00:00:08
[line ringing] [dramatic music] - Anytime we've had a person
submerge into the lake
00:00:30
and go deep, they
have never resurfaced. POLICE OFFICER 1: Police! Search warrant!
00:00:36
GINNY TATE: I've never
seen anything like it. It was such a piece
of psychology.
00:00:42
ART VERHEREN: To do what
they did to the person they loved most, it doesn't
get much worse than that.
00:00:48
- For some people, even
love isn't quite enough. [theme music] [ominous music] BRAD MASKELL: On the morning
of February 13,
00:01:30
our 911 center got
a call from a very distraught woman who identified
herself as Lori Isenberg.
00:01:36
She talked about her husband
having a medical event falling overboard. BRAD MASKELL: Our dispatch
center immediately.
00:01:56
Then triangulated
the location of her call. And what we found was she was
positioned here in the lake,
00:02:04
just outside of what's
known as Powderhorn Bay, about midway up
Lake Coeur d'Alene.
00:02:26
[disconnect tone] BRAD MASKELL: We
found her alone. The boat was dead in the water.
00:02:35
She was distraught. She was panicky. She said she'd been
cruising around out here for two hours trying
to find her husband, Larry.
00:02:42
Right away, the deputies, some
of whom were on our dive team, recognized the water is very
deep, very large search area.
00:02:50
So the opportunity
for a dive at that moment was simply impossible. It was very, very cold that
morning, about 26 degrees,
00:02:59
in fact. And the deputies realized that. So they tried
to take care of her and get her off of the boat.
00:03:06
They brought her
over to the shore where there's a fireboat,
to talk to her some more.
00:03:10
JEFFREY BAUM: Hey, Lori. My name is Jeffrey Baum, and
I'm with the Sheriff's Office.
00:03:13
I'm just going to try to ask
some questions so we can figure out where to go from here.
00:03:17
OK? Can you tell me about
how far you were when, uh-- when he fell in? - Um, closer to this
side, I think.
00:03:25
- OK. Closer to this-- this side? OK. Did you see any houses
or big trees or landmarks?
00:03:32
- --in the water. - OK. Can you tell me how did
you get the bloody nose? - I fell down.
00:03:40
- You fell down.
OK. - So she fell against the door. - I just tried to grab him.
- OK.
00:03:44
All right, well,
we're going to-- - We got to find him! [intriguing music] BRAD MASKELL: She
had a bloody nose.
00:03:51
Uh, there was
blood droplets and blood smears about the boat. Lori's story was that she
slipped and hit her nose
00:04:01
in her attempts to save Larry. The other thing that was
noticeable was the ignition
00:04:07
key in the boat
had been turned, and it had been bent
downward, almost in a fashion
00:04:14
as if somebody stumbling
may have put their hand on the dashboard there. And also the kill switch was
knocked free from the boat.
00:04:29
So this is sun at bay. And this would
be the area where the boat launch that Larry
and Lori came to that morning.
00:04:40
When we talked to Lori,
when she was recovered, she said that,
uh, they had left
00:04:46
the dock with the intent
of going out and seeing the sunrise and-- and then ultimately
cruising up the lake.
00:04:57
It's kind of unusual
for people to be out on the lake in February. It gets extremely
cold out here and
00:05:03
especially out on the water. However, Larry had taken a
picture of the boat behind it,
00:05:10
backed into the water,
and sent it to his kids just to kind of show that
he and Lori were going
00:05:17
out on a romantic cruise. [soft music] - Coeur d'Alene is
a resort destination town.
00:05:34
We have lakes,
mountains, hiking, skiing, multiple golf courses. We have warm, dry summers.
00:05:44
We have snowy winters. Lori and Larry Isenberg, I
think they were certainly well
00:05:51
known and well liked in town. - You want to taste it? [dog barks] - Larry Isenberg
was very well liked
00:06:06
in the Coeur d'Alene community
and the circles he ran in. He was a retired forester and
he had done very well at that.
00:06:12
He was very
financially successful and was very well respected. GINNY TATE: Larry was
a larger-than-life kind of guy.
00:06:19
You know, if you met Larry
once, you knew who he was. BRAD MASKELL: Larry,
he was a healthy guy.
00:06:26
Being a forester, he had been
in the out-of-doors probably most of his life,
and after retirement, he
00:06:35
continued to do
the things that he loved to do, fishing, hunting,
enjoying the out of doors.
00:06:44
Everybody that we talked
to about Larry and Lori said they had a great
marriage, that they
00:06:48
loved each other and looking
forward to a long and happy retirement. IAN SMAY: Lori and Larry
were married for 15 years,
00:06:57
and they lived a little ways
outside of Coeur d'Alene, in a small cabin surrounded by
land and a garden they referred
00:07:03
to as their paradise,
and by all accounts, they were looking forward
to the rest of their
00:07:07
lives together. [intriguing music] - I vividly remember meeting
Lori Isenberg the first time.
00:07:17
She entered the room dressed to
the nines in a lovely outfit, and her hair was coifed and she
was perfectly put together.
00:07:25
She appeared very
gracious and very engaging to all parties
that were present. BRAD MASKELL:
Everybody liked Lori.
00:07:33
Uh, she had a lot
of energy and she was clearly a very smart woman. She worked
for an organization that
00:07:41
was the North Idaho
Housing Coalition, and what they did was they
assisted low-income families
00:07:49
in getting into homes
and she was good at her job, according to the people
that worked with her
00:07:54
and rose within
the organization to a position where she had control. - Lori Isenberg is a woman who
likes to take care of herself.
00:08:10
Like me, she's big hair. Don't care. But for her, there's
something more to this.
00:08:18
I think that she likes
to wear her wealth. I think that it's
important for her that people realize that she is
of a certain social status
00:08:27
and standing. [ominous music] POLICE OFFICER 2: Do
you remember what time you got to the boat launch?
00:08:37
LORI ISENBERG: I
do that because we were there for the sunrise. POLICE OFFICER 2: OK,
so you were at the boat?
00:08:42
LORI ISENBERG: --sunrise
at 6:30 and I didn't but he had sent a text to my daughter.
00:08:47
He took a picture and he took
the picture at 6:41 and sent a text saying, we're going
out to see the sunrise
00:08:54
and have breakfast. - Our deputy was trying
to make some assessments about whether or not there was
anything more to the story.
00:09:02
She seemed to be not quite
as emotional as she was out on the boat,
but ultimately he felt
00:09:09
convinced that
Lori was legitimate and it was indeed an accident. REPORTER 1: An update now,
the Kootenai County dive rescue
00:09:16
team continues to search
Lake Coeur d'Alene for a man who reportedly fell
into the water Tuesday morning.
00:09:22
68-year-old Larry Isenberg
fell into the water near Powderhorn Bay on the
southeast part of the lake.
00:09:28
His wife says
that he was trying to repair a motor
on their boat when it happened.
00:09:33
As of today, searchers
have covered about 250 acres of the lake bed. The Sheriff's Office
estimates the search area
00:09:39
is about three square miles. We'll keep you updated
as that search continues. [intriguing music]
00:09:49
MIKI MARHOEFER: Coeur d'Alene
Lake is a cold water lake, and most people cannot survive
more than probably five
00:09:56
or six minutes in the water. BRAD MASKELL: Coeur
d'Alene Lake rarely allows a body
to resurface because
00:10:03
of the cold
temperatures and depths. It's pretty obvious that
the situation we have at hand
00:10:12
transitions from
a rescue to a recovery. MIKI MARHOEFER: When
a body goes down, it goes within a cone.
00:10:23
So if the water is 60-feet
deep, the cone is 60-feet wide from where the body went in.
00:10:28
[ominous music] BRAD MASKELL: The Kootenai
County sheriff's sonar boat did grid searches out
there for about 10 days,
00:10:41
searching all along
the coastline there, where Lori had described
Larry going in the water.
00:10:48
They found absolutely nothing. You know, on most
death investigations that I've experienced,
oftentimes family members
00:11:04
have a very difficult
time accepting the death of their loved ones. And it takes sometimes
a great deal of time for them
00:11:12
to even accept the fact that
their loved one has passed on. IAN SMAY: Pretty
quickly, it seemed
00:11:19
like Lori started to move
on after Larry's disappearance. She even started posting
on social media about what
00:11:24
a great guy he was, talking
about him in the past tense and organizing
a memorial for him.
00:11:30
But that wasn't all. Neighbors around
the Isenberg residence started noticing and hearing
some strange things
00:11:36
going on there. Lori was moving things
out of the house and even went as far
as selling the boat.
00:11:42
- The neighbors, they thought
it was kind of odd that so soon after Larry's
death, that Lori
00:11:49
would be liquidating
so many different things, and so they let
us know about it.
00:11:55
[intriguing music] IAN SMAY: Life
for Lori wasn't always as comfortable as it now was.
00:12:10
She was born Laurecene
Laval in 1953, in Grass Valley, California,
to Jimmy and Marcene Laval,
00:12:16
and she was the middle
child of seven daughters. Her and her family grew
up very poor, in fact,
00:12:21
to the point where they
went through stretches of homelessness,
where they were forced
00:12:25
to squat in abandoned
homes or on farmland, or camp out
in the wilderness to get by.
00:12:31
Because they were
so poor growing up, Lori said she was
the target for bullying,
00:12:35
and because of that, she
learned how to fend for herself and defend herself
at an early age.
00:12:40
And all of these
factors came together to where she learned pretty
early on to be self-sufficient.
00:12:48
DR. JULIA SHAW: What
we know about Lori is that there were
financial struggles throughout her early years.
00:12:54
So money is an issue for Lori
and has been for a long time. KERRY DAYNES:
There's some research
00:13:01
that says that
our attitudes to money are formed very early
in life, before the age of 10.
00:13:09
I think it's very significant
that Lori was stigmatized and she was bullied
for being poor.
00:13:17
And I think that the way
that she made sense of this was that poverty is something
to be desperately ashamed of.
00:13:26
And she wanted to prove
herself to the world, and she didn't want to be
poor ever, ever again.
00:13:34
[somber music] MIKI MARHOEFER: Lori graduated
in high school in 1972 and then in 1973
married her high school
00:13:44
sweetheart, Steve Barnes. They were married
a long time, but it doesn't seem like it
was a very happy marriage.
00:13:51
IAN SMAY: Her and Steve
had six daughters together, but by 1996 the marriage
had run its course.
00:13:57
The couple got divorced
and Lori moved to Idaho. Steve later described Lori
as an extremely smart woman,
00:14:04
but said that she was prone
to go to extremes at times. She could also be
highly manipulative.
00:14:10
One of the biggest
problems in their marriage was her infidelities. She had had three affairs
by the time the relationship
00:14:16
had run its course. [intriguing music] GINNY TATE: After
her marriage ended, you know, she was attempting
to raise her six daughters
00:14:25
in a smaller tract home. Funds were very tight, but
by the time I first met her,
00:14:33
she had worked very hard
to reimagine herself and to become this
person that she--
00:14:41
she really strove
to be so that she could run in political
and social circles that she had never
had access to before.
00:14:49
IAN SMAY: There was
another side to Lori. Female colleagues
noticed that she tended to gravitate towards the
men in the room, and to them,
00:14:55
it seemed like she was
using these connections to climb the social ladder. KERRY DAYNES: What's
important to her
00:15:02
is being socially
upwardly mobile, and she's not shy about
using her feminine wiles.
00:15:12
And she can be really
quite manipulative, because I think that
that financial status
00:15:18
represented to her
something really fundamental and important. It represented
safety, stability,
00:15:27
and also being assured
of the respect of the people around her. [disquieting music]
00:15:39
- Lori and Larry
met in 2003 when Lori was hired
to work for him, but they soon were in a passionate
relationship, despite the fact
00:15:47
that Larry was married
with two children. That marriage ended soon
after, and him and Lori
00:15:51
began their life together. Larry was besotted by Lori,
to the point where people
00:15:56
described their relationship
as almost being too perfect, and Lori even had a rule
that they weren't allowed
00:16:01
to be negative to each other. It seemed to work,
though, because after 15 years of marriage, he was
still smitten with her.
00:16:08
She was his everything,
his whole world. But you never
really know what's going on behind closed doors.
00:16:13
KERRY DAYNES: I think that
Lori has found exactly what she's been looking for. Here is somebody that can offer
her the financial stability
00:16:22
that she's been looking
for, the social status that she's been looking
for, and also, he
00:16:28
has absolutely taken by her. [tense music] - By the time Lori began to
work for the Housing Coalition,
00:16:38
it seemed like some
of Larry's business acumen and business skills
had rubbed off on her,
00:16:42
and she quickly proved herself
to be a highly effective operator and very persuasive.
00:16:48
GINNY TATE: Lori solicited
start up funds from local businesses, and we're
talking about most of these
00:16:56
being $10,000 or more. And she did
a phenomenal job finding projects, working through
and attempting to help people.
00:17:07
During this time, at least
189 families were helped, so she appeared to be the
perfect fit for this position.
00:17:14
[intriguing music] MIKI MARHOEFER: When the case
was first brought to us, my thoughts were that
the statements didn't add up.
00:17:32
I was suspicious and thought
that maybe there was more to it than we knew. BRAD MASKELL: The fact that
these two people had decided
00:17:41
to go on a recreational
boating trip in February in 26 degree
weather, and the fact
00:17:49
that she said that she had
been out there approximately two hours, circling
about looking
00:17:54
for Larry before
calling 911, that seemed very unusual
when their loved one had submerged in the water.
00:18:11
- The report of Larry having
a medical event was feasible. But I believe after
listening to the 911 call
00:18:17
that she was putting on an act. Sometimes in that
call where she was crying and unconsolable.
00:18:25
And then sometimes she
seemed, uh, comfortable. BRAD MASKELL: Lori
claimed that she
00:18:40
had left her phone in the truck
when they launched the boat, and that one of the things
that delayed her call
00:18:48
was that she believed
that Larry's phone had gone in the water with him. - She talks about
having to dig around
00:18:56
and then accidentally
finding Larry's phone. And then, of course-- [disconnect tone]
00:19:03
--the phone falls in the water. BRAD MASKELL: It adds
another level of suspicion.
00:19:08
And then we find out
that she is the subject of a large embezzlement case. [intriguing music]
00:19:28
GINNY TATE:
In or around 2013, there starts to be a change
in how Lori is behaving
00:19:34
and towards
the Housing Coalition. She begins to believe
that her company, rather than
a not-for-profit entity
00:19:43
governed by multiple people. She begins
to handpick the board, people who didn't necessarily
have the financial background.
00:19:52
And so she was running
financial information on millions
of dollars of grants past people who had never dealt
with those kind of
00:20:00
finances before. So by the end of 2017, things
are not getting filed on time. The tax returns
are late and Lori's
00:20:07
not providing information. So that's a huge red
flag in the world of-- of white collar crime.
00:20:15
Eventually, come
January 25 of 2018, the treasurer has
gone over to the bank and realized that there's
forged signatures,
00:20:24
and it's clear Lori has been
stealing from the company. [tense music] IAN SMAY: Lori
was suspended from
00:20:39
her role in the Housing
Coalition on the 26th of January. The very next day
her and Larry had set
00:20:45
out for a vacation in Florida. MAN: Three, two, one! Liftoff! [cheering, screaming]
00:20:52
BRAD MASKELL: One of the things
that Larry always wanted to do, and it was kind of one
of his bucket list items,
00:20:59
he wanted to go and see
a rocket launch in Florida. IAN SMAY: By all
accounts, he was
00:21:07
seemingly having a pretty
great time until he unexpectedly fell ill. Suddenly, he was
having real trouble.
00:21:15
He described his symptoms
as wooziness, dizziness, a lack of balance
or equilibrium,
00:21:20
and pretty much
flu like symptoms. In the days after they had
returned home from Florida,
00:21:28
Larry had seemingly recovered
enough that on February 13, he decided to take Lori
on that fateful sunrise cruise
00:21:34
as a way of saying thank
you for taking care of him. [ominous music] POLICE OFFICER 1: Police!
00:21:50
Search warrant! Come to the front
door empty-handed. Hands up! IAN SMAY: By late February,
there were two investigations
00:21:56
running side by side. The Sheriff's Office
was still investigating Larry's disappearance,
while at the same time,
00:22:02
the local police were raiding
the Isenberg home for evidence of financial crimes.
00:22:06
POLICE OFFICER 1: Come on out! POLICE OFFICER 3: Is
anybody else inside? LORI ISENBERG: Nope.
00:22:09
POLICE OFFICER 3: All right. - As far as we could determine,
she was basically giving
00:22:13
the money to her daughters. - My kids had a lot of medical
expenses and things, and I--
00:22:21
I just wanted to help them, and
I thought I could pay it back. I didn't take any of it.
00:22:26
I mean, I know
I'm taking it when I take it and help my kids. POLICE OFFICER 4: Are we
talking a lot of money?
00:22:30
I don't know how much money. Just a guess. - $200,000 over
a couple of years. And I told them I
can't pay it back.
00:22:39
[tense music] GINNY TATE: We come in and
start digging through records. We trace the initial
fraud back to 2014.
00:22:47
Just a little tiny piece. And this is so normal
in a fraud scheme. I just need,
for example, $5,000
00:22:55
to get over this rough spot,
and I'm going to pay it back. But that's not what happens.
00:22:59
You have to steal more to pay
back the original five. So this just starts
to roll forward
00:23:04
and gets bigger
and bigger, and she's unable to cover her tracks. ART VERHEREN: She would forge
documents, forge checks.
00:23:15
She created ghost
companies and used her daughters to essentially
be responsible for them.
00:23:23
GINNY TATE: Lori was taking
cash payments from renters and turning around and paying
her daughter's rent.
00:23:28
It was just-- it was
endless the number of things that were going on. - The thing about embezzlement
is that most of the time,
00:23:39
the people who perpetrate
this kind of crime are really normal, average-looking
people who are respected
00:23:47
by their community,
which is why they are able to commit these crimes. And financial crimes are
incredibly easy for people
00:23:53
to justify in their own minds. They feel like
victimless crimes. And in Lori's case, it
looked like her saying,
00:24:00
I'm doing this for my kids. KERRY DAYNES: We're starting to
see a much darker side to Lori,
00:24:07
because not only is she
embezzling from her company, but essentially
she's taking money
00:24:14
from people who are the poorest
and most vulnerable. I think that takes
a certain personality type,
00:24:23
and there is some research to
say that fraudsters are people who have dark triad
personality characteristics,
00:24:32
Machiavellian manipulative
characteristics. Narcissistic, therefore
self-centered,
00:24:39
greedy characteristics,
and also some aggressive
characteristics. POLICE OFFICER 5: Hi.
00:24:50
Lori here? Hi, I'm Steve. I don't know if you remember
me from the other night, so I'm going to put
you under arrest.
00:24:57
I'm charging you right now
for forgery and grand theft. POLICE OFFICER 6: That's right.
00:25:01
We're going to put
you in handcuffs here. We have one in custody. IAN SMAY: The full extent
of Lori's embezzlement
00:25:07
had come to light. With Larry still missing,
Lori had been charged with various financial crimes.
00:25:13
POLICE OFFICER 6: I'm being
told to write your booking sheet out for one
count of grand theft
00:25:18
and 40 counts of forgery. From now until tomorrow, around
this time, you'll have no bail.
00:25:23
[tense music] BRAD MASKELL: On March 1,
our 911 center receives a call from a very distraught woman.
00:25:52
BRAD MASKELL: She
reports seeing what she believes
is a deceased human being laying along the tracks.
00:26:01
We responded out
here and discovered that, in fact, we did have
a male adult lying face down.
00:26:12
The body was wearing
the same clothing as Larry Isenberg was wearing
when he went in the lake.
00:26:24
You know, when I saw that. Larry's body was deposited
here on the shoreline, I knew right away
that Lori was lying.
00:26:32
There was no way in my mind,
knowing the lake currents the way that I do, that a body
would have flowed to the south
00:26:38
and over to the west and back
onto this north shoreline. It's simply impossible
in Lake Coeur d'Alene.
00:26:44
So right away, we knew that
something was going on. - The initial autopsy indicated
no real trauma to the body.
00:27:02
There wasn't a stroke
that may have caused him to fall into the
water, like Lori had said.
00:27:07
And then the question
is, well, did he drown? He had very little
water in his lungs.
00:27:17
And it doesn't necessarily
mean he didn't drown, but it certainly would make you
wonder, why wouldn't he have
00:27:24
got much water in his lungs? And could there be something
else going on there? [intriguing music]
00:27:33
IAN SMAY: The Coeur
d'Alene community was devastated when it
was finally confirmed
00:27:36
that Larry had passed away. But even as the community is
working through their grief,
00:27:41
questions were
starting to be asked about just what he knew
about the investigation
00:27:45
into Lori's financial crimes. GINNY TATE: Lori is
such a manipulator. You know, we'll
never know what--
00:27:51
what she told Larry. Was he suspicious? We'll certainly never know. - Family members described
Larry as a smart man.
00:28:00
But when he was around
Lori, he was dumb. He was blinded
by his love for her and would often miss red flags.
00:28:07
- Lori and Larry certainly
didn't lack money. They had multiple
houses, some of which
00:28:11
they rented out and took
a rental income from that to the point where they were
worth more than $2 million,
00:28:17
which raises
the question of why did Lori feel the need to steal? DR. JULIA SHAW: Why can't
Lori Isenberg just tell Larry
00:28:27
that she's in this
financial difficulty, that she has
committed these crimes and that she needs his help?
00:28:34
I think maybe this relationship
that everyone else thought was so perfect wasn't quite as
good as everybody else thought.
00:28:42
IAN SMAY: Larry
was what some might call an old-school
thinker, meaning that he wanted people to be
responsible for their actions.
00:28:48
He wanted people
to make their own way and be responsible for any
bad choices or situations
00:28:53
they got themselves into. He didn't really
believe in charity or giving people handouts.
00:28:58
- Larry didn't give
anything to his children, but Lori wanted
to support her daughters.
00:29:03
But she didn't have access
to Larry's money to do so. So she started to take
it from the North
00:29:08
Idaho Housing Coalition. POLICE OFFICER 4: Are we
talking a lot of money? I don't know how much money.
00:29:12
Just a guess. - $200,000. ART VERHEREN: She really stole,
I think it was over $500,000
00:29:20
from the Coalition over
about five years' time, and Larry didn't have
a clue because she
00:29:24
was so good at manipulating
and deceiving people. KERRY DAYNES: So Lori is
hiding half a million dollars
00:29:35
worth of secret, not only from
the organization that she's working with, but also from the
man that she professes to love.
00:29:44
So that would be indicative
of a real risk taking attitude. And that is part of the whole
dark triad personality
00:29:52
type, really. They believe in big risks
and hope for big rewards, but if things don't
go right for them,
00:29:59
that's when we see
the psychopathic aggressive characteristics
come to the fore.
00:30:05
[tense music] - A newspaper reporter
from the local newspaper who was doing a story
on the embezzlement case--
00:30:22
I had gone up
to the Eisenberg residence and wanted to do
an interview with Lori.
00:30:29
Lori did not go along
with the interview, but certainly she
became aware of the fact
00:30:36
that that particular
story was going to break the next
morning, and she knew that Larry made
a habit of reading
00:30:44
that newspaper every day. GINNY TATE: Well,
obviously, Lori does not want Larry
to know that that she
00:30:52
has gone this far. She can't cover it up. It's not just a,
whoops, or, I mishandled
00:30:57
an accounting transaction. It's clearly, I have
stolen government funds. And I do know that the Larry
that I was familiar with
00:31:09
would not want to be
associated with someone that was a thief or a fraudster. He just wouldn't.
00:31:15
KERRY DAYNES: There's
now a sense of urgency. What is she going to do about
the predicament that she's in?
00:31:22
So it's high stakes and she's
now in a high stress position. The more stress that's put
on you, the more unpleasant or
00:31:31
problematic personality
characteristics tend to rise to the surface. So now we see her
at her darkest.
00:31:45
[dramatic music] - The report identifies
the cause of death as poisoning by diphenhydramine
and a contributing
00:32:00
factor of drowning. Diphenhydramine is
often known as Benadryl. It's a common drug that's
used for allergies.
00:32:15
He had probably 10 times the
lethal level of diphenhydramine in his system. ART VERHEREN: When
a person takes
00:32:24
a large amount of Benadryl,
it doesn't kill them, but it puts them
into a delirium, where they're
00:32:31
basically very foggy,
unsteady on their feet, easily manipulated into doing
whatever you want them to do.
00:32:40
BRAD MASKELL: One
of the questions I had immediately
was, how in the world could Larry have consumed
that much Benadryl?
00:32:53
IAN SMAY: Lori failed
to appear at her arraignment for the embezzlement charges.
00:32:57
It really seemed like
after Larry's body had been discovered,
she had skipped town.
00:33:02
And by the time Lori had
turned herself in in July, the evidence
in the embezzlement case
00:33:07
was really overwhelming. REPORTER 2 (ON TV):
A courtroom appearance months in the making.
00:33:12
Lori Isenberg turned herself
in Wednesday night at 10:43 PM. About 15 hours later,
she faced a judge
00:33:18
for her arraignment,
something she failed to do back in May when she
was a no-show for court
00:33:23
on embezzlement charges. REPORTER 3 (ON TV): As Lori
Isenberg heads to prison, her victims know it won't
undo the harm she's caused.
00:33:37
Isenberg managed to steal
nearly $600,000 while overseeing a nonprofit
organization
00:33:42
dedicated to housing
the underprivileged. In victim impact
statements, we learned
00:33:46
the money could have been
used to house 20 families and help with down
payments for even more.
00:33:54
IAN SMAY: The fact
that Lori was in prison for her financial
crimes took pressure
00:33:59
off of the separate
homicide investigation. ART VERHEREN: The case took
a long time to investigate.
00:34:06
There were a lot of witnesses
and a lot of evidence. - During that part
of the investigation,
00:34:12
I can recall spending
some time going back through the photographs
taken the morning
00:34:16
that the boat and truck
was impounded, and immediately
in the console, I recognized right away that
that was a bottle of Benadryl.
00:34:27
Clearly, there is
the source of Benadryl. And one of the other
photographs from the boat
00:34:33
was a photograph that depicted
the contents in Lori's purse. And in that
photograph, there was
00:34:40
an empty bottle of a beverage
called Green Machine. [ominous music] I set about an experiment to
try and identify whether or not
00:34:56
you could dissolve that much
Benadryl in the solution of Green Machine. And based
on my experiment, indeed,
00:35:06
she could actually dissolve
those caplets in that solution. When you think about how he
experienced dizziness and
00:35:17
a delirium on their trip
to Florida, it makes you wonder if she
didn't make an attempt
00:35:24
in Florida to do that. KERRY DAYNES: Clearly, this is
an act of premeditated murder.
00:35:33
A concerted effort
has gone into this. To poison somebody, you've
got to have knowledge
00:35:39
that you've
probably researched, and then you've got to create
the perfect circumstances
00:35:45
for somebody to take it. And that's exactly
what Lori did. BRAD MASKELL: We then
got hold of Lori's phone,
00:35:56
and right away we
discovered some things that were pretty interesting. Prior to their trip
to Florida, we
00:36:04
found that Lori was researching
the areas of the Space Coast that experienced
the most drownings.
00:36:13
IAN SMAY: Lori hadn't
only been researching currents and waterways
while they were in Florida.
00:36:17
When police searched her
phone, they found that between the ninth, which is when they
returned from Florida and
00:36:22
the 13th, which was the morning
that Larry disappeared, she had been researching
the nearby lake,
00:36:27
Pend Oreille, which is
the deepest lake in Idaho. And she wasn't only researching
currents and waterways,
00:36:34
but also whether or not boat
launches were open at night. ART VERHEREN: That
day, she had sent texts
00:36:44
to a couple of people
with a photograph, explaining what
they were doing. LORI ISENBERG: I
didn't know, but he had
00:36:52
sent a text to my daughter. He took a picture and he
took the picture at 6:41. BRAD MASKELL: In looking
at the metadata on that image,
00:37:02
we discovered that
photo was actually what's known as a live photo. So it actually contained
a very small segment of video.
00:37:09
LARRY ISENBERG (ON VIDEO):
All the way at the back end of the silver-- - You could hear the voice of a
male talking in the background.
00:37:17
LARRY ISENBERG (ON VIDEO):
All the way at the back end of the silver-- - You know, it sounded very
much like Larry's voice.
00:37:24
ART VERHEREN: It wasn't
Larry that sent the text. It was-- it was Lori. [suspenseful music]
00:37:30
DR. JULIA SHAW: Why would you
think that murdering somebody is somehow a solution
to something,
00:37:37
or is a better option
than just confessing and just telling
Larry, but also the authorities what you did?
00:37:43
And I think one
of the options might be that she thought that
she could get away with it.
00:37:49
- So the morning that you guys
went down to the boat ramp, can you kind of recall?
00:37:56
Just walk me through
your trip down there? - Now in prison
in Washington State, Lori was interviewed
by detectives
00:38:04
from the investigative team. - My understanding is that
you left around 5:00-ish.
00:38:09
- I think I'm not
going to change anything from this statement. - She was sticking
to her original story,
00:38:15
which was that Larry had died
due to a tragic accident. - There's a lot of things
within your phone records.
00:38:21
There's a lot of things
within your Facebook records. - But the weight
of the evidence
00:38:26
really only pointed to one
conclusion at this point, and that was that Lori
had drugged Larry in order
00:38:31
to push him overboard. - You've got searches about
death charts, whether you can--
00:38:38
the boat on debut at night. There's a lot of stuff there. Can you explain that? - I think if you're going
to start asking me questions
00:38:49
like that, I should-- BRAD MASKELL: It took
approximately two years to put that case together
in a strong case,
00:38:58
as we could possibly make,
before we formally charged Lori with Larry's death. [ominous music]
00:39:15
IAN SMAY: At trial,
she entered what's known as an Alford plea, which
means that she's admitting
00:39:19
the prosecution has enough
evidence to convict her, but she doesn't formally
admit that she murdered Larry.
00:39:26
- There's something
very happy to finally be able to tell the families. - Lori very much
played the victim
00:39:35
when she was
in court, especially at her sentencing hearing. - It's not easy, but I
want you to see the good,
00:39:42
the bad, and the ugly. - Lori turns around
to Larry's children and tells them how proud
their dad was of them.
00:39:54
- I know he was
a tough dad, and he probably didn't
tell you nearly as much as he told me how
much he loves you
00:40:02
and how proud he was of you. - I have never seen such
a cruel piece in my life. - I know how much you love him.
00:40:13
I know that. He can never be replaced. And there's nothing
I can do [sobs] to bring him back to you.
00:40:26
- It was such a piece
of psychology. KERRY DAYNES: Lori
is clearly still not done with these
emotional chess moves.
00:40:41
- I want to state
emphatically that I am responsible for Larry's death. Absolutely.
00:40:47
I am so sorry
for everything I did, starting with
the embezzlement that resulted
00:40:54
in the lies, deceit, and
ultimate betrayal of the love and the trust of the people
I love, especially Larry.
00:41:02
KERRY DAYNES: Her
whole speech to her and Larry's children in court
is really quite manipulative.
00:41:11
They just want clear answers
and some form of closure. But the time was
taken up, really,
00:41:19
with Lori laying
the groundwork for engendering some sympathy for herself
and what was to come next.
00:41:28
- I'd say maybe a week or two
after the embezzlement was discovered, I knew
that my life was over
00:41:38
and I had two options,
death or life in prison. - She said that she is
responsible for Larry's death.
00:41:51
However, that was
not her intention. Her intention was
to take her own life. We did not expect that.
00:41:59
- I hadn't thought
about suicide until I fell into that
despair and realized life
00:42:08
as I knew it was over. - She's thinking
about how she might be able to mine any form
of doubt in her children
00:42:18
or stepchildren's minds. - I wanted to make it
look like an accident. [somber music]
00:42:24
Sleeping pills are the easiest. But I knew that an autopsy
would show that I had taken sleeping pills.
00:42:34
- The explanation, it
had no sense whatsoever. - So then I looked at drowning. Yes, I did a lot of research.
00:42:44
Where can I drown where
they cannot find my body? ART VERHEREN: She was
going to kill herself,
00:42:50
and she was going to do so by
drinking some juice that she had laced with Benadryl.
00:42:56
- I know that Larry
would still be alive if it was not for me fixing
a drink with Benadryl in it
00:43:10
so that I would be
able to selfishly and cowardly take my life. If I wouldn't have had
that bottle in there,
00:43:22
he would not have
accidentally drank it. - She fell asleep on the boat,
that Larry somehow
00:43:29
found the juice,
drank it, and that was the reason he went over. - Right there I
knew she was lying,
00:43:36
but I also knew I was
correct about how the drug was administered to Larry. KERRY DAYNES: It's just
a ridiculous story,
00:43:45
and I think that she's
looked at the evidence and she's thought, how can
I account for why, you know,
00:43:51
I've got a glass full
of Benadryl on my boat? And the story that she's
come up with is just--
00:43:57
well, it's utterly
implausible, but it's the one that
she thinks puts her in the best possible light.
00:44:06
- I don't know what
more I can say. I'm guilty. I'm sorry. [intriguing music] JUDGE WAYMAN: Ms. Isenberg, I'm
going to sentence you today.
00:44:23
As everyone has acknowledged
here this morning, nothing that we do
here in this courtroom
00:44:27
is going to bring
back Mr. Isenberg. I will impose a life sentence. That life sentence will
be divided into two parts.
00:44:39
30 years fixed up
to life in prison. - Lori deserves prison
for the rest of her life.
00:44:48
Judge Wayman called her a liar. I completely agree. This was all about Lori. This was not about
anybody else.
00:44:54
JUDGE WAYMAN: That sentence
is intended to deter you and others will not
be a risk to society.
00:45:00
- Lori brought that on herself
by, well, doing what she did. And then this ridiculous
story at sentencing.
00:45:07
BRAD MASKELL: I was actually
satisfied with that sentence. It's basically a life
sentence for Lori at the age
00:45:13
that she was. And so in my mind, she got
life for killing Larry. JUDGE WAYMAN: Court
is now adjourned.
00:45:22
- One of the things
that struck me was that it starts
off as a relatively predictable fraud offense.
00:45:29
But from that foundation,
we very quickly move to things that are
not so standard, which
00:45:35
was on this downward
spiral where you get yourself
into a situation that you feel like
you can't get out of.
00:45:40
And in her case,
she catastrophized to such an extreme degree
that she felt that murder
00:45:45
was the only option. KERRY DAYNES: I
don't think that this could have been predicted.
00:45:50
It's one of those
cases where somebody commits a crime that you
would never expect from them.
00:46:00
That crime was embezzlement. That was shocking enough. But then for it to be
revealed that she was also
00:46:07
capable
of a premeditated murder, really does prove
that you're never quite sure what dark
personality characteristics lie
00:46:18
dormant in people just waiting
for the right circumstances to come along and trigger them.
00:46:25
[theme music]