and our court system worked. it uncovered the truth. a verdict was rendered. and justice was done cincinnati heart surgeon dr. darryl sutorius had a second chance at love when he married a pretty young divorcee. but happiness is sometimes elusive. the doctor fell into a serious the doctor fell into a serious depression and apparently committed suicide with a .38-caliber pistol. but why did he fire a test shot into the sofa cushion before killing himself? cincinnati, ohio, because of its size and sophistication, its health care facilities are among the finest anywhere.

dr. darryl sutorius was one of the city's most successful and respected heart surgeons, but he was also impatient and demanding. >> dr. sutorius was a very busy surgeon, but he didn't have the strongest people skills. >> he was perceived by many of his co-workers as very gruff, angry, kind of difficult to please sort of man. >> dr. sutorius met his wife, janet who was a nurse at the same hospital. the couple had four children together. three daughters and a son. it wasn't long before janet realized the many challenges of being married to a busy doctor. >> he was in a solo practice which took up all of his time. he was on call all of the time. >> the hard work and sacrifice paid off. by the mid-1980s, he was earning $300,000 a year. but the climb to the top of his

profession came with a price. the marriage was strained, due to long hours, pressure, and darryl's explosive temper. >> he was almost dangerous. he could put you down, he could make you feel really bad about yourself. and sometimes to the children, he liked to be in control. and he liked to be in charge. and he liked to be a provider and a caretaker. and while we enjoyed some of that, we weren't totally wanting to be controlled or taken care of. and that bothered him. >> after 30 years of marriage, the couple divorced. dr. sutorius was lonely, depressed and overweight and had a difficult time living apart from his children. >> he was interested in finding

a woman, i think, who didn't challenge him much, who would tell him how wonderful he was and stroke his ego, so to speak. >> for companionship, sutorius turned to a dating service. dating services are a big business in the united states. for a fee, clients provide their picture and personal information, which the service distributes to other clients. the dating service thought dr. sutorius and 45-year-old dante britain would make a good match. miss britain described herself as the owner of a day care facility who had recently been divorced. after four months of dating, dr. sutorius and dante were married. it looked as if darryl was moving on with his life. but soon his new wife noticed problems. >> he was very nice and very kind, but he was so depressed. >> and along with depression, dante discovered that darryl was impotent. >> he was embarrassed to tell me.

he wasn't quite sure how i'd take it. and i just said, i told him, keep giving me lots of hugs and lots of kisses on the cheek, and just keep holding my hand. >> dr. sutorius was so depressed that he spoke of committing suicide to some of his colleagues. part of the problem were some startling secrets he found out about his new wife. ♪ go! go! go! he's challenging the very fabric of society. in a post cannonball world! was it grilled cheese? guilty! the aquatic delinquency is a larger issue to this ♪ you did it again, didn't you? yup. ♪

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after dr. sutorius married dante briton, the couple moved into a luxurious home in an upscale cincinnati suburb. dante relished the lifestyle that her husband's income could provide. >> she finally had her wish, you know? she had fur coats made. she had jaguars. she had a lexus. she had all the things she wanted. she went to spas. she went to the caribbean. she went on holidays. really, that's what she seemed to always want was that perfect lifestyle. >> from the start, the marriage was in trouble. dr. sutorius was suffering from depression, impotence, and the couple fought often about money,

and who controlled the purse strings. >> don't worry about the cost. i'll take care of it. >> there had been a terrible argument when dante learned darryl was going to pay for his daughter's wedding. >> we spend far too much money on your kids the way it is. >> dante resented spending money on darryl's children. >> if he were to buy something for the children, she would retaliate by going out and buying designer clothes, furs, jewelry, running up the credit card bill. basically in retaliation for him paying attention to his own children. >> dante's behavior prompted sutorius to look into his wife's background. he found out that much of what dante had told him were lies. her real name was della hall. she never graduated from ucla as she claimed. in fact, she hadn't finished high school. and she had lied about how many

times she had been married. >> dr. sutorius was della's fifth husband. she was the type of person who had to have the last word, who would often go out of a relationship with a bang, so to speak. >> and sutorius discovered his new wife had a long history of violence. >> she threatened husband number four with a gun. she threatened husband number three with a knife. one guy, the common-law husband, she actually lit his bed on fire, drugged him and lit his bed on fire. he woke up in a burning bed. he lived through it. thank god. >> there were rumors that she had murdered previous boyfriends, possibly another husband out in california. we spent quite a bit of time working with the los angeles homicide squad, who were very cooperative and tracked down several leads for us, but we were never able to identify a

previous husband or boyfriend in southern california that was not currently alive. >> mrs. sutorius had also been convicted of threatening an earlier husband with a gun. an incident that terrified darryl. >> i spoke to one of his colleagues, another heart surgeon in cincinnati about this. and he said, darryl came into work one day wearing a bulletproof vest. and this other surgeon could not believe it. he said, what are you talking about? and darryl said, well, you know, i'm fearful for my life. and i'm wearing a bulletproof vest. he admitted to it. >> officer, i need your help. >> after learning the truth about his new wife, dr. sutorius stopped a local policeman at a gas station. he handed the policeman a handgun belonging to his wife, and asked him to take it because he feared for his life. the policeman noted that dr. sutorius seemed disoriented.

dr. sutorius' next stop was his lawyer's office. although the marriage was only ten months old, sutorius wanted his wife cut out of his will. he also began divorce proceedings. by this time, the couple no longer slept together. he spent most of his time in the basement, and days would go by without the two of them seeing one another. on monday morning, february 19th, 1996, dr. sutorius didn't show up for work and didn't answer his pages. his nurse called 911. >> 911 emergency dispatch. >> i work for darryl sutorius, and he is a doctor, and i've been paging him. i'm afraid something's happened to him. it's not like him to not answer a page. >> when police arrived at the sutorius home, mrs. sutorius said she didn't know where her

husband was. police asked to search the home. dr. sutorius' car was in the garage. >> oh, my god, i found him! >> in the basement, they found dr. sutorius dead of a gunshot wound to the head. a .38-caliber pistol was on the floor. >> it had the appearances of a suicide. it was a gunshot wound to the side of the head. the gun was relatively close to the body. >> the blood was completely dry, and rigor mortis had set in. an indication that he had been dead for at least a day or two. it appeared that sutorius had been drinking and watching television when he fired the fatal shot. >> well, i knew that he was certainly suicidal.

his lawyer thought he was suicidal and that there had been a chance that it had been suicide. >> the .38-caliber pistol used in dr. sutorius' death was registered to mrs. sutorius, who had picked it up from the store just 24 hours before he was killed. it's the family plan families are flocking to. now at t-mobile, get 4 lines for just a $100. with unlimited talk, text, and up to 10gb of 4g lte data, plus devices like the galaxy note 4 for $0 down. we'll even buy out your family service contracts. so switch to t-mobile and get 4 lines for a $100 today.

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first impressions indicated that dr. sutorius' death was suicide. he was depressed, on anti-depressant medication, and he told friends he was considering suicide. mrs. sutorius said she didn't hear any gunshots from the basement. but the next door neighbors heard a loud bang from the sutorius home sometime after midnight on saturday. when forensic experts arrived at the scene, they immediately saw other inconsistencies. two shots had been fired. one into the sofa cushion. the other to the head. >> it is not uncommon at all for the person who is going to use this firearm to take their own life, to test fire the weapon first. to make sure they know how to use the weapon.

>> the bullet entered just above the right ear, and there was no exit wound. blood was expelled from sutorius' mouth and nose. but there was blood spatter on dr. sutorius' left arm, as well as both sides of his right hand. it appeared that sutorius' right arm was in his lap at the time of the fatal shot and not behind his head holding the gun. proof of this was blood found on dr. sutorius' right palm. if dr. sutorius shot himself, the handle of the gun would have prevented blood spatter from hitting his palm when the shot was fired. >> you've got the problem, if darryl sutorius fired the fatal shot at himself, his hand would have been back here at the time. and not in the position to receive the blood spatter. >> another discrepancy, blood on the front of the sofa in front of the body.

>> this blood couldn't have come from him, and then hitting the front of the couch, at let's say a 40-degree angle. it had to be flung off of somebody's hands. >> finally, there was the second bullet fired at the scene. it was possible that dr. sutorius had test fired the weapon before firing the fatal shot into his head. but the powder burns on dr. sutorius' right hand and on the sofa were on top of the blood. which meant the blood was there first before the second shot was fired. >> dr. sutorius most likely would not have been able to fire that shot himself. it was done by someone else. it is most logical that the hand was moved to an area where the second shot was fired, in an attempt to produce perhaps gunshot residue on the hands of the victim. which would then, in the mind of the shooter, make this appear

more like a suicide than a homicide. >> mrs. sutorius was the only other person in the house when darryl died. but what was her motive for murder? >> she had a $1 million motive. she wanted that money. he had a pension plan that her -- she was entitled to as his wife. >> if darryl had divorced her, mrs. sutorius would have only received an allowance of between $1,000 and $2,000 a month. $1 million is a powerful motive for murder. but perhaps the most damaging piece of information is what della's mother told police. >> her mom gets on the phone, calls the sheriff's office and assures them that darryl sutorius did not commit suicide, assures them that he was murdered and guarantees them her daughter is the one who committed the offense.

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della fay hall, also known as dante briton, was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of her husband, darryl sutorius. her defense suggested a killer was loose in the neighborhood

since a neighbor was brutally murdered a few blocks away three days after his death. but there were no signs of a forced entry in the sutorius' home. and prosecutors were convinced that the forensic evidence and motive clearly pointed to mrs. sutorius. around 2:00 in the morning, dr. sutorius was on the sofa in the basement watching television. his wife approached from behind with her .38 caliber pistol. she fired a fatal shot. blood from his nose and mouth spattered over his right palm, evidence that he was not holding the gun when it was fired. della then placed the gun in his hand and fired the second shot to make sure gun powder residue would be found on his hands. but the blood on his palm showed otherwise, as did the powder

burns on the sofa cushions, which were also on top of the bloodstains. during the murder, blood got on della's hand, which she tried to shake off. the blood hit the sofa from the front at a 45-degree angle. >> in moving dr. sutorius' hand and in moving -- and putting the gun into it, she committed some very fatal flaws to her defense that this was a suicide. you now have blood. she got blood on her hands and kind of flung it back. so now you've got blood spatter on the couch coming from the wrong direction. and it's down below where his legs would have been. and there was no scientific way to explain that from a suicide position. so she's got that problem. she's got blood going the wrong direction on the couch. she's got an arm where it shouldn't be. she's got blood on both sides of his hands where it shouldn't be,

and she's got smeared blood on a firearm where it shouldn't be. >> although dr. sutorius' death may have appeared to be suicide, the forensic evidence clearly pointed to murder. during the trial, the voice of dr. sutorius himself was heard in the courtroom. a message to his daughter left on her answering machine. >> don't call dante. don't talk to dante. just keep it between the two of us, please. please, i may not live through this. >> you could hear the fear in his voice that she's threatening to kill me. i'm afraid she's going to follow through on this. i may not live through this. please don't push this right now. >> a cincinnati jury deliberated for just over four hours before delivering a verdict.

>> we, the jury, find the defendant, della dante sutorius, guilty of aggravated murder. >> she was sentenced to life in prison and won't be eligible for parole until 2014. >> her own mother calls her a black widow spider. a fortune hunter who found her way to success by latching onto a successful man. >> noted crime writer aphrodite jones interviewed della in prison for her best-selling book "della's web." jones believes that when della heard about her husband's divorce plans, della concluded that murder was her only alternative. >> absolutely, della is a born killer. she is a born sociopath. she is somebody who views the world through her eyes only, which doesn't add up with the reality, the consensus of

reality in the rest of the world. in her eyes, the world is her oyster for the taking. and if she can't take it, she'll find a way to take it. there is no earning anything. there is no justification for anything. it's just all about her. >> the sutorius family cannot easily forget the years stolen from them through a senseless, irrational act of betrayal. >> he has wonderful children who are very accomplished and educated. and he would be proud of them. he now has two son-in-laws and two grandchildren who i think he would have adored, would have loved to have spent time with, and i think he would have come into his own in this part of his life, where he had accomplished what he had set out to do, and he could sit back and enjoy his accomplishments certainly with his children. and i'm very sad that he was not allowed to enjoy that and i miss

him. i miss him and we all miss him a lot. in 1998, a convenience store clerk in lansing, michigan was shot during a robbery. no one else was in the store at the time. but there was an eyewitness, a security camera. unfortunately, the story it told was far from clear. wanda mason was a 48-year-old single mother of three. she had worked in various cities across the country, trying with mixed success, to build a stable life for her family.