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Tonight on Dateline. Oh no, God, you have blood everywhere, you please. Oh my God, my mother, my mother.
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Her screams on that call were so raw and so real. I can't believe I'm losing Leslie.
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He walked into the bathroom and he found her on the floor. He sort of thought, gosh, what a terrible accident.
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She slipped in the shower. Why is there blood on this wall? Why is there blood on these window shades at the headboard?
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There's no way she fell in here and died. I said it's a homicide. Leslie was murdered.
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I thought this can't be happening. How could this man be investigated for his wife's death?
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You have a doctor. A very, very likable guy who brings babies into the world. My entire family is standing behind him.
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Do you think we'd be with him if we thought he was guilty? The doctor, his wife, and the mysterious end to her life.
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Accident or murder? This is about standing up for Leslie. She didn't deserve this.
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I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with The House on Shalimar Way.
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In a quiet suburban town outside of Syracuse, New York, there's a street called Shalimar Way,
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a winding cul-de-sac lined with well-adorned mansions, swimming pools, and tennis courts.
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Take this final turn, and there behind the trees lies one of the street's crown jewels,
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an 8,000-square-foot home owned by a couple who seem to have it all. A close family, wealth, prestige.
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They were very involved in the community. both of them spent their lives giving back.
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Life was good here. That is until the morning of September 17th, 2012. Oh my God! Oh my God! My God!
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It was just before 8.30 a.m. Dr. Robert Newlander, an OB-GYN, had returned from a jog to discover his wife Leslie
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on the floor of the bathroom shower. He yelled to his 23-year-old daughter, Jenna, to call for help.
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My mother, I don't know if she's breathing, but she's laying on the ground in the shower.
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Is she unconscious? I don't know. Is she awake? I don't think she's awake. I need to go over there and see if she's okay.
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Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It's going everywhere. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
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Are you kidding me? We're going to get somebody started, ma'am. Oh, my God, Jenny!
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Okay. Sergeant Tom Norton of the DeWitt Police Department was nearby when the call went out.
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Over the radio, I hear an unconscious person call, which we get those all the time.
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A female had slipped and fell in the shower, and she was unconscious. That was all the information you had?
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That was all that I knew going into this. I went inside, and this house is enormous, and I'm following the noise,
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and I go upstairs, and I'm in this office area, and there's a gentleman who I later learned was Dr. Newlander,
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and there was a female who I later learned was Jenna Newlander. She was on the floor and she was just screaming hysterically.
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And she just kept screaming, Mommy, over and over again. And it made me focus on her because, like, why is she reacting to this?
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You know, I mean, we go to people who are passed out all the time. Before Norton could get his bearings,
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a paramedic emerged from the bedroom where the victim was being worked on. He says to Dr. Newlander, I'm going to speak to you on your level as a physician.
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There's nothing that we can do for her. I'm asking for your permission to stop CPR.
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And I'm like, stop CPR. I mean, this is someone's just unconscious. What do you mean stop CPR?
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And that made Jenna scream even more. That was also the moment when Sergeant Norton realized just who Dr. Newlander was
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and that they had a personal connection. My wife used to go to him. Oh, OK. So he was really on your radar.
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I didn't know him personally, but yeah, I knew who he was. Did he deliver your child?
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His midwife did, but yeah, his office did. It's a bit of a coincidence there. Correct. Yeah, it was strange.
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While another officer stayed with the Newlanders, Norton decided to take a look around.
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And I walked past them into this bedroom, and I just immediately stopped in the doorway because of what I was seeing.
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What are you seeing? Off to my right, I see the paramedics working on a female. She's on a backboard. There's a lot of blood around her.
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and then I look off to my left and that's the entrance to the bathroom and there's just blood all over. It's marble floor.
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There's blood all over the floor. It's on the walls. Blood, presumably from a head wound after that fall.
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Norton walked over to get a closer look at the body. Leslie's hair was matted with blood and he noticed her left eye.
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It was closed and swollen and completely black and I'm looking at it and, you know, I'm like,
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well, I've seen people with black eyes. I mean, I've been doing this a long time
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and that was unlike any black guy I've ever seen. Leslie was officially declared dead at the scene.
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The news would be impossible for friends like Mary Jumbellic to absorb. I was confused at first.
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I thought maybe the information was incorrect. Did you say how? Details? I think I couldn't even ask that question initially
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because I was too overwhelmed with the news. I just cried. Another friend, Terry Barr, heard the news from her daughter, who was close with Jenna.
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I just didn't believe it. I just thought this can't be true. Jenna had sent out a group text to her friends that my mother died She fell in the shower I think is what it said What are you thinking as you driving to the Newlander house I just couldn even believe it I just thought I can believe I losing Leslie
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And all you know is that it's an accident? Right. And it just sounded so freaky.
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Freaky for sure. After reviewing the scene, Sergeant Norton made a quick assessment.
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He wasn't going home anytime soon. I asked the fire chief to remove all of his personnel from the bedroom.
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Paramedics, everybody, I wanted them all out so that I didn't have to worry about contamination.
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I called my captain. I told him, quite frankly, I said, I don't know what I have, but you need to come here.
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Crime scene experts were on the way. But what would they find? An accident or something much darker?
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When we come back. What a loss this was. She's very healthy, she's athletic, she's strong.
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It was almost unimaginable. What had happened to Leslie? Sergeant Norton is about to make a curious discovery.
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She was moved over 50 feet from where the shower was. So if the shower is way over here, what is she doing way over here?
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Leslie Newlander was dead after a fall in the shower. But responding officer Tom Norton had questions about the scene.
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For one, why had he found her body in the bedroom, not the bathroom? She was moved over 50 feet from where the shower was.
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So that's going through my mind. If the shower is way over here, what is she doing way over here?
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And there was that strange-looking black eye. Answers would have to come from the county medical examiner who arrived at the house.
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I remember he spent quite a bit of time looking at the head injury, which was just massive.
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You know, her skull fracture. Norton listened as the M.E. reviewed the scene. Yes, there was a lot of blood, but head wounds bleed profusely.
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And the location of Leslie's body didn't seem troubling. Dr. Newlander told paramedics he carried her to the bedroom so he could perform CPR.
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As for that black eye, the ME said it had resulted from her fall. He was explaining that when you have an injury to the skull on the right side,
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it's common for it to bleed into the left side. Her eye was pooled with blood. He explained to us that the injury was very common when you fall and hit your head.
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Did the black eye explanation put things a little more into perspective for you?
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Yes, that made sense. Right there at the scene, the ME concluded that Leslie's death was an accident, just as the family said.
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He made the determination that it was consistent with an accidental slip and fall in the shower.
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Are you a little surprised? You know, I'm not a medical examiner, so I mean, I take his word for what he's seeing.
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I told my evidence technician, you know, he's ruled it accidental. finish what you're doing, and, you know, and pack up your stuff.
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The house was turned over to the grieving family. Mary Jumbellic knew it wouldn't be easy for Leslie's many loved ones to say goodbye.
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What a loss this was for Bob, for Jenna, for her other kids, for the community, for her friends.
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It was almost unimaginable. Mary says that together, Leslie and Bob were a force to be reckoned with.
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They just always seemed to have a very powerful public persona. They had two lovely children from their marriage together.
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They were also very friendly and successful and gregarious. So they seemed to have the perfect life.
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Good friends, a close-knit family. Not to mention that sprawling home on Shalimar Way.
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A house in the Caribbean, too. But Mary says Leslie didn't flaunt it. So she had the fancy house, but it might as well have been a shack?
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Yeah, she was totally unpretentious. Despite her social status, she was very able to relate to anyone on any level.
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Bob was well-liked, too. He'd built a successful medical practice, working hard to earn a reputation as one of the top OBGYNs in the area.
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He was definitely a very good doctor, and he definitely delivered a lot of babies.
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Leslie's friend Terry is a labor and delivery nurse who worked for Bob for a couple of years.
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Was he really calm under pressure? Yes, he was. Very good in an emergency. Leslie had a career in medicine, too.
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She was a nurse before giving it up to be a stay-at-home mom to Jenna and their younger son Ari.
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She also played stepmom to Bob's kids from his first marriage. Absolutely adored him and definitely made them the priority in her life.
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And the kids' deep affection for Leslie is clear on this tribute they made for her 60th birthday.
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Thank you for being you. I love you. The video was later posted on YouTube, where daughter Jenna and her stepsister joked about Leslie's unforgettable New York accent.
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She's like, how does everyone know I'm from New York? I don't understand. How does everyone know I'm from New York?
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I don't know, Mom. It was that accent that drew friend Nevin Robey to her. They met one day while waiting in line at Starbucks.
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She was probably four or five people in front of me, loud, big hair, you know, Long Island accent.
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You recognized it right away? Oh, immediately. I mean, you probably could have heard her a half block away easily.
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They immediately hit it off, like Leslie did with so many others in town. I used to joke with her she should run for mayor of Syracuse Everyone here knows you Everyone Leslie and Bob were also known for their contributions to local charities What was it about them that they wanted to give back
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I think there's a certain amount of responsibility one feels when you live in a small community.
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A sense of responsibility that extended to their dearest friends. Friends like Mary. She'd had a rough year, was hospitalized after complications from a serious fall.
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The Newlanders were right there to support her. The whole family came over to my house to welcome me back,
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and all four, Bob, Leslie, Jenna, Ari, were all there. You could have died. Yes, I was very close to death.
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She hugged me and kissed me and said, it's amazing to think that a little fall like that could cause you so much trouble.
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Wow. Now those are kind of prophetic words. Sad, really, yes. Leslie's fatal fall happened just two days after that visit.
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Did that seem odd to you that you had just gone through this life-changing event with a fall
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and now here your close friend has died from a fall? Well, I certainly ask the question that everyone asks.
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Why now? Why me? Why my friend? She's 60 years old. She's very healthy. She's athletic. She's strong.
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Well, quirky, weird things do happen. Mary had no idea at the time how much her friend's death would consume her,
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or the role she would be asked to play to solve a mystery. Leslie Newlander's death had been ruled an accident.
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For Jenna Newlander, an absolutely devastating loss. I think she really relied on her mom.
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I think her mother was her real rock. Did they have one of those mother-daughter relationships where they could talk about anything?
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Very much. Terry had rushed to the Newlander house as soon as she heard the news,
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arriving just as police were leaving. The family is in the living room, and everybody's obviously, you know, very upset and crying and hugging each other.
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What do you say when you walk into a situation like that? I'm really sorry. I'm just very sorry.
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She was there to support the family, and happy to help later that evening when Jenna asked for a favor.
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She asked me if I would make sure that there wasn't blood on the floor in her mother's room before I left.
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Blood in her mother's room? Terry didn't understand. She thought Leslie had fallen in the shower.
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She pulled the Newlanders' housekeeper aside. What did she say about the situation?
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She explained to me that the room had a lot of blood in it. and that they tried cleaning and couldn't get it all up.
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Did that strike you as odd at all? I thought it was very unusual because I didn't think that a closed head injury
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from a fall in the shower would have any blood. Terry, the trained nurse, decided to see for herself.
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She got a chill the minute she crossed the threshold. There was blood in the bedroom, pools and pools of it.
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The housekeeper was also perplexed. She said, this just doesn't make sense. This just doesn't make sense.
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Together, they got down on their hands and knees and tried to clean up the blood.
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But there was just too much of it, and it was soaked deep into the carpet. I can only imagine. That must have been awful.
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It was absolutely awful. It was absolutely awful. All the while, a disturbing thought was taking root.
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One Terry dared not say out loud. Where does your mind go from there? To the obvious, I think, that Leslie's been killed.
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You have to assume that when things don't make sense. Terry didn't know that the medical examiner had already investigated at the scene and ruled the death an accident.
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Or that Bob had given an explanation for all that blood, saying he moved the body.
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Her mind raced as she went back downstairs to comfort the family. I think I just blocked it. I just blocked it.
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Were you being a little bit of an actress in a way? Oh, sure. Definitely. Definitely.
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I have to be something I'm not right now. I have to feel something or express something that I'm not feeling.
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Absolutely. Terry had to keep a straight face because she says Leslie's family seemed so certain about what happened.
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That included daughter Jenna, who'd been in the room that morning. It was just a fall in the shower.
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Yeah. My mom died in an accident. Yep. And it was left at that. That's what Jenna told police when she gave them a formal statement about the accident.
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Like, oh my God, it felt like hours. It felt like hours. The tragic accident was big news in Syracuse.
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Megan Coleman is an anchor at NBC affiliate WSTM. She says everyone was as shocked by the circumstances
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as they were sympathetic to Dr. Newlander. Tens of thousands of people have a connection to this man.
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He had been at the bedside when all of these women were bringing their children into the world.
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People loved him. Not only did Megan report on the Newlander story, but like so many in this town, she also knew the doctor personally.
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A few months before Leslie died, he took part in a ceremony for Megan newborn son Leslie was there too They were warm They were engaging she had this beautiful smile No one would ever have thought that you know anything like this
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could happen to her. And I think generally everyone was just stunned. During Shiva,
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the Jewish mourning period, friends and family came in droves to support Bob. Mary Jim Bellick was still bedridden after her own fall, so her husband went alone.
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So he went over to visit and to represent our family, to talk to the family. How was Bob coping?
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Withdrawn, really. It's almost like losing your compass. Yes. There was people, you know, every day at the house, bringing food and staying for several hours.
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By the end of the evening, Bob was very annoyed by having people still in his house, and he was glad to see it end.
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Terry visited the Newlanders frequently that first week. She says she was even at the house when Bob got a phone call
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letting him know that Leslie's death was officially being filed as an accident. And I thought, well, then this is a closed case.
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And everybody's accepting it. Seems to be. But Terry couldn't let it go. Not for her friend, Leslie.
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Did you ever feel like a little bit of a detective or something? I did. I felt like people aren't putting the pieces into this puzzle together.
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And somebody needs to do that. Coming up. Where do you go and what do you do? Haunted by doubt, Terry reaches out.
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I said you should go to the police. Did you feel like by going to the police, this will put an end to it?
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Yes, I did. A month had passed since the heartbreaking death of Leslie Newlander.
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That's just about when the friend she'd met at Starbucks, Nevin Ruby, learned she was gone.
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They'd been close but ran in different circles, had different friends. No one knew to call him about the funeral.
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It was like a Monday. And I just remember I just woke up an hour before my alarm.
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and I just went over to my computer and I just typed her first and last name in and there was her obituary.
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And I was like in shock. What was it that was making you feel that something was happening
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that you needed to search that day? I don't know. And I just like stared at the computer screen
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and I was like, this can't be real. Terry had been in shock at first too. But now that had been replaced
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by a deep sense of unease. To her, the fall in the shower story just didn't add up.
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You're just kind of waiting for your phone to ring and somebody else to call and say,
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I think what you think and what do you think happened. But weeks turn into months and nobody's doing that.
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Terry helped Leslie's sister clear some of Leslie's things out of the house. Did she have any thoughts on what had happened?
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She never discussed it. And you didn't feel comfortable bringing up your suspicions?
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No, I just assumed she would bring it up to me. It all left Terry in a very lonely place.
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Did that weigh on you, that feeling of maybe it's not my business? No, it never weighed on me, it's not my business.
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It weighed on me, why aren't people doing anything? And there was some certainly hesitancy because you don't want to be the person that's out there being judged by the whole community.
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Like, why are you going against them? That's not a good position to be in for anybody.
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Are you just every day waking up and this is like on your brain? Morning, noon, and night.
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And that's what I struggled with for a very long time. Where do you go and what do you do?
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She reached out to her priest for advice. He suggested she call the police. But Terry believed the case was closed.
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Then she decided to try someone else. I thought that she would be the perfect person to ask.
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A year earlier, Terry had gone to a book club meeting at Leslie's house. The plot of the book involved a coroner.
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I believe it was a story that took place in England. It was definitely an interesting book.
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And it just so happened that there was a real-life medical examiner in the club,
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an expert on death. And I remember Mary saying, you know, if you ever have questions about things that you're wondering,
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you can always ask me. Mary is the Mary you know, Mary Jumbellic. She's not just a friend of Leslie's, but also a doctor,
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the retired chief medical examiner for Onondaga County, where the Newlanders lived.
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Did you think about that book? after Leslie died? I only thought about it because of Mary, yes. I thought about Mary could explain
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this. The whole situation with Leslie? Correct, yes. Terry picked up the phone. Was that a hard
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call to make even to Mary, finally opening up about these feelings you're having? It was. It was
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tough. It definitely was tough. But it must have been nagging at you so hard that you just had to?
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Yes, I think that that's how I felt. Like, nobody's doing anything for Leslie, and am I
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going to just sit back and let this happen? Or is there somebody that can help me understand this
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and know what the right thing to do is? To say Mary was skeptical would be an understatement.
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20 plus years of criminal justice experience told her Terry was probably way off base.
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I had faith in the system and I knew there had to have been some investigation concerning the
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and if there was anything, then it would have come out. There would have been some news about it,
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and there had been nothing. I thought, I'm not sure why you're worried about this right now.
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I would imagine most people would say, come on, no, it's Bob. She fell in the shower, leave it alone.
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Right, and that's pretty much what I said. Plus, she knew from her own recent fall
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just how easily accidents can happen. Happened to me, I fell. Who would have thought I would get so sick?
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It's very, very sad, but things do happen. Still, her training told her it was important to hear Terry out.
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When I was medical examiner, I would have family members coming in to tell me about what they thought about the circumstances of the death.
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And I always took those visits very seriously. You have to consider what someone's saying,
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whether or not they understand what they're saying, or whether or not they have the forensic detail.
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So Mary listened intently as Terry described the blood she saw in the bedroom. In the end, Mary didn't feel alarmed at all.
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Nothing struck me that I needed to make someone aware of these concerns. I thought maybe she was right, you know, and maybe I am jumping to the wrong conclusion.
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Still, given how disturbed Terry seemed to be, Mary offered her a suggestion. I said you should go to the police and make statements.
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If you have all of these concerns, you really need to just tell someone officially what your concerns are.
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Because telling me in this informal manner is, I don't think you're going to get past it.
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Did you feel like by going to the police, this will put an end to it? Yes. And we can clear the air and move on?
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Yes, I did. Coming up. Two days after her death, an investigator received an anonymous letter regarding this case.
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What is in the letter? Some information about their personal life. Did this letter writer have secrets to reveal?
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Is your detective sense starting to tingle a little bit? Well, yeah, it is. When Dateline continues.
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In the weeks after Leslie Newlander's death, Terry Barr found herself increasingly angry.
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Her friend Leslie was too lively, too young to be gone. I felt robbed. What did you think about as far as what you were going to miss out on with your friend?
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Just being able to run things by her. Not being able to pick up the phone and call your friend.
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Sure, definitely. To talk about all the things you both talked about. The finality of it all.
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There was no goodbye. Right. And I think there's no goodbye in a very tragic way.
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And she wasn't upset just for herself, but for Leslie, too. All those sunset milestones her friend would never get to experience.
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Seeing Jenna get married and seeing her kids grow up and have their own families, I think that was huge.
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Definitely she was looking forward to those times. Her friend Mary, the trained medical examiner, had dismissed Terry's suspicions.
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But Terry was medically trained herself. And as Bob's nurse, who'd worked alongside him for years, something nagged at her.
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Bob's decision to move Leslie to the bedroom for CPR. Bob was very good in an emergency.
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And it is instinct, family or not, to kick into saving mode. And we all know not to move a body.
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Terry felt certain that Bob was hiding something. And though she tried not to think about it,
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she began to fear that something sinister had happened, that maybe Dr. Newlander had killed his wife.
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I was just crushed for her. I was just very crushed that you think you can trust somebody
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and they're not who you think they are. And how awful that must have been for her.
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But with the community rallying around the doctor, Terry mostly kept those thoughts to herself.
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Did friends and family see Bob as the grieving husband? Yes, they definitely did.
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I think definitely he had a lot of support. A few months after Leslie's death, Terry still hadn't taken the advice to go speak to the police.
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Then she found herself unexpectedly face-to-face with an officer. It just happened coincidentally that a police officer came into an office that I was working in,
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and I asked him a couple questions, and he said, I think you need to have a conversation with my partner.
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Was your biggest fear that the family would find out you went to the police department?
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Yes, and it's very uncomfortable. That would be very uncomfortable. Yes. To avoid being seen at the police station, Terry arranged for a detective to come to her house.
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His name is Scott Capral. He's the detective who was at the scene that morning with Sergeant Norton, the responding officer.
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I personally have seen a lot of wounds over the 22 years of my career from falls and not from falls, and I've never seen a wound that bad.
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But like the sergeant, he deferred to the medical examiner. We're dealing with different experts in the field, and he is an expert, and we respect him.
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And I guess every fall is different. That's right. Terry told the detective how tortured she'd been over Leslie's death.
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I said to Scott, my life is living Dateline. That's what I feel like I'm living.
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And this needs to, you know, come to a conclusion. The detective couldn't share details with Terry,
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but it turns out the case was not completely closed. And despite all the public support and sympathy for Dr. Newlander,
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she wasn't the first person to express doubts about what had happened to Leslie.
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We started to hear some, just some comments coming in from the community. Nothing that we went out and solicited, but it was via other police officers that may have seen someone else.
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The DA's office had also received a letter. Two days after her death, we're contacted by an investigator from the district attorney's office
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who advises us that they received an anonymous letter regarding this case. What is in the letter and what does it mean for the case?
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The letter basically outlined some information about their personal life enough that we were clear that whoever wrote the anonymous letter felt that we should continue looking at it According to the letter this wealthy power couple was having financial problems
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Police wanted to speak with whoever wrote it. Were there any clues in the letter?
00:30:12
Did it sound like it was maybe from a family friend, a relative? Obviously, the letter was written by someone that had some sort of knowledge of their life.
00:30:22
It's obviously something someone didn't make up. Try as they might, they couldn't figure out who wrote the letter.
00:30:28
But now the detective was sitting across from someone who knew the Newlanders well.
00:30:34
Terry confirmed that despite the beautiful home, Bob and Leslie had taken a big financial hit.
00:30:39
A billing dispute had caused the area's largest health insurer to drop Bob's medical practice.
00:30:45
Terry, who was working for him at the time, saw the storm coming. I said, you know, if you lose your Blue Cross and Blue Shield patients, that's a third of our practice, and that means layoffs.
00:30:57
So he said that I was the only person that had perceived that, and that's just what happened.
00:31:03
Dr. Newlander had to let Terry and several others go. I think he genuinely felt bad and hoped that things would change, you know, and I did come back briefly.
00:31:12
There was an influx of some new patients, and so he did call me and ask me to come back briefly.
00:31:18
And I did, and then I was again laid off. Was that kind of the beginning of the end for his practice?
00:31:23
Yes, definitely. One of the patients who left his practice during the insurance dispute
00:31:28
was the wife of responding officer Sergeant Norton. When he lost his contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield,
00:31:35
she was forced to find a different physician. Was she kind of disappointed about that?
00:31:39
Yes, she was very disappointed. She liked going to him? Yes, she thought that he was a good physician.
00:31:45
So the Newlanders had money trouble. Is your detective sense starting to tingle a little bit?
00:31:51
Well, yeah, it is. But again, we follow protocol. And according to the M.E., Leslie's death was an accident.
00:32:01
He's the expert in his field, and we rely on him. If he explains to us that this is the situation that it looks like to him,
00:32:09
then we have to go with that. If only there was someone else in town who could offer a second opinion.
00:32:15
Perhaps it was time to consult a certain retired medical examiner. Coming up. You probably didn't want to believe that this wasn't an accident.
00:32:26
I didn't. I didn't want to believe that. A new look at Leslie's final moments. Did you feel like Leslie was talking to you from the grave?
00:32:35
Yes, she's telling me what happened. Leslie's friend Terry had suspicions about Bob Newlander,
00:32:53
and now that she'd spoken with police, she was doing her best to avoid him around town.
00:32:57
She had a close call when they nearly bumped shopping carts at the supermarket. Did you just make a beeline in the other direction?
00:33:04
Yeah, absolutely. With your cart? Like, why does a man who's never shopped a day in his life
00:33:08
or cooked a meal in his life show up at Wegmans at noon when everybody else is there?
00:33:14
Terry thought Bob was making an effort to appear as though everything was normal.
00:33:18
Then one day, about three months after Leslie's death, Terry's phone rang. It was Bob.
00:33:24
I was quite surprised. What did he want to... He just said he was reaching out to friends and catching up with people.
00:33:30
Since Leslie died, he's been so distraught and just wanted to see what people were up to.
00:33:35
I thought it was very unusual. He'd never called me before. Did you again have to go into actress mode and pretend like everything was okay?
00:33:42
Absolutely, I did. How hard was that? It's very hard because you're just trying to be yourself
00:33:47
and you're not used to being in that role. Mary Jumbellic got a catch-up phone call too.
00:33:53
But unlike Terry, Mary welcomed the call. She and her husband hadn't heard from Bob since that night of mourning at his house.
00:34:00
My husband and he chatted. I didn't get on the phone. Sorry, I haven't called. I've been out of touch.
00:34:07
I'm going to go visit my daughter who was studying in Israel. you know, just a casual, light conversation.
00:34:16
Mary knew all about Terry's suspicions about Bob, but she thought maybe Terry had been watching too many crime shows.
00:34:24
Well, it is true that my field has gotten very popularized in the media, and so everyone thinks they have a little piece of it,
00:34:32
and they are their own investigators. You probably didn't want to believe that this wasn't an accident.
00:34:39
I didn't. I didn't want to believe that. But now, after this phone call, Mary found herself wondering for the first time.
00:34:48
Was there something specific he said on that call that bothered you? I think it was just his tone.
00:34:57
What was with his tone? I'm sorry I've been out of touch. I'm going to be out of touch again. I'm leaving.
00:35:03
But I just want to call you and say hi. It felt odd. This business of leaving the country troubled her too.
00:35:11
Off to Israel to see Jenna. Why did that concern you? Well, if it happened that this wasn't simply an accident, then that would raise concern.
00:35:23
That he could just be gone? Right. And maybe never return? Right. Was something nagging at you at this point?
00:35:29
It was. I don't know. I had nothing other than the friend's concerns. I just thought I just need to have a conversation with Bill Fitzpatrick.
00:35:39
Bill Fitzpatrick is the Onondaga County District Attorney and a colleague of Mary's
00:35:43
until she retired as medical examiner a few years earlier. I thought I should just close the loop with the information and just call the district attorney.
00:35:53
What does she tell you? She said you know look I just saw them They came to see me with the family That how close they were And she says look I just want to put the rumors to bed People are talking they gossiping
00:36:05
What was his response? His response was, would you take a look at the case? Did that surprise you?
00:36:11
Yes. You're friends with the victim and her husband. Yes. Did that feel odd at all?
00:36:16
Of course it did. It took me a moment to answer the question. I had to think if I should or could or would.
00:36:25
do this. And I thought, well, yes, I do know them both. But if there is a way to answer this,
00:36:32
if there is a way to allay these concerns, then perhaps I'm the best person to do that.
00:36:39
Well, I have a lot of respect for Mary. We worked together for 10 years. The files were brought to Mary's home for her review. I'm sure you just dove right in.
00:36:47
Well, there's a process. You look at everything. You consider the scene. You consider the autopsy
00:36:53
findings, you look at the statements, you weigh it all in and come to a scientific conclusion.
00:37:00
Mary could see how the medical examiner drew his conclusions, that Leslie's death was a slip and fall.
00:37:07
He saw some findings in the brain that he attributed to a fall, and he latched onto that
00:37:14
finding and felt that that explained her story as portrayed by Bob. Mary took it all in. The crime scene photos, the ME's report.
00:37:27
She absorbed every detail as she immersed herself in the final moments of her dear friend's life.
00:37:32
Did you feel like Leslie was talking to you from the grave as you're looking at this report?
00:37:37
Yes, she's telling me what happened, yes. And what Leslie was telling her was devastating.
00:37:43
Like Leslie's injuries, there were more than just that gash on her head. She had a large five-inch wound on the side of her scalp with injuries on multiple sides of her face.
00:37:54
It was a pattern of the injuries that's not explained by the story. So in forensic parlance, that's a red flag.
00:38:06
Mary was also alarmed by the crime scene photos, which showed blood in Leslie's bedroom.
00:38:11
It wasn't just pools in the carpet. There was blood spatter at Leslie's bedside, on her lamp, the water bottles, even up on the wall.
00:38:20
There were a lot of things that weren't adding up for you. There were very significant things, yes.
00:38:25
She was about to make a phone call that would change the course of the investigation.
00:38:32
Coming up, another friend of Leslie's steps forward with a surprising revelation.
00:38:39
She told me that they were going to get a divorce. She was looking for a new place, and she was very excited.
00:38:44
When Dateline continues. Mary Jembelic, the retired ME, had looked at the entire case file about her friend Leslie's death
00:39:03
and had come to a startling conclusion. Leslie was murdered. She died as a result of blunt head trauma, and the manor was homicide.
00:39:13
Science aside, though, this is your friend. Yes. It was upsetting, and I knew it could only get more upsetting
00:39:19
because the professional side of me came to a conclusion that I supported scientifically,
00:39:28
but that didn't make it easy, and it didn't make it better. But I never could be concerned for that because I speak for the dead person.
00:39:36
and that's what I did my whole life. So they're my patient, they're who I take care of,
00:39:41
and they're who I speak for. If it hurts the living, so be it. Your part in all this almost reads like a novel.
00:39:49
Well, it's not fiction, and truth is often stranger and more painful than fiction could ever be.
00:39:58
She immediately called D.A. Fitzpatrick. She says to me, this is a homicide, and I was stunned.
00:40:08
Now, of course, D.A. Bill Fitzpatrick had two conflicting professional opinions to contend with,
00:40:14
Mary's and the current Emmys who'd ruled Leslie's manner of death an accident. You need to now go talk to him and say,
00:40:20
I think you're wrong. Yeah, as I said, I'm not asking you to re-examine your opinion
00:40:26
as to the cause of death. I'm just asking you to reconsider manner of death. Fitzpatrick arranged a meeting,
00:40:34
inviting the current ME, as well as a group of other prominent pathologists, to review and discuss the case.
00:40:40
And the opinions of those other pathologists matched Mary's. It looked like a homicide.
00:40:46
It would have been wonderful if I had been wrong. I wish I had been wrong. But the Onondaga County Medical Examiner had the final say, and he held fast.
00:40:59
Leslie's official manner of death remained an accident. The buck stops with me. Ultimately, the medical examiner can call it whatever he or she wants.
00:41:08
It's my decision whether or not to go forward with a homicide investigation. And that's where the case was heading.
00:41:15
Before long, word was out around Syracuse. Dr. Bob Newlander was under investigation for his wife's death.
00:41:21
Tom Eschen joins us live from outside the doctor's Hanover Square apartment. Anchor Megan Coleman says few could believe it.
00:41:28
This was the biggest stunner that we had seen in a very long time in this community.
00:41:31
And for me personally, because they had been in my home, what, four months before she had died, I thought, this can't be happening.
00:41:38
He seemed just like any other dad, any other husband. Dr. Newlander's family was in his corner, and he was fighting back in the press through his attorney.
00:41:50
This has been an open secret and a subject of gossip and irresponsible rumor now for months Dr Newlander has not been charged with any kind of offense He spoke out and was adamant These are ludicrous allegations
00:42:07
This is outrageous. He is the most honest person I've ever met. For detectives, a benefit of the coverage was that it encouraged anyone with information to come forward.
00:42:18
You know, sometimes you got to be brave enough to get involved, even if it's a bad situation.
00:42:22
Someone who did was Leslie's friend from Starbucks, Nevin Roby. It really wasn't until I read a news story where it got changed from this to an actual investigation.
00:42:33
And that's when, you know, I did, you know, go to the police and sit and talk with them.
00:42:39
He walked detectives through his story from the beginning, how he'd met Leslie by chance earlier that year.
00:42:45
Although they were years apart in age, the two became fast friends. Maybe twice, three times a week, you know, we'd have like lunch because I'd be working.
00:42:53
She'd be like, hey, I'm stopping in the mall. Nevin says their conversations were light at first.
00:42:58
Things going on in town, the latest news. But over time, they grew more personal.
00:43:03
He says the fact that they were strangers in each other's lives made it feel safe.
00:43:07
I could ask her things about things that are going on in my life that I'm going to get a real 100% response.
00:43:12
And I don't have to feel worried about it and vice versa. Who am I? I'm a nobody, really, in her world.
00:43:16
And same thing with her. It was easy for her to open up to you. Absolutely. There's no judgment.
00:43:20
And that was really, I think, for both of us, really, it was very, you know, it was nice to have that.
00:43:26
Nevin told investigators Leslie's husband wasn't a regular topic of conversation,
00:43:31
but he got the impression that their marriage was not a happy one. What were the positive things she had to say about Bob?
00:43:37
She never said really anything positive about Bob. The conversations about her and her marriage were always like little crumbs.
00:43:45
But Nevin says there was something specific in all those crumbs, though Leslie didn't dwell on it.
00:43:50
It sounded like he had been cheating on her throughout the marriage. Because they didn't talk much about Bob,
00:43:56
Nevin was surprised when, after knowing each other for just a few months, Leslie's husband sent him a text.
00:44:03
Who are you, you know, and what are you guys talking about? You know, what are you guys doing and stuff like that?
00:44:07
And I just responded very simply. I was like, we're having lunches. She's my friend.
00:44:11
We're talking about things, life, my life, her life, what's going on in her world.
00:44:14
I mean, it's... Did he get hostile at all? He only got hostile at the end. My wife and I are having, like, marital issues and stuff like that,
00:44:20
and I'm glad, like, you're her friend, but, you know, please stay out of our marriage stuff.
00:44:25
Nevin told police he isn't sure if Leslie told Bob about their friendship or if Bob had snooped in her phone.
00:44:31
Either way, he insists they were never more than friends. Do you think, though, from the husband's perspective,
00:44:37
that he could have perceived it as something more, potentially? I don't think anyone can perceive anything on any topic, really.
00:44:45
So she never said to you, oh, Bob knows about us? Well, there's nothing to know about us, really.
00:44:50
Well, that we're friends. Yeah, I mean, she has a hundred-something million friends in Syracuse.
00:44:54
My husband, if I'm having lunches with a guy who's a lot younger, he'd want to know about it.
00:45:02
Sure, but I'm no Brad Pitt. You're an attractive guy. Again, much younger guy. I would think that Bob would want to know that you're in his wife's world.
00:45:14
Right. Again, you'd have to ask Bob. I have no idea what he does or does not know.
00:45:19
Even after Bob had texted him, telling him to stay out of their marriage, Nevin says Leslie met him for another lunch.
00:45:26
She shared some news. She and Bob were splitting up. It was just days before Leslie died.
00:45:33
She told me that they both sat down and told all the kids, the whole family, they were going to get a divorce.
00:45:37
She was looking for a new place. And the last conversation she said she put down a deposit but was waiting for like a credit check or something to this effect.
00:45:44
And she was very excited. It was a tantalizing piece of information for the detectives.
00:45:50
We had multiple acquaintances and friends and close friends of hers explain to us that she was most certainly ready to move on and divorce.
00:46:03
One of those friends was Terry. She didn't know much about it, but it was another one of the many things that made her suspicious about Bob from the start.
00:46:11
She told me that they were separating and that we were going to meet for coffee and talk later in the upcoming week.
00:46:19
Was this a total surprise to you? Yeah, it was a surprise to me. I just asked her, are you okay?
00:46:25
And she said, yes, it's fine, Terry. It's okay, and I'll fill you in. Let's wait until Tuesday, and we'll get together Tuesday.
00:46:36
But Terry never learned more about it because by Tuesday, Leslie was dead. For the detectives, the suggestive stories about Bob were adding up, but they weren't hard evidence.
00:46:48
Investigators had just been given a look inside the Newlanders' marriage. Now they needed another look inside the house.
00:46:56
Coming up. It was strange. It looked like the shower hadn't been touched from that day.
00:47:02
A return to the scene yields stunning new evidence. I'm staring at this headboard and I shined my flashlight on it and I'm like, you're not going to believe this.
00:47:25
Dr. Bob Newlander may have been under investigation for his wife's death, but he wasn't acting like it.
00:47:31
He was out and about, grocery shopping, eating at restaurants, going to temple with his family.
00:47:37
Megan Coleman went to the same synagogue. And I remember sitting several rows back from him and, you know, sort of had the corner of my eye,
00:47:47
you know, sort of, I mean, you know, this is Yom Kippur, it's the Day of Atonement. And so,
00:47:53
you know, you sort of think that perhaps this day may take on a little bit more meaning
00:47:57
for him. So I was sort of watching, Wondering, will there be any sort of reaction or visible something, you know, that I could kind of glean from watching him?
00:48:09
Megan says many in the community still felt sorry for the widower. It was hard to imagine that Bob would have anything to do with his wife's death.
00:48:18
I think that that was also part of what made it so difficult for people to wrap their head around what was going on.
00:48:25
Because they were so giving and they were so loving. As months passed without an arrest, Leslie's friend Terry wondered why the case didn't seem to be going anywhere.
00:48:37
You just feel like it's going to go on for years, like it does in other cases. And this just is maybe never going to get solved for a long time.
00:48:45
But behind the scenes, investigators were still working. Something high on their to-do list? Return to the mansion on Shalimar Way.
00:48:54
I would imagine there were probably things you wanted to look at that you couldn't the first time
00:48:58
because you had to essentially shut it down once the death was ruled an accident.
00:49:03
Right, that's right. It seemed like a long shot that they would find anything significant.
00:49:10
Many months had passed and the house had been sold. But still, detectives reached out to the new owner.
00:49:16
They hadn't moved in. He hadn't touched anything in the house. And he said, if you need to come back, you're welcome to come on back and take a look.
00:49:23
And so, obviously, we certainly are never going to pass up an offer to do that. And they were about to get unbelievably lucky,
00:49:31
because not only had the new owner not yet moved in, but it appeared the Newlanders had hardly touched the bedroom since the day Leslie died.
00:49:38
You could tell that they tried to clean the blood out of the carpeting, but you could still see the outlines, you could still see the stains.
00:49:44
It looked like the shower hadn't been touched from that day. I mean, there was still, we were finding dried blood in the shower.
00:49:52
And here it is, March. Creepy? It was just, it was strange. I mean, that it was never cleaned.
00:50:00
The actual shower was never cleaned. The evidence tax took measurements and carpet samples
00:50:06
and recorded blood spatter on the blinds. At one point, the sergeant found himself staring at the built-in bed frame.
00:50:13
The mattress was gone, but the headboard was still there. I'm staring at this headboard to this bed.
00:50:20
It was like a black felt fabric with a pattern in it. And I don't know if it was the light just caught it the right way or what drew my attention to it,
00:50:28
but now I see a stain in the headboard. I had a flashlight, and I shined my flashlight on it, and it was a red stain in this black fabric.
00:50:35
I just remember calling out to Scott Carpill. I'm like, you're not going to believe this.
00:50:42
The stain was blood. They'd all missed it the day Leslie died. It was covered up by pillows the day that we were there,
00:50:49
So I never really got to see that. Once we identified that it was Leslie's blood, that was enormous.
00:50:56
To us, it certainly did not fit any explanation that, you know, he brought her out to the floor right next to the bed to do CPR.
00:51:07
Had he told you I placed her on the bed at any point to do CPR? No, not at all. CPR?
00:51:12
Not at all. Bob had talked to investigators at the scene and later given a written statement to police.
00:51:18
He'd declined a formal interview. But Jenna had given that videotaped interview.
00:51:24
Maybe she saw something that would explain the newly discovered blood. They pulled it to review.
00:51:29
When you first saw her, she was already on the ground? Yeah, Dad was holding her underneath her arm.
00:51:37
In the back, in the back of her. He was trying to get her out of the bathroom. Jenna had described how, after calling 911,
00:51:45
she ran to the bathroom and saw her dad carrying her mother from the shower. I don't remember.
00:52:17
I just wanted to start seeing that she was breathing. I just remember touching her like that.
00:52:23
And her jaw was really thick. I started screaming that she's dead. And that's when she noticed the blood.
00:52:32
Where did you see the blood? There was blood. Then I looked. There was blood where her head was.
00:52:39
Here, a little bit around. and there was blood where, like, on the wall. Jenna says she ran to another room to grab her cell phone to call 911 again.
00:52:52
When I went back up there, she moved here. The bed, her head here. So by the time you got done calling 911 again,
00:53:00
your mother had been moved from here to here. You didn't help her with anything. Your dad had said it.
00:53:05
Okay. Jenna confirmed she saw her mother moved at least twice. but never mentioned seeing her on the bed.
00:53:13
So nothing she described seemed to explain the blood they'd just found on the headboard.
00:53:18
The DA thought it was time to finally talk to Bob Newlander himself. His attorney and I are having conversations.
00:53:25
I said, will he come in and be interviewed? Sure, absolutely. Coming up, a crucial question for Bob Newlander.
00:53:36
On the headboard, there are these nine blood spatters. of your wife. And what's better on the ceiling?
00:53:45
Go on down the floor. Let me ask you, do you have any explanation for that? When Dateline continues.
00:54:02
Dateline continues More than a year had passed since Leslie death Doctor, don't worry, I'm Bill Fitzpatrick.
00:54:12
And now Bob Newlander was sitting down with D.A. Bill Fitzpatrick for a videotaped interview.
00:54:17
His attorney knows that I'm leaning towards that your client murdered his wife. I said, Ed, there's this blood. It's just so inconsistent. He can explain that.
00:54:29
And so Fitzpatrick asked him to start at the beginning. I just asked him, tell me what you did that day. I want to be as thorough and meticulous as possible.
00:54:38
Do you remember on the 17th, about what time it was that you woke up? Somewhere between 6 and 6.30.
00:54:45
I decided to go for a run, which I normally do. 7.30, I go pick up the newspaper, and then I grab coffee.
00:54:56
As I bring a cup of coffee to Leslie every morning. Okay, tell us what happens when you go into a rebelling.
00:55:03
The shower is on, I hear the water running, and I place it. I stand nice. Got it, okay.
00:55:15
Bob said they had to be somewhere by around 9, so a little while later he returned to check on his wife.
00:55:21
He said it sounded like she was still in the shower. I opened the door to obviously see if she was just okay.
00:55:31
Yeah, that's something she did. And she was laying on the floor. I basically went into shock seeing her there.
00:55:43
I got to be cessated. He described what happened next, a desperate attempt to administer CPR,
00:55:50
which included moving his wife several times, first in the large bathroom, then all the way into the bedroom.
00:56:20
But go against his medical training and move his gravely injured wife almost 50 feet?
00:56:30
Why would you have moved her? While I try to do this, I'm in a comfortable position.
00:57:03
Do you notice any stiffness of her muscles or her body or anything? Not that I notice, no.
00:57:09
And when you're performing the mouth-to-mouth, are you able to do that? Are you able to open her mouth without any great effort?
00:57:20
I feel part of it. I don't remember any effort. I don't remember being able to open her mouth.
00:57:26
I'm able to even press. But that didn't fit with what Jenna said in her interview.
00:57:36
I didn't go into cross-examination mode because that was the agreement that we had,
00:57:42
that I would not cross-examine him. I would just ask him questions. And he had plenty of questions left.
00:57:49
He was going to explain to me all of this blood that made me suspicious. I also want to tell you, in all fairness, that on the headboard, there are at least nine blood spatters on your wife.
00:58:03
And blood spatter on the ceiling, blood on the floor where the body was dressed.
00:58:08
Blood spatter on the wall. Let me ask you, do you have any explanation for that?
00:58:17
No, no. The irony of it is when we got to the crescendo of the moment of the interview,
00:58:22
and I said, how did that blood get there? I don't know. And you really can't pick it up on the tape,
00:58:28
but I looked at his lawyer like to say, what are we doing here? I thought this was the whole point of it.
00:58:34
And I was stunned when he said that. So Bob Newlander's story had problems. D.A. Fitzpatrick reached out again to the current medical examiner
00:58:45
who had been challenged by Mary and other pathologists who'd reviewed the case. And in the summer of 2014, almost two years after Leslie died,
00:58:54
he changed his opinion to homicide. He changed the manner of death. He did. You know, it takes some professional courage to say I was wrong.
00:59:04
The change on the death certificate was enough for D.A. Fitzpatrick to finally make a move.
00:59:08
There was an arrest this morning of Robert Newlander. The obstetrician who'd brought so many lives into the world was now accused of taking one,
00:59:20
charged with second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence. In Syracuse, the story was headline news.
00:59:27
He's accused of killing his wife, Leslie, and covering it up to make it look like she fell in the shower.
00:59:33
Through his attorney, Dr. Newlander firmly denied it all. In 40 years of criminal practice, I have never had a client whose innocence I believe in
00:59:44
more firmly than him. And Megan says there were plenty of people in town who didn't believe that Dr. Newlander
00:59:50
was a killer, including members of Leslie's own family. You had his children who were standing by him from the beginning and you had her siblings who were also standing by him which I think was a really powerful symbol for the community Because one would think that if he had killed his wife her siblings Leslie siblings would not be standing by him but they were
01:00:11
Did people commend you for standing up, or did some people turn on you? It's a small community, and some people felt, well, good, someone speaking up for Leslie,
01:00:22
but other people felt like, why are you even pursuing this? Can't you just let things rest where they are?
01:00:30
This is terrible for the children. They don't deserve this. They don't, but I didn't kill her.
01:00:38
This is about standing up for Leslie and letting people know that, you know, Domestic violence happens in all kinds of homes, and she didn't deserve this.
01:00:47
Whether or not Bob Newlander killed his wife wouldn't be up to Leslie's friends.
01:00:51
It would be up to a jury to decide. In the spring of 2015, Dr. Bob Newlander went on trial for his wife's murder.
01:01:13
More compelling testimony today. All eyes were on this trial. I mean, our crews basically lived at the courthouse during this time.
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and everyone was waiting on bated breath to see what would be the next development.
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DA Bill Fitzpatrick was joined by Assistant District Attorney Melinda McGonigal.
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This trial was one of the most publicized trials that this area has seen. I try not to pay a lot of attention to that, whether there's publicity or not.
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When I'm in trial mode, I'm focused on that. Cameras were not allowed in court, but each day,
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those crews captured the same dramatic scene in the hallway. Bob was flanked side by side with his children, with Leslie's siblings, with, you know, family
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and friends and his attorney. They wanted the entire community to know we stand by our dad.
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Did you worry that the jury would see that her own family is standing behind Bob Newlander? I mean,
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could he really have killed her if they're supporting him? Yeah, Melinda and I used to
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joke during the trial, you know, who's got hug Bob duty today? And not only that, you have a doctor.
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Right. I've got a very, very likable guy who brings babies into the world. And that was exactly the message Newlander's defense attorney tried to convey to the jury.
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It was. There's no reason why this man, who loved his wife more than anything, would ever try to harm her.
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The medical examiner got it right the first time, his attorney said. Leslie's death was an accident.
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The defense called a pathologist who looked at the same reports and concluded Leslie's head injuries were consistent with a fall in the shower.
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In his videotaped interview, Bob had suggested his wife's fall was caused by vertigo.
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Could you tell us about that, the vertigo? What physicians had she seen for vertigo?
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She was in the process of getting what's called physical therapy for vertigo, and she was also doing exercises, inversion exercises.
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Leslie's sister told the jury that Leslie had suffered dizzy spells not long before her death.
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And a friend testified that on a trip to Israel the previous winter, he'd seen Leslie fall.
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Part of the defense's strategy was to play up this idea that she had vertigo and that that could account for the reason that she slipped and fell in the shower that day.
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As for all that blood in the bedroom, the defense said that couldn't be trusted.
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Paramedics had trampled all over the scene. And that blood spatter all around Leslie's bed?
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The defense said that could have come from a long-sleeved shirt Newlander was wearing.
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He said, I was racing against time to save my beloved wife. I had a bloody shirt on, you know, from her injuries.
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I was covered in blood, ripped the shirt off to try to, you know, administer CPR.
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And that that could account for the blood being spattered everywhere. And the defense argued if Leslie's death was a murder, then what has she been struck with?
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Even the DA couldn't say. You had no murder weapon. You had no one who had actually seen the crime happen.
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You had no confession, no video. Yeah, I thought it was an uphill battle. The police had packed up and left right after the Emmy gave his opinion.
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The defense pointed out they'd hardly done any investigating that day. The defense definitely blamed the police for a botched investigation.
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And certainly, said the defense, if Bob had done the unthinkable, his own daughter wouldn't be standing in his corner.
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With emotions running high, Jenna, by then 25, took the stand in her father's defense.
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She was incredibly fragile. She had lost her beloved mother, and by all accounts, they were best friends.
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They were incredibly close. And now she has to take the stand in the trial of her father.
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Everyone was watching and waiting and wondering, what will she say? How will she act?
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Jenna told the jury about that horrific September morning. Oh my God, there's another.
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My mommy! How she'd called 911, then came running to help just as her dad was pulling her mom out of the shower.
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It was a heartbreaking story. But in it, the DA saw plenty of inconsistencies. You had a big problem with her testimony.
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Boy, did I ever. On the stand, Jenna said she didn't remember seeing blood in the bedroom until after her mother had been moved.
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But D.A. Fitzpatrick told the jury to listen to what Jenna said on that 911 call as she approached the scene.
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Oh, there's blood everywhere. Wait a minute. There shouldn't be blood anywhere. Mom is still in the shower and she can't see mom.
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Jenna is seeing blood in the bedroom before her mom's even been moved. No question about it In court Jenna testified that she helped her dad move her mother the DA says that contradicted what she said in her taped interview and on the 911 call
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It's heartbreaking to listen to. Don't move her. I mean, this is a 24-year-old telling the 60-year-old doctor, and she's pleading with him to do that.
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Yet he continues, obviously, to move her. I don't mean to pile on her grief. I consider her victim number two.
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The DA believed Bob Newlander had used his daughter as part of a cover-up, calling her to the scene of the crime as he pretended to try to save the woman he had just violently assaulted.
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He had to make efforts to cover her up because of the violent assault that had already taken place.
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If he leaves her in the shower, how is he going to explain that to the EMTs? You argued that there was just too much blood in that bedroom from a slip and fall in the shower.
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Right. She allegedly fell in the shower, but she's 50, 60 feet in the bedroom, and then there's blood spatter on the wall.
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The prosecutor said they believed Bob disposed of evidence, too. In fact, the family housekeeper told the jury she was certain that Leslie's bed sheets had been changed.
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She noticed that the sheets that were on the bed were not the ones that she had put on the bed the previous Monday.
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and the bed didn't look the way she made it. I mean, she made the bed a particular way.
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Your theory is that he, Dr. Newlander, took the sheets off the bed and washed them?
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No, he got rid of them. And there was one more detail that the prosecution said was part of staging the scene.
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It was something that none of the professional investigators noticed, but was pointed out by Fitzpatrick's own daughter.
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At the time, Sarah Fitzpatrick was a college forensics major and was looking at the crime scene photos from her dad's case.
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In a picture of the nightstand, she stared at the coffee cup Bob said he brought to Leslie,
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and something jumped out at her. Something always caught my attention with that photo of the nightstand.
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It's bright white amongst other objects. We should see blood on that. I mean, we're zooming in on this photo, seeing minuscule drops of blood on these water bottles
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and this tissue box, and it should be obvious to see blood on that coffee cup. What did that say to you?
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that that coffee cup was inserted into the scene after the bloodletting event occurred in the bedroom.
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Still, there was a rather big hole in the state's case. It was something the prosecution had not told the jury.
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Coming up. This case has been a travesty from start to finish. The jury reaches a verdict.
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Then comes the twist. I was stunned. Stunned. Were you angry? I'll keep my emotions to myself.
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When Dateline continues. After eight days of testimony, Bob Newlander's case was about to go to the jury.
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But something was missing. You know that jurors like to have motive. They like to understand why someone could do something so heinous.
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I told the jury, I said, look, I don't know why you killed her. I can suggest to you, though, that this was not a perfect marriage.
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The DA did not call Leslie's friends like Nevin to share what they knew about Bob and Leslie's relationship.
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That meant the jury never heard about the text messages Bob sent asking Nevin to stay out of their marriage.
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Why did you not call Nevin Robey to the stand? I think it would have been distracting.
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I don't think it was a serious relationship. It would have been too tangential. So Nevin didn't get to tell the jury that the separation was imminent
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and that Leslie was making plans to move out. Or this potentially explosive story.
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She started talking about Bob and how he's acting very erratic. Nevin says that at their last lunch, Leslie told him about an incident with Bob.
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It happened in the bathroom. He came to the bathroom one day and he was like really kind of like semi-aggressive and not aggressive to her physically.
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She was just like kind of like verbally and then he'd like leave quickly. And so I was like, well, do you feel afraid?
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And she's like, no, not really. But Nevin's instincts kicked in. And I was just kind of like, well, then don't don't stay there then.
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You have a lot of friends in this area. You have money, stay at a hotel. According to Nevin, Leslie said she didn't want to do that.
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When Nevin found out Leslie died in the shower, he was immediately reminded of that bathroom incident he says Leslie told him about.
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I was like, no way. So you put bathroom and shower all together? Yeah, I was just like, you've got to be kidding me.
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Too much of a coincidence? Way too much of a coincidence, you know? I mean, come on.
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But none of that came out in the trial. The jury was left wondering, what do we know about why he would murder his wife?
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The jurors deliberated for three days and then announced they'd reached a verdict.
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It was one of those moments where you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom. What will the jury decide?
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The Newlander family walked to the courtroom arm in arm, both Jenna and brother Ari clinging to their dad.
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The tension was suffocating as the foreperson rose to deliver the verdict Guilty, guilty of murdering his wife in the second degree
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And tampering with physical evidence Normally at that point in the trial, the prosecutor gets up, turns around
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Reaches out to the victim's family and you hug There's a lot of tears involved It's why we do what we do as prosecutors
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Not in this case In this case, you get the evil eye, you know, I hope you die I recall Jenna yelling out to her dad, I know you didn't do this. I love you.
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Bob's defense attorney vowed to fight on. Bob Newlander is the most honorable person I have ever met.
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Thank you. This has been a travesty from start to finish. It is not finished. Three months later, Bob Newlander was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
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It had been a trying few years for Leslie's friends, but they felt at peace with the roles they'd played.
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Do I wish I didn't have to go through this? Absolutely. It's been difficult. Some people don't talk to me.
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Other people say, I'm glad you spoke up for Leslie. Once he was sentenced, most people thought, case closed.
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You know, he's going to spend this time in prison for the death of his wife, and that's the last that we will hear from or of Dr. Newlander.
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But that thought couldn't have been more wrong. After the trial, an alternate juror contacted the defense,
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saying one of the jurors had been receiving information about the case. They found that juror number 12 had not only just received media alerts,
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that she received upwards of 7,000 text messages from family and friends throughout the trial
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asking her questions about the case. 6,997 of them had nothing to do with the case.
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The problematic emails was there was a text message from her father before she was selected
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as a juror, quote, make sure he's guilty, close quote. Then there were three text messages,
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I believe, from a friend. What's going on? What did you think about Jenna? Is the scary guy there?
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Defense attorneys filed an appeal based on juror misconduct. Motions were filed. Several hearings were held. The appeal went all the way to the state's highest
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court. The next appeal on this afternoon's calendar is people of the state of New York
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versus Robert Newlander. You all felt confident that this did not affect the outcome of the trial?
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100% certainty it had nothing to do with her verdict. But ultimately, the court's seven judge panel unanimously disagreed with the DA and threw out the verdict.
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I was stunned. Stunned. Not only is Bob Newlander granted a new trial, but he's released from prison.
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Right over our objection, he's released on bail. Robert, there's a lot of people that think you shouldn't be out of prison. What do you say about that?
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Were you angry? I'll keep my emotions to myself. Do you have anything to say at all?
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I just want to be with my family. And please, just give us some time. The defense hailed it as a victory.
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But Bob Newlander was not free and clear. The DA could try him again. But would he?
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You had a big decision to make. You had to decide if you were going to prosecute Bob Newlander again.
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I have to live in the real world. I'm thinking, I can't do this again. Coming up, trial number two.
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A new defense team new evidence and renewed support My entire family is standing behind him after 10 years Do you think we be with him if we thought he was guilty Would the verdict be different this time
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By the summer of 2018, Bob Newlander was a free man. For Mary Jim Bellick, after years of being involved in the case of her friend, it was a crushing development.
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I was shocked, but again, even when things seem completely straightforward, life just isn't straightforward.
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Things happen. D.A. Bill Fitzpatrick faced a tough decision, whether to try him for murder all over again.
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There is nothing more exhausting than going through a trial, unless you're young and have a great disposition.
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But me, you know, I'm I'm in the seventh inning. You know, to think about we have to do this again.
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You know, it was a lot to get to where we were. But you have to do it. Somebody's got to speak to Leslie.
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Jury selection began this morning in Onondaga County Court. Ten jurors have already been seated.
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It was March 2022 when Bob Newlander went on trial again for the murder of his wife.
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Any messages to the community today? By that point, the former doctor had been out on bail for three years.
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His wife, Leslie, had been gone for nearly a decade. Did you wonder if the family was still supporting him?
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I did wonder that. It's a dark part of this story. Ari, do you still believe that your father is innocent and your mother slipped in the shower?
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The family wasn't saying much, but it was clear that nothing had changed. Newlander's children arrived for trial number two like they had before, by their dad's side.
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D.A. Fitzpatrick was again joined by ADA Melinda McGonigal, and there was a fresh face on the prosecution team.
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Well, I only have one assistant D.A. that has a master's degree in forensics, and I only have one daughter.
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Fitzpatrick's daughter, Sarah, was now an assistant district attorney in his office.
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What a unique experience to bring your daughter in on your team. And the irony is it lost to me the relationship between the defendant and his daughter,
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and that I'm bringing my daughter in to get, at her age, the experience of a lifetime.
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Was there some pressure on you that I need to get this right, I need to impress my dad and feel worthy that I'm on this team?
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Absolutely. I mean, it's not just impress my dad, it's impress my boss. By and large, the prosecution's case remained the same.
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Same theory of same 911 calls, same housekeeper, same photographs, with one significant addition.
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A blood spatter expert new to the case made an interesting discovery while examining photos of Leslie headboard And below the mattress line he drew Melinda attention to a very very small maybe four millimeters piece of what he believed to be some type of tissue
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And said, you know, it might still be there. So I went out to DeWitt PD, pulled that section of the headboard, and lo and behold, there was that piece still there attached to the headboard.
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So then we had to test it. It turned out to be fatty tissue, which they believe came from Leslie's open head wound.
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It told us that she was assaulted on the bed. So this was a big deal for the second trial.
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This was huge, yeah. Tonight, we're giving you a look at the bombshell piece of evidence
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that was at the core of the prosecution's argument. In the second trial, D.A. Fitzpatrick tried to tell the jury more about a possible motive.
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He said things were tense in the Newlander marriage, that the couple was separating, and that Leslie was moving into an apartment.
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There's no question that this was a rage-based homicide. This was not carefully planned and premeditated.
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Whatever the anger was about her flirting with another guy, with the expense of selling the house, her new apartment moving,
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whatever that stew ultimately became, that's resulted in her death. Bob Newlander came to court with a new high-powered defense team.
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What did you see the defense do differently this time? What was their... Change in strategy.
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I think the first trial, Bob Newlander couldn't have done this because he's such a wonderful human being.
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And the science doesn't add up. This trial, Bob Newlander is a wonderful human being.
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But the science is overwhelming that this was a slip and fall. The defense's own forensic expert disputed the prosecution's new finding about the tissue on the headboard.
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The defense said that there should have been more brain tissue, blood and hair, if that's really where she was attacked.
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There could have been more blood, there could have been more brain matter, and he could have cleaned it up.
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And motive? The defense argued the state was pulling at straws. There was nothing that would have caused Bob to fly into such a rage and kill his wife of 30 years.
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Their son Ari told the jury that even though his parents were separating, he never saw them in a physical fight.
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Nor, for that matter, had Leslie's sister. She testified in support of her brother-in-law, saying she knew of no physical altercations between Bob and Leslie.
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But perhaps the biggest change to the defense's case was who they chose not to call, Jenna Newlander.
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Jenna Newlander is the quintessential definition of the missing witness. She had intimate knowledge of the facts.
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She would naturally be expected to support her father's position, that this was a slip and fall in the shower.
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and she available The DA office spoke with jurors from the first trial and they said Jenna testimony actually hurt Newlander Jenna testimony was so disastrous that she ultimately was a huge part in convicting her father
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So without hearing from Jenna in trial number two, the jury went off to deliberate.
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How long do you expect your deliberations to take once they begin? I have no idea.
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And just six hours later, everyone was called back into the courtroom. There was a verdict.
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Robert Newlander was found guilty by a jury of 12 men and women, found guilty of murdering his wife Leslie.
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We were professionally very, very satisfied. As I said many times in this case, somebody's got to speak for Leslie.
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The DA credits his former colleague and Leslie's friend Mary with igniting the case.
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Your story is one of the most incredible stories I've heard. And without you doing what you did, there may have never been justice for Leslie.
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Maybe not, but that kind of has been a life goal for me to speak for the dead. And so to speak for my friend was an honor.
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After the verdict, Bob Newlander was immediately taken into custody and later sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
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Mr. Bach, any comments on that guilty verdict for your client? Obviously we're disappointed and we do plan to appeal.
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My father is innocent. His son Ari immediately called the verdict a travesty of justice.
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I mean, the fact that my entire family is standing behind him after 10 years, do you think we'd be with him if we thought he was guilty?
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I can assure you, every one of my family members would have been taking the stand against my father
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if he had done anything to my mother. If she were here, she'd be disgusted with how this community has treated her family.
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The district attorney does not speak for my mother. No one who claims that they're speaking for my mother is actually there for her.
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I don't think Ari wants to come to grips with this. Ari was not there. I think he clearly loves his father and wants to believe that this was a slip and fall in the shower.
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And that's his right. I bear him no ill will. For Leslie's friends who fought for justice,
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now's the time to cherish memories of the woman they admired and loved so dearly.
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I think she needs peace in heaven. And Leslie didn't deserve to die. Maybe at least with this conviction, we can think about the woman she was and her laughter and her beauty and her generosity and hold on to that.
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That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central.
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And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.