomas Rudd,
48 Hours
A Day Care Worker Convicted of Murder
The then newly elected Lake County coroner agreed to review the autopsy evidence at the urging of Melissa's trial attorney.
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?
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The "No Body" Case of Dee Warner
When you're driving through here, are you still wondering where Dee is?
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Black Widow
There was a first indication on March 13, 2003, that anything was unusual about David Lee.
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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.
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The Black Widow
It's the only explanation. Rinella Lee is guilty of the first-degree premeditated homicide of David Lee.
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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.