i knew it the moment her wings covered me. she flew from afar and awakened new sight and only i see her my angel of light. ." started in a place of glamour. >> it became a destination for frank sinatra. >> and ended in a case of murder. the wealthy heir to this legendary hotel dead. >> he was my father. he is the only father i ever knew. >> now police said she was next. someone in the shadows gunning for her. in >> my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. sp >> so, who was behind all this?

plenty of suspects and plenty of motives, anger, jealousy, greed. someone had 10 million reasons to kill. >> we look back and said, my god, i couldn't believe what i saw. >> you're not going to believe it either because in this case, there is a final terrifying twist. a >> i see them with a crowbar. ♪ hello and welcome to "dateline". ben novack jr. was a successful entrepreneur and the s wealthy n of a famous miami businessman, then he was found bound and bludgeoned to death in a new york hotel room. who wanted ben novack dead? in this case there was no shortage of suspects or possible motives, but a mysterious letter

would lead detectives in a direction no one expected. here is dennis murphy with "family affair." ♪ >> if ever there was a little girl lost, it was maya bod. >> from when i was little, i was always in the way. >> she survived a mother/daughter relationship quite unlike any you've ever heard. >> my mother is like trying to hug a cactus. you will eventually get hurt. >> and if the intersection of blood and money intrigues you, pull up a chair and stay awhile because there's plenty of both just ahead in this story. >> it's really an amazing, unusual, frightening story. >> what ended so badly in a darkened hotel room with the en curtains drawn, has its beginnings really in the warm sands of south florida. not the south beach of today with its hot bodies and pulsating dance clubs. that's all a marketing reinvention of a much-older

miami beach. no, we need to go back 50 years or more when caddies with tail fins were pulling into the newest, glitziest hotel on the east coast. the fontainebleau. >> miami should be a great city. >> a hotel wheeler dealer ben novack built it and they came. steven gaines wrote about it in his book "fool's paradise". >> it became a destination for the major stars who were appearing at the fontainebleau, and lots ofhe movies were shot there as well. >> novak was the king. he found a queen in a former w coca-cola model named bernice with her beauty and effortless charm, bernice turned out to be the perfect hostess to greet the celebrities, gangsters the perfect host es to greet the and just plain guests who made the fontainebleau the scene of

its day. king ben and queen bernice lived in b a penthouse suite, then alg came their prince, ben novack jr. >> he was a spoiled kid, he was a brat. >> ben jr., don't call him benji, would be trotted out to shake hands with the likes of jft and then back up to the hotel room. >> the kids who came to the birthday party were complete strangers to him, just kids who were passing through the hotel. >> the friendless, lonely boy, lost himself in the fantasy world of batman. the super hero became an obsession. even as an adult ben jr. was still amassing a floor-to-ceiling collection of batman more batman memorabilia, but there was no holding off the real world and change. as the rat pack faded away, so too did thed fontainebleau. by the late '70s, miami beach

was regarded as a stale place to old people. ben novack jr. lost the hotel to bankruptcy and died not long afterwards. the noson, ben jr., all grown u now, stayed in the hospitality business and made his mark. >> he created a company ran out of his home here that organized conventions in big hotels. h like his father, he was a hard-nosed businessman.on and in time, he was grossing $50 million a year.im and like his father, he needed someone like his mother to mix and mingle with the clients. h he found that woman in a lady from ecuador. t her name is narcy and she had ad little girl named may. >> why do you think they became a couple and not just passing in the night? >> my mother is a lot of fun. shet definitely partied >> when ben jr. met her, she was partying for tips as a stripper in a sleesy miami club, or supporting herself and her es little girl. >> she did very well with it, i guess? >> she did very well. my mother is a survivor. she adjusts to pretty much is anything. st >> narcy left behind her

stripper pole to marry ben jr. she felt like excess baggage. she was dispatched to boarding school at the age of 8. di >> did you feel you had been shipped off? >> kind of. >> you had a tough childhood, huh? >> the best thing is that it's over. >> ben jr. and her mother lived in a $2 million ft. lauderdale estate with a boat out back. his elderly mother bernice lived not far away. but may, the stepdaughter, was never going to be a rich man's trust fund kid. she grew up tough and hard, estranged from her mother, paying her own way with bar tending and waitressing jobs. she had two children young and sweated the bills. it was the grandchildren that ultimately thawed some of the ice between mother and daughter. >> she may have been a horrible mother, but she was the best grandmother. she did everything with them. >> and ben jr. warmed to may. the one time lonely prince belatedly seemed topr recognize

kindred spirit in lonely, neglected may. >> he saw me as his daughter and i did see him as my father, and he had no children of his own. >> ben, after his own stunted childhood, finally found in his grandchildren some kids who wanted to play with all of his batman stuff. >> he did a lot of the grandfatherof things with them. a lot of, i think, why we saw so much of each other was because of those twof boys. >> when she was in her late 20s, ben jr. asked may to become part of his very successful convention organizing business.n she would work alongside her mother and his mother bernice. it had taken 20 years, but they were finally becoming a family. >> you know, when i actually became older and got into the business, he was always there, guided me andss showed me how t do things. >> then sadness. in the spring of 2009, bernice, in her late 80s, had apparently slipped and taken a nasty fall getting out of her car. she struggled to the house and

died. may thought the time had come. for years ben had been asking her to consider becoming his legally adopted daughter. she thought it would be the perfect father's day gift for him. >> i started thinking, you know, bernice had just passed and it would be something nicese for h, you etknow, to be like, okay, y do have a daughter, you know, because i do feel like i am his daughter to this day. so it never got legally changed. all of the paperwork is still on his desk. >> it never got attended to because of the brutal event three months after bernice's passing. ben, narcy and may were putting on another of their big conventions at ath hotel in new york's suburban westchester county. just after 7:30 sunday morning, july 12, 2009, the last day of the convention, hotel security got the urgent call. something very bad hade happen in one ofve the suites. a 58-year-old man had been found bound and bludgeoned to death in the bedroom.

ben novack jr., the one-time prince of, the fontainebleau, d been murdered. coming up, the investigation begins. >> the comings and goings of every room, every guest -- >> 450 courtrooms. >> when "dateline" continues. >> 450 courtrooms. >> when "dateline" continues hol (speaking japanese) where am i? (woman speaking french) are you crazy/nuts? cyclist: pip! pip! (woman speaking french) i'm here, look at me. it's completely your fault. (man speaking french) ok? it's me. it's my fault? no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. (pterodactyl screech) believe it. geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance. have a skincare routine. but what about a lip care routine? pay your lips some attention. the chapstick total hydration collection. exfoliate nourish naturally enhance your lips. chapstick. put your lips first.

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♪ the sprawling hilton hotel in new york was host to 2,000

amway conventioneers in 2009. one of the suites had become a homicide scene. >> i couldn't believe what i saw. i went in the room and there was the victim hog tied on the floor, and it was a bloody mess. >> what does it tell you? >> this was a targeted individual. >> is it true his eyes were also gouged out? >> yes. yes. >> sergeant wilson learned that the victim was ben novack jr., a name that meant nothing to him. the murdered man's wife and stepdaughter had been escorted to a nearby hotel room so investigators could take their statements. the wife of 20 years, narcy, told sergeant wilson that her husband had been up all night working on convention details and didn't go to bed, she thought, until about 6:30 in the morning. she said she had then go downstairs around 7:00 to oversee getting breakfast

organized for the convention guests. >> could you verify, for instance, that the wife was at the breakfast by a security camera? >> yes, yes. we had our own video, confirmed what she was staying. >> the stepdaughter, may abod, who managed the company money on the road trips, confirmed her mother's stories of coming down to pitch in with breakfast. >> i was thinking, you know, there is a lot of people, there's 2,000 people, i will take any help i could get. >> after the breakfast rush, narcy says she called her husband up in the room, no answer. >> and she comes back up what, about 7:30 or so and finds him? >> yes. >> she told the detective she tripped over the body, then bolted from the room shrieking for help. security arrived as did hotel manager jeremy morris. >> our security guard was holding narcy at the end of mr. novack's feet and narcy was continuing to lunge towards the body, howling and screaming at the top of her lungs. >> when narcy later told police about the timeline of the morning, the computerized room

key card confirmed her recollection. >> her key card was used to get in the room from 7:40, but just after midnight -- >> there had been no activity? >> no activity opening to go into the door. so that tells you right away that the door opened from the inside. >> if narcy had been downstairs helping with breakfast and no key other than the wife's had opened the door since midnight, who then had admitted the killer or killers? an early-on mystery. may, meanwhile, had been summoned by the hotel manager to her stepfather's suite. >> i asked him, you know, what happened? they're just like, he's gone, you know. i'm like, what do you mean he's gone. just try -- go, do something. >> the hotel guards wouldn't let her in the room. >> one security officer was talking to another one. he said, it is a blood bath in there. >> a blood bath that sent her mother into hysterics. >> she's emotional, she is wailing, tears? >> she is throwing herself on the floor. she said, i think they're after all of the convention money. it had to have been a robbery,

they know we carry a lot of money, somebody must have been watching us. >> unusually ben novack's convention money ran on cash, bags of it. the exhibitors would turn over the bags to may on site. that money was not kept in a hotel safe behind the front desk. rather it was stashed in closets under the beds of the staff members. question, had an insider who knew how they had gone about their business decided to rip off the company by torturing ben to cough up the cash? >> they had around $110,000 in cash. >> so you're in motivation country right now? >> and we're trying to figure out what is going on. >> they didn't get anything from him. so, of course, i'm scared not just for myself but for the staff. >> and if someone had been roaming the hotel hallways with money and murder on their mind, there were 2,000 potential suspects, a detective's nightmare. >> we decided we were going to download the locks of the entire hotel. >> you're kidding.

the comings and goings of every room, every guest? >> 450 rooms. it took two weeks to do it. >> the hotel was bristling with security cameras but unfortunately for investigators none in the hallway outside the room. one of the first things the cops did was round up the cash and get it stored in the hotel safe until the banks opened in the morning. then sergeant wilson opened a guard in the hotel room shared by the mother and daughter. before that sunday night was over, the two women would have another round of questioning with the detectives. >> they totally grilled me, and you get mad. so, of course, i was fighting back. >> they were asking you the question, did you do this? >> correct. you know, and then one of the cops even told me, we have to ask these questions. i'm like, do you have to get right here and ask me the questions? >> alice carpenter. she led some of the questioning. >> what did you make of the daughter, may? >> i got the feeling she was

honest with me, but you never know. people are deceptive. >> the cops went through narcy's story once again, hoping for an overlooked detail or investigative nugget. >> she is the grieving, all of a sudden widow? >> exactly. we need that information. she's the last person that saw mr. novack. >> narcy told detectives there was something of value missing, a gold bracelet that spelled out ben's name in diamonds, an expensive rolex watch was still on the bed lying in a pool of blood as well as an unexplained broken stem from a cheap pair of sunglasses. and then there was the matter of her husband's huge batman collection and a rare comic valued at $43,000 he was planning on selling that weekend. >> batman might have been a motivation for murder, his passion in life. >> uh-huh. >> he had a valuable comic and somebody else wanted it. >> correct. >> or wanted the value of it. >> correct. >> sunday was over. on monday the cops would hear about the novack's tie-me-up sex

games. on monday, when mother and daughter started to go for one another's throats. coming up -- >> as i'm sitting there my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. >> when "dateline" continues. t. >> when "dateline" continues

♪ who had bound, gagged and bludgeoned to death ben novack jr.? >> the scene, it was overwhelming, i mean, to see it

and just thinking, oh, my god. >> in this case the detectives thought victimology would play a big role, finding out who the person was as well as the circle in his friends and families, his enemies. >> this is the address here. >> detective alison along with detective terry wilson would eventually piece together an unflattering family portrait. >> we didn't know an affair, domestic, just a random act. >> they cobbled together the story of ben jr., the wealthy son of a famous miami beach man with his eccentric batman collection. the wife from modest beginnings. the stepdaughter welcomed late to the family circle. >> we were still learning the dynamics of the family, how may was a stepchild. it took us a long time to learn more about the family. >> the novack's came off like candidates maybe for the cast of a bad reality show, but good, old fashioned robbery still looked like motive number one in the homicide. >> ben novack jr. was a

hard-charging businessman. a lot of guys didn't like his tile. >> sthaert. >> he could have cultivated enemies along the line. >> there were a lot of people that didn't like him. >> on the monday after the sunday morning morning, police took narcy and her daughter to the morgue to identify ben jr.'s body. was that when may started to get the creeps about what had happened? watching her stone-faced mother watch. >> i'm throwing up in a garbage can. you know, detectives are like right there and everything else, and we all turn around and she is just staring at him. there is no emotion at all from her. >> that monday, late into the night, narcy and her daughter were interrogated by the detectives. >> i should have been there and i wish i got killed with him. >> detective carpenteer broached the sensitive subject of the couple's section life. with the male detective out of the room, the detective managed to win narcy's trust. narcy confided that ben was into bondage. >> and when he let you tie him

up, does he like his hands behind his back or in front of him? >> he likes his hands at the back because -- >> now, here he had been tied up in the homicide. >> right. >> did you think it was a sex game gone wrong? >> we brought it up to her and i confronted her with that during the interview. >> ben is found in a way that he enjoys sexually -- >> no, no, no. when i left ben, he was not tied up. >> i just found it odd that the way he finds pleasureable, he's killed in the same way. >> because she was the spouse, the questions for narcy got sharper as the night wore on. was she in on the murder. >> if i'm being asked if i let them in, no, i don't let them in. >> all the while may had been outside eavesdropping on her mother's interrogation, getting chills. >> may said to me that somebody told her it was a blood bath. i don't remember anything blood. blood is red. >> just listening to her talk to

detectives, nothing was making sense. >> when she heard her mother describe tripping over the body and reaching down to touch ben, alarms went off. she had seen her mother shortly after that. >> i'm looking at mer and there is no blood on her. >> in a scene that was described to you as a blood bath? >> as a blood bath, correct. and i'm looking at her from head to toe. >> but you don't see any evidence -- >> i don't see any evidence on her. >> what do you think is going on? >> my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute, and i'm thinking that i'm this horrible human being for even thinking that my mother could do something like this. >> for 14 relentless hours, homicide detectives tried to pin back narcy novack's ears, grilling her as though she had masterminded her husband's murder. >> did you have anything to do with your husband's death? >> no. >> she never ate anything. she never drank anything. and she never went to the bathroom. the detectives would come in, question her, she would just keep flowing, nothing phased her. >> question, had ben hired a

kinky escort girl to tie him up? narcy scoffed at the idea and told the detectives to tone it down. >> i want you have compassion, please. have mercy. if there is an electrical chair and i'm a suspect, give it to me right now. put me out of my misery. i want to die. >> shortly after 9:00 p.m., detective carpenteer brought up the idea of a lie detector test. >> i take a hundred lie deck te tors, i do whatever you want me to to. >> at this point i'm hoping i am completely wrong. if she takes the polygraph test and she passes, then i'm just going crazy in my own held. there's no way she did this. >> may also agreed to be polygraphed but then narcy got cold feet about taking hers. >> and the daughter is saying to her mother, what is wrong with you? why don't you just take the lie detector test? what's the problem? >> the mother finally agreed to the polygraph. may would pass her test but -- >> how did the lie detector test go for narcy? >> it didn't go well.

>> she flunked it all the way through? >> yes. >> when the cops were finally done with the two of them for the night, may confronted her mother. >> i asked her to her face -- >> what, did you have something to do with this? >> i did. i got in her face and they had pictures of like the crime scene and stuff and i smacked them in her face. >> you think your mother killed ben jr.? >> i think she definitely had something to do with it. you know, i didn't think she did it herself personally. >> the cops had only started to peel back the many layers of the novack family story. there was still so much about these people they didn't know. coming up -- >> i see my mother coming at me with a crowbar. >> when "dateline" continues. get ready for the insurance-themed experience

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some things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. hello. i'm dara brown . north korea claims to have successfully performed another so-called crucial test at its long-range rocket site. it comes as the u.s. tries to

get north korea to denuclearize. two articles of impeachment have been prepared against president trump. the full house is expected to vote on them next week. the u.s. and china say they've reached a limited phase one trade deal, president trump announcing he will not impose another round of tariffs. i will see you at the top of the hour for "msnbc live." ♪ welcome back to "dateline". i'm craig melvin. was narcy novack involved in the grizzly murder of her wealthy husband ben? the new widow told detectives ben enjoyed it when she tied him up, similar to the way he had been found. she also failed a lie detector test. even so, investigators had no evidence linking her to the crime, but there was one person who was convinced of narcy's guilt, her own daughter, may abod, and she was about to put herself at risk to prove it.

here again is dennis murphy with "family affair." ♪ the cops were spooling through hours of hotel security cam footage, looking for what they weren't exactly sure. the footwork team of a homicide investigation was underway. >> we are leaving the doors open as far as we're concerned. everything is on the table until the investigation either stalls or, you know, someone is arrested. >> the body of ben novack jr. was with the medical examiner. mother and daughter attached now by blood only returned to florida separately. may had her own agenda, telling the cops she would help them anyway she could. she was collecting her things from her parents' house when she stopped in the guest cottage where ben had his home office. she was snooping through his files for the detectives when she turned to see her mother upon her like a fury. >> i see my mother coming at me with a crowbar, and i very quickly she swung it and i

picked my arm up and she got this whole end on me with the crowbar. >> it was literally the final blow for may. >> she was calling me a traitor. >> she knew that you were giving evidence against her? >> uh-huh. >> could you have backed off at that point? could you have been a good little daughter and fallen in line? >> no. it's not in me. i knew what she had done was wrong, even though she was my mother i knew she was wrong. >> the battleground between mother and daughter then moved from the novack house to the courthouse, a take-no-prisoners fight over the will. may was giving the cops her theory, her mother had murdered her stepfather for the inheritance. narcy, as the beneficiary, stood to get an estate estimated at $10 million, lock, stock and bat mobile. >> at this point my mother was to get everything and i was like, she's going to get away with this. may filed a civil lawsuit against her mother, arguing the probate court shouldn't award

narcy ben's money because she had had him killed. the judge ended up freezing ben's assets while the court looked into the daughter's allegation, so the big money was on ice, but may said her mother had already been then illicitly cleaned out the safe deposit boxes kept by ben and his mother. >> was she on the list of people that had the key to get into the boxes? >> no, she was not. >> she told them a story? >> she did. >> my husband is out in the car waiting? >> uh-huh. >> and he had been dead at that point by a week? >> yes. >> narcy was seen leaving the bank with a duffle bag. with police scrutinizing her every move and may hounding her, narcy hired new york attorney howard tanner. he said narcy did have authority to go into those safe deposit boxes. he also disputed may's contention that narcy was involved in her husband's death. >> she had absolutely nothing to do with it. when she discovers ben novack, she acted consistently with how anyone else would act in that situation. >> and the defense attorney urged anyone looking at this case to follow the money in

ben's murder. down there in the fine print of the will, it shows that may, the daughter, may have had her own reasons for wanting ben dead and her mother accused. >> may abod and her children were the next in line. >> if somehow narcy was removed from the line of inheritance, the daughter, may abad, would get $10 million through her children? >> that's correct. with narlsy o . >> with narcy out of the picture, may would get a flat $150,000 and her two boys the rest of the $10 million estate. narcy began offering her own theory of the crime, may did it. >> when she realized the finger was being pointed on her, she accused me. >> of arranging to kill ben. >> correct. >> for the money. >> uh-huh. >> the mother and daughter finger pointing accusations continued without cease fire, even though they interred ben in

the family mausoleum. narcy hidden beneath sunglasses ignored the daughter. the daughter brought her sons. >> one of my mother's body guards flashed his guns at my kids. >> i'm packing in case there's any doubt. >> yeah. >> i saw the extent of everything when she threatened her own grand kids. and i always said she would never do anything to her grand kids. she loves these kids. >> there was mother/daughter war. bad blood for sure, but the detectives were about to learn there was another close relative of interest in this toxic family portrait. and more crimes to investigate, perhaps even another murder. coming up -- a clue that could turn the case upside down. >> this is shocking and it could be a big break. >> when "dateline" continues. "ds when i rent a car, i never compromise.

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♪ mother and daughter each had a $10 million motive for murder as the detectives saw it, but sergeant terry wilson was focusing on narcy. he knew he didn't have enough to charge her with her husband's death, at least not yet. she had an alibi for the assumed time of the murder. the case against her was circumstantial. so someone else must have gotten into the room and killed her husband, but who? seemingly out of nowhere an anonymous letter fluttered on to the desk of the detective 1,000 miles away from the crime scene.

he knew nothing of the ben novack case and his department wasn't involved. >> there was people that knew the name and knew about the fontainebleau and all. i wasn't one of them. i didn't know anything about it until i talked to detective wilson in new york. >> the letter, written in spanish, was nothing less than a blueprint to the murder, naming names, citing motivations. >> this is shocking and it could be a big break. >> sergeant wilson in westchester couldn't wait to see it. >> whoever wrote this letter obviously had information, inside information. >> looking back, that letter had the whole story, the greed, the inheritance, the obstacles in the way of the inheritance. >> the facts of that letter were on the money. >> here is the gist of the letter. it claimed narcy's brother, a man named cristobal had hired thugs to kill ben novack jr.

sergeant wilson and his team paid an unannounced visit to the brother at his place in philadelphia. >> we apparently had caught him off guard and he told us to sit down and he would be more than happy to answer any questions we had. as we sit down, we sit at this kitchen table and on the kitchen table is littered with papers. >> wilson and another detective spied something atop the heap. >> there's western union receipts. and this is all right out in the open. this is too good to be true. like pinch me. and we're holding the conversation with him, trying to not focus on the table because we don't want to draw attention to it. >> when narcy's brother briefly left the room, sergeant wilson's partner furiously copied down names, dates and receipt numbers. why would narcy's brother, a bus driver just scraping by, be wiring loads of money to one particular person in miami? >> one of the names on the receipts is garcia, is that right? >> alejandro garcia. >> but the surname garcia in miami is like being a murphy in boston. >> yes, it is. yes, it is. >> they began running it all

down and security cameras picked up narcy's brother wiring the money from philly, but at the receiving end in miami the cameras were on the fritz. no luck in getting pictures of this garcia guy picking up the money. so they moved on to the brother's cellphone records and found frequent calls to a woman in miami. turns out the phone belonged to garcia's ex-girlfriend and he had been using it. they talked to her. >> where the big bram came weak when she said he had a defective eye. >> a garcia with a bad eye. the database search was narrowed. >> now we have some sort of physical description to see if this individual was arrested, and lo and behold, he was. >> so garcia with a bum eye drops out of the database. >> pops up and we get a photo. >> now the detectives were on a roll. with alejandro garcia's mug shot before them, they rerack the security tapes before the day of the murder.

>> this is the main entrance. here they come. >> bingo. there was garcia in the dark shirt with somebody else. his exboyfriend said he always wore sun glasses to protect his bad eye but he wasn't wearing them on that day. >> you see the two of them walking very fast out. alejandro with the bag. alejandro doesn't have his glasses on anymore. >> with the broken frame which is are now -- >> well, apparently as the victim reacts to assault, he hits alejandro in the face, breaking the grasses. the glasses fall on to the bed. >> they rewound the tapes even further back to the first day of the convention and there they were again. garcia, in sunglasses and a yellow shirt, and the other guy casing the hotel. in one chilling scene, they check out their future victim, ben novack jr., in the lobby. >> and in less than 48 hours they're going to murder this guy? >> and in less than 48 hours they're going to murder this guy. >> the second man is id'd as joel gonzalez of miami. wilson and his team had two targets and started with the apparent leader, garcia. >> we started to hunt him down. >> the miami hunt didn't take

long. garcia was picked up on an outstanding warrant. the new york cops braced him. garcia denied ever being in new york. >> he's on video in the hotel. >> detectives had some surprises to smoke out their one-eyed suspect. they showed him stills from the security cam footage. garcia and his suspected accomplice in the hotel. the capper was a tape recording of a phone call between a detective and narcy's brother cristobal. in the call, narcy's brother sounding all cooperative says he wants to help the cops and gives them the name alejandro garcia as the name of the person good for the murder. garcia listened silently as the brother threw him under the bus. >> cristobal told me who did the murder. he said you did it. >> he denied being the hitman in that interrogation, but the message was clear. get on board now, confess or

take the fall. >> he's going to be booked on charges of murder. >> meanwhile, the evidence against narcy's brother was piling up. cellphone tower records showing him near the hotel on the morning of the murder, evidence he provided a getaway car and driver. >> who was in charge of this gang, the conspirators? >> the street boss that was handling everything that was going on was cristobal belize. >> and who was the boss of bosses? with a $10 million motive, there was only one answer for the cops. narcy novack had ordered the hit on her husband. >> obviously he reported to narcy or worked at the direction. >> what started as a small suburban village investigation was now a multi-state conspiracy case. the decision was made to let federal prosecutors take it to trial. they were offered a deal,

testify against narcy and her brother or go away to prison for what likely would be life sentences. the two confessed to being the hitmen in a murder for hire scene. then there was something else, a second murder they didn't know about, and if they didn't act fast a third was on the way. coming up, just who was in the crosshairs? >> there was a hit out on may. when "dateline" continues. e. then they get released back into the air so you smell them later ew. right? that's why febreze created new small spaces. press firmly and watch it get to work... unlike the leading cone, small spaces continuously eliminates odors in the air and on surfaces-so they don't come back for 45 days. now that's one flushin' fresh bathroom. breathe happy febreze... la la la la la.

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the two hit men had confessed. admitting to killing ben number ovak jr. they claimed ben's wife and her brother paid them to do it. but still, no charges had been filed as police continued to investigation and then the hit man alejandra garcia dropped a bombshell, he claimed he also killed someone else on orders from narcy and her brother almost a year earlier and had gotten away with. >> it the murder for hire, none other than ben novak's 87-year-old mother bernice, the one time queen of the off and on blue died three months earlier in what cops and the medical examiner ruled was an accidental death, a slip and fall getting out of her car. >> how he kill her? >> a monkey wrench, he took what appeared to be a baseball swing and hit her several times to the head. >> garcia said he got paid $600 for the job.

but why kill ben's 87-year-old mother? because in ben's will, in place at the time, if he died first, his mother, not his wife narcy would be the primary beneficiary but with bernice's death there was nothing standing in narcy's death. >> if they never killed her, they probably would have never been caught. >> they learned that still a third murder might still be in the work, someone else provided for in the will, narcy's daughter. >> when we sat down with alejandro and we learned that there was a hit out on me, that became concerning. >> a battered photo of may was found in garcia's, the confessed hitman's wallet. he was told she would be the next job. may 3, she needed to move apartments asap and told federal

prosecutors she didn't have the money. the feds told her they would get her the money but the paperwork would take time. the detective didn't think there was time. >> there was an ethical dilemma for you as a person and an officer. >> it was hard. >> >> what did you decide to do. >> i decided to give her money to move. >> and your money, in your bank account. >> yes. >> the westchester detective loaned may $5,000 of her own money, may promised to pay her back. when prosecutors learned of it, they removed her from the case. the defense admonished her and called it buy witness testimony. >> i can't sleep at night, and i wake up tomorrow morning saying that something happened to may and her children. >> i am thankful to her. >> she walked before the cameras of america's most wanted. she and her brother were charged with racketeering and conspiracy for two murders, witness

tampering, and a host of other charges. >> the plot that led to the death of ben number ovak was a family affair. >> when the trial got under way, in federal court, garcia, the hit man, testified in ice cold detail how he killed ben number ovak jr. >> how did they get into the room. >> narcy opened the door and said come in. >> and prosecutors argued that morning there was a small window of opportunity for narcy to direct the hitman in and direct the assault on her sleeping husband. >> right in position. they signal. one, two, three. and then boom. then the assault starts. >> they're banging him. >> they hit him all over the head. they hit him in the ribs. brutally. >> the two hit men used small hand weights to pummel ben. narcy looked on. >> there is a point in time where he is making sounds, moans and she tosses a pillow to keep him quiet. >> did they say that narcy tells

them to cut out his eyes. >> she did. >> the case against narcy's brother is solid. a long trail of wire transfers, credit card receipts and cell phone records connected him to the hit men. but for narcy it was primarily the hitman's word against her, until the jury heard about narcy's secret cell phone. on the morning of the murder, garcia testified that narcy called her brother while waiting at the gas station near the hotel. >> narcy makes a call from that phone at 6:39 in the morning saying come on in, the coast is clear. because it is her calling to kill him. >> that puts her right at the top of the plot for conspiracy. >> yes. >> and there is yet another twist. would you be surprised to learn that there was another woman in the story? a person named rebecca bliss. bliss, a south florida tattoo artist, and sometimes important actress, was having an affair with ben jr. he put her up in a nice water

front apartment, told bliss he would leave his wife for her. narcy as the story goes learned of the affair and called her saying if i can't have him, no one will. six months later, he was dead, without ever looking at another woman. >> it was about money and it was about narcy. >> when defense attorney howard tanner put on his case, he zeroed in on the hitmen's credibility and their motivation to testify. he also attacked their allegation that narcy was in the room during the murder. >> they themselves stated that they would do anything to help themselves. in my book, they would have been willing to lie. >> is narcy involved? >> absolutely not. >> how about the disturbing direction she allegedly gives them to gouge his eyes out. >> it didn't happen. >> narcy's daughter may could coo have somehow be involved in the murder so she and her sons could inherit the attack. >> may had narcy in her way, if

narcy disappearance, she and her children get what is under the will. so that is good defense. the jurors decide who is going to get the money. not just narcy but daughter may. >> there is an incomplete investigation done in this case. i'm not claiming that anyone else committed the murder. the defense is that narcy did not commit the murder. >> the detective says may knew nothing about the will until after the murder. >> i didn't know my name or the boy's names were in the will. >> and after a nine week trial, they were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy in the death of ben novak jr. and mother bernice, acquitted of one charge involving the theft of ben's diamond bracelet. for the crime that conspirators almost got away with, the murder of bernice novk, the conviction had a mandatory life sentence for both. >> the best part is bernice could finally rest in peace. >> narcy spoke by telephone to

"dateline" from prison and says she would have never done anything to harm her husband ben and innocent of the charges of. >> the prosecutors won their case with some big assists from may. now, her mother is gone. and will spend the rest of her life in prison. >> she had her daughter, she had two grandkids that totally loved her, and now she has nothing. >> and grieve and some amount of jealousy was presumably driving her. >> absolutely. no matter what, i love my mother. she was my mother. she had grandkids that adored her that would have done anything for her and they did, and she threw it all away for money. if you go to miami beach, the off and on blue is still there. all spruced up with a new lease on life. and may has a fresh new outlook on the rest of her life, too. >> here, buddy. >> in 2011, may welcomed a new little guy in her life.

anamesake he never got to meet. ben. >> that's it for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. hing good morning, i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it is 6:00 in the east. 3:00 out west. here is what is happening. the next battle begins, an historic impeachment vote, an unexpected senate trial, that could raise and escalate to partisan conflict. >> with every democrat voting yes. >> aye. >> ms. garcia. >> aye. >> every republican voting no. >> mr. jordan? >> no. >> mr. jordan votes no. >> it is a witch hunt. it's a sham. it's a hoax. >> fallout from the vote, and new questions on how many democrats may end up votes agains