Inside the mind of murderer Mark Twitchell. Newly revealed letters from the man police say wanted to be like fictional serial killer Dexter. “48 Hours” contributor Troy Roberts reports.
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Even the street smarts of a career cop left him unprepared for what he says she did.
Kevin Rodgers: I’ve never dealt with a case where cheesecake that’s laced with poison is utilized …
It started on Sept. 2, 2016, with what seemed like a routine call.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: It was a call from patrol stating that we have a — a woman … advising that there are items missing from her bedroom.
The woman was a beauty stylist named Olga Tsvyk, who did eyelash extensions at a nearby salon. Patrol officers told Rodgers she’d reported items, including purses, had vanished from her home.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: I grab my partner … and we headed out to this, uh, woman’s house.
She told Rodgers she had just returned home from the hospital, where she said she’d been in and out of consciousness with severe dizziness and nausea.
When he got to the scene, Olga, a Ukrainian immigrant, still seemed a bit woozy.
Peter Van Sant: Can you remember at all … the police asking you questions?
Olga Tsvyk: (Sighs) No, I don’t remember.
She says the only thing she remembered was that a frantic client from the salon had come to her house — a Russian woman named Viktoria Nasyrova, who had wanted her eyelashes extended in a hurry.
Det. Kevin Rodgers:” I need an emergency eyelash repair done. Please, please, please.” … Olga said, “I never have done that before … every bit of work I do is in my salon.”
Olga had told her client she had no appointments available. But she says Viktoria was in the habit of being pushy – she’d repeatedly suggested they spend time together outside of work.
Olga Tsvyk: She starts acting like she’s my friend, you know?
Feeling uneasy, Olga had refused Viktoria’s offers to hang out. And she noticed something else about Viktoria — something visually unsettling: an uncanny physical resemblance.
Olga Tsvyk: I thought she looked like me.
Lookalikes Olga Tsvyk, left, and Viktoria Nasyrova.
Olga Tsvyk/Viktoria Nasyrova/Facebook
While Olga had turned down socializing with Viktoria, she relented to her pleas for eyelash help and told her to come over. Olga’s uneasy feeling returned when Viktoria showed up at her door with three small slices of cheesecake.
Olga Tsvyk: It’s from, like famous bakery, like famous cheesecake.
Olga says Viktoria quickly gobbled up two of the slices, and then insisted Olga try the last one.
Peter Van Sant: Did you eat the entire piece?
Olga Tsvyk: Yes, it’s like small piece.
Peter Van Sant: And what happened?
Olga Tsvyk: I got sick.
She said she threw up violently.
Peter Van Sant: And?
Olga Tsvyk: Then after that, I don’t remember anything.
Peter Van Sant: So, she tells you this story, what are you thinking?
Det. Kevin Rodgers: I am suspicious.
With Olga acting woozy, Rodgers wondered if she was a drug user.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: I said to her, I says, Olga, I said, I want to believe you, however, this doesn’t add up. … But she was adamant, adamant. This 100 percent happened, and this woman is up to something.
In the garbage, Rodgers did see something.
The cheesecake container retrieved from Olga Tsvyk’s garbage was taken into evidence.
Queens District Attorney’s Office
Det. Kevin Rodgers: I walked over to the wastepaper basket and right there … was this plastic container with what appeared to be the remnants of pastry, something that looked good.
Olga identified it as the cheesecake box. Rodgers told his evidence team to bag it and tag it. Whatever had been in that box, Olga said it had made her very sick.
Peter Van Sant: You almost died.
Olga Tsvyk: Yeah, I was in coma 34 minutes.
But Olga admits doctors didn’t find anything suspicious in her system. Still, she told Rodgers she was hospitalized twice. He called the hospitals to confirm but says they wouldn’t divulge patient information.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Which again led me to believe that maybe she wasn’t telling the truth.
Rodgers did try to find Viktoria Nasyrova but couldn’t.
Peter Van Sant: It sounds like at that point this case … is almost over.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Dead.
But a few months later, the case came back to life when Rodgers found a new witness: a neighbor of Olga’s, who reported seeing a woman visiting her the day after the alleged cheesecake incident.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: He told me that a woman had come and gone … a few times.
The neighbor said the mysterious woman had told him Olga was sick. And when he went to check on Olga he walked into a surreal scene and called an ambulance. Her room was like a sauna. Someone had turned the heat on full blast even though it was a hot August day. And Olga was passed out in the bed, barely dressed.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: When she is discovered … she is discovered in this sort of racy lingerie.
Olga was stunned by this detail because she had been wearing sweatpants.
Peter Van Sant: So, someone changed you.
Olga Tsvyk: Yeah.
Peter Van Sant: Changed your clothes.
Olga Tsvyk: Yeah.
And there was more. Pills were strewn all over the floor. Rodgers wondered: had someone tried to kill Olga and then staged the scene to make it look like a suicide? Rodgers realized that Olga had probably been telling the truth all along.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: I do have to make that sort of uncomfortable apology to her of, I’m truly sorry for not believing you 100 percent at first.
Rodgers now turned his attention again to finding the suspect in this case — Olga’s client, Viktoria Nasyrova. But where was she? Rodgers had no way of knowing that someone else was also trying to find her.
His name is Herman Weisberg. He’s a private eye and a retired New York City detective. Weisberg was tracking Viktoria through ads on Russian dating sites and social media, where he says some of her outreach seemed designed for a niche audience.
Herman Weisberg: She was advertising her services as a dominatrix slash escort.
He believed Viktoria was using online ads to commit crimes of opportunity.
Herman Weisberg: She would knock out with knockout drugs … taking money, watches, jewelry, whatever she could get.
And he suspected Viktoria had done something much worse.
OLGA TSVYK FINDS SHE IS NOT ALONE
With the fog of her mysterious illness behind her, Olga Tsvyk says she went back to work, sharing the story of her harrowing ordeal. That’s when another client told her something she never expected to hear.
Olga Tsvyk: She said, “you know, one of my husband friend, I think somebody also drug him … his name is Ruben.”
The client put Olga in touch with the other drugging victim — a man named Ruben Borukhov.
About two months before Olga ate that cheesecake, Ruben, who ran a nearby dry-cleaning business, met a woman on a Russian dating site. Her name? Viktoria Nasyrova.
Ruben Borukhov: She said she’s a good cook and I said I love to eat.
The two arranged to meet at her place for dinner.
Ruben Borukhov: I just took one bite of fish, and I was out of it in five minutes.
Ruben says he passed out, and Viktoria allegedly went on a shopping spree.
Ruben Borukhov: She took, like, $800, maybe $1,000 in my — all together in cash, $2,400 in American Express.
Peter Van Sant: So, she’s livin’ high on the hog on your money.
Ruben Borukhov: Absolutely. … And then she brought me here (walks over to a chair in his store and sits down).
Two days later, Ruben had still been out of it when Viktoria literally took him to the cleaners. One of Ruben’s employees recorded video.
Ruben Borukhov: She is walking here and there and making some stories to my workers. “Oh, we had wine! He drank two bottle of wine.” … I don’t remember nothing.
As Viktoria talks to the workers,the camera catches a glimpse of her sitting in the boss’s chair.
FEMALE VOICE ON VIDEO: Maybe he take pill or something, right?
Ruben Borukhov is seen being taken out of his business by paramedics.
CBS News
Luckily, Ruben’s sister called an ambulance. Viktoria would flee the scene before it arrived, but not before cleaning him out
Ruben Borukhov (shows Van Sant the inside of a safe): I have some money in the basement, couple hundred here, she took it, she took the watch.
And Ruben believes Viktoria nearly took a lot more than that.
Peter Van Sant: Did you almost die?
Ruben Borukhov: I think so … that’s how I was.
Herman Weisberg: Oh. He was a sick man.
But private eye Herman Weisberg says when it to comes to Viktoria Nasyrova, Olga and Ruben may have been the lucky ones. In 2017, Weisberg began working with Nadia Ford. Nadia said her mother Alla Alekseenko, with whom she was very close, had gone missing back home in Russia.
Peter Van Sant: And, so, every day you would talk to her?
Nadia Ford: Every day.
Nadia says before her mother disappeared, she had mentioned making a new best friend. The friend’s name? Viktoria Nasyrova. Before Viktoria came to New York, she was living in Russia, and had become Alla’s neighbor in the apartment next door.
“They seem like an odd couple,” Peter Van Sant said of the friendship between Alla and Viktoria.
CBS News
Peter Van Sant (holding up photos): Here is your mother … standing next to you. … And here is Viktoria. … And they seem like an odd couple.
Nadia Ford: Right.
Peter Van Sant: You just wouldn’t think they’d hang out with each other.
Nadia Ford: She was always trying to be very friendly with her. You know, and my mom, she trust everyone.
In the fall of 2014, Alla had told Nadia she would be sending her daughter special gifts. Her new best friend Viktoria would bring them. Viktoria would be carrying $6,000 in cash and other valuables, including two fur coats, to be hand delivered to Nadia. But Viktoria never showed, and on October 5, Nadia tried to call her mother but couldn’t reach her.
Peter Van Sant: How many times did you call your mother that day, October 5th?
Nadia Ford: Oh, a lot. A lot. Like a hundred.
Peter Van Sant Really? A hundred times?
Nadia Ford: At least. At least. … I tried everything.
Peter Van Sant And she would not answer?
Nadia Ford: No.
Peter Van Sant: So, what are you thinking?
Nadia Ford: I got afraid because for eight years she never happened that she didn’t answer the phone. Never.
Nadia says she had found Viktoria’s sudden friendship with her mom suspicious. And that suspicion only grew when she accessed her mother’s cellphone records online.
Peter Van Sant: I saw the last person who called her. It was Viktoria.
The call had come in at 11 p.m., and there were no other calls after it.
Nadia Ford: And that’s it. And then my heart dropped. …I just cried. I just left everything.
Nadia left everything in her Brooklyn apartment and headed straight for the airport.
Nadia Ford: I just started to have this feeling that something happened. … Something terrible.
Peter Van Sant: Something terrible happened.
Nadia Ford launched her own investigation into her mother’s disappearance.
CBS News
About two years later, “48 Hours” brought Nadia back to her hometown of Krasnodar, about 800 miles south of Moscow near the Black Sea, to show us how she launched her own investigation into her mother’s disappearance.
First, Nadia convinced Viktoria to meet her outside her mom’s apartment building, where she confronted her. She says Viktoria loudly insisted Alla was alive.
Nadia Ford: And then she ran up the stairs and then I’m like, “Where are you going?’ Why are you running?”
Peter Van Sant: And she runs up here, are you chasing her?
Nadia Ford: Exactly, yeah.
Nadia told us she notified police and took them inside her mother’s apartment. She quickly realized the place had been looted.
Nadia Ford: (going through drawers): So, when I walk into the apartment … nothing.
Peter Van Sant: Credit cards gone?
Nadia Ford: Nothing. Nothing.
Family heirlooms and expensive jewelry — gone. And whoever did this also stole most of her mother’s life’s savings: $40,000 Alla kept in a secret hideaway.
Nadia Ford: And if you take this off and it’s right over there. (shows Van Sant the area where her mother had hidden the cash)
It was gone. And as far as Nadia could tell, so was Viktoria.
Peter Van Sant: What are the police and the district attorney and what are these people saying to you?
Nadia Ford: Just wait … She’s gonna come back.
Undaunted, Nadia carried on her search, crisscrossing the country posting flyers. She pleaded with Viktoria by text.
Nadia Ford: “Listen, I give you everything. My apartment, money, you name it. … Please just give me my mom back.”
Nadia feared she was getting nowhere when she had an idea.
Peter Van Sant (in car with Nadia): Nadia, where are we right now?
Nadia Ford: We’re on a highway that — Viktoria had my mom.
She’d noticed that most main roads had traffic cameras. What if one of them had photographed Viktoria the night Nadia’s mother went missing?
Peter Van Sant: But you gotta get access to these photographs. How do you do that?
Nadia Ford: It’s Russia. You buy things. You have money. You buy things.
She checked every camera around town and circled outward. About 100 miles from the apartment.
Nadia hit paydirt.
Nadia Ford: (pointing to traffic camera): That’s the camera, you see, right there. That’s the camera that showed my mom was with Viktoria.
The pictures look blurry, but Nadia was certain that Viktoria Nasyrova is behind the wheel — and her mother was in the passenger seat.
Nadia Ford
Pictures from that traffic camera changed everything. The pictures look blurry, but Nadia was certain that Viktoria Nasyrova is behind the wheel — and equally sure she knew who is sitting in the passenger seat: her mom.
Peter Van Sant: No doubt in your mind?
Nadia Ford: No.
Peter Van Sant: And what’s the date that this picture was taken?
Nadia Ford: October 5th in the morning. Ten o’clock.
Peter Van Sant: October 5th. The day that you lost all communication with your own mother.
If the picture could be believed, it meant her mother could still be alive.
Nadia Ford: This camera gave me hope.
Nadia called Russian police about the pictures and was shocked at their response.
Peter Van Sant: What does the detective say?
Nadia Ford: He said, “I know. I have these pictures.”
With investigators now working the case, Nadia says they confirmed that Viktoria rented the car with plates matching what was seen on the traffic camera. They tracked her down and brought her in for a lie detector test. But before the results could come back, unbeknownst to the cops, Viktoria caught the first flight out of Russia.
ON THE TRAIL OF A FUGITIVE
Nadia Ford: She cannot get away with this.
With Viktoria on the run, Nadia desperately continued her search for her mother — hoping against hope to find her alive.
Nadia Ford: I dedicated my life to that. … I quit everything and everyone. … I … didn’t believe … that my mom is not alive.
Nadia Ford and her mother Alla Alekseenko.
Nadia Ford
But hope turned to heartbreak in April 2015 when she got a disturbing phone call. Charred human remains had been found in a remote area about a two-hour drive from Alla’s apartment. Authorities called Nadia in to make an identification.
Nadia Ford: I said, “No. That’s not her. No. It’s — it’s just remains.” … And then a few minutes later, I started looking at her teeth.
Peter Van Sant: And you knew. You knew it was your mother.
Nadia Ford: Yeah. And yeah. So, I basically recognized my mom by her teeth.
The Russian town of Armavir is about 110 miles from Krasnodar. It’s important to this case because it’s where Viktoria Nasyrova grew up —and where Alla’s body was dumped.
Nadia Ford: The body was here.
Nadia Ford: Viktoria took everything from me. My family, my life, my mom, my everything.
An international warrant was issued for Viktoria Nasyrova’s arrest.
By this time, Interpol already had issued an international arrest warrant for Viktoria Nasyrova in Alla’s murder.
Nadia went home to Brooklyn determined as ever to track down Viktoria Nasyrova.On a whim, she turned to Facebook. And you’ll never guess whose face popped up on the screen.
Nadia Ford: Viktoria was posting pictures … all over the Facebook. Checking in at this place and that place. Beautiful life. … she flew to Mexico.
Peter Van Sant: Having a great time.
Nadia Ford: Yeah. And from Mexico she flew to New York.
Nadia reported all this to U.S. police and immigration officials. But they couldn’t find Viktoria. That’s when Nadia started working with private investigator and former New York City detective Herman Weisberg. He combed through Viktoria’s Facebook profile with an experienced eye for detail.
Herman Weisberg: I never look at what people want me to see on these sites. I’m used to looking at everything except for what’s supposed to draw your attention in.
Late at night, Weisberg meticulously studied every photograph and made a remarkable discovery right on Viktoria’s face.
Herman Weisberg found an important clue in this photo of Viktoria Nasyrova. Other photos posted to her Facebook page would reveal even more clues.
ViktoriaNasyrova/Facebook
Herman Weisberg: (pointing to a photo of Viktoria):This particular picture was the most beneficial. She’s wearin’ the Ray-Ban sunglasses … that are mirrored, and she took a great picture for us to — to see the dashboard of the car. … But more importantly, the stitching on that back headrest.
Peter Van Sant (pointing to the stitching in the photo): This right here?
Herman Weisberg: Yes, this black leather with a … light gray stitching on it. … I decided the next morning, I was going to be at a big parking lot at a train station.
He walked row after row of vehicles, peering into windows, hoping to find the make and model that had that stitching.
Herman Weisberg: And it’s a big hub for the railroads.
Peter Van Sant: Hundreds of cars in here.
Herman Weisberg: Yeah. Probably thousands all over the place. So, it’s real easy … to look for the kinda detail I was looking for.
Then, a Chrysler sedan caught his eye.
Peter Van Sant: So, you look inside the car and what do you see?
Herman Weisberg: All right, it’s got the same stitching.
Peter Van Sant: And — show me on your phone. … There’s her mirrored sunglasses.
Herman Weisberg: Yup. The stitching over here.
It turns out that only a Chrysler 300 had the stitching and dashboard layout. Now, the hard part: finding the specific car Viktoria was driving.
Herman Weisberg: Again, this was such a wild goose chase at this point.
But Weisberg saw that a series of likes on Viktoria’s Facebook page were clustered around Sheepshead Bay, a Russian neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Peter Van Sant: So, you sent some of your investigators … to look for one of these Chrysler 300s. Did they have any luck?
Herman Weisberg: Well, yeah. We found a bunch of them. … And the next day I had somebody run the license plates and, luckily, we found one that came back to a Russian sounding name.
Weisberg took our “48 Hours” crew into the area he searched and called Van Sant to the scene when he again found the Chrysler 300 at the heart of this investigation.
Peter Van Sant: This is it.
Herman Weisberg: Yeah.
Peter Van Sant: This is the car.
Herman Weisberg: This is the car, yeah.
Peter Van Sant: Take a look inside. You see the stitching?
Herman Weisberg: Yeah. Hard to miss now.
Peter Van Sant: There it is.
Herman Weisberg: Now you see how unique it is, right?
Peter Van Sant: Yeah. … This is only an area of 8.5 million people. And you found the car.
Herman Weisberg: It wasn’t a needle in a haystack. You had to find the haystack first.
And when Weisberg went to the address connected to that car, the building looked familiar. Weisberg had seen it before — in another one of Viktoria’s selfies.
CBS News
Herman Weisberg: When you look at it and you see that — that telephone pole and the location of that manhole cover and that manhole cover … If you look over there, you’ve got the telephone pole and you’ve got the two manhole covers.
Peter Van Sant: This is brilliant, Herman. Through that reflection … in her — in her glasses, you figure out this is the apartment building where the man who owns that Chrysler 300 lives. And with Viktoria in the picture, you thinking she might be living with this guy?
Herman Weisberg: It—she — it looks like she took a selfie there. And it — and it all starts to make sense.
Amazingly, the woman Russian authorities wanted for the murder of Nadia’s mother, was now living with her boyfriend in Nadia’s own backyard.
Nadia Ford: Four or five blocks away.
Peter Van Sant: You gotta be kidding me.
Nadia Ford: No.
Peter Van Sant: Did you try to go find her?
Nadia Ford: No.
Peter Van Sant: Why?
Nadia Ford: ‘Cause I would kill her.
Herman Weisberg: We got lucky early on. And we spotted Viktoria and her boyfriend out here.
The boyfriend was the owner of the Chrysler 300 and lived in that apartment building.
That boyfriend told “48 Hours” that he eventually became one of Viktoria’s victims himself. He says not only did she steal from him, but that she killed his beloved beagle “Joey.”
Herman Weisberg: Apparently Viktoria … got very jealous of the dog getting all of the spotlight in that house, and decided to poison the beagle, allegedly … on the beagle’s birthday. I’m a dog lover, so that’s tough.
And Joey the beagle’s demise didn’t sit well with Viktoria’s neighbors, either.
Karen Hill: She killed his dog, that bitch. She killed his dog.
Herman Weisberg: Every time you learn something else about this woman, you realize that if she was left un-arrested, this coulda really ended poorly for Brooklyn (laughs).
But now Weisberg knew the hunt was finally over. He says he called Interpol and Homeland Security but neither one agreed to take action. So, he alerted the NYPD and on March 20, 2017, the police made their move. The woman who had once posed as a dominatrix, suddenly found herself in handcuffs.
Viktoria Nasyrova is arrested by authorities on March 20, 2017.
Gregory P. Mango
Nadia Ford: I just cried. I — I couldn’t believe that it’s actually happened. … It’s a miracle.
Detective Kevin Rodgers couldn’t believe it when his phone rang.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Brooklyn advises us they had this woman, Viktoria Nasyrova, in their custody.
Rodgers says the cheesecake case suddenly started making sense.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Olga had something that Viktoria wanted, and it wasn’t money. And it wasn’t handbags.
He says the instant he started reviewing police evidence photos he saw something that made it clear exactly what Viktoria was after. An ID of Olga’s was found in Viktoria’s apartment — the picture looked eerily similar to Viktoria herself.
During a search of Victoria Nasyrova’s apartment, investigators found an ID card belonging to Olga Tsvyk. Investigators were convinced Nasyrova had intended to kill Tsvyk in order to assume her identity.
Olga Tsvyk | ViktoriaNasyrova/Facebook
Det. Kevin Rodgers: I think she wanted to kill this woman and assume her identity.
To back up his theory, Rodgers knew he would need to prove that Olga’s cheesecake had been poisoned. When he sent the container from Olga’s home to a lab, they found nothing. But when Rodgers decided to send it for more extensive testing, he got a hit.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Phenazepam is a sedative … primarily used at the time in Russia.
Peter Van Sant: It makes you sleepy?
Olga Tsvyk: Sleepy, then coma, then death.
Rodgers learned that Phenazepam is especially dangerous in a hot environment. Remember, the heater in Olga’s room had been left on high. And Viktoria’s DNA was on the cheesecake box.
Peter Van Sant: All these pieces of the puzzle.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Puzzle.
Peter Van Sant: They’ve come together.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Absolutely.
Peter Van Sant: And, so, you think this was — this was a planned murder.
Det. Kevin Rodgers: Absolutely.
Viktoria was charged with attempted murder for the attack on Olga, assault and grand larceny. Before trial, she agreed to sit down with “48 Hours” at New York’s Rikers Island Jail.
VIKTORIA NASYROVA COMES FACE-TO-FACE WITH “48 HOURS” — AND A JURY
We’d heard cruel and colorful stories about Viktoria Nasyrova for months, so in 2017, when “48 Hours” interviewed her in jail as authorities investigated her for attempted murder in Olga’s case, we weren’t sure what to expect.
Peter Van Sant (holding photo of Nadia and Alla): Would you look at this.
Viktoria Nasyrova: Yeah.
Peter Van Sant: This is Alla.
Viktoria Nasyrova: Yes.
She insisted she had nothing to do with the disappearance of Nadia’s mother Alla.
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant with Viktoria Nasyrova at Rikers Island jail. When asjked if she killed Alla, Nasyrova replied, “I am not a killer. …I’m woman. Only woman.”
CBS News
Peter Van Sant: Viktoria, did you kill Alla?
Viktoria Nasyrova: No.
Peter Van Sant: You did not.
Viktoria Nasyrova: No.
Peter Van Sant:There’s a woman named Olga who looks a lot like you who claims that you tried to kill her by giving her a piece of poisoned cheesecake. … You wanted her dead so you could steal her identity.
Viktoria Nasyrova: I know whom you mean. I know this young woman. I can tell you that … I did not force her to eat it.
Peter Van Sant: You’re telling me all of these accusations against you … all of that is false?
Viktoria Nasyrova: No. … I admit doing a part of it, but I will only talk about it at the trial.
Viktoria Nasyrova would be in custody for nearly six years, as the pandemic caused delays, before she stood trial for the poisoning of Olga Tsvyk. When the case went to court in January 2023, the media were watching.
Prosecutor Dino Litourgis: There are elements in this case you won’t find anywhere else. The beautician, the cheesecake …
Peter Van Sant: In all the evidence you have in this case, what is the most important in your opinion?
Prosecutor Dino Litourgis: We’re looking at it right here. It’s this container…
The cheesecake container
CBS News
The cheesecake box from Olga’s garbage still has crumbs left inside. Outlandish as it is, prosecutor Litourgis tells jurors in opening statements they should see it as a potential murder weapon.
PROSECUTOR DINO LITOURGIS (in court): This is not a joke. It’s not just a story. This defendant intended to kill this woman and steal her identity.
He calls Olga first, to highlight the human consequences.
PROSECUTOR DINO LITOURGIS (in court): And she’s going to explain to you everything that happened to her. Everything that she can remember, of course.
Prosecutor. Dino Litourgis: She was poisoned with something that impacted her memory.
Cameras were not allowed to record witness testimony. Olga makes it clear that talking about the details of her ordeal is still like reliving a bad dream and testifying in front of her alleged attacker traumatizes her all the more.
Peter Van Sant: Was she looking at you?
Olga Tsvyk: Uh, yeah, she looked at me.
Peter Van Sant: What did you see on her face, in her eyes?
Olga Tsvyk: Um, you know, she’s smiling.
The state also calls Nadia Ford.
Nadia Ford: She was smiling. … She was smirking.
Nadia Ford: I was trying to get — get her look, look at me. Look at the person who mother you killed. Look — look into my eyes, remember them for the rest of your life.
The judge has strictly limited prosecutors from going into specifics about the murder charges facing Viktoria in Russia, so they’re hoping Nadia can finesse the details and still get the point across.
Prosecutor Dino Litourgis: I’ll tell you it was a risky strategy.
Peter Van Sant: What has she told them that you think helps your case?
Prosecutor Dino Litourgis: What she told the jury … is that something serious happened in Russia. … It’s one thing for me to say the crime was serious and it’s another thing for a witness to come in and show … with her body language, with her eyes, with her overall demeanor, that this was an incredibly serious crime that Viktoria Nasyrova was wanted for.
Nadia Ford: I was staring at her. I just her to look at me. She didn’t look at me once.
Prosecutor Dino Litourgis: I was almost certain in the beginning of the trial that Viktoria was going to testify. … I know that she likes to talk.
Viktoria Nasyrova spent nearly six years in custody, waiting for her trial through pandemic delays. The case of the poison cheesecake went to court in January 2023.
CBS News/Liz Caholo
As it turned out, Viktoria declined to testify and answer questions. But something she did say made it into the trial. Something she said to Peter Van Sant in a part of her “48 Hours” interview published online.
PROSECUTOR DINO LITOURGIS (in court): It’s in evidence. Peter Van Sant asked this woman in English. “There’s a woman named Olga who claims that you tried to kill her by giving her a piece of poisoned cheesecake.”
Litourgis has someone read her answer into the record.
VIktoria Nasyrova (replying to Peter Van Sant) I know whom you mean. I know this young woman. I can tell you that. … but I did not force her to eat it.
Prosecutor Dino Litourgis: For me as an individual — she’s guilty … with that statement.
He points out to the jury that nowhere in Victoria’s answer to does she actually deny poisoning the cheesecake.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY CHRISTOPHER HOYT (in court): Ms. Nasyrova is not guilty of these charges!
But defense attorney Christopher Hoyt doesn’t call a single witness to help him prove it. Instead, he argues the spectacle of this case obscures the specifics: details that amount to reasonable doubt.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY CHRISTOPHER HOYT (in court): There is no direct evidence of anyone seeing Viktoria Nasyrova putting Phenazepam in cheesecake.
He reminds the jury Olga’s doctors didn’t find anything unusual in her system. And he says there was nothing particularly unusual about Viktoria’s life in New York, either.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY CHRISTOPHER HOYT (in court): She’s been just living in the U.S. using her normal name …
That’s just the point, says the prosecutor. Victoria’s US visa was set to expire. She was scared of facing charges in Russia and needed a new identity to help her hide.
PROSECUTOR DINO LITOURGIS (in court): There’s only two categories of people … that need someone else’s ID … you have college kids under the age of 21 who want to borrow their buddies’ ID to go drink and then on the other hand, you have international fugitives who need someone’s ID as a lifeline to stay in this country and not go back to Russia.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY CHRISTOPHER HOYT (in court): This is not a case about what happened in Russia…
And the defense insists that even if Viktoria poisoned the cheesecake, it’s not enough to prove she wanted Olga dead.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY CHRISTOPHER HOYT (in court): I submit to you that they have not proven that intent.
PROSECUTOR DINO LITOURGIS (in court): This case has more than you need to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty.
But will the jury agree?
VERDICT: WERE POISON CHEESECAKE – & JUSTICE – SERVED?
Peter Van Sant: When this jury goes out to deliberate, what’s going through your mind?
Prosecutor Melinda Katz: What’s going through my mind is that they understand — the diabolical … calculation that occurred for this crime.
Prosecutor Dino Litrougis’ boss, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz says Viktoria Nasyrova is a lot smarter and more committed than the average criminal defendant.
Prosecutor Melinda Katz: It takes patience, and it takes planning.
But it takes the jury in her trial only an hour-and-a-half to reach a verdict.
MAN IN COURT: How say you in count number one of the indictment charging the defendant Viktoria Nasyrova with attempted murder in the second degree … guilty or not guilty?
At sentencing, Olga tells the court her suffering went on long after Viktoria’s attack.
Olga Tsvyk, center, and Nadia Ford, right, react to the guilty verdict.
CBS News/Liz Caholo
OLGA TSVYK (in court): She caused me to lose trust in people. I have difficulty to trust people and I cannot know for sure what their true intentions are. … I am grateful that this person will be punished for what she did to me.
The maximum punishment is 25 years in prison. But at sentencing, Judge Kenneth Holder gives her less.
JUDGE KENNETH HOLDER: You are an extremely dangerous woman. … I sentence you to 21 years in jail.
With credit for time served, Viktoria may be out in 15. Even so, she has some choice words for the court as she is led away, barely audible under her mask.
VIKTORIA NASYROVA: F*** you.
Herman Weisberg: She’s a narcissistic, homicidal maniac. That’s what narcissistic, homicidal maniacs say when they — something— everything goes bad for them.
Victoria’s time behind bars has already been rough. In 2018 at Rikers Island jail in New York, she was assaulted by fellow inmates and suffered multiple injuries to her face.
And when she’s done serving her time in America, Viktoria faces deportation and murder charges back in Russia.
Peter Van Sant (to Nadia after sentencing): I know there’s great satisfaction for you that Viktoria’s finally going to prison. But it’s not for what she did to your mom. Is that still an emptiness inside for you?
Nadia Ford: I feel better. … at least I know, now for next 15 years, she’s not going to hurt anyone.
Two of the people Viktoria has hurt most have resolved to draw strength from each other. Since tragedy unexpectedly brought them together, Nadia and Olga have become the best of friends.
Olga Tsvyk: When we met, I feel like I — I knew Nadia all my life.
Nadia Ford: She’s very kind, very nice, open hearted, like, you know, Kind of reminds me of my mom.
Olga Tsvyk: Nadia … She went through hell.
They seem to know it takes one victim of Viktoria Nasyrova to truly understand another.
Peter Van Sant: Do you think the two of you will be friends for life?
Olga Tsvyk: I think, yes.
In 2018, Viktoria Nasyrova sued New York City for negligence in the Rikers Island jail attack. The city settled the case, paying Nasyrova $325,000.
Produced by Josh Yager. Stephen A. McCain is the development producer. Richard Barber is the producer-editor. Morgan Canty is the associate producer. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
Megan Hargan was suspected of killing her mother and sister. Her defense had an unusual theory: her sister was the one who pulled the trigger – with her toe. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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Viktoria Nasyrova is accused of using cheesecake as a murder weapon. Her motive was to steal the identity of Olga, who looks a lot like her. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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A con woman who tried murdering her lookalike with a poisoned piece of cheesecake almost got away with it. And if not for the sleuthing skills of the private investigator who tracked her down, she might have gotten away with something much worse, too.
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports on the details in “The Case of the Poison Cheesecake” airing Saturday, June 3 at 10/9c on CBS and Paramount+.
In August 2016, Olga Tsvyk, a beauty stylist in Queens, New York, became gravely ill and lost consciousness after her client, Viktoria Nasyrova, came to her home and gave her a piece of poisoned cheesecake.
The cheesecake container retrieved from Olga Tsvyk’s garbage still has crumbs left inside.
CBS News
At the hospital, Tsvyk says she nearly died. Days later she came to, and when she got home saw that some of her belongings including purses, money and jewelry were gone. She told police Nasyrova was to blame. Police hunted for Nasyrova but couldn’t find her. They had no idea they weren’t the only ones looking.
So was Herman Weisberg. The NYPD detective-turned-private investigator was trying to find Nasyrova for a different case and had started researching her online.
On a quiet, sleepless night in early 2017, he opened his laptop and visited Nasyrova’s Facebook profile. He studied it and found something startling.
Herman Weisberg found an important clue in this photo of Viktoria Nasyrova. Other photos posted to her Facebook page would reveal more clues.
Viktoria Nasyrova/Facebook
In one of the photos, Nasyrova was sitting in a car and there was distinctive white stitching on the headrest behind her.
And in the reflection of the sunglasses she was wearing, Weisberg noticed something equally obscure.
The car had a distinctive dashboard.
“I never look at what people want me to see on these sites,” said Weisberg. “I’m used to looking at everything except for what’s supposed to draw your attention in.”
In a remarkable example of old-school detective work, Weisberg went to a giant parking lot and started looking into car windows one by one. He wanted to find the kind of car Nasyrova had been sitting in when the photo was taken.
“… I must have been peering into cars for a good hour until I had what I was pretty positive was it,” Weisberg said.
Remarkably, he found the stitching and dashboard from Nasyrova’s photo in an actual car. It was a Chrysler 300. Next, he wondered if he could find the specific Chrysler 300 from the photo.
On Facebook, Nasyrova had liked and reviewed restaurants in a heavily Russian neighborhood of Brooklyn named Sheepshead Bay, so Weisberg speculated that she might be living there.
He sent out a team to look for Chrysler 300s with the same interior in that neighborhood. He says they found dozens, noting the license plate information.
They gave him a list and he ran the plates. Among the results was a Russian-sounding name.
He came up with an address linked to the car. When he checked out the apartment building, he realized it looked familiar. He went back to Facebook and noticed the same building reflected in Nasyrova’s sunglasses. He sent a surveillance team to stake it out.
At the building, Weisberg’s operatives saw several women who resembled Nasyrova, but he had to be sure. So, Weisberg says he employed an informal technique he’d learned about during his years at the NYPD.
“I was in narcotics where you’re always constantly chasing people,” he said. “And when people run, they throw away a jacket or they turn their shirt inside-out … bottom line is, nobody ever changes their shoes. I — I got into a habit of when I size somebody up … I know what kinda shoes everyone’s wearing.”
Weisberg noticed that the beige suede shoes Nasyrova wore in surveillance footage matched a pair that he had seen in her Facebook photos.
For Weisberg’s purposes, the shoes were better than a fingerprint. He knew he had found Viktoria Nasyrova.
On March 20, 2017, he alerted Brooklyn detectives. He gave them the address and apartment number and waited in the lobby as they went up to Nasyrova’s apartment. He says minutes later, the detectives walked Nasyrova out of the building in handcuffs, under arrest.
When they searched her apartment, they found an ID card belonging to Olga Tsvyk. Investigators were convinced Nasyrova had intended to kill Tsvyk in order to assume her identity.
In August 2016, Olga Tsvyk, left, a beauty stylist in Queens, New York, became gravely ill and lost consciousness after her client, Viktoria Nasyrova, right, came to her home and gave her a piece of poisoned cheesecake.
But why would Nasyrova get involved in an attempted murder and identity theft? Weisberg says it has to do with that other case — the one he was involved in when he found her.
In early 2017, he had begun working with a woman named Nadia Ford who claimed Nasyrova had robbed and murdered her mother in Russia back in 2014. He says Nasyrova fled Russia after the crime and needed a way to stay in America to evade Russian authorities.
After Nasyrova spent nearly six years in custody, waiting for her trial through pandemic delays, the case of the poison cheesecake went to court in January. The jury found Nasyrova guilty of attempted murder in less than two hours. The judge sentenced her to 21 years in prison. After Nasyrova does her time, she could be deported to Russia to face murder charges there.
Despite losing three quarters of the blood in her body, Donna Ongsiako was able to help police find the person who almost took her life.
On July 7, 2013, shortly after midnight, Donna Ongsiako was rushed to the hospital. She had been stabbed repeatedly in a violent home invasion. She was in surgery for over seven hours, but she survived.
“I lost in total close to three quarters of the blood in my body,” Ongsiako told “48 Hours.” “There’s no earthly reason why I’m alive.”
A scratching noise
CBS News
Ongsiako says before she was attacked, she had just gone to bed for the evening. As she drifted off to sleep, she heard what she thought was her cat scratching at the door.
She went downstairs to let the cat in.
A stranger with a knife
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Instead of her cat, when she opened the door, Ongsiako says she saw a stranger on her porch. He had a knife and was attempting to cut her window screen.
Pushed his way in
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
When Ongsiako tried to shut the door, the intruder stuck the knife through the opening and cut her finger. He pushed his way into her home and began slashing her. After she collapsed to the ground, Ongsiako says he asked for her car keys and a lighter.
Stolen property
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Ongsiako says she told the intruder her keys and lighter were on the kitchen table. He took them along with her entire purse. After stabbing Ongsiako a final time in the chest, he walked out the door.
Alone on a flower farm
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Ongsiako’s house was on the edge of a flower farm in Colts Neck, N.J., with no neighbors in earshot.
Home alone
Kiersten Ongsiako
Ongsiako lived with her adult daughter, Kiersten. But on the night of her attack, she was home alone. Her daughter was out at a party.
Ongsiako knew her survival depended on reaching her cellphone which was charging upstairs.
The 911 call
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Ongsiako says thinking about Kiersten finding her dead motivated her to climb these stairs despite her serious injuries. She got through to 911 and was able to give a detailed description of her attacker before briefly losing consciousness.
Ongsiako told police he had long, blonde, curly hair and a backpack and looked about 17.
A tip from Taco Bell
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office/Surveillance video
Not long after Ongsiako’s 911 call, police got a call from a fast-food restaurant five miles from her home. Employees reported seeing a young, blonde man with a backpack. They said he was walking through their drive-thru, knocking on windows and was carrying a knife.
An abandoned vehicle
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
While searching for the young man who had been spotted at the Taco Bell, police found Ongsiako’s stolen vehicle. It had been ditched behind a movie theater, in the same shopping center as the fast-food restaurant. The lights of the vehicle were on, and it was still running.
Crucial DNA
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Detectives said the vehicle would become crucial in the investigation. There was blood all over it, and they hoped to find DNA of their suspect.
A police sketch
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Within two days, a customer who saw the young man at the Taco Bell met with a police sketch artist. After making a few tweaks, Ongsiako said the sketch looked like the person who had stabbed her. The sketch was soon plastered all over Monmouth County.
More security footage
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
Investigators reviewed the cameras of stores in the shopping center near the Taco Bell to see if they’d get lucky and spot their suspect. Their suspect was caught again on security footage, this time walking outside a Verizon store.
A crucial tip
NJ Department of Corrections
Not long after the police sketch began circulating, just eight days after Donna’s attack, Monmouth County Detective Andrea Tozzi got an important tip.
The tipster pointed investigators to 16-year-old Brennan Doyle and said Doyle fit the description of the suspect’s sketch that was around town. And according to the tipster, Doyle, who normally had long skater-style hair — had recently cut his hair much shorter, similar to how it appears in this photo.
A suspect who lived nearby
CBS News
The teen and his family lived just up the road from Ongsiako’s house. Detectives visited the Doyle home in late July. Detective Tozzi, pictured with “48 Hours” contributor Jim Axelrod, says she wanted to see if Doyle had cut his hair.
A DNA match
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
The investigation lasted through the summer of 2013. Brennan Doyle remained the only likely suspect.
Detective Tozzi says in September, investigators had gotten a warrant to obtain Doyle’s DNA. Ultimately, the results showed Doyle’s DNA matched unknown DNA found in Ongsiako’s car.
A knife on top of the strip mall
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
In early October, police got a call that a knife had been found on the roof of a bowling alley in the same strip mall where Ongsiako’s car had been ditched. Repairmen were servicing an air conditioning unit when they found it.
Investigators then got a warrant to search Doyle’s home. They found a similar knife from the same set.
An arrest
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
In late October 2013, Brennan Doyle was arrested. He was facing six counts including attempted murder and carjacking. Seen here are the keys Doyle took from Donna Ongsiako’s purse.
A plea and sentencing
Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office
According to investigative reports, Doyle claimed that on the night of Ongsiako’s attack, he was under the influence of hallucinogenic “magic” mushrooms.
In August 2015, Doyle agreed to a plea deal, pleading guilty to carjacking and attempted murder. The prosecution dropped the remaining charges.
In October, Doyle was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.
A survivor’s journey
Dana Richards
Even with Doyle off the streets, Ongsiako, pictured right, was still struggling. She had found PTSD and domestic violence support groups but says there were none for victims of random attacks. So, in 2015, she decided to create her own: Survivors of Violent Crimes.
Recognized for her work
Tom Zapcic
In July 2019, Ongsiako’s local community honored her for her work with Survivors of Violent Crimes. She’s gratified she can help others rebuild their lives as she continues to rebuild hers.
Sharing her story
CBS News
Ongsiako says her work isn’t done. She has more plans for her support group including helping victims connect with trauma therapists and offering self-defense classes.
She’s also educating others. She travels to prisons, meeting with inmates and addresses police cadets so they can understand the victim’s point of view.
Donna Ongsiako was getting ready to go to bed in her farmhouse in Colts Neck, New Jersey, when an intruder broke into her home and stabbed her repeatedly. Miraculously, she survived. She sat down with “48 Hours” to discuss her extremely difficult recovery.
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A jury in Idaho found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty on all charges, including the murders of her two children and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her husband’s first wife. “48 Hours” contributor Jonathan Vigliotti takes you inside the case that gripped the nation.
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A woman outwits a young stranger who attacked her in her own home. What will it take to find him? “48 Hours” contributor Jim Axelrod reports Saturday, May 13 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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When a woman disappears with her boyfriend, investigators learn he was entrusted with millions at his bank job, but he also told outlandish lies about who he was. “48 Hours” contributor Michelle Miller reports.
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When he was 13 years old, he committed an unthinkable crime. 28 years later, Smith is out on parole. What’s next for him? “48 Hours” contributor Jim Axelrod reports.
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Diana Duve was 26 when she vanished one night in 2014 in Vero Beach, Florida. She was last seen alive leaving a bar with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Michael Jones. To witnesses, the couple seemed to be having a good time, though they told police that at one point it looked like Duve was upset. She never returned home.
Her mother knew something was wrong when Diana didn’t call her, something she did every day. “It set me off immediately,” Lena Andrews told “48 Hours” contributor Michelle Miller. “I was trying to tell everybody who would listen … if she’s not calling me, it’s because she can’t.”
“You can just see the sheer fear and panic in Lena’s eyes,” said Vero Beach Sergeant Brad Kmetz. “I said, ‘Lena, I promise you, I’m going to get your daughter back for you one way or another.”
Diana Duve
Facebook/Diana Duve
On Saturday, June 21, 2014, Lieutenant Matt Harrelson and Sergeant Brad Kmetz with the Vero Beach Police Department were not having much luck trying to find out what could have happened to Diana Duve and Mike Jones.
Investigators went to Jones’s apartment, but no one was answering the door.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: We’d interviewed all of these people; we’ve run down all the leads that we had … we’re in a million different directions.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: We did get a search warrant that day to get into Michael Jones’s apartment to try and collect physical evidence or find Diana and hopefully it to be you know next to nothing.
When the investigators returned with the warrant, they were surprised to discover Lena and Bill Andrews — Diana’s mother and stepfather — sitting outside in their car.
Michelle Miller: Is that unusual?
Lt. Matt Harrelson: Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. … Lena is sitting at the house hoping for a sighting of her daughter … She’s just beside herself. You know she’s crying. She’s upset. She wants to go physically kick the door in.
Before investigators went inside, they interviewed Lena. She told them that the last communication she had from her daughter was that text Diana sent in the early hours the previous day.
Lena Andrews: She texted me at 1:45 a.m., “I won’t be home.”
It was in Russian, the language they spoke with each other, so Lena believed it had to be from her daughter. As the hours passed on Friday, with no sign of Diana, she grew increasingly desperate.
Michelle Miller: You called Michael Jones?
Lena Andrews: I did call Michael Jones, yes. … And he was like, “Oh don’t worry. She’s with me everything is OK.”
Michelle Miller: Oh, he said that?
Lena Andrews: Yes. I was like, “Oh my God, Mike, you guys killing me. I am, I am worried sick. I need to talk to her. I want to hear her voice.” I told him to give her the phone. All of a sudden. “Oh, she’s sleeping.” … Well, “wake her up because I have to talk to her.” All of a sudden, another excuse. “She’s at my place. But I’m not there right now.” …I told him, “You go home, you wake her up.” … Call me back in 30 minutes.
But Jones never called Lena back, and she never heard from him again.
Lena Andrews: She was my world.
Diana Duve and her mother Lena Andrews.
Facebook/Diana Duve
Diana was born in Moldova, small country in Eastern Europe. Diana immigrated to America when she was 13 to join her mother Lena who had married Bill, an American.
Lena Andrews: A girl that didn’t speak English at all. Within two months, she was in regular school class and in a few years, you couldn’t even guess that she’s not American.
In 2011, Diana received her nursing degree. At the time she disappeared, Diana worked with cancer patients at the Sebastian River Medical Center.
Lena Andrews: She really, really cared … about her patients, about patients’ families.
Chelsea DiMaio: She’s highly intelligent, always motivated.
Chelsea DiMaio was Diana’s best friend and former roommate.
Chelsea DiMaio: She’s very easy going, just fun to be around.
Diana Duve met her on-again, off-again boyfriend, 32-year-old Michael “Mike” Jones, at a bar in Vero Beach, Florida, in 2012. He worked for PNC Bank in Wealth Management.
Patrick Dove/USA Today Network
In the summer of 2013, Chelsea says Diana met Jones at a bar in Vero Beach.
Michelle Miller: Did she seem smitten from the start?
Chelsea DiMaio: No.
Michelle Miller: No.
Chelsea DiMaio: No. … She never had an initial, “Oh wow, Mike Jones.” … It seemed more like he definitely has his sight set on her. … And she eventually came around.
Lena and Bill say they didn’t know much about Jones, except that he worked for PNC Bank in Wealth Management and had gone to law school.
Lena Andrews: He was extremely polite. … Nice dressed, well spoken.
Bill Andrews: He seemed like the ideal boyfriend.
And after just a couple of months of dating, Diana moved into Jones’s apartment.
Bill Andrews: She seemed happy. So, we were OK with it.
Chelsea says Diana and Jones quickly became inseparable.
Chelsea DiMaio: You would never see her without him. And she had never done that in relationships before.
Over time, Chelsea says she became concerned.
Chelsea DiMaio: There was a time where we were getting lunch … I remember she wanted to go somewhere where Mike wasn’t going to see her or run into her or see her car. It was almost as if she would have been in trouble getting lunch with me.
Chelsea says before she could sit down and have a serious talk with her friend, Diana and Jones had a domestic dispute that would officially end their relationship.
It was April 30, 2014, just two months before Diana would disappear.
Mike Jones’s neighbor made this 911 call:
OPERATOR: Vero Beach Police.
NEIGHBOR: Yeah hi, I think I got a domestic for you. The next-door neighbor and his girlfriend sound like they’re getting into it.
NEIGHBOR: It’s been going on for about an hour.
OPERATOR: Just been yelling and screaming or …
NEIGHBOR: Yeah. … It just sounds like he’s trying to dominate the crap out of her
OPERATOR: So, it’s just been verbal, right?
NEIGHBOR: Verbal. I can’t hear any slaps or anything. … But I’ll tell you, it’s not good.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: Officers responded, knocked on the door, made contact with both Diana and Mike Jones.
According to the police incident report, Jones told them the noise was from “rough sex.” Diana told police everything was fine, but she asked them to wait for her as she grabbed her things and left.
Chelsea DiMaio: She called me in tears leaving his apartment. I told her to just come straight to where I was, and she did … And she was still in her pajamas, hysterical.
Michelle Miller: Had you ever seen her like that before?
Chelsea DiMaio: That upset? Never. Never.
Chelsea DiMaio: She was explaining that … he was screaming at her, that it had been going on for what felt like hours, and he just wasn’t letting up. And he finally got to the point where he had put his hands around her neck and started strangling her.
Chelsea DiMaio: I could clearly see that there were marks on her neck.
So, Chelsea says she took photos which show what appears to be hand marks on Diana’s neck.
Chelsea DiMaio: I need to document this. I need to protect her.
But despite Chelsea’s efforts to get her to make a formal report, Diana chose not to press charges.
Chelsea DiMaio: She just wanted to move her things out and remove herself from the situation and that’s what we did.
Diana moved back in with her parents and did not tell them that Jones had tried to strangle her.
Lena Andrews: I think she was just trying to protect me so I wouldn’t worry. And she thought that she handled it. … In her mind it was over.
But Lena says Jones continued to pursue Diana.
Lena Andrews: She would tell me, “He texts me. … Looks like he doesn’t understand that I broke up with him.
Now with a search warrant almost 48 hours after Diana was last seen with Mike Jones, investigators entered his apartment.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: You can see the sheer fear and panic in Lena’s eyes. … I said, “Lena, I promise you I’m going to get your daughter back for you one way or another.”
Lena Andrews: I vividly remember that I was walking back and forth in front of this apartment, neighbors, people that I don’t know all coming out. … This girl just came and hugged me and said, “Oh everything going to be OK. And I looked at her and said, “No it won’t …”
THE SEARCH FOR DIANA
Lt. Matt Harrelson: We want to find Diana. We want to reunite her with her parents. We want to make sure she’s OK.
As detectives searched Mike Jones’s apartment, they were hopeful they would find Diana Duve. But they were met with disappointment.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: We didn’t find a lot. We didn’t find any belongings that we felt were Diana’s. We didn’t find any sign of her.
But they were not discouraged. Sgt. Kmetz was motivated by that promise he made to Diana’s mother Lena — that he would find her daughter.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: What really drove me to keep pushing forward was a mother begging you, please find my daughter for me.
They knew that in order to find Diana, they needed to find Mike Jones. Investigators grew concerned when they learned that about 12 hours after Jones was last seen with Diana at the What a Tavern bar, he was captured on surveillance footage visiting a PNC Bank in Vero Beach.
The investigators learned that about 12 hours after Diana Duve and Mike Jones were last seen at the bar, Jones was captured on surveillance cameras at a PNC Bank withdrawing $2,500 in cash. Jones told a co-worker he was feeling sick and going to be gone for a couple of days.
Florida State Attorney’s Office, 19th Circuit
Lt. Matt Harrelson: When he went to PNC Bank, he withdrew $2,500 in cash and then told many of his workmates … he said, I’m not feeling that well. I’m gonna be gone for a couple of days. I’ve got some things I got to take care of.
Investigators grew even more alarmed when they learned that Jones had a criminal record. Prior to moving to Vero Beach, he had been charged with aggravated stalking for threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend near Fort Lauderdale in 2012.
This is the 911 call from that incident:
OPERATOR: 911, What is your emergency?
EX-GIRLFRIEND: My ex-boyfriend just called me and told me that he has packed his gun and that as soon as I walk outside a gunshot will go off in my head.
OPERATOR: What happened?
EX-GIRLFRIEND: My ex-boyfriend threatened to kill himself tonight. And then when I told him that we were not getting back together he told me he would kill me.
EX-GIRLFRIEND: I’m very afraid. I’ve seen him angry before.
Investigators also learned Mike Jones had a criminal record. In 2012, he was charged with aggravated stalking for threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend near Fort Lauderdale. Jones was placed on probation and required to stay in the Vero Beach area.
St. Lucie Sheriff’s Office
He pleaded no contest. And as part of a plea deal, Jones was given five years probation in lieu of jail time. He was required to stay in the Vero Beach area and could be arrested if he left without getting permission from his probation officer.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: I spoke to the probation officer who told us if we come in contact with him, that’s probable cause. We can arrest him for a probation violation, at minimum at that point.
Lena Andrews: All of a sudden, we found out that he’s convicted felon, that he’s on probation.
Lena says she and Bill were blindsided by the news.
Lena Andrews: It’s something that was extremely unexpected. … Nobody knew about it.
Investigators continued to work the case but were running out of leads, so they turned their attention to analyzing cellphone tower pings from Diana and Jones’s phones.
Investigators analyzed cellphone tower pings from Diane Duve and Mike Jones’s phones. One ping from Jones’s phone was from a cell tower located about 25 minutes from Vero Beach in the Fort Pierce area. Local authorities were told to be on the lookout for Duve and Jones’s cars.
CBS News
Lt. Matt Harrelson (looking at map): We had to kind of like overlay two separate maps to be able to see where she may have been and where he was prior.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: I was getting pretty tired … And something told me just give it a couple more minutes. And this is why I would say that divine intervention was definitely at play here … Within a few minutes … I found something that was really odd.
Sgt. Kmetz noticed there was only one ping from Jones’s phone off a cell tower located in the Fort Pierce area – approximately 25 minutes from Vero Beach. So Kmetz had dispatch alert local authorities there, to be on the lookout for Jones’s gold Honda and Diana’s black Nissan.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: I’m on my way home, I … get in bed and then my phone rings.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: Fort Pierce PD had located Mike Jones’s car.
Jones’s gold Honda was located in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn. Hotel surveillance footage showed that Jones had checked into the hotel almost 24 hours after Diana went missing. He appeared to be alone. According to the front desk staff, Jones paid in cash for two nights, and instructed them not to tell anyone he was there and not to transfer any calls to his room.
Investigators were alerted that Mike Jones’s car had been located in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn. This surveillance footage shows Jones checking in to the hotel almost 24 hours after Diana Duve went missing. He paid in cash and instructed the hotel staff not to tell anyone he was there.
Florida State Attorney’s Office, 19th Circuit
Lt. Matt Harrelson: You don’t know what you’re gonna find when you get in that room. … You know, your heart’s racing, you’ve been going two days straight and now you’re this close from getting who you believe is a possible suspect … and also hopefully finding Diana.
Around 11:30 p.m., using a key card given to them by the front desk, Kmetz and Harrelson entered Jones’s hotel room.
Michelle Miller: He seemed surprised?
Lt. Matt Harrelson: He was surprised to see us. Absolutely. … He was sitting on one of the double beds with like a V-neck T-shirt on and some shorts and smoking a cigarette. And he was talking on a phone, on a cellphone.
It was a burner phone — a phone that is difficult for police to trace.
This is audio of Sgt. Kmetz speaking to Jones in his hotel room:
SGT. BRAD KMETZ: All right Mike, you got a pretty good reason why we’re here, I’m sure.
MIKE JONES: I’ll tell you unequivocally, I don’t know where she is. … I don’t have the slightest clue. I’ve tried to find her.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: Why won’t he just give me the information I’m looking for? Your girlfriend’s missing, this is someone you professed that you loved and professed that you cared about. You should be helping law enforcement try to find her.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: I said, “If you’re not willing to give us any information I said you’re going to jail right now for the violation of probation.”
Kmetz and Harrelson were relieved to place Jones behind bars. But they still had no idea where Diana was — or her car.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: You go from very high because you found him, and you’re busting in the room, to like, here we are back again.
Investigators decided to trace the purchase of that burner phone Jones had been using and learned that he bought it at a Walmart located about an hour north from the Hampton Inn. When they pulled the surveillance footage from the Walmart, they made a startling discovery.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: It’s a little grainy. But it appeared to be Diana’s car.
In surveillance footage from the morning after Diana went missing, her Nissan entered the Walmart parking lot, and parked. Then you see what appeared to be Mike Jones wearing a red baseball hat walk into the store, buy the burner phone and then walk out. There was no sign of Diana.
But despite buying the burner phone, Jones occasionally still turned on his primary phone.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: He would turn it on and then use it for something and then turn it back off.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: Let me go through these pings one last time. I said maybe I’m missing something here. … I found one. I mean maybe we can catch lightning in a bottle twice.
So, Kmetz and Harrelson analyzed Mike Jones’s primary cellphone pings, one more time, looking for any pings in and around the area of the Walmart.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: He and I are kind of looking at it together and I’m like, “Well, this one’s strange.” He goes, “What do you mean?” I say … “What’s he doing up in Melbourne?”
It appeared that Jones had picked up a call in the Melbourne area, almost one hour north of Vero Beach. So local police were alerted and asked to search that area for Diana’s car. Just 30 minutes later, detectives received a call they had been desperately waiting for.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: They had found her vehicle.
Three days after Diana had gone missing, her car was located in a Publix parking lot in Melbourne, Florida.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: We jump in the car, were rocking and rolling.
Michelle Miller: And there she was.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: Mm-hmm. Crazy. Crazy (tears up).
NO ORDINARY SUSPECT
Lt. Matt Harrelson: We’re on the ragged edge. You know, we — we haven’t slept. … you know, ’cause you’re just you’re moving.
Diana Duve’s body was discovered in the trunk of her car parked at a Publix shopping center in June 2014. In just three days, investigators were able to put the pieces together to find her and her killer.
Vero Beach Police Department
It was around 4:30 a.m. when investigators arrived at a Publix parking lot where Diana Duve’s black Nissan had been discovered. Lt. Harrelson feared they would find her body here.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: And I told Brad, I said, “she’s in the trunk”
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: I said, I don’t know, I said it’s just so cliche. It’s something like out of a movie. It didn’t make much sense to me.
But when they opened the trunk, Lt. Harrelson’s premonition turned out to be true.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: There are certain things in this job that you can’t unsee. You can’t unlive.
Michelle Miller: You’ll never forget.
Matt Harrelson: Yeah.
Sgt. Brad Kmetz: I remember putting my hands on my knees and kind of just putting my head down. … It was not the way I wanted to find her.
“The saddest thing in my life was seeing him come up the driveway,” Bill Andrews said of seeing the police chief approaching his door.
CBS News
Lena Andrews: And I opened the door and here was chief of police in complete uniform.
Bill Andrews: The saddest thing in my life was seeing him come up the driveway (sighs).
Lena Andrews: And he told me, they found her (sighs).
Lena Andrews: To lose her like this … its indescribable.
As painful as it was, this was no longer a missing person’s case — but a homicide. An autopsy would later revealDiana had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and had been strangled to death.
Investigators believed they had a strong case connecting Jones to the parking lot where Diana was found. But something was gnawing at them: how did Mike Jones leave the area without a car?
Lt. Matt Harrelson: So, we just started cold calling some of these taxi agencies. … And I said, “Hey did you get a fare … to Vero … in the last couple of days?” And then we hit one. And I was like, Wow. You know, like that just like that doesn’t happen every day. So, we got lucky on that one.
Around 8 a.m., after Jones dropped off Diana’s car, a man called for a taxi down the street.
Former cab driver: I showed up and there was a guy outside with a red hoodie on and, um, he got in the passenger side of the vehicle.
During the hour-long ride they briefly chatted.
Former cab driver: I asked him questions like, “What brought you down here?” And he said, “Oh well, I came here with a friend of mine.” You know, um and so then I asked, “Well how come you didn’t get a ride back with your friend to Vero Beach?” And he said well, they got into an argument, and she’s very pissed with him.
The former cab driver — who asked us not to use his name — says that he dropped the man off across the street from an apartment in Vero Beach. It was Mike Jones’s apartment.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: The kicker was … he was able to pick him out of a lineup too which really helped our case.
And just two days after they found Diana’s body, they had enough evidence to officially charge Mike Jones with her murder. He would plead not guilty.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: He didn’t show any emotion. He didn’t ask any questions. He just sat there.
Two days after Diana’s body was found, Mike Jones was charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty.
Florida State Attorney’s Office, 19th Circuit
SGT. KMETZ: You there, Mike?
MIKE JONES: Yeah. I request my right to counsel.
SGT. KMETZ: Fair enough.
MIKE JONES: And my right to remain silent.
LT. HARRELSON: OK.
SGT. KMETZ: OK.
LT. HARRELSON: We have no more, nothing else to say to you.
Assistant State Attorney Brian Workman was assigned to prosecute the case along with State Attorney Thomas Bakkedahl. As they started digging, they soon learned that Mike Jones was no ordinary suspect.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: He doesn’t fit the mold of your average violent murderer.
Jones was well educated, with a masters and law degree. And he was a respected member of the Vero Beach community.
Stewart Pierce: It was shocking that Mike would have done this. I think it blew everybody’s mind.
Stewart Pierce was friends with Jones.
Stewart Pierce: Mike Jones was a guy that you wanted to be friends with. … He was clean cut. A real nice guy.
He first met him at a networking luncheon shortly after Jones had moved to Vero Beach in the summer of 2013.
Stewart Pierce: We saw him everywhere that there was to be seen. … Cufflinks and a well-starched shirt.
Jones was often seen at local charity events.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Here is a guy who was able to work his way into the community here. I mean, he was doing charitable activities. He actually showed up and walked for the very same domestic violence organization that I’m a board member for.
Jones was also active in the bar scene and had made many friends in a short period of time. Investigators interviewed some of them on audio tape:
AUDIO INTERVIEW: “I would say that he was ambitious.”
AUDIO INTERVIEW: “I could trust him with things that I would trust my family with …”
AUDIO INTERVIEW: “Michael was a genius. … one of the smartest people I had ever you know dealt with.”
And when it came to work, Jones thrived at his job in Wealth Management at PNC Bank.
Prosecutor Brian Workman: And he brought people in who had a lot of money. And he had performance reviews, emails that went back and forth between PNC personnel raving about his job performance and how great he was doing there.
In his last performance review from four months before Diana was murdered, his boss wrote:
“Michael has shown that he has strong ethics and leadership qualities. He is a big asset for PNC …”
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: This guy was a master manipulator. This guy was running multimillion-dollar accounts for a bank as a convicted felon. So, he was able to con a bank!
“48 Hours” reached out to PNC Bank to ask if they knew Jones had a record and was on probation for stalking that woman near Fort Lauderdale in 2012. They declined to comment.
His friends, however, had no idea. But what they did know about Jones’s past is there were a lot of stories.
Ellie Sexton: I remember the stories … like every time there was a zinger.
Ellie Sexton dated Jones shortly before he started dating Diana.
Ellie Sexton: Mike told me that his sister was dating Jason Aldean and he told me that he was adopted by Ronald Reagan’s son.
Ellie Sexton: Mike drove a gold Honda Accord that was probably 10 years old. But he told me that he had a penthouse in Fort Lauderdale, that he had a Porsche that he just didn’t want to damage.
Stewart Pierce: Well Mike Jones told me that he was adopted. And that he played some minor league baseball. But one time hanging out on the beach and seeing him throw a football made me think that he’d probably never played minor league baseball.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Nothing in his life was the truth. Who he really is, to this day, I’m not sure we know.
Prosecutors were certain of one thing: that Mike Jones was a murderer. And now, as they prepared to go to trial, they learned that Diana was one of Mike Jones’s many victims. The only difference is the others got away.
Ellie Sexton: My family has all said, you skipped death (sighs).
A PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Say a woman’s name with whom he had a relationship … and there is abuse.
As prosecutors continued to unearth more details about Mike Jones, they say there was a clear pattern in how he treated his ex-girlfriends.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: He’s Prince Charming in the door, right? … But then slowly, he’ll begin telling them, what to wear … what friends to hang out with. … He’s calling incessantly. … Showing up at restaurants … He’s reading her phone. … A couple of the women that we talked to, he would hold them in place for long periods of time.
Ellie Sexton: He was very controlling.
Ellie Sexton only dated Mike Jones for a few months but says she witnessed his violent temper.
Ellie Sexton: Mike never got physical. But there were a few times that he just had some jealousy behaviors. I do remember him screaming in my face one time and getting really close to me … and feeling fear.
And investigators also learned that Mike Jones’s stories about his past were flat out lies.
In a personal essay he wrote for college admission, Jones claimed that he was “born into poverty” to uneducated and abusive parents. He wrote that he was “placed with several foster families” and eventually was adopted.
Michelle Miller: What is the truth about his upbringing?
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: What do you think?
Prosecutor Brian Workman: He was spoiled rotten. His, his parents bought him motorcycles. They put him in private school. … And it wasn’t until his parents told him that they weren’t going to pay for any more education, meaning law school. … That was the point where he broke it off with them … Manipulating, trying to get what he wanted.
“48 Hours” reached out to Jones’s family, but we never heard back from them.
And the manipulation continued while Jones attended a graduate law program at the University of Miami. According to an email to his fellow students in 2010, Jones claimed that he was “battling prostate, pancreas and stomach cancer” and other alleged medical conditions that prohibited him from often attending classes.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: We have no record of any type of cancer diagnosis in his background or anything like that.
But despite Mike Jones’s dark past of lies and abusing other women, prosecutors could only tell a jury about his abuse of Diana and her murder.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: You should be convicting somebody for the crime that they committed. Not based upon what they’ve done in the past.
And when it was time to go to trial, they had to make an important decision whether to go for the death penalty.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Well, that was a tough one. … We sat down with Lena, and we said listen, when we take this step, it’s a whole different process.
He explained that the proceedings could drag on for years and even if one juror did not believe Jones deserved the death penalty, he would be given a life sentence instead.
Lena Andrews: I wanted the death penalty, absolutely. He lost his right to live when he killed her, when he killed Diana.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Brian and I agreed with them and thought that this is the route we need to take.
In October of 2019 Mike Jones’s trial finally began in Vero Beach.
Prosecutors Thomas Bakkedahl, left, and Brian Workman told the jury that Mike Jones abused Diana Duve mentally and physically during their short six month on-and-off again relationship.
Patrick Dove /USA Today Network
During opening remarks, prosecutors told the jury that Mike Jones abused Diana mentally and physically during their short six month on-and-off again relationship.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: She would talk about her feelings and the things that he had done and how he would be demeaning … And he would flip it. … He would flip the script … and start blaming her and accusing her and suggesting that it’s her fault. … What he was doing was gaslighting her.
Chelsea DiMaio says she took photos which show what appears to be hand marks on Diana’s neck.
Florida State Attorney’s Office, 19th Circuit
To back up their claims of physical abuse, prosecutors called Diana’s friend Chelsea DiMaio and showed the jury the photos she took after that domestic incident when Jones allegedly strangled Diana.
Chelsea DiMaio: I could clearly see that there were marks on her neck.
As disturbing as that was, Bakkedahl explained that after that domestic incident, Diana had secretly started seeing Jones on and off again.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: This is what happens in domestic violence. … people want to know why would she go back? … And it’s because of the control. And he had total control over her.
Prosecutors said no one knows what they talked about in the early hours of Friday, June 20, 2014, when they left the bar together and went to Jones’s apartment.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Now they had been drinking that evening. And, of course, that has an impact on your judgment.
“If this has happened to Diana, it (could) happen to anybody,” Lena Andrews told “48 Hours.”
Facebook/Diana Duve
But Bakkedahl thinks Diana was trying to end the relationship for good.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: She was telling him that night it’s over. I have no doubt in my mind that this was the end of this relationship.
In fact, according to Lena, Diana had upcoming plans to go out West to visit a friend.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: And when he got wind of that, that was it.
Prosecutors said they believe Jones lost his temper, and that’s when he beat and strangled her.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: He had beaten her so badly … that he knew at that point in time he could not let her go. He knew that if she were to leave the house that night and had been covered in bruises …the jig was up for this guy, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. And so, he resorted ultimately to murder.
The State admitted they didn’t know exactly what time the murder took place but said blood evidence showed that Jones placed Diana’s body in the trunk of her car while it was parked in his garage.
Police found small droplets of blood by Jones’s garage door threshold. The blood belonged to Duve. Prosecutors believed this evidence showed Jones had placed Diana’s body in the trunk of her car while it was parked in his garage.
Florida State Attorney’s Office, 19th Circuit
Lt. Matt Harrelson: Next to the threshold where the garage door comes down, where the concrete meets it, we found like two very small droplets of blood.
Michelle Miller: Whose were they?
Lt. Matt Harrelson: Diana’s.
When it was the defense’s turn to lay out their case, they told the jurors that in fact no one really knew exactly what happened after Jones and Diana left the bar on June 20. They raised the possibility that Diana’s death could have been an accident. Jones’s defense team declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview.
Lt. Matt Harrelson: They tried to act like, you know he was an upstanding citizen in our community. You know he had a solid job. Why would he do this to her? … It was almost insulting sometimes for them to even try to act like he wasn’t the monster that we knew him to be.
After seven days of testimony, the case went to the jury. The prosecutors felt confident.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: I expected a guilty verdict… but I didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did.
Michelle Miller: How quickly did it come back?
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Like 45 minutes.
Michelle Miller: That says something.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: That says a lot. That says that somebody finally saw through Michael Jones’s bull****.
But they knew there were many challenges ahead. Now the jury would have to decide whether Mike Jones would live or die.
Michelle Miller: What did you tell Lena right after the trial?
Prosecutor Brian Workman: I remember hugging her.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: I specifically remember telling her, now the heavy lifting comes. Be ready.
LIFE OR DEATH?
Lena Andrews: She had so much good in her heart and he knew that.
Nearly a month after the verdict, the same jury that convicted Mike Jones of first-degree murder would now decide whether he would live or die.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: The penalty phase is … everything about the defendant.
Prosecutor Bakkedahl warned Lena that the sentencing hearing would be difficult to sit through.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: The poor defendant, all of the issues faced by the defendant throughout his life to the absolute and utter exclusion of, of her daughter.
Nearly a month after the verdict, the same jury that convicted Mike Jones of first-degree murder would now decide whether he would live or die.
Patrick Dove/USA Today Network
The defense called medical experts who testified Jones had received multiple blows to his head, possibly from doing motocross as a teen, and he suffered brain damage. One expert testified that Jones’s frontal lobe, which regulates decision making and impulse control, had been damaged and caused a significant cognitive defect.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: They wanted the jury to believe … that he had this major or minor cognitive deficit. … The problem is … in order to have that particular deficit, you can’t do things like balance a checkbook. … pay rent … And here’s a guy who went to law school … and managed multimillion dollar accounts.
When it was time for her victim impact statement, Lena surprised everyone, and confronted Jones face to face.
Lena Andrews: How can you do that with your bare hands? To the person that you supposedly love? How can anybody do that? How?
At his sentencing, Lena Andrews confronted Mike Jones face to face.
Patrick Dove/USA Today Network
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: She brought Diana to life in that courtroom. And if we were going to get the death penalty it was going to be on the back of that testimony … It was just a mother’s love for her child. It was big (tears up).
Throughout the entire trial Jones showed no emotion.
Lena Andrews: He absolutely had zero remorse, absolutely zero.
Even as his sentence was about to be read.
Prosecutor Brian Workman: His attorneys … they had their faces in their hands. They were leaning on the tables…. And he just sat there like a statue.
Mike Jones received a life sentence, much to the prosecutors’ disappointment.
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: For me it was devastating. (He tears up) … because we didn’t finish the job that we had promised Lena and the family. … I realized at that moment, if I can’t get death in this case, what case?
Michelle Miller: Do you remember how many for, how many against?
Prosecutor Thomas Bakkedahl: Yeah. I remember. I’ll never forget. It was 11 to 1. … The defense was playing for one holdout the entire time. That’s all they need … We needed to be perfect.
Lena Andrews WPEC affiliate tape: “He is still going to die in jail, one way or another. And he is never going to hurt another girl again.”
Lena Andrews: At the end of the day, my daughter, Diana, she’s not coming home. She’s not. And he’s still alive.
“Graduation day … She was happy. All her adult life started. It was a good day,” Lena Andrews said of her daughter.
Facebook/Diana Duve
Lena wants people to remember and learn from her daughter’s story.
Lena Andrews: If this has happened to Diana, it’s gonna happen to anybody. If you feel something is not right, listen to yourself, because something is not right.
Today, after all these years, Diana’s bedroom looks exactly the way she left it.
Lena Andrews (looking at a photo of Diana): It’s one of the older pictures of Diana when she was a baby. … In Moldova. … She really didn’t want to take this picture. She was a little bit grumpy here.
Lena Andrews: I’m thinking about Diana the minute I wake up. … She’s the last thing I’m thinking about when I fall asleep every single day. And this is forever. That’s how it’s going to be.
Produced by Chris Young Ritzen. Marc Goldbaum, David Dow and Michelle Sigona are the development producers. Jennifer Terker and Hannah Vair are the field producers. Gary Winter, Doreen Schechter, George Baluzy and Mike McHugh are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
The last time anyone saw Diana Duve was when she left a bar in Vero Beach, Florida around 1:30 a.m. on June 20, 2014. After tracking down her mysterious ex-boyfriend, police made a startling discovery.
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Lamar Johnson was freed after spending nearly 30 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. During the hearing, the judge took an unusual step in the case before deciding.
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Lamar Johnson, a St. Louis, Missouri man, had spent almost three decades in prison before he was finally set free in February 2023. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty takes an in-depth look at the case and for the first time talks to the witness who helped put him away — a witness who says he was pressured by law enforcement to identify Johnson as one of the killers.
Convicted at 21, and still locked up at 49, Lamar Johnson has spent most of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit.
“I know the truth. I know that I didn’t kill Markus,” Lamar Johnson told “48 Hours” Erin Moriarty in 2021.
CBS News
Erin Moriarty (July 2021):How do you keep up hope?
Lamar Johnson: I don’t have a choice. … I — I know the truth. I know that I didn’t kill Markus.
Lamar Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder in 1995 for shooting 25-year-old Markus Boyd on his front porch. Johnson was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Erin Moriarty: What have you lost?
Lamar Johnson: Time… and uh … there’s a closeness between — especially with a father and his daughters. And I … (emotional) I missed being able to — to be a part of their life.
Erin Moriarty: You want your dad to come home.
Brittany Johnson: Yeah, I definitely do.
Brittany Johnson was just one year old when her dad was sent away.
Brittany Johnson (wiping tears): It was definitely hard, but I learned to live without my dad.
Kiera Barrow was just an infant then.
Kiera Barrow (in tears): We’re still waiting. There is still an innocent man in prison.
Kiera’s mother, Erika Barrow.
Erin Moriarty: Did you think you’d marry him?
Erika Barrow: Yes, I did. I mean, he was my first love.
Lamar Johnson grew up in St. Louis – consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the country. His South Side neighborhood in 1994 was battered by high crime and homicide rates. Johnson had steered clear of serious trouble.
Erika Barrow: He wanted to better himself. … He wanted to be the man that he needed to be for his, his children.
So, Johnson, the 20-year-old father of two, worked at Jiffy Lube while attending community college. But he alsohad a dangerous side hustle – selling small amounts of crack cocaine for extra cash.
Lamar Johnson: Yes, I was makin’ some poor choices then. And – I – I — I take responsibility for that. But that wasn’t the sum of who I was.
Erika Barrow: Selling drugs wasn’t his life. It was just something to help him manage … until he could do better.
Markus Boyd, 25, was shot to death by two gunmen on his St. Louis porch on Oct. 30, 1994.
Normandy High School
Johnson’s good friend, Markus Boyd, five years older, had also started a family, and was holding down a solid job at a printing company. And he, too, sold drugs on the side.
Erika Barrow: Markus was … like the preppy type. … You know, he wasn’t very street.
Greg Elking: He was a really, really good guy.
Greg Elking, then 30, had worked briefly with Boyd at the printing company. And, Elking admits, he was an occasional customer. On the evening of Oct. 30, 1994, he wanted to get high, but Boyd said, “No.”
Greg Elking: And he was like … “We’re going to go to work tomorrow.” So, we actually … sat down on the front porch, up on the stairs.
Markus Boyd’s street, Louisiana Avenue, was empty. His girlfriend and their baby were upstairs.
Greg Elking: All he talked about all the time, you know, was about his baby and about his girlfriend.
Greg Elking: He’s making me laugh, we’re kind of laughing at each other. … But all of a sudden, he went serious. … He was like, “Oh, no.”
From the narrow pathway next to Boyd’s apartment, two men came out of nowhere, barely visible in the dim light.
Greg Elking: These guys, they had … completely dark clothing and they had masks on.
Elking says the men wore black masks that covered their face except for their eyes. And they had guns. The men flew up the porch steps, says Elking. One attacked Markus Boyd.
Greg Elking: And he’s wrestling … with Markus.
The second gunman grabbed Elking.
Greg Elking: And he says, “Get the f*** up.” … I remember looking at him, right in … the guy’s eyes.
Greg Elking: The other guy … I seen him put the gun right up to Markus’ like neck area.
Greg Elking: And when he pulled the trigger, I seen the flash…
Greg Elking: Boom.
Greg Elking: Thethird shot, I kind of seen Markus’ soul just go. And I knew, I knew he was dead.
To Elking’s horror, both men continued to shoot Boyd, then vanished the same way they had appeared, sprinting down the dark pathway. Surprisingly, the shooters spared the only eyewitness.
Greg Elking was the lone eyewitness to Markus Boyd’s murder.
CBS News
Erin Moriarty: You say you looked into one shooter’s eyes.
Greg Elking: All I seen was the eyes.
Erin Moriarty: Could you tell whether he was White or Black?
Greg Elking: Um, I knew he was Black.
When the gunmen were gone, Greg Elking took off in the opposite direction. As he ran away, Elking says he could hear Markus Boyd’s girlfriend screaming.
Erin Moriarty: It’s still hard to talk about it, isn’t it?
Greg Elking: (Emotional, doesn’t respond.)
Erin Moriarty (July 2021): And where were you when this happened?
Lamar Johnson:I was about three miles away.
Erika Barrow and Lamar Johnson
Kiera Barrow
Johnson says he was with his girlfriend, Erika Barrow, and their 5-month-old daughter, Kiera, visiting friends. Erika says that entire evening, Lamar Johnson was out of her sight just once.
Erika Barrow: So, we were there because he was making a transaction. Someone was coming. … And so, he was just, like, I’ll be right back.
Johnson left the house, Erika says, just as she began changing Kiera’s diaper.
Lamar Johnson (2019):And um, I went out to meet somebody that I was dealing with.
His customer picked him up at the corner of 39th and Lafayette, Johnson says. They completed a quick transaction while driving around the block.
Erika Barrow: By the time I’ve finished changing her diaper and cleaned everything up … he’s coming back up the steps.
Erin Moriarty: And how long does that take?
Erika Barrow: Three to five minutes. … And he’s talking, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. … It, he was just normal.
Minutes later, Johnson got a call that Markus Boyd had been shot. The next day, he learned that Boyd had died. Johnson’s own life began to unravel. According to investigators, when they asked Boyd’s girlfriend who she suspected, only one name came to mind: Lamar Johnson. She thought the longtime friends might have had a falling out.
Lamar Johnson (Oct. 24, 2022):Markus and I have never had an argument or a fight.
Lamar Johnson: I loved him. I had no reason to want to hurt him.
Erin Moriarty: You agreed to talk to the cops without a lawyer. That was risky, wasn’t it?
Lamar Johnson: Well, now, I didn’t have anything to hide.
THE EYEWITNESS
Four days after Markus Boyd was shot to death on his front porch, St. Louis police tracked down the only eyewitness to the murder, Greg Elking.
Erin Moriarty: How would you describe what you went through that night?
Greg Elking: It was the most horrifying thing I ever seen in my life.
” It was the most horrifying thing I ever seen in my life,” Greg Elking said of witnessing his friend’s murder.
Evidence photo
Shaken and scared, Elking says he was initially reluctant to talk until he met lead investigator Joe Nickerson.
Greg Elking: I thought he was this amazing dude. … I thought he was like Nick Nolte from “48 Hours” — out of a movie — he was awesome. … I mean, it was, it was somebody that I just immediately admired.
Elking says even though the shooters were wearing masks, he could tell they were dark skinned black men, but he only saw the eyes of one of them. Still, Nickerson, he says, insisted on showing him several photos. One, says Elking, stood out.
Even though Greg Elking said he didn’t get a good look at the suspects, he says Det. Nickerson insisted on showing him an array of several photos. Elking said one of them stood out because of the eyes. The photo was of Lamar Johnson.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department
Greg Elking: I said, “these eyes … there’s something about these eyes.” And that’s all I said.
It was a photo of Lamar Johnson.
Greg Elking: And immediately he said, “Would you sign the back of it?” And I said, “No, I don’t want to sign the back of it.”
Erin Moriarty: Why not?
Greg Elking: Because I didn’t want nothing to do with this, because I couldn’t pick out no murderer. And I don’t even think he’s the murderer, I didn’t say he was a murderer.
Nickerson, Elking says, warned him his life could be at risk, telling him that Lamar Johnson was a dangerous man who may have been involved in as many as six murders. Attorney Lindsay Runnels says none of that was true.
Lindsay Runnels | Lamar Johnson’s attorney: If they had any evidence, whatsoever, then or now, Lamar Johnson would be charged with a crime.
Runnels began working on Johnson’s case when she was in law school.
Erin Moriarty: Does he have a record at all for violence?
Lindsay Runnels: No, his record is … and was minor. It’s a possession charge, possession of cocaine, and then a tampering with a license plate.
She says Johnson received probation for those offenses. Still, she says, cops, aware of his criminal record, kept him and young men like him on their radar.
Lindsay Runnels: It’s just the usual suspects type of round them up and everybody is guilty by association.
But after the murder on Louisiana Avenue, police had a new reason to focus on Lamar Johnson. The victim’s girlfriend had given them his name and now, they had what they said was a photo identification.
On the evening of Nov. 3, 1994, four days after the murder, they arrested Johnson along with his friend Phillip Campbell.
Erika Barrow: I couldn’t even understand why. Why would they arrest you?
Johnson’s girlfriend at the time and his alibi for the night of the murder: Erika Barrow.
Erika Barrow: I begged him to get a lawyer … and all he kept saying is, “I don’t want my mom and stepfather paying all the money, all this money for a lawyer. I didn’t do it.”
Lamar Johnson (Oct. 24, 2022): I didn’t have anything to hide. So uh, you know, I believed in the system. I believed that if I explained to them what I knew and, and where I was that that would sort itself out.
At the police station, Johnson agreed to a live lineup.
Lamar Johnson (Oct. 24, 2022): I wanted to try to be as cooperative as I could. I wanted them to — to, to investigate and talk to … the people whose house I was at that night. … You know I would expect that they would reach the conclusion that I didn’t have anything to do with it.
At the police station, Johnson agreed to do a photo lineup. He is in the third position, wearing the white pants. Det. Nickerson brought Elking in to try and make an identification. Elking viewed the lineup twice and didn’t make an identification.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department
But investigators never spoke to anyone who had been with Johnson on the night of the shooting, not even Erika Barrow. They put him in that lineup — he’s the third man in the photo above — and brought in Elking to view it.
Erin Moriarty: Could you identify anybody?
Greg Elking: No.
Altogether Elking viewed that lineup three times and never picked Johnson.
Elking was then asked to view a different lineup. Johnson was not in this one but the other suspect, Phillip Campbell, is in the fourth position. Elking was unable to make an identification.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department
Elking was then asked to view a different live lineup. Lamar Johnson wasn’t there, but the man arrested with him, Philip Campbell, is number 4 in the photo above. Elking still couldn’t identify anyone and says he feared he’d let down the detective he admired and trusted.
Greg Elking: I felt so bad. I could see it in his eyes like I — I hurt this guy, like this whole time, you know, I just wasted his time.
Then, according to Elking, he asked Detective Joe Nickerson how he could help.
Greg Elking: All that came out of my mouth was like, all right, Joe, it — you tell me what the numbers were, and I’ll tell you if they were correct.
Erin Moriarty: What does he say to you?
Greg Elking: He says three and four. And I was like, you’re right, three and four.
Lamar Johnson was number three in that first line up. Philip Campbell was the fourth man in the other lineup.
Greg Elking: If Joe Nickerson is telling me that three and four is it, it’s got to be Lamar and whoever, Phillip. … because he wouldn’t lie to me. Joe wouldn’t lie to me.
Erin Moriarty: So, you pick three and four because Nickerson told you?
Greg Elking: Yeah.
“48 Hours” asked Joe Nickerson for an interview. He declined our request but sent us a text saying in part, “I went where the facts, evidence and circumstances took me.”
Elking claims he told no one that Nickerson had allegedly given him the suspects’ numbers in the lineups. Instead, he told the other detectives that he was able to identify Lamar Johnson because of his distinctive eye.
Greg Elking: They had asked me, what do you mean about the eye when you say that you could pick, you know, these eyes?
Greg Elking: And I — and I said, I don’t know, like — like a lazy eye or something, like it’s different from the other.
Dwight Warren, the prosecutor, says he pressed Elking on his identification of Johnson.
Dwight Warren: I believed Mr. Elking, because I looked him straight in the eye and said, you know … I want to know if he did it … Tell me you’re sure of your identification. … Please tell me the truth because I don’t want to go and charge somebody who’s not guilty.
Erin Moriarty: What did Greg Elking say to you when you said that to him?
Dwight Warren: Well quote end quote I couldn’t tell you, but he told me he was telling the truth that he, he knew who did the shooting … and it was Lamar Johnson and Philip Campbell, so I charged them both.
In July 1995, Lamar Johnson went on trial with Elking as the star witness.
Dwight Warren: If he had backed off of that, I would have never issued the case. … That, he was absolutely essential.
To bolster the case, one of the witnesses the prosecution called was William Mock, a jail house informant with a lengthy criminal history, who claimed that he overheard Johnson and Campbell in a holding cell talking about the murder. But attorney Lindsay Runnels says Mock wasn’t credible and that his cell wasn’t close enough to hear anything.
Lindsay Runnels: Lamar wasn’t ever celled with Campbell, and Campbell nor Lamar were ever in the same cell as William Mock, so how could you hear this, if it happened at all, which it didn’t.
Erin Moriarty: Don’t you want to make sure that jailhouse snitch is telling the truth?
Dwight Warren: How am I going to do that?
Erin Moriarty: Well, you wouldn’t put somebody on the stand unless you could check out their story, right?
Dwight Warren: Unless I — I did check it out. He was in two jail cells away. He was in a position that, to be able to hear that.
Johnson didn’t take the stand at his trial. The defense relied on his girlfriend Erika Barrow who told the jury he was with her at the time of the murder. It took less than two hours for the jurors to reach a verdict. Guilty.
Johnson’s life had been changed forever by Greg Elking, who says that as he was pointing at Johnson at trial, he knew he had identified the wrong man.
Greg Elking: This isn’t the dude I seen at all. … Because to me, Lamar is not dark and not what I seen.
Erin Moriarty: You had doubts right afterwards. Why didn’t you tell somebody? Why didn’t you say I think —
Greg Elking: Because nobody talks to me, nobody. … who am I going to tell? I don’t know who I could have told.
Erin Moriarty: Did it occur to you at that moment that you might have put an innocent man —
Greg Elking: Yes.
Erin Moriarty: — behind bars?
Greg Elking: Without a doubt … Because I lied on the testimony. I lied because I thought I was doing the right thing.
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CASE
Lamar Johnson was just 21 years old when he was convicted of murder.
Lamar Johnson (July 2021):At my trial they did not even present a motive. They never explained why I supposedly did this.
Between Lamar Johnson’s trial and sentencing, he exchanged letters with the other suspect, Phillip Campbell. It was in those letters that Campbell admitted that Johnson was not involved. In another letter, he even named the other shooter – James “B.A.” Howard. Johnson tried to get a hearing about this new piece of evidence, but his request was denied.
Evidence photo
And then, before his sentencing, Johnson received surprising new information that he believed would prove his innocence: handwritten letters from his friend, the other suspected killer, Phillip Campbell. One said “… you didn’t do a thing …”
Lamar Johnson: He said, “I’m sorry you got convicted for somethin’ you didn’t do” … He said he wanted to come forth, but his attorney wouldn’t let him because he thought he could beat his case.
Erin Moriarty: And Phillip Campbell was actually one of the shooters.
Lamar Johnson: He was.
Campbell even named the other shooter who was with him on the night of the murder… a man named James B.A. Howard.
Johnson now had the names of both shooters. He wrote the judge and asked for a hearing, but his request was denied. In September 1995, Lamar Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Girlfriend Erika Barrow blames law enforcement.
Erika Barrow: You didn’t care to check his alibi. You wanted to blame someone, and you did exactly that. … You just flat out didn’t care. You didn’t care.
Lamar Johnson didn’t give up. He became his own jailhouse lawyer, sifting through police reports, trial transcripts and gathering new evidence. Johnson, with legal help, filed a petition asking for a new trial in 1996. Again, he was denied. Then, two years later, he would meet another inmate with a similar story.
Ricky Kidd: We were both assigned to Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri … Our friendship was almost instant.
Ricky Kidd, who was also serving a life sentence for murder, remembers when he first learned about Johnson’s case.
Ricky Kidd: He said … “I have to go to the … law library.” I said, “What are you working on?” And he turned to me. He said, “Well, I know everybody says this, but I’m innocent.” … and a big old smile appeared across my face, kind of like you’re seeing right now. And I said, “Well, I know everybody say this, but I’m innocent, too.”
Ricky Kidd and Lamar Johnson
Ricky Kidd
The two men made a pact in prison.
Ricky Kidd: He said, let’s make a promise that whoever makes it out will come back for the other. And we shook on it.
The Midwest Innocence Project had already been working on Kidd’s case before he himself was exonerated. Kidd says he convinced lawyers there to take a closer look at Johnson’s case.
When that team of lawyers began their research, they discovered that the star witness, Greg Elking, in prison himself for bank robbery, had written a letter to a clergyman admitting he had lied at Johnson’s trial.
Erin Moriarty: What did you think would happen?
Lamar Johnson: Again, I thought that I would be heard … So, it made me even more hopeful … that I would, that the court would at least listen.
In the letter to the clergyman, Elking also revealed that law enforcement said they could help him financially and relocate his family. Detective Nickerson and the prosecutor’s office had put him in the witness protection program. Elking’s debts were paid, and his outstanding traffic warrants were cleared. Altogether, Elking received more than $4,000 in payment, seen in this ledger.
Evidence photo
Elking’s letter would reveal another reason why he agreed to testify against Johnson. At the time of the murder, Elking had been in serious financial straits. Detective Nickerson and the prosecutor’s office put him in a witness protection program. Elkings’ debts were paid, and his outstanding traffic warrants cleared — and that’s not all.
Erin Moriarty: Whose idea was to give you money? To move you? To give you cash?
Greg Elking: Oh, that was Joe Nickerson … They paid my first month and last month’s rent for — for a house.
Altogether, Elking had received more than $4,000. None of that was disclosed to Johnson and his lawyer at trial. Johnson repeatedly asked for a hearing, he was denied, and his case stalled.
Lamar Johnson: I mean, what else is needed? The only thing that, that I haven’t been able to present is DNA, and God, I wish there was some DNA (gets emotional)
Then, in 2018, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner agreed to look at his case. She had created a Conviction Integrity Unit to look at cases of possible wrongful conviction.
Kimberly Gardner: And I started seeing some red flags. And I consulted my team, and I said, I think we have a problem here.
One of the many flags for Gardner was the timeline for the murder. Could Johnson have had time to kill his friend Markus Boyd? Erika Barrow said Johnson had only left their friend’s apartment for around five minutes.
Lamar Johnson: And you cannot drive that distance. You’d have to be speeding through St. Louis to even get there … and then you’d have to speed all the way back. There’s no way you could do that.
But Prosecutor Dwight Warren says Erika could have lost track of time — that Johnson could have been gone as long as 15 minutes.
Dwight Warren: She didn’t have a stopwatch. … Lamar got into a car … and took off.
At Johnson’s trial, Detective Joe Nickerson testified that it only took him 5 minutes to go from the alibi location to the crime scene. We asked Chief Investigator Robert Ogilvie from the Circuit Attorney’s Office to take us on that same drive. We timed the drive using a cellphone.
Detective Nickerson testified at Johnson’s trial that Johnson could’ve driven from his alibi’s house to Boyd’s apartment in five minutes, even though it was about three miles away. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty tested out the drive from with an investigator from the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office. It took about 13 minutes just one way.
CBS News
Investigator Ogilvie: Here we are.
Erin Moriarty: Yep. 12:55. Thirteen minutes.
Thirteen minutes one way — that’s more than double the time detective Nickerson said it took. In 2019, Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner’s team released a detailed report listing numerous errors that undermined Johnson’s conviction.
Erin Moriarty: As a prosecutor, you put people in prison, you don’t try to get them out.
Kimberly Gardner: As a prosecutor, no prosecutor, I believe, wants to secure a conviction wrongfully using wrong tactics …That’s just not what we want to do. We want to get it right.
Jurors never learned that jailhouse informant William Mock was a racist who had a hatred for black people, nor did they hear the majority of his criminal record. And they were never told Greg Elking had been paid thousands of dollars. Gardner was convinced Johnson was innocent, but when she tried to get his conviction overturned, court after court, including the Missouri Supreme Court, said she didn’t have the power.
Kimberly Gardner: And when you try to abide by your oath and you’re stopped every way, it weighs on you.
In 2021, the Missouri Legislature passed a law that gave Gardner and other prosecutors the power to bring cases of innocence to court. A year later, Johnson got the news he had been praying for. After nearly three decades in prison, he would finally get a hearing to present new evidence in his case.
LAST CHANCE AT FREEDOM
On Dec. 12, 2022, Lamar Johnson and his legal team gathered in a St. Louis courtroom for a week-long hearing. His daughters Brittany and Kiera were in the courtroom nearly every day.
Kiera Barrow: I think we’re all trying to be … hopeful … that my dad gets justice.
One man, Judge David Mason, will decide Johnson’s future. He has three options: Overturn the conviction and grant a new trial, overturn the conviction and declare Johnson innocent, or he could uphold the jury’s verdict.
Erin Moriarty: What is at stake here with this judge’s decision?
Kimberly Gardner: Justice and the integrity of the whole criminal justice system.
At the hearing, Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, right, sat by Lamar Johnson, instead of her usual seat at the prosecution table.
POOL/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner sat by Johnson, instead of her usual seat at the prosecution table. Gardner appointed two lawyers to handle Johnson’s case, Charlie Weiss and Jonathan Potts.
Jonathan Potts: I took this case because I believe that Lamar Johnson’s innocent. I didn’t take it because I think he might be innocent.
Charlie Weiss: There was no physical evidence at all connecting Lamar Johnson with the murder of Marcus Boyd, period.
CHARLIE WEISS (in court): Thank you, Your Honor, may it please the court. This is a rather historic moment in this court. This is the first time … where the court is hearing an actual innocence claim filed by a prosecuting attorney.
The Missouri Attorney General’s office sent a team of their own to argue that Johnson’s conviction should stand. In response to “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview, they provided us with this written statement, that read in part, “the Attorney General’s Office has fought to keep a convicted murderer in prison.”
Attorney Miranda Loesch told the judge not to trust the witnesses who were about to vouch for Johnson’s innocence.
MIRANDA LOESCH (in court): They’re going to ask you to believe convicted murderers and gang members. … Their evidence is … not credible.
Johnson’s team calls their first witness. James Howard takes the stand and admits that he’s one of the men who murdered Markus Boyd.
While on the stand, James Howard, who is serving a life sentence for a different murder, admitted he was one of the men who shot Markus Boyd.
POOL/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JONATHAN POTTS (in court): How did Markus die?
JAMES HOWARD: Me and Phillip Campbell killed him at — on his front porch.
Remember, Phillip Campbell had written Lamar Johnson saying he and Howard were the real shooters. Campbell, who was later convicted of the murder, took a deal and served only five years. He has since died. Howard was never charged with Boyd’s death. He’s currently in prison for life for unrelated crimes, including murderinganotherman.
JAMES HOWARD (in court): I killed him the exact same way. I fired two shots in the back his head.
But attorneys Jonathan Potts and Charlie Weiss can’t rely on Howard’s word alone. They must now tear apart the original case against Lamar Johnson. They call Greg Elking, the state’s former star witness.
GREG ELKING (in court): Law enforcement was wanting me to help, and I trusted them. … I wanted to help.
Elking told the court that he felt pressured by Detective Joe Nickerson to identify Johnson in the lineup.
Greg Elking testified that he felt pressured by Det. Nickerson to identify Johnson in the lineup. “And I’ve been living with it, 25, 28 years and I’m telling you … I just wish I could change time,” Elking said on the stand.
POOL/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
GREG ELKING: He goes, I know you know who it is and you’re just not saying.
GREG ELKING: And this is the part I hate the most. … I just remember saying to him, “you tell me the numbers and I’ll tell you if you’re right.” And he did. … And I was like, that was it, that was the numbers.
GREG ELKINS: And I’ve been living with it … 25, 28 years and I’m telling you, I just wish, I just wish I could change time.
On day three, Judge Mason questioned the original prosecutor in the case, Dwight Warren, about the reliability of Greg Elking’s identification of Lamar Johnson.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: He told you and the officers— that it was based upon him looking at the eyes, because that was all he could see. Isn’t that correct?
DWIGHT WARREN: I believe so.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: And did he or did he not tell you that all of this happened … within seconds?
DWIGHT WARREN: Yes. Yes.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: And that’s what you decided was sufficiently reliable to seek a murder conviction?
DWIGHT WARREN: To take it to a jury. Yes, sir.
Warren admitted to Johnson’s lawyers that without an eyewitness, he would never have filed charges in the first place.
DWIGHT WARREN: Oh, absolutely not. … I didn’t have any evidence.
On day four of the hearing, Lamar Johnson finally got to defend himself and assert his innocence in front of the judge.
POOL/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
On day four, Lamar Johnson finally got the chance to defend himself in his own words.
MIRANDA LOESCH: So, you talked to Detective Nickerson that night, correct?
LAMAR JOHNSON: Yes ma’am.
Attorney Miranda Loesch asked him about his conversation with Detective Nickerson a few days after the murder.
LAMAR JOHNSON: I said, man, “that boy is my friend. I didn’t shoot him.” … I said, “OK. I — I will voluntarily participate in the lineup.”
MIRANDA LOESCH: You had every little thing to lose at that point, didn’t you?
LAMAR JOHNSON: I didn’t think so.
MIRANDA LOESCH: You didn’t think so? You were arrested for a homicide.
LAMAR JOHNSON: I didn’t commit the homicide. So why would I be concerned that I had everything to lose?
As the hearing week neared the end, Detective Nickerson takes the stand — the man Elking claims pressured him into falsely identifying Johnson.
On the stand, Det. Joe Nickerson denied pressuring Greg Elking to identify Lamar Johnson in the lineup.
POOL/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
DET. JOSEPH NICKERSON: Mr. Elking goes “Hey, … I know who it is, it’s number three in the first lineup and it’s number four in the second lineup.”
MIRANDA LOESCH: And did you tell him to say that?
DET. JOSEPH NICKERSON: I didn’t tell him to say anything.
But Judge Mason had some questions of his own for Nickerson.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: Are you aware that all the evidence … suggests that your witness could only recognize some aspect of the eyes?
DET. JOSEPH NICKERSON: I’m aware of that.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: Please stand up, Mr. Johnson.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: I am just curious. … because I don’t know, what in the world is distinctive about this man’s eyes?
JOSEPH NICKERSON: Well, you can tell his eyes are different —
JUDGE DAVID MASON: I could — tell me, what do you see?
DET. JOSEPH NICKERSON: I can tell that his right eye is different from his left. … One is lower or higher than the other.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: OK.
Judge David Mason listened intently each day of the hearing. He even took over the questioning from the lawyers at points, making it clear when he believed something and when he didn’t.
POOL/St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Erin Moriarty: How would you describe the involvement of Judge Mason in this case?
Tony Messenger: Well, that was one of the most unique things I’ve seen in any trial I’ve ever covered.
Columnist Tony Messenger covered the case for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Tony Messenger: He didn’t just ask questions; he took over the questioning at times … and made it very clear … when he was believing something and when he wasn’t.
After five days of witnesses, court adjourned. With his freedom on the line, Johnson was taken to a St. Louis jail to wait for Judge Mason’s decision.
Lamar Johnson: I don’t know how to not fight for my innocence … to fight for what’s right — what was wrongfully taken from me.
THE JUDGE DECIDES
Lamar Johnson’s daughter Kiera Barrow has finally heard what happened to her father so many years ago.
Kiera Barrow: It’s been really hard … we heard everything in court. … the misconduct and the negligence … that occurred.
Brittany Johnson: The hardest thing, was just … that Greg lied … knowing his testimony did put him in jail.
Lamar Johnson with daughters Brittany Johnson, left, and Kiera Barrow.
Brittany Johnson/Kiera Barrow
Brittany Johnson believes that Greg Elking’s lies robbed her of time with her dad.
Brittany Johnson: I’m very angry.
Erin Moriarty: This is hard.
Brittany Johnson: Yes, is very hard. I hate that I’m crying right now … a dad is — is the most important role.
But their wait isn’t over. Two months pass with no decision from the judge. Keira is hoping it happens soon.
Kiera Barrow: We’ve been robbed of so many opportunities and milestones, I’m getting married in April of this year. (Crying) It would just mean so much to me and I know to my father to have him there with me and for him to be able to give me away.
Finally, on a Tuesday afternoon in February, Johnson’s family and friends return to the courtroom.
Lawyers with the Missouri Attorney General’s office, fighting Johnson’s release, are at one table. At the other, the team trying to win Johnson’s freedom. Seated next to Johnson, his attorney Lindsay Runnels.
Erin Moriarty: What should Judge Mason do in this case?
Lindsay Runnels: Judge Mason should vacate these convictions and Lamar Johnson should walk out of that courtroom today.
After both legal teams were given copies of his final opinion, Judge David Mason announced his decision on Feb. 14, 2023.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: After reviewing both the underlying trial as well as the entirety of the hearing, for the reasons stated above, it is hereby ordered that the motion of the Circuit Attorney of the 22nd Judicial Circuit filed herein for the benefit of Lamar Johnson is granted.
JUDGE DAVID MASON: The conviction of Lamar Johnson in State v. Lamar Johnson, Cause 2294-3706A is hereby set aside and held for naught.
Johnson’s murder conviction was overturned. The judge also found that there was clear and convincing evidence of Johnson’s innocence. After more than 28 years behind bars, he was more than a free man — 49-year-old Lamar Johnson had finally been exonerated.
This time he would leave the courthouse not in a prison van, but in a black sedan.
Erin Moriarty: When I first met you, I asked you to identify yourself.
Lamar Johnson (2021): My name’s Lamar Johnson. I’ve been in prison for 26 years now.
Erin Moriarty: And If I asked you to identify Lamar Johnson right now, what would you say?
“I am a freed man, an exonerated man and a blessed man,” Lamar Johnson told Erin Moriarty after his release from prison.
CBS News
Lamar Johnson (2023): I am a freed man, an exonerated man and a blessed man.
Erin Moriarty: How important was it to have Greg Elking take the stand and — and tell the judge what he had done at trial?
Lamar Johnson: That was very important. … He intentionally, you know, falsely identified me. But … not only did he acknowledge that he made a mistake, he took steps to try to correct it. And I am extremely grateful to him for that.
And during that time he spent in prison, he says he never forgot about his friend Markus Boyd who died that night.
Lamar Johnson: I didn’t want Markus’s family thinking that I did this to him, ’cause I genuinely cared about Markus. … Markus was a good guy.
In the meantime, Johnson is starting over. His friend Ricky Kidd knows it won’t be easy.
Ricky Kidd: It’s going to be tough. …but … Lamar has the ability to adapt and adjust and … see new opportunities.
Lamar Johnson: Worked 30 years for the Department of Corrections for pennies. I don’t have anything. … … I hope somebody is willing to … give me a shot. … I want to work.
Erin Moriarty: You have a date coming up, an important date.
Lamar Johnson: My youngest daughter is getting married. And, you know, it’d be nice if I could do something special and nice for them … but presence matters more than presents. And I’m going to make the best of what life I have.
Under current law, Johnson is not entitled to compensation from the state of Missouri.
Produced by Marcelena Spencer and Emily Wichick. Mead Stone is the producer-editor. Stephen A. McCain is the development producer. Chelsea Narvaez is the associate producer. Atticus Brady and Joan Adelman are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer
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A woman is attacked in her sleep and kidnapped by her estranged husband. The dramatic story of her captivity and rescue. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
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He was free for two years and then sent back to prison for a murder he swears he didn’t commit. Yet Green still has faith he’ll see his loved ones again. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty has the latest on the case.
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