Original subtitles

This is a level of sadism

and cruelty you rarely see,

even in the murder industry.

That poor man suffered terribly.

A cold-blooded attack in broad daylight.

He looked like a candle that had melted.

Everybody was incredulous that something like

this could happen in good old

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

Who douses somebody with sulfuric acid?

A victim adored by almost everyone.

Somebody wanted to send him a very severe message.

He's wanted by the FBI.

Listen, I was in his face,

and he just denied it and denied it and denied it.

The truth will be revealed.

Everybody wanted to save his own skin,

and they often say it's a race to the courthouse.

Whoever gets there first, gets the best deal.

Every day in North America,

dozens of people are murdered.

The key to solving the toughest of these homicides lies

in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.

To crack the case,

detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,

the minutes and hours containing evidence

that can help unlock the mystery

and catch the killer.

South Florida is a magnet for sun seekers and retirees

who want to spend their golden years on golden beaches,

and among the most popular is

the tiny enclave of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

It is a throwback,

probably 20, 25 years from

the rest of the area of the beach.

It has older motels,

it's accessible to people who maybe aren't rich,

and it has a real sort of homey feel to it.

A lot of people who live in the northeast or Canada

and other places... They come here on vacation,

they fall in love with the place, and they move back.

And we just tend to get a...

An eclectic collection of people.

In Lauderdale-by-the-Sea,

you don't hear about a lot of violent crime.

It would be just mainly property crimes,

maybe some burglaries.

For the town to have a homicide,

it's very, very uncommon.

But on sunday July 9, 2000,

lauderdale-by-the sea's peace and tranquility

is rocked by a sinister act of violence.

It's a bright, sunny day.

Um, it's, you know, the kind of afternoon where

people are getting their errands done

or they're getting ready for the week ahead.

So it was about 3:20 in the afternoon.

The victim was in the supermarket parking lot.

He's loading groceries into the trunk of his car,

and a man runs up to him

and then throws a cooler full of liquid all over the victim...

And then runs away.

The victim is in extreme pain.

He is yelling.

He is in extreme distress.

He ran back into the grocery store.

They tried rinsing him with water.

His body was covered in burns.

He looked like a candle that had melted.

He is flown to a burn center in Miami.

He's placed into a medically induced coma,

and he never comes to again.

The victim is 63-year-old rudi houda,

a retired air force captain who managed an oceanside

resort in the town.

It was just so bizarre to think that somebody in

rudi houda's life had a grudge against him.

He was well-liked.

He was known for being friendly to everybody.

He was known as a very conscientious worker.

He was always out puttering around, cleaning things up,

talking to the guests.

He had a little dog that was well-known called schatzi,

and they used to walk around the area.

People knew them.

The people who mourned him must have been devastated,

knowing how horrible this crime was.

Tasked with solving

rudi's vicious murder is veteran

homicide detective Eli thomasevich.

Mr. Houda was doused with the sulfuric acid.

The acid, once it starts

eating through your body, through your skin,

it starts attacking your organs.

I worked many homicides,

and I've been witness to many autopsies.

This was one of the worst.

That poor man had probably suffered terribly.

As reporters, we're accustomed to murders

that involve guns and knives,

and beatings and, you know, fights that get out of control.

But acid takes it to a whole different level.

Regardless of motive, this is a level of sadism

and cruelty that, fortunately,

you rarely see even in the murder industry...

And even in south Florida.

It was such a horrible murder

that I was determined

we were gonna find whoever did this,

at least to find out why.

To catch the killer, detective thomasevich

will need to piece together

the final 24 hours of rudi's life.

Speaking with his wife,

it was just a normal day.

He was working around the complex,

and I think it was about three o'clock in the afternoon

when his wife sent him out to do some shopping.

We got surveillance videos from the grocery store,

which really didn't help much,

because most of the videos were

from the inside of the store,

and that was when Mr. Houda ran into

the bathroom and was dousing himself with water.

So as far as the suspect themselves,

we really didn't have any video on them.

I spoke to two eyewitnesses.

They said that around 3 P.M., Mr. Houda

went into the supermarket to do his shopping.

When he came out, it was around 3:22.

He went to put his groceries into the car,

and that's when a white pickup truck came along.

A white male came out with a cooler.

The witness said it was an igloo cooler,

like they use on construction sites.

This guy came up and called Mr. Houda's name...

Hey, rudi!

So he would turn around,

and then doused him with the, with the acid.

One of the witnesses,

she gave US a pretty good description.

White male, he was in his thirties,

he was six-foot-two.

He had no shirt on,

but he had white pants.

They were like painter's pants.

There was another person with him

who was driving the pickup truck,

but nobody could describe the driver,

you know, because he was in the...

He was in the vehicle.

Nobody really got a look at him.

Someone has driven to the scene, called out

the victim's name, attacked the victim

and only the victim, and then fled the scene.

This speaks to this whole thing being very organized,

very premeditated.

On top of that, not only is it organized

and premeditated, the weapon used reflects

a level of personal motivation

the way few other targeted attacks do.

But what would motivate such a barbaric attack

on a man as well-liked as rudi?

I thought maybe he might have been cheating,

because it was just the type of a crime

that whoever the suspect was wanted to cause pain.

It wasn't like, you know, you just want to kill somebody.

So we started looking at whether he had a girlfriend.

There was a husband some place that

was angry or something like that.

But according to Edith houda,

the wife, she had a perfect marriage.

They were very happy together.

So we went on to other things.

As detective thomasevich scours

rudi's background, he discovers

that rudi did have one potentially dangerous vice.

Mrs. Houda told US the only problem that they had

was that he would go to the racetrack,

and he would spend money at the racetrack,

and I guess he tried to hide whatever he was spending.

So when she told US about that, naturally,

we figured maybe he was borrowing money from

organized crime.

Maybe he owed bookmakers, you know, money from

his betting,

because somebody out there wanted to

send him a very severe message.

Rudi houda, a resort manager,

was the victim of a fatal acid attack.

To find his killer,

investigators look into rudi's gambling habit

as a possible lead.

People speculated that perhaps organized crime was involved,

because the crime was so horrific and so targeted.

It was something that was targeted

towards a very specific individual.

It didn't seem like maybe this was

gonna be randomly happening to other people.

We spoke to a few bookmakers in the area

that we knew existed.

Nobody really knew Mr. Houda.

You know, nobody really admitted

to seeing him at the racetrack.

Friends said, "yeah, he liked to go to the racetrack,"

but they didn't know of any

involvement with any of those organized crime type of people.

Ruling out a link to organized crime,

the investigation shifts to the resort rudi managed

and the possibility that someone connected

to his job had something to do with his murder.

In the field of victimology,

one of the things you always look at is

the victim's background.

Who they knew, where they've lived,

their lifestyle, but most importantly,

their occupation.

So that is where you're most likely to encounter

your adversaries,

where you're most likely to build relationships and also

make enemies.

Everybody thought he was a really, really nice guy.

I mean, he was pretty good to the people that worked

at the hotel.

Never found anybody that had a harsh word about him.

One of the resort's long-time employees

does reveal that there had previously been

acts of vandalism on the property.

At one point, um,

latex paint was thrown into

the swimming pool at the hotel,

motor engine oil was thrown into the pool.

And obviously, that caused a great deal of damage,

thousands of dollars worth of damage.

At another point, someone put some kind of chemical on

the bushes that had been planted.

So there was a lot of bad feeling and a lot of, kind of,

suspicion about what was going on.

We got copies of the police report,

and we also got copies of the video, because Mr. Houda

gave the videos to the police department at the time.

So we actually viewed the videos,

and it was people that were coming over the fence

and, you know, outsiders.

It wasn't people that lived there.

But unfortunately, you couldn't identify anybody.

The reports of vandalism are

a significant lead that investigators pursue further.

The police met with and talked to people from

the Lauderdale-by-the-Sea board of commissioners,

and they were the first ones who indicated to the police

that there was some animosity going on between

the apartments across the street and Mr. Houda's resort

pertaining to access to

the beach and visibility to the beach.

When we found out that there was problems

back and forth, we went back to speak with Mrs. Houda.

I said, "is there anybody that you can think of

that would have hard feelings towards your husband?"

She says, "the only thing I can think of is that condominium

across the street."

She said they used to argue over the fact that Mr. Houda

put up shrubs, and you couldn't see the ocean

or the beach area.

There had traditionally been some kind of agreement

between the owners of both sides that

they could all have access to each other's properties.

But apparently, over time, some bad feeling developed

between the properties,

and rudi apparently had gotten upset about some things

that were going on, and he had put up

some kind of fencing, planted some hedges.

And some of the people who lived in the condos across

the street felt they were losing access to the beach.

They had to walk farther to actually get onto the beach.

So there was some bad feeling.

But I mean,

who goes out and douses somebody with sulfuric acid,

all because of an argument over access to the beach?

To find out who was upset with rudi's

landscaping and maintenance,

police reach out to the president of the condominium

board across the street, Walter dendy.

Walter dendy is this gentleman who, at the time, was in

his sixties, and he ran the condos

that were across the street.

You know, whatever he said,

they did... he was like the big cheese in that condominium.

He's a respected member of the community.

He was involved in civic life in the town so,

you know, he was well-known in the area.

He seemed concerned about Mr. Houda,

and he seemed like a nice guy.

I asked him about a feud going on with Mr. Houda,

and he says, "no, not really."

He says, "you know, we've had a couple of cross words

with each other, but nothing serious."

And then he tells US the only people that were upset

was one or two older people that lived in the building.

They were senior citizens.

Investigators were able to confirm that

Walter dendy was actually at home at the time of the attack,

and so were the seniors.

Never mind the fact that crimes of this magnitude,

that are this horrifically violent,

tend to not be in the wheelhouse of

most senior citizens.

On top of that, consider the fact that witnesses also

described a much younger, taller male

as being the one responsible for throwing the acid.

Their initial canvass bringing up little for them

to go on, investigators appear to have hit a roadblock

in their search for information leading to rudi's attacker

and a motive.

It's frustrating, but,

listen, I've worked so many murder cases,

and we've had a lot of frustrating things go on,

and you just... You just keep plugging along.

When these murder cases happen, you're out there

sometimes for two days,

three days, before you ever see your house again.

But if you don't keep going,

you're not gonna solve a lot of these cases,

and we were gonna solve this one way or the other.

Hoping someone out there

knows something about rudi's murder,

investigators reach out to the public.

In any investigation like this,

where you're the police, and you're not completely sure

of the story that you have,

it's always advantageous to release some information to

the public, because you're likely

to find people who will come forward and fill in

some of those gaps.

We started to put out a lot of media coverage

as far as trying to get people to call in with any information,

and we started getting a lot of tips coming in.

Among the tips they receive,

one in particular is promising.

We finally got a tip that said

that the person that was involved with this

used to hang out at a bicycle shop

in Fort Lauderdale.

So, we went down to the bicycle shop.

We spoke to the worker there, John Alexander.

He really didn't want to give up much information.

Finally, the bike shop employee admits to owning

a white truck that matches the getaway vehicle.

The bike shop employee owned a white pickup truck.

When detectives realized this,

they became very interested, because the person who had

attacked Mr. Houda had escaped in a white pickup truck.

This was a very good lead for the detectives.

But there was a problem, because the bike shop employee

didn't match the description of

the person who actually carried out the attack,

but he could have been the driver of the truck.

Believing he could be the getaway driver

in rudi houda's murder,

investigators question John, the bike shop employee,

about his whereabouts the day of the fatal attack.

The investigators were starting to think

that this might be the best lead

they'd had in the investigation so far.

But when the detectives go and talk to

this gentleman who worked at the bike shop,

he tells them that he was working at

the bike store the whole day when Mr. Houda was attacked.

When we looked into it, John had an alibi.

It actually panned out.

We were convinced that he was not the driver.

Still suspicious of John,

detectives grill him on whether he loaned out

his truck around the time rudi houda was murdered.

At first, he denied that he lent his truck to anyone.

We explain to him that this was a murder case,

and that if he insisted upon holding back information,

he was gonna be charged as an accessory,

because his truck was the truck that was used

to commit this crime.

John finally admits to lending his truck to a friend,

Luke leaky, in early July,

the day rudi was killed.

John was friends with Luke leaky.

John said he was a massage therapist, and he had

a card from Luke leaky that had his massage therapist

license on it.

Then he gave US some information

about a girlfriend that he had.

He gave US the name of her condo where she lived.

So we went to speak with her.

But when investigators arrive

at the home of Luke leaky's girlfriend, effie.

They make a surprising discovery.

The detectives thought it was a little odd,

because she was considerably older than the suspect

that they were looking at, um, it seemed like

a little bit of an unusual relationship

in speaking to this lady,

the detectives learn that she was a vulnerable person,

and he took advantage of that to pay her attention

and to ingratiate himself into her life and into her home.

Effie tells US, "you know, he's just a nice guy,

"he takes care of me.

He helps me with..." Driving her places

and doing things for her.

Effie told the cops

that he had gone off.

She wasn't really quite sure where he was.

He had disappeared pretty recently,

and the detectives certainly seemed to think

it was a red flag.

When I spoke to her, the last time she had seen him was

probably like a week or two weeks before.

But she was also holding back on information.

She was making it, "he's just a friend.

I don't know too much about him."

And then we started realizing there was more involved with her

than she was admitting.

Detective thomasevich puts effie on the back burner

for now and follows up on Luke leaky

through the business card John gave him.

We checked with the state of Florida.

The license number on that card was fictitious.

You know, they had no record

of anybody being licensed with that number.

So all we knew was that he's a liar.

This Luke leaky was sort of a shadowy character that sort of

existed nowhere and everywhere in

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

Then we started looking

into his background with his name.

Detective thomasevich finds an address

for Luke leaky in Orlando, Florida,

and his first real suspect seems to be within grasp.

They track this guy down to Orlando, thinking

that this was the person they were looking for,

but when they knock on the guy's door, he tells them,

"I've been a victim of identity theft,

"and this guy has, like, been using my name.

"I've lost money over this.

I've just been put through a whole nightmare."

That poor guy had all kinds of problems

financially. He had problems with his mortgage,

he had problems with his house because the other Luke leaky

was making all kinds of loans

and credit cards and everything else.

The guy was telling them the truth,

that he had been victimized.

They were able to get a photograph of

this Luke leaky person,

and when they went back to show it to the people who had

seen the assailant throw the acid,

that was not the person they were able to identify.

From that, they were very much able to

remove the real Luke leaky as the possible assailant.

When investigators lean on effie

for more information about her boyfriend,

she coughs up a description of a 40-something guy,

five-foot-eleven, with a lean build.

You know, he wasn't a 35-year-old and six-foot-two.

He didn't fit the description of the person

that threw the acid.

When the description of the mystery man doesn't square

with Luke leaky, we have to

then question what role did he have?

For instance, could he have been the getaway driver?

From effie,

they found out that the person posing as Luke leaky

had done some work for a motel down the street.

Detective thomasevich meets the owner of the motel,

hoping he'll have information leading to the mystery conman

claiming to be Luke leaky.

The manager hired Luke leaky to take care

of the pool and do the maintenance around there,

but that's all that he knew about him.

As the investigation appears to be

hitting another wall,

detective thomasevich makes a coincidental observation.

The owner's son, Brett,

generally resembled the description of what

the assailant looked like, and that led

the police to believe that Brett was involved somehow,

that he was the person who threw the acid.

He fit the description to a tee.

He was in his thirties, six-foot-two,

same type of, you know, physical build.

So we take his photograph,

and we put it into a photographic lineup.

Now we have two witnesses.

One said he wasn't sure.

He says he thinks that it was him,

but didn't give US a definite I.D.

The girl who saw the incident

picks him out as the suspect, so we arrest Brett.

We take him in, bring him down to the jail.

We interviewed him I don't know how many hours.

They pressed him really hard.

One of the detectives said,

"listen, I was in his face asking if he was

"rudi's assailant,

and he just denied it and denied it and denied it."

His only alibi was that he was working

at the hotel, but, you know,

we couldn't confirm it at the time.

After repeatedly denying any involvement

in rudi's murder, detectives escalate Brett's interrogation.

Very often, the police will say, "well",

"would you take a polygraph test?" And if the person

will not, that is just something else to give them

a suspicion that maybe this person has something to hide.

But in this case, Brett affirmatively wanted to

take a polygraph.

He says, "I didn't do this.

I wasn't involved. I'll take a polygraph."

And as soon as he said that, we said, "okay."

You know, when somebody offers to take a polygraph,

we go right along with it.

But even under the pressure of a polygraph,

Brett continues to stick to his story.

What made this very shocking was that he still

just denied it and denied it and denied it,

and then he didn't pass.

Detective thomasevich has zeroed in on Brett neider,

the son of a motel owner, as the prime suspect

in rudi houda's murder.

He matches the description of the man who

threw the acid, and he's failed a polygraph.

By this time, we go into the live lineup,

and as we're doing a live lineup, I see the witness,

the female, she picks Brett out of the lineup,

but she's very tentative, she says,

"yeah, that's him,"

and then she walks out of the room.

So I follow her, and I said, "so the person that you picked,

"are you sure that he's the person that you saw

"at this... you know,

when this crime was committed?" She says, "no,

I don't think it's him."

Eyewitness testimony is sometimes not very reliable.

We know that you need to build a stronger case,

because people think that they actually do see things

that maybe have not occurred, or remember details that are,

in fact, not the case.

So caution is warranted.

But I think this case was just so unfathomable,

so incredulous, that, you know,

sometimes mistakes get made or we're forced to really

re-examine our evidence and challenge

our own assumptions or else we can quickly

come to conclusions that aren't founded.

Despite the polygraph results,

the eyewitness's inability to make a positive in-person

I.d. Of rudi's attacker means investigators have

to let Brett go.

As a police officer, as a detective,

the last thing I would ever want to do

is lock somebody up

that doesn't deserve to be arrested.

It's a horror.

To me, that would be the worst scenario.

There was a lot of pressure

on the detectives to solve the case,

so there was certainly great public interest in

making sure that whoever did this was brought to justice.

But nobody wanted to rush to justice.

They wanted to be sure that they got the right people

and that the right people went to prison

for... for what they had done.

Determined to find justice for rudi,

detective thomasevich knows the key to cracking the case

lies in finding the man posing as Luke leaky.

Looking for answers,

he hauls John, the bike shop employee, in for questioning.

Basically, we had to threaten him

that he was gonna go to jail,

because we knew that it was his truck.

You know, he admitted that he loaned his truck to

Luke leaky, but he still gave US

a very hard time as far as giving US information.

So we actually locked him up as an accessory,

and that's when he started to realize

that he had to come clean with US.

These situations are always like playing poker

with somebody,

and you've got to give police the leeway to

um, be a little bit forceful, play their hand,

to see what they're gonna get.

And in this case, it turned out to be a good hand for them.

John was forthcoming with more information.

And then he tells US that he found clothing.

He described the painter pants,

and he said that it looked like

something had eaten through the material,

which was the acid.

Then he also found the igloo cooler.

But John has thrown away

all the physical evidence he found.

I think he realized that he'd a mistake,

and I think he just wanted to get...

Get away from it as far as he could.

John does tell detectives that the man who is

presenting himself as Luke leaky

has a car at his girlfriend, effie's place.

We spoke to the security there,

and they knew he was not a resident there,

but he had his car down in the garage.

So security takes US to the car

down in the garage,

and we have the forensic unit come down,

and they lifted prints

off of the outside of the car.

The prints came back to

Emilio charafardin..

He has a history of being arrested.

He's wanted by the FBI, he was involved in

some kind of attempt to break someone out of a jail in

the past, um,

so, the investigators are very interested when they start to

figure out that this guy is linked into all of

this somehow.

Investigators are confident that the man

posing as Luke leaky is actually Emilio charafardin..

Now they just have to find him.

The detectives went back to effie, and she identified him

as the person she knew as Luke leaky.

But she was somewhat reluctant to believe that

this person in her life could be a criminal.

There was still some element of her trying to protect him.

We sat and explained to her all the information that we had,

all the people that he's hurt.

She finally realized that this was not a person

that she wanted to, you know, defend,

and then she finally started telling US

all the information that we needed to know.

She gave US his cellphone number,

and we got a warrant for that number

so we could track it, and we tracked

that cellphone right across the United States.

We knew exactly where Emilio charafardin. Was

at certain times and then he finally stopped

in palm Springs, California.

So we got on the phone, called the palm Springs

police department,

sent them fliers with his, you know, photo

and other information,

and we said, "he's somewhere in your city."

And palm Springs put it on the local news there.

Investigators catch a break

when the people Emilio charafardin.

Is staying with see the news report.

When these two guys saw it, they said,

"that's the guy that's staying with US."

They picked up the phone and called palm Springs police.

When palm Springs police department got there,

they must have surrounded the place, because it was

a homicide investigation.

Somebody goes to the front door, and they put somebody at

the back door just in case that person tries to escape.

Emilio ran out the back, and he was caught

when he was running out of the back door.

With Emilio charafardin. In custody,

detective thomasevich interrogates him about

rudi's murder.

He was a little cocky in the beginning,

and I said to him,

I says, "Emilio, you don't have to say a word.

You have the right to remain silent."

They gave him his Miranda rights.

I said, "just listen to what I have to tell you."

Investigators have Emilio's cellphone records,

which place him making a call in the area of the supermarket

at 3:24 P.M.,

around the time of rudi's attack.

And I told him all about the information,

all about the evidence, and he didn't say a word.

He just sat there listening and looking at me.

And he said, "wow, you guys are good."

He says, "you did a good job."

He says, "okay. I'll tell you the truth."

Detective thomasevich has Emilio charafardin.

In his crosshairs and is hoping to

learn the truth about rudi houda's murder.

Emilio was trying to save his own skin,

and he was in other trouble,

so he was looking at, um,

possibly being convicted of other crimes.

So it seemed like he was trying

to get the best deal for himself,

and they often say it's a race to the courthouse.

Whoever gets there first and volunteers the most information

gets the best deal.

Emilio tells detective thomasevich

he was just the getaway driver

and that rudi's attacker is Emilio's friend, Neal bross.

Neal was a painter,

and he used to wear white painter's outfit,

just like the guy that was in the parking lot

who doused Mr. Houda with the sulfuric acid.

Mr. Charafardin. Told him that he was asked by somebody

to do this, and that he agreed to be the getaway driver,

and he enlisted his friend, Neal bross,

to actually throw the acid.

Detectives have two suspects

with the means and opportunity,

but they're still without a motive as to why Neal bross

and Emilio charafardin. Would

want to conspire to murder rudi.

Their motive seemed to be to make money.

Neal thought he was gonna make $200,000 with a bonus thrown in

if he could get the acid into the eyes of the victim.

And Emilio thought he was gonna make about $20,000

to set up the deal and be the getaway driver.

And then, as it turns out, that's when Emilio charafardin.

Named the mastermind of the entire crime.

Emilio said that the mastermind behind this whole

barbaric plan was Walter dendy,

the president of the local condo association.

Walter and rudi had been at loggerheads over rudi's

decision to restrict access to the beach path

and to plant a row of hedges that obstructed

Walter's condo complex's ocean view.

I was surprised... We did a background check

on Walter dendy when we originally spoke with him.

Man's never been in trouble,

worked his whole life, retired.

It was hard to believe that a man like him

would be involved with an incident like this.

What would push a law-abiding senior citizen

who is an upstanding member of the community

to orchestrate such a vicious attack in

response to a property feud?

Walter is somebody who is sensitive to perceived

slights and affronts.

He wants to regain the beach access because it makes

him look good in the eyes

of the people he represents as the condo association.

If he can't provide that, it means people at this condo

need to walk the same access as the rest of the public,

and this is something that, if you're a narcissistic

individual, would be really

awful and off-putting towards you.

But the more he struggles to solve this problem,

it's almost like this narcissistic wound continues to

fester to the point that he just gets so aggrieved,

he's going to resort to a plan to take

care of rudi or send him a message for good.

Emilio tells detective thomasevich

that Walter dendy found out he was on the run

using a false name and leveraged this information

to blackmail Emilio into participating in the feud.

Walter dendy wanted to cause enough damage

where Mr. Houda would lose his job.

So this way, they wouldn't be arguing over bushes

and the lock on the gate and all that.

Walter dendy hired Emilio

to throw the oil into the pool.

Walter dendy hired him to kill

the bushes after the bushes were put in place.

And then he said that Walter dendy wanted to

hire him to send Mr. Houda a very severe message

with the acid.

Emilio charafardin. Tells detectives he enlisted

Neal bross to throw the acid,

and that Walter dendy promised to pay them both

for the attack.

But charafardin.'S also a conman,

and detective thomasevich needs more than hearsay to

prove his case.

When the police confront Emilio,

he tells them he has proof about his story.

He says he and Walter actually went to the industrial supply

store together on July 7th and bought

the sulfuric acid together.

A woman sold a barrel of sulfuric acid

to two gentlemen

matching the description of Emilio charafardin.

And Walter dendy.

She was able to give the descriptions,

and then she was able to pick them out of

photographic lineups.

Getting the sulfuric acid was a big deal because

that was clear evidence that Mr. Dendy was involved.

With Emilio charafardin.'S cooperation,

investigators are able to put together

the final 24 hours of rudi houda's life.

The day when Mr. Houda was attacked,

all three gentlemen, Mr. Dendy, Mr. Charafardin.,

and Mr. Bross got together.

They all hung out at the condo,

and they kind of staked out

Mr. Houda, they watched to see what he was doing.

They kind of wanted to get him,

apparently, away from the hotel resort.

So they spent quite a few hours just hanging out,

stalking him.

At 3 P.M.,

when rudi went out to the supermarket,

Emilio and Neal tailed him in the white truck.

They kept in contact with Mr. Dendy,

up until the point where they got to

the supermarket, and then there was a space in time

where there were no phone calls.

Mr. Houda went into

the local supermarket to pick up some groceries,

and when he came out, Neal bross runs up to him,

yells his name out, hey, rudi!

And when rudi turned around,

he threw this gallon-sized cooler full of acid...

all over him.

And that's when Neal bross got back

into the truck and left with Emilio charafardin.

Driving the white pickup truck at 3:24.

And as far as we can determine,

that's when phone calls were made

from Emilio charafardin. To Walter dendy

saying that, "the eagle has landed,"

which meant that their job was completed.

It doesn't get much more horrible

than an acid-throwing attack

that ends up with someone being burned.

How does Walter go from wanting access

to the beach to being this planned, cold,

calculated mastermind of this brutal attack?

If you trace back the offense far enough,

you'll see that this person was angry,

then they were ruminating to the point of just brooding.

So it becomes all-consuming.

On February 26, 2003, Walter dendy

is convicted of second-degree murder.

Emilio charafardin. Is also

convicted of second-degree murder.

Neal bross is convicted of murder in the third degree.

What has stuck with me probably the most

is the evil in Walter dendy.

There was just nothing about him

that you would find likable or redeeming.

I have seen people who lack the empathy gene,

meaning that they really don't care what they do.

I have seen people who have acted out of passion.

But something so cold and calculated,

I don't think I've ever seen it before.

I always thought it was one of my worst cases.

I mean, I've had bad cases.

This stands out... everybody got what they deserved,

especially Walter dendy.

He was the worst.

He was the one that contracted the whole situation.

He was the one that caused the whole thing.

I think the thing that really sticks out

about this case is just how petty,

petty disputes can blow out

of proportion and just how tragic it all is.

Rudi suffered terribly.

His wife suffered terribly.

She didn't get to say goodbye to him.

His children were not able to say goodbye.

And for the people who know that their loved one died

in such horrible and painful circumstances,

you hope they get to go on with their lives,

but I don't know that anybody ever

gets to close these things out.