00:00:03
[theme music] NARRATOR: A fatal
fall in the shower. NARRATOR: A woman's life
cut short in an instant.
00:00:21
MARY JUMBELIC: Sitting there
talking to me two days earlier, and now she's dead.
00:00:26
It was so sad and shocking. NARRATOR: Was it truly
a tragic accident-- WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: He claims
that he goes into the bathroom.
00:00:36
And there she is,
lying on the floor, bleeding with
a massive head wound. NARRATOR: --or murder?
00:00:42
MARY JUMBELIC: Looking at it
as a forensic pathologist, she had head trauma,
and it was not
00:00:46
consistent with an accident. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND:
This starts to raise some serious questions.
00:00:52
[theme music] NARRATOR: Leslie Neulander was
born in the early 1950s and grew up on Long Island,
New York, before later
00:01:14
moving north to Syracuse. Former local chief medical
examiner Mary Jumbelic met Leslie shortly after she
moved to the same neighborhood.
00:01:25
MARY JUMBELIC:
Leslie Neulander was a prominent woman in the
community here in Syracuse.
00:01:30
And our social
circles and business circles over overlapped. She belonged
to the same synagogue
00:01:38
that my family belonged to. And we would see
each other at holiday events and other community
fundraising events in town.
00:01:49
AMBER HAQUE: Leslie was
a devoted philanthropist. And she donated
her time to causes
00:01:53
like the Jewish
Community Foundation, Syracuse University,
and loads of other charities.
00:02:00
MARY JUMBELIC: It
was always a joy to see her because she had such
a bubbly and kind personality.
00:02:06
She just had a way about
her of making you laugh and feel at ease. And I always admired
that about her.
00:02:15
NARRATOR: In 1983,
Leslie had married prominent local
obstetrician and gynecologist Dr.
Robert Neulander.
00:02:24
MARY JUMBELIC: People
looked up to him greatly in the medical world. And she had been
a critical care nurse,
00:02:30
but had given up her career
to raise her children. Bob had been married
previously and had two
00:02:37
children from that marriage. And so she helped to raise
those children as well, and had a very full life.
00:02:49
NARRATOR: But on the morning
of September 17, 2012, a distressing call was made
from the Neulander family home
00:02:56
to emergency services.
[phone ringing] AMBER HAQUE:
On the other line was Leslie's 23-year-old daughter.
00:04:05
[siren wailing] AMBER HAQUE: Responders arrived
at just minutes later at 8:27. But unusually, they found
Leslie not in the bathroom
00:04:21
but in the bedroom. And Robert was kneeling
down near her body, covered in blood,
with his daughter
00:04:27
just screaming in distress. NARRATOR: Robert
told paramedics that his wife had slipped
and fallen in the shower.
00:04:37
[stirring music] AMBER HAQUE: The first
police officer arrived five minutes later.
00:04:44
They secured the scene
and followed the trail of blood from the bathroom
to the bedroom, where
00:04:52
the first responders were
working on Leslie's body, giving her CPR. Despite their best
efforts, she was pronounced
00:05:03
dead at the scene at 8:42 AM. [stirring music] Shortly after Leslie
was pronounced dead,
00:05:13
the police went
into the bathroom. They found the shower
still running. And in the bedroom, there
was blood everywhere.
00:05:29
And a trail running in the
corridor between the bedroom and the bathroom. Robert explained that
he had moved Leslie
00:05:39
from the bathroom, where she
had fallen into the bedroom, because he said, it was
easier and more comfortable
00:05:44
for me to perform
CPR on her there. The movements that
Robert said he made checked out with
the patterns of blood
00:05:52
that the police
found at the scene. This theory was
actually backed up on the 911 call,
where we can hear
00:05:58
his daughter
pleading with Robert not to move her mom's body. NARRATOR: One of the next
to arrive at the scene
00:06:11
was the medical examiner,
Dr. Robert Stoppacher. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: Dr.
Stoppacher spoke very briefly
00:06:17
to some of the officers,
but he was advised that she had slipped
and fallen in the shower.
00:06:23
She had a massive wound
to the right side of her scalp. It was probably about 6 inches
long, maybe an inch wide.
00:06:36
And based on that preliminary
examination, he looked at it and said, yeah, this head
wound is consistent with a slip
00:06:42
and fall in the shower. In the shower itself,
there was a stone bench. If one were to hit their head
with sufficient force,
00:06:55
it could cause
a serious injury. [stirring music] AMBER HAQUE:
On the same afternoon,
00:07:03
Dr. Robert Stoppacher conducted
an autopsy on Leslie's body. He found that she'd had
bleeding to the brain.
00:07:11
Her skull had been
shattered in so many places. And she also had bruising
to her internal organs.
00:07:18
Taking into account
Robert's version of events, Dr. Stoppacher
ruled that Leslie
00:07:22
had died from
an accident, blunt force trauma due to a fall, and that
she'd slipped in the shower
00:07:28
and banged her head
on the stone counter. [stirring music] NARRATOR: News
of Leslie's tragic death
00:07:38
began to spread through
the Neulander's close knit community. MARY JUMBELIC: I had
just arrived home
00:07:45
from Europe, where I
had been hospitalized and near death myself
from a small fall and
00:07:51
subsequent infection. And so, two days later, when
I'm sitting in my recliner, still recovering.
00:08:02
My son with me, he saw a post
on Facebook that was suggestive that Leslie had died.
00:08:11
And so then there were a lot of
phone calls that went around. And so, finally, I got
hold of my husband,
00:08:17
and he said, yes, it's true. You know, She fell
in the shower and she's dead. I felt shocked because she
had just been in the home
00:08:31
two days earlier
and now she's dead. It was so sad and shocking,
but I just accepted
00:08:39
that that is what happened. [stirring music] NARRATOR: Although Leslie
Neulander's sudden death
00:08:51
at her home had been ruled
an accident following a fall in the shower, police
followed standard protocol
00:08:59
in cases of sudden death by
opening an investigation, which would come to the attention
of Onondaga County District
00:09:06
Attorney William Fitzpatrick. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: I was
advised that Leslie Neulander
00:09:12
had slipped and fell
in the shower, struck her head, and died. And that's unusual
for a healthy 60-year-old,
00:09:22
but not unheard of. There's probably
2,500 people a year in the United
States, on average,
00:09:29
die due to bathroom accidents. Most of them are elderly
people caused by heart attacks.
00:09:36
But there wasn't
anything reported to me that indicated this
was suspicious. And, you know, the case
just kind of sat in limbo.
00:09:45
NARRATOR: While
the police carried out their investigation,
friends rallied around the Neulander family.
00:09:52
MARY JUMBELIC: After Leslie
died, and the next night, my husband went
to the home to visit.
00:10:00
Bob stayed in his room. He didn't really come
out, so my husband just talked with the kids,
and the rabbi was there
00:10:07
and they just had
a conversation. When he returned, he said
it was a little awkward
00:10:15
that the kids
seemed uncomfortable when he would bring up how
close their parents were
00:10:22
and how sad this was. And I just attributed
that to grief. NARRATOR:
On September 20, 2012,
00:10:33
three days after Leslie's
death, friends and family gathered for her funeral. MARY JUMBELIC: Through the days
that followed Leslie's death,
00:10:43
including at a funeral,
at other social gatherings where her name would come
up, that the details were
00:10:53
not clear. The only consistent story was
Leslie fell in the shower. And that is pretty much
what everyone knew.
00:11:11
[stirring music] NARRATOR: While
friends and family tried to move on from
Leslie's tragic passing,
00:11:20
police continued to look
into the circumstances surrounding her death. AMBER HAQUE: Although
the medical examiner
00:11:27
had ruled Leslie's
death as an accident, the police still carried
on their investigation.
00:11:32
And they now wanted
to talk to their daughter about what she
had seen that day. NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
following her illness,
00:11:53
Mary tried to return
to normal life. MARY JUMBELIC:
Mark and I decided we would have
a Thanksgiving party
00:12:00
to thank my friends for being
helpful during my recuperation. A friend of mine
approached me at the party
00:12:11
and said she had information
that a close friend of Leslie had concerns about her death.
00:12:20
She said, please, will
you talk with her? And so I agreed to do it. [stirring music]
00:12:30
The friend had a lot to say
about Bob's infidelity, about Bob's financial
problems, his behavior
00:12:37
on the day of Leslie's death. The friend talked
about how she was sure that Bob killed Leslie.
00:12:47
And I was a bit stunned. From my perspective
as a medical examiner, it didn't carry the weight
of actual evidence or
00:12:59
forensic data. After she finishes her
story, I say, well, why don't you go to the police
and give them your statement?
00:13:10
[stirring music] So she called me
afterward and said, thank you for telling me to go.
00:13:20
They're going to bring Bob
back in for questioning. I heard he already
has a lawyer.
00:13:26
And while she's
telling me this, I'm thinking, how odd is that? If this was just a cold
piece of information,
00:13:34
there's no way they
would be saying to her, we're going to bring Bob
back in for questioning and
00:13:40
telling her about the lawyer. And so I thought, wow, there's
something already going on.
00:13:49
And a few hours later,
Bob called the house. Mark took the call. They chat for a moment or two.
00:14:00
And he gets off the phone
with Bob and says, well, good for him. He's going to Israel.
00:14:07
And now I'm sitting
there thinking, oh, gosh, I think he will just
go to Israel and not come back.
00:14:16
[stirring music] It set off a red
flag for me because I was looking at those two
pieces of information
00:14:28
and they were
highly concerning. He's supposed to give
another statement to police.
00:14:34
He's leaving the country. And why do the police
want another statement? The fact that the police were
grateful the friend came in and
00:14:43
provided her own observations
meant that the police are still concerned about this case.
00:14:52
So I became concerned
at that point. NARRATOR: Unbeknownst to Mary,
the district attorney's office
00:15:00
was about to reopen
the investigation into Leslie's death. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
Initial reports
00:15:06
were that this was
a slip-and-fall accident, and there wasn't anything that
was brought to my attention
00:15:13
initially that
indicated that this was a homicide worth looking into. And then came an anonymous
letter to my office
00:15:21
that piqued my interest. It focused
on the financial aspects of the Neulanders,
the fact that they were
00:15:32
living in separate bedrooms. Not only pointed that
out, but pointed out that Leslie was going
to sign a lease arrangement
00:15:41
that day, which is
something that I certainly was not aware of. Whoever he or she
was, was concerned
00:15:48
that Neulander had
a serious financial motive to kill Leslie. Now, he or she might not have
said that in such overt terms,
00:15:57
but that was the clear
import of the letter that this was not an accident,
that this was a homicide.
00:16:02
That kind of spurred a renewed
interest, certainly by me, in considering bringing
in Mr. Neulander
00:16:10
for a further interview. NARRATOR: Just
as the district attorney resumed the investigation
into Leslie's death,
00:16:18
Leslie's friend and former
medical examiner, Mary Jumbelic, got in touch. MARY JUMBELIC: I had worked for
years with William Fitzpatrick.
00:16:28
And even though I hadn't spoken
to him, probably at that point in, you know,
for years, I called him
00:16:35
because I just
wanted to alert him that someone the police
is looking at is going to leave the country.
00:16:43
I telephone Fitz, and I
said I was calling about a friend of mine. Before I could say
anything further,
00:16:51
he said, Leslie
London Neulander. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: It was
a good guess on my part.
00:16:58
I did not know why
Mary was calling me. I did not know that she was
very close to Bob and Leslie.
00:17:04
I hadn't really seen
everything at that point, because we were still in the
embryonic stages of recharging
00:17:12
this homicide investigation. But the crucial thing
that I said to Mary was, would you look at the file?
00:17:19
[stirring music] - I realized that something
about the cause and the manner of death were not settled.
00:17:31
The only thing I
knew was that Leslie had fallen in the shower. I didn't know what
her injuries were.
00:17:40
I didn't know if she
had a heart attack. I didn't know anything. But I had a drive to try to
help and answer the questions.
00:17:50
That is what I spent my life
doing, looking at the dead and speaking for them
and trying to understand
00:17:56
what happened to them. And so then I said, yes,
I'll look at the file. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: That's
when things really took off.
00:18:05
And it became a full-throttled
homicide investigation. [stirring music] NARRATOR: Following
an anonymous tip off,
00:18:17
District Attorney
William Fitzpatrick had reopened the investigation
into Leslie's death.
00:18:24
Had she slipped and fallen
in the shower, as her husband, Bob claimed, or had
she been murdered?
00:18:32
Hoping for a second
opinion, William sent the case file to former
medical examiner Mary Jumbelic.
00:18:40
- I focused really
quickly on Leslie herself. Because that is my area
of expertise, the examination
00:18:49
of the deceased. And so I focused
on her body position, the wounds I could see, what
I could see at the scene,
00:18:57
and all the details that I
could learn from the autopsy. The photographs
were very graphic.
00:19:07
It was shocking to see
my friend in the photographs, but even more shocking to see
the trauma to her body.
00:19:17
Leslie's right side of her
head was bleeding extensively with a massive
open wound there,
00:19:24
and the skull was
caved in partly. Looking like two blows
to the head, at least.
00:19:33
And in addition to that,
she had injuries on her face and on her neck. She had bruising on her arms.
00:19:41
She had injuries on her
fingers with bruising. The type of wound that
she had, the amount
00:19:48
of fracturing of the skull,
and the other injuries that are present on the body
all point to inflicted injury,
00:19:59
as opposed to just
tripping and falling. NARRATOR: But other
details documented at the scene of Leslie's
death also raised
00:20:11
questions about Bob's story. MARY JUMBELIC: She was laying
on the floor of her bedroom,
00:20:16
face up, and had been scooched
into an area between the end table and the bed. So not a really ideal
position for CPR.
00:20:27
But why a physician
would choose to carry an injured
person, who potentially could have a neck injury,
60 feet to perform CPR?
00:20:39
Certainly, it's
suggestive of a concern. But in addition
to that, there were blood trails going all the way
from the bed to the shower.
00:20:52
And not much per se
in the shower itself, even though that was
the purported area of the fall.
00:21:00
The manner of death
being called an accident didn't capture what
really happened to Leslie.
00:21:07
That she had head trauma,
certainly, but was not consistent with a fall. She had been struck in the
head, and it was a homicide.
00:21:20
NARRATOR: Mary took her
findings to William, and he requested
a search warrant for the Neulander's home.
00:21:27
Around six months
after Leslie's death, Mary, William,
and forensic pathologist Dr. Baden visited
the house, which they were
00:21:36
now viewing as a crime scene. AMBER HAQUE: The house
had been sold, but the new owners
hadn't moved in yet.
00:21:42
And the second floor
was still untouched. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
And we wanted to focus on the area
in the bedroom
00:21:50
where Dr. Neulander claims he
took Leslie after he removed her body from the shower.
00:21:56
Most of the blood on the wall
had been cleaned away, but several things of
incredible importance remained.
00:22:05
So we ripped up the carpet,
and there's a little rubber undercarriage to the carpet.
00:22:11
That was completely
soaked with blood. And then when we
lifted that up, the floorboard, completely
soaked with blood.
00:22:20
It should have been
a minimal amount of blood because she had no pulse. In fact, there was a massive
amount of blood completely
00:22:28
inconsistent with his story. What that indicates to me is
that while she's alive and
00:22:34
has a pulse and is
bleeding, her head is somewhere in that vicinity. The other amazing
thing that we were
00:22:43
able to get from that
examination was the headboard. Now, it is very, very difficult
to see any physical evidence
00:22:51
on the board because it's
a cloth-like material and it's very, very dark. And then when we examined
that, there were several dozen
00:23:03
blood spatters from Leslie. [stirring music] NARRATOR: The new
evidence discovered
00:23:11
at the Neulanders home was sent
away for forensic analysis. MARY JUMBELIC: I
knew Leslie's death
00:23:18
wasn't an accident
when I looked at the pictures of her body. The scene was corroborative
with the findings there.
00:23:26
This is a homicide. This is not a fall from
standing height accident. NARRATOR: Six months
after Leslie's death,
00:23:36
her case was now a full-blown
murder investigation, but her death certificate
remained an issue.
00:23:42
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: It would
be very difficult to ask a jury to convict someone beyond a
reasonable doubt of a homicide
00:23:49
when your medical
examiner says, hold on, she died as a result
of an accident. NARRATOR: William and Mary
presented their findings
00:23:57
to the medical examiner,
Dr. Stoppacher, to ask if he would reconsider
the manner of Leslie's death.
00:24:05
MARY JUMBELIC: We discussed
our difference of opinion and discussed
the science behind it,
00:24:09
and talked about
wounding patterns and what happens to the brain in a
fall versus blows to the head.
00:24:17
And at the end of that, I
think the medical examiner felt they needed more. They needed more information.
00:24:22
They needed more opinion
in order to budge from the concept of the fall. So we decided
that the expertise
00:24:34
of a neuropathologist,
and particularly a forensic neuropathologist,
would be useful to elucidate
00:24:44
this difference of opinion. [stirring music] NARRATOR: In December
2013, while William awaited
00:24:55
the forensic
neuropathologist report, he approached Bob's
lawyer with a request for a formal interview.
00:25:02
AMBER HAQUE: Robert said
that he had nothing to hide, so he voluntarily sat
down for an interview
00:25:07
with officers
and the district attorney. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
During the questioning,
00:25:22
he admitted that there was
difficulty in their marriage. NARRATOR: William soon turned
his questioning to the day
00:25:50
that Leslie died. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: He says
that he got up that morning, that he went jogging.
00:25:55
He came back, prepared a cup
of coffee for his wife. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: He
cleaned up from jogging,
00:26:17
then began to make
a small breakfast, then goes back upstairs. The shower is still running.
00:26:24
Now she's been in there,
according to him, at least 35 minutes at that point. He claims that he goes into the
bathroom to see if she's OK.
00:27:33
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: This
is a doctor of 30 years. What's the first thing you
would do if you had never
00:27:38
even seen a medical school? There's a phone 5
feet away from them on the counter
of the bathroom sink.
00:27:45
Pick up the phone. Call 911. Instead, he leaves her there. He does a cursory check
to see if she's alive.
00:27:53
Claims that she's breathing. Goes about 90 feet further
into the house to get his daughter to call 911.
00:28:01
[phone ringing] NARRATOR: Bob claimed
he then carried Leslie from the bathroom into
the bedroom to continue CPR.
00:28:09
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: I then
simply slid over to him a number of photographs. And said, Dr. Neulander,
can you explain this?
00:28:22
Can you explain the blood? And he looked at me,
and he said, no, I can't. NARRATOR: Despite Bob's
calm, matter-of-fact account
00:28:31
of the events surrounding
Leslie's death, William wasn't
convinced by his story.
00:28:38
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
My theory that he attacked her in the bedroom and left her,
probably to die on the floor
00:28:44
while he's trying
to figure out what to do. This is not
a premeditated crime. He did not plot this out.
00:28:55
This was a rage homicide. Something snapped. They argued about something. Whatever it was,
it set him off.
00:29:04
And then he's faced
with an opportunity. Now, what do I do? The only thing I can say
to describe that wound
00:29:11
is that she fell in the shower. [stirring music] NARRATOR: But if Bob had
murdered Leslie in the bedroom,
00:29:21
the one thing
that didn't add up was why the bed sheets
weren't covered in blood.
00:29:28
Before questioning Bob,
police had interviewed the Neulander's housekeeper. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
The housekeeper says,
00:29:35
I changed the sheets
on Friday, and Leslie was killed on a Monday. She looks
at the photos and says,
00:29:43
those are not the sheets that
I put on the bed on Friday. And she says, by the way,
there's a pillow missing.
00:29:53
There's only three
pillows there. So when he was asked
about the pillows, oh, we didn't have
a pillow in a guest room,
00:30:03
and we needed
a pillow for that. Well, who is that for? Well, people were coming over.
00:30:10
Oh, yeah, people were coming
over after she was dead. The pillow was missing
before she was dead, Doc,
00:30:16
what are you talking about? There's no question in my mind
that the original sheets
00:30:20
that she left on that bed
Friday were on that bed Monday morning when
Leslie was assaulted.
00:30:27
And then soaked with
blood, he removed the sheets, removed the pillow
that probably had blood on it
00:30:33
as well, removed
the murder weapon. And then while he went
for his supposed jog,
00:30:38
he was actually going out
to dispose of those items. [stirring music] NARRATOR: With missing bed
sheets and no murder weapon,
00:30:49
investigators couldn't
determine what had been used to kill Leslie. And with her death
still ruled accidental,
00:30:56
police remained unable
to charge Bob with her murder. Then, 18 months
after Leslie's death,
00:31:04
came the news they've
been waiting for. MARY JUMBELIC:
The neuropathology report,
00:31:08
an evaluation
of the brain, indicated it was inflicted
injury, allowed the medical examiner to be
able to change the death
00:31:17
certificate to homicide. NARRATOR: The size
the wound, combined with the discovery
of distinctive bruising
00:31:27
on the opposite side
of Leslie's brain, was consistent with
being hit by an object,
00:31:33
not with a fall from
standing height. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: Based on
the accumulation of evidence,
00:31:38
Dr. Stoppacher changed,
not the cause of death, but the manner of death. Cause of death was still
a massive blow to the head,
00:31:46
but the manner of death
was now listed as homicide. That was it. There were no more avenues
of escape for Dr. Neulander.
00:31:54
AMBER HAQUE: Three
days later, on June 23, Dr. Robert Neulander is charged
with second degree murder
00:32:01
and tampering with
physical evidence. [stirring music] NARRATOR: On March 16, 2015,
2 and 1/2 years after Leslie
00:32:15
Neulander was found dead at her
home in Syracuse, New York, her husband, Dr.
Robert Neulander,
00:32:21
went on trial for her murder. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: Big
trials are part theater, and no one knew that
better than Bob Neulander.
00:32:31
Every day we would watch
this litany of him walking down the courthouse hallway.
00:32:38
And he'd have his
daughter, his son, or, in some instances,
Leslie's sister, consoling him as he walked.
00:32:49
HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND:
It might look unusual that the family
of the victim are seemingly siding with
the accused perpetrator.
00:32:56
But you've got
to remember, at this time, the family do not have all
the evidence that Mary has
00:33:01
or that the DA office have. They have not been subject
to all of that information yet.
00:33:06
And so at the moment,
naturally, a family going through
a traumatic period are rallying together.
00:33:14
You've also got to remember
from the perspective of the children, they've just
lost their mother in really
00:33:18
traumatic circumstances. And if they believe that
their father did this, they're also, in a way,
losing their father.
00:33:26
So you can understand
why people group together in this moment,
because they're just
00:33:30
trying to protect
the little sort of normality of their family unit. NARRATOR: The prosecution
argued that Leslie's death
00:33:39
was no bathroom accident. Instead, that she was murdered
in the bedroom by her husband,
00:33:46
as proven by forensic evidence. MARY JUMBELIC: There's
blood spatter on the wall
00:33:52
and on the ceiling
from an object being struck on Leslie's head. And then when it comes
back for another strike,
00:34:01
it gets cast off
on the wall, in the ceiling. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
There are blood droplets
00:34:06
on the lampshade, on the clock
radio, on family photos, on the headboard,
on the blinds to, say,
00:34:15
nothing of the blood
in the bathroom. [stirring music] Here's the explanation
they come up with.
00:34:25
So he went out for a jog,
came home, showered up, put his pajamas on, and then
put another pajama top on,
00:34:35
for some reason. And when he was
carrying Leslie, that top became
saturated with blood.
00:34:46
He took the shirt off because
it was uncomfortable for him. And this blood cast off
and spattered at various points
00:34:56
throughout the bedroom. Secondarily, when
the EMTs got there, as they removed
their gloves, they removed
00:35:07
them slingshot fashion. And that spattered a lot
of blood throughout as well. Now there's two significant
difficulties with both
00:35:17
of those explanations. Number one, no one saw
him with a second shirt. The second thing is
that the EMTs were all
00:35:26
very professional,
and they are trained on how to remove
a glove to avoid exactly this type of issue.
00:35:32
In addition to that, they
also indicated, we hardly had any blood on our gloves
that we noticed
00:35:36
because she wasn't bleeding. NARRATOR: The prosecution
also argued that Leslie's head
00:35:44
injuries were not caused
by an impact in the shower as Bob had claimed. - On the right
side of the head,
00:35:52
the skull injury
is caved in partly in a pattern that is not
consistent with hitting
00:35:59
the edge of a marble bench. In addition, it appears
there's two blows on that side of the head.
00:36:07
So both of those
things don't line up with the stone bench theory. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
If you leave aside
00:36:15
the medical evidence,
the blood spatter, I thought the most
significant part was calling
00:36:21
the daughter to the stand. MARY JUMBELIC: The daughter
was called as a witness. And the 911 call was
played in the courtroom.
00:36:41
MARY JUMBELIC: What was
chilling in the courtroom was that the family
is there listening
00:36:48
to the daughter's 911 call. And it's just
heartbreaking because you can feel the pain that the
daughter feels when she first
00:37:02
sees her mother being
carried by her father, and the terror in her voice,
the sadness, the angst.
00:37:17
AMBER HAQUE: The problem was
that perception of events just didn't stack
up to the facts.
00:37:24
NARRATOR: One of the most
crucial pieces of evidence for the prosecution was the
moment Leslie's daughter placed
00:37:29
the 911 call on hold,
leaving her mother's office to head toward
the bathroom, where
00:37:35
she claimed Leslie was lying. NARRATOR: When quizzed
about the 12-second gap between switching
phones, her story fell apart.
00:37:51
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
Her story had changed significantly
at trial in this very, very important regard.
00:37:58
Yes, I went into the room
with a bidet and the toilet, and I picked up the phone.
00:38:05
But it wasn't working,
so I dropped that phone. I then assisted
my father in removing
00:38:11
my mother from the shower. We then took her
a couple of feet. We laid her down
outside of the bathroom.
00:38:19
My dad began to perform CPR. It didn't seem
to be successful, so we moved her again
further into the bedroom
00:38:31
and dropped her just
short of the bed. I then went,
remembering that the 911 operator was still on hold.
00:38:38
I picked up the phone, and I
don't remember what I said, but I can hear the tape
and I understand that.
00:38:44
None of that is
remotely possible. You cannot do everything that
she claims that she did in 12
00:38:53
seconds, which was the amount
of time between the 911 operator being put on hold.
00:39:04
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
And the, oh, my god, there's blood everywhere,
resumption of that call.
00:39:08
It would have taken
conservatively a minute to do everything that
she claims that she
00:39:15
did do in that 12 seconds. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND:
Her statement has some really contradictory
points the evidence
00:39:22
can prove a false. But you also have to remember
that she has witnessed something really
traumatic, you know,
00:39:27
her mother dying
in heinous circumstances. And so trauma can
do really strange things to a person's memory.
00:39:35
So it might not be that she
intentionally misleading or proposing false information.
00:39:40
It might just be
that, actually, she can't remember exact details. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: After she
testified, the case was done.
00:39:48
[stirring music] NARRATOR: After two weeks
of hearing evidence, the jury retired to deliberate.
00:39:58
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
The worst part of a trial is waiting for a verdict. And you always
feel the same way.
00:40:03
You put your heart
and soul into the case. In some cases, you feel
more confident than others.
00:40:09
- I was nervous because juries
are very earnest, and they try very hard
to do the right thing.
00:40:16
But it doesn't always come
out as a forensic professional might think it would. AMBER HAQUE: After three
days of deliberation,
00:40:27
the jury returned
their verdicts. They found Robert Neulander
guilty of second degree murder
00:40:35
and tampering with evidence. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: Everybody
in this case was resolute.
00:40:39
They knew that he did it,
and they felt comfortable with their verdict. And I felt great.
00:40:43
I was just
professionally satisfied that justice was done. AMBER HAQUE: Four months
later, he appeared in court.
00:40:51
And Robert Neulander was
sentenced to 20 years to life. [stirring music] NARRATOR: Bob was
facing incarceration
00:41:02
for the rest of his life. But his defense team appealed
and argued for a retrial,
00:41:07
citing serious
juror misconduct. - An alternate
juror pointed out that they believed 1
of the 12 actual jurors
00:41:16
had been involved in something. So the judge
ordered examination of this juror's phone.
00:41:24
This investigation found that
this juror had sent over 7,000 messages during this
three-week period
00:41:32
to family and friends talking
about the criminal trial. And this was
in direct violation
00:41:38
of the judge's
instructions for jurors not to discuss the case
with outside sources
00:41:43
or to get information
from anywhere else. And these messages included
one from her father,
00:41:49
saying, make sure
he is found guilty. And she failed to disclose
this to the court.
00:41:56
The outcome of all of this
was that in June 2018, the conviction was vacated. It was annulled as if the trial
and conviction never happened.
00:42:08
NARRATOR: Robert was
released on $1 million bail until the retrial
could take place.
00:42:14
WILLIAM FITZPATRICK: They hired
a very good guy, very good lawyer out of New York City.
00:42:20
And we began to prepare
for trial number two. NARRATOR: On February
28, 2022, almost
00:42:29
10 years after Leslie's
death, the retrial began. MARY JUMBELIC: I thought
another group of jurors
00:42:35
presented with these
same information would see it the same way. But, again, you
never know until it's
00:42:43
all the way through the trial. WILLIAM FITZPATRICK:
The jury, to our amazement, five hours after they
retired, they came back
00:42:49
in with a verdict of guilty. And I feel great about that. MARY JUMBELIC: When I
heard the verdict of guilty
00:42:56
for the second trial, it was
just, oh, thank goodness. I hope the family can try
to move on in some way now.
00:43:04
Because they
really are carrying a huge burden with them. NARRATOR: On May 2, 2022,
Bob was sentenced to 20 years
00:43:15
to life for the second time. Thanks, not only
to the prosecution team, but also Leslie's friend,
former medical examiner
00:43:23
Mary Jumbelic. MARY JUMBELIC: I took
Leslie's message-- look what happened to me.
00:43:30
And I gave it to people
who needed to hear that. And, yes, I do
feel proud of it,
00:43:36
but I also feel like
it was a fulfilling of, you know, what has
always been my calling,
00:43:43
which was to do
that for the dead. I remember Leslie
for her lightheartedness and her kindness and her humor.
00:43:56
But I remember
her in death, too, because it has helped other
women who maybe are trapped
00:44:01
in situations with
spouses or have experienced domestic violence. She was important
in the community,
00:44:13
but she was just important
on a personal level of how she made others feel. And I think those that knew
her should think of that
00:44:25
and remember her. [somber music] [theme music]