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NARRATOR: The
cold-blooded murder of a guest in a Mexican
resort concerned officials on both
sides of the border.
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The motive appeared
to be robbery. But the forensic evidence
pointed to something more
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sinister and revealed a change
of plans, identity, and gender. [theme music] Puerto Penasco, Mexico.
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Americans call it Rocky Point. It's a small resort
town about 60 miles from the
Mexican-American border,
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with everything
that you'd expect. Beaches, sun, sport
fishing, championship golf,
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and even some culture. JIM HENDERSON: It's
a nice place to just go hang around on the beach.
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And you can buy shrimp straight
off the boats in the evenings and people have cook
outs on the beach.
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NARRATOR: And it's where
the Willoughby family chose to take their winter
vacation in February of 1991.
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After several days of
enjoying the warm weather, Dan Willoughby decided
to take his three
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children to the
local science museum. His wife, Trish, had
a headache and chose to stay at the beach house.
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When the family returned from
the museum two hours later, they made a grisly discovery.
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MIKE LESSLER: When young
Thera and little Hayden went to the back bedroom,
they saw their mother
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there lying on the
bed with her head wrapped in a
blood-saturated towel. -Came out crying.
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Something's wrong with mommy. She's all bloody and
she's not breathe right. NARRATOR: Dan gathered
his children on the porch
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to say a prayer,
then called for help. But neither prayers nor medicine
could help Trish Willoughby.
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She died several hours
later at the hospital of blunt force
trauma to the head. THERA HUISH: Well,
Trish was a very
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giving, loving wonderful person. And she touched the lives and
the hearts of so many people
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as we traveled. And they loved her because
she was just so warm and so wonderful and so filled
with life and enthusiasm.
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NARRATOR: The medical
examiner found a bruise on Trish's abdomen. And she had been struck in
the head with a blunt object
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at least nine times. She had also been stabbed
with a kitchen knife. Police suspected the
motive was robbery.
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$400 was missing
from Trish's wallet. Her wedding ring and
an expensive pearl ring
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were also missing. But the Mexican police
did little to secure the crime scene. -They had very little
investigative capacity.
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The police department didn't
even have a fingerprint kit. I think they basically arrived
at the scene, took a quick look
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and sealed it off. NARRATOR: A resort employee
told Dan Willoughby that some suspicious
men were lurking
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in the area near the
Willoughby's beach house around the time of the murder. The people living in the
town closest to the resort
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lived in abject poverty. The stolen cash and
jewelry would've been the equivalent
of six months
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income for the average family. And the Mexican police
had a significant problem.
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They had no forensic
evidence with which to identify the perpetrator. The murder of Trish
Willoughby in Mexico
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made headlines in the family's
hometown of Gilbert, Arizona. This prompted numerous calls to
the Arizona police department
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from concerned citizens
who said that all had not been well in the
Willoughby household.
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-What can you tell me
about this girlfriend? What do you know about her? NARRATOR: The callers
all said the same thing.
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That Dan Willoughby had been
having an affair with a woman named Yesenia Patino, a
34-year-old Mexican native.
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-Clearly, Yesenia Patino
was a gold digger. She basically
leeched off of men. You could describe Yesenia
as a full-time prostitute,
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in the sense that she would hook
up with a man and live off him. NARRATOR: Police also
learned that Trish
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knew about her husband's affair. MIKE LESSLER: And
Trish came over to the apartment and
confronted Yesenia
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in the public pool area
of the apartment complex and screamed at her. NARRATOR: When police
interviewed Yesenia,
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she readily admitted the affair. -She told me that Dan
Willoughby paid for an apartment
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and bought her gifts and
a lot of her expenses and jewelry and things. NARRATOR: But Yesenia
denied having anything
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to do with Trish's murder and
said she wasn't even in Mexico at that time.
LT. JOE RUET: Yesenia was
quite a character.
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She was very flirtatious. And at one point, she leaned
into me during the interview
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and she said, I know
what a man likes. NARRATOR: At the end
of the interview, Lieutenant Ruet asked Yesenia
for some identification.
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LT. JOE RUET: I came across
a social security card with a male name on it. The birth name was
Alfredo Patino.
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-And they ask, who is this? She said, oh, that's me. And then she told them that was
before her corrective surgery.
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-And while I sat there
professionally deadpan, inside I was screaming, oh! I know why you know
what a man likes.
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You were one. But it was shocking that
she was quite a character. NARRATOR: When they
ran a background check,
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police discovered that Yesenia,
or rather Alfredo Patino, had a criminal record before
her sex change operation.
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LT. JOE RUET: We found out
that she had been arrested in Oregon for male prostitution.
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There was no question
about her sex. NARRATOR: Surprisingly,
Dan Willoughby said he knew nothing about
this, despite the fact
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the two were lovers. THERA HUISH: When we
talk to Dan about Yesenia and told him what she was,
or what he was before she was
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a she, or an it or whatever it
is, at that particular point, Dan sat there with sweat
running out of his ears
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and down his face and he's
hanging his head down. And his only comment was, well,
this is going to be something
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that the "National Inquirer" is
going to have a big time with. -I mean, goodness.
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She was married twice. She had numerous boyfriends,
before and after this crime.
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This wasn't somebody that
spoke in a baritone voice or had an Adam's apple
popping out of their neck.
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Huh-uh. NARRATOR: While all of
this was interesting, police found nothing to link
Yesenia with Trish's murder.
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So they decided to
drive down to Mexico to inspect the crime scene.
LT. JOE RUET: The forensic
science aspect of the evidence
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is critical here. Like I say, the work that was
done by the Mexican police really lacked resources.
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It was just very good that
we were able to get a lab crew down there to
Mexico to get in there
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and check for fingerprints. NARRATOR: And they found
several on the back door and on a soda bottle
in the kitchen.
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These fingerprints
belonged to Yesenia Patino. LT. JOE RUET: No matter what
kind of excuse she gave,
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it was absolutely clear based
on the forensic evidence, she was there. NARRATOR: Police also learned
that Dan Willoughby had been
00:08:27
fired from his job months
earlier, partially because he had been padding his
expense reports to pay
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for his activities with Yesenia. -After he lost his
last job, I think his life began to spin
out of control, really.
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He was living on
his wife's income. He had a mistress to support. NARRATOR: This explained
a possible motive.
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Trish had a lucrative
career of her own. She and her mother had built a
very successful home business
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selling nutritional supplements. THERA HUISH: He could see all
this money that was coming in,
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and I think he
thought he was going to get half of all of this. NICK HUISH: He wanted the
money so he and Yesenia could
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gallivant off to Mexico and live
like kings happily ever after. Because with a few million bucks
in your pocket down in Mexico,
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you're a hero. NARRATOR: But police
had no forensic evidence against Dan Willoughby.
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The fingerprints
implicated Yesenia. And when police went to
arrest her, she had vanished.
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When Arizona police interviewed
the three Willoughby children, they told a story very
different from their father's.
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The oldest daughter,
17-year-old Marsha said, that when they left
their mother in the beach house
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and got into the
car, his father said he forgot something and
went back inside alone.
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He was gone for
about 10 minutes. -Hayden, leave me alone. -Touching you. -Stop it.
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NARRATOR: Marsha
said she grew hungry and went back to the
house to get a candy bar,
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but found the door locked. -If I'm a dad taking my
kids out to the beach and I run back in the house to
get something that I forgot,
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I don't lock the door behind me. NARRATOR: When Marsha
knocked, her father answered and told her
to wait in the car.
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He came out a few minutes later. This meant he was alone with
Trish just before her death.
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Yesenia's fingerprints were
found at the crime scene, but she had fled before
she could be arrested.
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Trish's family tried to find
Yesenia on their on by posting flyers in Arizona,
as well as Mexico.
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Trish's mother also made
television appearances in the hopes that someone
could provide information
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about Yesenia's whereabouts. REPORTER (ON TV):
She went to the media because she believes,
and so do prosecutors,
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that if they can find one
person this case may be solved. NARRATOR: And this
produced results.
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An informant spotted
Yesenia working as a bartender in
Mazatlan, Mexico. When she was
arrested, police found
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Trish Willoughby's
rings in her possession. -I can only assume
that she probably
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removed it from Mrs.
Willoughby's finger. NARRATOR: When confronted
with the evidence against her,
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Yesenia not only confessed,
she implicated Dan Willoughby as the architect of
the crime and said
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he was the actual killer. She said Dan first
suggested killing Trish months earlier at
a restaurant in Arizona.
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Yesenia and Dan both
went to Rocky Point together to find an isolated
beach house for the murder.
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She said they both came up with
the idea of taking the children to the museum to
secure an alibi.
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Yesenia admitted
she was in Mexico on the day of the murder. And that she watched the
house from a back road.
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The plan called for Dan to take
the children out to the car, pretend he left something
behind, then go back inside,
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subdue Trish with a
blow to the stomach, then beat her to death. After he left with
the children, Yesenia
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went inside to stage
the robbery and found Trish still breathing. Yesenia said she got a
knife and stabbed her.
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She took Trish's rings and
cash, scattered some papers to make it look like
a robbery and fled.
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But she forgot to wear gloves. When Dan and the
children returned home, he sent the children
into the house first.
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-Knowing full well what the
kids were about to discover, he let the kids go in
first as part of his alibi.
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That was just terrible. -How could you let
your children walk in and find your wife in the
state that you left her?
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That's-- that's demented. NARRATOR: At a trial
in Mexico, Yesenia was convicted of Trish
Willoughby's murder
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and was sentenced to
35 years in prison. Dan Willoughby went
on trial in Arizona
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and Yesenia was the
state's star witness. -A lot of murder
cases are prosecuted on strictly
circumstantial evidence.
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I think in this case, the
circumstantial evidence was more compelling than
you'd find in most cases.
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NARRATOR: Dan Willoughby was
convicted of first degree murder and conspiracy
and sentenced to death.
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NARRATOR: But that's not
the end of the story. Several years passed and Yesenia
Patino changed her story.
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-Before she said anything,
I struck her like this. MAN (OFF CAMERA): OK.
-Six times.
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NARRATOR: Investigators
turned to forensic science to find the truth. Within months after he
was sentenced to death
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for his wife's
murder, Dan Willoughby appealed his conviction on the
grounds he was denied access
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to effective counsel, and won. -Because a court determined that
the lawyer who represented him
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at the first trial
was ineffective. He was a lousy lawyer. NARRATOR: So the
state of Arizona
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was forced to retry the case. -So he's been on death
row for nine years. Since then, all of these
major cases, OJ Simpson,
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start popping up in your head. Do they have the same evidence? Is the guy that's going to
be trying this case going
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to be as good as the first guy? The Attorney
General's different. Everything's different.
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Everything is totally different. NARRATOR: And now, Yesenia was
telling a different version
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of how Trish Willoughby
was murdered. She now said she
killed Trish by herself and that Dan Willoughby
knew nothing about it.
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She said she used
a homemade mace. -When she clawed me,
I just went like this. When I hit her the first
stroke, she was unconscious.
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She felt unconscious. The blood was over
sideways and on the walls. MIKE LESSLER: The
defense in this case
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can be stated in three words. Yesenia did it. NARRATOR: Prosecutors asked
forensic scientist Tom
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Bevel to analyze the evidence. The first thing Bevel
noticed was an inconsistency.
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The blood spatter
at the crime scene was not produced by
someone swinging a mace,
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as Yesenia described
in her deposition. TOM BEVEL: She actually
described in the video
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an overhand by holding the
end of the tether of the mace. And looking at the physical
confines as to what was there
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and where the victim
was placed, that would be a physical
impossibility because there was
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a two-foot depth shelf
above the victim's head that the mace would've had to
have-- to have gone through.
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That simply was
physically not possible. NARRATOR: And
Yesenia's story also differed from the
coroner's report.
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-According to the
coroner's testimony, it most likely was
a linear object, that is an object that
was long and narrow.
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Not a spherical or
ball-like object. NARRATOR: Bevel
literally wrote the book on blood spatter evidence.
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When he examined the
bloodstained sheets, he found two types of spatter. Some of the droplets
had a smooth appearance,
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like pure liquid. But others had an
irregular appearance, which was blood that had
been exposed to the air
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and begun to coagulate. TOM BEVEL: So we have spatter
and/or castoff that is showing
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a clotting process that is
not consistent with blood loss at the very beginning
of a beating.
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But rather, blood that has been
exposed, and then some time frame later, approximately
10 minutes or longer, that
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is being disturbed and
then landing on the sheets surrounding the victim. NARRATOR: Tom Bevel
concluded that there were
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two separate attacks on
Trish Willoughby in the house at least 10 minutes apart.
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A conclusion that matched
Yesenia's original story. Prosecutors believe this
proves that both Dan
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and Yesenia were involved. -It made absolutely no sense
that one person would create
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that blood source,
wait 10 minutes, and then agitate, if you
will, that blood source
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to create the
coagulated spatter. That was probably the
single most important piece of evidence in the case.
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NARRATOR: And Marsha Willoughby
remembered an important fact that she hadn't mentioned
in the first trial.
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She said when her
father came to the door, he was tucking in
his shirt tail. And it wasn't the
same shirt he was
00:19:23
wearing when he
went into the house. Prosecutors believe
Willoughby changed his shirt because of
the blood spatter.
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At Dan Willoughby's second
trial, Yesenia took the stand and surprisingly
told the same story
00:19:43
she told in the first trial. Prosecutors believe
Yesenia changed her story after the first trial because
she was upset that her jewelry
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and other personal items weren't
returned to her in prison. Dan Willoughby was
convicted, once
00:20:02
again, of first degree murder. This time, however, he
escaped the death penalty and was sentenced
to life in prison.
00:20:10
Dan Willoughby
maintains his innocence. NARRATOR: Trish's
family thinks Tom Bevel's analysis
reveal the truth.
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THERA HUISH: Many of
the jurors told me that it was his testimony that
totally convinced them that Dan
00:20:38
had committed the
murder and Yesenia had come in after, just
exactly like she said.
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It was his testimony
that had a great deal to do with his conviction
the second time around,
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but we didn't have
him the first time. I was impressed. -The strangeness of the case--
I mean, it was a case that
00:20:56
was truth is stranger
than fiction. You know, and you look at
a case like this and think,
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wow, this is too weird. [theme music]