taylor cleveland is a detective with the ashtabula county sheriff's office. >> we received a call fromhe erie county coroner's office they wanted to give us the earliest heads up that they could that there was probably something in this case ray kotomski death, that was not natural, something that was quite possibly a homicide. >> reporr: if this was homicide, investigators had plenty of work to do. >> raymond had been a corrections officer. >> yes. >> and had unquestionably during his career dealt with some pretty bad guys who were locked up. >> yes. >> reporter: cops started looking into ray's past to see if someone was settling an old score. three days after his death, techs processed teresa and ray's house as a crime scene, but it had been cleaned by the time they got there. ray's bedding was in an outside trash can; there were numerous crushed beer and dr. pepper cans, and, in the garage, right where you'd expect to find them, were two containers of anti-freeze. one sealed. one open. and that told investigators nothing. because there were no fingerprints or dna on either container