Crime Weekly - S2 Ep94: Connie Dabate: The Other Woman (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

It was December 23rd, 2015, the morning before Christmas Eve, and most residents of Ellington Connecticut were getting their last minute holiday tasks completed before the season went into full swing. Richard and Connie Dabate got their two young sons on the school bus and then got ready to do their own thing for the day.  By 8:30 AM Richard was headed to his job as a computer network administrator in Bloomfield, and Connie was getting dressed for her spin class at the local YMCA. It was a normal weekday morning, like any other, but within just a few hours, tragedy would descend on the quiet, upscale neighborhood that the Dabate family called home. By 10AM, 39 year old Connie Dabate had been shot twice and was lying dead in her basement, and her husband Rick was found by first responders tied to a metal folding chair. He claimed a masked intruder had attacked him and then murdered his wife, and for months the community mourned the loss of Connie. Everyone wanted to know who could have done such a terrible thing to a young mother, a woman who didn’t have an enemy in the world. There was very little information coming from law enforcement; all they said was that the community had nothing to fear, but people still had a lot of questions. It would be over a year before anyone would have answers, however, and during that time a case was built on following the money, the secrets and the electronic paper trail which would lead to the shocking conclusion and the answer to who could have done something so terrible to Connie Dabate and her family. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we are going into part two of the Connie debate case. And I do have a little recap for you guys. I know sometimes you like that when I recap at the top of the episode. So I am going to do just a two minute recap so you can catch up with us because this is part two of three. And actually for part three, I'm going to talk about it a little bit more at the end of this episode. But I put together something that I'm quite proud of from the evidence and the affidavit. Something very organized that's going to help us really understand what happened at the end of the day. Okay, before we dive in, do you have anything you want to say to the good people? Yeah, I just want to say thank you to everyone who went to criminalcoffeeco.com.

We did let you guys know last week that there were going to be updates to the criminal coffee characters, the universe on the episode. But what you didn't know is that everybody who subscribed to be on the newsletter for criminal coffee company, they were all notified early and they all received an exclusive discount that was just for our newsletter subscribers so even if you don't want to sign up for the subscription coffee which also has a discount at least go over to criminal coffee comm it's right here on the screen click the top right corner or the left corner create an account you don't

have to sign up for a coffee subscription, but make sure you sign up for the newsletter. We're going to have exclusive discounts, codes, random things that we may not announce anywhere else. And you can be up to date on that. We also just linked up with a marketing firm that's going to be creating all new merchandise for criminal coffee. And you can bet your dollar on it that we're going to be announcing a lot of that in newsletters. So you definitely want to be connected to it. How's Superman doing? He's doing great. And I want to thank you all for the love in the comment section and for supporting my love for Superman and to support you. I'm wearing my Superman t-shirt tonight for everybody who is watching

on YouTube and also for my audio listeners, because a lot of you came over to the YouTube video just to see the doll. And he thanks you for that. He's got an S on his chest, man. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. You know what I realized too? I have Superman pajamas as well. No. Pants, the pants. Yep. I found them last night. You have Superman pajama pants? Yep. My kids bought them for me years ago and I will spare you guys that look. But yeah, it exists. It's a real thing. So are they like tight? Are they tight Superman pajama pants? They might get us demonetized, Stephanie. They could get us demonetized. Yeah, they're flannel. They could get us demonetized. So I'm going to spare the kids. They're flat. Okay. I'm going to have to see these though. I mean, come on. I think we should all take a vote in the comment section.

And if we, you know, get enough vote, maybe I'll put up a poll. Then Derek puts a picture of himself in the Superman pajama pants up on Crown Weekly's Instagram. How many likes do we usually get on a video? I don't know. You're asking the wrong person. You're asking me about numbers. All right. Just look.

We average anywhere between like 7,000 likes. So if we get 10,000 likes. No. I'll throw up a photo of this. That's impossible. You can't, we average 7,000. Let's get 10,000. Yeah, it's gotta earn it.

Guys, I'm rooting for you. This is ridiculous. You just don't wanna wear the pajama pants. Gotta earn it, guys. That's 100% the reason. Hence why I'm making it so if it gets there, then I kinda have, I already have to wear a dinosaur costume at 200 000 subscribers i gotta stop selling myself a dinosaur costume with with uh roller skates yeah exactly might as well start

an only fans at this point just selling myself for likes no no no you need to sell yourself for likes for crime weekly not for an only fans come on man yes so let's get 10 000 likes guys 10 000 likes i'll throw up the pajamas let's do it because i need this to happen i i'm gonna like be making fake accounts and just going and liking it's gonna take me all day but i'm gonna do it you would all right so let me do our quick two minute recap um for everybody's sake because my brain hasn't been personally working well these past couple of weeks. So this will be a nice refresher for me too. So Richard DeBate and Connie DeBate lived at 7 Birchview Drive in Ellington, Connecticut with their two young sons. On the

morning of December 23rd, 2015, Richard claimed he got their sons on the bus. He then left for work and his wife Connie left for her spinning class at the local YMCA. But Richard had barely gotten five minutes away from the house before two things happened. He realized he had left his laptop at home, and he got a notification to his cell phone alerting him to the fact that his home's security system had been triggered. Richard turned around and went back home to check on the alarm and to grab his laptop, and he walked in on a six-foot-tall, masked man wearing camo from head to toe who was in the process of robbing the house. Within seconds of Richard realizing someone dangerous was in his

house, his wife Connie came home early from her spinning class, which had been canceled due to the upcoming Christmas holiday. Richard yelled out to Connie to run because there was someone in the house, but instead of leaving the house to call the police or to get a neighbor, Connie ran into the basement of the house where she knew Richard kept his handgun. The six-foot robber went after Connie, Richard went after the robber, and all three of them ended up in the basement where Richard witnessed the robber shoot his wife. The robber then tied Richard to a metal chair and began cutting him with a box cutter and burning him with a blowtorch while he gathered materials from around the basement to set on fire. Luckily, Richard was able to disarm the masked

intruder, causing the intruder to run out of the basement through the bulkhead, which led to the backyard. Once he was gone, Richard was able to crawl up the basement stairs into the house, still tied to the chair, and notify the alarm company, as well as reach his cell phone and call 911. So that is your recap. We are up to date. Yeah, we are up to date. I did have a quick question for you, and I'm sure you're going to probably answer it later tonight. I remember last episode, you said that Connie was shot both in the head and in the back. Was the head wound in the back of the head as well?

Yeah. So she was shot in the back of the head and she was shot in the stomach. So one in the front, one in the back. Yes. Okay. You see how that's a major problem based on Rick's statement, right? I mean, this is something that happened in the spur of the moment. So did she get shot once and then spin around and get shot again? Just another thing that doesn't make sense. And I'm sure you hinted at it last episode that ballistics will be a big part of this case as well. Ballistics, as we talked about gunshot residue, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the blood patterns

in the house at the crime scene, which don't make any sense. And, you know, there is something because, you know, I think it seems pretty obvious, right, what happened here. And you and I talked about this earlier. Like, obviously, we think that Rick did this, but there is some evidence that his attorney is going to use later in court to sort of at least cast reasonable doubt. There's, you know, DNA profiles and things and, you know, gunshot residue also that ends up on somebody's hands and not somebody else's hands. And there's going to be a lot of stuff going on that his attorneys are going to use to sort of try to get him out of trouble. And, you know, I think that it's a valid question and it's a valid path to explore. Like, how are these things happening? So we're going to get there. But

yeah, as of now, I don't see who else could have done this besides Rick, but I guess we'll get there. We shall. So according to the records, the panic alarm that was attached to Rick's key fob was activated at 10, 11 a.m. And according to the security company, it was the only time the alarm had gone off that morning, even though Rick claimed it had gone off earlier that morning while he was driving to work. At 10.16 a.m., the state police barracks received a 911 call from the alarm company, and at 10.20 a.m., Rick DeBate called 911. A member of the Ellington Fire Department was the first person on the scene at 7 Birchview Drive, and he said he pulled into the driveway around 10.30 a.m. Now, this man's name, it's not included in the affidavit, so I named him Bob just to make it

easier. So I'm going to keep saying him, him, him, and we never know who we're talking about. But Bob said when he pulled in, the right side garage door was open. He approached the front door and noted that the outer storm door was closed, but the inner door was opened. Bob rang the doorbell and knocked, but no one answered. So he opened the storm door and yelled inside, but he still received no answer. It was at this point that Bob smelled smoke and noticed a haze on the first floor of the residence, so he proceeded into the house and saw drops of blood on the floor leading from the doorway of the basement to the kitchen, where Bob found Rick lying on the floor

on his right side with a folding metal chair attached to him some way. In the affidavit, it says that Rick's tangled up in the metal chair. And that's what Bob said. And that was kind of Bob's first, you know, sort of experience with Rick just to see him laying on the floor. And I think Bob initially said, like, I thought that this guy was dead because he wasn't moving and he wasn't speaking, and his back was to Bob. Rick's back was to Bob when Bob walked in, and Rick wasn't moving. And then all of a sudden, Rick just started talking while his back was turned to Bob. So that's kind of creepy. Rick was moaning, and according to Bob, Rick moaned out that, quote, they're still in the house, end quote. Bob the firefighter left the house through the front door and called dispatch, but the police were already on their way by that point, and by 10.40 a.m., there were multiple police officers at the address. Sergeant Patrick Sweeney, once again, he found Rick lying on the kitchen floor with his right hand tied to a folding chair with a zip tie, but Rick's left arm and left leg were free and not tied to the chair. Now remember, this is a big deal because when Rick's talking to the police later, he keeps saying that his left arm and his left leg were tied to the chair, that his left arm definitely was tied to the chair. But when the police come,

it's not his left arm that's tied up to the chair. It's his right arm. Crime scene photos taken at 10.48 a.m. showed Rick lying on his stomach on the kitchen floor with his left hand raised above his head near a black cell phone, which was also on the floor. A brown aluminum folding chair was resting on his backside and upper leg area. His right hand was connected to the front right upper leg of the chair as it rested on his back. There was a white plastic zip tie around his neck that was tight, but not embedded in the skin. Sergeant Sweeney made some quick notes as he did a walkthrough of the house, including finding a stainless steel Ruger.357 Magnum revolver on the floor of the basement

and the body of Connie DeBate lying on the floor against the cellar wall in the unfinished portion of the basement. Connie was not moving. She was cool to the touch, but there was no color in her facial area and there appeared to be some lividity in her extremities. So essentially what we take from that is that her body hadn't stiffened up yet. That usually happens after a few hours. If they've been deceased for a few hours, the body will begin to stiffen. The muscles and joints will begin to lock up. With lividity, we're talking about that purplish bruising that you'll see on the body and it's found where the blood settles. So obviously when you die, your heart stops pumping

the blood, gravity takes a hold of it. And anywhere where your body is touching the floor, it'll usually all kind of go to that point. You also see some in the fingers and the toes as well. And this is very important, especially when trying to determine if the body had been moved after death. This is how they're able to determine that. If you find someone where they're on the side of their body, where all the bruising, the lividities on the top side of their body away from the ground, that's a problem. That means they've been moved. So lividity happens pretty quick. That makes sense. Seems like they were there within an hour or so of her being killed. So that would align with what we expect to see at that point.

And you can use that lividity and the degree of it as well to sort of gauge maybe the time of death too, right? That's interesting. I, yeah, because at the beginning stages of the lividity, it would probably just be prevalent in the fingers and toes and the extremities, but the longer the body is there, the bruising can, can literally take up the entire side of the body that's on the ground. The whole, as the blood settles, it can basically go from head to toe, essentially from their cheeks to their side, to their legs, everything will be purple on that side. So yeah, the longer it's there, the more lividity you should see. So I mean, at this point, yeah, we know that Rick

called 911 at a certain time and the police responded pretty quickly. And they're already seeing some lividity, which can start setting in around the 30 minute mark, which is crazy to think that it can happen that quickly. And you can see that that happening so, so quickly. It's it's very disconcerting. Yeah, it's tough to see in person. I bet. Yeah, it's tough to see in person. Jack the intruder was burning him and then Rick burned Jack with a little blowtorch and then Jack put his hands to his masked face and then ran out of that bulkhead and that leads to the backyard. And at this point, Rick's wallet was found in the grass of the backyard. Now keep in mind,

everything's in this wallet. Nothing's missing. All his ATM cards, his debit cards, his credit cards, there's cash in there. There's not one thing missing out of this wallet. So the canine track continued from the area where the wallet had been found along the exterior walls of the house. And Rocky the canine actually attempted to enter the front door of the house, which was open as an EMS team worked on Rick Debate. So Rocky was led away from the front door so that he could focus and track the path of the intruder, but Rocky lost the scent, so they decided to start over. Once again, Rocky started from the rear bulkhead door, and again, Rocky led his handler along the perimeter of the house and to the front door. By this point, an ambulance had arrived and backed up to the

front steps of the house, and Rick was being loaded into the ambulance. But Rocky the canine made an intense effort to climb into the rear of the ambulance after Rick. Once again, he was pulled away, and a third attempt was made to track the intruder from the rear bulkhead doors. This time, Rocky's handler led him towards the west side of the property in an attempt to determine if there were any scent trails leading away from the house. But these efforts produced no results from Rocky, who did not indicate that an individual had fled the scene.

At 11.14 a.m., Trooper Anthony Christie and his canine Axel also attempted to locate a scent trail leaving the property with no results. And a third canine, Jesse, was also brought in, but Jesse also did not indicate that there were any scent trails of someone who had been at the property and then left through the yard or anywhere else, really. Additionally, a neighborhood canvas turned up, no additional evidence, no one had seen anything, no one had heard anything, and no local hospitals or clinics had admitted anyone with burn injuries. And I think that's actually important. So it's interesting. This is a normal neighborhood. You know, it's a suburban area. The houses are pretty close to each other. And you've got what we'll come to find is three shots, three shots from the gun happening in the basement and no one heard anything. But Rick claims he was in the basement when this shot went off and it was so loud and jarring and shocking that he like fell to the ground and his ears were ringing and he had to cover his ears and it disoriented him for several minutes. But no one else in the neighborhood even heard gunshots. Now you're familiar with this weapon, I assume. Is it a loud weapon? Yeah, it's a very loud weapon.

But depending on insulation, depending on the types of windows in the house, I don't know how close the distance is between their house and the next house. It might only sound like a firecracker if the windows aren't open in that house to someone a house over, depending on how far away they are. It can be muffled pretty extreme if they're in a basement, which a lot of basements have that extra layer of insulation down there because it's below ground. Yeah, they were in the basement. So that makes sense. Maybe. Do you think it's also possible that some sort of like silencing mechanism was used? Yeah, that's the other thing. If they don't want people to hear it, you could use a pillow in front of it. You could actually use a silencer. I don't know. I know that silencers are illegal in Rhode Island. I think they're

legal in Massachusetts. I don't know about Connecticut, but yeah, you could easily muffle the gun by putting something over it. Kind of like you see in the movies, it's going to muffle the sound. It's going to cause it to travel less. So there are a couple of different options there. If you didn't want people to come running and that was the intent behind it, you could easily accomplish that, especially in a basement, which may explain why this incident took place in the basement. I do have a couple of questions for you. Weather that day, do we know what it was like? Was it raining or anything? It's December 23rd in Connecticut. I assume it was snowing. Maybe some snow. Okay.

That's something that's worth looking into because in addition to the scent, we think about footprints, right? Think about different sets of footprints going and coming from the house. If there's an individual who's six foot, 300 pounds, whatever, six foot four, you'd expect him to have a larger shoe print than rick so you would expect to see that and if there wasn't a second set of shoe prints because you found rick's footprint uh i'm sorry wallet outside you might see rick's footprints out there if there was snow on the ground or if the ground was soft from a previous snowfall that's one thing and then just to kind of double double back to what the canine did as well.

Canines don't differentiate between the scents. They're given a scent. They track it when they hit on something, like when they find Rick's wallet, they're going to pick up a strong smell and they're going to continue to follow that smell. They don't know what that smell is. They just know they're being given the command, probably in German to track the scent. And so they're going to follow it wherever it takes them. They don't know, Hey, this is one scent, this is two scents. They can bring them back to it

and try to direct them towards a different scent if they indicate through whatever physical indicators they've been trained to give to maybe go a different route. But if they're only picking up one strong scent time after time, if it's a good dog, it's going to continue to follow that scent wherever it takes them. So why was it so interested in Rick then? Because that's the only scent there? Because it picked up Rick's scent on his wallet and it was probably the most recent scent and it was the strongest. So they thought they were doing a good job, the dog. It's like, hey, I picked up a scent on the wallet. I'm going to take you to the scent. He's right there, guys. You know, dad, I'm going to take you to where that

scent is. i don't know who rick is but i know what scents on that wallet and it's over here they don't you know what i mean they're they're objective they're just going to follow whatever they're trained to follow the scent the most recent scent the strongest scent will probably be on that wallet i have had situations where you have multiple people around it the dog may take a couple different routes as they keep going over it like they'll give them a t-shirt or something to try to track a suspect or a missing child. And you may have to bring them back to the original spot and see if they decide to follow a different scent that time, but to have them do it multiple times and have them

always go the same direction, not only one dog, but multiple dogs, it's a high indication that more than likely there's only one scent they but multiple dogs, it's a high indication that more than likely there's only one scent they're picking up, which was Rick's. And it looks kind of like maybe Rick himself exited the house through that bulkhead, kind of dropped his wallet in the yard and circled back around to the front door to reenter the house. And this is the path that the dog was following, right? Because we know Jack, the intruder, if he had taken Rick's wallet, he probably would have taken the credit cards out or at least the cash. And according to Rick, he gave Jack his wallet and he told him his pin numbers

and all of that jazz. So I can't imagine that Jack goes to this whole length to take Rick's wallet and then just drops it 20 feet, you know, after running out of the house. That's not likely, among other things. But you wouldn't expect to run back in the front door and go, hey, I want to make sure you're all right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Rick was taken to Hartford Hospital so that his wounds could be examined. And at 12.13 p.m., Detective Brett Langeveen and Detective Jeffrey Payette met with Rick in his hospital room after speaking to the emergency room personnel who told them that Rick was stable and his wounds, which consisted of some small lacerations, were not life-threatening. Rick had two small parallel lacerations to his right thigh, an oblong burn to the outer portion of his left calf, a small laceration to his outer left chest, a number of small lacerations to his

head, and small scabbed abrasions on his left wrist. Now, there was also an injury to Rick's middle finger on his left hand. It was a cut mark consistent with the tip of a razor blade. And Rick was like surprised when he found out he had this injury and he couldn't remember how he had gotten it. Later, the ER physician who treated Rick would testify that the wounds were consistent with self-inflicted injuries and there was no bruising in the areas noted as pressure points, as well as there was no signs of defensive wounds. So basically, I mean, if Jack the intruder is doing all this pressure

point work on Rick and he keeps pushing on him this hard where he can walk him around like a dog with the pressure points, you would expect to see some sort of marks on Rick's skin where Jack was pushing on his pressure points. In the arrest affidavit, Detective Payette wrote, quote, as the interview progressed, it was clear that debate's recollection of the incident was evolving, end quote. Now, I really can't go over the many variations of Rick's statement here. He told the police like three, four different stories. He told the initial first responders a story. He told the emergency room people a story. He told Detective Payette a story. He told Connie's family members all different kinds of stories. So we can't even, this would be 12 parts

if we did that. And they would just kind of shift and change a little bit here, a little bit there, adding details, adding like flourishes. But basically, Rick gave an initial statement to the police on the scene. He gave another verbal statement to the detectives at the hospital. And then Detective Langeveen began typing a written statement for Rick to sign, and at that point, he asked Rick to go through everything again as he typed, and the story sort of changed again, but this was the story that Rick was going to go with. It was kind of his masterpiece, his final draft after all the edits. That was the one he wanted to go with. Now, after going through the timeline, Detective Langeveen told Rick that he was not under arrest and he was free to leave at any time. But the police did have a few more questions that would help them get some context into the dynamics between Rick and his wife, Connie.

When asked how things had been going with Connie, Rick responded that things had been going pretty well, but Connie had been getting angry lately and she had been taking this anger out on her family. But Rick added that this was nothing abnormal because Connie had been depressed for a while, but he felt she was getting better. Rick was asked if there were any relationship issues that an investigation would uncover, and Rick took a deep breath before responding, yes and no. Rick told the detectives that Connie had wanted to have another baby, but due to some health issues, she was unable to get pregnant. And only he and Connie knew this. No one else had been told that Connie couldn't have any more babies or that wanted to have a baby. But this friend, whose name was Sarah, she wasn't married and didn't have a relationship, so she had no one to have a baby with. Rick, Connie, and Sarah

decided that they would just have a baby together and raise the baby together. And at first, they were going to do artificial insemination, but the process was too long and complicated. So Rick claimed he did some, quote, untraditional things to get Sarah pregnant. Now, this part always kills me. He did some untraditional things to get Sarah pregnant. In fact, I would say he did some traditional things to get Sarah pregnant, which is he had sex with her. Okay. That's how he got her pregnant because artificial insemination just took too long. There's too much to do. You gotta, you know, get a magazine, get a cup, go in a bathroom. That's all you gotta do, Rick. Why are you acting like there's like a whole process for you? There's no process for you. That's all you have to do. And Rick, to add

insult to injury, claimed that it was Connie's idea for him to do these non-traditional things to get Sarah pregnant. I'll tell you what, took one for the team there. He really did. Connie, you know, if you really want me to do this, I'll do it for you. You know, it's twisting my arm. If you really want this baby and this is how you want it, that's how you're going to get it. You're going to get it anyway. I'm going to make this happen for you, Connie. I'm not going to enjoy this, but I'll do it for you. What a dick, right? Oh, my God.

Yeah, he's an idiot. He's an idiot for sure. Untraditional things. Untraditional things. And then he's telling this to two male detectives. And even the male detectives are like, dude, I mean, we got guy code code and everything but we can't follow you on this like we have wives we know women this did not happen how you're saying it happened yeah and so the detectives are like you know hey you know well was was connie like upset that you you know

ended up getting this other woman pregnant and he was, no, Connie wasn't mad at all. She was, quote, amazing. I never expected it to go that way, end quote. So Sarah, she got pregnant, and Sarah was due in late February 2016. And although they were all going to raise this baby together, Rick claimed that Sarah and Connie didn't really talk too much because there were a lot of things about the situation that Sarah was not okay with. When asked if Sarah's pregnancy was a surprise, Rick initially said no, but later when he was asked if the pregnancy was an accident, he said, quote, there was cheating going on in the beginning on both sides. The pregnancy was unexpected. The situation was something that we were talking about, end quote. So he doesn't make any sense because he acts like the whole point of him having sex with Sarah was to get her pregnant. And then she gets pregnant and he's like, yeah, I mean, we were talking about getting truth, you can't just, you can't just pull it. You can't reference memory. You're constantly making it up as you go. Some people are better

at it than others because they're prepared. They kind of have it set up before carrying it out. They've rehearsed it a few times. It appears here that Rick's kind of going just off whatever it comes to his mind. And he also may not have anticipated police asking these types of questions so early in the investigation. He might've thought I'd have some time to work this out before these types of questions come up where he's at the hospital. He's thinking he's going to be viewed as a victim and they're already drilling down on,

Hey, are there some things we're going to find that may not look good? And he's like, Oh crap, I got to figure this out. When I wouldn't be surprised if you end up telling us he has even ran any of this by Sarah yet. He's just making it up as he goes. Cause I'm assuming if Sarah is a real person, uh, they're going to go speak to her at some point and she may have a different version of what took place. I mean, everybody's got a different version of what took place than Rick, you know and that is something that that has always been on my mind because i keep going back and forth like did he plan to kill his wife if he had planned to kill her which i'm gonna go out on a limb and say he did this

probably wasn't like a last minute thing and when we get into like i said i created this timeline from all the electronic and cell phone records and computer records and everything. And I created this beautiful timeline. It took me hours. And when I'm looking through it, and I want to pose it to you in the next episode and see if you see the same things in the timeline that I see, because they don't tell you what they see, you know, in the affidavit. And this trial was not televised. So we don't really know what happened or what arguments were made. But I want to see if you see the same things in this timeline when I talk about it next episode, because it looks like Rick was doing some planning all morning

and he was kind of setting this up all morning. So if he was setting it up and planning it, like, why didn't he have his ducks in a row? Why didn't he have a better story ready or, you know, at least prepare Sarah or tell her, you know, like if the police ask. But then I guess he'd have to admit to her that he killed his wife and he doesn't want to do that. So I guess he was just crossing his fingers and hoping things turned out OK. I'm not sure what his plan was. It definitely wasn't well thought out. And that's why he gives an initial statement where he's making this concocted story of this was something we wanted as a team together, the three of us. It was untraditional, but Connie was on board. And as he's sitting in

there thinking about it, he's like, there's no way this is going to pan out. They don't believe me. So he starts to already kind of backpedal and change it up a little bit to soften the landing because he knows that they're going to go speak to Sarah and he knows they're going to do their research and it's probably not going to line up. And in fact, he might be kind of panicking now because they could go speak to Sarah before he has a chance to speak to her, which could really screw things up for him. So I feel like that's what you have going on here. But as an investigator, that's what you're looking for. These inconsistencies from the same person when they're just giving you the same story, but with different versions

and really unsolicited, nobody's asking them to change up their version. No one's pressuring them. They're doing it because of their own insecurities about the validity of the story itself. So you kind of sometimes silence is key. Ask them a question, let them give an answer, don't respond right away and let their own paranoia weigh on them. And sometimes they'll elaborate and they start contradicting themselves. It seems like a simple tactic, but it works a lot. Just stay silent for a little bit and go, uh-huh, keep writing. It scares the shit out of them. Yeah, and he might even be reacting to their reactions, right? Even if they're micro expressions you know a micro expression of

disbelief that just flickers over one of the detective's faces and rick's like oh shit i went too far i went too far with that whole like untraditional methods thing like i gotta i gotta pull it back i gotta reel it in i gotta see something that that they'll find more believable here it is look i'm showing on youtube here it is thisette. Really? She wanted you to have sex with her. Huh? Interesting. And she, but they didn't talk to each other, but you decided to have a kid together. Okay. And he's just like, he's like, this is Payette's not buying it. Because Payette's so sarcastic, man. He probably was in person. Really? She wanted, was she there? there was she did she come over too when

you guys did she wait in the other room you know did she ask you to call her when it was done like what's happening here we need to know the details because this is the first time we've ever heard this story from anybody and uh i think that they pretty they pretty much didn't believe him and by this point they they've been interviewing him for several hours. So as they're interviewing him, they're also getting calls and texts and messages and stuff from the team who's at the house. And the people at the house are like, this shit's not adding up here either. So they're kind of like putting things together as they go. And they're definitely suspicious of him.

And Rick told the detectives, like, listen, I didn't plan for this to go crazy. But everything turned into a soap opera eventually. And we were just going to wait. We were going to wait until the baby was born. And then we were going to see where it went from there. And Rick was asked several times in different ways if he told Connie about Sarah being pregnant. And he never really answered directly yes or no. He just kept saying things like, well, you know, we all wanted to make it work. I didn't want to lie to Connie,

but I did keep it a secret for a long time because it was unexpected and it was hard for me to tell Connie about the baby. But I knew ultimately it was very important for Connie to have another child and also keep their family together. So he thought she was going to be okay with it. And in the end, he was just kind of like biding his time of when he was going to tell her. And then Rick said he was potentially involved romantically with Sarah. They'd known each other since junior high, and they'd been basically in an on-again, off-again relationship for seven years. Connie knew that there was something going on between Rick and Sarah,

and she was sometimes jealous about it, but usually she was fine with it. Rick admitted that for a while, Sarah had thought that he and Connie were going to get divorced, but he really wanted to keep his family together, and so he'd made an effort to fix things between himself and Connie, and Sarah knew that he was going to fix things, and she understood, even though Sarah maybe wasn't completely aware of the extent that Rick and Connie were on good terms again. Rick explained that at the time of Connie's death, things between them had been very good. They'd just gotten back from a romantic trip to Vermont, they were planning a cruise in June, and although they argued, usually about bills, it hadn't been any more than usual,

and there was never any physical altercations in their relationship. However, although Rick was hitting it off with his wife, he was still in contact with Sarah. They had texted each other the night before, and they were planning on seeing each other that same day, December 23rd, to exchange Christmas gifts. At the time that Rick was being interviewed, the detectives already knew something was up. And when Rick told them this bizarre and almost incoherent story of a love triangle leading to a pregnancy that Rick had initially made it seem like was the plan, and then eventually he made it seem like the pregnancy was unexpected and he was afraid to tell Connie about it, the detectives, they were certain he wasn't being honest with them.

Detective Langeveen explained to Rick that as they spoke, the crime scene at his house was being processed, and already there were certain questions being raised. And Rick responded, quote, I've been honest with everything you've been asking me, end quote. Rick was told that the detectives were going to create a timeline based on how Rick remembered things happening, as well as his cell phone and email activity to make sure that his recollections lined up with what had actually happened. To this, Rick said, quote, I want it to line up. I want to be honest, end quote. And that's obviously a weird way to answer that question. We're going to make a timeline to see if it lines up. And he's like,

well, I want it to, you know, definitely wish it would. And they're going, us too, Rick, us too. We want it to line up too, buddy. But we're pretty sure it's not going to. We're pretty sure we're not going to get the version from you to line up. And it's just funny. He's like, I want to be honest. I want it to line up. You know, he realizes, I think, that he's screwed, but he feels like if he's earnest enough, maybe they'll overlook it. And so Detective Langeveen then told Rick that there did seem to be a lot of inconsistencies with what he was telling them, and the facts were already not lining up, to which Rick responded simply,

okay. Langeveen said that the investigation was showing that things couldn't have possibly happened the way Rick said they did. And Rick responded, quote, I did not shoot Connie. I'm going to stick with my truth. I'm not going to lie to you. I know you have to drill me. It's your job. End quote.

The second somebody says my truth in a police interview, it's like the biggest red flag ever. Like you might as well just grab a red flag out, wrap Rick's ass right up in it Cause he's going to keep telling his truth. Yeah, no, they know something's up. And I think at this point, Rick, I really do believe based on the way the scene was set up, Rick was under the impression that because of the traumatic situation that he had went through being tied to this chair and these, these injuries he sustained that they would be more so, are you okay? What do you need? How can we help you? We're here from you.

And that he would at least have a few days of them tracking down Jack, the masked intruder, before he would have to plan next steps. And to think that this was happening so fast, what was unraveling because of the expedience of the law enforcement agency, he didn't mention calling out to Connie or going to check on her because according to Rick, he had not known that Connie was dead until he heard her pronounced dead after the police arrived. Now, Rick said he did yell her name. He just hadn't mentioned that part. And he didn't go and check on her because he was scared that someone was going to come back and shoot him. The detectives also pointed out that the entire six hours they'd been interviewing Rick, he had not shed one tear. And to this, Rick became incredibly defensive, saying, quote, I did cry. I cried so much. Ask the nurses. I'm not a criminal

and I'm not violent. We were getting solid. It wasn't me. End quote. Detective Langeveen asked Rick if he would be willing to take a polygraph, which is something law enforcement did to rule out persons of interest. And Rick responded, quote, do it. I'm going to need to get a lawyer. I have to think smart now if you guys are accusing me of this, end quote. And just to confirm here, this is all the interview taking place at the hospital? Yeah. So they did it in his hospital room. And then basically within a few hours of the interview and him being at the hospital, the nurses and the doctors were like, all right, Rick, you're good. There's nothing wrong with you. You're free to go. So they kind of moved it to another room in the hospital. The hospital let them use a conference room or something. But yeah, the whole time they're at the hospital.

This is the same day that the incident occurred. Yes, the same day. So yeah, he wasn't anticipating this. He was not anticipating the day of the incident that he was going to be going to a different room and needing a lawyer that there's no doubt about it. And you could tell by his kind of his change in his demeanor, this defensiveness, even the response you gave earlier. Okay. He knew right then and there, they weren't buying it. And he's probably getting even more paranoid because while they're sitting there talking to him, I guarantee you there's detectives there that are not mentioned in this interview that are on their phones in the background, on their

portable radios. And he's seeing all this. Rick is seeing this and realizing there's a lot of conversations happening. Probably Payette saying, hey, I got to go outside the room real quick. I'll be right back. Even if it's not true, those things are going to create this paranoia where he realizes they're putting together pieces outside of the room and then coming back and talking to him. And he's getting blasted with all these things he didn't

expect to have to answer on day one. He really thought they were going to be standing by his bedside, not knowing if he was going to make it or not. And here he is with a couple scratches on his arm, figuring out how he went from being victim to suspect in a matter of hours. Yeah. So I don't think he's dumb. I don't think he's a dumb individual. I think he's a narcissist.

I think that he he didn't really, like you said, plan that far ahead. And he could have said, no, I don't want to talk to you. They told him they were like, you don't have to talk to us. You know, we just want to get some background on your relationship. And he could have said, yeah, you know, it's been obviously a long day like I've got to go home I got to be with my kids I have to just settle and I'll talk to you guys later just give me like a day or so and then we can go over all this has been very traumatic he could have said that and they wouldn't have really been able to do anything about it but because he first of all thought

that would look suspicious he sat there talked, ending up looking way more suspicious than if he had just said, give me a few days. Because he thought he could pull it off because he thought he thinks he's charming. You know, even Connie had said in her notes app, you know, one of the pros about Rick was that everybody likes him. You know, he's likable. He's a lot of fun when he's in a good mood. And he thought, you know, I'm charming. These are guys. They're going to understand. You know, wink, nudge, nudge. I got another girl pregnant. You know how it goes is this stuff happens. And then they're going to let him go home. And in reality, these cops are like, this guy's guilty as sin. about this one because this was his demise right here i mean obviously the physical evidence at the scene is going to ultimately be the thing that turns him in but not even having a coordinated story prepared where if you're going to start involving other people like we say in other episodes we start mentioning other names like sarah's you damn well better make sure she's on

board with it she knows what's said because i don't know how many movies he's seen but you have to know that as soon as you mention someone who can discredit or confirm your story while you're still speaking to them, they could be sending a detective to Sarah's work or her home to start speaking to her. So they can start using you two against each other, essentially, just by saying, hey, we're talking to Sarah right now. That's not what she's saying. And that's how you end up getting to the truth. And I think that's honestly why he modified his story about Sarah as he went, because he probably realized like, oh, shit, they're going to ask her about this. So I need to make it seem more just like a sordid affair that maybe Connie wasn't too

happy about. And maybe this pregnancy wasn't planned. And I think these guys will understand that better than this first story I'm telling them. So he'll kind of adapt and change it as he's going so here's my guess he mentioned sarah for the first time in his narrative right connie's on board there's this woman sarah the first question they're asking which isn't in here but i guarantee you it was the case one of the detectives go okay what's sarah's last name okay what's her address what's her phone number and they might walk out of the room and

hop on a phone that's instant that's before you go any further who's sarah and now he can't say i'm not going to give you that information that looks incriminating so he provides her name her address her phone number and now he's like i have to get in front of this i can't get in the phone with sarah right now the only option is to change my story and make it seem like, okay, maybe Sarah wasn't completely in the loop on this as much as I said she was because they could be talking to her on the other line right now. And even if he does get on the phone with Sarah, what the hell is he going to tell her? Sarah, I told these cops who think I killed my wife that you and me and my wife, we're going to have a baby together and everyone's okay with this. So just keep that story. She's gonna be like, what the hell are

you talking about, man? Because as far as I knew, you're leaving your wife and you're going to be with me and our child. So what's going on? Your wife's dead. What's happening? You know, Sarah's not in on it like that. Not good. Not going in well for Rick. Well, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. at 5 30 that evening a search and seizure warrant was submitted and approved which allowed the police and csi to go in and process the scene now one of the basement casement windows had been removed and the window itself had been found on the floor of the inside of the basement but it was completely intact on the lower portion of the exterior, but it was completely intact. On the lower portion of the exterior windowsill, there was dirt and mulch, which appeared to have accumulated over some time,

and there was also a layer of white dust and spiderwebs along the top and sides of the window opening. The dirt, the mulch, the dust, the spiderwebs, none of it had been disturbed, which indicated that no one had used this basement window to enter the house. And Rick told the police he didn't know how the person entered the house, but, you know, maybe it was the basement window. And later, Rick was telling Connie's family and his friends like, oh, yeah, the guy used the basement window. So this was definitely the narrative that Rick was going with. And I mean, if you look at this window, it's one foot high by two feet and seven inches wide. The opening of the window was six feet and four inches from the basement floor. So if you're talking about a six foot tall obese man that Jack was, there's no way Jack's squeezing through that window and not disturbing the cobwebs and the dust and things like that. Right. We saw this something similar with the JonBenet case, right, where they brought this up.

So it's a similar situation if we're to assume it's a basic basement window like we all see. Any person of any size, I don't care if it's me or you, Stephanie, you're going to there's no way you could enter. I could pay you a million dollars. There's no way you're going to be able to slide in that window without disturbing the dust. There's going to be some indication that you slipped through. Now let's consider that this, this alleged person is six, four obese. Even if he could fit through the window again, no way he could do it without disturbing it. And also you said something interesting and I don't have a visual at this point, but the way you described, if I'm thinking of someone breaking in, there's going to be prime

marks. There's going to be signs of a broken window where they had to open, you know, break the glass and then enter by undoing the latch to get to the, the, the encasement that's around the inside of the window. You would have to first be inside the house. And I can't see a world where the offender would come through the window with more aggressive means, use of force by breaking the window, and then remove the encasement that locks that window pane into the foundation itself. Doesn't make a lot of sense. That would seem like something that had to be done from the inside. Yeah, definitely, because there's no pry marks or defects on the exterior threshold of the window.

So it hadn't been pried open from the outside. The window on the inside of the basement, it was laying on the floor unbroken. Once again, you think if it falls over six feet, it would have shattered. Something would have happened. And there was two turnstile locks, which had been unscrewed and removed from the window, but they'd been unscrewed from the inside of the basement, and there was a tool mark found on the interior portion of the window. And the detectives on the scene, they actually reenacted with a different basement window, like what would happen if someone

from the outside tried to use that window to get in, and this demonstration was video recorded. During the demonstration, an officer pushed on the exterior upper metal frame portion of the window between the two interior locks, which had held the window in place. After forcefully pushing against the metal frame of the window, the frame buckled, it bent, and the two turnstile locks broke away from the window frame, bending and falling into the basement. And obviously this is a very different condition than the initial window that was there with the crime scene, which was unbent, unbroken, and those two locks had been unscrewed. They hadn't been broken away. So there was no damage to the locks. Yeah. And this makes perfect sense from episode one where it's not what you know, it's what you can prove. It's not in the report. It didn't happen. And I think at some point in the episode, I said, they also have to prepare for all the areas where a defense attorney may potentially try to raise reasonable doubt.

So although they don't believe Rick, although they have no indication that someone came through that window, they have to go through this to prove that it's not possible Not because they believe it's it's a plausible scenario But because they know with the angle that Rick's going with and therefore his lawyers will go with it So they have to go that extra step of showing. Hey in case they try to make you look over here Like this windows something that raises the reasonable doubt to a level where, Hey, someone could have came in. We're going to go that extra step of showing you why that's not possible. So not only are they trying to solve the case, they're also trying to disprove other theories that could be brought up at trial later. It's a very involved process. You don't think about

these things on TV and in the movies, but all these extra things that honestly are not necessarily necessary for their prosecution, but necessary to make sure that the person they're going to go after doesn't use something that is unrelated to the case to try to taint the jury. It's a very involved process, takes a lot of man hours, a lot of outside thinking because you have to think like a police officer and also a lawyer. And that's why good cops is a very big difference between good cops and great cops. Some good cops do the bare minimum, great cops tie up all the loose ends. Yeah, because during a trial, Rick's lawyer could say, you can't prove that nobody came through that basement window and the prosecution and the detectives can pull out this test that they did and said, actually, we can. And here's a video of it. So you know what we're talking about step by step. And yeah, it was actually very good. And I mean, I think it's obvious just with the dust and the cobwebs and stuff not being disturbed, but they went the extra mile. And I'm sure Connie's family

appreciates that. Of course. Of course. And here's the worst part. If they don't do it and then the attorneys bring it up later, if they try to go back and do it later, defense attorney is going to say, oh, well, a million things could have happened to that window by now. Rick fixed some things in there since now. And obviously it's not going to work now. Yeah. Obviously there's a spider web now, but because they did it right away, they closed that, that angle off too. It's, too. It's great work. It's great work. Here's another thing, too, that makes me feel like this was a little bit more premeditated than, you know, we even know.

Because we had talked in the previous episode how Rick was sort of laying the groundwork when he talked to people to make it seem like Connie was just miserable and snapping at everybody and moody and like, oh, don't you know say anything wrong to connie because she's on a tear lately he also seems to have laid the groundwork for this potential break-in because there's a few texts between connie and rick where she says things to him like oh that basement window is still broken and he's like oh yeah i'll get on it i'll fix it and then she mentions it again in a later text like hey did you get to that window yet? And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll do it. So this to me is he probably broke the window or did something to it far earlier just so there would be evidence that there was something wrong with that window, thinking that this would give some legitimacy to the intruder coming in through the window. Oh, I mean, premeditation a step further. Look at the, we had the exhaust pipe incident. We also had the damage to his glass, you know, his front windshield. That's all set up to show that there might be an outside party that's got an ax to

grind with them. Those are all things that I believe just from what we've said so far, were set up by Rick to create a narrative later that there is some nefarious individual who's causing issues at their property and maybe it's escalated from that person. So yeah, I agree with you. All premeditation, he is thinking about it. You're starting to involve this other woman in this story. So now we're starting to get a why potentially as well, a motive. So as you're continuing this narrative, I think for everybody, it starts to make more sense as to why certain things were happening leading up to it. Yeah.

And in the basement, you know, obviously Connie's body is there and they found Connie's body lying face up in the basement, the unfinished basement area near the furnace. She'd been shot in the stomach as well as in the back of the head. There were no exit wounds noted in the police report, but there was a smaller amount of blood in her stomach area, which suggested that the stomach wound had happened after the wound to her head, which had bled quite a bit. A copper bullet was found lodged in the wood of the floor joists above Connie's head, and the angle of her stomach wound pointed back towards the area of the door, which led to the finished portion of the basement, like the corridor door. And this was the same trajectory as the bullet found in the floor joists. So this indicated the person who had fired these shots had held the weapon in their right hand and had been standing about 11 feet away.

Three of the five bullets in the murder weapon had been shot. Now, a box of this same ammo was later found in a locked briefcase-style sentry gun safe, and that was located in the master bedroom closet. That box was missing five rounds. Now, I want to stop here before I go on. It's weird that three shots were fired. One ended up in the floor joist, so basically the ceiling of the basement, which is the floor of the first floor, above her head, one in the back of her head and one in her stomach. They believe the head wound came first. So what would have happened at that point? He would have shot her in the head, she would have fallen, and then he shot her in the

stomach after shooting her in the head? As you're saying it, I'm trying to rationalize why he would do it. So I guess if we're to assume that the headshot was the first shot, that was the unexpected shot. She didn't see that one coming and it was more exit. Yeah, her back was to him. They were downstairs for something. I almost think that maybe the second, the floor joy shot without knowing all the details and seeing the trajectory report, the ballistics report, it could be something where he maybe thought at a later time he was going to say there was a, there was a struggle for the gun and around went off into the ceiling. You may have more to this story. That's going to explain that away later, but yeah, then the stomach shot would be,

he might've been trying to figure out the story as he was going because we don't know how cooperative connie was in this situation did she know what was about to happen was she resisting going downstairs did he tell her that there was something down there they need to go look at who knows but it does seem like maybe the the bullet that went up towards the floor of the first floor would maybe something where he's like, I fought for the gun and the gun went off as we're fighting for it. Maybe. I don't know. Are you going to tell us more about that? Because I would love to know what that shot was for.

So, like I said, there's no footage of this trial. So you don't know what arguments were made. You don't know what really was brought up. You just know kind of what the outcome was. And I would be very interested to know what his response was to this, like, because he's insisting till the very end that somebody broke in and did this. He's insisting. So I guess he wouldn't have a response to it. But it just doesn't make sense unless, you know, he has to come up with a story, which is he heard that first shot. He fell to the floor. He heard a second shot. He's terrified. So he's got to have a reason that there's two shots fired. But he didn't say in his story to the police that he heard three shots. Yet there's three shots fired. Now, was this first shot that went in the floor joist? Was that like an accident? Because he's not used to handling a gun and you know there's kickback um and then that kind of causes her to

turn i don't know but i definitely think he lured her down into that basement and when we go over the timeline that i put together in the next episode you're i i think you're gonna see why so i'm starting i'm just going over the script again here as you were reading it and you wrote here a copper bullet was found lodged in the wood of the floor joists above connie's head but connie was on the concrete floor in the basement right so are we just to have a visualization for me and for everybody else who may not know what are you're saying is connie's head's on the floor i'm assuming a concrete basement foundation and if you were to stand over connie and look straight up the bullet that was enlarged in the floor joist above was a

directly above her head is that where is that the visual head as she's lying down or above her head as she would be standing up that's what you want to know exactly yeah that's interesting because it could be to your point saying the handling of the gun did he fire the first round and miss right he he's a distance away. We're saying about 11 feet. He could have missed. He could have missed. And that might explain it as well, because that's why it's like, okay, was it past her

head on an angle into the floor trace? Okay. And they can also tell by Rick's height as well, where that bullet originated, where it hit the floor joist, how tall Connie was. You can kind of visualize that angle. They can use guide rods. They have the system called the kaleidoscope as well they can use. It's like those fluorescent rods they can use to kind of show you visually how the bullets went on their trajectory from the gun to where they ultimately ended up.

And you also said that the stomach wound was back towards the direction of the finished basement. So is that, does that mean the shooter for that shot was at least in the unfinished portion of the basement? So, you know, there's like that corridor between the unfinished portion of the basement and the finished portion. And it kind of seemed like the shooter was standing in the doorway of that corridor. So the doorway that leads to the finished portion. So like he had brought her down and he said, oh, look over by that furnace. I think I see something weird or there's a surprise over there for you. And he stays in the doorway and she walks forward and, you know, probably he needs to build himself up to do it. And then he

fires three shots. Now, how this is happening, I don't know. Did he fire the shot, hitting her in the head, causing her to spin? And then he fires into her stomach. Did he wait till she fell and then fire into her stomach still from the doorway? Because it doesn't seem like he approached and got any closer to the body just to make sure she was dead or to add to this whole intruder theory because an intruder is not just going to shoot you once in the head, they're going to shoot you more than once. I don't know what his reasoning was. I'm going to say probably he didn't have much reasoning and he sort of built his story around what he did after.

So here's my best guess with the limited information we have. When you fire a gun, there's a natural thing called muzzle rise where the power of the gun, if you continue to pull the trigger, your shots tend to go upward. Unless you're anticipating the shot, then they'll go down. But for someone who's not prepared for the blowback, if you fire two shots rapidly, the second shot is usually higher. So just my best guess is that she's walking. He fires the first shot. It does hit her. He fires the second one so quickly that it's right above her head, just misses. And as she spins around, you know, from the blast itself, she may not even be completely coherent at this point.

He realizes the second shot miss and he fires one more, but now he knows how much the muzzle rise was. So he counters that by pointing the gun down further than he usually would, which is why it goes into the stomach and not the chest area, because now he's saying, Oh God, there was a lot of kickback on that. Let me hold the gun down. And he's obviously in a high stress situation. He over, overplays for it. And that's why it's in the stomach. So those, those three shots are very quick in succession. And that's why the first one goes where it intend it's intended. Second one, a little bit above.

And because the second one's above, he overcompensates, like you said, and the third shots in the stomach. That's my guess and i'm not a ballistics expert but just from what we've covered that would be my my estimation on what happened yeah i think that actually makes sense it's probably pretty accurate i mean unless he shot her in the stomach after she fell um which but see that would you would be able to tell more than likely because now the angle he would have to lay on he would have to lay on the ground next to her right so they would be able to tell the way that entry wound goes into her body although there's not an exit wound it is difficult

they can tell to a certain degree what angle that gun was being fired from so if he were if she were already on the ground she goes down quick you get in the head, you're on the ground in seconds. He would literally have to lay next to her or shoot her from above. And even with that, you would be able to tell from the angle in which she's been shot, where that bullet came from. So it's possible again, without me having the crime scene, all the, all the ballistics reports, anything's possible. But it seems more likely that this was a quick thing, three rounds fired in succession. And it's a guy who's not a trained shooter. And the shooting and how erratic the shooting is, is suggestive of someone who's not very comfortable with a firearm, specifically a gun that has this much kickback to it. And it

does. A.357 Magnum has a lot of kickback. Yeah. I think that he definitely wasn't expecting that because it doesn't seem like he was comfortable handling a gun, but it definitely also seems like he purchased these guns specifically because he knew he was going to use them on her eventually, because he said he bought the guns for protection and safety because of all the weird stuff that was happening to their cars, this, this, and that. But he didn't care enough to actually set up the video cameras just enough to buy guns that he probably knew he wasn't going to have to use on anybody else but Connie, because he was the one doing all that weird stuff to their vehicles.

And also, I know we're going really deep into the woods here, but this is the stuff I love. He's talking about approximately 11 feet away from where the gun was fired. That would put the perpetrator probably closer to Rick's location when he came down the stairs than Connie. And yet we're to believe that Jack was downstairs in some type of chase or altercation with Connie at the time when Rick arrived in the basement. No, exactly. The trajectory and the distance away does not line up with that narrative. Jack's too far away from Connie at the time of the shooting. I think that's what they were trying to get across in the police report. You know, they're not going into specifics about this, this or that.

They're just trying to show, listen, Rick said in his story that Jack was like four feet away from Connie, but the person who shot Connie was 11 feet away. So that doesn't add up. Yeah. And they could tell from gun stippling, which would be the burning of the gunpowder that would appear on Connie's skin, how close the offender was when he shot her. 11 feet away, you may not have much at all. And that's how they're able to determine that distance. Well, in the basement, another sentry briefcase style gun safe was found. This one was unlocked. And inside, there were some important financial documents, as well as a Ruger gun lock and the keys to the safe.

Now, the upstairs bedroom, the master bedroom, it was neat and orderly, besides an unmade bed. And the door to the room and the closet inside the room were partially open. On the floor by the nightstand was Connie's purse, which was undisturbed, nothing was missing from it, and inside the nightstand was a set of Sentry and Ruger keys, and in the walk-in closet on the top shelf was the locked Sentry safe with an unloaded silver Ruger GP100.357 Magnum revolver. This was the same closet in which Rick was wrestling with Jack the intruder. He could have easily grabbed this gun, loaded it, and brought it with him when he pursued Jack into the basement. The bag with the ammo in it was right next to the safe. The keys to the safe were in the nightstand. He would have known that.

He didn't do that. He just ran after them unarmed. Additionally, the closet itself was neat and orderly. Not only were there no signs of a struggle between Jack and Rick in the closet, but all the drawers were closed, everything in the drawers were folded, and the drawers that held Connie's jewelry, they were clear see-through. It looks like they were acrylic drawers. Nothing had been touched or was missing. So everything was in its place. Rick claimed when he came to the closet door, Jack was rifling around in the drawers and stealing stuff, but nothing was touched, basically. Yeah, I want to weigh in on that.

I have a couple questions for you. But before we get to that, let's take our last break. We'll be right back. All right, so we're back from break. I wanted just to clarify one thing. You said that Connie's purse was on the floor. Are we to believe this is the purse that Connie was using at the time? I know obviously multiple, you know, many women have multiple purses that they kind of swap out where most of her belongings that she would have had in her possession that day is were they inside that purse but yet from rick's statement connie never came up the stairs he was upstairs wrestling around with jack yelled down to her and said get out of the house but yet somehow her purse was upstairs yeah i mean maybe he'll try to explain that away and say she took her gym bag but i mean

i don't leave the house even if i'm going to the gym without my wallet you know obviously my keys my my gym like membership tag is on my keys things like that you know so and i would never leave the house without my wallet what if i want to grab a coffee on the way home or what if something happens and i get pulled over and i have to show my license what if you get stopped by the police yeah Yeah, exactly. So it's just like, yeah, obviously. And I mean, we know she went to the YMCA for spinning. We know that her spinning class was canceled and she returned home. But clearly, she went upstairs and left her purse or put her purse in her bedroom before going about whatever she was doing that day. And she didn't walk in on some robbery taking place. Right. And it was kind of obvious, but you also laid out the facts as far as

no signs of a robbery, right? Before break, no signs of drawers being robbed. He was found in the closet. Jack was. Well, before they usually go to the closet, they're going to look in the immediate areas. They're trying to get in, get out as fast as they can. They might hit the jackpot right side drawer. They get a bunch of jewelry, things they can pawn, whatever. They're out of there quick. Or a purse. Something, yeah. A purse right there with cash cards, whatever's in it. So yeah, not having any indications or any signs of a robbery, that's obviously a red flag considering your only source at this point, which is Rick, is telling you, I walked in on a robbery. And remember, they said when the police went up there that the door,

like this is something small, but it stuck out to me. The door to the closet was like partially open and the door to the bedroom was partially open. But I mean, if you're running after an intruder, you know, you're going to bust open the door to the closet. You're going to run out. You're going to bust open the door to the room. It's not just going to be like, you know, a normal kind of half open, half closed door. So it doesn't look at all like there was any kind of struggle or, or chase or pressure points being pushed. Nothing. No. And that's the more minimal stuff, right? I mean, you're hitting this, this whole case stinks. It's just like, there's nothing here that's adding up. It's just nothing between the scent dog, the trajectory of the ballistics, the lack of evidence that would suggest there was a robbery with the location of Connie's purse. Just thing after thing after thing.

That's just burying Rick more and more. Rick's wallet, just chilling in the yard with nothing missing out of it. You know? Yeah. Everything. And I didn't even hit, I didn't even hit on Sarah. I didn't even hit on the why yet. We're just going off what we have. I didn't even hit on Sarah. I didn't even hit on the why yet. We're just going off what we have.

I didn't even hit on motive. We're just talking about means, motive, opportunity. We don't even need motive right now. Just means and opportunity. It's all there. Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit about the blood patterns that were found in the basement as well as on the first floor of the house and kind of like what they mean.

So there was a blood trail on the stairs of the basement, which led into the finished area of the basement. But even though this area was like more finished, I guess, you know, there's furniture and stuff, it still had this cement floor. And so there was blood on this floor and there were shoe prints in the blood. And these shoe prints were consistent with the pattern of the bottom of Rick's shoes. So only one set of shoe prints walking around in the blood, and they were Rick's. Now, there was drops of blood that continued to an area behind the couch, and they stopped where a small tool bag belonging to Rick was located. There was drops of blood on the bag, and there was blood smeared on the lock area of the bag.

Now, Rick had claimed that the intruder had been wearing yellow gloves when he'd been walking around this area of the basement and like cutting Rick with the utility knife, but there was blood and a fingerprint found on the Stanley utility knife that Rick claimed Jack the intruder had been slicing him with. And there was a tighter grouping of 90 degree drops of blood that were observed on the cement by the south end of the couch and another grouping of 90-degree blood drops on the cement floor by the yellow torch. Blood was found on the torch as well as trailing from the area of the torch, which was, you know, kind of like in that same couch sofa area, and that blood trailed from the torch to the area of the burned papers. Now,

the other concentrated area of blood was in the corridor between the finished and unfinished portion of the basement, where Rick claimed that he'd been tied to a chair. But there was no void in the drops of blood to indicate the presence of a chair, and no pooling of blood to indicate that Rick was stationary for an extended period of time. So this is what they say in the arrest affidavit that the kind of blood you were seeing was most likely, especially in the areas like by the tool bag and where those like tighter 90 degree angles of dropped blood were, was probably from that cut on his hand, that like cut on his middle finger. It seemed more consistent with that because otherwise he had cuts on like his thighs and like in his armpit area and then

like his head and stuff, but they wouldn't drop and make drops of blood in the way that they were seeing. So they kind of said it's more consistent with the injury on his finger, which he has no idea how he got that injury, which he has no idea how he got that injury, which makes me believe that he probably got that injury when he was slicing himself with the box cutter and he accidentally cut his finger. And then he's walking around, right, to set up like the blowtorch and to set up the burned things. And he's like dropping blood as he's setting this up from his finger. But when you go to the place where he's allegedly tied to the chair, there's no void where the chair was,

meaning there's no empty space that has no blood in it where that chair was sitting. It's just like blood. There's no place where the chair could have been. And there's not drops of blood to the point where it would seem like Rick had been there

for an extended period of time, dropping blood in that kind of pattern. It was just kind of like scattered. Yeah, I think you explained that perfectly. No reason for me to echo it. It's low velocity blood spatter. So it's droplets of blood that are not interfered with before hitting the ground. And so it would be from a part of the body that like a hand or I guess an elbow or something that would be unobstructed by the floor. So you'd have that straight downward angle. That's right. That's right. And it didn't, from what you had said earlier, it didn't even seem like Rick knew he

was cut on his finger, maybe adrenaline. So he was dropping blood around the basement, not probably even knowing he was doing so. And I'll go a step further to kind of elaborate on what you're saying that I can guarantee you, you're probably going to tell us they tested all that blood that was found on the tool bag that was found in the void that was found on the wall. And it probably all came back to Rick. And what does that tell us? Well, allegedly the offender went over to the tool bag and grabbed the razors and all these things. And yet the only blood that you have on any of these items belongs to Rick. And it kind of, from a visual perspective can show you a pattern of how he walked around the basement and where he stopped for extended periods of time that's why when you say

concentrated spots of blood that indicates that he stood there for a couple seconds he was doing something doesn't sound like a sign of struggle so that's the problem you have and again on top of that i didn't even hit on the fact that the only footprint in connie's blood was his again a sign of struggle where they're fighting and pressure points where he's. I don't even think that's Connie's blood that they're talking about. That's his own damn blood that he's walking around in. I think you're right. He didn't know he was bleeding like that.

He didn't know he was leaving trails of blood because he didn't know he cut himself. Very possible. But with a head wound, I would think there'd be a massive pool of blood. But it's in a different area of the basement. Connie's in the unfinished portion. All of these blood trails and stuff are in the finished portion where allegedly Rick was tied to the chair. Yeah. And so you have that problem, right?

You have this path, basically breadcrumbs, if you will, showing you all the locations where Rick went because he could say whatever he wants, but there's no blood from anyone else. And he can't explain away the fact that the tool that was supposedly used to hurt him, to cut him, only has one droplet of blood on it and a fingerprint i don't know if it was a smudge print but take away the fact whether they could process that print or not the blood itself when they swab it and test it i'm pretty sure it's going to probably come back we are going to talk about that but i also i bet we are i also want to mention like if rick crawled up the stairs to the basement when he was like tied to the chair how the hell did his footprints get all up in the blood if he's not walking you know how did that happen cuz allegedly yeah the blood's not gonna be there until you've already been tied to the chair and sliced with the box cutter or else why is the blood there so after the bloods there you

walked around bitch you walked around after the blood was there your footprints are all over the place no one else's footprints I think you're right he did not know he was bleeding I don't think he knew he left all that stuff there cuz remember the basements dark right. He did not know he was bleeding. I don't think he knew he left all that stuff there. Cause remember the basement's dark, right? Even though you think if he's setting this up, he's probably got the lights on, but he probably, I don't know, man. I don't know. But think about it. We've all done it, right? You cut yourself on a razor blade or something sharp. Unless you know that you cut yourself or you're like, oh shit, I just cut myself. You don't feel pain right away. You really don't. You see it and you're like, oh shit, I just cut myself. You don't feel pain right away. You really don't. You see it and you're like, oh, that's going to be bad. And then it starts bleeding. Now,

pretend that you're in one of the most traumatic things that you can experience. What just took place? Think about the adrenaline pumping through your body. You wouldn't even know that you were cut unless you saw yourself do it to your finger. So yeah, completely plausible that he's walking around and maybe's walking around and maybe not walking around slowly, but running around to different things and trying to set up as fast as he can. Cause he doesn't know if someone heard the gunshots or not. And now he doesn't realize he's bleeding all over the place. And I'm sure he didn't maybe do a double check to make sure like, Hey, is there blood anywhere? I don't want it to be. Cause he probably would

have tried to clean it up, which would have only made it worse for him. Because why would the offender who's trying to get out of the house as fast as possible clean up blood? So here's another thing too. And like I said, we're going to talk about this next episode because I want to see if you're kind of on the same page with me and if you guys are on the same page. But I almost think he set all of this stuff up before he lured her down there because we'll get into it but that basement door because they got the security system right so it shows you every time the basement door opens on the security system all damn morning that basement door was opening and closing opening and closing he must have gone to that basement 15 times before 9 a.m so I have a feeling he was down there setting all of this up before

he shot her because yeah he'd be worried after he shot her that somebody would hear something and he'd have to like tie himself to the chair afterwards but like we're gonna go over it but he definitely it don't it doesn't make any sense and if he realized he caught himself by that point he's probably like, oh, I caught myself. What am I supposed to do? You know, I can't start cleaning this up. That'll look weird. This cutting myself and my blood being down here just actually goes along with, you know, my story that I'm eventually going to tell. So it doesn't matter. But he doesn't also realize that that blood's telling a story. To him, it helps his story. To, you know, reality, it completely takes away any credibility to a story because of, you know, reality. It completely takes away any credibility to a story

because of, you know, what the blood is telling people who know how to read blood. Yeah. It's a really simple, that's not a hard one for people who that's what their expertise is. And it does seem like maybe he knows she's going to the gym, whether he knows it's open or not. He is up and down the stairs in the basement while she's gone while she's there too well i mean he could have done it a couple times too because we're gonna have the time stamps right so he's setting it up in the morning setting up while she's gone then he leaves in his car he comes back yeah there's definitely pre i don't think this was a i i mean if anyone doesn't believe it at this point this wasn't some crime of passion which we said again

in the first episode where you do have cases like that this wasn't something where it happened in the spur of the moment and then he had to kind of build a narrative afterwards there's definitely premeditation here just based on what we're seeing but also as we're starting to dive into the why the motive where you realize he would have an incentive um for for his his wife to be dead there's a reason why he would need this uh he wants to be with this other woman, financial reasons, et cetera. So now we're getting into the why, and we also already have clear indications of premeditation, which, you know, first degree murder all day long. Well, get this. This is my favorite part of the police report. So the blood trail led upstairs

from the basement into the wood floor in front of the basement door. But at the transition between the wood floor and the tiled floor of the kitchen, the drops of blood turned into long smears of blood with patterns of linear striations and rubs, which were indicative of the clothing that Rick was wearing. The drops on the wood floor turned into smears on the kitchen floor. And this showed that Rick was walking when he left the basement and he was dripping small amounts of blood as he exited the basement. But for some reason, he fell to the floor and dragged himself and his legs across the kitchen floor. And Detective Jeffrey Payette in the arrest affidavit, he writes,

quote, Although it appears that debate was able to walk from the basement, up the stairs, and down the hall towards the kitchen, he was not able to continue walking approximately six feet to the kitchen counter where he stated he had left his cellular phone, end quote. So basically, dude's walking out of the basement and he's like, oh, I have to, you know, be on the kitchen floor tied to this chair. So he walks into the kitchen, just drops to the floor and drags himself over just to make it look better. And as you said, when we started, the detectives are not going to say what they think. They're just going to tell you the facts and let you put it together. And it's almost better. We're not going to say what we think happened.

All we're going to tell you is that it was droplets all the way up and then it's smeared across the floor. What does that tell any reasonable person? For some reason, he just couldn't make it into the kitchen. That's it. That's it. They're not going to lead you. Just let reasonable, intelligent people deduce their own thoughts on what happened. And most people are going to come to the same conclusion.

Well, now we're going to get into like this whole section, which is complicated to me. And hopefully you can help me out because I don't understand. I've never heard anything like this be so clear cut and yet so confusing and sort of like obtuse at the same time. So the murder weapon from the basement floor had no fingerprints on it. But Rick's DNA was found when the handle grip was swabbed. However, swabbing of the handle also showed an unknown DNA profile, which they submitted into the Connecticut CODIS database, but it wasn't sufficient to enter into the national CODIS database. Now, according to the forensic lab, this mixture included the DNA profile of at least two people with the possibility of a third person's profile. Additionally, Connie's DNA could not be

eliminated from the mixture found on the cylinder latch release of the firearm, and her DNA profile was found on the barrel of the firearm. Detectives got a DNA sample from the salesperson who had sold Rick the weapon, and the salesperson DNA was ruled out as being part of the mixture. The box of Winchester 38 special ammunition also had a DNA mixture on the box and on the base of the ammo. Rick DeBate's DNA was included in that mixture, but the mixture once again included profiles from at least three people. Now, gunshot residue evidence was collected from the hands of Rick and Connie, and the exam concluded that elements of lead, barium, and antimony were found on both of Connie's hands, but the examination of Rick's hands

failed to reveal any of these substances. However, Rick's shirt revealed the presence of lead and barium, but not antimony. So this is confusing because the affidavit does note that the GSR collection was done while Rick was at the hospital and after he'd received treatment for his wounds. So they didn't know if like his hands had been cleaned or wiped by the ER staff or if he had cleaned his hands himself, like washed his hands, I'm sure he did. But it's odd that these elements, these metallic elements, lead, barium, antimony, they're found in gunshot residue. And that was found on Connie's hands, but not Rick's hands. What's up with that? That is interesting. When you said that my eyebrows went up, I can

give an explanation as to why I think there's a mixture of DNA on the gun and the ammunition itself. There's manufacturers that are making these guns. They always have to test fire the guns before sending them out from the manufacturer. Same thing with the bullets. They can be hand pressed, but also they still may be loaded into the cases that they come in by hand by a human being. But gunshot residue to both of Connie's hands. Here's the only explanation I have. She gets shot in the back of the head. She spins around, her hands go up, a natural human reaction to try to block whatever's going to hurt you. And because of the distance, the proximity of the

firearm and it being a 357 Magnum revolver, there's gunshot residue going everywhere. And because her hands are up there and because of the direction she's in, I guess it would explain maybe the gunshot powder reaching her hand area as she's blocking herself. Maybe that's a great one. I I'm, I'm a little stumped on it that's the only explanation i can come with but we're saying that they're 11 feet away that still seems like a pretty long distance i guess i would have to know the concentration the amount of gsr on her hands at the time was it in line with someone who just shot a gun or was it minimal amounts i think that would be my next question say but yeah you know, but. Yeah, you know what I mean?

How that could make a difference? If it's a prominent concentrated amount on both hands, well, you know, it could be that she fired the gun, which we don't believe is the case. But if it's a minimal amount, it could just be because she's in the proximity, just like Rick's shirt. So yeah, he cleaned his hands, but he didn't clean his shirt. He didn't change his shirt. So again, the gunpowder is not just falling onto the hand.

It's going in the air. It's almost like you would see if you've ever fired a gun or in a movie where there's a smoke cloud, it's everywhere. It's on the table. It's on your shirt. It's in your face. It's everywhere. So it could, because of a basement being so small and confined, the gunshot residue is

in the air and it gets on her hands uh she's trying to protect herself maybe possible i was even thinking maybe when the shot to the stomach because that's kind of at hand level you know like maybe the it came from there and that would that would make sense but there's no universe where i believe she had that gun in her hands and she shot it yeah but i'm glad you glad you brought up this DNA or lack of DNA on the gun itself, because everyone's like, oh my God, no DNA on the gun. Yes, you would expect to find it. But when you don't, it doesn't automatically rule out the possibility that they were holding it. I think some people, there's other cases that I've worked where there was a lack of DNA on an item

and some of them are public. Some of them I covered on television and it's like, oh, people, there's other cases that I've worked where there was a lack of DNA on an item and some of them are public. Some of them I covered on television and it's like, oh, no DNA. How could it be? It has to be. You can wipe away DNA or you could have a situation where because of the surface of the item, it's not left. I'm not a DNA expert, but it does happen. So when I hear like, oh, no DNA on the gun from Rick. No, no. Rick's DNA was found on the gun, but it was mixed in with at least three other people's DNA. And they said they couldn't rule out that Connie's DNA was found on, I believe they

said, the barrel of the firearm. Connie's DNA could not be eliminated from the mixture found on the cylinder latch release of the firearm. And her DNA profile was found on the barrel of the firearm. And Rick's DNA was found on the gun, but it was part of this weird mixture that they, I guess, put into Connecticut CODIS, but they couldn't put it into the national CODIS database. So what wasn't found? His DNA was found. Did you say no fingerprints were found? No fingerprints. Yeah, no fingerprints were found. Okay. I apologize. So it was no fingerprints. Same thing. Yeah. His DNA is on the gun and yet we

don't have a fingerprint. Some people would say, oh, you know, the, no way it's him then. It's not, it's not like the movie. Sometimes the way they hold it, the amount of oil on their fingers at the time when they do it, the surface in which they're touching, you may not get that fingerprint. It's just the way it goes. But it is interesting what you just said that kind of came from this question, which was Connie's DNA was found on the barrel of the gun, you're saying? The barrel and it couldn't be rolled out from the cylinder latch release the cylinder cylinder latch release so i'm a little could could there have been a struggle could there have been a struggle where okay i'm under the impression she didn't know this

was going to happen but is there a world we have to explore it right is there a world where this wasn't a surprise and he directed her down to the basement at gunpoint? I'm just saying, could she have, you know, put the hand on the gun? No, don't do this. You know, I mean, have they ruled But I know if my wife said to me like, hey, I want you to go to the basement and look at this. I'd probably go. But if it doesn't fit with what we're talking about, I may be a little like weirded out by it. But there's also a possibility that he already had the gun out and said, get down to the basement. That'd be pretty messed up, man. That'd be pretty messed up. Would it be the worst thing we've ever heard?

No, but I mean, you're assuming like because she's 11 feet away from him when he shoots, he would have had to tell her like, turn around, keep walking with the gun. Like basically like execution style. That's pretty, that's pretty like. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. And it would explain why her DNA is on the barrel and possibly the cylinder. Cause she's grabbing for it and yet not holding it. You told me firsthand, Connie didn't like guns. So why would she, if she ever grabbed the gun, why would she hold it like this? Why?

And you guys can't see it on audio, but why would she hold the gun by the barrel? So it's something to think about. You do see that sometimes. And that would explain GSR, right? If maybe if we're maybe if one of these rounds maybe the first round okay we're given all these different suspicions was the first round fired where she grabs the gun and it goes up over her head that's the gsr on her hands and then he directs her gets her away from the gun and directs her to keep walking after the first round and that's when

he fires two more that's possible too maybe that's why there's a misfire from so close of a proximity maybe connie put up a fight yeah and he just shot that off to like scare her and say keep walking like keep doing what i what i'm telling you to do i'm not even saying that what if she's facing him and he goes to fire the first round and she's like grabbing the gun and that's why it goes over her head. He gets her away and then tells her, keep walking. That's, and that's, that would explain the GSR in her hands and her DNA on the barrel. Wow.

Could have been a small fight over the gun. That's pretty. I'm just thinking, listen, take what we're saying with a grain of salt here, but these are puzzle pieces that we have on a table and we're talking about them and there's something unexplained for us How does it how does he miss her from that close and it go into the floor joist above Connie's head? Connie wasn't six feet tall. So it's a pretty big miss to go above her head How does she have gsr on her hands? How does she have dna on the barrel of the gun possibly on the cylinder?

well GSr would be her hands were in close proximity to the gun. DNA on the barrel would suggest her hands were in close proximity to the gun. And if we're to think that he had her down at gunpoint and she maybe made an attempt to get the gun away from him, causing a misfire bullet into the ceiling, that would, if we knew that for sure, if we had a camera down there, those three elements that we can't explain would be explained by that scenario now, wouldn't they? Yes. So it's something to think about.

Well, I was almost wondering, did he set it up that way? Did he ever ask her to hold the gun so her DNA would be on it or something like that? Because Connie's DNA was also found on the sentry safe in the basement, the one where the gun was stored in, and her DNA was on all areas of the safe, while Rick's DNA was found on the left and right side of the safe and the top half of the gray surface and the interior top and bottom edges, whereas Connie's fingerprints were all over that thing, like on the lock, everything. There was also a mixture of DNA profiles found on the safe lock, and this mixture was submitted to the Connecticut CODIS database, but not the national database. No DNA profiles were found on the keys to the safe or the key to the handgun lock, and no identifiable fingerprints were found on either the safe or the keys. This is strange to me because there's DNA all over everything, but there's no fingerprints

on anything. Yeah, that's that. And I'm so glad, not glad for the case, but welcome to the world of law enforcement, the world of investigations where you would expect things to be in certain places and they're not. And then it's your task to explain that to a jury or to explain that to a judge because everyone's programmed by TV and movies where it's like, oh, if they grab the gun, got to be a fingerprint, right?

That's a- The safe, like the safe. You got to touch the safe to get the gun. There's DNA all over the safe, which means your hand probably touched it because that's how you leave DNA unless you're spitting on it. So where's the fingerprints? So depending on the item, depending on the surface, so DNA, microscopic, right? Skin cells left on the case.

That's all you need. But when you have fingerprints, we talked about this before, where it's the oils that collect on the ridges of your fingerprint ridges. So when you touch a surface, that oil is transmitted onto the surface. And if you just dab your fingers down without sliding them, they basically transfer onto that object or onto that surface without being disturbed, leaving a copy or a picture of your fingerprint. Well, if you have an item that's porous or that doesn't attract the oils from your fingers, as well as something like a piece of glass or

something like that, it may not transfer over. And then you also have situations where you could have a potential fingerprint on there, but if there's a smearing or a rubbing, then they're just saying there was no fingerprints found. They're not saying there wasn't evidence of some type of grabbing of the case, just no identifiable prints. So a lot of reasons why there may not have been fingerprints that were identifiable based on how many points you need. I believe it's, I don't even want to say, I believe it's like 11 or 16, or it's even increased over time, how many points you need to confirm it's someone's print. But that's why DNA is so important now, because as we progress more and more, prints are very hard to come by where DNA is more easily readily available in a case like this, because all you got to do is touch it essentially, and you usually have something.

Well, the basement window had Rick's DNA on the exterior frame, as well as the two window latches, which are found on the floor. But once again, the latches contained a mixture of DNA profiles with Rick's and another one, which was insufficient for a national CODIS database. No prints were found on the window or window latches. The Stanley utility knife had a fingerprint in blood on it. Rick's DNA was on the knife, but the fingerprint had no identifiable impressions for comparison. They could see the ridges of a fingerprint, but they just couldn't grab it to compare it to anybody's fingerprint. The only other thing I'll throw out there, and I don't know why he would do this, you talk about all this DNA, but no fingerprints. There's a world where Rick has a pair of gloves,

something where he's holding the gloves in his bare hands, right? Like he's holding the fingertips of the gloves in his hands. So now his DNA is on the gloves and then he throws the gloves on to tamper with the windows. And now there's this transfer of DNA from the gloves themselves to the window, to the toolbox, to wherever you want to go to the safe and yet no actual fingerprints because he's wearing gloves that is very possible too that trace evidence could have transferred it's just so odd because he's so careless with everything else you know he's telling the stupidest stories and then here it's like mingya he's like you know a master criminal there's no fingerprints

to be found and it just doesn't coincide it's not it's like it's not the same person you know like he's such a bad criminal he's so you know not great with the planning and then over here i mean maybe he thought fingerprints are a big deal but i would think that'd be the least big deal because that's your house dude it's normal for your fingerprints to be there like you would expect to see his fingerprints all over that place it's where he lives yeah yeah you would he he did some things right i guess he tried to but it's it could be as simple as i'm gonna wear gloves but as he's saying he's holding the gloves in his hands with his bare hands like won't get any dna anywhere on on this stuff superman would be proud yeah no superman does not condone rick we don't own rick okay he's not part of our he's not part of it we do we don't we don't

claim part of the s on your chest crew no nope by the way i did i say it in the beginning i can't remember did i say i was wearing the superman shirt okay just making sure making sure it's been a while with two hours in at this point he's got it on guys i can confirm we're still waiting to see those pajama pants though ten thousand the police they obviously like you said located and questioned rick debate's girlfriend sarah on december 23rd so literally the same day like you said they were probably sent other officers to interview her while they were still talking to Rick. Oh, yeah. They were right. They were on that phone within seconds.

Guaranteed. Yep. And Sarah said that this divorce would be mutual since she was under the impression that neither Rick nor Connie was happy in the marriage. In May of 2015, Sarah became pregnant with Rick's child, and she said it was unexpected, and she had never discussed having a child with Rick and his wife Connie. Sarah claimed she told Rick about the baby on June 18, 2015, and Rick was surprised, but he accepted it and understood the situation was going to be messy because he was married.

Sarah said that in August of 2015, Rick had met with a divorce lawyer, and over the next few months, Sarah would ask Rick about the divorce and, you know, how it was going, when it was happening. She didn't want it to happen too close to Christmas or to the birth of their child in February. Sarah knew that Rick and Connie had gone to Vermont the weekend before Connie's murder, but she had been told that they were there to discuss the divorce and what was going to happen with the kids over the Christmas holidays. As far as Sarah knew, Connie did not know that she was pregnant, and Rick was not planning to tell her until after Christmas. The last time Sarah heard from Rick was on the evening before the murder when he had sent her a text saying, quote,

I'll see you tomorrow, my little love nugget, end quote. On Christmas Eve, Hubert Santos, a lawyer representing Rick DeBate, contacted the police, informing them that he didn't want his client to conduct any more interviews with law enforcement until he'd had a chance to talk to him. And shortly after, Santos contacted state attorney Matthew Gdansky and let him know that no contact or interviews would be allowed with Rick. Too little, too late, if you ask me, because the damage has been done, Santos. You should have gotten to your you should have gotten to your boy a little sooner yeah and so here we are right a woman another woman seven months pregnant at the time of the murder talk about motive he's got this pressure coming from sarah to divorce connie he's yet to even tell connie what's going on so he's making

a choice and he's too much of a coward to do it the right way. So he's got to find a way to end the marriage with Connie, but also there's probably part of him that's thinking from a financial perspective, he'd like to, if there's an insurance claim or something, I don't know if they had life insurance. I'm sure we're going to find that out. There's a lot of financial incentives to have it. So they're not divorced, but more so Connie's no longer around. And then anything they have, any assets, any property, any money that they have saved, it would all go to Rick, who we know is not a saver, is not somebody who's good with money, is not the breadwinner in the family. So even more incentive for Connie no longer to be in

the picture. Yeah. And then Rick doesn't look like a dick who got another woman pregnant while he was married he looks like a widower a victim who sought solace and you know another relationship i don't know how he's going to explain the fact that he had a child yeah she exactly but exactly he didn't think this one out this is kind of he's playing it out but yeah he's going to have a woman who's having a a baby two months after his wife was murdered. He'll probably tell people like, oh, that's not my baby. She got left by some scumbag man and I'm just going to be the good guy and like take her in because I love her and I'm going to raise that kid like my own. You know, he'd come up with some stupid story that ends up with him looking like a hero

and everybody else looking like people he's got to save, you know, like Superman. Yeah, you're right. He ain't superman stop slandering superman okay don't compare rick and superman anymore there's a lot of things i'll stand i'll stand for but that's not one of them he's more like homelander okay he is more like homelander homelander it's a great show by the way the boys if you haven't checked it out amazon it's a great show so rick debate he was not immediately arrested and right from the beginning the family of connie felt that there was something off about him and the way he was like acting apparently rick had spent christmas day with some of connie's family members and one family member said that when he saw rick that day rick offered no explanation of what had happened

to connie The same family member said that he continued to see Rick throughout the planning of Connie's funeral, and Rick still never talked about what happened, but Rick did say he was calling the police and trying to get information, but they weren't giving him any information. Now, according to the police during this time, Rick had not called them at all looking for information. Connie's family members also said that Connie would absolutely not be okay with her husband having a baby with someone else, and they believed that Connie would have flipped out if she'd found out Rick was having an affair. This person was not aware of any pending divorce or any relationship issues between Connie and Rick.

Another family member had spoken to Connie on the phone briefly the day she died, and this person also saw Rick on Christmas. It was actually her house that the family was gathered at. Rick showed up with his father, and the first words out of his mouth were, quote, it wasn't me, end quote. This person felt that Rick's statement was unusual, and it was also unusual that he didn't say anything such as, I miss her or I loved her. Another family member who saw Rick that day claimed that Rick was having a hard time walking and he kept spitting up like he was sick to his stomach and he said, quote, I didn't do

this. Someone else was in the house. They told me I need a lawyer, end quote. Rick also told the gathered family that all he could remember about Connie's attacker was that he'd had a deep voice and Rick said he believed that Connie had been trying to save him when she ran into the basement for the gun. Connie's family member basically said this was ridiculous and that Connie had worked on an ambulance when she was younger, and Connie's first reaction in that situation would have been to call 911. This family member claimed that she was Connie's best friend, and if Connie had known Rick was having an affair, she would have been to call 911. This family member claimed that she was Connie's best friend, and if Connie had known Rick was having an affair, she would have told her about it.

She also knew that Rick had purchased guns for protection, but Connie didn't like or want them in the house. Additionally, Connie had no medical issues that would have prevented her from having more babies. She probably would have wanted to have another child, and it was Rick who was more of the person who wouldn't have wanted more kids. Another member of Connie's family told police that they didn't know Rick was having an affair, but they all knew that he had a long-time friendship with Sarah, and Connie had been uncomfortable with the close friendship in the past. But Connie's mother did have an eerie conversation with her daughter just hours before Connie was shot to death in her basement. His mother-in-law shared details of a chilling phone conversation with her daughter the morning of her murder.

The first thing she said on the phone was, Mom, I love you. You're my best friend. And I didn't know what's going on. I said, I love you, too. And you're a good friend of mine. But there was more. I just want to let you know. Rick is a mess today. And I just wish I had said. Well, if he's such a mess, why don't you come to my house?

We'll have breakfast. Rick and Connie debates now. Teenage sons live with an aunt who told the court that at one point one of the sons asked her to text his mother in heaven. On January 3rd, 2016, Rick DeBate made a post on Facebook where he spoke from the heart. He said, quote, As most of you know by now, Connie has been taken from us far too early. The volume of loving friends, family, and acquaintances who we saw at services is a testament at how much she touched the lives of others. Many questions unanswered, but we are all doing our best to move forward as impossible as it seems. We try to stay strong for

the boys. RJ and Connor need me now more than ever. Both my family and Connie's have been so incredibly helpful and loving to those boys. Our friends and neighbors have also been showing an amazing amount of support. To all of you, I say thank you, and Connie thanks you. She was also much better than I about communication on social media. While I reserved it for irrelevant current event talks, jokes, geek rants, etc., she used it in a more meaningful way. Although we all know she was pretty solid in the jokes department. It's going to take me some time to get a rhythm here on Facebook, but I'm going to use it how Connie used the Caring for Connor page. Not only did she post important information about

Connor's medical journey, but it was therapeutic for her. Many times as she shared items, she helped someone else or someone helped us. I'm going to turn to my Facebook family quite a bit, end quote. So this is disgusting. I hate this. I hate this. Like, why can't these murdering husbands just shut up? Why do they have to go on Facebook and post these things like, Connie thanks you. Like, you killed her. You killed her. And it's just disgusting. Why can't they just be quiet? Why?

Well, what is he trying? It's not for Connie. It's for him. He's trying to appear as this loving husband who's going to carry on the legacy of his wife, who was murdered by a masked intruder. And although he doesn't want to be on Facebook. He's doing it for Connie. And so he's trying to gain sympathy. He's trying to garner sympathy from the people around him. So that as the law enforcement.

The big bad police department starts to come after him. And the narrative starts to change. They remember that. Rick was this loving husband. Who was always there for his wife. And even though it was killing him to do so. He was on Facebook. Carrying on what she would have wanted. Yeah but he must know. He must though it was killing him to do so, he was on Facebook carrying on what she would have wanted. Yeah, but he must know. He must know the shit's going

to hit the fan. He knows the police suspect him. He knows he's going to get arrested. He knows he's going to get dragged into a trial. This kind of Facebook post to me, it adds insult to injury. If I'm a jury member now, I'm like, not only did you kill your wife, but you had the audacity to post about it on Facebook. You were sad and thanking people for her. For me, it doesn't play well. So you're not doing much. Well, you have common sense. Rick doesn't. Clearly. That's the difference. So I'm not saying it works, but I'm saying in his mind, he's looking at it like, I got to get in front of this. I got to try to come off as the sympathetic one here. I got to be the person that people feel bad for. He's the one who cut himself and laid on a floor in his own

blood to try to make himself look like a victim. So it's one of those things where is anything a surprise at this point? I don't think so. I mean, he was a victim when he got some other woman pregnant and his wife forced him to sleep with this woman and get her pregnant because Connie wanted a baby. He was just stuck in the middle of this. Yeah. Tough life. Well, it was true that Rick had an inconsistent story, but everything happened so fast. You know, he may have been in shock. He may have been giving inaccurate details without even realizing it. We can't judge people when they're in these terribly stressful situations. You know, it's hard to remember what's happening. And yes, Rick did have a secret girlfriend who was pregnant, but was that enough of a motive to kill his wife, the mother of his children? Wouldn't it have been easier for everyone

if Rick and Connie just got divorced? If Rick DeBate was responsible for the murder of his wife, the investigators were going to have to find a stronger motive that would hold water in front of a jury. And they would do that. While everyone in Ellington locked their doors, worried there was a crazed masked intruder armed with a pocket knife and precision pressure point knowledge on the loose, the police quietly went about building a bulletproof case against direct debate.

And that's where we'll pick up in the next and final episode of this case. Yeah, and I think it's necessary. We covered a lot of specific things. I know you sent me the affid final episode of this case. Yeah. And I think it's necessary. We covered a lot of specific things. I know you sent me the affidavit before this. 50 pages. And it's available online if people want to go check it out. There's a lot of detail in there.

Goes into probably, if this is possible, even more detail than what Stephanie laid out to you. If she had covered every page of the affidavit, it would be a six-hour show. So if you want to go check that out, you can. And if you've never checked out a police affidavit before i encourage you to do so it's pretty interesting stuff but really sad case i think my big takeaway after two parts is the thought in my head as as bad as this sounds i almost hope that connie didn't see it coming you know it was it was over before she knew it and to think that she could have been possibly walking down to the basement knowing what's about to happen that's really tough tough to a pill to

swallow so i hope that's not the case but i am very perplexed by the the two things of the gsr on her hands when we're to believe that the shooter was possibly 11 feet away. And then also the DNA on the barrel for a woman who doesn't like guns. If she were ever to grab that gun, she's not going to grab it by the barrel because essentially she'd be pointing the muzzle of the gun at her face. That just makes no sense. I don't even do that. I mean, I would never do that. Even an unloaded gun when you're cleaning it, you never point the barrel at your face. She could have grabbed it from the side, I guess, but it's just like, it's not a common position that you would grab a gun. And so the fact that they're saying definitely on the barrel, maybe on the cylinder, that

it means there wasn't as much DNA on the cylinder, if any at all. And that would suggest a grip of holding the barrel and maybe a finger swiping along the cylinder of the gun. So I really don't know how that happens without her trying to maybe push the gun away from her. I mean, could he have rubbed the gun on her hand after she was dead? Of course. And when you said that in the narrative earlier in the episode, I didn't want to cut you off because you were in a groove, but it's possible too that he had her touching things leading up to this on purpose, Right. So that could be a

simple explanation. And frankly, I hope that's the truth where knowing what was about to happen. Hey, look at the gun. Come on. I know you don't like it. No, Rick, I don't want to hold it. She's like pushing the gun away and Hey, could you go put this gun safe downstairs for me or whatever? Could you move that? Could be a very simple explanation. I'm just gone. I'm getting rid of it. I want you to help me get rid of it. Like, let's go down and get it together. You know, we'll get it out of the house, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, hey, can you hold this? Hey, can you grab this? Yeah, that might have happened. I hope that's what happened and it wasn't a struggle. Yeah. You and I are on the same page. I hope to God that's what happened. I really don't

like the idea of thinking about it, especially for her, for her family. And, you know, we do have to consider that they are seeing this or listening to this. This is speculative on our part. We're going to see as we go into part three, how this kind of all weighs out. But the reality is, although the Connecticut police did a great job, the state police did a phenomenal job putting this together, there are elements of this case that no one will ever know because there were only two people present during that time and the truth will die with both of them more than likely and i mean even if he gave a full confession right we still can't trust what he says even if he was like yeah i did it and this is why and this is how we still can't trust that 100 percent of course of course

of course so we unfortunately as hard as is for for the human being to not have all those answers, we're all the same. We all want that resolution. You're probably not going to get it. And so all we can do is take what we have and put it together the best way we can. But we're definitely thinking about Connie's family, her children, everyone around her. We know this is something that recently came to a head as far as the court decision, but it's never going to get easier for them.

And, you know, people do correct me sometimes when I use the word closure because there's never closure for them. So all they get is a little bit of resolution in the hope that the person responsible for their daughter's death or their mother's death is behind bars for the rest of their lives. I just think how these two little boys, man, they're going into Christmas. It's supposed to be the best time of the year for these kids. And then within a split second, they lose their mother and their father. They don't have either of them. And they have that knowledge, most likely not then, but as they got older, because this happened in 2015, that it was their father who took their mother from them the day before Christmas Eve. And that's what Christmas will be for them now forever. And I think that Rick debate didn't give a shit about his wife. Definitely. He didn't give a shit about his kids either, because if he had, he would never have done that just simply for their sakes. So screw him.

Well said. Well said. It was a long one tonight. We went into a lot of details. We do this, but we went to a lot of the the the actual DNA and all that stuff. The ballistics. You said it was a long one tonight. We went into a lot of details. We do this, but we went to a lot of the actual DNA and all that stuff, the ballistics. You said it. You promised it at the beginning. We really did go there. We really went through this episode, DNA, fingerprints, ballistics, GSR. We went into all of it. So if you're into that stuff like I am, then you got a lot out of this

episode. I'm glad we covered it. We appreciate you guys being with us all episode. We will see you next week. Bye.