48 Hours - A Broken Heart: What Killed Lina Kaufman? | My Life of Crime

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

On November 7th, 2007, 33-year-old Lina Kaufman was found dead in her Florida home on the bathroom floor. Her husband, Adam Kaufman, called 911 while trying to revive her. Seventeen months passed with no answers for the cause of her death, until Adam was suddenly arrested and charged with second-degree murder. At first, medical experts pointed to physical evidence of strangulation, while Adam’s defense attorneys speculated about an allergic reaction to a spray tan. Yet unbeknownst to either side, the truth was hidden much deeper than they could see initially. 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty takes you inside the investigation of Adam Kaufman on her podcast, My Life of Crime. Based on the 48 Hours investigation, “Lina’s Heart”.See 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. It's Erin Moriarty, and we have a special episode for you today from my original podcast, My Life of Crime. I'm taking you inside true crime investigations like no one else, taking on killers and those

accused of crimes. Here's an all-new episode of My Life of Crime that takes you deeper into Lena's heart. Follow along as I go beyond the scene of each crime, behind prison walls, and into the killer's inner thoughts. It's all on this season of My Life of Crime. On November 7, 2007, Lena Kaufman was found dead on the bathroom floor by her husband Adam, who called 911 while trying to revive her. her. There were deep bruises on Lena's neck, which led detectives to suspect murder. 17 months later, Adam Coffin was charged with killing his wife. But as you're about to find out, investigators had only gone skin deep and missed the heart of the story. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 hours, and this is my life of crime.

I think about Lena every day. She was stunningly beautiful. She had class, elegance, style. This is Adam Kaufman. I met him in 2012, nearly five years after his wife's death. He's a big man, warm and open, and what struck me is that he was willing to talk about any detail of his case. This particular morning, it was about 5 o'clock. I remember waking up and seeing her not there and I figured okay

she's with the baby she's not in bed she's with the baby. Right around six o'clock I woke up again. She wasn't there. That's when I got a pit in my stomach. I remember calling, no response. I remember walking into the bathroom and seeing her there, slumped over onto the magazine rack. In November of 2007, Adam and Lena had been married for seven years with two children. Adam and Lena had been married for seven years with two children. She had always been athletic and healthy, he says, until that Wednesday morning the 7th. This is more of his 911 call. Wake up! What the hell happened? Come on, please wake up! What's this? 50, 60, 50, 80, 90, please!

Adam then called his twin brother Seth, who was one of the first on the scene. When I got there, Adam was at the top of the staircase, hysterical. Adam losing his wife was awful, Seth told me. I can tell what he's thinking, what he's going through. We do feel each other's pain. That's how close we are. Yet he also says that no one in the family was ready for what happened next in April 2009. 18 months later was like a second death in the family. A SWAT team came in with laser-pointed rifles and threw Adam on the floor and arrested him.

The arrest of Adam Kaufman for the murder of his wife, Lena, was a huge story in Aventura, Florida. It's an upscale neighborhood near Miami, and he was a member of a well-connected family. His mother, Elaine, told me at the time that she was shocked by how many people, even their longtime friends, believed her son could be capable of murder. I hear whispering when I go places. Some people just ignore you.

Some people don't want to hear from you. There are people in this town who think your son is a killer. But Elaine wasn't going to let gossip change the way she felt about her son, she says, or make her less willing to fight for him. Let them think what they want to think. We're going to get through this, and we're going to show everybody that he's not. or make her less willing to fight for him. Let them think what they want to think. We're going to get through this, and we're going to show everybody that he's not. Adam Kaufman, a real estate executive,

suddenly saw his name and face on TV and in the paper for reasons other than business. You've got to be kidding me. How could this happen? Seth insists that there were no problems in his brother's marriage. And to be honest, that's why I wanted to cover this case. As far as anyone could tell, the couple seemed made for each other. There were no affairs, no apparent financial problems. She was his soulmate. And they were just amazing together.

Let me tell you a little bit about Lena. Friends say she was funny, lively. She had lived in five different countries before finally settling in Florida and meeting Adam. She spoke Russian, English, Danish, Flemish, Hebrew, a little bit of Italian. Sophisticated? Very sophisticated. And Iated? Very sophisticated. And I was just in awe. They met at a party, dated for three years,

got married, and quickly had children. I was just kind of patting myself on the back, saying, wow, you're a lucky guy. And in November of 2007, Adam and Lena seemed to be getting along well. But Lena's mother, Frida, remembers an odd conversation that she had with her daughter just two months before her death. She said, listen, if something happened to me, I want you to know that I trust my kids only to you. I don't know why she asked me. I don't know what her thought was on this moment. The last time Frida saw her daughter alive was November 6, the day before her death.

They were at work at their family's furniture business. I said, you look so beautiful, so classical. She said, are you proud of me? I said, of course. And how would you describe her mood when you saw her? She was very, very, very happy. Lena, Adam, and their children lived right around the corner from Seth

and his fiance, Raquel, who were planning on getting married in days. Was Lena excited about the wedding? Oh, she was so looking forward to it. She was one of Raquel's bridesmaids. I was Seth's best man. She was her happiest. Lena wanted to look great. So after work, she got a spray tan, her first, and stopped by a friend's house to show it off. Adam says he was home with their children. Haley, their oldest, was five at the time. Jake was almost two. I remember her coming home around 11 o'clock. Did you see her

when she came home? Yes, yes. I was already in bed watching TV. Adam says everything seemed fine, and when she changed her clothes for bed, he could definitely tell where Lena had been earlier that day. You could definitely tell she Lena had been earlier that day. You could definitely tell she was spray tanned. It just seemed a lot to me. He didn't think much about it, he says, when they both went to bed, until waking up and seeing that Lena was no longer in bed, and then finding her in their bathroom on the floor, draped over a magazine rack. I remember going over to her, seeing all of this red stuff all over, pink, frothy, whatever it was. And I remember grabbing

her from the back and she felt cold. Lena, Lena, Lena, wake up. At 6.10 a.m., Adam called 911. My wife is in the bathroom. She's on a poor diet. There's blood that's stuck coming out of her mouth. She looks pale. She looks sick. She has mollusks on her neck. I don't know what happened.

The operator told him to give her CPR, and he followed her instructions. Push down on her chest rapidly, 30 times. It's chilling and heartbreaking to hear the audio from that morning. that morning. Can you hear her breathing? No, she's cold. Adam says he was alarmed and confused by the bruising he saw on his wife's neck. You told the operator there were marks on her neck. Where were those marks? There was maybe three or four of them that I could see. Did something happen? Did she fall? No! No! No, I'm down! Calm down, sir. Help is on the way, okay?

But the fire rescue teams had trouble finding the house, and they didn't arrive for at least 15 minutes. They were frantic, putting something over her face, putting something in her mouth, continually asking me questions about her health. I'm thinking, okay, what health problems does she have? Lena was always healthy to me. Adam's brother says he is haunted by what he saw.

We got there, and they were working on her in the bedroom at that time. It was just an awful scene. It was just tough to look at. Lena Kaufman couldn't be saved. She was pronounced dead at the hospital. I was numb. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't feel my body. What are you thinking had happened to Lena? I had no idea. Lena's mother heard the news from Adam. Adam was crying.

Then he said, she's gone. Lena is gone. What did you think? I don't know if I could think in this moment. I just, the only one thought I have, that it's not true. That it's not true. She cannot leave me here without her. She cannot do this to me.

Lena's friend, Melissa Fedowitz. I could not comprehend how a healthy 34-year-old woman just dies. And Jennifer Bensaden. Something happened. And that was my question for months. What happened? If family and friends were wondering, you can imagine what the cops thought. And they made no secret that they thought Adam had acted suspiciously at the hospital. There are officers who said you didn't act normal. How do you act? Is there a book on how you act when your wife just passes away? How do you act? How do you act? What did you think?

What killed her? I didn't know, And it was very, very, very frustrating. Even after an autopsy, there was no definitive cause of death. Adam told me that he repeatedly called the Dade County Medical Examiner for answers. And they all kept telling me, we're waiting on test results, we're waiting on test results. And I kept calling and no return phone calls, no answers. were waiting on test results and i kept calling in no return phone calls no answers in april 2009 he finally got an answer but it was not he says anything he expected the dade county chief medical examiner ruled that lena had died from mechanical asphyxiation she She was strangled. Adam was arrested, charged with murder, and jailed. I know my brother more than anyone in this world. And I know he's just not capable of

anything like that. He just cannot do that. At a hearing two months later, Adam's lawyers presented a very unusual defense, one that made headlines nationally. They said Adam didn't kill his wife. The spray tan did. Okay, intrigued? I certainly was. And I had to know more. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

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plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. A few hours before she passed away, she had a spray tan for the first time. It is possible to have an allergic reaction from this. So that was our thought. Everything else was normal. When Adam Kaufman couldn't explain how or why his 33-year-old wife died, he and his attorney suspected some kind of allergic reaction to the chemicals used in a spray tan. A killer spray tan? Well, you might guess what the county prosecutor handling the case thought of that theory. It was a laughable defense, truly. Laughable or not, Adam Kaufman was released on a half million dollars bond.

Tracked by an electronic ankle monitor, he went home to his family to prepare for trial. The defendant is charged with second degree murder. It took three years, but finally, in May 2012, Adam got his day in a downtown Miami courtroom. It was a high-profile trial. After all, this had become known as the spray-tan murder case. Adam Kaufman was flanked by a high-powered, highly paid team of defense lawyers, and he would need them. Among those witnesses called by the state, the first responders on the scene who testified that Adams' mood swings following his wife's death struck them as odd. Mr. Kaufman on the scene was sometimes very calm, just talking like us right now. And within a second, he would be completely a grieving type, out of control. It was almost like an act.

But covering as many trials as I have, I know there's no proper way to act under stress. And I raised that with Prosecutor Hogue. Everyone acts differently under pressure. True. But probably, there's probably nobody that sees more of that than these people. Right. You know, they didn't think that it was real. This is Hogue questioning emergency personnel about their conversations with Adam Kaufman. Okay, did you describe how he found her in the bathroom?

Yes. Paramedic Kimberly Kennerly Burke says that she overheard Adam telling others that he found his wife slumped over the toilet. Crouched over the toilet as if she was vomiting. While a doctor at the hospital testified. She had some strange marks on her neck and I was asking if he knew how those might have occurred and at that point in time he stated that maybe the patient was laying on a magazine rack in the bathroom. Why would these people think that you had something to do with Lena's death?

I pondered that for for years now and when someone that young and healthy dies people want answers and I can't give people answers they want to hear and even prosecutor Hogue admits that she can't explain why Adam would kill his wife is there any evidence that Adam Kaufman was having an affair no is there any evidence that Adam Kaufman was having an affair? No. Is there any evidence that Lena Kaufman was having an affair? No. Is there any evidence that there were serious domestic problems in this relationship?

No. But isn't that going to make it very difficult in front of a jury to believe that this couple who seemed to love each other would just blow up one time and end up with a homicide. Well, you know, the injury speaks for itself. I don't know that he necessarily meant to do it, but I know that he did it because of the injury to her neck here, there, and the strap muscles. It was very deep, sustained pressure. and the strap muscles. It was very deep, sustained pressure. Hoag's theory is that the couple fought on the morning of November 7th. Over what? She can't say. But she does say the proof is in those photos of Lena's neck. You believe that was an argument that started in the kitchen? I do,

because her breakfast was half done. Hoogue says Lena Kaufman was compulsively neat and that she never would have left a bowl of cereal and a half-eaten banana on the counter. So she says the argument had to have started there and then moved upstairs to the bathroom. You know, she may well have just been going into the shower saying, you know, screw you, I'm not going to listen to you anymore, I don't want to talk about it, and, you know, he just flew off the handle. Yes, you are. Grabs her, and, you know, it's not that hard for someone as big and as strong as him to strangle someone.

What does Adam say about that? The prosecutor says that she believes that there was a fight that morning before. Did you fight with Lena? Absolutely not. Lena and I argued just like every married couple. Did we argue that day? Absolutely not. Everything was perfect. Ah, but things may not have been so perfect. There were some minor issues that I tried to stay out of. There was an issue with walking down the aisle. In the weeks before Seth's wedding, Lena had learned that her husband, Seth's best man, would walk down the aisle with a maid of honor, not her. When Lena found out that she wasn't walking with Adam, it really set her off. Lena's friend Jennifer says that Lena was very upset.

You call it a minor issue. Some of her friends say it was a major issue. I can't say it did not bother Lena, but Lena and I did talk about it. We did, and she was upset about it. Definitely was upset. Did you fight over that? Not at all. Did that become a physical fight? Not at all. No. Never. I've never laid a hand on her in our entire relationship. Nothing happened. Look at the evidence. It's hard to believe that a fight like that could lead to murder. But we've seen sillier motives, and that's what the state suspected. She didn't do it to herself. You know, it has to be done by someone else.

He's the only person that could have done it. But Adam's lawyers see the case quite differently. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Adam Kaufman is innocent of this charge. None, zero, zip. The first time I saw defense attorney Bill Matthewman, John F. Kennedy came to mind. He did. He looks a little like him, and he is passionate. There are two sides to every story, ladies and gentlemen. An innocent man has been falsely charged. Alongside Matthewman was defense attorney Al Millian. I was a prosecutor for 12 years. By trial, Millian and Matthewman had changed their strategy. It was no longer a case of the spray tan did it, since they couldn't prove it. Yet they still believe their client was innocent. So they plan to prove that cops botched the investigation into Lena's death.

This case was assigned to a detective who had never conducted a homicide investigation. in the pacific ocean halfway between peru and new zealand lies a tiny volcanic island it's a little-known british territory called pit can and it harbored a deep dark scandal there wouldn't be a girl on pit can once they reach the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it,

people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific Island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing Apple Podcasts or Spotify. within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defence attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.

She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. and ad-free right now. Adam's attorneys, Bill Matthewman and Al Millian,

believe that cops were so focused on murder that they never considered that Lena could have died from some undiagnosed health issue. There are unexplained deaths that happen in this country every day. People pass away from natural causes, and sometimes they can figure out what it is. Sometimes they can't. But if that's true, how do they explain those bruises on Lena's neck? Here's Bill Mathewman.

When Lena Kaufman passed out, she fell onto a rack filled with very thick magazines. And those marks are consistent with her resting on top, falling on top of those magazines in the magazine rack, and they're inconsistent with any type of fingernails or fingers of anything of that nature. Or the injuries in Lena's neck muscles could have been caused, says Al Millian, by paramedics trying to save her. They tried to intubate her, and they made multiple efforts. In fact, there were three failed attempts to insert a tube down Lena's windpipe to help her breathe.

And did Adam himself accidentally cause some of the injuries? Do you think when you were giving her CPRpr you might have left some of these injuries i i i can't tell you one way or another i i'm working on my wife i want to believe that i wasn't rough on her did i tilt her head back i thought i did it gently Did I tilt her head back? I thought I did it gently. Is it possible that I didn't? Yeah, it's possible. Al Millian raises another issue that points to Adam's innocence. Nothing on her body indicates that she was involved in a struggle. You would have expected to see that Adam would have had scratches on his face, on his arms, on his hands, on his wrists, none of which existed.

And that bathroom would have been full of marks. That tanning spray leaves trace evidence everywhere. The defense also raised serious questions about the integrity of the investigation when questioning the lead crime scene technician. You're friends with Detective Angulo? I'm a co-worker of his, yes. But when you've been off duty, you've socialized with Detective Angulo? No, sir. But a day later, she admits what the defense already knew, that during the investigation, she had been romantically involved with the lead detective. Did you have an affair with Detective Angulo? Yes, and my husband is well aware of it, sir, and I am happily married,

and I don't have any issues with that any longer. Why does this matter? Al Millian explains. It wasn't about the affair. It's about the lying and the motivation for covering up. the affair. It's about the lying and the motivation for covering up. Did you have any idea that this crime scene technician was having a relationship with the lead detective? No, none. Prosecutor Hoag was honest with me. Yeah, it was very, very bad for us. The defense wasn't finished. After the county medical examiner testified that Lena had been strangled, Adam Kaufman's attorneys brought in their own medical expert, forensic pathologist Dr. John Maricini. undiagnosed heart failure and he showed the jury slides to prove it slides that showed he said that lena was suffering from an inflammation of the heart this area is where normal heart muscle used to be and something happened there was disease here and disease changed the tissue from this to this. My opinion is she developed an irregular heartbeat.

She collapsed. Altogether, there were six doctors, four for the state and two for the defense. They examined the same medical records but reached very different conclusions. So what is the truth? Was Lena Kaufman murdered, or did she die of a broken heart? Does a case like this scare you? It does. I wanted someone who wasn't involved in this case to look at the evidence. So my 48 Hours producer, Lisa Friedenai, took the case to Dr. Gregory Davis. He was a medical examiner for the state of Kentucky, and Prosecutor Hogue was willing to allow him

to look at the case file. I interviewed him weeks after the trial. As you sit here now, do you now believe you know what killed Lena Kaufman? I do. You have no question about it? No question. She died of myocarditis that caused an acute cardiac dysrhythmia and caused her death.

Dr. Davis had reached a similar conclusion to Dr. Maricini. Lena's heart killed her, not her husband. And he showed me the slides that he says convinced him. This pink thing is a heart cell, and these are inflammatory cells that are actually attacking and destroying that heart cell. The picture that Dr. Davis showed me, a slide of Lena's heart, should have been mostly pink. Instead, you could clearly see dozens of tiny black spots that indicated inflammation. That is a true myocarditis, a true inflammation of the heart, where the body's own immune system is actually attacking the heart.

As for those injuries on Lena's neck, well, sadly, Lena may have caused them herself as she tried to get a breath. If she were suffering a cardiac dysrhythmia, which causes, can cause an air hunger in a patient whose heart is rapidly failing, she feels out of breath. It can be very common for a person to grab at their own neck in that kind of scenario. I think she died a natural death. At trial, Lena's mother, Frida, tells the jury that Lena did have fainting spells, something that could have been caused by her heart. She had a habit, let's see, to faint, yes.

So what did you think? Was it just normal that she would faint occasionally? No, of course it's not normal, but it was when she was little. We went to the doctors, of course, and they didn't find anything. Will that add up to reasonable doubt for the jury? Will they think it's possible that Lena died of natural causes? Or will they believe, as the state has argued, that she was murdered? It's a scary, scary, scary thing. Look what I made for you, Daddy.

After nearly a month-long, hard-fought trial, Adam Kaufman's fate is in the hands of strangers. And he wonders if his children, who have already lost their mom, will lose their dad, too. Every morning I leave, and I go to work or the kids go to school and you know you hug the kids and you kiss the kids and you

know you're gonna see them. This morning was different. Okay, please bring the jurors. The jury came back after eight hours. Madam clerk, please come. And I stood up between Al and Bill and put my head down and just thought of my kids. We the jury in Miami-Dade County, Florida, find as follows. The defendant is not guilty, so say we all all for person Bernard W. H. Jennings. All I heard was not guilty. And I felt Bill grabbed me and Al grabbed me and I could hear the family crying and and I'm like, is this it? Is it over? It was over. Adam was acquitted, although he knows that some in the community may still wonder.

Even though you're acquitted, aren't there still some people who wonder? Did you have anything to do with your wife's death? Of course there's people out there that are going to sit and wonder. People that matter know the truth, and that's all I care about. After living under the dark cloud of suspicion for five years, Adam Kaufman could finally move on with his life. He's still in Florida,

where he's raising his children and selling real estate. This case has stayed with me all these years, and I would like to think has made me a better reporter. Now when I cover a case of alleged spousal murder, I don't assume anything, and I look for every possible explanation, because in this case, it looks like Lena Kaufman likely died of a broken heart, literally.

died of a broken heart, literally. She loved her husband, and to this day, he believes she was watching over him. I believe she was a big part of this entire process. She was watching over it. In the end, Lena's heart saved my life. end, Lena's heart saved my life. I'm Erin Moriarty, and this is my Life of Crime. This podcast series is developed by 48 Hours in partnership with CBS News Radio. Judy Tigard is 48 Hours' executive producer. Steve Dorsey is CBS News Radio executive producer. Production and editing for this season Thank you. hours. Craig Swagler is vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio. And finally, a thank you to all of you, our listeners. We owe it all to you, the millions of 48 Hours fans. Don't forget to join me online. I'm at EF Moriarty on Twitter, and we're at 48 Hours on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. See you soon. If you like this podcast,

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