Miami Heat

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Speaker 4 I couldn't comprehend what was happening. I couldn't sleep.
Losing my husband. It's an image that is never gonna go away.

Speaker 2 A father out for a walk with his son.

Speaker 4 I heard shots.

Speaker 4 Very loud shots.

Speaker 2 The child survives. The father doesn't.

Speaker 4 All he was asking was, honey, tell me, how's the baby? Is the baby okay?

Speaker 3 It was an execution. Yes.

Speaker 2 The killers never caught.

Speaker 3 We were waiting for a phone call, waiting for a break. Nothing was coming in.

Speaker 2 Then, one month later, another shooting. The victim, the dead man's partner.
And no question this time, who the killer was.

Speaker 4 I panicked because I thought he was reaching for his gun. And that's when I shot.

Speaker 2 Was it self-defense?

Speaker 4 The lead detective kept telling us everyone's life is endangered.

Speaker 2 Or was it something else?

Speaker 6 It's a lousy excuse to kill somebody.

Speaker 2 What secrets were stored on this tape?

Speaker 3 Villain.

Speaker 8 I just couldn't believe what I heard.

Speaker 2 Or victim.

Speaker 4 Hug your family.

Speaker 9 Kiss your children.

Speaker 3 You don't know when you're gonna lose them.

Speaker 2 I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with Miami Heat.

Speaker 3 It was dusk in Miami. The day's heat retreated.
Parks filled up.

Speaker 3 Soccer games were called to order.

Speaker 3 Orlando Mesa loved the evening ritual. He and his 18-month-old son, Noah.

Speaker 3 Orlando doted on the boy.

Speaker 4 He was a hands-on dad.

Speaker 3 And Noah's mom, Cindy, was there to record it all.

Speaker 4 My husband was an outdoor person, so, you know, he was always doing things, you know, with Noah.

Speaker 3 And so on a spring evening in the gathering dusk, orlando walked behind noah who rolled along on his toy car a security camera watched them toddled down the sidewalk

Speaker 3 they disappeared around a corner

Speaker 4 that was the worst date of my life

Speaker 3 what happened well

Speaker 3 that's still being debated in a way a chain of events certainly of which a father son evening stroll may have been the first but certainly not the last

Speaker 3 But a moment first to fill you in. Cindy, or Genepsy, the name she was born with in Cuba, came to Miami as a teenager, and she was bright and ambitious.

Speaker 3 She learned English pretty much from scratch, became a hairdresser, experimented with her own quite frequently, as you will see.

Speaker 3 It was back in 2006. Cindy Carballo had been invited to a Super Bowl party.
Lots of people there. In the crowd and the noise, she didn't notice Orlando Mesa, but he noticed her.

Speaker 4 According to him, it was love at first sight.

Speaker 3 Did you feel that way too?

Speaker 4 Not at first.

Speaker 3 Then, after that Super Bowl party, she got very interested in that funny, handsome guy named Orlando, the mechanic with the wild, curly hair.

Speaker 4 He definitely was a jokester, so he made me laugh.

Speaker 3 Orly, as she called him, was as ambitious as she was. He didn't just fix cars.
He bought a couple of lunch trucks and then he branched out into real estate development.

Speaker 3 Having tried marriage once, Cindy was reluctant to try again. But Orlando was not a man inclined to entertain doubts.
And one weekend he invited Cindy to a barbecue party.

Speaker 4 He surprised me. He knew that I love mariachis.
And then all of a sudden all this mariachis, they come in and singing and he gets on his knees and he proposed. So it was exciting.

Speaker 3 That's a day you don't forget. Never.

Speaker 3 So in short order they got married

Speaker 3 and had a baby and became a family. Why'd you pick Noah as a name?

Speaker 4 They had a book on baby names and I saw the name Noah. and it said it meant new beginning so I loved it.

Speaker 3 So it was a new beginning, as amply recorded as any new parents could make it. But if this was the beginning,

Speaker 3 then what was this? That early evening in April 2008, Rolando and Noah heading down the street with his toy car.

Speaker 3 They turned the corner, out of camera range now.

Speaker 3 And then

Speaker 4 I heard shots, very loud shots, and I went outside. That's when I saw my husband full of blood,

Speaker 4 crying for help.

Speaker 4 And I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 It's an image that is never going to go away. I didn't see my son at first, so

Speaker 4 I thought the worst, I went crazy because I thought my son was kidnapped.

Speaker 3 Then from the front yard near where Orlando fell, a neighbor called out.

Speaker 4 And she said, No, I have your son, my brave neighbor. She took my son from my husband's arms.

Speaker 4 When I ran to grab my son, my son was shot full of blood.

Speaker 3 Neighbors called 911. A baby's been shot.
In the distance, as the caller spoke to 911, a woman screamed.

Speaker 3 It was Cindy. How old is the baby?

Speaker 3 How old is the baby?

Speaker 3 Cindy held her son for dear life. Orlando tried to speak.

Speaker 4 All he was asking was, honey, tell me, how's the baby? Is the baby okay?

Speaker 3 Then an agonizing decision. Ride in the ambulance with her baby or stay by her dying husband.

Speaker 4 Of course, I was torn in two,

Speaker 4 but my main concern was my baby. So I jumped immediately in the ambulance.

Speaker 3 As Cindy sped away to the hospital with Noah, the paramedics worked on Orlando where he fell. But it was too late.
They could not save him.

Speaker 3 Detective Felix Guadarama of the North Miami Police Department went to the hospital to check on the boy and deliver the bad news. That's the toughest part of my job.
How did she tell you?

Speaker 3 She obviously became even more upset.

Speaker 3 Everybody started crying. It was just horrible to hear news like that.

Speaker 3 But little Noah would make it, would be okay, thanks to his father's selflessness.

Speaker 4 My son was shot in his arm and in his leg, but you know, his father

Speaker 4 protected him.

Speaker 3 Held him and covered him.

Speaker 4 When they were shooting

Speaker 4 at him, he just

Speaker 4 lifted my son up.

Speaker 3 Keep him away from his body.

Speaker 3 What do you miss most about him?

Speaker 4 Being with him all the time.

Speaker 3 That was when your life made sense.

Speaker 4 That's what I knew. Us together with our baby.

Speaker 3 But now Orlando was gone and little Noah was wounded and suffering and so she took him home to care for him there in a house that felt empty.

Speaker 4 I couldn't sleep seeing my baby suffer with the wounds, losing my husband. He was very loved by everyone in my family.

Speaker 3 Clearly, however, there was someone who didn't feel the same way about Orlando Mesa.

Speaker 3 And before long, said Cindy, she and the North Miami police came to the very same conclusion

Speaker 3 about who that might be.

Speaker 2 When we return, Cindy points to someone she thinks is a possible suspect and begs for help in bringing her husband's killers to justice.

Speaker 4 Hug your family,

Speaker 9 kiss your children.

Speaker 3 You don't know when you're going to lose lose them.

Speaker 3 They were just going for a walk on a pleasant Miami evening. And yet,

Speaker 3 when her husband was gunned down and killed, her 18-month-old son wounded, Cindy Carballo didn't quite get it right away. That hers was a particular kind of nightmare.
This was an execution.

Speaker 3 What does it do to your head when you think that? Somebody wanted him dead.

Speaker 4 I couldn't comprehend what was happening. I was just in pain that I had lost my husband.

Speaker 3 Three days after the shooting, Cindy went before TV cameras at police headquarters. Hug your family.

Speaker 3 Kiss your children.

Speaker 3 You don't know when you're going to lose them. Holding her son Noah, his injured arm wrapped in bandages, she appealed for help to find the killers.

Speaker 4 Most little information that

Speaker 4 you know, please just come forward.

Speaker 3 Police had urged her to make the appeal, hoping that all that emotion would help generate some much-needed leads. Though there was one lead, both amazing and ultimately frustrating.

Speaker 3 Right there, just below the roofline of Cindy and Orlando's house, was a security camera. Former North Miami Police Major Trevor Shin.

Speaker 10 We had video footage that we obtained from the victim's home.

Speaker 3 That's the camera that captured father and son heading out of the house and down the street on that last walk they took together.

Speaker 3 Then watch this. A car barrels up to the curb.
Two men burst out, guns drawn, run around the corner, out of camera range. That's where they open fire on Orlando and Noah.

Speaker 3 Within 15 seconds, they're back in the car, speeding away.

Speaker 3 But they're not done.

Speaker 10 He was on the ground, they come back by, and now you have a second rally of shots.

Speaker 3 It was an execution.

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 3 Nobody could identify the two you could see on the video. Best witnesses could say was they were African-American males with dreadlocks.

Speaker 3 One caller said she thought she saw a third man in the car besides the two shooters. I think we've got three people in the car.
They found the car, eventually, abandoned. It had been stolen.

Speaker 3 And the evidence trail cooled dramatically. As for what the motive was, no one seemed to know.

Speaker 4 It was shocking because my husband was very much liked. He didn't have any known enemies.

Speaker 3 Was that true? Detectives at the North Miami Police Department threw out a wide net, and they got some help from Cindy.

Speaker 10 When you're working on homicide, you want to reach out to the people who are close to the victim.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 10 Spouses,

Speaker 10 best friends, business associates. You want to get as much information.
Are there beefs? Are there bad businesses?

Speaker 3 That's when Cindy thought about her husband's new business partner, a man named Elon Nissim, the guy he got involved with in real estate development.

Speaker 4 When the police

Speaker 4 questioned me and they said, who are his friends and partners, did he had any incident?

Speaker 4 That's when I said, well, you know, there was an incident with this business venture.

Speaker 3 Cindy met Elon Nissam and his girlfriend Nikita at a birthday party for their daughter, who was Noah's age.

Speaker 3 Then, said Cindy, Orlando told her later, not long before he was murdered, that Elon lost a big packet of cash Orlando entrusted him with.

Speaker 4 My husband gave Elon Nissam money to purchase lots to get in the business.

Speaker 3 A lot of money?

Speaker 4 My knowledge was $180,000,

Speaker 4 and there was a robbery, and the money was gone.

Speaker 3 $180,000 lost in cash? That's the sort of thing that makes a cop sit up and take notice. Tell me about the links between Nissim and Orlando.
What were they doing together?

Speaker 10 Some small real estate, from what we understand.

Speaker 3 But all these sound like businesses on the up and up, yes.

Speaker 3 Cindy began to suspect that Nissim must have had a reason to want her husband dead.

Speaker 3 But as for what he may have done.

Speaker 3 I don't think she could say. She just kept saying that he had to be involved.
And there was an issue over money. It was just like her gut feeling this guy was involved.

Speaker 3 And then, the 20th of May, one month to the day after the murder, the investigation had stalled. Cindy was at home, alone.
packing to move out of the house she shared with Orlando.

Speaker 3 What happened?

Speaker 3 Sometimes it could take a while to figure out

Speaker 3 who did what, to whom.

Speaker 2 Coming up, a knock, a shot, and a mystery.

Speaker 4 He made a move and I panicked because I thought he was reaching for his gun.

Speaker 2 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 3 Burying a loved one is never easy. Burying a loved one who was murdered, incomprehensible.

Speaker 3 And to make it somehow worse, said Cindy, police told her that her suspicions about that guy, Elon Nissan, were well placed. And they gave her a warning.

Speaker 4 The lead detective,

Speaker 4 she kept telling us this are dangerous individual.

Speaker 3 Then, this was pretty terrifying, said Cindy. After the murder, Nissim called her on the phone incessantly.

Speaker 4 He always inquired about the investigation, so I felt he wanted to keep me close for information, if he was maybe a suspect.

Speaker 3 And on the day of Orlando's funeral, who should show up but Neesim himself? That's got to be pretty bizarre to have him in the funeral when you think he had your husband killed.

Speaker 4 It was. I immediately told the lead detective in the case.

Speaker 3 The lead detective came to the funeral also.

Speaker 4 And she

Speaker 4 instructed us to act natural, not to let him suspect that

Speaker 4 we knew that he was the person.

Speaker 3 And to keep taking Nissim's calls. Cindy thought she could help the police solve the case.
But there was a little more involved than a pure murder investigation.

Speaker 3 The feds were in on it now, said Abby Rifkin, the prosecutor assigned assigned to the murder case.

Speaker 13 They were looking at Mr. Neesom as they were looking at her husband as they were looking at other people who were allegedly in the drug business.

Speaker 3 The drug business? Yes.

Speaker 3 All that missing cash and Orlando's three prior convictions for marijuana and cocaine possession. Those things gave the crime the whiff of a classic drug hit.

Speaker 4 My husband, unfortunately, had a past before I met him, before I married him.

Speaker 3 Mind you, Orlando's crimes were not exactly big time. He pleaded guilty to all those charges and served a few days in jail.

Speaker 3 And though Nissim also had a record, several assault convictions years earlier when he was not yet 20, none of them had a thing to do with the drug trade.

Speaker 3 Still, the question was, had something happened to sour their partnership? Just over three weeks after the murder, the police asked Cindy to do more than just keep an eye on Nissim.

Speaker 4 I was asked by the lead detective to maintain communication with him so I could work with them wearing a wire and help them catch this individual.

Speaker 3 A potentially dangerous thing to do, of course, wearing a wire, secretly recording conversations. Still, Cindy said she would do it.

Speaker 3 And on the advice of the lead investigator, said Cindy, she bought a gun for the first time in her life. She also decided to move out of her house.
But the wire?

Speaker 13 She never wore the wire.

Speaker 3 No, she did not.

Speaker 3 And the reason?

Speaker 3 It was May 20th, exactly one month after the hit on Orlando Mesa. Cindy was home alone, packing to move.
And suddenly, an unexpected guest was at her door, said Cindy. Not just any guest.

Speaker 3 Elon Nissim.

Speaker 3 He practically forced his way in, she said, peppered her with questions about her husband's business.

Speaker 4 He started asking me about my husband's warehouse and if I had my husband's keys. And I said, I don't know where he keeps his keys.

Speaker 4 That's when he became aggressive and he said that I knew more than what I was telling him.

Speaker 3 She watched in terror, she said, as he walked around the house, as he looked outside and saw that her dogs were securely leashed, unable to help her. And then, she said, it got very scary indeed.

Speaker 4 And he grabbed me. That's when he attacked me.

Speaker 4 I was able to get away from him. He reached out to grab me again.
He scratched my neck. He ripped my shirt.
He chased me through the house.

Speaker 3 Cindy said she ran to the living room where she kept her newly purchased gun. And Nissim, right behind her, tripped on some bags she was packing.

Speaker 4 And when I turned around, he made a move, and I panicked because I thought he was reaching for his gun. And that's when I shot.
And I ran out of the house and I called 911.

Speaker 3 Had she stopped him? Were there others with him? She kept running.

Speaker 10 And she's frantically and she's saying, oh, they're chasing me. They're chasing me.

Speaker 3 Back at the house, police found Nissim on the floor. He was very dead.
They finally caught up with Cindy a few blocks away, drove her to headquarters.

Speaker 13 How did they treat you that day?

Speaker 4 They treated me very well. They were very nice.
After my statement, they told me that it was a justifiable self-defense.

Speaker 3 Afterwards, the lead detective dropped Cindy at her parents' house.

Speaker 4 And she told my family that I did the police a favor by taking out the trash.

Speaker 3 The next day, news reports quoted the police as saying Nissim was a suspect in Orlando's murder and that Cindy was justified, shot him in self-defense.

Speaker 3 But now, regardless of that,

Speaker 3 you had just killed somebody. You'd taken another human life.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 It can't be easy to deal with.

Speaker 4 No, and it felt unreal.

Speaker 4 It felt unreal.

Speaker 3 However,

Speaker 3 as you say, the police told you you'd taken out the trash, and did they essentially leave you alone after that?

Speaker 4 They drove me off at my house, and they told me my family members had nothing to worry about.

Speaker 3 So you went on rebuilding your life?

Speaker 7 Correct.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 as they say, don't count your chickens.

Speaker 2 And don't judge a book by its cover. Was this a story of self-defense or revenge?

Speaker 7 And this is gone. I won't let you up.

Speaker 8 I'm turned out. I just couldn't believe what I heard.

Speaker 3 Cindy Carballo's husband had been murdered, her son wounded, and she had just killed the man she believed was responsible. It wasn't an easy load to put in the rear view mirror.

Speaker 3 But a few months after she killed Elon Nissen, it was Noah's second birthday, and Cindy decided his happiness would come first. So she organized a party.
Pony rides, the pinata, the cake.

Speaker 3 Cindy, remember, had always been an ambitious person.

Speaker 3 Now that she was the family breadwinner, in 2010, two years after the murder, she and a partner opened a clinic that specialized in managing pain, located in nearby Broward County, just north of Miami.

Speaker 3 She hired this man to help get the business going. His name is John Friske.

Speaker 16 I was selling her computers and helping her get set up.

Speaker 3 Pain management clinics were popping up all over South Florida just about then, and some of them were suspected of being so-called pill mills.

Speaker 3 where unethical doctors got rich writing prescriptions for narcotics like oxycontin.

Speaker 8 Broward County, I think there were a hundred and

Speaker 8 some odd pain clinics, which is believe around more than a McDonald's.

Speaker 3 Detective Rob Weir was part of a DEA task force set up to investigate these pill mills. And while Cindy insisted she ran her clinic by the books, it came to the attention of the DEA task force.

Speaker 8 We had received complaints on it, so we sent somebody in to see what we could do.

Speaker 3 And guess who the task force sent?

Speaker 3 John Friske, the computer expert. He also happened to be a DEA informant.

Speaker 16 Every time I went in there, I wore a wire from the DEA.

Speaker 3 When you wore the wire, what were you assigned to do?

Speaker 16 My main goal was to get anything that would piece it together and prove it was a pill mill.

Speaker 3 He talked to Cindy a lot, fishing, really, for what might be evidence of medical fraud.

Speaker 3 And then one day, it was just over two years after Cindy shot Nissim, Frisky got a very big surprise.

Speaker 16 Made me very uncomfortable, and I just wanted to leave.

Speaker 3 What happened? Frisky asked Cindy about her family, and she launched into an amazing story about the shooting of Elon Nissim.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know.

Speaker 3 It was a story of how her husband was murdered and her son wounded, and how she suspected her husband's business partner, Elon Nissom, arranged it all.

Speaker 3 And then she said, when she decided the police were never going to arrest him, I was like, I have to do something.

Speaker 7 I can't let this go.

Speaker 3 I won't let it go.

Speaker 7 And that's why I said I wanted eye for an eye. I want his daughter to grow up without a father just like myself.

Speaker 3 And that's when a completely different story emerged about the day she shot Nissim. A far cry from the one she told the police.
Nissim didn't barge into her house uninvited, she said.

Speaker 3 She lured him there.

Speaker 7 I knew what was going to happen and,

Speaker 7 you know I was shaken inside but outside I was calm.

Speaker 3 She told Frisky she asked Nissim to take down some speakers in her bedroom. Then she went to the living room and got her gun.

Speaker 3 Then when he came out outside

Speaker 3 he came out of that room.

Speaker 4 He said

Speaker 3 one two five.

Speaker 3 He's falling forward to

Speaker 3 help.

Speaker 7 Or he asked for help too.

Speaker 3 She didn't shoot him just once. She emptied her gun into him.
John Friskey simply wanted to find out if Cindy was operating a pill mill.

Speaker 3 Instead, it sounded like she had confessed to a much, much more serious crime.

Speaker 16 I went in the restroom.

Speaker 3 I called Rob Ware, the DEA agent, and I told him she just confessed to murder.

Speaker 16 And she wants to go to lunch. And he said, no,

Speaker 16 just get out of there. Make any excuse.
You're not going to lunch with her.

Speaker 3 frisky gave the tape to weir and i'm like nobody could just flat out confess like that i just couldn't believe what i heard detective weir contacted north miami police and prosecutor abby rifkin who it turned out had her doubts all along about the story cindy told the cops the persona that she tries to portray of being this poor little widow

Speaker 13 is completely belied by that those tapes

Speaker 13 daughter who

Speaker 3 Nissim's daughter is a little girl named Imani.

Speaker 4 You really did love her.

Speaker 3 Ever since Nissim was shot, Imani's mother, Nikita Roberts, had been hearing people say the man she loved was a killer.

Speaker 13 I couldn't see this person hurting anybody or being whoever they say he was. That's not the person that I know.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors put their case together.

Speaker 3 Miami-Dade State Attorney Catherine Fernandez-Rundell had to sign off, and she did so without hesitation.

Speaker 6 Revenge isn't tolerated anywhere in the system, even if it's understandable

Speaker 6 and somebody might have some sympathy on.

Speaker 3 So it's a kind of a push in that direction, isn't there? That you ought to be able to kind of act out in your own defense.

Speaker 6 Sometimes revenge is just an excuse, but it's a lousy excuse to kill somebody. You cannot do it.
You will be held accountable.

Speaker 3 And the state of Florida did hold Cindy accountable. Just before Christmas 2010, she was charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 2 Coming up, there was a dead man, an apparent confession, and a motive.

Speaker 3 But under Florida law, was it murder?

Speaker 17 And it was at that point in time that you shot him to protect yourself.

Speaker 4 Yes, I did. I was in fear for my life.
In my mind, he was there to kill me.

Speaker 2 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 3 Words. What a lot of trouble they can be.

Speaker 7 He played my husband.

Speaker 7 Did he ask me that?

Speaker 3 Cindy Carballo's words, recorded by DEA informant John Friske, could put her away for life for first-degree murder. But this being Florida, she had a shot at getting the charge thrown out.

Speaker 3 The controversial stand-your ground law.

Speaker 4 Both sides are ready to proceed.

Speaker 3 If Cindy could satisfy this judge that she had to use lethal force to protect herself from Elon Nissim, she'd walk away free as a bird. If she couldn't, she'd go on trial for murder.

Speaker 3 Watching in the gallery, Nissim's girlfriend, Nikita Roberts, and their daughter, Imani.

Speaker 4 Are there any witnesses that the defense seeks to call at this time?

Speaker 3 Cindy would be the first, telling the the judge that, yes, indeed, a tape would tell the story of what happened. But not the undercover DEA tape.
That was nonsense, she said.

Speaker 3 The true tape, the one that told the honest story of what she went through that day back in 2008, was her recorded 911 call after she shot Nissen.

Speaker 3 That was the true Cindy, the defense said, tearing out of the house, hysterical, panic-stricken, telling the operator she was sure sure he was going to shoot her.

Speaker 3 I thought he was going to fire on me to have fired. And then I went.

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 3 planned it. I planned it.
I was homeless.

Speaker 3 Sitting here on the witness stand, Cindy swore her story was the same now as the one she told the cops from the start. That she was home alone when Nissim showed up uninvited and attacked her.

Speaker 4 He got aggravated and aggressive with me and he grabbed me by my shirt.

Speaker 17 And it was at that point in time that you shot him to protect yourself.

Speaker 4 Yes, I did. I was in fear for my life.
In my mind, he was there to kill me.

Speaker 3 Cindy turned to the judge, fighting back tears, and explained that she fired because it looked like Nissim was about to shoot her.

Speaker 9 He turned with his left hands towards his right, and at that moment, I just started shooting and shooting.

Speaker 9 Like there was no tomorrow because in my mind he was reaching out for the gun I seen him with. He was going to shoot at me.

Speaker 9 It was so scary.

Speaker 3 Cindy's attorneys reminded the judge that after the shooting, the police announced Cindy would not be charged.

Speaker 20 After the detectives interviewed her,

Speaker 20 no, they felt at the time that this could be a case of self-defense.

Speaker 3 And the defense pointed out news stories of the time in which police were quoting Nissim as a suspect in Orlando's murder.

Speaker 4 At the time,

Speaker 4 he was the person the police was investigating and the only suspect in my husband's murder.

Speaker 3 And as for that DEA undercover tape, which so faithfully recorded what she told Frisky about planning and vengeance, an eye for an eye.

Speaker 4 This is me telling him how I felt, my embellishment on the story.

Speaker 3 It was all pure theater, she said.

Speaker 3 She was trying to impress Frisky, not confess to him.

Speaker 4 I made myself to look tougher than I was because I... Why did you do that?

Speaker 4 Because I'm a single mom living in a man's world. So I wanted to sound like I'm tough.
You can't mess with me.

Speaker 3 Cindy asked the judge to look to one statement on that tape that was all true and consistent with the fear Cindy showed on the 911 call. You told

Speaker 17 Frisky that you had to defend yourself against Ilian, correct?

Speaker 4 Yes, I told him that I was very scared. I told him that I have to defend myself against Elon.

Speaker 3 Cindy's testimony appeared to be a powerful performance.

Speaker 3 But there was one person not impressed.

Speaker 3 Lead prosecutor Abby Rifkin. What was your impression of her testimony at the Standard Ground hearing?

Speaker 13 That she was an actress, and she was putting on an act.

Speaker 3 And the act began with that 911 call. Was that the real Cindy? Not a chance, said Prosecutor Rifkin.

Speaker 3 The real Cindy was the one on that frisky tape speaking freely when she thought nobody else was listening.

Speaker 3 And during cross-examination, prosecutors said police were never as suspicious of Nissim as Cindy claimed they were.

Speaker 3 Instead, they said it was she who pushed him as the number one suspect.

Speaker 4 At the time you were telling the police to investigate him, isn't it?

Speaker 4 He was being investigated for the murder of my husband at the time. That is correct.

Speaker 3 So was Nissim a murder suspect or not?

Speaker 3 We put the question to these two detectives. In the paper, it says that she shot in self-defense the number one suspect in her husband's killing.
So, is that what the police were thinking?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 He was never a number one suspect. He was never a number one suspect.
Words.

Speaker 3 Words in court, words on tape.

Speaker 3 Which words would the judge believe?

Speaker 3 Coming up.

Speaker 2 In a case full of twists and turns, one more.

Speaker 4 That blew my mind. How do they assert that I was pregnant by this man? It was just disgusting.

Speaker 3 It was just after Thanksgiving, 2012. Cindy Carballo had made an impassioned case that she shot Elon Nissim in self-defense.

Speaker 3 And under Florida's stand-your-ground law, she qualified for immunity from prosecution.

Speaker 9 He was going to kill me.

Speaker 3 She sobbed and pleaded on the stand.

Speaker 3 Now she stood quietly to hear the judge's decision.

Speaker 4 The defendant's motion is denied.

Speaker 3 Denied?

Speaker 3 Cindy said the judge failed to meet the legal burden of a stand-your-ground case.

Speaker 3 So, two years later, Cindy went on trial for murder.

Speaker 4 Please be seated.

Speaker 3 Now, prosecutors have the burden to prove her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Speaker 13 Evidence will show that the defendant lured Mr. Neesom to the house for revenge.

Speaker 3 Listen to the DEA tape, said prosecutor Abby Rifkin to the jury, to hear not a victim, but a calculating, cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 7 But when I knew that it was going to be hard to

Speaker 7 catch him, I was like, I have to do something.

Speaker 3 What did she do? She bought a gun, and then prosecutors said she invited Nissim to her home. Dr.

Speaker 3 Emma Liu, then a medical examiner for Miami-Date County, demonstrated the path of bullets from Cindy's gun into Nissim's body. Five shots, mostly in the back.

Speaker 4 Gunshot 1A was on the right upper back.

Speaker 3 The day Cindy shot Nissim, he wasn't even armed. And if she was as frightened of him as she claimed to be, then how to explain this?

Speaker 3 Phone records that show the two were in constant contact 30 times in the weeks after Orlando was killed.

Speaker 13 We're talking about somebody who is clearly having a relationship with this person.

Speaker 3 Come on, that's a pretty thin thread. Clearly having a relationship.
How do you? I mean, that's your speculation, Truly. Absolutely not.

Speaker 13 This is someone who was calling the victim the equal number of times that he called her.

Speaker 3 And then Prosecutor Rifkin went a step further.

Speaker 3 She discovered, she said, that Cindy got pregnant after her husband was killed. Miscarried at three weeks.
And who did she text from the hospital?

Speaker 13 The person that she texted from the hospital a little after six o'clock in the morning was the victim.

Speaker 3 It was clear what the prosecutor was implying, that Nissim might have been the father. Cindy seemed stunned by the whole idea.

Speaker 4 That blew my mind. How do they come and can assert that I was pregnant by this man? It was just disgusting.

Speaker 3 And simply untrue, said defense co-counsel Bruce Fleischer.

Speaker 15 For them to suggest that she was pregnant from Nissan was ludicrous.

Speaker 3 In fact, said the defense, the state's whole case was ludicrous. This was clearly an act of self-defense.

Speaker 3 Just listen to Cindy's sister describe the time she saw Nissim talking to Cindy right after her husband was murdered to understand why she was so afraid.

Speaker 4 Then the next thing I I see is him lifting up his shirt and he had a gun. I saw my sister looking a little frightened about it.

Speaker 15 One of the detectives had told her this person has a long wrap sheet and that she should arm herself.

Speaker 3 And after Cindy shot Nissim, her sister said she saw proof that Cindy had been attacked.

Speaker 4 She had

Speaker 3 bruises on her arm.

Speaker 4 She had a

Speaker 4 scratch of bruises on her neck.

Speaker 3 And that shot him in the back thing.

Speaker 3 The the defense called a medical expert of its own who said the first bullet was in nissim's side when he turned his body as if to reach for a gun within a fraction of a second he will fall forward

Speaker 3 and during that period of time he gets all the rest of the gun show fucked The defense wanted to ask the lead detective Diana Roman just what she told Cindy after her husband was murdered.

Speaker 3 Roman has denied ever telling Cindy to buy a gun or congratulating her for taking out the trash when she killed Nissim.

Speaker 3 But here in court, the judge would not let the defense ask about those things, though she did allow questions about all those texts and calls.

Speaker 17 You told Genepsey to stay close to him?

Speaker 13 I asked her to maintain a communication that already existed there.

Speaker 3 But the big issue, of course, was that DEA audio tape.

Speaker 7 I knew what was going to happen.

Speaker 3 This tape is the one in which she seems to confess.

Speaker 15 But she's not confessing. She said that I shot that man in self-defense.
I thought he was armed. It's not a confession.

Speaker 17 Did he have a weapon on him when they found him?

Speaker 3 Remember, the defense argued that Cindy was exaggerating wildly when she talked to the DEA's frisky, embellishing to make herself look tough.

Speaker 3 But if you listen carefully, they said, you can hear one thing Cindy did say on that tape that was true.

Speaker 3 The one thing prosecutors ignored. Five big words.

Speaker 3 I had to defend myself. Now that, said the defense, was true.

Speaker 3 Just like the 911 call was true.

Speaker 3 To all of which the prosecutors said, nonsense. That 911 call,

Speaker 3 that was all an act. And their proof of that was something Cindy said to DEA informant Frisky on his tape.

Speaker 13 What does she say when she thinks no one's listening?

Speaker 13 I was really nervous, but I made it look authentic.

Speaker 3 And the judge?

Speaker 3 agreed with the prosecution, dismissed the 911 call, ruled it inadmissible, which was a very big problem for Cindy, and perhaps the reason that in her trial, she chose not to take the witness stand.

Speaker 15 We couldn't let her do it because we saw that we were not being treated fairly in the rulings.

Speaker 3 In his closing, Defense Attorney Nathan Diamond insisted that Cindy was within her rights when she shot Nissim.

Speaker 17 The shots are being pulled off in rapid fire, consistent with the fear of the attack that was being placed on Genepsey in her home.

Speaker 3 So now, the big wait. One day, two days.
On the third day, jurors said they were deadlocked. The judge sent them back.

Speaker 4 Please be seated.

Speaker 3 And hours later.

Speaker 4 We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 3 What was it like when they said guilty?

Speaker 4 it was very very very difficult I never imagined that

Speaker 4 I was going to go to trial and not be able to tell my my side and actually how the events occurred

Speaker 3 the sentence was swift ordained by law life no parole Cindy told us she isn't done she is appealing

Speaker 3 she tells her son Noah that she will fight the lies that put her here.

Speaker 4 He told me that he understand

Speaker 4 because sometimes in school there's boys that tell lies about him and try to get him in trouble with the teacher. So he said, I understand mommy.

Speaker 3 Ask state attorney Catherine Fernandez-Rundle about what happened to young Noah and she calls it a tragedy.

Speaker 6 That is really the heart of this case because that's the person who really has suffered and lost everything.

Speaker 3 It's been years now since the tumultuous events that put Cindy Carballo behind bars, since her husband was murdered in a case that still hasn't been solved.

Speaker 3 All those years to contemplate the act that put her here and whether she'd do it again.

Speaker 5 Yes,

Speaker 4 because I was attacked. And I, that moment, I felt that

Speaker 4 he was going to kill me.

Speaker 4 And if not having remorse makes me guilty,

Speaker 4 I don't think it should be that way.

Speaker 3 Perhaps not.

Speaker 3 But certainly, Cindy Carballo has years to rethink the question

Speaker 3 and her answer.

Speaker 2 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 14 Hey, everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co-host Woody Harrison.

Speaker 14 It's called Where Everybody Knows Your Name and we're back for another season.

Speaker 14 I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it.

Speaker 14 Listen to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrison Harrison sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.