True Crime Vault: New Year's Evil

Some never made it there to begin with.

“I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast The Deck,”

I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons, designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard, and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in?

Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The 2020 True Crime Ball. That awful day, December 31st. Shelly's last day, you see the last time she's captured on video, which is entering the building at about AAPM.

Rod says his daughter Haltem said something's wrong with mommy. He sees his wife face down in the bathtub. I got a call from Shelly's babysitter, she said to me, "There's been an accident.

Shelly slipped in the film."

And I said, "Pros, she'll be alive." And she said, "No." I heard that she had slipped in the bathtub and died. Obviously, that was beyond shocking, because she was young, and she had little children.

As a detective, you could understand why this did look like an accident. Absolutely. Your sister's 47 years old, pretty healthy. It didn't make sense. But there are some things that seem inconsistent

with a simple slip and fall. She says, "I may need to drop my kids off by you. I'm afraid for my life." They don't dust for fingerprints. They've taken a DNA evidence at this time.

The family objected to an autopsy.

I hate to say this, but without an autopsy, sometimes people could get away with murder. [music playing] Good morning, Eric. On this New Year's Eve, December 31st, 2009,

I'm going to provide the 30th grade today. It's December 31st, 2009, and New Year's Eve preparations are underway in Times Square. And just a few hours, Times Square is going to be transformed into the biggest New Year's Eve party in the world.

Meantime, a mile and a half North, a tragedy is unfolding inside a Manhattan luxury apartment building. The unexpected death of 47-year-old Mom of Two, Shelley Kavelin. There's a lot of shock at this Upper West Side address.

Shelley was a healthy, vibrant woman in the prime of her life. I was living in the building at the time when I heard the tragic news that a young mother had lost her life by slipping in a bathtub. Shelley was an acquaintance. I knew her from the lobby.

She seemed like a very lovely person and very attentive to her kids. People describe Shelley as very warm and a really kind person. She's very beautiful, blonde, very petite. She's five-four.

“How did you see Shelley growing up as the older sister?”

She was a great sister. She was very loving. She was fine, she was energetic. She was electric. She would walk into a room and she would light it up.

Shelley was the glue. I kept this all together. Shelley was an orthodox Jew. Her religion was very important to her and she lived a traditional Jewish life.

My father came from a very religious home himself. And we were observant, modern orthodox family. After studying marketing and college, Shelley later develops a passion for numbers. It begins to climb the corporate ladder

of New York's world of high finance. Shelley was very driven. She worked at Maryland with her father, her brother, as a wealth manager. And then they were recruited to UBS.

“What was it that made her so good at what she was doing?”

She was such an honorable person and a reliable person. In our business to be trusted, to be a valued advisor, it's so important. In addition to her career success, Shelley was longing to start a family. You had found love and got married to Mark.

Shelley, in her early thirties, still trying to find that right person. What was that like for her? I'm sure it was very frustrating for her. She was looking for Mr. Wright.

She wanted to be married. She wanted children. That's what she wanted. I met Shelley, February 15th, but they have to revone times day in 1998 at a Jewish single's party

at a post called La Varbet. We started chatting and I mean, we hit it off. What was it about her or that sparked interest for you?

We wanted the same things in life.

It was just an instant connection.

“They met and just fell head over heels for each other.”

Here's a much younger man, six to good looking, blue eyes, solid muscle, and a completely swept over feet. They had this whirlwind romance. Even though there was this significant age gap, he was 25 at the time, she was 36.

She called us probably around 11 o'clock. She was giggling and she said, "I met a guy and we're flying to Las Vegas to a local." And I said, "Oh my God, Shelley, please don't do this. Please don't do this."

He said, "He met this most wonderful woman in the world." He proposed Mary to that night. Rod is a graduate from Columbia University, but the degree in civil engineering. And he lavishes Shelley with attention.

Just six weeks after they meet, Rod and Shelley are engaged.

“So he was smitten, since she's terrific.”

And I guess she felt the same way because they got married within six months. Early on, things were fantastic. We did everything together, and we enjoyed each other's company very much. They moved into a very nice apartment in the Dorchester towers on the Upper West Side.

It's located in an affluent area, just blocks from Lincoln Center and Central Park. This is the same neighborhood serving as a backdrop for only murders in the building. The popular who-series, but a trio of true kin phonetics intent on solving a murder in their own building. I don't like my door.

Never half. That's insane. Neighborly. I mean, a murder probably lives in the building. I live in the Dorchester for 15 years, 24/7 door, man.

I felt very safe there. It's a very family-oriented part of Manhattan. Shelley's younger sister knows that she desperately wants to start a family. She didn't get pregnant right away, you know, she was in her 30s. And so she knew she just wanted to go straight to IVF and the first one worked.

They have a baby girl Anna. How happy was the family? Definitely was thrilled. She was elated, she loved being a mother. When we finally had Anna, it was fantastic.

I always made her birthday kicks for her parties.

We did science projects together. I mean, it was great. I thought her had to make balloon animals. We'd go to the playground and she would make balloon animals for the other kids. Rotten Shelley wants to expand their family.

And soon, she's pregnant again with twins, but there are complications. The babies are born prematurely at just six months. When she delivered them, one died of birth and the other one died several hours later. How did that impact her? She was devastated, she really was.

That hard break had to be tough on the marriage. It was. How did that affect your son and his wife? They were all very, very upset for quite a while. Year and a half later, Shelley gives birth to a son who they named Miles.

This is the four of them. That's very sweet. Very, very sweet family. She had her girl and she had her boy. And the family was happy for her.

Absolutely. Very, yes. Did the happiness return to the marriage? You know, initially, sure.

“But I think that unfortunately didn't change things for very long.”

I think at that point, the marriage was deteriorating. Rod had barely worked at well.

He always had a bit of difficulty with study employment.

He was a stock broker at one point. That's in quite work out. She really would have loved to stay home and be with the kids. But she saw that was not in the cards. I mean, he couldn't hold a job.

And just to Shelley and Rod's relationship seems to be crumbling, her family says he makes her a shocking proposition. Back then, it is not simply a matter of shaking the dice. It's how you use a particular role that you get and it appeals to people who are very mathematically minded.

What was it about the game that attracted you? There is plenty of math and there's a lot of deep thought required. Again, is very surprising given the fact that they're dice involved in the game.

I don't think so.

I think I'd say a passion.

“Rod spent a lot of his time and whatever money he was making on his”

dream of becoming a professional backgammon player. That Gamin's Rod's main focus. So Shelley's the major breadwinner in the family and according to her family, it takes a terrible toll on their marriage. Whenever we would have family gatherings,

he would sit on the side and either play backgammon on the computer or have a game going. He is online at all hours, pulling all nighters, and just constantly reaching out to women. Were other women starting to catch your eye? Sure. Sure. I definitely dated.

Even though you were married. Correct.

So you began to see other women? I did. I did. Rod often like to take his dates to a place called Laura Fischpar. It's an upscale restaurant and lower Manhattan, known for its yacht-like interior decor.

He went on dates with numerous women.

“He favored this location because I believe he said quote, "They have yummy drinks."”

I Shelley and Rod approach their tenure wedding anniversary. They're marriage on Raffles. She discovered that Rod was having an affair. It wasn't just one affair, it was several. He had left up an email from one of the women.

And so that's how she found out. At a certain point, there probably wasn't very much love between Shelley and me. We were, I guess, out of love and, you know, we had two kids. Yet Shelley doesn't say anything to Rod at the time. And the couple celebrate their tenure wedding anniversary.

Shelley tells her sister that's when Rod makes a stunning proposition. He said to her, "He wanted to have an open marriage. He still loved her." But, what? They didn't open marriage. Ten years after they've been married.

Yeah. How did she respond to that? Oh, she was disgusted.

“She said, "This is not okay for me and it's not okay for my children to see it.”

That anybody should be treated like this." Here's a traditional Jewish woman and her husband wants an open marriage. And she swiftly rejected the idea, but that really caused a lot of problems. Not long after that, he returned home at 6 a.m. Smelling of perfume. A few days later, Shelley tells her sister Eve that she had gotten

fed up with Rod, writing in an email. I confronted him about my suspicions of him being with other people. And he confirmed that admitted to cheating. In March of 2009, Shelley contacted me. He just wanted to get an idea of what her options were.

How she could protect her kids, how she could protect her future. And really prepare herself for the next step, which would be actually filing for divorce. Shelley doesn't move forward with the divorce at that time, but her family says that her husband's cheating and his constant absences were becoming unbearable for her. He was having these affairs.

She just didn't want to be anywhere close to him. He came up with the idea that he would leave the apartment if she would sign the least next door. The apartment across the hall became available and the kids wouldn't have me out of their life. And he more than was absolutely necessary.

So there was always this thought of doing what was best for the kids from both of us.

I did not feel it was the best idea of having them in such a close vicinity to each other, but Shelley thought it might provide a little bit of consistency for the children. She loved her children and that was what she lived for. And in miles, in every fiber of her body, she loved them. In April of 2009, even though they were separated,

Rod and Shelley take their kids to New Jersey for the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover. They stay in the same hotel, but in different rooms. The four of them had gone away for Passover week together and Rod left midway through the holiday. He leaves his family to head the Las Vegas with another woman. To attend the back camp in tournament, though there are no longer together as a couple,

Shelley's family says Rod is still incredibly demanding for her. When he came back, and Shelley had come back from Passover, his suitcase was not unpacked and his laundry was not done. He flew off the handle. And mind you, he was already living in the apartment across the hall at that point.

She called me absolutely, he expected her to unpack his suitcase.

Good morning, America, and happy Mother's Day to all the special women in our lives.

“Thank you, happy Mother's Day, everybody out there.”

On Mother's Day, Shelley organizes an outing with Rod's family, hoping to maintain a relationship for the sake of the children. They had gone to the Botanical Gardens as a family together with his parents. In public, Rod went into this major explosive tempo rage. I was screaming at Shelley, and he was calling her every ugly name in the book.

In front of the children, in front of the children, and that's when she communicates with me, and says, "I may need to drop my kids off by you. I'm afraid from my life." She was texting me and calling me frantically. It's hitting the fan, said he's going to move back into my apartment and kicked me out

“at Botanical Gardens, ready to proceed, and she followed up with a "what should I do?"”

That's the last straw for Shelley. She decides the file for divorce. She changed the box immediately, once she knew that the papers were being served

on him as the first papers. Rod had pretty standard visitation with the children.

He was seeing them on a regular basis. But soon, there's a fight over custody of the children. This is where it really gets extremely ugly. One night, when Rod is supposed to return the children, he doesn't show up. Shelley is an apanic. Every possible, horrible thought was going through a mind. He was charming, very charming, intelligent, funny, and a quirky sort of way. And he was a good vacuum cleaner.

It's the fourth and July weekend in 2009. Shelley has already filed for divorce, and Rod is now in Michigan at a back-gammon tournament. Here he runs into another back-gammon player named Deborah, who he had become Facebook friends with. Deborah asked 2020 not to show her face during our interview.

It never occurred to me that he would be attracted to me. I'm a lot older than he is,

but when Rod wants something, you know, he can be very aggressive. The first time when that asked me out for a drink asked me if I wanted to play a couple of games after we walked back to the hotel, and you know, went to his room, and I went into the restroom. And when I came out he was like nude from the waist on down, and he came at me, and I mean, I didn't say no. He begins the relationship with Deborah Ols. She's a woman from North Carolina,

and about 14 and a half years his senior. He said that he had been separated for,

“I think, he said seven months at that point, and she had filed for divorce.”

To me, it was just like, you'd hear of a typical divorce custody battle. But after Rod comes back to New York, things take a dark turn during a schedule visit with the kids. One night when Rod is supposed to return the children, he doesn't show up. She called me, and she was frantic, and she said, "I don't know what I said. Is everything okay?" She said, "No, I don't know where my children are." And Rod was supposed to return them.

He's not answering any text messages. He's not answering phone calls, and I don't know where they are. Shelly is in a panic. She is beside herself. She calls the police. She calls hospitals. She doesn't know what to do. Shelly has no idea where Rod is. All attempts to reach him go and answer it, and she's desperate. I received frantic phone calls and emails from Shelly. She was crying. She was extremely concerned. That's something really better to have. Dr. Biddo is an accident. She thought maybe he fled

with the children. Every possible horrible thought was going through a mind. But in reality, what had happened was something Shelly couldn't have even fathomed. It turns out Rod had taken the children to a nearby hospital, claiming that his wife had sexually abused their two-year-old son Miles. It got one-two o'clock in the morning. The child protective services got involved.

They were up at the Columbia Presbyterian. ACS was interviewing them to make sure that there were no concerns about their safety, and until all these interviews and medical examinations were done, the children were not returned home to her. There was an investigation, and it was determined that there was just no basis for the sit-all. This was getting ugly. She said, his hatred for me

all of Rod's visitation based upon his behavior. It's really backfires on him. The judge is so

outraged that she now says, "You can only visit with the children now with the supervision

“of someone else. Do you have to be present for him?" They said, "Do you supervise after he took”

him to the hospital?" Despite the custody issues as the months go by, Shelley seems to be finding herself again. Though the divorce wasn't legally finalized yet, Rod offers Shelley a religious document called "Aghet," which terminates the marriage under Jewish law. The get allowed her to start dating, and she started to kind of get out there, and she was on

J.D., and just meeting other men. Shelley also begins meeting friends at the Friars Club.

It's a private gathering spot in Manhattan that's known for those televised celebrity roasts. The Friars Club has a long and distinguished tradition of paying tribute to the very finest entertainers in our nation's history. Tonight they've broken with that tradition and are honoring Jerry's step. This only chapter of her life was opening, and she just looked really, really great, and I've seen business was very excited about her future. Were you starting to see a different

Shelley? Yeah. A lot more of the old Shelley, and it was like this really bright light, and it was showing again, after being dimmed for so long. Yeah, it was sparkly again.

“Was she happier from what you could see? I think she was hopeful. Yeah.”

Oh, I'm hopeful. And she was hopeful. By the end of the year, how was she? She seemed fine, and you know, getting on with things. She was just on the phone with work. Another call coming in was a fellow. She was dating, and you know, things were good for her. Things seemed pretty good. So it looked like she was about to get this divorce in the bond with her life. Exactly. But on the morning of New Year's Eve, Shelley's nine-year-old daughter makes a gruesome discovery.

Rod says his daughter Haltem, very distraught, said something's wrong with Mommy. It's the morning of New Year's Eve, 2009. Rod Covenant was living across the hall from his estranged wife, so she gets a frantic call from their nine-year-old daughter Anna. I got a call from Anna in the morning, and she started out something about Mommy, and the bathtub, and she was distraught. I mean, clearly distraught.

And he rushed across to the apartment. And he told her to let him in. He said he came into the apartment. Inside Rod says he heads into the bathroom and finds a horrific scene. Shelley was floating in a pool of dark water. I mean, bloody water. Yeah, a grab trick, pulled her out. He says to be pulls her out, and then he eventually calls nine-month-long one,

and they tell him to perform CPR on his wife. On surveillance footage, you can see members of the New York Fire Department arrive followed by paramedics. He continues to do CPR until he amassurized, and they come in and pretty quickly, say that she's gone. She's been dead a significant period of time. I get to the scene. I walked back to the bathroom. I observed the victim Shelley column laying on a floor.

It was a blanket over. There was a bloody water in the tub. Above the bathtub, there is a cabinet door, and when police come in, that the cabinet door is halfway off its hinges. Rod tells the police that he thinks his wife had a terrible accident. That awful day, December 31st, 2009.

“How did you get word that your grandchildren's mother was dead?”

Rod told us, "I have never ever before or since seen my son in that state of mind."

He said, "They told me I had to keep between CPR until they got there, and I did it."

out of it before. That morning, Shelley's nanny arrives and is stunned to learn of her death,

and she immediately reaches out to Shelley's sister Eve. I got a call from Shelley's babysitter, and she said to me, "There's been an accident. Shelley slipped and fell in the bathtub." And I said, "Rose, is Shelley alive?" And she said, "No." I just had this involuntary screen that came out. They're just extraordinary and grief.

“If it said that there was an accident, I think I didn't believe it when I heard it again,”

and I just, I just wait until it's cried. Your sister's 47 years old, pretty healthy, got it. It didn't make sense. And it could have been a slip, it could have been a fall. She had bruising to her face, like a scratch mock, some bruising to her hands. It didn't really look consistent with a fall, but a lot of people fall in the tub and die and you look. I wanted a second opinion.

So I called over to the homicides squad, asked the tech community to respond over.

My boss called and said, "Can you meet me at this address?" The two always got a suspicious death.

I walked down the hallway to where her body is, but I'm paying attention to what the rest of the apartment looks like. It's clearly a lived in apartment where there's two little kids that are there. And I get to her bedroom. And I can see that there's some disarray in there. The bed is not certainly not made, but doesn't even look like anybody was really sleeping in it. This is because Rod took the top sheet and the comforter off the bed to drape over her body,

because he didn't want the kids to see her. His body had many set-ups.

Anna was trying to shield miles. I was trying to shield Anna. It was a nightmare of a scenario.

Did you get to talk to Anna? I got to sit in on her interview with one of the detectives. They started questioning her and she told them that mommy had talked the truth into bed in her bed.

“She said that she woke up at either one or three o'clock in the morning. She doesn't really remember.”

Her bath running went in and looked and saw her mother in the tub. And she thinks her mother is washing her hair. So she goes back to sleep. And she wakes up to seven o'clock. She goes back and she sees her mother is still in the bathtub. Though this time her head was submerged. And so that's when she said she realized something was wrong. Rod opined that she must have been standing in the tub and slipped and grabbed this cabinet door.

And he anchored out and fell down and hit her head and then drowned in the bathtub. The detectives had no reason to believe that it was a crime scene. There's nothing there that would say, "Hey, this wasn't an accident." Father Dora's story matched up and looking at the scene and listening to what the husband had to say, it made sense that she accidentally fell.

They have a crime scene guy come and take pictures, but they don't take any forensic evidence. They don't dust for fingerprints, take any DNA evidence at this time. This was pretty much of an airtight surveillance system that was set up on that building. So this eliminates any possibility in my opinion of a stranger having come in and done this. You're a private investigator, but you were a detective with a New York City police for 16 years.

The thinking was that she may be grabbed for the cabinet. So as a detective, you could understand why this did look like an accident. Absolutely. It would have been obvious if there were gunshot wounds, stab wounds, some type of ligature mark around the neck, something that would indicate that this was anything other than an accident, none of that was present.

“The water in the tub though is bloody. Why would it be if there was no sign of any foul play?”

If she accidentally slips fell and it faced down in the water, over the course of time after you pass away blood pools, gravity pulls it down. The blood would start to seep out from the nostrils and just call it a water. No forced entry. I look at the lock, photos,

No sign of a struggle. I mean just a normal apartment. She's got two children in the household.

“Presumably they would have heard if there had been something that happened.”

That's correctly nine-year-old daughter had a very consistent story with Rod Covelin story. I need to do an investigation to try to figure out exactly what happened, but until I had anything concrete, I had to go with an accident or full. But there's a big problem. Before detectives can determine what exactly happened to Shelley, the scene would be scrubbed clean.

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which is a hair straightening treatment. There's surveillance video in the building, and you actually see her leaving for work at 11 a.m. after keratin treatment. At around 6 p.m. Shelley leaves work and heads to the fryer's club. Then she goes home to see her children. You see the last time she's captured on video, which is entering the building at about 8 p.m. talking on her soft phone. Shelley says good night

to her nanny, and apparently begins helping her daughter Anna with her homework. When the last Google searches on her computer was for a long division, she goes online on two J-Day to one point to see if she has any messages, and that's the end of her online activity. The morning after, Anna finds her mom's body in the bath. Shelley Danashewski, covalent 47 years old, a mother of two, found dead.

I've pretty quickly heard that she had slipped in the bathtub and died. Obviously that was beyond shocking, because she was young and she had little children. I had two little kids as well, and I quickly ran out and bought non-stick bath mats for the tub, the thought of something like

I don't think they had a rubber mat in the bottom of the tub. It could have been just a tragic accident, yeah.

“But to police, there are some things that seem inconsistent with a simple slip of fall.”

I look at her body, and I see things that are suspicious to me. She has some scrapes. But I didn't see her the day before, whatever they are, there are questions that need to be answered. And those questions can be answered by pathologists. Shelley's bodies taken from the apartment to the medical examiner's office for further examination. So once the detective left the scene that day, the door is being guarded by a police officer.

I mean, it's still technically, you know, a potential crime scene. It's being safeguarded.

During the time that the office was there, a member of religious organization showed up.

We have an organization that helps families in time of need. In the Jewish custom, it is customary to collect all bodily fluids and to be buried with the deceased.

“The same way that God put you on this earth is the same way you should go back to God.”

Remember, Shelley's family belongs to a form of Judaism called modern orthodox, and this is one of the practices they observe. Shelley's rabbi reached out and called us that there is a cleanup that has to be done. I went down to the apartment. There were police officers there. They allowed me in. He was led in at some point, which I had no idea about. More than likely, how did I still

been out the scene? I doubt very seriously that I would have allowed him to go in there. The bathtub was the bulk of where I had to clean up. I was in the apartment that evening for approximately an hour and a half to hours. The notion that a scene is cleaned up so quickly due to religious reasons. Have you seen that before? Yeah, absolutely. I investigated, you know, many Jewish natural causes,

deaths, accident, and this is common. This is part of their religious belief. All parts of the body have to be buried with the body. Whether it's blood to shoe hair, whatever it might be there, it gets cleaned up and it all gets buried with the body. The body gets buried whole. I mean, while down the corner's office, the medical examiner Dr. Jonathan Hayes had just finished conducting an external examination

of Shelley's body when he received the call from Shelley's family. We called the medical examiner who at that point wasn't sure. You don't have a cursory look at Shelley. So we asked him, "How does a healthy 47-year-old woman suddenly die like this? Tell us, what could have been caused a death?" So he said, "Why? You know, I don't know. Could have been a fall. It could have been a heart attack. It could have been a drug interaction. It could have been anyone other things.

“The only way we would know is by doing an autopsy. The medical examiner Dr. Jonathan Hayes”

would later say that as he's about to make his first incision, he's told to stop.

The family initially wants an autopsy. But then the Jewish official who'd cleaned up the scene, calls them. And this individual I called me, said, "Listen, I heard that the family are looking to do an autopsy. It's a terrible mistake. It's a terrible mistake because I've just come from the police and I spoke to the medical examiner and both of them say it's an accident. And the Jewish law, if it's an accident, you can't do the autopsy."

By that point, Dr. Hayes' boss, the chief medical examiner, had determined that there wasn't enough that was suspicious to warrant overruling a religious objection. If there's no autopsy, then there's nothing really for the ME to do, then to be able to say there was a cause of death. No, the medical examiner without conducting an autopsy can't assume anything other than whatever the police say. The family objected to an autopsy. Shelley was buried

after the body's buried, we kind of slowed down because we really didn't have a cause of death. An accidental death has no meaning to the homicide squad. We got plenty of other work to do. You know, there was no reason for me to continue with this. So I just want about my business. The children had been living with Shelley during the couple's contentious custody battle. The question now was, "What would they go?"

Initially, we had thought we were going to be taking temporary custody of the children, police officer in charge, said that the children would have to go home with their maternal and uncle, upon hearing that news, Anna threw the mother of all things.

the covalence that's rod, and his parents had cool child protective services,

“that women from child protective services said, "Sweetheart, who do you want to go home with?"”

Anna raised one hand and pointed at me, raised her other hand and pointed at my wife, and she said, "Those grandparents."

The bottom line was, the children were signed or given to the senior covalence.

That's where they were going to live. A week after her dad's Shelley's family goes to the funeral home to pick up the death certificate. And when they read it, that's when everything changes. I opened the envelope to look at a death certificate and I see the cause of death is listed there as undetermined, and my heart lost a beat.

We were absolutely stunned. I mean, we buried her. Based on, you know, the initial thought that it was an accident. I hate to say this, but without an autopsy, sometimes people can get away with murder. The family sees only one way forward. They need to exume Shelley's body. What they find, and what we learn inside a replica of a 2020 build

“of Shelley's bathroom, does this bring back your memories of the scene?”

Oh, absolutely. Would help answer the big question. Was her death truly an accident? Was it possible, short? It was possible. Until I actually got into the bathroom myself.

When you're finding your wife dead in the tub, the children are there. But what do you think has happened? Why is she dead? This is such a sensational story that at this Tony Upper West Side address, you now have a murder. But this is your wife. This is the woman that you fell in love with.

I was administering CPR to somebody who was a corpse. I mean, it wasn't my wife anymore. She said to me numerous times, if something happens to me,

“he is your number one suspect. You look into Ride Covenant.”

We want her out of the ground. We want her body telling its story. And the enemy looks up at us and he goes, "This is going to be a homicide." So this is kind of a replica that 2020 build of Shelley's bathroom. So you had suspicions right away? Oh yeah, the whole cabinet looks staged.

Drift flags were going up all over the place. You began to think that she had been murdered. We're talking about absurd, reticulous murder plots. With zero evidence. It's several days after 47-year-old mother-of-two Shelley Covenant is found dead in her bathtub.

And rumors are swirling around door-chester towers. Her luxury high-rise in New York's Upper West Side. But started as a slip-and-fall, turned into rumors of possibly a murder involving her ex-husband who lived right across the hall. Shelley's family is devastated and struggling to come to terms with her death.

We're in this fog of pure shock and just extreme grief. And it's not until after they receive Shelley's death certificate from the funeral home, that they learned she had suspicious scratches on her face, and that her cause of death was ruled under turment. I called up a private investigator and I asked him,

"What does under turment mean?" And he said, "Case under turment, painting police investigation." In other words, it's a suspicious death, and my heart sunk. Mark actually took charge. Mark took it upon himself to play detective.

And he did a very good job at it. He went out. He spoke to people. He never stopped.

A lot of information was starting to come in, and it was very suspicious. Rint flags were going up all over the place, and a lot of it was pointed to Rod. Rod and Shelley were going through this incredibly contentious divorce in a brutal custody battle for their two kids.

But now there are new revelations about how bad it had all become. For instance, they learned the night of her death. Shelley was telling friends at the Friars Club, she was planning to remove Rod from her will. She had told several people that she planned to change her will.

She'd reached out to in a state lawyer. She'd even told her door man that she planned to change her will. Do you think Rod knew this? We really believed he knew this.

You took him by $5 and a quarter million dollars.

Another suspicious element here is that her iPhones

She was observed on surveillance video, walking into the building,

“talking on that cell phone. How did the phone disappear from the apartment?”

If, in fact, this was just an accidental death. This information adds to what they already knew about Rod, that Shelley feared him. She would regularly say she was afraid of Rod. That was consistent from the very beginning.

Shelley's family says that Rod actually assaulted her during that argument over his laundering. She called me absolutely, he was hanging up because he pushed her to the ground in an argument in front of the children. I was getting very loud and angry and she started pushing at me. And I took her, and I put her on the floor.

Shabja? No, I specifically, I did not shove her. I grabbed her, held her, and in a controlled, but, you know, quick fashion put her on the floor. So, yes, there was one incident that got physical between us. Yet Shelley seems to have become so frightened of her husband.

She's granted an order of protection during divorce proceedings.

“She said to me numerous times, if something happens to me,”

he is your number one suspect. You look into Rod Covern. There was no acceptance in your mind that this was an accident. You began to think that she'd been murdered. We absolutely believed she'd be murdered.

And then a heart of hearts we believed he murdered her. I hired private investigators to help with investigation into the death. Former NYPD detective Mike Swain was one of those private eyes that Mark hired to begin investigating Shelley's death.

The NYPD was basically closing the case.

Without an autopsy, there is no cause of death and this was going to be a very, very uphill battle. We would need to assume the body. Shelley's family took this video after they were allowed into the apartment with Swain. It would later be used in court. I needed to get into the apartment.

I needed to see the scene. Maybe something was missed. 2020 built this model recreation of the bathroom where Shelley was found. So this is kind of a replica that 2020 built of Shelley's bathroom. Close? Very close.

“Does this bring back sort of your memories of the scene?”

Oh, absolutely. What did you notice right away when you got here?

The first thing was the cabinet.

The story was that she slipped fell and possibly grabbed onto the cabinet, yanking it off his hinges and winding up deceased. Did that make sense to you initially? Was it possible sure? It was possible. Until I actually got into the bathroom myself.

I realized how high this cabinet is. I realized how far away from the tub it is. They're little knobs here too. Does that make sense to somebody who's relatively short? Five-four could actually catch that knob for support?

It's like a door knob where you're actually going to grab onto it with a hand. It's a little tiny knob. She wasn't a very big woman. I don't know if I could take this knob put my hand on it and put all my dead weight and yank that out of a wall.

I certainly don't think she could have done that. So the idea is that if she's in the tub and she's fallen and she's grabbing for this. Imagine trying to grab that knob. Look where you are. The distance to the cabinets.

Why wouldn't you try to brace yourself on this? Yes, exactly. Why wouldn't you do that by? The family came out of that apartment, feeling that we just have to continue to move forward. We want her out of the ground.

We want her body telling its story and we want justice. The police get permission to dig up her grave. So they can now do the autopsy that should have been done from the beginning. We actually watched them dig the body up. They harness the rope around it, they pull it up.

It must have been the pain all over again. It was. I remember sobbing all night. I'm so crying. You'd put her arrest in and she had to be disturbed.

Exactly. Exactly. It was for good cause though. We're actually in the room with the medical examiner when he's doing the autopsy. When he looked up at us, sort of shocking.

Holy Michael, are we shocked?

They also have a bad sleep.

“They just have some sleep and then they get off.”

No, no, no. This bed is my safe space. Hmm, do you think it's all right? Yeah, exactly. This bed is the bed that is just empty.

The bed is the studio, the job or the house. The bed is empty. It doesn't feel like a bed. The bed is empty. The bed is empty.

With this bed. So-called fresh music. And so-called fresh by Aldi. It's always good. It's always nice.

It's always very nice.

I've always said it's fresh for Aldi.

To Aldi price.

“This week, mini-cherry Christmas $300 for only $2,970.”

Or Tafelburne, the kilo for only $1,940. And there are a lot of other books on Aldi price. Now, in your Aldi Nord, for years. And furthermore, with fresh music for every month, Aldi. Good for Aldi.

It's now two months after Shelley Cobbland's been laid to rest. And investigators have assumed her body to complete an autopsy. We watched the body be rolled into the medical examiners office to do the autopsy. Dr. Jonathan Hayes, the medical examiner on the case, begins the autopsy by noting those same scratches on Shelley's face

that had raised suspicions during the first examination

before the autopsy stopped. The fact that there are scratches and lesserations to the face is an indication that there may be more of foot. Then the medical examiner notices a new injury. Two pin points in Shelley's right eye.

Known as Petiquia, a Petiquia is like a red spot or dot in the eye. And that was a telltale sign to him. Petiquia are not typically seen in a normal person. Petiquia, though tiny, have major medical implications. They're very often caused by pressure applied to the neck or strangulation.

It raises red flags, but obviously it's got to be looked into further. You can't draw conclusions just from the Petiquia. Then as the autopsy continues, the medical examiner makes a shocking discovery. There's a bone in Shelley's neck that is completely fractured, the high-oing bone. To the high-oing bone, allows you to chew and swallow.

It's very easy to break and if it does, there may be a choke hold here. When you put together all the evidence, the scratch marks to the face, the Petiquia in the eye, and the broken high-oied bone. There's no way this is not a choke hold. We're actually in the room with the medical examiner when he's doing the autopsy.

And he looks up at us and he goes, "This is going to be a homicide." I was a holy mackerel. I was shocked. Six weeks later, the official autopsy report is issued. The cause of death is listed as neck compression. The manner of death, homicide, Shelley Coven's death, is now officially a murder.

“I remember exactly where I was and Mark called me, and he said the results are back.”

It was murder. And I remember, I just kept saying, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God." There's a lot of shock. This is such a sensational story that at this toning upper-westside address, you now have a murder. I was horrified. I mean, just the thought of somebody murdered in the building

was really awful. So this is now a homicide, but the D8 doesn't feel like it has enough yet to bring an indictment. Rods the suspect that they have a very circumstantial case.

June 2nd was the day we finally got an orange to process the apartment.

Investigators for the first time treat it as an actual crime scene. I obviously knew we were six months behind the eight-world for the investigation, but ours pretty excited. By then, the apartment has been badly contaminated for ever-tainted. Remember, the bathroom has been cleaned by a religious official.

They allowed him to go into that apartment and with peroxide, washed down the bathroom. You got to be kidding me. I had no idea of a troll that's somebody into that crime scene. If it was my decision, nobody would have been in that apartment. The crime scene had been compromised, but police did have those original pictures

that were taken on the morning of Shelley's death, and those photos now raise several red flags. Some of the things that might not have looked very suspicious when you thought that it was an

Which would mean that the tub itself is part of the stage crime scene.

There are clothes on the floor. There's some water on the floor.

“What's leading the DA to think that this is suspicious?”

Picture a lot of water coming out with that body. But there is some water on the floor. Yeah, there's obviously dry blood, so there obviously was some type of bloody water that came out of the tub. There was talk about Rod's clothes being dry.

For somebody that had lifted a body out of the water, moments earlier, why wasn't he wet? I had pulled Shelley out, I was soaking wet, so I raced across the hall, I stripped my clothes off, and I changed my clothes. Even in this moment of distress, you're thinking about changing your clothes. I'm thinking about comforting my kids.

I couldn't fathom the idea of hugging Anna and Miles and, you know, soaking them with Shelley's blood. We went back to that bathroom replica to get an idea of other red flags that stood out. The only towel was a towel on the rail, which a hand towel. It wasn't a bath towel. If somebody's coming in to take a bath, I sort of would want to see a bath towel in some place.

“But many people go to the bathroom, forget their towel?”

Absolutely. This is all just basic speculation. It's all circumstantial. The other thing was, there was shampoo, conditioner out. The way the story was presented was that she was going to be washing her hair. Not many people wash their hair while taking a bath. And that came out from the nanny that the positioning of the shampoo and the conditioner,

it's always in the shower because that's where she washed her hair in the shower,

not in the bathtub. So all of these little things, when you put them all together and add them up, it creates a picture. The district attorney was going to have to build a circumstances. So two weeks later, investigators decide to pay a visit to one of Rod's confidence. He's girlfriend, Deborah Ols. I want to give him home. Detectives from New York were behind me and my driveway. And I talked to them. I just gave them whatever information I could.

Ols gives an access to her online backgammon records. And that's a gold mine for investigators because she'd been playing backgammon and chatting with Rod online the night of Sheldon's death. He was actually very quiet that night. He didn't have a lot to say. Once Rod and Deborah Ols finished gaming online about one AM, he tells her he's going to go do some work for a backgammon organization. He was involved in it.

But security cameras would show that Rod was up an active in the middle of the night.

“What would surveillance footage show about Rod's movements, the night of Sheldon's murder?”

As the investigation into the death of Sheldon, continues, detectives begin to retrace her husband's actions the night of her murder. They learned that Rod and Deborah Ols have been playing backgammon online that night. We finished our matches, 103 AM. I wanted to play a little bit longer, but he said, he had to go, then he goes completely dark online. There's no activity of nothing on his computer, nothing on his phone. This is a guy who usually was up all night, online the whole time.

Why did you go dark after one AM? I'm looking at, I know it certainly sounds strange, but it wasn't unusual for me to catch a three-an-app in the middle of the night and get up and start being active. Sometime around four o'clock in the morning, Rod comes downstairs, he engages an conversation with the concierge. He says, hey, would you want, you know, to get you something, and this kind of struck the door new? He doesn't speak to the employees in the building

and a friendly manner ever. So the door man finally said, okay, get me a Snickers.

So he came back with a candy bar and gave it to the guy on the desk. It's a feeble attempt to sort of visually out of by himself. Rod leaves the building one more time at 502 AM to go by shelter and then isn't seen again until first responders arrive at Shelley's apartment. Deborah Ols remembers the phone call from Rod that next day. It just seems so surreal, like what? What do you mean she's dead? He said, I was an accident.

In the months after Shelley's death, the relationship between Rod and Deborah intensifies. She frequently drives to New York to stay with Rod, who had now moved in with his parents,

So that was a source of some concern. Oh, that was a source of huge conflict. We just didn't think it was a healthy situation for the children. Anything could set him off. He could be charming one minute and seconds later. He could fly into a rage. Rod got so mad. He shoved his dad as hard as he could. His dad went flying into the next room and hit his head on the floor. So there was sort of a volatile situation happen.

“Yes, there was. Were you worried? Were you scared of your son?”

Not really. Not really. Not really. No. Yet Rod's parents filed a new custody petition arguing that he was an unfit parent. Then you're October 2012 custody petition. You even painted a picture of kind of a violent man saying that he had assaulted you both. If you take two alpha males and you put them in the same house to you.

You're going to have conflict. It was not a happy situation. Carol and Dave are granted custody after evicting Rod from their house, accusing him of spending his kid's college savings. As heard in this dramatic audio recording that would later be played in court.

“I know how to find you. Take this from your children. He still has been your children. You're all before.”

You're stealing their college money. No, I'm not ready.

I'm ready. I want you to find up to the first. He's out.

You were frustrated. Excuse me, Emily. Yes, it's extremely. Rod told us that he left the house willingly, but Deborah Ol says that he was extremely upset that his parents were granted custody of his children. He was enraged. His parents took custody of his children away from him to control the money and he was enraged. According to Deborah Ols, Rob proposed a horrifying plan. Right as superstar of Sandy is hitting New York. It is happening right now. Hurricane Sandy

crashing on shore. When's now at 90 miles per hour? He wanted to go over and kill his parents. He said that because electricity was off, their alarm system would be off and he wanted to kill

“them. Set the house on fire. I'm trying to think of something to say to stop this lunacy”

and then I said, "How are you going to explain your presence, sir? You're miraculously just having to be there to save Anna and Miles?" In the midst of this investigation, some shocking revelations, authorities say that your son had actually plotted to kill you both. Did you believe it? No. No. No. No, we were laughing because they were so absurd. Rod also denies ever trying to kill his parents and no charges are

ever filed, but the Deborah Ols, he was no laughing matter. It doesn't matter how much I care for a person. I'm not going to sanction cold blood and murder. Deborah ultimately flips on Rod. She comes forward to police with several hard drives from Rod's computer that he had given her for safekeeping. She explains to us that he would give her these hard drives and say taking someone with the employment closet. Investigators come through

nearly two million documents on these hard drives, building a case against Rod Covlin.

At the end of the day, there was no smoking gun there. You just keep piling up rocks until you have a pile big enough that you think that you can win a case with it. Prosecutors have spent years building that case, but it's largely circumstantial. Still, they finally feel they have enough evidence against Rod to bring an indictment almost six years after the death of his wife. We had to scars the old train station, he had pulled up in a car, said you're on the arrest

and coughed them, put them in the back of the car, he looked shocked. The 42-year-old's House of Cards came crashing down here at the Metro North Station in Scarcelle yesterday morning.

After six long years, his world was just turned upside down and he never saw it coming.

Mr. Covlin is stunned. He's stunned by what has happened. What was that moment back for you to hear that he was arrested for your sister's murder? I started to tear up. I said, I've just been waiting so long to hear those words. It's the backgammon champions match of his life. The people versus Rodgerick Covlin, but it's no slam dunk. Remember, there's still no physical

flanks under oath and oversharing. His face, his eyes, they were getting glossy, like almost like

psychotic. Friends like this, the murder of Skyler Nase, is now streaming on Kulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. "I am a 15-year-old daughter and give a hold of her. I am scared to death."

“We wanted to talk to Skyler's friends. They're not telling the full story. The truth is”

gruesome way horrific. "How could you do this to your best friend?" "There's a darker secret that's not been said." "Watch the new fool original series friends like these, the murder of Skyler Nase,

on Kulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, for bundle subscribers, terms apply."

"It's the paradise podcast." "I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bethe, with my husband, Shirley." "So?" "I'm joined us here on Kulu and Kulu on Disney Plus, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise." "I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogaman, James Marsden, Shayling Woodley, Julian Nicholson, and Sterling Helpy Brown."

“Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming and stream paradise”

on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers, terms apply. "A little over nine years after Shelley Coffland was found dead in that bathtub, Rod Coffland is about to face a jury." " Opening statements underway today in the trial of Rodrick Coffland, prosecutors say he staged the scene of his wife Shelley's strangulation back in 2009 to make it look like a drowning." "People love the state of your business,

right away, Coffland?" "You attended the trial every day, every day, wielded, and then you have Rod's mother who sits on the opposite side of the gallery." "What was the hardest part for you?" "The first time I saw him walk in with handcuffs that had to be difficult." "Yes." "This was not an accident, the defendant did it."

“"Leading the prosecution, Matthew Bogdanos, a former boxer and a war veteran, his nickname,”

the Pit Bull." "The question was never, is he going to kill Shelley the question was always

when." "Defending Coffland is Robert Gottlieg, no one will ever know the truth." "A former prosecutor who now represents many high-profile defendants." "One fact is undeniable, there is no evidence whatsoever proving that Mr. Coffland had anything to do with his wife's death." "This is very much a circumstantial case." "Seven weeks of testimony, much of which had little to do with what actually happened at night."

"This is one of the main reasons he murdered his wife, the money. She was going to change from well." "In lieu of any hard physical evidence, Bogdanos tries to paint a character profile of Rod Coffland, one of an obsessive dangerous men. To do that, he calls to the stand women who coven courted online. One is Patricia Swenson." "If I'm going to keep asking me out on dates and asking me to travel around the country with him." "The jury hears about one of those dates."

"Go ahead of me, it's late." "A weekend in Gettysburg, and they see a video Coffland shot on that trip." "Oh, I'm getting you." "Yeah, it's so have you. It's video. It's video, I got some video gone. I have the good scenery. Don't worry." Coffland may sound lighthearted in the video, but Swenson testifies that totally changes later in brunch when he begins talking about the wife from home.

He says he's separated. He said that he wanted to kill her or he wanted her death. Obviously, Deborah Ols at the testimony was very significant. He had a mercurial temperate and take much to set him off. To make that case that Rod had an explosive relationship with his own parents, prosecutors present a video that Deborah Ols recorded. "What are we looking at?" "That's a picture of Rod approaching his parents, a front door."

She testifies that the video shows Rod finding himself locked out of his parents' house. "It just broke, it just had." "He said they changed the lock." "She tells the jury about that plot that Rod allegedly had to kill his parents during hurricane

He said that because there was no electricity, the alarm would not be on.

“He wanted to go through a window in the basement. Kill his parents and set his house on fire.”

I was not about to be a party to murder. I tried talking, talking them out of it. "We were able to talk him out of this." "Yes." Ols testifies about three other plot she claims Coven revealed to her, and incredibly one of them supposedly involved his 12-year-old daughter. He wanted his daughter Anna to poison Rod's parents. He said that if Anna was able to kill

his parents because she was a child, if she got jailed at all, it wouldn't be for very long. And I said, "You cannot do that to your child." "We are a family." "Yes." "We're talking about absurd, ridiculous murder plots with zero evidence."

“"You don't have any audio for videos of any of those it's right." "I do not."”

"We're talking detective wood, you did not say. I just thought it was typical. I didn't bear the force." "Yes." "Other witnesses discussed Rod Coven's behavior the night before the body was discovered." Rose Reed, the former nanny, testified Rod asks her if she would be staying in the apartment for sleepover. "Have the ever asked you if you were going to have a sleepover before?"

"No." "That's the first time you asked me." "The defense portrays it as an innocent

question since Kavela knew that Shelly was coming home late." But the prosecution says what's really strange is the idea that Shelly would have taken a bath that night at all. "What's your status?" They called to the stand Adam Aminoff, the stylist who did Shelly's hair earlier in the day. "Tell us the instructions. You get Shelly." "No was, no shampoo, no gym, be careful from the rain." "Anybody who's ever had this treatment

done knows you cannot get your hair wet. It's this legally blonde moment in this case." "Did you ever gotten a perm before?" "A legally blonde moment because of how similar it was

to this scene in that famous movie." "Because isn't it the first card in a role of perm maintenance

that you're forbidden to wet your hair for at least 24 hours after getting a perm at the risk of deactivating the ammonium thiccloccalate?" "Because someone gets a hair treatment. It doesn't mean that you can't clean yourself for 72 hours." "You didn't tell her that she couldn't stay." "Did you?" "Yes, sir." "No." But as the trial focuses even more on exactly what happened in that bathroom.

"What will a video recorded in jail reveal?" Today, Rod Covelin seemed days as a satna courtroom,

charged with second-degree murder. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing was done on December 31

“when they were there inside the apartment." "I think that being”

testimony about the police investigation was really stunning to a lot of people." "Did you make any handwritten notes of any of the engineers you took that day?" "I don't believe so." "While you were there, you didn't have any indication that was a common word not speaking with you, did you?" "No, sir." "There's a saying that you considered that this could potentially be a homicide." "No." "The lack of investigation on December 31. That's a legitimate complaint." "But what's the point? What happened to that?"

Remember, there was a delay before an autopsy was done, which the medical examiner Dr. Jonathan Hayes testifies concerned him. "When I opened up the bag and saw her, I turned to my colleague and said she needs an autopsy because I was struck by injury. She had scratches on her face, which I considered suspicious." "And then, Dr. Hayes tells the jury about his findings during the autopsy, and the conclusion he reached about Shelley's cause of death." "The cause of death

was neck compression, and this fit well with a chokehold. One of the most striking things was

and they fight back by trying to claw the arm away from the neck, and in doing so,

“they will sometimes scratch their face." "The hardest part is just to get under me at the chin."”

And that was a really significant part of the trial is when this martial arts expert got up there and performed the chokehold on a skeleton. "How you could have that kind of neck compression, and would be able to, he said, with in ten seconds, kill somebody." Rod Covelyn had posted on Facebook that he had studied Taekwondo for 11 years, but did he know how to do a chokehold? That's where a video becomes a key piece of evidence.

"You've seen this video before?" "Yes." Bogdano's introduces this recording from when Rod Covelyn was in jail awaiting trial.

“That's him talking to another in me. "Watch what he does with his arms." "I think you see that?" "Yes."”

He's making two distinct movements. "It's consistent or even consistent with the chokehold and it's a lot of martial arts." "It's consistent, it's taught in martial arts. It's a single armed chokehold." "I believe that was quite damning for the defense. God leave dismisses that Taekwondo." All he is doing is demonstrating to this guy another inmate in jail, a few months before the beginning of the trial. This is the way the DA is saying, "I killed Shelley Covelyn."

But prosecutors have more. They bring in Shelley's estate attorney who tells the jury about those plans she was making to change her will just before she died. "He said, I need to change my will. I want to make sure that Rod doesn't get any part of my estate." "And how would Rod have known about her communications with that lawyer?" Rod's friend testifies that Rod told him he installed a keystroke logger on Shelley's computer which allowed him to spy on her.

"On the very day, she is going to write the defendant out of a will for $5.2 million on the

very day. She has a fatal accident. Are you kidding me?" The defendant denies the keystroke logger was ever found on the computer. "You are the final

“liberties of the facts." After prosecutors rest their case, who does the defense call to testify?”

No one. "The once you call a single witness, you change the entire dynamic of the jury deliberation. It's no longer in evaluations to whether or not the government proved its case as opposed to, do we believe the defense?" "So, the trial moves straight to closing arguments." "You may detest it. You may not even be able to stomach him. If the proof is there, it is right. It is no to stand up and to say not guilty, even if it hurts, even if it's different."

"Justice has a single voice and that voice tells you he is guilty." "I'm because I say so, but because he is, I think." As the jury heads off to deliberate, nobody knows what they're thinking, or that there is still a big shock ahead from none other than Shelley's daughter Anna. "A lot of us were very surprised by how quickly the jury came back. I couldn't breathe. I was terrified, really."

"I'll say you to the first count of this indictment, charging a defendant, moderate

compliment with the climb of murder and the second degree. guilty or not guilty." "What was the first emotion for you?" "It was relief." "It was justice for Shelley, and she can rest, and that guy is hopefully going behind bars. Please God for the rest of his life." "And behind bars is where I talked with Rod Covlin, where even now he maintains his innocence."

I did. Absolutely did not." "But a jury of your peers are convinced that you did.

“Why should people believe you?" "You don't have to believe me. You have to believe”

the actual evidence. They were just isn't evidence that I did this thing." "The murder 10 years ago, the conviction last month, the sentencing today for 45-year-old Rod Covlin." "And at that sentencing hearing, a surprise." "I'm going to be reading this for Anna." Rod's mother Carol reads a statement from his daughter Anna, who by then is 18 years old.

"I love my mind, and it will always love my mom."

"My father has never heard anyone know her as he committed to murder. My mom passed away, my dad has been taken away for so long already. Please let us know that it will come to an end." "What was that moment, life for you to hear your daughter, essentially defend you?" "It was overwhelming. She's the only person in the world who knows for a fact what happened that night. The only person, and she knows that I didn't do this."

"The judge sends his rod to 25 years to life in prison. I mean, the appeal was voluminous.

It was over 350 pages, and there were many independent bases for the appeal. There was some prosecutor

a misconduct. There was the admission of the video from prison, which should not have been permitted. The character assassination. It was impossible for Rod to receive a fair trial." The district attorney's office rejected those claims, and in May of 2022, that appeal is denied. District attorney Alvin Bragg says he hopes that it will bring closure to the family. But Anna then sends him a follow-up letter saying,

concerns are for them to grow up to have wonderful lives.

“I think it's important for the kids and for the world to know. She had a tremendous”

mission in this world between the way she cared for her kids with every fiber of herself.

And just a good, honorable person. She was someone who had that light and spread that light in this world. And that's what makes the tragedy that much greater." Difficult for the family during my prison interview with Rod Covelyn, he told me that he speaks to his son Miles every day that's possible. And we've also learned that his daughter Anna has gotten married.

On the legal front, we should mention that Rod Covelyn's lawyer tells us that they have filed a motion to vacate his murder conviction. We'll stay on the story. In the meantime, that is our program for tonight. I'm David Newer. And I'm Deborah Roberts from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault.

Friday nights at nine on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening. ABC Wednesdays. The Emmy-winning comedy scrubs is all new. This is all in the chapter for me. No more sad stuff.

“That's what I'm talking about. I want both of our sacks to be fun.”

The two idiots are perfect for each other. From executive producers of Ted Lassow and Shrinking. We were all a part of this picture. Now get those not chosen out of the premium warmer. Not chosen! Those are like there's more applause for the not chosen in my speech.

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