True Crime Vault: Family Secrets

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Speaker 3 Welcome to the 2020 True Crime Vault, where heart-stopping headlines come to life.

Speaker 4 I thanked her for an ounce of her strength so that I could put one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 6 Tonight, on an all-new 2020, an unbreakable bond between mother and daughter, but someone came between them.

Speaker 8 He's like, mom's dead. And he just kept repeating, mom's dead, mom's dead.

Speaker 9 I ran downstairs.

Speaker 10 And what's the stir? We'll start with allbody.

Speaker 11 She was found laying right here.

Speaker 8 And I said, well, you can go right over there because that's the person that killed my mom.

Speaker 12 But just who was she pointing at?

Speaker 3 This is a delicate question, whether somebody that she was having an affair with could have shot her killed.

Speaker 11 He started thinking about ways to engage his exit strategy.

Speaker 3 To get rid of her.

Speaker 11 To get rid of her.

Speaker 13 Hold on, he's coming out.

Speaker 8 Tonight, a daughter's discovery of family secrets and scandals leading to a dramatic showdown.

Speaker 14 Drop the gun! Drop the gun!

Speaker 12 Behind the scenes, Kim was non-stop digging, digging for answers, getting proof.

Speaker 3 Now we're taking you inside her obsessed six-year crusade to catch the killer.

Speaker 10 What kind of crimes?

Speaker 12 Are we talking murder?

Speaker 6 2020 tonight going into a dangerous underworld no one could have imagined.

Speaker 11 Drugs and a lot of money. Inevitably, a murder of April Gauffin.

Speaker 8 Before this hour is over, there will be another shocking death. But is that the end of the story? This is my life, and I feel like this is the worst made-for-TV movie on the planet.

Speaker 6 Good evening, I'm Amy Robach. And I'm David Muir, and this is 2020.
And here tonight, Deborah Roberts.

Speaker 16 WIBG, it's the talk of South Jersey.

Speaker 3 Driving the corridor between Atlantic City and Philadelphia weekdays between the hours of two and four, you may have heard this voice on WIBG-FM.

Speaker 18 If you don't vote, I will find out. I'm going to your house.
I'm dragging you outside.

Speaker 3 That's the no-nonsense April Kaufman, a peppery, provocative radio host.

Speaker 18 I love being here to bring you the truth. As unvarnished, as unpretty, unbuttered on the biscuit it is.

Speaker 3 Tackling topics from politics, caring for U.S. vets.

Speaker 8 Homelessness is a big, a big issue in our country right now for our veterans.

Speaker 3 Listeners couldn't get enough of the Jersey girl with the platinum hair, big smile, and high-wattage personality.

Speaker 20 She was like a whirlwind.

Speaker 21 Like, she would come in and she would make a lasting impression on everyone.

Speaker 3 In her upscale town of Linwood, New Jersey, not far from the boardwalk, April and husband Dr. Jim Kaufman, a prominent endocrinologist, are the community's consummate power couple.

Speaker 8 The two of them were well known individually as well as together. They really wanted to be involved in the community, but they also liked to have some fun.

Speaker 3 Every day the doctor and Mrs. Kaufman had a familiar routine.
Jim heading to his medical practice before sunrise and then a standing phone call with April at 8.30 a.m.

Speaker 3 But on Thursday, May 10th, 2012, that call to April goes unanswered.

Speaker 3 And after several failed attempts, Dr. Kaufman sends over his handyman to their home on Woodstock Woodstock Drive,

Speaker 3 where he discovers a horror.

Speaker 23 Naima Mom, where's your emergency?

Speaker 11 Yes, I have my bosses down.

Speaker 24 She's lying on the floor in her bedroom and not answering.

Speaker 23 Okay, where are you, sir?

Speaker 25 Two Woodstock Drive, Linwood.

Speaker 23 Okay, hold on. I'm trans.

Speaker 3 47-year-old April Kaufman found dead on on the floor of her bedroom.

Speaker 3 With the family handyman on with 911, Jim calls Linwood police.

Speaker 26 It's just Dr. Kaufman.

Speaker 13 I just got a call by my house person that my wife is face down on the floor.

Speaker 26 My partner's sending out the emails as we speak.

Speaker 15 Okay,

Speaker 26 I'm just, yeah, I'm getting there as dance I can.

Speaker 3 Detective James Scopa took me inside the home where the wealthy socialite who once lived larger than life was discovered dead, shot multiple times she was found laying right here face down face down

Speaker 8 as the media got there and they started to realize who it was that's when they knew okay this is this is really a story it was it was chaos

Speaker 3 As the steady whirr of helicopter blades begins swarming the sky, Jim Kaufman makes another phone call, this one to stepdaughter Kim Pack.

Speaker 8 I answer the phone and I say hello, and he's like, Kimberly? And I said yes. He's like, mom's dead.
And he just kept repeating, mom's dead, mom's dead, over and over.

Speaker 8 And as I got to the front door, there was a police officer that put his hands out and I pushed his hands away. And I go, where's my mom? Where's my mom? What is happening here?

Speaker 8 I need to see my mother. He said, we think this is a potential homicide.

Speaker 28 No one could imagine who would have shot April Kaufman.

Speaker 28 Beautiful, blonde, glamorous, and she was fun.

Speaker 28 No one had any idea what was going on behind those closed doors.

Speaker 29 She made everybody feel like they were her best friend.

Speaker 30 Didn't matter who they were, the checkout, the parking lot, cart guy, you know, hey, beautiful, hey, handsome, how you doing today?

Speaker 3 Friends Peggle Boyle and Lee Darby knew April since she was a teenager and knew her well enough to know that her outward glow masked an inner pain.

Speaker 30 She had a really rough childhood.

Speaker 30 When April was 11, her mother gave her brothers and sister up for adoption and April was raised by her grandmother and her brothers and sister were put into foster care.

Speaker 29 You know, I think she had her thirst for being, you know, feeling loved. She just wanted to be loved.

Speaker 3 She would discover unconditional love at 17 when she gave birth to Kim with her first husband.

Speaker 30 She was an incredible mom. She seemed to just instinctively know what to do.

Speaker 29 She always spoke to Kimberly like a little adult. And we used to call her Agnes, Agnes Beeswax,

Speaker 17 because she was this little old soul.

Speaker 29 April just wanted the best for her and gave her the best that she possibly could. You know, she worked hard.

Speaker 28 April dropped out of school when she became pregnant, but she got her GED.

Speaker 28 She clawed her way back. She opened a salon, a catering business, a cafe, a charity worker.

Speaker 3 But while April worked hard, she played hard too.

Speaker 3 She liked motorcycles and fast training. She did.

Speaker 8 She did when she got her first motorcycle. She said, I'll give you $300 to get on the back of my motorcycle.
And I was like, no way. My feet are on the ground.
And she would be like, all right, $500.

Speaker 8 And I'm like, no, I'm not getting on the back of your motorcycle.

Speaker 8 Just the need for speed and wasn't afraid.

Speaker 3 After two failed marriages, she meets Dr. Jim Kaufman.
Friends and family say the wild child finally had found her match.

Speaker 8 He drives a Harley, he's smoking cigars, he's a green beret in the military, a doctor.

Speaker 3 In fact, this caricature sketched for Jim's 60th birthday seems to sum up the couple's life.

Speaker 3 There's April, the buxom Jersey girl, overshadowed by her larger-than-life new husband, who's prominently depicted with a gun, big cigar, and something else, military tattoos.

Speaker 8 He had purple hearts. He had medals, sharpshooter medals that he had gotten from being in the war.

Speaker 3 The Vietnam War, back when protest songs permeated the radio airwaves in the U.S., Jim Kaufman makes clear he distinguished himself on the battlefield.

Speaker 3 Kim was so impressed she asked her stepdad to be the subject of a college project. He agreed to be interviewed with some conditions.

Speaker 8 There were two rules to this interview. One,

Speaker 8 you can never ask my mother about this, anything pertaining to this interview. And two, you have to destroy the tape when you're finished.

Speaker 3 That's a little mysterious.

Speaker 8 Yeah, but you know, I just thought out of respect, this is what he's asking.

Speaker 8 He talks about how the Viet Cong had ambushed his camp, stabbed him, but also stabbed and left all of his comrades and left them for dead.

Speaker 8 And his sole mission, he had said, was to grab these dog tags and bring these dog tags to these people's families so that they know what happened to their boys.

Speaker 3 That's an amazing story.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 3 It's no wonder April was motivated to mount a campaign, using her radio voice to demand quality health care for veterans.

Speaker 19 This was such a big issue that affected our veterans and our state, our country. So I will thank my husband for a lot of the things that I've learned over the years.

Speaker 30 April felt that veterans should be treated like rock stars.

Speaker 3 So how did this fierce and loved advocate for casualties of war become a casualty herself?

Speaker 3 Kim has an idea and approaches investigators with a a shocking declaration.

Speaker 8 As I made my way out into the cul-de-sac, I look up in the air and there's all these news choppers flying up above.

Speaker 8 And I said, well, you can go right over there because that's the person that killed my mom.

Speaker 3 Stay with us.

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Speaker 32 Manny attended today's funeral services at Bethel Synagogue in Margate for 47-year-old April Kaufman.

Speaker 3 Mother's Day 2012, the town of Linwood, New Jersey turns out for one of its own, complete with a cortege of veterans leading their champion April Kaufman to her final resting place.

Speaker 32 The well-known local radio host, who was shot multiple times and discovered dead in her Linwood home last Thursday.

Speaker 28 It was like a state procession for April Kaufman. No one could believe what had happened.

Speaker 22 She just was so caring, so compassionate.

Speaker 33 She just was an inspiration to everybody.

Speaker 3 The loss heaviest for April's daughter, Kim.

Speaker 8 I miss her calling me nonstop all the time. I miss her laugh.
I miss her smile. I miss her infinite wisdom because she really was my rock.

Speaker 3 After the mourning came the murmuring. Sometimes talk is cheap, even in wealthy towns.
This is a delicate question, but there were questions about whether your mom was having affairs.

Speaker 8 You know, they had a very unhealthy relationship, the both of them. And I will just say that there were indiscretions on both sides of the fence.

Speaker 5 And I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 3 Did it concern you that maybe somebody that she had been involved with could have killed her?

Speaker 8 No, but I certainly provided those people's names to the police, and I allowed them to do their due diligence.

Speaker 3 While the community is in shock and awash in rumor and innuendo, listen to this, April's final radio broadcast, where she sounds like a woman who thinks her days are numbered.

Speaker 19 And my bottom line is, if nothing else of my legacy of leaving, you know, a really beautiful daughter and two grandchildren on this planet, I really hope to God that people, you know, hey, I could get a flyover at my funeral now.

Speaker 21 You listen back to that and you think, she have a premonition. It's kind of like she was trying to tell us something, I believe.

Speaker 3 In those early days after her mom's death, there's one thing gnawing at Kim. One person she's curiously not getting consolation from? Her stepdad, Dr.
Jim Kaufman.

Speaker 22 Dr. James Kaufman was a very well-respected and well-regarded member of this community.
But to Kim, stepfather Jim was a very different person.

Speaker 8 He was very cold to me, always kept me at an arm's length.

Speaker 3 Literally, just look at the pained body language in this video taken on Kim's wedding day.

Speaker 23 One,

Speaker 23 two,

Speaker 17 and three.

Speaker 6 Here we go.

Speaker 28 Take a close look. He steps into the scene.
He smiles one time for the camera to flash.

Speaker 28 Then he goes back to a very taciturn demeanor and steps out. No hugging, no kissing, no warmth, nothing.

Speaker 8 You would be in the dining room, I would be talking to my mom, and he would come and turn the lights off and just walk out of the room.

Speaker 3 He controlled her cash flow, like how much money she could spend.

Speaker 8 Oh yes. And sometimes even calling her, who are you with? Where are you?

Speaker 3 And just two months before April's murder, it seems the Bloom was officially off the rose of her nearly 10-year marriage. Kim recalling a lunch where her mother confides she's had enough.

Speaker 8 She talked about that she really needed to start aligning herself and getting herself in a good spot. to be able to leave.

Speaker 8 I think that he had made it clear to her that she wasn't going to divorce him and take half of his empire. That was his famous words.

Speaker 3 Did you get any feeling that your mom might have been in any kind of danger?

Speaker 8 She had made it clear over the years that he had threatened to kill her several times, but

Speaker 8 would always follow up with, he doesn't have the guts to do it.

Speaker 3 Though Jim is not named a suspect, some might say he begins acting like one.

Speaker 22 Within days of April's body being found,

Speaker 17 Jim hires a lawyer.

Speaker 28 Not only a lawyer, but the lawyer, a mob lawyer.

Speaker 3 Ed Jacobs, one of the biggest legal names in Atlantic County. He's even defended Bill Cosby in one of his sex assault accusations.

Speaker 28 He loves defending high-profile criminal cases. His walls in his office are covered with news clips of himself.

Speaker 3 One possible reason he's not named a suspect, he's got an airtight alibi. That's him entering a local convenience store around the same time his wife is being gunned down.

Speaker 32 Authorities are not releasing details, but it appears that Kaufman's shooting death was not random.

Speaker 8 I meet him in a restaurant and he says to me, let me tell you something. I have a very good attorney and I'd been advised to not speak to anybody about this.

Speaker 8 He's like, you might need to really start to realize that this is never going to be solved. And I said, well, I'm not going to realize that.
I said, because I will never stop. finding out.

Speaker 8 And I walked away and I never spoke to him ever again.

Speaker 3 As the months drag on, Kim says the only cold shoulder icier than Jim's is the one she's getting from then Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain.

Speaker 8 I had several meetings with him and he would just say it was active and open and not really say much more.

Speaker 3 Did you get the impression that he was determined to get to the bottom of this?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 3 Then on the one-year anniversary of April's murder, many turn out for a candlelight vigil, including so many vets she made her cause. Noticeably absent, Dr.
Jim Kaufman.

Speaker 3 He marks the milestone another way.

Speaker 29 We discovered that he was getting ready to auction off all of April's belongings and hadn't given anything to Kim.

Speaker 3 How crushing was that for you?

Speaker 8 Beyond, because the things that I asked for that belonged to my mother were family heirlooms or possibly Disney coffee mugs.

Speaker 3 With her mother and all those mementos lost, Kim tries to adjust to a new normal while raising her two young sons and holding down her job as a pharmaceutical sales rep.

Speaker 8 Marching through every single day, waking up with another day of hopelessness while trying to keep that glimmer of hope alive is a very tricky thing to do.

Speaker 3 Yet while life for Kim seems hopelessly on pause, for Jim Kaufman, it's full speed ahead. Just 15 months after his wife's murder, he ties the knot again.

Speaker 28 He remarries Carol Weintraub.

Speaker 28 When did that start? Now, the version we've gotten is that they started dating after April was found murdered. Now, that's some romance.

Speaker 8 April's friends and family were devastated, and they felt like it was a slap in the face, but the people who support Jim Kaufman say, you know, he's a widow and he's moving on with his life.

Speaker 3 But Dr. Kaufman's next move sets off a chain of events that pushes Kim out of limbo.

Speaker 8 He went after my mom's life insurance policy. And your reaction? No way.
Because you know what? This is my only attempt to

Speaker 8 maybe be able to get some answers. And the truth maybe would start to come out.

Speaker 3 Now it's Kim's turn to lawyer up. Believing Jim is the killer, she files a wrongful death suit against her stepdad to keep him from getting her mom's $600,000 life insurance policy.

Speaker 8 I have no choice to respond and to begin to fight for what I know is right.

Speaker 22 The most significant kind of civil lawsuit you can have is a wrongful death case.

Speaker 3 Coming up, a daughter undaunted and the dynamic duo attorneys she hires begin digging into the case, and what they say they uncover is shocking.

Speaker 12 We were talking to people that were critical witnesses to us

Speaker 12 that had not spoken to the prosecutor's office.

Speaker 3 And their chance to grill the grieving good doctor.

Speaker 28 He was under oath in a civil deposition. They could ask him anything.

Speaker 3 Next,

Speaker 3 Atlantic City, legendary for its slots, signature shows, and of course, this moment.

Speaker 3 But the boom and the bust of the casino industry has made America's favorite playground

Speaker 3 a hotbed for crime, corruption, and a startling number of unsolved cases.

Speaker 3 Cases like April Kaufman's, but Kim Pack and her dogged attorneys, Patrick and Andrew Darcy, drill down, determined to get answers.

Speaker 12 Behind the scenes, Kim, with us, was non-stop digging, digging for answers, getting proof. We were on an island all on our own.

Speaker 3 But the tide may be turning.

Speaker 11 I grew up on the beaches and the boardwalk of Atlantic City, and

Speaker 11 I always say I have sand in my shoes.

Speaker 3 Meet Damon Tyner, son of one of Atlantic City's fabled firefighters and a longtime cop. Your dad was a bit of a legend.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 11 My was very well known throughout the community.

Speaker 3 But the younger Tyner made a name for himself as a superior court judge.

Speaker 17 Good to see you.

Speaker 17 How are you making out? So they named a pizza for me.

Speaker 11 I think right here.

Speaker 17 Yeah, that would be me.

Speaker 20 And then last year, I, Damon G.

Speaker 3 Tyner, became the first black prosecutor in the county's history.

Speaker 17 So help me guy.

Speaker 3 Many seeing him as the city's much-needed savior.

Speaker 26 I'm feeling a good job, man. I I appreciate it.
Great job. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.

Speaker 26 All right. I know, not judge anymore.

Speaker 15 Good to see you.

Speaker 26 That man's cleaning up AC.

Speaker 3 There you go. You took a pledge when you took the office.
Tell me about the pledge.

Speaker 11 Dating back to 1970, there are about 140 unsolved homicides. I urged my executive staff to tell me which cases were most solvable.

Speaker 11 Unanimously, they all came back to me and said the murder of April Kaufman.

Speaker 3 But Tyner is sworn in almost five years after April Kaufman's murder. Five long years.

Speaker 28 A lot of people wondered why five years passed and no recognizable work had been done.

Speaker 11 It wasn't that there were glaring mistakes. It was just an omission of effort, you might say.

Speaker 3 We wondered about that and tried asking former prosecutor Jim McClain about the investigation. His spokesperson tells 2020, McClain has no comment.

Speaker 12 Fortunately, Damon Tyner became prosecutor and his team came to the conclusion that this case should be prosecuted. For the first time,

Speaker 12 someone's listening here.

Speaker 3 Tyner agreed to meet Kim Pack and her lawyers within that first month.

Speaker 8 What did that mean to you? The fact that I was lucky enough for him to say, I'm going to take a second look at this. Me, my case? Thank you.

Speaker 8 Like, this is all I've been asking for this entire time is for someone to care.

Speaker 3 It took three hours for Kim's lawyers to unpack all they had uncovered.

Speaker 12 You should take a look at these records.

Speaker 3 But no evidence evidence as compelling or illuminating as this.

Speaker 12 Today is July the 11th, 2014.

Speaker 3 A four and a half hour long video deposition of Dr. Jim Kaufman himself finally talking for that wrongful death lawsuit Kim has filed.

Speaker 20 Basically, I ask the questions, you give the answers.

Speaker 11 Understood? Yes. Four and a half hours under oath is a lot of time.

Speaker 22 It's a lot of questions. I do.

Speaker 12 Okay. We may proceed.

Speaker 28 That was the first time he could be compelled compelled to talk.

Speaker 3 There he is in the hot seat for the very first time, getting grilled on everything from his love of guns.

Speaker 12 How many guns do you own?

Speaker 9 Approximately 18.

Speaker 3 To the moment he first saw his wife lying lifeless on the floor.

Speaker 9 I ran upstairs. I looked inside and unfortunately saw April lying there.

Speaker 9 And she wasn't moving and she had a pallor, which I've known after 30 years. It's obviously someone has passed away.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 I ran downstairs

Speaker 10 and went out on the lawn

Speaker 10 and was hysterical and started vomiting.

Speaker 12 Okay, do you have tissues, by the way?

Speaker 15 I got.

Speaker 10 Do you need to

Speaker 26 break?

Speaker 12 When I look at a deposition, I sometimes turn the sound down. I don't want to hear what they're saying.
I want to see what they look like and what their facial expressions are.

Speaker 12 He struck me as a manipulative guy.

Speaker 3 But there's a barrel-sized bombshell about to drop. The doctor's casual and stunning admission about a secret he's been keeping for years.

Speaker 3 Seems that time he spent in the special forces wasn't so special.

Speaker 23 Have you ever served in any branch of the military?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 3 That's right. Dr.
Kaufman forced to come clean about his so-called stellar military record. Those purple hearts, those sharpshooter sharpshooter medals, all lies.

Speaker 12 Did you ever tell Kim Pack you were in the military? Yes.

Speaker 12 Did you ever do a project for college and

Speaker 12 part of the project was you being in the military? Yes. And what you went through? Yes.
And that you carried bodies.

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 12 And the torture that you had gone through.

Speaker 12 Did you ever tell anyone that you were a Green Beret?

Speaker 23 Yes.

Speaker 12 Who'd you tell?

Speaker 15 I don't recall how many people I told them.

Speaker 3 So he created this background that didn't even really exist.

Speaker 17 That is correct.

Speaker 11 Once you start examining someone who is bold enough to engage in stolen valor, you start realizing that there are other aspects to this man's life that would require us to investigate.

Speaker 3 But in that deposition, Dr. Kaufman posits his own theories about who may have killed his wife.

Speaker 12 Who do you think did it?

Speaker 9 I thought it could be someone

Speaker 10 who was

Speaker 9 one of the veterans. The last choice was that it was someone in a motorcycle gang.

Speaker 12 What motorcycle gang?

Speaker 9 The pagans.

Speaker 3 The pagan motorcycle gang? Remember, April had a penchant for motorcycles. Could that mean she was in deep with the kind of people known for violent behavior?

Speaker 28 The pagan outlaws are the equivalent of the hell's angels. They are felons of the most dangerous sort.

Speaker 3 Coming up, a stunning turn in the Kaufman case.

Speaker 10 I'm

Speaker 3 Leading to a standoff in the garden state.

Speaker 14 Drop the gun!

Speaker 15 No, I'm not going to jail for this.

Speaker 10 Put the weapon down.

Speaker 3 Stay with us.

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Speaker 35 It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning.

Speaker 26 Hi, one one. What is the address? Your emergency?

Speaker 35 A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker.

Speaker 35 He's fallen asleep, so she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help.

Speaker 10 Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him.

Speaker 35 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

Speaker 25 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 16 The first thing you hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 35 A new series from ABC Audio and and 2020, The Hand in the Window. Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 3 We're on the beat with James Scopa, lead detective determined to crack a big case for Atlantic City's new prosecutor.

Speaker 11 Was happy when Prosecutor Toner came in and

Speaker 17 he

Speaker 11 allowed us to work on a case and investigate it like we we believe there should be.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, Kim and her lawyers keep their eye on what they believe is the prize, Jim Kaufman, using his pictures on social media as incentive.

Speaker 12 I would get a picture of Jim Kaufman and Carol at the Final Four, and, you know, smiling, and I'd put it on my brother's screen so that when he came in in the morning, that would be the first thing he'd see is a picture of Jim Kaufman saying, yeah, so what?

Speaker 12 I killed her. What are you going to do about it?

Speaker 3 But there's an unexpected canary in Kaufman's coal mine. It's coming in the form of a tip from the FBI.
The feds believe Kaufman may be involved in another unrelated crime.

Speaker 22 Lo and behold, another investigation related to insurance fraud, his role as a doctor, comes up.

Speaker 3 Investigators get a warrant to search his office.

Speaker 28 So they show up at Kaufman's clinic just to look at his records.

Speaker 11 On June 13th, 2017, we attempted to serve a search warrant at Dr. Kaufman's office here.

Speaker 3 Within minutes, it's clear this will not be a routine visit.

Speaker 13 Detective Scott with the process office under the last meeting. Stay right here for me.

Speaker 11 Just keep your name down there.

Speaker 28 What does he do instead of ushering them in as most of us would with the feds? No, he grabs a 9mm Ruger.

Speaker 3 A police body cam captures it all. You can see and hear him refusing to let authorities inside.

Speaker 22 I've won a gun point, Dr.

Speaker 11 James Kaufman. He has a weapon.

Speaker 14 Drop the gun! Drop the gun!

Speaker 3 For 45 minutes, there's a heart-pounding standoff.

Speaker 14 Drop the gun!

Speaker 3 At one point, Dr. Kaufman threatening to take his life.
I want to kill myself.

Speaker 22 It sure seems like Jim thinks they're there. in connection with April's murder.

Speaker 3 Listen, let's talk.

Speaker 15 I'm not going to jail for this.

Speaker 3 Finally, a hostage negotiator gets the disgraced doctor to surrender.

Speaker 26 Dr. Kaufman, please step out to the curb.
Now, slowly, reach down and pull your shirt up. Keep it up and get backwards.

Speaker 11 Just watch the building to make sure there's no one else still inside.

Speaker 22 This video changes everything.

Speaker 33 The husband of a murdered South Jersey radio host and advocate is behind bars following an early morning standoff.

Speaker 8 Investigators say that same day they seized more weapons from Kaufman and at least $100,000 in cash. That was a game changer.

Speaker 28 After the standoff with Jim Kaufman, he goes to jail not for murder, but for weapons charges. He fights to try to get out.
The judge would not let him out based on his conduct.

Speaker 28 And that gives the new prosecutor, Tyner, a chance to really dig into the murder case.

Speaker 3 Starting with the crime scene.

Speaker 11 So this is the house here, the bedroom that April was found was upstairs.

Speaker 3 But the biggest break in the case doesn't come from inside this house at all.

Speaker 17 We knew Dr.

Speaker 11 Kaufman that there was a point in time that he was inquiring about having her killed.

Speaker 17 And how'd you find that out? We were able to get a

Speaker 17 witness to cooperate with us this past November.

Speaker 11 That broke the case.

Speaker 3 And who was that witness?

Speaker 3 A former member of the Pagans Motorcycle Club. Remember them? They're the ones Dr.
Kaufman had pointed the finger at in his deposition.

Speaker 9 The last choice choice was that someone in a motorcycle gang.

Speaker 12 What motorcycle gang?

Speaker 9 The pagans.

Speaker 3 But now the tables have turned. One of those pagans ratting out Kaufman and not just for murder.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Tyner on January 9th, 2018.

Speaker 10 Hey, Sergeant, Hans Reinser, here's James House.

Speaker 17 Good afternoon, everyone.

Speaker 11 My name is Damon G.

Speaker 17 Tyner.

Speaker 3 At a press conference, Tyner lays out the case of an elaborate and secret double life that Dr. Jim Kaufman was leading.

Speaker 3 Treating patients by day, writing fraudulent opioid prescriptions for those pagans by night.

Speaker 11 They would come in and be patients. And all of a sudden, you had a prominent endocrinologist that

Speaker 11 was prescribing opioids and all kinds of other painkillers when that wasn't quite his practice.

Speaker 3 So he's got the power of the prescription, and then they've got the gang activity.

Speaker 11 Essentially, they were flooding the market with opioids and selling them at a marked-up price.

Speaker 28 What a bombshell. This straight-laced doctor that everyone had respected was part of a pill mill, a drug ring.

Speaker 28 And not only that, with the pagan outlaw motorcycle gang.

Speaker 28 And April Kaufman found out.

Speaker 3 Found out and, according to Tyner, threatened to expose his secret CD double life.

Speaker 11 He started thinking about ways

Speaker 11 to engage his exit strategy.

Speaker 3 To get rid of her.

Speaker 11 To get rid of her.

Speaker 11 For the past five and a half years since April Kaufman was found shot to death, there's been little movement on this case, and no arrests have been made in connection with the murder.

Speaker 11 That is, until today.

Speaker 36 An explosive breakthrough in the murder of radio host April Kaufman.

Speaker 28 Murder charges just filed against Dr. James Kaufman in a plot that police say involved members of a motorcycle gang.

Speaker 3 But wait a minute. Didn't the doctor have an airtight alibi? Remember that early morning stop at a convenience store?

Speaker 3 Tyner says Kaufman wasn't the shooter, that he paid one of those pagans roughly $20,000 to do his dirty work and kill his wife.

Speaker 11 He went inside and he shot April Kaufman twice.

Speaker 3 And ironically, that alleged hitman died a year and a half after April's murder of an opiate overdose. His pills prescribed by,

Speaker 3 you guessed it, Dr. Jim Kaufman.

Speaker 8 When I heard

Speaker 8 the details of everything, it really

Speaker 8 was unbelievable. I feel like this is the worst made-for-TV movie on the planet.

Speaker 3 The prosecutor worries Dr. Kaufman could be targeted by pagan members in jail, so they move him upstate to the Hudson County Correctional Facility as they begin gearing up for their first major trial.

Speaker 3 Finally, a chance to close one of those Atlantic County cold cases.

Speaker 3 But then, another shocking turn.

Speaker 8 Dr. James Kaufman dead.

Speaker 8 Officials with the Hudson County Correctional Facility confirmed that he died at 9.20 this morning.

Speaker 3 What was your reaction when you heard this?

Speaker 11 I was stunned.

Speaker 8 The story started off terrible and is ending terrible.

Speaker 3 Dr. Jim Kaufman dead.
But how? Were you worried that he could be hurt in prison?

Speaker 11 That's always a concern.

Speaker 3 Will justice ever be served?

Speaker 3 Stay with us.

Speaker 31 Coming to Disney Plus in Hulu.

Speaker 27 Cassidy, get us home.

Speaker 2 Jonas, brother, you got it.

Speaker 31 It'll It'll be the best Jonas Christmas ever.

Speaker 31 Can't wait to see you guys. We love you.
If they can only make it home.

Speaker 37 What's going on? Our tour plane burned? No. We cannot miss Christmas.

Speaker 3 Nothing can stop us from getting home now.

Speaker 15 Only

Speaker 15 alone this trip.

Speaker 28 You lost all three of your passports?

Speaker 27 It's Christmas. Anything can happen, right?

Speaker 31 A very Jonas Christmas movie, now streaming on Disney Plus in Hulu with a TVPGDL.

Speaker 31 Two rings,

Speaker 31 surrounded by a steel cage.

Speaker 31 Oh my god, are you kidding me? This is gonna be a war.

Speaker 6 Stream Survivor Series War Games, November 29th at 7 Eastern on the ESPN app.

Speaker 3 It's been a long, strange trip for Dr. Jim Kaufman from a plush suburban cul-de-sac to the Hudson County Jail.
His new home, a six by nine-foot cell like this.

Speaker 34 This is unit. This is Charlie 500 East.

Speaker 34 Maximum security.

Speaker 3 The inmates many considered violent and dangerous were Dr. Kaufman's new neighbors as he awaited his trial in a facility just across the river from New York City.

Speaker 10 What kind of crime is Kaufman?

Speaker 12 Are we talking murder?

Speaker 3 It's rare to get a look inside these tight quarters unless you're an inmate. But corrections officers agreed to take us in.
Recalling that fateful morning, just after serving Dr.

Speaker 3 Kaufman breakfast, they made a grim discovery. The doctor was dead, hanging himself with a laundry cord.

Speaker 11 I was stunned, but that's, in retrospect, that's what convinces me now more than ever that he understood that the end was near.

Speaker 3 He realized it had all caught up with him.

Speaker 11 Yes, I think so.

Speaker 28 Bottom line, he had his wife murdered, and the only way out for him was suicide.

Speaker 3 Kaufman did leave something behind in that jail cell. This note obtained by 2020.

Speaker 28 Even in that jail cell, when he killed himself, he had to write this very lengthy suicide note to be in control at the very end, to get the last word.

Speaker 3 Kaufman adamant that he didn't kill April.

Speaker 7 I cannot live like this.

Speaker 7 I, no matter what anybody says, did not do anything to my wife.

Speaker 22 This six-page suicide note is bizarre.

Speaker 28 Throughout the note, he quotes Latin, including phrases that Roman gladiators would say to the emperor before they fought in the Colosseum.

Speaker 7 Really?

Speaker 3 His final words do add a surprisingly new angle to the sordid saga.

Speaker 7 April came to me and said, would I like to go to a motorcycle rally to meet some of her friends? I was slightly shocked, to say the least, that they had the colors of pagans.

Speaker 22 The most important thing that Jim Kaufman wants people to take away from this note is

Speaker 17 I didn't kill April.

Speaker 22 She introduced me to this outlaw gang.

Speaker 22 I was prescribing pills. They then got aggressive with me.
They then started threatening me.

Speaker 22 And they're the ones who killed April.

Speaker 3 Were you able to determine whether April had any involvement with either the gang or the pill mill?

Speaker 11 Our investigation at the time did not lead us to believe that she had any involvement. I believe that at some point she became aware of it.
I think ultimately that's the reason why she was killed.

Speaker 3 But dead men tell no tales, at least not in court.

Speaker 3 And with both that alleged hitman and Jim Kaufman deceased, Tyner's last call for justice rests with the case he's building against the accused pagan ringleader, who he believes conspired with Kaufman to kill April.

Speaker 3 He's pled not guilty.

Speaker 11 There is an aspect of the investigation that's continuing with a defendant who is still pending trial.

Speaker 11 So I won't disclose too much about that part of the investigation, but suffice it to say that we were convinced that Jim Kaufman's involvement in this matter was enough to charge him with conspiracy to to commit murder.

Speaker 3 Is there any doubt in your mind that her husband wanted her dead?

Speaker 11 There's no doubt in my mind.

Speaker 3 A painful conclusion for a grieving daughter, yet a measure of solace. Kim Pack may finally find the justice she's been seeking for years.
Why do you think this case wasn't solved six years ago?

Speaker 8 I don't know, that's the million-dollar question. But what I do know is that

Speaker 8 I was blessed and granted the ability to have peace in my life for the first time in six years by a man with determination and that believed in my story and that is Damon Tyner and I am forever grateful to that man.

Speaker 3 Although in a tale as twisted and tragic as this, there's hardly any true closure.

Speaker 12 And that's the saddest part of this entire story. Her mom's still not coming back and when when when everything's quiet and it's just Kim and she's alone and she's thinking Her best friend's gone.

Speaker 5 We were robbed.

Speaker 8 And for what? I still don't have the answer to that.

Speaker 5 For what?

Speaker 3 When we come back, one of those precious family heirlooms sold at auction has been recovered. The secret message from beyond the grave found inside next.

Speaker 3 Kim Pat doesn't just resemble her mom. She's inherited the same passion that made April Kaufman so beloved.

Speaker 30 She's like a pit bull.

Speaker 30 She latches on and

Speaker 30 she's not letting go until she gets what she's looking for.

Speaker 18 She's the mini April.

Speaker 8 There's been dark days,

Speaker 8 very dark days where I just didn't know

Speaker 8 how I was going to do this. But I knew that I needed to stand up.

Speaker 3 This story

Speaker 8 needed to be told.

Speaker 3 But in that darkness, something special. Remember when Jim sold off all of April's belongings? Turns out, Lee Darby and Pego Boyle, dubbing themselves April's Angels, swooped in.

Speaker 8 These women got together and they were on the phone calling people, raising money to be able to buy back things that belonged to my mother.

Speaker 3 So that's how you got the last remnants of your mom's things? Yes.

Speaker 8 And my mom collected these

Speaker 8 little Lemog things and this was the first item that I touched from the auction. And inside this note, it says to Kimberly from mom.

Speaker 8 Whenever you look at this, you know you're always loved. You're so special.
Best wishes for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3 And you had no idea that note was there?

Speaker 8 No, and I feel like this was meant to be. I feel like I was meant to have this.
I keep this by my bed. It reminds me that my mom is with me all the time.

Speaker 3 Out in the community, other reminders.

Speaker 8 My husband and my boys got this bench dedicated for her. It's special because it's a spot that we stop, and my kids will bring up a memory or they will talk about her.

Speaker 3 And if mom could say just one more thing to her daughter, I think she would say to me now,

Speaker 13 you can breathe,

Speaker 3 you can go on and live, you don't have to be sad anymore.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 4 thank you for fighting.

Speaker 8 A fighter to the finish. Remember Kim Pak's civil case to get her mother's life insurance?

Speaker 6 Well, we can report tonight that her attorney now says that's been amicably settled with Kaufman's widow. And that is 2020 for tonight.
I'm David Muir.

Speaker 8 And I'm Amy Robach from all of us here at ABC News in 2020. Good night.

Speaker 3 You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC.
You can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 3 Give it up for Chicago.

Speaker 37 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is coming to Hulu on November 21st.

Speaker 2 30 years ago, Jeff Bezos, complete nerd Bezos now, ripped to shreds on his super yacht, and the boxes keep coming.

Speaker 37 Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, premieres November 21st, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.