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He murdered his Wife to Get Her Money - and to be with his New Girlfriend · History Dark

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Patty was a very caring and loving person. She was
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a good mom.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: They were fighting. They had an argument because she had
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: been drinking. All of a sudden, he heard like a
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: squishing sound, and they were both sucked under.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: It would have been a minute or two of sheer terror.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: Underwater, in the dark, while you're sort of panicked, would
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: be hard to escape from.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They called my mom down, and my mom identified.
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: Patty was speaking out from the grave. We got tricked.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: That son of a bitch did it. He killed my sister.
• 0:50
  Speaker 6: Every murder is a mystery. But a victim's body is
• 0:58
  Speaker 6: a sea of evidence. Every fiber is a clue. Every wound...
• 1:05
  Speaker 6: A piece of the puzzle. The medical examiner holds the
• 1:09
  Speaker 6: key to unlock their stories and catch a killer. This
• 1:15
  Speaker 6: is Secrets of the Morgue.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: It's a little hamlet. There's no traffic light in Guilford. 1,200 residents,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: rural community, kind of the salt of the earth, really.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: We had all the big city crimes just in small doses.
• 1:52
  Speaker 6: Late one night, a terrible accident shocks the town.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'd like to.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: Report an emergency. What is the emergency?
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: A car slips upside down in the water.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Our patrol arrived first, right along with the Guilford Fire Department.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: I was told there was a truck that had gone
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: into the lake. There were fire vehicles on the far
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: end of the scene, a couple of people that are
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: in the roadway.
• 2:35
  Speaker 6: On the shore, the truck's owner, Peter Willasek, is hysterical.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: His wife is still in the lake. He was kind
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of running around. We didn't want him getting hurt, so
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: we put him in the back choker so we know
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: where he was.
• 2:48
  Speaker 6: A police diver enters the freezing water to search for
• 2:51
  Speaker 6: Peter's wife, Patty, who's believed to be trapped inside the truck.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: He was able to locate Patty. He brought her directly
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: to the surface. The boat come over. They picked Patty
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: up out of the water and EMT was in the boat.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: He immediately started CPR and did it all the way
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: to the shore.
• 3:13
  Speaker 6: First responders do everything they can to save Patty's life.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: There was no pulse. Their protocol, because it is cold water,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: being a cold water drowning, they continued CPR, loaded her
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: directly in the ambulance and went directly to Sydney Hospital.
• 3:32
  Speaker 7: Although someone has been submerged for a long time, they've
• 3:36
  Speaker 7: been in cold water, and because of that cold water,
• 3:38
  Speaker 7: they can actually survive. The cold water induces a reflex
• 3:45
  Speaker 7: in people called the diving reflex, which basically slows down
• 3:50
  Speaker 7: the metabolism. Cold water drowning survivors have been known to
• 3:55
  Speaker 7: be submerged for an hour or more.
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: Patty is rushed to the same hospital that she works
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: at as a nurse.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: They were still in the life-saving mode, so there was
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: a code, obviously. They all came down. They were all
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: trying to do whatever they could.
• 4:13
  Speaker 6: An hour later, Patricia Willasek is pronounced dead. Police now
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: have to determine how this beloved mother of three ended
• 4:24
  Speaker 6: up at the bottom of Guilford Lake.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: My grandfather was a police officer for a little village
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: in a barone police department. I've always had that drive
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: to be competitive, to be good, to get the truth
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and to help folks. Car accidents, domestics, lost children, it's
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: just helping people.
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: Detective Lloyd's first job is one of the toughest, interviewing
• 4:51
  Speaker 6: the lone survivor and husband of the victim, Peter Walasek.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: His initial report was that his wife returned from work.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: She had forgot to pick up their children who were
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: at the babysitter's house in Guilford. So they got into
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the truck. Patty was driving the vehicle and she went
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: to put a cigarette out the window. And as she did,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: she had looked back and as she looked forward, there's
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: a deer standing in the middle of the road. So
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: he said that she swung to the left hard, back
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: to the right hard, slid sideways over the bank and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: into the lake.
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: Then, Peter reveals the harrowing moment when water starts gushing
• 5:31
  Speaker 6: into the cab.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: With his left hand, he grabbed Patty by the jacket,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: and he was pulling her out when all of a
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: sudden he heard like a swishing sound, and they were
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: both sucked under. He couldn't hang on to her, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: the next thing he knows, he's under the truck, underwater.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: He follows the driveshaft. out to the tailgate and is
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: completely underwater, he said, for 40 seconds. He gets to
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: the top of the surface, he's screaming her name, dives
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: back down, he can't get all the way back down
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: to the truck because it's so cold. He gets out
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: of the water, yells for her, yells for her, can't
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: find her, can't locate her. He goes up onto three
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: cabins and bangs on a door, wakes them up, explains
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: to them that they got in an accident, his wife
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: is still in.
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: The lake, It's a tragic accident. A woman devoted to
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: her family and community, taken in the prime of her life.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Patty was a very caring and loving person. She was
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a good mom. Patty worked in the ER. She enjoyed
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: working there, being able to care for people. Patty had
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: just gotten off work. She finished her shift. She'd worked
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: 3 to 11 that day. And my mother was a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: night nurse at the hospital. She worked 11 to 7.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: She was on that night. And they called my mom down,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and my mom identified her.
• 7:04
  Speaker 6: While the family grieves, the incident undergoes a thorough investigation.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: The Sheriff's Department at that point had nobody trained to
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: do advanced accident investigation or accident reconstruction.
• 7:19
  Speaker 6: Lieutenant Cobb was a young deputy and a newly trained
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: accident investigator at the time.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: I liked putting the pieces back together in an incident
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: and taking that to a prosecution. You got to pay attention.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: You can't take things for granted at the scene. One
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: of the things that I noticed in my walkthrough was
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: that that entire side of Guilford Lake is either protected
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: by guide rails or there's houses or cabins. There are
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: very few openings along that side of the lake. This
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: one that the truck went through is the only one
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: that would allow access to the water without striking another object,
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: a guide rails or a house. I'm not an odds maker,
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: but it would be highly unusual, and you'd have to
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: be very unlucky if you were going to have an
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: accident in that area to hit that one opening where
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: something wouldn't stop you from going in the water.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: How does someone... have a car accident into Guilford Lake
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: when there's only 33 feet that is unprotected by guardrail.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: We're already starting to question, you know, how did this
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: really happen?
• 8:30
  Speaker 6: The detectives interview first responders to ask about Peter's state
• 8:35
  Speaker 6: of mind.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: A fireman had first contact with him because he knew Peter.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And he told that fireman that he was driving. And
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: then when the police got there, then it was she
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: was driving.
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: Peter admits to changing his story to protect Patty.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Patty had some alcohol problems in the past. They were fighting.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: They had an argument because she had been drinking.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: Peter did change his story to say that he lied
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: to cover up for Patty, that she was driving drunk
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: and crashed.
• 9:05
  Speaker 6: Patty's long struggle with alcohol is well known to her
• 9:08
  Speaker 6: friends and family.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: In high school, she ended up pregnant. She was under
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of stress, and that's where the alcohol started
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: coming in when she was 18. When she received her
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: fifth DWI, the judge said, you either do a 28-day
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: stay in a program and get yourself straightened out, or
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you go to jail for 100 days. And she did.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: She did the 28-day stay, and she sobered up, And
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that was it. She ended up becoming a full-time student
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: and working full-time as a nurse's aide. She had gone
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: from being an alcoholic and made something else her focus.
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: But if Patty was drinking again, why did Peter let
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: her drive drunk? Police hope the autopsy performed by medical
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: examiner Dr. James Terzian will give them some answers.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: I estimate that I've done some 4,000 autopsies in my life.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Solving puzzles is something that a lot of forensic pathologists
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: like to do. And helping bring justice when there's a
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: wrong being committed. Only a few hours had elapsed since
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: the vehicle went into the water and the body was
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: brought to me. On her face, she had a number
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: of abrasions and contusions or scrapes and bruises over her
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: right forehead, on her left chin area, and also on
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: her upper lip. And on the inside of her upper lip,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: she had a couple of small lacerations or cuts. All
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: kinds of injuries can occur in car crashes. So that
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: did not ring any particular bell for me as to
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: exactly what had happened.
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: Investigators want to know if Patty was impaired when the
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: truck drove into the lake.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I opened the body and looked internally at the organs,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: sampled the organs, sampled the body fluids for toxicology, and
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I immediately got a result back on the blood. It
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: was 0.055. It varies from person to person how we
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: handle alcohol. It also depends whether a person that has
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: taken in food at the same time. But generally, if
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: she had two drinks in an hour, you might get
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: a level of. 05 like she had.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: 055, it wouldn't have been illegal at the time.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: To me, this didn't look like it happened the way
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Peter said it did.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: We're seeing things that doesn't add up.
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: Detectives investigating the tragic death of mother of three, Patty Walasek,
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: are concerned that her husband Peter's story keeps changing. They
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: interview the couple who helped Peter right after the truck
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: crashed into the lake.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: We interviewed Jessica and Tom, the people from the cabin.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Jessica says when he came to the house, his hair
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: was dry and his hair was Didn't look messed at all.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: His hair was, like she called it, feathered. He had
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: kind of a mullet, and it wasn't messed up. It
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: was just like you'd see him on the street. When
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Jessica and Tom tried to go into the water, he
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: was telling them not to because he didn't want them
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: to get hurt. Be careful. Don't go in there. It's
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: too cold.
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: Nurses at the hospital also claim Peter acted strangely the
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: night of the accident.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: It was cold water, so you don't pronounce him deceased
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: until the body comes back to temperature. So there was
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a period of time when they were working on Patty
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: to try to save her, even though it was futile.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And he was making comments like, nobody's paying attention to me,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: and he didn't need any attention.
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: But there is a problem with Peter's vitals when he's
• 13:25
  Speaker 6: checked out by a doctor.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: His blood pressure was normal. His temperature was almost normal.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Anyone that would have been in that water would have
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: seen some signs of hypothermia.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: In hypothermia, from being immersed in cold water, the body
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: temperature drops. And so the body tries to compensate by
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: producing heat.
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: And how does it do that?
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: By shivering. The body is trying to create friction to
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: raise the temperature back to normal. Well, if he had
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: come out of the water after being completely doused, he
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: would be shivering. It would be hard for him to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: talk clearly.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: He showed no signs of hypothermia.
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: Detectives suspect that the crash wasn't an accident. They look
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: to Dr. Terzian to confirm Patty's cause of death.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I noticed that there was some hemorrhage. or bleeding on
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: the undersurface of her breastbone. Initially, I thought perhaps the
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: bleeding on the undersurface of the breastbone was related to
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: the resuscitation efforts because in the process, oftentimes ribs or
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: the sternum are fractured. There weren't any severe injuries on
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: the inside of her body, but there were some injuries,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: including some petechial or microhemorrhages on her lungs and also
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: on her esophagus. Petechiae or microhemorrhages occur when there is
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: vascular congestion and hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.
• 15:02
  Speaker 6: A loss of oxygen makes sense if Patty drowned, but
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: the diagnosis is one of the toughest for a forensic
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: pathologist to make.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: You know, drowning, it's interesting. Drowning is a death that
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: really is a mechanism that has to be proved by
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: ruling out every other possible cause of death. There's no
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: single finding in a drowning that will prove that someone
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: died of drowning. You have to rule out everything else.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: Dr. Terzian takes a closer look at Patty's lungs for
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: any abnormal signs.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: In bodies that are pulled out of water, normally we
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: expect to find a lot of water in the lungs
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: because people breathe in the water and it fills up
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: their lungs and so the air gets replaced by water.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: It's pretty simple. However, in this case, there really wasn't
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: too much extra fluid in her lungs. That's not impossible
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: with drowning situations. Some people describe our situation called dry drowning.
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: Dry drowning is a condition in which an individual is
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: submerged under water and yet autopsy examination reveals that even
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: though they were submerged, water did not get into their lungs.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And they do not have the typical findings of drowning.
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: The theory is that in the drowning process, this particular
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: individual had a spasm of their larynx preventing water from
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: getting into their lungs.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Dry drowning is rare. It's so rare, in fact, that
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: when we see a case like that, We always have
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: to ask ourselves, hmm, was the person really deceased before
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: they actually entered the water?
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: Dr.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Terzian labeled it probable drowning. And in his initial report,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: he indicated on there that he observed several abrasions, scrapes
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: and bruises. And that's when I connected with him to say,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: how does she get these injuries to her?
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: If she has these injuries and was in the same
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: truck as Pete, going at the same speed in the
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: same water with no seatbelt, why doesn't he have any injury?
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: At the scene of the tragedy, Cobb begins his own
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: forensic examination, reconstructing the accident the way Peter described it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Part of the story with the swerving to miss a
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: deer that had crossed the roadway, I mean, we had
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: initial doubt on that. We had a New York State
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Environmental Conservation Police officer come to the scene. So the
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: officer inducted an investigation in the area. We didn't see
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: any signs of deer. There were no deer prints in
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: the dirt. There were no deer feces, anything like that.
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: Cobb studies skid marks left by the truck's tires to
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: see exactly how the truck swerved into Guilford Lake.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: It was a Chevy dual-wheeled. a King Cab pickup truck,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: so it had four tires on the back, two on
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: each side. On the scene, there was a dual-wheeled dirt impression.
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: Tire tracks are like fingerprints and can determine the speed
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: of the truck when it left the road and hit
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: the water.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I found this tire marker, which would be the direction
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: that the velocity vehicle was traveling. It rolled through the
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: dirt for several yards and then made this gradual left
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: turn across the pavement. It was like an ink roller,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: rolling ink and running out of ink. That gave me
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: a curve or an arc that I could measure, and
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: then using the critical curve speed formula. In this case,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: it was somewhere around 30 miles per hour. Peter's statement
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: was that they were going 50 to 55. Clearly, if
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: they were going 50 or 55, they wouldn't have made
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: the turn that they made. There would have been skid marks,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: scuff marks from the tires, So as I'm walking through
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: the scene, I'm looking for those skid marks, and I
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: don't see them. I don't see any tearing of the
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: grass or skidding across the lawn that I think I
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: should see.
• 19:28
  Speaker 6: No skid marks point to another glaring inconsistency inside the truck.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: I've investigated enough crashes that 50 to 55 miles an
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: hour with unbelted occupants, there's damage inside of a vehicle.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: I'm looking through the truck, I don't see any damage, anywhere.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: The steering wheel doesn't look broken. The windshield's not broken.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: The rearview mirror is still in place on the windshield.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: There is no damage inside this truck.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: But there is evidence to support the suspicion that Patty
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: wasn't driving.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: The driver's window is down, which is somewhere between 10
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: and 11 inches, which is a pretty narrow opening. Underwater,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: in the dark, while you're sort of panicked, would be
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: hard to escape from. I noticed that the passenger door
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: is still locked. When Patty was discovered by the state
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: police diver, she was found outside the cab. Actually, she
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: was about 10 feet behind the truck, towards shore. So
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: that was interesting to us in that Peter's story was
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: that he couldn't get her out, but yes, she was
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: outside the vehicle. That just didn't make sense to us.
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: The accident reconstruction calls much of Peter's story into question. Then, Dr.
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: Terzian discovers another inconsistency.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: I found plant material in the hair, which turned out
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: to be something called burdock's Burdocks are spiny little plant
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: forms that get stuck on your clothing when you walk
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: through an open field. People don't walk around with this
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: kind of thing on their clothing, and she had them
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: all over her clothing and in her hair. So I
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: said to myself, well, why does she have these? Do
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: these come from the bottom of a lake? Are there
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: burdock bushes at the edge of the lake? I did
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: tell the authorities, and I said to them, well, go
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: back to the lake, take a botanist with you, and
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: find out where these came from.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: We had a botanist from Binghamton University come up, and
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: he surveyed that whole scene, and he did not find
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: any burdock plants within 100 yards of the accident scene.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: And burdocks does not grow in water.
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: The burdocks add another layer of mystery to the growing
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: list of inconsistencies. Patty may have died before the truck
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: crashed into the lake.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: The whole description of the accident is not there. The
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: event at Guilford Lake is an absolutely staged event. Everything
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: that happened to her had to happen away from Guilford Lake.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: We got tricked.
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: Detectives in upstate New York believe Patty Wolosik's death was staged.
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: A new tip. about the relationship between Patty and her
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: husband Peter makes him the prime suspect.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: Clarence Edick was a hunter. And somewhere up in November
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: of 2001, Mr. Edick was hunting behind the Willosick property.
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: And he was trying to find a deer. And on
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: a ridge above the house, he saw Mr. Willosick come
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: out the back door with Patty and the two kids.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: And he saw Mr. Willosick scream to her, I'm going
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: to kill you and then punch her in the face.
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: And that's the beginning of a very, very big circumstantial case.
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: They reach out to the community for more witnesses to
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: corroborate Peter's violent behavior.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: We interviewed coworkers, and it's a small hospital. Everybody knew her,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: knew her mom, and a lot of people knew Patty's struggles.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: Not only her own personal struggles, but any of the
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: struggles she had with Pete. Pete and Patty's marriage was violent.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: People had seen where she had come in with bruises
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: on her arms or on her back.
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: Police turned to Patty's sister, Wendy, to confirm the abuse.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that there was physical at this point
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: in time. I knew that there was... mental abuse. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: there was verbal abuse because they would get into altercations,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: verbal altercations where, you know, he would call her names and,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: you know, tell her she was stupid. Mind you, Pete
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: had always said that she would never leave him. She
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: would never take his children because if she did, he'd
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: find her and kill her. And that was kind of like, whoa.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: One of her close friends even said Patty had diaries.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: When we got that information, we talked with the district
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: attorney and we said, boy, we need to really look
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: into this.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: And we wanted to get those diaries to see what
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: in fact that they told us.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: We went to the house and we found several diaries.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Some were in her bedroom. Some were in a closet.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: And several entries in there, and one that I still
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: remember to this day said that, at times I fear
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Pete will kill me one of these days.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: It's very, very powerful when you receive the most important
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: information from the person who has actually been killed. She
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: had documented the abuse that she received from her husband
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: and how it continued to get worse. Patty was speaking
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: out from the grave.
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: The diaries point to a new suspect and a shocking
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: new motive.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Joyce Warden was their babysitter, watched their girls, was friends
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: with both of them, Patty and Pete. What we were
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: able to determine is that from reading the diaries, at
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: one point, Patty was desperate to do whatever she could
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to keep Pete happy, to keep their relationship alive. So
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: she actually brought Joyce into their marriage, sexually, romantically, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: they started a three-way relationship with each other.
• 26:15
  Speaker 8: Love triangles generally start as purely a physical attraction. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: for many, that's fine, providing it stays completely physical. But
• 26:25
  Speaker 8: what can often happen is that the physical leads to emotional.
• 26:30
  Speaker 8: And somebody is going to be left out. Somebody is
• 26:33
  Speaker 8: going to be jealous. And someone is going to want
• 26:35
  Speaker 8: to take out their jealousy and their rage towards the
• 26:38
  Speaker 8: third person. And it's not unusual for the third person
• 26:44
  Speaker 8: that's been brought in to want to stay permanently. And
• 26:47
  Speaker 8: that means the elimination of the third.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: And that's where murder comes in.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Reading the diaries and talking to the people that knew
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Patty the best, that relationship quickly turned from a three
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: to just Joyce and P. And Patty was the one
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: left out.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: She felt that Peter was moving away from her and
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: moving more towards his girlfriend and that she felt that
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: she wasn't safe and that she was afraid for her
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: life while being with him.
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: Detectives need to know if Joyce is involved in Patty's death.
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: They bring her in for questioning.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: Whatever Joyce did or didn't do that night was looked
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: at under the microscope.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Joyce seemed to be forthcoming. She believed it was an accident.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: She was able to confirm the relationship that had gone
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: from a three-way to just solely Pete and her. She
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: denied and maintained that she didn't know anything.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: Joyce was the one watching the kids.
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: Detectives are convinced Patty's death isn't an accident and that
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: Peter is involved. They need the medical examiner to prove it.
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: We asked him to re-examine the body. this time with
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: the additional information that we had.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: The body was brought back to see if anything was missed.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: You could call it a second autopsy or a second look.
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: Now that police suspect the accident was staged, Dr. Terzian
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: rechecks the first autopsy for any suspicious findings.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: Initially, I thought perhaps the bleeding on the undersurface of
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: the breastbone was related to the resuscitation efforts. But in retrospect,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: her circulatory system could have stopped long before that, and
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: it would be unusual to get much hemorrhage on the
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: undersurface of a breastbone in someone who was essentially already
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: dead for several minutes.
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: He sees that Patty's injuries could have been caused by
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: an assault and not the accident.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: I looked more carefully at the neck organs. the hyoid
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: bone in particular and the tongue, things that I don't
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: necessarily always take out of a body. There was really
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: no bruising on the skin of her neck or on
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the muscles of her neck. There was no fracture of
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: her hyoid bone in her neck or her laryngeal cartilages.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: This did not seem to be a manual strangulation of
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: her neck. It really was more consistent with something being
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: held over the nose and mouth. Asphyxiation is the term
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: that we use. The bleeding under the chest plate suggested
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: that the breastplate was fractured as part of the suffocation process.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: It occurred because someone was either kneeling on her or
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: lying on top of her. She was not a very
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: big woman. about 120 pounds, 5 feet 7. She was thin.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Something was held over her nose and mouth, probably a hand,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: which accounts for the trauma to her lips and the bleeding.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: There was no other explanation for this. There's no doubt
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: in my mind that Patty was murdered.
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: Forensic pathologist Dr. James Terzian's second autopsy of Patty Wolosik
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: has ruled out drowning as her cause of death.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: It became quite clear to me because she didn't have
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: any severe injuries or obvious drowning from the lake that
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: she probably was dead before the vehicle ever got into
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: the lake.
• 30:29
  Speaker 6: He's convinced that the forensic evidence points to her husband
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Peter as her killer.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: Asphyxial deaths probably take a minute or two before someone
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: becomes unconscious. Once you cut off your air supply, eventually
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: the brain becomes hypoxic and you lose consciousness.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: But it would have been a.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Minute or two of sheer terror knowing what was happening
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: to her. And then I think he tried to cover
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: up the crime by putting her into a vehicle and
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: driving the vehicle into a lake because somehow he knew
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: that it would be hard to separate drowning from asphyxiation.
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: To make an arrest, investigators need to know where Patty
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: was killed. Dr. Terzian may have a clue.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Something was wrong here with the story versus the findings.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: When the body came to me, what I noticed was
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: that there were these plant materials on her clothing. I mean,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: she shouldn't have had these burdocks on her clothing and
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: in her hair. Where are these coming from?
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: We'd already known from the lake the burdocks wasn't there,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: so she had been into this burdocks in some way.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: And if it wasn't at the lake, then where did
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: it happen?
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: We received a second search warrant to specifically look for
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: the burdocks around the Wlasik property.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Right away, I saw the burdocks were all over the place.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: They were in brush on the side.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: Of the yard.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: We actually found one burdock plant in the backyard, one
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: that looked like half it was gone and been trampled down.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: The little birds themselves were missing off basically one whole
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: side of the bush.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: When we looked at that closer, we found her hairs
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: were embedded in one of the branches.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: And I saw that there were some hairs consistent with
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: the victim's hairs. We were able to find hairs in
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: the burdocks and the bushes that matched Patty's hair.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: That's where he attacked her, got her down on the ground,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: and that's where the burdock was transferred. She got attacked
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: and murdered.
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: At her home.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: In a way, it was a good feeling because I
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: knew that we were going to be able to prosecute Peter.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: and not let him get away with this. But the
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: flip side of that is, obviously, this is where Patty died.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: This is, you know, this is the spot that's sort
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: of tough.
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: But investigators aren't ready to make an arrest. To ensure
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: a killer doesn't escape justice, they need one more answer.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: What would be motive?
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: District Attorney Joseph McBride has a theory about why Patty
• 33:37
  Speaker 6: was murdered.
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: Peter Willasek had a bar called The Angel Inn that
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: was in Guilford, and he was trying to expand it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: And our position was that he killed Patty for the
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: insurance proceeds.
• 33:52
  Speaker 8: Financially motivated murders are difficult to prove. You need to
• 33:56
  Speaker 8: be able to prove if The spouse is reporting them
• 33:59
  Speaker 8: dead through unforeseen circumstances or unexplained circumstances. And you are
• 34:04
  Speaker 8: left with this windfall of cash. You have to be
• 34:10
  Speaker 8: very careful and very thorough in determining who's going to
• 34:13
  Speaker 8: receive this money. When was this insurance policy taken out?
• 34:19
  Speaker 8: All of these things play into a motive for having
• 34:21
  Speaker 8: somebody killed.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: When we looked at the finances, they weren't doing well.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: They had some debt. They had a lot of overhead.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: He had insurance on the bar itself for Patty's life.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: He had insurance on the truck. He had insurance on
• 34:40
  Speaker 5: the house. I believe it's over $ 200, 000 insurance.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: It's not millions, but look, if your house gets paid
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: for and now you can run your bar, with Patty gone,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: there's a financial gain for him, and he gets to
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: be with his girlfriend.
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: Clearly he had a tremendous financial interest if his wife
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: were to die. And that blows Peter's story right out
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: the window.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Peter thought that he was smarter than the rest of us.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: He wanted this to be a motor vehicle accident. And
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: if we know we have a person who's an alcoholic
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: and we find any alcohol in their system, we're going
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: to go, oh yeah, she was drunk, she drove into
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: a lake. Close the book, let's move on. That's what
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: he expected to happen. We fell into his web of lies,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: and it took us a while to get out of them.
• 35:39
  Speaker 6: Detectives in Shenango County, New York, are ready to charge
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: Peter Wolosik with the brutal murder of his wife, Patty.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: We went to his house. He told me he was
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: under arrest for murder. He didn't resist, and then we
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: took him into custody without incident.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: Now, District Attorney McBride has to convict him in court.
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: Peter denies everything, claiming Patty drowned after drinking and driving
• 36:05
  Speaker 6: their truck into the lake.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: He argued that it was an accident and that there
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: was no homicide, and they tried to say that we
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: were jumping to conclusions.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: He stuck to his story. The problem with that story
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: is there's nothing at the scene that can corroborate what
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: he told us.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: He said apparently that he was trying to protect her
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: because she had previous episodes of DWI and she had
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: been drinking that night.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Patty was just about 10 years sober by that point.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Pete had reintroduced her to alcohol and he said, just
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a drink is okay. Once you're sober, you fight it
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and you have to, you know, not drink, period. So
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: when Patty told me that Pete said a glass of
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: wine or a beer or a drink would be okay,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I said to her, what is your problem? You know better.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: She was given alcohol to try to trick law enforcement
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: into believing that she had a DWI accident.
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: If she was intoxicated, why would he ever let her
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: drive the It would make no sense. That did not
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: garner much credibility nor much believability.
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: During the trial, Peter changes his story again and tries
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: to present himself as the victim.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: He says Patty confronted him about the affair and tried
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: to kill him and her as a suicide and drove
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: to the lake intentionally.
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: Backed by Dr. Terzian's autopsy results and the accident reconstruction,
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: the jury's told what really happened the night Patty died.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: She leaves work at 11 o'clock. He was supposed to
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: pick the kids up. She was like, where's the kids? Oh,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: you forgot them. There was no forgetting. He wanted her alone.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: He didn't want the kids there. When she got home,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: he allowed her to drink because he wanted this to
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: be a motor vehicle accident. He attacked her, got her
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: down on the ground. That's where all that burdock's transferred. Obviously,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: she fought, but he overpowered her, and it was probably
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: just a horrible, horrible death. Dr.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: Turzin was fantastic. He came, he told to the jury
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: in plain, uncertain terms his analysis, the bruises, and what
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: caused them, including the smothering and the breastplates. that the
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: injuries that were all over her body were inconsistent with
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: the low-speed accident of that truck driving into the lake.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Patty was killed by suffocation. Her blood oxygen level dropped
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: and her heart fibrillated. That's the mechanism. Her husband had
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: asphyxiated her by holding his hand over her nose and mouth,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: accounting for the trauma.
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: To her lips and the blood in the mouth.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: She died in the yard outside the house, and then
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: her body was placed in the bed of the truck,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: and then it was covered up by trying to make
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: it look like a drowning.
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: Mr. Vlasic pulled down truck over to the shoulder, waited
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: for the road to be empty, and gently drove it
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: into the lake.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: Pete was not in the vehicle when it went in
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: the water.
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: Patty's body was floated out and was found on the
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: bed of the lake. He waited for the truck to sink,
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: went into the lake up to his waist, and then
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: went banging on the doors. I believe the jury got
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: to see the real Peter Vlasic. There were at least
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: 14 pieces of evidence we had that Peter was abusing
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: Patty before the homicide. Peter's motives were, one, to get
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: rid of his wife so that he could be with
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: his girlfriend, that he could get the money that he
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: wanted to expand his business, and he could have primary
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: control of the.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Children Facts tend to be very important, for example, to juries.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: And I'm just trying to inject some facts into the situation.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: If one looks at the evidence from the autopsy on
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: the scene dispassionately, the chips fall where they may. Patty
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: was murdered.
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: Peter Wolosik is convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: When the verdict came in as guilty, just the feeling
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: of relief that it was done, that he'd been convicted,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the satisfaction of knowing that he was being held accountable
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: for his behavior. And I remember saying, he did it.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: That son of a bitch did it. He killed my sister.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: I learned a lot from that case. I was fortunate
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: to work with, especially Dr. Jim Terzian.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: It's really a team effort to come up to the
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: proper conclusions. It's not that one person is going to
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: come up with all the answers. We have pieces of
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: the puzzle that need to fit with other pieces of
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: the puzzle.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: I miss her. I miss her spunk, her get up
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and go. Hey, Wendy, let's go. it's things like that.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: It's the little things that I miss.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Justice was done. That's good. But it's a sad situation,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: even with him being in jail. You can't say that
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: it was a real win on anybody's side. It's a
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: tragic thing.
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: You