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[Music] [Applause] [Music] 911, what's your emergency? He calls 911 and he's yelling into the
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phone, "Help me! Help me! He shot me!" This is the actual transcript from the 911 call. Yes.
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So, he's running through the vineyard. >> He is running through the vineyard and
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the shooter is in the truck coming after him, shooting out the window. This is crazy. Crazy. Who are these
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guys? These guys were a couple of rich, ambitious wine lovers who wanted to be in the business and own their own
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vineyards. Look, I have pictures. Here's Emad. Emad Tofigh. He's a smart guy from
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Silicon Valley who loved Hollywood, even financed a movie. And here's the other guy,
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Robert Dahl, an operator who people said could make money grow on trees. Well, in
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this case, vines. Take one, Emad. My name is Jonathan Kesselman. I'm a filmmaker. JIMMY FASTFOOD IS A
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TERRORIST. I WAS directing a film and Emad was the principal investor in the film. Emad made his money in Silicon
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Valley and then was looking for other things to invest in? Yeah, I think, you know, he he made a good living, wanted
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to invest his money into things he was more passionate about, movies, wine. [Music]
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Robert Dahl, did he come with a dream? Oh, definitely. He really did have the vision of having some form of a
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winery. Robert made me feel like we'd been friends forever. Upon first meeting, you
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felt that >> first No, within like the first 10 minutes. He was a very nice outgoing, hardworking
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guy. So, it seemed like a good guy to partner up with. Absolutely. One time, I don't know how I ended up on
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the back of his motorcycle and he looked out and he pointed at this mansion. I mean, he said, "You know what? Greg
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and I are going to make so much money that he's going to be able to buy a house like this for you someday."
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Everything seemed to be going great. Oh, it was It was awesome. Yeah, perfect. Until it all went wrong.
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>> Yes. And this is over money. This is over money. $800,000 in a gym bag? Broken dreams. Broken dreams.
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Who lives? Who dies? It's an incredible tale of wine, money, and murder. [Music]
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[Music] 48 Hours: Grapes of Wrath. We have a male saying, "Help me! Help me!" He advised of something saying that he
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has been shot again twice now. It was a showdown between two millionaires. Robert Dahl and Emad Tofigh.
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Wild tales of a shocking murder in the Napa Valley. A bitter money dispute ends in an execution-style shooting. This all
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started at Dahl Vineyards on Solano Avenue. The victim was [Music] I mean, just look at this place, Napa
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Valley. Who wouldn't want a piece of this? That's what these two men wanted and they went for it, but it ended in
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murder. So, we came here to figure out what happened. And what we discovered is really interesting. It turns out that no
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less than four people thought that they could have ended up targets of the killer, too.
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Could have been me running through the vineyard and ducking from flying bullets. I was probably number one on
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his list to kill. My first thought was that could have very easily been Greg. What do you think would have happened if
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you were there? I think he would have killed me. Hold on. Let's just slow down for a
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second. How do you get from two ambitious guys trying to make it in the wine business to a murder mystery with
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four or five other potential victims? Well, we found a guy who can explain it all.
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Because his family has worked in these valleys for generations. And he says he could have been a victim
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that day, too. So, is it customary if we visit to open a bottle of wine? >> way that you can visit. Sure.
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>> Going to have some wine? [Music] So, cheers. Cheers. Meet Dominic Foppiano. Pretty close to
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royalty around here. Me and my brother and two sisters were the fourth generation of our family to be involved.
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I mean, our great-grandfather started doing this with grapes and making some wine in the early 1900s.
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Now, he and his brother and sisters and friends run the Christopher Creek Winery. We've known each other for all
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of our lives and so we are family above and beyond. Are there a lot of dreamers who come
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here? Oh, yeah, big time. Tech tycoons, Wall Street guys, rock stars, movie people and they all want to come and
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have a slice of this. And a lot of people see the the glamorous side of it without, you know, seeing the the hard
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work that goes into it. The blood, sweat, and tears that it really takes to get to the point we're at right now of
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drinking a great bottle. How tough is it to break in? It is very, very tough unless you're coming with a lot of
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money. And then there's the matter of trust. Doing business in the wine country is
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often very personal. You know, their word is their bond. Shake their hands, you look in their eye, and you're good.
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You bond with a person and then maybe go into business with them. Absolutely. That's a huge, huge part of it. So, cuz
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you need to know that you can you can trust that person. But, as we'll find out, watch out if that bond is broken
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because the stakes are high. The money makes people crazy. Lou Perdue is a tech entrepreneur and the most respected wine
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writer in Napa. Money is intoxicating and when you mix money and wine, I think you get intoxicated to the second or
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third power. How often does it happen that somebody comes in with a lot of money and not so much knowledge about
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wine, but just wants to be a part of this? Every day. Every day. Back in 2011, a guy named Robert Dahl
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was about to get drunk on all that money. He decided to leave Minnesota, where he
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had an unglamorous mold removal business, and become a Napa Valley wine entrepreneur.
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He had a booming voice. He was always the loudest guy in the room. Just a big presence.
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>> Yeah, big presence. Miles Davis is an electrician who worked for Dahl almost from the beginning of his time in Napa.
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You were friends with him initially when he was doing what business? Selling and
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buying grapes. Selling and buying grapes. That's one way of saying Dahl was in the lower end of the wine
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business. He wasn't making fine wines. He was bottling no-name wine, making what they
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call shiners. The shiner is a bottle that doesn't have a label and then he'd sell you that
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fruit. You put your own label on it. Was he a good salesman? A great salesman. Oh, he could sell anyone. So, the wine
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didn't even have to really be that good, he could sell it. Well, it never was really that good. And he talked a good
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game. >> a great game. And you knew enough to know that he didn't know a lot. I knew
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that he he had a good line of BS, which which is which is fine and it made him funnier. Was part of his charm that he
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could BS? Yeah, I loved it about him. Dahl had moved to wine country with his wife and three children.
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His family's amazing. They're just wonderful people. His wife's a very sweet, loving woman. The kids are
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amazing. In fact, they call me their godfather. Within a couple of years, his bottling
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business was a big success and Dahl liked to show it. He showed up in my office with $10,000 and said, "Let's buy
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a Harley." I'm sorry? He showed up in my office and with $10,000 in cash and said, "We're
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buying a Harley. You pay me back in the next few months or whenever." That's Robert. He was he was all about
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stuff like that. Did he seem concerned about money? >> No. Never. So, it was in 2011 that Robert Dahl took
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his next big step toward his dream of making it big in the wine business. He linked up with that prince of the
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wine country, Dominic Foppiano. I had met some people from Asia who were looking into getting into importing
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California wine. Foppiano was young. He didn't have his own personal vineyard yet and he needed more product. I
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couldn't literally package wine fast enough cuz I didn't have my own facility. And so, I met Robert. He was very new to
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this, but he was willing to to work really, really hard and he had a genuineness
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that he could project that made you want to trust him, made you want to like him.
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Over the next year, Foppoli and Doll became close. We got to dinner and and hang out. And as a friend, he was always
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there. I could text him at 11:00 at night and he'd get back to me. Business was good, and one day Doll made him a
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proposition. He called me up and said, "Hey, there's uh this place in your neck of the woods." They'd buy their own
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vineyard. And so I came over and I met him here and I looked at this view in the vineyards and literally an hour
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after sitting down with them, we drank a bottle of wine on this on this deck, I said, "I'm in. Let's do this."
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Foppoli staked everything he had on this partnership, even his house. You know, I
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said, "This is something I'm going to do. I'm going to have to go all in and I need you to be all in, too." And he
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said, "I got you." Foppoli didn't think it would be a stretch for Robert Doll. I
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assumed that this was a fun little side project for him. I never had any reason to doubt that he was
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doing tremendously well. Did you feel like he had your back? Oh, completely. There was not I didn't doubt
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for a second. But almost as soon as the vineyard deal with Foppoli was closed, Doll was
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looking for the next big thing. Sharing ownership in a vineyard wasn't good enough. He wanted to be the boss. To do
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that, he needed new partners. And then he found just the man he was looking for.
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A man with connections to the bright lights of Hollywood. With a gym bag full of money.
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[Music] I directed a film called Jimmy Vestvood American Hero. [Applause] Uh It's a comedy.
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>> comedy starring a comic named Maz Jobrani. I'm Jimmy. Jimmy Vestvood. Like Clint Eastwood, but
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Vestvood. Very funny film. Hello, is there a car? Director and screenwriter Jonathan Kesselman was
00:11:57
shooting the film's wedding scene when one of the extras struck up a conversation.
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While we're sort of in between setups, we started talking. He said, "Hi, I'm Emad. I'm the investor in the film." And
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just a really nice guy. We chatted. Emad Tofighbakhsh was a young businessman from Silicon Valley. What kind of actor
00:12:14
was he? Um He was a better humanitarian than an actor. Um He was a good extra. He was very good.
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He He hit his marks. Emad was principal investor in the film. He put up about $200,000,
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and Kesselman became friendly with him. He was like a business person in tech, and I think he was excited to be not a
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corporate guy anymore. He had sort of made a lot of money, and he was tired of it and wanted to sort of explore other
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things in his life, things that he had passion for. One of those passions was film. The
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other was wine. Emad invited his new film director friend and his wife to the fancy home he owned near the wine
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country. It was just, you know, "I love wine. You guys like wine? Let's go wine tasting." We He actually gave us his
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bedroom. His bedroom was very flashy. Like his bathroom he had redone. Like there was a television inside the mirror
00:13:01
in the bathroom. Like he was very excited about his bathroom. But wine was more than a passion for
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Emad. It was a driving ambition. In 2011, Emad Tofighbakhsh got to know Robert Doll.
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And they talked about the dream they shared of making it big in the wine business.
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But this story isn't just about wine, it's about cash. Close to a million dollars in cash. Now, if you're
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wondering what that looks like, well, so are we. So we got some Hollywood prop money, which looks a lot and feels a lot
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like the real thing. And this is how Robert Doll did his next deal. $800,000 in cash in a gym bag.
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The money came from that movie investor, Emad Tofighbakhsh. In 2013, according to
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Emad, Robert told him that returns on his investment would be big. And if he invested cash, he'd get better deals.
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Emad was jumping into business with Robert Doll with both feet. It sounds like the perfect match.
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Robert, who supposedly knows about wine but doesn't have the money, and then Emad, who doesn't know a lot about wine
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but has the cash. >> Exactly. Remember, Doll had already started a vineyard business with Dominic Foppoli.
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But that wasn't enough for him. Shortly after Doll's partnership with Foppoli began, it ended. There'd been
00:14:26
problems. Now, Doll wanted his own thing. He wanted his name on the bottle. Emad was going to make that happen. His
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investment, which now totaled $1.2 million, would help launch Doll Vineyards. Emad
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was finally a player, and Doll was center stage. Welcome to Doll Vineyards in lovely
00:14:49
Yountville, California. He's a salesman. It's a show. Did people seem like they were having a good time?
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>> always. He pours good wine, and he pours it well, and generously? generously. And
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And it was it was a nice product. He did a nice job on that winery. And the business prospered so much that
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Doll was soon able to repay Emad part of his investment. And that's the thing. Everything that
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Robert Doll touched seemed to be turning out golden, and it was happening so fast. Now, armed with Emad
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Tofighbakhsh's money, Doll was on his way to being everything he wanted to be, the big man in Napa.
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Did he exude confidence? >> confidence. Oh my gosh, like nobody I've ever met before in my life.
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That same year, Doll started up another brand new business with that Napa couple, Francine and Greg Knittel.
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This is just an abstract vineyard scene. >> They'd been pursuing their passions in
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Napa for years. Francine did her art. >> So Napa clearly inspires you. Yes, definitely. And Greg's construction
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business. >> This is one of our custom remodels. Oh, this is beautiful. Built some of the
00:16:04
area's nicest homes and tasting rooms. Oh, look at the ceiling. It's like the Sistine Chapel.
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Some of this stuff I feel like we can't show on television, but Life was good. Every time we come home, we just say to
00:16:17
each other, "Look at where we live. We're so blessed." And there was no hesitation when the new
00:16:24
guy, Robert Doll, came into their lives. He was very outgoing, charismatic, hard working.
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>> Very hard working. So it seemed like a good guy to partner up with. Absolutely.
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Oh, yeah. Doll and the Knittels started a craft beer brewery, a business that created
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fancy handmade beers. Greg was a handy partner for Doll. His construction company built the brewery.
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What did he promise you? Well, that we would have an operating a reputable business that
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we would be able to hand off to our kids. And he pointed at this mansion that's right off Silverado Trail. And he
00:17:01
looked back at me and he said, "You know what? Greg and I are going to make so much money that he's going to be able to
00:17:05
buy a house like this for you someday." The business was off to a good start. They added a brewpub. I mean, we had
00:17:15
the best beer ever. Our restaurant was booming. The brewery was brew I mean, like within like three or four months.
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Like it was incredible. It was incredible. Francine and Greg even became close friends with Doll and his
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wife, Janelle. >> everything together for a year. And it was boot like it was going really well.
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Like really, really well. He liked to live well. You know, he couldn't live in a 3,000 square foot
00:17:40
house. It had to be a 5,000 square foot house. It was all about looks. >> He didn't have to have one brand new
00:17:46
motorcycle. He had to have two brand new motorcycles. I'm sure that you'll play the video of
00:17:51
him at the after the Napa earthquake. In fact, I have that video right here. This was taken after the 2014 earthquake
00:17:58
in Napa. If an East Coaster's thinking about coming to Napa for harvest season to have some nice wine and have a few
00:18:04
dinners, is it time to call that vacation off? Oh, absolutely not. Everything is back going in wine
00:18:09
country. It's a great time to visit wine country, see some grapes being crushed,
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taste some fresh juice, and really take in the wine lifestyle. Man, listening to him, it almost sounds
00:18:19
like he could be the mayor of Napa. But things aren't always exactly as they appear to be.
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Remember Dominic Foppoli, Doll's former partner? Dominic had been running the winery, and
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Doll was running the books. You know, we're selling a bunch of wine. I mean, the winery was a hit, but there wasn't
00:18:37
enough money to keep paying our bills, which I didn't understand. I didn't get. Where's the money going? Where's the
00:18:43
money going? Where's the money going? That was the question plenty more people in the wine country were about to start
00:18:49
asking. [Music] By 2014, the new Doll Vineyards seemed to be taking off. Robert Doll and Emad Tofighbakhsh, the
00:19:24
two ambitious entrepreneurs, were living their dreams. Robert himself running the
00:19:30
show. >> Greetings from Doll Vineyards. And Emad, silent partner, providing the money.
00:19:35
Enjoy. But what Emad didn't know was partnerships with Robert Doll had a way of turning sour.
00:19:43
Remember Robert's first vineyard, the one he shared with Dominic Foppoli? One day, Dominic got a phone call from
00:19:50
their lender. I'm starting foreclosure proceedings on you guys. Foreclosure proceedings?
00:19:55
>> Foreclosure? Yeah, cuz we had we had missed our our our first payment to him as far as the winery. So, I called
00:20:02
Robert and he said, "You shouldn't be worried about that. I've got all that covered." And I said, "Are you kidding
00:20:06
me?" Foppiano went ballistic. This is my dream and we were successful in everything we were doing. His life
00:20:12
savings and reputation were on the line. He had to get rid of Doll. So, my family
00:20:18
and and my partners my my brother and my my best friends and came around and said,
00:20:23
"We'll do whatever we need to do and and let's let's get this guy out." Foppiano
00:20:28
got control of the vineyard, but he had to pay Doll to go away. He was bitter. You know, I introduced him as my
00:20:35
partner, my friend. So, I brought him into that that circle of trust that we have here. Everybody opened welcomed him
00:20:40
with open arms because I vouched for him. I had never been burned before. I was I was naive. And it turns out
00:20:47
Foppiano wasn't the only one. No one that ever put money into something that he was doing was ever going to get
00:20:54
anything back. Steve Birch knows. He's a winemaker who worked for Doll. Back when Doll looked like he was the
00:21:01
golden boy of wine country, Birch introduced him to celebrities. For the comic and TV personality Adam Carolla,
00:21:08
>> much for enjoying this. he bottled a sangria called Mangria. We made money on
00:21:13
it, but I know that there was a significant amount of payment for that that Adam never
00:21:18
received. And there was the rapper E-40. You a loser? Nope. Winner? Yep. He had Doll package some
00:21:26
wines for his label, Earl Stevens Wines. >> We started his product and it went really well, but I know he wasn't he
00:21:32
wasn't paid either. Nope. And there was Birch himself. >> I left with him owing me a lot of money.
00:21:37
Can you give me a ballpark? Yeah, we'll say it was well over $10,000. The same thing happened to Doll's
00:21:46
friend, electrician Miles Davis. Doll owed him $15,000. Did you ever see that money? No.
00:21:55
But you were friends with him again? Yeah, cuz he's a great he Yeah, I'm fine with that. I mean, it
00:22:00
wasn't about the money. It was about you know, there was concerns that he was in
00:22:04
trouble. So, I I didn't feel like my little 15,000 was anything to worry about. Cuz he was
00:22:11
getting underwater. >> Yeah. Did you say anything? No. No. No. Did you figure he'd find a way
00:22:20
out of it? Yep. I hoped he would. And then there was Francine and Greg Knittel. Just a few months after the successful
00:22:30
debut of the brewery they started with Doll and a well-known brewmaster, the business started slipping. I got the
00:22:37
first inkling that Doll wasn't what he says he was because a friend of mine went to his brewery and I put quotes
00:22:44
around that because the friend of mine like craft beer and he wasn't making beer at his quote
00:22:51
unquote brewpub. Apparently, by the time Lou's friend stopped by for a drink, the brewery was
00:22:58
no longer making its own beer. He wasn't making beer at the brewery? No, he was buying uh kegs from somebody else.
00:23:06
And when this friend of mine came face to face and told him about that, he he just went ballistic. Like he'd been
00:23:13
found out. >> Like like he had been found out. Doll's partners, Francine and Greg, say
00:23:18
they didn't know what Doll was up to at the brewery and they were shocked when Doll came in one day and announced he
00:23:25
was shutting down the whole thing. Robert's sitting there and he goes, "Guys, the brewery's not making enough
00:23:30
money. I'm going to close the doors." Francine and Greg say they not only lost $250,000
00:23:37
of their own money, they'd encouraged friends to invest, too. And unlike Miles Davis, they felt personally betrayed by
00:23:45
their friend Robert Doll. What gets to you the most? Somebody that we trusted had this
00:23:53
capability, had this I mean, Robert knew the whole time going to pretty much screw us over.
00:24:03
But no one felt more ripped off than Emad Tofailis. He thought he'd invested more than a million dollars in a
00:24:10
vineyard. Instead, Doll diverted the cash, spending it on his lavish lifestyle, the brewery business, just
00:24:18
about anything else. Doll had stopped paying back the money he borrowed and Tofailis hired a lawyer.
00:24:25
He was angry. He wanted his money and he wanted to find out everything he could about Robert Doll.
00:24:33
You amassed a pile of information about Robert Doll. This is the pile of liens that Robert had against him. Civil
00:24:40
judgment from Ford Motor Company, 19,000. Allied Building Products Company, 61,000. 53,000. 7,900.
00:24:49
>> Oh my goodness. So, Emad hired Don King, who has her own special niche in Napa
00:24:54
Valley. Well, I'm a private investigator here in Napa and I was an FBI agent for
00:25:00
10 years. >> An FBI agent? >> Yes. So, you can smell a rat. Well, I like to put rats in prison, anyway.
00:25:10
Don started digging. So, he was just not paying his bills. I mean, he was just like, you know, charging credit cards.
00:25:17
Here's the Federal Credit Union, 53,000. And then you get into his lawsuits. A lot of what Don discovered happened back
00:25:25
in Minnesota during the years before Doll came to Napa, but to Don, it told a story. You know, this is the theft one
00:25:32
of his theft charges. One of his theft charges? >> had a he had two. This was the theft by
00:25:37
swindle. So, He actually was convicted of theft by swindle. He was. Thefts and swindles got Doll thrown into
00:25:46
jail not once, but twice back in Minnesota and left him a convicted felon. I mean, this guy was a criminal.
00:25:54
Now, here in the wine country, Doll seemed to be scamming again. Every time he'd get a business investment, the
00:26:01
money seemed to go right into his pocket. Was this kind of a a Ponzi scheme? Yeah, to some extent. I mean, except
00:26:08
that no one got paid. See, usually in a Ponzi scheme, the first people in get paid. But in this case, But no, no.
00:26:14
>> did. It was It right, Robert got paid, but Robert spent all the money. In 2014, wine reporter Lou Perdue began
00:26:23
to uncover the swindles Robert Doll was pulling right here in Napa Valley. He started blogging what he found and guess
00:26:31
who responded. >> And those are his comments. >> Robert Doll. Those are his his comments
00:26:36
and then he starts to rant paragraph >> Oh, I see this the caps in red. >> by paragraph Oh my goodness.
00:26:46
>> everything in big red capital letters just keeps coming. >> Oh my goodness. And it comes and it
00:26:56
comes and it comes and it comes just ranting and ranting and ranting. I think I measured this at
00:27:02
26 ft. And what did this say to you? This says to me the guy's was off his nut. Things were really heating up. Both
00:27:12
sides were suing and it looked as if things were headed for a showdown. Emad was just like so crazed and he was
00:27:20
becoming like a desperate man. Oh my gosh. I mean, I used to get 10 15 20 phone calls a day.
00:27:43
Emad Tofailis was angry, very angry. He wanted his whole investment back, but it
00:27:50
wasn't looking good. How desperate was Emad? He was a desperate man. On a scale from 1 to 10,
00:27:58
he was about a 9. He was not going to let someone like Robert Doll take advantage of him and bully him into
00:28:07
being submissive. Attorney David Wiseblood. Emad came to me saying, "I have this problem."
00:28:13
So, I looked at it and said, "Yeah, you have a problem." So, we devised a strategy. That strategy was to hammer
00:28:21
Robert Doll in court and force him to pay up. So, the strategy was file a lawsuit in Napa
00:28:31
to basically get control of the collateral and to prevent stuff from disappearing.
00:28:39
That collateral was mostly the wine tanks and all the equipment used to make the wine. And what happened? Robert
00:28:46
didn't roll that well. What happened, I had in a 4-month period, 19 court appearances in the Napa court, which is
00:28:54
crazy. I mean, the short answer is the Napa court issued an injunction against Robert saying, "You can't sell
00:29:02
inventory," which in effect should have shut down his winemaking and wine selling operations. That all belongs to
00:29:08
Emad, basically. >> Right, pretty much. Even though Emad was winning in court, Robert Doll was doing
00:29:14
everything he could to cheat. He was even secretly taking equipment and trying to sell it off. Robert at that
00:29:22
point had started hiding equipment, hiding whatever he could. He started moving stuff.
00:29:28
But Robert Doll's attorneys, Jasmine Dwall and Kusha Berakhim, There's a lot more than the headlines. say Doll was a
00:29:36
clever businessman, but he was no crook. You think Robert's mindset was, "I'm going to take this, but I'll be able to
00:29:44
pay it back and everything's going to be okay." >> Absolutely. I think he had every
00:29:48
intention to pay back the entire loan. Robert got a hold Dahl's lawyers believed Dahl was a stand-up guy. That
00:30:00
classic all-American risk-taking entrepreneur who puts it all on the line and at the last minute comes out a hero.
00:30:08
The business was growing. And it was not a Ponzi scheme or a house of cards. I was shown a document
00:30:17
that says Robert Dahl was convicted of swindle in Minnesota. If you look at that document again, you will see that
00:30:24
that goes back to when he was about 19 or 21 years old or so. But still, people look at that and say once a con man,
00:30:31
always a con man. Robert definitely had his share of failed ventures before as well.
00:30:37
But you don't think that proves that he's a thief. Not at all. A thief takes money and runs with it. A thief doesn't
00:30:44
go to the court. He was a risk-taker and when you take risks, sometimes you end up harming other people as well. But our
00:30:50
system is set up for that. In the wine business, Dahl's lawyers say sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
00:31:01
And they insist Emad Tofilis was the real villain in this business deal. You think this was a scam for Emad?
00:31:09
Absolutely. How would one come up with that much cash and why? [Music] It's still a mystery where all that cash
00:31:19
came from. But Dahl's lawyers say Emad was so angry, he was determined to destroy
00:31:27
Robert Dahl's business. His barrels of wines were taken. His cars were taken. His brewing systems
00:31:34
were taken. He was in an impossible place. [Music] With no business to operate, Dahl
00:31:41
couldn't earn any money to pay off the debts he owed to Emad and others. [Music]
00:31:50
And then, surprisingly, there was a breakthrough. It looked as if Emad might get more of his money back.
00:31:57
The lawyers had come to a deal and Emad and Robert were going to get together to
00:32:02
hammer out the details. Robert wanted to meet here, at his vineyard. I went to my office Monday morning
00:32:10
and I got a phone call from Emad. David, you have decided to go to the winery. On that morning, I was on the phone and
00:32:19
Emad's attorney was on the phone. Emad and Robert were there in person. Their attorneys joined them on a conference
00:32:25
call. There was a definite agreement on what was going to be paid to Emad. It was just so eerily calm. It was eerily
00:32:33
calm. It was eerily calm. But then, Robert Dahl rocked the boat. And he said, well, I don't give an ass
00:32:41
what the lawyers negotiated. This is my offer. What seemed to be a nearly done deal
00:32:47
suddenly started unraveling. Which was several hundred thousand dollars less than what was agreed to.
00:32:53
The lawyers felt it was a breakdown that Emad and Robert should deal with themselves. They were both business
00:32:58
savvy and this was something that they both could have easily handled. So both lawyers got off the phone. Both expected
00:33:04
to hear right back from their clients. 20 minutes go by. We had no idea what was going on.
00:33:15
I don't hear from Emad. I was expecting a call. Then I got an email saying there was a
00:33:22
shooting. I got a call from Mr. Weissbluth. He said, Kusha, tell me this didn't really happen.
00:33:32
You thought Emad lost it. I thought Emad lost it. >> We both thought that. [Music]
00:33:49
That's the winery up at the end of the row. >> Yeah, up at the end of the row. On March
00:33:54
16th, 2015, Emad Tofilis and Robert Dahl had finally gotten together to try to settle their ugly dispute. They'd been
00:34:04
meeting one-on-one in a room inside that barn over there at Dahl Vineyard. The lawyers were on the phone on a
00:34:11
conference call. But just a few moments after everything started, they hit a snag.
00:34:17
[Music] Emad wanted to settle it and Dahl wanted to settle it. But something went wrong. Clearly, they
00:34:28
can't come to an agreement down there in the vineyard. Not only couldn't they come to an agreement,
00:34:35
all hell breaks loose. There's a burst of gunfire and evidence shows the men come tumbling out of the
00:34:42
barn. One has a gun. He's firing. The other man is wounded, running for his life
00:34:50
into the vines. They can't agree and suddenly one person takes off down down these rows like in between these grapes
00:34:58
here. >> Right. Running through here. Right. Emad and Robert both take off, one hunting the other. Running down the row,
00:35:07
being pursued by the other one who is shooting at the the guy who became the victim. He's shooting through these
00:35:15
grapes just as the guy's running. It's a wild chase, something out of a movie. The hunted man desperately dials 911.
00:35:24
>> He's calling 911 as he's running through the vineyard. >> He's still running even though he's been
00:35:29
shot. Right. >> So what does the shooter do? The the shooter knows he can't catch the the
00:35:34
victim. So he goes back to the winery, gets in his car and drives over hoping to cut the victim off as the
00:35:47
victim runs out. As the victim gets here, he tells 911 that he can see the deputies arriving here. So he's
00:35:57
saved. He can see the deputies. And the shooter comes around, gets out of his car and shoots the
00:36:07
victim in the head with a fatal shot as the police cars are arriving. So he the shooter gets out, stands basically
00:36:15
stands over the guy? Yes. Delivers the coup de grace. While the sheriff's deputies were right there. The
00:36:22
sheriff's deputies were arriving right at this corner. And this is where it all ended. The
00:36:30
winery these two men had dreamed of building together. Emad Tofilis was lying dead on the
00:36:36
ground, murdered by Robert Dahl. He knows it's all over. I mean, he knows that no matter what he does, he's been
00:36:46
caught. He can't talk his way out of it. So he gets in the the vehicle, drives up a terrible road here where
00:36:54
there are very few outlets and as the police are closing in on him, he shoots himself in the head and kills himself.
00:37:02
Kills himself. All over. The final bad life choice on a crooked life that's led all the way
00:37:13
back to Minnesota. It's hard to say what set Robert Dahl off that day. It certainly seems the
00:37:20
crime was premeditated. Dahl had brought a gun and remember he was a convicted felon and he wasn't allowed to own one.
00:37:27
And at that final meeting, he pulled out a bizarre document that he wanted Tofilis to sign, a document that seemed
00:37:33
almost insane. That was basically a manifesto that Emad was trying to ruin his life.
00:37:42
This was supposed to be a confession by Emad that it was all a hoax and it was all his fault.
00:37:48
>> So the idea is Robert pulls out this crazy manifesto and says, sign this. And he pulls out a gun and says, sign
00:37:58
this. There was evidence that Dahl may have been ready to kill more people. Duct
00:38:04
tape, flex cuffs, a tarp, gloves, and there was ammo, more than 750 rounds. A magnetic gun holder that goes on a car.
00:38:15
>> to hide the Yeah. To me, that is a murder kit. I mean, plain and simple. I think he was trying to figure out how to
00:38:25
kill the people that had brought him down. And that theory fits what we've discovered here in Napa. In the course
00:38:32
of our reporting, so many people told us they too could have been victims. There was Don King, the dirt-digging
00:38:40
private eye. Could have been me running through the vineyard. Could have been. Lou Purdue, the dogged wine journalist.
00:38:48
I think I was probably number one on his list to kill because I was the guy who blew the whistle on everything.
00:38:56
Francine and Greg Knittel who filed a criminal case against Dahl. My first thought was that could have very easily
00:39:02
been Greg. And Emad Tofilis' attorney, David Weissbluth. It certainly could have been me.
00:39:08
And I'm sure that it would have been. There was even that prince of the wine country, Dominic Foppoli. You think he
00:39:14
would have killed you, too? Oh, yeah. Finally, we were left with one more question. This month's wine club
00:39:21
shipment includes our How could Robert Dahl have convinced all these people to believe in him?
00:39:26
>> Robert Dahl was an Academy Award winning actor when it comes to convincing people
00:39:32
to trust him. How did he not get found out? Nobody checked. People like this, they keep Exactly.
00:39:38
>> moving. Destroy somebody else's life for their own good, their own benefit. Emad Tofangsazi's murder haunts almost
00:39:49
everyone he knew in the wine country. You think about this case every day? I do.
00:39:54
Yeah. Two years, two years pass? Dominic Foppoli says back when he and Doll were still partners, he tried to
00:40:02
warn Emad. I said, "I want to give you a heads-up I'm having all these issues with Robert."
00:40:08
>> You warned him? Yeah, we sat here on this deck and you know, and and talked. How did you hear about
00:40:13
what he did? Somebody pulled up their phone and and they they showed me the article of what had happened. I was just
00:40:19
in shock and immediately, I mean honestly, I started I started crying and and it was a mix of
00:40:25
guilt because I guess I didn't do enough to warn Emad about him. Jonathan Kesselman, the director, felt deeply
00:40:32
about Emad. He was a really sweet, kind, generous guy and and and I just felt I just felt I needed to say that, you
00:40:38
know, just so that it's on the record. You know, there's some some legacy of Emad where, you know, he was remembered.
00:40:42
He was a good person. As for Robert Doll, he may have showed up in Napa with a grand vision.
00:40:51
But in the end, he brought his dreams and those of so many around him crashing down. He wanted to be that guy that had
00:41:00
a vineyard and had wine with his name on it. He wanted to live the life of the big
00:41:05
fish. He was a little fish. This is not your typical wine story. No, it isn't. And one that we don't want to hear about
00:41:17
around here again, for sure. [Music] [Music] It was a beautiful wedding. We had a wonderful relationship.
00:42:21
I was very in love. Very in love. Very, very in love. [Music] Gary had a very big personality.
00:42:32
He was a big gambler and he loved it. When they first met, she claimed that Gary had told her
00:42:38
"I'm worth 10 million, 20 million." It was in the high millions. Gary Triano, he'd been a hugely successful financial
00:42:45
developer and entrepreneur. He was doing tribal gambling business. That money, which he got every month,
00:42:52
was big money. The tribe and himself did not agree on certain things. He was basically forced out of his gambling
00:43:00
connection. He was on a downward spiral financially and there were people who were upset with him.
00:43:07
Your husband, he owed a casino in Las Vegas several million dollars, 1.8 million to an ex-wife, $91,000 to an
00:43:15
attorney, hundreds of thousands of dollars to a group of Mexican investors who people said were involved in
00:43:22
criminal activity. Probably. November 1st, 1996 at the La Paloma Country Club. Yeah, so, you know, a luxury resort, spa
00:43:35
and a fantastic golf course. Gary Triano finishes playing a game of golf, walks to his car
00:43:43
and there's an explosion. There's some kind of an explosion in the country club parking lot. I'm not I
00:43:51
guess there's a massive fire. What kind of bomb are we talking about? We're talking about a pipe bomb.
00:43:57
An extremely large pipe bomb compared to what is normally out there. Was this survivable? No.
00:44:06
Gary Triano didn't have a chance. He was a dead man. I was absolutely hysterical.
00:44:17
And I'm thinking, "Oh my god, what am I going to do?" But you must have asked who could have killed Gary. I
00:44:22
immediately thought who is it that he hadn't paid. Before the bombing, Gary was totally in
00:44:28
fear. Going around with a gun? He had life threats. I had life threats. The children had life threats.
00:44:37
We're talking about Mexican mafia people you don't cross. There was serious, serious things going
00:44:42
on. I saw the list. It was titled a kill list and it had names and Gary Triano was at the top.
00:44:51
Did Pam ever talk to you about Gary's business associations with organized crime?
00:44:59
Never. Never. Never. She was one of your closest friends. No talk about mob-related people? Never.
00:45:08
Threatening phone calls at the house? >> That's absurd. >> She felt unsafe. She felt her children
00:45:12
were under threat. No, I don't believe that ever happened. I think that's just completely made up. Do you believe Pam
00:45:18
would have done anything for money? Well, yeah. I'm Peter Van Sant. Tonight on 48 Hours,
00:45:33
the hit. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] It was back in the '90s and Pam Phillips
00:46:05
and her husband, Gary Triano, were living large. Here in the posh foothills of Tucson, they were rich. Gary was a
00:46:14
wheeler-dealer creating businesses, running Indian bingo, playing a lot of golf and some say Gary was rubbing
00:46:22
shoulders with wise guys. He was flamboyant in a way that I wouldn't normally fall for.
00:46:32
She sold commercial real estate. I was worth, I think, a million eight, two million in there. Made totally on my
00:46:39
own. They were socialites with connections. Connections like their celebrity pals,
00:46:47
Donald and Marla Trump. Marla, I love. Marla is like an angel and Donald I adore as well. And he is one of the
00:46:57
funniest people to be around you can imagine. Donald and Marla came and actually they
00:47:04
went to took them to a basketball game together. Laura Chapman was part of the gang, a
00:47:09
friend. We love our wildcats. We're big, huge wildcat fans. >> University of Arizona? Absolutely. And
00:47:17
it was in the paper the next day, you know, here's Gary and Pam walking down the steps with Donald and Marla.
00:47:24
Gary and Pam married in 1986. They had a couple of kids and settled into a comfortable life.
00:47:32
When she and Gary were married, Pam didn't even work. She lived a very pampered lifestyle and Gary provided
00:47:38
that for her. Tell me about going to Vegas with Gary and Pam. That was a trip. It was a lot of fun.
00:47:48
He had his own plane, so he would fly us in. What kind of plane? Just a It was just a a small jet. It was like a Just a
00:47:54
small jet? >> Just a small jet. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. Absolutely. But all that glitters is not, well, you
00:48:03
know the story and after seven years of marriage, things fell apart. Gary was pushed out of the Indian bingo
00:48:12
and his personal gambling debts skyrocketed. In 1993, Pam and Gary separated and
00:48:19
eventually divorced. She moved to Aspen. He stayed in Tucson. [Music] Until that day,
00:48:30
November 1st, 1996. The bomb was so powerful, it literally sent debris flying 200 yards into the
00:48:37
air. The windshield actually flew over these trees and into the swimming pool area.
00:48:43
Just five days before Gary's 53rd birthday. Gary definitely was a target. Jean Reedy
00:48:51
is a Pima County investigator. Gary suspected he was being followed and told people he was being followed by
00:48:57
individual that was driving a green Jeep-type SUV. Was that vehicle seen on the day Gary Triano was murdered? There
00:49:05
was a similar vehicle or the specific vehicle was seen up at La Paloma Resort. That's where the bomb went off? Where
00:49:11
the bombing happened, that's correct. [Music] We're on an explosives range in the
00:49:19
remote mountains of New Mexico. Over those hills, about 40 miles from here, is where they detonated the first atomic
00:49:26
bomb. These ATF agents Watch your strap. They worked the Triano bombing and came up
00:49:34
with some crucial clues. This is the exact location where the device was when it detonated and murdered Gary Triano.
00:49:42
Gary Triano had just finished 18 holes with a pal. He walked to his car. When he entered the car,
00:49:49
he leaned over and seen this unknown bag that was sitting here exactly where it's
00:49:53
at right now. And like anybody, he probably reached over and grabbed it, right? >> What's What's this? ATF bomb expert Tony
00:49:59
May. This is a reconstruction of the device. And special agent Tom Mangan. When you look at something this size you
00:50:06
say, "This is overkill." recreated the bomb at our request. [Music] I'm now getting into his car. Here we
00:50:19
go. Five, four, three, two, one. [Music] Lead the way. >> Yep. Let's check out the damage. Look at the
00:50:41
blast pressures, Tony. Yeah. Look at that. These little pieces from this last blast. Correct.
00:50:46
>> looking at here. >> Correct. >> But for you guys, this is all evidence. >> This is all evidence. But from here we
00:50:50
have to sort out what is car parts and what is bomb parts. >> Right. Come if you see anything from the
00:50:55
bomb. This is an end cap from the pipe bomb itself. Look at the frag pattern on this door. Frag pattern being these
00:51:01
holes. >> Frag pattern being these holes. Right now we're looking at the seat of the
00:51:05
explosion. And the explosion itself, right. And you see the fragmentation. Was this survivable? No.
00:51:13
It was quick, it was calculated, and it was murder. This is an exterior door panel that's
00:51:18
been blown off. There are people who look at this circumstance and say, "This looks like a classic mob hit." Right.
00:51:26
With the bombing, everybody looked at that and said, "That's a signature mob hit."
00:51:31
Detective James Gamber has been on the case from day one. I was 2 months into homicide. And you get one of the biggest
00:51:39
cases in Tucson history. We continued to work it for 18 years. 18 years of your life. Yes.
00:51:46
It took so long because it's been an unusually tangled story filled with endless leads and with curious
00:51:55
characters, many with their own theories. Characters like Dr. Lawrence D'Antonio. I'm a family physician here
00:52:03
in Tucson, Arizona. I've known Gary Triano since I was a little boy. He's also convinced mobsters killed Gary
00:52:10
Triano because he says Gary owed them money and wouldn't pay. He's a very flamboyant man and he's also
00:52:18
very good-looking, but he's rotten to the core. He was a con man. He was a thief
00:52:24
and he would rob or steal from anybody including his own family, his own wife. That's the way he was.
00:52:32
Dr. D'Antonio says Triano associated with known criminals like the infamous mafia boss Joe Bonanno who
00:52:41
retired in Tucson. Gary Triano's first business was financed by um Joseph Bonanno. Was Gary Triano living in a
00:52:48
dangerous lifestyle? Oh, absolutely. Gary carried a gun all the time. And Dr. D'Antonio says he has even seen proof
00:52:57
that Gary Triano was on a kill list. There were a lot of names on this list and some names would come and go, but
00:53:03
Gary Triano was always at the top. The minute the doctor heard about the bombing,
00:53:10
he was sure who did it. I was absolutely sure that Gary Triano had just been murdered by Neal McNeice.
00:53:30
You like the old gumshoe. You like to get out, talk one-on-one to people. I'm old style. I blend in, I fit in, I try
00:53:38
and make people comfortable. Investigator Gene Reedy was trying to help Pam Phillips finger the man who he
00:53:45
believed killed her ex. I'll tell you what I think happened. I think Gary really burned someone really good and
00:53:52
somebody was really upset and someone someone was going to kill him. He's got a pretty good idea of who that
00:54:00
someone was. This man here is the man that orchestrated this. Like Dr. D'Antonio, Reedy thinks the killer is a
00:54:07
man named Neal McNeice. When Neal McNeice was on drugs, he was a completely psychotic, insane guy. All I
00:54:14
ever met in his world, his entourage, was drug dealers, drug addicts, strippers, prostitutes, and bad guys. He
00:54:22
had a lot of bad guys that worked for him. McNeice was a rich kid. He'd inherited millions from his family's
00:54:28
uranium mining fortune. He also owned a piece of an Indy race car team. But Dr. D'Antonio, who once was
00:54:40
McNeice's personal physician, says his patient slipped into an even faster lane. He was heavily on drugs
00:54:50
and his drugs were cocaine and heroin. And that's when the trouble started. According to D'Antonio, the beef between
00:54:57
McNeice and Gary Triano was over a huge diamond ring. A gorgeous uh diamond wedding ring. And this thing
00:55:06
was magnificent and Gary said pitched it as a quarter of a million dollar ring. As the doc tells it, Triano needed cash.
00:55:15
So we offered up his wife's $250,000 wedding ring to McNeice as collateral for a loan.
00:55:22
But there was a problem. The diamond was a fake and when McNeice realized he'd been scammed, all hell broke loose. And
00:55:30
Neal went absolutely crazy. And he started to tell me, "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him." And he
00:55:36
said, "And when I kill Gary Triano, it will be spectacular. The whole world will know I killed him."
00:55:44
Gary Triano owed him a debt and I believe that's why Gary Triano was killed. Reedy says he's got it all figured out.
00:55:52
>> I'm taking you to where I believe the bomb was built. Let's go inside. [Music]
00:56:03
This place looks like a movie set. Thousands of parts, heavy machinery. He has everything here that could be used
00:56:10
to build a bomb. We found at least six pieces of the puzzle within this drawer right here. We found the shotgun shells,
00:56:17
we found bearings, the same type of powder that was used in the bomb. We found the RadioShack receipts. That
00:56:24
linked all this together. >> all this together. Reedy says the man who built the bomb right here in this
00:56:29
shop was a model airplane hobbyist named Jerry Cappuano. This is his bomb builder. He built the bomb. Reedy's
00:56:37
theory of the crime is this. The bad boy millionaire McNeice put together a whole
00:56:43
hit team to go after Gary Triano. It was a bunch of lowlifes. This is his bodyguard who orchestrated and got the
00:56:51
hit crew together with these two guys. And these two guys have a past criminal history. They're complete thugs. McNeice
00:56:58
and his bodyguard also had a criminal history. They were convicted of extortion for threatening another who
00:57:06
owed McNeice money. This is where Gary came to play his death. This is where Gary came to play
00:57:12
golf. Reedy says he has found a witness who saw that hit team right here in the parking lot. Directly next to Gary
00:57:21
Triano when the bomb went off, there was an individual in a vehicle who was sitting there reading a magazine. Now he
00:57:27
was looking in his mirror and he saw an individual back by the bushes. He also saw another individual straight ahead up
00:57:34
on this knoll directly in front of us that we're pulling around to. And you believe that person was doing what? I
00:57:41
believe those two people were involved involved in the bombing. So, to sum up this tangled story so far,
00:57:53
millionaire businessman Gary Triano gets in big trouble with mobsters and they kill him. Case closed, right? Well, not
00:58:01
really. That's just the opening scene of this mystery. Turns out lead detective James Gamber
00:58:10
doesn't buy Reedy's mob hit theory. They were all looked at and discounted. Police didn't believe the whole diamond
00:58:18
ring story. They didn't buy the bomb factory or the hit team and they didn't believe any of the other mob hit
00:58:25
theories either. The Mexican group, the financial group, discounted. Just a bad business deal. We
00:58:32
went and talked to the casinos and they said, "Yeah, we lose money all the time.
00:58:36
We don't go out and kill people for the money." But Tucson detective James Gamber had another lead. In December
00:58:43
1996, just weeks after Gary Triano's murder, his ex-wife Pam Phillips filed a life insurance claim. A big one. There
00:58:54
was a $2 million life insurance policy. $2 million dollars. More than enough reason for detective Gamber to travel to
00:59:02
Aspen where he spoke to Pam face-to-face. The money would go to Pam as the trustee. She's the only person
00:59:11
when you follow the money that benefited at all. There's nothing about me. Nothing about me that would ever harm a
00:59:18
person ever ever. There was no money motive. There was no insurance motive. Gamber questioned Pam. She told him she
00:59:26
divorced Gary Triano, escaped from Tucson, and fled to Aspen all because she was terrified.
00:59:34
>> There was things happening with him that I couldn't understand. He was off the
00:59:38
wall. Off the wall. And you moved because >> Because our lives were threatened. I
00:59:42
mean, our lives were threatened. Gary feared everything. Gary was a totally in fear. You going around with a gun?
00:59:51
But Pam's friend, Laura Chapman, has a different take. Why did things go wrong in their marriage?
00:59:58
>> When things started to go downward and the money was not going to be there anymore and that, you know, with the
01:00:03
rich and famous lifestyle was going to be evaporating, I think she saw the writing on the wall. And said, you know,
01:00:10
I don't think I want to be in this relationship anymore. Pam tells this story with such conviction that she'd
01:00:15
reached a point that where she had to leave Gary because of the people he was dealing with, the threats to her family.
01:00:22
Everyone was scared and she had to move to Aspen to save her children. That's absolutely ridiculous. That is
01:00:31
not why she moved to Aspen. Why she moved to Aspen? She, you know, she was looking for her next ATM, her
01:00:38
next bank. She was looking for somebody to provide her that lifestyle again. After her divorce, Pam Phillips' old
01:00:59
friend, Laura Chapman, says Pam was in the mood for love in Aspen. Once she got to Colorado,
01:01:08
what was Pam looking for in a man? Well, I think she was looking for to make sure
01:01:11
that he had a basically a net worth probably of at least 10 million or more. That was the aphrodisiac. That was the
01:01:18
attraction. >> Yeah, absolutely. It didn't really matter what they looked like, just as
01:01:21
long as they had a lot of money. Pam, as usual, gravitated to her people, the rich and famous.
01:01:31
She became a successful real estate agent and resumed her life as a socialite. But she had one friend who
01:01:39
didn't seem to fit the mold. His name was Ron Young. I met him at a party next door, the duplex next door to me. Very
01:01:47
tall. The guy is like a skyscraper. He was a business manager to people that were at this barbecue and I could use
01:01:55
some help with my business and so that's kind of what what ended up happening. Pam says Ron helped her with her
01:02:01
business interests and she paid him cash. Pam owned an online company called Star
01:02:08
Babies, making astrology charts for infants. I handwrote all the different uh planetary aspects to understand our
01:02:17
children and be a better parent. What was your relationship with Ron? Strictly business, pretty much. I mean, um doing
01:02:24
uh business plans. He helped on pretty much everything, you know. He helped a lot. But Pam's nanny in Aspen told
01:02:32
police that her relationship with Ron Young soon moved from the office to the bedroom. Now, you're here to tell me the
01:02:39
truth, right? >> I'm here to tell you the truth. Did your business relationship with Ron
01:02:45
turn into a romantic relationship? No, not really. >> Cuz it's been alleged that you were
01:02:51
lovers. Were you? No, we were not lovers. This is like embarrassing. Could we have
01:02:57
crashed out having wine, fully clothed, you know, on a couch or on a bed? That might have happened once or twice. Yeah,
01:03:05
we were not lovers, no. In the summer of 1996, Pam suddenly turned on her partner, accusing Ron
01:03:13
Young of fraud, using her credit cards. When she called the cops, Ron disappeared.
01:03:20
Several months later, in November of 1996, Gary Triano was blown up in his car. The
01:03:27
bomb blew off the roof and killed Triano only days before his 53rd birthday. And
01:03:33
in Aspen, a cop who dealt with Pam in the fraud case saw the bombing story on TV and called Tucson. Detective James
01:03:42
Gamber took the call. >> We get a call from Detective Crowley with the Aspen Police Department. And he
01:03:47
says, "Hey, I have a suspect in a fraud case up in Aspen. His name is Ron Young,
01:03:51
this gentleman right here." Turns out that Ron Young had a criminal record. This was a new, intriguing lead,
01:04:00
a link between Pam and a small-time crook. Where it becomes more interesting is when we actually interview Pamela
01:04:06
Phillips and we ask her, we say, "Who's Ron Young?" And she basically minimizes his
01:04:13
relationship to her. "Oh, he's somebody who did some financial work for me." She
01:04:17
doesn't talk about the fraud and she is basically shaken by the question. I mean, visibly shaken by the question.
01:04:24
It's a bad movie. It's a nightmare. I would never kill Gary, the father of my children.
01:04:32
Because he's thinking he can't even stand it. I'm not even going to go there. It's just not real.
01:04:39
[Music] Pam may have been shaken and detectives suspicious, but they didn't yet have a
01:04:46
case. What's worse, Ron Young was nowhere to be found. For 9 years, the case languished.
01:05:00
Uh another look at the frag pattern on this door. Then, in 2005, the case heated up. The bomb expert,
01:05:08
Tony May, and agent Tom Mangan of the ATF were reviewing cold cases. They took another look at the murder of Gary
01:05:17
Triano. Tell me what this bomb tells you about a potential suspect. >> Well, it it it tells me quite a bit,
01:05:25
actually, from the size of the battery to the fact that a remote control system was used. This is somebody that that
01:05:30
that was familiar with model boats, model airplanes. But they determined the bomb builder was an amateur. You have
01:05:37
sloppy solder points. In this case, the solder points are globbed on. How was this 17-in pipe bomb detonated?
01:05:46
>> Okay. He's using a remote control firing system. >> You can buy this at a hobby shop.
01:05:50
>> at any hobby shop. And when he sees Mr. Triano get into the vehicle and get close proximity to the bomb,
01:05:56
initiates the device. And boom. >> And boom. Looking at the holes in the roof. >> The experts were now sure. Because of
01:06:04
the sloppy workmanship, the bomb was probably not the work of a mob hitman. As far as the cops were concerned, that
01:06:12
took the gangster theory of the crime off the table for good. Whose handwriting is this?
01:06:19
>> As he studied the files, Tucson Detective James Gamber became more and more convinced the key to the case would
01:06:26
be the relationship between Pam Phillips and the vanished con man, Ron Young. Then, in 2005,
01:06:35
a break. Ron Young was arrested in Florida on fraud and gun charges. When police searched his apartment, they
01:06:43
discovered something amazing. Ron Young was an obsessive record keeper. Gamber learned that during the 1990s, Young had
01:06:53
received significant cash payments from a woman in Colorado. Usually between $1,800
01:07:01
and The woman sent hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her name, Pam Phillips. [Music]
01:07:10
Why did she pay Ron Young $400,000? You tell me. Because she was paying him for the
01:07:16
murder. The murder of Gary Triano? >> Of Gary Triano. >> Yes. This has nothing to do with me.
01:07:25
My children have to know this has nothing to do with me. I had nothing to do with the death of their father.
01:07:32
Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. But investigators have said you had 2 million reasons. What? What?
01:07:44
$2 million in life insurance. >> even know that I had that. Well, she needed money and she wanted to get Gary
01:07:50
out of her life. So, she reaches out to Ron Young and basically, if you look at all the
01:07:57
evidence collectively, says, "If Gary dies, I get $2 million. If you kill him, I'll give you
01:08:04
$400,000." And for you, that's the motive of this crime. Correct. Ron Young didn't just keep extensive
01:08:11
financial records, he also recorded dozens of hours of telephone conversations. Listen to this.
01:08:20
About enough to live on for about a year. Well, how could you uh That's Ron Young talking to Pam.
01:08:27
If I ever found out that you copied my uh stuff for your benefit, that it'd be really unfortunate for you
01:08:34
because uh there's just plenty of stuff that uh I could literally dig out of the ground
01:08:39
and you're a fried duck. Then, investigators discovered this startling piece of audio
01:08:46
tape. >> Well, I tell you, you you're going to be very serious when you sit in a women's
01:08:51
prison for murder. I only know of one murder that Pam Phillips is associated with.
01:08:58
Finish your thought. That's Gary Triano. So, what murder could they be talking about?
01:09:05
For Detective Gamber, this case was becoming one of sex, lies, and audio tape. But it all came together when an
01:09:14
obscure police report from 1996 turned up. That was the same year Gary Triano was blown up.
01:09:23
Back then, a rented van was found abandoned in Southern California. No one knew it at the time, but that van would
01:09:31
contain some important circumstantial evidence. And guess who rented it? Ron Young. They find basically a map of
01:09:40
Tucson. As far as we know, Ron Young has no relationship to Tucson. There were several notes, one that lists out
01:09:48
people that are very close to Gary Tison. We find a receipt for a local hotel. We find where he stayed there for 18
01:09:55
days under the name of Philip Desmond. Then we find some of the divorce paperwork from
01:10:01
Pam and Gary's divorce. We find with >> With this new evidence that Young was in
01:10:06
Tucson prior to the bombing, stalking Triano, Gamberg now believed he had a case. And in October 2008, Ron Young was
01:10:16
charged with Gary Triano's murder. Pam Phillips was next in Gamberg's sights. [Music]
01:10:33
By 2008, Pam Phillips had moved to Europe. Switzerland mostly, to be with her daughter who was a
01:10:43
student there. Then, there was a revelation. It all came flooding back to me. It was
01:10:52
like, "Oh my gosh, she really did do it." Laura Chapman, Pam's old pal from Tucson, came forward to tell police a
01:11:01
story she says she was too frightened to tell for 15 years. Were you scared? Yeah, I was scared.
01:11:12
Laura says that back in 1993, shortly after the Trianos separated, Pam said Gary was acting crazy one
01:11:21
night, threatening her and waving a gun. She called me and she called another woman to come over to their home and she
01:11:28
said, you know, I should just hire someone and have him taken out. And you know, then I can collect on the
01:11:33
insurance policy. [Music] And for cops, Laura's story was the last piece of the puzzle.
01:11:42
In October 2008, Pam Phillips and Ron Young were indicted on the same day for conspiracy and murder.
01:11:53
It would take a year before Pam was tracked down in Europe, now in Austria, and arrested. It would be another year
01:12:02
before she was extradited to the US in 2010. So, we agree on 1.7 >> As all this was happening, Pam's
01:12:10
partner, Ron Young, stood trial. He denied everything and never implicated Pam. But in the end, those records and audio
01:12:22
tapes did him in. We the jury find the defendant, Ronald Kelly Young, guilty of the offense of first-degree murder.
01:12:31
And then, back in Arizona, in Division 27 of the Superior Court, >> it was Pam Phillips' turn. This is your
01:12:39
arraignment, those are your charges. But then, a major delay. Pam's lawyers claimed she was mentally
01:12:47
unfit to stand trial. Pam, is it true that you once believed that you had some sort of computer chip or brain implants
01:12:58
put in that was controlling your thoughts and actions? Let's just put it this way. I was a
01:13:04
mess. I was a mess. I was a mess. [Music] Finally, on February 19, 2014, This time
01:13:15
we're going to be hearing opening statements from the attorneys. 17 years after Gary Triano's murder, Tucson's
01:13:22
trial of the century began. It is time to hold Pamela Phillips responsible for her crimes.
01:13:31
It is time to find Pamela Phillips guilty. The prosecution case was straightforward. Pam was portrayed as a
01:13:40
financially desperate woman willing to kill her husband for that $2 million life insurance policy. The only person
01:13:49
who stood to gain any benefit from Gary Triano's death was Pamela Phillips. The prosecution's star witness was Laura
01:14:03
Chapman. I remember saying >> who told that damning story of Pam wanting to hire someone to take out her
01:14:11
husband. Is Pam looking at you while you are testifying? I don't know, Peter, because I never ever looked at her.
01:14:19
Pam was outraged by Laura's story. That she should just hire a hitman, have him have him to have him taken out. No.
01:14:27
I know. Those words would not come out of my mouth ever. Ever. Ever. And there's one more thing Pam wants
01:14:38
people to know about Laura Chapman, that she had a medical condition that affected her
01:14:45
memory. Poor girl, she had a she had a brain tumor, something happened to her medically. That's that is that is so
01:14:51
ridiculous. First of all, I didn't have a brain tumor when she told me this. That happened many years later.
01:14:58
It'll be 9 years this month. And it does not affect my memory one bit. My memory is perfect.
01:15:04
The leads that they dropped. The leads that they dropped >> Pam's defense was simple. Someone else
01:15:10
did it. Who killed Gary Triano? Neal McNeice, I believe. Pam's attorney, Paul Eckerstrom, says
01:15:20
the angry millionaire had the motive and the ability. He says that makes a lot more sense than the notion that Ron
01:15:28
Young built the bomb. Ron Young couldn't even fix a flashlight or a screw in a light bulb as far as I
01:15:36
can tell. We found out who did this. And we've got strong strong evidence of who did this. And it wasn't Pam and
01:15:46
it wasn't Ronald Young. It was people that were involved with organized crime. But the tapes recorded by Ron Young
01:15:55
himself haunted the defense. Well, I'll tell you, you're going to be very serious when you sit in a women's
01:16:03
prison for murder. The problems with this these tapes. They're spliced and diced, we believe.
01:16:10
They're they were never authenticated by any expert. The defense argues that if you listen to
01:16:17
the entire audio tape, it's obvious that Ron Young is talking about his own medical problems. And that if Pam didn't
01:16:25
give him money for treatment, she'd be murdering him. I'm the one that's dying. I have a need.
01:16:32
You have my principal. I want a little bit of it so I can proceed. Eckerstrom says the true story behind
01:16:41
most of the tapes was extortion. Ron Young was just trying to get money out of Pam. What he had on Pam was the
01:16:50
fact that she had a reputation in Aspen to protect. It was a small town. She was
01:16:55
a real estate agent. She needed her reputation. According to the defense, Pam was afraid
01:17:02
that Ron would spread the news that she was being investigated in the death of her ex-husband. If Pam paid him, Ron
01:17:11
would keep his mouth shut. You're talking about a guy who's an extortionist. This is what he does. He's
01:17:17
squeezing Pam is what you're saying. Trying to get money out of Pam. with a minor in chemistry. Finally,
01:17:22
Pam's defense presented what they were convinced would be a knockout blow. Something discovered among the bomb
01:17:33
fragments. We found DNA on the bomb. DNA, the CSI moment. Would it work? [Music]
01:17:49
Five, four, three, two, one. [Music] In the end, the bomb which killed Gary Triano came back to center stage. I
01:18:05
thought once we had this, we won the case. The defense claimed they discovered dramatic new DNA evidence. This is one
01:18:14
of the places we found it, embedded in the wood. We excluded Ronald Young as the bomb maker.
01:18:20
And if Ron Young didn't do it, then Pam is innocent. So, this is a CSI moment as
01:18:27
far as you're concerned, right? >> Yeah. And you know, we don't have to prove beyond a
01:18:31
reasonable doubt that Pam's innocent. All we need to do is create a reasonable doubt.
01:18:36
[Music] After eight weeks of trial, You have to tell the state, "Don't charge somebody
01:18:43
with scant innuendo and insinuation." The defense had bottom line their case. Pam didn't do the crime, someone else
01:18:52
did. And that man was the drug-crazed millionaire who thought Triano cheated him. Neal McNeice. The defense has a
01:19:01
pretty simple theory. Neal McNeice is the killer. What do you say? That they don't have any foundation or
01:19:10
any solid factual basis to make that allegation. They claim McNeice had underworld ties,
01:19:16
he had a kill list, and Gary Triano was on the top of that list. Correct. And do
01:19:21
they have that list? No. They also didn't have McNeese. He died back in 2002 of a drug overdose.
01:19:33
And they didn't have the alleged bomb maker, Jerry Cappuano, either. He's dead, too.
01:19:39
It's rather convenient, yes. It's always It's always nice to accuse somebody who
01:19:44
can't defend themselves. Closing. As for star witness Laura Chapman and her story that Pam once talked about
01:19:52
hiring someone to kill Gary >> that she should just hire a hit man. The defense says
01:19:57
it never happened. There's a problem with your story in that the woman that was with you and Pam
01:20:04
that day in the bedroom says she doesn't remember Pam saying this. That is not true.
01:20:13
That is not true. I think she perjured herself. I think she knows exactly what was said.
01:20:19
If the state is required to prove that Of course, all of this was left up to the jury.
01:20:25
And after 13 hours of deliberation the jury spoke. Do you find the defendant, Pamela Ann Phillips, guilty
01:20:34
of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder as alleged in count one of the indictment?
01:20:38
When you heard the words guilty Okay. >> guilty of conspiracy, guilty of first-degree murder.
01:20:46
It's a complete frame. [Music] Here I stand. And I am innocent. And the people that killed Gary Tison
01:20:57
are out walking around. All right, let's go on the record in CR 2008 >> One month later back in court
01:21:04
>> Ms. Phillips, would you give us your full name, please? Pamela Ann Phillips. Pam is sentenced to life in prison with
01:21:10
no chance of parole. I just want everybody to know that I am innocent. I am innocent. I am innocent. I'm not that
01:21:18
person that >> that evil. >> And no, I wouldn't. >> greedy, money-grubbing person who would
01:21:23
even kill No, but I would never harm anybody. It's gut-wrenching for me. Because I
01:21:29
don't just think she's innocent, I know she is. Two juries have heard this evidence and
01:21:36
two juries have convicted Ron Young and Pam Phillips. Right. Aren't you the one who's wrong here?
01:21:43
No. You know why they were convicted? Juries believe that you're probably guilty
01:21:48
these days cuz the state would never have brought the case otherwise. That's the way they think.
01:21:55
Eckstrom also blames the media. He says because of pretrial publicity and what he calls inaccurate media reports he
01:22:04
thinks the jury probably made up its mind before trial. Pam didn't have a chance going in. We
01:22:11
had a thousand suspects. >> As for Detective Gamber, the man who spent 18 years trying to crack this case
01:22:18
>> This is wrong. >> it all came down to the hit man with an obsessive need to keep records of
01:22:25
everything. Do you think there would have been a conviction without those audio tapes? No.
01:22:30
So Ron, the con man, did himself in. He convicted both of them. This is a travesty of our whole judicial
01:22:39
system. This could happen to anybody. You feel like you've been railroaded. Totally.
01:22:46
Totally. I'm innocent. I am very, very, very innocent. Stephanie, close the door. Is it weird
01:22:54
to you the person that you socialized with, hung out with celebrities, Donald Trump
01:23:00
the travel, the fun, the parties, the balls, the fancy dress, the lifestyle is now a convicted murderer?
01:23:11
Yeah, it's hard to believe that somebody could stoop so low. [Music] In the end Pam Phillips will sit alone in a cell.
01:23:25
Her grown children didn't even come to her trial. There will be no more ski trips with the
01:23:31
Trumps or golf getaways or Vegas weekends. There is just the prospect of life in
01:23:38
prison alone with her belief that the system is rigged and that she is the innocent victim.
01:23:58
[Music] 48 Hours presents This is Officer the Houston Police Department Major Offenders Division
01:24:36
Career Criminals Squad. [Music] Hey, my name is Valerie McDaniel. I've always tried to be an honest, kind
01:24:50
person. I've tried to live the best life I can. Valerie wound up being the top of the
01:25:00
class. The valedictorian? >> The valedictorian in our 1987 high school graduating class. She sure did.
01:25:07
My name is Megan. She's my second cousin. She's generous and creative, smart nice and sweet.
01:25:21
She would always like take care of my dog. [Music] I wasn't sure if I should be a vet
01:25:29
anymore and Valerie brought that passion back. [Music] I know that Valerie made an audio
01:25:39
recording of all of her memorable moments in life. I met through friends a man named Mack McDaniel.
01:25:51
And I thought he was the cutest thing. Tall and skinny with his boots. [Applause]
01:25:58
Valerie and Mack lived a lavish lifestyle. A high-end life, you know, a a life of luxury, a life of beauty.
01:26:04
>> Great cars. Valerie had a Mercedes. Daughter went to a great school. They worked a lot. That was a big thing.
01:26:12
They'd both be working and But did they seem happy together? >> Yeah, yeah, seemed great.
01:26:18
[Music] One morning at work there was a a note on my desk that said Dr. McDaniel
01:26:31
call Ms. Brown. She said, "I've been your husband's lover." It tore up. Divorce is never an easy thing.
01:26:47
She met Leon. A medical doctor. He actually went to the same school I did. A little bit of ER, but then also like
01:26:52
like cardio and transplant. [Music] I looked at him and smiled and he smiled back and just a beautiful person.
01:27:05
Her face, her smile, she had this outwardly exuberance of energy that I really can't describe.
01:27:10
>> for Leon. She was madly in love with him. We were um planning on getting married.
01:27:16
[Music] Mack always wanted more, more, more at the detriment of their daughter. My name
01:27:27
is Moataz Azzi and Leon Jacob uh tried to hire me as a hit man. In the car, did he give you $2,500?
01:27:40
>> paid the $2,500. >> Yes, in cash. Right. >> And what did you see on his face?
01:27:46
Excitement. He was enjoying it. Like he actually was excited about the whole thing. I could
01:27:54
never hurt the man that my daughter loved so much. The male subject, he's gone. He's gone.
01:28:03
This has been a long, drawn-out story that's led to an unbelievable conclusion. When he came into my office
01:28:15
he shut the door. He said, "I'm Dr. Leon Jacob." I felt like I was talking to Satan
01:28:21
himself. [Music] [Music] 48 Hours Operation Murder reported by Peter Van Sant. [Music]
01:29:06
2453 2453 Yes, ma'am. It's going to be a major offenders investigation. It's 3:00 a.m. on Friday, March 10th,
01:29:20
2017. Houston police are making their way to the seventh-floor condo of beloved veterinarian Valerie McDaniel.
01:29:31
[Music] Bad doesn't begin to describe what's about to be revealed. [Music] Valerie's ex-husband Mack, police tell
01:29:49
her, was dead just 6 months after their divorce had become final. But how could Valerie's life have
01:30:01
arrived at this dreadful moment? Valerie earned her degree in veterinary medicine at Texas A&M.
01:30:11
It was during that time she met Mack McDaniel. Valerie's friend, Greg Holloway. My impression of Mack is that he was a
01:30:21
good man. He was a stand-up guy. Mack proposed, and Valerie had the man of her dreams, as she describes in that
01:30:30
recording of her memories. We did get married. We had a beautiful fairy tale wedding.
01:30:36
Moved into a house that my parents had bought for me to live in. Not long after that, Valerie decided to
01:30:42
open her own clinic. Valerie's cousin, Cody Bernard. I admired her. It sunk something inside
01:30:50
of me. I want to I want to do that one day. Something big, you know. Mack was her office manager, but even as
01:30:57
the vet clinic thrived, the two longed for something more. She said she couldn't have any children,
01:31:03
so the only option was to adopt. In 2008, the couple adopted a daughter when she was just 2 days old.
01:31:13
But as their new family came together, their marriage began to fall apart. It started, Valerie says, with a phone call
01:31:21
from a stranger. The woman who claimed to have been Mack's lover. But Valerie says that wasn't all. She gave me lists
01:31:30
of women that he had slept with. Valerie says she confronted Mack and forgave him, but claims it wasn't long
01:31:39
before Mack cheated again. And that was the first time I ever said the word divorce. And I yelled at him
01:31:45
outside, and I yelled it, and I yelled it. Valerie says she forgave Mack yet again,
01:31:52
but then a chance encounter would change the course of her life. Leon Jacob, the
01:31:57
son of Valerie's neighbor, Golda Jacob, stopped by. He ran up to me and stuck his hand out and introduced
01:32:05
himself. The cockiest mother ever met in my life. Valerie was in her mid-40s, but
01:32:13
she was stunning. Both inside and out. The attraction was mutual. You could tell he knew
01:32:21
how beautiful he was. And I was lonely. Leon Jacob was 8 years younger than Valerie and a doctor. What type of
01:32:33
surgeries have you done? All kinds of surgeries. I've assisted in heart, kidney, pancreas
01:32:39
transplants. [Music] With a strained home life and an attractive new friend, what happened
01:32:46
next may have been inevitable. And he sat across from me, and we had some wine, and I had my feet out on the chair
01:32:52
next to him. And just out of the blue, he reached out and just ran his finger up my
01:33:01
left foot. And that was it. It was like a movie moment. It's quite an interlude, according to
01:33:08
what she described. Yeah, compliments all around, I guess. In December 2014, Valerie filed for divorce, claiming Mack
01:33:18
committed adultery. Mack's attorneys told us Mack had no comment about the divorce petition and the claims Valerie
01:33:26
made in her audio diary. Between Mack's alleged cheating and Valerie's new love interest, both wanted
01:33:34
out of the marriage. The divorce was finalized in August 2016. Valerie and her daughter then moved into
01:33:42
this building in the upscale River Oaks section of Houston. Not long after, Leon joined them here.
01:33:52
Our relationship really blossomed quickly because we had been very close friends for so long. Dr. Britney King
01:33:58
worked alongside Valerie at the vet clinic. They seemed very much in love. Holding hands and and loving towards
01:34:05
each other. But there was one old problem in Valerie and Leon's new relationship, and his
01:34:13
name was Mack. [Music] There were multiple times in the clinic where she would just be in tears.
01:34:21
I'd say, "Everything okay?" And it was something surrounding her ex-husband. Mack had found out that Leon was staying
01:34:28
with me. There'd be arguments or stuff with the child or visitation. But Leon had his
01:34:36
own issues with past loves. One involving extreme mental cruelty, and another, assault and stalking charges.
01:34:45
Leon Jacob is a predator. He's scary. Samantha Connect is a Harris County assistant district attorney. He wants
01:34:53
what he wants, and he'll stop at nothing to get it. Could there be more to Valerie's new
01:34:58
love than she can imagine? He has no problem using women. In fact, I I think he enjoys it.
01:35:23
Valerie McDaniel's new live-in boyfriend grew up in a Texas-sized world of beauty, opulence, and opportunity. I
01:35:32
always wanted to be a doctor my whole life, ever since I was about three or four.
01:35:36
As he pursued his degrees, Leon met and married his college sweetheart. They had two boys.
01:35:44
We had a happy, loving family. I got two great kids, two boys. They're the most important things to me
01:35:51
in my life. A good family, and now with an MD after his name, Leon was well on his way.
01:36:01
[Music] But Leon's picture-perfect life disguised a troubled relationship. After 12 years of marriage, his wife
01:36:10
filed for divorce, citing extreme mental cruelty. And 1 year later, Leon was arrested for
01:36:18
stalking his now ex. Leon has to be in control. When his ex-wife went to end their
01:36:24
relationship, he wasn't going to have it. And he wasn't going to go down without a fight. Leon, isn't it true
01:36:30
that you've had brushes with the law involving stalking, cyberstalking, intimidation,
01:36:37
physical harassment, assault? Aren't all those true? I pled guilty to a attempted cyberharassment charge that
01:36:47
was stemming from an acrimonious divorce that I went through with my previous wife. Leon admits that he called often,
01:36:55
but he claims it was simply to speak with his boys. I tried desperately to connect my kids over and over and over
01:37:02
again, and I'm not going to apologize for that. Leon finally moved on to a new residency
01:37:08
and was living in Pittsburgh, where he met this woman, 33-year-old Megan Veracos. I met Megan in a hotel in
01:37:19
Pittsburgh. She was the assistant general manager there. The new couple moved to Houston.
01:37:26
There were lavish vacations, family get-togethers, and yet another residency, Leon's seventh. He's a failed doctor.
01:37:38
He's been kicked out of every residency program he's ever been a part of. And what's the problem? What was the basis
01:37:44
of these dismissals? Do you know? The belief that he was the smartest guy in the room, inability to get along with
01:37:50
people, inability to get along with patients. And in fact, one of the records that we
01:37:55
found said that they believed that he was a danger to patients and that he would be a liability for them to keep
01:38:00
around. 3 years into their relationship, Megan Veracos thought Leon was a threat to
01:38:07
her, too. Megan kicked Leon out of their apartment, later accusing him of assaulting her.
01:38:15
She wanted me to move all my stuff out. She came there and was very hostile. The
01:38:19
police were called. There was no violence of any kind. And a day later, she claimed that I had hit
01:38:25
her. And that you'd put your hand over her mouth. >> Yeah, which is not true. Leon is about
01:38:30
Leon. Smile, Megan. Smile. It frustrated him to no end that Megan Veracos would not forgive him. And the fact that he
01:38:37
couldn't get Megan back frustrated him and angered him. Leon was arrested in February 2017
01:38:45
for assault and stalking. You can charge anybody with anything. It doesn't mean that you're guilty of that.
01:38:51
The DA's office has been on this case since its inception. We helped Prosecutors are convinced that Leon knew
01:38:57
his future as a doctor would be destroyed if Megan testified against him. So, they believe he planned a little
01:39:05
operation to make his pain go away. He feels like if Megan disappears, if she goes away, that his criminal case will
01:39:14
go away and he can resume his career as this beloved surgeon that he thinks that
01:39:19
he is. Prosecutors claim Leon decided what he needed was a hitman. And he thought he'd found one. Taz,
01:39:29
are you a hitman? No. Were you ever willing to murder anyone for money? No. No. No. No. I
01:39:37
would never do something like that. Taz Ezzat was introduced to Leon by a mutual
01:39:43
acquaintance. Did Leon ever tell you how he wanted his ex-girlfriend to be killed?
01:39:50
>> Yes, he he actually offered suggestions. One of them was a syringe to the heart
01:39:56
with potassium would give her a heart attack and that would actually kill her. Taz is a decorated former US Army
01:40:05
soldier who saw Leon's deadly demand as an opportunity to save a life. I saw somebody in danger and I knew that I can
01:40:14
do something about it. And I did something about it. Leon knew Taz by the code name Zach.
01:40:21
He says Leon wanted him to kidnap Megan first to talk her into taking him back and if that didn't work, leaving town.
01:40:30
But that wasn't all. If she doesn't leave, what are you going to do? And he was like, I want you to kill her. I'm
01:40:37
not going to comment on any of this. This is just ridiculous. Taz says Leon paid him $9,000
01:40:44
which he happily spent. To be honest, I don't feel bad that I spent Jacob's money. In fact, I feel really good I
01:40:51
spent his money. Then the man Leon knew as Zach vanished. Leon Jacob was one of the most unique
01:41:01
individuals I'd ever met. Bail bondsman Michael Kubosh. This guy was focused. He
01:41:07
was very intimidating. Didn't shake my hand. Just wanted to know one thing. I want Zach's number.
01:41:13
He said, I've paid Zach a lot of money to take care of this. I felt like I was talking to the devil
01:41:21
himself. [Music] Tucked away on a side street in Houston is perhaps the most colorful bail
01:41:40
bondsman in all of Texas. Having hung out a bit with you, you are the Elvis of bail bondsmen. You have such His name is
01:41:50
Michael Kubosh. These are people that we're looking for, fugitives. And he understands the criminal mind. I deal
01:41:57
with the nicest, the kindest and the meanest people on the face of the earth. I've bonded out judges, prostitutes,
01:42:05
preachers, missionaries. He's also a larger-than-life member of the Houston City Council
01:42:15
who helped save lives during Hurricane Harvey. I can see you were really working hard. I know all the major law
01:42:22
enforcement people in in the whole county. Leon had stormed into Kubosh's office.
01:42:29
He said, I've paid Zach a lot of money to take care of this. Said, take care of what? He said,
01:42:36
I want her out of the picture. And and and I she can't be testifying against me.
01:42:42
>> Out of the picture? Out of the picture. I believe that he meant ill toward this
01:42:46
woman and that's why I called the chief. The chief of The chief of police in Houston, Texas.
01:42:53
A search for the mysterious Zach was triggered and investigators quickly learned his real name, Taz Ezzat. A name
01:43:01
that Kubosh did recognize as a former military man who was facing a misdemeanor theft charge for stealing
01:43:08
from his roommate. He was on bond with me. He was STILL FREE. IT TOOK HOUSTON POLICE about a week to
01:43:18
find Taz and that's when things got really interesting. To me, Taz seemed genuinely concerned
01:43:27
for Megan. This man is an undercover officer with the Houston Police Department who goes by the name
01:43:35
Detective Javier. He didn't want to see her hurt. So Taz agreed to participate in a sting operation to help catch Leon
01:43:44
Jacob in the act of soliciting a murder. Hello? Hey, what's up, man? How you doing, buddy? Taz told Leon that
01:43:55
he felt he had grown too close to him and Valerie and thought it best to hire another hitman. And he knew just the
01:44:03
right guy. Can you meet me tomorrow? Yeah, I'll I'll I'll clear my schedule. No problem.
01:44:10
The next day, Taz would introduce Leon to his new hitman, undercover Detective Javier.
01:44:17
But before Taz could hang up, Leon dropped a bomb. And we're taking care of both problems? What both problems?
01:44:25
Both of the individuals that we're talking about. Uh okay. Valerie McDaniel, Leon's new girlfriend,
01:44:36
the mild-mannered veterinarian who friends had described as an angel, wanted her ex-husband murdered. Valerie
01:44:44
wants to talk to you about what you want she wants to do with her ex-husband. Okay, that's good. All right, just bring
01:44:49
her with you tomorrow. The next day, Leon and Valerie met with Taz and Detective Javier at this Olive
01:44:57
Garden to discuss the fate of both their exes over lunch. The entire operation was recorded. The
01:45:05
meeting lasted nearly 2 hours and began with Leon's target, Megan. I don't want her hurt,
01:45:13
but I want her to go. He told me that he wanted me to run her off the road and threaten her,
01:45:22
but then he would say to me, if she does not understand that, then you do what you have to do.
01:45:27
Those options don't work, [Music] I don't know. Then you got to do what you got to do.
01:45:37
There was no doubt in my mind that Leon wanted Megan killed. The subject then turned to Valerie's
01:45:44
target, her ex-husband Mack. So if if something were to happen to him, would it be like a car wreck
01:45:53
It could be a car wreck. It could be a robbery gone wrong. She was under the belief that I was
01:46:00
going to carjack him and I was going to put a bullet in his head, which is exactly what I told her I was going to
01:46:08
do. What you need to need to go ahead. I don't have my kids. Go ahead. I don't have my kids. What am I going to
01:46:15
do? He's going to take my daughter. The next day, March 9th, 2017, Detective Javier called Leon to say he had good
01:46:25
news that he insisted on delivering in person. Are you my friend? He went to their home where he informed
01:46:34
them Mack was dead. Neither wanted to see this photo, which seemed to show Mack with a gunshot
01:46:43
to the head. When Valerie got the news that her husband was dead, was she emotional
01:46:50
about it? Did she say, oh my god, I never wanted to go this far? >> She did not show that.
01:46:56
What they didn't know is that Mack was alive and well. He'd posed for those photos as part of this elaborate sting
01:47:04
operation. Believing Mack was dead, Leon set his sights on Megan. So you're going to snatch her and you're
01:47:14
going to bring her somewhere and talk to her. That's the plan. If I need to show up, you call me.
01:47:19
Later that night, these staged photographs of Megan were texted to Leon and he was told she was
01:47:30
so out of control, she had to be killed. She's dead. She's gone. I don't want to know anything.
01:47:40
On that scale of good to evil, in your mind, what is Leon Jacob? Leon is a very evil person. He was
01:47:50
willing to do whatever he needed to do to survive. [Music] It was probably around 2:00 or 3:00 in
01:48:14
the morning. On March 10th, 2017, Valerie McDaniel and her live-in boyfriend Leon Jacob get a wake-up call
01:48:23
from Sergeant Frank Quinn that will soon lead to an Oscar-winning performance. What's going on?
01:48:30
She lets them inside, but she feigns surprise. She can't understand why they're there. Remember, just hours
01:48:37
before, Detective Javier, posing as a hitman, had told her that Mack was dead. But now Valerie has to convince police
01:48:46
she is hearing it for the first time. So you don't have to tell me who who you heard from him recently. She
01:48:54
pretends to be upset. She puts her head in her hands. She sits down and she acts
01:49:00
like she's completely shocked and surprised that her ex-husband is dead. And is here with you?
01:49:08
You think you could kind of be a little help to us tonight? This surreal scene, caught by the body
01:49:17
cameras of Houston police, is about to reach its climax. We were hoping you could help us. We
01:49:25
have to deliver some bad news to you right now. Your ex-husband has been found today to
01:49:31
be deceased. Oh my god. It looks like uh might have been a robbery gone wrong. But the cause is
01:49:39
If anybody knows anything or No, we I don't really have a witness. Are you okay, baby?
01:49:47
We've been here all night. You were here all day with with your your daughter. We watched
01:49:54
movies. We haven't been out of the house all day except for Then the cops decide to call
01:50:00
cut on all this bad acting. Right now, we're going to read you your rights. You guys both of you have been arrested for
01:50:06
solicitation of capital murder. It is only then that the couple learns that both their intended targets are alive
01:50:14
and well. I don't know why I'm being arrested. Leon is led out. Can I get a sweatshirt? I'm already
01:50:22
cold. And Valerie has a much bigger concern. Her daughter, who's been asleep in the
01:50:29
apartment this whole time. Although not caught on camera, Mack arrives to pick up their 8-year-old.
01:50:37
And what did Valerie say to her? You know, something along the lines of I'm just, you know, taking you to your
01:50:43
daddy's outside and he's going to take you. And it was very benign and you know, just normal as could be.
01:50:50
And so, all of a sudden on the news media came the arrest of two doctors. A Houston woman and her boyfriend were
01:50:57
charged with trying to have their exes killed. And I'm laying there thinking, that's
01:51:02
not the Valerie I know. And they show the film of her going up for her arraignment.
01:51:09
Did you about fall out of your chair? >> Yeah, I almost rolled out of the bed. Because Leon has those other pending
01:51:16
charges related to Megan, he doesn't make bail. But Valerie does. Valerie was rushed out the jail alongside family
01:51:23
after >> And goes home to wait for the legal process to play out. I remember texting
01:51:28
her throughout the week and calling her and constantly sending her I love you, you
01:51:33
know, you can get through this. So happy you're out. Valerie's veterinary license got
01:51:40
suspended because of the charges. Brittany says Valerie was weighed down by her arrest and the prospect she
01:51:47
wouldn't be seeing her daughter for a long, long time. [Music] She visited Valerie at her high-rise
01:51:55
condo. But I remember giving her a hug goodbye and I just felt the life in the eyes was
01:52:00
not there. [Music] It's weird things. It wasn't like bam, bam, bam, a progression. Things just
01:52:08
gradually happened. Two weeks after the shock and shame of being charged with solicitation of
01:52:15
capital murder, Valerie McDaniel used her iPad March 25th, it's been a few days. to record her side of the story. I
01:52:23
didn't wake up one day and just say hey, I want to kill my ex-husband. For Valerie, everything she loved was
01:52:35
slipping away. I want to talk to my daughter. I want to talk to Leon. [Music] I just I'm just not responding.
01:52:47
I wish I were. I just can't do it. I just can't do it. Two days after her final recording
01:53:00
on March 27th, 2017 Valerie, who once seemed unstoppable, did the unthinkable. She climbed over this very railing
01:53:13
and jumped seven stories to her death. She wanted me to be home with her and we were going to get through this. And it
01:53:22
was devastating and shocking. [Music] I think that she was in a very vulnerable position when she met Leon
01:53:32
Jacob. But I think he influenced her and brainwashed her. I'm innocent. And um as a human being and as a physician
01:53:45
that thought of killing somebody else is just goes against everything in my my nature. It really depends on what they
01:53:51
find. Leon has hired one of the top defense attorneys in Texas, George Parnham, who says Valerie McDaniel was
01:53:59
the one calling all the shots. I'm sorry for her demise, but I believe that Valerie
01:54:08
uh is and was responsible for this entire scenario. That she was the driver. She
01:54:15
was the financier of all of this. That that's my understanding. The question now, what will a jury
01:54:23
think? On March 20th, 2018, a week before the first anniversary of Valerie's suicide
01:54:31
This is the state of Texas versus Leon Philip Jacob. Leon alone stands trial on two counts of solicitation of capital
01:54:41
murder. One of the things you learn about Leon Jacob is he has to be in control.
01:54:46
Mack was going to die and Megan was going to die. Cameron Callaghan is Samantha Connect's co-prosecutor. He
01:54:53
says Leon's motive was clear. There was two obstacles to the defendant's new life with Valerie McDaniel. It was Mack
01:55:02
and it was Megan. Mack could keep Valerie away from him by making Valerie choose between the defendant and her
01:55:10
daughter. And Megan could make them end up in prison. George Parnham's co-counsel, Matthew
01:55:17
Pospisil, claims that it was the undercover officer, whose identity we're protecting by calling Detective Javier,
01:55:25
who pushed Valerie and Leon to make a deadly choice. It was not for officer trying to make this into a television
01:55:32
story and force his own narrative. Leon would not be forced here today to tell his story.
01:55:38
All right, thank you all. Please be seated. Let's continue. Testimony begins with some of the early stops on this
01:55:43
long road to justice, starting with Megan. He didn't want her to testify against him and he had paid somebody a
01:55:51
lot of money to make sure that she wouldn't be here to testify against him. He actually wanted me to um
01:55:58
make her disappear. Uh basically, he wanted her gone like that. Call your next witness, please. Before the trial
01:56:04
concludes, two potential victims will rise from the dead to take the stand. Would you please introduce yourself to
01:56:11
the members of our jury? And the jury will hear from Leon, who says he's only guilty of being a
01:56:19
Casanova. I have no problem sitting here and saying that I slept with Valerie 7 days after Megan and I broke up. But I'm
01:56:26
not on trial for being a womanizer. I'm on trial for solicitation of capital murder. So you can assassinate my
01:56:32
character all you want up here. It doesn't make me guilty of what you've charged me with.
01:56:47
[Music] One of the prosecution's strongest witnesses, Megan Veracos, Leon's ex-girlfriend, who had filed assault
01:56:59
charges against him in January 2017 takes the stand. It was a long time coming. Um I tried to leave several
01:57:07
times. She recalls Leon coming to the house where she was staying just after the alleged incident. I obviously
01:57:16
didn't want to be near him, so I hid in a closet. Why did you hide in a closet? Because I
01:57:23
was afraid of Leon. He came in and was screaming and yelling and he said, I know that that [ __ ] is
01:57:28
here. Megan says Leon kept pursuing her. When she was at work He was in the bushes outside
01:57:36
um on a cell phone um waiting for me. And when she drove to her new home At that point, I called 911
01:57:44
to let them know um that, you know, my ex-boyfriend who assaulted me was um in a car behind me.
01:57:53
And then at some point, Leon had gotten out of his vehicle in front of mine, just yelling and waving his hands
01:57:58
saying, you know, just talk to me, just talk to me, I need to talk to you. Leon was arrested a second time on
01:58:05
stalking charges on February 16th, 2017. Less than 10 days after that, Megan was
01:58:13
contacted by police and warned her life could be in danger. She fled to her hometown of Pittsburgh, but police soon
01:58:22
called her to return to Houston to be part of that sting operation. >> Um I sat in a chair in a warehouse and
01:58:30
um they zip tied my hands and my feet um and put duct tape around my mouth to make me look as if I had been kidnapped.
01:58:37
I was crying and really upset. Next, it was Valerie's ex-husband, Mack McDaniel's turn. We were married for 17
01:58:45
years and divorced and uh 2016. He recalled finding out his ex-wife was living with Leon. What was your initial
01:58:54
reaction to that? My initial reaction was not good. And why was that? Because I was aware
01:59:02
of his history, his criminal history. >> Did you convey to Valerie that you did not want the defendant around your
01:59:08
daughter on the weeks that she had custody? >> Yes, ma'am. And did she agree to that?
01:59:12
>> She did. At some point, did you learn that she was not abiding by the agreement?
01:59:17
>> I did. Mack tells the jury he too was notified he was the target of a murder plot. Then the prosecution shows the
01:59:26
jury that photo. Can you describe for the members of the jury what you're doing here? Staging my own death. Did
01:59:32
they pour blood on you? Pig's blood. Three days into the five-day long trial, it's the defense's turn. They call their
01:59:43
star witness. I never asked anybody to kill anybody. Does the word kill, hurt, harm in any
01:59:53
way, shape, or form appear in any of those recorded conversations? Not on my behalf.
01:59:59
Except for maybe exclude them from things I want done. I never asked to have anybody hurt,
02:00:06
killed, harmed, um kidnapped, or I never asked for anybody to be in any way physically hurt. But the
02:00:16
prosecution says that's not true. She's dead. She's gone. I don't want to know anything.
02:00:23
And they claim those undercover tapes back that up. Did you not want anybody hurt when you said, "Inject her with
02:00:29
potassium chloride, stop her heart, untraceable"? I said that was a something you could
02:00:38
do. I didn't say that for him to do that. Did you recall telling the undercover officer, "If those options don't work, I
02:00:46
don't give a [ __ ] And you've got to do what you got to do because my survival is more important"?
02:00:51
Yes. Leon's own words come back to haunt him regarding Mack as well. After the undercover officer proposed a
02:01:00
fatal carjacking, Leon offered $10,000 in four weekly installments. So you're agreeing to give him $2,500
02:01:14
just after he tells you, "I'm going to put a bullet in his head and throw him on the street"?
02:01:22
If that's what you say. Well, that's in the recording. It's not what I say. It's what Javier and you
02:01:26
said, right? I guess. Leon and the defense team tried to make their point that the undercover officer
02:01:36
was pressuring them into making deadly decisions. I kept on telling them I didn't want anybody hurt, and they kept
02:01:42
on going back to the theme of killing people. I felt a lot of pressure from them to
02:01:48
sort of commit to this idea of killing people, and that was never my intent. Were you
02:01:58
asking them just to threaten people? Essentially, yes. Did you actually want any harm to come to anybody? No.
02:02:07
But the prosecution points out that when Leon thought Megan was tied up and refusing to cooperate, he did nothing to
02:02:14
stop the lethal final step. You'd agree with me that you never said, "No. No, I don't want you to do anything. Stop
02:02:22
this." You didn't say anything like that, did you? No. The jury gets the case >> Has the jury reached a unanimous
02:02:32
verdict? >> and takes just an hour and 15 minutes before returning to the courtroom.
02:02:39
Will the jury find the defendant Leon Philip Jacob guilty of solicitation of capital murder as charged in the
02:02:44
indictment? Leon is found guilty on both counts of conspiring to have Megan and Mack
02:02:51
killed. The trial moves to the sentencing phase. The same jury that found Leon guilty
02:02:59
will decide his punishment. New testimony begins. I have no sense of trust. Um Just constantly afraid that something
02:03:12
else is going to happen. The only thing that might impact Leon's sentence more than the words of his ex-girlfriend
02:03:19
may end up being the words of his ex-wife. The state calls Annie Morrison. Annie Morrison has flown in from Chicago
02:03:26
to testify. Yes, there was a time that we gotten to a fight and he pulled a knife on me. There was one time he
02:03:34
pushed my head down onto the counter and and bruised my face near my eye. Annie recounts an incident she says
02:03:41
occurred when she was 7 months pregnant with their second child. He threatened to punch me in the
02:03:48
stomach. Um he kicked my legs. I remember I remember bringing my legs up as far as
02:03:56
I could toward my chest to try to protect my stomach. He threatened that if I ever left, that
02:04:02
he would kill me. He said that nobody would ever find my body because he was a doctor
02:04:10
and he had access to chemicals that would that would dissolve my body. Annie did leave, moving to her parents'
02:04:19
home in Chicago. That's when Leon started threatening her parents. Thank you, Judge. May I publish state's
02:04:26
exhibit number 81 to the jury? As the jury heard in this recording Annie made of a phone call with Leon.
02:04:42
Will the defendant please stand? The jury took just 1 hour to decide Leon Jacob's sentence.
02:04:49
Life in prison on each count. Solicitation of capital murder for Megan Verikas and Mack McDaniel.
02:05:00
Victim impact statement, please. In Texas, the victim impact statements come after the sentence. Megan takes the
02:05:09
stand one last time. You will never see your children grow up. You will not be a part of their lives,
02:05:17
and they will be better for it. You destroyed me financially and took away my sense of security, but you can
02:05:23
do that no more. While you sit in jail, I hope you think of me, the girl that you called poor and
02:05:29
uneducated, because it's because of me you will be in prison for life. [Music] [Music]