Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Greedy husband kills rich wife over $4M will; blames death on 9-year-old daughter [Prosecutor]

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Greedy husband kills rich wife over $4M will; blames death on 9-year-old daughter [Prosecutor] · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Joined the Justice Nation, Crime stops here dot com Crime
1:38
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace there then nine year old daughter
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Speaker 1: founder mom dead in their apartment on New Year's Day.
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Speaker 1: Cops initially believed that Danishchefsky had fallen into the tub,
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Speaker 1: fatally striking her head, and she was buried without an
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Speaker 1: autopsy because of her Orthodox Jewish faith. But after Danischefski's
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Speaker 1: family he became suspicious, they agreed to have her body exhumed,
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Speaker 1: and the medical examiner found foul play. In April of
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Speaker 1: twenty ten, Shelley Danishevsky found dead in her multimillion dollar
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Speaker 1: New York apartment. I Meancy Grace, this is Crime Stories,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. But after she was buried,
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Speaker 1: it was determined foul play was involved. What led her
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Speaker 1: family to be suspicious? Joining me Now, Doctor Brian Russell,
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Speaker 1: psychologist and lawyer, host of investigation discoveries, hit series Fatal Vows,
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Speaker 1: renowned detective Stephen Lampley, North Carolina family and divorce lawyer
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Speaker 1: Kathleen Murphy, and joining me right now, Crime Stories investigative
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Speaker 1: reporter and author of Beautiful Life, The CSI Behind the
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Speaker 1: Casey Anthony Trial, Robin Walinski. First, I want to hear
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Speaker 1: Robin about Shelley and how her body was found. Well, Nancy, Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: this woman was found face down in the bathtub in
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Speaker 1: her very expensive Upper West Side New York City apartment
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Speaker 1: by her young nine year old daughter at the time
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Speaker 1: on New Year's Eve, seven o'clock in the morning. She
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Speaker 1: finds her mommy lying there dead. Now, the little girl
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Speaker 1: at that time is nine years old, and she finds
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Speaker 1: mommy dead in the bathtub. Now, this is what I'm
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Speaker 1: trying to determine. When police came in, what did it
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Speaker 1: look like? How did they believe that she had been killed?
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Speaker 1: To me, she's a Reese Witherspoon look alike. She's just beautiful,
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Speaker 1: beautiful woman. She had a kind of a slash around
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Speaker 1: the back of her head, around the back of her neck,
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Speaker 1: and for some reason they thought that she slipped and
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Speaker 1: fell on the tub and ended up face down. You know,
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Speaker 1: it's interesting the only visible injury on Shelley's body was
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Speaker 1: a cut to the back of her head. And as
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Speaker 1: Robert Lynsky is tell us, she was found face down. Now,
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Speaker 1: how does that happen if you think through her falling
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Speaker 1: in the bathtub? Oh gosh, this is bringing back memories
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Speaker 1: of Michael Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio found dead. Excuse me,
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Speaker 1: thank you for that. There's so many Peterson's I've got
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Speaker 1: to keep straight. Drew Peterson's wife found dead, Kathleen Savio
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Speaker 1: in a dry bathtub, and they said that was an
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Speaker 1: accident too until she was exhumed. So this woman has
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Speaker 1: only one visible injury to her body to cut on
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Speaker 1: the back of her head. Yet as Robins telling us correctly,
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Speaker 1: she was faced down. Now, her family, extremely religious, protested
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Speaker 1: against an autopsy and they believed that it was too invasive.
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Speaker 1: So the real cause of her death went undetermined and
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Speaker 1: it was just accepted that she slipped in the tub.
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Speaker 1: To Kathleen Murphy North Carolin Line, a family and divorce lawyer, Kathleen,
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Speaker 1: I don't understand how she hits her head in the
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Speaker 1: back enough to cut it and then she ends up
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Speaker 1: face down. I believe that she was murdered and that's
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Speaker 1: how that happened. And I don't think that we have
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Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan on today the forensic investigator, but clearly
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Speaker 1: that was a murdered woman, just like Kathleen Peterson was
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Speaker 1: murdered too. Robin Willinski Crime online dot Com investigative reporter
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Speaker 1: and author of Beautiful Life Robin so. Six years passed
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Speaker 1: and all that time Shelley's death had been deemed an
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Speaker 1: accident until Covlin, the husband, was recorded by his then
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Speaker 1: mistress explain that's right. Well, he has girlfriends, allegedly many girlfriends,
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Speaker 1: but one of them decides to record him, and he's
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Speaker 1: trying to dream up an entire plot on how to
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Speaker 1: get his deceased ex wife's money. And he's trying to
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Speaker 1: frame his little daughter, just like he tries to frame
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Speaker 1: her six years earlier and say that she was the killer.
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Speaker 1: Now he's trying to frame her with a note that
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Speaker 1: she's admitting in her own words allegedly that she killed
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Speaker 1: her mommy. Oh you know what, this is the depth.
6:30
Speaker 1: This is the depth of evil. To Stephen Lampley, renowned detective,
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Speaker 1: here's the kicker. You always look at the husband, the boyfriend,
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Speaker 1: the love her, the ex first. But at the time
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Speaker 1: the little girl, the daughter finds mommy dad in the bathtub.
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Speaker 1: The husband is not around. They didn't live together, although
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Speaker 1: they lived in the same building, the same apartment building.
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Speaker 1: They were divorcing. He was out taking a walk at
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Speaker 1: the time she was found, he was nowhere near the scene.
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Speaker 1: Is what, if anything, does that mean to you, Steve Well,
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Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I can't imagine any person leaving a
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Speaker 1: mother for a nine year old girl to find Nancy. Obviously,
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Speaker 1: he did that on purpose, and he wanted to distance himself,
7:18
Speaker 1: so he goes away on a walk. So when I'm
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Speaker 1: guessing that he knew she was going to find her
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Speaker 1: mom at this certain time, so he goes away, and
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Speaker 1: she finds her and he's not anywhere around, so he
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Speaker 1: thinks he has an alibi. That's that's my opinion of
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Speaker 1: what happened to doctor Brian Russell, psychologists, lawyer, host of
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Speaker 1: investigation Discoveries, he at series Fatal Vows. I want to
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Speaker 1: talk about the daughter finding her mother's dead body because later,
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Speaker 1: years later, there was wild speculation that the daughter was
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Speaker 1: actually responsible. Years later, as we know now, Shelley Denishevsky
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Speaker 1: was exhumed and we find out that the real cause
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Speaker 1: of death is that she had a broken bone in
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Speaker 1: her neck, and the nine year old daughter could have
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Speaker 1: done it if she had pushed the mom in the bathtub.
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Speaker 1: So let's talk first about the impact finding your mother
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Speaker 1: dead would have on a nine year old little girl. Well,
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Speaker 1: one of the things that we talk about sadly often
8:28
Speaker 1: on fatal vows is the incredible I mean, it's hard
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Speaker 1: for most people listening to imagine the callousness that you'd
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Speaker 1: have to have to murder your spouse in the first place, obviously,
8:41
Speaker 1: but when you compound that and think about the callousness
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Speaker 1: that you'd have to have as a parent to murder
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Speaker 1: your spouse and let your kid be the one to
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Speaker 1: find them and have that carry that moment in their
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Speaker 1: mind for the rest of their lives. So for six years,
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Speaker 1: his wife, Shelley's death was deemed an accident until his
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Speaker 1: then mistress, his girlfriend, got him on tape. And you know,
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Speaker 1: it must have taken a lot for her to decide,
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Speaker 1: you know what, I need to tape this because I
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Speaker 1: don't want to be a part of this. So it
9:15
Speaker 1: must have been mentioned many times before for her to
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Speaker 1: finally go, I'm going to get a tape recorder. Ready,
9:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tape it. When he talks about it again,
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Speaker 1: she tapes him hatching up a plot to marry his
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Speaker 1: little girl off so he would be able to control her.
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Speaker 1: Inheritance from her mother, and what he was hoping is
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Speaker 1: that by getting her married off, she would no longer
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Speaker 1: be considered a minor, and because of that technicality, he
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Speaker 1: could get access to all his wife's money. And this
9:48
Speaker 1: is what I can't get over to Kathleen Murphy. You're
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Speaker 1: a family and divorce lawyer. He was so intent. Why
9:53
Speaker 1: don't he gonna get a job and make money like
9:55
Speaker 1: everybody else has too. He decided and land and arranged
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Speaker 1: to pay eighteen boy ten thousand dollars to go through
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Speaker 1: the marriage with his daughter so he could get her
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Speaker 1: declared no longer a minor and get at the mom's money.
10:15
Speaker 1: There are generally people that come through the system, the
10:20
Speaker 1: court system and drugs and alcohol, and very frequently I
10:27
Speaker 1: see people coming through the court systems and they have
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Speaker 1: these mental health disorders like narcissism and borderline personality disorder.
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Speaker 1: This person doesn't think like a normal person, Nancy. This
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Speaker 1: person was a narcissist, a controlling the person who wanted
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Speaker 1: the money, and the way that he proceeded in this
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Speaker 1: process was just to kill her and manipulate their child. Clearly, guys,
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Speaker 1: our partner for the past few years. I've been brutally
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Speaker 1: painful and gut ventured in many respects, and it's been
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Speaker 1: a typical time for all the parties concerned, all the
12:13
Speaker 1: family members. We've had these feelings of inexorable loss for
12:19
Speaker 1: our love to Shelly, and her passing has lived a
12:22
Speaker 1: gaping loss in each of our lives from which we're
12:28
Speaker 1: still suffering and continue to suffer almost six years after
12:32
Speaker 1: she passed. You are hearing from our friends at dailymail
12:36
Speaker 1: dot com. That was Shelley Danishevski's brother in law talking
12:40
Speaker 1: about the pain and the suffering and the horrible time
12:43
Speaker 1: they've endured since Shelley was killed. And remember for six
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Speaker 1: years she had been buried there in her grave. Everyone
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Speaker 1: assumed it was an accident until something very very unusual happened.
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Speaker 1: Her husband, Wrot Covlin. Remember they were divorcing at the time.
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Speaker 1: He lived in the building, but in a different apartment.
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Speaker 1: He was gone at the time her body was discovered,
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Speaker 1: until years later he tries to orchestrate a plan to
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Speaker 1: marry off his earlier was nine years old, but marry
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Speaker 1: off his now teen daughter. So the courts would determine
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Speaker 1: she was no longer a minor, even arranging to pay
13:25
Speaker 1: a teen boy ten thousand dollars to marry her so
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Speaker 1: he the husband, could get his hands on the wife's millions.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, if you take this in, if
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Speaker 1: you believe he had anything to do with this, you
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Speaker 1: would believe he's willing to marry off his teen girl
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Speaker 1: so he could get the money. And if he would
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Speaker 1: do that, what else would he do? Would he commit murder?
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Speaker 1: Straight back out to Robin Willleinski, Crime Online Com investigative
14:01
Speaker 1: reporter joining us, you know that day when his girlfriend
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Speaker 1: recorded him trying to marry off the little girl Anna
14:10
Speaker 1: so he could get the money. It takes me back
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Speaker 1: to another another plot of his where apparently he breaks
14:21
Speaker 1: into her computer, the little girl's computer, and what do
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Speaker 1: police find there, Well, they find a note Nancy that
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Speaker 1: he's writing, allegedly in the voice of the little girl,
14:32
Speaker 1: admitting that oh I killed my mother and I'm so sorry,
14:36
Speaker 1: and I've been living with this pain for all these years,
14:39
Speaker 1: and he tries to be her and concoct this note.
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Speaker 1: I mean, this guy was obsessed with the four million
14:46
Speaker 1: dollars that his estranged wife was worth, she was the
14:50
Speaker 1: breadwinner in the family. He's playing back backgammon, he's playing
14:54
Speaker 1: in tournaments games. Well, she's w what he's doing. What
15:00
Speaker 1: playing back a professional backgam in games? And she's down
15:03
Speaker 1: on Wall Street working her butt off, trying to earn
15:05
Speaker 1: money paying for this very lovely Wait a minute, Wait
15:09
Speaker 1: a minute. So she's working her rear end off on
15:12
Speaker 1: Wall Street, which ain't easy. Is not easy. So she's
15:16
Speaker 1: going down there in the pit to work every day.
15:19
Speaker 1: And a husband declares he's a professional that gammon player,
15:26
Speaker 1: you know, Brian Russell, doctor Brian Russell, host of id's
15:30
Speaker 1: Fatal Bows. You know what it reminds me of I
15:32
Speaker 1: will never forget. When I was prosecuting an inner city
15:38
Speaker 1: I befriended the office manager of the District Attorney's office.
15:43
Speaker 1: Her office was right beside mine, and we would talk
15:47
Speaker 1: and talk and talk. Well, it turned out her sister,
15:50
Speaker 1: I thought they looked awfully alike, was her twin, and
15:54
Speaker 1: she ran the indictment division, the grant the records room
15:59
Speaker 1: for the DA office. Well, her husband to sisters quit
16:05
Speaker 1: his job and decided to hunt for pirate treasure professionally.
16:11
Speaker 1: And I remember the first time I heard that, I
16:13
Speaker 1: was standing in the DA's office hall, and these were
16:16
Speaker 1: two of the nicest, loveliest, most hard working women I
16:20
Speaker 1: have ever known in my life. And I had never
16:24
Speaker 1: heard anything like that. I mean, I was used to
16:25
Speaker 1: my father getting up at the break of dawn and
16:28
Speaker 1: going to work on the railroad even when he had
16:30
Speaker 1: chest pains, and my mother being gone by the time
16:33
Speaker 1: I got up long one to go work. And I
16:36
Speaker 1: had never heard of anybody just quitting their job to
16:39
Speaker 1: go look for pirate treasure. This is real, doctor Brian Russell.
16:44
Speaker 1: That's not sounds like what this guy did. Hey, guess what, honey,
16:47
Speaker 1: I'm quitting my job and I'm gonna play bad gammon
16:49
Speaker 1: over my cold dead body. How did your friend, How
16:52
Speaker 1: did the woman the attorney feel about that, the husband
16:55
Speaker 1: going off and hunting for pirate treasure? Actually she supported
16:59
Speaker 1: him for a really long time. Uh, and then finally
17:02
Speaker 1: at some point, you know, they divorced. Well, of course,
17:06
Speaker 1: And that's the funny thing about all this talk you
17:09
Speaker 1: here in society today about how you know, uh, women
17:15
Speaker 1: should feel uh, you know, empowered by being the higher
17:19
Speaker 1: breadwinner in the family and they should be um, you know,
17:24
Speaker 1: uh masculinity. The idea that a guy should be, you know,
17:29
Speaker 1: the breadwinner for the family and provide for the family
17:31
Speaker 1: and everything is some kind of toxic, outdated, archaic idea
17:35
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. Okay, I've never, rarely in my
17:38
Speaker 1: career as a psychologist have I met a woman who
17:42
Speaker 1: really wanted a guy who could not bring home at
17:47
Speaker 1: least as much bacon as she could. And so this
17:50
Speaker 1: whole idea that you ought to be happy be supporting
17:55
Speaker 1: a guy and and not being there to raise you know,
17:58
Speaker 1: to be you know, you kids primary, you know, caregiver,
18:03
Speaker 1: but have a primary role in raising your own children.
18:08
Speaker 1: That is the first that's the fallacy, and I think
18:12
Speaker 1: most people know it, most women know it. And so
18:14
Speaker 1: the lesson, the lesson in this, Nancy, is that you know,
18:18
Speaker 1: for the women out there listening to us, if your
18:21
Speaker 1: husband is feeding you some of this bs and telling
18:25
Speaker 1: you that he's gonna go pursue his dreams of being
18:27
Speaker 1: a pro golfer or a treasure hunter or a batcammon
18:30
Speaker 1: player or whatever, you got to really rethink. If you
18:33
Speaker 1: don't have any kids with that guy yet, I recommend
18:35
Speaker 1: you not make any and you're gonna be wanting to
18:39
Speaker 1: run for the hills. Eventually, run run for the hills,
18:43
Speaker 1: as if you had seen a monster. Kathleen Murphy family
18:47
Speaker 1: and divorce lawyer out of North Carolina. She's no stranger
18:50
Speaker 1: to the court room. Kathleen, you know what now, I don't.
18:53
Speaker 1: I don't. I disagree with doctor Brian in one way.
18:58
Speaker 1: I would expect what I would expect to my husband, Kathleen,
19:02
Speaker 1: is to get out there and work a job. If
19:05
Speaker 1: I'm leaving every morning to go work, and I'm leaving
19:08
Speaker 1: my children to go work, then I expect him to
19:12
Speaker 1: do the same thing. I mean, even my twins at
19:15
Speaker 1: age four, they ran in to say, Mommy, daddy's lounging
19:19
Speaker 1: on the sofa. He's lounging because I would always when
19:23
Speaker 1: I would be like cleaning up or doing the longer.
19:25
Speaker 1: I go, oh, David, I'm so glad to see you're
19:27
Speaker 1: lounging and watching TV. Of course, he'd been working all
19:31
Speaker 1: day long, but you know, I think he should do
19:32
Speaker 1: a double shift, just like me. So the twins can
19:35
Speaker 1: wait to tell me Daddy was lounging. I went in
19:38
Speaker 1: there and found him working on his computer with a
19:40
Speaker 1: TV going, but a long a story short. Oh no, no, no,
19:44
Speaker 1: l A z y is. It's the scourge. It's the worst.
19:48
Speaker 1: Can you imagine a man telling you he's gonna play
19:51
Speaker 1: back Gavin for a living. Not an option, It's not
19:56
Speaker 1: an option. And listen, Nancy, I'm laughing because my husband's
20:00
Speaker 1: a firefighter, so he works approximately ten days a month.
20:05
Speaker 1: Do you know I'm blowing up his phone on the
20:07
Speaker 1: days that he's home because we don't do lazy in
20:11
Speaker 1: our household. And we just don't do lazy. So if
20:15
Speaker 1: you're not at the fire station, even though you just
20:17
Speaker 1: did a twenty four hour shift, you're working, you darn right,
20:22
Speaker 1: and you're taking the Christmas lights. Tell you that the
20:28
Speaker 1: other morning I was out there at six o'clock in
20:31
Speaker 1: the morning taking the reindeer down that had a horrible
20:34
Speaker 1: blinking problem. I might add that never blinked correctly. It was. Anyway,
20:39
Speaker 1: that's a whole other candle. Till my twelve year old son,
20:43
Speaker 1: I Carola M. I say, we don't do lazy in
20:45
Speaker 1: this household. Look at dad. Look at dad. Look how
20:48
Speaker 1: hard he works, you darn right. And that's what I
20:50
Speaker 1: say this. The children say, where's Dad? I'm like, hey,
20:53
Speaker 1: I mean he's been gone since five am this morning.
20:55
Speaker 1: He's out of town making a living. So long story short.
20:59
Speaker 1: Right there, that's the problem right there, when she finds
21:02
Speaker 1: out her husband's gonna play Backgammin for a living. Mu Hi,
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Speaker 1: Nancy Find the Truth Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Did
22:34
Speaker 1: a stock trader turned backgammon player actually try and frame
22:39
Speaker 1: his nine year old daughter for his wife's death, and
22:44
Speaker 1: did he try to marry her off a few years later,
22:47
Speaker 1: paying a teen boy from Mexico ten thousand dollars or
22:51
Speaker 1: planning to pay him ten thousand dollars to marry little
22:54
Speaker 1: Anna so she would be deemed no longer a minor
22:57
Speaker 1: so Daddy could get control of the four million dollars
23:00
Speaker 1: state left behind by his former wife, Shelley Denishevsky. Those
23:05
Speaker 1: are the allegations I want to go back to Robin
23:08
Speaker 1: Lensky regarding him trying to frame their nine year old
23:11
Speaker 1: daughter by pinning a fake confession. What did the confession
23:17
Speaker 1: say that we know of? Nancy Kavlin knows the cops
23:20
Speaker 1: are onto him, so he tries to pin the crime
23:22
Speaker 1: and his nine year old daughter. He actually gets on
23:25
Speaker 1: her computer pretending to be her and says in this
23:27
Speaker 1: totally bogus letter, all of these years, I've been so
23:30
Speaker 1: incredibly afraid and guilty about the night my mom died.
23:34
Speaker 1: I lied. She just didn't slip. That day we got
23:38
Speaker 1: into a fight about her dating. I got mad, so
23:40
Speaker 1: I pushed her. But it couldn't have been that hard
23:42
Speaker 1: explanation point. That letter goes on to say, I didn't
23:45
Speaker 1: mean to hurt her, I swear, but she fail and
23:48
Speaker 1: I heard a terrible noise and the waters started turning red,
23:52
Speaker 1: and I tried to pull her head up, but she
23:54
Speaker 1: remained still. Okay, do you really think those are the
23:57
Speaker 1: words of a nine year old little girl to crack?
24:00
Speaker 1: Detective Stephen Lampley? When a little girl nine years old? Right?
24:05
Speaker 1: But she fell and I heard a terrible noise and
24:08
Speaker 1: the water started turning red, and I tried to pull
24:10
Speaker 1: her head up, but she remained still. Who would say
24:14
Speaker 1: she remained still as a nine year old little girl?
24:19
Speaker 1: And why would she write that on her Apple computer?
24:22
Speaker 1: Steve Lampley? Sounds like adult writing to me. You're right, Nancy,
24:27
Speaker 1: it is, of course. Obviously Cobbman wrote it as he's
24:33
Speaker 1: tried to take the heat off of him from everything
24:35
Speaker 1: else he's done. They get your correct The words are
24:38
Speaker 1: suspect right off the bat, especially the ending of the
24:43
Speaker 1: letter that she supposedly wrote, Yeah, she remained still. Hey,
24:47
Speaker 1: I got another question for you, Steve, Lampley. You know
24:49
Speaker 1: about behavioral evidence, behavioral evidence of a cause, circumstantial evidence,
24:55
Speaker 1: or evidence of routine. Now, evidence of routine became a
25:00
Speaker 1: centerpiece in the case of add Non Sayed, which also
25:05
Speaker 1: was the focus of a hit podcast serial Sayed convicted
25:10
Speaker 1: and the murder of his girlfriend. Now there, he always
25:15
Speaker 1: had a routine. He would stay at school, he would
25:18
Speaker 1: go to sports practice, and he would wait till his
25:23
Speaker 1: dad picked him up, and then we'd go home or
25:25
Speaker 1: go home and meet with his dad. Okay. On the
25:28
Speaker 1: day of the girl friend's death, he left school. He
25:33
Speaker 1: wandered over to a public library. He spent time there.
25:36
Speaker 1: He did all sorts of things other than his daily
25:39
Speaker 1: routine that he did every single day, that was contrary
25:42
Speaker 1: to his routine. Now, let's talk about this case with
25:47
Speaker 1: Shelley Danishevsky dead in the bathtub, husband Rod Koveln. He
25:51
Speaker 1: decides to go for a walk at four a m.
25:57
Speaker 1: That was not his normal routine, and catch this the
26:02
Speaker 1: morning of the walk when he left the apartment building
26:04
Speaker 1: where he lived. It really was interesting because for the
26:08
Speaker 1: first time ever, he offered the dormant a cup of coffee.
26:14
Speaker 1: He offered the dorman a cup of coffee at four am.
26:18
Speaker 1: Now you may think, wow, what a nice guy. But
26:22
Speaker 1: the dorman says that this was the guy who scarcely
26:25
Speaker 1: ever even acknowledged his existence. He never said one word
26:31
Speaker 1: to the dormant ever, and this morning, of all mornings,
26:37
Speaker 1: he strikes up a conversation, actually offers to go out
26:40
Speaker 1: and bring the dormant back a cup of coffee. Now
26:44
Speaker 1: that may not be a big deal to you, but
26:46
Speaker 1: Stephen Lambley to me, oh, I'd have a field day
26:49
Speaker 1: with fat in court. A field day. Well man to
26:52
Speaker 1: a couple of things that he went out for a walk.
26:54
Speaker 1: He did change his routine. He went out for a walk. Well,
26:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to assume that he if he tried to
27:00
Speaker 1: distance himself from her death a little bit and be
27:04
Speaker 1: gone when the horseman, the daughter found him, and he
27:07
Speaker 1: wants to make it known that he was not there.
27:10
Speaker 1: So he buys the doorman and a cup of coffee.
27:12
Speaker 1: See me here, I am right here. I'm not upstairs,
27:15
Speaker 1: I'm not around my my soon to be ex wife.
27:18
Speaker 1: I'm here having coffee with you. And then also you
27:21
Speaker 1: look back at the pristance. I think it's the Scott
27:24
Speaker 1: Peterson case where it seems that a lot of times
27:29
Speaker 1: when a spouse kills, especially the prinstance of male will
27:33
Speaker 1: kill his female spouse, that he wants to clean. He
27:37
Speaker 1: wants to clean the apartletter, he wants to clean the house.
27:40
Speaker 1: For yes, he suddenly becomes a neat neck. He becomes
27:43
Speaker 1: a neat knet. You know who that reminds me of, Hey,
27:46
Speaker 1: Robin Willinski, remember us covering the Jodi Arias trial where
27:49
Speaker 1: suddenly her fiancee, well her ex boyfriend, they were no
27:54
Speaker 1: longer in dating Chavis Alexander. He had washed all the sheets,
28:01
Speaker 1: Everything was clean as a pen except Whoopsie Aris's cell
28:05
Speaker 1: phone was in the sheets and it showed shots of
28:10
Speaker 1: his dead body on the cell phone. And like Steve
28:13
Speaker 1: Lampley is saying, when Scott Peterson, when Lacy went missing,
28:16
Speaker 1: he's selling decided he had to do all the laundry
28:19
Speaker 1: and get out the bleach and mop. You know, I
28:22
Speaker 1: applaud all men who want to help with the housework,
28:24
Speaker 1: but why is it always so often in connection with
28:27
Speaker 1: your wife's death and disappearance. Yeah, all of a sudden
28:29
Speaker 1: every man is cleaning up the house. It's incredible to me.
28:33
Speaker 1: I just want to make one point Nancy about the doorman.
28:35
Speaker 1: I used to live in New York City and I
28:36
Speaker 1: had a doorman. And let me tell you, the doorman
28:38
Speaker 1: in New York City are like family members. They know
28:41
Speaker 1: your routine, they know everything about you. They know when
28:43
Speaker 1: you come, when you go, if you address them, if
28:45
Speaker 1: you get them milk and cookies at eleven o'clock at night,
28:48
Speaker 1: because they sit there twenty four hours a day. So
28:50
Speaker 1: the fact that this doorman said that he's never engaged
28:54
Speaker 1: with Rod and then magically he's buying him a cup
28:57
Speaker 1: of coffee, that is extremely odd behavior. And I'm telling you,
29:01
Speaker 1: if you want to know something about someone hit a
29:04
Speaker 1: New York City of the doorman, that's right, that's right.
29:09
Speaker 1: And he went out of his way to be seen
29:12
Speaker 1: and to be noticed. Now, think about it. The little
29:16
Speaker 1: girl now on her computer is apparently in her riding
29:21
Speaker 1: in her talk that she killed her mother after an argument,
29:27
Speaker 1: but that didn't wash. Take a listen to this. Stunned.
29:32
Speaker 1: That's how Rod Colin's attorney says his client is feeling
29:35
Speaker 1: right now that after six years, the father of two,
29:38
Speaker 1: just moments ago face to judge here in Lower Manhattan
29:40
Speaker 1: and was officially charged with second degree murder. The Coblin
29:44
Speaker 1: did enter a not guilty plea and at this hour
29:47
Speaker 1: is being held without bail. Now. Back in December of
29:49
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, authorities maintained he killed his wife, Shelley.
29:53
Speaker 1: The couple's then nine year old daughter found her mom's
29:55
Speaker 1: body face down in the bathtub of Shelley's Upper West
29:58
Speaker 1: Side apartment. They have two kids together, and at the
30:00
Speaker 1: time the pair was going through a bitter divorce and
30:03
Speaker 1: custody battle. He lived in a separate apartment down the
30:05
Speaker 1: hall now for religious reason. Shelley's was buried the next day. Initially,
30:10
Speaker 1: her death was ruled an accident that she slipped and
30:13
Speaker 1: fell in the bathroom. Months later, the victim's family had
30:16
Speaker 1: her body exhumed, and authorities then ruled the death a
30:19
Speaker 1: homicide by strangulation. Well yesterday morning, police arrested con Covlin
30:24
Speaker 1: in Scarsale at a Metro North station. His attorney says
30:27
Speaker 1: his client was on his way to visit his kids,
30:30
Speaker 1: who now lived with his parents. In the back of
30:33
Speaker 1: his mind, he did not know this stay was going
30:35
Speaker 1: to come. Who was right for the beginning, He said,
30:37
Speaker 1: he did not commit the crime and people should understand
30:40
Speaker 1: right from the beginning, he cooperated with the police, with investigators,
30:45
Speaker 1: he spoke to them for hours on end. So yes,
30:49
Speaker 1: he stunned because based on the cooperation, based on what
30:53
Speaker 1: he told them, based on the lack of credible evidence,
30:56
Speaker 1: he never thought it would result in him being formally
30:59
Speaker 1: charged with murder. Rod Covlin was living in a quiet
31:02
Speaker 1: neighborhood here in Westchester, would often take Metro north here
31:05
Speaker 1: to Scarsdale to visit his two kids, who now lived
31:08
Speaker 1: with his parents. But after six long years, his world
31:11
Speaker 1: was just turned upside down and he never saw it coming.
31:14
Speaker 1: Mister Covlin is stunned. He's stunned by what has happened.
31:18
Speaker 1: After six years of truly believing he was free and clear,
31:22
Speaker 1: living in his home in New Rochelle, convinced he was
31:25
Speaker 1: not a suspect in the death of his wife, Shelley. Today,
31:28
Speaker 1: Rod Covelin seemed daze as he sat in a courtroom,
31:31
Speaker 1: now charged with second degree murder. Shelley's sister Eve also
31:35
Speaker 1: listened as the man who was once part of their
31:37
Speaker 1: family entered a not guilty plea. In the back of
31:41
Speaker 1: his mind, he did not know this stay was going
31:43
Speaker 1: to come who was right from the beginning. He said
31:45
Speaker 1: he did not commit the crime. The forty two year
31:47
Speaker 1: olds house of cards came crashing down here at the
31:50
Speaker 1: Metro North station in Scarsdale yesterday morning, Covlin stepped off
31:55
Speaker 1: a train and was cuffed. Back in two thousand and nine,
31:58
Speaker 1: at the time of Shelley's death, the pair lived in
32:00
Speaker 1: separate departments in this building on West sixty eighth Street.
32:03
Speaker 1: They were going to a bitter divorce, but on New
32:06
Speaker 1: Year's Eve, the couple's than nine year old daughter found
32:08
Speaker 1: her mom dead in a bathtub. You were hearing from
32:11
Speaker 1: our friends at ABC seven in New York. So after
32:15
Speaker 1: six long years, the tide has turned. And it only
32:19
Speaker 1: really turned after the defendant, Rod Colin, the husband of
32:23
Speaker 1: Shelley Danishevski, tried to gang control of Shelley's four million
32:29
Speaker 1: dollars that she had worked so hard to save while
32:31
Speaker 1: he played backgammon. And it all really erupted when he
32:36
Speaker 1: tried to blame his daughter Anna Anne when he tried
32:39
Speaker 1: to marry her off to a teen boy from Mexico,
32:42
Speaker 1: trying to pay him ten thousand dollars to marry Anna
32:45
Speaker 1: so she would be deemed no longer a minor. That's
32:48
Speaker 1: when it all changed to Robin Willinski, Crime Stories, investigative
32:51
Speaker 1: reporter and author of Beautiful Life, to CSI behind the
32:54
Speaker 1: Casey Anthony trial. That really wasn't the extent of it,
32:59
Speaker 1: the full step And I don't know if this is
33:02
Speaker 1: appropriate for a jury to hear because it touches on
33:04
Speaker 1: other crimes, not the murder of Shelley Danishevski his wife.
33:09
Speaker 1: But is it true that this guy, this husband Rod
33:12
Speaker 1: called him the backgammon master, tried to he had to
33:18
Speaker 1: plan to kill his own parents, and not only that,
33:23
Speaker 1: tried to convince the little girl, his daughter Anna, to
33:26
Speaker 1: accuse her grandfather, his father, of molesting her. This guy
33:31
Speaker 1: is so sick. He keeps dreaming up the plot after
33:36
Speaker 1: plot after plot, all with the intent, Nancy of getting
33:39
Speaker 1: his hands on the money. So he wants a little
33:42
Speaker 1: girl to say that her grandfather is molesting her, and
33:48
Speaker 1: he kind of tells her a way to get into
33:51
Speaker 1: all of that, that it would be real that if
33:54
Speaker 1: a medical examiner looked at her, they would say, hmm,
33:57
Speaker 1: well you're really young and it looks like you've been
33:59
Speaker 1: having intercourse. To put it in a nutshell, he allegedly
34:03
Speaker 1: tried to explain to his daughter how to break her
34:06
Speaker 1: own hyman and appear that she had been molested. So,
34:10
Speaker 1: I mean, aside from trying to get his daughter to
34:14
Speaker 1: level completely untrue claims against his own dad, which reminds
34:18
Speaker 1: me of the Casey Anthony trial, that's not unheard of.
34:21
Speaker 1: I mean, Kathleen Murphy, you're the family and divorced lawyer.
34:24
Speaker 1: You certainly heard of parents trying to force their children
34:27
Speaker 1: to fabricate false claims. Unfortunately, Nancy, I feel very confident
34:33
Speaker 1: that I have one of those situations right now, and
34:37
Speaker 1: you have to look at the facts before those claims
34:40
Speaker 1: are made, the facts surrounding what's going on in that
34:44
Speaker 1: family's life before those claims are made, and look to
34:47
Speaker 1: see whether there's a motive, a motive to get leverage
34:53
Speaker 1: in a case. I see that, and that's not to
34:56
Speaker 1: discount believe the children. But if these events are going on,
35:02
Speaker 1: and there are other circumstances such as him attempting to
35:10
Speaker 1: write this letter that shows that the child didn't write
35:15
Speaker 1: the letter, and then having her fabricated statement made by
35:18
Speaker 1: the grandmother or a statement from or a statement about
35:23
Speaker 1: the grandfather, you have to look at what's going on
35:25
Speaker 1: in court, what's going on with it around? It's yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: and potential motives. To doctor Brian Russell's psychologist, lawyer host
35:33
Speaker 1: of Id's Fatal vows, that is the worst trying to
35:37
Speaker 1: drag your child into it and forced them to fabricate
35:41
Speaker 1: claims of a molestation by his own dad. And if
35:46
Speaker 1: I'm guessing doctor Brian that if he had used her
35:49
Speaker 1: computer to make up a false confession that she killed
35:53
Speaker 1: her own mom at age nine, he probably had this
35:56
Speaker 1: written out somewhere, possibly possibly. I think the the overriding
36:01
Speaker 1: point for me is you've got a guy here who
36:04
Speaker 1: was willing to throw his wife under the bus literally
36:06
Speaker 1: so that he could you play around, to play games
36:10
Speaker 1: instead of working and see other women and still benefit
36:14
Speaker 1: from her money. And then he's willing to throw his
36:17
Speaker 1: daughter under the bus when suspicion turns to him as
36:20
Speaker 1: maybe being a murderer, and also to gain access to
36:25
Speaker 1: whatever money was left to the daughter by the mom.
36:28
Speaker 1: I think that was really the strategy to get the money.
36:30
Speaker 1: I don't really understand this thing about the marriage. Usually
36:33
Speaker 1: when a kid gets married is when they do get acted.
36:37
Speaker 1: When they become independent, they reach a certain age they
36:39
Speaker 1: get married something like that, that is when they do
36:40
Speaker 1: get access to the money, and until then, when they're
36:42
Speaker 1: a minor, is when the surviving parent controls it. So
36:45
Speaker 1: I don't really understand that part. But then here he
36:47
Speaker 1: is willing to throw his own parents under the bus,
36:52
Speaker 1: either by killing that literally or by having the granddaughter
36:55
Speaker 1: accused them of accused the grandfather of molestation. So this
37:00
Speaker 1: is a textbook illustration of what is at the core
37:05
Speaker 1: that the personality trait at the core of a sociopath,
37:10
Speaker 1: and that is entitlement. I am entitled to do whatever
37:14
Speaker 1: I need to do to get what I want, and
37:18
Speaker 1: everybody else be dem I want to talk about the
37:20
Speaker 1: forensic Steve Lampley, because if they can show this little
37:22
Speaker 1: girl did not write her so called confession on her
37:26
Speaker 1: Apple computer, then you got to figure out who did.
37:29
Speaker 1: How forensically can you prove she did not write it? Well,
37:33
Speaker 1: it's going to take it when I was doing undercover
37:37
Speaker 1: online catching pedophiles. A lot of this information is going
37:41
Speaker 1: to come from the forensics people who deal with the
37:45
Speaker 1: digital data that they will go in there and analyze
37:48
Speaker 1: the date at the time that the entry was made.
37:53
Speaker 1: Now they'll probably the linguistics person. I would imagine at
37:57
Speaker 1: some point that would look as we talked about earlier,
37:59
Speaker 1: that look at the wording of that note as well.
38:03
Speaker 1: The trial of the so called bathtub killer is going
38:05
Speaker 1: on right now. Straight out to Crime online dot Com
38:08
Speaker 1: investigative reporter Robin Willinski, what's the very latest. Nancy Rod
38:12
Speaker 1: Covlin led into the courtroom in handcuffs. He's dressed in
38:15
Speaker 1: a light gray suit, striped shirt, and striped tie. Kavlin
38:19
Speaker 1: on trial in Manhattan for murdering his wife, Shelley, who
38:22
Speaker 1: was killed back on December thirty, first of two thousand
38:24
Speaker 1: and nine, this happening in her upscale Upper West Side
38:27
Speaker 1: apartment in New York City. Now, on the first day
38:29
Speaker 1: of the murder trial, prosecutors laying out their case, saying
38:33
Speaker 1: that Rod staged his estranged wife's death to make it
38:36
Speaker 1: look like an accidental drowning in her bathtub. Prosecutors believe Rod,
38:40
Speaker 1: a taekwondo expert, snapped her neck. They say he played
38:44
Speaker 1: professional backgammon while his then wife worked a high powered
38:47
Speaker 1: job down on Wall Street, and then he plotted for
38:50
Speaker 1: months to inherit her money millions of dollars five point
38:53
Speaker 1: two million to be exact. And then on the day
38:56
Speaker 1: before Shelley was to write him out of her will,
38:58
Speaker 1: she's found dead by their young daughter on New Year's Eve. Now,
39:01
Speaker 1: this case was unsolved for a period of time, and
39:04
Speaker 1: this is because an autopsy was never done because the
39:07
Speaker 1: family is Orthodox Jewish and doesn't believe in it. But
39:10
Speaker 1: Shelley's parents grew suspicious Nancy, they had a change of heart,
39:14
Speaker 1: agreeing to have her body exhoomed. And then the Emmy,
39:16
Speaker 1: the medical examiner, determining that Shelley was strangled and had
39:20
Speaker 1: a broken bone in her neck. Defense attorney Robert Gottlieb
39:23
Speaker 1: telling jurors that the broken bone from Shelley slipping and
39:27
Speaker 1: falling in the tub. Annie claims police botched this investigation.
39:31
Speaker 1: We wait as justice unfolds. Will the murder of Shelley
39:36
Speaker 1: Danishevski be vindicated. Nancy Grace crime story, signing off Goodbye Friend,