a bank analyst from new york, maria cruz, reported missing. >> from manhattan nearly a year ago. >> of all the capers and crime stories that i covered in three decades of reporting, dean faiello is in a league by itself. >> dean -- >> dean faiello. >> you asked me who dean faiello is -- >> a construction worker. >> a very heavy cocaine user. >> which dean do you wanna know? >> they may have solved a missing person's case. investigators believe dean faiello fled new york city. >> the plot thickens. missing man, missing woman. >> dean faiello was my partner. >> i thought dean was my friend. >> he demolished friendships, trust. >> dean faiello was an alarmingly good-looking man. >> very handsome. he looks like a doctor on a soap opera.

>> dean faiello is not a doctor. >> are you a doctor? >> yeah. >> dean faiello passed himself off as a dermatologist. >> he was a pathological liar. >> a narcissistic sociopath. >> the charisma of a cult leader. >> why would you be practicing medicine without a license, dean? >> he said he was a doctor? >> doctor. >> there's a lot of deans. >> he just left this huge trail of destruction. >> it is going to be an emotional day. >> it's a fascinating story. >> stand by. >> why have you decided to sit down and tell your story now? new york city. it has an allure, an energy that draws people from everywhere, especially people seeking success or to make their fortunes. one of them was dean faiello. >> for dean faiello, the lights of manhattan are just a river away. >> dean grew up in a traditional

italian-american family. >> dean is from one of these new jersey suburbs where, as people joke, all the children are above average. and he was. >> he was a smart guy. and he wanted to become an engineer. his fellow students voted him the most likely to succeed. >> dean gets accepted to a university to study engineering, but he drops out after just a few semesters. >> everything that was anticipated of him turned upside down. >> dean dropped out of college this was not a young man who went to hollywood. he didn't go to wall street. he worked construction. >> dean came out at a young age, and being handsome, alluring, charismatic, and seductive made him a star in the gay community. ♪ ♪

>> it was the height of the clubbing scene. thumping music, and packed with men. the walls are sweating. i had hundreds of men that were club friends. >> and dean faiello is one of those young men in the clubs that people whispered about. he was sought after. >> dean was a construction worker by day and a go-go dancer at night. he was living the gay version of "flashdance." >> the world was dean faiello's oyster. everybody wanted to be him or at least rub elbows with him. and then his professional life was about to catapult up as well. >> the thing that changed dean's life was when he started doing minor jobs in manhattan, and one of those that he did was some remodeling at a spa in the west village. >> the beach was this spa on an

iconic street in the west village called christopher street, literally at the crossroads of the gay liberation movement. >> it is an important and symbolic neighborhood. >> michael hart was the owner, and he saw dean and he wanted him. >> i laid eyes on him the first time, and i was like, whoa. and michael said, this is my boyfriend. >> michael hart's entrance into dean's life was if you suddenly found yourself dating george clooney. it was just that dramatic. >> michael hart made a lot of money from the beach. and the money flowed. michael and dean lived a very grand life. they had parties in michael's house in the hamptons. they went to broadway shows almost nightly, and then after

the theater, it was five-star, high-end restaurants. >> michael hart said, you can make more money taking off people's eyebrows than you're fixing up some house in canarsie. >> michael paid to send dean to electrolysis school. >> and that's where he was trained to do electrolysis and got certified in cosmetology. >> business is booming. he's working six days a week. he's raking in $100 an hour. the clientele is wrapped around the building. >> he actually saves enough money to buy a really nice older home in newark. >> it was a few bricks short of a mansion. a large six, eight-bedroom home that dated to the early part of the 20th century. it was famous locally as the

home of maria jeritza. >> maria jeritza was this very famous opera singer during the early part of the 20th century. >> and she was referred to as the golden girl of the golden age of opera. ♪ ♪ >> when maria bought this exquisite mansion with her husband, it was a party palace. by the time dean faiello bought this once-glamorous show place, oh, my gosh, it had seen far better days. but remember, dean's a contractor, and he's got a vision for what he wants to make it. >> dean was able to buy it at a deep discount with the idea that he could use his construction skills to turn it into something special. it was a much more house than you would have expected this young, clubby guy to be living in. and it was in newark, which was

not exactly the hamptons. >> by all appearances, dean and michael are just living the dream, but that dream is about to become a nightmare, because michael hart is dying. >> when michael got hiv, it quickly progressed to aids. >> seven years into this dream partnership between dean and michael, michael dies from complications related to the aids virus, this monstrous disease that had taken so many other lives. >> dean was at loose ends when michael died. it was like being left on the shore of -- of a deserted island in a lot of ways for dean. and he hated working at the beach now. >> his work is suffering. it seems like every aspect of his life is spiraling out of control.

>> that's when he saw an ad for dr. laurie polis'. >> laurie polis was one of the more prominent dermatologists in manhattan. >> dean went to visit her to see if he could do electrolysis procedures. >> and he said, i'm a certified electrologist and i have a big client base. dean came onboard, not as my employee, but as yet another independent practitioner within our soho medical group. >> that was a good arrangement for dr. polis. she could refer her patients who needed electrolysis to him, and he could refer patients who needed laser to her. >> at that period of time in medicine, in dermatology, lasers were exploding. and every year, new lasers are coming out. >> dean is fascinated by laser, the wonderment of the wand.

plus remember, this guy loves engineering. it's like a kid with a new train set at christmas. but five months into working with her, dean faiello drops a veritable bombshell. >> dean says, i have aids. >> he told dr. polis he was dying of aids, and he was going to go home to his parents in florida. >> we were stunned, of course. we were very sad. we threw him a little party. it was a very warm goodbye. >> but he didn't have aids. and he didn't have parents in florida. >> felt a sense of betrayal. i took a while to pick my jaw up from the floor. >> all of the people around him will pay a hefty price for dean's ambition. >> dean was way out of control.

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after just five months, dean faiello left his electrolysis job with dr. laurie polis, giving her the shocking news that he was dying from aids. >> two or three weeks later, i was flipping through new york magazine, and there was an advertisement -- skinovations, certified laserist,

dean faiello. >> laurie polis was mad. she was lied to. she gave him a lot of clients, and here he is setting up a place by himself. >> felt a sense of betrayal. i took awhile to pick my jaw up from the floor. and i felt a little bit of panic, because how was he removing moles and blood vessels? that's medicine. i called the health department, and they were very interested. but they admitted, at the time, they can only respond to a consumer complaint of a bad outcome. to their knowledge, there had not been any. >> he moves to an entirely new clientele on the east side, which if you know anything about

manhattan, cries, money, money, money, money. >> i found an ad for a place called the skinovations clinic in manhattan. this fancy building with a big brass plaque and a very nice receptionist with a french accent. in walks literally the best-looking doctor i have ever seen. very chiselled chin and these broad shoulders. i'm just completely dazzled by how good-looking this person is. i immediately have a crush on him. >> everyone was drawn to dean faiello. he had magnetism and a charisma that could not be denied. >> whenever dean walked into a room, all the heads turned in his direction. he was manhattan's adonis. >> i was in this kind of swank martini bar, and there was a mutual friend, and he had this

guy with him. >> and greg just swooned. >> they say he was almost a master at inducing infatuation. >> mm-hmm. >> his charm, his charisma it legend or was it a myth? >> it wasn't a myth. >> i told him that i was dating somebody at the time, and he had said to me, i can handle the competition. and the next day he'd sent two dozen red roses. >> greg had what it took to turn the great mansion in new jersey into showplace 2.0. >> the house was -- there's something, like, romantic about it. >> when you set eyes on it, could you imagine what it was like at its peak? >> i felt really invested in trying to restore it back to the grandeur of the madame's years here. >> greg was a sophisticated event and party planner, very successful in his own right. >> greg made the house grand. it looked like the first floor of macy's.

>> i put so much effort into decorating it for the holiday. the place looked so amazing decorated for christmas. >> they had legendary parties. somebody would walk in and sit down at the grand piano and play. and then people started singing. >> and it was all the beautiful people. >> all seems great on elwood avenue, but greg is starting to see some red flags. >> dean's behavir has become erratic, and greg is concerned. >> his office manager would be calling me at home, trying to find out where he is, because he's going to be late for his appointments. >> dean sleeps an awful lot. you know, his hours are so bizarre that greg started calling him "my vampire," because he seemed to live only at night. >> it's 1:00 in the afternoon, i can't get him out of bed. and that made me concerned about like what kind of sleep meds he

was taking and where he was getting them. >> dean clearly had an addictive personality. >> from an early age, certainly from his mid 20s, dean had a coke problem. cocaine. he experimented with a wide variety of drugs. >> greg is seeing another darker side to his partner. dean faiello is abusing a drug called stadol. >> stadol is an opioid. it comes in little spray bottle, and it goes up your nose, and it make you very high very fast. >> dean faiello is still playing dr. dreamy at the office, but in or out of the office, he is high on drugs, consistently in an altered state. >> a friend of mine who invited me to come with him to the musical, dreamgirls. i was in the lobby, and i see dean. so i made a beeline right up to him and i started to talk to

him. he's pale, he's kind of sweaty looking, his eyes are glassy. i mean, i know, clearly, he's high on something. so, the next day, i called the office. i leave a voicemail canceling my appointment. it was very disturbing. >> dean's drug habit is really starting to control him now, but somehow he's able to get a steady supply of stadol. >> it's 1998, about two years since dean told dr. lori polis that extravagant lie about dying of aids, and now she gets yet another bombshell. >> i was contacted by a health-care plan asking me why i was writing so many prescriptions for stadol. so, i said, i need to see this prescription. so they faxed it over, and it was for stadol.

it was my prescription pad. my signature was forged. but the crazy thing is, it was made out to dean faiello. >> dr. polis blows the whistle on faiello. dean is charged with felony possession of a forged instrument, and he pleads it down to a misdemeanor. he gets three years probation, and he goes to rehab. but to her alarm, faiello continues to treat patients for procedures that he is not qualified to perform. >> this is an order of magnitude beyond stealing scripts. this is basically impersonating a doctor. >> but he's about to be exposed by an undercover investigation and a very public accounting. >> dean, we wanted to talk to you about your medical credentials. why are you practicing medicine without a license? >> he didn't look like a con man, but in essence, that's what he was. >> i knew it was wrong, and deep down inside, i was afraid that something was going to go wrong.

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sometimes. it's not that bad. it is that bad. don't settle. get xfinity home internet for just $24.99 a month for 2 years with no annual contract and a free streaming box. my name is dean faiello. some people have told me that i'm charming, and i take that as a compliment. but there's also a negativity to that. and that is you can fool people and use them. that worries me. >> one person who said she was fooled and used was dr. laurie polis.

remember, he told her he was dying of aids when he left her practice only to open his own. >> and at that time, i'm hiv positive. >> but you didn't have aids. >> was i dying of aids? no, that was a lie. >> wouldn't it have been easier to just say, dr. polis, it's been great, thank you, but i'm ready to strike out on my own? >> no, i took the -- i was a coward, and i took the easy way out. >> by 1998, faiello's deception seemed to have caught up with him. he had pleaded guilty and was serving a three-year probation sentence for illegally using dr. polis' prescription pad to get his drugs. >> dean kind of escapes the worst of that criminal situation, but the time in rehab took a real strain on skinovations. and so in an effort to catch up, starts branching out. >> he begins expanding into things that only doctors are supposed to do.

he's certainly not licensed to use any type of local anesthetic, which he starts doing. >> meanwhile, faiello continues to advertise removing moles, spider veins, and dark spots, which experts say can be dangerous if the practitioner isn't a doctor. >> dark spots can be benign sun spots, a freckle, or it can be a malignant melanoma. and the darkness is the red flag it's raising to tell you, investigate me. >> this is basically impersonating a doctor. >> it's possible that some of those moles that you treated might have been cancerous. >> possible. >> but we would never know because you weren't trained to identify them and they weren't analyzed. >> that's correct. they did not get the proper treatment. i just -- i used them to make money. >> for dr. polis, this is a very alarming situation. she's made 54 calls to various agencies to alert them to dean's

actions, but he's still practicing medicine. >> it was frustrating, this dead end that i reached. and then it was a light bulb -- the media. >> jeane macintosh at the "new york post" and barbara nevins taylor of upn-9 both go undercover at skinovations. >> you've got two different journalists who both simultaneously are showing up posing as patients and asking him to do things that he should not do that he does. >> i made an appointment to see dean faiello, and i went with an undercover photographer. he told me that he could remove a mole here and a mole here. >> are you bothered by this one over here? >> this one? >> small one right there. >> would you take that off? >> if you wanted. >> he said that he could remove this with a laser, and he didn't say that he was going to do a biopsy. i might have had facial cancer, and he would not have diagnosed that.

>> at the same time, jeane macintosh gets similar treatment during her investigation. >> he literally just took a look at it, didn't do a biopsy, didn't ask me my medical history, didn't ask if i'd ever had it checked before or anything like that. >> having a laser and not knowing what you're treating is like having a gun in your hand. >> i don't see any medical certificates. i don't see anything like that. i asked him if he was a doctor. >> are you a doctor? >> yeah. >> i still wanted to make sure i heard it right. i asked again. >> but you're a doctor, so i can trust you. i don't have to worry. >> yeah. >> he even told me where he supposedly went to medical school. >> i went to university of medicine and dentistry in new jersey. >> and he's stoned, mind you. i couldn't report that at the time because i didn't have proof that he was stoned, but to me, he seemed stoned. >> i was not clearheaded at that point. thinking clearly.ly and not -

>> he built a whole persona of being a medical doctor, and people bought it hook, line, and sinker. >> it isn't just two new york journalists trying to catch dean faiello in the act. it turns out the attorney general's office of the state of new york has had dean faiello on its radar for some time. >> when the case came in, they knew he wasn't a doctor. so we know he was doing procedures that he wasn't -- not even that he wasn't licensed to do, he shouldn't be doing. >> at one point it's our team, the "post" team sitting there, barbara nevins taylor and her team, and this car with these two guys from the new york attorney general's office, and they were the investigators who were charged with looking into dean. >> dean, we wanted to talk to you about your medical credentials. why are you practicing medicine without a license? busted! >> barbara's story hits. my story hits. and then two days later, dean is

arrested. >> my boss called me. brian, he says, you're going down tomorrow and you're going to be arresting dean faiello." so we processed him, we walk outside, and here's another slew of reporters snapping pictures. >> it finally hit home. too late, but it finally hit home, the gravity of what i had done. >> dean is charged with three counts of practicing medicine without a license. >> after my report aired, i thought, that's it, dean faiello will be locked up. we prevented him possibly from hurting anybody. >> for about 15 minutes there, he has his 15 minutes of infamy. i mean, this should be the last time you ever hear dean faiello's name. right? >> dean faiello will not be deterred. he is determined to find new clients to treat, one way or another. research shows people remember commercials with nostalgia.

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maria cruz came to new york from the philippines to fulfill her dreams, her ambition. >> maria cruz is kind of an example of the best possible immigrant success story, the reason people come to america. she was a tiny woman, quiet, incredibly religious catholic. >> she was so devout that when maria first arrived in new york city, she lived in a dorm that was run by nuns. >> i met maria, actually, 20 years ago, because that's when i moved to the dorm. maria is kind of quiet. she worked in an office on park avenue.

how amazing is that? she moved from a residential place for women to her own apartment in a high rise on the west side. >> maria wanted to make the most of her appearance. she took great care with her skin and got facials and used products to help her skin's health, and she was very much aware of how she dressed, how she carried herself, and how other people saw her. >> who better to fit into that desire for maria cruz but dean faiello, who relished making people look and feel good? according to dean, she had some scarring on the inside of her legs that she basically wanted erased with a laser, and that's what dean says he treated her for. >> how many times did you see her? >> i would say somewhere between 10 and 15 times. we spent many hours during the treatment talking with each

other. >> how did she strike you initially? >> quiet and shy. but then i learned that -- that she was a very smart, successful person. >> maria cruz, like so many other clients of dean faiello, acted on faith. he played the part. he looked the part. he acted the part. they had no clue that he was not qualified to inject anybody with lidocaine or use a laser wand. >> did you ever tell her that these treatments are supposed to be accompanied by a medical doctor? >> no. >> she never asked. >> no. >> she trusted you? >> yes. >> but you're a doctor so i can trust you. i don't have to worry. >> well, yeah, i mean, you can trust me. >> why have you been practicing medicine without a license, dean? >> imagine what maria and other clients must have thought in

october of 2002 when the news came out that dean was not a doctor but was practicing as if he was. >> you were all over the news at that point. so what happened to all your longtime patients? were they not all almost simultaneously alerted that you were bad news? >> they were all alerted. amazingly, a few of them stayed with me. >> dean actually got out of all this with, you know, a pretty sweet deal. he was given a four-year sentence, but it was cut down to six months because he agreed to alert authorities to other people who were doing the same type of things illegally that he was. >> part of the stipulations regarding his plea agreement was that he had to close down his business and never do work with lasers again. >> dr. frank spinelli worked out of the same office building as faiello. >> to our surprise and shock, he showed up the next day. patients started showing up.

he had every intent of continuing to work. my boss had to threaten him by calling the police, but he thankfully went. dean had hurriedly taken the laser out, of course. >> finally, dean is forced to shut down skin innovations for good, but now he's not just a man without a practice, he's a man with no source of income. >> it got to the point where i couldn't even afford to buy food. i had to borrow money from greg bach to buy food. >> this is a turning point for dean, but it's also a turning point in his relationship with greg. he's out like $7,000 on bail, on legal fees, and greg foots it, because dean is in debt. and greg believes there's something there that's salvageable. he's not a bad guy. he's just broken. >> i was paying the mortgage. i was paying for all the home repairs. i paid up on the back mortgage. i paid up on the back utility bills. about like $85,000. coming up t-

>> greg was paying for everything. greg was chasing dean around the house with a promissory note, and dean wouldn't sign it. >> you owed greg tens of thousands of dollars at that point. other people too? >> yeah. >> people who loved you, who helped you. >> yeah. >> what does that say about dean faiello? >> that i didn't face up to my responsibilities, that i used people, that i didn't care how i hurt them. >> he has gone to new york, made it. he was the center of nightlife. he had become this practitioner in the beauty industry. he had lots of friends, a beautiful mansion, a handsome boyfriend. all of it crumbles right at his feet. >> for dean faiello, this was

hell on earth. it was a hell of his own building, but he was in a bad, bad, bad place. >> i had gotten to point where the demons were around me. >> despite his drug addiction, his debt, his criminal charges, his practice closing down, dean faiello is not going to stop. now he's taking everything underground, and that means he has not seen the last of his clients, including maria cruz. >> on palm sunday, she had disappeared. and i was very concerned. you thought this was going to end badly. 'tis the season to switch to verizon. they'll give you the new iphone 14 pro. (scrooge) amazing phone! (vo) this holiday season verizon gives you the new iphone 14 pro. plus an apple gift, like apple watch se, ipad and beats fit pro. all on us.

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in the weeks and months after his arrest, dean goes into a deep depression. the only career he's ever really had, certainly the only place he's ever made serious money, is gone. >> the cold reality is that dean is out of money. greg has been sustaining him as much as possible, but it's getting ugly. there's only one thing for them to do, and that's to sell the beloved historical mansion. >> i had no choice. i had to sell the house. i had lived in the house for 18 years.

i loved the house. >> he would be despondent and feel defeated and depressed. he didn't have access to that stadol. you know, i felt that he was using whatever he could get, like whatever street drugs, cocaine. he was unraveling. >> it's pretty clear that dean thought the only way he could get out of this hole was to make money. the only way he knew how to make money was to go back and do his procedures. >> where did those treatments take place during this period? >> at a friend's apartment on 16th street. >> and how would the word even get out to patients at this point? >> phone contact. me reaching out and letting people know. if they wanted to continue trea. >> it's just so beyond the pale. this was a back alley laser procedure. i mean, it's just bad on top of bad on top of bad.

>> it's april 13th, 2003. it is palm sunday, and for maria cruz, that means attending mass at her church, at her parish, st. malachy's. >> maria would have been one of the people in the congregation listening to the reading of the stript scriptures. i led the mass, you know? maria would have approached to altar to receive communion. >> she didn't show up for work on monday. her coworkers were worried. when she didn't show up the second day, the coworkers find an aunt who was the emergency contact number in new jersey, and the aunt called two of her sons. >> they went to her apartment and saw "wall street journals" laying outside of her door. and that wasn't like maria. "the wall street journal" was the next thing to the bible to

maria. and all her coworkers are very concerned. >> on tuesday, april 15th, maria's uncle walks into the 13th precinct in manhattan and files a missing person's report. >> the detectives were concerned because her uncle who came in was so concerned, that this was out of her normal course of behavior. a thorough search was conducted of her apartment and the building where she lived in. her apartment was meticulous. there was no sign of foul play. >> police are able to uncover more details of maria's activities on that palm sunday. they even find surveillance video of maria stopping by her office building to pick up some paperwork. >> we got information back that her credit card had been used in loehmann's department store on the day we suspected she had disappeared. she went to an atm and withdrew money, and we were concerned

that maybe she had been followed and abducted while she was taking money out at the atm. but we reviewed the atm video and there was no indication of that. >> maria's siblings flew over from the philippines. they started putting up flyers in the neighborhood. one of maria's uncles went up one street every day, putting up 500 flyers. every block got a flyer. manhattan was papered with those flyers about their missing loved one. >> parishioners came forward and then said, father, what can we do to help? i said, let's disseminate the flyer all over the city. >> everybody was upset as soon as we found out she was missing. we looked everywhere in the city -- downtown, uptown. it's like forever searching for her. >> at this point in the

investigation, our frustration is mounting. you're hoping for a break, for some kind of call from the public or some kind of tip, something that could point us in a direction that we haven't already looked in. >> meanwhile, dean faiello is over in new jersey still trying to sell his house, and he has, in fact, found a buyer. but there's a litany of repairs that have to be made, and his friends have all come in to help. >> when the real estate agent came and saw the house, she gave us four typed pages of stuff to be done. >> when you get ready to sell a house, they do an inspection and make a list of things that have to be repaired, and there were some repairs that had to be done to the sidewalk. >> well, i ended up buying between 30, maybe 35 bags of cement. >> one day right before the closing, greg notices that dean is out in the garage area of the

mansion and he's pouring a concrete slab. and greg's thinking, well, what is that for? >> just didn't make a lot of sense to me, so i walk up to him, like, what are you doing? he started screaming at me, you know, to get out of the garage, leave him alone, get out of here, don't come back. >> five months have passed since maria's disappearance, and the case has gone cold. but then detectives finally get the break they're looking for. >> so, we go to the manhattan district attorney's office to get a subpoena to access her email account. we were able to determine that she had made an appointment for the day she was missing to see a doctor in the vicinity of where she had last used her credit card, and we know that doctor was dean faiello. >> obviously, police want to find dean faiello.

the problem is he, too, has vanished. >> now they couldn't find dean. he's got a date to appear on court in october, but dean didn't show up for that court date. >> didn't tell his attorney. didn't tell the prosecutor. didn't tell anybody. he just doesn't show up. >> we have a connection to maria, who we know is dean, but we can't find either of those people. >> missing man, missing woman. and when detectives finally draw the nexus between those two people, the revelation is mind-blowing.

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>> lights and sirens, lights and sirens. >> when dean disappeared, everybody began to ask the questions of why? >> this once-handsome host of town has the law after him for practicing without a license, and then there's another matter of a missing client. >> we have a connection to maria, who we know is dean, but we can't find either of those people. >> how somebody who seemed to have so much going for them could have everything go so completely and totally wrong. >> now a fugitive on the run.

>> i'm going to the city and i'll see you later. literally never saw him again. >> this guy can be anywhere in the world. >> he's narcissistic. he likes to make a splash. >> he said he was a doctor? >> dean's whole adventure is crazy. all i can think is, "i have to find dean faiello." >> he's just bad on top of bad on top of bad. ♪ ♪ well, these are some pictures of me and dean. this is at the very, very end. we actually look kinda happy. you wouldn't be able to see the stress behind our eyes. now that i look back at these images, i mean, i just can't help but be angry.

>> dean faiello had everything -- extraordinary good looks. he has money, stature. he's got love. he's got a beautiful mansion. and this man takes all of it and chucks it over a cliff. >> everywhere dean turned was bad. he'd broken up with greg, but in a nasty way. he owed him $85,000. >> but now everything's coming to a head. >> you know, dean's legal problems from forging scripts to being busted for practicing medicine without a license -- >> it wasn't the destruction of the work that bothered me so much as my personal dissent into hell. i was terrified of who i had become. >> with no money and no business, dean sets up an illegal practice out of friend's 16th street apartment

in downtown new york, where one of his patients had happened to be maria cruz, the young banker who had gone missing. >> dean still is depressed and lethargic, sleeping all the time, and dean moves in with a neighbor. >> it's really like a picture-perfect suburb. >> yes, it really is and very quiet. >> and here's your old house. >> this is where i lived. not much going on. on the first day, it became a nightmare. he was the housemate from hell. >> i was a spoiled brat at times. i didn't want to do the things that i was supposed to do because i was getting away with what i was doing. >> dean eats all his food and starts wearing his clothes. and mark's like, dean, dude, quit with wearing my clothes. >> i even put a note on it, dean, do not wear my jeans. directly on top of them.

he had to move it to get the pair of jeans he had on. and so i was furious. and then all of the liquor was gone, all the wine was gone. and the noise. i had it. i had enough. he had a month to leave. he said, i'm going into the city, and i'll see you later. and i never saw dean again. >> meanwhile, maria's family is mired in this horrible mystery. where is their daughter? >> as the investigation into the disappearance of maria cruz continues, investigators' frustration is mounting. they ran out of clues, and they were hoping somebody would come in. the angry boyfriend, the person who saw something. something's gonna have to break for us to break the case. >> it's now september of 2003. summer has come and gone.

guess what else has come and gone? all of dean faiello's court dates. >> dean did not make a court appearance to answer for the charges of practicing without a medical license. >> there's a warrant issued for dean's arrest. >> so, i get a call from the bail bonds company telling me that dean did not show up for his sentencing. now i'm responsible for the rest of that bail. and i was so infuriated by the way i had been treated. and i was determined that i was not going to let him get away with it. i was going to hunt him down and hold him accountable for what he did to me. >> and now suddenly he's gone, and everybody realized, oh, we just thought we hadn't seen him because his life is falling apart. no, there seems to be something else at work. but for the moment, nobody could figure out what it was. >> it's frustrating for myself and investigators because at this point, we have a connection

to maria, who we know is dean. but we can't find either of those people. >> and when you find out where dean went, you go, of course. that's so dean. >> the phone rings. they said, is this dean faiello? i said yes. and they said, well, this is blah, blah airlines, and we're trying to fill when you might be coming back from costa rica. so now i know where he's at. >> was the plan to hide out? >> i can't say it was a plan. i just simply went to -- it was an escape.

>> so you first went to san jose, right? >> yeah, that's where i landed there. >> yeah, he went to the underbelly. >> let's get freaky. ♪ ♪ >> it was all, you know, nights and dancing and strippers. he was doing the same thing that he did when he was younger in new york city. >> i went to a few bars down there, but i really felt uncomfortable. so i looked for resort hotels and wound up in guanacaste, absolutely beautiful, on a mountaintop where i watched the sunrise and the sunset every day. then i went to the hotel and met somebody who was a manager there. he and his wife living in esparza. it got to the point where they said, this is ridiculous. you're spending all this money. you're at this hotel. so i decided to go live with him. >> did they know your backstory? >> no.

in just a few short months, dean faiello has managed to create a brand-new life for himself in beautiful costa rica. meanwhile, up in new jersey, brand-new clues emerged that may just lead to revelations in the disappearance of maria cruz. >> i find a gym bag. i thought, well, this is really odd. so i opened it. no two bodies are the same.

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♪ ♪ dean faiello has moved along, literally and figuratively. basking in the sun and warmth of costa rica with not a care in the world. ♪ ♪ >> i didn't have a plan. my intention was to enjoy costa rica. we had an expression, la pura vida, the wonderful pure life where you enjoy the beauty of costa rica. >> so did you lose yourself in that idea? >> yeah, it was easy to. it was too easy. >> dean fits right in in costa rica.

he's moved in with a local family from esparza. but he cannot hide from the collateral damage of his past. >> mark finally kicks dean out, but he leaves a bunch of stuff in mark's garage. >> and i find a gym bag, great, big gym bag. and when i pulled it open, i found a woman's purse. and i thought, well, this is really odd. why does dean have a woman's purse? >> i opened the purse, and i found maria's wallet, her driver's license, and all of her credit cards. >> maria is maria cruz. now, at this point, mark ritchey has no clue who she is or why her identification ends up in

his garage, t he sees a phone book. he calls three numbers. really doesn't get anywhere, and then decides, well, i did what i could. >> well, i thought maybe dean was using somebody's credit cards to buy drugs. and then i thought, well, maybe he's into credit card fraud. before i put everything back in the bag, i said out loud in the garage, i don't want to know. i really don't want to know. >> now it's the christmas season. greg bach is angry. dean owes him $85,000. he decides he's going to call brian ford, the investigator from the attorney general's office and find out, how can i get my money back? >> so, he calls me up and says, detective ford, i have some information you might be interested in. >> and we had a really long,

productive conversation. >> and at some point, greg says, it just doesn't make sense. this -- you know, this probation he's on, it's not that bad. why would he jump bail and just disappear? >> and brian ford, the investigator, says, well, maybe it's because we just went and asked him about a missing person. >> and greg asks him, "when did she go missing?" and he said, "oh, it was back in april 2003." >> and greg was like, "april, april, april." that was the first eureka moment. >> greg decides to share a rather interesting story. it had to do with a phone call with a mutual friend of he and dean's. >> dean had called him under really dubious circumstances that he had been treating a woman who went into anthropylactic shock, and he didn't know what to do. but i had understood that he had gotten her medical help and that she was fine.

>> a series of light bulbs began to appear over people's heads. >> maybe she didn't go to the hospital. maybe he is responsible for her being missing. and so in my mind's eye, i walked myself through every room of that house just trying to think. i had made mention to dean that, like, if you wanted to lose something forever, like, put it in the garage and you'll never find it. >> the second eureka moment came when greg was like, dean was building something, like a concrete block or a concrete slab out in the garage before they moved the house. >> and then it clicked about that concrete project. and it was like, is that where she could be? >> we can only see the front of it here, but it goes back further? >> yeah. that's where he was pouring a slab. >> pouring a slab?

>> mm-hmm. >> of concrete. he was strangely guarded about his garage project though, right? >> yeah. i was just curious as to what he was doing, why it was taking so long. but one thing that i hadn't realized is that there was a suitcase in the garage, like a black carry-on. but then i do remember having seen it the day of the cement project, and then not seeing it. >> he started thinking and thinking, and he put two and two together. >> my concerns was that my -- my hypothesis might be right. >> greg decides he has to sit down and write a letter to detectives saying he just might know something about a missing person. >> i had composed a letter to brian ford that i might have pertinent information as to the whereabouts of this missing person. it was a very tenuous moment, because i nigh, like, once i did this, there was no turning back.

i was really concerned about what i'd be putting into motion. >> mr. bach was very forthcoming with information. at this point, the break in the investigation we were hoping for. this, we hoped, was gonna lead us to solve the mystery as to what happened to maria. >> 20 minutes outside of manhattan on a beautiful tree-lined street in newark, new jersey, police have their eyes on a certain mansion, one belonging to dean faiello. >> when greg told us about the cement block and all that, we wanted to go on out there. >> we desperately would like to see what's in that garage and get a hold of dean. >> they show up at the house and show the poor new owners, hey, here's a search warrant. and by the way, we're gonna dig up a concrete slab in your garage. since i was a teenager the pain has taken me away from my family and friends.

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♪ ♪ it was a big house, a couple of stories, big fences around it, guest house in the back. it looked like an estate. before they started to

jackhammer, i said, look, i have to film this. so i turned the film on. and i said, go ahead. >> at that point, emergency services got jackhammers and shovels, jackhammered through the cement, the cement floor, and the cement foundation that he was building. >> once they broke the concrete, the smell of decomposition was very strong. >> you could see that they knew they hit something. and as they pulled apart the rubble and shoveled out the debris, one of the police officers reaches in, pulls out a suitcase covered in dust. opened the suitcase, and we found what were human remains. >> we begin with a woman's body found in a basement. police made the discovery in newark, and they say the remains may be linked to a bank worker who disappeared from manhattan nearly a year ago. >> at some point you had to figure out what to do with her

body. >> yeah. without thinking, i put maria in a suitcase and put her in my car and took her to my house. weeks passed. >> weeks passed? >> mm-hmm. >> she sat. >> in my garage. i was getting ready to close on the sale of my house, and in the garage there was a slab that had to be repaired. and, um, the idea came to me to make maria part of that slab. so i just can't believe i did it, but that's what i did. >> it was, like, really, really shocking. i was trying to convince myself that i'd been wrong and for it to come to such a dark and sinister conclusion was just, like, devastating. >> the decomposing body discovered at a home in newark is indeed that of maria cruz, a new york woman who had been

missing for nearly a year. >> when i found out, a lot of things hit me all at once. the extra cement i bought at home depot, the woman's purse. and i looked at the handle of that luggage, i said, "you son of a bitch." . it was the exact piece of luggage that i moved. i unknowingly moved that body. >> maria's family flew in. they had a memorial service. >> where is the justice of god? how come this terrible thing happens to a good person? it was a test of faith for the family of maria. >> the funeral was very sad, one of the saddest funerals that i ever attended. >> it was painful, and it also brought with that pain a sense of relief. now they knew they could bring her remains back to the philippines.

>> the discovery of the body obviously changes everything. dean's situation goes from being a year ago he was doctor quack to now suddenly he's the prime suspect in a murder case. >> my phone rings, and it's the city desk editor. and he's like, jeane mac, jeane mac, lights and sirens, lights and sirens. your guy dean faiello killed maria cruz. i stopped for a beat and thought, how would dean faiello kill maria cruz and how would this all come together? >> at this point all we know is that dean has disappeared. we don't know if he's in yonkers. we don't know if he's in miami. this a guy who could be literally anywhere in the world. >> this story has exploded, and all i could think of is, "i have to find dean faiello." >> so jeane macintosh has some good law enforcement contacts,

and she learns through one of them who did a passport search that dean has fled to costa rica. was, why are you standing here and why aren't you on a plane? >> welcome to san jose, costa rica. >> i wonder what dean faiello was thinking when he first touched down here in san jose 20 years ago. he couldn't pick a more beautiful country to escape to. ♪ ♪ we flew down to san jose to meet up with jeane m does it look like it did 18 years ago when you first stepped foot here? >> it's a lot more crowded than it's a lot busier. there are more people. i have no plan. it's just this big adrenaline rush. it's the thrill of the chase.

it's big. it's a country i have never been to, and so the only thing i could think to do immediately was go to the u.s. embassy. i just walked over to this guard station, and i said, hi, we'd like to see someone about a fugitive from the united states, this man dean faiello. he's wanted in new york for murder. they knew nothing. they said, look, we don't have any correspondence, any phone calls from new york to go look for this guy. so we can't look for him until we have a warrant. >> back in new york, the wheels of justice are grinding slowly. police are still trying to determine cause of death. jeane mcintosh is in costa rica, boots on the ground doing her own investigation. >> we just went from place to place showing his picture. we showed it in the public square.

we showed it at restaurants. we showed it at bars. we got lucky and we found this internet cafe. he was recognized immediately. they even said, oh, he's in here a couple times a week. i felt like we were really hot on his trail. we went out at night because i knew he liked clubs and gay bars. and we started going to those. we walk in the door with the picture. the woman says, hey! yes, si, si, si, si." and she's seen him, and he's been there. >> he's very distinctive, yeah? >> i think that dean would be incapable of going into somewhere and say, i'm just going sit here quietly in the coroner. he's narcissistic. he likes to make a splash. >> dean faiello makes an impression, right? >> dean faiello makes an impression, yeah. dean's whole adventure and what he's doing is just crazy in

juxtaposition to there's a dead woman under the concrete in his house. >> i would come back to the hotel in the evenings and i was trying to make a grid to just kind of centralize where he might be. people had seen dean, but no one had seen dean today or yesterday. it was maybe last week. i thought, i w left. and that's about the time that i started to hear that he'd taken off west to this town called samara. >> could you feel the net start to tighten? >> at that point, i was fleeing. >> and what better place for a showdown with police than the pool bar? >> was there a sense that you were just going to go out with a bang? welcome to allstate

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dean has been living pretty comfortably in costa rica for several months. now there's this news of the discovery of maria's body, and it's hitting the costa rican headlines. and dean is really feeling the heat. >> one day i went to check my email, and for some reason i

clicked on the news. i remember seeing maria's photo. >> the same one that was on those missing posters? >> yeah. the same panic and fear that i felt when i realized that maria had passed away, that returned. i just reacted and grabbed the stuff and fled. >> the dean faiello trail continues to a beach resort that's less than 100 miles away, but several hours drive because the roads are so windy. and we are going to go to that beach resort and see if anybody can tell us more about why dean would have chosen such a public place to hold up. you covered the reception desk. take me back to the first time you met him. i see one guy is coming to the reception. he say, do you have room

available? i don't care how must be -- i want to best room. >> he didn't care how much it cost. >> i think the guy is rich or the guy is crazy. i say, what are you do in united states? he says the doctor. >> he said he was a doctor? >> he said he was a doctor. >> my name is philippe. my family has owned this property for the last 30 years. we are now at villa number one. this is where dean was staying when he stayed with us. he wanted to have the most secluded villa in the complex. >> he was just in his element, having a great time, spending tons of money. >> he was known to be a big tipper. >> every time he give me $100 for the tip. >> $100 u.s.? >> yes, $100 u.s. >> he spends a lot of time sleeping, spends a lot of time drinking, and -- i'm going way out on the limb out here -- chasing a couple of pool boys. i mean, this was not a guy who overwhelmed with grief or worry. this was dean faiello at the

beach. >> what did you serve him? >> melon, coconut cream, and vodka. he's drinking, drinking, drinking. >> many drinks? >> many drinks. >> everyday? >> everyday. si. >> i believe that he knew his arrest was imminent, because he decide to come and enjoy the most of life at the time. >> it is a measure of dean's arrogance that while as a fugitive he didn't even travel under another name. he was dean faiello at this beach resort. >> you were spending a lot of money. you bought the best room in the whole hotel. was there a sense that you were just going to go out with a bang? >> yeah. i was on a suicide mission. i was just doing things to just enjoy the last moments. and -- and it was hedonism, pure hedonism.

>> we found out about dean through the local newspaper. our onsite manager called us in the morning and said, look at the picture. the guy is staying here in one of our units. he had committed murder. i believe my father called one of his friend, the lawyer vincenzi. they decide to come down and talk to dean first. >> i told him, you are going to be arrested in the next few hours, or a day or two. >> one way or another. >> yeah, exactly. >> did he seem nervous at all? >> not at all. he was very calm. he just got outside the pool, ordered his cocktail, and he was drinking it. >> and what happens next? >> almost like an hour or two hours later, the immigration police came up. >> what's the first visible sign to you that the jig is up? >> seeing police in flak jackets walking around the hotel.

>> after four months of living on the run, a day of reckoning has arrived. dean faiello is arrested by costa rican immigration police for overstaying his visa. >> in costa rica, they don't do what we do in new york. they don't do a perp walk. i said, look, since we couldn't see him arrested, could we have a perp walk. when they brought him back to san jose, sure enough, there was a perp walk with all the costa rican guys walking him into the jail. >> mr. faiello, do you have anything to say about the case in new jersey, the woman found in your home? >> i was overwhelmed by the amount of attention. there was lights and cameras and

flashes going off. that was a surprise. i wasn't sure what was going to happen next. >> we walk into the jail, and it was like really a creepy spot. th i said, wow, what kind of jail is this, you know? i said, you know why you're in here, right? he goes, yeah. i say, "we can't talk to you. but you -- you know what we're bringing him back for?" he goes, "yeah i do." >> new york city detectives want dean faiello back in their custody fast. but it's not going to be so simple, because dean faiello has another trick up his sleeve. avoiding triggers but can't keep migraines away? qulipta® can help prevent migraines. you can't always prevent what's going on outside... that's why qulipta® helps what's going on inside. qulipta® gets right to work. in a 3-month study, qulipta® significantly reduced monthly migraine days and the majority of people reduced them by 50 to 100%. qulipta® blocks cgrp a protein believed to be a cause of migraines.

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♪ ♪ we are in a small town about two hours from the capital city san jose called esparza. it was here that faiello lived for about three months with that couple he met earlier in his travels.

>> they were living in this house that was really run down. and so i found a nice place and convinced them to move and pay the rent. >> after dean's arrest, he spent months fighting extradition, but it was his time spent with that couple that gave his new immigration attorney an idea. >> the attorney i was working with went to them and asked them, would you consider adopting me? and they said, sure. >> did that not strike you as absurd? >> yeah, i thought, this is not going to work. they're younger than i am. but you know, at this point we were desperate. >> on its face, it seems to be a brilliant idea because there's a loophole in the extradition policies that if you're a citizen of costa rica, you cannot be extradited. so why not let dean get adopted? >> there's nothing in the law that says it can not be done. i said, okay, let's give it a try. >> hail mary? >> yeah, hail mary pass. >> so dean's attorney fought for

months trying to get the adoption approved. but ultimately, because the couple was younger than middle-aged dean, a judge ruled against it. >> then after it was turned down, i think two, three days later, they woke me up at 5:00 in the morning and said, get dressed, you're going. >> our detectives work closely with costa rica to get through the extradition process and eentually fly him back to new york. >> i didn't know what was ahead. but there was also a sense of relief that, okay, finally the truth is out. when i realized that they were going to charge me with a form of murder, the gravity of the situation took hold. >> in october of 2006, nearly three years after maria died, dean faiello stands before a manhattan supreme court judge and admits that maria had come to see him on that fateful day for a procedure. >> dean faeillo sat down with me

to reveal for the first time what he says are the full details of what really happened to maria that tragic late afternoon on 16th street when he says she came to him seeking laser treatment for scarring on her thighs. >> i know i was drunk and high during her final treatment. she was in a lot of discomfort, and it was a long treatment, and i used too many vials of lidocaine. >> and you're doing this drunk and high? >> yeah. there's no logic to it. there's no justification. i knew it was wrong, and deep down inside, i was afraid that something was going to go wrong. >> what was the first sign of trouble, dean? >> labored breathing. >> she was conscious? >> yep. but i didn't recognize that she was on the verge of going into shock. >> dean told me her labored breathing continued for about ten minutes before things took a terrible turn. >> she stopped breathing. i was working on the area, and i

looked up, there were bubbles emerging from her mouth. >> did you call for help? >> i delayed calling for help. i tried cpr. could not get her to start breathing again. >> had you been trained in what to do if a patient goes into shock? >> the proper training? no. >> dean takes the time to call another doctor, someone he knows, to say, this is what's happened. what should i do? >> an actual who doctor says, how about calling 911? how about taking her to the hospital? but he did neither. >> people can understand panic, the ravages of addiction. very hard to understand how you could not react by calling 911 or trying whatever you could to get this young lady saved. >> yeah, i can't understand that either. i can't. i can't give you a logical explanation because there is no explanation.

>> what was maria's posture at that point? >> she was completely limp at that point. i put my head on her chest and i checked to see whether she was breathing, and she had no vital signs. >> did you check for a pulse? >> no, i did not. >> do you even know how to do that? >> no. >> dean then described what he says he decided to do with maria's body after he believed she was dead. does the cover-up begin immediately? >> this is the scary part, as to how it was an automated reaction without thinking, i put maria in a suitcase and put her in my car and took her to my house. >> but obviously this requires deliberation. >> i don't think there was thinking involved. it was just reaction. i went upstairs to my room, and i just laid on the sofa. maria's body stayed in my car, i would say, for two days. i didn't know what to do.

>> soon there would be missing person's posters and an all-out effort by her family, her colleagues to find her. >> i didn't see any posters. i did get some voice messages. her sister called and left a message on my voicemail. >> you never returned those calls? >> no. >> what was it like to hear the voice of maria's desperate sister on the phone? >> horrible. absolutely horrible. >> on december 4th, 2006, dean was originally charged with murder and was able to bargain and plead that down to one count of first-degree assault and practicing medicine without a license. the judge calling dean's actions "senseless and depraved." he was sentenced to 20 years behind bars. >> you walk in through the gates of attica to begin a long prison sentence. what's going through your mind now?

>> fear. uncertainty. i had no strategy there other than to work on my education, to do something with my time there. so i read. i read voraciously. >> at this point, are you out of the grips of addiction and thinking differently, thinking clearly? >> well, the sobriety and the lucidity allowed me to figure out, okay, what am i going to do? >> what he did do was take all that time and use it to his advantage. he became a quaker, learned a lot about criminal justice reform. he began writing very intensive, pieces regarding criminal justice. >> you really threw yourself into the writing. >> gave me purpose. there was a hope that i could make sense of what i had been through. >> after all these years in prison, has dean faiello really changed? >> i started to think about it, and i realized that i haven't truly expressed my sorrow and my

regrets, you know, for what i've done, not only to maria, but to her family also. >> dean faiello now finally has something to say to maria cruz's family. (scrooge) bah humbug! my signal is totally ghosting me! (cecily) you need a better network. 'tis the season to switch to verizon. they'll give you the new iphone 14 pro. (scrooge) amazing phone! (vo) this holiday season verizon gives you the new iphone 14 pro. plus an apple gift, like apple watch se, ipad and beats fit pro. all on us. that's a value of up to $1900. (scrooge) wow! (vo) and there are unlimited plans for everyone starting at just $35 a line. it's our best deal of the year. get the network you deserve and the savings you want. only on verizon.

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after serving 18 years behind bars, dean was paroled just this january. his life is a bit more humble now. he's working as a maintenance man at a grocery store. dean, what's life like for you now that you're out of prison and settling back into the free world? >> you know what i love? is the simplicity. doing very simple things like going to the gym, coming back to my apartment, putting on youtube, and cooking. i think part of my mission now is to talk about, okay, what happened?

what led to it? and what i'm doing now to recover and re-enter society as a law-abiding citizen. >> what about people like greg bach and other friends? do you have plans to account to them? >> i am not refusing to account to anybody. it's -- unfortunately because of the magnitude of what i've done, it's a big task. >> long list? >> yeah, long list. but i have a lot of work ahead, and i'm not going to shy away from doing that work. >> i've heard dean is expressing remorse, but my immediate response is to just, like, don't believe anything he has to say. he's been released, and there's this understanding that he has paid his debt to society, but he hasn't paid his debt to me. >> is he back to his old tricks? saying something, one thing and

doing something else? 'cause i -- i wouldn't believe the man if he was sitting at this table. >> maria cruz's family can only be the ones to know if they would forgive him or not. what was unforgivable was his whole behavior and duping the public. >> do you wonder, am i still the man that did that thing? >> i don't think that i am the same person. i don't believe it. but i have fooled myself many times. and i have fooled other people. that worries me. >> i believe people can be rehabilitated. dean deserves a chance now. he's out of jail, and he has a life to live. what he does with that life is up to him. >> dean and i had several conversations about his journey, where he's been, what he did, and what he hopes to achieve.

one of the things that he said he wanted to share a statement . >> words cannot express the depth of my sorrow and remorse for causing the death of maria cruz. not a day passes that i do not think of maria or think of her family and why i acted like such a coward. i used more than the usual or recommended amount of lidocaine for the pain. she had a reaction, went into shock, and stopped breathing. i did not get her the medical help that she needed and she deserved. i panicked and i covered up her death. i hope that i'm no longer the person who took such a risk with maria's life. i get inspiration from maria. she was forgiving and supportive. and i like to think that she's helped me to transform and atone

for what i did, for what i did to her family, and helping me to become a better person one day at a time. >> when we shared dean's statement with maria's family, her sister responded. we have wanted to know what really happened on that fateful day for such a long time. this has shed light. i ended up crying so hard while reading this. the pain doesn't really go away. >> and that's our program for tonight. thanks so much for watching. i'm david muir. for fr all of us here at "20/20" and abc news, good night.

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