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[Music] up next a family vacation turns into a nightmare that's when i see the body of
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a female lying face down in the water and possible clues provide more questions than answers either it was an
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accident someone caused her death or she killed herself experts can't seem to
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agree on exactly what happened there is not one single eyewitness to anything there are no confessions there are no
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fingerprints until groundbreaking science discovers the truth method opportunity motive and last person to
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see them alive classic reasons for murder [Music] [Music] every year the younger family spent
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their vacation on the western shore of lake michigan in a place called watervale
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it's almost a sanctuary for them to go somewhere else in the state where they
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can just forget about the rest of the world and reconnect with her with themselves and their families and their
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loved ones florence worked as a bank loan officer her husband mark a mortgage broker was
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also a well-known radio personality mark unger had a sports radio show and made him somewhat of a celebrity within
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a circle of friends their vacation in 2003 was like most others the youngers checked into their
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cabin had dinner and mark spent time with their two sons while florence was outside for some fresh air
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i read a story to the boys sang a song put them to bed kiss them good night and came back out to the deck and that
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florence was not on the deck mock assumed florence went next door to their friend's cabin since their lights
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were on not wanting to leave the children alone mark went to bed [Music] when he awoke just after dawn
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florence still wasn't there he called the resort owners approximately 7 30 in the morning
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asking them if they had seen florence they said they had not the resort owners went looking for her
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and found florence's body in the lake and called 911. there was a guest at waterdale there was
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an acquaintance of it and i believe this suicider is drowning what is her name when police arrived
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they noticed florence's body was in the lake next to a boat launch 12 feet above was the deck outside the
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unger's cabin when i looked up there was a deck railing from the boathouse and i noticed
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the deck railing was broke and fractured out it looked as if florence had been sitting on the railing and it gave way
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investigators measured the height of the railing and discovered that it was 10 inches below the state building code
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you look at that rail and it's low enough that you think if somebody had been sitting on it they could lose their
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balance and fall over the edge i know that i personally didn't want to sit on
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it the splintered railing led to suspicions it was structurally unsound they referred to it as a death trap and
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that it was an accident waiting to happen a person could reasonably pieced together
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someone fell through a railing hit the ground and ended up perhaps in the lake there
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florence's body was transported to the medical examiner for an autopsy the medical examiner found no drugs or
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alcohol in her system he did find evidence of severe head trauma but the cause of death
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wasn't the head trauma it was drowning there was plenty of fluid and that was the result of her active
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inhalation of the water from the lake because she was submerged but what caused florence to fall to her
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death was it suicide an accident or something more sinister this is flo unger and she was a student
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from 1975 to 1978. the tragic death of florence unger the mother of two young children was a shock
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to co-workers friends and family unless you've lived through it it's very
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difficult to explain you're you feel like your head's going to explode it's
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totally complete devastation there's nothing like it it's unimaginable police at the scene had to consider
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every possibility what do you have you know do you have a suicide do you have an accident
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or or do you have a homicide florence's family ruled out suicide as a possibility
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there's no way that she could have contemplated suicide for a number of reasons number one she would never have
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left her children parentless an accident seemed like a distinct possibility the railing on the deck
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outside the younger's cabin was freshly broken it looked as if she were sitting or
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leaning on it and it gave way causing her to fall to the boat launch below but how did the body get into the water
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mark unger hired a private independent forensic firm to find out why they concluded
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that with florence falling 12 feet from the deck the momentum of the fall carried her forward from the point of
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impact they produced five different scenarios computer animations that showed different ways
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that florence could have possibly ended up in the water the forensic firm concluded that
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florence's death was an accident but the medical examiner completely disagreed
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bodies do not bounce that's number one she would have been rendered unconscious
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upon contact an unconscious person unconscious individual cannot just walk into the water
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and dr dragovich noticed that the blood stain on the boat launch was nearly a foot in
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diameter for blood to go to that size to the diameter that we're talking on the
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cement platform the body would have had to bend there for a period of time to find out how long florence would have
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laid their bleeding dr dragovich examined slides of her brain tissue he focused on the neurons
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a cellular communication system that controls movement memory and emotion dr dragovich discovered
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repair proteins in florence's brain that were released after her head injury
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this showed that florence's brain was struggling to survive long after she hit
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her head and before she drowned these neurons are suffering from lack of oxygen they are damaged and there some of them
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are already dead but some of them are trying to repair themselves it was a long period of time
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she was alive unconscious but alive still alive still breathing dr dragovich estimated that florence was
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lying on the cement for at least 90 minutes possibly for as long as two hours before she was in the water
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and there was other conflicting evidence the blood stain on the boat launch and the broken railing above
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did not line up the trajectory of where she wound up on the deck was not in line with where the break in the
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railing occurred to see whether the deck railing was structurally unsound analysts tested an
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unbroken section of the deck railing using what's called a load cell the load cell
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is more or less a scale it's a series of springs and sensors and it measures
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compression and tension florence weighed 110 pounds to simulate her sitting on the railing
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analysts attached a bicycle seat to one end of the load cell to the other end they attached a t-bar
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to which they applied 200 pounds of pressure the railing didn't buckle or break
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somebody from the lab made the comment wow 200 pounds so we knew right then and there that
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any any plan to paint the rail is is rotting and dilapidated weren't going to work
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it was beginning to look like the scene had been staged to look like an accident
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it was a charge florence's husband mark adamantly denied people that knew mark said mark was not
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a killer mark would not do that that he loved flo that he loved his family that that he would not do anything like that
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mark had no criminal history and his children said they heard nothing suspicious on the night of the incident
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no argument or fight between their mother and father mark continued to maintain his wife's
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death was a tragic accident he told the police she had been a little depressed but he later went
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on to tell the police flo would have never committed suicide he was adamant about that
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but florence's family believed this was murder and that mark was her killer method
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opportunity motive no alibi and last person to see them alive classic reasons for murder
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he had them all mark and florence unger appeared to have an ideal marriage on the surface they would appear to be
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the perfect couple living in an affluent community with two beautiful children a
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beautiful house but to those who were in their inner circle they knew that there
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were many many problems mark unger's issues with drugs and gambling had cost him his job
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he was a pathological gambler mark was a an alcoholic he was a drug addict and this this was affecting his uh his
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personality he spent as much as six months at a time in rehab florence actually said at one point it
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almost seemed like rehabilitation had become his job police also learned that florence had
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filed for divorce two months before her death and had moved on to another relationship
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there was evidence of a relationship that flo had become involved in and this individual was a close friend of marx as
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well so it was a difficult circumstance at best investigators discovered that florence
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had seen this man just a few days before her death and that mark might have known
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about it i believe on that deck that it's a very real possibility that something about
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florence's relationship came out and now yet another potential motive emerged
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florence had two life insurance policies with a combined value of three-quarters
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of a million dollars and mark was the sole beneficiary there's no question that flo was worth
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more debt to mark than she was alive even stranger just five days before his wife's death mark had a run of bad luck
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at a local casino we understand that he lost about seven thousand dollars shortly before
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a fateful trip and i mean within within days of that fateful trip and friends told investigators
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florence didn't want to take the trip to the lake in fact she was afraid to go
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clo's friends were all apprehensive several of her friends asked her why are
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you doing this why are you going up there she did not want to go but she was afraid to go and she admitted that to a
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neighbor and if that weren't enough the resort owner gave police even more evidence also circumstantial
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he said when he told mark he had found florence's body mark didn't ask him where it was
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the resort owner absolutely positively testified that he did not tell mark where flo was
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florence was but mark appeared to know exactly where to go mark ran right to florence's body lying in the water
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without being told where she was at and without being able to observe her from his vantage point
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to prove this investigators placed a mannequin in the water exactly where florence's body was
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found then an investigator with a video camera stood at the exact spot where the resort
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owner told mark his wife was dead in this videotape it's clear the body can't be seen until
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the viewer is virtually on top of it he knew exactly where the body was at but none of this proved murder
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in fact investigators had no direct evidence linking mark to florence's death
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that is until they looked at mark unger's shoes and found a white smear the state police crime lab
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found a white speck of what they uh believed was paint investigators sent mark's shoe along
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with six different paint samples collected from the resort to forensic scientist keith lamont
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i received several known samples from various locations from the vacation home and boathouse area
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he bombarded the sample with infrared light which identifies the chemical makeup of the samples in ways that can
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then be measured paints composition basically consists of a solvent which is a liquid
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a pigment which is the color and a binder and the binder you can think of as glue
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lamont found that the paint on mark unger's shoe was virtually identical to the paint on the railing and the post
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holding the railing the question paint sample from the stronger shoe was consistent chemically
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with the known paint from the rail to investigators this pointed to only one logical
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conclusion we believe mark kicked that railing and the paint stuff on the shoe certainly
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would suggest that but was this enough to get a conviction investigators knew two important details
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about the death of florence unger first tests showed a 110 pound woman sitting or leaning against the deck railing
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could not have caused it to splinter second forensic tests identified repair proteins in florence's brain
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scientific proof that she lay bleeding on the cement boat launch for about 90 minutes before she drowned in the lake
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this made forensic history it was the first time immunohistochemistry was used in a
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criminal case it's an advantage of being a forensic pathologist at the same time a
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neuropathologist and being a general pathologist that i started with in the first place
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the best advice in police work is consider every death scene as a homicide scene
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seven months after florence's death mark unger was charged with first-degree
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murder there's no question if you look at the evidence in its totality um that
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mark unger made a calculated decision to take another person's life his lawyer said there was no case
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against him there is not one single eyewitness to anything there are no confessions there
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are no fingerprints prosecutors believe mark hoped to salvage their marriage but they think florence said no
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mark became violent and pushed her over the railing she hit her head on the boat launch 12
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feet below the evidence indicates she lay there bleeding for at least 90 minutes
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mark went back to their cabin and put the boys to bed when he returned to the boat launch
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he was probably surprised to learn that florence was still alive [Music] so he pushed her into the lake
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where she drowned but he didn't realize the size of the blood stain on the boat launch
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and the repair neurons in florence's brain both told a story in an attempt to make it look like an
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accident mark kicked the railing with his right foot transferring paint to the tip of his shoe
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and where he kicked the railing was inconsistent with the location of the body mark
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either found out about the relationship that florence was having with another man or
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else he if not found out she made it clear to him that you know that's only one of the things going on but this
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marriage is finished what mark did is he went out there and he put her in the water
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while she was still alive he had every opportunity to call for help he never did he let her lay there
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and after thinking about what to do after some time he premeditated it went back and put her in the water and let
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her drown three years after florence's death mark unger was convicted of first-degree
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murder and sentenced to life without parole his head snapped back when the verdict was read he was shocked
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at the verdict he anticipated going home that day i was wrongfully convicted of this crime
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i am innocent florence's parents say her death should never have happened while my daughter's death was a tragic
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and unnecessary event i think there's a lesson to be learned from it and that is
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that a woman who is going through a divorce should avoid contact with her estranged husband
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unless it's absolutely necessary and then with witnesses present and even though it might be contrary to the
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advice of her lawyer and even if there's no history of mental or physical abuse
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divorce is a very volatile situation and it is better to er on the side of caution
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because even casual contact could result in a dangerous or life-threatening event
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florence's parents are raising her children and keep a small garden in her memory
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although the grief is permanent i miss her every single minute of every single day
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and i hope he thinks about what he's done for the rest of his miserable life
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mark unger almost got away with murder only scientific analysis of brain tissue and his shoes
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ensured he didn't how he could think that he was going to get away with it i can't imagine being
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able to establish that that florence was alive for an extended period of time before she was placed in the water was
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was crucial very important it was a great you know reminder that you know things
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aren't always as what they seem they're not always what people try to portray
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them to be [Music]