WEBVTT

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[ambient street noise]

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[man 1] Friday night
of Memorial Day weekend,

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we get a call for a missing person
at, uh, 115 Central Park West.

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The building is known as the Majestic.

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It's a very affluent building.

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[man 2] The Majestic had
every amenity known to man.

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Doormen, concierge,

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everything that you need
to live in that stratosphere.

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[man 1] We respond to the location.

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We're met by Mr. Abdela,

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who says his daughter, Daphne Abdela,
hasn't returned home.

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[man 2] Lee Furman starts to interview
the father to find out what was going on.

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And the doorman says, "She's not missing."

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"She's back in the utility room
at the back of the lobby."

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The doorman shows us where it is.

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When Mr. Abdela opens the door,

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we see a young girl, young boy,

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in a bathtub, in water,
washing each other off.

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This is Daphne Abdela
and her boyfriend, Chris.

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I'm thinking, "They're fooling around.
They're in a bathtub."

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As awkward as that scene must have been,

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he noticed there was some blood.

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[Furman] So I asked about the blood,
and Daphne said,

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"I cut my head rollerblading."

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It wasn't a lot of blood that we'd say,

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"Something's going on.
Something happened."

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It could have been a fall.

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I noticed Chris also had
a cut over his eyebrow.

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But again, small. Nothing significant.

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I could tell
she was mad that we were there.

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She yelled at her father,
"Why'd you call the cops?"

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"I hate the pigs. I hate 5-0."

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And then Daphne yells out,
"Get the fuck out. Close the door."

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At that point, Mr. Abdela said,

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"I'm okay now. Everything's good.
I'll take them upstairs."

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So we left.

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Before Lee Furman
gets too far away from the Majestic,

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he hears a job come over the radio

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about somebody reporting
a dead body in Central Park,

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and it's coming from the Majestic.

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[disconcerting music playing]

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[Furman] I came over the radio and said,
"We were just there. We'll respond."

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And we return to the Majestic.

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It ended up being Daphne Abdela
who called the police.

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So she invites us inside.

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I go in, and she said,

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"There's a body in the lake."

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"A body in the lake.
Really? What's the chances of that?"

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[Butcher] This was an evil crime.

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So over the top.

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Who would destroy someone so brutally?

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And why?

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[low, menacing music playing]

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[man 1] Every case
takes a piece out of your soul.

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[Butcher] You cannot do this job
unless you really care.

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[man 2] You want to find out the truth.

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That's what detectives do.

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[Parrino] I've always liked the peek
behind the curtain. What really happened?

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[Rivera] It's so important for a family
to know who murdered their relative.

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That's my job.

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[man 3] In New York City, the NYPD…

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this is it.

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[siren wailing]

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[pensive synth music playing]

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[ducks quacking]

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Central Park is essential
to the heart of New York City.

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[McNeely] It's not just a park
you would associate with…

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Something with a great lawn,

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maybe a couple ball fields,
and some playground area.

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It's way more than that.

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[Butcher] We all live in concrete.

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We walk on concrete.

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We live up in the air, far from nature.

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So, Central Park, for a New Yorker,
is more than a backyard.

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It's an oasis.

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[disquieting undertones building]

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[Butcher] But all New Yorkers
share Central Park.

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Not just the good people,
but bad people too.

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[suspenseful music playing]

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Central Park was very dangerous
in the '70s and '80s.

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I never would go there at night.

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That's when we were having
2,500 homicides a year.

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A lot of them happened in Central Park.

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[man] By the late 1990s,

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the city was objectively getting safer.

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Every single indicator
of crime, public safety,

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was moving in the right direction.

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When the city turned around
and things became better,

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Central Park became better as well.

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However, whenever there was a crime there,

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it was all-hands-on-deck.

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[man 2] Somebody gets a hangnail
in Central Park, it's like,

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"Oh my God, everybody has to go
and figure out what's going on."

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So when somebody gets murdered,
it's a big deal.

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[tense music playing]

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[Plansky] On May 23rd, 1997,

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I'm just starting my fifth year
as an assistant DA.

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I'd just started riding along
with a more senior homicide assistant,

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which means that I'm being trained
to investigate and prosecute homicides.

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And somewhere
between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.…

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[beeper beeping]

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…I remember being awakened
to the sound of the beeper going off.

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And because I'd just moved
into my legal sublet,

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I did not have a phone line hooked up.

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So I had to go out onto the street.

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Found a pay phone
and I dialed the number on the beeper.

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And the person on the other end said,

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"There's some kind of brouhaha
in Central Park."

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[chuckling] I thought that was
the understatement of the year.

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[suspenseful music playing]

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[man] It's early morning.

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We'd been notified
by nightwatch dispatcher.

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He says, "We have a body floating
in Central Park Lake."

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I was the commanding officer
of Manhattan Detective Nightwatch.

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Our job was to establish the crime scene,

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then hand off to the catching detective
who has the case.

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I got to the scene

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right on the west side of Central Park,
right next to Strawberry Fields.

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We had a trail of blood,
maybe 40, 50 feet, going to the gazebo.

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And we followed the blood trail.

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And I walk up to the lake.

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And there in the lake

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is a human body floating head up.

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[Plansky] When I first saw
the crime scene,

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I couldn't help but feel
this incredible sense of dissonance.

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That lake is in the center
of this beautiful park.

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And yet what I was seeing
at this crime scene

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was among the most brutal I've ever seen.

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[suspenseful music playing]

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I went to the death scene
to investigate the body in its setting,

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in its circumstances.

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Most crime scenes
are confined to one location.

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In this case,
we had the path leading into the park

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where there were blood drops,

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the area by the gazebo
where the pool of blood was,

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and the body in the lake.

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And I looked at the edge of the water.

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Just bobbing and floating among the reeds

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was just this pale man,

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what was left of a man.

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And I stepped a little closer

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and saw that his abdomen was ripped open,

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and his intestines were
floating in the water.

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I've seen hundreds of bodies
in my tenure in NYPD.

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This was the only body
I ever saw with a floating intestine.

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It remained with me.

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[Butcher] His wrist was hacked.

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His right hand, hanging, almost detached.

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These multiple slashing,
gouging stab wounds.

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You think "overkill."

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What overkill means
is… is passion, anger, rage.

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Every murder is horrible,
and every homicide crime scene

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is upsetting and emotional
and hard to digest.

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But there's definitely variation.

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And homicides
that are committed with knives

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tend to be the most brutal.

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At this point in my career,

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this was the second homicide crime scene
I'd ever been to.

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To be exposed
to something like that so fast,

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this was definitely a baptism of fire.

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[music trails off]

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[mysterious, intriguing music playing]

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I was a third-grade detective investigator
working at Manhattan North Homicide Squad.

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And I'd been there for almost four years.

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Friday, May 23rd, 1997,
I was not scheduled to work a day tour.

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I was coming in early
to go to a court appearance downtown.

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I get to the office
at about eight o'clock in the morning.

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The lieutenant looks at me and says,
"Look, there's a murder in the park."

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"You gotta call downtown,
cancel your court case, and come with us."

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[Plansky] I was told that somebody
from Manhattan North Homicide

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was being assigned.

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And then Rob Mooney shows up.

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And the second he starts talking,

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now I know who's in charge.

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[funky, groovy music playing]

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[Plansky] This guy is 6'5".

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He's got an enormous head.

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He's got '70s rock star kind of hair

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with this '70s-style mustache.

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Looks like one of the long-lost members
of the Allman Brothers Band.

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And he always wore
a Grateful Dead pin on his lapel.

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Big Deadhead. Loves the Grateful Dead.

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[Mooney] I've probably seen the Dead
close to 300 times in my life.

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The diversity in that community
gave me a serious advantage

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in not being judgmental about people.

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You don't judge a book by its cover.

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And in this case,
it turned out to be true.

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[low rumbling]

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[Butcher] The victim didn't have a wallet,
but there were some papers we'd found.

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And there was a name, Michael McMorrow.

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[Plansky] We learned
that Michael was 44 years old.

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He lived in Manhattan with his mom,

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and he worked in a real estate company.

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[reporter 1] Today,
mystery surrounds a gruesome murder

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of a man in New York's Central Park.

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[reporter 2] McMorrow was slashed
more than 50 times, his throat cut.

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You could actually hear
the cavalry of the media,

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'cause in New York City,

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everything that happens
in Central Park is top billing.

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[low, foreboding music playing]

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When I see the size of the victim,
the guy was over six feet.

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He was… Looked like
he was over 200 pounds.

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So for someone to be able
to go out there and… and mutilate,

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dismember someone like that,

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there's more to the picture.
I couldn't really understand it.

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The condition of the victim's body

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and amount of violence
that attended to all these injuries

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was a clear indication
this was not a random act of violence.

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This was not a robbery that went bad.

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And so the mystery then becomes
the mechanism of what happened.

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[suspenseful, erratic music playing]

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[Furman] So I'm inside the apartment.
Now it's two o'clock in the morning.

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After Chris left,
that's when Daphne called us.

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And she said, "I was afraid of Chris."

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"I didn't want to say anything
while he was around."

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Daphne said she was in the park
with her boyfriend, Chris.

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They were hanging out,
they went for a walk,

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and Chris went crazy.

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He killed a guy.

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And while Daphne's talking,
Mr. Abdela just walks away, like…

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I'm looking at him. He walks away.
Like, "This is your daughter."

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"You're not saying anything.
You're not stopping her from saying this."

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Again, maybe he's just used to this.

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So in my mind, I'm thinking,
"She's bullshitting me."

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"You're 15 years old. You're young."

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Maybe she got in trouble, so she wants
to cause problems for her father.

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So I'm not asking her questions.
She's just divulging this information.

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Then she went into,
"I tried to give him CPR."

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That she tried to help
instead of being part of it.

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She's saying,
"Chris did this. Chris did that."

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Nothing "me," nothing "I did."

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Until, while Chris was trying
to get rid of… rid of his body,

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she told him, "Chris,
you should try to gut him and sink him."

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"Try to cover it up."

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To be around something like that
should be shocking to you.

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But her demeanor was just,
like, normal, just very relaxed.

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[Mooney] Lee Furman had some patrol cops
from the Central Park Precinct

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go to the park,

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who in fact discovered
the body floating in the lake.

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[foreboding music intensifies]

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So that changed the tenor
of everything going on in the apartment.

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[intricate, dramatic music playing]

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[Plansky] After Lee Furman responded
to the 911 call in Daphne's apartment,

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we had, clearly, reason to believe
Christopher was directly involved in this.

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So later that morning,
acting on that information,

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detectives went
to Christopher Vasquez's apartment,

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and they placed him under arrest
for the murder of Michael McMorrow.

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He had to go to central booking.

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And, uh, the lieutenant at the time
says to me,

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"Fix your tie.
You gotta walk him out to the car."

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When I first looked at Chris Vasquez,

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I was kind of a little bit shocked,
'cause he looked like this little kid.

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You know, I knew he was 15,
but he looked like he was 12.

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And he clearly had injuries
on the side of his face and on his hands.

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That impression only added to my concern

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about how this actually occurred,

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'cause it didn't seem likely to me

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that he was gonna be
the sole responsible person

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for all the mayhem
that occurred at this scene.

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What we really didn't know
was what we had in Daphne.

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So the way that she presented herself
was as a witness.

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But most witnesses
to incredibly violent crimes

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don't volunteer that they suggested
it would be a good idea to gut the victim

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in order to sink his body in the lake.

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So Daphne Abdela is arrested

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at 12:30 in the afternoon on May 23rd.

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And we went over
to try to get a statement from her.

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We wanted to talk to her,

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and the dad, on her behalf,

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refused to speak to us.

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The first time I saw Daphne Abdela,
she was a kid.

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She was little.

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In my brain, I'm having a hard time
connecting this person to this crime.

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[camera shutters snapping]

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We were informed
that they both asked for lawyers.

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So there was no opportunity
to have an interrogation with them.

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So that's a huge loss.

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Any time that you don't get
that opportunity, um, that's a problem.

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We had two 15-year-olds and Michael,

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who's 30 years older than both of them.

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So how in the world
did these people come together?

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How did this become a murder?

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[suspenseful, intriguing music playing]

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Detectives looked at Daphne's family

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and learned that her father
was a well-to-do businessman,

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her mother a French model.

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They had adopted her as a baby.

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And she lived
a life of incredible privilege.

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She had everything.

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[woman] In the late '80s,

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many moms would bring
their children to the park.

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We'd all play in Strawberry Fields.

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And then fast-forward about 13 years.

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And one day we hear that somebody
has been arrested for murder.

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And it was a girl named Daphne.

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And as we learned more about it,

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our friends all realize that
that little girl named Daphne

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was one of the kids
who played almost every afternoon

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with all of our kids.

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When I heard about the murder,
I got so obsessed with it.

18:53.090 --> 18:54.883
I couldn't stop thinking about it.

18:54.967 --> 18:58.095
It was then that I wrote a proposal
to have a book done on it.

18:58.971 --> 19:02.808
In writing this book,
I wanted to talk to anybody and everybody

19:02.891 --> 19:05.185
who knew Daphne, who knew Christopher.

19:05.978 --> 19:09.273
Daphne went to Columbia Grammar
when she started school.

19:09.356 --> 19:11.775
And at first, she fit in pretty well,

19:12.359 --> 19:16.613
but as the years went on,
she became more, uh, belligerent.

19:16.697 --> 19:20.993
And finally, in eighth grade,
she was asked to leave Columbia Grammar,

19:21.535 --> 19:24.538
which is not usual
for a private school in the city.

19:24.621 --> 19:28.292
[Mooney] Daphne engaged
in a lot of self-destructive behavior,

19:28.375 --> 19:31.086
i.e., booze and drugs.

19:31.169 --> 19:35.048
And Daphne's family paid for her
to go to really expensive rehab,

19:35.132 --> 19:37.384
I think, twice before this happened.

19:37.467 --> 19:40.137
[Sands]
Daphne started high school at Loyola

19:40.220 --> 19:43.223
after she was asked
to leave Columbia Grammar.

19:43.307 --> 19:46.560
She was tough.
She was brash. She was arrogant.

19:46.643 --> 19:48.937
Her attitude became worse and worse.

19:49.021 --> 19:54.943
She just refused to follow any rules,
any curfew, any decent behavior.

19:57.738 --> 20:01.283
[reporter] The other suspect
is 15-year-old Christopher Vasquez.

20:01.366 --> 20:04.453
He is described
as a former altar boy and a Boy Scout

20:04.536 --> 20:07.456
who grew up
in a five-story walk-up in Spanish Harlem.

20:07.539 --> 20:10.876
I learn that Chris Vasquez
was from a pretty good family.

20:11.501 --> 20:13.128
He was an altar boy.

20:13.212 --> 20:16.173
He lived right next to the church
on 97th Street.

20:16.256 --> 20:19.343
He was such a good boy,
very helpful, very obedient.

20:20.135 --> 20:22.304
[Butcher] He lived over in East Harlem.

20:22.804 --> 20:23.847
Nothing fancy.

20:23.931 --> 20:26.099
A very nice boy, very well dressed.

20:26.183 --> 20:28.894
Um, he didn't hang out.
He wasn't a troublemaker.

20:28.977 --> 20:31.313
Everybody's devastated by this.
We can't believe it.

20:31.980 --> 20:34.316
[Butcher] Christopher's parents
were separated.

20:35.442 --> 20:37.611
And his mother was raising him.

20:38.236 --> 20:41.490
And she put him in a private school,
which is expensive.

20:41.573 --> 20:46.119
So his parents worked hard
to give him a good life.

20:46.787 --> 20:48.538
[Mooney] And he was a good kid,

20:48.622 --> 20:50.582
but he was very introverted

20:50.666 --> 20:53.877
and would get picked on a lot at school

20:53.961 --> 20:57.381
because of his size
and his… and his introverted behavior.

20:57.464 --> 20:59.675
[reporter] Chris was
someone the kids teased.

20:59.758 --> 21:03.679
They called him a "herb,"
slang for a loser, a weakling.

21:03.762 --> 21:07.307
-[kid 1] I dunno why he did it.
-[kid 2] He's a herb. He's a real herb.

21:08.267 --> 21:11.478
[Sands] Both Christopher and Daphne
were excellent rollerbladers.

21:11.561 --> 21:13.897
And they would go to the park
most afternoons.

21:13.981 --> 21:15.357
They met each other there.

21:15.440 --> 21:18.652
Neither Daphne nor Christopher
had many friends.

21:18.735 --> 21:21.238
Daphne because she was so obnoxious,

21:21.321 --> 21:23.865
and Christopher
because he was so withdrawn.

21:24.908 --> 21:28.078
When they met up,
they struck up a bit of friendship,

21:28.161 --> 21:29.705
then they started hanging out.

21:29.788 --> 21:31.123
They hung out together

21:31.206 --> 21:33.709
for about two or three months
before the murder.

21:34.501 --> 21:38.505
[Butcher] Two 15-year-old children
from private schools,

21:39.006 --> 21:42.801
and that made
an absolute circus of coverage.

21:42.884 --> 21:46.221
A shocking crime that has led
to the arrest of two teenagers

21:46.304 --> 21:49.224
for allegedly stabbing
a real estate agent and dumping the body.

21:49.308 --> 21:51.435
One of them a millionaire's daughter.

21:53.645 --> 21:56.732
When I first learned
what had happened to my uncle,

21:56.815 --> 21:58.859
I was… I was in shock.

22:00.068 --> 22:03.113
Especially since,
for me and for my sister,

22:03.196 --> 22:07.034
we spent a good amount of time
with my uncle in Central Park.

22:07.117 --> 22:09.494
That was a special place for all of us.

22:09.578 --> 22:11.538
We knew it was a special place for him,

22:11.621 --> 22:15.959
so for him
to have lost his life so tragically,

22:16.752 --> 22:19.463
uh, in this place that was so special,

22:19.546 --> 22:20.756
it was devastating.

22:22.132 --> 22:26.011
It was very hard to, uh,
see my, you know, my mother,

22:26.511 --> 22:28.347
and the grief that she was in.

22:28.430 --> 22:30.432
And the fact that they lived together,

22:30.515 --> 22:33.852
I think the loss
was felt by her more than anybody,

22:33.935 --> 22:38.398
and I think she still felt like
she should have been his protector.

22:38.482 --> 22:40.734
[somber, pensive music playing]

22:40.817 --> 22:44.863
We grew up on the West Side of Manhattan,
a block from Central Park.

22:45.614 --> 22:47.324
Michael was extremely likable.

22:47.407 --> 22:50.118
Made a lot of friends
and had a lot of friends.

22:51.870 --> 22:55.332
I didn't call him "Michael."
I never referred to him as "Mike."

22:55.415 --> 22:59.169
I called him "Irish."
That was his nickname in the neighborhood.

22:59.753 --> 23:01.088
He was quick to laugh.

23:01.171 --> 23:04.257
And that's basically
what you saw of Irish,

23:04.341 --> 23:07.844
was he was laughing most of the time,
cracking jokes.

23:07.928 --> 23:09.554
He was just a guy.

23:10.722 --> 23:11.807
Just a guy.

23:12.307 --> 23:18.021
So why would someone
want to destroy him like this?

23:19.231 --> 23:20.482
There's the mystery.

23:21.191 --> 23:22.943
[mysterious, intriguing music playing]

23:23.026 --> 23:25.862
[reporter 1] The two teenagers accused
in the brutal Central Park stabbing

23:25.946 --> 23:28.615
of a Manhattan real estate agent
say they're innocent.

23:28.698 --> 23:30.200
[reporter 2] Christopher Vasquez

23:30.283 --> 23:33.662
and Vasquez's 15-year-old girlfriend
face an arraignment later today.

23:40.585 --> 23:43.046
[Plansky] The arrest
is not the end of the story.

23:43.130 --> 23:44.840
It's really the beginning of the story.

23:44.923 --> 23:47.050
It's a pretty confusing situation.

23:47.134 --> 23:50.637
We don't feel like we know
exactly what happened at this point.

23:51.221 --> 23:54.891
[court official 1]
Defendant is charged 125.25.

23:56.059 --> 23:57.060
First degree.

23:57.561 --> 23:59.896
[court official 2]
This defendant, along with Chris,

23:59.980 --> 24:01.815
referring to the co-defendant,

24:01.898 --> 24:05.485
attempted to conceal
the identity of the victim.

24:06.069 --> 24:09.614
[reporter] Fifteen-year-olds Daphne Abdela
and her boyfriend, Christopher Vasquez,

24:09.698 --> 24:12.242
entered "not guilty" pleas
during an arraignment yesterday.

24:13.994 --> 24:17.539
[Plansky] Under New York State law,
from the second that someone is arraigned,

24:17.622 --> 24:23.962
you have 144 hours to file an indictment.

24:24.045 --> 24:27.799
If you don't file an indictment
within that statutory time period,

24:27.883 --> 24:32.137
then the defendants
must be released from custody.

24:32.721 --> 24:37.017
So we had to assess pretty quickly
whether we felt we had enough evidence

24:37.100 --> 24:42.522
to establish reasonable cause
that would get us to an indictment.

24:43.732 --> 24:45.192
Now, the clock starts.

24:45.275 --> 24:47.277
[mysterious, uneasy music playing]

24:51.323 --> 24:55.035
[Butcher] This became
a wide-ranging investigation.

24:55.577 --> 24:58.205
This required multiple crime scene teams

24:58.288 --> 25:01.833
to go and collect evidence
from each of these locations.

25:01.917 --> 25:04.961
And then, of course,
there was the team of detectives

25:05.045 --> 25:07.380
interviewing the family members,
the witnesses.

25:07.464 --> 25:11.384
They're waiting for evidence to come in.
That's how you build your case.

25:12.802 --> 25:16.389
[Mooney] Because of things
Lee Furman observed at Daphne's apartment,

25:16.973 --> 25:19.059
there was evidence
that needed to be collected.

25:19.643 --> 25:22.646
Blood evidence on the clothing,
blood on her Rollerblades,

25:22.729 --> 25:25.315
and there was blood on the watch
that she was wearing.

25:25.398 --> 25:27.776
When NYPD gathers evidence,

25:27.859 --> 25:29.194
they don't fool around.

25:29.694 --> 25:33.031
It's not just a picture
of some blood in a bathtub.

25:33.114 --> 25:34.908
They take the whole bathtub,

25:36.534 --> 25:39.746
because it's got
blood of the perpetrators,

25:39.829 --> 25:41.498
maybe blood of the victims.

25:41.581 --> 25:43.542
We searched Daphne's bedroom.

25:43.625 --> 25:44.626
In one of her drawers,

25:44.709 --> 25:47.963
I found Michael McMorrow's wallet
with his ID and some money.

25:48.505 --> 25:52.259
That's just another piece of evidence
that places her there with Michael,

25:52.342 --> 25:53.677
with Chris at the scene.

25:55.095 --> 25:58.348
[Plansky] The problem is that,
horrific as this crime scene was,

25:58.431 --> 26:02.310
merely being present while
the crime's committed is not a crime.

26:03.311 --> 26:06.481
It may be morally
and ethically indefensible,

26:06.564 --> 26:07.691
but it's not a crime.

26:07.774 --> 26:10.986
You have to prove
the elements of the crime

26:11.069 --> 26:13.154
beyond a reasonable doubt, every element.

26:14.114 --> 26:17.409
[Mooney] We learned
from Michael McMorrow's family

26:17.909 --> 26:21.246
about Michael's regular behavior

26:21.329 --> 26:24.374
and some of the people
he would spend time with in the park.

26:24.457 --> 26:27.460
[Charles] Michael had
a group of people he knew in the park.

26:27.544 --> 26:32.048
And after work, he'd go over there
with, you know, a six-pack or something.

26:32.674 --> 26:35.093
He had his, you know, drinking buddies.

26:36.052 --> 26:38.138
[Plansky] Michael struggled with alcohol.

26:38.638 --> 26:43.018
He was just a regular guy
with regular problems.

26:43.101 --> 26:44.978
Irish was trying to change himself.

26:45.854 --> 26:47.397
You know, going to AA.

26:48.148 --> 26:53.528
The one that Irish went to
was, uh, at the Y off Central Park West,

26:54.195 --> 26:56.156
and that's where he met Daphne.

26:56.239 --> 26:58.241
[taut, suspenseful music playing]

27:00.744 --> 27:03.621
[Mooney] The investigation
was progressing as it should have.

27:03.705 --> 27:05.749
People were being interviewed

27:05.832 --> 27:09.294
that we discovered were present
prior to the murder in the park.

27:10.170 --> 27:13.465
We discovered,
on the day of Michael McMorrow's murder,

27:13.548 --> 27:18.011
Daphne and Chris agreed
now to be boyfriend and girlfriend.

27:19.554 --> 27:24.476
They go rollerblading,
and she gets into all kinds of trouble.

27:25.393 --> 27:27.937
She's picking fights
with older men in the park.

27:28.021 --> 27:29.814
She's doing crazy things.

27:29.898 --> 27:33.526
Allegedly making a statement to one,
"I'm gonna kill somebody tonight."

27:35.403 --> 27:40.033
Prior to the murder, Daphne and Chris,
they had been drinking,

27:40.116 --> 27:43.620
and they ran into
this group of people by Strawberry Fields,

27:43.703 --> 27:45.497
one of which was Michael McMorrow.

27:47.582 --> 27:51.294
Now, Chris is being the lapdog.
He's just following along.

27:51.378 --> 27:56.800
Daphne is this much more "experienced,"
shall we say, child of the same age.

27:57.467 --> 28:00.095
She was the genie in the bottle.

28:00.178 --> 28:03.848
When Christopher found that bottle,
and opened that cork,

28:03.932 --> 28:07.602
and she popped out,
she controlled everything with him.

28:07.686 --> 28:10.563
[tense music pulsing]

28:12.148 --> 28:15.068
[Mooney] During the search
at Chris Vasquez's apartment,

28:15.151 --> 28:16.778
there was blood on his clothing,

28:17.570 --> 28:19.364
and they recovered a knife.

28:20.573 --> 28:23.076
We don't know at that point
whether or not it's the knife.

28:23.868 --> 28:26.579
So we had to get DNA testing done.

28:27.664 --> 28:29.666
[subdued, suspenseful music playing]

28:35.964 --> 28:39.259
[Butcher] Mr. McMorrow
was taken down for autopsy.

28:40.677 --> 28:45.223
He had a blood alcohol level
of .31 at autopsy,

28:45.306 --> 28:48.476
which is about
more than three times the legal limit.

28:49.936 --> 28:52.105
Would that make him impaired?

28:52.188 --> 28:53.815
Probably, yes.

28:53.898 --> 28:58.528
But he did have the ability
to walk from Strawberry Fields

28:58.611 --> 29:01.823
down to the lake on his own two feet.

29:02.782 --> 29:05.785
So we're trying
to establish what happened.

29:06.369 --> 29:08.872
There was bruising
to the back of his legs.

29:08.955 --> 29:10.832
It was a pattern bruise.

29:11.624 --> 29:13.501
The destruction of his face

29:14.544 --> 29:19.674
indicated this was
a very personal, very rageful attack.

29:21.050 --> 29:27.223
On one side of his chest were
maybe eight or nine or ten stab wounds,

29:27.807 --> 29:31.686
all grouped together,
that indicated he wasn't moving.

29:32.604 --> 29:35.857
Now, you can see a man standing

29:36.900 --> 29:38.693
and having his face hacked,

29:38.776 --> 29:42.280
and his hands hacked
as he fought for his life.

29:42.363 --> 29:44.949
Then he goes down.

29:45.033 --> 29:50.580
And now his attacker stands over him
and brutally hacks at him.

29:50.663 --> 29:54.542
Stabs him multiple times,
over and over and over.

29:58.004 --> 30:00.840
The biggest question,
I think, that I had in my mind

30:00.924 --> 30:04.093
about what actually occurred…

30:04.177 --> 30:05.261
This is a big guy.

30:05.345 --> 30:07.222
How did he end up down on the ground,

30:07.305 --> 30:09.349
despite his level of intoxication,

30:09.849 --> 30:15.522
that it allowed skinny little
Chris Vasquez to inflict all that damage?

30:15.605 --> 30:18.399
And the answer is
Chris didn't do it by himself.

30:19.734 --> 30:21.653
At least that's the supposition.

30:24.531 --> 30:26.533
[somber music playing]

30:30.161 --> 30:33.164
[Charles] When I did finally learn
what they did to the body,

30:33.248 --> 30:34.249
that angered me.

30:34.332 --> 30:37.752
I don't care if they're 15.
There should be some justice here.

30:39.587 --> 30:41.840
[Matthew] My sister was 15 years old.

30:41.923 --> 30:43.633
I was 17 years old.

30:43.716 --> 30:49.013
We couldn't fathom how somebody our age
could… could do something like this.

30:50.974 --> 30:54.352
Daphne Abdela will remain behind bars
until at least Wednesday.

30:54.435 --> 30:56.437
That's when another court date
is scheduled.

30:56.521 --> 30:59.774
At that time, some grand jury action
must have been taken,

30:59.858 --> 31:01.526
or the 15-year-old goes free.

31:01.609 --> 31:03.611
[tense music building]

31:05.863 --> 31:08.032
[Plansky] The DNA analysis came in.

31:08.867 --> 31:12.245
His pocketknife had a mixture of blood

31:12.328 --> 31:14.831
on the blade and in the hilt.

31:14.914 --> 31:19.419
And that mixture was his blood
and Michael McMorrow's blood.

31:21.671 --> 31:23.298
[Mooney] It's the murder weapon.

31:23.381 --> 31:26.009
That's a rock-crushing piece of evidence.

31:26.759 --> 31:28.845
[Plansky] It was hard
to wrap your mind around the fact

31:28.928 --> 31:32.640
that they were capable
of that sort of extreme violence.

31:32.724 --> 31:35.894
But at the same time,
we knew that they were.

31:36.978 --> 31:38.980
We knew that they've done this.

31:40.565 --> 31:42.066
We felt at that point

31:42.150 --> 31:46.154
that on the totality of the information
that we had at that moment,

31:46.237 --> 31:51.367
that we had enough probable cause
to charge both of them.

31:51.451 --> 31:55.038
The key piece of evidence for Chris
was the knife.

31:55.121 --> 31:57.206
For Daphne, it was her statements.

31:58.124 --> 32:01.794
Clearly, she had placed herself
in an active role

32:01.878 --> 32:04.464
in terms of trying to dispose of the body.

32:05.423 --> 32:07.467
We presented that evidence
to the grand jury.

32:08.051 --> 32:10.094
The grand jury found it persuasive.

32:10.178 --> 32:13.222
They returned indictments
for murder two against both of them.

32:19.520 --> 32:23.358
Within the first few days
of this investigation,

32:23.441 --> 32:28.529
we found out who the two defendants
had retained to represent them.

32:29.530 --> 32:33.201
Christopher Vasquez
retained a man named Arnold Kriss,

32:33.284 --> 32:35.328
a former assistant DA.

32:35.411 --> 32:37.705
Clearly a formidable adversary.

32:38.706 --> 32:41.834
Daphne and her family
retained Ben Brafman.

32:42.335 --> 32:46.214
Ben is one of the most prominent
defense attorneys in New York

32:46.297 --> 32:47.966
and probably in the country.

32:48.049 --> 32:53.972
He's represented everybody
from mafioso to Wall Street people.

32:55.390 --> 32:57.600
Ben had a portfolio that was diverse,

32:57.684 --> 33:01.479
and usually with good results
for him and his clients.

33:01.562 --> 33:05.608
It was, you know, kind of a stark reminder

33:05.692 --> 33:09.570
of how much was at stake here
and how difficult this was gonna be.

33:10.196 --> 33:13.116
[Mooney] Some detectives
might get a little bit intimidated

33:13.199 --> 33:15.660
by the presence
of somebody like Ben Brafman.

33:15.743 --> 33:18.538
My opinion was, "You have a law degree,

33:19.038 --> 33:21.958
and you're dressed way nicer than I am,

33:22.041 --> 33:24.877
but we both put our pants on
the same way this morning,

33:24.961 --> 33:26.879
and I'm ready if you're ready."

33:26.963 --> 33:28.423
"So let's do it."

33:29.799 --> 33:32.385
[reporter 1] At this point,
I have more questions than answers.

33:32.468 --> 33:33.553
Who was Mr. McMorrow,

33:33.636 --> 33:36.305
and why was he in the park
drinking with children?

33:36.389 --> 33:40.727
The media was shaping the narrative
to paint Irish as a pervert.

33:40.810 --> 33:44.063
They're painting
an untruthful image of Michael.

33:44.147 --> 33:47.233
[reporter 1] Why he apparently liked
to drink into the night in the park

33:47.316 --> 33:50.445
with a mostly young crowd remains unclear.

33:50.528 --> 33:53.114
What is clear
is that it cost him his life.

33:53.197 --> 33:54.866
The most obvious explanation

33:54.949 --> 33:57.577
if you see that a 44-year-old guy

33:57.660 --> 34:01.956
is drinking with two 15-year-olds
at night in Central Park…

34:02.040 --> 34:05.585
It's not that much of a leap
to try to paint that picture.

34:05.668 --> 34:08.671
[reporter 2] McMorrow later met up
with the two teens near the lake

34:08.755 --> 34:10.673
and may have made a pass at Abdela,

34:10.757 --> 34:14.927
allegedly sending her boyfriend Vasquez
into a knife-wielding rage.

34:15.720 --> 34:19.724
I think the speculation
was hurtful to my grandmother

34:19.807 --> 34:23.978
and to my other family members
because they were not real.

34:24.604 --> 34:25.730
We wanted to make sure

34:25.813 --> 34:29.859
that he was remembered respectfully
and with dignity,

34:29.942 --> 34:31.569
because that's what he deserved.

34:34.572 --> 34:37.116
[Mooney] There wasn't one thing
we learned about him that indicated

34:37.200 --> 34:39.285
he would've done anything bad to anybody.

34:39.368 --> 34:44.332
He was, in fact, a kind person
that was good to everybody that he met,

34:44.415 --> 34:45.374
to a fault.

34:45.458 --> 34:47.919
And in… in this particular instance,

34:48.002 --> 34:50.546
to describe him as being
in the wrong place at the wrong time

34:50.630 --> 34:52.882
is absolutely right on…
right on the money.

34:58.221 --> 35:03.226
The case against Chris
was always stronger 'cause of the knife.

35:03.309 --> 35:06.395
That was the single best piece of evidence
we had in the case.

35:06.479 --> 35:08.940
We knew that that knife
was the murder weapon.

35:09.023 --> 35:11.984
We felt we were gonna be able to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt

35:12.610 --> 35:14.445
that Christopher was the knife wielder.

35:15.905 --> 35:20.034
We felt less confident
about the quantum of proof for Daphne.

35:20.118 --> 35:23.371
While there was
a lot of circumstantial evidence

35:23.454 --> 35:25.748
that clearly placed her
at the crime scene,

35:26.499 --> 35:30.878
it requires the jury
to take a little bit of a leap.

35:30.962 --> 35:35.258
It was a more difficult case
than the case against Christopher.

35:35.967 --> 35:39.262
And then we got a pretty big surprise.

35:42.265 --> 35:47.436
Mr. Brafman reached out
to the DA's office as Daphne's lawyer

35:47.520 --> 35:49.647
and said,
"I've been interviewing my client,

35:49.730 --> 35:53.609
and she would like to come in
under Queen for a Day."

35:53.693 --> 35:57.446
Ben's rationale for this was,
"I think you guys got this wrong."

35:57.530 --> 36:00.992
"She's really a witness here.
She's not a defendant."

36:01.075 --> 36:03.369
"Let me bring her in
on a Queen for a Day."

36:03.452 --> 36:05.163
That's an agreement

36:05.246 --> 36:08.249
in which a defense attorney
can bring in his client,

36:08.332 --> 36:11.544
and she can speak essentially freely.

36:11.627 --> 36:14.463
[Mooney] Anything you say
cannot be used against you

36:14.547 --> 36:16.883
unless you testify in court

36:16.966 --> 36:19.969
and testify differently
from what you've talked about here.

36:21.971 --> 36:24.223
So we brought her down to the DA's office.

36:25.850 --> 36:27.977
Daphne explained that, that night,

36:28.060 --> 36:31.480
she and Vasquez just happened
to skate into this group of people

36:31.564 --> 36:35.026
Michael would spend his evenings with
who were drinking in the park.

36:36.110 --> 36:41.115
Shortly after, a cop on a scooter
comes along and kinda disperses them.

36:41.199 --> 36:44.410
And so they all scatter
in different directions.

36:46.245 --> 36:51.834
Daphne and Chris had the beer,
so Michael followed the beer.

36:52.877 --> 36:57.298
And they went down to the little gazebo
at the side of the lake.

36:58.466 --> 37:01.469
And that's where they sat
drinking the rest of the beer.

37:02.053 --> 37:03.888
And at some point,

37:03.971 --> 37:06.390
Daphne and Chris…

37:09.227 --> 37:13.189
decide that they're gonna
go skinny-dipping in the lake.

37:16.651 --> 37:19.362
When they come out,
they're both freezing cold.

37:20.738 --> 37:23.616
So her explanation was that…

37:26.202 --> 37:28.496
Michael sees that she's shivering.

37:29.038 --> 37:32.875
He puts his arm around her
to try to warm her up,

37:32.959 --> 37:34.210
and Chris snapped.

37:34.293 --> 37:36.295
[foreboding music playing]

37:38.923 --> 37:44.470
Because he thought that Michael
was trying to make advances toward Daphne.

37:45.596 --> 37:49.058
He pulled out his knife,
and then he started stabbing him.

37:57.066 --> 38:00.778
She was saying, "Christopher did it.
He did everything."

38:00.861 --> 38:01.904
"I'm a witness."

38:02.655 --> 38:06.742
If this were true, she, in fact,
is an eyewitness to a murder.

38:06.826 --> 38:09.161
Her indictment
would likely have been dismissed.

38:10.496 --> 38:12.915
And that would've been
the end of it for her.

38:13.541 --> 38:16.002
But I wasn't satisfied.

38:18.337 --> 38:21.257
Daphne was born, practically,

38:21.841 --> 38:24.593
thinking she's superior
to the rest of the world,

38:25.177 --> 38:28.806
that she's the most important person
in any room that she would go into.

38:28.889 --> 38:33.561
So she, I'm sure, thought that she was
gonna be smarter and be able to talk.

38:33.644 --> 38:36.856
'Cause that's what they do. They all think
they're gonna talk their way out of it.

38:36.939 --> 38:38.816
There's nothing that we like better.

38:38.899 --> 38:40.818
"You keep talking. Go right ahead."

38:40.901 --> 38:44.363
So I wanted to keep her on a string.

38:44.447 --> 38:47.616
I said there's physical evidence
to corroborate what she said.

38:47.700 --> 38:51.871
And so then I said,
"Well, I wonder if it would be okay

38:51.954 --> 38:55.458
if you guys would let us
talk to her a few more times."

38:55.541 --> 38:57.376
"I just want to clear up
one or two things."

38:57.460 --> 38:59.587
Brafman was like, "Yeah, not a problem."

38:59.670 --> 39:01.589
He thought this was a done deal.

39:01.672 --> 39:04.759
We did the follow-up interviews with her.

39:04.842 --> 39:07.678
He sent some junior associate
from his office.

39:08.596 --> 39:10.598
[Butcher] Rob's got something about him.

39:10.681 --> 39:12.725
Um, it's almost fatherly.

39:13.851 --> 39:17.563
He's trustworthy, and people talk to him.

39:17.646 --> 39:21.734
When Rob Mooney talked to Daphne Abdela,

39:22.401 --> 39:24.070
they built a rapport.

39:24.153 --> 39:25.529
He's brilliant at that.

39:28.032 --> 39:30.785
[Mooney] I asked her,
"Well, I have a question."

39:31.410 --> 39:33.245
"I'm concerned about these bruises."

39:33.329 --> 39:35.915
And I took a picture
out of the… out of the file

39:35.998 --> 39:39.627
that clearly showed this delineation
and these rounded bruises

39:39.710 --> 39:41.796
on the back of his leg, and I said,

39:42.713 --> 39:44.799
"What do… What do you think these are?"

39:45.299 --> 39:48.552
And so she got a little coy for a moment
and was like, "Hmm."

39:48.636 --> 39:52.848
She's turning the picture around,
looking at it, being hesitant about it.

39:52.932 --> 39:55.851
This guy reached out,
tapped her on the shoulder, and said,

39:55.935 --> 40:00.356
"It's okay. You can tell him."
And I'm thinking, "Oh, thanks, pal."

40:00.439 --> 40:02.566
"You're really helping me out here."

40:04.652 --> 40:08.656
Then I reached in the box,
take the Rollerblade out, and I say,

40:09.824 --> 40:13.160
"Does this help jar your thought
about this at all?"

40:15.287 --> 40:19.208
So then she began to demonstrate

40:19.291 --> 40:23.629
part of her true, uh, behavior.

40:26.507 --> 40:28.926
And said, "I thought
he was gonna hurt my friend,

40:29.009 --> 40:30.177
so I kicked him."

40:30.886 --> 40:34.807
I go, "Okay, I understand that,
but explain it to me."

40:36.976 --> 40:40.062
"Well, I kicked him,
and then, you know… and he fell down."

40:40.146 --> 40:42.731
"Then Chris jumped on him
and was stabbing him some more."

40:42.815 --> 40:44.733
And I was like, "Okay."

40:44.817 --> 40:47.570
And then the lawyer went,
"Okay, we're done."

40:50.573 --> 40:55.119
She could no longer deny
that she had any involvement.

40:55.661 --> 40:59.123
She assaulted Michael McMorrow.

40:59.206 --> 41:01.459
She kicked Michael McMorrow.

41:01.542 --> 41:04.170
She rendered him helpless.

41:05.421 --> 41:07.047
And now we have the proof.

41:08.007 --> 41:10.551
Perpetrator, not a witness.

41:10.634 --> 41:11.719
A killer.

41:16.432 --> 41:18.434
[frantic music pulsing]

41:19.477 --> 41:23.105
[Plansky] We knew,
from the totality of the circumstances,

41:23.189 --> 41:25.274
that she had to have helped Chris.

41:26.859 --> 41:29.737
And now, for the first time,
she's telling us.

41:29.820 --> 41:31.572
Shortly after that came out,

41:32.281 --> 41:35.409
we worked out a plea deal
with Daphne Abdela.

41:35.493 --> 41:38.787
Tonight, a teenager charged
with a vicious Central Park stabbing

41:38.871 --> 41:42.208
has cut a deal with prosecutors
and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

41:42.291 --> 41:45.419
Sixteen-year-old Daphne Abdela
apologized for her role

41:45.502 --> 41:48.422
in last year's murder
and mutilation of Michael McMorrow.

41:48.506 --> 41:49.882
The deal does not require her

41:49.965 --> 41:52.885
to testify against her former boyfriend,
Christopher Vasquez.

41:52.968 --> 41:54.887
He is charged with the actual stabbing.

42:00.100 --> 42:01.602
[Mooney] Daphne was gonna plead guilty,

42:01.685 --> 42:05.856
and she was gonna take
the maximum sentence for the charge,

42:06.482 --> 42:09.985
but would not be testifying in court
against Chris Vasquez.

42:11.820 --> 42:15.699
We worked a lot with the DA's office,
and he basically said,

42:15.783 --> 42:19.370
"This is the best we could get.
Because we had proof against him."

42:19.453 --> 42:21.538
"We had a pretty solid case."

42:21.622 --> 42:23.999
"But her, it was very late."

42:24.083 --> 42:28.504
"If we took it to court, we're not sure
we could have gotten any conviction."

42:28.587 --> 42:30.297
[lawyer] I also want to request…

42:30.381 --> 42:34.260
In March of 1998, Daphne comes to court,

42:34.843 --> 42:39.014
and she pleads guilty to a crime
called "manslaughter in the first degree."

42:39.098 --> 42:40.724
Manslaughter in the first degree

42:40.808 --> 42:43.185
is different from
murder in the second degree,

42:43.269 --> 42:46.105
which is what
she was originally charged with,

42:46.188 --> 42:48.816
because it doesn't require
an intent to kill.

42:49.650 --> 42:53.821
What she pled guilty to was
an intent to cause serious physical injury

42:53.904 --> 42:55.364
to Michael McMorrow.

42:58.784 --> 43:01.620
She pled guilty
to manslaughter in the first degree.

43:02.121 --> 43:05.332
She allocuted in open court
as to what she did

43:05.916 --> 43:08.669
that made her guilty of that crime,

43:08.752 --> 43:11.922
and she accepted a sentence
of three to nine years.

43:12.423 --> 43:14.425
[siren squawking faintly]

43:15.884 --> 43:17.886
[tense, jittery music playing]

43:19.555 --> 43:22.558
[Plansky] November 1998,
we're starting this trial.

43:23.434 --> 43:26.520
It was my first experience
putting Rob on the stand.

43:26.604 --> 43:28.647
And Rob came to court.

43:28.731 --> 43:33.068
He was wearing a sport jacket
and had a Grateful Dead pin on his lapel.

43:33.861 --> 43:37.865
And me being
the young, uptight assistant DA,

43:37.948 --> 43:39.950
said, "Rob, that's inappropriate."

43:40.034 --> 43:42.161
"You need to take
that Grateful Dead pin off."

43:42.244 --> 43:44.496
I was like, "Pft, not happening."

43:44.580 --> 43:48.125
And I said, "Please take it off.
You don't do that in a court."

43:48.208 --> 43:51.503
"You don't wear a skull
with a lightning bolt on the stand."

43:51.587 --> 43:54.423
I go, "That's tough tarts.
I'm not taking the pin off."

43:54.506 --> 43:57.593
And Rob said, "You have two choices here."

43:57.676 --> 43:58.969
[tense drumroll]

43:59.053 --> 44:01.805
"I can either testify with the pin

44:02.306 --> 44:04.892
or I can not testify with the pin."

44:05.392 --> 44:08.812
"But either way,
this story ends with me wearing that pin."

44:10.230 --> 44:14.068
I thought about it for a second,
and I said, "How soon can you go on?"

44:14.151 --> 44:16.570
[rim shot]

44:16.654 --> 44:18.656
[curious, intriguing music playing]

44:20.074 --> 44:22.743
[Plansky] The defense
that was put forward was,

44:22.826 --> 44:26.413
"Three people went down to the lake.
Two people came back."

44:27.289 --> 44:31.752
"Neither one of them is talking.
You don't know what happened at the lake."

44:32.252 --> 44:33.837
'Cause if you're not sure

44:33.921 --> 44:39.927
who was actually doing
the… the cutting, the fighting,

44:40.010 --> 44:44.223
then you've got to have reasonable doubt
about this young man's guilt.

44:45.099 --> 44:49.019
[Mooney] There's always concern
when people point the finger at each other

44:49.103 --> 44:52.147
that this is going to result
in a stalemate,

44:52.231 --> 44:55.317
and maybe the jury
is not going to be convinced either way.

44:55.401 --> 44:58.195
[Plansky] The defense
did put the blame on Daphne,

44:58.904 --> 45:02.324
that she may well have been
responsible for this,

45:02.408 --> 45:06.745
but I think the overall strategy was,
"We just don't know."

45:06.829 --> 45:11.208
"And if you don't know,
then you've got to acquit my client."

45:13.335 --> 45:17.297
In every case, there's a moment

45:17.381 --> 45:20.968
when the jury is able to visualize

45:21.051 --> 45:25.264
the person sitting in front of them
doing the thing he's accused of doing.

45:25.347 --> 45:30.227
I just had a hard time
believing that all 12 of those jurors

45:30.310 --> 45:34.648
were gonna be able to see Chris Vasquez
committing that horrific crime.

45:37.860 --> 45:40.362
[Matthew] When the jury
went out to deliberate,

45:40.446 --> 45:42.030
we'd already been waiting

45:42.698 --> 45:47.035
nearly a year and a half
or so for… for justice.

45:47.119 --> 45:51.248
Um, our family was understandably nervous.

45:51.832 --> 45:52.958
The longer it went on,

45:53.041 --> 45:56.462
the more it seemed
they had doubts about Christopher's guilt.

45:57.921 --> 46:01.341
[Plansky] They were out,
I believe, for two days.

46:01.967 --> 46:06.221
And they came back
"not guilty" for murder two,

46:06.305 --> 46:08.307
and "guilty" for manslaughter one.

46:10.684 --> 46:16.356
Essentially, the exact same conviction
and sentence as Daphne Abdela.

46:18.025 --> 46:21.862
It felt a little like a compromise to me.

46:21.945 --> 46:23.947
[solemn music playing]

46:25.741 --> 46:26.992
The jury was crying.

46:28.243 --> 46:29.244
Crying.

46:29.328 --> 46:32.664
'Cause they were looking
at Irish's family.

46:33.499 --> 46:38.045
It hurt the McMorrows
'cause they knew how much he suffered,

46:38.128 --> 46:41.423
and they didn't think they got justice.

46:43.175 --> 46:45.511
[Charles] I was very angry
with that verdict.

46:47.554 --> 46:50.015
Thirty-eight stab wounds
is not manslaughter.

46:58.774 --> 47:01.777
[Plansky] I think the jury
didn't think that a kid that young

47:01.860 --> 47:06.698
should bear the mark of murderer
for the rest of his life.

47:06.782 --> 47:09.201
I'm a big believer in following the law,

47:10.118 --> 47:14.540
but the law is complicated
because humans are involved.

47:14.623 --> 47:17.417
And when humans are involved,
emotions are involved.

47:18.794 --> 47:22.673
[Butcher] Most of the cases
that fascinate us are mysteries.

47:23.257 --> 47:24.675
"Who did this thing?"

47:25.884 --> 47:28.887
In this case, that's not it at all.

47:28.971 --> 47:32.599
We know who did it, but why?

47:32.683 --> 47:34.726
Call it a folie à deux,

47:35.227 --> 47:39.398
where the two of them
combined their insanity

47:39.481 --> 47:41.984
to form one killing machine…

47:43.235 --> 47:46.446
or just kicks.

47:47.865 --> 47:50.325
Why? Why? Why?

47:51.285 --> 47:53.662
That's the kind of thing
that drives you crazy.

47:54.538 --> 47:56.582
[Mooney] There's no way
to know exactly what happened,

47:56.665 --> 47:59.042
'cause there was three people,
and one's dead.

47:59.126 --> 48:02.129
That's what happens. That's why I say,
when people go, "You solved that case,"

48:02.212 --> 48:03.630
"Nah, that's a bad word."

48:03.714 --> 48:07.134
Solving the case
that you actually know what happened,

48:07.217 --> 48:09.177
and a lot of the time, you don't.

48:09.261 --> 48:11.388
You certainly can suppose what happened.

48:11.471 --> 48:13.432
You can look at what some of the evidence

48:13.515 --> 48:16.476
will lead you to think
is the logical conclusion,

48:16.560 --> 48:19.396
but without that narration,
there's no way.

48:31.617 --> 48:33.952
[reporter] The so-called
"Baby-Faced Killers of Central Park"

48:34.036 --> 48:36.747
are out of prison tonight
after nearly seven years.

48:36.830 --> 48:39.207
Abdela, now 21, was released Friday.

48:39.291 --> 48:42.753
Her former boyfriend, 22-year-old Vasquez,
was released this morning.

48:42.836 --> 48:46.298
As part of their parole, the two
are barred from seeing one another.

48:50.802 --> 48:54.890
Yeah, my brother's life was worth
a lot more than six years in prison.

48:57.100 --> 48:59.770
[Butcher] I don't feel like
justice was done.

49:00.812 --> 49:03.815
I know, it's the system,
and that's the law, they were kids,

49:03.899 --> 49:05.317
and that's what happens…

49:06.818 --> 49:09.112
but it just doesn't feel fair.

49:11.949 --> 49:13.158
Not fair at all.

49:16.745 --> 49:19.539
Years later, Daphne,
when she was out on parole,

49:19.623 --> 49:20.832
violated her parole.

49:22.084 --> 49:23.835
[Mooney] She was in a halfway house

49:23.919 --> 49:27.923
and assaulted one of
the other residents at that house.

49:28.006 --> 49:32.803
And actually went back
and served the full term, nine years.

49:33.303 --> 49:36.431
Chris got out after six years.

49:37.182 --> 49:41.478
I'm not aware of him ever doing anything
to reoffend in any way

49:41.561 --> 49:43.230
in all the years since then.

49:43.313 --> 49:45.315
[understated, pensive music playing]

49:49.611 --> 49:53.824
It was a really difficult experience
on both a personal and professional level.

49:54.408 --> 49:56.868
You know, it was an unusual case,

49:56.952 --> 49:58.662
an emotional case.

49:58.745 --> 50:00.205
Those feelings linger.

50:03.208 --> 50:05.627
One of the best things
that came out of that case

50:05.711 --> 50:07.838
was that I got to know Rob Mooney.

50:07.921 --> 50:12.676
And I didn't know it at the time,
but we were just getting warmed up.

50:19.307 --> 50:21.309
[distorted audio warping]

50:21.393 --> 50:22.394
[train car rumbling]

50:33.697 --> 50:36.867
Eight o'clock in the morning,
the phones are ringing like crazy.

50:36.950 --> 50:41.121
Everybody's talking
about a missing cleaning woman

50:41.204 --> 50:44.249
in the financial district named Eridania.

50:44.332 --> 50:48.420
Coworkers say that she always
has dinner with them during their shift,

50:48.503 --> 50:51.506
but the last time they saw her
was around eight o'clock,

50:51.590 --> 50:53.133
and she hasn't been seen since.

50:54.426 --> 50:58.013
[McNeely] It's definitely
a daunting task to search that building

50:58.096 --> 51:02.434
for anyone or anything,
because it goes up 26 floors.

51:03.226 --> 51:04.978
She's not seen again on camera.

51:05.062 --> 51:08.023
She's not seen getting off the elevator
at any other time.

51:08.106 --> 51:09.816
And she's not seen leaving that building.

51:12.319 --> 51:13.320
Where is she?

51:13.904 --> 51:17.282
[Titus] We looked at every nook and cranny
of the building from top to bottom

51:17.365 --> 51:19.159
and couldn't find her.

51:19.951 --> 51:24.206
That means that instead of
just 2 Rector Street being the place

51:24.289 --> 51:27.501
where all of the investigation
was gonna take place,

51:27.584 --> 51:29.377
it now became New York City.

51:32.422 --> 51:34.424
[dramatic outro music pulsing]
was gonna take place,