prayer, they stood by a pond and the brisk wind carried away their good-byes. farewell to hannah hill. never forgotten by her family and friends. or as it turned out by the criminal justice system. >> that's all for this edition system. and that's all for this edition of "dateline" i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." i am being followed. there are threats on my life. i know we're in danger. i know we are. it's a riveting mystery that started in a place of glamour. >> it became a destination for rat pack, frank sanatra. >> 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. >> my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. >> 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. >> i see my mother with a crowbar. ♪ hello and welcome to "dateline." ben novak jr. was a successful entrepreneur and the wealthy son of a famous miami businessman. then he was found bound and bludgeoned to death in a new york he tole room.

who wanted ben novak 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 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 fountain blue. >> miami should be a great city. >> a hotel wheeler dealer ben novak built it and they came. steven gaines wrote about it in his book "fool's paradise". >> it became a destination for rat pack, frank sanatra, the major stars who were performing at the fountain blue and lots of movies were shot there as well. >> novak was the king. he needed a queen to preside over his aqua colored palace. he found a queen in a former coca-cola model named bernice with her beauty and effortless charm, bernice turned out to be the perfect hostess to greet the celebrities, gangsteres and just

plain guests who made the fountain blue the scene of the day. king ben and queen bernice lived over the store in a penthouse suite and then along came their young prince, ben novak 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 v.i.p.s. and back up the hotel elevator to home, birthday cakes came from room service. >> 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 disliked by his father's help lost himself in the fantasy world of batman. the superhero became an obsession. even as an adult, ben jr. was still amassing a floor to ceiling collection of batman memorabilia. he even bought a bat mobile from the old tv show, but there was no holding off the real world and change. just as the rat pack faded away,

so too did the fountain blue. by the late '70s, miami beach was regarded as a stale place for old people. ben novak sr. lost the hotel to bankruptcy and died not long afterwards. the son, ben jr., all grown up 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. like his father, he was a hard-nosed businessman. and in time, he was grossing $50 million a year. and like his father, he needed someone like his mother to mix and mingle with the clients. hoe found that lady from a recent immigrant from ecuador. her name is narcy and she had a little girl named may. >> my mother is a lot of fun. you know, she definitely partied. >> when ben jr. met her, she was partying for tips as a stripper in a sleazy miami club,

supporting herself and her little girl. >> she did very well with it, i guess? >> she did very well. my mother is a survivor. she adjusts to pretty much anything. >> narcy left behind her stripper pole to marry ben jr. but the little gifrl felt like so much excess baggage in her mother's new relationship. she was dispatched to boarding school at the age of 8. >> did you feel you had been shipped off? >> kind of. >> you had a tough childhood. >> 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 to recognize a kindred spirit in lonely neglected may. >> he saw me as his daughter and i saw him as my father. 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 his batman stuff. >> he did a lot of the grandfather things with them. a lot of, i think, why we saw so much of each other was because of those two boys. >> when she was in her late 20s, ben jr. asked may to become part of his very successful convention organizing business. 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 and showed me how to do things. >> then sadness. in the spring of 2009, bernice in her late 80s 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, bernice had just passed. and it would be something nice for him, you know, to be like, okay, you do have a daughter. because i do feel like i am his daughter to this day. so it never got legally changed. all 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 a big convention in hotel in new york suburban west chester county. just after 7:30 sunday morning, july 12th, 2009, the last day of the convention, hotel security got the urgent call. something very bad had happened

in one of the suites. a 58-year-old man had been found bound and bludgeoned to death in the bedroom. ben novak jr., the one-time prince of the fountain blue had been murdered. coming up -- the investigation begins. >> the comings and goings of every room, every guest. >> 450 rooms. >> when "dateline" continues. l, your lips have a unique print and unique needs your lips are like no others, and need a lip routine that's just right for you chapstick has you covered chapstick. put your lips first. with this one little nexgard chew comes power, confidence, reassurance you're doing what's right, to protect your dog from fleas and ticks for a full month. this one little nexgard chew is the #1 vet recommended protection. and it's the only chew, fda approved to prevent infections that cause lyme disease. plus, it's safe for puppies.

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in new york was host to 2,000 amway conventioners that summer weekend in 2009. one of the suites had become a homicide scene. sergeant terry wilson from the local police would lead the investigation. >> 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 that tell you? >> this was a targeted individual. >> is it true that his eyes were also gouged out? >> yes. yes. >> sergeant wilson learned that the victim was ben novak 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 the sergeant his wife had been up all night and didn't go to bed until 6:30 in the morning. she then went downstairs 7 to

oversee getting breakfast organized for the convention guests. >> could you verify that the wife was indeed at the breakfast by security camera? >> yes, we did have our own video confirm what she was saying. >> the stepdaughter may who managed the company money on these road trips confirmed her mother's story of coming down to pitch in with breakfast. >> i was thinking, there is a lot of people. there's 2,000 people down here. i'll take any help i could get. >> after the breakfast rush, narcy says she called her husband up in the room, no answer. >> she comes up and finds him at 7:30. >> she told the detectives she tripped over the body and bolted from the room. security arrived as did the hotel manager. >> our security guard was holding naryy at the end of novak's feet and she was continuing to lunge towards the body, howling and screaming at the top of her lungs. >> when she told police about the timeline of the morning, the

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

it had to be a robbery. they know we carry a lot of money. somebody must have been watching us. >> unusually ben novak's convention business ran on cash. bags of it. the exhibiters would turn over their dollars to the stepdaughter may and her assistants on site. this weekend they had taken in more than $100,000. now, that money wasn't being 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 cash? >> they had around 110,000 in cash. >> you're in motivation country right now, right? >> we're trying to figure out what's 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 guest. >> 450 rooms. it took him two weeks to do it. >> the hotel was bristling with security cameras, but unfortunately for the investigators none in the hallway outside the murder room. one of the first things the cops did was round up all that cash and get it stored in the hotel safe until the banks opened in the morning. then sergeant wilson posted a guard at the hotel room being 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're asking you the question, did you do it? >> correct. you know, then one of the cops told me, we have to ask these questions. well, do you have to get right here to ask me the questions. >> allison carpenter was a veteran west chester county detective. she joined the investigation and led some of the questioning. >> may the daughter, what did you make of her?

>> pretty much i got the feeling that she was being 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 numbs. >> she is grieving widow. >> widow, exactly. we need that information. she's the last person that saw mr. novak. >> 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 bed as well as 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 wanted the value of it. >> correct. >> sunday was over. on monday the cops would hear

about the novak's tie me up sex games. on monday, when mother and daughter started to go for one another's throats. coming up -- >> as i was sitting there, my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. >> when "dateline" continues. i'm your mother in law. and i like to question your every move. like this left turn. it's the next one. you always drive this slow? how did you make someone i love? that must be why you're always so late. i do not speed. and that's saving me cash with drivewise. my son, he did say that you were the safe option. and that's the nicest thing you ever said to me. so get allstate. stop bossing. where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. this is my son's favorite color, you should try it. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady? [tina] you're an old lady.

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♪ ♪ who had bound, gagged and bludgeoned to death ben novak

jr.? >> the scene, it was overwhelming to see it and just thinking, oh my god. >> in this case, the detectives art of vikt mology would play a big role. the circle of friends and family, his enemies. >> this is the address here. >> detective allison carpenter along with detective terry wilson would eventually piece together an unflattering family portrait. >> in the beginning we didn't know if an affair, was this domestic, was this 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 a long time for us to learn more about the family. >> the novaks came off like candidates maybe for the cast of a bad reality show, but good old fashion robbery still looked like motive number one in the

homicide. >> ben novak jr. was a hard-charging businessman. a lot of guys didn't like his style. >> that's correct. >> he could have cultivated enemies along the line. >> there are a lot of people that didn't like him. >> on the monday after the sunday morning murder, police took narcy and her daughter to the morgue to identify ben jr.'s body. is 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 right there and everything else, we all turn around and she is just staring at him. there was 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. >> the detective carpenter broached the sensitive subject of the sex life. >> do you want to speak to me alone. >> yes. >> with the male detective out of the room, detective carpenter managed to win narcy's trust. she 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. >> he like his hands behind. >> here he had been tied up in the homicide. did you think is this a sex game gone wrong. >> i confronted her in the interview. >> ben is found in a way that he enjoyed sexually. >> no, no no. when i left ben, he was not tied up. >> i just found it odd that the way he finds pleasurable he's killed in the same way. >> because she was is spouse, the questions got sharpen. was she in on the murder. >> if i'm being asked, no, i don't let them in. >> all the while may had been outside eves dropping 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 her 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. >> what are you thinking? what's going on? >> my suspicions are growing by the minute. i'm thinking i'm a horrible human being for thinking my mother could do something like that. >> for 14 relentless hours, homicide detectives tried to pin back narcy novak's ears, grilling her as though she master minded her husband's murder. >> did you have anything to do with your husband's death? >> no. >> she never ate anything. she never drank anything. 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 to 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 carpenter brought up the idea of a lie detector test. >> i take a hundred lie detectors. i do whatever you want me to do. >> so at this point i'm like hoping that i'm completely wrong. if she takes this polygraph test and she passes, then i'm just going crazy in my own head. there's no way she did this. >> may also agreed that night to be polygraphed, but then narcy got cold feet about taking her's. >> the daughter is saying to her mother, what is wrong with you? why don't you take the lie detector test. what's the problem? >> the mother finally agreed to the polygraph. may would pass her test, duh.

>> how did the lie detector test go for narcy. >> it department go well. >> she flunked all the way through. >> yes. >> when the cops were 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 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 novak family story. there was still so much about these people they didn't know. coming up -- >> i see my mother coming out with a crowbar. >> when "dateline" continues. y w they're out there. thousands of allergens in each cubic yard of air. no wonder you rub your eyes hundreds of times a day. but now, relief is just one drop away. introducing pataday®

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hello i'm dara brown. here is what's happening. some grim milestones in the u.s. the country is wleeding the rest of the world in covid-19 deaths.

at this hour, more than 2,300 americans have died from the virus with over 525,000 total cases nationwide. for the first time in u.s. history, all 50 states are under a major disaster declaration. this comes after president trump approved wyoming's request on saturday. 22 days after the first disaster declaration in new york. now back to "dateline." ♪ welcome back to "dateline" i'm krig melvin. was narsy novak involved in the grisly murder of her husband ben? 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 going through hours of hotel security cam footage looking for what, they weren't exactly sure. the footwork team of a homicide investigation was under way. >> we're leaving the doors open as far as we're concerned. everything is on the table until the investigation stalls or someone is arrested. >> the body of the ben novak 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 any way she could. she was collecting her things from her parent's 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.

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 trader. >> she knew that you were getting 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 novak house to the courthouse. a take no prisoner's fight over the will. may was giving her cop's her theory, her mother 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 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 elicitly cleaned out safe deposit boxes kept by ben and his mother. >> was she on the list of people who had a key? >> no, she was not. >> she told a story. >> my husband is out in the car waiting and he had been dead for a week at that point? >> yep. >> narcy was seen leaving the bank with a duffel bag. with police scrutinizing her every move and may hounding her, she hired new york attorney howard tanner. he says narcy did have authority to go into those safe gost boxes and also disputed may's contention that she was involved in her husband's death. >> she had nothing to do with it. when she discovered ben novak, 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 inheritance may would get $10 million through her children. >> that's correct. >> 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 pointed on her, she accused me. >> of arranging to kill ben. >> correct. uh-huh. >> for the money. >> uh-huh. >> the mother and daughter finger pointing accusations continued without cease fire, even as they inturn ben in the family mausoleum, narcy hidden

ignored her daughter. the mother was planked by armed body guards. 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, one of those kinds of gestures. >> 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 the 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. 4 makes my skin feel so hydrated. i can face anything with my olay.

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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 focussing 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 whom? then out of nowhere, an

unanimous letter fluttered on to the desk of a detective 1,000 miles away from the crime scene. gary, an investigator in miami springs florida, personally knew nothing of the ben novak case, and his department wasn't involved. >> there's people obviously that heard the name and knew about him, 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, siting motivations. >> this is shocking and it could be a big break. >> sergeant wilson up in west chester 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, inheritance, the obstacles in the way of the inheritance. >> the facts in that letter were on the money. >> here is the gist of the letter. it claimed narcy's brother had hired thugs to kill ben novak 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 rece t receip receipts, this is all right out in the open. this is too good to be true. like pinch me. and we're holding a 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, bus driver, just scraping by be wiring loads of money to one particular person in miami? >> one of the names on the receipt is garcia, right? >> alejandro garcia.

>> sir name garcia in miami is like 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 in 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 cell phone 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. >> the big break came she said he had a defective eye. >> a garcia with a bad eye. the data base search was narrowed. >> now we have some sort of physical description to see if this individual was arrested and lo and behold he was. >> garcia with a bum eye pops up. >> and that's him. >> and we get a photo. >> now the detectives were on a roll. with alejandro's garcia 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 ex-girlfriend said he always wore sun grasses to protect his bad eye, but he wasn't wearing them 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 are now -- >> well, apparently as the victim reacts to assault, he hits alejandro in the face, breaking the glasses. 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 novak jr. in the lobby. >> and in less than 48 hours, they're going to murder this guy. >> in less than 48 hours they're going to murder this guy. >> the second man is ided as joe 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. >> we saw video in the hotel. security camera. >> 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 the detective and narcy's brother. in the call, narcy's brother sounding all cooperative says he wants to help the cops and gives him the name, alejandro garcia as a person good for the murder. garcia listens silently as the brother threw him under the bus. >> he told me who did the murder.

he told me you, you did it. >> he denied being the hit man in that interrogation, but the message was clear. get on board now, confess, or take the fall. >> he will be booked on charges of murder. >> meanwhile, the evidence against narcy's brother was piling up. cell phone records showing him near the hotel on the morning. evidence providing a get away car and driver. >> who was in charge of this gang the conspirators? >> the street boss that was handling everything that was going on was christopher. >> and who was the boss of bosses? with a $10 million motive, there was only one answer for the cops. narcy novak had ordered the hit on her husband. >> obviously he reported to narcy or worked at the direction. >> what started as a small su suburban investigation was now a multi-state conspiracy case. the decision was made to let federal prosecutors take the complex conspiracy to trial.

the suspected hit men were offered a deal. testify against narcy and her brother or go away to prison for what would likely be life sentences. the two confessed to being the hit men in a murder for hire scheme. then garcia shocked the prosecutors. there was something else. a second murder they didn't know about. and if they didn't act fast he said a third was on the way. coming up -- >> just who was in the cross hairs? >> there was a hit out on me. "when or powders, try the cooling, soothing relief or preparation h, because your derriere deserves expert care. preparation h. get comfortable with it. but when allergies attack,f any the excitement fades. allegra helps you say yes with the fastest non-drowsy allergy relief and turning a half hearted yes,

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the two hit men had confessed, admitting to killing ben novak jr. they claimed ben's wife narcy and her brother paid them to do it, but still no charges had been filed as police continued to investigate. then the hit man, alejandro garcia dropped a bomb shell. he claimed he also killed someone else on orders from narcy and her brother, almost a year earlier. and he 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 fontainebleau died three months before ben in what

florida cops and the medical examiner ruled an accidental death. a slip and fall getting out of her car. >> how did he kill her? >> he had a monkey wrench and 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 dead, there was nothing standing in narcy's way. >> had they not tried to kill ben and succeeded in killing ben, they probably never would have been caught. >> and there was more. when detectives arrested garcia, they learned still a third murder would be in the works. someone else provided for the in the will. narcy's daughter, may. >> she was in serious payroll. >> i always believed she was, i couldn't prove it to anybody. when we sat down with garcia and learned that there was a hit out on may, that became concerning. >> a battered photo of may was found in garcia, the confessed

hit man's wallet. he was told, she would be the next job. >> well, may freaked. 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. detective allison didn't think there was time. >> and here came a moment of big moral dilemma for you as a person and officer. >> yes, it was hard. >> i decided to give her the money and tell her to move. >> your money from your bank account. >> yes. >> the west chester detective loaned may $5,000 of her own money. may promised to pay her back. when prosecutors learned of it, they removed detective allison from the case. the defense,ed that they admonished would call it buying witness testimony. >> i can't sleep at night. >> i am very grateful to her because if i didn't move when i

did, i wouldn't be here today. >> almost a year after ben's murder, narcy was indicted and 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 novak 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 novak jr. >> how did they get into the room? >> narcy opened the door and let them in. >> prosecutors argued that morning there was a small window of opportunity for narcy to let the hit men in and direct the assault on her sleeping husband. >> the victim is in bed. they get right in position. they signal. one, two, three and then boom. then the assault starts. >> they're banging him in the head. >> they hit all over the head, the ribs, i mean, brutally.

>> the two hit men use small hand weights to pummel ben. narcy looked on. >> then there is a point in time where i guess he's making sounds, moans and she tosses a pillow in to keep him quiet. >> did they say that narcy tells them to cut out his eyes. >> she did. >> at mid trial the case against narcy's brother was solvent. a long trial of credit card receipts and cell phone records connected him to the hit men. but for narcy, it was primarily the hit man's word against her's until the jury heard about narcy's secret cell phone. on the morning of the murder, garcia testified that narcy called her brother while they waited at a gas station near the hotel. >> narcy makes a call from that phone at 6:39 in the morning to say come on in. >> the coast is clear. >> coast is clear. that becomes huge because it's her calling her brother to say bring the killers in. >> that puts her right atop the plot of the conspiracy.

>> there's yet another twist. would you be surprised to learn that there was another woman in the story, a person named rebekah bliss. >> you're looking mighty sexy today. >> thank you. >> bliss, a south florida tattoo artist and sometime porn actress was having an affair with ben jr. he put her up in a nice waterfront apartment and told bliss he was going to leave his wife for her. narcy, the story goes, learned of the affair and called bliss, saying if i can't have him, no one will. six months later, he was dead and without eyes to ever look at another woman. >> this case was about money and it was about narcy not wanting to be replaced. >> when defense attorney howard tanner put on his case, he zeroed in on the hit men's credibility and their motivation in testifying. he also attacked their allegation that narcy was in the room during the murder. >> they themselves stated they would do anything to help themselves. in my book, they would have been willing to lie. >> is narcy in the room? >> absolutely not. >> how about the disturbing direction she allegedly gives them, gouge his eyes out sh. >> it didn't happen. >> narcy's daughter may could have been involved in the murder

so she and her sons could inherit ben's estate. if narcy novak disappear, she and her children take under the will. those are facts. >> so that's the defense? >> jurors consider who is going to get this money here and it's not just narcy novak, it's the daughter here, may. >> there was an incomplete investigation done in this case. i'm not claiming that anyone else committed this murder. the defense here is that narcy novak did not commit this murder. >> detectives concluded that may knew nothing about ben's will until well after the murder. >> i didn't even know that my name or the boy's names were in this will. >> after a nine-week trial, narcy and her brother were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy in the death of ben novak jr. and his mother bernice. they were acquitted of only one charge, involving the theft of ben's diamond bracelet. for the crime that conspirator's

almost got away with it, it carried a mandatory life sentence for both. >> the best part was that bernice could finally rest in peace. >> after the verdict, narcy spoke with telephone with "dateline" from praise. she would never done anything to harm her husband's ben and was innocent of all the charges. sergeant terry wilson and his team of detectives, the prosecutors won their case with some big assists from may abad. now her mother is gone and will spend the rest of her life in prison. >> she didn't see what she had in front of her. she had her daughter. she had two grand kids that totally loved her. and now she has nothing. >> and greed and some amount of jealousy presumably is driving this. >> absolutely. no matter what, i love my mother. she was my mother. she had grand kids that adored her, that would have done anything for her. and they did. and she just threw it all away. threw it all away for money. >> if you go to miami beach, the fontainebleau 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. >> come here, buddy. >> a new little guy in her life, a son. she named him ben after the lost prince. the name sake he never got to meet. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. first up on msnbc, signs of hope amid the loss. what new numbers suggest and what america's empty streets mean to stopping the spread of coronavirus. >> what's the plan? a new report on the coronavirus task force. and whether there's a clear path forward for the country in the weeks ahead. money in the bank. new rd