Dateline NBC - Someone Was Waiting

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

In this Dateline classic, detectives in Frisco, Texas uncover a series of suspects after a woman is found dead in her garage -- all of them connected in different ways to her complicated and secretive... life. Josh Mankiewicz reports. Originally aired on NBC on December 9, 2016.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I was completely baffled at how this could have happened. I didn't know anyone who wished Ana any harm. Nobody. She was stunning, model-like. Any harm? Nobody. She was stunning. Model-like. She had that personality, that happiness from within. Men found Anna irresistible.
Starting point is 00:00:35 I see her, my angel of light. I called her by muse. They wrote her poetry, gave her gifts. How much money did he give Anna? $46,000. Is he some kind of sugar daddy? That's what it appears to be. She was found dead in her house.
Starting point is 00:00:52 She's lying on the ground, blood coming out of her mouth. Who would do this to her? With so many men in her life, there would be plenty of potential suspects. We knew an awful lot about her routines and who she dated. He is trying to get into her bank accounts, her emails. He's a direct beneficiary of a large sum of cash that's the one we're going to look at. Could this strange clue reveal a killer? There was a locked drawer, and inside the drawer
Starting point is 00:01:16 was a letter in Russian. That letter gave you a window into what was really happening. Right. We were confident he was going to be our guy. Of all the places a beautiful, bright, young Russian might end up. Frisco, Texas might not make your list, but that's where Anna Kitchitova went. And it was here she found what she was looking for, love and success, along with men and women who found her, well, fascinating. I met Anna after church one afternoon. I was delighted to meet someone who was more worldly and sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill suburban American you meet. We just had that connection. I cannot describe it in words. I don't think I have words to describe what we felt.
Starting point is 00:02:31 Like a blossom to bees, the sweet-natured Anna attracted a circle of admirers. Safe to say you had a crush on her? You could probably say that, yeah, at some point. I don't think she ever had a problem. Everybody loved her. Well, maybe not everyone. So many people would soon become potential suspects when someone's love and admiration turned toxic and deadly. Somewhere in that circle of fans, danger was waiting. But if Anna saw it coming, she kept it to herself. And so she'd listen to your really deepest secrets, but she wouldn't give you any of her own.
Starting point is 00:03:07 No. Her friend Donna was able to glean a little about Anna's exotic past. I knew that she was ethnically Russian, but born in Kazakhstan. And I knew that at some point the family had moved to St. Petersburg, where she, I believe, got a degree in economics at the university. I knew she married when she was fairly young and had her son, Igor. The marriage didn't last long, and the husband dropped out of the picture. So there was Anna, in her late 20s, with a little boy to support.
Starting point is 00:03:46 She wanted a better life and she made her move when she met an American tourist named Bob Moses who'd been invited to visit her English class. He was 19 years older. He was real nice and you know real friendly and had a great smile and so I just said you would you like to have lunch? The answer was yes. Lunch turned to dinner. One thing led to another. After I left, we communicated, we emailed before I finally said, hey, I'd like you to come over and possibly we have a relationship here together. It was October 1998.
Starting point is 00:04:20 She came without her son. She told me she wanted to kind of check things out before she brought her son over here. So she was here and, you know, we got married in December of that year. Two months later, Eager came to the United States and suddenly Bob had a family. The one-time bachelor was smitten with his young wife and his new four-year-old son. You know, little boy, you know, you know, run around, have fun. He was fantastic.
Starting point is 00:04:47 Bob formally adopted Eager. He was my son. I wouldn't consider him anything else. And he meant it. In 2002, fate dealt the family a sucker punch when Eager suffered what could have been a catastrophic health crisis,
Starting point is 00:05:03 cancer. But with Bob's help, he pulled through. They care about their child. So, we did everything possible. They recovered from the setback with Eager and life picked up in Frisco, an ambitious little city outside of Dallas. Bob worked in sales. Anna landed a job as a data analyst at the University of Texas, Dallas, where she met Jayshree Bahari. She came and she met with me and we clicked instantly.
Starting point is 00:05:37 What made you guys click like that? I was new, so she came over and told me about who all are there in the office and took me around. You know, we met people and we went out for lunch. So it was really nice of her to make me feel very comfortable. Anna clicked with a lot of people, like John Warkowski, a professor at the university who worked just upstairs from Anna. She wanted to learn about quantitative methods. That's my specialty.
Starting point is 00:06:03 So it just sort of hit. You know, we were good buddies. Anna was big on self-improvement. She was taking a course in public speaking when she met Jerry Kaspel, and he joined her crowd of admirers. We used to kind of tease each other. I said, you used to be my enemy. You were from a communist country, and she thought that was pretty funny.
Starting point is 00:06:25 In Donna Ross, Anna found a kindred spirit. Once a professional ballet dancer, Donna now teaches dance in Frisco. She was very passionate about some of the same things I was passionate about. We went to the Dallas Symphony. We went to the Dallas Opera. We went to Texas Ballet Theater. As Anna's world got bigger, her life with Bob began to wither. The marriage that had survived a child's illness faltered over time. And Anna surprised everyone when she asked Bob for a divorce in 2012. For Eker's sake, they parted as friends. And Anna was again on the lookout for a nice guy.
Starting point is 00:07:09 Which brings us to Michael Stodnik. Michael is a very attractive, very intelligent, soft-spoken young man about Anna's age. He is a professor at the University of Dallas. And Anna's new man. Good looking, age appropriate, a mild-mannered business professor. So with a nice new boyfriend and a good job, Anna Moses was once again moving on up. Until the day in January of 2015 when she didn't show for work. Michael said he couldn't get in touch with her, so he contacted police.
Starting point is 00:07:50 They went to check on her. And so when you get a welfare check call, what do you normally expect to find? You usually go to the house and find, you know, somebody either there, didn't want to talk to the person that's trying to find them, or, you know, they've gone somewhere and just not told somebody. But this was different? Yes, sir. What was going on with Anna?
Starting point is 00:08:12 Police were about to uncover a troubling clue. That's when we noticed some shell casings in the garage. One alarming discovery, and just feet away, another. I observed her lying on her back. I saw what appeared to be a bullet hole in her scarf. It was late morning, January 14, 2015, when Ana Moza's neighbor, David Stafford, thought he spotted trouble across the street at Ana's house. I had my blinds opened and noticed that the police officers came and were knocking on the door.
Starting point is 00:09:00 So I came out and asked what was going on, and they said that they were following up on a well check. Ana's boyfriend, Michael Stodnick, had called police to say he was worried. He said he'd gone to her house the night before to pick her up for a date, but she didn't answer the door. And now her colleagues were saying she hadn't shown up for work. Frisco Sergeant Jay Ream was one of the officers checking the home. No signs of any type of forced entry anywhere. Which means also you don't really have any excuse to go inside. Correct. Yeah, we didn't have any reason to go kick in somebody's door
Starting point is 00:09:36 because there didn't seem to be anything out of the norm. The doors were locked, so Sergeant Ream asked some officers to find Ana's 20-year-old son to help them get into the house. Eager was by then a student living at the university where his mother worked. They show up with the son and the key and the alarm code. Are you getting any kind of read off the son? I didn't talk to the son. He sat in the car. And that's where Eager waited while police went into his mom's house. A member of Sergeant Ream's team was wearing a body camera.
Starting point is 00:10:08 The first thing we wanted to see is if the car was there. So we walked in, and as you walk in, two of my guys went in the garage, looked, said, hey, there's no car. But then they looked down, and what they saw was beyond bad. Anna Moses, whose sunny presence had touched so many lives, was lying dead on the garage floor. I was standing in the laundry room, and I'm like, is she deceased? And they were like, yes, she is. Trauma?
Starting point is 00:10:36 Blood out the mouth. So we did a quick protective sweep of the house to make sure nobody else was inside, and then we came out and locked the door. That way we kept the scene pristine for the crime scene and detectives to arrive. Investigators were there within minutes. One of them was Reuben Mankin of the Texas Rangers. My initial observation was, just from coming in through the foyer, was that it was a clean house.
Starting point is 00:11:01 Then I made a beeline for the laundry room. Wait one sec. Clean meaning didn't look like she'd interrupted a burglary. That's correct. That's correct. I mean, there was no stuff missing, drawers pulled open. Right. Something else was telling. On the floor of the garage was Anna's purse, which still held $300. And nothing else seemed to be missing, except Anna's car. Ranger Mankins surveyed the scene with lead detective Brian Chudi. That's when we noticed some shell casings in the garage. Just multiple shell casings. The casings easily identified the murder weapon as a.22.
Starting point is 00:11:42 And a careful look at Anna's body told them a little more. I observed her to be lying on her back. She was heavily clothed, still wearing, you know, her jacket and a couple of scarves. I saw what appeared to be a bullet hole in her scarf that was wrapped around her neck, and that's when I observed a hole in her neck. So she was killed presumably by somebody who got into the house and waited for her in the garage? Possibly. Or she opens the garage door, she pulls in,
Starting point is 00:12:16 and somebody runs in there, shoots and kills her, and takes the car. All right, so an alert goes out for the car, right? Correct. There were so many scenarios under consideration. This didn't feel like a burglary or a carjacking. The medical examiner outlined Ana's cause of death. He was able to document that she'd been shot six times. They found a seventh bullet in Ana's clothing that hadn't penetrated.
Starting point is 00:12:44 In fact, it fell onto the examining table. The deadly bullet wounds were close together. Someone had shot her in the chest and then in the back. So this is somebody who was probably not too far away from her. Correct. Yeah, he fired a bunch of times. Correct. The trajectory of the bullets suggested Ana had gotten out of her car, perhaps seen her assailant, and started to turn away. She doesn't go down with those three rounds, and that's where you have the following barrage of bullets on her back
Starting point is 00:13:18 that are square in her back. So like if we startle you and the door's right there, and you go to turn to run to that door, you're going to catch it left to right. There was something else. And it was, at the very least, odd. Ana may have been shot seven times. But police found 11 shell casings at the scene. And no sign of the other four bullets.
Starting point is 00:13:44 Did crime scene ever find the other slugs in the walls or the floor or anywhere? No, sir. That's kind of weird. Yeah. Right? Yes, sir. So now detectives turned their attention to the circle of people who knew and loved Anna Moses. Among them could be a clue, perhaps even a suspect.
Starting point is 00:14:03 And detectives would begin with the person she loved the most. Police tell Ana's son, Igor, about his mother's murder, and his response is strange. Is she in one piece? Is she in one piece? Have you ever heard anybody respond like that? Never. The bullet-riddled body of 43-year-old Anna Moses had been found in her garage in a suburb of Dallas.
Starting point is 00:14:52 Now Sergeant Jay Ream had the difficult task of breaking the news to her only child. We needed to notify the son. He's right there at the curb. He's at the curb, so couldn't not tell him anything. After helping police get into the house, 20-year-old Eager Moses was waiting outside, sitting in a car. What's your name? Eager. Eager? I'm Jay. Hi. Sergeant Ream's body cam was switched on, but as you can see, it wasn't framed properly.
Starting point is 00:15:16 His words, however, were direct and to the point. There's really no easy way to tell you what's going on. Okay. Okay? Your mom is deceased. Okay. So right now, we've got to do a lot of things to try to figure out how, why, what's going on. You've done that kind of notification before, haven't you? A lot. And they're not pleasant? No. Worst thing to do. Was this one different? It was different in the response that I received. In fact, there was basically no response, according to Reem.
Starting point is 00:15:52 Just a blank stare. Did he cry? Was he emotional? Not at all. Their conversation, if that's what this was, continued. Is your mom's car usually here? Yeah. Okay. Is it not here? No. That's when Eager asked a question that seemed to come totally out of left field. Is she in one piece? Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly, and then that's what we got to try to figure out. Is she in one piece? Have you ever heard anybody respond like that? Never. To a death notification? Never. But it wouldn't be the only response that left Sergeant Ream scratching his head. So why don't you talk to the detective and we'll go from there if you're good with that. I do have class even though I know that's kind of insignificant at the moment.
Starting point is 00:16:37 Okay. Yeah, I think you can get an excuse for that. Eager never made it to class that night. Instead, he was brought here to the Frisco Police Department for a formal interview. Investigators had already been briefed about his odd reaction to the news of his mother's death. Later, he'd tell her friends he didn't want to have a funeral for her. And also this, that whoever had killed Ana Moses should be forgiven. Eager said he was in class the night his mom was murdered.
Starting point is 00:17:09 But after interviewing him for five hours, investigators were still wondering about his unusual reaction. Especially when they learned that right after the interview, that very same night, Eager was in the gym playing a game called volleyballally Ball with friends. By no means did he seem to be grieving. Just kind of added to us needing to dig a little bit deeper and find out what was going on. This is what, hours after his mother's been found dead?
Starting point is 00:17:37 That's correct. And when detectives did dig deeper, they discovered what could be a motive. Ana had a $750,000 life insurance policy with just a single beneficiary, Eager. He's a person of interest. Eager being the direct beneficiary of a large sum of cash, yes, that's something we're going to look at. Not long after Anna's body was found, her friend Donna read the awful news on Facebook from a posting by another friend. That had to be terribly shocking to hear that she'd been killed. Completely. Completely. Because I didn't know anyone who wished Anna any harm. Nobody. I just, I couldn't imagine it. Who didn't love Ana?
Starting point is 00:18:29 And who'd hate her. Exactly. Donna said she could not picture Igor as the killer. Never, never, never. I just know Igor is not capable of murder. And another friend, Jayshree Bihari, remembered how close Anna and Igor always were. She just adored him.
Starting point is 00:18:52 Her son was like the center of her life. What did she tell you about her son? You know, she just said that I want him to pursue his passion, which is in music, and she would always go to his concerts. Eger played guitar in a Christian rock band, combining two big interests, music and religion. He was studying speech pathology at UT Dallas, the same school where his mother worked. She used to even wash his clothes on weekends and when he was at the dorm. He's in college and she's still doing his laundry. Yes, she will take all his clothes, wash them, iron them,
Starting point is 00:19:31 get him some food, homemade food and stuff like that. The last time Donna saw Anna, Anna couldn't contain her excitement about travel plans she'd made with Igor. She was telling me about her wealthy aunt giving her money so she and Igor could go on vacation, and she was really looking forward to that. But as much as Anna's friends believed in Igor, they still weren't sure what to make of some of his statements. He said that whoever had done this should be forgiven. We all noticed it and thought it was unusual, but Igor, in the last year, had become fanatically religious. Day one of the investigation, and Igor was just the first of the men in Anna's life
Starting point is 00:20:23 police wanted to talk with. The list would be long, and on it would be some names that would qualify as secret admirers, relationships Anna Moses had never shared with even her closest friends. We're cast a broad net. Including her ex-husband. Clearly he's going to be at the top of the list of people you want to interview. Correct.
Starting point is 00:20:51 Detectives talk with Bob Moses and leave with more questions than answers. I did not think this was going to be something easy to solve. Law Enforcement 101 on any murder, talk with the ex. But this time, Ranger Mankin and Detective Chudi were also messengers, arriving at Bob Moses' house with some bad news. I mean, they come at midnight, you know, something's happened. And I said, well, what happened? Is my son okay? Your son's fine. Well, that's what we want to talk about. The investigators, who were recording their conversation, preferred to tell Bob about Anna when they all went to the police station. But his persistence forced their hand.
Starting point is 00:21:50 Tell me what happened here. Okay, well, something happened to Anna. What happened to her? Anna's dead. What? What are you talking about? Anna's dead. And how is that possible? The cops, who at that point hadn't revealed how she died,
Starting point is 00:22:10 noticed that Bob, unlike Eager, had a strong response. His reaction seemed appropriate. He was upset. He was emotional. Yes. My first thoughts were for Eager. I mean, he's like, you know, 20 years old at this time. He just lost his mother. And they told me that he knew and he, you know, knew about what happened. Bob agreed to follow the cops to the Frisco PD in his car for a more formal interview. On their way to the station, the ranger can be heard telling his partner that Bob had passed the credibility test. 1 a.m. in a little room downtown. Already a long day for Mankin, whose back is to the camera, and Chudy at the table facing Bob. We're trying to figure out what happened. Maybe one of the last times we saw her
Starting point is 00:23:05 was when we were there. What happened? We have good reason to believe that Anna was murdered. Oh my God. Yeah. No. God.
Starting point is 00:23:20 How would something like that happen? How would that happen? How would that happen? Do you know of anybody who would want to harm Anna? No, I mean, why would somebody want to harm Anna? The detectives needed to nail down Bob's timeline for the evening Anna was murdered. Tuesday, January 13th. I wasn't really doing anything yesterday, you know, watching TV or anything else. Bob's alma mater, Ohio State, had won the national championship Monday night, and he said he spent the next day reveling in post-game celebrations
Starting point is 00:23:57 and commentary on TV. And he said one of the three men he shared his house with could vouch for him. Who was at home yesterday whenever you were at home? Well, the guy who was there right there, Ken. Bob said it was so cold he never ventured outside until around 7 p.m. when he drove to Twin Peaks, a nearby restaurant. Police would confirm that on security video, spotting Bob wearing his red Ohio State jacket.
Starting point is 00:24:29 What seemed to matter the most to Bob was his son, who needed him now more than ever. I should go see Eager. I really should go see him and talk to him and see how he is. From talking to him on the phone a couple hours ago, he seemed all right. All right? Yeah. He'd be all right. As the ex-husband, investigators of course asked about the broken marriage. Bob and Anna divorced two years before Anna was murdered. I mean, we had disagreements.
Starting point is 00:25:07 I mean, that's kind of why we're divorced. I mean, we just were kind of like opposites in some ways. The investigators asked Bob if he owned guns, and he said yes, five of them. Three were.22 caliber, the kind of weapon that killed Anna. Bob readily agreed to let police search his home and take his guns and ammunition. We're going to have to get him analyzed. Bob even provided a DNA swab right on the spot. This is a Q-tip, a big, long Q-tip. So I want you to go ahead and rub it on your left cheek. Left.
Starting point is 00:25:40 We use this evidence to help rule you out. Okay. After being interviewed for about an hour, Bob left to find his son. When he and I were together, I was, you know, really upset about it. And they never stopped supporting each other. Soon, Bob and Eager moved into Anna's house to grieve together. It was another example of the affection for his adopted son that had always impressed Anna's friends. Bob was essentially the only father that Igor has ever known. And when Igor was sick,
Starting point is 00:26:14 Bob definitely delivered. Bob was incredibly kind and loving and caring to Igor when Igor was suffering with cancer. A little seven-year-old boy has a really, really rare form of bone cancer. Everything Bob did was to protect Igor, even the divorce. Anna and Bob kept it secret for months until Igor could finish high school. Then they made sure it was amicable, also for Eager. She said that he will be coming often to see Eager and we are, we'll be on friendly terms. Bob also came by the house to do handyman repairs. And she knew if she called somebody, it was going to be very expensive.
Starting point is 00:27:01 And I was like, well, I can fix it. After interviewing Ana's ex-husband and son, police were ready to widen their investigation. More men were on the radar. I did not think this was going to be something easy to solve. And the next man up, Ana's current boyfriend, would do something Bob and Eager didn't do. He lawyered up. The boyfriend would do something else, too. Something truly bizarre. After talking to police, he talked to himself. Police and Texas Rangers were working overtime investigating the murder of Anna Moses. The upwardly mobile Russian immigrant's pursuit of the American dream
Starting point is 00:28:04 had ended in a hail of bullets in her suburban garage. Anna's car was missing. Cops suspected whoever killed her had taken it. Twelve hours after Anna's body was found. One of the officers was driving through the neighborhood, and he got a hit on the plate. I get a phone call from patrol advising they located Anna Moses' car just a couple streets away from her house. The officer on the scene told Detective Chudy and Ranger Mankin he could see what appeared to be a bloodstain inside the car.
Starting point is 00:28:40 How many bloodstains in all did you find inside the car? Three areas where blood was located. The seat bottom, the seat back, and the center console. What else did you find in the car? A Red Bull can and a weathered cigarette butt. Did Ana Moza smoke or drink Red Bull? Not to our knowledge. Ana's car was towed to the crime lab, where CSI techs worked it over.
Starting point is 00:29:04 They found no useful fingerprints. The cigarette butt, energy drink can, and bloodstains were all sent for DNA testing. Results could take weeks or even months. Meantime, cops had a killer on the loose. Investigators were following Ana's electronic footprints, reconstructing her last day alive. We had some camera footage that showed her leaving the college at approximately 5.07 p.m. We also got some footage from one of the schools nearby and a Taco Bell as well. She was buying food. Correct, correct. Both were en route to coming back home. She was
Starting point is 00:29:46 also captured on a camera in this neighborhood, and that was at 5.49 p.m. So if you believe that she was killed pretty much right after she got out of her car, then around six o'clock seems a plausible time. That's correct. While the forensics were being collected, an old-fashioned shoe leather investigation was underway. Cops were looking hard at the men in Anna's life. Starting with her official boyfriend, Michael Stodnick, who had a date with Anna the night she was killed and who reported her missing. Detectives invited Stodnick downtown and grilled him about his whereabouts the night of Anna's death. And the boyfriend's alibi is, I was there at the scene of the murder.
Starting point is 00:30:33 I just couldn't get in and I didn't know she was there. Right, right. Well, yes. He said he was at Grapevine Elementary getting his daughter's grades. Stoddnick answered all their questions, but a couple of things left the cops wondering. During the interrogation, he asked if he should get a lawyer. And then later, he did. Anna's son, Eger, talks to you freely, doesn't hire an attorney. Her ex-husband, Bob, talks to you, doesn't hire an attorney.
Starting point is 00:31:04 Her boyfriend, however, does. Does that make you sit up and take notice? He does raise the question on, should I get an attorney? It's right about the time we start asking for DNA. Stodnick did eventually provide a DNA sample, but that didn't put questions about him to rest because when the cops left the interrogation room, Ana's boyfriend had a private and animated conversation with himself.
Starting point is 00:31:41 Strange, if not downright suspicious, it definitely didn't help his standing on the cops' hit parade of suspects. Ana's dear friends, still shell-shocked from the news of her death, were drawn into the investigation. What did you know about this guy she was going out with, Michael? When she started going out with him, she called me to say, hey, you know, I found somebody who I'm seeing. I said, oh, that's very nice. I'm so happy for you. Did she
Starting point is 00:32:12 tell you anything else about him? No. She just said that he seems to be like a nice person and I'm happy. Jayshree had never met Ana's boyfriend, Michael, and most of Anna's other friends didn't know her ex-husband Bob. Retired ballerina Donna Ross, who had danced with the Joffrey Ballet in New York, was one of the few who knew both men. She found Bob lacking in the social graces, someone who didn't always recognize the audience he was playing to. I hung out with the movers and shakers, the glitterati of Manhattan. And for someone to relate to me as though I were somebody in a little small provincial town in Texas, it was pretty insulting. And here you were being sort of looked down on. Yes. He said, well, as he pulled up his Bermuda shorts,
Starting point is 00:33:11 if you'd ever been to New York City, you'd know about the subway. That was one of the... Wrong thing to say. Yeah. Bob did not feel good unless he was putting someone else down and trying to elevate himself. Tell me about Michael. Well, Michael is very low-key, very kind, very sensitive. Sounds like you approved of Michael a lot more than Bob. Oh, absolutely, yes. I mean, Michael is 20 years younger than Bob, much more handsome, much more intelligent, much more successful,
Starting point is 00:33:54 much more accomplished, and much wealthier. What's not to like? And yet, Anna and Michael did not get along perfectly, did they? Oh, no. There was lots of squabbling. It was dawning on Anna's friends how little they really knew about this enigmatic Russian woman. In this picture, you know, it's me and Anna. Jayshree today treasures the gifts Anna gave her, like this matryoshka, the famous Russian nesting doll. But she also wonders. Explain to me how you were among her closest friends. I mean, you called her your soul sister.
Starting point is 00:34:35 I did. She was. And yet there was so much of her life that she didn't tell you anything about. Yes. She never told you? No, no. She was very good at dodging things. That was dawning on investigators, too. When did it become clear to you that Anna Moses had parts of her life
Starting point is 00:34:53 that she wasn't sharing with anybody else? I think through the interview process with friends, family, and the people that knew her, it seemed like she had her life compartmentalized and that certain types of people she would let into this section of her life and other types of people she would let closer and give them more detail. As her friends and the cops continued to peel back the multiple layers of the late Anna Moses's singularly opaque love life, she was starting to resemble a real-life Matryoshka, beautiful,
Starting point is 00:35:27 intricate, and with a lot unseen. And detectives were just beginning to tally Anna's legion of admirers around the greater Dallas area. One of those admirers, a poet, who insisted he was just good friends with Anna. Generally, when men describe a woman as their muse and they're writing poems about her, there's more going on there than just poetry. Winston Churchill referred to Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Texas homicide investigators looking into the murder of Russian immigrant Anna Moses were finding the same thing. Michael Stotnick, her boyfriend who put himself at the scene of the crime, told cops how he met Anna.
Starting point is 00:36:33 She was on Match.com. I believe they met through Match.com. Anna's hard drive revealed he wasn't her first. On Match.com, Anna had page after page, 11 to be precise, of winks, postings by men who'd admired her photo. And it wasn't just cyberspace keeping cops busy. Lovely Anna had plenty of flesh and blood admirers, including Jerry Caspell, who'd met her years earlier. We met at Toastmasters. Which is a speaking club? It's for public speaking and leadership, and she was working on her English, of course, and I kind of tried to help her.
Starting point is 00:37:20 It sounds as if there was very quickly a connection between the two of you. Yeah, we got to be pretty close friends. She asked me, for example, to help her with her resume. You said keep writing, don't forget. Jerry, who is married and works for a medical equipment company, is also a poet and songwriter. He says Anna encouraged his writing and eventually helped edit a collection of his poems.
Starting point is 00:37:47 She always raved about poetry, and she said, I can be your muse. And that's what struck me. Yeah, you can be my muse. What guy wouldn't want a muse, particularly an attractive Russian one? Sure. So I called her my muse. She thought that was great. Maybe I'm very cynical here, but I do work for Dateline. Yeah. Generally,
Starting point is 00:38:11 when men describe a woman as their muse and they're writing poems to her or for her or about her, there's more going on there than just poetry, or at least the man hopes there is. Yeah. Well, there wasn't. It was a deep, deep friendship. I loved her like I would love a sister. I'm going to read you an excerpt of a poem you wrote. A soft touch to heal my sad soul when it aches. Whispered words soothing my heart when it breaks. That's the kind of poem that guys write about their girlfriends.
Starting point is 00:38:48 Yes, maybe it is. She inspired me to write things like that. Anna may have been merely Jerry's muse, but she was careful to conceal their relationship from her husband Bob while they were still married. She made sure I wasn't there if he was coming over or something like that. Sounds like she was trying to avoid the two of you meeting. Yeah, that's what it seemed like, and I was fine with that.
Starting point is 00:39:18 Could a reasonable person, an investigator, look at the emails and texts between the two of you and conclude that maybe there was something extracurricular going on. Sure. I got it. Investigators were in the midst of their own musings about that relationship and had some questions for Jerry, like whether he had any guns. The poet told them he owned a.22 for target shooting, the same caliber as the weapon that killed Anna. And Jerry says he was learning things as well. I met some of her friends as they were preparing for the memorial. They started talking about her boyfriend,
Starting point is 00:39:58 and I said, I don't know about any boyfriend. So that was quite odd. She'd never mentioned Michael to you? I never, ever knew about him until the memorial. And now there was someone else on the cops' radar. Remember that neighbor, David Stafford, who noticed the police activity outside her house? He was extraordinarily helpful in providing details about Anna's love life to detectives. I'd see one guy, he was around, you know, for a while, and then all of a sudden
Starting point is 00:40:33 I'd see another guy maybe three, four, five months later, and then she started dating a third guy. The curious neighbor explained to us how he knew so much about Anna's private life. You know, by sitting here, I could see everything that went on across the street and cars driving by and stuff like that. But he told us he wasn't that interested in the pretty Russian divorcee whose dating life he so carefully chronicled. But he told us he wasn't that interested in the pretty Russian divorcee, whose dating life he so carefully chronicled. Not his type, he said. I never asked her out, no. I mean, she's from a foreign country, she's Russian,
Starting point is 00:41:15 and her English was with a very heavy accent, and I'm just not attracted to any woman like that. After Ana's body was found, he had visitors. Ranger Macon and I went over to Mr. Stafford's house and sat down and talked with him. The neighbor told them he was on a long conference call in his home office at the time Ana was killed. Did he fill in any gaps on the timeline? Did he hear any gunshots? No, I really didn't hear any gunshots. That neighbor seemed to know quite a bit about her.
Starting point is 00:41:50 Yes, he did. And we made note of that, that he knew an awful lot about her routines as far as who she was dating, who she had dated. Judy and Mankin invited the neighbor downtown for a longer conversation. At the station, David Stafford added his DNA sample to the investigators' growing collection. Yet another person of interest.
Starting point is 00:42:17 For Anna, he was a friend with benefits. Financial ones. Is he some kind of sugar daddy? That's what it appears to be. As homicide investigators struggled to solve the murder of Ana Moses, their list of suspects grew longer. We had people of interest during this, and there was certainly a lot of them. Anna's life proved full of men who seemed to deserve a second look.
Starting point is 00:42:57 There was her son, Eager, who stood to collect $750,000 in life insurance. Her ex-husband, Bob, divorced but still in the picture. Her soulmate, Jerry the Poet, who called Anna his muse. Her boyfriend Michael, who admitted he went by Anna's home the night of the murder. And that attentive neighbor David, who kept curiously close tabs on Anna. But wait, there's more. Her colleagues pointed detectives toward another special friend of Anna's. Coworkers indicated that she had a close relationship with Dr. Warkowski. Dr. John Warkowski is a vice provost at UT Dallas. Anna took one of his classes. I I knew her for about six years, but then about three years or four years ago, what she was doing coincided with something I was doing,
Starting point is 00:43:53 so we worked together more. So that's how it sort of became friends. And then she liked music, I liked music. Before long, Anna and the married professor were spending time together outside of work. As the professor told it, they became even closer around 2012, when Anna's marriage hit a rough patch. The two met most mornings for tea and sympathy. I would come down around 10 and just see how she was doing. And then she would, you know, we might talk about music or lots of times she was trying to improve her English. He would go visit her probably twice a day while she was at work. You guys both married?
Starting point is 00:44:39 Yes. Your wives be okay with that kind of mentoring relationship between you and somebody else? Visiting her twice a day and having coffee? Probably not. Lawmen learned that later, while Anna was still married to Bob, the relationship evolved into a romance. The professor said he ended their fling after he concluded the 30-year age difference was simply too much, and they went back to being just friends. But clearly for Anna, this was a friendship with a benefit for her, one more fiscal than physical. The professor was quite generous with his time and his money, even after the romance was supposedly over.
Starting point is 00:45:24 How much money did he give Anna? $46,000. $46,000? Yes, sir. A man is gonna give $46,000 to a woman that he spends a lot of time with, works with, seems attracted to, but there's nothing going on between them? I think he's liking to pay to see the happiness that it brings to people's lives.
Starting point is 00:45:47 Anna used some of the money to bring her mother from Russia for a visit and to pay Eger's college expenses. And the cash kept flowing. The professor gave her another $6,000 just days before her murder. And almost all of this, like so much in Anna's life, stayed on the down low, at least with her friends. What could you tell about Anna's relationship with John Warkowski? They were friends, very good friends.
Starting point is 00:46:15 During the investigation, it came out that John and Anna had dated for a while. Really? Yes. Surprising. Yes, very. I didn't know that. There were secret relationships that were known apparently only to her and maybe one other person. It's like there were two Annas or four Annas.
Starting point is 00:46:39 And I see where she's coming from because, you know, I know our cultures are like that. I know that people don't share things. The professor explained Ana was essentially his personal charity. The cops wondered about his motives. When a man who's interested in a woman basically bankrolls her, gives her 40-something thousand dollars, and then nothing happens, she's not interested in him, or she says you're too old, or you realize you're too old, that can make some guys pretty angry. Absolutely. Obviously, we needed to keep digging.
Starting point is 00:47:13 The professor admits they dated briefly. Right. I'm not sure what dated means, but, I mean, is he some kind of sugar daddy? That's what it appears to be, that he's, you know, giving her money and maybe hopes that, you know, maybe at some point, maybe she would gain some interest in him. When they burrowed deeper into Ana's finances, investigators found about $111,000 in her bank accounts. Money cops thought her university job couldn't have provided.
Starting point is 00:47:43 And the professor's generosity accounted for less than half of that. So all that money begged a lot of questions. Was somebody else giving her money? I have no idea about that. This is new to me. If she had asked me, I would give her money. If she was in need, I would have given her money.
Starting point is 00:48:02 The unaccounted-for cash was just another piece in a puzzle that already featured more characters than a Hollywood caper. This is a good whodunit case. We didn't know a lot at that time, and we had to rely on the investigation and the crime scene and evidence to point us to who did it. Where would that evidence lead? The answers would surprise even Anna's closest friends.
Starting point is 00:48:31 There were all kinds of things in Anna's life that she didn't tell anybody about. She did not. The many heartbroken friends of Anna Moses crowded into her memorial service ten days after her murder. Jerry played this song. He wrote it just for her. We don't know what anything about you, Anna, that doesn't make us feel so glad you've come our way. It was time to say goodbye,
Starting point is 00:49:37 except for many of her friends, who were saying hello, because many were meeting each other, even learning about each other, for the first time. There were all kinds of things in Anna's life that she didn't tell anybody about. She did not. There were relationships that were not known by her closest friends. Jerry says he didn't even know who Anna's ex-husband was until well after the service. He got up and talked about meeting her for the first time, I think in St. Petersburg. And he started crying, and it wasn't until maybe a day later that I talked to one of her friends,
Starting point is 00:50:20 and they said that was Bob. Bob says he had a hard time holding it together. At the memorial service, when I spoke about her, I was extremely emotional. In fact, I had to have somebody bring me a tissue because it was so upsetting to me to talk about this. Anna's son, Eger, also managed to speak, but it wasn't easy for him or for anyone. They shared their grief that day, their memories. But on another level, they were also sharing a few suspicions. Donna knew the odds. Anna was probably killed by someone close to her, and that someone could have been at that very service, putting on a show. You know, the fact that somebody cries on the stand or at a funeral or so on and so forth,
Starting point is 00:51:08 well, of course, I mean, if they've just committed a crime and, and yes, they can still cry. Kreef does not imply innocence. No, absolutely not. In the days that followed, detectives would consider the cast of characters who had reveled in the glow of the Ana Moses starlight, and then mourned her passing. And some began to drop off the list of suspects, including anyone she might have recently met from online dating. So Ana did have a Match.com account, but she hadn't been on it, or actively searching or looking, to our knowledge. And that's verified through a Match.com account, but she hadn't been on it or actively searching or looking, to our knowledge.
Starting point is 00:51:46 And that's verified through the Match.com records. So at least for Match.com, she wasn't dating anybody except the boyfriend. Correct. And the first real suspect was one of the first to be cleared. Eager, the son, not terribly interested in helping law enforcement, says he doesn't want a funeral for his mother, says whoever did this should be forgiven. And he's the beneficiary of a $750,000 insurance policy. Yes, sir.
Starting point is 00:52:14 But given that police believe Anna was killed around 6 p.m., Eager had a good alibi. Where was Eager when she was killed? In class. How far away? It's about a 45-minute drive. You're convinced he was there in class? Yes. Yes, sir. We spoke to classmates. As for Eager's odd reaction at the news of his mother's death, friends told police that Eager is just that way sometimes. No one who knew him doubted Eager was devastated. And you've got a neighbor across the street who
Starting point is 00:52:45 helpfully keeps very close tabs on Anna Moses. Yes. Okay, the neighbor was nearby, quite nearby when the murder happened. The neighbor is home. On the conference call. And you can prove he's on the conference call. Yes. So police ruled out the neighbor. But what about the boyfriend, Michael? He was supposed to have had a date with Ana that night. But detectives say he couldn't have done the murder. They confirmed he was attending an event at his daughter's school. We got the boyfriend signed in and then he's also on video at the school. Grapevine Elementary. Too far away.
Starting point is 00:53:26 Too far away. As for that strange conversation Michael had with himself... In the end, police figured it was just shock. Another odd twist in a case full of them. But there were still other people who had spun through Anna's orbit and then shed tears at her memorial. Did one of them have a reason to turn on her? That question continued to nag at police as they narrowed the search for her killer. A surprise discovery turns this investigation inside out.
Starting point is 00:54:06 There was a locked drawer, and inside the drawer was a letter in Russian. Will it lead investigators to the truth? We were pretty confident that he was going to be our guy. The Professor and the Poet. It's no sitcom title. This was deadly serious. Both were among Anna's most ardent admirers, and both were still under suspicion. You got a couple of guys who were sort of in the shadows. John, the professor, and Jerry, the poet. The professor gives her $40,000 and gets back in return. We don't really know what. And the poet thinks of her as his muse.
Starting point is 00:54:58 Have I got that about right? Yes. Yes. Did police have questions about them? Absolutely. But days later, investigators came to believe both men were nowhere near Ana's house when she was murdered, based on witnesses and, interestingly enough, the same alibi.
Starting point is 00:55:17 The professor is where? On the tollway. The poet is where? On the tollway driving. Investigators had eliminated a lot of suspects, but they hadn't found their killer. They needed a break. And two weeks after the murder, they got one. A mysterious message from Anna herself.
Starting point is 00:55:37 In essence, from beyond the grave. A search warrant was conducted on Anna Moses' office at UT Dallas, and there was a locked drawer, and inside the drawer was a letter in Russian. Straight from a Cold War spy novel. But where would it lead? We had to get an FBI agent to come translate the letter for us. You don't know whether that's going to be a great clue or just a shopping list. The note was a mixture of Russian and English.
Starting point is 00:56:05 In any language, it was a bombshell. It was in her own handwriting, written apparently during divorce proceedings two years earlier. Anna was telling a lawyer about a threat from her husband Bob, a convoluted one, but a threat nonetheless. Basically, the letter translates that Bob was going to kill himself and blame Anna and write a letter to eager blaming Anna to get eager to hate Anna. All of this presumably is some way of convincing Anna to stay with Bob. Yes, sir. If true, it was a bizarre blackmail attempt that put a more sinister spin on Bob's claim of an amicable divorce. So that letter really kind of gave you a window into what was really happening in that marriage. Right. If you're suicidal, you're homicidal. That's a real quick switch.
Starting point is 00:57:00 That gave Detective Chudy and Ranger Mankin a powerful reason to re-interview Bob. But fearing Heat Lawyer up, they lured him back to the Frisco PD by saying they had information for him on Anna's estate. Thanks for coming up, Bob. Appreciate it. Once inside the cramped interview room, the investigators immediately changed the subject to Bob's shaky alibi for the day of the murder. Turns out his roommate could not vouch for Bob or his timeline, as Bob had said he would. I know it's been a couple weeks, but if you can remember right now how hard I can tell you what I did yesterday. It's been so distraught. I'm sorry, but that is vague.
Starting point is 00:57:49 I'm not trying to be vague. It's just I don't have details for you because there's no details. Sitting there watching TV, I didn't look at my phone and go, okay, it's 2 o'clock, I'm watching TV. I wasn't keeping track of time. He was selling. The cops weren't buying. But you understand this is a murder investigation?
Starting point is 00:58:05 I absolutely understand, okay? So Anna was murdered. I guess. So when I get this, it's not like a baseball was stolen out of some store. Right. Everyone else is bending over backwards to accommodate us, and now we're catching, I don't know, I don't know, I don't keep track of every minute or every day. I know. I can tell you where I was at 2 o'clock yesterday.
Starting point is 00:58:26 But in Bob's first interview at the police station, he did remember going to Twin Peaks around 7 p.m. The problem was the police think Ana was killed an hour before that. He's seen on camera, walking in, sitting down at the bar. Okay, so maybe if he comes in at 7 o'clock, he left home at 6.45. Yes. Yes, sir. That's still plenty of time to have been on his house and commit the murder.
Starting point is 00:58:50 Correct. Correct. While investigators focused on Bob's alibi and catching a killer, Bob wanted to talk about, well, just about anything else. Like his guns the cops took to examine. My guns, sir. Can I get those back? The cops said Bob changed the subject any time he felt cornered. Bob never asked us one time about the killer, how the investigation was going, any leads.
Starting point is 00:59:16 But he did ask about the will. Ana's will. That was the hook that brought Bob to the PD. I do have a couple of questions. We're looking to see if Anna has a new or newer will. What did the old will say, do you know? Well, basically, I gave my stuff to her, she gave her stuff to me. But Anna restructured her will and didn't tell him. Bob didn't even know that Eager was a beneficiary.
Starting point is 00:59:41 Bob, at that time, thought that he was the beneficiary on the will. So maybe Bob thought he would be the one cashing in Anna's $750,000 life insurance policy. It was money police said he desperately needed. He's in over his head financially. Anna Moses wasn't even cold and in the ground by the time Robert Moses moved back into the house. So as we're looking at the investigation, who's benefiting from Anna's death? Investigators were smelling the oldest of motives. It was all about the money.
Starting point is 01:00:15 You think Bob Moses essentially killed his wife by mistakenly thinking that he was going to get a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? It was a targeted murder. Either he was going to be the beneficiary, or he could manipulate Igor to get access to that money. And now, cops were eager to confront the man with a motive. They went in for the kill. We either think we're sitting across from a monster, or somebody that had a lapse in judgment?
Starting point is 01:00:48 Me? No. Absolutely not. Why not, Bob? Okay. I don't know what you're talking about now, but it sounds like you're accusing me of something. We're fact finders, okay? Good.
Starting point is 01:01:02 I hope you find the facts. You're making it hard for me to find the facts, Bob, because you can't tell me s***. I'm done talking to you guys. I'm done talking to you, okay? Because I don't know everything I did that day. I'm trying to twist all this around now. With that, Bob strode out of the room, but not out of suspicion. You guys think you have your man?
Starting point is 01:01:24 We were pretty confident that he was going to be our guy. On February 26th, 2015, six weeks after Ana was gunned down, Bob Moses was arrested. It was his birthday. He'd spend it behind bars facing a charge of murder and that's where we interviewed him did you kill your wife no absolutely not I would never hurt on Bob Moses goes on trial facing a prosecution witness who claims he terrified Anna she said can I come to your house? I'm afraid you will kill me tonight. It was October, but it felt like summer as the Texas sun shone over the Collin County Courthouse, almost two years after Ana Moses was murdered.
Starting point is 01:02:30 All rise. Inside the courtroom, Bob Moses, the man who brought Ana to America and who loved and cared for her and her son, was charged with her murder. Ana was a sweet woman, and you're going to see that. Prosecutor Cynthia Walker began to lay out her case for the jury. Anna had been shot six times. Two in the chest, one in the throat, three in the back. Telling them the evidence would point to Anna's ex-husband.
Starting point is 01:03:04 And the killer in this room is Robert Moses. And there will be no doubt in your mind. Walker was promising a strong case, but what's a prosecutor to do about all those men in Ana's life? She knew the defense would try to cast them as alternative suspects. No shortage of potential persons of interest here. Anybody who's going to be in a circumstantial case where there aren't any witnesses,
Starting point is 01:03:30 you start looking at people, and you say, who are the people closest to her? You know, boyfriends, friends, anybody who's had any sort of relations with her. So in an unusual move, Walker decided to preempt the defense and call those men as her own witnesses. She began with Anna's boyfriend, Michael Stodnik, who said he was intrigued by Anna the day they met.
Starting point is 01:03:55 She was an amazing woman. She was incredibly intelligent, very well-spoken, extremely kind, and just someone I knew I wanted to get to know right away. The prosecutor showed Michael a photo of Ana. This is how you want to remember Ana, is that correct? She's beautiful, Ana? She is. And she asked him straight out. Did you kill Ana? No, I did not.
Starting point is 01:04:20 She asked the same of the others, the neighbor across the street. Did you kill Anna? No. The poet. Did you have anything to do with Anna's death? No. The professor. Did you have anything to do with Anna's death?
Starting point is 01:04:37 No. Everybody can be alibied, not just by their own words, but by subsequent investigation. Yes. Except Bob Moses. Except Bob Moses. He was very general, very vague. With the Frisco PD detective on the stand, Walker played Bob's interviews with police. What did you do from the time you woke up to, I mean, I probably took the dog for a walk. Remember, Bob said he'd been at home most of the day and into the evening. But on the stand, Bob's housemates all said they couldn't vouch for him. Do you ever remember seeing Bob Moses in the house?
Starting point is 01:05:14 I would say no. I was rarely in the house. So on the January 13th, you don't remember? I don't remember seeing him at all. The prosecutor said Bob's whereabouts couldn't be confirmed until he appeared on that restaurant video at 7 p.m. The Texas Ranger told the jury Ana was killed an hour earlier. I knew she had left work, her office, around 5.
Starting point is 01:05:37 He mapped out her final trip using videos from the security cameras on her route, including that video from a neighbor's camera right near Ana's home. She was captured one more time as she was traveling north on Charleston. Even though the timestamp says 6.59 p.m., police determined it was actually 5.49 when Ana's car drove by.
Starting point is 01:06:02 Did you have an idea of when Ana was, when you believe, about the time she was killed? Based on the fact that she's checked her mail, because the mail is strewn underneath her, it's loose. I believe it's soon after she arrives there inside of the garage. The police theory. At about 6 p.m., Bob shot Ana seven times. Six bullets found their mark. He then spread four other shell casings on the garage floor, took Ana's car, parked it a few blocks away, and tossed in the cigarette butt and the can of Red Bull. In a weird way, you ended up with too much evidence. I mean, there's all this
Starting point is 01:06:45 stuff that is there at the actual scene of the murder and then later in the car that, you know. That didn't make any sense. That's right. It made it feel more like this was designed to sort of throw off the investigation, put something else out there to say it could be somebody else. But Cynthia Walker said it wasn't somebody else. She told the jury Bob had been nursing a long-simmering murderous rage that bubbled to the surface on January 13, 2015, and that Anna may have seen it coming. The evidence came from one of Anna's Russian friends. I think we become good friends just from beginning. She dispelled the notion that Bob and Anna's relationship had been amicable and told the jury about a harrowing night
Starting point is 01:07:32 about two years before the murder. In the winter of December of 2012, did you receive a phone call from Anna one day? Yes. Anna and Bob were still married. Anna said she had locked herself in the bedroom. Did she appear to be upset and crying? Yes. She told me that she called police and she said, can I come to your house? I'm afraid you will kill me tonight. So far, the case was all circumstantial, but the state was about to present evidence it said pointed directly at Bob Moses and only Bob Moses. When investigators first interviewed Bob the day after Ana's murder, they saw something. Notice that he had a cut or that he had a bandage that was covering a wound on his right hand. Investigators remembered that bandage when they saw those blood stains
Starting point is 01:08:28 inside Anna's car. And I observed what appeared to be a red crimson stain on the seat back of her car. Blood stains on the right side of the driver's seat and a wound on Bob's right hand. Is this another stain that I'm circling right now? Yes, it is. And when this DNA analyst testified, the prosecution thought it was game, set, match. She told the jury those stains were a mixture of DNA. Anna's, of course, it was her car. But the other person? He was sitting at the defense table. Obtaining that mixture profile was 1.22 sextillion times more likely if the DNA came from Ana Moses and Robert Moses
Starting point is 01:09:15 than if the DNA came from two unrelated, unknown individuals. Translation? It was Bob Moses' blood. And in that second interview with police, he had no explanation for it. Is there any reason why your blood would be inside of her car? Not that I can think of, no. The prosecutor told the jury that what pushed Bob over the edge on that January night were some of the oldest reasons in the book of murder. Not just money, but jealousy and envy.
Starting point is 01:09:49 She lives in this beautiful house. She's dating this nice, wonderful man. We have Robert Moses, who's in debt. He's having to live in a house with other men in a small bedroom. Who benefited from her death? Right after her murder, the defendant moved into her house. He is going through her finances. He is trying to get into her bank accounts, her emails,
Starting point is 01:10:16 trying to determine what her finances are. The evidence points beyond a reasonable doubt to the man, the killer, who is looking at us right now. Now the defense was ready to pounce. Two attorneys, both of them former prosecutors, were about to try to rip the state's case to shreds. And they would be asking the jury to consider this simple question. Who ate the quesadilla? The Defense, brought to you by Taco Bell.
Starting point is 01:10:54 Bob's attorneys say a fast food rapper at the scene calls into question the prosecution timeline. If she ate the quesadillas, she'd have to be killed a couple hours later. If the killing happens two hours later, well then, Bob Moses, he's that he was innocent. He had not killed his ex-wife. Were you violent toward your wife? Did you ever hit her?
Starting point is 01:11:35 I would never hurt anyone. I would never hurt any woman, okay? And in a North Texas courtroom, defense attorneys Toby Shook and Cody Skipper argued the state got it wrong. The only side that's going to be left standing at the end of this is going to be this one right here. Skipper said Bob wasn't an angry ex who killed Ana for money. He was the victim of an inept investigation. Police were sloppy, the defense suggested, and missed big clues.
Starting point is 01:12:06 Remember, cops concluded this wasn't a robbery. But the credit card Ana used at Taco Bell wasn't in her purse. I'm pulling out the wallet so the record's clear. Point me to where you indicated that Ana Moses had a missing credit card. You probably aren't going to find it. Give me a page in where that's mentioned. Don't have it. A paragraph.
Starting point is 01:12:33 Don't have it. Her credit card was missing from the purse, and there's no one who knew that in this entire investigative team until they were asked on the witness stand. It was shoddy police work, he told the jury, as was the theory that all the unexplained evidence was planted by Bob to throw off the cops. What do you make of the extra bullet casings at the crime scene?
Starting point is 01:13:00 They never sent any detectives across the street to see if any projectiles had struck a fence, a car, a house. You mean out the open door of the garage? Out the open door. The shooting could have happened while that door was open. And the projectiles could have gone out and struck something. But they admitted they never bothered to look. And that can of Red Bull? Police said it was a red herring. But the defense said it was another red-hot clue with no follow-up.
Starting point is 01:13:29 They tested for DNA. It comes back to an unidentified male. Not Bob Moses, not any of the other suspects they listed, and certainly not Anna Moses. Shook argued DNA on the can could have led investigators to a whole new suspect. But he said police focused only on Anna's ex. They had, in this case, classic tunnel vision. Bob Moses was the suspect after the first day. And anything else that came up, they didn't pay attention to. The defense also tried to knock down the testimony of the friend who said Anna was afraid of Bob.
Starting point is 01:14:06 And she said, can I come to your house? I'm afraid you will kill me tonight. Bob's lawyers pointed out that call was two years before the murder. And after the divorce, Anna and Bob remained on good terms. You knew Bob was coming over to the house and still fixing things, repairs, and picking up acres? Yes. She wasn't telling you when Bob comes and fixes the water pipe that's leaking, you know, she's afraid of him, was she? No. Then the defense tried to blow up the prosecution's timeline, saying that video from Ana's neighbor was hardly definitive. The only thing you can tell this jury about that car is that it's a sedan, right? Yes, sir. Make, model, color, do you have any information on that?
Starting point is 01:14:53 No, sir. So maybe that wasn't Ana, driving by that camera just before 6 p.m. The defense reminded the jury of the last proven stop Ana had made that day when she pulled up to that Taco Bell drive-thru at 5.37 p.m. And they asked, who ate that quesadilla? Just the packages found in the trash next to her body. So she ate it or the killer ate it? She ate it or the killer ate it.
Starting point is 01:15:21 The defense called their own forensic expert. It's my opinion that if she had eaten the quesadilla, chicken quesadilla, 10 minutes prior to dying, that I would still be able to see chicken and other identifiable parts of that quesadilla in her stomach. But there was no Mexican food in Ana's stomach. If she ate the quesadillas, she wouldn't kill at 5.55 p.m. She'd have to be killed a couple hours later at a minimum. And if the state's timeline was off, then Bob Moses was in the clear. If the killing happens two hours later, well then Bob Moses, he's sitting in the Twin Peaks on video, okay? We know where he is.
Starting point is 01:16:07 We're not sure where all these other people are. If the timeline's wrong, said the defense, the alibis of all the other potential suspects fall apart. The telltale quesadilla was never found. If the killer ate it, presumably his or her DNA might be all over that wrapper. Yeah, you could have skin cell DNA on that. You could have touch DNA and you could have fingerprinting on that. Skipper asked the lead detective about that. You didn't submit that Taco Bell trash for touch DNA, correct? Correct. You didn't submit it for latent prints, correct? Right. The defense portrayed Bob as the victim of half-baked police work. But there was another victim the jury was about to hear from,
Starting point is 01:16:53 someone who had not only lost his mother, but could now lose his father too. In a hushed courtroom, the defense called their star witness to the stand. My name is Eager Moses. Eager told the jury how he felt about his mother. Eager, you loved your mother greatly, didn't you? Yes. Miss her? Yeah. And Eager said he had no doubt his father was innocent. I do not believe my father killed my mother. It turned out Eager was Bob's biggest supporter. He said there was only one reason his dad had returned to living in Ana's house. Following my mother's death, my grandmother and I both asked my dad to move back into the house. And Eager said his dad's actions had nothing to do with greed. Was he trying to get the money
Starting point is 01:17:41 from you, asking you to give him money from the account that he could have? No. Eager even tried to discredit the state's strongest evidence against his father, Bob's blood in Ana's car. Is that the car we were talking about? Yes, that is my mom's car. His dad, he said, had often driven that car, And that blood stain on the driver's seat was hardly fresh. Yeah, that one's been there for quite a long time. Do you know how long?
Starting point is 01:18:11 I mean, since high school, I would imagine. There's no way to tell how long his blood was in that car. No, no. No, they can't. They couldn't age the DNA. They don't know when the blood was put there. The DNA folks could not tell them how old that blood was. Even more important, there was no evidence putting Bob in the garage where Anna was murdered. Bob's guns were tested.
Starting point is 01:18:33 None fired the fatal shots. And the murder weapon was never found. No witnesses, no DNA or prints or security video at the crime scene. There's nothing tying him to her body. No. Shook offered that to the jury. Why didn't you find the blood anywhere in that garage? Why didn't you find it on her clothing, his blood? It doesn't make sense.
Starting point is 01:19:03 This case, said the defense, was far from a slam dunk. You don't have answers, I think, to this case. All you have are questions. And the final question was, who would the jury believe? The answer. Can you go ahead and rise? And the emotional fallout. All our friends were crying.
Starting point is 01:19:38 We didn't know what to do to stop the crying. The jury had heard the whole tangled tale of friends, lovers, a son, an ex-husband, and the woman they all said they loved and adored. Jurors sat through seven days of testimony and heard more than 40 witnesses, all to answer the question, did Bob Moses murder his ex-wife Anna in a jealous rage? Lawyers made their final appeals. The defense said the state's whole case was weak, based on poor police work. It's a litigation which you rely on to make your decision. It's incomplete. It's inconclusive. Don't let the fact that Anna Moses, an innocent woman, was murdered and I've got to bring someone to justice for her. Don't let them guilt you into that. Prosecutor Cindy Walker wasn't having any of it. Ladies and gentlemen, the only guilt,
Starting point is 01:20:32 no one's guilty of anything, the only guilt that belongs anywhere is that man right there, Robert Moses. Everything points to him. It points nowhere else. The prosecutor didn't want jurors to lose sight of why they were there, so she made sure a photo of Anna was always on display. Now it was up to those six men and six women to decide if Bob Moses stalked and shot his ex-wife in her garage that January night. They deliberated for eight hours that first day and went home for the night. The next day, after their morning coffee, they told the judge they were ready. Madam floor person, I understand the jury's reached a verdict, is that correct?
Starting point is 01:21:18 Yes, sir. If you would, please hand that to the bailiff. Defendant, go ahead and rise. State of Texas versus Robert Arthur Moses. We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder as charged in the indictment. Bob Moses got life in prison. In the back of the courtroom, Anna's friends thanked prosecutors and police. I was happy that I could bring them a little bit of justice.
Starting point is 01:21:44 At the defense table, Bob was left alone with his thoughts. Eager, who'd supported his father during the entire case, was not in the courtroom. Donna thinks the jury got it right. It's very sad that Bob would not only ruin and destroy Ana's life, he's also destroyed his own. Jayshree says the verdict was a relief for Ana's inner circle. All her friends were crying. All her friends were crying. I mean, we didn't know what to do to stop the crime.
Starting point is 01:22:17 As for Bob, he said he was going to continue to fight. I'm appealing because I think, you know, obviously the verdict is 100% wrong. Bob chose not to testify at his trial. So we took this opportunity to ask him some questions in jail that he did not face in court. How could your blood get in her car? Because I was over there working around the house. They're small little stains, okay? They could have been there for, could have been there a week, a month. They could have been there six months.
Starting point is 01:22:48 Who'd want to kill her? I don't know. I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. If you look at all the actual evidence that's out there, okay? First of all, they said that it wasn't a robbery, okay? But if you go through what happened in court, you will find out that they completely missed that, okay? I didn't do this, and the person that did it is still out
Starting point is 01:23:12 there. And the Frisco Police Department have given people a false sense of security over this. In 2018, his appeal was denied, and Bob Moses remains in prison. The day after the verdict, Jayshree went to Ana's favorite restaurant. I went and sat there and had my breakfast right there at the table where I met her last. So just feeling her presence and in a way saying, okay, there is a closure now. I believe in life after death, and so I'm hoping to see her sometime. Donna remembers the little moments, like Anna's Russian accent and her trouble with the pesky nuances of American English. She used to say, then this afternoon I go store, and I'd say, but Anna, go to the store.
Starting point is 01:24:02 Oh, it's not necessary. Why to the? It's so silly. It's not necessary. I go store. And Anna will continue posthumously in the role of muse to Jerry the poet. She isn't a dream. She is real as can be. I knew it the moment her wings covered me. She flew from afar and awakened new sight. And only I see her, my angel of light.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.