Grapes of Wrath

You know, I'm on one, why'd you burden me?

“He calls 911, and he's yelling at the phone.”

Help me. Help me. He shot me. This is the actual transcript from the 911 call. Yes.

So he's running through the vineyards. He is running through the vineyard, and the shooter is in the truck coming after him, shooting out the window. This is crazy, crazy. Who are these guys?

These guys were a couple of rich and vicious wine lovers who wanted to be in the business and own their own vineyards. Look, I have pictures. Here's E-Mod. E-Mod, tough filless.

He's a smart guy from Silicon Valley who loved Hollywood even financed a movie. And here's the other guy, Robert Dal, an operator who people said could make money grow on trees, in this case, vines. Take one, Amar.

My name is Jonathan Kesselman. I'm a filmmaker. Every investor who is a catalyst. I was directing a film. And E-Mod was the principal investor in the film.

E-Mod made his money in Silicon Valley, and then was looking for other things to invest in.

“Yeah, I think, you know, he made a good living.”

Wanted to invest his money into things he was more passionate about, movies, wine. Robert Dal did he come with a dream? Oh, definitely. He really did have the vision of having some form of a winery.

Robert made me feel like we'd been friends forever. Upon first meeting. Oh, upon first meeting.

No, within like the first 10 minutes.

He was a very nice outgoing, hardworking guy. So it seemed like a good guy to partner up with. Absolutely. One time, I don't know how I ended up on the back of his motorcycle. And he looked out, and he pointed at this mansion.

Me and he said, you know what? Greg and I are going to make so much money that he's going to be able to buy a house like this for you someday. Everything seemed to be going great.

Oh, it was awesome. Yeah, perfect. Until it all went wrong. Yes. And this is over money.

This is over money. $800,000 in a gym bag. Broken dreams, broken dreams. Who lives? Who dies?

It's an incredible tale of wine, money, and murder.

We have a little thing to help me help me. We've got some exciting memories. I've been shot again twice now. It was a showdown between two millionaires, Robert Doll, and E-Mod, Tau-Fillis. While the tales of a shocking murder in the Napa Valley,

a bitter, money dispute ends in an execution-style shooting. Let's all start it at Dolvin Yards on Solano Avenue, the victim, please. I mean, just look at this place. Napa Valley, who wouldn't want a piece of this.

“That's what these two men wanted, and they went for it,”

but it ended in murder. So we came here to figure out what happened. And what we discovered is really interesting. It turns out that no less than four people thought that they could have ended up targets of the killer, too.

Could have been me running through the vineyard and ducking from flying bullets. I was probably number one on his list of kill.

My first thought was that could have very easily been Greg.

What do you think would have happened if you were there? I think you would have killed me. Hold on, let's just slow down for a second. How do you get from two ambitious guys trying to make it in the wine business

to a murder mystery with four or five other potential victims? Well, we found a guy who can explain it all. Because his family has worked in these valleys for generations. And he says he could have been a victim that day, too. So is it customary if we visit to open a bottle of wine?

Sure, if it has one. It's our Cheers. Cheers. Meet Dominic Fapoli, pretty close to royalty around here. My brother and two sisters were the fourth generation of our family to be involved.

Our great-grandfather started doing this with grapes and making some wine. They're the 1900s. Now, he and his brother and sisters and friends run the Christopher Creek winery. We've known each other for all of our lives, and so we are family above and beyond. Are there a lot of dreamers who come here?

Oh, yeah, big-time tech tycoons, Wall Street guys, rock stars, movie people, and they all want to come and have a slice of this. And a lot of people see the glamorous side of it without seeing the hard work that goes into it. The blood sweat and tears that it really takes to get to the point where we're right right now

of drinking a great bottle. How tough is it to break in? It's very, very tough unless you're coming with a lot of money. And then there's the matter of trust doing business in the wine country is often very personal.

You know, if they're word is their bond. Shake their hands, you look in their eye and you're good. You bond with a person and then maybe go into business with them? Absolutely. That's a huge, huge part of it.

“So because you need to know that you can trust that person.”

But as we'll find out, watch out if that bond is broken. Because the stakes are high. The money makes people crazy. Lupereau is a tech entrepreneur and the most respected wine writer in Napa. Money is intoxicating and when you mix money and wine,

I think you get intoxicated to the second or third power. How often does it happen that somebody comes in with a lot of money and not so much knowledge about wine, but just wants to be a part of this. Every day. Every day.

Back in 2011, a guy named Robert Dahl was about to get drunk on all that money. He decided to leave Minnesota where he had an unglomerous, mold removal business and become a Napa Valley wine entrepreneur. He had a booming voice.

He was always the loudest guy in the room.

Just a big presence. Yeah, big presence. Miles Davis is an electrician who worked for Dahl, almost from the beginning of his time in Napa. You were friends of him initially when he was doing what business?

Selling in buying grapes. Selling in buying grapes.

“That's one way of saying Dahl was in the lower end of the wine business.”

He wasn't making fine wines. He was bottling no name wine. Making what they call shiners. The shiner is a bottle that doesn't have a label. And then he'd sell you that fruit.

You put your own label on it. Was he a good salesman? A great salesman. Great salesman. So the wine didn't even have to really be that good.

He could sell it.

Well, I never was really that good.

And he talked a good game. He talked a great game. And you knew enough to know that he didn't know a lot. I knew that he had a good line of BS, which is fine and made him funnier.

Was part of his charm that he could BS? Yeah, I loved it about him. Dahl had moved to wine country with his wife and three children. His family is amazing. They're just wonderful people.

His wife's a very sweet loving woman. The kids are amazing. In fact, they call me their godfather.

“Within a couple of years, his bottling business was a big success.”

And Dahl liked to show it. He showed up my office with $10,000 and said, "Let's buy a Harley." I'm sorry. He showed up my office with $10,000 and cash.

And said, "We're buying a Harley." You pay me back in the next few months or whatever. That's Robert. He was all about stuff like that. Did he seem concerned about money?

No. Never. So it was in 2011 that Robert Dahl took his next big step toward his dream of making it big in the wine business. He linked up with that prince of the wine country, Dominic Phipoli.

I had met some people from Asia who were looking into getting into important California wine. Phipoli was young. He didn't have his own personal vineyard yet, and he needed more product.

I couldn't literally package wine fast enough because I didn't have my own facility. And so I met Robert. He was very new to this. But he was willing to work.

We're really, really hard. And he had a genuineness that he could project. It made you want to trust him. It made you want to like him. Over the next year, Phipoli and Dahl became close.

We got to dinner and hang out.

And as a friend, he was always there.

I could text him at 11 o'clock at night and he'd get back to me. Business was good. And one day, Dahl made him a proposition. He called me up and said, "Hey, there's this place in your neck of the woods."

They'd buy their own vineyard. And so I came over and I met him here and I looked at this view in the vineyards and literally an hour after and sitting down with him, we drank a bottle of wine on this deck.

Phipoli staked everything he had on this partnership. Even his house.

“You know, I said this is something I'm going to do.”

I'm going to have to go all in and I need you to be all in, too. And he said, "I got you." Phipoli didn't think it would be a stretch for Robert Dahl. I assumed that this was a fun little side project for him.

But I never had any reason to doubt that he was

doing tremendously well. Did you feel like he had your back? Oh, completely. If there was not, I didn't doubt for a second. But almost as soon as the vineyard deal with Phipoli was closed,

Dahl was looking for the next big thing. Sharing ownership in a vineyard wasn't good enough. He wanted to be the boss. To do that, he needed new partners. And then he found just the man he was looking for.

A man with connections to the bright lights of Hollywood. With a Jim Bag full of money. You can see that for a long time. Videos of the rest of the vendors, with Shopify, can still be helped by them.

Start a test for one of your promotions. Off Shopify.de/record. I directed a film called Jimmy Vesferner, American Hero. It's a comedy. It's a comedy.

Starring a comic named Mazra Brownie. I'm Jimmy. Jimmy Vesferner. Like, yeah. Clean these food, but the best food.

Very funny film. Hello, Mr. Cara. Director and screenwriter Jonathan Kesselman was shooting the film's wedding scene. When one of the extras struck up a conversation. While we're sort of in between setups, we start talking.

And he said hi, I'm E-Mod on the investor in the film. And just a really nice guy, we chatted. E-Mod Tuffillus was a young businessman from Silicon Valley. What kind of actor was he? He was a better humanitarian than an actor.

He was a good extra. He was very good. He hit his marks. E-Mod was principal investor in the film. He put up about $200,000.

And Kesselman became friendly with him. He was like a business person in tech.

“And I think he was excited to be not a corporate guy anymore.”

He had sort of made a lot of money. And he was tired of it. And wanted to sort of explore their things in his life. Things that he had passion for. One of those passions was film.

The other was wine. E-Mod invited his new film director friend and his wife to the fancy home he owned near the wine country. It was just, you know, I love wine. You guys like wine, let's go wine tasting.

He actually gave us his bedroom. His bedroom was very flashy. Like his bathroom he had redone. Like there was a television inside the mirror. And the bathroom, like he was very excited about his bathroom.

But wine was more than a passion for E-Mod. It was a driving ambition. In 2011, E-Mod Tuffillus got to know Robert Doll. And they talked about the dream they shared of making it big in the wine business.

But this story isn't just about wine. It's about cash.

Close to a million dollars in cash.

Now, if you're wondering what that looks like, well, so are we. So we got some Hollywood prop money, which looks a lot and feels a lot like the real thing. And this is how Robert Doll did his next deal. 800,000 dollars in cash in a gym bag.

The money came from that movie investor, E-Mod Tuffillus. In 2013, according to E-Mod, Robert told him that returns on his investment would be big. And if he invested cash, they'd get better deals. E-Mod was jumping into business with Robert Doll with both feet.

It sounds like the perfect match. Robert, who supposedly knows about wine, but doesn't have the money. And then E-Mod, who doesn't know a lot about wine, but has the cash.

Exactly.

“Remember, Doll had already started a vineyard business”

with Dominic Fapoli, but that wasn't enough for him. Shortly after Doll's partnership with Fapoli began, it ended. There had been problems. Now, Doll wanted his own thing.

He wanted his name on the bottom. E-Mod was going to make that happen.

His investment, which now totaled $1.2 million would help launch.

Doll vineyards. E-Mod was finally a player. And Doll was center stage. Welcome to Doll Vineyards in the lovely Yachtbook California. He's a salesman.

It's a show. Did people seem like they were having a good time? Oh, yeah, always.

And generously?

“And generously, and it was a nice product.”

He did a nice job on that wine room.

And the business prospered. So much that Doll was soon able to repay E-Mod part of his investment. And that's the thing. Everything that Robert Doll touched

seemed to be turning out golden. And it was happening so fast. Now, armed with E-Mod to fill us as money. Doll was on his way to being everything he wanted to be. The big man in Napa.

Did he exude confidence? He exuded confidence. Oh, my gosh. Like, nobody I've ever met before my life. That same year, Doll started up another brand new business

with that Napa couple, Francine and Greg Knittle. This is just an abstract vineyard scene. They'd been pursuing their passions in Napa for years. Francine did her art. So Napa clearly inspires you.

Yes, definitely. And Greg's construction business. This is one of our custom remiles. Oh, this is beautiful. Built some of the areas nicest homes and tasting rooms.

Well, look at the ceiling. It's like the 16-channel. Some of the stuff I feel like we can't show on television. But life was good. Every time we come home, we just say to each other,

"Look at where we live, we're so blessed." And there was no hesitation when the new guy, Robert Doll, came into their lives. He was very outgoing, charismatic, hardworking, hardworking. So it seemed like a good guy to partner up with.

Absolutely. Oh, yeah. All in the Knittles started a craft beer brewery, a business that created fancy hand-made beers. Greg was a handy partner for Doll.

His construction company built the brewery. What did he promise you? Well, we were going to operate a reputable business that we would be able to hand off to our kids. And he pointed at this mansion.

That's right, Officer Barra Trail.

“And he looked back at me and he said, you know what?”

Greg and I are going to make so much money that he's going to be able to buy a house like this for you someday. The business was off to a good start. They added a brew pub. I mean, we had the best beer ever.

Our restaurant was booming. The brewery was brew-- I mean, like within like three or four months. Like it was incredible. It was incredible. Francine and Greg even became close friends with Doll

and his wife, Janelle. We did everything together for a year. And it was booted like it was going really well. Like really, really well. He liked to live well.

You know, he can live in a 3,000 square foot house. It had to be a 5,000 square foot house. It was all about looks. He didn't have to have one brand-new motorcycle. He had to have two brand-new motorcycles.

I'm sure you'll play the video of him after the nap earthquake. In fact, I have that video right here. This was taken after the 2014 earthquake in Napa. If it is coasters thinking about coming to Napa for harvest season,

they have some nice wine and have a few dinners. Is it time to call that vacation off? Oh, absolutely not. Everything is back going in wine country. It's a great time to visit wine country.

See some grapes being crushed. Taste some fresh juice and really take in the wine lifestyle. Yeah. Listening to him, it almost sounds like you could be the mayor of Napa.

But things aren't always exactly as they appear to be.

Remember Dominic Fapoli, Doll's former partner? Dominic had been running the winery, and Doll was running the books. We're selling a bunch of wine. I mean, the winery was a hit, but there wasn't enough money to keep paying our bills, which I didn't understand it didn't get.

Where's the money going? Where's the money going? Where's the money going? That was the question plenty more people in the wine country were about to start asking. [Music]

By 2014, the new Doll vineyards seemed to be taking off. Robert Doll and Ema Tafilis, the two ambitious entrepreneurs, were living their dreams. Robert himself running the show. And Ema, silent partner, providing the money.

Enjoy. But what Ema didn't know was, partnerships with Robert Doll had a way of turning sour.

“Remember Robert's first vineyard, the one he shared with Dominic Fapoli?”

One day Dominic got a phone call from their lender. I'm starting for closure proceedings on you guys. For closure proceedings.

Yeah, because we had missed our first payment to him as for the winery.

I've got all that covered." I said, "Are you kidding me?" Fapoli went ballistic.

“And this is my dream and we were successful in everything we were doing.”

His life savings and reputation were on the line. He had to get rid of Doll. So my family and my partners, my brother and my best friends, and came around and said, "We'll do whatever we need to do and let's give this guy out." Fapoli got control of the vineyard, but he had to pay Doll to go away.

He was bitter. You know, I introduced him as my partner and my friend. So I brought him into that circle of trust that we have here. Everybody opened and welcomed him with open arms because I vouched for him.

I had never been burned before.

I was naive. And it turns out, Fapoli wasn't the only one. No one that ever put money into something that he was doing was ever going to get anything back. Steve Birch knows. He's a wine maker who worked for Doll.

Back when Doll looked like he was the golden boy of wine country, Birch introduced him to celebrities for the comic and TV personality Adam Corolla. "He's so much for enjoying this." He bottled a sangria called "Mangria." "We made money on it."

“But I know that there was a significant amount of payment for that that Adam never received.”

And there was the rapper, E-40. He had doll packaged some wines for his label. Earl Stevens wines. We started his product and it went really well. But I know he wasn't paid either.

No. And there was Birch himself. I left with him knowing me a lot of money. Can you give me a ballpark? Yeah, I will say it was well over $10,000.

The same thing happened to Doll's friend, "Electrition Miles Davis, doll owed him $15,000." Did you ever see that money? No. But you were friends with him again?

Yeah, because he's a great, yeah, I'm fine with that. I mean, it wasn't about the money.

“It was about, you know, there was concerns that he was in trouble.”

So I didn't feel like my little $15,000 was anything to worry about. 'Cause he was getting under water. Yeah. Do you say anything? No.

No. Did you figure he'd find a way out of it? Yeah. I hope he would. And then there was Francine and Greg Kinnittal.

Just a few months after the successful debut of the brewery they started with Doll and a well-known brewmaster, the business started slipping.

I got the first inkling that Doll wasn't what he says he was

because a friend of mine went to his brewery. And I put puts around that because the friend of mine liked craft beer and he wasn't making beer that his quote unquote, "rupa." Apparently, by the time Luz Friend stopped by for a drink,

the brewery was no longer making its own beer. He wasn't making beer at the brewery? No, he was buying our cash from somebody else. And when this friend of mine came face to face and told him about that, he just went ballistic.

Like he'd been found out. Like he'd been found out. Doll's partners, Francine and Greg, say they didn't know what Doll was up to at the brewery. And they were shocked when Doll came in one day and announced he was shutting down the whole thing. Probably sitting there and he goes, "Guys, the brewery's not making enough money.

I'm going to close the doors." Francine and Greg say they not only lost $250,000 of their own money, they'd encouraged friends to invest too. And unlike Miles Davis, they felt personally betrayed by their friend Robert Doll. What's it to you the most?

Somebody that we trusted had this capability, had this... I mean, Robert knew the whole time going to pretty much screw us over. But no one felt more ripped off than E-Mod Toffillus.

He thought he'd invested more than a million dollars in a vineyard.

Instead, Doll diverted the cash, spending it on his lavish lifestyle, the brewery business, just about anything else. Doll had stopped paying back the money he borrowed, and Toffillus hired a lawyer. He was angry, he wanted his money, and he wanted to find out everything he could about Robert Doll. You amassed a pile of information about Robert Doll.

This is the pile of leans that Robert had against him, civil judgment from Ford Motor Company, 19,000, allied building products company, 61,000, 53,000, 7,900. Oh, my goodness. E-Mod hired Don King, who has her own special niche in Napa Valley. Well, I'm a private investigator here in Napa, and I was an FBI agent for 10 years.

And FBI agent. Yes. So you can smell a rat. Well, I'd like to put rats in prison anyway.

credit cards. Here's the federal credit union, 53,000. And then you get into his lawsuit.

A lot of what Don discovered happened back in Minnesota during the years before Doll came to Napa. But to Don, it told a story. You know, this is the theft, one of his theft charges. One of his theft charges. Yeah, he had two. This was the theft by Swindle. So actually was convicted of theft by Swindle. He was. Thefts and Swindles got Doll thrown into jail, not once, but twice back in Minnesota,

and left him a convicted felon. I mean, this guy was a criminal. Now here in the wine country, Doll seemed to be scamming again. Every time he'd get a business

“investment, the money seemed to go right into his pocket. Was this kind of a, a Ponzi scheme?”

Yeah, to some extent. I mean, he said that no one got paid. He was like a Ponzi scene.

First people didn't get paid. But it is. I would know. No. It was, it right. Robert got paid,

but Robert spent all the money. In 2014, wine reporter Lou Perdue began to uncover the Swindle's Robert Doll was pulling right here in Napa Valley. He started blogging what he found. And guests who responded. And those are his comments. Robert Doll. Those are his, his comments. And then he starts to rant. Paragraph. Oh, I see this. The past and red. By paragraph. Oh, my goodness. And big red capital letters just keeps coming. Oh, my goodness.

And it comes. It's like one of those magic stars. And it comes just raining and raining and

“raining. I think I measured this at 26 feet. And what did this say to you? This has to be the”

guys. It was office nut. Things were really heating up. Both sides were suing. And it looked as if things were headed for a showdown. A mod was just like so crazed and he was becoming like a desperate man. schmeckless on himless before we're on the mount van. No Nutella. It's Nutella. For years, gone south has been a podcast about crime in the American south. But for our new season,

we're widening the lands. Through deeply reported narrative driven stories, we're digging into the myths, scandals, and power structures that still shape the south. In in a lot of ways, the country itself. Follow and listen to gone south season five.

“An Odyssey podcast. Available now on apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows.”

What I wanted to tell you, but I didn't want to study the most. The messer by Tag Leaptor Bücher soft behind the internet. It's a mess. I really hate it. I'm saying, you can say, they can say that to Rükoe. Yeah, do you have a story about it, huh? But you don't believe it. Egal, Trauber wordt verlustvortrag. Make the whole thing just like this story. And when

they then work, he says, "Catchin"? -That's it? -Safe. Like this story. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I used to get 10, 15, 20 phone calls a day. E-mod Tuffyllis was angry, very angry. He wanted his whole investment back, but it wasn't looking good. How desperate was E-mod? He was a desperate man on a scale from 1 to 10, he was about a 9. He was not going to let someone like Robert doll take advantage of him

and bully him into being submissive. Attorney David Wiseblood. E-mod came to me saying, "I have this problem." So I looked at it and said, "Yeah, you have a problem." So we devised this strategy. That strategy was to hammer Robert doll in court and force him to pay up.

So the strategy was file lawsuit in Napa to basically get control of the collateral,

and to prevent stuff from disappearing. That collateral was mostly the wine tanks and all the equipment used to make the wine. And what happened? Robert didn't roll that. Wow, what happened? I had in a four-month period, 19 court appearances in the Napa court, which is crazy. I mean, the short answer is

which in effect should have shut down his wine-making and wine-selling operations."

That all belongs to E-mod basically. Right, pretty much.

Even though E-mod was winning in court, Robert doll was doing everything he could to cheat. He was even secretly taking equipment and trying to sell it off. Robert at that point had started hiding equipment hiding whatever he could. He started moving stuff. But Robert doll's attorneys, Jasmine Duall, and Kusha Barricam. There's a lot more than the headlines. Say doll was a clever business man,

but he was no crook. You think Robert's mindset was, "I'm going to take this,

“but I'll be able to pay it back and everything's going to be okay." Absolutely. I think he had”

every intention to pay back the entire loan. Doll's lawyers believed doll was a stand-up guy that classic all-American wrist-taking entrepreneur who puts it all on the line, and at the last minute comes out a hero. The business was grown and it was not a Ponzi scheme or house acquired. I was shown a document that says Robert doll was convicted of swindle in Minnesota. If you look at that document again, you will see that that goes back

to when he was about 19 or 21 years old or so. But still, people look at that and say,

"Once a con man, always a con man." Robert definitely had his share of failed ventures before

as well. But you don't think that proves that he's a thief. Not at all. A thief takes money and runs with it. A thief doesn't go to court. He was a wrist-taker and when you take risks sometimes you end up harming other people as well, but our system is set up for that. In the wine business, Doll's lawyers say, "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose." And they insist E-Mod Tafilis was the real villain in this business deal.

“You think this was a scam for E-Mod? Absolutely. How would one come up with that much?”

Cash and why? It's still a mystery where all that cash came from. But Doll's lawyers say E-Mod was so angry. He was determined to destroy Robert Doll's business. His barrels of wines were taken. His cars were taken. His brewing systems were taken. He was in an impossible place. With no business to operate, Doll couldn't earn any money to pay off the debts he owed to E-Mod and others.

And then, surprisingly, there was a breakthrough. It looked as if E-Mod might get more of his money back.

The lawyers had come to a deal, and E-Mod and Robert were going to get together to hammer out the details. Robert wanted to meet here at his vineyard. I went to an office Monday morning and I got a phone call from E-Mod. David, I've decided to go to the wiring.

“On that morning, I was on the phone and E-Mod's attorney was on the phone.”

E-Mod and Robert were there in person. Their attorneys joined them on a conference call. There was a definite agreement on what was going to be paid to E-Mod. It was just so yearly call. It was yearly call. It was yearly call. But then, Robert Doll rocked the boat. And he said, "Well, I don't give an S what the lawyers negotiated. This is my offer."

What seemed to be a nearly done deal, suddenly started unraveling. It was a $700,000 lesson, what was agreed to. The lawyers felt it was a breakdown that E-Mod and Robert should deal with themselves. They were both business savvy, and this was something that they both could have easily handled. So, both lawyers got off the phone. Both expected to hear right back from their clients.

20 minutes go by. We had no idea what was going on. I don't hear from you, Mom. I was expecting to call. Now, I got an E-Mod saying there was a shooting.

I got a call from a civilized blood. He said, "Kusha, tell me this didn't really happen." You thought E-Mod lost. If I thought E-Mod lost, then we both had that. That's the winery of the end of the row.

On March 16, 2015, E-Mod to Fillis and Robert Doll had finally gotten together.

They'd been meeting one-on-one in a room inside that barn over there at Doll Vineyard.

The lawyers were on the phone on a conference call, but just a few moments after everything started, they hit a snag. E-Mod wanted to settle it, and Doll wanted to settle it. But something went wrong. Clearly, they can't come to an agreement down there in the vineyard.

Not only couldn't they come to an agreement, all hell breaks loose. There's a burst of gunfire, an evidence shows the men come tumbling out of the barn. One has a gun. He's firing. The other man is wounded, running for his life into the vines.

They can't agree, and suddenly, one person takes off. Down down these rows, like in-between these grapes here. Running through here. Right. E-Mod and Robert both take off.

One, hunting the other. Running down the row, being pursued by the other one, who is shooting at the guy who became the victim.

“Is shooting through these grapes just as the guy's running?”

It's a wild chase, something out of a movie. The hunted man desperately dials 911. He's calling 911 as he's running through the vineyard. He's still running, even though he's been shot. Right.

So what does the shooter do? The shooter knows he can't catch the victim. So he goes back to the winery, gets in his car and drives over, hoping to cut the victim off as the victim runs out. As the victim gets here, he tells 911 that he can see the deputies arriving here.

So he's saved, he can see the deputies. And the shooter comes around, gets out of his car, and shoots the victim in the head with a fatal shot as the police cars are arriving.

“So the shooter gets out, stands basically stands over the guy?”

Yes, delivers the key to go. Wild, the sheriff's deputies were right there. The sheriff's deputies were arriving right at this corner. And this is where it all ended. The winery, these two men, had dreamed of building together.

E-mod Tafilis was lying dead on the ground, murdered by Robert Doll. He knows it's all over. I mean, he knows that no matter what he does, he's been caught. He can't talk his way out of it. So he gets in the vehicle, drives up a terrible road here where there are very few outlets.

And as the police are closing in on it, he shoots himself in the head and kills himself. He kills himself. All over. The final bad life choice on a crooked life that's led all the way back to Minnesota. It's hard to say what set Robert Doll off that day. It certainly seems the crime was premeditated.

Doll had brought a gun and remember he was a convicted felon and he wasn't allowed to own one. And at that final meeting, he pulled out a bizarre document that he wanted Tafilis to sign, a document that seemed almost insane.

There was basically a manifesto that E-mod was trying to ruin his life.

This was supposed to be a confession by E-mod that it was all a hoax and it was all his fault. So the idea is Robert pulls out this crazy manifesto and says, "Sign this." And he pulls out a gun and says, "Sign this." There was evidence that Doll may have been ready to kill more people in duct tape. Flex coughs, a tarp, gloves, and there was ammo.

More than 750 rounds, a magnetic gun holder that goes on a car, hide the gun. Yeah, to me, that is a murder kit. I mean, plain and simple.

“Well, I think he was trying to figure out how to kill the people that had brought him down.”

And that theory fits what we've discovered here in Napa. In the course of our reporting, so many people told us they too could have been victims. There was Don King, the dirt digging private eye. Could have been me running through the vineyard. Could have been.

Luke Perdue, the dog and wine journalist. And I think I was probably number one on his list to kill because I was the guy who blew the whistle on everything. Francine and Greg Knittle, who filed a criminal case against Doll.

My first thought was, that could have very easily been Greg.

And certainly could have been me. And I'm sure that it would have been. There was even that Prince of the Wine Country Dominic Fapoli. You think you would have killed you, too. Oh, yeah.

Finally, we were left with one more question.

This month's Wine Club Ship and a loser.

“How could Robert Doll have convinced all these people to believe in him?”

The Robert Doll was an Academy Award winning actor when it comes to convincing people to trust him. How did he not get found out? Nobody checked. People like this, they keep moving.

Destroy somebody else's life for their own good, their own benefit.

Imad Tafilis's murder haunts almost everyone he knew in the Wine Country. You think about this case every day? I do. Yeah. Two years, two years' boss.

“Dominic Fapoli says, back when he and Doll were still partners,”

he tried to warn Imad. I said, I want to give you a heads up.

I'm having all these issues with Robert.

You warned him. Yeah, we sat here on this deck and, you know, I, and talked. How did you hear about what he did? Somebody pulled up their phone and they showed me the article when it happened.

I was just in shock.

“And I mean, honestly, I started crying and it was a mix of”

guilt because I guess I didn't do enough to warn Imad about him. Jonathan Kesselman, the director, felt deeply about Imad. He was a really sweet, kind, generous guy and, and disthelped. I just felt like I needed to say that, you know, just so that it's on the record. You know, there's some legacy of Imad, you know, he was remembered, he was a good person.

As for Robert Dahl, he may have shown up in Napa with a grand vision. But in the end, he brought his dreams and those of so many around him, crashing down. And he wanted to be that guy that had of Imad and had wine with his name on it. He wanted to live a life of the big fish. He was a little fish.

This is not your typical wine story. No, it isn't. And one that we don't want to hear about around here again, for sure. When beloved family patriarch Gary Ferris went missing, his family looked everywhere on their property, until they came across something horrifying.

It's a homicide. Absolutely. The blame game in this family went round and round. This is bloodesticker, the Ferris wheel. I would don't see how anyone can look at this story and think they were happy. Blood is thicker. The Ferris wheel is available on Amazon Music. Follow the show on Amazon Music for more future episodes.