Strange Truth

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Speaker 5 I think it was on a Thursday.

Speaker 5 My wife answered the phone. Hey, we've got an emergency.
Ramona's missing.

Speaker 5 Just searching for my sister's car.

Speaker 5 Bad things were going through my mind.

Speaker 5 I start heading towards the RTA lot.

Speaker 5 Then out of the corner of my eye, there looks like a camera.

Speaker 5 It was my sister's car.

Speaker 5 Your adrenaline's going. You don't really know what you're doing.

Speaker 8 I've dialed 911.

Speaker 6 You have to see your sister's car. No.
Where's my sister's in the trunk at this time?

Speaker 5 Well, I ran back to the truck and I got a pipe wrench.

Speaker 6 Can't break it to your window.

Speaker 5 I reached into the trunk latch just pulled up on that

Speaker 5 it's been what two and a half years I miss her a lot still miss her

Speaker 9 more we got to know Ramoto Crowteen's background it made us us more determined to find out who did this.

Speaker 9 Detective Timothy Robinson, case investigator for the Ramona Crotein death.

Speaker 11 Jeffrey Crotin is kind of like your typical suburban nail.

Speaker 10 We firmly believe that he killed his wife.

Speaker 9 This was the home of Ramona Crotein and Jeffrey Crotin.

Speaker 9 And this is the house where we believe Ramona Crotein was killed.

Speaker 12 My sister was home. She says she never heard anything, never saw anything.

Speaker 9 We have a trail of Ramona's blood from the master bedroom, down the stairs, through the laundry room, and into the garage.

Speaker 14 Being in the house, I never heard anything.

Speaker 9 Everything that protein felt that there was blood on. He got either rid of it or changed it, painted it, or threw it out.

Speaker 14 There's no way I don't think he did it.

Speaker 10 This is the third trial that we've had.

Speaker 5 All right for the jury.

Speaker 10 Prior two trials, we got pretty close.

Speaker 2 This time, we'll get a good verdict.

Speaker 10 He's the man who killed Ramona Crotin.

Speaker 17 Strange truth.

Speaker 18 People always say they want their day in court.

Speaker 18 But 57-year-old Jeff Crotine is way beyond that.

Speaker 8 My life since my wife's death has stopped. It's like I'm in a twilight zone.

Speaker 18 Crotine, indicted for murdering his 53-year-old wife, Ramona, has had too many days in court. He just wants it to end.

Speaker 8 I didn't murder my wife. I'm innocent.

Speaker 18 Two Cleveland juries have deliberated long and hard on Crotine's guilt or innocence.

Speaker 20 I was on jury number one. I voted guilty.

Speaker 16 Jury number two, my final vote was not guilty.

Speaker 18 But all either could agree on was that they couldn't agree.

Speaker 22 My final vote was guilty.

Speaker 15 Not guilty.

Speaker 18 Both juries were hung.

Speaker 22 Good afternoon. Please be seated.

Speaker 18 So now, at the start of Crotine's third murder trial.

Speaker 24 I first collapsed to the ground.

Speaker 18 Mona's family and friends are praying that this time, finally, justice will be done.

Speaker 19 You have a calculated killer here before you.

Speaker 25 Everything he's done shows guilt.

Speaker 19 He's a cold individual, but I didn't think that he could do this.

Speaker 18 Mona Crotine was murdered on March 21st, 2003. She and husband Jeff had lived here in this suburban Cleveland house for years, raising their three kids.

Speaker 18 Perhaps there's no such thing as a likely murder victim, but by all accounts, Mona Crotine was about the least likely you could possibly imagine.

Speaker 5 Ramona, she was always smiling, always helping people out. Growing up, she was a tough act to follow.
She was so good.

Speaker 18 Mona's brothers, Greg and Roger Wolceski, say that even as kids, the Wolceskis were a tight-knit clan.

Speaker 20 She was the the best big sister anyone could ever have.

Speaker 27 It's hard on the family that she's not here.

Speaker 18 Patty Wolceski adds that Mona was the perfect sister-in-law.

Speaker 27 Whenever you needed something,

Speaker 27 Mona knew either how to do it, how to get it, or who to ask. We used to call this family the Waltons.

Speaker 18 But there was one big problem with this happy picture,

Speaker 18 namely, Jeff. How did he fit into the Waltons?

Speaker 6 Like a square peg in the round hole.

Speaker 11 I thought that Jeff was a little different, but I liked him.

Speaker 18 Sharon Wolceski is Greg's wife.

Speaker 11 He was a good provider.

Speaker 29 He educated three kids.

Speaker 18 But by 2003, their kids all had left home. Mr.
and Mrs.

Speaker 26 Jeffrey Protein.

Speaker 18 Oldest son Jeff Jr. was married.
Middle son Jason, a Marine, was in the Mideast, and daughter Jennifer was away at college.

Speaker 18 The Crotine house was empty and Mona and Jeff were alone, though hardly together.

Speaker 29 It was as if they had just developed different lives

Speaker 18 and different interests. Jeff worked long hours at his insurance agency.

Speaker 18 And when not there, was often out on the water.

Speaker 29 He liked boating and she hated boating.

Speaker 18 Mona, by contrast, loved people and reveled in her part-time job, managing a concession stand at Cleveland's busy convention hall, the IX Center.

Speaker 30 She didn't really have to work. She did that for extra money.

Speaker 31 She liked, you know, having, doing her own thing.

Speaker 18 Friends, Alice Smock and Bev Daly. Do you think she was happy?

Speaker 30 I thought she was happy.

Speaker 18 On the night of March 20th, 2003, Mona left her job here at the IX Center and headed off to a nearby hotel for a big party.

Speaker 18 The end of the convention season bash, an event she looked forward to every year.

Speaker 30 If nobody was dancing, we got up, we started dancing.

Speaker 18 It was like, Mona, let's get them up there.

Speaker 18 While Mona was out dancing, daughter Jennifer at home on spring break tried to stay up until until her mother got home. But by 2 a.m., she was sound asleep on the couch.

Speaker 8 I told her to get up, go to bed, and I went back to sleep.

Speaker 18 At about that same time, Mona was leaving the party with Bev Daly.

Speaker 31 She said, I'm tired. I'm just going to go home.
I have a lot to do tomorrow. And that was the last time I talked to her or saw her.

Speaker 18 The next morning, a Friday, Jennifer woke to find her father in the kitchen getting ready for work.

Speaker 14 I came down the stairs like, hey, you know, where's mom?

Speaker 18 Being surprised. And your dad's reaction to this that morning was what?

Speaker 14 He was irritated.

Speaker 18 But both father and daughter say they knew the annual convention party could get a little wild.

Speaker 14 I was like, okay, well, you know what? She crashed with her friends instead of driving home.

Speaker 18 So at what point then does this begin to get alarming?

Speaker 14 Her friend who does her nails called.

Speaker 32 Jennifer answered the phone and she says, my mom didn't come home last night. And I said, really?

Speaker 18 Manicurist Denise Taroski.

Speaker 32 And I said, I have such a feeling there's something wrong.

Speaker 14 I mean, my mom just never misses a nail appointment. And that was like my red flag.

Speaker 18 What's your dad doing at this point?

Speaker 33 He had left for work already.

Speaker 18 So your mom doesn't come home all night, doesn't call, and your dad just gets up and goes to work?

Speaker 14 Pretty much, yeah.

Speaker 18 But you had gone to work that morning.

Speaker 8 Oh, yes.

Speaker 18 Because truly you saw no reason to be concerned.

Speaker 8 No, not at all.

Speaker 6 Not at all.

Speaker 18 Did you try to call the hotel or call any of her friends before you went to work?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 18 But Mona's family was frantic.

Speaker 5 I was calling everybody's name.

Speaker 18 They called the police, who said they had to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report.

Speaker 23 Where do you really go to look?

Speaker 34 Who has any idea?

Speaker 18 10.30 p.m. Greg had been out looking for Mona for hours

Speaker 18 when, incredibly, he discovered his sister's car.

Speaker 6 911, what's a merchant saying?

Speaker 5 My heart is pounding out of my chest.

Speaker 5 Please, send somebody out here to check out this car.

Speaker 18 The dispatcher said no, 24 hours still hadn't passed. It was at that point that Greg took matters into his own hands

Speaker 18 and made his terrible discovery.

Speaker 18 His sister beaten and shot to death.

Speaker 5 It's been two years and I still can see it.

Speaker 18 Police descended on the parking lot. There was blood all over the back seat and $900 from Mona's concession stand was missing.

Speaker 9 We just felt that was a straight-up robbery when it started.

Speaker 18 At first, police suspected a botched robbery.

Speaker 18 Until that is, They began to get some strange reports about what was going on at the protein Crotein House.

Speaker 29 The painting of the bedroom,

Speaker 29 the getting rid of the carpeting.

Speaker 28 Why would somebody burn a headboard in your fireplace?

Speaker 27 It doesn't make common sense.

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Speaker 6 Weird.

Speaker 14 He's different. He's his own little character.

Speaker 18 From the moment Ramona Crotine was murdered, friends and family all told police the same thing.

Speaker 32 I always thought he was an odd duck.

Speaker 6 He's a flatline.

Speaker 18 Jeff Crotine is, well, different.

Speaker 8 Being different, I hope that never becomes a crime.

Speaker 18 A crime? Perhaps not. But his behavior certainly raised questions.

Speaker 27 Why weren't you out looking for your wife? Your family was out searching for her.

Speaker 18 While the Wolcheskis were out looking for Mona, Jeff was keeping a routine appointment with his accountant.

Speaker 34 What could I do?

Speaker 8 I knew people were out looking for her.

Speaker 32 How could you be so cold to conduct business as usual when your wife is missing?

Speaker 18 And police say odd things began happening the very night Mona's body was found.

Speaker 13 As far as you know, she didn't go to work Friday

Speaker 18 when they first tried to interview Jeff.

Speaker 18 As the night wore on, his health seemed to deteriorate.

Speaker 16 Just got numb right here.

Speaker 27 His face was flushed, he looked ill.

Speaker 18 His sister-in-law, Patty, who's a nurse, began rubbing his back.

Speaker 28 I was really concerned that he was having a heart attack.

Speaker 18 Jeff spent the night in the hospital. Turned out he hadn't had a heart attack after all.

Speaker 18 But over the next few days, the police didn't bother him with more questions.

Speaker 9 At that point, we did believe there was a robbery.

Speaker 9 We did not believe that Ramona Croti arrived home.

Speaker 18 After all, daughter Jennifer had been with her father in the house.

Speaker 14 If there was a gunshot so loud, I'd heard something, but I heard absolutely nothing that night.

Speaker 18 And Jennifer says she even was in her parents' bedroom the next morning.

Speaker 14 I was doing sit-ups on their floor and I was sitting on their bed.

Speaker 18 Nothing out of the ordinary.

Speaker 14 Nothing out of the ordinary. Didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.
Didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

Speaker 18 Jennifer provided her father with a rock-solid alibi. But still,

Speaker 18 people began to wonder.

Speaker 32 It just didn't jive with me.

Speaker 18 Mona's close friend, Denise Taroski. I actually said these words.

Speaker 32 Is it possible?

Speaker 6 Jeff did it.

Speaker 18 And it wasn't long before the Wolceskis were asking the same questions.

Speaker 29 On the weekend after we buried Mona, he wanted everything of hers out of the house. All of her clothing boxed up, curling irons, makeup, nail polish.
And that didn't settle well with me at all.

Speaker 29 That really bothered me.

Speaker 18 Soon, even the detectives were focusing on Crotine.

Speaker 9 We started hearing the tidbits. We heard about the headboard and it's like, well, that's weird.

Speaker 18 What they heard was a jaw-dropping story that Crotine had taken a saw to the couple's wooden headboard

Speaker 18 and then burned it piece by piece in the downstairs fireplace. You were in the house when he did this?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I smelled it. He's burning something, and then I was like, it must be the headboard because I heard some chopping up there.

Speaker 18 But why would anyone do that?

Speaker 8 There was nobody in this world

Speaker 8 that was going to make love anywhere near that headboard.

Speaker 18 You're telling me that's why you burned the headboard in the fireplace?

Speaker 5 That's it.

Speaker 9 Basically, he refused to cooperate with the police. He never even asked us about his wife.

Speaker 18 The police were eager to talk to Jeff, but now, with a lawyer in tow, he no longer was talking to them.

Speaker 9 Never called us to see how the investigation's going.

Speaker 18 Didn't you want to know what was going on?

Speaker 8 I knew. My children would tell me in their communication with the police.

Speaker 18 The investigation dragged on until one day when police drove by Jeff's house

Speaker 18 and saw, of all things, carpet installers arriving.

Speaker 9 Starting to alter things here.

Speaker 9 He's changing carpet.

Speaker 9 We had heard he painted the bedrooms.

Speaker 9 We're going to check it out. We're curious now, too.

Speaker 18 They questioned the workmen.

Speaker 9 We learned that when they went into that bedroom, there was a six-foot section, four-foot by six-foot, cut out and missing. Carpet and padding.

Speaker 18 That's a big chunk of carpet.

Speaker 18 But as usual, Jeff can explain.

Speaker 23 I spilled a full bottle.

Speaker 8 of cabassier

Speaker 18 he says that during a bout of heavy drinking after Mona's death, he knocked over a bottle of cognac and a candle, ruining the carpet.

Speaker 8 The smell of the cavassier was just overpowering to me, and I just cut it up and threw it away.

Speaker 29 Jeff wasn't domestic. He didn't care about carpeting.
He wouldn't have cared if there was wax or cognac spilled on the rug. I just

Speaker 29 didn't, none of it was settling well.

Speaker 18 That piece of carpet never was found.

Speaker 18 But the cops did recover the rest and hustled it off to the crime lab.

Speaker 9 There was confirmatory test. There were some spots found on the carpet for human blood.

Speaker 18 Further testing revealed that the blood, in fact, was Mona's, which convinced police that indeed she had come home the night she was murdered. They scrambled to get a search warrant.

Speaker 18 But in the meantime, Jeff Croteen hired a professional cleaning company to go through the house, a company with a snappy little slogan.

Speaker 24 Over 35 years of working to make fire and water damage like it never even happened.

Speaker 18 Why did you have this place cleaned by professional cleaners who normally come in after fires and floods? None of these things had happened in your house.

Speaker 8 They were people that I was very familiar with. I called them and I had requested that they do a spring cleaning.

Speaker 18 So this was just a spring cleaning? Yeah. But it didn't look like spring cleaning to Sharon Wolceski.

Speaker 29 It almost appeared to be, if you looked at a timeline of the events, it was like a systematic dismantling of a crime scene.

Speaker 18 Two months after the murder, police finally got their warrant and a forensic team descended on the house.

Speaker 18 Investigators found more droplets of what they believed to be Ramona's blood in the bedroom,

Speaker 18 utility room, and on a step in the garage. A step step that appeared to have as many as 45 bloodstains.

Speaker 18 The police believe that Jeff struck Mona in the bedroom, rendering her unconscious, and then carried her down the stairs to the garage, where he placed her in the backseat of her car and shot her in the head.

Speaker 18 Your contention, just to make sure we understand this in any case, is that not only did you not kill your wife, but she never came home.

Speaker 8 She never came home, and I did not kill my wife.

Speaker 18 The police didn't buy it.

Speaker 18 Especially after a search of his office turned up four guns, one of them potentially the murder weapon.

Speaker 18 In February of 2004, Jeff Crotine was arrested and charged with Mona's murder.

Speaker 34 We couldn't believe it.

Speaker 5 I didn't even know he had guns. Of course, it had no idea he had a girlfriend either.

Speaker 18 IS,

Speaker 18 the girlfriend.

Speaker 27 I had never

Speaker 35 had an affair. I had never broke a law, you know?

Speaker 18 But then 39-year-old Mary Engel went to work at Jeff Croteen's insurance agency, and the rumors began.

Speaker 35 A lot of people were saying that we were having an affair anyway.

Speaker 6 So I thought, you know, I've had it.

Speaker 35 People say it anyway. You know, maybe I'll go ahead and see what happens.

Speaker 18 And you did. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I did.

Speaker 8 Bess is already set up, Mary.

Speaker 18 I like the big orange ones, so they could see me.

Speaker 18 Their affair started long before Jeff's wife's murder.

Speaker 18 You were in love with her?

Speaker 8 Yes, I fell in love with her.

Speaker 8 And I'm still in love with her.

Speaker 18 Did you consider a divorce?

Speaker 8 Never.

Speaker 18 Mary Angle is completely convinced of Crotine's innocence.

Speaker 35 I don't think physically he was capable of it.

Speaker 35 Jeff can't do anything fast.

Speaker 35 He's a slow-mo kind of guy.

Speaker 18 There is just no way, Mary says that Jeff could kill his wife, hide her body, return home without a car, and clean up a bloody crime scene in just eight hours.

Speaker 35 It wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible.

Speaker 18 And you never asked him.

Speaker 33 I never asked him, did you do this to your wife?

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 18 Police thought perhaps she didn't need to ask, that Mary may have driven Jeff home from the parking lot after he dumped Mona's body.

Speaker 35 How can they say that? I mean, that's not me. How can they tell people this when it's not true? I was really upset about that.
There you go.

Speaker 18 Mary Engel had an alibi and never was charged, but the affair gave prosecutors a possible motive. Husband cheats on wife is, in fact, one of the oldest motives in the book.

Speaker 8 If I had a $5 million life insurance policy or a $4.5 million life insurance policy on her, Jeff could go across the street and get a divorce.

Speaker 21 Didn't he have to kill his wife to do that?

Speaker 22 Oh, what are these?

Speaker 18 Richard Drucker is Crotine's defense lawyer. So basically we have an odd guy who is having an affair and you're saying so what?

Speaker 21 I'm saying so what. I'm saying they've charged him because he's an odd guy having an affair but that doesn't make him a murderer.

Speaker 18 But prosecutors moved ahead with a case that two juries so far have shown is no slam dunk. Partly because it's so highly circumstantial.
Lead prosecutor Steve Dever.

Speaker 19 I don't think that we have direct evidence and people or juries have this expectation that you have to have direct evidence to make a case.

Speaker 18 But this is the CSI effect, right?

Speaker 18 I mean juries today really do expect footprints, hair, blood. It's all going to lay out and the guy from the lab is going to come in and explain how this implicates the suspect.

Speaker 19 There is a CSI effect. Juries do have that expectation that science will provide the answer to every question.

Speaker 18 In fact, jurors from the first two trials were highly critical of the prosecution's case.

Speaker 11 I felt that the evidence that was presented to me was not all the evidence that could have been collected and was the most scientific.

Speaker 11 And with that in mind, I could not find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 18 The state is stuck with the evidence it has.

Speaker 22 Okay, please be seated, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 18 But this time, a new prosecutor will highlight the science, and he thinks this case is winnable.

Speaker 19 I'm confident that this jury is going to be able to reach an answer, and I wouldn't be trying the case unless I thought that Mr. Crotine killed his wife.

Speaker 32 30 years of marriage, he made no effort to find his wife.

Speaker 18 He tells the jury Jeff's behavior after Mona's death is not just odd, it's incriminating.

Speaker 19 The defendant starts to chop up the headboard and he burns it in the fireplace. Peculiar.

Speaker 18 Implying that Crotine burned the headboard to get get rid of evidence. Police did find blood drops elsewhere in the house.
Endeavor calls DNA expert Carrie Martin to testify.

Speaker 19 Briefly tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury how much work is involved in doing this, what you do.

Speaker 6 A lot.

Speaker 28 A lot more than you see on CSI.

Speaker 18 But her results are clear. Three of the carpet stains match Mona's DNA.

Speaker 19 The small, little, tiny speck of blood, the size of on the head of a needle of a pin, is going to be what is going to make Jeffrey Crotin guilty in this case.

Speaker 18 In what Dever insists is a blood trail, Mona's DNA also turns up in stains on the bedroom door jamb.

Speaker 9 What forensic scientists said it came from a spontaneous hit where blood shot out.

Speaker 18 And on a downstairs wall of the room leading to the garage.

Speaker 28 The DNA profile obtained from item 65 matches the DNA profile of Ramona Crotin.

Speaker 18 So what, says the defense attorney.

Speaker 21 Ramona lived in the house for 25 plus years.

Speaker 17 She might have bled, like all of us, bleed in our own house.

Speaker 18 So the prosecution's contention that the blood evidence is scientific support for its case, you reject out of hand.

Speaker 17 Yeah, I think it's absurd.

Speaker 18 Especially since, as Martin testifies, those impressive 45 stains found on the garage step do not conclusively match Mona's DNA. And what about the gun police recovered from Crotine's office?

Speaker 18 Do we we have a murder weapon here? Assistant District Attorney Anna Feralia.

Speaker 15 We have a gun.

Speaker 18 A gun.

Speaker 18 Not necessarily the gun.

Speaker 19 It's a pretty close call for what was left of

Speaker 19 that murder bullet.

Speaker 21 Functions just fine. I checked the trigger pull.

Speaker 18 But the state's own witness, the expert who conducted ballistic tests on the gun, admits... I could not be positive.

Speaker 21 that the two bullets were fired from the same gun.

Speaker 18 Without direct proof, prosecutors returned to Crotine's behavior, noting that even before Mona was buried, he was on the internet looking at pornography.

Speaker 18 And they even suggest he faked the apparent heart attack that sent him to the hospital the night her body was found. The nurse who treated him takes the stand.

Speaker 15 There was one time when I went to go into his room and he was actually doing some push-ups on the floor. I did not enter his room.
I stood outside his room and then left the room.

Speaker 34 No push-ups.

Speaker 18 Why in the world would this woman say that?

Speaker 8 An opportunity to become involved.

Speaker 18 But she's lying.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 18 But neither push-ups nor porn prove Crotine killed his wife, says his attorney, who's about to tell the jury who he says really did.

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Speaker 18 Jeff Crotine is an innocent man, says his attorney, Richard Drucker.

Speaker 39 Jeff Crotin did not commit this crime. And if the Brook Park Police Department had done their job, today

Speaker 39 there might be another person sitting at that defense table.

Speaker 21 We think that Ramona left the party

Speaker 21 and was apprehended by either one or a group of people, robbed, beaten, and shot.

Speaker 18 The defense scenario is that Mona never made it home that night, that in fact, she was killed during a robbery and carjacking in the hotel parking lot.

Speaker 18 And the defense attorney has two witnesses who will support that theory. Two witnesses who never before have told their stories to a jury.

Speaker 16 I had thought someone was possibly struggling with a suitcase trying to put it in the back seat.

Speaker 18 Mel Twining, a friend of Mona's, says he saw something strange in the parking lot after she'd left the party.

Speaker 21 At some point, you thought somebody might be doing something to a person, am I correct?

Speaker 16 After I found out Mona was missing, that it's a possibility that that could have been going on.

Speaker 22 Call the next witness.

Speaker 18 The other new witness is Paula Smith, also at the party, also a friend, and she says she heard a gunshot. I heard a bang.

Speaker 19 So this noise that you heard, you thought it was a gunshot. Is that correct?

Speaker 11 That's what I called it. Okay.

Speaker 18 Was there really a gunshot? Paula Smith had had more than a few drinks that night.

Speaker 19 How many did you have?

Speaker 40 It could have been anywhere six to seven.

Speaker 19 Were you intoxicated?

Speaker 40 By the end of the evening, I probably was a little intoxicated.

Speaker 18 Then a third friend, Sue Ziegler, takes the stand.

Speaker 22 The whole truth, nothing about the truth, so I'll help you guys.

Speaker 18 With an amazing new piece of information saying someone left an eerie message on her cell phone voicemail take a moment just hours after the party ended it was very faint

Speaker 18 I do know it was a

Speaker 18 woman's voice

Speaker 32 and it was

Speaker 18 it said help me

Speaker 11 just the two words that's it

Speaker 18 If that voice is Mona's, then she was alive long after the prosecution insists Jeff Crotine killed her. But Ziegler never has testified about this message before, and she didn't save it.

Speaker 19 Although she did play it once for Mel Twining, did there come a time that you listened to cell phone messages on Sue Ziegler's telephone?

Speaker 16 Yes.

Speaker 19 Would you tell us about that?

Speaker 19 Excuse me.

Speaker 16 That was somebody crying for help.

Speaker 19 Do you recall what you heard on the voicemail message?

Speaker 16 It was help,

Speaker 16 help,

Speaker 6 help me.

Speaker 19 And how did you react to listening to this voicemail?

Speaker 16 You were shocked.

Speaker 19 You were shocked?

Speaker 16 Shocked. Okay.

Speaker 18 Shocked, too, is Detective Tim Robinson.

Speaker 9 This is unbelievable. Where'd this come from?

Speaker 18 Who says neither Ziegler nor Twining ever mentioned the call to police?

Speaker 9 Well, Mel Twining then should have have said something because he never said nothing. Sue Sigler's never said nothing.
We at Brook Park never heard of that call. Was that Ramona Crotin?

Speaker 9 No, I believe Ramona Crotin was already dead at that time.

Speaker 18 After hearing testimony about the call, Crotine says he only wishes he had heard that message.

Speaker 8 I don't know if it was Mona's voice or not. I'll never be able to tell.

Speaker 8 I wish I had been there to hear it.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 if it was Mona's voice I wish I would have been able to do something to help her.

Speaker 18 Prosecutors insist Crotine did hear Mona's last words just before he knocked her unconscious in their bedroom. But if that's so why did Jennifer Crotine not hear something?

Speaker 18 She was sleeping just a dozen feet away.

Speaker 19 Through the course of the night, did you wake awake at any time? No. Did you get up to use the bathroom?

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 19 Were you startled in any way?

Speaker 36 No.

Speaker 19 At any time through the course of that sleep, did you hear anything?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 18 Deborah has an explanation as to why Jennifer may not have heard anything.

Speaker 19 We've done sound testing, fired about 38 shots into a test tank inside of that car, and measured what type of sound reading you would get in Jennifer's bedroom, and you would not hear it.

Speaker 18 But Mona's coworker, Alice Smock, is convinced Mona did go home because she was found in tennis shoes, not what she'd had on at the party.

Speaker 30 She had worn black strappy shoes, and I commented that I liked her shoes. And she said she had bought them and that that's what she had been wearing to go dancing.

Speaker 18 Why are the shoes so significant?

Speaker 19 Shoes are significant because shoes telegraphed that Ramona made her way home that night.

Speaker 18 Mona Crotine, Devers suggests, took her shoes off when she arrived home that night. And after Jeff killed her, he mistakenly put the wrong pair of shoes back on.
But Jennifer is adamant.

Speaker 18 Her mother was never there.

Speaker 19 And despite your your best efforts, you weren't able to find your mom, were you?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 22 You're all done.

Speaker 18 Thank you, Van. So is Jennifer right, wrong, or lying? In the past, jurors haven't found her very believable.

Speaker 20 The daughter had a very bad case of selective memory.

Speaker 18 Their judgment was so harsh that at trial, too, neither side even called her as a witness. But this time, all three croteen children testify.

Speaker 22 All right, come on up.

Speaker 18 Jeff Jr., 31, says all these questions about his mother's death have split the family.

Speaker 12 I've lost my mom, and then they have my mom's side of the family turn against us, and the police are against us, and we're all

Speaker 6 alone.

Speaker 18 Jeff's youngest son, Jason, a former Marine, tells about getting news of his mother's death while in Iraq.

Speaker 21 Could you explain to the jury how you were feeling and what you were going through at that time?

Speaker 24 You're sleeping in a hole that you dug that night.

Speaker 8 It's about four inches deep of water, and it's so cold that you can't sleep.

Speaker 18 In a suddenly hushed courtroom, the jury, for the first time, sees emotion in Jeff Crotine, a Vietnam vet.

Speaker 8 I knew from my own personal experiences

Speaker 8 what he was going through.

Speaker 8 It just brought it all back and I felt sorry for him.

Speaker 18 To show that the children believe their father absolutely, Drucker puts Jason on the spot. If for one minute you thought your father brutalized your mother in that house, what would you do?

Speaker 24 He wouldn't be here right now.

Speaker 24 I'd have to use ungodly restraint to keep myself away from

Speaker 24 taking matters in my own hands if I found out that wasn't the way it was.

Speaker 18 Jason is the trial's final witness. Crotine decided not to testify.

Speaker 22 Okay, please be seated. All right, thank you.
All right, Mr. Dever, on behalf of the state of Ohio.

Speaker 18 In his closing arguments, Prosecutor Steve Dever highlights Crotine's alleged cover-up of the crime.

Speaker 19 Jeff Protein's got a problem, and he's got a problem with you folks, ladies and gentlemen. How do you resolve? How do you disregard all of that evidence as to the crime scene?

Speaker 19 Evidence of cleanup, evidence of removal of carpet. How do you get around, ladies and gentlemen, this crime scene? And that is the dilemma that Jeff Crotine has in this particular case.

Speaker 18 And in her impassioned closing statements, Assistant District Attorney Ana Feraglia hammers home Crotine's strange behavior. Does he do anything?

Speaker 13 Anything at all to look for his wife. He does nothing, ladies and gentlemen.
While he's hooked up to monitors,

Speaker 13 he's on the floor doing bushups.

Speaker 13 So how does Mr. Crotine prepare for the funeral? He's not a porn sight, ladies and gentlemen.
He is guilty of concealing and destroying all the evidence.

Speaker 13 Hold this man responsible for not only the bludgeoning death of Ramona Crotine,

Speaker 13 but for the victims that are left behind, thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 8 she's always in the back of my head she's always with me

Speaker 18 jeff croteen says he's never stopped praying for his wife mona

Speaker 22 Ladies and gentlemen, this case is now in your hands for a verdict.

Speaker 18 As the jury began deliberating, he also may have been praying for himself.

Speaker 8 I just don't know, but it's in God's hands.

Speaker 18 Praying that the third time's the charm.

Speaker 18 That after two hung juries, this one finally comes to a verdict-a not guilty verdict.

Speaker 18 What is it most that you want them to understand about you?

Speaker 8 That I didn't murder my wife.

Speaker 18 The days tick by. Jeff stays positive.

Speaker 8 I'm 99% optimistic.

Speaker 18 Then, midway through day five, word of a verdict.

Speaker 22 All right, we're back in session here.

Speaker 18 If this defendant is anxious, it sure doesn't show.

Speaker 22 Case number 447-950, state of Ohio versus Jeffrey Crotin. Dockett already stated, Count 1, murder.

Speaker 22 We, the jury, in this case, being duly impaneled and sworn, do find the defendant Jeffrey Crotin not guilty of murder, of Ramona Crotin.

Speaker 22 It's signed by all 12 members of the jury.

Speaker 42 Acquitted of murdering his wife, Jeff Crotein is a free man.

Speaker 18 Local reporters who have lived with this story through three trials.

Speaker 42 This is a mini OJ trial.

Speaker 18 Are clearly astonished at the verdict.

Speaker 11 What do you think of the people who think you got away with murder?

Speaker 8 Nobody got away for murder.

Speaker 18 Annoying reporters and pesky photographers aside.

Speaker 8 Tabloid, I don't want to talk to you.

Speaker 18 Jeff Crotine's ordeal finally is over.

Speaker 13 Oh, Jeff, I'm so happy. Yay!

Speaker 18 And back in his lawyer's office, there's a celebration.

Speaker 13 Congratulations, innocent men.

Speaker 19 Justice was not served with that verdict.

Speaker 18 Prosecutor Steve Dever.

Speaker 19 I apologize to the family. We gave it our best effort, but the jury had some reasonable doubt.

Speaker 5 We're still an entire family in shock over the verdict.

Speaker 18 Mona's brother Greg was the only family member who got to the courthouse in time for the verdict.

Speaker 22 Finding defendant Jeffrey Crotine not guilty of murder.

Speaker 6 2993.

Speaker 5 A very strange sensation when I heard the verdict. I kind of lost all peripheral vision.

Speaker 5 It was not a good feeling.

Speaker 8 I thought there was enough there at first to

Speaker 8 go with guilty.

Speaker 18 Juror Michael Leasey says he went into the deliberations convinced of Jeff's guilt.

Speaker 18 But then he began having doubts. Leasey Lisey says the jury gave a lot of weight to the testimony of Jennifer Crotine.

Speaker 19 There's no question in your mind that your mother did not come home that night.

Speaker 33 That's correct.

Speaker 8 Did Ramona make it home? We don't even know if she made it home.

Speaker 18 So what exactly do you think happened?

Speaker 19 I think he did it. I think he did it.

Speaker 18 And he's not the only one.

Speaker 18 After the verdict, 10 of the 12 jurors who had just found Jeff Crotine not guilty told the judge that in their their heart of hearts, they thought he probably did kill his wife.

Speaker 18 But with no direct evidence, they just couldn't vote to convict.

Speaker 18 Despite the verdict, do you feel like you're still under some sort of cloud of suspicion?

Speaker 23 There will always be people out there that will never be fully convinced until the murder of my wife, Ramona, is caught.

Speaker 19 He has to live with what the truth is. I firmly believe that Jeffrey Crotin killed his wife.

Speaker 18 These days, Jeff, no longer an insurance agent, lives in what once was his office.

Speaker 8 Watch for your feet.

Speaker 18 What do you most want to do with the rest of your life?

Speaker 8 Go sailing.

Speaker 8 They're together quite often.

Speaker 18 And Mary Engel is still a big part of his life.

Speaker 6 And I'm still in love with her.

Speaker 18 But that relationship has shattered his relationship with his own children, children, who only rarely speak to their father.

Speaker 14 We stood behind him because we thought he was being falsely accused, but now it's just, you know, he cheated on our mother. It's over.

Speaker 18 And as long as Bona's relatives insist Jeff is guilty, the Croteen kids want nothing to do with them. Can you see a day when you might reconcile with them?

Speaker 16 I don't care if it takes 20 years.

Speaker 5 I'll still wait for him. I will still wait for the kids.
I feel terrible, carry a lot of sorrow in me, but I could not imagine what the kids are going through.

Speaker 18 And of course, the worst injustice of all.

Speaker 33 She was so looking forward to Jennifer turning 21.

Speaker 33 And she couldn't wait to have a grandchild.

Speaker 29 She was so ripped off in life.

Speaker 18 But Greg consoles himself by remembering all the things that were so special about his sister, Mona.

Speaker 5 Smiling.

Speaker 5 Just a big smile on her face, dancing.

Speaker 12 That's how I will remember her. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Great older sister.

Speaker 16 Officially, the murder of Mona Crotine remains an open case. Jeffrey Crotine died in 2014.

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