48 Hours - The Good Girl

Episode Date: March 4, 2018

She was 19, with an allegedly abusive boyfriend.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. 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. When police roll up... Yes. On a body... In the middle of the street...

It's a mystery. It's a complete mystery. They don't know why he's here. We've got somebody got shot in front of 111 Kelm Street, and the guy's laying in the street. They don't know what happened. His wallet and his cell phone were left behind. My name is Nancy Clifford. I'm an assistant district attorney at the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office upon the death of Michael Sinclair. Michael is taking his last breaths when the police arrive. He still has a pulse, but he's on his way out. One of his friends told us that he thought Michael had gone to a club that night.

Police went to that location and found video surveillance of Michael with a female throughout the night. Once we get Michael's phone records, we're able to see the numbers. One of those numbers came back to Noriella Santos. Noriella was, in fact, with Michael Sinclair that night. He actually asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said no because I just got out of a very serious relationship.

Daniel was her first lover, her first boyfriend. He was intelligent. He had a good education, access to travel. How did you meet Danny? I met him in high school. He was really nice. He complimented me a lot and made me feel comfortable. I felt loved by him. Not everybody has a picture with a former president of the United States. When you look at that picture, what do you think? I think about the things that I was able to

accomplish during the time that I was with Dan. This all sounds, at least in the beginning, like an idyllic first love. Yes, definitely. Did it stay that way? No. He started to become very possessive. And that's what I believe was the genesis of this crime.

The fact that another man was with Noriella. And what happens? Um, sorry, this is really hard for me to talk about. I felt like he owned me. I did what he told me to do. Noriella was, is, a grotesquely damaged young woman. I was coerced. I was manipulated and forced to do this. I did not have a choice. She is such a damaged person that she doesn't operate the way people would expect her to.

Damaged person or someone who wants to get away with murder? In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have heard it. 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 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 Marcia 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. 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 Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Hi, my name is Noriella. More than most, Noriella Santos knows life is filled with risk. You can be on solid footing one minute, and the next, it's a free fall. When I saw the door open and we're 14,000 feet up in the air, I started to freak out just a little bit, and I said, don't think about it,

just don't think about it. And I closed my eyes, and we were out the... out the plane. For most of her 28 years, Noriella has been the good girl, a model student. She served as an intern for the Clinton Foundation and traveled the world for the Cambodian Children's Fund. Noriella also graduated with honors from the City College of New York. But her life has not only been about achieving. It was my way of escaping. And Noriella has a lot she needs to escape from, like questions about her role in an

execution-style murder back in the winter of 2009 in West Babylon, Long Island. I didn't want to think it was real. I didn't want to think it actually happened. But it had happened. Fire rescue. We heard three shots, and we got up, and the guy's laying in the street. Suffolk County Prosecutor Nancy Clifford

says Michael Sinclair's driver's license revealed that he lived an hour away from the crime scene back in Brooklyn. After finding that video of Michael with Noriella Santos in a club, police brought her in days after the murder. She told them she and Michael were friends. She tells them that they were going to a party in Suffolk County, and as they were getting out of her car to enter the party, two males approached them, demanded Michael's jewelry, money, cell phone,

and when he hesitated, they shot him. Noriella, then 19 years old, admitted she left the scene without calling 911. She said she was terrified and in shock and went back to the city. You believe her? Initially, yes. But when investigators subpoenaed Noriella's cell phone records, they saw that hours before the murder,

she was in constant communication with someone named Danny, a 21-year-old from a well-off Manhattan family. He was born Daniel Crager. He did not grow up impoverished. His mother owns a home on Fire Island. His mother owned a successful business in the village, a lingerie business. In fact... But they've been selling

very, very well. Danny's mother is Rebecca Absinthe, who is lingerie royalty and owner of a cozy Greenwich Village boutique made famous by Sex and the City. Oh, the boutique, again, my favorite. Noriella told investigators she'd been calling Daniel that night because he was her boyfriend. Before she met him in a New York City high school,

he said he'd gone to a boarding school until he got kicked out for fighting. I was attracted to him. I thought he was very handsome. Sweep you off your feet a little bit? Yeah, he was very charming. He would buy me flowers and chocolate and walk me home from school, and we would have long talks. At the time, Noriella was estranged from her father, a New York City police officer who had split up with her mother, and Danny provided the strong, sympathetic male presence Noriella was lacking. I felt loved by him. I felt accepted. He was very outgoing as well. Outgoing with an unusual quirk. This Jewish kid from Manhattan wanted to be a Puerto Rican from the Bronx.

And during the time he and Noriella were a couple, Danny Crager legally changed his name to Daniel Rivera. When he became Daniel Rivera, he adopted a street persona. He became very street. You must have been a little bit, what's going on here? I actually got to that point when he changed his last name. That's when I really was like, wait a minute, this is super weird. Richie Santos is Noriella's brother. He became good friends with Daniel.

What he told me he wanted to embrace was the Latin life and to show people he's tough. He became Daniel Rivera. For Noriella, his name didn't matter. His attention did. I just wanted to be with someone that was going to love me, and he was that person. After questioning Noriella, detectives also met with Daniel,

but found no evidence to prove he or Noriella were involved in Michael Sinclair's murder. In a matter of hours, investigators drove Noriella were involved in Michael Sinclair's murder. In a matter of hours, investigators drove Noriella home. It didn't sit well with any of us initially, but we didn't have anything else to work on. But they kept digging. Using phone records from Michael's service provider, detectives knew who he had called. And they also knew that his BlackBerry contained dozens of texts. But the contents of those texts were encrypted, and no American police departments could crack the phone open. Then, some help arrived.

The only place I could do it was in Canada. We had to send the BlackBerry to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They were the only people who could crack the BlackBerry at that time. And what did it yield? It yielded text messages from Noriella to Michael throughout the night. After reading the texts, investigators could see that Noriella pursued Michael that night, inviting him to a party, promising liquor, even a car to get him there. She was making sure Michael was at a precise spot at a precise time.

Detectives now believe this was no random robbery. It was clear that Noriello was attempting to lure Michael out that night to get him to agree to meet with her. And she was working pretty hard. Michael out that night to get him to agree to meet with her. And she was working pretty hard. It was now August 2010, a year and a half after the murder, and investigators called Noriella in for more questioning. This time, she broke down.

Once she was confronted by the police that day with what we knew, she gave it up in great detail. They said, you've been charged with murder. And I literally passed out. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. 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. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk-takers who brought them to life.

Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans. Discover the surprising stories of the most viral products.

Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. They transported me to jail.

I was crying. I was so cold in the cell that I had to wrap myself with toilet paper. Even as she sat in a Suffolk County jail, Noriella Santos says she had no idea the depth of her troubles. I kept saying, there's been a mistake, can you call the detective? He said he was going to bring me home. a mistake, can you call the detective? He said he was going to bring me home.

Noriella could not understand why she was under arrest. I was in a state of shock. Especially after she told detectives what she claimed was the truth, and it all centered around her boyfriend, Danny Rivera. She told them he was violent and vengeful, and had been beating and controlling her for years. The very first time he hit me, it was about a year into the relationship. He slammed me to the floor and started kicking me and punching me and causing my nose to bleed. I remember wiping myself with a white towel and there being blood everywhere. I remember wiping myself with a white towel and there being blood everywhere.

Despite what Noriella describes as regular beatings, she moved in with Daniel when she was a senior in high school. Noriella says, unbeknownst to her family, Daniel continued to abuse her. And it got worse. Much worse. Noriella said she lost consciousness five times the first year they lived together. But she stayed. You know the question. The question so many people ask.

If this woman was being abused, why did she stay with her abuser? In this case, what's the answer to that? I was afraid of him. In fact, Daniel was arrested three times for assaulting and menacing Noriella, but the cases didn't go forward because prosecutors say Noriella never followed up. And then in the summer of 2008, Daniel broke up with her and ordered her to pack up and get out. He said that this girl that worked at his mother's store found interest in him and he wanted to start dating her and he broke up with me. That's when Noriella met Michael Sinclair in a club. He was a dozen years older and worked as a receptionist.

For Noriella, the best thing about Michael was that he was not Daniel Rivera. He wanted to take me out for my birthday, and I was so nervous because I was about two hours late. So I get to where Michael is, and he's just happy to see me. Entirely different than your experience with Danny. Yeah, and now I had someone else to compare to. Now I'm like, this is a normal person. By all accounts, Michael Sinclair was lighthearted and fun-loving. He was always laughing. He was always smiling. It was a very contagious type of smile. Naeem Khan, Bobby Thomas,

and Danielle Atherton Bonner met Michael when they all attended the same high school in Manhattan. He was popular but approachable. Very unassuming. Friendly, funny, cool. Just a good person. He had a good heart. He had that personality where he was friends with everyone. Their relationship was comforting. Their relationship was comforting. But then, at the end of the summer of 2008, Danny called, said he'd broken up with his new girlfriend, and wanted Noriella back.

And she agreed. I felt like I didn't really have a choice. I just had to get back with him. Why? Why didn't you have a choice? Because when he told me to do something, I did it. Did any part of you think, whoa, whoa, whoa, I know now what normal feels like. I'm not going back with Danny. No, because my self-esteem was still very low at that time.

So one summer relationship wasn't going to rewire all of that. All those years of abuse, no. rewire all of that. All those years of abuse, no. Daniel had Noriella back, but now he had a new problem. And I know it's not easy to talk about, but he had felt that perhaps you had given him an STD. Did that really pique his rage?

I don't want to speak about that. Prosecutor Nancy Clifford says Daniel had contracted a sexually transmitted disease after he and Noriella got back together. And he believed Noriella had caught it from Michael. And Daniel was enraged. He was enraged. He beat her once he was diagnosed. He became obsessed with meeting Michael. And his goal, according to Noriella, in her mind, was to teach Michael a lesson. You sound to me like you're describing a motive. Yes. It sounds to me like you're describing a motive.

Yes. Noriella says Daniel badgered her to set up a meeting where he planned to give Michael a beating. She resisted, but Danny would not take no for an answer. Because if you didn't contact him, what? Dan was going to keep beating me and hurt my family. Noriella says she reluctantly went along with the plan. She invited Michael out for a night of partying, but she insists Danny was dictating her every move.

So the night of his murder, Michael Sinclair was reticent to get together with Noriella. Yes, he hadn't seen her in a few months, and I think he would have been just as happy to stay home that night. On the evening of January 30, 2009, Michael Sinclair met Noriella at that karaoke bar in Brooklyn, and she said she was under orders to communicate with Daniel only on the phone of his friend, David Belton. Who was he? David Belton was a friend of Daniel Rivera's. He was a doorman in

an Upper East Side luxury apartment building. Noriella says she was in constant communication with Daniel, who was using Belton's phone. Daniel, she said, was ordering her around like a puppet. Did any part of you think, oh no,

he's going to do something to Michael. I need to tell Michael just to go home. Yeah, I thought about that a lot, but the fear overpowered that thought, the fear of Dan hurting my family, the fear of him continuing to hurt me. I thought that maybe they would just get into a fight and it would all be over. To hear Noriella tell it,

Daniel ordered her to bring Michael to Long Island. And sometime around 4 a.m., Noriella ended up here at the Affinity Diner in West Babylon, where Daniel got into their car. Noriella introduced him as her cousin and told Michael Daniel would drive them to the party. They drove a few blocks, Daniel parked, and they all got out. And that's when Noriella says she

saw Daniel's friend David Belton emerge from the shadows holding a gun. That's the first you see a gun. Yes. What are you thinking? I was in complete shock. To see more of Michael's Friends interview, join us on Facebook at 48 Hours. It was cold and dark that January morning in 2009

when Noriella told police she watched Danny's friend David Belton pointing a gun, his hand shaking, directly at Michael Sinclair. David told Michael, give me your chain. And Michael said, I don't have a chain. Did you look at Michael at all? He thought it was a joke. He was like, what's happening here? That's when Danny made his move. Dan goes around David and grabs the gun from him.

And he shoots Michael? And he, um, yeah. Did he say anything? He shot Michael from afar. And then he ran up to Michael. And he said, who's the man now? He kept shooting him. I was really shocked.

Right after, um, David said, aren't you going to shoot her too? Noriella says Daniel and Belton looked at each other for what felt to her like a very long time. But then Daniel told her to get in the car. They sped off while Michael, Noriella's one-time boyfriend, lay dying in the middle of the street. Is Michael conscious? Is he saying anything? Was anyone attending to him? No. It was very quiet. Prosecutor Nancy Clifford says Michael Sinclair was still alive, but not for long. Residents along the street were calling 911.

Fire rescue. Yeah, we got somebody got shot and the guy's laying in the street. And a police station was literally a few blocks away. West Babylon Unifor, 10-8, male, gunshot victim. Police were here within two minutes of the call. Within two minutes? Two blocks away. West Babylon, Unifor, 10-8, male gunshot victim. Police were here within two minutes of the call. Within two minutes? Yes.

Yes. But they couldn't save him. Noriella, Daniel, and Belton were gone. Michael, shot three times in the head, was soon pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. At no point in the run-up to this had Danny said to you, I'm going to kill that guy. No.

He said he just wanted to confront him, humiliate him, and beat him up. And I didn't think he was actually capable of of murder noriella says danny stopped the car in a service lane on the robert f kennedy bridge and pitched the weapon into the east river days passed and there were times she was not with danny did you think at all about calling 9-1-1 Danny. Did you think at all about calling 911? Yeah, I thought about it. But then I thought about my family as well,

that he was actually capable of killing someone. So the idea of finding your dad and saying to this New York City police officer, I was just with somebody who killed somebody else. No way? No. I was too afraid to say anything to anyone. Not only my father, but to just anyone.

Miles away in Brooklyn, Michael's parents were notified that their only child had been murdered. Word spread quickly to his friends. I remember dropping to my knees and crying. He literally was gunned down in the street, like an animal, honestly. What was shocking was that someone had enough hatred to want to end his life. Noriella says she, too, was shocked. In her mind, she was only doing what Danny had ordered. In the eyes of the law, however, she was an accomplice.

Charged with second-degree murder, Noriella sat in jail, unable to make bail of nearly a million dollars. Things seemed hopeless. But then Noriella had an idea. So I told my mom to contact a friend of the family. That's Warren. Yeah. He was able to help out.

How did Warren know your family? He was a big brother to my cousin, and he mentored us when we were kids. Yeah, he's really nice. Nice is a bit of an understatement. Warren is actually a wealthy philanthropist named Warren Scher. Asked to help out, he immediately put up Noriella's $750,000 cash bail. All of it.

I think that Warren saw something in Noriella that could be salvaged, some light in her. Warren Scher believed that Noriella was a battered woman and that Danny's constant beatings helped explain her behavior. That's when Scher found Michael Dowd. She has shared with you the hopelessness and despair. The veteran lawyer who put the battered woman's defense on the map. I started representing battered women in 1980. The essence of it is that a battered woman gets dominated by her abuser. In other words, if the woman doesn't do what the abuser is telling her, there are consequences.

Serious consequences. Is Noriella Santos a battered woman? Oh, there's no question about it. At some point, you go to Nancy Clifford, the prosecutor. Before I went to Nancy Clifford, I had Noriella evaluated by one of the top forensic psychologists in New York. She was only 21 at the time that I saw her. You know, she seemed, even at that time, like a very little girl, very young to me in my evaluation of her.

Psychologist Dawn Hughes got Noriella to open up, and Noriella revealed that Danny's beatings were not the first time she'd been abused. From ages 8 to 12, Noriella says she was sexually abused by her grandmother's boyfriend. I didn't even understand the full concept of sexual abuse until I was 15 years old. I just knew that it was an uncomfortable feeling in it, and I didn't want it to happen anymore. And it was definitely a shame as well, considering that this 60-year-old man was the first person to ever kiss me, and he took that away from me. I was very ashamed. When Noriella turned 15, she told her mother about the abuse,

When Noriella turned 15, she told her mother about the abuse, and her step-grandfather was arrested and convicted. But Dawn Hughes says that kind of abuse leaves a psychic scar. We definitely know from the research that if you have been abused as a child, especially sexually abused as a child, you are much more likely to be re-victimized as an adult. She was in a way maimed by her early experiences by being sexually abused. Then she runs into Danny Rivera. In time, Dowd says someone like Noriella will do anything the abuser asks. So that Noriella Santos isn't a co-conspirator? No. She's a victim?

She definitely is a victim. As Dowd tried to convince prosecutors of that, years passed. Meanwhile, Daniel Rivera had moved 5,000 miles away. It was now 2015, six years since Michael Sinclair's murder. Police were building a case against Daniel, but by then he'd morphed into yet another person. When I met him, he was a privileged white boy who got kicked out of boarding school. Then he wanted to be half Puerto Rican.

Changed his last name to Rivera. And now he's a Jew. And he had legally changed his name once again. He became Daniel Greenspan and moved to Israel to study the Talmud. And he became a scholar, a total immersion once again in a new persona. He spent three years in Israel. When he returned, he lived in a yeshiva in Brooklyn.

While Daniel was studying Torah and traveling free as a bird to Israel and Europe, Noriella was facing life in prison on a charge of second-degree murder. Noriella was facing life in prison on a charge of second-degree murder. But she tried to convince Nancy Clifford that she was an abused and battered victim and not a killer. She gave us her history of her domestic violence with Daniel, how he put her in the hospital on various occasions in 2006, 2007, 2008. He had broken or fractured her cheekbone at one point. He had bruised her ribs at another point.

Did you believe this? Well, I did. There were medical records from St. Luke's Hospital. There were police reports. Clifford began reconsidering the murder charge against Noriella. And what's more, Noriella put Daniel at the scene. So your calculus as a prosecutor is not, I feel bad for Noriella, I want to cut her a break. I need Noriella to convict the real evil here, Daniel Greenspan. Yes, I couldn't have gotten out of the grand jury without her.

Daniel Greenspan would have been out living his life, and he was the one who actually murdered Michael Sinclair. Clifford was convinced that Noriella had no idea that Daniel planned to kill Michael. If at any time I felt that she believed she was going to participate in a murder, I wouldn't have used her. The prosecutor was willing to give Noriella a reduced charge, but there was one very significant catch. I have to testify against Dan.

And when you heard that? I was terrified. Then in December 2015, nearly seven years to the day Michael Sinclair was executed, detectives arrested Daniel Greenspan as he left his mother's apartment. Danny's mom, who owned that sexy lingerie shop, was now shopping to save her son's life. And she hired one of New York's best criminal defense attorneys, Arthur Idalla, a pit bull straight out of Brooklyn. And he was raring to go when the trial started in February of 2017.

There was all this hype. There was all this excitement. Here comes Noriella. He's a great lawyer. She wants to make him into Darth Vader. He's loud. Remember the line in A Few Good Men, you can't handle the truth? Dramatic.

They didn't think you could handle the truth. Charming. But you knew he was going to come for Noriella and come hard. And he did. A co-conspirator, a liar, an accomplice's testimony to convict an innocent man. He won a ruling that dealt a serious blow to the prosecution. The judge rules that Danny's abuse of you can't be part of your testimony.

Exactly. And I didn't understand that because it all goes together. There would be no crime if I wasn't abused or beaten the way that I was. When it was time for Noriella to testify, cameras were not in the courtroom as she came face-to-face with Daniel for the first time in seven years. My first initial response was to put my arm above my head because I almost felt like

he would just hit me. That reflexive protection of your face. Yeah. I told her just always tell the truth because the truth doesn't change. For four days, Noriella testified, detailing how Daniel told her everything to do that night. 7-26, Norie Rivera. And Nancy Clifford showed the jury phone records she claimed implicated Daniel in the murder. She's talking to Sinclair. She's calling Rivera. She lies on August 13th. But Idalla was having none of it, and he ripped into the prosecution's star witness as a liar. She lied here.

Over and over again. There were so many times she lied and lied and lied, and she admitted lying. This is not my opinion. Idalla pulled out all the stops, even referencing the film Grease. Summer loving, had me a blast. Suggesting that Noriella killed Michael because she was upset he had ended their summer fling. He broke my heart, but it's not just a regular breakup.

Idalla told the jury Noriella had the motive to kill Michael because he gave her an STD. She was the one handed a get-out-of-jail-free card when she placed all the blame on Daniel. By all accounts, she was there. By all accounts, she set him up. By all accounts, she caused his death. I'm not asking you to like her. I'm not asking you to like her. I'm not asking you to forgive her. Even though Clifford could not discuss Danny's abuse of Noriella,

she was permitted to talk about how Noriella was sexually abused as a child. And Clifford pleaded with jurors to try to understand Noriella. I'm asking you to evaluate her testimony in the context of her life and compare it to the facts. And she told jurors that Daniel was the one filled with hate. Shut behind the ear.

That is an execution. This is personal. This is intentional. This is intentional. This is him. This is King Daddy. This is King Daddy, right here. After three weeks, the jury finally began deliberations. On day three, they reported being hopelessly deadlocked.

Please be seated. The judge asked them to keep working. They just asked for the readback of the testimony of Noriella Santos. But soon after, jurors canceled that request. They had a verdict. My heart is jumping out of my chest. Jumping out of my chest. I can feel it throbbing in my ears.

Will the defendant please rise? See more of Arthur Aydala's closing argument. Join us at 48hours.com. Even though jurors knew they were weighing the guilt or innocence of Daniel Greenspan, they couldn't help but focus on the trial's star witness, Noriella Santos. Just her demeanor kind of made me not believe anything that came out of her mouth. The judge prevented jurors from hearing Noriella's stories of Daniel beating her before the murder, which jurors said made it hard for them

to understand her actions. Her body language was, you know, it looked staged. It looked like she was just trying to get sympathy from the jurors. That's my opinion. Case on trial, people of the state of New York versus Daniel Greenspan. On the fourth day of deliberations, March

23rd, 2017, more than eight years after Michael Sinclair's murder, jurors announced they had reached a verdict. All right, let's have them out. Will the defendant please rise? As count one of the indictment,

charging the defendant, Daniel Greenspan, with the crime of murder in the second degree, what is your verdict? Guilty or not guilty? Guilty. With his mother looking on, Greenspan was stoic for a few moments. But then his emotions got the best of this one-time tough guy. Noriello was miles from the courthouse back home in Manhattan

when she got news of the verdict from her benefactor and family friend, Warren Scher. He called me, he told me, and I just started to cry. For jurors, the key piece of evidence proved to be a phone call from David Belton's phone to Noriella's brother Richie on the night of the murder. Did you know David Belton? No. Never met Belton? Never met Belton.

Richie said it was Daniel on the phone. And for jurors, that phone call was crucial because it placed Daniel at the scene of the crime with David Belton. So the phone number from Belton's phone calling Noriel's brother is what finally put us all on the same

page thinking he was guilty. Two months later, Daniel Greenspan was back in court for sentencing. This was a premeditated personal execution. Daniel Greenspan was sentenced to 25 years in prison. And in September 2017, Noriella Santos stood before the court to learn how she would pay for her role in Michael's murder. I am truly sorry for the loss of Michael Sinclair. And I'm sorry to the family and the friends. And I hope that testifying against Dan helped. And there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about Michael. And I'm really sorry.

And with that, it was time for Judge William Condon to sentence Noriella. As part of her plea deal, her murder charge had been knocked down to second-degree attempted robbery. You had several opportunities to stop this from happening that night, during which Danny Rivera wasn't even present. You chose not to stop it. Prosecutor Nancy Clifford asked that Noriella serve two years in prison, but in the end, Judge Condon had another idea. You have stayed out of trouble. You've moved in a different direction, a good direction. In the years since the murder, Noriella completed her college degree

and became associate director of a nonprofit that helps children around the world. Those children, she says, are her future. And Judge Condon said he believed Noriella Santos deserved a second chance. I just see no productive reason to just send you to state's prison and have you sitting in a cell. He sentenced her to six months of time served and five years probation. That did not sit well with this friend of Michael's. I think the sentence is egregiously unfair. Probation is nothing.

She can still get married and have children. You know, these are things that Michael will never do. There will be people watching the story of the death of Michael Sinclair, and they will feel like, wait a minute, this girl, young woman, got away with murder. What do you say to that? I say that they're not wrong, that she got away with what she did that night. They're not wrong in having that feeling that perhaps she got away with too much.

Do you feel Michael would be alive if it wasn't for you? Honestly, I don't know. Dan was so determined to contact him that I think that he would have done anything in his power to reach him. When someone is looking at Noriella Santos and trying to figure out in their own minds whether you carry blame for this. What did those people need to understand?

They need to understand that I was abused for years. Not just with Dan, but with my step-grandfather. I was abused as a child. I was trained as a child to keep secrets. And even as an adolescent, I was beaten and threatened not to say anything. If you could say something to Michael Sinclair's mother and father, what would you say to them?

I don't feel comfortable answering that question. Maybe we can come back to it. So we did. When we were talking about Michael's parents, do you have anything to say to them? And somebody might say, how about, I'm sorry? And I am sorry. You would want to express to them that you're sorry?

I feel like those words aren't enough. I think that's what it is. Because it's not just enough to say I'm sorry. It's so painful. Michael, by all accounts, was a terrific kid. And just by happenstance and bad luck, he got tied up with Noriella. What are your hopes for Noriella's future? My hope is that she can move toward the light,

that she can accept good in her life and be able to maybe make amends with Michael's family in some way by doing good in the world. Noriela Santos attends NYU and is working toward an MBA in public service. David Belton, Greenspan's accomplice, pled guilty to second degree attempted murder and is serving 10 years in prison. The earliest Daniel Greenspan can apply for parole is 2040. He'll be 53 years old. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.