All language subtitles for How.It.Really.Happened.S01E17_English

Woman: Jeane Palfrey has come
to be known

as the D.C. Madam.

And for those listening,
you owned and operated

a legal escort service
providing sexual fantasies.

Palfrey: I had a very
influential clientele

for a substantial period
of time, 13 years.

Woman: And the question begs,
who and/or what does

the United States government
believe Ms. Palfrey knows

to have gone after her
and her alone as they have?

Palfrey:
They think I know something
that's of some value to them.

I'm starting to I realize that
my life will never be the same.

This is, needless to say,
a life-altering experience

which will take me in directions

I never thought I would go
in this lifetime.

♪♪

♪♪

Hi, everyone. Welcome to
"How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

When Deborah Jeane Palfrey

was looking to start up
a high-class escort service,

she chose Washington, D.C.

It had everything
she was looking for,

high-powered men
with money to burn

and certain needs to be met.

It wasn't long before Palfrey,
known as the D.C. Madam,

had a thriving business
and influential clientele,

but when Federal Agents went
after her, Palfrey fought back,

threatening to reveal the names
of her powerful clients,

and then, in a shocking twist,
she was found dead.

Did she kill herself,
or was she murdered?

Was the D.C. Madam a woman
who knew too much?

What really happened?

Woman: Are you a madam?

Palfrey: I'm a business owner.

-You're a business owner.
Absolutely.

But everybody calls you
the D.C. Madam.

I'd prefer Washington Madam
or just Jeane.

The Washington Madam.

I was in business
for 13 years.

We went through two
Clinton administrations

and 1 1/2 Bush administrations.

The point is that the clientele

was very influential
and very powerful.

This is Washington, D.C.

You know, call me a snob,

but I think I had
the best agency in town.

It catered to the high
and the mighty, so to speak.

♪♪

Police in Florida say a woman
who apparently committed suicide

near Tampa today
is Deborah Jeane Palfrey,

the so-called D.C. Madam.

She was awaiting sentencing
after being convicted last month

of running a high-end
prostitution ring.

Zarella: Servicing some of
Washington's political elite.

But did she really
commit suicide

to avoid spending time
behind bars,

or was her death
something much more sinister?

Was it suicide or cold-blooded
murder staged as suicide?

Young: The victim
of an apparent suicide

by hanging has been identified
as Debra Jeane Palfrey

by her 76-year-old mother,
Blanche Palfrey.

Palfrey discovered her daughter
had apparently hung herself

using a nylon rope
from a metal beam

on the ceiling of the shed.

Reporter: What did her mother
do after she found her?

Did she try to...?

She immediately called 911.

She's 76 years old.

Getting her daughter down
would've been

almost impossible for her.

And I --

I just started screaming,
"Help me. Help me."

When I heard that she had
killed herself

and that they said
it was suicide,

I did not believe it.

I didn't believe it then,
and I don't believe it now.

The Debbie that I knew
in high school

would not have done that
to her elderly mother.

When Jeane Palfrey died,
a lot of people were suspicious,

and, in fact, many thought
maybe she'd been killed.

Grace:
Was Palfrey threatening to come
forward and name names

of D.C. power brokers in order
to get a lighter deal

for herself in court?

Was foul play involved
in the death

of the highly publicized
D.C. Madam?

Zarella: Pretty simple theory
that some are throwing around:

Deborah Palfrey may
have had the names

of D.C.'s elite politicians,

maybe still has the power
to take them down.

Kathleen Koch is following
this shocking story for us.

Kathleen,
what are you learning?

Well, Wolf, those who know her
are calling this a tragic end

for a woman
who all along maintained

she'd done nothing wrong.

I got to know Jeane Palfrey
incredibly well

in the last year
of her life,

and she was a very complicated,
layered person.

She was very empathetic.

She had quite a sense of humor.

And throughout
all our conversations,

her main concern was that she
had been unfairly singled out,

and she did not
understand why.

There were some 40 other
escort services

operating in
the District of Columbia

advertising
in the yellow pages,

and not one of them
was prosecuted contemporaneously

or in the 9 years since.

The Big $64,000 Question:
who knows what it is?

Was it --
did I have a black book?

Did they think I was really part

of some sort
of money-laundering scheme?

I just don't know.

I ran a very legitimate business
from day one.

It was very transparent.

I filed taxes.

I'm here talking to you on CNN.

I have nothing to hide.

I've never had anything to hide.

Augenstein: Jeane Palfrey
was always very emphatic

that the women
who were working for her

were not allowed
to break any laws.

In other words, Palfrey said
they weren't allowed

to have illegal sex
with their clients.

Sibley:
She originally had a little
contract her employees signed,

and one of the terms
that they had to initial was,

"individuals caught performing
illegal activities

of any nature
will be terminated."

In addition, no promises
or claims directly or indirectly

was ever made to a client

that he should expect
the associate

to perform
illegal acts for hire.

The only two things
that are considered

basically illegal
are prostitution,

intercourse of any kind
and oral sex.

Otherwise, everything is
absolutely legal

for all intents
and purposes.

Ward: Jeane was very, very clear

that she was not
selling prostitution.

She was selling what she called
a fantasy-escort service.

Palfrey: There are three types
of services

out there
in the adult escort world.

One is social service,
which is $50 to $100

an hour to accompany someone
to a function or a banquet.

The second is fantasy,
which is this in-between place

where I resided,
which was truly,

absolutely 100 percent sexual,
but it was not illegal sex.

The third is prostitution.

King: You were providing
the women, right?

You weren't one yourself,
or am I wrong?

No, that's correct.

I ran the business long-distance
from San Francisco,

the Bay area.

And were most of the clients
in Washington?

They were all in Washington
and some in Baltimore,

the Washington, D.C./Baltimore
corridor and surrounding areas.

Augenstein:
Jeane Palfrey's escort service

was called Pamela Martin
and Associates.

Palfrey: I promoted it
in the yellow pages

because, you know,
when I started back in 1993,

we didn't have the Internet.

We barely had cellphones
back then,

but mostly the yellow pages
and, of course, word of mouth.

I employed independent
contractors ages

23 to 25 years of age

and up to age 55 with 2 to 4
years of college education.

Many had graduate-school
educations.

Jeane Palfrey often
described the women

that she hired
as the Ann Taylor look.

Ward: Pantsuits, sensible
colors, sensible shoes,

little drop earrings.

She did the this
because it was very important

that they not stand out
in a hotel lobby.

Both the independent contractors
and the clientele were upscale

and came from the more
refined walks of life

here in the nation's capital.

Sibley:
Jeane was actually running
her operation from her house.

She ran it from
the laundry room

where she would answer
the phone and --

and book the clients
and the customers.

Ward: And then she would sit by
the phone in her basement

beside the washer and the dryer
and wait to do business.

That was how she did it.

Augenstein:
If a customer was looking
for some companionship,

he would dial a local number.

She had three different numbers,
a Maryland,

a Virginia
and a D.C. number.

They would all be forwarded
automatically

to her cellphone
in California.

Ward: She would answer.

She called herself Julia,
and she would ask them

very matter-of-factly
what they were looking for.

My God, I was on those phones
every night for 13 years.

Augenstein:
Jeane Palfrey would talk
with the man on the phone,

and she would find out
what he was interested in.

Then she would call an escort.

Sibley: Jeane would call
the woman and say,

"you have an appointment
at 7 o'clock, room 201

or this address,
someone's home or apartment."

Ward: The girls charged $300
for 90 minutes,

but they had to send half
of their "salary"

via mail order weekly
to Jeane in California.

Palfrey:
I did the best I could to keep
everything running smoothly.

I was the rock.

I was the one who was there
night after night.

That was really what my J-O-B
or my job description was.

Sibley:
For 13 years, she had operated
in the District of Columbia,

and not a single escort
had ever been hassled

or arrested or any way troubled
by any of the 20

or 30 different
police agencies in town.

But little did Jeane know
her life was about to change.

They were watching me
and surveilling me

for a very long period of time.

By the fall of 2006,
Jeane Palfrey had essentially

shut down
Pamela Martin and Associates.

Jeane had decided to retire
from the escort business

she'd been running
for 13 years.

Jeane was tired
with the business.

It had finally taken
her toll on her.

Do you have a husband
or partner?

No. No, I'm single.

So do you have children
or a...?

No, I have a mother
and sister.

Sibley: Jeane had always wanted
to move to Europe.

She had been exploring
moving to Berlin of all places

where the housing was elegant
and very inexpensive.

In fact, in October of 2006,

she was in Berlin exploring
housing options.

Ward: She wanted to buy
an apartment there.

She had found one she liked,

and she really wanted
to begin a new life

there far away from America.

I was off, you know,
pursuing what I thought

would be the rest of my life.

Sibley: She was in Germany
getting ready to fly back

when she got notice from one
of her brokerage firms saying,

"Your account
has been frozen."

Palfrey: I opened my
Charles Schwab account

to do a little day trading,
and I couldn't gain access.

Mm-Hmm.

And I explained
to the customer-service rep

my dilemma, and he put me on
hold for about 5 or 10 minutes

and came back 10 minutes later
and informed me that,

"Ma'am, your property
has been seized

by the United States
Department of Treasury.

I advise you
to get an attorney."

I'm 6,000 miles away
on another continent,

nine time zones difference.

I'm absolutely, I think,
having a nervous breakdown.

By this point, the government
had seized $1 million

worth of Palfrey's assets.

They used a legal tool
called Civil Asset Forfeiture.

Civil Forfeiture is, whenever
you have a criminal enterprise,

the government can go
after the money

that you've gotten as a result
of that enterprise,

seize it, convict you
and then take it.

And it started out
historically that it was part

of the RICO statute,

right, Racketeering Influenced
Corrupt Organization Act.

Augenstein:
Jeane Palfrey had no idea

that the government
had been watching her

and investigating her
and tracking her

for more than 2 years by then.

I had no idea
what was happening.

After I talked to
the Charles Schwab agent,

I found out that
the FED simultaneously

while I was making
the call to Schwab

were back in California
at 8 A.M. In the morning

raiding my house.

Sibley: Jeane's house
was on the market,

and as a result, two undercover
agents from the IRS

and the postal service
contacted her realtor and said,

"We'd like to the see the house.

We're interested in buying it."

On the 3rd of October, Tuesday,

they are calling
my real estate agent

trying to obtain entry
to my property.

The realtor wasn't able
to accommodate them,

and shortly thereafter,
the government went in

and got a search warrant
for the house.

The most significant thing
they seized in the search

was the applications
of 400 or 500 escorts

who worked for Jeane
during that 13-year period,

and what it gave
the government

was the identities
of those escorts.

They were hoping
to find the black book.

That was why they were
raiding Jeane's house.

They thought, "Great.

We're going to go
into her house.

She's going to have a list
of everybody

that ever was a customer,"
and they didn't find it.

Palfrey: Right then and there
confiscated every single asset

that I owned, bank accounts,
retirement accounts,

property, everything,
left me virtually penniless.

On October 4th, 2006,

a full 2 months
after the business

had been voluntarily
closed by me,

I came to learn I had been
the target of a 2-1/2-year

investigation by the
Internal Revenue Service.

This whole case started
with a civil case

against Jeane Palfrey.

The woman who thousands of men
may have feared

for what she knew they did that
they didn't want others to know.

Augenstein: And prosecutors were
using their leverage

that they had to say, "Look.

You better agree to this,

or we'll look
for stronger charges."

Palfrey:
I was told, unless I pled,

they were going to charge
with me RICO.

RICO is not applicable here.

Nonetheless,
this was their threat.

"You either plea, or we'll now

even do more
horrible things to you."

Sibley: What gave the government
the authority to proceed

in this matter was that Jeane
was using the U.S. Mails

to transfer money
the government believe

they could prove came
from criminal behavior,

so for example, if Jeane
had only operated in Maryland

and never had an escort
leave the state

and never sent money
out of the state,

the federal government
would not have had the ability

to charge her with anything.

Augenstein: Jeane Palfrey
was very hardheaded.

In her mind, she was walking
the line between what was legal

and what was not legal,

and she would be damned
if she was going

to give one penny
of her money to the government.

I told them at that point,
"Let's go. Let's go.

You're not getting one penny
of my life savings

and not 1 minute
of my liberty."

Sibley: Once Jeane said,
"No, I'm not settling

the Civil-Forfeiture case,"

the government proceeded
to indict her

on a range
of criminal charges.

They brought charges against her

for racketeering influenced
corrupt organization,

for money laundering,
for wire fraud

because the money was being sent
over the interstate wires.

This is money that came directly
out of the pockets

of some of Washington's
big power players.

Some of the customers
that used the service

were members
of the government,

were high-ranking
and powerful people.

This was the first time
that Federal prosecutors

in D.C. had ever prosecuted
anyone

in a prostitution-related case

using the RICO
or the racketeering laws,

so this was a very serious
crime that she faced.

Nobody in this country

who has run a
"benign escort service"

has ever been charged
with racketeering.

I mean, racketeering
is Tony Soprano territory.

Little more space.
It's just the phone is there.

Throughout all this,
Jeane Palfrey stuck to her line,

which was,
"I've done nothing wrong.

My business is legal.

It is not
a prostitution service.

It is a fantasy-sex service."

It seemed as if they were
charging me

with running
an escort service,

which I wholeheartedly admit
that I did run.

Mm-hmm.

The sticking point
is whether or not

it was an illegal sexual service
or a legal sexual service.

I'm prepared to take them on.

I hate to sound like
I'm Clint Eastwood or Rambo here

because I'm hardly either one.

I'm just an average,
ordinary person,

but I'm not going to let
these people get away with it.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey
was a fighter from day one.

I believe there is something
very, very rotten

at the core
of my circumstance.

I believe what motivated
that fight was that she knew

she had a secret weapon.

Augenstein: The phone numbers
of all the customers

that had ever
used the service.

Grace: Senators, think tank,
military strategists,

corporate CEOs, military --

Of course, little did they know
Jeane Palfrey

was going try
to track them down.

♪♪

In 2006, Federal agents raided
Jeane Palfrey's home,

and, I mean,
they took basically anything

they could find of value

except for some boxes
that were left in the basement.

♪♪

In those boxes was
the telephone number

of every single customer who had
called her during the 13 years

she had operated
the escort service.

Reporter: Remember she ran
a high-priced

prostitution ring that catered

to D.C.'s elite lawmakers,
politicians.

So Jeane Palfrey had
all of these numbers

of high-powered people
in D.C.

Now though she had to connect
names with those numbers.

Jeane thought that if she could

put some of her clients
on the stand,

they would be
very sympathetic to her

and that they would endorse
what she was saying,

which was that this was not
a prostitution racket.

This really was all
about massages and fantasy.

To go through those phone
numbers was a real undertaking.

We had no resources.

They actually gave
the phone records to ABC News

because apparently ABC had
the manpower they didn't,

so they could do
a reverse search

to figure out
who belonged to the numbers.

The decision ultimately was made
to hand over the records

to a responsible
media outlet,

in this case,
ABC News in New York.

I do expect their reporting
to help identify

potential witnesses
for my defense.

While ABC were plowing
through Jeane's phone records,

two high-level names in
government actually got leaked.

Two of the newsworthy names
were Randall Tobias

with the State Department
and Harlan Ullman,

who is a well-known
defense strategist.

Sanchez:
Ullman said the allegations
didn't merit a response.

Ward: Randall Tobias
admitted he had used

Pamela Martin,
Jeane's D.C. service,

but he said he'd only
ever had massages or a massage.

He completely denied
ever having illegal sex

but promptly resigned
from his position.

Friday's admission by Mr. Tobias
that he engaged

in legal activity
while a customer of my firm

supports my position all along

that I operated
a sexual albeit legal business

for 13 years
from 1993 to 2006.

As you may imagine,

while everyone
is waiting for ABC

to come out with their findings
from Jeane's phone records,

Washington goes
into turmoil, panic.

Who's going to be outed?

ABC's "20/20" is going to air

a special television event
tomorrow night

in which seven names on
the infamous D.C. Madam's list

is going to be revealed.

So we were very enthusiastic
before the broadcast

that we were going to we have
the people identified,

which would give us the position
to perhaps negotiate

a resolution
that Jeane could accept.

Then the show airs in May 2007.

There were no members
of Congress

that we could find
in these phone records,

no White House officials.

Quite frankly,
but for the few exceptions,

most of the men on this list
just aren't newsworthy.

All they listed was the type
or professions

of the individuals
using the service.

They didn't list
any specific names.

The "20/20" show actually
became such a big deal

for not saying anything
that it became a TV punch line.

Hey, John, boy,
close call this weekend.

I don't -- I don't know
what you're talking about
there.

Don't play coy with me,
Stewart.

The D.C. Madam list
comes out.

ABC News decides not
to name any names.

Pha-shew.

We really dodged a bullet there,
hey, buddy?

High five!

Stephen, there's --
I wasn't on that list.

Were you on that list?

No, course not.

But obviously Jeane Palfrey
and Blair Sibley

didn't find anything
to laugh about.

They were really dismayed.

Jeane and I were livid
and realized

that we could not
count on ABC News.

So then they decide
they're going to reach out

to an investigative journalist,

and they get in touch
with someone named Dan Moldea.

Sibley:
An investigator and someone
I knew and respected

that would also help us
find out who these people were.

Moldea: My memoir is called

"Confessions
of a Guerrilla Writer:

Adventures in the Jungles
of Crime,

Politics, and Journalism."

But I sat down at my desk
and at my computer,

and I ran searches, reverse
searches on each phone number

that I had in the records.

It was a very grueling process,

and I went through
hundreds of numbers.

I had to stop someplace
because it was

such a time-consuming process,
and so I decided arbitrarily

just to stop
February 27th, 2001.

On that the day,
in the phone records,

I saw a telephone number
I had not seen before.

I took the number.
I ran it through the database.

It came up David Vitter,

a Republican Senator
from Louisiana.

This gentleman
was a Christian right,

moral majority,
sanctity of marriage act.

Sibley: This guy was a classic
hypocrite.

So Dan alerted us fairly
shortly thereafter

that he had found Senator
David Vitter's name

repeatedly in the phone records.

We were gratified,
enthusiastic that

we had very high-level people
using the escort service.

Happening now, a senator
and his wife

come from the shadows
of the D.C. Madam scandal.

When David Vitter did
his press conference

where he essentially confessed,
I was not surprised.

I just, you know, I just assumed

he was going to try to get ahead
of the story somehow.

I want to again offer my deep,
sincere apologies to all those

I have let down and disappointed
with these actions from my past.

I am completely responsible,
and I'm so very, very sorry.

David Vitter, after he did
his mea culpa,

was able to keep
working on Capitol Hill.

He was reelected and --
and kept on with his job.

So of course what you had here

was the men able to get on
with their lives.

I mean, one might have had
to resign his job,

but they're still invited
for dinner.

Meantime, Jeane Palfrey
is fighting for her life

because she is about
to go to trial,

and if that trial
doesn't go her way,

there's a good chance
she's going to prison.

I'm facing perhaps
the remainder of my life

in a federal penitentiary.

This is not
a misdemeanor crime

by any stretch
of the imagination.

Welcome back to
"How It Really Happened."

Deborah Jeane Palfrey
was working against the odds

to find clients
who'd testify on her behalf

and say they were not paying
for sex with these women.

Federal prosecutors,
meanwhile,

were tracking down
her former escorts

to take the stand
and say their clients did,

and Jeane Palfrey's future
was hanging in the balance.

♪♪

In the spring of 2008,

Jeane Palfrey's trial
got underway.

The whole Jeane Palfrey story
was one of a woman

who supposedly had rich

and powerful customers
in Washington.

People are coming forward.

People have reached out
to the defense

with helpful information.

So understandably it came
as a big surprise

when Jeane Palfrey's attorney

didn't call
a single former client,

not one, to testify
that they hadn't had sex

with Palfrey's escorts.

Sibley: The reason I believe
Preston Burton

didn't pursue that defense

is that he honestly believed
he had a very good shot

at creating reasonable doubt
as to whether Jeane knew

that sex was going on
between her escorts

and the customers
that were contacting her.

Defense strategy was,
Jeane was willfully blind

to what was going on between
the customers and her escorts.

Ward: The prosecutors'
biggest weapon

was that they had
all these women

who had worked
for Jeane Palfrey

who were prepared
to testify against her.

Augenstein:
These escorts came into court,
most of them unwillingly

but with immunity
from the prosecution

and told what happened
when they worked as escorts

for Jeane Palfrey.

The escorts testified that
Jeane Palfrey called them.

They had sex.

They got paid.

They sent a portion of that
money back to Jeane Palfrey

via money order,
and that was basically the story

that was repeated
by the escorts that came in.

One was asked how often
she ended up

having sex with a client.

She said 90 percent of the time.

But what Jeane had up her sleeve

were the contracts that all
of her employees had to sign.

Palfrey:
Each subcontractor signed
a legally binding contract

at the onset of employment
stating she would not,

among other things,
engage in illegal behavior

while employed at Pamela Martin
and Associates.

On cross-examination,
Palfrey's defense attorney

questioned some of the escorts
about breaking those contracts.

I thought the defense
did a pretty good job

of raising the possibility

that she just sent
these escorts to these meetings,

and they did what they wanted
with the customers.

I thought that the defense
raised the possibility

that she would get off.

But in the end, it became clear
to the court that,

yes, Palfrey's escorts did have
illegal sex with her clients,

and she knew about it.

One of them even went so far
as to saying, "I asked Jeane,

'Who provides the condoms?

Will the client have
the condoms?'

And she said, 'No,
you need to bring them.'"

These are fairly
damning things for Jeane.

When the trial wrapped up,
it didn't take long for the jury

to decide Jeane Palfrey's fate.

Jeane Palfrey was found guilty

of all the criminal charges
against her.

She ran a high-Priced
escort service in Washington,

and now the so-called
D.C. Madam is paying for it.

Deborah Jeane Palfrey was
convicted on all counts today

connected to that
escort service

which catered to
the rich and powerful.

Guilty of racketeering,
mail fraud and money laundering.

Nobody else in Washington, D.C.,
has been targeted,

none of the other agencies,

none of the other
independents.

It was only me.

The verdict was understandably
devastating for Palfrey,

but there was still
a chance for an appeal.

Sibley: I had been brought back
in to work on the appeal,

and we had some very
strong appellate issues.

I was very confident that that
conviction would be overturned,

so I was actually
working with her

and talking to her
on a daily basis about

what we were doing and trying
to give her good upbeat news

and the whole nine yards.

Even though Jeane Palfrey
faced about 55 years,

the conventional wisdom

was that she would only
serve about 6 years.

♪♪

At approximately 11:01 A.M.,
Tarpon Springs Fire Rescue

have pronounced
Debra Jeane Palfrey deceased.

Are there any questions?

So there actually were
a lot of questions.

Police did say that
Palfrey committed suicide,

but that didn't stop people
from suspecting foul play.

There was widespread speculation
that she harbored some secrets

about some very powerful
people here in Washington.

♪♪

♪♪

Man: The body
of Deborah Jeane Palfrey

was found by her mother

in a small storage shed
outside her mobile home.

Woman: She was found hanged
yesterday at her mother's home,

and investigators say they have
no doubt it was a suicide.

Deep: When I heard the news
and really fully digested

the news that Jeane
had committed suicide,

it was nothing but shock,
sympathy, profound sadness.

Man: She was found hanging
from a nylon cord

in her mother's backyard shed.

Blozik: I was listening
to the news on my TV.

I just, like, stopped.

I just couldn't believe it.

Woman: Police say several notes
were found

that described her intention
to take her life.

She left long handwritten notes
to her mother and to her sister.

I thought the most heartbreaking
excerpt from the letter

was the one that read,

"I cannot live the next
6 to 8 years behind bars

for what both you and I have
come to regard as this,

"modern-day lynching,"

only to come out of prison
in my late 50s a broken,

penniless and very much
alone woman."

That was heartbreaking.

The reported suicide
of Debra Jeane Palfrey,

the D.C. Madam,
has a lot of people

asking a lot of questions.

Deep: Jeane was really a feisty,
tough,

empowered woman
who didn't at all seem to me

like the kind of person
who would take her own life.

The Debbie that I knew
in high school

and the Debbie that I e-mailed
back and forth with,

I -- I did not believe
that she would do that.

It -- it -- it floored me.

It made no sense whatsoever.

I talked to her
2 or 3 days before,

and we thought we were on track
to take a good appeal,

get her bailed out during appeal

and continue to fight
this thing going forward,

so that's why
it never made sense.

I'm conflicted as to whether
Jeane's death was a suicide

or a very highly
organized murder.

Moldea: After Jeane's suicide,
there was widespread speculation

that she harbored some secrets

about some very powerful people
here in Washington.

Sanchez: The D.C. Madam,
a woman who powerful men feared

for what she knew about them.

Was it really suicide?

The Internet is going bonkers
with this one.

Man: Her friends said that
that's not her signature

on the suicide note.

There were a lot of conspiracy
theories out there.

She would've been able
to make all this money.

She would've been famous.

There would've been book deals,
movies.

Why would she possibly do this?

Grace: Bob, in North Carolina,
hi, Bob. What's your question?

Bob: Yeah, my question is,
I mean, could these two notes

have been written under duress?

I mean, if someone told me
they're going to murder

my mother and my sister
if I don't sit down

and write a heartfelt suicide
letter, wouldn't I write it?

Bob, that theory
is floating around.

I want to go
to Dr. Patricia Saunders,

clinical psychologist.

Hill: Adding
to the conspiracy theories

was a man named
Joe Strizack,

so he managed the building
where Palfrey owned a condo,

and he says she told him
she felt she was in danger,

and then this guy
actually goes on

the Alex Jones radio show
to talk about it.

At this point,
people started to speculate

about some of the similarities
between Palfrey's death

and the suicide of another
D.C. area madam,

who had also died
by hanging.

Sibley: Brandi Britton was an
escort who worked for Jeane

for a period of time,
branched out

and started her own escort
service in the Baltimore area.

Woman: Police arrested
42-year-old Brandi Britton

after she allegedly offered
an undercover police officer sex

for $400.

Brandi Britton committed suicide
right before her trial

was about to start.

Grace: Now we learn not one
but two women

are claimed to have
committed suicide by hanging,

both sitting on a bombshell
of evidence

against countless D.C. insiders?

Now that's some coincidence.

Hill: Turns out Palfrey herself
had questioned Britton's suicide

on the Alex Jones radio show.

Jeane Palfrey herself started
speaking out ahead of the trial.

She was on that same radio show
and really made it clear

that she had no intention
of giving up.

Jeane herself said many times
privately to me

as well that she was not
going to commit suicide,

but she was going
to be the exception.

She was going to fight.

She was going to expose
the government.

That was her line.

So here you have two women
who not only worked together,

but they both knew secrets
about some very powerful people

in Washington,
and they both died by hanging.

And the coincidence
is just one of those

of several very troubling
things about this --

The death
of Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

Augenstein: Think some people
were willing to believe

that Jeane Palfrey
must have had something

on somebody high and --
and --

and rich and powerful
in the government,

someone who would be willing
to kill her.

♪♪

When Jeane Palfrey was found
hanging in this shed,

there was plenty of speculation

that she'd been killed
for what she knew

except that people
who knew her the best said

she had a really specific reason
for taking her own life.

Augenstein: Jeane had already
spent some time in prison,

and she was really afraid of --
of going back there.

In the early '90s,
she'd done time for pandering,

which is essentially pimping,
in -- in California.

Jeane was originally arrested

for running an escort service
in California.

She was working as
a cocktail waitress.

It escalated into her
being a prostitute

and then managing
other prostitutes.

Augenstein: She hated the
experience of being in jail,

and she was really determined
to never go back to jail.

Sibley: She told me she had been
raped repeatedly,

so that was a very
brutal experience for her.

Ward: She talked about that
experience in some detail to me,

and she said it was horrifying.

She came out physically
and mentally damaged.

Hill: Jeane Palfrey's
own mother, Blanche,

had told a local
TV station that,

in the days
leading up to her death,

her daughter was inconsolable.

Blanche: That girl,
that whole week,

every time I turned around,
she was laying

over my shoulder,
crying like a baby.

She just -- she just sobbed.

She said, "I can't
live this way."

She says, "Mom, it's live
free or die."

She told me on no fewer
than three occasions that,

in lieu of going
back to prison

where she had spent 18 months
back in the early '90s,

she would commit suicide.

Jackson:
There was no evidence at all
that Jeane Palfrey was murdered.

It was a pretty clear case
that she committed suicide.

The forensics proved it.

The suicide note proved it,
that Jeane Palfrey hung herself.

The police agreed and said
they found nothing to indicate

this was anything other
than a suicide.

This was a useless death.

It really was.

She didn't deserve all this.

Allow me to leave you
with this thought if I may.

Surely most people
have established by now

that mine is a very bizarre
and rather unusual case.

I believe there is something
very, very rotten

at the core of my circumstance,

and I must rely upon your acumen
and talent in the press

and the media
to uncover the truth.

I thank you for
your professionalism

in this regard and good day.

♪♪

We may never know why
Jeane Palfrey's escort service

was singled out
for Federal prosecution.

The district attorney's office
in Washington, D.C.,

declined to comment
on her case.

Palfrey's trial and her
conviction

certainly raise questions
about what the point of it

all was because a quick
Google search will show you

that escort services
are thriving all across America,

hiding in plain sight.

Thanks for joining us.

Have a good night.

♪♪