Carole Gold

A wild west performer lies dead on his kitchen floor. [music playing] - Hey, one, one, one, one, one.

“- I need a ambulance room, fast, fast, fast, fast.”

- Alright, alright, alright. - There were eight entrance wounds. Four in the head, three in the upper chest. He was dressed as a cowboy, dressed all in black, from his boots to his hat.

He was known by black-bark. His grieving widow has a colorful past.

- She was one of few after his first playboy bodies.

- She took ethics school by day and playboy by day by night. She had a double life. The investigation into her husband's murder reveals they had plenty of enemies. - They would do gunfight shows on property on the weekends.

- I did ask him if he ever had his ass kicked, and I offered him to do it. - Her husband didn't know about it, and she didn't want him to know about it.

“- The question is, which of their phones killed black-barked?”

- His attitude, I have said, someday somebody is going to shave him. - They just eventually led into, now we'd like to see him dead.

- There's nothing worse than being betrayed by a loved one,

and that's what it was. (upbeat music) - Desert Knights outside Phoenix, Arizona are normally quiet and peaceful. But at 10 30 pm on October 20th, 1992,

a resident in an upscale neighborhood comes home to violence. - 911, on the show. - Sorry, yeah, my name is Sam. It's a girl, I need an ambulance, we're fast. May I have some time I can't just let him go at all, huh? - I think he was there, everybody.

(dramatic music) - Officers get to the scene, and the woman who called Harold Gold, she leaves them inside the house,

“and they find her husband on the ground.”

- He was dressed as a cowboy, all in black from his boots to his hat. It kind of jumped out at you, and he had a Western style belt with a big buckle on it that said black barred on it.

The victim was identified by his wife, Harold. He was known by either Chuck or black barred. - After securing the crime scene, Phoenix police officers notified the homicide division.

The first detective on the scene is Joseph Petra Sino.

- When I got there, there really wasn't a lot of blood. There were eight entrance wounds. Four in the head, three in the upper chest, and one which was through the wrist, one of the wounds is behind the ear.

I suspect that that would have been one word. He was down on the floor, and it's just, we're just gonna make sure that he doesn't get up off the floor. Execution style. - As detective Petra Sino moves into the living room,

he notices a strange detail. - I had a chair in the living room, and I can see that the chair has been moved, and I can see that something had been behind a chair, which appeared to be super intense.

And it's right close to the entrance to the kitchen, so that when, if you came around that corner, you would have immediately been able to see who's in the kitchen. I suspect that once he went into the room, he was confronted almost immediately,

and the shooting began. - It could have been the robbery gone wrong. The robber broke in, and the truck's scared him. - He died the way a lot of old west criminals died, gunned down, he's ambushed.

- They're looking at the crime scene, trying to figure out footprints, fingerprints, anything that was left behind. So you're left with all these questions. Was this somebody that broke in?

Was this a targeted attack on Chuck Gold's life? - Chuck Gold was born in March, 1941, and grew up in Illinois as one of four boys in a close-knit family. - He grew up in an area of Chicago called Rogers Park,

they were very good close brothers. They were raised in a kosher home in a niche Jewish neighborhood.

“Growing up, he was very much interested in the west,”

and the cowboys, he rode horses a lot, ever chance he had, and were pretty close with them. - What kid in the '40s and '50s wasn't drawn to gunfights and cowboys? - As a teenager, Chuck traded his western wear

for an army uniform, serving several years in Germany. He joined the 40 graduated ice cream. I've been told he did cross-hass with Elvis around the time that Elvis actually was leaving the army. My dad was out in '61, I believe.

My parents met shortly after.

- Chuck met his first wife in 1961.

The two married soon after and had one daughter Stephanie. - My mom was young, they separated when I was nine months old, and they were divorced by the time I was two.

“After that, my father was married five times.”

My mother was his first wife. So I didn't know two and three at all. For I knew, because she was the mother of my nephew's sister, but no relationships whatsoever with any of them. Though Chuck's marriages didn't last,

his love of the Wild West stayed true. He turned that passion into a career, managing horse-stables near Chicago and putting on gun-slinger exhibitions with staged battles, fashioning himself after the famous outlaw, Black Bart.

- They got a stage coach and they got horses, and they would do gunfight shows on property on the weekends. (soft music) - In 1977, after 16 years working the Western show circuit, 36-year-old Chuck met the woman who would become his fifth wife,

Carol Cattini.

- Carol was always in the horses,

“where dead Carol met, was it on her show?”

- She actually worked in the Playboy gift shop in Lake Geneva, and then she went and worked in the stables in Lake Geneva Club. - Carol had a 20-year history with the Playboy organization, starting with its first club in Chicago.

- They opened the first club in 1960, and they needed money as in Carol, was one of the first rounds of girls hired. She was an original money. - Carol was trying to get a teaching degree.

She wound up teaching at a Catholic school. Now her job was she taught Catholic school by Dan, play by by by night. - So, she had a double life. - By the time she met Chuck at a horseshoe,

Carol had treated in her bunny ears for motherhood. She had two children from a previous marriage, including a son named Ashden. After a whirlwind romance, she and Chuck tied the knot, and decided to open horse stables of their own.

- They were doing very well. - Lake Geneva in the summer months, Lake Geneva. Or it was a very busy, busy town, and they did a big business. - Carol also supported Chuck in reuniting

with his estranged daughter. - My dad was not part of my life when I was a child growing up.

When I first reestablished my relationship

with my father, they were running the stables at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. Carol was very open, very loving, very, very accepting, very sweet. I also met Ashden.

He wasn't quite 10 yet, so there was his nine-year-old little kid, I said to him, "I'm having an older sister." So they became my other family. - The Playboy Club closed in 1983,

which put an end to Chuck and Carol's business as well. So they started over again in Phoenix, leasing stables at the Upscale Hilton Resort. - The stables did tremendously well financially. They were the single most financially successful

stable of any of the valley back then.

I wound up working at the stables, and I need to tell of that with Carol. So my relationship was, she was my other mother. I called her mom, the dynamic between my father and Carol was amazing.

Carol ran the stables, kept the books, and my father did the gunfight shows. He would go play and be Black Bart and drive the stage coach. When every was at the stables,

it was always dressed as Black Bart.

He was very happy. (dramatic music) - Now, the man who spent years staging fake gunfights seems to have become the victim of a real one in his own kitchen.

- Carol Gold is the one that made the 911 call, and immediately officers and detectives need to ask her questions about Chuck.

“Did he have enemies with somebody possibly out to get him?”

Based on everything they learned, they start thinking, well, maybe we do need to look more into the family. Maybe there was a little more there than people were letting on.

- Coming up, evidence suggests

the crime scene isn't what it appears to be. - The scene didn't look like a robbery. - And an old grudge lends the investigation, a suspect. We had words, argument, kind of, and trying to explain my side. He didn't want to hear about it.

(dramatic music) - Detectives are less than two hours into the investigation of the death of Chuck Gold. Before questioning his widow, police collect evidence at the crime scene.

We recovered eight spent 22 caliber showcasing, scattered about the kitchen. - There are two guns found in the kitchen, a 32 caliber pistol in a bag on the countertop, and a 22 attached to Chuck's belt buckle.

The weapons don't appear to have been fired, suggesting to police the shooter had caught Chuck by surprise with their own 22 caliber weapon. (dramatic music) - We also found the back door was not blocked.

That meant either somebody went out the door before I got there and unlocked the door and left it, or the door hadn't been locked in the first place.

“- How could this be a robbery when it seems so personal?”

With no signs of a break-in, a botched robbery seems unlikely.

- We never found a wallet, but as you go from room to room

and looking stuff, there's nothing disturbed. - Nobody's pulled out drawers and thrown stuff around, so somebody that's in there isn't looking for anything. The scene didn't look like a robbery. (dramatic music)

- With no evidence of a burglary, detectives surmise this was likely a targeted execution. While detective Petricino continues searching for clues, his partner Ed Reynolds questions Carol Gold. - She basically says they fight like normal people do,

but in general, it's just a real good relationship. They had been married for 14 years. - Carol tells police that she had been working at the table all day, started early in the morning, got off later and then decided to go have dinner

with her daughter from a previous marriage. It's at 1030 that she arrives back at home,

“and that's what she tells detective she found.”

Check. (dramatic music) - Carol's alibi should be easy enough to check out, but detective Reynolds is also interested to know if she has any possible motive.

- He asks about life insurance. In this particular case, Carol says that, there is no big policy to her knowledge. (dramatic music) - Another area that gets touched on

during that initial interview is fidelity, you know. Is there any possibility that Chuck's got a girlfriend? - Carol tells officers that, yes, Chuck had had girlfriends in the past while they were married. She knew about it, but said it had been years since that had happened.

According to Carol, Chuck only had one enemy she knows of. - She tells police that they did have a former employee who did not get along with Chuck.

- She's the guy that she was the horses,

and at some point, after he's there,

“some materials get stolen from Chuck, a saddle, some guns.”

Jimbo was fired because of this, but there had been some rumors among the employees at the horse stables that Jimbo wanted to get back at Chuck. - He'd made some threats, and the debate is where they threats are, where he just shooting his mouth off.

- Before they follow up on the lead, they want to speak with Carol's 20-year-old son, Ashton, who also lives in the house. - They've been paged that something happened to Chuck. He immediately came home and met up

with the family, his sister, his mother. It talks to Ashton about, you know, what's the deal between you and Chuck, you know, how do you get along? - Ashton tells investigators that his dad had passed away

years earlier when he was four, so most of his life, it was Chuck Gold that had raised him. He'd referred to him as his dad, not his stepdad.

Ashton admits, he hasn't always been the ideal stepson.

- Ashton admits to the fact that he was on probation for a drug issue, but since he had been on probation, he had really gotten his life together, and he was working, and there hadn't been any issues since. (dramatic music)

Ashton says he's been working as a driver at the Stables, and he agrees with his mother. If anyone wanted to hurt Chuck, it was Jim Bow. - Ashton goes into a little more on Jim Bow's criminal history that he had made some statements about he was gonna take

care of Chuck, so we now know Jim Bow was a possible suspect. - We're gonna have to track down Jim Bow. (dramatic music) - Carol Gold and her son Ashton Katini have just given detectives a possible lead.

Chuck Gold's blacksmith, Jim Bow. - But before detectives move on to Jim Bow, Ashton offers one last insight into Carol and Chuck's relationship. - They asked Ashton, Chuck got a girlfriend, and he goes, "Yeah, her name's Germaine."

She's married, he's seen him together at the Stable, but when there are other people around, they don't act like boyfriend and girlfriend, but everybody knew about it. Ashton mentions the fact that his mother doesn't seem to be

upset by the girlfriend. - But Carol is telling detectives that Chuck hasn't had any girlfriends for at least a year,

“so that's definitely a break in what Carol knew to be a true?”

- Now, we have to talk to Jim Bow, and we have to find Germaine. Let's see what she's got to say. - Investigators track down Jim Bow the next day and question him about the allegations that he stole

two of Chuck's pistols. - Chuck did try to accuse me of taking the guns. - I told him that I didn't take him, it could have been a variety of people, but there was only two people with keys to that room.

It was Chuck and Carol, and Ashton had access to either one of the set's keys. I think I got arrested, and I was in jail for three days and got out, and there was no charges brought against me after that.

They didn't have no evidence that I did it. - Jim Bow had a temper too, and I know a couple of times I talked to him, he was not happy at all that Chuck hired him. - Jim Bow admits he was angry at Chuck,

but says he would never seek revenge.

- When I met with Chuck, we had words argument, kind of, and trying to explain my side. He didn't want to hear Chuck didn't want to hear my side. - There was never no threats.

I did Ashton, if he ever had his ass kicked, and I offered to do it. After all, the squabble over all of that, me and Chuck ended up getting along again.

“- It just, well, what would you call it, that my guns be by guns?”

- But according to Jim Bow,

who didn't feel the same way.

“- Chuck's attitude, the way he went around people,”

just the lifestyle he lived of being a gunslinger black bar, I have said, "Some day, somebody is gonna shoot you." Chuck didn't have a problem of telling people off, not saying wished it up on him or nothing, but there's a lot of people dislike Chuck.

- Other things that Jim Bow responds to, he's able to verify that, Germain and Chuck have some type of a relationship, because he's seen Chuck kiss her at the stable. - Detectives also confirm that Jim Bow was miles away

at the time they believed the shooting took place. - I couldn't have done it. I was at Dynamite Arena from like five o'clock debt, evening until about 11 o'clock debt night.

Never left your premises.

- He was, in a public place, he's really got a good alibi. Following the interview, we go down the list of all the things that Carol and Ashton told us that we have been able to verify

we're on true to some extent or other.

“So at this point in time, you have to go back”

and look at Ashton and Carol as being primarily suspects. - The other investigative lead would be Germain, we have to track down Germain and find out what her situation is. - Coming up, investigators discover the cracks

in a seemingly happy marriage.

She says that at one point Carol told Chuck

she didn't want to have sex with him anymore. And a son's secret comes to light. - Apparently he'd owed some drug dealers some money. (dramatic music) Following the interview with Chuck's former enemy, Jimbo,

detectives track down Chuck's alleged girlfriend, Germain, to confirm there was an ongoing affair. - On the 27th of October, they had an interview. Similar to the one they had with Jimbo, she eventually verified the fact

“that she and Chuck did have a sexual relationship”

that her husband didn't know about it and she didn't want him to know about it. They'd known each other since her son had taken and writing lessons. They socialized the four of them.

She and her husband Chuck and Carol. - Germain tells police the main issue she knows about between Carol and Chuck is their sexual relationship. She says that at one point Carol told Chuck she didn't want to have sex with him anymore.

And so, that became almost platonic. - According to Germain, she and her husband were together the night of the murder. Detectives follow up on her alibi

and are able to rule her out as a suspect. Investigators ask her when she last spoke to Chuck. Her answer seems to shockingly cast suspicion on his stepson, Ashden. Chuck had called her just prior to the day of the incident

and was angry, complaining about Ashden. The fact that Ashden is not carrying his part of the load. He's not working, he's a financial drain. - Germain says she doesn't have the details but knows someone who might.

She told Ed that he needed to get with Richard Feingold, who is Chuck's right-hand man at the stable. He would know the ins and outs of the day-to-day of the stable and he would be able to answer questions

reference to their relationships between Chuck and Carol and Ashden. That kind of information. They head back out to the stable at the point and meet up with Richard Feingold.

- He describes himself as this kind of best friend called Fedon of Chuck Gold. - Richard says that Ashden is costing Chuck a lot of money for schoolies not going to that he's got a criminal history that Chuck's

trying to deal with.

when Ashden smoked pot at the stable's Chuck would catch it.

“And they didn't get along very well at all.”

Ashden smoking pot on the premises of the reserve is against law for one. They could have lost everything to had. Just a wrong person walking into Toronto. The resort would have canceled the contract.

- Richard also tells police that at this time, Ashden had this long-term drug problem. - Apparently he'd owed some drug dealers some money and Carol and Chuck quote building out. - Richard says the name of Ashden's main drug dealer is Bob.

- Richard says Ashden's not a reformed drug user. He's still doing drugs or stepfather as a problem with him and they aren't working through it. They are at odds. - Carol would act as a mediator

as best she could between the two.

“- And if push comes to shove, she would always stand up”

for her son pretty much all the time.

- Chuck and basically reached the end of his rope

and wanted him out of the house. Richard says Chuck had given Carol an ultimatum. Ashden either goes or the both of you go. He told her that he had to be gone by October 31st. - They could both go because he was got a divorce on it.

- This information comes as a shock to detectives because this is the first time they're hearing this. When they interviewed Carol and when they interviewed Ashden, none of this came up and they both made it seem like things are pretty good between Chuck and Ashden.

- Investigators discover Carol was also withholding information about something else.

- There's an $150,000 life insurance policy

on Chuck Gold and Carol Gold is the main beneficiary.

“- Which goes back to why is she telling the detective?”

I don't know anything about that insurance policy. That forces the needle from next to kin, grieving widow to somebody that's lying to me and I wanted to watch. - Coming up, will the true culprits face justice?

- There was hope that my dad would get justice that we would all be able to close that door. - And Ashden's dealer offers another side of the story. - Like I'm saying, I'm not shoot. I'm not shoot.

(upbeat music) - The revelations about Carol Gold and her son Ashden have put them in detectives crosshairs to find out why they've been lying. Investigators bring Ashden in for another round of questioning

and confront him about what they know. - Sometimes we lie to suspects. - The story is that we have an anonymous informant that said that you stole the guns that gave them to Bob. And Ashden was dumbfounded that we had the name Bob.

- Ashden came off very concerned about his probation to detectives and admitted he had been using drugs up until Chuck's dad. - Ashden still denies knowing anything about Chuck's murder, but he tells investigators if they're looking for Bob.

They'll find him at the fitness center where he works. - We reach out to the Drug Enforcement Unit. And they know who Bob is. This is why his name is Prior. He's a known distributor of synthetic heroin.

- Detectives learn Bob Prior is out on bail after Agent's raided his home during a recent drug sting. - When they served the search warrant, they found a box of 22 stingers, which is the brand of shell casings

that we recovered from the crime scene. And he was known to be in possession or the owner of a Ruger 22 semi-automatic pistol. - So at this point, we now have a lot of circumstantial evidence that ties prior to Ashden.

- Because Bob Prior was in possession

police consider the possibility he was the one

who pulled the trigger. - Bob could be the weak link. If we can get enough on Bob, you can flip on who paid him or who hired him. - Or who can best seem to do it?

- The drug unit involved in the raid informs detectives about an associate of prior's named Dan Goddard, a career criminal who is currently working for them as an informant. If prior was involved in Chuck's shooting,

Goddard might know. - Goddard comes down for an interview because of his relationship with the police department. - He's trying not to go back to prison.

“That's why he's working as an informant.”

And so they ask him about, you know, what does he know about prior? - Investigators get far more out of Goddard than they hoped for. He claims prior hired him to be his driver

than night of the murder. - He outlines the fact that he got a call from prior who will offer him $50 to drive him around and he takes the money in prior direction as to where he wants to go. They do a drive by on-house

and prior tells him to stop and let him out. Tell him that he'll page him when he needs him to pick him up and order picking him up at. - Goddard's belief is that prior's probably gonna go and collect money that's owed to him.

Goddard drives around waiting for the page and he gets the page, he picks prior up

“and then they drive to a location where there's a canal”

and prior gets out. - The real aha moment is when Dan Goddard actually drives detectives to where he went that night and it's Chuck Gold's house. - After the fact he put together that prior,

most likely killed Chuck Gold. He got rid of the gun by throwing it in the canal. - And immediately after that interview, Ashden jumps to the top of the list. Could this murder have been a motive of Ashden

being angry at his stepdad for wanting to kick him out of the house and was careful covering for her side. Detectives are now putting these puzzle pieces together that the two hired a hitman for the job. - Goddard's statement gives detectives

probable cause to arrest mob prior, Ashden Coutini and Carol Gold.

“- There's a lot of circumstantial evidence”

that showed that Carol was involved. Now it's, you gotta prove it.

- When Carol and Ashden were first arrested,

I was crushed. I mean, I had already lost my father. Now I've lost my family. I've been betrayed. (dramatic music)

- Unfortunately, the D.A. doesn't think they have enough to charge Carol. - They booked, Ashden, for first-degree murder, along with prior, but they let Carol go. And the prosecutor said, "All we have is the word of a,

"of a known drug dealer, criminal." And we don't have enough to tire to it. - Carol gets within attorney. And she's able to get the charges dropped after spending just a short amount of time in jail.

Because she's released, she's able to cash in on that life insurance policy. - Carol ends up spending most of the six-figure payout on defense attorneys for her son. - It's December of 1994.

Ashden and Bob are both on trial

for first-degree murder and conspiracy.

- When Ashden and I went to trial, they called Dan Goddard because he's the one that snitched, but he was also under snitch agreement and was supposed to have done, you know, told on all this stuff before it had happened.

- Dan Goddard was given immunity because he agreed to testify against them. - They kept coming to me wanting me to confess to being a shooter and they would give me a deal to testify. And I kept saying, "I'm not shooting.

- The defense that is put up is that Chuck was sick

and was dying, and he hired a hitman. - So that would be a assisted suicide.

“- 11 out of the 12 jurors rejected that.”

And felt that they'd actually committed murder for hire, but one juror hung the jury, so I'm this trial was declared. - I was numb. I mean, there's no other word to describe it. The thing that I took in strife was the fact

that the state still planned I'm pursuing for the charges and would try them again. So there was hope that my dad would get justice, that we would all be able to close that door. - Prosecutors are gearing up to retry Bob Pryor

and Ashton Katini for the murder of Chuck Gold. But detective Ed Reynolds still believes that Carol Gold also needs to be charged. - He obtained the original documentation

“from the insurance company on insurance policy.”

- They actually bring in a handwriting expert to say, "Hey, does this signature look like Chuck signature "because they thought maybe it was forged "or maybe there was some fraud there?" - The insurance policy was drawn up and taken out by Carol

and she signed his name to it. - But investigators need more for the D.A. to charge her. Howd on bond awaiting his new trial, Bob Pryor is the one who delivers it. - Shortly after being released,

Pryor got arrested again for selling drugs and he made a deal with the prosecutor to testify against Carol and Ashton for a reduced sentence. - They, as me, if I would take a plea.

“And I said, "What are we getting in return?"”

And he gave his Carol, and I said, "Done." - One year after the shooting death of Black Bart, Bob Pryor sits down with investigators to give his version of events. - Ashton started telling me about how much he did not

like a stepfather, Chuck. I just figured it was a rich kid complaining about a stepfather, but it just eventually led into, "Yeah, we'd like to see him dead." You know, he's been cheating on Carol.

She wasn't young anymore, I guess she was one of the Hugh F. nurse first playboy bunnies, and she didn't have that default back on.

- Good afternoon, I've never told you anything

to leave you to believe that his mom was on this too. - Yes, I'll catch up to you, tell you. - I know what's her identity, she wanted, she didn't fit her, but I'm on the reach line for her. - Ashton was young during this time,

I just assumed that Carol was the one running everything. Carol had the ultimate plan, there was an event that Chuck was going to, and when it was over, and then he could come home. All we had to do is be waiting, and shoot Chuck.

- But Bob alleges that it was actually Dan Goddard, who played the role of trigger man. - What happened at the night of the murder, down over there, and came back, but then at the times of the shoot, he didn't say it, and didn't say it,

and he said he couldn't drive around, and he just said he was a good fool, sure. - When I told me what Dan Goddard said, what Dan did was he told the story, just switch the roles of me and him.

And so I was like, oh hell no, this isn't the way it went. - Regardless of which man actually pulled the trigger,

Bob's statement finally gives investigators

enough evidence to arrest Carol. They charge her with first degree murder and conspiracy, but she maintains her innocence. - That time, Dan, can you take the heat off of your son?

- You can't even do that.

- I want to do that right now.

“- Both of them other and son are tried together”

on August 5th, 1997, nearly five years after Chuck's death.

- When I was brought into testifying at their trial,

that's when Ashden realized he hasn't got a prayer. - Mid trial, Ashden decides he wants to take a plea deal, and gets 18 years in prison. - Carol, however, proceeds to trial.

- Carol is eventually found guilty of first degree murder

and conspiracy in the death of her husband Chuck Gold. - She was sentenced to 25 years to life with a possibility of parole after 25.

“- I think the Carol and Ashden got exactly what they deserved.”

- Carol is the worst kind of mother there is. Evil, lying. Carol didn't pull the trigger, but she is just as responsible. There's nothing worse than being betrayed by a loved one.

“- I think that Chuck should be remembered”

as having fulfilled his dream, he died of a cowboy. - His headstone says Charles Blackbar Gold. His parents have proved that. I can't imagine anything else explaining more who he was. (upbeat music)