48 Hours - 48 Hours Interview: The strange case of Kurt Sonnenfeld

Episode Date: November 18, 2015

Correspondent Erin Moriarty explores the Kurt Sonnenfeld caseSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. January 1st, 2002. Denver, Colorado, New Year's Day. In the early morning hours, a 911 call comes in. It's from a seemingly distraught man who says his wife, Nancy Sonnenfeld, shot herself in the head.

But when police arrived and saw the scene, they thought things weren't adding up. In this week's 48 Hours interview podcast, we talk to the detective who oversaw the investigation into Nancy Sonnenfeld's death. I'm 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. When EMS and police arrived at Nancy's home, her husband Kurt Sonnenfeld either couldn't or wouldn't open the front door. So first responders had to break and enter through a window before they could help his wife. I knew that investigators believed almost from the beginning that this was a homicide, not a suicide. And I wanted to know why. So we sat down with Jonathan Priest, a retired investigator for the Denver Police Department,

and talked to him about the death of Nancy Sonnenfeld. I'm Jonathan Priest. In 2001 and 2002, I was the commander of the major crime section for the Denver Police Department, which included the Homicide Unit. How would you describe this case, the death of Nancy Sonnenfeld? How would you describe it? Well, I think any homicide investigation is a complex investigation, and certainly this one was no different. Unfortunately, many times we're going to begin investigations looking at them as if they are somewhat routine, because we do it so often.

As we go through these case investigations and as we start identifying some of the complexities, As we go through these case investigations and as we start identifying some of the complexities, cases can quickly become major investigations, which is exactly what happened with this case. This was a very complex, very interesting case and involved a lot of different twists and turns in trying to determine what happened, when it happened, who was involved, and how we were going to bring some resolution to that case. What made this case so complex? Much of it was the fact that the evidence didn't really match up with what we were being told occurred. This case originally came out as a suicide.

originally came out as a suicide. And almost from the first officers arriving on the scene, that didn't make sense to any of us. We were questioning nearly from the start that this had anything to do with a self-inflicted injury and was more consistent with a homicide. Well, tell me just actually how it started. If I'm correct, this was the first death or homicide for the year 2002 in Denver. This case began as the first homicide in 2002, January 1st, 2002, New Year's Day. We're there early in the morning, get a call of a shooting individual frantically calling the police saying his wife had shot herself. We arrive at the scene, yet uniformed officers arrived at the scene and attempted to make contact and were unable to get in because

the homeowner, a male individual inside the home, refused to let the officers in for whatever reason, either because he was intentionally not opening the door or was having difficulty opening the door, to the point where the officers knew that we've been called on a shooting and there's a good possibility that somebody is injured and or dying inside this home. We need to get in there. And the officers forced entry into the home through a window. They had to go through a window? Yes. And then what happened? Once they were inside there, they had to subdue the male individual who began struggling with the officers. Once he was under control, some of the other officers continued looking through the home

and were able to locate a female in an upstairs bedroom who was obviously suffering from what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the officers. He, once the officer made contact with the female, contacted paramedics, had them respond to treat the female. She was still alive? to treat the female. She was still alive? In the paramedics' estimation, the female was still breathing and still viable at that point.

She was stabilized at the scene and transported to a hospital. And what kind of condition was she? What had happened to her? She had what everyone believed was a gunshot wound to the head. And they treated it as a critical injury, obviously. But she was still showing signs of life, and they continued to do life-saving

efforts with her. You said that it was called in as a suicide, but that early on officers were uncomfortable with that. What they saw didn't quite match what the call had been. In what way? Tell me. When the officers arrived, evidence was not where they would expect it to be. The victim was in a position that was unusual for what they were being told occurred. In what way? The way that she was situated on this. There's a love seat that was up

in the bedroom. The way that she was situated on that didn't make a lot of sense to the officers. She's sitting upright? When the officers arrived, they saw her sitting up, but they noticed that she had to be laying over at one time. And what told them that? The bloodstain patterns that were inside the scene. They also noticed that the firearm was in an unusual position for this to be consistent with a suicide. Not unheard of. I mean, many times we will arrive at self-inflicted gunshot scenes and find that the firearm is in a position that doesn't make a whole lot of sense until we get further into the investigation. And in what way?

Why was it not in the place you'd expect it to be? There are certain dynamics that will occur in self-inflicted shootings. The evidence that was present there was not consistent with that. The firearm was a much further distance from the victim than anyone was comfortable with. Because it makes sense. If somebody's shooting herself, you would think the gun would drop straight down or close to her body, and this one was what, six to eight feet away? Yes. The firearm was I think roughly about eight feet from where the victim was.

In a typical self-inflicted injury, the electrical systems of the body stop functioning properly, and the body relaxes. So the weight of that firearm should go in the direction of gravity, which is straight down. And that's not what happened here. Based on information from the detectives and the medical examiner, Kurt Sonnenfeld was arrested and charged with his wife's murder. It sounds like a strong case, until you sit down with Sonnenfeld's defense attorney, Carrie Thompson.

As you can imagine, she looks at the same evidence differently. How did you meet Kurt Sonnenfeld? In jail. The way public defenders pick up cases, it was my turn to pick up a homicide. And when the homicide came in, we go to the jail as soon as we hear about someone being arrested. So I would have met him, hear about someone being arrested. So I would have met him, I assume, on January 1st. On the very day of the shooting? Yes.

How would you describe him that day? It was a very emotional meeting because when Ms. Sonnenfeld was in the house, she was not dead yet, and she died later at the hospital. So Mr. Sonnenfeld was told that his wife had died about five minutes before he was interviewed by the detective in the case, and I would have seen him sometime later he that his his emotional state was he he was you could not console him for weeks he was inconsolable for weeks. How was he physically? Broken. He was very closed in, holding himself, crying.

He was very, very distraught. As for the condition of the room, Thompson says the physical evidence doesn't support a struggle in that room. For example, the police would say, well, the house was very, very neat except for the bedroom. Well, clothes that are piled in piles isn't consistent with a struggle. It's consistent with maybe folding your clothes and having them put in the drawers yet. But the mattress was askew. The mattress was askew. And that's the only thing they really could point to.

And that could have happened for many reasons. According to Thompson, nothing about the scene added up to murder to her. It's our position that based on the blood spatter analysis and the other evidence, the fingerprint, her fingerprint being on the gun, his fingerprints not being on the gun, taking all of the evidence together, that it is the evidence points to suicide and not homicide thompson is a tough advocate and she pushed for a speedy trial prosecutors worried they might not have enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt took a very unusual step they dropped the murder charge but voweded the investigation into Nancy Sonnenfeld's death would go on. And what happened to Kurt Sonnenfeld? Well, he walked out of jail a free man, and eight months later, he took a trip to Argentina. That's where he fell in love with

a young woman who looked uncannily like his wife, Nancy. And then two years after the murder charge was dropped, prosecutors refiled that charge against him and fought to get him extradited back to the States to face trial. That battle continues today, nearly 14 years after Nancy Sonnenfeld's death. continues today, nearly 14 years after Nancy Sonnenfeld's death. And the question is, will Kurt Sonnenfeld ever go on trial for murder? Tune in to 48 Hours this Saturday at 10 p.m. Eastern as we look into the death of Nancy Sonnenfeld and head to South America to track down the man charged with her murder,

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