The Black Widow of Lomita

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Speaker 14 There's lots of definition for evil, but it's hard to pinpoint until you actually experience it.

Speaker 15 Did you feel that you were in danger?

Speaker 16 I did.

Speaker 17 I kind of thought to myself, what did we just get ourselves into?

Speaker 18 It's very diabolical, isn't it?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 17 Seemed to be the kiss of death.

Speaker 14 I

Speaker 14 literally dropped to my knees. It was a huge shock.

Speaker 20 It was the pride of the family. It haunts you the rest of your life.

Speaker 21 It hurts.

Speaker 22 This bit on the floor.

Speaker 24 This was 100% driven by greed and money.

Speaker 25 They are basically murdering anything in anybody they can. Outside of Game of Thrones, it's not what you're really expecting.

Speaker 25 How many murders can you have in one family?

Speaker 26 She just had to come here.

Speaker 28 Had to see it.

Speaker 30 Had to feel what happened in this dark, empty parking lot.

Speaker 7 So far from home.

Speaker 14 I feel somewhat numb.

Speaker 33 It's just so senseless.

Speaker 27 And I'm angry. I'm very angry.

Speaker 34 Her name is Sherry Jackson.

Speaker 35 She has been looking, searching.

Speaker 37 She has come half a world away for this one moment.

Speaker 37 Well, this

Speaker 29 is our last hope.

Speaker 39 To finally solve the mystery that has haunted her, what happened to her big brother?

Speaker 41 What did they do to Larry?

Speaker 6 Larry Riskin.

Speaker 14 He loved life. Just being

Speaker 14 around him and in his presence, you too would feel carefree.

Speaker 45 Barry Riskin was a Navy man, joined the service after high school and rose through the ranks to become a commander, a leader of men, went to the Gulf War.

Speaker 26 And back home in Olympia, Washington, his sister Sherry heard all about it.

Speaker 16 Then, Sherry heard about her.

Speaker 14 Someone fed up this blind date at a barbecue in California somewhere.

Speaker 32 Was it like he fell for her right away?

Speaker 17 Yes.

Speaker 32 Did he have much experience with women?

Speaker 46 No.

Speaker 47 Her name was Sonia.

Speaker 48 Sonia Rios, a very pretty woman from the Philippines who owned a beauty salon in the Los Angeles suburb of Lomita.

Speaker 26 Did he know she was 16 years older than he was?

Speaker 7 Whatever.

Speaker 27 Didn't matter.

Speaker 14 He was naive.

Speaker 49 It's not the sort of image you have in mind for a Navy commander.

Speaker 16 Right.

Speaker 14 His kindness

Speaker 14 made him naive.

Speaker 4 Larry had always been close to his family, visited whenever he could.

Speaker 53 But, said Cherry, after Sonia came along, Larry stopped coming.

Speaker 14 Sonia would be sick. She'd have a headache.

Speaker 14 She would sabotage every time he had planned to come home.

Speaker 39 A year or so in, Larry and Sonia got married. They settled into Sonia's house in Lomita, across the street from Nicole and Jim Thompson.

Speaker 56 She was very pleasant, very generous,

Speaker 57 very nice.

Speaker 38 She seemed quite normal.

Speaker 58 It looked like just a normal marriage.

Speaker 42 Although there was this...

Speaker 3 Odd thing about it, given Larry's authority at work.

Speaker 56 Although he was a commander in the Navy, she was the stronger one of the two.

Speaker 10 Far off in Olympia, Sherry got the same impression.

Speaker 1 To her, it seemed almost sinister.

Speaker 14 She had complete control over him, complete control.

Speaker 61 One weekend when Larry was away on duty, Sherry and a friend came to L.A.

Speaker 26 and stayed with Sonia.

Speaker 63 Until she locked them out of the house and then blamed Sherry.

Speaker 14 She told Larry some story that was not true,

Speaker 14 and Larry never followed up on it.

Speaker 49 Was that the final break?

Speaker 14 Yes, because we didn't speak after that for a while.

Speaker 48 A while stretched into years, more than a decade of cold, stony silence.

Speaker 52 So, Sherry wasn't there when Larry retired from the Navy, and she heard very little about his new career as a high school special education teacher.

Speaker 68 He loved kids. He loved his job with students.

Speaker 28 This is fellow special ed teacher Eileen Stevens.

Speaker 61 As you got to know each other, did he talk about his personal life?

Speaker 68 He talked about his family. He hadn't seen them in years.
They had he wasn't allowed to.

Speaker 7 As Eileen and Larry grew closer, he shared more and more secrets.

Speaker 68 It was not

Speaker 68 a good marriage. No sexual relations.
She had emasculated him to a point that,

Speaker 68 honestly, I don't think he would speak much.

Speaker 53 Larry did make his feelings known about one thing: he wanted children.

Speaker 10 But Sonia, remember, was way older than Larry, well into her 40s when they wed.

Speaker 68 It seems like she hadn't been forthright about her age because she wanted to give the impression she was able to have children.

Speaker 70 But Larry had found an alternative.

Speaker 3 He had gone to the Philippines often to see Sonia's relatives, and Larry had come to love her brother's two grandchildren.

Speaker 26 Their names were Quincy and Jetmark.

Speaker 3 Jetmark still remembers vividly.

Speaker 72 He's a nice man. We love kids, friendly.

Speaker 63 How did you feel when you were around him?

Speaker 72 I feel safe and secure with him, always happy when I'm with him.

Speaker 73 Jetmark and Quincy's parents hoped Sonia and Larry could provide a better life in the States.

Speaker 54 So the family supported Larry's offer to adopt them.

Speaker 66 And Sonia agreed, as long as she could handle the adoption process.

Speaker 54 But a year passed, then two, more than three.

Speaker 75 And the process Sonia promised didn't happen.

Speaker 14 He found out that she was sabotaging the adoption. for the kids to actually come.
So there would be a date, and then that date would come and go, and he

Speaker 14 finally figured that out.

Speaker 32 It was sort of his last chance to have children at that point.

Speaker 14 He was very upset about that.

Speaker 76 So upset, he demanded a divorce, and Sonia agreed, but with one stipulation.

Speaker 58 Sonia came over, and she said, Larry's going to go to the Philippines, and we have a taxi business there, and he's got to get that taken care of.

Speaker 26 Which he agreed to to do after all he wanted to see quincy and jet mark and quincy's 16th birthday was coming up but sonia

Speaker 68 she didn't want to go exactly i brought that up

Speaker 68 well it's her family why doesn't she go and he said what no i i i need to go it was whatever sonia decided

Speaker 37 but before leaving for manila Larry needed to take one other trip back home back to Olympia for the first time in 13 years for a family reunion.

Speaker 14 It was great. He was very happy to start another chapter in his life without her.

Speaker 28 Without her, but with, he gushed, the niece and nephew he still hoped to adopt. Sherry listened and worried.

Speaker 14 This was not going to be an easy divorce. Larry would say, everything's okay.
I'm going to go to the Philippines. And when I get back, we're going to go through the process of divorce.
He trusted her.

Speaker 14 And when I took him to the airport, I really, really felt.

Speaker 29 I'm never going to see him again.

Speaker 60 Sherry's premonition was about to come true in a troubling, violent way.

Speaker 83 What?

Speaker 56 Oh my God.

Speaker 10 A murder.

Speaker 14 I just said you had something to do with it. I know you did.

Speaker 55 Then, two.

Speaker 20 It haunts you the rest of your life.

Speaker 21 It hurts.

Speaker 1 Then three.

Speaker 15 Did you feel in jeopardy yourself?

Speaker 14 I did because anything could happen.

Speaker 26 Larry Riskin landed in Manila and headed south to the town of Tanza to see Quincy and Jetmark, those two kids he so desperately hoped to adopt.

Speaker 24 You say happy birthday, Quincy?

Speaker 66 Where he attended a Sweet 16th birthday party for Quincy.

Speaker 64 You're gonna have some cake and ice cream?

Speaker 2 During the party, Larry noticed that Jetmark's cousin had an eye infection.

Speaker 72 Larry thinks that

Speaker 72 he must go to the hospital to have a checked up.

Speaker 66 Go, go see the doctor.

Speaker 7 As the party broke up and Larry got everybody ready to leave, one of the parents called Sonia back in the States.

Speaker 72 And she said, we're going to the hospital at that moment.

Speaker 86 So Sonia knew.

Speaker 58 Go.

Speaker 72 Yeah. Because we're about to bring my cousin.
to see the doctor.

Speaker 2 So Larry put the girl in a jeep and then he and Jetmark and a few family members headed to the hospital

Speaker 63 they parked in the back they went inside

Speaker 35 after the girl was treated everybody left the ER and piled back into the jeep

Speaker 15 it was just before 7 p.m

Speaker 72 then someone approach us

Speaker 17 Someone approach you how?

Speaker 72 At our side with a motorcycle

Speaker 15 and suddenly the world exploded one of the two men on the motorcycle started shooting point blank into larry's head

Speaker 61 into his stomach

Speaker 54 shock then and chaos the killers sped away

Speaker 72 in the confusion and panic jet bark reached for larry I tried to stand him up from the seat, but I already see the blood coming.

Speaker 72 I was thinking that he's still alive, then I am shouting out, help, help.

Speaker 88 It seemed like forever to get Larry back into the emergency room.

Speaker 72 I was just praying that he will be alive.

Speaker 72 That's why I can't forget what happened that night.

Speaker 51 Larry Riskin never had a chance.

Speaker 43 He was just 43.

Speaker 43 Moments earlier, Jetmark had felt so safe and secure with Larry, awaiting a new life with him in California.

Speaker 72 I never felt that again

Speaker 72 when he's gone.

Speaker 73 Back in Lamita, it was the middle of the night when Nicole and Jim Thompson got a call from Sonia.

Speaker 56 She goes, Larry's been shot and he's dead.

Speaker 19 And I'm like, what?

Speaker 56 Oh, my God.

Speaker 56 I said, you want me to come over? And she said, yes, please.

Speaker 58 And she was shaking. And, you know, I put my arms around her and she kept rocking back and forth.

Speaker 77 Later that morning, Sonia had Nicole call Sherry in Olympia to give her the news.

Speaker 78 Nicole left a voicemail.

Speaker 14 The woman said, I'm Sonia and Larry's neighbor. I need you to call me.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 I knew. I went into my coworker and I said, I'm going to return a phone call and this person's going to tell me my brother's dead.

Speaker 66 Which is exactly what happened.

Speaker 58 And I said, hi, Sherry, I'm sorry to give you bad news. And she just said,

Speaker 58 she did it. I know she did it.
She did it.

Speaker 82 It was Sherry who called the police in Lomita, told them to rush over to Sonia's place.

Speaker 81 After they arrived, an officer called Sherry back.

Speaker 14 I said, we'll put Sonia on the phone. And she was just, I believe, acting.
My husband, my husband is dead. And I just said, you had something to do with it.
I know you did.

Speaker 7 The Thompsons didn't quite believe that.

Speaker 90 Not then.

Speaker 73 But the very next day, Sonia again asked Jim to come over.

Speaker 56 She says, can you help me go through these papers? I'm looking for life insurance policies. And that really stunned me.
He'd been gone maybe 30 hours tops, and she's looking for insurance papers.

Speaker 56 And I'm, no, I'm not doing this.

Speaker 73 A former Navy commander gunned down in the Philippines was front page news in Southern California, right in reporter Larry Altman's part of town.

Speaker 38 And one of his first calls was to the newly widowed Sonia Riskin, who, to his utter surprise, was already back at work.

Speaker 17 She told me that she hadn't had a report yet, but that tourists get robbed, and that perhaps was what had happened.

Speaker 35 Was it?

Speaker 34 Thousands of miles away in the Philippines, Tanzan Police Detective Seleno Javier was just starting an investigation.

Speaker 15 Did anybody see this happen?

Speaker 92 Yes, there is some witness, but they cannot remember the place of the suspects.

Speaker 57 Could not identify them? Yes, of course.

Speaker 82 No identifiable suspects meant no arrests.

Speaker 79 And the investigation quickly went nowhere.

Speaker 88 The murder of Larry Riskin, the execution really, here in a hospital parking lot of all places, was devastating for his family back home in the States, but to add insult to the injury, because his wife Sonia had jurisdiction over the body she elected not to bring it back for burial instead had him cremated and ensured his ashes remained here in the Philippines with somebody

Speaker 14 that news reached Larry's family as they were preparing for his funeral When we found out that Sonia had him cremated and the remains were not coming back.

Speaker 14 That was yet another slap in the face of Sonia controlling everything.

Speaker 41 The family still held the funeral and left a headstone with a small empty niche.

Speaker 81 Someday they told themselves someday they would retrieve Larry's ashes and put them here at home.

Speaker 14 For his remains to be in the Philippines is, it's unthinkable.

Speaker 32 How much of this was a kind of a middle finger to you and to the family?

Speaker 83 A lot, a big one.

Speaker 50 Whatever Sherry's suspicions about Sonia, there wasn't much she could do except hope and pray that the tiny Tanzan Police Department halfway around the world would solve the case.

Speaker 19 But

Speaker 39 she didn't know, of course, she didn't, that Sonia had a history.

Speaker 93 Dive back in time, peel away a decade or two, find

Speaker 69 another mystery, another man,

Speaker 10 and

Speaker 79 another murder.

Speaker 17 She had a previous husband who was killed 19 years earlier in the Philippines in a similar manner.

Speaker 6 The dark story of husband number one.

Speaker 20 I said, don't go.

Speaker 42 And then he hung up

Speaker 46 and he was dead.

Speaker 63 Larry Altman had no idea that spring morning in 2006.

Speaker 10 Not a clue.

Speaker 61 As he drove to his office at the paper, yes, sure, he'd broken a story about a murder, halfway around the world, of that local teacher and ex-Navy commander, Larry Riskin. But that was three days ago.

Speaker 87 He'd moved on.

Speaker 7 But then he got to the office and, well, surprise would be far too mild a word for what he heard about Sonia.

Speaker 17 I had several messages that she had a previous husband who was killed 19 years earlier in the Philippines in a similar manner.

Speaker 61 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 83 Wow.

Speaker 17 I managed to get a name for the first husband earl john bordeaux

Speaker 94 took a minute to sink in sonia had another husband and he too was shot to death in the philippines how messed up was this crazy story and who the heck was earl john bordeaux

Speaker 38 altman dug through the newspaper's archives looking for any old stories about the man or the murder we couldn't find anything And so I just did a Google search and came up with

Speaker 8 Bordeaux in Iowa.

Speaker 39 The Bordeaux family lived in Davenport, Iowa, along the Mississippi River, in the very same house where Earl grew up.

Speaker 45 Back then, they called him Duke, a handsome, friendly, Midwestern kid.

Speaker 59 This is his brother, Dennis.

Speaker 20 He was the pride of the family.

Speaker 95 You're a big brother.

Speaker 40 Yeah.

Speaker 20 Yep. I looked up to him a lot, and we were kind of each other's protector.

Speaker 73 Duke joined the Marines during Vietnam, but was stationed in the Philippines, where he met a pretty young Filipina named Sonia, who sang at a nightclub near the base.

Speaker 27 And she was worth writing home about.

Speaker 42 Dennis kept the letters.

Speaker 29 And it wasn't long before he got a call from Duke.

Speaker 20 He said that he had gotten married.

Speaker 19 Holy cow.

Speaker 32 Would he fall in love at first sight or something?

Speaker 20 I think he must have. It was almost a big secret.

Speaker 71 A few months later, Duke brought the secret bride back home to Iowa to meet the family.

Speaker 3 But the Bordeaux and Sonia never clicked.

Speaker 26 And maybe that's why after Duke's hitch in the Marines ended, the newlyweds settled in Southern California.

Speaker 3 A few years later, Sonia opened a hair salon.

Speaker 7 Well, Duke worked at a bakery.

Speaker 6 What was their relationship like back then in the beginning?

Speaker 20 It looked like it was real good. They were holding hands.

Speaker 51 Oh, Lovey Dovey.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 20 She definitely was the boss, and there was no doubt about that.

Speaker 70 Sound familiar?

Speaker 63 Sonia ran the show, and Duke, the ex-Marine, found himself taking orders all over again.

Speaker 20 He definitely was scared of her.

Speaker 32 Scared of what? She was just a pint-sized thing, right?

Speaker 20 That she was going to get mad and

Speaker 20 blow up, and then he wouldn't be able to do things.

Speaker 85 But somehow, his strange and secretive marriage survived over two decades.

Speaker 69 Dennis urged him, get out.

Speaker 26 And finally, Sonia agreed to a divorce.

Speaker 10 But,

Speaker 27 and this may sound very familiar, first,

Speaker 29 Duke would have to go to the Philippines without her to sell her little taxi business there.

Speaker 20 He was very, very depressed. And he goes, I got to go.
She's making me.

Speaker 47 Duke kept begging his brother to go with him.

Speaker 48 But Dennis couldn't get a passport in time.

Speaker 71 So Duke went alone.

Speaker 31 There was a plane change in Hawaii.

Speaker 20 And he called me, then he called Sonia

Speaker 20 and told her that he didn't want to go any further. And she said, you had to go.

Speaker 16 You had to go or what?

Speaker 20 That's what I told him.

Speaker 16 I said, then don't go.

Speaker 20 And he said, I'm not you.

Speaker 20 That was his last words to me. I'm not you.

Speaker 35 And then he hung up and then he was dead.

Speaker 76 Another murder in the Philippines.

Speaker 20 It haunts you the rest of your life. You just dream about when he calls and begging you to go someplace and you didn't do it.

Speaker 32 That survivor's guilt is a real thing, isn't it?

Speaker 16 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 21 It hurts.

Speaker 31 Then the danger travels home.

Speaker 20 I got maybe 200 death threats.

Speaker 49 What would they say on the phone?

Speaker 20 You've had it. Watch every step you make.
It was almost like they were watching.

Speaker 50 It was an August night, humid, hot, when Duke Bordeaux landed in Manila.

Speaker 26 Then he drove south to a town called General Trias.

Speaker 90 It was about midnight when Duke arrived at this little house.

Speaker 73 Sonia's family lived here.

Speaker 55 Duke was exhausted.

Speaker 26 He crashed on the couch, fell into a dead sleep.

Speaker 41 And then he was dead.

Speaker 2 When police arrived, they found Duke lying in a pool of his own blood.

Speaker 53 He'd been shot to death.

Speaker 3 And soon the awful news made its way to Iowa.

Speaker 20 It haunts you the rest of your life. You just dream about when he calls and begging you to go someplace and you didn't do it.

Speaker 32 That survivor's guilt is a real thing, isn't it?

Speaker 16 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 21 It hurts.

Speaker 21 You let him down and you let your parents down.

Speaker 40 What happened in there?

Speaker 38 Who killed Earl John Duke Bordeaux?

Speaker 96 John Bordeaux was murdered in cold blood.

Speaker 54 Longo Teza is a private investigator who once worked for the Philippine equivalent of the FBI.

Speaker 96 Somebody went inside the house.

Speaker 15 They thought it's just a burglary or a home invasion, something like that.

Speaker 85 But it didn't make sense.

Speaker 26 There was no sign of a break-in.

Speaker 73 And Duke was the only one shot.

Speaker 66 Pretty much execution style.

Speaker 88 The police here in the town of General Trias jumped on the Bordeaux case right away, and pretty soon they had identified some suspects, brought them in, charged them with murder.

Speaker 64 Three of those people, three of those men, were members of Sonia's family.

Speaker 55 And then two more were picked up.

Speaker 26 So five members of Sonia's family were charged with murdering Duke.

Speaker 31 Here's the criminal complaint: one of Sonia's brothers had fresh human blood on his shirt and pants.

Speaker 61 The evidence police had gathered seemed overwhelming.

Speaker 7 Case closed.

Speaker 73 But soon after, said Detective Sulino Javier, remember him?

Speaker 42 Soon after, there was a little surprise.

Speaker 92 They filed a case against the suspects, but it was dismissed.

Speaker 5 Why?

Speaker 92 For the reason that Sonia

Speaker 92 discounted failed to attend the preliminary hearing.

Speaker 52 Did you get that?

Speaker 35 Because Sonia was next of kin, she had to attend the hearing here at the local courthouse to make the charges against her family stick. So no Sonia there meant no charges.

Speaker 4 Case over.

Speaker 54 Local authorities said their hands were tied.

Speaker 4 That was the official version, anyway.

Speaker 48 Didn't wash, said ex-Philippine investigator Bong Otesa.

Speaker 96 I think that there is some magic happened.

Speaker 23 Magic?

Speaker 96 You can easily pay

Speaker 75 people around just to

Speaker 75 be silent.

Speaker 97 Pay to make it go away. Yep.

Speaker 70 According to Bong, who's worked in law enforcement over three decades, that magic is not so uncommon.

Speaker 71 A thousand dollar payoff and poof, it all goes away.

Speaker 54 So that wouldn't surprise you at all.

Speaker 96 Oh, no, that's expected.

Speaker 82 Back in Iowa, Dennis was convinced Duke's execution was ordered and financed by Sonia and that she paid off whoever she needed to.

Speaker 20 Sonia

Speaker 20 has so much power, everybody was afraid of her.

Speaker 95 Almost like a little godfather or something.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 20 If she said something, people moved.

Speaker 31 Sonia moved fast, too.

Speaker 73 She scooped up her dead husband's entire six-figure estate.

Speaker 20 Her attorney told me everything goes to Sonia. Don't bother her.
Don't call her.

Speaker 26 Dennis called a lawyer in the Philippines, spent thousands on his own investigation, he said, hoping he'd at least put some heat on Sonia.

Speaker 36 But instead, said Dennis, he became a target

Speaker 20 i got maybe 200 death threats just by phone but what would they say on the phone your family's has had it you've had it watch every step you make it was almost like they were watching and this happened to you why who was doing this us i believe it's sonia's family because i had done some things that scared sonia

Speaker 73 like reporting her to the local police and the FBI Dennis said he also showed them death threats he got in the mail

Speaker 26 and then one day he was fishing near his home and

Speaker 20 all of a sudden something was hitting beside us I could see a guy across the lake and you could see the muzzle flash

Speaker 26 the mystery shooter missed said Dennis but That wasn't the end of it.

Speaker 1 Later, he said it happened again, right outside his very own garage.

Speaker 20 They were standing right back almost where you were for those two bullets there.

Speaker 45 Who were these people?

Speaker 12 I don't know.

Speaker 18 But these are...

Speaker 20 These are the two bullet holes there.

Speaker 20 There's one here.

Speaker 53 Dennis documented everything, said he told the FBI repeatedly, but nothing happened.

Speaker 67 And years passed.

Speaker 81 The Bordeaux case faded away far away in the Philippines.

Speaker 77 Until,

Speaker 77 well over a decade later, Dennis got that call from reporter Larry Altman about the murder of Larry Riskin.

Speaker 15 That was the first you heard she even had another husband.

Speaker 98 Yeah.

Speaker 28 Did he tell you how he died?

Speaker 20 He told me just how he got shot in the head, too.

Speaker 81 Just like your brother. Yeah.

Speaker 95 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Did you immediately think, oh boy, she's done it again?

Speaker 21 Yeah, I did.

Speaker 3 Maybe now, hoped Dennis, all the renewed interest in Sonia might finally reignite the investigation into his brother's case.

Speaker 79 I thought

Speaker 20 Sonia was going to be hung from the highest tree.

Speaker 20 Serve a lifetime behind bars.

Speaker 26 Understandable,

Speaker 1 if naive.

Speaker 8 Had she been arrested, Larry Riskin would be alive today.

Speaker 6 You looked into her past, right?

Speaker 81 Oh, yeah, very extensively.

Speaker 14 What other secrets might Sonia be hiding it was a huge shock when i heard that i

Speaker 14 literally dropped to my knees

Speaker 74 two military men Two murders, nearly two decades apart.

Speaker 63 At the center of it, the woman who was married to both of them.

Speaker 26 Sonia Riskin.

Speaker 1 Reporter Larry Altman knew he had a hell of a story on his hands and soon coined a headline-grabbing nickname for Sonia.

Speaker 96 The Black Widow of Lomita.

Speaker 27 That caught on.

Speaker 17 That did catch on.

Speaker 26 Nicole and Jim Thompson saw the headlines, heard the stories.

Speaker 48 It was hard to believe this was sweet little Sonia, their nice neighbor they were once so friendly with.

Speaker 27 Not anymore.

Speaker 56 For her to send two husbands back to the Philippines and both of them get murdered, that changed the relationship permanently.

Speaker 58 I'm going to keep my distance. I said, this is way too coincidental.
It's just too weird for me, and I don't want to be a part of it.

Speaker 63 But up in Olympia, Washington, Sherry Jackson hadn't seen Larry's stories about the black widow.

Speaker 63 And so, when Philippine authorities called her and told told her that Sonia had a previous husband and that he was murdered too.

Speaker 14 It was a huge shock. When I heard that,

Speaker 14 I

Speaker 14 literally dropped to my knees.

Speaker 61 Then Jerry called Dennis Bordeaux.

Speaker 47 The similarities were eerie.

Speaker 26 The same circumstances, same straight-out executions.

Speaker 84 And after they talked, she felt even more certain.

Speaker 3 Sonia had also ordered Larry's murder.

Speaker 32 Did she kill Larry for his money or was she angry at him or both?

Speaker 14 She was not going to let him walk away and she was a woman who needed control and that would certainly jeopardize that.

Speaker 69 Not to mention the money.

Speaker 5 And so for a second time, Sonia was in line to inherit a murdered husband's estate, including a big life insurance payout.

Speaker 12 But then the insurance company got a little suspicious and hired a private investigator named Bill Marshall.

Speaker 41 The insurance company called me one day and said, Bill, I got a doozy of a case for you.

Speaker 26 So Marshall's contact gave him a name, Sonia Riskin, and a little backstory, and set him loose.

Speaker 90 And,

Speaker 27 oh my.

Speaker 11 This woman had a history of fraud.

Speaker 6 You looked into her past, right?

Speaker 8 Oh, yeah, very extensively. She had burned down a hair salon that she owned at one point to collect the insurance.

Speaker 6 Did you wind up collecting the money?

Speaker 50 She did.

Speaker 10 Collecting, yes. Paying taxes?

Speaker 10 Well,

Speaker 63 according to Marshall, Sonia did most of her business transactions in cash to avoid paying the IRS.

Speaker 3 And she launched frivolous lawsuits and bogus bankruptcies and stole Social Security numbers.

Speaker 78 Sonia did get caught for a couple of her scams, though, was ordered to pay restitution.

Speaker 6 What did she get financially for the murder of Larry Riskin?

Speaker 8 Well, hundreds of thousands of dollars. She owned two properties.
There was one in a home in Apple Valley, which I think was worth about a half a million.

Speaker 8 A home in Lomita, four or five hundred thousand, maybe. There were expensive automobiles.

Speaker 95 So these may all have been co-owned, but now she owned them.

Speaker 8 Right.

Speaker 87 With him out of the picture, they all belonged to her.

Speaker 63 Marshall turned in his report, and the insurance company prevented any payments to Sonia.

Speaker 50 But he didn't stop there.

Speaker 10 Sherry and her family were so impressed with Marshall's work they too hired him to investigate not money, but murder and just maybe solve the mystery about what really happened to Larry Riskin and who was responsible.

Speaker 15 What were you hoping he would accomplish?

Speaker 14 To tell us the final days of what happened with Larry in the Philippines and are these the people that killed her first husband? We wanted to get to the bottom of all that.

Speaker 85 By then, Marshall was hooked. For months, he ran an operation from California to the Philippine town of Tanza.
He watched Sonia's house in Lomita, her hair salon, even got a haircut from her.

Speaker 93 Here's the receipt.

Speaker 73 Hoping to learn anything more about Sonia and her activities.

Speaker 61 And he also hired investigators in the Philippines.

Speaker 87 including Bong Otesa.

Speaker 4 Bong pored through old police files, found new witnesses, and cultivated confidential sources, pried open what he believed was the secret true story of the murder of Larry Riskin.

Speaker 31 And it all led directly to Sonia and her family.

Speaker 17 The brothers

Speaker 17 are the one that did it, or they hired a

Speaker 2 healer.

Speaker 96 But definitely it's within the Palmerda Circuit, and they defended their financial stability to Sonia. So So they will do whatever Sonia's request.

Speaker 26 Marshall believed police in the Philippines had much the same information.

Speaker 8 It looked like they gathered very damning evidence against Sonia's brothers.

Speaker 41 So they put them on trial, right?

Speaker 8 No, witnesses suddenly got cold feet and retracted their statements.

Speaker 8 And interestingly, Sonia showed no interest in pursuing the investigation.

Speaker 63 Almost like a replay of what happened after Duke Bordeaux was murdered years earlier, when police charged five members of Sonia's family but then let them go.

Speaker 29 Bong was certain somebody paid to make both murder cases go away.

Speaker 61 And he didn't for a minute buy the line Detective Seleno Javier was selling.

Speaker 92 The General Police Station piled the case, but the court dismissed the case.

Speaker 57 Do you think there might have been any corruption in that? Anybody get a little money under the table?

Speaker 92 I don't think so.

Speaker 57 Don't think so.

Speaker 4 Payoffs or not, it all led Bill Marshall to a disturbing conclusion.

Speaker 71 Larry Riskin didn't have to die.

Speaker 26 It wasn't just that Philippine authorities released the suspects.

Speaker 55 The FBI also knew about Sonia.

Speaker 94 Remember?

Speaker 2 Duke Bordeaux's brother Dennis reported her to them years earlier.

Speaker 8 Had she been arrested, Larry Riskin, I believe, would be alive today.

Speaker 52 We asked the FBI for a response, but they declined to comment.

Speaker 2 Back then, Sherry turned over Marshall's findings to the FBI, hoping that this time they, along with investigators in the Philippines, would finally crack both Larry and Duke's cases.

Speaker 14 I was under the impression there was now going to be an investigation to where she was responsible for these two murders and that she would

Speaker 14 have to pay for it.

Speaker 89 But weeks passed, then months.

Speaker 1 Nothing changed.

Speaker 48 It was business as usual at Sonia's salon, and she remained free as a bird.

Speaker 63 Then Christmas came, the first Christmas without Larry.

Speaker 18 Not a peep from the Philippines or the FBI.

Speaker 14 I tried to get information, but it's an investigation and there wasn't much anyone was going to tell me.

Speaker 4 And then, just after New Year's, an email arrived.

Speaker 10 And then another.

Speaker 42 And then more emails.

Speaker 77 Sent, apparently, by a secret relative of Sonia's. Now, what could that mean?

Speaker 4 Mysterious messages with a sinister offer.

Speaker 14 He was offering to kill her.

Speaker 16 Wow.

Speaker 14 Basically to pay someone to kill Sonia.

Speaker 99 Soon, there'd be murder number three.

Speaker 22 getting on the floor, just been on the floor. Is she breathing? I don't think so.
Please send somebody, please. Oh, God.

Speaker 17 What did we just get ourselves into?

Speaker 35 The murder of Larry Riskin in this hospital parking lot soon faded into local history.

Speaker 2 And two decades of life and constant noisy traffic have pretty much erased any memory of the killing in this house of a man named Duke Bordeaux.

Speaker 53 Just two more mysteries competing for attention in the vast archipelago of humanity in and around this huge city, Manila.

Speaker 64 This is arguably the most densely populated city in the world, and somewhere here, among all of these people, were the killers of Larry Riskin and Duke Bordeaux.

Speaker 44 So truly a mystery.

Speaker 65 But to add to the mystery, somewhere here also

Speaker 61 were the remains of Larry Riskin.

Speaker 23 Somebody had them, but where and who?

Speaker 1 Back in Olympia, Washington, Larry's family still had slim hope they might eventually see Sonia caught and convicted.

Speaker 3 But for now, their priority was bringing Larry's ashes home, giving the man a loving send-off, a formal burial.

Speaker 1 But even that seemed impossible.

Speaker 14 There'll be no closure without my brother's remains back here. And I was just losing hope that anything was ever going to happen.

Speaker 86 It was all just going to go away.

Speaker 14 It was just all going to go away.

Speaker 4 Sure seemed that way.

Speaker 62 And yet here was Sonia still living the Southern California good life, driving her Corvette, running her salon.

Speaker 58 She never mentioned wanting to find a killer.

Speaker 20 Nothing.

Speaker 56 And she never seemed angry at the fact that her husband was murdered. So getting justice never came up.

Speaker 5 But then, nine months after Larry was murdered, as Sherry was about to give up, a strange thing happened, or things,

Speaker 14 emails suddenly popped up in Sherry's computer they talked about Sonia

Speaker 14 being responsible for my brother's murder and he was offering to get my brother's ashes back

Speaker 31 he signed them John Bordeaux

Speaker 1 but wait Earl John Duke Bordeaux was long dead, so who was the guy sending the emails?

Speaker 14 I had learned that Sonia's first husband adopted a child by the name of John Bordeaux when they were first married.

Speaker 52 Yes, Sonia had a secret son, a biological son born in the Philippines before Sonia married Duke.

Speaker 61 We couldn't find any adoption papers, but the boy assumed Duke's last name, considered him his stepfather.

Speaker 20 I never knew that until after my brother had passed away.

Speaker 95 And you never heard a thing about him?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 27 Larry Riskin apparently didn't know Sonia had a son either.

Speaker 89 So Sherry, a little suspicious about these uninvited emails, wrote back, all chummy, as if she and John Bordeaux were online buddies.

Speaker 14 My goal was to try to get my brother's ashes back, so I was just kind of stringing him along.

Speaker 50 But the more Sherry corresponded with this John Bordeaux guy, the more she worried about what sort of person he was.

Speaker 14 There were quite a few emails asking for money.

Speaker 27 A lot of money.

Speaker 85 $35,000 to recover Larry's ashes.

Speaker 14 It was very, very unsettling to receive emails. It was so outlandish that it was hard to make sense of.

Speaker 70 So this John Bordeaux had to be be a con artist, maybe worse.

Speaker 54 And then another email.

Speaker 43 He was worse.

Speaker 84 John Bordeaux offered to add an extra little service.

Speaker 14 He was offering to

Speaker 14 kill her.

Speaker 40 Wow.

Speaker 14 Basically to pay someone to kill Sonia.

Speaker 90 First extortion and now murder.

Speaker 15 Did you feel in jeopardy yourself?

Speaker 14 I did, because at this point, anything could happen.

Speaker 1 Oh, and sure enough, something was happening.

Speaker 41 And it wasn't pretty.

Speaker 41 Meet a sheriff's deputy to help you.

Speaker 22 My mom's living on the floor.

Speaker 89 There's been on the floor. Is she breathing?

Speaker 23 I don't think so.

Speaker 22 Maybe some time buddy, please.

Speaker 79 Something had happened.

Speaker 12 Something big in Lamita.

Speaker 89 We're on the way, sir.

Speaker 89 Oh, good God.

Speaker 95 Reporter Larry Altman was at work, got a call from a local, said,

Speaker 17 We have a murder out here, and it's that woman with the two dead husbands. And I shouted into the phone, are you kidding me? Sony Riskin's been murdered.

Speaker 81 The body of the 60-year-old Filipino hairstylist was found here in her home.

Speaker 51 The black widow of Lamita.

Speaker 18 The woman suspected of arranging the executions of not one, but two husbands, had met exactly the same fate.

Speaker 63 LA County Sheriff's Homicide Detective Mike Rodriguez was on his way home when his commander called.

Speaker 17 And he says, can you call this reporter, Larry Altman?

Speaker 53 As you're going down to the murder scene.

Speaker 17 And I'm thinking to myself, it's a very odd protocol. And he says, well, there's a tremendous backstory to your victim.
I called Mr. Altman, and he provided us with a tremendous backstory.

Speaker 17 And I kind of thought to myself, what did we just get ourselves into?

Speaker 62 Sonia's cold-blooded killing.

Speaker 4 What had been done to her?

Speaker 17 Looks like she was shot execution style.

Speaker 18 What, like a bullet in the back of the head or something?

Speaker 17 Yes. Whoever did this didn't break down any doors.

Speaker 54 They walked in, fired the shot, walked out again.

Speaker 17 That's what it seemed to me.

Speaker 99 Another dark tale is about to unfold.

Speaker 25 They are basically murdering anything in anybody they can to enhance their financial well-being.

Speaker 25 How many murders can you have in one family?

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Speaker 95 Detective Mike Rodriguez raced through LA traffic, quite unaware that he was driving into the most convoluted case of his career.

Speaker 50 The murder of the black widow of Lomita, Sonia Riskin.

Speaker 18 What had been done to her?

Speaker 17 Looks like she was shot execution style.

Speaker 18 What, like a bullet in the back of the head or something?

Speaker 17 Yes. Whoever did this

Speaker 17 didn't break down any doors?

Speaker 54 They walked in, fired the shot, walked out again.

Speaker 17 That's what it seemed to me.

Speaker 3 Sonia was ambushed, shot in the head, just like her two dead husbands.

Speaker 61 Rodriguez took a look around the house.

Speaker 48 Sonia's purse was still there, $1,700 in cash in it. Around the neighborhood, nobody saw a thing.

Speaker 2 Jim and Nicole Thompson were out of town.

Speaker 31 Got word from Jim's dad and mom.

Speaker 58 She said, Sonia's been killed. And we were like, what?

Speaker 58 I was shocked. I couldn't believe it.
First of all,

Speaker 58 you don't think of a murder in your neighborhood.

Speaker 56 The beauty was kind of spinning it like, well, justice has finally been done. And the black widow is now gone.

Speaker 18 Fate got her.

Speaker 3 Some of Sonia's relatives also showed up at what was now a full-blown crime scene.

Speaker 17 One of them was literally waving his hands at the crime scene tape and couldn't wait to tell us what he thought had happened.

Speaker 26 Who was that?

Speaker 17 Her nephew, Eric Delacruz.

Speaker 3 Eric Delacruz, another member of Sonia's sprawling family.

Speaker 26 A special member, actually, seemed obvious he was Sonia's favorite.

Speaker 56 They treated each other like grandmother and grandson.

Speaker 58 She talked very highly of Eric, you know, was very proud of him.

Speaker 93 Proud because Eric was a sailor aboard the USS Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 52 He'd just arrived back home after a tour of Asia when he heard his beloved great aunt Sonia, the woman he called grandmother, had been murdered.

Speaker 26 And he told detectives he just knew.

Speaker 17 Told us that

Speaker 17 John Bordeaux, Sonia's son, was a bad guy. And that if something happened to Sonia,

Speaker 31 that he was the one

Speaker 17 that did it.

Speaker 35 John Bordeaux wasn't hard to find.

Speaker 51 He was the guy who discovered Sonia's body and called the cops.

Speaker 3 Bordeaux was at the crime scene when they arrived.

Speaker 86 And Rodriguez immediately noticed a subtle but significant clue about this mother-son relationship.

Speaker 17 There wasn't a single picture of her son, John Bordeaux. It was as if he didn't exist to her.
So those were concerns with us right away.

Speaker 48 So police took their own pictures of Bordeaux when they brought him in for questioning.

Speaker 26 Was he in emotional state?

Speaker 17 More of anxiety. To me, it's like, is this guy telling us the truth? And we were really trying to figure out, is he really the biological son?

Speaker 15 Bordeaux said he was born in the Philippines.

Speaker 26 Sonia was just a teenager then. Rodriguez got the distinct impression that this mother-son relationship was complicated.

Speaker 17 It was kind of like an outcast of the family. He was brought over from the Philippines as a young boy.

Speaker 85 And that's when he took on Duke's last name.

Speaker 10 But John Bordeaux swore he hardly knew his mother's next husband, Larry Riskin.

Speaker 81 It was, he said, a topic that was strictly off-limits with her.

Speaker 102 She never introduced me to him. Did you ever ask her, hey, Mama, but I don't get to meet your husband? I don't think you want us to get into an argument.
She started arguing about that question.

Speaker 102 She was the five.

Speaker 7 Bordeaux's behavior and story seemed suspicious.

Speaker 2 So, just days later, they brought him back again, this time for a polygraph test.

Speaker 103 Were you involved in the shooting of Sonia?

Speaker 104 No.

Speaker 104 I would never hurt my mom, but I love my mom.

Speaker 103 What was the biggest resentment that you had against her for a long time?

Speaker 104 Not giving me enough love, but please concern her.

Speaker 91 And though Bordeaux said he and his mom sometimes didn't communicate, things had gotten better.

Speaker 28 But they kept pushing.

Speaker 89 Either you're the shooter

Speaker 64 or you're involved.

Speaker 103 I will not change my answer. I didn't shoot my mom.

Speaker 104 I did not kill my mom. I have no involvement to my mom's death.

Speaker 103 Who is it that you think is responsible for this?

Speaker 103 The number one person she keeps talking about is

Speaker 103 her husband's sister, Sherry Jetson.

Speaker 46 Wait a minute.

Speaker 26 Sherry Jackson?

Speaker 46 Really?

Speaker 63 But then, nobody seemed to hate Sonia more than Sherry hated Sonia.

Speaker 69 Nobody except maybe Dennis Bordeaux.

Speaker 20 They asked me if you had the opportunity to kill her, would you? And I said in a heartbeat.

Speaker 99 Who else might want Sonia dead?

Speaker 42 The list was long.

Speaker 86 She certainly had a motive, didn't she?

Speaker 17 Yes, her and about 100 other people.

Speaker 26 Secrets.

Speaker 5 So many secrets.

Speaker 3 Sonia risking a taking them to her grave.

Speaker 26 At the top of that dismal list, what did she do to those two husbands of hers?

Speaker 10 And who killed her?

Speaker 27 And why?

Speaker 54 A few days after Sonia's death, several FBI agents showed up at Dennis Bordeaux's house.

Speaker 20 They asked me, do you know Sonia Bordeaux? And I go, yeah.

Speaker 20 And he said, if you had the opportunity to kill her, would you? And I said, in a heartbeat.

Speaker 53 Probably not the wisest thing to say to the FBI.

Speaker 63 Made him an instant suspect.

Speaker 35 The FBI questioned Dennis, covered the bases, and he

Speaker 64 had an alibi.

Speaker 46 They cleared him.

Speaker 26 But remember, up in Olympia, Washington, Sherry Jackson had despised Sonia for years, believed Sonia ordered her brother's death.

Speaker 26 So Detective Mike Rodriguez paid her a visit, searched her computers, questioned her.

Speaker 71 Also discussed those emails that offered Sherry a way to murder Sonia.

Speaker 17 When we reviewed the emails from the John Bordeaux account, you have emails that basically solicit Sonia's death.

Speaker 63 So that would be Sherry taking revenge through John Bordeaux.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 17 On that John Bordeaux account.

Speaker 86 Well, she certainly had a motive, didn't she?

Speaker 17 Yes, her and about a hundred other people.

Speaker 3 But just like Dennis, Sherry was cleared and quickly.

Speaker 17 Sherry's a law-abiding citizen. Other than she had no love for Sonia, she never entertained having Sonia killed.
She did the right thing. She forwarded this to authorities, to the FBI.

Speaker 26 In fact, Sherry forwarded those John Bordeaux emails to the FBI the moment she received them.

Speaker 14 Come on, we don't need three dead people.

Speaker 14 It needs to stop.

Speaker 85 As always, the FBI kept a lid on their investigation, which was frustrating for Sherry.

Speaker 14 We weren't kept apprised of what was going on. I tried to get information.
It wasn't something that was discussed with us.

Speaker 59 Pretty frustrating for you.

Speaker 14 Very frustrating.

Speaker 5 Even more frustrating for Sherry was what happened to Sonia.

Speaker 63 Despite all her hatred of the woman, Sherry was not happy that Sonia was murdered.

Speaker 89 Not at all.

Speaker 14 Because I wanted her to pay for what she did. And now she's dead.
So there was no satisfaction in that for me.

Speaker 80 Did you really care whether or not they figured out who killed her?

Speaker 14 Yes, because I just knew that the person who killed her had something to do with these emails.

Speaker 14 It was just a big web.

Speaker 31 That maybe John Bordeaux could untangle.

Speaker 85 Remember, detectives had given him a polygraph test shortly after his mother was murdered.

Speaker 1 And his answers didn't sound believable.

Speaker 103 I didn't shoot my mom.

Speaker 17 He didn't do very well.

Speaker 27 So Rodriguez met with him again in front of his house.

Speaker 7 This time, he grilled him.

Speaker 102 Listen to me, I'm going to tell you something. If you had anything to do with it, now is the time to tell me.

Speaker 102 You know, I don't expect you to believe me. Okay, that's my mom.
You can arrest me all you want.

Speaker 89 I'm still going to tell you I didn't do it.

Speaker 48 But Bordeaux didn't break.

Speaker 1 He stuck to his story that somebody else must have murdered his mother.

Speaker 102 I have nothing to hide, okay?

Speaker 75 But you have to admit, there are some things that are very suspicious about the way you act.

Speaker 17 He didn't exactly pass the polygraph. You have an email account bearing his name.

Speaker 86 Yeah, doesn't look good for him.

Speaker 19 Correct.

Speaker 3 Especially with Sonia's own relatives lined up to accuse him.

Speaker 48 And leading the charge was the one Sonia seemed to care for more than her own son, the great nephew who called her grandma, Eric Delacruz, who kept insisting.

Speaker 17 John Bordeaux did it. He had to have done it.
He's a bad guy. He's a drug guy.

Speaker 19 He did it.

Speaker 35 Eric was determined to get justice for his beloved grandmother, Sonia.

Speaker 73 He'd even paid a visit to her neighbors, Jim and Nicole Thompson, looking for leads.

Speaker 58 He was distraught. He had like tears in his eyes and a quivering voice.
You know, his voice was like, do you know anyone?

Speaker 23 Do you know who killed my grandma?

Speaker 3 The more Eric dug, he said, the more certain he was that Sonia's very own son, John, was the killer.

Speaker 26 And he called and met with detectives often, sharing his insights.

Speaker 97 My grandma died.

Speaker 102 I'm right now. I'm mad right now.
Do you think he'll ever admit to us or he'll just... No, sir.
You know, you killed her. You just gotta say, I'm not guilty.

Speaker 2 And maybe Eric was right about John Bordeaux.

Speaker 63 He kept insisting no one else had the motive, the means, or the opportunity to kill Sonia other than her very own son.

Speaker 34 Why didn't you arrest John Bordeaux?

Speaker 54 He's the guy who discovers the body.

Speaker 63 He's the guy with a beef against this woman who should have been loving toward him and wasn't.

Speaker 17 There wasn't one thing that jumped out that kind of crossed that bridge that we would arrest him.

Speaker 35 Something told Rodriguez to hold off.

Speaker 38 Not now.

Speaker 64 Wait.

Speaker 63 And sure enough, there was another big fat clue.

Speaker 17 Courtesy of the Black Widow herself.

Speaker 17 An individual shows up to her shop and she can see him in the parking lot on the phone.

Speaker 99 A mystery man stalking Sonia.

Speaker 76 Could this caller be the killer?

Speaker 25 She says, I don't know the guy, but it's the same guy who came two days ago. And when he called me, it was on the phone.
I wrote down the number. Here it is.

Speaker 48 The black widow of Lomita was dead, but her body was hardly cold when police found a curious piece of evidence left behind by Sonia herself.

Speaker 26 A few days before her death, Sonia had called police to report two strange incidents at her salon.

Speaker 3 The first one.

Speaker 17 An individual shows up to her shop,

Speaker 17 and she can see him in the parking lot on the phone because she's on the phone with him asking for a haircut.

Speaker 17 She becomes suspicious because she said this guy has short hair, like a military haircut.

Speaker 86 He hasn't need a haircut.

Speaker 17 And she tells him, I only give haircuts to my usual clients, and you're not one of them. And she shoes him away.

Speaker 39 This is where we begin to hear from Deputy District Attorney John Lewin about the second incident at Sonia's salon.

Speaker 25 Two days later, that same guy comes back, and according to Sonia, who calls the police, he shoots at her.

Speaker 105 They aimed the gun on my head.

Speaker 89 Were they robbing you?

Speaker 105 No, I just came in and shot me.

Speaker 25 When the police come, she says, I don't know the guy, but it's the same guy who came two days ago. And when he called me, it was on the phone.
I wrote down the number. Here it is.

Speaker 100 And this is it.

Speaker 65 The actual note Sonia made of the guy's cell phone number.

Speaker 25 And they end up identifying that as belonging to Fernando Romero.

Speaker 27 Fernando Romero?

Speaker 77 Who is he?

Speaker 17 Other than the phone number, we didn't really know who this person actually was.

Speaker 48 And neither did Sonia, but she was determined to protect herself.

Speaker 58 The next day, she said, you know, I've got a gun. She says, but it's locked up.
She says, do you think, you know, Jim could, you know, get some bolt cutters and cut the lock?

Speaker 56 And I opened it up, and it was a 44 Magnum. It was the dirty hairy gun.
But she wanted something big

Speaker 56 and showy and powerful.

Speaker 26 But even Sonia's 44 Magnum couldn't save her.

Speaker 28 Just a week later, she was dead.

Speaker 12 So was the mysterious Fernando Romero the killer?

Speaker 2 Or John Bordeaux?

Speaker 50 Was it possible they were both involved somehow?

Speaker 65 By this time, Romero, whoever he was, had vanished.

Speaker 65 Might never have found him.

Speaker 4 Except cell phones.

Speaker 5 Such handy little crime-fighting tools, aren't they?

Speaker 3 All detectives needed was a warrant.

Speaker 69 And pretty soon, they were looking at Romero's call history.

Speaker 17 We fully expected to see this person's phone records linked up as having communication with our most likely suspect. John Bordeaux.
John Bordeaux. We didn't see John Bordeaux's number

Speaker 17 on those records.

Speaker 53 This was going to be their big break, finally connecting the dots directly to Bordeaux.

Speaker 27 Not anymore.

Speaker 83 But then?

Speaker 70 It was moments later.

Speaker 17 Just by chance, I get a phone call on my cell phone.

Speaker 17 And the caller ID of the phone number pops up. And I see that phone number on those records.
I couldn't have scripted it any better.

Speaker 86 Who was it?

Speaker 17 Sonia's loving nephew, Eric Delacruz.

Speaker 42 Eric Delacruz?

Speaker 74 Really?

Speaker 10 Why was he talking to Fernando Romero, of all people?

Speaker 71 And not just once, but often.

Speaker 48 Especially in the hours just before and after Sonia's murder.

Speaker 52 And then a week later, the FBI piped up.

Speaker 26 They'd been doing a deep dive into all those emails Sherry was supposedly getting from John Bordeaux.

Speaker 61 and had isolated their IP or internet protocol addresses, a complicated code of numbers to track where the emails originated.

Speaker 17 Some of these IP addresses were from ports in Asia, Hong Kong, Korea. These IP addresses are Navy IP addresses.

Speaker 48 They knew Eric Delacruz was a sailor on the USS Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 15 So Rodriguez enlisted the Navy's investigative unit, the NCIS, to check out Eric.

Speaker 50 And before long, he got a call back.

Speaker 17 The NCIS just by chance asked us, had we ever heard of an individual by the name of Fernando Romero?

Speaker 17 I did like three cartwheels, and I said, yes, we have a phone number that comes back to an individual named Romero that we can't seem to identify.

Speaker 3 Former NCIS agent Romy Christensen was part of the investigation.

Speaker 10 And imagine this.

Speaker 24 Romero was also assigned to the USS Ronald Reagan. Coincidentally, in the same department as Eric Dela Cruz.

Speaker 83 Wow.

Speaker 15 So they would have seen each other all the time.

Speaker 24 Absolutely. They lived in the same berthing.
They actually hung out together.

Speaker 1 Was it possible those two were actually plotting a murder and were doing it from a ship at sea?

Speaker 24 So we basically looked at where the ship was at the time that those emails were sent.

Speaker 15 Digging through all the data would take the NCIS some time.

Speaker 15 So while Detective Rodriguez waited for the results, he kept stringing Eric along.

Speaker 63 Did not give him a hint that he, not John Bordeaux, was now the prime suspect.

Speaker 17 It was almost like we were championing a cause together, that he was on our team.

Speaker 89 You're going to be a good cop.

Speaker 102 You just do what you're doing today. That's right.

Speaker 59 And while that was going on, the NCIS figured out exactly where Eric was when those emails, supposedly from John Bordeaux, pinged in Sherry's inbox.

Speaker 24 He was in port in Japan and Hong Kong and South Korea at the exact dates and times that these emails were sent to Sherry Jackson and her family.

Speaker 24 So who would have had access to a Navy network? Who would have been in Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea during that time frame? And that person was Eric Dela Cruz.

Speaker 26 Sending extortion emails was one thing.

Speaker 48 But why would Eric hatch a murder plot to execute the woman who seemed to care for him more than her very own son?

Speaker 99 Families

Speaker 78 can be so interesting, can't they?

Speaker 10 Especially hers.

Speaker 99 A chilling motive for a murder in the family.

Speaker 25 Guess what he wants to know from the lawyer? How much am I getting in the will?

Speaker 63 But Sonia would have one last card to play from beyond the grave.

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Speaker 14 I turned off news altogether.

Speaker 24 I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

Speaker 17 It's the rage bait.

Speaker 58 It feels like it's trying to divide people.

Speaker 53 We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little.

Speaker 9 NBC News brings you clear reporting.

Speaker 17 Let's meet at the facts.

Speaker 28 Let's move forward from there.

Speaker 9 NBC News, reporting for America.

Speaker 85 It was starting to look like a murder plot that spanned the globe.

Speaker 3 Much of it orchestrated long in advance aboard a Navy ship.

Speaker 50 Thousands of miles from that little house in Lomita, where the black widow took a bullet to her brain.

Speaker 2 Deputy DI John Lewin believed the man behind it was Eric Dela Cruz.

Speaker 30 Eric's motive?

Speaker 48 Simple, thought Lewin.

Speaker 69 The same as the woman he called his grandmother

Speaker 27 money.

Speaker 25 Sonia was killed late Friday night. On Monday morning, guess who shows up at Sonia's lawyer's office before it even opens?

Speaker 4 Eric Dela Cruz.

Speaker 25 Eric Dela Cruz, guess what he wants to know from the lawyer? How much am I getting in the will?

Speaker 2 But to Eric's utter surprise, he got nothing.

Speaker 2 Sonia left her money and her property to her son, John Bordeaux.

Speaker 17 He wanted to make sure that John Bordeaux didn't get anything, and what better way to remove him from the problem is what? Having him sit in jail. for a crime that he didn't commit.

Speaker 61 Then Eric got another nasty surprise as he played innocent with the detectives.

Speaker 17 And my partner pulls out a picture of Fernando Romero. And Eric completely goes off the rails to the point where he can't even speak.
He is so spun up.

Speaker 102 You think this guy may be involved? Now,

Speaker 102 you know that guy? I know the guy. Who is that?

Speaker 102 Isn't the name?

Speaker 102 Okay.

Speaker 102 Fernando. Romero Fernando.

Speaker 17 Mr. De La Cruz gave us a bunch of denials of why Fernando Romero couldn't have done this.
Because I think he knows now

Speaker 17 that's a link to him.

Speaker 61 They let him go then, let him stew, as they gathered just a little more evidence.

Speaker 12 And then they tracked Eric down at a Navy base in Virginia and had another little talk.

Speaker 2 Time to play the email card.

Speaker 26 Those extortion emails he sent to Sherry.

Speaker 102 So now we know, without a shadow of a doubt, you were sending a John Bordeaux email. No, sir, no.

Speaker 102 They traced it when you were in Japan. Eric, this is undisputable, son.

Speaker 42 No.

Speaker 102 Oh, my God. Eric, you're no dummy, but this is the most important day of your life.
Bro, the dinner comes up now with it, sir.

Speaker 4 They knew they'd arrest him, of course, but they didn't rush.

Speaker 52 Instead, they tracked his cell phone phone as he drove from that Navy base in Virginia back to his home in California.

Speaker 81 And there in Eric's driveway, they slapped on the handcuffs.

Speaker 28 And Rodriguez had one more chat with his former investigative partner.

Speaker 17 And I walked up to him and I told him, you're under arrest.

Speaker 86 How do you take it?

Speaker 17 He just kept kind of mumbling to me that I had the wrong person.

Speaker 1 One of the things that did. Surprise traveled fast to the Thompsons in Lomita.

Speaker 58 Finding out that that they arrested him,

Speaker 58 completely shocked.

Speaker 56 Oh, it can't be him. He's just not in this character who loves his grandma, who's destroyed over her being murdered.
He's the actual murderer? No way.

Speaker 56 But truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Speaker 84 That same day, Fernando Romero was also arrested, and both he and Eric were charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 6 Prosecutor John Lewin theorized Eric Dela Cruz arranged the hit, and his sailor pal Fernando Romero did the dirty work.

Speaker 25 Romero's the one that pulled the trigger. My guess would be that Dela Cruz let Romero in the house and Romero shot her in the back of the head.

Speaker 27 As the trial approached, Lewin wrestled with a unique problem

Speaker 26 because the person murdered was herself suspected of killing two husbands for money.

Speaker 25 I've never had a victim like Sonia Rios. She was an absolutely horrific individual, and it created an issue for me with the trial.

Speaker 26 Because she is your victim at the same time.

Speaker 8 Villain is victim.

Speaker 26 A victim who just might make Sonia's accused killers seem very sympathetic, especially to a jury.

Speaker 99 Sonia's treacherous family saga.

Speaker 25 Sonia and her family murdered Earl Bordeaux. Sonia and her family murdered Larry Riskin.
And Eric Delacruz ends up murdering his beloved great aunt. How many murders can you have in one family?

Speaker 9 What would a jury do?

Speaker 66 February 2011, the Black Widow case went to court.

Speaker 48 Eric Dela Cruz, along with his Navy pal and accused partner in crime, were tried together for the murder of Sonia Ruskin.

Speaker 73 But the case presented a predicament for Prosecutor John Lewin

Speaker 43 because Sonia, too, was an alleged killer and equally devious, having apparently ordered the murders of two husbands.

Speaker 25 So I did not try to present her as anything other than she was, as a cold-blooded killer. And so if you're really looking at kind of poetic justice, she really got what was coming to her.

Speaker 82 And now Lewin was determined to see that her killers got what was coming to them too.

Speaker 63 For the extortion, the killing, and the evil plan to frame Sonia's son, John Bordeaux, for everything.

Speaker 3 The defense argued argued there was no murder weapon, no DNA, no eyewitnesses putting them to the scene.

Speaker 9 But the jury didn't buy that.

Speaker 93 They deliberated less than a day, finding Romero and Dela Cruz both guilty of murdering Sonia Riskin.

Speaker 25 It's ironic that Sonia murdered two good men who were nothing but good to her.

Speaker 25 Eric murdered somebody who was nothing but good to him. So in the end, Sonia really reaped what she sowed.

Speaker 15 Fernando Romero, the presumed shooter, was sent away for 26 years to life.

Speaker 42 So was Eric Delacruz, who masterminded the murder of the woman he called grandmother for her money, which in the end he never got.

Speaker 14 He went to such extremes for money. This

Speaker 14 not only was the person that killed Sonia,

Speaker 14 he's also the person that

Speaker 14 was trying to extort money from my brother's remains.

Speaker 80 Betrayal apparently runs deep in that family.

Speaker 14 Very deep.

Speaker 25 They are basically murdering anything, anybody they can to enhance their financial well-being. Sonia and her family murdered Earl Bordeaux.
Sonia and her family murdered Larry Riskin.

Speaker 25 And Eric Delacruz ends up murdering his beloved great aunt. So how many murders can you have in one family?

Speaker 82 But for one member of Sonia's family, the verdict meant vindication.

Speaker 3 John Bordeaux, Sonia's once-estranged son who might have been charged with murdering his own mother, had cleared his name.

Speaker 73 You talked to him after the trial?

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 17 He obviously was still petrified of myself and law enforcement. I told him that I was sorry, that I did what I felt was best for the case and I hopefully that he understood that.

Speaker 17 He said that he did, but how do you not still be affected or kind of traumatized by that?

Speaker 17 Because he was like within that family, public enemy number one for a while.

Speaker 15 But the verdict offered little consolation for Sherry Jackson or Dennis Bordeaux.

Speaker 3 No justice for their brothers.

Speaker 61 And with Sonia dead, there probably never will be.

Speaker 69 Dennis can only imagine now what's lost is lost.

Speaker 16 I go out

Speaker 20 every couple weeks and I put flowers on the grave.

Speaker 20 Just wish he was here.

Speaker 82 But in Olympia, an empty place in the family plot was all Sherry could see.

Speaker 48 If she could only find her brother's remains, give him a proper burial, she could feel, she thought, something like peace.

Speaker 26 Is it worth going to the Philippines to try to find them?

Speaker 14 Yes, because I believe they are still there.

Speaker 28 But she worried, too, because

Speaker 2 maybe the people who pulled the trigger in that parking lot killing Larry might come after her if she came snooping around.

Speaker 32 Those people look scary.

Speaker 14 Oh, yes, knowing what has happened over there with two people being murdered.

Speaker 80 It's that important to you.

Speaker 14 Very important that he be brought back here.

Speaker 26 And in June of 2019, Sherry Jackson left for the country that had haunted her for so long.

Speaker 1 To begin the most daunting quest of her life.

Speaker 14 I feel somewhat numb that I'm actually standing where he's murdered.

Speaker 33 It was just so senseless.

Speaker 6 An emotional meeting, an impossible mission.

Speaker 68 Well, this

Speaker 14 is our last hope.

Speaker 99 Can she bring her brother home?

Speaker 53 Sherry Jackson steeled herself as the big jet sank slowly into the hot damp air of the Philippine summer Manila

Speaker 66 The city that drew her like a nightmare to the place her brother died, As if walking in his last footsteps would bring him close, help heal what had long felt unhealable.

Speaker 14 When I got off the plane, I got very emotional because I realized that was Larry's last walk. When he came here, he had no idea what was going to happen to him.

Speaker 4 We were coming here anyway.

Speaker 36 So in 2019, we we brought Sherry along. No turning back now.

Speaker 2 Until now, she'd only imagined the place where her brother Larry died.

Speaker 61 But here on the ground, it was suddenly real.

Speaker 61 Here we are.

Speaker 14 How's it feel? A lot anxiety.

Speaker 14 Yeah, a lot of anxiety.

Speaker 4 She had arranged a kind of buffer for that on this first anxious day, a slightly odd family reunion with people she'd never met, a family that never was.

Speaker 61 Quincy and Jetmark, the two kids Larry wanted to make his own in limitless America, were adults now, with children of their own.

Speaker 29 Oh!

Speaker 29 Right!

Speaker 4 They opened presents.

Speaker 14 All right, so there's more stuff to go look in here.

Speaker 34 And shared memories of Larry.

Speaker 14 That was the last time I saw him.

Speaker 2 She told them how she longed to find what was left of Larry.

Speaker 12 His remains, his ashes, and bring him home.

Speaker 14 So do you think we'll actually find them?

Speaker 5 Jetmark said he'd heard the ashes had been passed around among Sonia's relatives on orders from the man who orchestrated her murder, Eric Dela Cruz.

Speaker 72 He said to give the ash to my auntie Susan.

Speaker 67 Auntie Susan?

Speaker 28 Where was she?

Speaker 48 Jetmark didn't know.

Speaker 3 In a city of ants and cemeteries and 20 million haystacks, Larry's ashes could be be anywhere.

Speaker 2 Her dream of finding them an impossible errand.

Speaker 29 So she looked for him another way.

Speaker 15 She came to the place he was last alive.

Speaker 3 The hospital parking lot, where on Sonia's orders, somebody executed her brother.

Speaker 14 I feel somewhat numb,

Speaker 29 that

Speaker 14 I'm actually standing where he's murdered.

Speaker 88 That place you never ever thought you'd be.

Speaker 38 Right.

Speaker 33 It's just so senseless.

Speaker 27 And I'm angry. I'm very angry.

Speaker 48 But the dark, empty parking lot did not speak.

Speaker 63 There was nothing here.

Speaker 55 Then a couple of days before departure, a tip.

Speaker 48 Jetmark got an address for that Auntie Susan woman, the last relative known to have Larry's ashes.

Speaker 73 She lived an hour's drive from that hospital parking lot.

Speaker 4 And here it was, the biggest house on the block.

Speaker 68 Well, this

Speaker 14 is our last hope.

Speaker 90 Yeah.

Speaker 14 We don't know what's in there, but I say let's find out.

Speaker 95 We knocked, waited,

Speaker 64 and waited, but we could see no one had been here for a long time.

Speaker 14 I'll never know.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 14 I'll never know.

Speaker 97 So, what do you do about that?

Speaker 90 I mean,

Speaker 97 if you can't, if you can't get it, I have to just let it go.

Speaker 97 Okay.

Speaker 61 And then, as if on cue, the day darkened and the rain came.

Speaker 26 So,

Speaker 44 is there a thing called closure, that much overused word?

Speaker 50 On her last day in the Philippines, Sherry got a wreath of flowers, boarded a boat, and took her grief out onto Manila Bay.

Speaker 23 Her own personal memorial.

Speaker 14 I'm not leaving with his ashes, so it was just something I felt to memorialize him in that way, since he is still here.

Speaker 7 She hopes he'd be proud of her, his little sister.

Speaker 17 But she doubts he'd be surprised.

Speaker 54 She's been searching for whatever bit of dust is left of it.

Speaker 61 Though he'd probably tell her, if such a fantasy were possible, that he's lived all along in her heart.

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