48 Hours - Crazy Love

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

In 2009, millionaire Ben Novack was murdered in Rye Brook, NY. The son of parents who once owned the famed Miami hotspot, the Fontainebleau Hotel, and a business mogul in his own right, he was described by friends as a brat with a lot of enemies. Police suspected his wife Narcy, but did not have enough evidence to charge her. Then, they received a letter in Spanish, which stated that Narcy Novack and her brother Cristobal Veliz were responsible for the crime. “48 Hours" correspondent Troy Roberts reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 12/6/2014. 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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Stop by a Booster Juice near you to say happy birthday and download the Booster Rewards app. Conducting a homicide is like putting together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. What happens if one piece doesn't fit, then the rest of the puzzle won't make sense. You got to take it apart, and that's what they did. The victim was Benji Novak. He had

been beaten bad on the torso, his head was almost overkill. This case was twisted even for Miami. Benji was from a rich Miami family. They owned a Fountain Blue Hotel. It was big back in the 60s. He was king of all the world. And my daddy owns this place, and you'll do as I tell you to do. He had a lot of enemies. He was a cutthroat. To put it bluntly, he was a brat. He wanted people to fear him.

Benji was a successful businessman. And if people needed to be held accountable, he had no problem doing it. And that's the arrogance that a lot of people saw in him. He had a lot of fetishes. He had the second largest Batman collection in the world. He became very wealthy in his own right. He managed conventions. He would set them up from the beginning to the end. It was an all-cash business. He was scared to death he was going to be robbed. He always claimed to be a little sexually kinky. Prostitutes and strip clubs, and that's in fact where he met his wife, Narcy. He definitely was in love with Narcy. Benji was who he was. His wife was who she was. If they did things, that was between them. We really pound the pavement on this case. It was apparent that they wanted him to suffer.

Who would go to such lengths to inflict that serious injury? Somebody with a really cold heart, I can tell you that. There was a lot of cast of characters. We found hitmen. We found girlfriends. We found money trails. And when it was all over, the oldest motive in the world, money and sex. and sex. I'm Troy Roberts. Tonight on 48 Hours. Crazy Love. My God, I can't believe this. It was horrific. Detective Sergeant Terry Wilson of the Rybrook, New York Police Department.

He's on the ground. He's basically hogtied. And Detective Allison Carpentier of Westchester County had never witnessed a crime scene this gruesome. It was a brutal scene. His eyes had both been cut out. The victim, 53-year-old Benji Novak, was a multimillionaire Florida businessman. His mutilated body was discovered in the early morning hours of July 12, 2009, in a hotel room in Rybrook, a suburb just 40 minutes north of New York City. It was placed on his legs, his arms, and around his mouth. When they put it,

they did it really tight. Police believed there was more than one killer. Was there any sign of struggle? He was in the bed. They came up on him. They hit him multiple times, maybe a dozen times or so. Police learned from Benji's wife, Narcy Novak, that she and her husband were from South Florida. They were at the Rye New York Hotel all weekend, running a large Amway convention. As police in New York began their investigation, they soon learned their victim, Benji Novak, came from a fascinating background. His parents once owned the famous Fountain Blue Hotel, once the hottest spot on Miami Beach in the swinging 60s. next days. It was absolutely magnificent. The glamour, the people that were there from all over the world. It was just incredible. Michael Aller, a director of tourism for Miami Beach, knows everybody. I lived at the Fountain Blue Hotel.

It was just the place to be and to be seen. The Fountain Blue was the creation of Benji's parents, Bernice and Ben Novak. They were Miami Beach royalty, and everybody from JFK to Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack stayed at their hotel. It was like Vegas, really. You'd rub shoulders with everybody there. Maxine Field was Banji's aunt. She spent a lot of time at the hotel with her sister Bernice. It was amazing.

They had this stairway to nowhere, which was like some kind of thing for the brides that would walk down. It would look like it was just coming out of this clouds. Everybody wanted to see what Mrs. Novak was wearing. She always had to go down and look absolutely better than anyone else. Ben wanted that. She was part of the fine and blue. But Ben and Bernice's son Benji was not as charming as his famous parents. He was a loner. He was a little prince. Ben was very secretive in many ways. He was not as charming as his famous parents. He was a loner. He was a little prince. Ben was very secretive in many ways.

He was not at ease with people. He would go trick-or-treating with his chauffeur, and no kids went with him. I knew the Novaks. I knew Benji. Benji was not a nice man. He was a tough, I-want-it it now type of guy. He was not pleasant to deal with.

I was the only one that could really confront him and say that because I've known him from when he was this big. Joe Matthews, a former Miami Beach homicide detective, also knew Benji. Everybody as a young boy were intimidated by him because he would fire housemaids or valet people or whatever he wanted to. He had complete control of the hotel. Sound like a tyrant. He was, and he wasn't really an easy guy to like. He was attracted to all the cops. He spent all of his time at the police station. So he aspired to be a police officer. For all intents and purposes, he thought he was a police officer. While the Prince of the Fountain Blue played cop,

his father's entire empire started collapsing. He lost the hotel to bankruptcy in 1977. Benji was so distraught, he refused to ever drive past the landmark again. His father's failures, though, fueled his ambitions, and at 22, he started his own empire. He was an ambitious man, extremely ambitious. Charlie Serator is a former police officer and one of Benji's best friends. He watched Benji become a millionaire several times over with his convention staging business. He became a wealthy man at a very young age. Yes, he did. I'm not surprised at that, and I'm sure a big chunk of it was cash that he kept.

Why cash? I know he always had a lot of cash. He kept a lot of cash in the house, and he spent it on himself quite freely. In 1991, Benji began sharing his good fortune with Narci Valiz, a young single mother from Ecuador, a former exotic dancer with a young child, May Abad. The two married, and eventually Narci helped Ben run the business, as did May. In fact, both women were with Benji at the convention the weekend he was murdered. It was attended by more than a thousand people, and that made the investigation tricky. You had a hotel full of possible suspects.

Right, right. And we didn't know which way to go. Is this a robbery? Is it domestic on wrong? Is it isolated? Is he a target? Police soon established a timeline from phone records. Benji was alive at 6.54 a.m. We know Ben was alive because he receives a phone call from a worker in the hotel saying there was a problem. It was overcrowding for breakfast. Narcy left the room to sort out the seating problem in the dining room. You can see her on video down there at around 7.17 a.m. 30 minutes later, she told police she returned to the room and discovered Ben's body. Describe her demeanor for me.

I think the first thing she said to me, did, um, Ben have a heart attack? Meanwhile, she had seen him. There was blood everywhere in this room. I mean, it was a bloody mess. And I kept saying to her, Narcy, you saw Ben tied up. You know, what do you mean did he have a heart attack? 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 starting October 29th on Amazon Music. It was 1989 in Titusville, Florida.

Kim Halleck said she and her ex-boyfriend Chip Flynn were kidnapped and attacked at gunpoint. Kim fled the scene, but Chip didn't make it out alive. Did you kill Chip Flynn? No, ma'am. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most, involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testified against a brother. They always say lies,

you can't remember lies. A lack of physical evidence and questions about whether Crosley Green was accused, arrested and convicted because he's black. Just because a white female says a black man has committed a crime, we take that as gospel. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the Trouble Case Against Crosley Green, early and ad-free with a 48-hours-plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. It was Sunday. Their convention was over. So if anybody involved in the convention was our killers, they would definitely be leaving. In the hours after the murder of Benji Novak, detectives Allison Carpentier and Terry Wilson were talking to as many people as they could.

Show me when you see Narcy. Investigators videotaped this hotel guest who encountered Narcy in the hallway minutes after she said she had just discovered Benji's body. When you were there, you said, my husband, help me. He told police that Narcy was acting suspicious. And she looked like a surprise. And that he noticed the door to the room didn't show any signs of a break-in. How come these doors are not damaged? Right, right, right.

In fact, neither of the doors to the Novak suite showed any signs of forced entry. So then police looked at the card key history leading up to the murder. What did the card key records show? They showed that there were no card keys used to enter that room between, say, 5 after 12 at night and 7.40 in the morning. At 7.45, a card swipe is logged. That card swipe was from Narcy's key. And that's when she supposedly discovers the body. It was obvious that he'd been sleeping when he was attacked.

So we didn't believe he had walked to the door and opened the door up to somebody. So how did the killers gain access to Benji's room? The only one else that had access to that room was Narcy. In her interview the day after the murder, Narcy tells police she's not sure if she closed the door when she left Benji to go downstairs to the dining room. It doesn't have anything to do with opening the door intentionally for anybody. Tell me about the interview that you conducted.

With Narcy? It lasted hours. She wouldn't go to the bathroom. She didn't want a glass of water. She didn't want a coffee. You know, she just held her own all night. I have no clue what happened. I have nothing to do with my husband's death. Narcy was emphatic.

I love my husband. She had always loved Benji. The couple had met almost two decades earlier on an unlikely first date. When he met her, she was a new dancer in kind of a sleazy strip joint in Hialeah. To me, she looked like a girl that worked the streets and worked her way up to be a new dancer.

Worked her way up to be a new dancer. That's Joe's opinion. Narcy's life had been a far cry from Benji's privileged past at the Fountain Blue. And were they in love? He definitely was in love with Narcy, yes. Charlie Serator was close to both Benji and Narcy for almost two decades. The couple even attended Serator's wedding.

And do you believe Narcy was in love with him? I would believe in the beginning, yes. Because of Benji, Narcy was afforded an extravagant lifestyle. They lived in a multi-million dollar estate. She drove expensive cars. She had furs, beautiful jewelry. She enjoyed the best of the best. And as Benji's convention business grew in gross millions,

he splurged on one of his childhood fantasies. I think he was probably one of the biggest collectors of Batman memorabilia. His prized possession, a replica of the 1960s Batmobile. I guess you know he could afford it. Stacks and stacks and stacks of first edition toys. Anything related to the superheroes. And friends say collecting memorabilia wasn't Benji's only indulgence. Benji had an appetite for other women.

Benji didn't care. He was a party boy that thought for the moment. Was he always cheating? He was always cheating. Did Narcy know? Narcy always suspected Ben of cheating. She was a very jealous woman. And early on, before Ben and Narcy were married,

Charlie Serator got a taste of Narcy's jealousy. Benji had received a phone call, and she was extremely upset. And she was threatening to burn his house down. And he was pleading with her that he's not cheating. But cheating was just the beginning. Benji's sexual taste could have been ripped right from the pages of the most recent erotic bestsellers. I know he was into bondage.

Narcy tells us he likes to be tied up. Benji was who he was. Let's say this. Nobody really knows what goes on behind closed doors. But it's what happened behind this closed door that concerns homicide detective Allison Carpentier. Ben is found in a way that he enjoys sexual. Carpentier asks Narcy about the couple's bondage games and the strange coincidence of finding Benji bound and tied.

When you would confront her with allegations, she would just not really respond to it at all. It was odd. Then from police in Florida, detectives got a tip about a bizarre incident involving bondage. We learned that she had tied him up and stole, he says, between $300,000 and $400,000. In 2002, Benji was the victim of a home invasion that, according to him, was orchestrated by Narsi. He called me up and he said he had just been robbed. He says, I've been tied up in a chair for 25 hours and I think my wife was involved.

Why would Narsi stage this home invasion and rob him? Why would Narcy stage this home invasion and rob him? She was fed up with him, fed up with cheating, fed up with everything, and wanted to prove a point. For reasons unknown, Benji never pressed charges. And amazingly, the couple reconciled. After all is said and done, he went back with her because he loved her. But the similarities of the 2002 incident and Benji's murder seven years later convinced investigators to turn up the heat on Narcy.

She tried to act like a grieving widow. It didn't come off like that at all to any of the investigators, I don't think. But if Narcy was involved in Benji's death, what could be her motive? I think she knew she was going to be replaced. Detective Carpentier learned that Benji had taken up with another woman. He was sort of looking for a bad girl, but I was too bad of a girl for him. Rebecca Bliss, formerly known as Mona Love, was all over the Internet. She admits being a prostitute, pornographic movies.

What began as a sexual tryst, says Rebecca, grew into a serious, ongoing relationship of two years. He used to make me laugh every day, you know, talking to him about personal things. Benji moved her from Miami, where she was dancing in a strip club, to a condominium in Fort Lauderdale. He cared about me a lot. You know, he would tell me he loved me every day. With Rebecca in the wings, was Benji about to leave NARCY?

She called me, screaming at me, yelling at me. Not if Narcy Novak had anything to do with it. She said if she couldn't have him, no one will. In the days after Benji Novak's murder, detectives began casting a wider net. And the investigation would start to expand. We knew that we had to go to Florida. knew that we had to go to Florida. In Fort Lauderdale, detectives began to piece together Benji's life, uncovering his complicated connections to several women and their relationships with each other. We found a family in turmoil.

There was no love lost between Benji's wife, Narcy, and his mother, Bernice. What was Narcy's relationship like with Bernice? From day one, extremely strained. It was like that up until the day Bernice tragically passed away after a fall just three months earlier. His mom did not like his wife. I mean, they really hated each other.

The direct opposite of a very close bond between Bernice and Benji. And he would talk to his mother daily. So he obviously was a loving son. And he stayed very close with his mother up until her death. Then there was Mae Abad, Narcy's daughter from a previous marriage. Mae was shipped off to different people throughout her life. She lived with aunts. She lived with friends.

Mae was just 10 years old when Benji and Narcy got together. May and her mother had a pretty stormy mother-daughter relationship. Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown has written extensively about the Novak murder case and was a consultant for CBS News. Having a 10-year-old daughter at the time that she met Ben really wasn't very convenient for Narcy. Having a 10-year-old daughter at the time that she met Ben really wasn't very convenient for Narcy. Over the years, May grew close to Benji, considering him the father that she never had. And just after Benji's murder, she became convinced her mother may have played a role in his death.

She said, it's the worst thing in the world to have to believe that your mother might have killed your father. And she said that she believed that her mother did do it. And the motive was? Money. It was money. Narcy was the sole beneficiary of Benji's estate, then valued between $5 and $10 million. I think Narcy's very smart. She knows how to manipulate people. She will do whatever it takes to get what she needs. Just three days after the murder, Narcy and May, now back in Florida at the Novak's Waterfront home,

had an ugly confrontation recorded on surveillance camera. May had gone there to collect some of her things. She had a guest cottage on the property, and Narcy took a crowbar and started chasing around with a crowbar i got a uh hysterical phone call sometime around six o'clock concern for may's safety charlie serrater raced to benji's home when i pulled up, May and Narcy were yelling at each other. May was screaming at her, you murdered Ben. And at that point, a crowbar came into it. And they just went at each other, and I split them up. But not before Narcy whacked May with the crowbar.

You have to go where your evidence leads you. It just kept leading back to Narcy. Despite all their suspicions, police didn't have enough hard evidence to charge Narcy. Then, out of the blue, ten days after the murder, investigators received a bombshell anonymous letter that would change everything. Translated from Spanish, it read in part, This crime, without a doubt, was committed by brother Cristobal was a bus driver in Pennsylvania. So we drove down to Philadelphia where Cristobal lived. Detectives interviewed him in his apartment.

Cristobal denied knowing anything about Benji's murder. As we entered, it's a small kitchen area. There was a table there and he invited us to sit down at the table. And detectives couldn't help but notice what was on that table. It was littered with papers and part of the papers were Western Union receipts. It's just we couldn't believe it. Cristobal had been wiring money to various people. When he left the room for a moment, detectives made note of some of the payees. There was one name that proved very helpful. Yes, Alejandro Garcia. Alejandro Garcia of Miami had been wired $500 by Cristobal just

one month after Benji's murder. Detectives wondered if that was payment for the hit on Benji. Alejandro only had one eye, so a search of the data bins in Florida led us to Alejandro Garcia. It turns out Garcia had a record, and with his mugshot in hand, detectives poured over the Rybrook Hotel surveillance tapes from that fateful weekend. There's Benji, captured by the security cameras.

I had detectives go over and over and over the video at the Hilton. And they hit pay dirt. You could see it was Alejandro. The shots on Friday were very clear photos. Two days before the murder, surveillance cameras show Garcia and another man. Detectives think they are casing the hotel in preparation for Benji's murder. This is Joel Gonzalez. The other man caught on camera was Joel Gonzalez, also from South Florida.

Police believed Narcy's brother Cristobal hired the two men to come to New York and kill Benji. Investigators would spend months gathering evidence. We did everything from credit card statements, banking statements. Phones became huge in this investigation. Because once we had everybody's phone numbers, we were able to track the movement of the phones. Because once we had everybody's phone numbers, we were able to track the movement of the phones. The paper trail led them here, to this motel in Queens, New York, where, according to records, the two men stayed the weekend of the murder.

We're going to be talking about a crime that happened. Four months after the murder, in November of 2009, detectives brought in Alejandro Garcia for questioning. Has he ever been to New York? As we were talking to him, he played stupid. He was never in New York. He never left the state of Florida. Did you ever stay at that hotel? No. We have him on film at the hotel.

We have him on film going with Joel to the other hotel. In reality, I don't know. And he was unraveling at that point. He says, I'd rather have an attorney. Too many questions. Alejandro, I'm Allison. But with Detective Carpentier, Garcia would later trip up and implicate himself. He starts telling me that he was scared for his family and that the people that did this are very dangerous. We knew we had the right guy. He just confirmed it for us. Now investigators went after Joel Gonzalez. Joel was on the run, but he eventually turned himself in to Miami PD.

And Gonzalez was ready to talk. Joel gave everything up. And he implicated Narcy? Implicated Narcy, Cristobal Alejandro. It wasn't long before Garcia, too, decided to cooperate. The story they told investigators was shocking. It was Narcy who let them into Benji's bedroom early that terrible July morning while he was sleeping.

They came up on him, and they positioned themselves on each side of the bed. They had these weights, and they just started hitting the victim. They hit him multiple times, a dozen times or so. He ends up on the floor. Ben was duct-taped on his legs. His mouth was covered. According to the hitman, Narcy was not only just watching the brutal assault, but she was directing it.

Narcy sends Alejandro back in to the bedroom, and she wants him to take his eyes out. So he uses something very similar to this. Why? You'd have to really ask Narcy why. Finally, in July 2010, a year after Benji's death, Narcy, along with her brother Cristobal, are arrested in connection with Benji's murder. But Narcy would soon find herself facing not one, but two murder charges.

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Narcy and Cristobal were back in New York in jail and awaiting trial. Down in Florida, as reporter Julie Brown investigated the case, something in his family history was worth a second look. So shortly after Benji Novak's murder, you began digging into the circumstances surrounding Bernice's death? Well, the first thing you do as a reporter when you have a case like this is you look at the clips and what has been written, and one of the first things that popped up was an obituary for his mother,

and it said that she had died from a fall in her Fort Lauderdale home. Benji found his mother's body face down in a pool of blood in the hallway between the garage and the kitchen. Ben called me. What did he say? I just found my mom dead. Did he say that he believed it was suspicious? No, he was overcome with grief at that point. What was Narcy's demeanor? I have to tell you, in all the years that I had seen her, she couldn't be any more consoling. And just rubbing his hair and his neck and just actually being very tender to him. They right away said they felt it was a tragic accident, that she had died of natural causes. Lynn and John Offerdahl, who live next door to Bernice in Fort Lauderdale,

remember well the day their close friend died. We went outside and stood in the driveway, and Ben was there with Narcy, and the two police were walking around and doing some investigation, and all we could see was into the garage, and we could see her car with the door open. Her glasses were smashed on the ground. There was blood dripping from the car all the way up to the door. And there were blood drops all over the house. And I was just curious. It just seemed odd coincidence that she died three months before her son. So I thought it couldn't hurt to get a copy of the autopsy report if there was one done. And you got the report. I eventually got the report. The extent of her injuries just

seemed enormous for a woman who had just taken a fall. She had fractures all over her body. Her skull was fractured. She had a broken finger. Her teeth were broken. It just seemed too much for a fall. Benji soon had questions about what he had seen at his mother's house. I just said, wait until the investigation concludes before you make any judgment. So he was already questioning whether or not this was an accidental death. Yes, at that time he was, and I don't think it ever left him. Bernice's sister Maxine also doubted that it was an accident. When you were told that your sister had died, were you suspicious?

From the get-go. Oh, she did all that herself. She fell down and got up and fell down, like a jack-in-the-box, right? What was it about the circumstances surrounding her death and the crime scene photos that really sent up red flags for you. Everything. Everything. Just about everything.

More red flags appeared when Brown learned from the Offerdals about a suspicious incident at Bernice's house when their son saw two men standing next to Bernice's garage, appearing to be casing her home. And we thought that was a little unusual, but we didn't overly react. John, a retired NFL player, and his son went to investigate. As we opened up the door, the dog started chasing after the guys happily. And I said, hey, what are you guys doing? And they looked at us and for a second kind of were stunned. And then they started jogging and then starting the sprint when the dog started chasing them.

Two months later, Bernice was dead. When Narcy and Benji arrived at the house, Lynn recalled she was acting strangely. I remember Narcy was so odd. I mean, she just kept kind of jumping around the scene and wringing her hands and saying, I just don't understand it, and I just can't imagine, and I just spoke with Bernice last night, and we were going to go vitamin shopping in the morning.

And I kept thinking to myself, you guys don't get along. You don't like each other. She wouldn't go vitamin shopping with you. None of that made any sense to me. And all the blood that investigators seemingly overlooked in Bernice's house made no sense to Julie Brown. So she called an ex-police officer, Joe Matthews, for his expert opinion.

What did you see that the police did not? When you look at the crime scene, there's blood spatter on the walls. There's blood in almost every room of the house. The investigator felt that, you know, it was one of those things where she would stand up and fall down, stand up and fall down, and walk all over the house. The investigator felt that, you know, it was one of those things where she would stand up and fall down, stand up and fall down and walk all over the house. But then how do you explain the blood spatter? So these are crime scene photos from Bernice's home. Now, what happened here?

If you look at the crime scene, you'll see that there was a lot of blood on the seat, but I saw some blood spatter. So if there's spatter, that means she was struck more than once in the head while I was sitting here. Convinced she uncovered a murder, Julie took her findings to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. And I would go to them with question after question to the point where they were getting extremely upset with me. And it's a closed case. It's an accident. Are you suggesting that this was a cover-up?

Initially, I don't think it was a cover-up. I think initially that they were really thought that it was an accident. I think that they made a lot of mistakes. I think that it was really a lot of mistakes. But all of that was about to change as investigators were making a deal with hitman Alejandro Garcia to testify against Narcy and Cristobal. He revealed they also hired him to attack Bernice, beating the 86-year-old woman with a wrench.

And then he was approached by Cristobal Valiz to kill Bernice. And he waited when it got dark on the side of her house by her garbage pails. And when she came out to move her car into the garage is when he struck her. Garcia told investigators he was hired by Cristobal for both attacks. And once again, Narcy was the mastermind. Ten months after they were arrested for Benji's murder,

Cristobal and Narcy were also charged in Bernice's death. But why would Narcy want Benji's mother dead? 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 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. She just didn't know how to stop. Time shows early and ad-free right now. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn,

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Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Three years after the murders of both Ben Novak Jr. and his mother, Narcy Novak and Cristobal Valiz went on trial in federal court in Westchester. She looked very gaunt. She went out of her way to not make herself look attractive. She was given the option of wearing regular clothing, and she chose to wear her orange prison jumpsuit every day.

Alejandra Garcia and Joel Gonzalez made deals with the prosecution to testify for the chance of receiving a lighter sentence. They all basically ended up cooperating. And the prosecution had an overwhelming amount of evidence against the defendants. Cristobal used his credit card to purchase the dumbbells that we used to beat Ben Novak. He also used his credit card to purchase the knife that we used to cut out Ben's eyes. The jury was also shown video taken at a Western Union, which prosecutors say shows Cristobal sending money to hitman Garcia, one of the many clues he left behind. He used his own car for some of the transports. He used his own cell phone. So that left a trail that we were able to uncover.

The case against Narcy was also strong. Prosecutors told the jury about Narcy's secret cell phone. They called it a drop phone. Now, that particular phone was used at 6.40, 6.39 in the morning at the Wrighttown Hilton. Narcy used it to call the hitmen as they waited at a gas station down the street. We had located what phone Narcy used to call the killers and tell them, come on in. And that was big. And remember that video of Narcy used to call the killers and tell them, come on in. And that was big. And remember that video of Narcy down at the breakfast room? Prosecutors say Narcy tried to establish an alibi by intentionally standing before the hotel security cameras around the time of the murder.

She knew where the cameras were and where they weren't. I mean, you could tell by that particular morning how she plants herself directly right in front of a camera. And that's where she stays. She makes some phone calls because she wants to be seen on that camera. The defense tried to hammer back. They questioned the hitman's credibility and reminded the jury they were testifying after making a deal with prosecutors. And they dropped a bombshell. The possibility of another killer. I asked Cristobal about that in a phone call from jail.

Did you orchestrate the murder of Benji Novak? No. Did you arrange for the murder of Bernice Novak? No, sir. Why would they pin these murders on you, sir? They be well paid by my niece, May Abad. Incredibly, Cristobal points the finger at Narcy's daughter, May Abad. So you're saying May is the one who paid for the murders of Benji Novak and Bernice?

I don't know about Mrs. Bernice. I cannot say nothing about that lady because so far I know she fell down. But I know she told me about my brother-in-law, yes. She came to me and she told me, Ben deserved to die because Ben was a bad, evil person. He told some wild story that didn't make any sense at all, trying to point the finger at her daughter. It was truly unbelievable.

Cristobal's story quickly fell apart when Alejandro Garcia testified that in reality, May Abad was next on his list. When we interviewed Alejandro and we took him into custody, he had a picture of May in his wallet. We believe that obviously the hit was out on May. Only Narcy knows why she'd want her only daughter killed, but the apparent plot worried Detective Carpentier. She became so concerned about May's safety,

she loaned her $5,000 of her own money so she could go into hiding. You got into trouble. Well, I didn't get into trouble. The prosecutor's office removed me from the case. Were you angry? I wasn't angry. I was disappointed because you work so hard,

and obviously I wanted to be there for the takedown, the arrest. But Carpentier was there for the verdict. After a two-month trial, when Narcy Novak and Cristobal Valiz were convicted of orchestrating Ben and Bernice's murders. And then I kept hearing guilty, guilty, guilty, so it was exciting for us. As elaborate and convoluted as the murder plots were, Narcy's motive was quite simple. She knew he had a mistress. She was afraid he was going to leave her and divorce her.

quite simple. She knew he had a mistress. She was afraid he was going to leave her and divorce her. Ben and Narcy's prenup only guaranteed her $65,000 in the event of a divorce. His intentions were to be with me, and he did not want me to be with anyone else. And he asked me to just wait until he was finished with the divorce. And that's why, Matthew says, Narcy had no choice but to arrange a double murder. She had to kill the old lady for him to get all the money and then kill him to get all the money. That's how simple it was. I mean, could this have been the perfect murder?

Any murder could be the perfect murder, but they're not. There's always something. If she was sloppy, I think she thought she was smarter than the investigators. Narcy may not have outsmarted the investigators, but she did surprise them. We were surprised to learn that she stayed in the room and participated. That was the biggest surprise, to see that she could be that vicious, watching somebody that you lived with and lived in the same house with for 20 years,

and to watch them die like that. And even more surprising was the author of that letter to police, which pointed the finger at both Christobal and Narcy. It was written by one of their own sisters. You have to question what type of family fabric existed for them to be able to get to this point. Just about everything from this case turned out to be surprising, Just about everything from this case turned out to be surprising, from the relentless ambition of Benji Novak. I think that Benji was just a demanding individual. And in the roles that I had seen him while he was in business, it was always demanding because he wanted the best for his customers.

To the deadly greed of his wife, Narcy. This is somebody that is a monster. She was such a sociopath and such a great liar. To the devotion of Benji's mistress. I miss Ben every day. I love him very much. But in the end, all that's left is the money. $10 million by some estimates, dwindling fast between lawyers and squabbling family members. For the Novak family, once the royalty of Miami Beach, the lights are out and the party is over.

In 2012, Narcy Novak and her brother Cristobal Valiz were sentenced to life in prison without parole. in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.