The Red Flags of Murder

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:11]A deadly fall, a bloody carpet, a difference [music] of opinion.

[00:00:18]>> This was not just a slip and fall in the shower. This was [music] something much more.

[00:00:23]Every violent crime leaves a trace, a forensic trail that can lead to the truth and justice for the wronged.

[00:00:31]>> I spent my entire career speaking for the dead and it's important to get it right.

[00:00:37]>> But what if the forensic evidence is ignored?

[00:00:41]>> How could this have been missed by so many people?

[00:00:47]>> Every crime scene tells a story.

[00:00:53]It begins with a 911 call in the affluent suburb of Dit outside of Syracuse.

[00:01:02]>> What's your emergency?

[00:01:03]>> My mother's I don't know if she's breathing, but she's laying on the ground in the shower. Oh my god. There's blood everywhere.

[00:01:11]>> Oh my god. OH MY GOD.

[00:01:17]Minutes after the call, first responder Jamie Pianowski arrives at a sprawling mansion, the home of Dr. Bob and Leslie Mulander and their daughter Jenna.

[00:01:28]>> We parked in the driveway with a roundabout and we noticed a young girl frantic jumping up and down saying, "Hurry up. My mom's [music] not breathing."

[00:01:36]She guided us through these front doors to the second floor here to a a large office and came around the corner [music] here and into the bedroom.

[00:01:47]There was some blood on the walls of the bedroom.

[00:01:51]>> The blood trail leads Pianowski to 61-year-old Leslie Nulander who [music] fell and hit her head in the shower. She has a severe head injury and a swollen black eye. Head wounds bleed a lot, but for the wound that she had, there was not a lot of blood.

[00:02:08]>> Her husband waits nearby.

[00:02:11]>> Mr. Newander said that he found his wife unresponsive in the shower. At which point, he said he needed to move her into the bedroom and placed her next to the bed to begin CPR.

[00:02:23]Her head was up against this nightstand and the right side of her body was up against the side of the bed. We moved her body about 3 ft down to give us room to work. I knelt by her side with her and clearly she wasn't breathing. So, we're trying to breathe for her, but we didn't have an airway at all because her jaw is clenched shut. You could have a clenched jaw from a few things. It could be from a seizure, could be from rigor mortise setting in. She didn't have a pulse. There was nothing that I could do to care for her.

[00:02:53]After 10 minutes, the lieutenant from the fire department had a conversation with Mr. Newlander and there was a decision [music] made to stop resuscitation efforts.

[00:03:05]>> [music] >> Leslie Nulander, wife, mother, philanthropist, and pillar of her community, is pronounced [music] dead at 8:42 a.m.

[00:03:20]As protocol, crime scene investigators and members of the Dwit Police Department are called to the house.

[00:03:28]>> We have a death scene now, and all death scenes are treated as a criminal to proven otherwise. It's not um unusual for the police to get calls to go to [music] death scenes to make sure that we're understanding everything that's occurred and that there aren't any other factors involved that we should be aware [music] of.

[00:03:46]>> My first course of action is take photographs.

[00:03:50]>> CSI photographs are essential for preserving a death scene for later in-depth forensic analysis.

[00:03:56]>> So people can go back and reference the photographs and get a good depiction of what happened. So, I start out with overall photographs of the scene to get a full feeling of what the scene is.

[00:04:06]Then you go through, you do your mid-range, and then you do close-ups.

[00:04:10][music] You'd also be placing placards down of areas of concern, items of interest. [music] Upon looking around the room, you could see blood on the floor, carpeting around into [music] the bed. Investigators questioned Leslie's husband, noted obstatrician Dr. Bob Nulander.

[00:04:30]Dr. Nulander said that he got up in the morning, I think around 6:30, explained that they had some type of an event to go to uh at around 9:00.

[00:04:40]He went for a run at Green Lakes.

[00:04:44]Green Lakes is a lake area with trails that go around it.

[00:04:48]So, he came back, brought some coffee to Leslie. She hadn't come out of the shower yet. knocks on the door, finds Leslie on the floor in the shower.

[00:05:02]It >> was believed she hit her head on this bench, which is all granite or all some type of hard stone, but only three items of biological matter was found.

[00:05:12]Dr. Nulander removed her from the shower, and this is where she ended up.

[00:05:17]He had told the paramedics that he was doing CPR right up until the time that he was relieved by the first firefighter.

[00:05:24]>> But at first glance, [music] the forensic evidence tells a different story than Dr. Newander, as do the instincts of the veteran investigators on the [music] scene.

[00:05:34]>> My gut first told me like, why did he move her body? The distance he moved her. That just didn't make sense.

[00:05:41]I could understand pulling her out of the shower, but why would you move her out of the shower, through the bathroom, down a set of stairs, across the bed, and put her by the bed. You could almost expect that from a lay person, but not from a medical doctor.

[00:05:56]I broke a lot of her ribs when I began CPR. It was indicative that there was no CPR prior to our arrival, which kind of went against the story that we were told.

[00:06:06]>> He described that it was dark. It was steamy. Trying to suggest that he couldn't see very well in the bathroom.

[00:06:18]>> It was a very large open bathroom with a lot of ambient light and plenty of space to do CPR.

[00:06:26]>> We had the same initial perception as everyone else there, and that's, "Wow, there's a lot of blood here for a fall in the shower." [music] >> You can see blood spatter up on the bed wall. This is where I saw spatter up in the ceiling. We measured to be about 78 in up, which is pretty high.

[00:06:46]How did this blood spatter get here?

[00:06:50]>> While investigators continue processing the scene, Anandaga County's chief medical examiner arrives.

[00:06:56]>> The medical examiner is the one who determines is this an accidental or is this a homicide?

[00:07:02]>> They assess the scene. They assess uh the victim's wounds and injuries.

[00:07:07]>> [music] >> To determine time of death, the medical examiner takes Leslie's body temperature. It's 92°, [music] 6° below normal.

[00:07:15]>> And this accident just happened within an hour. It's like a little low, isn't it, for the time frame? But he said, "No, it made perfect sense." Okay.

[00:07:24]Another thing in the body, I noticed that she already had a black eye. How do you get a black eye that quick? [music] The medical examiner was saying, "Well, way the skull fracture was in this side equate to a black eye over here." It's like, I've gotten black eyes before. It usually takes overnight for them to happen.

[00:07:39]>> After examining [music] Leslie's injuries, the medical examiner determines her manner of death is accidental. [music] It's not what investigators were expecting.

[00:07:51]>> Okay. [music] Um, it's a little odd that we're seeing this much blood, but you know, the medical examiner, you know, he's the expert. He knows what's going on. He was comfortable with the scenario being that she was standing in the shower and fell from a standing height, hitting the shower bench or the floor and causing the injury to the head. I was a little shocked, but again, he's the doctor. He's he he's a person signing his name on the death certificate. He's has final say. By officially declaring Leslie's [music] death an accident, the medical examiner has pulled the plug on any criminal investigation, stopping all further collection of forensic evidence. What I would have done is way more photos, close-up photos with scales. There would have been a full sketch of of the entire area, but that didn't happen. He was set that this was accidental.

[00:08:48]Where do you go from there?

[00:08:52]When we cleared that call that morning, I said to my partner, "This is not a slip and fall. This was a murder."

[00:09:02]>> Within days, it's a thought that others are having too.

[00:09:09]>> My office received a unsigned, unattributed letter suggesting that this was more [music] than an accident.

[00:09:20]It had no smoking gun details, [music] but it clearly was written by somebody who thought this woman had been murdered.

[00:09:27]>> The person writing the letter wanted the investigation to continue and look further into um issues that were going on in the family such as financial issues, [music] infidelity, um trying to get the point across that there was more to it than we may have known at the time. That was [music] a huge red flag to us.

[00:09:48]>> [music] >> Leslie was welll liked by everyone. She had [music] bouncy yellow curly hair and a loud but [music] happy voice.

[00:10:06]She had a lot of energy and a lot of positivity.

[00:10:10]She was good to be [music] around. It was a good feeling.

[00:10:14]The last time I saw Leslie, I was recovering from a fall and she [music] said, "Just to think a little fall could do all that to you."

[00:10:24][music] And then 2 days later, she was dead.

[00:10:33]Leslie's death hits her community hard.

[00:10:36]And within her close circle of friends, there are rumors that this was no accident.

[00:10:41]you know, concerns about their marriage, if there was a lot of blood in the bedroom. A lot of what I would say in the forensic world are like soft concerns or noneidentiary concerns, but it's not hard scientific evidence.

[00:10:59]>> To Dr. Mary Jambellic, a family friend and the county's former medical examiner, the rumors are just that, rumors. The official information was she had fallen [music] in the shower and that can happen. I had fallen in Europe and I had had terrible consequences to that. So I accepted the conclusion that I was being told.

[00:11:24]>> But 3 months after Leslie's death, Dr. Jambellik's own suspicions grow when she hears Dr. Nulander is leaving for Israel. The reason that it concerned me is because I thought he had Israeli citizenship as well as American citizenship and I knew [music] Israel doesn't have a extradition treaty for its own citizens, you know, back to the US. It felt like a red flag.

[00:11:50]I trained at the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office and the chief there said, "You always have to think dirty."

[00:11:55][music] Meaning, don't accept anything just on face value. you you you have to at least consider the other options and rule them out. And I thought I'm going to call Fitz.

[00:12:09]>> I have a [music] lot of respect for Mary and her opinion. And she related to me that she had a number of questions [music] about Leslie's death. So she said, would I mind if she looked at the case? I said, absolutely not. Uh I'm I'm very I'm always open to, you know, uh a diverse [music] opinions about what had happened. And I said, quite frankly, it'll be an opportunity for me to look at the case.

[00:12:32]>> That night, an investigator drove all the files out to me.

[00:12:37]>> They say dead men tell no tales, but that's not true. And when you get into forensic pathology, Leslie told us a remarkable tale [music] in her death.

[00:12:46]If we ignore the forensic evidence, then people can die without it being acknowledged what happened to them. Dr. Jimellic starts by looking at the most important [music] piece of forensic evidence from the case, the autopsy report.

[00:13:02]>> Leslie was my friend, [music] so it was not an easy task.

[00:13:08][music] In evaluating the autopsy, I was struck by the size of the [music] wound.

[00:13:16]When I look at a victim of head injury, I consider every layer. I start [music] with the outside of the head. And Leslie had a large wound on her scalp. I can see bone broken underneath it [music] with the fatty tissue visible here along the edges.

[00:13:35]It did not look like a fall.

[00:13:38]>> To Dr. Jim Bellic. To sustain an injury [music] from a fall serious enough to expose bone would be near impossible.

[00:13:45]>> When someone falls, a simple fall from a standing height, they hit one side of their head.

[00:13:53]Leslie had injuries on multiple aspects of her head. [music] >> Dr. Jimellic determines there are separate blows to Leslie's skull in virtually the same location.

[00:14:03]The extent of this [music] with more than 10 radiating lines indicates blows to the head with a blunt object. [music] At a minimum, I can say there are two blows. There could be more.

[00:14:16]>> Direct blows to the skull are what's called a coup brain injury. But according to the autopsy report, the chief medical examiner declares it's a contra coup [music] injury, better associated with a slip and fall.

[00:14:30]Classically, when [music] someone falls and strikes their head, the greatest [music] injury on the brain is the opposite side.

[00:14:43]When someone is struck in the head, the greatest area of injury is below the area of the strike. [music] We refer to that in forensic pathology as coup. The area of the blow or contra coup, the area opposite it. [music] According to Dr. Jambellik, the chief medical examiner mistook Leslie's black eye as evidence of a contrau brain injury.

[00:15:08]>> So, it's really not Contrau, it's fracture contusion. She had a black eye from the fracture in the bone over her eye.

[00:15:17]>> The autopsy report also describes other injuries sustained by Lesie. Leslie Newlander not only had severe fatal head trauma from blows to the head, [music] she had scrapes on her cheeks, she had a bruise on her nose, she had abrasions on her neck, she had bruising of her arm and near her shoulder, she had bruising of her hands. And all of that is indicating a struggle with someone.

[00:15:46]>> Within 24 hours of receiving the files, Dr. Jim Bellic calls the DA with her assessment.

[00:15:52]>> It was brutally obvious that Leslie was murdered.

[00:15:59]>> That [music] was stunning to me. How could a trained medical examiner call a homicide an accident?

[00:16:04]>> I think that was one of the times that that it was somebody other than just the investigative staff saying something doesn't look right here to a medical examiner saying this is a homicide.

[00:16:17]There was almost a sense of relief from the officers that I spoke to. In other words, that's what we've been thinking all along.

[00:16:25]>> I was incredulous that the conclusion was accident from a fall. We evaluate falls [music] versus a strike to the head all the time. It is one of the pillars of uh forensic [music] knowledge.

[00:16:43]>> Dr. Jumblic's assessment not only supports the suspicions of law enforcement and first responders, it also explains why Pianowski couldn't open Leslie's jaw to perform CPR.

[00:16:54]>> I classify the jaw being difficult to open as being rigger mortise, which is a stiffening up of the muscles after death. [music] >> The onset of rigor mortise suggests Leslie was dead long before first responders [music] arrived and why her body temperature was so low.

[00:17:12]The average body temperature 98.6° F. Her body temperature was in the low 90s. The the rule of thumb is at room temperature, you might lose a degree and a half an hour. You put that combination of things together. This woman's been dead for hours.

[00:17:27]>> District Attorney [music] Fitzpatrick prevents Dr. Nulander from traveling to Israel by demanding he surrender his passports, but the DA stopped short of charging him with murder.

[00:17:37]>> [music] >> I've got my appointed medical examiner saying accident. I've got the previous medical examiner saying homicide. That reeks of reasonable doubt. Uh I wouldn't even go into court with a case like that. So what do I do? Well, first call is to [music] do it police department.

[00:17:59]Essentially what I said to them was [music] we're starting from scratch.

[00:18:04]This is as if this happened this morning and [music] we have to go about investigating this as a homicide.

[00:18:12]>> You certainly don't want to uh be predisposed in your mind to say I think he did it. Um you you you have to you have to tread lightly. Uh do your job right and follow the evidence.

[00:18:25]>> But following the evidence is easier said than done. Investigators will have to work with incomplete forensics unless the chief medical examiner agrees to change his assessment from accident to homicide.

[00:18:38]>> You would think, well, [music] okay, well, that kind of handcuffs you, Mr. DA. There's nothing you can do about that. Well, it wouldn't be the first time in my career where I have disagreed with the findings of a medical examiner.

[00:18:55]Despite the medical examiner's assessment, duet PD have regarded Leslie's death as [music] suspicious from the beginning.

[00:19:02]>> We had discussion about what direction do we go if we aren't comfortable [music] with this ruling by the medical examiner.

[00:19:10]>> But Dr. Jim Bellic's opinion that it's a homicide kicks the investigation into high gear.

[00:19:16][music] >> We actually met in this room. I'm [music] saying, man, we have a lot more work to do here. This this was really uh screwed up.

[00:19:29]>> The investigative team starts with the very [music] first piece of evidence collected.

[00:19:33]>> What's your emergency?

[00:19:35]>> Here's a 911 call from the doctor's daughter, then 24year-old Jenna Nulander, who was a student who was sleeping in her own bedroom, [music] you know, yards away from her mother. My mother's I don't know if she's breathing, [music] but she's laying on the ground in the shower.

[00:19:52]>> Jenna was told to call 911 by Bob, who [music] went from the shower where he purportedly found Leslie all the way through the second floor all the way to where Jenna's bedroom was and told her to call 911, bypassing five telephones on the way.

[00:20:11]>> There were a bunch of phones that he had no opportunity to pick up. [music] The fact that he didn't pick one up and call 911 was just another uh suspect red flag to us.

[00:20:24]>> She um [music] is contacted by her father who appears to be in in distress.

[00:20:31]Says something has happened to mom.

[00:20:32]Jenna has no information other than that.

[00:20:34]>> Is she unconscious?

[00:20:36]>> I need to go over there and see if she's okay. So you're not there.

[00:20:40]>> My dad's over there. He's in the bathroom. I'm not in the bathroom.

[00:20:43]>> Okay. Jenna calls 911 and the operator asks her a lot of questions, which is typical. [music] Is she breathing? Is she conscious?

[00:20:52]>> Don't step down now and stay on the phone with me.

[00:20:55]>> I need to put you on hold. I'm not It's like a household.

[00:20:59]>> She proceeds up into the bathroom itself. She then picks up the next available phone to her and the first words out of her mouth when she picks up that phone are, >> "Oh my god, everywhere you go, ma'am, >> it's very gripping. It's it's chilling."

[00:21:25]Um, >> I remember, you know, replaying that for the cops and the detectives and I said, "Guys, she's just told us that her mother was murdered because mom is still in the shower. Erggo, there shouldn't be blood anywhere." And yet, this woman has just walked past this mastrom of blood.

[00:21:52]Jenna shouldn't be able to see blood at that point because according to Bob's story, they hadn't moved Leslie yet.

[00:21:58]>> Oh my god. Oh my god.

[00:22:11]And she is screaming in a very childlike way. Daddy, don't move her.

[00:22:17]You know, what are you doing? Her neck could be broken.

[00:22:21]My mommy.

[00:22:25]>> It cuts deep into anybody that would hear her her just absolute horror of seeing her mother. It was It was very sad.

[00:22:35]>> Next, [music] investigators revisit Dr. Newlander's version of events. They believe contrary to what he said, Leslie Newlander was already dead when he moved her from the shower to the bedroom.

[00:22:47]>> We know she's dead because the EMTs are saying we can't open her mouth to to do CPR cuz she's in rigor.

[00:22:55]>> Mrs. Nulander was medically dead on our arrival. None of our resuscitative efforts change that.

[00:23:01]>> She has no pulse. She has no heartbeat.

[00:23:04]She's not bleeding. Why is there this massive, massive amount of blood?

[00:23:11]>> To explain the blood, investigators examine the only forensic evidence they have, the crime scene photos.

[00:23:19]>> This is uh by the bed where the Paramax found her.

[00:23:23]>> The crime scene photos show blood spatter on items around the bed. Yet, surprisingly, no spatter was found on the bed sheets, suggesting they were changed. A fact confirmed by the housekeeper.

[00:23:35]She was fairly meticulous and she had a very very good memory and she says there's different sheets.

[00:23:42]>> But to [music] get the full picture of how Leslie Newlander died, investigators must get [music] back inside the house to collect what, if any, forensic evidence is left.

[00:23:53]But getting [music] a judge to issue a search warrant will be difficult. Once the medical examiners assessed it as an accident, it's very difficult for us to obtain any type of court order or search warrant to continue investigating. Can be [music] taken as an invasive process.

[00:24:10]>> That is until investigators catch a lucky break.

[00:24:14]>> Someone bought the home and just hadn't moved into it, locked the door, essentially [music] preserved everything in that house the way it was.

[00:24:24]Fortuitously, the new owner was extremely cooperative with [music] us.

[00:24:28]So, he allowed us to go back uh search the house. We didn't even need a warrant. We had his permission.

[00:24:33]>> The stars aligned, got us in the house.

[00:24:35]We were able to do a lot of additional forensic work.

[00:24:39]>> 4 months [music] after Dr. Jambellic reviews the files, investigators finally returned to the house to finish processing the crime scene. Our assignment was to obtain and discover any evidence that may have been left behind. So essentially what I look for initially is any and all photographs relating to the scene. [music] Uh likewise any autopsy photographs, anything that's relevant to to the [music] case at hand. It was reported that the occurrence took place in the shower. So naturally, this would be the first area of interest.

[00:25:14]>> Investigators examined Dr. Newlander's reason for moving his wife's body. The steam.

[00:25:20]>> I couldn't see anything else completely.

[00:25:22]It's a It's a darkened area. Steam and everything.

[00:25:25]>> The water is running >> and the steam was also >> steam. Yes, >> it was a steam shower. There are apparently mechanisms in there to create steam [music] as opposed to just a normal shower. So, we wanted to test that and just see how long did the steam [music] last. Did the steam go out into the bathroom?

[00:25:46]>> Basically, what we were trying to figure out was if it was difficult to see Leslie and to render aid within the shower, we took measurements as far as the water temperature, the 15-minute intervals. The temperature maxed out at about 90°, but after probably about 40 minutes, the temperature of the water fell.

[00:26:10]Dr. The new lander indicated he went for a run and then came back and the shower was running.

[00:26:15]>> What do you do?

[00:26:16]>> I go downstairs, finish up my cup of coffee, and then take a shower.

[00:26:21]>> How long does it take a show?

[00:26:23]>> 20 minutes.

[00:26:24]>> Okay. So, right now, >> so there was a 20-minut shower and additional time to shave.

[00:26:30]>> That's right.

[00:26:31]>> Okay. If that was the case, uh, the water would have cooled down substantially at that time and there wouldn't have been any steam in the shower.

[00:26:41]>> There are no issues with seeing anything in that bathroom at any time we were in there.

[00:26:47]>> The analysis contradicts Dr. Nulander's explanation of why he moved Lesie to the bedroom.

[00:26:54]So, what happened that morning?

[00:26:56]>> This is severe bleeding. You know, this isn't I cut my finger and I'm sitting on the side of the bed while I put a band-aid on.

[00:27:08][music] >> Understanding the blood trail between the bed and bathroom is key to finding out if, how, and where Leslie Newlander was murdered. Investigators begin with some basic forensic questions.

[00:27:21]>> Do all of the patterns [music] make sense? Do all of the locations of the blood stains make sense with the suspect's scenario?

[00:27:29]>> One of the main questions is why is the blood located where it is?

[00:27:38]>> So, we have blood over to the side of the bed where she's found, but when they rolled her to take their photographs, she was found with an absence of blood on her person. [music] But yet here we have all of this blood around her, whether it be on the nightstand, whether it be on the wall. So, how did the blood get there? Forensic investigators find their answer in the original crime scene photos when analysis yields a valuable piece of evidence not easily seen by the naked eye.

[00:28:08]>> What I've done here in in several of the photographs you'll see is I've taken the color photograph and I've converted it over to black and white.

[00:28:16]The purpose of doing that is the blood becomes very prominent in the photo.

[00:28:21]There appears to be some white patterns as well as some swipe patterns. But the key with these is the directionality. As you look at the photographs [music] and any directionality we do see is actually heading towards [music] the bathroom.

[00:28:37]So all of this is pointing back to an event occurring on the bed. That would suggest she was brutally beaten in bed and then just dragged with no care in the world back into the bathroom to either stage it or complete whatever he was trying to do. [music] >> To confirm their theory, forensic investigators [music] decide to look more closely at where Lesie was found.

[00:28:59]The carpet next to the bed.

[00:29:02]The carpets had been cleaned by the new homeowner and we decided to cut up the rug in the bedroom. This picture right here is next to the bed. There's a kind of a throw rug and then the actual carpet itself here. We [music] cut away the rug and you can see the carpet pad underneath.

[00:29:21]Uh the blood soaked through the carpet pad [music] and through the carpet pad onto the subfloor and they conducted further testing in uh testing the DNA on the blood indicating that it was in fact Leslie Newlanders.

[00:29:36]>> So what does that tell you? Mrs. as Newlanders is in a position here bleeding with sufficient intensity for a sufficient amount of time [music] to saturate into the floor.

[00:29:45]>> The amount of blood is significant uh in the sense that based on that alone, it was very plausible that Leslie died next to the bed.

[00:29:54]>> Between the 911 call and ample forensic evidence, investigators [music] theorize how the morning of September 17th might have played out.

[00:30:03]>> I don't think it was premeditated by any stretch in the imagination. and he'd have to be a fool to kill her in his own house. So, I think that there was an argument set him into a rage and clearly the initial struggle took place near the bed.

[00:30:17]>> Leslie probably fought back as shown by defensive wounds to her face and hands.

[00:30:22]>> The murder weapon was never found. I would think that it's more of a weapon of opportunity. He actually had a extensive set of weights that he donated to a local community center and we were told that that there was one barbell missing. Very very easily could have been the murder weapon.

[00:30:42]>> I don't know what was used in Leslie's case, but it was heavy enough to damage her skull severely.

[00:30:52]>> He's then faced with a scenario, what do I do? I just killed my wife.

[00:30:58]So now, how do you stage this? How do you frame this? Clean it up.

[00:31:03]>> She can't have hit her head in the bedroom. She can't have hit her head in the hallway. Uh she can't have accidentally done this to herself.

[00:31:13]The shower. Perfect. Nice stone bench with a sharp edge on it. Slippery by by nature.

[00:31:20]>> The state's theory suggests that Dr. Newander dragged Leslie's body 60 ft to the shower, creating a blood trail. He might then have put her in the shower and turned on the water.

[00:31:32]Then Dr. Nulander changed the bed sheets and disposed of as much evidence as he was able. The murder weapon probably somewhere in Green Lakes where he claims he went jogging.

[00:31:46]>> Dr. Nulander likely returned home and pretended to discover his wife's body in the shower [music] around 8:20 a.m.

[00:31:53]before running to his daughter and asking her to call 911.

[00:31:56]>> I need to go over there and see if she's okay.

[00:31:58]>> Okay. How do you know she's down there?

[00:32:00]>> My dad, she's over there.

[00:32:02]>> After that, he has to move her back to the spot next to the bed because he knows that's the only way to explain away the blood and whatever else we might find in that area. you can begin to reconstruct with some degree of accuracy what took place.

[00:32:22]>> With the forensic evidence clearly pointing to Dr. Newlander in the murder of his wife, investigators start asking other [music] questions.

[00:32:32]>> A good question in any criminal case is what's the motive?

[00:32:36]>> In this case, I think it's a combination of things.

[00:32:39]>> Motive boils down simply often to sex and money. In this case, perhaps a bit of both.

[00:32:45]>> We know through Leslie's friends and colleagues that the marriage uh was not doing well. Uh that Bob and Leslie were going to uh separate and divorce.

[00:32:56]>> At stake in the event of their divorce, a half million life insurance policy and the couple's estimated [music] $4 to6 million in assets.

[00:33:05]>> Financially, he was in a bad bad spot.

[00:33:08]He had lost a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a major insurance carrier just a uh few months earlier and he [music] was looking at an impending divorce. So he had 6 million reasons to kill her. [music] A medical examiner is responsible for the death investigation of a jurisdiction [music] and as such is responsible for the death certificate. And Leslie's death certificate said accident.

[00:33:41][music] District Attorney Fitzpatrick believes he now has enough forensic evidence to convict Dr. Nulander of killing his wife.

[00:33:49]But does he have enough to convince [music] the chief medical examiner to change Leslie's death certificate from accidental death to murder?

[00:33:56]>> What Fitz is faced with is one forensic pathologist who says homicide and the other who says accident. [music] >> Recognizing the delicate challenge, DA Fitzpatrick asked yet another medical examiner [music] to review the same autopsy report, crime scene photos, and case files. I reach out [music] to a person that I've worked with for close to 40 years, Michael Bodton.

[00:34:20]>> Dr. Michael Boden [music] is the former chief medical examiner of New York City and has performed an estimated 20,000 autopsies over a celebrated [music] 45-year career.

[00:34:30]>> I'm the prosecutor. I'm the guy looking for the truth. And a prosecutor should never be afraid of the truth.

[00:34:35]>> He came to the same conclusion that I had.

[00:34:38]>> He was very, very certain. He said, "This is this is a homicide. this woman who was murdered. He says this, first of all, it's not a single blow to the head.

[00:34:47]It's multiple blows to the head. She didn't fracture her skull, get up, and then slip and fall again. I think at this point, I made the decision. It's time to sit down with my medical examiner.

[00:34:58]>> But the county's chief medical examiner still refuses to change the death certificate unless another expert, one of his choosing, Dr. Jen Litzma, weighs in on the case. He's a forensic neuropathologist, so he deals with injuries to the brain. Not surprisingly, Dr. Lee McCauley said, "This is clearly a homicide."

[00:35:18]>> Nearly 2 years after Leslie Newlander's death was declared an accident, the death certificate is finally changed to homicide, and Dr. Newander is charged with murder.

[00:35:30]>> In a nutshell, the three things that jumped out at me were Dr. to New Lander story completely implausible. The severity of the wound far more graphic and horrific than one would expect from a a slip and fall in the shower. And then thirdly, the the massive amount of blood spatter indicative to me of a violent assault.

[00:35:51]This guy had more red flags than a bull fight. Nearly two years after his wife died, a prominent obstitrician walks through the halls of Anandaga County Court charged with her murder.

[00:36:05]The case goes to trial in the spring of 2015.

[00:36:09]>> Frankly, as a prosecutor, this was a smorgesborg of forensics. This that's what it all came down to.

[00:36:20]>> Although she couldn't speak, Leslie told us what happened to her.

[00:36:24]She told us with her blood and she told us with her wounds.

[00:36:30]>> This is an innocent man. Our position we must respect.

[00:36:33]>> At trial, the defense comes up with a surprising argument against the blood spatter evidence. out of respect.

[00:36:39]>> The EMTs when they were performing CPR, their gloves were removed improperly and that [music] these blood soaked gloves were somehow slingshotted and sent blood all over the place. Well, that's just nonsense. I mean, >> we take off our gloves the same [music] way every time is we're just going to grab the one glove and turn it inside out and put it in the palm of the other glove. I'm going to put my hand underneath the cuff of this glove and turn this glove inside out. Any bodily fluid is now turned inside out. Never at any point in time was there any flinging of the gloves.

[00:37:16]>> The fascinating thing about Newlander is that every time you gave him new facts, he would come up with a new story.

[00:37:25]>> The jury deliberates for 4 days and finds Dr. Nulander guilty of the murder of his wife.

[00:37:34]At the sentencing hearing, Dr. Nulander maintains his innocence.

[00:37:38]>> I love my wife, Leslie, and I now and forever to continue to mourn her every day.

[00:37:47]>> I would not and did not take a life.

[00:37:51]>> It is the sentence and judgment of this court that he receive an indeterminate term of imprisonment, the minimum term of 20 years, and the maximum term of life.

[00:38:05]But three years later, the guilty verdict is overturned.

[00:38:10]>> Mr. Lulander, do you have anything?

[00:38:11]>> Nulander posted the $1 million bail set by an Anadaga County Court judge just 2 weeks after an appeals court overturned his murder conviction based on juror misconduct. They ruled text message exchanges by juror number 12 during the case deprived Robert Nulander of a fair trial. It was a great disappointment to know that so much work that had been done was now invalid.

[00:38:36]>> They said we had to try the case again.

[00:38:38]So that was very frustrating to me.

[00:38:40]>> It will be 4 years before Dr. Newlander is tried again. And this time a bombshell piece of new forensic evidence may put him away for good.

[00:38:56]When you see the physical evidence and you see the carnage and the last thing in mind that comes to you is slipping and falling ash.

[00:39:06]>> 10 years after Leslie Newlander's murder and 7 years after Dr. Newander's conviction, DA Fitzpatrick prepares for trial again.

[00:39:15]>> Trials are always difficult to predict and appeals are equally difficult.

[00:39:21]>> Man oh man, he had a he had a hell of a defense team. You know, every time I looked over there, I thought I was playing a baseball team and and you know, just me and my two assistants.

[00:39:31]>> Taking no chances in the second trial, investigators re-examined the crime scene photos and spots something that had gone unnoticed.

[00:39:40]>> The picture of the nightstand and on the nightstand is this pristine white coffee cup. Here we have this coffee cup in the [music] middle of this spout pattern that does not have any spatter on it.

[00:39:55]>> Why that was key is that he allegedly brought the coffee cup to her before he found her in the shower.

[00:40:02]>> Bring a cup of coffee to every morning.

[00:40:06]>> Okay. You you then leave the cup of coffee on the nightstand. Do you make any [clears throat] effort to go into the bathroom?

[00:40:12]>> No. The only explanation that the coffee [music] cup was injected to that scene after the assault.

[00:40:20]>> This crime scene is about the minute [music] details as well as he thought maybe he staged that scene. We're saying this doesn't make sense. The coffee cup being a significant part of that.

[00:40:34]>> Forensic investigators also combed through items taken from Leslie Newlander's [music] bedroom.

[00:40:39]>> We have taken very few number of items of evidence. We took the headboard.

[00:40:44]Here's the amazing thing. This is why I love forensic science. When we took that headboard, never knowing whether or not we'd ever need to examine it again, it was preserved and properly protected by the Dit Police Department. Been sitting there for 10 years.

[00:40:59]>> Forensic expert Ken Martin makes a surprising discovery.

[00:41:03]>> I'm looking at this photo here. Damn, that I mean, excuse me, that looks like tissue. Dried tissue, mummified tissue.

[00:41:12]Ultimately, a piece of dried tissue was found identified as Leslie's atapost tissue.

[00:41:19]>> Atapost tissue is a thin layer of fat and it surrounds our major organs as a protective shield.

[00:41:26]>> It can only come from an open wound.

[00:41:29]And in Leslie's case, the open wound was her head. given the location that it was found and and the fact that she was never placed on the bed at [music] any time, whether it be by first responders or by Mr. Nulander's admissions, uh shouldn't have been there.

[00:41:45]>> It's enormous find because it indicates that [music] this this wasn't just Leslie bleeding on the bed. This this was an absolutely brutal impact to her head to to cause that type of tissue to come out of her brain onto the headboard.

[00:42:06]This really, you know, put the final nail in this guy's coffin.

[00:42:12][music] After deliberating for only 6 hours, the jury again finds [music] Dr. a new lander guilty of murder. He is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

[00:42:24]>> Forensics [music] were crucial to justice being served in this case.

[00:42:29]>> Your jury in 2015 and now again in 2022 followed their instincts and I believe they followed the law.

[00:42:39]>> It was originally ruled an accident, a slip and fall. They reook at it. It's ruled murder.

[00:42:47]My job as a prosecutor is to speak for those who can't speak for themselves.

[00:42:51]She needed a champion in that courtroom and I think we gave her one. [music] >> If we as forensic pathologists don't hear what the dead are trying to tell us, that would definitely be an injustice to the system and to Leslie herself.

[00:43:08]Leslie was my friend and there's a sense that the chapter was closed, that justice was done for Leslie. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music]