00:00:04
[TENSE MUSIC] NARRATOR: This time, on
''Killers Caught on Camera''. In Florida, a woman meets
the man of her dreams.
00:00:15
WOMAN: I was really looking
forward to meeting him, because I had heard
all the good things
00:00:20
that she had said about him. [TENSE MUSIC] But
she goes missing. And the police investigate
her disappearance.
00:00:28
MAN: I asked him if Vickie
was inside the residence, and he responded with, ''I
have to tell you something''.
00:00:36
NARRATOR: And in the UK, a
happy marriage is destroyed when a woman is found dead.
00:00:45
It was the whole
world crashing down. NARRATOR: And her
husband is discovered with multiple stab wounds.
00:00:52
[INTRIGUING MUSIC] MAN: It just sounds
like something bad is happening to her. WOMAN: We know what
happened because the video
00:00:59
tells us what happened. MAN: I heard some gunshots. POLICE: Drop it. Whatever it is, drop it.
00:01:04
MAN: That does not prove
that I killed my wife. MAN: The camera doesn't lie. [TENSE MUSIC] United
States, Destin, Florida.
00:01:20
A small city nestled in the
panhandle on the Emerald Coast. Over 100 miles west of the
state capital, Tallahassee.
00:01:30
Home to 59-year-old, Vicki
Edge, and friend, Sherrie Linn. SHERRIE LINN: Vickie was here
probably almost every weekend
00:01:40
during the summer,
because we'd always usually go out either after
church or on Saturday.
00:01:48
We'd hop on the boat
with all the girlfriends and just head out. My husband, Johnny,
was our captain.
00:01:54
He'd happily take us
wherever we wanted to go. SHERRIE LINN: She was always
the life of the party.
00:02:00
She loved to dance and have
fun and go on girls trips. So it was-- She was
always fun to be around.
00:02:09
[TENSE MUSIC] Vickie and
Sherrie met at high school. SHERRIE LINN: We
just kind of grew
00:02:15
up together, and knew her
family and she knew my family. And we just always did things
together, forever since then.
00:02:22
As we grew up and got out of
high school, she had one son, I have one son. We had all the
mother stuff to go
00:02:29
through together,
so we just always been there for each other. NARRATOR: Vickie was a single,
successful businesswoman,
00:02:39
who wanted a relationship. SHERRIE LINN In her heart,
she just wanted to be-- Kind of to have that person that
she was going to grow old with.
00:02:49
A lot of times it's not fun
out in the dating world. She wanted that to be over and
just have peace and comfort
00:02:56
and, you know, somebody
just to enjoy her-- Her older years with. NARRATOR: In May 2020,
Vickie met Jerry Odum online.
00:03:08
A former karate teacher,
also looking for love. SHERRIE LINN: She told me
about their first date,
00:03:14
she called me when it was over
and she told me how wonderful it was and how charming he was.
00:03:19
And she felt like she
connected with him. And he was kind and a
gentleman and, you know,
00:03:26
everything that you-- You hope a first date would be. She was very excited. NARRATOR: Things moved quickly.
00:03:33
After just four months, they
were planning to get married and buy a house together.
00:03:39
SHERRIE LINN: The thing that
seemed a little bit strange, I guess, was that she had
told me that he had just got
00:03:46
a tattoo of Vickie on his arm. And I was thinking, well, you
know, that was kind of fast.
00:03:54
But you're thinking,
you know, the wedding's coming kind of fast, but maybe
they're head over heels in love.
00:04:00
And if you're older, you
think you don't want to wait. You want to go ahead and
build your life together.
00:04:07
[TENSE MUSIC] Due to
COVID restrictions at the time, none of Vickie's
friends or family had met Jerry.
00:04:14
But Vickie and Jerry were
planning their big day at Sherrie's house. SHERRIE LINN: Our place
was kind of like her place,
00:04:22
so she felt like everybody could
be at ease and just have a party and celebrate the
new chapter that
00:04:29
was going to start in her life. NARRATOR: Jerry started to pay
for the wedding preparations.
00:04:36
SHERRIE LINN: Vickie was real
excited because he had given her a check for $15,000 for us
to go shopping and to get all
00:04:45
the stuff to set up in the
back yard to make it all cute, you know, the table, settings.
00:04:50
And I was, you know, really
looking forward to meeting him, because I had heard
all the good things
00:04:56
that she had said about him. SHERRIE LINN: And
also he had taken her shopping to go buy
her the house on the lake
00:05:03
that she had wanted. NARRATOR: August 7th,
2020, Vickie didn't turn up for a session at her spa.
00:05:14
SHERRIE LINN: I know
Vickie's work ethic. She would not miss an
appointment, unless something
00:05:20
bad had happened. We've got to find her,
something's going on. NARRATOR: Alarm
bells were ringing.
00:05:29
Vickie's close-knit
family, friends and staff were concerned. SHERRIE LINN: Everybody
kind of went into action
00:05:36
trying to call everybody we
knew, trying to figure out, you know, who could we call,
who was the last one to see her.
00:05:47
[TENSE MUSIC] Vickie had been
staying with Jerry while she'd been recovering from COVID.
00:05:53
Vickie's brother
and sister in law, tracked down Jerry's
address in Milton. They headed to his
house to find out
00:05:59
if Jerry knew where Vickie was. When they arrived, Vickie's
car was in the driveway,
00:06:05
the license plate removed. Vickie's sister-in-law called
911 to ask for a welfare check.
00:06:34
NARRATOR: At the same time
as Vickie's sister-in-law was talking to the police, Jerry
Odum made a separate 911
00:06:41
call from inside the house. NARRATOR: Benjamin Posey was
one of the patrol deputies
00:07:25
called to Jerry's house. BENJAMIN POSEY: When I
first arrived on scene, I talked with Derric,
Vickie's brother,
00:07:32
and then also her sister-in-law. They didn't know very
much about Jerry. He just knew that
Vickie loved Jerry.
00:07:41
She was willing to spend the
rest of her life with him. NARRATOR: The police
needed to find out
00:07:47
if Jerry knew where Vickie was. BENJAMIN POSEY: We knew
he was inside the house,
00:07:53
because we were just
on the phone with him not five minutes prior. The garage door opens up.
00:07:58
I made contact with
Jerry and asked him if Vickie was
inside the residence and he responded with yes.
00:08:07
And then he stated, I have
to tell you something. BENJAMIN POSEY: At this
point, we were in the garage.
00:08:14
Jerry has his hand on the
doorknob in the garage door to make entry to the house.
00:08:21
You could tell he
was very nervous because, he's very soft spoken. He didn't want his
voice to carry out
00:08:25
to where the family could hear. And he opens the door
just a little bit. And before we make entry,
he stated again, ''I have
00:08:38
to tell you something first.'' BENJAMIN POSEY: She's
been dead for two days. [INTRIGUING MUSIC]
00:08:45
BENJAMIN POSEY: The first
thing that came to mind was she had a medical emergency,
whether she had a heart attack
00:08:52
or there was a drug
overdose of some sort. You ask the question,
where's she at?
00:08:59
She's in the living room. How did Vickie die? He responded with, ''I'd rather
not say without a lawyer.''
00:09:11
NARRATOR: The case
was escalated. Captain Scott Jones
headed to the house. SCOTT JONES: When I
went into the scene,
00:09:19
Vickie Edge was
covered with a blanket. I very carefully
pulled the blanket back
00:09:23
and I could observe
blood spatter on her and I could observe a
large amount of blood
00:09:27
near the back of her head. However, the scene
itself was fairly contained to the living room.
00:09:33
It didn't look like there had
been a long, violent struggle. It looked like it
had mostly occurred
00:09:37
there right in the central
part of the living room. NARRATOR: Lieutenant Lance Bird
is an experienced crime scene
00:09:44
investigator. LANCE BIRD: It didn't appear
to be a natural death. The circumstances obviously
wasn't pointing towards any kind
00:09:52
of natural death. SHERRIE LINN: You don't believe
things like that are going to happen, so you just don't.
00:10:01
You know, my, my mind
couldn't go there, that something that
tragic was was going on.
00:10:09
NARRATOR: As crime scene
investigators worked their way through the property. Jerry Odum was
being interviewed.
00:10:34
LANCE BIRD: So Jerry was
very, I'd say, laid back. He was really a matter of fact.
00:10:48
LANCE BIRD: You
could tell he really wanted to tell us his story. DR. JULIA SHAW: Loads of
people lie at the beginning
00:11:24
of relationships. There's actually a term
for it in the literature, which is called
''self-presentation lies''.
00:11:31
Lying about who you are or some
fundamental aspect of who you are, so that can also
include things like beliefs
00:11:37
or how wealthy you are. If you lie at the
beginning, the question is either do you reveal
relatively early on that you've
00:11:44
been lying or do you
keep running with it, in which case, at some
point you are almost
00:11:50
certainly going to get caught. And then the question is, what
do you do when that happens?
00:12:02
SHERRIE LINN: I
think she thought he was comfortable enough
for her little dream
00:12:07
of a little house, away from
the city where she could kind of just be out in the country
and just slow down and not
00:12:14
have to work so hard. She thought he was stable. SCOTT JONES: I could not
believe what I was hearing.
00:12:45
It was the strangest
reason for murdering someone I've ever heard. LANCE BIRD: He was just a
matter of fact about it.
00:12:51
Didn't didn't cry, didn't have
really a whole lot of emotional, you know, he wasn't breaking
down or anything like that.
00:12:58
It was just detail after detail. NARRATOR: Jerry Odum's weapon
of choice was significant.
00:13:25
Back at the crime
scene, police discovered the murder weapon,
covered in blood and the original packaging.
00:13:32
SCOTT JONES: When
we found the bat, it still had a receipt taped on
it from Walmart, which would be
00:13:37
crucial for locating, hopefully,
some video surveillance to indicate that he was the
person who purchased that bat.
00:13:43
[INTRIGUING MUSIC] [TENSE MUSIC] The
receipt helped the police to pinpoint the exact date,
time and location where
00:13:53
the baseball bat was purchased. LANCE BIRD: You can see them
coming through the entry
00:13:59
door in this green
yellow jacket, walking through the entrance. We were able to follow
him around the store
00:14:07
with different surveillance
cameras throughout the business. He's walking through
and he's looking.
00:14:14
The baseball bat area is going
to be in that aisle or this row up here. So you can see him
walking straight to them.
00:14:22
You can see when he's up
here, he's picked one out. NARRATOR: Jerry
Odum swung the bat
00:14:28
vertically, not horizontally. LANCE BIRD: He's moving it
around trying to figure out
00:14:33
if that's going to be the one
that he thinks is going to be able to actually kill somebody.
00:14:40
He's not acting any way
out of the ordinary. To me, it doesn't seem
like it's bothering him
00:14:45
at all, what he's about to do. I don't think at this point
he knew when it was going
00:14:49
to happen, but it doesn't
appear that it's bothering him at all what he's
already got in his mind
00:14:55
that he's going to end
up doing to miss Edge. LANCE BIRD: The video
footage shows us
00:15:00
that the statement he
gave us was confirmed, and we also helped us kind of
put it together of his mindset
00:15:08
for the whole thing. NARRATOR: Jerry Odum purchased
the baseball bat eight days before Vickie was murdered.
00:15:18
DR. JULIA SHAW: What we're
seeing in the circumstance is someone who is struggling to
plan ahead beyond the next step.
00:15:25
He's lying about who he is in
order to get in with this person and/or start this relationship.
00:15:38
DR. JULIA SHAW: And this is the
same where he's using a baseball bat to kill this woman,
which obviously is
00:15:46
a ludicrous strategy
to try and remove himself from the situation. So he's using consistently
short term strategies.
00:16:25
NARRATOR: When you
examine the footage, it's striking how much he
reveals in the interview.
00:16:32
DR. JULIA SHAW:
In some ways, you could say he seems to
be incredibly honest and he's done some
work really thinking
00:16:38
about how it got to this point. And he made the decision, I'm
going to tell them everything.
00:16:42
Probably because
he thinks, a, he gets to unload
all of this and b, he's probably
going to get a more
00:16:48
lenient sentence for complying. DR. JULIA SHAW: All
the things he is saying are entirely
plausible explanations
00:17:02
for how it got to this point. They're not reasonable
explanations, but they are plausible.
00:17:15
Looking back at it, I think
that maybe because he did give her the check, I think he was
setting himself up to get found
00:17:26
out if there wasn't any money. SHERRIE LINN: He had written
her a check that in a few days
00:17:44
we were going to find
out was not any good. So I think that he was just
backing himself into a corner
00:17:52
and. I guess he was a coward. SCOTT JONES: So at this point,
with his bizarre confession,
00:18:04
we now have to determine whether
this was a premeditated act or was this something that
happened in the heat of moment.
00:18:09
The difference between
those is very large. The difference between first
degree murder, which you can
00:18:14
receive the death penalty for
or second degree murder, which is a lengthy prison sentence.
00:18:32
[INTRIGUING MUSIC] NARRATOR: Mark Alderman is
assistant state attorney for the First Judicial Circuit.
00:18:59
MARK ALDERMAN: In
the state of Florida, premeditation involves
a person making a conscious decision to kill.
00:19:05
And between that conscious
decision and the act itself, there has to be
enough time for reflection.
00:19:12
And that is ultimately
a question for the jury as to is there enough
time for reflection.
00:19:18
That was one of the other
things that stood out about this case was the length
of time between him buying
00:19:24
the weapon with the
intent to use it and then him using it on Vickie. It was eight days previously,
which is a huge amount of time
00:19:32
to be planning to do that. That's incredibly cold blooded. NARRATOR: Jerry's interview
also helped shed light on why
00:19:41
he chose a baseball bat. DR. JULIA SHAW: One thing
that we don't talk about very much, for obvious
reasons, because we're
00:20:18
focusing correctly on the
victims of these kinds of extreme crimes. But people who perpetrate
these crimes also
00:20:25
often come away with PTSD,
post-traumatic stress disorder, because they're having
flashbacks to what they did.
00:20:31
DR. JULIA SHAW: So if
you've killed somebody, of course it's not
unlikely for you
00:20:36
to have psychological
consequences for the act that you perpetrated. And so, trying to minimize
that seems like correct,
00:20:43
because you are going
to otherwise be scarred for life by what you just did. NARRATOR: Jerry also
explained what happened
00:20:51
after he murdered Vickie. LANCE BIRD: You would
think somebody who had just done that to somebody that they
cared for, that you would be
00:21:32
wasn't able to get along with
your life like normal every day. Hey, I'm going to go just eat
a dinner and then, you know,
00:21:39
just hang out like I
would any other day, after just murdering somebody. Knowing he was going to have
to go back and deal with it,
00:21:48
it was obvious that
he had planned it out. And it didn't
bother him one bit. NARRATOR: The next day,
Jerry headed back home.
00:22:35
NARRATOR: An interview
with the neighbors confirmed that Jerry had
spent the day with them,
00:22:40
while Vickie's body
was lying in the house. NARRATOR: Vickie's
body had been lying
00:23:17
in Jerry's house for
more than 30 hours before it was discovered. MARK ALDERMAN: Jerry
Odum, you know,
00:23:24
he could have called the
police after this happened, but he did not. You know, two days later is when
the police show up at his door.
00:23:31
So at the end of the
day, I'll never know what he ultimately intended. I mean, he took some steps
to try and cover his tracks,
00:23:39
in some ways. He put her phone in
a bucket of water. He took the license
plate of her car,
00:23:45
trying to hide the fact that
her car was in the driveway. [JERRY'S VOICE] MARK ALDERMAN: He
claimed that he
00:24:05
was planning on
calling the police, but just didn't
get around to it. I don't know if
that's true or not,
00:24:11
but had her friends and
family not looked for her and, you know, been very
active in trying to find her,
00:24:18
he would have had several more
days to do whatever he was going to do, whether it was, you
know, trying to hide the body
00:24:25
or dispose of evidence. NARRATOR: Jerry had no
previous convictions, but a police interview
with his former girlfriend
00:24:35
revealed a chilling
pattern of behavior. NARRATOR: There was clearly
a disturbing similarity
00:25:34
between Jerry's relationships. But this time, why did
he resort to murder? DR. JULIA SHAW: Maybe
his ego is so fragile
00:25:41
that he felt that the only
way to get past the situation is to remove her from the
situation from his life.
00:25:47
Jerry Odum fits the profile
of a vulnerable narcissist. In other words, he is presenting
as amazing, as wealthy, as rich,
00:25:56
but he doesn't quite believe it. And that is a toxic mix,
which can lead to someone
00:26:03
doing terrible things. NARRATOR: The evidence
was overwhelming. The case never went to trial.
00:26:13
NARRATOR: In February
2021, Jerry Odum pleaded guilty to first degree murder. He was sentenced
to life in prison.
00:26:22
SCOTT JONES: The
video surveillance was crucial in proving that
this was a premeditated murder.
00:26:26
In the video, as
you've seen, you can see the bat was
bought specifically for the purpose of murdering
Vickie Edge, which proved
00:26:32
definitively that this was a
premeditated murder and not a heat of passion type of crime.
00:26:38
NARRATOR: Ultimately, Vickie's
close relationships with family and friends led to the
discovery of her murder.
00:26:46
MARK ALDERMAN: The fact
that people cared about her and missed her almost
immediately from the day she
00:26:52
was killed is
ultimately what led to Jerry Odum being convicted. SHERRIE LINN: I
want Vickie to be
00:27:05
remembered for being a strong,
intelligent woman, that was very giving. A lot of the people
in our community
00:27:16
are always going
to remember Vickie. She was always so
happy and full of life and made everybody
around her happy.
00:27:24
And it was just always peaceful. We're all missing her a lot. And I wish she could
have got to have the life
00:27:32
that she was dreaming about. NARRATOR: In the
case of Vickie Edge, she never really knew what her
partner was like until the very
00:27:51
last moments of her life. Jerry Odum's fear
of being found out led him to a lethal solution.
00:27:59
His behavior fits with research
on our darkest character traits. DR. JULIA SHAW: The dark
triad is a cluster of what are
00:28:07
called dark personality traits. What that means is that all
of us are on a spectrum,
00:28:11
on psychopathy, on narcissism,
and on machiavellianism. And people who are
high on the dark triad
00:28:18
are higher on one or
all of these traits. Psychopathy is a lack of
empathy is characterized
00:28:25
by manipulativeness. Narcissism is an inflated
sense of self-worth, but that can stem from either
actually believing you're
00:28:32
amazing or overcompensating,
because you don't really believe you're amazing. DR. JULIA SHAW: And
then, machiavellianism
00:28:38
is more of a strategic
manipulation of circumstances to get ahead. In other words, you're using
strategy to try and convince
00:28:45
someone that you're
better than you are and you're manipulating someone
on purpose to get what you want.
00:28:51
In this case, to maybe have sex
and/or have this relationship. Research on the dark
triad in the context
00:28:57
of romantic
relationships has found that people who are
dating someone who's high on the dark triad are much
more likely to be the victims
00:29:05
of violence and of manipulation
or other toxic relationship behaviors. NARRATOR: And in our next
case, sometimes dark traits
00:29:13
can remain dormant
for a very long time until stressful circumstances
cause them to manifest.
00:29:23
NARRATOR: In the UK, the
capital, London, Euston station in the heart of the city.
00:29:32
In October, 2022, a man was
found collapsed on the platform with multiple stab wounds.
00:29:39
[POLICE] NARRATOR: His name,
Philip Dafter. He was incoherent, but the
police were so concerned,
00:30:00
they wanted to check
on his wife nearly 70 miles away in Northampton. NARRATOR: They headed
to the family home,
00:30:09
but the doors were locked. [INTRIGUING MUSIC] [POLICE] NARRATOR: Diana Dafter was dead.
00:30:30
NARRATOR: Amber Haque is a
journalist based in the area. AMBER HAQUE: Diana Dafter
was a 36-year-old woman.
00:30:37
She'd moved over to
Northampton from Malawi, and she'd worked at a care home. Every job that Diana had
was looking after people.
00:30:46
AUBREY MAKWE: Diana was
my sister's first born. Since childhood, Diana
was a very bright kid.
00:30:55
So upon completing her studies
at secondary school level, she asked me if I could invite
her to come and continue
00:31:02
her studies in the UK. I agreed, I accepted. Diana was really a child to us. NARRATOR: Dalia Banda was
a close friend of Diana.
00:31:13
DALIA BANDA: We were
very close and she was just like a little sister
to me, she was beautiful.
00:31:20
And all the time when we
have like family gatherings, she was so bubbly. NARRATOR: It wasn't long
before she met someone.
00:31:31
AMBER HAQUE: She met
her husband, Philip, who had worked in the army,
then went on to drive a bus
00:31:36
and become a HGV driver. They got married and they
had two kids together. AUBREY MAKWE: Throughout
their marriage,
00:31:43
they used to like social media. Everything they were doing, they
used to post it on Facebook.
00:31:50
You know, going to restaurants,
going to fancy places. DALIA BANDA: It looks like they
were in love, that's what I saw.
00:31:58
NARRATOR: Life was good. As the kids grew up, their
social circle expanded and she met new people.
00:32:05
HEATHER MALOPA: She was kind,
she was loving, she was gifted, she was talented. She used to do hair,
she could bake cakes.
00:32:14
She actually started
her own little business where she could grind like the
white maize, turn it into flour.
00:32:20
And she used to
sell it to people. NARRATOR: Diana also had
professional ambition.
00:32:27
HEATHER MALOPA: She
has always said, you know what, I
want to go to school. She really wanted to to
be a nurse, for the love
00:32:34
of caring for people. NARRATOR: In 2022, Diana's
dream came one step closer when
00:32:41
she was accepted
onto a nursing degree at Northampton University. DALIA BANDA: When she got her
student ID, she was very excited
00:32:50
and she was talking about it
all the time when you meet her. She was the happiest
I've ever seen her.
00:32:56
We thought everything is
now, well, she's happy, she's got a loving
husband, she's
00:33:01
got two beautiful
children, she's working. Happy families, good friends. We thought everything
is going perfectly.
00:33:09
NARRATOR: On October 7th,
2022, everything changed. She dropped her
daughter off at school,
00:33:18
but this was the last
time she was seen alive. Three hours later. [INTRIGUING MUSIC]
00:33:27
NARRATOR: She was
discovered stabbed to death in her own home. [POLICE] AUBREY MAKWE: Police
say that they found
00:33:36
her lifeless body in the house. It was the whole
world crashing down. [INTRIGUING MUSIC]
00:33:48
AMBER HAQUE: She'd
been stopped five times and a post mortem
a couple of days later showed that she had
died from a single stab wound
00:33:55
to the chest. DALIA BANDA: It was just
like, this is not true. Diana is just young,
she can't die now, Why?
00:34:04
[INTRIGUING MUSIC] NARRATOR: The police checked
hours of CCTV to piece together what happened that morning.
00:34:16
The first key footage was
from the local supermarket. Diana's husband,
Philip, was seen
00:34:23
buying a set of kitchen knives. Professor Coral Dando is
a forensic psychologist.
00:34:30
After reviewing the video, she
noticed something intriguing. PROF CORAL DANDO: He's
picked up a packet of knives.
00:34:38
He shows his proof of age
ID to the shop assistant. He makes no attempt to
conceal his identity.
00:34:47
He's got a hood
on, but he chooses not to put that up, which is
an interesting observation.
00:34:52
And he just quite
coolly, quite calmly buys these packets of knives
and he's used his bank
00:35:00
card to pay for the knives. So he's made absolutely no
effort to conceal his identity.
00:35:06
NARRATOR: Professor
Vasilios Karagiannopoulos is a cybercrime expert. One has to wonder
who buys kitchen
00:35:15
knives at 9:00 in
the morning without actually buying anything else. We can see him, he's
being very casual,
00:35:22
as if he's shopping
for his daily shop. NARRATOR: Philip
Dafter was caught on camera again an
hour or so later,
00:35:32
approaching Northampton station. DR. VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS:
Now, in this footage,
00:35:36
it's later in the
morning, we see him walking to
the train station, after he has parked his
car, holding a bottle.
00:35:44
What we can clearly see is
that he has changed clothes. NARRATOR: Philip headed to
London, an hour long journey.
00:35:57
DR. VASILEIOS
KARAGIANNOPOULOS: We can see he doesn't look
as calm and collected,
00:36:02
his stumbling about. NARRATOR: When he got to Euston,
he staggered onto the platform,
00:36:09
met by Transport Police. [POLICE] NARRATOR: Philip Dafter
was delirious and in danger
00:36:27
of bleeding to death. PROF CORAL DANDO:
This officer here, who wants to assess
what's going on,
00:36:37
to make some sort of
immediate decision about whether his life is
threatened by his injuries
00:36:44
or not. Because they've got to
wait for an ambulance. And that will take some time.
00:36:48
And they're all standing around
and recognizing that this is a man in some sort
of mental distress
00:36:53
as well as physical distress. NARRATOR: He revealed that his
wounds were self-inflicted.
00:36:59
[POLICE] PROF CORAL DANDO: Nobody's
comfortable in that environment, because
they're worried
00:37:08
about his physical injuries. But they're also,
we're seeing here that Philip is in quite a lot of
mental and emotional distress.
00:37:21
PROF CORAL DANDO: And, of
course, individuals who are like that are unpredictable.
00:37:25
So everybody is standing
around worried about what might happen next. NARRATOR: The family
were in shock.
00:37:36
AUBREY MAKWE: These
things we used to just read them
in the newspapers or hear about them on TV.
00:37:43
And now that has happened
to me, to my family. It was as if somebody
had just taken a knife
00:37:51
and stabbed me right there. DR. VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS:
On the face of it, he seems very
distressed at this time,
00:38:04
but we have seen him being
very calm earlier, closer to the time of the murder. AMBER HAQUE: Philip
Dafter was airlifted
00:38:13
to Saint Mary's Hospital
in Paddington, where he was treated for a stab wound. NARRATOR: In his hospital bed.
00:38:20
Philip Dafter
admitted that he alone was responsible for
his wife's death. AMBER HAQUE: It was at this
point he confessed that he had
00:38:32
been driven to do this to
Diana, following an argument about this car issue. [POLICE]
00:38:45
PROF CORAL DANDO: I
think the police believe that he might have scored. I also suspect that the officer
thinks that he might try
00:38:52
to end his life
or self harm again as soon as he leaves hospital. And so by arresting
him, that means
00:38:58
as soon as he leaves hospital,
he can go into police custody. PROF CORAL DANDO: We've
got this sort of behavior
00:39:05
from Philip where he's just
quite accepting of his fate. He recognizes, I
think, that he's going
00:39:12
to be convicted for murder. I suspect it's just a carry over
from the psychological distress
00:39:19
associated with
murdering your wife. HEATHER MALOPA:
She was murdered, and you were like, why?
00:39:26
Everyone was asking why. What happened? What did she do that she
had to be killed in that way
00:39:34
and no one had the answer. Philip only had the answer, and
he was not there to explain why,
00:39:40
why he did it. [POLICE] When it comes to
extreme violence, things like psychopathy on
the dark triad really help.
00:39:56
In other words, if
you're low in empathy, you don't feel pain when other
people are in pain, for example,
00:40:02
it's much easier
to hurt somebody. And that combined with
wanting to get ahead or wanting to pursue
goals no matter what,
00:40:10
and maybe thinking
that you deserve more, you deserve the world. That combination is really
predictive of violent offending.
00:40:20
AMBER HAQUE: We already
know that domestic violence is a huge issue within violence
against women and girls.
00:40:26
And what is so tragic
about this case and so many others
is a woman is most likely to be killed in her own
home by someone that she knows.
00:40:35
In 60% of cases, women are
killed by their husbands or their ex partners. AMBER HAQUE: Just six
days after the stabbing,
00:40:45
doctors arrived to do a mental
health assessment on Philip. And he told them that this
was a moment of madness
00:40:52
and he had been driven
to do this to Diana. NARRATOR: Philip had confessed. But was it an emotional loss
of control or a deliberate
00:41:04
final access control? AMBER HAQUE: During the trial,
Philip tried to claimed that he
00:41:10
had diminished responsibility. Details started to come out of
his mental health background.
00:41:15
He said he had these
recurrent depressive episodes and that in the
buildup to the killing
00:41:20
he'd become quite withdrawn. Now, it's difficult to say
whether these were kind of
00:41:25
brought up as excuses almost
to build up a picture that he wasn't really in control or
whether this was somebody who
00:41:33
was doing something
very calculated in the picture they were trying
to put across to the jury.
00:41:40
NARRATOR: Digging into
Philip and Diana's relationship revealed a not so
picture perfect life together.
00:41:48
AUBREY MAKWE: He was very
jealous of Diana going to work. At break times, he would
force Diana to go home.
00:41:57
In his mind, he was thinking,
if Diana is at work during break times, she'll be meeting men.
00:42:04
Men will be talking to her. NARRATOR: But it seemed Philip
did not live by his own rules.
00:42:11
In court, it came to light that
he'd had extramarital affairs and Diana planned to leave.
00:42:19
Diana had suspicions
that Philip was cheating on her at various points. And so we would say probably
cracks were starting to show.
00:42:28
On the 7th of October,
when Diana came home from dropping the kids
off, that was when
00:42:33
things really hit crisis point. The couple started
having an argument and things began to escalate.
00:42:40
Philip stabbed his
wife a number of times. NARRATOR: Philip
replaced the broken knife
00:42:50
immediately after
he'd killed Diana, which he later used on himself. DR. JULIA SHAW: Why
did he kill her?
00:42:58
Is it because he wanted
to cover up his shame? Is it because he couldn't
see another option?
00:43:03
It seems to me like
there was something else going on in his mind. And it was the line of thinking,
which is most common when we're
00:43:11
looking at intimate partner
homicide is the line of if she finds out, she's going to
leave me, if she leaves me,
00:43:19
she's going to be
with somebody else. And if I can't have
her, no one can. That kind of thinking,
that kind of pathway
00:43:25
is so common in
intimate partner murder, that it would
shock me that there wasn't some version of that
playing out here in his mind
00:43:31
as well. NARRATOR: On July, 25th,
2023, Philip Dafter was sentenced to life in prison.
00:43:41
The jury arrived
at their verdict after deliberating
for just two hours. AMBER HAQUE: When you
look on the surface level
00:43:51
that it took this jury just two
hours to reach this conclusion, that's quite quick for a jury
to to reach a deliberation.
00:43:59
Sometimes it can take days. So it seems in
their mind they were pretty certain that this man
intended to kill his wife.
00:44:10
PROF CORAL DANDO:
I think it's about trying to alleviate his own
psychological discomfort
00:44:15
associated with his behavior. His approach to doing that is to
injure himself, drink alcohol,
00:44:22
and to just want to tell
everybody really that he's in some sort of distress. But ultimately, he's responsible
for his own current situation.
00:44:32
And there's nothing to
suggest that that would be diminished responsibility. AMBER HAQUE: CCTV was
crucial in this case.
00:44:39
It allowed them to make
Philip accountable for what he had done. They were able to see that he
was kind of trying to throw them
00:44:47
off the scent and
some of his actions in the hours following that. They were able to get
that conviction for murder
00:44:54
by proving that he
was being very calm and calculated in how
he behaved afterwards.
00:45:06
DALIA BANDA: This
pain that I have for Diana's death it stays
with me for a long time,
00:45:12
to be honest. I just don't
understand why and how someone would do such kind of a
thing to someone that they love.
00:45:23
When I think about
all those things, it still brings the pain,
but Diana is no more
00:45:28
and that I will never see
her again in this life. It is very sad for me. The impact of her
death has been massive.
00:45:41
It's huge. It has changed our
life upside down. We have now to look
after the children.
00:45:49
I would say to whoever is
watching this out there. There is always somebody
who is willing to listen,
00:45:56
somebody who can help you. Please get out of
it and seek help. [END CREDITS MUSIC]