♪♪
Up next,
an insurance agent's m*rder
stuns suburban St. Louis.
It was
a broad-daylight execution.
It was shocking.
This was a very brazen crime.
Years pass.
No one's arrested
until a suspect is identified
by new technology.
It's a real game-changer.
And the k*ller soon learns
you can't hide
what you can't see.
This trial, I guarantee you
he got an education.
♪♪
♪♪
Nestled along the
West Bank of the Missouri River,
the St. Louis suburb
of St. Charles
looms large in U.S. history.
It marks the spot where,
in 1804,
Lewis and Clark
began their epic journey
into the still-uncharted
American interior.
It was a stop
for Lewis and Clark,
so they're very proud of that.
There's a statue
of Lewis and Clark
down by the riverfront.
On the morning of June 8, 2007,
the peacefulness
of this Midwestern community
was shattered when
a postal worker
doing her normal rounds
made a gruesome discovery.
She found insurance agent
Bob Eidman
bloody and possibly dead
in his office.
She saw the body
and then ran out screaming,
as I think any of us would.
♪♪
Police arrived to find
Bob Eidman dead at the scene.
He'd been sh*t execution-style.
He was sh*t once in
the face and once in the neck.
The last sh*t, the sh**t
was standing over him,
looking down at him,
and fired one sh*t.
It went through
and through his head
and buried itself in the floor.
This was cold-blooded m*rder,
but that didn't jibe with
the rest of the crime scene,
which was sloppy and haphazard,
what detectives call
a disorganized crime.
Bob Eidman's m*rder was not
a particularly careful crime.
There were, on the floor
of the office, spent cartridges
and also live rounds,
which said to us
that the sh**t
either had a bad w*apon
or he wasn't a good sh**t.
The m*rder w*apon
was later determined
to be a 9mm p*stol.
It was not found at the scene.
Other than b*ll*ts
apparently from that g*n,
there was no evidence
of the sh**t in Bob's office.
For now,
detectives were stumped.
It worried a lot of people
because it was something
that happened in broad daylight.
♪♪
Detectives questioned everyone
at the neighboring businesses.
To their surprise, no
one saw but someone didhear
A woman with an office
directly below Bob's
heard a series of pops
but thought nothing of it
at the time.
She thinks, "Oh, Bob, what is...
what's Bob up to?
What's he doing up there?
Is he moving furniture?
Did he drop something?"
So she yells up to him,
playfully,
"Hey, keep it down, Bob,"
not realizing
that he's just been sh*t dead.
This helped detectives
nail down a time
for Bob's m*rder,
shortly before 11:00 A.M.
Detectives got
another possible break
from a Mexican grocery store
at the other end
of the strip mall.
They had a very good
surveillance system
because it was a warm day,
their door was open,
and one of the cameras
actually had a view
out into the parking lot.
And we could see a white
Ford Focus circle around
shortly before 11:00.
At 10:50 A.M.,
this white Ford Focus
passes in front of the bodega
going toward Bob's office,
and at 10:54, it passes again,
going the same direction.
There's no reason
to go down that alley once,
let alone twice
within four minutes.
The hunt was on
for a white Ford Focus,
which, in a setback,
turned out to be
an unusually popular vehicle.
Police found 1,300 cars
of that description
in the St. Louis area.
♪♪
Even worse,
interstate 70, a major highway,
was right next
to the m*rder site.
The k*ller had
an easy escape route,
and he wouldn't be
the first to use it.
In the 1990s,
a serial k*ller dubbed
The I-70 k*ller escaped via I-70
after all his murders.
The individual responsible for
the I-70 killings
would go into a business,
contact usually the sole person
in the business,
and would sh**t them
in the head.
It was right off the highway,
and so we thought
it could be anyone.
I mean, thousands of cars
go by interstate 70 every day.
All told,
police say the I-70 k*ller
m*rder*d six people,
and he hadn't been caught.
Is this a random k*lling
of Bob Eidman,
the start of something more,
the start of a larger pattern?
Do we need to be afraid here?
♪♪
Any business involves risk.
Bob Eidman's
was riskier than most.
A lot of it was done
on the spot in cash.
He was dealing with people
with high-risk insurance,
people who are having trouble
getting insurance other places,
people who had
suspended licenses or DWIs.
In the initial search,
nothing appeared to be missing
from Bob's office.
When the police got there,
there was still cash inside
that cash drawer
that hadn't been taken.
We thought it was dr*gs
or something
that was more personal.
You know, you usually don't get
m*rder*d for no reason at all.
Detectives were hoping
they might get some information
from Bob's wife, Diane.
The day of the m*rder, she had
been unable to reach her husband
and showed up at the strip mall
where Bob worked.
She arrived while the scene
was being processed.
Police broke the news to her.
There's no right way
to react to the news
that your spouse
has been brutally m*rder*d.
It's a shock for any of us.
Though nothing
appeared to be missing
from Bob's office,
his wife told police
to check his back pocket.
She told them
that he always kept a wallet
with a lot of cash in it,
several hundred dollars,
usually.
Bob's wallet was gone.
Police thought it was
almost certain his k*ller
had reached
into his back pocket to get it.
Evidence technicians
swabbed the pocket,
but they knew that
in the absence of bodily fluids,
DNA technology in 2007
couldn't produce
a genetic profile
from this piece of evidence.
I was very skeptical, in fact,
of being able to get
something from that pocket.
But DNA technology was
getting more powerful every day.
Analysts put the DNA
from Bob's m*rder in storage
in the hope that science would
catch up to their evidence.
In the meantime,
detectives turned back
to Bob's wife, Diane.
When someone is randomly,
brutally m*rder*d,
police automatically
look at their spouse
as a suspect
as a matter of course.
Diane said Bob,
despite being in
the insurance business himself,
had only a tiny life-insurance
policy, about $5,000.
That's when we found out
that there were, in fact,
three separate life-insurance
policies on Bob.
And they were worth
a lot more than $5,000.
All three life-insurance
policies combined were $750,000.
There was only
one beneficiary involved,
and that was Bob's wife,
Diane Eidman.
Was it possible
Diane didn't know
how much insurance money
she'd get if Bob d*ed?
Could she have lied to police
about her knowledge
of the payout?
After all,
seemed like a good reason
to want Bob dead.
It certainly looked like
a motive to us.
Diane was alibied
for the time of the m*rder,
but that didn't
get her off the hook.
Could she have
had somebody do it? Sure.
But if you're going to do that,
you have to communicate
with someone
'cause most people don't have
a hit man in their Rolodex.
Detectives now turn
to the Eidmans' phone records
and computer activity,
and when they did, the mystery
of Bob Eidman's m*rder
took a twist few people
who knew him ever anticipated.
In searching Bob's computer use,
we found that he was visiting
a lot of gay-p*rn sites
on the Internet
and massage businesses,
gay massage businesses,
and that type of thing.
What detectives found
on Bob's computer
revealed a man
with a secret life, a new lover,
and someone with
a possible motive for m*rder.
As it turned out, Bob Eidman had
a secret lover in Kansas City
and had for eight months.
♪♪
In the initial investigation
into Bob Eidman's m*rder,
police thought
the only person with
an apparent reason to k*ll him
was his wife, Diane.
Diane Eidman is a prime suspect
because she does have motive,
she had means,
she knew where things
were kept in the office,
and she was gonna benefit with
a great deal of insurance money.
And it appeared
that she might have a motive
beyond collecting
a $750,000 insurance payment.
A search
of Bob's computer showed
he'd been cheating on her.
A few months earlier,
he embarked
on a sexual relationship
with a man named Kurt.
He and Bob met
in Columbia, Missouri,
which is about halfway between
St. Louis and Kansas City,
on a number of weekends
and spent the weekend
in a motel there.
Kurt was interviewed
and was alibied
for the time of the m*rder,
which didn't necessarily
eliminate him as a suspect.
But he did have some possibly
interesting information
for detectives.
Some weeks before the m*rder,
Bob had called him and said,
"Diane found out about us,
and we've got to stop
seeing each other for a while."
During numerous
interviews with detectives,
Diane never said anything
about Bob cheating on her.
Why would she not tell us this?
It could be a motive for her to
be responsible for k*lling Bob.
The fact that he was cheating
on his wife with a man,
all of that adds up
to a lot of motive.
Diane was given
a polygraph test.
The results were inconclusive.
Does that mean she did it? No.
If she failed,
would that mean she did it?
Not necessarily.
In searching
all of Diane's communications
in the weeks and months
before her husband's m*rder,
police could find no evidence of
her hiring someone to k*ll Bob.
Show me that communication,
show me that wire,
and if you can't,
it didn't happen.
I believed Diane Eidman
was probably responsible
for this homicide,
but there was no concrete
evidence enough to arrest her.
The case went cold.
Outside of ballistic evidence
from the scene,
which was useless in the absence
of a m*rder w*apon,
detectives had
very little evidence...
the surveillance video
of a white Ford Focus
circling the strip mall
shortly before Bob was sh*t,
which might or might not have
something to do with the m*rder,
and the back pocket
of Bob's pants,
which might or might not
contain the k*ller's DNA,
but DNA technology was moving
along at an exponential pace.
Touch DNA was revolutionizing
crime science.
In the old days
with less sensitive testing,
you would've had to have the
defendant or perpetrator's blood
or semen or saliva there,
and they wouldn't have found it.
Touch DNA isn't really
so much a separate thing
as it is a continuation of DNA.
Was it possible that the k*ller,
simply by touching
Bob's back pocket
while stealing the wallet,
had left
a genetic signature behind?
Touch DNA has always
been around,
but the technology
to analyze it has not been.
As DNA kits become
more and more sensitive,
now we can actually analyze
that touch-DNA sample.
In 2010, the DNA swab
from Bob's back pocket,
which had been in storage
since the m*rder,
was processed
by forensic technicians.
In this case, the back
pocket of the victim was swabbed
with a moistened swab
with distilled water.
That swab is then taken and cut
for DNA analysis,
and it's extracted,
quantified, amplified,
and, ultimately,
a DNA profile is produced
on the genetic analyzer.
A mixed DNA profile
with two sources
was generated
from Bob's back pocket.
One source, not surprisingly,
was from Bob himself.
The other source,
so far unidentified,
was almost certainly
from Bob's k*ller.
There is no reason
for someone's DNA to be there,
except if they're the one
who removed
that wallet from that pocket.
Detectives were hopeful
this profile would turn up a hit
in the CODIS database,
which contains the DNA profiles
of thousands of known offenders.
It was run against the database,
and there was no match.
The case went cold yet again.
But most criminals
don't stop being criminals,
and in this case,
Bob's k*ller just couldn't stop
breaking the law.
The whole thing
is mind-boggling.
♪♪
In 2009,
St. Louis police arrested
a convicted felon
for forging a check.
His name was Paul White.
Paul White was
a career criminal.
He'd been in and out of prison
since he was a teenager.
So White's arrest
was fairly routine,
but what police did next
was part of a new routine
in police jurisdictions
all over the country.
If you go back 15, 20 years,
nobody's gonna take your DNA
when you get arrested.
Now they do. So White's DNA...
a sample of his DNA...
was taken at the time
he was arrested
on a forgery case.
And that DNA was
entered into the CODIS database,
where computers automatically
cross-referenced it
with the DNA
of thousands of criminals.
Paul White's DNA matched the DNA
from Bob's back pocket.
When I get that name
from the crime labs,
I couldn't control myself.
I was very happy.
This is the lead
that is going to bring
the individual to justice.
But did that prove
Paul White was Bob's k*ller?
Not necessarily.
The two men
had done business together.
Paul White's wife
had her car insured through him,
and he had gone in there
and made a cash payment.
So he knew
there would've been cash there.
But Paul white insisted
he was not in Bob's office
the day of the m*rder.
The DNA was pointing
straight at Paul White,
but a good defense lawyer
might convince a jury
it was there
from his previous visit,
even if it was months earlier.
If you have DNA in isolation,
the defense can always argue,
"Well, maybe there
was contamination,
maybe there was
secondary transfer."
Detectives dug into
Paul White's background
and got a surprise.
One month before
Bob Eidman's m*rder,
he'd been involved
in yet another routine arrest.
Paul White was arrested
for outstanding traffic tickets.
He and his companion,
a man named Cleo Hines,
were both arrested as
they were driving a Ford Focus.
The vehicle was white
and had no license plates,
which fit the description
of the Ford Focus
seen on surveillance video
circling around Bob Eidman's
office just before his m*rder.
That is a very big game-changer.
By this time,
more than two years had passed
since Bob Eidman's m*rder,
and Paul white was confident DNA
could not tie him to the crime.
In the tapes of his interview,
you can see that.
When they tell him, "We have
your DNA in his pockets,"
well,
he leaned back in his chair,
put his arms behind his head,
and smiled
and laughed and said...
his exact words were,
"There is no way
on God's Green Earth
you have my DNA
in those pockets."
He was thinking what most people
were thinking at that time,
that you have to have a fluid
for there to be DNA.
He had no idea what the concept
of touch DNA was.
Cleo Hines,
Paul White's accomplice,
understood more quickly
and came clean.
Prosecutors learned that
Paul White recently lost
more than $1,000 gambling,
and since he'd been in
Bob Eidman's office before,
knew there should be
lots of cash there.
Bob knew him
and could identify him,
so the only way to get the money
and not get caught
was to k*ll Bob.
Prosecutors believe
Paul White sh*t Bob
as soon as he and Cleo Hines
entered the office.
But there was a problem.
Bob's money drawer was locked.
In fact, it was broken
and wouldn't open,
something White
hadn't counted on.
Desperate, he rifled Bob's back
pocket and grabbed his wallet,
not realizing the touch DNA
he left behind
would ultimately identify him.
How much money
was Bob Eidman's life worth?
$300.
They took the money to
two separate casinos in the area
and lost the money within hours.
How cold-blooded do you have to
be to take that blood money
and go to the casino
and gamble with it?
All murders are senseless,
but this one just seemed to be
in a category by itself.
Before the DNA match was made,
Bob Eidman's wife, Diane,
remained the number-one suspect.
That match not only identified
Bob's K*llers,
it proved her innocence.
I'm happy to be able
to solve a cold case using DNA.
I'm also very happy
when we get a case
that exonerates an individual.
In August of 2012,
Paul White was found guilty
of first-degree m*rder
and got life with no parole.
Cleo Hines, convicted of
second-degree m*rder
and robbery,
also got life in prison,
all because they were convinced
evidence they couldn't see
couldn't possibly
land them in jail.
No one was more surprised
by the touch-DNA results
than Paul White was.
The fact that just
the slightest brush
on the inside
of his victim's pocket
could later convict him,
it's incredible.
The victim's
still dead. You can't fix that.
But justice, I think,
is something that we care about
as a people.
And when you get that DNA hit,
it looks like we're gonna get
as close
as we can come here to justice.
It makes the job worthwhile.