Original subtitles

You can almost describe it as an ambush.

I feel so bad for my granddaughter.

For 11 years, she had her daddy,

and she knew true, unfiltered love.

Based on what I was seeing in the video,

we may have captured our murderer.

Within seconds,

Albuquerque police officers arrive on the scene.

Arriving on the scene,

you really don't know what you're getting into.

Kind of makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

You know that you're going into something really serious.

And I activated my cameras just to capture anything

that we might run into.

As soon as we entered the house, I looked to my right,

and I see a Christmas tree and a bike,

realizing that this is somebody's kid

that is probably not gonna get this present.

As soon as we turned to our left,

we could see the feet of somebody

that was laying on the floor.

You could see that his neck was cut from basically ear to ear.

It kind of throws you for a loop.

There's a million things going through your mind

at that second, and I felt at this point

that definitely we had a homicide...

...and that we were about to start a big process

of trying to figure out how this occurred.

Outside, one of the women

identifies herself as the 911 caller

and tells officer Riley the victim's name is Don fluitt.

Kind of hits home a little bit more,

with knowing that he had a daughter,

knowing that she's not gonna basically have her dad anymore.

The state that they're in, I can truly understand

why they would be like this.

This is something that you're not supposed to see.

So you just try to calm them and reassure them

that we're gonna figure this out.

Within minutes, fire and rescue arrive

and determine time of death is within the past 24 hours.

Crime-scene techs now search the scene for clues.

Albuquerque police detective Matt caplan arrives

and learns everything he can about the victim.

Don was a very passionate person.

His relationship with his daughter,

which was very close, a very tight-knit relationship...

They would feed the homeless on sundays.

It didn't appear Don did anything

to really stoke the anger of anybody.

After taking a look around the scene,

detective caplan rules out robbery as a motive

for Don fluitt's murder.

Because there didn't appear to be any obvious signs

of forced entry, our first thought is always,

"is this person related to Don? Does Don know the offender?"

Everything seemed to be in its place --

Don's wallet, everything was found in the house.

All tvs were in place.

His cellphone was found in the house.

So it was important to collect that phone

and really start getting as much data as possible.

We wanted to see who he contacted most recently,

throughout the night.

We wanted to see if he was having any problems or arguments

with anybody, whether it's over text message

or through phone calls.

Detectives also collect blood evidence

they believe is a surefire sign of a struggle.

And hopefully, that altercation with the offender

is enough that DNA traces are left behind on the victim.

One of the first things that we asked for

from the pathologist

was to please, please, please get those fingernail clippings

so we can try to get a lab analysis done on them

as soon as possible.

It could be days or even weeks

before detective caplan gets results back from the lab.

In the meantime, he calls Don's mother in California

to tell her her son has been murdered.

In some respects, it sort of makes you emotional.

You do take it personally,

and it's a very difficult thing to do.

I just lost it, and...

I went running down the hallway...

...screaming and crying.

I'd just lost my daughter 18 days before.

I lost my youngest daughter 19 years ago.

I don't know what I did wrong.

I got to take a minute. I'm sorry.

My neighbor's garage door is open...

While the fluitt family grieves,

detectives expand their investigation

into Don's neighborhood.

Detectives talk with Don's next-door neighbor,

who has two security cameras.

One that sort of looked at the driveway of her residence

and captured a portion of Don fluitt's driveway.

The other one's at her door.

The video evidence from the neighbor

becomes extremely important.

Because a portion of the driveway is captured

for Don fluitt, we can see when Don's leaving,

when he's coming, and potentially anybody else

that may be walking up or parking in that driveway.

Later that evening, detective caplan speaks

with Don's ex-wife and his 10-year-old daughter

about the hours leading up to the murder.

We knew that Don's ex-wife and daughter

had been told what had happened.

It was a lead that, in our minds, couldn't wait.

The typical custody exchange between Don and his ex-wife

usually occurs at 7:00 P.M.

The exchange was pushed back to 8:00 P.M.,

so this sort of established a time frame for US.

The ex-wife had no explanation

as to who may have done this to Don.

What I was able to get from both daughter and ex-wife

was an ongoing custody dispute

that's been happening for quite some time.

There was the new husband, Terry,

that was involved with the ex-wife.

There had been some early tension between Don and Terry.

To me, that tells me it's gonna be

a very complicated investigation.

54-year-old Don fluitt has been found murdered

in his own home just four days after Christmas.

He did love Christmas.

He would start in July

getting his Christmas stuff ready for Christmas,

knowing his daughter absolutely adored Christmas, too.

I feel so bad for my granddaughter now

because for 11 years, she had her daddy

and the Christmas holidays,

and she knew true, unfiltered love.

From the second she was born, it was a love affair.

And as she got a little older, it was more of a love affair.

It was, I think, what every girl would want from her father.

She was totally a daddy's girl,

and he was totally his daughter's daddy.

They were a match made in heaven.

Now, almost 24 hours after discovering Don's body,

investigators turn to his ex-wife's new husband,

a man named Terry white.

When I finish my interview

with the ex-wife and the daughter,

it's clear to me that I'm going to need to interview

Terry, the new husband.

One, there's an ongoing custody dispute,

and, two, there has been some tension between

Don and Terry in the past.

The initial impression was, he was calm,

was very open with US about what he had done

and what he was doing,

was very open to letting US take DNA,

giving US his work or cellphone records.

I didn't have any reason

not to believe Terry, the new husband.

So, as we're awaiting the surveillance video

from the neighbor, as we're awaiting data

from Don's cellphone,

we're still obtaining information from people.

Detectives also speak with Terry's boss.

We wanted to establish Terry's alibi.

We asked them to provide US with surveillance footage

of Terry white coming and going

as he was clocking in and getting ready for his shift.

When we request that type of information to confirm or refute

someone's alibi, if that person's alibi is confirmed,

we can cross their name off a list.

If that alibi is refuted by this physical evidence

that we've recovered, that's a different story.

While police study the surveillance video

looking for clues,

Don's friends and family gather to say goodbye to Don

and mourn his death.

His mom requested an open casket,

so we got to see him for the first time,

and we could tell that he had been brutally attacked.

That was hard to see.

You realized a little more about what he had gone through.

The last time I spoke to him was at 7:30,

before he took his daughter to her mother's,

and then the last time I saw him was in the casket.

And I wanted to jump in the grave with him.

I thought, "I can't do this again."

Mothers aren't supposed to Bury their children.

It doesn't go away.

It doesn't go away. It doesn't get easier.

Detectives next turn to Don's phone,

found at the crime scene.

We do what's called a forensic analysis of the phone

because we want to see, obviously,

if Don's having any arguments with anybody,

if someone was visiting him that night we didn't know about.

So, during the course of looking at this data,

what we notice right away is that Don appears to have

a very friendly relationship with an individual.

We reach out to her to establish what the relationship was.

There seemed to be some reluctance to speak with US,

and it's hard as an investigator,

especially when you're talking to someone for the first time

to sort of Gauge the reason for that.

So, during the course of our conversation

with this individual,

we had been given information of, sort of,

maybe a conflict between Benny, the landlord, and Don fluitt

during their relationship as tenant and landlord.

Police note to follow up on the landlord,

but who the woman points to next is jarring --

Don's own brother, Dennis.

She had found that odd

because Dennis just showed up out of the blue,

and now, Dennis was very involved in Don's affairs

since he's been deceased, dealing with the townhome,

the property that Don left behind.

Detectives now have to consider that a family feud

might be at the center of this crime.

I was furious.

How dare they think that my other son

would hurt his brother?

Not a chance in hell.

Almost a month after Don fluitt was discovered

murdered in his Albuquerque, new Mexico, home,

detectives are zeroing in on people closest to him.

We're still obtaining information from people,

and Dennis, Don fluitt's brother,

sort of came onto our radar.

As information came in about Dennis

and sort of that re-emergence of a relationship

that didn't appear to exist until Don's homicide,

it prompted US to take a look at Dennis

as a potential person of interest

in this investigation.

Detective caplan questions Dennis fluitt

about his relationship with his brother.

Dennis -- when we started speaking to him,

his frustration was very evident from the get-go.

He had believed the investigation had stalled.

He thought that US looking at him was a waste of time.

Dennis was called in, thinking that he was a suspect

because him and Don hadn't spoken in a few years.

I don't care if they hadn't spoken in 20 years.

If one of them needed the other one,

they were there.

And I was furious.

How dare they think that my other son

would hurt his brother?

I know, you always have to go to the family.

Do you want to come out and interview me, too?

Am I a suspect?

I could've put a hit out on my son.

What I typically try to do,

without tipping my hat or my cards,

is really explain to them that a thorough investigation

requires a full elimination of everybody involved,

and that if you feel like this is a waste of time,

I understand that, but more importantly

is that we do everything in our power to show not only,

"this is who did it," but we can say,

"this is for sure who didn't do it."

As detectives collect Dennis' DNA,

he suggests someone else who had an issue with Don,

and it's a name they've heard before --

his landlord, Benny ruiz.

So, there were multiple things

that prompted US to want to question Benny

and take his physical evidence.

One was Don's female friend, and Dennis' suspicions of Benny.

Almost a month after Don's murder,

Benny arrives at the police station.

When Benny is done providing DNA samples,

detective caplan presses him about Don's townhouse.

In the course of my discussion with Benny,

he answered questions that we asked of him.

What did sort of stand out for US

was that Benny did state that there was some money issues

creating maybe some animosity between landlord and tenant.

All of these things sort of, to US, gave US an idea

that maybe there was some more conflict between Benny and Don.

But just when detectives are seriously considering

Benny's motive for murder, he turns the tables.

I believe it was even described

that Dennis was wearing some of Don's clothes,

which was very unusual.

It's a very strange thing to hear about,

so it sort of raised that level of suspicion for Benny

and, frankly, for US, as well.

Like Benny, this isn't the first time

Dennis' name has come up in the investigation.

So, we have, at this point in the investigation,

two really strong people of interest, Dennis and Benny,

who are pointing the finger at one another,

describing very odd or unusual behavior --

living in a townhome, wearing clothes,

a relationship that's suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

So it's very unusual,

and we can't eliminate them from the investigation.

So, once we've collected physical evidence from Benny

and we've collected physical evidence from Dennis,

our process is to start looking at all the evidence

that's been accumulated and start seeing

where we can go for leads

while we await DNA or any physical evidence

that came from the scene to be processed.

And that search for evidence leads to an important clue.

So, we had asked Don's neighbor

to provide US with the surveillance video,

so that took a little bit of time.

Once we got that, there was a huge swath of video

that we had to start reviewing

'cause we didn't know when Don was murdered.

And sort of two things happened at once.

We're reviewing the video,

and the neighbor's also going through the video, as well.

And I recall very distinctly --

I believe it was 5, 6 o'clock in the evening.

I'm home, and this neighbor calls me,

and she's very excited, and she says,

"there's something you need to see on the video."

Police investigating Don fluitt's murder

have their eye on two men --

Don's landlord, Benny ruiz;

and his own brother, Dennis fluitt.

And they're hoping the surveillance video

from Don's next-door neighbor has caught the killer on camera.

When you start looking at the video of the time frame

in conjunction with the night of the homicide

after Don fluitt and his daughter returned

from California...

We knew Don left for the custody exchange at about 8 o'clock.

You see the garage come up -- comes up very smooth.

You see brake lights come on and Don's white pickup truck

pull out of the driveway and then leave.

The garage comes down.

It's quiet for a few minutes.

And that's when you see this figure.

You can see this figure in a hoodie.

You see him dump a trash can over

that's being picked up the next morning

into the street

and then walk back into the shadows.

A few minutes after that, Don returns.

You see his truck pull into the driveway.

The garage comes up. He pulls in.

After a few minutes, Don -- you can see him

stepping out of the garage,

walking to the trash can, picking it up,

and then walking back into the garage.

Now the garage starts closing,

and we know this 'cause the shadow starts shortening.

And it looks like it's before it actually hits the ground,

the garage comes back up...

...and then you see a series of flashes.

Then the garage comes back down.

Based on what I was seeing in the video,

we may have captured our murderer at that point.

So detectives caplan and hsu decide to do a test.

Detective hsu and I return to Don's townhome,

and we started manipulating the garage door...

...and see if we can have that garage flash

the same amount of times that we saw in the video.

And the only way that we were able to get

that same number of flashes

was to trip the garage-door sensor as it was coming down.

We were very confident

as to how the individual got inside the townhome.

We saw sort of the ruse this person used

to lay down the trash can and sneaking into the garage

after Don's return back into the garage.

But without a solid suspect,

the case stalls,

and Don's family wonders if his murderer will ever be caught.

It was horrible.

I would call detective caplan if there was anything I heard

or anything I learned or questions that I had.

He was so kind. He was so patient.

And he would tell me,

"please, sharron, just try to be patient."

Police have been painstakingly reviewing

the alibis of everyone they've interviewed,

and one story isn't checking out.

It's the alibi of the other guy in Don's life -- Terry white.

The surveillance footage that we got

from Terry white's workplace,

it contradicted Terry white's alibi.

He had told detective caplan that he had arrived at work,

and he had taken a long nap.

The surveillance footage obviously showed

there wasn't a 30- or 45-minute nap.

It was him parking his truck,

getting out, and going straight to the office.

So we knew that we had to talk to him again about his alibi.

Detectives bring Terry in

for a follow-up interview.

Initially, he had told US he had gone to a fast food restaurant

and then driven to the parking lot, where he fell asleep.

This time around, it was much different.

He had gone to a fast food restaurant.

He had also gone to a department store to buy clothing.

Then he had gone to the work,

but instead of parking in the parking lot,

which he intimated the first time he talked to US,

he went to a very dark-lit, unrelated business

and fell asleep there.

He just failed to mention it the first time around.

So his story had changed fairly substantially

from the first time we interviewed him.

The change in Terry's story is not enough for an arrest,

so after taking a DNA sample, they must release him.

It was during this time that our DNA lab called,

said, "hey, we've got DNA results for you."

Your excitement level sort of goes up,

because you could tell in the analyst's voice

that there's something there.

And the analyst said, "well, it's a match."

Detective caplan gets Don's mother on the phone.

After three months of grueling investigative work,

detective caplan finally knows who killed Don fluitt.

It was Terry, and I knew it.

I was screaming and yelling

and jumping up and down in my house,

and I called every number I had to tell them,

"he did it. Terry did it."

Now detective caplan can start piecing together

what really happened that night.

The surveillance video was extremely important

because that outlined the time frame

that Terry had snuck into the garage.

We saw sort of the ruse he used,

to lay down the trash can, sneaking into the garage.

You can almost describe it as an ambush of Don at this point.

When you start fitting that into the alibi that Terry gave US,

he had talked about going to a fast food place.

But more importantly, in that second interview with him,

he had talked about going to a department store

and buying clothing.

All of this combined starts filling in those holes

that we didn't know before.

Albuquerque police move in to arrest Terry,

but he's disappeared.

So, the best thing that we can do as an investigator

is to flag the warrant.

The arrest warrant is a national warrant.

It can pick him up anywhere in the United States.

One day later, there's a hit on the warrant.

Navajo county sheriff's deputies find his truck and arrest him.

Detective caplan is notified,

and he and detective hsu head to navajo county, Arizona.

But Terry refuses to speak to them.

Although Terry isn't talking to detectives,

he is talking with someone else.

An inmate at the county jail says

he has rock-solid information

about what happened the night Don fluitt was murdered.

We made contact with Terry's cellmate,

and he told US that Terry admitted to the murder.

Terry had told the cellmate that he knew Don to be a smoker.

He also intimated that Don doesn't smoke in the house,

because he knows that his daughter doesn't like smoking.

So he had come back into the garage,

I would assume, to smoke a cigarette.

That's when the ambush happened.

After a three-day trial,

Terry white is found guilty of murdering Don fluitt

and on August 16, 2018, is sentenced to life plus 12 years.

Now Don's family can only speculate

as to why Terry murdered Don.

Don was taking his ex-wife back to court.

Terry stood up in court when the judge asked him

what he thought or what he wanted,

and he said, "what I want is Don gone.

What we want is Don gone.

We want that little girl to be our family."

Such a waste. All because of jealousy.

At his sentencing, Terry maintains his innocence

and refuses to apologize to the fluitt family.

I have always said I was innocent,

and will continue to say so.

No, I will not be apologizing to the fluitt family

for a murder I did not commit.

I just sort of smiled, and I thought,

"I don't want your apology."

I was truly happy he said that

because there's nothing that he can give me.

He's already taken away part of my life.

How do I feel now?

I miss him every day of my life,

every hour, every minute.

I miss my phone calls from him.

I miss his funny, silly, crazy little jokes.

He's so funny. He was so funny.

The hardest word is the word "was,"

and I always catch myself saying "is."

But it isn't -- it's "was."

It's a really difficult word.

I miss him.