48 Hours - What Happened in Apt. 1601?
Episode Date: April 3, 2016Three friends walk into a studio apartment, and only two come out alive.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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when she received a call from California.
Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing.
The young wife of a Marine
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Real people.
Real crimes.
Real life drama.
Real people, real crimes, real life drama.
Before all of this, my brother, he had a beautiful girlfriend, Taylor.
He had friends, Mark.
And sort of in the blink of an eye, it's completely changed, you know?
We can't bring Mark back. If we could, we would.
This story is about a very violent, very bloody murder involving three promising young people.
Just outside Washington, D.C., it starts with some friends and a birthday dinner. They're going to go out and celebrate.
Montgomery County 911, what is the address of the emergency?
What is your name?
Taylor Gold.
The police get this 911 call. It's a little vague.
There's blood everywhere.
What do you mean there's blood everywhere? What happened?
I don't know.
The police come into this efficiency apartment that's all bloody.
I see a dead guy with a lot of blood on him.
They see his friend who's covered with blood.
And then they see the friend's girlfriend.
She's got blood on her.
Mark Waugh, the victim, was stabbed in the neck.
He was stabbed in the chest.
Twice in his left shoulder,
his jugular vein was cut.
Just brutal.
I got a call that two subjects were coming.
They were definitely not the usual cast of characters
at all.
Mark Waugh, he's a first year law student at Georgetown.
Rahul Gupta is Mark's friend from high school.
He's got an engineering degree.
And then there's Taylor Gold, Rahul Gupta's girlfriend.
She's got a biomedical engineering degree as well.
Mark is dead.
What?
Yes.
Taylor Gold.
Oh, my God.
You know, clearly she had been drinking.
Mr. Gupto had also been drinking.
I don't know how Martha's dead.
They can both remember up until a certain point,
but the crucial 45 minutes, nobody seems to remember anything.
I remember what happened.
I told you everything I did remember.
You're talking about a really small apartment.
To say that you don't know what happened when somebody gets killed violently is unbelievable.
Somebody was murdered in your joint.
I know.
Some people are going to do whatever they have to do in order to try to save themselves.
One of them had to do it.
I really don't remember.
I didn't believe her then and I still don't believe her now.
And I don't know that we believed either one of them.
I know my brother.
He didn't do this.
One of them didn't.
Oh my god. I'm Richard Schlesinger.
Tonight on 48 Hours...
What happened in Apartment 1601? 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.
She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop.
Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's
most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus.
Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify,
and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows
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Did you know that the movie Candyman
was partly inspired by an actual murder?
Listen to Candyman, the true story
behind the bathroom mirror murder,
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When you came in the door, how did you approach this place?
Well, we're stacked up kind of like how we are now. One guy behind me... Officer Dean Skiba was working the night shift in Montgomery County, Maryland,
when he got the kind of call young police officers sometimes dream about and sometimes lose sleep over.
How bloody was this apartment that day?
It's like a horror movie. You can see it is up all over the wall, all over the ground.
It was about 2 a.m. October 13th, 2013. Three successful
20-somethings arrived at this tiny studio apartment near Washington, D.C. Two of them
lived here, a grad student named Rahul Gupta and his girlfriend, Taylor Gold. They'd been bar hopping for Rahul's 24th birthday and came home with a friend,
Mark Waugh, who was a promising young law student. But within about an hour,
Mark Waugh would be dead, stabbed to death here on the floor.
He's here and I need emergency right now.
When Taylor Gold called the police, she was drunk, at times incoherent.
What is happening?
I don't know.
When Officer Skiba and the other first responders got to the scene,
Taylor Gold met them at the door and stayed in the hall with police. He says the first responders had no idea what they were walking into.
It was just a mess. Mark was laying right here.
Mark Waugh was dead.
Gupta was laying right here.
Gupta was covered in blood and drunk.
He kept rambling and talking in circles.
But Skiba says he was startled by what Gupta said next.
I do remember him distinctly saying to me,
I caught my buddy and my girl cheating.
I killed my buddy.
As drunk as he was, it was hard to know if Gupta's confession was believable.
He was handcuffed on the spot.
What did you think about the woman? Was she a suspect?
Yeah, definitely.
Because they also suspected Taylor, police handcuffed her as well.
Taylor and Gupta arrived at police headquarters at about 5 a.m.
where veteran interrogator Detective Paula Hamill met them. I'm Paula Hamill,
I'm a detective with the police department. They were both brought to headquarters as suspects.
You can close your eyes.
quarters as suspects. You can close your eyes. As a mother of six, Detective Hamill had questioned her share of young people. Taylor, can you hop up for a minute? And she says it was clear in Gupta's
and Taylor's answers that the haze of alcohol was obscuring the details.
They were the only people still alive, and they were of no help.
No help.
No help.
I'm really not sure what happened between when we got there and when the police got there.
They told strikingly similar stories about what they remembered, which was... I don't know.
Not much.
It's kind of... that I don't remember what happened.
Hamill suspected they both knew more than they were letting on.
That apartment, there's not even like a separate bedroom or anything.
Somebody was murdered.
I know.
You have to have some explanation.
That certainly is something that you would remember for your life.
Because he confessed,
Rahul was still the prime
suspect. But Detective
Hamill couldn't possibly have expected
what happened when she turned up the
heat on Taylor.
Listen to how Taylor
answers when she's asked if
she did it. Did you kill Mark?
I don't think so. She doesn't say no.
She told police she didn't remember. In his drunken confession at the scene,
Gupta said he did it because he caught Taylor cheating on him with Mark, but Taylor says she and Mark did nothing untoward.
You do not have any kind of sexual relationship with Mark?
No.
I can't imagine doing that.
But if you find evidence otherwise, I'm not going to deny it.
Detective Hamill spent hours going back and forth between Taylor and Rahul and getting very little.
As the hours passed, Gupta was sobering up.
I found him like that.
And starting to back away from his confession.
So if you don't remember, then there's a possibility that you did it. There is that possibility, but I know
for a fact that I didn't do it. Was he frustrating you? Yes. I can't say what happened. See how it's
hard for me to wrap my head around that? Sure. After several hours of interrogation, Gupta was
charged with murder, and his parents hired defense attorneys Phil Armstrong and Jennifer Page.
The first statement your client makes to the police was a confession.
How do you get around that? People who are under stress do crazy, stupid things.
He says in this case, Gupta tried to cover for Taylor. The bottom line is this, he's innocent. They agree his drunken
confession is not as revealing as his character. Rahul Gupta is a kind, mild-mannered man whose
life's intent was to marry Taylor Gold, have a family, and help society.
to marry Taylor Gold, have a family, and help society.
The Guptas arrived in the Washington area from India in 1986 and built a successful printing business.
They moved to the affluent suburb of McLean, Virginia.
Rahul met Mark Waugh in high school. Waugh was known as a quirky kid
who loved to smile and loved to challenge in school and in the great outdoors.
Huge personality, always smiling, always joking, huge heart.
Before Mark Waugh started Georgetown Law School, he'd been a star debater in high school and college.
But Jason Peters met him years before that, in Cub Scouts.
I remember sort of a funny, goofy character.
A decade of campouts, cookouts, and community service eventually made them both Eagle Scouts.
He was a strong leader and someone that you could really look up to.
He prided himself on his leadership ability.
Mark was just a really nice kid.
He was a really good friend for Rahul.
Gupta's older sister, Shireen, says her brother was a loyal friend too
because they'd been raised to believe anything worth having
was worth working hard to keep. In fact the Gupta family worked hard for
everything, especially education. Rahul was going for his second master's degree.
Rahul is a really smart guy. Reporter Dan Morse, covering the murder for The Washington Post,
said everything about this crime was interesting,
especially the three people who were there that night.
There's Mark Waugh.
No one can say a bad thing about the guy.
You know, why would anyone want to hurt him?
And then there's Taylor Gold.
He says Taylor showed immense promise too. She
and Gupta had started dating as seniors at George Washington University and moved in together after
graduation. Do you ever talk to you about her? I think I asked him one time, like, are you serious?
You know, do you think this is going somewhere? And his reply was yes. And you approved? Yeah, I mean, I support him.
Taylor helped out with some of Gupta's bills while he paid for his studies.
She works at the FDA.
Nice government job.
The three of them all had these very bright futures ahead of them.
And one of them still could have a bright future.
But not before police find out what happened in
apartment 1601 and who did it.
Clearly I, you know, interacted with the body because I had blood on me.
I just don't know when it happened.
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We started figuring out that something was wrong when Rahul didn't respond to any of our birthday wishes. It was the evening after Mark Waugh's murder, and Shireen Gupta-Rappaport says her family still had no idea what had happened.
In fact, they planned a dinner out to celebrate Rahul's birthday, but Rahul and Taylor Gold never showed up.
How worried were you?
I mean, really worried. Really worried, because it just wasn't normal.
We couldn't get him on the phone, we couldn't reach Taylor on her phone. We knew there was something wrong.
Did you touch him? That part I don't remember. At police headquarters, Paula Hamill spent about
eight hours talking to Gupta and Taylor, but not getting anywhere. The blood on your hands and your
feet, do you have any idea where that came from?
I assume from Mark.
Hamill says Gupta was still trying to talk his way out of his confession.
I want to take this time now to say that I did not attack anybody.
Gupta says he was zoned out on the couch, drunk and stoned, and only looked up when
he heard Taylor screaming.
and only looked up when he heard Taylor screaming.
When he realized Mark was hurt, he says,
he tried to stop the bleeding.
I came to him, and then I put a lot of pressure here, and then I just sort of, like, hugged him.
Gupta acknowledged he never actually saw his best friend
and his girlfriend doing anything improper.
He only had a hunch. Him and Tay just made it seem
like they had a thing going on. And as soon as I found that out, I just started doing my own thing.
The brother that I know is very calm, actually a very calm person. But since he had confessed at
the scene, Gupta remained the prime suspect. Prosecutors Timothy Hagan and Patrick Mays
would begin looking into his past.
He was overly competitive,
confrontational.
There was some talk about him having a temper.
Yeah, not that I've seen.
You've never seen him mad?
No.
We know that he has a temper
and we know that that temper gets worse when he drinks.
They say it's a wonder Gupta and Taylor
remember anything at all. You have
the mix of alcohol and drugs. I smoked marijuana before I went out.
Gupta and his friends went bar hopping for his birthday to three bars, drinking for hours. Gupta, Taylor, and Mark were joined by another friend, Josh White.
And everyone agrees things started getting strange around midnight at this bar,
Buffalo Billiards, but they strongly disagree on crucial details. Along with the drinking,
there was a little flirting. One of
the most important questions in this case is who was flirting with whom? Taylor Gold said Josh White
was getting a little too friendly. Josh was texting me and it was really weird and he was
kind of hitting on me and um... Joshua? Yes. But Josh white would later tell them it was the other way around she has
a sense you've been a little flirtatious to ralph's friends and i just asked her like
straight up like what's the deal like you know you're you're a little flirtatious she said i
could uh i couldn't do that to rahul you know i love him very much he says mark walked up to them at exactly that moment, overheard her say,
I couldn't do that to Rahul, and misunderstood.
It sounded like I was hitting on her, and so he took that very badly. He was pretty pissed off.
Josh White says he tried to explain the misunderstanding to Mark and Rahul at the bar,
but things had gotten uncomfortable, and Taylor wanted to leave.
White went back to his place. Mark went home with Gupta and Taylor.
This is security video of the three of them walking through the lobby toward the elevator.
Not long before the bloody attack on Mark Wahl.
Can you tell anything from the body language of Raul Gupta and Taylor Gold?
She seems intoxicated.
She seem mad?
I don't think so.
I didn't see that.
Does he seem mad?
It's hard to tell.
To this day, prosecutors still aren't sure how Mark Waugh became the target of this brutal attack.
Was there ever any friction between your brother and Mark?
Not that I know of.
But at one point, Mark texted a friend, apparently from the bathroom.
My night is becoming historically awkward, and I'm about to gnaw my hand off so I can leave in the ambulance.
He's just looking for an escape.
So there was some drama going on in that apartment.
Absolutely.
Because Gupta and Taylor both lived here, DNA and fingerprints wouldn't help.
But there were other bits of evidence that would.
wouldn't help. But there were other bits of evidence that would. And the prosecutors say that's what focused their attention on Gupta and away from Taylor. It's not possible that
she physically could have done it. Taylor is only 5'5 and 125 pounds. They were sure she isn't big
enough to be the killer. Mark is considerably larger than her,
was fighting back. She doesn't have a mark on her consistent with being fought back.
They also don't think she was bloody enough. She has no blood on her face, no blood in her hair.
Could she have washed up? There are photographs that are taken within several minutes. Her hair
is not wet and she has her makeup on. And they say she behaved as anyone would, who is confused and innocent.
How did she get blood on her hands?
Contact with Gupta.
On the 911 call, it does sound like Taylor could be touching Gupta.
Don't touch me.
The prosecutors concede Taylor and Gupta might have been in love once,
but they say they were not at the time of the murder.
This relationship was not a good relationship.
Rahul was just like, I just want to have fun. It's my birthday.
And then Taylor was just like, we should just go.
By the time police talked to Josh White,
they were already thinking that Rahul's birthday binge was an argument
waiting to happen.
I'm just trying to find out what the f*** happened. What the heck happened?
Yeah, somebody got stabbed.
Right.
So, again, I don't know. I didn't do it.
Rahul still insists he didn't do it. But now, for the first time, he says he knows who did.
If you didn't stab him, then who did?
Yeah.
Okay?
Yeah.
He said you had to have done it because he didn't do it.
Oh, my God.
Obviously, I don't trust that Caleb girl.
I just don't trust her.
I did not attack Mark.
I did not attack anybody.
I think he felt like maybe he could talk himself out of whatever trouble he might be in.
I didn't stab anyone.
Detective Paula Hamill,
who spent hours interrogating Rahul Gupta, says when he changed his story, she didn't change her
mind. I believe that his initial statement was as truthful as he could have been. And then I think
he spent the rest of the time trying to get away from that. There's no question that Rahul made
false statements. Defense attorney Jennifer Page says Gupta was drunk and disoriented,
and that's why he confessed to protect Taylor from being charged with the murder.
I think it's very difficult for people to believe that an innocent person would implicate themselves
for any reason at any time to any degree.
I think that he would definitely try to protect Taylor.
When you heard what he said to that first police officer who came in, what did you make of that?
Honestly, I didn't believe it.
You didn't believe he said those words?
Correct.
Co-counsel Phil Armstrong says as Gupta sobered up,
he quickly realized going to prison for Taylor Gold wasn't a good idea.
So he started telling the truth.
When they questioned him about what happened, he was adamant that he had not done it.
And Armstrong says the evidence backs up his client,
starting with that surveillance tape from shortly before the murder.
Mark was laughing.
He and Raul appeared to be interacting favorably.
And they think if anyone was acting suspiciously that night,
it was Taylor Gold.
Gupta's lawyers say Taylor only called 911
when Gupta ordered her to,
and she wouldn't tell the operator much of anything.
Okay, Taylor, are you there? Taylor, hello?
Taylor? Hello? Taylor? Yeah. Yes, hello. I need you to talk to me.
The defense says that tape reveals a lot about Taylor and Gupta.
You can hear him screaming, call 911.
What is the address of the emergency? 911, what?
Come on, come on, come on.
He is bereft.
He is sobbing.
He is begging.
No.
This is inconsistent with somebody who hated this man so much that he had to stab him 11 times.
Page and Armstrong say Gupta did everything he could to keep his friend alive.
We know for a fact that he gave him CPR.
And they say that's why he's covered in Mark's blood.
They argue much of the other forensic evidence at the crime scene is meaningless as well,
because police were careless.
Horrible mistakes were made.
And the lawyers think Taylor acted too deliberately that night,
considering she claimed not to remember what happened.
There is evidence that before the
first responders could get there, she changed her clothes. Not once, but twice.
How did she get blood all over her legs, her hands, her dress?
How did the blood get on the dress?
I mean, maybe I was by Marge before, but I mean, I have no idea. You had the wherewithal
to change your clothes, yet you can't remember how you got the blood on you. I'm telling you
the truth. Gupta's lawyers say these photos show Taylor could have been responsible. There were two
very peculiar marks on her hand located just below the knuckle of the little finger.
If you stab someone with the knife, with any reasonable degree of force,
it's possible that your hand will slide down the knife and it will hit the bottom of the handle.
Page and Armstrong say Taylor was strong enough to stab Mark to death despite her size.
We asked the medical examiner who could do this.
She said, quote, any healthy adult.
Police believe Mark Waugh fought his attacker,
and the lawyers say there is evidence that Taylor Gold was in a fight.
Her fingernails were bloody and one was broken.
One of her contact lenses was stuck to the back of Mark's jeans.
And there was something else.
Long blonde hair, just like Taylor's, was found on the murder weapon.
Found, wrapped around the knife. Never tested.
And it wasn't just on the knife.
More long blonde hair was stuck in a bloodstain on the wall and even in Mark Waugh's hand.
Clutched in his hand as he lies dead on the floor.
The hair was never tested, but it was assumed to belong to Taylor Gold.
But the prosecutors say it doesn't matter because she lived there.
There were strands of hair of hers throughout the apartment, in every room.
There is a mountain of reasonable doubt Rahul Gupta did not do it.
Mark Waugh was stabbed by Rahul Gupta. What she did was most likely nothing.
The prosecutors say they became convinced Taylor Gold is innocent,
largely because she admitted she could be guilty. I can't myself imagine doing that right so I'm just confused
because like I'm not trying to put the blame on the wrong person. She's trying to be truthful
in describing the fact that she does not have a memory of what happened in that apartment. That
gives her credibility in your book. It does.
But the defense lawyers believe whatever Taylor and Gupta said to police should not overshadow what they said to each other
about five hours after they arrived at police headquarters.
In an unusual move, their interrogators brought them together
and left them alone to see what happened.
That was probably the second time in 10 years that I'd done it.
Maybe one of them would say something that would make us go,
Oh, did you hear that?
What happened? What happened to Mark?
This conversation could make the difference between who goes home
and who goes on trial for murder.
Did you use that mark or no?
Rahul Gupta and Taylor Gold had been talking to police for about five hours when Detective Paula Hamill made that unusual strategic decision
to let them talk to each other.
I'm okay.
Yeah?
Look.
Are you okay?
Yeah.
If Gupta was acting for the detectives, he was staying in character in a performance with Taylor.
Did you stab Mark or no?
I don't think, like, I wouldn't do that.
Why would I attack someone?
Gupta kept trying to blame Taylor.
What happened between you two?
And she kept not quite denying that she did it.
Did they have some conversation before the police got there to say,
I'll say I don't know, you say you don't know, and maybe they'll never find out?
But the conversation between Taylor and Rahul at times sure sounded unscripted.
I want to poop. I want to eat. I'm hungry.
Go out there and tell them that I want my lawyer and I want to get the f*** out of here.
I just need to get the f*** out of here, dude.
And after that meeting, Taylor made what sounds like another ambiguous remark to Detective Hamill.
You know, if I did it, I don't want him to get hurt in this process.
But after more than five hours at police headquarters, Taylor was released,
and Gupta was soon charged with murdering Mark Wall. Why did you believe her and not him?
I don't know that we believed either one of them, but at the end of that day,
there was more evidence to support his being responsible for the murder than her.
Is there any chance that Rahul and Taylor did this together?
No. I don't believe knowingly that they did this together.
A year and a half after Mark Wahl was killed, Dan Morse of the Washington Post was in court to cover Rahul Gupta's murder trial.
Cameras weren't allowed.
Right away, you're sort of wondering how this defense is going to play out.
I want you to have the opportunity to answer this as directly as possible.
Did your brother Rahul Gu, kill Mark Waugh?
No, he did not.
And you're certain of that?
I'm 100% certain of that.
But Gupta did confess to murder,
even though he later changed his mind.
So in opening arguments, his lawyers made some bold promises.
They promised he would take the stand,
and they promised to show not only is he not the murderer, but Taylor Gold is.
She isn't on trial, but she will be a witness. And Gupta's lawyers will get to cross-examine Taylor.
So while prosecutors Timothy Hagan and Patrick Mays officially prosecute Gupta,
they also have to unofficially defend Taylor. Somebody who murders someone in this fashion,
you would expect to be covered in blood. One person in that apartment was covered in blood,
Rahul Gupta. The defense maintains Gupta got the blood on him when he gave Mark CPR.
And they say Taylor had more than enough blood on her to be guilty,
including spots inside her dress and on her bra.
And Gupta's lawyers want the jury to focus on those blonde hairs
on the knife and in Mark's hand.
What are the chances that there's going to be hair on the knife, hair in the hands,
hair on the wall, and she says she has no involvement in this case?
How would Taylor Gold's blonde hair end up in Mark Waugh's hand? Any number of possibilities.
We're talking about a dirty apartment. We aren't talking about a clump of hair. We're talking about a strand. Taylor
wasn't much help in clearing anything up on the stand. Even in front of a jury, she
said she just didn't remember because she blacked out from all the drinking. By
the time she said it over and over again, it's somewhat credible.
If she had done it, the easiest thing in the world for her to do now was to point the finger at him.
But she never does that.
Except on the stand, she finally says she did not kill Mark.
She says she's not capable of it.
But from the beginning, there was a sense that if there was a bombshell in this
trial, it would come from Rahul Gupta when he took the stand. People were just hanging on this
guy's words, and it's a cliche, but you could have heard a pin drop. Gupta was calm and composed.
Gupta was calm and composed.
He testified that after arriving home, he'd argued with Taylor about whether she'd been flirting with Josh White at the bar.
And he told the jury something he hadn't told police.
He said he tripped and hit his head right before Mark was killed.
When Rahul Gupta sat back up from falling, this entire event had gone on all around him
and that he hadn't noticed it.
On cross-examination, Pat Mays confronts Gupta
about how such a brutal attack could
have happened in such a small space without him noticing.
And then Mays launches an attack of his own, offering texts suggesting Taylor and Gupta's relationship was in trouble.
And that he would never have confessed just to protect her.
And then he hits him with these texts about Taylor complaining about their sex life.
with these texts about Taylor complaining about their sex life.
And he's saying, well, you were willing to spend
the rest of your life in prison for this young lady
that is complaining to you about your performance in bed?
They cherry picked a half a dozen texts over two years,
and we gave them back very similar texts
that indicated they had a very loving relationship.
We know that this was a rocky relationship at best.
Gupta's lawyers think it's critical for jurors to know
that he maintained his innocence in that taped discussion with Taylor.
But it won't work because in a potentially crucial decision, I don't know what happened.
potentially crucial decision. I don't know what happened. The judge rules that the jury cannot see it. The guy who's on trial says, I didn't do this to his girlfriend, did you? And she says,
I don't know. And the jury never got to hear it. But the jury did get an earful of another recording.
I have a free call from Rahul Gupta. And that one could decide this
case. Yeah, can you hear me? Yeah, I can. What happened?
After nearly 15 hours in custody, Rahul Gupta made a phone call.
He called his father.
Where are you?
I'm in jail.
Like most calls from most jails, this one was recorded.
Gupta told his father what happened in the apartment.
It's hard to hear, but it sounded to lawyers on both sides like Gupta admitted holding the knife.
The jury will decide for itself.
I grabbed the knife.
He's still traumatized by what happened.
It doesn't make any rational sense.
It doesn't unless he's telling his father the truth.
And he might be telling his father the truth if it weren't for the fact that all of the scientific evidence
points in the opposite direction.
In their closing argument, prosecutors say the jury doesn't have to take their word about
Gupta being guilty.
Who, who, who did you get him to fight with?
They can take Gupta's.
Mark.
It's the first and the last statements that he makes.
And in between there, he tries a number of different lies.
The state has made a strong case against Gupta,
but Dan Moore says on the witness stand,
Gupta made a pretty strong case of his own.
I thought he might pull this off.
How did he present himself?
I thought he did really good.
I mean, he was Rahul, you know, he was him.
As the jury begins to deliberate, the stakes for the prosecution could not be higher.
If Rahul Gupta is not convicted of murdering Mark Waugh, chances are nobody ever will be,
because the state has already argued Taylor Gold is not the killer.
The jury takes less than a day to decide.
A Montgomery County jury today found Rahul Gupta guilty of killing his best friend.
The verdict, guilty.
Our son Mark, all I can say is it was a gift from God.
And the sentence, life in prison, is what Mark Waugh's family was hoping for.
His murder was a sin.
Not just on his family, but on the community as a whole.
I mean, it was devastating.
How do you deal with that? How do you absorb that?
When you don't have a choice, you just do it.
We feel very strongly he didn't get a fair trial.
Gupta's lawyers believe the judge should have allowed the jury to see that tape
of Gupta talking to Taylor...
What happened to Mark?
I don't know.
...at police headquarters.
I don't know. I'm freaking out, okay? This is important stuff that goes right to the issue of guilt or innocence.
Is Taylor Gold an innocent bystander in all of this?
Yes.
Purely innocent?
We believe so, yes.
I feel comfortable that she wasn't held criminally responsible in the murder.
Detective Paula Hamill maintains Taylor Gold is legally not guilty,
but she believes Taylor may have played some role in what happened that night.
Ms. Gold could have set up an environment that caused Mr. Gupta to become upset.
I also still do believe that she was possibly involved in a relationship with the victim
do believe that she was possibly involved in a relationship with the victim behind Mr. Gupta's back. Taylor Gold did not want to discuss that night or anything else with 48 Hours. She's
getting an MBA and moving on with her life. Ms. Gold has something that she has to carry for the
rest of her life. Shereen Gupta-Rappaport says Rahul does too. The family is doing what they can to help him
transition from life in this kind of institution to life in this kind. Rahul and us, you know,
we're determined to make the best of this, however that might be. I don't think we have a choice.
But Rahul is still in their lives. At the end of the day, I'm grateful that I have my brother.
You know, he's still somebody I can go and talk to, I can visit, I can write to him.
She says all the Guptas know, that's more than Mark Waugh's parents have. While I can talk
to my brother, you know, they can't talk to Mark. His death is a tragedy that we must carry for the lives. on Twitter.
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