Original subtitles

This is the story of a millionaire doctor...

Adam got pockets

and pockets full of money every time I see him.

...and his supermodel wife.

Gorgeous, tall woman,

just had a presence.

Their beautiful baby

is destined for stardom.

My god, she's just a gorgeous, baby, honestly.

She's like a Princess.

Everybody is going bonkers.

Until tragedy strikes.

This looks like a drowning. It looks like an accident.

But truth is love's first casualty...

...when what you see

is not what you get.

It's June 2012, and in Tallahassee, Florida,

guests arrive for the party of the year

for one-year-old hyrah frasch.

This is no ordinary kid's party.

This was the birthday party of all birthday parties.

Everything was gold and sparkly and ornate,

and it was just opulence.

That's hyrah's mom, Samira.

She's been planning this party for months,

and there's been no expense spared.

Samira's husband, Adam frasch, is all too happy to

foot the bill for his daughter's

birthday extravaganza.

Hyrah was a daddy's girl, you know, he did dote on her.

Hyrah was his little Princess.

These are hardly amateur home videos.

The family has employed a professional videographer,

Joel silver, to capture young hyrah's life.

They are certain she is destined for greatness.

It was definitely a strange request, but I said,

"let's do it, because I need to see this."

And it's clear Samira and baby hyrah share

a close and loving bond.

Samira just absolutely loved hyrah.

Hyrah was her favorite thing that she had ever,

ever created or done,

so she had so much joy with this baby.

She said, "I want to share

this beautiful baby with the world."

-Hyrah. -Hyrah!

Since march, Joel has been filming

the jet-setting family on their travels.

The frasches want little hyrah to become a celebrity,

and having a camera crew in tow seems to be doing

the trick.

My god... Samira said, you know,

"we're traveling around -- everywhere we go,

"everybody wants to see hyrah.

Everybody wants to meet hyrah."

My god, she's just a gorgeous baby.

Honestly, she's like a Princess, she has everything.

She's gorgeous.

Wherever they go, the frasch family

tries to create the maximum stir.

People are turning their heads, people are watching.

People are -- want to see what's happening.

People are coming up to see hyrah, and everybody is --

you know, really, they're absolutely going bonkers.

The crowd would just go wild, because they would

all want to know, who is she?

Who is this -- who was her mother? Who is this baby?

Mom Samira's life story

reads like a movie script.

Born in Madagascar, Samira was a pop star

in her home country.

In her twenties, she moved to France

with dreams of becoming a supermodel.

In 2008, she met Adam frasch in a parisian nightclub.

Despite the language barrier,

the millionaire doctor made his intentions clear.

They fell in love, I think instantly -- Adams said,

"I want to marry you.

"I wanna be with you for the rest of my life.

Come live with me, and let's start our life together."

Adam's money offers Samira

a life of security and luxury.

He's a podiatrist with a multimillion-dollar practice

near his hometown of Tallahassee, Florida.

Adam had a very, very successful practice.

Money is no object.

It's a fun lifestyle to live.

Samira quits her modeling career

and moves to Florida to live with Adam.

In 2009, the couple marry in a lavish ceremony in Las Vegas.

Two years later, baby hyrah arrives to complete the family.

It was the picture of happiness and a brand-new family.

Joel silver is now filming the family's every move,

joining them on five-star vacations around the country.

Hyrah has no fear of the water,

unlike mom, who can't swim.

But filming the frasch family isn't just

about capturing happy memories on camera.

Samira has always paid her own way in life,

and sees a chance to live

the American dream and help support her family.

Samira wanted to build almost like a lifestyle brand, um,

around her daughter.

It might look crazy on camera,

but Samira's enthusiasm sweeps everyone along.

Samira knew how to create a buzz around it,

and so I loved watching that.

And I felt that she had an amazing knack

for, um, drumming up interest in a brand.

Samira has a vision --

to start a luxury clothing line for babies

and sell it through hyrah's very own website, hyrah.Com.

With her flair for fashion and hyrah's angelic looks,

Samira plans to create a kids' fashion empire.

She was determined to make this project successful.

She wanted people all over to know hyrah.

And if there's anybody who was gonna do it, you know,

Samira had so much energy, so much passion,

and she had the resources to make it happen.

Samira's husband, Adam,

knows how over-the-top this whole thing seems,

but he's happy to play along.

Adam's trying to support her and fund it,

and we're trying to make her dreams come true.

Okay.

Hyrah.com seems like a brilliant

business idea for the viral video era,

and Samira's hard work

is starting to pay off.

I'm especially noticing that hyrah's

YouTube videos and her social media presence was building.

On a shopping trip to Vegas,

Samira makes sure Joel features

the names of high-end luxury brands.

We started to talk to some different folks in terms of

productions and companies and networks to -- just to see,

you know, where the end would possibly take US.

They film hyrah getting into a limo

in front of the hotel.

Where are they going?

Doesn't matter -- it's all about showing off the ride.

From Vegas to New York City, little hyrah's making waves,

seeing the crowd's reaction to her,

because it was as if she was already a celebrity.

So at this point, everything is going

full steam ahead.

And hyrah isn't the only one grabbing attention.

When Samira married Adam and started the family,

she put her career ambitions on hold.

Now she's getting another shot at stardom.

She's started songwriting again and is

shooting her own music videos, financed by Adam.

I think Samira loved the -- the glitz

and the glamour and the cameras and all that.

If you have the resources to try

to achieve your dreams, and you can do it,

then why not?

The frasch family are living

Samira's American dream.

Everybody is really just on an all-time high.

What I didn't know was the next chapter

of the book was really gonna change.

There's the little falls over there, look.

In the spring of 2012, the frasch family is busy

building an online following

for their baby daughter hyrah's website.

But living a life on camera while also running

a busy podiatry practice is beginning to take

its toll on Adam.

I think Adam wanted to be there.

I think he wanted to support his wife,

but I think he was sort of...

Losing a little bit of interest.

It's little wonder Adam is exhausted.

While he works hard for his money,

he also likes to play hard... yow!

...and one of his favorite places

to let loose is Vegas with best buddy,

Kendall Lindsey.

He never slept unless he's actually flying or driving.

And when he wakes up, he's, like, nonstop.

He's running the whole time.

And he'd stay up in Vegas all night.

The trips to Vegas give Adam a break

from Samira's nonstop filming schedule.

Adam got pockets and pockets full of money.

Every time I see him, he's never without money,

and he didn't mind sharing it.

As the months progress, Adam spends

more time away from his family.

Things were starting to change a little bit,

and started to be less of

a full family unit working on this,

and it was -- it was just more of hyrah and Samira.

When Adam is back home,

the couple's relationship is tense.

The fighting started to happen.

They started to have disagreements,

and they weren't always getting along anymore.

The cracks in the marriage

are spilling into the footage film

for hyrah.Com.

Some of the arguments would be over very mundane things.

And both of them were very passionate, though,

and they always -- when they had their positions,

they wanted to stick to it.

Despite the tensions, by August 2012,

Samira is pregnant again.

She hopes the second child might bring her closer to Adam.

But he has no interest in playing happy families.

I got it. I got it.

Every weekend, he's out with his buddies.

Samira was hurting a lot,

because she missed her family.

She missed home.

She had essentially given that up

to move to america with Adam.

In a bid to save their marriage,

Samira tries to keep Adam on a shorter leash.

He came to play golf.

It was a four-day package with room and board and everything.

He came to play golf one day with US,

and she never let him come back.

I said, "man, you need to stand up for yourself.

You know, don't take all that stuff."

Kendall doesn't like the way

Samira is treating his friend.

Figuring out what kind of person she really was,

because he really wanted to have fun with the guys and stuff,

but he did whatever she said.

Sometimes you tell yourself what you want to hear,

and you believe it, and you live it,

and I think that's what happened in that relationship.

But Adam and Samira aren't willing

to give up on their marriage.

On April 13, 2013, the frasch family

welcomed their second daughter into the world.

For a while, baby skynnah unites her parents.

But the peace doesn't last long.

So you're really not gonna come? Why?

-I'm not going anywhere. - There was arguments,

and they were living sometimes in different houses

and taking breaks from each other,

and all sorts of terrible things happening in this marriage.

One night, in August 2013, Samira

discovers explicit texts on Adam's phone.

Thanks, honey.

She got upset, and she attacked him.

Adam presses charges for battery.

He also files an injunction against Samira

and applies for temporary custody of their daughters.

Yeah, police please.

I think they were just really starting to

just come apart.

To Samira's devastation,

Adam wins temporary custody of the girls.

When I saw her, she was deathly thin.

She couldn't hardly sleep. She couldn't hardly eat.

And she kept saying, "he's trying to destroy me."

But Samira isn't going down without a fight.

She reaches out to lawyer, Anabelle dias.

From the first time I met Samira,

she wanted to talk to a French-speaking attorney,

because law enforcement

had basically assisted Adam in removing her children

from the home, and if you want

to make sure that Samira goes insane, you took her kids.

Thank you for seeing me so soon.

With Anabelle's help, Samira wins back

temporary custody.

She was just so happy and whole to have them back,

and she did not let those babies out of her sight.

She also begins divorce proceedings.

Adam moves out to his beach house in Panama City,

and the relationship looks finished.

Samira started being the Samira that we know again.

She started putting on makeup, getting dressed,

you know, going out -- she was very happy.

She had her house back. She had her life back.

But as Samira makes plans for her new future,

a chastened Adam decides to try and repair the rift

on a grand scale.

Samira had so many text messages from Adam.

I mean, it was really hard to keep up.

Adam's texts and phone calls go unanswered,

but he's not giving up on the love of his life.

February 22, 2014.

In Tallahassee, Florida, maintenance man

Gerald gardner rises for work at the golden eagle

gated community, home to Adam and Samira frasch.

Aw, man.

Okay.

Emergency services arrive at the frasch household.

Police seal off the property, while in the backyard,

it's clear to emts that Samira is beyond help.

Detectives will need to determine if Samira's death

was a dreadful accident,

a suicide, or something more sinister.

Jason newlin is assigned as

an investigator for the state attorney's office.

There was just a robe laying on the side of the pool.

Then, a glittery sandal tucked

beneath the hose pipe, catches his eye.

It looks like she's tripped.

It looks like she fell.

She's in the bottom of the pool.

She can't swim. She's drowned.

It looks like an accident.

But investigator newlin isn't convinced.

You start looking at it a little bit closer,

and this sandal is a -- it's not a closed toe,

but it's a looped toe sandal.

It's not something that just falls off your foot.

Investigator newlin heads inside.

There's cats. There's lions.

There's cheetahs. There's sculptures.

I mean, I really can't even explain this house to you.

The property is packed with valuables.

If somebody wanted to steal something

from this residence, the supply was endless.

And yet, there's no evidence of a robbery.

Nothing stood out to you as

somebody broke in here, killed somebody,

and stole a bunch of items.

Detectives hope maintenance man Gerald gardner

can shed some light on Samira frasch's death.

You know, if you listen to the 911 call,

Gerald immediately can tell you she was murdered.

She didn't jump in that pool.

What makes you say this?

How do you know this much about her?

A detective takes Gerald aside for an interview.

He reveals he spoke to Samira the previous evening.

Suspicious of Gerald's account,

detectives pull footage from the security camera

covering the entrance to the frasches' gated community.

It shows Gerald arriving for work at 10:51 A.M.,

just like he said.

You can see him get out of the car.

And you can see him make phone calls.

You can see him hitting the buttons

and waiting for somebody to let him in.

And eventually, he was able to get in.

Gerald's call to 911 came just nine minutes later.

It'd been very difficult for him to have committed

a homicide in that short amount of time.

Everything Gerald has told police checks out.

He is ruled out of the investigation.

Detectives are no closer to discovering how Samira died.

And with no sign of her two young children,

fears are growing for their safety.

Police put out an Amber alert for hyrah and skynnah frasch.

You have to prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

And so, our ultimate goal was to find these two children,

hopefully alive.

At home in Tallahassee, Kendall Lindsey

hears the news.

I call Adam

right away, and he answered.

I said, "hey, man,

you hear what's going on around your house?"

He said, "no, what's going on?"

I said, "man..."

I said, "they said they found your wife

in the pool, drowned."

And he just got quiet for a while,

and I heard the baby say, "daddy, why are you crying?"

It seems the girls are safe with Adam

at his beach house in Panama City.

Adam assures Kendall that he'll head back

to Tallahassee immediately.

But before he can set off, police reach him.

Law enforcement located Adam

with the children in Panama City,

and Adam asked the question,

"is my wife okay?"

The officers confirmed

that Samira was found dead that morning.

As the husband of the deceased,

he'll need to answer a few questions.

Adam tells detectives

the marriage was back on track.

He had been over to the house a lot these past few weeks.

Adam explains he'd spent the previous day with

Samira and the girls running errands.

But when they got home late in the evening,

Samira started drinking.

Adam explains that Samira

was finding it tough looking after the girls alone

and asked him to take them out the next day.

When they left home at 8 A.M.,

Samira was asleep in bed.

Detectives check security video against Adam's account.

It shows Adam leaving his home with the girls at around 8 A.M.

There's nothing out of the ordinary.

You can see Adam, and you can see Adam's red shirt,

and as the car pulls through, there's nothing suspicious.

Everything in Adam's account matches the cctv.

But his lack of emotion raises questions.

A lack of emotion doesn't equal hard evidence.

Capple people react a lot of different ways,

so you can't really draw a lot of conclusions from the way

a person reacts to a traumatic situation.

While investigators check out Adam frasch's story,

his best friend, Kendall Lindsey,

also gets a call from the sheriff's department.

One of the situations that kind of was in the background

of all this was Adam's best friend Kendall Lindsey

and Samira didn't get along, either.

Kendall is open with the detective

about his frosty relationship with Samira.

I wanted to be straightforward with this guy.

No, I didn't like her. I didn't like her at all.

He's also asked to come to the station

for an interview, and what he's about

to tell detectives will put him firmly in the spotlight.

If you really want to make yourself a suspect,

interview like Kendall Lindsey.

Wannabe social media star, Samira frasch,

has always been a larger-than-life character.

But just two years after these videos were filmed,

Samira is dead.

Her husband Adam's best friend, Kendall Lindsey,

is being questioned about his relationship with Samira.

He doesn't hold back revealing the bad blood between them.

So... he didn't try to sugarcoat it

and say, "we had a good friendship."

He's like, "I hated her, and she hated me."

Kendall reveals Samira called him

the previous day and accused him of stealing.

He saved the voicemail she left for him.

The explosive voicemail is clear evidence

of animosity between the two,

but Kendall has an alibi.

Detectives check out Kendall's story.

They could find no evidence that he stole from Samira,

and his alibi is rock solid.

We were able to alibi Kendall out being at work,

and his phone records put him far away from the scene.

With another suspect ruled out of the investigation,

police request the medical examiner's report

on Samira's death.

It reveals that Samira suffered blunt force trauma

to the head

before she drowned in the pool.

She had multiple impacts, one on the left side of

her head and then one on the right side of her head,

inconsistent with her having tripped

and fallen and bumped her head.

Her death couldn't have been accidental.

If you trip and fall and bump your head,

you're not gonna bump both sides of your head.

Toxicology tests also show that Samira

had zero alcohol in her body.

But that's not what Adam told police.

You know, wait a minute, Adam said

she was drunk, and she wasn't drunk.

So you've got to start looking closer at Adam again.

Adam told police he and Samira

were trying to save their marriage.

But texts and photos extracted from Adam's phone

reveal something different.

He was involved with at least three other women.

We learned that Adam had a type.

And I when I say "a type,"

it is almost eerie to line up photos of his girlfriends.

An athletic build,

rather tall African-American females.

The case against Adam frasch

is mounting by the minute.

Right now, this case is looking

pretty straightforward.

And then, out of nowhere,

a neighbor in golden eagle reaches out to law enforcement.

He claims to have seen someone outside

the frasch residence on the morning of Samira's death.

The neighbor indicated that at approximately 10:25

to 10:45 A.M.,

so just about 20, 30 minutes prior to her body being

discovered, that he observed a woman meeting

the description of Mrs. Frasch loading something into

a black SUV in the driveway of the frasch residence.

The neighbor's statement sends

the investigation into a tailspin.

The description we had of this female in the driveway

fit the victim to a "t."

But it fit one of the girlfriends he had in Miami.

It fit one of the girlfriends he had

in fort walton beach.

It fit every girl he was

running around with at the time.

And if the female was Samira,

it means Adam couldn't have killed her.

He was seen on cctv

leaving the neighborhood several hours earlier.

Investigators pull all available surveillance cameras,

hoping to identify the mystery female.

We went through hours.

We went through every single black SUV that pulled

out of that neighborhood, identified that person,

interviewed them,

and none of them matched the description.

None of them were black females.

None of them had anything to do with this case.

Police conclude that the woman on the driveway

was indeed Samira frasch,

but the neighbor got the date wrong.

It wasn't the day of the murder.

Okay.

It means Adam frasch is once again the prime suspect.

And the trawl through surveillance video has

uncovered new footage

of Adam and Samira returning to the house

on the night before she was found dead.

You see Mr. Frasch exit his vehicle.

He appears to be helping her get into the neighborhood

or possibly she's not wanting to open the gate,

because she doesn't want him to follow her in.

He opens the door, and she kind of slams it closed.

It contradicts Adam's claim

that he and Samira were getting along great that evening.

I think the surveillance is pretty clear

that they're involved in some type of argument.

That certainly doesn't mean that, you know,

he murdered her.

Police analyze Samira's cellphone,

but no one is prepared for what they're about to find...

...of Adam apparently trying to run Samira off the road.

At bay county sheriff's office,

alarmed detectives lean on Adam frasch.

They press him on the events leading to his wife's death.

During Adam's interview, he goes,

"I hope she didn't trip over the hose."

What do you mean tripped over the hose?

How do you -- how do you know the hose was in the pool?

How do you know her sandal was under the hose?

I thought you left.

In Tallahassee, Florida,

Dr. Adam frasch claims he had nothing

to do with his wife's mysterious death.

But multiple inconsistencies in his story

arouse suspicion.

Things like Mr. Frasch lying about the alcohol consumption.

Things like him anticipating

the hose tripping and falling defense

are things that begin to add up.

Adam's claim that Samira asked him to look

after their children on the day she died

also strikes prosecutors as implausible.

All of the interviews that we conducted with her family

and friends, as well as

reviewing the court documents, all indicated that

there was no way she would ever allow

Mr. Frasch to take the kids anywhere without her.

Prosecutors lack the concrete proof

needed to charge Adam with murder.

There was no DNA, no smoking gun that could

definitively prove that Mr. Frasch was the one that

committed the crime.

And medical examiners struggle to determine

when Samira died.

Capple submersion in the cold water

interferes with the cooling of the body.

Ultimately, we were never able to prove

the time of death for Mrs. Frasch.

But detectives decide the circumstantial evidence

against Adam frasch is enough for an arrest.

When you start to put it all together,

the big picture is a very convincing

and compelling one of his guilt.

On November 7, 2014,

Adam frasch is arrested and charged

with first-degree murder.

Three years later, in January 2017,

the case comes to court.

Adam pleads not guilty.

I felt very confident at all times that Mr. Frasch was

the killer,

but I was always very concerned about my ability to

successfully prosecute the case and get the conviction.

At the trial, prosecutors maintained there was

never any reconciliation between Adam and Samira.

Samira had successfully filed for divorce and was about to be

awarded the marital home,

full custody of the children, and alimony.

She had even gotten a court order

prohibiting Adam from their property.

Things were really going her way,

and I think that shift in power is what made Adam frasch

go off the deep end and really escalated this situation to

where it became violent, dangerous, and deadly.

Prosecutors lay out what they believe

really happened the night Samira died.

On the evening of February 21, 2014, Adam somehow

talked his way back into staying at the house.

Adam had the ability to buy his way out of

a lot of problems, and he always wound up

on top with money.

This was the first time Adam was losing.

I don't exactly know what to say.

At some point in the evening,

the couple had another explosive argument,

and Adam lashed out.

This is over!

Adam struck Samira on the side of the face with an object,

and she didn't get up.

Samira was unconscious but still alive,

so Adam threw her in the pool to drown...

...and to remove any trace of his DNA.

Instead of calling 911 and getting somebody

to come help her,

he took the alternative.

He finished it.

Afterwards,

Adam placed Samira's sandal under the hose to make it

look like she tripped and fell.

Just before 8 A.M.,

he bundled the sleeping girls into his car

and fled the scene.

On January 26, 2017,

Adam frasch is found guilty of first-degree murder

and is handed a life sentence.

When I saw the news that Adam

had been convicted of her murder. I wept.

I was shocked and relieved,

and all I could do was just cry.

Samira had dreamed of the perfect family

and the perfect life.

I can only -- only hope

to run into someone that reminds me of her,

with all of her fabulousness and opulence and glory.

A woman driven by hope for her children.

I hope, you know, one day,

you know, her kids will be able to see,

you know, how much their mother loved them.

This was supposed to be the American dream.

This was like a picture-perfect family,

and it was destroyed by the one person

who was supposed to protect them all.