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The Murder Mystery That Fooled Everyone Until DNA Spoke _ Homicide_ Hours To Kill · The Mind of a Man

0:03
Speaker 1: Secret lives can be the death of you.
0:07
Speaker 2: A brutal killing.
0:09
Speaker 3: She was just this lovable girl who had no enemies.
0:15
Speaker 1: There was no reason for this.
0:18
Speaker 2: A dark mystery with multiple suspects.
0:22
Speaker 4: The dangers of internet dating. It's a game of Russian roulette.
0:27
Speaker 3: Only her closest friends knew that she had this wild side.
0:34
Speaker 1: There's plenty of crazy people out there that she might
0:37
Speaker 1: have sent a picture to.
0:38
Speaker 2: The truth will be revealed.
0:44
Speaker 3: She fought for her life.
0:47
Speaker 1: That's a pretty violent way to kill somebody.
0:54
Speaker 2: Every day in North America, dozens of people are murdered.
0:59
Speaker 2: The key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies
1:02
Speaker 2: in the final 24 hours of the victim's life. To
1:06
Speaker 2: crack the case, detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline, the
1:11
Speaker 2: minutes and hours containing evidence that can help unlock the
1:15
Speaker 2: mystery and catch the killer. Staten Island's Willowbrook neighborhood, a
1:30
Speaker 2: world away from the hustle and bustle of New York.
1:36
Speaker 3: It's basically like Smallville, USA. The neighborhood itself was made
1:41
Speaker 3: up of a lot of Orthodox Jewish families.
1:47
Speaker 1: On a sunny Saturday, they'll see people walk into the synagogue. Safe,
1:53
Speaker 1: quiet area.
1:56
Speaker 2: But when a mother comes home one night after work,
1:59
Speaker 2: she finds it far too quiet.
2:02
Speaker 1: Seema Posse came home around 7 p.m. that night. Something
2:07
Speaker 1: didn't appear to be right right from the beginning.
2:12
Speaker 3: The back door appeared to be open. She thought her daughter, Eliza,
2:18
Speaker 3: would still be at work.
2:21
Speaker 1: The house appeared to be in disarray. There was papers
2:26
Speaker 1: thrown on the floor, drawers open, objects thrown all over
2:30
Speaker 1: the ground. The first thing she did is to call
2:35
Speaker 1: her daughter to see if Eliza was okay. There was
2:40
Speaker 1: no answer. She was upset and worried. She goes to
2:48
Speaker 1: check her daughter's bedroom door. It's locked.
2:57
Speaker 3: She panicked. She ran outside. She called 911 and waited
3:03
Speaker 3: for police to come.
3:06
Speaker 1: She felt that something bad happened, and then she didn't
3:09
Speaker 1: want to see that by herself.
3:12
Speaker 2: NYPD Detective Michael Kenney is called to the scene.
3:17
Speaker 1: When the police come in, they break down the door.
3:19
Speaker 1: The laser posse was found dead in her bedroom. She
3:31
Speaker 1: was 18 years old.
3:37
Speaker 3: Once the police told Seema what had happened to Eliza,
3:41
Speaker 3: she just started shrieking, screaming, like people who didn't even
3:45
Speaker 3: know what was going on were coming out of the
3:46
Speaker 3: houses to see what was going on outside. She could
3:52
Speaker 3: not believe the daughter that she just left several hours
3:54
Speaker 3: earlier was now dead.
4:00
Speaker 2: To capture the killer, Detective Kenny will need to piece
4:04
Speaker 2: together Eliza's final day on Earth.
4:07
Speaker 5: The last 24 hours are critical to any investigation. It
4:10
Speaker 5: provides the information the investigator needs, such as who, what, where, when,
4:16
Speaker 5: and why. And that applies to every murder case as
4:19
Speaker 5: you're trying to solve it.
4:20
Speaker 1: The first thing we do in trying to determine the
4:23
Speaker 1: time of death was speak to the last people that
4:26
Speaker 1: spoke to her. So our first interview office would be Seema,
4:29
Speaker 1: her mother. When Seema left around 10 a.m. in the
4:34
Speaker 1: morning to go to work, Eliza was still home. Eliza
4:38
Speaker 1: normally would have been going to work around 1 p.m.
4:42
Speaker 1: That particular day, she called in late. So she was
4:45
Speaker 1: going to work after 1 o'clock. Seema comes home around 7.
4:51
Speaker 1: So somewhere between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. is when
4:55
Speaker 1: Eliza was killed.
4:57
Speaker 2: Through tears, her mother provides the details of Eliza's life. Now,
5:02
Speaker 2: cut tragically short.
5:04
Speaker 3: Eliza and her mother were very close. This was her
5:07
Speaker 3: little girl who she was looking forward to, you know,
5:11
Speaker 3: watching grow up and get married and have kids. She
5:15
Speaker 3: just graduated high school. She was taking off a year
5:18
Speaker 3: just to work and save up some money. She was
5:23
Speaker 3: just a very friendly, outgoing girl, liked by anybody who
5:27
Speaker 3: knew her. Eliza grew up in a very religious, orthodox household.
5:37
Speaker 3: Her mother and father divorced about a year before the murder,
5:42
Speaker 3: and her father moved back to Israel.
5:46
Speaker 2: Eliza's mother isn't the only family member interviewed at the scene.
5:51
Speaker 3: Eliza had a half-brother, Raviv Gabay, and he was just
5:56
Speaker 3: getting married as the parents got divorced.
6:00
Speaker 1: Raviv ran a kosher cookie business. I wanted to know
6:05
Speaker 1: what he did that day, where he was. Raviv told
6:09
Speaker 1: me that he was delivering cookies. He was out on
6:13
Speaker 1: Long Island around 1 p.m. making a delivery. After he
6:18
Speaker 1: learned of his sister's death, he came to the house
6:21
Speaker 1: to console his mother. Raviv was with Seema, hugging her,
6:29
Speaker 1: consoling her. and asking me a lot of questions. How
6:35
Speaker 1: could somebody do this? We need to solve this case.
6:40
Speaker 2: For Detective Kenny and his team, the first step is
6:43
Speaker 2: to examine the crime scene.
6:46
Speaker 1: There's Eliza laying on the ground naked. There was a
6:53
Speaker 1: pillow over her face. The towel underneath her. and a
7:02
Speaker 1: mattress that was pulled over part of her body.
7:07
Speaker 3: Her hair was wet still, so they were theorizing that
7:12
Speaker 3: she would have just come out of the shower.
7:16
Speaker 1: But it almost appeared that she was placed there. There
7:20
Speaker 1: looked like there was some bruising on the face. There
7:23
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of trauma to the neck.
7:26
Speaker 6: Suffocation is one of those types of murder that requires the...
7:32
Speaker 6: to be overpowered by the assailant. It is not a
7:37
Speaker 6: death that is easily accomplished if the victim is able
7:40
Speaker 6: to fight and struggle, and therefore, it can take a
7:45
Speaker 6: prolonged period of time, and there's an element of pain
7:48
Speaker 6: and suffering.
7:50
Speaker 1: But this person overpowered Eliza pretty quickly, but you would
7:54
Speaker 1: think it would be a male, somebody bigger and stronger
7:58
Speaker 1: than she was.
8:00
Speaker 6: She was in a state of undress, which automatically you
8:04
Speaker 6: have to entertain the possibility that there was sexual assault
8:08
Speaker 6: or sexual activity.
8:12
Speaker 1: We fingerprinted all the areas that we could. We bagged
8:17
Speaker 1: the pillow that was over her face, the towel that
8:21
Speaker 1: was underneath Eliza. There was a spot or two of
8:26
Speaker 1: blood on the towel.
8:30
Speaker 3: And they discovered some skin under her fingernails. Of course,
8:36
Speaker 3: they scraped that and sent that to the lab also
8:39
Speaker 3: to check for DNA.
8:41
Speaker 6: When investigating a crime such as this, you want to
8:45
Speaker 6: throw a wide net and try to collect as much
8:49
Speaker 6: evidence and data as possible.
8:52
Speaker 1: We knew that ultimately some DNA would be coming back
8:55
Speaker 1: from Eliza, whether the blood stain or all the stuff
8:58
Speaker 1: under her fingernails. I felt early on that anybody I
9:02
Speaker 1: spoke to, I would take a DNA swab.
9:07
Speaker 2: But processing this evidence takes time.
9:10
Speaker 6: The CSI effect, as it's known, has altered the public's
9:15
Speaker 6: perception of how long things take. Crimes are not solved
9:20
Speaker 6: in two hours. It takes hours and hours of examining
9:26
Speaker 6: evidence and analyzing test results that come back.
9:31
Speaker 1: Obviously, they're not going to stop an investigation and just
9:33
Speaker 1: wait until it comes back. This was a high-profile case,
9:37
Speaker 1: and the pressure to solve this case was strong.
9:42
Speaker 2: Detectives worked to uncover what brought the killer into the
9:45
Speaker 2: Parsi's home.
9:50
Speaker 1: There was a few possibilities in how Liza was killed.
9:55
Speaker 1: The first, obviously, being a burglary. Given that... the house
10:00
Speaker 1: was in disarray, that was obviously our first angle.
10:04
Speaker 3: After the police did a search, they determined that maybe
10:07
Speaker 3: a few dollars and some jewelry was missing.
10:11
Speaker 4: If you're breaking into a house to steal spare change
10:17
Speaker 4: and the homeowner comes in What the burglar is thinking is,
10:21
Speaker 4: I can try to run away, but I may not
10:23
Speaker 4: make it. And if I don't make it, then I'm
10:26
Speaker 4: going to jail for a long time. And so they
10:28
Speaker 4: make a split-second decision, and they commit a murder.
10:33
Speaker 1: In this particular case, it appeared that somebody entered through
10:36
Speaker 1: the rear door. The first thing you want to check
10:40
Speaker 1: is people's M.O.s. Is there a patent? Is there a
10:43
Speaker 1: particular person that's going around, going through unlocked back doors?
10:50
Speaker 2: Detectives canvas the neighborhood, looking for a lead. They discover
10:55
Speaker 2: a community in shock.
10:58
Speaker 3: It's not a place where you get murders. But here
11:02
Speaker 3: you have a girl who everybody might have saw the
11:05
Speaker 3: day before, waving, saying hi. And now they find out
11:10
Speaker 3: that she's dead in her own bedroom. I mean, they
11:15
Speaker 3: just couldn't fathom it. This is something you see on
11:19
Speaker 3: the 6 o'clock news in another neighborhood, not in their backyard.
11:25
Speaker 3: It's also a neighborhood where neighbors look out for each other.
11:30
Speaker 3: If there's a stranger, people take notice.
11:35
Speaker 1: Looking at the window from 1 PM to 7, the
11:38
Speaker 1: neighbors did identify this particular group of landscapers that were
11:44
Speaker 1: in that vicinity at the window where Eliza could have
11:48
Speaker 1: been killed. That would be an opportunity if there's a
11:51
Speaker 1: bunch of people cutting lawns. Nobody would take a second
11:55
Speaker 1: look if somebody was to walk down into the driveway,
11:58
Speaker 1: go in the back of the house and try doors.
12:02
Speaker 1: There was five young men. We ended up interviewing each
12:08
Speaker 1: one of them. All five of the landscapers, we took
12:12
Speaker 1: DNA swabs and we took fingerprints. It was also helpful
12:17
Speaker 1: to get a reaction on somebody not wanting to be
12:20
Speaker 1: swabbed or being swabbed. Each one of them were very cooperative.
12:27
Speaker 1: My gut was that they weren't involved, that they were
12:31
Speaker 1: just landscapers doing their job.
12:37
Speaker 2: They looked to Eliza herself for more clues.
12:44
Speaker 1: And looking at the body, it didn't appear like there
12:46
Speaker 1: was a substantial struggle. If somebody broke into your house
12:51
Speaker 1: and it was a stranger, there would be some screaming
12:54
Speaker 1: and yelling, maybe chasing, running around. If Eliza was familiar
12:59
Speaker 1: with this sailing, it might have been like, what are
13:01
Speaker 1: you doing here? And then an attack happened.
13:07
Speaker 2: A key detail from the crime scene adds weight to
13:10
Speaker 2: this theory.
13:12
Speaker 6: In cases in which the body is covered and the
13:15
Speaker 6: body is concealed, that suggests that the murderer has feelings
13:21
Speaker 6: of shame about what they've done.
13:24
Speaker 5: They can't handle looking at the dead person, which leads
13:28
Speaker 5: the investigator to believe this killer knew the dead person.
13:34
Speaker 2: Detectives turn to her brother, Raviv, to learn more about
13:38
Speaker 2: her relationships.
13:40
Speaker 1: Raviv gave us some direction whom we wanted to speak
13:43
Speaker 1: to regarding her personal life. Most of his conversation was
13:47
Speaker 1: directed at the ex-boyfriend. He insisted that we look at him,
13:55
Speaker 1: that he was a controlling, aggressive ex-boyfriend that had feelings
13:59
Speaker 1: for her that were still unresolved. Raviv felt strongly that
14:05
Speaker 1: this was the person who killed Eliza.
14:15
Speaker 2: The troubled history between Eliza Parsi and her former boyfriend, Marik,
14:20
Speaker 2: has caught the attention of the NYPD.
14:23
Speaker 3: She had broken up with him a little while before,
14:27
Speaker 3: and he did not take it well. On surface, it's
14:32
Speaker 3: just a couple of teenagers breaking up. This was a
14:36
Speaker 3: little more intense. She was this Jewish Orthodox girl, And
14:43
Speaker 3: he was a Muslim, came from a Muslim family, so
14:47
Speaker 3: some people wondered if that's the reason why she broke
14:49
Speaker 3: up with him.
14:51
Speaker 1: The families didn't really want them together in the first place.
14:56
Speaker 3: He started to stalk her, follow her to work, follow
15:00
Speaker 3: her after work, seeing where she was, who she hung
15:02
Speaker 3: out with. He just wouldn't take a no from her.
15:07
Speaker 3: There was one time when he even broke in She
15:17
Speaker 3: was sleeping, and she woke up to see him standing
15:20
Speaker 3: over her bed.
15:23
Speaker 1: He was definitely somebody that we were looking at, a
15:26
Speaker 1: person of interest that we felt strongly that he might
15:29
Speaker 1: have been involved. We start going into some of his background.
15:36
Speaker 1: We came to understand that he had some sort of
15:39
Speaker 1: business connections with fake handbags. He was somewhat of a quasi-criminal,
15:47
Speaker 1: He wasn't an altar boy, so to speak.
15:50
Speaker 2: Then, Marik shows up at the crime scene.
15:54
Speaker 5: It's rare to have persons who I will call witnesses
15:57
Speaker 5: for now waiting at the crime scene to volunteer information
16:01
Speaker 5: to the police.
16:03
Speaker 3: It's unusual.
16:05
Speaker 1: I felt it was important to grab him, bring him
16:07
Speaker 1: back to the prison, and basically get a timeline from
16:10
Speaker 1: him in the last 24 hours where he's been. His
16:15
Speaker 1: whereabouts for those 24 hours was, you know, I was
16:18
Speaker 1: home sleeping and did this and that. He didn't have
16:22
Speaker 1: a concrete alibi, especially the window that we were looking
16:25
Speaker 1: out from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.
16:29
Speaker 2: Detectives take Marik's DNA and look into his movements on
16:34
Speaker 2: the day of the murder.
16:36
Speaker 3: Eliza lived in Staten Island, and Staten Island is separated
16:41
Speaker 3: from the rest of New York City by the Verrazano
16:44
Speaker 3: Narrows Bridge. A lot of New Yorkers have what they
16:49
Speaker 3: call an easy pass. They will have a time and
16:52
Speaker 3: date when somebody went over the bridge and paid the toll.
16:56
Speaker 3: So this is a very effective tool for police.
17:01
Speaker 1: We ordered the easy pass records. We ordered his telephone records.
17:04
Speaker 1: We're waiting for them to come back, along with the DNA.
17:12
Speaker 2: Marique's behavior takes a strange turn.
17:16
Speaker 3: Marie showed up at the funeral.
17:21
Speaker 1: It was quite the ruckus. In fact, I think Raviv
17:26
Speaker 1: had to be restrained from going after him. The mother
17:30
Speaker 1: was yelling and screaming. They had to forcibly remove the
17:35
Speaker 1: ex-boyfriend from the services. For the ex-boyfriend to go to
17:40
Speaker 1: the funeral, from my perspective, there'd be a couple of reasons.
17:44
Speaker 1: Number one, He wanted to go to appear that he
17:48
Speaker 1: was grieving Elijah just like everybody else. He also might
17:54
Speaker 1: have wanted to go to see other people's reaction, what
17:57
Speaker 1: information he might be able to gather from the conversations
18:00
Speaker 1: at the service. Staying close to the investigation could be
18:04
Speaker 1: a reason to be there. He was a constant person
18:09
Speaker 1: of interest.
18:11
Speaker 2: As the spotlight glares over Marieke, Eliza's pathology exam reveals
18:17
Speaker 2: a key new detail.
18:19
Speaker 3: It was determined that she was, but it was determined
18:24
Speaker 3: that she recently had consensual sex with someone.
18:30
Speaker 1: One of the angles that they're normally going to look
18:32
Speaker 1: at is talking to Eliza's friends to get an idea
18:35
Speaker 1: of the person that died. And in the conversation, they
18:38
Speaker 1: let us know there was this kind of secret life
18:41
Speaker 1: that Eliza was living.
18:45
Speaker 3: Only her closest friends knew that she had this wild
18:49
Speaker 3: side to her, where she would go into clubs in
18:52
Speaker 3: the city, and sometimes she would meet somebody that night.
18:59
Speaker 3: And to the people on the block or her neighborhood,
19:02
Speaker 3: that was probably just as shocking, if not more, than
19:06
Speaker 3: the murder itself.
19:09
Speaker 1: She had a very solid community of people that were
19:12
Speaker 1: the same as her, and, you know, at 18 to say,
19:15
Speaker 1: you know what, let me go into the city, find
19:17
Speaker 1: somebody different, find somebody more fun. There's a certain maturity
19:22
Speaker 1: to think of that and want to explore outside your
19:25
Speaker 1: own little community.
19:28
Speaker 2: But Eliza was doing more than frequenting clubs.
19:32
Speaker 1: We found that Eliza was meeting people on the internet
19:36
Speaker 1: and having sexual encounters with the people that she met.
19:42
Speaker 1: Back then, there was no Instagram. There wasn't Facebook. The
19:46
Speaker 1: internet was still in kind of an infancy stage. It
19:50
Speaker 1: was a bit of an oddity. Was it ill-advised to
19:54
Speaker 1: meet people on the internet? Yes.
19:59
Speaker 4: The dangers of internet dating is it's a game of
20:01
Speaker 4: Russian roulette. You do not know what is going to
20:05
Speaker 4: happen to you if you get into a closed room
20:09
Speaker 4: with a person you've never met before.
20:12
Speaker 1: There's plenty of crazy people out there that she might
20:15
Speaker 1: have sent a picture to, and that was enough to
20:17
Speaker 1: try and track her down. She might have said where
20:20
Speaker 1: she lives, and that was the extent of their exchange.
20:26
Speaker 1: And he might have come and killed her.
20:32
Speaker 2: Detectives begin the daunting task of tracing Eliza's online activity.
20:38
Speaker 5: When we actually see a murder that the theory is
20:41
Speaker 5: it was internet dating based, they're very difficult to solve
20:45
Speaker 5: because of the ability to hide behind a website, to
20:48
Speaker 5: hide behind an email address, to hide the address out
20:51
Speaker 5: of the country. It's very difficult to deal with and
20:55
Speaker 5: solve because you're dealing with fake identities.
20:57
Speaker 3: All the time.
20:59
Speaker 2: They managed to uncover a direct link to Eliza's timeline.
21:03
Speaker 3: Police found out that Eliza was supposed to meet up
21:07
Speaker 3: with somebody that she had met online and she had
21:10
Speaker 3: talked to him the night before her death and that
21:14
Speaker 3: she had made plans to meet up with him in
21:16
Speaker 3: the near future.
21:17
Speaker 4: The old adage is if you have a dead woman,
21:23
Speaker 4: you put her last four boyfriends in a room and
21:26
Speaker 4: one of them did it.
21:29
Speaker 1: Is this internet encounter with this young man Maybe he
21:33
Speaker 1: wanted something more and she didn't want to give him
21:35
Speaker 1: to him.
21:42
Speaker 2: Detectives hunting Eliza Parsi's killer have a new person of interest,
21:47
Speaker 2: a man she met online.
21:49
Speaker 1: Nobody was calling us and saying, by the way, I
21:51
Speaker 1: also met Eliza on the internet. And, you know, we
21:55
Speaker 1: were intimate. So we had to do our due diligence
21:58
Speaker 1: and find this young.
21:59
Speaker 2: Man Eliza's communication with him reveals another key detail.
22:06
Speaker 1: The day before she was killed, he did meet with
22:09
Speaker 1: her after 10 o'clock when Seema left. They were sexually active.
22:18
Speaker 3: What she would do is, her mother had a pretty
22:20
Speaker 3: set schedule, so she knew when she would leave and
22:22
Speaker 3: come back. She would have people come over to her house,
22:28
Speaker 3: and instead of coming in through the front, She would
22:30
Speaker 3: leave the back door open, and this way no one
22:34
Speaker 3: would see them.
22:37
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a daily thing, if
22:39
Speaker 1: he would have came back the next day at 10 o'clock.
22:44
Speaker 1: He would have been somebody that was familiar with the area,
22:47
Speaker 1: familiar with the place, familiar with when mom's not home.
22:52
Speaker 1: So he would definitely fit in the timeline of when
22:56
Speaker 1: she was killed.
22:58
Speaker 2: In order to speak with him, they must first track
23:02
Speaker 2: him down.
23:04
Speaker 1: We had some forensic detectives taking IP addresses and matching
23:08
Speaker 1: them with people.
23:10
Speaker 2: They trace the young man to a home in Brooklyn.
23:14
Speaker 2: Police bring him in for questioning.
23:18
Speaker 4: If you've communicated with a person on a computer, there's
23:21
Speaker 4: no way of hiding that. And there will never be
23:25
Speaker 4: a way for you to deny that. Full stop.
23:29
Speaker 1: He was cooperative. He was forthright that he did know her,
23:32
Speaker 1: that he did meet her, that he'd been to the house,
23:36
Speaker 1: how it was coordinated. You know, he waited for her sometimes.
23:41
Speaker 1: If he was there too early, he would have to
23:43
Speaker 1: walk around the block. He knew the mother's car. He
23:46
Speaker 1: would have to wait to see to make sure that
23:48
Speaker 1: they didn't cross paths. He was very forthright regarding the relationship,
23:54
Speaker 1: that it was a secret relationship, that they met on
23:56
Speaker 1: the internet, that there was only a couple of encounters.
24:01
Speaker 1: When I told him that she was murdered, he was
24:04
Speaker 1: obviously upset. He was surprised. But he did say that
24:09
Speaker 1: he did not meet her on the day she was killed.
24:13
Speaker 1: All this stuff was information that he gave me freely,
24:16
Speaker 1: and he also freely gave me his DNA. We ordered
24:21
Speaker 1: the Easy Pass records. We ordered his telephone records. I
24:25
Speaker 1: didn't feel that he was a person of interest.
24:29
Speaker 2: Investigators continue to scour Eliza's digital history.
24:34
Speaker 1: For each person that we identified and then she met
24:36
Speaker 1: on the internet, I would go through a timeline. I
24:40
Speaker 1: would have them do the 24 hours, what they did,
24:44
Speaker 1: where they were, who they were with during that time,
24:47
Speaker 1: how they knew Eliza. And obviously, I would take a
24:52
Speaker 1: DNA swap of each one of them. In interviewing each
24:56
Speaker 1: of the person that we identified, I didn't have a
24:59
Speaker 1: specific feeling any one of them was a person of interest.
25:04
Speaker 1: They seemed to be people that were involved.
25:09
Speaker 3: They were looking at these people, but no one was
25:12
Speaker 3: ruled out. Eliza's murder was not your typical homicide, but
25:18
Speaker 3: the detectives that work it, they were very dogged. That's
25:22
Speaker 3: the thing with homicide detectives. You know, they take it personal.
25:27
Speaker 3: It's almost like one of theirs, one of their family.
25:30
Speaker 3: And they work, you know, it seems like they work
25:33
Speaker 3: that much harder. On this one, they left no stone unturned,
25:38
Speaker 3: all while waiting for the DNA to come back.
25:44
Speaker 2: As police quietly investigate Eliza's secret life, the press is
25:49
Speaker 2: making it public.
25:52
Speaker 3: I went from a burglary to now here's a young,
25:55
Speaker 3: pretty girl who might have been caught up in some
25:59
Speaker 3: kind of sexual encounter, and, you know, that gets the
26:04
Speaker 3: press a little more interested.
26:05
Speaker 1: It was an unfair dramatization of what, you know, what's
26:11
Speaker 1: going on. I personally felt, you know, bad about that.
26:18
Speaker 1: I did get phone calls from Seema, you know, asking me,
26:21
Speaker 1: and she found that out from the news. It wasn't
26:27
Speaker 1: fun to tell the mother that she learned from the
26:30
Speaker 1: news that her daughter, who was 18, was sexually active
26:34
Speaker 1: with strangers. It wasn't a comfortable conversation. When Eliza was 18,
26:40
Speaker 1: my daughters were like 15, 16. Every once in a while,
26:43
Speaker 1: those things can creep in. You can say, oh, my daughter,
26:46
Speaker 1: you know, is home alone at times. But you have
26:50
Speaker 1: to be able to separate your professional from your personal life.
26:55
Speaker 1: You see the things that people have done to another and,
26:58
Speaker 1: you know, you try not to get hardened from it,
27:00
Speaker 1: but you have to look at it as a job.
27:04
Speaker 1: You're there to make a difference. You're there to get
27:06
Speaker 1: from A to Z. And, you know, you have to
27:09
Speaker 1: stay focused.
27:13
Speaker 2: This focus leads to detectives uncovering her name on a
27:17
Speaker 2: police report.
27:19
Speaker 1: This kind of secret life that Eliza was living, unbeknownst
27:23
Speaker 1: to her mother and her brother, had its consequences. She
27:27
Speaker 1: made a report that she was a sexual assaulter.
27:32
Speaker 3: She left the bar in Harlem and went to an apartment.
27:38
Speaker 3: And when she woke up, there were several naked men
27:41
Speaker 3: standing over her.
27:44
Speaker 1: Could have one of these four or five assailants looked
27:47
Speaker 1: for retribution towards her for this assault? I didn't do anything,
27:51
Speaker 1: and you're causing trouble for me. I don't want to
27:55
Speaker 1: be arrested and I'm going to now kill you.
28:05
Speaker 2: A report claiming Eliza was sexually assaulted by multiple men
28:10
Speaker 2: gives Detective Kenny a new line of inquiry.
28:14
Speaker 1: I think this kind of alternate lifestyle that she was
28:17
Speaker 1: at a young age of 18 had its consequences. And
28:21
Speaker 1: this was obviously something of interest for us as to
28:25
Speaker 1: what might have caused her demise.
28:28
Speaker 2: But tracking them down will be an uphill battle.
28:33
Speaker 3: Police investigated it, but they were not able to arrest anyone.
28:37
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, all of a sudden, this is it. Oh,
28:41
Speaker 1: we found out that she made a complaint that she
28:44
Speaker 1: and these are the people. There were so many different layers,
28:47
Speaker 1: so many aspects. But you always have to follow wherever
28:51
Speaker 1: investigation goes. You're not going to discount anything. Obviously then
28:56
Speaker 1: I had to follow through with that and find out
28:59
Speaker 1: who she met and how she had contact with these people.
29:03
Speaker 5: You as a police officer have to be aware of
29:05
Speaker 5: that at the time. If there are other suspects, you
29:08
Speaker 5: must investigate them. It's part of your job. You can't
29:12
Speaker 5: be totally tunnel visioned on the one person and only
29:16
Speaker 5: that person. If these branches take you away, you have
29:20
Speaker 5: to investigate it.
29:22
Speaker 2: As detectives search for the identities of the men who
29:25
Speaker 2: assaulted Eliza, the DNA results come back and open up
29:30
Speaker 2: an entirely new direction.
29:33
Speaker 1: The first phone call I get from the medical examiner's
29:36
Speaker 1: office is that the DNA results ruled out any of
29:39
Speaker 1: the males that she met on the internet, the landscapers.
29:43
Speaker 1: It ruled out the boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend. To my surprise,
29:47
Speaker 1: the DNA that is found on the towel was that
29:52
Speaker 1: of a relative, a male.
29:54
Speaker 3: The only male relative they had was the half-brother, Raviv Gabay.
30:03
Speaker 1: To me, it wasn't like, oh, we got the person.
30:05
Speaker 1: It was that, you know, could have been the blood
30:08
Speaker 1: was left because he had a bloody nose the day
30:10
Speaker 1: before and they just didn't clean the towel.
30:14
Speaker 6: DNA can be a very helpful investigative tool in that
30:18
Speaker 6: it may cause investigators to look at someone that they
30:21
Speaker 6: had not considered before, that they may want to investigate
30:28
Speaker 6: what their activity was the last 24 hours and how
30:31
Speaker 6: that related to the victims' activities.
30:35
Speaker 2: Detectives work to understand how Raviv fits into the timeline
30:39
Speaker 2: of the homicide.
30:40
Speaker 1: When I originally spoke to him and asking where he
30:43
Speaker 1: was while he was doing that day, he said he
30:45
Speaker 1: was out in Long Island making a delivery. We had
30:49
Speaker 1: started to break down where he said he was at
30:52
Speaker 1: what particular time. So we ordered his E-ZPass records. Once
31:00
Speaker 1: we get the records, we'd be able to get a photograph.
31:06
Speaker 1: As you go through the toll, he takes a picture.
31:11
Speaker 1: They're what they call robbery cameras. So anybody that comes
31:14
Speaker 1: onto the island, we can basically have a picture of
31:17
Speaker 1: who was in that car. He had a very unique
31:21
Speaker 1: delivery truck. We had photos of him coming over the
31:25
Speaker 1: Verrazano in around one o'clock. Now, Raviv is a person
31:31
Speaker 1: of interest. Why would he say he was somewhere else
31:34
Speaker 1: at the window where she was apparently killed?
31:38
Speaker 2: This gives them enough for a warrant to examine Raviv's
31:41
Speaker 2: cell phone records.
31:46
Speaker 4: I carry my cell phone everywhere I go. If you
31:48
Speaker 4: go to my cell phone provider, you will find that
31:52
Speaker 4: the cell phone towers were going off in the area
31:55
Speaker 4: I'm telling you I was in. Depending on what you've
31:57
Speaker 4: got turned on in your phones, you can be placed
32:00
Speaker 4: down within two or three yards of where you actually
32:02
Speaker 4: were at any given time. And unless it's a great
32:06
Speaker 4: coincidence that I just happened to be within 10 square
32:10
Speaker 4: yards of where the murder took place and I had
32:13
Speaker 4: a motive, an opportunity to do it, my cell phone
32:16
Speaker 4: is going to clear me.
32:18
Speaker 1: When we got his cell site information, his cell site
32:22
Speaker 1: information puts him in Staten Island in and around 1 p.m.
32:27
Speaker 1: We knew exactly where how Raviv was at any given time. 1.30,
32:34
Speaker 1: we have him in the area of the house. And then, like,
32:39
Speaker 1: right on the corner around 2.10, so why would he lie?
32:42
Speaker 2: Raviv's timeline gives him means and opportunity. Next comes the
32:49
Speaker 2: search for motive.
32:51
Speaker 1: About a year or so before the murder, Raviv got married.
32:56
Speaker 1: And as a wedding gift, the family gave Raviv the business,
33:01
Speaker 1: delivering the cookies to the kosher stores.
33:05
Speaker 3: The problem with it was that whether it was Raviv
33:08
Speaker 3: not knowing how to run it, being a young kid,
33:11
Speaker 3: just married, but the business wasn't doing well.
33:15
Speaker 1: We found out that he was trying to keep his
33:18
Speaker 1: wife in a lifestyle that she was accustomed to. Our
33:22
Speaker 1: parents had a very nice house. They had more money
33:26
Speaker 1: than Raviv and his family. And that was a lot
33:28
Speaker 1: of pressure on him.
33:31
Speaker 5: I've experienced several cases in my time where the suspect
33:36
Speaker 5: is a family member. This often happens when there's inheritance involved.
33:41
Speaker 5: So money is a great motivator. Money makes people kill too.
33:47
Speaker 2: But Raviv's money trouble doesn't explain why Eliza would be targeted.
33:53
Speaker 3: But Raviv did stay close with his sister. He still
33:57
Speaker 3: kept an eye on her, asked her what she was doing.
34:02
Speaker 1: There was nothing that there was hostility or she owed
34:04
Speaker 1: him money or they grew up together hating each other.
34:07
Speaker 1: But you want to kind of let the facts take
34:09
Speaker 1: you to whatever place it takes you.
34:13
Speaker 2: With Raviv looking guilty, detectives need to compare his DNA
34:18
Speaker 2: specifically to what was found.
34:20
Speaker 3: At the scene.
34:21
Speaker 1: The DNA that is found on the towel was that
34:25
Speaker 1: of a Raviv's. And the skin under her nails was,
34:30
Speaker 1: in fact, also Raviv's. There's nothing more solid than when
34:34
Speaker 1: somebody was assaulted and there's dead skin under somebody's nails.
34:41
Speaker 1: Why would a brother want to kill his sister for
34:42
Speaker 1: no reason? It doesn't make any sense.
34:51
Speaker 2: Detective Michael Kenney is convinced Eliza's half-brother is the one
34:55
Speaker 2: who killed her. But concerns over a conviction still remain.
35:00
Speaker 1: I have to go back at some point and tell
35:02
Speaker 1: the mother that your son killed your daughter. She's going
35:06
Speaker 1: to want to know why. The best way to know
35:08
Speaker 1: why is to get it from him. So I called
35:12
Speaker 1: Raviv and told him the ex-boyfriend had some other friends
35:17
Speaker 1: that we were looking into, and I don't know who
35:19
Speaker 1: they are. I asked him to come to the precinct
35:22
Speaker 1: and look at some photographs. So he's a little belligerent.
35:28
Speaker 1: He started giving out to me that why he's taking
35:31
Speaker 1: so long, that this case is going on for a month.
35:35
Speaker 1: We all know it was the ex-boyfriend. Why don't you
35:37
Speaker 1: arrest him already? So I have to play along, and
35:40
Speaker 1: I was apologetic. I'm trying my best, but I need
35:43
Speaker 1: your help. To my surprise, he does come in the
35:48
Speaker 1: next day, but he brings his wife. I have his
35:52
Speaker 1: wife sit in one room and I bring him into
35:55
Speaker 1: an interview room.
35:58
Speaker 2: Armed with a meticulously constructed timeline, Detective Kenny goes in
36:03
Speaker 2: to break apart Raviv's story.
36:06
Speaker 1: I start again asking him about his whereabouts, where he
36:09
Speaker 1: was and when. So he starts answering the questions like normally,
36:15
Speaker 1: but then he starts like, why are you asking me?
36:17
Speaker 1: I thought I'm here to look at pictures. and he
36:20
Speaker 1: was starting to get a little more hostile.
36:23
Speaker 3: They hit him with, like, they knew that he was lying.
36:26
Speaker 3: They knew that he wasn't in Brooklyn at the time
36:29
Speaker 3: of the death. They knew that he was in Staten Island.
36:32
Speaker 3: And they kept pressuring him, pressuring him. You know, why,
36:35
Speaker 3: why'd you do this? And he wouldn't crack. He wouldn't
36:39
Speaker 3: say that he did it.
36:41
Speaker 1: It's pretty common for people to deny, even with that
36:44
Speaker 1: kind of evidence, just for self-preservation.
36:48
Speaker 4: If the police have evidence that you've done it, and
36:52
Speaker 4: they've got the skills to interview you, they will make
36:56
Speaker 4: you crack in that interview room. Very few people who
37:01
Speaker 4: have committed a crime can withstand a successful police interview.
37:08
Speaker 1: We just laid it all out for him, that we
37:10
Speaker 1: have your DNA, we know you did it, just tell
37:13
Speaker 1: us why you did it. He kept denying, I didn't
37:16
Speaker 1: do it, but I kind of threatened him, I told him,
37:19
Speaker 1: tell me what happened, or I will go out and
37:22
Speaker 1: tell your wife and the community that your sister and
37:26
Speaker 1: that you then killed her. Because I don't have any
37:30
Speaker 1: other information, and, you know, that's as good a story
37:33
Speaker 1: as any. At this point, he started crying. He told
37:39
Speaker 1: us what occurred. He tells me that the business wasn't
37:44
Speaker 1: doing very well. So in review's mind, something that might
37:49
Speaker 1: have been worth a lot of money a couple years
37:50
Speaker 1: ago as a wedding gift wasn't worth anything. So he
37:54
Speaker 1: felt that he was still owed a wedding gift. He
37:57
Speaker 1: came to find out that his mother came into some
38:00
Speaker 1: money from the sale of a house. He believed it
38:03
Speaker 1: was more than $ 25, 000. So he felt that she was
38:07
Speaker 1: hoarding that money somewhere. So that's why he broke into
38:10
Speaker 1: the house. She caught him in the act, wanted to
38:15
Speaker 1: know what's going on. The confrontation happened in that hallway
38:20
Speaker 1: and then ended up in her room.
38:24
Speaker 2: The timeline explains moment by moment the tragic events of
38:28
Speaker 2: Eliza's final day and how Raviv's lust for money led
38:32
Speaker 2: him to kill.
38:36
Speaker 1: Mom leaves the house regularly around 10 a.m. every day,
38:40
Speaker 1: leaving Eliza home alone. Eliza calls her boss and says,
38:46
Speaker 1: and lets her know that she's not going to be
38:48
Speaker 1: at work on time, that she's going to come in later.
38:52
Speaker 3: Ravi made some deliveries in Brooklyn, and then he altered
38:57
Speaker 3: his route and headed to Staten Island. He went over
39:01
Speaker 3: the Verrazano Bridge, went to the apartment that he went
39:06
Speaker 3: to many times before, entered through the back door, which
39:11
Speaker 3: he knew was open at times.
39:16
Speaker 1: He already had gone through the downstairs, and he was
39:20
Speaker 1: in the mother's bedroom looking for the money.
39:24
Speaker 3: Eliza's just coming out of the shower with a towel
39:27
Speaker 3: on her, and he's going through drawers.
39:33
Speaker 1: She could have grabbed the phone, I'm calling mom or
39:36
Speaker 1: I'm calling the police, which would have escalated his anger.
39:42
Speaker 3: She put up a valiant fight. It was all skin
39:46
Speaker 3: under her fingernails. Like, she fought for her life.
39:51
Speaker 1: And then he took a pillow, put it over her face,
39:56
Speaker 1: took a mattress, covered her body, and left.
40:08
Speaker 3: After he killed her, he got back into his van,
40:11
Speaker 3: which was still filled with cookies, drove back over the
40:14
Speaker 3: Verrazano Bridge, and went into Brooklyn and finished his route.
40:21
Speaker 3: He did show up later in the day and again
40:24
Speaker 3: appeared to be a very upset brother. But it turned
40:30
Speaker 3: out to be just an act.
40:33
Speaker 1: Raviv never found any money in the house because unbeknownst
40:37
Speaker 1: to him, that money was spent. So there wasn't any
40:41
Speaker 1: money in the house to begin with. I never felt
40:46
Speaker 1: Raviv had any remorse. Sometimes you feel like somebody is
40:51
Speaker 1: telling you what happened as I've been holding this in
40:53
Speaker 1: for so long. It just comes out in kind of
40:56
Speaker 1: a release of guilt and stuff. But I never felt
40:59
Speaker 1: that Raviv had an ounce of guilt. If you define
41:04
Speaker 1: a sociopath, it's just some lacking regret. I think you'd
41:07
Speaker 1: probably say he's a sociopath.
41:12
Speaker 2: Police charge Raviv Gabay with the murder of his sister.
41:18
Speaker 1: I have to tell a mother that we solved your
41:20
Speaker 1: daughter's murder, but it was your son who did it. So,
41:24
Speaker 1: you know, it was difficult for me to do that. And,
41:28
Speaker 1: you know, when I went to the house and I
41:32
Speaker 1: told her, you know, she was hysterical. She spoke about
41:40
Speaker 1: her daughter and how beautiful she was and all the
41:43
Speaker 1: things that she had going for her in the future
41:46
Speaker 1: that was ahead of her. and how the son that
41:50
Speaker 1: she brought into this family ultimately killed her.
41:55
Speaker 2: On May 2nd, 2006, Raviv pleads guilty to a reduced
41:59
Speaker 2: charge of first-degree manslaughter. He is sentenced to 18 years
42:04
Speaker 2: in prison.
42:06
Speaker 1: One year for every year that Eliza was alive. So
42:11
Speaker 1: he had to do the same amount of time in prison.
42:16
Speaker 3: Seema then just started yelling, uncontrollably, in both English and Hebrew,
42:23
Speaker 3: at her son, asking why, how could he do such
42:26
Speaker 3: a thing? How could he commit such a crime? It
42:30
Speaker 3: was a young, vibrant girl who had her whole life
42:33
Speaker 3: ahead of her. He ruined so many lives just for
42:36
Speaker 3: a couple of dollars and a piece of jewelry.
42:41
Speaker 1: I personally felt for the mother. She lost both her
42:44
Speaker 1: kids in the same day. It just wasn't a happy ending.
42:53
Speaker 6: It goes counter to the whole notion of family. It's
42:58
Speaker 6: a complete destruction of that trust that you have in
43:01
Speaker 6: one another. Thank you.