00:00:03
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: This time, on
"Killers Caught on Camera," A doorbell cam witnesses the
start of a late-night meet up,
00:00:16
but she doesn't make it home. It's every parent's
worst nightmare. NARRATOR: The police get
involved in the search for her.
00:00:27
NARRATOR: And in the US, a man
calls in a fire at his home. NARRATOR: A woman
is trapped inside.
00:00:37
The female in
there to you is who? It's my wife. MAN: It just sounds
like something
00:00:45
bad is happening to her. WOMAN: We know what
happened because the video tells us what happened.
00:00:50
MAN: I heard some gunshots. Drop it. Whatever it is, drop it. That does not prove
that I killed my wife.
00:00:57
MAN: The camera doesn't lie. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: In the
UK, in Warwickshire,
00:01:07
the market town of Nuneaton,
25 miles East of Birmingham, it was home to 23-year-old
Megan Newborough and her family.
00:01:21
Megan was the glue that
kept everybody together. She was the instigator in a lot
of family gatherings and events.
00:01:29
She was very bubbly-- Cheeky. --very smiley. Mischievous. And very caring. She had a great sense of humor.
00:01:39
And she was always there for
everybody, friends, family alike. NARRATOR: Megan's passion for
dancing started at an early age.
00:01:49
Megan was desperate to
start learning how to dance. The dancing teacher let her
join just before she was two.
00:01:56
She wanted to be the little
ballerina with the little tutu. NARRATOR: She was one
of three children.
00:02:03
Megan was
incredibly beautiful. She was so organized. She bossed us around. And she was definitely
the leader of the pack
00:02:12
between the three of us. She used to somehow make
every situation funny. She was good for-- she used
to get the motivation going.
00:02:19
She'd get the
energy in the room. NARRATOR: Megan got a
job in human resources at a brick factory near home.
00:02:27
ELAINE NEWBOROUGH: Megan was
an incredibly hard worker. Her mentality of
applying herself
00:02:32
and working really,
really hard and that ethic just stayed with her. She wants to get into HR to
help others, to support others.
00:02:41
People loved her. Everybody loved
being around her. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: At around 6:30 PM
on the evening of Friday,
00:02:50
August 6, 2021, Megan headed
out to meet someone from work. She had arranged to meet
someone to go for a walk.
00:03:01
She hadn't dressed up. She hadn't put makeup on. So wherever she was going,
it was obviously somewhere
00:03:06
she felt quite relaxed. There was nothing
out of the ordinary. And she said she'd be
back in a two hours time.
00:03:17
NARRATOR: By 9:30 PM, the
family hadn't heard from Megan. We went to bed. I continued sending
messages through all
00:03:27
the different platforms. I woke up around
3:00 in the morning. Realizing she still
hadn't come home,
00:03:37
we knew that there
was something wrong. NARRATOR: With no word from
Megan by lunchtime on Saturday,
00:03:44
Megan's father reported
her missing to the police. They checked the Newborough
family's home security cameras.
00:03:55
The Newborough family
had a ring doorbell. From an investigative
perspective, they're absolutely fantastic
because we get images of people
00:04:03
that we would never normally
get from conventional CCTV. We knew that Megan
had left in a vehicle.
00:04:12
We have ANPR-- Automatic Number
Plate Recognition. And so we were able
to track the route
00:04:18
that Megan had taken once
she'd left her home address. NARRATOR: Her car was captured
on camera 30 miles away
00:04:27
from home at 9:50
PM on the Friday night that Megan went missing. I guess it was some relief.
00:04:37
Yes, you know, that
she could be alive and we just got to
go and find her. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:44
NARRATOR: The police needed
to find out who Megan went to meet on Friday night. CLAIRE NEWBOROUGH: We heard
little stories about him.
00:04:51
We didn't have the full picture. He was a guy from work. The last time we spoke to
each other over the phone,
00:04:57
she said that she
really liked him. He treated her well,
is what she said. He would send her a good
morning text saying,
00:05:03
"Good morning, beautiful." And that's all we knew. Inquiries were made with
friends, family, workplace.
00:05:09
And through enquiries, they
identified Ross McCullam NARRATOR: Ross McCullam
was a 30-year-old
00:05:18
lab worker at the same Brick
Company where Megan worked. Police found out where he lived.
00:05:24
[MUSIC PLAYING] An officer from Warwickshire
Police went to home address and spoke to the
parents of Ross.
00:05:32
Ross wasn't there at the time. They called Ross on one
of their mobile phones and handed the mobile phone to
an officer to speak to Ross.
00:06:29
NARRATOR: Detective
Sergeant Charlotte Mee was looking for clues in the video. His demeanor here
is quite casual.
00:06:37
He doesn't seem overly
concerned about her. He's given a lot of detail. There's no concern
in his voice at all.
00:07:07
He's just intent on
telling us the fact that she's gone to McDonald's
for this milkshake.
00:07:13
Therefore, he thinks
she's all right. NARRATOR: Professor Coral Dando
is a forensic psychologist.
00:07:25
When people are
being deceptive, that's exactly the type
of behavior that we see.
00:07:30
So they talk a lot. They say a lot. But actually, their words
don't carry very much useful
00:07:38
information for
the investigation or they have a tendency to
talk about the minute detail.
00:07:56
Ross has not inquired at
all about why we're wanting to speak with him,
what's happened to Megan,
00:08:01
is Megan all right. This doesn't seem at
the top of his agenda. He wants to tell us
about why it wasn't him.
00:08:22
Ross is coming across as being
very helpful, a helpful witness. He's given extra detail,
detail of which he doesn't
00:08:29
need to give, including
directions to the location he says he's at. NARRATOR: Ross provided
some information,
00:08:40
but Megan was still missing. And so was her phone. Megan's brother John,
turned detective.
00:08:48
If you've lost your phone,
you can just go on this website. It will ping it. A flag will appear in
its last known location.
00:08:57
John, being very savvy
with the computers, managed to track a phone, and
some family members dashed
00:09:02
over to try and find the phone. The way we did it was we had
mom back at home on our MacBook
00:09:10
pinging the phone. It was just a live ping. We knew that phone was alive. We knew it was there
in a bush right next
00:09:15
to a pedestrian footpath. When the phone was
found, my heart sank, yes. We knew something must
have happened, not least
00:09:27
because she hadn't
been in touch, but she's never
away from her phone. At that time, concerns for
Megan increased significantly,
00:09:37
and the investigation was
changed from one of a missing person to a kidnap inquiry.
00:09:45
NARRATOR: When police
analyzed Meghan's phone, they discovered a series
of messages from Ross.
00:09:51
John Cammegh is a
leading barrister who analyzed all of
the communication between Megan and Ross.
00:09:59
First one was,
"You're amazing. Did you get home OK, baby?" Next morning, he writes, "I
haven't heard back from you.
00:10:09
I hope I haven't done
something wrong." He also left a voicemail at
about 11 o'clock that night.
00:10:48
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Police followed
Megan's car through cameras monitoring the license plate all
the way to Loughborough College.
00:10:59
Dr. Vasileios Karagiannopoulos
is a specialist in cybercrime. The investigators can
hone in on the image
00:11:08
and identify that it might
be a male driver in the car, that there are no
other passengers
00:11:15
in that particular car. NARRATOR: When the car
stopped, the person who got out wasn't Megan.
00:11:28
VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS:
It gives us a clearer idea of the complexion, of
the skin of the person,
00:11:33
what their height
is in comparison to the car and the car door. And we can see over
here that he's taking
00:11:40
some stuff out of the car. This is a big bin, and
he's looking into that, getting rid of some
stuff in that big bin
00:11:47
and goes back to the car. NARRATOR: After looking
around, the male figure changed his clothes.
00:11:57
VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS: He's
brought another pair of trousers as well, which is
showing us that he
00:12:01
is not doing things in a panic. He's much calmer because
he's thought about bringing
00:12:08
a change of clothes. Now we are seeing
that he's disposing of various different
items in the bins
00:12:16
in the surrounding area. This is showing us that
he is being very rational and is trying to
think things through,
00:12:26
how he can get rid of evidence
in various different bins without really
putting everything
00:12:31
in one so it can be
identified as something that's perhaps connected. I think it's also really
interesting that he's
00:12:40
gone and taken items and put
them in different dustbins, perhaps trying to second guess
what investigators, police
00:12:48
officers might look for
because they'll always look through dustbins
and try and find
00:12:53
evidence or information. NARRATOR: The items discarded
at Loughborough College were recovered by police.
00:13:02
JOHN CAMMEGH: There's
a blanket covered in blood, clothing that belonged
to Megan covered in blood.
00:13:09
And one of the most poignant,
one of the saddest images for me, for this whole--
00:13:13
from this whole inquiry was
one item that was retrieved from one of the waste bins.
00:13:19
And it was her glasses. You see her wearing
these glasses on the ring bell footage as
she leaves her home
00:13:24
at 7:30 on the Friday night. They were angrily
bent back as if they'd been crushed in someone's fist.
00:13:33
And for me, that was powerful
because it was a reminder of how wantonly brutal and evil he
was in what he did to it, even
00:13:42
to the extent that he wanted to
pulverize her specs in his hand. He's hiding the items
that he's just removed.
00:13:51
This includes items from the
house as well as personal items of Megan's as well as his own.
00:13:58
We can say that this
is the same person that we suspect has committed
the killing of Megan Newborough.
00:14:06
NARRATOR: Close to
midnight on August 7, 2021, police went to Ross's
house to arrest him.
00:14:14
He is in his bedroom when
police go and arrest him, and it's almost like
he is embarrassed.
00:14:23
He doesn't want his
mom and dad to hear what he's telling officers. Straight away, you notice the
difference in his body language.
00:14:45
It's completely at odds to
the way in which he comes over on the telephone conversation
that he had with the police
00:14:53
officer and also the
way in which he presents himself on the voicemail. NARRATOR: Police immediately
went to Charley road
00:15:41
in Woodhouse Eaves. At that point, this became
a murder investigation. The moment when
Megan's body is found,
00:16:25
it was assumed that she was a
redhead because their hair was soaked in blood. You get knock on
the door at 2:30
00:16:34
in the morning on the Sunday
morning, and the police came in. Two police officers arrived,
and they informed us
00:16:42
that they believed
they found a body that they believed to be Megan. And then obviously, the family
was destroyed from that point.
00:16:58
We had to go and
identify her the next day. NARRATOR: The autopsy
revealed how Megan was killed.
00:17:13
She died through strangulation
and mercifully would have lost consciousness very quickly.
00:17:21
But obviously used quite an
amount of considerable pressure, which you could see through
the particular hemorrhaging
00:17:27
in the eyes. What was perhaps most
awful was what he did to her immediately after he
strangled her because he
00:17:36
went into the kitchen. He took a knife
from a knife drawer, and he cut her neck across
the front of her neck.
00:17:46
The wound was 13
centimeters across, several centimeters deep, and
so deep that it left striations
00:17:54
on the spinal column. He said, in police interview, he
did that to ensure that she was
00:18:00
dead so that she wouldn't
be able to tell people what a bad man he'd been. We believe that he was making
a real and significant attempt
00:18:12
to decapitate Megan
for whatever reason. Post-mortem mutilation of a
body is seen as going one step
00:18:22
further in depravity,
in criminal behavior, in highlighting fundamental
issues with personality.
00:18:34
It's unclear what
his motive was, but it seems as if he wanted
to carry on and punish her.
00:18:41
It was about being in
control, being in charge, and I think would allow him
to bolster his self-esteem.
00:18:54
NARRATOR: Ross's
messages to Meghan provided some clues
about his motive. They start off in
a very innocent way.
00:19:02
There's a particular dynamic. Ross is someone who feels
pitifully inadequate, obsessed
00:19:09
with his own shortcomings. She is eager to make him
feel better about himself. She shows great kindness and
moreover, a lot of patience
00:19:19
with him. And then gradually,
the conversations become a lot more sexual. What these messages
showed us was a man
00:19:31
who had a dark and
a deep obsession with sexual
distortion, dominance, coercion, fear, threat.
00:19:42
His sexual fantasies
and ideations were not just unhealthy. They were, to the
likes of you and I,
00:19:54
potentially very dangerous. NARRATOR: The
messages also revealed that Megan had met up with Ross
the week before her murder.
00:20:04
They'd had an assignation
in the woods somewhere. Reading the text
carefully, it was apparent
00:20:10
that they'd planned to have
some sort of sexual encounter, but it hadn't worked.
00:20:16
We discover that immediately
after that failure, he goes online to buy the
packet of erectile medication.
00:20:24
NARRATOR: It appeared Ross's
impotence became a catalyst for his lethal response.
00:20:30
He knew that the
reason that he killed her was because when that
moment came, that night,
00:20:39
he let himself down. He was humiliated. So he lashes out. NARRATOR: When the police
searched Ross's parents' house
00:20:48
in Coalville, they found
evidence of a violent struggle in the living room. There was ornaments
that had been
00:20:55
knocked down, which we believe
is indicative of a struggle. When Ross was strangling
Megan, we believe that she
00:21:02
was fighting for her life. Ross had tried to
tell his parents that he'd spilt a cup of coffee,
and that's why it was wet.
00:21:10
But it wasn't. It was Meghan's
blood that was there. And there were smear
stains along skirting
00:21:14
boards within the hallway. So we believe that that is where
he dragged Megan out as well.
00:21:21
Through the forensic
examinations, we could put together the story
of what had happened to Megan.
00:21:28
NARRATOR: After disposing of
Megan's body on a country road, Ross went back home.
00:21:34
CORAL DANDO: He lives this life
in a squalid bedroom that is filthy and covered in rubbish.
00:21:41
It would predict that he's got a
disorganized approach to trying to cover up evidence to try and
manage the post-murder process.
00:21:53
NARRATOR: Ross, then
researched relationships. His voicemail to Megan
at 11:00 PM on the Friday
00:22:01
evening after he'd
killed her could now be read in a new light. 100% contrived, and he makes
this call about two minutes
00:22:25
after he Google's the
question, how to tell a girl that you love her? And for me, that was perhaps the
most chilling aspect of anything
00:22:40
that he did after he
disposed of her body. NARRATOR: The following
morning, Ross also started
00:22:49
searching the names of
several serial killers and looking at pornography. He is flicking
from image to image
00:22:57
to image until he sends her a
text message, "Morning, babe." It was pretty clear from that
that he was getting some sort
00:23:08
of sexual gratification upstairs
in a room above where he'd murdered his so-called
girlfriend just what,
00:23:18
10 hours or so previously. By looking at
other serial killers, maybe he was thinking that
this is the way that he might
00:23:27
progress in the future, that
maybe he got a real high from murdering Megan. Looking at other
serial killers, he
00:23:36
may be thinking about the fact
that he could now put himself in that group or potentially
think about killing
00:23:44
again to get that pleasure. NARRATOR: Ross McCullam was
charged with Megan's murder,
00:23:51
but they still had to convict
him in a court of law. In his defense, Ross
claimed a loss of control
00:23:59
and diminished responsibility. He blamed his actions on
childhood sexual abuse. John Cammegh presented the
evidence against Ross McCullam
00:24:10
at trial. He made out that she'd touched
him in some way, which had just triggered this violent
reaction over which
00:24:20
he had no control whatsoever,
and he started strangling her. It was as if in some
narcissistic way,
00:24:28
he is the victim, and he is
compelled against his will to flip out in a way
that culminates in him
00:24:40
violently taking her life. He strangled her with
his hands over her throat for three minutes.
00:24:48
Three minutes gives you bags of
time to pull back and retract. NARRATOR: The
surveillance footage
00:24:57
was crucial in undermining
Ross's defense. JEN GREENWAY: What the CCTV
shows is just how in control
00:25:07
Ross was that he was able to
form a really strong and solid mindset to think about what
to do with Megan's body,
00:25:17
about how to get
rid of her clothing. It's not really up for
debate whether or not
00:25:23
it did or didn't happen. You can watch it
with your own eyes. I don't think you can
underestimate for a moment
00:25:30
how important and crucial
digital evidence is in any investigation nowadays. NARRATOR: After
a six week trial,
00:25:39
Ross McCullam was found guilty. The jury took just 90
minutes to convict him. Did he feel any empathy?
00:25:48
Did he feel any sadness or any
appreciation for what he'd done? Absolutely not. Nothing.
00:25:58
What he did do over and over
again was express self pity. NARRATOR: On December
16, 2022, Ross McCullam
00:26:09
was sentenced to life in prison
with a minimum term of 23 years. ANTHONY NEWBOROUGH: Well, Megan
had a whole lot of head of her--
00:26:19
getting married,
having children, seeing her brother and sister
shine and move forward.
00:26:25
Everything was just ripped
apart on that very evening. CLAIRE NEWBOROUGH: You
lose a part of yourself.
00:26:29
It's gone forever. How am I going to walk down the
aisle, knowing my sister's not
00:26:35
there as my maid of honor? Like, how am I supposed to
do that without her there?
00:26:42
Losing a child
it's devastating. It's life shattering. It's everybody's
parent's worst nightmare.
00:26:53
I just miss
everything about her. She was always there. You could always, you
know, just message,
00:26:59
give her a call, or everything. I miss everything. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: There were just over
600 murders in the UK in 2022.
00:27:20
Only 7% were by strangulation. In the US, it's even
more rare, only 1%. Most people who
perpetrate sexual homicide,
00:27:35
they're more likely
to use strangulation. They're more likely
to do things that are up close and
physical than other kinds
00:27:42
of homicide perpetrators. Strangulation is a
very personal thing that requires quite
a lot of effort,
00:27:47
partly because it's
much harder to do. It's much more personal, as in
you're close to physically close
00:27:53
to the victim, as in if you're
trying to kill somebody, strangulation is hard
compared to using a gun.
00:28:00
NARRATOR: In the United states,
the state of Ohio, Madison Township, 15 miles
Southeast of the capital,
00:28:11
Columbus, September 2021,
a desperate situation has been called in. [PHONE BUZZING]
00:28:36
NARRATOR: Emergency services
were on the scene in minutes. Commander Victor
Boyd from the Madison
00:28:43
Township Police
Department was recording on his body-worn camera. DISPATCHER: Frank
1,207 217 North.
00:28:51
OFFICER (ON RADIO): OK. We got a dispatch call that
there was a working house fire.
00:28:56
I drove in to the
scene and got as close as I could and
started communicating with the fire chiefs.
00:29:05
NARRATOR: When Victor
arrived, the fire had already been extinguished. Outside the house was the
man who made the 911 call,
00:29:14
41-year-old Mamadou Diallo
and his two young children. I walked over to Mr.
Diallo and spoke to him
00:29:24
and made sure he was OK and
made sure his children were OK. So, what we got here?
00:29:28
He was home. He got the kids out. NARRATOR: The kids
had been saved, but not everyone
had made it out.
00:29:36
[RADIO CHATTER] OFFICER: 3532 Noe Bixby,
we've got a structure fire, and we've got a
body on the inside.
00:29:44
DISPATCHER: Oh, God. Yeah. There's a body inside there? OFFICER: That is correct.
00:29:49
They're saying this
fire was in the room that this body is found in. NARRATOR: Firefighters
confirm the body is female.
00:30:01
Commander Victor Boyd
questions Mamadou to find out who the woman is. The female in
there to you is who?
00:30:08
It's my wife. VICTOR BOYD: It's your wife.
MAMADOU DIALLO: My wife. OK.
What is your wife's name?
00:30:15
Fatoumata Diallo. VICTOR BOYD: Spell the first--
- F-A. VICTOR BOYD: F-A. T-A. NARRATOR: While, his
wife, Fatoumata was lying
00:30:22
inside the house, police
and the fire service tried to work out what happened. It sounds like from him,
she must have been babysitting
00:30:31
the two kids when he was gone. VICTOR BOYD: And he just
happened to come home in time?
00:30:35
He just came home
and opened the door, and it was full of smoke. Kids were still in there
playing around on the floor,
00:30:41
and he got them out, but
couldn't go back in for her. I went and started
talking to the fire chief,
00:30:48
getting some more
clear information of what is inside the house. Do you have any idea,
was she alive when this--
00:31:00
It's hard to tell. I can't believe that-- I don't know. NARRATOR: The blaze
itself was small.
00:31:07
Outside, there was no
obvious sign of fire. But inside, Victor Boyd was
faced with a gruesome scene.
00:31:16
Once I walked over to
the window and I looked in, I looked down. I could see the body directly
on the floor below me.
00:31:24
The whole room was black inside,
burnt and charred really bad. Her arms were kind
of in a position
00:31:31
like this, which is a normal
reaction to a body that burns. NARRATOR: Just a few feet
away from his deceased wife,
00:31:39
Mamadou insisted his
children were fed. The restaurant here, they
eat after for the kids.
00:31:46
They are hungry. I told him, you
can't leave the scene. You know, you have to stay here.
00:31:51
There's questions
to be answered. Right now, sir, I
understand they're hungry, but you just can't leave.
- OK--
00:31:56
VICTOR BOYD: OK. Just hold tight. NARRATOR: Commander
Boyd tried to establish a timeline of events
leading up to the fire.
00:32:06
Can you see on your recents
what time you called 911? Let's see, it was right here.
00:32:11
1:09. VICTOR BOYD: 1:09? You got home here
at about 13:09? MAMADOU DIALLO:
Something like that, yes.
00:32:20
NARRATOR: The 911 call was
made at nine minutes past 1:00. Victor questioned
Mamadou to find out
00:32:26
where he'd been that morning. VICTOR BOYD: Before you came
here and stopped, where--
00:32:31
were you making a run,
making a delivery? No, I went to the shop. I was talking to him
about his time frame
00:32:40
where he had been that morning. And do you have any idea,
sir, off the top of your head
00:32:45
what time you would
have been at Medina? 8:30.
VICTOR BOYD: 8:30? Yeah. He had said that
he had been to a shop
00:32:51
to get his truck worked on. And then from there, you say
you went to the Volvo dealer?
00:32:56
They fixed my ABS
sensor on the top. And from there, he came home. NARRATOR: Mamadou's
reaction raised eyebrows.
00:33:06
Mr. Diallo was a very calm,
cool, no sadness, no anything. I mean, he just
answered questions,
00:33:15
and that was about it. You were at the Volvo
around the 11:00? Yeah, that's what,
around the 11:00, yes.
00:33:22
NARRATOR: Police
Officer Brandie Krantz was also called to the scene. VICTOR BOYD: I got a lot
of information to feed you.
00:33:28
OK.
VICTOR BOYD: OK? Yeah. So when I was on scene,
something kind of clicked that I had met her before.
00:33:36
I know who this person is. Ms. Diallo moved
here from Guinea. She was very beautiful and
was spoken about very highly
00:33:51
by her community. And unfortunately,
she was not treated very well in her marriage
00:34:00
Mr. Diallo, I've learned that
he has a family in Africa, that he would
travel back and see.
00:34:05
He has a wife and
children there. So she was not the
only wife that he had. NARRATOR: Brandie
had actually met
00:34:14
Fatoumata when she'd reported
Mamadou for domestic violence. BRANDIE KRANZ: She came
to our police department
00:34:20
to file a report about
Mr. Diallo's actions toward her and him wanting
her to move out of the house
00:34:27
and not let her have
access to the house. And I know that our
officers had responded
00:34:32
out there multiple times
to their residents. I was told by other
officers that Mr.
00:34:36
Diallo was not
nice to her at all, did not treat her very well. NARRATOR: Mamadou's
behavior has to be
00:34:43
considered in the context of
what was a violent relationship. One of the reports
to the police
00:34:50
was that she had been
strangled by him. Fatoumata reporting
repeatedly to the police
00:34:57
is a sort of string
of cries for help that also show that she
can't leave him, otherwise,
00:35:04
she surely would have and
not just kept reporting. What's called
non-fatal strangulation
00:35:10
is actually
characteristic to lots of domestic violence
settings, and it's massively underreported.
00:35:15
So we don't know just how common
it is, also because often it doesn't leave marks.
00:35:19
And people often feel
like they don't have long-term consequences
of being strangled,
00:35:24
and so they don't go to
the hospital, for example. Women who have experienced
non-fatal strangulation
00:35:29
within domestic violence
settings, a lot of them have brain injury. They just don't know it.
00:35:37
At that point, I
advised the detectives that we had history
there and that I had just
00:35:42
taken a report several months
earlier of a domestic dispute between her and Mr. Diallo.
00:35:48
[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: An interview
with one of Mamadou's grown up children also
revealed a terrifying picture
00:35:56
of family life. VICTOR BOYD: We pulled the
history up in this house. We have some pretty,
pretty bad domestics here.
00:36:23
Have you? VICTOR BOYD: Yeah. NARRATOR: The house
was made a crime scene. Detective Sergeant Bryan Meister
from the Sheriff's Office
00:36:31
was called in. When we get to the scene,
it was quite apparent that something
just wasn't right.
00:36:41
I know if one of my loved ones
just perished in a house fire, I would be acting
very differently
00:36:47
than the way he was acting. The female who's in here
you said she's your wife? That's my wife, yes.
VICTOR BOYD: OK.
00:36:53
That's what I thought you said. She birthed me four kids. VICTOR BOYD: I got you.
00:36:57
NARRATOR: Mamadou's
mannerisms were revealing. You can see how he seems to
be trying to manage his body
00:37:04
movements, and he's
facing away and he's trying to really downplay the
severity of the situation.
00:37:12
The stereotype of a liar is
someone who's nervous, who's twitchy, who's looking up and
to the left, who's avoiding eye
00:37:17
contact, all of which are myths
and stereotypes about liars. But if you overcorrect,
then you might
00:37:23
look too calm and too collected,
given the circumstances. [MUSIC PLAYING] Once the Franklin County
Detective Bureau arrives
00:37:31
on scene, you could see it
in their facial expressions, the little mm-hmm,
little red flags
00:37:38
popping up for them as well. I went in with the
fire investigators, and we actually viewed the body.
00:37:45
We found a coaxial
cable around her neck. And then once we
moved the body, there
00:37:53
was a burnt-up charcoal lighter
fluid bottle underneath her. And that pretty much summed it
up that he did something to her.
00:38:09
NARRATOR: The children were put
in the care of extended family, and Mamadou was arrested.
00:38:15
Why he's doing this-- VICTOR BOYD: Because
you're riding in his car. Have a seat.
00:38:21
Thank you. At that point,
they went in and went through the entire house. They collected what
they needed to collect.
00:38:30
The coroner's office came. They did their
investigation of the body. NARRATOR: Forensic
pathologist Mike
00:38:37
Caplan performed the
autopsy on Fatoumata's body. There was a ligature that
was encircling her neck.
00:38:49
The ligature specifically
was an electrical cable that was probably about
an 1/8 or 3/16 inch in width.
00:38:56
So we knew right away that that
may have played a potential role in Ms. Diallo's death.
00:39:04
[MUSIC PLAYING] When we're talking
about personal weapons, a USB cord certainly would
count as a personal weapon
00:39:13
in that its close. You have to be physically
close to the victim. And whether or not that's
the weapon you always choose
00:39:19
is sort of not really why
we'd call it personal. It's more that you're up close
and personal to the victim.
00:39:25
By personal weapon, what the
literature means is something that is physical, that
is personal to me,
00:39:31
as opposed to something
that's more anonymous and at a distance. So shooting a gun, for
example, is removed.
00:39:37
It's physically removed. It's quite emotionally
removed compared to getting up and beating
someone or strangling someone.
00:39:44
You're in that person's face. You're very physically close
as opposed to physically
00:39:49
and/or emotionally removed. NARRATOR: Detectives
were eager to ask Mamadou what really happened.
00:40:05
The victim's obviously
no longer with us. We can't talk to see
her side of the story.
00:40:12
NARRATOR: Without
Mamadou's testimony, the police couldn't
move forward. They needed hard evidence
to uncover the truth.
00:40:24
I assigned a few guys to
do a canvas of the area. We're looking for cameras
in the area, anything that
00:40:30
can further our investigation. NARRATOR: Mamadou had
disabled a security camera above the front
door, but he left
00:40:40
the doorbell cam recording. This first video clip
it shows Mr. Diallo coming home from wherever he was at.
00:40:50
He pulled up in his truck. And if you notice the
time, the time is 12:24. The first 911 call
came in at 1:09.
00:40:58
He said he came home and
found his house on fire. This totally
discredits his story.
00:41:06
40 minutes after the first
clip, the house is now on fire. So he's taking the kids to the
car and attempting to call 911.
00:41:16
He has no sense of urgency. He is just casually walking
to the car with his two kids,
00:41:21
like he doesn't have
a care in the world. And right now, the
house is on fire. NARRATOR: A camera
across the street
00:41:30
provided another vital
piece of the puzzle. This is Mr. Diallo's house. This camera helps us because
it's a continuous view.
00:41:41
Nobody else is going
into the house. That means we have no other
suspects entering the house that
00:41:47
could set the house on fire. Mr. Diallo is our key
suspect from this video. NARRATOR: The video ruled out
any other potential suspects,
00:41:59
a chilling insight
into Mamadou's actions. As you see here, he's casually
walking back up to the house.
00:42:07
He'll go over to
where she's located. And he peers in the window
to make sure she's on fire
00:42:21
right there. NARRATOR: All the evidence
seemed to point to Mamadou, but they needed to
prove it in court.
00:42:39
Dr. Mike Caplan's autopsy report
provided crucial information for the case. It became pretty obvious
to me that Mrs. Diallo did
00:42:49
not die from the fire itself. If somebody dies from
a fire, if they're alive at the time of the fire,
they're going to be breathing.
00:42:59
So we're going to see
a black discoloration involving that entire
airway going into the lungs.
00:43:07
NARRATOR: But Fatoumata's
lungs and airways did not have any black discoloration.
00:43:12
We were able to find
just a little trace of soot below the level of the vocal
cords, but it was very trace.
00:43:19
So it would have been a
very short or fleeting time. NARRATOR: The burns and
ligature were obvious.
00:43:28
The carbon monoxide
levels, less so. The fact that we're
just seeing just a trace,
00:43:35
a touch of that tells us that
she was most likely unconscious when this fire started.
00:43:42
But she may have taken a few,
what we call agonal breaths, breaths at the end of her life.
00:43:47
So the cause of death in Mrs.
Diallo's case was strangulation. [MUSIC PLAYING] This form of
strangulation is called
00:43:56
strangulation with a ligature. And so that's anything
that you use to wrap around a neck to cut off air.
00:44:03
In the US, strangulation
is an incredibly rare way to kill somebody else. It's personal.
00:44:08
There's often wrestling. There's a lot that goes into
that, which isn't the case
00:44:12
if you're shooting a gun. NARRATOR: Police dug into
Mamadou and Fatoumata relationship to
try and understand
00:44:22
what motivated him to kill. BRYAN MEISTER: She went over to
Africa, back to Guinea to visit.
00:44:31
And when she arrived
back home, they said the relationship was strained. Something happened over there,
but nobody knew what it was.
00:44:42
I think it's easy to see
Fatoumata's reporting as a sign that she had options, but I
see it as exactly the opposite.
00:44:49
So, I think, the fact that
she had to and chose to report a number of times to the
police that her partner was
00:44:57
violent towards her, I think,
that is a sign of a really Broken and trapped person.
00:45:05
NARRATOR: Mamadou Diallo was
charged with fatally strangling his wife, Fatoumata,
with a USB cord
00:45:11
and setting fire to her body in
the hope of destroying evidence. He was sentenced to life in
prison with a chance of parole
00:45:23
after 31 years. If we didn't have
the security footage, it would have been much more
difficult to get a conviction.
00:45:35
Security cameras, they
just don't paint a picture. They show you that picture. VICTOR BOYD: Mr. Diallo
got what he deserved.
00:45:47
It's just a shame that he
felt he had to do this. I'm sure the real answers will
probably never really come out.
00:45:55
BRYAN MEISTER: He took the
mother away from four children. He took a sister away.
00:46:00
He took a daughter away. It does give you a sense of
accomplishment when you finally
00:46:09
get a conviction and you
know he's going to be going away for a very long time. [MUSIC PLAYING]