this is "nightline" -- >> tonight till death do us part? they married after a whirlwind courtship. her family says she had money and he was broke. >> please don't do this, mama. don't do this, please, mama, don't do this. >> they appeared happy together for a few years. >> until she had a terrible headache. >> her suspicious death was just the beginning. >> it made me wonder what else he lied about. >> she has been married six times and she is not the first he may have tried to kill. >> i felt like i was being poisoned. i really did. >> is he a cassanova killer? the real story behind this ex-wives club. but first the "nightline" five. >> wait, prilocec is not for immediate heartburn relief. zantac's different. zantac rushes relief in as

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good evening. a recently married bride dies a mysterious death. leaving her family at a loss for years. well tonight new developments

are pointing to her handsome doctor husband who has been married five other times and had another wife die unexpectedly. here's abc's jim avila for our series "crime and punishment." >> reporter: down on the gulf of mexico in the once sleepy lumber town in alabama, a dark mystery of sudden unexplained death. >> this interview is with michael allen. >> reporter: the husband who is not a suspect. the wife who died suddenly. >> do you know the cause of death? >> reporter: but was not murdered. unless she was. what do you think really happened, chester? >> i have to say this -- i think someone murdered my sister. ♪ >> reporter: shirley fell for the doctor, fell hard and fast, how do you do to i do in three months flat.

shirley wasn't his first bride, or second or third or even fourth. shirley was number five. some with tales to tell about their marriage to mike and more importantly how their marriages ended. to be fair, this was wedding number five for shirli shirley . in northern alabama, shirley's family the thomases wanted to be happy for her. but they could not. >> i didn't like him at all. i just have to admit that. >> reporter: shirley was sold on her new man. dr. mike as he was called worked much of his life as a chiropractor. adjusting grateful patients' backs in the nearby florida panhandle. smiling handsomely in health care ads in the newspaper and online. but money trouble plagued the chiropractor like a crooked spine and his financial problems troubled shirley's family because shirley had $1 million in the bank. >> were you worried about her money? >> yes, i was worried about her

money. he came into her life with the clothes on her back. >> he come into the marriage with a wore out pick up truck and a bunch of debt. >> her engagement ring from dr. mike, the wedding rings, the house they lived in, the family says, shirley paid it all. four years into the marriage something is wrong with shirley. months later, in a recorded interview obtained by "20/20," dr. michael would tell investigators shirley had been ill for weeks. >> she gets bad migraines, two, three times a year. >> reporter: the family says mike tells them shirley might have fallen down these stairs a few days earlier. while he was away. knocking down a potted plant. he later tells investigators too. >> i sat here with her mother and asked her, baby, do you remember falling down those steps because that plant was knocked over? she almost got irritatedly mad at me. she said i did not fall. >> myrtle and mike nursed

shirley through the weeken the they tried to get her to go to the doctor. but shirley keeps putting it off. mike gives her migraine medicine. seems to do a world of good. by sunday night. shirley is sitting up, eating, talking. >> shirley, you better lay down and go to sleep. that's the last words i said to her. >> the next morning, mike goes into the bedroom once again. >> she wasn't responsive. so i walked over and i turned on the light. and her lips were already blue. >> mike yells for myrtle. she is not breathing. call 911. >> steve brandon is a former fbi agent now a private investigator hired by the thomas family. he showed us around the house on camelot. >> so when myrtle gets in here, what does she see? >> she sees shirley on the floor. >> myrtle knows it is too late. >> i said, mike, shirley is gone. >> the family is heartbroken and a little baffled.

bewilderment turns to suspicion when shirley's daughter sharon finds an old newspaper article. it is a brief story about the sudden death of a young woman in gainesville, florida, in 1977. lynn, mike's first wife. the article says a 25-year-old woman apparently choked to death friday on a threat lozenge. sharon and the rest of the thomas family say they find two things strange about that. first, an otherwise healthy 25-year-old woman chokes to death on a cough drop. second, they say michael had always told them, a different story. he told them his first wife didn't die suddenly, she died a slow, painful death, from cancer. >> michael told us the entire time he was married to mama that lynn had leukemia. >> it made me wonder, what else has he lied about? >> what else has he lied about? for the answer to that question we take you to florida and the

suspicious fire in dr. mike's past. nearly 20 years ago. >> in the place of business, detected smoke. seen smoke. >> the lieutenant in plain clothes was a rookie patrolman back in the day. he says he found dr. mike standing outside his own office, just watching it burn. >> my first question was why didn't the doctor call the fire department? >> but that wasn't the cop's only question. >> once i approached him, i detected the smell of diesel fuel on the person. >> that was before they found the can of diesel fuel and a match and the suspected motive. he was flat broke, and after the insurance. the doctor was arrested. tried and convicted of arson. shirley's family is devastated. >> i intend to see that he is

dealt with and he can take that to the bank. >> a flicker of suspicion about what happened in the house on camelot court is now a raging five-alarm mission for what they see as justice. that is fully engulfed, three generations of the thomas family. and lead to two more of dr. mike's five wives. >> so i just get on the internet and start face booking. >> wife number two, paula says he never harmed her, but relentless sharon has tracked down yet another wife, number three t. gloria potts. >> hi. >> abc news was there when gloria met shirley's family face to face for the first time. she believes that toward the end of their marriage, michael was trying to poison her. >> i felt lake i was being poisoned. i, i really did. >> you got sick? >> sick. couldn't hardly move. >> then that's when i turned

around and told her, gloria, i can't believe you are saying this to me. i said mother has the had the same symptoms. >> the family of wife number five, shirley, wondered if dr. mike had been trying to poison her too. and you guessed it, here comes wife number four, diana. >> today's date is february 4, 2011. >>en a reco ein a recording, ins questioned the fourth stop on dr. mike's matrimony trail. the wife between gloria and shirley. >> i think the man is dangerous. >> near the end of her in the view, mike's ex-wife makes a chilling request. >> i will be honest with you. if something happens to you. he need to be investigated. >> now two more wives suspect dr. mike was frying trying to p them. one of them says, hold on, that's not all. wife number three, gloria, reveals, a terrible trauma she

says happened in her marriage nearly 30 years ago. she says dr. mike, the man who had always killed her with kindness, tried to kill her with a mallet. >> and i was asleep. and, he hit me in the back of the head with the mallet. >> with a mallet. >> yes. >> and -- all of a sudden the pillow went over my face. and his hand came under the pillow and covered my nose and my mouth. >> gloria says she escaped by playing dead and then running out of the house. >> you want to the hospital. >> i went to the hospital. >> we told them i slipped in the tub. >> did you ever ask him at any point why were you doing that? why did you try to kill me? >> yes. he told me he had gotten stung by a jelly fish, he worked in china. and that it was a reaction to the toxins. >> that's right. she says dr. mike's excuse for hitting her over the head with a mall mallet, the gel gjelly fish mad

do it. gloria told no one, not even the police. she had two children to think of. aside from the one incident. mike was never violent. >> beside the fact he tried to hit you with a mallet he was a good husband. >> other than trying to kill me he was a very good husband. >> reporter: when gloria told the family and police, this amazing tale of mike's allege add take no one knew what killed shirley. the autopsy was not finished yet. imagine the reaction when months later the family is finally given the results. >> i was shaking my head. i scant beliecan't believe this. cannot believe this. i can't believe this is happening. >> why? the medical examiner findshirle force head injuries. a hit to the back of shirley's skull, hard. that is what killed her. when "nightline" comes back -- >> so when you find out later on it is blunt force trauma to the head. >> then there is no question in

my mind that michael murdered this woman. murdered shirley. >> my mother has actually been killed. this man has killed my mama. >> but was it really true? stay tuned. 3 split maine lobster tails topped with maine lobster in a creamy white wine sauce! four choices, for a limited time, starting at just $15.99! everything's better with lobster! come in now, and sea food differently. everything's better with lobster! smoking with chantix. for 33 years i chose to keep smoking... ...because it was easier to smoke than it was to quit. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it's a non-nicotine pill. chantix reduced the urge for me to smoke. it actually caught me by surprise. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these, stop chantix and

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we return now to the mystery of a doctor married six times and at least two of his wives met a tragic end instead of a happily ever after. eight months after we first went looking for answer, you will never guess why he is finally under arrest tonight. here again is abc's jim avila. >> three people go to sleep in this house on a winter night in

alabama. only two wake up. the husband, dr. mike, says maybe his wife fell down the stairs a few days earlier. but no one, not him, nor her mother who was there, saw or for that matter heard shirley die. what happened? >> no better word, slammed my sister's head against a floor or something hard, fractured the bone in the back of her bed. dislocated her brain from the front of her head. and she died from the results of it. >> reporter: so is that possible? the toxicology report found no poison or fatal doses of drugs. and even as it makes clear the cause of death, the autopsy fails to answer the really big question -- the manner of death, how shirley got that fatal injury president? medical examiner writes undetermined. accident, homicide, can't tell. but there was an investigation by police and the alabama bureau

of investigation. it went on for a year. it resulted in a 184-page report to the prosecutor. >> i believe, i will go to my grave believing, that sometime between midnight and 7:00, he went in the bedroom and took her life. >> we tried to make an appointment to see the doctor to ask him about his terrible luck, how and why two wives had died early, sudden deaths and two others suspect he tried to poison them. but the doctor wouldn't see us. turned down our request for an interview. so we want to see him. we found him living in pensacola, florida, and not alone. >> what you are doing? >> the woman with him and threatening to sue as i beck pedal was known as lou ann. she had known dr. meike when shirley was still alive. the question is just how well?

>> i do believe he was having an affair on mother. the woman that he is now married to, i believe is the woman that he was seeing prior to mother's death. >> reporter: married to, that's right, lou ann now goes by the name of maggie. she is wife number six. >> are you currently in a relationship with anybody else now? >> i go out with people just to -- to be with them. >> reporter: her name had come up in dr. mike's interview three months after shirley's death when police asked about his love life. >> i have been to the movies with louann and i have actually babysat lou ann's two sons, not really dating, dating. i mean, i have, i see. none of them are dates per se. no. no. >> dr. mike denied the police that he cheated on shirley. but sharon says she believes it could be another motive for

wanting shirley out of the way. >> there is too many red flags with what i have discovered in reference to her. >> when we found dr. mike last year in a fast food parking lot, wife number six, was not happy to see us. but we did get to ask that critical question. >> that's all we wanted. all we wanted. >> did you murder shirley? >> no, i did not. >> when shirley met this man she had half a million in liquid assets. a home and 15 acres of land. >> what happened to your sister when the money ran out? >> she died. >> he told us back then he had no money was living on food stamps and couldn't afford a lawyer. but he need one now. just three days ago, police arrested the doctor for the murder of shirley four years after her death, eight months after abc news first broadcast the story that the doctor is finally behind bars. the family's private investigator told us today, that without the original "20/20"

report, he doubts that might ever have happened. if convicted, he faces a death sentence or life in prison. his court appointed attorney told abc news, that he will be acquitted for reasons it took the state of alabama to indiet my client and obvious that those reasons are not favorable to the prosecution. the family says they're ecstatic but are staying mute for now to allow law enforcement to do its job. but any time he need to remember, little brother ricky, drives up to that quiet spot in highrock and listens for the sound he has been missing. his big sister's voice. ♪ ♪ ♪ amazing grace ♪ how sweet the sound >> and some times just sit there and listen to her sing, amazing grace. ♪ ♪ >> it's still hard. ♪ home

our thanks to jim avila for the ground breaking report. let us know what you think. tweet us @"nightline." we'll be back. eating healthier,tion by drinking plenty of water, but still not getting relief? try dulcolax laxative tablets. dulcolax is comfort-coated for gentle, over-night relief. dulcolax. predictable over-night relief you can count on.

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city. the dynamic duo attracted gawkers as they seemed riding without a care in the world as if a get backpack is nothing to twice at. the goat is not the only one making headlines, this zip liner about to become the world's first base jumping dog. yep, making her debut this week, tail wagging suited up for a high altitude adventure with her well trained owner. the canine cruiser looks zen, turns to scenic sky fall high above the swiss alps. ah. there is noth like that feeling of the wind on your snout. some members of the animal kingdom sticking to the old-fashioned way of getting around. watch this mama jaguar struggle to keep up with her cub. scooping them up, one after another. when they just won't stay put. a good thing they're so cute. because they seem like quite a handful or mouthful. ah. that was painful. not trying that with my kids.

thank you for watching abc news. tune in to "good morning america" tomorrow. as always, we're online at abcnews.com. good night, america. have a great weekend.