11x04 - Sunday's Wake

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Narrator: a little girl d*ed, and investigators didn't know

Why or how.

Was it an accident?

Was it an unexplained illness?

Or was she m*rder*d?

Scientists would go halfway around the world before finding

The answer in two unlikely places -- a shredded legal

Document and her mother's signature.

Document and her mother's signature.

[ Siren wails ] narrator: in the spring of

, A /-year-old girl was in the intensive care unit of a

New hampshire hospital, fighting for her life.

From the very beginning, no one knew that she had anything

More than a bad cold, but then she went downhill so

Dramatically.

Narrator: her name was sunday abek, and her story was

Unlike any other in the hospital.

Sunday was from the sudan, where a bloody civil w*r was claiming

Thousands of lives.

She and her family were lucky to be alive.

She had to flee because of v*olence in her area.

Her father was a political prisoner in sudan, and that may

Have been more dangerous for her family to remain in the sudan

Because of that.

[ Speaking native language ] interpreter: people were

Being k*lled.

Didn't matter what side you were on.

We had to leave.

Narrator: shortly after sunday was born, the family fled

To a refugee camp in egypt.

After two years, a missionary group was able to get them to a

Small apartment in manchester, new hampshire.

No one in the family spoke english.

The change from their life in africa was enormous.

There must've been a culture shock.

This is an old mill city in new hampshire.

Big mill buildings and whatnot, much colder weather.

But this family moved in and started to prepare a better

Life, a safer life.

They thought at least their kids could be raised without getting

sh*t at.

Narrator: the family had been in the u.s. For just a little

More than a month when one day, for no apparent reason, sunday

Started vomiting, she ran a high fever, and she became delirious.

Her mother was sleeping on the hospital floor in sunday's

Room.

She would sit and hold the child in her arms.

That was her main concern was that sunday was sick, and she

Had to get her better.

Narrator: at first, doctors thought sunday had contracted a

Bad case of the flu, but none of their treatments worked, and

They were unsure what was wrong with her.

Sunday's initial symptoms were high fever and vomiting,

And that could be anything.

That could be virus.

That could be all kinds of problems.

Interpreter: I didn't know what the problem was.

The doctors didn't know.

They couldn't tell me what was wrong.

Narrator: despite a battery of tests, the cause of sunday's

Illness couldn't be determined.

None of her siblings or her mother had gotten sick.

Three days after she was admitted to the hospital,

Sunday's temperature soared, and her brain swelled

Uncontrollably.

She went into a coma and d*ed.

Interpreter: when you have children, god gives them to you,

And he can take them.

When sunday d*ed, I tried to remember that god gave her to

Us, and now he wanted her back.

Narrator: for sunday's family, the promise of a

Peaceful life in america had turned into an unspeakable

Tragedy.

The mother's lawyer said that she had told him that if she had

Any idea this could've happened, she never would've moved her

Family to the united states.

But, of course, she couldn't have known.

She knew she was moving them away from a danger.

She just had no way of knowing she was moving them into another

Danger.

Narrator: soon an investigation was mounted to

Find out how it happened, and what it uncovered was not an

Illness, but a crime.

Narrator: during a spring snowstorm in ,

/-Year-old sunday abek was laid to rest thousands of miles

From her native sudan.

I'll never forget the women in the group wearing their

African clothes and wool hats and gloves, and they were

Singing african prayers as the snow came down.

They probably never saw snow before.

And the whole scene to me was just one of the saddest things.

Narrator: after two years on the run, the family thought they

Had finally found a safe haven in america, but they were wrong.

They had come here, trying to have a better life for their

Daughter, and they end up burying her in a snowstorm in

New hampshire, and that led to an intriguing story.

How did this come to pass?

Narrator: investigators thought poisoning might be a

Possibility.

Whenever there is an unexplained death of a child, I

Think the police first suspect is always a family member.

Narrator: sunday's mother was questioned, but she had no

Apparent motive.

She was asked if one of the siblings could have done it.

Interpreter: it was ridiculous.

In africa, a child cannot poison her sister or her brother or

Even me.

They wouldn't know how.

It did not come from the family.

Narrator: was it possible one of the neighbors, perhaps

Resentful over the influx of refugees into the neighborhood,

Was responsible?

Interpreter: in our apartment complex was another family from

Sudan.

Before my child got sick, so did theirs, but he recovered.

He didn't die.

Narrator: but a severe flu caused that child's illness.

New hampshire officials couldn't determine how sunday d*ed, and

This raised alarms.

One of their initial concerns was to make sure there was not

The importation into the u.s. Of some exotic disease that could

Have been transmitted by sunday or her family into the u.s.

Narrator: all members of the family were thoroughly tested.

Everyone was perfectly healthy.

But then results came back from an extensive test on sunday's

Blood.

Analysts were shocked by what they found.

Her blood contained unusually large amounts of lead --

Micrograms per deciliter, times the lethal level for a

Child.

High level for us might be or .

I think we may have even had a or an over the years that

I've done inspections.

But a was just absolutely off the charts for us.

Narrator: lead kills by attaching itself to red blood

Cells.

This takes oxygen out of the blood and starves the brain.

Sunday's official cause of death was lead poisoning, the first

Such case in the u.s. In more than a decade.

The family seemed to be having trouble grasping what had

Happened.

One of them said to me, "we don't have lead in africa."

In africa, lead is b*ll*ts.

They're getting sh*t at.

Narrator: investigators now checked the rest of the family

To see if they'd also been exposed to lead.

The tests showed they were all within normal levels.

There was something unique to sunday.

It wasn't something that they had commonly all been exposed to

That created this horrific problem for all of the family.

Narrator: how could a k*ller dose of lead have gotten into

Sunday's system while the rest of the family was unaffected?

Their apartment building was locked down in a search for

Answers.

Paint, the most common source of lead poisoning, was tested with

A portable x-ray analyzer.

It uses a radiation source to basically excite the lead atoms

In the paint, and then it actually sends x-rays back into

The machine.

Narrator: minor amounts of lead were found in the paint --

Not unusual in an old building, and not nearly enough to k*ll

Someone.

Now investigators moved on to the water, the air, the cooking

Utensils, and toys.

Everything in the apartment was tested.

We select an area of the home and mark off a square foot and

Actually wipe it with a sterile wipe and collect the dust and

Put it in a sterile container, and that's analyzed to see what

The dust level in the home.

Narrator: the contents of the wipes were dissolved in

Hydrochloric acid.

In a process called atomic absorption, the solution was

Exposed to temperatures of more than , degrees fahrenheit.

It burns the sample in the flame, much like an acetylene

Torch, and the instrument is set up to see only lead.

Narrator: no abnormal levels were found.

Nothing in the building could produce a dose of lead large

Enough to k*ll.

I walked back to the office and said, "I don't think it's

The house.

There's something else going on."

Narrator: extensive testing provided no clues as to how

Little sunday abek was exposed to a lethal dose of lead.

Lead has been known as a hazard for , years.

Lead was one of the first occupational diseases identified

By the romans and even the greeks many, many years ago, so

It's not a new issue.

Narrator: while investigators couldn't rule out an intentional

Poisoning by someone in the u.s., They had to consider the

Possibility that sunday was poisoned before she got to

America.

Perhaps in the refugee camp.

They even brought in the

Health department in egypt, and they sampled the formula that

The little children were given.

Because if something was contaminated in the formula,

That could affect thousands of kids.

Narrator: food, air, water, and soil in the camp were

Tested.

Everything was negative.

It seemed the question of how sunday had been k*lled might

Never be answered.

There was this mystery.

What had happened to her and why?

Narrator: investigators now turned back to sunday herself.

Since lead is a poison, the body goes to great lengths to expel

It.

Deposits build up in the nails and hair.

The average person's hair grows about a half-inch per month.

Sunday's hair was an inch long and provided a wealth of

Information.

She had spent a month in the united states, and before that

She had been in egypt.

So by taking her hair and looking at it specifically for

Lead content and dividing it in half so that we had the

Half-inch that grew in the united states and the half-inch

That grew before that, we were able to make a comparison and

Time her exposure.

Narrator: the hair was bombarded with radioactive

Neutrons.

This caused different elements in the sample to react in unique

Ways.

The tip of sunday's hair had trace amounts of lead, but the

Base, the part closest to the scalp, showed massive amounts.

What that tells me is in the united states, she got exposed

To a pretty significant amount of lead and that her level

Before that wasn't abnormal.

So her exposure was in this country.

It wasn't back in egypt.

Narrator: investigators must have overlooked something, but

They didn't know what.

They went full circle.

They went back to manchester.

They started saying, "what did we miss?"

Narrator: they questioned sunday's mother again and were

Told something they had not heard before.

Sunday spent a lot of time on the front porch of their

Apartment building.

Interpreter: I knew always that the cause of sunday's

Sickness had something to do with the apartment.

They were able to ascertain that the child did, in fact,

Spend time playing on the porch.

And the mother had seen the child pick at the paint on the

Porch.

Narrator: the porch of the apartment was in bad shape.

The paint was old and peeling.

Suddenly investigators thought they'd solved the mystery.

It looked to be a phenomenon called "pica."

The word comes from the latin name for "magpie," a bird that

Eats almost anything.

Pica is a condition

Particularly of children, but not always of children.

It's sort of a craving for food items to eat.

Lead paint often tastes sweet.

So here's a little malnourished girl who's never had enough

Food, and it became pretty clear she was probably picking up

Chips of paint and sucking on them or chewing on them.

Narrator: samples of paint from the porch showed levels of

Lead times the legal limit.

To see if it was this paint that k*lled sunday, investigators

Brought in the centers for disease control.

The samples were dissolved in nitric acid and then heated so

The isotopes, or chemical signature of the lead, would be

Exposed.

We can run the sample of analysis for the child's blood

And compare that to the different potential sources that

She was exposed to and then plot that out, and we can either

Identify or exclude various sources.

Narrator: the isotopes from the paint on the porch and from

Sunday's blood were identical.

This test left no doubt.

Sunday abek got a lethal dose of lead by eating the paint on the

Front porch of her apartment building.

But the case was far from over.

Investigators soon found evidence that someone knew

Sunday was in danger all along and mounted an elaborate

Cover-up to keep that knowledge from her family and police.

Narrator: a yearlong forensic investigation proved without a

Doubt what k*lled little sunday abek.

We concluded that lead paint and dust in the environment of

Her apartment in manchester was the principal source of her lead

Poisoning.

Narrator: property records showed the rental agent for the

Apartment building, james aneckstein, had been

Informed that his building did not meet current standards for

Lead safety.

By law, he had to let his tenants know this.

Landlords and property managers who lease buildings

Constructed prior to , they are required to provide general

Lead-paint warning notices.

Narrator: to prove that they had been informed, tenants must

Sign these disclosure documents.

The landlord provided photocopies of these documents

And signed an affidavit saying they were legitimate.

Investigators weren't so sure.

The tenants advised us that they had not signed those

Documents.

We looked at the signatures on those documents and were

Actually looking at them to see if they were forged.

Narrator: document experts compared signatures from the

Documents to known signatures of the tenants.

The signatures were exact matches.

He was too good at it, actually, because the signatures

Were too much alike.

If he had varied them in some way, it would've been a much

More difficult case to resolve.

Narrator: the signatures weren't forgeries.

They were duplicates of signatures from other documents

The tenants had signed.

The signatures are what we determined to be a layover.

They were an exact replica of an authentic signature, which

Indicates to us that it was placed there by some other means

And was fraudulent.

Narrator: one of these signatures stood out.

It was from sunday's mother, mary alorout.

In the document provided by the landlord, her name was spelled

Out.

But at the time, mary could barely write english.

She was still signing her name with an "x," though she was

Undergoing training by a church-sponsored teacher to

Learn how to read and write and speak the english language.

It was readily apparent to nonhandwriting forensic

Examiners that this was, indeed, not her signature.

Narrator: investigators raided the landlord's office.

In the bottom of a trash can, they found more than torn

Scraps of paper.

The secret service reconstructed that document for

Us, finding all but one of the -something pieces.

Narrator: when the pieces were reassembled, investigators

Found the original forgery of mary alorout's signature,

Identical to the one on the lead disclosure notice.

He forged the signature of sunday abek's mother on the

Lead-paint disclosure form.

He copied it and produced copies to the environmental protection

Agency and the grand jury.

Narrator: the landlord's fingerprints were on the

Document.

Mary alorout's were not.

It's very unlikely that she had handled or had anything to

Do with that particular document.

Narrator: investigators say

That when aneckstein found out about sunday's death, he knew he

Was potentially liable.

So he took his tenants' signatures, copied them from

Other documents, and then placed them back onto the lead

Disclosure agreements.

His biggest mistake was forging the signature of sunday's

Mother.

Apparently he was unaware how she signed her name.

So it was clear this was not her signature.

If I were to grade his attempts here at forgery, he'd

Probably be about a "d."

Narrator: when faced with the evidence, james aneckstein

Pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and failing to notify

His tenants that they were living in unsafe conditions.

What motivated him, and what motivates all of our criminals

In this arena, it's all about money.

They want to save it, and at what cost?

I think the cost in this one was real high.

Not to him -- to her.

Narrator: repainting the porch would've cost just a few

Hundred dollars and would've saved sunday's life.

Her family won a $, civil award against aneckstein and his

Real-estate company.

He was sentenced to months in prison and fined $,.

His was the first-ever conviction in the u.s. For

Failure to notify about the presence of lead.

He dug himself a real deep hole and got hit with a big

Penalty, and I think the e.p.a.

Hoped that sent an alarm across the country so other landlords

Don't take part in similar activities.

Interpreter: I was happy he got punished.

He was lying.

I never signed those papers.

He lied, and it was right that he was punished.

Narrator: sunday's family has relocated to tennessee.

They're still adjusting to life in america and the aftermath of

Sunday's death.

Meanwhile sunday lies in an unmarked grave in a

New hampshire cemetery hundreds of miles from her family,

Thousands of miles from home.

Her death could easily have been avoided.

But thanks to the forensic analysis, it's far less likely

Another family will suffer the same tragedy.

Her death couldn't have been solved without forensics.

The work in the lab is what solved this case, and that

Happened at the federal, state, and local level.

Took a lot of technicians to study this material and figure

Out exactly what happened.

And they did, which is

Gratifying, I'm sure.