that's all for this edition of "dateline" i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. not for long, i think my wife is having a stroke. an hour later she's back at the hospital she just left. she had this blank stare and her eyes.

three days later, she was that. i said, she's my child, i gave birth to her i want to know what happened. >> at first it was just a medical mystery. >> seeing a healthy, white female, ever all intensive purposes should be alive. >> to them this was out of this house he just couldn't make any sense of it. >> but it soon became a murder mystery. because once they finally discovered what killed are, the next question was who. >> if he couldn't have, no one was going to have her. >> i still haven't made sense of it, i still haven't made sense of it. hello, and welcome to dateline. doctor autumn cline, was in the business of saving lives. but the doctor became a patients when out of the blue she collapsed, and was rushed to the er. now the young, successful,

seemingly healthy woman in the prime of her life. was fighting for her life. it was a medical mystery, or was it? was this a case for doctors or the police? here's dennis murphy with, lethal weapon. but >> the emergency room trauma team was losing her. she had been wheeled in glassy eyed and gasping for breath. >> her heart stopped. we had to restart her heart. >> within minutes, machines were doing the breathing and blood circulation for 41 -year-old autumn klein. wife, mother, medical doctor, and a rising star in the field of women's neurology. a star whose light was dimming. even as they try desperately to keep her going. >> these are doctors who are treating trauma patients everyday. this one had totally puzzled them. >> the woman failing in the er, doctor klein, was in many ways

but modern pittsburgh was all about. the gleaming downtown towers, didn't need to worry anymore about grimey soot from the steel mill smokestacks along the river. the steel industry here had mostly died by the early 80s and moved overseas. universities, technology, medicine, and finance. that was the foundation of the new pittsburgh they called, the renaissance. robert ferrante, and his wife dr., autumn klein, relocated from boston. they were just the kinds of renaissance minds the city was trying to attract. autumn's colleague, dr. karen rouse. >> she said that she loved pittsburgh, she loved her patients. pittsburgh they were wonderful. she was so happy to be there. autumn, had always intended to be a caregiver. >> her cousin, closest sisters sharon king, remembers that even as a younger girl she administered playtime tlc. >> we had a doctor's office.

our patients where our stuffed animals. >> and doctor autumn klein was holding clinic hours? >> she was the doctor. >> it was an interest that took root early for autumn and never left. always a top of the class student in the baltimore area. she later got her undergraduate degree in, neuroscience from amherst. >> helping people was the main thing. she was just so, smart, so intelligent, so thoughtful, and so caring. >> you and your husband must have been very, very proud of her. >> we were. >> lois klein was autumn's mom. >> we knew she was putting her mind on her studies and we are giving her the best education we could possibly give her. she was taking advantage of. it >> med school was a certainty. autumn announced she was heading to boston. her mother worried the city's crime it was too high. >> she said, i'm going to boston university medical school. and i said no you're not. she said yes i am and i said no

you're not. she said yes i am, and she went to boston university medical school. she had a mind of her own >> in medical school, autumn, developed a romantic thing for her research colleague. and he for her robert ferrante, bob to his friend, held a ph. d. in neuroscience. she was hunting for cures to devastating brain ulcers like lou gehrig's and huntington disease. he was also more than 20 years for senior, divorced with two grown kids. >> i simply told her that that was a little bit too old for her. i didn't think that that was the right age. >> two days before graduation from med school, a determined autumn wasting no time was walking down the aisles with her much older bride-groom. >> what was your impression of him sharon? >> nice guy, charming guy, a bit heady. >> egghead? nerdy? >> and she kind of was and she kind of wasn't. >> the couple made a home just outside boston, in a few years a baby girl arrived in their

hectic lives. autumn took it in stride. a two am diaper change was nothing for her. a 2 am call from the hospital, you have to come in and take care of this patient you know, she was used to that. >> the new mother was becoming a sought after specialists in neurological ailments in women. because of her expertise, she was interviewed for an educational video distributed by the discovery channel. >> people with epilepsy really need to be started on seizure medication in advance of pregnancy. >> but, autumn was growing frustrated with boston. professionally, she felt as if she had crested there. that's when pittsburgh loomed into view. in 2011, the university of pittsburgh and it's renounced sister medical center offered an ideal career move. for bob, a new research lab for autumn a chance to head her own department. autumn was not just a rising star, she was a shooting star. she was nationally recognized as a leader in the field at a very young age. but still, something was gnawing at her. a kind of emotional vacuum. she wanted to have another child. by now in her early 40s, she was taking fertility treatments, hormone injections.

but, nothing was happening. >> was it really eating at her? that she wasn't getting pregnant. and that time was going by. >> yes. just speaking from experience, fertility treatments are the loneliest place a woman will ever go. >> looking back, her mom, lois, recognizes now some worrisome signs. changes in her daughter. i kind of saw that she wasn't herself too much anymore. that she was kind of, a little, what do you call it. kind of a little down, maybe. here and there. >> then in early 2013, the couple tried a new approach to the baby problem. a fertility doctor thought the bodybuilding supplement known as, creatine, just might help autumn get pregnant. as it turns out her husband bob had been using the stuff in his research. so on april 17th, autumn klein, seemed ready to give creatine a try. she texted her husband that

day. i ovulate tomorrow. >> he answered perfect timing, creatine, smiley face. these are hospital security camera pictures that show autumn throughout the day, and leaving work late that night. ten minutes later she was home. minutes after that, her husband bob ferrante, was on the phone to 9-1-1. >> his wife, slumped on the kitchen floor, gasping for breath. the dispatcher hefty has been, what he was seeing. >> i think my wife is having a stroke. >> paramedics steve mason and his partner arrived at the ferrante home to find a woman in very bad shape. she was lying on her back on the kitchen floor, her eyes were open, and she was unresponsive. >> an hour after walking home from the medical center where

she worked, dr. autumn klein, seen here in hospital surveillance footage was back as a gravely ill patient in its emergency room. whatever was happening to her was a medical mystery to the team trying to keep her alive. then they saw the blood. so neon red, so out of their,. ,. >>. cough cough sneeze sneeze... [ sneezing ] needs, plop plop fizz fizz. alka seltzer plus cold relief. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working. so you can bounce back fast with alka-seltzer plus. now available for fast sinus relief. ♪ ♪ ♪ (sha bop sha bop) ♪

♪ are the stars out tonight? (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ ♪ alexa, play our favorite song again. ok. ♪ i only have eyes for you ♪ >> dr. autumn klein had been

rushed by ambulance to the er of the university of pittsburgh medical center after slumping to the kitchen floor of her home. >> we thought that there was definitely a possibility of a stroke. we knew that she was in critical condition. >> now the trauma team surrounding her was trying desperately to keep her vital signs going. alan jennings, at the time reporter with nbc's pittsburgh affiliate wpxi covered the story. he recounted what doctors later said about that night. >> she had this blank stare in her eyes. barely a pulse. >> and they didn't know what had happened to her? >> no they didn't. >> autumn was struggling to breathe. >> then in comes the ventilator. >> the ventilator, the machines? >> the machines taking over to keep her alive until they can determine what in the world was going on. >> at some point, allen, did they realize that this was one of their own? that this was a brilliant young doctor that works in the women

neurology unit? >> they did at one point. i don't know if they would've treated anyone any differently. but she was one of them, one of the team. >> when autumn's husband medical researcher bob ferrante, arrived in the trauma room. he tried to give the team some of his wife's medical history. explain that she had been on fertility hormones. >> she had headaches, fainting spells, and that she generally was expressing that she hadn't been feeling well. >> he told the er doctors that he thought his wife had suffered a stroke. though diagnostic test said otherwise. by then, bob ferrante had already called his father and mother in law at their home in baltimore with the bad news. autumn's mother, lois klein, said they got in the car immediately to drive through the night to pittsburgh. she was counting out the exits. >> and i said, please, let me get to frederick then please let me get to hagerstown. please let me get to hancock and then please let me get the pittsburgh.

>> back in the er, a resident trying to rally autumn's failing body stuck an iv into her and notice something quite odd. her blood in his tube showed shocking red. >> the observation of that docc at the bedside was that the blood is too red, why am i seeing blood this brilliantly red saturation. to them this was out of this world. they just couldn't make any sense of it. >> eventually autumn went into cardiac arrest. doctors, managed to bring her back, barely. >> they actually took turns doing chest compressions to try and get some reaction from her and to try and get her heart moving and pumping again. >> another doctor reviewed autumn's symptoms and ordered up a test. he wanted a toxicology screen of her blood. hours passed, her blood was being pumped into a machine that was doing the oxygenated work of her heart and lungs. at some point, word had reached her cousin, sharon, now living

in washington state. sharon talked by phone to autumn's frantic husband, bob. i was grateful for his medical background. >> he was calling his colleagues, he knows this neurologist, or this person. great, use your resources. i had no idea what was going on. >> eventually though, autumn lossed brain function, by the time parents finally made it to the hospital they could see there was little hope for their daughter. >> they had a lot of tubes and things hooked up to her. and i held her hand and i talked to her. and i told her, you heal everybody else's brain why can't you heal your own? >> sharon wanted desperately to fly out from washington state to see autumn, but her aunt lois told her to wait. >> that's my other half of the hospital bed, i need to be there. >> doctors managed to keep autumn alive for two full days. at some point sharon could tell

autumn's grieving husband had run out of hope. >> he did say to me, i'm going to spend the last night with the love of my life. at the time, i thought, it's not over yet. >> but in the er suite, everyone knew it was. autumn's little girl was brought to her bedside. >> she made some comment to someone about i don't think mommies ever going to come home. >> on the third day after she had been peeled into the er, autumn's exhausted colleagues pronounced her dead, and turned off the machines keeping her alive. >> a lot of my life feels like it doesn't make sense, without her. she was there for everything. >> autumn's husband and family, now had funeral plans to make. and darker days to get through. but, even one person wasn't done with the mysterious case of autumn klein. his work was just getting started. doctor todd luckasevic,

associate medical professor for alegandy county, perform the autopsy on autumn. >> it was regarded as a sudden, unexpected death. >> which meant, the county had to figure out why this otherwise healthy woman was dead. there was no reason to suspect fertility hormones, vitamins, or supplements like creatine could have led to her collapse. their brains showed no signs of a stroke, though an examination of the heart did reveal an abnormally shaped heart valve. >> it's a congenital anomaly founded approximately 2% of the population. >> does it lead to early death? >> not in your 40s, you need to be symptomatic. >> the conclusion of autumn klein's autopsy, the medical examiner was perplexed as to what killed this woman. >> i'm not seeing anything, i'm seeing a healthy white female. for all intents and purposes she should be alive. >> on the form that called for a cause of death the doctor brought, pending. no definitive answer. but in a few days time he would have more information.

the blood work was back from the lab. autumn has suffered a very unnatural death. >> coming up. what exactly had killed autumn? >> i was shocked. i couldn't see anything. >> or is the question, who? when lethal weapon continues. when they can enjoy the best? eggland's best. the only eggs with more fresh and delicious taste. plus, superior nutrition. which matters now more than ever. because the way we care... is anything but ordinary. eggland's best. cage free and organic. ♪♪ ♪ ♪ what the- henry?

thanks. if it's “out decorating the neighbors” season, it's walgreens season. ♪ ♪ what a pain in the- alice? if it's “lets wrap this up?” season, it's walgreens season. ♪ ♪ cases of anxiety in young adults are rising as experts warn of the effects on well-being caused by the pandemic. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ let's get ready for jalapeñoooo popperrrrs! can you hand me some potato skins.

theyyyy're loooaded! turns out, michael buffer speaks like that all the time. and it turns out the general is a quality insurance company that's been saving people money for nearly 60 years. and in this corner, coconuuuut shriiiiiimp! for a great low rate, and nearly 60 years of quality coverage - make the right call - and go with the general. let's get rrready for garlic breeeaaad! small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. make the right call - and go with the general. now, comcast business has an exclusive gift for you. introducing the gift of savings sale. for a limited time, ask how to get a great deal for your business. and get up to a $500 prepaid card with select bundles when you switch to the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses. or get started with internet and voice for $64.99 per month with a 2-year price guarantee. give your business the gift of savings today. >> two days after, allegheny comcast business. powering possibilities.

county associate medical examiner performed his autopsy on autumn klein. the phone rang. the voice on the other end was from the hospital. autumn's blood test were back. doctor luckasevic was startled to hear what the lab found. >> lethal, deadly amount of cyanide. >> what did that tell you? >> that told me that i have a cause of death now. >> cyanide. the poison of the nazi death camps. and the jonestown massacre of the 70s. lethal fast killing stuff. not a common cause of death. >> i have done approximately 3500 cases in my career and this is my first case of cyanide poisoning. >> the labs toxicology work, found cynadine levels of 3. 3 five milligrams per liter in autumn's blood. >> so this is a lot of cyanide? >> that is correct. >> still, he needed to confirm the results with his own test. he want to re-examine autumn's remains to see if he can find cyanide in other parts of her

body. but, by then he had released it to the funeral home. >> so, here's an easy solution you go back to the body and you take a second look. >> would love to. when we got the phone call on tuesday that she had a lethal level of cyanide in her blood i called immediately the funeral home and she had already been cremated. >> but the m.e still had samples of autumn's blood. the toxicology report that its own test for cyanide. they added a simple solution to the blood, if cyanide was present in the sample it will turn the center well of this disk purple. she and luckasevic demonstrated what they found. >> and this example used today is very representative of the bottom line samples. it's almost identical. >> sure enough, the sample changed color. >> her color change was a deep kind of purplish pink and it was obviously positive for cyanide.

>> does the saturation of color tell you got a lethal amount. >> oh yes, definitely. even the light pink color change means they're cyanide there is, significant toxic, if not lethal amount of cyanide present. >> autumn klein, had died of cyanide poisoning. no doubt about it she said. he grew even more confident when he reviewed the details of how she had collapsed and suffered. cyanide, once ingested can quickly starve the body of oxygen. >> so oxygen is on the blood, but it's not being utilized by the body. >> it was the trapped oxygen that turned the blood in autumn 's veins that vivid red. he also considered the 9-1-1 call. as her husband is begging for help autumn can be heard moaning in the background. >> now she's like having a seizure, jesus christmas sweetheart. >> luckasevic says that was likely autumn struggling to breathe. another important sign that cyanide was in her system. he knew he had a bizarre death

on his hand, and he immediately contacted the police. >> i call the detectives and i let them know cause of death is cyanide poisoning. you need to help them with the manner of death. >> he want to know if autumn had committed suicide, or had been poisoned. in other words, murdered. >> theres a note at my desk saying that the coroner's office had a woman come in who had a lethal level of cyanide in her system. >> cyanide poisoning? >> how many of those have you seen in your career? >> this is my first one. >> soon, autumns mom was given the news about the blood results. she didn't call her niece, sharon king, out in washington. >> she said, are you sitting down? i said okay. and then she said it was cyanide. >> just like that? >> and i was shocked. and i couldn't say anything. i couldn't catch my breath. >> when autumn's colleague, dr. karen rouse, heard that she knew right away that her friend had suffered an agonizing death. as a medical professional i

know about how people die of cyanide poisoning. i couldn't dwell on that. just as in an old agatha christy cozy murder mystery about a cyanide poisoning in the village. the inspector was about to call. pittsburgh senior investigators were on route to talk to robert farrante. did he have any idea how cyanide found its way into the coming up a husband's theory about how and why his wife died. what was he suggesting? and did he know something that police didn't. when lethal weapon continues. en lethal weapon continues hi susan! honey? yeah? i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad... try this robitussin honey. the real honey you love... plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? now get powerful relief with robitussin elderberry. and that's just basic wavy guy maintenance, right? next up, carvana. oh, boy. carvana just doesn't seem to understand how the test drive works. they give their customers seven days. and if they don't like it, they give 'em their money back. wait, they take the car back?

that's crazy! what if it was driven by like a zookeeper? or a mud wrestler? or a guy who's on the outs with the missus and he just needs a place to sleep for seven days? yeah. (vo) buy your car online. love it or return it. with carvana. hey hun hey, get your own vapors relax with vicks vapobath or with vicks vaposhower. take a soothing vicks vapo moment wherever you chose.

frequent heartburn? not anymore. the prilosec otc two-week challenge is helping people love what they love again. just one pill a day. 24 hours. zero heartburn. because life starts when heartburn stops. take the challenge at prilosecotc dot com. small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. now, comcast business has an exclusive gift for you. introducing the gift of savings sale. for a limited time, ask how to get a great deal for your business. and get up to a $500 prepaid card with select bundles when you switch to the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses. or get started with internet and voice for $64.99 per month with a 2-year price guarantee. give your business the gift of savings today. >> hello, i'm dara brown. comcast business. powering possibilities.

here's what's happening. the white house confirmed president joe biden and vladimir putin will have a video call on tuesday. this is tensions over russia amassing soldiers at the border with ukraine. signal a potential invasion. the two leaders haven't spoken since july. and hawaii is breaking for a foot of snow this weekend. a blizzard warning is in effect for the big island mountain summits. this video shows a time lapse of the snow at the summit

earlier this week. now back to dateline. >> five days after doctor turned off the machines on doctor autumn klein, pittsburgh police detectives made their way to the three story brick house where she made a home with her daughter and husband medical researcher, robert ferrante. veteran detective jim mcgee took the lead. ferrante greeted him, and his partner. >> we start talking to him and about what happened to his wife at that point. >> ferrante told the detectives how his wife had arrived home that night a little before midnight. >> and how she came through the door and collapsed on the floor. >> he then recounted what he called 9-1-1. >> i think my wife was having a stroke. >> he thought his wife was having a stroke. the detectives informed him he was wrong about that. >> we asked him if he knew that

his wife had died of cyanide poisoning. >> he gasped and said why would she do this to herself? >> why would she do that to herself? >> that was correct. >> to the cops the man looked visibly shaken, it seemed he was suggesting that his wife had committed suicide. ferrante then told the story about autumn trying and failing to get pregnant. he said she recently had been taking the supplement called creatine in the hopes it would help with fertility. veteran detective, harry lotun, understood the late wife's emotional agony >> she was trying to have another child and that's a lot of stress on a woman. when they're trying to have children and they can't have one children. >> could autumns distressed state of mind have led to suicide. detectives had to consider that as a theory. but cyanide is an unusual way to kill yourself. and it is a hard to get poison. how could autumn have gotteb her hands on it. >> well, we looked into the labs where she worked, she didn't work in the lab she worked with patients.

>> she was a clinic doctor right? working hands on. >> yes. >> but, there are other labs at the medical complex. laps stocked with poisons, including cyanide. maybe autumn wondered into one of those. detectives pulled hospitalsecurity cam footage from that last da y, and here's what they saw. that's autumn as she is getting ready to leave work. she goes up a set of escalators, disappears for roughly six minutes, before coming back down and heading home. question, in those minutes missing from the cameras eye, had she found her way into a lab with toxins? >> and maybe this is where she goes to get her hands on cyanide to inexplicably kill herself? >> that is correct. >> yet there was a problem with that scenario, a big one. the investigators learned that to get into any of those labs, autumn would've had needed a special access card. >> is there any sign that she had a card swipe that put her

in area where another researcher might have had cyanide? >> no. there's no card swipes the time that she left work. >> the more they dug, the less detectives believe this unexpected death was a suicide. true, autumn was frustrated by her infertility but disappointment was all it was, thinks her cousin, sharon. suicide was never on her radar. >> that was not autumn. that was just not autumn. family, friends, and colleagues agree. autumn was a woman with plans to live, not die. she had a daughter she adored and was scheduling vacations and new research products just before her death. >> if she didn't take it, and your theory is that she hadn't killed herself, the only place to go was homicide? >> that is correct. >> who would want to murder, autumn klein? the spouses almost always a suspect, until they're not. but the husband here, bob ferrante, was a renowned medical researcher. he didn't seem to fit the bill.

>> professional guy, well regarded, there don't seem to be any money issues in the household. >> in fact, the marriage of farrente and klein appeared to outsiders to be a good one. still detectives had to consider the husband's line of research. he worked routinely with toxins in his lab, but not with cyanide. more than a week after they first interviewed the husband. detectives began talking to his lab associates. the >> people that we talked to, said there was no research with cyanide. >> yet, detectives were just getting started with their investigation. they combed through labs, and laptops, interviewed friends, and colleagues. reanalyzed hospital footage. >> i think once we got all that together, and got all the pieces of that puzzle together we had our picture. >> a picture, he said, that revealed only one person had the motive and the means to kill autumn klein. her husband, bob ferrante. though the evidence was largely circumstantial, three months after autumn's death, the cops were ready to make an arrest. at the time, bob farrante, was

visiting his sister in florida. pittsburgh pd detective lutton headed south to make the arrest. but, when he got there, the sister said ferrante was gone. >> she said that he got a phone call from an attorney, and he got in the car and said i got to go, and then he left. >> ddid you think doctor ferrante was doing a runner on you? do you think he was trying to get away? >> yes. yes, we were told he was going to his attorney but he was running from us he knew we were coming >> on your books he was a fugitive? >> but not for long. as it turned out he was on his way back to pittsburgh to turn himself in. when he was pulled over by state police in west virginia and later handed over the pittsburgh authorities. police had their man. now they and the commonwealth of pennsylvania, had to prove to 12 men and women that he was the right one. >> they heard a clean case a very clean case. >> to jeffrey a. maning the judge that will preside over it all, the case against bob

farrante far from a sure thing could well leave jurors scratching their head. >> i'm not one for predicting verdicts but i would not have predicted one here. >> it could've gone either way and you wouldn't have been surprised? that would be correct. >> coming up. was jealousy a possible motive for murder? what had bob discovered about his wife? >> if this was somebody he was remotely interested in, she would've told me. >> when "lethal weapon" continues. or atopic dermatitis under control? hide my skin? not me. by hitting eczema where it counts, dupixent helps heal your skin from within keeping you one step ahead of eczema. hide my skin? not me. and that means long-lasting clearer skin... and fast itch relief for adults. with dupixent, you can show more skin with less eczema.

hide my skin? not me. don't use if you're allergic to dupixent. serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, which is severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems, such as eye pain or vision changes, or a parasitic infection. if you take asthma medicines, don't change or stop them without talking to your doctor. when you help heal your skin from within you can change how your skin looks and feels. and that's the kind of change you notice. talk to your eczema specialist about dupixent, a breakthrough eczema treatment. we're eating and drinking foods and beverages that are very acidic. talk to your eczema specialist about dupixent, it can soften the enamel. pronamel repair, what it's doing is driving more minerals deep into the enamel surface, that's going to help actively repair. pronamel is taking it to another level. your eyes. beautiful on the outside, but if you have diabetes, there can be some not-so-pretty stuff going on inside. it's true, with diabetic retinopathy, excess sugar can damage blood vessels, causing vision loss or even blindness.

so remember this: now is the time to get your eyes checked. eye care is important to your long-term diabetes management. see a path forward with actions and treatments that may help your eyes— and protect against vision loss. visit noweyesee.com and take control of your sight. trelegy for copd. [coughing] ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on by... ♪ if you've been playing down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day,... ♪ ...it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. ♪...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ no once-daily copd medicine... has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler,

trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, and save at trelegy.com. do you struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep? ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, qunol sleep formula combines 5 key nutrients that can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up refreshed. the brand i trust is qunol. dr. autumn klein and, robert

ferrante, had all the trappings of success and happiness. a nice three story home, a short drive from the city. prestigious jobs at the university of pittsburgh and its medical center. at one time it all seemed enviable. >> did you think they were good couple? >> yeah. yeah i did. >> and then, it all went so wrong. >> autumn, dead from apparent cyanide poisoning. her husband now, a year and a half later, standing trial for her murder. even to the presiding judge, with years on the bench, this was a first. >> you had a very intelligent man who is accused of poisoning his wife. you have experts who argue with

one another. >> and tip-top, good lawyering going on. >> very good lawyering, very good experts. >> it was up to be prosecutor lisa guinea to explain what brought an otherwise mild mannered scientist to kill the wife he supposedly loved. and in such a cruel manner. she opened by describing a man infuriated, one losing control over his more successful wife who in turn had grown tired of him. >> reporter, alan jennings, was in the courthouse. >> prosecutor say he was obsessed, jealous, his marriage he realized he was going to be dumped by his wife. the prosecutor asserted that the marriage was in freefall at the time of her >> autumn believed her husband had emotionally checked out, especially when it came to the issue of having another child. she more or less told her cousin, sharon, he was a cold fish.

>> my husband is a psychologist and she said i need you to ask him if there's such a gene as for compassion, because if there is than bob is lacking it. >> wow, that just describes acres of sadness, doesn't it? >> yeah. >> the prosecutor showed an email, autumn had sent her husband in the months before her death. she wrote, i realize now i have been a lot in this entire emotional journey i can't even speak to him without getting angry. >> did she ever say, sharon, i'm going to leave him this isn't working? >> yes, she said that to me. >> and he was positively rattled to the court said the prosecutors, when he found out klein was texting and emailing a male colleague she was spending time with at a conference in san francisco. bob farrante said the prosecutor suspected his wife was having an affair. autumn cousins were certain that wasn't true. >> if this was someone that she was formally interested in, she would've told me. >> so you don't think anything physical was happening, certainly? >> no. >> but, as the prosecutors told, the defendant believed

otherwise. rather than showing a crumbling marriage the embittered scientists his, wife then you are young star, came up with a cold blooded solution. he poisoned her. >> the motivation, just jealousy. if he couldn't have her, no one was going to have her. >> ferrante the prosecutor said he thought he can get rid of his wife quickly by slipping her the cyanide. when she didn't die quickly he have to come up with a plan b, to mislead the prosecutors and scientists. >> prosecutors played the 9-1-1 call. >> the prosecution was establishing farrante on this attempt to lead everybody that he encountered, starting with the 9-1-1 operator. he said, well, i think she's having a stroke. >> so staring? it >> staring. it >> then, when autumn finally died, according to the prosecutor farrente says something that he thought would keep the cause of death secret. lois klein testified flatly

that he said he didn't want an autopsy. >> i said i'm her mother and i want the autopsy. >> because you want to know the cause of death? >> because you're the mother. i said you can't believe i said i'm her mother and i wanted autopsy. because you wanted to know the cause of death? i said i can't believe you don't want to know what happened to her. his response was that, people do that, they do autopsy and then the people don't want to know the results of it. so, that was that. >> the prosecution had described a man who lost control of his wife, killed her, and then tried desperately to cover it up. defense attorneys -- you >> you get this picture of a jealous guy of his wife of his course been eclipse by his wife, thanks to god lover, and then bang she's dead. >> that's the spin the commonwealth put on this thing and we think the reality is that's not the case. they said the prosecutors alleged marie motivator made for great melodrama but it was miles away from the truth. >> bob was very successful hunting cities, airless, on the verge of some big

breakthroughs. bob ferrante they countered was a brilliant researcher and the loving man, devoted to helping his wife, not hurting her. and to sell the image they flabbergasted courtroom by calling the defendent himself to the stand. >> so in this case the defendant made that choice. i've often said that it's risky at best, the minute to defendent it takes the stand we now have the governments proof versus defense its credibility. >> i gamble, is the defense team said frontally was wanted to make. he want to see jurors to see him for the man he was. one who loved his bright, complicated wife. >> he wanted to help the jury understand what was going on in their marriage. he wanted to tell them how badly his wife wanted to have a child. >> >> and saw them how bad his wife want to have a child. >> yes he conceded >> the going to trip to puerto rico with their daughter, has the

neighbors described their going there and love their holding hands. those actions speak 1000 words. >> and the moment after his wife collapse he said he honestly thought she was having a stroke. when she died, he wanted simply to honor her wishes and donate her organs. that's why he didn't want an autopsy. >> he was aware than autopsy was done, a full autopsy, he would destroy the ability to donate the organs which was his wife's request. >> a loving and loyal husband to the end, according to the defense. not a math science treating his wife like elaborate, killing her with cyanide. speaking of which, they said, the prosecution's claim of how autumn died was all wrong. >> there was not evidence that my client had anything to do with her death. let alone her death caused by cyanide. >> an age-old poison, its connection to a medical researcher and his doctor wife were about to be analyzed beneath a very different kind

of microscope. the unforgiving eye, of the law. . just two pills for all day pain relief. aleve it, and see what's possible. and also try alevex topical pain relief. the new sensodyne repair and protect with deep repair has the science to show that the toothpaste goes deep inside the exposed dentin to help repair sensitive teeth. my patients are able to have that quality of life back.

i recommend sensodyne repair and protect with deep repair. ♪ ♪ ♪ (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ are the stars out tonight? (sha bop sha bop) ♪ ♪ ♪ alexa, play our favorite song again. ok. ♪ i only have eyes for you ♪ the hammerschteins are saving big, holiday shopping at amazon. so now they're free to become... the handbell hammerschteins. ♪ ♪

just pure artistry. doesn't your family deserve the best? eggland's best eggs. classic, cage free, and organic. more delicious, farm-fresh taste. plus, superior nutrition. which is now more important than ever. because the way we care... is anything but ordinary. only eggland's best. ♪♪ facing expensive vitamin c creams with dull results? only eggland's best. olay brightens it up with new olay vitamin c. gives you two times brighter skin. hydrates better than the $400 cream.

every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. >> welcome back to "dateline". powering possibilities.

i'm natalie morales. the prosecution made the argument that bob ferrante certainly had the means to kill his wife. now it was the defenses turn and their goal was to dismantle the largely circumstantial case presented. questioning the motive and whether she even died from the poison at all. now with the conclusion of "lethal weapon", here's dennis murphy. >> the commonwealth of pennsylvania had tried to paint robert ferrante as a jealous has been, driven by a reach to poison his wife. how did he do it? prosecutors believed he slipped the cyanide inside a drink and gave it to her shortly after she came home that night. a theory, said judge manning, that was tough to prove. >> no one stood there with their two eyes and said, i saw him put the cyanide in the drink and give it to her. no one said that. >> that is a weak point in the prosecutions argument. >> of course it is. but keep in mind, circumstantial evidence, most

people don't believe what it really is, is very powerful. >> prosecutor lisa tele-greening told the court that ferrante use his wife vulnerability, namely her infertility, to trick her into taking cyanide that night. earlier in the day, had autumn sent him this text. i overlook tomorrow. he texted back, perfect timing. creatine, smiley face. creatine. >> creatine. >> this is the solution? >> this is. it >> ferrante the prosecutor allege, had convince his wife that creatine could help her get pregnant. he whipped up a price and drink knowing she take it as soon as she came home. the poison drink theory was cooperated by something told later to a doctor friend of ferrante. >> doctor ferrante told him, he said i don't know, she came home, i gave her a creatine drink, she drink it and she passed out on the floor. >> and the one may have been the wiser for it, if it hadn't been for a lab test that found a sky high amount of cyanide in

autumn's blood. subsequent tests, the prosecutor added, or positive for the poison. associate medical examiner doctor todd luckasevic come from the theory. what caused this woman's death? >> the cyanide poison, period. >> no doubt? >> no doubt. >> nor was there any doubt said the prosecutor, as to who poisoned autumn. police discovered the defendants laptop hidden in an office safe. an insider, a wealth of information that told them bob ferrante had indeed been a very busy researcher in the months before his wife's death. >> doctor ferrante was googling searches concerning cyanide. were to purchase it. how to purchase it. the effects on people. >> and he didn't stop there. the prosecutor said bob ferrante then made an interesting request to his love associates. something later rick related detectives. >> he goes to the purchasing person in the laboratory and he tells this person that he wants to order a bottle cyanide of.

>> has he ever done that before? >> never. >> better yet, the detectives explained, the doctor asked for the cyanide to be delivered over night. >> and when is all this in relation to autumn's slumping to the floor in her home? >> two days prior. >> two days prior? >> yes. >> ferrante he, said, had even left his fingerprint on the container. which interesting lead to them, had 8.3 grams of cyanide missing. a heaping teaspoonful maybe of cyanide? >> i think about a teaspoonful. about eight grams. >> is that legal amount of cyanide? >> yes. >> prosecutor lisa telegraphy said the defendant thought he was so smart, fooling his wife and then everyone else, by using a poison he assumed was untraceable. >> she's standing and looking at the jury. points to ferrante. that man, right there, was one blood test away from that perfect murder. >> murder, responded the

defense, what murder? robert ferrante is set, did not commit a crime because there was no crime. >> i said as forcefully as i could, we don't believe and we will never believe that autumn klein died from cyanide. >> the defense was attacking the cornerstone of the commonwealth case. that blood tests with illegal reading of cyanide could never be trusted, it said. >> there's no way that the lab. >> threw it out? >> yes. >> because, he said, the lab initially screwed up in that 3.3 five calculation. it only caught its error months later. correcting the level to 2.2. it's a still lethal amount of cyanide in autumn's blood. >> it certainly raises a real issue in its credibility. >> it gets their defense something to work with? >> absolutely gave the defense a lot to work with. >> for more reliable, argued ferrante's attorneys, was another test done the weeks after autumn's death. it two found cyanide in her blood, that at very low levels. nowhere near lethal. >> and in this case, that alone

is as dr. cyril wecht so articulated, was more than enough to quit my client. >> the reports are highly conflicting. >> doctor dr. cyril wecht, the defense had introduced into the legal mix and the renowned pick spurred an internationally recognized pathologist of many years. dr. cyril wecht had weighed in on cases from the jfk assassination to the deaths of elvis pressley and john benny ramsey. he told the court the conflicting tests demanded a tie breaker. >> what you do is, you've got to seated them again for laboratory testing. preferably to a third, highly respected clock talks ecology lab. that was not. done >> more compelling, he said, there's evidence other scarring around autumn's heart, which could have triggered an electrical malfunction, stopping the organ called. only on the spot cpr could have saved her >> and in the absence of somebody hitting you on the chess, somebody knowing what they're doing with training and

cardio pulmonary resuscitation, you probably will die. >> and other words, the defense said, autumn could have died of natural causes. they added that crime scene techs processed the house and never did find so much as a trace of the poison and their clients cyanide google searches, done for research purposes. not murder. i mean, here he is in january, asking questions uncle about the nature of cyanide. this looks very bad. >> in april he's asking about cyanide, potassium cyanide, for a science research project. >> the defendant further explained his actions from the stand. he ordered the poison for work and even took it out of the box when it arrived. that's why his fingerprint was on the container. besides, his lawyer added, a met as smart as bob ferrante would never use a weapon that could so easily be traced back to him. >> that's like me being a shotgun, telling everybody hey, i just bought a shotgun, and

two hours later's my wife is deceased from the shotgun. he would be the dumbest guy in the universe. >> in closing, the defense make the jurors to use their common sense. which they later said is exactly what they did. their common sense and the science presented told them autumn klain had died a cyanide poisoning because the defendant had given it to her. they found him guilty of first degree murder. >> crushing. especially in this case. absolutely crushing. >> yeah. the description. >> robert ferrante was sentenced to life in prison. at the time of our interview, autumn's family felt they've gotten justice. their anger towards her husband had been overshadowed by all the what's. >> not only do i grieve autumn and the loss that she is to me and to us as a family and to the community and our friends, but also her patience. my heart breaks for her

patience. >> it was all doctor autumn klain had ever wanted to do. help others. now, that chance is gone. swept away, we too soon. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. >> tonight, with the january 6th insurrection nothing more than a dress rehearsal. always, the republican party trying to steal elections and the many things democrats have done to stop, well, the few things -- while they're trying, i'll get back to you on this one. plus, a terrifying shooting and dramatic skate of students from the michigan high school. is this any way to educate our children? my conversation tonight with cameron kasky. also, congressman peter welch is here to talk about his bid to replace a legend in the united states senate. serving a whole new dysfunctional body a new thing. tomato, tomato.