tv Dateline NBC NBC April 16, 2016 10:00pm-11:01pm PDT
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i just flipped out. i lost it. we could not understand how anybody would want to murder him. >> he looked like he was sleeping except for the bullet hole. >> he was in bed. his head was on the pillow. his entire upper body was tucked in. >> the first guess was suicide, but -- >> there was no gun on the scene. >> how you do perform a suicide with no gun? >> that's right. >> this is man who had everything to live for. >> eric loved life. >> he loved his family and women too. many women. did one of them love him too much? did it lead to murder? >> no shortage of lovers to question. >> i'm not stupid.
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>> no signed of a break-in either. >> someone had to have had a key or been let in by eric. >> so it must have been somebody who he trusted or maybe didn't trust him. >> inside the safe was a 380 handgun. >> that was the same gun that killed eric. >> that was the same kind of gun that killed him. >> everybody loved him, so who killed him? >> we knew in our hearts that this murder was going to be solved and justice was give to be served for eric. >> i'm lester holt and here's josh with "while he was sleeping." le was the life of every party. at 34, eric was charming, magnetic, successful. in 2012 he was living the kind of life that young men like to brag about to one another. call it the good life, the lush life, the fast lane.
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it's a world without too many rules, one in which you get close in a hurry to a lot of people you don't know too well, and it was perfect for eric. living just outside the nation's capitol, eric samoa was not only living the american dream, he was selling it too. the son of immigrants from ghana, eric was a top salesman, delivering luxury cars and the fantasies that come with them at this jaguar dealership in bethesda, maryland. >> he was focused and motivated to be the best and he ended up being our best sales penn. >> this is a guy kwhoo could sell ice in alaska. >> oh, yes. i said he could sell anything. >> eric's older sisters suzie and cynthia spotted his business savvy at an early age. >> he started a lawn cutting
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business in our neighborhood. the neighborhood kids, they were actually working for him, and he would pay them, what, $2? >> yes. >> to cut the grass. >> a born capitalist. >> he would tell me, suzie, i'm going to be really rich one day. >> you know, he wanted go all the way to the top. >> from the day he was born, eric was a charmer and his big brother brother and sisters always enjoyed him. >> he was a wonderful, wonderful member of the family to my sisters and i. >> he was the baby of the family. we always enjoyed him. it was just the three of us and he came along and he was sort of our little doll. >> yeah. >> and then eric grew up and became a living doll to the women of the nation's capitol. >> he was a lady's man, it's no secret. he loved women. >> he'd walk in a room and everyone liked him. >> he'd walk
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they were like, oh, who's this guy. he would stand a conversation with everyone. he had a personality that everybody would like. >> but his sisters hoped their playboy brother would finally settle down. in fact, they were counting on it. >> we were waiting for a huge wedding that my sister and i were planning for years. >> the bride hadn't been picked out yet. >> right. no, the bride had not been picked out yet but we knew pretty much how the wedding was going to be. >> eric's sisters admit they knew little about his dating life. his big brother knew much more. >> our relationship was very close. even though he was my sibling, he was my best friend as well. we talked about everything. >> eric's thousand watt charm and success earned him a high life, a business and exciting social life. he was a young man on top of the world.
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but his big brother still felt the need to occasionally offer advice like that playing the field has its risks and can't last forever. >> he really respected me, the fact that i've been with my wife, we've been together 28 years. he would always communicate and say, hey, i want to be that but i just can't find the right one. >> even as the youngest and the only one who hadn't married, eric was the glue that bonded his family. >> eric was the person that kind of brought the family together. he remembered everyone's birthday, he made everyone feel really special. >> so it wasn't just his customers who he was charming to. >> no. he was charming to us. >> all of you. >> he wanted everyone to come together. >> in june of 2012 he wanted to bring them together again. it wasn't because of a holiday or birthday. it was because they were worried sick about him. tuesday eric didn't show up to work at the jaguar dealership.
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initially his boss brian armstrong let it slide. >> chalked it up to, hey, he was taking the day offer, unscheduled day off. i didn't think too much about it. and then the following day, which was a wednesday, again, scheduled to come in, no cal, no show. then i got worried. >> word spread and then soon eric and his sisters and close-knit family were trying to find him. >> wi didn't hear from him. >> now you're worried. >> now i'm really worried. >> cynthia took a deep breath and called 911. police were dispatched to check out his apartment in maryland. his family raced to meet him. eric samoa a man who had led life at full throttle had seemingly fallen off the map. what had happened to him. >> when we come back, an unanswered knock and lots of questions. >> we were all in shock. we were just shocked.
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showed up at his building their fear level was off the charts. they stood vigil in the lobby while the police went up to his sixth floor apartment. >> what did you think happened? >> i was trying to figure out where he had gone. >> sister suzie was still an hour away when cynthia got her answer when the captain went in the apartment. >> when the captain came and gently placed his hand on my arm and said, ma'am, it looks like your brother has taken his life, i mean i was raging with screams. i said there's no way, there's no way he took his life. eric loved life. >> through her grief cynthia managed to call her sister. >> and she was screaming, and she was bawling, and then when she told me eric was dead, i just flipped out. i just lost it.
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>> and you show up how long after that? >> we showed up about 40 minutes later. detective dmitri rubin led the second wave of montgomery county police after they made the suicide call. >> they tried not to disturb the scene so they didn't disrupt the scene too much. >> tell me about the scene. >> he had a gunshot wound to his head, his head was on the pillow, his upper body was tucked in. he looked like he was sleeping. >> no signs of struggle? >> noes of strug. the apartment. no signs of ransacking. one thing that i noticed right away, there was no gun. no guns on the scene. >> hard to do a suicide with no gun on the scene. >> that's right. >> so this was a murder. >> right. a suicide murder. >> in a way he was a lock like eric samoa, young, driven.
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but even he had some. he was the right cop to break the difficult news to the family. >> i just went downstairs and said we had reason to believe he was murdered. that's when everybody lost it. i mean his sister was just crying. his dad had, you know, his head buried in his hands. people couldn't believe it. >> we were all in shock. we were just shocked. >> who would want to murder eric. >> that is exactly what detective ruvin wanted to know. >> we started right there, started the investigation with the family, those who were close to him. just to see if he had any enemies, to see if there was anybody in his life who would want to murder him. >> what was the answer? >> the answer was everybody loved him and there was no one who would want to hurt him. >> eric's head injury with a 380 gun indicated to the detective that he was shot at point blank
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range. >> it would be someone eric trusted so much he would have went to sleep and had the person there. >> ruvin quickly learned the victim mr. popularity had welcomed a lot of people into his life and into his home. >> he used to hang out at a local bar down the street from his house. the owner of the establishment knew him by name and told us he would be here every night and would go home with a different girl. >> his family knew that. they didn't deny that. >> no. >> it was the kind of thing eric's brother michael had already warned him about. >> could it have been some revenge situation, you know, someone wanted to have him, he didn't want to be with them, they came in, took him out? we didn't know. >> but michael and his sisters did know about one particular girlfriend named denise. >> there were several members of our family who did point to her. >> denise dated eric for a year.
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>> she was older. >> about 20 years old. >> what did you learn about denise. >> the majority of family did not like denise. >> because? >> because they thought she was using eric or -- they just didn't like her. >> detective ruvin's interest intensified when he learned something else. he was told for a time months before the murder she had a key to his apartment. >> they were going out? >> right. right. there was no evidence of a break-in, so someone had to have had a key or been let in by eric. >> denise certainly would fit the profile of someone eric trusted, somebody who he would be willing to go to sleep while she was still there. >> absolutely. >> police were eager to interview there, but they knew if denise had been in eric's apartment recently, any forensic trail she might have left might not mean much and the same was true for all those other women police hadn't identified. >> because the dna belongs
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there, in the apartment. so now you have to prove it some other way. >> after day one ruven said denise topped his list of people to check out, but she would not be ruven's only lead. >> and the reason is because you're a witness. >> a witness came forward who had seen a man meeting with eric just before the murder. like eric, he was a salesman, but he wasn't selling cars. coming up, a possible new suspect. >> he's about my color, skinny guy, scruffy beard. >> and a possible motive as old as time. >> jealousy leads to
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i was here, but i wasn't really here. it was very, very difficult. >> people tell you grief diminishes over time, but days after eric shmamoa's death, his family could only cream of when that moment would ever arrive. >> when i received the paper the next day and i opened it to the obituary section and i saw this young handsome guy in there, i just lost it. >> sadly i meet a lot of people in your situation. there are families that really
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want to know what happened and then there are other people who are like, it's not going to bring him back, and i don't want to spend another minute of thinking about the murder. you guys are clearly in that first group. you clearly wanted an answer. >> oh, yeah. we wanted to know who dwould this because we just couldn't understand who would want to kill eric. >> the defamily pointed detective demitry review into eric's girlfriend denise. he picked up that eric's romance with denise was on the rocks. >> after a while he was tired of being, i guess, bogged down by someone. >> according to ruvin, denise told him that she and eric were talking about breaking up by mutual agreement. ruvin said she also acknowledged that eric was dissatisfied with their relationship, giving the detective a theory to consider.
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>> older woman, younger man, and now he wants to end it and maybe see somebody else, and -- >> right. >> -- that breeds jell circle and we know what that leads to. >> correct. jealousy leads to murder. >> while he continued to investigate police, ruvin learned from residents in eric's building that there was a woman there he had been dating for just a few weeks. >> that's when i wanted to speak to katrina. >> katrina benn came down to police headquarters for an interview. she's visibly upset here. just earlier that kay detective ruvin and his partner told her eric was dead. >> we want to thank you for being here, thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this. >> oh, my god. i want to know too. >> yes. >> they wanted whatever leads she could give them. but they began with the basics. >> how did you meet him?
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>> i met eric outside two weeks after i had been there. >> outside their building. >> he asked if i was a nurse. >> katrina did work for the nih, the national institutes of health. it turned out she and eric had plenty in common. >> i'm a basketball fan, and so that was our connection. >> she said it turned friendly quickly. she said she and eric had been dating every monday. she wanted to know the progress in finding her love 'eers killer. we can't really tell you what's going on with the investigation and the reason is because you're a witness. >> they asked if he could at least say where eric died. >> he was killed in his apartment. >> the interview topic returned
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to the vibrant eric she knew. >> i had so many goals and so many dreams. it's just crazy. it's like he was having the best time of his life and now he's dead. >> that explained, katrina said, why he neveranced her recent texts. >> did he make any calls on tuesday? am i the last person? can you tell me that? i mean i don't know if he stopped calling me or he wasn't answering because he was dead. i've been suffering, because he wasn't talking to me. my heart's not settled. >> i think your heart can be settled. >> they continued to console her but talked about the day his body was discovered. >> monday you went down to watch the basketball game? >> yeah, yeah. >> but then she said the night got strange. out of the blue she said eric said he wanted to smoke some
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pot. she told him she wasn't interested. she did agree to ride with eric so he could buy weed at a nearby apartment complex. >> i didn't know what was happening. he had never done anything like that around me. >> they drove up to this building. almost immediately katrina said the pot dealer jumped into the back seat. >> it was real quick. i mean the light was on, the whole deal, whatever they did, and the guy headed out. all this happened before the guy could even get out of the car. i thought, the light's not even out. i work in nih. i don't want to be caught up in something like this. he was bald, skinny guy, scruffy beard. i didn't see him straight on. i wasn't trying to look at him directly. didn't want to know who you are. >> the rest of the night eric and katrina watched the rest of the basketball game and then they focused on each other. >> excuse me. this is too much information.
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we had sex for a while and i went to sleep. >> a little later she said she was woken up by eric talking to someone outside the bedroom. through a crack in the door, katrina thought she could make out a face, and the man looked familiar. >> she believed the guy to be the drug dealer. >> the same guy she had met earlier. >> yes. >> this was only hours before eric was murdered in his bed. detective ryu vin now had another major suspect. >> so we concentrated on the drug dealer. >> this would prove to be a critical moment in the case. but not for the reasons you think. coming up, police strike gold maybe in the drug dealer's apartment. >> that's the same kind of gun that killed eric. >> same kind of gun. >> but strike out with katrina. >> she flat out refused to give us her phone. >> why?
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to have someone as committed as ruvin working their brother's case. >> he is a phenomenal investigator. >> and now just days after eric was murdered, it looked as if detective ruvin might given the family some resolution. one of eric's lovers, katrina benn, handed the investigators a new suspect, eric's pot dealer. >> it didn't make sense to me because i was thinking, why is he here. >> katrina told them how uneasy she felt with the dealer in the apartment. >> it was just a little uncomfortable. it just seemed a little weird. >> so at just around 5:00 a.m. katrina said she got out of there. >> she said the guy then just came up to her as she was leaving and basically pushed her out of the door. >> based on katrina's account, the police believed eric was killed sometime in the early morning hours of june 5th. ruvin brought in the dealer for questioning, a man named william
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woodfork. >> he was like, i have no idea who that is. i never met him. >> did you believe him? >> no. i knew eric called him and katrina identified him. >> ruvin hammered woodfork for hours and he admitted that he sold eric marijuana. the dealer balked when he said why did you go over to eric's. >> he was soed a ament, what are you talking about, not knowing where eric lives. he said i'm a wedeman. i'm not a deliverer. i don't deliver. people come to me. >> detective ruvin was not about to take a drug dealer at his word. >> we obtained a search warrant for his place and we recovered a safe and inside the safe was a 380 handgun. i was like, did he lie? this is our murder weapon. >> is this the same kind of gun
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that killed eric? >> same kind of gun. >> the gun was sent to the firearms lab to see if lieu vin would prove woodfork was in eric's apartment. but woodfork's dna and finger prints weren't in the apartment or anywhere else. >> was he on the security tapes? >> he wasn't on the security tapes. >> the test came back from the 380. >> its was not the same gun that killed ancht same caliber, just one big coincidence. >> now eric's dealer was not looking good for the murder. not only did the gun not match but he was never at eric's pant. as for denise, the woman who had been eric's girlfriend, investigators interviewed her three times. she was cooperative and allowed them to look at her phone. >> her records proved she was home the night of the murder. >> they eliminated her as the suspect and again ruvin started
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from scratch. >> you don't just come in somebody's apartment and murder them while they're sleep and get away with it. i felt like this was my job to find the killer and i felt like i wasn't doing my job. >> they circled back to fern who pointed them to the pot dealer to begin, with, katrina benn, the womaned who had been so surprised and disstrault over eric's death. now they wondered if she had deliberately misdirected them. they asked her back for a chat. >> do you think he was the one? >> eric? do i think he was the one for me? actually, no, but he was trying to convince me he was the one. >> just days before katrina had spoken of eric lovingly but no longer. >> i mean i knew he was a lady's man, i'm not stupid. >> at some point i asked her to give me her phone because i knew they had exchanged messages and
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she flat out refused to give me her phone. >> that must have said something. >> it was a little odd, but at the same time if it was my significant other that was murdered, i think i would do anything to help the police. >> and she wouldn't do it. >> no. >> katrina's abrupt change in behavior was strange, even alarging to the detectives. all they could do is say their good-byes as katrina headed off to a new job in baltimore. >> at this point there was enough weird behavior from katrina benn. we had nothing solid, nothing really incriminating but something just not right there. >> but cops had a nagging feeling ka degree na benn was lying. that pot dealer wasn't in the apartment the night eric was murdered but katrina was and suddenly she looked suspicious, but suspicions don't make a case, and right now someone was getting away with murder.
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slowly rolled forward, detective dimitri ruvin developed a certain affection for eric somuah, the guy he had never met, the charismatic charming victim. >> you have a picture of eric on your desk at work? >> mm-hmm. >> just to remind you. >> they called him the most interesting man in the world and i've always had a picture of eric to remind me to keep going, keep working the case. >> unfortunately what wasn't next to eric's photo on ruvin's desk was any hard evidence against katrina benn, the woman ruvin thought knew more than she was telling about eric's murder. he decided to take another crack at the suspect and took someone to meet her at her apartment in baltimore. >> her story wasn't the same. >> but katrina was on guard and
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defensive. >> don't go anywhere. >> don't go where? >> instead of focusing on katrina's phone, she should have paid more attention to the clothing. >> that's when i asked about owning any gets. >> have you ever owned a gun. >> no. >> have you ever fired a gun. >> no. >> armed with a warrant ruvin searched her apartmented by buh did not find a gun. >> there was no gun registered to her. >> no. >> no sign that she owned one at any point. >> no. >> ruvin connect going. >> i look at her credit kartds to see if she purchased fire arms or ammunition. >> you didn't find any no. >> >> ruvin didn't stop there. he went everywhere teen her hometown in mississippi where he learned something interested. >> i talked to her dad who said
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that he had guns, multiple guns in the house and that katrina had shotguns befor s before so she lied. >> but that's no offense. but ruvin was certain he could find something concrete and he kept looking. weeks passed and then months. >> i think that's probably the toughest thing about this job is if it goes unsolved for a while. >> you feel like you're letting the family down. >> right, exactly, especially families who do stay in contact with you. >> eric's family was eager for answers. they were not shy about letting ruvin know that. >> he gets probably daily phone calls from each one of us, and he was so patient and just explaining. >> i take it ruvin never said to you, hey, like maybe one ow you'd could call me? >> never. >> never. >> you look at your phone and
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you don't want to answer because you have no news. it's the same as we had last week we think we know who did it but we can't prove it right now. >> may 2013, the one-year anniversary of eric's murder had approach and frankly the investigation had come to a standstill. ruvin wasn't just angry. he was frustrated. he needed to make something happen. ruvin thought about the gun that had killed eric and he knew a lot of handguns just like it were already in police custody all across the d.c. area. he decided to examine all of them. it was an immense task. he began in montgomery county. >> i decided to look at all 380s recovered in the past year. >> which was how many? >> it was about 60 guns. >> ruvin combed through the records for each of those guns, most seized by cops in traffic stops or drug busts but none matched up until ruvin read the
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second to last file. it was handgun number 59 out of 60. it was a gun turned in by a tourist from montana who had spotted it lying by the side of the beltway, d.c.'s most traveled road. the only republican the man saw it is because he was parked in d.c.'s famous bumper-to-bumper traffic. >> it was recovered the day after we found eric's body. it was a short distance away from the crime scene and i was like let's just test this gun, this gun makes sense. >> this seems like succeeding against unbelievable odds. >> one in a million. >> the gun was a mess missing most of its components and it looked like it might have been run over after it hit the pavement, but the barrel intact. using spare parts, the police fire arms lab reassembled the weapon and test fired it. the result? a close match to the bullet that killed eric somuah.
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and on the gun a serial number. from it ruvin learned something else. >> where was it originally sold? >> it was sold at a pawn shop in columbia, mississippi. >> why was that a big deal? because that little pawn shop was just a few miles down the road from silver creek, mississippi, which was the hometown of katrina benn. ruvin just couldn't buy that as a coincidence, so he took another trip down to mississippi, this time to track down the gun's original owner, which was harder than it might sound. >> this gun had multiple, multi. owners. it would take me 30 minutes just to persuade somebody to talk to me. >> kwhie, because in mississippi you sound like a stranger? that's so weird. >> possibly sound like a stranger, also nobody wants to talk about guns. they always think i'm there to get them in trouble. >> it was a lot of shoe leather, and ruvin still didn't have a solid link to katrina.
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>> it would take some persuading for me to have people even talk to me. >> but slowly the persuasion paid off. >> and each would tell us, yeah, i had it for a year and i pawned it at this pawn shop. >> after interviewing six former owners of the gun, ruvin arrived at a pawn shop that bought and sold it sometime around in 2003. >> the owner said we kept our records in diaper boxes in the back of the shed and the rats were eating on them, so we decided to just send them to the atf. >> ruvin offered to come look through the diaper boxes. the response from the atf, thanks but no thanks. >> the atf agent was saying, let us take care of it. so we left with nothing. >> ruvin left wondering if he had hit a dead and. it was late june, now more than
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a year when eric was murdered when an atf agent called back. >> we found these diaper boxes and record and we're faxing you this. >> i looked at it. it was katrina benn. she was the last purchaser. >> you got her. >> oh, yeah. it was pretty incredible. i was just jumping up and down. >> now he had to lasso katrina. easy? you decide? >> if i was to do something like this, it wouldn't be like this. it wouldn't be stupid. coming up, was katrina benn, a monday night girl? >> a girl you do not take out, you do not show up, she was
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eric somuah had been dead for more than a year and still no one had been arrested for his murder, but his family bound together by grief and faith felt a kind of serenity. >> i believe that there were certain people who were destined or ordained i would say to work this case. detective ruvin outside of his normal business hours was very determined and he persevered beyond what a normal detective would do. >> the family didn't know it yet, but that perseverance was about to be rewarded. detective ruvin had an arrest warrant for katrina benn. she was living back in mississippi, which is where the cuffs went onto her wrists. >> you have the right now to remain silent -- >> but katrina benn did not remain silent, not at all. >> if i was going to do
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something like this, it would be -- it wouldn't be like this. it wouldn't be stupid. >> how would it be? >> i think it would be planned out. >> ruvin dropped the friendly fa said he once had for katrina. now he came at her full force. >> so you're still saying you didn't kill him. >> no. >> now did you own a fire arm? >> yes. >> what kind of fire arm did you own? >> a 380. >> remember, katrina had told police she didn't own a gun, hadn't even fired one. >> why didn't you tell us that last time? >> because you never asked. i didn't kill anyone so there was no need for me to say i have a gun yochl u never asked. you asked me have you ever held a gun, have you ever fired a gun. >> it was simple, they told her. she murdered eric. >> it was your gun that killed him. that's a scientific fact. >> the question was why. >> there has to be a reason. there has to be a reason.
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if there isn't a reason, then you're going to go down, i'm telling you, as the most cold-blooded person that we've spoken with because you're so good it's going to look horrible. >> i'm just going to have my day in court. >> i'm telling you -- >> but katrina wouldn't give it up and asked for a lawyer. the detectives put her in lock jupp and ruvin stepped outside to qaa eric's family. >> i was just like, thank you, god. they're going get this woman. >> getting a conviction was ultimately the responsibility of montgomery county state's attorney john mccarthy. >> even with a gun which gets you an arrest and into the courtroom, this is pretty far from an ideal case. >> absolutely. to sell this to a jury when you're basically saying she felt so betrayed after a three-week relationship that she was driven to murder? that's a little bit of a tough sell. >> mccarthy assigned the case to state assistant attorney jessica
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zarrell la. in the fall of 2014 she gave katrina a nickname few would envy. >> why did you give katrina the name monday night name. >> it's a term used for a girl you do not take out or introduce or show off to your friends. she had a purpose but it was relegated for monday night but not the high profile saturday and friday nights. >> this was the prosecution's theory katrina learned maybe from eric's phone that she was far from the only woman in eric's life. jealousy and anger did the rest and katrina shot eric while he slept. >> human emotions fuels most homicides. >> what i was thinking of was more of fatal attraction. an insignificant on the one signed a very significant relationship on the other person. >> obviously he made a misjudgment when he became intimately involved with her and the sense of betrayal is what
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fuelled the homicide. >> and they say after katrina killed eric she quickly ditched the gun and quickly played the part of concerned lover but she couldn't keep her story straight. >> lies upon lies upon lies to bury the truth and that ultimate truth in the case was that gun. >> the crux of katrina's defense was she had no reason to kill eric because she just wasn't that into him. >> eric was a great guy, but i wasn't even trying to be with eric like that. to be honest, when he would tell me he was in love with me, i never believed him. >> what's wrong with the argument that this is a woman who discovered there were other women in his life and she got incredibly jealous and angry and that tipped her over and she killed him. >> it just doesn't work for ms. benn. >> carl antry low van was one of katrina's lawyers. >> you have to look at the time these two were intimate with
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each other, a matter of weeks. to so to say the relationship was at such a strong level she would become jealous or i rat that she would murder somebody doesn't resonate with the time they were together. ads for the gun, they had long since lost track of it. they say someone could have stolen the gun along the way and used it on eric. >> she shifts from one residence to another from state to state because of her profession. she may have left the gun -- or she's unaware where the gun may have been. >> jurors were not swayed. it took them just six hours to find katrina benn guilty of murder in the first degree. >> there's no doubt in my mind that had she not been convicted of this crime, katrina benn was just as likely to encounter someone else who disrespected her in the same way that she felt eric did. >> with the same result. >> visit the same consequence which was to take his life.
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>> the raw jaw dropper came at sentencing when katrina addressed the courtroom. >> she stood up as if giving a eulogy for my brother. sorry for the loss of your brother aunld all this stuff. it was like a slap in the face. >> she was talking about the murder as though she wasn't even there. you killed the person. you're the reason why we're here. it was just unbelievable. >> the judge sentenced katrina benn to life plus 20 years. >> justice has been served today, and what you have sewn into the life of our dear brother, cousin, nephew, friend, you will reap bountyfully with life in prison. >> now three years after saying good-bye to eric, his large loving family still feels the pain of that loss. >> we do remember eric every day, all the good times we had. it's unfortunate na we have to think about the day that he was
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brought home from the hospital to the day that we actually closed the casket. >> what they want to do is warn other families to watch out for the other katrina benns in the world. >> i pray and continue to pray that even in doing this, that it will bring awareness to other people out there about certain types of people and just being very cautious and just being aware. >> so the question is be careful who you get close to. >> be very careful. >> very aware. very important. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us.
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it's horrible, a horrible situation. >> two teenagers swept into the ocean and tonight there is no sign of where they might be. thank you for joining us tonight. i am peggy bunker. >> two teens swept away as they enjoyed the day at san francisco's ocean beach. tonight the search has been called off. we have
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