00:00:03
[music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Narrowsburg, upstate New York.
00:00:12
A house burns to the ground. Neighbors were
waking up in the dark seeing this glow
in the distance.
00:00:20
Some people thought
it was the sunrise. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): The house's owners, Paul
and Catherine Novak,
00:00:25
recently separated,
and now, one of them lies dead in the
smoldering basement. She had been found lying on
the basement floor on her back
00:00:34
with her arms outstretched. She had been crushed by
falling debris when the house
00:00:38
collapsed in the fire. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Catherine, a mother of two
young children, is dead,
00:00:44
and her friends don't
think it's an accident. I immediately thought, oh,
my god, she was murdered.
00:00:50
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Connected somehow is Paul
Novak's friend, Scott Sherwood.
00:00:55
So you knew the
house was on fire. Did he say how he strangled her? Paul Novak paid him to drive
him upstate to kill his wife.
00:01:04
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): It's an all too familiar story,
lust, greed, and a husband
00:01:11
accused of murder. They told me that a
body was found there, but they weren't sure if
it was Catherine's or not.
00:01:16
The motive was undeniable. But could investigators
prove that Paul Novak had actually killed his wife?
00:01:23
I'm Michelle Trachtenberg,
and we'll find out right now, on "Meet, Marry, Murder."
00:01:28
[music playing] In a Florida police
station 1,000 miles south of Narrowsburg,
New York, a woman
00:01:47
named Michelle
LaFrance tells a story of love, intrigue, and murder. He was gonna do this.
00:01:55
He was gonna do this
and save the children. How does the conversation go? Like, what is he-- what is he
telling you that he wants to do
00:02:00
or how does that come about? That he was gonna
kill Catherine. And he says that to you?
00:02:07
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Days later, a paramedic
named Scott Sherwood confirms
00:02:12
Michelle's twisted story. They say if
Catherine mentioned anything during the struggle?
00:02:18
Why are you doing this? And what was his response? Doing this for the kids. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:02:24
Sherwood claims to have
been Paul Novak's accomplice in the murder of his wife
and wants to come clean, even
00:02:30
if it means going to prison. He was manipulated. I honestly don't think that,
but for Paul Novak existing,
00:02:40
Scott would have ever committed
a crime in his entire life. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:02:43
To unravel this
mystery, detectives need to get to
the bottom of Paul and Catherine's seemingly
happy marriage, which
00:02:51
began when they met each
other as young paramedics in New York. [siren wailing, music playing]
00:03:01
Paul Novak met Catherine
in the summer of 1996 at an Ambulance Corps barbecue. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): As a child,
00:03:07
Catherine came from a
family that constantly struggled to make
ends meet, a fact that
00:03:12
haunted her into adulthood. LINDA RODRIGUEZ: Catherine was
raised in Glendale, New York.
00:03:16
She was the fourth and
the youngest child. And her family didn't have
a lot of money growing up,
00:03:21
but Catherine was determined
and she was hard working. She put herself through
college doing odd jobs,
00:03:26
and when she graduated, she
decided to find a career where she could help people.
00:03:31
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): While in her early
20s, Catherine met her first
husband, an emergency
00:03:37
medical technician,
while volunteering at a local hospital. She became a first responder,
but the fast-paced lifestyle
00:03:44
wasn't for her, so they
split after four years. After that, Catherine
vowed never to date
00:03:50
another paramedic ever again. But then, she met Paul Novak. In those days right after
9/11 and at the very early years
00:04:00
of the Iraq war, anyone with a
paramedic uniform on from New York you kind of assumed
might have been a hero.
00:04:08
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul was a popular figure in
the Jamaica Hospital Ambulance
00:04:12
Service where he worked. Tall and strong, he liked being
known as the guy who saved
00:04:18
lives, and he had a
reputation for somehow being able to bring victims
back from the brink of death.
00:04:26
A lot of Paul's buddies
secretly believed he was only in the
job for the glory, unlike Catherine, who actually
cared about her patients.
00:04:35
Catherine and Paul were
different, very different. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:04:38
Catherine was the
quiet one, reliable, always on top of everything. Paul, on the other
hand, not so much.
00:04:46
He tended to spend
his money on electronics and was perpetually fixing up
motorcycles that he would then
00:04:52
race around in the woods
in upstate New York at 160 miles an hour. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:04:56
Friends and
co-workers didn't get what the two saw in each other. I think Paul Novak only
cared about Paul Novak.
00:05:03
On the surface, it didn't
seem like their relationship would really work. But she loved him.
00:05:09
And on Valentine's Day,
1997, the two were married. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:05:16
Years later, Paul and
Catherine's friends would say the red flags were all there.
00:05:21
Paul burned through money
faster than he could make it. He was hooked on porn and
watched X-rated movies
00:05:27
while parked in his ambulance. But Catherine was
oblivious to all of it, or maybe just
chose to ignore it.
00:05:36
And the behavior of Paul
Novak within that community of paramedics, the
adrenaline rush,
00:05:41
the drug use, the porn
addiction, you know, all of it, very dark. That-- that was
eye-popping, yes.
00:05:52
What does he say
happened inside the house? He had said that the
chloroform didn't work.
00:05:58
I had to strangle her. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): That was Scott Sherwood talking
to detectives after Catherine
00:06:04
Novak's murder, a homicide
that involved Paul mixing a batch of chloroform
before convincing
00:06:11
Scott to help kill his wife. But before any of
that, Catherine was just a naive newlywed who
thought marriage would curb
00:06:19
Paul's reckless spending,
only to discover he was still secretly living
beyond their means, way beyond.
00:06:28
LINDA RODRIGUEZ:
Novak had a history of being bad with money. In 1998, he had
filed for bankruptcy.
00:06:34
In 2003, Catherine,
who had always been very good with her money,
very cautious and very careful,
00:06:40
also filed for bankruptcy. As it turned out, Novak had
spent most of their money
00:06:44
on electronics and motorcycles
that he was rebuilding. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): At the same time
00:06:49
Paul was apparently flushing
all their money down the drain, he and Catherine were
also starting a family.
00:06:55
First, their daughter, Natalie,
and then, four years later, their son, Nicholas.
00:07:01
Catherine seemed to believe
fatherhood would finally get Paul to settle down,
especially after she got him
00:07:07
to agree to move the family
upstate, away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
00:07:14
LINDA RODRIGUEZ: Within a
few years of getting married, the couple bought a
house in Narrowsburg,
00:07:17
New York, a tiny
farming community that was outside of the city. NINA BURLEIGH: Narrowsburg
is a town about an hour
00:07:25
and a half northwest
of New York City. It's on the Delaware River,
and it's a very small town.
00:07:34
It has gone through
some changes. It used to be a dairy
farm area up here. And then, the dairy
farms kind of subsided,
00:07:45
and when we bought
our house in 2000, it was a pretty depressed area. The Main Street was
filled with thrift stores
00:07:53
and boarded up shops. Since 9/11, this area, because
it's so close to New York City,
00:08:01
has attracted a
lot of New Yorkers who wanted to buy second homes. So there are a lot of
second homeowners up here,
00:08:08
and that brought Narrowsburg up. Catherine had bought a
house in the rural area outside of Narrowsburg.
00:08:18
And it was a simple house, a
little red and white house. She had always wanted
to be a stay at home mom.
00:08:24
Her mother later said that
she was the kind of person who wanted her children to look
back on their house and say,
00:08:30
that's the house
that I grew up in. She was a very unusual
type because of her civic--
00:08:38
her sense of civic
duty, her willingness to plunge in, donate her time
to her church, to her community,
00:08:47
to the school. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Nina Burleigh ended up being
one of Catherine's first friends
00:08:52
in Narrowsburg. I met Catherine when both of
our children were five-year-old kindergartners at the
Narrowsburg school, and she was
00:09:03
just a mother, just like me. And we got to know each
other at the school. Every day, we were dealing
with the same things as mothers
00:09:11
of our first child
going to school, and she was a lovely person. She was a great mother.
00:09:18
And she liked to put in
time helping other people. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:09:23
Catherine wanted to believe
Narrowsburg was safe, but appearances
can be deceiving.
00:09:28
It's a place where
things can happen. Because it's a rural community,
and you're far from neighbors,
00:09:37
you're far from the authorities,
and on a dark night, a lot of things can
happen if you have
00:09:45
somebody with malign intent. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Catherine may have thought
once Paul had settled
00:09:51
into Narrowsburg,
everything would be OK, but Paul clearly wasn't
on the same page.
00:09:58
Paul convinced Catherine
he would get paid more and solve their money
problems by commuting back
00:10:04
and forth to New York City. LINDA RODRIGUEZ: Paul
still worked in Queens, so he would sleep several
nights a week in an apartment
00:10:10
in Queens while Catherine
stayed up in Narrowsburg with their new daughter. NINA BURLEIGH: Her husband
wasn't here very often.
00:10:19
He would show up on
occasion to the morning drop off wearing his uniform. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:10:26
When he wasn't off in the city,
Paul made almost no effort to become part of his family's
new life in Narrowsburg.
00:10:33
Her friends described
him as anti-social and a little bit creepy. But Catherine was willing
to make excuses for him.
00:10:39
Her husband was
kind of a quiet guy. I didn't really talk
to him very much. A burly man who often showed
up, again, in a uniform, and I
00:10:48
didn't really get to
know him because he wasn't around very often. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:10:53
Catherine, on the other
hand, took to her new life like a fish to water. She sometimes
babysat for my kids.
00:11:01
I would bring my son over
to play with her daughter, and our toddlers
would play together.
00:11:06
And she was also somebody
who volunteered a lot. I was working at home a lot,
and while I was working,
00:11:12
she was donating her
time to the school and making cupcakes and
chaperoning children.
00:11:19
LINDA RODRIGUEZ:
She was a deacon in the local Lutheran church. She led her daughter's
Girl Scout troop.
00:11:25
She was almost a
semi-professional volunteer. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): At the same time
00:11:29
Catherine was becoming
a professional mom, Paul spent most of his time
living the life of a bachelor
00:11:35
120 miles away. The real Paul Novak
was cold, not social, had a porn addiction, was
reckless in the extreme,
00:11:50
was an adrenaline
addict, as many EMTs will admit that they are. Pretty soon, Paul's
big city addictions
00:11:57
would begin spilling onto
his family's small town life. And as we'll see, it
wouldn't end well.
00:12:04
[music playing] It's 2007, and Paul
Novak is living it up, riding ambulances and
saving lives as a paramedic
00:12:25
in Queens, New York. In one night, a New
York City paramedic might deal with 50 heart attacks.
00:12:32
I mean, it's an incredible
job that they have to do. And, clearly, has an effect
on their mental health.
00:12:40
Most paramedics privately
admit that their job is a huge rush, even with all
of the stress and trauma they
00:12:46
experienced on a daily basis. But all of that adrenaline
comes at a high price. And in the case of Paul
Novak, that was a price
00:12:56
he was more than willing to
pay, and the cost was the life of his wife, Catherine.
00:13:02
He had been talking about
researching the perfect crime, how to hide a body, had--
00:13:07
had told his friends that
he thought fire was the best way to hide a body,
and had left a trail
00:13:15
of crumbs about his guilt
before the murder happened. He was looking into how to
do this and get away with it.
00:13:25
NINA BURLEIGH: All of these
EMTs in his station were aware of different facets of this--
00:13:32
this malignant intent, and,
incredibly, not one of them picked up the phone
and called the police.
00:13:40
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): One of those people who failed
to pick up the phone was Paul's
00:13:45
fellow EMT, Scott Sherwood. Since Paul and Scott worked
together as paramedics in Long
00:13:52
Island, and they're in
the ambulances together, they went and they
had a lot of downtime.
00:13:58
They spoke a lot. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Apparently, Paul's bromance
with Scott wasn't surprising.
00:14:05
By all accounts,
everyone thought Scott was a really nice guy. He was a kind person.
00:14:11
He is a kind person. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul opened up to Scott
about his marriage,
00:14:15
complaining that Catherine
was always too busy to give them the attention he deserved.
00:14:20
Paul might have
felt like he was playing second fiddle to some
degree to Catherine's duties.
00:14:24
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Soon, Paul starts discussing all
of the ways one might get rid
00:14:29
of their wife. You know, if that's something
someone wanted to do. Apparently, fire was best,
because, according to Paul,
00:14:38
it burned away all the evidence. He was cold and calculating
and had been talking
00:14:44
to his fellow paramedics
about how much he didn't like his wife,
how happy he would
00:14:51
be if he could get rid of her. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul's buddies had overheard
him saying to Catherine that she
00:14:56
might be the mother
of his children, but he could still kill
her if he wanted to.
00:15:01
Everyone wrote it off
as Paul just venting and treated it like a joke. Later, they all wondered
whether Paul was testing
00:15:08
to see if one of
them would actually volunteer to help him do it. It turns out, one of
them did take the bait.
00:15:17
It was Scott Sherwood. Scott had recently been
going through a divorce. He was broke, depressed,
and by all accounts,
00:15:25
extremely vulnerable. I think when someone asked me
the question, what caused such
00:15:31
a nice person to do bad
things, I think, in this case, it's less looking
at Scott Sherwood
00:15:42
and more looking at Paul
Novak's ability to manipulate. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:15:47
By 2007, Catherine Novak knew
her marriage was on the rocks, but she wanted to make it work.
00:15:53
When Paul said he also
wanted to fix things, she felt like they might
be turning the corner.
00:15:59
The marriage was in trouble,
or at least, it seemed to be to Catherine's friends.
00:16:04
But on Valentine's
Day, 2007, 10 years after they first got
married, the couple decided to renew their vows.
00:16:10
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul starts laying it
on thick with Catherine,
00:16:14
telling her how much she
means to him, that he wants a fresh start, yada, yada. She's excited, but
her friends can't help
00:16:23
but feel like something
isn't quite kosher. And it turns out, they're right. LINDA RODRIGUEZ:
Not long after that,
00:16:30
however, Paul took out a life
insurance policy on Catherine. And it seemed a bit
weird to her friends,
00:16:36
but she defended it
as a good decision for their children
and their family, just looking out for the best
interests of their family.
00:16:42
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): A few weeks later, for some reason,
Paul decides to fess
00:16:46
up and admit to
Catherine that he's not really in love with her. She's shattered.
00:16:51
Paul stops coming
home every weekend, sleeping in the spare room
the few times that he does.
00:16:57
Even the times
that I would maybe drop off a kid at her house or
interact with her at her house,
00:17:04
I don't recall ever seeing
him in that little cottage. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): One early morning,
00:17:09
in February, 2008,
Catherine finally realizes that her marriage is
really over when she answers
00:17:16
the phone and hears the voice of
a drunk woman on the other end. She asked for Paul Novak,
and it was at that moment
00:17:24
that Catherine realized
that her husband was definitely having an affair. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:17:28
The drunk voice belonged
to a young woman named Michelle La France. The plan came out in
probably November, December.
00:17:38
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Which begs the question,
who is Michelle LaFrance?
00:17:44
Paul's girlfriend was an
unstable character anyway. She was a fellow EMT. She was much younger than he.
00:17:52
Michelle LaFrance, a
25-year-old university student, had been assigned to the
hospital ambulance's group
00:17:58
that Paul drove with. She'd had a history
of suicide attempts, and her mental state was,
at times, a bit shaky.
00:18:09
She was not somebody
who had any business being in charge of
life or death decisions
00:18:20
that are made by paramedics. And yet, she was
riding as a paramedic. She was-- she was
certified in New York.
00:18:26
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul and Michelle's
relationship blossomed the way
00:18:30
these things usually do. You know, battling to save lives
on the streets of New York.
00:18:36
I mean, the first time
Michelle successfully intubated a patient, she texted Paul,
who took her out for a drink
00:18:42
after to celebrate. I mean the whole story
really hinges on this-- this underworld or this
community of paramedics who,
00:18:51
you know, were witnesses to
Paul Novak's bizarre behavior. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:18:57
Michelle was
everything Paul ever wanted in a woman, young,
pretty, and totally infatuated
00:19:03
with him. They fell head over
heels for each other. And when Catherine found out,
she kicked Paul out for good.
00:19:11
NINA BURLEIGH: I was standing
in the yard, and I said hello, and she said hello.
00:19:15
And she said, oh, I've
been looking for you. And right away, she
said, well, I've
00:19:18
been looking for you because
my husband's having an affair, and I need to get a job.
00:19:25
I said, oh, I'm sorry. And she sort of giggled and
acted like it didn't matter that much that he
was having an affair,
00:19:32
didn't go into any of the
details, and just said, I need to get a job. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:19:38
Paul similarly felt like
a weight had been lifted and was ready to move
on with his life.
00:19:43
Soon after Catherine
found out about the affair, Novak moved into an apartment
in Glen Cove, Long Island
00:19:49
with LaFrance. Novak agreed to pay $1,700
a month in child support and agreed to take the
children every other weekend.
00:19:57
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): For her part, Catherine saw her split with
Paul as a once in a lifetime
00:20:02
opportunity and
made the most of it, taking up two part-time jobs. She even took her husband's
new girlfriend out
00:20:12
to lunch to make peace before
letting the kids visit her and Paul on Long Island.
00:20:17
Doesn't it sound
like a happy ending? LINDA RODRIGUEZ: Catherine
filed for divorce,
00:20:22
and they began talking
about a settlement. At the same time, Novak was
starting to badmouth Catherine,
00:20:28
calling her an unfit mother,
calling her a fat, ugly troll. He had me convinced that
Catherine's was the bad guy.
00:20:37
He was the good parent. His kids were abused,
his kids were miserable. Did this for the kids?
00:20:41
We need to save the kids. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul would call
Catherine to argue
00:20:45
about money or about the kids. He was relentless. But Catherine was determined to
stay positive about the future,
00:20:53
even though she was starting
to feel less and less safe in the home she once
shared with Paul.
00:20:59
Catherine was
increasingly anxious. And even though it doesn't
seem like there were
00:21:04
any direct threats
against her safety, she did pay a neighbor to
change the locks on the house.
00:21:09
Catherine's instincts
are not wrong. The heroic man
she'd married, who had dedicated his entire
life to saving others,
00:21:16
was turning out to be a monster. Not only that, but he
knows where she lives and just what he would do if
he ever caught her there alone.
00:21:29
We were up here for
Christmas, and we were actually having a holiday
dinner at a friend's
00:21:35
house outside of Narrowsburg,
and the local paper was on the table. And I looked at it, and there
was a color picture on it
00:21:43
of a fire or a
charred house, and underneath it said,
and I'm paraphrasing, local woman dies in a fire.
00:21:53
It seems like Paul
had finally decided to cash in on his ex-wife's
life insurance policy.
00:21:59
What is he telling
you that he wants to do? Or how does that come about? That he was gonna
kill Catherine.
00:22:05
[music playing] Early on the morning
of December 13, 2008, neighbors awakened to the
sight of smoke pouring
00:22:31
from the cottage that
Catherine Novak once shared with her husband, Paul. Firefighters in Sullivan
County were alerted to a fire.
00:22:39
Some people thought
it was the sunrise, but somebody nearby
recognized it was a fire.
00:22:45
and called the police. Firefighters were on the
scene by 6:46 that morning, and what they discovered was
a fully engaged, raging fire.
00:22:54
It was a cold morning. It was December. The police arrived, and
the house was almost
00:23:00
burned to the ground already. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Even though it was cold
enough for the firefighters
00:23:06
to have ice in their
boots, the fire engulfing the small cottage
took them hours to put out.
00:23:13
When the smoke finally cleared,
they made a gruesome discovery in the basement. Firefighters began the task
of sifting through the ashes
00:23:21
to see who might have
even been in there. And they found Catherine's
body on the floor,
00:23:27
and the dog in a
kennel, also dead. She had been
crushed at some point by falling debris when the
house collapsed in the fire.
00:23:37
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): News of Catherine's
death quickly spread through the small
community of Narrowsburg.
00:23:44
She was a volunteer. She was a born
volunteer, a giver. And there aren't a lot
of people like that.
00:23:50
And communities depend on them. They're often unsung, and
she was one of those people.
00:23:55
And so she left a
hole, in that sense. That's a loss for the community. She could have been
somebody I could
00:24:01
have seen running for office. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): As shocking as Catherine's
death was, everyone
00:24:07
quickly realized it could
have been much, much worse. LINDA RODRIGUEZ:
When firefighters
00:24:13
searched the debris,
they weren't sure who they were going to find. They knew that two children
lived at the address,
00:24:18
but what they didn't know is
that they had been spending the night at their father's
house 100 miles away
00:24:23
in Long Island that night. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Those who knew about
Catherine's nasty split
00:24:28
with Paul immediately
felt something wasn't right about the fire,
especially considering
00:24:34
how Paul had recently demanded
full custody of the kids. I went along Main Street,
talked to some people
00:24:41
that I knew, I think
at one of the shops, and I asked what they had heard,
and the person I was talking to
00:24:50
said, oh, yeah, everybody here
is very suspicious about that. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): At the same time,
00:24:58
detectives investigating
the cause of the fire had a sense things
weren't adding up.
00:25:05
She had been found lying on
the basement floor on her back with her arms outstretched.
00:25:10
Underneath her, however, the
back of her body wasn't burned. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Forensic experts
00:25:16
couldn't understand
why Catherine had been found lying on her back. Most fire victims are discovered
curled in the fetal position
00:25:24
to protect themselves. So that was one clue
something wasn't right. And then, there was one
other small problem.
00:25:33
Catherine's autopsy showed no
evidence of smoke inhalation. The medical examiner
concluded that the dog
00:25:43
died of smoke inhalation. The dog had smoke in its
lungs, but Catherine did not.
00:25:48
An autopsy later
found that the levels of carbon monoxide
in Catherine's lungs were not sufficient to kill her.
00:25:55
Instead, they believe
that she had died when the debris crushed her chest. And there were people
in the state police,
00:26:03
and especially, the fire
department here, who suspected that that was not accurate.
00:26:09
But there was nothing
they could do about it. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): OK,
00:26:12
so if Catherine didn't
die from smoke inhalation, and hadn't been crushed to
death, then how did she die?
00:26:19
One clue that Catherine's
death was no accident also came up during her autopsy,
three badly dislocated ribs
00:26:26
with a large amount of
bleeding around the site of the fractures, suggesting
that she had been violently
00:26:33
assaulted before she died. To those who knew
Catherine, there could only be one person responsible.
00:26:41
I remember
picking up the phone and calling the state police
and saying, you're aware,
00:26:46
of course, that she was, you
know, engaged in a divorce. And he said, yes. LINDA RODRIGUEZ: Police
and firefighters had
00:26:57
their suspicions at that point. They questioned Paul Novak about
his whereabouts that night.
00:27:03
His girlfriend,
Michelle LaFrance, said that he had
been home all night. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:27:08
Paul, of course,
claimed to be innocent, saying that he'd
been shocked to hear of Catherine's untimely demise.
00:27:15
I actually found out
that they found a body in the-- in the
basement from my mother,
00:27:22
who found out from
one of the volunteer firefighters that was there. So when I initially went to the
state police, as directed, to--
00:27:31
to give-- you know, to give
my statement as they wanted, they told me that-- at that point, they told me
that a body was found there,
00:27:38
but they weren't sure
if it was Catherine's. They interviewed him, he had
an airtight alibi, and they--
00:27:46
they let him go. And 10 days after
the fire, Paul passed a lie detector test. They had really no choice but
to rule it as an accident.
00:27:54
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul was in the clear,
but for some reason, he still didn't seem all that
broken up that the mother
00:28:01
of his children was dead. Paul didn't attend
Catherine's funeral. Instead, he took the
children, dropped
00:28:08
them off at the service, and
then picked them up afterwards. Later, when they went
to the graveside,
00:28:13
he again dropped them off,
walked them up to the coffin, and left them with
Catherine's relatives.
00:28:18
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Alive, Catherine
Novak had little value to Paul, but dead, that was
apparently another story.
00:28:25
LINDA RODRIGUEZ: Not long
after Catherine's death, Novak left his job as
an EMT in New York City.
00:28:29
Paul Novak then cashed in
at $800,000 insurance policy and moved himself
and his girlfriend
00:28:37
and his two kids to a house
that he bought for himself in Florida with an
ingrown saltwater pool
00:28:43
and was aiming to live
happily ever after. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): The official ruling is
that Catherine's death was
00:28:51
an accident, which means
Paul's free to start living the high life. He's got a hot girlfriend,
custody of his kids,
00:28:59
and a boatload of
cash, pretty much everything he's always wanted,
except it still isn't enough.
00:29:06
He wants even more. Paul and Michelle's
relationship was troubled, and by early 2012,
Michelle believed
00:29:13
that Paul was having an affair. Very soon after they
were living together, they started to fight.
00:29:21
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Michelle discovers Paul has
been shacking up with a woman
00:29:25
he met online. Apparently, she needed
someone to remind her of the old saying, once
a cheater, always a cheater.
00:29:33
By the summer of 2012, Novak
and Michelle had split up. And eventually, she
moved out of the house
00:29:40
that she shared with
him and the kids, moved into her own
apartment in Florida, and would later tell
police that she had dreams,
00:29:49
nightmares that he was
coming to kill her in the way that he had killed Catherine.
00:29:52
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Michelle manages to find herself
a new boyfriend, who also
00:29:57
happens to be a police officer. But she's still having trouble
leaving her past behind
00:30:02
and can't shake the feeling
that it's time to come clean about what she knows. He had described to her
how he had killed Catherine,
00:30:10
and she couldn't get
that out of her head. Michelle had started
dating a police officer,
00:30:16
and she started to feel a
little bit guilty about some of the things that she had
told the police in 2008
00:30:22
after the death of
Novak's wife, Catherine. That police deputy urged her
to contact the New York State
00:30:28
Police, which she then did. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): At this point, Michelle finally decides
to do the right thing.
00:30:34
Better late than never, I guess. That summer Michele contacted
the New York State Police,
00:30:40
and in exchange for
immunity, she told them that she had lied in
her statement in 2008
00:30:45
about the death of Catherine. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): So was Michelle's decision
to fess up guilt or revenge?
00:30:54
Either way, the funny thing
is that if Paul had just been a good boyfriend,
Michelle probably would
00:31:00
never have opened her mouth. Instead, she started
singing like a canary. What is he telling
you that he wants to do?
00:31:08
Or how does that come about? That he was gonna
kill Catherine. At this point, Paul's house
of cards is about to collapse.
00:31:17
As Michelle comes
clean about everything, the details surrounding
Catherine's death
00:31:22
started to become
clear, and it isn't looking good for Paul Novak. Paul was very calm.
00:31:28
Very calm? But did he-- Very calm, very controlled. DETECTIVE: Did you
kill your wife?
00:31:33
No, I did not. [music playing] In a Florida police
interrogation room, Michelle LaFrance calmly
walks police detectives
00:31:56
through Paul Novak's plan
to kill his wife, Catherine, and she isn't holding
anything back.
00:32:02
He was gonna be down on the
weekend that we had the kids, and he was gonna
burn the house down,
00:32:07
and, you know, he's up there
in the middle of nowhere, and nobody would know,
nobody would see it.
00:32:13
Investigators flew to Florida
and interviewed LaFrance for more than six hours. She told them that she had lied
about Paul Novak's whereabouts
00:32:20
that night, and that instead
of him being at home with her in Glen Cove, he and his
sometime partner, Scott
00:32:26
Sherwood, had actually
driven to Narrowsburg, New York, set fire to the
house where Catherine
00:32:32
lived, and killed her. The reason why I think Paul
Novak needed Scott Sherwood is
00:32:38
that Paul didn't
want his car to be traced to his ex
wife's house when he was going to try to murder her.
00:32:46
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Michelle's testimony
was all the cops needed to arrest Paul Novak and
his accomplice, Scott Sherwood.
00:32:54
But even then, Paul
insisted he was innocent. DETECTIVE: Did you
kill your wife?
00:32:59
No, I did not. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): According to his lawyer, Scott
Sherwood was actually relieved
00:33:05
to finally be able to confess. He helped corroborate what
Michelle LaFrance testified to,
00:33:14
and I truly believe everyone
saw what type of person he really was. It's-- you talk to
him for a minute,
00:33:24
you saw how earnest
he was, that he truly wanted to do the right thing. And probably, if
it was up to him,
00:33:32
he would have cooperated
from minute one. Scott Sherwood pled guilty
to conspiracy to commit murder,
00:33:38
and in exchange for
a shorter sentence, he agreed to testify
against Novak. He told police and the jury
what happened that night.
00:33:45
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Michelle and Scott's testimony
broke the case of Catherine's
00:33:49
death wide open, and the
detectives on the case couldn't believe what
they were hearing.
00:33:55
But can you see anger
building up at all? Or is Paul talking about-- Paul is very calm.
00:34:01
Very calm? Very calm, very controlled. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Apparently, Paul
was sick of making
00:34:07
monthly payments to his wife. He didn't want to split
custody of the kids. Basically, Catherine was
a major thorn in his side.
00:34:16
So in the winter
of 2008, he started making plans to remove her. He had me convinced that
Catherine was the bad guy.
00:34:25
He was the good parent. And his kids were abused,
and his kids were miserable. Did this for the kids?
00:34:29
And we need to save the kids. Where are you having
that conversation? In our apartment in Glen Cove.
00:34:34
Was it-- trying to
be a savior, but how does the conversation go? Like, what is he--
what is he telling
00:34:42
you that he wants to do? Or how does that come about? He was gonna kill Catherine.
00:34:47
And he says that to you? MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul's EMT training was a
huge factor in figuring out
00:34:54
the cleanest way to kill
Catherine while leaving behind as little evidence as possible.
00:35:00
He was going to chloroform
her, leave her, and then burn the house down
around her, and she
00:35:04
was gonna die in the fire. That was his plan. And we were gonna do it on
a weekend that, you know,
00:35:13
we had the kids so the
kids would be safe. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): To pull it all off, Paul
needed an accomplice.
00:35:19
He didn't want his
car seen anywhere nearing Narrowsburg that night. The guy who drove
Paul Novak up here to--
00:35:27
to commit the murder that
night was a fellow EMT. Having someone else's car
would be in his best interest.
00:35:34
But why was such
a sweet guy like Scott Sherwood willing
to get involved in cold-blooded murder?
00:35:40
Paul learned a lot of intimate
facts about Scott's life, mostly about a messy divorce
that he'd been going through
00:35:48
and the pain he was
suffering because of that. Scott Sherwood,
Novak's sometime partner,
00:35:54
was a large man, and he was
also emotionally unstable. He had recently
gone through divorce
00:35:59
and had a history
of bipolar disorder. He felt an affinity
with Paul Novak. Scott, being the
kind person that he is,
00:36:07
wanted to try to help Paul
with not being in pain. The problem is that
the road to hell
00:36:14
is paved with good intentions. Why did he do
this to Catherine? Well, he said it
to me, because I
00:36:22
don't wanna end up like you. And you being having gone
through a very rough divorce
00:36:26
and on a very difficult
predicament with your ex, and, obviously, you're
not happy about that.
00:36:32
You can manipulate even good
people to do the wrong thing. And you just need someone
with some very twisted morals
00:36:39
to do that. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Now that he had
Scott in the bag,
00:36:43
Paul had everything he needed
to put his plan into action. On the night of December 12,
Sherwood went to Novak's Glen
00:36:49
Cove apartment to pick him up. When he arrived, Novak
was mixing up something that he said was chloroform.
00:36:55
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Paul's kids, Natalie and Nicholas, had been
drugged and were fast asleep.
00:37:00
He gave Benadryl
to the children so they wouldn't wake up when
Paul was coming and going
00:37:06
during the murder night. It seemed like Paul Novak
had every detail buttoned up.
00:37:10
He'd even left his cell
phone in Nassau County so that it wouldn't be tracked. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:37:15
Scott Sherwood's
attorney insists that his client was only
playing chauffeur that night.
00:37:20
Scott Sherwood's course
of conduct for this was to drive Paul Novak up. He didn't go in the
house, he didn't
00:37:29
do other things to advance
the murder beyond driving him. On the way up to
Narrowsburg, they stopped
00:37:38
to buy duct tape and gloves. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Sherwood parked
behind a barn a mile
00:37:44
or so from Catherine's house. While Scott waited
in the car, Paul headed off on foot to carry
out the rest of the plan.
00:37:52
Sherwood told police
that when he left the car Novak was dressed
in surgical scrubs.
00:37:56
He had booties over
his shoes and was wearing a hat and gloves. He had also duct taped
his sleeves and cuffs
00:38:02
to make sure that
no evidence would be left at the scene of the crime. He lets himself in
through the basement door
00:38:08
and he lured Catherine
down to the basement by setting off the fire alarm. What does he say
happened inside the house?
00:38:19
He says to you, wait in the car. He-- he had said that
the chloroform didn't work.
00:38:30
I had to strangle her. Paul Novak tried
to chloroform her. Didn't work. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:38:37
Catherine struggled with Paul. It didn't end well. And he killed her. He strangled her to death.
00:38:43
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Catherine's final moments were horrifying. As she begged for
her life, Paul kept
00:38:49
on tightening the
collar of her sweatshirt until she eventually
stopped breathing.
00:38:58
Did he say if
Catherine mentioned anything during the struggle? Why are you doing this?
00:39:06
And what was his response? Doing this for the kids. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:39:12
After setting fire to the house,
Paul walked back to the car, peeling off his protective
gear along the way.
00:39:18
For someone who
had just strangled the mother of his children,
he seemed unusually calm.
00:39:25
What was his demeanor when
he came back from the house? Seemed cold, distant. What about you?
00:39:32
Were you like,
holy [bleep],, why? I was-- I was beside myself. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:39:43
On their way back to the city,
the last detail of Paul's plan fell into place. When you leave, who drives?
00:39:53
I had Paul drive because-- well, I started-- I started heading
out of the area. I guess made it to the
closest county road,
00:40:05
and it was a little too
windy and it was dark, so I told Paul, you better-- you better drive.
00:40:14
I can't. Along the way, they stopped
at an abandoned gas station where Novak could get rid of
the scrubs and the gloves.
00:40:20
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): No surprise, Paul thought he'd
committed the perfect murder.
00:40:25
Back in their Long
Island apartment, he told his girlfriend,
Michelle LaFrance, it's done.
00:40:32
About a week later, he filled
in the rest of the gory details, which obviously ended
up being a big mistake,
00:40:38
because she'd eventually repeat
everything, word for word, to the cops. Even after his arrest
and trial, he continued
00:40:46
to insist he was innocent. And he continues to
read me my Miranda rights, and I said, do I need a lawyer?
00:40:54
He goes, well, you know,
if you ask for a lawyer, it won't really look that good.
00:40:57
We like you. We know you didn't have
anything to do with this, but the DA wants us to
ask you some questions,
00:41:02
just to keep you in the
clear and make everyone feel a lot better. So I'm like, all right.
00:41:08
I mean, I don't have
anything to hide. You can ask me
anything you want. And so that's when he
told me that something
00:41:14
had happened to Catherine. BENJAMIN GREENWALD:
I think Paul Novak only cared about Paul Novak.
00:41:20
And he got a large sum of
money from the insurance, which was pretty much all gone
by the end of this case
00:41:29
where his kids pretty
much got nothing, as far as I understand. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:41:34
On trial for multiple charges,
including first degree murder, Novak claimed that
LaFrance and Sherwood
00:41:40
were the actual masterminds
behind Catherine's death. BENJAMIN GREENWALD:
He manipulated someone
00:41:46
into helping him
commit a heinous crime, and without even caring one
wit as far as I'm concerned
00:41:54
about what happened to Scott. He really just wanted
the case to go his way. So that's the only
I really can say.
00:42:03
He wasn't-- Paul Novak
wasn't an open guy. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Unfortunately for
Paul, it was readily
00:42:09
apparent neither Scott
or Michelle had anything to gain by killing Paul's wife. He helped corroborate what
Michelle LaFrance testified to.
00:42:20
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): The jury convicted Paul
Novak of murdering his wife.
00:42:25
In exchange for their
testimony, Scott Sherwood received an 18-month sentence,
while Michele LaFrance
00:42:32
walked away scott free. It was the ultimate revenge
against the man who had seduced
00:42:37
and then cheated on her. If their relationship
hadn't broken down, it's possible that she would
have kept his secret forever.
00:42:44
Paul Novak thought
that he could commit the perfect murder,
but he was wrong in the end.
00:42:49
All he did was
deprive his children of their loving mother. And their father? Well, he's currently sentenced
to spend the rest of his life
00:42:58
in prison, which is
right where he belongs. I'm Michelle Trachtenberg,
and I'll see you next time
00:43:05
on "Meet, Marry, Murder." [music playing]