beverly monroe and roger de la burde met at a work christmas party in 1979. they were both married, but sparks flew between them. and soon after, an affair started. eventually, they both divorced, and their relationship together went on for more than a decade, but not without its ups and downs. the european man had just turned 60, and according to beverly, was an emotional wreck. he wanted a legacy, a son to look up to him and to carry on his name.

but then roger was shot in the head. at first, it was thought to be suicide, but then virginia police questioned beverly. they said she didn't pass a lie detector test, and she also signed a written statement saying she was present when roger was killed. in 1992 beverly went on trial for the murder of her longtime lover. there was no dna evidence, no eyewitness testimony, and no fingerprints on the gun. but the prosecution zeroed in on just one woman. they argued that beverly had become unhinged because she'd been betrayed. >> when did you realize that roger was having an affair with krystyna? >> that would have been new year's of that first year after we met them. >> two years before roger's death, beverly discovered her lover was involved with a 38-year-old married woman, krystyna drewnowska, who said

beverly had been very jealous. >> do you recall when you came across this letter at windsor, miss drewnowska? >> yes. i seen this letter first time winter. it was in roger's bedroom on his nightstand. >> that letter from beverly to roger, written in 1990, reads in part, "wedging the relationship, whatever it is or was, with krystyna in between us was already enough to do me in." but the letter also contains this bombshell. "if anything remains alive over the past few months, your wanting to have a baby with someone else was overkill." that's right. beverly knew that roger's affair with krystyna had a purpose. >> she was what he called a candidate. >> a candidate for motherhood. it seemed roger's obsession with a male heir was much more than mere fantasy because, by march

of 1992, krystyna was four months pregnant with roger's baby. >> when did you learn that krystyna was actually pregnant? >> that was the sunday right before roger's death, maybe three days. >> prosecutor lewis told the jury this was motive with a capital "m." beverly, the 54-year-old girlfriend, desperately afraid that this dramatic development would end her life with roger. indeed, prosecutors showed the jury an unsigned contract detailing how roger would support krystyna and the baby and possibly even live with them. >> there's a baby now. this is real. we've got to deal with this. it's not going to go away. >> now it was time for the defense, and beverly's attorneys had a bold, if risky, strategy that would put roger himself on trial. the defense hoped to prove that

roger wasn't a victim, he was a villain. beverly monroe's daughter came to her rescue. >> is your mother a murderer? >> oh, god, no. >> a recent law school graduate, katie monroe was convinced the case against her mother amounted to little more than speculation and conjecture. >> i could hardly imagine a weaker case. i can say with complete confidence that the prosecution did not prove that this was a homicide. >> because they'd initially assumed the death was a suicide, police at roger's home hadn't preserved the crime scene. there was no physical evidence, no fingerprints, no fibers, nothing to implicate beverly. besides, says katie, that initial assumption that roger had killed himself was correct. >> both of the prosecution's firearms experts said that they couldn't rule out the possibility that this was a suicide. >> the defense theory that roger had killed himself because he was an aging, ailing emotional wreck. a man terrified of suddenly

having the very thing he'd thought he wanted. >> he didn't want a baby. he didn't want a child. he wanted that love and that respect. that's why i think that, when roger learned that she really was pregnant, that that reality hit him. >> besides beverly's attorneys argued, even if roger had been murdered, there were a host of others more likely to kill him than his understanding girlfriend. they described the real roger burde as a ruthless, immoral provocateur. who thrived on turmoil and lies, and delighted in bizarre practices, including his worship of an obscure nigerian deity, eshu, the god of chaos. they portrayed this would be country squire as a low class lothario and an all too tempting target. >> there's a whole list of enemies, and any one of them could have pulled the trigger. >> could roger's art dealings made him vulnerable to some unknown killer?

it turns out the value of some of his supposedly priceless paintings was suspicious. roger aged them in the rain on the roof. and certain statues roger donated to his daughter's college were fake. he had hired a local artist to copy them. >> who created that piece? >> i did. >> defense attorneys also raised questions about roger's daughter karina, who had a rocky relationship with her father and reportedly wasn't happy he was having another child. and they speculated about those who were possibly hu they called roger's ruthless real estate deals as well as the men whose wives roger had seduced. and then there was krystyna drewnowska. >> he was in a jam with krystyna, and he didn't know what to do. this was a week before his death. >> remember that unsigned contract spelling out how the baby would be supported? beverly says krystyna was pressuring roger to make the deal, but he was resisting. he didn't

want to sign it. >> and had roger discovered something else that might have soured the deal? beverly's attorneys show the jury results of a test dated the very day roger died revealing that krystyna had learned the sex of their unborn child. roger burde, the man obsessed with a male heir, had fathered another daughter. >> he didn't want this at all. >> you think he felt trapped? >> i know he felt trapped. >> beverly told us what she told the jury, that she knew roger had shortcomings, but after more than a decade together, wasn't about to give up on him. >> he was going through such a hard time, that he literally asked me to promise not to abandon him. and i said i wouldn't. and so i was going to help see him through this regardless of what was there, regardless. >> regardless of what cost to you? >> i didn't see it as a cost to me. what cost was there to me? >> certainly an emotional cost

if this is a man who's begun an affair with another woman. that's not easy for any woman to accept. >> maybe so, but, you know, i'm not a jealous type of a person. >> but what about that blistering letter she fired off to roger? >> in it, you do sound jealous. you write, "if anything remains alive over the past few months, your wanting to have a baby with someone else, underlined, was overkill." >> and it's true. >> does that not sound jealous or angry or -- you sound mad. >> no, i sound straightforward. >> but you know what, beverly, to me it makes complete sense that you'd be angry. >> see, i understood why roger thought he needed this. >> then defense attorneys told the jury beverly couldn't be guilty because she had an alibi. after leaving roger's home around 9:30 that night, beverly said she went home then went out again to a grocery store, where a receipt shows she checked out

at 10:40 p.m. police estimated that roger had been killed around 10:30 p.m. katie was certain this was convincing evidence. >> i had confidence that our case was strong. coming up, the defense goes after the tactics of detective david riley. >> every time i would try to say anything, he would just cut me off. >> when "love and death" continues.

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in 1992, beverly monroe was in the fight of her life on trial for murdering her longtime european lover, roger de la burde. prosecutors painted beverly as a spurned woman, jealous of another woman carrying roger's baby. but her defense attorneys said roger plunged into a downward

spiral after he turned 60 and learned he would soon be the father of a girl, not the boy he wanted to carry on his legacy. beverly's lawyers said that she'd been browbeaten by an unscrupulous detective into believing a made up scenario about the night roger died. >> every time i tried to say anything, he would just cut me off and just talk right over me. >> beverly says, when she tried to stand up to riley, he didn't listen. >> but i have to tell you this. i would have never -- >> you remember now, though, don't you? tell me yes. tell me you remember. >> i remember some of it. >> you remember some of it. >> on the stand, beverly told the jury detective riley had bullied her, making her question her own memory. >> how could i i have been there and not -- not called an ambulance or done something?

>> what investigator riley did was cause her to think the truth as she knew it was not the truth. this was a woman who was not in her right mind. >> but beverly's attorneys told the jury her only crime had been to love a complicated man. >> did you kill roger burde? >> of course not. >> this isn't a case in which you were terribly jealous about another woman who was going to have his child and push you out? >> that motive wasn't true. there wasn't anything to lose emotionally that i hadn't already lost with roger, and that was trust. >> and you weren't so angry at him for violating that trust that you killed him. >> sara, you know, at trial we proved, we proved that i couldn't have been there. >> beverly produced a receipt stamped 10:40 p.m. but the state medical examiner testified that roger could have been killed as late as 3:00 a.m. at the end of the seven-day

trial, prosecutors told the jury this was a case of hell hath no fury. a woman scorned killing her lover in a jealous rage. but defense attorneys said the state had nothing more than beverly's vague statements which proved nothing at all. >> at most, what they elicited from beverly was a statement that she might have been present and asleep when roger killed himself and suppressed any memory of it. >> as the jury filed out, reporter arthur hodges says the whispers began again. and some in the courtroom thought the defense had done too good a job of vilifying roger burde. >> a lot of the dirt they dug up for roger ended up tainting beverly herself. >> so it made him seem like the kind of person that somebody would murder? >> right. because she stuck with him. it wasn't like a year or six months. 13 years. >> the packed courtroom was left to wonder who would the jury believe? it took just two hours for the jury to reach its decision. jurors found beverly monroe guilty of first degree murder. beverly and her family were

stunned. >> it's akin to the same kind of disbelief and terror that -- and sadness that you learn when someone has died. >> the judge sentenced her to 22 years in prison. >> do you remember the day that your mother went to prison? >> yes, i remember walking through the house and -- yeah. >> you must have thought of all the things she was going to miss. >> oh, yeah. >> and all the things you would miss. >> yeah. just sheer pain. >> katie says that pain gave way to determination to free her mom. she quit a promising job to return to richmond where she took on the legal battle of her life. >> i have no choice. i can't imagine doing anything else. other than working to exonerate

her. >> beverly tried to make the most of her ordeal. she read poetry and taught computer classes to other prisoners. but her primary focus was her own case. >> i want to clear my name. i want to set the record straight. i want my life back. >> but by 1998 beverly had lost two appeals. the next step was federal court. katie knew she needed help and contacted steve northup, an experienced lawyer who agreed to take on beverly's case free of charge. >> i felt she was an innocent person. we don't have any dna evidence. we don't have any fingerprints. so we're never going to be able to prove definitively that she did not do it. >> northup filed a lawsuit in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus, charging the state of virginia was falsely imprisoning beverly monroe. it's the legal equivalent of a hail mary pass because the courts refused to review 90% of such cases.

but in a huge victory, in april of 1999, a federal judge agreed to hear beverly's case. steve northup and katie monroe believed beverly had been convicted of murder based on statements that were coerced. they obtained detective riley's investigation notes, which katie described as revealing. >> he decided up front that it was a homicide, and he decided up front that my mom had done it. and then he viewed everything through that lens. >> and, she says, once the detective zeroed in on her mother, he resorted to police dirty tricks, and his bullying took its toll. >> he wore her down. and he caused her to second guess herself and her memory. >> but prosecutor jack lewis contends beverly wasn't coerced, saying she went along with riley because she had to explain why she flunked that polygraph and would say anything to keep the suicide theory alive. >> at this stage of the game, she still thought that suicide

was a valid defense for her. >> but even the prosecutor admits the detective sounds like a bully. >> i've read that interview. >> sure. >> and if that doesn't sound like leading the witness -- >> absolutely. i could not -- >> i don't know what does. >> i could not agree with you any more. >> the prosecutor says the reason detective riley sounds so heavy handed is because only the end of the conversation was recorded. the detective says he forgot to turn on the tape machine until 80 minutes into the conversation. once he started recording and asked beverly to repeat her story, prosecutor lewis says her answers became vague. >> plus then on the tape is dave riley doing almost all the talking, and it does come across that he's putting words in her mouth. there's no question about that. >> it was an ambush. it was wrong. when there was evidence that contradicted him, every step of the way, it just got concealed or covered up.

>> including information about a chevy blazer seen speeding away from roger's estate the night he died. although prosecutors turned over this evidence to the defense, they didn't reveal the witness who'd seen the vehicle. steve northup says this was a crucial admission because that witness might have led them to the driver. >> if the death was a suicide, a visit from that person or those persons could have been a factor in whatever decision he made that night. >> and that wasn't all the prosecutors hadn't shared. there was a statement from roger's former secretary that might have supported the defense's suicide theory. >> there were statements by other people close to roger that roger had been depressed or experiencing problems, had been unhappy. >> and there was another statement also not turned over from roger's daughter. she told police that her father's lover krystyna had been afraid to confirm the sex of the baby she was carrying because she knew how desperately roger wanted a boy.

northup says that, if indeed the state was right and roger had been murdered, there was ample evidence that others had reason to kill him. and the evidence added up to reasonable doubt. >> so you believe the prosecution simply did not prove its case? >> oh, i definitely believe that. one of the things that you learn if you spend any significant time with beverly, is it's really almost inconceivable she could do something like this. she's just not that kind of person. coming up, would the judge agree that beverly was innocent? beverly's daughters fight for their mother. >> the checks and balances that people expect or that should be in the system, they're not there.

after six years of fighting her mother's case, beverly monroe's daughter katie, a lawyer herself, got help from another attorney, steven

northup. he filed a lawsuit in federal court. in april of 1999, a federal judge agreed to hear beverly's case. what would the judge decide? beverly waited in prison, and her daughter katie, now a mother herself, had to wait as well. >> does your son know his grandmother? >> yes, yes. we take him out every other week to visit. she's his mimi. >> he has a name for the prison, doesn't he? >> mimi's house. >> yeah. >> ten years after the saga began, the waiting came to an end. a judge ruled beverly monroe had not received a fair trial and ordered her to be released from prison. when beverly left jail, she'd served seven years and was 64 years old. >> it's impossible to explain after waiting a decade. you know, for some relief from this.

it's impossible to explain. >> as much as you had hoped for that day, had there been times when you thought it would never come? >> i just -- i had to prepare myself that it might not. and at the same time, have faith and hope. the first people outside were katie and jen. and you just want to touch them, and there's this feeling of this vast space of sky, the air feels different. i can't even describe what freedom is like. but that was a euphoria as being able to hug them. i just don't ever want to let go. >> and we didn't. they had to pry us apart.

>> beverly went home to her grandson asher. katie, and her youngest daughter >> it's almost as if mom were in purgatory and we got her back. >> the judge called detective riley's tactics deceitful, manipulative, and inappropriate, but not unlawful. but he agreed the evidence not turned over to the defense was troubling. nothing could be more egregious in a criminal case, he wrote, then denying a defendant the raw material needed to secure a fair trial. >> this case is a monument to prosecutorial indiscretions and mishandling. >> when you read that, beverly, what do you think? >> that's what we've been saying all along. >> neither detective riley nor the virginia attorney general's office would agree to an interview. as for prosecutor jack lewis, now retired, he made this surprising statement back in

2000, when we first spoke to him about beverly's case. >> i do have sympathy for beverly monroe. there are a lot of people that really thought she deserved a medal for having killed him. >> the state of virginia appealed the federal court's ruling and lost. sending the case back to the local prosecutor to decide if beverly monroe would face another murder trial. >> you know, clearing my name is a huge part of this. >> a year after the appeal, the prosecutor in powhatan county announced he would not retry beverly monroe for the murder of roger burde. >> this is a case without a crime. i think the only crime is what's been done to my family. and to roger. >> the prosecutor said he did not pursue a retrial largely because, after 11 years of litigation, the victim's family wanted to move on. he also noted that beverly

monroe had served a significant portion of her sentence, was a model prisoner, and not a danger to the public. >> i do know now that it can happen to anyone, and i want the public to know that because no one is safe from this. no one. no matter what economic level, what educational level, makes no difference. it can happen to you. >> beverly's daughters will never understand what the motivation was for going after their mother. >> the mystery is why anyone would go to all of this trouble to create a crime that never was a crime. it's mysterious to us why we -- the police would even target my mother. >> beverly says it's hard to completely move on from this experience, but she cherishes the time she spends with her family. after prison, beverly fought to get the conviction expunged from her record. after three years, she was successful.

in 2006, katie became the director of the rocky mountain innocence center in salt lake city. she joined the innocence project in new york city in 2012. so far, the organization has >> these things are far too common. the checks and balances that people expect or that should be in the system within the police department, within the prosecutor's offices, they're not there. >> the years lost in prison can never be replaced. beverly and her children are still trying to piece their lives back together. >> we are normal people. we loved roger. but we've done nothing wrong, and we've tried very hard to keep ourselves together during all of this. >> since beverly's release, she's enjoying what she missed out on the most. >> my grandson. just i missed nearly four years of his life. i missed his birth.

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