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An unfaithful wife and an unbelievable twist. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.
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I'm really sorry. I understand why they hate me. To anyone that's loved him. For the role I play, I'm deeply, deeply sorry.
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Everything was a blur. She said he found him in his car, outside his gym. Words like heart attack and aneurysm.
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We all assumed it was a health-related death. 40 year old men don't just drop dead
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They couldn't explain why this drug was in his system Someone else was there with him that morning
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This is now a murder investigation 100% She admitted that he was having an affair
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You've got a love triangle going on You've got a bromance going on Things are starting to pile up
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I had nothing to do with his death Oh my god, this can't be happening now Here's Andrea Canning with The Good Husband.
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A new love makes the world seem a little brighter. He had a very smooth, I want to say almost sexy way about him.
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Makes the heart beat a little faster. Was it passionate? Yeah. But when that love is forbidden...
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I was like, what? How can that be? How could I not have known? A family would wonder if other secrets might be hidden.
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Why would you do this? How would you be so irresponsible? The whole thing was an atrocity.
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It wasn't a tragedy, it was an atrocity. It all began just a couple of hours north of New York City.
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A photographer's dream called the Hudson Valley. rolling hills, a majestic river, and quaint small towns.
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Easy, good girl. For Linda Coleman, it was the perfect place to raise a family. Good girl.
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Well, I grew up in Sarvates, small schools. Do you? Yeah, just involved in sports and things like that.
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Everyone seems friendly, and it just seems kind of... They're small hometowns, you know.
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It's where Linda lived with her husband Tom and their family, a loving home where they celebrated birthdays and holidays.
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Thanksgiving 2011 was a busy time, visiting relatives, overeating, and watching football.
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He just loved the game of football. He was a Giants fan from a kid. And you took him to his first Giants game.
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I did. I have pictures of him, like, standing down by the field, like, look at me.
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Kid in a candy store. Yeah, it was great. Both Linda and Tom had been married before,
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But this felt like the real deal. What was it about Tom's personality that made him so lovable and made you love him?
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He had a shyness about him that was sweet. He had like a kind of shy, flirty kind of way.
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It was just adorable. When it came time to tie the knot, they rolled the dice and eloped.
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Little White Chapel. A chapel in Bally's. It was beautiful. Flowers, music. Really beautiful.
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Well, it was unusual, you know, walking through a casino and someone's got a wedding gown on.
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The only guests were Linda's parents and Tom's mom and dad, Marie, and Tom Sr. Did you feel touched that they had asked you to join in this special occasion?
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Absolutely. Did they seem like a good match? They fit. I think they fit, yeah. Both Tom and Linda had kids from their previous marriages,
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but a few years later, they welcomed a child of their own, Ryan. He would say all along through the pregnancy, I don't care if it's a girl or a boy,
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I love it either way, you know, but I kind of knew deep down he wanted a boy. And so when he
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was delivered and he saw it was a boy, he cried. He was so happy, really happy. Did you immediately
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see a relationship made in giant's heaven after that? Oh, absolutely. They were a blended family,
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His, mine, and ours, as they like to call it. Linda had a daughter who lived with her and Tom,
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while Tom's two kids from his first marriage lived in Colorado, Brad and daughter Jillian.
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I grew up knowing that my step-siblings were my siblings. It never felt not normal.
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You know, it felt like at Dad's house, that was my house. And despite the distance, Tom was very close to his oldest kids.
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I was a daddy's girl, definitely, no doubt about that. He always made sure that whenever Brad and I were in town, that we would have fun.
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Like, we wouldn't just, you know, be sitting around. We always had fun plans. Jillian and her dad talked on the phone all the time.
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Thanksgiving weekend 2011 was no exception. And I remember we hung up and we blew a kiss over the phone like we used to when I was 10 and we hadn't in years.
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And I thought that was cute. And when the weekend of family and football was over, it was Monday, November 28th.
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And lucky for Tom, the New York Giants were on TV. They stayed up and watched the football game, the Giants football game.
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I went to bed. The next morning, as usual, he was up and out of the house before Lind and the kids were even awake.
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He normally got up to go to the gym around 5.30 and give me a kiss on the forehead.
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After working out, like clockwork, he always went straight to his job as a physical therapy supervisor.
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He and Linda usually texted soon after. But when Linda sent him a message that morning...
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I didn get a response and normally Tom very good at responding You know I was getting a little concerned he in a meeting maybe he whatever he tied up She wasn really worried until her phone rang It was a friend of Tom named Gil
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I got a phone call from Gil saying, have you heard from Tom? And I said, no. Have you heard from Tom? And he said, no, but he didn't show up at work.
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What's going through your mind? Is there concern or just, oh, maybe he's at the gym?
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Tom would never miss a morning of work. Linda jumped in her car to retrace her husband's steps, hoping to find him.
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She never imagined that search would lead where it did. When we come back, Linda's heartbreaking discovery.
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I saw his car. I was like, oh my God. Tom Coleman had gone to the gym. In fact, he was still there.
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I was like, wake up. What are you doing? They're looking for you at work. I just was like, oh my God, this can't be happening now.
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Tom Coleman wasn't the kind of guy who didn't return calls from his wife, and he always showed up for work. His family says he loved his job as a physical therapist.
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He was always dedicated to his work, and he loved it so much, he went to get his doctorate in physical therapy.
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Was he the type of person who liked helping people? He did. Elderly people just loved him. He was such a sweetheart.
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So that morning, when Tom went MIA, Linda was frantic as she jumped in her car to look for him.
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He usually goes to the gym and then to work, so I went to the gym. And I pulled in, and at first I didn't see his car,
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But then as I pulled further through, I saw his car. So I just pulled up alongside it, and I looked over, and I was like, oh, my God, he was laying down.
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And I thought, he fell asleep. Like, he looks like he's sleeping. And so I jumped out of the car, and I opened the door, and I jumped in.
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I was like, wake up. What are you doing? They're looking for you at work. But Tom wouldn't wake up.
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Linda called 911. What's the address of emergency? What did you think had happened to him?
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At that point, maybe he had a migraine and took some migraine medicine and laid down.
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But he's not waking up. While you're waiting for the ambulance, no matter what you're doing, his hands were really, really cold.
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And then I realized that his nails were blue. Ma'am, are you able to check to see if his chest is going up and down?
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I don't think it is. Paramedic Tim Mitzel was one of the first responders. I believe we were here within about three minutes of the call.
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What did you see as soon as you arrived here in the parking lot? Mr. Coleman's car was parked here, and Mrs. Coleman's car was parked here.
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Mrs. Coleman was on the side. She was very distraught. Did you attempt to resuscitate him?
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We did not. After my quick examination, I could tell that there was nothing that we could do.
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He had been deceased for a while. The paramedics just stood there, and I was like, what are you doing?
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Like, help him. Just get in the car and help him. And they just stood there, and they were like, no.
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I was just, like, shocked. Like, can you at least try? You know, the one just said, no, he's gone.
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And he did. He just felt so cold. Did you just feel like this is so unfair? I just was like, oh my God, this can't be happening now.
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You can't leave us now. Shortly after, Tom's friend Gil called Linda and rushed to the scene.
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That's him in this dash cam video off to the right, collapsing in grief as he learns the news.
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Meanwhile, first responders and arriving officers process the scene. Anything unusual about his body, or did he just look peaceful?
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His trousers were open just a little bit. His collar was undone. His shirt was kind of pulled out.
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And he was reclined back in his car, and I felt like he looked like he took a nap and didn't wake up.
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There was a little presumption that it may have been a heart attack or a cardiac event or something had happened.
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He was a large man. But since Tom's death was what police call an unattended death, there had to be an investigation.
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Mike Thomas and Kyle Berardi both worked the case for the Ulster Police Department.
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They took note of how Linda, the wife, was reacting at the scene. Her demeanor, was it exactly what you would expect from a wife making a discovery like this?
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A hundred percent. A hundred percent. There was nothing out of the ordinary with her reaction, her words.
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It was more hysteria. Police escorted Linda down to the station to ask her questions about Tom's health.
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She had mentioned to us that he had hypertension. He had sleep apnea, which if you're not familiar with sleep apnea, unfortunately, they ultimately stop breathing at certain times during the night.
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That sounds dangerous. Absolutely. He was diagnosed by his doctor as having a severe case of sleep apnea.
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Did you kind of think that this was going to be an open and shut case once you got the autopsy results?
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Yeah, absolutely. And that unfortunately was not the outcome the next day. Instead, the results would turn this tragedy into a tangled mystery.
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Coming up. 40-year-old men don't just drop dead like that. A blockbuster new clue.
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What did that video show? We were able to observe a white SUV arrive in the parking lot Someone else was there with him that morning When Dateline continues
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Just after a busy Thanksgiving weekend, Linda Coleman found herself surrounded by family and friends again.
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This time, it was not to celebrate, but to grieve. Tom, her husband of 10 years, was dead.
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I think she was just in such a state of shock that it's almost like she wasn't there.
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Linda's sister, Deborah, raced to Socrates. My family were there, my parents, and there were some friends I had gathered, some of the close friends.
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There were so many people to tell. Tom's siblings broke the news to his parents.
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When I came home at 3 o'clock, all my children were at my house. They were told that it looked like a cardiac event and he didn't survive it.
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But we just couldn't believe it. Why didn't you believe it? Well, he was always in good shape.
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Exercised and everything. All right, he's a little overweight, but still, he tried to.
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You know, he was healthy. His daughter Jillian and son Brad found out from their mom Michelle, Tom's ex-wife.
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She just looked at both of us and nobody around the bush just said, your dad is dead.
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And I just, everything was a blur. I mean, words like heart attack and aneurysm kept flying at me and none of it was registering.
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It was just utter heartbreak. The three of us stood together, hugging, and then collapsed onto the floor.
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But it did seem to be a really long time that we just didn't let go of each other.
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They flew to New York and joined the growing crowd at Tom and Linda's house. Linda was a wreck.
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She needed help standing up sometimes. She was just riddled with grief. As the Colemans made funeral arrangements,
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investigators met with the medical examiner to nail down the cause of Tom's death.
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What they heard changed everything. It was undetermined pending toxicology results.
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The medical examiner explained there was no evidence of a heart attack, aneurysm, or any health-related event.
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Now you've got an undetermined cause of death on a 40-year-old male, which 40-year-old men just don't draw a bed like that.
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Are you still thinking that this could be medical, or are you starting to think we could have a homicide on our hands?
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You can think both at that point in time, because we've had to wait for toxicology reports to come back to come up with a cause of death.
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But in the meantime, we're thinking, I would say, we're thinking the worst. Until we can disprove that it's not a homicide, we've got to treat it as such.
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Crime scene techs worked on Tom's car and took swabs for clues, while detectives set out to learn more about his movements on the day he died.
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Linda told police the last time she saw Tom was the night before, watching football.
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She assumed he left for the gym the following morning around 5.30, so investigators pulled security video of the parking lot to see what that could tell them.
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It was dark and grainy, but revealed a lot. In the video itself, we were able to observe a white SUV arrive in the parking lot of Planet Fitness.
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And that was about 4.30 in the morning. Ten minutes later, we actually see Thomas Coleman's vehicle pull into the parking lot and park right next to this white SUV.
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That's when we knew that, obviously, someone else was there with him that morning.
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The plot really thickened, I'm sure, after seeing that video. Yes. So this is the Planet Fitness right here?
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This is the Planet Fitness to your right. This is where Tom worked out every morning.
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I'll pull into Tom's spot. Bill Weishaupt is a retired FBI agent and the chief investigator for the Ulster County District Attorney.
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He showed us in the light of day what's hard to see in that grainy video. This is exactly where Tom was parked, right here,
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which is, as you can see, it's a great distance away from the Planet Fitness where he normally worked out,
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and so this would not be a normal parking spot to pull into at that hour in the morning to work out in that gym.
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And the mystery SUV pulled up where? Mystery SUV pulled up right here, so they were both facing, which is this is north.
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Could you identify a person, a make, a model of the car? What details were you getting?
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No, it was pitch black. These lights were not providing any illumination at all.
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The only thing we could observe was that the two vehicles were parked side by side for about 30, 35 minutes.
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The mystery SUV left around 5.30 a.m., but Tom's car never moved. What does that tell you?
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There had to be contact between the two to meet at this point at that hour. So we knew now that someone had met with him prior to his death, and we now have to figure out who that is.
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Easier said than done, of course. We just pulled up here, and lo and behold, there's a white SUV here beside us.
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There is a white SUV there. There is a white SUV there. Once you think about it, there's a lot of white SUVs.
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They're everywhere. They're everywhere. But thanks to the video, investigators now thought they had an important lead to help narrow their search.
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Whoever Tom was interacting with in this white SUV, he was expecting him and he knew him.
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Time for investigators to start looking at Tom's inner circle, picking apart his simple suburban life.
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Linda Coleman, I would imagine, would be someone that you would want to look closely at.
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No question If there a death that is not a natural death you look at the closest people first usually the spouse Coming up
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They did want to talk to me. Soon, they discover another reason to take a look at Linda Coleman.
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Me and Linda, we have a relationship. Sexual relationship, I'm assuming? Ooh, yeah.
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He's having an affair with Linda Coleman. It caught us off guard. with no obvious medical explanation for tom coleman's death ulster police decided to treat
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it as a possible homicide but said nothing to his family we just had to just sit back and wait till
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we found a cause of death and that's what we did we just sat back for tom's parents burying their
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firstborn was excruciating, but something the funeral director said gave them comfort.
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When people die, and if they're well-respected, people come from all over. And they did. I had relatives from Rochester, Long Island, New Jersey, Virginia, even from
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California. How moved were you at the funeral as you heard people speak about Tom and all the love
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that was in that room. Just crying all the time. Walking into the wake was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done.
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I waited for all my siblings, and all four of us walked in arm in arm, faces down, just bawling.
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And we walked up to the coffin and just all almost just collapsed together and just wept.
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Detectives discreetly sent an officer to the funeral home to observe If Tom's death was a homicide, they wanted to keep an eye on Linda.
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But they also needed to find out if Tom had any enemies. From speaking to everyone, including her, Tom was just a great guy.
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He was a middle-class man, hardworking, loved his family, would do anything for them.
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We couldn't find any enemies in the world that would want to do anything against Tom.
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You had a real mystery you had to solve here. Oh, absolutely. Investigators were interested in speaking to anyone close to Tom,
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including his good friend who raced to the scene that morning. Gilberto Nunez was his full name, and he was a prominent local dentist,
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originally from the Dominican Republic. How long, I guess, have you known him? I mean, I know him for like four years, but we were like starting a friendship around three years ago.
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Gil seemed to know a lot about Tom's life. His work hours, his marriage, even his medical history.
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Investigators also fished for information about Tom's wife. But that wasn't all Gil had to say about Linda Coleman.
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He had something far more interesting to share with the detectives. I don't know if you guys know, but anyway, me and Linda, we have a relationship.
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Okay. Sexual relationship, I'm assuming? Yeah. What's that moment like when he reveals he's having an affair with Linda Coleman?
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I think it caught us all off guard because that was the first time we discovered that.
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We had no reason to ask him about that type of relationship with Linda. How long ago did that start?
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Probably like a year. A year? And Gil revealed yet another detail that was even more surprising.
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Gil said that not only did Tom know about the affair, the two men continued their friendship.
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child didn't have a clue on the basis. How crazy is this though that Tom continued to hang out with
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Gilberto? They stayed friends even after he finds out he's sleeping with his wife. Better man than I
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am. It's just not the norm. It's not something that you see. I mean is your head starting to
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spin a little bit? We're trying to get a hold of what we got now because it you know stemmed from
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unattended death in the parking lot of a fitness club to now we got all this. So and within days, the things are starting to pile up.
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Now I would imagine you more than ever need to talk to Linda Coleman. We do. They did want to talk to me a few days after.
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And one of the first questions was, what is your relationship with Gilberto Nunez?
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Coming up. Did he kiss you while you were in the chair? Yeah, which blew me away.
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You're just living in almost two different lives. I had real life and then I had fantasy life.
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Passion, secrets, anger. He comes right at me with it. What the hell's going on?
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It's so scandalous. And I said, this is what's been going on. When Dateline continues.
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Tom Coleman's cause of death was still a mystery but detectives now had a juicy love triangle smack in the middle of their investigation
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they asked Linda to come down to the station to share her side of the story I told him everything I didn't care anymore at that point I wasn't hiding a thing
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How did you meet Gilberto Nunez? I met him. At my son's kindergarten orientation.
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He had a child in the same kindergarten class? In the same kindergarten class. The son?
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Yes. That was in 2009. Gil was married then, and the two couples started socializing.
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We all seemed to like each other and were friendly, and they would just say, hey, you want to go out to dinner or whatever?
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And then you started to get to know him better? Over time, yeah. Was it through school events?
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Through that, and then our sons both did karate together. They're in the same karate class.
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Tom and Gil also hit it off and became close, talking sports and watching Giants games.
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And like Tom, Gil was a hands-on dad. He went to all his son's karate classes where he would see Linda.
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Gil and I would sit next to each other and just talk. And this was like three times a week for an hour.
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What was it about Gilberto that you liked? Very friendly, very personable. A year went by before Linda says she realized something was happening between them.
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Every time he would leave, he would give me a kiss goodbye. On the lips? For him to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, you know, see you next week kind of thing,
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really wasn't that big of a deal to me. Like, it was kind of his culture. But then as we started going by and I noticed when I was leaving, the kiss was no longer on the cheek.
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So I would go back to my car like, was that an accident? Lingering or just, you know, fairly quick.
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Linda said nothing to her husband, and she and Gil never discussed whatever it was that was going on
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until one day he finally said it. He actually called me one night. He basically was like, you know, I can't get you off my mind.
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You're beautiful. Well, I just tore you. And I was like, oh. That's a hot potato right there.
00:25:56
Yeah. Yeah. So from then he started just texting me here and there. We would talk.
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And it just progressed. Did you think he was handsome? Not really, to be honest with you.
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But he had a way about him. He had a very smooth, I want to say almost sexy way about him.
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with the accent. Latin thing going on? Yes, totally. His personality was sucking me in.
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It was early 2011. Both Gil and Linda's marriages were going through rough patches.
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In honesty, Tom and I, we were having some struggles in the home. What were you struggling with?
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I think probably the same stuff that every marriage after 10 years of struggles with, you know, paying the bills, working two jobs.
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Real life problems. Yeah, and they were stressful. So was Gilberto a little bit of an escape for you?
00:27:00
Yes. Yes, that's a really good way to put it. How does it finally get acted upon?
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I went and had some dental work in his office. So then you can imagine once I'm there and I'm in the chair and next step.
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Did he kiss you while you were in the chair? Yeah, which blew me away. The fact that this dentist, this smart guy, this, you know, smooth guy who seems to have everything,
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would even want to kiss me or choose me. Like, I just don't think of myself as someone.
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Why would he be interested in me, you know? Was it passionate? Yeah. Pretty soon, they were meeting for sex.
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And by spring, Gil had separated from his wife and was living in an apartment above his dental practice.
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You had a busy life, a job, husband, children, in a small town. How are you carrying on this affair?
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I still was the wife and the mother. I was home for my kids every night after work, and I would see him lunchtime.
00:28:07
Linda thought it was a well-kept secret, but maybe not so much. A few months into the affair, someone tipped off Tom with an anonymous text message.
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He comes right at me with it. You know, I'm getting these texts, you know, that you're with Gil, what the hell's going on?
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It's so scandalous. Yeah. And I said, this is what's been going on. I cleared the table.
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You know, I have been having an affair. It was with him. Was there any part of it that felt, I don't want to use the word good, but you got it off your chest.
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You weren't carrying around the secret anymore. It did, because then at least I could talk to Tom about it.
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And at one point he said to me, Lynn, I can see. He has some kind of hold on you.
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He's like, I see it. And he did. And Linda told us what detectives had found so hard to believe.
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How did it affect Tom, the fact that it was Gilberto, and he was friends with both of you?
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Strangely enough, they still continue to be friends. It is so hard to grasp. I know it is, but they did.
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They cared about each other. They were like buddies. Tom would invite them over for Sunday dinners.
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I know. Sounds nuts. I know. A little bit. Yeah, I know. And how are you handling that?
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I'm just like in the middle. What do I do? You're the object of both of their affection.
00:29:36
Yeah. And I love them both. And we'd say, well, you know, we don't have to decide tomorrow.
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We have to just take some time and figure this out, you know. Linda says Tom didn't pressure her to end the affair. To the contrary, he gave her the
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time and freedom to continue seeing Gil and sort out her feelings You just living in almost two different lives but they intersected I had real life and then I had fantasy life basically
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But everyone in the triangle knew it couldn't last. Linda had to make a choice, Gil or Tom.
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And a few weeks before Tom's death, she did. Coming up, her husband or her lover
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He threw me on the bed and was like tickling me. Who would Linda choose? Had she and Gil been telling police the truth?
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Maybe Linda wanted Tom out of the way so she could be with Gilberto. No question.
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It was just a few days after her husband's death when Linda admitted to detectives that, yes,
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she was having an affair with her husband's best friend. For a little bit of time there, it was me, Tom, and Gil
00:31:03
really trying to decide what we wanted to do, or what was I going to do. They were letting me decide, you know.
00:31:10
For months, Linda's affection ping-ponged between the two men. That is, until her October wedding anniversary rolled around.
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She and Tom decided to take the kids away for the weekend. And I think it was really that weekend that I realized that I just want to be with my husband.
00:31:28
He's my best friend. I love him. I don't want to do this anymore. I've been stupid and foolish and ridiculous, and I don't want to do it anymore.
00:31:39
You chose Tom. I chose Tom. A couple of weeks later, it was Thanksgiving. Still on friendly terms, Gil shared the holiday with Tom, Linda and their family.
00:31:50
Monday, Linda met with Gil alone, but decided to postpone telling him their affair was over.
00:31:56
What was that discussion like with Gilberto? What did you tell him? The holidays are here, we have all these kids, like, we can't, you know, after the holidays.
00:32:09
And he was like, okay, I'll wait for your decision, you know. Do you think he knew?
00:32:13
In hindsight, I think he knew, probably by my body language and just him knowing me as well as he did, that he was losing me.
00:32:23
That night, Linda felt she and Tom were back on track. I remember coming upstairs and he picked me up and threw me on the bed and was like tickling me.
00:32:32
And I think we both just felt like there's light at the end of this tunnel and this is the old us.
00:32:40
We're happy and silly and we'll get through this, you know. The next morning, Tom was dead.
00:32:49
And investigators were now learning details about his complicated personal life.
00:32:55
Bit of a soap opera going on here. Funny thing is, prior to meeting you guys, we said this is a Dateline case.
00:33:01
And here we are. Despite what they heard from Linda and Gil, Investigators were somewhat skeptical that this love triangle really had no jealousy or resentment.
00:33:12
DA investigator Bill Weishaupt. We had to try to determine was there some type of relationship that we weren't seeing between the victim and Nunez.
00:33:24
What was going on between the two of them that Tom Coleman would allow the sexual relationship to continue between his wife and Nunez.
00:33:34
Did you have to think of the scenario that maybe Linda wanted Tom out of the way so she could be with Gilberto?
00:33:40
No question. That was top on the priority list. And the first question for investigators, did Linda or Gil drive a white SUV?
00:33:49
Detectives knew that Linda didn't, but Gil did. He drove a white Nissan Pathfinder.
00:33:55
I mean, there are a million white SUVs out there. Sure. Once you think about it and you start looking, they're everywhere.
00:34:02
Oh, absolutely. A coincidence, but a suspicious one. Detectives were also remembering how Gil showed up at the scene of Tom's death to console Linda,
00:34:12
and his reaction struck them as odd. It was described as that he was hysterical, almost jumping up and down like a pogo stick.
00:34:21
Very dramatic, not a common reaction that you would see. If it's a good friend, though, who died, is that not possible that someone would have a very hysterical reaction to that?
00:34:34
You do see strange reactions from him, but I believe his reaction was more than overdramatic, would I say.
00:34:41
We kept in the back of our heads for later on. Both Lyndon Gill told police the affair was now over, but investigators weren't so sure and began watching them closely.
00:34:52
There was electronic surveillance in terms of constantly monitoring their phone records, their computer records, and we also had a GPS tracker on Nunez's car for a while.
00:35:07
What were you hoping to find with that? We just wanted to determine whether, in fact, they were still together, if they were together at all.
00:35:14
It looked like Gil and Linda were telling the truth. After weeks of watching them, police found no signs they'd been together since Tom died.
00:35:23
Phone records also prove Tom and Gil were indeed friendly until the end, texting each other throughout that last Giants game Tom watched.
00:35:31
And Gil, like Tom, was well-respected around town. He works hard and he is not interested in money, as far as I can tell.
00:35:40
Zach Sklar is a former patient of Gil's and always admired his generosity. He does a lot of volunteer work in poor areas.
00:35:47
Did he ever say why he likes to do that? I think he's a man who cares. It's as simple as that.
00:35:53
I mean he cares about his patients He cares about people having access to good dental care He was a member of the local Chamber of Commerce a volunteer firefighter voted one of the top Hudson Valley dentists five times
00:36:08
and chosen to endorse products in online ads. I'm Dr. Gilberto Nunez. I'm a practitioner in Kingston, New York.
00:36:17
It was a very thriving practice. We're very busy. His office manager, Irene Prenn, worked for Gil for 13 years.
00:36:26
He's always very positive, very upbeat, very kind. He's a pleasure to work for. And everyone else police spoke to said the same.
00:36:36
Gil Nunez seemed to have nothing to hide. What's more, after weeks of investigating, there was still no clear cause of death.
00:36:45
So all investigators could do was wonder if the love triangle was just an interesting story
00:36:50
that had nothing to do with Tom's death. But that would all change when the toxicology report came back,
00:36:57
and it was a shocker. Coming up... I'm in the room with the detectives, and I was like, no.
00:37:04
What had happened to Tom Coleman? You had never seen it before. It wasn't a common thing.
00:37:10
This is now a murder investigation. Yes. A hundred percent. When Dateline continues...
00:37:16
Nearly two months after Tom Coleman mysteriously died, his toxicology results were finally in.
00:37:32
We find out that there was a narcotic, a conscious sedative called midazolam in Tom's system.
00:37:40
No one even heard of midazolam before, at least in our field. You had never seen it in a murder before or as a street drug or something people abused, nothing?
00:37:51
It wasn't a common thing from speaking to a medical examiner. It's not a common street drug.
00:37:57
But to investigators, the most interesting thing the medical examiner could tell them about midazolam was this.
00:38:04
It was only used in a medical field, either by a dentist or a doctor in an inpatient procedure.
00:38:13
The fact that this is used by dentists. It's just too many coincidences, shall we say, adding up.
00:38:24
And they all come from Gilberto Nunez. The dentist. The dentist. That put a whole new spin on their investigation.
00:38:33
They wondered if maybe Gil had used the medication to somehow poison his friend and romantic rival.
00:38:38
It was told to us by medical professionals, it's putting coffee or juice or some type of substance that could mask the taste of it, because it's a very bitter, bitter taste.
00:38:50
And Tom's autopsy had shown liquid in his stomach that might have been coffee. We now have a gentleman who is friends with the family, is having an affair with the wife, drives the same type of vehicle that we have on that video next to our victim the morning he's found.
00:39:11
This is now a murder investigation. Yes. 100%. They called Linda back down to the station for more questions.
00:39:18
They asked me if I knew what drugs were in Tom's system. They asked me more about the relationship with Gil.
00:39:28
They asked me what I knew of that morning. They also decided to tell her about their suspicions,
00:39:35
that they believe Tom was murdered and her ex-lover Gil was their prime suspect.
00:39:41
I found it hard to accept because in my mind, he loved us. He loved me. He loved Tom.
00:39:47
Would he do that? Would he do something like that? Was a part of you saying, oh, he couldn't have done this?
00:39:53
When I first found out about the midazolone and I'm in the room with the detectives and, you know, they were like, do you think he could have?
00:40:00
And I was like, no, you know, I was like, you would never do that to him. But after digesting what investigators told her, she realized there were signs of trouble with Gil.
00:40:11
And over several more talks with police, she began revealing details that suggested their love triangle was far from tension free.
00:40:20
In fact, Linda says Gil had made it clear he was making long-term plans for them.
00:40:25
He even bought her a ring. We were out having dinner, and they proposed, and I said, I can't.
00:40:32
How did he take that? Well, I know, I know, I know. We had a lot to get through, but, you know, I said, yeah, you're a little premature with that.
00:40:41
It looked to investigators like Gil was growing impatient, maybe eager to get Tom out of the way.
00:40:47
Remember those anonymous texts to Tom, the ones telling him about Gil and Linda's affair?
00:40:53
She told police they came from Gil, and when she found out, she confronted him. And I was absolutely furious.
00:41:00
What did you say to him? I just screamed at him, like, who the hell do you think you are?
00:41:05
Why would you do this? Very devious. Very, very. According to Linda, Gil cried, said he only did it because he felt Tom should know the truth.
00:41:16
She said he begged for forgiveness and even threatened to harm himself. Tom felt bad that he felt suicidal.
00:41:23
He, you know, Tom was that kind of guy, you know. I know this is a really crazy situation we're in,
00:41:31
but I'm not going to let him kill himself over it. Like, we'll work this out somehow, you know.
00:41:36
Linda says she was still worried that Gil was suicidal, and that's why she decided to postpone telling him the affair was over
00:41:43
until after the holidays. She seemed sincere, but investigators had to wonder if Linda and Gil had plotted together to get rid of Tom.
00:41:53
Did it ever enter your mind for a second I hope they don think that I was in on this with someone or that I had something to do with this because of the affair Not really I had the affair but no way in hell would I ever want harm done to my husband
00:42:10
Ever. You know, and I assumed if I was going to need to be eliminated, let's do it.
00:42:16
Detectives went so far as to check out Linda at her job. She worked at a hospital where she might have had access to midazolam.
00:42:23
We made sure all the midazolam that they had was accounted for during that time period.
00:42:30
They also asked her to take a polygraph test. She took a polygraph? Yes, she did.
00:42:35
Passed, failed? Passed. So she was ruled out in our eyes. That left one person police needed to talk to again, her former lover, Gil.
00:42:45
And this time, they planned to confront him with all their suspicions. Coming up, was that mystery SUV really gills?
00:42:59
And the senative in Tom Coleman's system? I have nothing to do with any of that.
00:43:19
Ulster police had been keeping an eye on local dentist Gil Nunez since they learned he'd had an affair with Tom Coleman's wife.
00:43:27
But now they believe Tom's death was no accident and suspected a medical sedative was somehow to blame.
00:43:35
So they decided it was time to bring Gil in for another talk. It lasted approximately seven hours.
00:43:45
That's a long time. It was. There was a lot to cover. Our biggest thing was the midazolam.
00:43:52
The other thing was the vehicle. A team of investigators took turns confronting Gil.
00:43:57
They told him they had a video proving his SUV was at the scene. I never went to that gym.
00:44:02
I never, you know, nothing. So I wasn't there. So that's not. But if I look you dead in the eye and I tell you that I know you were there.
00:44:11
Then I'm telling you that you don't know because it's not true. Okay. That is, you know, totally true.
00:44:17
So you think I lied? Well, I think you are lying to me. Yes. Yeah, totally. Were you 100% sure that that was his white SUV?
00:44:27
Was I 100% sure? I was 100% sure, but I could not physically give you a license plate to confirm that.
00:44:35
No. And when investigators asked Gil for his alibi. I was all alone. Okay. I'm always all alone.
00:44:44
I was alone. He was all alone? All alone. This isn't the strongest alibi. That's no alibi.
00:44:50
No alibi. But what about the sedative found in Tom's system? Gil didn't know it, but while he was being questioned,
00:44:57
Police were at his office executing a search warrant. And inside an emergency kit, they found two vials of midazolam.
00:45:05
At first, Gil denied knowing anything about midazolam, which also goes by the name Versid.
00:45:11
So you don't keep midazolam in your practice? What? Midazolam? Midazolam. Yeah, Versid. Versid.
00:45:17
No, we don't use Versid. And with that, investigators thought they'd caught the dentist in a lie.
00:45:22
They kept pushing as Gil tried to explain how the drug might have gotten inside that emergency kit.
00:45:45
It wasn't until we said, well, what if we find your fingerprints on those midazolam bottles?
00:45:52
At that point in time, his story changed. We went from original denial of not knowing anything about it
00:45:57
to now he's handling it. They send it to me, and I put it in there, and the rest of them, they get told.
00:46:05
Okay, so let me just say this thing. If there's a medazolam in the emergency kit,
00:46:10
then your fingerprints will be on it because you put it in there. Yeah. And when investigators asked Gil about those text messages to Tom
00:46:18
tipping him off about the affair, He had an explanation for that, too. But investigators weren't buying it, and the mood in the room turned tense.
00:47:09
For nearly seven hours, investigators tried to rattle Gil. Can we stop? Because your car was on the road and you were driving it.
00:47:24
Everything else you said after that is b******. Through it all, Gil stayed calm and never asked for an attorney.
00:47:30
I have nothing to buy. I have nothing to do with anything that is in my office or anything like that.
00:47:37
I have nothing to do with whatever was in town system. I have nothing to do with any of that.
00:47:41
Did you give him a polygraph as well? We offered. Did he take it? No. The next day after that interview, we were contacted by a lawyer,
00:47:51
stating that there'd be no further contact with his client. Meanwhile, Linda was reeling from all that police had told her.
00:48:00
From the images of the white SUV in the video, to the drug in her husband's system that a dentist like Gil would have access to.
00:48:07
Like investigators, she now believed her lover had killed her husband. I didn't ever want to speak to him again.
00:48:15
But Sogarty's is a small place, and within days, Linda says she found Gil waiting for her outside a Chinese restaurant.
00:48:22
He's sitting in the parking lot and gets out of his car and starts screaming at me, and we get in a huge fight.
00:48:27
and he's like, they're trying to pin this on me and they say you were involved. And I'm like, I wasn't.
00:48:35
You did this. Get away from me. He was saying that the police were saying you were involved.
00:48:39
And I was like, okay. You know, liar. And he was like, I didn't, I didn't. But while both Linda and the police were convinced
00:48:49
Gil was behind Tom's death, investigators had no solid evidence. That grainy video didn't conclusively put him at the scene,
00:48:58
and they couldn't prove the sedative found in Tom's system came from Gil's office.
00:49:03
The district attorney told his chief investigator they didn't have a case. We didn't have the evidence that I felt or that my boss felt was compelling enough to put before a jury.
00:49:14
But the investigation wasn't over. Detectives were hoping they would find Gil's DNA in Tom's car and link him to the crime scene.
00:49:23
While they waited for those test results, they let Tom's family know they were investigating the death as a homicide.
00:49:29
Tom's ex-wife, Michelle, called Linda for an explanation. Linda told me she had had an affair with Gil.
00:49:36
She was crying on the phone, crying that this had happened. And she didn't use the word responsible, but I know that's what she felt.
00:49:48
Tom's daughter, Jillian, who'd been close with her stepmom, was now furious. Why would you do this?
00:49:55
How could you be so irresponsible? Just mad, really, and confused and trying to process.
00:50:02
It took a long time to process. I stopped talking to Linda at that point. Linda's sister was also finding out
00:50:10
about the affair for the first time. She was just very sad and very upset and I think embarrassed or ashamed
00:50:17
for having been in a relationship other than our marriage. What did you tell her as the protective older sister?
00:50:25
It's not your fault. She's blamed herself from that moment on, and you didn't choose this.
00:50:32
People have affairs, millions of people, every day. And no one deserves this. Tom's parents were stunned by the new direction
00:50:44
the investigation was taking. You go from thinking that your son likely died from natural causes to now there's a murder investigation?
00:50:52
It just seems like something that wouldn't happen to you. Just piling the crap right on top of you, right after another.
00:50:57
It was just, you know, what else are they going to tell me now? Did you call Linda?
00:51:02
No. Why did you decide to just let it be with her? Well, we were so devastated by the news, we didn't know how to deal with her.
00:51:11
We didn't know what to think. If I called her and I spoke to her, I'm only getting one side of the story.
00:51:17
My son's not around to tell his side or anybody. So I figure, well, if I ask her, I don't know what I'm being told.
00:51:26
You must have been so angry. We were angry and we were sad. But, you know, we've lost our son.
00:51:35
Nothing's going to change that. But we just wanted answers. Investigators wanted answers, too.
00:51:42
But when the DNA results came back, a new question was at the center of the case.
00:51:47
That was not only important, that was a showstopper. Coming up, the new evidence.
00:51:53
It was a showstopper, all right. I said, we're not going to go forward with any indictment.
00:51:58
We're not going to go forward with any arrest. Would it clear Gil Nunez? It just wasn't possible that he would ever do anything of that nature.
00:52:07
When Dateline continues. Tom Coleman had been found dead in his car with his shirt loosened and his belt buckle undone.
00:52:26
At the time, investigators didn't give his appearance much thought. But almost a year later, it became crucial to the case.
00:52:33
We got a DNA report back from the lab that indicated there was an unknown male's DNA on the inside of the belt flap of Mr. Coleman near the belt buckle.
00:52:44
Did you test this DNA against Gilberto Nunez? Yes. Was there a match? It was not his.
00:52:51
No match? No match. Where do you go from there? I mean, that is a... That's a showstopper.
00:52:57
Nothing moves in this investigation unless we can determine who that is. An unknown John Doe, and that's a problem for me.
00:53:04
Holly Carnwright was the Ulster County District Attorney at the time. I said, well, we're not going to go forward with any indictment.
00:53:11
We're not going to go forward with any arrest until I have the answer to that. Investigators collected DNA samples from all the first responders
00:53:18
to see if they could have accidentally left their DNA at the scene. And they considered another possibility that the DNA belonged to an accomplice.
00:53:27
We're also trying to get samples from people we had identified that were close to Nunez.
00:53:33
That's a little trickier because you just can't walk up and ask for the DNA. We call it cast-off DNA, and you would conduct a surveillance of those individuals
00:53:42
and wait for them to discard an item that would most likely have their DNA, and then you would collect that.
00:53:49
What kind of items did you collect? I think there was a cigarette butt and maybe a can of soda.
00:53:54
Over many months all the samples were processed but it turned out to be a complete bust And it identified no one It not the first responders It not Gilberto Nunez Who is it
00:54:05
At that point, I was banging my head against the wall. Linda was also growing frustrated.
00:54:11
She was now a widow, a single mom shunned by her husband's family, and eagerly waiting for a break in the case.
00:54:18
A lot of time passed without an arrest. Torturous. every day. Are you wondering, is today the day or is it never going to happen?
00:54:28
You would kind of get through a point where you'd say, okay, we're going to live our lives. And when
00:54:33
it happens, it happens, you know, and then they'd need something from me and I'd get pulled back in
00:54:39
again. One of those times police met with Linda to explain there was a problem with the original
00:54:44
autopsy. Turns out it was incomplete because back then no one suspected poisoning. Many samples,
00:54:52
like the contents of Tom's stomach that might have proved midazolam as the actual cause of death
00:54:58
weren't saved for testing. So the DA's office decided to do something radical. And he said, we need to exhume Tom's body tomorrow.
00:55:08
I just started sobbing. And I was like, oh my God. I feel like the man can never rest in peace, you know?
00:55:15
In fact, the medical examiner exhumed Tom's body twice to do additional testing.
00:55:22
Meanwhile, Gil was free, his dental practice thriving. The public had no idea he was a murder suspect, but he did confide in his staff.
00:55:35
I remember him telling us that he was innocent and that we needed to just work hard to keep the office opened.
00:55:45
I knew the kind of person that he was, and it just wasn't possible that he would ever do anything of that nature.
00:55:52
So Gil's life moved on. A year turned into two, then three. It's been really very hard for him. I think the only way he's been able to keep going is the fact that he knows that he's innocent.
00:56:07
He fell in love again and got married in the Dominican Republic. They were married on the beach. It was very beautiful with all his family and closest friends. He was very, very happy.
00:56:22
Cheese. Cheese. Time was more cruel to the Coleman family. Brad, Tom's son from his first marriage, became depressed after his father's death
00:56:36
and took his own life. He was just 18. Bradley Edward, what does this duckie say?
00:56:44
Brad made an attempt on his life with sleeping medications. And all I could say to him was, why?
00:56:54
Why would you do this to yourself and to us? And his answer was, I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up with dad.
00:57:03
Three months after that, he did commit suicide. He just wanted to be with him. So, he made a decision.
00:57:14
At this point now, you have this affair, this horrible choice that has now led to the
00:57:20
to potentially to two deaths. It hurts. It hurts a lot. Every day. Surreal. I remember just staring at the programs
00:57:34
with his picture and Bradley Coleman and the dates and just like telling myself,
00:57:43
you're at Brad's funeral right now. It became upsettingly familiar. I felt too comfortable at a funeral setting, and I realized this isn't fair.
00:57:54
I'm getting too good at receiving bad news. Through it all, the DA never gave up on Tom's case.
00:58:01
The unidentified DNA was their biggest challenge. Investigators gathered the brightest minds from the state crime lab to ask for advice.
00:58:10
And one of them said, have you checked the autopsies that were done before? Before Tom Coleman.
00:58:17
Before Tom called me. Same day? Same day. I looked at this person and said, kind of always thought that was a sterile environment.
00:58:26
And she said, well, you should give that a check. So we did. Sure enough, they got a match.
00:58:35
Turns out, the DNA belonged to the deceased male who'd been on the medical examiner's table before Tom.
00:58:43
So the DNA had nothing to do with the case. but it did mean that some evidence had been contaminated.
00:58:50
What are you thinking when you hear that? Well, I'm thinking a couple things. I'm thinking that's going to be a problem at trial because of the contamination.
00:59:00
But I'm also thinking, thank God, get a little break. And after all the additional testing, the medical examiner finally had a cause of death,
00:59:09
acute midazolam poisoning. Investigators took everything they had to a special prosecutor
00:59:15
and argued they were sure Gilberto Nunez had killed the man he called his best friend.
00:59:21
I don't think that Nunez was ever a friend to Coleman. Not for a minute do I believe that.
00:59:27
He is a master manipulator. He lives to manipulate. I believe he drew Tom in because he wanted to be closer to the wife
00:59:34
and have access to the wife. Nearly four years after Tom's death, Gilberto Nunez was indicted for second-degree murder.
00:59:43
How did that feel when you got that news? I cried. We all cried pretty hard. I felt good in that we're one step closer to justice for Tom.
00:59:55
But tough times were still ahead for Linda At trial prosecutors were about to reveal new details about her affair
01:00:07
I am not leaving you. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Intimate emails between lovers and maybe a secret identity.
01:00:16
He pulled out an ID to the CIA on top of it. It gives picture on it. Dentist Gilberto Nunez, undercover agent?
01:00:38
Four and a half years after Tom Coleman was found dead in his car, Gil Nunez went on trial for killing the man he once called his best friend.
01:00:48
I was glad to see him being exposed. for what he truly was. The rest of the Coleman family felt the same,
01:00:57
but were far from a united front. Tom's parents still weren't speaking to Linda,
01:01:02
and Tom's daughter Jillian had limited contact with her while in town for the trial.
01:01:07
I just knew I had to be there for as much of it as I could be. I needed that closure, and I wanted to hear everything
01:01:13
that I wasn't being told for all those years. Gil's supporters were also there. his new wife, employees, and several loyal patients.
01:01:24
Zach Sklar was one of them. Why did you feel the need to be there? We live in a society where you're innocent until proven guilty.
01:01:32
I saw nothing that would lead me to believe that this could possibly be true. But the prosecution's case would be difficult for Gil's friends to hear.
01:01:42
The state's theory? Gil killed Tom because he wanted Linda all to himself. The special prosecutor summed it up on day one.
01:01:51
Ladies and gentlemen, obsession. It was an obsession furthered by manipulation and deception.
01:01:59
To show jurors just how obsessed they believed Gil had become, prosecutors read emails he wrote to Linda.
01:02:06
I am not leaving you. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I am not going to let you just walk away from me. Never.
01:02:14
Linda took the stand and testified about how the affair began and lasted until right before Tom's death.
01:02:22
Tom's parents couldn't believe the details they were hearing. We just assumed that it was a one-time episode between them.
01:02:30
We didn't realize that it was ongoing for 11 months. We heard that in the courtroom.
01:02:36
Oh, wow. That's amazing that you didn't know that. When you look back, you know, that first kiss, if she would have slapped him in the face or kicked him in the nuts, it wouldn't happen.
01:02:47
You believe that this affair is the reason that your son is no longer with us? Well, yes. If he didn't commit to their lives, Tom could be alive today.
01:02:57
In court, prosecutors portrayed Gil not just as a man desperately in love, but also as someone capable of outrageous lies,
01:03:05
along with those anonymous text messages Gil sent to Tom about the affair. Jurors also learned he sent texts to Linda, posing as a woman named Samantha.
01:03:16
Linda received some disturbing anonymous text messages from a person, Samantha, telling her that Tom and she, Samantha, were having sex, wild sex.
01:03:29
And that wasn't the only fiction Gil created. Linda testified Gil even told her he was in the CIA.
01:03:37
He had an ID card, and he said that he sometimes would put trackers in people's mouths.
01:03:46
Did you believe him? Yeah, I didn't think that much of it, honestly. He kind of showed me a little card, and I was like, oh.
01:03:55
Linda didn't make much of it. But prosecutors had another story they wanted the jury to hear,
01:04:00
A story they thought would show a darker side to Gil's deceptions. It's just not a good idea.
01:04:08
Nick Monaco is a retired police officer and friends with a guy who worked for Gil.
01:04:13
Nick testified that the friend came to him one day saying that Gil wanted to pay them to go harass and intimidate Tom.
01:04:20
He said, well, Gil wants to know if you would want to accompany me to, you know, just kind of like scare the guy.
01:04:30
And he goes, we may pretend like we're from the CIA or something like that. And he says, well, you know, Gil was in the CIA.
01:04:38
I was like, no, I didn't know that. He goes, oh, yeah. Did you believe that? No.
01:04:43
And then he pulled out an ID that said the CIA on top of it. It had Gil's picture on it and his name.
01:04:50
And then it had this badge in there that said special officer. The badge was obviously, you know, from Walmart or Kmart or something like that.
01:05:00
It was definitely fake. Nick says he refused to participate and never heard about the plan to scare Tom again.
01:05:07
Police later found the fake CIA ID on Gil's computer and tacked on felony forgery charges.
01:05:14
And on a computer server in Gil's office, police found an internet search for the word
01:05:18
midazolam. If Thomas Coleman had been sleeping... The prosecutor suggested that Gil, as a medical professional, figured out that Tom's sleep apnea combined with the sedative could be a fatal combination.
01:05:32
Walk through your theory of what happened the morning of Tom's death. The night before, I believe, Gil and Tom had text about meeting that morning.
01:05:42
I think at that point in time, Gil wanted to meet up with Tom because of the fact that he knew that he wasn't getting Linda.
01:05:49
Gil got out of his vehicle and entered Tom's vehicle. At that point, maybe he brought him a coffee.
01:05:54
I mean it early in the morning You like hey bro I brought you a coffee We got to talk And a short time later Gil was driving away and Tom was dead But prosecutors faced a couple of obstacles
01:06:08
For one, the judge wouldn't let them use parts of Gil's interview with the police
01:06:12
because he had not been read his rights. So jurors never saw how Gil initially denied to police he'd ever heard of midazolam.
01:06:20
So you don't keep midazolam in your practice? What? Midazolam. Midazolam. And prosecutors still had to link Gill to the crime scene.
01:06:29
They wanted to prove the suspect SUV seen at the Planet Fitness parking lot belonged to Gill.
01:06:35
So we're able to track the movements of this vehicle through this gauntlet of cameras.
01:06:40
Grant Fredericks is a forensic video analyst and was the key to making that connection.
01:06:45
And we can begin to make observations of the vehicle itself and the pattern. Police gathered additional video from nearby businesses to get a better look at the white SUV.
01:06:56
Grant then poured through a database of 18,000 vehicles that's used by the FBI. Each manufacturer has a unique way of differentiating their vehicles.
01:07:08
The length of the vehicle might be a bit longer. The shape of the windows will be slightly different from manufacturer to manufacturer.
01:07:15
Fredericks testified that Gil's car was as close a match as he could find to the one in the security video, a 2010 Nissan Pathfinder.
01:07:24
And he told the jury one more important detail. The SUV in the video had a fog light defect, one that cast a distinct headlight pattern.
01:07:34
And what we're seeing from this vehicle is that it has this white light that is on the ground that moves in front of the vehicle.
01:07:44
Detectives tracked down Gil's white SUV, which he sold a few weeks after Tom's death,
01:07:50
and drove it along the same route seen in the security footage. Sure enough, when we went out to the scene, when we did our tests,
01:07:58
we turned the lights on and there was the pattern. It was quite visible. Gil's car had the same defect visible in the video.
01:08:07
Prosecutors thought it was just what they needed to place Gil at the crime scene
01:08:10
and tie all their evidence together. That was a unique feature to that vehicle. And it was still exactly the same a year later.
01:08:20
I have yet to find another Nissan Pathfinder color white with those exact same issues.
01:08:30
But of course, the defense was about to tell a different story and had witnesses in store that could destroy the entire foundation of the prosecution's case.
01:08:40
Coming up... His heart was a ticking time bomb. Was this even a murder at all? When Dateline continues.
01:09:01
As Gilberto Nunez's trial for second-degree murder played out blocks away from his practice,
01:09:08
The dentist tried not to let it distract him from his patients. Even during his trial, he would come and see patients in the evenings.
01:09:15
Some days were better than others. He seemed to be doing okay. Former patient Zach Sklar never wavered in his support.
01:09:24
Do I have doubts about whether he murdered someone? Absolutely not. Why are you so sure that there's not a darker side to Gilberto Nunez?
01:09:33
I'm not sure about anything. I think there's a darker side to all of us. People are complex, but there's absolutely no evidence that the guy committed murder.
01:09:42
In court, Gilberto was represented by two heavy hitters from New York City, Evan Lipton and Gerald Chargel, who had previously defended mafia boss John Gotti.
01:09:52
They argued that the prosecution's case against their client was pure fantasy. They say that Gil is such a schemer, but the plot they've described here,
01:10:03
it's like something out of a bad lifetime movie. The defense said if anyone was manipulating things, it wasn't Gil.
01:10:11
It was Linda. They read her text to Gil. Sent the very weekend, she said she was rekindling her relationship with Tom.
01:10:18
I love you. I miss you. Miss holding your hand. That soft spot scar on your face.
01:10:26
Mwah, mwah, mwah. Can you just picture it? You're there with your significant other.
01:10:31
She's behind you texting her lover. They don't want to repair any things. So Gil had no reason to kill Tom, the defense said, because he didn't think the affair was over.
01:10:42
The defense was trying to say that you're telling Tom one thing, you know, that you want to patch things up.
01:10:48
You're telling Gilbert to another, stringing him along. Yeah. Was there any truth in that or did you feel that was unfair?
01:10:56
No, there was some truth to it because, you know, I was stringing him along. We were playing his game so that he wouldn't kill himself over the holidays.
01:11:08
So, yeah, it was just a dirty, stupid game. The defense set out to dismantle the rest of the prosecution's case point by point.
01:11:20
All that business about the CIA, they said, was more like a joke, hardly criminal,
01:11:26
and irrelevant to the charge of second-degree murder. And there was ample evidence that Gilberto cared too much about Tom to ever hurt him.
01:11:34
Tom Coleman and Gilberto Nunez were best friends, did spend time together, did make plans,
01:11:42
did talk about going into a business together. There was no motive whatever for this alleged murder.
01:11:50
They stress that none of the physical evidence linked Gilberto to the crime scene.
01:11:55
No DNA, no fingerprints. As for that internet search Word midazolam, the defense pointed out anyone in the office could have done it,
01:12:04
and they believed it revealed very little. Not a search for a question about the drug, not how to kill with midazolam.
01:12:12
A search that led to a Wikipedia page. That search says nothing. When the defendant's vehicle...
01:12:19
As for the prosecution's star witness, the forensic video analyst who placed Gilberto's SUV at the scene,
01:12:25
the defense said his findings proved nothing. Even the expert doesn't say, oh yes, I see in the video surveillance, it was Tom Coleman with Gilberto in the car.
01:12:36
No, he didn't even see if someone went from one car to the other car. The defense raised another possibility about who was in the white SUV.
01:12:46
They reminded jurors Tom was found with his clothes disheveled and pants undone,
01:12:51
and suggested that Tom may have had some kind of liaison planned. And an examination of his phone revealed that he had received an email from a hookup website called BeNaughty.com.
01:13:04
The website that was found on his phone, BeNaughty.com, that was never the subject of any investigation in this case.
01:13:12
But their main argument? The prosecution couldn't prove that Gill murdered Tom because they couldn't even prove it was murder.
01:13:19
They challenged the medical examiner's conclusions, saying that despite all the tests,
01:13:24
there was no way to know how much midazolam was in Tom's system when he died. And the amount that was found didn't look like enough to kill him.
01:13:32
The reality, his heart was a ticking time bomb. He might have dropped dead at any minute.
01:13:39
The defense put on their own medical expert, who said Tom's death was more likely from natural causes.
01:13:45
The prosecutors, the detectives, they want this medical testimony to show a murder.
01:13:53
What it actually shows is heart disease, a likely heart attack. The prosecutor wants the toxicology to support a theory of poisoning.
01:14:03
What it really shows is a non-lethal dose of midazolam, a widely used safe medication.
01:14:13
As the case went to the jury, Gilberto's supporters in court were more sure than ever that the dentist was innocent.
01:14:22
But no one could be certain of the outcome. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or not.
01:14:28
They can still say you're guilty whether you are or you aren't. You know it all depends upon the jury Did you both believe that was Nunez vehicle I did Yes Yeah his car is there A quick decision in the jury room and a storm in the courtroom
01:14:48
Sociopath. I wanted him to look at me. The case of the dentist accused of murdering the man he called his best friend
01:15:06
was now in the hands of the jury. I was worried because, I mean, from day one I had been told this is a circumstantial case
01:15:13
and it's all in the hands of a jury. So while we will try our hardest and we do think it's a strong circumstantial case,
01:15:20
We can never guarantee the outcome. What's the difference between that man that you got to know,
01:15:26
that you fell in love with, and the man you know now? The man I know or see now is just a cold, dead heart
01:15:35
who doesn't care about anyone but himself. Tom's family hoped the jurors felt the same.
01:15:41
I thought that the case went very well for us and that the defense didn't do a good enough job to please doubt.
01:15:48
So I was pretty confident at that point. In the jury room, 12 men and women got right into it.
01:15:57
Fran Quack and Joseph Dolan were two of the jurors who debated the friendship between Tom and Gil.
01:16:02
I believe they were best friends. You do believe that? Oh, yes. As odd as it may seem.
01:16:08
They had a lot in common. They loved a lot of the same people. The police believe totally the opposite, that Gilberto wanted to make you believe that they were best friends, but they really weren't.
01:16:20
I wasn't so sure about that. What, about the friendship? If they were best friends. I mean, I just find it difficult to believe that.
01:16:27
But if the friendship was confusing, they say the security video made one thing clear.
01:16:32
Did you both believe that was Nunez's vehicle? I did. Yes. We all said that he had something to do with it.
01:16:40
Their deliberation didn't take long. After just six hours, the judge announced there was a verdict.
01:16:48
Is that a good sign or a bad sign? I was back at police headquarters at the time, and Mike had texted me.
01:16:54
I was confident. I felt that a verdict was coming in that soon. That they would have decided it was guilty.
01:17:00
If it happens too quick, it's not good. If it happens too quick, it is good. There's no rhyme or reason to it.
01:17:05
So at that point, we started praying. because we just were like, this is it. Mr Farperson how they used to count one Charging the defendant Gilberto Nunez with murder in a second degree I the defendant not guilty Is that verse unanimous Yes sir
01:17:24
Not guilty, and not at all what Tom's family expected. It was utter heartbreak. It was almost five years of hope and the beautiful possibility of closure and leaving it behind.
01:17:43
Just take it away. Was that a tough blow for your family? My family believes he had a hand in it.
01:17:51
But of course, Gilberto's supporters felt the exact opposite. Amazing relief. We were just crying, all of us.
01:18:00
We were just like clinging to each other and crying. It was years and years of just not knowing what's going to happen.
01:18:09
You know, we were just so happy. I was pleased that he was found not guilty. Clearly the jury did feel that there was not enough evidence to convict him.
01:18:18
I felt that all along. So how did the jurors come to their decision? Some came up with their own theory that maybe Gil did give Tom the midazolam,
01:18:27
but not with the intention of killing him. From the very beginning, I believed that Nunes was there at the scene,
01:18:35
but as a friend to help Coleman get some rest that he hadn't been getting and that he left and everything was fine.
01:18:47
And he was as much surprised with Tom's death as anybody else was. You formed that opinion right away?
01:18:55
Yeah. First day? Yeah, pretty much. As for the prosecution's medical evidence, they say it just didn't convince them of murder.
01:19:02
What did you feel was the strongest point on the defense's side? That the midazolam was not in a amount that could have or should have done any harm.
01:19:16
I believe that it very well could have been just to help him sleep. It was a bitter pill for Linda to swallow.
01:19:23
She may have had a hand in starting the whole thing, but couldn't leave the courtroom without having the last word.
01:19:29
I'm like a piece of s***. Psychotic. Sociopath! Shh, shh, shh, stop, stop, stop.
01:19:35
I lost it. I was like, Gil, I wanted him to look at me. Say, you're still a piece of s***.
01:19:42
And I just felt like on the way out of the door I had to say it. He is a sociopath.
01:19:47
Like, don't you, like, do you get that? Does anybody get that? Although Gilberto was found not guilty of second murder he was found guilty of the two forgery charges for the fake CIA materials We still damaged him He still be a convicted felon
01:20:07
It's not what I wanted, but he's not walking away completely free. After his conviction,
01:20:14
Gilberto Nunez declined to be interviewed on camera, but invited us into his office. At the
01:20:20
One time, he told us in an email that he felt sorry for Tom's family and was angered by what he called the selective prosecution against him and was extremely disappointed by the forgery convictions.
01:20:32
Months later, Gilberto stood trial again in two unrelated cases and was found guilty of charges connected to insurance fraud and lying on a pistol permit application.
01:20:43
For all three cases, he was sentenced to two to seven years in prison. He served 18 months and was released in 2018.
01:20:52
The gulf between Linda and the rest of the family remains. I do forgive Linda. I won't forget what she's done and the effect that it's had on me.
01:21:05
And she will probably never be close enough to me again to have that effect again.
01:21:12
But I forgive her. After the trial, Linda told us she was having a harder time forgiving herself.
01:21:22
Do you feel that guilt still? No. Every minute of every time. I know things have been strained with Tom's parents.
01:21:39
Is there anything that you would say to them if they're watching this? just that I'm really sorry.
01:21:51
And that I understand why they hate me. I totally understand it. I live with those same feelings about myself every day.
01:22:09
And to anyone that this has hurt, any of Tom's friends, his family, My family, anyone that's loved him.
01:22:19
You know, for the role I play, I'm deeply, deeply sorry. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
01:22:29
Thanks for joining us.