Original subtitles

NARRATOR: At 2:11 a.m., Soho House guests complain of a water leak

coming from the room of Sylvie Cachay and Nicholas Brooks.

BUSH: At 2:18, Nick is seen leaving the room.

NARRATOR: After receiving more complaints about the water leak,

Soho House employees decide to investigate.

- Staff at Soho House go up to the room.

They go inside, and they find Sylvie

in the bathtub,

submerged in water.

NARRATOR: Sylvie Cachay was dead.

[dramatic music plays]

REPORTER: Cachay's body was discovered yesterday

in a New York City hotel room.

- Everyone was really shaken by this sudden tragedy.

- They first think that it's a suicide or accidental drowning

because there was a half-empty bottle of pills that were found

next to the bathtub.

- The Soho House call the police, and they arrive on the scene.

By the time Nick comes back,

police are everywhere,

and he starts acting as if he doesn't know what's happening.

REPORTER: All day, police have been questioning the man

who was in the hotel with her.

Published reports identify him as 26-year-old Nicholas Brooks.

- He tries to tell the police that, you know, um,

Sylvie had taken too many pills and she was out of it.

- Nick tells police that when he left the room,

Sylvie was already asleep.

But when investigators take a look

at the security camera footage, they see Nick

going in and out of room 20

several times before he left for the final time.

AZARI: He's pacing up and down the hallway and biting his nails.

It's really, really odd behavior.

NARRATOR: What's more, the leaking from the bathtub

started before Nick even left the hotel.

Sylvie's body was taken to the coroner's for an autopsy,

the results of which would reveal the truth.

Sylvie's cause of death was from strangulation and drowning.

- Sylvie's lungs weighed twice the normal weight.

[dramatic music plays]

There were bite marks on Sylvie's hands.

They found bruises around her neck.

And they also found a cut in her lip.

REPORTER: Hey, Nick! Did you do it?

REPORTER 2: Did you kill Sylvie?

AZARI: On January 3, 2011,

Nicholas Brooks is charged with second-degree murder,

which is the killing of another human being

with malice aforethought.

The trial began on June 7, 2013,

and Nick was represented by his father's attorney.

PHILIPS: The trial was pretty damning for Nick.

There was a lot of evidence against him.

The e-mail where she says

that she's gonna call the police and tell them

that he stole all this money from her.

AZARI: The strongest pieces of evidence

for the prosecution consisted of the evidence

of the autopsy to put her in the tub alive.

In essence,

she was strangulated and that there was some choking

going on.

And Nick's defense was that she had a combination of medications

in her system that caused her to be out of it

and that she accidentally drowned.

[electronic music plays]

- The jury saw through that.

- After just three days of deliberation,

the jury came back with a guilty verdict for Nicholas Brooks

for second-degree murder.

[dramatic music plays]

PHILIPS: Nick Brooks is sentenced to

the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

CARROLL: Nicholas never had

and never develops any empathy for Sylvie.

- He's given the chance

to speak in court, and in front of Sylvie's family and friends, Nick says

he's the one who's suffering.

- I didn't see any remorse.

Uh, he didn't look at me or my husband.

He just was there.

- He didn't face us. He didn't care.

NARRATOR: Five months after Nicholas was arrested,

his father committed suicide before his own trial was complete,

never facing the 91 charges brought against him.

- For Nicholas and Joseph,

women are just as disposable as the dishes.

You take what you need from them, and then you just get rid of them.

I think that that attitude is unfortunately

far more pervasive than we'd like to admit.

NARRATOR: Nicholas continues to appeal his guilty verdict,

but Sylvie's voice was silenced.

CARROLL: So many women think it's their job

to fix their partner.

Even though Sylvie had been really successful,

and even though she was

a smart, capable woman with friends,

and was financially independent, she still was mistreated

by this man.

I think that a lot of women can relate

to this relationship.

If Sylvie was alive today, I think she would be

really successful.

Unfortunately, this relationship was the end of her life.

♪