A Trust Betrayed

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Speaker 5 There's so much wealth here. You want to be a part of it.

Speaker 4 Everybody wants to have fun. Everybody wants to be with somebody.

Speaker 6 Melinda was a very strong personality. She was always looking for someone to be with, as most single women are.

Speaker 6 She was very confident.

Speaker 6 She would talk to everybody.

Speaker 4 Intelligent lady. Coming up to Palm Beach, I got a dress to the nines, and she was doing that.
She was coming up to Palm Beach three nights a week. I'm Michael Jamrock, and my aunt was Linda Fishman.

Speaker 6 She knew what she wanted, and she would go after it. She liked younger men.

Speaker 4 We're in Palm Beach. Try to find an older woman that doesn't have a younger man.

Speaker 6 I don't always would have agreed with who she picked up and made part of her life.

Speaker 4 She kept her dating life separate from family. She didn't think it was any of our business, and it probably wasn't.

Speaker 4 In this case, I think she put her trust in someone that ultimately she shouldn't have. I'm Detective Eric Keith with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 4 The fire department responded to an alarm, and when they got there, the firefighters went in.

Speaker 4 Once they made entry and cleared the house, they found Linda Fishman dead on the floor of her living room. There were deep ligature marks around her neck.

Speaker 4 Crime scene also found about a six-inch piece of brown twine that turned out to be the ligature.

Speaker 4 The length of time it takes to strangle somebody in that fashion, this is something that took time and determination to do.

Speaker 6 I cried for weeks.

Speaker 6 You know, she was a very important person to me.

Speaker 4 Because most homicides are committed by people known to the victim, that's where we start. Okay, who did Linda know?

Speaker 4 Who were her family members?

Speaker 4 Who had opportunity?

Speaker 4 While most of the family members kind of fell by the wayside as far as being suspects, we had some problems with Michael. I was closer to my aunt at that time than I was my own mother.

Speaker 4 He seemed to have a few skeletons in his his closet that didn't put him in the best light.

Speaker 6 I know she lent him money. I know he asked her for more money.
You really never know what people do.

Speaker 4 Murderers, they don't walk around with a scarlet letter on them. A lot of times they're like werewolves.

Speaker 5 It was frightening to think anyone that we had met socializing, is this the person that murdered Linda?

Speaker 4 Secrets of Palm Beach.

Speaker 8 She was a great woman, caring, compassionate, giving, funny.

Speaker 8 She was Linda.

Speaker 8 She was Linda. She gave off this aura.
You had to get to know her. To know her was to love her.
She was like the mother Hubbard.

Speaker 4 Penny Chamowitz was Linda Fishman's hairdresser.

Speaker 8 She was always taking care of everybody else.

Speaker 4 And when she was going through a nasty divorce, it was was Linda who came to her rescue emotionally and financially.

Speaker 8 I was so grateful for what she did for me. Words can't, can't, I can't, can't describe it.

Speaker 4 Linda had grown comfortable in the role of caregiver. She never had children of her own, but was considered the matriarch of her extended family.

Speaker 9 This is the four of us when we were little kids. Then here's Linda.
She was the head of our family.

Speaker 9 Anybody in the family had a problem, my nieces and nephews, my kids, my mother, my brother, we all went to Linda. Linda took care of everything.

Speaker 4 Bernice Ferency is Linda's older sister and Michael Jamrock's mother.

Speaker 9 No matter what it was, we went to her, you know, because she understood everything, even though she was the youngest. Here's my sister Linda.
She used to take the nieces and do makeup parties.

Speaker 9 She's really going to be missed by everybody.

Speaker 4 For years, Linda had a successful career as the chief court administrator in Hartford, Connecticut.

Speaker 4 It was there she met and married Superior Court Judge Milton Fishman, a wealthy man, 16 years her senior. How was their marriage?

Speaker 4 It was a good marriage.

Speaker 9 Yeah, he was funny.

Speaker 9 And he always made her laugh.

Speaker 4 But their happiness would be short-lived. Milton died of heart failure just eight years into the marriage.
At 39, Linda was widowed and alone.

Speaker 4 Years later, determined to make a fresh start, she moved to Florida, where Linda became a fixture on the charity circuit, even attending events at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Mansion here in Palm Beach.

Speaker 6 She could work a room like nobody I know worked a room.

Speaker 5 She was almost like giddy with the popularity

Speaker 5 of meeting so many people.

Speaker 4 Barbara Wolfe and Linda Marchese were part of Linda's inner circle of well-to-do women who were often part of the Palm Beach social scene.

Speaker 6 If you were a person close to her,

Speaker 6 there wasn't anything she wouldn't do for you.

Speaker 4 And one of those closest to Linda was her nephew, Michael Jamrock, who had also moved to Florida and made a name for himself as a radio disc jockey.

Speaker 4 And off the air, Jamrock had a reputation as a bit of a wild man, which sometimes got in the way of steady employment.

Speaker 4 This is Jamrock. Can I just get no doubt tickets? You have no clue what the hell's going on, do you?

Speaker 4 I'm no angel. What do you mean by that? You're no angel.
I like to go out and party. I drink a lot, you know, go out with a lot of girls.
You know,

Speaker 4 I'm just sort of like a party animal. So I'm like sort of looked down upon as, you know, the low-life radio guy.
That may be putting it mildly.

Speaker 4 Jamrock also had run-ins with the law, including two arrests for drunk driving, a jail term, and a restraining order stemming from an old girlfriend who accused him of domestic violence.

Speaker 4 Despite his setbacks, that didn't stop Jamrock from borrowing $40,000 from Aunt Linda to open the now-defunct Jamrock Cafe. Yeah, it's a lot of money.

Speaker 4 And never once, from the time that she gave me that money, did she ever ask me once,

Speaker 4 Are you gonna pay me back? When are you gonna start paying me back?

Speaker 10 You wanna play with these

Speaker 5 This one

Speaker 11 and this one.

Speaker 4 And when he was embroiled in a bitter custody battle.

Speaker 4 Once again, it was Linda who helped Jamrock out.

Speaker 4 This is a woman who, since I was a baby,

Speaker 4 has never said no to me about anything for anything, ever. But did that generosity cost Linda her life? You had a lot of free time in your hands to get into trouble.
Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 4 And you did get into trouble. I did.

Speaker 4 You were partying the night that she was killed. Right.

Speaker 4 At the time of the homicide, his alibi, he's about a mile away at a bar

Speaker 4 drinking heavily according to the people there.

Speaker 4 Eric Keith of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department is the lead detective on the Fishman case. So Michael is at a bar.

Speaker 4 His house is at the far end of Linda's home and her house is right in the middle. So he's passing by there, give or take within 15 minutes of the murder.

Speaker 4 And apparently, Detective Keith wasn't the only one questioning Jamrock's possible involvement. Some of the family members had some concerns based on the way he became isolated following the homicide.

Speaker 4 He wasn't socializing with the rest of the family. So there were some definite concerns in the periphery of his family that he may have had some involvement.

Speaker 4 Doesn't sound like he had too many defenders.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 I mean, these are my family members. I mean, people don't understand that.
It's my family that have known me since I've been born. You know, that's what the problem is.

Speaker 4 To some degree, they all felt that he was using her for money.

Speaker 4 Were you in a tight position financially? I'm always in a tight position financially. You believed Michael Jamrock was capable of murder.
Yes. If she were to tell Michael, enough is enough.

Speaker 4 You know, the purse purse is closed, I've got my own problems, you've got him inebriated, he's got the opportunity because he's passing by there about the right time, circumstances don't look good for Michael.

Speaker 4 He's an obvious suspect at that point.

Speaker 4 Well, in the very beginning, I had no idea I was a suspect. Not a clue.
Every single time I went to the police station, I just assumed I was doing my best to help them with the case.

Speaker 4 Michael had motive, motive, he had opportunity, and it wasn't looking good. So as a tool to try to clear him as a suspect, we asked him to submit to a polygraph examination.
And what were the results?

Speaker 4 It showed deception.

Speaker 4 How do you explain that?

Speaker 4 I can't.

Speaker 4 If you've never had a lie detector test done, it's a very bizarre process. They say, okay, is your name Troy? Yes.
Do you live at this address? Yes. Is this what you do for an occupation? Yes.

Speaker 4 Did you kill your aunt?

Speaker 4 Well, of course you're going to jump. It's sort of like you're on a carnival ride and holy crap.

Speaker 4 Of course you're going to like freak out.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 I don't have an explanation for that. I really don't.
I have no idea. A shaky alibi, a failed lie detector test, and a possible motive.

Speaker 4 Together, it was shaping up to be a powerful case against Michael Jamrock.

Speaker 4 Did you kill Linda Fishman?

Speaker 12 Of course not.

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Speaker 4 Come Come pulling down the street, we could see smoke coming out of the garage, heavy, heavy smoke.

Speaker 4 Just after midnight on February the 7th, 2003, Lieutenant Tim McCabe and Chief Richard Lounsbury responded to a fire alarm at Linda Fishman's house.

Speaker 4 We're looking for victims if there's, you know, that's our first priority.

Speaker 4 But even before the firemen entered the house, something

Speaker 4 didn't seem right. Why is the garage door open? No car in the garage.
Once inside, their instincts were confirmed. As we go to the left of that front door inside, there she lays.

Speaker 4 Linda Fishman. Linda Fishman.

Speaker 4 It was a shocker.

Speaker 4 I could tell something is

Speaker 4 around her neck. What struck me odd was the way her body was laid out.
Perfectly flat on her back, arms by her side, with a blue cloth over her face.

Speaker 4 instantly becomes a crime scene.

Speaker 15 Firefighters found the body of Linda Fishman while putting out a fire in her Western Boca Raton home.

Speaker 4 We believe the perpetrator arrived at the house sometime before 10.30 at night. Police learned Linda had been out that night for dinner and drinks with a friend in Palm Beach.

Speaker 4 We went into the case initially, believing that she knew the person based on the way she was dressed. She was in her pajamas.

Speaker 4 While there were no signs of forced entry, Detective Keith did find other strange clues. There's a broken plate of pancakes on the table.
Linda had just eaten before she came home. Who were those for?

Speaker 4 I mean, who's that hungry? Is it her who just ate, or is it the guy that's waiting for her to come home? At some point, things turned ugly, and the killer strangled Linda with that piece of twine.

Speaker 4 It takes a long time and a lot of effort to strangle somebody with a ligature.

Speaker 4 to continue to apply that pressure. The fire rescue people found a cloth over her face.
That could be some effort on the part of the suspect to depersonify the victim.

Speaker 4 They don't want them staring at them while they're doing whatever they're doing.

Speaker 4 The killer stole jewelry, paintings, and attempted to set the house on fire.

Speaker 4 Detective Kenneth Buss. Why did the suspect start a fire, do you think? There was an interest in

Speaker 4 some form of cover-up of

Speaker 4 the homicide.

Speaker 4 It appeared that it was started by using rubbing alcohol, isopropyl alcohol that was also found in the house.

Speaker 4 Why is rubbing alcohol significant? What else can it be used for? It can also be used to destroy the evidence that we were so much looking for.

Speaker 4 And alcohol, if you think about it, Doctors, medical examiners, they all use alcohol to clean instruments during the performance of their duties and

Speaker 4 it destroys the DNA, it can destroy the fingerprints, anything left behind. You recovered no evidence, nothing, not even a fingerprint that was valuable.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 In the early morning hours, deputies tried to locate Linda's next of kin. That's when nephew Michael Jamrock, who lived less than a mile away, first appeared on their radar screen.

Speaker 4 He doesn't answer the door at the first time the deputy goes there.

Speaker 4 And the second time, with some prodding he answers the door. The deputies noted that he did smell of alcohol.

Speaker 4 He basically was shocked that she was dead but didn't necessarily inquire as to the means of her death or how she died but was

Speaker 4 interested in where the jewelry was taken, where her cat was. In fact, you asked that question, where's her jewelry, before inquiring how she was killed.

Speaker 4 Is that true? I don't remember. I could have.

Speaker 4 I know what she kept in her house. But you asked about the jewelry several times.

Speaker 4 That's going to be a priority for you. I wanted to make sure that everything was secure in her house because I knew what she had in her home.

Speaker 4 You know, that line of questioning raised some eyebrows. I'm sure it did.
I'm sure it did.

Speaker 4 Does that mean we thought he did it? Not necessarily. Does it make us suspicious? Obviously.

Speaker 4 Detectives learned that Linda was growing tired of financially supporting Jamrock and some other family members. Now, they had a theory.

Speaker 4 In his inebriated state, does he stop by his aunt's house on the way home and she asks for money and she says no. And in a fit of rage, he kills her, sets the place on fire, and drives home.

Speaker 4 Problem with that scenario is the vehicle. Where's the vehicle go?

Speaker 4 Linda's stolen car was found at this train station, an 80-mile round trip from her house. It was a significant piece of evidence, but just not against Michael Jamrock.

Speaker 4 Police couldn't figure out how he could drop off his aunt's car here and make it back to Boca Raton before deputies came knocking at his door.

Speaker 4 It was a roadblock, but cops continued to keep the heat on Jamrock. I was walking out of the police station, and there was a uniformed police officer, and he yells out, Jamrock.

Speaker 4 Of course, I turn around.

Speaker 4 Don't go far. You're going to jail.

Speaker 4 That

Speaker 4 freaked me out.

Speaker 4 Despite their threats, investigators weren't solely focused on Jamrock. They were also digging into Linda Fishman's private life.

Speaker 4 Just like some people's hobbies get them killed, maybe that she was looking for that part of her life, some excitement or some adventure, dating Mr. Wrong to spice her life up.
I mean,

Speaker 4 there's no telling. I guess only Linda can tell us that.

Speaker 6 She liked being in the center of attention.

Speaker 6 And the weight loss obviously was giving her the way back in there.

Speaker 5 It gave her her confidence.

Speaker 5 She blossomed.

Speaker 4 At 55, Linda Fishman was just hitting her stride after undergoing gastric bypass surgery and losing 70 pounds six months before her murder.

Speaker 5 And seeing her in Palm Beach in the weeks leading up to this, she was surrounded by people that she was meeting and coming over for me to meet all of her new friends and all these gentlemen.

Speaker 4 Friends say it was a remarkable transformation in more ways than one. So how did Linda change after the surgery?

Speaker 8 She was more outgoing.

Speaker 8 more positive, more peppy.

Speaker 8 She felt better health-wise.

Speaker 4 Her hairdresser, Penny Chamowitz, helped Linda through her recovery.

Speaker 8 Her self-esteem was better. You know, she just, you know, she had a little pick-me-up.

Speaker 4 But those close to her say the newly confident and improved Linda was still missing something.

Speaker 9 She was very happy. The only thing she was very lonely is she wished she had somebody in her life.

Speaker 4 For people that are not familiar with the dating scene here in Palm Beach, how difficult is it?

Speaker 5 It's difficult. Most of the the women I know

Speaker 5 are still single. As you get older, in my group of friends, you're not dating as much.

Speaker 4 Did she have good judgment when it came to men?

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 6 She seemed to be a little...

Speaker 6 She didn't seem to be as,

Speaker 6 what's the word I want to use? Discerning.

Speaker 4 When it came to men.

Speaker 4 Detective Keith's investigation was now shifting from Jamrock to Linda's love life. Some of the men that she dated,

Speaker 4 I mean, from our perspective, were probably high-risk type

Speaker 4 men. Just days before she was murdered, Linda had gone to the movies on her first date.
Linda brought the popcorn bag back to her mom that night.

Speaker 4 Her mom still had it, so we collected it for fingerprint processing. On the bag, police found fingerprints belonging to this man.

Speaker 4 Linda's date, James Bell, someone she had met days earlier at a stoplight.

Speaker 4 And she leans out of her window and what does she say to you? She just said that I was a handsome man. She was picking you up, I guess, in a way, yes.

Speaker 4 Barbara Wolfe was with Linda that night she met Bell.

Speaker 6 He passed by in a truck. I tell you, she was very outgoing.
And she was waving out the window.

Speaker 6 You know, he caught that up and I think she threw out her number and he called her.

Speaker 4 These are his arrest histories, things that we focus in on. Battery, DWI, improper exhibition of a firearm.
Turns out, James Bell had quite a past.

Speaker 4 Did you tell Linda Fishman about your criminal record?

Speaker 4 I don't think I really knew her that long.

Speaker 4 And that night at the movies, he definitely didn't mention his guilty plea for attempted second-degree murder years earlier.

Speaker 4 He shot somebody following an altercation up around a pawn shop that he either ran or owned, which showed a propensity for being a hothead. I mean, same kind of scenario.

Speaker 4 Did Linda do something that upset him and he killed her in a fit of rage? So you thought you had your guy? At that point.

Speaker 4 And with his history, we think he might be the guy.

Speaker 4 Would it surprise you to learn that that man was charged with second-degree attempted murder?

Speaker 6 Really?

Speaker 6 She was very forward.

Speaker 6 She was very forward.

Speaker 4 How does that square with someone who had a legal background, was married to a judge?

Speaker 6 I think your personality is your personality. To me, I looked at it as being outgoing,

Speaker 6 sometimes a little bit reckless. I don't want to say she lived on the edge all the time, but she was out there.

Speaker 6 She was out there.

Speaker 4 Detectives brought Bell in for questioning. Things weren't looking that good.
No, they weren't. For you?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 James Bell was released when detectives realized he really had no motive and didn't even know where Linda lived. It was just an up-and-down roller coaster ride from start to finish.

Speaker 4 And there seemed to be no shortage of men from Linda's past to question.

Speaker 4 And through investigation, it led us to a person named Donnie Saxon, who the previous New Year's Eve had actually spent the night over at her house.

Speaker 4 Donnie Saxon was a man Linda had met during a night out in Palm Beach several months before her death. You brought him in for questioning? Yes.
And what did he say as an aside?

Speaker 4 Basically, oh, this is ironic that this happened to me in the past.

Speaker 4 Happened to him in the past? Yes, that he'd been brought in for questioning regarding another girlfriend that had been murdered somewhere in the Las Vegas area. I think that case was unsolved.

Speaker 4 But the fact that he'd been questioned by another girlfriend that had been murdered, ironic.

Speaker 4 Again, bad timing. Yeah, now we have not one, but two people

Speaker 4 with circumstances of violence overshadowing them in the past.

Speaker 4 Saxon was never charged in the Las Vegas case and also denied any involvement in Linda Fishman's murder. What does her dating history say about her judgment?

Speaker 4 That I think she was a lonely individual, that in the circumstances that we found while doing our investigation,

Speaker 4 she more often than not ran across men that

Speaker 4 weren't her type. And that included men who were not always age-appropriate.

Speaker 6 She had a tendency to go for the younger guys.

Speaker 4 Younger guys.

Speaker 4 Would it be unusual to see her in the company of a much younger man? No.

Speaker 4 No. She liked younger men.
By the way, we're in Palm Beach.

Speaker 4 Try to find an older woman that doesn't have a younger man. In Linda's case, though, there seemed to be several young suitors.

Speaker 9 It seems like my sister went after somebody that needed her help or her guidance. If they asked for help, she always helped them.
She trusted too much. That was her problem.
She trusted.

Speaker 4 I think her hairdresser knew about some younger men she may have dated.

Speaker 4 But when it came time to tell her mom, to tell her family members, the ones closest to her, nobody can give us a name.

Speaker 4 I just know he was a young guy, good-looking kid. I know that my aunt helped pay for his schooling.
I think he's a chiropractor or a massage therapist or something.

Speaker 4 His name is Frederick Gurney. a massage therapist 18 years younger than Linda Fishman.
They dated and at one point lived together.

Speaker 4 Detectives could never find Gurney, but 48 hours tracked him down in Texas. He is now unemployed and listed as a sex offender for indecency with a child.

Speaker 4 Fred Gurney wouldn't speak to us on camera, but did say Linda was always a generous person. He claims he was living in Texas and nowhere near Florida at the time of her murder.

Speaker 4 And you were hitting some walls. Right, a lot of dead ends.

Speaker 4 Until four months after the murder, on June 18th, 2003, when Detective Keith would receive a bombshell anonymous letter that would turn the Linda Fishman case on its head.

Speaker 16 I do not have any proof. I just want to point you the right direction.
I hope this information helps your investigation.

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Speaker 4 We always believed that the person that did this was known to Linda.

Speaker 4 Ultimately, we didn't know that the person that did this wasn't known to the rest of her family or friends.

Speaker 8 You didn't know too, too much from Linda. You know, like she kept things private.

Speaker 4 Linda Fishman was a woman with many secrets, especially when it came to some of the men in her life.

Speaker 4 There was the financially strapped nephew.

Speaker 4 There was a former lover, now a registered sex offender. And there were some men she met that could have used a background check.

Speaker 4 But then there was the biggest secret of all, a man 27 years Linda's junior named Fred Kretzmer. She kept Fred pretty much below the radar screen.
He never really surfaced as far as being a name

Speaker 4 of someone that we knew that Linda dated or had a casual relationship with as a friend.

Speaker 4 And Fred Kretzmer probably would have remained a secret if not for the anonymous letter written by a former girlfriend of his.

Speaker 16 I heard that night, February 6, 2003, a guy named Frederick Kretzmer was driving her car and had a few pieces of her journey with him. I do not have any proof.

Speaker 16 I just want to point you the right direction.

Speaker 4 This is the first time Joselle Spina has spoken publicly about her difficult decision to tip off police.

Speaker 16 You have that feeling inside that as the right thing to do is

Speaker 16 not something that you can cover, you know?

Speaker 16 So I wrote the letter.

Speaker 4 The letter was critical. Absolutely.
Without her help, the case would be cold. After four months of dead ends, Giselle's letter finally gave detectives a red-hot lead into who killed Linda Fishman.

Speaker 4 Basically, we start peeling back the onion on Fred Kretzmer.

Speaker 4 Fred had a troubled childhood, had some possible molestation issues when he was younger, some possible alcohol abuse in his family.

Speaker 4 As he grew older, he had a substance abuse issue with cough syrup and other drugs. And at some point, I think he came to Florida to try to distance himself with that substance abuse problem.

Speaker 4 He lived here for seven, eight years. Mario Segora became close to Fred Kretzmer when they worked together after Kretzmer moved from New Jersey to Florida in the mid-1990s.

Speaker 4 This was his house, his IDs, his bank, everything. And this was his only house to stay, as far as I know, because we were his family.

Speaker 4 He quickly fit in with Mario's family and friends, which is how he met Giselle.

Speaker 16 He was always great, always like a really nice boy, you know, the ones that moms like.

Speaker 10 That type of boy.

Speaker 4 Thank you. Krezmer made ends meet through various odd jobs, including working as a a maintenance man at the Marriott Hotel.

Speaker 4 Police learned it was here that Linda Fishman met him in 1999 when she and her sister Bernice stayed for a weekend arts festival.

Speaker 9 And see, I went back up to the room around 10 or 11, and she went back down to the Katia Lounge, you know, and I don't know, maybe she met him down there later. I don't know.

Speaker 4 Later that night, Bernice woke up to Kretmer knocking on their door.

Speaker 19 What did he say? Nothing.

Speaker 9 He just says, Linda there. That's all.
And I said, no, she's sleeping.

Speaker 4 Bernice had never seen Kressmer before, nor did she know Linda would continue a relationship with him.

Speaker 16 He told me that she had a lot of money and she gave him a computer.

Speaker 4 But he admitted to being intimate with this older woman who gave him money. Yeah.
I think he was probably using her. She was vulnerable because she was a lonely person and, you know, open to that.

Speaker 4 By 2001, Linda and Kressmer's relationship had fizzled out. He was still working odd jobs when Mario Mario urged him to leave Florida and join the Navy.

Speaker 4 You thought after he graduated from the training, you thought he had his life on track of that? Yeah, of course.

Speaker 4 But just seven months into his service while stationed in California, Fred Kressmer's life went off track.

Speaker 4 When he was arrested after a high-speed chase with a police officer and charged with being under the influence of a controlled substance, resisting an officer, drunk driving, and petty theft.

Speaker 4 Kressmer was discharged from the Navy and served eight months in a California state prison.

Speaker 4 To his friends back in Florida, Kressmer seemed to have just fallen off the map until the winter of 2003 when he made a surprise call from New Jersey saying he was coming for a visit.

Speaker 4 How did he look to you?

Speaker 16 Like a different human being.

Speaker 20 You know, like that look when someone hasn't slept in days or taking shower or something, like dirty, like tired, like that look.

Speaker 4 Kressmer's personality had changed dramatically as well. He was withdrawn and appeared troubled, even telling Giselle he was hearing voices in his head.

Speaker 16 And I know the mom told me that she really, really wanted him to go to the psychiatrist, but he never made it.

Speaker 4 There was something that happened that week that I never knew until two, three months later. Something happened with him and my mother.

Speaker 4 That week, Mario's 70-year-old mother says Kressmer made a pass at her when they were alone.

Speaker 4 He sits her at the edge of the bed and proceeds to lift her blouse over her head, to which point she slaps the blouse down and said, What are you doing?

Speaker 4 Kressmer's odd behavior continued when a few nights later, he was staying with Giselle's family in Miami.

Speaker 16 The very horrible thing he said is like he wanted to have sex with me and my mother.

Speaker 4 Now, what was your reaction?

Speaker 16 I told him he was sick, and that was it. Next day, I put him in the train again, and that was it.
That was the last time I saw him.

Speaker 21 So, progressively, in the week that he was here visiting, doors kept shutting.

Speaker 4 Prosecutor Angela Miller says Cresser's behavior then went from disturbing to dangerous.

Speaker 21 He was in Port St. Lucie looking for a girlfriend that he had had a relationship with.
And when he didn't locate her, he ended up committing a crime of violence

Speaker 21 on a convenience store clerk

Speaker 21 who wouldn't give him a pair of sunglasses for free

Speaker 4 and then came his last night in florida when fred kressmer decided to look up one more old friend

Speaker 21 i think that linda fishman was the final stop

Speaker 4 it was just after 1 a.m. when Mario heard from Kretzmer.
The telephone rang and it was Fred that

Speaker 4 wanted me to come and pick him up from the train station.

Speaker 4 That's where the car was found in the Mangonia Park trirail station.

Speaker 4 He saw me and then he opened a trunk and took some pictures like frames from the car and a small bag.

Speaker 4 Mario said there Fred was holding a black bag with liquor bottles in it and an arm full of paintings.

Speaker 4 Guess what's stolen from the house? And I told him, yeah, they're all in the garage. I'll show them to you.

Speaker 4 We tried to keep our composure in front of Mario Seguro, but we knew we were getting close. We knew Fred was our guy.

Speaker 4 And it wasn't hard to track him down. Four months after Linda's murder, detectives found Kretzmer in a Florida jail for the store clerk beating.

Speaker 4 Fred Kretzmer was charged with first-degree murder of Linda Fishman.

Speaker 4 But with no forensic evidence linking him to the crime, could they get a conviction?

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Speaker 21 It was an evil, vicious crime.

Speaker 21 Fred Kretzmer is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree arson, and robbery.

Speaker 11 Mr. Kretzmer, you've heard my advent during the LDAM threat.

Speaker 21 Fred Kretzmer is an evil man.

Speaker 4 It took four years, but in June 2007, Michael Jamrock was finally vindicated in the murder of his aunt, Linda Fishman. We have our day, and it'll be today.

Speaker 24 It's been very difficult for me for four years. Everybody thinking that my son did it and everything.

Speaker 4 It was awful.

Speaker 9 I mean, that was his godmother.

Speaker 4 I mean, she was like his mother.

Speaker 4 Although the case against Fred Kretzmer was mostly circumstantial, prosecutor Angela Miller was confident.

Speaker 21 We didn't have a concern about winning this case at trial. We knew that our work was cut out for us.

Speaker 4 At the top of her witness list, former roommate Mario Segora, whose account of the morning after the murder was invaluable.

Speaker 4 Mario walks into Fred's room and sees media coverage of the murder on the TV and sees Fred holding a jewelry box.

Speaker 4 Fred tries to cover up the jewelry, and at that point, Fred turns off the TV and the wheels start spinning in Mario's mind. Did this guy just kill this woman?

Speaker 4 What did you say to him? What did you ask him? He said, what is Or what did you do or something? And what did he say?

Speaker 4 He didn't say anything. What did your gut tell you? It took me many, many weeks and many months

Speaker 4 until I kind of said, Is this real? Is this real?

Speaker 4 It was affecting me, my mother, everything.

Speaker 4 You know, it's just something that I couldn't take anymore. You couldn't take it anymore?

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 So when people are watching this and they're saying, how does this nice man

Speaker 4 remain silent for so long?

Speaker 4 Your answer is,

Speaker 4 I was scared of that,

Speaker 4 well, you know, I don't want someone to come and maybe burn my house or come and

Speaker 4 do something to my mother or myself.

Speaker 4 Too afraid to tell police, Mario instead confided in Giselle, who then bravely wrote that letter.

Speaker 16 I had to do something. You know, I just I just couldn't live with that that in, you know, inside.

Speaker 16 It's been four years

Speaker 20 four years of

Speaker 16 having all that inside and

Speaker 16 scared.

Speaker 4 And you would do it again. Yeah.

Speaker 16 Definitely.

Speaker 4 Mario and Giselle stood ready to testify against their former friend until an unexpected development would change everything.

Speaker 21 We were approached by defense counsel and they said he wanted to plead guilty and we were shocked.

Speaker 4 We'll withdraw all prior pleas of not guilty and enter plead guilty.

Speaker 11 Mr. Kressmer, are you at this time?

Speaker 4 According to his public defender, Kressmer wanted to take responsibility for his actions and agreed to a plea deal of second-degree murder and first-degree arson and to give a full confession in open court.

Speaker 7 What caused you to go to Linda Fishman's home?

Speaker 19 Just to touch with an old feeling that I had that I might catch catch her at the house and rekindle an old friendship. Okay.

Speaker 7 So there was no sexual contact in the context of the crimes that you committed? No, ma'am. Were you ever interested in money when you went to Linda Fishman's home?

Speaker 4 No, ma'am.

Speaker 4 My opinion, I think he went there to try to use her to get money. I think when Linda didn't go with the program and didn't give him what he wanted,

Speaker 4 he switched to Plan B and took it by force.

Speaker 19 And she came out of her bedroom and that's where I seen her for the first time.

Speaker 7 And she was frightened to find you in her kitchen.

Speaker 19 She was frightened because she didn't have any recollection of me. She didn't recognize me.

Speaker 7 She didn't recognize you at all? No, ma'am.

Speaker 4 That's when Linda threatened to call police. The walls were closing in on Fred Kretzmer.

Speaker 4 After a week in which she alienated old friends and savagely beat that store clerk, Kretmer knew he could go back to prison and panicked.

Speaker 19 I was caught very, very emotionally, and I didn't know what to do. So I

Speaker 19 went at her and took her from behind.

Speaker 4 I strangled her.

Speaker 7 Was there a struggle prior to you strangling her with the cord?

Speaker 19 There was no struggle. It was more she was turning to move away.

Speaker 19 still just in a threatening way, just

Speaker 19 loud, yelling, and upset, very upset.

Speaker 7 Okay. And And so what is the next thing that you do?

Speaker 19 I

Speaker 19 basically

Speaker 19 try to cover the scene and I

Speaker 21 decide to take her?

Speaker 4 I did.

Speaker 19 On her hands and on her neck because I had touched her. I did try to close her eyes.

Speaker 7 You tried to close her eyes?

Speaker 19 But they opened and I covered them with

Speaker 4 the chair.

Speaker 7 The armchair cover?

Speaker 7 Why did you do that?

Speaker 19 I

Speaker 19 don't know.

Speaker 4 We can't make any do I believe some of what he said? Sure. Do I believe all of it? No, not a chance.
And then, just before sentencing, Fred Kressmer offers a surprising apology to Linda's family.

Speaker 4 I'd just like to apologize. I don't know where you are sitting out there.

Speaker 11 Sorry. I find each of you are too pleased to be freely and voluntarily given.
You appear to me to understand the nature of conflict.

Speaker 4 Michael Jamrock also received an apology from Detective Keith.

Speaker 4 I did what I had to do.

Speaker 4 Was I wrong? Yes. Did I apologize? Yes.

Speaker 4 But no amount of apologies will ever really be enough for Michael Jamrock, who lost so much more than just his aunt that night. He lost his family.

Speaker 4 Because I'm a perfect example of family just throwing you right in front of a bus. Of course, what they did is just, it's unspeakable.

Speaker 4 One person who's extremely grateful to you is Michael Jamrock.

Speaker 4 Do you even know he existed when you wrote this letter? She pretty much saved my life, but she didn't even realize that. She was just doing something that she thought had to be done.

Speaker 4 She had no idea about me. Do you consider yourself a hero? A heroine?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 10 I have just common sense, that's it.

Speaker 4 Do you thank God that you're a free man? I just always think of my aunt and always think that how strong she was and how positive she was. And you know what?

Speaker 4 As bizarre as it may seem, I don't think she would have ever allowed it to happen. She's taken care of me my whole life.
You know, call Auntie Linda and everything's going to be all right, you know.

Speaker 4 Fred Prentzmer was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

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