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[Music] Conducting a homicide is like putting together a thousandpiece jigsaw puzzle.
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What happens if one piece doesn't fit? Then the rest of the puzzle won't make sense. You got to take it apart. And
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that's what they did. The victim was Benji Novak. He had been beaten bad on the torso, his
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head. It was almost overkill. This case was twisted, even from Miami. Benji was from a rich Miami family. They
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owned a Fountain Blue Hotel. It was big back in the 60s. He was king of all the world. And my
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daddy owns this place. And you'll do as I tell you to do. He had a lot of enemies. He was a
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cutthroat. To put it bluntly, he was a brat. He wanted people to fear him. Menji was a successful businessman. And
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if people needed to be held accountable, he had no problem doing it. And that's the arrogance that a lot of people saw
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in him. He had a lot of fetishes. He had the second largest Batman collection in the
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world. He became very wealthy in his own right. He managed conventions. He would set him
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up from the beginning to the end. It was an all cash business. He was scared to death he was going to be
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robbed. He always claimed to be a little sexually kinky. Prostitutes and strip clubs. And that's
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in fact where he met his wife Narcy. He definitely was in love with Nars. Benji was who he was. His wife was who
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she was. If they did things that was between them. We really pound the payment on this
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case. It was apparent that they wanted him to suffer. Who would go to such lengths to inflict
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such serious injury? Somebody with a really cold heart. I can tell you that. There was a lot of cast of characters.
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We found hitmen. We found girlfriends. We found money trails. And when it was all over, the oldest
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motive in the world, money and sex. [Music] I'm Troy Roberts. Tonight on 48 hours
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crazy love. [Music] [Applause] [Music] My god, I I can't believe this. It was horrific.
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The picture. Detective Sergeant Terry Wilson of the Rybrook, New York Police Department.
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He's on the ground. He's He's basically hog tied. And Detective Allison Carpenter of
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Westchester County had never witnessed a crime scene this gruesome. It was a brutal scene. His eyes had both
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been cut out. The victim, 53-year-old Benji Novak, was a multi-millionaire Florida businessman.
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His mutilated body was discovered in the early morning hours of July 12th, 2009 in a hotel room in Rybrook, a suburb
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just 40 minutes north of New York City. An uplift like this, right, was placed on his legs, his arms, and
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around his mouth. When they put it, they did it really tight. Ultimately, police believed there was more than one
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killer. Was there any sign of struggle? He was in the bed. They came up on him. They hit him multiple times, maybe a
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dozen times or so. Police learned from Benji's wife, Narcy Novak, that she and her husband were
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from South Florida. They were at the Ry New York Hotel all weekend running a large Amway convention. As police in New
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York began their investigation, they soon learned their victim, Benji Novak, came from a fascinating background. His
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parents once owned the famous Fountain Blue Hotel, once the hottest spot on Miami Beach in the swinging 60s.
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[Music] It was absolutely magnificent, the glamour, the people that were there from all over the world. It was just
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incredible. Michael Aller, a director of tourism for Miami Beach, knows everybody.
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I lived at the Fountain Blue Hotel. It was just the place to be and to be seen. The Fountain Blue was the creation of
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Benji's parents, Bernice and Ben Novak. They were Miami Beach royalty, and everybody from JFK to Frank Sinatra and
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the Rat Pack stayed at their hotel. It was like Vegas really. He used to rub shoulders with everybody there.
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Maxine Field was Bie's aunt. She spent a lot of time at the hotel with her sister
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Bernice. It was amazing. They had the stairway to nowhere, which was like some kind of
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thing for the brides that would walk down. It would look like it was just coming out of this clouds.
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Everybody wanted to see what Mrs. Novak was wearing. She always had to go down and look absolutely
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better than anyone else. Ben wanted that. She was part of the final blue. But Ben and Bernice's son, Benji, was
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not as charming as his famous parents. He was a loner. He was a little prince. Ben was very secretive in many ways. He
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was not at ease with people. He would go trick-or-treating with a chauffeur and no kids went with him.
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I knew the Novax. I knew Benji. Benji was not a nice man. He was a tough I want it now type of guy. He was not
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pleasant to deal with. I was the only one that could really confront him and say that because I've known him from
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when he was this big. Wouldn't you make Joe Matthews? A former Miami Beach homicide detective also knew Benji.
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Everybody as a young boy were intimidated by him because he would fire housemmaids or valet people or whatever
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he wanted to. He had complete control of the hotel. Sound like a tyrant. He was. And he and he wasn't he wasn't
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really a easy guy to like. He uh was attracted to all the the cops. He spent all of his time at the police station.
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So he aspired to be a police officer. For all intents and purposes, he thought he was a police officer. While the
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prince of the Fountain Blue played cop, his father's entire empire started collapsing. He lost the hotel to
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bankruptcy in 1977. Benji was so distraught he refused to ever drive past the landmark again. His
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father's failures though fueled his ambitions and at 22 he started his own empire.
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He was ambitious man. Extremely ambitious. Charlie Serder is a former police officer and one of Benji's best friends.
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He watched Benji become a millionaire several times over with his convention staging business.
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He became a wealthy man at a very young age. Yes, he did. I'm not surprised at that.
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And I and I'm sure a big chunk of it was cash that he kept. Why cash? I know he always had a lot of cash. He
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kept a lot of cash in the house and he spent it on himself quite freely. In 1991, Benji began sharing his good
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fortune with Nars Valiz, a young single mother from Ecuador, a former exotic dancer with a young child, Mayabad. The
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two married, and eventually Nars helped Ben run the business, as did May. In fact, both women were with Benji at
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the convention the weekend he was murdered. It was attended by more than a thousand people, and that made the
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investigation tricky. You had a hotel full of possible suspects. Right. Right. And we didn't know which
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way to go. Is this a robbery? Is it domestic gone wrong? Is it isolated? Is he a target?
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Police soon establish a timeline from phone records. Benji was alive at 6:54 a.m.
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We know Ben was alive because he receives a phone call from a worker in the hotel saying there was a problem. He
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was overcrowding for breakfast. Narcy left the room to sort out the seating problem in the dining room. You
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can see her on video down there at around 7:17 a.m. 30 minutes later, she told police she returned to the room and
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discovered Ben's body. Describe her demeanor for me. I think the first thing she said to me,
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"Did um Ben have a heart attack?" Meanwhile, she had seen him. There was blood everywhere in this room. I mean,
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it was it was a bloody mess. And I kept saying to her, "Narcy, you saw Ben tied up. You know, what do you mean? Did he
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have a heart attack? [Music] It was Sunday. Their convention was over. So if anybody involved in the
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convention was was our killers, they would definitely be leaving. In the hours after the murder of Benji
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Novak, detectives Allison Carpenter and Terry Wilson were talking to as many people as
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they could. Show me when you see Narc. Investigators videotaped this hotel guest who encountered Narcy in the
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hallway minutes after she said she had just discovered Benji's body. When you were there, she said, "My
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husband, help me." He told police that Narcy was acting suspicious. And she looked like just
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surprised, right? And that he noticed the door to the room didn't show any signs of a break-in.
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And how come you notice no damage? Right. Right. Right. In fact, neither of the doors to the
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Novak suite showed any signs of force entry. So then police looked at the car key history leading up to the murder.
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What did the card key record show? They showed that uh there were no card keys used to enter that room between say 5
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after 12 at night and 7:40 in the morning. At 7:45 a card swipe is logged. That card swipe was from Nars's key
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and that's when she supposedly discovers the body. It was obvious that he been sleeping when he was attacked. So he
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didn't believe he had walked to the door and opened the door up to somebody. So, how did the killers gain access to
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Benji's room? The only one else that had access to that room was Narcy. It could have been that I left the door
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open. In her interview the day after the murder, Narcy tells police she's not sure if she closed the door when she
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left Benji to go downstairs to the dining room. I don't have anything to do with opening
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the door intentionally for anybody. Tell me about the interview that you conducted
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with Nars. It lasted hours. She wouldn't go to the bathroom. She didn't want a glass of water. She didn't want a
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coffee. You know, she just she held her own all night. I have no clue what happened. I have
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nothing to do with my husband. Narcy was emphatic. I love my husband. She had always loved Benji.
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The couple had met almost two decades earlier. on an unlikely first date. [Music]
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When he met her, she was a new dancer in a um kind of a sleazy um strip joint in
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Halia. To me, she looked like a a girl that worked the streets and uh and worked her
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way up to be a new dancer. Worked her way up to be a new dancer. That's Joe's opinion.
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Narc's life had been a far cry from Benji's privileged past at the Fountain Blue.
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[Music] And were they in love? He definitely was in love with Nars. Yes. Charlie Ser was close to both Benji and
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Nars for almost two decades. The couple even attended Ser's wedding. And do you believe Narcy was in love
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with him? I I would believe in the beginning, yes. Because of Benji, Narcy was afforded an
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extravagant lifestyle. They lived in a multi-million dollar estate. She drove expensive cars. She
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had furs, beautiful jewelry. She enjoyed the best of the best. And as Benji's convention business grew
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and gross millions, he splurged on one of his childhood fantasies. [Music] I think he was probably one of the
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biggest collectors of Batman memorabilia. his prized possession, a replica of the
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1960s Batmobile. Uh, I guess, you know, he could afford it. Stacks and stacks and stacks of first
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edition toys. Anything related to the superheroes. And friends say collecting memorabilia
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wasn't Benji's only indulgence. Benji had an appetite for other women. Benji didn't care. He was a party boy
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that thought for the moment. Was he always cheating? He was always cheating. Did Narcy know?
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Narcy always suspected Ben of cheating. She was a very jealous woman. And early on before Ben and Narcy were
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married, Charlie Ser got a taste of Narcy's jealousy. Benji had received a phone call and she
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was extremely upset and she was threatening to burn his house down. And he was pleading with her
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that he's not cheating. But cheating was just the beginning. Benji's sexual taste
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could have been ripped right from the pages of the most recent erotic bestsellers.
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I know he was into bondage. Narcy tells us he likes to be tied up. Benji was who he was. Let's say this,
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nobody really knows what goes on behind closed doors. But it's what happened behind this
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closed door that concerns homicide detective Ellison Carpenter. Ben is bound in a way that he enjoys
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sexually. Carpenter asked Narcy about the couple's bondage games and the strange
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coincidence of finding Benji bound and tied. I said, "Don't you think it's caught? He
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dies in a position that he finds sexually aroused." When I laugh, he was not tied up.
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When you would confront her with allegations, she would just not really respond to it at all. It was odd.
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Then from police in Florida, detectives got a tip about a bizarre incident involving bondage.
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We learned that she had tied him up and stole, he says, between $300 and $400,000.
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In 2002, Benji was the victim of a home invasion that according to him was orchestrated by Nars.
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He called me up and he said he had just been robbed. He says, "I've been tied up in a chair
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for 25 hours and I think my wife was involved." Why would Nars stage this home invasion
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and rob him? She was fed up with him, fed up with cheating, fed up with everything and
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wanted to prove a point. For reasons unknown, Benji never pressed charges. And amazingly, the couple
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reconciled. After all is said and done, he went back with her because he loved her.
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But the similarities of the 2002 incident and Benji's murder 7 years later convince investigators to turn up
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the heat on Narcy. You want me to ask you straight out? Did you have any involvement in your
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husband's death? No. There is an electrical chair and I'm a suspect. Give it to me right now. Pull me out of my
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misery. I want to die. She tried to act like a grieving widow. didn't come off like that at all to any
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of the investigators, I don't think. But if Narcy was involved in Benji's death, what could be her motive?
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I think she she knew she was going to be replaced. Detective Carpenter learned that Benji
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had taken up with another woman. He was sort of looking for a bad girl, but I was too bad of a girl for him.
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Rebecca Bliss, formerly known as Mona Love, was all over the internet. Uh she admits being prostitute of pornographic
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movies. What began as a sexual trrist says Rebecca grew into a serious ongoing relationship of two years.
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He used to make me laugh every day, you know, and talking to him about personal things.
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Benji moved her from Miami where she was dancing in a strip club to a condominium
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in Fort Lauderdale. He cared about me a lot. You know, he would tell me he loved me every day, all
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day. With Rebecca in the wings, was Benji about to leave Narcy. She called me screaming at me, yelling
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at me. Not if Narcy Novak had anything to do with it. She said if she couldn't have
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them, no one will. [Music] In the days after Benji Novak's murder, detectives began casting a wider net
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and the investigation would start to expand. We knew that we had to go to Florida.
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In Fort Lauderdale, detectives began to piece together Benji's life, uncovering his complicated connections to several
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women and their relationships with each other. We found a family in turmile. There was no love lost between Benji's
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wife, Narcy, and his mother, Bernice. And what was Nars's relationship like with Bernice?
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From day one, extremely strained. It was like that up until the day Bernice tragically passed away after a
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fall. just 3 months earlier. His mom did not like uh his wife. I mean, they really hated each other.
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The direct opposite of a very close bond between Bernice and Benji and he would talk to his mother daily.
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So, he obviously was a loving son and he stayed very close with his mother up until her death.
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Then there was May Abad, Narcy's daughter from a previous marriage. May was shipped off to different people
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throughout her life. She lived with aunts. She lived with friends. May was just 10 years old when Benji and
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Narcy got together. May and and her mother had a pretty stormy mother-daughter relationship.
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Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown has written extensively about the Novvec murder case and was a consultant for CBS
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News. Having a 10-year-old daughter at the time that she met Ben really wasn't very
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convenient for Nars. Over the years, May grew close to Benji, considering him the father that she
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never had. And just after Benji's murder, she became convinced her mother may have
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played a role in his death. She said, "It's the worst thing in the world to have to believe that your
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mother might have killed your father." And she said that she believed that that that her mother did do it.
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And the motive was money was money. Narcy was the sole beneficiary of Benji's estate, then
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valued between5 and $10 million. I think Narcy's very smart. She knows how to manipulate people. She will do
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whatever it takes to get what she needs. Just 3 days after the murder, Narcy and
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May, now back in Florida at the Novak's waterfront home, had an ugly confrontation recorded on surveillance
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camera. May had gone there to collect some of her things she had in a guest cottage on the property and and Narcy
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took a crowbar and started chasing her around with a crowbar. I got a uh hysterical phone call
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sometime around 6:00. Concerned for May's safety, Charlie Ser raced to Benji's home.
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When I pulled up, uh May and Nars were yelling at each other. May was screaming at her, "You murdered Ben." And at that
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point, a crowbar came into it and they just went at each other and I split them up.
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But not before Nars whacked May with the crowbar. You have to go where your evidence leads
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you. It just kept leading back to Narcy. Despite all their suspicions, police didn't have enough hard evidence to
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charge Nars. Then out of the blue, 10 days after the murder, investigators received a bombshell anonymous letter
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that would change everything. Translated from Spanish, it read in part, "This crime without a doubt was
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committed by the wife of Mr. Novak and her brother, Narcy's brother, Crisal, was a bus
00:21:06
driver in Pennsylvania." So, we drove down to uh Philadelphia um where Crisal lived.
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Detectives interviewed him in his apartment. Chrisal denied knowing anything about Benji's murder.
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As we entered, it's a small kitchen area. There was a table there, and he invited us to sit down at the table.
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And detectives couldn't help but notice what was on that table. It was littered with papers, and part of
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the papers were Western Union receipts. It was just, we couldn't believe it. Crisal had been wiring money to various
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people. When he left the room for a moment, detectives made note of some of the payes.
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There was one name that proved very helpful. Yes. Alejandro Garcia. Alejandra Garcia of Miami had been wired
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$500 by Crystalall just one month after Benji's murder. Detectives wondered if that was payment for the hit on Benji.
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Alejandro only had one eye. So, a search of the datab in Florida led us to Alejandro Garcia. It turns out Garcia
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had a record and with his mug shot in hand. Detectives poured over the Rybrook Hotel surveillance tapes from that
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fateful weekend. There's Benji captured by the security cameras. I had detectives go over and over and
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over the video at the Hilton and they hit pay dirt. You could see it was Alejandro. The
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shots on Friday were very clear photos. Two days before the murder, surveillance
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cameras show Garcia and another man. Detectives think they are casing the hotel in preparation for Benji's murder.
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This is Joel Gonzalez. The other man caught on camera was Joel Gonzalez, also from South Florida.
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Police believed Narcy's brother, Chrisal, hired the two men to come to New York and killed Benji. Investigators
00:23:01
would spend months gathering evidence. We did everything from credit card statements, banking statements.
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Phones became huge in the in in this investigation because once we had everybody's phone
00:23:15
numbers, we were able to track the movement of the phones. The paper trail led them here to this
00:23:22
motel in Queens, New York, where, according to records, the two men stayed the weekend of the murder. We're going
00:23:28
to be talking about a crime that happened. 4 months after the murder in November of
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2009, detectives brought in Alejandra Garcia for questioning. Has he ever been to New York?
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As we were talking to him, he played stupid. He was never in New York. He never left the state of Florida.
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Did you ever stay at that hotel? No. No. We have him on film at the hotel. be having my phone going with Joel to
00:24:00
the other hotel. In reality, I don't know. And he was unraveling at that point. He says he says, "I rather have an
00:24:13
attorney. Too many questions." Alejandro, I'm Allison. But with Detective Carpenter, Garcia
00:24:19
would later trip up and implicate himself. He starts telling me that he was scared for his family and that the
00:24:24
people that did this are very dangerous. We knew we had the right guy. He just confirmed it for us.
00:24:30
Now, investigators went after Joel Gonzalez. Joel was on the run, but he eventually
00:24:36
turned himself into Miami PD and Gonzalez was ready to talk. Joel gave everything up
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and he implicated Narcy. Implicated Narcy. Crystal the bull Alejandro. It wasn't long before Garcia too decided
00:24:55
to cooperate. The story they told investigators was shocking. It was Nars who let them into
00:25:03
Benji's bedroom early that terrible July morning while he was sleeping. They came up on him and they positioned
00:25:10
themselves on each side of the bed. They had these uh weights and they just started hitting the victim.
00:25:20
They hit him multiple times, dozen times or so. He ends up on the floor. Ben was duct taped on his legs. His
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mouth was covered. According to the hitman, Narcy was not only just watching the brutal assault,
00:25:34
but she was directing it. Uh Narcy sends Alejandro back in to the bedroom, and she wants him to take his
00:25:41
eyes out. So he uses something very similar to this. Why? You'd have to really ask Norsey why.
00:25:53
Finally, in July 2010, a year after Benji's death, Narcy along with her brother Chrisal are
00:26:02
arrested in connection with Benji's murder. But Narcy would soon find herself facing
00:26:08
not one but two murder charges. A year after Benji's murder, Narcy and Chrisal were back in New York in jail
00:26:28
and awaiting trial. Down in Florida, as reporter Julie Brown investigated the case, something in his
00:26:38
family history was worth a second look. So shortly after Benji Novak's murder, you began digging into the circumstances
00:26:48
surrounding Bernice's death. Well, the first thing you do as a reporter when you have a case like this
00:26:53
is you look at the clips and what has been written. And one of the first things that popped up was an obituary
00:26:58
for his mother. And it said that she had died from a fall in her Fort Lauderdale
00:27:03
home. Benji found his mother's body face down in a pool of blood in the hallway between the garage and the kitchen.
00:27:11
Ben, call me. What did he say? I just found my mom dead. Did he say that he believed it was
00:27:17
suspicious? Not he was overcome with grief at that point. What was Nars's demeanor? I have to tell
00:27:24
you, in all the years that I had seen her, she couldn't be any more consoling and uh uh just rubbing his hair and his
00:27:32
neck and and just actually being very tender to him. They right away said that they felt it
00:27:39
was a tragic accident that she had died of natural causes. Lynn and John Alfred, who lived next
00:27:44
door to Bernice in Fort Lauderdale, remember well the day their close friend died. We went outside and stood in the
00:27:51
driveway and Ben was there with Narcy and the police, two police were walking around and doing some investigation and
00:27:57
all we could see was into the garage and we could see her car with the door open.
00:28:02
Her glasses were smashed on the ground. There was blood dripping from the car all the way up to the door
00:28:08
and there were blood drops all over the house. And I was just curious. It just seemed
00:28:14
odd coincidence that she died 3 months before her son. So, I thought it couldn't hurt to get a copy of the
00:28:20
autopsy report if there was one done. And you got the report. I got the I eventually got the report.
00:28:26
The extent of her injuries just seemed enormous for a woman who had just taken a fall. She had uh you know, fractures
00:28:34
all over her body. Her skull was fractured. She had a broken finger. Her teeth were broken. Um it just seemed too
00:28:42
much for a fall. Benji soon had questions about what he had seen at his mother's house.
00:28:49
I just said, "Wait until the investigation concludes before you make any judgment."
00:28:54
So, he was already questioning whether or not this was an accidental death. Yes, at that time he was. And I don't
00:29:00
think it ever left him. Bernice's sister, Maxine, also doubted that it was an accident.
00:29:06
When you were told that your sister had died, were you suspicious from the get-go? Oh, she did all that
00:29:12
herself. She fell down and got up and fell down like a jack in the box, right? What was it about the circumstances
00:29:17
surrounding her death and the crime scene photos that that really sent up red flags for you?
00:29:24
Everything. Everything. Just about everything. More red flags appeared when Brown
00:29:29
learned from the Offer dolls about a suspicious incident at Bernice's house when their son saw two men standing next
00:29:36
to Bernice's garage appearing to be casing her home. And we thought that was a little unusual, but we didn't overly
00:29:42
react. John, a retired NFL player, and his son went to investigate. As we opened up the door, the door, the
00:29:49
dog started chasing after the guys happily. And I said, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" And they looked at us and
00:29:54
for a second kind of were stunned. And then they started jogging and then starting to sprint when the dog started
00:30:00
chasing them. Two months later, Bernice was dead. When Narcy and Benji arrived at the house,
00:30:05
Lynn recalled she was acting strangely. I remember Narcy was so odd. I mean, she
00:30:10
just kept kind of jumping around the scene and ringing her hands and saying, "I just don't understand it." And I just
00:30:17
can't imagine. And I just spoke with Bernice last night and we were going to go um vitamin shopping in the morning.
00:30:24
And I kept thinking to myself, "You guys don't get along. You don't like each other. Why? She wouldn't go vitamin
00:30:30
shopping with you." None of that made any sense to me. And all the blood that investigators
00:30:37
seemingly overlooked in Bernice's house made no sense to Julie Brown. So she called in ex police officer Joe Matthews
00:30:44
for his expert opinion. What did you see that the police did not When you look at the the crime scene,
00:30:52
there's um blood spatter on the walls. There's blood in almost every room of the house. The investigator felt that,
00:31:01
you know, it was one of those things where she would stand up and fall down. stand up and fall down and walk all over
00:31:06
the house. But then how do you explain the blood spatter? So these are crime scene photos from
00:31:14
Bernice's home. Now what happened here? If you look at the crime scene, you'll see that there was a a lot of blood on
00:31:21
the seat, but I saw some blood spatter. So if there's spatter, that means she was struck more than once in the head
00:31:28
while sitting here. Convinced she uncovered a murder, Julie took her findings to the Fort Lauderdale
00:31:35
Police Department. And I would go to them with question after question to the point where they
00:31:40
were getting extremely upset with me and it's a closed case. It's an accident. Are you suggesting that this was a cover
00:31:48
up? Initially, I don't think it was a cover up. I think initially that they were
00:31:53
really uh thought that it was an accident. I think that they made a lot of mistakes. I think that it was really
00:31:59
a lot of mistakes. But all of that was about to change as investigators were making a deal with
00:32:04
hitman Alejandra Garcia to testify against Nars and Crisal. He revealed they also hired him to attack Bernice,
00:32:12
beating the 86-year-old woman with a wrench. And then he was approached by Crystal
00:32:17
Valise to uh kill Bernice. And he waited when it got dark on the side of her house by her garbage pales. And when she
00:32:23
came out to move her car into the garage is when he struck her. Why is Crystalall coming?
00:32:29
Garcia told investigators he was hired by Crystal Bal for both attacks. And once again, Nars was the mastermind.
00:32:40
10 months after they were arrested for Benji's murder, Crystal and Nars were also charged in Bernice's death.
00:32:49
But why would Nars want Benji's mother dead? [Music] 3 years after the murders of both Ben
00:33:08
Novak Jr. and his mother, Nars Novak and Chris Valiz went on trial in federal court in Westchester.
00:33:18
She looked very gaunt. She went out of her way to not make herself look attractive. She was given the option of
00:33:26
wearing regular clothing and she chose to wear her orange prison jumpsuit every day.
00:33:31
Alejandra Garcia and Joel Gonzalez made deals with the prosecution to testify for the chance of receiving a lighter
00:33:38
sentence. They all basically ended up cooperating and the prosecution had an overwhelming
00:33:43
amount of evidence against the defendants. Chrisell used his credit card um to purchase the dumbbells that we used to
00:33:50
beat Ben Novak. He also used his credit card to uh purchase the knife that we used to cut out Ben's eyes.
00:33:57
The jury was also shown video taken at a Western Union, which prosecutors say shows Crisal sending money to hitman
00:34:04
Garcia, one of the many clues he left behind. He used his own car for some of the
00:34:10
transports. He um used his own cell phone. So, that left a trail that we were able to uncover.
00:34:16
The case against Nars was also strong. Prosecutors told the jury about Nars's secret cell phone. They called it a drop
00:34:24
phone. Now, that particular phone was used at 6:40 6:39 in the morning at the Ry Town
00:34:32
Hilton. Narcy used it to call the hitman as they waited at a gas station down the street.
00:34:38
We had located what phone Narcy used to call the killers and tell them come on in. And that was big.
00:34:43
And remember that video of Narcy down at the breakfast room? Prosecutors say Narcy tried to establish an alibi by
00:34:51
intentionally standing before the hotel security cameras around the time of the murder.
00:34:56
Uh she knew where the cameras were and where they weren't. I mean, you could tell by that that particular morning how
00:35:03
she plants herself directly right in front of a camera and that's where she stays. She makes some phone calls
00:35:09
because she wants to be seen on that camera. The defense tried to hammer back. They
00:35:14
questioned the hitman's credibility and reminded the jury they were testifying after making a deal with prosecutors.
00:35:21
And they dropped a bombshell, the possibility of another killer. I asked Crystalall about that in a phone call
00:35:29
from jail. Did you orchestrate the murder of Benji Novak? No. Did you arrange for the murder of
00:35:37
Bernice Novak? No, sir. Why would they pin these murders on you, sir? They be well paid by my niece May
00:35:45
Abad. Incredibly, Crisal points the finger at Narc's daughter, May Abad. So, you're saying May is the one who
00:35:56
paid for the murders of Benji Novak and Bernice. I don't know about Mrs. Bernice. I
00:36:02
cannot say nothing about the lady because what I so far I know she fell down. But I know she told me about my
00:36:09
brother-in-law. Yes. She came to me and she told me Ben deserved to die because Ben was a bad evil person.
00:36:16
He told some wild story that that didn't make any sense at all trying to point the finger at her
00:36:25
daughter. It was truly unbelievable. Crystal Bal's story quickly fell apart when Alejandro Garcia testified that in
00:36:32
reality Mayabad was next on his list. When we interviewed Alejandro and we took him into custody, he had a picture
00:36:39
of May in his wallet. We believe that obviously the hit was out on May. Only Narcy knows why she'd want her only
00:36:47
daughter killed. But the apparent plot worried Detective Carpenter. She became so concerned about May's safety. She
00:36:53
loaned her $5,000 of her own money so she could go into hiding. And you got into trouble.
00:36:59
Well, I didn't get into trouble. The the prosecutor's office removed me from the
00:37:03
case. Were you angry? I wasn't angry. I I I was disappointed because you worked so hard and obviously
00:37:10
I wanted to be there for the take down, the arrest. But Carpenter was there for the verdict
00:37:18
after a two-month trial when Nars Novak and Chris were convicted of orchestrating Ben and Bernice's murders.
00:37:27
And then I have earned guilty, guilty, guilty. So it was exciting for us. As elaborate and convoluted as the
00:37:35
murder plots were, Narc's motive was quite simple. She knew he had a mistress. She was
00:37:41
afraid he was going to leave her and divorce her. Ben and Narc's prenup only guaranteed
00:37:45
her $65,000 in the event of a divorce. His intentions were to be with me, and he did not want me to be with anyone
00:37:55
else. And he asked me to just wait until he was finished with divorce. And that's
00:38:00
why Matthew says Narcy had no choice but to arrange a double murder. She had to kill the old lady for him to
00:38:07
get all the money and then kill him to get all the money. And that's how simple it was.
00:38:11
I mean, could this could this have been the perfect murder? Any murder could be the perfect murder,
00:38:16
but they're not. There's always something. She was sloppy. I think she thought she was smarter than the
00:38:22
investigators. Narcy may not have outsmarted the investigators, but she did surprise
00:38:27
them. We we were surprised to learn that she stayed in the room and participated.
00:38:32
That was the biggest surprise to see that she could be that vicious watching somebody that you live with and lived in
00:38:37
the same house with for 20 years and to watch them die like that. And even more surprising was the author
00:38:43
of that letter to police which pointed the finger at both Crisal and Nars. It was written by one of their own sisters.
00:38:51
You have to question what type of family fabric existed for them to be able to get to this point.
00:38:59
Just about everything from this case turned out to be surprising from the relentless ambition of Benji Novak. I
00:39:07
think that Benji was just a demanding individual and in the roles that I had seen him while he was in business. It
00:39:14
was always demanding because he wanted the best for his customers to the deadly greed of his wife Nars.
00:39:21
This is somebody that is a monster. She was such a a sociopath and such a great liar
00:39:28
to the devotion of Benji's mistress. I miss Ben every day. I love him very much.
00:39:39
But in the end, all that's left is the money. $10 million by some estimates, dwindling fast between lawyers and
00:39:47
squabbbling family members. For the Novak family, once the royalty of Miami Beach, the lights are out and
00:39:55
the party is over. [Music] [Music] Hey. [Music]