00:00:06
an affluent young woman was found dead
00:00:08
in her home while her husband was off on
00:00:11
a sailing trip
00:00:12
[Music]
00:00:14
police uncovered allegations of sex
00:00:16
parties and white swapping
00:00:20
but it was an old movie an overheard
00:00:22
telephone call
00:00:24
and an air conditioner that cracked the
00:00:27
case
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[Music]
00:00:36
[Music]
00:00:53
[Music]
00:00:55
ed and ellen sherman lived in niantic
00:00:57
connecticut for the entire 16 years of
00:01:00
their marriage
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ed taught business at a local community
00:01:04
college and was a member of mensah an
00:01:06
organization for people with
00:01:08
exceptionally high iqs
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ellen was five and a half months
00:01:12
pregnant and worked in the family
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publishing business
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ellen sherman was a sweetheart everybody
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that met ellen just adored her she had a
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smile and a friendly uh hello for
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everyone
00:01:24
on a friday night in august of 1985
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ed left for a week-long sailing trip
00:01:30
with four friends
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they are always fun
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and we always have a great time and
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that's great sailing from maine down we
00:01:38
stop at the vineyard nantucket and what
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have you
00:01:42
boys night out type thing
00:01:44
on sunday afternoon two days into the
00:01:47
trip
00:01:47
ed called his pregnant wife to make sure
00:01:50
she was okay
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[Music]
00:01:53
after numerous calls went unanswered ed
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contacted len frederickson a good friend
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of the couple and asked him to check on
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ellen
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i got over there when it was just
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starting to get dark and
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i could hear the air conditioner running
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in the house the lights were on and the
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inside and the outside i checked all the
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doors they were locked it was locked up
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which was very strange because they
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always left the house open i used to kid
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ellen about you're going to come home
00:02:18
some night there'll be nothing left in
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your house
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no one answered the door
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so fredrickson entered the home through
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an unlocked window
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inside was the family dog
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he called for ellen
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but there was no answer
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upstairs he opened the bedroom door
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and found ellen's lifeless body on the
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bed
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i had no idea what had happened i
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i didn't think that she'd been murdered
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and why would i think that anybody would
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murder this wonderful person it appeared
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at first glance as if she were the
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subject of a sexual assault and her
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night clothing was on the floor and her
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underwear and the bedding
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red ligature marks around ellen's neck
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indicated
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strangulation
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the medical examiner determined that the
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murder occurred sometime saturday night
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or early sunday morning based on rigor
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mortis the temporary stiffening of the
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body after death
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the lines on her fingernails were
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evidence they had been bent backwards
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could be because during the
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strangulation victim try to
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keep themselves
00:03:41
free
00:03:44
meanwhile trying to struggle with the
00:03:47
perpetrator may scratch the farm
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police found no signs of forced entry
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and no valuables were missing which
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ruled out robbery
00:03:57
using a ship to shore radio a policeman
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gave ed sherman
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the bad news
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he talked to him for a while which i
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wasn't listening to but he eventually
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did hand me the microphone and
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said
00:04:13
wayne take this it's the police they
00:04:15
said ellen's been killed
00:04:18
detective mike malczyk soon learned that
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the sherman's lives
00:04:22
were far from ordinary
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it was a lifestyle of deception
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sex and intrigue
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[Music]
00:04:35
the medical examiner estimated that
00:04:37
ellen sherman was murdered sometime over
00:04:39
the weekend while her husband was
00:04:41
sailing in the atlantic ocean with
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friends
00:04:45
ed sherman told investigators that he
00:04:47
last spoke with his wife on friday night
00:04:50
from his friend's house
00:04:52
they said that mr sherman did get on the
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phone and he's telling his wife go to
00:04:56
the bank to make this deposit
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all these different things
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and ed sherman was unusually candid
00:05:03
about their sex life
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[Applause]
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of it
00:05:20
up until
00:05:22
relatively recently
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and the girlfriend
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had a child and it was his child
00:05:29
the woman was ed's co-worker
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nancy prescott
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she was very different than ellen in
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fact ellen used to refer to her as
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ed's valley girl she was blonde and
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very different looking
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ed
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wanted an open marriage he encouraged
00:05:49
ellen to have affairs
00:05:52
and ed sherman's lifestyle was unusual
00:05:55
in other ways
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i remember being at a
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new year's eve party
00:06:02
at their house i believe it was 1984.
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they had several couples there and i
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guess they were going to swap partners
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i was with a young lady and ed asked me
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if
00:06:14
i was interested in what i asked the
00:06:15
young lady that i was with
00:06:17
if she was interested and i just said
00:06:20
we'll leave and we did
00:06:22
so
00:06:23
ed was really the one that was
00:06:26
pushing that type of situation
00:06:28
allen did not want that in her life
00:06:30
i was totally unaware of and would not
00:06:33
have guessed it
00:06:35
since there were no signs of forced
00:06:37
entry police suspected ellen may have
00:06:39
known her killer
00:06:42
fran uh
00:06:43
downstairs to upstairs everything in
00:06:45
proper order
00:06:47
no sign of a ransack
00:06:50
or violent struggles
00:06:52
if a boring intruder usually we see some
00:06:58
sign of struggle
00:06:59
dr henry lee at the time the director of
00:07:02
connecticut's crime lab was called in to
00:07:05
assist investigators
00:07:08
dr lee examined photos of the ligature
00:07:11
marks on ellen sherman's neck
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and found a faint pattern
00:07:17
and this pattern is a zigzag
00:07:21
pattern
00:07:22
which so unique
00:07:24
initially we don't know
00:07:27
where they come from
00:07:29
lee compared this to the clothing found
00:07:31
at the scene
00:07:33
including the torn panties
00:07:36
subsequently when we
00:07:38
start scratching the panty you can see
00:07:41
this this pattern
00:07:43
the space star opening up
00:07:46
and shows identical pattern
00:07:49
as what left on the neck
00:07:52
but other evidence showed that ellen was
00:07:54
strangled with bare hands not the
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panties
00:07:59
the autopsy revealed the cricoid
00:08:02
cartilage in the neck had been fractured
00:08:05
something which cannot be accomplished
00:08:07
during ligature strangulation
00:08:10
[Music]
00:08:13
dr lee believes the killer wrapped the
00:08:15
panties around her neck afterwards in
00:08:17
order to stage the crime scene to make
00:08:20
it look like a sex crime
00:08:23
on the bed sheet under ultraviolet light
00:08:26
was biological evidence investigators
00:08:29
hoped would identify the killer
00:08:32
extremely unusual is the bashi we found
00:08:37
close to 150 to 200
00:08:40
individual siemens stand
00:08:44
that's a lot of siemens there
00:08:46
this biological evidence was too badly
00:08:49
degraded for dna testing which meant the
00:08:51
material had been there for quite some
00:08:54
time and had survived laundering
00:08:58
while searching for suspects
00:09:00
police discovered that ed's mistress
00:09:02
nancy prescott may have been angry with
00:09:05
ed and ellen ed had recently agreed to
00:09:08
end the affair to save his marriage
00:09:12
when ellen got pregnant she said i want
00:09:14
you to stay home and be a father to this
00:09:17
baby and be there when it's born and
00:09:19
give up the
00:09:20
girlfriend
00:09:22
so they they talked it out and ed said
00:09:25
that he was willing to give up his
00:09:27
girlfriend and he would be a father and
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a
00:09:30
husband to ellen
00:09:36
was angry
00:09:38
because i had to make a decision
00:09:40
and so i told nancy
00:09:42
can't handle anyone
00:09:44
did she get this why why why why why
00:09:48
detectives asked ed to take a polygraph
00:09:50
test he agreed
00:09:53
the results were inconclusive
00:09:57
and nancy prescott had an alibi for the
00:09:59
day of the murder
00:10:01
the trail of the killer was starting to
00:10:04
turn cold
00:10:06
mike malcheck had promised ellen's
00:10:08
mother rose that he would stay on the
00:10:10
case
00:10:11
and that they would find out who did
00:10:13
this to her daughter
00:10:14
then malchik got lucky
00:10:17
he learned there was a movie that
00:10:18
featured a murder identical to ellen
00:10:21
sherman's
00:10:23
would this film lead police to the
00:10:25
killer
00:10:26
[Music]
00:10:31
initially police didn't consider ed
00:10:33
sherman a suspect in his wife's murder
00:10:35
since he was on a sailboat in the
00:10:37
atlantic ocean the day she died
00:10:42
this case is in the middle of the ocean
00:10:46
have perfect galloping
00:10:48
a forward weakness
00:10:51
time of the days become very important
00:10:54
in many
00:10:55
homicide investigations
00:10:57
because that
00:10:59
result time of the days you can impeach
00:11:03
a witness statement or suspect statement
00:11:05
or collaborate with the suspect
00:11:07
statement
00:11:10
however time of the death
00:11:12
is a difficult area
00:11:15
rigor mortis is one way to estimate the
00:11:18
time of death
00:11:20
this is what a body looks like when
00:11:22
rigor mortis occurs
00:11:24
a stiffening of the entire body that
00:11:26
lasts between 12 and 24 hours after
00:11:30
death
00:11:31
when ellen's body was discovered it was
00:11:33
in the final stages of rigor mortis and
00:11:36
becoming more pliable
00:11:38
[Music]
00:11:41
in looking through the investigator's
00:11:43
report
00:11:44
dr lee discovered an important clue
00:11:47
it was something len frederickson said
00:11:50
when he found ellen's body
00:11:53
it was like a
00:11:54
it was like open freezer almost
00:11:57
the air conditioner was going full blast
00:11:59
the person later described it as being
00:12:02
extremely
00:12:04
cold in the room colder than a normal
00:12:06
person would have their air conditioner
00:12:08
on
00:12:09
a freezing cold room will slow
00:12:12
decomposition and the progress of rigor
00:12:14
mortis
00:12:15
this meant that ellen sherman's murder
00:12:17
could have occurred earlier than
00:12:20
originally estimated
00:12:22
here it's clear
00:12:24
the time of the days is definite not
00:12:27
sunday
00:12:29
although we don't know exactly ours
00:12:33
every indicator pointed out
00:12:36
is friday sometime
00:12:39
if ellen was murdered on friday night
00:12:42
then ed sherman would have had plenty of
00:12:44
time to commit the crime
00:12:48
police also learned the sherman was
00:12:50
wearing long pants and a long sleeve
00:12:53
shirt on the sailing trip in august and
00:12:56
looking back on it
00:12:59
we were all in shorts and t-shirts and
00:13:01
he had long pants on and a turtleneck
00:13:04
i never saw him on the boat with short
00:13:06
sleeves on
00:13:08
since ellen's fingernails had been
00:13:10
damaged police suspected that ed might
00:13:13
have been hiding scratch marks
00:13:17
ed vigorously denied this and insisted
00:13:19
his wife was alive when he left he said
00:13:21
he even spoke to her from his friend's
00:13:23
home by telephone in front of witnesses
00:13:28
if true
00:13:30
ed couldn't have been the killer
00:13:36
but ed
00:13:36
wasn't the only one listening in to that
00:13:39
conversation
00:13:42
his friend's daughter was too
00:13:46
she picked up
00:13:48
and was getting ready to make a call i
00:13:50
guess
00:13:52
he said well i heard mr sherman talking
00:13:54
on the phone and she said well i was on
00:13:56
the other end it was just ringing and
00:13:58
ringing and i heard him saying i love
00:14:00
you too and there was nobody there
00:14:03
and they said why didn't you hang up and
00:14:04
she said well i thought it was very
00:14:05
unusual because he was talking to a ring
00:14:08
phone it's five minutes after he leaves
00:14:10
his house he fakes a phone call his wife
00:14:12
i mean that's hard to explain
00:14:14
little did he know that uh
00:14:16
you know some nine-year-old girl was
00:14:18
gonna bring him down
00:14:20
he wasn't as smart as he thought he was
00:14:25
and there was another interesting
00:14:26
development
00:14:28
a witness told police that she had run
00:14:30
into it on the morning of his sailing
00:14:32
trip
00:14:33
during the conversation
00:14:35
ed recommended she watch a movie he
00:14:38
particularly enjoyed called
00:14:40
blackout
00:14:46
in the film
00:14:47
a man kills his wife and children puts
00:14:50
the bodies inside the house then
00:14:53
manipulates the crime scene in order to
00:14:56
fool forensic scientists and mask the
00:14:59
true time of death
00:15:02
richard woodmark who plays a detective
00:15:03
comes out to the press and says
00:15:05
the
00:15:06
time of death is going to be very
00:15:08
difficult to determine because the
00:15:09
bodies were put in a cold room with the
00:15:12
air conditioner turned all the way up
00:15:14
the medical examiner estimates they were
00:15:17
dead for at least three days
00:15:19
[Music]
00:15:23
the air conditioning system in the house
00:15:25
was turned on
00:15:27
apparently to
00:15:28
slow the decomposition of the body
00:15:33
was it possible that ed did the same
00:15:36
thing
00:15:37
friends say he displayed a morbid
00:15:39
fascination about details of his wife's
00:15:42
murder
00:15:44
he asked me once he asked me 10 times do
00:15:45
you know if they've determined the time
00:15:47
of death he was very interested in that
00:15:50
he also
00:15:51
asked me one time if i knew how a body
00:15:53
decomposed i thought that was a very
00:15:55
strange question i said no
00:15:59
truth is absolutely stranger than
00:16:01
fiction i mean
00:16:03
there are so many things that happen in
00:16:05
real life that there's no need to make
00:16:06
anything up i mean it's awful
00:16:09
police and prosecutors alike wondered
00:16:12
what motivated ed sherman to kill his
00:16:14
wife
00:16:16
despite the apparent reconciliation
00:16:19
friends say ellen decided she wanted a
00:16:21
divorce
00:16:23
since ellen was the majority owner of
00:16:25
the family business she allegedly told
00:16:27
ed that she would leave him with almost
00:16:30
nothing
00:16:33
and ellen said he can have his
00:16:34
girlfriend
00:16:35
and his
00:16:36
and his sailboat and that's it
00:16:38
so i said to her i said are you sure
00:16:40
this is what you want to do she says i
00:16:41
can't live like this anymore she says
00:16:43
he's never going to be a husband and a
00:16:46
father to our children he's always going
00:16:48
to have this double life
00:16:51
prosecutors believe
00:16:53
that ed sherman
00:16:54
carefully planned his wife's murder
00:16:59
the couple had a light dinner and then
00:17:01
while ellen was changing her clothes in
00:17:04
the bedroom prosecutors say ed
00:17:07
strangled her to death
00:17:12
[Applause]
00:17:14
[Music]
00:17:16
the forensic evidence shows that ellen
00:17:18
was dead
00:17:19
before ed wrapped the panties around her
00:17:22
neck to make the murder appear
00:17:25
to be a sex crime
00:17:29
inspired by the movie blackout
00:17:32
he set the air conditioner to its
00:17:34
coldest setting closed the door
00:17:37
and left for the sailing trip around 7pm
00:17:41
later that night to cement his alibi
00:17:44
he staged the call to his wife in front
00:17:47
of his friends not knowing his friend's
00:17:50
daughter was listening in
00:17:56
german called len fredrickson from the
00:17:58
sailboat on sunday evening asking him to
00:18:01
check on his wife hoping the cold
00:18:03
temperature of the bedroom would mask
00:18:06
the true time of death just like the
00:18:08
movie
00:18:10
it fooled forensic scientists
00:18:13
but only for a while
00:18:14
[Music]
00:18:16
of course witness play an important
00:18:19
factor
00:18:20
the first person discovered the body
00:18:22
filled the temperature call
00:18:24
the young lady listen on the phone
00:18:28
of course no
00:18:30
he's lying
00:18:32
by signs
00:18:33
we feel the gap
00:18:35
shows something it's impossible
00:18:40
the time of the day sunday is impossible
00:18:44
then we show
00:18:45
what's more probable
00:18:47
by friday
00:18:49
then we show the weapon
00:18:51
and the motive
00:18:54
he almost got away
00:18:56
very close
00:18:58
detective malachi
00:19:00
arrested ed sherman for murder
00:19:04
he knew that i knew that he was the one
00:19:07
that had murdered his wife
00:19:09
and when he saw me
00:19:11
he looked at me and i just walked in i
00:19:14
was the first one in and he looked over
00:19:16
and i said ed it's time
00:19:18
and
00:19:20
he turned white he started to sweat
00:19:22
and he knew it was time
00:19:26
and the forensic evidence mattered most
00:19:28
to jurors
00:19:29
during deliberations they asked to hear
00:19:32
again the testimony of dr lee and the
00:19:36
medical examiner
00:19:37
particularly on the time of death
00:19:43
one of the jurors said that it boiled
00:19:44
down to the to the fact that they
00:19:46
figured he had the time and the and the
00:19:48
the opportunity and the motive
00:19:51
six years after his wife's death
00:19:54
the jury found ed sherman guilty
00:19:57
of first degree murder
00:19:59
and he was sentenced to 50 years in
00:20:01
prison
00:20:03
while ed sherman never admitted guilt
00:20:06
he did show some remorse
00:20:09
he said she deserved a better lifestyle
00:20:11
and he apologized for leading such an
00:20:13
indulgent lifestyle
00:20:15
and then he said i do not know who
00:20:18
killed ellen after spending only three
00:20:21
years in prison
00:20:23
ed sherman died of a heart attack at the
00:20:25
age of 52.
00:20:28
he was a very bright individual high iq
00:20:32
and like to make people know that he was
00:20:35
smarter than you that's the way he made
00:20:36
me feel and i've heard the same from
00:20:38
other people
00:20:40
ed thought he could have whatever ed
00:20:41
wanted
00:20:43
he's got to be an awful cold person to
00:20:45
be able to do that that's a hands-on
00:20:47
crime
00:20:49
and she's pregnant with his own child
00:20:50
and it is a son
00:20:52
so he's a cold calculating person
00:20:56
doesn't deserve any sympathy from
00:20:58
anybody
00:21:00
but sherman was not smarter than the
00:21:03
detectives and scientists who
00:21:05
investigated the case
00:21:08
in all my years of doing this i've never
00:21:10
seen a case where a body was placed in
00:21:13
an air-conditioned room and it was
00:21:14
turned up to the maximum degree
00:21:18
to apparently throw off the time of
00:21:20
death this case demonstrates how
00:21:23
important the teamwork
00:21:27
to taxes witness
00:21:29
scientists
00:21:30
work together did not give up
00:21:34
[Music]
00:21:43
[Music]
00:21:58
[Music]
00:22:07
you
