00:00:00
Samira was full of energy. Very attractive girl. She had that model look. She did not do anything
00:00:20
low-key. All of the strange twists this story took. Now you know somebody who's been murdered.
00:00:27
It was like nothing I'd ever expect to happen. Inside a gated community, a harrowing discovery.
00:00:34
It's a lady laying in the pool. She's completely gone? Yes. I studied the crime scene looking just for, does anything stand out?
00:00:43
The first focus, her sandal. Tucked right underneath the hose on the edge. It seemed very obvious this was staged.
00:00:50
Was there someone who'd wanted Samara out of the way? He observed a black female standing outside of the Frosh's residence.
00:01:00
Mr. Frosh had multiple female acquaintances. They all had a common career and they were exotic dancers.
00:01:06
Two critical clues, one chilling plot. We had an unknown DNA on a robe that came off the victim.
00:01:14
I literally looked at it for a minute and I was like, seriously? That was absolutely stunning.
00:01:20
Behind the curtain was a very dark starlet. It was a cold morning in February. Cold for northern Florida, that is.
00:01:37
Crisp but sunny when the call came in. I get an officer out here in Golden Eagle.
00:01:43
It's a lady laying in the pool in her backyard in her pool. Made no sense, really.
00:01:49
Way too cold for a swim. But the lady wasn't swimming, wasn't even floating, down at the bottom of the pool.
00:01:58
She did. She was lying face up, her palms too, as if in supplication, her leopard print robe drifting in the water around her.
00:02:09
She been in there, I don't know how long, she completely gone. The house with the backyard pool is located in an exclusive gated community in Tallahassee, Florida,
00:02:19
called Golden Eagle. First responders went out there, and pretty soon, Sheriff's Detective Tony Giraldi got a call.
00:02:27
Patrol deputies had found a body in a pool, a woman in a pool, and we were scrambling our investigative unit.
00:02:35
Is that about as much as you knew when you got that first call? It was. You would discover the EMTs had been there by then,
00:02:42
tried CPR just in case, given that the water was so cold. I didn't think they knew how long she had been in the pool.
00:02:52
So the thought process was maybe that they could revive her. Because a person's metabolism slows down.
00:03:00
Sometimes it looks like they're dead. Maybe they're not dead. Was there a serious thought that maybe she would survive this?
00:03:05
It wasn't the case. No. At the hospital, the doctors tried to check her body temperature to determine how long she'd been dead.
00:03:13
But she was too cold for the thermometer. No way to calculate how long she'd been in the pool.
00:03:20
Of course, by then, they'd figured out who she was. Samara Frosh. Unusual name. They looked her up online.
00:03:32
And... wow. She was gorgeous. She was really vavavum. Samara Frosh was amazing. Look at her.
00:03:41
Stunning, most certainly. and glamorous and very French. It's everything or nothing.
00:03:50
I'm French now. Once upon a time, she turned heads in Paris, a runway model, a sultry music video singer,
00:03:59
a shooting star. Or so the stories went. Such a shame what happened to Samura. And such a mystery.
00:04:10
When you think about all of the strange twists that this story took... Joel Silver was a friend by the time it all ended.
00:04:18
The story is very sad how it all ended up, but it is still a wild story. The story, her story, was not at all wild to begin with.
00:04:29
She was born far away in French-speaking Madagascar. She was poor, dirt poor, like the dirt floors in her family's little house.
00:04:38
and her story frankly would have ended there anonymously. We'd have nothing to tell.
00:04:44
Were it not for something in her, some drive, some desire. She was full of energy and determination
00:04:52
and she always wanted to be doing something. Over here we call it the American dream.
00:04:59
There, it was Paris. It was her own hard work that won her a spot in a Paris college.
00:05:05
It was her talent and her remarkable look that got her a place on Paris fashion runways.
00:05:13
And still, there'd be no story for us. Were it not for the night in 2006 in a trendy Paris nightclub, when she met him, Adam Frosch.
00:05:24
Jackie Watson, a French national herself, was Samra's friend. He shower her with gifts and love and flowers.
00:05:33
It was that ultimate intoxicant, love at first sight. She was brilliant and tall and incredibly beautiful.
00:05:43
And he was a prominent and successful Florida doctor, a podiatrist and surgeon, and attractive, said Samra's friend Jackie Watson.
00:05:52
Very handsome man tall bright blue eyes very good looking They were making the perfect couple And he was smitten She showed him a Paris he had seen before but never like he saw it with Samara
00:06:07
Beautiful lady, beautiful spirit, huge smile. Adam's friends saw it too, like the Reverend Larry Johnson.
00:06:14
And they were obviously in love with each other. The romance with Adam was right out of a book.
00:06:20
She said actually it was like a fairy tale. So that's how it began. And back and forth they went. He'd fly to Paris, she to Tallahassee, Florida, where he lived, just so they could see each other. Adam couldn't stop talking about her, couldn't believe his luck.
00:06:36
He said, I'm in love with her and I'm going to marry her. Mind you, Adam Frosh was a catch, too. Right? Oh, yes. He'd flown through college in three years, was the youngest graduate in his med school class, a workaholic in school and out.
00:06:53
When he was in college, he had three part-time jobs for a while. And he'd never buy pop because that cost too much.
00:07:00
He'd just drink water. But his medical practice, said his dad Alvin, was amazing.
00:07:06
It was very successful. And I'd go in the office and the waiting room would be full.
00:07:10
When I got there, at 5 o'clock, it'd still be full. And by the time Adam met Samura, he was both a respected podiatrist and a wealthy man.
00:07:19
with two practices in Georgia, just over the floor of the border near Tallahassee.
00:07:25
I was impressed with his professionalism. He was not in a hurry to do it fast and get out, you know, go on to the next patient.
00:07:33
You know, he had a big heart. Before they got married, they had to wait, Adam and Samra.
00:07:40
He was in the midst of a divorce. And when it was final, they did not hesitate. They married in Vegas.
00:07:47
and they made their home in Tallahassee. Not many French nationals here. Yes, Tallahassee?
00:07:55
Yeah. I mean, talk about a cultural shift. No kidding. You don't say. Annabelle Diaz became Samra's, what, sounding board? Soulmate?
00:08:07
Culture shock is an easy phrase to say, but for French women like Annabelle and Samra,
00:08:12
getting used to Tallahassee was not so easy. All you have to do is open your mouth and you're different.
00:08:19
Yes, yes. Annabelle, who emigrated years earlier, had to give Samra a tutorial on the English language,
00:08:27
especially when it came to words that began with the letter H. And remember, French people don't say they're H's,
00:08:33
so imagine the amount of trouble you can get in speaking English when H's are silent.
00:08:39
It sounds like you speak from experience. I do. I do. So, hate would come out as ate, hurt as irked, that sort of thing.
00:08:48
And I used to have this with Samira, I was like, no, don't use H words, they are not
00:08:53
going to understand you. But here she had friends like Jackie and Annabelle, and Annabelle's mother, who kind of adopted
00:09:01
Samra. A good life. So we were just trying to be a bunch of French girls, drinking red wine and eating cheese.
00:09:08
And eventually for Adam and Samra, there were babies. came little Hyra, a baby who would have the childhood Samra could only dream of.
00:09:17
I think she was trying to really provide this world for this baby that she thought the baby deserved, that she thought Hyra deserved.
00:09:24
Hyra and then Skaina. Samra picked the names. Her entire world were those two kids.
00:09:32
You know, I mean, like, she just loved her babies. Hi, say hi. Hi. I mean, I don't think that there's anything that she wanted to do or be.
00:09:41
except for their mother. Her whole world revolved around them. And then, it was that February morning in 2014,
00:09:50
about 11 a.m., it was the handyman who called 911. And here the story seemed to end.
00:09:57
The adventures of Samra Frosh, dead at just 38. Though really, in a way, the story had just begun.
00:10:09
What happened to Samra? The tale told by a sand dome. Tucked right underneath the hose on the edge.
00:10:17
Had she tripped, chasing the family dog? It wouldn't be the first time. I about stumbled on that hose trying to catch him.
00:10:24
When handyman Gerald Gardner called 911 that chilly morning in February 2014, he told the operator he knew Samra Frosh had children, two little girls.
00:10:54
but he couldn't find them. Where are her kids? I don't know, ma'am. I can't get in the house.
00:11:00
I can't get nothing. I just found it in the back of the pool. Investigator Jason Newland searched for clues
00:11:06
at the place Samra Frosh's all-too-short life came to its sudden end. I studied the crime scene a lot,
00:11:12
looking just for, does anything stand out? And right away, what stood out was evidence of one of those bizarre
00:11:20
Rube Goldberg tripping accidents people tend to fall prey to. This is police video.
00:11:27
The pool deck was kind of a mess. And look at this. One of Samra's sandals was caught under a garden hose
00:11:35
that ran across the deck and into the pool. Tucked right underneath the hose on the edge,
00:11:42
and then the other one was just down in the bottom of the pool. And Detective Tony Giraldi discovered that Samra's little indoor dog, Bella,
00:11:49
had escaped to the pool deck. So they have this small dog that apparently runs around if it gets out I figured she fell That stupid dog they had got out and run around the pool When he heard about Samra death
00:12:06
her father-in-law, Alvin Frosh, said the same thing very nearly happened to him during a visit.
00:12:12
I couldn't catch him out there around the pool, and I about stumbled on that hose trying to catch him.
00:12:17
So, seemed obvious. Samra must have been chasing her little dog, tripped on the hose, maybe hit her head,
00:12:23
and wound up in the pool. And tragically, the one thing Samara couldn't do was swim.
00:12:30
But one look at the web told the detectives this was otherwise a very versatile woman.
00:12:37
You could definitely Google, search her, YouTube. And there she was, about a half dozen music videos
00:12:45
under the name Samara DS, many made in her native Madagascar. They did not go viral.
00:12:53
But once she became a mother, Samra's ambitions shifted. Now she wanted her daughter, eventually daughters, to be the center of attention.
00:13:05
I said, but you're so young, so beautiful. She said, let's be serious here. Let's focus on the kids.
00:13:11
The kids had a big idea. And that's when she first met Joel Silver. He's a producer.
00:13:17
In 2012, she called him out of the blue and set up a meeting. The mother said, my baby is beautiful.
00:13:22
It should be on TV, on commercials, on this. But Samira acted on this. Because, said Silver, Samira instinctively seemed to understand the power of social media.
00:13:34
By that time, we were starting to see those kind of things on YouTube and Facebook.
00:13:37
True. Famous people, you know, famous dogs on Facebook that have thousands and millions of followers.
00:13:43
Why not a famous baby? Why not a famous baby was her idea. We just said, let's go so we can see how it works.
00:13:49
You were in. I was in. The idea was to create and market a children's clothing line based on the outfits she designed for Hira.
00:13:57
She would sell them from a website called Hira.com. The YouTube videos would push potential customers to her site.
00:14:05
If the Kardashians could do it, why not her? She said, I want to make videos of my baby, and I want to travel and make sure everybody can see how beautiful my baby is.
00:14:15
It seemed to be a perfect formula. that is using the online clothing business based on little Hira
00:14:21
so she could be close to her baby and Adam and see the country and have fun. Enviable.
00:14:28
When I saw her and her husband and that little girl, I looked at them and I said, this is what I want one day.
00:14:36
They took their roadshow all over the country. Vegas. Disney World. Hollywood. The Kentucky Derby.
00:14:47
Look at that. Washington, D.C. Let's go. New York's Times Square. And everybody admired the baby.
00:14:55
Oh, precious. He's gorgeous. Even another TV celebrity, the late Big Ange from Mob Wives.
00:15:03
Hi, you are so gorgeous. I don't know if she just thought, this is how you do it in America.
00:15:10
There's some evidence to suggest it is. Or something like that. Yes. So, right. When you come to the U.S., this is what she thought, I guess, was the best way to showcase
00:15:20
Hyra. In the background, Adam, always a bit off camera, quietly hovered. Proud, but worried a little.
00:15:31
Protective. Of course, he financed the productions, paid for her music videos, too.
00:15:36
Out on the road, were you ever approached by people who thought this was awful? We never really got any kind of backlash from anybody about saying, this is terrible, what are you doing, what are you doing?
00:15:47
And it might be, because Hyra was just always the perfect TV star. She was always in a great mood, always waving, smiling.
00:15:56
Anytime you see any of these videos, this baby was always happy. And Samra, over the top or not, she was somehow genuine, said Silver.
00:16:06
and he rolled the camera as she, no fuss, no furs, no makeup, doted on her baby girl.
00:16:17
This, thought Joel Silver, was true love. And then there was the party, Ira's first birthday party and Samra's biggest promotion on social media.
00:16:28
She pulled out all the stops. Tallahassee had never seen anything like this. With how much Samira loved this baby, she was determined to make it the party of all parties.
00:16:40
This was like a L.A. Hollywood birthday of a celebrity baby. Samira played host and narrator.
00:16:48
Okay, today's high-rise, one year's birthday. Watch. Men dressed as Egyptian guards.
00:16:56
A sword-wielding belly dancer. and Samara dripping gold and wearing a gown fit for a queen of the Nile.
00:17:05
Adam Frosh, her husband, went for something a little more Elvis. And there at the center of it all, their daughter Hira,
00:17:13
dressed in white feathers and fur. As they sang Happy Birthday, Samara and Adam were beaming.
00:17:22
Not a hint in the world that in a little more than a year, she'd be gone. Her baby's just two and ten months without a mother.
00:17:31
Detectives had watched the videos in something like amazement. And then they heard from the coroner.
00:17:38
And remember that Rube Goldberg tripping thing? Maybe not an accident after all.
00:17:46
What the medical examiner had to say. The Emmy's physical finding was foul play.
00:17:52
and questions about the handyman who refused to pull her from the water He like I wasn going to touch her
00:18:13
There was one little thing here in the pool where Samra Frosh met her end. It was something about the sandal there in the water, one trapped under a garden hose.
00:18:23
It bothered investigator Jason Newland. These sandals that had a strap around the heel, a lot of the females in the office would say,
00:18:32
that doesn't just fall off your foot like that. That sandal looked, well, almost looked like somebody had created a little stage setting,
00:18:41
like it was too perfect, too obvious to be true. And then Detective Tony Giraldy got a call from the medical examiner.
00:18:49
Oh, my. What did the M.E. discover? The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head coupled with drowning.
00:18:58
In such a way that it could have happened accidentally or did it seem to the ME as if it was homicide?
00:19:04
With the ME's physical findings that there was foul play and we were looking for somebody that caused us death.
00:19:13
Here's what the medical examiner said. One side of Samra's skull was fractured, which certainly could have meant she hit her head on the way into the pool.
00:19:22
But the other side of her head was damaged, too. A simple slip and fall couldn't account for that.
00:19:30
But remember, the M.E. saw evidence of both blunt force trauma and drowning, which meant she was still alive when she hit the water.
00:19:38
So, was it murder? It looked like, yes, the detectives went to work. We collected as much physical evidence as we could,
00:19:48
and we interviewed everybody that was saw Samra last or that was close to her. Like the man who found her in the pool, the handyman, Gerald Gardner.
00:20:01
He was a somebody we needed to talk to and rule out as a suspect. Police thought there was something odd about Mr. Gardner,
00:20:08
or at least what he said when he called 911. The operator asked him to get into the pool and pull Samra out.
00:20:15
Anyway, you can jump in and get her. I probably can't, but I prefer the officer to be here before I touch her,
00:20:22
because I don't know how long she's been in there. Nobody wants to jump in and try and get her out?
00:20:26
Well, ma'am, she's been in there. I don't know how long she's completely gone. And I want y'all to come take pictures of it before I take her out.
00:20:34
Gerald Gardner knew Samara had worked for her for years, so why did he refuse the operator's request?
00:20:41
When we talked to him later, he's like, I wasn't going to touch her. I didn't want my DNA on her.
00:20:45
I knew I'm going to be the first suspect. I found her. And he's like, I do not want to be involved in this.
00:20:52
He was right. Police would look at him and his story closely, as well as someone else who was there with him that day, his 14-year-old son, Gerald Jr.
00:21:03
At police headquarters, the boy was questioned while his mother sat with the detectives.
00:21:08
We opened the back gate and we went to the pool area and we noticed her two sandals was in the pool.
00:21:15
and we seen her laying on the bottom of the pool. Just laying there. Who saw her first?
00:21:21
My daddy. During a break in the interview, the boy started to cry. His mother telling him to calm down.
00:21:29
Police had to do their job. Why don't you cry, Brother Jeff? Well, you can't do nothing about that.
00:21:38
You were the one that was there. As for his father, Gerald Gardner, Some people were saying he did more than just work for Samara.
00:21:48
We interviewed a couple people about a relationship with them, and some people suspected it.
00:21:53
Gerald swears up and down. He goes, absolutely not. Never. Were they friends? They were friends. He would do anything she needed.
00:22:01
Were father and son telling them everything? Maybe they'd find out from the security tapes.
00:22:07
The Frosch's Place was in a gated community, so there was arrival and departure video.
00:22:13
Now that's how the detectives confirmed that the handyman and his son arrived at 10.51 a.m.,
00:22:19
10 minutes before phoning 911. So could the Gardner's have done something terrible in so short a time
00:22:27
and then sounded the way Gardner Sr. did on that 911 call? He made some statements, though, on the 911 call that I believe sound very credible and genuine.
00:22:36
And he was very adamant that he was worried about the welfare of the children as well.
00:22:40
Gerald Gardner and son, they decided, did not kill Samara. So, who did? The one person they wanted to ask, of course, was Adam Frosh.
00:22:53
Except they couldn't find him. Adam and the two little girls were, apparently, away somewhere.
00:23:00
There was a friend who might know where. A friend who, the detective discovered, did not like the former French model,
00:23:08
now lying cold and dead in the morgue. Not one tiny bit. And this friend didn't care who knew it,
00:23:19
including the police. I said, if you hit me, I'll knock you through that one. I had just my exact words.
00:23:38
Around the big frosh house and across its long driveway, yellow crime scene tape was draped.
00:23:45
An Amber Alert went out for their two small children, Hira and Skina. And it was during that chaotic day
00:23:52
that one of Adam's closest friends in Tallahassee, a man named Kendall Lindsey, got a phone call.
00:23:58
A friend of mine called me He told me that his exact words were, Sam was on the other side.
00:24:04
Sam was on the other side of one. That's what I said. You know, like, what do you mean?
00:24:07
I said, she's dead? He said, yeah, man. He said, they found her at the bottom of the pool.
00:24:12
And I said, no, you got to be kidding. Kendall confirmed it through a friend on the police force.
00:24:17
And then he steeled himself for the call he knew he had to make. Kendall always called Adam Doc.
00:24:25
I immediately called Doc and he picked up. And I told him what I heard. And I told him, yeah, she was found dead in the pool.
00:24:34
And he took it quiet. And I imagine he was crying because his daughter said, Daddy, why are you crying?
00:24:40
In the background, you heard this? I heard it. He must have had his daughter in his arms or something.
00:24:44
Adam told Kendall he was at their beach house in Panama City nearly three hours away.
00:24:50
He told him he took the kids for the weekend so Samra could rest. And I told him, I said, just bring the kids here.
00:24:55
just bring him here you need to come find out what's going on and he said he was on the way
00:25:01
soon after he shared the news with adam about his wife kendall got another phone call his police
00:25:07
contact he needed some help my police friend asked me do i know he was and i said yeah and he said
00:25:14
well where was he i said he was in panama city beach house in panama city but he's on the way
00:25:18
here with adam headed back to tallahassee the officer asked kendall for another favor he said
00:25:24
well, I got a detective buddy who wants to ask you some questions. Are you at home?
00:25:27
I said, yeah, I'm at home. You can come on out. Within 30 minutes, I had a detective at my door
00:25:31
asking me questions. Kendall told the detectives his relationship with Adam bordered on brotherhood.
00:25:38
Kendall is a car dealer and Adam had a thing for collecting cars. Maserati, Ferraris,
00:25:45
some very nice Mustangs, top-of-the-line Mercedes, two-door coupes, convertibles,
00:25:52
you name it. In fact, Adam owned 80 cars, at least, maybe 100. So at first it was a business relationship, but soon they were fast friends.
00:26:02
They went to games together, shot pool, traveled to Miami, Orlando, Vegas. They especially liked Vegas.
00:26:09
Go to casinos and stuff like that. Just traveled a lot. At the casinos, Adam played in Texas Hold'em poker tournaments.
00:26:17
Kendall kept an eye on him because Adam liked carrying big wads of cash and flaunted his expensive watches and jewelry.
00:26:25
So did you find yourself kind of becoming his protector, his watch out for him? Like we go to a casino, he'll have jewelry on
00:26:34
and flashing like a superstar. Like, you know, you got all type of guys. They're looking at this stuff.
00:26:39
And I talk to him all the time, but it didn't matter to him. He was just naive to it.
00:26:42
Then the detectives asked, how did Kendall feel about Samura? He said, you like us? No, I didn't like her at all.
00:26:49
You didn't like her. And you didn't make any secret of it. Right, I told him that.
00:26:53
Samara didn't like her husband spending so much time with Kendall, traveling with him, going to casinos.
00:26:59
Kendall told Adam, don't let your wife dictate your friendships. We continue our friendship, yeah, under the radar from her.
00:27:07
She realized that I was the one that's encouraging him to stand up for yourself.
00:27:10
But he wouldn't say to her, look, he's my friend. I'm going to see him whether you like it or not.
00:27:16
No way. No way. Kendall said he tried to tell the detective all that, but then it dawned on him.
00:27:24
He, Kendall, was a suspect. When he started asking me where was I last night, that's when I started thinking, well, do I need a lawyer here?
00:27:33
Police asked him for his phone and if he'd go to the sheriff's office to take a DNA test.
00:27:39
Questions continued there for hours. So, obviously, you know, they're here. Hardly a surprise.
00:27:48
I don't think that I'm not aware that I'm probably a suspect as well. I understand that, the nature of that, because how I feel about Samra, everybody know it.
00:28:00
Kendall told the detective about the time he stepped between Adam and Samra during an argument,
00:28:05
mostly to protect Adam. Samra wasn't happy. I said, if you hit me, I'll knock you through that one.
00:28:11
I had just my exact words to her. I said, I will knock you through that one. And then there was Kendall's last conversation with Samra the night before she was found murdered.
00:28:21
Kendall said it started over a misunderstanding and then escalated when Samra decided he'd stolen some clothes that had been left in one of Adam's cars.
00:28:30
Heated words. Expletives exchanged. She lit into me. You don't need to know why my clothes are in my ****.
00:28:38
You better bring my clothes back. All that kind of ****. I said, yeah, I burnt them and I hung up.
00:28:43
Just like that. And then Kendall said something, said something he maybe shouldn't have said.
00:28:48
I joked about it this morning. I said, if it was me, they're going to have to be looking for a killer because my hand will be still right behind her neck like that right now.
00:28:57
And that's the truth. Did he just say that? About his best friend's wife found dead in a pool?
00:29:03
Now that got the detective's attention. Time, they decided, to take a hard look at this guy's alibi.
00:29:10
Did he have one? Inside the jaw-dropping world of Adam and Samra Frosh. A lot of marble, gold, a lot of exotic animals that were stuffed.
00:29:25
Did all that wealth provide a motive for murder? Adam Frosh's good friend Kendall Lindsay
00:29:44
had just made an astonishing statement to detectives investigating the death of the doctor's wife, Samara
00:29:49
Kendall wasn't fond of Samara In fact the two had argued vehemently the night before she died I joked about it this morning I said if it was me they going to have to be looking for a killer because my hand would be still right around her neck like that right now
00:30:06
And that's the truth. What a thing to say, even if it was a joke. So, next question.
00:30:13
What, asked the detectives, was Kendall up to the night before and the morning Zamra was found?
00:30:19
I went hunting around about 5.30. Then I came home, stealing my hunting gear, and took a shot.
00:30:28
Both of my sons were there. All right. So next morning, you're at the house. Right.
00:30:34
You don't go anywhere. Nowhere. After breakfast, said Kendall, his wife drove him to work.
00:30:40
That was 11.20. Samuel was found at 11. So Kendall had an alibi. Detectives regrouped and went back to the Frosh house.
00:30:51
Let it talk to them. And talk it did. Wow. It was different. Different for most people's taste.
00:31:04
Detective Tony Giroldi. A lot of marble, a lot of gold, a lot of exotic animals that were stuffed.
00:31:12
Oh, wow. Which was kind of new to us for executing a search warrant. But it wasn't just the over-the-top house.
00:31:20
Everything the detectives learned about the froshes practically screamed money. Watches, jewelry, clothes, guns, motorcycles, a fleet of cars.
00:31:32
Approximately four houses, a multitude of cars, anywhere from 80 to 100. High-end vehicles, Mercedes, BMWs, Hummers, Corvettes, even a Ferrari.
00:31:45
Boats? He did have a boat that we discovered. the investigators asked kendall lindsey and he told them as he did us that adam frosh would often
00:31:57
buy a car when the two men were on the road then he'd leave it behind so he could go almost anywhere
00:32:03
and there would be a car there that he owned that's right now they'd sit there they'd sit there
00:32:07
he's all about collecting i i categorize doctors like a hoarder in a way a hoarder yeah i know a
00:32:14
strong word but in a way from what I've witnessed doc could never get enough of buying things not
00:32:20
just cars a lot of a lot of nice things so maybe buying things met some sort of psychological need
00:32:27
we're getting my office and look for a car for a couple hours on the internet it could be 11 o'clock
00:32:33
one o'clock in the morning and he sees it if it's in Miami Florida or Nevada we're on a plane or we
00:32:42
on the car and we're driving down that night to be there. To buy it? To buy. And then as soon as
00:32:47
they buy that car, that rush is over. It's like, okay, find me another car. The doctor liked to
00:32:54
pay for these things, in fact, most things, in cash. Like the time he took Samra and Jackie
00:33:00
out to dinner. It's just I noticed he had money because when he paid the bill, he had
00:33:05
that big stack of $100, I was like, hmm, you know. And investigators quickly realized that Samra seemed to share Adam's penchant for buying things,
00:33:17
expensive things. She ordered $1,500 pacifiers for the children, the chandeliers, the statues.
00:33:25
I don't know that there's anything they wouldn't buy. So they figured maybe money was the glue in the frosh marriage.
00:33:33
And sometimes, during rough patches, a peace offering. In text messages, he would send a picture of $100 bills laid out on a bed and shaped of I love you.
00:33:43
And that was the effective way, I gather. It worked. Dr. Frosh, it seemed, was only too happy to spend lavishly so that poor girl from Madagascar could have her American dream.
00:33:55
Apparently, he could afford it. He was doing very well. How well was he doing? Maybe one of the highest paid podiatrists in the state or arguably the country.
00:34:07
It was true. At the time, Dr. Frosch was one of the leading practitioners of a cutting-edge skin graft procedure for diabetics called Dermagraft.
00:34:17
People poured into his clinics in southern Georgia, many of them on Medicare. So in 2012, for example, a couple years before Samra died,
00:34:26
the doctor received more than a million dollars in Medicare payments. Adam, when he worked, he worked.
00:34:32
He'd start at 9 o'clock and work till whenever he got done. A lot of times it was 7 o'clock before he got done.
00:34:39
Mind you, said Adam's father, his son may have come by those stacks of bills another way, too,
00:34:45
at the gaming table. He got started in Texas holding poker, and when he got involved with something like that,
00:34:54
he'd want to go till he was the best. Didn't hoard his money, though. Investigators also discovered the doctor was generous,
00:35:02
shared his good fortune with friends and family, and patients too. The Reverend Larry Johnson was the doctor's patient first and then his friend.
00:35:12
He came through the door. He was going to treat you regardless. Money or no money.
00:35:17
But if you needed $1,000 and you can show why you needed it, you got it. With him, a stranger.
00:35:22
Could you just say, give me $1,000 and give it to you? No, he wasn't an idiot. It was just that his heart was, like, big.
00:35:30
So, the detectives had questions for the doctor. Many questions. But first, they had to find him.
00:35:40
The doctor surfaces. But his behavior only raises more questions. questions. There was a lot of factors that made you look at Adam and go, what happened here?
00:36:03
So Hours after Samara body was discovered investigators tracked down Adam Frosh at his beach house in Panama City Beach.
00:36:13
Kendall had already told Adam the devastating news about Samara. And then the cops arrived.
00:36:19
It looked like he was packing up the vehicle. He'd already had the kids in the car.
00:36:22
Heading for home, he told the officers. Instead, he was taken to the local sheriff's office.
00:36:28
Detectives drove from Tallahassee to meet him there and recorded their conversation on audio tape.
00:36:35
The doctor was a mess. But the cops were all business. What, they asked, had Adam Frosh been doing the day before?
00:36:48
Errands, mostly, he told them, with Samra and the babies. They were all together.
00:36:53
Then a pleasant lunch and an even better evening. Actually, we made love in the living room, on the chair in the living room.
00:37:02
When you say you made love, you had sex? Mm-hmm. And I don't like to get in that personal.
00:37:09
It's one of the better times we had in a while. And then, Adam told them, Samra asked him for a favor.
00:37:17
She just said that she was really tired, exhausted. and said, tomorrow I want a break.
00:37:24
And just take the babies. You guys go somewhere. I want to sleep in. So come morning, said Adam,
00:37:31
he took the girls to the beach house. What time was it at you? It was approximately eight or so.
00:37:37
And where was Sam? She was in bed. The surveillance camera backed up Adam's story.
00:37:44
There's his car leaving Golden Eagle. But what struck the cops conducting the interview
00:37:49
was how the doctor's emotions seemed, how to put it, disconnected from his tear ducts?
00:37:57
Investigator Jason Newland wasn't in the room that night, but his colleagues were.
00:38:01
I remember a lieutenant at the sheriff's office telling Adam, you've sat here telling me how sorry you are,
00:38:07
how bad you feel about your wife, and you've yet to shed a single tear. Is that a true tell about whether somebody's really grief-tricken or not?
00:38:15
No. There was a lot of other factors that made you look at Adam and go, what happened here?
00:38:22
Other factors? Well, there was, as investigators discovered, a whole different story
00:38:28
about the froshes. Very different. Very tumultuous. In fact, they were in the middle of a divorce.
00:38:35
Which would be divorce number three for Adam. So yes, they were skeptical about Adam's story. And they told him so.
00:38:42
We know the history. Right. I understand. We know how things have taken place between the two of you.
00:38:52
The history. It was complicated, all right. For one thing, the doctor had a roving eye.
00:38:59
Infidelities. Like what? He had, we could say, multiple affairs, multiple girlfriends.
00:39:08
While he was with Samra? Yes. And, said Jackie Watson, Samra could not bear her husband's cheating.
00:39:15
I think it was the one million times he cheated on her. You know, it's so much a human being can take.
00:39:22
So the marriage turned along in turmoil. Sometimes an angry wife would take it out on her husband,
00:39:29
as investigators discovered when they found this snippet of video on Samra's phone.
00:39:35
She's just locked him out of the car. What did you find out about that marriage and about those two people at the heart of it?
00:39:41
It was a marriage that lacked trust. It was verbal abuse. There was physical abuse.
00:39:49
And then six months before Samra died, a particularly nasty fight, a call to the police.
00:39:55
And Samra was arrested for domestic battery. Samra was a volatile person, would attack at him.
00:40:03
We know there was a domestic history between the two. Yeah, she was charged a time or two.
00:40:08
She was. She was charged and arrested for domestic violence. And that is how Samra met Annabelle Diaz, her attorney.
00:40:17
When we got her out of jail, then we got served with an injunction. Adam's attorney told the judge he'd had enough, and the judge granted the injunction.
00:40:25
Annabelle Diaz, on the way to becoming Samra's friend now, thought that was awful.
00:40:30
She cannot go back home. She cannot see her kids. This is what the injunction said.
00:40:36
Didn't stay that way, mind you. After Samra filed for divorce, she managed to regain custody of the two little girls,
00:40:44
and she and Adam started living apart. Was that breakup particularly painful? For him?
00:40:50
Yeah. Oh, man, he did everything he can to keep coming back. Best friend Kendall watched as the doctor tried to put the marriage back together again.
00:40:58
He still bought her these cars for her. He still tried to buy her $1,000 dresses to buy her back.
00:41:05
She would take every bit of it and still... Hold them at bay. So was there a motive in all that?
00:41:12
A tumultuous marriage ending in violence? A husband scorned, still deeply in love with his volatile wife?
00:41:19
Maybe he finally snapped, struck back. That's what the investigators wondered as they sat in the interview room late that night.
00:41:27
The best person in the world has a limit, okay? And when they reach that limit, they do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do or couldn't even think of doing.
00:41:37
and I think you've reached that limit. No, that's not true. The doctor insisted he wasn't there, didn't know what happened.
00:41:45
But he thought it was most likely an accident. I'm worried that she may have tripped on the water hose that was out there
00:41:53
and are trying to chase Bella around the pool and fell in Maybe and maybe not A bombshell from a neighbor who tells police what he saw just minutes before Samura was found dead
00:42:11
He observed a black female standing outside of the Frosh's residence. Was it Samura or possibly the killer?
00:42:25
Detectives had talked to Adam Frost for nearly two hours, had listened when he said he wouldn't harm a hair on her head.
00:42:42
Not Samra, the love of his life. But they weren't buying his accident story. Didn't buy any of it.
00:42:50
In fact, one detective said it sounded to him like it was a fatal attraction. Police had heard enough.
00:43:10
They arrested Adam Frosh, but not for his wife's murder. Didn't have enough evidence for that.
00:43:16
So they found another way. Because Adam and Samara were in the midst of a divorce,
00:43:21
and by court order he had no right to take the kids that morning, they had a reason to hold him in jail.
00:43:28
He was arrested because he violated an agreement having custody of the children.
00:43:32
And you could keep him in custody for a while that way. Sure. He stayed in custody.
00:43:36
We continue to work our death investigation. Adam, in his jail clothes, was pale and needed a shave when we caught up with him.
00:43:45
But he had a clear message. He would never harm his wife. He loved Samara from the night he met her in Paris almost 10 years before.
00:43:55
What did you see in her and she and you? Her beauty, for one. Yeah. Couldn't miss that.
00:44:00
Yeah. And even though she didn't speak very good English and I spoke no French, and we just had a great romantic time together.
00:44:10
Once they married and started a family, Adam told us, there wasn't a better mother on this earth.
00:44:16
That Hira.com clothing line? Adam figured Samra was probably driven by the deprivations of her own childhood.
00:44:25
Her intentions were that they have opportunities that she didn't have. And the day Adam got the call from best friend Kendall
00:44:32
with the awful news about Samra is still fresh in his mind. What was it like to hear?
00:44:39
Oh, it was just terrible. I mean, it just destroyed my world. I was just shot and crying and broke down.
00:44:45
My little girl was saying, Daddy, why are you crying and stuff? But wait, if Adam really was that loving husband,
00:44:51
then what about all the other women, the stories of infidelity? Didn't happen, he told us.
00:44:57
Not while he was living with Samra. Not until they separated and he thought his marriage was over.
00:45:04
Probably on to divorce number three. Get out of this and just start on with my life.
00:45:08
I started dating. But there weren't relationships all the way through your marriage with Samro?
00:45:13
No, no, I never ever had. Because this is the allegation that's out there. It's not true.
00:45:18
In fact, said Adam, he and Samro were trying to reconcile. During that last month, he'd been staying over at the house with her and the children.
00:45:28
And they agreed to try again. She was going to call off the divorce, he said. She said she was sorry and that she wanted me back.
00:45:36
How'd that feel? It felt wonderful that I got her back. And then she admitted it was very difficult raising the two girls by herself.
00:45:42
And their final night ended, he said, with them making love, nothing else. Murder wasn't possible, said Adam.
00:45:51
And before long, he made bail on the child custody case. And months passed. If prosecutors were ever to charge Adam with Samra's murder,
00:46:00
they'd have to get around a problem, a big one. A neighbor of Adam's came forward with some information.
00:46:08
What did he tell you? On the day that Adam left, the morning of, he believed he observed a black female standing outside of the Frosh's residence.
00:46:21
He said she was tall and thin. Who did he think it was? I never really led on to say this is Samra Frosh.
00:46:30
He just said that he saw a black female standing outside of the Frosh's residence.
00:46:35
But he thought it probably was her. I think he did. Yeah. What time? He said that he and his daughter were taking a walk in the neighborhood,
00:46:44
and this was in the time period about 20 minutes before Gerald Garner had discovered her.
00:46:50
So wait a minute, that would be like 1030 or 1020 or something like that. Correct.
00:46:56
And he was very sure about the time, very sure, no earlier than 1025 a.m. So was it Samura?
00:47:06
The detectives were baffled. Having checked the security gate cameras, they knew Adam had, as he told them,
00:47:12
left the house with the two kids around 8 o'clock that morning. And if the woman the neighbors saw was Samara,
00:47:19
that meant she was still alive when Adam left and for a couple of hours after. And if that person was telling the truth or was accurate,
00:47:29
your guy couldn't have done the crime. That's correct. And then there was another possibility, that the woman in the driveway wasn't Samura at all.
00:47:39
It was someone else entirely. And if that was true, the woman the neighbor saw might have been the killer.
00:47:48
So, what did you do about it? For me, it was try to figure out who it is he saw.
00:47:54
Was he, one, was he in the right driveway? Two, could it have been somebody else?
00:47:59
Yes. It was a tough, tough situation. Tough, yes. The cops had their work cut out for them now.
00:48:07
How to track down the woman in the driveway. Could she be someone the doctor knew?
00:48:17
Turns out he had no shortage of companionship. So tell me about these girlfriends.
00:48:22
What kind of people were they? Three of them were strippers. The investigation is about to get a lot more interesting.
00:48:30
Detectives are paid to be skeptical. And in this case, their suspicions lay like a wet blanket on Adam Frost's explanations.
00:48:52
One in particular. Adam's saying he only dated other women after Samra filed for divorce.
00:48:59
Well, nothing could be further from the truth, said the detectives. Mr. Frash had multiple female acquaintances, several of which looked very similar.
00:49:10
Stature. Yeah. So would these women be seen as suspects? I mean, they're persons of interest.
00:49:20
I wouldn't necessarily put them in the suspect category, but if we were throughout this investigation, everybody's potential.
00:49:28
And they could not ignore the possibility that one of those other women wanted to take Samra's place in Adam's life.
00:49:36
That one of them could be the woman the neighbor saw in the driveway. So tell me about these girlfriends. What kind of people were they?
00:49:44
Three of them were strippers. So you actually found yourself kind of traveling around the state going to strip clubs and tracking people down?
00:49:50
I did. I did. Not the best time. And for each one, a question. Had you been to Tallahassee? When was the last time you were at Tallahassee?
00:50:01
Shakita was one of the women. She fit the description of the woman the neighbor saw in the driveway that morning.
00:50:06
I never met Samra, but he did leave a horse mill on my phone. She was like, call the game, it's going to be game over, okay? It's going to be game over.
00:50:17
You know, that trigger made you look failing. Then there was Erica, also a possible match for the mystery woman.
00:50:26
Let me ask you a question. You know anything about his lost death? No, sir. I swear on my life.
00:50:34
I don't know anything about it. There was also a third woman. Not one of the strippers, a woman whose story was a lot more complicated.
00:50:43
Her name? Martha Moore. Somewhere between the engagement and the marriage, Adam had a relationship with an individual named Martha Moore,
00:50:51
and they had a child as well. Awkward. Slightly. When Adam found out she was pregnant, he did the decent thing.
00:51:01
Put up in a place, got her a car, always gave her money. Samara found out about Martha when she moved to Florida just before she married Adam.
00:51:12
But she went ahead with the wedding anyway. Except, these things do have a way of worming themselves into a marriage.
00:51:20
The issue didn't die. She made him take a DNA to find out if it was his child or not.
00:51:28
And when he did, and it was, then she really got upset. Investigators naturally wanted to talk to Martha,
00:51:35
especially after they found out Samra confronted her on the phone a number of times
00:51:40
after she found out about the baby. So, what happened then? You guys had a few run-ins down the road, didn't you?
00:51:49
I left them alone. I really didn't have any remains with her. Only thing I do is meet Adam once a month,
00:51:57
pick my money up, and we go. And so she did. Police let her go after the interview.
00:52:04
Like the other women, she had an alibi, which detectives would have to check out, of course.
00:52:09
But in the meantime, they had another way to get at the truth, one a bit more foolproof.
00:52:15
We had an unknown DNA on a robe that came off the victim in the pool. Samara's leopard print robe.
00:52:23
If one of those women had thrown Samara into the pool, she may have left a little of herself behind.
00:52:30
Newland got DNA samples from the women. We tried to eliminate all of them. No matches.
00:52:38
Not to the women, and not to the handyman or his son, and not to Adam's friend, Kendall.
00:52:44
All of them were cleared. Investigators couldn't figure out who the woman in the driveway was.
00:52:50
Now they were back to square one. And they figured Adam Frosch was standing squarely in it,
00:52:56
had put himself there when he claimed Samra let him take the children to the beach house.
00:53:01
I know she would never give the kids. This is for sure. And certainly not the way they were dressed.
00:53:08
Wasn't Samra's style? The date that Adam took the children to go to Panama City to give Samra a break, they were in pajamas.
00:53:17
Which simply wouldn't happen if she had anything to do with it. I see. Open to interpretation, of course.
00:53:25
Like phone messages left by Adam on Samra's phone after his friend Kendall told him she was dead.
00:53:32
What were they to make of this? Samra, please turn on your phone and call me as soon as you get this message.
00:53:40
He had called her throughout the day, leaving voicemails. I'm getting worried about you.
00:53:47
Why aren't you answering your phone? Wouldn't that suggest more innocence than guilt?
00:53:53
I believe it just another attempt at an alibi for Adam Fresh And you know the story Adam told of that last happy day with Samura Well security camera tapes from late that night told a very different story
00:54:09
First, in an auto repair shop, Adam trying to talk to her. Samura, driving, backs up the car with the door open and him in it.
00:54:18
Like she doesn't seem to want any part of it. Same kind of thing when they got home.
00:54:22
Adam tries to talk to her through the car door. She slams it on him. And if a lot of this wasn't hard evidence against Adam,
00:54:31
it did make for a pretty strong circumstantial case. Or so Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman believed.
00:54:38
So she convened a grand jury and put the case to them. And this was unusual. Adam testified.
00:54:45
It didn't surprise me. He's a talker. He's, you know, smooth. He thinks he can talk his way out of things.
00:54:51
Not this time, apparently. Adam was indicted for first-degree murder. And so a jury would decide if, as one detective said, Adam Frosh loved his wife to death.
00:55:08
Damning testimony from an ear witness. During the time that Mr. Frosh was on speakerphone, did he make any threats to harm Mrs. Frosh?
00:55:17
He did. He said, I will kill you. Adam Frosh was in a world of trouble, charged with killing his wife and facing the possibility of a life sentence.
00:55:40
And if that wasn't enough, federal agents raided his medical office on suspicion of Medicare fraud,
00:55:47
which might explain why the podiatrist seemed so filthy rich. Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman became aware of the raid after she took on Frosch's murder case.
00:55:56
He would have had to have been seeing two patients simultaneously 24-7 to account for the amount of billing that he was doing.
00:56:04
So that was pretty flagrant. Busy guy. Yeah. The feds investigated but did not press charges.
00:56:14
And then as Frosch's trial date for murder approached, prosecutors offered him a deal.
00:56:20
plead guilty to manslaughter, and serve a maximum of 15 years in prison. Adam said, no, he was innocent and wanted his day in court.
00:56:31
Adam, how are you feeling today? Fine. And so, almost three years after Samra was found at the bottom of the family pool,
00:56:39
her husband went on trial for murder. His father, Alvin, was there. It's a bad situation for the whole family and for him, too.
00:56:48
because it destroyed his life. Zamra's family was thousands of miles away in Madagascar and France,
00:56:56
but she did have an advocate in court, a tough and experienced prosecutor. The cause of death as ruled by the medical examiner
00:57:05
was blunt force trauma and drowning. He basically killed her twice. He hit her and caused such massive injuries
00:57:14
that she probably would have died from that, very likely. but then threw her in the pool while she was still alive.
00:57:21
Who would do such a thing to this beautiful young mother of two small girls? Well, had to be Adam, said the prosecutor.
00:57:30
Their history was probably the biggest clue that it was a homicide. Yes, that history of excess, infidelity, and conflict,
00:57:39
which she said led to a fatal confrontation at the swimming pool. The ugly scene was described by the handyman who discovered her body.
00:57:48
There she was, laying in the pool. And when you say there she was, who was? Ms. Frosch laying in the pool.
00:57:54
And how could the jury be sure she didn't trip and fall by accident? Here was the medical examiner.
00:58:01
Do you have an opinion as to whether she could have tripped and bumped her head and fallen into the pool?
00:58:08
I don't think that's what happened. These are significant impacts that I don't think she would generate herself by just falling.
00:58:18
Can you imagine a scenario where she would have hit both sides of her head and then managed to get into the pool?
00:58:24
I can't, no. Detective Tony Giraldi testified and told us that when he first met Dr. Frosch...
00:58:32
He had some scratches, some significant marks that not a normal person would have.
00:58:38
Well, how'd he get them? Did he tell you? So he told investigators some of the marks were from him and his wife, Samra, having sexual intercourse the night before.
00:58:49
So they were love marks. My goodness. The specific one under his eye, he shared with us that his 10-month-old child had scratched him.
00:58:56
You're about to hear a recorded conversation. The prosecutor made sure the jury would hear the detective's skepticism about those scratches by playing recordings of the interrogation.
00:59:08
The baby was playing around and she always kind of grabs at my eye and face and stuff.
00:59:13
So you try to make me believe that a 10-month-old has nails enough to make that type of scratch on your face?
00:59:18
Yeah. The prosecutor argued that Adam killed Samara before leaving for the beach at 8 a.m.
00:59:25
On the stand, the M.E. testified that the time of death was unknowable. There's no way to say the exact time of death, or I should say when she's placed in the pool.
00:59:36
There's just no way to say. To Prosecutor Kappelman, not knowing when Samra died simply meant Dr. Frosch could not be ruled out.
00:59:45
He must have killed her before leaving the house at 8. And the way he drove off with the girls that morning, very suspicious.
00:59:52
Really unusual that he would depart with those kids at 8 a after getting in at midnight the night before And to load up and pack up and take the kids for the first time ever off on a trip somewhere and his wife happens to be discovered dead a few hours later
01:00:08
And after, said the prosecutor, the doctor sped away with the kids toward a woman named Martha Moore,
01:00:14
the other woman with whom he'd had a baby. Martha was called to testify about a phone call she got from Frosch that morning.
01:00:22
What did he say on that call? He said he was on his way to my house. Why did you put Martha Moore on the stand?
01:00:30
To establish that the defendant called her first, and he was headed in the direction of her home.
01:00:37
I believe to drop the kids off there was probably his intention, and then to flee.
01:00:42
That was really only speculation, of course, and Martha wasn't home that morning anyway.
01:00:47
But on the stand, she acknowledged it seemed unusual the girls would be alone with Adam.
01:00:53
You know, they were going through the battle of divorce and the court orders he shouldn't have had the kids.
01:01:02
To Prosecutor Kappelman, it was a bad set of facts for Adam Frosch. A scorned husband with ample time to commit murder before hastily fleeing the scene with kids who were not supposed to be in his care.
01:01:15
Mr. Frosch, did they read you your Miranda rights? Yes, sir. Kappelman played more than an hour of Frosch speaking to investigators,
01:01:24
homing in on his demeanor in the hours after Samra's death. You just sat up here and broke down in your own way of crying.
01:01:35
I don't know how many times and not one tear has dropped out of your eye yet. But I've already teared out for six hours here, sir.
01:01:44
Frosch spoke with several law enforcement officers in those early hours. Lieutenant Chad King was one of them.
01:01:50
He kind of put his hands over his face. Were you able to observe if there were any actual tears?
01:01:55
None that we saw, no. And then the prosecutor called a man who could comment directly on Adam Frosch's state of mind.
01:02:02
A man named Stephen Wilson, who said he helped Samra set up a website celebrating her daughter.
01:02:08
He recounted something he said he heard with his own ears less than two weeks before Samra was killed.
01:02:14
Did you have an opportunity to overhear an argument between Mr. and Mrs. Frosh? Yes, on the phone.
01:02:21
And during the time that Mr. Frosh was on speakerphone, did he make any threats to harm Mrs. Frosh?
01:02:27
He did. And what did he say? He said, I will kill you. I will kill you. The words of a man who looked guilty at every turn, said the prosecutor.
01:02:37
Of course, the evidence was circumstantial, disputed. But there was one more player waiting in the wings.
01:02:44
and what a story he would tell. That tale would lead investigators back to the Frosh House
01:02:53
and a dramatic discovery. Bingo. Yeah, bingo. I literally looked at it for a minute.
01:02:59
I was like, seriously? There's a long tradition in American jurisprudence condemned as often as it's used.
01:03:19
The jailhouse snitch. The witness prosecutors hate to love. But this one had a story just too good to pass up.
01:03:28
His name was Folsom. Yes, like the prison. And he told his keepers he had something to say about Adam Frosh.
01:03:38
Did they, in fact, spend some time in a jail cell together? They spent several months in a cell together.
01:03:44
They did, in top bunk, bottom bunk. Prosecution investigator Jason Newland talked to Folsom in the county lockup.
01:03:50
We got along with each other. We're both the same age. And we just hit it off real good.
01:03:55
I believe the information he provided me was credible. And here was the story Folsom said he got from Dr. Frosch.
01:04:03
On the day she died, Samara discovered her husband had been texting another woman.
01:04:09
And she, hurt and angry, lost her temper, started a fight, and ended up at the bottom of the pool.
01:04:17
Now, on day three of Adam Frosch's trial, Dale Folsom raised his right hand, swore to tell the truth and told that story to the jury.
01:04:27
She started a fight that night and kicked him in the back. Folsom's testimony about the fight between Adam and Samra was vivid and rich with detail.
01:04:36
He defended himself pretty much, he thought. They were fighting and he hit her in the head with a club.
01:04:43
What happened? He hit her in the head? With a club, golf club. They said he didn't mean to kill her.
01:04:49
It just happened and he got scared and ran. In a largely circumstantial case, here was an account of exactly what happened, allegedly, from the killer himself.
01:05:03
What defendant with any sense is going to tell somebody what happened when he hasn't gone on trial yet?
01:05:08
They do it all the time. If they had any sense, they wouldn't be defendants. Well, I suppose there's that.
01:05:13
You've got nothing to do all day but stare at those four walls. I mean, you've got to talk to somebody, right?
01:05:18
right? If it's a piece of evidence, I'm going to put it on and it's going to be up to the jury to
01:05:23
decide whether he's credible or not. It was up to investigator Newland to vet Dale Folsom's story,
01:05:29
find evidence it was actually true. And he came up with something, came up with something almost
01:05:35
too good to be true. Newland testified that when Folsom was about to be released from jail,
01:05:40
Dr. Frosch asked him to take care of something, something in his house. I'll never forget Dale
01:05:46
telling me, he said, Adam told him to get rid of the golf clubs anyway, anyhow, throw them in a lake,
01:05:52
throw them in a river do not give them to anyone just make them go away Make them go away Folsom said there was no mistaking what Frosh meant that he wanted him to get rid of those golf clubs which would include of course the one Frosh said he used to hit Samra
01:06:07
the murder weapon. Did he tell you a specific golf club that needed to be gotten?
01:06:13
Yes, ma'am. A big club like a driver, a big foul. And now, in court, a real-life Perry Mason moment.
01:06:21
This is State's Exhibit 121. Investigator Newland took a big fat golf club out of an evidence box.
01:06:29
Yes, I do. So the jury could have a good look. This is the golf club. The one with the purple club head?
01:06:35
Yes, ma'am. How did Newland get that club? Well, Folsom never did make it to the house,
01:06:42
so Newland got a search warrant and went for a little look around. I went into the master bedroom, and there's this golf club just sitting in the corner.
01:06:53
and part of me laughed inside. Bingo. Yeah, bingo. It must have looked like a beautiful, big, fat piece of evidence
01:07:04
that would help make the case into a slam dunk. I literally looked at it for a minute.
01:07:09
I was like, seriously? When I actually went up to the golf club and photographed it and collected it,
01:07:15
there was cobwebs on it. It had been there for a little while. I mean, it wasn't overnight.
01:07:19
This was one for the books, a jailhouse snitch supported by actual evidence. And Kappelman had one more surprise.
01:07:27
She called crime lab analyst and DNA expert Joellen Brown. I received or was able to develop a complete DNA profile
01:07:36
from the club portion that hits the ball, and that DNA profile matches Samira Frosh.
01:07:44
And the frequency of occurrence was 1 in 510 quintillion. And there it was, the story of Samra Frosch's murder wrapped up for the jury in a tidy package thanks to Dale Folsom.
01:07:58
But, did the doctor really confess? This was, after all, still a story coming from a jailhouse snitch.
01:08:06
And the golf club with Samra's DNA on it? Maybe not quite so obvious after all. Defense attorneys were about to take on Dale Folsom and his story.
01:08:17
and they couldn't wait. The prosecutor's timeline on trial. The absence of wrinkling of the fingers or toes
01:08:28
speaks to the likelihood that she has been immersed for a relatively short period of time.
01:08:34
Testimony that Samura may have died later than the prosecutor contends. The greatest probability is that she died after 8 a.m.
01:08:42
In other words, after Dr. Frosch had left the house. And now it was the defense's turn.
01:09:02
From the prosecution theory of how Samra died, to the story of her husband's alleged confession to a jailhouse snitch,
01:09:09
and the golf club found in their bedroom, Adam Frost was ready to fight back. By his side, attorneys Clyde Taylor Jr. and his son, Clyde III, a high-powered defense team reportedly paid by Frosh in part from a life insurance payout he received after Samra died.
01:09:28
How did he pay for his defense in this trial? It's not relevant. Ah, is it? Because insurance paid out, right? Which was very unusual in a case like this.
01:09:39
I mean, he had money. I mean, you can see the pictures of his lifestyle. He had money.
01:09:44
had assets. The tailors started the defense with this moment captured on video. February 22nd,
01:09:51
2014, 8 a.m. Adam Frosh and his daughters leaving their gated community. If Samra was killed after
01:09:59
this, Adam didn't do it. There's a huge problem with their timeline. That's reasonable doubt.
01:10:07
The timeline presented by the prosecution was in fact quite vague. The M.E. who did the autopsy
01:10:14
testified it was impossible to say really how long Samra had been in the pool before she was found.
01:10:21
That was a worry for prosecutor Georgia Kappelman. Usually we get a window of maybe two to five hours
01:10:29
for a time of death so it's not a precise science but we weren't even able to do that in this case.
01:10:35
The defense aggressively leaped into the void arguing that evidence could establish a time of
01:10:42
death. They brought in their own forensic pathologist, Dr. Jonathan Arden. Dr. Arden
01:10:50
focused on three things to show when Samara died. First, rigor mortis had not set in. Next, there was
01:10:58
none of the telltale skin discoloration that occurs soon after death when blood settles due to gravity.
01:11:05
What was the last factor? It was the wrinkling of the fingers and toes. Finally, Samara's fingertips and toes were not wrinkled when she was found, not even a little.
01:11:15
The absence of any such wrinkling of the fingers or toes speaks to the likelihood that she has been immersed for a relatively short period of time.
01:11:24
Even if you take a shower or a bath or jump in a pool, sometimes within 20 or 30 minutes, you've got wrinkling of the fingers and the toes.
01:11:34
Even if you're dead? Period. No rigor mortis, no settling of blood, no wrinkled skin.
01:11:41
It all pointed to the same thing. In my opinion, she was dead for a relatively short time before she was discovered and removed from the water.
01:11:50
Would you say Mrs. Frosch died before or after 8 a.m.? I would say that the greatest probability is that she died at...
01:12:00
After 8 a.m. Do we know exactly what happened? Who knows? The state really wasn't even very specific with their theory.
01:12:07
For the defense, this was a case of when, not what. It was after he left, therefore everything else is irrelevant.
01:12:17
But there was more. After listening to the science, the jury heard from an eyewitness.
01:12:23
Decided to go for a little walk around our neighborhood. Matt Christensen is the neighbor who said he just happened to be walking past the Frosh house that very morning.
01:12:32
He was a mild-mannered, measured witness, but his testimony was explosive. What did you observe?
01:12:40
I saw a woman, African-American, tall, dark hair, thin. Is there any doubt in your mind you saw a slender, tall black woman loading something into a vehicle in that driveway?
01:12:55
No. between 1025 and 1045 on the 22nd of February 2014? There's not. He was very specific on his time.
01:13:05
He and his daughter were walking by the house. When they showed him a photo of Samura,
01:13:10
Christensen couldn't say for sure that was the woman he'd seen. But if it was Samura in her driveway around 1030 that morning,
01:13:18
it would give Adam an airtight alibi. He couldn't specifically identify that person as Ms. Frosh, but everything else about that description fits.
01:13:30
This was a big deal, and the prosecutors knew it. This was a credible person, right?
01:13:37
Yes, I think he was wrong. I don't think he was lying. Of course you think he's wrong, but he thought he was right. He was pretty certain of it.
01:13:44
Yes, he was. The neighbor had credibility. Not a quality, said the defense possessed by Adam Frosch's cellmate, Dale Folsom, the jailhouse snitch.
01:13:54
If a snitch is the witness the prosecutor hates to love, he's also a witness the defense loves to hate.
01:14:00
We love snitches, don't we? Tell me what you know about this particular one. Well, he's a career criminal.
01:14:06
Started with his first convictions back in about 1990. In court, attorney Taylor, the father, went right after Folsom.
01:14:15
He did not spare the rod. My understanding, you've got, was it four or 40 prior felony convictions?
01:14:25
40, four zero. 40? Yes, sir. Do you have any pending charges? I have one. What is that pending charge?
01:14:32
Possession of methamphetamine. I've done almost every drug there is, sir. I've been a drug addict since I was nine years old.
01:14:37
So I've done them all, just about. Give me a break. This guy was outrageous. What was more, Folsom had an arrangement with prosecutors.
01:14:48
He was released from jail on probation in exchange for his testimony about Frosh.
01:14:53
Taylor made sure the jury knew all about that You do anything to stay out and keep yourself out of jail Isn that true Most people would Mean anything to you to raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth the whole truth
01:15:07
and nothing, the truth, so help you, God? Of course it does. After reading theology, I went to Bible college.
01:15:12
That's what you do. You're a truthful guy, right? Most of the time, I try to be.
01:15:16
When you're writing bad checks, stealing from people, and doing drugs. That's all I've got, Judge.
01:15:23
The defense may have destroyed the messenger, but they still had to deal with his message.
01:15:30
Folsom story about that golf club with Samra's DNA on it. Completely meaningless, said Taylor.
01:15:37
That golf club belonged to Samra. Of course her DNA would be on it. They say, well, she's got DNA on it.
01:15:45
Anybody that plays golf knows if you don't have head covers, You pull your club out of the bag with your hands and you grab the head.
01:15:55
There's blood and hair and things like that on that? No, no, no, no. Just touch DNA.
01:15:59
Correct. Correct. How convenient was that? So convenient, according to the defense, that it was downright suspicious.
01:16:10
Lo and behold, here comes Folsom. He's got his story and the law enforcement guys go out there.
01:16:17
And what do they find? they find this magic golf club. But you truly have gotten...
01:16:21
Planted evidence, no question in my mind. Investigators emphatically denied any wrongdoing over the golf club.
01:16:28
But in the end, all that hoo-ha about the club was quite possibly a total red herring.
01:16:33
Because? The state's own medical examiner testified that Samara's injuries were not caused by any golf club.
01:16:42
Do you think that that Purple Golf Club could have been responsible for the injuries that Mrs. Frash received?
01:16:49
I don't think so. The pattern that she had was more diffuse. And in your opinion, are the injuries more consistent with a fist than a golf club being the instrument used to inflict them?
01:17:00
Yes. So that was that. The state's case had taken some very big hits. So it was no time for grand gestures like defendant testimony.
01:17:12
You do not desire to testify, is that correct? Yes, sir. Dr. Frosch remained mum, and it was with an air of confidence that the defense rested.
01:17:22
Judge, at this time the defense would announce rest. Unaware that in a case full of surprises, there was one more to come.
01:17:33
The first surprise, the speed of the verdict. When they came back quick, I thought it was going to be good news.
01:17:40
The second surprise, a new revelation that could turn the case upside down. That was absolutely stunning.
01:17:48
And we were, what are they talking about? The trial of Adam Frosch was a closely contested affair the verdict very much in the balance
01:18:10
The lawyers had one more chance to make their case in closing arguments. Clyde Taylor III would take a seat and let his father speak to the jury.
01:18:20
He's one of those guys that thinks closing arguments is where you win or lose a case.
01:18:25
We don't convict people because a crime was horrible. We don't convict people because they have a lot of money.
01:18:35
We don't convict people on speculation. Taylor returned to the medical evidence and his argument that Samra died after her husband left home.
01:18:46
What proof do we have that she was in the pool before 8 a.m.? No confident evidence of that.
01:18:53
done. Scientific evidence says no. The defendant has not been proven guilty in this case.
01:19:01
It did check out. Prosecutor Georgia Kappelman had the last word. All of the evidence points
01:19:07
not to a mystery killer, but to this defendant. This was a personal crime. And who had the motive
01:19:16
to kill this woman. Only one person. Kappelman spoke to the evidence, but passions were not far from the surface.
01:19:25
And as she lay there on the concrete, fighting for her life, the man that she trusted
01:19:31
to make her dreams come true put her body in that pool. Please render a verdict of guilty as charged.
01:19:41
And then there was nothing left to do but wait. It's always troublesome when the jury goes out.
01:19:49
It's a sick feeling until you get your answer. How worried was she? Pretty worried.
01:19:55
I mean, the neighbor in the time of death bothered her. Both sides settled in for a long wait,
01:20:03
but just 90 minutes into deliberations, word of a verdict. I thought they would be out for a while,
01:20:10
and when they came back quick, I thought it was going to be good news. I thought just the opposite.
01:20:16
Well, I thought they'd be out for a while. But when they came back that quick, I figured it was bad news.
01:20:21
As they all waited for the words, faces were taut, anxious. State of Florida versus Adam Frosch, we the jury find as follows.
01:20:30
As to the indictment, the defendant is guilty of first-degree murder. Guilty. Frosch stared blankly, then dropped his head under the weight of the verdict.
01:20:41
How did Dr. Frosch take it? Hard. He was believing in the jury system. On the prosecution side, gratitude.
01:20:49
I was really happy with the verdict. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work.
01:20:54
But was that the final word After the verdict a surprise Before the judge delivered the mandatory sentence life in prison no parole Kappelman read a letter from Samra mother written in Madagascar
01:21:12
This was not a typical victim impact statement. It included something that sounded a lot like
01:21:18
evidence. According to Samra, she had noticed the presence of someone prowling in their home
01:21:25
nights before his death. A prowler? The jury never heard about any prowler. And, said defense attorney
01:21:33
Taylor, neither did he. That was absolutely stunning. And we were, did she just read, was there
01:21:42
something, what are they talking about? Because the defense never had been advised that there may
01:21:48
have been a prowler in the home within a day or two of the death. It has to be disclosed under the
01:21:54
law, and now it's one of the issues that's up on appeal. I think that's the best we could do on the translation.
01:22:01
Prosecutor Kappelman countered that she didn't withhold anything. The letter was written in French and set out for translation.
01:22:08
She only learned what was in it when she read the letter aloud in court. As for Adam Frosch, he now resides at the Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Milton, Florida.
01:22:20
When you understood that you were going away for life, what is that like? I prayed to God, you know, you say you don't give anything more than I can handle,
01:22:30
but this is almost more than I can handle. So let me just ask you directly, did you kill your wife?
01:22:38
No. I would never harm my wife, never even, you know, I loved her more than anything in this world.
01:22:45
You loved a lot of women in your life. Not really. She was my first true love. Love of your life?
01:22:51
Love of my life. Frosh is unwavering about that. A convicted murderer who's still saying he is innocent and misunderstood.
01:23:02
I'm not saying I'm perfect, but, you know, I'm trying to live a good life and help people and enjoy life.
01:23:09
Those two little girls, who Samara pampered and promoted and loved, are well. They live with Adam Frosch's brother in a state far away,
01:23:25
an existence untroubled by conflict and no longer over the top. Her children are a legacy.
01:23:33
and I hope one day to have the opportunity to tell them that they had a great mother.
01:23:41
See that, mommy? Look at that. Samra's YouTube videos are still online, of course.
01:23:48
Unkillable artifacts of a broken dream and a life that was passionate and beguiling and brief.