Original subtitles

[Pooneh] Okay, we're coming up to our old family home

This is it, right here.

[sighs] Looks the same.

[gentle music, birds chirping]

[indistinct chatter]

[woman] Open your mouth.

I wanna tape inside of it.

Everything was great, I mean, it was a pretty fun family.

[boy shouting]

There used to be a basketball hoop here,

and my brother would play basketball,

and my dad would run around and videotape him,

Daddy, should I go stand over there by the flowers?

[Pooneh] I had my prom photos taken here,

I can actually still see me standing there in my pink--

Ha! Pink dress right there with my mom and dad taking photos

That last room is my dad's office,

and he'd be in there playing the violin

-[violin music] -[child] Give a hand!

[Pooneh] My mom, I think, was a saint in all this,

'cause we were all so loud.

[child shouts]

Hi!

[Pooneh] She used to laugh all the time.

[laughs]

[Pooneh] And I can literally hear her right now.

[laughs, sighs]

I went to bed one night, and I woke up the next morning,

and everything was different.

I just kept saying,

I'm gonna get the guy that did this to you.

[reporter] Pooneh Gray has never been able to let go

of what happened on May 1, 1989.

Her mother was gunned down in a Vancouver parking lot...

[man] Someone wanted this daycare owner dead. But why?

[reporter #2] A jury found her father guilty.

[reporter] Mike and Effie were in the middle

of a contentious divorce.

[reporter #2] He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

[Pooneh] I never thought for a moment that my dad did this.

[reporter #3] Pooneh believes authorities got the wrong guy.

[reporter] And thinks the real killer is still out there.

[man] There were more peculiarities in this case

than any case that I've ever been involved in.

[man #2] It seemed very open and shut,

so, why was she persuing this?

[reporter #4] She's been investigating

for three decades.

[man] It was a coping mechanism.

-[man #2] An obsession. -[man #3] Delusional.

[woman] They messed with the wrong woman.

[man] Somehow, this young woman

built a million-dollar fortune.

...a reward of up to $250,000.

[man] She's put every penny she's earned towards this case.

[man] She's taking justice into her own hands

[Pooneh] I promised my mom that I would catch her killer,

and I'm gonna get him.

It was finals week that week.

I was living in a sorority at the time,

and I remember seeing there was a bunch of messages,

but I was really focused on getting back up

to the library and studying, so I ignored it.

I remember two of the girls from the sorority

coming up and saying you need to contact the police.

I said to them, I know my boyfriend

probably wrecked my car, it's totally okay.

I'll deal with it after finals.

And I remember them saying, "It's not that.

Your mom has died, she was murdered."

[Renee] Effie Entezari, very successful businesswoman,

she gets up to go to work, minutes later, she's dead.

There was really no evidence left at the scene,

there weren't any eyewitnesses who saw this happen.

Showing up at that scene,

there was no indication as to who it would have been.

I think the police were struggling.

All they knew is they had a young kindergarten teacher

who's been killed in full daylight

This is a quiet community, there weren't murders,

and to have a young mother shot outside her home...

I think, probably, the police, felt like, well,

we need to solve this quickly.

[Pooneh] So, she walks up to her car

with her car keys in her hand, and the shooter comes up to her

and walks right here, hangs on to her,

and, uh, fires a shot.

One of the people that lived at the apartment complex

was coming home from work at approximately 6:20,

according to the police records, and found my mom lying here.

She was found tucked... just like that.

[Pooya sighs] Worst day of my life.

Worst, worst day of my life. I was a freshman in high school,

and my counselor came and pulled me

out of my math class, and I thought I was in trouble.

I was 14 years old, and, um...

it really just rocked my world

[Pooneh] I come here a lot, because

I don't have a gravesite to go to.

So, when I want to talk to her, this is it.

[Douglas] A shooting, in a parking lot, broad daylight,

it shocked the community. This was very abnormal.

The question was, who would murder

a 42-year-old mother of two who runs a daycare?

This kind of murder, it's very often,

someone they know.

[Pooneh] Almost immediately, the police suspected

that is was a domestic violence issue,

and my dad was number one suspect

[interviewer] So, did you see strife

in their relationship at times?

I did.

[woman] Do you see us there?

[child] Yes! What do you think?

[indistinct mumbling]

[child] That's true.

[Pooneh] My mom and dad were extremely different.

I mean, you got serious, reserved, analytical guy,

and you got my mom, she was fun,

she laughed all the time.

At some point, they're so opposite, that it doesn't work.

[speaking Farsi]

[speaking Farsi]

[Pooya] There was arguing, and uh, you know, things like that.

[parents speaking Farsi]

No, I want to do something different.

[Pooneh] My parents; relationship

had been through a lot.

I didn't quite understand it at the time,

but before my mom's murder, a lot of stuff happened to them

Both my parents had been in the US for some time.

They were married here, they went to Iran,

just for a visit, 'cause their family was there,

and they decided to stay.

I want to say I was four or five years old.

I was eight when my brother was born.

I wanted a sibling

but I didn't ask for him, I asked for a sister,

and I'm like, can you send it back,

'cause I didn't ask for a brother?

[Pooya] I was a little brat, I really was.

So, we fought a lot, mostly me,

starting most of the fights. [laughs]

[Pooneh] I always thought that my parents

were really cute together. They were taking selfies

before they even knew that selfies existed.

[laughs]

My dad was an electronic engineer.

He ended up opening up his own business

and did pretty well.

Oh, it's your brother, and she says, "Fix this."

He knows I know what she did.

[Pooneh] I wouldn't say that we were rich,

but I'd say we were comfortable.

I was 12 when the revolution happened

[reporter] During his 37-year reign,

the Shah has made Iran the most Westernized

of the Muslim countries.

He has continually undercut the long-held power

of Muslim religious leaders.

[Pooneh] It was literally a civil war out on the street,

you didn't go out anywhere, you didn't go to school

[Pooya] I was very young when all that happened,

but from what I remember, it was very, very scary.

-[speaking foreign language] -[cheering]

My mom woke me up and said, "We need to leave."

Sorry. I just remember my parents being very scared.

And they're like, "We gotta go."

[Pooneh] We were one of the last flights out,

and then, we made our way to the U.S.

Hello people out there in America,

we just came to Vancouver.

[man speaking Farsi]

[child] Oh, God, look at 'em hug!

[speaking Farsi]

It was about, you know, what we all want,

which is the American Dream.

[dance music playing]

-Are you only filming me? -[Mike] Everybody.

[Pooneh] My dad was an electronic engineer.

Whenever the latest gadget came out,

whether it was a stereo, or a camera,

he went and bought a video camera.

I could never be on camera.

[Pooya] I found myself using it making little homemade movies.

[child Pooya] Take one, scene, action!

-You know something? -What?

I think you have a good sense of humor.

Ha-ha! This thing is so sharp, it can kill anybody

Ugh! [screams]

One, two, and down, then I push you up.

[Pooneh] I was involved in cheerleading in high school

so, the girls used to come here, and we'd practice

in the backyard.

The only person that knew I was a cheerleader was my mom

Yeah, push me up, ready? One, two,

down-- [screams, laughs]

[Pooneh] We didn't tell my dad.

He wanted me to, like, study.

He didn't want me to be a cheerleader

'cause that didn't work for him.

[Mike] When are you gonna study?

Yeah I, Daddy, I do study. I get straight As and Bs.

[Pooneh] I was really close with my mom.

She knew everything

that was going on with me.

My dad was definitely the stricter parent.

Seriously, Daddy, can I take your car?

I hate driving the Honda, it's so embarrassing,

I mean, I hate driving it, always smoking,

It's so embarrassing.

So, Daddy, what do you say? Say it louder

so you can feel guilty about it later on.

Everything you say will be held against you on TV.

-So, Daddy, say yes or no. -[Mike] No.

Ah! See? There you have it. Something never happens to me

Listen, tonight, you're gonna hear yourself say no,

and you're gonna start crying, and crying and crying,

why did I say no to my daughter?

-Nothing will happen to me. -Go do your homework.

Then will you let me drive to the club?

-No. -Well then that's okay.

Never mind.

[Pooya] My mom was very loving, very soft-spoken.

She loved children. She owned and operated a daycare center,

so that was her passion.

[Pooneh] My mom had met a group of Iranians.

She wanted to have friends, so, if there was someone in need,

she was right there to help out,

giving them money or, I remember my parents

had a rental home, and they let this Iranian group

that was new to the community live in it.

[Pooya] She was extremely trusting, and, uh...

a little naive, too.

[Pooneh] She just went out of the way to help people,

like, to a point where I had to tell her to be careful,

because she was so trusting and so giving.

She thought everybody was good, whereas, my dad had

reservations about this group,

and that caused some friction

between the two of them.

[M.C.] Pooneh Entezari.

[Pooneh] After I graduated, I went to college.

I was attending Washington State University,

and she called and she said, "I left your dad."

My brother stayed with my dad, and my mom moved out,

and they had been separated for over a year,

and for summer break, I was gonna go stay with my mom.

Something wasn't right, and I couldn't put my finger on it.

My mom, who loves everybody, said to me

the people she was hanging out with

were getting money from her and wasn't paying her back.

I told her that I wanted her to get away from the people

she was hanging out with, that I thought they were bad people.

She said to me, "You don't know how bad."

[Karin] Well, I have to say, I've never had

a divorce case where someone got killed.

Why don't you take a video for them...

[indistinct chatter]

[Karin] They had several properties, as I recall.

They had, of course, a minor child.

The whole Iranian community said that Mike shot his wife,

because she wanted out of the marriage.

Mike was the only one that had reasons to shoot her,

for the property, the money.

The theory was that my dad killed my mom

and then headed on the freeway that we're on right now

to go to the college that he was teaching at.

The murder actually happens at about 5:50.

The first time somebody saw him,

it was at the cafeteria at the college.

The gal who came on shift

at 7:00 a.m. remembers my dad.

He finished up at the college at about 9:30

and headed out to Providence Medical Center

for a 10 a.m. EKG appointment.

He had been having heart problems.

He finished up at, I believe it was 3:00

or 3:30 p.m.

He leaves and is headed towards his car, and he's met by

Clark County Sheriff's officers, who tell him

that his wife had been murdered.

They asked if they could search his car,

and he gave them full permission to do that.

They checked him, thy checked the car and they found nothing.

So, they let him go home.

They got a search warrant that evening.

They searched my dad's house, didn't find anything,

and decided to go ahead and search my dad's car again.

They found my dad's gun.

It was under the mat, in his car,

which is where he thought he left it last.

So, I've always found it weird that the first time

that they searched my dad's car, they didn't find the gun.

He had bought a gun, because

odd things had been happening,

people were trying to break into the house.

He had received a threat phone call, and he was scared.

And I said, at that point,

that he may want to consider getting a gun.

[Karin] It wasn't a good look. A week before a divorce trial,

the suspicions landed squarely on Mike.

[Pooneh] My father had to go to court,

and he went with my younger brother.

[Pooya] They split us up. They took me in a room,

and they put me on a stand, I had no attorney present

at the time, but they were extremely intimidating

to a young 14-year-old boy, that has no idea what's going on.

Come on, Pooya, we know that your dad killed your mom,

you don't need to defend him.

We found blood all over his clothes

It was hard to believe,

but I also thought, well, then, why would they say these things

if it wasn't true? He seemed very convincing,

and, yes, I thought, maybe he did do it.

When I come out of the room, My father is standing there,

and they put handcuffs on me.

I think they did it to put the pressure on my father.

The father's gonna confess.

And then they arrested my father right there in front of me.

I was put in juvenile hall.

I'm a material witness, they said. [laughs]

I had no idea what they're talking about.

I'm just an innocent 14-year-old kid

that was going to school, but now I'm in a juvenile hall,

in jail clothes, being treated like a criminal.

Um, this is... what I had to go through.

Scariest time of my life, just thinking about it.

It's very heard to, to talk about it.

It's very traumatizing.

[Pooneh] For two weeks... I...

um, I'd go visit her every day.

I would just go sit on the floor and talk to her.

She was covered in a sheet, and I pulled the sheet back,

and she had bruising, on her arms, on her legs.

I just kept saying, I'm gonna get the guy

that did this to you. You know? I'm gonna get him.

My dad kept saying, I didn't do this,

I didn't do this, you need to help me out.

And I'm like, Dad, you really need to prepare yourself

for the possibility that this is going to happen,

I'm like, you're an Iranian man,

and Clark County was a white town.

[gavel banging]

Got 25 years.

I just still remember looking at the newspaper,

and seeing my dad and thinking, Oh, my God, what is he feeling?

I mean, this is a man who kept saying, I'm innocent,

I'm innocent. I didn't do this.

How would that feel like, to be told, you're going to be

spending, essentially, the rest of your life in prison

for a crime you didn't commit?

I lost my mom and my dad.

I just remember feeling very helpless.

I can't help my mom, I can't help my dad,

can't help my brother. I was so depressed.

So, I go into the kitchen. I had a drawer

with all my knives in it, and I thought, well, you know,

can't help anybody, so, might as well just leave.

And I remember, I was trying to open up

the drawer, and it kept getting stuck.

And all of the sudden, I hear this woman

standing at the doorway of the kitchen going,

"What are you doing?" And I looked over,

and it was Susan, my neighbor.

She said to me that she was watching TV,

and she kept hearing a woman say,

"Go check on my daughter."

And she said she heard it, but it kept getting louder

and louder, and the person kept saying,

"Please go check on my daughter.

Please go check on my daughter."

And she said, "It was your mom. She was worried about you,

'cause you were up to something," and she said,

"After you walked out, I pulled the drawer open,

and it opened right up." She's sighed, "Your mom

wants you to stick around and fight."

So, that was a turning point, 'cause I thought,

I, at least, have somebody, I didn't lose everybody.

You know, I... that I didn't, just, my mom's not gone.

She's here. She's gonna fight with me.

All I need to do is... fight.

I wasn't gonna let it go.

[Pooya] The tragedy that occurred

affected both of us very badly.

I became more numb from it

and really just wanted to hide from it.

But, my sister Pooneh, wants to bring it up on a daily basis.

She is determined to solve this.

I think that this is her way of dealing with it.

It was a coping mechanism,

and she's not gonna stop until this is over.

[interviewer] Did you ever think for a moment,

"Oh my God, maybe my dad did do it"?

No. I never thought for a moment that my dad did this.

There's never been anything between my parents,

they're just through a divorce.

A lot of people go through divorces.

The police were very fixated on my dad.

They weren't willing to look at anything else.

So, I felt like, if I wanna find out who killed my mom,

I have to do it.

-[Pete] Are you on a call? -Yeah. I'm multitasking.

She's on the phone, morning till night.

I think we should all put on headphones and just, kinda,

go off in our own little world. [laughs]

[Pete] You need to get off that damn thing.

I can't ever switch off. There's always pieces of the case

that I'm working on, in the back of my mind.

Throughout our lives together, it has been a constant thing.

And when she gets off that one, to the next.

It's just something that we have to deal with.

I believe in what she's doing, but,

you know, life's too short, and we do need to live our lives.

[Pooneh] My husband, he's a military guy.

He's like, people get convicted for a reason,

um, you're just a daughter.

Pooneh, you want me to get yours for you?

[Pooneh] I'll get it.

Little late dinner.

Waiting on you.

[Pooya] It's time for you to get over here and be a part

of this family.

Takes a certain kind of person to do what you do.

Most people wouldn't be able to handle it like you do.

-But it's stressful. -Yeah.

Like, I mean, I'm literally putting in 10-hour days,

12-hour days. How do you hire someone

to do that kind of stuff?

I did sacrifice a lot, because

my friends were all out traveling.

They were going out to parties. I didn't.

I was working all the time.

I was using everything I had towards solving my mom's case.

You're better than

a run-of-the-mill investigator, you know?

You don't know "lose."

After my father's trial, I went to the apartment complex,

and I immediately, started interviewing people.

[Pooneh on video] You lived next door to my mom.

What do you remember about her?

She was very, um, very, um, meek, I guess.

Very, um, very pleasant, very, um, non-threatening.

Effie always got up and left to go to work,

six in the morning, without fail.

The day of the murder, I heard a "pop."

[loud "pop" sound]

[Denver] I looked out of the window,

I saw just the back end

of a yellow car, exiting the parking lot,

at a relatively high rate of speed.

[tires screeching]

[Denver] I looked down, and Effie lay between two cars,

and, um, there was a, a very large pool of blood

pouring down her head.

If, I would have gotten up,

30 seconds earlier, and looked out that window,

I might have been able to see something further than I did.

[Pooneh] I was getting quite a bit of information.

So, I remember going to the detective's office.

I go, "Hey! I was at the apartment complex.

This is what I found out.

Don't you think the yellow car is important?"

"Yeah, we already know that." Okay.

[Douglas] If your mother's been murdered,

that's hard to accept,

and so it's understandable that she would become

so obsessed with this central trauma

that had blown up her family.

I promised my mom that I would catch her killer.

[Douglas] Most people, they would have mourned

and tried to put it behind them,

and that was not Pooneh's response.

That pain kind of drives her.

With things like murder cases, the simple answer

is usually the correct answer.

For the police, this case must've seemed rather easy,

rather obvious.

Husband and wife are going through a divorce.

It's almost always the husband when the wife gets killed.

And, uh, once they had a gun,

they zeroed in, and that was it. They didn't look anywhere else.

It seemed very open and shut,

so why was she persuing this?

[Pooneh] I don't intend on letting it go

until we get down to exactly what happened,

on May 1, 1989.

I mean, one way or another,

the truth is gonna start coming out.

-It's quite the novel. -Yeah.

[Pooya] So, this is the entire transcript?

-Yeah. -From the trial?

Yeah, from '89.

The police brought in people to get a rise out of the jury.

They brought in my mom's brother,

who, basically, said he didn't like my dad

and that he had encouraged my mom to leave.

One witness the prosecution called

lived in Mom's apartment complex,

and he says he saw Dad's car

sitting in a cul-de-sac one morning,

prior to the homicide

Another witness testified in the trial

that dad said if a woman divorces a man,

the man can have her killed or kill her.

- [Pooya] Jesus. -Yeah.

-It's very prejudicial to a jury. -It is.

[Pooneh] Looking at police reports that were written

the morning of the homicide, 6:30 a.m.,

they haven't even talked to anybody yet.

And it's already labeled "domestic violence."

They zoomed in on him right away.

The yellow car is mentioned in passing in here...

[man] Yellow car...

...but nobody bothered to investigate it.

I'm frustrated, because they could've solved this case,

they had an eyewitness.

But the problem was, my dad didn't have a yellow car,

so, why bother? [laughs]

I'm just trying to figure out where he talks about the bullet.

This is the part where he's talking about Larry Hebert.

The police found the bullets

that killed my mom the following day

at around 2:30 p.m.

Ultimately, what sealed my dad's fate

was testimony from the state ballistic expert, Larry Hebert.

Larry Hebert said, with absolute certainty,

that the bullet came from Dad's gun.

[Pooya] If I didn't know Dad or anything about the case,

and I was just one of the jury members,

who are you gonna believe?

Hebert says, I'm absolutely certain,

beyond a reasonable doubt,

and that it's to the exception of any other gun out there,

there's no other gun out there that matches this bullet.

The piece that doesn't make any sense to me

is, for my dad to get to the college that he was teaching at

the morning of my mom's homicide,

he would've had to go over two bridges.

The first bridge is over the Columbia River,

and the second bridge is over the Willamette River.

Both are huge, very, very deep rivers.

If I had just someone and gotten in my car,

the gun's in that water. Hundred percent.

My dad would have had nine-and-a-half hours

to throw the gun in the water.

And without it, they couldn't have convicted him.

No killer would commit a homicide,

leave the gun in the car,

and then be completely cooperative with the police,

in terms of searching him, searching the car,

that doesn't make any sense.

My dad had a masters in engineering,

and he had a degree in physics.

So, he wouldn't be the kind that wouldn't plan things,

or wouldn't think things out, or would forget.

My dad didn't get rid of his gun, because...

he didn't kill my mom.

After my father's trial,

I was doing a lot of the legwork myself

Pooya was living with me.

It was very hard

to raise Pooya, because he was a teenage boy

who wasn't doing well in school,

and he was acting out quite a bit.

And he ate all the time,

and I didn't have enough money for food,

so it was a constant struggle between us.

Instead of using the whole house

and heating an entire house, I lived in one room.

I remember... one day, I was in the garage,

I gave him my debit card for a pack of cigarettes.

I mean, what were they, like, a couple bucks then?

And he's like, your debit card's been denied.

All my dad's money was gone,

because you have to pay lawyer fees and all of that,

so... I was working a day job,

and then I was working a consulting job in the evenings,

and then, I'd buy a rental and just go hang out there

till like three or four in the morning,

painting, getting things fixed up.

It was a struggle.

I just didn't have the amount of money I needed.

I remember coming home, grabbed a bottle of wine,

and I sat there looking up saying, "I need money, Mom."

I made you a promise, and I want to do it, but,

if I'm gonna do this,

I gotta have the resources to be able to do it.

I was extremely disturbed by what I saw happen

to my mom and dad and my brother.

I had to have money to put towards my investigation,

and I think all of that created a little monster, ha!

The property, when we acquired it, was farmland, pasture,

20 acres, that ran to the west to the adjacent apartment

[Pooneh] I made most of my money in real estate.

There was an opportunity that came up

to open up a care facility, and no sooner than that,

was getting wrapped up, I got the second one,

and then, it just kind of grew from there.

[Pooneh] Tom, when are you thinking it's going to be done?

[Tom] So, the roof's going on right now.

[Pooneh] Yeah, I saw that.

[Pooneh] I've always been driven.

I think what they did to my parents, just...

set that on fire.

The more money I made, the more I was able

to put towards the top detectives, investigators,

and lawyers, and then, I got to a point where

the money wasn't a problem anymore.

For a law enforcement officer, it was pretty unusual

that someone was wrongfully incarcerated.

I advised her, this is gonna cost a lot of money.

You may want to think twice about it.

[Renee] I was intensely curious,

there were so many unanswered questions in this case.

[Pooneh] When I first started dealing with

the Clark County Sheriff's office,

my first thought was, were these guys incompetent?

They had a conclusion, and they worked backwards

from that to make this story fit.

They had the bullet,

and that was the only piece of evidence

that they could tie to my dad.

So, I always felt like, if anyone

was going to solve this case,

it was gonna be my team.

[Douglas] T he first few months that I spent talking to Pooneh

and her investigators, they didn't have

anything really solid, that made you think,

the police got it wrong the first time, clearly.

It took a leap of faith to go,

she's really on to something here.

[Renee] What struck me was the injustice of the case.

And I think once I realized how unjust the results,

and the treatment and the system had been,

at that point, it was like, well, we have to solve this,

[Pooneh] During the trial, my dad said that

when he bought the gun, he fired it into the crawlspace

of our family home. He just wanted to get a feel for it.

I think that the police assumed that my dad was

making up this story, because who does that?

They didn't go looking for that bullet.

If they had, they would've had something

to compare with the one found at the crime scene.

[Gil] One inch to the right.

That's it. Mark the stake right there.

My name is Gil, and I built Pooneh Gray's house.

Let's put the elevations in now.

For me, it seemed quite believable that her father

fired his gun, um, in a crawlspace to check the gun.

So, Pooneh asked me to go to the house and take a look.

For a lead bullet, you should get number around 13, between,

12 and 15.

I contacted a geophysicist.

[beeping]

[laughs] Another nail.

[Pooneh] I hoped they would find it,

but I wasn't so sure if they would

It's been over 30 years.

Picking up something.

Finding this bullet became a very big deal.

If we can find it, we can determine, once and for all,

was that bullet out in the parking lot

really from Mike Entezari's gun?

-[beeping] -[intense music]

[Gil] Holy shit.

[man] Found it? Looks like you found it.

[Gil] It's a bullet.

We found it, we found it. It's all documented.

[Pooneh over phone] You're fucking kidding me!

[Gil] It's documented, and it's in good shape

-[man] Isn't that neat? -[Pooneh] Holy shit!

[Renee] Now, we have something to compare

to the homicide bullet.

And here's the thing, it looks nothing like the bullet

found at the crime scene