Reasonable Doubt

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Speaker 5 Love at first sight.

Speaker 6 And I mean, I've been, I've dated quite a few women over my life and the whole nine yards and it was just when you know you know

Speaker 7 Brian's not your typical family man. He admits to living on the edge on the wild side.

Speaker 5 I was the gap pedal, she was the brakes.

Speaker 8 We used to always say that.

Speaker 7 But did he go over the edge and commit murder?

Speaker 9 Did you kill your wife?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 7 One determined prosecutor is out to prove he did.

Speaker 11 This is a killer who thinks he can talk his way out of everything.

Speaker 12 Judy was a wonderful wife, mother, daughter, and a friend.

Speaker 7 Brian says he found his wife on the floor of their home.

Speaker 7 I'm going to leave the photo, but I'm going to let your house to rubber and she's going to die.

Speaker 7 There was an eyewitness, his own daughter. Will she tell a different story?

Speaker 15 Is that a picture you hear? Yes.

Speaker 7 Aaron Moriarty investigates. What if there was no murder at all?

Speaker 16 I would say it's virtually impossible, given the evidence that I've looked at.

Speaker 7 A 48 hours mystery. Reasonable doubt.

Speaker 7 I always believe my wife is bruised everywhere. I don't know what's going on.
Might somebody beat her at?

Speaker 9 Early one September morning in 1999, Brian Eftenoff arrived home after a long night out with his best friend and walked into a nightmare. Is she awake and talking to you? No.

Speaker 9 He discovered his wife on the bathroom floor of their Phoenix home.

Speaker 9 I'm gonna leave the phone

Speaker 9 Eftanoff tried to give Judy CPR.

Speaker 17 I couldn't get her job

Speaker 17 But I wasn't gonna stop I wasn't gonna stop

Speaker 17 I'm begging her Judy don't leave me with those kids.

Speaker 5 You know come back

Speaker 9 The police are there now

Speaker 9 But Judy was dead After the Eftanoff's two children, five-year-old Ricky and three-year-old Nicholas, were taken to neighbors, police set about trying to figure out how this young mother died.

Speaker 9 Because of the bruises on Judy's body, police initially suspected an assault, but there were no signs of a break-in. What's more, there were no obvious injuries to cause death.

Speaker 19 She had some small lacerations of the lips. She had some very small bruising on the face.

Speaker 9 Medical examiner Dr. Philip Philip Keene was sure that these injuries, even combined, could not have killed her, but he couldn't determine what caused them.

Speaker 9 Could she have sustained that injury by hitting a counter or hitting the floor?

Speaker 19 Yes, she could sustain that in a fall because all it is is it's a blunt force impact.

Speaker 9 Judy's husband, Brian, the owner of an auto parts business, was taken to the Phoenix police station for questioning and interviewed by Detective Joe Petrosino.

Speaker 14 As far as you know, she wasn't expecting anyone.

Speaker 20 Absolutely not.

Speaker 7 Good puppy?

Speaker 17 Everybody loved Judy.

Speaker 6 She was my better half.

Speaker 9 She was just a wonderful mother.

Speaker 9 Wonderful mother.

Speaker 9 Fun. Fun.

Speaker 9 Life of the party. And she was beautiful and warm and...

Speaker 21 She was really loyal. Yeah.

Speaker 9 Judy's mysterious death came as a shock to her best friends and to her parents back in North Dakota.

Speaker 4 My

Speaker 10 He just said, I don't know how to tell you. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Except just to tell you. They found Judy dead this morning.

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 23 I'm like, you can't be Judy.

Speaker 12 I watched the news.

Speaker 24 They showed her a house and they showed her in a body bag and they were taking her out of the house.

Speaker 9 It was terrible, especially she has two little babies and

Speaker 9 sad.

Speaker 9 Although Brian Eftenoff was the last person to see Judy, he had an airtight alibi.

Speaker 9 A surveillance tape from the casino where he had been gambling that night with his friend.

Speaker 14 He had his time accounted for pretty well. She says, well, I was at the casino with my friend Nick from 10 o'clock until I found her.

Speaker 9 And Judy was fine, Brian says, when he left her that night. He told police his wife was putting the kids to bed and acting normal when he said goodbye.

Speaker 6 Walked into the bedroom where she was laying. Elder kids said, I need the ATM card.
Gave her a kiss and I left.

Speaker 9 It was just after he got home at about 5.15 a.m. that Brian discovered his wife's by then rigid body and called 911.
Call her into the fire department. Hurry, hurry.

Speaker 9 So how did Judy die? It took several weeks to finally solve the mystery, and it came in this report. When the final medical examiner's report came out,

Speaker 9 what was your reaction?

Speaker 12 Heartbreak.

Speaker 12 Heartbreak.

Speaker 9 The answer was in the toxicology results. Judy Eftenoff died of a stroke caused by cocaine intoxication.
The Judy I knew didn't do cocaine, and that just threw me.

Speaker 9 To Judy's friends, Liza, Shannon, and Lynette,

Speaker 9 this news seemed unbelievable. The entire time that we were friends, there was no drug use.
None. But Tamara Colwell, Judy's best friend, look how happy she is.
Her eyes are gleaming.

Speaker 9 Admits Judy started using drugs after she got married. That Brian is the one who introduced her to cocaine.
I asked her, you know, why are you doing coconut?

Speaker 9 She said that Brian seems to think that it makes their

Speaker 9 sex life better.

Speaker 9 In fact, Brian himself pointed out to police where his wife often hid her drugs.

Speaker 20 Probably her jewelry box.

Speaker 19 We know that there are injuries that were not self-inflicted.

Speaker 9 How did Judy Eftenoff sustain those minor scrapes and bruises on her face and her head? Detective Petrosino has his own theory.

Speaker 25 I think once that I was looking at a cocaine overdose,

Speaker 18 well, why was she beat up?

Speaker 9 Coming up, the unique theory that became this homicide detective's crusade.

Speaker 14 I think the ultimate responsibility for Judy's death resides in the hands of Brian Eftenoff.

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Speaker 9 Judy Harding met Brian Eptenoff at a nightclub in Phoenix. A night neither of them could forget.

Speaker 5 Love at first sight.

Speaker 6 And I mean, I've been, I've dated quite a few women over my life and the whole nine yards. And it was just when you know, you know.

Speaker 10 She called one day and said,

Speaker 10 Mother, I think I've met the man I'm going to marry.

Speaker 9 Judy was 23. Brian, a handsome, fast-talking charmer from Indiana, was 10 years her senior.

Speaker 17 I was the gas pedal, she was the brakes.

Speaker 5 We used to always say that. I was the gas pedal, she was the brakes.

Speaker 9 After a rough childhood in Indiana, his parents both died young. Brian grew up to be a natural salesman, and Judy was sold.
She was immediately attracted to him. Immediately attracted to him.

Speaker 9 She was a small-town girl from North Dakota, as stunning as she was sweet.

Speaker 10 She was a cheerleader

Speaker 10 in the homecoming court.

Speaker 8 One of the first girls around here to play hockey. Right.

Speaker 17 And I think she did that just to bug the boys a little bit, you know.

Speaker 9 After she and Brian married and had children, Judy continued to work in sales at Neiman Marcus.

Speaker 9 Once they got together, we didn't really see her that much anymore. None of Judy's family or friends had ever liked Brian.
And when they heard she had suddenly died.

Speaker 17 And I said,

Speaker 12 I know how it happened.

Speaker 9 Right away, you said that?

Speaker 23 Right then.

Speaker 9 They all thought the same thing.

Speaker 9 I thought it was Brian. The first thing that I thought,

Speaker 9 I thought that he killed her. There was only one problem with that theory.

Speaker 9 Despite Judy's cuts and bruises, the county medical examiner wasn't at all convinced that she was murdered, that she might have died of an accidental overdose. So he listed her death as undecided.

Speaker 9 Case closed. Or it might have been if not for one detective, Detective Joe Petrosino.
He not only believed that Judy was murdered, he thought he knew who killed her.

Speaker 14 I think the ultimate responsibility for Judy's death resides in the hands of Brian Eptenah.

Speaker 9 At first, it was just the injuries that made the detective suspect Judy's husband. But over time, Petrosino became convinced,

Speaker 9 in large part, because of Brian himself.

Speaker 14 I said it before, and I'll say it again. Brian is his own worst enemy.

Speaker 9 In the hours and days just after Judy's death, Brian's behavior just seemed inappropriate to those around him, especially to his mother-in-law.

Speaker 10 And he said, you know, Grandma,

Speaker 10 he said, I hate to ask this question right now. He said, but you know,

Speaker 10 how soon can I get remarried after all this?

Speaker 21 Judy hasn't even been buried.

Speaker 10 No, we had just picked out her casket.

Speaker 9 And Brian called a bizarre press conference the day after Judy died.

Speaker 13 Judy was a wonderful wife, mother, daughter, and a friend.

Speaker 5 I just want to urge all husbands out there and fathers to take some of the the pressure off their spouses.

Speaker 13 Spend more time sharing the load of parenthood because it has a toll.

Speaker 9 And listen to what he told Detective Petrosino when asked whether he ever fought with his wife.

Speaker 23 Have you ever fight with your wife? Of course.

Speaker 6 I have a ton of respect for women.

Speaker 8 But if you're going to act like a guy,

Speaker 13 you get treated like a guy.

Speaker 5 You hit me with something, throw something at me, smack me in the face, good chance you're probably going to get smacked back.

Speaker 9 From there, Petrosino started to gather stories that Brian had beaten Judy in the past. She called me and she said, You know, she goes, Tam, she goes, Can you pick me up?

Speaker 9 She goes, I think my jaw is broken.

Speaker 10 I said, I know he's just beaten you. She said, Mom, who told you? I said, Never mind, pick up that baby and get out of that house.

Speaker 9 But what he really needed was an eyewitness to domestic abuse. A few weeks later, he found one:

Speaker 9 Ricky Eptenoff, Judy and Brian's five-year-old daughter. Okay.

Speaker 15 Sometimes she gets

Speaker 15 digged and fight like her dinosaurs fight.

Speaker 9 In a series of interviews with counselors, she gave disturbing but also conflicting stories of domestic abuse.

Speaker 14 Ricky tells that mommy and daddy are fighting like dinosaurs, or words to that effect. kicking and punching and mommy mommy hits her head.

Speaker 9 Isn't it possible that Ricky may be confusing that night with other nights when she saw her parents fight?

Speaker 14 Is it possible? Sir, anything's possible. It was like Kurt asked me.

Speaker 9 But Petrosino still couldn't figure out how Brian could have killed Judy that night.

Speaker 9 So he was far from being able to charge Brian with murder.

Speaker 14 My lieutenant said, Well, we're not going to count it as a homicide. He said, You can work it as long as you want, but I'm not counting it as a homicide.

Speaker 9 Then, Brian gave him an idea.

Speaker 14 That's my tape recorder. That's Brian's downfall.

Speaker 14 Joe, Brian Aftonoff, how are you? Brian, how you doing? He called me regularly.

Speaker 23 Joe, Brian, how are you? How was your vacation?

Speaker 14 It wasn't bad. And said, could you please find out who killed my wife? Are you tired of me bugging you?

Speaker 9 In this phone call, Brian told Petrosino there was only one way his wife could have as much cocaine in her system as she did. That's one gram of Coke in her system at one time.
That's impossible.

Speaker 9 Some medical experts said Judy had taken as much as a gram of cocaine.

Speaker 29 To me, then someone was, you know, like forcing her to do it or something.

Speaker 4 You know what I'm saying? Uh-huh.

Speaker 9 So he said that himself.

Speaker 14 Yeah, that's in a phone conversation.

Speaker 14 If we're talking about a gram of cocaine, somebody forced her. She'd never do that much cocaine.

Speaker 9 It was the clue Petrosino was looking for. What do you think caused those bruises on Judy's neck here?

Speaker 14 I think he was getting her to swallow.

Speaker 9 And with that, Detective Petrosino came up with his theory of how Brian killed his wife.

Speaker 14 I think he beat her up. He heard her.
He knows he heard her. She's going to call the cops this time.

Speaker 14 And he needs an alibi because, you know, he doesn't want to go to jail.

Speaker 14 And if he puts a little cocaine in her, pours it down her, and anybody comes and looks at her, she's going to be high on Coke. He has a built-in alibi.

Speaker 14 If she's got any marks on her, it's because she's bouncing off the walls or something. She fell down.

Speaker 9 It's a highly unusual theory and so difficult to prove that initially the county attorney's office was reluctant to take the case.

Speaker 30 I had other cases, but when I'd walk into my office and see Detective Petrosino sitting there.

Speaker 14 Good morning.

Speaker 10 What are you working on?

Speaker 30 That helped drive me. What are you going to do? And once I got involved and heard about some of the things that were going on, I wanted the answers.

Speaker 12 I wanted to know what happened.

Speaker 9 Eight months after Judy's death, Prosecutor Kurt Altman and Detective Petrosino went before a grand jury, and Brian Aftanoff was arrested for murder. His two children went to live with Brian's sister.

Speaker 14 I'm sure he'll tell you that I'm just wrong. Maybe I am.

Speaker 14 And if I am, I'm sorry that, you know, Brian's life has been,

Speaker 14 you know, hell, but I didn't make his life he did.

Speaker 9 Brian Eftenoff stands trial for murder. That's next.

Speaker 9 More than one year after 30-year-old Judy Eftenoff was found dead in her home.

Speaker 9 Her husband is on trial for murder.

Speaker 31 This time, Mr. Altman, you may present your opening statement.
Thank you, Your Honor.

Speaker 9 Did you kill your wife?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 9 Did you fight with her that night?

Speaker 12 No.

Speaker 9 Did you grab her by the throat?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 9 Leave her to die?

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 9 Did you stuff cocaine down her throat?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 9 Why do the police say you did?

Speaker 6 It's the only evolving theory that they could come up with.

Speaker 11 Ladies and gentlemen, count one

Speaker 11 is murder in the second degree.

Speaker 9 But Brian Eftenoff is facing more than just a murder charge. He's also accused of illegally transporting cocaine.
It was found mixed in with Judy's belongings in a box sent to her parents.

Speaker 10 Trying to prove to us that Judy was a cocaine addict.

Speaker 6 Well, sending a box full of love, not hate.

Speaker 9 Brian admits sending the box, but says he didn't know cocaine was inside. He says he was set up.

Speaker 6 Here's what I think. Well, geez, well, we can't get him for the murder.
Maybe we should get him for the cocaine.

Speaker 9 I've got tapes from everywhere. Eftenoff might not be on trial at all.

Speaker 12 Phone calls,

Speaker 9 interviews. If not for Detective Joe Petrosino,

Speaker 9 firmly convinced that Brian is guilty of both crimes.

Speaker 14 There's never been any doubt in my mind of that.

Speaker 9 Even after medical tests clearly showed Judy died of a stroke caused by cocaine and the medical examiner refused to rule the death a murder, the 26-year veteran cop doggedly pursued a homicide investigation.

Speaker 14 Okay, so she's throwing things at you? One of my old buddies said I'm just a burned-out detective, so I'm somewhere between burned out and overzealous. I'm just figuring I'm just doing my job.

Speaker 9 Do you think that you got in your mind that Brian did this and you were just determined to bring him to trial?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 14 I was determined if there was evidence to take him to trial, I was going to take him to trial.

Speaker 11 All the evidence you're going to hear is small pieces of a puzzle.

Speaker 9 Petra Ceno convinced a reluctant prosecutor, Kurt Altman, that Eftenoff wasn't acting like an innocent man.

Speaker 30 Weird things like some phone calls. I've got some other stuff going on with, you know, a book and a screenplay and whatnot.

Speaker 6 It's my responsibility as a public to do that, Joe.

Speaker 9 Have you ever had a case quite like this? Oh, no.

Speaker 30 No way.

Speaker 30 Joe, we had sex with other girls. Can I say that it never would have been brought without him opening his mouth? I don't know that, but it sure would have been a lot more difficult.

Speaker 9 Even so, it's not going to be easy.

Speaker 11 Judy Eftenoff did not die by accident.

Speaker 9 Before Altman can prove Brian Eftenoff killed his wife.

Speaker 11 She did not get that amount of cocaine into her system by accident.

Speaker 9 He has to convince a jury a murder occurred at all.

Speaker 11 The defendant is the only person that could have done this.

Speaker 9 You're convinced Judy was murdered? Absolutely. That this was a homicide.
Absolutely.

Speaker 9 According to Altman, Eftenoff forced his wife to swallow cocaine to cover up injuries he had given her during a domestic argument. Where's the evidence?

Speaker 9 In part in the testimony of his star medical witness.

Speaker 33 Once you get beyond a gram of cocaine, it becomes rather improbable that anybody could even ingest that much.

Speaker 9 Toxicologist Dr. Randall Basalt says his calculations show Judy had taken as much as a gram of cocaine an hour or two before her death.
That's correct.

Speaker 9 Too much cocaine, he says, and taken too quickly for Judy to have taken it on her own. But his calculations are disputed by other expert witnesses.

Speaker 14 That's not a permissible calculation.

Speaker 19 You're really kind of out on a limb when you're trying to take those numbers from an autopsy.

Speaker 9 Even a witness from the county's own medical examiner's office says the amount of cocaine may have been smaller.

Speaker 14 Doses were taken.

Speaker 9 Judy could have taken it on her own.

Speaker 9 That undermines the theory that a murder occurred at all. If the medical experts can't themselves say it was a homicide, how can you?

Speaker 30 It doesn't have to be called a homicide by the medical examiner's office for the jury to find someone guilty of murder.

Speaker 9 Altman believes the injuries on Judy will convince the jury she was murdered. So he turns to the one eyewitness he believes who can say how she got them.
The problem is

Speaker 9 that witness is only seven years old.

Speaker 9 Ricky Eftenoff, Brian and Judy's daughter.

Speaker 30 I did not want to put Ricky on the stand.

Speaker 11 What happened to your mom?

Speaker 15 She died.

Speaker 30 Unfortunately, in the position I was in, I had to.

Speaker 9 She's one of several witnesses whose face the judge asked us not to show while on the stand.

Speaker 15 Is that a picture you drew?

Speaker 15 Yep.

Speaker 9 Altman asked Ricky about a picture she drew that he believes accurately describes some of Judy's injuries.

Speaker 10 And what does it show?

Speaker 15 She was hurt,

Speaker 15 all swollen, but I didn't really see that.

Speaker 9 In fact, after a year and a half, Ricky can't remember much of anything about that night.

Speaker 23 She was blood that was on your mom?

Speaker 9 Well, only a little bit.

Speaker 12 They were.

Speaker 30 Fight-type injuries. She had a bump on her head, she had a cut on her eye, she had a bloody nose.

Speaker 9 The county county medical examiner, Dr. Philip Keene, is particularly concerned with the bruise on Judy's scalp.

Speaker 19 This is a large bruise and it's a full thickness bruise of the scalp. So that's a pretty good blow.

Speaker 9 A blow, the prosecution argues, that was delivered by Brian.

Speaker 9 But Dr. Keene didn't do the autopsy.
And according to Dr. Arceus Mosley, who did.

Speaker 14 Okay, so there is a bruise. on the back of her head.
There's no skull fracture. There's no contusion on her brain.

Speaker 9 The bruise on Judy's head was never serious.

Speaker 14 If it had been up to me, I probably would have left that out entirely.

Speaker 9 Testimony that's damaging for the prosecution because Dr. Mosley, a member of Keene's own staff, is testifying for the defense.

Speaker 9 He believes it's possible Judy took cocaine, had a seizure, and simply hit her head when she fell.

Speaker 9 And it certainly doesn't help the prosecution when friends and neighbors who knew Judy during her marriage admit they saw her use cocaine. Yes, once with Brian.

Speaker 13 Do you remember estimating you might have done cocaine once a week with Judy?

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 9 With evidence like that, and with a confusing and conflicting medical testimony, Brian is beginning to feel confident.

Speaker 6 They do not have a case. They will never have a case.

Speaker 9 Maybe too confident.

Speaker 6 I'm going to get acquitted.

Speaker 9 As he prepares to take the biggest gamble of his life.

Speaker 21 Are you worried at all what the jury will think of you?

Speaker 25 Yeah, I can see why my lawyer doesn't want me to get on a stand, yeah.

Speaker 9 Brian Eftenoff takes the stand. That's next.

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Speaker 31 We're here in CAS number CR2000-008265, Illinois, the state of Arizona versus Brian Thomas Eftenoff.

Speaker 6 If I'd have made it home earlier, Judy may be alive.

Speaker 18 Brian is one of a kind. Maybe a vegetable.

Speaker 6 Maybe an organ donor only.

Speaker 18 He was just about the most unsympathetic character I have come across.

Speaker 6 I mean, intracerebral hemorrhage is

Speaker 6 more 50 or 60 percent of the time.

Speaker 36 Goodbye.

Speaker 18 We do not like smug people, especially whose wives die such horrific deaths and they don't seem to act

Speaker 6 right about it.

Speaker 9 Sitting in the courtroom every day is Paul Rubin, a reporter for a local Phoenix newspaper, the New Times, who has followed Brian Eptenoff's case since the beginning.

Speaker 18 You had this guy who oozed arrogance and he also thinks he's a little bit better in every aspect of life than you or I or anybody.

Speaker 31 The jurors are here, the attorneys are here, the defendant is here.

Speaker 6 They do not have a case. They will never have a case.

Speaker 25 Mr. Altman, you may proceed.

Speaker 6 You will see that over the next few days.

Speaker 18 They're grabbing at straws.

Speaker 9 Actually, the trial drags on for more than a month.

Speaker 9 An eternity for Judy Eftinov's parents. Did you ever expect the trial to last this long?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 9 They have to face the ugly details of her death.

Speaker 17 Her legs are very stiff, and Rigor Mortis had already set in.

Speaker 9 They also have to hear the embarrassing facts of her life.

Speaker 13 Do you remember telling Detective Petrosino Judy might do five to ten little lines during a social night?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 9 Eftenoff also has difficulties sitting in court, but not because of what he's hearing about his wife.

Speaker 10 He threatened

Speaker 10 me and my son.

Speaker 31 Did he threaten to hurt you physically?

Speaker 10 He said that I was effing going down.

Speaker 6 All they did was make me look like a big, evil, big, intimidating man.

Speaker 9 He's upset because he feels the case is focused not on Judy's death, but on his character.

Speaker 6 Shouldn't I get the benefit of the doubt? Isn't it the state's burden of proof to show that I killed Judy, not to come up with some theory that he shoved cocaine down her throat?

Speaker 18 This case is fraught with reasonable doubt. Just because Brian is weird doesn't mean he's a killer.

Speaker 9 Reporter Paul Rubin doesn't believe the evidence against Eftenoff is very convincing.

Speaker 18 You know, usually it's a whodunit, it's a murder mystery. Well, this one was, maybe it's a whodunit, but it was a was there who done it.

Speaker 9 Still, Rubin believes Eftanoff's own ego could do him in.

Speaker 18 Brian thinks he's smarter than everyone else. He was a salesman.
He thinks he can sell the jury. He thinks he could sell the judge.
He can sell everybody under the sun.

Speaker 9 And sure enough. So you are going to testify?

Speaker 6 I am going to testify.

Speaker 6 I want everybody to know what really happened here.

Speaker 18 Brian Syndrome. The boy cannot help himself.

Speaker 9 Against the advice of Jim Cleary, Eftenoff's defense attorney, he takes the stand.

Speaker 20 What position was she in when you first saw her?

Speaker 6 Do you guys want a full demonstration?

Speaker 9 Eftenoff begins with an unusual and rather strange demonstration.

Speaker 5 Like this, except for she was all the way way down, I can't.

Speaker 6 I'm restrained right now.

Speaker 9 It makes everyone in the courtroom uncomfortable.

Speaker 18 His ego wouldn't allow him to miss that chance on the stage up there.

Speaker 5 I had blood in my mouth.

Speaker 20 I had blood on my face.

Speaker 9 Judy's mother, Sharon, says, in explaining how he found his wife, it was a paternity. Ryan gave the performance of a lifetime.

Speaker 10 Him trying to cry on the stand and no tears.

Speaker 25 You know, I mean, there's my wife.

Speaker 20 I'm going to do whatever it takes to bring her back to life.

Speaker 6 I don't think anybody killed my wife. I think she OD'd.
I'm positive she OD'd.

Speaker 6 She couldn't put it down. It's like a lazy potato chip.

Speaker 20 It's hard to put down. When you start, it's hard to stop.

Speaker 9 But then he contradicts himself. Eftenoff actually tells the jury that Judy may have been murdered.

Speaker 20 And if it was anything...

Speaker 20 Like a one-time dose of like a gram or more, then there's obviously foul play.

Speaker 9 Taking the stand has given Brian Eftenoff a chance to tell his story.

Speaker 13 Did you have any involvement in putting cocaine into her body the night before she died?

Speaker 23 No.

Speaker 9 But Mr. Eftenoff, it also gives prosecutor Kurt Altman the opportunity to question it.

Speaker 9 And Eftenoff is suddenly in the hot seat.

Speaker 30 You don't lie under oath, right?

Speaker 12 Is that a question?

Speaker 32 That is a question.

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 18 To me, it was obvious he was lying, and I think everybody else thought so too.

Speaker 15 Camera, hidden you.

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 32 You heard your brother-in-law testify, didn't you?

Speaker 20 Yes I did.

Speaker 11 In fact what you told him was that you never hit her with the closed fist but you hit her, right?

Speaker 20 Absolutely not. We never had a discussion about closed fists, unclosed fists.
That discussion never happened anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

Speaker 9 And it gets even hotter.

Speaker 11 You called your loving wife a co-core during your dependency hearing on November 12th, didn't you?

Speaker 6 Absolutely not true.

Speaker 18 He told me a year earlier that he told her she was a co-core.

Speaker 18 And those two words were so repulsive and so vile it really really turned the jury off there are two copies of that transcript what is yours dated here's how this works when you take the witness stand in a criminal case i ask the questions okay kurt altman was smart enough to use those two words whenever he could never called your wife a co-corps never i counted 14 times your loving wife a co-corp

Speaker 7 never

Speaker 11 You gonna stop and answer my questions now?

Speaker 20 I didn't hear a question.

Speaker 18 The jury can disconvict him just because they don't like him more than on any scientific evidence.

Speaker 9 Still, Eftenoff leaves the witness box convinced he helped his case.

Speaker 31 I understand you've reached a verdict?

Speaker 9 Yes, we have. The verdict coming up next on 48 hours.

Speaker 10 This is a killer.

Speaker 11 This is a killer who thinks he can talk his way out of everything.

Speaker 6 I didn't kill Judy. I did not kill Judy.

Speaker 9 It took the jury five weeks to hear all the evidence,

Speaker 9 but only a day and a half

Speaker 9 to decide Brian Eftenoff's fate.

Speaker 25 Three male jurors locked their eyes on me.

Speaker 31 I understand you've reached a verdict.

Speaker 13 They just

Speaker 36 locked out of me.

Speaker 14 Brian had lost the self-important swagger, you know.

Speaker 31 Please hand the verdict forms to the bailiff.

Speaker 14 I think he realized that at the end of one day, if they were coming back, it wasn't going to be good.

Speaker 9 It is an anxious moment for everyone.

Speaker 14 I started to cry.

Speaker 10 I just thought,

Speaker 10 you did it. My daughter would be here if you wouldn't have touched her.

Speaker 31 All right, the clerks will now read the verdict.

Speaker 10 We, the jurors, hear by the defendant guilty of count one second-degree murder.

Speaker 9 Brian Eftenhoff is found guilty of murdering Judy and also

Speaker 9 guilty of sending cocaine to her parents by mail. Is this your true verdict, Sasania?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 15 He did it.

Speaker 10 No, everybody knows he did it.

Speaker 9 Not only us.

Speaker 9 Why do you think they convicted you?

Speaker 6 I don't have the slightest idea. Not based on the evidence, that's for sure.

Speaker 31 Based upon the verdict of guilty, count one first-degree murder, and count two, his

Speaker 9 50 years in prison.

Speaker 9 A lot of time for Brian Eftenoff, now 42, to wonder how much his own testimony put him there.

Speaker 9 I know we were asked after the trial lots of times how much of a factor his personality was, and the answer is none.

Speaker 9 But the jurors who met with 48 hours after the trial admit Eftenoff certainly didn't help his case. It was clear that he was not a likable guy, that he was abrasive and obnoxious.

Speaker 9 And in the end, they say, he gave the most damning testimony at trial. Brian said that if she had that much cocaine in her,

Speaker 9 somebody forced it on her.

Speaker 25 Must have been foul play, was his words.

Speaker 17 We did agree with that. The bottom line was she died of a cocaine overdose.
And she was impossible to snort that much that she had in her system.

Speaker 9 Even so, it took a while for four woman Anna Bowman to feel comfortable convicting Brian. I think I was pretty sure that he had done it.
My concern was that the evidence was not there.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 9 I believe in the system. But does that bother you that as jurors that you're asked to make a decision that even medical experts can't? Of course.
Yes. But did they make the right decision?

Speaker 9 These well-known experts say maybe not. The prosecution says that Judy Aftanoff was first knocked unconscious and then was murdered by stuffing cocaine down her throat.

Speaker 9 Does anyone in this room agree with that scenario?

Speaker 22 No, no, no.

Speaker 9 Was this man wrongly convicted of murder? That's next.

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Speaker 9 The trial is over. But has it really solved the mystery of Judy Eftenoff's death? As you saw during the hour, the county's own doctors and toxicologists couldn't determine if she was even murdered.

Speaker 9 And as it turns out, they're not the only ones who raised serious questions about the case against Brian Eftenoff.

Speaker 8 I was shocked.

Speaker 22 Amazed.

Speaker 16 It appeared to me the evidence was not there.

Speaker 9 48 Hours brought together these four well-known forensic experts and asked them to study the medical testimony and evidence from the trial.

Speaker 22 This is our death investigation class coming through here now.

Speaker 9 This is Dr. Lee Hearn, the chief toxicologist for Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Dr. Edward Briglia is chief toxicologist for Suffolk County, New York.
Dr.

Speaker 9 Charles Wetley is the Suffolk County Chief Medical Examiner.

Speaker 9 And Dr. Don Ray, now retired, spent nearly 24 years as chief medical examiner in Seattle.

Speaker 9 Among them, they have studied hundreds of deaths from cocaine. The prosecution says that Judy Aftenoff was first knocked unconscious and then was murdered by stuffing cocaine down her throat.

Speaker 9 Does anyone in this room agree with that scenario?

Speaker 22 No, no, no.

Speaker 9 Is it even a possibility?

Speaker 22 It's highly improbable as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 16 I would say it's virtually impossible, given the evidence that I've looked at.

Speaker 22 Same thing here.

Speaker 8 I just don't see the evidence for it.

Speaker 9 In fact, not one of them, not a single one, believes Judy Eftenoff was even murdered, as the prosecution claims.

Speaker 22 I think she was a cocaine user. I think she was binging on cocaine on the night of her death and that she

Speaker 22 developed a cerebral bleed because cocaine raises your blood pressure. It happens fairly often.
And that was the cause of her death.

Speaker 9 What's most disturbing is that this doesn't seem to be just a difference of opinion among experts.

Speaker 9 We spoke to more than a dozen and couldn't find a single one who agreed with the prosecution's star medical witness. Remember Dr.
Randall Basalt?

Speaker 9 He's the toxicologist who testified that Judy Eftenoff died shortly after taking a large dose of cocaine.

Speaker 33 The lion's share of what we're looking at here occurred within one to two hours prior to death.

Speaker 9 While that testimony greatly influenced the jury, the problem, say these doctors, is that Dr. Basalt based his opinion on blood test results that are unreliable when taken after death.

Speaker 22 The method that was used to arrive at that conclusion is totally unaccepted by the forensic toxicology community.

Speaker 9 But what is more important, say these experts, is that Dr. Basalt's theory and the prosecution's

Speaker 9 is simply not supported by the evidence.

Speaker 16 Where is the cocaine in the stomach? It is not there. And that rends a major problem in this case.

Speaker 9 That had she been forced to take cocaine and then died, as the prosecution said within that hour, there'd be much more here.

Speaker 16 Well, indeed, I believe that between 10 and 30 percent of the dose would still reside in the stomach.

Speaker 9 Undisputed evidence shows that most of the cocaine in Judy Eptenoff's body had already broken down into byproducts called metabolites. Very little remained in her stomach.

Speaker 22 This is a quantity of cocaine, three and a half milligrams cocaine hydrochloride. That was a little bit more than was calculated as being the total amount in her stomach.

Speaker 16 We have literally seen thousands of cases of oral overdose.

Speaker 16 I am not aware of a case in which death ensued within one hour in which there was not copious amounts of the insulting agent in the gastric contents.

Speaker 16 And this is simply not the case in this particular situation.

Speaker 9 What about the prosecution's witness argument that there was so much cocaine in her body that she simply couldn't have done that on her own?

Speaker 22 I would characterize that as absurd, first of all.

Speaker 22 This is a gram of cocaine, and it's not really that much cocaine, and that could be consumed pretty easily over a period of a couple of hours.

Speaker 9 Dr. Basalt refused our repeated requests for an interview about his report.

Speaker 9 But what about the injuries found on Judy's body that the prosecution argues is proof she was beaten and forced to take the cocaine?

Speaker 8 These are not indications of anybody who's sustained any type of beating at all. These to me are very nonspecific.
They might be indicative of some type of

Speaker 8 struggle or fight, but certainly not a beating.

Speaker 9 But it is just as likely, they all say, that the injuries occurred naturally as part of an accidental overdose.

Speaker 22 People with seizures do a lot of flopping around sometimes, and so there is a reasonable explanation

Speaker 22 for the presence of these types of injuries.

Speaker 9 What about the blunt force trauma on the back of her head?

Speaker 22 She didn't start out lying down on the ground. You know,

Speaker 22 she presumably lost consciousness and collapsed, and she's bound to hit something.

Speaker 9 And this raises perhaps the most important question of all.

Speaker 9 If these medical experts and others are so convinced Judy Eftenoff was not murdered as the prosecution contends, isn't that reasonable doubt that her husband killed her?

Speaker 9 Do you feel then based on what you've seen here, everything you've read, that there could be an innocent man in prison?

Speaker 12 Well, of course.

Speaker 8 There's no evidence that she was forced to swallow the cocaine, and consequently there is an innocent man in jail.

Speaker 25 I think it's very possible that there is an innocent man in jail.

Speaker 22 Innocent of murder, certainly.

Speaker 9 Since we first broadcast this investigation, Brian Eftenoff took his case to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Speaker 9 He argued that because the toxicology report could be interpreted in different ways, there was insufficient evidence to prove murder, and also that his seven-year-old daughter was not a competent witness.

Speaker 9 His appeal was denied. The conviction stands.

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