on the verge of discovering who she really was when her life was so savagely taken. natalie morales: is there a day that goes by that you don't think of your friend? no. no, not a single day. she deserved to live. she deserved to have her own family one day. she would have made a great mother. she was just a wonderful person. very loving, very caring. just a sweetheart. [chuckles] [soft music] [theme music] hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline."wed. there are threats on my life. i know we're in danger. i know we are. craig melvin (voiceover): it's a riveting mystery that started in a place of glamour.

businessman: it became a destination for the rat pack, for frank sinatra. craig melvin (voiceover): 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. craig melvin (voiceover): now police said she was next, someone in the shadows gunning for her. my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. craig melvin (voiceover): so who was behind all this? plenty of suspects and plenty of motives-- anger, jealousy, greed. someone had 10 million reasons to kill. we looked back and said, my god. i couldn't believe what i saw. craig melvin (voiceover): you're not going to believe it either, because in this case, there is a final terrifying twist. may abad: i see my mother with a crowbar. [theme music] hello, and welcome to "dateline."

ben novack 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 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's dennis murphy with "family affair." dennis murphy (voiceover): if ever there was a little girl lost, it was may abad. may abad: from when i was little, i was always in the way. dennis murphy (voiceover): she survived a mother-daughter relationship quite unlike any you've ever heard. may abad: my mother is like trying to hug a cactus. you will eventually get hurt. dennis murphy (voiceover): and if the intersection of blood and money intrigues you, pull up a chair and stay a while, because there's plenty of both just ahead in this story.

it's really an amazing, unusual, frightening story. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 tailfins were pulling into the newest, glitziest hotel on the east coast, the fontainebleau. miami should be a great city. dennis murphy (voiceover): a hotel wheeler dealer named ben novack built it, and they came. steven gaines wrote about the era in his book "fool's paradise." businessman: it became a destination for the rat pack, frank sinatra. the major stars were appearing at the fontainebleau. and lots of movies were shot there as well. dennis murphy (voiceover): novack was the king, and he needed a queen to preside over his aqua-colored palace.

he found one in a former coca-cola model named bernice. with her beauty and effortless charm, bernie's turned out to be the perfect hostess to greet the celebrities, gangsters, and just plain guests who made the fontainebleau the scene of its day. king ben and queen bernice lived over the store in a penthouse suite. and then along came their young prince, ben novack jr. he was a spoiled kid. he was a brat. dennis murphy (voiceover): ben jr.-- don't call him benji-- would be trotted out to shake hands with the vips. then it was back up the hotel elevator to home. birthday cakes came from room service. businessman: and the kids who came to the birthday party were complete strangers to him, just kids who were passing through the hotel. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 batmobile 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 fontainebleau. by the late '70s, miami beach was regarded as a stale place for old people. ben novack 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 run out of his home here that organized conventions at 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. he found that woman in a recent emigre from ecuador. her name was narcy, and she had a little girl called may. why do you think they became a couple and not just passing in the night?

my mother was a lot of fun, you know. she definitely partied. dennis murphy (voiceover): when ben jr. met narcy, she was partying for tips as a stripper in a sleazy miami club, supporting herself and her little girl. dennis murphy: she did very well with it, i guess, huh? she did very well. my mother is a survivor. she adjusts to pretty much anything. dennis murphy (voiceover): narcy left behind her stripper pole to marry ben novack jr. but the little girl felt like so much excess baggage in her mother's new relationship. she was dispatched to boarding school at the age of eight. dennis murphy: did you feel you'd been shipped off? kind of. you had a tough childhood, huh? the best thing is that it's over. dennis murphy (voiceover): ben jr. and her mother lived in a $2 million fort 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 bartending

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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 did see him as my father. and he had no children of his own. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 nice for him, you know, to be like, ok, you 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 the paperwork is still on his desk. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 a 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 had happened in one of 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, had been murdered. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up, the investigation begins-- the comings and goings of every room, every guest-- 450 rooms. craig melvin (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. can neuriva support your brain health? mary. janet. hey! eddie. no! fraser. frank. frank. fred. how are you? support up to seven brain health indicators, including memory. when you need to remember, remember neuriva.

alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice, and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain.

dennis murphy (voiceover): the sprawling hilton hotel in rye brook, new york, was host to 2,000 amway conventioneers 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. and is it true that his eyes were also gouged out? yes. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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, till about 6:30 in the morning. she said she'd then gone downstairs around 7:00 to oversee getting breakfast organized for the convention guests. could you verify, for instance, that the wife was indeed at the breakfast by a security camera? we did have our own video confirm what she was saying. dennis murphy (voiceover): the stepdaughter, may abad, 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, you know, there is a lot of people. there's 2,000 people down here. i'll take any help i can get. dennis murphy (voiceover): after the breakfast rush, narcy said she called her husband up in the room, no answer. dennis murphy: and then she comes back up, what, about 7:30 or so, and finds him? uh, yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): when narcy later 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 from just after midnight-- oh, there had been no activity up to that point. --no activity opening to go into the door. so that, right away, tells you that, well, then the door opened from the inside. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. so i asked them, like, you know, what happened? and they're just like, he's gone, you know. and i'm like, what do you mean, he's gone? i'm like, just try, go do something.

dennis murphy (voiceover): the hotel guards wouldn't let her in the room. one security officer was talking to another one. he said, it's a bloodbath in there. dennis murphy (voiceover): a bloodbath that sent her mother into hysterics. she's emotional? she's wailing, tears? she's like, throwing herself on the floor. then she starts telling me, she goes, i think they're after all the convention money. she's like, 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 business ran on cash, bags of it. the exhibitors would turn over their dollars to the stepdaughter may and her assistants on site. this weekend, they'd 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'd 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, right? and we're trying to figure out what's going on.

because they didn't get anything from him. so of course, i'm scared, you know, not just for myself, but for the staff. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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, so it took him two weeks to do it. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 till 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 were asking you the question, did you do this? correct. and then one of the cops even told me, we have to ask these questions. and i go, do you have to get right here to ask me the questions? dennis murphy (voiceover): alison carpentier was a veteran westchester county detective. she joined the investigation and led some of the questioning. may, the daughter, what'd you make of her? pretty much, i got the feeling that she was being honest with me. but you never know. i mean, people are deceptive. dennis murphy (voiceover): the cops went through narcy's story once again, hoping for some overlooked detail or investigative nugget. dennis murphy: and she is the grieving, all of a sudden widow. widow, exactly. we need that information. she's the last person that saw mr. novack. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. mm-hmm. dennis murphy: he had a valuable comic, and somebody else wanted it. - correct. dennis murphy: they wanted the value of it. correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): sunday was over. on monday, the cops would hear about the novacks' tie-me-up sex game. on monday, when mother and daughter started to go for one another's throats. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up-- may abad: as i'm sitting there, my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. craig melvin (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking allstate first. okay, let's get going. can everybody see that? like you know to check your desktop first, before sharing your screen. ahh..that is not. uhh, oh no. no no no. i don't know how that got in there. no. that, uhh. yeah, checking first is smart. okay, uhh. everybody get out.

so check allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. you're in good hands with allstate. not to be dramatic, but i love my whole body deodorant. really? mine stinks. look. here. try secret whole body deodorant. it doesn't leave an icky residue. and it actually gives me 72 hour odor protection... everywhere. secret whole body deodorant.

dennis murphy (voiceover): who had bound, everywhere. gagged, and bludgeoned to death ben novack jr.? the scene, it was overwhelming. i mean, to see it and just thinking, oh, my god. dennis murphy (voiceover): in this case, the detective's art of victimology would play a big role, finding out who the murdered person was, as well as the people in his circle of friends and families, his enemies. no, this is the address here. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective alison carpentier, along with detective terry wilson, would eventually piece together an unflattering family portrait. alison carpentier: in the beginning, we didn't know if an affair, was this a domestic? was this just a random act? dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): the novacks 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. dennis murphy: ben novack 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 were a lot of people that didn't like him. dennis murphy (voiceover): on the monday after the sunday morning murder, 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 turned around, and she is just staring at him. there was no emotion at all from her. dennis murphy (voiceover): that monday, late into the night, narcy and her daughter were interrogated by the detectives.

dennis murphy (voiceover): detective carpentier broached the sensitive subject of the couple's sex life. dennis murphy (voiceover): with the male detective out of the room, detective carpentier managed to win narcy's trust. narcy confided that ben was into bondage. dennis murphy: now here he'd been tied up-- right. dennis murphy: --in the homicide. did you think, well, is this a sex game gone wrong? we had brought it up to her. and i did confront her with that during the interview. i just found it odd that the way he finds pleasurable, he's killed in the same way. dennis murphy (voiceover): because she was the spouse, the questions for narcy got sharper as the night wore on. was she in on the murder?

dennis murphy (voiceover): all the while, may had been outside eavesdropping on her mother's interrogation, getting chills. just listening to her talk to detectives, nothing was making sense. dennis murphy (voiceover): when she heard her mother describe tripping over the body and reaching down to touch ben, alarms went off. she'd 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 bloodbath. as a bloodbath, correct. and i'm looking at her from head to toe. there's-- but you don't see any evidence on her. i don't see any evidence on her. what are you thinking? what's going on? my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. and then i'm thinking that i am this horrible human being for even thinking that my mother could do something like this. dennis murphy (voiceover): for 14 relentless hours, homicide detectives tried to pin back narcy novack's ears,

grilling her as though she'd masterminded her husband's murder. 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 fazed her. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): shortly after 9:00 pm, detective carpentier brought up the idea of a lie detector test. so at this point, i'm like hoping that i am 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.

dennis murphy (voiceover): may also agreed that night to be polygraphed. but then narcy got cold feet about taking hers. terry wilson: 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? dennis murphy (voiceover): the mother finally agreed to the polygraph. may would pass her test, but-- dennis murphy: how did the lie detector test go for narcy? it didn't go well. she flunked it all the way through. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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? may abad: 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 has killed ben jr.? i think she definitely had something to do with it, you know. i didn't think she did it herself personally. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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.

craig melvin (voiceover): coming up-- i see my mother coming at me with a crowbar. craig melvin (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. narrator: at this very moment, children at st. jude are fighting to survive. with a gift right now, you can join the battle to save lives. katy: without saint jude, i don't know where we would be. can we see snuggles? they have given children with cancer, like my winston, a chance. christine: she has neuroblastoma and it has spread to her liver. i try to enjoy every minute with her because i do not know when would be my last moments with her. narrator: time is running out to give a year-end gift that can help. st. jude children's research hospital save lives. because cancer doesn't stop during the holiday season. please call, go online, or scan the qr code right now

and give $19 a month to help make it the season of hope for families at saint jude. tammie: just that feeling that was, like, so hard on your heart that my kid's not going to live. every day now, it's like a gift. narrator: for just $19 a month, you can make a difference. please become a st. jude partner in hope right now. franchet: those that donate, it's more than a miracle for me. it's more than a blessing. (voice breaking) they have done so much for me and my family. narrator: join with your credit or debit card for only $19 a month, and we'll send you this st. jude t-shirt you can proudly wear to show your support. katy: all these children deserve to live, and i would love for it to be the day where no other family has to fear losing their child to cancer. you've given us hope.

narrator: please don't wait until the last minute. make your donation now to help st. jude save lives.

an investigation into the crash of an azerbaijan flight earlier this week suggests external interference. u.s. intelligence indicates that the plane was likely shut down after mistaking it for a ukrainian drone. severe storms could impact millions of travelers this holiday weekend. nearly 3000 flights were delayed friday with more delays and cancellations expected. now back to dateline. o datelin

he'd 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 abad. and she was about to put herself at risk to prove it. here again is dennis murphy with "family affair." dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. terry wilson: we're 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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'd help them any way 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. may abad: 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): it was literally the final blow for may. and she was calling me a traitor. she knew that you were giving evidence against her? mm-hmm. 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 batmobile. at this point, my mother was to get everything. and i was like, she's going to get away with this. dennis murphy (voiceover): may filed a civil lawsuit against her mother, arguing the probate court shouldn't award narcy ben's money, because she'd 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, by 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 box? no, she was not. dennis murphy: she told them a story? she did. my husband's out in the car waiting? mm-hmm. and he'd been dead for a week at that point. yep. dennis murphy (voiceover): narcy was seen leaving the bank with a duffel bag. with police scrutinizing her every move and may hounding her, narcy hired new york attorney howard tanner. he says 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. and when she discovers ben novack, she acted consistently with how anyone else would act in that situation. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 abad and her children were the next in line. dennis murphy: if somehow, narcy was removed from the line of inheritance, the daughter, may abad, would get $10 million through her children. that's correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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, you know, she accused me. of arranging to kill ben--

correct, mm-hmm. --for the money? mm-hmm. dennis murphy (voiceover): the mother and daughter finger-pointing accusations continued without ceasefire, even as they interred ben in his family mausoleum. narcy, hidden beneath sunglasses and a scarf and hat, ignored her daughter. the mother was flanked by armed bodyguards. the daughter brought her sons. one of my mother's bodyguards flashed his gun 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 grandkids. and i always said, she'd never do anything to her grandkids. she loves these kids. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up, a clue that could turn the case upside down--

this is shocking. and it could be a big break. craig melvin (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues.

dennis murphy (voiceover): 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? then seemingly out of nowhere, an anonymous letter fluttered onto the desk of a detective 1,000 miles away from the crime scene. gary fetters, then an investigator in miami springs, florida, personally knew nothing of the ben novack 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): sergeant wilson, up in westchester, couldn't wait to see it. whoever wrote this letter obviously had 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): here's the gist of the letter.

it claimed narcy's brother, a man named cristobal veliz, had hired some 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 invited us in, told us to sit down, and he'd be more than happy to answer any questions we had. as we sit down, we sat at this kitchen table. and the kitchen table is littered with papers. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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?

dennis murphy: 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 cell phone records and found frequent calls to a woman in miami. it turns out the phone belonged to garcia's ex-girlfriend, and he'd been using it. they talked to her. where the big break came was she said that he had a defective eye. dennis murphy (voiceover): a garcia with a bad eye. the database search was narrowed. well, now we have some sort of physical description to see if this individual was arrested. and lo and behold, he was. so a garcia with a bum eye comes out of the database. pops up.

dennis murphy: and that's him? and we get a photo. dennis murphy (voiceover): now the detectives were on a roll. with alejandro garcia's mugshot before them, they reracked those hotel security tapes from the day of the murder. this is the main entrance. here they come. dennis murphy (voiceover): bingo, there was garcia in the dark shirt with somebody else. his ex-girlfriend said he always wore sunglasses to protect his bad eye. but he wasn't wearing them on that day. and you see the two of them walking very fast out. alejandro has the bag. alejandro doesn't have his glasses on anymore. with the broken frames which are now-- well, apparently, as the victim reacts to the assault, he hits alejandro on the face, breaking the glass as the glasses fall onto the bed. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. in less than 48 hours, they're going to murder this guy. dennis murphy (voiceover): the second man his idea 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 a person good for the murder. dennis murphy (voiceover): garcia

listened silently as the brother threw him under the bus. dennis murphy (voiceover): he denied being the hit man in that interrogation. but the message was clear-- get on board now, confess, or take the fall. dennis murphy (voiceover): meanwhile, the evidence against narcy's brother was piling up-- cell phone tower records showing him near the hotel on the morning of the murder, evidence he'd 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 veliz. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 and worked at the direction. dennis murphy (voiceover): what started as a small suburban village investigation was now

a multi-state conspiracy case. the decision was made to let federal prosecutors take the complex conspiracy to trial. the suspected hitmen, garcia and gonzalez, 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 hitmen 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. craig melvin (voiceover): coming up, just who was in the crosshairs? there was a hit out on may. craig melvin (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. jordan's sore nose let out a fiery sneeze, so dad grabbed puffs plus lotion to soothe her with ease. puffs plus lotion is gentle on sensitive skin and locks in moisture to provide soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue.

my moderate to severe crohn's symptoms kept me out of the picture. now i have skyrizi. ♪ i've got places to go and i'm feeling free. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me.♪ and now i'm back in the picture. feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi helped visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. and with skyrizi, many were in remission at 12 weeks, at 1 year, and even at 2 years. don't use if allergic. serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur. before treatment, get checked for infections and tb. tell your doctor about any flu-like symptoms or vaccines. liver problems leading to hospitalization may occur when treated for crohn's. now's the time to take control of your crohn's. ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ ask your doctor about skyrizi, the #1 prescribed biologic

in crohn's disease. can neuriva support your brain health? mary. janet. hey! eddie. no! fraser. frank. frank. fred. how are you? support up to seven brain health indicators, including memory. when you need to remember, remember neuriva.

jen b asks, "how can i get fast download support up to seven brain health ispeeds while out and about?" jen, we've engineered xfinity mobile with wifi speeds up to a gig, so you can download and do much more all at once. it's an idea that's quite attractive. or... another word... -fashionable? i was gonna say- "popular! you're gonna be pop-uuuu-larrr!" can you do defying gravity?! yeah, get my harness. buy one line of unlimited, get one free for a year with xfinity mobile. and see “wicked,” in theaters now.

this is the brother-- dennis murphy (voiceover): the two hitmen had confessed, admitting to killing ben novack 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. and then the hitman, alejandro garcia, dropped a bombshell. he claimed he also killed someone else on orders from narcy and her brother, almost a year earlier. and he'd gotten away with it. the murder for hire? none other than ben novack'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 was an accidental death, a slip and fall getting out of her car.

dennis murphy: how's he kill her? he had a monkey wrench, and he took what appeared to be a baseball swing and hit her several times in the head. dennis murphy (voiceover): 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 would have probably never been caught. dennis murphy (voiceover): and there was more. when detectives arrested garcia, they learned that still a third murder might be in the works, someone else provided for in the will, narcy's daughter may. she was in serious peril. and i always believed that she was. i just couldn't prove it to anybody. but when we sat down with alejandro garcia and learned that there was a hit out on may, that became concerning.

dennis murphy (voiceover): a battered photo of may was found in garcia, the confessed hitman's wallet. he was told she'd 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'd get her the money. but the paperwork would take time. detective alison carpentier didn't think there was time. and here came a moment of big moral dilemma, ethical dilemma for you as a person and an officer. yes, it was hard. what did you decide to do? i decided to give her the money and tell her to move. your money, from your bank account? yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): the westchester detective loaned may $5,000 of her own money. may promised to pay her back. when prosecutors learned of it, they removed detective carpentier from the case. the defense, they admonished, would call it buying witness testimony. i said, i can't sleep at night knowing that if i wake up tomorrow morning, something happens to may and her children, and i did nothing. i am very grateful to her, because if i didn't move when i

did, i wouldn't be here today. dennis murphy (voiceover): almost a year after ben's murder, she was indicted and walked before the cameras of "america's most wanted." dennis murphy (voiceover): she and her brother cristobal 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 novack was a family affair. dennis murphy (voiceover): when the trial got underway in federal court, garcia, the hitman, testified in ice cold detail how he killed ben novack jr. so how did they get into the room? narcy opened the door and let them in. dennis murphy (voiceover): the prosecutors argued, that morning, there was a small window of opportunity for narcy to let the hitmen in and direct the assault on her sleeping husband. the victim is in bed. they get right in position. they signal, 1, 2, 3, and then boom. then the assault starts. and they're banging him in the head. yeah, they hit him all over the head. they hit him in the ribs-- i mean, brutally.

dennis murphy (voiceover): the two hitmen 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. do they say that narcy tells them to cut out his eyes? she did. dennis murphy (voiceover): at mid-trial, the case against narcy's brother was solid. a long trail of wire transfers, credit card receipts, and cell phone records connected him to the hitmen. but for narcy, it was primarily the hitman's word against hers, 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, you know. coast is clear. coast is clear. and that becomes huge, because it's her calling cristobal to say, bring the killers in. and that puts her right at the top of the plot, the conspiracy. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): and there's yet another twist here.

would you be surprised to learn that there was another woman in this story? a person named rebecca bliss. 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. alison carpentier: this case was about money, and it was about narcy not wanting to be replaced. dennis murphy (voiceover): when defense attorney howard tanner put on his case, he zeroed in on the hitmen's credibility and their motivation in testifying. 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 in the room? absolutely not. and how about the disturbing direction she allegedly gives them, gouge his eyes out. it just didn't happen.

dennis murphy (voiceover): the defense also suggested that narcy's daughter may could have somehow been involved in the murder so she and her sons could inherit ben's estate. may abad had narcy novack in her way. if narcy novack disappears, she takes and her children take under the will. those are facts. so that's the defense. jurors consider who's going to get this money here. and it's not just narcy novack. 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 novack did not commit this murder. dennis murphy (voiceover): detectives concluded that may knew nothing about ben's will till well after the murder. i didn't even know that my name or the boys' names were in this will. dennis murphy (voiceover): after a nine-week trial, narcy and her brother were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy in the death of ben novack jr. and his mother bernice. they were acquitted of only one charge involving the theft of ben's diamond bracelet.

for the crime the conspirators almost got away with, the murder of bernice novack, that conviction carried a mandatory life sentence for both. the best part of it was that bernice could finally rest in peace. dennis murphy (voiceover): after the verdict, narcy spoke by telephone with "dateline" from prison. she said she would never have done anything to harm her husband 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. may abad: she didn't see what she had in front of her. she had her daughter. she had two grandkids that totally loved her. and now she has nothing. and greed and some amount of jealousy, presumably, is driving this, huh? may abad: absolutely. no matter what, i loved my mother. she was my mother. she had grandkids 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.

dennis murphy (voiceover): 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. may abad: come here, buddy. dennis murphy (voiceover): in 2011, may welcomed a new little guy in her life, a son. she named him ben after the lost prince, the namesake he never got to meet. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. [theme music] good morning and welcome to the special holiday edition of morning joe. bringing you some of the best segments from the past several week