48 Hours - Conspiracy to Kill
Episode Date: May 23, 2024In 2006, Sonia Rios was dubbed by local media as the "The Black Widow of Lomita," after her second husband, Navy officer Larry Risken, was fatally shot while visiting her family in the Philip...pines. Sonia's first husband, U.S. Marine Earl Bourdeau, was fatally shot in the head 19 years earlier. Then in 2007, Sonia Rios was also murdered under suspiciously similar circumstances. “48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/1/2009. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.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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Visit audible.ca. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered,
this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account
that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence.
Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit.
Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the troubled case against Crosley Green, and I've been covering the Sonia Rios story
for years.
Sonia, the Lomita Black Widow.
Sonia is from the Philippines, a petite woman, pretty,
and my brother fell in love with her.
Larry loved this country, served in the Navy for years.
Sonia was a Navy groupie. Apparently she liked military men. Their marriage initially was a good marriage as far as we knew.
She was a controlling woman, just very manipulative.
After a while, he wanted a divorce.
She was angry.
She spread rumors that he was a divorce. She was angry.
She spread rumors that he was dealing drugs,
involved in crime.
This woman was the closest thing to evil I've ever seen.
Sonia was devious.
She was capable of anything.
Sonia was not going to let him walk away from this marriage.
Something bad was going to happen to him.
My brother was in the Jeep.
A guy came up to him and shot him in the head and in the stomach.
Point blank.
It was an assassination.
I just had this feeling that she was responsible, but yet I had no proof.
Well, it started off as just a single murder case.
And then I received a phone call telling me, hey, this isn't the first time this happened.
I was in shock. She may have had two men killed, and she's not in jail.
You know, that scared me.
When I walked out my front door, I looked around.
I looked both ways.
The woman was crazy.
I was afraid for my life. I was afraid for my life.
I was afraid for my father.
I am thinking we're next.
We're next.
Conspiracy to Kill, tonight's 48 Hours Mystery. history. Larry was the clown of the family.
He was very well-liked, funny.
He was like a big kid.
Growing up in Washington State, Sherry Jackson was always close to her big brother, Larry Riskin.
What did he miss most about Larry?
His goofy, goofy laugh.
You know, he was a loving son and a real patriot,
and you don't see much of that anymore.
Law Riskin is Larry's father.
He enlisted when he was 20 years old.
Larry followed his father's footsteps into the Navy,
rising to the rank of commander.
So your son was a leader?
Oh, yes, yeah.
A man that gave orders.
Yes, he was.
That was until he met Sonia Rios.
Lots and lots of black hair, flamboyant, very attractive.
For Larry, it was love at first sight.
But Sherry thought Sonia was trouble.
It was very obvious to me.
That something wasn't right.
That something wasn't right.
Sonia was very secretive about her past.
All the Riskins knew was a vague story about a previous marriage and a divorce.
I knew absolutely nothing about her background.
There was always a story within a story, probably is the best description on Sonia.
Henry Hoskins, a bail bondsman and the head of the local Chamber of Commerce,
has been friends with Sonia for more than 25 years.
She had the Corvette that she drove.
She was very successful. She was a very successful businesswoman.
Sonia owned a thriving beauty salon in Lomita, California.
She was a rags-to-riches person.
Sonia grew up poor in the Philippines.
I think she came up the hard way.
Her home was just down the road from Sangley Point, a U.S. Naval base.
She moved to the States in the 60s, and Hoskins says she was always attracted to servicemen.
She was very, very into the social events of the military, of the Navy.
She got to go to dress-up balls and stuff and parties.
After a brief courtship, Larry and Sonia were married in 1990.
Not once, but in three separate ceremonies.
Which of those weddings was your favorite?
I wasn't invited to any of the weddings.
You weren't invited to any of the weddings?
Nor were my parents.
Sonja told Larry his family wasn't welcome.
It was devastating because that wasn't Larry.
It created a rift between Larry and his family
that would last for years.
We were so close, and it all changed.
But Sonia and Larry did travel to the Philippines
to spend time with her family.
On one trip, Larry met Sonia's niece, Quincy,
and nephew, Jetmark.
I call him Papa.
Papa.
Yeah.
And tell me about the Larry that you knew.
He's really a good man and also a father to me.
Larry and Sonia decided to adopt the children,
whose family wanted them to have a better life in the States.
Sonja promised to make the adoption happen.
After a long career in the Navy, Larry left active duty in 1995 to become a teacher.
He was a special ed teacher for high school students.
The time and love he gave to those children, it was amazing.
Teacher Eileen Stevens worked with Larry at Lawndale High School.
I was struck with how much he cared about what happened to these students after they left his classroom and the school.
Larry's new job was going really well.
But his marriage was not.
For years, Larry believed Sonia was working
to finalize the adoption of Quincy and Jetmark.
Year after year would go by,
and Sonia would tell him that there was something wrong
with the paperwork.
And then he found out that she was sabotaging
the whole adoption process.
He just said, I can't believe that she
lied to me all these years.
Fed up with Sonia, Larry began seeing his friend Eileen.
He told his wife that he had feelings for me.
Sonia flew into a rage.
Sonia went on the attack, didn't she?
Attack's a great word for it.
She told school personnel that her husband was using drugs.
She told a parent Larry and I were abusing her son.
No one believed Sonia's wild accusations, but Larry had enough.
He told Sonia their 16-year marriage was over.
I've never seen him so happy.
It was like this big weight off his shoulder.
Sonia agreed to the divorce, but said they would only separate
after Larry's long-planned trip to visit the kids in the Philippines.
He would go alone.
She knew that divorce was never going to happen.
Sherry was terrified her brother was walking into a trap.
He called my dad and I before he left.
He was very excited to go, very excited to see the kids.
I just had a horrible feeling.
Something bad was going to happen to him. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California.
Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing.
The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert 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
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Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty, her specialty
representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held
the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to
all the major groups 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 defense attorney,
I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.
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And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad free right now. I told him that something was going to happen.
And I'm saying, Larry, don't go to the Philippines.
something was going to happen.
And I'm saying, Larry, don't go to the Philippines.
Something inside is telling me that my brother is going to be harmed.
When Larry Riskin arrived in the Philippines,
he quickly organized a sweet 16 birthday party for Quincy,
the girl he had hoped to adopt.
Birthday girl.
That's Larry right there.
It was April 18, 2006, the last day of his life.
In a few short hours, he would be murdered.
At the party, Larry was worried about Quincy's cousin, April, who had a serious eye infection.
April, you like dolls?
He decided to take her to the hospital.
It was the kind of thing Larry did for Sonia's family
when he visited the Philippines.
But before he left for the hospital,
Larry got a phone call from the States.
It was his wife.
So my mama Sonia called.
Sonia called Larry?
Yep.
They talked on the phone?
Before we leave the house.
Before you left the house.
Yes.
And Larry told Sonia that he was going to the hospital?
Yep.
As night fell, Larry, along with members of Sonia's family, waited it out in the hospital.
When April was released, they piled into a Jeep, but never got out of the parking lot.
There were two people on a motorcycle, and the person on the back of the motorcycle
went to my brother's side of the car.
A man with a gun took aim at Larry.
Jet Mark was in the back seat.
We just hear a gunshot.
Two gunshot.
Did you see the shooter?
No, because it was really dark.
The gunman then ran back to the waiting motorcycle and took off.
Larry was shot in the head and stomach.
And even though they were at a hospital,
doctors were unable to save Larry's life.
So your brother never had a chance.
Never.
14-year-old Jet Mark, who had just witnessed the murder
of the only father figure he ever knew,
called Sonia to give her what he thought
would be devastating news.
called Sonia to give her what he thought would be devastating news.
She told me, Jet, don't worry.
Everything is under control, nothing to worry about.
Everything's under control? How would she know everything's under control?
I don't know.
Sonia then called Sherry.
She said, my husband, my husband is dead.
My husband, my husband is dead.
And what was the moment like for you when you learned that your brother Larry is gone?
I just kept thinking that I had to go tell my dad.
I mean, it was a real shocker.
You know, it was like a punch in the belly. You know, I'm just thinking, oh my God,
you know, how much more of this stuff
can we take as a family?
After the initial shock of Larry's murder, Sherry wanted justice.
Despite months of investigating the murder,
Philippine police were unable to find Larry's killers.
Why haven't there been any arrests,
anyone brought to justice in the Philippines for your brother's murder?
I wish I knew the answer to that.
I really do.
The Riskin family, looking for answers, hired private investigator Bong Oteza.
This is the exact spot where Larry Riskin was shot. He says the shooting was a well-planned hit.
You believe this shooter was a hired gun,
he was a hired killer?
Yes.
He was a hired killer because he knows his trade.
He knows what to do.
Bong says nothing was stolen.
The hired gunman was only after Larry. He knows what to do. Bong says nothing was stolen.
The hired gunman was only after Larry.
It's not a robbery.
It's an assassination.
It's an assassination. It's a murder case.
Bong learned that Larry had several life insurance policies,
but only one beneficiary, Sonia Rios.
How much money did Sonia stand to make
from your brother's death?
At the time, it was, we were estimating
it was over a million dollars.
While Sherry was still grieving,
still trying to learn who had killed her brother,
she got a call.
It was stunning news.
That Sonia's first husband, Earl Bordeaux,
was assassinated in the Philippines in the presence of Sonia's family.
I was shocked.
I just remember my knees buckling.
The extent of her evilness, it just...
remember my knees buckling. The extent of her evilness, it just,
it was that this woman definitely
had my brother killed.
That everything I thought murders virtually every day.
And the first day was just a simple man gets shot story,
nothing sinister.
When veteran crime reporter Larry Altman
began to cover Larry Riskin's murder in the spring of 2006,
he thought it was nothing more than a routine homicide.
The story ran on a Saturday.
And when I returned to work on Monday,
I had a couple of emails telling me,
hey, this isn't the first time this happened.
The information was stunning.
Sonia's first husband had also been murdered in the Philippines.
I got pretty excited and like, wow, you know, I got to start looking into this.
One email revealed the dead man's name, Earl John Bordeaux.
So I just did a little internet search, ran that name, and came up with his brother.
His name is Dennis Bordeaux.
My brother was lying on a couch, and they shot my brother in the head.
Sonia had set my brother up.
Evil.
Just evil.
Dennis Bordeaux tries to stay focused on Earl's life before Sonia,
when the two brothers were growing up in Davenport, Iowa.
We played baseball and he'd always help me
pitch balls to me.
Everything a big brother does with a little brother.
Earl enlisted in the Marines right out of high school in 1963.
And on his first overseas tour of duty in the Philippines, he met Sonia Rios.
My brother was head over heels in love with her.
Did you know about this before they got married?
No, we never knew anything until he brought her home
and said that he was married and this is his wife.
The newlyweds settled in Lomita,
a suburb of Los Angeles where Sonia began her career
as a beautician.
My brother worked two jobs to keep her and what she wanted.
The story of Earl and Sonia's marriage My brother worked two jobs to keep her and what she wanted.
The story of Earl and Sonia's marriage is eerily similar to that of Larry and Sonia's.
Sometimes she was real nice to him, and other times she always seemed to be angry at him.
To me, they weren't really married.
She went off and did what she wanted to do.
I knew some of her boyfriends.
Henry Hoskins, Sonia's good friend, knew Earl and knew secrets about Sonia that Earl didn't.
She was dating professional people.
But she would cheat on Earl.
She told me she was dating a doctor.
After a stormy 21-year marriage, Earl wanted out.
But before she would grant him a divorce, Sonia demanded that
Earl go by himself to the Philippines to sell a family
taxi business. He didn't want to go.
And he told me that. He goes, I don't want to go.
And I told him, then don't go.
And he says, Sonya's making me.
On August 15, 1987, Earl was asleep
in the front room of this house when he was shot in the head at point blank range.
The next thing I know, my brother was dead.
It was like dying yourself.
Just killed my mom and dad.
It was just like the end of the world.
He was resting in the living room of the relatives,
and he was gunned down while sleeping.
Investigator Bong Oteza says Earl was staying with Sonia's brothers
and that family members told police Earl was shot during a break-in.
There is no sign of any forced entry to the house.
If there is a forced entry that happened, the first one to know is Earl Bordeaux.
It would have awakened him.
Oh, yeah.
Police didn't buy the break-in story and focused in on one of Sonia's brothers
after they found blood on one of his shirts.
Within weeks of Bordeaux's murder,
police solved the case.
Five people were arrested and charged with murder,
including two of Sonia Rios's brothers.
Then everything stopped.
Do you believe that someone may have been paid off
to stop this investigation?
Just to stop the investigation,
just to drop the charges against the five family members.
Incredibly, Bong says it takes as little as $1,000
to stop a criminal investigation.
And he thinks he knows who paid to stop this one.
The person that wanted Earl Bordeaux dead
is someone that will benefit, and that is Sonia Rivas.
It's a murder for hire insurance fraud case,
so she would get the insurance money.
Earl is murdered for his life insurance money.
Yes.
According to my brother, they had a lot of insurance.
And in fact, Sonia did cash in after Earl's death,
collecting tens of thousands of dollars.
19 years later, she tried it again.
She was planning on receiving life insurance money.
But after Larry's murder, Sonia didn't make out as well.
An angry Sherry Jackson alerted the insurance companies,
saying that Sonia was responsible for her brother's murder,
and the insurance payouts were frozen.
Sonia used the Philippines as a killing grounds.
And two murders, and no one has been brought to justice.
But that's not the end of the story.
Close to the one year anniversary
of Larry Riskin's murder, someone
made an unexpected visit to Sonia at her salon.
Somebody runs in there and fires a shot at her.
Misses and yells, I'll be back. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.
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It just happens to all of them.
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Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+.
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This is my brother's graduation, and that's my dad and my mom there.
This is the last picture I got from him before he was killed.
What happened to your brother's body?
He's still in the Philippines.
Dennis Bordeaux is convinced Sonia Rios arranged to have his brother's body secretly buried in the Philippines so investigators could never take a second look at the body.
Dennis called Sonia and confronted her.
I said, I know the whole thing, Sonia.
I said, I know you had my brother killed.
Alls I want is my brother back here.
And you'll never hear another word from me.
I won't bother you.
But if you don't, I'm going to haunt you
until hell freezes over.
She wouldn't even allow the family
to have the remains of their loved ones
after she had him murdered.
Now you're very quiet, huh?
I believe it was a coverup.
I believe Sonia did not want his remains
brought back to the United States.
Like Dennis Bordeaux,
Sherry had tried to get her brother's body back to the United States. Like Dennis Bordeaux, Sherry had tried to get
her brother's body back to the United States,
but Sonia made that impossible.
She had Larry cremated.
I was devastated.
I couldn't believe that that was allowed.
Sherry didn't even know where Larry's ashes were,
but nine months after larry's murder
she received a bizarre email with an offer it said that they would help my family get my brother's
ashes back the mysterious emailer told sherry her brother's ashes could be retrieved from the
philippines for a mere $35,000.
Every time I went out of the house, I would look around.
I was afraid for my life.
Reporter Larry Altman was also frightened.
He had broken the story linking Sonia, who he now called the
Black Widow of Lomita, to the murders of her two husbands.
Shortly afterwards, he started receiving disturbing phone calls.
I was in a dead sleep.
Phone rings, and I hear all this static, and then I hear the word Philippines.
And then what I made out was, you are going to get it.
But Altman wasn't intimidated.
He repeatedly called Sonia, who finally agreed to meet him face to face.
I thought, what am I doing? What am I walking into?
I'm a crime reporter, but I also don't do things that are stupid.
You cover it. You don't want to be in it.
Correct.
Altman came here expecting an interview,
but Sonia had set a trap.
I looked through the window,
and this very tall man
who was sitting on the couch in the waiting area
stood up.
And he towers over me and says, step outside.
My heart was pounding, and he says, there's going to be no interview.
Strangely, he puts his hand out, and it's got his card in it, and he says, I'm Henry Hoskins.
I was only there as a friend and a private investigator.
She said she was getting a lot of harassing phone calls.
She was convinced that the news stories were putting her in danger.
Sonia's paranoia was justified.
Close to the one-year anniversary of Larry Riskin's murder,
someone burst into Sonia's beauty salon here in Lomita, California,
and took a shot at her.
The bullet missed, but the shooter promised to return.
Police believe that promise was kept nine days later
when someone entered Sonia's home.
May I help you?
Yes. Can you guys send and somebody what's going on there
oh gosh there's blood on the floor it was a friday afternoon
larry altman was working on another story when he got a call from a tipster. Hey, Larry, there's a murder out here in Lomita,
and it's that woman with the two dead husbands.
And I said, are you kidding me?
And we switched to breaking news in Lomita.
Around 2.30 this afternoon,
sheriffs say that the body of an Asian woman
was found in this home dead of gunshot wounds.
L.A. County Sheriff Detective Mike Rodriguez got to the crime scene just after patrolmen had arrived.
They had found a woman shot inside her residence.
The Black Widow of Lomita, 60-year-old Sonia Rios, lay in a pool of blood.
Dead, ironically, from a gunshot wound to the head i was blown away
by this it looked like somebody had came in and executed her they came in to do a job and they
did the job rodriguez believes sonya likely knew her killer Her home was secure with a steel gate and a security camera at the front door.
It didn't look like she had struggled.
I believe that she probably saw who her killer was.
After the incident at her salon, Sonia had told police Sherry Jackson had motive to harm her.
police Sherry Jackson had motive to harm her. Armed with that information, Detective Rodriguez flew to Olympia, Washington to question Sherry face to face. Did you have anything to do with
Sonia Rios's murder? Absolutely not. But it'd be accurate to say that if you had the opportunity,
you might dance on her grave. Yes. Or buy a drink for the person who killed her.
Sherry's father isn't grieving either.
If I could, I'd dig her up and shoot her again.
Police quickly ruled out the Riskin family as suspects,
but Detective Rodriguez was intrigued
by the mysterious emails that Sherry Jackson had received after her brother had been killed.
Everybody knows that Sonia murdered your brother.
I can get someone to kill Sonia Rios Riskin.
And these e-mails are coming from who?
The person is signing John Bordeaux on the e-mails.
We had spoken with John Bordeaux.
He was the one that found Sonia Rios. John Bordeaux on the emails. We had spoken with John Bordeaux.
He was the one that found Sonia Rios.
This is John Bordeaux.
Detective Rodriguez discovered that John Bordeaux was Sonia
Rios' secret son.
He had been born 44 years earlier in the Philippines,
before her first marriage,
and then reportedly adopted by Earl Bordeaux.
Sonia rarely talked about her son.
He refused to talk to us.
We did not find one photo, not one letter, card,
you know, indicating that she even had a son.
Those emails offering to kill Sonia,
plus the fact that John Bordeaux was the sole heir
to her estate, convinced Detective Rodriguez
that he was a prime suspect.
But in the Sonia Rios murder case,
not everything is what it seems.
When police traced the emails,
they were stunned to learn
they were sent by someone
who was trying to frame John Bordeaux.
I can sit here and say today
that John Bordeaux did not send those emails.
Who did send those emails?
Who killed Sonia Rios? He's on foot. Our investigation
says this man may have the answers. So let's get ahead of him and we'll hop out, okay? You guys
ready? As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch.
It was called Candyman.
The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project.
It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror.
Candyman. Candyman?
Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear.
Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know
that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?
I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was.
We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover
the larger story.
My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created.
Literally shocked.
And we'll look at what the story tells us
about injustice in America.
If you really believed in tough on crime,
then you wouldn't make it easy
to crawl into medicine cabinets
and kill our women.
Listen to Candyman,
the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder,
early and ad-free
on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app.
This man may know secrets to solving Sonia Rios' murder and the murders of her two husbands.
His name, Eric De La Cruz.
It's my understanding that Eric De La Cruz is a great nephew of Sonia.
Sherry Jackson first heard Eric's name about one year after her brother's murder,
when, out of the blue, he sent the Riskins this box of Larry's belongings.
Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.
Picture of Larry on the antietam.
We felt like we received a part of Larry.
So that was very kind of Eric to do that.
It was very kind.
And you're thinking, this is a pretty nice kid.
Yes.
Eric is Filipino, but grew up in the States
and was very close to Sonia and Larry.
He even called them Grandma and Grandpa.
He said he loved my brother and that my brother was a mentor.
After Eric sent the memorabilia, he and Sherry struck up an email friendship.
In the beginning, he was telling me how wonderful my brother was.
But then Eric shocked Sherry.
Once again, she was told she could pay
to get Larry's ashes back.
But this time, the price was astronomical.
All I needed to do was give him $250,000
and we could get my brother's ashes. $250,000
for your brother's ashes?
Police first questioned Eric after he showed
up at Sonia's house the day
her body was discovered.
He drew
even more police attention after
he went to Sonia's lawyer
hoping to collect money from her estate.
What is he capable of, in your opinion?
I think he's capable of anything.
I think he is a clone of Sonia.
We've tracked Eric De La Cruz to a house at the end of this block
in Carson, California.
He comes out. We hope to pop a few questions.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
He's coming out.
Eric De La Cruz?
I'm Peter Van Sant with CBS News.
I want to ask you a couple of questions.
Did you kill Sonia Rios?
Sir?
Did you kill Sonia Rios? That's my grandma, sir. I know it's your grandma. Did you kill her? No, sir. No. I wasn't there.
You know where Larry Riskin's ashes are.
Why don't you give them back to the family?
I don't, sir.
I don't.
I love my grandpa, sir.
I love him.
You loved him so much you wanted to sell his ashes to his family?
I want to know.
Come on, talk to me.
With Eric's death, Larry Riskin was killed by a police officer. You loved him so much you wanted to sell his ashes to his family? I want to know.
Come on, talk to me.
With Eric no longer talking and Sonia dead, the investigation into the murders hit a wall.
The Riskin family has little hope of ever getting Larry's ashes back.
Sonia made sure that his remains stayed in the Philippines. They belong at home with the family.
The Riskins have nothing more than a grave marker
to commemorate Larry.
I want people to remember him as he was,
which was a very special, caring, trusting person.
Like the Riskins, Dennis Bordeaux also has nothing but an empty grave to visit.
so has nothing but an empty grave to visit. My mom and dad just idolized my brother.
I promised him I would do whatever I could
to get him back here.
I'm not gonna stop until I get him back somehow, some way.
Half a world away, somewhere in the Philippines,
are the hidden remains of Earl Bordeaux.
During the 48 hours investigation into his murder, a tip led us to this small public cemetery outside of Manila.
We were told Earl's remains might be entombed behind this crypt wall.
Well, we're looking for Mr. Earl John Bordeaux. We hired the best forensic pathologist in the Philippines, Dr. Raquel Fortune, to help us.
What do you see in there, doctor?
All right, there's a coffin and I see a sack.
An unmarked sack. Could our tip be true?
Inside, Dr. Fortune discovers what she thinks
is a male skeleton.
How long it's been there,
very hard to pinpoint exactly how many years.
Could this be Earl Bordeaux?
Small for a male Caucasian.
All right, so right now,
it doesn't look like it's him.
Not discouraged, Dr. Fortune brought the sack
back to her laboratory.
Inside were not just bones,
but perhaps another clue,
a pair of heavy socks, something an American might wear.
This is a tropical country.
It's hot, so you wouldn't really wear socks at all.
What is this device?
Bone board.
With the help of a colleague,
Dr. Fortune took measurements and compared medical and dental records to the bones.
This thing is more common among Caucasians.
Then, in a real CSI moment, she pieced the skull together and made a startling discovery.
And these two pieces fit, and you're seeing now a hole.
is two pieces fit, and you're seeing now a hole. There's a hole right here, based on putting this skull
puzzle back together again.
And you're saying that hole could be an entry point
for a bullet?
Yes, that is an entry rather than an exit.
And this hole is on the side of the skull
where Earl was shot.
This is based on the autopsy report. The entry site is somewhere here.
After a complete examination of the remains,
Dr. Fortune offered her expert opinion.
There are many points here that indicate that these
could be the remains of Mr. Bordeaux.
indicate that these could be the remains of Mr. Bordeaux.
To be absolutely certain, 48 Hours sent a bone sample to a lab in Fairfield, Ohio,
to compare against his brother's DNA.
Two months later, with the lab results in hand,
we traveled to Dennis' home to give him the news
he's waited 21 years to hear.
We found your brother.
Great.
We found Earl.
That's good.
This means everything.
To have all my old family back again, kind of like being reborn,
you know.
After all these years, to actually go to the grave site, be able to see them, just be a
whole new feeling, you know.
Forty-eight hours transported Earl's remains back to Davenport, Iowa,
the town he had left more than 45 years ago
to find adventure in the Philippines.
It was always just an empty feeling,
not being able to go see a body or a grave
or even be a part of the funeral.
I can't believe he's here.
A long time.
So good to have you back, brother.
So good.
Sorry it took so long.
In 2011, Sonia Rios' nephew, Eric De La Cruz,
and his friend, Fernando Romero,
were both sentenced to life in prison for her murder.