Crime Weekly - S3 Ep229: Dr. Thomas Kolman: A Dirty, Stupid Game (Part 3)

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

On the morning of November 29, 2011, 44-year-old Dr. Thomas Kolman didn’t make it to work at his regular time, so his wife, Linda, went looking for him. She eventually found him reclined in his car, unresponsive, in the parking lot of Planet Fitness in Ulster, New York. After Tom was pronounced dead, an investigation into his death began and detectives soon uncovered an illicit affair and received a toxicology report that hinted at foul play. And as the case continued to unfold, the shocking reality of what happened to Dr. Thomas Kolman began to emerge. 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 ADS: 1. Prose.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 50% off your first subscription order and a FREE in-depth hair consultation! 2. MintMobile.com/CrimeWeekly - Get a 3-month premium plan for just $15 a month! 3. LaundrySauce.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY for 15% off!

Running a business can be exhausting. Building your website shouldn't be. With Wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI, from site creation to branded content and images. Have fun with the details, customize what you want the way you want, and manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard

with expert AI tools. Build, scale, and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on Wix. Running a business is hard work. Building your website shouldn't be. With Wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI, from site creation to branded content and images.

Have fun with the details. Customize what you want the way you want. And manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale, and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on Wix. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into the third and final part of the Dr. Thomas Coleman series.

And I will give you a little recap. When detectives investigated the alleged murder of Dr. Thomas Coleman, they focused on his best friend, Dr. Gil Nunez. Gil was a perfect suspect. He was having an affair with Tom's wife. He drove a vehicle similar to the one seen near the crime scene, and he had access to midazolam, the drug found in Thomas' system. Despite these red flags, detectives initially lacked enough evidence to arrest Gill for murder, but as they continued to dig, they uncovered other crimes committed by Gill, including perjury and fraud. After being charged with those crimes, detectives made a final push to gather enough evidence for the murder charge. Their efforts paid off, and in October of 2015, Gil was arrested for murder and possession of a fake CIA ID and a letterhead.

He was then released on a $1 million bond while awaiting trial. And he went back to his dental practice and kept, you know, doing stuff on people's teeth and acting like he wasn't basically being charged with murder. Yeah. I don't know where this one's going to go. I feel like I said it last week where my gut tells me that Gil is responsible, but I feel like the case has so many holes in it that I don't see a world where he's convicted. So I'm interested to see how this one plays out or if the CIA is going to step in and, you know, pull rank here and get their agent off the fire. You know, maybe he is a CIA agent.

Maybe they're just denying it now. Maybe that's why he was not, he didn't seem stressed about being on trial for murder. Yeah, he knew that they were going to swoop in and save him. So I feel like we know who did it, but also we don't have enough to prove it. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to wrapping this one up. Well, on May 25th, 2016, opening statements in Gill's trial for murder and possessing a fake CIA identification and letterhead began.

The prosecution started out by telling the jury that they, along with detectives, had conducted an in-depth investigation into Tom's death. They said that while their case was technically circumstantial, all the evidence put together proved Gil's guilt. So basically right off the bat, they're like, yeah, it's a circumstantial case. Yeah. Which is not the worst thing in the world. It's an interesting sort of approach. Yeah. But I like it.

I like just being transparent and saying, hey, listen, we know what we have here. It's circumstantial. We know it's not much. But we feel that in totality, it's enough. And I think some may argue that approaching it head on and not trying to tell me it's, you know, piss on me and tell me it's rain, you know, type approach where they're just being like, hey, this is what we got. It could work. It may not. We'll see how this pans out. We'll see if it works. Might be effective. Okay. So they said Gil was the only person with the character, motive, means, and method to murder Tom. So you've got your motive, means, method kind of where you're always going with it. I kind of like that. Motive, means, and method over means and opportunity. They also added character though, which I think they're trying to be like, yo, this guy's a con artist.

He lies about everything. Like, I like that they added in character. Like, who he is makes him good for this. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that what they're talking about with his past relationships, the way he's lied, I do think those things have to be considered. Normal people aren't really going out there and saying they work for the CIA to pick up women or to kind of just interact with individuals. It's not something we do. We all tell little white lies here and there, but this is next level with the extent

he went to on some of these circumstances involving other people as well. Yeah, I think it's safe to say normal people do not do that. Exactly. Yeah. So the prosecution and the police, they're like, basically the only person who wanted Tom dead would. Yeah. So the prosecution and the police, they're like, basically, the only person who wanted Tom dead would be Gil. And the prosecution laid out their theory that Gil had become so obsessed with Linda, Tom's wife, that he created an elaborate scheme to break up her marriage. His scheme included sending the text messages from Samantha and asking his office IT guy to pose as a CIA agent and meet with Linda and Tom.

But the scheme didn't work. Linda didn't want to leave Tom. The IT guy didn't want to pose as a CIA agent. Linda eventually ended up not wanting to really be with Gil anymore. So Gil decided he had no other choice but to kill Tom. The prosecution told the jury, quote, this case is about obsession. Gilberto Nunez was obsessed with Linda Coleman. He used deception and he used manipulation to get Linda for himself, end quote. out that he pretended to be a Marine even after he was discharged for going AWOL, that he had lied on his marriage licenses, and that he was having an affair with his supposed best friend's

wife. And I say supposed best friend because the prosecution told the jury that Gil was not really Tom's best friend. They asked jurors to consider whether a best friend has an affair with his friend's wife and then does everything he can think of to break up said marriage. So Linda actually testified for the prosecution, and she explained that throughout the affair, she felt torn between Tom and Gil. She repeatedly told Gil she loved him, but that she wasn't going to leave Tom because he was her best friend and she loved her life with him. Linda went on to say that she threatened to end the affair in the summer of 2011 after Gil sent the text to Tom posing as Samantha, but then Gil became hysterical and threatened to hurt himself, so Linda didn't break it off. Linda told the jury that by the end of 2011, she realized the affair was, quote, stupid and foolish and ridiculous, end quote.

And she didn't want to do it anymore. So she decided to officially break it off with Gil to focus on repairing her marriage. But instead of telling Gil she wanted to end things, she told Gil she was leaving Tom for him. Linda testified that she did this because she was afraid Gil would kill himself. She said, quote, I was stringing him along. We were playing his game so he wouldn't kill himself over the holidays. It was just a dirty, stupid game. End quote. What do you think about that?

Like stringing him along like that? Yeah. I don't like it. Yeah. It's not helping the situation. Not the best way. Yeah. Not the best way, especially when you start to realize.

With someone like him. I was just going to say that the person you're dealing with probably don't want to send them mixed signals. I think in hindsight, part of the reason that she's doing what she's doing now is she realizes that there could be a contribution here that led to this. And I'm sure there's some guilt. I'm sure there's some guilt on Linda's part, even though she didn't do it. But I guess I shouldn't even say that at this point. I will say I don't think Linda's involved. I know we went back and forth last episode. I don't think the prosecution would have her there if they felt like she knew what Gil was going to do. And based on her behavior and probably based on the text messages she exchanged with Gil and Thomas, it was probably very clear to the investigators that she had no intention on leaving Thomas. This Gil thing was a side thing and it was never going to be the main story.

And she probably made that pretty clear to both people. And that's why they brought her on as a key witness in the case. Well, she didn't make it clear to Gil, right? But you did say that at some point she did threaten to break it off with him. And he said, I'll kill myself if you do. So it does put you in a tough situation

where you're trying to end something that wasn't right in the first place. And now you have an individual who's saying, no, if you leave me, I'm going to kill myself. So I don't know. How do you handle that? I've never been in that situation. Anytime somebody looks at you and says, if you do what you want to do, even if it means leaving them, I'm going to kill myself. It's a manipulation. It's manipulative, right? You are not responsible for the emotional state of anyone else but yourself. And if you've laid out your boundaries and part of those boundaries are, this is no longer working and I want to have a relationship with my husband and I

don't want to be with you and that person says, I'm going to kill myself, then you say, I'm very sorry if that's the case. I'll call the police and have them do a welfare check on you. But you are an adult and you can take care of yourself. You do not let somebody pull you in with that bullshit manipulation because that's exactly what it is. So you're saying it's possible, but still not an excuse. You could still end things.

He wasn't going to kill himself. Yeah, he wasn't going to kill himself. You could still end yourself. But Linda wouldn't know that i completely agree i linda wouldn't know that but like you're saying even whether it's true or not you cut it off i'm sure in hindsight knowing everything she knows now and the extent that he allegedly was willing to go to yes maybe she would have made a different choice knowing that and i don't think at the time she understood how far gone he was right exactly exactly she probably thought like oh you know it's bad you know it's a she probably

also attributed it to herself a little bit like oh he's so obsessed with me you know like so great i'm i'm just like really amazing and of course he can't get over it you know but not really women before her, you know, women, you would think, oh, yeah, he'll move on. If you're to believe what the prosecution believes, that wasn't the case. I think he very, very much clearly told her he was not going to move on, that she was the only one for him. I'm going to build you a closet in my heart and my house. I want a closet.

Yeah. Come on, Gil. Where's the closet? So Linda told the jury that during her and Tom's trip to Connecticut, remember, they went to Connecticut with their kids before Thanksgiving and they went the weekend of November 12th, just a few weeks before Tom was found dead. That is when Linda decided she wanted to end the affair and focus on putting her marriage back together. And Linda told her husband, Tom, this. They talked about it and they talked about Linda ending her relationship with Gil after the Thanksgiving holiday. Apparently, they didn't care if he was depressed and killing himself over Christmas. You know, if they were if they were really worried about the holidays, which is, you know, statistically the highest likelihood or incidence of people taking their own lives is the

holiday season, then they would have waited for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, and maybe even Valentine's Day. I think I've said this before to you too, domestic disputes. November and December as a patrolman, man, you would think it's a wonderful time of year. Domestic disputes were through the roof in November and December and then bleeding over a little into January as a patrolman. Constant calls. A lot of stress, a lot of money issues because, you know, yeah. People seeing others happy, celebrating stuff on social. It makes them start to evaluate their own situations. It was a lot. And there was a lot of really bad calls.

People feel extra lonely around the holidays, too. Yeah. So when Linda and Tom got home from Connecticut, they sent emails about how great the trip had been. And Linda also talked about how she wanted to end things with Gil, but she was afraid of his reaction. In one email, she said, quote, I told him we have to talk. So he has been begging and pleading for me to not leave him. End quote. The prosecution told the jury that Linda broke up with Gil at the dinner she shared with him on November 28th. Remember, I did kind of talk about that when they had that dinner when they got back from Connecticut. Linda and Gil had an early dinner. And then later that night, Gil and Tom watched the sporting event together in their own respective

homes while they texted each other. But I said, I wonder if she had broken the news to him then because this was the 28th and this is the day before Tom was found dead. So the prosecution theorized that following the breakup, Gil was devastated. So he decided to kill Tom in the hopes that Linda would stay with him as in like, all right, if her reason for not wanting to be with me is because she's trying to repair her I love him and I want to make our marriage work. It could have also just been like, listen, this was fun, but obviously it's not realistic. We weren't in touch with reality. How would this ever work?

I don't feel the same about you as I did before. So if she had maybe been a little bit more honest. She could have started to let him down. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a cold turkey, but just start letting him, not leading him in the direction that, you know, put us where we are now. You're right. I think there's many ways this could have been handled differently. And I don't want anyone to look at us and say, oh, you're blaming Linda.

No, we're not blaming Linda, but we got here. It wasn't overnight. This was a progression of a weird dynamic, regardless of the situation where we are now. Just a weird dynamic. I don't think it's, you know, everyone's entitled to do what they want in their personal lives, but just a really weird situation. And I stand behind the fact that I'm still not completely convinced that Tom was on the same page with Linda and Gil. I feel that way. He's dead. I think he was. You think he was completely okay with the fact that Gil was sleeping with his wife?

I don't think he was completely okay with it, but I think he knew Linda well enough to be like, this is a phase, this will pass, and she'll get it out of her system, which was right. He was right. I think that he wasn't like, oh, this is great. But he was like, I love her. I want to keep my family together. And I think she'll eventually come to her senses. And, you know, this will just be a passing phase. I guess I shouldn't judge. I mean, everyone's in touch. I could tell you from me, that'd be a deal breaker. If my my wife came to me and said, hey, I'm most people I think would say you want to sleep with my friend now they i think we said at the beginning gill was friends with with with linda before tom yeah they were like sort of

you know conversing and talking about their problems and stuff when they were at their kids kids events and then they know i would have been i would have been like nah go be with him then yeah way down in the comments below if i'm crazy here. I mean, I know we have the undercover pineapple, but damn. I mean, listen, we didn't know. We didn't know when we came up with the undercover pineapple. But the pineapple is a symbol of friendship and welcome. Not if it's upside down. Well, it's not upside down, is it?

No. Are our pineapples upside down? Ours is not. No ours is not no ours is not but all right i obviously doing the research after the fact i guess you would say that these guys were an under they were upside down pineapple family they were undercover upside down pineapples they were and so you know whatever floats your boat but for me if my wife came to me and said hey well if she had said came to me and said i slept with him i'm sorry had said, came to me and said, I slept with him, I'm sorry. And they wanted to work things out. That's one thing. I just have a hard time believing that Tom was actively allowing this to occur and knowing it was going on, but that's what they say. So we'll go with that story, but he can't speak now for himself and say, no, I wasn't. I told her it was me or him and she needed to end it. And this is how it went. But who knows?

He's not here to speak for himself now. I think he was just going with the flow, hoping for the best. Honestly, he seemed kind of like a laid back guy, to be honest. Apparently so. If this is all accurate, he's definitely a laid back guy. So the prosecution said that Dr. Gil Nunez knew that Tom had sleep apnea and that sleep apnea would work with midazolam to kill Tom. So that's why he decided to use that. Their theory was that on the night before the murder, which was still the 28th, the same night that Gil and Linda had dinner and she broke up with him, Gil texted Tom and said they should meet at the gym in the morning.

At some point, Gil picked up the midazolam from his office. And then on the morning of the 29th, Tom and Gil met in the parking lot. Gil drove his white SUV with the weird fog light, which was captured on surveillance as it drove down Albany Road, and parked in the gym lot. When Tom arrived, he parked next to Gil. Once they were in Tom's car together, Tom reclined in his car with his pants undone so he could get comfortable while talking to Gil, and Gil gave Tom a coffee spiked with midazolam. Gil then waited for Tom to pass out from the drug. When he finally passed out, Gil put on rubber gloves, removed all of his DNA from the vehicle, and erased the messages from Tom's phone. That way, there was no evidence of him asking Tom to meet him at the gym. Once Tom was dead, Gail left, got in his car and drove back on Albany Road where he was again caught on surveillance. And just reading that paragraph, I have a thought.

But I want to go to our first break. And then when we come back, I want to tell you what that thought is. Sounds good. Running a business can be exhausting. Building your website shouldn't be. With Wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI,

from site creation to branded content and images. Have fun with the details. Customize what you want the way you want and manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale, and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on Wix. No offense, but your brain is a terrible place to keep your big idea. It belongs in the world, but you know that already. You have a calling, a voice that says,

this is what I'm meant to do. Create the website your big idea deserves with Wix. Make it your own with top-to-bottom customization, AI to help realize your vision, and built-in business tools to turn your daydream into your dream job. Wix supports every stage of the business journey except one, your decision to begin. Ready? Go to Wix.com. All right, we're back. So when I'm reading this and they're kind of laying it out, Gil gets in the car. Gil gives Tom the coffee. He waits for Tom to pass out. Then he puts on rubber gloves. He removes all his DNA. We were talking last episode about how that theory wasn't super sound because how would Gil be able to remove only his DNA and not the DNA of Tom, Linda and their kids? What if when he gets in the car, he's already got gloves on and not latex gloves, but let's

say like leather gloves or some sort of gloves that you would just wear if you were outside and it was chilly? You know, he wouldn't have to remove his DNA and his fingerprints and things like that if he got in the car already gloved up. Kind of precautionary, knowing what he's doing. What time of year was this again? What was this? This happened in November, so it was cold, right?

So it would have been cold, yeah. Yeah, so it would have been cold. It's the end of November after Thanksgiving. He could have had on, like, leather gloves, and it wouldn't have seemed weird at all because it's cold. Yeah, I think there's something with DNA too. And this is New York, by the way. So New York's super cold at the end of December. Yeah. You know, with DNA, it's a weird thing. DNA in general, from the statistics that I've seen, even when you have

DNA, it only results in about 25 to 27% of cases being solved, specifically cold cases because of DNA. But it's important to note that the absence of DNA doesn't automatically indicate innocence, and the presence of DNA doesn't automatically mean guilt. In some cases, depending on what the DNA and where it is, it could mean that, just this context behind it. But it's very difficult to go into a situation when you're in this Petri dish, let's call it the car. And there's no way of knowing if you've removed all of your DNA. There's just no way you could have your shedding hair constantly throughout the day. And you could there's no way to go through and actually get rid of all your DNA. So the fact that his DNA wasn't in the car, it could have been a preplanned thing, like you're saying, where he had some type of little vacuum with him and he dressed up to kind of bundle himself in. He could have had a winter hat on. I mean, I'm looking at a picture of him.

He's got short hair. He could have come into that car with a woolen hat over his hair completely, winter gloves on, and he could have been you know wearing a winter coat so no skin cells really dropping and i mean this is once again early in the dna process yeah so you know even yeah 2011 exactly even if he left stuff maybe at that point they didn't have what it took to grab it all but he would have been pretty bundled up and it would have contributed to it but he could have had hair fibers from a previous path with his hair where he had fibers on the outside of the hat that could have rubbed on the chair. It's a new hat, new hat, new gloves.

New hat, new gloves. Yeah, I guess. I mean, we could have, there's what I'm saying is ultimately the DNA to me is important. It's more important to me in cases that involve sexual assault, rape, things like that. But when it comes to just putting them at the location of the crime, it could be hit or miss. I know they're trying to explain why, because they know that the defense is going to say, oh, he was in the car, but didn't leave behind a single piece of trace evidence. Well, that's hard to believe. So I know they're playing offense here because they know that that's going to be the defense and I get it. But in this case, I don't think DNA is as important as it is the midazolam and some of the other factors around it, which is why

this is a circumstantial case. I think the most compelling piece, and we're going to probably get there again, is the Pathfinder, is the vehicle. Because that in and of itself is forensic evidence. And if you have the right experts, you can reasonably deduce that the vehicle your offender is, the defendant owns, is the same vehicle in these videos seen with the victim. I think to me, that is the smoking gun in the case, not necessarily DNA. And the Pathfinder and the wonky headlight, very compelling. That's what I'm saying. That to me is a distinguishable thing, almost in a way like DNA. It would be specific to that vehicle, right? Not as good as DNA, not nearly as good, but in a world where you can bring automotive experts in, video experts in,

you can reasonably deduce that that vehicle in the video is the same vehicle that is in question, the one owned by the offender. And I've even said recreating it with his vehicle to see if it looks the same as it does in the video. There's a lot of things that can be done. To me, that is what I'd be really harping on. And I mean, it's just even if you can't prove 100%, it's him just based on everything. The probability that it's him is incredibly high, much higher than it was his vehicle. Okay. Who else had keys? Now that's on you. Yeah. And I mean, it's 2011. So did his car have a GPS kind of thing in it at that point? Yeah, like an OnStar or something like that. I still say cell phone coordinates. Did he turn his phone off? Was it on? Where was his cell phone coordinates? Were they following the same

path as the Pathfinder? Or like you had suggested, did he leave his phone home? And once again, 2011 cell phones are going to be very different. Like now your cell phones, and we've seen this in criminal cases, they can tell how like when you plugged it in to charge it. They can tell when you unplugged it to charge it. They can tell when you like looked at it and didn't even do anything, just picked it up and it woke up. They can tell all of that stuff but in 2011 we had basically your basic phones no data plans you know you're even the most the most like technological cell phone we had at the time was those like slide out cordy keyboard ones no yeah damn girl and you worked at a cell phone place the iphone came out in 2007 i can't yeah you're

right i guess yeah the iphone came out i remember like those those you're right, I guess. Yeah, the iPhone came out in 2007. I remember those early Androids too. No, it's not the first. I agree with you in a sense that they can't tell what they can tell now, but the iPhone came out in 2007. So 2011, we had some pretty good cell phones. phones and regardless, cell data was still cell data then where it's based on a triangulation of the towers the cell phone would be bouncing off of as it was in transit. So it's not even so much about GPS at that point. It's more about, hey, what cell phone towers is the antenna of this phone bouncing off of at the time when this incident occurred? So I'm assuming those things were done

though. There's no way they weren't done. Yeah, so your Apple iPhone 4S was out in 2011. Yeah, okay. 4S, baby. We all had the 4S. I did have the 4S, yeah. Super fast. It was great at the time.

It was kind of garbage. The battery life was terrible. I will never say a bad thing about an iPhone. That's slander. Anyways. So when the defense presented their case, they focused exclusively on challenging every aspect of the prosecution's arguments, aiming to create enough uncertainty to

leave the jury with reasonable doubt, which is always the goal, right? That's the goal. It's kind of the way things go. Yeah. So they argued that Tom was not murdered, but had instead died of natural causes, possibly of a heart attack due to his enlarged heart. The defense called a pathologist to testify, and they told the jury that the amount of midazolam found in Tom's system was sub-therapeutic and would not be life-threatening even to someone with sleep apnea. The pathologist said, quote, it doesn't matter. You can have severe sleep apnea, severe hypertension. It doesn't matter. This medication is safe. It is a safe level. It has no bearing in terms of cause of death,

end quote. But remember, this is the defense's expert witness. Yeah. Well, we talked about experts. They be saying whatever you pay them to say, basically. Well, they are vetted beforehand by the defense or prosecution. They may talk to three or four different experts. They will get the opinions from those experts and the one that aligns with their, whatever approach they're going with, that's the one they're going to hire. It's that simple. So it's the way it is. They're both, it's amazing. Two experts, both different sides of the aisle, and they both feel completely different, right? How does that work? Well, so it's work? Well, and they'll go through the studies, right?

Usually that's what they'll do. They'll look at 100 studies and two of them will say, oh, midazolam in this dosage is not dangerous to sleep apnea patients, where the other 98 say that it is. And they'll use those two studies to prove their point. So it's just what's convenient, what's contextual based on whose side you're on. I will say this, and I'm not a guilt defender. It is an interesting approach to carry out a murder. There's a lot of ifs and a lot of variables to it where I'm going to give him midazolam, which is going to affect him negatively because of his sleep apnea. And I'm going to do this all

while we're in the vehicle and I'm going to give it to him in a coffee. It just seems like a lot can go wrong. He's a doctor, though. He knows, you know, he's smart. Yeah. It just seems, I'm not saying it's not possible. It just seems very convoluted. Seems like you just, there's other ways to go about it where. What trial and court case have you ever watched that wasn't convoluted in every possible way? Well, I mean, you look at like Dan Markell, right? Like Dan Markell, they hired hitmen, they shot him, they did what they wanted to do. It didn't work out, but there's ways to ensure that what you want to do and also ways to not put yourself, like he's such a smart guy. And yet he,

if he did do it, he kills him in a parking lot that you would assume he would have checked to see if they had cameras or not beforehand. So in one way, he's smart. In the other way, if he did do it, he's extremely dumb. I mean, if he gets away with it, is he smart or dumb or lucky? I mean, it could be a combination of both. Of all three. So the defense told the jury that the pathologist who conducted the original autopsy on Tom Coleman found several drugs in his system, but none in quantities that would have killed him. qualify those findings, suggesting several other possible causes of death, including a heart

arrhythmia, strangulation, and complications due to sleep apnea. The defense said that years into the investigation, authorities were, quote, still guessing about what might have caused the death of Thomas Coleman, end quote. Now, it is important to note that on cross-examination, the defense's pathologist admitted that he was the only doctor in the case calling the midazolam levels found in Tom sub-therapeutic, which is exactly what I'm trying to point out here. And he admitted that the drug could be dangerous to someone with significant heart disease. So he's saving his license, his business license. Thank God for cross-examination at that point. Yeah.

Yeah. Because the jury could hear that and be like, you're a doctor and believe it very easily. That's the authoritative figure that people really like kind of depend on to tell them things that are more complicated because they don't understand this. They didn't go to college for it. And this person did. So the defense told the jury that Gil did have access to midazolam, but only through emergency kits kept in his office. And they pointed out that none of the vials Gil had access to had been used.

And they also didn't have any of his fingerprints on them, which is like, come on, he could have worn gloves, man. Like, did they have any fingerprints on them? Like, were somebody else's fingerprints on them? He could have worn gloves. He could have opened it, filled it with something else. Did they test every single one of these vials to make sure that the substance inside was midazolam? These are questions we need to know. So the defense said that Gil's emergency

kits were restocked every year. However, it would have taken five years to accumulate the amount of midazolam found in Tom's system. They sarcastically asked if Gil had been planning Tom's murder since before he even knew him. But once again, this is not the only place you can get Madazalam from. It's not. He could have gotten it from multiple other places and they just didn't figure that out yet. Yeah, but this is the problem with this case. I mean, what we've talked about religiously, I think you think Gil did it as well. I do. I definitely do at this point, but it's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Shout out Denzel. And so that's where we are. That's where we are. The case is weak. The case is weak. Do you think it's a weak circumstantial case or a strong circumstantial case? I think circumstantially,

it's true. It's good. I think that's a good distinction. I think on a scale of circumstantial case or a strong circumstantial case? I think circumstantially it's true. It's good. I think that's a good distinction. Like I think from on a scale of circumstantial cases, it's good. But in the scheme of like on the spectrum of a good case versus a bad case, it's not great. I don't think circumstantial cases can be that great. You know, I think the best circumstantial case that I've heard of as of late, and I'm not an attorney, would be the Brian Koberger case where the Idaho four, because they're doing exactly what I said, where they have a vehicle that looks like his vehicle following a path, going to the house. And along that same path, you also have a cell phone bouncing off those same towers

before being shut off when he arrives, allegedly. So like those, like laying out that visual for the jury, even though you don't have video of him walking in the apartment, I do think that's a stronger style circumstantial case. Okay. So on a scale from one to 10, Casey Anthony's case, that was a circumstantial case as well. How strong of a circumstantial case do you think that was? I would say it's probably in the same ballpark of this case. Yeah, I agree. I saw on a scale of one to 10, I'd say like a six or seven. Can't pick seven. Why? You just can't because everybody goes with seven. All right, we'll go six then. All right, I would go like eight. I feel like the problem here is you have a feeling he did it, but the question that I

have is, could it also be a situation where he arrives to speak to Thomas and the conversation gets a little bit heated and somehow Tom has some type of medical emergency while they're arguing, something with his heart or something, where there's no intention to kill Tom, but Tom dies as a result of something. Again, not very likely, but is it a possibility? Of course. And that is where the reasonable doubt comes into this. Yes. So you're saying that Tom could have just died from natural causes in his car at the gym when he was meeting somebody there. And then even Gil could be meeting Gil and Gil says, shit, they're going to make it. It's going to look like I killed him. Now, do I believe that happened? No,

but that is a scenario that I'd be laying out if I was a defense attorney. If I was, if I wanted to go that route, yes, I was there, but I didn't do it. The fact that Gil saying he wasn't even there as the mistake in my opinion because the Pathfinder was in high likelihood there. Yeah. So if your car is there and nobody else has access to your car. And it's like 4.30 in the morning, dude.

Yeah, right. So if nobody else had access to your keys, then it's you. And I know they're not saying 100% it's the car, but you can tell by law enforcement. Oh, come on. It's the car. That's what I'm saying. If this is just a coincidence and some other light colored SUV with the same fog light defect is just driving around the same area at the same time as Tom Coleman's death and it's not Gil, then Gil's very unlucky and he needs to just hide in his house.

And you can even go deeper into that. If you're an investigator, you can say, listen, Gil's car was in an accident. And because when it was repaired, that light was altered where we tested or looked at five other Pathfinders, the same make, model, and year, and none of them had that defect. You see what I'm saying? You're ruling out the possibility that it could be another. You're saying, hey, it's his. So that's what I feel as far as the strongest piece in this, but it doesn't change the fact that once he arrived there, could something else have happened that would have led to Tom's death that wasn't

intentional in nature? I suppose. That's reasonable doubt, right? That's it, your reaction. I mean, but it's like, I was almost sarcastically, I suppose. When you're on the jury and your decision could result in someone going to prison for the rest of their life. I would have voted guilty. Okay. I would have voted guilty. At this point, where would you have voted? Everyone listening and watching, let us know. Yeah, that was just going to ask the same thing. Let us know at this point, and we're about 40 minutes into this episode, based on what we've talked about for this episode and the previous two, would you have voted guilty and sent Gil Nunez to prison? Yep. All right. So the defense continued poking holes in the prosecution's case, telling the jury that the prosecution's version of events was like a bad Lifetime movie. They said the case had a variety of moving parts that all had to fall into place for a murder to occur.

Tom had to agree to meet Gil at the gym, which why wouldn't he? Tom had to drink the coffee the prosecution claimed that Gil laced with midazolam, which why wouldn't he? Tom had to drink the coffee. The prosecution claimed that Gil laced with midazolam, which why wouldn't he? And the midazolam had to kill Tom, which why wouldn't it with his condition? The pathologist that did his autopsy already said that that level of midazolam would kill somebody with sleep apnea. So once again, all of those three things, why wouldn't they happen? Gil and Tom were friends. They were texting the night before during the game. As far as Tom knew, Linda was breaking things off with Gil and probably knew Gil was going to be upset about it and maybe want to talk it out. And Tom was going to be like, I'm sorry, dude, like we can still be friends. But like, this is what she wants. We have to respect it. Of course, they've been friends for a long time. He's going to have a conversation with him about it. He's not just going to ghost him. So I don't see that this is out of the realm of possibility. The defense said, quote, the idea that you would slip someone a non-lethal dose of a drug and cross your fingers that it would kill him is fantasy, end quote. Once again,

Dr. Nunez is a doctor. Yes, he's a dentist. But I agree with that. I agree with it. I agree that it's a non-lethal dose and hope that there was a mixture of the dosage of the medicine with his pre-existing condition. It's a crapshoot. Yeah, but if it didn't work, then he'd just try again and refine and review his methods. It's not like he needed it to happen this day. Yeah, that's true. So the defense told the jury that Linda's testimony about breaking things off with Gil was not true and that Gil had no reason to kill Tom. All right. The defense is reaching now. That's a reach. Yeah, come on.

She testified under oath that she was going to break it off. They had dinner the night before Tom was found dead. Come on, guys. Come on, Jose Baez. Jose biased. So they argued that Gil had the best of both worlds. He was still best friends with Tom while openly having an affair with Linda. Why would he want to ruin that? Well, as we know, he proposed marriage to her. Why would he want to ruin that? He wasn't thinking he was ruining it. He was trying to deepen and further his relationship with Linda. And I don't think he really did give a shit about his relationship with Tom at that point because he wanted Linda. The defense said, quote, there was no bad blood between Tom and Gil.

Absolutely none. End quote. No, there wasn't because Linda was telling Gil that she was going to leave Tom for him. And as far as Gil's concerned, he won. Yeah, he thought he was in the driver's seat. Yeah, there's no bad blood. Of course not. So to try and convince the jury that Linda's testimony wasn't true, the defense pointed out that she sent Gil an 11-month anniversary card earlier in November 2011, professing her love for him. She wrote in part, quote, I love you and I always will love you. And I had no idea 11 months ago that my life was about to change in the way it has. But look at us today. So much love and passion and compassion for each other, end quote. But Linda did say that she was leading him on a little bit. And also, you can love somebody and know you can't be with them. You can love someone and know that it's not right and it's not going to work or you're not compatible or it's not realistic or it's not the direction you want to go.

You can say, I had no idea 11 months ago my life was going to change the way it has because it did change. You can say we have so much love, passion, and compassion for each other, and you can have those kinds of feelings for a other. And you can have that kind of those kinds of feelings for a friend. You can even have them for, you know, somebody who was more than a friend to you. But now you realize it's not what you want anymore. You can still have all of those feelings. And they had a history and she's professing real feelings towards him. But that doesn't mean that she wanted to be his wife forever and ever and leave her husband and her family. I agree with everything you said. And I think that in hindsight, we said it earlier, Linda, knowing everything she knows now, may have chosen to approach the situation differently. I don't think she ever thought it was going to get to this point. And I don't think there's any dispute over the fact that

she still loved Tom and wanted to ultimately be with Tom. And for a while there, she was having the best of both worlds, right? She had Tom, who she was in love with, who she saw her future with, but also experimenting with Gil because he was something new. It was different, an ego boost and all these things. And I don't think in her wildest dreams, initially, she thought that by doing so, it was going to result in Tom's death. So that's just where it is. I did want to pick up on that earlier because you said we don't want people to think we're blaming Linda. No. No.

Hindsight's 20-20. Hindsight is 20-20, right? Yeah. We, both Derek and I and everyone listening, have done things and even behaved in certain situations. Not me, really. So we're not saying to Linda, shut up, Derek, everyone makes mistakes. You're not perfect. I mean, some of us are. Anyways. So in Linda's case, she can't go back and change things, but everyone listening can take what we're saying and be like,

if I'm ever in a sort of a passionate, romantic situationship with a man who's proposing marriage to me and trying to get me to leave my husband and making up CIA agents and sending texts to my, like maybe leading him on. Yeah. Leading him on is not the best thing. Maybe I should just, you know, distance myself as soon as possible because this person might not be mentally stable and could end up destroying my life. Right.? I would think even Linda would say that. Now she would, but in the moment when you're too close, it's like there's a few different situations where you can't really see the truth of the situation. And that's when you're either too far away from it

or too close to it. And in that moment, Linda was too close to it. I agree. I agree. Let's keep going. But before we do, let's take a quick break. Be right back. Your voice, your expertise. Wix gives you the freedom to truly own your brand and do it on your own with full customization and advanced AI tools that help turn your ideas into reality. Grow your business into your online brand. Because without you, your business is just business as usual.

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See store for details. All right. So the defense went on to tell the jury that Linda sent text to Gil during the Connecticut trip all the way up until a few hours before she found Tom dead. All of these texts show that Gil was still very much in the picture leading up to and on the day of Tom's death. Yeah, he's in the picture. But like, what is his part in the picture? Where is he at and situated at in the picture? And we're going to find that out.

So the defense broke those texts down for the jury, starting with the text during the Connecticut trip. During that time, Linda was sending Gil messages along the lines of, quote, I love you. I miss holding your hand and that soft spot and scar on your face. Mwah, mwah, mwah, end quote. The defense told the jury that while Linda and Gil were texting that weekend, Gil never encouraged Linda to leave Tom. Instead, he texted, quote, me more. Don't do anything, please, end quote. Linda asked what he meant, and Gil responded, responded quote you said to me that you didn't

want to make any decisions until after the holidays i'm going by what you said you want end quote i mean he because he sensed that she was going to leave him that's why he's telling her not to do anything he's not telling her to leave her husband because he's already multiple times told her to leave her husband and seeing her reticence to that he's realizing in his head because he's already multiple times told her to leave her husband and seeing her reticence to that he's realizing in his head because he's not a dummy maybe it's me she wants to leave and so he's telling her don't make any rash decisions just wait till after the holidays right i'm in no rush and it also it also kind of solidifies her statement where she said we had decided to wait until after the holidays because he was we didn't want him to like kill himself over the holidays and here he is saying just wait until after the holidays because we didn't want

him to kill himself over the holidays. And here he is saying, just wait till after the holidays, don't make any decisions. So she's kind of just going along with what he's saying. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I mean, hindsight's always 20-20. I'm not going to keep beating a dead horse. I mean, it just seems like there was a lot of forks in the road throughout this whole relationship. You could have gone left when you went right. And if they had gone right when they should have, maybe we're not having this conversation today. And I'm sure these are things that Linda has replayed in her head constantly.

And if Gil is innocent, I'm sure he has replayed them as well. So the romantic messages between Gil and Linda continued after the Connecticut trip. On the 21st of November, Gil texted Linda, quote, your kisses today, I can still feel them. OMG, end quote. That's cringy. That's cringy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't take it. If a man sent me that text, your kisses today, I can still feel them. OMG, I can't take it. Linda replied, that good, huh? Which once again, this tells me that she's enjoying the ego boost. She's enjoying the attention. She's not really responding in like, OMG, I miss your

kisses too, Mia Moore. She's basically like, yeah, I'm that good, huh? On November 29th, in the hours before Linda found Tom dead, she was texting Gil about being on her period. Gil wrote back, quote, I am loving you from here and muah, muah, muah, if that helps, end quote. She replied, it does. Now, the defense claims that these texts showed that Linda's relationship with Gil was as strong as ever at the time of Tom's death. And that meant Gil had no reason to believe Linda was was going to leave him which meant he wouldn't want tom to die um i don't i don't like i don't see that i could see the opposite yeah him wanting more of her not wanting to be away from her and tom being in the way and she's also kind of being a little bit

more distant like women lie about being on their period when they don't want to hang out with certain wait what yes did you know? Yes. Did you know? I'm kidding. Did you know that though? I'm sure. I would use that excuse if I could. Right. It's a perfect excuse.

Yeah, it's a great. At that point, the guy's like, yeah, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't hang out. Not always. Sometimes it backfires. Okay. And they're like, and? And then you're like, uh.

Oh, man. I have to wash my hair. So, but yeah, this is an excuse that is often used. And she is short in her answers. It does. It does. Yeah. It's not like, yes, thank you so much. My love.

Absolutely. That good, huh? She didn't say it back. Your love emboldens me and heals my cramps. No, she's just like, yeah, it does. It does. Yeah. So I think it's important to bring up the fact that the defense actually asked Linda to read her texts aloud and she seemed genuinely surprised by her words.

The New Yorker reported that you could, quote, hear the puzzled know, huge in-depth conversation that you need to get pulled into. You just don't have time for it. So you kind of just do what it takes and say what it takes to kind of get to the next day. The defense went on to tell the jury that on the day before Tom died, he and Gil texted back and forth 62 times. But when the police looked through Tom's phone after his death, all of the texts were gone. However, they were able to recover the last 20 texts, which were all about football. The defense said this showed Gill was not luring Tom to the gym to kill him. Then the defense turned their attention to the crime scene and pointed out that the prosecution didn't have any evidence tying Gill to Tom's car. There was no DNA or fingerprints that didn't belong to Tom, Linda, or their son. They said the only evidence

the prosecution had was the forensic video solutions analysis, which they described as a lot of hocus pocus and junk science. The defense always used the term junk science whenever they're talking about like any forensic stuff like they did that in Casey Anthony's trial, too. And they were talking about the hair banding and the death banding and things. They called it junk science. A couple of things. You mentioned this in part two. Yes, the text messages were deleted and they were able to recover 20 of them. 20 of the 66, yeah. Yeah.

My question would be, does Gil have all that conversation? Yeah, I know. Very interesting. Does he have them or did he quote unquote delete them as well? As far as the DNA, we've already talked about it. The absence of DNA doesn't automatically mean innocence. It doesn't automatically mean guilt either. Perfect example, the case of Rebecca Zahao. A lot of you guys already know that case. Many people believe that Adam Shackney killed Rebecca Zahaal. And there is zero, zero DNA evidence in the room

where she was allegedly murdered. And yet, in a civil case, they found him guilty, or I should say responsible for her death. So it is a situation where the absence of DNA doesn't automatically mean they're not there. It's not like the movies. So the DNA component of it, it's something that if you're the defense, you absolutely bring up. I have no issue with it. And then like you just said about the forensic analysis of the video, they're going to go there and just try to discredit it. That's also a tactic. So don't blame them. Yeah, that's the strongest piece of evidence the prosecution has. Yeah. They don't have a strong excuse for why it looks the way it does. They're just going to say,

don't believe the process. Yeah, they're just going to be like, junk science, next. Yeah, don't believe it. We're not even going to entertain it. And that works sometimes in trials for the jury. You only get one. You just got to get a couple people,

one person to say, I don't know. I don't believe it. So the defense said that aside from not finding any links between Gil and Tom's car, the police and prosecution had not done a thorough job investigating Tom's death. They informed the jury that after Tom was found dead, detectives sent his underwear and pants off for testing. However, before the underwear could be tested for touch DNA or saliva, detectives asked the lab to return them. No explanation for why this happened was recorded, which raised the question of whether there were areas that the police preferred not to explore. On top of that, detectives also didn't search

the Coleman house or computers, so how could they be sure Tom didn't have any midazolam? The defense suggested that Tom could have purchased some midazolam online and stored it at the house so he could secretly self-medicate with the drug. The defense said they were certain he was purchasing at least one drug, testosterone, via the internet and having it delivered to a private P.O. box. They actually knew this because Linda gave investigators several pill vials containing testosterone that she said were sent to a P.O. box in Tom's name. The defense told the jury that detectives determined that before Tom's death, the P.O. box had not been closed, but they never investigated the box's history. They didn't try to find out if any other drugs like midazolam had been sent there. That's bad. That's bad that they didn't do that. Yeah. Like, why wouldn't you do that?

I can't answer all these fumbles, Stephanie. This week has been rough for law enforcement. We covered Sonia Massey earlier in Crime Weekly News, and it was complete nightmare and the cop was wrong. And now you have incidents here where, yeah, my job is not easy sometimes. You can't explain stupidity. And additionally, detectives didn't examine Tom's computer. So there was no way they could know for sure if Tom purchased midazlam or not. They didn't search his home either. And because of all of that, the police and prosecution could not be sure that Tom hadn't given himself the midazlam. And for me, this is the defense's greatest point. Yes.

Damning. So now if I'm on a jury, I might vote differently when I hear this. Okay. I'm glad to hear that. Glad to hear it. Because I felt like, I don't know why I'm on, I'm not on team Gil here, but if I'm a jury member, I'm feeling really uneasy. Like to think for a verdict, you need a unanimous decision. To think that 12 people would come to all agree that he's guilty based on what we have is hard for me to get to. I don't see that happening at this point. time I hear something that does give me reasonable doubt and I'm like, ah, maybe Gil didn't do

this. I think about the freaking SUV with the fog light. Yeah, no, it's the best point. And that snaps me back. It snaps me back. Honestly, that's, I cannot get past that. And there's, you know, it's going to be very hard to get me. Means, motive, and method.

I got to remember that one. And character. I don't like character in it because that doesn't always apply to the person, but means, motive, the three Ms. The three Ms. M method. I got to remember that one. And character. I don't like character in it because that doesn't always apply to the person. But means, motive, the three M's. The three M's. MMM. So the defense told the jury that the police did search Tom's phone. And phone records showed that a website had been accessed from his phone on November 30th. This is the day after Tom's death.

Tom's phone was supposed to be in police custody at that time. So how is that possible? The defense further said that while the police did look through Tom's phone, they didn't look through all of Tom's emails. But the defense did, and they ended up finding emails from hookup websites that Tom had signed up for, including some for a website called BeNaughty.com. One of the emails came in at 1.31 a.m., just hours before Tom's arrival at the gym. Despite that fact, the police never even opened up the Be Naughty emails on Tom's phone. Now, it's important to note that throughout the trial, the defense had been asking the judge to allow them to introduce the hookup website email evidence from Tom's phone.

For a long time, the judge denied the defense's request to admit the emails as evidence because he was concerned they might bias the jury against Tom. However, after the defense argued that it was important for the jury to know that the prosecution hadn't been as thorough as they were claiming they had been, the judge reversed the decision. The prosecution was not happy with this ruling, and once BeNa be naughty.com emails were allowed into trial, they altered their narrative. They now suggested that Gil had staged Tom's body to create the impression that Tom had died during a sexual encounter. This isn't great. This isn't great. No, no, it's not. And I, but I do think it's warranted like there's a situation where if Tom was on board with Gil and Linda sleeping together, is it completely out of left field to assume or speculate that maybe Tom was also sleeping with another woman or multiple women? Yeah, but you'd think there'd be some sort of communication in his email or in his phone to show that he was meeting another woman there

who happened to drive the same kind of car with the same kind of fog light defect. I mean, I haven't been, and this may come as a shock to you. You haven't been on BeNaughty.com? I haven't been on BeNaughty.com in a while. How long has it been? It's been a few months.

And was there communications within that app or that website so first of all be naughty.com is an online dating site i would i was hoping so yeah that's i i'm it says it's still alive yep it is still alive and yeah i guess it would be because when i heard be naughty.com i almost thought it was like maybe some like porn site or some kind of like webcam thing, but it does look like it is a dating site. Yeah, so like match.com or whatever you go on there, you can communicate within the website,

within the thing. So did they get access to that? I knew you can meet, you can meet these people. Right, so was he meeting someone before the gym? You know, was he going there? I think I said it in episode one or two, where is he going there to meet another woman? And he was explaining it to Linda at home that he was just going to the gym. You know, was he going there? I think I said it in episode one or two, was he going there to meet another woman? And he was explaining it to Linda at home

that he was just going to the gym to get an extra workout in. And maybe he was getting some cardio in before he started lifting weights. Yeah, dude. And I mean, Wildboy9 says, lots of very sexy members in my area that I really am getting to know

had four dates already and two of them ended up in my bed. Thanks, BeNaughty.com. So is that what happened? But then wouldn't this woman, I don't know, maybe he died from a heart attack after the exertion of the- Encounter? Overall, it's just reasonable doubt. That's all this is. Wouldn't there be bodily fluids or this woman's DNA or something in the car? Because if the defense is- Didn't you say his seat was leaned back?

It was, yeah. But wouldn't there be DNA evidence of a woman in there, right? Because the defense is saying, oh, well, Gil couldn't have been in there. There's no DNA evidence that he was, but there's no DNA evidence that some strange woman was in there either. No, it's true. Yeah. That's the absence of DNA doesn't automatically mean innocence. And all of this to me is just, it's a lot of information, but as you and I are sitting here and kind of talking about it for the first time, this is what a jury would do.

And none of us at that table would be able to say, no, that scenario is not possible because remember the prosecution said this, right? It's in play. There is a world where if we were able to pull back the curtain, we would see a situation where some woman shows up in a car who, unfortunately for Gil, had a similar vehicle. And that is what happened. And you and I would be like, oh my God, I can't believe it. Never would have saw that coming. Because that's not what we believe. We believe Gil did it, but is that enough to come back with a guilty verdict?

And I think that's the real question here. And I know we're going to get there soon. Do we want to? Let's take a break before we do, because I think we're coming up with the guilty or not guilty verdict. So let's take our last break for the episode. And then we will find out whether Gil is guilty or not. Do you want to take, you already know my guess going into it, obviously based on what I've been saying this whole episode is that he's, he's going to be found not guilty, but we'll take the break and then we will all find

out together. Okay. So after the prosecution and defense gave their closing statements, the jury deliberated for only six hours before reaching their verdict. Gil Nunez was not guilty of murder. However, he was guilty of both counts of possession of a forged instrument for the fake CIA identification and letterhead. After the verdict was in, some of the jurors spoke to the media to explain their decision. Numerous jurors felt that there was still too many unresolved questions, which left them with significant reasonable doubt. One juror said, quote, we just didn't feel there was enough evidence, not for the charge of murder. There were too many holes in the chain to knowingly convict for that one charge, end quote. One juror even expressed the belief that Tom's

death was due to an enlarged heart rather than murder. The detectives and prosecutors who worked on Tom's case were completely shocked by the verdict, and so was Tom's family. After hearing the verdict, Linda yelled out, quote, sociopath, psychotic, lying sack of shit, end quote. She had to be restrained by family members and taken away. So I think it's safe to say that after the trial, Linda was thoroughly convinced that Gil was the culprit in Tom's death. Yeah. I think he was too. I think he was too. But there's a difference between him being guilty based on what we believe and him being guilty in the eyes of the law, which the threshold is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Anybody watching or listening right now, do you believe that the proof presented was beyond reasonable doubt? That's up for you to decide. I see that this verdict,

unfortunately, is the right verdict. I mean, the right verdict under the circumstances, but not necessarily the correct verdict in the reality of the situation. The reality of the situation, right. Did Tom get justice? No. But based on the holes in this investigation, we have to make sure that the judicial process not only works for Gil, but for everybody else who may actually be innocent. And we're talking about Gil like he's guilty, but he could be innocent, which is why there was a not guilty verdict. So we have to make sure we get it right. And if we're going to get it wrong, I would rather see us get it wrong by letting someone go who actually committed the crime. And that could be the situation here. So let's say that Tom ordered this midazolam himself, right? Because that's kind of the

only other option here. He had midazolam in his system. If it wasn't given to him by another person, then he ordered it and took it himself. Why? Why would he be taking it? He didn't have a medical condition that would call for it. It's usually given to people to relieve anxiety before surgery or certain procedures. It's a benzodiazepine. So it's like along the same lines as a Klonopin or a Xanax. Why would he have it? And how did he order it without a prescription? How did he order it without any sort of paper trail, a medical paper trail? Because you can't do that. They're controlled substances. So you'd have to get it. You'd have to get it through some medical routes where there would be

a paper trail of that. And Dr. Gil Nunez, to our knowledge, is the only one who had access to that drug out of the people involved. Yeah, I'm with you. And that's why I think we've both come to the conclusion that we believe Gil was involved. But in the eyes of the law, there's just there are holes there. I do think another scenario is the fact that could he have met up with someone else, someone else that we weren't aware of? Was there communications through a different device or a website or a different platform that we just haven't found that Tom did a better job of hiding than most people do? And in his death, we never found those sites, but could he have met up with someone who he thought was a friend, but in reality was a foe? Or could he have met up with someone under good circumstances, but the situation just, there was a medical emergency in that moment. And this individual who probably didn't want to be known to the public decided to leave and not

report it to police instead of doing the right thing. I mean, those are, it's a, it's a long shot, but I think we wouldn't be doing this case justice if we said, oh, it's 100% not possible. It's definitely possible, even how, regardless of how unlikely it might be. Could he have met up with somebody who's trying to frame Gil Nunez? I mean- Absolutely. Once again, not as probable as Gil himself being there, but I suppose it's possible. Yeah. Right. I mean, if we're going to put it on the, you know, from least to greatest, you know, I mean, those ideas would be at the bottom, Gil at the top, but

there's nothing here that says, oh yeah, there's your evidence. There's what happened. I still feel like based on what we know, and we don't cover every detail, I still feel like they could even driven home the whole car thing even more. If you prove it's his car- I agree. Then the burden is on Gil to prove that he wasn't in the car. Well, Gil wasn't immediately sentenced for the possession of a forged instrument convictions. That wouldn't come until after he went to trial for the other charges he faced for the fire insurance fraud and pistol application crimes. And until those trials occurred, he was allowed

to remain free on bail. It didn't take long for Gill to go back to his lying ways. Within weeks of being acquitted of murder, he submitted an online renewal application to the Arizona Board of Dental Examiners for the question, in the last three years, have you been arrested for, pled guilty to, or been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor offense? Gill answered no, as if he hadn't just been on trial for literal murder. A few months later, Gil appeared on a 48 Hours episode in which he declared his innocence in Tom's death and suggested police might have tried to frame him by deleting text messages. Gil said that all 62 of the deleted texts sent between him and Tom on the night before Tom's death were about football. 48 Hours asked if he was the one who deleted the text, and he said

no. He said he believes police deleted the text messages from the phone because it wouldn't be convenient for them to see that all they were talking about was football. The following month, in October of 2016, Gil went on trial for grand larceny, insurance fraud, and falsifying business records, which stemmed from the fire that had happened a few years prior. If you recall from part two of this series, Gill filed a false insurance claim for $8,400 in 2014. The claim stemmed from a fire that occurred at a building he owned next to his dental practice. In 2014, the building caught fire and sustained damage, so Gill filed an

insurance claim. There was no suggestion of arson, and the insurance company did not contest the general claim. However, detectives believed that a small part of the claim, less than 5%, was fraudulent. Gill said this part of the claim was to make up for lost rent, but detectives said he wasn't charging anyone rent at that time, so this was a lie. The jury agreed with the police, and Gill was convicted on all counts, but he was allowed to stay out on bond until his final trial. In November of 2016, Gill went on trial for perjury, offering a false instrument for filing and making an apparently sworn false statement, all stemming from the pistol application. Once again, if you recall from part two in 2014, Gill made a false statement on a pistol license

application. Under the application question, have you ever been terminated slash discharged from any employee or the armed forces for cause, Gill answered no, which was a lie because he'd been discharged from the Marines for going AWOL in the 80, which was a lie because he'd been discharged from the Marines for going AWOL in the 80s. After a short trial for these charges, Gill was convicted on all counts and he was taken back into custody. Gill's New York dentist license was later revoked due to his convictions. In February of 2017, Gill was sentenced for all the convictions. He faced a maximum of 25 years if he received the max sentence for each charge and if they ran consecutively. The prosecution argued Gill should

face the maximum. They said, quote, society deserves protection from his sociopath narcissistic behavior, end quote. The defense, on the other hand, asked for leniency and gave the judge 130 letters from Gill's supporters, friends, and former patients who agreed that he deserved leniency and gave the judge 130 letters from Gill's supporters, friends, and former patients who agreed that he deserved leniency. After the prosecution and defense were done arguing their sides, the judge said he did not appreciate the prosecution's request for the maximum. He asked when was the last time they had requested consecutive time for non-violent, low-level felonies or a maximum sentence for a fraud involving less than $10,000. The judge said, quote, you want your pound of flesh, end quote, seemingly saying or suggesting

that the prosecution wanted to secure a murder sentence by other means, which I agree with. I am with you there. Yeah. The judge pointed out that there had never been a murder charge. The other charges Gil was convicted on would never even appear in a felony court. They'd be plea bargained in a village court. However, the judge wasn't particularly kind to Gill either. He told Gill, quote, tragically, you believe that society's rules do not apply to you. I see no chance in rehabilitation, end quote. The judge said that Gill was a man who was, quote, consumed by an illicit affair, willing to do absolutely anything at all to promote his prudent interests, end quote. Ultimately, the judge did not impose the maximum sentence on Gill. Instead, he was sentenced to two and a third to seven years,

which was still pretty harsh for nonviolent offenses. After Gill's trial, Linda sat down with Dateline for an interview. She spoke about her affair with Gil and said, quote, I had a real life and I had a fantasy life, end quote. She cried when asked if she felt guilt over the death of her husband, saying, quote, every minute of every day. She apologized to Tom's parents for the affair, which she said led to Tom's murder. She said, quote, I'm really sorry and I understand why they hate me. I totally understand it. I live with those feelings about myself every day, end quote. Linda said she remains convinced that Gil is a master manipulator who killed Tom because she wouldn't leave her marriage. She said, quote, the man I see now has a cold, dead heart who doesn't care about anyone

but himself, end quote. On September 10th, 2018, Gil Nunez was released on parole, which was the earliest date possible. He was released under the Marriage Time Program, which allows some nonviolent inmates to receive a one-sixth reduction of their minimum sentence if they achieve certain objectives and have avoided serious disciplinary charges behind bars. Again, it didn't take long for Gill to continue his shady activities. In May of 2019, Gill submitted a renewal application to the Arizona Board of Dental Examiners, and this time, he said he hadn't had any licenses suspended, revoked, or canceled anywhere in the United States. Obviously, the board knew Gill was lying, so they ordered him to surrender his license. In October of 2023, Gill finished up his parole requirements and became a completely free man. At this time, it's unclear what he's currently up to as he's stayed out of the public

eye. The only thing we know is that he isn't allowed to work as a dentist, at least legally, which is probably for the best. But I think another thing we can safely assume is that he is not living life on the straight and narrow. It doesn't seem like he's capable of doing that. He's most likely continuing his con artist ways. And there's a woman out there who believes she's dating a CIA agent. Yeah. So separating for a second what I think about Gil personally, clearly a con artist. He's just a pathological liar at minimum.

Is there a man walking the streets right now that is responsible for the murder of Tom? Possibly. Possibly. Do I think the jury got it right? I do. I do. I think law enforcement could have done a better job of plugging up the holes in this circumstantial case. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. plugging up the holes in this circumstantial case. And I feel like the situation itself, the dynamics of the situation probably affected the outcome as well. I think as a jury looking at this situation, it's an unorthodox kind of relationship with Tom and Linda and Gil and the back and forth and Linda being the key witness in this case, having, you know, kind of also being at the core of these issues and why we were where we were as far as the trial is concerned. Self-admittedly, she said the same, you know, it's one of those things where I think there was a bad taste in the jury's mouth and the strongest piece of evidence that the prosecution had was the vehicle. They didn't do a strong enough job

really driving that home and also discrediting some of the other theories that the defense had put forward. And maybe they didn't do that because they couldn't. Maybe they just couldn't find a way to discredit what the defense was putting out there because they too felt it was a possibility, even though highly unlikely. So I find myself leaving this case feeling bad for Tom. Obviously he lost a son because of this as well. Linda lost a son as well, and their life is forever changed. And I don't really know what could have been done differently. I don't even know if it's really our place. Ultimately, Linda made her decisions and she's being forced to live with them every day, as she's saying. So I leave this case feeling bad. There's no winners and Gil's out there somewhere. And I hope, secretly, I do hope

that he is innocent and that although he's a bad person and a liar, he didn't kill Tom and justice was served. And he's out there living his life now as a free man for the right reasons. That's my fantasy hope is that he didn't do it and we're all wrong. And there's someone else out there who did this or this was an accidental death. That's my hope. Yeah. I mean, if you look at it, Tom Coleman wasn't in the best physical health. He weighed, I think, 230 pounds. He had an enlarged heart and a large liver. He had a history of high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, migraines, insomnia. He had sleep apnea. He could have gotten the medication, which was a benzo, for his anxiety. He could have gotten it from anywhere. He was a physical

therapist. He worked with doctors. He could have taken it from someone. We don't know. It's just that SUV being there, man. It's just somebody else meeting him there and us not knowing who that person was. If it wasn't Gil, why have they not come forward unless they killed Tom? And in that case, who else would have had a motive and the means and the opportunity or the motive means method? No, it's okay. You can go with opportunity. It sounds good too. I drilled that into your head for two years. But who else would have that, right? Nobody really. It's hard to really get past that white SUV or that light colored SUV. Perfectly stated. If this was an innocent

encounter, why didn't the person in that SUV come forward? And if it was an innocent encounter, why didn't that person at least call for emergency services? Hey, listen, someone's here. I'm not leaving my name. Come over here. This person needs help. If this person was there, cared about Tom, why wouldn't they do that? And I think you're probably looking at a situation where I don't know how, but this person was involved more than just showing up or this is just a really unfortunate set of circumstances

where whether it was Gil or another woman arrived at that location for maybe sexual reasons or maybe just to have a conversation. And because of Coleman's previous conditions, wrong place, wrong time. And he had something happen in that moment. And the individuals that were there, Gil or someone else, felt like, if I report this based on what's going on and the circumstances surrounding it, I'm going to be viewed as a suspect. And if it was Gil there, he wasn't wrong. So that's where we are. But I think we are where we need to be as far as the justice system is concerned. You can feel some type of way about this. But at the end of the day, Gil was found innocent.

And as far as we're concerned, he is innocent. That's what the court system has decided. That's what we have to move forward on. So obviously, you could be upset with it, but that's where we are. And there's never going to be a retrial unless something comes out, but then double jeopardy would be in play. He's been acquitted. He was found not guilty. So he cannot be tried again. That's it. It's game over. Anything else from you? No, I mean-

Do we want to talk about Crime Cruise real quick? Yeah, let's talk about that really quick. We are going to Crime Cruise. We are going to be there. Stephanie is going to be there. I am going to be there. November. I don't know the exact date. You can go to the crimecon.com. I believe Yes. then go to Haiti and then Jamaica. But for those of you who don't know, there's some issues with Haiti right now. It's kind of shut down. So it may go to another location. I'm personally hoping it goes to Coco Cay. If you know what Coco Cay is, then you already know. It's amazing. But we'll be there. We're going to be speaking two or three of the days that while we're on the cruise, it's going to be a more intimate setting. If you've been to CrimeCon before, it's going to be a lot less people. This is a little bit more of a financial

commitment because you're paying for the cruise as well, but we are able to save you money. If you want to go or you're thinking about going, head on over to CrimeCon.com. See what the pricing is going to be for you. You can use our code CRIMEWEEKLY. That'll save you 10%. And we will definitely be there. So we'd love to see you there as well. We've talked about CrimeCon a million times. It's always great. We've never been on the cruise. If it goes horribly, I will make sure that I'm Instagram living it while Stephanie is throwing up over the ship. I'm not going to throw up. It's more going to be like a panic attack situation, but thanks for taking pleasure in my pain. Everybody, look at Stephanie. She's panicking.

She's rubbing the wall right now. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll make sure you guys know. But maybe we will do like a live while we're out there or something. I'll just be like on the floor holding onto your legs. Yes. Guys, how's it going? Why is this boat always moving?

Yeah. So we're going to be there. It is official. It's locked in. Crime Con Cruise, November 2nd through the 7th. If you'd like to join us, head on over and check it out. There's really nothing else to put out there. I think we're going to have a new episode, a new case next week.

Not going to announce it yet, although we've looked at some of the recommendations, both on the Crime Weekly Facebook page and just in our comments. I have brought one up to Stephanie that I think would be good based on some of your recommendations. We're going to see if that one comes to fruition, but that's all I got. Anything else from you? No. I wanted to read something from a New Yorker article that somebody who was a patient of Dr. Nunez wrote after the trial. Oh, okay. And this person went and attended the trial. And this writer said, after the verdict, I met with Holly Carnwright,

the Ulster County DA who originally opened the case. When I expressed my doubts about Nunez's guilt, he suggested that I watch A Silence of the Lambs sequel, in which Hannibal Lecter does his victim or doses his victim with a midazolam-like substance and then feeds the man his own brains. Carnwright was being flippant, I think, but the suggestion seemed to offer insight into the creakiness of the prosecution's own plotting. It's hard to resist the thought that a collective tunnel vision took hold during the four-year investigation. Ladies and gentlemen, obsession. And yet, something happened to Dr. Thomas Coleman. He didn't simply pull up outside Planet Fitness and have a heart attack. He met

somebody there. It occurred to me that Nunez might have brought a woman to Coleman in the parking lot. He'd set Thomas up with dates on a few occasions after the affair became open. When I put this to Nunez, he denied it it and I believed him. After the trial, I watched the full eight-hour police interrogation tape. It is a study in dignified resistance to sustained pressure and it cleared any doubts in my mind about his fundamental honesty, but I remain haunted by the image of the white Pathfinder heading towards the gym. So it seems like everybody kind of has that. That's the issue. That thing is stuck.

Yeah. So that's where we're at. And let us know in the comments what you think about everything. And let us know if you're going to be coming with us to Crime Cruise, because I think we're going to have fun. Okay. I like that. I like that positivity.

I'm very optimistic. Are you? If you got no hope, what do you have? Well, on to the next one. We will be back next week. Until then, everyone stay safe out there. Have a good night. Bye.