quite a few people. there were flowers and balloons, obviously a lot of people had felt that they needed to go to that site. it was, it was overwhelming up next, a well-known business owner is brutally attacked at work. >> there was a lot of blood on the floor, on the walls, on the door. >> is it the work of a disgruntled employee? >> no one trusted him. he leaves due to stress. >> or a robbery gone wrong? >> i had given her $1,000 the night she was killed. that $1,000 was never found. >> a witness comes forward with a possible motive. >> she made me promise that if anything happened to her, i'd go immediately to the police. >> the evidence answers some questions and raises many more. >> it didn't look planned. >> for years, george hansen and

maryann clibbery ran al zullo remodeling, and they were quite a pair. their home-spun television commercials helped make their business a success. >> at al zullo's, the don't move, improve folks, one call makes it all. >> she ran the business side. george ran the construction crew, the maintenance, buying the products. >> by 2004, maryann told her partner she wanted to retire. >> very nice person. very kind. she would do anything for anybody. but she wanted to, you know, start enjoying life a little bit, get the fruits of her labor. >> a few days before the christmas holiday, after everyone else had left, maryann stayed late to go over the books. as she was about to lock up the office to leave, she was viciously attacked.

the next morning, her partner, george hansen, and another employee, found mary ann's body when they arrived for work. >> i saw the blood around maryann. i never seen a dead body before, nothing that horrible. >> paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. >> she had substantial head injuries, and the pathologist determined that she had suffered at least three blows to the back of her head. >> crime scene technicians found some unusual clues. there was fresh blood on top of coagulated blood, which meant there were two separate altercations. >> i could tell that she was hit in the hallway first, at least twice. and when she went down, she was down for a minimum of 15 minutes before he knelt on her back and beat her at least two more times. >> made you question why that person would go back to her and beat her more.

>> mary ann's purse was missing, an indication the motive might have been robbery, but nothing else had been taken from the office. >> we would expect anything of real value that individuals could carry would be missing. nothing was missing from the business. >> maryann was a 69-year-old widow, the mother of five grown children. >> i'm visually impaired. she was my eyes. she was my love and she was my life. >> in a search for suspects, investigators learned that the company recently fired an employee, kevin doyle, and his dislike for maryann was well known. >> no one trusted him, including zullo employees.

he was a former employee of al zullo's. he leaves due to stress, somewhat maybe of a nervous breakdown. >> doyle had a motive, and he still had keys to the building, making him the prime suspect.

hi, i'm maryann. and this is george. and we're from al zullo remodeling specialists. >> al zullo's remodeling was an institution in illinois. >> al zullo's remodeling has been part of making your house a home. >> maryann was in some of the print advertising very early on in the business, kind of doing this vanna white thing with the kitchen cabinets. >> and maryann clibbery was well known in the community for her generosity. >> she would advance employees' salary out of her own pocket, not the company money. >> investigators were convinced maryann was killed by a client or a co-worker. >> it had to be somebody who was somewhat familiar with the layout of the business. >> the investigation centered on

a disgruntled ex-employee, kevin doyle. >> he was not a reputable person. i believe that he was a lot of talk but couldn't perform. i believe he said things that weren't accurate, and i believe that he was not to be trusted. >> when questioned, doyle said he was at home sick at the time of the murder, but there was no one to back up his story. kevin doyle had no criminal record. but the day after the murder, he did something very strange. >> kevin shows up and offers his assistance to the family and how he, himself, can keep that business afloat. we're thinking, okay, we have a suspect here. you know, you hear so often of the overcooperative witness, so to speak. well, that was kevin. >> police also learned that maryann and her business partner, george hansen, never

got along. >> it was always a challenge between the two because their personalities were so much different, they were always in conflict. >> she didn't realize that he was angry over the fact that al zullo had made her an equal partner to the business when he died. >> george said there were no problems and that his relationship with maryann was a good one. >> when you have a business, really, it's just like a marriage, you have to get along. if you don't get along, break it off. and we got along great. >> when questioned by police, george said he had an alibi for the time of the murder. >> he had gone to have drinks with his wife, then he took his daughter to some driving school and had gone to a tanning salon. and i believe maybe at that point, he finally went home. >> then, the day after the murder, there was an unexpected development. a local resident called police to report seeing a black garbage bag on top of the ice on the

rock river, which was five miles from the murder scene. >> what really brought it to their attention is not too long before that, there was a baby discovered in a garbage bag. >> the fire department used a ladder truck to lift the bag from the ice. inside the black garbage bag was another plastic bag, filled with a variety of items -- a sweater, a hammer, leather gloves and a purse containing maryann clibbery's identification. >> i think when they found that bag, that kind of connected everything. >> apparently, the killer threw the bag from the bridge but missed the open water, and it landed on the ice instead. >> if you'd looked over the bridge, he could have took two or three steps and hit open water. how stupid can you be?

>> the sweater in the bag was covered in blood. >> there was blood splatter inside the right sleeve, which goes along with the thought that at the scene it was right on the person who hit her from behind. >> tests showed the blood was maryann's. employees recognized the sweater right away. it belonged to the original owner of the company, al zullo. >> mr. zullo had this sweater for many, many years, and it was always in his office. he put it on, too, once in a while, when he got cold. >> scientists looked for areas on the sweater that might contain skin cells. >> i swabbed the collar of the sweater to determine the wearer of the sweater. >> would these skin cells identify the killer?

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police had two suspects in the murder of maryann clibbery -- her business partner, george hansen, and a disgruntled employee, kevin doyle. forensic testing of the sweater in the discarded plastic bag found skin cells on the collar. the skin cells provided a dna profile.

>> when i analyzed the swabbing of the collar to determine the wearer, it matched george hansen's profile, and it didn't match anybody else's profile. >> but that didn't prove he was the killer. the sweater belonged to the original business owner, al zullo, and remained in the company closet. other employees, in addition to george hansen, occasionally wore it. >> i started using the sweater in the wintertime, and i would wear it. and of course, other people put it on, too, once in a while, when they got cold. >> then police discovered another bizarre piece of information. a forensic analysis of maryann's coffee cup found a large amount of a prescription sleep medication, but maryann hadn't >> short after drinking some on. coffee, she becameery l. . . alasleep at her

desk in e afternns. when lice asked who had access to maryann'food, only one na surfafaced. >> she would come in feeling fine in the mornings. george hansen made it a point to hand deliver her her coffee. >> then maryapp's boyfriend told police about a possible motive. it was something maryann told her shortly before her death. >> she made me promise to her that if anything happened to her, i'd go immediately to the police with my knowledge. >> maryann had sent out christmas cards to some of the clients. a couple of these clients returned those cards back to the business with notes informing them, you know, of the problems that they were suffering. >> these clients told maryann they weren't getting paid, but internal company records showed they had been paid.

maryann did some amateur forensic accounting and learned that her business partner, george hansen, was stealing from the company. >> he was collecting money from the customers, and then he was depositing money in his own account. >> maryann discovered that george had stolen up to $100,000. >> he was not only taking actual monies coming in, but also, he had a little side business going where he would charge supplies through the al zullo company and use them for his personal projects. >> maryann was shocked to learn the company was in danger of bankruptcy. according to her boyfriend, maryann was going to confront hansen on the afternoon of her murder. >> whenever they had a confrontation, they never did it in front of the employees. it was always behind closed doors. we do know that they had some type of a meeting that day.

>> when questioned by police, george hansen didn't deny he was stealing money, but said maryann was in on it, too. >> i was depositing it and we were splitting the money. >> however, maryann's financial records showed her transactions were consistent with the amount of her salary and nothing more. gene's son, dean, was outraged by hansen's accusation. >> i knew he was lying. lying through his teeth. he couldn't look at me. >> and police soon found george had another possible motive. >> if he did kill her and got away with it, then he would collect $150,000 in insurance policy that each had the other. he was probably using this as a vehicle to generate the money to buy the business. >> then police got another tip. on the day after maryann's murder, a witness saw a man on the bridge over the rock river. the evidence from maryann's murder was found later that day

on the ice beneath this bridge. >> the person who called the police saw this truck that kept driving by the bag, kind of like looking at it or trying to get it, and thought that that was just suspicious, so he called the police. >> this truck was distinctive. it had vanity license plates that spilled out zullo, the name of maryann and george's business, and george was the only person in the company whose vehicle had these plates. >> what was so fascinating is when his car was searched, they found a large fishing lure, rope and some other objects which would lead a person to believe that he was going to actually try to fish that bag from the bridge. >> investigators needed to look closer at the items inside that bag to see if anything would

prove hansen was the killer. >> i did not kill maryann.

from the beginning, police thought maryann clibbery was killed by someone she worked with. >> that certainly helps our

focus, knowing that this is an inside job, and that narrows the playing field down. >> george hansen had a motive. maryann could prove he was stealing from the company. >> she informed hansen she was, in fact, going to go to the authorities over his business practices. >> scientists analyzed the plastic bag which contained the weapon used in maryann clibbery's murder. they put it in a sealed chamber filled with cyanoacrylate, fumes from superglue. these fumes stick to the oils in human fingerprints. >> i processed the items with fingerprint powder. this is just a fine black powder. the powder will adhere to the superglue-developed fingerprints and make them visible. >> they found three distinct fingerprints and one palmprint. those prints matched george hansen.

investigators also found gloves inside the bag covered with maryann's blood. dna tests of skin cells left in the gloves also matched george hansen. the dna was proof that george was wearing the sweater and the gloves as the fatal blows were struck, and investigators found the source of the prescription sleep medication found in maryann's coffee cup. >> we tracked down mr. hansen's sister, who signed a statement stating that she was sending him these pills. in return, he would give her like $25 a month. >> george hansen was arrested and charged with murder. prosecutors believe the motive was financial. >> he was going to collect some insurance money on her as he did the partnership and then buy the business or buy the business out. >> prosecutors believe maryann

waited until all the employees left before confronting hansen with the evidence of embezzlement. she estimated he stole more than $100,000 from the company. he could either pay the money back or maryann was going to report him to police. hansen, however, chose another option -- murder. as maryann was about to walk out through the back door, hansen struck her in the head with a hammer. while hansen staged the scene to look like a robbery, he discovered that maryann wasn't dead, so he struck her again, creating more blood splatter on top of the coagulated blood, proof of two separate beatings. he put his sweater, gloves and the hammer, along with maryann's purse, into the bag. on his way home, he dropped the bag into the river.

but it was wintertime, and he missed the open water by about five feet, and it landed on the ice. >> the theory was to drop the bag into the water and have it float away. >> later, a witness saw hansen's car driving back and forth over the rock river bridge, most likely contemplating how to retrieve the bag he tried to throw into the river. once in custody, hansen changed his story. he denied killing maryann, but admitted to a coverup. he said he found maryann's body when he first got to work, thought he'd be blamed for her murder, so he removed the items that belonged to him from the scene. >> that's where i goofed up, really. i saw the hammer and gloves, which were mine. i saw the blood around maryann.

i panicked. i didn't call 911. and i picked everything up, put them in a bag and left. >> but the jury didn't believe it. george hansen was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 60 years in prison. >> it took longer for the jury to pick a foreman than it did to come back with a guilty verdict. >> what was once a prosperous enterprise ended in deception and murder. but forensic evidence and mother nature helped solve the mystery. >> what are the odds of going to a river with the intent to sink a bag and have it hit solid ice? knowing that you've already cased the river out, knowing that it's a wide open body of water, except for a few feet on each side, and he accidentally drops it in the wrong place. >> if george wasn't so dumb, we wouldn't have found it, and it would have been a lot tougher case to deal with. >> george was banking on the

fact that he had no witnesses. >> you know, not just the blood spatter, but the fingerprints. and then, you know, the dna off the sweater. all of those things that kind of pointed back toward george hansen. > up next, a vibrant real estate professional is brutally murdered. >> this involved the entire range of violence. >> even hardened professionals are troubled by what they see. >> for there to be that much blood left at a scene, that's what we consider overkill. >> police find a possible witness and try hypnosis to get every detail. >> how many times do you see a composite sketch and you're like, this looks like every human being on the face of the planet? >> it was a real whodunit. and i hate whodunits. >> the killer leaves behind a clue, but will it be enough? >> people will kill for the most trivial of reasons.