Up next, a car crash baffles
investigators.
At first, it was like a sad,
you know, tragic accident.
No one can determine
exactly what k*lled the victim.
It wasn't something
that was a normal death.
Detectives and doctors
try to find a cause.
There were no internal injuries.
It's not an accident.
It's not medical.
What else can it be?
♪♪
♪♪
On a frigid afternoon
in February of 2005,
police in Highland Heights
near Cleveland, Ohio,
got an unusual call.
A woman was behind the wheel
of a car
that was drifting along
in a residential neighborhood,
moving slowly,
but still out of control.
She's driving
through a school zone.
Witnesses advised us that
she's slumped over the wheel.
The car drifted left of center,
sideswiped the other vehicle,
then drifted back
into her lanes.
It was traveling so slowly
that one of the witnesses
was able to open the door
and actually stop
the car physically.
The driver, who appeared to be
in her 30s,
was semi-conscious
and having trouble breathing.
When the paramedics arrived,
they were confused
because there were no
physical injuries on her body.
There was no outward appearance
or cause...
obvious cause of why
she was in this state.
The driver had an open cellphone
beside her
and had apparently been
trying to call for help.
She was rushed to the
emergency room
where she d*ed
a short time later.
The victim was identified
as Rosie Essa,
the 38-year-old mother
of two young children.
Whoa!
Who's this?!
She was married to a
emergency room doctor
who worked down in Akron.
His name was Yazeed Essa.
Everybody that I talked to said,
"classically sweet,
kind, giving mom"...
all the things that we think
would be the salt of the earth.
Great person.
Her husband, Yazeed,
whom everyone called "Yaz,"
told his fellow doctors
and police
that Rosie had no serious
medical issues,
certainly nothing
that would cause her death.
He couldn't offer any
information as to why she d*ed.
And an autopsy offered no
answers as to what had happened.
She did not have
any natural disease either
that would cause her death.
A subsequent toxicology scan
also provided no clues
about what k*lled her.
Doctors and police were baffled.
Rosie had no injuries,
no diseases,
she wasn't using dr*gs,
and there was no sign
of her encountering
any toxic substances,
even accidentally.
Yet she was dead
from a fender bender
that wasn't fast enough
to cause any serious injuries.
It became, in my tenure
as a reporter,
one of the strangest cases
I've ever seen in terms
of what looked from
all appearances
a tragic death of a woman...
a mother, two small kids,
high-profile couple,
doctor, husband,
and then all of a sudden...
oh, my goodness.
Police and doctors
wanted answers and fast.
Rosie's initial toxicology scan
showed no illicit dr*gs
in her system.
There was nothing obvious
at this stage of the autopsy
to say why she d*ed.
So the cause of death
was deferred
pending further examination.
A second, more extensive test
also came up empty.
There's always testing
that can be performed,
almost limitless,
but the sample is limited.
The coroner informed
the police department
that they had exhausted all
of their testing possibilities.
That meant investigators
had to narrow it down
to one or two possibilities
before they could do
another test.
This stalled the investigation
until detectives discovered
a phone call Rosie made
just before her death,
a phone call that told analysts
what to test for.
♪♪
Just before the low-speed crash
that sent Rosie Essa
to the hospital,
she made a phone call
to a friend on her cellphone.
She was on the cellphone
with one of her buddies,
Eva McGregor,
and she mentioned to Eva,
"I feel like crap because
I took this calcium pill.
God, I feel like just... ugh!"
Before her death, Rosie was
preparing for a bright future.
She and her husband, Yazeed,
were planning
to have another baby.
Yazeed, a doctor,
was giving her supplements.
There were three or four
different prenatal vitamins
that he was supplying to her,
one of which was
calcium supplements.
As far as detectives
and doctors knew,
taking the calcium
and prenatal medications
were the only changes
from Rosie's normal routine.
Was it possible
these supplements
could have caused her death?
Her husband said
that was impossible.
According to Yaz, her death
was a mystery, medically,
to him as it was
to everyone else.
When I asked Yazeed about
the calcium supplements
and the prenatal vitamins,
"Did you think they would have
any cause for her death?"
And he said, "No, calcium
won't hurt you."
But what if it wasn't
calcium Rosie had taken?
Could this be a case
of product tampering?
The idea wasn't far-fetched.
Something similar had happened
before, in Chicago in 1982.
Our top story...
authorities in Chicago
have officially confirmed
the death of a seventh victim
from Tylenol capsules
laced with deadly cyanide.
This was one of the first cases
of its kind
anywhere in the world.
Someone... to this day,
there's been no arrest...
laced over-the-counter Tylenol
with cyanide.
They also report finding for
the first time
contaminated capsules
in an unsold bottle of Tylenol
removed from a store shelf at a
major suburban shopping center.
It came to be known
as the "Tylenol Murders,"
and it forever changed the way
over-the-counter medicines
and even some food products
are sold.
If this was a repeat
of the Tylenol murders,
if Rosie's calcium pills
had been tampered with,
there was a very
real possibility
that the public at large
could be in danger.
So you have to continue on and
make a further investigation.
Keep in mind this is not
homicide, but unexplained death.
You have to include
all possibilities.
Meanwhile, police were getting
some interesting information
that might offer
another explanation
for what happened to Rosie.
It turned out that
the Essa marriage
was not quite as happy
as it seemed.
Yazeed Essa had
several extramarital affairs
since he and Rosie
had been married.
As a matter of fact,
the extramarital activity
never stopped
once they were married.
These are signals that
the representation
or the outward appearance
of this loving, happy marriage
were starting to be
questioned significantly.
The key evidence appeared
to be Rosie's calcium pills,
and no one knew where they were
or even whether
they'd been destroyed.
The detective then says,
"Well, let's go get those
pills,"
calls Yaz and says,
"Doctor, we would like
to go get those pills."
He goes, "Absolutely.
No problem."
So they rush to the house,
and the calcium pills
are still there.
They hadn't been flushed
down the toilet.
The bottle was still there.
They bag and tag them,
send them down to be analyzed.
But that analysis
took a few days,
and in the meantime,
something happened
that took an unexplained
death in Cleveland
and launched it into
an international investigation.
It got even stranger.
I mean, I just kept going,
"How does this get any weirder?"
And it did.
It was extraordinary.
♪♪
The key to the unexplained death
of Rosie Essa
seemed to lie
in the calcium pills
she'd taken just a short time
before she d*ed.
Rose's husband, Dr. Yazeed Essa,
known as "Yaz,"
freely provided
those pills to the police.
The pills were sent to
Dr. Douglas Rohde,
a forensic toxicologist.
Immediately he saw
something amiss.
Nine pills in the bottle
didn't look like the others.
The nine that looked different
had a crystalline
appearance to them,
and the remaining capsules
that were in that bottle
looked powdery
and had some pink tinge to them.
Both sets of pills
were subjected to a process
called Fourier Transform
Infrared Spectroscopy, or FTIR.
The FTIR test is a test
that will allow me
to look
at the molecular structure
of a molecule
using infrared radiation,
and the bonds of the molecule
will vibrate,
releasing an energy.
And that energy pattern
is what I use
to identify
what the substance is.
The amount of energy a substance
can absorb
is unique to that substance,
and the resulting vibrations can
be measured by a spectrometer.
That's then checked against
a library of known substances.
Most of the pills in Rosie's
bottle were calcium,
but the nine
that looked different were not.
The vibrational pattern of
the unknown crystalline
material matched the vibrational
pattern of cyanide.
To make absolutely sure,
analysts turn
to a confirmatory test.
It's called the Prussian Blue
Test...
and for a very good reason.
The active ingredient in the
Prussian Blue Test
is ferric ferrocyanide,
which will react rapidly
with the cyanide
molecule to elicit a blue color.
Which is exactly what happened.
I was shocked to see that
this was cyanide.
And I was alone in the lab
and exclaimed to myself, "Wow."
I have my smoking g*n.
As these tests were being
conducted,
investigators and Rosie's family
got some stunning news.
Dr. Essa apparently decided
that he was going
to leave the country.
If you have seen Dr. Yazeed Essa
and know his location,
tonight authorities
would like you to call.
Where is Yazeed?
Wow.
And from there,
it really went crazy.
Dr. Essa had money
and family connections
in the Middle East.
Investigators brought in
the vast resources of the FBI
to help track him down.
You can't let people get away
with k*lling their wives
and mothers of their children
and just go to another country,
and think they're safe.
The FBI soon located Dr. Essa
in Beirut, Lebanon,
a place that offered a layer of
protection for a man on the run.
The problem with Lebanon
was that
there was no solid
extradition treaty
where an individual
could be returned
from Lebanon
to the United States.
I thought, "Well, then, he may
have committed
the perfect crime,
in that we can't get him
and there's no way to go over
and pull him back.
So this story is
almost over then.
I mean, how horrible."
Dr. Essa insisted
that he didn't k*ll his wife
and also insisted that fleeing
the country
was no admission of guilt.
He said that, "I only left
because I could not
get a fair trial here."
In Beirut, Dr. Essa
was being watched
by FBI agents
and local informants,
and he certainly didn't seem
to be a grieving widower
who missed his children.
He was the playboy of Beirut
because he had plenty of money.
His brother had a very
successful business
that he was partners with.
He was having a great old time.
In fact, to the dismay
of some of those
who were helping him hide,
Dr. Essa was open about
what he'd done.
He would brag to
the neighborhood people
that he had k*lled his wife
and that we were looking
for him in the United States.
He created an e-mail account...
fugitive@hotmail.com.
That kind of sums it up.
And when I found that out, I
went, "Who does that?"
Who is so brazen that you say,
"Yeah, I don't mind if you know
that I'm a fugitive,
I'm proud of it,
and I'll laugh at it"?
If Dr. Essa was so
confident
that he'd brag about
murdering his wife,
he might let his guard down just
long enough to make a mistake,
which was exactly
what the FBI was counting on.
You know, Dr. Essa...
you know, he was a smart guy,
but I think he thought he was
smarter than everybody else.
♪♪
As Dr. Yazeed Essa
was living
the high life in Beirut,
U.S. and international
law enforcement
were watching and waiting.
Through the use of informants
in the Middle East
and also with
law enforcement partners
outside of the United States
that we were able to learn
that Dr. Essa
would be
making his way to Cyprus.
Him going to Cyprus
was a bad decision.
I think he thought he could
get away with it.
Unlike Lebanon, Cyprus has
an extradition treaty
with the United States.
Cypriot police, who'd been
working with the FBI
and knew what flight he was on,
were waiting at the airport
and took him into custody.
We had some indication
that he was gonna travel
under a false passport.
When he got to Cyprus,
his appearance had changed
quite a bit.
Even with a false name
and a false passport,
Dr. Essa soon found there are
some things you just can't
disguise.
You can change your appearance
all you want,
but we were able to get
fingerprints for Dr. Essa.
The FBI had
Dr. Essa's fingerprints
because of his work as a doctor,
and his prints matched
the prints of the man
who'd just landed in Cyprus,
the man who claimed
he was not Yazeed Essa.
After 17 months on the run, Dr.
Essa was finally behind bars.
His lawyers tried to fight
extradition,
but after two years,
he was finally back
in Cleveland in cuffs.
Finally, we have this guy
who did this heinous crime
and we can make him answer
for what he's done.
But that was far
from a foregone conclusion.
It has all the elements
of a Hollywood movie...
deadly cyanide, the doctor
who had access to it,
and the doctor's dead wife.
He fled the country.
The question is, "Did he
actually commit m*rder?"
The whole thing about the cases
is that it was circumstantial,
so we had to put the case
together in a fashion
that would be
understandable for a jury.
And they had to convince
those jurors
that someone who appeared to be
an upstanding family man
would be cold-blooded enough
to hand his wife
a fatal dose of poison
as she walked out the door.
In February of 2010,
Yazeed Essa went before a jury
and his own family.
I think the turning point
was when we had called
Dr. Essa's brother
to the witness stand.
Mr. Essa, if you would
come forward
and raise your right hand
for me, please.
Dr. Essa and his brother, Firas,
had been in extensive contact
while Dr. Essa was in jail.
On the stand, Firas Essa
was caught lying
about conversations
he'd had with his brother,
conversations that were recorded
and played for the jury.
Facing a perjury charge,
Firas Essa changed his story.
The prosecutor comes back up
and goes,
"So, let me ask you again.
Were you cooperating with your
brother to hide this crime?"
"Yes."
"Did you know
that he k*lled Rosie?"
"Yes."
- "How did you know that?"
- "He told me."
What did he tell you
that he did?
He said that he put
the cyanide into capsules.
When you found out
that information,
what did you say
to your brother?
- I told him he was a.
- Why did you say that?
Because he took Rosie's life,
and I loved her.
He just ruined his whole family.
The jury... I looked over at
them, and they're just shocked.
His own brother said,
"That person k*lled Rosie."
The case was over right there.
Prosecutors say Dr. Essa simply
wanted out of his marriage,
but he didn't want to lose money
or custody of his children
because of a divorce,
so he hatched a plan
to give his wife calcium pills
laced with cyanide.
And he gave one of these
to Rosie
right before she got in the car.
If the plan had worked,
she would have d*ed
while driving
and would likely have been
part of a crash violent enough
to explain her death.
But the pills took effect
before she had picked up
enough speed
for a high-speed crash,
so there was no serious trauma
to her body
and no explanation for her death
until doctors
and detectives uncovered the
cyanide-laced calcium capsules
and the only person
with the means, the motive,
and the opportunity to lace
those capsules with poison.
I still to this day
can never understand
why he didn't get rid
of the evidence.
To be that brazen is bizarre,
but it was part
of the facts of this case.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I understand
that you have reached
a verdict in this case.
Is that correct?
- Yes.
"We, the jury in this case,
being duly impaneled and sworn,
do find the defendant,
Yazeed Essa,
guilty of aggravated m*rder."
In March of 2010,
Dr. Yazeed Essa was sentenced
to life in prison with no parole
for at least 20 years.
Rosie's family has custody
of her children
and are grateful
she and forensic science
were able to expose her k*ller.
To me, Rosie solved
her own m*rder.
It was pure serendipity
that she was on the phone
with her friend.
But by her saying, "Yaz wanted
me to take these calcium pills,
I feel like crap"...
you know, her girlfriend
is going, "Well, geez."
And so that conversation...
pure chance...
helped solve the case.
Without that phone call,
she dies,
we never find out what happened.