00:00:13
[music] >> Hi. Hello. I'm Maureen. [music] Maureen, hi. David. Thank you for agreeing to talk to us
00:00:22
today. Obviously, this is not a normal setting for when we would do an interview. Tell
00:00:28
me your name [music] and tell me where we are. I'm David Ditto and I'm at this detention facility.
00:00:39
I met my wife Karina. I was on vacation from school, my junior year in college. She was his American dream and she had
00:00:49
always thought she would [music] live in the United States with this handsome American.
00:00:54
Just a really amazing, beautiful, friendly, happy, faithful human being. She was a relatively [music] sheltered
00:01:01
girl living in La Paz, Mexico and she immediately fell [music] head over heels for him. The closer I got, the more I
00:01:08
got to know her. There was something right from the beginning. She loved her life. She loved her
00:01:17
[music] husband. She loved her children. She was a beautiful, loving wife. From the outside looking in, the Ditto
00:01:26
family looked like it was the perfect [music] family. My wife fell stuff on the downstairs.
00:01:31
Can you bring an ambulance? I heard a horrible falling down the stairs. Bang, bang, bang, bang coming down the
00:01:40
stairs. I jumped up and ran over and found Karina laying at the foot of the stairs. When
00:01:48
the paramedics walked into the house, Karina Ditto was laying on the floor in the foyer. She had her hands to her side
00:01:54
and she was covered in blood. Did you believe that Karina was going to make it? I kept asking them,
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you know, is she okay? Is she okay? Does she have a pulse? It was a fall. It was
00:02:06
suspicious. Karina had many bruises all over her body, and she had a laceration to the back of her head. Were you ever
00:02:12
violent with Karina? No. I don't believe that David ever [music] hurt Karina. That's all just lies. David Ditto
00:02:20
controlled every single [music] aspect of Karina Ditto's life. This portrayal of her as being afraid of
00:02:28
David, >> [music] >> that's just not true. They're making me out to be a monster. Did you get
00:02:34
anywhere close to having a physical altercation with her? >> No. So, then [music] what are you doing
00:02:38
here? I don't know. I'm Maureen Maher. Tonight on 48 Hours, Shattered Dreams. San Diego Police 23, what's the address
00:03:12
of your emergency? 7723 Canyon Point Lane. It was the early hours of March 12th, 2011.
00:03:19
My wife hurt herself going down the stairs. When David Ditto found the lifeless body
00:03:25
of his wife, 38-year-old Karina. Please send an engine. >> How old is she? I don't
00:03:30
I do not want you to hang up. When first responders arrived at the Ditto home in Mira Mesa, a San Diego
00:03:37
suburb, I started asking her, "What's wrong? What's wrong? Are you okay? Honey, are
00:03:42
you okay?" An emotional David told them his wife, Karina, had somehow fallen down the stairs and struck her head on
00:03:50
the tile floor. She wasn't moving. Uh wasn't talking. So, I I grabbed her and and held her, lifted her
00:04:01
into my lap. Um and was was holding her and trying to get her to come to. And she she didn't
00:04:10
respond or didn't move at all. Karina was rushed to the hospital, unable to breathe on her own.
00:04:19
For 2 days, David and his family stood vigil as she clung to life. [music] I mean, I was told that first day that
00:04:32
she was brain dead. And then it was was almost impossible that she would ever recover.
00:04:46
Then, you know, the next doctor or nurse with the next doctor would tell me, you know, there's it's
00:04:50
still the same situation. She's not She's not going to recover. And It was really hard. I think he at first
00:04:59
it was just so hard for him to believe. You know, they had their life planned ahead and it was just so hard to
00:05:07
accept that this actually was happening. Well, there was a >> David's mother, Pat, couldn't believe
00:05:13
what had happened to Karina, the beautiful young woman who had captured her son's heart 20 years ago. This was
00:05:21
the girl. This was the one that that was going to be his wife. It was the summer
00:05:26
of 1993. David was on college break, vacationing in Mexico. On his way to Cabo San Lucas,
00:05:34
he stopped in the tranquil resort town of La Paz. Stopped to have uh to have lunch on the
00:05:41
waterfront. And uh was parked in my car, looked across the street, saw pretty lady with
00:05:50
pretty eyes and a beautiful smile and she caught my eye. Karina was a shy 20-year-old girl. She smiled at me once
00:05:58
or twice and I got up the nerve to go over and talk with her. Would you describe it as love at first sight?
00:06:05
As close to love at first sight as as you can get, I believe. Yeah. When she was eight or nine years old,
00:06:15
she'd say that she wanted to date an American. Karina's mother, Silvia, owner of a beauty salon in Mexico, knew her
00:06:23
daughter was instantly smitten with David. She, however, was not. At first, I didn't trust him.
00:06:32
>> Why? He was too good-looking and I said, "No. It's not possible for him to fall in
00:06:39
love with a person like my little girl." And I asked him, "Why her? She's Mexican
00:06:45
and has different customs." Karina spoke no English [music] and David spoke little Spanish, but often
00:06:53
love has its own language. >> [music] >> The two sparked up a long-distance love
00:06:57
affair through phone calls and letters and within a year, they married. [music] They first had a civil wedding in La Paz
00:07:06
with Karina's family and [music] then a traditional ceremony in San Diego with David's family.
00:07:13
My stepdad Bill walked Karina down the aisle since her dad wasn't here to walk her down the aisle and that was really
00:07:17
special. David's sister, Maggie, was one of Karina's bridesmaids. It was a It was
00:07:23
a beautiful wedding. It really was. Uh the pictures and when I look at them now, you know, I
00:07:27
think, "Oh, Karina's so young. My brother was so young." I remember he had cut his hair, I think probably to please
00:07:33
Karina's parents >> [laughter] >> or her family more. Newly married at the tender age of 21,
00:07:40
Karina left her family [music] and all that was familiar behind to start a new life with her new [music] husband.
00:07:48
I really respected the choice that she made to come up here, leave all her family, come to a new country.
00:07:55
Um where you don't speak the language, you're not familiar with the culture. How did she adjust to life here in the
00:08:01
States? There was some difficulty. It was uh completely different. She was you know nervous and like a stranger in a
00:08:08
strange land. While going to school to learn English, the newlywed was completely dependent on her husband. And
00:08:16
so he helped her a lot and kind of guided her at the beginning. Give me a kiss. Karina [music] devoted herself to
00:08:25
learning everything she could about life in America. >> [music] >> And she was particularly devoted to
00:08:31
building her life with David. Karina really wanted to be a mother. It's something that she knew almost her
00:08:40
whole life that she wanted to be a mom and she was really good at it. In 1996, they had their first child, a son. A few
00:08:48
years later, their daughter was born. As the couple was starting their family, David was also starting his career. He
00:08:56
took a job as a lab researcher at the University of California, San Diego. We were, you know, financially just kind of
00:09:05
starting off. It was a little bit of a struggle, didn't have a lot of money, but we had, you know, enough to pay the
00:09:10
bills and you know, have have food and and everything. It seemed Karina was actually living the
00:09:16
life she had always dreamed of as a little girl in Mexico. From the perfect husband They had great plans for this
00:09:23
place. to the perfect home that David spent years saving up for. She wanted this house.
00:09:32
She wanted this house and David, you know, made every effort to get this house for them and they did.
00:09:42
They were just the ideal family and everybody thought so and just, you know, thought
00:09:47
what a wonderful family. [music] But appearances can be deceiving as revealed [music] in Karina's letters to
00:09:55
her mother. "Sometimes I don't know why I married him." >> [music] >> wrote Karina. "I'm in despair."
00:10:18
As Karina [music] Ditto was fighting for her life, David Ditto was describing to
00:10:24
first responders [music] the events leading up to and immediately after his wife's horrifying [music]
00:10:30
accident. Earlier that evening, the kids went to bed and Karina and David settled in for
00:10:36
the night to watch Braveheart, one of Karina's favorites. We got our snacks and candy and chips
00:10:44
and drinks and stuff. Um and we were watching the movie. At some point, they paused the movie so
00:10:53
each could use the restroom. David used the bathroom downstairs, Karina went upstairs.
00:11:00
David returned to the living room. What happened next was simply [music] unthinkable. I heard the cat screech at
00:11:08
the top of the stairs and I heard just really noisy bang bang bang bang coming down the stairs.
00:11:17
And I jumped up and ran over and found Karina laying at the foot of the stairs. And she wasn't moving, wasn't talking.
00:11:27
David says he grabbed Karina and pulled her away from the stairs. Kneeling [music] by her side, he shook her. When
00:11:34
she didn't respond, he began CPR. Finally, [music] Karina started moving. She was grabbing on me trying to pull
00:11:42
herself up and I was holding her up. And and then she just stopped moving. She just kind of collapsed and was was
00:11:50
laying there lifeless in my arms and I didn't know what to do. Um I I laid her back down and I don't remember if I
00:12:00
started doing CPR again or not, but I realized that I just didn't know what was happening to her.
00:12:08
And that is when David made that 911 call. My wife hurt herself on the bottom of
00:12:13
the stairs. Okay. Can you bring her out to the front? Okay. Are you with your wife right now? I need to go get her. I
00:12:18
need to go get her. It was just after midnight. First responder, Lisa Challender, was on duty.
00:12:25
We were expecting to see a fall. We were definitely not expecting to see a cardiac arrest.
00:12:30
Karina's heart had stopped and she was covered in her own blood from a gash to the back of her head. The amount of
00:12:37
blood surprised the experienced paramedic, [music] but it was the location of Karina's body
00:12:43
that immediately made her suspicious. The stairway was here and the patient was over here. So, you
00:12:51
don't fall down the stairway and then bounce around the corner. From the blood pattern around Karina to
00:12:59
these scratches [music] on David's face. He said that when he was doing CPR at one point she had come
00:13:04
back to and then he got the scratches on his face from that. Lisa felt the scene actually suggested
00:13:11
there had been an intense struggle [music] and that David's story didn't add up. She had so much blood on her
00:13:18
face that if he had put his mouth over her mouth, he would have had her blood on his face. Given their concerns about
00:13:24
David's behavior and the suspicious nature of the scene, first responders called the police. But, here at the
00:13:31
house that night, David repeatedly told them Karina's injuries were the result of a fall down the stairs.
00:13:38
So, police allowed him to leave the scene to be at his wife's side at the hospital. What the cops didn't know at
00:13:44
the time is that over the years, there had been problems in the Dido's marriage. When you fought, would it get
00:13:51
verbally abusive? There's only one time that I can recall and it was you know, more than 10 years ago. Karina
00:13:59
and I were were arguing about something and she was really upset and she asked I
00:14:03
just want to know one thing. I want to know if if I make you sick or if I'm sickening
00:14:08
to you and I just said, "Yes." One of the few people who knew about the problems in David and Karina's
00:14:14
relationship was Karina's mother. He wants to tell me what spoons I should use when it's time to eat. He wants to
00:14:22
tell me how much water I should use to water the plants. He punishes me with money. He takes it
00:14:28
away for months. Karina confided in letters to her mother that David had become impossible to live
00:14:36
with and that she wanted to leave. There's times that I don't even want to speak to him. I don't want him to touch
00:14:43
me. I have to tell him that sometimes I can't stand the situation. Would she have described you as
00:14:51
controlling of her? I don't think so. She had freedom to, you know, do the things that she wanted to. Were you
00:14:57
strict with her about what she spent and where she spent it? We were on a tight budget at times and
00:15:04
I managed the finances. So, we didn't have a lot of money sometimes to spend on clothes or, you
00:15:14
know, going out to eat and things like that. Did you make her pay you back for diapers and other
00:15:22
goods for the kids? I don't think so. I I I honestly don't remember for sure. I don't think so.
00:15:30
By 2009, their marriage had reached a breaking point. [music] I said, "Well, maybe we
00:15:36
should look into separating because she was clear that she didn't want things to
00:15:41
continue the way things were." But David Ditto wasn't about to give up on all that he had invested in his marriage and
00:15:48
asked Karina for a second chance. And what did you ask for a second chance to do? What did you want a another chance
00:15:56
at? To do the things that she said that she missed from the way things were before.
00:16:03
According to David, their relationship did improve. But he noticed a change in Karina. Did you feel like you were in
00:16:11
charge in the relationship and now suddenly she was trying to be in charge? I wouldn't say suddenly, but
00:16:19
yeah, she was taking charge of of some things. Taking charge and continuing to assert
00:16:27
her independence, for the first time in 15 years, Karina got a job working at a nearby department store. She was making
00:16:36
money and friends. She was very nice. I would one of the nicest person I've ever
00:16:40
met. She struck up a relationship with a young coworker named Jonathan Moda. So,
00:16:46
you were friends? Yes. Did you have a flirtatious relationship as well? >> Yes. It was flirtatious, but in like a
00:16:54
fun way. It was just, you know, playful banter, just sexual jokes here and there
00:16:58
and stuff like that. Moda says their flirting never got physical. But it did get personal. Did you ever text her a
00:17:08
particular picture of your private parts? >> Yes, I did. Why? She asked for it. Moda also made suggestive comments on
00:17:16
one of Karina's Facebook photos, comments that David read. The comment was something like
00:17:23
how about you and me, or how about you and me, girl, or how about you and me, baby, or something like that. Did you
00:17:29
think there was anything going on between them? No. But just a few months before, Karina's
00:17:35
mother, Silvia, says David worried that she was going to leave him. In August 2010, while visiting the
00:17:42
family, [music] Silvia says her son-in-law turned to her for help, something David strongly denies.
00:17:51
He cried a lot and said Karina wanted to leave him. He told me that I have a lot
00:17:57
of influence over my daughter and wanted me to speak with her and plead for her not to leave him. So, I told her, "Give
00:18:04
him another chance, my love." The next time Silvia would see her daughter was 7 months later.
00:18:12
She says David only told her that Karina had been in an accident. It wasn't until
00:18:19
she saw with her own eyes the seriousness of the situation. I began to hug her, talking to her,
00:18:29
telling her to please open her eyes. After being in a coma for 2 days, Karina's life came to an end.
00:18:40
Were you there when they took her off life support? Yes. >> [snorts] >> Did it seem impossible to you that
00:18:48
your healthy wife had fallen down the stairs and now she was gone? Yes. From a fall? It was unthinkable.
00:19:01
>> [snorts] >> Shocking, surprising. Equally shocking, however, is what David did-o did just 15 minutes before his
00:19:11
beloved wife was taken off life support. With his cell phone, David took this photo of his once stunning wife, Karina.
00:19:22
She'd been covered with paintings of her own hand prints, and it was for a reason, says San Diego prosecutor
00:19:28
Claudine Ruiz. The only reason that I could come up with for why David Ditto took that photograph was as a trophy.
00:19:37
To remember what he had done to her, that he had the final word. >> [music] >> He controlled her life, and he
00:19:42
controlled her death. I know what happened that night, and I know that I didn't kill her. I know that
00:20:01
she fell down the stairs, and she obviously hit her head and hurt her head. For veteran San Diego homicide detective
00:20:09
J.C. Smith, Karina Ditto's brutally bruised body told a different story. Karina had many bruises all over her
00:20:17
body, and she had a laceration to the back of her head. She also had um bruising and swelling to the front of
00:20:24
her face, both of her eyes. Smith says Karina struggled violently until the bitter end. So violent that it left
00:20:32
marks on David Ditto. That was consistent with domestic violence, with a fight, with a woman
00:20:40
scratching and fighting for her life. >> Reaching up and and clawing? >> Yes. But if there was a violent struggle that
00:20:47
night, wouldn't the commotion have woken up their 14-year-old son >> [music] >> and 10-year-old daughter? Both the
00:20:53
children were upstairs sleeping. You would think that with all the noise of a struggle,
00:20:58
with the paramedics coming, the firefighters responding with with lights and siren,
00:21:02
all these men coming in with equipment to work on a victim, The children never woke
00:21:08
And David had access to narcotics, and we thought possibly he used the drugs on his kids. Did you
00:21:15
give your children anything that night to make them sleep? No, absolutely not. And what do you think about that
00:21:20
accusation? That's a pretty strong accusation because it clearly implies premeditation. It's baseless like most
00:21:28
of the insinuations and accusations. By now, detectives were having a tough time
00:21:33
buying any part of Ditto's story. So these are the stairs inside the Ditto home.
00:21:40
It shows 11 carpeted and padded stairs with tile floor at the bottom. Now, I know that this photo obviously was taken
00:21:47
a few months after the incident. Do you remember seeing any scuff marks along the side, the
00:21:53
banister being pulled off, the railing having any sort of marks on it, any blood, anywhere around here? Just a few
00:22:00
days after the homicide, we inspected the walls and the railing and the floors and the carpeting. There was nothing. No
00:22:06
blood on the carpet at all. The railing was fine, no damage, no problems at all.
00:22:12
Investigators also say one of the most disturbing red flags was this large bruise found on Karina's thigh.
00:22:20
I think David stomped [music] on her and kicked her. And that right there really made me and the other detectives
00:22:26
think that we're dealing with an assault and not a fall. Were you ever able to find a shoe that matched that in the
00:22:33
house? We didn't find a shoe that matched perfectly. Detectives may have strongly suspected David Ditto was
00:22:40
lying, but they needed more solid evidence. And they got it from the San Diego County Medical Examiner, Dr. Othon
00:22:48
Mena, who says Karina Ditto did not accidentally fall down the stairs. Instead, Dr. Mena says she was beaten
00:22:57
and strangled. There were too many injuries to be explained by what we were told happened. Therefore, I have to find
00:23:04
what what it was the reason her heart stopped. And in my opinion, it's because she was and uh asphyxiated either by
00:23:12
strangulation or by uh smothering while also being beaten. Three days later, David was arrested.
00:23:21
Visibly shaken at his arraignment, David Ditto went from a grieving husband to a
00:23:26
man charged with his wife's murder. David's mother, Pat, couldn't believe it. When the judge
00:23:34
uh stated that um the medical examiner had said blunt force trauma and strangulation. We
00:23:41
hadn't dreamed of that at all. Before March 12th, 2011, there was no known history of abuse. No physical abuse,
00:23:52
that is. In Karina Ditto's life, it was more about power and control. It wasn't until she started to break free
00:24:00
from that relationship that he lost control. San Diego County prosecutor, Claudine
00:24:07
Ruiz. But he was not the type of abuser who would lose his temper and beat his wife.
00:24:15
He was a cold, calculating man. And he made the decision to kill her. When you hear these words, violent,
00:24:23
controlling Well, there was no violence. There was no vio- violence. >> not words that you associate with your
00:24:30
Absolutely not. Even the one person who knew Karina best had her doubts. Karina's mother, Sylvia, believed
00:24:38
David's story at first, until she returned here to La Paz and began to think about all those letters from
00:24:44
Karina and all those bruises on her daughter's body. Eventually, and somewhat reluctantly, Sylvia had a
00:24:52
change of heart about her son-in-law. Why did he have the heart to cause a person so much harm? He could have
00:25:02
returned her to me or divorced her, but not kill her. Those letters may have suggested motive,
00:25:10
but detectives [music] believe it is the physical evidence that proves murder. She had blood in her hair that had
00:25:18
coagulated, and then the blood around her had already began to dry. Says to me that she had
00:25:24
been down for a while. David had time to think about what he was going to do if he needed to straighten up the house
00:25:29
before the paramedics came cuz he knew he was going to be under scrutiny. And just like first responder Lisa
00:25:34
Challenger, detectives [music] were equally troubled by inconsistencies at the scene. It's not consistent with a
00:25:41
fall down the stairs. The all the blood, everything is 3-4 ft away from the bottom of the staircase. Here's the most
00:25:48
unexplainable element of that story to me. Okay. When you look at the pictures at the bottom
00:25:54
of the stairs, Yeah. there is no blood. >> That's wrong. David's defense attorney
00:25:59
Keith Rutman argues it's absolutely plausible that Karina's head landed exactly where David says it did. You're
00:26:07
saying this is where she landed, and there is a blood splotch there. >> Correct.
00:26:11
And it depends upon how much blood you're looking at. Remember, if David is is kneeling
00:26:17
next to her, his pants had blood on them. That could have absorbed some of the blood. No one saw her fall, so you
00:26:23
can't say how she fell down the stairs. But every single one of the people that treated her and dealt with her, every
00:26:28
single one of them said, "These injuries are inconsistent with a fall." And every
00:26:32
day you hear of medical events that no one has ever heard of before. So, you believe that every one of those people
00:26:41
was wrong? Yes. Every one of those people? Yes. And do you then believe this was just a
00:26:49
freak accident? >> Yes. But no one other than David knows for sure what really happened that night.
00:26:57
>> [music] >> Did you strangle her? No. He fooled people. People don't want to believe
00:27:02
that there is that side, that dark side. It's just it's not me. It's not true. Karina Ditto was 38 years old.
00:27:28
She would have been 39 today. As David Ditto's murder trial begins, prosecutor Claudine Ruiz wants
00:27:36
the jury to focus in on the horrifying details of her version of this case. She scratched at him with both hands.
00:27:44
But he pinned her arms back. And he restrained her with his body. Then he slammed the back of her head.
00:27:52
And her head started bleeding. Ruiz marches witness after witness to the stand. >> I do.
00:28:01
forensic Experts, first responders like Ray McQueen. Based on that cardiac rhythm, that's the complete dead heart.
00:28:09
Witnesses make the case that Ditto's story of a fall down the stairs just didn't add up. Medic Lisa Challender.
00:28:18
And so for somebody to have fallen, excuse me, fallen onto a to the tile surface,
00:28:24
how come she was injured on both sides of her face and then the back of her head also? But David's lawyer Keith
00:28:30
Rotman says the evidence points to an accident, refuting the police version of the scratches on David's face. The first
00:28:38
element they say is that just does not make sense that somebody who's being given CPR would even be able to move
00:28:42
their arms and reach up and scratch. Because that's why you're giving them CPR. They're not breathing, they're not
00:28:47
moving. >> What? Right, but David testified she came to, so at that point you would
00:28:51
imagine that he would stop giving her CPR, giving her the freedom to move about. Rutman says investigators came to
00:28:57
the wrong conclusions because they did a sloppy job. If you're conducting a criminal investigation into a a murder
00:29:05
of your wife by a husband while his kids are upstairs sleeping, you have to do it
00:29:09
right. In court, he tries to show the jury that procedures were not followed. The right questions were not asked. Did
00:29:18
you ever hear anyone ask him to explain how the blood got all over her body? No, I never heard anybody ask him that.
00:29:27
The biggest oversight, Rutman tells the jury, was that the county medical examiner, Dr. Mina, did not have
00:29:34
complete information when he examined Karina's neck. And his immediate explanation is that's consistent with
00:29:40
what we see in strangulation cases, so it must be strangulation. What Mina didn't know, according to Rutman, is
00:29:47
that a resident doctor at the hospital accidentally punctured an artery in Karina's neck while trying to give her
00:29:54
blood to revive her. Never knew that that arterial puncture had occurred, so was never able to discount
00:30:02
that. Rutman says it was that puncture that caused her neck to bruise, not being strangled as Dr. Mina testified.
00:30:11
The puncture was discovered by Rutman's star witness, renowned medical examiner Michael Baden. He reviewed the autopsy
00:30:20
report, and he reviewed all the medical record from the hospital, and he was the
00:30:23
one who first noticed that there was a potential contributing source of blood from the arterial puncture. How does he
00:30:30
believe Karina died? Well, his testimony was actually to be to be technically correct about it was that her injuries
00:30:37
were consistent with the fall down the stairs. But Dr. Mina says he was aware of the puncture. The defense believes
00:30:44
that the mistake of the resident is the hemorrhage that you saw, that you believed was strangulation. No, it
00:30:52
cannot be because those two hemorrhages were separate. The hemorrhage that was by the
00:30:57
because of the resident placing a line, that was down here by the clavicle. >> Mhm. The hemorrhages that I saw were
00:31:02
over here by the thyroid gland or by the voice box. Karina's injuries tell a story, says Mena.
00:31:09
About what happened to her that night. What's the story you were able to piece together by the condition of her body?
00:31:17
Her body told me that she was beaten because she had way too many injuries to be explained by a fall downstairs. And
00:31:23
that is exactly what the jury heard him say. But then Rutman took a big gamble. He did something that is rarely done in
00:31:32
a murder trial these days. He put David Ditto on the stand so jurors could hear from David directly and judge for
00:31:41
themselves if he was telling the truth. Karina was here at the base of the stairs.
00:31:48
Her head was on the tile floor. Her shoulders were flat on the tile floor. And then he
00:31:56
addresses a key point to the prosecution's case, how Karina's head got to where the blood was on the floor.
00:32:03
So, I was holding her and I I lifted I lifted her up her head her head and shoulders
00:32:09
and kind of just pulled her and then just kind of took steps with my knees and pulled her
00:32:15
and pulled her several times until she was laying alongside the thing. Okay. Thanks.
00:32:24
Did you try to give CPR to Karina? >> [snorts] >> Yes, I did. Was she moving? No, she wasn't. Was she
00:32:31
talking? No, she wasn't. I I just picked her up and held her in my arms. Just her head and her shoulders.
00:32:48
>> [snorts and clears throat] >> I just said, "Honey, honey, are you okay?" Trying to wake her up.
00:32:56
Were you able to wake her up? No. Hey, David David also got emotional when he acknowledged there were problems in
00:33:05
his marriage, but said both he and Karina were working hard to save it. We talked a lot and cried a lot.
00:33:14
But she said yes and she wanted to try again. Jurors had to weigh David's testimony
00:33:23
against that of Karina's mother, who told them of his controlling ways as described by her daughter. For example,
00:33:31
you water the plants at a certain time. La comida talesora. Food at a certain time. Telefono.
00:33:38
Tenia tiempo para hablar con nosotros. The phone, she had set time to uh talk to us, to call us.
00:33:48
Good afternoon. In closing arguments, Rotman tells jurors that even if there were problems
00:33:54
in the Dittos' marriage, that is not enough evidence that he killed her. What she would tell her mother, "Sometimes I
00:34:01
feel like I want to be single again." Everybody feels that way. Everybody. At one point or another when you're
00:34:08
marriage, everybody feels that way. And he says the fact that David Ditto's story is so odd is precisely why it had
00:34:17
to be true. You'd think if he planned all this, he'd have a better story put together. The blood would be
00:34:26
in the right places. The injuries would be consistent with what he saw. That's not what he said.
00:34:33
Addie backs up his point that it was a freak accident with some mathematics. If it's a one in a million chance that
00:34:41
Karina Ditto fell down the stairs and hit her head in just the right way. It's a one in a million chance. That
00:34:49
means it happened to 311 people last year. A thousand if it happens in China. But Claudine Ruiz isn't buying any of
00:34:59
it. She wants the jurors to believe it was cold-blooded murder. This was no accident and the bruises all over her
00:35:08
body tell you that. After four weeks of testimony, [music] the case against David Ditto was now in
00:35:26
the hands of the jury. His attorney, Keith Rothman, was feeling optimistic. I was confident that we had
00:35:33
presented the best case that existed and that they had left too many unanswered questions for 12 people to conclude that
00:35:40
David just up and murdered his wife in the middle of the night with his kids upstairs. Unlike Rothman, David's
00:35:46
sister, Maggie, was not as optimistic. After our attorneys closing argument, that's when I felt
00:35:53
worried. Our closing argument just was not it didn't drive the points home. It took only one day for the jury to
00:36:03
reach a verdict and that made David's mother, Pat, very nervous. I felt that um because they came to a decision so
00:36:12
quickly, they did not consider all of the evidence. We, the jury in the above entitled
00:36:18
cause, find the defendant, David Patrick Ditto, guilty of the crime of murder. Guilty of first-degree murder. The
00:36:27
verdict stunned everyone who believed David was innocent. I never dreamed that they would um find him guilty of
00:36:35
first-degree murder. I mean, that was over the top. I was shocked. But no one was more shocked than the defendant.
00:36:44
>> I really didn't think there was any way I would be convicted. I didn't think it
00:36:47
would be possible to convince a a jury of 12 people that I killed her when I knew that it wasn't true and I knew
00:36:54
that some of the evidence, you know, looked suspicious and I saw some some problems, but it
00:37:00
didn't prove anything. I it didn't prove that I that I hurt Karina in any way. Was there a
00:37:07
particular piece of evidence or someone's testimony that came to the forefront right away? For
00:37:13
me, it was the medical examiner's evidence. We sat down with three of the jurors. Francine Fullman Miso found that
00:37:21
Karina's injuries told an undeniable story. Just seeing the pictures, you know, of her. Just seeing that because
00:37:28
that was so objective and um and convincing for me. Juror Christine Ellis. Even though we had all the
00:37:34
testimony about their relationship and everything, I was trying to go on the actual physical Yes. evidence that they
00:37:41
brought forward. And it just didn't seem that they could possibly be from a fall
00:37:47
down the stairs. And I lifted her up. And held her in my arms. Nor was juror Patricia Well convinced by
00:37:56
Ditto's story. I found his testimony disingenuous and it seemed very disconnected from the context of the
00:38:04
situation. I was troubled by that. Sad to think that someone went through that kind of pain at the
00:38:13
end of their life, you know. Do you believe justice was served? I do. Prosecutor Claudine Ruiz says the last
00:38:22
chapter of Karina Ditto's life may have ended very differently if not for the first people who stood up for her." The
00:38:29
patient's head was right here. The paramedics were really the unsung heroes in this case
00:38:35
because they arrived on the scene knowing nothing. And when they walked in, they immediately knew something was
00:38:42
wrong. Is it possible then he could have gotten away with murder and called it an
00:38:45
accident? He very well could have. I saw my role on this call as providing care for Karina Ditto. Every person that
00:38:54
was involved in this had a part to it. I know that we were the first people to draw attention to it. This is a tragic
00:39:03
case. Nine months after David Ditto was found guilty of first-degree murder, It's tragic for the victim.
00:39:11
It's tragic for the children. Do you understand? >> Judge Kenneth So sentenced him to 25
00:39:19
years to life. Now 45, David Ditto will most likely spend the rest of his days in prison.
00:39:30
When the case against David [music] finally came to an end, Silvia was back home in La Paz, Mexico, where it all
00:39:37
began for David and her daughter. I felt guilty. Even today I still feel guilty because had I told her to pack
00:39:45
her things and leave him, this wouldn't have happened. As Silvia looks through a photo album
00:39:53
full of memories, she hopes and prays she won't [music] lose touch with the grandchildren she
00:39:59
loves dearly but has not seen [music] since the trial. It's very difficult when I speak to them
00:40:06
on the phone. I can't control myself when hearing their pretty voice. They are not alone. They have a lot of family
00:40:14
here and we love them. The children are now living with David's sister, Maggie, >> [music]
00:40:21
>> and her family. You still have photos of David and Karina in your salon and all over your house.
00:40:30
How do you feel about David Ditto today? I only see him as a son who left. A son who made us feel good at one time.
00:40:42
A son who behaved badly. But I have him in my heart. I don't hate him. I forgive
00:40:48
him. 48 hours. To miss it would be a crime. Were you at all prepared [music] for
00:41:02
what happened in this case? >> [music] [music] [music]