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a beautiful home an affluent woman a vicious murder while her husband mourned investigators
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searched for clues a greetings card an exotic dancer and an operating room schedule showed investigators a side of
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medicine they hadn't seen before so [Music] it was valentine's day 2001 and susan hamilton had a busy day
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planned her husband dr john hamilton was an obstetrician susan ran his medical clinic
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susan hamilton was the proverbial trophy wife by all accounts she was a star and he was indeed a very fortunate man
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to have her [Music] but susan never left the house that day dr hamilton was performing surgery all
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morning when he finished he stopped home on his way to his office to give susan some flowers for valentine's day
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[Music] once there he found the back door wide open upstairs in the master bathroom was his
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wife unconscious dr hamilton tried to revive her but it was too late in this case the attacker was in
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complete control it's unfortunate but i don't think mrs hamilton really stood a chance
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the killer apparently escaped through the hamilton's back door none of the neighbors saw anyone leaving
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the home we were suspicious of the fact that maybe a burglar could have came in and
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possibly attacked this woman trying to steal some jewelry or trying to steal some of the valuables
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from that home and she possibly surprised them this was a prominent part of oklahoma city
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bigger homes wealthier people affluent folks you know the kind that go to the country club
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and police had another possible lead as an obstetrician gynecologist dr hamilton performed abortions at his own
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clinic the one his wife susan ran dr and mrs hamilton had been targeted by anti-abortion protesters they'd even
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made up wanted posters i believe wanted for murder john hamilton you know that sort of thing
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and both dr hamilton and his wife were unapologetic about their work here in the bible belt that's not
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something that citizens typically embrace we know it goes on it does happen but to be openly doing something
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like that and have a clinic that does those kind of procedures didn't sit well
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with a lot of people at the police station dr hamilton was grief stricken [Music]
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please help me please please [Music] investigators hoped forensic evidence at the scene
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could tell them more susan and john hamilton had been married for 15 years the second marriage for both everyone
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loved dr hamilton his wife beautiful woman wore her age incredibly well country club set absolutely she looked
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like she would hang out with that kind of affluent crowd everyone said they were just wonderful people and very much
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in love at susan's autopsy the medical examiner found no signs of sexual assault
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she had been strangled with some neckties then the perpetrator drove her head onto
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the floor many times death was caused by repeated blows to her head with a blunt object
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the wound her forehead or the left side of her head was was substantial and massive
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i think that weapon has to be a weapon of opportunity it has to be something that was in that
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environment that was accessible to that person in a search for suspects investigators learned that an
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anti-abortion group planned a demonstration in front of the hamilton's home we were able to determine that the house
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had been picketed as well as a permit to picket that residence had been attained within a
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month of the time of this homicide at the crime scene investigators found no evidence of a
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break-in but they did find a potential clue on the kitchen counter they found the valentine's day card john
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purchased for his wife and the card read we are important loving caring people together
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my life would be incomplete without you i love you john the card susan gave to her husband had
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an entirely different message one of the captions she had written herself said obviously i bought this
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card before last monday then as you open the card and begin to read the inside of it she had
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written i bought this card two weeks ago so they don't seem as appropriate now i
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love you sign susan hamilton police wanted to know what had happened two weeks earlier
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dr hamilton said they had a fight about money but investigators found evidence there
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was more to it than that there was accusations that he was having an affair with one of his clients who
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was a topless dancer and this came from phone calls that susan hamilton had gotten a hold of
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susan discovered her husband called the dancer more than 60 times this was nuclear
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in her eyes and she even moved out for a for a night uh went to stay with her friend dr
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hamilton had been to her club she had done a table dance for him for about a hundred dollars
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possibly on more than one occasion dr hamilton denied the two were having an affair but with so many calls
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susan was skeptical it was not even the fact that he had done it that he had actually been chasing this
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girl a little bit what was important was that susan hamilton believed he had done it
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one week before the valentine's day murder susan hamilton had made dr hamilton write a letter to this dancer
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refusing to be her doctor any further and the media had their own suspicions about dr hamilton
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it started when reporters heard the tape of dr hamilton's 9-1-1 call no listen
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i'm a doctor i've been trying cpr please send something quick she's not breathing
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no she's not breathing i don't get pulsed please okay and if you listen to
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it over and over again it sounds strange the things he's saying the order in
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which he says them he's gonna you know it just it sounds weird so the local tv station kw tv
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sent the tape to a company specializing in computer voice stress analysis the test charted the micro tremors in dr
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hamilton's voice it showed no excessive blood flow impacting dr hamilton's voice
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on this i'm very confident that this doctor is not stressed to the degree that i would think he would be under
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those circumstances which makes me feel very confident that he rehearsed this before he made his call the
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analysis couldn't say yes he did or no he didn't but it certainly gave an insight into um
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maybe there was something more to the story that we didn't know and homicide investigators started to
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question dr hamilton's unusual behavior captured on videotape just after the murder
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he seemed to be out of control with emotions one way or another he would get upset and start moving back and forth
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he would start crying he'd stop and that was one of the concerns that i had it was almost like he was acting
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but dr hamilton had an alibi for the time of the murder he was in surgery all morning with plenty of witnesses
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obviously a doctor couldn't be in two places at the same time or could he she was strangled she was found naked
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topless dancers abortions you start hearing all that mixed together it made for a lot of talk in this town
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to analyze the forensic evidence from susan hamilton's murder homicide investigators asked bloodspatter expert
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ross gardner for his opinion this case is like many in the sense that what the suspect says
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ultimately is going to be tested against the crime scene when emergency workers arrived dr
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hamilton was covered in his wife's blood dr hamilton's presence in the crime
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scene the fact that he's bloody is completely expected he's come home he's found his wife dead
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he's cradled her he's taken action but not all the blood on dr hamilton's
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shirt could be explained away dr hamilton's claims presented some major contradictions
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i don't expect to find spatter the spatter i observed were present on the front of his shirt below his neck
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on both sleeves at the cuff and he suggested that he his arms and his body had been in close proximity to
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a spatter event on dr hamilton's shoes were tiny blood droplets almost invisible to the naked eye
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these were suspicious not only the shape but the angle at which the blood landed
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on the shoes there were some coming down on the toe from above 40 50 degrees there was no
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possible way that someone had lifted mrs hamilton's head dropped her head down
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created additional spatter and somehow dr hamilton's shoes were exposed to that
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that you couldn't explain it from that the blood on dr hamilton's shoes was the
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result of medium velocity impact spatter the kind caused as a result of a beating
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tom bevel a blood spatter expert hired by dr hamilton agreed with gardner's assessment
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the spatter places the shoe within an area capable of receiving spatter and the spatter is being
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generated by some impact into a blood source which in this case is mrs hamilton and blood spatter found four inches up
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inside his right shirt cuff was most telling it was direct spatter meaning the blood landed directly on the
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shirt for spatter to get up inside the cuff meant it had to be traveling at some
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speed for it to get on the inside the blood has to be coming at an angle capable of uh
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missing the wrist and the edge of the cuff and the outside and going on the inside of it
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uh that puts very limited positions with which that could have occurred the only way that that could
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have happened is from somebody using their hand to either hold a weapon or something like
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that and beat beat susan hamilton and blood and the blood droplets come spewing off that and
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be driven up in that angle scientists performed dna testing on each and every blood stain on dr hamilton's
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shirt and shoes it was all susan's blood luminol tests revealed even more of
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susan's blood on the inside of dr hamilton's car there was blood found on the steering
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wheel there was blood found on the seat the driver's side left edge of the seat
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and also some hair and tissue found on the floor of the vehicle on the driver's
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side investigators discovered what may have been the murder weapon the hamilton's maid said that a marble
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figurine from the bathroom was missing and communication records indicated dr hamilton was not in the hospital in
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between his two operations on the morning of the murder he started getting pages from that
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hospital to get there now because that second patient had already been put under
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anesthesiology the blood spatter evidence proved he was home dr john hamilton was arrested and
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charged with murder well can you leave the door open i mean it's just i mean i feel like i'm in a
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cage i'm sorry so i i tried to explain to you that i know by the whole purpose of you being here okay
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the stage was set for one of the most publicized trials in oklahoma history interest to this case was the stature of
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john and susan hamilton and the murder occurring on valentine's day valentine's day is a day for love
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this wasn't a very loving scene that i saw that day so what really happened between dr john
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hamilton and his wife susan in the days and weeks leading up to susan's murder
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prosecutors learned that dr hamilton was making financial payments to others without susan's knowledge
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he had been sliding money to one of his children by a previous marriage well she
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found out he lied to her about that and she absolutely went ballistic about that
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told him if he ever did it again she'd leave him there was no question who wore the pants
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in the family and it was not john she was a very black and white person you uh you lie to her and and you're
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done and susan suspected there was more going on between her husband and the exotic
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dancer than he admitted my thinking is susan at this point says you have broken my trust and it's over
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the stripper actually told me that she really believed that john hamilton was trying to work up the
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nerve to ask her out on a date there wasn't any relationship there but she knows men pretty well and he was
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trying to work up the courage to to even get to first base and and he wasn't even off home plate
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yet on the morning of valentine's day prosecutors believe the couple exchanged
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cards and they argued about susan's not-so-veiled message inside i don't believe i ever wanted to get
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this from my wife for valentine's day it wasn't one of the more cheerful ones
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that you want forcing an exchange of thoughts about one another thoughts that maybe
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would have been better aired with a counselor in the room the evidence suggests dr hamilton went
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to the hospital performed one operation then returned home possibly with an attempt to reconciliation
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[Music] prosecutors say the couple argued once again in anger hamilton took several neckties
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from his closet and strangled her once unconscious he hit her head on the floor and struck her with a blunt object
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[Music] this created the medium velocity blood spatter found on his shoes and on the
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inside of his shirt cuff before he could clean up the hospital paged him for his next
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surgery so he took his bloody trousers and the murder weapon and left for the hospital leaving the
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back door open that's how susan's blood and hair got inside his car how dr hamilton disposed of the murder
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weapon and bloody trousers remains a mystery at the hospital dr hamilton scrubbed up
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for his second operation washing away the forensic evidence but he was still wearing the shoes
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covered with his wife's blood his ability to perform the operation didn't surprise prosecutors
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my wife happens to be a surgeon you revert to something you've done a thousand times i'm not sure i'd wanted
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to perform a surgery on me it's disturbing it's it's frightening and creepy
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when dr hamilton went home he called 9-1-1 but delivered a performance that didn't fool the forensic speech experts
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dr hamilton probably believed that performing cpr would cover any blood evidence of the murder
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but he was wrong he made some major mistakes knowing what is available through science today
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way beyond anything i had any knowledge of how sophisticated science is at dr hamilton's trial
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in a devastating blow tom bevel the blood spatter expert hired by the defense testified that he concurred
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with the prosecution's expert this is dr hamilton's witness there to help him get off the murder charge it
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was absolutely a perry mason moment and you could turn and look at the jurors and see him all go
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oh in my opinion when you look at this case in its totality in other words look at
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all the physical evidence look at all the statements i am certainly well beyond any reasonable doubt that dr hamilton is
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the person that has done this john hamilton was found guilty of his wife's murder
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and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole we all felt sorry for him because uh you know his
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situation but uh to us the uh the evidence was so overwhelming and and it just seemed to show on his face that
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he was guilty john will rot in jail john will have to pay for this at a higher level than what
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he's already paid meaning going to hell the forensic findings i thought were
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powerful that's the glorious thing about this case there was absolutely no doubt in my head
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he is the killer he's he's made his own bed that's one of the interesting things
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about forensic pathology and forensics it's a study of human nature that's the dark side to it it's really
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unfortunate but we could be pretty mean and nasty [Music] [Music] you