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Dalia’s Dead Husband Was Watching · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The air in Boyton Beach at six in the morning
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: has a certain weight to it.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's that sticky, humid Florida stillness.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: You know exactly. The sun's just starting to burn through
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the mist. It's quiet and in this townhouse community, a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: door opens, a woman steps out, Dahlia de Polito.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: She's young, fit, wearing her workout gear, just.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Slinging a gym bag over her shoulder. Yeah. She locks
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the door, walks to her car, and just drives away.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: To anyone watching, it's the definition of mundane, just another Tuesday.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: But that mundane routine is a complete cover. It's the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: before a.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Picture, right, because the moment her car is gone, the
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: clock starts ticking on a production that is anything butt routine.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Fast forward five hours. The sun is high now that
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: heat is oppressive. Dolly's at the gym and her phone ring.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: It's the police and the voice isn't asking, it's commanding
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: come home.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Immediately. There's an urgency that just cuts through all the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: noise of the gym.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: So she drives back and as she turns onto her street,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, the visual is just overwhelming. It's chaos.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not talking about one patrol car. This is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a swarm of cruisers, lights flashing everywhere.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: And then she sees it, the yellow crime scene pape.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It's wrapped around her townhouse, cordining it off from the
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: whole world.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Neighbors are out on their lawns, you know, whispering, pointing.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: An officer meets Dahlia at the tape.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: He looks grim and he doesn't sugarcoat it at all.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: He just says, unfortunately, your husband, Michael is dead. Someone
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: entered the house and shot him.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And right there, she just she collapses, falls into the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: sergeant's arms, sobbing, hysteric b.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: It's this visceral, gut wrenching display of grief. I mean,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: she is the picture of a devastated widow.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that just breaks your heart.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But here's the hook, here's why we're doing this deep dive.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: The sergeant holding her, he isn't comforting a grieving wife.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: He's studying a suspect. That yellow tape it's a prop
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the crime scene inside. It's completely staged.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: And Michael de Blito, the husband who was supposedly shot dead,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: he's alive. He's in a room nearby watching all of
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: this unfold.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: This isn't a murder scene. It's a theater set, and
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Dolly is the star of a production that she has
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: no idea has already gone completely offscript.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It's the ultimate trap. But to understand how we even
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: get here to this fake murder scene, we have to rewind.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: We have to because Michael Dippolido, well, he isn't your
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: typical innocent victim.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: No, And that's such a critical part of this. Michael's history.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, the guy had serious baggage. She was involved
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: in investment scams.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: He was a com man.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: He was, and he'd done prison time for fraud. He
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: had also struggled with a pretty severe drug addiction. He
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: was street smart, or he thought he was right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: He knows the game. He has enemies, but by late
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, he's trying to turn his life around,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and that's when he meets Dahlia.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: And she is everything he isn't. She's twenty six, beautiful, intelligent.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: To Michael, she represents a clean slate.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: You know, he sees her as his redemption exactly.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: He turns his whole life around for her. Hits the drugs,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: leaves the criminal life behind, and he focuses entirely on
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: building a future with Dahlia, and it moves fast.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It's a total whirlwind. They date for four months, get married,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: move into that townhouse. He is all in.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: But two months into the marriage, Michael makes a fatal error.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: He lowers his guard completely.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: He tells her about the money.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: He reveals the finances. He tells Dahlia that he's managed
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: to stash away two hundred and eighty thousand dollars. This
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: was his nest egg.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And this seems to be the turning point. This shift
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in Dahlia is almost mechanical. It's not about love anymore.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: No, it's about asset acquisition. She realizes something very specific
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: about Florida law, which is well, if they divorce, it
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: gets messy. But if Michael dies, the widow inherits everything,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: the house, the assets, that cash. It's a clean transfer.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: It's chilling because it's not a crime of passion, it's
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a business calculation. What's really fascinating is that murder. It
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't plan a not even close.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: She tried to weaponize the legal system. First, she knew
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Michael was on probation, a very precarious position to be
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: in right if she gets his probation revoked. He goes
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: back to prison for years. She gets the house and
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: money without you having to kill anyone. It's a smarter play.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So she starts planting things unknown to Michael. Dahlia puts
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: drugs in his car. Then she makes anonymous calls to
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the police.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine the psychological torture. He's at home, proud
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: that he's clean, and suddenly a swat team is kicking
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: in his door and.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: He's insisting he's clean, but he knows what his record
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: looks like to them. They tear the house apart, find nothing,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: but then it happens again.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: A month later, he's pulled over another tip. Police search
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: the car top to.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Bottom, and this is where the gaslighting gets so dark,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: because after all this, Dahlia is the one comforting him.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, She's holding his hand saying, oh honey, it
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: must be your old enemies, the people you scammed.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: She is the architect of his paranoia. She creates the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: problem so she can be the solution.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Until the solution becomes just eliminating him.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: So the framing didn't work. Michael was too clean or
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: just got lucky planning and be failed Dahlia realizes she
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: has to.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Escalate, and this brings us to the solicitation. She reaches
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: out to an old friend, an ex boyfriend named Mohammed Shahadi.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: She tells him she's miserable, brings up the money, and
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: then she asked them to kill Michael.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: She even suggests using Mohammed's own gun. I mean, her
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: plan is basically, you kill my husband, I get the cash,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: and we run away together.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: But Mohammad wants no part of it, of course not.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: But Dahlia, she makes a mistake. She calls him back
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: two days later with an ultimatum. She says, if you
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: don't help me, I'll find someone who will.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And that's the moment he realizes she's serious. This isn't
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: just talk, right.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So, to save himself or maybe to save Michael, he
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: goes to the police.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness he did. But now the police have a problem, right, yeah,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: his word against hers, it's just hearsake exactly.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: They need what's called an overt act, hard evidence, so
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: they set up a sting.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: They tell me Mohamed to call her back and say, okay,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I won't do it, but I know a professional who
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: will enter.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: The undercover officer posing as the hit man. Mohammed sets
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: up a meeting in a CBS parking lot, and.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: This is where we get some of the most damning
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: high definition evidence you could ever imagine.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: The setup is classic. Dahlia gets into a car that's
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: rigged with hidden cameras and microphones, and.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: The footage is I mean, she's so incredibly calm, like she's.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Running an errand she hands them one thousand dollars in
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: cash as a down payment, and legally, that's the nail.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: On the coffin. That's the overt act.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: It is. It changes everything from talk to solicitation of
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: capital murder. She agrees to pay five thousand more after
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the job is done. She gives them photos of Michael
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: his schedule.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: There's a detail from that meeting that always gets me.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: The undercover cop asks her if she's sure. He talks
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: about shooting her husband in the head, disposing of the.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Gun, and she doesn't flinch, not for second. It's a transaction,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: it's business, which brings us back to the morning the
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: execution day.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: The morning of the undercover officer calls Dahlia. He says
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: three words, it's happening today.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: And her reaction isn't fear, it's relief. She sounds happy.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: She heads to the gym to establish her alibi, believing
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: that while she's on the treadmill, her husband's being murdered.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: But for Michael, reality is just shattering. While she's gone,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the police arrive at his house. The sergeant sits him
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: down and says, your life is in danger. Your wife
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: hired someone to kill you.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine that. He loves this woman. He
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: changed his life for her, and now the police are
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: showing him videos of her paying a man to end
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: his life.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: He's just stunned. He can't believe it. But the police
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: need him to do one more thing.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: They need to close the loop. They need to see
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: her reaction to the death, so they ask Michael to
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: leave the house so they can stage the crime scene.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And Michael agrees he has to play dead to catch her,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: which brings us full circle to the yellow tape, the crying,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the collapse.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: The scene at the house. They invite her to the
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: station for some standard questions, and this is.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Where her act gets even more intense. Before she leaves,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: she asks the officers if she could see Michael's body one.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Last time, such a bold move, a calculated risk to
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: prove her innocence. Look how much I love him. The police,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: of course refuse, So.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: We're in the interrogation room now. It's small, windowless. Detective
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: asks who would want to kill Michael.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And Dahlia she just spins this incredible web. She lists
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: his old enemies, the people he defrauded, drug dealers she
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: just invented. She insists they were a happy couple.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Then the detective sets the trap. He asks about the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: security cameras at their house.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Right, and she quickly says they were broken or unplugged,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: trying to cover her tracks, making sure there's no footage
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: of a murder that never happened.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: She thinks she's winning, and then the first reveal. The
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: detective brings a man into the room. It's the undercover officer,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the hit man.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: The tension in that room must have been just suffocating.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: The detective asks, do you know this man?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: And Dahlia looks him dead in the eye and denies it.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Never seen him before. She sticks to the script.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: But that's not the ultimate twist. No.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The detective opens the door again and in walks Michael
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Dippolito alive, unharmed. The footage of this moment, it's just incredible.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: She doesn't break down in tears of joy. She freezes,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: She looks.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Confused Michael Stanzer and just says, I know everything. He
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: tells her. He knows about the money, the set up,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: the hit man.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And even then she tries to pivot. She tries to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: deny it. She says, come here, let me talk to you.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: But the game is over.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: You'd think that's the end of it. She's caught red handed.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: But the trial, oh man, the trial was a whole
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: other spectacle.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: The defense they came up with was, frankly, it was bizarre.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: They went with what we call the reality TV defense.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: They couldn't deny the video existed, so they claimed the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: whole thing was a scripted acting exercise.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, an acting exercise. They argued she was just
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: auditioning for something.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes, they argued that Dahlia, Michael, and Muhammed we're
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: all trying to get a reality TV show or some
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: YouTube fame. That this was all a pilot episode or
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: a prank gone wrong.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: But that means Michael agreed to have a swat team
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: raid his house. It makes no sense or sense at all.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Michael's reaction when the police told him was genuinely one
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: of shock. You can't fake that, and the police you
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: don't involve a swat team and a YouTube prank.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And throughout it all she never showed any remorse.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: No, only panic. When she got caught the jury they
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: didn't buy the acting defense for a second.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: They convicted her of solicitation to commit first degree.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Murder, and the judge sentenced her to twenty years in prison,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: a sentence that reflected the cold calculated nature of her action.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Twenty years from a mundane Jim trip to two decades
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: behind bars. It's a tragedy all around. I mean, you
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: have Michael who really did try to change.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: His life for love, only to find out the person
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: he changed for was the one trying to end him.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It really makes you think about the idea of a
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: perfect crime. Dahlia's arrogance was her downfall. She thought she
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: was smarter than everyone.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: No, blinded by greed, she didn't realize she was being
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: watched the entire time exactly.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: It's a reminder that real life isn't a movie. You
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: can't just write people out of the script.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it leaves us with a really uncomfortable thought.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: We all have people in our lives we trust completely.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: People we sleep next to share our secrets with. Michael
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Dippolito thought he knew his wife. He thought the danger
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: was in his past, not in his bed.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: So the question that leaves you with is how well
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: do we really know the people closest to us. Is
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the face they show us the real one?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Or are we all just watching a performance. Sometimes the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: most dangerous person in the room is the one holding
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: your hand.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: That is a thought that's going to keep me up tonight.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. We'll see
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: you next time.