07x19 - Sip of Sins

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NARRATOR: In 1999,
a minister's wife

was found dead in an
overflowing bathtub

in her home in South Dakota.

Her cryptic su1c1de note left
questions about her state

of mind and her sense of time.

Forensic science
provided those answers.

[theme music]

NARRATOR: This
peaceful house of God

is the United
Presbyterian Church.

Each Sunday morning, it opens
its doors to the faithful

of Wolsey, South Dakota.

The town is no more than
a handful of dirt roads

just off Highway 14
and several farms out

on the blustery prairie.

The pastor of this congregation
was Reverend Bill Guthrie.

He and his wife, Sharon, lived
in the parsonage next door

to the church.

LES HEWITT: He was a
very strong minister,

probably the most intelligent
man when it came to the Bible.

NARRATOR: Sharon
Guthrie also helped

her husband with church duties.

SUZANNE HEWITT: She
did children's message.

It was before the sermon.

Tell them a story and send
them with a package of Smarties

to go back and sit down--
little candy Smarties.

NARRATOR: The Guthrie's
were looking forward

to the wedding of their
second daughter, Jennalu,

but Sharon Guthrie would
never see that day.

Just after dawn on May


called an ambulance.

He had discovered his wife
unconscious in the bathtub.

My wife's in the tub.

She's had an accident.

NARRATOR: When emergency
personnel arrived,

they performed CPR and
restarted her heart.

In the ambulance, she was
placed on a respirator,

but she never regained
consciousness.

Despite the best medical
care in the area,

emergency room
doctors could find

no signs of brain activity.

SUZANNE HEWITT: We all
decided at that point

that it just was
time to let her go.

NARRATOR: The next day, Sharon
Guthrie was pronounced dead.

When the Sheriff asked Reverend
Guthrie about the incident,

he said his wife
was fine when he

left home to go to the church
to say his daily prayers.

JIM SHERIDAN: When he
was leaving the house

to go to the church, his wife
was drawing her bath water

and was getting
ready to take a bath.

He said he went to the church,
was there maybe 10 minutes,

came back to the house.

NARRATOR: Guthrie said he
found his wife face down

in the overflowing bathtub.

Guthrie said he tried to
pull her body out of the tub,

but was unsuccessful.

All he could do
was empty the tub

and turn her body over
before calling the ambulance.

JIM SHERIDAN: We just figured
we were dealing with some sort

of an accident, you know,
where this lady had had

a seizure or heart
attack or something

while she was taking a bath.

NARRATOR: Doctor Brad
Randall performed the autopsy

and found no signs
of trauma or illness.

Fortunately, the
emergency room personnel

had taken blood
samples when she was

first brought to
the hospital, which

the pathologist could analyze.

BRAD RANDALL: So we had samples
from a living individual

rather than a dead individual,
which toxicology in dead people

is a little more difficult than
working with an actual living

individual.

So we were lucky to have
those samples to work with.

NARRATOR: The samples
revealed three

medications in Sharon's system.

Two were medications
she had been prescribed

and were in relatively
low concentrations.

But there was one
drug in her system

she had not been prescribed.

BRAD RANDALL: The
most important drug

was a drug called
temazepam, which

is a benzodiazapine
that was present in very

high concentrations.

It is a drug not
commonly associated

with lethal overdoses.

NARRATOR: Temazepam
is a sedative.

The level in Sharon
Guthrie's system

would definitely render
someone unconscious,

although Randall
could not be certain

how many capsules were taken.

BRAD RANDALL: Probably
greater than five

to 10, somewhere in
that category or more.

NARRATOR: Dr. Randall
listed the cause of death

as drowning, with the temazepam
overdose a contributing factor.

The manner of death
was undetermined.

Was it su1c1de, or could
it have been m*rder?

Three weeks after
Sharon Guthrie's death,

her daughter Jennalu
decided to go ahead

with her wedding as planned.

JENALU SIMPSON: I talked
to my dad about it.

I talked to family about it,
asked to what they thought

we should do and I talked
to my husband about it

and we decided that my mom
would have wanted us to do it.

My dad actually
performed the ceremony.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
Detective Jerry

Lindberg was assigned
to investigate

Sharon Guthrie's death.

Unfortunately, the
scene of the drowning

had not been preserved
for evaluation.

JERRY LINDBERG: The
result of her being alive

and taken to a hospital out of
time, the place was left open.

A lot of the evidence was
destroyed because people came

in, the good neighbor
thing, cleaned up,

brought lunches, and so on.

NARRATOR: But
investigators discovered

the source of the temazepam
in Sharon's system.

It had been prescribed
for her husband, Bill.

Bill Guthrie suspected his
wife had accidentally ingested

the pills while sleepwalking.

But none of her three daughters
recall Sharon ever sleepwalking

and investigators found
something suspicious.

A few weeks before
Sharon's death,

Bill Guthrie filled his original
prescription for temazepam

at one pharmacy and then
went to a second pharmacy,

told them he had lost
his first prescription,

and got a second one.

Another inconsistency was
Bill's clothing on the morning

of Sharon's death.

Bill told the sheriff he had
tried to lift his wife out

of the bathtub when
you first found her,

yet witnesses said
that his clothing

was completely dry when
the ambulance crew arrived.

JIM SHERIDAN: He was dry.

If you spent any
time at all wrestling

around with a wet individual,
you're going to get wet.

NARRATOR: And
investigators learned

the pastor had some secrets.

JERRY LINDBERG: A girlfriend
in Nebraska-- in fact, that'd

been town gossip just before
they'd left the community

and came to Wolsey.

Probably part of the
reason they came up

here is because of that.

I knew her from when they
were at their previous church.

I knew my mom didn't like her,
but I never really knew why.

NARRATOR: Guthrie's mistress
was a leading member of

his former church in Nebraska.

The affair continued, even after
Guthrie moved to South Dakota.

When Guthrie took
the job in Wolsey,

he told the church
council that he needed

to return to Nebraska
for medical counseling

because he was impotent.

MIKE MOORE: I think
on some occasions,

they even paid his mileage.

And he never went to counseling.

He was going back to
continue this affair.

NARRATOR: But eventually,
Guthrie's mistress

grew dissatisfied with
their clandestine affair.

MIKE MOORE: Basically,
and these are her words,

all they would do
is have sex and he

would stay in the motel room.

They couldn't go out to
eat, couldn't go to a movie,

and she was tired of that.

And she wanted something more,
so she put some pressure on him

and he never did anything.

And then finally, in January,
she broke up with him.

NARRATOR: And there
was no evidence

that Bill Guthrie was impotent.

JERRY LINDBERG: Not from
what his girlfriend told us.

Apparently, he was able
to perform adequately

and did on frequent occasions.

NARRATOR: Investigators
now considered Bill Guthrie

a suspect in his wife's death.

But adultery and prescription
fraud is one thing,

but m*rder is another.

Police enlisted Bill's
oldest daughter, Suzanne,

to find out if her father played
a role in her mother's death.

She agreed to
confront her father

with a hidden microphone.

SUZANNE HEWITT: I thought maybe
I can plead, as a daughter,

for him to just
be honest with me.

SUZANNE HEWITT: And
he still totally

denied everything
from his affair

to getting the medication.

NARRATOR: In late
July, investigators

confiscated the church
computer in order

to see the email correspondence
between the pastor

and his lover in Nebraska.

The emails revealed
nothing, but police wondered

if there was information
hidden somewhere

on the computer's hard drive.

To find out, they
turned to an expert

in the new field of
computer forensics.

After Sharon Guthrie's
suspicious drowning,

police confiscated the
Guthrie's computer to see if it

contained possible evidence.

Judd Robin's is an expert in
the field of computer forensics.

He says that most of us
know very little about how

computers really work.

JUDD ROBBINS: The most
common misconception

is that you can
delete data by asking

your program or your
operating system to delete it

and then it's gone.

It isn't.

NARRATOR: That's because
hitting the Delete key

simply marks that
material and the memory

it uses as available
for use in the future.

JUDD ROBBINS: There
is a residual traces

of their existence
in that space and so

the equivalent in
a computer system

is that there is often
a residual indication

that you were there.

It's now trace.

Evidentiary value is
tremendous if it's

found before the space
gets re-rented or released

or, in the computer,
reused by a new file.

NARRATOR: The
computer information

trail may also
show when files are

created, downloaded, or edited.

Robbins used special software to
search the memory for anything

related to temazepam.

He discovered there had
been numerous internet

searches about sleeping
pills just a month

before Sharon died.

Someone had also downloaded
numerous articles

about temazepam, which had
been found in Sharon's system.

MIKE MOORE: Temazepam is
the only sleeping pill that

comes in a capsule form
that you can take apart

and it has powder inside,
so it's easy to take apart

and put it into something.

NARRATOR: And Robbins
found other information

on the hard drive that he
thought might be of value.

I didn't know exactly
how and when she died,

so I called Mike
Moore and asked.

And I said, why?

And he goes, well, there seems
to be a lot of information

in her on bathtub accidents
and I then told him

that she drowned in a bathtub.

NARRATOR: The searches
were done the month

before Sharon died,
with the last one

completed on April 27th.

The searches were done in
April and she died in May.

NARRATOR: On April 29th,
Guthrie asked his doctor

for a prescription for temazepam
and filled it at the two

different pharmacies.

The prescription was filled
again on May 12th and 13th.

On May 14th, a heavily
drugged Sharon Guthrie

drowned in her tub.

Based on the computer evidence,
Bill Guthrie was arrested

and charged with m*rder.

The prosecution theorized
that Guthrie wanted out

of this marriage, but feared
a divorce would jeopardize

his position as a pastor.

So he looked for ways
to make her death

look like an accident.

And the way he may
have done it was

to lace her favorite
drink, chocolate milk,

with an overdose of sedatives.

SUZANNE HEWITT: She
drank it every day.

That was just her thing.

She just always
drank chocolate milk.

She loved chocolate milk.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors
believe that on the morning

of her death, Bill Guthrie put
the temazepam in his wife's

chocolate milk then
gave it to her in bed

before going to the church.

After the drug's
went into effect,

he placed his wife, now
unconscious, into the tub,

filled it with water,
and let her drown.

MIKE MOORE: I felt
we had a pretty

good circumstantial case,
but all our evidence

was circumstantial.

NARRATOR: But Jenalu Simpson
still wasn't convinced

that her father was a m*rder*r.

She says her mother took
an overdose of Benadryl,

an allergy medication,
a few weeks earlier,

and required medical attention.

JENALU SIMPSON: I thought
it was accidental.

I thought that she had done
it before with the Benadryl.

She had done it before somewhere
with some herbal stuff.

I thought she
probably did it again

just to get some attention.

NARRATOR: People who
filled church pews

to hear Bill Guthrie
preach now filled

the wooden benches of the
Beadle County Courthouse.

JIM SHERIDAN: It
was packed everyday.

People would get here sometimes
at 7:00 in the morning

so they'd get a seat.

NARRATOR: Prosecutor Mike Moore
was confident of his case.

Then, Moore got the
shock of his life.

The defense introduced a su1c1de
note from Sharon Guthrie.

At his m*rder
trial, Bill Guthrie

revealed that several
weeks after her death,

he found a su1c1de note
from his wife Sharon.

For some unexplained reason,
it was hidden in a liturgy

book in the church office.

MIKE MOORE: Well, a bunch of
things race through your head.

You're upset.

You're shocked.

NARRATOR: The note was typed on
a computer, but was unsigned.

It was dated May 13, 1999--
the day before Sharon died--

and addressed to her daughter.

SHARON GUTHRIE [VOICEOVER]:
Dear Suzanne, I am sorry

I ruined your wedding.

Your dad told me about your
concerns of my interfering

in Jennalu's and the
possibility I might ruin hers.

I won't be there, so
put your mind at ease.

You will understand after
the wedding is done.

I love you all.

Mom.

NARRATOR: The note referred
to a minor incident

that occurred at Suzanne's
wedding a few years earlier.

Prosecutor Mike Moore asked his
computer forensic expert, Judd

Robbins, to reexamine the hard
drive of the church's computer

to see if he could find any
trace of the su1c1de note,

but he found none.

Fingerprint expert Cindy Orton
analyzed the note, spraying it

with the chemical, ninhydrin.

CYNTHIA ORTON: If an individual
writes a su1c1de note

and they are truly
contemplating su1c1de,

they have a tendency
to perspire.

Using ninhydrin
is a good reagent

because it does look for amino
acids, which comes from sweat.

NARRATOR: Steam from
a household iron

accelerated the
process, revealing

numerous fingerprints.

Somebody was perspiring
quite heavily while they

were handling that document.

For what reason, I don't know.

NARRATOR: Bill Guthrie said
he had given the note directly

to his lawyer, but
the prints on the note

did not match either
Guthrie or his attorney.

It was impossible to tell
whether the prints were

Sharon's, since she had never
been fingerprinted, even

at her autopsy.

But if the note was
typed on a computer

and it didn't come from
the computer in the church,

where did it come from?

Police discovered that Guthrie
owned a second computer, which

he had given to his
daughter and son-in-law

shortly before his trial.

They now turned it over
to the state's attorney.

LES HEWITT: The only thing we
really wanted was the truth,

to know exactly what happened.

Whether it be proving his
innocence or proving his guilt,

that was up to them.

NARRATOR: Judd Robbins
examined the hard drive

from this second computer.

On it, Robbins discovered a
document file entitled, Sharon.

The main text was
missing, but it

had the same closing
line as the su1c1de note

and had the same date, May 13.

Both documents had the same
typographical error, no space

between the comma and the year.

So we had margins the same.

We had fonts the same.

We had words the same.

NARRATOR: The file had
been created in August,

three months after Sharon died.

Robbins also found
evidence that the note

was written by Bill Guthrie.

JUDD ROBBINS: This su1c1de
note was constructed

in an inter-spliced, intertwined
fashion, with several

of his sermons in
the month of August

so that I could construct a
timeline of working on sermon,

working on su1c1de
note, working on sermon.

I think at that point,
it made me realize

that he had done something,
that he had done this

and that he was guilty for this.

I thought the jury would see
what I was seeing, that this

was this guy's last
ditch effort to get

away with k*lling his wife
and we caught him at it.

NARRATOR: The jury
convicted William

Guthrie of first degree m*rder.

He was sentenced
to life in prison.

After the trial,
Sharon Guthrie's body

was exhumed so that
she could be reburied

in her native Nebraska.

Sharon's fingerprints
were finally obtained.

Cynthia Orton compared
Sharon's prints

to those on the su1c1de note.

They did not match.

CYNTHIA ORTON: Well the
question that leaves me with

is whose fingerprints
are on that document?

NARRATOR: For now, that
question remains a mystery.

Daughter Suzanne believes
her father is guilty,

but despite the computer
forensic evidence,

her sister Jennalu believes
her father is innocent

and stays in contact
with him through phone

calls and letters.

I've lost my mother,
my father, and my sister

throughout all of this and I
lost them all within a year.

NARRATOR: The sisters
no longer speak.

The prosecutor says forensic
science solved this case.

Without it, he says, Bill
Guthrie would be a free man.

MIKE MOORE: Without
those sciences,

you don't have a case.

If you don't have the
pathologists finding dr*gs,

if you don't have
the computer expert

finding that stuff
on the computer,

you don't have a case.

[theme music]