Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Could accused wife-killer Rod Covlin walk free because of bungled investigation?

Episode Date: March 12, 2019

New York millionaire Rod Covlin's trial for the murder of his stockbroker wife is nearing an end, but court observers say police bungling of the crime scene investigation make the chances of a conviction uncertain. Nancy Grace explores the case with a panel including forensics expert Karen Smith, psychologist Caryn Stark, North Carolina family and divorce lawyer Kathleen Murphy, and Crime Stories reporter Robyn Walensky. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. college money. They won't be able to get you out of college by the time you're done with them. And you said you didn't care if they went to college. Why don't you tell Anna that every penny you're spending right now is her money and Miles' money. That's showing her. Wait, wait. Hold on a second. Anna, I'd like you to come here. Hold on a second. Come here, please. Because you haven't worked five years in the 12 years you've been married.

You never worked. Mom, could you stop talking? You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked.

You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. You never worked. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Anna, I'd like you to come here. Hold on a second. Come here, please. Because you haven't worked five years in the 12 years you were married. You never worked. Your mother worked her ass off

for every penny that he's spending. Let me tell you, the Daniszewskis are not wrong. They may be wrong about something. Not the money. Your mother worked and worked and worked and your father seven do now he refuses to get a job he's spending your money okay first of all he's spending your money Oh nothing could make me happier than to hear a secretly recorded

argument between a grown man in his in the home arguing with his parents, a man who has quit work and gone off to be a professional backgammon player. Did you hear that? Jackie and I didn't move a hair as we were listening to Rod Kovlin arguing with his parents, did you hear his mom say, we worked our poop off and you're spending all your children's money. Your mother worked like a dog and you're spending it all and you won't get a job. Well, guess what? Not having a job is the least of his worries right now because he is facing a murder charge for the brutal death of his wife, who, P.S., did have a job, Shelly Daniszewski. I'm talking about the case going on right now in a court of law

against professional backgammon player Rod Kovlin. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. I mean, Jackie, what would you think if I said, you know what, I'm just quitting, and I'm going to play backgammon professionally. She's laughing to herself, laughing on the inside.

She knows better. But that's what happened. But I want to hear more of this secretly obtained, secretly recorded audio of Kovlin, the professional backgammon player, who's facing a murder, who caught a little murder charge. You know, Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina trial lawyer. I remember all the thousands, literally thousands of plea negotiations I would conduct. And very often, I had one judge that did it this way. I would sit there with all the files, and one by one, we'd do the jail cases first. The lawyer would come in. They'd bring in his client.

They'd sit down. I'd go through what I had. I'd read the police report with a lot of dramatic pauses and staring and hairy eyeball looks. Anyway. Yeah. And then you did X. And then the cop says you did Y. I think I'm going to be sick.

Things like that. And, gee, I wonder why they hated me. But long story short, as you are going through discussing what happened very often, one of them would say, yes, Ms. Grace, I caught a little murder charge. Like they caught a cold or they caught a baseball. Well, you know what? Rod Coughlin has caught a murder charge, but let's take a listen to that secretly recorded argument. What you are saying now in front of Anna and Miles, okay, will ensure that you never see my children again if you continue, okay? You threatened us with your children. No, no, I'm not threatening you. I'm telling you, excuse me. I want you out of the house by October 1st.

Okay, evictment, evictment. I want you out of the house by October 1st. Okay, evict me. Out. Evict me. I went down for 11 years. Go, go, get, go. I will file. File the papers. 11 years. Evict me. Threaten me with your children.

Evict me. Excuse me. I spent. Evict me. Evict me. Evict me. You know what, Anna? Excuse me?

I spent a million dollars of my money to make sure you didn't go to the Danischewski. No, you spent a million dollars of Bonnie's money. I owe the money. I owe the money. You're never going to pay that money. I'm. I owe the money. I owe the money. I'm going to pay the money. You're never going to pay me back. I'm not a deadbeat. You're going to steal from me.

Because you're a deadbeat. You're going to steal from me like you steal from your children. Wow. Okay. And I'm sure that was just the tip of the iceberg. Joining me right now, in addition to forensics expert, Karen Smith out of the Florida jurisdiction, Karen Stark, psychologist, joining us out of Manhattan. This is in your backyard. You can find her at karenstark.com. Kathleen Murphy,

renowned North Carolina family and divorce lawyer, but she's seen it all. And joining me right now, of course, with Jackie Howard and Alan Duke, Robin Walensky, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter and the author of an incredible book, It's a Beautiful Life, the CSIittingly, unwittingly, no malice, no intent, has got to deal with a horrible, horrible snafu, a boo-boo, a misstep in the case that may cost them a conviction. And there's nothing the prosecutor can do about it. It happened at the time Shelly's body was found. And there's no fixing it. There's no turning back. They just simply have to hope that the rest of their evidence can overcome a big, big problem in their case. But I want to start at the beginning, Robin. What happened? Okay. Well, first of all, I want to say that

when I hear that audio, he sounds like an enabled 40year-old baby arguing with his parents right in front of his children over the money. You see his true self and his true colors there. Wait, wait, wait. Robin, Robin, Robin. Okay, I know this is a little bit off topic, but have any of you ever seen Mr. Smith Goes on Vacation? It's with Jimmy Stewart. Anybody? Okay, at least Jackie has okay Jimmy Stewart takes his wife

Maureen O'Hara on vacation and they rent this horrible horrible home that's falling apart by the beach because the mom wants family time and they get there Jackie I know you don't know where I'm going with this but they have a phone that is a party line and yes I we used to have a party line in Maconia and it was with our neighbor which makes it even worse because you know everything that's happening in their house anyway every time he would pick the phone up he would hear these little old ladies talking about all their ailments and this thing is oozing and this is a boil and all of her stomach and diarrhea and every time he would pick the phone up, these two little old ladies would be talking. My point is, Robin, even every time I go, Mom, who lives with me now, Robin,

you know that, I go, What's happening in Macon? And she'll start with the list of ailments and who died and how there was a poor attendance at the church and who this one got laid off and that one got laid off and this one had a septic tank problem and blah. And finally I'm like, uh, I don't even want the children to hear all this.

And I was thinking that I don't want my children to hear who's sick and make in Georgia within our little church at Liberty United Methodist church. But this dad actually dragged his children into it by name, Anna and Miles. He dragged his children into the room to hear this bitter argument about him not working. Well, yeah, he wants the children to know how messed up and entitled the father is and what a spendthrift he is and what a bad guy he is and how he's stealing all the money and acting younger in age than his own kids. You know, Karen Stark, psychologist, friend, we have sat through,

I don't even know how many, many hundreds of cases together since I first started at Court TV with Johnny Cochran way back when. And I remember considering thinking about marrying David Lynch. And you said, well, why would you marry him? Because I was perfectly happy without being married. And I said, well, I want a family one day. And plus, I know he's not going to be out whoring around he's not gonna be doing drugs or getting boozed up he's not gonna gamble away all the money he's not gonna he works I know where he is right now he's at work I don't have to even call and find out I trust him and I know that it's terrible when your

husband is not there not to support you because a woman can support herself but reliable and trustworthy karen i mean that's the number one bedrock to me in anything yes and i remember being very supportive of david if you recall at the time nancy and here is the guy who right from the start this book listen to what you were just playing. He absolutely has no boundaries. He doesn't even understand that he shouldn't be calling his children into the room. He doesn't care if he's not working. This is a very, very despicable and scary guy.

And here he is in an investigation that has been completely messed up. Let me just think about it guys we haven't even gotten to the murder yet. Friends and family of Shelly Kavlin rushed out of a Manhattan courtroom without saying a word. Inside her estranged husband Roderick faced charges for killing her six years after she died. His attorney tells News 4 his client is stunned. In the back of his mind he did not know this day was going to come. It was right from the beginning. He said he did not commit the crime. So what changed, prosecutors won't say.

Shelley, a successful financial advisor, was found dead in her bathtub inside her Upper West Side apartment New Year's Eve 2009. She had an appointment the next day to meet with an attorney to cut her husband out of her will. The medical examiner initially ruled Shelly's death accidental. Her body exhumed months later. This time, the M.E. concluded Shelly was strangled. Shelly and her husband were going through a bitter divorce. Their families fighting over custody and finances. The children now live with Roderick's parents here in Scarsdale. We knocked today, but no one was home. All the time they're outside riding bikes and playing.

Beautiful kids. Late today, the district attorney issued this statement saying, it is our hope that this prosecution will bring justice for Ms. Danishevsky-Covlin and provide closure for her grieving family and friends. We are going to see whether they in fact have evidence, credible evidence, to support a murder indictment. Wow. You are hearing from our friends at WNBC, our friend Lori Bordenero,

who is right there covering it on the courthouse steps. You know, I was reading one of my favorite newspapers. Yes, an actual newspaper. Wait a minute. No, I wasn't because it was on my iPad. But it was a newspaper on the iPad. It was the New York Post. And they actually had photos.

I've dug up a lot of the crime scene photos. And her bed was totally bloody. And there was, let me address the problem that has arisen. Robin Walensky here to tell us about it. But Shelly Daniszewski, the mother of Anna and Miles, beautiful, beautiful. What was she, Robin? Was she a stockbroker? Yeah, she was.

Earning lots of money on Wall Street, working hard every day, unlike her husband who was playing games, literally. And you know what? Here's the thing about being a stockbroker on Wall Street. It's not like, you know, a lot of people work at home and they can actually sit at their laptop. I mean, I do it when I'm writing a book in their sweatpants and T-shirt. So I'm all down with that. But I remember all the days I had to be in court at eight with 150 case files for a plea calendar and wearing, then you couldn't even wear pants in court. Women didn't anyway. And I would have to have on heels, hose, a Sunday dress, the hair up, the makeup, the everything, 8 a.m., sharp, ready to go.

And that was my life, you know, for 10 years in court. So when you say a stockbroker on Wall Street, she was there locked and loaded when the bell went off, I guess at 8 o'clock in the morning or whatever time it goes off, to support his backgammon career. Anyway, Shelly Daniszewski is found. Karen Smith, you're the forensics expert. I'll let you tell it how she's found. Well, this is such a convoluted story, Nancy. And from what I've gleaned, according to Rod Kovlin, and I'll take this in his word for now, and we'll work through that in a minute.

He says she was face down in a tub full of water, and there was blood everywhere, and he pulled her from the water and attempted CPR, covered her with a blanket, and this all started when either his daughter either called him or came across the hall to his studio apartment and got him, at which point he called for help. The police showed up and then things literally spiraled downhill from there. You know, one fact that I love, Robin Walensky, and I've argued this a lot in the Adnan Syed case and in other cases as well that I tried myself, is it's called routine evidence, routine evidence. And that means evidence of a particular routine.

In this case, Rod Kovlin, the backgammon professional, never once in all the years he lived in that building in his wife's apartment. Let me tell you, those apartments are not cheap, and they apparently had two of them. Had never once spoken to the doorman, ever, Robin. But that morning, early, early, he goes out the door for the first time in, let's just say, 10 years. He asked the doorman, would they like a cup of coffee uh what and they were stunned he goes i'm going out on my morning walk would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee robin walensky it's so fake and phony he was trying to establish an alibi okay robin you you

take it from kieran gave me the forensics, Robin, you take it from, Kieran gave me the forensics point of view. You take it from what was observed. Well, I'll tell you, that's very odd. I lived in a doorman, New York City building, the majority of my life. And I was very friendly with the doorman and you bring them, you know, cookies and milk at night and you do offer them coffee, but you have a relationship with these people and they know the people in the building that are oddballs that don't speak to them. So his behavior of asking, you know, do you want a cup of coffee in the morning is extremely odd, and, yes, he was trying to establish an alibi that he was leaving that particular building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

That all said, Nancy, what's so bizarre, you talk about collection of routine evidence. Well, they didn't collect any. Here's a guy who claims, you know, I pulled her out of the bathtub and his clothes are dry. And the cops don't take the truth. And did CPR. He claims he pulled her from the bathtub. She was soaking and that he tried CPR. And with all the blood in the water and on the bed and on her body from her wound in the back of her head, no blood, no water, no nothing, Robin. It's so bizarre.

You know, this is CSI class, you know, day one. You go in there. Oh, and by the way, the lead detective, as I understand it, Nancy, didn't even take notes. So there's no notes from the lead detective who walks into the apartment. The apartment is not secure. She was Orthodox Jewish. They had a rabbi go in there who contaminated the crime scene. No fault of his, but they let him in.

Where was the yellow tape? They didn't collect any fluid, no blood from the floor. The bathtub was drained. There's no shirt from Rod Kovlin. And, oh, get this, you know, she falls allegedly into the bathtub, the old slip and fall, and there's a cabinet right over the bathtub. And the cabinet, Nancy, is kind of off kilter well they don't even dust it for fingerprints was it her hand that oh I'm falling and so you hold on to that cabinet as

you're slipping into the tub or were his fingerprints on it we don't know because they didn't even dust it for fingerprints and that's where we are right now the children lived with their mom Shelly Danisheski, in their Manhattan apartment. She would go off to work every single day to support the family. She had actually filed a protection order against her husband. And then, surprise, she ends up dead. So the daughter, the little girl, she's eight or nine years old, Anna, comes in and finds mommy in the tub, which I'm sure is something she will never forget the rest of her life. She calls her dad, who's out on his walk, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and dad comes back, cobbling.

He says he finds her face down, pulls her out, and tries CPR. He is completely dry. Now, Robin mentioned that she's Orthodox Jewish. What that means, as it relates to this case, is that they do not believe in autopsies. Karen Stark, isn't that correct? Nancy, that's absolutely correct, and you're not allowed to do an autopsy, and the body has to be buried as quickly as possible. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. For religious reasons, Shelly was buried the next day. Her death ruled an accident. But months later, her family had her body exhumed.

An autopsy was done, and the death was then ruled a homicide by strangulation. When he was arrested yesterday morning, Kavlan was on his way to visit his kids, now 15 and 9 years old, who live with his parents in a home in this quiet cul-de-sac. The two people who are suffering tremendously by this are the two very young children. And Mr. Kovlin is devastated by that. He's done everything in his power to watch over them and take care of them. And steal their money?

You were hearing from ABC New York, and that was reporter Kimberly Richardson, our friend. That is what turns the case on its head right there. Karen Smith, forensics expert, this is how you do it. That's a very big step to have a body exhumed. That hardly ever happens. Now, listening, guys, you might think, wow, it happens all the time because you sure talk do it. That's a very big step to have a body exhumed that hardly ever happens. Now, listening, guys, you might think, wow, it happens all the time because you sure talk about it. That's because in high-profile cases or intricate cases, very often you will see an exhumation, but typically you do not see a body dug up out of the cemetery and re-examined. But thank the

Lord they did it because Karen Smith forensic expert they found that she didn't die from a blow to the head she died from strangulation and this is how they tell it's very simple you look at the eyeballs because when you're strangled when you asphyxiate there are tiny blood vessels in your eyes, the petechiae. They are invisible to the naked eye. They hemorrhage. They blow up because of the pressure. And that's what they found, I assume, Karen Smith. Not only did they find that, and you're absolutely right, Nancy, the petechiae are a giveaway, the little pinpoint blood vessels and capillaries that burst because of the pressure in the head when you're strangled. What they also found was a broken bone in her neck.

Now, they didn't specify which one. I don't know if it was a cervical bone in the back or if it was more telling, which is the hyoid bone in the front of the neck, and it covers the thyroid. That hyoid bone is very substeel. It's very fragile and when you have a strangulation when you have a chokehold type death that bone will snap in half that is not indicative of a slip and fall that is indicative of somebody strangling you and i also would like to know if this was an accidental death and she was in water, was water found in her lungs? Did she have any type of evidence that she was under that water while she was still alive?

You know, also, dead bodies don't have forceful bleeding. I read that there was some blood spatter in the bathroom. Where did that come from? You know, was she struck in the back of the head, or was she pushed into a wall? All of these questions should have been answered at the initial crime scene, which was bungled so badly that I can't even begin to express the crime scene 101 that Robin was talking about. The fingerprints, looking at the bloodstains, looking at the patterns, looking at her body position, looking at the bathtub, all of the evidence around the bathtub that was moved by this rabbi into another room without even police supervision.

I'm so disturbed by this, and this should not be a circumstantial case. This should be a factual case. It is open and closed yeah what karen smith just said is so so critical because if shelly danishevsky has this blow where she quote fell on the in the back of her head why would her hyoidal bone in the front of her neck be broken but all that really doesn't matter and a lot of the bungling by the state and hey you know what let's don't be too hard on them they come in it looks like a fall the daughter found her the doorman says the dad was gone getting coffee and they believe it and

because of the religious beliefs of the family that the police bowed to the religious beliefs they did not do an autop. A lot of that was cured by the exhumation and the later autopsy by the medical examiner because we find the true cause of death. She was strangled. She was asphyxiated. So that means not only do we know a predator did this, the children couldn't have the force to do that, But then the scene was actually staged to look like a fall in the tub. Wow! Who could have done that, Kathleen Murphy? Nancy, there's only one person, and it's typically my experience when there's that protective order in place, it's in place for a reason.

They in Wake County, North Carolina, do not just hand out protective orders without just cause. Because there's a protective order in place and because there's a botched crime scene like it is, I hope this guy, I hope he's convicted. I'm concerned about that. Did you know, Robin Walensky, I'm sure you do, one of the GRRs actually fainted when the autopsy photos were shown. Did you know that? One, it was a male. Now, you got to go through a lot of hoops to get autopsy photos into evidence because they're not of the crime scene. They're very, very upsetting. And you

have to get them in. This is how you do it, by the way. You have to say, Your Honor, I've got to get this autopsy photo in because it shows the nature of the wound that cannot be shown from a shot of the body pre-autopsy. I've got to prove this, and this is why. That's the way you get the autopsy photo in because it's normally deemed to be too gruesome, Robin Malinsky. So a juror actually fainted when they saw an autopsy photo. Yeah, that's true. And you know what it It reminds me of Nancy, and I know you were there when they showed the little skull of Kaylee Anthony at the Casey Anthony trial. And it was on a Saturday

morning. And I remember looking up when they put it up on the video, and there was this audible in the courtroom, like, oh my God, there's her little skull with the weeds coming out and that's how bad these photos were as well that the guy passed out same situation where people are overcome people who are not used to seeing that graphic level of horror either passed out or make an audible noise in a courtroom it does not surprise me Take a listen to the prosecutor discussing the injuries of Shelly Danishevsky in court. Look at her face. We know she bled, right? We know she took a shot to the mouth, right? That's clear. We know she bled from the nose, took a shot by the

way defense suggests people didn't hear screaming really with a hand or an arm over your mouth or ain't gonna be any screaming so we know she bled that's clear question is where'd she bleed where'd the attack begin that's the bathmat by the way please go ahead and take that photo, blow it up, and tell me that that bath mat made those irregular... Hmm, that fits the figure now pretty well. Irregular scratches on her face. Please.

There's her face after the blood's washed off. That's not good. I mean, those are scratches. That's not good. Those are scratches. Dry blood. Next. Wow. I just saw a photo, an autopsy photo of Shelly. And it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to think of the mom wrenched away from her children in this manner. I want to go back to you, Robin Walensky, that morning. So the daughter finds her. She calls the dad. They call police.

Immediately, people from the synagogue are there. They ask the cops if they can come in. And not only is there not an autopsy, Robin Walensky, but I guess the rabbi from her synagogue cleans the scene. He asks and they go, yes. And because they don't want the children to see the bloody bath water and the bloody sheets and the bloody bathroom. So the rabbi takes it upon himself thinking he's doing a good deed and he cleans and scrubs the bathroom so the children will not be upset. And there goes the evidence, Robin Walensky.

That is exactly correct. And not only does he drain the bathtub of blood, bodily fluids, cleans the floor, he does use chemicals to do it as well. It is, you know, they call it mind-boggling missteps. I mean, there's no other word for it. And, you know, who knows how this is going to impact the jurors. But I want to bring in one other nugget, Nancy, that we haven't gotten to, and that is this Rod Coblin lives in an apartment on that same hallway in the same New York City building. He's in the studio apartment. And police, if you can believe it, never search his apartment or examine his body. You know,

they see he's in the dry shirt, but, sir, can you lift up your shirt? Can we see if there's any wounds, any marks, any scratches, anything? And they don't even go into his apartment and peek around and collect any evidence in a brown paper bag. Roderick Conlon sat mostly stone-faced in court today as the prosecutor spent two and a half hours laying out a scathing timeline leading up to the murder of his estranged wife. Telling the story of a disgruntled and abusive husband obsessed with extramarital affairs, backgammon, and his wife's money. All alleged motives for murder. You're hearing from WNBC New York reporter Ida Siegel. Listen, cameras in the court only allowed us to capture the back of the prosecutor as he spoke to the jury. He's on trial for murdering the woman

he hated with an unrelenting, visceral, ever-growing, all-consuming anger. 47-year-old Shelly Kovlin was a successful money manager for UBS. She was found dead in her bathtub on New Year's Eve 2009 by her own daughter, then nine years old. Initially, police ruled it an accident, but after exhuming her body, investigators found she had been strangled. Prosecutors argued her estranged husband became enraged when he hacked into her email and discovered that she was making moves to remove him from her will,

potentially denying him more than $5 million. The only human being on the planet with the motive, the opportunity, and the means to have done this is sitting just across from you here in court. This is a prosecution out of control, Your Honor. The defense today vehemently denied the prosecution's version of events, allowing that the divorce was contentious, but there was no physical evidence connecting him to Shelley's death and more so that there was no murder. They claim it was an accident. What you heard was such a gross, misleading distortion of the facts.

I don't think it was a distortion at all. You're hearing from WNBC New York reporter Ida Siegel. Long story short, we also know Shelly Daniszewski, the victim, had bright red scratches on her face, bruising on her right hand. She was right-handed, but there was never an autopsy. I guarantee you he had scratches on him. I mean, bottom line, Kathleen Murphy, in the middle of a contentious divorce where she actually has to file a protective order against him, we know, according to forensic evidence, that he hacked into her emails and found out she was cutting him out of her will, as she should. They're getting a divorce.

She has money that she saved and earned, and he had to stop her before she could change the will. Motive, motive, motive. I mean, that's exactly what we look for, right? You're the criminal prosecutor. But in family court, when I see protective orders, I take them very seriously. And if he's violating the protective order in any way, shape, or form, that's another clue. I am shocked that we're able to list 10 incidences where the police messed up this crime scene, and I'm very worried about that. Well, I tell you, I'm worried, too, but I still think the evidence is so overwhelming. I agree. Robin Walensky, what do we know about him trying to actually frame his nine-year-old daughter, Anna? He taps into a computer and he writes an apology letter, a confession letter, allegedly in the words of how a nine-year-old would express herself.

You know, Mommy, I pushed you. I'm so sorry. And he faked it he pretends to be the nine-year-old apologizing for pushing her mother but it was totally bogus i mean right there to you karen stark forensics expert they can tell who went into the email who created this document you can tell from your ip address uh and in many many other ways who wrote the document the the nine-year-old girl did not push her mom and she died because she died of strangulation okay number one that's so. They know that he taps in and he writes this confession by his nine-year-old daughter, Anna, which is ridiculous that she pushed her mom or mom died from a fall.

That's not how she died. So who else would have motive to go in and frame their own daughter for murder? Rod Conlon. It's very simple. He went in and he's trying to cover his tracks. He's writing this note, which is just so despicable. I can't even begin to describe and, you know, putting it in the words of a nine-year-old girl. Really? They can tell who wrote this. They know the time that it was written. They know the IP address of where it was written

from. It was, it's just such a disgusting frame-up. And to try to blame your own daughter for something this heinous, I can't wrap my head around it, Nancy. Well, that's what I always say when you're looking at crime scenes, a random killer. And remember, there's no robbery. There's no rape. Nothing's missing from the home.

She's just murdered. So what's the motive to sneak in while the children are there asleep and kill her by the way she was in full rigor which means that she had been dead for a long time rigor mortis Robin Walensky what about this cell phone evidence because what we find out in court cobblin had a key to Shannon Danishevsky's apartment still and cops say he took her iphone to search for information to give him an upper hand in the divorce and cell phone data shows it remained turned on after the murder which means somebody was charging it and it never left the vicinity of the building. So bottom line, somebody was accessing her phone, reading it after she's dead.

Wow. Who did that? The eight-year-old daughter? I mean, it just goes on and on with the evidence. Well, Nancy, the thing is about the cell phone is that's how he found out that she was supposed to be meeting with an attorney to write him out of the will on the first of the year. Keep in mind, she's murdered on the 31st on New Year's Eve. The next day, he finds out through her cell phone that she's meeting with a lawyer to draw up the papers to get him out of the will. Nancy, this man, Rod Kovlin, looked at his wife as if she was a human ATM machine. He didn't love her. He was cheating. And all she was good for in his mind was money so he could continue to play games and backgammon.

It's outrageous. You know, another thing is that he, Rod Colvin, actually bragged about his martial arts death grip. His martial arts death grip. Now, how do I know that? Because his friends talked about it. During a night out with his friends from synagogue covlin boasted about his mastery of his death grip uh talking about he could kill either the friend or somebody else i could kill you with one hand in a way no one would ever find out i mean karen stark who goes around bragging i mean karen if i walked up to you and said, I could kill you with one hand and nobody would ever know,

you would have me admitted to the loony bin immediately. And they have it on tape, Nancy. This whole thing is so outrageous. He was bragging about it because he just doesn't think about what he's doing. Even if you take a look as a psychologist, if I look at the fact that he faked that note from his daughter, who doesn't have compassion, love, caring about their children, wanna protect them?

He has no feelings. He doesn't think about what he's doing. And he's so full of himself that he needs to brag about the fact that he can do the very thing that killed his wife. Snapping her neck. And we also have video that you can find at CrimeOnline.com. Here is Conlon in the common area in the jail showing how to do the lethal neck snapping martial arts hold.

I mean, prison video showing Rod Conlon demonstrating a chokehold. Does it never end? We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.