>> david: a new year's eve slip and fall in a bathtub, or was it? >> deborah: an accident or something more sinister? "20/20" starts right now. >> that awful day, december 31st. >> you also see the last time she's captured on video, which is entering the building at

about 8:00 p.m. >> he sees his wife face down in the bathtub. >> shelly's baby-sitter said there's been an accident. shelly slipped and fell. i said, is she alive? she said, no. >> i heard she slipped in the bathtub and died. obviously that was beyond shocking. she was young and had little children. >> as a detective, you could understand why it looked like an accident. >> absolutely. >> your sister is 37 years old, pretty healthy. >> didn't make sense. >> there are somethings that seem inconsistent with a simple slip and fall. >> she said, i may need to drop my kids off. i'm afraid for my life. >> they don't dust for finger pri fingerprints or take any evidence. >> the family objected to an autopsy. >> without an autopsy, sometimes people get away with

♪ good morning, america, on this new year's eve >> it's december 31, 2009, and preparations are under way for the nighttime revelry expected in times square. >> in just a few hours, time square is going to be transformed into the biggest new year's eve party in the world. >> meantime, a mile and a half north, a tragedy is unfolding inside a manhattan luxury apartment building -- the unexpected death of a 47-year- old mom of two, shele covlin. >> there's a lot of shock at this upper west side address. shele was a healthy, vibrant woman in the prime of her life. >> i was living in the building at the time when i heard the tragic news that a young mother had lost her life by slipping in a bathtub. shele was an acquaintance.

i knew her from the lobby. she seemed like a very lovely person and very attentive to her kids. people describe shele as very warm and a really kind person. >> she's very beautiful, blonde, very petite. she's 5'4." >> how did you see shele, growing up as the older sister? >> oh, she was a great sister. she was very loving. she was fun. she was energetic. >> she was electric. she would walk into a room, and she would light it up. shele was the glue that kept us all together, really. >> shele was an orthodox jew. her religion was very important to her, and she lived a traditional jewish life. >> my father came from a very religious home himself, and we were observant, modern, orthodox family. >> after studying marketing in college, shele later develops a passion for numbers and begins to climb the corporate ladder of

new york's world of high finance. >> shele was very driven. she worked at merrill lynch with her family, her father and her brother, as a wealth manager. then they were recruited to ubs. >> what was it that made her so good at what she was doing? >> she was such an honorable person and a reliable person. in our business, to be trusted, to be a valued advisor is so important. >> in addition to her career success, shele was longing to start a family. >> you had found love and got married to marc. shele, in her early 30s, still trying to find that right person. what was that like for her? >> i'm sure it was very frustrating for her. she was looking for mr. right. she wanted to be married. she wanted children. that's what she wanted. >> i met shele february 15th, the day after valentine's day, in 1998 at a jewish singles party at a place called le bar bat. >> we started chatting and we

hit it off. >> what was it about her that sparked interest for you? >> she was smart. we wanted the same things in life. it was just an instant connection. >> they met and just fell head over heels for each other. >> he was a much younger man, 6'2", good looking, blue eyes, solid muscle. and he completely swept her off her feet. >> they had this whirlwind romance, even though there was this significant age gap. he was 25 at the time. she was 36. >> she called us probably around 11:00. she was giggling and she said, i met a guy and we're flying to las vegas to elope. and i said, oh, my god, s please don't do this. please don't do this. >> he said he met this most wonderful woman in the world and -- >> he proposed marriage that night. >> rod is a graduate from

columbia university with a degree in civil engineering and he lavishes shele with attention. just six weeks after they meet, rod and shele are engaged. >> so he was smitten? >> he said she's terrific. and i guess she felt the same way because they got married within six months. >> early on, things were fantastic. we did everything together and we enjoyed each other's company very much. >> they moved into a very nice apartment in the dorchester towers on the upper west side. >> it's located in an affluent area just blocks from lincoln center and central park. this is the same neighborhood serving as a backdrop for "only murders in the building," the popular hulu series about a trio of true crime fanatics intent on solving a murder in their own building. >> i don't lock my door. never have. >> that's insane. >> neighborly. >> i mean, a murderer probably lives in the building. >> i lived in the dorchester for 15 years.

24/7 doormen. i felt very safe there. >> it's a very family-oriented part of manhattan. >> shele's younger sister knows that she desperately wants to start a family. >> she didn't get pregnant right away. she was in her 30s, and so she knew she just wanted to go straight to ivf. and the first one worked. >> they have a baby girl, anna. >> how happy was the family? >> everyone was thrilled. >> she was elated. she loved being a mother. >> when we finally had anna, it was fantastic. i always made her birthday cakes for her parties. we did science projects together. it was great. i taught her how to make balloon animals. we would go to the playground. she would make balloon animals for the other kids. >> rod and shele want to expand their family, and soon she's pregnant again with twins, but there are complications. the babies are born prematurely at just six months.

>> she delivered them and one died at birth and the other one died several hours later. >> how did that impact her? >> she was devastated. she really was. >> that heartbreak had to be tough on the marriage. >> it was. >> how did that affect your son and his wife? >> they were all very, very upset for quite a while. >> a year and a half later, shele gives birth to a son who they name miles. >> this is the four of them. >> oh, that's very sweet. very, very sweet family. >> she had her girl and she had her boy. >> and the family was happy for her? >> very. >> absolutely, yes. >> did the happiness return to the marriage? >> initially, sure, but i think that it unfortunately didn't change things for very long. >> i think at that point the

marriage was deteriorating. rod had barely worked at all. >> he always had a bit of difficulty with steady employment. he was a stock broker at one point. that didn't quite work out. >> she really would have loved to have stayed home and be with the kids, but she saw that was not in the cards. i mean, he couldn't hold a job. >> and just as shele and rod's relationship seems to be crumbling, her family says he makes her a shocking proposition. then developers will have to write code. a lot of code. if an application needs to be modernized then you'll need time, resources... and caffeine. if this sounds daunting then use watsonx code assistant ai designed to multiply developer productivity so you can generate code quickly. let's create a more modern foundation for business, with watsonx code assistant. ibm. let's create. the target clearance run is on.

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backgammon is not simply a matter of shaking the dice. it's how you use a particular roll that you get. and it appeals to people who are very mathematically minded. >> what was it about the game that attracted you? >> there is plenty of math, and there's a lot of deep thought

required, which, again, is very surprising given the fact that there are dice involved in the game. >> fair to say it became an obsession? >> i don't think so. i think i'd say a passion. >> rod spent a lot of his time and whatever money he was making on his dream of becoming a professional backgammon player. >> backgammon's rod's main focus, so shele's the major bread winner in the family. and according to her family, it takes a terrible toll on their marriage. >> whenever we would have family gatherings, he would sit on the side and either play backgammon on the computer or have a game going. >> he is online at all hours, pulling all-nighters, and just constantly reaching out to women. >> were other women starting to catch your eye? >> sure. i definitely dated. >> even though you were married? >> correct. >> so you began to see other women? >> i did. i did.

>> rod often liked to take his dates to a place called lure fishbar. it's an upscale restaurant in lower manhattan known for its yacht like interior decor. >> he went on dates with numerous women. he favored this location because i believe he said, quote, they have yummy drinks. >> as shele and rod approach their 10-year-wedding anniversary, their marriage unravels. >> she discovered that rod was having an affair. it wasn't just one affair. it was several. he had left up an email from one of the women, and so that's how she found out. >> at a certain point, there probably wasn't very much love between shele and me. we were, i guess, out of love and we had two kids. >> yet shele doesn't say anything to rod at the time, and the couple celebrate their ten-year wedding anniversary. shele tells her sister that's when rod makes a stunning proposition. >> he said to her he wanted to

have an open marriage. he still loved her, but wanted an open marriage. >> ten years after they've been married? >> yeah. >> how did she respond to that? >> oh, she was disgusted. she said, this is not okay for me, and it's not okay for my children to see it, that anybody should be treated like this. >> here's a traditional jewish woman, and her husband wants an open marriage. and she swiftly rejected the idea. but that really caused a lot of problems. not long after that, he returned home at 6:00 a.m. smelling of perfume. >> a few days later, shele tells her sister eve that she has gotten fed up with rod, and writing in an email, i confronted him about my suspicions of him being with other people, and he confirmed and admitted to cheating. >> in march of 2009, shelly

contacted me. she just wanted to get an idea of what her options were, how she could protect her kids, how she could protect her future and really prepare herself for the next step which would be actually filing for divorce. >> shele doesn't move forward with the divorce at that time, but her family says that her husband's cheating and his constant absences were becoming unbearable for her. >> he was having these affairs. she just didn't want to be anywhere close to him. he came up with the idea that he would leave the apartment if she would sign the lease next door. >> the apartment across the hall became available, and the kids wouldn't have me out of their life any more than was absolutely necessary. so there was always this thought of doing what was best for the kids from both of us. >> i did not feel it was the best idea having them in such a close vicinity to each other, but shele thought it might provide a little bit of consistency for the children. >> she loved her children and that was what she lived for,

anna and myles in every fiber of her body. she loved them. >> in april of 2009, even though they're separated, rod and shele take their kids to new jersey for the week-long jewish holiday of passover. they stay in the same hotel but in different rooms. >> the four of them had gone away for passover week together and rod left midway through the holiday. >> he leaves his family to head to las vegas with another woman to attend a backgammon tournament. >> though they're no longer together as a couple, shele's family says rod is still incredibly demanding of her. >> when he came back and shele had come back from passover, his suitcase was not unpacked and his laundry was not done. he flew off the handle.

and, mind you, he was already living in the apartment across the hall at that point. she called me absolutely weeping. >> he expected her to unpack his suitcase. >> good morning, america, and happy mother's day to all the special women in our lives. >> on mother's day shele organizes an outing with rod's family hoping to maintain a relationship for the sake of the children. >> they had gone to the botanical gardens as a family, together with his parents. in public, rod went into this major explosive temper rage and was just screaming at shele. he was calling her every ugly name in the book. >> in front of the children? >> in front of the children. that's when she communicates with me and says, i may need to drop my kids off by you. i'm afraid for my life. >> she was texting me and calling me frantically.

it's hitting the fan. said he's going to move back into my apartment and kick me out. at botanical gardens. ready to proceed. she followed up with a, what should i do? >> that's the last straw for shele. she decides to file for divorce. >> she changed the locks immediately once she knew that the papers were being served on him, his divorce papers. >> rod had pretty standard visitation with the children. he was seeing them on a regular basis. >> but soon there's a fight over custody of the children. >> this is where it really gets extremely ugly. one night, when rod is supposed to return the children, he doesn't show up. shele is in a panic. >> every possible horrible thought was going through her mind. we don't need! bloated bundles, the reckless spending! no more... (mom) that's a bit dramatic... a better plan is verizon. it starts at 25 dollars a line. (dad) did you say 25 dollars a line? (sister) and save big on things we love, like netflix and max!

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charming, intelligent, funny in a quirky sort of way and he was a good backgammon player. >> it's the fourth of july

weekend in 2009. shele has already filed for divorce and rod is now in michigan at a backgammon tournament. here he runs into another backgammon player named debra, who he had become facebook friends with. debra asked "20/20" not to show her face during in our interview. >> it never occurred to me that he would be attracted to me. i'm lot older than he is, but when rod wants something, you know, he -- he can be very -- he can very aggressive. the first time we met, you know, asked me out for a drink, asked me if i wanted to play a couple of games. after we walked back to the hotel, you know, went to his room and i went into the restroom. when i came out, he was, like, nude from the waist on down, and he came -- like, came at me. and, i mean, i didn't say no. >> he begins the relationship with debra oles. she's a woman from north carolina and about 14 1/2 years his senior.

>> he said he had been separated for -- i think he said seven months at that point, and she had filed for divorce. to me it was what you hear of, like, a typicaldivorce, custody battle. >> but after rod comes back to new york, things take a dark turn during a scheduled visit with the kids. >> one night, when rod is supposed to return the children, he doesn't show up. >> she called me and she was frantic. she said -- i said, is everything okay? she said, no. i don't know where my children are. rod was supposed to return them. he's not answering any text messages. he's not answering phone calls, and i don't know where they are. >> shele is in a panic. she's beside herself. she calls the police. she calls hospitals. she doesn't know what to do. >> shele has no idea where rod is. all attempts to reach him go unanswered and she is desperate. >> i received frantic phone calls and emails from shele. she was crying.

she was extremely concerned that something really bad had happened. god forbid there was an accident. she thought maybe he fled with the children. every possible horrible thought was going through her mind. >> but in reality what had happened was something shele couldn't have even fathomed. it turns out rod had taken the children to a nearby hospital claiming that his wife had sexually abused their 2-year-old son, myles. >> at 1:00, 2:00 in the morning child protective services got involved, and they were up at columbia presbyterian. >> acs was interviewing them to make sure that there were no concerns about their safety. until all these interviews and medical examinations were done the children were not returned home to her. >> there was an investigation. it was determined that there was just no basis for this at all. >> this was getting ugly. >> she said, his hatred for me is stronger than his love for his children.

>> we immediately began to draft an application to suspend all of rod's visitation based upon his behavior. >> this really backfires on him. the judge is so outraged that she now says, you can only visit with the children now with the supervision of someone else. >> you had to be present for him to see the children. >> they had to be supervised after he took them to the hospital. >> despite the custody issues, as the months go by, shele seems to be finding herself again. >> though the divorce wasn't legally finalized yet, rod offers shele a religious document called a get, which terminates the marriage under jewish law. >> the get allowed her to start dating and so she started to get out there.

she was on jdate and just meeting other men. >> shele also begins meeting friends at the friar's club, a private gathering spot in manhattan that's known for those televised celebrity roasts. >> the friar's club has a long and distinguished tradition of paying tribute to the very finest entertainers in our nation's history. tonight they've broken that tradition and are honoring jerry stiller. >> this whole new chapter of her life was opening and she just looked really, really great. it seemed as though she were very excited about her future. >> were you starting to see a different shele? >> yeah, a lot more of the old shele. it was like this really bright light and it was showing again. >> after being dimmed for so long. >> yeah, it was sparkly again. >> was she happier from what you could see? >> i think she was hopeful, yeah. >> hopeful. >> by the end of the year, how was she? >> she seemed fine. getting on with things. she was just on the phone with work.

another call coming in was a fellow she was dating and things were good for her. things seemed pretty good. >> so it looked like she was about to get this divorce and move on with her life? >> exactly. >> but on the morning of new year's eve, shele's 9-year-old daughter makes a gruesome discovery. >> rod says his daughter called him very distraught, said, something's wrong with mommy. it's here - kohl's biggest clearance event of the season is back!

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it's the morning of new year's eve 2009. rod covlin, who's living across the hall from his estranged wife, says he gets a frantic call from their 9-year-old daughter anna. >> i got a call from anna in the morning and she stuttered out something about mommy and the

she was distraught, clearly distraught. >> and he rushed across to the apartment. >> and he told her to let him in. he said he came into the apartment. >> inside rod says he heads into the bathroom and finds a horrific scene. >> shele was floating in a pool of dark water. >> bloody water? >> yeah. i grabbed her. i pulled her out. >> he says that he pulls her out. then he eventually calls 911 and they tell him to perform cpr on his wife. >> on surveillance footage you can see members of the new york fire department arrive, followed by paramedics. >> he continues to do cpr until ems arrives. they come in and pretty quickly

say that she's -- she's gone. she's been dead a significant period of time. >> i get to the scene. i walk back to the bathroom. i observe the victim, shele covlin, lying on the floor. there was a blanket over her. there was bloody water in the tub. >> above the bathtub there's a cabinet door. when the police come in, the cabinet door is halfway off its hinges. >> rod tells the police that he thinks his wife had a terrible accident. >> that awful day, december 31, 2009, how did you get word that your grandchildren's mother was dead? >> rod called us. i have never ever before or since seen my son in that state of mind. he said, they told me i had to keep doing cpr until they got

there, and i did it. >> how distraught was rod? >> horrible. >> he was completely and totally -- i've never seen him out of it before. >> that morning shele's nanny arrives and is stunned to learn of her death. she immediately reaches out to shele's sister, eve. >> i got a call from shele's babysitter. she said to me, there's been an accident. shele slipped and fell in the bathtub. i said, rose, is shele and she said, no. and i just had this involuntary scream that came out and just extreme grief. >> eve had said that there was an accident. i think i didn't believe it when i heard it. i just wailed. i just cried. >> your sister is 47 years old,

pretty healthy. >> it didn't make sense. >> it could have been a slip. it could have been a fall. she had bruising to her face, like, a scratch mark and some bruising to her hand. it didn't really look consistent with a fall, but a lot of people fall in the tub and die in new york. i wanted a second opinion. so i called over to the homicide squad. i asked detective mooney to respond over. >> my boss called and said, can you meet me at this address? the 2-0 has got a suspicious death. i walked down the hallway to where her body is, but i -- i'm paying attention to what the rest of the apartment looks like. it's clearly a lived in apartment where there's two little kids that are there. and i get to her bedroom and i can see that there's some disarray in there.

the bed is certainly not it doesn't even look like anybody was really sleeping in it. this is because he took -- rod took the top sheet and the comforter off the bed to drape over her body because he didn't want the kids to see her is what he said to us. >> anna was standing there with myles, and anna was trying to shield myles. i was trying to shield anna. it was a nightmare of a scenario. >> did you get to talk to anna? >> i got to sit in on her interview with one of the detectives. >> they started questioning her. she told them that mommy had tucked the two of them into bed, in her bed. >> she said that she woke up at either 1:00 or 3:00 in the morning. she doesn't really remember. >> heard the bath running, went in and looked and saw her mother in the tub. >> she thinks her mother is washing her hair. so she goes back to sleep. when she wakes up at 7:00, she

goes back and she sees her mother is still in the bathtub, though this time her head was submerged. so that's when she said she realized something was wrong. >> rod opined that she must have been standing in the tub and slipped and grabbed this cabinet door and yanked it out and fell down and hit her head and then drowned in the bathtub. >> the detectives had no reason to believe that it was a crime scene. there's nothing there that would say, hey, this wasn't an accident. father/daughter story matched up. and looking at the scene and listening to what the husband had to say, it made sense that she accidentally fell. >> they have a crime scene guy come and take pictures, but they don't take any forensic evidence. they don't dust for fingerprints, take any dna evidence at this time. >> this was pretty much of an airtight surveillance system that was set up on that

building. so this eliminates any possibility, in my opinion, of a str stranger having come in and done this. >> you're a private investigator, but you were a detective with the new york city police for 16 years. the thinking was that she maybe grabbed for the cabinet. so as a detective, you could understand why this did look like an accident. >> absolutely. it would've been obvious if there were gunshot wounds, stab wounds, some type of ligature mark around the neck, something that would indicate that this was anything other than an accident. none of that was present. >> the water in the tub, though, is bloody. why would it be if there was no sign of any foul play? >> if she accidentally slipped, fell, landed face-down in the water, over the course of time after you pass away, blood pools. gravity pulls it down. the blood would start to seep out through the nostrils and discolor the water.

>> no forced entry? >> i looked at the lock photos. we had no forced entry, no stranger in the apartment. >> no sign of a struggle in the house? >> no sign of a struggle. i mean, just a normal apartment. >> she's got two children in the household. presumably they would've heard if there had been something that happened. >> that's correct. the 9-year-old daughter had a very consistent story with rod covlin's story. >> i need to do an investigation to try to figure out exactly what happened. but until i had anything concrete, i had to go with an accidental fall. >> but there's a big problem. before detectives can determine what exactly happened to shele, the scene would be scrubbed clean. ♪ whoa! the new iphone 15. with that amazing camera. i wish my family had them. zoe! you're an action star... take action! join t-mobile and get four new iphone 15 on them, and four lines for $25 bucks a line. with that camera, i'll be sharing pics from the slopes.

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as shele's family grapples with her death, they can't understand how a day that started like any other could end in such a tragic way. >> december 30th day, she has a ha to her home to give her a keratin treatment, which is a hair straightening treatment.

there's surveillance video in the building and you actually see her leaving for work at 11:00 a.m. after her keratin treatment. >> at around 6:00 p.m. shele leaves work and heads to the friar's club. >> hangs out for a little bit. chats with some friends and then she goes home to see her children. >> you also see the last time she's captured on video, which is entering the building at about 8:00 p.m., talking on her cell phone. >> shele says goodnight to her nanny and apparently begins helping her daughter anna with her homework. >> one of the last google searches on her computer was for long division. she goes online onto jdate at one point to see if she has any messages. that's the end of her online activity. >> the morning after, anna finds her mom's body in the

>> shelly danishesky covlin, a 47-year-old mother of two, found dead. >> i pretty quickly heard that she had slipped in the bathtub and died. obviously, that was beyond shocking because she was young and she had little children. i had two little kids as well and i quickly ran out and bought non-stick bath mats for the tubs. the thought of something like that happening to my kids or to myself was really, really a scary thought. >> i don't think they had a rubber mat in the bottom of the tub. >> it could have been just a tragic accident. >> yes. >> but to police there are some things that seem inconsistent with a simple slip-and-fall. >> i look at her body and i see things that are suspicious to me. she has some scrapes, but i didn't see her the day before. whatever they are, there are questions that need to be answered and those questions can be answered by a pathologist.

>> shele's body is taken from the apartment to the medical examiner's office for further examination. >> so, once the detective left the scene that day, the door is being guarded by a police officer. i mean, it's still technically a potential crime scene. it's being safeguarded. during the time that the officer was there a member of a religious organization showed up. >> we have an organization that helps families in time of need. in the jewish custom it is customary to collect all bodily fluids to be buried with the deceased. the same way that god put you on this earth is the same way you should go back to god. >> remember, shele's family belongs to a form of judaism called modern orthodox and this is one of the practices they observed. >> shele's rabbi reached out and called us that there's a cleanup that has to be done. i went down to the apartment. there were police officers there.

they allowed me in. >> he was let in at some point, which i had no idea about. >> more than likely, had i still been at the scene, i doubt very seriously that i would have allowed him to go in there. >> the bathtub was the bulk of where i had to clean up. i was in the apartment that evening for approximately an hour and a half, two hours. >> the notion that a scene is cleaned up so quickly due to religious reasons, have you seen that before? >> yeah, absolutely. i've investigated, you know, many jewish natural causes deaths, accidental deaths, and this is common. this is part of their religious belief. all parts of the body have to be buried with the body, whether it's blood, tissue, hair. whatever might be there it gets cleaned up and it all gets buried with the body. the body gets buried whole.

>> meanwhile, down at the coroner's office the medical examiner dr. jonathan hayes had just finished conducting an external examination of shele's body when he receives a call from shele's family. >> we called the medical examiner who at that point wasn't sure. he'd only had a cursory look at shele. so, we asked him, how does a healthy 47-year-old woman suddenly die like this? tell us. what could have been cause of death? he said, i don't know. could have been a fall. it could have been a heart attack. it could have been a drug interaction. it could have been any one of those things. the only way we would know is by doing an autopsy. >> the medical examiner, dr. john hayes, would later say that as he's about to make his first incision, he's told to stop. >> the family initially wants an autopsy, but then the jewish official who'd cleaned up the scene calls them. >> and this individual had called me and said, listen,

i heard that the family are looking to do an autopsy. it's a terrible mistake. it's a terrible mistake because i've just come from the police and i spoke to the medical examiner and both of them said it's an accident. under jewish law, if it's an accident you can't do the autopsy. >> by that point, dr hayes' boss, the chief medical examiner, had determined there wasn't enough that was suspicious to warrant overruling a religious objection. >> if there's no autopsy, then there's nothing really for the m.e. to do and to be able to say there was a cause of death. >> no. the medical examiner, without conducting an autopsy, can't assume anything other than whatever the police say. >> the family objected to an autopsy. shele was buried. after the body's buried, we kind of slowed down because we really didn't have a cause of death. >> an accidental death has no meaning to the homicide squad. we've got plenty of other work to do. you know, there was no reason for me to continue with this. so i just went about my business.

>> the children had been living with shele during the couple's contentious custody battle. the question now was where would they go? >> initially we had thought we were going to be taking temporary custody of the children. >> the police officer in charge said the children had to go home with the maternal aunt and uncle. upon hearing that news, anna threw the mother of all fits. >> she wanted to stay with her daddy. >> she wanted to stay with her daddy. >> unbeknown to us,the covlins, that's rod and his parents had called child protective services. >> the woman from child protective services said, sweetheart, who do you wanna go home with? anna raised one hand and pointed at me and raised the other hand and pointed at my wife and she said, those grandparents. >> the bottom line was that the children were assigned or given to the senior covlins.

that's where they were going to live. >> a week after her death, shele's family goes to the funeral home to pick up the death certificate. >> and when they read it, that's when everything changes. >> i open the envelope to look at a death certificate and i see the cause of death is listed there as undetermined. and my heart lost a beat. >> we were absolutely stunned. i mean, we buried her based on the initial thought that it was an accident. >> i hate to say this, but without an autopsy sometimes people can get away with murder. >> the family sees only one way forward. they need to exhume shele's body. >> what they find and what we learn inside a replica "20/20" built of shele's bathroom -- does this bring back your memories of the scene? >> absolutely. >> would bring back the

question, was her death an accident? >> when i heard the original story, was it possible? sure. it was possible, until i actually got into the bathroom myself. when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis takes you off course. put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when i wanted to see results fast, rinvoq delivered rapid symptom relief and helped leave bathroom urgency behind. check. when uc tried to slow me down... i got lasting, steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when uc caused damage rinvoq came through by visibly repairing my colon lining. check. rapid symptom relief... lasting steroid-free remission... ...and the chance to visibly repair the colon lining. check, check, and check. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin cancer; death, heart attack, stroke,

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you're finding your wife dead in the tub. the children are there. what do you think has happened? why is she dead? >> this is such a sensational story. it's this upper west side address and you now have a murder. >> this is your wife. this is the woman you fell in love with. >> i was administering cpr to

somebody who was a corpse. it wasn't my wife anymore. >> she said numerous times, if something happens to me, he is your number one suspect. >> we want her out of the ground. we want her body telling the story. >> an m.e. looks at us and says this is a homicide. >> this is a replica that "20/20" built of shele's bathroom. you had suspicions right away. >> oh, yeah, the whole cabinet looked staged. >> you began to think she was murdered. >> we're talking about absurd, ridiculous murder plots with zero evidence. >> it's several days after 47-year-old mother of two shele covlin is found dead in

her bathtub, and rumors are swirling around dorchester towers, her luxury highrise in new york's upper west side. >> what started as a slip and fall turned into rumors of possibly a murder involving her ex-husband who lived right across the hall. >> shele's family is devastated and struggling to come to terms with her death. >> we were in this fog of pure shock and just extreme grief. >> and it's not until after they receive shele's death certificate from the funeral home that they learn she had suspicious scratches on her face and that her cause of death was ruled undetermined. >> i called up a private investigator and i asked him, what does undetermined mean? and he said, case undetermined pending police investigation. in other words, it's a suspicious death, and my heart

sunk. >> marc actually took charge. marc took it upon himself to play detective, and he did a very good job at it. he went out, he spoke to people. he never stopped. >> a lot of information was starting to come in, and it was very suspicious. red flags were going up all over the place, and a lot of it was pointing to rod. >> rod and shele were going through this incredibly contentious divorce and a brutal custody battle for their two kids. but now, there are new revelations about how bad it all had become. >> for instance, they learn the night of her death shele was telling friends at the friar's club she was planning to remove rod from her will. >> she had told several people that she planned to change her will. she'd reached out to an estate lawyer. she'd even told her doorman that she planned to change her will. >> do you think rod knew this? >> we really believed he knew this. you're talking about $5.25 million. >> another suspicious element here is that her iphone is nowhere to be found in the apartment. >> she was observed on surveillance video walking into the building talking on that cell phone. how did the phone disappear from the apartment if, in fact, this

was just an accidental death? >> this information added to what they already knew about rod, that shele feared him. >> she would regularly say she was afraid of rod. that was consistent from the very beginning. >> shele's family says that rod had actually assaulted her during that argument over his laundry. >> she called me absolutely weeping because he had pushed her to the ground in an argument in front of the children. >> i was getting very loud and angry and she started pushing at me and i took her and -- i mean, i put her on the floor. >> shoved her? >> no, i specifically -- i did not shove her. i grabbed her, held her, and in a controlled, but, you know, quick fashion put her on the floor. so yes, there was one incident that got physical between us. >> yet shele seems to have become so frightened of her

husband, she's granted an order of protection during divorce proceedings. >> she said to me numerous times, if something happens to me, he is your number one suspect. you look into rod covlin. >> there was no acceptance in your mind that this was an accident? you began to think that she'd been murdered? >> we absolutely believed she'd been murdered. in our heart of hearts we believed he murdered her. i hired private investigators to help with the investigation into her death. >> former nypd detective mike swain was one of those private eyes that marc hired to begin investigating shele's death. >> the nypd was basically closing the case. without an autopsy, there is no cause of death and this was going to be a very, very uphill battle. we would need to exhume the body. >> shele's family took this video after they were allowed into her apartment with swain.

it would later be used in court. >> i needed to get into the apartment. i needed to see the scene. maybe something was missed. >> "20/20" built this model recreation of the bathroom where shele was found. >> so this is kind of a replica that "20/20" built of shele's bathroom. close? >> very close. >> does this bring back sort of your memories of the scene? >> oh, absolutely. >> what did you notice right away when you got here? >> first thing was the cabinet. the story was that she slipped, fell, and possibly grabbed onto the cabinet, yanking it off its hinges and winding up deceased. >> did that make sense to you initially? >> was it possible? sure, it was possible until i actually got into the bathroom myself. i realized how high this cabinet is. i realized how far away from the tub it is.

>> there are little knobs here too. does that make sense, as somebody who's relatively short, 5'4", could actually catch that knob for support? >> it's not like a doorknob where you're actually gonna grab onto it with a hand. it's a little, tiny knob. she wasn't a very big woman. i don't know if i could take this knob, put my hand on it, and put all my dead weight, and yank that out of a wall. i certainly don't think she could've done that. >> so the idea is that, if she's in the tub and she's falling, and she's grabbing for this -- >> imagine trying to grab that knob. look where you are, the distance to the cabinet. why wouldn't you try and brace yourself on the faucets? >> yeah, exactly, as opposed to reaching up high. >> the family came out of that apartment feeling that we just have to continue to move forward. we want her out of the ground, we want her body telling its

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it's now two months after shele covlin has been laid to rest and investigators have exhumed her body to complete an autopsy. >> we watched the body be rolled into the medical examiner's office to do the autopsy. >> dr. jonathan hayes, the medical examiner on the case, begins the autopsy by noting those same scratches on shele's face that had raised suspicions during the first examination

before the autopsy was stopped. >> the fact that there are scratches and lacerations to the face is an indication that there may be more afoot. >> then the medical examiner notices a new injury. two pinpoints in shele's right eye known as petechia. >> petechia is like a red spot or dot in the eye and that was a telltale sign to him. petechia are not typically seen in a normal person. >> petechiae, though tiny, have major medical implications. they are very often caused by pressure applied to the neck or strangulation. >> it raises red flags, but obviously it's got to be looked into further. you can't draw conclusions just from the petechia. >> then, as the autopsy continues, the medical examiner makes a shocking discovery. there's a bone in shele's neck that is completely fractured -- the hyoid bone.

>> the hyoid bone allows you to chew and swallow. it's very easy to break. and if it does, there may be a choke hold here. when you put together all the evidence, the scratch marks to the face, the petechia in the eye, and the broken hyoid bone, there's no way this is not a choke hold. >> we're actually in the room with the medical examiner when he's doing the autopsy. the m.e. looks up at us and he goes, this is going to be a homicide. i go, holy mackerel. i was shocked. >> six weeks later, the official autopsy report is issued. the cause of death is listed as neck compression. the manner of death, homicide. shele covlin's death is now officially a murder. >> i remember exactly where i was. marc called me, and he said, the results are back. it was murder.

and i remember i just kept saying, oh, my god. oh, my god. >> there's a lot of shock. this is such a sensational story that at this tony upper west side address you now have a murder. >> i was horrified. i mean, just the thought of somebody murdered in the building was really awful. >> so this is now a homicide, but the d.a. doesn't feel like it has enough yet to bring an indictment. rod's the suspect, but they have a very circumstantial case. >> june 2nd was the day we finally got a warrant to process the apartment. >> investigators for the first time treat it as an actual crime scene. >> i obviously knew we were six months behind the eight ball for the investigation.

but i was pretty excited. >> by then, the apartment has been badly contaminated, forever tainted. >> remember, the bathroom has been cleaned by a religious official. >> they allowed him to go into that apartment and with peroxide, wash down the bathroom? you've gotta be kidding me. >> i had no idea patrol let somebody into that crime scene. if it was my decision, nobody would have been in that apartment. >> the crime scene had been compromised. police did have those original pictures that were taken on the morning of shele's death, and those photos now raised several red flags. >> some of the things that might not have looked very suspicious when you thought that it was an accidental death, now you take a different look at it. this is no longer a slip in the tub, which would mean that the tub itself is part of the staged crime scene. >> there's clothes on the floor. there's some water on the floor. what's leading the d.a. to think that this is suspicious? >> picture a lot of water coming out with that body. >> but there is some water on the floor. >> yeah, there's obviously dry blood. so there obviously was some type of bloody water that came out of the tub. >> there was talk about rod's clothes being dry.

>> for somebody that had lifted a body out of the water moments earlier, why wasn't he wet? >> i had pulled shele out. i was soaking wet. so i raced across the hall. i stripped my clothes off, and i changed my clothes. >> even in this moment of distress, you're thinking about changing your clothes? >> i'm thinking about comforting my kids. i couldn't fathom the idea of hugging anna and miles and, you know, soaking them with shele's blood. >> we went back to that bathroom replica to get an idea of other red flags that stood out. >> the only towel was a towel on the rail, which -- >> a hand towel. >> it wasn't a bath towel. if somebody's coming in to take a bath, i sort of would want to see a bath towel someplace. >> but many people go to the bathroom, forget their towel. >> absolutely. this is all just basic speculation. it's all circumstantial. the other thing was, there was shampoo, conditioner out. the way the story was presented

was that she was gonna be washing her hair. >> not many people wash their hair while taking a bath. >> and that came out from the nanny, that the positioning of the shampoo and the conditioner, it's always in the shower because that's where she washed her hair, in the shower, not in the bathtub. so all of these little things, when you put them all together and add them up, it creates a picture. the district attorney was gonna have to build a circumstantial case. >> so two weeks later, investigators decide to pay a visit to one of rod's confidants, his girlfriend deborah oles. >> when i came home, detectives from new york were behind me in my driveway. i talked to them. i just gave them whatever information i could. >> oles gives them access to her online backgammon records, and that's a gold mine for investigators because she had been playing backgammon and chatting with rod online the night of shele's death. >> he was actually very quiet

that night. he didn't have a lot to say. >> once rod and debra oles finish gaming online about 1:00 a.m., he tells her he's going to do some work for a backgammon organization he was involved in. >> but security cameras would show that rod was up and active in the middle of the night. what would surveillance footage show about rod's movements the night of shele's murder? ok, with me. ♪laalaalaalaalaa.♪ ♪loolooloolooloo.♪

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as the investigation into the death of shele covin continues, detectives begin to retrace her husband's actions the night of her murder. they learn that rod and debra oles had been playing backgammon online that night. >> we finished our matches at 1:03 a.m. i wanted to play a little bit longer, but he said he had to go. >> then, he goes completely dark online. there's no activity. nothing on his computer. nothing on his phone. this is a guy who usually was up all night, online the whole time.

>> why did you go dark after 1:00 a.m.? >> i took a nap. i know it certainly sounds strange, but it wasn't unusual for me to catch a three-hour nap in the middle of the night and then get up and start being active. >> sometime around 4:00 in the morning, rod comes downstairs. he engages in a conversation with the concierge. >> says hey, what do you want? you know, can i get you something? and this kind of struck the doorman. >> he doesn't speak to the employees in the building in a friendly manner ever. >> so, the doorman finally said, okay, get me a snickers. >> so, he came back with a candy bar, and gave it to the -- to the guy on the desk. it's a feeble attempt to sort of visually alibi himself. >> rod leaves the building one more time at 5:02 a.m. to go buy seltzer, and then isn't seen again until first responders

arrive at shele's apartment. debra oles remembers the phone call from rod that next day. >> it just seemed so surreal. i'm like, what? what do you mean she's dead? he said it was an accident. >> in the months after shele's death, the relationship between rod and debra intensifies. she frequently drives up to new york to stay with rod, who had now moved in with his parents, but they say it was a tense situation. >> he had brought debra into the house. >> so that was a source of some concern. >> oh, that was a source of huge conflict. >> we just didn't think it was a healthy situation for the children. >> anything could set him off. he could be charming one minute, and seconds later he could fly into a rage. rod got so mad. he shoved his dad as hard as he could. his dad went flying into the next room and hit his head on the floor. >> so, there was sort of a volatile situation happening. >> yes, there was. >> were you worried? were you scared of your son? >> not really. >> not really. >> not really? >> no.

>> yet, rod's parents file a new custody petition, arguing that he was an unfit parent. >> in your october 2012 custody petition, you even painted a picture of kind of a violent man saying that he had assaulted you both. >> if you take two alpha males and you put them in the same house together, you're gonna have -- >> conflict. >> it was not a happy situation. >> carol and dave are granted custody after evicting rod from their house, accusing him of spending his kids' college savings, as heard in this dramatic audio recording that would later be played in court. >> i know how much money you've taken from your children! you steal from your children! you stole before! >> you're stealing their college money. >> no, no, i'm not -- i'm telling you -- excuse me! >> that's it, you know what, i want you out of the house by october 1st. out!

>> evicted! >> you were frustrated. >> extremely. >> yes. >> extremely. >> rod says he left the house willingly, but debra oles says that he was extremely upset his parents were granted custody of his children. >> he was enraged. his parents took custody of his children away from him, took control of the money, and he was enraged. >> according to debra oles, rod proposes a horrifying plan right as superstorm sandy is hitting new york. >> it is happening right now, hurricane sandy crashing on shore, winds now at 90 miles per hour. >> he wanted to go over and kill his parents. he said that because the electricity was off, their alarm system would be off and he wanted to kill them, set the house on fire. i'm trying to think of something to say to stop this lunacy. and then i said, how are you going to explain your presence there? you miraculously just happen to be there to save anna and miles? >> in the midst of this investigation, some shocking

revelations. authorities say that your son had actually plotted to kill you both. did you believe it? >> no. >> no? >> no. >> no, we were laughing because it was so absurd. >> rod also denies ever trying to kill his parents, and no charges are ever filed. but to debra oles, it was no laughing matter. >> it doesn't matter how much i care for a person, i'm not going to sanction cold-blooded murder. >> debra ultimately flips on rod. she comes forward to police with several hard drives from rod's computer that he had given her for safekeeping. >> she explains to us that he would give her these hard drives and say, take these home with you and put them in a closet. >> investigators comb through nearly two million documents on

these hard drives building a case against rod covlin. >> at the end of the day, there was no smoking gun there. you just keep piling up rocks until you have a pile big enough that you think that you can win a case with it. >> prosecutors had spent years building that case, but it was largely circumstantial. still, they finally feel they had enough evidence against rod to bring an indictment almost six years after the death of his wife. >> we went to scarsdale train station. he had pulled up in a car. i said, you're under arrest. handcuffed him, put him in the back of the car. he looked shocked. >> the 42-year-old's house of cards came crashing down here at the metro north station in scarsdale yesterday morning. after six long years, his world was just turned upside down and he never saw it coming. >> mr. covlin is stunned. he's stunned by what has happened. >> what was that moment like for you to hear that he was arrested for your sister's murder?

>> i started to tear up. i said, i've just been waiting so long to hear those words. >> it's the backgammon champion's match of his life. the people vs. roderick covlin. but it's no slam dunk. remember, there is still no physical evidence tying him to the murder. so prosecutors plan to play their ace card, rod's former flings, under oath and oversharing. >> his face, his eyes, they were getting glossy, like almost like psychotic. we pay for things that we don't need! bloated bundles, the reckless spending! no more... (mom) that's a bit dramatic... a better plan is verizon. it starts at 25 dollars a line. (dad) did you say 25 dollars a line? (sister) and save big on things we love, like netflix and max! (dad) oh, that's awesome (mom) spaghetti night -- dinner in 30 (dad) oh, happy day! (vo) a better plan to save is verizon.

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a little over nine years after shele covlin was found dead in that bathtub, rod covlin is about to face a jury. >> opening statements under way today in the trial of roderick covlin. prosecutors say he staged the

scene of his wife shele's strangulation back in 2009 to make it look like a drowning. >> people of the state of new york versus roderick covlin. >> you attended the trial? >> every day. >> every day. >> every day. we all did. >> and then you have rod's mother who sits on the opposite side of the gallery. what was the hardest part for you? >> first time i saw him walk in with handcuffs. >> that had to be difficult. >> yes. >> this was not an accident. the defendant did it. >> leading the prosecution, matthew bogdanos, a former boxer and a war veteran. his nickname -- the pit bull. >> the question was never, is he going to kill shele? the question was always

>> defending covlin is robert gottlieb. >> no one will ever know the truth. >> a former prosecutor who now represents many high-profile defendants. >> one fact is undeniable. there is no evidence whatsoever proving that mr. covlin had anything to do with his wife's death. >> this is very much a circumstantial case. seven weeks of testimony, much of which had little to do with what actually happened that night. >> this is one of the main reasons he murdered his wife -- the money. she was going to change her will. >> in lieu of any hard physical evidence, bogdanos tries to paint a character profile of rod covlin, one of an obsessive, dangerous man. to do that, he calls to the stand women who covlin had courted online. one is patricia swensen. >> the defendant kept asking me out on dates and asking me to

travel around the country with him. >> the jury hears about one of those dates. >> go ahead and hit play. >> a weekend in gettysburg and they see a video covlin shot on that trip. >> oh, i'm getting you. i so have you. it's video. it's video. i've got some video going. i have the good scenery. don't worry. >> covlin may sound lighthearted in the video, but swenson testifies that totally changes later at brunch when he begins talking about the wife from whom he says he's separated. >> he said that he wanted to kill her or he wanted her dead. >> obviously debra oles' testimony was very significant. >> he had a mercurial temper. it didn't take much to set him off. >> to make that case that rod had an explosive relationship with his own parents, prosecutors presented a video

that oles recorded. >> what are we looking at? >> that's a picture of rod approaching his parents front door. >> she testifies that the video shows rod finding himself locked out of his parents' house. >> they changed the lock. >> what just happened? >> he said, they changed the lock. >> she tells the jury about that plot rod allegedly had to kill his parents during hurricane sandy. >> more than a million people in 11 states are already without power. >> he said that because there was no electricity, the alarm would not be on. he wanted to go through a window in the basement, kill his parents and set his house on fire. i was not about to be a party to murder. i tried talking him out of it. >> were you able to talk him out of this? >> yes. >> oles testifies about three other plots she claims covlin revealed to her.

incredibly, one of them supposedly involved his 12-year-old daughter. >> he wanted his daughter anna to poison rod's parents. he said that, if anna was able to kill his parents, because she was a child, if she got jailed at all, it wouldn't be for very long. and i said, you cannot do that to your child. >> were you able to talk him out of it? >> yes. >> we're talking about absurd, ridiculous murder plots with zero evidence. >> you don't have any audio or video of any of those incidents, correct? >> i do not. >> when you spoke to detective mooney, did you not say, i just thought it was typical of a bad divorce? >> yes. >> but other witnesses discuss rod covlin's behavior the night before the body was discovered. rose reid, the former nanny,

testified rod asked her if she would be staying in the apartment for a sleepover. >> had he ever asked you if you were going to have a sleepover before? >> no, no. >> that's the first time he -- >> that's the first time he asked me. >> the defense portrays it as an innocent question, since covlin knew that shele was coming home late. but the prosecution says what's really strange is the idea that shele would've taken a bath that night at all. >> watch your step. >> they called to the stand adam aminov, the stylist who did shele's hair earlier in the day. >> tell us the instructions you gave shele. >> no wash, no shampoo, no gym. be careful from the rain. >> anybody who's ever had this treatment done knows you cannot get your hair wet. it's this "legally blonde" moment in this case. >> had you ever gotten a perm before?

>> a "legally blonde" moment because of how similar it was to this scene in that famous movie. >> because isn't it the first cardinal rule of perm maintenance that you're forbidden to wet your hair for at least 24 hours after getting a perm at the risk of deactivating the ammonium thioglycolate? >> because someone gets a hair treatment, it doesn't mean that you can't clean yourself for 72 hours. >> you didn't tell her that she couldn't bathe, did you? yes or no. >> no. >> but as the trial focuses even more on exactly what happened in that bathroom, what does a video recorded in jail reveal? (♪) some people just know that the best rate for you is a rate based on you, with allstate. not one based on paul. you don't want to ride with paul. or sarah, not today anyway.

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today, rod covlin seemed dazed as he sat in a courtroom charged with second degree murder. >> nothing, absolutely nothing was done on december 31st when they were there inside the apartment. >> i think that the testimony about the police investigation was really stunning to a lot of people. >> did you make any handwritten notes of any of the interviews you took that day? >> i don't believe so. >> and while you were there, you didn't have any indication that mr. covlin would not speak with you, did you? >> no, sir. >> is it fair to say that you considered that this could potentially be a homicide? yes or no? >> no.

>> the lack of investigation on december 31st. that's a legitimate complaint. but what's the point? what would have been found? >> remember there was a delay before an autopsy was done, which medical examiner dr. jonathan hayes testifies concerned him. >> when i opened up the bag and saw her, i turned to my colleague and said she needs an autopsy because -- >> and, why did you say that? >> i was struck by injuries she had on her face. she has scratches on her face which i considered suspicious. >> and then dr. hayes tells the jury about his findings during the autopsy and the conclusion he reached about shele's cause of death. >> the cause of death was neck compression and this fit well with a choke hold. one of the more striking things was that the scratches on her face. as the person who is put into the chokehold, they're going to fight back, and they fight back

by trying to claw the arm away from the neck, and in doing so they will sometimes scratch their face. >> the hardest part is just to get under the chin. >> and that was a really significant part of the trial, is when this martial arts expert got up there and performed the choke hold on a skeleton. >> when i'm here, i can just put my hand under or over the top, depending on which way you grab, and you could just start to pull back and it's really that simple. >> how you could have that kind of neck compression and would be able to, he said, within ten seconds kill somebody. >> rod covlin had posted on facebook that he had studied taekwondo for 11 years. but did he know how to do a choke hold? that's where a video becomes a key piece of evidence. >> you've seen this video before? >> yes. >> bogdanos introduces this recording from when rod covliin was in jail awaiting trial. that's him talking to another inmate.

watch what he does with his arms. >> did you see that? >> yes. >> he's making two distinct movements. >> is that particular move consistent or inconsistent with a chokehold that is taught in martial arts? >> it's consistent as taught in martial arts. it's a single-armed choke hold. >> i believe that was quite damning for the defense. >> gottlieb dismisses that tape. >> all he is doing is demonstrating to this guy, another inmate in jail, a few months before the beginning of the trial, this is the way the d.a. is saying i killed shele covlin. >> but prosecutors have more. they bring in shele's estate attorney who tells the jury about those plans she was making to change her will just before she died. >> she said, i need to change my will. i want to make sure that rod doesn't get any part of my estate. >> and how would rod have known about her communications with

that lawyer? rod's friend testifies that rod told him he installed a keystroke logger on shele's computer which allowed him to spy on her. >> on the very day she is going to write the defendant out of her will for $5.2 million, on the very day she has a fatal accident. are you kidding me? >> the defense denies a keystroke logger was ever found on the computer. >> you are the final arbiters of the facts. >> after prosecutors rest their case, who does the defense call to testify? no one. >> once you call a single witness, you change the entire dynamic of the jury deliberation. it's no longer an evaluation as to whether or not the government proved its case as opposed to do we believe the defense. >> so the trial moves straight to closing arguments.

>> you may detest him. you may not even be able to stomach him. if the proof isn't there, it is right, it is noble to stand up and to say not guilty, even if it hurts, even if it's difficult. >> justice has a single voice and that voice tells you he is guilty. not because i say so, but because he is. thank you. >> as the jury heads off to deliberate, nobody knows what they are thinking or that there is still a big shock ahead from none other than shele's daughter anna.

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a lot of us were very surprised by how quickly the jury came back. >> i couldn't breathe. i was terrified, really. >> how say you to the first count of this indictment charging the defendant, roderick covlin, with the crime of murder in the second degree? guilty or not guilty? >> guilty. >> what was the first emotion for you? >> it was relief. it was justice for shele and she can rest and that guy is hopefully going behind bars, please god, for the rest of his life. >> and behind bars is where i talked to rod covlin, where even now he maintains his innocence.

>> you sit here convicted of murdering your wife. >> correct. >> did you kill your wife? >> no, i did not. i absolutely did not. >> but a jury of your peers are convinced that you did. why should people believe you? >> you don't have to believe me. you have to believe the actual evidence. there just isn't evidence that i did this thing. >> the murder, ten years ago. the conviction, last month. and today, the sentencing of 45-year-old roderick covlin. >> and at that sentencing hearing, a surprise. >> i am going to be reading this for anna. >> rod's mother, carol, reads a statement from his daughter anna, who is by then old. >> i love my mom. i will always love my mom.

my father has never hurt anyone, nor has he committed a murder. my mom passed away. my dad has been taken away for so long already. please let us know that it will come to an end. >> what was that moment like for you to hear your daughter essentially defend you? >> it was overwhelming. she's the only person in the world who knows for a fact what happened that night. the only person. and she knows that i didn't do this. >> the judge sentences rod to 25 years to life in prison. >> i mean, the appeal was voluminous. it was over 350 pages and there were many independent bases for the appeal. there was some prosecutorial misconduct. there was the admission of the video from prison, which should not have been permitted. the character assassination. it was impossible for rod to receive a fair trial. >> the district attorney's office rejected those claims and in may of 2022, that appeal is denied. district attorney alvin bragg says he hopes it would bring closure to the family. but anna then sends him a

follow-up letter saying -- >> i am shele's family. my brother is shele's family. this decision has not brought us closure. my grief is not aided by my father's malicious unjust imprisonment. that is an open wound you caused by your office. >> how worried are you for miles and anna going forward? >> my concerns are for them to grow up to have wonderful lives. >> what i think is important for the kids and for the world to know is she had a tremendous mission in this world between the way she cared for her kids with every fiber of herself, and just a good honorable she was someone who had that light and spread that light in this world. and that's what makes the tragedy that much greater.

>> deborah: difficult for the family. during my prison interview with rod he told me he speaks to his son miles every day it's possible. we also learned his daughter anna has gotten married. >> david: rod's lawyers tells us they have filed a motion to vacate his murder conviction. we'll stay on the story. i'm david muir. >> deborah: i'm deborah roberts. from all of us at "20/20" and abc news, good night.

lots of rain. good evening. i'm ama daetz and i'm dan ashley. >> thanks for joining us. the final friday of 2023. certainly a soggy one in the bay area. whether you're in the north bay, south bay or in san francisco, you're getting a good soaking tonight. >> yeah, it's enough to trigger a flood advisory for a good portion of the region, and we're not quite done yet with the rain. >> no, it's been a busy night over in the weather department, for sure. let's check in with meteorologist sandhya patel. sandhya? >> yeah. and dan and anna, this has been the strongest storm of the season so far. and it has brought us