00:00:05
[gunshot] - When a murder is committed, it's always a race against time to find the truth,
00:00:11
to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that
justice is served.
00:00:20
But what happens when the
truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd
00:00:25
and I've spent my entire career
as a forensic pathologist performing nearly
23,000 autopsies,
00:00:30
including on some of the
most high profile cases of recent times. I've learned that the
dead don't hide the truth,
00:00:36
and they never lie. Through me, you'll be hearing
directly from the victim. From a state-of-the-art
laboratory
00:00:44
with groundbreaking technology that uses digitally
scanned sample bodies, I'll be investigating a
series of intriguing murders
00:00:52
where, from the victim's bodies, I'll be revealing to you the truth behind
those horrific crimes.
00:00:59
[camera shutter clicking] [gentle music] Centerville, a small,
quiet town in rural Iowa,
00:01:16
the heart of the
American Midwest. Serious crime is almost unknown. But in May, 2018, a
terrible house fire
00:01:25
shocked this community. Inside, firefighters discovered the badly burnt body of a man.
00:01:32
It looked like a
tragic accident, but could it have been
something much more sinister?
00:01:37
And could the body tell the
story of what had happened? [gentle music] - Centerville is a small,
close-knit community
00:01:52
of about 5,000 people. Everybody knows everybody. We know their families,
we know their history.
00:02:01
Everybody looks out
for one another. That's how it's always been. - Many of the families have
been there for many generations.
00:02:10
Community that has a
strong agricultural tie. So, most of the
families are farmers
00:02:16
who have been farmers
for generations. - We have one middle
school, one high school
00:02:23
for all the students. They all go to the same school, participate in the same sports.
00:02:31
I was born and raised
in Centerville, moved away for a few years. When we started having a family,
00:02:37
we decided to move back just because of the community
and how close it was. - [Richard] But at 7:30 AM
on Saturday, May 5th, 2018,
00:02:49
Centerville's peaceful life
was turned upside down. Barbara Pasa was driving
to a soccer tournament
00:02:59
where her children
were due to play, but before she got there, she received several
shocking phone calls
00:03:06
from her neighbors. Her house was on fire. Barbara rushed back knowing her husband,
Tim, was in the house.
00:03:19
- One of the neighbors was
driving, leaving his house, saw a fire coming from
the Pasa residence.
00:03:25
Two neighbors from
across the street went in the front door,
looked to the left and saw charring and smoke.
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- [Richard] They acted fast and called local
firefighters on 911. They arrived within minutes.
00:03:39
[siren blaring] - [Officer] Okay. Centerville 911. Let the fire department know that there is a lot
of smoke coming out
00:03:48
of the east side of the house. - When the fire department
first got there, they saw black smoke
00:03:54
rolling from the east
side of the residence, which is where the master
bedroom is located.
00:03:59
They immediately started
to extinguish the fire. - [Officer] One
[indistinct] en route.
00:04:06
- [Richard] All four of the
town's fire trucks arrived. [siren blaring] - There was a lot of smoke.
00:04:13
One of the firefighters that initially went
into battle the blaze did suffer from smoke inhalation
00:04:18
and had to be taken
to a hospital. - [Officer] Do you
know if anybody's home? - [Richard] Neighbors told the
police officers on the scene
00:04:27
they thought there were
people inside the building. They called in Assistant
Chief of Police, Mike Moore.
00:04:37
- I knew the occupants
of the residence, so I was just unsure
what we were gonna find.
00:04:43
I was initially informed that there may be
three bodies inside. I was fearful at that time
00:04:49
that it may be the
children involved. - When the firefighters finally managed to get
into the master bedroom,
00:04:55
they discovered
a terrible sight. [camera shutter clicking] Barbara's husband, Tim Pasa,
was found dead on the bed,
00:05:04
and his body had been
severely damaged by the fire. The most obvious injuries
were the terrible burns
00:05:18
present on Tim Pasa's body. Doctors use something
called a rule of nines to estimate the surface
area of the body
00:05:24
that's been damaged, and I can demonstrate
that on this sample body on the digital autopsy table.
00:05:30
The head counts for 9%, the arms are 9%, the upper chest is nine, the abdomen is nine,
00:05:37
the legs are nine,
front and back, and the back of the body is
split into nines as well.
00:05:43
And using that estimation, we could work out that 97% of the surface
of Tim Pasa's body
00:05:51
was damaged by fire. It's most unusual to find such a high percentage
of burns in a house fire.
00:05:59
And the burns on the body
are estimated by doctors is first, second
or third degree.
00:06:04
First degree burns
are like sunburn, just reddening of the skin. Second degree burns
have blistering,
00:06:09
as if you touch something
hot in the oven. And third degree burns are when the skin is
damaged and burnt through
00:06:15
exposing the muscle. In Tim Pasa's case, most of the burns were actually
first or second degree,
00:06:21
relatively superficial, but the extent of the burns
suggested he wasn't moving, that he was asleep at the
time the fire was burning.
00:06:29
It was a tragic end
to a family man. - Tim Pasa was a well-liked guy, very well known
in the community,
00:06:42
whether it be
through involvement with his children's
sports, school activities.
00:06:46
He was a member of a
band for a long time. Tim was born and raised here, and I believe he lived
here all his life.
00:06:56
I have a lot of personal
memories with Tim. Our children were the same age, so they did a lot of
activities together.
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We'd sit together a lot of
the times at sporting events. - [Richard] The most
important thing in Tim's life
00:07:09
was his family. - Barb and Tim had been
married for several years. I believe he was 18.
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They had two
children at the time that were both in high school. She was also from the area and
spent her entire life here.
00:07:26
I had known Barb Pasa
for probably 30 years. Was actually a friend
of the families,
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grew up with one of
my older sisters. - [Richard] They were
a very normal family
00:07:39
in a small town where things
like this hardly ever happen. They simply weren't prepared
for such a terrible tragedy,
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and neither was the
rest of the community. Most of its emergency
services are volunteers.
00:07:55
- Currently, the Centerville
Police Department has 11 full-time officers, and we have three
reserve police officers.
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Centerville Fire Department, it's a small department and there's three
full-time firefighters,
00:08:09
and the rest, it's a
volunteer department. - [Richard] Now, they had a
fatal fire on their hands.
00:08:17
They had to investigate
how the fire started. - We conducted a
walkthrough of the residence
00:08:23
shortly after the
fire was extinguished, started doing their
investigation. - [Richard] As soon
as Barbara arrived,
00:08:32
she told the firefighters
that Tim was inside. - [Richard] She feared
the fire had been caused
00:08:46
by a lit candle she had
placed in the master bedroom. - Barb told me that
she had lit a candle
00:08:54
that morning before leaving, because the dog had
urinated in the bedroom and she was using the candle
to cover up the smell.
00:09:03
She advised that she'd set
the candle on the nightstand. When fire investigators
found the candle,
00:09:09
it was on the floor, next
to the bed on its side. On the floor, there was
a unburned white spot
00:09:20
that was consistent with the
candle being on the floor at the time of the fire, which means that the
candle was sitting upright
00:09:29
during the fire. It did not fall from a
nightstand, anything like that. - [Richard] And that
wasn't the only thing
00:09:36
that Mike and his fire
department colleagues thought was odd. - Tim's body was very
badly damaged in the fire.
00:09:45
It was, what I would
call, inconsistent with the amount of fire
damage throughout the room
00:09:51
where the fire took place. The condition of Tim's body
initially was suspicious,
00:09:58
but not enough, making us think that
anything may be criminal. - [Richard] Mike decided
that it was an unusual,
00:10:05
but still an accidental fire. All the emergency
services left the scene. There was just one
thing left to do,
00:10:14
an autopsy on Tim's body. - Anytime there's a
death investigation, an autopsy will be completed.
00:10:27
- The autopsy was performed by the state medical examiner, pathologist Dr. Dennis Klein.
00:10:34
- The cause of death
and the manner of death may not be immediately obvious, and the autopsy is the best
way to get at these answers.
00:10:42
What was the injury,
disease, or poisoning that ultimately led to
that person's death.
00:10:51
- Despite the burns, most people die in fires by
breathing in noxious gases, and the most important of
those is carbon monoxide,
00:11:01
which binds the hemoglobin
in the red blood cells and stops them carrying oxygen
00:11:06
so that the blood,
when it travels around, can't carry the necessary
oxygen to the heart,
00:11:11
or to the brain, and these organs eventually die, and the individual
will then die too.
00:11:18
Carbon monoxide is present
all around us in our bodies. And if you smoke, you've got about 10% in
your bloodstream anyway.
00:11:24
20% will give you headaches
and you'll feel unwell, but 30%, you are likely to die.
00:11:30
But what else can
we find in the body when we look at this autopsy? When fires are burning,
00:11:36
smoke is inhaled into the lungs. And we can see that here. The lungs themselves
may be blackened,
00:11:44
but most importantly, throughout the trachea
and the bronchi, there's little particles
of black soot deposited
00:11:50
that show someone was alive at the time the
fire was burning. But when Dr. Klein did
all of these tests,
00:11:58
he had a big surprise. - Despite having burns on
the outside of the body, there was not the
characteristic findings of soot
00:12:10
in the upper and lower airways which occur when a
person breathes in smoke. And then when we did a test
00:12:17
looking at what's called the
carboxyhemoglobin saturation, which is the amount
of carbon monoxide
00:12:22
that accumulates in the blood, was not elevated. So, these two very key
findings were absent
00:12:30
and made me come
to the conclusion that Tim did not die
of smoke inhalation, and that he was likely dead
before the fire had occurred.
00:12:44
- This is very surprising. Generally, a fatality
at a fire scene has died as the
result of a fire.
00:12:50
I've examined hundreds of
fire deaths in my career, and in my experience, less than two in a hundred
00:12:55
were dead before
the fire started. Finding a victim who is
dead before the fire starts
00:12:59
is always suspicious. This autopsy has turned the
investigation on its head. - I realized that this was
going to be a difficult
00:13:11
and complex case. And we're conferring with
law enforcement officers who attend the autopsy.
00:13:19
I realized that I
had more work to do, but I realized they
had a lot more work. - In May, 2018,
00:13:36
a small town in Iowa was
rocked by a fatal fire. Tim Pasa, a well-known and much
loved family man, had died.
00:13:45
It was a tragedy for
the whole community. But at the autopsy, Tim's body
revealed a horrific surprise.
00:13:54
Tim was dead before
the fire started. The police needed extra help, so Iowa State Fire
Marshal David Linkletter
00:14:05
came to investigate. David teaches fire investigators to recognize the signs of arson
00:14:13
based on his own
extensive experience. - I've been a fire
investigator since 2000,
00:14:20
and in that time, I've been
on well over 800 fire scenes. I perform fire scene
investigations,
00:14:29
and hopefully try to determine
how this fire originated, how it spread through
that area of origin
00:14:36
and ultimately caused all
the damage that it did. - [Richard] Two days
after the fire took place,
00:14:46
David and his team started to investigate
the fire in the Pasa home. - So, we went down Monday
00:14:53
where they had prepared
a search warrant to reenter the property to take a look at the fire scene
00:14:58
and give an assessment of
how this fire originated. - Something had troubled
the local firefighters
00:15:05
as soon as they arrived. [indistinct chattering] They couldn't hear any
smoke detectors beeping.
00:15:12
- Neighbors, witnesses, as well as the
officers that responded and the fire department,
00:15:18
at no time did they ever
hear any smoke alarms going off in the residence. - Smoke detectors
are pretty robust.
00:15:24
They can withstand a lot of
damage and still keep working. We discovered a smoke detector
00:15:30
in an unburned
portion of the house, outside the kids' bedrooms, where it had been disabled.
00:15:38
There was a door that
flipped open for the battery, and that door was open and
the battery was exposed,
00:15:44
rendering the smoke
detector inoperable. - When we closed
the battery door, it worked like it
was supposed to do.
00:15:55
- Once we worked our
way through the house, we discovered a nine-volt
battery on the floor
00:16:00
near the door to the bedroom. Near that area was also
a melted smoke detector, and directly above that,
00:16:08
was a line of demarcation where a smoke detector once was, and it had melted and
fallen onto the floor.
00:16:16
And we very quickly
were speculating that that battery had been
removed from the smoke detector
00:16:22
and thrown onto the floor
before the fire event. Obviously, the battery
just didn't fall
00:16:26
out of that smoke detector. - [Richard] Both smoke
detectors in the house had been tampered with.
00:16:33
And that wasn't the only thing that troubled the investigators. They'd been wondering about
Barbara Pasa's behavior.
00:16:42
- When she arrived on scene, she asked if she could see Tim. I advised Barb that Tim
was in the ambulance,
00:16:48
but that he was in very
bad shape due to the fire. I allowed her at that point to go into the ambulance
and have a moment with Tim.
00:16:58
It wasn't until a
couple minutes later when I reentered the ambulance and she advised me
00:17:04
that she did not want
an autopsy completed. - And that, to us, was a pretty
serious red flag, you know,
00:17:11
and so, it really provoked
a lot of questions. Why does she not want to
have an autopsy performed
00:17:17
on her late husband? - [Richard] Barbara later said that the only reason she
was opposed to an autopsy
00:17:27
was she didn't want Tim's
body anymore cut up. [siren blaring] - Law states that
the medical examiner
00:17:40
has authority of that body, and so, even if a family member
is opposed to that autopsy,
00:17:47
if a medical examiner
feels that it's necessary, an autopsy will be done. Both, a state police detective
00:17:53
and a local police detective actually want to
attend the autopsy. That's not a usual
situation for a house fire,
00:18:04
so we knew that there
was some concern. - Dr. Klein was sure that Tim hadn't died as
a result of the fire.
00:18:13
But could he have died as
a result of natural causes before the fire started? If I was investigating this,
00:18:19
I'd want to see the
medical records. And we know from those records that he had mild hypertension,
00:18:25
and that his heart
was slightly enlarged. First, he'd have looked
at the heart muscle
00:18:30
to see whether there
was any evidence of thickening of the
muscle of the heart. The heart has two
main pumping chambers,
00:18:36
the left ventricle, which pumps blood around
the whole of the body, which is the main
powerful pumping chamber,
00:18:42
and that's here. And he noticed that the heart
muscle was slightly thickened, but not significantly so.
00:18:48
So, while the heart
was slightly enlarged, it wasn't significantly so. The second feature Dr.
Klein would've looked at
00:18:55
were the coronary arteries. These are the blood
vessels that supply oxygen to the muscle of the heart.
00:19:01
He'd have looked at those to see if there was any evidence of furring up a blockage
of those arteries,
00:19:06
and there wasn't any. And so, Dr. Klein
was able to conclude that there was no evidence
00:19:12
of significant natural
disease with the heart that could have killed Tim
Pasa before the fire started.
00:19:19
So, Tim must have died
from unnatural causes. Dr. Klein would've looked
carefully at the chest.
00:19:27
He found no evidence of any
bruising, any fractured ribs, any bullet wounds,
or any stab wounds.
00:19:33
Is there any evidence of
any injury to the face, the skull, the brain that might indicate
blunt trauma?
00:19:40
Then he perhaps had
a look at the neck to see whether there was any
evidence of strangulation,
00:19:45
evidence that can still be found after body has been
burn in the fire. But none of these
things were present.
00:19:53
And so, one thing remains: could Tim have been
poisoned or drugged? - We ordered an expanded panel,
00:20:06
which is a broad panel of
various drugs and poisons. Much to my disappointment,
the first toxicology result
00:20:17
that showed what we call
therapeutic concentrations of medicines that we knew he
was on for his blood pressure,
00:20:24
that would not
explain his death. So, we were still left
with an uneasy feeling that we had suspicious
circumstances.
00:20:32
We didn't have a good
explanation for his death, so that meant we still had
our work cut out for us.
00:20:39
- [Richard] Without clear
answers from the autopsy, the pressure was back
on the detectives,
00:20:44
and their concerns
about Barbara's behavior had been growing. - Barb did not show any emotion.
00:20:53
- [Officer] If you need
anything, let me know. Okay? - Whether it was when I was
initially speaking with her,
00:20:58
or after seeing Tim's body, there was no emotion
shown whatsoever. - Other people
throughout the day
00:21:12
expressed that her
behavior was just odd for someone that had
just lost her husband.
00:21:18
[off-mic chattering] - [Richard] On the
day of the fire, Mike noticed Barbara had
posted a message about Tim
00:21:26
on Facebook. - I was Facebook
friends with her. I saw the post. I believe it said
something to the effect of
00:21:35
Tim was a good father, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It was just a very strange
post for someone to make
00:21:43
that had just tragically
lost her husband. - [Richard] In fact,
Barbara seemed very keen
00:21:51
to get on with her life
as quickly as possible. - Barb, either the day of the
incident or the day after,
00:21:58
contacted a local
real estate agent advising that she would
like to look at houses
00:22:04
to move into. - [Richard] But the
biggest surprise came on the night of the fire,
00:22:12
when Barbara's 16-year-old
son contacted the police. - He'd reached out that
he wanted to speak with me
00:22:20
about what had taken place
that day at the residence. He expressed that he had
concerns that his mom, Barb,
00:22:28
may have been responsible
for Tim's death. - [Richard] It was a shocking
claim from a teenager,
00:22:37
especially against
his own mother. But he claimed his
parents' relationship had been getting steadily
worse in the previous months.
00:22:46
- He advised that they
had not been getting along for quite a while, that they had recently talked
about getting a divorce.
00:22:55
He also advised that his
dad had confided in him that he believed Barb had tried
to poison him with Benadryl
00:23:03
a couple weeks prior
to the incident. He began writing
notes of thoughts that came to his head
00:23:16
and provided those notes to me. - [Richard] As the police spoke to more members of the family,
00:23:22
it became clear that life
in the Pasa household was much more tense than it
appeared from the outside.
00:23:30
- Barbara and Tim, at
the time, lived together, but through interviews, we found out that it was
more of a divided household.
00:23:39
They were more roommates
than husband and wife, and just weren't getting
along well at all.
00:23:46
- [Richard] While Mike
interviewed friends and family, special agent David Linkletter
00:23:50
conducted a detailed
fire investigation. - When we arrive
at a fire scene, we're gonna usually take a look
00:23:56
from the area of least damage to greatest damage. We're gonna walk
through the house
00:24:01
and just see what was
going on during this fire. - [Richard] David soon confirmed
00:24:06
what the local
firefighters had suspected. The only place where the
fire could have started
00:24:11
was the master bedroom. According to Barbara, it was caused by the
candle she had lit
00:24:17
on the morning of the fire. - We evaluated the entire room and we quickly discovered
that, you know,
00:24:27
there was more going on than just a candle
starting this fire. [off-mic chattering]
00:24:43
The hallmark of
fire investigations is really analyzing
burn patterns. You know, the burn
patterns are gonna tell you
00:24:49
where the fire occurred
and where it didn't. And in this case, we
all were very concerned
00:24:55
about the top of the bed. There was a very
distinct pattern on the headboard and the wall
00:25:02
that indicated there
was definitely a fire in that specific area burning for a much
longer period of time
00:25:10
than anywhere else in this room, as witnessed by the extreme
damage to the headboard
00:25:17
and the clean burn to
the wall against it. Usually, the area
that burns the longest
00:25:23
is gonna be the area
where the fire originated. [camera shutter clicking] - [Richard] But could
the candle have played
00:25:30
any part in the fire,
as Barbara claimed? - The problem with that was that that candle did
not burn vigorously enough
00:25:41
to really catch anything
else in that room on fire. It just sort of burned that
little area of carpeting
00:25:47
and really did not
travel anywhere else. - [Richard] In this position, a lit candle could have
caused a lot of damage,
00:25:54
but David could
see that it hadn't. - All of the wood
underneath that bed, that was right next to
where that candle was,
00:26:02
did not catch on fire. There's less damage as
you go toward the candle. Burn patterns did not
support the theory
00:26:11
that this candle
started this fire. It didn't happen. - [Richard] While no fire
investigation is simple,
00:26:19
investigators felt they'd
found enough evidence to be sure where the
fire had really started.
00:26:25
- We were confident the fire
originated on the mattress. The damage went from the top,
00:26:32
in other words, the mattress,
down, and up and out. - This was obvious that
the bed was lit on fire.
00:26:41
- [Richard] That
left a big question about Barbara's actions. The investigators were
beginning to wonder
00:26:46
whether was trying
to mislead them. - You know, why would she point
out this candle in this room
00:26:52
with all this damage in it? And how could she point
that candle out right away? We really felt,
00:26:58
with all of the
damage on the mattress and the little bit of damage
that candle did cause,
00:27:04
that that candle was
deliberately placed
onto the floor, and that fire damage
was deliberately caused
00:27:08
in order to direct us,
direct investigators in a different way. [soft music] - In Iowa, police were
investigating a case of arson
00:27:28
and murder. Tim Pasa was found
dead at the scene, but his body had revealed that he had been killed
before the fire even started.
00:27:37
Perhaps it held further secrets. Prime suspect was
his wife, Barbara. But what was her motive?
00:27:48
The investigators knew that
Tim and Barbara's marriage was in trouble, but they also discovered
they had money problems.
00:27:56
- They were living pretty
much paycheck to paycheck, and Barb advised that she had
an online spending problem.
00:28:04
They were looking at a divorce. Barb was one who kind of
liked a status in town and didn't have the money,
if they weren't married,
00:28:14
to live the lifestyle
she was living. - [Richard] And the
family's financial records
00:28:19
revealed a recent change that struck the investigators
as particularly significant.
00:28:25
- We discovered that
through Barb's employer, they had increased Tim's
life insurance up to $200,000
00:28:34
in the last several months, prior to his death. - [Richard] That suggested
Barbara had a financial motive
00:28:41
to kill her husband, but the investigators still
didn't know how Tim had died. - Without another
definitive cause of death,
00:28:50
there's gonna be a lot
more work to be done in order to try to identify what drugs and poisonings
we need to test for.
00:28:59
I did what a lot of
forensic pathologists do, and that is, I pick up the phone and I call experts who can help
me take the case further on.
00:29:12
What other possibilities
should we be looking at? How do we expand our
toxicology testing
00:29:19
in order to try to find what
actually happened to Tim and caused his death? And we're also
gonna need the help
00:29:26
of law enforcement detectives to also help us in
what potential drugs
we need to test for.
00:29:34
- At the time of the incident, Barb was a nurse at
our local hospital. She worked in the operating room
00:29:40
and assisted with operations. - Which is very
important information, because that then
opens up medicines
00:29:49
that would not normally
be tested for on
toxicology screens. - So, a second toxicology
screen was performed
00:29:59
for more exotic or
unorthodox substances. - And it was that when we
received the result back
00:30:09
of propofol. - Propofol is a very
powerful anesthetic drug that's very commonly used
during surgery in hospital.
00:30:21
It's a drug that very rapidly
induces unconsciousness. But it also lowers
the blood pressure
00:30:27
and suppresses breathing, so it needs to be administered
by a skilled anesthetist.
00:30:32
Propofol is such a
potentially dangerous drug that it's even been used in
assisted dying cases in Canada
00:30:39
and has been suggested as a drug that could be used for
executions in the United States.
00:30:44
But it's a drug that should
only be found in cases from a hospital setting. So, the finding of
this drug in Tim's body
00:30:52
was a great surprise
for the investigators. - In my career, I've never
seen this drug in a case.
00:31:03
And we knew that Tim had not had any type of medical procedure in which he received propofol.
00:31:10
- [Richard] So, how had
such an unusual drug got into Tim's body? - The most likely
answer to that question
00:31:19
is that someone else injected
the propofol into his body. - [Richard] Dr.
Klein now felt sure
00:31:27
that Tim's death was not
natural or accidental. - And that finally
left homicide,
00:31:34
in which a person dies
at the hands of another, and that fit very well
with the circumstances
00:31:40
and my findings at autopsy. - [Richard] Dr. Klein
quickly told the detectives about his findings.
00:31:49
- It was bittersweet. It was, now we know
what caused the death, but now we know more about the
case and what has to happen.
00:31:58
- In all the years I've
investigated fires, this is the first case where
we've been able to prove
00:32:02
the person was murdered
prior to the fire. It really confirmed to us that this fire was more
than likely started
00:32:10
to conceal a crime. - [Richard] The investigators
were now hunting for a murderer,
00:32:18
and Barbara Pasa was
their prime suspect. They needed to find out if she could have stolen
a lethal dose of propofol
00:32:26
from the hospital
where she worked. - After using propofol, a doctor or a surgeon may
not use the entire amount.
00:32:36
It is capable of just being
thrown in a trash can. There's no logging
that needs to be done.
00:32:42
Barbara had very easy
access to propofol. It was her job to
clean up those items
00:32:48
used in a surgical room, and she was also in
charge of taking the trash from the surgical
room to the dumpster.
00:32:57
- [Richard] Tim had been
concerned for some time that his wife was
trying to poison him.
00:33:01
- Tim had contacted
one of his sisters a week or two prior, I believe, had told his sister,
00:33:08
"Oh, by the way, I think
Barb tried to poison me." He didn't explain any further.
00:33:13
I believe that was the last
text message that was sent. - [Richard] This
seemed to corroborate
00:33:18
what Tim's son had revealed
about his father's fears, that Barbara was trying to
poison him with Benadryl,
00:33:26
an over-the-counter medicine
used to treat allergies, such as hay fever. - I think if you were
trying to poison someone
00:33:34
with Benadryl, you need a lot of Benadryl. And they would
notice the symptoms. So you'd be tired,
you'd become very dry.
00:33:41
It's an antihistamine. Maybe Tim was noticing
that over time. - [Richard] And
the investigators
found something else
00:33:49
that might link
Barbara to the fire. - The master bathroom,
we found a grill lighter
00:33:54
sitting on the countertop
next to the sink, which we found a little
odd for a grill lighter
00:34:01
to be placed in that area. She told police investigators she used that grill lighter to
light the candle that morning
00:34:09
before she left. - [Richard] This grill lighter was a bit over the
top to light a candle,
00:34:14
but it would've been
the perfect device to set light to the mattress. The police now felt
they had enough evidence
00:34:21
to interview Barbara. - We were asking her
several tough questions. She knew that we knew
something was suspicious
00:34:32
and criminal in nature. The following day, a ambulance call was made
from her mother's residence
00:34:43
and was determined that she
was suffering from an overdose and she was immediately taken
to a hospital in Des Moines.
00:34:50
[siren blaring] I spoke with Barb and her mother and determined that Barb had
taken an overdose of insulin.
00:35:05
Barb was a diabetic. She knew how to
regulate her insulin. I would say it was an
intentional overdose.
00:35:14
- [Richard] When Barbara was
discharged from hospital, Mike was there waiting for her.
00:35:19
[siren blaring] - I think she was surprised
to see us outside the hospital when she was released,
00:35:28
but state law says that the
medical staff had to advise us when she was being released.
00:35:35
We immediately then
placed her under arrest for arson and murder. - When Tim Pasa died in a
house fire in May, 2018,
00:35:54
his badly burnt body was
still able to reveal the truth about what had happened to him.
00:35:59
He'd been killed by a
powerful anesthetic drug called propofol. And then his house was
deliberately set on fire.
00:36:07
The prime suspect
for both crimes: his wife, Barbara Pasa. Barbara Pasa was charged
with first degree murder
00:36:18
and first degree arson nearly two weeks after the fire. It was a big shock
for this small town.
00:36:27
- Since I've been with
the department since 2002, this was the first murder that we've had in
Centerville, Iowa.
00:36:34
- [Richard] From the autopsy
evidence, fire analysis, witness testimony,
and phone records,
00:36:40
investigators pieced
together what really happened on the day Tim
Pasa was murdered.
00:36:52
Saturday, May 5th, 2018, by 6:30 AM, the
couple's two children had left home to
catch the school bus
00:37:00
for their soccer tournament. Barbara told police she followed
them in her car at 7:00 AM,
00:37:10
but she had lied. - We'll determine that
Barb actually left later than she
originally told us.
00:37:18
- [Richard] 7:08 AM, Barbara
sent a text to her daughter saying she would be late.
00:37:24
7:20 AM, a neighbor
saw Barbara's car still parked in the garage. During this time,
00:37:32
Barbara must have disabled
the smoke detectors. - The first smoke detector
is very easy to tell,
00:37:38
that with that
door being opened, we really believe that that detector was
disabled intentionally.
00:37:44
- The one located in the area
of the fire was off the wall. The battery was
about three feet away
00:37:51
from the smoke detector. - We were confident that that detector
also had been disabled.
00:37:57
The battery had been taken
out of it prior to the fire. - [Richard] This was also
00:38:03
when Barbara must have
injected Tim with propofol. - It was the state's theory
that she did poison him
00:38:13
with the propofol and then set the bed on fire in hopes of covering
up any evidence.
00:38:22
- We really believe that the candle was deliberately
placed on the floor burning
00:38:27
and to set the
carpeting on fire, but a separate fire was
placed on the mattress
00:38:32
near her husband's
deceased body. That fire grew in
much more intensity and caused the
damage that we had.
00:38:44
- So, the state's stance
was Barb used the candle as a distractor or decoy to say that's how
the fire started.
00:38:54
- [Richard] Having killed Tim and, she believed,
covered her tracks, only then did
Barbara leave home.
00:39:01
- Barb left the residence,
went to a bank ATM, which also had a camera on it. We were able to secure evidence
00:39:12
to show the timeframe for that, which was around 7:26 AM. - [Richard] 7:30 AM,
several neighbors saw smoke
00:39:22
coming from the master bedroom
window of the Pasa home. They called 911. Firefighters arrived
just three minutes later.
00:39:31
[siren blaring] Neighbors desperately called
Barbara, but got no reply. - She had received several
missed phone calls,
00:39:39
text messages. She had reported that she was not able
to receive those calls. - [Richard] But by tracking
the cell phone towers
00:39:49
her mobile connected
to as she drove, investigators could show that Barbara deliberately
missed at least five phone calls
00:39:57
from neighbors trying to
warn her about the fire. - She finally, around
7:50, around 8:00,
00:40:07
responded to missed phone
calls and text messages. The thing that was
very interesting to me
00:40:14
was that she spoke
with the kids, she spoke with other
family members, but knowing that Tim
was at the residence,
00:40:22
she never once tried
to call Tim's phone. - The investigators suggested, that showed Barbara knew
Tim was already dead.
00:40:35
The investigators were satisfied
Barbara had murdered Tim, and the trial began on
September the 17th, 2019.
00:40:45
The autopsy evidence
was critical. - Having done a
complete autopsy, reviewing his medical records
00:40:52
and learning about
all the circumstances surrounding his death, the most compelling
00:40:57
and medically defensible
cause of death would be from propofol, because there was really
no other good explanation
00:41:04
for his death. We felt very comfortable
that this was a homicide. - [Richard] The defense argued
00:41:16
that the level of propofol
found in Tim's blood was low, much less than you'd
find in a patient
00:41:21
being anesthetized for surgery. But there is a good
explanation for this. Propofol is very rapidly
absorbed from the bloodstream
00:41:34
into the fattier
parts of the body. And there's quite a lot of fat
in the human body naturally.
00:41:39
A lot of it's underneath the
skin of the legs and the arms, but there's also a
large amount of fat
00:41:45
inside the abdomen and a big sheet of fat
that covers the bowel, called the omentum,
00:41:50
and the drug will have
moved from the bloodstream into this fatty tissue, but its damage will
already have been done.
00:41:57
Its effect on the brain,
its effect on breathing, starving the brain of
oxygen and causing death
00:42:03
will have taken place. Because of the
redistribution of the drug throughout the body,
00:42:08
it's not a surprise that only a low concentration
was found in the blood sample taken at the autopsy.
00:42:15
But that low
concentration doesn't mean that he wasn't injected with
a fatal dose of the drug.
00:42:22
It had done its damage
and then disappeared. In court, Barbara
tried other arguments.
00:42:31
She even suggested Tim might
have been using propofol as a recreational drug, but it was easy to
dismiss this theory.
00:42:41
- If he was someone
who would abuse it, the amount of propofol
in his system, there would've been a
needle still in his arm.
00:42:48
He would've passed
away that quickly. There were no needles found
in the location of the fire.
00:42:54
- And it would be pretty
hard to inject yourself and then start a fire, which appeared at this point
to be intentionally set.
00:43:02
- [Richard] But the
defense tried to discredit the fire analysis as well. - The defense really challenged
me on the candle theory.
00:43:10
They really wanted that candle
to be what caused this fire. - The defense was
possibly blaming the dog
00:43:19
for tipping over the candle,
which caused the fire. - When we take the
totality of the situation,
00:43:24
it's very hard to argue that that candle fell
off the nightstand and caused that fire.
00:43:29
That candle was deliberately
placed onto the floor, and that fire damage
was deliberately caused
00:43:34
in order to direct
investigators in a different way so that she could conceal
killing her husband.
00:43:42
- [Richard] After
a week of evidence, the prosecution argued they
had proved Barbara's guilt.
00:43:47
Her motive was financial gain, her means was the propofol
she stole from her workplace,
00:43:53
and her opportunity occurred
that Saturday morning while the children
were on a school bus
00:43:58
and she was alone
at home with Tim. The jury deliberated
for three hours. - The jury came back
with a verdict of guilty
00:44:08
on both arson, first degree,
and murder, first degree. In the state of Iowa,
murder, first degree,
00:44:16
is mandatory life imprisonment; on the arson, it is
a 25-year sentence. Barb will spend the rest of
her natural life in prison
00:44:29
- [Richard] For a
small Midwestern town, discovering that a
well-known local nurse
00:44:34
had abused her position of
trust to murder her husband was very shocking. - When Barb was finally
convicted, it was relief.
00:44:43
It was relief almost
for the whole community. You know, I hope it's something I don't have to go through
again in my career,
00:44:49
but I'm glad we were able
to use all our resources and get answers for
the family and for Tim,
00:44:57
but also knowing that things
were still gonna be hard. Here we have two children
00:45:01
that had now lost
both their parents, one to death and one to prison. So, it was bittersweet
on that aspect of it.
00:45:10
- [Richard] The community
rallied round as best it could. A fundraising campaign
00:45:15
to help the children replace
what they had lost in the fire smashed its original goal,
00:45:20
raising $20,000 for them
in less than a week. - The children make me proud. They've moved on.
00:45:26
They had terrific adult lives. They're my kids. They're part of
my family as well.
00:45:44
- This was nearly
the perfect crime. But bodies never lie. And Tim's body had revealed
00:45:51
that he had been injected
with a fatal dose of propofol. If Tim had lived just
a few more minutes,
00:45:58
his body would've eliminated
all of the propofol that Barbara had
injected into him,
00:46:03
and the evidence of his
murder would've disappeared. Even more shockingly,
propofol is not a pain killer.
00:46:11
Tim could have suffered terrible
pain as he burnt to death, and Barbara, as a nurse,
must have known that,
00:46:19
and that is what makes
this such a terrible crime. [sober music]