Cold Case Files - A Deadly Pattern / A Desparate Housewife

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

When a woman is found murdered in her mobile home, police make two shocking discoveries - her husband may not only have been the killer, but he may have also killed his first wife 31 years before. And after an Oregon man is shot dead, the case takes an unusual twist when one of the investigating detectives has an affair with the chief suspect - the dead man's wife.This Episode is sponsored by BetterHelpBetterHelp: Visit BetterHelp.com/COLDCASE to get 10% off your first month.Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.Quince: Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to Quince.com/coldcase for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. urgency. Yeah, somebody broke into my house. Are they there right now?

No. My wife's really hurt. She's bleeding. In Santee, California, on October, October 15, 2004, 911 takes in a call from Bill New at 402 a.m. Bill's wife Phyllis has been shot once in the head at close range. Oh my God, it just gone to a little while. I drove to right aid and to get her some migraine numbers.

I just came your rest of estimate, how long you were gone? 30 minutes? Maybe 30 minutes. The reporting party, who was the husband, had supposedly left his house to get his wife some medication. And when he returned to his home, he found that someone had broken into his home and murdered his wife during the 30 minutes that he was gone. San Diego County Sheriff's Detective Pat Gardner heads to the crime scene. Basically, the only room that was involved was the room that Phyllis knew was found in. She was found deceased lying in her bed, close gunshot wound to the back of her head.

It appeared that she had been murdered in her bed as she slept. Gardner follows up with paramedics who had responded to the scene four minutes after Mr. News 911 call. Drive on the scene, declared Phyllis New deceased at the home, and noticed that the showery showed signs of levidity and rigorumortis. Deputy medical examiner, Dr. Stephen Campman. reviews the paramedics findings. It was his opinion that she had been dead for at least a couple hours, that he felt rigor mortis in her face and maybe an arm, and that he saw some color changes, levidity of her body,

that let him know that in his experience that she'd been dead for some time. Rigor mortis, the stiffening of the body, and levidity, the settling of blood in the body, are used to determine the approximate time of death. It generally takes a couple hours to be very visible. So that it could be seen at 4 in the morning suggested that she'd been dead a couple hours. According to Mr. New, however, his wife was killed by an intruder, approximately 30 minutes before paramedics arrived. Detective Gardner finds time of death isn't the only inconsistency at the crime scene.

President said the home was a very large, freestanding jewelry box. It had eight drawers total and then two vertical drawers on the side. And basically only three of those drawers had been disturbed in the very top ones. The rest were completely full of jewelry, and that appeared very unusual. My gut telling me that there were some serious problems from looking at that home that it did not appear to be a residential burglar slash murder. The shot basically appeared to be an execution style shot. That's something you don't see normally in a home invasion.

While Gardner continues processing the scene for evidence, Bill New is taken downtown for more questions. We knew at that point he was the only person that was in the house with her at the time that she, or around the time that she died. So he's the one we need to start with. Sheriff's detective's Richie Han and Sharon Lunsford sit down with Bill New and ask where he was on the day his wife was murdered. Well, I got home on a later side because I had gone over to office team. in Baja to talk to them. About a job?

Yeah. So what kind of a move was she in when she got home, everything okay? Yeah. She made herself a sandwich, and we watched Will Fortunity and just fell asleep. Later that night, Bill Newell knew says his wife woke up with a migraine. I said, do you want me to get you on immigrants? And she said, no, I've taken too many of those.

I can tell you to know. I said tomorrow he goes at the store and she said, yes. News says he doesn't know what time Phyllis woke him up or what time he returned home. He said that it probably took him. He was guessing about 15 minutes to get there, maybe as much as 15 minutes in the store he wasn't sure, and then maybe another 15 minutes to get home. That's why I said we're looking at a time frame of maybe half hour to an outside of 45 minutes that he was gone. And I flipped the lights for the time in the hall and the dresser

George were open. So I moved a little quicker and she was on her side of my hand on her arm, I saw a lot along. It just came on wood. He exited to room and then proceeded to use the phone in the other room. Never gave her first date even when the dispatcher came on the line and offered assistance, you know, check her. He didn't check her. never went back into that room. Detectives ask about the state of the news marriage. Talk to me about your relationship with Phyllis. Between the two of you.

How's your relationship? It's good. I mean, we've had... Everything is all the rules and downship. We asked them, you know, had they had any problems? And he said, well, you know, everyone has their problems, but there was nothing significant in their relationship. You know, wasn't out of the norm for a married couple to have disagreements.

Nothing serious. After three hours, detectives end the interview, and New is free to go. Meanwhile, Detective Gardner has been canvassing neighbors near the crime scene. A witness came forward who said that on Thursday night that Phyllis had come over to her home upset over the fact that she and Mr. New had gotten to an argument over him, possibly not working. Carol Espinoza is Phyllis News friend and neighbor. My first thought was that SOB, he did something because she caught him in a lie. She had backed him into a corner finally.

She had finally confronted him that this was it. She just started crying and saying that Bill's been lying again about his so-called current job. She had called apparently the agency that hired him, the temp agency, and they had never heard of him. so then she confronted him and told him that she was going to follow him to work the next morning and he'd better produce a pay stub or a time card where she had had it. Ten hours after confronting her husband,

Phyllis knew was dead. Well, that information was critical for the case in regards to Phyllis due the fact it contradicted what Bill originally told the first team of investigators had interviewed him. Armed with Espinoza's information, San Diego County Sheriff's detectives Sharon Lunsford and Richie Han sit down with Bill New for the second time in less than seven hours.

So yesterday, afternoon, you went to the 10th agency. Yeah. Okay. Now, have you worked for them at all? Have you done jobs for them? No. happened when you got home and you talked about that? I told her that I wasn't working and she got upset and she cried.

She doesn't get loud or anything like that. And what else happened? What happened, Bill? Nothing happened. We talked and we talked and we talked. And she told you that she wasn't going to put up with that anymore, didn't she? No. said that she was going to see that I got some help.

Did something go wrong in that house last night? And did you wind up doing something that you would never dream of doing it in a million years? Did something happen? Did you hurt Phyllisville? No. No. No.

I told you the only thing that they didn't tell you was about the temp agency. Bill New denies any involvement in his wife's death. Detectives lean in and continue to apply pressure. Nobody broke in here. What do you mean nobody broke in the White House? Why don't you tell me what happened between you and Phyllis last night? I told you what happened. After nearly two hours of interrogation, New begins to shut down.

I have you something to eat. I am shaky. I don't know what to do. Detectives end the interview, and Mr. New is free to go. This time, however, he walks out of the police station. police station knowing there's a target on his back, and a team of detectives who believe he's a killer. Nancy Friend has known Phyllis New for 16 years. A week after the murder, Friend remembers a conversation she and Phyllis had years earlier about Bill New. She says, his first wife died when she was

eight months pregnant, and that kind of threw me, and I said, well, what happened? She goes, well, Bill was cleaning the gun. It fell and discharged and hit her across the room. And the hair in my arm stood up. I got goosebumps all over my whole body thinking, you know, this didn't sound right. Nancy phones San Diego detectives and tells them her story. I said, my name's Nancy Friend.

I've known Phyllis a number of years, and you do know that he killed his first wife. There was dead silence on the other end of the phone. and the first thing he said to me was how do you know this i said well phyllis told me san diego county sheriff's detective pat gardner reviews bill news police interview had you been married before yes do you have children any children from the previous original uh my first wife passed away and my second wife we got to horse what was your first wife's name my name was psalri tassuri she was from thailand i'm

Oh my gosh. What was the cause? If you don't mind me, ask you. It was an automobile accident. Gosh. Just hours after the murder, Bill New had told police his first wife died in an automobile accident, a statement that now appears to be a lie.

Then I also received additional information that she died from a supposed of accidental shooting. Did you that information ever get brought up to you? An accidental shoot. No, absolutely not. He was very clear that this was an automobile accident, nothing more. Lead Detective Pat Gardner believes he might have the leverage he needs to crack Bill New and decides to confront his suspect.

Actually, I figured the best way for me to do was to call him on the telephone, and that's what I did. Her name was Somserie, and she passed away in an accident. I really don't want to go into all that. I really don't. I'm just beside myself here. You can't tell me what type of accident was? No, I just, I don't want to work about that. I was told that the accident was an auto accident,

and then I was also told that the accident was a accidental shooting accident. Can you just let me at least know that? Okay. It was an accidental shooting, but my mom and dad, decided that they were going to just tell everybody that it was an auto accident. I was cleaning a rifle and I dropped it and I grabbed it when it fell and it went off and she was struck. He just finally admitted that he had shot her during a gun cleaning accident. What type of weapon, what type of rifle was that?

I don't remember. Oh my gosh, where did it hit her at? You know, I don't know that. You don't know where she was struck at? No. Well, it's pretty unusual that if you would shoot your wife, you wouldn't know the facts of the shooting. And this is your wife that you supposedly had shot,

and so that seems suspicious. Through the Department of Vital Statistics, Gardner locates a 1973 death certificate for Psalms 3 New in San Bernardino, California. And then I called San Bernardino Police Department, and I spoke with the Detective Dave Dillon. Okay, we're getting ready to go into the Identification Bureau the police department. Sam Bernardino Detective Dave Dillon learns that in 1973, the Somsri

New case was determined to be an accidental death. So here in the ID Bureau, for all our murders or death investigations, we maintain photographs or negatives. Detectives find 26 old negatives from the Somsri new crime scene. They are the only remaining pieces of evidence in the case. So what I asked them to do after that was blown up 8x10s, which told me another story about what happened at the scene. The photos tell Detective Dillon a story of a cold case that original detectives got wrong. I look at this and I saw that the blood spatter did not match with the trajectory of the bullet. Blood spatter had traveled to the back of the wall, which was not consistent with the bullet path.

The bullet path had gone back out this way and in fact everything was this way. According to Dylan, the photos show that Somsri knew could not have been shot the way Mr. New explained. Based on my experience in homicide and having spent so much time there, I thought and felt that this was in fact a murder. I just did not feel comfortable saying this was a death investigation. I went over to the crime lab and I gave them the photographs in the reports and I asked them to do a crime scene reconstruction and have them make their own determination scientifically on what the... the assumptions her new shooting was. It had to be a contact, as if somebody was standing over her, pointing the gun down towards

her, placing it on the back of the head and then discharging the weapon. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If I could wake up tomorrow better at one thing, it would be leaving more space for the things that fill me up. Sharing time with people I care about, disappearing into a compelling book, taking a walk without reaching for my phone or following a creative spark without immediately moving on to the next item on my list. Work, errands, and notifications can so easily take over the day, but I'm trying to be more thoughtful about saving time for what makes me feel present, restored, and connected.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state law. Both wives were sleeping, both wives shot in the back of the head. There was many similarities. When you laid him outside by side to how his MO was, they were very strikingly similar. In 2004, Phyllis New was shot and killed, according to her husband, Bill, by a random intruder.

31 years before that, Mr. New shot and killed his first wife, Somsri, while allegedly cleaning his gun. The coincidence makes Detective Pat Gardner uncomfortable, and he decides to consult an expert. So what we did was we flew out and saw Dr. Vincent DiMaio and we presented the case to him. Now, the weapon in this case was a 44-magnum carbine. Dr. Vincent DiMio is an expert in the field of ballistics and gunshot wounds. He reviews evidence from the accidental shooting of Somsri-New, along with Bill's new statement from 1973. According to the husband, he was sitting on the couch and he started to get up where he

was doing something at that time and the gun fell from his hand and he grabbed it in midair and it accidentally discharged. DiMaio has immediate suspicions about Mr. News story. It'd be awful hard to drop this gun and get your finger in the trigger guard and put pressure because you need not only for it to get in, but it's got to also fire the weapon. On top of that, if he's sitting down and the weapon slips from him, the bullet would have to have traveled

in an upward direction to her head. However, the bullet after entering the head and exiting the face, then went into the back of the couch and into the wall behind it in a downward trajectory. So actually, the overall trajectory of the bullet was into the head, through the face, through the back of the couch, into the wall, which is not consistent with this account where the bullet would have had to have been going upward. In addition to the inconsistent trajectory, DiMaio sees a problem with the gunshot wound that killed Somsri Niu.

This wound was a huge stelaide wound on the head. And there was also a large gaping exit wound of the left side of the face. And this suggests that at the time the deceased was shot, the muzzle of the gun was in contact with the head. According to Mr. News statement, however, he accidentally shot Somsri from a distance of six feet. It could not have occurred the way he said it did. This injury was that from a contact wound, and the individual had to be standing at the time the weapon was fired, pointing down. Basically, they were executed. The muzzle of the gun was right up to the head when the shot was fired. Assistant District Attorney's Kurt Meccles and Jill Lindberg review both of Detective Gardner's cases.

I mean, the most obvious similarities, the fact that both Somsri and Phyllis were the defendants-wide. Both of them were shot in the home, both were shot at night time in the home, and both were shot in the back of the head, not just in the back of the head, but the trajectories were almost identical. Another similarity lies in Mr. New's possible motive for killing both of his wives. He stood to gain, and ultimately his son did get $800,000 in life insurance from the 2004 murder of Phyllis. And back in 1973, he collected $15,000, which doesn't sound like a lot now. But if you use present value of money, that was more than $66,000 to a young man back in 1973. It's a lot of money back then. Right.

In April of 2005, Bill New is charged with the murder of Somsri New and the murder of Phyllis New. The district attorney's office decides to try both cases together. You can't separate these two cases. Even if San Bernardino had tried the 1973 case and we tried the 2004 case down here in San Diego, the evidence would have been cross-admissible because of the similarities, because you could show that the same person did this. Bill News trial opens in February of 2006. After a month of testimony, he is found guilty of murdering both of his wives, one in 2004, the other 31 years earlier. Mr. New, it is the judgment of this court that probation be denied in this case. Four weeks after the verdict, Bill New is sentenced.

And I'm not exactly sure even how to describe this sentence when it gets down to the total. But it is life plus five years and a consecutive term of life without the possibility of parole, plus 25 years to life for the total of a very long time. We're here to support her. We're here to support the verdict. We were happy with the verdict. Outside the courtroom, a group of women gather. Phyllis News friends there to honor her memory.

It's a heartbreaker because we all knew her. It's just a sad situation that something like that should have to happen. But I believe, and I think we all believe that he was guilty and that he is getting his just desserts now. The Wagon Wheel Saloon was one of Phyllis News' favorite places, a place to dance, to laugh, and most of all, to live. Everybody was a friend to her. The first time she met you, you just felt like you were welcomed. On a Thursday evening, Phyllis's friends gather at the Wagon Wheel to celebrate her life and cherish her memory.

I think of her out there on the floor, and she always would shine. You'd see her out there and smiling and happy. We're looking gone and smiling at us like she always smiled at us. So we just want to say, Phyllis, we love you, and we miss you. And God bless. Cheers. On the morning of June 10, 1982, in Corvallis, Oregon, a woman calls 911. An incomprehensible call.

Milky's shoe service. Corvallis police officer Mary Eichler receives the call. The dispatcher came on and said that they have a call. from Mokie's shoe store that there's some kind of disturbance, and there's a woman outside screaming. Eichler knows the store well. It's owned by her friends, Brenda and Greg Kirkley. Of course, I headed there because if you have a friend that's involved, you're going to go.

Outside, Eichler finds Brenda in hysterics. Inside, Brenda's infant daughter lies in a bassinet unharmed. while the baby's father, Greg, lies on the floor, shot once in the back. I saw Greg on the floor, and I still can see Greg on the floor. And he was already looking really bad, very white, not good. Greg is later pronounced dead, and Mary Eichler finds herself asking a new widow, what happened? She just said, a guy came into the store and he shot Greg. He was described as an Indian, Middle Eastern Indian male, dressed with dark clothing, carrying a shotgun, and he ran down this alley according to her.

Captain Wilbur Hakema responds to the scene within minutes and assists in the search for Greg Kirkley's alleged attacker. If this person came out of this shoe shop and had run down the alley, this is the alley that would have been involved. This warehouse here on the left apparently was open. The people that were working in there saw nothing. The garbage cans were all checked. The rooftops were checked in case they had thrown the gun up on the roof. We had patrol cars circling the area. No one saw anything.

It was as if this person had just evaporated in thin air. Why did no one see anything? I mean, look at it even now. You know, you can see straight down through. Even those garbage cans wouldn't stop you from seeing somebody running. It just seemed like, you know, who's going to rob a shoe shop or that opening in the morning, you know, because they probably would open with less than $100 and changed. And that didn't sound quite right.

Questions about Brenda Kirkley's story begin circulating almost immediately. When the photo, the sketch came out, you know, I remember talking about how, doesn't it be as strange, it looks like Greg. police questioned Brenda about the state of her marriage and get nowhere until Jim West talks to police I knew in my heart that she had killed her husband West was Greg Kirkley's best friend he knew the Kirkley's had their problems especially when it came to Brenda's bookkeeping I recall him having conversations with Brenda and say Brenda what's going on here these people are calling

calling me and saying that we have outstanding accounts, but yet in your books it says they're paid. And of course, you would always say, well, I don't know what the mistake is. Obviously, they've been paid. It's right there in the ledger. West suspected that Brenda was cooking the books. He tells police he was present the day Greg made an appointment with an attorney, willing to assist in the forensic accounting. And I'll never forget the look on her face. It was just that of extreme guilt.

I went home and I told my wife, I said, honey, it looks like there may be a divorce in the works after this because it's going to be uncovered what's happened to these funds. Instead of a divorce, Greg is found dead the next morning, just hours before his appointment with the attorney. In my heart of hearts, I knew that she'd killed her husband. To me, there was no question about it. My concern was that she became very, very, very,

helpful. Captain Hockima tells his detectives not to get too comfortable with their potential suspect. She wanted to talk to the detective. She wanted to talk all the time. And yet she did not want to take a polygraph exam. Everybody just would say, you know, is there any chance Brenda did it? Suspicion alone isn't enough to charge Brenda, despite the small town whispers. Mary Eichler finds it hard to believe her friend is a murderer. Here you have somebody that was around you all the time, was at a birthday party with your children sitting there laughing. And, you know, do you think that this person that you think is a nice person is going to

turn around and shoot somebody? Right in the back? The prospect of murder hangs heavy in the air, and the town of Corvallis grows very small for Brenda Kirkley. Eventually, she remarries and moves away, and her husband, case grows cold. Until one day, 18 years later, when a telephone rings. What can I do for you or what? Let's start the signal. I have a problem. Okay.

Uh, I know what happened. Great. Detective Sean Hawke is working late one night in May of 2001 when he finds himself on the phone with the ex-husband of a possible killer. A gentleman by the name of Mick Pamplin introduced himself said he was from Oklahoma, he was married to a lady by the name of Brenda, then Pamplin, formerly Brenda Kirkley. It sounds like you have some pretty intimate details about what occurred that day, don't you? Well, I don't know who was involved, don't you? Yes, I do. I'm all ears.

As the call continued, he mentioned at one point that there was that Brenda had shot Greg, that she disclosed this to him in Newport, Oregon in 1988. Was there anybody else involved? No. Just her? Yeah. She'd shot him. Anytime anybody calls in, there's always a motive.

So in this case, he's going through a divorce, or their divorce had already been completed. And so I knew that there was probably some issues there with Brenda. But yet, if he had information, it didn't mean that all of his information was going to be deceptive. I know it was a shotgun. Did she say how many times? Scott. Did she say how many times?

No, she didn't. Okay. He didn't stumble. He didn't create. He was very matter of fact. And only people who are actually in a situation who've had a conversation with somebody wouldn't know those details. Hawk learns the shotgun Brenda allegedly used is long gone. He has a few more phone conversations with Mick Pamplin before he offers up what could be Hawk's Magic Bullet, literally. And as we're chatting, he mentions that.

that Brenda had brought in some shotgun shells into the marriage. I'm like, okay, that's good to know. What's the origin of these shells? These came from Oregon. Okay. Were they with her when you met her? Yes. Okay.

He mentions that those shells, which were brought from Oregon, into their marriage, and then back to Oklahoma, were still in his possession, and that he could freely send them to me. This is what Nick sent me from Oklahoma. These are the shells, and this is the shells, a box that Brenda brought into the marriage. Hawk asks the FBI lab to compare the lead from Brenda's shotgun shells with the lead found

in Greg's body. This is going to be the wadding and a pellet taken from Greg's body, and these were taken from his body during the autopsy. The scientists believed that there was consistency between what was taken out of his body and what was in this new shell. Unfortunately, consistent doesn't mean perfect match. Even worse, spousal privilege laws make Brenda's confession to Mick during their marriage inadmissible in court.

Detectives just don't have enough to arrest their suspect, and the case once again gets shelved. There were just a series of events and other priorities that prevented us from actively putting this on the front of, you know, front shelf. Three years later, however, investigators finally get a chance to sit down with Brenda Kirkley to discuss, her first husband's murder. And this time, the one-time widow has a very different story to tell. You know those pieces in your closet you wear on repeat, the sweater that works with everything, the pants that always feel right, or that t-shirt you reach for without even thinking. Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes high-quality wardrobe staples with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere,

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Got some hit and runs. This one on Centerpoint. Looks like we're getting hit in Southtown pretty well. And it is always helpful to go back and take a fresh look at some of these old cases. And we have some that go back over 50 years. Lieutenant Tim Brewer begins holding cold case meetings. And the team decides to reopen the 1982 show. shotgun killing of Greg Kirkley.

The Greg Kirkley homicide certainly was number one in the list. The investigation had taken a backseat to fresher cases. One person, however, remains at the top of the suspect list. Greg's wife and sole witness to the murder, Brenda. Some of the shotgun pellets were removed from Greg Kirkley's body had been examined and compared against shotgun pellets that had been in Brenda Durant's possession. Brenda's pellets were ruled consistent with those that killed Greg. While the ballistics testing doesn't provide conclusive evidence of guilt, it certainly bolsters

detectives' confidence in their case. There's no doubt in my mind this is solvable. None. She did it. We knew it. We all knew it. Knowing it and proving it, however, are two different things. It was basically a straight on shot right here at shoulder height.

Detectives Sean Hawke and Karen Stouder dig through the the original reports and diagram the crime scene to show how Brenda might have killed Greg. The pictures poke holes in Brenda's story. Based on what she described in her handwritten statement, if the perpetrator turns and fires, he's going to basically hit this wall. And there's going to be damage, major damage to all of these boxes, the other items on the other side of the shelf. However, nothing in the store was disturbed. There's just no way possible that he could have had that turning radius with a shotgun.

to then be able to shoot and kill Greg. What's the likelihood mathematically of turning around, hearing somebody or seeing somebody and firing and actually hitting them perfectly, uh, for the first time you pull the trigger is going to kill him. It was a perfect shot. It was a stage shot. It was prepped to kill him. Another red flag is the Kirkless financial records.

In 1982, Brenda claimed the couple was in good financial shape. A review of the books, however, tells a different story. And essentially she was robbing Peter to pay Paul. They were struggling, and she was basically in charge of all the financial pieces. And he wasn't fully aware of what was transpiring with their finances, with their personal finances, with their business finances. He was going to discover what was going on. He was going to see all this financial stuff that was happening, and he was going to be upset with her. And for whatever reason, she just didn't want to deal with that.

To me, it looked like this was the beginning of a motive. The team has some good circumstantial evidence, but not enough to take it. before a jury. The only thing that could really help us in prosecuting the case was to have a confession. To do that, detectives know they'll need a little help. We knew without a doubt that she did this, but then we needed to understand her to then know what sort of theme development we needed to use in order to encourage her to tell us the truth. She wasn't a psychopathic kind of uncaring, sadistic killer.

It wasn't that at all. Dr. John Cochran is a forensic psychiatrist. in Salem, Oregon. For me, I felt like I had to get into her psyche. He's approached by Corvallis investigators who want to get inside the head of their suspect. What I came to was that she was a very dependent but depressed individual.

She was a type of individual who would avoid confrontations. She was a type of individual who could be easily intimidated by those in control. Dr. Cochran tells detectives to his hit Brenda hard with their evidence and not let up no matter what. So, for example, if she were to fall on the floor and start crying or anything like this, you don't reach down and pat them on the back and say, hey, we're going to take a time out here for 15 minutes. I'm going to go get you a Coke. You don't do that. You just continue with whatever you need to do

because it's just an indication of their defense is breaking down and they're ready to give up whatever this story is. Dr. Cochran also recommends appealing to Brenda's emotions, something best accomplished by having another woman in the room. With both them there, with Karen playing her part, she acts as a female support person in that sense. Investigators hope that a combination of hard facts and emotion will be enough to crack their suspect. On October 12, 2005, detectives Hawke and Stubb, arrive in Oklahoma, where local police ask Brenda to come downtown for a chat. What Brenda doesn't know is that she's about to be confronted by the ghost of her past marriage. She was stunned. She was just taken back a little bit.

And Sean started right in and said, I'm sure you know why we're here. We're not here to play any games. This is on the wrong time. And it's no over your hand for a long time. We'll try to work with you as much as we can. But the fact of the matter is, the chapter is in 1982, you can you can hold on to this. And we started walking through, you know, the scenario, you know,

the suspect that you said, you know, came in, the past the money, this isn't plausible. We just kind of laid the foundation for, you know that we know. And we just didn't leave her out. Boom, boom, boom, right one after another, with all the facts, you know,

and she was absolutely realizing that we knew what we were talking about. detectives follow Dr. Cochran's psychiatric script, hitting Brenda hard, backing her into a corner, and offering a female friend in the room, Detective Karen's daughter. You're ready, Brenda? I can see you're finicky. You are.

Yep. You're going to be free, man. I've seen this over and over and over. You're ready to get this off your chest. I think Brenda was just sitting there thinking to herself, what do I do? I'm in a corner. You know, they know, they know, basically. that I did this.

After just six minutes, Brenda begins to crack. My life was very difficult, is what she was telling us, and she couldn't handle it anymore. I knew that I couldn't tell me the truth about some of the financial things. She built up all of this pressure within herself and in her mind, and the only option she thought she had, which she had. She said he had. I was going to go back into the corner. And I got in many ways to find him. She said, she remembered that she walked over to him,

gave him a hug and said, I loved you, and then walked around, went and got the shotgun, and stood between the shelves there, set it up, and fired a shot and killed him. Did I give him a hug until him all up to him and shot him? Brenda says she shot Greg while the kid. shot Greg while the couple's infant daughter was asleep in the same room.

Yeah, I was pretty surprised at as a mother that she would be willing to take the life of her husband with her young child just right there. Detectives have their confession when Brenda poses a question. She asked about the lead detective at the time in 1982 because he had been the one who had contact with her the most at the time. Detectives learned that Brenda and a Corvallis detective had a short-lived affair. They had had a relationship that happened immediately after the crime, and it didn't last very long. Did you tell me to try that in? No. The discovery of the love affair leaves one question regarding the original investigation forever unanswered.

To ask, did that compromise the case? I mean, really the only people that know that are Brenda Duran. and the detective assigned to the case. But obviously, if a detective develops a personal relationship with someone involved in an event like this, I could see where potentially you could lose some objectivity. Brenda is arrested for her husband's murder and extradited back to Oregon,

where she eventually pleads guilty to manslaughter and receives a sentence of nine years. You have these pictures of a friend that's gone. For Mary Eichler, one of the first of the first of... first officers to respond to Greg Kirkley's murder 24 years earlier, the questions surrounding her former friend and now convicted killer are almost too much to bear. And we were just starting to get really close when he was killed, so we didn't have the time to really have all the relationship we should have been able to have.

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