Family Plots | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

When a wealthy

family

is murdered in their home, it seems like a professional hit until investigators begin to suspect that it was actually the work of a talented amateur. The investigation into the drowning death of a woman in Pennsylvania has repercussions as far away as North Carolina, where some dark secrets begin to surface. Detectives on a murdered woman's case get more than they bargained for when they uncover a sinister

family

business. Every family has its problems. Every home has its secrets, but when the skeletons in the closet are real, forensics are called in. get to the bottom of those family

plots

on easter sunday 1992 the yule family was finishing up a weekend getaway at their beach house dana a 20 year old college student bad goodbye to her older sister tiffany and her parents dale and glee Dana stayed the night with his girlfriend's family while the others made the 200 mile trip back to Fresno See you at home Have a good flight Dana last saw them alive two days later when He couldn't talk to his family on the phone.

Dana called a neighbor to check on the house. The neighbor, accompanied by Christmas's housekeeper, made a gruesome discovery. Mr. Ewell lay dead on the floor. He appeared to have been shot in the back of the head as Fresno County Sheriff's Department investigators searched the home. They realized that Dale was not the only victim, his daughter Tiffany and his wife Glee were also found dead as if their father Tiffany had been murdered execution style, ambushed with a single bullet to the back of the head, but Glee knew what was coming, it seemed. that she had attempted to run before bullets to her back and shoulder stopped her, gunpowder residue on her sweatshirt told investigators that the killer had then shot her body at point-blank range based on the victims' condition, investigators They knew that Yules must have been murdered almost immediately after returning from the beach, two days earlier, five spent bullets were collected from the crime scene, one more was found on Glee's body in the master bedroom, investigators found a open box with nine millimeter ammunition and an empty gun holster, as the owner's manual showed. that the missing weapon was a Browning nine-millimeter pistol, since much of the house was ransacked.

Detectives first theorized that it was an attempted robbery gone wrong, but the evidence did not support that theory. No, it's like an amateur job. There was no forced entry. Items, including Dale Ewell's gum collection, were left in the house instead of using pillowcases to collect the loot. Sheets were laid out and loaded with worthless items, such as audio cassettes and coins, for homicide detective John Souza, even though the killers came and went without warning. It just didn't seem like a professional robbery. A good thief searches dressers and stuff starting from the bottom and going up that way.

He never has to close a drawer, he opens the bottom one, searches it, opens the next one and they all stay open, well, here it was a combination of everything, there was no pattern, the crime had been planned to perfection, although many neighbors were in their backyards on Easter Sunday, no one noticed anything strange in the Ewell house nor did they hear gunshots. Given the amount of forethought that must have gone into the murders,

detectives

couldn't rule out a professional hit or overlook the possibility that someone might return to take down the family's sole survivor, Dana Ewell.

He returned from school and met with investigators if he feared for his life, he was hiding it along with his pain. He really appreciated being told that his family is dead. His whole family is not a tear away and he surprised me. I'm good. I'll give him a benefit doubt maybe he's in shock he told police his mother had once worked for the central intelligence agency his father, who owned an aircraft dealership, had a reputation as a ruthless businessman As Dale's $8 million fortune grew over the years, it seemed likely that he had made some enemies. Investigators delved into the family's personal and financial background looking for dark secrets.

None were found. Glee's story as a translator with the CIA was uneventful, and while many people seemed to dislike Dale Ewell, no one had a motive to kill him and his family. What is this? They asked Dana to inspect the house and keep an eye out for anything missing, as blood stains can be seen here. We're not sure whose blood it was. The

detectives

noted that he seemed unaffected by the blood-stained carpet, but he was outraged when he saw that the investigators had damaged a lamp. What happened here? Did his people do this immediately after the funeral?

He started spending money, lavished his girlfriend with expensive gifts and bought a plane for 130,000. It was suspicious behavior but Dana had an alibi during the murder. He said he had been four hours away with his girlfriend's family. The girl's father. An FBI agent confirmed that Dana would make millions of dollars from the death of his family, but his perfect alibi meant he couldn't have been the shooter detectives expected. that forensics would help discover who it was, but there was little to be done, there were no footprints or fingerprints, even the casings had been removed, the only physical evidence was the six nine-millimeter bullets fired at the crime scene, all hope of solving the case was in their hands.

From ballistics experts with the Fresno County Sheriff's Department, the crime lab determined that the bullets came from the ammunition box found on the victim's nightstand. Identical scratch patterns told investigators that all six bullets had been fired through the same barrel, but when these marks were compared to those on a Browning pistol like the one stolen from Yule's home, investigators found an obvious scratch discrepancy. that indicate the rate of twist did not match the rate of twist is the distance it takes a bullet to complete a single rotation the browning has a twist rate of 10 inches, but the assassin bullets showed a twist rate of 12 inches for the criminalist alan boudreau, there was no doubt about the findings that ended the problem, it is not a browning pistol that fired the murderous bullets, but these were not the only marks. on the bullets, each of the six bullets had deep scratches.

Boudreau was puzzled by these peculiar markings. He had never seen anything like it before, although he had about 24 or 25 years of experience. Enlargements of the bullet marks were sent to law enforcement laboratories across the country. but no one was familiar with the engravings or the unusual speed of rotation. Six bullets had been fired, but no one had heard the shots. The gun's unusual barrel markings had etched a mysterious signature into the resulting bullets, suggesting that the weapon had perhaps been modified by a silencer, but the sheriff's department had little experience with them. I have never come across anyone who has used a silencer, I don't want to say they are used and you see them a lot on TV, but I think it is more of a dramatic movie than a real reality.

Life silencers are not used in crimes and that was unusual in itself before Souza had only theorized that murder was the motivation if a silencer had been used. He now he had the physical proof. He got a killer to come to the house. killing people, that was the only purpose after their ballistic analysis researchers studied the microscopic residue on the Glee sweatshirt. It's common to find metal debris near gunshots at close range, but this one contained an unusual mix of rubber steel wool and bright yellow fibers that the forensic team couldn't. They did not identify the source of these materials but knew that they had somehow been used to modify the weapon.

His findings corroborated the silencer theory. They showed that on Easter night someone had entered the Ewell home with a deadly goal. He ransacked the house to make it look like a robbery and stole the victim's gun to throw detectives off, but he had used ammunition he found in the house and that meant the killer would have had to know there was a box of nine-millimeter ammunition hidden. on Dale Ewell's nightstand, just a handful of people. They had intimate knowledge of the house and three of them were dead detectives who dug deeper into Dana's background. College classmates in Santa Clara described him as a preppy loner, obsessed with wealth, so it was strange that they thought he had been best friends with a student named Joel Ratofsitch who was almost expelled from college. school for stealing furniture joel seemed to be on the defensive with investigators told him that he barely knew dana her whereabouts could not be confirmed on easter sunday look i told you everything now i don't know surveillance on dana showed that joel moved to Christmas house two months after the murders and lived there until the following October, during which time Dana paid his friends' bills and treated him to thousands of dollars in helicopter lessons, but when Dana was asked. about joel denied knowing him detectives had caught both young men in a blatant lie they needed to discover what else they could be lying about more than a year after the triple homicide of a wealthy fresno family detectives still did not have enough evidence to prove dana yule and Joel Radofsitch were involved and the couple was well aware of that fact when Dana returned to Santa Clara the following spring they communicated only through pagers and pay phones Dana was skilled at dodging detectives Dana was always looking over the By far Be careful, I went to the Jet Center at the San Jose airport and they had isolated booths, public phone booths and most of the calls were like that and you couldn't even stand outside the booth and hear what was said.

Joel was not so careful, he was heard telling Dana that he was worried about what the investigators might have on them. Unfortunately, it was not enough to link the young men to the murders. Investigators obtained a search warrant for a duplicate pager so they could monitor Joel's pages. Weeks passed. without any suspicious calls, then in october 1993 joel received a call from a man detectives knew very little about his name was jack potts, well there it is, he and joel used to go target shooting together, constant admitted that just 11 days before the Ewell murders he had purchased a nine-millimeter semi-automatic rifle from Feather Industries, he said he bought it to kill opossums, detectives thought it was an odd choice of weapon and when they asked to see it, Ponce said the gun had been stolen if investigators could somehow link the missing rifle. to the bullets and residue from the crime scene could connect radofsitch and yule to the triple homicide when he realized that he was involved in the murders became state evidence in the magazine he admitted that he bought the rifle from joel days later joel le He told Ponce that he had killed the Ewels and had asked him to get rid of the weapon.

Ponce threw it. The murder weapon was missing, but another piece of the puzzle fell into place when investigators learned that Dana had purchased a book on how to build a homemade silencer. I bought the same books that he had bought and brought them home and of course I gave them to Alan Budrow and he told me to make a silencer. I heard this book built a muffler to the book's specifications. Among the materials were tennis balls and steel wool that matched the waste found. on glee ewell's sweatshirt, but the real proof was in the shot that they would need the gun.

After interviewing 90 firearms manufacturers around the world, researchers discovered that the rare Feather Industries rifle is the only one of nine millimeters manufactured with a 12-inch twist rate even though he did not have Cox's rifle, Boudreaux was still able to conduct tests with other weapons of the same model, he spent months tracking down nine-millimeter pens with serial numbers close to the one registered as Dupont, The barrels of these weapons would be almost identical, Boudreaux tested the weapons. through sticky paper to catch any microscopic particles ejected through the barrel, this trail of evidence was compared to the residue found on Glee Yule's clothing, the unusual yellow fibers, rubber particles and steel wool matched exactly, It was not difficult to reasonably conclude that it was.

There is tennis ball material on Mrs. Yule's sweatshirt and it is consistent with the silencer I built based on Detective Susan's information. The test bullets closely matchedthe characteristics of assassin bullets. The turning speed was correct. The deep scratches were almost identical to those from the murder. The bullets and eventually the gun expelled the same residue that was found near Glee Ewell. No other type of weapon could have matched so closely in March 1995, almost two years after the murders. Arrest warrants were obtained for Dana Yule and Joel Radofsitch. Here is the plan based. In their extensive investigation, detectives had finally pieced together the entire hungry history of her father's fortune, Dana conspired with Joel a year earlier to shoot his family and make it look like a robbery, in exchange Dana would split the 8 million inheritance with him while dana established her perfect alibi 200 miles away joel slipped into the christmas house with a spare key he shot dana's sister and mother first and then waited for dale, they had thought that without the gun they couldn't link them with the murders, but as cleverly as they planned Dana and Joel's designs were not bulletproof and neither confessed in May 1998.

Yule and Radofsitch were convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life sentence in the Ewell case. Growing suspicions undermined a secret conspiracy elsewhere. The murder investigation was sparked by an innocent comment. Allegheny 1994, Pennsylvania police responded to a 9-1-1 call from a distraught man named Timothy Baskowski. Wait sir, calm down, what is his address? Lee, we have raw starship details. She is a white woman found in a hot tub that his wife Marianne had lost consciousness in the hot tub he was unable to resuscitate her the police arrived and saw the paramedics trying to revive her what happened tonight their efforts failed she is going to be okay I was inside she was here in the jacuzzi and I saw her and only her Heart stopped when she was rushed to the hospital.

The 35-year-old woman was pronounced dead on arrival. She had an alcohol concentration of 0.22 in her bloodstream, more than twice the legal limit for intoxication. Did you know that my wife drank? She told the nurse that Marianne had been a heavy drinker and that he blamed the drowning on the alcohol she obtained in Allegheny County. Accidental death cases are police matters, so technicians processed the scene. Investigators questioned Baskowski's parents, who had been called in to watch the children while Timothy was in the hospital. hospital is fine, well, it's a shock, it's really a shock. Baskowski's father made the comment that this was not the first time his son had endured such a tragedy.

His first wife, Elaine, had died four years earlier, almost the same day Baskowski returned from the hospital. They were waiting for him Baskowski described the incident throughout the day and into the evening he estimated that Marianne drank between 13 and 15 cans of beer around 11:30 that night the couple drank a bottle of wine Marianne was an alcoholic, her husband Baskowski said He claimed that Marianne stayed in the hot tub after he came out. The next time he saw her, he said she was lying on her side in the water. Detectives searched the house. They found beer in the refrigerator and a container of empty cans, but these cans were completely dry.

The evidence contradicted the claim that Marianne had consumed beer after beer well into the night. They also learned that a friend of Marianne's had spoken to her on the phone for an hour and a half earlier that afternoon; the French said that Marianne did not seem drunk. The more the detectives learned, the more they suspected that Mrs. Baskowski's death was not an accident but a case of deadly deja vu if Marianne Baskowski was murdered in her hot tub. in pennsylvania they had very little physical evidence to prove it no signs of violence were found in or around the bathtub all they really had were some contradictory statements timothy baskowski agreed to go to the police station for further questioning detective jimmy svedic his demanding account It seemed staged one of the things he was so consistent with his timing too consistent ten to one I did this uh Marianne did this at one to eight five after one I was putting my shoes on in this interview this afternoon okay yeah yeah yeah , while Baskowski was telling his story the detectives noticed a scratch on his neck.

Could you tell me how you knew that my wife and I went on a cruise and I asked him to take off his shirt? We might even want to take a photo of her back. saw a pattern of scratches baskowski explained that he and marianne had been on a cruise recently while he was in the bathtub he had asked him to scratch his sunburned back given the suspect's pale skin and deep indentations the explanation seemed implausible okay, That's some scratches that look like marks from a fight. When investigators questioned Baskowski about his first wife, his behavior changed drastically.

That's true, he cut the interview short and demanded a lawyer without enough information to stop him. He was free to go. Investigators immediately contacted police in Greensboro North. Carolina, where Baskowski and his first wife had lived, discovered some striking similarities between the two. Mrs. Moskowski had met both wives, Marianne and Elaine, in church singles groups, did you see this, yeah, okay, they both worked as religious school teachers, even more chilling were the similarities between their deaths according to the police from north carolina baskowski had called 9-1-1 on a sunday night in november just as she had done in pennsylvania the paramedics arrived and found elaine on the bathroom floor with her husband trying cpr she's okay so we're here let me ask you some questions about what happened last night baskowski claimed his wife had been drinking a lot that night fell unconscious in the bathtub and drowned do you know where that was on a tape that north carolina detectives suspected they didn't make ?

I have enough evidence to refute the husband's story. The cause of death was left blank on the death certificate. Baskowski was never charged. I tried to get him to stop, but now, four years later, Pennsylvania detectives were faced with the possibility that his case would end the same way. to take it to trial you need more than suspicion you need you need a case you have to gather the evidence and it all has to be there and they just didn't have what they needed, although the strange circumstances of their wives' drowning deaths pointed out For Pennsylvania investigators It would be a challenge to differentiate an accident from a murder, especially when there were no witnesses, unless Marianne's body had a compelling story to tell.

Baskowski would have simply washed her hands of another suspicious death. The autopsy began with an inspection of the body there was no evidence of external trauma only some fresh bruising the bruises were not enough to disprove Baskowski's story the paramedics could have caused them the body was next examined for signs of drowning to the county coroner of Allegheny, Cyril Wett, it was evident that something had stopped Marianne's breathing but it was not water these lungs were not wet or heavy at all and if she had drowned in this bathtub I think a good amount of water would certainly have gotten in the lungs the victim had sustained hemorrhages into the eye and the back of the tongue, the muscle tissue of the neck had suffered deep bruising, all of these were telltale signs of death by strangulation, the coroner concluded that after a tough struggle someone had He wrapped his hands around the victim's neck and squeezed the life out of her.

The findings in Pennsylvania caught the attention of John Butts, North Carolina's chief medical examiner, who wondered if Boskowski's first wife, Elaine, had also been asphyxiated. Four years earlier, the autopsy reports showed no indication that this was the case, but the original examiner may have missed the telltale signs that allowed Baskowski to get away with murder. Elaine's body had been buried for a long time, but the photographs remained investigators hoped they would be enough to rectify a serious oversight four years after elaine baskowski died in her bathroom investigators in north carolina finally had the chance to prove she had been murdered medical examiner john butts noticed a strange mark on one From the photographs taken at her autopsy one of the important pieces of the puzzle of this case involved some distinctive bruising that was present on the lower part of Miss Boskowski's chest in the upper abdominal region.

It was the set of linear or elongated bruises that were illustrated in this photograph. These parallel bruises called railroad tracks match the shower door railing in Baskowski's bathroom. Its significance was overlooked in the autopsy, but knowing how Timothy Baskowski had supposedly killed his second wife helped Butts find clues. until the death of the first, she was literally squeezed to death, this bruising occurred when the upper chest region of this woman's abdomen was pushed or compressed towards the shower rail and again it was our feeling or our conclusion that that It is actually the mechanism. or death based on what North Carolina investigators had discovered Detectives in Pennsylvania looked for more similarities between the two cases and discovered that both of Baskowski's wives were planning to leave the marriage and neither had yet canceled their life insurance policies that named her husband as beneficiary.

It seemed that killing his wife would solve his financial and romantic problems when history began to repeat itself with Marianne resorting to a plan that worked in the past thanks to the clever work of investigators in North Carolina and Pennsylvania the staged drowning of his second wife would make He was Baskowski's last in 1996 He was convicted of Elaine's murder in 1999 He was sentenced to death for Marianne's murder Timothy Baskowski's past killer finally caught up with him in New Jersey Police would again have to look back to solve a death in The family early on Saturday March 4, 1995 a runner was running through East Side Park while most of Paterson, New Jersey was still sleeping, one of its residents had apparently chosen to practically sleep on the running path, hey buddy, only a couple of feet stuck out of the bedroom. bag the runner wondered how the person could breathe realized that the occupant was not bleeding at all the police confirmed that the body in the bag had died they interviewed the runner and spread out to look for evidence of a possible homicide the victim was a young woman From 18 to 24 years old.

She had been beaten. The inside of the sleeping bag was stained with blood but not soap, which suggests that they later put her inside, probably to move her to this place. Detective Mike Caseri led the investigation. We knew it was a murder. we knew it wasn't the original scene it was just that we were trying to find out who did it and that's where it all started almost all homicide investigations start with the victim in this case she had no identity the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the The doctor's head The examiner found no signs of sexual assault.

The blood-stained parts of her clothing were care

full

y cut away and the blood was compared to the victim's if any of it did not match. Investigators hoped it could be used against a suspected culprit, but all stains. It matched the victim's blood, they found no skin or hair of any potential suspect at the New Jersey state identification office. The victim's fingerprints were analyzed through Aphis, the automated fingerprint identification system. Compare fingerprints from police files across the country. Within hours he found a match. in new jersey the victim was 18 year old tara carter her prints were on file because she had once been arrested for shoplifting her parents had moved out of state but the police found her closest relative her sister brought a photo of the victim look if you see someone came to help because he didn't dare look at him yes, I recognized him they made the identification now there was no doubt that tara carter was dead the police found out that tara said she was going to spend the weekend with her boyfriend he used the original name, I didn't know his real name or where to find it.

He also said that Tara had been living with a family friend, a widow named Celestine Payne and her children, who may have known that Payne lived in a nearby neighborhood where she occasionally rented rooms in her house. The police visited her. Celestine offered to help. In every way he could he directed us to the bedroom area where Tara slept with hertwo daughters and I and Detective Reyes looked around you know it's common to look for phone books or anything with possible uh you know names of friends or something because we had nothing, we had nothing to go on to solve this crime at that time. moment, oh no, Wendy Tara Carter was treated like a member of the Payne family, she was the Wendy, Celestine's daughter's best friend, who she roomed with until Wendy moved to South Carolina.

Detectives searched the closet where Tara kept her belongings and found nothing to indicate that she was in any kind of trouble with her mysterious boyfriend or anyone else when she was Payne. They were unable to offer new information about the victim's boyfriend. The original police put the word out that they needed to talk to him while they were looking for more information about the victims. Payne directed them to the basement where more of Tara's things were kept. They didn't do it. I knew what they were looking for until they found him in one area drops of blood splashed on the basement floor Detective Reyes automatically told Mrs.

Payne not to touch anything you know the crime may have occurred here and she again said well If it happened here I want to know this is my house I see these drops right here the amount and position of the blood drops raised suspicions but did not suggest that this was the crime scene the investigators were not sure what the drops meant and I could see a drip a stain coming down from the beam directly below it was a stain, a blood stain, indicating that blood may have dripped from the floor above. Celestine Payne gave her consent for a more thorough search of her home.

She said I want to know anyway. It takes to realize you do what you have to do the forensic team was sent the detectives continued their investigation they headed back to the victim's closet, which turned out to be directly above the blood stained beams, they found blood on the wall and the The closet floor along with blood-stained women's underwear and other clothing looked like a gory murder, but investigators had to make sure samples were collected and sent to the New Jersey State Police Central Laboratory, where they were tested. genetic markers in the blood, these proteins inherited from our parents. it does not change, although it is not as precise as the DNA test.

Testing for genetic markers is usually sufficient because certain markers are rarer than others. Forensic scientist Cynthia McSweeney analyzed the samples from the closet and was able to determine that this blood stain was consistent with only three percent of the black population. That three percent included the victim Tara Carter. The evidence showed that she had met her death within the closet. Celestine Payne accompanied detectives to the station for questioning and told them she last saw the victim at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 3. The day before her body was found, Tara said she was going to run errands. .

Celestine and her son had their own errands to run and were gone most of the day when Celestine returned with a man named Charlie. Pinchum was waiting on the porch Pinchum used to date Celestine's daughter Wendy before she moved away. and he had a habit of stopping by celestine's house and hanging out, she didn't know where he lived because he could have committed the crime while the pains were in. Charlie Pincham's name was added to the list of suspects while Celestine was answering questions. Investigators searched her home looking for more clues besides the bedroom closet. Traces of blood were found in the kitchen.

Drain pipes were removed and traps emptied to see what might have accumulated there. 100 items of evidence from there, including blood drops, swabs, they dismantled the sink and removed it, then it turned out to be skull fragments inside the sink trap, the toilet, some hair and matter was found in there, from there everything exploded, uh, the investigation took off. Now the victim's boyfriend originally heard that the police were looking for him and came forward along with an alibi that he was off the list of suspects at least for now, leaving the equally mysterious Charlie Pincher and the grieving Celestine Pain, but The detectives didn't know where Charlie Pincum was. and the forensic evidence did not necessarily place celestine dolor at the scene when the murder occurred this was not the first time the police had been to payne's house while reviewing the case detective sergeant ronald humphrey recalled an earlier incident in which there had a guy stabbed maybe about a year ago, year and a half before that, eugene cooper, i remember eugene lived there, but i never got to interview him.

He was in the hospital's intensive care unit for a stab wound and we were unable to speak to him when Cooper left the hospital. hospital, he refused to press charges and disappeared now, 18 months later, detectives tracked down Eugene Cooper to see if there was a connection. Cooper told him that while he was living in the house, Celestine wanted him to sign her life insurance policy, but she didn't. do it, but hint that shortly after charlie pinchum attacked him, he said that when he was stabbed, charlie was the one who stabbed him and, uh, the pain of matchmaker that put him in danger, cooper didn't go to the police because he was scared and I wanted to put the whole ugly incident behind me.

He picked pinchum's photo out of some mugshots because cooper implicated him in this stabbing. It was more important than ever to locate him now that Eugene Cooper was speaking. He had much more to do. he said and the case took another unexpected turn. He told police that Celestine had set several fires at his home to get insurance money. He also admitted that he helped Celestine move a body, but it was not Tara Carter's body. Tara Carter had been found dead. in a sleeping bag and the investigation into her murder began to reveal other skeletons in celestine payne's closet according to eugene cooper the death of celestine alfonso's husband years earlier may not have been accidental before his death alfonso payne suffered from severe hypertension and gout He was being cared for by his wife Celestine in 1991 His body was found in a field across town At the time Alfonso's death was ruled accidental He was using drugs He walked away and collapsed Now, three and a half years later , Eugene Cooper told New Jersey Police that he had helped Celestine and her children dump Alfonso Payne's body across town with Cooper's new information.

Detectives pulled out Alfonso's medical records and the autopsy report and discovered that before his death he had been too ill to even get out of bed. let alone cross town, the autopsy showed that the drugs in his system at the time of death were not those prescribed for his medical condition, but rather high doses of five types of tranquilizers and antidepressants, all prescribed for Celestine. . Yeah, I'm sure the researchers had enough to get another one. Search warrant for Payne's house, they found that in addition to her husband Alfonso's policy and for fire damage, Payne also managed to get one for Eugene Cooper, even without his signature, it seemed that Celestine Payne may have killed her husband and once again insurance seemed to be the reason they also found a policy on tara carter's life its like a couple of insurances this was strange because like cooper she was not related to grief the policy provided a possible motive there is not enough evidence to arrest celestine for murder have the right to talk to laurie and have a gift with you while you have been in this moment charlie pinchum had been found and arrested for stabbing eugene cooper he eventually admitted it saying that celestine payne came on to him and then Investigators asked him what he knew about the Tara Carter murder.

He said he was there and tried to stop him, but Celestine's pain killed her. Afterwards, he admitted to helping her move the body using a car she rented. They had what they needed to arrest Celestine. payne then located the rental car cynthia mcsweeney checked the trunk for traces of blood and found nothing but her work was not finished her tests of the liner under the trunk mat gave different results when I tested the liner and got a positive result I started to think that perhaps the person had tried to clean the area but had not done a thorough job since an analysis of genetic markers of the blood previously showed that it belonged to the victim Tara Carter, its presence in the trunk of a car rented by Celestine Payne linked to the suspect with the crime you have a pretty Good rap despite the evidence, she Celestine was a devious woman.

She looked at you and said girl. I didn't commit this murder and I almost melted. You know I had nothing to do with this. She would never hurt anyone and she is using her. children to kill people, including her own father, she is killing her friends, she is killing family members, she is evil, it is just a word to put a woman evil, she passed that evil on to her daughter, investigators discovered that while Wendy pretended to be tara's best friend, she also pretended to be tara at least long enough to sign a life insurance policy in tara carter's name oh yeah, once the policy went into effect tara carter's days were numbered unwitting victim lured into a false sense of security in the payne house was marked for death you look very cute, arrived quickly, pinchum admitted using a crowbar, his body was hidden in the upstairs closet until it could be packed and moved safely undetected, forensics finally closed the case and even Celestine Payne couldn't deny it, the blood stains, the financial motive. and the opportunity everyone pointed to payne his daughter wendy and charlie pinchum when faced with the evidence they negotiated celestine payne and charlie pinchum received a life sentence and Wendy Payne received 28 years to solve some homicides investigators need not look further than the house itself of the victim, but only The fact that a suspect is a family member does not mean that the case will be solved relatively easily.

A murderer in the home will take more care to cover his tracks. It's up to coroners to make sure deadly secrets don't get buried in family

plots

.