00:00:26
At the end of the day, I put my son to sleep and uh I went to head and I remember my phone going off and it was
00:00:33
my father. There's been an accident. Your mom's okay. The ambulance is on the way. And I was like, and I just ran out
00:00:41
the door. I lived right next door. I had no idea what happened until I got over there.
00:00:58
Soon as I walked in, you could see right here, she was laying on the bed. The blood was just all over the floor, the
00:01:05
side of the bed. >> Where's your dad at this time? >> He was on the phone somewhere, maybe
00:01:12
downstairs, and I couldn't really see what he was doing. And then I grabbed a towel off the floor
00:01:19
and I held a towel on her head. I just remember yelling to him to please help me and and I remember asking her please
00:01:27
mom just like squeeze my hand. >> Did your mom respond to you? >> No. >> Do you remember asking him what
00:01:37
happened? >> Not that night. At one point I remember him saying he was putting the gun away
00:01:42
under the bed and and she sat down and the gun went off. >> Did you know at the time that he had
00:01:49
also been shot? I remember his hand being wrapped up. I didn't know if he was just holding a towel or what he was
00:01:57
holding. >> He had shot through his hand when he shot my mom. He just said it was like
00:02:03
this freak accident. And we thought like, well, who was going to who's going to shoot themselves?
00:02:10
>> He never wavered from his story that it was an accident. At >> trooper PJ McDuran, we're here at the
00:02:16
residence with the homeowner, Bruno Rakuba. Why do you think your father was so open
00:02:23
about talking with the police? I >> think he was trying to prove that he was innocent.
00:02:30
>> So, we were both in bed and I reached over. I grabbed it. My wife was sitting
00:02:35
on the bed on that side. I was on this side and I pulled the trigger by accident.
00:02:44
>> My sister Melissa died Saturday morning. I'm worried about the girls. Their mother is gone.
00:02:52
>> My dad, everyone felt horrible for him. That's his wife of 25 years. >> I just lost my mom and I was probably
00:03:00
going to lose my dad. >> Did you expect that your father would be charged with something?
00:03:06
>> I thought maybe negligent homicide because he was negligent with a gun. >> I just went like this.
00:03:11
>> He didn't spend a single night in jail. >> And not every shooting is a crime. you
00:03:17
really do look at circumstances, but apparently they did and they were convinced that they couldn't prove a
00:03:23
case. >> I was reviewing all of the open case homicides and this one caught my attention and we just went down that
00:03:36
rabbit hole of putting all the pieces together >> and the alarm bells went off when I saw
00:03:41
a surveillance system and evidence and no one had looked at this. This is the last time she's ever seen
00:03:49
>> that time of year. Their window was open so you could also pick up sound from
00:03:53
inside of the bedroom as well. >> We were able to hear their last conversation together
00:04:01
and then a gunshot goes off. >> There's so many twists and turns and this is the story for generations that
00:04:11
we have to tell and that's pretty sad. On a steamy August night in 2013, Melissa Ruba was airlifted to this
00:05:10
hospital. still clinging to life with a bullet wound to her head. Her then 22-year-old daughter Chelsea was already
00:05:18
there when the helicopter arrived. >> I had no idea how I got down there. I was just panicked and frantic.
00:05:26
>> Her sister Sabrina, who lives in Wisconsin, sped to the airport in tears. >> It was just a lot of me just praying to
00:05:33
God that my mom was going to be okay. Melissa's sister Joanne and their father, then a police sergeant in
00:05:40
another county, raced to Melissa's bedside. It's a few hours of driving. >> Not that night. We got there really
00:05:48
fast. >> Bruno was being treated at a different hospital where specialists operated on
00:05:54
his hand. >> He had a hole through the middle of his hand. Pennsylvania State Police detectives
00:06:01
wanted to know how the bullet went through Bruno's palm and hit Melissa in the head.
00:06:07
>> Got home from work at 3:30 in the afternoon. >> Less than 15 hours after the shooting
00:06:13
with Bruno's hand freshly bandaged and Melissa on life support. Detectives asked Bruno to walk them through his
00:06:21
house and explain what happened after the couple arrived home from a night out with friends.
00:06:28
And we came home just before 10:00. And after that, we went downstairs, washed up, came up to go to bed.
00:06:38
>> Using a toy gun provided by police. Bruno demonstrated how he claims his 40 caliber pistol went off accidentally.
00:06:47
>> My wife was home alone all last week, so I left him top drawer on the nightstand
00:06:52
for because of recent breakins. He said their grandson was coming over the next day and he wanted to safely
00:07:00
store the gun. >> I went to check them um chamber to see if there was a round in there.
00:07:07
>> Okay. >> Sitting on the mattress still stained with his wife's blood. Bruno tried to
00:07:13
show them what happened. I went like this and she was sitting in the bed there and I went like this and she was
00:07:20
watching TV and it was it I just went like this and she leaned back toward me and I must
00:07:31
have pulled it away and then shot through my hand. >> Earlier, investigators had gone through
00:07:37
the house shooting video of the scene and collecting evidence and didn't note any signs of a struggle. Hospital staff
00:07:45
found no other injuries on Melissa and Bruno said they had been getting along just fine.
00:07:51
>> Any discussions or any arguments or anything before that happened? >> No. Okay.
00:07:56
>> He looked me in my face and said, "We walked in the house holding hands. There
00:07:59
was no arguments that night." >> Jack Wilchesy and his wife Tanya were out to dinner with Bruno and Melissa
00:08:06
that evening and he says everything seemed fine. >> No arguing? >> No arguing, no nothing. They were fine
00:08:14
that night. >> The day after the shooting, Bruno agreed to a polygraph exam. According to police
00:08:21
records, the results were inconclusive. Worried about her father, Chelsea says she suggested he speak with attorney Joe
00:08:30
Deandria. Did you wonder why he was calling you? >> Well, I'm fairly well-known criminal
00:08:36
defense lawyer around and uh police had talked to him without my participation or knowledge. I guess he was curious if
00:08:44
there was anything he had to worry about. >> Melissa spent several days in intensive
00:08:51
care. >> I remember talking to the neurologist and I was like, "There's got to be
00:08:56
something you can do." And they were just trying to calm me down and tell me that there's no hope.
00:09:02
>> 3 days after the shooting, Melissa's family made the agonizing decision to take her off life support.
00:09:09
>> We knew she was she was suffering. It was August 10th, 2013 at 1:45 a.m. when Melissa passed away.
00:09:20
Joanne says they were all in shock. And even though no one in the family wanted to believe Bruno had deliberately shot
00:09:28
Melissa, they were surprised when he was never arrested. >> My grandfather said if that happened in
00:09:34
Bucks County, where my grandfather was placed, he was like, "Your dad would have instantly been in cuffs." He was
00:09:38
like, he didn't spend a single night in jail, which is really weird. >> Joe DeAndrea says the district
00:09:45
attorney's office felt they didn't have enough evidence to charge Bruno with murder and decided not to charge him at
00:09:52
all. >> They were convinced that they couldn't prove a case. >> Melissa's death certificate listed her
00:09:59
cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head. The manner of death was left pending.
00:10:06
And no one said to you, "We've concluded it was an accident." >> No, it was just still an open open case.
00:10:13
>> But as the family began to catch their breath and process Melissa's death, they
00:10:19
slowly started comparing notes about Bruno's version of what happened and his behavior before and after the shooting.
00:10:28
And a case for murder began to unfold. I just couldn't I couldn't justify any of
00:10:34
his stories. >> The daughters of Melissa and Bruno Rakuba say they grew up believing they
00:10:53
had the ideal family. >> So did all my friends. I remember my best friends were like, "Your family's
00:11:00
so loving and happy and you guys do everything together." >> I always wanted my sister's life. She
00:11:06
had the kids, she had the marriage, the good guy. >> The couple met in the summer of 1988.
00:11:14
Back then, Melissa, who was just 19 years old, was a police officer. Bruno, 22, was enlisted in the Navy.
00:11:23
>> And what did you think of Bruno when you met him? I loved him. He seemed to love my
00:11:29
sister. >> She loved being a wife and she loved being a mother. >> She was an amazing mom.
00:11:42
>> And Bruno was a great dad, says Sabrina. >> My dad was wonderful. I mean, I can't
00:11:50
complain about him as a dad. >> We went hunting together. We went fishing together. When I was really
00:11:55
young, I wanted to cut my hair to be like my dad. Like, that's how close we were.
00:12:00
>> But as the girls grew older and became parents themselves, they say they began
00:12:05
to see flaws in their parents' marriage. >> We had moved in there, me and my ex-husband, with my parents when my
00:12:11
daughter was about 9 months old. And it was like all the time. They were constantly arguing. The breaking point
00:12:17
was when they got really drunk one night and my dad grabbed her by the back of the hair and he whipped her into the
00:12:23
wall. It made a really loud thud and she couldn't breathe. I was like, "We can't
00:12:27
stay here anymore. This isn't healthy." I tried talking to my mom and she was just like, "Well, everybody has like
00:12:32
disagreements." And like she downplayed she never wanted to talk bad about our dad to us.
00:12:38
>> Two weeks before the shooting, Chelsea says her mother shared a startling secret about something Bruno had done to
00:12:45
her. >> She took me for a ride in the car and told me, you know, that he had pulled a
00:12:49
gun on her before. My mom told my sister that my mom didn't want to have sex with my dad one night
00:12:56
and my my dad pulled a gun on my mother over this. >> Why would she tell me this now? She's
00:13:02
never said a bad word about him before. And all of a sudden it was Chelsea, I just need you to know that like your
00:13:08
dad's not always who you think he is. >> Chelsea admits that she had a bad feeling about her mother's shooting from
00:13:15
the start, but stayed silent for the sake of her father. I didn't want to just say something that would have put
00:13:22
him in jail if he really didn't do it. >> Joanne says she also had her doubts about her sister's death because just
00:13:32
months before the shooting, Melissa told her she wanted out of her marriage. >> She was questioning things and asked how
00:13:40
she would be able to to do it on her own. >> Was Bruno controlling? >> Very. My sister couldn't go anywhere
00:13:51
without him knowing her every move. >> Joanne says it wasn't long after Melissa's death when her mind began to
00:13:59
race. >> I started playing back everything, everything that I could remember. >> For starters, says Joanne, Bruno spent
00:14:09
very little time by his wife's side as she lay dying. He would come there, maybe stay like an hour, and then leave.
00:14:19
When she died, he wasn't there. He was at the house. Chelsea says her father's behavior began
00:14:25
to haunt her as well. For instance, just hours after the shooting, Chelsea says her father asked
00:14:33
her to bring him her mother's cell phone, which had not been collected by police. She says her father wanted to
00:14:40
erase a few text messages that he feared investigators might take the wrong way.
00:14:47
>> It was like I don't want them to think anything because of like a little like
00:14:51
argument or something they had. Maybe it was that week or day. >> Did that strike you as odd at the time?
00:14:56
>> It did, but you don't want to believe it. With their mother still in intensive
00:15:01
care and with the police finished collecting evidence, the girls say their father had another strange request.
00:15:09
>> He asked us to get rid of the mattress. >> Bruno asked his girls to clean his house
00:15:14
and get rid of the blood stained mattress. >> He's like, "I can't go home to that. I
00:15:20
don't want to see all the blood." And here I am 21, 22 now as an adult. I'm like, "Wow, I can't believe he asked us
00:15:27
to do that." But I just kept going and I kept wanting to make sure he was okay. >> We were so concerned because he kept
00:15:33
making comments that he was going to take his own life, that he couldn't deal with this.
00:15:36
>> How did you get rid of that mattress? >> We took it in the back of a truck and we
00:15:42
burned it in the woods. >> Chelsea and Sabrina say that before their mother was even buried, their
00:15:50
father asked for help purging all traces of her. >> He wanted us to get rid of everything.
00:15:56
And it's like he wanted her erased. >> All my sister's clothes. We had to go down to the thrift store where they
00:16:03
donated the clothes and I had to get clothes for my sister to bury her in. >> Bruno even got rid of Melissa's dog,
00:16:10
Zeus. >> My mom loved that dog. And my dad got rid of him right after my mom died.
00:16:19
It wasn't long before Joanne says she began to suspect that Bruno had another motive for erasing the memory of
00:16:27
Melissa. >> My sister's best friend said that Bruno contacted her not too long after my
00:16:35
sister had passed away and said, "How long do you think it is before you know you kind of like go public with dating
00:16:42
someone?" And she said, "Are you freaking kidding me?" And he was dead serious. Bruno was talking about Tanya Wilchesky,
00:16:53
Jack Wilchesky's wife, the couple that Bruno and Melissa were out to dinner with on the night of the shooting.
00:17:01
>> We were together 15 years at that time. Jack says he has no idea when the relationship began, but says he started
00:17:10
noticing a big difference in his wife's relationship with Bruno the day after the shooting when he walked into
00:17:17
Melissa's hospital room and found Tanya and Bruno. >> I thought they were kissing. Of course,
00:17:23
they said they were talking each other's ear, but they were embraced with each other.
00:17:28
Jack says in the weeks after the shooting, he would often come home from work and find Bruno's car in his
00:17:34
driveway. >> After a couple times, I was like, "Why you coming here? Why you can you wait
00:17:40
till I get home at 5:00 or 4:00?" >> And how did Tanya explain it? >> Of course, they always made me out like
00:17:45
I was the fool. I was seeing things I didn't see. Within months of Melissa's death, Jack says his wife went missing
00:17:53
from their home and he knew exactly where to find her. >> I woke up 2:00 in the morning and she
00:18:00
wasn't there. So, I'm thinking, "Go to Bruno's house." I went and pulled out in front. I blew the horn and she come
00:18:06
walking out with her purse with barely any clothes on. Got in her car, drove to our house, packed her bags, and moved in
00:18:13
with them right there. >> Chelsea now had a new neighbor. Tanya Wilesy. >> I remember looking out my window and she
00:18:21
was cooking Christmas dinner in my mom's kitchen. I wasn't invited. >> Chelsea says she forced herself to
00:18:30
accept what was because she didn't want her father to be alone. Then about a year and a half later, she says her
00:18:38
father casually revealed an alarming new detail about her mother's shooting. I kind of always knew and I didn't want
00:18:46
to believe it, but when I heard it come from his own mouth, I couldn't get past it.
00:19:04
As the months ticked on, it was now 2015, about a year and a half since Bruno Rakuba had allegedly accidentally
00:19:12
shot and killed his wife Melissa. His daughter Chelsea says she was still struggling with her father's
00:19:19
relationship with Tanya Wesky. I had to live here. I had to see her. She cut her
00:19:24
hair like my mom. She would go get her nails done like my mom. She sat on my mom's front porch in my mom's chair.
00:19:29
With the passage of time, she says she finally had the courage to ask her father for an explanation about his
00:19:36
actions on the night of the shooting and says she got an astonishing answer. >> He said, "I didn't mean to kill her. I
00:19:44
just tried to scare her." >> Chelsea says that Bruno changed his story and admitted that he and Melissa
00:19:51
had been arguing the night of the shooting. The gun, he said, was just meant to frighten her. Then Chelsea says
00:19:58
her father abruptly changed the subject. >> He said he had groceries in the car and
00:20:03
he turned around and walked out like he hadn't just said what he said to me. That's when I knew he actually held a
00:20:08
gun to my mom on purpose and I couldn't ever look at him the same. >> Chelsea says she spent months agonizing
00:20:15
about what to do next and then told her father she was going to share their conversation with investigators.
00:20:22
>> And he was like, "Go ahead. anything you tell them, I'll ruin your credibility
00:20:26
and nobody will believe you." >> Chelsea says she was now determined and went down to the state police barracks
00:20:33
and filled out a report which included information about the incident she says her mother shared not long before her
00:20:41
death. About that time, Bruno threatened her with a gun when she refused to be intimate with him.
00:20:47
>> It took a lot for you to go down there. What were you hoping would have happened? I was hoping they would have
00:20:55
reopened it. >> And what actually happened? >> Nothing happened. >> Chelsea recalls being told that it was
00:21:01
her word against her father's. And she says an investigator suggested her coming forward could have been motivated
00:21:09
by money. >> And at that point, I had no idea I was even entitled to my mom's inheritance.
00:21:16
Melissa left behind a will and over $300,000 meant to be divided between her husband
00:21:23
and daughters. But not long after Melissa's death, Bruno had his daughter sign paperwork that gave him complete
00:21:31
control of their mother's estate. >> He had sent me a paper in the mail said, "Do not look at it. Go get this
00:21:36
notorized and sign and send it back to me." Which I did. I didn't question it. It's my dad.
00:21:42
Sabrina says she knew she was signing away her rights to the money, but felt pressured to do it.
00:21:49
>> He was so good at manipulating me and making me feel guilty. >> Chelsea signed those same papers, but
00:21:55
says she was in shock and didn't understand the consequences. >> That hurt that he would take from us and
00:22:02
especially from his grandson. The sisters say they began to wonder if money had been the motive for their
00:22:11
mother's shooting, but without police action, they felt they had to move on. >> So, I kind of started letting it go.
00:22:20
>> Chelsea says she even let her son Greg build a bond with his grandfather. >> I hated him for taking my mom from me,
00:22:28
but I loved how good he was to my son. Four years later, in 2020, Corporal Greg Allen was assigned to investigate open
00:22:39
cases for the Pennsylvania State Police and says this case caught his eye. >> What about this case stood out to you?
00:22:47
>> To me, it was the original 911 call. >> What's the problem there? >> A gunshot wound my wife.
00:22:57
On the 911 call, I hear three different accounts of what happened. >> Okay. Was it self-inflicted?
00:23:06
>> No, we were fighting. >> He says we were fighting. >> When questioned, Bruno quickly changed
00:23:13
his story. >> You said you guys were arguing. >> No, we we were playing around with the
00:23:18
gun and we were shooting it. We were going to go shooting and I then I pulled the trigger and it went through my hand.
00:23:26
He also offered this version. >> I was playing with the gun. I let it go off. >> Bruno knew his way around guns, says
00:23:36
Corporal Allen. So why would he have his finger on the trigger of a gun that was
00:23:41
loaded? >> This is the gun that was used. >> Crime unit supervisor Corporal Dan Nylon
00:23:46
was asked by Corporal Allen to examine all the evidence, beginning with Bruno's police interview. I grabbed it. My wife
00:23:54
was sitting on a bed on that side. I was on this side. I went to check the um chamber to see if there was a round in
00:24:02
there. >> Okay. >> My wife leaned back toward me. Maybe she didn't know I was doing it and I pulled
00:24:09
the trigger by accident or else I let the slide go and it discharged. >> There were so many red flags that we
00:24:17
knew he wasn't telling the truth. >> To begin with, says Corporal Nylon. If Bruno was really trying to clear the
00:24:23
gun's chamber, he would have ejected the magazine. >> The first thing you're going to do when
00:24:27
you unload the gun is drop the magazine out of it, which >> There were also two safeties on the gun.
00:24:33
Corporal Nylon showed us just how hard it is to discharge the weapon accidentally.
00:24:38
>> So, your grip, your hand would have to be on the grip. Additionally, there is a
00:24:43
trigger safety. There is a small piece of the trigger that has to be depressed in order for the gun to fire. So, both
00:24:51
things need to occur. >> There were also questions about where Bruno and Melissa were sitting when the
00:24:56
fatal shot was fired. >> I went like this and she was sitting in the bed there. >> So, you see the way that he's holding
00:25:04
the gun. He's pointing it to the opposite side of the bed. >> But Nylon and Allan say there was blood
00:25:11
and ballistics evidence on the wall behind Bruno, >> directly behind him. So, the evidence is
00:25:18
here and here. >> Everything is behind him right now. >> But he says he shot this way.
00:25:23
>> Correct. >> They would need DNA testing and a forensic expert to confirm their
00:25:29
suspicions that Bruno was lying. >> I might have went downstairs. >> But in the meantime, Corporal Nylon
00:25:37
found a key piece of evidence that he says no one had ever examined. Video and audio from the night of the shooting.
00:25:46
recorded on a home security system. >> Turns out that a security camera mounted on the front of the house had recorded
00:25:55
Melissa Rakuba's last words. These are the final images of Melissa Ruba recorded on this home security camera
00:26:20
and this DVR. Dan Nylon says when he first discovered the recording, he could see Melissa and
00:26:29
her husband Bruno arriving home from their night out, but it was difficult to make out most of what they were saying.
00:26:36
I remember sitting in our office with the door closed, headphones on, the office refrigerator unplugged,
00:26:43
>> trying to get as many words as I could. >> Whatever. >> Greg Allen says that one thing was
00:26:49
clear. >> There was definitely an argument that happened between them. >> Allan says the original investigators
00:26:56
told him they had no way to review the recording because they didn't have access to the necessary technology. But
00:27:03
Allan's team did and could now see that the recording begins in the driveway where you can hear the couple arguing.
00:27:11
>> Whatever. >> Yep. Whatever. >> But it doesn't seem to end there. Once inside the house, it sounds like they're
00:27:21
still arguing, says Allan. >> That time of year, their window was open, so you could also pick up sound
00:27:28
audio from inside as well. The sound was just much harder to hear. But with Bruno's changing stories and
00:27:37
possible evidence of an argument, investigators were now treating Melissa Rakuba's death as a possible murder.
00:27:47
>> This is the last time she's ever seen. >> Dan and I have been doing this a long
00:27:51
time and we saw that and the evidence speaks for itself. >> Then Lacawana County District Attorney
00:27:58
Mark Powell agreed. My gut reaction was this is probably a case that should have
00:28:04
been charged back in 2013. And I can only guess that they thought it didn't warrant charges because he shot himself
00:28:11
through the hand. >> Because who would purposely shoot themselves in the hand? >> Sure. Sure.
00:28:19
>> With Pal's team now on board, Melissa's family was informed that the case was
00:28:24
once again active. time. I was like, "This is different. They are very, very sure about
00:28:32
themselves that this was a crime. My dad did this on purpose." >> Chelsea says she now had mixed feelings
00:28:39
about her relationship with her father. >> I live next door, so my son's very close
00:28:44
with him. It's not black and white. >> Investigators then sent a portion of the DVR recording to an FBI crime lab for
00:28:54
enhancement. I remember thinking the chances of this helping us are probably slim because
00:29:02
this system is old. >> DNA testing was also ordered on some of the blood evidence and a forensic expert
00:29:10
was hired to help determine how the shooting took place. >> We retain the services of Dr. Wayne Ross
00:29:17
who highly respected forensic pathologist and a blood pattern expert. About a month later, the enhanced DVR
00:29:26
audio was back. And Dan Nylon says it was clear the couple had been arguing right up until the moment the gun went
00:29:33
off. >> What do you hear on that tape? >> Lots of curses back and forth, yelling,
00:29:42
screaming. It's still hard to make out every word, but the official police transcript notes
00:29:50
that Bruno and Melissa can be heard cursing and calling each other names. The transcript also notes the sound of a
00:30:00
dog barking. Then Melissa shouts, "I didn't do anything. Listen closely." Nearly 30 minutes after they first
00:30:14
pulled into the driveway, Melissa told Bruno that he had to leave because of something he'd previously done hundreds
00:30:23
of times, said Melissa. A bit later, Melissa can be heard talking. Then it sounds like things are being
00:30:36
thrown. Just seconds later, the gun goes off. >> It was not an accident. They were
00:30:50
fighting the entire time and then a gunshot goes up. >> Joanne says she hasn't been able to
00:30:56
listen to the recording, but has read the transcript. >> I was horrified. Of course, I cried. And I can picture my
00:31:06
sister yelling at him and screaming it and and those very last few moments realizing
00:31:17
that this is it. Also horrifying is the sound of Chelsea screaming after her father called her
00:31:29
over and she first discovered her mother. She says she doesn't remember questioning her father that night, but
00:31:42
she did. Dad, why did this happen? >> And Bruno's answer gave police yet another version of his story.
00:31:51
>> He came home. She wanted to take the gun out and play. And I told her, "No, we're
00:31:55
not doing that." >> He implied that Melissa had been the one holding the gun. >> Oh.
00:32:03
No, this is all right. >> A little over two weeks later, Mark Powell says forensic expert Dr. Wayne
00:32:12
Ross confirmed what Greg Allen and Dan Nylon had suspected about how all the blood got on the wall behind Bruno.
00:32:22
>> It was very clear that he was on top of his wife, that he was using his hand to
00:32:28
hold her and threaten her with a gun. And so where do you say Bruno was at that time?
00:32:34
>> Almost in the middle of the bed. >> Turned around. >> Turned around facing the headboard.
00:32:39
>> The theory is that Melissa tried to escape Bruno's grip and there was a struggle
00:32:46
>> and through a a struggle. His hand gets loose. He fires the gun at the same time.
00:32:54
There's blood evidence that starts here and travels in a right to left pattern. And that is Bruno's blood. And the only
00:33:04
way that that could be explained is if Bruno did a motion like this with his hand after the bullet struck it. I don't
00:33:12
know how you have an accidental shooting when you're standing over your wife with
00:33:14
a gun threatening to shoot her and you discharge a bullet by pulling the trigger. So, in my world, that's not
00:33:21
accidental. That's murder with mouse. >> What do you think your sister would say
00:33:26
about all of this? >> If she was here, she would say, "Lock his ass up and get away from my kids and my
00:33:37
grandkids." >> On June 2nd, 2022, a warrant was issued for Bruno's arrest. Chelsea says her
00:33:46
father was well aware and well prepared. He had guns all over. His nightstand was
00:33:52
all pictures of my mom. They were never there. >> On the morning of June 3rd, 2022, two
00:34:12
Pennsylvania State Police troopers followed Bruno Ruba on his way to work. Yeah, he's looking he's looking for a
00:34:19
good spot to pull over. >> Corporal Greg Allen says they weren't taking any chances with Rakuba's arrest.
00:34:25
>> Chelsea said he had a lot of guns. Were you concerned something could go wrong?
00:34:30
>> Whenever you have an arrest warrant in your hand. Do you try to take every precaution that you can?
00:34:35
>> Jefferson Madron, just start heading north on 171. >> In the end, they pulled Ruba over in a
00:34:43
traffic stop on his way to work. Who got your license plate out here? >> Where? What?
00:34:50
>> Yeah. >> All right. Hold up. Right here. Hey, you have a gun? Any guns on you?
00:34:56
>> Oh, no. >> All right. Put your hands behind your back. All right. >> It was June 3rd, 2022,
00:35:03
nearly 9 years after Melissa's death, and Rakuba was charged with her murder. There was also a charge of theft for the
00:35:11
money prosecutors say he took from his daughters. And he he lawyered up. >> Lawyered up right away
00:35:18
>> within within a few minutes. >> Chelsea, who was still feeling conflicted, decided to help her father
00:35:26
pay his legal bills. >> I loved him. I still I I didn't want it to be worse. >> Ruba once again hired Joe DeAndrea and
00:35:36
plead not guilty. >> Is Bruno still telling you the same story? >> He never wavered from the story that it
00:35:42
was an accident. But DeAndre says he was now seeing whatever >> and hearing the evidence for the first
00:35:51
time and says there was a lot to explain to a jury like the various versions of Rakuba's stories.
00:35:59
>> I went like this and she was sitting in the bed there. >> All captured on tape.
00:36:04
>> Any discussions or any arguments or anything before that happened? >> No. The most challenging, says Deandria,
00:36:10
that police walk through. >> Now, if Bruno didn't make a statement, >> he probably would never have gotten
00:36:20
charged. >> Also concerning to DeAndrea was how a jury would feel about Rakuba's
00:36:25
relationship with Tanya Wilesy and the question of when it began. >> Possible motive.
00:36:31
>> Oh, clearly it's not a motive. M motive. The jury sure wasn't going to like him
00:36:35
for doing it. Tanya Weski declined our requests for an interview, but sent this text saying there was never an affair.
00:36:44
Bruno Ruba never responded to our requests for an interview. But Joe Deandria says he was most
00:36:55
concerned about how the jury would react to Melissa's final moments. When you hear screaming and somebody
00:37:04
shot, a jury could conclude you shot her on purpose. I didn't want to take any chance of being found guilty of a
00:37:12
first-degree murder and spend the rest of his life in jail. >> Deandria says he spent the next two
00:37:18
years building his case around his best evidence, that bloody wound to his client's hand.
00:37:24
>> Who would put a bullet through their hand to to kill somebody? >> Do you have anything you'd like to say?
00:37:30
No, nothing at this time. >> But in May 2024, 2 years after this arrest, as Rakuba's trial approached,
00:37:38
both sides agreed to a plea deal, thirdderee murder, and no charge of theft. >> It wasn't that he intentionally killed
00:37:46
Melissa. His actions were reckless. having a gun, drinking, bullet in the chamber, safeties off
00:37:56
in a pretty passionate argument. >> That's a prescription for some bad stuff to happen, which did.
00:38:07
>> It may very well be your sister's own voice that ultimately put him behind bars.
00:38:16
I never really thought about it like that. >> Yeah. >> On January 8th, 2025, Joanne attended
00:38:24
Rakuba's sentencing hearing and read him her victim impact statement. I looked at him first and made him look
00:38:34
at me cuz I know it's like seeing a ghost because I look like my sister. >> Cameras were not allowed in the
00:38:41
courtroom. Through all of this, you have never showed an ounce of remorse. >> I will make
00:38:47
>> So Joanne shared her statement during our interview. >> As far as what you did to your
00:38:52
daughters, Bruno, you killed their mother. You tried to erase her existence, but
00:38:59
you cannot erase her memories. >> If there was a trial, would you have testified against him?
00:39:05
>> Yes. >> You said that quickly. >> Yeah, I would have. You know, my mom deserves justice and my
00:39:15
mom, she should be here. Bruno Ruba was sentenced to 12 to 40 years behind bars. With time served,
00:39:26
Ruba could be up for parole starting in 2035. Now that he's gone, we can breathe a
00:39:34
little bit better, but it doesn't change the hurt or the pain or what we have to
00:39:40
work through as a family. And we'll revisit this in 10 more years because every single time he comes up
00:39:48
for parole, I will be there to protest it. >> Chelsea and Sabrina both say they have
00:39:55
very mixed feelings about their father and what justice looks like. He took someone's life and it wasn't an
00:40:03
accident. He doesn't deserve to get out. I want him to get out at the same time because I love him and I miss him.
00:40:11
Everybody's like, "Oh, we finally get justice." Good for you. I got justice for my mom,
00:40:18
but now I just lost my father. My son lost his grandfather, and it's hard on my son. That's who I have to protect.
00:40:26
>> How are you keeping your mom's memory alive? I have all of her pictures all over my fridge and I tell my daughter
00:40:35
how wonderful her grandmother was and how much how much my mom loved being a grandmother.
00:40:45
She cared about my son more than anything. She loved that little boy. >> Where's Gammy? Show me.
00:40:51
>> Right here. >> And I think she wouldn't want my son to hurt the way that this has hurt him.
00:40:59
I want him to come back. >> Me, too. >> Just weeks after our interview, on March
00:41:06
10th, 2025, Chelsea says her son Greg was out riding his all-terrain vehicle when he collided
00:41:14
with an SUV and died. He was just 13 years old. Another tragic loss for a family that had
00:41:26
already lost so much. >> It's something that you read in a book or see on TV, not your own life.
00:41:36
>> It just doesn't feel like this should be our story as a family. Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm CBS News
00:42:21
correspondent Natalie Morales stepping in as host today to speak with 48 Hours correspondent Ann Marie Green about her
00:42:29
report on the case of Melissa Ruba in August of 2013 in the small town of Simpson, Pennsylvania. Melissa was shot
00:42:38
while in her bed by her husband Bruno and later died at the hospital. Now, Bruno claimed it was a tragic accident
00:42:46
and no charges were filed at the time, but eight years later, investigators revisited the case. And after taking a
00:42:54
closer look at the evidence, Rakuba was then charged with Melissa's murder. Emory, thanks so much for chatting with
00:43:01
me today. >> It's really good to be here. It's always good talking to you. Now, I want to
00:43:05
remind our listeners and our viewers, if you haven't listened or watched the 48 hours episode yet, you can find the full
00:43:11
audio and the episode link in our podcast feed. Just take a listen, then come right back here for our
00:43:17
conversation. All right, Emory, let's jump right into this. So after the shooting, Bruno Ruba
00:43:24
told police that his gun accidentally went off when he was checking the chamber and that he claims he even shot
00:43:32
his hand at the time in the process. Now, that was a story at the time that raised his family suspicions from the
00:43:38
start. And I think a lot of listeners are going to be wondering then, why wasn't Bruno charged back in 2013? That
00:43:46
was the exact question that we all had on the team that worked on this hour. Um, and we we never really got a clear
00:43:54
answer. You know, people need to know that the investigators compiled all the information that they felt would make
00:44:00
for a strong case, but ultimately it's up to the DA and the DA at the time said no. Uh, the district attorney at the
00:44:07
time is no longer the district attorney. So, there was a new district attorney. His name is Mark Powell. He asked him,
00:44:13
it's his best guess that the DA decided not to go forward because of Bruno's explanation about how he shot himself in
00:44:22
the hand and that it was an accident that it was that the gun accidentally discharged. Now, I'm learning about
00:44:28
guns, Natalie, since I've been working on 48 hours. And if you know a little bit about guns, it's actually kind of
00:44:34
hard to accidentally shoot a gun. Um, but it was convincing enough that, you know, the DA at the time thought it's
00:44:42
not worth moving forward with the case. >> Also, you know, Bruno, as you learned in
00:44:46
the hour, he lawyered up pretty quickly. And, uh, Mr. Deandria is a well-known attorney um, in the area. And, you know,
00:44:56
who knows, that might have had something to do with it as well, but we'll probably never know exactly why. So,
00:45:01
then what made investigators want to revisit the case eight years later? Jeremy, because they were working with
00:45:06
the exact same evidence that they had back in 2013, >> right? So, in 2020, we have uh Corporal
00:45:12
Greg Allen, right? So, he's assigned to take a second look at open homicide cases for his troop. And I think it's
00:45:20
like a 4count area. Um, and when he looks at the Ruba case, he looks at the evidence that's in the file, that 911
00:45:28
call from Bruno where almost immediately he starts changing his story. I mean, within seconds of speaking to the 911
00:45:34
operator, he says something along the lines of, you know, we were fighting, but then later he claims uh that he
00:45:42
wasn't arguing with Melissa. And then he says later on, well, I was playing with
00:45:46
the gun and I let it go off. I mean, for Corporal Allen and then Corporal Dan Nylon who came on to the case, it seemed
00:45:56
like this was a case that would be open and shut and then they were able to convince the DA's office. And then once
00:46:03
you do that, you have additional resources now that maybe weren't available to the original investigators.
00:46:09
So, they were able to hire a forensics expert and then they were really able to take a second look at the evidence. And
00:46:16
and there was also it seems like forensic evidence that was missed the first time around talking about the
00:46:22
blood spatter behind the headboard. Can you talk about that? >> Yeah. You know, if you watch the hour
00:46:27
and you see the video of Bruno trying to explain what happens, you don't have to
00:46:31
be a forensic expert to see that something's off about that. You know, he says that he's shooting in one
00:46:38
direction, but the blood spatter is located in a completely different direction. But what the forensics expert
00:46:45
was able to do is piece together what likely happened. And his conclusion was that, you know, Melissa was most likely
00:46:54
on the bed and Bruno was above her when he shot and that's how he shot himself in the hand and that's how the blood
00:47:01
spatter ended up where it was. And let's talk about what really I think broke this case once again wide open and that
00:47:08
was that home security footage. Because originally investigators said they couldn't review that security footage
00:47:16
because they didn't have access to the right technology at the time. Can you explain that? Because then when you see
00:47:22
it again and the way they were able to enhance and augment the audio, it tells the whole story right there in front of
00:47:29
them. Yeah. Um, Corporal Greg Allen actually spoke to the original investigators and they told him that
00:47:35
they had contacted the manufacturer of the security camera and even in 2013, the manufacturer said that the
00:47:44
technology was obsolete and the they didn't even have the software that could help investigators view what was on
00:47:51
there and listen to what was on there. So, they sealed it up and gave up on it. Right? But fast forward a few years and
00:47:57
now we have the technology. what we learned from Bruno's daughters. You know, Chelsea said Bruno was really into
00:48:04
security. He had cameras all over the place, but most of them weren't working. In fact, I think that was the only one
00:48:09
that was working. And what's kind of remarkable, if they had been in the living room or the kitchen when this
00:48:15
happened, I highly doubt that camera would have picked up any audio, but it just happened to be in the right
00:48:20
location, happened to be the only camera that was actually working and was able to pick up the audio. But it was so hard
00:48:26
to listen to. And when we talk to um the investigators, you know, they they talk
00:48:31
about like having to get really really quiet and get really close to the speaker and, you know, turn off all the
00:48:37
appliances so they could try to hear and they could just hear that there's something there. And so they pass it on
00:48:45
to uh other experts who are able to enhance the audio and lo and behold, we hear that there is this fight happening.
00:48:53
When Bruno insists that none of that is happening at all leading up to the shooting
00:48:59
>> in her own words, I believe as you said in the hour, it was as if Melissa was
00:49:04
narrating the circumstances leading up to her death. And in the hour, Melissa's family members even shared that there
00:49:12
were some warning signs of Bruno's behavior that they observed right before the murder. I want to play a clip that,
00:49:17
you know, it didn't make it into the show from your interview. It was with Joanne. It's Melissa's sister. Take a
00:49:23
listen. >> Was Bruno controlling? >> Very. He was very controlling um in the sense
00:49:31
of my sister couldn't go anywhere without him knowing her every move. >> He would call her repeatedly.
00:49:41
Um and if she didn't answer her phone, he was calling my phone. Or if she was at my cousin, she's calling my cousin's
00:49:47
phone. Like it was excessive. But when we were young, I I just thought, "Oh, wow. He just loves her." and um you know
00:49:58
you call her so much and not realizing also when you're young that that's that's not normal
00:50:04
>> in doing these stories. Natalie, I know you know this, you don't want to open a
00:50:09
wound. You don't want to do more damage after people have been through such horrific circumstances. And Joanne said
00:50:16
to me after the interview, and these interviews people should know these interviews are long, like they're like
00:50:20
an two hours, you know, an hour, two hours. She said, "People keep telling me I should write a book just to get it all
00:50:26
out, and I keep starting and I just can never do it." And she goes, "Now I don't
00:50:30
feel like I need to write a book anymore. I feel like I finally got it all out." It was sort of cathartic, you
00:50:35
know, and perhaps a lot can be learned by looking back at some of the evidence there, you know, what signs were missed
00:50:44
and those red flags that even Melissa talked about with her very daughters. >> Absolutely. I think that's spoton.
00:50:52
I think Melissa took great pains to make sure that her daughters in particular felt very highly of their father. Um he
00:51:03
she wanted them to see a good marriage and a father that they could be proud of. But both daughters, you know, talked
00:51:11
to us about seeing things weren't hearing things that weren't quite right. Sabrina spoke about seeing Bruno grab
00:51:17
her mother's hair and kind of whip whip her around. And um Chelsea, you know, spoke to us about just a couple of weeks
00:51:24
before the shooting that Melissa told her that that Bruno had actually pulled a gun on her over some sort of argument.
00:51:32
Um so that kind of behavior I think is telling, you know. >> Yeah. And and after the shooting, Bruno
00:51:40
then he continued to maintain that relationship with both of his daughters even though there were some of these red
00:51:48
flags. And how was he able to do that, Emory? Um well, you see how conflicted both of these young ladies are. Uh they
00:51:56
love their dad, you know, and the dad that they interacted with was a great father. So, it was very difficult for
00:52:04
them to kind of put these two personalities together. Both women had different relationships. Sabrina did not
00:52:11
live in the state, so there was a certain distance. He didn't see a lot of the the dayto-day things. Chelsea had
00:52:18
her son. She had her son, you know, pretty young. She lived right next door to her parents. So she was so grateful
00:52:25
that her son had this fantastic environment um where both of his grandparents were available to him. And
00:52:33
so because of that, both women had different relationships. After Melissa was killed, the way he approached them
00:52:40
was different. You know, one of the things that Sabrina said to me over and over again was that she was scared that
00:52:47
he would harm himself. He kept on kind of suggesting that he would do something to himself and that was what terrified
00:52:54
um her. When it came to Chelsea, her son was in love with his grandfather and so
00:53:00
she didn't want to break that up and it was really the son's relationship that kept her um going back. Clearly very
00:53:07
conflicted about that relationship. Yeah. So, in the hour, Anmarie, we learned that Bruno had his daughters
00:53:15
sign over their inheritance after their mother's death. And I'm curious where that money is now. So, Corporal Dan
00:53:23
Nylon told us that the accounts were frozen after Bruno was convicted. Um, so we know that they were frozen. I don't
00:53:33
know what's happening now with the money. Um, the backstory for the money though is quite interesting. So
00:53:40
Melissa's mother won like a million dollars at the casino and it was being paid out in installments. But once she
00:53:50
passed away, uh, those payouts were going to Melissa and Joanne. But when Melissa passed away, Melissa's portion
00:53:59
of the money was to be divided between Bruno and his two daughters. Bruno convinces both women to sign over
00:54:09
that money. It's about $300,000 um for him to get. Sabrina says she signed it over because she felt so bad.
00:54:17
So, as to whether they can kind of undo that, I'm not sure. Welcome back. So, we have to talk about
00:54:29
Bruno's alleged affair with Tanya Weski. It's an affair that Tanya denies. As we
00:54:34
heard in the show, Tanya and her husband Jack, they had dinner with Bruno and Melissa that very night of the shooting.
00:54:42
And Emmy, you told me that the two couples were actually planning a vacation together that night, right?
00:54:48
Yeah. Yeah, it was supposed to be to the Dominican Republic to celebrate the Rakuba's like anniversary. Like that's
00:54:53
how close they were that they were going to travel together as a couple. Obviously, um that didn't happen. Uh but
00:55:01
the Weskis went on the trip themselves. And according to Jack, his wife spent basically all her time in the room
00:55:08
talking to or texting Bruno. >> Obviously, we reached out to Tanya several times. Our producers did. Her
00:55:16
feeling was, you know, there's nothing more that can really be said and you guys saw the text message in the hour.
00:55:21
She says, of course, that there was never an affair. Um, but sort of curiously, Chelsea told us that shortly
00:55:30
after her father was incarcerated, he asked her to essentially transfer money to someone.
00:55:40
He didn't he wasn't clear, but Chelsea firmly believes that it's Tanya. like she she sort of says the way he said it,
00:55:46
I knew who he wanted me to send the money to, which she's like, I don't know if they're still together, but I know
00:55:52
that he certainly wanted me to send money and I said no. You know, also we learn in the hour that um Bruno asked
00:56:00
Chelsea to clean up after what had happened. You know, clean up the mattress that her mother Melissa had
00:56:08
been killed on. >> I know. I know. I know. And that's what you know, just pile on to the things
00:56:14
that just don't make sense. I mean, Melissa has just died and he is like, I cannot bear to go back into that house.
00:56:24
I need you to go there and and just get rid of the mattress. Get rid of everything. And I think they said they
00:56:29
might have burned it. Like, just get rid of everything. But you see him in that police video casually sitting on the
00:56:36
edge of the bed. He's literally sitting on top of Melissa's blood on the bed. um
00:56:40
he doesn't seem, you know, turned off by that or, you know, he's not crying. He doesn't seem bothered at
00:56:49
all. So, you got to wonder. >> Horrific. >> So, on June 3rd of 2022, again, nearly 9
00:56:56
years after Melissa's death, Bruno was charged with her murder. Now, there was also a charge for theft, and that was
00:57:04
for the money prosecutors say he took from his daughters. He hired defense attorney Joe DeAndrea again and DeAndrea
00:57:12
then secured him a plea deal for thirdderee murder. However, the theft charge was dropped. And and Amarie, when
00:57:19
you spoke with Deandria, he seemed pretty transparent about the difficulties in representing Bruno in
00:57:26
this case. Why do you think that was? >> You know, initially in 2013, DeAndre did
00:57:33
not look at any of the evidence. um you know, his sole focus when he was originally hired was, you know, to get
00:57:42
this guy out and not charge. And, you know, he was successful. Once he took a look at the evidence, he thought, "This
00:57:48
is going to be an uphill battle." Um, and this is not an attorney that's scared of uphill battles. I mean, if you
00:57:54
talk to him, he'll tell you about his successes. Um, so he just thought, "Let's let's go in with some sort of
00:58:02
deal." Bruno was not happy at all. Rudolph felt like maybe he was in line for sort of a misdemeanor charge. So, he
00:58:09
was not happy. Um, he wanted to go back on the deal. Um, you know, Deandria said
00:58:15
that that's not going to happen. He since fired DeAndrea. >> Yeah. I mean, really, it goes back to
00:58:20
the smoking gun that is the evidence and that's that security camera footage. And
00:58:24
once they, >> you know, enhanced that audio and you could hear that fight going on, did
00:58:30
DeAndre think that he wasn't going to be able to fight that? Yeah, he thought that that was that was one of many big
00:58:36
challenges, but it it was also the police video. >> Yeah. And when you're talking about that
00:58:40
video, this is from the body cam footage when the investigators are able to talk
00:58:45
to him after he's already been treated at the hospital and all of that, right? >> Yeah. A day later.
00:58:50
>> Yeah. Where he's explaining to them, you know, what happened that night. It's
00:58:55
just it doesn't pass the smell test, as they say. you know, for a lot of sort of
00:59:00
this isn't really a cold case, but maybe cases that were not closed over time. Um, evidence kind of fades away.
00:59:08
Memories fade. This was like a memory that's frozen in time in detail. And that would have been a really hard thing
00:59:16
to explain to a jury. Not to mention, like I said before, Bruno does not exactly look like he's torn up about
00:59:23
what happened. Um he looks entirely too comfortable on that bed. >> And Marie Bruno took a plea deal as you
00:59:30
report in the hour. So he, you know, was sentenced to 12 to 40 years, but he could be eligible for parole as of 2035.
00:59:38
You know, this is a very complicated relationship that Chelsea had with her father. Do we know if they maintain any
00:59:45
kind of contact with him behind bars? >> Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the situation is now, but she was
00:59:51
maintaining. And I think that there's a general feeling even for both sisters, like he doesn't have anybody else. Like,
00:59:57
can we really take this relationship away from this man? They're probably always going to be
01:00:04
conflicted. Well, at the end of the episode, I mean, talk about a family that has had to go through so much. And
01:00:10
then we hear the tragic news that Chelsea's son, Greg, died in an ATV accident just weeks after that interview
01:00:19
that you did with her. I mean hearing that and seeing that I just was so heartbroken and shocked. I imagine it
01:00:26
was difficult for everybody working on the story getting that information as well. Right.
01:00:30
>> Absolutely. You just think this family has been through so much. And now this.
01:00:36
Greg was just 13 years old at the time of the accident. And we had actually met Greg because he came to the location
01:00:44
where we were shooting when his mother was doing the interview and he wanted to see how TV works. And you know the guys
01:00:51
in the crew, you know, the guys in the crew, they're they're such nice guys. They took them around and they showed
01:00:55
him all the gear and then we had ordered lunch. So, we all sat down to eat together and Chelsea talked about how
01:01:02
much he loved off-roading. He loved his four-wheeler. He basically did it every single day. He would come home, you
01:01:09
know, get his chores and his homework done and then he was gone until the sun went down. Um, and their the way their
01:01:16
house is, the backyard is just goes on forever, you know. So, he would just out that backyard and away he would go. I
01:01:24
could see him taking it even more seriously in the future. And Chelsea was incredibly supportive. And throughout
01:01:32
the hour, what you get from her and even in her victim impact statement, everything about her relationship with
01:01:40
her father is because of her son. Like she just doesn't want to break her son's heart. And then to have him ripped away
01:01:50
in this heartbreaking way, it's just it's too much for one family to take. And so it was really incredibly
01:01:57
heartbreaking to hear about Greg's passing. >> And just 13 years old. I mean, so much
01:02:03
of a life still to live and just so heartbreaking that once again, you know, Chelsea has to deal with a huge loss,
01:02:11
the loss of her mother and now the loss of her son. Yeah. Um, what else do we know about how she's doing? I know it
01:02:18
had to be hard to go back to her and see if she was willing to to talk even. >> Yeah, because the plan was actually to
01:02:27
go back later on in the springtime and get B-roll. And for people who don't know, B-roll is sort of all the video
01:02:34
that's not the interviews. Um, but as you can imagine, she was not up for that and we completely understood. But I know
01:02:41
that, you know, Chelsea is married to a wonderful man who was a fantastic stepfather to Greg and incredibly
01:02:49
supportive. And our producers, they were in the courtroom um during the sentencing and her husband was there
01:02:57
holding her, just holding her hand, hugging her, making sure she was okay. And he came to the interview with us,
01:03:03
too, and he was just fantastic. So, I know she has a support system. Um, but it but it's still tough. It's really
01:03:12
really tough. >> Well, of course, our thoughts are with Chelsea and and Sabrina, the whole
01:03:18
family, uh, to go through so much in in in all this time. And Marie, once again,
01:03:24
thank you so much for another really well-reported episode and certainly very thoughtprovoking. So, thank you again.
01:03:31
>> Thank you, Natalie. Always great talking to you. And if you like this series Postmortem, please rate and review 48
01:03:38
hours on Apple Podcasts. And also be sure to follow 48 hours wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen adree
01:03:45
with a 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Once again, thanks for listening.