Latest / History Dark / He told her to fire her work bestie - and she poisoned his wine with Horse Tranquilizer instead

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He told her to fire her work bestie - and she poisoned his wine with Horse Tranquilizer instead · History Dark

0:03
Speaker 1: With the leg and the foot just sticking out of
0:06
Speaker 1: the ground. It made for an eerie scene. The cause
0:14
Speaker 1: of death is very much a mystery.
0:18
Speaker 2: He met a lot of unseemly people. He had worked
0:22
Speaker 2: with mob figures in Las Vegas.
0:25
Speaker 1: Perhaps he had been held against his will.
0:27
Speaker 2: Did one of those enemies come back and put him
0:31
Speaker 2: in that grave?
0:33
Speaker 3: If I had tried to write the wildest script for murder,
0:38
Speaker 3: I don't think I could have ever come up with
0:40
Speaker 3: anything like this.
0:45
Speaker 4: Every murder is a mystery. But a victim's body is
0:52
Speaker 4: a sea of evidence. Every fiber is a clue. Every wound,
0:59
Speaker 4: a piece of the puzzle. The medical examiner holds the
1:03
Speaker 4: key to unlock their stories and catch a killer. This
1:10
Speaker 4: is Secrets of the Morgue.
1:21
Speaker 5: San Joaquin County is a very good, stable place to live.
1:32
Speaker 6: Parts of the county are rural. There is a community
1:36
Speaker 6: of people that are involved with horses.
1:40
Speaker 5: There are wholesome, good families in this community. But every
1:46
Speaker 5: county has got its crime. There's no county that's crime-free.
1:54
Speaker 4: On a cool February day, signs of trouble are spotted
2:01
Speaker 4: in the sky.
2:05
Speaker 2: A farm worker saw vultures circling part of the vineyard.
2:10
Speaker 2: He was curious, of course, so he went over there,
2:13
Speaker 2: and that's when he saw it.
2:18
Speaker 6: I get a call to report to a vineyard. As
2:24
Speaker 6: soon as I got out of the car, I could
2:26
Speaker 6: see what appeared to be a piece of a human
2:30
Speaker 6: body sticking out of the ground.
2:36
Speaker 5: When I initially arrived on scene, I see a partial
2:41
Speaker 5: leg from the knee down, which is exposed above ground.
2:46
Speaker 5: The rest, you can see a shallow grave, but can't
2:49
Speaker 5: see anything else.
2:53
Speaker 6: In the Western movies, somebody dies, and then they bury them,
2:55
Speaker 6: and then there's almost like a mounding effect. You could
2:58
Speaker 6: see some of that in an area that would be
3:01
Speaker 6: consistent with the size of about a human body.
3:13
Speaker 4: To get to the truth behind this gruesome discovery, investigators
3:18
Speaker 4: turn to forensic pathologist Dr.
3:21
Speaker 7: Terry Haddix.
3:23
Speaker 1: Performing autopsies is a very fulfilling thing to do, not
3:28
Speaker 1: only for myself to be able to understand exactly what transpired,
3:32
Speaker 1: but also to be able to answer questions for families,
3:35
Speaker 1: for law enforcement, or whoever might have a question about
3:39
Speaker 1: what happened to this individual who died. I had heard
3:44
Speaker 1: while I was performing autopsies that the remains of an
3:48
Speaker 1: individual had been found in a vineyard. This was unusual.
3:53
Speaker 1: It's not all that common that a forensic pathologist encounters
3:57
Speaker 1: cases of bodies that have been buried in shallow graves. Honestly,
4:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't something that I'd actually encountered before in my career.
4:15
Speaker 1: At the scene, I see a leg sticking up. But
4:23
Speaker 1: there's no soft tissue, there's no skin, there's no muscle
4:26
Speaker 1: that's left on that part. The most likely way for
4:31
Speaker 1: that tissue to be lost is by animals coming in
4:35
Speaker 1: and stripping that off. Is it only the leg, only
4:42
Speaker 1: the foot, or are we dealing with an entire body?
4:46
Speaker 1: It made for an eerie scene. I try to be professional,
4:52
Speaker 1: but you can't just completely separate yourself from what's being
4:56
Speaker 1: revealed right in front of you.
4:57
Speaker 8: You have not only an individual who has died, but
5:03
Speaker 8: that person is part of a family, circle of friends,
5:07
Speaker 8: has co-workers, and frequently when a forensic pathologist called out,
5:13
Speaker 8: it's because they've died in a violent fashion.
5:23
Speaker 4: With much of the mystery hidden beneath the surface, investigators
5:27
Speaker 4: bring in another expert, Dr. Roger Lajeunesse, to assist in
5:32
Speaker 4: the excavation.
5:36
Speaker 3: Solving problems and getting something that doesn't meet a textbook
5:41
Speaker 3: example Something that requires me to think gives me the
5:44
Speaker 3: greatest satisfaction. The first task was to get an idea
5:51
Speaker 3: of the orientation of the body, lay out a grid
5:55
Speaker 3: so that when they find something they can say, we
5:58
Speaker 3: found something from area A as opposed to area B.
6:02
Speaker 1: We removed the dirt around the body a little bit
6:05
Speaker 1: at a time in layers. We are looking for evidence
6:10
Speaker 1: of anything that might be potentially informative, something that looks
6:14
Speaker 1: out of place in that area. That would include things
6:19
Speaker 1: that are very small, such as hairs, fibers.
6:25
Speaker 9: There are risks involved in trying to remove that body.
6:29
Speaker 9: And one of the most important things that has to
6:32
Speaker 9: be considered is not introducing something to the crime scene.
6:37
Speaker 9: that wasn't there before, for example, cigarette butts or a
6:40
Speaker 9: mark on the body, and so extreme care has to
6:43
Speaker 9: be taken.
6:47
Speaker 1: As we remove dirt off progressively, we can see that
6:53
Speaker 1: it's not just a foot, it's not just a leg,
6:57
Speaker 1: but we have the entirety of a body.
7:06
Speaker 6: We could see that the body was face up, kind
7:10
Speaker 6: of in a cradle position.
7:17
Speaker 5: He was a 50-year-old white male.
7:23
Speaker 1: After I looked at the body externally and found no
7:26
Speaker 1: obvious cause of death, the big question is, who was
7:32
Speaker 1: this person?
7:37
Speaker 4: The forensic team begins to remove the decomposing body.
7:44
Speaker 3: The soil underneath the body that's been in the ground
7:47
Speaker 3: is kind of an oily mass.
7:52
Speaker 1: After death, fluids can drain out from the body. Decomposition
7:57
Speaker 1: affects all structures within the body, including the blood vessels.
8:03
Speaker 1: So the blood vessels will break down after death, and
8:07
Speaker 1: bloody fluid can in fact drain. We call this purge fluid.
8:14
Speaker 1: And this fluid is bloody looking, but doesn't necessarily mean
8:19
Speaker 1: that there was an injury that was present there. It's
8:24
Speaker 1: not uncommon to find it to puddle or to drip
8:28
Speaker 1: in different areas, depending upon if a body has stayed
8:31
Speaker 1: in one place for a period of time.
8:35
Speaker 3: And if there's not a lot of air between the
8:39
Speaker 3: object that's sitting in, you're going to get a suction.
8:42
Speaker 3: You've got to break that adhesion or suction so that
8:46
Speaker 3: you can remove him. I used a backboard from an
8:50
Speaker 3: EMT vehicle and I put it between the individual and
8:57
Speaker 3: the pit he was in and then used the edge
9:00
Speaker 3: of the pit as a fulcrum and I finally was
9:05
Speaker 3: able to loosen him and then we could then move
9:09
Speaker 3: him over onto the tarp and then haul him out.
9:16
Speaker 4: Investigators can now begin their analysis.
9:22
Speaker 6: Other than the animal depredation on the lower foot, the
9:28
Speaker 6: rest of the body was completely intact.
9:32
Speaker 1: However, the body demonstrated some evidence of decompositional changes, including
9:39
Speaker 1: some discoloration of the skin, some slippage of the skin,
9:44
Speaker 1: but relatively little distortion. Remarkably to me, there appeared to
9:50
Speaker 1: be tattoos on both arms.
9:53
Speaker 6: We start thinking, is it somebody that we're looking for
9:56
Speaker 6: as a missing person?
9:57
Speaker 8: Right.
10:00
Speaker 4: Checks recent missing persons reports and gets a potential hit.
10:05
Speaker 6: I'm matching up the description on the missing person poster
10:08
Speaker 6: to my person that's in the grave, and everything is
10:10
Speaker 6: matching up.
10:12
Speaker 10: Tattoo, the facial features.
10:17
Speaker 5: It was evident that we had found Larry McMillan.
10:21
Speaker 4: Detectives have been looking for Larry McNabney, a prominent lawyer
10:25
Speaker 4: who went missing 21 weeks ago. The body in the
10:32
Speaker 4: vineyard seems to match his description, but they need an
10:36
Speaker 4: official ID.
10:38
Speaker 9: When a buried body is discovered, it's not automatic that
10:43
Speaker 9: fingerprints would be available. You don't know how long they've
10:46
Speaker 9: been buried and how much decay has taken place. Depending
10:52
Speaker 9: on weather conditions and the burial conditions, you may lose
10:57
Speaker 9: a fingerprint within 24 hours.
11:00
Speaker 7: This time, investigators are lucky.
11:05
Speaker 1: There was a great deal of skin that still remained
11:08
Speaker 1: on the body, and in particular on the hands, which
11:12
Speaker 1: permitted fingerprint identification. Those fingerprints matched Larry McNabney's And at
11:22
Speaker 1: that point in time, we had an identification.
11:27
Speaker 4: The intact condition of the body creates a question about
11:31
Speaker 4: the timeline of the crime.
11:35
Speaker 1: In a grave as shallow as we had in this circumstance,
11:40
Speaker 1: I would have expected a great deal more, both the
11:44
Speaker 1: compositional change, but also more importantly, changes due to the
11:50
Speaker 1: animal's gaining access to the body and feeding off of
11:54
Speaker 1: the soft tissue.
11:57
Speaker 6: We're not sure at that point why we have this gap.
12:02
Speaker 6: From the time that Larry McNabney was missing in September
12:07
Speaker 6: to the time that we discovered the body five months later.
12:12
Speaker 6: So we don't know what's going on. He had to
12:14
Speaker 6: have been somewhere.
12:20
Speaker 4: Investigators are trying to uncover how Larry McNabney ended up
12:26
Speaker 4: buried in a shallow vineyard grave. They look into his
12:31
Speaker 4: life for answers.
12:34
Speaker 6: Larry McNabney is an attorney that has his law offices
12:38
Speaker 6: in Sacramento.
12:42
Speaker 10: He ran with his wife, Alyssa.
12:46
Speaker 2: As a defense attorney, Larry McNabney, by definition, met a
12:50
Speaker 2: lot of unseemly people. That's what defense attorneys do. He
12:54
Speaker 2: had worked with mob figures in Las Vegas.
12:59
Speaker 5: He was one of those people that commanded attention. He
13:03
Speaker 5: was a flamboyant, very dynamic individual.
13:07
Speaker 11: He had this cowboy image that he carefully cultivated.
13:10
Speaker 10: If you've been in an accident and don't know what
13:13
Speaker 10: to do, you need somebody who does. I do. I'm
13:16
Speaker 10: Larry McNabney. Call me.
13:19
Speaker 6: Prior to him going missing, he was real involved in
13:23
Speaker 6: the horse showing circuit.
13:26
Speaker 10: He's slated to be the rookie of the year.
13:33
Speaker 4: Detectives learn that the missing person report for McNabney was
13:38
Speaker 4: filed by an unlikely source.
13:41
Speaker 5: The first person who actually reported Larry missing was a
13:46
Speaker 5: new hire at the law firm by the name of Ginger.
13:52
Speaker 5: Even though she's taking cases, filing cases, and generating documents
13:57
Speaker 5: with Larry's name on them, she's never seen nor heard
14:02
Speaker 5: from Larry McNabney.
14:06
Speaker 6: So in late November, she reports her boss as a
14:10
Speaker 6: missing person. In the missing person report, We found out
14:15
Speaker 6: that the last time that anybody.
14:17
Speaker 10: Had seen Larry alive was.
14:20
Speaker 6: On or about September 10.
14:26
Speaker 4: Larry's body was discovered in February, five months after he
14:30
Speaker 4: went missing.
14:34
Speaker 7: Dr.
14:35
Speaker 4: Haddock suggests a theory that may explain the conflicting timeline.
14:41
Speaker 1: He does not look as decomposed as what one would
14:45
Speaker 1: expect had he actually died five months earlier. So is
14:50
Speaker 1: it possible that he didn't die five months ago and
14:53
Speaker 1: died somewhat more recently?
14:58
Speaker 4: Detectives piece together Larry's last known movements.
15:03
Speaker 6: The last time that Larry was seen, it was at
15:08
Speaker 6: a horse show down in Southern California in.
15:12
Speaker 2: And he's there to show what is his prized horse,
15:16
Speaker 2: the best one yet.
15:19
Speaker 6: Larry did very poorly. He wasn't as sharp as he
15:22
Speaker 6: normally would be. He wasn't dressed to the T. And
15:27
Speaker 6: that's really the last time that anybody saw him.
15:34
Speaker 4: They try to uncover where McNabney may have gone after
15:39
Speaker 4: the horse show.
15:40
Speaker 5: Family members who had been looking for him and trying
15:44
Speaker 5: to reach him had been told that he was pulled
15:48
Speaker 5: away to handle a case someplace else. Another story was
15:52
Speaker 5: that he had traveled to another country and that he
15:55
Speaker 5: was off on a golf vacation.
15:59
Speaker 12: Well, it can be really difficult if someone isn't reported
16:03
Speaker 12: missing immediately. As time goes on, evidence can disappear very
16:11
Speaker 12: quickly Someone may not be noticed missing in the first
16:16
Speaker 12: day or two, but that could mean that investigators are
16:20
Speaker 12: losing key evidence.
16:24
Speaker 4: Detective Ramos seeks out the person closest to McNabney, his wife, Alyssa.
16:31
Speaker 6: We're desperate to find out where Alyssa's at. We weren't
16:35
Speaker 6: able to make any contact. Is she okay at this point?
16:38
Speaker 6: We have no idea. Maybe she ran into foul play.
16:42
Speaker 10: We don't know.
16:44
Speaker 4: With Alyssa missing and Larry found dead, investigators consider if
16:51
Speaker 4: there could be a connection to organized crime.
16:55
Speaker 1: One of the possibilities I was considering is that perhaps
16:58
Speaker 1: he had been held against his will for a period
17:00
Speaker 1: of time and killed much closer in time to when
17:03
Speaker 1: the body was found.
17:08
Speaker 2: The work that Larry did might definitely make him some enemies.
17:13
Speaker 2: Did one of those enemies come back and put him
17:16
Speaker 2: in that grave?
17:20
Speaker 7: Detectives hope that Dr.
17:21
Speaker 4: Haddix can reveal more about when and how Larry McNabney died.
17:28
Speaker 8: In doing the.
17:29
Speaker 1: External examination, I'm looking for presence of any injuries or
17:34
Speaker 1: anything that may speak to how he might have died.
17:38
Speaker 1: I'm looking to see is there something that suggests that
17:42
Speaker 1: he may have been restrained or confined in some fashion.
17:48
Speaker 1: What we can find is that there can be abrasions
17:51
Speaker 1: or scrapes around wrists, around ankles, and these may look
17:57
Speaker 1: like ropes or zip ties or something along the lines
18:01
Speaker 1: like that. If we find evidence of that, we can
18:05
Speaker 1: actually also cut through the skin in the area to
18:09
Speaker 1: see if there's evidence of bleeding beneath those areas, to
18:13
Speaker 1: suggest that he had been struggling against restraints. But I
18:18
Speaker 1: found no evidence to suggest that he had been tied
18:22
Speaker 1: or restrained in any fashion.
18:28
Speaker 4: McNabney's cause of death also remains a mystery.
18:34
Speaker 1: Something happened to that body to... maintain its degree of
18:39
Speaker 1: preservation in that period of time before he was buried
18:42
Speaker 1: in the vineyard. I look at every aspect of the
18:47
Speaker 1: body externally. I see no evidence of obvious injuries. X-rays
18:55
Speaker 1: are taken. I didn't see any indications of recent fractures
19:00
Speaker 1: or bullets. I also looked for other things such as
19:05
Speaker 1: injection sites. I found no indications of that. I look
19:11
Speaker 1: at all of the different organs and also the brain
19:15
Speaker 1: and within the neck. After doing all of those examinations, however,
19:20
Speaker 1: there's no obvious evidence of why he died. The cause
19:25
Speaker 1: of death is very much a mystery.
19:31
Speaker 4: Detectives tracked down the friends who were with Larry and Alyssa.
19:36
Speaker 7: In the days before he vanished.
19:40
Speaker 6: The Whalens are a horse-racing, horse-showing family.
19:47
Speaker 5: Whalen's son-in-law was friends with Larry McNamee. They used to
19:50
Speaker 5: play golf together.
19:53
Speaker 4: When investigators interview Whalen, he tells them about the last
19:57
Speaker 4: time they saw Larry's wife, Alyssa.
20:00
Speaker 5: Larry had a very distinctive leather wallet that he was
20:03
Speaker 5: extremely proud of. But it was oversized. So he used
20:11
Speaker 5: to always take it out. Alyssa showed up at the
20:16
Speaker 5: ranch with a lot of Larry's personal property in the
20:20
Speaker 5: red BMW that they had purchased. Waylon very specifically told
20:26
Speaker 5: me that he remembers seeing that wallet on the back
20:30
Speaker 5: seat of the BMW. And he said that he found
20:33
Speaker 5: it extremely strange because Larry would never give that wallet away.
20:40
Speaker 4: With questions swirling, detectives dig into Larry and Alyssa's relationship.
20:47
Speaker 6: Larry McNabney had set up a shop, SSA, in Las Vegas.
20:56
Speaker 10: Business was thriving.
20:58
Speaker 6: He had over $ 100, 000 a month payout in the law firm.
21:03
Speaker 10: So he was doing quite well.
21:05
Speaker 5: Alyssa applied for a position in his office and wound
21:09
Speaker 5: up becoming an office manager.
21:13
Speaker 10: From the minute he saw her, he is smitten.
21:18
Speaker 4: While Alyssa was Larry's employee, her work ethic was questionable.
21:25
Speaker 5: While doing that job, she embezzled quite a bit of money.
21:30
Speaker 6: Everybody in the office is aware that this is going on.
21:34
Speaker 6: They're thinking that she's going to be fired, she's going
21:36
Speaker 6: to be arrested.
21:37
Speaker 4: But Larry seems unfazed by Alyssa's theft.
21:42
Speaker 2: There was this huge ethical breach, and the Nevada State Bar,
21:48
Speaker 2: they did not disbar Larry, but they told him, you
21:51
Speaker 2: can no longer have Alyssa working for you. She can't
21:54
Speaker 2: be any part of your law practice. That is what
21:58
Speaker 2: sent Larry Pack into California. He left this lucrative law
22:02
Speaker 2: practice in Nevada to start from scratch in Sacramento just
22:06
Speaker 2: because he wanted to stay with Alyssa and have Alyssa
22:09
Speaker 2: continue working for him.
22:15
Speaker 6: Larry and Alyssa set up the law firm. A young
22:20
Speaker 6: lady by the name of Sarah Dutra starts to work
22:22
Speaker 6: in the office, just assisting with filing, and she very
22:27
Speaker 6: quickly starts to get a more active role to the
22:31
Speaker 6: point that her and Elisa are inseparable. They're conducting office
22:35
Speaker 6: business together. They're going everywhere together. She travels with Larry
22:41
Speaker 6: and Elisa to the horse shows.
22:45
Speaker 2: The tight bond between Elisa and Sarah became a source
22:48
Speaker 2: of conflict in the relationship with Larry. Larry felt that
22:56
Speaker 2: Sarah was an interloper now coming between himself and his wife.
23:02
Speaker 2: And it got to the point, because there was so
23:03
Speaker 2: much conflict between Larry and Alyssa over Sarah, that Alyssa
23:09
Speaker 2: would bring Sarah to these war shows and sequester her
23:13
Speaker 2: in a different hotel.
23:16
Speaker 11: So that Larry wouldn't know.
23:17
Speaker 2: Then Alyssa and Sarah would spend quiet time together.
23:24
Speaker 6: And it starts to get to Larry in that they're inseparable.
23:27
Speaker 6: It's starting to bug him to the point that he
23:29
Speaker 6: starts to tell people that he's going to get rid
23:31
Speaker 6: of Sarah.
23:39
Speaker 4: Well-known attorney Larry McNabney is dead and his wife Alyssa
23:45
Speaker 4: is missing. Detectives turn their attention to Sarah Dutra, hoping
23:52
Speaker 4: she's the thread that will unravel this mystery.
23:56
Speaker 2: Sarah is a young office assistant who is suddenly the
24:00
Speaker 2: darling of the boss's wife. Alyssa is buying Sarah designer
24:07
Speaker 2: handbags and shoes. even leases her a car. She's showered
24:15
Speaker 2: with all these luxuries and extravagances. Life is good suddenly
24:19
Speaker 2: for Sarah Dutra.
24:22
Speaker 4: Detectives return to the McNabney's friends, the Whalens, to see
24:27
Speaker 4: what they know about Sarah.
24:30
Speaker 6: Sarah comes around to the Whalen Ranch quite a bit.
24:35
Speaker 6: And the Whalens recognize Sarah as kind of a helper,
24:39
Speaker 6: kind of Alyssa's right hand.
24:43
Speaker 5: So we had the older version and the young entrepreneur
24:48
Speaker 5: who was learning from her, is what it was.
24:51
Speaker 4: It's clear to the Whalens that when they are together,
24:55
Speaker 4: Alyssa's the one calling the shots. They also recall her
24:59
Speaker 4: asking some disturbing questions.
25:04
Speaker 6: Debbie Whalen recalled that while they were grooming their horses
25:08
Speaker 6: in the stable, Elisa asked her if the horse tranquilizer
25:15
Speaker 6: could kill a human being.
25:20
Speaker 10: Debbie was kind of.
25:21
Speaker 6: Shocked that Elisa would ask her this, and her response was,
25:25
Speaker 6: heck yeah, it'll put down a 1,500-pound horse. Of course
25:29
Speaker 6: it'll kill a human being. When we find out Elisa
25:36
Speaker 6: had this conversation with Debbie, We specifically direct the pathologist
25:43
Speaker 6: to look in to see if there was any kind
25:45
Speaker 6: of horse tranquilizer in Larry's system.
25:50
Speaker 1: Samples of the blood, liver, and head hair were sent
25:54
Speaker 1: for analysis, and then I waited to get the results.
25:58
Speaker 6: When we don't see any obvious signs of trauma, one
26:02
Speaker 6: of the first things that you think about is, you know,
26:04
Speaker 6: is this person poisoned? Poison leaves very little physical trace
26:10
Speaker 6: on the outside of the body. But then the toxicology
26:13
Speaker 6: is going to tell you the story.
26:17
Speaker 1: I was contacted by the toxicology lab. They had identified xylosine.
26:27
Speaker 1: Xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizing agent. It is not a
26:32
Speaker 1: drug that's used in humans. Ultimately, it results in circulatory collapse.
26:38
Speaker 1: The amount that was found was 8 milligrams per liter
26:42
Speaker 1: in the blood. This was greater than 25 times the
26:47
Speaker 1: reported lethal levels of this in humans. So I had
26:53
Speaker 1: a cause of death. homicidal poisoning with xylosine.
27:01
Speaker 4: The discovery shifts Alyssa from another potential victim to a
27:05
Speaker 4: prime suspect.
27:07
Speaker 7: But she is still nowhere to be found.
27:12
Speaker 6: We have pictures of her. We know who we're looking for,
27:17
Speaker 6: but we really don't know who she is.
27:20
Speaker 4: Detectives also can't find a paper trail. This leads them
27:24
Speaker 4: to the realizations Alyssa McNabney doesn't exist. That's why they
27:31
Speaker 4: haven't been able to find her.
27:34
Speaker 6: We realized that Alyssa has used at least 38 other
27:38
Speaker 6: aliases in the past.
27:44
Speaker 5: She was smart. Let's just put it that way. She
27:48
Speaker 5: managed to live her life without ever using her real name.
27:53
Speaker 5: without ever producing anything that would positively identify her.
27:58
Speaker 4: Investigators team up with the FBI to expand the manhunt. Together,
28:03
Speaker 4: they uncover a pattern of deceit leading back to the
28:06
Speaker 4: source of Alyssa's alias.
28:08
Speaker 2: Alyssa is very cunning, but she made one big mistake.
28:13
Speaker 2: Alyssa is a name that she borrowed from a former
28:17
Speaker 2: cellmate in Florida. The investigators showed this former cellmate a
28:23
Speaker 2: picture of the woman who had married Larry McNabney.
28:28
Speaker 11: And the cellmate said, that's Lauren Sims.
28:31
Speaker 6: When we found out that her true name is Lauren
28:34
Speaker 6: Renee Sims, we were able to trace that back to Florida.
28:39
Speaker 6: And the family was well established in the area. It
28:43
Speaker 6: appeared that she had a normal childhood, a loving childhood.
28:47
Speaker 6: She dropped out of school and started getting into trouble.
28:52
Speaker 3: She had a rap sheet with 110 pages on it.
28:55
Speaker 3: She'd been grifting her whole life and very cleverly doing so.
29:01
Speaker 11: She was a crook and had always been a crook.
29:04
Speaker 2: Credit card fraud, theft, always nonviolent crimes but property crimes.
29:11
Speaker 5: I think she was narcissistic. She just didn't care what
29:16
Speaker 5: harm she caused anybody else as long as she got
29:20
Speaker 5: what she wanted out of this.
29:28
Speaker 4: Authorities suspect that McNabney's wife who has been living under
29:32
Speaker 4: the alias Alyssa could also be his killer.
29:40
Speaker 7: But there are still.
29:41
Speaker 4: Unanswered questions about the state of Larry's remains.
29:45
Speaker 1: We were still missing an explanation for why Mr. McNabney's
29:50
Speaker 1: body was in as good a condition as it was,
29:54
Speaker 1: despite not having been seen for five months. I discussed
30:04
Speaker 1: this with the investigators and very specifically brought up the
30:11
Speaker 1: possibility that his body may have been kept in an
30:15
Speaker 1: area where it was cool, which would slow down decomposition,
30:20
Speaker 1: but also in an area where the body was not
30:23
Speaker 1: accessible to insects because we also didn't have any evidence
30:27
Speaker 1: of insect activity.
30:31
Speaker 9: Flies are attracted to the aroma, the scent of decaying flesh.
30:37
Speaker 9: I've attended crime scenes where flies are depositing eggs on
30:43
Speaker 9: a body almost immediately upon death. And those fly eggs
30:48
Speaker 9: then develop into maggots.
30:51
Speaker 4: To unravel this mystery, Dr. Haddix weighs the options.
30:56
Speaker 1: I did not think the body had been frozen. The
30:59
Speaker 1: reason is that process of freezing and then thawing results
31:04
Speaker 1: in a much more brisk rate of decomposition. In this case,
31:08
Speaker 1: we didn't have extensive decomposition.
31:12
Speaker 7: She can only come to one conclusion.
31:14
Speaker 1: If the body had been refrigerated, that could potentially account
31:19
Speaker 1: for the findings that we had in this case.
31:25
Speaker 6: When we spoke with Greg Whalen, We found out that
31:31
Speaker 6: he and his workers had moved some items out of
31:34
Speaker 6: the McNabney house. And one of the items that they
31:37
Speaker 6: had moved to the Wayland Ranch was a refrigerator.
31:42
Speaker 5: The refrigerator was actually being used to store food and beverages.
31:48
Speaker 6: And we got a warrant so we could secure the
31:51
Speaker 6: refrigerator as part of this investigation.
31:54
Speaker 10: Dr.
31:55
Speaker 4: Haddix analyzes the refrigerator from the ranch.
31:59
Speaker 1: There was evidence of microcracks within the bottom of that refrigerator.
32:05
Speaker 1: Presence of microcracks was indicative that there had been something
32:10
Speaker 1: heavy placed within the bottom of that refrigerator. A heavy
32:15
Speaker 1: weight such as the body of an adult man.
32:19
Speaker 5: The refrigerator had not really been cleaned up very well.
32:24
Speaker 5: There were still reddish-brown stains. But at that point in time,
32:31
Speaker 5: it could have been human excrement. It could have been food.
32:38
Speaker 5: When the testing came back from the lab, the reddish-brown
32:42
Speaker 5: stain that was in the refrigerator was determined to be
32:46
Speaker 5: decomposition fluid.
32:53
Speaker 4: Investigators test the decomposition fluid for DNA.
32:59
Speaker 5: The DNA evidence in the refrigerator showed that Larry McNabney
33:05
Speaker 5: had been kept in that refrigerator for a period of
33:08
Speaker 5: time before he was put in the ground and then discovered.
33:18
Speaker 4: Forensic evidence places Larry in Alyssa's refrigerator, which explains the
33:24
Speaker 4: condition of the buried remains. Now they have to find her.
33:30
Speaker 6: She is paying her way to get back to Florida
33:34
Speaker 6: by selling Larry's jewelry, some watches that he had. And
33:40
Speaker 6: she ends up in the Destin area.
33:45
Speaker 2: She applies for work in a law office as a paralegal.
33:49
Speaker 2: But at the law office, she provides a false social
33:52
Speaker 2: security number, in fact, the number that belongs to a man.
33:56
Speaker 10: The lawyers there.
33:57
Speaker 11: Call the authorities. All of their attention is now focused
34:03
Speaker 11: on the Florida Panhandle. They swarm the community.
34:11
Speaker 5: It was a patrol officer that found Alyssa sitting in
34:15
Speaker 5: a chair sunning herself by a swimming pool. It was
34:20
Speaker 5: coming to an end one way or the other.
34:28
Speaker 4: Detectives find Larry McNabney's wife living under an alias in Florida.
34:33
Speaker 4: A local officer confronts the fugitive.
34:38
Speaker 2: And before he even opens his mouth, she says, I'm
34:41
Speaker 2: the one you're looking for. Lauren was tired of running,
34:46
Speaker 2: tired of living on the lam. I think she was
34:48
Speaker 2: exhausted and just ready to give up.
34:52
Speaker 4: While in custody, Alyssa implicates an accomplice in the murder
34:57
Speaker 4: of her husband, Larry.
35:00
Speaker 5: Alyssa basically confessed to the homicide of Larry McNabney at
35:04
Speaker 5: the time that she was arrested. She put her spin
35:10
Speaker 5: on it that was Sarah's idea, not only to kill him,
35:14
Speaker 5: but also how to accomplish it.
35:19
Speaker 6: Sarah was also taken into custody here in California.
35:23
Speaker 10: She was charged with homicide.
35:29
Speaker 5: Sarah tried to portray herself as being a victim who
35:34
Speaker 5: was doing everything out of fear of Alyssa, which is
35:41
Speaker 5: the farthest from the truth. Any of the statements that
35:44
Speaker 5: we obtained from anybody that observed them together said that
35:48
Speaker 5: they were extremely close, described as two peas in a pod.
35:56
Speaker 4: Between Alyssa and Sarah's statements... Investigators finally piece together the
36:02
Speaker 4: events of Larry's murder.
36:05
Speaker 2: That night after the horse competition, Larry isn't feeling well.
36:08
Speaker 2: He doesn't come down to dinner with his friends. Alyssa
36:15
Speaker 2: brings a couple of glasses of wine up to his room.
36:19
Speaker 2: And that is the night that she and Sarah decided
36:24
Speaker 2: to kill Larry.
36:29
Speaker 6: Elisa put some horse tranquilizer in the red wine and
36:32
Speaker 6: then gave the wine to Larry and he drank it.
36:38
Speaker 6: When he drank those two glasses of red wine, there
36:40
Speaker 6: was enough horse tranquilizer in there that it incapacitated him.
36:47
Speaker 1: Xylazine in humans causes sedation. Ultimately, it results in respiratory depression,
36:54
Speaker 1: meaning not able to breathe normally.
36:58
Speaker 6: They put Larry in the wheelchair, took him down to
37:00
Speaker 6: the truck. They load him in the truck. And they
37:07
Speaker 6: go through the Yosemite area. They get out. They attempt
37:13
Speaker 6: to dig. But then they realize that Larry's still alive.
37:22
Speaker 11: They are clearly dead. cold-blooded killers. They want him dead.
37:27
Speaker 11: They are causing his death.
37:28
Speaker 2: But he's not yet quite dead and they don't have
37:32
Speaker 2: whatever it takes to actually finish him at that point.
37:37
Speaker 10: They get back in the truck.
37:40
Speaker 6: They bring him into the house, into the living room area,
37:47
Speaker 6: and then roll him off of the wheelchair and then
37:51
Speaker 6: just cover him with a sheet And then Elisa and
37:55
Speaker 6: Sarah go upstairs and go to sleep. They wake up
38:00
Speaker 6: the next morning and they realize that Larry is now deceased.
38:07
Speaker 6: They start to panic a little bit, but then they
38:09
Speaker 6: get the sheet. They wrap him up. They put him
38:15
Speaker 6: in the refrigerator.
38:17
Speaker 1: The refrigerator made it challenging to try to come up
38:21
Speaker 1: with an estimate for how long this individual was dead.
38:25
Speaker 1: There was a lesser degree of decomposition than what I
38:28
Speaker 1: would have expected.
38:31
Speaker 6: And then inside the refrigerator is where he stays until
38:35
Speaker 6: what we believe is five months later when they take
38:39
Speaker 6: him out and bury him in the vineyard.
38:44
Speaker 1: This case posed a number of challenges. The cause of death,
38:49
Speaker 1: which was something unique. The circumstances. surrounding the death and
38:56
Speaker 1: the circumstances surrounding the storage of the body before it
39:01
Speaker 1: being buried out in the vineyard. I've never had another
39:05
Speaker 1: case like that, and all of those very much stand
39:08
Speaker 1: out in my mind.
39:10
Speaker 4: Investigators also put together the motive for the murder.
39:16
Speaker 5: Larry was stepping in between Alyssa and Sarah, and I
39:20
Speaker 5: think they were fully involved with each other. The fact
39:25
Speaker 5: that they killed him allowed them to continue to operate
39:29
Speaker 5: the law firm and continue to generate money for their
39:32
Speaker 5: lifestyle after he was out of the picture.
39:36
Speaker 4: Sarah and Alyssa are both charged with murder for financial gain,
39:41
Speaker 4: which could carry the death penalty. But before the case
39:45
Speaker 4: can go to trial, Alyssa takes matters into her own hands.
39:51
Speaker 2: She tied bed sheets together and attached this makeshift rope
39:57
Speaker 2: to a ventilation grill and hanged herself.
40:04
Speaker 5: This was her last great act of defiance. She lived
40:07
Speaker 5: life on her terms. She created things to play out
40:11
Speaker 5: the way she wanted them to, and she ended it
40:13
Speaker 5: the way she wanted to.
40:17
Speaker 6: When I think about this case, it's very hard because
40:19
Speaker 6: I remember thinking, This is somebody that's my age and
40:22
Speaker 6: is not doing the things that she should be doing.
40:27
Speaker 4: On January 16, 2003, Sarah Dutra goes to trial. She
40:33
Speaker 4: maintains her story that Alyssa planned Larry's murder.
40:39
Speaker 5: Forensics of Sarah's laptop showed that she had actually researched ketamine.
40:46
Speaker 5: The medication that was actually used is akin to Ketamine,
40:51
Speaker 5: same effects. She was involved with this from the beginning.
40:57
Speaker 5: She was involved in the planning of it. She was
40:59
Speaker 5: involved in the execution of it. She was involved in
41:02
Speaker 5: the cover-up. She was just as cold, just as calculating
41:07
Speaker 5: as Alyssa.
41:09
Speaker 6: She ended up getting convicted of manslaughter and ended up
41:14
Speaker 6: getting an 11-year sentence for her participation in the homicide.
41:19
Speaker 6: The sentence that she got was very light and light
41:24
Speaker 6: of all the planning and the egregiousness of the whole homicide,
41:30
Speaker 6: the way they went about it.
41:39
Speaker 5: The medical science actually is the hinge point that solved
41:44
Speaker 5: the case. Without the medical science to prove that he
41:48
Speaker 5: was actually in that refrigerator, a lot of questions would
41:51
Speaker 5: have been left unanswered.
41:55
Speaker 1: I found it gratifying, ultimately, to be able to arrive
41:59
Speaker 1: at a cause of death in this case, which provided
42:01
Speaker 1: information to the investigators and to the family. They deserve
42:06
Speaker 1: to know what happened. They deserve to have their questions answered.