00:00:00
[Music] Moscow will forever be known as a scene of one of the most tragic crimes in
00:00:15
American history there's still sort of a a Darkness whenever you talk to people it will be ever part of the
00:00:24
University's history and the town's history there are four very very important names in this case Kaylee
00:00:33
gonzalves Madison Mogan Zan kodal and Ethan chapen and if you're going to remember any
00:00:40
names from this case I ask that it be all four my name is Olivia Gonzalez and Kaye was my little
00:00:49
sister everybody's going to work and you look out the window and there's kids running down the street laughing and
00:00:54
you're just like how can you be out there playing my daughter's dead you know kayy gon Solis
00:01:01
is gone stop everything everybody in the whole world stop and everything just keeps
00:01:11
going my sister Zan kodal is one of the happiest funniest people I've ever met and I had the
00:01:22
awesome privilege of growing up with her and I still have a hard time coming to terms with the facts that did
00:01:34
happen bran cerg is accused of stabbing these four University of Idaho students in the preon hours on November 13th 2022
00:01:43
uh the murder weapon which was a knife has never been found this is type of survival knife Brian coburger did not
00:01:50
make his own plea the judge entered a plea for him of not guilty maximum penalties life in prison or the death
00:01:59
penalty due to the nature of the crimes the state of Idaho is seeking the death penalty he was there to kill he came in
00:02:05
with a kit I believe he had a kill K and you believe that everything right down to the Implement of Destruction this
00:02:13
large Marine knife that was all planned all planned was inhumane you wouldn't do
00:02:20
these type of things to any living creature let alone an innocent human being the star piece of evidence in the
00:02:29
prosecution case is the DNA that was found on the knife sheath that was left at the crime scene that there's so much
00:02:36
other evidence that's also pointing towards nobody else that we're aware of how was Brian cober's car spotted
00:02:46
leaving the scene why was his cell phone seen there 12 times including the morning after the offense prosecution
00:02:53
would like everyone to believe that it's an open and shut case but I think the facts they have
00:03:00
make the case more open than open and shut according to the defense there is no connection whatsoever between Brian
00:03:10
coburger and the victims and if there is no connection then there is no motive and if there is no motive then it
00:03:17
becomes very hard to make the case that he is the Killer and this is a graduate student not a trained assassin it's more
00:03:26
so about putting these pieces together because I know what the puzzle looks like at the end I have the box in front
00:03:32
of me but I'm missing so many pieces how did all of these pieces fall to create what I'm living in right now
00:03:44
where did where did this come from [Music] [Music] it was not the news Steve and Christy
00:04:36
gonzalves wanted to hear in August of 2023 just 6 weeks before the murder trial of Brian coburger was set to begin
00:04:45
he waved his right to a speedy trial sure you want to be absolutely they would have to wait indefinitely for
00:04:54
their day in court I was really hoping that um we could get this show on the road because
00:05:01
uh the not knowing it just it's Agony it's [Music] Agony Steve and Christie the parents of
00:05:13
Kaylee haven't left anything to chance after the judge issued a gag order to attorneys and law enforcement quote to
00:05:22
preserve the right to Affair trial they drilled down on their own investigation and are now sharing what they believe
00:05:29
believe that investigation found Steve says he believes transparency is the best path to Justice we're not going to
00:05:39
just sit back and cross our fingers and pray that we're going to get Justice it has been a long and painful
00:05:51
Journey for the families of kayy Galvis Maddie Mogan Zanna kodal and Ethan chapen the four four University of Idaho
00:06:01
students who were savagely murdered by a knife wielding a salent in the wee hours
00:06:07
of November 13th 2022 as they settled down to sleep in their off-campus house on King Road do
00:06:15
you ever dream of your sister yeah I've had some dreams of her there's times where I prayed and ask
00:06:24
God to see her another time and I did and just gives me some knowing that I know she's
00:06:32
[Music] okay Jasmine kotal who is speaking for the first time was a senior at Washington State University and lived
00:06:43
only 15 minutes away from her younger sister Zanna often mistaken as twins growing up she says they were best
00:06:51
friends she was always fun she was uplifting and she took any bad situation and turned it into a good one Jee what
00:07:00
did you love most about your daughter everything she cared about people she was a people person she sced
00:07:10
about her friends just as much as like her family for the first time in her life Zanna had fallen in love with
00:07:18
fellow student Ethan chapen a triplet who loved his siblings boats and working on a tulip farm the sweetest kid ever
00:07:28
they were just too happy people and they're just seeing the videos and photos of them you can just like tell
00:07:34
how happy they are they're just amazing together sadly they will now forever be linked in
00:07:42
death on Sunday morning November 13th zanna's friends started calling Jasmine saying something bad had happened on
00:07:51
King Road Jasmine rushed over to zanna's house and while you're driving that 8 n
00:07:58
miles over to the house house are you trying to reach your sister then mhm how many times did you call her a lot I
00:08:04
called her a lot called Ethan a lot her next call was to her father Jeffrey had been visiting Jasmine for Dad's weekend
00:08:12
and was on his way home so you answer the phone what do you hear I hear her kind of crying and just telling me to
00:08:19
get back to Moscow and meet me at Santa's house and you know my heart dra s instantly rised back down
00:08:34
there the house was cordoned off and swarming with investigators as soon as Jeffrey said he
00:08:41
was zanna's father he and Jasmine were escorted to the Moscow police department and Jasmine what does the officer say to
00:08:49
you and your father I I don't remember exactly just that four people passed away and that one was Anna
00:09:00
the worst day of your life just your worst nightmare just happened you know what do
00:09:10
you do you can't do a damn thing 100 miles away the gonzalves family also had been getting frantic
00:09:19
calls saying something bad had happened to their daughter kayy but no one knew what I just kept saying over and what do
00:09:27
I do what do we do what do we do finally at around 4: in the afternoon a deputy appeared at their door and we said
00:09:36
what's going on I can confirm your daughter's died passed away point he said there were four victims and we and
00:09:42
I said four and he said yes ma'am I said can you tell us if one of the victims was
00:09:47
Manny Mogan and he said yes ma'am Maddie Mogan Kaylee's best friend from childhood give us a sense of just
00:09:58
how close Kaylee and Maddie were in life I think that they had a very amazing relationship the epitome of true best
00:10:10
friends from very early I mean they were sisters through and through they were um completely
00:10:19
Inseparable as soon as the news hit Olivia the eldest of the five gonzalves children and her parents went into
00:10:26
detective mode we had zero details we just knew they were gone Olivia got into her sister's call log and frantically
00:10:35
started cold calling recent numbers she says a friend told her that Kaylee had been at the corner Club bar around 1:07
00:10:44
a.m. and later texted a ride share driver who Olivia managed to track down the ride share driver said around 145
00:10:54
Kaylee had texted him requesting a ride from the grub truck which is the local Mac and she's food truck to take her
00:11:01
back home to 1122 King and she had with her another female Olivia then uncovered
00:11:09
one of the most important leads in the case the ride share driver told her about a camera mounted on the grub truck
00:11:18
so I was able to look it up and um find Kaye on the video and I saw the girl that she was with was Maddie so at that
00:11:25
point I knew Kaye and Maddie were together they got into the car to go home together and alone the driver told
00:11:32
her the exact time Kaylee and Maddie were dropped off at their house on King Road 1:56 a.m. a timeline she says she
00:11:43
confirmed before the police I immediately took it to the police officers here's her phone information
00:11:51
here's the r share driver's name Olivia says Kaylee made a call to her boyfriend
00:11:57
at 2:56 a.m. but he didn't answer the gun solices believe Kaye fell asleep shortly after
00:12:06
according to the police affidavit Kaylee and Maddie were stabbed to death between
00:12:11
4: and 4:25 a.m. just as they had done since they were little girls they were sleeping in the same
00:12:20
bed those two best friends since little girls I don't think there's anything more terrifying than what they went
00:12:28
through I really don't the killer took four lives in a matter of minutes but he left behind two
00:12:39
surviving roommates one of whom would provide a key description of the Intruder he was dressed in black but
00:12:46
muscular build and very bushy eyebrows [Music] if there is one picture that speaks to
00:13:11
the Idaho student murders it is this six smiling college students blissfully unaware of the Carnage to come it's
00:13:21
staged in a way that is almost in a strange way ominously predicting investigative journalist
00:13:28
Howard bloom has written extensively on the student murders for Gren Carter's online magazine air mail he is now
00:13:37
writing a book on the case on the ends of the picture are the two survivors in the middle are are are the victims in
00:13:44
their huddled together Kaye with a beaming Maddie on her shoulders friends for life Ethan with his arm around Zanna
00:13:54
Young Love In Full Bloom a moment that should have been a memory of the idilic college Years would eternally be a
00:14:02
reminder of the gruesome murders that put them in their graves what makes it so tragic is they're forever preserved in
00:14:14
this moment they'll never be able to leave this moment hours after this photo was taken
00:14:20
the four friends would be murdered their deaths so violent even the house seemed
00:14:26
to be bleeding there's literally blood oozing out from the home uh you could see it on the exterior walls CBS News
00:14:34
consultant Brianna Fox is a former FBI agent and professor of criminology at the University of South Florida that's
00:14:42
how Bloody and gruesome the crime scene is according to the affidavit which outlines law enforcement's investigation
00:14:50
the bodies of Zanna and Ethan who is sleeping over were found in or near her bedroom on the second floor
00:14:59
the bodies of Kaylee and Maddie were on the third floor in the same single bed in Matty's room how did your daughter
00:15:08
die in that house what do you know we know the autopsy we know the means what is officially how she died she was
00:15:16
assaulted and stabbed several several times her death certificate is the ugliest disgusting
00:15:25
piece of paper that you will ever see in your life and every line of a horror show every line cuz there's causes of
00:15:32
death and then there's contributions to death Christie and Steve spoke to coroner Kathy mbot before the gag order
00:15:40
was issued and they say she told them how the two friends were positioned in the bed the bed was up against the wall
00:15:49
a headboard was touching the wall and the left side of the bed was touching the wall and we believed that Maddie was
00:15:55
on the outside and kayy was on the inside according to coroner mbit the Killer's first victim was Maddie says
00:16:03
Steve and then from Maddie he moved on to your daughter you believe she had awakened at that point yes yeah there's
00:16:12
evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation the way the bed was set up is what she was
00:16:19
trapped she was trapped we know from the affidavit that cober's cell phone pinged
00:16:25
in the vicinity of the house 12 times prior to the murder Steve says before the gag order one of
00:16:32
the lead investigators told him they believe coburger had been scouting out the house you believe these visits were
00:16:40
like he was like on an intelligence Mission a scouting Mission looking at lifestyle patterns when they came and
00:16:48
went who came to the house methodical yeah he had to know when people were coming people were going it makes the
00:16:55
gonzaleses wonder if he'd ever gone inside the house I think that he at least had opened that door went in
00:17:03
tested the waters looked around Steve says the coroner told him the Killer's Rampage started on the third floor where
00:17:12
both Maddie and Kaye had their bedrooms Christie thinks he wasn't expecting to find the two friends together in the
00:17:20
same bed I do think that his plan went a I do think that you know he intended to
00:17:24
kill one and killed four Brianna FOX also believes Zanna and Ethan were collateral damage according to the
00:17:31
affidavit Zanna received a door Dash food delivery at 4 a.m. then went back to her room on the second floor it's
00:17:41
possible says Fox that Zanna still awake came face to face with the Killer and she sees somebody that she doesn't
00:17:50
expect and I don't think he was expecting to see her either one of the two surviving roommates Dylan mortensson
00:17:57
later told the police that she heard what she thought was crying coming from zanna's room she heard a male voice say
00:18:05
something to the effect it's okay I'm going to help you not something a killer would likely say to an intended target
00:18:14
says Fox he probably was trying to make a split-second decision do I run away do
00:18:21
I kill her what do I do and he decided to kill her at approximately 4:17 a.m. police say an outside security camera
00:18:30
less than 50 ft from zanna's room picked up distorted audio of what sounded like
00:18:36
voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud shortly after Dylan the surviving roommate whose bedroom was near zanna's
00:18:46
open the door according to the police affidavit when Dylan opens the door she saw a man dressed in black with a black
00:18:55
mask and she says he has bushy eyebrows those bushy eyebrows become very important when the police
00:19:04
are making their identification the man with the bushy eyebrows kept walking to the rear of the
00:19:10
house without harming Dylan why was Dylan not killed again there's no definitive answer he he didn't kill her
00:19:20
because he didn't see her he was sort of transfixed on getting out he didn't kill
00:19:25
her because he was satiated or or he was simply too depleted to kill again says Fox even stabbing somebody for a minute
00:19:35
and a half not only is that Overkill but it actually would become rather exhausting the police believe the murder
00:19:42
weapon which has not been found was a military style Kar knife similar to this one the details are disturbing this is
00:19:51
not a civilian knife it was actually meant to tear apart bone ligaments organs so this is a extremely brutal and
00:20:03
something that you would never expect a person to walk in and want to commit unless they took some pleasure out of
00:20:13
the brutality of it after seeing the Intruder Dylan the surviving roommate told investigators she locked herself in
00:20:21
her room it would be almost 8 hours before 911 was called causing an uproar on social media criticizing Dylan's
00:20:31
alleged inaction but Brianna fox says It's Not Unusual for people to freeze or be too afraid to
00:20:40
intervene she had no reason to you know know how to handle herself in that moment according to the affidavit the
00:20:47
male walked towards the backsliding glass door and presumably left the scene but committing murder and getting away
00:20:55
with it are two different things says Fox for an offender to get away with a crime a murder they have to bat a
00:21:03
thousand they have to be absolutely perfect they make One Singular mistake that's all it takes and that one
00:21:11
possible mistake in this case may have been the sheath to the kar knife one like this was found on the bed next to
00:21:18
Maddie Mogan it would lead investigators to the door of a man studying for a career in
00:21:25
criminology Brian coburger the alleged killer to see a timeline of the case go to 48 hours.com
00:21:49
[Music] [Music] day after day and week after week pass and there is no suspect that is arrested
00:22:05
what was that time like for you that was the worst for 47 days after the murders the families of Kaye Maddie
00:22:14
Zanna and Ethan and the country waited we do not have a suspect at this time and
00:22:24
wept and weighed in people of Idaho and those throughout our nation Who provided
00:22:31
information has been very impressive we've received over 19,000 tips then on December 30th 2022 Brian
00:22:42
coburger was arrested in albrightsville Pennsylvania at the time his attorney said coburger looked forward to being
00:22:53
exonerated what goes through your mind when you see the face of the alleged killer oh I wonder why who who is this
00:23:01
why you know never heard of the person before it still is confusing why at this point the families knew as much about
00:23:08
cerg as the public did a PhD candidate studying criminology just 10 miles away at Washington State University in
00:23:18
pman I remember thinking I only have a few minutes to look up this individual and
00:23:26
to try to get any credible information before things start getting wonky some of Olivia gonzales's online discoveries
00:23:35
of coburger made her uneasy he had made a few posts on Reddit in which he was conducting seems like a questionnaire to
00:23:47
uh people in prison or jail who had committed crimes how did you pick your victim or your target for 7 weeks the
00:23:56
families and the country were left wondering I think for this type of an investigation 47 days is actually quick
00:24:07
criminologist and CBS News consultant Brianna fox says the Moscow police kept things
00:24:15
moving starting with a video canvas which produced footage from those early morning hours showing a white car making
00:24:24
three passes by the girl's house starting around 3:30 a.m. less than an hour later
00:24:31
investigators say the killer struck they noticed that this car approached King Road left came back uh
00:24:42
almost did a uturn finally went there around 4:06 in the morning and that car then departed in about 25 minutes and
00:24:53
sped off multiple surveillance cameras then captured that white car as it traveled what appeared to be a less
00:25:01
direct route back to pulman Washington arriving around 530 a.m. that information helped
00:25:10
investigators identify the make and model of the vehicle and we're looking for a 2011 to a 2013 Hye Elantra
00:25:20
Washington State Police find the car parked outside graduate housing uh they get the license plate and they they get
00:25:28
Brian cober's name they then get the driver's license and they see the bushy eyebrows that in the eyes of one of the
00:25:36
Moscow detectives must be the eyebrows of the killer now armed with a warrant investigators retrieved cell tower data
00:25:45
from that morning which captured coburg's phone around 2:47 a.m. in pman when it suddenly stopped connecting to
00:25:54
the network according to the affidavit this was also around the time cameras caught a white Elantra leaving his
00:26:03
apartment complex there was indication that he turned off his cell phone which is something that a lot of people do
00:26:10
when they want to avoid law enforcement knowing their whereabouts his cell phone
00:26:14
signal was picked up again 2 hours later south of Moscow as it traveled back toward his apartment building the
00:26:23
affidavit described a deeper dive into cob Berger's phone history that revealed this was a familiar neighborhood to him
00:26:31
going back several months cell phone records indicated that he has traveled past and was very near the vicinity of
00:26:40
this crime scene on 12 separate occasions and Towers actually captured a 13th trip just hours after the murders
00:26:49
anecdotally a lot of killers they like revisiting the memory of the crime you know I won I was able to get away with
00:26:56
this and you guys won't catch me but they had one secret weapon to make their case they had the knife sheath and there
00:27:03
was a microscopic spot of DNA on this could they tie this DNA to coburger according to the affidavit the DNA was
00:27:12
found on the button snap of the sheath but when investigators ran it through the National Database there were no
00:27:20
matches it's unclear if Brian koberger knew law enforcement was watching when he left Washington in mid December
00:27:28
koberger and his father who had flown in from Pennsylvania drove back home together in his white Elantra cerg from
00:27:37
what I've heard tells the father that he's in trouble with his his job he's concerned enough about his son to want
00:27:43
to make the drive back with him on the 2500 mile Journey from Washington they are stopped twice for traffic
00:27:52
violations hello what's also interesting is cober's reaction to the police police
00:27:58
is this your car okay cool he's pretty calm and cool father and son made it home to
00:28:06
albrightsville Pennsylvania where Bloom says investigators initiated a stealth operation what they did is they sent a
00:28:15
team of Pennsylvania state troopers to cob Berger's family's house law enforcement recovered cober's father's
00:28:23
DNA from the trash outside their home which tested as a high probability it was the biological father of whoever
00:28:32
left DNA on the knife sheath so that was the Eureka moment which they decided they could get an arrest warrant at that
00:28:40
point they made the arrest of Brian coburger and they got a separate essentially search warrant for his DNA
00:28:46
and when investigators compared his DNA to the DNA on the knife sheath they say it was a statistical match at least 5.37
00:28:56
octillion times more more likely to be curers than anyone [Music] [Music] else where you sit today are you certain
00:29:15
that Brian Colberg is the killer with what you know I don't trust anybody or anything so I have to see it myself I
00:29:23
have to see everything as the months pass Steve and chrisy Gonzales remain a united front in
00:29:31
wanting justice but their weight has brought different perspectives your mind is still open to the potential of course
00:29:39
that it could have been someone else of course yep I go into that 100% yep of course that's not where you are you know
00:29:50
yeah that's fine I don't think there's any slam dunk criminologist Brianna fox said says with
00:29:58
the gag order in place any hint of C Burger's defense has come from court documents it seems that the defense is
00:30:05
alleging there was a rush to judgment law enforcement made an arrest too fast and they focus on their client too
00:30:12
quickly a defense filing did reveal cob Berger's Alibi for the night of the murders it simply stated Mr coburger was
00:30:21
out driving alone the defense is not necessarily having to prove that he's innocent they just have to raise out
00:30:28
both Fox and Howard Bloom think the defense can find ways to poke holes in the prosecution's case challenging some
00:30:36
of the key evidence presented in the affidavit including the cell phone location data and the white Elantra
00:30:45
there's other concerns such as whether Brian cober's car was accurately identified at the onset or if that was
00:30:52
revised after knowing what Brian coburger drove the cell phone data makes one suspicious of Burger but it's not
00:30:59
convincing it's not putting someone at someone's doorstep it's putting someone in someone's
00:31:07
neighborhood if you can raise doubts about the validity and the accuracy of the cell phone data I think you're
00:31:16
halfway there to getting the case against coburger either a hung jury or a knock guilty
00:31:23
verdict and there's more according to the defense that the there was no DNA or forensic evidence found from the crime
00:31:32
scene at the apartment car office or on Brian cober's person so they were basically alleging how could he have
00:31:41
committed such a brutal murder and yet have no evidence found on him of that after Consulting their own investigators
00:31:49
christe and Steve theorize that cerg likely brought what they call a kill kit with him what do you mean by a kill kit
00:31:58
I think he had a backpack clothes we don't know if it was covers pants we don't know a defense filing also claimed the
00:32:08
presence of other unidentified male DNA was found on the premises three separate
00:32:15
and distinct male DNA profiles were found from the crime scene two were inside the house one was outside on a
00:32:23
glove the defense wants to know who are these people and what role could they have played in this whole story so what
00:32:30
the defense is doing now is trying to look for other narratives that Mak sense Howard Bloom has written extensively
00:32:40
about this case including a piece on a possible alternative defense Theory involving drugs maybe someone had re
00:32:48
egged on a drug payment and this was a retribution of Vengeance for people not paying for drugs they had ordered I want
00:32:57
you guys to respond to one thing that's out there because speculation that somehow drugs were involved in this
00:33:05
attack that's just Hollywood nonsense I I just dismiss that because I I understand our society wants to believe
00:33:13
in some of these movies that they watch they don't have these crazy lives where they're crossing paths with people like
00:33:20
that that storyline of it being drugs gives people a reason to think why it happened because nobody knows why
00:33:28
and the reason I think it happened is because he wanted to that's what he wanted to do he wanted to commit a
00:33:34
murder Brian cober's defense attorneys argue there's a lack of evidence linking their client to the students the defense
00:33:42
is claiming that the defendant Brian cerg and the victims have absolutely no connection there's no motive in the
00:33:49
minutes after Brian cger was publicly named the Gonzales family went online they just told us the name and we immed
00:33:58
started Googling they believe they had found a possible connection through Instagram
00:34:04
and immediately took these screenshots from our investigation of the account it appeared to be the real Brian cerg
00:34:12
account among the people this account was following were Maddie Mogan and Kaylee gonzalves in addition to several
00:34:20
people with the name cerg but when we looked through those it appeared to have other family members that related to him
00:34:29
at first Steve who works in it was skeptical thinking someone created a fake account immediately following
00:34:37
cober's arrest but according to the family they uncovered more possible connections you would go to Maddie's
00:34:46
Instagram account and look at her pictures and he liked them Brian's name was under a lot of Madie pictures like
00:34:53
that picture and that picture and that picture and that picture so he was actively
00:34:58
looking at the Instagram accounts and the importance of that is what just digital evidence that this particular
00:35:05
account had some type of connection with the with the victims 48 Hours has not confirmed the
00:35:12
authenticity of this account which has since been deleted and the gag order prevents investigators from
00:35:20
[Music] commenting after dedicating months looking for their own answers the gonzolas say they are mentally prepared
00:35:30
for trial no matter when it begins I think he's done he's going to feel all of us just staring at the back of his
00:35:38
head and he's going to know that we are the gonzalas family and he knows what he
00:35:42
did to our daughter [Music] how could this happen two the group of kids that are doing everything the way
00:36:09
they're supposed to do to not known is what keeps you awake at night and it's every day all day it
00:36:20
never stops why why why there is no why it is as unexplainable today as it was the day Kaye gonzalves Madie Mogan
00:36:31
Zanna kotal and Ethan chapen were murdered I wish I wish we knew they were all four of them were just such a great
00:36:43
people and made such of an impact on the lives around them for now the families are left with
00:36:52
thoughts of what might have been Kaye Jade gonzalves has been recommended to receive a postumus bachelor's degree
00:37:05
her family will receive the diploma of the University of Idaho on May 13th 2023 exactly 6 months
00:37:16
from the day of the murders an occasion that would have been a cause for celebration graduation was instead
00:37:23
another reminder of what was lost seeing all those graduation photos it just they should be
00:37:34
here graduation is just one of many Milestones that will be missed she would have been my maid of
00:37:42
honor and I probably would been hers and it's like sad to have to go through those life moments without
00:37:51
her Jasmine kotal planned to work side by side with her sister Zanna creating their own marketing
00:38:00
business it's just not the same without her because she just brought like such a
00:38:05
crazy different energy than anybody else I've ever met Kaylee Galvis future was in sight
00:38:14
she had accepted a job in Austin working for an IT firm Kaylee not only pushed herself say her parents but push them we
00:38:23
lost that person that would force us to make new memories and force us to go and
00:38:29
take on something that seems a little daunting at first guys for the gon solices amid all the loss there was an
00:38:37
addition to the family when in February Olivia gave birth to a baby girl so her name is Theodora matd
00:38:46
Kay obviously mty Kay is after Maddie and Kaye and if one were to believe in signs there were says Olivia several
00:38:56
with Theodora MADD K's arrival in the hospital her room number 1113 was the same as the date of the
00:39:04
murders November 13th and eily the time of birth 4:21 a.m. is in the time frame that Kaylee
00:39:14
and Maddie are believed to have been killed to have birth and life and firsts first Giggles first walks that they
00:39:24
would be there somehow you know even if it's just in name's sake this is the gonzalas family M has
00:39:34
truly been a blessing in our lives I'm zanna's sister the families of Kaylee Maddie Zanna and Ethan have all searched
00:39:43
for ways sometimes together to cope with a horrible New Normal we all are always
00:39:50
going to be there for each other and it's just difficult we all we're all going through it in our own ways
00:39:58
for Ethan's parents Stacy and Jim chapen one way of coping involves creating a foundation Ethan's smile Ethan just had
00:40:07
a great smile I he smiled all the time raising money for scholarships by selling tulips planted in honor of Ethan
00:40:16
who had worked at a tulip farm so Ethan will live on through the foundation that's what motivates us to
00:40:23
to do this how do you live with this Jeff it's not [Music] easy just got to keep going you
00:40:35
know I think just like living our lives like Zanna would want us to I know that she would want us to talk about the life
00:40:43
that she lived and to be her voice right now she had a beautiful smile her and Maddie the memories that we share we
00:40:55
don't do it lightly because they are very private memories and sometimes it feels like I'm giving away a part of
00:41:02
them but I do it for the importance to realize how great of a loss it is because nothing's going to bring them
00:41:11
back [Music] CBS next Saturday 48 Hours brings you back-to-back episodes all summer long
00:41:46
next week Beachside homicide How could a single mom be executed in Cape Cod I was
00:41:51
knocked unconscious I couldn't protect her 48 Hours Crime Time double feature next Saturday on CBS and streaming on
00:41:58
Paramount [Music] plus welcome to postmortem a new Companion podcast to 48 hours so I'm
00:42:17
your host CBS News correspondent an marie green and each week we will take you behind the scenes with
00:42:23
correspondents and producers who know these stories best we go deeper into each episode explaining how the
00:42:32
reporting came together and their personal experiences with investigating these crimes now not only do I report
00:42:39
for 48 hours but I am personally a huge fan of the show so I'm really excited to
00:42:45
take a closer look at these cases with the 48 Hours team to hear their stories including you know brand new details and
00:42:52
we're talking about details that never made it into the episodes we're going to start though by answering some of your
00:42:59
biggest questions about the Idaho student murders this is a case that captivated and continues to Captivate
00:43:07
the country and joining me now is longtime 48 Hours correspondent Peter vanent and producer Liza Finley welcome
00:43:16
guys so good to have you guys here thanks amarie we're very happy to be here yeah this postmortem is is
00:43:21
something we dream about because so we have so much information particularly on this story that we can't get to in the
00:43:28
limited time so this is a wonderful opportunity to expand and and share with our our our viewers and listeners in
00:43:35
this case uh some new details before we get to our postmortem let's listen to an
00:43:40
overview of this week's episode it's been a long and painful Journey for the families of Kaylee
00:43:48
gonzalves Madison Mogan Zanna kodal and Ethan chapen the four University of Idaho students who were stabbed to death
00:43:57
in the pre-dawn hours of November 13th 2022 do you ever dream of your sister yeah I've had some dreams of
00:44:07
her just gives me some peace knowing that I know she's okay zanak kotal sister Jasmine and father Jeffrey are
00:44:15
speaking out for the first time since Santa's murder it just happened you know what do
00:44:22
you do you can't do a damn thing everybody's going to work and you look out the window and there's kids running
00:44:28
down the street laughing and you're just like how can you be out there playing my
00:44:33
daughter's dead on the night of the murders christe and Steve Gonzalez's daughter Kaylee was in the same bed as
00:44:41
her childhood friend Maddie Mogan the gonzalves say coroner Kathy mbot told them before a gag order the killer
00:44:49
attacked Maddie first then moved on to Kaye there's evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that
00:44:57
situation the way the bed was set up is what she was trapped she was trapped a judge has entered a plea of not guilty
00:45:06
on Brian cober's behalf the murders of college students Ethan chapen Madison Mogan Zanna canot
00:45:16
and Kaylee Gonzales shocked the country in November of 20122 and really captured the
00:45:22
attention of the country I think part of it had to do with how that this is a time in your life
00:45:30
that is supposed to be one of the best times in your life and every photo that you saw of them was bursting with
00:45:40
life so the idea that those lives were cut short I think really shook a lot of people this is such a deeply personal
00:45:52
story uh perhaps the most that I've ever been involved with I'm a father of six six whove all gone to University I
00:45:59
attended Washington State University 8 miles from where this murder scene was located and when I went to school there
00:46:08
the idea of crime might be a kid stealing a candy bar from a store it was just simply unheard of so it's deeply
00:46:14
personal and and to connect with with the family the gonalves Christie and Steve and to speak with Jasmine and
00:46:21
Jeffrey kotal Jasmine is zanna's sister and Jeffrey her dad was the most profound interviews I think I I have
00:46:30
ever done and Liza was was in on this we were all so moved it was so emotional it
00:46:37
really was you know genuinely had tears in my eyes at times and as I watched this hour for the eighth time I still
00:46:45
get tears in my eyes because it's the sense of loss is profound and it is felt all over the world and you're right
00:46:52
anarie this time of Innocence the adventure of learning the Deep friendships formed at University and to
00:47:00
see it interrupted like this allegedly by a person they still don't have a motive for um just shocked everyone the
00:47:09
consolat they moved to the general area because they wanted a safe place to raise their kids yeah they it's talk
00:47:16
about ironic they lived in California it was getting kind of dangerous there they
00:47:21
felt they have five children so they went on a road trip and we were going to find America's best place to live the
00:47:28
safest place to raise our family and they settle on this beautiful beautiful little town in Idaho and lo and behold
00:47:37
just few hours away by car where where Kaylee went to school the worst crime imaginable happened and they regret
00:47:46
moving you know they go if only we hadn't moved there's also something else I wanted to mention at this point that
00:47:54
the gonzales's shared with us that we weren't able to to get into our broadcast their daughter Kaylee uh
00:48:00
gonzalves uh was a true crime ftic she watched all these shows she loved watching 48 hours
00:48:09
and she was she was concerned enough about crime that she would take notes her her mom said during the broadcast
00:48:18
and she came up with a plan of action hey if any of us are ever assaulted if we're ever in a crime situation like
00:48:25
we've seen on 48 hours in these other shows this is what we should do she actually typed it out and the family had
00:48:31
a nickname for her they called her the protector because of this and I talked to Christy about it can you imagine the
00:48:41
horror when then worst possible nightmare in this case it's not a cliche is occurring her best friend in life
00:48:50
Maddie killed alongside her and now the as salent is attacking her you know what
00:48:56
what of the ironies though with which you were talking about her philosophy after being such a true crime show
00:49:03
fanatic was separate I'll go you right you go left so one of us will survive and be able to
00:49:12
call the police and come to your rescue well those two young women were killed in the same
00:49:19
bed they didn't have a chance to separate she was trapped Kaye was trapped there's so many components of
00:49:27
this that sort of give you chills um you focus on the families which cannot be easy I can't imagine it
00:49:36
was easy to get them to talk we have a uh a a great um colleague out in California named Greg fiser who had uh
00:49:45
established a relationship with the family when we did our first hour uh earlier in in
00:49:51
2023 I did a a zoom interview with Steve gonzalves and felt as though we had really connected you know they said okay
00:49:59
you've got five minutes cuz he was going from reporter to reporter and we really
00:50:04
connected and we talked for 25 minutes and and when that story ran uh we understood that the family
00:50:13
appreciated how respectful we were there was no sensationalism this is 48 Hours this is CBS News and that connection
00:50:20
continued and so Greg fiser was talking with with the family out there and said Peter would really like to sit down and
00:50:27
have a longer conversation with you and because and Liza is really strong on on this they believe that transparency in
00:50:35
getting these words out is important for them to find Justice they agreed to the
00:50:40
interview there's a gag order and that was issued by the judge and it basically uh prohibits attorneys law enforcement
00:50:50
officials from speaking so Steve feels very strongly that that is not in the best best interest of Justice because
00:50:58
there have been so many rumors so much false information out there that he believes that real journalists real
00:51:07
officials should be dispelling these these false falsities so he he agreed to this very
00:51:15
long interview six seven hours yeah I heard Peter is legendary for his long interview he is famous for that in our
00:51:23
shop we're going to go two more hours on this um it was great it was they were extraordinary and once you know people
00:51:32
families everyone has to remember this families that have gone through this this kind of shocking trauma they don't
00:51:40
interview one another right that's not the way we talk all of us have lost someone in our families when that's
00:51:46
happened in my case I don't interview my sisters about how you're feeling in things and so sometimes when when a
00:51:53
person like myself comes into the picture it's such a catharsis for them there's so much they want to say what I
00:52:01
valued about it is their willingness to pull us into this moment in their life which is the most painful moment that
00:52:10
they will ever experience and it's going it's going it's not a moment it's their
00:52:13
life now um but we often you know sometimes when we tell these stories and 48 hours is an excellent job at being
00:52:20
compassionate and fair but it is an hour and a whole case and we don't sort of get a chance to slow slow down and be
00:52:29
reminded of the human victims that are still alive Anna sister Jasmine has never spoken before um her father
00:52:39
Jeffrey never spoken before um and in this case you you didn't pre-interview them you didn't get a chance to talk to
00:52:45
them ahead of time no not not at all not with the gun solices either but you know
00:52:49
I prefer I prefer that I prefer that we get to know each other in the course of this interview you always begin very
00:52:56
Gent you talk about the the the sister that she loved the daughter that he loved and
00:53:01
you work your way into the details and I find when we both are trying to sort each other out if you can make that
00:53:09
connection it becomes a a profound thing and they really open up Jasmine kotal Oh
00:53:15
sanna's Sister amazing she's just it gets me talking to right now about it she's the power of the grief inside her
00:53:25
to be able to expr some of that and Jeffrey in in the which you saw in the in the hour and and you'll see him in
00:53:32
other uh interviews in the future too he physically reacts sometimes his body movement is even more powerful than his
00:53:41
words when I you know when you talk about you know when they heard the words from police that their their his
00:53:50
daughter her sister that she was dead oh my God how it hits him and that was such
00:53:56
genuine so genuine um when I was getting ready to watch the hour I was sort of preparing myself for grief I thought I
00:54:06
will be so saddened by this but instead I found myself impressed with their strength
00:54:15
their power there was sort of a weight to that grief it does that make any sense absolutely
00:54:23
absolutely it becomes you know for for for those of us who work on these stories uh we do so many of them and
00:54:30
they're all so horrendous and there are those moments where you're sitting across from somebody or looking at them
00:54:37
in the edit room and you go how real this is and that was so real these these families you know it's a it's it's
00:54:48
heartbreaking the gon Solis is you know is as loving a family as you will ever meet and right away
00:54:56
they they started digging in and as Steve has said we were not going to sit back and just wait for justice and when
00:55:03
you realize what his daughter Olivia accomplished in her deep dive which we'll get into but they they moved ahead
00:55:11
instantly they channeled that grief into action so let's talk about a little bit
00:55:16
the incredible amount of investigating that the families did especially uh kayle's sister Olivia uh she found the
00:55:23
ride chair driver who dropped Kaylee off at the home that at night something that
00:55:27
she says even law enforcement had not discovered I want to play a little sound Olivia got into her sister's call log
00:55:34
and frantically started cold calling recent numbers she says a friend told her that Kaylee had been at the corner
00:55:42
Club bar around 1:07 a.m. and later texted a ride share driver who Olivia managed to track down the r chair driers
00:55:52
said around 1:45 Kaylee had texted him requesting a ride from the grub truck which is the
00:55:59
local mac and cheese food truck to take her back home to 1122 King and she had with her another female Olivia then
00:56:09
uncovered one of the most important leads in the case the ride share driver told her about a camera mounted on the
00:56:17
grub truck so I was able to look it up and um find Kaye on the video and I saw the girl that she was with was Maddie so
00:56:25
at that point I knew Kaye and Maddie were together they got into the car to go home together and
00:56:31
alone the driver told her the exact time Kaylee and Maddie were dropped off at their house on King Road 1:56 a.m. a
00:56:41
timeline she says she confirmed before the police I immediately took it to the police officers here's her phone
00:56:51
information here's the ride share driver's name you know what's interesting about that right there is
00:56:59
that a the police had the wrong time when they returned home they by 11 minutes so she was able to put that
00:57:08
timeline on track which which is sort of you know a domino effect yeah they get the right time they get home they get
00:57:15
this they get that they get that and she was able to correct that right off the bat which got them mobilized and moving
00:57:22
in the right direction there is still so much to get into here so when we get back we're going to talk about Brian
00:57:28
cober's trial what the defense might say to poke holes in the case new evidence the prosecution might present and a
00:57:35
possible link yeah a link between cobber and the victims that the gonzaleses think that they've discovered on
00:57:42
Instagram stick [Music] around all right welcome back everyone the trial of Brian koberger had been set
00:57:59
for October 2nd of 2023 but it was postponed because he waved his right to a speedy trial so the
00:58:06
question is what do we think we can expect once this kicks off Liza as we know there's a dir of information
00:58:13
because of this gag order but the defense has hinted at what its case will be in a court filing they have come out
00:58:20
and saying essentially what they're going to challenge and in the prosecution's case they're going to
00:58:26
challenge one the collection of the DNA there were uh three male other DNA samples found at the scene two inside
00:58:38
the house one and glove outside they still don't know who those belong to and the defense wants to know why they say
00:58:45
there's no connection none at all between coburger and any of the four victims in that house and if there's no
00:58:53
connection there's no motive why would he have done something like this and then to me one of the most
00:59:00
intriguing ones if it's true we don't know any of this because we don't it hasn't been litigated in in in ch hasn't
00:59:08
been argued in in court they claim that there's absolutely now mind you this is one of the bloodiest crime scenes ever I
00:59:18
mean four people slaughtered with a a military St we saw the blood on outside of the house and it's you probably went
00:59:26
back and forth as to whether or not you should show that but I think it really sort of gave you an idea of of what went
00:59:32
on in yeah and and the family told us they want the world to know the this is the word they use the ferocity of these
00:59:40
murders it's important uh the savagery that went went into this right and as Peter said that house was literally
00:59:47
bleeding if the house could talk what would it say that's a wonderful question but so back to this intriguing uh
00:59:56
statement that the defense has put out there they say there's this bloody crime scene we know how easily it is to get a
01:00:03
hair or a speck of blood they say there's absolutely no DNA evidence of anyone from that house or that house in
01:00:12
his apartment in his car on his person and if that's true that is pretty intriguing so let's talk about a receipt
01:00:21
from Walmart and a Dicky's tag that was found at his apartment though we don't know what items were listed on the
01:00:28
receipt what does the gala family think this discovery really means the family has a has a u a theory they believe that
01:00:37
that he brought what what they call a kill kit that he had a bag that had a change of clothes what they're calling
01:00:43
it what they're calling it and they said that um and we did do not have this in did not have time for this in the hour
01:00:50
but that during the the course of the search warrant that was done at C Berger's house they have a receipt and
01:00:57
that the receipt according to the gonzalves family is in evidence right now and it may suggest that he bought a
01:01:05
clothing that perhaps that he wore during the course of this murder is what they're suggesting and that that
01:01:11
clothing was not found at his apartment after when when the search was done um but even so as Liza said because we have
01:01:20
done so many of these stories the notion you know when you're using a knife for for instance and there's called castaway
01:01:28
blood you know as you raise it up and then back down the Hair Skin blood the notion that nothing at all was found in
01:01:37
that car nothing at all is is really quite extraordinary and they will the defense is going to be playing that up
01:01:45
and remember they say about his Alibi for that night Brian cob Bergers yeah he admits he was out driving late that
01:01:52
night he was driving around that's what he says MH that would explain the the cell phone in the vicinity and also
01:02:01
seeing that car on the you know surveillance cameras and among the things of course they're going to talk
01:02:07
about in in the prosecution of this case was the 12 visits prior to the murders in that neighborhood but also there was
01:02:14
a 13th visit the day of the murder once it became publicized because this occurred you know in the early early
01:02:21
morning hours well later that day prosecutors say that cobber to the affidavit his car was in that area again
01:02:29
but remember he's studying criminology and I'm sure he their people would argue yes he was fascinated by this horrible
01:02:36
crime and as a criminologist uh he he drove over as many people did into that area to see
01:02:43
what was going on but then there's always the theory that the criminal returns to the scene of the crime
01:02:49
because they want to see what's going on and they want to sort of get the last laugh haha I got away with this look
01:02:55
look at everybody running around look at everybody right yeah well one theory that is out there that the Gonzales
01:03:01
family has come to believe is the notion that Brian coburger may have been inside
01:03:08
that house prior to the day of the murders and they based that on the fact that the coroner in the case told them
01:03:17
that the as salent entered the house and the first people that were attacked were
01:03:22
on the third floor of the house there were others on the second floor and that suggested to the gonzalves that the
01:03:30
killer knew to go to the third floor how would he know that if he hadn't been in
01:03:35
the house before so this is the fam's filling in the blanks though this is some information trying to explain it
01:03:43
right that is what that we have not had any investigator tell us this of course there's this gag order and we have not
01:03:49
been able to verify that with any investigator because of the gag order but the gonalves is
01:03:56
uh Mom and Dad Christie and Steve believe that he may have been in that house prior to the murders when you
01:04:05
really think about this whole thing how does this person in this house that has three floors know where to go and how to
01:04:13
do it and kill so so rapidly as one of our people said he's a student he's not an assassin right but it seemed like he
01:04:21
was so efficient which is I think one of the reasons why the the cons solices believe he had to know where he was
01:04:28
going when he got in there he had to know who he was after and what he planned to Doh now Christie gonal says
01:04:36
she thinks he went in to kill one but he killed four so that he was caught off guard by
01:04:45
the fact that there were two people in the first bedroom exactly and there was also the bit about kayle's dog right uh
01:04:51
Kaylee slept with that dog every night uh and uh that was just that was their routine and when officials uh got to the
01:04:59
house uh discovered the uh that horrible scene the dog was in a separate bedroom
01:05:06
by itself and so that was just that just raised questions with the gonzales's that um did he know there was a dog had
01:05:16
he seen a dog in a visit had he actually even maybe given the dog a treat where it wouldn't bark at him and did he put
01:05:26
the dog in that room it's just something that the gonzaleses uh have focused on and raised
01:05:33
with us so we've been talking a lot about the different theories about how coburger may have committed these
01:05:38
murders but what is also new in this hour is the Gonzales has discovered what they think is a possible connection
01:05:46
between him and the victims so the the the the gonzalves family heard the name Brian coburger Olivia Googles his name
01:05:57
and they end up finding this Instagram account that the family uh believes was a genuine one I want to play a little
01:06:04
sound from the hour about the connection that the family feels might be there you
01:06:10
would go to Maddie's Instagram account and look at her pictures and he liked them Brian's name was under a lot of
01:06:18
Maddie's pictures like that picture and that picture and that picture and that picture so he was
01:06:23
actively looking at the Instagram accounts and the importance of that is what just digital evidence that this
01:06:30
particular account had some type of connection with the with the victims and if that's true that's huge because what
01:06:37
it does is it establishes a relationship a connection between coburger and the victims at least two of the victims yeah
01:06:47
and the defense is saying there's no connection so which is true that will be a very important point to be made at
01:06:56
trial as as been said by one of our experts in the hour if there's no connection there's no motive everyone
01:07:02
who watches 48 Hours who's listening to this right now knows you don't have to have a motive prosecutors will tell you
01:07:07
all the time you don't have to and serial killers you know Ted Bundy didn't have to have a motive for each of his
01:07:14
killings he just had a satisfaction in in killing someone and the gonzalves has believe that that uh coburger who again
01:07:23
is accused of this not convicted of anything thing as as yet of course that he did this in their opinion simply to
01:07:31
kill to murder to experience that rush they do it for pleasure that's one one of the theories by our
01:07:40
criminologist expert who said that a crime like this seems to be done by somebody the viciousness of it uh by
01:07:50
somebody who takes pleasure in it um or has a sense of arousal from it mhm did you reach out to the cobber family yes
01:07:58
we've done that many times and um we're still hoping that they will change their
01:08:03
mind and and talk about Brian um and we hope that happens what I'm hearing uh is
01:08:11
that the coburger family does not believe he did it but there there is something very very interesting that
01:08:17
Steve consal this uh was very clear about that he's going into this trial with an open mind that he
01:08:26
he thinks they think that it looks like coburger did it however maybe he didn't and they have H an open mind about that
01:08:37
well Steve has an open mind about that I was surprised by that because that is typically not something that you hear um
01:08:45
after someone's been arrested usually families of the victims are convinced usually that you know that's the right
01:08:53
guy yeah yeah and uh he has an open mind and we as journalists also have to have
01:09:00
an open mind yeah uh because the the facts of the case are being held so tightly so closely there's a lot we
01:09:08
don't know and we have to remember that and uh that's not that was another challenge in doing this hour I think
01:09:15
right Peter yeah and uh absolutely and cob Berger has said through an attorney when he was arrested in Pennsylvania he
01:09:22
looks forward to his exoneration there were others though that you reached out to that also didn't want to talk uh
01:09:28
Maddie mogan's family her parents they did not speak to you for this episode mattity
01:09:34
Mogan um Maddie was a only child of of of her parents and the they have spoken of course at these Memorial uh get
01:09:45
togethers and things but it is so devastating and you look at her face you look at Maddie's face and you see this
01:09:53
this bright and she's intelligent this big-hearted woman with everything in front of her uh and they invested
01:10:01
everything and all their love and wisdom in this one child and that child is taken from them under these
01:10:09
circumstances um we understand Ethan Chapin's family um who obviously are suffering enormous loss they have chosen
01:10:19
to to not do an interview with uh 48 hours for this perhaps one day you know the want to talk but we completely
01:10:27
understand uh that they don't want to and and of course we respect that well what a moving episode for the
01:10:36
first one of this season of 48 hours and for the first postmortem podcast I really want to thank you Peter and lies
01:10:43
up for being here thank you and Mar it's our honor to tell this story it's so profound absolutely it is it's touched
01:10:51
all of us thank you em be sure to join us next Tuesday for another postmortem watch 48 hours Saturdays 109 Central on
01:11:00
CBS and also streaming on Paramount plus and be sure to follow 48 Hours wherever
01:11:06
you get your podcast you can also listen ad free on the Amazon music or wonder app
01:11:13
[Music] [Music] I'll wake up every single day and I cry and I miss her it's so frustrating because you just
01:11:39
you look back and you you wish you did more maybe my sister was scared to go to the law because her husband was a police
01:11:50
officer Jones County District Attorney's office I believe Seth peralt was an individual
01:12:00
that had a lot of people fooled hi Mone he doesn't want to say hi I think he hid behind a badge and wore a mask
01:12:10
every day nice house nice car law enforcement but behind that door to that house he was pretty abusive stop the car
01:12:21
no let's not let's tell truth stop the car no maybe she was scared to get out it's February 3rd 2020 set the scene
01:12:31
for me what happened I'm sitting at my desk in my office that would see you and the phone rings and it's the police
01:12:37
chief he said I got Seth peralt on the phone he's told me his wife killed herself and I knew that we need to get
01:12:46
there and get this man investigated and do it right describe what you saw when you got
01:12:53
to the scene Seth paral on the front steps he's sitting there hands holding over his face I ask her to go inside
01:13:02
search the house and he gave consent for that had you ever seen a suicide that looked like that I never seen anything
01:13:11
like that her body is flat on the back her legs are almost together and her arms
01:13:19
are tucked against her side with her hands cut this wasn't right he's worked a lot of cases he told me he said the
01:13:28
scene is not right there's something not adding up and the more we investigated the otter and Guy obviously we have a
01:13:36
death investigation here I asked him would he come downtown to talk to us further I don't know how this happened
01:13:44
he said that they were in bed and they were arguing all I know is my wife was upset she hooked at me and said I can't
01:13:51
do it no more he loved her she was his world he never done anything to harm her ever my wife looked at me and executed
01:14:01
herself and if you look at the legistics of it you're going to see that I had nothing to do with
01:14:08
it we all called Sheriff SS that night and said we know our sister didn't do this we know she didn't take her own
01:14:15
life that he had something to do with this while looking your face as as a law enforcement officer I did not do I had
01:14:23
nothing to do with it 7 months later the medical examiner report comes out and what does it say
01:14:35
suicide well I was astounded Dr derile is a renowned medical examiner so her certification of
01:14:44
suicide we thought was basically open shot you have to remember she works for the state I'm Justin Kenny an attorney
01:14:50
for Seth peralt it all came down to the forensics could the state actually prove
01:14:56
that Seth had pulled the trigger and shot his wife in the head [Music] [Music] just an hour and a half after Seth peral
01:15:49
said his 44-year-old wife Amanda shot herself right in front of him he was struggling to tell his story I'm in
01:15:58
shock my wife of eight years that I love more than anything in this world I don't
01:16:05
know anywh to start sir I've lost everything in my life 44-year-old peral then a police
01:16:15
officer for the city of Eatenton Georgia told the county shareff Howard Sills that his wife Amanda had shot herself in
01:16:23
the head what did he say happened he said that they were in bed and they were arguing and then all of a sudden she
01:16:31
just produced the gun out of thin air and executed herself I just sat there watch my wife execute herself in all my
01:16:41
years of questioning anybody for suicide I have never heard anybody use the term
01:16:52
executed I knew she hunen I knew that he was lying from the very beginning Angie
01:16:59
and Alicia Johnson say they had questions about what happened to their sister Amanda we knew better we knew our
01:17:05
sister Amanda Lov life she wouldn't put us through this about 8 years earlier in the fall
01:17:16
of 2011 a recently divorced Amanda met Seth peral online I remember being kind of excited about it he treated her
01:17:26
differently from some of the past relationships she had been in where you know she wasn't respected Seth battling
01:17:34
cancer and unemployed at the time seemed to fall for Amanda fast and hard and they moved in fairly quick like he had
01:17:42
her move in within 6 months of the meeting Seth was living an hour away with his mother who was caring for him
01:17:50
but Angie says Amanda would quickly take over the role of Seth's caretaker AK when she moved out there he didn't want
01:17:56
her to work they say Seth's parents were paying all of the couple's bills and helping with expenses for Seth's
01:18:04
daughter from a previous relationship so Seth was basically dependent on his family very much very much and Amanda
01:18:12
was dependent on Seth for the longest time like he wouldn't let her have any kind of phone cell phone or anything
01:18:17
like that it would be his phone or a landline she didn't even have a car to drive he monitored her constant
01:18:26
as time went on Alicia and Angie say they saw less and less of their sister he kept us from being able to see her so
01:18:35
she didn't come to like any of our Christmas events or like any of our events because she had to host for his
01:18:42
family and cook for all of them Amanda lived with Seth for 5 years then on June 23rd
01:18:50
2017 the couple surprised everyone when they quietly went to the local courthouse and got
01:18:58
married Angie and Alicia believe the only reason Seth married their sister was to help him get custody of his
01:19:06
daughter that's why I feel like he asked her to marry him Seth's custody battle had been going on for almost exactly a
01:19:14
year at that point do you think Seth Maring Amanda helped him gain custody absolutely set's attorney Justin Kenny
01:19:23
if Amanda was going to be president in his daughter's life they had to get married I think that was one of the
01:19:29
Paramount issues for him to gain custody Kenny says Seth did love Amanda and his
01:19:34
daughter and was just trying to do what he thought was best for everyone this was a guy that doed on his daughter he
01:19:42
was a family man he would do on his wife I just thought he was a stand-up individual a few months after Amanda and
01:19:50
Seth were married he was granted custody of his daughter a little over a year later he was hired by the Edenton police
01:19:57
department and his father bought him this house near Lake a con she loved their new home this should have been
01:20:05
everything she hoped for yeah it was you know except for the relationship Alicia and Angie say they
01:20:14
didn't know just how bad things had gotten but we're hearing more and more stories of fighting fueled my alcohol
01:20:22
I've heard stories and interviews that you know when they were sober they were loving toward one another but it's when
01:20:28
alcohol came into the mix that's when it became toxic a little over a year after joining
01:20:34
the police force Seth fell down some stairs at the couple's home and had to go on medical leave now along with the
01:20:42
alcohol there were pain pills and the sisters say the fighting seemed to be escalating you could hear it like on
01:20:49
phone calls his tone and demeanor around her I would ask you want me to call 911
01:20:54
can I call 911 she would tell you no no don't call you know we've just been drinking we'll be everything will be
01:21:00
okay later on maybe she knew her situation would become even worse you know then things did get
01:21:08
worse on January 28 2020 just days before her death Amanda called 911 sh off you help yes thank you she
01:21:21
called me she had barricaded herself and the back bedroom it's my husband and he's putting his hands on me she ended
01:21:29
up having to run next door he locked me out of the house and I'm just trying to get my things out of the house please
01:21:35
she's at the neighbor's house right now another Sheriff's dispatcher was alerted
01:21:40
and she said her husband is an officer with the Eden Police Department that second dispatcher said he knew Seth
01:21:48
foral and said he had a reputation I ain't supposed to know this but he's been out of work with his bag and
01:21:55
apparently he's over there whipping up on her ass Seth made local headlines when he
01:22:01
was arrested on charges of simple battery and Family Violence she told me would I come get her the next morning
01:22:08
and I told her yes to make sure to pack everything have it ready instead Amanda decided to attend
01:22:15
Seth's bond hearing when the judge agreed to release Seth on bail he asked Amanda if she wanted a staya away order
01:22:23
added Amanda said no and then let Seth come home cuz she was scared she knew he was mad she knew that it was public that
01:22:34
he had been arrested he's a police officer you know I have to bring him home and make this right I talked to her
01:22:40
the day he got out and I said how are things and she said he's been unusually nice Alicia says she doubted Seth's new
01:22:49
attitude and felt that underneath he must be seething knowing that if he was convicted on abuse charges he was in
01:22:58
danger of losing custody of his daughter and his job he knew he was going to embarrass his family and he had already
01:23:06
put himself up here on this pedestal like he was King and then to be humiliated in front of people I think it
01:23:14
made him very angry Alicia says Amanda was terrified and looking for a way out we were all on
01:23:22
a chain message and we were tell her just get out divorce him tell his father that you don't want anything but a
01:23:31
vehicle and she said I'm not trying to get killed just 5 days later Amanda was dead
01:23:43
[Music] Sheriff Howard Sills says that from the very start of his investigation into the
01:24:05
death of Amanda peralt he wasn't buying her husband's story I knew something wrong the day I walked in the
01:24:14
house for starters the position of Amanda's body depicted in this 48 Hours animation based on the crime scene
01:24:22
photos left s certain that Amanda could not have shot herself okay this was the actual gun
01:24:32
also of concern to sils was the way this Smith and Wesson 380 which belonged to Seth was found lying next to Amanda's
01:24:40
body with its magazine ejected the magazine it was near her right side and the pistol itself was way down
01:24:52
here below left foot what made the ejected magazine even more Curious says Sills is the fact that
01:25:01
there was a bullet found inside the gun's chamber it's a semi-automatic gun so when it fires the slide comes back
01:25:10
the spent cartridge Cas is ejected and it picks up the next round because of that bullet in the chamber the magazine
01:25:18
had to be ejected after the gun was fired says Sills and unless the gun is defective the only way to eject the
01:25:26
magazine is to push this button now I don't do this at home but when you do this how you going to get your hand your
01:25:34
second hand around there to do it there was also no blood on Amanda's hands or the long sleeves of her shirt and
01:25:42
something else caught the sheriff's eye in the middle of the closet on the floor
01:25:47
was a damp green towel somebody had dried off with it no doubt about that one of the first deputies on the scene
01:25:58
said Seth smelled like shampoo also alarming the bedroom was littered with 20 miniature bottles of Fireball whiskey
01:26:08
all of them empty sill says he didn't have the manpower to process the scene so he
01:26:15
called in Agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation while they collected physical evidence and Amanda's body was
01:26:23
transported to the state medical examiner Sills focused on Seth he came in and sat right in this blue Lea chair
01:26:33
Seth spoke to sills in his office for over an hour without an attorney present I'm not going to lie to you I have no
01:26:41
reason to lie to you I wanted to know what had happened that day how did the magazine get out of the gun how did the
01:26:48
gun get where it was did you touch that gun today the 380 yeah how me it's been no today no sir how
01:26:58
does her body get into that position no answer cuz he never touched her no never
01:27:04
touched her but s says that didn't make any sense so he kept pressing and then Seth changed his story how are
01:27:14
you maybe I I don't know I probably did touch her I was probably hugging the out
01:27:20
her and I was probably like I'm so like honey what the hell's going on Sheriff Sills says Seth tried several times to
01:27:28
deflect questions with his badge I take pride in being a good law enforcement agent and I can't remember how many
01:27:36
times he looked me in the eye and said I'm a good police officer I'm I'm a good officer I'm a good police officer I'm a
01:27:44
good police officer I'm a good officer I'm a good police officer Amanda he said also knew what a good cop he was and how
01:27:53
assault charges would ruin both their lives she hated to see my reputation destroyed on the news because she knows
01:28:01
what a good police officer right and she was so worried I lose my daughter she wanted to come down here and tell
01:28:11
you that it was a liot Seth insisted that Amanda had lied the day she called 911 and felt so bad about it that she
01:28:20
wanted to confess to perjury he said that she had written something that she intended to bring to me recanting what
01:28:28
she had told the deputies and he told me where it was this handwritten letter was
01:28:33
found in Amanda's nightstand it reads in part I Amanda pero would like to retract
01:28:40
my statement my husband never put his hands on me ever I feel horrible for the humiliation I put my husband and my
01:28:49
family through I am willing to take any punishment I may deserve for what I have
01:28:55
done I don't deny she wrote it but look at the penmanship there's not the slightest error of any
01:29:03
kind what we've got here is a inexperienced police officer dictating what's to be written like Sills Amanda's
01:29:12
sisters are certain Seth was behind the letter she wrote it but she was coached I think what he was telling her I need
01:29:20
you to write this to get me out of trouble but Seth told s he was not about to let Amanda confess
01:29:26
to lying to authorities I knew if she came down here it was a false statement in a felony I knew it but according to
01:29:34
Seth Amanda couldn't take the guilt anymore so she put his gun to her head and pulled the trigger she looked at
01:29:44
me and said I'm sorry I'm sorry I put you through this boo I couldn't even say a word Shar
01:29:54
it was done Seth tried to convince sils that Amanda killed herself because her call to 911 had potentially ruined their
01:30:03
lives but the sheriff didn't see that as a reason for suicide instead he saw a motive for
01:30:13
murder believing that Amanda would never take her own life this made sense to her
01:30:18
sisters as well he had to make it look like she took her life so that he could be cleared of all this
01:30:28
wrongdoing Sheriff sils says he was convinced that Seth baral was somehow involved in his wife's death but that
01:30:36
day he felt he didn't have enough to arrest him I wanted to see if I could get some more
01:30:43
evidence and I did one of the clues that convinced Sheriff's Sals that Seth peralt wasn't
01:31:03
telling the truth were his actions just 20 minutes before he reported his wife Amanda was
01:31:10
dead that's when s's Deputy Terell abery arrived at his front door trying to deliver paper work on an upcoming case
01:31:20
they had one of those video doorbell things and I rang that the scene was captured in this
01:31:28
video I expected him to answer the door and I expected to hand him his copy of the
01:31:34
subpoena I mean you're a policeman you know how this works abery says he could tell someone
01:31:42
was home and what'd you hear I heard footsteps or footfalls heavy ones I'm announcing myself who I am what it is I
01:31:51
even turned my back to the door I don't care if you're in your underwear just answer the door and take the
01:31:57
paper he waited seven minutes and then left subpoena still in hand in my heart I believe that Amanda peralt had already
01:32:06
been shot when abery rang the doorbell I think he was concerned that somebody heard the gunshot and that's why he
01:32:14
didn't go to the door district attorney Wright Barksdale believed Seth was trying to figure out
01:32:22
what to do next think about this he's in the process of staging this scene and he
01:32:28
hears the doorbell ring can you imagine what was going through his mind but attorney Justin Kenny says that is not
01:32:36
what happened why didn't they come to the door when Deputy abery rang that Bell fear of what he's bringing Seth is
01:32:47
afraid that his ex is about to serve him with custody modification paperwork what
01:32:52
does that say happened after that so believe it there is a heated discussion that takes place he lays down diffuse a
01:32:59
situation he lays down to take a nap he awoke to Amanda mumbling something Whispering something and her
01:33:07
pulling the trigger and and shooting herself Kenny points out that Amanda was impaired by alcohol three times the
01:33:15
legal limit when tested by the medical examiner that and the escalating tension in her marriage became a deadly
01:33:23
combination the nice house the daughter the Financial Security all of this was crumbling around Amanda and then you
01:33:31
tack on a23 blood alcohol content she thought that that was the only way to to fix it to to end it she was really drunk
01:33:41
absolutely maybe she accidentally shot the gun how'd she accidentally get the magazine out of it how'd she
01:33:47
accidentally get posed as she was Sills was also very troubled because Seth didn't call 911 when his wife
01:33:57
allegedly shot herself instead cor called his boss the Eatenton chief of police on his cell phone 48 Hours made
01:34:08
several unsuccessful attempts to reach the former Chief for comment obviously we're not going to
01:34:15
have a recording of that and they have at least a 20 minute conversation before I'm
01:34:21
called hoping the peral's nebor neigh had heard something the day Amanda died Sills had Deputy abery go back to the
01:34:29
paroled house to question them what he learned made SS even more suspicious about Seth's involvement in Amanda's
01:34:37
death we found out that there had been a true pattern of domestic violence for years and years neighbors said the
01:34:50
couple could be heard fighting nearly every day and in their eyes Seth was almost always the aggressor they told
01:34:59
stories about a physical altercation between Seth and Amanda where he actually grabbed her by the back of the
01:35:06
hair and pulled her down and pushed her into the driveway one neighbor told abery that he would often stand by in
01:35:14
case things got really violent he talked about how at times he would just stand in the yard and just wait to see if he
01:35:21
needed to call 911 because it was so violent over there another neighbor said that Amanda had twice made this chilling
01:35:30
comment that if she were to wind up dead that peral is the one that did it and she made this neighbor promise that she
01:35:38
would insist that her death be investigated as homicide did anyone call the police no why not well one of the
01:35:47
answers was that well we were scared to call because he was the police it's hurtful it's hurtful and
01:35:56
this is why I wanted to do this show is to make sure that people know to speak up the day Amanda
01:36:04
died the neighbor said they didn't hear a thing the only witness to what happened with Seth peral and Sills was
01:36:12
sure he couldn't trust him after the interview in his office according to Seth they take the child to
01:36:19
school they come back home and they go nowhere at all other than down the street to the convenience store well
01:36:28
that didn't happen he lied SS says the proof was on this surveillance camera footage of the
01:36:37
couple found 12 miles away at this drive-thru liquor store where Amanda bought those 20 miniature bottles of
01:36:45
Fireball whiskey she drives up this Drive-In window right there's the camera that catches the truck I see it
01:36:55
simultaneously Seth was captured on a camera next door at this convenience store you see him walk and he actually
01:37:03
comes down I believe it's this aisle and he walks and he gets something to drink this video says Barksdale would
01:37:15
become a crucial piece of evidence not because of what was purchased but because of what Seth was wearing this
01:37:23
Pink Floyd t-shirt these black athletic pants nearly 4 hours later when sheriff's
01:37:31
deputies arrived at the peral home to investigate Amanda's death Seth was wearing something else when we get there
01:37:40
he is dressed in shorts and a dark t-shirt and the clothing Seth was wearing in the video we found those in
01:37:48
the washing machine the clothing was dry and had clearly not been laundered but there was that Deputy who
01:37:58
had reported that Seth smelled freshly washed and there was that damp towel that was found on the closet floor Seth
01:38:07
says he took a bath Seth's attorney Justin Kenny says Seth did wash up at some point after you take a bath you're
01:38:16
going to change clothes there was no evidence that the washing machine had actually been turned on it looked like
01:38:21
the washing machine was being used as a a laundry basket only a tiny Speck of blood was
01:38:27
found on the backside of peral's pants and a trace amount of gunpowder residue was found on his left hand when tested
01:38:36
they did it 3 hours later after potential contamination for being the police station Amanda's hands were never
01:38:44
tested and the gun was never dusted for fingerprints but Sills felt he now had enough evidence to make an arrest just
01:38:53
two days after Amanda's shooting now former Edenton police officer Seth peral was taken into custody Sheriff SS called
01:39:03
me and let me know that they were going to arrest him for her murder and I my whole family just was so relieved and
01:39:12
and happy that that she was getting Justice yes but before a grand jury could hear
01:39:19
the evidence and decide if there was enough to go to trial Co covid shut down the
01:39:25
courts Seth would sit in this jail for nearly 9 months until that autopsy report was released by the medical
01:39:34
examiner declaring Amanda's death a suicide her decision was based primarily on the lack of gunpowder around the
01:39:43
wound which meant the gun would have to have been right up against Amanda's head
01:39:48
when it went off and there were no signs of a struggle nobody is just going to allow somebody to put a gun to their
01:39:56
head and pull the trigger without putting up some sort of fight first thing I just called the da I said you
01:40:01
know you not going believe this did you think maybe you made a mistake absolutely not we going to take every
01:40:06
bit of the evidence and try to piece this thing together but Justin Kenny did think the prosecution was making a
01:40:15
mistake and that the autopsy report was all the evidence needed to defend Seth peral I mean it was it seemed pretty
01:40:24
open shot to [Music] me it was November 3rd 2020 and Seth peral still unindicted had been in jail
01:40:50
for nearly 9 months when Co restrictions finally eased a grand jury was set to decide if there was enough evidence
01:40:59
against him to go to trial and you know the first thing I put up for that grand jury to see the crime scene pictures no
01:41:07
ma'am the autopsy report that said suicide ladies and gentlemen the State Crime Lab medical examiner says this was
01:41:15
a suicide now I'm going to show you the evidence I found members of the grand jury did the crime scene photos and
01:41:25
heard evidence of domestic abuse and quickly decided that despite the medical examiner report Seth peral should face a
01:41:33
jury of his peers what were the charges malice murder felony murder and aggravated assault Perot pled not guilty
01:41:43
to all charges at his trial in February of 2022 he decided not to testify leaving
01:41:51
defense attorney Justin Ken to tell his story I think there was a complete absence of sufficient evidence that Seth
01:42:00
killed his wife the prosecution showed a jury of eight women and four men the crime scene photos including the way
01:42:08
Amanda's body and the gun were found they also heard testimony from that sheriff's deputy who thought Seth
01:42:15
smelled freshly showered they watched the footage of Deputy abery at the peral's front door and listened to all
01:42:23
60 Minutes of herold's interview with Sheriff Sills I don't know how this happened district attorney Barksdale
01:42:31
says that some of the most compelling evidence was found on Amanda's cell phone like this video she recorded 7
01:42:39
months prior to her death it's sad it's sad because you know what I married you and I'm not going to I'm J you're done
01:42:47
I'm done Amanda's sisters were seeing the video for the first time it made me angry I want to have a good weekend you
01:42:56
burn that up when you try to put that phone in my face what phone in your face oh right there oh your your vide tape
01:43:01
yeah because you're being I'm going to show you tomorrow you didn't videotape all the you when you hit me and smack
01:43:06
hit you you [ __ ] choke me a Time the video was problematic but it it doesn't show everything that took place Seth
01:43:16
also states that she had acted violently toward him as well he doesn't want to say hi there was no evidence of Seth
01:43:23
having been abused introduced at trial but Amanda's phone also contained photos of her with bruises a black eye and a
01:43:32
split lip along with texts like this one to her sisters Seth just choked me till
01:43:39
I nearly passed out busted my lip wide open I was scared that um one of them might get hurt this is Seth's then
01:43:49
8-year-old daughter being interviewed by a child psychologist remember she was a
01:43:56
witness to what happened the day Amanda called 911 they were cussing at each other Miss Amanda was cussing too but
01:44:05
she didn't touch Daddy at all Daddy was like touching her nose like this like get out of my house right now the jury
01:44:12
was shown most of the interview um she was on the floor like this trying to get her stuff then all of a sudden Daddy
01:44:20
just started grabbing her arms and Daddy just pushed her over the laundry table and then um open the door and pushed her
01:44:28
out the door while her father spent the night in jail she said Amanda begged her
01:44:33
not to tell anyone what happened or there could be deadly consequences Amanda tells her that night if your
01:44:41
daddy loses custody of you he's going to shoot me dead your daddy would come shoot me
01:44:49
dead but when Barksdale called the now 10-year-old to the witness stand she said she couldn't recall what happened
01:44:56
that day or what she said in the interview she I think felt really torn I seen her look at her dad a couple times
01:45:04
I felt like she was more careful about what she was saying like somebody had been coaching her in cross-examination
01:45:12
the defense asked if anyone had coached her on what to say she said no but Justin Kenny says he believes another
01:45:21
prosecution witness may have been coached a jailhouse informant named Jack Faulk who had shared a dorm block with
01:45:28
Seth peral Jack Faulk has a criminal history I believe 28 pages long numerous contacts with the police and he had
01:45:35
every incentive to lie and make up a story Fulk had come forward 3 weeks before the medical examiner's report was
01:45:43
released claiming he had valuable information about Amanda's death he knew things that only Seth paral could have
01:45:51
told him in these two handwritten letters Faulk claimed that Seth told him the camera catching him with the clothes
01:45:59
on was his biggest concern he also claimed that Seth said he had been giving Amanda painkillers all day and
01:46:07
that she was passed out at the time of her death I think he was in the bed with her after she was passed out and held
01:46:14
the gun against her head thank he was behind her behind her or slightly to the side the defense argued that Amanda shot
01:46:21
herself because her lies about Seth assaulting her had potentially ruined their lives furthermore only that tiny
01:46:30
trace of gunshot residue was found on peral's left hand and there was just that one Speck of blood found on his
01:46:40
clothing Justin Kenny says the hardest thing for the defense to explain was the way Amanda's body was found we knew that
01:46:48
it was going to be a problem the body had to be moved in some way had to be touched in some way Kenny says there is
01:46:54
one explanation that makes sense to him something peral said in his interview with Sheriff Sills I probably did touch
01:47:01
her I was probably hugging the out her and that would potentially account for her arms being by her sides as for the
01:47:10
way set's gun was found beside Amanda's body with the ejected magazine by her side the defense hired an expert who
01:47:18
testified he fired the gun six times and after one of those f firings the magazine spontaneously
01:47:26
ejected it shows that that firearm can drop the magazine when it's fired Howard seals took that very gun out and shot it
01:47:36
several times the gbi examined that gun didn't notate in their report any malfunctions
01:47:43
whatsoever Dr Laura L O R A darasa then there was the medical examiner Laura derasa Barksdale called her to to the
01:47:53
stand and asked her to explain how she came to her conclusion of suicide as the manner of death what I wanted the jury
01:48:01
and for her to see she did not consider all the evidence she had not considered Seth daughter's interview she had not
01:48:12
considered the cell phone data the prior domestic abuse you didn't videotape all but Dr
01:48:19
darasa defended her conclusion and in this statement to 48 Hours the Georgia Bureau of Investigation backed her up
01:48:28
our agency stands behind the original expert opinion of Perot's death were you worried at all about the
01:48:36
verdict what I try to remind myself it is my job to pursue Justice and to present a case for the jury to consider
01:48:46
and if they were to walk him out the door I would be able to look to Amanda peral's family and say we did everything
01:48:54
we could go inside the case and see more of the evidence at 48 [Music] hours.com when they called us all back
01:49:12
in we all just held hands and dropped our head it had been just under 2 and 1/2 hours when the jury in the murder Tri
01:49:22
trial of Seth peral announced that they had reached a verdict I just remember praying saying God you
01:49:31
know just please you know please do this for our family let us have Justice for our
01:49:38
sisters and Justice is what they feel they got the verdict guilty of murder it was B sweet
01:49:49
because we got justice but it didn't bring her back and didn't bring our best friend
01:49:59
back that same day perold was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole I want many years of him praying
01:50:08
to God and being on his knees that he would have took his own life instead of my
01:50:12
sisters Justin Kenny says he believes an innocent man is now behind bars for life
01:50:19
my heart sank I've known Seth for almost a decade now and I don't think he did [Music]
01:50:33
it every August on her birthday Amanda's sisters honor her memory by releasing love letters tied to purple
01:50:44
balloons I love you Amanda I hope you are having a beautiful birthday in heaven happy birthday
01:50:53
dear Amanda happy birthday to [Music] you in 2022 the notes also included the National Domestic Abuse Hotline number
01:51:11
and hopefully this will find somebody that really needs it we just want to create awareness around domestic abuse
01:51:17
and for people to don't sit back and just let happened no matter what the the victim is telling
01:51:26
[Music] you fight for them you know help them help them any way you can there's so
01:51:34
many things I wish I could go back now and do different I wish I could go back and
01:51:39
save her are you going to save somebody with this I hope so [Music] taken from her friends and family too
01:52:17
soon she was artistic she was creative she was smart she was feisty a murder roams free for too long there was that
01:52:24
constant fear is this going to happen again you will never forget Sarah yoro 48 Hours next on CBS and streaming on
01:52:32
Paramount Plus [Music] [Music] I'm anarie green and welcome to postmortem and whether you're new to 48
01:53:00
hours or a longtime fan we're answering your biggest questions from our episode the death of an officer's wife this is a
01:53:08
special one to me because I was the correspondent on this case and I'm joined Now by producer Judy Ryback who
01:53:14
reported and produced on this episode so welcome Judy thank you it is really good
01:53:19
to be here for my first ever podcast so before we get to our postmortem let's listen to an overview of this week's
01:53:26
episode it was February 3rd 2020 when Seth peral then a police officer for the city of Edenton Georgia reported his
01:53:35
44-year-old wife Amanda had shot and killed herself putham County Sheriff Howard sils was in charge of the
01:53:43
investigation he said that they were in bed and they were arguing and then all of a sudden she just produced the gun
01:53:51
out of thin air and executed herself but Sills says from the start he wasn't buying perold story
01:54:01
for one thing the crime scene didn't look like a suicide to the sheriff her body is flat on the back her
01:54:09
legs are almost together and her arms are tucked against her side with her hands cut this wasn't right also of
01:54:18
concern to SS was the way this Smith and Wesson three 80 which belonged to Seth peral was found lying next to Amanda's
01:54:27
body with its magazine ejected the magazine it was near her right side and the pistol itself was way down
01:54:38
here below her left foot there's something not adding up district attorney Wright Barksdale points to the
01:54:45
fact that just 6 days before Amanda peral's death she had called 911 and had her husband AR ared on charges of simple
01:54:54
battery and Family Violence the next day he made bond I think he hid behind a badge and wore a mask every day nice
01:55:05
house law enforcement but behind that door to that house he was pretty abusive based in part on the crime scene and
01:55:14
allegations of abuse Barksdale charged 44-year-old Perot with murder but 7 months later the medical examiner in the
01:55:24
case issued her report ruling Amanda peral's death a suicide when you're working with Judy
01:55:33
you get every transcript you get any piece of evidence that you know the investigators are willing to give every
01:55:40
phone call you've had with everyone we're about to interview you're really detailed and so when you said to me you
01:55:47
were struggling with this hour why did you find putting this together so challenging
01:55:53
I think for me honestly it's not the case itself because for me the evidence is so clear like it just speaks so
01:56:01
loudly and it's and it's interesting for me it was because it was a domestic violence case I think that's what was
01:56:07
really bothering me you know like and and the notion that um that Amanda was trying to get out and didn't get out in
01:56:16
time you know and I know and we sort of talked about this that yes it was a toxic relationship
01:56:22
yes neither of these people were perfect um but you were really cognizant of putting together the hour in a way that
01:56:31
we would not be blaming Amanda for what happened to her yeah well that's what we
01:56:35
do at 48 hours we're very very sensitive to victims CU nobody deserves to be murdered you know no matter who you are
01:56:43
or what you've done you know whatever um we don't blame the victim at all and and
01:56:50
we're really um we we're fair and balanced cuz we go bend over backwards to be always fair and balanced but we
01:56:58
but we honor the victims and their families yeah um I know for me this was sort of classic red flags when it comes
01:57:06
to uh domestic violent situation very toxic relationship alienation um and you know increasingly she had become
01:57:14
dependent on Seth but I really do feel like there was some manipulation oh yeah I feel like there was a lot of
01:57:20
manipulation um from the start and remember she was always dependent on him right from the very start he had her
01:57:27
move in with him and reportedly wouldn't let her get a job yeah so um she was completely dependent on him yeah the
01:57:36
idea of being married to a police officer like everything on the surface of this looked so perfect you have a
01:57:44
young family police officer a beautiful house a boat in the driveway I mean it was all an illus
01:57:53
of this kind of per perfect Suburbia living you know what I mean yeah it wasn't it wasn't yeah so let's dig into
01:58:02
the case and the key question when it comes to this case is who pulled the trigger right was it a suicide was it a
01:58:10
murder and I'm going to throw something else in too was it an accidental suicide um because that's something that
01:58:17
Seth's lawyers sort of raised that maybe she had shot herself by accident because
01:58:22
you know she was inebriated they had been drinking a lot um so can you talk a little bit about the medical examiners
01:58:30
ruling cuz that was the moment right that I heard gasps when I was sitting and watching the hour where people were
01:58:36
like how did the medical examiner ruled this as suicide when everything about the case seems so odd right not only how
01:58:45
but the timing of it right like they were still in the middle of investigating the case and suddenly this
01:58:51
report comes out and everybody was stunned I mean everybody was stunned often when you have a gunshot directly
01:58:58
to the temple Emmy tend to rule suicide because who else is going to get that close to you and you know you have to
01:59:07
kind of stand still to to be shot this way right so I think their theory is it's not a it's not a struggle there's
01:59:14
no struggle there is a gunshot right to the temple and um I can't believe she looked at the crime scene photos and saw
01:59:21
a suicide I don't see she didn't budge on the stand and you've done a lot of 48 hours
01:59:26
so one of the things that you were telling me was that you know often medical examiners do disagree with
01:59:31
investigators but not like this it's usually the other way around an investigator might say I think it's a
01:59:37
suicide and the medical examiner says no you should take a second look so this was a little odd very odd to me the
01:59:42
other thing that shocked people too was the same thing that shocked the sheriff the position of Amanda's body I I don't
01:59:52
know about you when you talk to some of your friends but I know my friends that was the other thing that they kept on
01:59:56
talking about where her hands were positioned where the gun was positioned the way the gun broke apart like how
02:00:02
does she end up like that you know like straight out like a mummy with her hands
02:00:08
cued by her side in fact let's play a little of what sarif SS has to say the magazine it was near her right
02:00:16
side and the pistol itself was way down here below her left foot and there was a bullet in the guns
02:00:27
so remember he explained to us that um you have to if the magazine falls out how is there a bullet the the magazine
02:00:35
has to eject another bullet into the gun and then it falls out it doesn't happen
02:00:40
that way right the gun was not tested for fingerprints and also not tested for the gunpowder residue right which you
02:00:46
know you go what are you talking about the gunpowder residue would let you know if she committed suicide cuz it'd be all
02:00:52
over her hands all over her hands but there's a big butt with that right right I've been told by a lot of Das and and
02:01:00
detectives at this point they they don't really rely on it because again because
02:01:04
when you shoot off a gun yeah GSR gunshot residue goes all over the place and uh and and yeah so it might not have
02:01:12
proven anything whether she was holding the gun or not the gun was so close to her that and anyone else would have
02:01:19
gotten right what is interesting is that they found a you know a bit of it on his
02:01:24
hand right right and but it was his gun but it was his gun and he was a cop but he had been off duty for a while right
02:01:32
and he could have showered and there could have been just a little bit left oh the other thing is you know there's
02:01:36
no blood so how do you shoot yourself and not get blood on your hand and the sleeve of your shirt it just doesn't
02:01:46
does make sense so yeah when sheriff sales sort of Acts this out it seems impossible and certainly the way
02:01:52
Amanda's body was um you know you wouldn't sort of shoot yourself and then wind up in that position but on the flip
02:02:01
side what Sheriff SS was suggesting was that Seth somehow got behind her was able to crouch down
02:02:11
behind her I mean what he's suggesting as the alternative reality I guess is also not
02:02:17
very easy to do no it's not re real easy to wrap your brain around right there was no room for him to crouch down I
02:02:25
mean I just don't really get it I I I I could we could played homicide detective
02:02:31
for hours um so like I said Judy gives you everything that they've acquired about a
02:02:40
case and one of the things that I listened to was the tapes of sets interrogation by Sheriff Sills okay so
02:02:48
that's where he's sort of explaining why her body was in in this strange position
02:02:53
um and he initially says I didn't touch her I didn't touch her I didn't touch her and it felt a lot to
02:03:00
me it felt like someone who was lying it felt like someone who was just trying to
02:03:06
keep the conversational ball in the air but not actually answering any of the questions I want to play a little bit I
02:03:14
maybe I I don't know I probably did touch her I was probably hugging the out of her and I was probably like I'm so
02:03:21
like honey what the hell's going on then he says well maybe I hugged her and it was a lot of that wasn't it Judy in the
02:03:28
conversation a lot of kind of jumping around being un deflecting yeah yeah kept wanting to talk about what a great
02:03:36
police officer he was and how Amanda thought he was such a great police officer and how important it was to her
02:03:43
and to him and yeah yeah I I'm a good officer I'm a good police officer I'm a good police officer I'm a good
02:03:52
officer it really sounds a little bit like he's trying to manipulate the sheriff and then he uses the word my
02:03:58
wife executed herself he said that they were in bed and they were arguing and then all of a sudden she just produced
02:04:06
the gun out of thin air and executed herself I just sat there watch my wife execute herself in all my years of
02:04:16
questioning anybody for suicide I have never heard heard anybody Ed the term executed during the interview with
02:04:26
Sheriff SS that was a word that jumped out at him and he is like I've never heard anyone speak like that yeah I've
02:04:35
never heard that either in my 13 years at uh 48 hours I have never heard anyone use the word execute you know people
02:04:43
should know that um you really worked hard to get somebody to speak on Seth's behalf yeah yes it was very difficult
02:04:53
yeah you you spent a lot of time talking to his mother and his mother really felt
02:04:59
like the sheriff had it out for Seth yeah yeah the defense seemed to be that um Seth was a good guy and that um that
02:05:10
he was uh the victim of uh some sort of conspiracy you know the sheriff was out to get the local police chief and um and
02:05:21
this and Seth got caught in the middle of some battle between the sheriff and the local police chief and he was sort
02:05:27
of like roadkill you know right yeah now Sheriff's Hills is sort of like a fixture in putam County um he's been
02:05:34
sheriff for really for a really long time but the sort of line there is that he grew up in the courthouse because he
02:05:39
had actually been adopted by the district attorney of the county so he had always been around law law
02:05:47
enforcement the courthouse and then eventually grew up to become Sheriff that's part part of the reason why she
02:05:52
felt that you know the tentacles of sheriff sils could be long and influential in
02:05:59
the county yeah I mean he does have long influential tentacles in the county you
02:06:04
know but has he used them for evil I mean there's no evidence of that right so and and there was no evidence that
02:06:11
that he was going to cross the Thin Blue Line you know um or that he wasn't you know I should say that
02:06:19
that he was going after a police officer you know and and he in in his words he felt like that put more pressure on him
02:06:29
right because it was one of their own and they did have to be super careful and make sure that they got it right
02:06:36
because he was a police officer so I feel like almost every time that I spoke to you sort of leading up to our shoots
02:06:43
you would say I just got off the phone with Seth mom you really did spend a lot of time talking to her you had lunch
02:06:49
with her on your birthday yeah uh the life of a 48 Hours producer yeah we couldn't get her to go on camera no what
02:06:57
was her concern you know I don't know how to answer that question actually I mean
02:07:03
because we did spend so much time on the phone hours and hours and hours on the phone with this woman um and listening
02:07:11
to her story and really trying to understand her defense of her son um and I wanted her to come on camera and say
02:07:19
that I wanted her to come on camera and tell us what kind of man he was cuz she was painting him to be you know the good
02:07:25
guy yeah so we have a lot more to talk about we're going to get into the possible
02:07:31
motive for this murder asset's daughter that incredible interview video and a possible jailhouse confession we'll be
02:07:39
right [Music] back welcome back so Seth's mom is you know characterizing she's telling you
02:07:55
that her son's a good guy that he loved Amanda but then on the flip side you have a guy who just became a police
02:08:02
officer he's got a bit of a reputation for roughing up his wife other officers know about it and we actually sort of
02:08:09
hear it in a 911 call when an officer is heading over to the house um after hearing about a disturbance I want to
02:08:17
play that 911 call sh off would you help pleas yes thank you she called me she had
02:08:25
barricaded herself in a back bedroom it's my husband and he's putting his hands on me she ended up having to run
02:08:32
next door he locked me out of the house and I'm just trying to get my things out
02:08:35
of the house please she's at the neighbor's house right now another Sheriff's dispatcher was alerted and she
02:08:43
said her husband is an officer with the Eden some Police Department that second dispatcher said he knew Seth foral and
02:08:51
said said he had a reputation I ain't supposed to know this but he's been out of work with his back and apparently
02:08:57
he's over there whipping on her ass Seth's arrested for um domestic assault even after that after the arrest Amanda
02:09:06
refuses to stay away order and so Seth is able to come back and she does she doesn't survive much longer after that
02:09:15
right right that call was her first call to the police ever right and uh just a few days before she was shot yeah why do
02:09:23
you think she let Seth come back he was totally in control right and and we've talked about this she loved his daughter
02:09:31
right so they had custody of of his daughter and um yeah like as I'm remembering it now she didn't have a job
02:09:39
she didn't have a car and I even feel like she didn't have a cell phone that she could use regular at that point yeah
02:09:47
yeah but there was she went a long time without her own cell phone right like she really was restricted and had felt
02:09:55
she had few options but she did have her sisters and her sisters felt like there
02:09:59
was another reason why she would not insist on Seth being kept away from her I want to play Alicia's sound cuz she
02:10:08
was scared she knew he was mad she knew that it was public that he had been arrested he's a police officer you know
02:10:17
I have to bring him home and make this right says potential motive the the suggestion from the sheriff from the
02:10:24
prosecutor is that after he was arrested for domestic violence everything about his world was going there's a risk of it
02:10:33
all unraveling right um it was already sort of barely hanging together this facade of suburban success and peace yes
02:10:44
um and with the removal of One Piece which would have been his job everything else could could have fallen apart yeah
02:10:50
so I think think he was panicking he was going to lose his job and potentially lose custody of his daughter and uh he
02:10:58
had Amanda write that note and he wanted her to take it down to the sheriff's department and I think
02:11:04
he forced her to write the note because that's sort of what it looks like right and that's what the sheriff says and the
02:11:11
da um the language is is not con you know it's just bizarre it's a bizarre letter it's a really weird letter I want
02:11:19
to play some of what Sheriff SS had to say that sort of stuck out to him he said that she had written something that
02:11:26
she intended to bring to me recanting what she had told the deputies and he told me where it was this handwritten
02:11:34
letter was found in Amanda's nightstand it reads in part I Amanda pero would like to retract my statement my husband
02:11:44
never put his hands on me ever I feel horrible for the humiliation I put my husband and my family through I am
02:11:52
willing to take any punishment I may deserve for what I have done so the odd word is punishment I mean who writes
02:12:01
that if you if you say that you know I was wrong I was dishonest it's never happened then that's all your right you
02:12:09
don't say punish me please I don't know was you know it was bizarre to me that's
02:12:14
the one the biggest piece of evidence that proves motive right yeah and I think she might have refused to take it
02:12:21
down to the sheriff's department and um was planning on leaving him and if she left him that was it right there there
02:12:30
was no defense in the in the abuse the the child would have been taken away and and for sh for Sheriff SS because he's
02:12:37
got a little bit of intuition it wasn't just the wording it was The Way It Was Written you actually brought a copy of
02:12:43
the letter here I mean when you look at this and not only is the penmanship perfect and some people have perfect
02:12:49
penmanship I am not one of those people look like a paper written for like a school class the margins are perfect it
02:12:56
just looks like somebody who had sort of written it over and over again until it
02:13:01
was Perfection and those are the little things that when you have a lot of experience um when you've seen notes
02:13:07
like this before you know like the sheriff has it just it just stands out all right we'll talk a little bit about
02:13:13
the trial now but when you listen to his daughter's interview oh my gosh cuz I listen to it again yeah um and she's
02:13:21
describing the fight that they had when officers were called they were cussing at each other Miss Amanda was cussing
02:13:30
too but she didn't touch Daddy at all Daddy was like touching her nose like this like get out of my house right now
02:13:38
the jury was shown most of the interview she was on the floor like this yeah trying to get her stuff then all of a
02:13:45
sudden Daddy just started grabbing her arms and Daddy just pushed her over the laundry table and then um open the door
02:13:53
and pushed her out the door while her father spent the night in jail she said Amanda begged her not to tell anyone
02:14:00
what happened or there could be deadly consequences Amanda tells her that night if your daddy loses custody of you he's
02:14:10
going to shoot me dead your daddy would come shoot me dead can you imagine you know he is throwing her out of the house
02:14:19
and this poor little child is describing it in the way that she would have described a game that was being played
02:14:29
in the school yard you know so and so went after so and so and then so and so went after so and so your heart is
02:14:35
breaking for her yeah because this is not normal right and she I don't know if she knows it right and then there was
02:14:44
sort of some other video that was shown in the court from Amanda's cell phone that kind of it's kind of the only
02:14:51
Glimpse that we have of what might have been going on behind the scenes right um
02:14:56
let's play some of that I want to have a good weekend you burn that up when you try to put that phone in my face what
02:15:02
phone in your face oh right there oh your your videotape yeah because you're being and I'm going to show you you
02:15:07
didn't videotape all the you when you hit me and smack hit you youing choke me eight fing times so I've heard I I can't
02:15:16
remember who said it but someone said Amanda could give as good as she could get right and I don't know about that I
02:15:23
don't think that was equal but she was a fighter she would fight back victims can
02:15:29
also at times have the power try to defend them to try to fight back to try and create boundaries right but um at
02:15:39
but at times they are overpowered and and what we saw was a power Dynamic here that even when she fought back she was
02:15:45
always in the weaker position a power struggle and she was always in the weaker position
02:15:51
um what was your take on this jailhouse confession I I know that they kind of like included it but I didn't I didn't
02:15:59
think they actually needed it I didn't think they needed it either and I and I'm not I'll never really be fully sure
02:16:06
um why they brought it in and when we asked the da about it he said well you know it was just another piece of the
02:16:14
puzzle and you know part of that confession was according to him Seth saying that his biggest concern was the
02:16:20
clothing that they would see that he changed his clothes and I didn't really understand that cuz there was no blood
02:16:26
on that clothing anyway right so what's the big deal and I really thought the defense attorney who didn't interview
02:16:32
with us um I thought that his explanation was was pretty solid like they had been out that morning he went
02:16:40
home he changed he took a shower changed his clothes and got into bed you know let's talk about the defense attorney
02:16:46
yeah please so 48 Hours tried and tried and tried to get someone to talk on Seth
02:16:51
behalf his mother had at times promised to come she had promised friends would come she had all this sort of stuff
02:16:57
right so in the end we got this defense attorney uh Justin Kenny Justin Kenny right who I thought was great he was
02:17:06
terrific what people need to know about Justin Kenny and the and the defense in general is he was not set's primary
02:17:15
attorney right he wasn't the lead attorney on the he wasn't the lead attorne can you sort of tell us how tell
02:17:21
us how his defense evolved so Seth initially had a very um well-known well-healed defense attorney
02:17:30
who they were paying a lot of money for and he passed away like a month before trial and then Justin Kenny comes in at
02:17:37
the last minute and has like you know just a few weeks or a few days or a month or so to read into the case which
02:17:44
isn't really a lot and and then he uh and then he gets stuck doing closing arguments the night before he wrote the
02:17:53
whole thing out himself like really sort of last minute crunch time so I really appreciated that he was willing to talk
02:17:59
to us about the case um and I got to tell you I mean he really believes that Seth should not be behind bars yeah he
02:18:09
was very passionate I thought he did a very good job giving the evidence and what he had to work with and uh but he
02:18:16
really does believe that Seth is innocent yeah so kind of the most kind of challenging
02:18:28
part of the story for me was speaking to Amanda's sisters yeah and it was challenging because they were incredibly
02:18:36
emotional there were a lot of tears and I just felt the weight of doing right by
02:18:43
them yeah doing right by Amanda um and making sure that they got their story out
02:18:51
we just want to create awareness around domestic abuse and for people to don't sit back and just let it happen
02:19:00
no matter what the the victim is telling you they were glad that they had spoken
02:19:06
for their sister right cuz that was was what it was all about like someone has to be the voice of Amanda and tell us
02:19:14
her side of the story and who she was and and and what you know what what they they saw in that relationship I like to
02:19:23
think that when PE when viewers watch our show they either see themselves or families see their daughters or cousins
02:19:32
or sisters in Amanda and they see the red flags and they think oh are there any of those red flags in this
02:19:39
relationship and should I be a little more vocal about that fight for them you know help them help them any way you can
02:19:47
there's so many things I wish I could go back now and do different friend I wish
02:19:52
I could go back and save her you're going to save somebody with this I hope so be sure to join us next Tuesday for
02:20:04
another postmortem and if you're liking the show please rate and review 48 Hours
02:20:09
on Apple podcast and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcast you can also listen ad free on Amazon music the
02:20:17
wry app or with a 48 Hours Plus subscription on Apple [Music] [Music] podcast where's the victim who's shocked
02:20:40
who is shocked where is the victim on April 20th 2022 my life changed forever so we've got Ms coming
02:20:49
right now I was shot at Point Blank Range two times right here right here this is the victim right here first name
02:20:57
Nikki gunshot won to the next all right it's a miracle she's alive it's a miracle if she wasn't killed you're
02:21:04
breathing okay okay all right someone wanted me dead honestly it was a normal day I had
02:21:14
worked the night before I worked the overnight shift I'm a forensic scientist for the
02:21:20
Minneapolis Police [Music] Department after getting my child to school I slept I picked him up from school and
02:21:30
then he had a visit with his father that night what would you do while he's visiting with his dad so I typically
02:21:39
would run errands go grocery shopping or do the things that were easier to do without my
02:21:45
child when it's time for her to pick up her son she step St out of her car and starts walking like dozens of other
02:21:54
times that she's done this I'm halfway in between my vehicle and the door and this person comes running up from behind
02:22:03
me shots were being fired I fell to the ground and the shooter stands over me and continues to try to shoot I felt my
02:22:13
neck and then could see the blood I was just driving home and I saw a person run up to another person and
02:22:23
then I heard two bangs and that other person collapsed it maybe looked like a robbery
02:22:30
or something there was so fast that was the first thought this must have been a robbery that was gone wrong was this a
02:22:37
driveby mistaken identity or she mugged maybe something related to work when you
02:22:43
do work for the police department did you think it might have something to do with work you know I know a lot of
02:22:50
people asked me that I knew that this could happen but I didn't want to believe it
02:22:58
would whoever did that knows she was coming to pick up her kid did you recognize no the as salent I
02:23:06
didn't could you tell the gender was it male or female so I thought it was male I was very sure it was a female
02:23:15
shooter what is going on who could have done this [Music] [Music] was coming up and I saw the two people
02:24:11
and then all of a sudden I heard bang bang as Emily Clancy later told police she couldn't quite believe what she saw
02:24:18
and heard on the evening of April 20th 2022 as she drove home from having dinner with a friend I stopped right
02:24:27
here at this intersection as soon as the light turned green Emily sped through the intersection and pulled up next to
02:24:34
the victim I opened the door I said are you okay and she said no I've been shot Nicole Nikki lenway Ford was shot
02:24:44
and bleeding in the parking lot of familywise a Parenting Center the 33-year-old was no stranger to violence
02:24:52
she worked as a forensic scientist for the Minneapolis Police Department and right after being shot she called 911
02:25:01
911 what is the address of the emergency she's barely breathing could barely say any words other than her name
02:25:10
and I said get in the car Emily took over the 911 call I could see that there was blood coming out of
02:25:18
her neck and followed the disp Batcher instructions they said put a jacket or something around her neck and I said
02:25:26
yeah I have one right here within minutes First Responders arrived were you the one I called where's the victim
02:25:34
the dramatic scene was captured on police body cameras Oh my God oh my God what's going on she was scared really
02:25:42
scared now Crush her on the neck she's out shot me on as well she was in a lot of pain she was having a hard time
02:25:48
breathing I just looked in the eyes and I said Nikki we got this we got this just stay with
02:25:56
me I don't think we can ever recreate how powerful of a moment that was I just wanted her to know that she wasn't alone
02:26:04
in this and if that was the only thing I could give to this poor girl like that that would mean something to
02:26:13
me okay all right dear can you walk we're going to get outside we're going to go into the ambulance
02:26:20
the hospital all right one of the most surprising things about the video is that you had to walk to the
02:26:29
ambulance I couldn't believe it were you aware of how badly injured you were I don't think so I think I was in shock
02:26:39
maybe I didn't realize how bad it was try not to move your head left or right okay Nicole was loaded into the
02:26:46
ambulance and soon lost consciousness breaking news tonight a woman is in the hospital after the news spread quickly
02:26:55
that a Minneapolis Police employee had been shot Nicole's then boyfriend MPD officer Donovan Ford was at home what is
02:27:05
it like to get that phone call that the woman you love has just been shot I had no
02:27:14
words I went flying down to the hospital I was panic when Don arrived at the henpen County Medical Center he wasn't
02:27:24
prepared for what he saw she was basically unconscious and she had tubes down her throat and all
02:27:32
that when you did finally get to talk to a doctor what did they tell you she's in
02:27:38
bad shape we're going to do our best to you know save her life essentially Nicole had a perforated lung
02:27:48
severe damage to her vocal cords and a bullet lodged between two of her ribs she was in critical condition I'm in law
02:27:57
enforcement so when they say critical that means essentially they're close to the end and where she was shot typically
02:28:05
people don't survive I was praying a lot as doctors rushed to save Nicole outside the familywise Parenting Center
02:28:17
her colleagues at the police department got to work can you throw up some tape we've got casings right over here on the
02:28:25
ground they found three discharged bullet casings and blood they quickly learned that Nicole
02:28:32
had been it familywise to pick up her son who was on a scheduled visit with his father her ex Tim
02:28:41
Amer officers caught up with Tim as he was finishing up his visit with their 5-year-old son Callahan he had been at
02:28:48
the center for hours hours and then you've been in the back with your son time in the community Tim Amer was
02:28:57
well-liked and a respected local Taekwondo instructor Tim seemed worried about Nicole is she okay if she going to
02:29:05
be fine I mean she's stable right now but it's really serious Andy had an idea about what may have happened he thought
02:29:13
it had something to do with a case she worked she was afraid cuz she thought people were driving by her house she
02:29:19
changed her last name to her middle name she shut down her social media she had Drive of Minneapolis coming through her
02:29:25
house all the time she had me bring over um my my shotgun to her house she was she was in
02:29:33
fear but police didn't find any obvious connections to Nicole's cases they searched Tim's Jeep and asked
02:29:43
if he owned any other cars this is your only time no no I have a do Challenger too and then let him go
02:29:51
police continue to look for evidence canvasing the building and surrounding area searching for security footage and
02:30:00
discovered the cameras from familywise a bank across the street and an elementary
02:30:06
school around the corner had captured every second the first images are Nicole arriving to pick up her son then someone
02:30:16
dressed all in black running her down from behind the moment the shots were fired the shooter fleeing on foot and
02:30:25
then driving off in a black Dodge Ram truck but the truck had no license plates and police couldn't tell who was
02:30:36
driving the next day Nicole regained Consciousness and she told police that she was sure she knew who was
02:30:46
responsible I just knew it had something to do with Tim I just knew well of course I'm going to be the first guy you
02:30:55
guys look at I didn't know how he was involved but he was involved what would you do if you saw a
02:31:10
stranger being shot on the street chat now with the 48 Hours team on x Taekwondo the tenants of the Korean
02:31:24
martial art include courtesy self- control Integrity the most skilled like Tim Amer
02:31:35
are called Master Nicole would come to believe that Tim was somehow involved in her shooting
02:31:43
but in the world of Taekwondo he was a very good instructor Pat and Claire Zelmer were
02:31:51
part of amer's tight group of friends and also familiar with his world taekwon doe Academy people would definitely
02:31:59
refer to him as Master Amer within the within his school but they would also if they were still students and they were
02:32:06
friendly outside of the school it would he was still Master Amer people gravitated to Amer his
02:32:13
physical skill business savvy easy confidence a leader who seemed to have it all figured out he's charismatic
02:32:24
driven intense he can draw people in and make them feel this connection with him and his reputation continued after
02:32:36
dark the mayor of nightlife here I would say that's a fair assessment very much so very much so Charlie dof knew Tim
02:32:45
well before he met Nicole and witnessed firsthand the power of Tim's personality
02:32:52
so I moved back here in about 2001 and was Tim Amer already living next door he was he was living next door but his
02:32:59
mother own Tim was a helpful neighbor with a style and appeal you couldn't miss he loved fashion loved the right
02:33:09
jeans and the right shirt and the right boot and always had to be the best was he a good friend to you yeah he was a
02:33:16
great friend and where was Tim Living Tim bedroom was in the back corner here and according to Charlie there was a
02:33:24
waiting list of women who wanted into amer's bedroom coming and going yeah they would pull up right here the front
02:33:32
light here was um purple and if that light was on then the women knew that they could go in are you serious I'm not
02:33:41
kidding it was almost like the you know the red light district juggling a lot of
02:33:46
women at once yes of course cuz it seemed like there was a different girl every night what did women see in him I don't
02:33:54
know cuz I didn't see it but many other women seem to see much in Tim amiker how
02:34:00
did you meet Tim I met Tim by going to his gym and when did you start dating shortly after Nicole was responsible and
02:34:11
grounded Tim's close friends quickly understood the attraction there was something special about her she's smart
02:34:19
she's pretty she's outgoing she's got it all at first I actually really wasn't interested but he was very persistent
02:34:29
you know he just kind of wore me down and I kind of I started enjoying our time together and he was older right he
02:34:37
had experienced more life than me and it was exciting they moved in together in early
02:34:44
2014 but friends say Tim still wasn't faithful did you try to war warn her about Tim and his women about his
02:34:53
womanizing yes absolutely there were a lot of red flags a lot of jealousy yes they fought constantly it was almost
02:35:04
like a Perpetual argument verging on a fight did you ever see him violent or hurtful toward her I did not no but
02:35:13
Nicole would tell investigators Amer was violent I mean one night he threw me against the wall holding my neck why did
02:35:22
you stay even as long as you did I asked myself that all the time I don't know I think I felt
02:35:33
trapped and you know he just got into my brain so badly she says that on a trip to Las
02:35:41
Vegas an angry alcohol fueled Tim threw a lamp across the room it was terrifying
02:35:49
I I locked myself in the bathroom September 2015 Nicole then 26 years old had more
02:35:58
than enough but she says now that breaking away from Tim was anything but easy I packed my bags and I started
02:36:08
walking out and he pulled me back into the house by my ponytail and dragged me into the bedroom and after that I was
02:36:17
like I am done Nicole moved out and an 18-year-old student of Tim's moved in running out one of his rooms her name
02:36:27
Colleen Larson seemed absolutely lovely nice girl I think she's very smart um probably booksmart at streetsmart Colina
02:36:38
begun studying with Amer when she was barely a teenager Tim's friends say she seemed infatuated with him he's her
02:36:46
instructor he's her her master you know for 10 plus years at this point it just seemed like she was like this little
02:36:55
puppy dog wanting to impress him like a child than an adult in that respect yes they say Colleen seemed delighted to be
02:37:02
living with a man she had idolized since she was young as for Nicole she hoped to have no
02:37:10
further contact with Tim but very soon they all got some unexpected news I found out I was pregnant and he wanted
02:37:19
me to get rid of the baby and I just told him I couldn't and I was in a state of
02:37:37
panic investigation you okay right now I'm going to ask you if I can search you for weapons real
02:37:49
quick okay yeah detectives needed to know all about Nicole's relationship with their son's
02:37:55
father Tim Amer why would I have weapons here there was a shooting happened here
02:38:02
has nothing to do with me the investigation would track a trail that led back to the fall of
02:38:08
2015 when Nicole first learned she was pregnant with a taquan doe Master she alleged had abused her it just got more
02:38:16
and more volatile we were so excited for them to be having a baby that's a momentous
02:38:22
and a a happy thing to normal people but the only thing normal was the irrepressible Joy of a new mother she
02:38:32
named him Callahan he was born on June 20th of 2016 he was a big boy and he was perfect and then she gave him the the
02:38:49
last name arer Nicole was the primary caregiver but sometimes Cal stayed with his dad did you feel that co-parenting
02:38:58
was working I felt like it could but he wasn't always reliable says Nicole when she needed him most Tim was
02:39:07
halfway around the world Tim went to Thailand and totally bailed on Christmas and New Year Tim may not have been a
02:39:16
Hands-On dad but someone else was ready to step in Colleen Larson his longtime Taekwondo student who was renting that
02:39:26
room in Tim's house she's very kind to Callahan she was a good caregiver to him and with unpredictable hours with the
02:39:36
Minneapolis Police Department the arrangement seemed to work for Nicole my son really seemed to like her when the
02:39:44
once young Taekwondo student turned 18 her relationship with Tim amiker quietly changed according to
02:39:53
Charlie did you get the sense he was in love with coli no not at all I think she
02:39:58
was very much in love with him Charlie says Tim called the relationship easy she would call him Master call him the
02:40:06
house yep Master Amer and ultimately kind of became you know like a maid or a servant
02:40:14
to him then in the summer of 2017 Nicole 's life took a dramatic turn do you remember when you first met
02:40:24
Nicole absolutely it was the kind of love at first sight that only a cop on the beat
02:40:31
could have first time I ever saw her was on a burglar call I definitely took notice at that point why she's
02:40:40
gorgeous and to Donovan Ford intriguing she processed the scene so she was a member of the real CSI oh yeah he knew
02:40:50
that I was a single mom and he was divorced when I just mentioned his name you lit up why is that he is truly the
02:41:00
love of my life he has been the biggest blessing to myself and my son and he's been through a lot with you hasn't he he
02:41:09
has Nicole's already difficult relationship with Tim only got worse when Tim discovered she was dating
02:41:18
Donovan who was fast becoming part of Callahan's life did the way he dealt with Cal change after you started dating
02:41:29
Donovan it did he wanted him all the time and Tim didn't want Donovan around his son he accused Donovan of saying
02:41:39
negative things about Colleen then Tim called Donovan and left this angry message man up for once in your life and
02:41:48
quit hiding behind your bad and then I started getting text messages like this one where Tim claimed Donovan was
02:41:55
destroying his family it ignited what can only be called a war that would grow treacherous
02:42:03
and it wouldn't be a short one how would you describe the last six years it has been chaos Nicole claims Tim tried to
02:42:13
destroy her like I'm going to take everything from you did you believe him I did the black belt's new weapon of
02:42:21
choice was the legal system it was the Relentless number of motions before the court he reported Nicole to Child
02:42:31
Protection Services multiple times accusing her and Donovan of physical and sexual abuse Children's Services show up
02:42:41
at your house yes I had them in and out of my home for 3 years Tim filed for custody of C
02:42:49
and Nicole filed for an order of protection from Tim not a single one of the allegations against Nicole or
02:42:57
Donovan was found to have substance did you see anything that concerned you or made you think that Cal had been abused
02:43:05
no nothing no he was a well-loved child but Tim didn't stop there he also filed complaints to the police department
02:43:14
about Donovan you were investigated then and what was the finding nothing happened it continued yep allegation
02:43:23
after allegation and then in May of 2018 Amer alleged Nicole ran over his foot with her car I was charged with
02:43:33
domestic assault the proud crime scene investigator was now a humiliated defendant I never thought I would be at
02:43:43
the defense table how long was the jury out on that less than 15 minutes I was found not guilty but the battle for
02:43:51
Callahan raged on and the child got caught in the middle you could tell he was very conflicted Callahan was a pawn
02:44:01
it wasn't about Callahan or Callahan's well-being it was about inflicting the maximum amount of damage on
02:44:10
Nikki in the fall of 2020 the trial for custody of Callahan began when it was over the judge awarded Nicole sole legal
02:44:20
and physical custody Tim was allowed just one supervised visit a week Tim Amer once a champion was now
02:44:30
boxed into a corner he was allowed no contact alone with his son and cops thought that might be a motive for him
02:44:39
wanting Nicole dead I've been here the whole time I don't know what happened out there police would hone in on the
02:44:46
crime scene remember that black do Dodge Ram truck that the shooter drove off in turns out Tim had lied to the cops he
02:44:56
owned a truck just like [Music] [Music] it a good homicide detective will tell you it's just good to know what Vehicles
02:45:19
anybody owns whether they're a witness whether they're a suspect whether they're a victim because people use
02:45:25
their vehicles and that's how you can figure out things that's how you can pursue leads on the night of Nicole's
02:45:30
shooting assistant henpen County attorneys Patrick Lofton and Jacob Fishman say that police were determined
02:45:38
to find out who was driving that black Dodge truck a black Dodge Ram is a very very common car and authorities had
02:45:46
asked him what he owned what do you mean this is your only car no no I have a Dodge Challenger too a Dodge Challenger
02:45:52
sedan and this Jeep but it turned out that Tim did have another vehicle a black Dodge Ram truck
02:46:03
that looked a lot like the one seen leaving the area after the shooting that raised the alarm bells for the
02:46:09
Minneapolis Police Department this is a picture right here police called Tim in for a second interview that's not my
02:46:17
truck they showed him stills of the truck from that video seemingly unruffled he insisted that it wasn't his
02:46:26
those pictures were not pictures of my truck Tim claimed his truck unlike the one in the video had a license plate and
02:46:36
Superman decal stickers near both front doors where is a Superman logo Case Closed Superman logo is not in
02:46:45
the truck couldn't have been me I've been here the whole time I don't know what happened out there I'm not what's
02:46:50
more he had an alibi he was inside the familywise center when Nicole was shot so even if it was his truck he couldn't
02:47:00
be The Driver who else has access to the truck uh Keen has access to it colen lson Tim's former Taekwondo student you
02:47:11
the only one um to my knowledge to police the pieces of the puzzle were coming together Nicole had said she
02:47:20
thought the shooter was a woman let me ask you this is there any reason why Colleen would have want to shoot Nicole
02:47:27
oh hell no she wasn't hurt anybody Tim insisted Colleen was incapable of violence and Colleen who was also
02:47:35
brought in for questioning insisted she was nowhere near familywise that night she said that she came home from work as
02:47:44
usual went inside took a shower and was there until Tim got home but police didn't believe either one of
02:47:51
them and turned to FBI special agent Richard fener a technology specialist he discovered that Tim's Truck had Wi-Fi
02:48:01
and like a cell phone creates a digital Trail we could track it much like we could at the cell phone vener wanted to
02:48:08
know everywhere Tim and Colleen went the day of the shooting their cell phones and the black Dodge truck left plenty of
02:48:17
digital breadcrumbs with phones with cars whatever you have they're going to tell you the truth
02:48:22
their records always tell you the truth on the afternoon of the shooting Tim and Colleen were both at the
02:48:31
Taekwondo Studio around 400 p.m. Tim left to go to familywise for the visit with his son he was driving the jeep
02:48:41
later Colleen left the studio in the black truck to go home how can you tell that that's from the cell phone records
02:48:48
so not only the truck but her cell phone correct just after 7 p.m. fener says the
02:48:55
black truck left the couple's residence and headed straight to familywise now we
02:49:01
see that person who is walking right here that is Colleen Larson Colleen Larson did leave her house and
02:49:10
detectives placed her directly at the scene she appears to be walking around essentially scoping out the area I I
02:49:18
believe that she is planning her next steps a rate of the couple's house yielded more evidence bullet casings
02:49:28
matching the ones found at the crime scene on April 28th 2022 Colleen Larson was arrested she was
02:49:39
charged with attempted first deegree premeditated murder but was Tim involved agent fenard suspected that Tim had
02:49:51
deliberately altered his truck's appearance to throw cops off his path he discovered that several hours before the
02:49:59
shooting Tim had driven the black truck to a drive-thru at a local Kentucky Fried Chicken and we pull surveillance
02:50:07
video there's that same truck without the decal without the license plate for police it was enough Tim Amer was
02:50:16
arrested and charged with attempted first degree premeditated murder and aiding an accomplice after the fact when
02:50:25
you do something to significantly further or assist in a crime you are just as culpable as the person that
02:50:33
actually pulls the trigger Nicole was not surprised to hear that Tim had been arrested but she was shocked to find out
02:50:40
about Colleen why would she shoot you I don't know this time when Colleen was questioned by
02:50:51
police she broke down and confessed to shooting Nicole took the truck and she says Tim was behind it
02:51:05
whose idea was it to to shoot [Music] Nicole SS so he asked you if you felt if you feel comfortable would you shoot
02:51:19
Nicole from me yes yes she said she believed Tim's story that Nicole was abusing Callahan
02:51:28
he was doing bad things to the child and I wanted to help the little man after the shooting she told police Tim
02:51:36
disposed of the gun he just said he would take care of it he just said he would take care of it so you have no
02:51:43
idea what he did with the gun Bly know still Tim continued to deny any involvement Timothy Amer and colen
02:51:56
Larson are charged with attempted murder on November 3rd 2022 Tim amer's trial began there were no cameras in the
02:52:07
courtroom prosecutors knew that they had to show the jury that Nicole wasn't abusing her son and that it was Tim who
02:52:15
had been victimizing her for a long long time what happened behind the scenes wasn't just this couple seconds of
02:52:25
horror that Nicole had to suffer at familywise it was 10 years of hell that he put her through Tim and his lawyers
02:52:33
refused our request for an interview but 48 Hours consultant and defense attorney
02:52:39
Matthew troano reviewed their case for us there's obviously no direct evidence of Tim's Guild zero he has a rock solid
02:52:49
Alibi about where he was at the time that this happened according to Triano prosecutors needed to build their case
02:52:57
by focusing on Tim's lies and his past treatment of Nicole because there was no smoking gun that directly tied Tim to
02:53:06
the shooting there is circumstantial evidence the truck the lies those are all kind of circumstantial pieces that
02:53:15
tie back to him but there is no direct evidence of him specifically buying or doing or having something that led to
02:53:26
this act the defense called No witnesses to the stand Triano thinks they were betting the prosecution just hadn't made
02:53:37
its case where's the proof where's the evidence as the jury went out to deliberate prosecutors were concerned of
02:53:47
course we were very worried there's a chance this guy is going to walk absolutely how nervous were you really
02:53:56
[Music] nervous do you believe Colleen Larsson acted on her own see more evidence from
02:54:05
the case at 48 [Music] hours.com those sacred tenants of tawan doe self-control Integrity could the master win this
02:54:26
battle the jury took an hour to decide he was found guilty guilty on all accounts Tim Amer guilty of premeditated
02:54:37
attempted murder and aiding his accomplice Colleen Larson and how did you both feel about that relieved joyous
02:54:47
and justice for Nikki I almost didn't believe it finally we had some type of closure at sentencing Nicole wanted
02:54:58
judge Shireen askalani to hear all she endured to protect her the judge kept most of Nicole's statement off camera
02:55:08
you breathing okay okay but the memories of that point blank moment will clearly
02:55:14
never be forgotten I can still feel the burning sensation and the utter fear of not being able to speak or to help
02:55:22
myself I truly thought I was dying that day even though I feel like the truth is
02:55:29
starting to come to light I still live in fear Amer who' refused to testify at his
02:55:36
trial now decided to speak the court allowed his plea for leniency to be heard and filmed it is no secret how
02:55:46
broken this system is the main message that I felt called here to say goes as this for all who are led by
02:55:55
the spirit of God are sons of God but with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human
02:56:05
Court how would you describe his statement erratic blaming everybody else he was the victim and this happened to
02:56:14
him did he show any kind of remorse no judge ocalan had no patience for Amer and his claims that Nicole had been
02:56:25
abused verdict it appears that you have been promoting this false narrative about Miss Ford for so long that you may
02:56:33
actually believe it at this time then she sentenced him to 18 years in prison Just 4 days later Colleen Larson
02:56:44
pleaded guilty at her sentencing hearing rather than speak for herself Colleen had her
02:56:52
attorney read a statement she took full responsibility for all that had happened
02:56:59
your honor I stand before you with the utmost respect for the decision to come I accept all the consequences for my
02:57:05
actions I understand and want to atone for what I have done a simple apology cannot cover the long-term damages that
02:57:12
I have caused anything additional from you at this time no your honor Colleen's got a kill her in her she did it there's
02:57:21
no no question that she had the capacity Colleen was sentenced to 16 and 1 12 years for doing what prosecutors
02:57:30
say was amer's bidding I think she wanted his approval and his love so badly that she would do anything and she
02:57:40
was in this delusional fantasy land where she thinks you know if I wasn't around that they could run off into the
02:57:47
sunset with Callahan and be a happy little family but how does somebody convince an
02:57:55
another person who's never committed a crime to shoot someone it's wild I Cal love the answers to that because that's
02:58:06
where we're stuck to attorney Matt trian wonders if Amer has been controlling Colleen for years why would she do this
02:58:16
it's the fact that she had known this person since she's 12 years old they had been in this kind of dominant
02:58:23
subservient relationship where he's the master she's the student he is the boss this woman who once dat an Amer
02:58:33
doesn't want to be named or have her face shown but she says she knows firsthand the hold Amer can have on the
02:58:40
women in his life yes it was a high when I was around him and that you wanted to do whatever
02:58:47
you could to hang on to that high yes she says she was once under amer's spell but it's certain she would never kill
02:58:56
for him still she sees some of herself in calling lson and I feel like that was me yep I
02:59:05
definitely feel like I was willing to do whatever I could to make him approve of
02:59:11
me and want to be with me with good behavior Tim Amer could be out of prison by 2034
02:59:19
do you think you'll ever feel truly safe again no you'll always have to be looking over
02:59:27
your shoulder I think so it all still haunts Donovan the shots fired the woman he loves fighting for
02:59:38
her life do you still see that in your head absolutely oh yeah still fear that you
02:59:45
could lose her yeah mhm all the time yet alongside the destruction there are miracles in this
02:59:59
story good to see you to see you too almost exactly a year I know and he look so well thank you you been feel we asked
03:00:08
for this one-of-a-kind reunion Emily Clancy who raced to help a stranger saving Nicole's life we are expecting a
03:00:18
baby conratulations thank you I'm so happy for you thank you Donovan and Nicole now husband and wife had just
03:00:27
gotten the good news and I was like are you serious and she's like yep and then we're just hugging and happy as for the
03:00:38
child Nicole had with Tim Amer how old is Callahan now he's six that's he know that his
03:00:50
Dad tried to kill you he does now and how did he take that better than I thought he would he's
03:01:01
come out amazing that's a miracle too just him being able to deal with all the stuff he's been through and still be the
03:01:09
kid he is thank you thank you CBS next Saturday 48 Hours brings you back-to-back episodes all summer long
03:01:24
next week serial killings he went to Great Links to conceal these bodies it just my answers 48 Hours Crime Time
03:01:33
double feature next Saturday 98 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus [Music]
03:01:57
I'm anmarie green welcome to 48 hours postor I'm joined today by longtime correspondent Aaron morard to discuss
03:02:05
her latest episode who wanted Nikki lenway dead hi Aaron thank you so much for joining us again oh I wanted to be
03:02:12
here this is a particularly great case and there are always things that we can't include in the hour so we can talk
03:02:18
about it here well I always have questions what about this case stood out to you what Drew you to it well first
03:02:25
thing we have a 33-year-old victim and she survives I mean we don't have that very often in at 48 hours but in many
03:02:34
ways she was an unusual victim she was actually a member of the Minneapolis Police Department and because of that
03:02:41
that raised all kinds of possibilities this is a woman who was shot Point Blank and the big question was was this a
03:02:50
robbery that went wrong or was this connected to work I mean there were so many possibilities oh and you know the
03:02:57
legal issues were great so that's what made this show special yeah you don't often get an opportunity by frankly to
03:03:04
talk to the victim I mean she survived this which is remarkable um I want to get to you know who investigators
03:03:10
initially thought was behind this but first I want to play a quick recap of the episode on April 20th 2022 Emily
03:03:18
Clancy was driving home from dinner with friends when something across the street
03:03:23
caught her attention I saw a person run up to another person and then I heard two bangs and that other person
03:03:31
collapsed Emily sped through the intersection and pulled up next to the victim I opened the door I said are you
03:03:38
okay and she said no I've been shot the victim was 33-year-old Nicole Nikki lenway a crime scene investigator for
03:03:47
the mini Apolis police she was on her way to pick up her 5-year-old son when she was shot she was in a lot of pain
03:03:55
she was having a hard time breathing where's the victim who's shot Emily did her best to help Nikki until First
03:04:02
Responders arrived so we've got EMS coming right now Emily told police what she thought had happened it maybe looked
03:04:10
like a robbery or something that was so fast take it to the hospital Nikki lost consciousness but she recovered you do
03:04:20
work for the police department did you think it might have something to do with work you know I know a lot of people
03:04:26
asked me that I knew that this could happen but I didn't want to believe it [Music]
03:04:36
would so those first critical moments after Nikki was shot Emily Clancy she's a total stranger she not only she
03:04:46
happens to be driving by at the moment that this happens but then she jumps into action she puts herself in danger a
03:04:52
lot of people would not have stopped when I watched this I thought to myself would I have stopped or would I have
03:04:59
kept on going it's remarkable it is um you know people sometimes ask me how can you do these shows and I often tell them
03:05:08
for the heroic people that we meet and we often do and Emily Clancy was one of those heroic people you know it's so
03:05:16
interesting I rode in the car with her she showed me how it all happened and um she didn't hesitate at all she just
03:05:23
pulled up without any thought of her own safety she then told Nikki to get in the
03:05:28
car cuz Nikki was standing there bleeding and at that moment again just automatically she doesn't think about
03:05:35
maybe the shooter is still out there she helps Nikki apply pressure on her neck Nikki of course was hit in the neck and
03:05:42
her vocal cords were damaged so she couldn't talk to the 911 operator so Emily stepped in and did that um I was
03:05:51
struck by how emotional Emily was she was almost more emotional than Nikki retelling this well you know and you are
03:05:59
so right Emory I talked to Nikki a long time and she had been through hell and she was so calm but when you bring it up
03:06:09
with Emily the idea that that Nikki could have died and it was because Emily stepped up Emily keeps thinking about
03:06:18
how close Nikki came to dine um so she gets very emotional Emily was actually given a good citizen award following the
03:06:26
shooting and that's where Emily and Nikki initially first met after you know after the first meeting that was kind of
03:06:33
their second meeting but in the hour you include their next reunion it's really really touching um what was that like
03:06:41
well you know if you look in in the background you'll see me and you could see that I'm really moved it was very
03:06:48
very teary um because Nikki also believes she only survived because of Emily's efforts so they have this very
03:06:57
strange Bond um that connects them and Nikki wanted to see her because she had very big news to tell her and tells us
03:07:04
at the same time that she's pregnant so you guys didn't know before no no no no and so that's always again Amry you know
03:07:12
that you work on these shows that you know you always get surprises when you're in the field didn't spend as much
03:07:18
time as we do with with the people that we interview it it really was very exciting um Nikki she actually works in
03:07:27
a crime lab how does she find herself being the victim of an attempted murder well that was the whole question at the
03:07:37
outset and it really was uh she was an unusual victim so of course there were so many possibilities was this shooting
03:07:46
connected to something some investigation she worked on she's a forensic scientist you know she works
03:07:52
primarily with um fingerprints but was there something connected to her job and then of course as it is with any case
03:08:01
you have to look at someone close to was this a personal attack and the early evidence in this case did seem to
03:08:08
indicate that it was very personal so one thing that comes up over and over again um for me when I watch these
03:08:14
episodes is you know you you need like the old school investigative uh knowhow but technology plays a huge role too I
03:08:24
don't think he can have one without the other um but in this case surveillance video really made a big difference um
03:08:31
incredibly this is a shooting that was caught on there was Bank surveillance video that picked up on the shooting uh
03:08:36
there were School cameras that showed the shooter actually getting out of this black truck and then driving away uh we
03:08:42
also got to see body camera footage of Nikki right after she was shot which I was stunned by because I couldn't even
03:08:49
tell she was shot or that she was injured the surveillance video even though you couldn't tell who it was did
03:08:56
it help investigators sort of narrow things down oh it did and don't you sometimes Amry when you work on these
03:09:03
stories you think why would anybody commit a crime in this day and age knowing that everything is getting
03:09:10
caught on video now I think the shooter thought that uh this person would be able to outsmart investigators because
03:09:18
the shooter is all in black and hair is is covered and there's a mask but in fact the surveillance video was crucial
03:09:27
because you see that person run up uh that person is targeting Nikki uh that person shoots Nikki once and when Nikki
03:09:35
starts getting up shoots again clearly this was a personal attack and so that's what investigators know then they see
03:09:42
the shooter run to a truck you can tell what kind of truck it's a Dodge Ram truck it does happen to be a very
03:09:49
popular vehicle but that certainly Narrows down um the shooter takes off um but the limitations of video is also
03:09:59
apparent in this case because you couldn't tell the gender uh you could not you could not tell how tall this
03:10:06
person is but it certainly did give investigators a lot of evidence to start off with yeah and then it's not just the
03:10:15
surveillance video but our own devices are tracking Us in ways that you know I think it becomes kind of the fabric of
03:10:24
how we move so we forget that we are being tracked all the time you think if you turn your phone off that's good
03:10:29
enough in this case it didn't turn out to be good enough for Tim so most vehicles that are made after
03:10:36
2022 have Wi-Fi capabilities what that really means is go ahead leave your phone at home thinking you won't be
03:10:45
tracked but as soon as you get in the car you are driving a cell phone that is essentially what you are doing and in
03:10:52
fact Tim amer's uh Dodge Ram truck was a 2022 and it had Wi-Fi capabilities um and because of that he
03:11:01
left this digital Trail even when he wasn't driving the truck they could identify that black Dodge Ram truck as
03:11:09
his track the route of that truck that led to someone who knew him very well and that is how they made their arrest
03:11:19
so in our last postm you and I talked about Tim bnck who was convicted of murdering his wife Becky you know I mean
03:11:27
that's what the allegation was too for him that he had turned off his phone and so he beli that he couldn't be tracked
03:11:34
just a couple of similarities between the two cases but you know there was all they were separated um Nikki had started
03:11:42
dating somebody new much like Becky had started to date somebody new and there was this really like contentious um
03:11:49
custody battle going on over their son no question and you know you had asked me at the beginning what was it that
03:11:56
Drew me to this case and the biggest thing was uh the issue of domestic violence and this case was the scariest
03:12:05
domestic violence case I have ever covered let's listen to a clip how would you describe the last six years it has
03:12:13
been chaos Nicole claims him tried to destroy her like I'm going to take everything from you did you believe him
03:12:22
I did the Black belt's new weapon of choice was the legal system it was the Relentless number of motions before the
03:12:33
court he reported Nicole to Child Protection Services multiple times accusing her and Donovan of physical and
03:12:42
sexual abuse children services show up at your house yes I had them in and out of my home for
03:12:50
3 years Tim filed for custody of Cal and Nicole filed for an order of protection
03:12:56
from Tim not a single one of the allegations against Nicole or Donovan was found to have substance so I have to
03:13:05
tell you I would the more I read about it it gave me chills it scared me you know the whole time you're wondering how
03:13:12
does she end up with a guy like that but Tim seemed to have this power over a lot
03:13:18
of people in his life so next I want to dig into Tim and and Colleen's relationship was she manipulated by him
03:13:26
to commit coldblooded murder it's it's such a leap but we're going to dig into that we'll be right
03:13:33
[Music] back welcome back uh let's get right into it Aon do you believe Colleen Larson acted on her own or do you think
03:13:49
Tim manipulated her let's listen to a clip from the hour when the one young Taekwondo
03:13:56
student turned 18 her relationship with Tim Amer quietly changed according to Charlie did you get the sense he was in
03:14:05
love with Colleen no not at all I think she was very much in love with him Charlie says Tim called the relationship
03:14:13
easy she would call him Master call him the house yep Master Amer and ultimately
03:14:20
kind of became you know like a maid or a servant to him I know the prosecutors believe
03:14:27
that she was completely manipulated by Tim and all of Tim's friends told me the same thing um it's hard for me to
03:14:36
believe that he could actually have so much power over somebody that he could have her shoot
03:14:44
someone in his place um but in fact when you look at Colleen larsson's background
03:14:50
she didn't know Nikki very well so there would be no reason to want her dad she had know criminal history but according
03:14:57
to the prosecutors Tim you know she did call him Master at home that's still I can't get over that that Bonkers because
03:15:04
you know Colleen had started as a student when she was like Preen almost and um and called him Master when she
03:15:11
was learning Taekwondo and continued to call him Master even when she started dating him so it that kind of if you
03:15:19
look up to someone and he's telling you that Nikki is abusing their son maybe maybe but certainly um here's this woman
03:15:30
with no criminal history and she not just she doesn't just shoot Nikki once she shoots her twice so something was
03:15:38
going on there and of course you know Colleen uh didn't want to talk to 48 Hours uh her family didn't want to talk
03:15:45
either so we don't necessarily know what Drew her to him but you did get an interview with a woman he had previously
03:15:53
dated I want to play some of that sound this woman who once dated Amer doesn't want to be named or have her face shown
03:16:02
but she says she knows firsthand the hold Amer can have on the women in his life yes it was a high when I was around
03:16:11
him and that you wanted to do whatever you could to hang on to that high yes she says she was once under Amer spell
03:16:21
but it's certain she would never kill for him still she sees some of herself in calling
03:16:28
lson and I feel like that was me yep I definitely feel like I was willing to do whatever I could to make him approve of
03:16:37
me and want to be with me that was so Illuminating listening to her talk and you know you also were able to talk to a
03:16:44
neighbor and the way he's dis describing him the way you know Tim's got women coming in and out well everyone you know
03:16:51
that was pretty standard men and women both told me that Tim had this amazing Charisma and power over people now I've
03:17:01
got to be honest I didn't get to see it he didn't testify but my favorite detail
03:17:07
Amry I'm sorry was the purple light do you remember the purple light so the the purple light was on you could come on
03:17:15
over no I wasn't it was I thought you could come over if the purple white was on but Charlie deop I is The Neighbor
03:17:24
Next Door who I just I think he was living vicariously through Tim because Tim had this you know this line of women
03:17:32
coming and going and let's be honest Nikki was drawn to him too um so the line that really struck me was the young
03:17:42
woman who dated him who said it was a high to be around him and she didn't want to get get rid of that high that
03:17:48
that just stays in my head so you know clearly he has some kind of power that comes across to people tell us what Tim
03:17:58
was like at his sentencing he was talking about how uh he really couldn't be judged in a a court of law that only
03:18:07
God could judge him and no remorse never talked about never accepting any responsibility never accepting any
03:18:15
responsibility for Colleen getting in the middle of this it it's as Nikki had said to me afterwards it was a bit of
03:18:24
blaming other people for the situation he was in what's interesting Amar is he told everybody that after he was
03:18:30
arrested there was new evidence that was going to come up and it was going to save him but you know it hasn't happened
03:18:37
yet wow um Colleen Did confess to shooting uh Niki pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the first-degree
03:18:44
attempted murder of Niki Tim was charged with attempted first-degree premeditated
03:18:49
murder and aiding an accomplice after the fact this was a tough prosecution you know we know Colleen was a shooter
03:18:57
okay Colleen confesses and says she was the shooter but the prosecutors have charged him with the exact same charge
03:19:05
and we know he wasn't there we know he was inside the familywise center so basically what prosecutors had to
03:19:13
convince a jur is that Tim had so much power over calling that he was kind of using her as a weapon that she was his
03:19:23
weapon for shooting um now the the way the law is written if you do enough um to help this happening then you're just
03:19:33
as responsible but as we point out in the hour there was no direct evidence that showed him doesn't show him buying
03:19:39
the gun doesn't show him him putting the gun in her hand yes there were spent shc
03:19:44
casings inside his home but shooter lived inside his home so the idea of getting the jury to believe that he was
03:19:54
involved um and that he used Colleen to do his dirty work that was tough that was really tough the thing about this
03:20:02
Saga is it's likely not over for Nikki uh Tim was sentenced to 18 years in prison uh Colleen was sentenced to 16
03:20:09
and a half years I don't even know if that means that they're going to serve the full term but for sure they're going
03:20:16
to be out it it doesn't seem like they got a lot of time is this typical yeah it is uh unfortunately cuz it's a
03:20:23
tempted murder it would have been very different um yeah they they got the Mex you know so um what's scary is you know
03:20:33
I've done so many stories on stalkers and that's what this is you know domestic violence um will he you know
03:20:42
see the light of day while he's in prison and feel remorse or or will he just kind of stew in prison cuz he'll
03:20:51
get out he could get out in 12 years you know it's possible um and so Nikki's aware of that um her boyfriend now her
03:21:02
husband Donovan Ford is aware of it but no the legal system can only go so far to protect people that's the problem and
03:21:10
we see it all the time yeah you know sort of the lucky thing for both Nikki and her son is that they both have
03:21:19
Donovan and it's sort of remarkable uh they meet at another crime scene a burglary a and he seems just perfect for
03:21:29
her oh my God so you know I asked him you know no offense Donovan but like you just start dating this woman and all of
03:21:38
a sudden her ex starts making your life hell so I finally said to him like why did you stay with her and he just looked
03:21:44
at me he didn't even hesitate and he goes was because I love her I was so touched so touched so out of this awful
03:21:52
awful situation this nightmare relationship Nikki did find true love and a wonderful man um how is Nikki son
03:22:03
doing they say he's doing great they say he is that he's Nikki did tell him that
03:22:10
uh his father tried to kill her he they they had to along with counseling uh but
03:22:15
she says he's doing well right now and they are having another child so you know hopefully he'll be focused more on
03:22:23
school and family and um and get lots of counseling to deal with what is really a
03:22:30
very very tragic situation it really is but um the fact that she survived and is
03:22:37
flourishing um it's one of it's a 148 hours that was inspiring to see her rebuild her life in this way there's
03:22:44
just one other detail I wanted share um when you look at Nikki she looks fine you know barely a scar but what you
03:22:52
don't realize is that she was a singer and she was shot in her neck it she had terrible vocal cord damage and she could
03:23:00
no longer sing so you know she still carries uh scars with her it's a really good reminder Erin um another great
03:23:10
postmortem thank you so much it's always great being here and I'll be back with another show I promise I know you
03:23:19
will um so for everyone be sure to join us next Tuesday then for another postmortem and if you're liking the show
03:23:27
please rate and review 48 Hours on Apple podcast you can watch 48 hours on Saturdays 109 Central on CBS and
03:23:35
streaming on Paramount plus and be sure to follow 48 Hours wherever you get your
03:23:40
podcast you can also listen ad free on the Amazon music and wry app [Music] [Music]
03:24:04
it's a small town it's Rural America in every way this is the family next door very
03:24:16
connected very loving very bonded they spent a lot of time together the happy American
03:24:29
couple Eric ran a successful contracting business he was involved in his boys sports
03:24:39
[Music] activities he was very good to the boys and he taught those boys so much Cory was a real estate agent that
03:24:52
also would buy and fix up and flip homes she was smart she was Savvy she knew how to
03:24:59
connect she was absolutely in love with Eric and absolutely in love with her boys Eric and Corey were probably at the
03:25:12
best place they've ever been in their marriage and seemed genuinely happy with each other they had it all I mean it was
03:25:20
one happy family at 3:00 in the morning I got a phone call and it was Corey and she said
03:25:29
get up here Something's Happened to Eric he went to sleep and never woke up she was a complete
03:25:37
wreck she's sitting on the couch she's just balling were they giving you a sense of
03:25:43
how he may have passed um so the paramedic said an your so we were all believing
03:25:48
aneurism I had saw him the day before he looked horrible he said my chest hurts so the last time you're seeing him
03:25:57
alive you don't think he looked very good right the lead detective and a another officer came to her house and
03:26:05
said they were going to close the case they're done it's an accidental overdose they communicated that Eric had
03:26:14
died of a fentanyl overdose in the weeks and months after Eric's passing how would you describe Corey her
03:26:23
State of Mind emotionally how was she handling things it probably took her two months to go
03:26:29
back in her own bedroom it was devastating to her she writes a children's book she did this to help her work
03:26:41
through the feelings with her children the book I think was 100% beneficial to the boys then you can take
03:26:50
a sigh of relief it's over we're done we can start living again and then I got a
03:26:57
phone call Cory was just arrested in Salt Lake a Summit County woman who wrote a
03:27:03
children's book about coping with grief following her husband's death now accused of being the one that actually
03:27:09
killed him I think she felt that this would be treated as an accident overdose and
03:27:17
nobody was going to be the wiser he told his family if I die you need to take a look at her because I
03:27:25
think she's trying to kill me they're going to have to prove that she got the drugs and that she somehow gave them to
03:27:33
him and unless they can connect those dots they're going to have a hard time proving murder in this case
03:27:40
[Music] [Music] in the early morning hours of March 4th 2022 Lisa Darden was attempting to
03:28:34
console her daughter 31-year-old Corey richens she was brought out on the floor just
03:28:41
sobbing Cory had just learned from emergency Personnel that her husband husband Eric was dead she was tore up
03:28:50
her brothers Ronnie and DJ were also there she was a complete wreck I just started
03:28:56
crying according to Lisa that night Cory had poured Eric a drink to celebrate a new opportunity at her real estate
03:29:03
business the purchase of this Mansion she told me she made him a mosc on mule that's a drink made with vodka and
03:29:11
ginger beer she said they went to bed about 9 9 15 she went and laid with Ash Ashton the
03:29:20
9-year-old has always had major nightmares and when she went back to get in her bed he was
03:29:31
cold she went to push on him and he didn't respond it was after 3:00 a.m. and Lisa
03:29:38
says Corey immediately called 911 and at the dispatcher's instructions performed
03:29:44
CPR when First Responders arrived they started working on Eric but it was too late it's just unbelievable you're in
03:29:53
shock that something like that you know could happen it was those First Responders who initially suspected Eric
03:30:00
had died of an aneurysm the father of three young sons was just 39 how were the boys did the boys know what was
03:30:09
happening they knew something was happening and they could see the ambulances and cops coming in very
03:30:15
distract they all just sat there on the couch and just cried together the sad scene was a far cry
03:30:22
from the happy family they once were Cory and Eric met in 2009 at a local Home Depot back then Cory was a
03:30:32
cashier Eric worked in construction and was a frequent customer I heard that he wanted a number for a long time as kind
03:30:40
of afraid to go get it so he had to have a friend run in and go get it from her Eric asked her out and they hit it off
03:30:46
when Cory said I'm dating this guy what did you think uh Cory was terrified meeting me oh really why because I'm the
03:30:55
big brother and tough yeah yeah but DJ and Ronnie say Eric fit right in I thought he was a great
03:31:05
[Music] guy in 2013 Cory and Eric got married and had the boys first Carter then
03:31:14
Ashton and finally Weston Lisa says fatherhood came easily to Eric he taught those boys so much they
03:31:22
idolized their father and he idolized the boys as [Music] well Cory's family got to know the
03:31:29
richens including Eric's two sisters Katie and Amy they'd come up uh for birthdays here and there and we're all
03:31:36
very friendly eventually Eric started a stonemasonry business and Cory started her own real estate company buying
03:31:45
houses fixing them up and selling them for profit Greg Hall was her marketing director and good friend Cory had
03:31:53
something that a lot of people don't a lot of times you find an individual that is intelligent but no common sense her
03:31:59
common sense and no intelligence she had both she was a brilliant young lady how
03:32:06
many houses would she have on average that she was working on or trying to flip at one time yeah I would say on
03:32:14
average three so it was kind of a constant rotation of buying a home fixing it up selling it
03:32:22
yes and Eric's business continued to flourish they both live very well and they both bought and spent what they
03:32:30
wanted in their spare time Eric loved to hunt and together they traveled the world it sounds like on the surface Eric
03:32:38
and Corey seemed to have it all would you say that was so say that yes I don't know that I can even begin to overstate
03:32:45
how close this family was this was a huge loss Greg scoris is the spokesman for Eric's family he was this beautiful son
03:32:54
and and brother and to have that taken away from you I I can't imagine much worse than
03:33:01
that not long after Eric's funeral an autopsy revealed the cause of his death it wasn't an aneurysm it was a lethal
03:33:10
dose of fentanyl fentanyl is many many times more potent than oxy and the other pain medications that we typically use
03:33:18
it's a very dangerous drug but how did fenel get into Eric's system Cory's family believes his
03:33:28
recreational drug use could be to blame nearly every day they say Eric would take a gummy with THC the psychoactive
03:33:37
ingredient in marijuana it was always just just to relax at the end of the day and
03:33:43
according to Ronnie Eric did not always get the gummies from reputable sources just about every trip that i' had been
03:33:50
on with him he'd buy just from someone off the street Lisa says Eric also sometimes took pain pills hey do you
03:33:57
have any pain pills hey can you call and get hook me up he certainly wasn't an opioid or an illegal drug user Cory's
03:34:04
family thinks Eric had taken something he didn't know was laced with fentanyl and that his death was a tragic
03:34:13
accident Eric's family strong wrly disputes this claim he didn't die of a self-inflicted drug overdose Eric's
03:34:23
family wondered if Corey may have been involved they said this doesn't smell right no question the family thought
03:34:30
that right from the beginning in the months following her husband's tragic death Corey richen struggled to
03:34:50
find her footing on her own and to navigate Life as a single mom Cory was still completely distraught
03:34:58
even now she's never had time to grieve she's doing her best to move on she didn't know of a way of doing that
03:35:06
Cory's brother Ronnie says it was also hard for the couple's three young Sons the boys it's so hard for them they
03:35:14
losted out a little bit cuz they could quite understand what was going on and they needed some help and Cory needed
03:35:19
some help eventually Corey found a way to turn her grief into action in March 2023 one year after Eric's death Cory
03:35:28
came up with the idea to write that children's book about coping with loss are you with me she promoted it on a
03:35:35
local TV show Good Things Utah I just wanted some story to read to my kids at night and so you know I was like let's
03:35:44
just write one this self-published book follows the story of a child who lost his father but is reminded his presence
03:35:51
still exists all around in the book Eric is portrayed as an angel who is always close by yes I am
03:36:00
with you on Christmas Cory writes you can't see my smile but it's there I'm here and we're
03:36:08
together like Dad is still here it's just in a different way Cory's mother Lisa says writing the
03:36:17
book was therapeutic I think the book was a great thing it helped them it helped them all
03:36:23
her family says it finally seemed as though Corey and the boys would be able to move forward it seemed to make the
03:36:30
boys really happy while the family was working to get back on track police had been investigating Eric's death and just
03:36:39
weeks after Cory's appearance on TV to promote her book new 10 this has been a talker all day today a Summit County
03:36:46
woman who wrote a children's book about coping with grief following her husband's death now accused of being the
03:36:52
one that actually killed him on May 8th 2023 Corey The Grieving wife this is the
03:36:58
home where police found Eric Rich's dead was now the prime suspect in her husband's
03:37:03
death you must have been in a panic I was shocked she can't be arrested Utah mother has been charged with
03:37:12
murder Cory was charged with aggravated murder and Tak taken into custody court documents allege she
03:37:19
committed homicide by the administration of a poison Greg scoris the spokesman for Eric's family suspects Corey put a
03:37:28
lethal dose of fentanyl in the drink she made Eric that night the Moscow Mule the
03:37:34
dosage that he was given that night was of such a high level that no person could have survived it Sky Lazaro is her
03:37:42
attorney did police ever test the glass that she gave Eric this cocktail in They seized a number of
03:37:52
items from the home uh and there was no fentanyl that was found on any glass wire Cory's family says they struggle to
03:38:02
make sense of the charges Corey denies any involvement in her husband's death for anybody who knows Corey just knows
03:38:11
she could not have done this she'd never do this Lisa says her daughter and son-in-law had a great relationship
03:38:19
nobody's perfect but they're pretty close and like many couples that have disagreements they were able to overcome
03:38:25
their differences he didn't want Corey to work he wanted her to be a stay-at-home mom
03:38:31
and she's very independent and that wasn't going to happen another issue says Cory's brother Ronnie was the
03:38:38
amount of time Eric spent away on hunting trips sometimes four or five months a year just kind of irked her
03:38:46
because that this his biggest passion his life is hunting and she might want him home a little bit more and so you
03:38:51
know they might get in a fight about that and then according to Cory's mother Lisa there was alleged infidelity on
03:38:58
Eric's part she says she heard about it first from Corey and then from Eric it was a text about trust how I trusted him
03:39:08
as a son-in-law as a father as a husband and how could he do this Cory's family says the couple went to counseling
03:39:16
determined to work through their issues scoris who denies Eric ever cheated on Corey says Eric had a different reason
03:39:24
for wanting to make his marriage work he was going to do whatever he could to make it work because he he
03:39:30
lived for those boys he would have done anything for those boys let's let's go to counseling let's try to keep the
03:39:35
family together scoris says at one point Eric had considered divorce But ultimately decided against it he says to
03:39:43
protect the boys in case the relationship didn't work out Eric put his estate into a secret trust without
03:39:50
telling Corey and named his sister Katie in charge but in the months leading up to
03:39:56
Eric's death Ronnie says the couple seemed better than ever how were they doing as a couple as a family yeah
03:40:04
fantastic they were um probably one of the best spots I've ever seen them in in quite some time everyone's having fun
03:40:12
laughing joking you know it's it seemed really great to me so why would Cory want Eric dead court documents allege a
03:40:20
life insurance payout might have been a motive scorda says Eric's family agrees this is a
03:40:27
coldhearted greed at the time of Eric's death there were at least six life insurance policies on him totaling
03:40:36
nearly $3 million court documents alleg that in January 2022 two months before Eric died
03:40:45
Corey forged Eric's signature to get yet another policy worth an additional $100,000 Corey is also accused in court
03:40:55
documents of stealing from Eric's personal accounts and misappropriating monies distributed from Eric Rich's
03:41:03
business dating back years according to scoris Corey didn't just want the money she desperately
03:41:11
needed it court documents allege her house flipping business was drowning in nearly $2 million of
03:41:18
debt yeah she was in way over her head she needed some money in a hurry was a significant amount of
03:41:25
money scoris says a premarital agreement stipulated Cory had given up claim to Eric's business assets except that if
03:41:34
husband should die prior to wife while the two are lawfully married he was worth much more to her
03:41:42
dad than divorced she felt that that there was easy money and fast money to be made by not having her husband around
03:41:49
anymore Cory's attorney Sky Lazaro strongly disputes any allegations her client forged Eric's signature
03:41:57
mishandled finances or stole from Eric as for the claim Corey was in debt and needed the money she says that's simply
03:42:05
not true she was in the business of flipping houses this is what they did Lazaro says taking on debt from lines of
03:42:13
credit was part of how the business of flipping houses worked and the money would be paid back when a home
03:42:20
sold it's not as if she had all these conventional loans that she owed people money on it sure it looks like a large
03:42:28
number but we're talking about business transactions with people who she did business with Eric and Corey sat down
03:42:37
every month and did the bills together at all times Eric knew what was going in and what was coming out Le says Eric not
03:42:46
only knew about the finances but he was also very supportive of Corey's new business opportunities like the purchase
03:42:53
of the Mansion they were celebrating the night he died Eric saying let's have a shot come on let's celebrate Cory it was
03:43:00
that night sortis says Eric's family believes Cory gave him the Moscow Mule laced with
03:43:08
fenel and he says Eric's family believes it wasn't the first time Cory had tried
03:43:15
tried to poison her husband the time he died wasn't the first time we belied that she tried to
03:43:21
kill [Music] him what do you think happened to Eric richens chat now with the 48 Hours team
03:43:29
on Facebook and X [Music] just outside Salt Lake City in the shadow of Utah's wasach
03:43:51
Mountains Home def Fame ski resorts including Park city is the property that Cory richens
03:44:00
was planning on flipping the deal she and Eric were celebrating the night he died says her attorney Sky Lazaro it's a
03:44:08
decently good size home Lazaro showed us the nearly 10 acre estate where are we give us a sense of why this is
03:44:17
significant real estate so this is the Heber Valley uh right over the hill is Park City all the major ski areas uh and
03:44:25
then to the right is Deer Creek Reservoir so this really sits between major recreational areas it looks
03:44:33
ginormous it's massive the 20,000 ft mansion and its 4,000 ft Guest House were originally
03:44:44
built built in 2017 but never finished the project was abandoned for 2 years until Cory discovered it I think this
03:44:53
was kind of her dream when she got into this idea of flipping houses was to be able to do properties like this lazara
03:45:03
says Corey used financing from a group of investors to make an offer on the house for $39 million the plan was to
03:45:11
develop this turn it into a recreational Hot Spot given this is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world
03:45:17
and hopefully sell it at a profit how much did she think she could make off of this house her and Eric sat down with an
03:45:24
accountant one time and he said if you can get it done and stay under budget you could walk away with $12 million wow
03:45:32
that's a that's a big turn yeah from 3.9 to 12 million yes there's a lot of excitement I remember how excited she
03:45:40
was Greg Hall worked with Corey he says it was a solid investment it would have been a real easy flip they would have
03:45:47
had to to sit on that for long as far as you know Eric was on board with this plan
03:45:54
100% but that's not what Eric's family remembers says their spokesman Greg scoris I don't think he was ever in
03:46:02
favor of that he was on board with supporting his wife that doesn't mean he agreed with it in fact the house is
03:46:10
mentioned in this legal filing containing notes from an investigator who interviewed Eric's family after his
03:46:16
death they said Eric and his wife were arguing about buying the property and that wasn't all Eric's family told
03:46:24
investigators according to that same filing they made numerous allegations against Corey including that they
03:46:31
suspected his wife had something to do with his death they advised he warned them that if anything happened to him
03:46:38
she was to blame they also told investigators they belied Corey had tried to poison Eric before on two
03:46:47
separate occasions according to the filing Eric's family said the first attempted
03:46:53
poisoning was in 2019 when Eric and Corey and six friends were on vacation in Greece they said Eric became
03:47:01
violently ill after Cory gave him a drink Ronnie says he heard it was all a misunderstanding Eric was on medication
03:47:09
and that medication you're not allowed to drink on he asked the waitress uh to bring a a virgin drink a drink without
03:47:18
alcohol she didn't do it it made him very very sick Cy called his doctor figured out what to do and later that
03:47:24
night he was back and and fine everyone that was there will tell you the exact same
03:47:30
thing according to that same filing the second time Eric's family said Cory tried to poison Eric was the month
03:47:37
before Eric died on Valentine's Day 2022 they said his wife brought him a sandwich which after one one bite Eric
03:47:45
broke into hives and couldn't breathe Cory's family denies she ever tried to poison him they ordered a sandwich and
03:47:53
the sandwich was bad he went and took a nap and then went and coached one of his
03:47:58
child's games aside from an assertion by the family uh there doesn't seem to be anything else out there that supports
03:48:07
that Eric's family also called into question Corey's behavior following her husband's death
03:48:16
according to court documents Eric's family told investigators 2 days after Eric died Corey punched Eric's sister
03:48:24
Amy in the neck and face when Amy tried to stop her from opening a safe they said contained between
03:48:32
125,000 and $165,000 cash there was an argument that broke out and Eric's sister said that
03:48:39
she owns the house everything is put into a trust and she owns the house remember Eric had created that
03:48:46
trust and kept it secret from Corey when they were going through those marital problems until Eric's death Corey knew
03:48:54
nothing about the trust according to court documents if Eric had any sort of documents he'd have him in the safe so
03:49:01
she went in to go see what was in there Amy came after Cory and you know Cory defended herself the two of them started
03:49:07
pushing and I was standing in the middle of them all they did was push both of them were trying to swing over the top
03:49:13
of me so the narrative that's been pushed that it was poor Amy got assaulted was nonsense the brothers say
03:49:19
Amy stormed off and called the police a month later Cory was charged with assault and later pleaded no
03:49:26
contest her husband's just passed away she's highly emotional everybody's highly emotional things got a little
03:49:34
heated between them two families two very different stories of about what they believe
03:49:46
happened to Eric but with accusations flying back and forth what did the evidence show the state has to prove
03:49:55
that she did this that she got the drugs and that she somehow gave them to him she had apparently contacted a drug
03:50:05
dealer a known drug dealer in that area and purchased fentel and had done it on more than one occasion
03:50:28
all right now back have a seat please in June 2023 Corey richens appeared in court
03:50:37
before judge Richard morazzi for a bond hearing the issue before the court is whether defendant Cory richen should
03:50:45
continue to be held without bail during the pre-trial period it was the first time since richens had been charged in
03:50:52
her husband's death that the public got to see her and for the entire 4-Hour hearing she sat in handcuffs next to her
03:51:01
attorney Sky Lazaro I cannot imagine how difficult it was for Cory to sit there and listen to everything that was talked
03:51:08
about at that hearing to convince the judge why richens should not be released prosecutors Patricia Cassel we have
03:51:15
three Witnesses Brad Bloodworth detective what was the Sheriff's Office and Joseph Hill presented evidence and
03:51:22
called witnesses to make their case richens had poisoned her husband it had all the elements of a mini trial in
03:51:30
order for the judge to make a determination to detain someone at a bail hearing the state has to prove
03:51:36
substantial evidence prosecutor Joseph Hill Called To The Stand cell phone expert Chris cotos so if you'd step in
03:51:44
front of Britney will get you forn he asked him about Google searches he says Rich's made on her phone were you able
03:51:50
to observe uh internet searches on that phone yes those searches which were detailed
03:51:59
in court documents included can deleted text messages be retrieved from an iPhone can FBI find deleted messages
03:52:08
what is a lethal dose of fenel I don't know that these searches mean as much when you look at the timing
03:52:18
of when they're done Lazaro says there's an innocent explanation those searches were conducted after Eric's death I
03:52:26
think it's more to answer questions relating to what she was being accused of the state also called to this stand
03:52:34
the lead investigator on the case detective Jeff O'Driscoll I was assigned to be the lead
03:52:40
lead detective in this case in April of this year prosecutor Bloodworth questioned detective O'Driscoll about
03:52:47
where richens may have gotten fenel he specifically asked about an interview the detective conducted with Carmen
03:52:53
laber who said she worked for richens she's referred to as cl cl is an associate of the defendant uh she
03:53:02
cleaned houses for the defendant's business as well as her personal home at times detective O'Driscoll said CL had a
03:53:10
criminal history with drugs at the time of their interview she was on probation for multiple drug distribution charges
03:53:18
according to court records she has not been charged in connection with Eric's death in our interviews CL told us that
03:53:26
in early 2022 the defendant reached out to her either by phone call or text message
03:53:32
requesting that she procure fentanyl for what the defendant reported was a investor who had a back injury detective
03:53:41
O'Driscoll testified that CL told him she purchased 15 to 30 fenyl pills and then sold them to richens seal told us
03:53:51
that after purchasing the pills she returned home she said that either later that night or the next day the defendant
03:53:58
met her and did a hand-to-hand exchange of pills for cash that transaction says detective O'Driscoll took place on
03:54:06
February 11th 2022 3 days before Valentine's Day when according to court documents Eric's
03:54:14
family said richens had tried and failed to poison Eric with that sandwich but there was more but an now shift to a
03:54:24
second drug buy detective O'Driscoll said CL told him richens contacted her again approximately a week later the
03:54:33
defendant reached out to her again by text or or call and said that she wanted some more fentanyl that was stronger
03:54:42
than the previous batch this time to detective O'Driscoll said Cel told him Rich's paid by check and the defendant
03:54:49
came to the door and wrote her a check from her business from the defendant's business for
03:54:55
$1,300 for the purchase of the fentol just a week later Eric was dead we dispute all of those allegations in her
03:55:04
cross-examination Lazaro asked detective O'Driscoll if there could have been another reason for that $1,300 check it
03:55:11
could very well be that Cory was paying her for cleaning houses correct I don't want to speculate but it could be
03:55:20
despite what CL said correct okay Lazaro says because Carmen lobber is a convicted felon she's not credible she
03:55:29
was on probation at the time I think anytime you have an informant type situation uh it can call into question
03:55:38
the veracity of their statements or the motive for what they're saying in her cross-examination of detective odris SCH
03:55:44
Lazaro attempted to show how CL might have felt pressured to tell investigators what they wanted to hear
03:55:51
you begin the interview by explaining to se essentially how dire of a situation she's in
03:55:59
cracked I don't have the interview memorized but I know we talked about that yes okay well you told her that she
03:56:06
was on probation to drug court for four first-degree felonies correct correct you essentially tell her that she has
03:56:14
the potential of doing a considerable amount of state and federal prison time potentially yes this is a common tactic
03:56:22
in law enforcement to be able to leverage charges for information Lazaro also asked the detective what evidence
03:56:29
there was to back up cl's claims that she had sold fenel to richens because CL is working for the defendant there's
03:56:36
communication correct correct but detective O'Driscoll said he saw no text messages where richens allegedly asked C
03:56:44
for drugs we didn't find any it was anyone with her that could corroborate that she saw CL hand Corey
03:56:55
drugs not that I know of 48 Hours attempted to contact CL for comment we receive no
03:57:03
response they have to prove that she obtained drugs and gave them to her husband and unless they can connect
03:57:13
those dots they're going to have a hard time proving murder in this [Music] case what do you make of Cory's Google
03:57:22
searches for a timeline of the case visit us at 48 [Music] hours.com as Corey Rich's bond hearing
03:57:41
came to a close her attorney Sky Lazaro was hopeful her client would be granted bail this is a case in which there
03:57:48
doesn't appear to be any Smoking Gun these cases are generally more favorable to the defense good morning the
03:57:56
prosecution closed its case to deny Rich's bail with a victim impact statement from Eric's sister Amy I'm
03:58:03
here today to represent my brother Eric Eugene richens Eric is gone and I am brokenhearted none of our Lives will
03:58:11
ever be the same Eric died under horrendous circumstances I am tormented at the thought of what he endured please do not
03:58:20
allow Corey to hurt Eric's memory our family friends and Community anymore we have been through
03:58:28
enough judge Richard morazzi spent very little time making his decision richens would remain in custody the
03:58:36
circumstances of this case weigh soundly against granting pre-trial release of any kind Rich and's family was
03:58:45
disappointed they say her time in jail while waiting for her trial has taken its toll I hear her on the phone I hear
03:58:54
her sobbing in September 2023 Rich's family says she had a medical emergency in custody while taking prescription
03:59:04
medications and needed to be rushed to the hospital what did she say happened to her that they gave her the wrong
03:59:10
medicine and it caused a seizure richens made full recovery but while she was away jail officials say they found this
03:59:18
handwritten letter in her cell that was never sent the document later filed in the court record has become known for
03:59:26
the word scrolled at the top of the page walk the dog prosecutors say it's from richens to her mother I take care of her
03:59:34
16-year-old dog and her thing is be sure you walk her she's so worried about this
03:59:40
dog in November 2023 prosecutors filed this motion asking the court for a no contact order to deny Rich and's access
03:59:49
to her mother and brother in the motion they say the letter is evidence of witness tampering they say richens gives
03:59:58
her mother instructions on what her brother Ronnie should say in court the letter instructs Lisa Darden to induce
04:00:06
the defendant's brother Ronald Darden to testify falsely the motion states to me
04:00:13
this letter is an attempt to get a witness to testify to something that isn't true by spoon feeding the witness
04:00:22
the testimony that he's supposed to give in the letter richens writes that her defense will need to establish that Eric
04:00:29
bought drugs while traveling abroad we need some kind of connection here's what I'm thinking but you have to talk to
04:00:35
Ronnie he would probably have to testify to this in the letter it appears that she's laying out a little bit of her
04:00:44
defense for example your name is brought up Eric told Ronnie he gets pain pills and Fentanyl from Mexico almost like
04:00:51
she's laying out a case M saying tell Ronnie richens goes on to write Ronnie should have texts from Eric talking
04:01:01
about getting high as well reword this however he needs to to make the point just include it all the connection has
04:01:08
to be made with Mexico and drugs is she giving you instruction in this letter I don't know I don't know one way or
04:01:16
another um most of that unfortunately I can't speak about the things that are in the
04:01:23
letter are true things and everybody who's in her Circle already knew this but Corey has a different
04:01:32
explanation she says the letter is fiction in separate phone calls from jail that were recorded and later
04:01:39
entered into the court record she told her mother and Ronnie that the letter was part of a book she's been writing
04:01:46
and that it's private the judge denied the motion for no contact saying the state had failed to prove witness
04:01:53
tampering it isn't witness tampering cuz it didn't go anywhere and it was never communicated to
04:02:02
anyone as the families wait for the trial they say their focus is on Eric and Corey's Three
04:02:08
Sons the family is concerned about the boys that's the main focus the boys that's who's important here right now
04:02:18
both families say they hope to gain custody the boys are currently living with a member of Eric's family Lisa says
04:02:25
they're only allowed to speak to their mother twice a week on a video call just heart-wrenching as to what they're going
04:02:33
through Lisa Ronnie and DJ have been denied private visits with the kids bisa says she does what she can to support
04:02:41
them and attends all their Sports practices and the reason I can do that it's a public place I can't be stopped
04:02:48
from going there I still get to see them I still get a hug and kiss and that keeps me
04:02:55
going besides the criminal case which could carry a sentence of 25 years to life there are multiple ongoing civil
04:03:03
cases regarding the fate of Eric's estate both sides believe the other is after the money both families are
04:03:11
concerned about the boys you could say that you could say that I wouldn't we believe that the defendant's family is
04:03:17
concerned about the money that they can get whoever ends up with the boys ends up with the money that's all they want
04:03:24
it's not right until that's resolved both families are waiting for the trial to start and are hoping for a verdict
04:03:33
that delivers their version of Justice what is the family doing to stay strong now you know the family has the family
04:03:41
they have each other they feel like the state has put together a good case and they're going to stay United and and
04:03:47
support each other no matter what happens in this case she's innocent she's been thrown in jail over something
04:03:52
that she hasn't committed are you both confident that Corey will be found not guilty Lisa I am 100% 100% she'll be
04:04:07
[Music] out they were given like sentences for their notorious crime what did these
04:04:17
parents do to deserve that now they're hoping new evidence could reopen the case My Hope in the case is that they'll
04:04:23
finally walk out of prison have the Menendez brothers been punished enough 48 hours Saturday on CBS and streaming
04:04:29
on Paramount [Music] [Applause] [Music] plus hello everyone I'm anarie green and
04:04:43
welcome welcome back to postmortem this week we're talking about Corey richens and you may recall she wrote a book on
04:04:50
Grief to help her children cope with their dad's death after an apparent accidental fenel overdose she wrote the
04:04:58
book about a year after he passed away but then a month after that the case took a turn Corey was the one charged
04:05:06
with his alleged murder so joining me now to take us behind the scenes of this case our 48 Hours correspondent Natalie
04:05:13
Morales and producer Betsy Schuler hi Amory hey we're happy to be here so this case got a lot of attention in part
04:05:20
because of a children's book that Corey wrote about grieving the death of her husband Eric who died in March of 2022
04:05:28
yeah I mean it was that was the the headline that captivated I think the the nation's attention you know just weeks
04:05:33
before she's arrested she's goes on good things Utah local TV show and you know that she's on to talk about this book
04:05:43
and how how to you know help her children learn how to cope with grief um interesting now though some viewers at
04:05:50
the time thought she seemed a little cold a little bit emotionless while talking about her husband's death and
04:05:55
what the family was going through uh it could be though also that she might have
04:06:00
been just a little bit nervous being on television it's hard to say you know what she was feeling in that moment um
04:06:07
but you know it's interesting to look back on that interview now than knowing that she would be charged with his
04:06:13
murder yeah cuz I think the headline was she's on TV you know out there as The Grieving wife and then turns around and
04:06:21
gets arrested right it's one of those cases of perhaps Everything Is Not What It Seems right and that's a theme that
04:06:27
comes up a lot in some of these 48 hours so one of the things that really stood out to me has to do with the families
04:06:34
they both have access to the same series of facts essentially but they interpret
04:06:39
them completely differently they have different stor to explain what happened Eric is the victim his family believes
04:06:48
that he was poisoned deliberately poisoned that his wife Corey put a lethal amount of fentanyl in a drink she
04:06:58
told police they had a drink the night he died and according to to Corey's family you know we talked to to Lisa
04:07:07
Darden her mother as well as her two brothers Corey said she poured Erica a Moscow Mule earlier that evening to
04:07:14
celebrate what was then considered a big real estate deal that she had done she purchased a mansion in Utah so after she
04:07:23
has this celebratory drink with Eric she then said that you know the couple went
04:07:29
to bed her nine-year-old son uh suffers from nightmares so she went to comfort her nine-year-old son when she went back
04:07:35
to bed she said she found Eric cold and unresponsive according to Corey's mom she called 911
04:07:45
immediately and so their version of events is this was an accident and that Eric perhaps took something that he
04:07:54
didn't know was laced with fenel um Corey's family they have all said that Eric liked to take a gummy before going
04:08:02
to bed um a THC laced gummy yeah they say that he could have accidentally taken a gummy um that he didn't know had
04:08:12
fentol in um and obviously that's very very different than what Eric's family thinks
04:08:17
so in a way it's no surprise that both families come to different conclusions based on what they know about the
04:08:24
relationship and you know what happened the night before but how did investigators close the case because
04:08:30
they come to the conclusion that Eric's death uh because of a lethal dose ofel was a deliberate act they arrest Corey
04:08:39
they charge her with her husband's alleged murder what what was it that brought them to that conclusion well a
04:08:46
lot of that has to do with Eric's family pushing investigators to get Corey looked into they claimed that Eric had
04:08:54
had warned them and told them you know if something happens to me Corey is to blame and as we report in the hour you
04:09:02
know Eric's family actually believes that she tried to poison him on two other occasions there is no proof of
04:09:08
that but the family's claims are included in a court filing against Corey yeah and this investigation took months
04:09:16
you know she didn't get arrested um till about a year later so you know the police took some of this information
04:09:23
that the family told them and did what seems to be a thorough investigation but it wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to what
04:09:29
the family said it doesn't seem you know it's interesting we talked to um Corey's
04:09:33
attorney as well and for every point that Eric's family makes sky Lazaro her attorney has a Counterpoint for example
04:09:44
you know even though the family said you know there had been two other occasions
04:09:49
of alleged poisoning nobody called police Sky points out nobody filed reports on previous instances of of any
04:09:57
poisoning so there's really no direct evidence there it's only really circumstantial evidence pointing to
04:10:04
Corey at this point yeah and as Sky told us there doesn't seem to be a Smoking Gun so to speak right so according to a
04:10:11
court filing Corey was under a significant amount of debt she had this real estate business where she was
04:10:16
flipping homes uh Eric's family says all of the debt was Corey's actual motive for killing her husband so here's Greg
04:10:25
scordis the spokesman for Eric's family she was in way over her head she needed some money in a hurry it was a
04:10:32
significant amount of money scoris say a premarital agreement stipulated Cory had given up claim to
04:10:39
Eric's business assets except that if h hband should die prior to wife while the
04:10:46
two are lawfully married he was worth much more to her dad then divorced she felt that there
04:10:54
was easy money and fast money to be made by not having her husband around anymore I thought that was so
04:11:00
interesting that they made that agreement before they got married cuz I thought when you're in the business of
04:11:04
real estate it is kind of like you go into debt in order to get out of debt like it's half of is is about debt
04:11:11
management yeah I mean that's exactly what um Corey's family and her attorney told us you know if one house is $2
04:11:20
million she'd essentially automatically carry $2 million of debt so they don't make much of this point um because they
04:11:29
say it was just normal business for her MH also her attorney points out that she
04:11:34
had other investors it's not like she's taking on this debt alone you know you take on debt and you pay it back when
04:11:41
the house sells and hopefully for profit yeah exactly you try to get it done and
04:11:46
uh then you collect the money and then you you start all over again with another sort of sounds it is yeah I know
04:11:52
that's why there's like all these shows on TV where everyone's doing it but I digress um but so at the time of Eric's
04:11:59
death there were six life insurance policies on him according to that Court filing six life insurance policies that
04:12:06
sounds like a lot I mean how did the defense explain that yeah it does it does seem like a lot um
04:12:13
the one point that Corey's attorney Sky Lazaro had was most of these were policies that had been in place for
04:12:20
Years also one of the policies was for Eric's um stonemasonry business so you know that's how she counters that you
04:12:29
know one is his business the others are as you acrew wealth in life you know your circumstances change you have to
04:12:37
reup your policy or you take out supplemental policies but Eric's family said says no these are all red flags all
04:12:45
of these policies amount to Corey trying to profit once he died right and you know though most of these insurance
04:12:54
policies had been taken out sort of years before you know we seen the court documents that there was one that was
04:13:00
not right the documents say that Corey took out yet another life insurance policy worth an additional 100 Grand it
04:13:06
was taken out just two months before Eric died and there's a question about the signature the prosecutor computers
04:13:13
um in court documents they say that Cory forged Eric's signature in order to get
04:13:19
this policy right and the defense will say you know that Corey did not Forge his signature when it goes to trial I
04:13:25
think that's where the handwriting experts and all the forensic experts might come in you know the other thing
04:13:31
that um her attorney Sky Lazaro told us was that for most of these policies Eric
04:13:36
had to sit for a medical exam so you know he would know these were were taken out and so that sort of goes to did she
04:13:45
or did she not Forge his signature so one of the things that really surprised me about how this story
04:13:53
unfolded is just how immediately Eric's family starts zeroing in on Corey why was Eric's family so
04:14:02
quick to believe that she would be guilty of something like this well first of all we would have loved to have asked
04:14:08
Eric's family that question um according to their spoke man um Greg scoris you know the marriage wasn't going well um
04:14:20
according to Cory's family there were some bumps in the road but they had worked things out and were doing really
04:14:25
well before Eric's death so again you know two very conflicting stories but yet you've got this trust that was
04:14:31
formed for the kids that Eric never told Corey about and we only find out about that and she only found out about it
04:14:40
once he died right so maybe will hear more about their marriage during a trial but what is particularly unique about
04:14:49
this hour is that this case has not gone to trial so we're going to take a bit of
04:14:54
a break but after the break we're going to talk about that we're going to talk about the difficulty when it comes to
04:14:58
covering a pre-trial [Music] case welcome back everyone all right let's get into this how difficult is it
04:15:15
covering a pre-trial case compared to covering a case that's already gone to trial it's really difficult we we did
04:15:23
have some things working for us on this case there were a lot of documents filed
04:15:28
into the court record that were available to us so we were able to report on what those filings said you
04:15:35
know we also were able to at least speak with somebody on both sides but it's it's it's hard but the other thing that
04:15:45
worked in our favor is there were pre-trial hearings for example her bail hearing where it seemed almost like it
04:15:53
played out as a mini trial and you had evidence presented on both sides of the case so that was very helpful in
04:16:00
constructing this hour I was surprised at how open Corey's mom was because obviously one of the concerns when you
04:16:08
haven't gotone to trial yet is that you're going to say something that's going to taint the trial I think she
04:16:15
wanted to tell her story and I think the brothers wanted to tell their story because at least from what they said it
04:16:23
felt like they hadn't had a chance to do that so I think they were really open to
04:16:28
the opportunity was there an attempt to talk to Eric's family yeah we did reach out um to Eric's family uh through their
04:16:36
spokesperson Greg scoris and um we really you know were hoping to talk to his family but it seemed that they're
04:16:43
not quite ready to talk to us yet mhm so a big problem for the prosecution though
04:16:49
going to trial will be proving murder when all the evidence against Cory richens really seems circumstantial can
04:16:56
the prosecution actually prove that there was fenel in that Moscow Mule yeah I mean that would be the Smoking Gun
04:17:03
right there yeah um we don't know for sure if they tested the actual glass so Corey had told police she gave Eric a
04:17:11
Moscow Mule that night but they didn't take any items out of the home that night they
04:17:17
searched the home officially about 2 weeks later they did take some items and they didn't find fentanyl on any of
04:17:25
those some of those were drinking glasses and other things but there's no way to know for sure if that actual
04:17:32
glass had been tested really the only you know way to connect Corey to fenel really comes down to a woman named
04:17:43
Carmen lobber who Corey had employed to be a house cleaner for her real estate business you know she was somebody who
04:17:52
had a history a criminal history with drug charges she's a convicted felon and she becomes is and is going to be a a
04:18:00
key witness in in what will be the trial the prosecution has to prove that Corey
04:18:07
got drugs so Carmen lobber according to the prosecution is that link right so they call her CL in the hour but there's
04:18:16
like a huge problem with her and it has to do with her credibility right right uh you know Sky Lazaro uh Corey's
04:18:24
defense attorney believes that c was coerced by police that she changed her story every time uh that she was
04:18:31
questioned and interviewed by investigators um you know it'll come down to was there a text exchange
04:18:40
between CL Carmen lber and Corey um there's no proof of an exchange right now but I think that'll come down
04:18:47
to cell phone forensics again that will all come to play in a trial um so did you try to get in contact with C at all
04:18:57
we did we we tried to reach out to her um a couple of times and we didn't get any
04:19:04
response um so there's another daming piece of evidence against Corey and it's the Google searches right she made them
04:19:11
on her cell phone including you know searches about the lethal dosea fenel a search about whether the FBI can recover
04:19:18
deleted text messages but attorney Lazaro says that Corey made those searches after Eric was already dead and
04:19:28
S she sort of argues that makes them irrelevant but how do they know that for sure well she says that these were
04:19:36
searches that Corey was doing based on what she was being accused of um and they know that was after Eric died
04:19:45
because the first police search where they tested some of the stuff from the house was weeks after Eric died at that
04:19:53
point they took Cory's phone so Cory had to get a second phone police did a second search of the house when Corey
04:19:59
was arrested a year later and these Google searches were found on that phone hm okay but there was certainly some
04:20:07
very interesting searches and I think that's going to be a big part of the trial for example Le you know one of the
04:20:14
things that Corey um searched for according to court violing and according to the testimony we heard in that bail
04:20:22
hearing is how long does life insurance companies take to pay um if someone is poisoned what does it go down on the
04:20:30
death certificate um you know and of course what is a lethal dose of feny that will
04:20:36
be a red flag to to many yeah I mean these Google searches you know on the surface don't sound good right um so
04:20:43
Corey's been in jail since her arrest last May jail officials found a letter in her cell in which prosecutors say
04:20:51
that she's instructing her brother on how to testify asking him to make a connection between Eric buying pain
04:20:58
pills from Mexico Cory says that the letter was part of a fictional book that she was writing but her mother told you
04:21:08
something different what did her mom have have to say yeah it's it's interesting in that letter um there is
04:21:15
you know conflicting explanations really from from what Corey's family is telling
04:21:19
us her brother Ronnie said he didn't want to talk about the he couldn't talk about the specifics because it's you
04:21:25
know it's a court document now but Lisa and DJ her other brother said that you know everything in the letter is true
04:21:34
however according to recorded phone calls um in in jail Corey talks to her mom and Ronnie and says you know the
04:21:42
letter is actually part of a book that she's writing so you know it's interesting to hear all these different
04:21:48
points this is another headline grabbing piece of this story and the question is
04:21:53
whether or not it's witness tampering because is she instructing her brother Ronnie on on what he should say and
04:22:01
where possible drugs were purchased in Mexico and trying to link that to to Eric I'm glad you explained that Natalie
04:22:10
because when I I heard about the letter I thought to myself well what's wrong with that we should mention too that the
04:22:17
court ultimately decided there wasn't enough evidence to prove witness tampering why did Greg scoris find the
04:22:23
letter so problematic so here's what Greg scoris says is the problem with the letter not necessarily that you know
04:22:31
Corey's saying hey remember to say this this and this the way she words certain parts and we detail some of that in the
04:22:39
hour really seems like she's saying you have to say this so that's a distinction
04:22:47
that he points out M um so Natalie you actually visited this like enormous house that Corey was attempting to
04:22:54
purchase um before Eric's death it's like what it's 20,000 square feet or something like that yeah I mean it is
04:23:01
huge and the property it's right there at the base of Park City so it would be viewed as you know probably a pretty
04:23:11
valuable piece of property and house um the guest house in itself was I want to say a mere 4,000 square feet which is
04:23:19
you know larger than most people's homes which is crazy to think about what makes
04:23:23
this house important is it is sort of at the center of the of the argument here because Corey according to her family
04:23:33
and her attorney this was her dream right this was like the big project that was you know going to take her business
04:23:41
to the next level they say Eric was excited about it but according to court documents Eric's family says they were
04:23:48
arguing about this and that Eric wasn't on board with this let's hear a clip from Sky Lazaro and Lisa Darden about
04:23:55
the house the plan was to develop this turn it into a recreational Hot Spot given this is probably one of the most
04:24:02
beautiful places in the world and hopefully sell it at a profit how much did she think she could make off of this
04:24:08
house her and Eric sat down with an accountant one time and he said if you could get it done and stay under budget
04:24:15
you could walk away with $12 million wow that's a that's a big turn yeah you know
04:24:21
Sky Lazaro her defense attorney describes it is is really sort of this wasted opportunity that in in some ways
04:24:30
is sort of a metaphor of what ends up becoming this relationship there was so much going for it and then this tragedy
04:24:39
struck and then now you have what it is this D capitated mess of a house um eventually it did sell but uh for for
04:24:49
much less than what even Corey paid for it wow this this really is a tragic story do we have any idea when it may be
04:24:57
going to trial so what we're hearing from Cory's attorney is that there's still preliminary hearing and that she
04:25:04
expects the trial to be sometime next year MH right at the end of the hour we get a little bit of an update on the
04:25:11
three boys do we have any idea how they're doing we know they're with a member of Eric's family at the moment
04:25:19
and that both sides say they they want custody of the kids and Corey's family you know they say that they haven't had
04:25:28
much interaction with the boys that they have you know not been able to really see them except Corey's mother says she
04:25:35
has gone to their sporting events because it's public property so she she can be there to support the young boys
04:25:41
but again it's these children sadly are caught in the middle of these two feuding families and
04:25:49
you know you just hope for a positive outcome for for the young boys which I think both sides it's one one area where
04:25:56
both families can come together on is the well-being of those three children yeah um well Natalie and Betsy this is
04:26:04
obviously a to be continued 48 Hours um because I'm sure you're going to follow up as the case unfolds as it goes to
04:26:11
trial but it was really great talking about one of these kind of rip from the headline cases and to learn just how
04:26:19
much has unfolded before we even get to the the trial stage so thank you so much
04:26:23
guys thank you thanks for having us as for user will join us next Tuesday for another postmortem and watch 48
04:26:32
Hours of course it's Saturdays 109 Central on CBS and streaming on Paramount plus and if you are liking the
04:26:40
show please rate and review 48 hours on Apple podcast and follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcast you can
04:26:47
also listen adree on the Amazon music and wre app or with a 48 Hours Plus subscription on Apple podcast
04:26:55
[Music]