All language subtitles for Harlan Cobens Final Twist-S01E02.E

- Harlan, over here!

- Ladies and gentlemen,
Harlan Coben.

[plucky string music]

- He's the greatest
thriller writer.

- Oh.

- Coben's written over 30
New York Times Best Sellers.

- With over a dozen
hit TV shows and movies.

♪ ♪

- In all our stories,
the same question:

What made the killer
cross that line?

♪ ♪

[tense music]

[dog barking in distance]

[distant siren wailing]

- I'm Harlan Coben.

It's that fringe
of human behavior

that makes for
a great crime story.

I'm always looking
for inspiration,

but it takes a really special
story to get my attention.

Like, one day I got
a message about the murder

of a woman who owned
a beloved ice cream shop.

This was not an idea
for a novel however.

This was a true crime.

But from the moment
I started looking into it,

from the moment I saw
the strange list of suspects,

something seemed off--

very off.

I needed to figure it out.

And that's where
our mystery begins.

♪ ♪

- People believe
what they want to believe.

They don't like
to know the truth.

- Every day I miss Anna Mae.

She was unforgettable.

No one deserved
to die like she did.

[thunder rumbling]

- What kind of darkness
could do this?

♪ ♪

It's just so evil.

[sirens blaring]

- We could see claw marks
on the white freezer.

Anna Mae was still fighting
to the end.

Her skull was busted over.
There was brain matter.

- She let the wolf
into the sheep den.

- She felt comfortable
enough with him

that she turned her back
on him.

Somebody within
the inner circle,

so to speak.

- Everybody had
to be called in.

- Everyone was a suspect.

- Who would want her dead?

- We're gonna find
your killer, Anna Mae.

We're gonna get him.

♪ ♪

- A crime happened here.

The past isn't what it seemed.

The story told turns out
to be deception.

And just when you're sure
have the answer...

- 911, what is the address
of your emergency?

Hello?
Anyone there?

- There's one final twist.

♪ ♪

[gentle acoustic music]

♪ ♪

- Anna Mae was a leader
in the community.

When she walked into a room,
she lit up that room,

and she was the center
of everything.

Back in the day,
she owned the ice cream shop.

And it's amazing that
that one little shop

could become a
multi-million-dollar business,

but that's what happened.

- I started working there
when I turned 16.

We looked up to Ms. Ann

because she dressed
impeccably.

Her hair was always perfect.

Her makeup was always perfect.
[laughs]

And she could do
a catwalk any day.

She was the queen
of the queen.

- She didn't have any children,

so I suppose she found joy in
getting close to her nephews.

Maybe she saw us as,
you know, her children.

- Anna Mae embraced
her nieces and nephews.

Everyone was very loving
and very tight-knit.

She was the rock,

the center foundation
for our family.

[bright orchestral music]

- We'd get together
at her house very often

and have these wonderful meals
together, a lot of laughter.

She was someone that
everyone in the family

admired and looked up to.

- Everybody in the police
department loved Ms. Ann.

She was a widow
and lived by herself,

so we would go by once a day
and check on her

because she would
set her home alarm off.

But that day was different.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Her jacket was draped over
a chair in her dining room

and her purse was
on the back of the chair.

No broken windows.

There was nothing disturbed
in the house.

- Coming down to the basement
at the bottom of the steps,

I saw her body.

- It's like the world stopped.

Disbelief.

The back of her skull
had, uh, significant damage.

- The immediate impression
I had was overkill.

She had been stabbed
approximately 97 times--

to her head to her forearms

to the back of her neck,

defense wounds
to the side of the face,

and what ended up being seven

blunt force traumas
to the head.

- To know that Ms. Branson
was very particular

about her appearance,
it was disturbing

to see her in that condition.

- We could see claw marks
on the white freezer.

Anna Mae was still
fighting to the end.

- She had
a three-carat diamond

that was still on her finger.

We found jewelry upstairs.

- It didn't appear
to be just a robbery.

- There was no sign
of forced entry.

I thought this had to be
a crime of passion,

someone that knew her very well

that she would allow
to be that far

into the sanctity of her home.

[indistinct radio chatter]

- Fox 7 spoke with
the victim's family.

They say Branson was
a well-known, caring,

and trusting person,
something they feel

most likely led to her death.

[indistinct radio chatter]

- I was in shock.

I just couldn't understand why
anybody would want to harm her.

- What kind of human being

could do that
to an 85-year-old,

5'3",
probably 115-pound lady?

- It was horrific.

And we had no idea
what the motive was.

- Everybody knew Ms. Ann.

She had
over 40 rental properties

at the time of her passing.

And I spoke to
all of her renters,

but her cleaning lady,
Judy Harvey,

had a lot to say.

- A few weeks
before she was killed,

Anna Mae said,
my crazy renter Robert Prince,

he calls me, wakes me up
in the middle of the night

to come over and chase
the ghost out of his attic.

She was unsettled by him.

- We're looking around
at each other,

going, you know,
prior homicide?

- Once we heard that,
Robert Prince

went right to
the top of the list.

- We could tell
that he was emotionally

set on a hair trigger.

- [sighs]

- When you hear a whisper,
you chase the lead.

But what if the real story,
the one that makes

your blood run cold,
isn't in the whisper?

It's in the one
who does the whispering.

[soft dramatic music]

- Robert Prince, who Anna Mae
called her crazy renter,

we got to see
his agitation firsthand.

You could tell that
he was emotionally

set on a hair trigger.

- He would have had access
to Ms. Branson

at the back door,
and his physical size

would have made him
very capable of committing

that level of violence.

Except for one
important detail.

- Did you?
- Yes.

- Um--

- He had staples and stitches
up his forearm.

And I remember thinking,
it would be hard

for Robert Prince
to be able to inflict

that much damage
without tearing the stitches

or pulling a staple
out of his arm.

- We did verify with his doctor
that if he had committed

the crime,
that those stitches

and the staples
would have been ripped out.

- Clearing a suspect
doesn't mean starting over.

It means you've
been handed a map

written in disappearing ink.

The truth is behind you,
hidden in the lie

that brought you
to this dead end.

- Judy Harvey was wrong
about Robert Prince.

But along with Prince,

Judy also offered us
Anna Mae's handyman,

Wayne Shelton,
as a potential suspect

in this case.

- My dad had worked for
Anna Mae around ten years.

He considered them friends.

He was there at her house
multiple times a week.

And he knew that
he had no great alibi.

He lived alone.
He lived in the country.

- In the past, he had had
some run-ins with the law,

bar fights and DUIs.

But he looked them straight
in the eye and he said,

it could have been me,

but it wasn't.

- It was determined
that Clyde Wayne Shelton

had a heart condition.

- We spoke with his doctor,
who said that

if Mr. Shelton had inflicted
those wounds upon Ms. Branson,

he would have
had a heart attack.

- Ultimately,
it was pretty apparent

Judy just did not like Wayne.

The two of them
didn't get along.

- I asked him, you know,
what is Judy's issue with you

that she would bring you up
as the suspect?

- We discovered that the
real reason why Wayne Shelton

and Robert Prince
were eliminated

as a suspect in this case is
because the investigative team

realized that Judy Harvey was
giving us false information.

She was creating perpetrators
and leads for us to run down

and creating smoke.

We seriously considered
bringing charges against

Judy Harvey for interfering
with an investigation,

but we couldn't
find enough evidence

to follow through with it.

[somber music]

- There's a fine line
between helping

and wanting
to be seen helping.

When that line is crossed,
the truth pays the price.

- There was
intentional misdirection

involving my dad,

and I will forever believe

that the reason
he died three months later

was because of being cast
as a prime suspect

in this investigation.

I feel for Ann's family,

that they lost her
in such a tragic way.

But I feel for ours as well,

because I think
he had years left.

And I think that the situation

took those years from him,

and it took
those years from me.

[sniffles]

- With Judy,
something was just not right.

You could tell that
she was up to something.

- Judy Harvey was working
to derail our investigation.

She was still employed
by Anna Mae's family,

and we strongly suspected
she was being paid

to divert our attention
from the real killer.

- And that was
the turning point.

[soft dramatic music]

- Sometimes it's not the town
that holds the darkest secrets.

It's the family photo
on the mantle,

the loved ones who smiled at us
across the holiday table,

the ones who held our hand

through tears and grief.

When the truth
finally comes out,

the hardest question
isn't what happened.

It's who among us
let it happen?

♪ ♪

- The funeral for Anna Mae
was just horrible.

You really can't believe
this is happening.

It's just not real.

♪ ♪

- I walked over to Earl,
Anna Mae's brother,

and his son, Russell Winstead.

We were both pallbearers.

And I said, I can't wait to
get the scumbag that did this,

because I want him
to be tried and convicted,

and I want to be there
for the execution.

- We were all there trying
to comfort each other.

But there was always that cloud
of doubt and suspicion.

You know, who did it?
Who knows what?

Somebody killed her,

and the rumor was
it was a family member.

- There was a suspicious vibe
in the air.

So you don't get to mourn,
because

it was all in the back
of our mind.

- Everyone at the funeral
was a suspect

as far as we were concerned.

- And then
all the siblings were told

that the Madisonville
Police Department wanted

to meet with the family.

- OK.

They were suspicious because
I had several rental houses,

and they tried
to insinuate that

I borrowed money from
my aunt to buy these houses.

How much money do you owe her?

You know, stuff like that.

- And they asked questions
like,

did you ever borrow money
from Ann?

Where were you the last night?

- We knew that we were
gonna get some pushback.

We knew that was
part of the game.

But everybody was a suspect.

We interviewed
everybody in the family.

- OK.

- We offered them
all polygraphs.

They all said yes,

and we began with Russell.

- With Russell Winstead,

the temperature in the room
went up a little bit.

Scott became a little more
direct with his questioning.

It was time to turn
the heat up.

- He had registered deception
on all the questions

that involved Anna Mae.

I was a detective for 15 years.

That's still
the worst polygraph results

I've ever seen.

♪ ♪

[ominous music]

♪ ♪

- Polygraphs can be
notoriously unreliable.

At best, they test whether
you've found a liar,

but they don't test whether
you've found a murderer.

One secret writers share
with prosecutors,

detectives, prison wardens--

it all depends
who's telling the story.

If you look at it
through one lens,

you'll never see
the whole picture.

♪ ♪

- When Russell failed that
polygraph,

we were just sick.

And we were determined to prove
that he didn't do it.

We did not believe
that Russell Winstead

could have committed a crime.

- The state police
and the local investigators

had interviewed Russell, and it
was a pretty intense interview.

- Russell loved Anna Mae.

This was his family member
that was brutally murdered,

and now he's being
questioned over it.

I can't even imagine
the headspace

you would be in when you're
worried about being a suspect.

- It is true.

If they're emotional,
innocent people

fail polygraphs all the time.

And Russell gave us
an alibi for the night

that Anna Mae was murdered.

- The medical examiner
said she would have

been killed around 7:30.

Russell had dropped
his kids off after church,

and then he was at home
with his wife

exactly when Ms. Ann's
estimated time of death was.

- In the time frame
that we believe

Ms. Branson was killed,

there was a call from Russell
to his wife, Terri.

[phone rings]

He said that he called her
from downstairs

in the lower-level basement,

and she was upstairs.

♪

- [exhales]

- She, word for word,
gave the same exact alibi.

- I could see
Russell calling her.

He's a jokester.

He'd leave crazy messages
and joke around a lot.

- I do it all the time
with people in my own house.

Rather than holler
or walk up the stairs,

why not pick up your phone
and call them?

I have never once heard
my uncle say a cuss word.

I've never once heard him
raise his voice.

- It was just hard
for anybody to believe.

Russell was
Ms. Branson's favorite.

He was a family man.

He taught Sunday school.

- Everybody knew him,
within the police department,

to be such a great guy.

And Russell Winstead
had no criminal history.

But we got a tip
from a community member,

and what he told us,
it was the pivotal moment.

- You find them
in every small town.

You know what
I'm talking about--

that model citizen with the
shiny, spotless reputation.

But that kind of perfection,

it's too often
its own disguise.

♪ ♪

- I got a call,
a tip from a male individual

that was very upset.

I said, you've got to come in.
We need to get a statement.

- This tipster
worked at the coal mines

together with Russell.

He saw two sides
to Russell Winstead.

There was the churchgoing
family man and hard worker.

But when he had gone
to the casinos with him,

he was seeing a different side
of his friend.

- We went through
casino records

and interviewed management
staff at those casinos.

- We learned of
Russell's secret life

at the Boat,

the Evansville Casino.

That's what the people
call it because

it was the riverboat style,

and Russell had
a girlfriend or two

at the Boat.

We were able to learn
that Russell had gambled

in numerous different states,
and in excess

of a million dollars.

- I did start finding out
that Russell owed money,

$10,000 to this guy,
$10,000 to this guy.

So I did figure out then
the intensity

of his gambling problem.

- Ms. Ann kept
a journal of every penny

that someone owes her
and that someone pays her.

I started looking through

this red journal,
page by page.

I saw the name
Russell Winstead,

and then it had
the total to date.

It was over $60,000
that he still owed her.

- How would I know?

[tense music]

- At that point in time,
we went back to his wife,

who was his alibi.

We started pushing
back with her.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- [breathes deeply, sobs]

- [hyperventilating, sobbing]

- [sobbing]

♪ ♪

- And then she wanted
her lawyer with her.

They showed back up
at the police department

the next week,
and she gave us the truth.

- The alibi that she initially
gave us was all rehearsed

and quarterbacked by Russell.

- Terri's alibi
for Russell cracked.

He was not at home
during the time of the murder.

- And then we found out
that Judy Harvey,

Anna Mae's housekeeper,
was in close conversations

with Earl Winstead,
Russell's father.

So we strongly suspected
that Earl

was paying her
to help Russell.

- I was shocked.

And then Russell
fled the country.

- And now he's gone.

- Russell is a wanted felon

and now a fugitive.

- When someone runs,
we follow,

because it's natural
to assume guilt.

We should also heed the advice
of the great Sherlock Holmes--

don't twist facts
to suit theories,

twist theories to suit facts.

- If you've seen
Russell Winstead,

please call our hotline tonight
at 1-800-CRIME-TV.

- Russell got a passport

and got a plane
out of the country.

You know, guilty men run.

- We got Russell's picture
out there,

and we found out that Russell
was using an alias

to avoid detection
in Costa Rica.

- What I couldn't figure out
was the reason

why Russell selected
Costa Rica.

[phone rings]

- He did not have a home
in Madisonville anymore,

and it was
in the papers constantly.

Small town, everybody knows,
everybody talks.

And it was just already
decided that he had done it.

And at that point, there was
still no arrests to be made.

We were all OK
with him leaving.

- It wasn't a secret.

I drove him to the airport,
but I knew he was coming back

when I dropped him off.

He was waiting for the DNA
evidence to come back.

- Even though the DNA
that they had taken

from the crime scene
did come back inconclusive...

They still indicted him.

- Costa Rica will not
extradite a murder suspect

if the death penalty
is an option.

So that had to be waived,

and it took a long time,

but...

[indistinct chatter]

I'll never forget
the video footage of him

the night he was arrested
at the Horseshoe Casino,

in San José, Costa Rica
by U.S. Marshals.

I said, we got him.

We got him.

- We're basically dealing
with circumstantial evidence--

no DNA, no fingerprints.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

Everybody was so tense,

and the room was divided.

Russell's family,
all the people

who wanted to believe
that he was innocent.

- Sir, would you call the
roll of the jury, please?

- And then the rest
of the family

were sitting on
the prosecutor's side.

- We didn't have
any forensic evidence,

but that still didn't mean
that there weren't enough

puzzle pieces to put
together to provide

a picture to the jury
to find Russell guilty of this.

- On Sunday evening, I really
believe Russell was worried

the check would bounce,

so he tried to ask her

not to cash
that $12,000 check.

She told him no,
and he just snapped.

And we had an eyewitness.

[dramatic music]

- An eyewitness saw
the photograph of Russell

and said, I saw that man
leaving Ms. Branson's house

on the night of the homicide.

- The general consensus
was he was being framed

because of his lies.

Just because you have
a gambling habit,

just 'cause you owe money

and you have
one woman's testimony

of seeing him through
the headlights at nighttime

doesn't make you a murderer.

- Based on
the religious background

that it is in the area,

you don't have affairs.

You don't gamble.

These things
are terrible sins.

They just tried to paint this
picture of him for the jurors,

that he was just
this evil person.

- Maybe if there was
some type of evidence

that pointed to him,
I would think

that, yeah, maybe he did it.

But it's just a theory.
It's not proof.

It was all circumstantial.

- And then

a letter surfaced
out of the jail.

Some stranger
we never heard of

confessed to the murder
of Anna Mae.

[dramatic music]

Let's just start there.

- Everybody was just like,

oh, my God,
we got the wrong guy?

- Fred Roulette recently
pleaded guilty to the murder

of 72-year-old Billie Cochrane
in Dawson Springs, Kentucky.

- That murder was
just down the road

from the murder
of Anna Mae Branson.

[tense music]

- Fred Roulette was in jail
for a similar slaying

of an elderly lady
in a neighboring community.

- Fred Roulette said
he went to the ice cream shop

and asked Anna Mae
if she would rent

one of her houses to him
and that she had refused.

So out of anger,
he went to her house

and killed her.

♪ ♪

- Fred Roulette gave us
a description

of the crime scene,
the layout of the home,

and that he had used
a modified Brades hammer,

which is a coal-mining tool,

to kill Ms. Branson,

details that only would fit

knowledge of the murderer.

- It's hard to go from
such a feeling of

we have the right guy
to a complete stranger

providing a full confession.

Something felt off.

♪ ♪

- Fred Roulette
was a fellow inmate

to Russell Winstead
in the Hopkins County Jail.

- For Russell, we had
to waive the death penalty

because of Costa Rica's
extradition rules.

But Roulette's not protected
from a death penalty case

like Russell is.

I was like,
hey, we can use this.

What if we get
this guy to flip?

- This was the tipping point
for Russell.

Russell made a lot of mistakes.

He made a lot of poor choices,

and his lies

finally caught up to him.

[somber music]

- The moment that
the jury said guilty,

it was like a weight lifted.

It was immediate relief.

- I gasped out loud.

We believed
with all our hearts

they caught the right person.

But then I looked over,

saw Russell's sister crying.

I saw her--
that family crying.

And no matter what he did,

he was a son.

He was a brother.

He was a family member to them.

- I remember sitting there
looking at everyone

and just wondering
what they saw

that made them feel
that no other person

could have possibly
committed this crime.

The justice system
failed my Uncle Russell.

- It was difficult
to lose my aunt,

as much as I loved her.

It was difficult to lose Rusty.

♪ ♪

For his family,
you don't want to see

the worst in somebody
that you love.

- It wrecked the family.

And justice was served,

but with a price.

- She'll always be missed,

and she'll never be forgotten.

I'm just glad that her memory
is not tarnished

by the way she left this earth.

♪ ♪

- In fiction, the writer
controls who lives,

who dies,
and who faces justice.

But in the real world
justice is slower,

messier, harder to hold on to.

Sometimes there's
concrete proof.

Often there's not, and we must
choose which story to believe.

Sometimes the killer
is a stranger,

but most times,
it's someone we know.

And too often,

it's the person we trust most.

I'm Harlan Coben.
Good night.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪