Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / WIFE OF 'BELOVED' DR. FACES DEATH AT SHEER CLIFF EDGE ON 'ROMANTIC' GETAWAY
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The wife of a beloved
- 0:07Speaker 1: doctor faces death at a sheer cliff's edge on a
- 0:12Speaker 1: romantic getaway planned by hobby. I'm Nancy Grace. This is
- 0:18Speaker 1: Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.
- 0:21Speaker 1: The wife of a beloved doctor faces death at a
- 0:26Speaker 1: sheer cliff's edge.
- 0:28Speaker 2: This was a planned, meticulously planned attack.
- 0:30Speaker 3: There is a struggle. She's grabbed by the hair and
- 0:34Speaker 3: pushes her face into the ground. She's bleeding.
- 0:36Speaker 4: The hikers that notified police saw lots of blood.
- 0:41Speaker 5: Hi, I'm I'm currently beating attack on helping poly Cookah
- 0:46Speaker 5: where there's a man trying to kill her.
- 0:48Speaker 6: She's let all over her face. Where is his dad?
- 0:52Speaker 6: Polly Puka the look out? Okay, so.
- 0:57Speaker 7: Look out.
- 0:58Speaker 5: She's on the Polypooka hike and he's currently attacking her.
- 1:04Speaker 6: Okay, Where how far is the hike guards the entrance tire,
- 1:07Speaker 6: We're probably like into the hike and.
- 1:09Speaker 1: Really quickly imagine moments before you go over the edge,
- 1:17Speaker 1: you look down and then look back up at the
- 1:20Speaker 1: guy attacking you, brutally beating you in the face. Now,
- 1:26Speaker 1: this is a female being held down, beaten in the face,
- 1:31Speaker 1: pushed toward a cliff edge. Who is the attacker? Not
- 1:34Speaker 1: some thug, It's your own husband, and through your mind
- 1:41Speaker 1: you think about your children and you look up and think,
- 1:44Speaker 1: is this the last face I'm ever going to see
- 1:48Speaker 1: that face? That face? What more do we learn from
- 1:54Speaker 1: the nine to one one call from desperate hikers that
- 1:58Speaker 1: see the attack?
- 2:00Speaker 6: Okay, what are you seeing?
- 2:03Speaker 5: We heard her streaming help help me, help me?
- 2:05Speaker 6: And then we saw that over her and then she crawled.
- 2:09Speaker 5: Out with over her face, say, trying to kill her?
- 2:12Speaker 6: And did she know him?
- 2:15Speaker 7: Okay?
- 2:15Speaker 6: Wearing Yeah?
- 2:16Speaker 1: What is he wearing?
- 2:19Speaker 5: The tea shirt? White?
- 2:20Speaker 6: She has brownish sort of curly hair, Asian Coucasian Hawaiian
- 2:26Speaker 6: white side white guy. Yeah. And then what kind of shirt?
- 2:33Speaker 6: T shirt?
- 2:33Speaker 5: Maybe only my shorts?
- 2:36Speaker 6: Pardon what kind of shorts? I didn't see you wearing
- 2:40Speaker 6: shorts though?
- 2:43Speaker 1: What kind of shorts? What T shirt? The woman is
- 2:49Speaker 1: getting her brain bashed out. I'm having a hard time
- 2:54Speaker 1: with understanding what's happening right there. Straight out to Troy Slaighton,
- 2:59Speaker 1: joining US veteran criminal defense attorney out of the LA
- 3:02Speaker 1: jurisdiction at Slayton, Lawyer's candidate for LA Superior court judge Troy,
- 3:09Speaker 1: what is wrong with this? Nine one one operator Ariel
- 3:13Speaker 1: is getting her brain beaten in and she's saying, white
- 3:18Speaker 1: guy Asian? What what is wrong with her?
- 3:22Speaker 8: Nancy?
- 3:23Speaker 9: Nine one one operators go through the same training for
- 3:26Speaker 9: every type of call. They're trained to remain calm and
- 3:30Speaker 9: gather as many facts as necessary and to keep the
- 3:33Speaker 9: callers on the phone so that way when emergency services arrive,
- 3:38Speaker 9: they know exactly who the good guy is, who the
- 3:41Speaker 9: bad guy is, and if the person has fled the scene,
- 3:46Speaker 9: who they're looking for when they put out an APB
- 3:49Speaker 9: and they're looking throughout and canvassing the neighborhood.
- 3:52Speaker 1: Veteran defense durning Troy Slayton just admitted to me that
- 3:55Speaker 1: that's the bad guy. Let's say, when he's going to
- 3:58Speaker 1: flip that around. I want to hear what more we
- 4:01Speaker 1: have at than nine one one called to see what
- 4:03Speaker 1: we can learn.
- 4:04Speaker 6: Okay, and any you walk away from her, we sort
- 4:07Speaker 6: of you know, he was not we were still We
- 4:10Speaker 6: walked away because we didn't want him to talk about Okay,
- 4:12Speaker 6: so he's still there. Yeah, they were both hiking and
- 4:16Speaker 6: the now was she's Caucasian? What is she wearing.
- 4:19Speaker 5: It was hard to say.
- 4:20Speaker 6: She's covered in blood and she was crawling.
- 4:22Speaker 5: Okay, and then so she's five and that is here
- 4:25Speaker 5: and that is oh. The girl is here. She's wearing
- 4:29Speaker 5: she's wearing her purple ting top.
- 4:31Speaker 1: Straight out to doctor Bethany Marshall, I've got another problem,
- 4:35Speaker 1: Dr Bethany Marshall. That's amongst so many renowned psychoanalyst, author
- 4:39Speaker 1: of deal Breaker. You can see her now on Peacock
- 4:43Speaker 1: and Bravo, and you can find her at doctor Bethany
- 4:46Speaker 1: Marshall dot com. Dr Bethany, thank you for being with us.
- 4:49Speaker 1: The woman is getting her brain smashed out. She's down,
- 4:53Speaker 1: the husband is on top of her with a rock,
- 4:58Speaker 1: and they say we walked way. Don't get me wrong,
- 5:01Speaker 1: I'm very happy. I'm happy that they call nine to
- 5:04Speaker 1: one one. A lot of people would have just kept going.
- 5:07Speaker 1: But how do you walk away when somebody's getting their
- 5:09Speaker 1: brain bashed in?
- 5:11Speaker 4: You're in Nancy. I have reviewed this scene in my
- 5:14Speaker 4: mind so many times. You have a man with a rock,
- 5:18Speaker 4: you have a woman underneath him, her face being bashed in, bloodied,
- 5:24Speaker 4: and you have two females against this one man. And
- 5:28Speaker 4: all of a sudden this scene is coming into focus,
- 5:31Speaker 4: as in the scene of shock, of trauma, of horror,
- 5:36Speaker 4: that somebody is allegedly trying to kill somebody, and are
- 5:40Speaker 4: you going to way into the fray? Are you going
- 5:43Speaker 4: to call nine to one one? I have a hard
- 5:45Speaker 4: time believing these women were walking away, as in leaving
- 5:49Speaker 4: the scene, but perhaps walking away thinking that if they
- 5:52Speaker 4: call the police there will be a force larger than
- 5:54Speaker 4: them that Nancy. They must have gone through so many
- 5:57Speaker 4: split second decisions. Do we attack him, will he attack us?
- 6:01Speaker 4: Will he pushes over the cliff? Nancy, this was a
- 6:04Speaker 4: very dangerous hiking trail. One very important note is that
- 6:08Speaker 4: every hiker who went up that trail walked past a
- 6:12Speaker 4: sign that said something to the effect of do not
- 6:15Speaker 4: hike this trail. It is dangerous. So you have already
- 6:19Speaker 4: people who are people who are already in a dangerous situation.
- 6:22Speaker 4: On the other hand, you have people who are brave
- 6:24Speaker 4: and willing to face the elements. And it's going to
- 6:28Speaker 4: be interesting in court to see how all of that
- 6:30Speaker 4: plays into all these split second decisions they had to make.
- 6:35Speaker 1: Well, doctor Bethany, I know you're right, and people respond
- 6:39Speaker 1: differently when they're faced with an illogical or dangerous situation.
- 6:45Speaker 1: My son and I are prone to run into it,
- 6:49Speaker 1: which is probably not always the best idea. My daughter
- 6:54Speaker 1: wants to run into it, but she freezes. She completely freezes,
- 6:58Speaker 1: like she's made of stuffe and that can be very dangerous.
- 7:03Speaker 1: In this scenario, these hikers see Ariel literally getting her
- 7:08Speaker 1: head bashed in. She's trying to crawl away. The husband
- 7:13Speaker 1: is trying to push her over the cliff. Bill Hernandez
- 7:16Speaker 1: joining US Domestic Violence Sex Assault Detective NAPA. Bill, thank
- 7:21Speaker 1: you for being with us. How does it go from
- 7:24Speaker 1: beating your wife emotionally or verbally abusing her to try
- 7:29Speaker 1: to killing her? How do you make that leap? How
- 7:33Speaker 1: do you take that extra step? Because typically homicide is
- 7:37Speaker 1: not part of abuse. But what tips the scale.
- 7:44Speaker 2: Just anger, just unmitigated rage about a situation that he's
- 7:50Speaker 2: in or that they're in at that point in time.
- 7:52Speaker 2: But to me, this seemed like a planned event. I mean,
- 7:55Speaker 2: to plan that hike, and not at that on that island,
- 7:59Speaker 2: at that steep ray taking her up there, especially after
- 8:02Speaker 2: the alleged affair and everything else going on in their lives.
- 8:06Speaker 2: I think he planned that and it was not just
- 8:10Speaker 2: a happenstance argument that happened at the top of that ridge.
- 8:14Speaker 1: At this juncture, to Alexis Tereschuk joining US Crime Stories
- 8:18Speaker 1: investigative reporter, the case has progressed. This is going to
- 8:24Speaker 1: a jury. What did the prosecution say in opening statement?
- 8:30Speaker 10: They said that he attempted to kill her. They said
- 8:33Speaker 10: that he had a rock he was bashing her head,
- 8:36Speaker 10: and they also said that Ariel the wife, that she
- 8:39Speaker 10: had seen him have a syringe with something in it,
- 8:43Speaker 10: that she was afraid. She was fighting for her life
- 8:45Speaker 10: and trying to get away from this syringe because she
- 8:47Speaker 10: felt like he was going to stop and inject her
- 8:50Speaker 10: with something they could kill her.
- 8:52Speaker 1: Alexis syringe, a syringe prepared that This is like out
- 8:58Speaker 1: of an Alex Bearnson book, The Power Couple, Right, So
- 9:02Speaker 1: this isn't Oh, I hope you're listening, Choye Slayton. If
- 9:06Speaker 1: what the prosecution is saying is correct, this is not
- 9:09Speaker 1: an angry moment where he grabs a rock, because it
- 9:13Speaker 1: kind of sounds like spur of the moment, which could
- 9:16Speaker 1: get it reduced down to voluntary manslaughter. But the fact
- 9:20Speaker 1: that there was a syringe, a pre prepared syringe tell
- 9:24Speaker 1: me about that.
- 9:26Speaker 10: So he is an anesthesiologist, and she says that as
- 9:29Speaker 10: he was attacking her, holding her on the ground, that
- 9:31Speaker 10: she saw him with a syringe in his hand and
- 9:34Speaker 10: that he was trying to stabber with it, and that
- 9:35Speaker 10: was what she was Another thing she was fighting not
- 9:37Speaker 10: only the rock, but she was afraid of the syringe
- 9:40Speaker 10: that he was going to stabber. And as a nanstesiologist,
- 9:43Speaker 10: one would have to think that he would have access
- 9:45Speaker 10: to quite a few drugs that could be lethal.
- 9:48Speaker 1: Okay, Troy Slayton, there goes your argument that this was
- 9:52Speaker 1: a spur of the moment, angry outburst and he just
- 9:55Speaker 1: hit her in the head with the rock. No harm,
- 9:57Speaker 1: no foul, according to a defense attorney. But the fact
- 10:00Speaker 1: that a syringe, according to Ariel, was used, a prepared syringe,
- 10:06Speaker 1: that changes everything, Slaton.
- 10:09Speaker 9: It would if a syringe was actually found at the scene. However,
- 10:13Speaker 9: police did an exhaustive search of the entire area and
- 10:17Speaker 9: guess what, no syringe showed up. But if you knew
- 10:21Speaker 9: that the person that you wanted to accuse of killing
- 10:24Speaker 9: you was an anesthesiologist, my brother is an anesthesiologist. Actually
- 10:29Speaker 9: in the Hawaii jurisdiction, I asked him about this particular doctor,
- 10:34Speaker 9: and he said he had a good reputation. But that aside,
- 10:39Speaker 9: if you wanted to make.
- 10:40Speaker 8: The story down.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Wait, okay, you know what, stop everything. Case closed because
- 10:46Speaker 1: Troy Slayton knows somebody that says the doctor had a
- 10:52Speaker 1: good reputation. Okay, Well, he couldn't possibly have beaten his
- 10:57Speaker 1: wife in the head with a rock as she tried
- 11:00Speaker 1: to crawl away from the cliffs age. Did you actually
- 11:03Speaker 1: just say that he's got a good reputation because your
- 11:07Speaker 1: brother said so? Somebody told your brother what in the
- 11:11Speaker 1: checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly. What you think I
- 11:16Speaker 1: care about what somebody may have said to your brother,
- 11:18Speaker 1: he's got a good reputation.
- 11:20Speaker 9: My brother is an anesthesiologist in the Hawaii jurisdiction.
- 11:24Speaker 8: It's a very small community.
- 11:25Speaker 9: They're not brimming with anesthesiologists on the small islands of Hawaii.
- 11:31Speaker 8: But I can tell you that.
- 11:32Speaker 1: Maybe have to go hide out in Hawaii to get
- 11:34Speaker 1: a job.
- 11:35Speaker 8: Well, it's it's paradise, Nancy.
- 11:38Speaker 9: The witnesses who called nine to one one did not
- 11:42Speaker 9: see what happened just before he was on top of
- 11:46Speaker 9: his wife, and his defense attorneys are arguing that she
- 11:51Speaker 9: attacked him. I'm sorry talking, he felt himself being pushed off.
- 11:57Speaker 1: They didn't see what happened before he was on top
- 11:59Speaker 1: of his wife beating her with a rock. Okay, I'm sorry.
- 12:03Speaker 1: I'm trying to stop interrupting. Troy Slayton. Take it from
- 12:06Speaker 1: the top. I want to hear the whole thing.
- 12:07Speaker 8: Go ahead, Nancy.
- 12:10Speaker 9: His defense attorneys are arguing, look, I wasn't there.
- 12:13Speaker 8: You weren't there.
- 12:14Speaker 9: But his defense attorneys are arguing to this jury that
- 12:19Speaker 9: he was actually the one that was attacked, that he
- 12:23Speaker 9: was being pushed off the trail, that she had a
- 12:26Speaker 9: rock in her hand and sold he picked up a
- 12:29Speaker 9: rock and tried to defend himself and that's when the
- 12:32Speaker 9: witnesses came onto the scene. So he was just acting
- 12:37Speaker 9: in self defense.
- 12:38Speaker 8: That's his defense, okay.
- 12:42Speaker 3: Two.
- 12:43Speaker 1: Renowned medical examiner doctor Kendall Crowns. He is the chief
- 12:49Speaker 1: medical Examiner Terren County. That's Fort Worth never a lack
- 12:53Speaker 1: of business. He is the star of a hit podcast,
- 12:58Speaker 1: May Him in the More, and he is an estainmed
- 13:02Speaker 1: lecturer at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. Doctor
- 13:07Speaker 1: Kendall Crowns what were arials injuries.
- 13:13Speaker 11: From the reports, she had multiple lacerations of her face
- 13:17Speaker 11: with blood streaming down her head. So when you pick
- 13:20Speaker 11: up a rock, a rock causes blunt force injuries because
- 13:24Speaker 11: it really doesn't necessarily have a sharp edge, and when
- 13:27Speaker 11: you're striking into the skin, it splits the skin, creating
- 13:30Speaker 11: a laceration. Now, the scalp skin is actually very vascular.
- 13:34Speaker 11: It has a lot of blood vessels, so you'll see
- 13:36Speaker 11: a lot of blood associated with that as well. And
- 13:39Speaker 11: if he had kept pounding into the same area with
- 13:42Speaker 11: the rock, he probably would have eventually crushed her skull
- 13:45Speaker 11: and then damaged her brain.
- 13:48Speaker 1: When you say eventually would have crushed her skull, how
- 13:55Speaker 1: much velocity does it take to crush a human skull?
- 14:00Speaker 1: Do you say crush do you mean crack it or
- 14:03Speaker 1: crush it like breaking an egg.
- 14:06Speaker 11: So the skull itself, depending on where you're striking it.
- 14:09Speaker 11: Frontal bone is very thick, occipital bone, which is the
- 14:13Speaker 11: back of the head, is very thick as well, but
- 14:15Speaker 11: the temporal paridal areas on the side of the head
- 14:17Speaker 11: are thinner. So it all depends on where you're hitting
- 14:20Speaker 11: the skull with the rock. But if you're hitting it
- 14:23Speaker 11: over and over and over in the same spot, you'll
- 14:26Speaker 11: eventually kind of start crushing that bone, wearing it down,
- 14:30Speaker 11: and then eventually breaking it. The exact velocity or the
- 14:34Speaker 11: pounds of pressure needed to break the skull is actually
- 14:38Speaker 11: several hundred pounds of pressure, So you have to hit
- 14:41Speaker 11: in the proper area, basically side ahead, and then with
- 14:45Speaker 11: the physical strength of an arm and a rock, you
- 14:48Speaker 11: might be able to break through it. But again, it
- 14:50Speaker 11: isn't an easy process, and you'd have to do it
- 14:53Speaker 11: repetitively in the same area to eventually wear it down
- 14:57Speaker 11: and break through it.
- 15:04Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy grace Well choicely is a veteran
- 15:09Speaker 1: in defense attorney, and he's got one thing right. This
- 15:12Speaker 1: Hawaii doctor who bashed his wife head in with a
- 15:16Speaker 1: rock claims it was self defense. But wait for it
- 15:21Speaker 1: self defense over her alleged affair. Now wait, you can't
- 15:27Speaker 1: have it both ways. Sidney Sumner joining me. Crime Stories
- 15:30Speaker 1: investigative reporter Sidney in self defense under the law, that
- 15:35Speaker 1: means the victim, which should be ariel, attacks you first,
- 15:43Speaker 1: then you respond with just enough force to subdue the attacker.
- 15:50Speaker 1: The attacker in that scenario would be aerial but if
- 15:54Speaker 1: he is enraged over her alleged sex affair, then suddenly
- 15:59Speaker 1: it's not self sense anymore. It's revenged. So he cannot
- 16:03Speaker 1: have his cake on his plate and eat it too.
- 16:07Speaker 1: But it sounds like they're claiming both Sydney Sumner.
- 16:10Speaker 12: Yes, I don't think a jury and this situation is
- 16:15Speaker 12: going to believe for one second that this husband was
- 16:18Speaker 12: only acting in self defense.
- 16:21Speaker 3: The story goes. The defensive story goes.
- 16:24Speaker 13: They were hiking this beautiful trail, and despite spending this
- 16:31Speaker 13: time together over this weekend trying to rekindle their relationship,
- 16:35Speaker 13: Ariel brought.
- 16:36Speaker 3: Up that she was going to have to see her
- 16:38Speaker 3: affair partner, a married man, at work, when they return
- 16:42Speaker 3: from this trip. At that point, Koenig threatened to expose
- 16:47Speaker 3: this affair to all of her family and friends, making
- 16:50Speaker 3: Ariel angry. That's when Ariel tried to push him off
- 16:55Speaker 3: the cliff then hit him in the face with the rock.
- 16:58Speaker 3: So Koenig says, he responds by pushing Ariel to the
- 17:01Speaker 3: ground and hitting her in the face with the rock twice.
- 17:05Speaker 3: So again, I mean twice versus once. These syringes have
- 17:11Speaker 3: not been found, but neither has Ariel's belongings that she
- 17:15Speaker 3: brought with her on the trail. So we have one
- 17:18Speaker 3: trail and two very different stories, and these defense attorneys
- 17:22Speaker 3: are trying to convince the jury that Koenik acted correctly.
- 17:26Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask you this, Sidney Sumner, who was
- 17:30Speaker 1: trying to crawl away from the cliff's edge when the
- 17:34Speaker 1: hikers appeared. Ariel, Oh, okay, So she was the one
- 17:41Speaker 1: being dragged to the cliff's edge, not him. Is that correct?
- 17:46Speaker 3: That's what the hiker saw, Nancy.
- 17:50Speaker 1: And also Sidney Sumner. What were his injuries?
- 17:56Speaker 3: We saw photos in court of some bruising on the
- 18:00Speaker 3: left side of doctor Koenig's face.
- 18:03Speaker 1: Did he get admitted to the hospital?
- 18:07Speaker 3: No?
- 18:08Speaker 1: Did she get admitted in the hospital.
- 18:13Speaker 3: Of course she did. Ariel spent time in the hospital. Yes.
- 18:17Speaker 1: Do you know any more about her injuries?
- 18:20Speaker 3: I know. The defense is arguing that Conig clearly didn't
- 18:24Speaker 3: intend to kill her because she just had this headlock
- 18:27Speaker 3: that bled a lot. It looked really bad. But the
- 18:30Speaker 3: mom didn't experience any kind of brain injury. She did
- 18:34Speaker 3: not have a concussion. There was no further injury.
- 18:38Speaker 1: That's what the defense is saying, correct, Sidney have you
- 18:43Speaker 1: ever seen the Wizard of Oz or read it?
- 18:46Speaker 3: Yes, ma'am.
- 18:47Speaker 1: Okay, do you recall when the Wizard such as he
- 18:52Speaker 1: is said, don't look behind the curtain, look up there
- 18:57Speaker 1: at the man the image, look there, don't look here.
- 19:01Speaker 1: So they're saying, don't look at all the blood streaming
- 19:04Speaker 1: down her face, don't look at her skull being cracked,
- 19:08Speaker 1: don't look at any of that. Look at what I'm
- 19:11Speaker 1: telling you, and I'm telling you she did not suffer
- 19:13Speaker 1: a serious injury. Is that what's happening? Exactly?
- 19:17Speaker 3: What's happening?
- 19:18Speaker 1: Okay? Almon, last question too, Alexis Tereshchuk joining US Crime
- 19:22Speaker 1: Stories investigative reporter. Isn't it true that Dr Koenig fled
- 19:29Speaker 1: the scene and hid out in the woods all Eric Rudolph,
- 19:35Speaker 1: the Olympic bomber until idiot then came out of the
- 19:39Speaker 1: woods and got busted by the cops. Isn't that true?
- 19:43Speaker 10: Yes, that is true, one hundred percent. He because these
- 19:46Speaker 10: two women came upon them and they found him on
- 19:48Speaker 10: top of his wife hitting them. These two women. He
- 19:51Speaker 10: wasn't stopping. She was screaming, screaming, He wasn't stopping. And
- 19:54Speaker 10: if it wasn't for these two hikers who heard her screaming.
- 19:57Speaker 10: They came up, but they said they were so afraid
- 19:59Speaker 10: of him. He looked so scary that they backed off,
- 20:02Speaker 10: and they obviously very quickly called nine one one, But
- 20:05Speaker 10: they were afraid of him. They said that he was
- 20:07Speaker 10: very scary, looking, very intimidating. He had a dark, cold
- 20:10Speaker 10: look in his eyes, and they were afraid for their
- 20:12Speaker 10: own safety, so they backed off. That's after That's when
- 20:15Speaker 10: he was able to run away for quite a while.
- 20:18Speaker 1: Alexis Trescheck. I'm glad you told me that, because I
- 20:21Speaker 1: was wondering, how can you leave when you see a
- 20:25Speaker 1: woman getting killed? Just walk away? I didn't understand that,
- 20:31Speaker 1: but they were afraid for their own lives, and frankly,
- 20:34Speaker 1: I don't blame them. Straight back to Troy Slayton, Troy
- 20:38Speaker 1: is a veteran trial lawyer, and you're about to learn
- 20:40Speaker 1: why he wins so many cases. I predict he's not
- 20:44Speaker 1: going to ask answer the question I'm going to ask him.
- 20:48Speaker 1: But Troy Slayton, isn't it true that under the law,
- 20:52Speaker 1: the force you use and self defense is extremely relative
- 20:57Speaker 1: relevant to using the defense of self defense? In other words,
- 21:01Speaker 1: if I come slap you. You cannot then pull out
- 21:05Speaker 1: an oozy and shoot me. Do you agree with that?
- 21:10Speaker 8: I agree with that.
- 21:11Speaker 9: If you're going to use deadly force, you have to
- 21:14Speaker 9: believe that you were an imminent danger for your life.
- 21:20Speaker 9: So you had to have a reasonable fear of imminent
- 21:24Speaker 9: bodily harm or death him.
- 21:28Speaker 5: So I'm currently beating attacked on helping Polypuka where there's
- 21:33Speaker 5: a man trying to kill her, to pull it all
- 21:35Speaker 5: over her face?
- 21:36Speaker 6: Where is his dad? Polly Pucha the hikes?
- 21:41Speaker 1: Okay, so.
- 21:43Speaker 6: Look out, she's on the Polly Pooka hike and he's
- 21:48Speaker 6: he's currently attacking her. Okay, where how far is the hike?
- 21:52Speaker 6: Guards the entrance wire? We're probably like five minutes into
- 21:55Speaker 6: the hike, and really quickly, okay.
- 21:57Speaker 5: What are you seeing?
- 21:59Speaker 7: We heard her.
- 22:01Speaker 6: And then we talked that over her, and then she
- 22:05Speaker 6: crawled out over her face saying that I'm trying to
- 22:08Speaker 6: kill her and did she know him?
- 22:11Speaker 5: I don't know.
- 22:11Speaker 1: Can you imagine the terror that must have coursed through
- 22:15Speaker 1: her body looking down at that great height on a
- 22:18Speaker 1: very narrow trail. After a brutal beating with a rock
- 22:24Speaker 1: to her skull, she fought back.
- 22:28Speaker 3: She refused to be pushed off this cliff, and that's
- 22:32Speaker 3: why people cannot believe that this happens.
- 22:35Speaker 14: Gearhart Koenig takes off into the woods, covered in blood
- 22:38Speaker 14: from the brutal attack on his wife. Koenig facetimes his
- 22:42Speaker 14: adult son, Emil, who is shocked and concerned from his
- 22:46Speaker 14: father's appearance. Koenig tries to explain what happened, but stops
- 22:50Speaker 14: mid sentence and says, I just tried to kill ari
- 22:54Speaker 14: but she got away. Koenig also tells Emil he wants
- 22:57Speaker 14: to jump off the cliffs and kill himself.
- 23:00Speaker 1: Straight out to Alexis Terestjuk, joining US Crime Stories investigative reporter, Alexis,
- 23:05Speaker 1: did I just hear he fled into the woods and
- 23:09Speaker 1: called his son and said I just tried to kill Ariel.
- 23:14Speaker 1: Please tell me that very slowly. Are you listening, Slayton.
- 23:19Speaker 3: It's very true.
- 23:20Speaker 10: He fled, he called his son, and he literally said,
- 23:25Speaker 10: I just tried to kill mommy. He was away for
- 23:28Speaker 10: quite a while. These women that had found them, they
- 23:31Speaker 10: were actually, as you heard them say, they were like,
- 23:33Speaker 10: oh my gosh, she's coming this way, like they were
- 23:35Speaker 10: very scared. But he went into the woods. And this
- 23:37Speaker 10: is a tropical jungle, as Troy and his brother know.
- 23:42Speaker 10: This isn't a wooded area like the south or the
- 23:45Speaker 10: East coast. You do it, this beautiful, luscious tropical area.
- 23:48Speaker 10: And he fled into there and hid out for quite
- 23:51Speaker 10: a while, but he still had self service and he
- 23:53Speaker 10: was able to make this call from there.
- 23:55Speaker 1: Okay, let me understand, alexis is it true or has
- 24:00Speaker 1: it come out yet that he positioned his wife at
- 24:04Speaker 1: the cliff's edge to do a selfie.
- 24:10Speaker 10: I believe that that is what has been alleged, but
- 24:13Speaker 10: I don't believe that has come out in the trial yet.
- 24:16Speaker 10: But yes, that is what it is, and that then
- 24:18Speaker 10: he attacked her there. That is part of the prosecution's there.
- 24:21Speaker 10: But I'm not sure that has been presented in fort.
- 24:23Speaker 1: You has it, Sydney Sumner? Has that come out yet?
- 24:27Speaker 1: I would think that the prosecution would say that in
- 24:29Speaker 1: opening statements because it's straight out of a Lifetime Scared
- 24:35Speaker 1: of the Chick movie where the husband or lover love
- 24:39Speaker 1: interest positions the woman at the very cliff's edge. Oh,
- 24:42Speaker 1: just a little further, a little further so we can
- 24:44Speaker 1: get a really good shot of us together and then bam,
- 24:47Speaker 1: she's over the edge. What do we know? Did that
- 24:50Speaker 1: come out in opening?
- 24:51Speaker 3: Said? Yes, this did come out in opening statements, Nancy,
- 24:55Speaker 3: And we even saw a body cam from a responding
- 24:58Speaker 3: officer that laid this scene for us. So we know
- 25:00Speaker 3: that Ariel took a photo in a tree. We saw
- 25:03Speaker 3: that big tree branch where she sat up there. They
- 25:05Speaker 3: took a photo, and then her husband asked her to
- 25:08Speaker 3: come to the cliff's edge and take another picture with him,
- 25:12Speaker 3: and Ariel was very uncomfortable with this. She was already
- 25:16Speaker 3: feeling scared. At some point she scooted herself down the
- 25:20Speaker 3: trail when officers came to help her. So she was
- 25:23Speaker 3: already terrified being on this trail, this steep cliff's edge,
- 25:27Speaker 3: and she argued with him. She said, I'm not comfortable
- 25:30Speaker 3: with that, and that's when they say her husband said
- 25:33Speaker 3: I'm sick of your shit and pushed her towards the
- 25:36Speaker 3: edge of the cliff.
- 25:38Speaker 1: Wasn't it enough? I mean, doctor Bethany Marshall, again, this
- 25:41Speaker 1: is straight out of a lifetime scary movie that he
- 25:44Speaker 1: got her to take pictures up in a tree. If
- 25:47Speaker 1: my husband said get up in the train, I'm gonna
- 25:49Speaker 1: take a picture. I'm gonnay, you get up in the trail,
- 25:50Speaker 1: take your picture, get up in a tree. Anyway, she
- 25:56Speaker 1: did it, and that maneuvering her closer and closer to
- 26:00Speaker 1: the edge. I mean that sets all sorts of red
- 26:03Speaker 1: bells of alarm to me.
- 26:05Speaker 4: The fact is, if you're in a good, loving, safe
- 26:08Speaker 4: relationship with a husband, first of all, he's not going
- 26:10Speaker 4: to put you in a dangerous situation on a dangerous trail.
- 26:13Speaker 4: He's not going to put you at the edge of
- 26:15Speaker 4: a cliff.
- 26:15Speaker 1: But women, Doctor Bethany, Doctor Bethany, let's put her up, please,
- 26:21Speaker 1: doctor Bethany. As you know, David and I took our
- 26:24Speaker 1: son John David to tour Notre Dame. Yes, we practically
- 26:28Speaker 1: had a knockdown drag out on the escalator at the
- 26:31Speaker 1: airport because he I was doing things and he was right.
- 26:34Speaker 1: Let's just start with I know he was right. I
- 26:37Speaker 1: was trying to do something. Time to take a picture
- 26:39Speaker 1: of John David going down the escalator the guts to
- 26:42Speaker 1: put in my scrap book after the Notre Dame tour,
- 26:45Speaker 1: and he had a fit behind me, as I like
- 26:49Speaker 1: to say, in front of God and everybody, to hold
- 26:53Speaker 1: on to the escalator, which of course is covered with germs.
- 26:56Speaker 1: But that said much less get me to pose at
- 26:59Speaker 1: the edge of the cliff. Hey not it up because
- 27:02Speaker 1: I didn't have my hand on the rail at the
- 27:04Speaker 1: escalator and he wanted you to. It would be a
- 27:07Speaker 1: totally out of character for a loving husband to get
- 27:10Speaker 1: you closer and closer and closer to the edge of
- 27:12Speaker 1: a cliff, you.
- 27:14Speaker 4: Know, Nancy. Furthermore, to put you on a dangerous hiking
- 27:17Speaker 4: trail to let me see the other signs of DV
- 27:21Speaker 4: or domestic violence, the fact that he believes she's having
- 27:24Speaker 4: an affair, and then he calls every single relative to
- 27:29Speaker 4: tell on her. This is such a part of a
- 27:32Speaker 4: toxic relationship to try to discredit the wife in front
- 27:35Speaker 4: of everybody, ruin her reputation, put messages out online. I'm
- 27:39Speaker 4: not sure if he did that, but that's one thing.
- 27:41Speaker 4: According to court testimony, he also screamed because they have
- 27:46Speaker 4: a two and a four year old, only one of
- 27:48Speaker 4: us is going to parent them, so it says already
- 27:50Speaker 4: in his mind that he's allegedly going to push her
- 27:54Speaker 4: over that cliff.
- 27:55Speaker 1: Nancy.
- 27:56Speaker 4: Women who are DV victims, they predict their pending death
- 28:00Speaker 4: to other people. We know that they often say or
- 28:03Speaker 4: they'll write notes or letters if I'm discovered dead.
- 28:06Speaker 3: He did it.
- 28:07Speaker 4: The fact that she refused to go to the edge
- 28:09Speaker 4: of the cliff tells me that she already knew that
- 28:12Speaker 4: she was at risk of homicide in this marriage and
- 28:16Speaker 4: if divorce was even being talked about Nancy. We also
- 28:19Speaker 4: know women are at the greatest risk of violence and
- 28:23Speaker 4: death when they are about to leave a relationship. According
- 28:27Speaker 4: to some reports, he was actually stalking her in the relationship.
- 28:32Speaker 4: He was going online looking at her private financial affairs.
- 28:35Speaker 4: This was the second marriage for both of them. He
- 28:38Speaker 4: was even looking up what the cost of his last
- 28:42Speaker 4: divorce was. This came out in testimony and in opening statements.
- 28:46Speaker 4: That tells me that he was already thinking do I
- 28:50Speaker 4: want to divorce her or do I want to kill her?
- 28:51Speaker 4: Divorce kill? Well, the divorce is going to cost a
- 28:55Speaker 4: lot more. I've already been through it. I don't want
- 28:57Speaker 4: to do it again, Nancy. He also acute used her
- 29:01Speaker 4: of spending one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars of
- 29:05Speaker 4: their joint funds. But what has also come out is
- 29:08Speaker 4: that she was paying the mortgage payment the son's tuition,
- 29:12Speaker 4: paying off marital debts. So right there, even in court,
- 29:16Speaker 4: he's trying to discredit her, trying to say she has
- 29:18Speaker 4: an affair. This is like Nicole Brown Simpson who's hanging
- 29:23Speaker 4: out with Ron Goldman because she needs a friend because
- 29:28Speaker 4: her husband's no longer her friend. All of a sudden,
- 29:31Speaker 4: the friend is being seen as an affair person even
- 29:34Speaker 4: though they're not. So there's so much more I could say,
- 29:38Speaker 4: but the toxicity of the relationship is saying shock.
- 29:42Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Marshall, say it go ahead. Where's more to say?
- 29:47Speaker 1: I want to hear it?
- 29:49Speaker 3: Well.
- 29:49Speaker 4: The more to say also is that he was on
- 29:52Speaker 4: public forums looking up affairs, like what it means when
- 29:57Speaker 4: somebody's having an affair. So the question that entered my
- 29:59Speaker 4: mind is perpetrators of domestic violence usually have pathological jealousy.
- 30:05Speaker 4: They always believe that the wife is having an affair
- 30:09Speaker 4: always So were the forums because he was already preparing
- 30:13Speaker 4: a defense if he was.
- 30:15Speaker 3: Going to kill her?
- 30:15Speaker 4: Or was the forum because he was consumed with jealousy
- 30:20Speaker 4: and nancy? He looked at these sites right around Christmas
- 30:24Speaker 4: in New Year's the time that families should be enjoying
- 30:27Speaker 4: each other in celebrating. He's just consumed with the idea
- 30:31Speaker 4: she's having an affair. And in court, in opening statements,
- 30:36Speaker 4: her attorneys said, there might be some flirty texts, there's
- 30:40Speaker 4: nothing salacious, there's nothing sexual. I think he was already
- 30:44Speaker 4: heading off the defense when he said flirty, because domestic
- 30:49Speaker 4: violence perpetrators always think their wives are flirting with other people,
- 30:53Speaker 4: even when they are not.
- 30:56Speaker 1: Bill Hernandez is joining us. He is a domestic violence expert,
- 31:00Speaker 1: a detective in napa's PD. Bill Hernandez, you heard everything,
- 31:05Speaker 1: doctor Bethany said, Agree or disagree?
- 31:10Speaker 2: Oh? I absolutely agree. I mean there's a bunch of
- 31:12Speaker 2: red flags that Ariel has for potential homicide, the accusation
- 31:17Speaker 2: of a received affair, them getting ready to leave each other,
- 31:20Speaker 2: them having metal problems. Those are all big red flags.
- 31:24Speaker 2: And this was obviously maybe even an issue of him projecting,
- 31:28Speaker 2: which often suspects in domestic violence stew They accuse others
- 31:33Speaker 2: of doing exactly what they're doing themselves.
- 31:35Speaker 1: You mean, for instance, the husband would say you're sleeping
- 31:39Speaker 1: around when he's sleeping around.
- 31:41Speaker 2: Yes, they do that quite often.
- 31:43Speaker 4: Why, Bethany, or you've drained our bank account? When really
- 31:47Speaker 4: they're draining the bank account. The reason why, Nancy, is
- 31:50Speaker 4: that these men they want to control the wives. They
- 31:53Speaker 4: see the wives as objects who should not have any
- 31:56Speaker 4: dependence or autonomy. And a part of the control is
- 32:00Speaker 4: I get to do what I want to do, but
- 32:03Speaker 4: you can't do what you want to do. And the
- 32:05Speaker 4: fact that he accuses her of draining their accounts tells
- 32:09Speaker 4: me that she wasn't even in charge of the finances,
- 32:12Speaker 4: which is a part of the abuse process that if
- 32:16Speaker 4: the wife even tries to touch mutual funds for any reason,
- 32:21Speaker 4: she's accused of dissipating marital funds. And this is another
- 32:25Speaker 4: projection I think. I think what's going to come out
- 32:28Speaker 4: is perhaps he was having an affairs, Perhaps he was
- 32:31Speaker 4: dissipating marital funds. He had, I think, allegedly complete control.
- 32:36Speaker 4: But Nancy, it's a projection. You're cheating, when in fact
- 32:39Speaker 4: I'm cheating. But it's much more nefarious and deep. It's
- 32:43Speaker 4: that if you enjoy anybody, if somebody sees your beauty,
- 32:47Speaker 4: my control over you might slip. But I don't care
- 32:50Speaker 4: at all if I have affairs, because I lack empathy
- 32:53Speaker 4: towards you, and you're just an object. So I'm going
- 32:55Speaker 4: to go out in fact that horrible feeling of jealousy.
- 32:58Speaker 4: I have reverse it into you by having sex with
- 33:02Speaker 4: other women, and then you're going to see how it feels.
- 33:06Speaker 4: But it's all in their head, Nancy, it's all made up.
- 33:08Speaker 1: To Troy's Lton joining us veteran defense attorney who has
- 33:12Speaker 1: won a lot of cases. Troy, just take off your
- 33:16Speaker 1: defense hat.
- 33:17Speaker 2: Just a moment.
- 33:18Speaker 1: I'm taking off my prosecution hat. You know the saying
- 33:22Speaker 1: the love of money is the root of all evil.
- 33:25Speaker 1: It's not money is the root of all evil. It's
- 33:27Speaker 1: the love of money is the root of all evil.
- 33:31Speaker 1: How many cases do you see where people fight and
- 33:35Speaker 1: kill over money?
- 33:37Speaker 9: It happens every single day, Nancy, and it is one
- 33:42Speaker 9: of the causes of a lot of disagreements among married
- 33:49Speaker 9: people and even people that aren't married. Money tends to
- 33:55Speaker 9: be the cause of disagreements all over the world.
- 34:00Speaker 6: Okay, what do you see? We heard her streaming and
- 34:04Speaker 6: then we saw that over her and then she crawled
- 34:08Speaker 6: out with over her face that I'm trying to kill
- 34:10Speaker 6: her And did she know him?
- 34:14Speaker 1: I don't know. Fighting off a syringe attack, being bludgeoned
- 34:23Speaker 1: in the face and head with a rock, looking at
- 34:26Speaker 1: death on the edge of that cliff. They appeared to
- 34:30Speaker 1: be a perfect couple. What is it about a romantic
- 34:33Speaker 1: getaway that inspires murder? Straight out to Alexis Rieschak, Crime
- 34:39Speaker 1: Story's investigative reporter on the Cohoni case from the very beginning, Alexis,
- 34:43Speaker 1: thanks for being with us tonight. Is it true that
- 34:46Speaker 1: Koenig the husband Koenig broke down broke down in court
- 34:53Speaker 1: when his lawyer described a facetimed call afterwards that he
- 34:57Speaker 1: Conig had with his son. For Konig said he wanted
- 35:01Speaker 1: to commit suicide, and he was calling to say goodbye
- 35:05Speaker 1: and tell him he was sorry, that he wished he
- 35:08Speaker 1: had been a better man. I wish it too. Prosecutors
- 35:11Speaker 1: are calling the conversation a confession because he also said
- 35:15Speaker 1: at the time, I'm not going to make it back.
- 35:18Speaker 1: I tried to care kill Ariel, but she got away.
- 35:23Speaker 1: Is the son the one he said that to.
- 35:27Speaker 10: Yes, it's his son from another marriage. He has two
- 35:30Speaker 10: young children, they're two and four with Ariel. This is
- 35:32Speaker 10: a son from he's older and he facetimed him and
- 35:35Speaker 10: did this. And the thing was he absolutely had such
- 35:39Speaker 10: a reaction in court, he started crying, wiping tears away.
- 35:43Speaker 10: He's like leaned over and just crying at his own
- 35:48Speaker 10: phone call that he had with his son. Not really
- 35:50Speaker 10: with other things, but this really hit him. This is
- 35:54Speaker 10: when he just starts boohooing as the details.
- 35:57Speaker 8: Of the life.
- 35:57Speaker 1: Oh, really, Troy, do you have to work with your client?
- 36:01Speaker 1: Do you have to go eat and pinch them to
- 36:03Speaker 1: get them to start crying in court?
- 36:05Speaker 2: Really?
- 36:06Speaker 1: It starts in court. He starts crying when he's talking
- 36:11Speaker 1: about his suicide attempt Nancy.
- 36:14Speaker 9: He's being accused of doing something that if you believe
- 36:18Speaker 9: his defense attorneys and look, again, we weren't there, then
- 36:23Speaker 9: this would be the most traumatic thing that.
- 36:24Speaker 8: Could possibly happen.
- 36:26Speaker 1: Every time I ask you a question, you remind me
- 36:29Speaker 1: I wasn't there. Of course, we weren't there.
- 36:33Speaker 9: Because that's the whole, that's the animal, is to find
- 36:36Speaker 9: the truth. A trial is a search for the truth.
- 36:41Speaker 9: And we weren't there. The hikers who came upon him
- 36:45Speaker 9: and called nine one one, they weren't there at the beginning.
- 36:49Speaker 9: Nobody knows except those two people, and so that's what hopefully.
- 36:53Speaker 1: They well is it? When I ask you a tough question.
- 36:56Speaker 1: You say you weren't there, Okay, Can we just stipulate
- 37:00Speaker 1: I wasn't there? Okay, I admit I wasn't there. What
- 37:03Speaker 1: I ask you is why Coneg starts when they're talking
- 37:09Speaker 1: about his call to his son where he was contemplating
- 37:13Speaker 1: suicide that made him start crying, not bashing his wife's
- 37:17Speaker 1: skull in he starts.
- 37:19Speaker 8: Crying if you're so old.
- 37:21Speaker 1: They're talking about him and what he's been through, fragile skull,
- 37:25Speaker 1: was fragile if he.
- 37:27Speaker 9: Was in such a fragile emotional state, if he believed
- 37:32Speaker 9: his wife was number one potentially having an affair number
- 37:36Speaker 9: two trying to kill him.
- 37:38Speaker 1: That didn't make him cry.
- 37:39Speaker 9: That he's calling his son talking about wanting to just
- 37:43Speaker 9: end his whole life.
- 37:44Speaker 8: Yeah, and then having to relive that moment. That's psychological trauma.
- 37:49Speaker 8: In that moment, of course, you're going to start crying.
- 37:52Speaker 9: Any normal person with normal emotions would cry in that
- 37:56Speaker 9: moment when you think that your entire world is and collapsing.
- 38:01Speaker 1: You know what I say to that choice Layton, He's crying,
- 38:04Speaker 1: all right, He's crying because he's sorry. He's not sorry
- 38:08Speaker 1: he did it. He's sorry he got caught. I mean,
- 38:11Speaker 1: dtor Bethany Marshall, you're the shrink, you're the doctor. But
- 38:16Speaker 1: how telling is it that he turns on the waterworks
- 38:23Speaker 1: in court when they're talking about his mental suffering, that
- 38:29Speaker 1: he wanted to end it all? Now, you would probably
- 38:33Speaker 1: call that histrionic, that's one of your words. I would
- 38:37Speaker 1: call it him being a drama queen, That's what I
- 38:39Speaker 1: would call it, and in front with Jurie blubbering and
- 38:42Speaker 1: snotting like that.
- 38:44Speaker 4: You know, Nancy, I saw that footage I did. I
- 38:47Speaker 4: watched him breakdown in court. It seemed very manufactured, dramatic
- 38:53Speaker 4: and yes, historyonic, because histrionics is really emotions that appear
- 39:00Speaker 4: deep in nature, but they're not deep at all. They're
- 39:03Speaker 4: just designed to get attention. And Nancy, can you imagine
- 39:06Speaker 4: if he had succeeded in killing his wife and he
- 39:11Speaker 4: was left to parent those two sons, and he treated
- 39:14Speaker 4: the two and four year old like he treated the
- 39:15Speaker 4: nineteen year old. He calls his own son says, I'm
- 39:19Speaker 4: now going to kill myself. He's covered in blood. This
- 39:23Speaker 4: means he's using, he's manipulating and exploiting his nineteen year
- 39:28Speaker 4: old for his own purposes. He's trying to get empathy
- 39:31Speaker 4: from his own son. This is just one more tell
- 39:35Speaker 4: in a larger situation of somebody who's extremely self self possessed,
- 39:42Speaker 4: just only pure himself, selfish, thank you, someone who is
- 39:46Speaker 4: extremely self absorbed and really doesn't care about his nineteen
- 39:50Speaker 4: year old son nor anybody else.
- 39:52Speaker 1: What a sharp dichotomy where we are today and where
- 39:58Speaker 1: it all started. Listen.
- 40:00Speaker 7: Gerhard Konig, an anesthesiologist and professor at the University of
- 40:04Speaker 7: Pittsburgh Medical Center, falls head over heels for nuclear power
- 40:08Speaker 7: plant project engineer Aril, despite their ten year age gap.
- 40:12Speaker 7: Gerhart and Aril are married in twenty eighteen, have their
- 40:15Speaker 7: first baby boy in twenty twenty, and another two years later.
- 40:19Speaker 7: In twenty twenty three, the couple decides to follow one
- 40:21Speaker 7: of Gerhart's dreams and move from Pennsylvania to Maui, Hawaii.
- 40:25Speaker 7: Gerhardt becomes a partner at the Anesthesia Medical Group and
- 40:28Speaker 7: frequently works at Maui Memorial Medical Center, while Aril retains
- 40:32Speaker 7: her job at Tara Power.
- 40:35Speaker 1: It starts off so beautifully, and then the children come along.
- 40:41Speaker 1: But I want you to hear how this accusation of
- 40:44Speaker 1: infidelity played out.
- 40:47Speaker 15: The Koenigs have been in couples therapy for at least
- 40:49Speaker 15: three months. After Gerhard Konig accuses Ariel of infidelity in December.
- 40:54Speaker 15: Ariel denies his accusations and doesn't understand where they're coming from.
- 40:58Speaker 15: She wants her husband's trust back, but it seems Gerhart
- 41:01Speaker 15: is only becoming more jealous, controlling, and at times abusive.
- 41:06Speaker 1: Okay, so that goes back to what Bill Hernandez was
- 41:09Speaker 1: telling us, who is an expert in domestic violence and
- 41:12Speaker 1: sex assaults, a detective in NAPAs PD in California, about
- 41:17Speaker 1: how while you may be having an affair, you blame
- 41:22Speaker 1: your mate of having the affair. Here he is blaming
- 41:26Speaker 1: her Dr Bethany. She denies it and they commit. She
- 41:32Speaker 1: commits to couple's therapy. They've been it for three months
- 41:37Speaker 1: so she can prove her innocence. A pretty onerous burden
- 41:43Speaker 1: to always having to be proving yourself that you're worthy
- 41:46Speaker 1: of your husband.
- 41:48Speaker 4: Well, that's what's being reported, is that she's trying to
- 41:51Speaker 4: earn back his trust. That doesn't fit any pattern I
- 41:55Speaker 4: see as a couple's therapist, that the wife is trying
- 41:57Speaker 4: to earn back the trust, not not somebody who's a
- 41:59Speaker 4: new engineer, successful, beautiful, big life, surrounded by family and friends.
- 42:05Speaker 4: This doesn't sound right. What's more likely in the treatment
- 42:09Speaker 4: is that she brought him in because she could no
- 42:11Speaker 4: longer bear all the accusations and that their home life
- 42:15Speaker 4: was spinning out of control. And if he was trying
- 42:17Speaker 4: to discredit her to her family and friends, he was
- 42:20Speaker 4: probably fighting in front of the two and four years
- 42:22Speaker 4: year old. I would imagine that there were concerns in
- 42:25Speaker 4: her mind as a mother about what was happening in
- 42:28Speaker 4: that household. I would guess she was losing control in
- 42:31Speaker 4: multiple areas. She was probably losing privacy. He perhaps was
- 42:36Speaker 4: breaking into her phone. I think that's been reported somewhere,
- 42:40Speaker 4: monitoring her whereabouts. According to one report, he was actually
- 42:45Speaker 4: stalking and surveilling her and Nancy. Seventy six percent of
- 42:49Speaker 4: all stalking happens during a marriage while two people are married.
- 42:53Speaker 4: We think of it as happening. You know, you go
- 42:56Speaker 4: out on a date with somebody, you don't want to
- 42:58Speaker 4: date them again, and all of a sudden they become
- 43:00Speaker 4: preoccupied and that said start they start stalking you. That's
- 43:03Speaker 4: not really how it goes down. You get married to
- 43:05Speaker 4: somebody you fall in love and you realize that that
- 43:09Speaker 4: beneath the surface is somebody who's pathologically jealous. So they
- 43:13Speaker 4: become preoccupied with you, and in fact they might want
- 43:17Speaker 4: to kill you because if you're dead, they don't have
- 43:20Speaker 4: to live with their own tortuous fantasies anymore. And then
- 43:24Speaker 4: that becomes a strong motiv motivator towards homicide.
- 43:28Speaker 1: So for her thirty sixth birthday, he the husband as
- 43:33Speaker 1: Troy's lightness, quick to remind us, who has a great reputation,
- 43:37Speaker 1: whisks Ariel away to celebrate. He secretly plans the romantic vacation,
- 43:44Speaker 1: and he even has family members hire nannies to stay
- 43:46Speaker 1: with their two little children all their way.
- 43:49Speaker 14: And then this the morning of Ariel's actual birthday, the
- 43:52Speaker 14: couple decides to hike the Polypool Betrail, the popular trail
- 43:56Speaker 14: up the ridge of the Kaolau Mountains leads to the
- 43:59Speaker 14: polyp Puka, which literally translates to cliffhole of gorgeous rock
- 44:04Speaker 14: formation framing the east side of the Wahoo. Despite the
- 44:07Speaker 14: amazing views, the cliff hugging trail is thin and steep,
- 44:11Speaker 14: with many choosing to not go all the way to
- 44:13Speaker 14: the top. Ariel wants to brave it, but when she
- 44:16Speaker 14: sees the last uphill stretch, she chooses to stay where
- 44:19Speaker 14: she is, waiting for Gearhart as he completes it.
- 44:25Speaker 1: I height to a lot of trails before I had
- 44:27Speaker 1: the twins, and I've got to tell you, can I
- 44:29Speaker 1: see that one more time? Please control room. That is
- 44:32Speaker 1: a treacherous trail right there. It doesn't look like it
- 44:35Speaker 1: right there, but the angle they're going up, up, up,
- 44:40Speaker 1: and then the trail turns into roots, a lot of
- 44:45Speaker 1: roots going upward. Hold it just keep going, keep going.
- 44:50Speaker 1: Right there, it starts to get really tricky. And the
- 44:55Speaker 1: further up you go, the more treacherous the footing. That
- 45:01Speaker 1: is where he led her. And isn't it true, Alexis
- 45:05Speaker 1: Teruschuk that there are signs after signs after signs that
- 45:08Speaker 1: say don't go on this trail again. It's like Wizard
- 45:12Speaker 1: of Oz, turn back, don't come here.
- 45:16Speaker 10: Yes, it's a very very it's super steep. And if
- 45:20Speaker 10: you can see it in this in this video, which
- 45:22Speaker 10: is the police officer walking the trail, and he says
- 45:26Speaker 10: during court, he says, you know, I'm not just hiking
- 45:29Speaker 10: this trail because it's hard. You see him, you know,
- 45:32Speaker 10: so he says, I'm looking for all the evidence around
- 45:35Speaker 10: this trail. So they were there. It's super steep. There
- 45:39Speaker 10: are lots of signs everybody. But this isn't just a
- 45:42Speaker 10: walk on the path and overlook the ocean. This this
- 45:44Speaker 10: is a serious thing. And that's there's her sweater that
- 45:47Speaker 10: they found, there's.
- 45:48Speaker 4: One of the rocks.
- 45:49Speaker 10: They found a lot of evidence there because he fled,
- 45:53Speaker 10: she got help and the police were able to go
- 45:55Speaker 10: and look at the scene immediately after it happened.
- 45:58Speaker 1: Is it true what Troy Slayton said that the syringe
- 46:01Speaker 1: was never found, alexis that is true?
- 46:04Speaker 10: It has never been found. She alleges that he had
- 46:08Speaker 10: one that he tried to stabber with it. I think
- 46:11Speaker 10: she said, maybe it got knocked away. He tried again,
- 46:15Speaker 10: but he did leave the site. He left for quite
- 46:17Speaker 10: a while. He was gone, and several of her things
- 46:20Speaker 10: are missing as well, so not just the syringe that
- 46:23Speaker 10: she says there, but several of her personal items are
- 46:25Speaker 10: missing as well.
- 46:26Speaker 1: Chroice Layton, you've got your toe in the door right there.
- 46:32Speaker 1: Because her story includes him pulling a syringe. The fact
- 46:38Speaker 1: that the syringe was never found, the defense can now
- 46:42Speaker 1: say not that I believe it that all of her
- 46:46Speaker 1: story is fantastical and made up just because he likedly
- 46:52Speaker 1: threw the syringe. It probably went over the cliff. They'll
- 46:54Speaker 1: never find it. But the truth is, you get one
- 46:57Speaker 1: jiar to believe if she's made up a part of
- 47:00Speaker 1: her story, then they can discount all of her testimony.
- 47:03Speaker 1: That is the law. If even one part of a
- 47:07Speaker 1: witness's story, their credibility is successfully attacked, the jury, under
- 47:13Speaker 1: the law is allowed to discount the testimony in its entirety.
- 47:18Speaker 9: You almost cited the jury instruction exactly correct, Nancy. And
- 47:23Speaker 9: that's exactly what the judge will tell And that's the
- 47:26Speaker 9: jurors at the end of this case, and that's exactly
- 47:28Speaker 9: what the defense attorneys will harp on and dial in on.
- 47:34Speaker 8: If you find that a witness has.
- 47:36Speaker 9: Not been truthful in any part of their testimony, you
- 47:39Speaker 9: can disregard every single thing that they said. And that's
- 47:43Speaker 9: exactly what his defense attorneys are going to do. They're
- 47:47Speaker 9: going to blow it up on the big screen. They're
- 47:50Speaker 9: going to blow up every word of that journey instruction.
- 47:53Speaker 9: On cross examination, the defense attorneys are going to ask
- 47:56Speaker 9: the police officer, did you conduct a thorough and complete investigation.
- 48:04Speaker 9: Did you search the entire area carefully in order to
- 48:08Speaker 9: corroborate your victims story?
- 48:11Speaker 8: And the cop then is in a catch twenty two.
- 48:15Speaker 9: Either he did complete a thorough investigation and no such
- 48:20Speaker 9: syringe existed, or he didn't complete a thorough investigation, which
- 48:26Speaker 9: means that his testimony is suspect.
- 48:30Speaker 1: Well, Troy Slaton, there's more than just two alternatives. There's
- 48:34Speaker 1: another alternative. Well, there are, mini, but I could easily
- 48:37Speaker 1: defeat that the syringe went over the cliff side and
- 48:41Speaker 1: even though the police conducted a thorough and sifting search,
- 48:48Speaker 1: they couldn't find it because it is forever lost. And
- 48:50Speaker 1: I'd like to point out a recent development in court.
- 48:54Speaker 1: After the trip, Ariel found propofaal that Michael Jackson said
- 49:01Speaker 1: propofol in their home and she saved it and handed
- 49:06Speaker 1: it over, and there's a big argument about whether that
- 49:10Speaker 1: propofol will be allowed in evidence, which gives me a
- 49:14Speaker 1: clue as to what was in that syringe. I am
- 49:18Speaker 1: not giving the defendant a gold star for getting rid
- 49:23Speaker 1: of the syringe. That's not happening, not today, Troyce Layton.
- 49:27Speaker 1: And in response to your argument, I would just keep
- 49:31Speaker 1: telling the jury She's the one that went in the hospital.
- 49:34Speaker 1: He ran into the woods. Now you decide who is
- 49:38Speaker 1: at fault. We wait as justice unfolds, and we remember
- 49:41Speaker 1: an American hero, Captain Curtis Angst US Air Force, just
- 49:46Speaker 1: thirty years old, killed in Iraq, leaving behind a wife,
- 49:51Speaker 1: now widow, Mary, American hero Captain Curtis Angst, Nancy Grace
- 49:59Speaker 1: signing off, goodbye friend.