Dateline NBC - Too Fat to Kill?

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

In this Dateline classic, a devoted father is gunned down in his New Jersey home. An unusual defense brought the case into the national spotlight when the suspect agued he was simply too obese to carry out the killing. Dennis Murphy reports. Originally aired on NBC on April 23, 2010.

I felt like it was a Hollywood movie. He was a wealthy executive and doting dad. He was very loving and concerned about his kids. In the midst of a nasty divorce with a bitter ex. He just said that his wife was putting him through so much. But soon, he bounced back. A new life with a gorgeous new fiancé. And that's when it started.

He felt threatened. He says, I'm afraid for my life. Haunted. I said, you're being melodramatic. And he said, no, this is really happening. Ambushed from inside his million-dollar dream house. Suddenly, he started to scream. Shot to death, a crime of passion, said police.

Somebody wanted this man dead very, very badly. The question was who? His ex? She was losing everything. Or someone else? The arrest was startling. Look at it. The strategy in the courtroom that was the biggest surprise of all.

He's overweight, out of shape. Too fat, too sick. Yes. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with Too Fat to Kill. The world of pills, prescription medicines, pharmaceuticals is where he'd made it big. He was Moses. He was walking on water. Everybody loved him. Paul Dunsack seemed to go straight from a college intern job behind the druggist counter to the big-money lifestyle of a pharmaceutical executive.

On the way up, he struck so many bosses as a natural at figuring innovative ways to make money out of medicine. He could do almost anything. And for years, this hard-charging golden boy seemed to have all the perks and bennies an executive could want. Mid-six figures paycheck, the million-dollar house in a good suburb, the wife and kids. And then, just like that, it all slipped away from him. There wasn't a pill on the shelf to reverse the dizzying decline. He did say, you know, everything that I've worked for, you know, is gone. My reputation is, you know, I'm struggling to hold on to that.

Someone was sicking industry watchdogs on him, slurring his name with innuendo about shady deals and kickbacks. As it turns out, those would be the least of Paul Dunsack's problems. Something far more sinister was waiting for him inside that million-dollar home in the safe New Jersey birds. The theory the police developed is that the killer is on the stairs and the first shot is up and that's consistent with that shot. Paul Dunsack had been ambushed and killed in his own home. The shooter had escaped and now friends of Paul were wondering seriously if they might be next. I didn't know if I was on some type of hit list. I felt like it was a Hollywood movie more than it being reality.

How had Paul Dunsack's abbreviated life ended in murder? Well, you need to understand the marriage. He met his bride-to-be, Stacey, in 1998 at a pharmaceutical conference. He did consulting for the industry. She was a sales rep. Friends say they were instantly mad about each other. Paul's brother, John, though, didn't quite know what to make of her. She was nothing if not direct. The first thing out of her mouth was, I'm going to marry Paul.

And she said something about, oh, he's the best lover I've ever had. I'm like, well, this is the first thing out of your mouth. That shocked me. But then her people weren't all that thrilled with the young hotshot pharmaceutical exec either. Stacy's father, Ed. What did you think of him? I thought he was arrogant, unreasonably, obnoxious, but I wasn't marrying him. So both families bit their tongues and crossed their fingers

as the two walked down the aisle in May 1999 after meeting only months before. The wedding was a lavish do held aboard a yacht in New York Harbor. She got pregnant right, I believe, at the honeymoon, purposely to pretty much lock Paul down. That would have been fine, says brother John, except that Paul suddenly found himself saddled with another much hungrier mouth to feed. Stacy's father, Ed Aitz, a retired military man, was asking his new son-in-law to invest in various business schemes. Paul's fellow pharmacist and best pal Michael Hertz tried to give him some advice.

I told him, be careful. You know, you don't know the guy. Things can happen to your money. And the business went bust, didn't it? The business went bust, yes. Even so, Paul's brother says Ed Aitz kept seeing his son-in-law as an ATM. But the bank of Paul had had enough. He lost thousands of dollars with him and all of a sudden he finally said no more. And that's when the divorce happened. By the end of 2003, after four years of marriage and two kids, Paul and Stacey were over and out, heading for divorce. The father-in-law says the soured business deals

had nothing to do with his daughter's marriage going bust. Ed Ait says Paul Donsack had come to resent Stacey, who was suffering from an illness that had paralyzed her face. Apparently, he wanted to be rid of her after she got disfigured. He didn't like the way she looked? He didn't, no. She wasn't a trophy bride no more. In fact, his daughter confided that her husband had become downright cruel. Forcing her to do whatever he wanted, when he wanted, the way he wanted it,

to the point that she felt she could no longer tolerate it. Now, as Paul told it, it was Stacey who was the problem. He told friends that she was abusing prescription drugs. Well, she denied it and allegedly told her father that her husband was selling those drugs on the black market. Ed Aitz says he alerted the authorities, who found no evidence of wrongdoing. But the father-in-law wasn't done. Ed Aitz next accused Dunsack of giving kickbacks to employees of a pharmaceutical giant. He'd whistleblown his son-in-law to Paul's own superiors. The result of the father-in-law and a strange wife's toxic campaign was a career killer for Paul Dunsack.

He lost his biggest client. That says his divorce attorney, Dominic Tamayo, all but ruined Dunsack. Because the pharmaceutical industry is a small, tight knit industry in the in the training field that he felt that he was going to be and was in fact blacklisted through the other pharmaceutical companies. So Paul Dunsack, the man who once pulled down $500,000 plus a year as a pharmaceutical executive, was now out the door. Back to square one, working behind the counter of a local drugstore where he made less than $100,000 a year.

By the beginning of 2004, Paul Dunsack was not only getting divorced, he was also getting depressed. A few saw Paul struggling with dark thoughts, very dark. At one point, he called his brother to say he was putting his affairs in order. I believe it was on the phone, and he just told me, he goes, I fear my life. I truly, truly do. Even paranoids are right some of the time. Coming up, sabotage in the suburbs. Was someone out to get Paul Dunsack. I remember looking at the other mom and we were just frozen. We really were. When Dateline continues.

The road to divorce is often rocky. The Dunsack Road was strewn with landmines and shoulder-held weapons. 2004 was a very ugly year indeed for Paul and Stacey. He told his brother his wife and father-in-law had thrown him under the bus by destroying his professional reputation with their slanderous accusations. He was quite depressed. He was. His name out there in the medical field was, you know, nobody wanted to hire him. Meanwhile, Stacey Dunsack was on the phone constantly to her parents down in Florida.

The single topic, berating Paul and the slow motion divorce. It became official finally in January of 05. He bought her out of the house in Ramsey, New Jersey, money she used to buy a nearby condo, and gave her alimony in a lump sum. He came down to shore and he's like, I'm divorced. I'm like, congratulations. So we went out for a cocktail and we went home. The celebration turned out to be a false armistice because the two had quickly entered a cold war phase over child custody. In court papers, he thundered that she was abusing drugs. Addiction had made her an unfit mother. She loudly denied it and got a restraining order against him. Trapped beneath the volleys from the two camps were the children, a small son and a daughter. Arms limitation talks were a cakewalk compared to

the Dunsack's parental visitation arrangements. They were dropping off the kids at Ramsey Police Department. I mean, how horrible is that? Eventually, by 2006, the two adults called a ceasefire long enough to hammer out a joint custody agreement, a 50-50 split in parenting. Paul, meanwhile, seemed to be getting his groove back. He'd managed to work his way from the drugstore counter back into his old environment as a pharmaceutical executive with Medco. He also had a girlfriend, a serious new woman in his life, who was going to move in with him in that nice but all-too-lonely house in Ramsey, New Jersey. While Paul was talking marriage, the former Mrs. Dunsack's life was in Ramsey, New Jersey. While Paul was talking marriage, the former Mrs. Dunsack's life was in free fall, money trouble.

She hadn't found work after the divorce. She'd been sickly with various complaints and now had fallen behind on bank payments for her home. John Dunsack says the way his brother saw it, Stacey had only one option, to move in with her parents, Ed and Dottie Eights down in Florida. But the child custody arrangement wouldn't allow that. Every time that Stacey had the kids, my brother's always concerned that she would take them out of state and it'd have to be

a battle of fighting through courts again to get the kids again. And behind that fear of losing his kids was an even darker threat. Paul shared it with his friend Nancy Bagley one afternoon as their kid swam in his backyard. He said that earlier that summer, his pool had been sabotaged. Its heater cranked up to a piping 100 degrees. He was convinced it was no accident.

He says, I'm afraid for my life. And I remember looking at the other mom and we were just frozen. I mean, we really were. Pretty soon, word was getting around with his new business associates that Paul Dunsack was a man looking over his shoulder. Coworker Janie Benorth, who used the same daycare as Paul, could not fathom why he was so hush-hush about anyone learning who his new employer was. Downright weird.

Please do not notice me if you ever see me over at the daycare. I don't want anybody to know where I'm working. But three weeks later, she ran into him at that daycare and innocently said hello. Back at the office, he went nuts on her. And very, very, very arrogantly and very mad, just pointed his finger at me and said, I thought we had this conversation. I thought I told you never to talk to me outside of this office. I mean, to the point that I was very scared. Even his good friend Michael Hertz thought Paul was starting to lose it. After all, the divorce and custody issue had been settled.

He had no reason to fear his ex. The longtime friend dispensed more advice. I said, Paul, you know, really, I think you're being a little melodramatic. Maybe you could go on some medicine. Maybe you should see a doctor about your fears. You think the guy's paranoid? Absolutely. I recommend he see a doctor and treat his fears. And he said, no, this is really happening. I know nobody believes me. So with all this drama going on, when Stacey took the kids for vacation the

second week in August of 2006, Paul was all but convinced he'd never see them again. Michael, the best friend, tried to cheer him up, changing the subject to the exciting new chapter. His fiancée would be moving in with him in a few days. In fact, Paul was on his cell phone with her as he pulled into his driveway after work on Wednesday, August 23rd. As the fiancés chatted, he remarked about an empty hamburger wrapper left lying on the floor. Then he took her to task for leaving the central air conditioner going full blast. Paul was being Paul and made a crack. He goes, I can't believe you left the freaking air conditioner on. She goes, no, I didn't believe you left the freaking air conditioner on. She goes, no, I didn't. That's when she heard Paul scream and the line go dead. His months of growing fear had been validated by at least seven gunshots at close range. He never had a chance to

tell all his doubters. I told you so. Coming up, gunned down in his own house. Were others in danger? We all walked around wondering if we were next on the hit list. Police hear a conspiracy caught on tape and learn of a secret stakeout. When Dateline continues. Paul Dunsack's girlfriend heard her fiancé being murdered just hours before they were to begin a new life together in a million-dollar New Jersey home. She called 911. 911, what's your emergency? Hi, I'm speaking to my boyfriend as he was entering his home and and I heard loud screaming and now this dead air on the other end.

Police arrived at the house that Wednesday evening to find the 40-year-old pharmaceutical executive slumped inside a hallway, dead of multiple gunshot wounds. The killer, whoever he or she was, had left the house unseen and left it behind fairly clean. No hair, fibers, fingerprints, DNA, no murder weapon. No murder weapon. So all of that good CSI stuff is mostly absent from the scene, huh? That's correct. But Brian Huth, then a detective with a local police department,

says the victim had been shot at least seven times. To investigators, that suggested hatred. Now the officers were eager to speak with the ex-wife to learn where she'd been at about 6.30 that night. They quickly located her at her condo. She said she had an appointment for her son at a Dr. Solomon in Teaneck, New Jersey. She arrived a little bit late, arrived about 6.20, and was at the doctor's appointment for about 45 minutes thereafter. And you checked it out, and she was right. Correct. That's where she was. She was alibi'd up.

She was there, yes. Spouses and exes are routinely checked out in these kinds of homicides. But Stacey Dunsack, the victim's unhappy ex-wife, was in the clear. So who was next on the list of possible shooters? The murdered man's brother cut right to the chase when he spoke to detectives. I said, I can't believe he actually did it. They're like, who? Ed Aitz. I couldn't believe it. Ed Aitz, Stacy's father.

Paul's friend Michael Hertz told police the same thing when he'd learned of Paul's death. He even thought Ed Aitz might try to nail him next. We all walked around wondering if we were next on the hit list. Because you thought there was an enemies list of friends of Paul. Yes, exactly. Homicide detectives always pose the question, who benefited from the murder? And here, the victim's brother and best friend were telling the police that Stacy unquestionably stood to gain from her ex's death. She'd be free now to move to Florida with her children and raise them with money from the

million-dollar trust fund Paul had set up for them. And who was the shooter in this theory? Her father, giving his daughter a monstrous and bloody gift of liberation from a man they both loathed. So detectives tried to call Ed Eights at his home in Florida. They say his wife Dottie answered and told them her husband was away and she had no idea how to reach him. Sergeant Russell Christiana was a detective with the prosecutor's office in Bergen County, New Jersey. He's essentially out of touch for 24 hours from the time of the murder,

and he's the person that we're looking to talk to. And when you have that type of situation, it starts throwing up red flags. The night after the murder, a Thursday, Ed Aitz did return the police's calls. He told them he was currently in Louisiana at his elderly mother's. Obviously, the New Jersey detectives were eager to interview Aitz in person, so they flew to Louisiana. But by the time they'd arrived, the one-timeives were eager to interview Aitz in person, so they flew to Louisiana. But by the time they'd arrived, the one-time father-in-law had already hired a lawyer and invoked his right not to talk. But the detectives did get in a few words with Aitz's sister, Brenda, that night. She told them her brother had arrived at their mom's in Louisiana on a Tuesday evening, one day before the murder of Paul Dunsack.

Did you think she was telling you the truth? I wasn't certain at that point. It was still very early on in the investigation. So the detectives kept looking into the Eights family's possible involvement in the murder. Roughly a month after the crime, they obtained wiretaps on various Eights phone lines. What they heard sounded to them like a classic cover-up in the works. Ed Eights trying to make sure his family stayed on script when it came to that Tuesday story, his alibi. You were there when I got there on Tuesday? Yeah. Okay. Right. I just got to make sure that we're all saying the same thing if it comes to it. At least one of them is Edward Eates forcing his alibi at the time

on his sister, basically telling her, and I got there on Tuesday. Coaching his story. Yes. The detectives were also digging into phone records from that summer, and they came up with a plum. Cell phones used by Ed and his wife, Dottie E Yates had been registering hits at cell towers just blocks from the victim's New Jersey home only a week or so before the murder. The investigators also learned the Florida couple had rented a vehicle in nearby Pennsylvania in the same time frame. What was going on with the Yateses in this trip north? They were essentially surveilling Paul Dunsack's house. Eventually, the New Jersey investigators and prosecutors were convinced they had enough. In June of 2007, almost a year after the death of Paul Dunsack, they traveled to Florida to the

home of the Eights family. They came in with a SWAT team. The grandfather, then about 300 pounds, remembers being overpowered by sheriff's deputies as his five-year-old grandson looked on in horror. Ed Aitz had been arrested for murder, and his wife Dottie arrested for hindering apprehension and obstruction of justice. The authorities thought they had their man for the crime, but how were they going to break his alibi story? In Louisiana on Tuesday, the day before the killing, the relatives had circled the wagons around Big Ed Eights,

who was about to tell the world a larger-than-life story about why he couldn't have possibly killed the man he once called family. Coming up, drama in the court as Ed Eights' sister takes the stand. She was the alibi, but what will she say under oath? I wanted to do what I thought was the right thing to do. When Dateline continues. This wasn't how Edward Ronald Yates, a highly decorated computer analyst for the military, figured he'd be spending his retirement years inside a courtroom in a defendant's chair on trial. Would you please step from the jury box?

And yet the state of New Jersey was about to tell 12 jurors why they should convict this grandfather of murder. This is the case of the killing of Paul Dunsack. Wayne Mello, then the assistant prosecutor for Bergen County, opened the state's case, talking to the jurors not about the defendant, but about the victim. 40-year-old Paul Dunsack, a wealthy pharmaceutical executive. How he, the victim, had weathered a brutal divorce from AITS's daughter, Stacey. How Paul Dunsack, on the day he died, was trying to turn the page.

On the phone, chatting with his new fiancée, Lori Adamo, when he stepped into his house the night of August 23, 2006. He was inside the house, and he said, and you left the air conditioning on. I said, no, I never turned on the air conditioning. And then suddenly he started to scream. On the stand, the fiancée recounted Paul Dunsack's last words. He said, oh, oh, no. And then he stopped speaking. And I heard a thud, like a falling sound, and nothing.

And I was calling his name, and he wasn't answering. The court heard how the fiancé immediately called 911, and local police arrived within minutes to discover a lifeless Paul Dunsack slumped inside a narrow hallway of an otherwise pristine house. Any sign anywhere at the residence of Paul Dunsack of forced entry? No. An investigator who processed the crime scene testified that the evidence pointed away from a botched robbery. The victim, he said, was still wearing a Rolex watch and had $300 in cash on him. Multiple gunshot wounds were testimony to a violent death.

Does that tell you anything? It tells me somebody wanted this man dead very, very badly. To preempt the standard defense argument that the cops never seriously pursued anyone but the accused, the prosecutor called a young neighbor to the stand. He told the court he'd seen a green van with a mysterious woman inside it around the time of the murder. But the tip seemed to be one of those investigative red herrings. I did not then, nor do I now, believe that that van was involved in this murder. Instead, the prosecutor said the evidence gathered in the months after the murder showed that the killer was far from a nameless intruder. It was, in fact, someone who knew Paul Dunsack well and had plotted his death carefully.

And what we have here as a search string is how to commit a perfect murder. A police forensics expert provided damning testimony against the defendant. He explained how a computer used by Edward Eights and later seized by police yielded the ghosts of past online searches. Is it true that on the hard drive they found a search asking the question, how do you commit the perfect murder? That is true. He researched how to pick a lock. He would purchase a lock pick set. He researched silencers. He would purchase two books on silencers. He researched.22 caliber weapons. And not only did Edward Aydes research guns, the prosecutor said he owned them too. To emphasize that point,

he called an extremely reluctant witness for the prosecution, Stacey Dunsack, the daughter of Edward Eight's and ex-wife of the victim. It would be fair to say that your dad has a good knowledge of guns. He has a knowledge of them. Okay. In fact, you know that in 2006, he certainly owned a gun. Yes, sir. The prosecutor was trying to show that the defendant was not only comfortable around guns, but also had planned his murder like an assassin, surveilling his intended victim in the week before the crime. Sergeant Christiana told the court the story of the cell tower hits and cell phone records

that put Edward Yates squarely in his ex-son-in-law's neighborhood. It's reconnaissance. Paul Dunsack, for the weeks prior, followed the same pattern day in and day out. Same patterns. He's punching in, punching out. You could set your watch to him. Well put. You were there when I got there on Tuesday.

The sergeant also testified to those wiretaps, the ones in which Edward Yates reminds his sister about when he arrived in Louisiana, on a Tuesday before the Wednesday murder of Paul Dunson. He has co-opted his sister and his mother into a conspiratorial agreement to hinder his apprehension because it is clear that the truth is he was not there on Tuesday. Asserted by the prosecution, but still not proven. But that was about to change in most dramatic fashion. The defendant's sister, Brenda, took the stand.

In a soft voice, she in effect ratted out her brother. She recounted how he'd asked her to lie to police, to tell them he arrived on her Louisiana doorstep on Tuesday. Now you knew that was untrue? Yes. Changing her story now, she said her brother had in fact arrived on a Thursday, nearly 24 hours after Paul Dunsack's murder in New Jersey. But maybe there was an asterisk next to Brenda's testimony. She also admitted on the stand that she'd cut a deal with the state, her testimony in exchange for leniency on charges of hindering apprehension and obstructing justice.

Still, she insisted on the stand and a dateline later that she was now telling the truth. It is a hard thing to just have to testify against your brother, but I really didn't have a choice. I wanted to do what I thought was the right thing to do. With his alibi crushed by his own sister, the brick-by-brick masonry of a circumstantial case was walling in Edward Yates. The prosecution had portrayed a vengeful man, carefully plotting the murder of his former son-in-law,

stalking his comings and goings, then finally lying in wait that Wednesday night. Speculation had he baited the scene, knowing that Dunsack would be agitated by finding a carelessly tossed hamburger wrapper and an air conditioner blasting away, was he led to the thermostat off the narrow hallway where he was ambushed, the kill zone? Perhaps. But it's clear, argued the prosecution, that Eights then got in his car and drove 21 and a half hours straight to his mother's home in Louisiana, arriving Thursday night. He is a very motivated person to return to safety, almost poetically to the bosom of

his mother. Now, Ed Aitz had to explain all of that away, and his attorney would try to do just that with a novel defense. Jurors, this man is just too fat to kill. Coming up. His abdomen was obviously obese at that time. The legal strategy that raised eyebrows from coast to coast. Too old, too fat, too sick.

Yes, we proved it. Ed Ait's Big Gamble, when Dateline continues. The prosecution had painted Edward Yates as a liar, a schemer, and worst of all, a cold-blooded killer. But as his lawyer was about to assert, those were just words. Where was the hard evidence of Yates' guilt in the murder of Paul Dunsack? What I had to show the most was scientific fact that he could not have done it. Attorney Walter Lesnovich began his argument at the crime scene itself, where the defense claimed the detective who so meticulously went over every piece of evidence collected there failed to come up with anything, not so much as a fingerprint or fiber to connect Ed Aitz to the

crime. You're going to see a lot of what I call, hmm, well, that's interesting. What about that? But not one of those makes up beyond a reasonable doubt. Wouldn't you think he asked that an eyewitness would have remembered a strange 300-pound man lumbering away in broad daylight. But the attorney did point out something a young neighbor had seen, a mystery woman inside a green van parked behind the victim's home. Is that a red herring or is it interesting to you? It's very interesting. That probably was the murderer. That probably had something to do with it. Driven by a woman and yet and every woman Ed Ait's knows was accounted for. In other words, he says, Paul Dunsack was likely killed by an unknown

intruder. Maybe a robber caught in the act who then fled without taking anything. The lawyer says the testimony of the victim's fiancé supports the theory. She recounted on the stand that Paul said something like, oh no, into his cell phone just before the line went dead. He never identified Ed Aitz. Paul didn't know the killer. If you're facing someone killing you, and you have that cell phone, wouldn't you say the person's name?

But the defense had a lot of ground to make up, starting with the defendant's initial alibi, which his sister seemed to smash to bits. She told the court her brother had asked her to lie to police, to say he'd arrived in Louisiana on Tuesday, one day before the murder of Paul Dunsack, instead of one day after, on Thursday. On cross, the defense lawyer tried to show that Brenda, a nice woman, was easily confused. If I told you that Detective Christiana sat just right where you are and said that Brenda Aides told me she gets confused, would that be true? Well, occasionally I do. I have diabetes and I do occasionally get my mind, you know. She believed the truth was what the detectives told her it was.

They told her the truth is Thursday. And she said, well, you know, sir, you're a smart detective and I'm just a simple lady. If that's what you say, it must be true. But the defense was about to tell the jury something really surprising. Sister Brenda hadn't been the only one who'd gotten it all wrong about exactly when Ed Aitz made it to Louisiana. The defendant himself now said he'd misspoken in those damning wiretaps about arriving on Tuesday. You were there when I got there on Tuesday? Yes. In fact, the lawyer said, Edward Yates had arrived in Louisiana not on Tuesday, the day before the murder, and not on Thursday, the day after the murder, as the police claimed.

Yates was now saying he'd gotten to Louisiana on Wednesday, at around the very hour Paul Dunsack was being killed in New Jersey. To verify the amended day, a man who lived in the same neighborhood as Eights' mother and sister took the stand. His name was Matlock, and he remembered seeing Ed Eights and his car on a Louisiana block on Wednesday. Did you see a beige Honda that week? Yes, I did. What day? On Wednesday.

And he said 17 times, I am certain it was Wednesday. This man had no reason to lie. He's intelligent, awake, sitting right there staring at the house. The lawyer was trying to show that Ed Aitz could not have been killing Paul Dunsack in New Jersey and Ben in Louisiana on the same day at virtually the same hour. Physically impossible. And he was about to show why he thought the prosecution's theory of the crime

was also straining reality. His abdomen was obviously obese at that time. In a novel defense that made headlines across the nation, the lawyer called an expert witness, a doctor, to the stand to show that Edward Eights could not have committed this particular murder. Why? Because the creaky

grandfather was too fat to have pulled it off. Too old, too fat, too sick. Yes, I mean, we proved it. They had nothing to refute that. The medical expert testified that Edward Eights' obesity fueled a litany of chronic health problems. Asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, making it unlikely for him to have been able to run during or just after the crime. What's more, his sleep apnea, which left him chronically fatigued, would have ruled out an all-night and all-day getaway from New Jersey to Louisiana.

Drive 21 1⁄2 hours within a 24-hour period. That would be highly improbable. So the reason why Ed Aitz can't be behind the wheel powered by adrenaline fleeing the scene is what? He would fall asleep. Powered by adrenaline, as the doctor explained, keeps you awake four hours, five hours, six hours, then you have a crash. But adrenaline can't run 24 hours. The defense was telling the jury it had been presented no direct evidence to tie Ed Aitz to the murder of his former son-in-law. And medically, there was no earthly way he could have done it. And yet there was all that circumstantial evidence still to explain away.

That odd trip to Pennsylvania and New Jersey the week before the murder. The damning computer searches. And there was only one person left who could do that. Coming up, Edward Yates takes the stand in his own defense. You had murdered Paul Dunsack in cold blood. Isn't that the truth? No, sir, that is not true. Would his story convince a jury? When Dateline continues. Let me rephrase it.

Drive 21 and a half hours. Edward Yates' lawyer had tried to show that his client wasn't in New Jersey at the time of Paul Dunsack's murder, and that he wasn't in any Jersey at the time of Paul Dunsack's murder and that he wasn't in any physical shape to be killing anyone. But Edward 8 still had to explain away the rest of the prosecution's case. They absolutely have nothing. And he was willing to do just that in a jailhouse interview with Dateline during a break in his trial. For starters, he said that drive that he and his wife had taken from Florida a week before Paul Dunsack's death was not a reconnaissance, as the prosecution claimed. It was rather an innocent vacation up north with a detour into New Jersey to make sure his daughter Stacey had her children, and that her former husband Paul did not. They lived very close together, and we got up to see

how close we were, and we drove by to see if he was really on vacation. He appeared to be on vacation. We drove back to the campground. He, and we drove by to see if he was really on vacation. He appeared to be on vacation. We drove back to the campground. He says the police had misread something else, those online searches. How to commit the perfect murder. Looking for books on making your own silencer at home for a weapon. That doesn't look good. Those are bad facts to bring into a murder case.

Out of context facts, yes. On Fox and Friends, they were discussing how to commit a murder and about the book being banned. And I looked up, is it really banned? Is it available on the Internet? Mr. H., did you lie in wait on your son-in-law and then shoot him with a.22 seven times when he came in the door? No, sir. Did you hear him say, no, no, no, hit the floor, give him one on the groin for your daughter, Stacy?

No, sir, I wasn't there. Out the back door, drive 21 hours? No, sir. And motive, Eights tells you, is where the prosecution's case really falls apart. He says he simply had no reason to avenge his daughter or to want his former son-in-law dead. I didn't have anything to get even for. They had a marriage, they had a divorce. He never did anything to me. I didn't have a real feeling for him as

far as in either way. And he gambled by telling that story directly to the jury itself. Now, why in violation of all the rules of perception of trial law 101 did you elect to put Ed Aitz on the stand? This is a very intelligent man. He wanted to explain that he didn't do it. Just as he had with Dateline, Edward Aitz told the jury his version of those computer searches and the trip north a week before Paul Dunsack's death.

But in so doing, he left himself open to the prosecution's cross-examination. You had murdered Paul Dunsack in cold blood and fled that scene, driving to your mother's home. Isn't that the truth? No, sir, that is not true. The victim's brother, John Dunsack, says he listened to Ed Ait's testimony in utter disbelief. He was praying the jurors had too. You knew he was lying. I did not kill Paul Dunsack. Like, you knew. I mean, you just felt he did. But it was Ed Ait's shifting alibi for the crime that the prosecutor believed would undo the Florida man.

When he changed from I was in Louisiana on Tuesday to I was in Louisiana on Wednesday, that was a mammoth sea change that the jury, I felt, would never buy. It was the big lie. He has lied to you again and again and again. In his closing, the prosecutor theorized for the jury just why Edward Yates had gone to such lengths to kill Paul Dunsack. It was for his daughter, Stacey, whose life had been in free fall ever since her divorce from the victim. She really has nowhere to go. The father, her protector, wants her back and wants those grandchildren in Florida. And so long

as Paul Dunsack is alive, that will not be. And I think in part, Ed Aides viewed this matter as he just needed killing. Look at Ed. You look at him. All wrong, replied the defense. It closed its case by underscoring again why Ed Aitz couldn't be the killer. He had no motive. He was too unhealthy to kill Paul Dunsack and flee the scene as police claimed. And he couldn't have been in two places at once. In New Jersey when Paul Dunsack was dying and in Louisiana where a neighbor named Matlock clearly identified him. Matlock saw him and his car there Wednesday night, August 23rd. Now it was the jury's case. But it wouldn't take long, just a little more than a day,

for it to render a verdict. What is your verdict? Guilty. The 12 men and women who'd heard the case agreed that Edward Yates had, in fact, murdered his former son-in-law, Paul Dunsack. His too-fat-to-kill defense may have won points for being original, but these two jurors said the panel rejected it completely. He held his hand out,

shot a gun, and went to the neighbor's yard and got in a car and drove. They found the prosecution's evidence, circumstantial though it was, pointed overwhelmingly to the man's guilt. The computer searches, the sister's testimony, that mystery trip to New Jersey. He knew the comings and goings of Paul. So he was in the house waiting, and as soon as he came in the door

and moved a few feet into the hallway in the house waiting, and as soon as he came in the door and moved a few feet into the hallway, the door opened and Ed shot him. But what really sunk Ed Aitz for these jurors was his decision to testify directly. It all snapped together. I was certainly in shock that he took the stand. And then all of a sudden, the change of the story of when he actually got there. He's changed his story as well. Yes. Just the changing of the story. We went from Tuesday to Wednesday to Thursday. The wiretaps. I think that all certainly played into it. You are guilty.

Later in court, the victim's brother, John Dunksack, vented his fury at the man who took his brother's life and robbed his children of their father. The defendant's decision to take the life of a human being with no regard for the effect that it may have on others is unimaginable. His daughter, Stacey, who declined to speak to Dateline, faces no charges in the death of her former husband. It's a fact that doesn't sit well with Paul Dunsack's friend, Michael Hertz. She's in Florida, at her family home, with her children, with a tidy reserve of money.

She's in the winner's circle. Yes, it's sad, isn't it? It's sad that after all of this, it worked out with such a nice, neat bow for her. The judge had little sympathy for Edward Eights, sentencing him to life without parole. But for the man who put his chronic health problem center stage in his trial, time was in short supply. Eights died in prison at the age of 75. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.