09x22 - Seeds for Doubt

[bunniefuu]

[screech] [crash]

NARRATOR: A car accident left one person

dead, and a family in mourning.

At first, it looked like the driver's of alcohol consumption

was the cause, but a closer look revealed a common weed found

in an uncommon place-- leading investigators to wonder,

was it really an accident?

[theme music]

Peter and Patty Wlasiuk lived in the small town of Guilford,

in upstate New York.

JAMES LLOYD: Guilford's a beautiful, quiet community,

it's a historic community.

Just a small hamlet.

They have the lakes, their main attraction, a beautiful lake,

has a lot of summer homes on it.

We have a lot of hunting land for deer hunting.

NARRATOR: The Wlasiuks were well liked in Guilford.

Peter owned one of the local bar.

Patty worked as a nurse at the local hospital.

MANNY CARDOZO III: She got a lot of joy from that.

It gave her a great sense of worth.

NARRATOR: The only trouble spot seemed to be several citations

Patty received for driving while intoxicated.

PETER WLASIUK: On a scale of to , she would be a .

I mean, her one downfall, her one flaw, was alcoholism.

And that's it, other than that, she was perfect.

MANNY CARDOZO III: She did her fair share of partying,

and she did have her problems.

But she was big enough, and a strong enough person

to try to persevere from them by going to school,

and getting her, you know, degree.

NARRATOR: On April , , Patty

worked the hospital's to shift.

When she came home, Peter was there,

but the children were not.

VOICE REPRESENTING PATTY: Where are the kids?

PETER WLASIUK: Somehow, that night, my wife

neglected, or forgot to pick up our children at the babysitter.

-He described it as being a mistake, or miscommunication.

Obviously, when she got there, she

thought that Mr. Wlasiuk was going to pick them up.

He thought she was.

NARRATOR: They got into their truck,

and headed for the babysitter's house.

Along the way, Patty tried to throw

her cigarette out of the window.

JAMES LLOYD: The cigarette had come

back into the cab of the truck.

Both of their attention was distracted towards the window,

where the cigarette should have went.

NARRATOR: When they looked up, there was a deer in the road.

Patty swerved, lost control of the truck,

and plunged into the lake.

Peter said he was unable to get his wife out of the truck.

PETER WLASIUK: I-- I can't hold onto her.

A lot of days, I wish I'd been a lot stronger.

I wish I could have got her up to the top.

NARRATOR: Peter ran to a nearby home for helpful.

Divers pulled Patty's body from the bottom

of the freezing cold lake, and she was rushed by ambulance

to the same hospital where she worked.

But doctors were unable to resuscitate her.

PETER WLASIUK: I didn't want to live anymore, myself.

I couldn't picture going on anymore in life without her,

I couldn't-- and there's reasons, you know, that--

I like to think it was either her or God speaking to me that,

you know, I didn't go further with what I was planning,

of joining her.

NARRATOR: Toxicology tests showed

Patty had a blood alcohol level of .,

which was under the legal limit.

JAMES TERZIAN: She had imbibed some alcoholic beverages.

And for a woman of her size, probably two or three

drinks in the previous hour or two.

NARRATOR: As with most fatal accidents,

local officials conducted an accident investigation, which

raised more questions that it answered.

Dr. James Terzian performed the autopsy on -year-old Patty

Wlasiuk, the day after the fatal accident.

JAMES TERZIAN: She had a number of abrasions, and contusions--

which are scrapes and-- and bruises-- on the face,

on the under surface of the upper lip,

on the shoulder regions.

Those were the superficial injuries.

She also had petechial hemorrhages,

or microhemorrhages on the surfaces of her lungs.

NARRATOR: These hemorrhages can result from drowning,

but there was very little water in Patty's lungs.

JAMES TERZIAN: One does not have to have water in the lungs

to drown.

And it's possible to have water in the lungs

after one has been deceased, and placed in water.

NARRATOR: Lab tests confirmed that Patty had been drinking.

In his preliminary report, Dr. Terzian

identified the cause of death as probable drowning.

JAMES TERZIAN: I'm left with minor cutaneous injuries,

abrasions, and contusions, and a person pulled out of water.

So that's a drowning until proved otherwise.

NARRATOR: There was one other finding.

For some unexplained reason, there

were seed pods in Patty's hair, and on her clothing.

The pods were from a common weed, called burdock.

JULIAN SHEPARD: They have these little hooks on 'em,

which stick to animals, or people.

And they travel around, and then usually get dumped somewhere,

and so the plant gets distributed around that way.

I It finds new waste places to grow.

NARRATOR: At the accident scene, investigators

found the truck took an unusual route into the water.

JAMES LLOYD: Most of the lake is covered by home fronts,

with garages, and houses.

And then the area that doesn't have houses or garages

or residents has-- has guardrails,

to prevent somebody going into the lake.

NARRATOR: The truck veered into the lake at one

of the few places where there was

an unobstructed path from the road to the lake.

And investigators found no traces of deer in the area.

RICHARD COBB: It's not one where you would

generally expect to find a deer.

And had they swerved for a deer, you

would expect to see some sort of evidence of that braking,

swerving, skidding tires.

You know, anything like that.

NARRATOR: There were tire impressions from Patty's truck

on the shoulder of the right-hand lane,

and tire impressions on the opposite side of the road,

in the grass.

Accident investigator, Richard Cobb,

connected these impressions, plotted the angle of the turn,

and then estimate the speed of the vehicle

using a standardized formula.

RICHARD COBB: It's called the Critical Curve Speed Formula.

It takes into account the grade of the road,

the drag factor of the roadway surface,

and also the path of the vehicle-- meaning the arc

that it turned, where you can figure out

a speed at which the vehicle either would have been

able to make the turn, or would--

would have lost control making that turn.

V equals velocity.

G is for gravity, which is a constant, ..

R is for the radius of the R of the curve.

And the Greek letter mu is for the coefficient of friction,

or the drag factor of the road surface.

NARRATOR: This formula revealed that the speed of the Wlasiuk's

truck was less than miles per hour, considerably

slower than what Peter described.

Had the truck been going faster, the interior of the truck

would have been damaged.

RICHARD COBB: The interior, you would expect

to see maybe damage to the dash, the knee

panels from occupants knees.

Steering wheel damage, damage to either windshield,

or side windows.

Quite often unrestrained passengers

will hit the rearview mirror, and break that

off the windshield, or cr*ck the mirror itself.

There wasn't any of that present in the vehicle, either.

NARRATOR: And the physical evidence

revealed another contradiction.

Peter said, he exited the truck through the passenger side

door.

But when it was brought up from the lake,

the passenger side door was locked.

He also said Patty was driving, and still

in the truck when he exited.

But her body was found outside of the truck,

at the bottom of the lake.

JOSEPH MCBRIDE: Inconsistent with his story.

The last-- when he saw her, she was

in the driver's side of the truck.

NARRATOR: In the Wlasiuk's home, investigators

found Patty's diary.

And it revealed that Patty and Peter were living what some

would call an alternative sexual lifestyle.

PATTY [VOICEOVER]: I just want to push you to the limit,

sexually.

I wasn't able to do that by myself,

so I hoped to bring in a different person.

NARRATOR: According to the diary,

Patty invited her friend-- the children's babysitter,

Joyce Worden-- into their bedroom.

PETER WLASIUK: My wife, Joyce and I,

were involved in a three-way relationship.

There was actually no need for the whole world

to know that my wife had this tendency, that my wife had

initiated this, that, you know, it was our private life.

NARRATOR: But Patty's diary indicated there were problems.

PATTY [VOICEOVER]: I'm the one who shared my fantasy, never

knowing I would be the one to play the outsider,

never realizing you would like her personality better

than mine.

I honestly never thought you would go elsewhere.

NARRATOR: Patty was concerned that Peter

and Joyce were meeting behind her back.

Peter denies it.

PETER WLASIUK: My wife had no reason

to be jealous, worried, or whatever.

NARRATOR: With Patty dead, the only way

she could tell her story was through the autopsy,

and forensic evidence.

There was one thing that troubled the medical examiner

about Patty Wlasiuk's autopsy.

Why were there seed pods in her hair, and on her clothing?

JAMES TERZIAN: Well, I was thinking that maybe they

attached themselves to her hair, and her clothing as she

was pulled out of the lake by the emergency personnel.

So I asked the police to please go back to the scene.

Look at the bank where she was removed from the water,

and also look underneath the water

to see if there was any evidence of this plant

material, these burdocks, at the site.

NARRATOR: But investigators found no such vegetation

anywhere around the lake.

JAMES TERZIAN: What lady goes out

to pick up her kids at the babysitter

with burdocks in her hair?

It just doesn't happen.

NARRATOR: Investigators asked biologist, Julian Shepard,

where burdock plants usually grow.

JULIAN SHEPARD: Typically you find them growing

in old barnyards around old buildings, abandoned lots,

frequently along the edges where people haven't quite mowed,

but where there's some open space

and it will grow up like this.

NARRATOR: Doctor Shepard says, the plant doesn't grow

in water, and there were no burdock plants

in the well-tended yards along Guilford Lake.

But investigators found all sorts of wild specimens

on the Wlasiuk's property.

JAMES LLOYD: He has a-- he has a yard that was mowed.

The yard I don't-- I would classify

as not being very well kept.

The officers who did the first run

said, you know, there's a lot of burdocks around his property.

NARRATOR: Investigators found one burdock plant

in the couple's backyard with a broken branch.

And there was something foreign on this plant--

strands of brown hair.

DNA tests revealed the hair was Patty Wlasiuk's.

JOSEPH MCBRIDE: Once we had the anatomical findings,

we had to go on, and correlate them

with the situation, and the scene findings.

NARRATOR: A closer look at the truck

revealed another interesting discovery.

Strands of Patty's hair were found

in the back bed of the truck.

And so was her pager.

The truck also held several significant clues.

The front grill showed no damage whatsoever.

But tests, conducted by the Michigan State Police,

showed that a motor vehicle, plunging into lake water

at miles per hour, caused significant damage

to the grill.

And these studies showed something else.

A vehicle the size of a van or truck

doesn't automatically sink.

It took this vehicle over a minute to sink.

Others, up to four minutes.

RICHARD COBB: That said to-- to us,

to me, that the average person, if they were

conscious after hitting the water,

should be able to escape a vehicle

prior to it being submerged.

-And the more we pried into his story,

the more we found out his story didn't

match the physical evidence.

NARRATOR: The lake's temperature on the night of the accident

was degrees.

Medical experts said that if Peter had been fully submerged

in the water, he would have suffered

from acute hypothermia.

MANNY CARDOZO III: April water, in New York,

is not some place you want to be in.

And if you are in it, for an amount of time, you know,

you're gonna have signs of it.

-His body-- core body temperature,

from what I understand, should have been a lot lower than it

was when he-- when he finally received medical treatment.

NARRATOR: Peter's body temperature at the hospital

was only slightly below normal.

-When I saw him, they weren't even

running a thermometer in his mouth.

NARRATOR: And, on Peter's shoes, were the same burdocks

as those in Patty's hair, and on her coat.

All of this information, combined with the cuts

on the inside of Patty's lip, and the petechial hemorrhages

in her lungs, led the coroner to conclude

that the cause of death was suffocation-- not drowning.

-And when we put all of this together,

it became apparent that she was dead

before she went into the lake.

NARRATOR: Peter Wlasiuk denied k*lling his wife,

and said he had evidence to prove it.

-It's all scientific, an-- and medical.

NARRATOR: Based on the forensic evidence,

prosecutors believe that Patty Wlasiuk was m*rder*d

by her husband, Peter, who tried to make

it look like an accident.

The life insurance on Patty's life was $,.

JOSEPH MCBRIDE: Money was one of the strong motives

for Mr. Wlasiuk murdering his wife.

Especially evidenced by the fact that he was on the phone,

less than eight hours later, trying

to collect the insurance proceeds.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that Peter left the children

with the babysitter so he could be alone

with Patty when she came home from work.

JOSEPH MCBRIDE: Peter had been home

from-- from his job at the bar for an hour.

According to family members, it would be normal for Peter

to pick the kids up, and have them home at that time.

I'm-- I'm sure that was part of his plan,

to make sure the kids weren't at the house when he knew that he

was going to commit the homicide.

NARRATOR: After Patty had an alcoholic beverage,

Peter coaxed her outside, then att*cked her.

While suffocating her, there was the cross-transfer

of Patty's hair onto the burdock plant,

and the seed pods into her hair.

When dragging her body to the truck,

Patty's coat picked up more seed pods,

and they also attached to Peter's shoes.

The forensic evidence suggests the body

was placed in the truck bed.

Tire impressions show that Peter pulled over onto the right side

of the road, slowly steered the truck through the spot

without a guard rail, down into the lake.

But, he left both doors locked, and Patty's body

was discovered outside the truck.

Prosecutors say Peter got into the water

briefly, just enough to get himself wet,

before running to a nearby home for help.

JULIAN SHEPARD: I guess one of my impressions

was just how, in a way, how stupid

the case was, I'm afraid.

I mean, he made all sorts of blunders.

NARRATOR: Peter Wlasiuk was arrested

and charged with m*rder.

At the trial, Wlasiuk took the stand in his own defense,

and he changed his story.

-I'm here for telling a lie.

If I didn't lie back then, I wouldn't

be sitting here, today.

NARRATOR: He now admitted that his original story

to investigators was a lie.

His new story was that Patty was too intoxicated to drive,

and that he ordered her to pull over to the side of the road

so that he could take the wheel.

PETER WLASIUK: Told her, turn around, take the vehicle home.

When she turned around we were still

arguing, arguing, arguing.

And in a fit of rage, she lost control of it,

and put the vehicle into the lake.

It was like a road rage.

NARRATOR: But there was no evidence

that the truck ever turned around.

And why turn the truck around when your destination,

the babysitter's house, was just down the road?

JOSEPH MCBRIDE: He was stuck with the evidence the way

it was, and his story had to match

with the physical evidence that we had.

Does it make sense? Absolutely not.

Does it defy logic?

Absolutely.

NARRATOR: And there was no evidence

the truck was traveling at a high speed.

RICHARD COBB: Any type of acceleration along the grass

should have left torn up grass, the grass

pulled up by the roots, b*rned grass.

Had the rear wheels been on the blacktop,

or in the loose, gravelly part between the blacktop

and the grass, you would expect to see skid marks, or, you

know, gravel thrown up, that sort of thing.

And we weren't able to find any of that either.

JAMES LLOYD: Between the reconstruction work,

and the forensic, it's-- it's what really made the case.

'Cause obviously, his first version,

we were able to punch complete holes in it.

There was nothing left of his first version.

And actually, his second version wasn't much better.

NARRATOR: Wlasiuk claims that the burdocks in Patty's hair

were not from his backyard, but from the lake--

and that a scuba diver he hired found proof.

PETER WLASIUK: Knowing what the scuba driver said,

what he found, what is in his report, my scuba diver,

I'm believing now that the burdocks

were in the bottom of the lake.

And that's how they got on her.

NARRATOR: The prosecution's expert said,

this was impossible.

JAMES LLOYD: If it ended up in the water,

it would deteriorate.

And when it becomes wet the-- I guess you want to call it

the stickiness to your clothing, it doesn't stick like that

once it's wet in deteriorating water.

JULIAN SHEPARD: The idea that the burdocks had have been got

from the water was just pretty preposterous.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that Peter wanted

a new life with his girlfriend, sole custody of his two

children, and the $, worth of life insurance.

The jury deliberated for only three hours.

JUDGE: Charging m*rder in the second degree,

how do you find the defendant? Guilty, or not guilty?

JUROR: Guilty.

NARRATOR: Peter Wlasiuk was sentenced to years

to life in prison.

He continues to maintain his innocence.

PETER WLASIUK: They say you're innocent till proven guilty?

No.

You're guilty till proven innocent.

And that still hinges on how much money you have.

And everybody's expecting you to prove that you didn't do it.

-The forensic evidence, in this case,

turned out to be a confession.

Every time Mr. Wlasiuk opened up his mouth,

he said something that contradicted what

the forensic evidence told us about the state of the accident

scene, the state of the truck, and the state

of Patty Wlasiuk's body.

-Of the entire investigation, the presence of the burdocks

made this case, because it made us look further,

to see if, in fact, she was dead before she

went into the water, or not.

It was critical in this case.

It's a small piece of evidence, and it's

not even actually part of the body.

But it's what comes along with the body.

And that was key in this case.

[music playing]