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[Music] the medical examiner ruled the death an accident but a forensic detective
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disagreed the final resolution took three long years and raised questions about the
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accuracy of an autopsy [Music] [Music] paterson new jersey is an industrial suburb outside new york city which has
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its share of violent crime one of the town's most unusual cases happened in 1980.
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i would personally rank it as being one of the most interesting challenging cases i ever had
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29 year old frankie pullian was found dead on a deserted road underneath an abandoned car
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apparently the person driving the vehicle hit frankie then fled the scene leaving the vehicle behind
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frankie pullian worked for a local funeral home as a handyman before that he served a brief stint in
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the u.s military he would run errands for the funeral home and the funeral home was also kind of a
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stopping off point for the police as well and it was one of the the more successful black funeral homes
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in paterson police discovered that the hit-and-run vehicle had been stolen a month earlier
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the owner was a retired policeman who lived nearby who had an alibi for the night before he was an elderly gentleman
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there was no way that anyone would even in their wildest dreams or imagination uh suspected he was involved in this
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to approximate the time of the accident patterson police checked patrolman's
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records for the night before and found an important clue earlier that morning at approximately 4
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a.m the same patrol unit did pass that area and the significance of that is when they did pass at that time
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the maverick and the body were not there since frankie's body was discovered at 6
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00 am the accident occurred sometime between 4 and 6 a.m [Music] but what was frankie pullian doing
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walking along this street in this part of town so early in the morning it wouldn't be a place where you'd
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generally be taking a walk but it certainly would be a good place for a crime because it was dark and
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it was unlikely there'd be other people around frankie's body went directly to the
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funeral home where he worked the medical examiner conducted the autopsy there a common procedure at the time
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state county did not have a centralized more and what they did have were contracts with various funeral homes
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that would act as morgues the medical examiner concluded that frankie died of massive trauma
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the result of the hit-and-run accident there was nothing to show otherwise that it was other than a hit and run due to
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the nature of the injuries that were reported by the m.a but despite the autopsy report
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investigators were troubled they thought some of the elements of the accident scene looked staged
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this car was at the far end of dead end street the car looked like it was facing
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out i don't know how this individual driving this vehicle could have gotten enough speed to run over somebody and
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kill them in the short distance investigators searched the stolen vehicle for clues to the driver's
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identity there were no fingerprints in the car not even on the steering wheel but
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investigators found blood inside the car on the passenger side which was very suspicious
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then instantly it gets more interesting and the focus of the investigation began to change
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to find out whether frankie pullian's death was truly the result of a hit-and-run vehicle accident
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investigators called in walter suhaka a nationally recognized expert in accident
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reconstruction luckily police had taken numerous photos of the scene and what suhaka didn't see in those
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pictures was telling behind the car there were no skid marks anybody that comes down the road that
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hits a pedestrian in those days before abs brakes the first thing a person would do would be slam on the brakes
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there's no skid marks there should have been serious front-end damage to the car but
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there was none and the position of the body under the car didn't make any sense
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in a pedestrian accident with a gentleman who's five foot eight inches tall and he weighed 144 pounds you would
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expect that if he was struck by a car he would end up on the hood of the car striking the windshield and then roll
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off the side also it looked as if the impact literally knocked the victim's coat off
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his body suhaka said this could not be the natural result of an accident how does the coke come off it did not make
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sense also there was a watch with just a watch face with no straps that didn't make sense at all we never
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found the straps but most telling was the blood found in the tire tracks behind the car
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if frankie had been hit by the front of the car and lodged underneath his blood wouldn't be behind the rear
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tires [Music] and mr suhaka found blood spatter on the windshield inside the car and blood
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drops on the inside trim of the passenger side door obviously there wouldn't be blood inside
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a car from a collision outside it was one of my suggestions that we need to exhume the body to find out
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what the actual injuries were since the death had officially been declared an accident
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it took more than three years of legal wrangling to get permission for the exumation
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the second autopsy was conducted by dr gita natarajan a pathologist with the state coroner's
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office the first thing i noticed is the level of preservation and the condition of the body being fair
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the second most important finding was that the external body surface failed to show
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any injury there were no bruises there were no brush burn like he was dragged by a
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vehicle dr natarajan discovered four linear fractures along the back of the skull
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one a depressed circular fracture was not noted in the first autopsy this blow by a hammer-like object to the back of
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the head did not happen from being hit by a car it's a very small area of concentrated energy
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and that's unusual when someone is struck by an automobile you can't take an automobile and make it you know
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and have a person's skull being struck by by a small area of one and a half by three quarter inch
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and there were wood splinters around the wound well first of all under a car in front
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of car there's no wood why would there be wood splinters in the skull this was never mentioned during
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the first autopsy nor do i believe that an autopsy or an examination of the full examination of the skull was ever
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done during the first autopsy there were also no broken limbs virtually unheard of when a pedestrian
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is hit by a car so dr natarajan changed the official manner of death from accident
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to homicide but how were these injuries overlooked in the first autopsy the medical examiner who did the autopsy
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who issued the initial death certificate was not a forensic pathologist he was not even a pathologist he was a
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general practitioner he did what best he he could do under the circumstance but he was not
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trained formally in pathology or in forensic pathology and that autopsy was conducted at the
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funeral home of e lee white the victim's employer apparently white started the examination
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before the coroner arrived the medical examiner remembers mr white calling him and saying
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doc i will go ahead and start with the case so when you get here i'll have the
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organs out investigators now suspected that the original medical examiner didn't perform
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much of an autopsy apparently he accepted the hit-and-run scenario since frankie's body was found
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underneath the car regardless investigators now knew frankie pullian was murdered
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but why there were two separate autopsies performed on frankie pullian's remains
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done three years apart the original autopsy concluded frankie's death was the result of an automobile
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accident the second autopsy concluded he was murdered with a blunt instrument before
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his body was placed beneath the car had law enforcement had that information in the very beginning obviously this
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case would have gotten in much different direction right from day one and the photos of the vehicle provided
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evidence of where frankie was killed when i started reading reports they said there was blood inside the car i i had
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to read the report twice it just didn't make sense turned out there was spatter
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from blood on the inside windshield in on the dashboard serology test identified the blood in
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the car as type o the same blood type as frankie pullian now suspicious investigators dug a little deeper into
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frankie's background for a man making less than ten thousand dollars a year frankie had
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nine separate insurance policies on his life with a total payout of nearly a million dollars it's very unusual that
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you would take out almost a million dollars worth of insurance and then within a few short months someone should
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die i mean that to me that raises a flag automatically the insurance premiums total 3 500 a
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year almost half of frankie's annual salary first thing you're thinking is that
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certainly this is not right it's very odd to say the least but it certainly raises the possibility that
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there's an insurance fraud going on and who were the beneficiaries of frankie's life insurance policies
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one was his boss and long-time benefactor e lee white for his employer to insure him so
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heavily with multiple policies for large sums of money was very suspicious and which now creates a motive
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for the death of franklin bullion another beneficiary was erna boone listed on the policy as frankie's sister
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but records showed frankie had no sister and that erna boone was the maiden name
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of e lee white's wife and two of white's friends lawrence scott and william brown were
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also beneficiaries brown had been convicted a few years earlier for fraud lauren scott and william brown who both
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had affiliations with the funeral home and with mr white also were beneficiaries on the policy
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and the familiar relationship that was cited there was one of being cousins they weren't cousins
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coincidentally the insurance policies also contained an accidental death provision meaning
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there was an extra payout of 350 000 if frankie pullian died in an accident [Music]
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the last of the policies was issued just five days before frankie's death frankie's medical records indicated he
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was released from the military because he was neurologically impaired i think within six to eight months he
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was released discharged from the service because he couldn't pass the particular
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tests that were required of him yet the man who underwent the physical examination for the life insurance
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policies was not neurologically impaired that individual who purported to be franklin pullian was healthy and fit
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certainly it wasn't the same person and there was another bizarre incident at the physical examination
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the person who represented himself to be mr pullian had notes handwritten notes and every time he was asked a question
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about his life his lifestyle he referred to his notes which i would think would cause some
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concern but apparently did not a forensic document examiner compared frankie's known handwriting samples to
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the signatures on the insurance policies and concluded they were forgeries so someone who met with the insurance
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riders the insurance salesman had to pose as mr pulliam it's pretty crazy and these are the
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things that we would look at and all of a sudden you realize you know what there's something that really is wrong
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here when questioned by investigators e lee white admitted he purchased the life
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insurance policies but said he had nothing to do with frankie's death then a witness came forward with some
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not so surprising information on the night before frankie's murder she saw the car from the staged accident
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scene parked outside e lee white's funeral home [Music] the only ones who stood to gain from
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frankie pullian's death were his boss elie white's wife and two fellow employees lawrence scott and william
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brown they were beneficiaries of nine different insurance policies on frankie's life that totaled nearly
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a million dollars humans are very greedy people and now they see that there's an opportunity for
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them to make almost a million dollars they forget about their consciences and they'll do anything to make a fast buck
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prosecutors believe that mr white was the ringleader and he had planned the crime for years hiring frankie for the
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sole purpose of killing him it's extremely sad but apparently the people that perpetrated this crime
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realized that that's the kind of victim that they needed they needed to find
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someone that no one would care about and no one would come forward and knock on doors and look
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to question anything that had happened mr white purchased multiple life insurance policies on frankie's
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life and sent imposters to the required physical examinations a witness reported seeing the stolen car
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parked outside the funeral home the night before the crime [Music] the evidence indicates someone
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no one knows who lured frankie pullian into the stolen vehicle and hit him on the back of the
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skull [Music] this created the blood spatter on the inside of the windshield and dashboard
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and the dripping blood on the chrome strip on the bottom of the passenger side door
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the perpetrators placed frankie's body on the ground and drove over it but in doing so
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left blood behind the vehicle they made other mistakes too like leaving frankie's clothing and shoes in
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the wrong position ely white knew that frankie's body would come directly to his funeral home for
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the autopsy he also knew he could start the autopsy without raising the suspicions of the
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medical examiner who apparently did little to investigate the death on his own he did not go to the scene he did not
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look at the vehicle he did not talk to the officers who were at the scene he did not look at any photographs he did
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not examine the clothing of the victim these are all types of things that one would expect would be done
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following a proper protocol of an autopsy and investigators believe white chose frankie pullian as his
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victim because he was single and had no close family living in the area e lee white and his alleged
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co-conspirators were all charged with murder and insurance fraud they claimed there was no physical
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evidence tying them to a murder and investigators agreed but they said the circumstances linking
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the defendants to the crime were overwhelming you take all of that together you know
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that there was an intentional killing but you know that it was a staged accident and you know that four people
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stood to make over nine hundred thousand dollars if this theory of an accident could hold up
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you put all of that together and it spells out one thing to us and that is murder for profit
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perhaps what's most tragic about the case is that frankie pullian was an unwitting participant
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in his own murder he was the kind of person that would not suspect anything beyond
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the obvious [Music] e lee white lauren scott and william brown were all found guilty of first degree murder and
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insurance fraud and sentenced to life in prison this case is probably the most fascinating
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case i had in the 23 years that i served as a judge the murder mystery is actually who did it
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there were three people that were tried and three people convicted but who did it there has been no one that
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has come forward with any information regarding the homicide of franklin pullian
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that would indicate who the actual killer was the compelling conclusion was that the
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individuals who were the owners and beneficiaries of these policies were the ones that were responsible for bringing
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about the death of franklin pulling we can't say that they did it by their own hand we don't know who did it
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but we know that they conspired to have it done ely white's wife erner was convicted of
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fraud and theft by deception she was placed on probation investigators say eli white and his accomplices almost got
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away with a cold calculated murder but their greed and the clues they left behind
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finally exposed the truth if frank and pullian didn't die so soon after the policies were written maybe no
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one's suspicions would have been aroused at that time but i think they saw this
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pot of gold and they probably tripped themselves up because they wanted a fast payoff
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it all comes down to forensic evidence and forensic evidence doesn't lie it doesn't make up stories
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what it is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you