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Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales stepping in as host today to speak with 48 Hours
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correspondent Anne Marie Green about her report on the case of Melissa Rackowba.
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In August of 2013 in the small town of Simpson, Pennsylvania, Melissa was shot while in her bed by her husband Bruno
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and later died at the hospital. Now Bruno claimed it was a tragic accident and no charges were filed at the time,
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but 8 years later investigators revisited the case and after taking a closer look at the evidence, Rackowba
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was then charged with Melissa's murder. Emery, thanks so much for chatting with me today. It's really good to be here.
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It's always good talking to you. Now I want to remind our listeners and our viewers, if you haven't listened or
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watched the 48 Hours episode yet, you can find the full audio and the episode link in our podcast feed. Just take a
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listen, then come right back here for our conversation. All right, Emery, let's jump right into
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this. So after the shooting, Bruno Rackowba told police that his gun accidentally went off when he was
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checking the chamber and that he claims he even shot his hand at the time in the
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process. Now that was a story at the time that raised his family's suspicions from the start and I think a lot of
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listeners are going to be wondering then, why wasn't Bruno charged back in 2013? That was the exact question that
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we all had on the team that worked on this hour. Um, and we we never really got a clear answer. You know, people
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need to know that the investigators compiled all the information that they felt would make for a strong case, but
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ultimately it's up to the DA and the DA at the time said no. Uh, the district attorney at the time is no longer the
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district attorney, so there was a new district attorney, his name is Mark How. We asked him it's his best guess that
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the DA decided not to go forward because of Bruno's explanation about how he shot
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himself in the hand and that it was an accident, that it was that the gun accidentally discharged. Now I'm
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learning about guns now, Lee, since I've been working on 48 Hours and if you know
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a little bit about guns, it's actually kind of hard to accidentally shoot a gun, um, but it was convincing enough
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that, you know, the DA at the time thought it's not worth moving forward with the case. Mhm. Also, you know,
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Bruno, as you learn in the hour, he lawyered up pretty quickly and uh, Mr. DeAndrea is a well-known attorney um, in
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the area and you know, who knows, that might have had something to do with it as well, but we'll probably never know
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exactly why. So then what made investigators want to revisit the case 8 years later? I mean, because they were
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working with the exact same evidence that they had back in 2013. Right. So in 2020 we have a Corporal Greg Allen,
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right? So he's assigned to take a second look at open homicide cases for his troop and I think it's like a
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four-county area. Um, and when he looks at the Rackowba case, he looks at the evidence that's in the file, that 911
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call from Bruno where almost immediately he starts changing his story. I mean, within seconds of speaking to the 911
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operator, he says something along the lines of, you know, we were fighting, but then later he claims uh, that he
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wasn't arguing with Melissa and then he says later on, well, I was playing with the gun and I let it go off.
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I mean, for Corporal Allen and then Corporal Dan Nylon who came onto the case, it seemed
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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
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you do that, you have additional resources now that maybe weren't available to the original investigators,
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so they were able to hire a forensics expert and then they were really able to take a second look at the evidence. And
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and there was also, it seems like forensic evidence that was missed the first time around. Talking about the
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blood spatter behind the headboard. Can you talk about that? Yeah, you know, if you watch the hour and you see the video
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of Bruno trying to explain what happens, you don't have to be a forensic expert to see that something's off about that.
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You know, he says that he's shooting in one direction, but the blood spatter is located in a completely different
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direction. But what the forensics expert was able to do is piece together what likely happened and his conclusion was
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that, you know, Melissa was most likely on the bed and Bruno was above her when he shot and that's how he shot himself
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in the hand and that's how the blood spatter ended up where it was. And let's talk about what really I think
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broke this case once again wide open and that was that home security footage because originally investigators said
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they couldn't review that security footage because they didn't have access to the right technology at the time. Can
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you explain that because then when you see it again and the way they were able to enhance and augment the audio, it
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tells the whole story right there in front of them. Yeah, um, Corporal Greg Allen actually spoke to the original
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investigators and they told him that they had contacted the manufacturer of the security camera and even in 2013,
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the manufacturer said that the technology was obsolete and they didn't even have the software that could help
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investigators view what was on there and listen to what was on there. So they sealed it up and gave up on it, right?
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But fast forward a few years and now we have the technology. What we learned from Bruno's daughters, you know,
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Chelsea said Bruno was really into security, he had cameras all over the place, but most of them weren't working.
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In fact, I think that was the only one that was working and what's kind of remarkable, but if they had been in the
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living room or the kitchen when this happened, I highly doubt that camera would have picked up any audio, but it
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just happened to be in the right location, happened to be the only camera that was actually working and was able
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to pick up the audio, but it was so hard to listen to and when we talked to um, the investigators, you know, they they
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talk about like having to get really, really quiet, get really close to the speaker and you know, turn off all the
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appliances so they could try to hear and they could just hear that there's something there and so they pass it on
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to uh, other experts who were able to enhance the audio and lo and behold, we hear that there is this fight happening
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when Bruno insists that none of that is happening at all leading up to the shooting.
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Mhm. In her own words, I believe as you said in the hour, it was as if Melissa was narrating the circumstances leading
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up to her death. And in the hour, Melissa's family members even shared that there were some warning signs of
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Bruno's behavior that they observed right before the murder. I want to play a clip that, you know, it didn't make it
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into the show from your interview. It was with Joanne, it's Melissa's sister. Take a listen.
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Was Bruno controlling? Very. He was very controlling in the sense of my sister couldn't go anywhere
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without him knowing her every move. He would call her repeatedly. Um, and if she didn't answer her phone, he
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was calling my phone or if she was at my cousin's, she was calling my cousin's phone. Like it was excessive, but
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when we were young, I thought I just thought oh wow, he just loves her and um, you know, he calls her so much and
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not realizing also when you're young that that's that's not normal. In doing these stories, Natalie, I know
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you know this, you don't want to open a wound. You don't want to do more damage after people have been through such
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horrific circumstances. And Joanne said to me after the interview, and these interviews, people
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should know, these interviews are long, like they're like an two hours, you know, an hour, two hours. She said
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people keep telling me I should write a book just to get it all out and I keep starting and I just can never do it. And
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she goes, now I don't feel like I need to write a book anymore. I feel like I finally got it all out. It was sort of
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cathartic, you know. And perhaps a lot can be learned by looking back at some of the evidence
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there, you know, what signs were missed. And those red flags that even Melissa talked about with her very daughters.
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>> Absolutely. I think that's spot on. I think Melissa took great pains to make sure that her
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daughters in particular felt very highly of their father. Um, he she wanted them
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to see a good marriage and a father that they could be proud of, but both daughters, you know, talked to us about
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seeing things or hearing things that weren't quite right. Sabrina spoke about seeing Bruno grab her mother's hair and
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kind of whip whip her around and um, Chelsea, you know, just spoke to us about just a couple weeks before the
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shooting that Melissa told her that that Bruno had actually pulled a gun on her over some sort argument. Um,
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so that kind of behavior, I think is telling, you know. Yeah, and and after the shooting, Bruno then he continued to
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maintain that relationship with both of his daughters even though there were some of these red
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flags. And how was he able to do that, Emery? Um, well, you see how conflicted both of
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these young ladies are. They love their dad, you know, and the dad that they interacted with was a great father. So
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it was very difficult for them to kind of put these two personalities together. Both women had different relationships.
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Sabrina did not live in the state, so there was a certain distance. He didn't see a lot of the the day-to-day things.
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Chelsea had her son. She had her son, you know, pretty young. She would live right next door to her parents. So, she
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was so grateful that her son had this fantastic environment um where both of his grandparents were
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available to him. And so, because of that, both women had different relationships. After Melissa was killed,
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the way he approached them was different. You know, one of the things that Sabrina said to me over and over
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again was that she was scared that he would harm himself. He kept on kind of suggesting that he would do something to
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himself, and that was what terrified um her. When it came to Chelsea, her son was in love with his grandfather, and so
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she didn't want to break that up, but it was really the son's relationship that kept her um going back. Clearly very
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conflicted about that relationship. Yeah. >> Mhm. So, in the hour, AnnMarie, we learned that Bruno had his daughters
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sign over their inheritance after their mother's death. And I'm curious where that money is now.
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So, Corporal Dan Nylon told us that the accounts were frozen after Bruno was convicted. Um so, we know that they were
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frozen. Don't know what's happening now with the money. Um the backstory for the money
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though is quite interesting. So, Melissa's mother won like a million dollars at the casino.
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And it was being paid out in installments. But once she passed away, uh those payouts were going to Melissa and
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Joanne. But when Melissa passed away, Melissa's portion of the money was to be divided
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between Bruno and his two daughters. Bruno convinces both women to sign over that money. It's about $300,000
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um for him to get. Sabrina says she signed it over cuz she felt so bad. So, [music] as as to whether they can kind
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of undo that, I'm not sure. Welcome back. So, we have to talk about Bruno's alleged affair with Tanya
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Wilchesky. It's an affair that Tanya denies. As we heard in the show, Tanya and her husband, Jack, they had dinner
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with Bruno and Melissa that very night of the shooting. AnnMarie, you told me that the two
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couples were actually planning a vacation together that night, right? Yeah, it was supposed to be to the
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Dominican Republic to celebrate the Racubas' like anniversary. Like that's how close they were that they were going
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to travel together as a couple. Obviously, um that didn't happen. Uh but the Wilcheskys went on the trip
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themselves, and according to Jack, his wife spent basically all her time in the room
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talking to or texting Bruno. Mhm. Obviously, we reached out to Tanya several times, our producers did. Her
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feeling was, you know, there's nothing more that can really be said, and you guys saw the text message in the hour.
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She says, of course, that there was never an affair. Um but sort of curiously, Chelsea told us
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that shortly after her father was incarcerated, he asked her to essentially transfer money
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to someone. He didn't He wasn't clear, but Chelsea firmly believes that it's Tanya. Like she she sort of says, "The
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way he said it, I knew who he wanted me to send the money to." Which she's like,
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"I don't know if they're still together, but I know that he certainly wanted me to send money, and I said no." You know,
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also we learn in the hour that um Bruno asked Chelsea to clean up after what had
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happened. You know, clean up the mattress that her mother, Melissa, had been killed on. I know. I know. I know.
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And that's what, you know, just pile onto the things that just don't make sense. I mean,
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Ugh. Melissa has just died, and he is like, "I cannot bear to go back into that house. I need you to go there and and
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just get rid of the mattress, get rid of everything." And I think they said they
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might have burned it. Like just get rid of everything. But you see him in that police video casually sitting on
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the edge of the bed. He's literally sitting on top of Melissa's blood on the bed. Um he doesn't seem, you know,
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turned off by that, or you know, he's not crying. He doesn't seem bothered at all. So, you got to wonder. Mhm.
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Horrific. So, on June 3rd of 2022, again, nearly nine years after Melissa's death, Bruno
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Racuba was charged with her murder. Now, there was also a charge for theft, and that was for the money prosecutors say
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he took from his daughters. He hired defense attorney Joe DeAndrea again, and DeAndrea then secured him a plea deal
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for third-degree murder. However, the theft charge was dropped. And AnnMarie, when you spoke with DeAndrea, he seemed
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pretty transparent about the difficulties in representing Bruno in this case. Why do you think that was?
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You know, initially in 2013, DeAndrea did not look at any of the evidence. Um you know,
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his sole focus when he was originally hired was, you know, to get this guy out and not charge. And you know, he was
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successful. Once he took a look at the evidence, he thought this is going to be an uphill battle. Um and this is not an
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an attorney that's scared of uphill battles. I mean, if you talk to him, he'll tell you about his successes. Um
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so, he just thought, "Let's let's go in with some sort of deal." Bruno was not happy at all.
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Bruno felt like maybe he was in line for sort of a misdemeanor charge. So, he was
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not happy. Um he wanted to go back on the deal. Um you know, DeAndrea said that that's not
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going to happen. He since fired DeAndrea. Yeah, I mean, really it goes back to the smoking gun that is the
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evidence, and that's that security camera footage. And once they, you know, enhance that audio, and you could hear
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that fight going on, did DeAndrea think that he wasn't going to be able to fight
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that? Yeah, he thought that that was that was one of many big challenges, but it it was also the police video. Yeah,
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and and when you're talking about that video, this is from the body cam footage when the investigators are able to talk
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to him after he's already been treated at the hospital and all of that, right? Yeah, a day later.
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>> Exactly. Where he's explaining to them, you know, what happened that night. It's
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just it doesn't pass the smell test, as they say. Mhm. You know, for a lot of sort of this isn't really a cold case,
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but maybe cases that were not closed over time, um evidence kind of fades away, memories fade. This was like a
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memory that's frozen in time, in detail. And that would have been a really hard thing to explain to a jury. Not to
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mention, like I said before, Bruno does not exactly look like he's torn up about
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what happened. Um he looks entirely too comfortable on that bed. AnnMarie, Bruno
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took a plea deal as you report in the hour. So, he, you know, was sentenced to 12 to 40 years, but he
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could be eligible for parole as of 2035. You know, this is a very complicated relationship that Chelsea had with her
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father. Do we know if they maintain any kind of contact with him behind bars? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the
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situation is now, but she was maintaining. And I think that there's a general feeling even for both sisters,
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like he doesn't have anybody else. Like can we really take this relationship away from this
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man? They're probably always going to be conflicted. Well, at the end of the episode, I mean, talk about a family
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that has had to go through so much. And then we hear the tragic news that Chelsea's son, Greg, died in an ATV
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accident just weeks after that interview that you did with her. I mean, hearing that and seeing that, I just was so
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heartbroken and shocked. I imagine it was difficult for everybody working on the story getting that information as
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well, right? >> Absolutely. You just think this family has been through so much. And now this?
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Greg was just 13 years old at the time of the accident. And we had actually met Greg because he came to the location
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where we were shooting when his mother was doing the interview. And he wanted to see how TV works. And you know, the
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guys in the crew, you know, the guys in the crew, they're they're such nice guys. They took him around, and they
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showed him all the gear. And then we had ordered lunch, so we all sat down to eat
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together. And Chelsea talked about how much he loved off-roading. He loved his four-wheeler. He basically did it every
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single day. He would come home, you know, get his chores and his homework done, and then he was gone until the sun
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went down. Um and there the way their house is, the backyard is just goes on forever, you know? So, he would just out
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that backyard, and away he would go. I could see him taking it even more seriously in the future. And Chelsea was
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incredibly supportive. And throughout the hour, what you get from her, and even in her victim impact statement,
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everything about her relationship with her father is because of her son. Like she just
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doesn't want to break her son's heart. And then to have him ripped away in this heartbreaking way, it's just it's too
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much for one family to take. And so, it was really incredibly heartbreaking to hear about Greg's passing. And just 13
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years old. I mean, so much of a life still to live and just so heartbreaking that once again,
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you know, Chelsea has to deal with a huge loss, the loss of her mother, and now the loss of her son. Yeah. What else
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do we know about how she's doing? I know it had to be hard to go back to her and see if she was willing to to
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talk even. Yeah, because the plan was actually to go back later on in the springtime and get B-roll. And for
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people who don't know, B-roll is sort of all the video that's not the interviews.
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Um but as you can imagine, she was not up for that, and we completely understood.
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But I know that, you know, Chelsea is married to a wonderful man who was a fantastic stepfather to Greg, and
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incredibly supportive. And our producers, they were in the courtroom um during the sentencing, and her husband
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was there holding her, just holding her hand, hugging her, making sure she was okay. And he came to the interview with
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us, 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,
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really tough. Well, of course, our thoughts are with Chelsea and and Sabrina, the whole family, uh to go
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through so much in in in all this time. Ann Marie, once again, thank you so much
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for another really well-reported episode, and certainly very thought-provoking. So, thank you again.
00:21:19
Thank you, Natalie. Always great talking to you. And if you like this series, Post Mortem, [music] please rate and
00:21:25
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