[New] A Time To Kill 2023 Full Episodes S01E07 Murder on His Mind

foreign this is an execution this is a planned murder the killer came into this house looking for Justin and got Justin a brutal killing Justin Michael was brutally gunned down and Angie Virgil was unharmed it just didn't make sense a dark mystery with shocking twists the motives can be infidelity jealousy is there some type of Love Triangle gone bad he was face to face with the guy that he could say that's the guy that took my girlfriend away from Justin Michael began to build the truth will be revealed most victims know their killer you're almost always going to find a connection there's some tie back to the victim the key the investigation is fine and Thai every day in North America dozens of people are murdered the key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life to crack the case detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline the minutes and hours containing evidence that can help unlock the mystery and catch the Killer some 15 miles north of Des Moines Iowa just off the highway and down some gravel roads lies the town of Grimes though if you blink you just might miss it Grimes a very small town surrounded by nothing but farmland you have the old brick downtown area and then out for miles in every direction you have Farm fields Grimes is very quiet has that Midwestern charm it has low crime rate the last violent crime was 42 years ago but then one spring night the residents of this peaceful farming Community are awoken by the sound of sirens can you can you go over and and check the status of he's he's dead okay I know he is so there's no signs of life at all when you get a shots fired trip especially in the Grimes area a lot of the times it's just people doing fireworks you get backfired from a car [Music] and you see a lot of authorities on the scene in Grimes Iowa you start thinking this probably isn't just a normal crime it's a lot more serious the victim is 30 year old Justin Michael [Music] Justin good looking bright young man family and friends love to be around them he had a sense of adventure a great job nobody had an unkind word to say about him he was always willing to lend a hand um just a good good guy Angie and Justin were engaged to be shattered [Music] tasked with investigating Justin Michael's murder is detective Robin Bartholomew I was called out roughly 3 30 in the morning and was notified of a shooting [Music] once on scene I observed a white male early 30s laying on his back in the bed there was a significant amount of blood he had four gunshot wounds three to the head and one to the neck the victim would appeared to be right over the top of him shooting almost downward into his head the bullets passed through Justin through the pillow through his mattress and one of the bullets actually passed through the wall and exited the home [Music] Justin Michael's fiancee Angie verhe was laying right next to Justin Michael when he was shot and Angie Virgil was unharmed Angie said she was asleep at Lee woke and saw what appeared to be a dark figure exiting the bedroom the description of the Intruder was so vague average size person unknown male or female dressed in all dark clothing we have no idea who we're looking for [Music] detective Bartholomew must now track down Justin's Killer by focusing on the last 24 hours of his life starting with the crime scene showcasings were located in the bed next to the victim I later learned is a Russian manufactured still casing ammo the weapon used was a nine millimeter automatic [Music] whenever you have a murder involving a firearm ballistics is a very important forensic component of an investigation whenever you see a particular brand of ammunition show up that is atypical that points at least in the direction of a specific type of buyer that said The more rare a brand or a maker model of ammunition the much smaller your potential pool of suspects and they can be much harder to find all well-kept house there was no signs of forced entry the only thing that appeared um out of order with some electronic equipment that had been pulled from an entertainment center then something unusual catches the detective's eye there was a piece of clothing that was left there in the living room that did not belong to anyone in the house it was a construction yellow hoodie I thought that was odd in the preliminary stages of an investigation you can't rule out a burglary gone wrong but after examining the scene nothing was missing from the house a burglary staging is any attempt by an offender to create an alternate scenario to move things around in a way to misdirect the police whenever you see staging at a murder scene or any crime scene for that matter it will often reflect the fact that the offender knows they're going to be the prime suspect they have some personal connection to the victim so by introducing staging or countermeasures as we call it it creates an alternate scenario to frame someone in particular it was some type of a burglary that was taking place appeared that this was a targeted it's very unusual that someone's going to enter a house gun down one person and leave Witnesses in many cases leaving a witness behind would have to have some other pragmatic purpose in other cases we see that where an offender will murder one Victim Because they have a very specific motive that doesn't necessarily mean they have it in them to take the life of an innocent bystander or a witness in reality some Killers just aren't that cold-blooded [Music] for answers the investigators turn to the other witness at the scene Justin's mother Marie is staying at the residence with Justin and Angie Marie was in a guest room across from Justin in Angie's room at approximately 3 20 in the morning she was awoken by the door opening Marie Michaels told us the gun that was used had a laser sight on it and she was woken up by the light shining in her eyes she obviously was very scared uh pretended to remain asleep at one point she took a peek and she sees a figure in the door one very short order then she heard four rapid gun shots [Music] 9-1-1 calls came in by Angie Virgil and Marie Michaels at 3 22 in the morning we were able to establish that the homicide occurred at approximately 3 20 in the morning but who would want to kill Justin Michael and why Justin Michael was brutally gunned down and Angie Virgil was unharmed it just didn't make sense there was something that was suspicious the bed the fact that you know she didn't get blood on her you know maybe from the way the gunshots occurred all the splatter went opposite of where Angie was lying it's not out of the realm of possibility but that's incredibly unusual when you examine crime scenes and especially when you have blood evidence it tells a story and with the lack of blood on Angie Virgil to me that was a red flag and these types of cases you really want to look at the person closest to the victim more times than not it's going to be a CNG thank you with suspicion swirling around Angie Virgil in the brutal killing of her fiance Justin Michael detectives bring her down to the station for questioning Angie by virtue of being Justin's fiancee and being at the crime scene unharmed is a person of interest detectives interview Angie she's surprisingly unemotional that your fiance was brutally gunned down right next to you Angie was very calm she wasn't upset she wasn't crying her demeanor was a little suspicious is there anybody in Justin's life that Harbors any ill toward him not that I know of everyone responds differently to grief and distress so in order to calibrate a person's response and determine if it's suspicious or not like we see in this case we would have to first get to know every person of interest their background their habits their Associates to understand if a theatrical response is out of character so you've got to know something this is a planned murder Angie survived the shooting she's laying right next to Justin when it occurs so why is she still alive what's the motivation behind this murder detectives question Angie about how she and Justin spent his last 24 hours the day before Justin Michael was murdered they met her dinner at Justin Michael's sister's house Angie said there was nothing unusual everything was normal they were busy making preparations for the wedding planning they were happy and they'd got home about 10 p.m and Justin's life trying to figure out why something like this happens you start looking at backgrounds you start looking at all of the people that Justin knows and if you had any issues with anyone no enemies did you party a little bit no drugs involvement whatsoever did Justin ever sell drugs not that I know of there was no indication that Justin was involved in drugs there was no indication that Justin was involved in in gambling or any of the things of that nature you always want to look into you know was there something in Justin's background nothing and also there was nothing noteworthy in Justin Michael's past relationships that would indicate somebody wanting to harm him we will do everything in our power to discover where the truth lies nothing but the truth and whoever is responsible for this we need to make sure they're held accountable [Music] investigators look closer at Angie's relationship with Justin Michael they want to know if there were problems between them Angie had met Justin in 2013. they hit it off so well she'd moved in very quickly she described their relationship fights no issues they were both excited to get married Angie said that their relationship was solid people generally don't kill people just for the sake of killing people unless they are completely deranged most victims know their killer you're almost always going to find a connection there's there's some tie back to the victim the key of the investigation is find that tie with energy still in their crosshairs investigators dig deeper into her past relationships during the course of Angie virgul's interview one of those things I asked about is you know who are your ex name she mentioned was a guy by the name of Andy Wagner how long do you do date Andy about three years Andy Wagner was a funeral director here in town he was Angie's ex-boyfriend it was a long-term relationship and they were pretty serious and lived together and eventually they broke up how'd Andy take the breakup he's like well I feel like we're getting along really really hard for me to public decision and he was like I'm taking this a little harder than I thought I would at that point Andy's a person of interest he's somebody what he's been up to and we've got to figure out where he was what he was doing and see if he has any motivation to be involved in this when pressed on who else might have wanted to harm Justin Angie recalls a strange incident from a few months back Angie had talked about an incident involving her vehicle where it was vandalized the windshield was cracked three windows were broke out and someone had keyed her car at the time it was thought that kids in the neighborhood had damaged her vehicle but after learning the amount of damage to and the murder of Justin Michael could be related detectives asked Angie if she has any ideas as to who might be behind the vandalism there was one guy in between Andy and Justin she mentions that for a very brief period of time she dated this guy named Dave Angie talked about meeting up with him a half a dozen times but nothing serious it was just more of a hookup [Music] according to Angie when she ended things with Dave he didn't take it it was on our radar but we still don't know who Dave is David now I just forgot for a period of time she could not remember Dave's last name [Music] I don't know why I can't think of it right now I thought that was odd we were trying to ask more details or something that would help her remember Dave's last name as we pressed forward out of the blue she comes up with perfect I can't remember those things with Andy Wagner but now Dave moffatt is somebody that we need to see what's going on and then Angie said David and Justin had worked together at Wells Fargo theater that he ended up working Department Wells Fargo is a huge company I mean 10 plus thousand employees in Polk County and by pure happens to ends David Moffett then gets assigned to the very team within the mortgage division we're just a Michael worked and both of these guys Justin and David had dated Angie Virgil that took my girlfriend Away From Me Maybe it just kind of picked the scab maybe that's when his anger toward Justin Michael began to build [Music] connection is most interesting knowing that Angie had a relationship with David Moffett David Moffett has a work relationship with Justin Michael is there some type of Love Triangle gone bad jealousy in my mind can be the motive here jealousy is one of the most destructive emotions we need to find David Moffett and Angie's exploiting involved in the murder of Angie's fiancee [Music] in the murder of Justin Michael detectives are pursuing two new leads from his fiancee Angie's past knowing that Angie had a relationship with David Moffett and Andy Wagner is Angie's long-term ex-boyfriend we want to dig a little deeper and find out everything we can about them we're checking if David Moffett has a criminal history does he have a weapons permit while China is the homicide I needed to find out why [Music] they learned that David Moffat had an accident the night of the homicide approximately five miles from Justin Michael's home at 3 45 shortly after the homicide within the same hour David moffett's in an accident having David moffett's name pop up at that time in that location is not something we expected to see this is the piece of the puzzle we're looking for I was just about below 400 and about approximately 40 minutes after the homicide took place on a gravel road I'd come up on a the red Ford Taurus it struck this telephone pole the front end of the car was smashed in when I give the plate to dispatch and they advise me it belongs to a guy named David Moffett I don't see anybody in the area and as soon as I'm certain to get back into my car is when the white male subject comes out of the ditch from the north and he says I need help he said his name was David Moffett he just says he was out for a joy ride and he got in a car accident not active homicide scene going on so while not immediately apparent the these two things could be related it certainly got his suspicion up the first thing I notice is just how much sweat that he's covered in he's from head to toe covered in sweat I asked him what he's doing and the Grimes area at that moment he became really defensive couldn't find insurance on the car so I made the decision that I was just going to impound the car my gut was telling me that he knew more about what was actually happening about the hummus I felt at some point we were probably going to [Music] David Motta lives on the other side of the county he lives 26 27 miles away from this area so barring some unusual circumstance there's really not much reason for him to be over in that area at four o'clock in the morning [Music] this startling new information that places David Moffett both on the timeline and near the crime scene could be the break investigators have been looking for knowing that Angie dated David Moffett David moffett's vehicle was impacted there's just too many coincidences to start to stack up in this case it works with the victim he's in a motor vehicle collision near the scene of the crime that creates a Nexus that is undeniable and that merits investigation full bore Dave goes from being an interesting character that we need to find out about to the top of our list in very short order detectives head to the scene of David moffett's car accident hoping to find evidence that will connect him to Justin's homicide we have a lead we can't get out there fast enough we found a shoe box that contains ear protection a flashlight and Camo makeup so a lot of things that are associated with concealing your identity and committing a crime such as a as this murder as detectives continue to comb the area they gather even more crucial evidence we also find a gun magazine with ammo this Tula Ammo it's a match to the shell casings found at the crime scene this is a big breakthrough but then ammo flashlight was a receipt for an oil change in the name of Andy Wagner what in the world is going on here Andrew Wagner's already on our radar because you know he's Angie's ex-boyfriend we have to figure out how in the world this receipt ends up at the crash scene you know where David moffett's crashed his car it just didn't make sense did Andy Wagner kill Justin Michael did David Moffett kill Justin Michael were they in it together we've certainly seen conclusion in homicide scenes but you know by all accounts other than the Angie factors we've got to figure out what the connection is between these two thank you the discovery of Andrew Wagner's name on a receipt at the scene of David moffett's car accident five miles from where Justin Michael was killed has turned the investigation on its head these two are tied to this crime scene are these two guys working together are they working with Angie I need to do some digging [Music] while detectives wait on us Andy Wagner and Angie Virgil lived together for three years when we interviewed Andrew Wagner he had moved on he had a new girlfriend Andy Wagner said that he was aware that angel was engaged but did not know to who she was engaged to we asked Andy Wagner if he knew David Moffett he did not Andy claimed that after their breakup he didn't stay in contact with Angie during interviews it's very common that people minimize and don't tell the truth and he denies having any involvement and he was asked about a receipt for an oil change in his name he didn't really have an explanation to why or what had happened to it he said he recalled getting an oil change and thought that the receipt was still in his vehicle or at home when people are interviewed there's many reasons why they may be evasive sometimes we're trying to conceal information which isn't connected to the crime but maybe portrays them in a negative light sometimes they're taken aback and they're confused by the information that they're being presented with not because they're guilty but just because that's their way of responding when they're in a stressful situation detectives question leaving work about 4 P.M they had went home took care of a

couple things and then ultimately ended up staying overnight at his girlfriend's house she lives in a another Community several miles away they had gone to dinner that night and they hung out at home watched some TV and went to bed with Andy saying he's at his girlfriend's at 9pm and Justin killed at 3 20 a.m it's still possible that Andy had opportunity to sneak away from his girlfriend's place and kill Justin we need to establish that he was in fact he at his girlfriend's house but at this point in any circumstance where you have two mutually strong suspects you can't move forward until one or the other is eliminated as detectives are wrapping up their interview with Andy Wagner they received the search warrant for David moffatt's home still lived at home with his parents he came from a a pretty well to do family we were able to conduct a search at The Moffat residence no one was home anytime you conduct a search you're going to look for any kind of evidence that's related to the crime we're going to look for weapons we're going to look for ammunition anything we uncover an important new piece of evidence in the basement we found a bill of sale for a firearm specifically a nine millimeter automatic firearm like the one that is involved in the homicide interestingly though on that bill of sale for that nine millimeter gun the seller was a gentleman by the name of Drew Balman and the purchaser on that bill of sale was Andy Wagner why does Andy Wagner's name keep popping up in this case we got this receipt that we can't really you know get a good answer on that's found at the crash site for the oil change now we have this investigators find Drew Bauman's address on the bill of sale for the gun and they set off to pay him a visit in the nearby town of synchrony drew balman's the guy that's going to solve this mystery for us he's going to tell us who he saw when he sold a gun the Vandy Wagner went down and bought that gun or if David Moffett went down and bought that gun we met with Drew Bauman and he had no criminal history he lived in a small town he was a school teacher Drew he was legitimately concerned very upset knowing that a weapon that he had sold was involved in a homicide he was very cooperative part of the sale of the weapon he prepared two copies of the bill of sale so we found that the one copy in David moffett's garbage can he had an identical copy of that same bill of sale signed by both him and Andy Wagner the other thing that Drew Bauman gave us in addition to being a meticulous Note Taker he was an avid Target shooter and fortunately for us he actually had casings that he had fired through the nine millimeter gun that we believed to be the murder weapon so we were able to match the bullets from the crime scene where Justin Michael was killed to the bullets that were provided by Drew Bauman police are one step closer to uncovering the identity of Justin Michael's killer we showed drew a picture of Angie Wagner and we also showed him a photo lineup with a picture of David Moffett David Moffett and Andrew Wagner look very very similar Drew Balman pointed at the first lineup and identified David Moffat but he also pointed to Andy Wagner Drew wasn't 100 sure who he had met with Witnesses are really a double-edged sword for any suspects to establish a timeline but at the same time eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable with Drew baldman having id'd both David and Andy as the purchaser of the gun used to kill Justin Michael his fiance Angie is ruled out as a suspect but even with this promising new lead the investigation is at a Crossroads in this case was odd because we couldn't connect the dots you know whoever was committing this crime had the intention of throwing us off base we don't usually have that where it's false leads for lack of a better term we're not sure what's going on here foreign [Music] detectives have two suspects on their radar Andy Wagner and David moffatt they need to identify which one is the Killer in the nearby town of Sigourney they have one more piece of evidence to look into it could be the key to solving the case one of the requirements that Drew baldman had for selling this gun was to make sure that the sale took place in a public place so it would be recorded should anything go wrong or from a convenience store out of Sigourney Iowa a lemonade was purchased along with the candy bar on May 4th at 6 13 hours that is the same date and time that Drew Bauman sold the weapon fortunately for us the inside of that store had a surveillance camera detectives turned to the surveillance cameras in the hopes of spotting David Moffett or Andy Wagner after scouring hundreds of hours of footage they find the missing piece of the puzzle we were able to positively identify this person as David Moffett at that point of CCTV or video evidence is that it is an impartial witness it can provide a historic record of a timeline that is unassailable that is undisputable unlike eyewitness testimony that is subject to a lot of problems detectives now know that David moffatt acted alone and was posing as Andy Wagner to buy the gun that killed Justin Michael they believe he's the killer but to prove it they'll need more evidence tying him to the crime the second search was conducted at the Moffett residence there was the primary crime scene as well as the ammunition provided us to by Drew Balman in the bathroom trash we'd found Recon notes notes that or specifically for Justin Michael's neighborhood notes that would indicate certain times that neighbors were home what time lights came off things that would put David Moffat there watching at Justin Michael's house those notes indicated that David Moffitt had put some planning into this then police come across a possible attempt to conceal evidence we'd found a tote in the bay computer and the red tug also contained about two inches of water in the bottom of it appeared that it was an attempt to eliminate whatever information was on at the computer fortunately our lab gurus were able to get this laptop dried out and in a functioning state we found a substantial amount of evidence that specifically tied David Moffett to the execution of this crime the first file that was found on the computer was a forged driver's license that had David moffett's picture on it that David Moffett put a lot of planning into this and this was all an elaborate ploy to frame Andy Wagner so at that point once we find this computer it all makes sense then Andy Wagner is pretty much exonerated in this case one may want to frame someone else say Andy for the murder so he won't get caught and perhaps he wants to get rid of all the competition so that he's either the last person standing for Angie's affections or he wants to send a message to Angie and everybody that she's been involved with detectives then uncover laptop was examined we were able to look at all the internet web searches that he had made you could see during the forensic analysis kind of the beginnings of a search history of David Moffett searching Andrew David Moffett you know typing in the name Justin Michael things like that and then days prior to the homicide the the search uh history ratcheting up in a sense we learned that David Moffett had searched how to commit a murder what are the confession times at a local Catholic Church the internet searches revealed that David Moffett was trying to get away with murder what stands out for me is the clear level of planning a forethought that was invested into committing this crime this was not a crime of Rage the level of planning and plotting that this takes shows that there's a level of instrumentality here in this event with the evidence now stacked against him David Moffat is arrested for the murder of Justin Michael so when we arrested David Moffett David Moffitt had a Blank Stare no reaction whatsoever it was like he'd been because the motive here and David Moffett was violently jealous detectives are now able to piece together Justin Michael's final 24 hours the night Dustin Michael was murdered they had all got home about 10 pm and went to bed approximately 11 pm just after 3 A.M David moffatt entered Justin Michael's house with murder on his mind on the night Justin was killed the perpetrator was able to make entry through the back deck door we then believe he went to the front of the house and and staged that area to make it look as this was a targeted attack David Moffett then came down the hallway entered the wrong bedroom where Marie Michael was staying when he realized that that was not the person that he was going after Moffett then goes across the hall to the master bedroom where Angie and Justin were [Music] Justin's laying in the bed Angie's laying in the bed and there's four shots that go into Justin the bullets pass through Justin exited the home the killer was certainly looking for Justin and the killer got Justin [Music] We Believe ultimately the gun had been thrown off a bridge into a lake [Music] David moffett's car crash was his fatal Heir Looking Back Now if he would have would have never crashed he might have gotten away with murder in July 2015 David moffatt is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole it was absolutely tragic Justin certainly didn't deserve reconcile things like that in your head and have it make any kind of sense the only reconciliation you get in a case like this is getting a conviction and holding the person responsible I really feel for Justin's mother as a mother myself I can't imagine losing a child and so your heart just breaks for her when she's talking about being there the night her son's murdered and you know seen the crime scene is just horrific for any mother you don't expect to outlive your children ever we may never know why David Moffett killed Justin Michael or he's just pure evil [Music] to choke somebody to death requires a great deal of intent an innocent victim she was very much a social butterfly and everybody knew her a dark mystery with multiple suspects love triangles are powder kegs they are very unstable we said hey we think she's dead did you kill her she's telling him it's over he really has nothing to lose financially by killing her the truth will be revealed boom this is the guy who did it now we just have to prove the key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life to crack the case detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline the minutes and hours containing evidence that can help unlock the mystery and catch the Killer [Music] Anna Maria Island a Seven Mile Strip of soft white sand in the Gulf Coast of Florida what's unique about Anna Maria Island is it's just does attract a lot of tourists but the community has been able to stay free of corporate tourism that has that old Florida feel where the buildings are still low to the ground there's not major signage everywhere so it's really a gem [Music] the criminal activity of Anna Maria Island relative the rest of Manatee counties pretty low murders are extremely rare it's early morning November 2008. two Patrol deputies pull over a white convertible for a broken tail the driver takes off running first thing that pops into their head is probably a stolen car so the first person you go after is the driver the deputies give Chase and eventually apprehend Robert Corona a two-bit criminal known to local police he's a car thief and he had had several convictions for that type of offense however he did not have any violent convictions [Music] when we first talked to him he said oh we met this woman and a man in the gator Lounge Bar and they wanted some some cracks stories and okay when investigators run the license plate of the convertible they see it belongs to 49 year old hotelier Sabine musel Bueller Sabina is a native German and she was in the tourism business there and so she came to Anna Maria and fell in love with it she was very much a social butterfly and sort of everybody knew her she met her husband Tom and they decided to buy a hotel together which turned out to be Haley's Motel a nice little popular spot that people really loved being lived with her husband to make notification that her car had been impounded and I said well it was impounded and um in East Bradenton off 14th Street Bradenton is just nine miles east of Anna Maria Island but in every way that matters it's a world apart the area is not the best part of town there is a certain amount of Street crime that occurs there her husband Tom says that she doesn't go there she doesn't drink she doesn't smoke she doesn't do anything like that she was not out there there's prostitutes involved out of line for her I mean she is a straight and narrow definitely was not a dress would she laying that vehicle to anybody he would let me drive it Tom says he hasn't seen Sabine in two days Tom advised us that they were estranged they had been estranged for quite a while and that she was living mostly half a mile away at her boyfriend's apartment Bill cumber Tom directs investigators to Bill's apartment but Sabine isn't there either when we went to it was like about 10 o'clock November 4th it was election night and she had left to go to a a party celebrating the election [Music] well she never showed up and she was very enthusiastic about President Obama's candidacy so that was kind of a tip off right then that something might be wrong experience is it for someone to disappear off the face of the Earth and not come back within 12 hours and they were nowhere to be found that's very quickly a situation that becomes suspicious tasked with investigating sabine's disappearance is detective Peter ramponi there's a lot of steps that have to be taken to establish that someone who is missing is indeed dead and it's very difficult we checked all of her credit cards we checked airline flights but there was no paper trail of her having done anything after 10 o'clock election night November 4th detective ramponi impounds the car and could happen the back seat was cluttered with newspapers and there was some Halloween stuff back there and some kind of a stuffed bird thing laying in the back seat when they moved the bird we saw the whole seat cushion was cut out and the seat padding underneath of it and it was like you could see the floor of the the vehicle investigators conduct a luminal test on the back seat luminol which you spray on it and and if it turns certain color like blue then it's human blood so they took DNA swabs from around that circular patch both the inside of the patch and then around it and then they sent that evidence off for DNA testing they also find drops of Blood on the exterior rear left door we believed at that point we felt pretty certain that she was dead [Music] we just didn't know where a no body homicide or a suspected murderer but with nobody these are cases that overwhelmingly point to that there is no other conclusion other than that someone has been murdered and in the absence of the body you really need to build that evidence through other means last 24 hours of her life it's extremely important especially when you have who done it kind of thing you want to establish a timeline so that you can place people where they were or weren't during that period and you go through and roll them out or add them in their first suspect is the man caught driving sabine's car in the early hours of November 6th Robert Corona the first person you go after is the driver because they're more culpable to being involved in a crime so we decided to go back and talk to Mr Crona the potential Theory would have been that City had killed her and taken her car Corona had initially told them that Sabine had lent him the car to go buy drugs it sounded plausible but that was before they found the blood so he's confronted and he's told look this is this is basically a homicide investigation you better be straight with us about how you came into possession of this car we said hey um we think she's dead did you kill her [Music] and he readily admitted that he stole the car at that point that he was checking cars behind the businesses he found one at the gator lounge with a window open and the keys in it how convenient and um drove away and got stopped and rested [Music] in an attempt to verify Corona's story detectives head to the gator Lounge in Bradenton they show the night bartenders a picture of Sabine and a picture of her car and ask if they've ever seen either before and they both said uh no we've never seen her before and I asked about the kiss so he said okay but the bar manager did say that when she left after the bar closed she saw zabeen's car parked in the southwest corner of the uh building and it was just sitting there that fit what Mr Crono was saying so at that point we pretty much eliminated Corona with Corona's account believed to be True Detectives are now able to narrow down the timeline of sabine's disappearance the bar manager would have seen sabine's car in the parking lot after 2 30. said he went through the parking lot walking down the back of businesses and that was the only car in the parking lot and the time he got pulled over was just minutes after he took the car the fact that the bar manager seized the vehicle there in the early morning hours the sixth tells the investigators that sometime between 10 and 11 p.m when cumber says he last saw her alive and the time that her vehicle is first observed at the gator Lounge she's likely been killed with Corona ruled out investigators are looking at just to me the immediate circle of family and friends and in this case you know Tom was there [Music] cumber was there and really nobody else was there in cases where a female spouse is a victim of homicide we logically think of intimate partners and in this case you know you have the husband who's a business partner and then we also have a current boyfriend with some potential motivation as well we got a lot of phone calls from friends you know other people were saying Bill cumber did it so it's it's a it's a mind game [Music] with little physical evidence to work with in the nobody homicide of Sabine museobular detectives are looking at both her husband and her boyfriend as possible suspects they start by interrogating her boyfriend Tom and Sabine had been married for years the time of her disappearance but the new element in her life was William cumber and you know some people would say he was a good looking gentleman Mr cumber was very candid about his background he said he had a history of getting angry at women and doing violent acts when scorned he confessed to that and was convicted of that and went to prison for that but he insists that he's a changed man I used to have him a long time ago but I've I've done things to train myself to help my temper I've been to the classes uh I quit you know I've got my mind focused on where I'm headed in life Bill credits Sabine with giving him the new start he so desperately needed three years earlier Bill cumber showed up at Haley's Motel one day had told a story of how he had just gotten out of prison and was looking for work he said I am coming from a difficult pass where I have been in prison very handy with things is there anything I can do around your hotel for a little walk-in money you know heartfelt people who saw a guy they wanted to help Bill tells detectives that what started as a friendship between Sabine and himself soon became something more he was a Craftsman he was an excellent woodworker saw some of the things he had made who were just astounding and I believe he was an artist as well so she was kind of receptive to those traits that this guy portrayed and possessed Bill's criminal passed is viewed as suspicious so investigators asked him for a detailed breakdown of the last day he spent with Sabine Sabine and cumber and she was paying for him to have some dental work done and I think she left him for a time and then came back to the apartment on Magnolia Avenue where they had dinner according to Mr cumber that he made vegetarian spaghetti she drank wine everything was going good you know she was happy the votes were coming in with Oklahoma and I said step outside and smoke a cigarette but she caught me to smoke she ain't gonna be around a smoker so they you see your driveway or no I don't go outside and change again or anything okay so she leaves all around what time is it this was around 10 20 of each episode Mr cumber claimed that he had not spoken to Sabine since then he had been attempting to reach her by phone several times and she never called you back he then went over to Haley's Motel on the morning of the fifth to confer with Tom Buhler about her disappearance Mr and would reappear I said well don't you hear anything from her you know could you tell her to call me and he goes don't try and Hunt her down when she's ready to come back around to come back around so I took it at that he didn't seem upset he didn't appear to be in any frantic hurry to help look for [Music] detective subpoena bills phone records to see if he's telling the truth about trying to reach her there were no calls nothing after 10 o'clock on November 4th AG while they can't rule bill out detectives struggle to find a reason why he might want to be dead [Music] he's taking care of him completely she was ran in the apartment providing the food she was the money person and so that didn't really add up very well this relationship was serving many needs for a bill he gets out of prison he has nothing he has somebody who's willing to cultivate a relationship with him and even financially support that relationship police were never able to find any ultimate motive that established him as the perpetrator he was losing a great deal with her with her being gone he's still on the list and we're watching but evidence and interviews and situations took us in a different direction when asked who he thinks would want to hurt Sabine Bill points the finger directly at her husband Tom insisting he was jealous of their relationship s resentment you introduce humiliation and those can be powerful motivators for someone who needs to be in control then out of the blue investigators get a call that a fire has broken out at Haley's Motel when the fire broke out of the hotel it was such a second shock that immediately people believe that the two are related her Disappearance in the fire and whether Tom maybe said it because the hotel was struggling fire is always a great Eradicator of evidence that's why when it shows the main crime [Music] after a fire rages through Haley's Motel just 12 Days After sabine's disappearance investigators hone in on her estranged husband Tom Bueller to me the obvious or intuitive reasoning behind why Tommy burned down the hotel is obviously uh number one to potentially destroy evidence number two we come back to money fires equal insurance settlements for the most part and in this case the Bean's disappearance detective subpoenaed the motel's public Financial records there was some financial problems the business wasn't doing that well and Tom had a buyer from Europe Germany to be specific who is interested in buying the place and with Sabine being gone Tom gets all the money with money being a possible motive detectives ask Tom whether or not he had taken out an insurance policy on sabine's life Tom told one of my detectives that he has an insurance policy that on her for a hundred thousand dollars it taken out years before um and that concerned us as well not only that investigators discovered that he had recently filed court papers to have Sabine officially declared dead and as that played out people started to dig up those possible feelings of well if they haven't found her why would he want her to declare dead at this point you know maybe there's still hope she's alive this is kind of strange with their suspicions deepening detectives questioned Tom about his whereabouts between 10 pm and November 4th and two times said he was attending an election party and was there with his girlfriend and there were several people that would have attested to his whereabouts during the time of her disappearance Alibis can be tricky in that just because you were at a certain place at a certain time doesn't necessarily mean that you couldn't have also been somewhere else immediately thereafter and returned to the original place [Music] we may be dealing with at large as we are in this case window of time were you the opportunity to literally be in multiple places not at once but an immediate succession detective Search Tom's House mom had an injury on his head small scratch and we asked him about it and he said I was hanging some blinds in my bedroom and when I was hanging them they fell on me and struck me in the head so he went and looked at the blinds and they were kind of Askew and there's a little drop of blood on one of the blinds which is consistent with the story he had told us so he didn't hide it you know he told us right away where he got it and when the fire marshal tests Tom's hands for accelerant found in the motel's debris they find nothing he's jealous of his wife's extramarital relationship with this guy okay it lost I think it made me angry at first you know I just couldn't believe she would do this and so it was there that I accepted everything that she had done we didn't talk about it Phil I had told her okay you do what you need to do but he's not going to be at the house and he's not going to be at the motel oh yeah we did you know we were very close friends we hopefully still are Tom said the Romantic aspect of the relationship had ended years ago he lived in one half she lived in the other the kitchen was in the middle that was neutral they both stayed out of each other's way Tom had a girlfriend so the idea that somehow he suddenly became enraged and jealous at this particular Point didn't seem very likely but despite the fact that detectives aren't able to conclusively rule out Tom or Bill at this point there just isn't enough evidence to charge either of them in sabine's disappearance I only have heard of one case where they prosecuted somebody without a body and they got a conviction and we had to we really had to get a box near Haley's Motel we felt pretty certain she'd been buried out at the beach somewhere he started using dogs ground penetrating radar then we used a bulldozer and we would scrape very little and if they hit a branch or something they'd stop dig around it and find oh no keep going and we dug up a mile of beach very wide and went down as deep as you could but they come up empty-handed it comes in there were two women who claimed to have seen someone who looked like Sabine at the airport there's cases of missing persons who go on vacation for say a month and don't tell anybody and they come back from their vacation and everybody's wondering you know where they've been so it was raised as a distinct possibility could she have gone somewhere and not returned or maybe she'll show up but she would have had to use some form of money to survive on and we couldn't find a trace of that also video camera footage from the airport was reviewed and there was no image of Sabine at the airport at the time that women claimed to have seen her you have to chase every lead until you hit a wall and then you go to the next lead and you're chasing that one until you gather every enough information detectives finally catch a break in the case when they get a call from a neighbor of sabines who lives on the beach they have a sidewalk which is just wide enough for say a golf cart to go down and it runs parallel to the beach beach with trees and the neighbor he was out clearing out some stuff and he moved some logs or debris and he found a person there he did open it and look and it was sabine's purse but he had our ID and some I guess credit cards a cell phone whoever disposed of it there had to know the area kind of to be on that walkway that's you know only accessible by um side streets and this wasn't near a side street um it just made us think well [Music] the discovery of Sabine musubular's purse buried near the beach provides the first solid clue to who might be responsible for her murder its location is critical because it's just a couple blocks down from Mr cumber's residence on Magnolia Avenue and it just keeps pointing back to Mr cumber that he is the person responsible with that in mind detectives take a closer look at Bill cumber's prison record few years before Mr cumber met what she was residing in at a time she and several other individuals were inside the house now knowing that Bill's history includes an arson conviction investigators question him directly about the fire at Haley's Motel Fire Marshal said there was an accelerant used at some point I believe the fire marshal [Music] spoke with cumber they did some kind of test and he had some kind of accelerant on his hands and um cumber explained that away as at its workshop for them to search his apartment they looked for any kind of gasoline containers they've examined uh the area of the apartment for traces of an accelerant but they weren't able to find anything to definitively link him to the arson but they find Blood on the couch inside the apartment which they then take swabs of and submit for DNA testing then detectives noticed something else I noticed on his hand he had a wound quite the center of his palm and I asked shells and I scraped my hand now I've done that my entire life as a kid you don't get a blister in the middle of your hand that blister on his hand was from a shovel detectives bring cumber down to the station for a more serious sit down what they see solidifies their suspicions we had him come into the office and uh detective Alvarado and detective Kenny interviewed him I was watching on a video and they questioned him for quite a while and they asked them down motion like he was holding a knife and making a circle and cutting out the seat cover so for him to have made that gesture indicated he knew the shape that had been cut out of the seat [Music] I was watching the video and I'm like oh my gosh that's how the seat cover was taken out Mr cumber would have had no means of knowing that other than having been the person who cut out the piece of upholstery and in our minds then boom this is the guy who did it now we just have to prove it often Bluffs suspects by presenting them with claims of evidence that they don't actually have in hopes of getting an admission detectives know that the camera at the back of the Gator Lounge where sabine's car was found isn't functional it's a fake but Bill doesn't know that when we interviewed cumber the next evening we mentioned to him well there's a camera out behind the gator Lounge we haven't got the tape yet and then when we do we got to process it which is nonsense but uh whoever dropped that car off is going to be on that video the manager and ask in fact that they had video cameras trained in the parking lot which only a guilty person would have done no innocent person would be concerned that he had appeared on a video so that was one of the most telling aspects of the case that pointed to Mr cumber's guilt that was an indication that we're on the right track you know we got them we just got to get them while investigators wait for the lab to process the blood found in Bill's apartment they uncover an important clue November 4th sometime after 10.

sabine's car had been parked out the apartment she shared with William and that raised concern and the reason we found that out is because Deputy was driving around that night and he saw the car parked in a No Parking Zone and he wrote it a ticket the discovery helps illuminate sabine's movements on the night she disappeared the timeline we had was sabine's last known to be with Mr Comber between 10 and 11 according to his statement Carr is documented two blocks away by the parking ticket at 5 10 a.m on the 5th so it's only two blocks away from where Mr cumber lives it would make sense for him to want to place her car somewhere other than their residents if he's killed her and then of course he can easily walk the distance back to his residence that evening it gave us a timeline told us where the vehicle had been as opposed to the gator lounge and it just kind of all fit when detectives attempt to arrest bill they find that he's left town he was making a getaway trying to disappear fleeing is kind of a good indicator of guilt [Music] as investigators zero in on Bill cumber for the suspected homicide of Sabine musubular he's apprehended fleeing the state he's heading up north towards I-4 and he had a tail light out and he should have been driving he's got he's got a license and he's on probation Well normally violation of probation you know you may get a little bit of jail time or you can get before a judge who finds which is what he got so he's on ice that gave us awesome breathing space to try to continue the investigation without having to worry that you know he could potentially kill somebody else meanwhile the detectives finally get the forensic results from the blood taken from sabine's car DNA is perhaps the most persuasive physical evidence you can have we had Mr cumber's DNA on the driver's seat area and also in and around the area that had been cut out in the back seat and we have sabine's beloved supposedly had never driven that car [Music] so we've decided we had all the evidence we were going to get we were probably not going to find her body and so ultimately the decision was made to charge Mr cumber with murder as they prepare their case against Bill cumber detectives put pressure on him to confess we hounded him for years and years we just didn't let up and he just was exhausted and knew he was going to be in jail for a long time and he just gave up today's date is October the 15th 2017 Bueller and give us information concerning the location of her body cumber finally tells detectives exactly what happened to Sabine Russell Bueller in her last 24 hours she took him to the dental office [Music] for him to get some dental work done and he was observed to be an ill-temper they then watched the election returns she drank a bottle of wine [Music] and somewhere in the area of 10 to 11 he tried to smoke a cigarette she found out about it it wasn't just the smoking it was the controlling issues that Tom was having on us I didn't like that I wasn't digging that and she would side with him [Music] so sabine's saying she can't go on with this anymore what happens at that point I lose control [Music] I hit her in the head and then I don't know it's a disgusting situation man and what do you do at that point reached and grab your throat and start choking around until she wasn't moving prison he then wrapped her up in a blanket put her in the back seat of the car and he decided he was going to bury her out on the beach the following day he takes the car drives it into Bradenton this is now November 5th 2008. and he leaves it at the gator lounge with the keys in the ignition in the hopes that someone will take it and this become the prime suspect and Miss Musso Bueller's disappearance he takes the last bus back to the island I think Mr cumber planned to kill her prior to the evening of November 4th I believe he was angry at the loss of what she could provide for him financially having been denied something he wanted he chose to kill her [Music] however to choke somebody to death requires a great deal of intent it's not a split-second act like shooting a gun In the Heat of the Moment it requires a sustained effort which shows some intent to kill location of sabine's grave [Music] Mr cumber then got a law enforcement vehicle and took the police to the location which was a couple of blocks away from Haley's Motel under a covered area where people can sit on a bench and look at the beach he was somber he kneeled down at the burial site supposedly said a prayer [Music] he affected remorse whether he actually felt it I don't know investigators being roughly three feet down from the surface of the sand her clothing was with her I believe a piece of jewelry was with her The Remains were completely skeletonized I think finding the body provided the family with a measure of relief and certainty that they had lacked I think ultimately this was something that gave them some peace of mind bill is sentenced to 20 years in prison he will be eligible for parole in 2029. the timeline is important in all murder cases but in this convincing narrative potentially to a jury that in fact she is dead and this is why we know she's dead and the timeline was basically the critical aspect of that narrative but the victory is Bittersweet you never forget the the family members of the victims you never forget their trauma it's the ultimate active violence and it disturbs a family typically and in this case it Disturbed an entire community you gotta weigh closure against sorrow and loss you know and that's a difficult thing to measure for the family they're gone

2023-03-13 19:59

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