Fire & Ice

Speaker 2 the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 2 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 3 Grand Canyon University is one of the largest universities in the country.

Speaker 3 Praised for its community and impact, GCU integrates a welcoming Christian worldview and open discourse into over 300 online programs.

Speaker 3 Redefine your online education through GCU's industry-driven, academically rigorous programs. In 2024, online students received over $161 million in institutional scholarships.
Find your purpose.

Speaker 3 Private, Christian, affordable. Discover available scholarships at gcu.edu/slash myoffer.

Speaker 1 Tonight, on dateline.

Speaker 4 My mom called me.

Speaker 5 There's a fire at the house. There's a fire at the house.

Speaker 8 I just kept praying, please let her be okay.

Speaker 9 It was classified as a homicide.

Speaker 5 Before she died, a mystery man popped up at the house, looking over the fence, looking in the backyard.

Speaker 11 There were some strange phone calls that were coming in.

Speaker 5 She was worried and scary.

Speaker 9 We decided to do an undercover operation.

Speaker 7 Tell him you had nothing to do with this whatsoever. Tell him you know? I can't.

Speaker 12 So I asked him, did you kill her?

Speaker 5 He was living a double life.

Speaker 9 She knew nothing.

Speaker 13 He gets on a flight. We have no way to stop him.

Speaker 9 He waited for darkness so that he could light the fire.

Speaker 5 The killer or killers are out there.

Speaker 5 What if we're next?

Speaker 14 A young mother is killed in a mysterious fire, and it would take some creative police work to solve this one.

Speaker 1 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 14 Here's Andrea Canning with fire and ice.

Speaker 5 Do you require police fire ambulance?

Speaker 17 Hello, there's a fire.

Speaker 5 The first call came in at 7.50 p.m.

Speaker 9 Okay, where do you see the fire?

Speaker 17 In the garage.

Speaker 7 The flame, yes.

Speaker 16 Very bad, very

Speaker 5 it was September 15th, 2014. A rainy evening in the lakeside city of Pickering, a suburb of Toronto.
Anna Connolly's husband had just left to take their dog for a walk.

Speaker 5 What happened next is still hard for her to talk about.

Speaker 8 And then he turned around and he says,

Speaker 18 Carm's house on fire was coming out from the cross.

Speaker 5 Carm was Carmella Knight, Anna's neighbor.

Speaker 5 When Anna stepped outside, the first fire truck was already on the scene. More were on the way.
And the fire just kept going.

Speaker 5 It was so bad the fire.

Speaker 5 You couldn't.

Speaker 8 You couldn't do anything.

Speaker 5 Carmella lived with her husband David and two young sons. Anna had no idea if any of them were in the house.
She felt so helpless. Carmella was one of her best friends.

Speaker 11 If you ever met Carm, instantly you become friends with her.

Speaker 5 Now Anna couldn't reach Carmella on her cell phone.

Speaker 10 Her ass machine just said, hey, it's Carm.

Speaker 5 So she didn't pick it up. So she called Carmella's mom, Franca, hoping they were together.

Speaker 21 My phone rang, and it was Anna.

Speaker 15 And she was screaming on the phone and saying, is Carm with you?

Speaker 8 And I said, no, what's wrong? What's wrong?

Speaker 5 When you realized that they were not together, did your heart just sink?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 8 I went straight over to the house.

Speaker 5 What is that drive like with all the unknowns?

Speaker 6 It was just awful. I just kept praying.

Speaker 8 I just kept praying, please let her be okay. Please let her be okay.

Speaker 5 When you arrive at the house, what do you see?

Speaker 8 There was still a bit of fire on the top of the garage.

Speaker 21 And I just ran.

Speaker 22 The door was open.

Speaker 18 I saw it like

Speaker 21 something, a body, which I thought was a body.

Speaker 22 But two firemen and two police officers came and they stopped me.

Speaker 5 Carmella's sister Nancy arrived soon after. What do you see? Fire trucks and all the neighbors.

Speaker 5 Everyone was, it was just very busy and like my mom just kept saying something happened to her and I just said, no, she's fine. She's fine.
Nancy frantically tried to reach Carmella's husband.

Speaker 5 I tried calling Dave numerous times and, you know, I wanted to make sure the boys were okay and if Carma's okay and if he had spoken to her. And was he answering the phone? No.

Speaker 5 An officer asked Nancy and her mom to go to the police station. They knew it wasn't a good sign, but Nancy refused to give up hope.
Everything's fine, don't worry.

Speaker 5 When we get to the police station, everyone's gonna explain it's gonna be okay.

Speaker 5 You're still thinking she's alive? Yeah.

Speaker 5 At the station, they learned David and the boys were safe. They'd been in hockey practice.
While that was a huge relief, what police said next was hard to process.

Speaker 5 They confirmed what Franka thought she'd seen in the garage. They did say that they found a body, but I was still hopeful.

Speaker 5 But in the back of your mind, you're like, she's not answering your phone, and it just makes you feel sick to your stomach. David and the boys showed up at the station.

Speaker 5 He left them in the car with his father and went in to speak with police.

Speaker 5 A detective told him they'd found a body and that it might be his wife's. While you take a deep breath and try and relax, I know it's.

Speaker 5 I'm not saying it's her, right?

Speaker 5 Okay,

Speaker 5 we don't know that at this point, but that's the reason that you're here.

Speaker 5 David immediately worried about his sons.

Speaker 5 Boys.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's where I say we're going to wear it. We'll do this step by step, all right?

Speaker 5 No one wanted to believe their beloved Carm was gone. A woman who meant the world to so many people.
She just had this sense of calmness to her that just put me at ease.

Speaker 5 While Nancy held tight to the hope that Carmella was still alive, law enforcement got to work. Durham Regional Police Detectives Diane Jennings and Leon Lynch were assigned the case.

Speaker 5 What condition was the body in? What could they tell from initial assessment?

Speaker 9 It was a badly charred body and they could not recognize who the person would be.

Speaker 5 It wasn't until detectives heard from the forensic pathologist that they confirmed the victim was 39-year-old Carmella Knight.

Speaker 5 How was she identified?

Speaker 9 By her dental records.

Speaker 5 And the pathologist told them something else about Carmella's body.

Speaker 9 They discovered that she had a tourniquet around her arm and a syringe with her body.

Speaker 5 This is drunk paraphernalia.

Speaker 18 Yes.

Speaker 5 Yes. Surprising? Absolutely.
This is a hockey mom, a suburban mom. Exactly.

Speaker 5 It was a puzzling clue in what would turn out to be a complicated case. Could you just tell, just from all your years of experience, that this was not going to be easy?

Speaker 9 Yes, that's fair. Yes.

Speaker 5 They had no idea solving this mystery would become a battle of wits and a race against time.

Speaker 14 When we come back, delivering the heartbreaking news.

Speaker 4 I just didn't want it to be true.

Speaker 15 And a disturbing discovery.

Speaker 9 Carmello was dead at the time of the fire, so she died before the fire. She did.

Speaker 5 The next day, the house on Pebblestone Crescent was still smoldering when police broke the news to Franca.

Speaker 5 The body found in the garage was her daughter Carmella's.

Speaker 10 I just miss her

Speaker 8 so much.

Speaker 5 Her cause of death was still unknown.

Speaker 21 They just said it could be an accident. She could have died in the fire.
We don't know.

Speaker 5 Carmella's sister Nancy thought about how Carmella sometimes smoked in the garage. Their dirt bikes are in there, so we're like, maybe something happened with that.

Speaker 5 The gasoline and stuff, like, who knows, right so an accident maybe but when police brought up the possibility of a drug overdose did you believe that she could do drugs no she didn't even drink she had an occasional glass of wine

Speaker 4 her youngest son Dylan remembers his father breaking the news of his mother's death to him and his brother and our dad sat in front of us and he couldn't even tell us he sat there crying At first, I didn't want to believe it.

Speaker 4 I really didn't. I didn't think it was true.
I just didn't want it to be true.

Speaker 5 Nancy was also finding it hard to believe. She had just been with Carmella.
She was happy. They'd been planning Nancy's wedding.
Now she was attending her sister's funeral. That church held 600 seats.

Speaker 9 All the seats were full.

Speaker 5 There were people all along the walls in the back. Really shows you

Speaker 5 how special she was.

Speaker 8 She was very special. Yeah.

Speaker 5 A few days later, the pathologist told detectives how Carmella died.

Speaker 9 It was confirmed that it was, in fact, a homicide.

Speaker 5 She'd been murdered. Detectives, Jennings and Lynch, poured over the report.
It was gruesome, but it was the evidence they needed to kick off their investigation.

Speaker 9 They knew that Carmella was dead at the time of the fire.

Speaker 5 So she died before the fire? She did.

Speaker 9 They also told us that she died of blunt force trauma. She had facial injuries, and she died of a nut compression.

Speaker 5 They could tell all of this even with the badly burned body, right?

Speaker 9 They could.

Speaker 13 The fire just destroys the outside of the body and all the damage that happened prior to death is still evident underneath the skin.

Speaker 5 Of course, in a case like this, police usually look at the husband first. So they learned what they could about David Knight.
He worked in construction as a project manager.

Speaker 5 He and Carmella owned that nice four-bedroom house in Pickering, and they had a second home in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida.

Speaker 18 Well, you take deep breaths and try and relax.

Speaker 5 In his police interview on the night of the fire, David took investigators through his day. Where does David say he was during the time of the fire?

Speaker 9 At the hockey rink with his boys. He left the house around 3.30, went to McDonald's, and then went to the ice rink in Toronto and had a practice from 6.30 till 8 o'clock.

Speaker 5 This is something that is easily verifiable.

Speaker 21 Definitely, yes.

Speaker 5 He was at the hockey rink during the day.

Speaker 13 Many witnesses saw him there on the ice.

Speaker 9 And we have video surveillance showing him skating around on the ice during that timeline.

Speaker 5 He also told the detective that while he and Carmella lived in the house together, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Their marriage was ending after 15 years.

Speaker 9 He's talking about their relationship. It was an amicable separation and that he loved Carm.

Speaker 5 This is just happening. And his reaction to the news that night seemed genuine.

Speaker 13 The detective thought he was emotional emotional when he was told and

Speaker 5 acting the way one would expect when they've just received news like this. Yes.

Speaker 5 And besides, his alibi was airtight. So detectives wondered, if Carmella's husband wasn't the killer, who was?

Speaker 5 It was time to find out more about her from other people in her life.

Speaker 9 We learned that she was very involved with her boys. Nobody could say a bad thing about Carmella.
There was nothing negative whatsoever in any interview.

Speaker 5 Tara Cochimelio was one of the people who'd spoken to police. She and Carmella were friends from college.

Speaker 11 We had a lot in common and we became the best of friends.

Speaker 5 What do you think it was about you two that eventually you just totally hit it off?

Speaker 11 To be honest, we both like to party and have a good time.

Speaker 5 Sounds familiar. Yeah.

Speaker 11 She was a sweetheart. She had a heart of gold and she was so genuine.

Speaker 5 Tara says they had similar dreams for the future.

Speaker 11 I knew that we both really wanted families and children.

Speaker 5 She remembers Carmella first met her future husband at a nightclub.

Speaker 11 She said she met somebody and that he had sent her flowers.

Speaker 5 That doesn't always happen after you meet someone at a club.

Speaker 25 Nope, it doesn't.

Speaker 11 Somebody that's going to send you flowers right away to show that they were so happy to meet you is usually a good sign.

Speaker 5 It was a very good sign. After a quick courtship, Carmella and David got engaged on Christmas Day.
What were the big plans? Did she say right away? Did she know what she wanted?

Speaker 11 What was the big Italian wedding?

Speaker 5 Was she really happy on her wedding day?

Speaker 11 She was very happy. She was a beautiful bride.

Speaker 5 Not too long after that, Carmella and David welcomed their first son.

Speaker 9 We were all so excited to meet him.

Speaker 5 Could you just see it in her eyes, the joy and the love that she had for her firstborn?

Speaker 11 Yes, she was thrilled to be a mom.

Speaker 5 Three years later, Dylan was born. What did you love about your mom?

Speaker 4 Just, I guess, the way she cared about me and made sure that I knew I was loved.

Speaker 5 She was an official hockey mom?

Speaker 6 Yeah, she definitely was.

Speaker 5 She was always out there screaming and shouting.

Speaker 5 No one ever said anything to detectives about Carmella using drugs. So a few weeks later, when they got her toxicology report, the results didn't surprise them.

Speaker 9 No drugs in her system. Her talks was negative.

Speaker 5 What did that tell you about the scene with the drug paraphernalia? Did it suggest suggest to you that the scene had been staged?

Speaker 9 When we pieced everything together, it certainly did.

Speaker 5 Another clue came from the home security system. Interior door sensors had been tripped.

Speaker 9 It showed that somebody was in the house after David and the children left for hockey.

Speaker 5 They knew David and the boys left around 3.30 that afternoon. Carmella came home from work around 5.

Speaker 13 So we had some unexplained doors opening and closing. Somebody was going into different areas of the house.

Speaker 5 Who was that somebody? Franka recalled something her daughter had said. Carmella had told you a story about

Speaker 5 someone approaching her, a man from a black SUV.

Speaker 21 She was in the backyard. Dave had taken the boys dirt biking.
A man looked over the fence and asked for Dave, and she said, Dave's not here.

Speaker 21 And he laughed and then she ran to the front and saw this man getting into the black SUV and took off.

Speaker 5 Did she know who it was? No. So this is a mystery man that's showing up at at her house.

Speaker 5 This really thickens the plot.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 14 Coming up, Carmella's sister-in-law visits police and drops a bombshell.

Speaker 23 He just said, I know who, what, when, where, and how. With a phone call, I could have stopped this, and I have to live with it for the rest of my life.
And he burst into tears.

Speaker 14 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 23 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 23 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 23 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 23 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 19 Most holiday gifts end up in a drawer or the back of your closet or accidentally left at your cousin's house. Not this one.
Mint Mobile is offering unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month.

Speaker 16 That's their best deal of the year, aka a holiday gift you'll actually use every single day.

Speaker 1 Don't get them socks.

Speaker 19 Get them premium wireless for $15 a month. Shop Mint Unlimited plans at mintmobile.com/slash dateline.
That's mintmobile.com slash dateline. Limited time offer.

Speaker 1 Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for 6 months, or $180 for 12 months.

Speaker 19 Plan required.

Speaker 1 $15 per month equivalent.

Speaker 16 Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only.

Speaker 16 Greater than 35 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy.

Speaker 19 Capable device required.

Speaker 16 Availability, speed, and coverage vary.

Speaker 19 See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 25 If you're a custodial supervisor at a local high school, you know that cleanliness is key and that the best place to get cleaning supplies is from Granger.

Speaker 25 Granger helps you stay fully stocked on the products you trust, from paper towels and disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 25 Plus, you can rely on Granger for easy reordering so you never run out of what you need. Call 1-800GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 5 Police were pursuing a new lead in the Carmella Knight murder investigation. Her mother had told them about a mysterious man in a black SUV who surprised Carmella in her backyard.

Speaker 21 She was scared. She didn't know who he was.

Speaker 5 Franca said, Carmella told her husband David about the unexpected visitor.

Speaker 21 She told this guy came looking for you. Dave, what's going on? Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing, right? But then he puts the alarm on that night and he's like really paranoid, like scared.
Jumpy.

Speaker 21 Yeah, very, very jumpy, she said.

Speaker 5 But as detectives were trying to figure out who the man was, somebody else popped up on their radar. Heather Knight, Carmella's sister-in-law.

Speaker 9 She came into the police station and gave a statement.

Speaker 5 Heather was married to David Knight's brother, Matt. And when she heard Carmella had been murdered, a sinking feeling crept in about her own husband.

Speaker 5 First, she told the detectives that Matt had abruptly left Canada. And this is very quickly, very soon after Carmella's death.
Two days later, he's off to Florida. It wasn't just that Matt left.

Speaker 5 She said he acted like he was never coming back.

Speaker 13 He had left a key to their house on the table when he left.

Speaker 5 But what bothered Heather the most was the last thing Matt said before he got on the plane. He just said, I know who, what, when, where, and how.

Speaker 5 With a phone call, I could have stopped this, and I have to live with it for the rest of my life. And he burst into tears.
Now, the detectives were really listening.

Speaker 5 He says, maybe 20, 30 years down the road, when we're on a beach somewhere or something, I'll fill you in on everything, but I don't want to tell you everything because I don't want you to be in that position.

Speaker 5 Heather went on to tell them that on the night of the fire, as soon as Matt heard about it, he rushed out of the house. She assumed he went to go see his brother, but then she got a phone call.

Speaker 9 From David Knight saying, Where's Matthew? And she thought, I thought he was with you. And then she later learns that, in fact, he was with Graham.

Speaker 5 Graham McDonald, a name that was new to investigators.

Speaker 9 Graham McDonald was a friend of her husband, and Graham and Matthew had worked together at a company called Hot Sets in Toronto. So he was just a family friend.

Speaker 5 Graham, a handyman, was also friends with Matt's brother David. In fact, David hired him to spruce up the house on Pebblestone Crescent.

Speaker 5 So why had Matt rushed out to see Graham in the middle of a family crisis and not his brother?

Speaker 5 A team of investigators left Canada for sunny Florida to ask Matt.

Speaker 9 They went to his house, they left a business card, they were able to speak to him on the phone and he refused to speak to them.

Speaker 9 He said that Heather's a liar, she's just trying to get him into trouble, and that he has no intentions on ever coming back to Canada.

Speaker 5 With no jurisdiction in the U.S. or any evidence to press Matt further, investigators came home empty-handed.

Speaker 5 What's more, they knew that Matt, like his brother David, had an alibi for the day Carmella died. He was with Heather.

Speaker 9 She made it very clear that him and her were together that entire day. He did not leave her side and there's no way that he could have done it.

Speaker 5 They had struck out with Matt, so they brought Graham McDonald into the station to ask him where he was the day of the fire.

Speaker 9 He told us that he went to visit his grandmother, but his grandmother wasn't home.

Speaker 9 He also told us that he took the GO train back from Toronto out to Pickering and then walked from Pickering to Moody's Motel.

Speaker 5 But then they did some digging.

Speaker 9 We got video surveillance from his grandmother's apartment and Graham did not appear on the surveillance video.

Speaker 5 Was that fishy that he told you he went there and then he's not on the surveillance video? It is fishy.

Speaker 9 We looked at all the GO train surveillance. Graham McDonald was not on the GO train.

Speaker 5 Police started to wonder if Graham might have had a reason to want Carmella dead.

Speaker 5 Did you think that maybe Graham McDonald had some type of an obsession with Carmella, that possibly when he was doing renovations, he got fixated on her?

Speaker 25 Definitely.

Speaker 15 The way his story wasn't panning out. And if he had some type of relationship with her and it didn't go well.

Speaker 17 That's right.

Speaker 5 After talking to friends and family, the scorned lover theory didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 5 But after catching him in those lies, they needed to talk to Graham again. So they called him back for a second interview.

Speaker 5 Graham maintained he was in Toronto that day, but his memory of it was hazy, and there was a good reason for that.

Speaker 26 What do you mean you went all there? Well, I was smoking crack on me that night? Yeah, I did a couple perks and I smoked crack.

Speaker 13 He was using drugs that day, and his recollection's all over the map and jumbled because of that. He doesn't really remember where he was.

Speaker 5 When pressed by the investigators, Graham got upset and wanted to end the interview. I don't want to do this anymore.

Speaker 26 I'm going to stop. You guys do what you need to do.
He would know. Graham, no.
Listen, I don't know what to do here.

Speaker 13 He became a person of interest that needed a lot more investigating.

Speaker 5 And he wasn't the only one. Graham had led them to a possible new suspect.

Speaker 5 Somebody is not telling the truth here.

Speaker 9 There's some gaps in the story, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Coming up.

Speaker 9 They meet up with him in the parking lot. They try to engage him in conversation and he just wouldn't stop, wouldn't speak to them.

Speaker 16 A suddenly silent husband living a double life.

Speaker 5 There was naked photos of this girl and she was kissing him on the cheek.

Speaker 5 With each passing month, Carmella's mother, Franca, grew more impatient with the investigation. I phoned John, one of the detectives, two, three times a day, calling like, what's going on?

Speaker 21 What's going on?

Speaker 21 And they kept saying, you know, we're working on it. We're working on it, you know.

Speaker 5 She had no idea about the detective work unfolding behind the scenes. During Graham McDonald's first police interview, he'd revealed something that sent the investigation in a whole new direction.

Speaker 5 What does he tell you?

Speaker 9 He tells us that he was with David Knight the day of the murder.

Speaker 5 A red flag. They'd spoken at length to Carmella's husband the night of the fire, and he told them he was at the hockey arena that evening.

Speaker 5 There was security camera footage that proved it, but according to Graham, David wasn't telling the whole story.

Speaker 9 David Knight never mentioned being with anybody that day, and now Graham McDonald's telling us that he was with David and that they went to Toronto.

Speaker 5 Detectives were now taking a hard look at David Knight, and some of his behavior after the fire was raising eyebrows. Carmella's friend Tara says he didn't attend Carmella's funeral.

Speaker 11 It was awful to think that your wife could die so tragically. And even if you were separated, that you wouldn't come to pay your respects.

Speaker 5 Even worse, she says he didn't let their young sons go. They weren't at their own mother's funeral?

Speaker 19 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 But Carmella's mom wasn't surprised. She knew the divorce proceedings hadn't been going as smoothly as David let on.
In fact, she says it got ugly.

Speaker 5 David was telling lies about Carmella all over town before and after her death.

Speaker 21 Dave told all the hockey parents that she was a gambler, that she had a boyfriend, that she was

Speaker 5 taking drugs. Do you think the parents were buying this?

Speaker 8 No, no, they weren't.

Speaker 5 Carmella had complaints about David, too. Tarot told investigators that Carmella had long suspected he was unfaithful.
He'd stay late at work, come home without his ring, travel more and more.

Speaker 11 I think there was some receipts. There were some strange phone calls that were coming in.

Speaker 5 And a year and a half before her murder, undeniable proof, Carmella found a thumb drive in David's car filled with racy photos.

Speaker 5 She confided in her sister Nancy.

Speaker 5 So there was naked photos of this girl and there is a picture of Dave and her

Speaker 5 and she was kissing him. on the cheek.
So there was no getting around this. No.
This was

Speaker 5 adultery. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 Nancy said David finally admitted he had a girlfriend who lived near that second house in Florida. David promised Carmella he'd stop seeing her immediately and they went to marriage counseling.

Speaker 5 But months later, she discovered the affair was still going strong.

Speaker 5 Then she just decided that she said, enough's enough. I can't do this anymore and told him.
How did he react? As she was telling him, he was begging. for her to come back.

Speaker 5 And she said, no, I can't do this anymore. You've had chances and that's it.
Police wanted to hear more from David, but when a team of investigators went to speak with him, he ignored them.

Speaker 9 They meet up with him in the parking lot. They try to engage him in conversation and he just keeps walking and wouldn't stop, wouldn't speak to them.

Speaker 5 After that, David lawyered up, so investigators turned their focus toward the girlfriend. While they'd been in Florida trying to speak to David's brother, they'd paid her a visit.

Speaker 9 She says that she was under the impression that David had been divorced for six years, that they met in a bar about a year and a half prior.

Speaker 13 She knew everything about his Florida life. It just seems that she didn't know anything about his Pickering life.

Speaker 5 David Knight was living a double life.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 5 They learned his plan was to set up a construction business in Florida and move there permanently, but he ran into serious money problems in the months before Carmella's death.

Speaker 9 We're learning that Carmella was in financial dire and that he wasn't paying the mortgage or helping her out with the boys. And she filed an emergency motion for custody of the children.

Speaker 9 And that hearing was supposed to be heard on the Thursday after her murder.

Speaker 5 That was just three days later.

Speaker 18 Three days later. Yes.

Speaker 5 Investigators wondered if David had found a solution to his financial problems. He had taken out two life insurance policies on Carmella, totaling $850,000.
David had a lot to gain.

Speaker 5 from Carmella's life insurance policy.

Speaker 9 He did, and he needed that money. The business deal was closing September 25th, which again was right after her murder.

Speaker 5 Time was running out for him that he needed to make this happen.

Speaker 5 Police were now convinced that David Knight was somehow involved in his wife's murder, but they didn't have any real evidence.

Speaker 5 They needed more time to verify if David really was with Graham the day Carmella was murdered before he was seen at the hockey rink. But time was running out.
David was about to bolt.

Speaker 5 Once he lawyered up, detectives got a court order to tap his phone and they learned he was planning to move to the Sunshine State. And what does that mean for your investigation?

Speaker 9 It would have been very problematic to investigate him while he's in Florida and might have meant that our investigation was over.

Speaker 5 Detectives had seized David's passport earlier in the investigation, but now they learned he had found a way to outsmart them by going to the government agency that issues passports.

Speaker 9 He then falsified a document saying that he lost his gym bag and lost his passport. Passport Canada reissued him a new passport.

Speaker 5 A new passport meant David Knight could slip through their fingers for good.

Speaker 5 This was a race against time.

Speaker 9 It was.

Speaker 2 Coming up.

Speaker 14 David had an ace up his sleeve, a private jet, and an unwitting accomplice.

Speaker 5 You were about to transport an alleged killer to Florida. Exactly.

Speaker 13 He gets on that flight. We have no way to stop him.

Speaker 14 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 23 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 23 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 23 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 23 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate. And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 19 I'm Gabe Leidman.

Speaker 17 I'm Max Silvestri. And we've been friends for 20 years.
And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 5 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 17 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 5 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 27 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 5 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 10 I need you, girl.

Speaker 20 Skipping cold and flu season is plan A. But if you do get sick, be prepared for plan B with Kleenex Lotion Tissues.

Speaker 20 Kleenex Lotion Tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red, irritated skin on top of your cold and flu symptoms. So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues.

Speaker 20 Visit Kleenex.com to learn more and buy now. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex.

Speaker 5 Three months after Carmella Knight had been murdered, detectives learned her husband David, a possible suspect, was about to hop on a private jet headed for Florida.

Speaker 9 He planned on never returning to Canada again. Once he moved, that was it.

Speaker 5 The wiretap on David's phone was paying off.

Speaker 9 We were able to listen to his plans, namely purchasing a house, enrolling the boys in school, and what his future plan was in Florida.

Speaker 5 This was bad news for detectives. They'd been building a case against him, but they still didn't have enough evidence for an arrest.

Speaker 9 It was very, very tense because we thought he was going to be able to get on that jet.

Speaker 5 Pilot Bassam Al-Saraj remembers the request coming in from a a customer looking to fly private to Florida immediately.

Speaker 28 It was actually an evening, around eight o'clock at night, and I said, oh, this guy's really looking to go somewhere.

Speaker 5 So Bassam called up the customer. It was David Knight.

Speaker 28 I said, hey, this is the deal. We actually found a plane that just happens to be going to Florida.

Speaker 5 David wired $15,000 and the trip was set for the next morning. Are you on pins and needles?

Speaker 21 Yes.

Speaker 13 He gets on that flight. We have no way to stop him.

Speaker 5 So detectives had an idea. Remember, Remember, David had lied and gotten himself a new passport.
Police made a plan to confiscate it before he got on the plane.

Speaker 5 So this confiscation of his passport is based less on the murder investigation and more on him falsifying passport documents, right?

Speaker 5 But detectives didn't have much time. They contacted police near the airport and asked them to send officers to intercept David.

Speaker 5 Bassam, the pilot, remembers David arriving for his flight just as the plane was fueled and ready to go.

Speaker 28 He shows up, he's got his dog, he's got his luggage. We put the luggage in the plane.

Speaker 5 Does David Knight have any idea that the police are in there?

Speaker 19 No idea.

Speaker 5 And that's when the police stepped in.

Speaker 28 Police officer comes out and says, I'm seizing your passport on behalf of Government of Canada.

Speaker 5 Oh my gosh, what did David Knight say?

Speaker 28 He freaked out.

Speaker 5 No passport, no chance of escaping to the United States. You were about to transport an alleged killer to Florida.

Speaker 10 Exactly.

Speaker 5 Police let David go, but he had to know detectives were zeroing in on him. And in in fact, they were making progress in other parts of the case.
They had identified the mystery man in the black SUV.

Speaker 9 It was David's ex-business partner.

Speaker 5 The ex-partner told detectives David had stolen $200,000 from him. It was money they were going to use to start a construction business.
This business partner must have been angry.

Speaker 9 He was, yes.

Speaker 5 Angry, yes. But the more they investigated, the less they thought he had anything to do with Carmella's murder.
They believed he showed up in the backyard to confront David, not scare Carmella.

Speaker 5 That left just David, Matt, and Graham, and they weren't talking. So detectives knew they needed to do something big.

Speaker 9 We decided to do an undercover operation with Graham McDonald.

Speaker 5 Graham as the target.

Speaker 9 Yes.

Speaker 5 The plan was for an undercover officer to befriend Graham.

Speaker 9 For them to become friendly, for them to build some rapport, you know, play pool together and that sort of thing. That's eventually what ended up happening.
They became friends.

Speaker 9 Graham right away told him that, look, the police are looking at me for this murder.

Speaker 5 The undercover officer said he knew someone who could help him.

Speaker 5 He introduced Graham to Uncle Dan, another undercover officer who was posing as a man who had a history of fixing people's troubles with the law.

Speaker 5 Uncle Dan agreed to speak with us as long as we didn't show his face. You're not friends with Graham McDonald.
You don't want to be friends with him, but yet you have to convince him of of that.

Speaker 22 It's done through different scenarios throughout this whole operation, just to show that, you know, I was somebody trustworthy.

Speaker 5 Undercover officer, Uncle Dan, invited Graham and his friend out for a day of ice fishing on Lake Simcoe. But something conveniently happened on the way to the lake.

Speaker 9 While they were on their way to the hut, they were pulled over by the police for a traffic stop.

Speaker 9 The police officer ran both of their names through the police system, and Graham McDonald had a return of being a subject in a homicide.

Speaker 5 They hoped mentioning Carmella's murder might get Graham out of his comfort zone.

Speaker 9 As a result of that traffic stop, Graham McDonald appeared to be very rattled by the fact that the police had named him what he thought was a suspect.

Speaker 5 Eventually, the police let them get on their way. Everything was now riding on this meeting in the ice fishing hut.
Could Uncle Dan get Graham to take the bait?

Speaker 12 So when I came into the hut, Iraham was sitting in the corner and I

Speaker 12 said to him, I heard you have a problem.

Speaker 12 Problem we're running into now.

Speaker 7 They're starting to throw mining around. I don't know if they're using me as an escape boat or whatever the case may be.
But Lili, you tell him you've had nothing to do with this whatsoever.

Speaker 7 Are you telling you that? I can't. What do you mean you can't? He can't say I never had nothing to do with it.

Speaker 12 So I asked him, did you kill her?

Speaker 2 Coming up.

Speaker 12 I could tell that he kind of had tears in his eyes. Something was really bothering him, and he wanted to talk.

Speaker 15 Can Uncle Dan reel in a suspected killer?

Speaker 9 I was shocked.

Speaker 9 I didn't expect that to happen.

Speaker 5 In that bitterly cold ice fishing hut, Ram McDonald was unknowingly face to face with an undercover officer.

Speaker 12 I could tell that he cut of had tears in his eyes. Something was really bothering him and he wanted to talk.

Speaker 5 Detective Jennings waited nearby with bated breath.

Speaker 9 I was in a vehicle on the shore just over there off to a parking lot listening live.

Speaker 12 I asked him, did you kill her? And he nodded yes.

Speaker 9 I was shocked.

Speaker 9 I didn't expect that to happen and it was a huge breakthrough.

Speaker 5 They finally had the first piece of the puzzle, but detectives believed Graham hadn't acted alone and were certain his confession wasn't the whole story.

Speaker 5 Uncle Dan needed more, but he was careful not to push Graham. Instead, he ended the meeting.

Speaker 5 A week later, Uncle Dan invited Graham to his office.

Speaker 22 Fixed you to sit him down and get as much detail out of him as I possibly could.

Speaker 5 Investigators had come up with a clever way to get Graham to give a full confession.

Speaker 29 We developed a scenario where I said, I think I might be able to fix this problem for you.

Speaker 22 And I I said, I have a good friend of mine who's dying of cancer and doesn't have long to live.

Speaker 29 He will take the wrap for you.

Speaker 24 He will confess to it. But you need to ensure that his children will be looked after.

Speaker 22 $10,000 trust funds for each child.

Speaker 12 And he'll do this for you.

Speaker 5 And like a Hollywood movie, they used makeup to disguise an undercover officer named James to play the part of the dying man.

Speaker 5 When he showed up at the office in a wheelchair, they told Graham if James was taking the fall for the murder, he needed to know every last detail.

Speaker 22 I have him go through his involvement, how it was planned, how it was executed.

Speaker 5 And that's when Graham laid it all out. And not only his involvement,

Speaker 5 but David Knight's too. He said David had hired him to kill Carmella.

Speaker 22 He said David wanted his wife gone. Graham did say there's a lot of planning.

Speaker 5 Graham told them on the day of the murder, David went to fill up gas cans to be used to set the fire. He said David later later took him to the house and let him in.

Speaker 5 He then hid in the bathroom waiting for Carmella to come home.

Speaker 9 She came in through the garage and he attacked her from behind. And she fought for her life.
He raced around the kitchen island. He finally got her down on the ground and strangled her.

Speaker 5 He said he tried to make it look like Carmella had overdosed.

Speaker 9 He placed the tourniquet on Carmella's body and tried to inject her with cocaine, left the syringe in

Speaker 9 her arm.

Speaker 5 And then what happened next?

Speaker 9 Then he dragged her to the garage and

Speaker 9 put her face down in the garage and he waited. He waited for darkness so that he could light the fire.

Speaker 5 This was all about money for Graham?

Speaker 9 Well, he was promised $100,000 from David Knight and a life in Florida.

Speaker 5 Now, investigators had to be sure Graham's confession checked out. They easily found the video of David at the gas station filling the gas cans.

Speaker 5 And they discovered another video that proved Graham was with David on the day of the murder. That's him in the passenger seat.
Graham also told Uncle Dan that he and David bought burner phones.

Speaker 5 So detectives took another look at the video supporting David Knight's alibi.

Speaker 5 This is David Knight at the ice hockey rink the night of the murder.

Speaker 4 That's correct.

Speaker 13 You can see he's got his one hand up and he's speaking on a cell phone.

Speaker 5 While he's skating around. That's right.

Speaker 13 The time stamps on the calls there are actually right after Carmella's murder.

Speaker 5 Phone records proved it was Graham on the line. Now, there was just one last box to check.
In order to arrest David, investigators needed proof he paid Graham for the murder.

Speaker 5 As luck would have it, David hadn't given him a dime yet. This was their opening.

Speaker 9 The undercovers told Graham that, you know, you were promised $100,000 and he hasn't paid you anything, so you need to go collect.

Speaker 5 Detectives put a tail on David and found his favorite watering hole. Graham's friends, the undercover officers, convinced him to pay David a surprise visit at the bar.

Speaker 5 When he did, other undercover officers were scattered around inside. And unbeknownst to David and even to Graham, Graham was recording it all.

Speaker 22 We did provide him with something that he wasn't aware that was actually a recording device. And there were also other recording devices in the area.

Speaker 5 So you're about to capture this whole conversation on tape.

Speaker 9 Hopefully, yes.

Speaker 5 What happens when Graham approaches him?

Speaker 19 They talk.

Speaker 29 He was quite shocked to see Graham walk back into his life again.

Speaker 22 And I think his first thing was like, what are you doing here?

Speaker 5 During a brief conversation, Graham told David all about Uncle Dan and the plan to have a dying man take the fall for the murder.

Speaker 5 David bought it, hook line, and sinker and told Graham to come back a few days later.

Speaker 9 They made an arrangement to meet the following Thursday, and that was when David Knight paid him $5,000.

Speaker 15 I'll watch somebody else account this.

Speaker 5 Nearly six months after Carmella was murdered, investigators had their men.

Speaker 5 David Knight, Graham McDonald, and Matthew Knight were all arrested for the murder plot.

Speaker 5 Nancy, who had long suspected David played a role in Carmella's murder, felt vindicated. Did it give you some relief even for just a moment after everything you'd been through? Definitely it did.

Speaker 5 Like a hurrah, kind of like, you know, finally they caught him. After a four-month trial, David Knight was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and arson.

Speaker 5 Graham McDonald was convicted of the same crimes. Each was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years.
Matthew Knight pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder.

Speaker 5 He spent a year behind bars. It was less time than detectives had hoped for.

Speaker 5 They did, however, think David Knight got what he deserved. Instead of living his new life in Florida, he's in an 8x10 cell.

Speaker 21 He is?

Speaker 13 That's where he should be.

Speaker 5 Franka couldn't agree more.

Speaker 6 I want him to suffer and every day of his suffering, I want him.

Speaker 5 I want him to see Carm's eyes.

Speaker 18 You know, think of what he did and

Speaker 21 how he destroyed

Speaker 6 the family.

Speaker 4 I didn't want to believe it, and I believed him for so long. So it just came to realization that he ruined my childhood and he put me in a place I don't know if I'll ever get out of.

Speaker 5 It must just feel like a bad dream sometimes.

Speaker 4 Sometimes, yeah, I wish it was.

Speaker 4 But unfortunately, it's not.

Speaker 5 Dylan now lives with his aunt Nancy. I'm glad that you had a soft landing with your aunt and uncle.

Speaker 5 that you found a home where you

Speaker 5 have two

Speaker 5 little cousins that you're like a big brother to now?

Speaker 4 Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, they make me happy.
They definitely bring me joy in life.

Speaker 5 Nancy's friends gifted her a necklace in her sister's handwriting. A keepsake, she says, is so meaningful that she decided to get one for her mom, too.

Speaker 5 They wear them often, keeping Carmella close to their hearts.

Speaker 5 And they gather every year to celebrate Carmella's birthday. They make a home-cooked meal together.
Franka still sees her daughter in her grandsons. Do you think Carmella lives on through her boys?

Speaker 5 She does.

Speaker 21 Dylan looks exactly like her.

Speaker 5 Is the future bright for them?

Speaker 22 I hope so. I hope so.

Speaker 8 They have a lot of carp, thank God.

Speaker 14 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 15 Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 16 This time of year, many are checking off their holiday gift lists. But identity thieves have lists too, and your personal information might be on them.
Protect your identity with Life Lock.

Speaker 16 LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back.

Speaker 16 Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com/slash dateline.

Speaker 19 Terms apply.