Heartbreak in Williamsport

Speaker 3 It was a typical winter night, cold, had several inches of snow on the ground from a fresh snowfall the day before.

Speaker 3 My name is Trooper William Holmes. I was one of the investigators in the Mary Millis homicide.
This particular investigation was probably a little more involved than most of the cases we do.

Speaker 3 The killer entered this pipe from the other side of the roadway.

Speaker 3 The rifle that the killer used was altered to fit to a homemade silencer.

Speaker 3 We had no way of knowing how long he spent here before he had the opportunity to take a shot.

Speaker 3 A kitchen window was the only window in the residence that did not have the drapes drawn. And he waited for Miriam to walk in front of the window.

Speaker 4 There was one shot fired

Speaker 3 that killed the victim.

Speaker 3 As he was leaving the scene, he threw the silencer over the fence into the tennis court and left quickly in this direction.

Speaker 5 He got in his car and took off.

Speaker 6 My name is Corporal John McDermott.

Speaker 7 This was probably the longest and most complex case that I've ever been involved in.

Speaker 6 When I went into the residence, our crime scene people were in the process of photographing evidence.

Speaker 6 She was laying on the floor. There was a cordless telephone near her hand.

Speaker 3 Dr. Ollis arrived on the scene.
He was told that Mrs. Illis had been found deceased in the residence.

Speaker 8 The police asked me who could have hated Miriam.

Speaker 3 It amazed everybody around the area that somebody who was the wife of a doctor would end up dead.

Speaker 6 A shot in the dark, a 48 hours mystery.

Speaker 9 Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a small, picturesque town known around the country for the Little League World Series and not much else.

Speaker 14 Which makes Williamsport a pretty pleasant place to be a cop.

Speaker 6 We probably average one or two homicides a year somewhere in that area.

Speaker 16 But into any cop's life, even in sleepy Williamsport,

Speaker 19 can come a case so absorbing.

Speaker 6 Became a part of your life.

Speaker 21 So complex, so difficult.

Speaker 3 It's just seemed like you never stopped thinking about it.

Speaker 1 Never. It becomes all-consuming.

Speaker 3 You go home with it every night.

Speaker 3 Probably be better off for you to get down that side.

Speaker 1 Pennsylvania State Trooper William Holmes and Corporal John McDermott

Speaker 24 spent four years trying to solve the murder of 47-year-old Miriam Illis, a woman seemingly without an enemy in the world.

Speaker 26 You have a picture of Miriam Illis on your bulletin board in your office.

Speaker 2 It's been there a long time. Why do you have that there?

Speaker 7 As a remembrance. Basically, don't forget.
You get personally involved in it.

Speaker 10 Miriam and her husband, heart surgeon Richard Illis, were once one of Williamsport's most prominent couples.

Speaker 8 We both came from humble backgrounds. We lived well, don't get me wrong, but we didn't live extravagantly.

Speaker 30 What was your impression of their life in Williamsport?

Speaker 31 Picture perfect to me. Yeah.

Speaker 32 And always, always on the go.

Speaker 29 They lived, as Dr.

Speaker 13 Illis's sisters well remember, in a spectacular mansion on a hill.

Speaker 34 And he was happy?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, he was.

Speaker 24 You were married in 1991?

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 34 Those were pretty happy days?

Speaker 8 Oh yes, absolutely. We were very prominent and we were embraced by the community very nicely, I think.
And I was compensated probably more than I was worth. But

Speaker 8 everything was wonderful here in Williamsport for us.

Speaker 19 Dr.

Speaker 17 Illis had known since childhood that he would be a surgeon.

Speaker 32 Our mother was very sick, and he decided, I think, at that point, that he was going to be a great doctor and help people to save lives.

Speaker 25 And around the area, people are alive today, thanks to Dr.

Speaker 37 Illis.

Speaker 19 People like Fred Sortman.

Speaker 1 Kept me alive.

Speaker 7 I would be dead by now if it wasn't for him.

Speaker 2 He was a hell of a doctor. One of the best.

Speaker 18 And Tom Tamborelli.

Speaker 2 I think he saved my father's life. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

Speaker 8 You know, I love heart surgery. It's challenging and you save people's lives every day and you're in the middle of very exciting, very challenging cases all the time.

Speaker 18 While a resident at St.

Speaker 38 Louis Medical Center in the early 90s, Dr.

Speaker 39 Illis met Miriam, who was a surgical assistant.

Speaker 35 I loved her immediately and I said to him, this is a keeper. That's what I told him.
She's a keeper.

Speaker 30 What was it about her that made you feel that way?

Speaker 31 Oh, she's just warm, loving, just everything you'd want a sister-in-law to be.

Speaker 41 A few years after they married, the Illises had a son, Richie, and moved here to Williamsport, where Miriam worked side by side with her husband in the operating room, running the heart-lung machine.

Speaker 41 She also was very active in the community, volunteering at church, at the symphony. By all accounts, an exuberant, dynamic personality who had no trouble making friends.

Speaker 42 Miriam just had this ability to capture you and really help you to understand why you should enjoy life.

Speaker 20 Friends Dottie Bailey and Karen Young say Miriam was very down to earth despite the money and the status.

Speaker 26 He was making a million dollars.

Speaker 43 They were one of the wealthiest people in Williamsport.

Speaker 34 She wasn't the rich doctor's wife?

Speaker 42 She was not. Miriam drove a green van.
Miriam went to the dollar store. You wouldn't think, wow, that's a doctor's wife.

Speaker 9 In 1996, when Richie was two, Miriam became a stay-at-home mom, quit her job, and never looked back.

Speaker 42 Her life revolved around family, and her son was her family and she did

Speaker 42 everything

Speaker 42 with him and for him.

Speaker 8 God gave us a healthy, beautiful, intelligent child. We were blessed.
She was a wonderful mother. I couldn't have hoped for anyone better than her to take care of my son.

Speaker 9 But Miriam's friends, who say they rarely saw Dr.

Speaker 19 Illis, had the impression that he was becoming increasingly distant and demanding.

Speaker 36 Miriam was controlled by her husband.

Speaker 12 And the marriage, says Leslie Smith, seemed under serious strain.

Speaker 36 He wanted his dinner at a certain time. He wanted his house, you know, perfect.
And if she didn't please him, she paid a price.

Speaker 15 Her friends say that Dr. Illis's emotional distance made Miriam miserable.

Speaker 47 In the winter of 1998, she hired a divorce lawyer, Stephen Hurwitz, although she seemed not to really want a divorce.

Speaker 48 My sense was that she was very much in love with Rich. So I think her initial thought was was that, I want to do what I can to save my marriage.

Speaker 49 At the same time, Miriam was growing suspicious.

Speaker 43 She had the feeling that her husband was having an affair because she really highly suspected that something was going on.

Speaker 48 I don't think Miriam was worried about money.

Speaker 29 And she and her lawyer soon discovered her suspicions were well-founded.

Speaker 48 The ironic part about it is the person he was involved with was his assistant, who Miriam had in fact hired.

Speaker 27 Wow, that's sort of a body blow, isn't it?

Speaker 48 It was a real blow to Miriam.

Speaker 21 Catherine Swawyer was Dr. Dr.

Speaker 19 Illis' new assistant.

Speaker 8 We work so close together and so intimately in very life-threatening situations, and you develop a bond.

Speaker 44 Their relationship became a scandal at Williamsport Hospital.

Speaker 23 I remember he came to me in the locker room, and he says, you know, I'm going to tell you something. It's very private.
Katie and I have been seeing each other.

Speaker 9 Heart surgeon N.

Speaker 41 Che Zama was Dr.

Speaker 18 Illis's partner.

Speaker 51 And so I says, really?

Speaker 23 And he says, yeah. So I said, wow, you know, you've got to be careful.
Don't let too many people know this.

Speaker 19 But Dr. Illis didn't seem to care who knew.

Speaker 8 I had a pretty perfect life there for a little while, you know. I had a girlfriend who I loved, and we had a great time.

Speaker 8 I had a beautiful son who was being taken care of by his mother, who was the best mother in the world. There's no doubt about that.
Everyone will tell you that.

Speaker 8 And I had my freedom.

Speaker 18 The marriage apparently over, Miriam moved out and took five-year-old Richie with her.

Speaker 43 She went from a very secure, together professional woman to insecure, looking over her back, not sure who her friends were, who her friends weren't.

Speaker 38 Friends of hers have said that she would have reconciled in a nanosecond, but that you were not interested.

Speaker 8 I wasn't interested in the beginning, but as time went on, the thoughts occurred in my mind.

Speaker 8 You don't talk about them, of course, because your girlfriend that you're having a relationship with certainly isn't going to appreciate those thoughts.

Speaker 38 This was kind of a mess, wasn't it?

Speaker 8 It was kind of a mess, yes.

Speaker 28 A mess neither had a chance to clean up.

Speaker 45 On the night of January 15th, 1999,

Speaker 12 Miriam Illis would die.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 Hi Miriam, it's Susan. And you're calling again in.

Speaker 1 Miriam Sally. See you in the bag.
Bye-bye.

Speaker 46 No one knows what Miriam Illis's life might have held that final weekend.

Speaker 1 Hi, Miriam. It's Susan again.

Speaker 17 Friends who tried to reach her Saturday tried in vain.

Speaker 1 Miriam, it's Susan. Where are you?

Speaker 1 Tell me, Rudy.

Speaker 34 Dr.

Speaker 46 Illis's sisters, Romaine and Sue, had spoken to her only the night before.

Speaker 31 That was the last time I talked to her. That was Friday night, apparently the night that someone killed her.

Speaker 12 Miriam was pleased, Sue says, that Dr. Illis's girlfriend wasn't going to be around for a few days.

Speaker 35 She says, you know, maybe this is good because she's away and perhaps he's going to see this is not what he wants. He wants to be back with his family.

Speaker 34 In their call, Miriam said five-year-old Richie had just left with his father.

Speaker 13 The two planning to drive down for a weekend visit with Illis's sisters, who live some three hours south of Williamsport.

Speaker 8 I picked up Richie an hour late. It was a snowy, icy day.

Speaker 35 She was a little upset because he was late, saying, you know, he doesn't think I have a life.

Speaker 44 When on Sunday, Miriam failed to show up to teach Sunday school, worried neighbors checked the house,

Speaker 2 looked through the kitchen window, and, horrified at what they saw, called police, Trooper William Holmes.

Speaker 3 We had to kick the door to get into the residence. Miriam was lying on the kitchen floor.
There was a cordless phone very close to her as she laid on the floor.

Speaker 10 She had been shot once through the heart.

Speaker 28 Within hours of the discovery of his wife's body, Dr.

Speaker 21 Illis arrived to drop off his son after their weekend out of town.

Speaker 8 Two policemen came out and I said, what's going on? Is there a robbery here or a burglary? And they said, no.

Speaker 19 He had no clue, he says, that anything had happened.

Speaker 8 I said, well, what's going on? And they said, your wife is dead. I said, oh, my God.

Speaker 8 I got emotional. And I said,

Speaker 8 did she have a heart attack or a stroke? And they said, no, she was shot.

Speaker 12 The police remember it slightly differently.

Speaker 3 Certainly one of his first questions was, what evidence was found?

Speaker 41 And how did you take that?

Speaker 3 It was interesting to us at that point that he would ask that question.

Speaker 6 From here, it's the third house up.

Speaker 19 But investigators were too busy to think much of it then, because in fact they were awash in evidence.

Speaker 56 You can see there's the bullet hole through the glass.

Speaker 16 Found behind the house a cigarette butt.

Speaker 3 He came up the bank here.

Speaker 54 What appeared to be a homemade silencer for a rifle.

Speaker 56 These are the tracks that are leading up to where the shooting took place.

Speaker 29 And footprints in the snow.

Speaker 4 The best footprint we've got is right here.

Speaker 46 Gigantic footprints from a size 14 basketball shoe.

Speaker 13 But what would turn out to be one of the best clues was the phone found next to Miriam's body.

Speaker 21 Records showed her last call Friday evening.

Speaker 13 She'd been talking to a friend in Montana and the friend distinctly remembered being puzzled when their call abruptly ended.

Speaker 9 It was exactly 1037 p.m.

Speaker 2 I mean, this would make a perfect episode of CSI.

Speaker 39 District Attorney Michael Dinga says that without that call, investigators never could have pinpointed the exact time of death.

Speaker 2 It's my belief that the killer didn't know she was on the phone and was one of the fatal mistakes in this case on the killer's behalf.

Speaker 25 But knowing when the shot was fired did not tell police who fired it.

Speaker 25 The initial working theory, a sniper with a daring plan.

Speaker 3 On the night of the murder, to get to Miriam's residence, the killer came down this embankment and through this pipe so as not to be seen from the road.

Speaker 3 Proceeded through the pipe underneath the street.

Speaker 3 And once he got out of the pipe, he continued in this stream bed towards the rear of the victim's house.

Speaker 3 He would have came out of the creek bank here. After walking along the back of the tennis court, he would have come down over the bank.

Speaker 3 crossing the small stream, taking up a position next to this tree approximately 73 feet to the rear of the victim's house in which you can see there's a clear view of the kitchen window and at that time he would have fired one shot goes directly through the window and pierces her heart

Speaker 3 somebody wanted Miriam dead very badly and took great pains to accomplish that

Speaker 38 And that someone, investigators began to think, was none other than Dr.

Speaker 52 Illis.

Speaker 8 Oh, I was a suspect absolutely from day one. On the second day after her murder, there were rumors throughout the town that the district attorney was saying, I know that Dr.

Speaker 8 Illis did this and I'm going to nail him. Why would I do it? I mean, I didn't have a motive.

Speaker 10 In fact, investigators saw an excellent motive.

Speaker 7 I think money had a lot to do with it.

Speaker 19 The couple hadn't yet begun to split up property,

Speaker 55 but already a judge had ordered Illis to to pay Miriam a whopping $13,000 a month in support.

Speaker 12 He insists that given his income, that was no big deal.

Speaker 8 There's plenty of money to go around. My lifestyle wasn't cramped.

Speaker 3 He was going to lose in this divorce.

Speaker 23 He had already lost some money.

Speaker 2 He was going to lose some more.

Speaker 3 He may lose custody of his son.

Speaker 33 Anything like that?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 24 All apart, the DA thinks, of a much bigger motive.

Speaker 2 This is a guy that spent his life as a heart surgeon. He was always in control.
In this separation, he had lost control of Miriam and of his finances.

Speaker 57 When the divorce issue became public knowledge, he did not hesitate to express his abhorrence toward his wife.

Speaker 49 At the hospital, Dr.

Speaker 46 Zama says the situation was downright embarrassing.

Speaker 35 What exactly was he saying?

Speaker 23 He would often refer to her as a bitch.

Speaker 23 How the bitch was making his life miserable.

Speaker 8 I think that these are great, gross exaggerations, and some of it's taken out of context. Sure, did I call her names once in a while? Absolutely.
And Miriam, you know, blasted me a number of times.

Speaker 8 It's just what normal people go through when they're getting divorced.

Speaker 36 She said,

Speaker 36 I am afraid for my life.

Speaker 1 Miriam's friend, Leslie Smith, says there was nothing normal about it.

Speaker 36 Richard told her that he was going to kill her if she got any money, and that he would kill her if she took Richie.

Speaker 36 And she just looked at me and she said, He means it.

Speaker 54 But did he really do it?

Speaker 34 Where was Dr.

Speaker 37 Illis at exactly 10:37 p.m.

Speaker 24 that Friday night?

Speaker 19 His years as a hunter have taught District Attorney Michael Dingis a valuable lesson. Having the quarry in sight doesn't necessarily mean it's time to act.

Speaker 2 You don't just go out and arrest somebody because you think they did it.

Speaker 2 You have to build a case. You have to build it piece by piece, step by step.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it takes days.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it takes years.

Speaker 2 And you have to be patient.

Speaker 2 You got to wait.

Speaker 39 But investigators didn't wait to probe Dr.

Speaker 21 Illis's alibi.

Speaker 16 He told them he'd been on the road when Miriam was killed, that after picking up Richie at five, he left for his sister's house downstate around 9:30.

Speaker 2 Why didn't he leave at 5 o'clock? If you're going to make a trip for several hours with a five-year-old, travel in daylight. He says the roads were bad.
That's just not true.

Speaker 2 The storm that occurred occurred the day before.

Speaker 51 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 9 Nevertheless, investigators videotaped and timed the route under good and bad weather conditions.

Speaker 2 Two minutes, 48 seconds.

Speaker 54 Key was a stop at McDonald's, 35 miles from the crime scene.

Speaker 8 McDonald's, 23, 12.

Speaker 19 Witnesses saw Dr. Illis there, but were vague as to when, and his story changed.

Speaker 3 The numbers just don't seem to add up as far as the distance he traveled and the time that it would have taken him to travel. The first time we had talked to him, it was 11 o'clock.

Speaker 3 After he knew that we knew the time of death being 1037, then he put himself here at 10.30.

Speaker 29 At 11.24, cell phone records show Dr.

Speaker 1 Illis called his sister.

Speaker 37 He told her the roads were so bad he was stopping for the night.

Speaker 18 And hotel records have him checking in around 1 a.m., some 90 miles from Williamsport.

Speaker 2 So what is wrong with his account of how he was spending those critical hours? What's wrong with his account is the fact that he was murdering his wife during that time period.

Speaker 24 One person may know the truth for sure.

Speaker 38 Richie emerges as your best alibi witness, and yet it took almost two years, in fact, for him to be interviewed.

Speaker 58 What was the problem there?

Speaker 8 The problem there was he was afraid of the police.

Speaker 17 When Dr.

Speaker 34 Illis finally did let Richie talk, the boy had little to say, and D.A.

Speaker 13 Dingis thinks he knows why.

Speaker 2 Dr. Illis, because of his position, it would have been easy for him to get access to narcotics or any kind of drug that could be used to put a five-year-old to sleep.

Speaker 12 But speculation isn't evidence, and the evidence wasn't adding up to much.

Speaker 38 Police sent the cigarette butt and three hairs found in the silencer for DNA analysis.

Speaker 28 But ironically, one of the earliest real leads came from Miriam Illis herself.

Speaker 15 As do many people during a divorce, she'd made a video inventory of household possessions. Police took special note of Dr.

Speaker 21 Illis's workshop.

Speaker 2 He had drill presses, he had saws, he had grinding material, he had all the types of woodworking equipment that would have been necessary to construct this particular silencer.

Speaker 58 You know a lot about guns, right?

Speaker 38 I mean, you have the equipment where you conceivably could have made this.

Speaker 8 Oh, yeah I could have made, but I would have made a silencer that was good. That silencer that they found is very amateur-ish.

Speaker 12 But armed with a search warrant, police found traces of material to make even an amateurish silencer.

Speaker 2 We took PVC, acoustical tile, wire, glues, foams. All we knew was they looked similar to the stuff from the silencer.

Speaker 50 Police also took their own pictures in Dr.

Speaker 33 Illis's house, even down to what was on his nightstand.

Speaker 2 It was a book entitled, They Write Their Own Sentences, the FBI Handwriting Analysis Book.

Speaker 7 We thought it was unusual that he would have that, so we photographed it.

Speaker 29 Strange book for a doctor, but then this case was strange, and it got a lot stranger when the anonymous letters began.

Speaker 52 The first to Illis's attorney proclaimed that the writer, not Dr. Illis, had killed Miriam because she was a racist.

Speaker 21 It was signed, soldier of equality, soldier of God, soldier of death.

Speaker 2 This anonymous letter shows up. It says, I shot Miriam.
I made it look like Dr. Illis did it.
It's postmarked four days after Dr. Illis finds out what we took from his house.
It's a huge coincidence.

Speaker 19 Especially since it was written just as the book on Dr.

Speaker 17 Illis's nightstand had recommended.

Speaker 2 It says in in there, if you're going to write an anonymous letter, it should be done in pencil. Unlike ink, you can't track pencil.

Speaker 2 And you write in block printing, so it can't be tied to your other type of writing.

Speaker 1 In May of 1999, four months after the murder, a second letter arrived.

Speaker 19 This time the author talked about himself.

Speaker 2 He puts in there he has advanced degrees, he's fluent in many different languages, that he's going to be leaving the area soon. And lo and behold, who does this describe? This describes Dr.

Speaker 2 Illis' partner, Dr. Zama.

Speaker 10 You're smiling.

Speaker 51 Yes.

Speaker 51 I wasn't smiling then.

Speaker 57 I was shocked.

Speaker 22 Did you look at Dr.

Speaker 2 Zama as a potential suspect? Dr. Zama had an ironclad alibi, had absolutely no motive, and in fact was an extremely good friend of Miriam's.

Speaker 38 What do you make of these anonymous letters that arrived?

Speaker 8 I think that it's probably just some nut.

Speaker 19 No, not a nut, police thought, but someone who was methodically leaving false clues.

Speaker 59 In fact, the last anonymous letter arrived with yet another hair stuck in the envelope flap.

Speaker 14 Search warrants had allowed the police to get a sample of Dr.

Speaker 59 Illis's DNA, and by now, they had a lot to compare it to.

Speaker 2 The DNA sample from the cigarette doesn't match the hair in the silencer. None of the hairs in the silencer match each other.
And the hair in the anonymous letter comes from somebody else.

Speaker 2 So we've got five sources of people that supposedly were involved in this crime, and none of them are Dr. Illis.

Speaker 2 It led us to the conclusion that

Speaker 2 there was clearly a planting of evidence.

Speaker 12 Then, in June of 1999, frustrated investigators finally got a break.

Speaker 60 I was down here looking for minnows.

Speaker 15 Fisherman Matt McKay was walking some 40 feet from a road just off the route Dr.

Speaker 33 Illis drove that night.

Speaker 60 Well, I didn't notice the gun at first. I had tripped over it and thought it was driftwood.
But I looked down and driftwood doesn't have a scope, so I took a second look and it looked like a rifle.

Speaker 21 A loaded rifle with a sawed off barrel and stock.

Speaker 2 When we went back to the silencer that had been left at the scene, when you slide the silencer over this gun, it not only fits, it locks on. There's no doubt this is the murder weapon.

Speaker 11 A rare Savage 23D rifle.

Speaker 28 Its serial number obliterated.

Speaker 19 A gun last sold in 1949, before records even were kept.

Speaker 2 The question for us all along was, did Dr. Ellis ever receive a Savage Model 23D?

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Speaker 14 After the biggest break in the case,

Speaker 14 the discovery of the murder weapon in this creek bed, investigators needed to tie the Savage 23D rifle to Dr.

Speaker 12 Richard Illis, who it turns out had a long history with guns.

Speaker 32 It just came with the family.

Speaker 34 His sisters say that Dr.

Speaker 50 Illis always was an avid hunter.

Speaker 46 It was just the family sport.

Speaker 31 As far back as I can remember, always hunters. Always.

Speaker 2 Our father hunted, our uncles, everybody.

Speaker 54 But by fall of 1999, D.A.

Speaker 19 Michael Dingis was sure that Dr.

Speaker 12 Illis had used his hunting skills to shoot his wife.

Speaker 2 Dr. Illis was a hunter all his life and was a very good shot.

Speaker 11 Nearly a year later, While casually looking at photos with Dr.

Speaker 9 Illis' relatives, investigators were shocked to stumble on this picture of Illis' late godfather, Joe Kowalski.

Speaker 2 A photo of a very young Joe Kowalski holding a groundhog in one hand, a bold action rifle in the other hand.

Speaker 18 A rifle that looked just like the murder weapon.

Speaker 2 When I saw that photograph, I knew that we definitely had the right guy.

Speaker 14 Two months later, in the same woods where the rifle was found, Police discovered size 14 basketball shoes, same size as the footprints at the crime scene.

Speaker 2 This killer chose to discard the murder weapon in the shoes a quarter mile from the route that Dr. Illis says he took south that night.
It's a huge coincidence, huge piece of evidence here.

Speaker 21 But still, the DA felt not enough evidence to charge Dr.

Speaker 54 Illis, who was busy building a new life.

Speaker 10 Six months after Miriam's murder, he married his girlfriend Catherine.

Speaker 38 Then in November 2000, he hit the road.

Speaker 52 You moved around quite a bit.

Speaker 8 I moved a couple times.

Speaker 34 First stop, Laredo, Texas, for a job as a heart surgeon in a hospital a stone's throw from the Mexican border.

Speaker 8 If I was on the run, I wouldn't be in the United States. I'd be in South Mexico in a villa somewhere.
But I didn't want to give the impression to anybody that I was guilty of anything.

Speaker 21 But the job didn't work out.

Speaker 39 And Dr.

Speaker 9 Illis next moved to Spokane, Washington, joined by his new wife and son.

Speaker 34 He applied for a job at a heart surgery practice there.

Speaker 63 This happens to be what would have been Dr. Illis's office.

Speaker 34 Administrator Kathy Austin.

Speaker 41 How did he strike you personally?

Speaker 32 As a dedicated physician.

Speaker 52 But then Kathy got a mysterious anonymous package stuffed with newspaper articles about the murder and a letter warning anyone to think twice about hiring Dr.

Speaker 37 Illis.

Speaker 35 I realized that everywhere he went, that packet followed.

Speaker 1 Ultimately, Dr.

Speaker 9 Illis was turned down for the job.

Speaker 22 What was his reaction?

Speaker 27 He was angry.

Speaker 36 Not at me, but the system that was out to get him.

Speaker 10 In time, his new wife divorced him, and the once-prominent heart surgeon seemed to drop from sight, only to resurface in the Spokane newspaper and with a completely new career.

Speaker 38 You're practicing cosmetic surgery?

Speaker 8 Yes, I was, actually. That was another major interest of mine, and I had some training in it.

Speaker 30 He was offering a fairly good deal on some of these procedures.

Speaker 64 Yeah, he advertised in our paper

Speaker 64 his

Speaker 40 great rates.

Speaker 24 But reporter Carla Johnson started hearing complaints from patients unhappy with Dr.

Speaker 21 Illis's work.

Speaker 64 They had no idea that this guy didn't have board certification with the American Board of Plastic Surgeons.

Speaker 42 They were shocked.

Speaker 25 And in short order, Carla too got the anonymous package.

Speaker 64 There was a suspicion that maybe some of Miriam's family was tracking him and just letting people know in a friendly way what was going on, but I don't know that for sure.

Speaker 34 Spokane police, meanwhile, were watching the doctor's house day and night,

Speaker 34 keeping tabs at the request of the Pennsylvania investigators.

Speaker 2 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 1 Who, in December 2002, four years after Miriam's murder,

Speaker 16 finally decided they had enough evidence to make the arrest.

Speaker 13 48 Hours flew Holmes and McDermott to Spokane to retrace their steps.

Speaker 7 Four years of work, you want it to be there. when he's finally taken into custody.

Speaker 6 We just want to make sure that we've got him covered in the affidavit here.

Speaker 44 The plan worked out with Spokane Detective Mark Henderson was for plainclothes detectives to quietly nab Dr.

Speaker 37 Illis at his office.

Speaker 35 What exactly did you expect?

Speaker 2 Well, what we expected was everything to go perfect.

Speaker 1 And it didn't.

Speaker 28 Because while Holmes and McDermott waited nervously at the sheriff's department, Illis threw a curve.

Speaker 5 Well, that day he changed the plan, took off, went the opposite direction the freeway, and weren't able to follow him.

Speaker 46 Undercover officer Doug Marski.

Speaker 5 I I was thinking that these guys from Pennsylvania are going to think that we're idiots.

Speaker 44 Luckily, Illis soon was spotted again.

Speaker 5 We're heading down the freeway, probably between 80 and 90 miles an hour.

Speaker 1 He's in a hurry.

Speaker 34 To their chagrin, Dr.

Speaker 16 Illis headed right into the heart of downtown, where he suddenly pulled over.

Speaker 4 Just as he's getting ready to step out, we grab and pull him out.

Speaker 5 He goes, what's this about? I remember saying to him, you know what this is about. There's some guys from Pennsylvania that want to talk to you.

Speaker 3 I asked him him if he remembered me, said he did, and I told him the reason we were here was that he was under arrest for the murder of Miriam Illis.

Speaker 1 After four long years, Dr.

Speaker 50 Illis's cat and mouse game with Holmes and McDermott finally was over.

Speaker 12 But when it came to the evidence, Dr. Illis wasn't giving an inch.

Speaker 8 Anything that they could twist, distort, or contort into looking like it implicated me, they did.

Speaker 12 Nearly four years after Miriam Illis's death, Dr.

Speaker 14 Illis was back in Williamsport, charged with her murder.

Speaker 43 I do not think that he thought in a million years that he was not going to get away with this.

Speaker 20 Miriam's friends were elated.

Speaker 34 Describe what your feelings were when you realized this.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 53 Same thing, yes.

Speaker 42 You felt like, thank goodness, all this hard work, that something is coming out of it.

Speaker 34 Dr.

Speaker 20 Illis's sisters weren't surprised at the arrest.

Speaker 32 Everything that you read or I read

Speaker 32 never really mentioned anyone else but him.

Speaker 40 The papers.

Speaker 32 The internet. They just kept it going.

Speaker 8 I'm smart enough

Speaker 8 that

Speaker 8 I would know in advance that I would be targeted if something like this happened to her. Why would I do it?

Speaker 46 At trial, District Attorney Michael Dingis argued that Dr.

Speaker 15 Illis did it to avoid a messy, drawn-out divorce.

Speaker 20 in which he might well lose both his fortune and his son.

Speaker 2 There were a lot of statements that were made by Miriam to people around her that Dr. Illis had threatened her life on several occasions.

Speaker 46 The DA presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

Speaker 2 Is there one thing in this case that says he did it? No, there's not one thing. There's hundreds of things that said he did.

Speaker 8 I think he has one hell of imagination. And he has nothing to do except grasp at straws and make the evidence fit who he wants to convict.
Simple as that.

Speaker 19 In fact, Dr.

Speaker 9 Illis says, the evidence clearly points to someone else.

Speaker 8 The murderer had size 14 shoes. I wear a size 9 and a half.
They found DNA on a cigarette butt that only the killer could have left there.

Speaker 38 Do you think that some of this evidence, for one reason or another, was planted?

Speaker 8 If you're the murderer, you don't want to leave a silencer behind that has evidence. You don't want to leave evidence in letters that can be traced to you.
I'm enough of a scientist to know that.

Speaker 38 Well, unless all the stuff that you leave is a red herring that points to someone else, then you certainly do want to leave it.

Speaker 8 I don't think so. I think it's far better to have no evidence than to have evidence that is puzzling.

Speaker 1 And what about the murder weapon?

Speaker 49 Believed to be the very one in this old Illis family photo.

Speaker 8 So what? It was 50 years ago. I never saw that gun.

Speaker 14 But explaining away the state's last blockbuster piece of evidence was more difficult.

Speaker 28 When police searched Illis's Spokane home, they found a manuscript on his computer.

Speaker 2 When we found out that he wrote a book titled Heartshot Murder of the Doctor's Wife, we

Speaker 2 were amazed.

Speaker 21 The plot involved the murder of a doctor's wife by a stalker.

Speaker 2 The bullet ripped through the heart of the heart surgeon's wife.

Speaker 54 But the characters had the same names as those in the real murder investigation.

Speaker 2 He thought he got away with the perfect crime, and this was almost his way to put in our face that, hey, you couldn't get me, and I'm even going to write a book about it. It's a confession.

Speaker 26 It's a confession.

Speaker 2 The killer felt an almost orgasmic catharsis. After all, to him, killing was better than sex.

Speaker 58 Why would you write a book from the perspective of the killer? Wouldn't that just focus more attention on you?

Speaker 8 I thought it would generate more interest and more widespread knowledge of the actual facts of the case, which were not being disseminated by the police. That was my motive.

Speaker 38 And you didn't kill Miriam?

Speaker 8 Of course not. And I have no idea who did.

Speaker 19 Dr.

Speaker 20 Illis never took the stand.

Speaker 52 After a five-week trial,

Speaker 2 I think he's an evil, diabolical killer.

Speaker 12 The jury began its deliberations.

Speaker 33 Then, after two and a half days.

Speaker 5 Do you think you'll leave a free man today?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 65 Depends on what the jury decides. And obviously, it's in their hands and in God's hands.

Speaker 14 The jury finds Dr.

Speaker 46 Illis is guilty of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 31 I just looked at my brother and I thought, oh my God, how could they do this to you?

Speaker 34 For the investigators, it's justice five years in the making.

Speaker 2 We got the right guy.

Speaker 23 Took a long time, but it was done.

Speaker 3 It was done correctly.

Speaker 26 And there's no doubt in your mind but that you got the right guy.

Speaker 23 We know we have the right guy.

Speaker 19 Dr. Illis never wrote the final chapter in his book, In the Real World, a judge wrote it for him.

Speaker 28 Life in Prison.

Speaker 51 Her life is destroyed, and the son's life is destroyed, and

Speaker 51 his

Speaker 2 is destroyed as well.

Speaker 51 So really nobody wins.

Speaker 2 You know, Dr. Ellis was a brilliant guy, there's no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 He's smarter than me, he's probably smarter than any of the individual police officers, but he's not smarter than all of us together.