00:00:03
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: 25-year-old
Alisha Noel-Murray calling the police
to the Brooklyn home
00:00:23
she shares with
her husband, Omar. Alisha plays the part
of the just-widowed wife
00:00:33
in fear of her own life. Omar's family don't buy it. She's just a
greedy, materialistic
00:00:40
person who saw a come-up. She took it. NARRATOR: So which is it? Is Alisha a woman
whose husband's
00:00:48
life has been violently taken
from her, or is she the killer? As detectives work the case,
one fact soon emerges--
00:00:55
she'd taken out a large
insurance cover on her husband. Why does she need
that much money on him?
00:01:01
What's she going to do? [dramatic music] [soft piano] [foreboding music] NARRATOR: Brooklyn.
00:01:33
Home to a close-knit
community for New York's Caribbean immigrants,
and where Omar Murray met
00:01:40
his future bride Alisha Noel. Before he met Alisha,
he was previously married. After his divorce, he
moved in with us again,
00:01:51
and Alisha was our
next-door neighbor, so we knew her when we moved
in, and they became, you know,
00:01:58
acquainted at that point. NARRATOR: Omar's
younger brother, Alex, played a key role in the
couple getting together.
00:02:10
I was friends
with her nephew-- it's funny-- before we even
moved to the neighborhood,
00:02:15
and that was the
ironic part of it. So I knew someone in her family
before we even moved there,
00:02:21
but I wasn't really
acquainted with her until her and my brother got involved. It's a small world.
00:02:30
NARRATOR: What would
Alisha discover about the new man in her life? Omar Murray was a
Jamaican-born ironworker.
00:02:37
He was known as just
a fun-loving guy. He was deeply religious,
very devoted to his church.
00:02:45
My brother was a
hard-working man, a caring man, loving towards
family and friends, dependable.
00:02:55
He supported everyone, and he
was basically, like, the light of everyone's-- everyone's day.
00:03:02
NARRATOR: The eldest
of a large brood of siblings and half
siblings, Omar was the man everyone looked up to.
00:03:07
ALEX SCOTCHMAN: The relationship
I had with my brother was really cool, simply
because, like, he was,
00:03:12
like, a father figure to me. He's the oldest of five,
so I was around him a lot.
00:03:19
He definitely
inspired me to, you know, better myself at all
times because he was, you know,
00:03:24
such a great person. Hardworking, dedicated,
so I was around him a lot. And my father wasn't
really active in my life,
00:03:34
so he took that role. NARRATOR: Alisha was
not such an open book. Omar's family pieced together
what they could about the woman
00:03:43
he had fallen for. Investigating her
background, too, criminologist Brian Frederick.
00:03:50
BRIAN FREDERICK: Noel-Murray
was a Caribbean-American home-health care aide. Omar's mother, Eunice,
describes Noel-Murray as quiet,
00:03:59
a little bossy, and
a little controlling. CAROLYN CANVILLE: Alisha
Noel was a home-health aide.
00:04:06
She was a Caribbean American. Her mother had been a nurse. She was from Guyana. Her father was from Grenada.
00:04:13
Before they got together, I
didn't really know much of her until they got together because
she never really came around.
00:04:21
I didn't really see her outside. NARRATOR: Despite their
shared Caribbean heritage,
00:04:27
Alisha and Omar had grown up
in very different environments. I can imagine that
for Omar, Jamaica
00:04:34
might have been a place where
everybody knows your name. New York is different. It's very easy to
get lost in the city.
00:04:41
You're very much one
of millions of people. NARRATOR: As a
native New Yorker, Alisha Noel was
more worldly wise
00:04:47
than the devout Omar Murray,
but that didn't put him off. The two of them meet, and Omar
is just head over heels, madly
00:04:57
in love with her. When they first got together,
I would say it was, like, you know, the grass is greener
and everything's brighter,
00:05:06
and it was like the
honeymoon phase, you know? It was too good to be true. NARRATOR: It was 2010, and
too good to be true or not,
00:05:14
the couple decided
to settle down. It wasn't immediately
welcomed by everybody. There may be trouble ahead.
00:05:22
Omar and Alisha
were married quickly after a whirlwind romance. This was Omar's
second marriage, and
00:05:31
the first marriage had failed. His mother believed that
he would do anything to make this marriage
work because he was
00:05:37
still feeling responsible
for the failure of the first marriage. It's funny because we were
all skeptical at one point.
00:05:45
But, you know, he was happy. He seemed happy, she was happy. So we were happy
for them, you know?
00:05:52
NARRATOR: Omar wanted to
make his new bride happy, and he knew exactly how. Spend, spend, spend.
00:05:59
To my knowledge, Alisha
was very materialistic. Alisha had very
expensive taste.
00:06:04
She liked expensive
handbags, clothing. ALEX SCOTCHMAN: She was
very flashy and very
00:06:10
into high fashion. Louis Vuitton, all these foreign
cars, and all these things. She was like that when
we met her, in a way.
00:06:19
Like, when I got to know her,
she was very high fashion, and, you know, she
wanted the best things.
00:06:26
But, you know, that kind of
worked out because my brother, he liked the nice
things, you know?
00:06:30
So-- and he made good money,
so it wasn't an issue for him, so I guess that worked
out into her favor.
00:06:36
He's so madly in love,
just wants to please her. NARRATOR: The property
ladder beckoned.
00:06:42
CAROLYN CANVILLE:
The couple moves to the Brownsville
neighborhood of Brooklyn, get a nice house there.
00:06:48
NARRATOR: Brownsville is known
for poverty and high crime rates, but it was an
area where they could
00:06:53
afford to make a down payment
on a three-story, four-bedroom house. It was on Lott Avenue.
00:07:01
It's not real certain whether
or not they could actually afford the mortgage,
but it was something
00:07:05
that they both wanted. NARRATOR: But living in a nice
house in a tough neighborhood
00:07:10
meant that home security
was a top priority. The way that my
brother's house was set up,
00:07:19
there's a storm gate, which
means no one can get in unless you're, like, a
welder or you have, like,
00:07:24
some heavy machinery,
like a saw something. My brother had security cameras. He's had them since
they moved there.
00:07:33
The security cameras
were always on, and I knew that
because my brother showed me the security cameras.
00:07:40
NARRATOR: Settled and
secure in their new home, Omar and Alisha were
ready for the next step.
00:07:47
Pretty soon, they have
their baby daughter. She is just the
light of Omar's life.
00:07:53
He's just head
over heels in love with his little baby daughter. NARRATOR: Omar's
day-to-day existence
00:07:58
revolved around
his young family, his church in nearby Crown
Heights, and his job.
00:08:05
My brother, he usually
went to work and came home. NARRATOR: He wasn't the type of
man to go drinking with buddies
00:08:10
after work or to pursue
hobbies at the expense of time with his family. He was a homebody, content
just to be with his family,
00:08:20
which is what made the
events of February, 24, 2013, all the more shocking. Sunday, February 24, 2013,
was damp and overcast.
00:08:52
At around 1 o'clock
in the afternoon, an emergency services dispatcher
in Brooklyn, New York,
00:08:57
took this call. Omar Murray had been out
to the grocery store. As he returned, arms
laden with paper sacks,
00:09:16
it seemed he was
ambushed on his doorstep. 12:56 PM, Omar arrives
back at the house.
00:09:24
12:58 PM, Omar approaches the
door, opens the door, and boom. He's shot three
times in the chest,
00:09:34
right there in his own doorway. [gunshots] Ballistics will later reveal
that Omar was shot as he
00:09:43
approached his house, and
the shots came from inside the house out towards him. ALEX SCOTCHMAN: When
he came in, they--
00:09:50
the shooter was on the stairs,
and they tussled a little bit. But the shooter had
the high ground.
00:09:57
My brother fell back, and
that's when he shot him. Later, Alisha
would tell the court
00:10:07
that Omar stumbled inside
the house, fell to the floor, and called for his mother.
00:10:14
NARRATOR: In a
second-floor bedroom, nursing a 10-month-old daughter,
Alisha heard the gunshots.
00:10:29
After the
shooting, Alisha call the police talking about she
heard some popping sounds--
00:10:37
I don't know how it's popping
sounds if the whole gun going off in the house-- and she was in the
room with the baby,
00:10:44
on the phone with the police. She calls 911, but she
tells them that there may be
00:10:52
an active shooter in the house. By Alisha saying
that there was an active shooter
on the premises,
00:11:00
it's a different type response. NARRATOR: Former homicide
detective Rod Demery believes Alisha's words to
the 911 dispatcher caused
00:11:08
a catastrophic
delay in her husband getting the medical help that
he so desperately needed.
00:11:14
Whereas if she
would have called and said that he had been
shot and on the floor,
00:11:18
they would have
responded medically. When she changes that scenario
to it being an active shooter,
00:11:25
they respond tactically. The first thing
they're going to do is make sure that the
premises are safe,
00:11:30
and they're going in looking
for an active shooter with that in mind. It's going to delay
the paramedics' arrival
00:11:37
because, obviously,
we want to make sure that the scene is
safe before paramedics
00:11:42
are dispatched. NARRATOR: Alisha was
too scared to leave the locked bedroom while she
waited with her daughter.
00:11:49
She, you know,
didn't even, like, go try to tend to her husband. She was a nurse, and
I feel like, you know,
00:11:57
if your husband is wounded,
you're going to try to keep him alive as much as you can.
00:12:08
Police clear the
house to make sure there is no active shooter. NARRATOR: All the while
this was happening,
00:12:13
Omar was lying badly
wounded in the entrance of their Lott Avenue townhouse. He was alone.
00:12:20
He actually bled out. He was alive after he got
shot for a little while. Eventually
paramedics got to Omar
00:12:29
and attempted to save him
and rush him to the hospital, but it was too late. The losing of my brother was--
00:12:38
was, like, the craziest thing
I ever experienced in my life. NARRATOR: Detectives
investigating
00:12:43
the murder suspected a
home invasion gone wrong. This was Brownsville, after all,
the area of New York with one
00:12:50
of the highest
rates of gun crime. I'm sure the neighbors would
have probably, you know--
00:12:56
what's up, who's been
shot now, you know? I don't think anybody
would have really, um,
00:13:01
thought twice about
him being killed by some random assailant. NARRATOR: Investigators had
what they expected from Alisha.
00:13:11
ROD DEMERY: Alisha
was interviewed at length by police. She said that she
didn't know anything
00:13:16
and had no idea who would
do that to her husband. NARRATOR: Cops could find
nothing in Omar's private life
00:13:22
that would have given anyone
the motive to kill him. They hoped for an
early breakthrough
00:13:27
when they realized the family
home was rigged for CCTV. As investigators are
checking the house,
00:13:34
they noticed there are
three security cameras. They found something
peculiar, and that
00:13:39
was all the surveillance
cameras had been turned off. NARRATOR: Odd enough, but other
anomalies began to appear.
00:13:47
The security cameras was
right between the storm gate and the house door, so it
had to be from the inside
00:13:54
that someone took it out because
you can't get into the storm gate unless you have a key.
00:14:00
That really was
vital to the case, also, because everyone knows
that those cameras only
00:14:09
got taken out from the inside. NARRATOR: But these
weren't the only cameras keeping a watchful eye
on the Noel-Murray home.
00:14:16
As darkness fell that
evening on Lott Avenue, police were scrutinizing
surveillance
00:14:20
footage from across the street. 12:43 PM, Omar leaves
for the grocery store, then we see a black truck
pulling up across the street.
00:14:33
NARRATOR: A tall man in dark
clothing opens the truck door. He gets out of his
truck, crosses the street,
00:14:40
and enters the building. Omar is gone less
than 15 minutes. 12:56 PM, we see Omar
arrive back at the house.
00:14:53
12:58 PM, Omar walks to the
front door to get back home, and he's shot-- [gunshots]
00:15:01
--three times in the chest
and falls to the ground. NARRATOR: And the
police officers
00:15:07
knew exactly who the mystery
man entering Omar's house was-- 25-year-old Kirk Portious,
a local man with a history
00:15:14
of violent crime. Shortly after
Alisha's 911 call, we see Kirk Portious leaving the
building, get into his vehicle,
00:15:22
and heading down the street. NARRATOR: When police
picked up Kirk Portious, they quickly linked him
to two other accomplices--
00:15:29
Dameon Lovell and
getaway driver Dion Jack. The very next day,
New York City detectives
00:15:36
arrested three men in
connection with the murder. NARRATOR: At this stage,
none of the men were talking,
00:15:41
but it seemed cops
had their man-- or men, None were thought to
be known to Alisha Noel-Murray,
00:15:47
and there was no obvious
motive for her to kill him. To cover all bases,
police began digging
00:15:54
into the lives of Omar and
Alisha, and what they found raised alarm bells. They discovered that there
was some serious problems
00:16:02
in the three-year-old marriage. Very soon into the
marriage, the couple was struggling financially.
00:16:08
Alisha's not keeping up
with their car payments. She's even stolen $100,000
from her own mother.
00:16:15
The couple is falling behind
on their house payments on their half-million
dollar home,
00:16:20
and now the house is
up for foreclosure. NARRATOR: It's a scenario
forensic psychologist
00:16:26
Dr. Judy Ho has come across
all too often in her career. Financial stress is difficult
for any couple to manage,
00:16:33
but in this case,
Alisha was actually making their financial stress
worse because she was going
00:16:38
on these spending
sprees when they clearly didn't have the money. NARRATOR: Cops also discovered
another curious detail in
00:16:44
the couple's financial history. Not long after their
marriage, Alisha and Omar took out two separate
insurance policies on Omar.
00:16:52
Omar's life insurance policies
totaled over $650,000. And before long, a third
life insurance policy.
00:16:59
Altogether these
three policies are worth almost a million dollars. Let's not forget Omar
was an ironworker, right?
00:17:07
We can imagine that
people with, you know, really successful
jobs might have large life insurance
policies or a big family
00:17:13
to support should they die. NARRATOR: But
detectives knew this was an unusually large sum
to take out an insurance
00:17:20
on a man with his earnings. Even as she grieved, Alisha
wanted to get her hands on the insurance money.
00:17:26
Meanwhile, two days
after the murder, Alisha is already trying
to collect on those life
00:17:33
insurance policies. Some people might think,
unbelievable, you know, who does this, right?
00:17:39
But this is her
thought process-- she feels entitled
to that money. The fact that she
waited two days
00:17:45
was probably very
difficult for her to do. She probably wanted to
call them that night.
00:17:51
NARRATOR: Insurers refused
at this stage to payout. Too much was still unknown
about Omar Murray's death.
00:17:57
But weeks later, Alisha found
another way of cashing in on her husband's death. We have an account in Jamaica.
00:18:04
She went there, took
all the money out, and gave a small portion
to his family in Jamaica,
00:18:11
to his father's
side of the family. She barely gave him anything. She lied to them and told them
that there was a certain amount
00:18:18
in there, but there
was much more, and she gave them
a small amount. So she basically
had a greed problem.
00:18:24
NARRATOR: Alisha's
actions simply confirmed what Omar's family and
NYPD cops increasingly
00:18:30
believed about the young widow. Instead of feeling
devastation that her marriage
00:18:35
had been brutally cut short,
Alisha was seeing dollar signs. Was she in league with whoever
had killed her husband?
00:18:45
ALEX SCOTCHMAN: After
the death of my brother, she showed no emotion. I believe if any human
being loses their loved one,
00:18:52
let alone their spouse, you're
going to feel something. You're going to, you know,
exert some type of emotion,
00:18:59
and she showed nothing of that. NARRATOR: Even the forthcoming
funeral of her husband
00:19:05
and her daughter's father didn't
move Alisha to make an effort. March 8, 2013,
funeral services
00:19:13
are held for Omar
Murray at the Full Gospel Assembly of God church. Alisha didn't help the family
at all with the planning
00:19:21
of the service. I wrote her on Facebook,
and I said, you know, I'm only reaching out to you
because I would like for us
00:19:29
to have a headstone
for him, and she was in control of that,
because at the moment,
00:19:33
she was still his wife. So we had no say-so in that. And although I was going
through all the emotions
00:19:40
and frustrations, I still took
it upon myself to try to, like, at least get a headstone
for my brother,
00:19:48
and she was-- she didn't
even respond to me. She read the message,
did not respond.
00:19:54
NARRATOR: On the day
itself, Alisha's behavior told its own story. She didn't cry at the funeral,
she didn't cry at the burial.
00:20:01
There in the
front pew is Alisha, sitting there, chewing gum. JUDY HO: I think Alisha
clearly had no emotions
00:20:10
at her husband's funeral, but
I think that does show you that there was no connection.
00:20:17
It was like dealing
with a robot or something. And, you know, my family,
we were all grieving,
00:20:22
and she was sitting there. She didn't come over, she
didn't try to, like, you know,
00:20:27
grieve with us. Like, we both lost
someone important to us that we loved, and
it was crazy to me
00:20:33
that she sat there,
just OK with everything. Sometimes people who are very
connected to their loved ones
00:20:42
still don't cry at funerals,
but for her, in her case, I believe that shows
just how removed she was.
00:20:48
She was there for pretenses, she
was there for propriety's sake, but she just wanted
it to be over.
00:20:55
NARRATOR: Feeling more
certain by the day that her daughter-in-law was
hiding a terrible secret,
00:20:59
Omar's mother, Eunice,
eventually shared her fears with close family. I guess it was
mother's intuition,
00:21:05
she knew it was Alisha. She didn't even tell me
it was Alisha at first because, you know, it-- it
would have tore me apart
00:21:12
because I was actually close
to Alisha at some point because I made her the
godmother of my-- my--
00:21:17
my-- my daughter
and also my brother. So it really-- it
was crazy for me because I was
stabbed in the back.
00:21:27
Like, I had severe
trust issues after that. NARRATOR: Horrified
at how cold she seemed, Omar's family confronted
Alisha at the gravesite.
00:21:37
They're not
buying this at all. They know she's done
it, and they say to her, we know you killed
him for greed, out
00:21:43
of greed and wanting his money. We know you're guilty. NARRATOR: She continued
to deny knowing anything
00:21:50
about her husband's
murder, but detectives were to make another intriguing
discovery about the secret life
00:21:56
of Alisha Noel-Murray. She was definitely having
an affair with Dameon, and they were involved in
activities while my brother
00:22:06
was in the house at the time. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: The death
of Omar Murray
00:22:17
didn't seem to have ruffled the
feathers of his widow too much. Alisha Noel-Murray continued
to live the high life
00:22:22
in a story which
had a way to go, including how poison had
been used to try to kill
00:22:29
Omar without him ever knowing. New York detectives, unconvinced
of the role that Alisha may
00:22:35
or may not have played
in her husband's death, decided to examine Noel-Murray's
cell phone records,
00:22:41
and they were intrigued
to find one number that came up again and again-- that of Dameon Lovell.
00:22:47
Around January of
2013, Alisha starts having an affair with a man
by the name of Dameon Lovell.
00:22:54
He's a Rite-Aid
drug store worker. NARRATOR: The affair
had begun just a month or so before Omar's murder.
00:23:02
Alisha was pretty brazen about
her relationship with Dameon, so much so that
she and Dameon had
00:23:08
sex inside their family home. She was sleeping with
him while my brother was on the upper floor with--
00:23:15
with my niece. So it's-- it was--
it was really crazy. We had no idea this was
even going on at all.
00:23:23
You know, my brother's
not the type to involve his family into these matters. So he wasn't really
vocal about it.
00:23:32
Noel-Murray is also bringing
men into the house and having sex with them, often
while Omar is upstairs
00:23:38
looking after their daughter. Criminologist NARRATOR: Dr. Brian Frederick
believes this fact alone
00:23:43
betrays troubling flaws
in Alisha's personality, even evidence of a
psychopath at work.
00:23:50
Not only does this sort
of satisfy the-- you know, the psychopaths' characteristic
of sexual promiscuity,
00:23:57
but it also
demonstrates an utter lack of regard for
the feelings of her husband and her daughter.
00:24:04
NARRATOR: It was disturbing,
but it wasn't a crime. Cops would need
more if they were
00:24:08
going to prove that
Alisha had caused harm to come to her husband. When forensics completed their
analysis of the crime scene,
00:24:16
there was a breakthrough. The investigation yielded
some ballistic results, and that was that
Omar was actually
00:24:26
shot by a gun he owned. CAROLYN CANVILLE: And
they learn that Omar wasn't carrying the gun on him,
so alarm bells are going off.
00:24:34
NARRATOR: How had Kirk
Portious, strongly suspected of being a hitman,
got his hands on Omar's gun?
00:24:41
Cops believe the answer
lay in another piece of video surveillance, one that
shows Alisha's lover Dameon
00:24:47
Lovell visiting her to collect
the firearm in the days before the murder. The theory was that
Dameon had passed
00:24:55
the weapon on to Kirk
Portious, who had then carried out the killing. It was enough to bring
charges against the men.
00:25:03
Kirk Portious and Dameon
Lovell are both charged with first-degree murder,
and they're held without
00:25:08
bond at Rikers Island jail. The getaway driver
is also charged with hindering prosecution,
and he's out on a $5,000 bond.
00:25:19
NARRATOR: Without more
evidence or a confession, detectives felt that they
didn't have enough to charge
00:25:25
Alisha Noel-Murray. She remained free and
got on with her life. A year and a half goes by.
00:25:32
Alisha is still not talking
and still not charged. There was just this one time--
00:25:38
I think it was at the Labor Day
Parade, two years-- or, a year after my brother
passed, she attended it.
00:25:44
And I seen her--
and this was while the case was still going on-- and I said, look at that.
00:25:50
Your husband just died, and
you're out here partying. Like, she seemed like nothing--
00:25:58
nothing even happened. NARRATOR: Widowed at 25, Alisha
Noel was keen to love again.
00:26:05
September 14, 18 months
after her husband's death, Alisha marries again, a
man by the name of Jose.
00:26:12
Jose Abreu. She will later admit that,
during their marriage, she also got some life
insurance policies.
00:26:21
One wonders-- if she
hadn't been caught-- if she would have ended
up murdering him as well.
00:26:27
ALICIA MURRAY: So what would
it take to stop another of Alisha's men from
mysteriously dying, only to see
00:26:33
her cash in on insurance? In the spring of 2016, as Dameon
Lovell's trial date approached,
00:26:40
he started looking for a
way to avoid his sentence being as bad as it could be. What ultimately happened
is Dameon Lovell took a plea,
00:26:49
and he admitted to
everything that happened. Dameon told detectives that he
and Alisha had a relationship,
00:26:57
and they planned and plotted
together to murder Omar. I believe she used
Dameon in a way to, like,
00:27:06
blame him for everything,
which is why I also believe he came forward-- what give him more of a reason
to come forward to confess
00:27:17
that they planned this
together, because she tried to throw him under the bus. NARRATOR: Dameon
explained to detectives
00:27:24
how Alisha had first raised the
idea of killing her husband. She talks about her
debt problems, and just--
00:27:31
she's just desperate to-- to-- to get a handle on
her debt, and she asks him, is there any way
he can help her.
00:27:40
She explained to Dameon
that she was the beneficiary on three of his life
insurance policies,
00:27:45
and the only way to clear
her debt was to kill him. NARRATOR: Alisha told
Dameon that she needed
00:27:49
his help because
he'd already made one failed attempt on Omar's life. Dameon told
investigators that Alisha
00:27:56
had told him she tried to murder
him before, but it didn't work. NARRATOR: And her method
of trying to kill him?
00:28:03
Lacing his food with
killer ingredients. In October of 2012, the
couple gets into a fight.
00:28:11
Alisha claims that
Omar has admitted to sleeping with a prostitute. We don't have any idea
whether this is true or not,
00:28:18
but she claims that-- that he admits to it, and
he-- and he says he's sorry. This, at this point,
is when she will
00:28:26
make her first attempt to kill
him by poisoning his dinner. Poison as a method
for female killers
00:28:35
is actually quite
a popular method. In general, what we know
about female killers,
00:28:39
is that they tend not to like
to get their hands too dirty, so they don't actually
do any kind of close-up,
00:28:44
bloody types of killings. They tend to use poison or
shooting at a father range so that they actually don't
have to approach the victim
00:28:53
and have to even
clean up the mess. NARRATOR: After the alleged
row over the sex worker,
00:28:58
Omar ate his dinner
and fell violently ill. I wasn't present that day
that he was, you know, acting,
00:29:08
like, weird and sick. My mother and brother,
I believe, were there. They-- she didn't want
doctors to check his organs,
00:29:16
like, you know, if they want
to donate because of the fact that she poisoned him.
00:29:22
NARRATOR: Omar
survived the attack, and if he suspected his
wife was the perpetrator,
00:29:26
he refused to admit it
to family and friends. He wouldn't speak
to me or, you know,
00:29:32
our family while--
because when-- he didn't want to worry us. He was the protector, you know?
00:29:37
So he didn't want anyone to ever
think anything was going on. He always took
everything upon himself.
00:29:44
NARRATOR: Alex Scotchman has
no doubt that this was Alisha's first attempt to
kill his brother,
00:29:49
but he finds the motive she gave
for doing so hard to believe. She tried to poison him--
00:29:56
about the-- him
sleeping with somebody, I honestly don't believe. He's not that type of person.
00:30:02
And I honestly
feel she-- she said those things because she had
some type of ulterior motive.
00:30:10
You know, like, she just wanted
to use that as a cover-up or something to make it look
like she was in the right,
00:30:15
to feel the way she did. NARRATOR: Perhaps she
was spinning the story of Omar the cheating
husband to persuade Dameon
00:30:22
Lovell to do her bidding. Noel-Murray alleged
that Omar had had some affair with a prostitute.
00:30:29
This is an excuse. She used it as a pity
play, to get people to feel sorry for her, to maybe
provide some justification
00:30:36
for what she went on to do. I think Alisha really played
up this idea that she was
00:30:40
somehow a victim that
needed to be rescued, and getting a lover to
commit the deed for her,
00:30:47
and to do away with her husband. And I think she kind of
knew where she could go,
00:30:53
in terms of really delving
into the parts of her that were attractive to a
man, being able to paint
00:30:59
this picture of how
a person can rescue her from her unhappiness. NARRATOR: And Dameon
Lovell was happy to oblige.
00:31:08
Murder attempt number two,
orchestrated by Alisha, begins. So as the affair continues,
the plot begins to unfold.
00:31:18
A month before Omar died,
Noel-Murray has entered into a relationship with another
guy, and she sort of worked
00:31:24
her psychopathic genius on him. I mean, one month to sort of
get him to kill her husband.
00:31:30
You know, that's, um--
that's pretty remarkable. February 6, 2013, the
first hitman is hired.
00:31:40
ALEX SCOTCHMAN: I believe her
lover at the time, Dameon, planned this. And they both knew,
like, you know, to--
00:31:49
when they get this done,
the life insurance policy would, you know, kick in. They would be well off or
whatever the case may be.
00:31:58
She sent them to
the car to try to-- I think it was fix a tire,
like, a flat tire or something.
00:32:03
And when he went to
the car, he realized that there was no
flat tire, there was nothing wrong
with the car, and then
00:32:09
he began to get shot at. [gunshot] NARRATOR: The gunman missed,
and Omar managed to crawl
00:32:14
back inside his home to safety. Once again, if he
suspected his wife, he kept his fears to himself.
00:32:22
If he'd had the
slightest suspicion that his wife
wanted to kill him, would Omar not have walked out?
00:32:28
I think a lot of
times when people are on their second,
third, fourth marriage, at some point they
basically make
00:32:35
this decision that
they don't want to have to repeat this process again. And no matter how
modern our society gets,
00:32:42
there's still a lot of
stigma about divorces, particularly if you
have more than one.
00:32:46
And I think that, in
many ways, Omar didn't want to have a second divorce. He really didn't want
to be that person.
00:32:52
NARRATOR: He wanted to
believe in his wife. Omar's mother other believed
that he ignored any red flags
00:32:59
about Alisha and told
himself that everything was going to be fine. NARRATOR: Perhaps his
love of his baby girl
00:33:05
played a part, too. Leaving Alisha would
mean leaving her. But whatever was in
Omar's mind as he mulled
00:33:11
over his second
brush with death, he could not have known how
quickly the would-be assassins
00:33:16
would strike again. Omar is probably
upset that, you know, twice she had
tried to kill Omar.
00:33:24
Twice she had failed. You know the old saying
three times is a charm? NARRATOR: In an interview room
in New York's high security
00:33:35
Rikers Island prison
in late spring 2016, Dameon Lovell was laying
out for detectives
00:33:40
the history of his brief
but bloody relationship with Alisha Noel-Murray. The life insurance
policies, the affair.
00:33:49
He says that Alisha had
asked him to help get her husband killed, that
she had tried to poison him
00:33:56
but it failed. NARRATOR: After the botched
shooting on February the 6th, Dameon reached out to a
more reliable candidate--
00:34:04
gang member Kirk Portious. He gave Portious a $500
down payment to carry out a hit on Omar Murray.
00:34:13
Dameon also provided a gun,
and that gun belonged to Omar. Lovell explained to Portious
that if he completed the task,
00:34:21
he would be given an
additional $3,000. NARRATOR: The source of
the cash and the weapon
00:34:26
was none other than
Omar's wife, Alisha. And it was she who set up
her husband as a target
00:34:31
on the day of his death. On the 24th of February,
2013 is when Omar was murdered.
00:34:37
Alisha sent him to the grocery
store to run other errands. NARRATOR: Kirk Portious
and his getaway driver
00:34:43
were cruising Lott
Avenue in Brownsville, awaiting their opportunity
to get Omar alone.
00:34:49
ALEX SCOTCHMAN: She was giving
her brother a ride to church, I believe. I think that was
the first attempt
00:34:54
for them to get in the house,
but he came back too fast. Then she sent him to
the grocery store,
00:35:01
and the shooter called her, um,
and told her that they didn't want to do it there
because of, you know,
00:35:10
the-- the civilians around
and too many witnesses. So then she told them to
come back to the house
00:35:17
before he did, and
she did let them in. 13 minutes later,
Omar returns home. And two minutes after
that, he walks to his house
00:35:28
and is shot three
times in the chest. NARRATOR: This time,
Lovell told cops, everything had gone to plan.
00:35:34
With a report of an active
shooter in the house, Alisha kept first responders
at bay while Omar bled
00:35:40
out in the foyer of his home. I think she so did not
want to get her hands dirty
00:35:47
that she waited until the
deed was completely done, and she could be
very assured of it.
00:35:51
And I think at this point, there
was no empathy for her husband, there was no love.
00:35:56
She had completely cut that
part of her emotions off. And I think she was just
waiting for the moment
00:36:02
when she could say
that he was dead. I think she really
saw this as a project that needed to be completed.
00:36:08
NARRATOR: All that was
left was to cash in on the life insurance,
and Alisha and Dameon
00:36:13
would be sitting pretty. After a frustrating
three-year investigation, detectives were finally
satisfied they had enough to go
00:36:20
on to charge Mrs. Noel-Murray. June of 2016, Alisha
Noel-Murray is finally charged with first-degree murder
in the killing of her husband.
00:36:32
First-degree murder
is premeditated, or what we call
malice aforethought. There was some planning involved
before the murder actually
00:36:38
happened. The fact that she
didn't pull the trigger doesn't excuse her from a
first-degree murder charge.
00:36:44
She orchestrated the killing. NARRATOR: A year later,
Alisha stood in the dock in the Supreme Court.
00:36:51
She denied all charges. Throughout the trial, Alisha
maintained her innocence. She just insisted
she had nothing
00:36:59
to do with her husband's death. ALEX SCOTCHMAN: It was--
it was very frustrating
00:37:02
because we all knew she did it. NARRATOR: By this time, hitman
Kirk Portious had also turned
00:37:08
on the woman who hired him. She was trying to fight it
hard, and the shooter and, um,
00:37:15
Dameon, I believe, confessed
about the-- the plans that they conspired with each other.
00:37:22
Kurt Portious, who had an
extensive violent history, also struck a deal for
second-degree murder.
00:37:30
NARRATOR: The Brooklyn
District Attorney's Office were confident the right
woman was in the dock.
00:37:35
The prosecution had
mountains of evidence. They had the testimony
of Kirk Portious,
00:37:39
they had the testimony
of Dameon Lovell, and they ballistics
reports that Omar was murdered with his own gun.
00:37:46
The cameras, and the
storm gate, and the shooter was in the house already
while she was in the house.
00:37:52
ROD DEMERY: The
prosecution could also prove that the couple
was in financial straits
00:37:57
and that Alisha was willing
to cash in on those life insurance policies. That life insurance
policy, its sole purpose
00:38:07
was to fund her lifestyle
after he was gone. ROD DEMERY: They also provided
cell phone records that
00:38:12
show Lovell and Alisha
were in constant contact with each other during
the time of the murder.
00:38:18
NARRATOR: It was
a compelling case. There was little
Alisha Noel-Murray could convincingly say as she
tried to protest her innocence.
00:38:26
June 18, 2017, a Brooklyn jury
finds Alisha Noel-Murray guilty of first-degree murder,
attempted murder, and a illegal
00:38:37
possession of a weapon. It took the jury all of three
hours to return the verdict.
00:38:43
About a week later, Kirk
Portious is also found guilty, the same charges by
a different jury,
00:38:52
and two weeks later,
they're both sentenced to life without parole. They're, at this
time, 29 years old.
00:39:03
NARRATOR: Lovell's
plea bargain meant he was ordered to serve
15 years in prison
00:39:06
for second-degree murder. Whilst listening to a
judge pronounce her fate, Alisha remained as she
had been throughout-- cold
00:39:14
and impassive. She was neither remorseful nor
accepting that she had done it. After she was convicted,
she maintained that.
00:39:23
She still, to this day,
insists that she's not guilty, even though the
evidence is pretty
00:39:27
overwhelming at this point. NARRATOR: The chilly demeanor
of the woman that they had once
00:39:31
welcomed as a sister
heaped extra pain on Omar's loving family. I would never
imagine someone--
00:39:39
let alone, you know, your
wife, the mother of your child, do something like that to you.
00:39:45
You have no care, you know? You have no remorse. It's just-- it's foul. NARRATOR: The family takes
some comfort from the fact
00:39:53
that Alisha Noel-Murray
will never be free to dupe and kill another man like Omar.
00:39:59
We were happy, yes,
because something was done, and she's going to serve her
time for what she's done.
00:40:05
But me, personally,
at the same time, my brother is no longer here. Omar's mother said she
believed that Alisha should
00:40:11
spend 900,000 years in
prison, one for every dollar that she attempted
to take from Omar.
00:40:18
I wanted an eye
for an eye, you know? That was-- you know, at the
beginning-- but, you know,
00:40:23
I had to humble myself and
sit down and remember that, you know, if-- she's serving time.
00:40:30
She's suffering. So, you know, it's-- that became something that was
justified in my eyes, you know?
00:40:38
Like, you know,
he's no longer here, but she's not going to
be living a good life
00:40:42
for the rest of her life. So it worked out. NARRATOR: The insurance
policy was worth $900,000
00:40:49
to Alisha Noel-Murray. The gunman Kirk Portious
had been promised $3,500. The price put on the
life of Omar Murray.
00:41:02
[dramatic music]