00:00:25
I was the first responding deputy to the scene that night of November of '92. too.
00:00:30
>> Oh, I'll never forget that night. A couple came in and reported that a car was sitting down at the offramp with the
00:00:41
lights on and the engine running. We opened the door and looked in with my flashlight
00:00:49
and that's when I saw this girl slumped over in the seat. There was a lot of blood in her hair. I really thought that
00:00:56
she was dead. didn't appear to be breathing at all. Her name was Angel Michelle Lawless. She
00:01:03
was a 19-year-old college student. She was approximately a half a mile from her residence when I found her.
00:01:14
There's a lot of things that happened that night is still a mystery. She leaves her boyfriend's house and she
00:01:21
was on her way home. It's possible somebody was following her up the interstate.
00:01:33
Maybe they knew her and they got her to pull over and stop. If she knew them, and I believe that she
00:01:40
did know them, I think she knew how bad they were and how serious this situation
00:01:45
was. And and maybe that's why she ended down at the bottom of the hill. Maybe she was running for her life and they
00:01:51
caught her. The beating started there. Once it started, it was it was like in a rage and there was no stopping. But the
00:02:02
worst part was yet to come whenever she was put back in the car. She was shot three times at point blank
00:02:16
range. This was cold blooded. >> I think this person is a monster. I was calling monster,
00:02:30
calling me a killer. Calling me a murderer. Doesn't need to get any worse than that.
00:02:40
Josh Kaser was convicted of the murder of Angel Michelle Lawless, serving 60 years at the state correctional
00:02:47
facility. The only thing I remember is when the verdict came back, I I went numb
00:02:56
and everything became like I was in a drum. Like all the voices other than my own
00:03:03
were at a distance. I was uh yelling that it wasn't me. I I didn't do it. There was people that came forward and
00:03:19
said that he had bragged about killing Michelle Lawless. >> I had never met Michelle Lawless.
00:03:27
>> The night that uh Michelle was murdered, I was 350 mi away. I'm an innocent man. People kept asking
00:03:36
me, "Do you have the right person in prison?" In the back of my mind, there was a a possibility that maybe Josh
00:03:42
didn't do this. If Josh Keyser didn't do it, I hate to think there's somebody still
00:03:48
out there that's responsible for this and got away with it all these years. I think they should be locked up like the
00:03:54
animal that they are. I would very much like to find out who that is. And I will.
00:04:01
>> The girl who knew too much. Tonight's 48 hours mystery. Heat. Heat. You know, when I look back, I wish that
00:04:51
maybe I'd have listened a little more or been there a a little more because she was always there for me.
00:05:00
>> More than 19 years have passed since 19-year-old Michelle Lawless was found bludgeoned and shot to death in her car.
00:05:08
Some of this stuff's hard to read. >> And it's still not easy for her best friend to read the cheery diary that
00:05:15
Michelle kept the last year of her life. >> January 1st, slept real late. Family
00:05:20
went to Mingo and I to Leon's. We loved and ate and talked and rented movies. Made me feel loved today and I am really
00:05:28
happy. Love him. Great first day of 1992. Melissa Gaines met Michelle when they were high school freshmen in Benton,
00:05:37
Missouri. >> I had just moved to Kelly High School. Didn't know anybody. Her little bubbly
00:05:44
self come bouncing up and introduced herself and it was all over. She was part of my life from that moment on.
00:05:52
While Michelle stood barely 5 feet tall, >> she was just little bitty. She was tiny.
00:05:59
>> She was no lightweight, she was a green belt in karate, halfway to earning a black belt.
00:06:05
>> I can't even remember anything she was ever scared of. She was fearless. >> Would it ever occur to you that Michelle
00:06:15
might be in danger? >> No. >> No. I mean, that never was a thought to me. Never.
00:06:22
Which is why what happened in the early morning hours of November 8th, 1992 was so unexpected, so shocking. How brutal a
00:06:32
murder was this? >> Very. >> That's Rick Walder, the man with the mustache. He was a 32-year-old part-time
00:06:40
deputy sheriff when he discovered the body of Michelle Lawless. >> This is Small Town, USA. You know, a lot
00:06:46
of stuff like this just doesn't happen. female's head is slumped over on the passenger seat.
00:06:52
>> Police documented the grizzly scene using blood evidence to reconstruct Michelle's final terrifying moments.
00:07:00
>> What appears to be blood splatters on the highway. >> I believe that she got out of the
00:07:04
vehicle and I think there was an argument >> pool of blood 16 18 in away from the
00:07:10
left. >> She ended up over the guard rail and down the bottom of the slope. A very
00:07:17
violent altercation took place. I believe that she was beat at the bottom and knocked unconscious. There was a lot
00:07:23
of blood. >> What appears to be a trail. >> There's some right there. There's some
00:07:27
right there. >> There was also blood under Michelle's fingernails and marks on her right hand and wrist
00:07:38
suggesting she had fought her asalants. I >> think she was she was fighting for her
00:07:42
life. I think she was fighting more than one person. There was a blood trail going back up
00:07:46
the hill. They carry her across the guardrail. >> Some blood dripped on the guard rail.
00:07:55
>> They put her back in the car. >> Appears to be a 380 caliber. >> It wasn't until investigators searched
00:08:02
her car and found three spent shell casings from a 380 handgun that they realized Michelle had been
00:08:12
shot, too. I think after she got back in the car, I think that's when she regained conscious and somebody wretched
00:08:18
through the window, shot her point blank in the face, shot in the back of the head, and then
00:08:25
one more time in the back. I can't imagine what she went through that night. At the same time Rick Walter was working
00:08:36
the crime scene, a 23-year-old local man walked into the sheriff's office with a
00:08:42
surprising story. >> Scared me. I've never really seen anything like that. >> Mark Abbott reported that he had also
00:08:48
seen the woman in the car. >> All I remember is her face was just matted and covered with hair and blood.
00:08:55
>> Did you know who it was? >> No. Abbott told the dispatcher he thought the woman had been shot and that
00:09:01
he tried to call 911, but a nearby pay phone was out of order. >> Pulled out there as fast I could and
00:09:08
went straight to the county sheriff's department trying to get uh an ambulance. >> As he was leaving, Abbott saw, as he
00:09:14
described to investigators, a white car with several dark-skinned Hispanic men driving away from the crime scene.
00:09:22
>> Well, a man for sure and two or three other people. Michelle's family got the news when
00:09:28
authorities came to their door. >> I answered the door. It's about 3:00 a.m., I guess.
00:09:35
>> Jason Lawless was 15 when his older sister was killed. >> I don't do this. Well,
00:09:44
>> how would you describe the effect on your family? Whoever shot my sister killed my family.
00:10:05
Every ounce of it, every fiber that held it together. The first suspect was, of course, the
00:10:16
last person to admit seeing Michelle alive. the boyfriend she stopped to see, Leon Lamb.
00:10:24
What time did she arrive at your house? >> She was only there about an hour or so,
00:10:28
so it it could have been 11:30 or or 12 at night. >> And what time did she leave?
00:10:34
>> Just right at 1:00 a.m. >> Was Michelle your first love? >> Yes, ma'am. >> January 6th. Called Leon and told him I
00:10:45
love him so much. And from the entries in her diary, Michelle clearly loved Leon, but they also argued frequently.
00:10:54
Michelle was hurt that Leon was seeing other girls. >> No matter how mean he is to me, I still
00:11:00
love him. >> But that night, says Leon, things were fine. Although he remembers Michelle was
00:11:07
reluctant to leave his house. >> Now that I look back, it seemed like that she knew something was wrong. Maybe
00:11:15
something was going to happen. Investigators looked closely at Leon, but they could find nothing to tie him
00:11:21
to the scene, and he passed a polygraph. Did you think it could be Leon? >> He never crossed my mind. No.
00:11:29
>> Why not? >> I just could never imagine him wanting to harm her like that ever.
00:11:36
>> Weeks went by with few other leads and no arrests. And then finally, four months after Michelle's murder, a break.
00:11:45
a big one. Several inmates at the county jail reported that a 17-year-old Illinois boy who had been held there
00:11:52
briefly on an assault charge had confessed to killing Michelle Lawless. His name was Joshua Keyser. When Mark
00:12:02
Abbott was shown a photo lineup, he picked out Keyser as the driver he saw near the crime scene.
00:12:09
>> Did you say, "Yeah, this is the guy I saw. I know this is it." >> No. >> What did you say? It looks like him and
00:12:15
that looks like the car. >> That's all investigators needed. Joshua Keyser was charged with the firstdegree
00:12:21
murder of Michelle Lawless. >> I sit there stunned. I immediately started to just be shaken
00:12:29
and confused and I didn't know what was happening. I just knew that something very real was
00:12:35
happening. >> Michelle's family and friends were just as stunned. Had you ever heard your
00:12:41
sister mention the name Josh Kzer? >> No. >> Had you ever heard the name Josh Keyser?
00:12:46
>> No. >> There was no truth to what they were presenting. >> Everything was a lie.
00:13:18
We want to know who did it, of course. We just would really like to know why. Was there a purpose behind it?
00:13:29
>> Valerie Eubanks is Michelle Lawless's kid's sister. Was it just a fluke? Was she at the
00:13:36
wrong place at the wrong time? Did she walk up on something? >> You know, you just want to deny it. You
00:13:45
don't want it to be true. >> Esther Lawless is their mother. What do you know about her last hours who she
00:13:52
was with? >> She was with some of her friends um from Sykeson that she hung out with all the
00:13:57
time driving around in Saxton. They would drive up and down Main Street and park in Malco parking lot or whatever
00:14:06
and hang out. It seemed to be a very typical, you know, Saturday night. >> In the days before November 7th and 8th,
00:14:17
did Michelle express any kind of concerns or being afraid of anybody? >> Not to us. No.
00:14:26
Do you think that Michelle would have stopped for a stranger on the street? >> Not at all.
00:14:32
>> We always kind of felt that someone she knew was involved and that's what made
00:14:38
her pull over and stop. >> Which is what made the arrest of Joshua Keys so puzzling. There's no mention of
00:14:46
him anywhere in Michelle's diary. >> Had you ever met her, heard her name? >> No. The first time I'd ever seen her is
00:14:55
when my attorney brought me a picture of her obituary. That's the first time I had actually ever seen
00:15:01
her face. When they began to ask me a a few questions about some murder, I was like,
00:15:09
what? You know, why are they asking me about this stuff? >> Josh certainly fit the type. He was a
00:15:16
17-year-old dropout and rumored to be a gang member. He came from a broken home,
00:15:21
bouncing between his parents and living on the street. >> You know, he had long hair. He was he
00:15:27
was dirty. He slept on the street a lot of times and and slept wherever he could. He had already had a couple
00:15:34
different runins with the law. >> I wasn't really that different than most kids that um don't have an advantage.
00:15:40
And I was just going through some very, you know, difficult struggles. Even though Josh insisted he was 350
00:15:49
miles away the night of the murder, investigators hauled him into the office of Bill Frell, the Scott County Sheriff
00:15:56
back then. >> He settles into his chair like split second later, literally comes halfway over his desk
00:16:03
and accuses me of killing, and I quote, his little girl, and that they were charging me with first-degree murder.
00:16:11
More than a year later, in June of 1994, Josh Keyzer got his day in court. >> What did you believe would happen at the
00:16:20
trial? >> I believe I would win. What were they going to present? They had blood underneath the victim's
00:16:25
fingernails. >> Was it yours? >> It was not my type. It was not my DNA. They did not have fingerprints, palm
00:16:33
prints, no weapon, no paper trail, no motive. But the prosecution did have those
00:16:39
jailhouse informants who took the stand and swore that Josh had confessed to the
00:16:44
murder and then a surprise witness. >> You went to the trial. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Although Chantel Krider could only see
00:16:52
the back of Kzer's head in court. She whispered to a friend that she thought she recognized him as a young man who
00:16:59
had argued with Michelle at a Halloween party just one week before her murder. This guy kept asking her out and she
00:17:07
refused. He was real arrogant and and very hateful. >> What do you mean hateful?
00:17:13
>> He called her a because she kept refusing and was like, "Leave me alone." Then he asked me out and I told him, I
00:17:21
said, "Are you crazy? You just asked my best friend out. There's no way." And he
00:17:26
slapped me in the back of my hair. Josh Kezer looked like him. >> It looked Yeah, it looked like him.
00:17:32
Finally, the connection the prosecutor needed. Chantel was questioned for hours by Sheriff Bill Frell
00:17:40
and became the state's star witness. So, you took the stand and what did you say on the stand? I believed it was
00:17:50
Josh. >> Also on the stand, Mark Abbott, the man who had reported seeing Michelle Lawless
00:17:57
in her car the night of her murder. Once again, he identified Josh as the driver
00:18:02
of the white car he saw near the crime scene. But the defense pointed out that Abbott had reported seeing several men
00:18:09
that night and had given conflicting descriptions. >> They chose to rely on the credibility of
00:18:16
a man who first claimed that it was a light-skinned black man, then a carload of Mexicans, and then they finally
00:18:21
settled on a pale white kid from Illinois. >> No physical evidence tied Josh to the
00:18:26
murder. This is the leather jacket that >> But the prosecutor told the jury the test showed there was blood on Josh's
00:18:33
jacket and a car he was driving. At the end of the trial, the jury was out just 3 and 1/2 hours.
00:18:43
>> I'm sitting there ready to jump and then the verdict came back guilty. guilty of secondderee murder in the
00:18:55
death of Michelle Lawless. >> The only thing I remember is when the verdict came back, I I went numb. It's
00:19:02
confused. I I remember hearing myself yelling and screaming. It wasn't me. It wasn't me.
00:19:13
>> What did you think when he yelled that leaving the courtroom? >> What else can he say but I didn't do it.
00:19:21
Josh Keyser sentence, 60 years in prison. Josh was sent to a notorious prison known as the Walls, the Missouri State
00:19:34
Penitentiary. Now closed, it was such a violent place. It was once called the bloodiest 47 acres in America. And for
00:19:43
nearly 10 years, Josh lived right here in housing unit 4, cell number 99. >> There was a point that I I got attacked
00:19:58
when I was in prison. Um, there were some men who wanted to rape me and they tried and they failed. Praise God.
00:20:06
But in the process of defending myself, I I got beat up quite bad and ended up in the hospital
00:20:15
on two occasions. I I prayed for death. I didn't want to wake up. We're going toward U where Michelle was
00:20:35
found that night. There's nothing about this whole case that that makes me feel good at all.
00:20:40
>> In 2005, more than 12 years after finding Michelle Lawless shot dead in her car.
00:20:46
>> Yeah, I go by I go by here a lot. >> Rick Walter was no longer a part-time deputy. He was now the sheriff of Scott
00:20:55
County. >> I think about the family and I can't imagine what the family went through.
00:21:00
For years, Walter had nagging doubts about the conviction of Josh Keyser. >> Talk to the average everyday lay person,
00:21:08
you know, and they they would tell me the same thing. This kid didn't do it. >> So, as first order of business, the new
00:21:16
sheriff did something extraordinary. He reopened Josh Keyser's case. You must know how incredibly unusual that is.
00:21:25
>> It's very unusual. Uh, in the law enforcement community, that's not a real popular thing to do. This wasn't a cold
00:21:32
case. This was a closed case. >> But Walter, with a wife and three children, quickly discovered that his
00:21:39
decision to get to the truth made some people very uncomfortable. >> You've had death threats.
00:21:44
>> Sure. Sure. >> Undeterred, Walter hired an investigator from another county, Brandon Cade, who
00:21:50
knew nothing about the case, to conduct an independent review of the files. At first, Cade thought he was wasting
00:22:00
his time. >> Reading the court transcripts, everything. They had witnesses that said
00:22:05
he confessed. It seemed pretty rock solid when I first read through it. >> But as he dug through the files, that
00:22:13
rock solid case began to crumble. >> Every bit of it, once once you really took and examined it piece by piece and
00:22:21
just looked at it a little harder, it it came apart. Remember those jailhouse informants
00:22:30
who claimed Josh had confessed? After getting better deals in exchange for their testimony, these three later
00:22:38
admitted they lied. And there's more. >> This is the leather jacket that belonged
00:22:43
to Josh Keyser. >> And this was evidence that supposedly tied him to the murder.
00:22:47
>> Right. The jury had been told that luminol tests done on this jacket and a car keys
00:22:55
are borrowed indicated drops of blood. >> We had it tested and uh in fact it wasn't blood.
00:23:02
>> It wasn't blood at all. No. >> And yet the jury in Josh's trial heard it was >> right.
00:23:08
>> And what about the surprise star witness Chantel Krider who connected Josh Keyser
00:23:13
to Michelle at the Halloween party? And in fact, did Chantel see Josh at a party? Did she see him
00:23:21
arguing with Michelle Laws? >> No. >> Was he even at that party? >> No. >> How do you know for a fact Josh Keyser
00:23:28
wasn't at that party? >> Don Pierce hosted the Halloween party? >> Cuz I know every guy that was there,
00:23:34
there was not a strange man to me. >> So why did Chantel testify that Josh was there? She now says she was pushed hard
00:23:43
by the then sheriff Bill Frell. >> Did you feel pressured in that room? >> Yes, ma'am. I did. I I really did.
00:23:54
He kept going on and on and on about how my testimony was that important because
00:23:59
I was what they needed to link them together. Just days after the verdict, Don Pierce
00:24:07
and another girl who was at the party went to Keyser's attorney and provided a sworn statement.
00:24:13
>> They contacted his defense attorney the next Monday and said that he was not at
00:24:17
our party. They had a list of all the kids that was there. >> That list was given to Sheriff Frell,
00:24:23
but somehow the information went nowhere. >> Everyone wanted to believe that this
00:24:30
thing was done and over with. and the guy was in jail. >> Jason Lawless believes there was a lot
00:24:38
of pressure on Sheriff Frell to find his sister's killer. >> He wanted a conviction. He wanted it
00:24:45
quick and he wanted it fast and he got it. >> And you're trying to make it right.
00:24:50
>> I'm trying and I will. >> Rick Walder was about to find out he wasn't all alone in his search for the
00:24:57
truth. that there was absolutely no reason why they convicted him. >> James Williams was a church volunteer at
00:25:06
the Missouri State Prison where Josh Keyser was serving out his sentence. >> I'm not an attorney. I had never read a
00:25:13
trial transcript before. I really knew nothing about any of this. But as I began to just read it and truthfully
00:25:22
just pray about it, I felt very clearly that I had to do something about this. Armed with her passion, Jane wrote a
00:25:31
detailed summary and found lawyers willing to take Kzer's case for free. In December of 2008, after spending more
00:25:40
than 15 years in prison, you seated. >> Josh finally got what he wanted. Judge Richard Callahan agreed to review
00:25:52
his case. Witness after witness testified for Josh. They followed her. They got the wrong guy,
00:25:59
>> including a tearful Chantel Crider. >> I regret it horribly. >> It affects me every day. An innocent man
00:26:09
has been locked up and he doesn't deserve to be. >> But will it be enough to convince the
00:26:18
judge to order a new trial? Two long months passed after the court hearing. Josh Keyser sat in prison,
00:26:35
afraid to get his hopes up. And then on February 17th, 2009, Judge Richard Callahan made an unusual ruling. Instead
00:26:45
of ordering a new trial, he went ahead and declared Josh Keyser an innocent man. As you sit here today, do you
00:26:53
believe that Josh Keyser had anything to do with the murder of Michelle Lawless?
00:26:57
>> Absolutely not. I I I believe he is innocent and I so found. >> I let out this just roar.
00:27:04
I mean, I I just let it out. I yelled. I shouted with everything I had in me. >> The very next day, Keyzer walked out of
00:27:15
prison. A free man for the first time in 16 years. He hugged his mother. >> He hugged Jane Williams, the social
00:27:27
worker who had championed his case. >> For years, he had had to carry that he was a monster killer who brutally killed
00:27:34
someone, which was not true. >> And then he turned to Sheriff Rick Walter. >> I wanted to thank him personally for
00:27:41
what he'd done. Both the prosecutor Kenneth Holshoff and former Sheriff Bill Frell have declined
00:27:49
our requests for interviews, but in court documents, Frell denies any wrongdoing.
00:27:55
>> Here we go. Take care. >> And Holshaw has said publicly he still believes Kzer's guilty. What do you
00:28:01
think of that? >> I think we done the right thing and we move on and and try to find out who done
00:28:06
this. Sheriff Walter still believes it was someone Michelle knew. >> There's people of suspicion. We have
00:28:15
right now about six or seven different people that, you know, we're definitely interested in and we're looking at
00:28:21
>> on that list. >> Still today, I'm a number one suspect in this murder. Am or am I not?
00:28:27
>> That's right. Mark Abbott, once a star witness for the prosecution. Now, Abbott's account that night raises
00:28:36
questions. questions starting with what he says he did when he found Michelle in
00:28:40
her car. >> I just reached in the window when I grabbed her and she came up. >> What's wrong with that story? The side
00:28:48
window was only partly open. Not wide enough, says the sheriff, to fit Mark's story.
00:28:55
>> You could reach through the window and grab somebody and set them up. Not the
00:28:58
way he said. >> Did you kill Michelle Lawless? >> No. >> But there are a lot of people in this
00:29:05
town who think you did. A lot a lot of people think I do. >> I've also spoken to a number of people
00:29:12
who have said, "You've bragged about it." >> One of them was Ron Burton, a gun shop
00:29:17
owner and longtime friend of Abbott's family. Burton remembers one chilling conversation with Abbott soon after Kzer
00:29:26
was convicted. >> He said, and I quote, "I took care of the bitch." And that's what he said. And he kind of
00:29:33
had a smirky little grin on his face. and I'll never forget it because it shocked me.
00:29:37
>> Do you think he was kidding? >> No. No, I don't. >> Abbott denies ever saying that.
00:29:44
>> You're saying that Ron Burton is lying? >> Lying. >> There's also an affidavit from a
00:29:49
narcotics detective who says Abbott told him that he didn't kill Michelle, but watched another man do it.
00:29:57
>> Were you there when someone else killed her? >> No. He's full of >> Why would so many people think you're
00:30:05
capable of something like this that they'd point the finger? >> I don't know what I did to him to anger
00:30:09
him like that. >> They're pointing the finger at you. Why? >> I do not have an answer to that. I do
00:30:16
not. >> Abbott says he never met Michelle, but her close friend Melissa Gaines has a
00:30:22
different recollection. Did Michelle ever mention a Mark Abbott? >> Yes. Yes, she did. She had said that she
00:30:30
had met Mark Abbott, one of the Abbott boys, and thought he was good-looking guy. And I told her, Michelle, you know,
00:30:38
don't mess with either one of the Abbott boys. You know better than that. >> In fact, there are two Abbott boys.
00:30:45
They're identical twins. >> Those boys, they would change places with each other, you know, from little
00:30:52
boys on. You can't tell them apart. Which is why to this day, the sheriff isn't absolutely sure which Abbott
00:30:59
brother came in to report finding Michelle. Two people in the sheriff's office say it was Matt.
00:31:06
>> So, was Matt Abbott involved? Was Mark involved? Matt said he never was, but yet we got two people that says he
00:31:12
walked in and reported it. They have him down as Matt Abbott. So, you know, that
00:31:17
could be a conspiracy, couldn't it? Mark and Matt Abbott were later convicted on federal drug charges in
00:31:24
1997, making some people in town wonder if maybe Michelle Lawless had something on
00:31:30
them. >> There's a lot of theories out there. One of them was that she had information on
00:31:34
their u their drug dealing. And there's a lot of money, you know, involved in that and that's motive enough for
00:31:41
somebody to to kill somebody. Along with Abbott, Sheriff Walter hasn't ruled out
00:31:46
Leon Lamb, the last person to admit to seeing Michelle Lawless alive. Did you have anything to do with
00:31:54
Michelle Lawless's death? >> Not at all. I loved her. >> You know that your DNA was found under
00:32:01
her finger nails? >> Yes, ma'am. >> And how do you explain that? >> We had sex that night. Um, and
00:32:11
we were both pretty passionate people. So, you know, time and again she did scratch me during sex.
00:32:19
>> But Leon confirms what Michelle wrote in her diary that the couple had frequent
00:32:25
arguments, especially when he saw her with other men. And in fact, the night of her murder, Michelle had run into
00:32:32
Leon while she was driving around with male friends. >> Did that bother you? It did. Um,
00:32:41
you know, because we had been together for three years. >> Did she leave the house upset with you
00:32:46
or angry with you at all? >> No, not at all. I mean, we, like I said, we we hugged, kissed, and said our good
00:32:53
nights, and that was it. >> These are only two of a halfozen suspects. >> Looked like from the pictures that there
00:33:00
was some blood transfer. >> And Sheriff Walter needs more than theories and speculation. And this is
00:33:06
kind of like behind the knee, right? >> He needs hard evidence. To find it, he went all the way to the Netherlands to a
00:33:13
place known as the crime farm. Halfway around the world from Scott County, Missouri, there's a rustic house
00:33:36
in the Netherlands known as the crime farm. >> I came here in hopes to find u some DNA.
00:33:44
We're we're looking to um maybe get some skin cells off of some of the uh some of
00:33:49
the clothing. >> But they did and they were >> Dutch forensic experts Selma and Richard
00:33:53
Ike began the painstaking process of trying to find a killer's DNA. jeans, one pair.
00:34:01
>> Using techniques not widely available in the US, Richard first examines the material with crime scopes.
00:34:08
>> What we're looking for is small stains >> which emit different kinds of light to
00:34:13
locate normally invisible spots of skin cells or other material. >> This is this actually Yeah, the fingers
00:34:20
up here. It's like this. >> Those spots will be tested for what's called touch or grip DNA. Number one,
00:34:27
>> they'll compare what they find with DNA samples from the people of interest on
00:34:32
the sheriff's list. They didn't have Mark Abbott's DNA, so they're using a sample from his
00:34:38
identical twin, Matt. Is the DNA of identical twins identical? Completely identical.
00:34:45
>> Um, normally it is. >> The Dutch team made an intriguing discovery that raises even more doubts
00:34:53
about Mark Abbott's story. of how he pulled Michelle upright in her seat that night.
00:35:02
>> And where exactly did you grab her? >> Uh, on a shoulder kind of might have been by the breast a little
00:35:09
bit. I I can't fully remember, but I know it wasn't too far. You know, >> if I were the driver.
00:35:14
>> Yeah, your shoulder. >> This shoulder. >> Yeah, on that side. But the Dutch couple say they found what
00:35:22
is likely Abbott DNA in other places on Lis's clothes. >> I mean, did you just grab the shoulder?
00:35:30
Did you grab more of her body to pull her up? Do you remember? >> I just grabbed her shoulder.
00:35:36
>> I I know what he said where he touched her. If it's somewhere else that that he
00:35:41
it was impossible for him to touch or that's that's where we find it, then he has a problem. In December 2009, Mark
00:35:49
Abbott was moved temporarily from the federal prison where he was doing time on those drug charges to Missouri for a
00:35:56
hearing on an unrelated charge. >> Walter. Hey. Good. I see you got a lot of busy things going on right here.
00:36:03
>> You're famous. >> Yeah, thanks. It's I I can't thank nobody but you. Abbott agreed to talk to
00:36:08
Sheriff Walter about the lawless case, even offering his own DNA sample, which was shipped off to the crime farm for
00:36:16
additional testing. And what about Leon Lamb? The Dutch confirm that Lamb's DNA is mixed with
00:36:24
Michelle's blood that was found under her fingernails. No surprise since Lamb says he had sex with Michelle earlier
00:36:31
the night she was killed. But they don't find anyone else's DNA. And that is something of a surprise since it appears
00:36:40
Michelle fought her attacker. >> She wouldn't take anything off anybody. She would fight if she if she needed to.
00:36:46
And um you know, I believe she she fought for her life that night. >> A reason to continue looking at Leon,
00:36:54
says Sheriff Walter. Although he points out Michelle may not have made contact with her asalent.
00:37:00
If she grabbed their clothing, they're she's not going to get any of of their skin cells. You know, unless she got
00:37:05
them in the face, there's a good chance that we're not going to get anything >> you up behind a computer.
00:37:10
>> So far, none of the team's findings point conclusively to any one suspect, but Selma Ike believes the findings can
00:37:18
help the sheriff get someone to talk. >> This DNA results, it can become a leverage for the sheriff to get things
00:37:26
starting up again. Sheriff Walter is hoping that those DNA results and further investigation will
00:37:35
allow him to go to a grand jury soon. A lot of people are really scared about this case.
00:37:40
>> Who are they afraid of? Or what are they afraid of? >> Maybe they're afraid of the people that
00:37:44
done this. 6 months after Josh Keyser was released, we took him back to the now closed
00:37:56
prison where he served most of his nearly 16 years in custody. It's now being redeveloped as a museum and office
00:38:04
park. >> What's it like to be in here? >> Strangely, way too familiar. And where did you sleep?
00:38:19
>> Right here. I lived in this cell. Swept this cell. Mopped this cell. >> When you look around here, how would you
00:38:31
describe your life now? >> Oh, I am blessed and highly favored. I'm living a dream.
00:38:39
>> Josh got a job working construction. I would like I mean this >> his own apartment has
00:38:45
>> controlling me and owning me all these years >> and he often speaks about his experience
00:38:50
advocating for judicial reform. >> He remains close with Jame Williams and enjoys strong support from his church
00:39:00
community. He insists he is not bitter. >> I don't look back my 16 years in prison
00:39:07
and get hateful and angry about all of it. It does not excuse what was done to me. There is no excuse for that. It was
00:39:17
wrong. It was evil. Which might explain why he was so eager to assist with the prison renovation?
00:39:32
Do you believe that Michelle's death will be solved? That you will find out who killed her? I have
00:39:40
to believe that. >> Yeah, >> I really do. >> To this day, Michelle Lawless's family
00:39:46
remains tormented by the mystery of her senseless murder. >> Whoever took her life needs to pay for
00:39:53
what they did. It's not going to bring her back. I know that. But it will help all of us rest a little easier.
00:40:02
I owe that to her family to find out um who done it and I owe it to this community to find out because if there's
00:40:08
somebody that's got away with murder, they need to pay for their crime. Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey.
00:41:14
Crystal always had a great spirit about her. She knew what she wanted. She went for it. about to jump out of a perfectly
00:41:19
good >> airplane out of a plane. >> She could take care of herself. >> I did a punk cow like a girl.
00:41:31
>> She was obviously very beautiful, very attractive, but there was something about her. She radiated light. I worked
00:41:38
with Crystal as a flight attendant. She was definitely a goofball and she would even describe herself as a dork.
00:41:50
She kind of has like a gypsy soul. Like she was a flight attendant, you know, she just likes traveling.
00:41:54
>> I've been dating Crystal McDall for a few weeks now. We'd both been divorced and we knew exactly what we wanted. You
00:42:00
know, when you first meet somebody and you're kind of on cloud N, that's kind of how we were.
00:42:06
>> Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall in Texas. Hurricane
00:42:12
warnings in place along most of the Texas coast. Friday morning, uh, August 25th is when
00:42:19
she left the house. >> She was actually living with her ex-husband. She was living in the master
00:42:23
bedroom downstairs and he had moved into a bedroom upstairs. >> He had such a passion of love for her.
00:42:29
It was almost like an obsessive, controlling love. >> She sent me a few text messages and um,
00:42:37
I replied back, but I never got a reply after that. So, I thought maybe she was just preoccupied with getting ready for
00:42:44
the storm. Across southern Texas, grocery store shelves are bare. People are rushing to stock up on last minute
00:42:51
supplies. >> At that point in time, I just started trying to find relatives or friends to
00:42:57
reach out to them to see if they knew where she was. And that's when I reached out to Jeff Walters. He's her uncle.
00:43:03
>> I get messages from her every morning. I get messages all throughout the day.
00:43:10
She's one of the most responsible people that I know. She never loses contact with us.
00:43:19
>> Chambers County Sheriff's Office. >> It's my niece. >> Okay, your niece. >> No one can get a hold of her. No one is
00:43:25
hurt from her. I'm really concerned. >> It's a serious storm. It's going to last
00:43:31
four or five days. And quite frankly, this is day day one. >> This morning, police are searching for a
00:43:37
Texas mother who mysteriously disappeared before Harvey hit. We are hampered by some of the flood issues,
00:43:44
but we are as aggressive as ever trying to locate Crystal McDow. >> I knew she wouldn't run away. She would
00:43:52
never be that type of person. So, that was >> Would she have ever left her kids?
00:43:56
>> No. >> Happy birthday to you. Automatically as a sheriff, I know that mothers
00:44:04
don't leave their children, and there's obviously never a good time for anybody to to become missing, but the timing was
00:44:10
terrible. >> Was there a part of you that just went, it can't get any worse? >> Um, on more than one occasion,
00:44:22
>> my gut tells me there's something catastrophically wrong with this scenario. By the time floodwaters receded,
00:44:30
authorities believed one of three men knew where Crystal was. >> Got the boyfriend, got the ex-husband.
00:44:37
Well, then the uncle was making such noise about everything, I started thinking about him. 21 months later, one
00:44:44
would be on trial for murder. Got to get a boat out here. >> Watch the water, man. Watch the lift.
00:45:34
left the baby. >> Baytown has picked up 32.9 in. >> The house is totaled. All my furniture
00:45:39
is totaled. >> Can you get to the top of your vehicle? >> It was horrible. The rain wouldn't stop.
00:45:47
It just would not stop. >> District Attorney Cheryl Leak says despite the horrific flooding from
00:45:53
Hurricane Harvey in Baytown, Texas, a suburb of Houston, the investigators were determined to find Crystal McDow.
00:46:02
We had deputies that were flooded out of their homes. One of our investigators lost his entire house. Our local Texas
00:46:08
ranger and his wife were flooded out of theirs. >> And yet they showed up for work.
00:46:13
>> Yeah. >> Every day. >> Yep. Everybody. >> All day looking for this woman. >> Everybody.
00:46:19
>> But weather was not their only challenge. If Crystal had met with foul play, the sheriff says there was a
00:46:26
growing list of people to question. She was extremely social. She had lots of friends. She had had been a flight
00:46:35
attendant for 10 years and then had become a real estate agent. >> On the top of the list, Crystal's uncle
00:46:41
Jeff, who cared for Crystal after her parents died when she was 11 years old. >> And our main objective is just to get
00:46:49
Crystal back home. He was the person that was extremely emotional and reported her missing, but
00:46:58
then he kept getting in the way of the investigation. >> Getting in the way by going through
00:47:06
Crystal's townhouse with other family members, potentially tainting important evidence.
00:47:12
>> This is not a game to us. This is not a hobby. This is what we do. >> Crystal's family even hired a private
00:47:18
investigator. But you don't bring on some amateur super sleuth wannabe when you're in the middle of a missing
00:47:26
person's investigation. >> Also on the list, the men romantically linked to Crystal. There was Steve
00:47:33
McDall, Crystal's ex-husband, a shipping manager. In June 2017, the couple went through what many described as an amicle
00:47:42
divorce after 10 years of marriage and two children, a boy Madden and a girl Maui. And what was his story of for
00:47:50
Friday morning? >> That she never showed up, that she was supposed to show up and and she just
00:47:54
never did. >> That morning at 7:01 on August 25th, Steve, who had the kids, says he
00:48:03
received a text message from Crystal. It read, "On my way. Do you have water? Looks like I may stay here with the
00:48:11
kids. It seems just like rain." But Uncle Jeff Walters says that Steve showed him another text that Crystal
00:48:20
allegedly sent around 9:30 that morning, saying she had changed her mind, and she
00:48:26
planned to stop by, pick up the kids, and take them to Dallas. >> They just said it just didn't sound like
00:48:31
her, and that nobody knew where she was, nobody had heard her voice, and they just knew that something wasn't right.
00:48:37
>> What did he tell authorities about their marriage, their relationship? >> He told them that they were fine. They
00:48:43
didn't mind the divorce and everything was just hunky dory. >> In fact, Crystal was living with Steve
00:48:48
and the kids in a house she helped him buy while her townhouse was being renovated.
00:48:54
>> He had such a passion of love for her that it was almost unhealthy. >> Cindy Seate is Crystal's aunt.
00:49:03
>> Like if she wanted her feet rubbed, he would rub her feet. If she wanted her hair brushed, she would brush her hair.
00:49:07
>> Is it fair to say that she wore the pants in the family? Yes, most definitely.
00:49:12
>> But over time, they grew apart. >> He didn't challenge her was the word. She wanted to be the best she could
00:49:18
possibly be. And Steve was okay with just stepping back, being, you know, the house person.
00:49:25
>> He was the dad. >> She was more of the provider. >> Christa McDall, Steve's daughter from a
00:49:32
previous relationship, was at Texas A&M University. When she heard the news, Crystal was missing. cuz he loved being
00:49:40
around the kids. They're his life. >> She was his life and they were his life. >> To the sheriff, it certainly didn't seem
00:49:46
like Crystal's ex-husband knew anything about her disappearance. >> But he was very cooperative of us. Very,
00:49:53
very kind, very friendly, and he immediately says that he wants to help. >> It was Crystal's new boyfriend, Paul
00:50:01
Hargrave, who the sheriff really wanted to speak with. Paul owned a local jewelry store and had been dating
00:50:08
Crystal for a few weeks. >> The last place that we have her is in the Baytown area leaving uh Paul's
00:50:17
house. >> She seemed in love with him. They seemed perfect together. She was happy.
00:50:23
>> So happy that Crystal had posted on Facebook just two days before she disappeared. I've never been happier in
00:50:31
my whole life than I am right now. God is so good. >> We had talked about going to Europe and
00:50:36
she got a ticket to go with me to to Belgium next month. >> Investigators would learn Crystal had
00:50:42
also invited Paul to go on a family cruise. The only caveat, Steve, her ex-husband, was going too.
00:50:50
>> And I told her, "Well, gosh, I'd love to go, but I think it's going to be awkward
00:50:54
for me to be there with the ex-husband." So, she had asked him to refrain from going, and I know that that didn't go
00:51:00
well. She had stressed to me that he was pretty upset about that. >> Which is why Paul said he was deeply
00:51:06
concerned when Crystal disappeared after she left his home in her black Mercedes,
00:51:12
which was also missing. >> I uh hope and pray that, you know, she's okay and she's going to come back to us.
00:51:19
>> So, he went on national TV and spoke with CBS This Morning's Michelle Miller.
00:51:24
>> What do you think happened to her? I'm not sure, but we're just trying to um focus on um
00:51:38
on finding her and um assisting the police with whatever we can assist him with.
00:51:47
But Sheriff Hawthorne says he became suspicious after Paul failed to tell authorities about security footage from
00:51:54
his home, showing the last time Crystal was seen alive. >> She actually walked right through this
00:52:01
living room at at 7:09. One of my cameras picked that up. I think she was seen leaving the driveway at 710.
00:52:09
>> Paul shared the tapes, not with investigators, but with the media. So immediately we're like, well, why would
00:52:16
he be turning it over to the media, but yet my investigators don't have that those videos
00:52:22
>> intentional or oversight on his part? >> I don't know cuz it it it took us a few
00:52:28
days to get it. So obviously every hour that ticked off, he became the sheriff's
00:52:33
person of interest. That's for sure. Surrounded by the chaos of both a natural disaster
00:52:41
and suspicious characters, the case stalled mostly, says the sheriff, because investigators couldn't agree on
00:52:49
which direction to go in. >> Some of the investigators that were involved in this would say, you know, I
00:52:55
I think it's Steve. And some would say, I still can't get over Jeff. And I'm still looking at Paul.
00:53:03
>> See this black car right here? this Mercedes. >> But then finally, a break in the case.
00:53:10
Crystal's Mercedes was spotted by a friend. >> I will give the family credit for
00:53:15
finding that vehicle. >> So now they knew where the car was, but who put it there? And what would they
00:53:23
find inside? >> Weather and time deteriorate. Uh evidence, physical evidence. The cops were here busting indoors
00:53:49
to find out where this lady is. >> How are you, Brian Hawthorne? Sheriff Hawthorne could not believe what he
00:53:58
found when he arrived at Crystal's Mercedes in the Motel 6 parking lot. >> Well, you could get in the car because
00:54:05
it was unlocked and the keys were sitting on the console. >> Did that strike you as odd?
00:54:09
>> Oh, very odd. My criminal investigation captain told me, he said, "I feel like
00:54:13
it's been staged, >> set up for someone to take it." >> Correct. But whoever had left the car there to be
00:54:21
taken did not anticipate the massive flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
00:54:27
>> The water had risen. You couldn't get it out of the parking lot. >> And that was finally a break in your
00:54:32
direction. >> Correct. >> Crystal's Mercedes was finally towed from the motel and processed, but
00:54:40
floodwaters in Houston made it impossible to get results back from the crime scene lab.
00:54:46
>> A lot of their majors and captains and sergeants and and investigators. Homes were going
00:54:52
underwater. >> It was chaos for everybody. >> There just a lot of moving parts at this
00:55:01
point. >> We're just going to get this thing started, y'all. And and >> 48 hours was granted unprecedented
00:55:06
access inside the sheriff's war room. >> You know, in interviewing Stephen, he was telling us he was making calls from
00:55:13
certain locations. He didn't make those. He was actually mobile. He is denying knowing Paul existed until 2 days ago. I
00:55:20
don't believe that >> the investigation had taken a toll on Da Leak who had lost all hope.
00:55:27
>> I know she's dead. >> There has been no activity on any of her credit cards, debit cards, nothing, you
00:55:36
know, and she doesn't have a cell phone. Nobody leaves anymore without a cell phone.
00:55:41
Sheriff Hawthorne, deputies and Texas Rangers expanded their focus from finding Crystal to finding her killer.
00:55:50
>> We've got a handful of folks that need to be interviewed. What else do you guys
00:55:55
see that's up on this board that we need to get done because this stuff's going to start drying up on us if we don't
00:56:01
jump on it? >> Paul is just soaking up to all the attention. >> Yeah, he is. And
00:56:05
>> he loves it. >> And he's best buddies with Uncle Jeff, too. That's what I don't understand.
00:56:10
It's getting more and more interesting about Uncle Jeff, isn't it? As of about midnight last night, the net
00:56:17
has widened and it's husband, boyfriend, uncle. >> Early in the investigation, the top
00:56:32
persons of interest had been brought in for questioning. In his police interview, Paul pointed the finger at
00:56:39
Steve. >> She was concerned about him finding out. >> Did you have anything to do with the
00:56:45
disparities? >> Absolutely not. I don't understand even that's been insinuated and I don't
00:56:53
like it. >> Jeff Walters was no fan of Crystal's new boyfriend, Paul. >> He reminded me of animals and he creeped
00:57:01
me out. And Steve stuck with his story that Crystal never showed up at his house.
00:57:08
>> We polygraphed two of them >> and and >> Steve and Paul. >> Steve and Paul. That is correct.
00:57:13
>> And how did they do? >> Um Steve failed. >> And I'll let Paul tell you how he did.
00:57:19
>> He insinuated he didn't use those terms, but he call me a liar. >> But security cameras don't lie. Focusing
00:57:28
on the location of the car, deputies began gathering video from nearby businesses.
00:57:35
A camera at a Shell gas station next door to the motel appears to have captured one of their three persons of
00:57:43
interest. >> It looks like he's getting out and he's putting something in the trash can and
00:57:49
he's stuffing it all the way down like to his elbow, >> like a bag or >> It looked like clothing is what it
00:57:55
looked like. Deputies say it is Steve McDow. And it's what McDow keeps glancing at that makes the investigators
00:58:03
sit up and take notice. The Motel 6. >> You can see that he's looking over and he's looking to see if the car is still
00:58:11
there and it was. We recovered the trash can and the problem is all the contents had floated
00:58:21
out of it because of the hurricane. >> Because of the storm. Then investigators receive different security video showing
00:58:28
Steve in action right in the Motel 6 parking lot. >> You just see somebody park the car and
00:58:35
and someone that that has that resembles her ex-husband getting out of it. >> And what does that say to you?
00:58:42
>> Um says that my person of interest is has changed. All right. Remember I'm I'm the
00:58:48
one that's still looking at Paul. The videos are purely circumstantial evidence, but
00:58:55
>> that's where I'm going with this. >> For the first time, investigators are all heading in the same direction.
00:59:02
>> Confront Steve about where is she? >> But Steve was still insisting he had nothing to do with Crystal's
00:59:12
disappearance. >> This is um what I carry. >> So, they turned to someone else in the
00:59:17
family's inner circle for help. Crystal's aunt Cindy Crate. >> I said, "Cindy, I need you to stay close
00:59:24
to Steve." >> I said, "We we need communication, and he may not communicate with us, and he
00:59:28
may communicate with you." >> Every day, I was just praying every day that I went that he would say something.
00:59:35
>> Investigators were becoming increasingly frustrated. >> When you have no body, that's a huge
00:59:41
hindrance. >> The way someone's killed, where they're found, that generally can give you an
00:59:47
idea of who killed them. Hi, guys and gals. We've been asked by uh Chambers County to to go ahead and search for
00:59:53
Crystal. >> Deputies called upon an experienced volunteer search and rescue organization, Texas,
01:00:06
to help find Crystal. >> Let's remember that this place flooded real bad. So, if she was dumped in this
01:00:14
area, let's hope that she got washed up in maybe some tree lines and stuff did not
01:00:20
end up in the water. >> Paul joined the searchers and Uncle Jeff Walters pitched in.
01:00:26
>> He's offered a $10,000 reward and I offered a $5,000 reward. >> The more investigators dug in, the more
01:00:35
things didn't quite add up. >> This is a case about lots of secrets. double lives on many people's parts.
01:00:46
It's one of those cases. I think I've seen it all. I've never seen anything like this
01:00:52
before. >> What are you doing today? >> About to jump out of a perfect airplane.
01:01:09
>> Have a plane. Whose idea was this? >> Steve. >> Steve, your idea. >> 5 years before her disappearance, it
01:01:16
seemed like Crystal and Steve McDall were on top of the world. >> How high are we right now? What does
01:01:21
that say? >> 6,000 ft. >> The jump had been a 33rd birthday gift from Steve. >> Happy birthday to you.
01:01:30
Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Hey, high five. Hey, look. Your husband lived, too. What a bonus.
01:01:44
>> Now, Crystal's ex-husband was the main person of interest in her disappearance.
01:01:49
There were those security tapes, and DA Cheryl Leak says they had discovered Steve had lied about their so-called
01:01:58
friendly divorce. What did you find out as the investigation went along? >> That he didn't want the divorce. What we
01:02:04
were getting from the family is that he was distraught. had always been distraught every time she tried to leave
01:02:10
him. >> It was early on when things started not going well. >> LJ Adams, a bail bondsman and Crystal's
01:02:18
good friend says the relationship was troubled right from the start. >> Judging from the things that she said,
01:02:24
Steve McDall is a very, very self-centered, selfish, manipulative person. He just got to where he wanted
01:02:31
things his way and he wanted it that way and right now. And if it didn't work out
01:02:36
or she couldn't do it at that moment, it would be a temper tantrum. >> In 2008, just one year after they
01:02:42
married, Crystal filed for divorce. But LJ says she didn't go through with it back then because Steve had made
01:02:50
threats. >> It was always like, "Well, if you leave me, you know, I'm just going to kill
01:02:53
myself." >> Emotional blackmail. >> Yeah, kind of. Sort of. But he knew what to say and what to do.
01:03:00
>> Come on. But Christa McDow says her father is not that man. She knows him as a loving
01:03:09
father with a playful side. >> He's a really goofy guy. Like that's the best way I could describe him.
01:03:17
>> Fun guy. >> Fun guy. >> And even though her father was in and out of her life for most of her
01:03:23
childhood, there was a brief period of time when she lived with Steve and Crystal.
01:03:28
>> I was in high school, so it was like 8th grade to sophomore year. I guess I was
01:03:33
14 to about 16. >> She admits the relationship between Crystal and her father was turbulent,
01:03:40
but says he was not the only one at fault. >> Both weren't perfect and they both had
01:03:45
their issues. I just think that they were very toxic for each other and they made each other crazy. Whenever they
01:03:51
were together, it was never a happy ending. >> She was hopeful things would get better
01:03:56
once they finally got divorced. But after Crystal officially filed the paperwork in February 2017,
01:04:04
Christa says her father began acting strangely. >> So in March, I noticed that my dad had
01:04:10
like been acting weird on Facebook. Then he also changed his profile pictures to
01:04:15
like it was a grave and then it was a grim reaper like profile picture and then he made it a picture of him and
01:04:20
Crystal and then he took that off and then he made it say no profile picture >> in a short period of time. This was all
01:04:27
in like a matter of like 2 3 days. >> Sheriff Hawthorne would learn that shortly after Crystal filed for divorce.
01:04:39
She had called 911 and told police that Steve had disappeared with their kids. >> She had given Steve the kids and he
01:04:48
essentially did not bring the kids back >> for a few days. >> For a few days. >> And did he threaten to hurt himself and
01:04:54
the kids? had kind of put out an allegation and a threat that, you know, he would u harm himself and Crystal and
01:05:02
and the kids. Steve eventually returned the children unharmed and no charges were filed. He
01:05:10
later explained to his daughter that he had become upset after discovering that Crystal had numerous affairs while they
01:05:18
were married. >> But he said he was still in love with her. >> Yes. and he said like, "I love her with
01:05:23
all my heart, but I just can't let her keep tearing me down like this." >> So, he was okay with getting a divorce
01:05:29
at that point. >> He was accepting of it. He thought it was for the best. He thought maybe he
01:05:34
could like get his life in order then. But Crystals on Cindy says Steve was just not ready to let go. Remember that
01:05:44
cruise they were supposed to go on? Cindy says Steve actually planned to propose to Crystal again.
01:05:52
Even though they had just been divorced, >> he literally bought some clothes for
01:05:56
both of them, some a white dress and a white suit, and literally he was going to propose.
01:06:01
>> But Christa says her father told her this was all his ex-wife's idea. >> My dad told me just the other day that
01:06:09
she had mentioned, "How would you feel about getting remarried on the cruise?" It's like a fresh start.
01:06:14
>> Do you think that's true that she said that to him? >> Yeah. >> I don't believe Crystal would ever lead
01:06:19
him to believe that. Mhm. >> I really don't. This was a fantasy in his head. >> I believe that.
01:06:24
>> In early August, it seemed Crystal had moved on and was dating Paul Hargrave.
01:06:31
Cindy Seate says at first Crystal tried to keep it a secret from Steve even though she was still living with him.
01:06:38
>> And she said, "Aunt Cindy, I have to keep this quiet. He will kill me." But by August 23rd, just two days before she
01:06:44
disappeared, Crystal made that Facebook post and had disinvited Steve from the cruise.
01:06:52
Da Leak thinks this might have been the start of Steve's final unraveling. >> Steve was probably more upset about not
01:07:00
going on the cruise because he thought they were going to rekindle their romance.
01:07:04
>> And there was more. >> She was a financial meal ticket to him. LJ Adams says Crystal had recently
01:07:11
decided to cut Steve off financially >> because he was just spending money just spending money just ridiculously just
01:07:19
spending money. And at that point she just said I can't do this anymore. Steve, >> was it just losing her, Cheryl, or was
01:07:26
it he was losing his whole life? Someone else was sliding into his position. >> His whole life. his whole lifestyle.
01:07:37
>> As cleanup from Hurricane Harvey was underway, investigators had cleared Paul
01:07:42
Hargrave and Crystal's uncle, Jeff. >> Thank you. I appreciate >> They were now convinced Steve McDow had
01:07:49
the motive to murder his ex-wife and that he had dumped her car at the Motel 6. But how did he get home? This
01:07:58
security video from a nearby Walmart would provide that answer. >> We spot a bicycle on the service road,
01:08:04
Interstate 10 service road. >> Investigators were convinced it was Steve McDow. For you, the surveillance
01:08:12
footage is the turning point. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Authorities were closing in on Steve
01:08:17
McDow and the stakes were only getting higher because he still had the children. We could potentially be
01:08:25
minutes or hours away from somebody losing control >> again. >> Again, >> it's almost life or death for these
01:08:34
kids. >> Correct. He kept coming in and talking. He'd come in every day and sit there 5
01:08:57
hours or so and just, you know, nope. Wasn't me and wasn't me. >> District Attorney Cheryl League knew
01:09:04
Steve McDow had killed Crystal. But knowing it and proving it were two different things. We didn't have enough
01:09:13
to arrest him. >> And she says McDow seemed to understand that. >> Was he arrogant, helpful, cooperative?
01:09:21
>> Arrogant and aloof. It was a game. He's just he's just gaming us. He thinks at this point we have no direct
01:09:30
evidence. We just have circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence has as much
01:09:35
weight in a court as direct evidence, but you just need more of it. Lick says the evidence that finally
01:09:43
brought the case home for her was that security video from this Walmart showing how McDonald probably got home after
01:09:52
ditching Crystal's car. >> We had him behind the bike and riding it out. What happens next? And bring him
01:09:59
back in. >> Day after day, investigators were telling McDall they were successfully
01:10:05
gathering more and more evidence. a ploy to wear him down. >> He was just like melting. You know, you
01:10:12
could see that it was getting to him. You could tell he wasn't eating. He wasn't sleeping. His face had sunken in.
01:10:17
>> There's no telling what Steve may be trying to to tell the kids. That's >> Sheriff Brian Hawthorne says
01:10:23
investigators were under pressure, too. >> You know, we can't wait. >> And deeply concerned about just how much
01:10:30
might be too much for McDow. >> At the time when all this is taking place, he is got custody of his
01:10:36
children. I kept thinking, "He's going to kill those kids. He's going to kill those kids."
01:10:42
>> Once again, Steve voluntarily came in for questioning. But Chery Leak wasn't taking any more chances. She'd been in
01:10:50
touch with family and protective services and convinced the agency to remove the Mcdow kids from his home that
01:10:57
evening and place them with their aunt Cindy. We knew psychologically that that would be the final straw for him, his
01:11:06
kids being gone. >> He would have nothing left, >> right? >> And what was his response?
01:11:11
>> He just about collapsed. >> Exhausted, McDow said he wanted to go home, but promised he would return in
01:11:19
the morning, ready to talk. >> He said, "I'll tell you everything." Without enough evidence to arrest him,
01:11:26
and knowing a full confession was their only real chance of finding Crystal's body, the sheriff allowed his prime
01:11:35
suspect to walk out the door. That was a big risk that he wouldn't run or kill himself.
01:11:42
>> It It was a risk. I >> I've been a crime reporter for 25 years. I have never heard of a department
01:11:48
saying, "Go home and get your affairs in order." I mean, that's the part I go, "Really?" like they let him.
01:11:54
>> But see, this is the thing. We had the kids. >> And taking them is a moment Sheriff
01:12:01
Hawthorne will never forget. >> We knew that these kids were probably never going to see their mother again
01:12:08
>> or their father >> as a free man >> or their or their father as a free man. >> Can you give me a minute?
01:12:18
>> Yes. both of the children came out and gave every one of us bear hugs. And that's when you realize the the
01:12:34
totality and the impact that um family violence has on children. A few hours after Steve McDow's youngest
01:12:51
children were taken from him, he summoned his older daughter, Christa, to come home from college immediately.
01:13:00
>> I was at work and I work at a bar, so I work pretty late. >> Christa McDall says she was confused
01:13:05
when her father texted her in the middle of the night. >> He said, "Your little brother and sister
01:13:10
are going to go live somewhere else for a while." >> She was already planning to head home
01:13:14
later that day. And he was like, "Is there any way you can be here sooner? You probably won't see me for a while
01:13:21
unless you come see me in person before then." And so I got in my car 3:30 in the morning, drove all the way to
01:13:28
Baytown. >> 2 hours later, it was the beginning of the end of Christa's life as she knew
01:13:36
it. >> It was dark still. I knocked on his door and he let me in. He told me that at
01:13:42
10:00 a.m. the rangers were going to come pick him up. She says at first her father seemed more
01:13:49
annoyed than anything. >> Did you think he had anything to do with it at that point?
01:13:53
>> No, not at all. Not a single like hint that he had anything to do with that. >> Did you ask him if he had anything to do
01:14:00
with it? >> Um yes. I'd asked him multiple times like like are you guilty? And he would
01:14:05
just like no. Like I just don't understand like why I'm getting blamed. And the entire time he pleaded to me
01:14:12
like his innocence. >> Christa says though clearly anxious, it mostly seemed like her father was just
01:14:20
trying to take care of business, giving her photo albums, financial statements, even the keys to his beloved Mustang.
01:14:29
Until the conversation took an abrupt turn. He looks at me and he says, "The rangers told me that if I tell them
01:14:38
where the body is that they'll lessen my punishment." And I said, "Well, you don't know where the body is. Like, how
01:14:46
would you know?" And he was like, "What if it's true?" And I asked him, "Do you know where the body is?" And he just
01:14:52
like looked away from me and just like baldled his eyes out. And at that point, I knew like he knew where it was.
01:15:00
>> What did you think at that point? I don't know. What do you think? Like if someone that
01:15:09
you love and you've sat here and defended the whole time tells you they're guilty, what do you think?
01:15:16
>> Did you think he had actually confessed to you at that point? Even though he never said the actual
01:15:23
words >> cuz I asked him what he did over and over. I begged him to tell me and he was
01:15:29
just like, "I just I can't tell you what I did." And then um all of a sudden like
01:15:35
we heard a noise and he stood up and he was like, "They're here." And then all of a sudden he's he's gone.
01:15:42
>> Yeah. I literally dropped to my knees and just cried. Police brought Steve McDow back to the
01:15:54
station to deliver his much anticipated confession. But the man who had kept them guessing about so much for so long
01:16:03
was about to make them guess again. >> He's like yanking your chain back and forth. And I had I'd had it at this
01:16:10
point. I had had it. Saturday, September 9th. >> I didn't sleep much. Literally, I I
01:16:29
could not wait for daylight to come up. >> Steve McDall agreed to meet with Sheriff
01:16:33
Hawthorne and the investigation team one more time and finally provide an answer
01:16:38
to the question, "What happened to Crystal?" My understanding from our communication
01:16:44
was that you were kind of ready to be honest about some things. >> We needed a confession.
01:16:50
>> Mhm. >> We needed somebody to take us to her body. >> Sheriff Hawthorne watched in a nearby
01:16:58
room as McDall shared the details of the morning Crystal came home after a night
01:17:03
with her boyfriend. >> I love her. I would do anything of my life for her. Right.
01:17:14
>> I think they got into an argument when she got home and I think he was mad that
01:17:17
she had stayed out all night. >> And then when she told you that she didn't love you anymore.
01:17:22
>> Yeah. When she told you she didn't want to be with you or have anything to do
01:17:25
with you. >> And it seems that was enough for Steve McDow to make a terrible choice.
01:17:34
>> He describes and essentially shows that he strangled her from behind. So she had
01:17:38
no idea he was coming. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. Like a chokeold or something? Did she say anything when that was going
01:17:51
on? Or did she fight or what happened? >> Just scared her. >> How did you eventually know that that
01:17:58
she was no longer alive? >> And what' you do after that? I come replacing the bag.
01:18:09
>> And then you put her in the car. >> I t put her in the trash bag and put her in the car.
01:18:17
>> And then McDall says early the following morning, he drove off to dispose of Crystal's body, leaving their two
01:18:25
children home alone. >> The body was found right in here. >> McDow leads investigators here.
01:18:35
a densely wooded area off an access road not far from his house. >> Steve drives the detectives and the
01:18:42
investigators out here. >> Our cameras were the only ones allowed at the crime scene as the investigators
01:18:48
began their arduous work. The terrain was pretty tough because it was a lot of work just trying to clear
01:19:00
the trees and the limbs so that we could bring the body out. At the end of a long search,
01:19:10
the sheriff and DA share a moment. It was just relief. >> Today at 2:45 p.m., Crystal's body was
01:19:21
discovered and Steven Wayne McDall, 44, has been arrested, charged with murder. >> If he had not told you exactly where the
01:19:29
body was, would she have ever been found? >> No. Once Steve McDall showed investigators
01:19:38
where the body was, he was brought here to the Chambers County Jail. Now, even though he confessed to strangling
01:19:45
Crystal, that may not be the end of it. In Texas, a defendant can claim they killed someone out of sudden passion,
01:19:52
which could mean as little as two years in prison, which is exactly what Steve McDall did
01:20:00
in June 2019 during his trial for murder. McDall testified that Crystal's death was a result of a spontaneous hug
01:20:09
that got out of control, but DA Lee gave the jury a different point of view. >> Do you think this was premeditated? Yes,
01:20:16
without a doubt. >> And this was not just he snapped. >> Well, you can snap and still think about
01:20:24
it. I think he just decided if I can't have her, nobody can. >> After 5 days of testimony, evidence, and
01:20:33
argument, it only took three and a half hours for the jury to reach a verdict. Guilty. One day later, the same jury
01:20:42
sentenced Steve McDall to 50 years in prison for the murder of his ex-wife. >> We've been very fortunate. The jury saw
01:20:50
it the same way the law enforcement officers in the district attorney's office did.
01:20:55
>> It feels good. I think they made the right decision. So, with 50 years, he will have to serve at least 25 uh before
01:21:03
he's eligible for parole. >> I hope he never makes it out of there. He deserves whatever he gets
01:21:08
>> for the kids. It's just a sad situation all the way around. >> Both parents are gone now. Basically,
01:21:16
those kids are motherless and fatherless just like Crystal was. >> Happy birthday to you.
01:21:25
>> Which brings us back to the other victims in this case, the children. It was Aunt Cindy who was tasked with
01:21:32
telling an eight-year-old boy and his 5-year-old sister the truth. And I just grabbed their hands and I
01:21:41
said, "We found your mommy and she's in heaven and your daddy's in jail for taking your
01:21:51
mother's life." And at that point, Madden looked up and he said, he said, "Okay." He said, "I can deal
01:22:01
with this." And Madden grabbed his sister and they hugged and he said, "I love you, Maui." He said, "I will always
01:22:06
take care of you. And Christa promises to always be a part of their lives. I thought about my
01:22:15
brother and sister and I was like, they have no one. I need to be the bigger person right now and I need to be the
01:22:20
person they look up to. >> Crystal loved them with every part of her being. She wanted them to have the
01:22:28
wonderful life. >> You think they'll be okay? I know they will be without a shadow of a doubt.
01:23:21
Look at they're madly in love. They are. Look at that. Nancy Sunenfeld was found shot in the
01:23:33
head. The police report says she was in a second floor bedroom. She later died. >> We always thought a wonderful couple
01:23:39
because they're always laughing. >> Attractive and young and you just couldn't imagine a happier couple.
01:23:46
>> Kurt Sonfeld, he was this debonire, really buff, eloquent young man. You know, everybody
01:23:55
who met him liked him. He was a videographer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
01:24:02
>> This is a box of some of my things from FEMA. >> My name is Kirk Mitchell. I'm a reporter
01:24:10
at the Denver Post back in 2001. Kurt went to 911 and he uh videotaped ground zero.
01:24:28
Nancy Senfeld, she was a star in her own right. She got a well-paying job as in an advertising agency. They're a very
01:24:37
hip couple. They would go to all the trendy bars in downtown Denver. They went on trips. They went to Amsterdam.
01:24:45
They went to South America. They had the a beautiful relationship. January 1st, 2002, New Year's Day, get a
01:25:00
call uh of a shooting. Individual frantically calling the police saying his wife had shot herself. The evidence
01:25:08
didn't really match up with what we were being told occurred. 13. >> We were questioning nearly from the
01:25:16
start uh that this had anything to do with a self-inflicted injury and was more consistent with a homicide.
01:25:24
>> Curt Sonnenfeld was arrested and charged with his wife's death, which he insisted
01:25:29
was a suicide. But prosecutors suddenly dropped the charge, saying they did not believe they could prove Sonnenfeld
01:25:34
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. After he was released from jail, he took a trip to Argentina.
01:25:44
>> My world had been completely destroyed. And uh when Paula and I first met, she
01:25:50
was the reward for all the suffering that I had been through. >> He had fallen madly in love with this
01:25:55
young woman and decided that he was going to stay in Argentina. Two years later, prosecutors filed new
01:26:03
charges against Sunenfeld. But Suninenfeld had moved to Argentina and prosecutors can get him extradited.
01:26:10
>> Kurt Sinenfeld went there so that he didn't have to face trial in Colorado. >> Do you believe he's going to get away
01:26:17
with murder? >> It's possible. >> Without a doubt, everybody knew was a suicide.
01:26:23
>> He is innocent. There's nothing else to say. It's pretty incredible what he's pulled
01:26:30
off. >> My name is Curt Sonnenfeld. This is my story. >> I'm Aaron Morardi. Tonight on 48 hours,
01:26:46
the strange case of Kurt Sonnenfeld. Kurt Sonnenfeld has built a new life for himself in Argentina.
01:27:14
Here he's out of the grasp of US authorities who want him extradited so that they can try him for the murder of
01:27:21
his first wife. There are people in Denver, Colorado who think Kurt killed Nancy. What do you say?
01:27:29
>> Well, they are wrong. >> Kurt staunchest supporter is his second wife, Pala. They met at a restaurant
01:27:37
when he arrived in 2003 and married just 40 days later. They're now the parents of twin girls. You can tell just looking
01:27:47
at Kurt and especially after you talk to him that he is a beautiful person. Kurt
01:27:54
is incapable of even killing a cricket or an ant. Paula has been at Kurt's side as he's
01:28:03
waged a public campaign to clear his name. >> You were innocent for the USA justice.
01:28:10
>> Yes, I'm innocent. This is from a 2005 TV appearance in Argentina. >> On January 1st, uh, 2002,
01:28:21
my wife committed suicide with a single gunshot wound to the side of her head. The first policeman that came in said,
01:28:31
"Women don't commit suicide." That was when the the lies began. But authorities in Denver believe it's
01:28:40
Kurt who's lying. Back in the US, Nancy Sonnenfeld's family has been waiting for
01:28:46
justice for more than 14 years. Amy Leak is NY's sister. >> A lot of times when people have somebody
01:28:54
murdered in their family, it goes to trial and it's over. And it's still painful, but you can move on. We can
01:29:02
never have closure. In the year before Nancy died, the two sisters had grown closer than ever.
01:29:10
>> We were finally becoming the best friends that I had wanted us to be. >> I didn't forget.
01:29:17
>> She was a strong person. She was very sophisticated. I always thought she was
01:29:22
beautiful and like I saw her as being perfect. >> Do you remember when your sister met
01:29:27
Kurt? >> Yes, I do. I remember how excited she was. She said she met her soulmate.
01:29:34
>> And there's Uncle Kurt. Hi, Uncle Kurt. >> We loved Kurt. He became part of our
01:29:40
family. He was fun to be with. He was good at telling stories. He was pretty much good at everything he did. He had
01:29:46
great charisma. >> Kurt traveled extensively as a freelance cameraman for FEMA, filming natural
01:29:53
disasters. He also documented weapon storage and disposal sites. His biggest assignment was being sent to ground zero
01:30:02
as one of two official videographers. >> I saw this opening that smoke was pouring out of and it looked just like
01:30:11
the entrance to hell to me. And >> the footage shot by Kurt and his partner was seen all over the world. And Kurt
01:30:18
seemed to revel in the attention he was getting appearing in magazine articles and posing with celebrities. I must say
01:30:27
that Kurt liked attention and Kurt liked to be in the limelight. >> Leslie Lindberg is NY's cousin. And what
01:30:34
did she think of that? >> She was proud of him. She She loved him. >> But there were problems beneath the
01:30:40
surface. Leslie says Nancy confided in her that Kurt had a problem with drugs and alcohol and it was putting a strain
01:30:48
on their marriage. >> Nancy was very concerned about his drug use. She talked to him about it and he
01:30:54
said that he would stop, but he didn't. >> She saw him going downhill and she was
01:31:01
scared he was going to destroy his life. >> The last straw came when the couple took
01:31:05
a trip to Thailand around Thanksgiving of 2001. >> It was the turning point that affected
01:31:11
the rest of her life. >> Nancy called both her sister and her cousin from Thailand, saying Kurt had
01:31:17
disappeared. She said she found him days later in a hotel room with two women doing drugs. Kurt and Nancy returned to
01:31:26
the US separately. >> I even confronted him. I said, "Kurt, what did you do in Thailand?" I said,
01:31:32
"Even, what kind of drugs did you do?" And his response to me was everything I could get my hands on.
01:31:41
>> Nancy filed for a separation. Do you think she intended to actually divorce him?
01:31:46
>> Mhm. We talked about it and she did. She was planning on moving on. >> This close friend of the couple who
01:31:55
asked us not to show his face says Kurt was worried about money. >> Did Kurt want this divorce?
01:32:01
>> No. He was angry when they spoke about divorcing would ruin their finances. Also, I think he was worried about the
01:32:09
house cuz they owned a house together. >> Had Nancy cut off some of the credit cards
01:32:15
>> that he had? Yeah, she was still more the bread winner of the family and did what she did to try and cut back on his
01:32:23
spending. >> Despite their problems, Nancy and Kurt spent New Year's Eve together. He says
01:32:29
they had arrived home from a party around 1:30 a.m. and just minutes later, NY's life came to a violent end.
01:32:38
>> When I heard the gunshot, I ran into the room where she was. I saw her there bleeding profusely. I was
01:32:48
hysterical. Uh the first thing that I did was to to hold her and then I jumped up and called
01:32:55
the police. >> We realized so really very very quickly that that this was not a suicide. This
01:33:02
was a homicide investigation. >> Retired Denver detective Jonathan Priest says police were immediately suspicious
01:33:09
of Kurt's account. Anytime there's someone else present when somebody kills themselves, those are characterized as
01:33:17
attended suicides. Those bother me. >> But why do attended suicides make you uncomfortable?
01:33:23
>> Attended suicides, people rarely kill themselves in front of other people. Most suicides occur when people are
01:33:28
alone. >> And there was something else that troubled first responders. >> There was a very fine mist of uh what
01:33:36
appeared to be blood staining on his face. The mist staining suggested he was was near her at the time of the firearm
01:33:43
discharge. >> That this was blood spatter at the time the gum went off. >> Yes. >> Kurt also had a bruise forming around
01:33:51
his right eye. Possible evidence of a struggle. But most telling to the officers on the
01:33:58
scene was the unusual location of NY's gunshot wound towards the back of her head. We asked Dr. Amy Martin, who was
01:34:08
Denver's assistant medical examiner, to demonstrate >> it was a little bit above uh the ear
01:34:14
hole and behind her ear hole on the right side of her head. So, uh in in approximately this area here. Now,
01:34:21
you've got to angle the gun so that so that it's going upwards and also a little bit behind.
01:34:30
I mean, this is very awkward. I don't think I have ever seen a clear self-inflicted gunshot wound in that
01:34:40
part of the head. >> And what about the fact that it's what you call a non-cont that it's not up
01:34:47
against her head? The gun was not held up against her head. >> That's unusual. Also, uh it does occur.
01:34:54
When I look at at her wound, um I I just would wonder why why would you why would
01:34:59
you shoot yourself that way? If you're going to shoot yourself, why wouldn't you just shoot yourself in the temple?
01:35:04
It's a lot easier to hold the gun to your temple. >> Nancy Sonel died in the hospital later
01:35:11
that morning, New Year's Day 2002. She was 36 years old. Dr. Martin ruled her death a homicide, and police believe
01:35:22
Kurt was her killer. When Curt Soninfeld was brought in for questioning, that's when he first
01:35:42
learned his wife Nancy had died. He broke down, started crying, and started stating that his wife had shot herself
01:35:49
and began offering suggestions as to what we as law enforcement should be doing to help prove that that that she
01:35:58
shot herself, >> insisting that detectives test NY's hands for gunshot residue. >> The investigators are wondering, why is
01:36:07
he telling us this rather than, you know, my god, my my wife has been shot. what happened.
01:36:16
>> But as the questioning continued, says former detective John Priest, Kurt admitted the marriage had been in
01:36:23
trouble. >> She was upset with him over a trip that they had taken to um Thailand. She was
01:36:31
upset with him for using drugs, according to him. And Kurt told police it was possible they had fought about
01:36:38
his drinking that night and that Nancy probably saw no hope. What do you think happened that night?
01:36:46
>> Maybe she was kicking him out. >> Kurt was arrested for firstdegree murder within hours of NY's death.
01:36:55
The physical evidence thought detectives just didn't seem consistent with suicide.
01:37:01
Using a mannequin and a couch similar to the Soninfelds, Priest demonstrates his
01:37:07
theory. >> You believe Kurt Sinfeld shot his wife. Do you believe he was sitting next to
01:37:12
her on the couch as he did it? >> It would make sense. Yes. >> This is where my radiating spatter is
01:37:17
coming from is this exit wound. So, I'm looking at something like this. >> Priest also believes Nancy was moved
01:37:24
because of the odd position she was found in. She was leaned back against the the back of the couch and her head
01:37:31
was slightly back up against the wall. >> All right. If first responders first found her sitting like this, what was
01:37:37
the evidence that made you believe she had been moved? >> On the end of the couch over here, very
01:37:44
large saturation pattern of blood that's coming from her head and then created a
01:37:48
very large pool on the floor. She had to be tipped over like this at some point.
01:37:55
>> Nancy. >> Hi. Investigators believe Kirk tipped Nancy over so he could get up after shooting
01:38:04
her. And Priest thinks Nancy lay there bleeding for at least 10 minutes before Kurt propped her back up and called 911.
01:38:15
>> The pool of blood that's over here that was created over a good period of time.
01:38:20
That delay, says Priest, gave Kurt time to clean up. And it could explain why gunshot residue was found on Kurt's
01:38:28
clothing, but not his hands. >> He had more than enough time to wash his hands. The fact that he has gunshot
01:38:33
residue on him at all is what's significant because he claims not to have been in the room when the firearm
01:38:41
was discharged. >> But if she was murdered, how did gunshot residue get on NY's hand? And why is her
01:38:50
fingerprint, not Curt's, on the gun's magazine? >> Do you believe that he held the gun in
01:38:58
her hand, or do you believe that he actually had the gun in his hand when he shot her?
01:39:03
>> Well, that I can't tell one way or the other. I can put the gun in the position
01:39:07
when it was fired. Whose hand or hands were on the firearm, I can't tell you. >> I believe it was suicide, and I believe
01:39:15
the evidence showed that. Kurt's defense attorney, Carrie Thompson, says detectives got it all wrong. I believe
01:39:22
that there was a rush to judgment. There was an assumption this was a homicide. >> I mean, how would you describe then the
01:39:29
investigation into this case? >> Shoddy. Shoddy. >> Yeah. Shoddy. >> From the police report accounts, she was
01:39:37
found sitting up in the middle, you know, approximately here. Thompson says Nancy fell over on
01:39:44
her own after shooting herself. >> We're saying that the physical evidence showed that she at one time had slumped
01:39:51
over but never really mo wasn't moved. Just the top part of her body had slumped over with her head causing that
01:39:58
drip that caused that that pool of blood. >> She says that when Kurt discovered his
01:40:05
wife, he grabbed her and then sat her up on the couch. And that Thompson says could account for that blood mist on his
01:40:14
face. She was still breathing which means she could have sprayed out some blood herself onto him.
01:40:22
>> She has no blood in her nose or her mouth. So how do we have expirated blood?
01:40:27
>> This is her graduation from college. She was very proud of that day. >> Would you have ever described your
01:40:34
sister as suicidal? >> No, I never saw her as suicidal at all. Still, Kurt kept insisting Nancy had
01:40:42
been suicidal long before that night. >> She was heartbroken. She was depressed.
01:40:50
You know, her marriage was falling apart. But she was a fighter and she was looking towards the future.
01:40:57
>> But Kurt's attorney claims that less than a month after NY's death, she had gone into the home and personally found
01:41:04
a suicide note. evidence she says police overlooked. >> I can recall very specifically when I
01:41:12
found it. It was right there on the dresser along with her her writings. Thompson says the note appeared to have
01:41:21
been torn from NY's diary. It contained a line from a Walt Whitman poem. What indeed is finally beautiful except death
01:41:31
and love? To which Nancy added, "Kurt, please get help." >> Do you believe that is a suicide note?
01:41:39
>> No. It doesn't read like a suicide note. It doesn't read like the, you know, goodbye cruel world or or I can't live
01:41:46
like this any longer. >> She was asking Kurt to get help. >> It's not a suicide note. She was just so
01:41:53
concerned for him and she was worried that if he didn't stop with drugs that possibly he would kill himself.
01:42:02
As Kurt's trial date was approaching, the defense team went on the offensive, doing their own crime scene analysis
01:42:11
that seemed to contradict the cop's murder theory. >> I think they did a half-ass job, quite
01:42:16
frankly. >> Then District Attorney Bill Ritter, >> it just felt to me like our Denver
01:42:21
Police Department homicide division still had work to do on this case. >> Did that mean that you're having some
01:42:27
doubts about whether this was a homicide or a suicide? Well, I think the best way
01:42:31
to answer that question is to say I believed that we had some significant chance of losing at
01:42:40
trial. >> Just a little more than 5 months after NY's death, Ritter made a highly unusual
01:42:49
decision. He dismissed the murder charge against Kurt, but without prejudice, which meant the investigation would
01:42:58
continue and charges could be reinstated later. What was your reaction, Amy, when
01:43:04
you heard charges were dropped and he would just go home? We were upset, of course. I cannot even explain to you the
01:43:11
pain that we went through. >> Family, >> it all goes back to our faith in God. There's nothing else that would have
01:43:21
carried us through. >> On June 14th, 2002, Curt Soninfeld walked out of jail a free man.
01:43:38
The murder charge against Curt Soninfeld had been dropped. But for months after Kurt's release, Denver police continued
01:43:46
to dig for new evidence. Starting with Kurt's computer, >> he says that he was in his um office. He
01:43:54
said he was in there on his computer uh when he heard the firearm discharge and went in to check on his wife.
01:44:00
>> When his computer was checked, did that check out? >> No. A forensic analysis revealed that the
01:44:08
computer was last used around 700 p.m. on New Year's Eve. But Curt's call to 911, saying his wife had just shot
01:44:16
herself didn't come in till hours later at 1:40 a.m. Then there was a suspicious
01:44:25
injury to NY's left index fingernail. >> So it could be evidence of some kind of
01:44:30
struggle somewhere. It could be um some she had some bruises on on her hands, bruises around her right wrist certainly
01:44:38
were consistent with uh some kind of a struggle. >> Curt's DNA was found under that
01:44:44
fingernail. More possible evidence of a struggle. And there were also two jail house informants who say Kurt Sonnenfeld
01:44:54
confessed. They came forward separately after Sonnenfeld had been released. John
01:45:00
Priest says their statements contained information only NY's killer would know. Like what? Give me an example that
01:45:07
really just blew you away. Thought, "Wow, this guy must have really talked to him."
01:45:13
>> Um, positions in the crime scene, where evidence was located, things that there
01:45:18
just no way they would have had that information. >> 48 hours tracked down one of those
01:45:22
informants. Robert Drier has a history of identity theft, fraud, and forgery. He shared a jail cell with Son and for
01:45:31
four days and didn't much like him. >> Arrogant, ignorant, selfcentered. >> Drier is a hard man to pin down, but he
01:45:42
claims Kurt told him about the night Nancy died. >> What happened at the party? She came
01:45:48
outside and she saw him was another girl again and suspected that he was getting
01:45:55
high and she got mad and she left. She said, "I'm leaving." He goes, "What do you mean you're leaving?" She goes, "I'm
01:46:02
going home and I'm leaving you." She said, "That was it." And she left and she went home. She walked home
01:46:09
>> without him. >> Without him. >> Drier says when Kurt got home, the couple argued. He said, "You're not
01:46:16
going to leave me. We're going to be together. We're not getting divorced." >> According to Drier, Kurt first told him
01:46:24
he was out of the room when Nancy committed suicide by shooting herself in the back of the head.
01:46:30
>> I said, "Well, she shot herself behind the ear." He said, "Well, that's I said,
01:46:35
"People don't shoot themselves behind the ear, Kurt. Come on, man. You did it, didn't you?" And you know, he said,
01:46:41
"Yeah, he admitted. Yeah, I did." He said, "But the cops will never figure it out, and it'd be your word against
01:46:47
mine." >> As for why Kurt had no gunshot residue on his hands, >> he said, "Well, that's why they make
01:46:55
saran wrap." >> Drier's statements to police could be devastating if they're true. Let's be
01:47:03
honest, you lied to police all the time. You would use other people's identities.
01:47:08
>> You lie all the time. Why should anybody believe what you're telling now? You
01:47:13
don't have to believe it, but I'm going to tell you that man told me he killed that woman,
01:47:21
his wife. I have no reason to lie. I got nothing for it. And Drier didn't receive any special
01:47:30
treatment in return for coming forward. In December 2003, two years after NY's death, the Denver
01:47:40
District Attorney's Office felt it had enough to refile the murder charge. But when police tried to locate Sonnenfeld,
01:47:49
he was nowhere to be found. >> And it's uh-oh. >> Police considered him a fugitive.
01:47:57
>> We start looking for him and we find out that he's no longer in the United States.
01:48:03
When authorities decided to rearrest Kurt Sonel for murder, they didn't know he had moved 6,000 miles away from
01:48:10
Denver. He was now living here in Buenoseres, Argentina. And he wasn't exactly living the life of a man on the
01:48:18
run. He was free to go to Argentina. He met somebody there. The characterization
01:48:25
that he fled to Argentina is bull. >> I had never hid when I was here. I I traveled here with my own uh passport
01:48:34
with an airline ticket under my name. >> In that 2005 interview, Kurt said he simply came here on vacation, intending
01:48:43
only to stay a few weeks. But when he met Pala, that changed everything. >> What made you fall in love with him?
01:48:53
>> Because he is so kind. Because he respect all the forms of life. In PA, he found a sympathetic ear and the perfect
01:49:01
advocate. She's a human rights activist. Kurt declined to talk to us on camera, but PA spoke on his behalf.
01:49:10
>> You knew from the very beginning he had been accused of killing his wife. >> Yes. He told me everything about him.
01:49:17
>> And did that put you off at all? Did that make you a little nervous about being around him?
01:49:22
>> Of course not. It just make me sad because the story is terrible. Kurt settled into his life in Argentina with
01:49:29
Pala. He found work as a freelance cameraman, but their life was interrupted after those charges were
01:49:37
refiled in the US. Sonnenfeld was suddenly arrested by Interpole. >> This could not be happening.
01:49:46
Kurt was taken to Argentina's Devoto prison while US authorities fought to have him extradited and sent back to
01:49:55
Colorado. >> Did you fear during that time that he was going to be extradited? >> Uh, it's always fear, but in this case,
01:50:05
uh, I trust in my country. Kurt was jailed for nearly seven months, but in March 2005, a judge in Argentina
01:50:17
rejected the extradition request. He ordered Sonninfeld's immediate release. The reason, Colorado has the death
01:50:27
penalty. >> We were never going to be trying to get the death penalty for Kurt Sonnenfeld.
01:50:33
then Colorado Governor Bill Owens. >> I signed promises that we wouldn't seek the death penalty. These promises were
01:50:42
affirmed by the Denver District Attorney and every other party involved. I was frustrated.
01:50:52
I was frustrated uh that he wasn't going to come back to the States. But it wasn't over yet. The extradition
01:51:01
ruling was appealed. So Kurt launched his own public relations campaign. A >> lot of people saying that these charges
01:51:10
were a mistake. >> And for the first time, Kurt claimed that US authorities are really after him
01:51:17
for what he saw at ground zero. >> My things from FEMA >> and that his life is in danger.
01:51:40
When Curt Soninfeld decided to go public with his story in 2005, he turned to Rolando Grana, a popular
01:51:51
journalist in Argentina. >> What was the story he told you? He told me that um he was one of two cameramans
01:52:01
who record the ground zero after the the plane crash. I can't believe it really. He
01:52:09
think he was a hero and then he was in jail and he doesn't know why. >> Kurt told Grana his wife Nancy took her
01:52:21
own life. My wife had uh left a suicide note. She had left a journal of suicidal
01:52:27
writings. She had been uh severely depressed in the months. >> I think Kurt is not a murderer. I'm sure
01:52:34
he's not a murderer. >> Gra admits he never did his own investigation, but says the fact that
01:52:41
charges were dropped is evidence the case must be weak. >> What made you believe him? If someone is
01:52:48
uh has killed his wife, it's difficult to understand why he's free. >> What's more, Kurt told Grana a chilling
01:52:57
tale of being falsely accused and tortured by police in Denver. >> One of them put me into a choke hold
01:53:03
while the other one was kicking me repeatedly in the groin, in the stomach. Uh he also had a rubber glove on his
01:53:11
hand with a red chemical and he inserted it up into my nose. >> But if that did happen, Kurt's defense
01:53:21
attorney never heard about it. >> Was he ever beaten at the jail that you're aware of?
01:53:27
>> I have no information about that. >> Kurt also claimed he faced the death penalty.
01:53:33
>> Uh they told me I was going to be put to death. It's not true, but for years, Kurt and
01:53:39
Palacefeld have capitalized on that claim. They've even used their twin daughters to make their case.
01:53:46
>> Scarlet and Natasha are soldiers in this cause. >> It's a poignant and disturbing picture.
01:53:55
The girls holding up signs saying, "Don't let the US government assassinate my father."
01:54:02
Pala even insisted that her now 9-year-old daughters sit in on our interview. >> Are you comfortable with having both of
01:54:09
them here during this? >> Absolutely. How you hide all this that is happening to us from children?
01:54:17
>> Despite what she knew would be sensitive subject matter. >> You know, Kurt's case never had the
01:54:23
death penalty. It doesn't even qualify for the death penalty. >> Mhm. And what about being in jail
01:54:29
forever and dying in a jail? That's the same. >> Still, the concern that Kurt could be
01:54:35
executed won him support in Argentina. >> What is it about Kurt Sinenfeld's case
01:54:41
that made you want to fight for him? Jorge Rishar and his wife Dolores Rivas are prominent human rights activists who
01:54:59
run centers that care for poor and orphan children. >> Dolores says she's worried about what
01:55:08
would happen to Kurt's daughters if he's sent back to the US. But what really turned Kurt Zinfeld into
01:55:21
a cause celeb in Argentina is something that many here in the US might find outrageous. His claim that he saw
01:55:29
evidence that the US government played a role in the attack on the World Trade Center. Sonnenfeld claims that's the
01:55:36
real reason why authorities are after him. >> Do you think that the government knows
01:55:42
the the crash will come? Yeah, I'm 100% sure of it. >> And according to Sonnenfeld, the US did
01:55:51
nothing to stop it. He also claims that it was suspicious that the airplane's flight data recorders or black boxes
01:55:59
were never recovered. >> The black boxes were supposedly vaporized. Right. But I have footage of
01:56:05
the landing gear of the the the seats of the airplane. All of that survived. Sonnenfeld also suggested that the
01:56:12
cleanup at ground zero happened too quickly. >> Almost from day one, they began taking
01:56:19
away all of the metal beams, driving trucks all over the evidence. So, they themselves were destroying evidence
01:56:26
almost purposely and programmatically from the very first days. It was almost like it was pre-planned.
01:56:33
But what he never told Grana is that he didn't even get to ground zero until a full week after the attack. And if he
01:56:42
has any concrete evidence to back up his conspiracy theory, he hasn't shown it to
01:56:48
anyone. Kurt is just saying what other people have been saying for 14 years. He doesn't appear to have any any proof
01:56:56
that of anything new. So why would the American government go after him? Kurt repeated his claims in interviews
01:57:08
on Argentinian talk radio, in magazines and other TV shows. The World Trade Center and his story has been embraced
01:57:19
by those who have little trust in governments. Adulo Perez Esabel won the Nobel Peace
01:57:35
Prize in 1980 after years of imprisonment and torture by Argentina's military ha. He's been trying to help
01:57:43
Kurt stay in the country. Kurt and Pala claimed they've been spied on and harassed in Argentina by American
01:57:56
agents sent to intimidate them. Kurt even wrote a book about his case published in Spanish only called El
01:58:04
Perso or the Persecuted. >> It reads like a spy novel and it's one of the reasons why journalists in
01:58:11
Argentina have compared him to James Bond. But he's no hero to Kirk Mitchell, the reporter for the Denver Post, who is
01:58:19
a CBS News consultant. He's been covering the Curt Sonnenfeld case since the beginning. So here, Curt Sonfeld is
01:58:28
a a a murder suspect in Argentina. What is he? >> He he is the whistleblower, the a brave
01:58:36
man who stood up to a corrupt government. This stuff comes up after his arrest in
01:58:43
Argentina when he starts making this and the prosecutor and I are looking at each
01:58:47
other like where did that come from? >> He was a photographer at ground zero. >> Yes, he was. But he's also an
01:58:54
exceptional liar. >> He is trying to use that terrible situation to shield himself
01:59:02
from murder charges. He's trying to use his children to shield himself from murder charges.
01:59:09
When is Kurt Sinenfeld going to stop? When is he going to come home and account for that night?
01:59:25
More than 14 years have passed since Nancy Sonnenfeld's death, and her family still clings to the hope
01:59:34
that Kurt will someday go on trial for murder. Why does it matter that Kurt come back
01:59:41
and go on trial? >> It matters because my cousin who loved him so much, who gave him so much,
01:59:51
it matters because my cousin lost her life, she's not there because of him. He needs to account atone for that
02:00:00
night. Nancy Sonnenfeld has gotten lost in all of this, says Denver Post reporter Kurt
02:00:10
Mitchell. >> The way he has uh couched what has happened to him is he is the victim is
02:00:17
pretty incredible what he's pulled off. >> Mitchell was so intrigued by the case
02:00:21
that he wrote a book about it. >> You call your book Spin Doctor. Why? Well, I came to the conclusion that his
02:00:30
story was so far-fetched, so far from the truth that that's what he's become. You know, to me, it's astonishing that
02:00:39
it's being believed. >> Is Curt Sonnenfeld gaming the system? >> Kurt Sonninenfeld is definitely gaming
02:00:46
the system, though someday hopefully that game may run out. Former Colorado Governor Bill Owens says Sonninfeld has
02:00:54
come up with a novel way to avoid prosecution by cleverly spinning the horror of 911 to his own advantage.
02:01:03
>> There are a lot of people around the world who want to believe the worst about our country. And when he says,
02:01:08
"Look, I'm a victim. Intelligence agencies are after me." There are a lot of victims in this case. Not one of them
02:01:15
is Kurt Sonnenfeld. NY's family continued to live in limbo as Kurt's case dragged on through the
02:01:23
Argentine courts. In 2014, it landed on President Christina Kersner's desk. >> There's politics that get wrapped up in
02:01:33
these cases. The current president of Argentina comes from a party that was very antagonistic
02:01:41
towards the US. a fact that Kurt and Pala seem to be counting on. >> I know that my government is going to
02:01:50
protect us. We will fight for Kurt and we are not alone. >> And Pala may have been right. In 2015,
02:02:00
during the final weeks of her presidency, Kersner's administration ruled that Curt Sonenfeld will not be
02:02:06
extradited, stating that to do so would be a violation of human rights. human rights. What about my cousin? What
02:02:16
about her human rights? >> I absolutely believe it's political. I believe that Mr. Sonnenfeld has built an
02:02:22
aura as a martyr, as a hero, and I think the politics of Argentina have protected
02:02:28
him from a murder charge. Kurt and Pala wouldn't comment to us, but shortly after the ruling, Pala
02:02:37
tweeted, "We're living the first day of the rest of our lives." Has the murder suspect outsmarted the US
02:02:47
government? It certainly looks that way. But NY's cousin is determined Kurt will
02:02:56
never find peace. lies, the manipulations, they go on and on and it will come out and I will be alive to see
02:03:05
it. Even if I have to go to Argentina, I will look that man in the eye again just
02:03:11
so that he knows I am still alive. >> And I am here for my cousin. >> Happy birthday
02:03:19
to you. >> And I will never let this die. >> Bye. 48 hours. Don't miss an episode.