.
- In the criminal justice system,
sexually based offenses
are considered especially heinous.
In New York City, the dedicated detectives
who investigate these vicious felonies
are members of an elite squad
known as the Special Victims Unit.
These are their stories.
♪
- Mommy...
- Charlie.
By yourself, little man?
Madre de dios!
Help! Help!
Someone help!
- Lieutenant Benson. Sergeant Tutuola.
The devil.
- Five--six. Knife wound to the belly.
Ambulance took him to Saint Vincent's.
Name's Charlie Mill.
He was wandering down the street bleeding.
Neighbor's maid spotted him.
- That one. Door's open.
- Okay, the rest of the family inside?
- Yes and no.
♪
- I was gonna get this bed for Noah for Christmas.
Oh, Jesus.
Doesn't get much more brutal than this.
- I figure he's been like this no more than two hours.
- Son, daughter, daddy.
- Let's just hope there's no mommy.
♪
.
- We're probably looking at a 7-inch blade.
The father and the daughter were stabbed
12 and 3 times respectively-- the boy, twice.
None of them had defensive wounds.
- So they were killed while they slept?
- Yeah.
- Okay, you find anything else you'll let us know?
- I will. Okay.
- So there's no sign of forced entry.
- Coffee's on in the kitchen, empty cereal bowl.
- Just another day.
- Yeah, until it wasn't.
- The mother is Anna Mill. She works for a law firm--
Schwartz, Medley, and Clark.
Neighbor said she leaves around 8:00 a.m.
- It's Rollins. What's up?
Charlie didn't make it.
- Okay. This is not the kind of thing
that a mother should hear on the phone.
- I'll tell her.
- They said not to disturb them.
They're under a lot of pressure right now
prepping for an IRS audit.
- Yes. - On my desk--
Can I help you? - I tried to stop him.
- NYPD. I need to speak to Anna Mill.
- Unless this is life or death--
- Unfortunately, it is.
- Maybe we should do this in private.
- I am so sorry.
- Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
- All right.
- Charlie has a soccer game this afternoon.
I should call, Coach...
- Mrs. Mill.
Um...
there's no evidence that your home was robbed.
You mean somebody wanted...
- That's--that's what we're thinking now.
Did--did anybody have a grudge--
- My children are dead.
What kind of a grudge
would cause somebody to kill my children?
- Maybe it's possible your husband had an enemy?
- No, he--he works alone. He...he's a writer.
- So--so Julian did work mainly from your home?
- Yes, he's--he would pick up the kids from school every day
and he would make dinner.
He'd tuck them in at night.
Everyone said Rachel looked just like me.
She was much prettier.
Smarter.
- Um...
did anyone have a key to your home?
- Just Dolores.
- Dolores Alvarez. She's our nanny.
She's been with us for almost ten years.
She works every day but Sunday.
- So she was supposed to work today?
Have you heard from her this morning?
- No.
But she's like-- she's like family.
I mean, she wouldn't-- she wouldn't hurt any--
♪
NYPD!
- All I know is my mom raised four kids.
We didn't have a nanny.
- It's hard raising kids while you're working.
- Looks like a happy family, minus the mom.
- It doesn't look like Dolores stays around here too much.
- Hey, look at this.
Um...
"Today I took the kids to hippo park with Julian.
"They love the dad but they need their mama.
Anna doesn't know what a sweet man she has."
- Hey, Carisi. Check this out.
Just out the wash and still wet.
- Yeah. So is this.
- I wanna know what you know about Dolores.
- She's the Mills' nanny. - Right.
- She's a good person.
She loved those babies. She was--she was happy.
- 'Kay.
Do you know if she has any family here?
- You think she killed them.
- No, um...
The truth is, we can't find her.
You know, whoever did do this, they could have hurt her too.
Anything you can tell me could help.
- She has a brother.
Emilio. - Okay.
- He lives in the Bronx, too.
Dolores usually spends her day off with him.
♪
- I got a green card. - And we're happy for you.
We're more concerned with your sister.
- Right, blame the brown people.
- Look who you're talking to, dude.
- Listen, is she here or not?
- No. - Then I'm sure you won't mind
us looking around, right?
- I'm a mechanic. At the Midas Muffler.
Late start. On at noon.
When was the last time you spoke to Dolores?
- I don't know.
- What's going on back here, Emilio?
- Nothing. I--I said, "nothing."
- I don't think so.
- She didn't do nothing! Don't hurt her.
- Dolores Alvarez, you're under arrest
for the murder of three people.
.
- They were dead when I got there.
There was so much blood.
- You must have been scared out of your mind.
What did you do? - I loved them.
- I know you did, Dolores.
Can you tell us what time you-- you got to the Mills' house?
- At 8:30, like always.
- No, it was locked.
I have a key.
- I went to the kitchen to make breakfast for the children.
I called out to them. There was no answer.
I thought everybody overslept.
So I went upstairs.
- To Mr. Julian's room.
I knocked and then I called his name.
Nobody answered.
I looked in and saw the blood.
I tried to shake him.
He didn't move, and then I thought about the children.
I went to Rachel's...
- She didn't move, either.
And then I looked into Charlie's room.
There was blood everywhere, so I ran.
You didn't touch Charlie?
- I was frightened.
I didn't kill them.
- Dolores, answer this for me.
How did the knife get to your place?
- It was in Mr. Julian's bed.
I don't know why I picked it up.
Then I realized...
- That your fingerprints were all over it?
- I knew you were going to blame me.
- I don't know what we're looking for.
- A reason why a family was murdered.
- Hi. I got nothing.
Blood's still being analyzed, not that it matters.
- Carisi, she worked here.
She worked for them for ten years.
They trusted her. She didn't just wake up
and commit a triple homicide.
- She did run, Liv.
- Yes, because she walked into a blood bath
and was scared out of her mind.
- Okay, the diary.
Dolores spent a lot of time with Mr. Mill.
She didn't exactly mind his company.
Maybe he got tired of hers.
- Yeah, maybe they were having an affair, he calls it off.
- Wouldn't be the first home wrecking nanny
on the Upper West Side.
- Talk to the other neighbors.
Talk to the other nannies.
- Charlie was such a good boy.
He wouldn't leave the stoop
unless Dolores was holding his hand.
Did Dolores ever talk about him?
- Just to say she'd like to work with him forever.
- I saw them at Gristedes once.
Julian and Dolores were arguing over the milk.
Non-fat or 2%.
They were like an old married couple.
It seemed a little... questionable.
- People are talking.
- I ain't no gossip.
- Oh yeah, well, I hate to burst your bubble,
Mavis, but you just did.
- Jenny tell me she saw Mr. Mill and Delores
at the coffee shop.
- All right, what were they doing?
- Drinking coffee, man, in the middle of the day.
- Julian isn't like that--wasn't like that.
He's--No, he's--he loves us.
He loves our family. Me.
- Okay.
So, we have Delores' diary, and in it--
So she actually wrote in there
that they slept together? - No.
But she did say that they spent a lot of time together
alone when you were at work.
- And she implied that she would make
a better wife to Julian than you.
- We know that he loved you, and we think that--
that he told her that.
She kills my children because, what
God!
He didn't even want a nanny. I insisted.
I invited her into my home.
This is all my fault.
- Anna.
He could have told me... - Y-you cannot blame--
You cannot blame yourself.
- Yes, of course.
Can we have somebody drive you to your hotel?
- No, no, thank you. I am fine.
I'm fine.
- I don't know how she gets through the day.
- I don't either.
'Cause we do. We invite these strangers into our homes,
let them take complete control of our children.
- If I went home right now, I don't--
I don't think I could leave Noah.
- We're doing this all wrong, Liv.
- Hi. Finally got Julian's voicemail back from TARU.
Listen to this.
man: Julian, I'm gonna kill you for this.
You screwed me, pal.
- It's from a Tom Bernstein.
He lives on the Lower East Side.
♪
- Mr. Bernstein.
- This can't be happening. I mean, who--
- It could be someone who Julian, and I quote, "screwed."
Please, we've been friends for 20 years
ever since we both got our break in the same issue
of "New York Quarterly."
We both blew our 140 bucks on beers at the White Horse.
- The White Horse. What
- It's where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death.
We dreamed of writing our own lyrical ballads.
That's what that phone message was about.
We were supposed to spend three months
in the South of France and write.
- More like Anna.
She wasn't gonna foot the bill.
Yes, I was angry, but not enough to kill.
- Julian told me that Anna let the ski lodge in Vail
fall into foreclosure.
She was trying to keep it together around him,
but he could tell something was up.
Somebody killed them over money?
- One of the top two reasons people get dead.
.
- I think Mr. Bernstein was pulling your leg.
Anna Mill's got over $3 million
in securities and cash. - That after paying off
the mortgage on the brownstone. - Hold on, hold on.
So what, we're just gonna forget about Dolores?
- I mean, she's in Rikers. I don't think they're gonna
give her the key. Liv wants us to cover
all the bases. - This is odd.
Julian's supposed to be a writer, right, a poet?
- It sounds better than "unemployed."
- Well, he's got a money market account at Central
that's worth over 1.6 million.
- Must have written a hell of a poem.
- And it's all from salaries from a GBT legal services.
- Um...
Okay, they've been providing supplemental legal services
for major law firms since 2011.
- 'Cause they didn't have a choice.
Julian was the president and the sole shareholder.
♪
- Tell us about the consulting firm GBT.
- Supposedly they offer
supplemental legal services for law firms.
- Why would we need someone else to service our clients?
- You tell us--your company wrote regular checks to 'em.
Anna's husband was the president?
- The bills are all expensed to Anna's clients.
That must have been what red flagged the firm for the audit.
She had to know that that was coming.
- What do you say we take a look at her office?
- I hate to get all legal on you here, but...
considering where we are, you're gonna need a warrant.
- So the amounts that that law firm billed,
the clients never noticed that they were paying expenses
to an outside company. - That she owned.
- It was actually her husband's,
but I just don't think he was in on this.
- Why, because poets don't like money?
- Okay. Anna's office was on East 49th Street.
The mailbox was on West 121st street.
Julian didn't do anything all day.
If he was in on this, it would have made more sense
if he'd just picked up the checks himself.
- Would have taken a lot of trips,
because GBT took in over $3 million
in the last six years.
- Okay, so maybe Anna's a thief,
but that doesn't make her a murderer, guys.
We're talking about her children.
- Nobody's saying that, Liv.
- All right, what if, uh,
what if she owed money to somebody
that was not on the books?
And she was late in paying that person back.
- Just doesn't make sense. Why would anyone kill the kids?
- Liv.
- Tennis shoes.
- No, tennis shoes with what looks like
a spot of blood on 'em.
I found these in Anna Mill's office, in her desk drawer.
- Jesus, I can't believe this.
- Oh, my God.
Mothers don't kill their babies.
Wow.
Um, okay.
Get 'em to the lab.
- I-I'll call Fitz and I'll see if--
if maybe we missed a shoe print or something.
- Oh, my God.
- It's too soon to release her.
- I gotta say, I won't be upset if it's not the nanny.
- You'd rather it be the mother?
- No, thank you.
- If you want some later, just let me know.
- Why does everybody keep asking me
if I would like coffee?
My sister, my friends.
As if coffee will make it go away.
- You know what's not gonna go away?
These.
I found them in your desk at your office.
- I wear them to work. It's easier on the subway.
- Yeah, but, uh,
Rachel's blood is on the right one.
CSU found a small print by your daughter's bed.
It's a perfect match.
♪
- My baby.
- You killed them...
didn't you, Anna?
You did this.
Of course I did this.
I had to.
- You had to kill your children?
They're so much better off now.
♪
.
- How do you plead, Mrs. Mill?
- Mm-hmm.
- Not guilty.
- By reason of mental defect, Judge.
- The people request remand.
- Your Honor, my client's on so much medication
she needs help to get out of the shower.
She is not going to run.
- Judge, she confessed to killing her family.
- $2 million bail. All cash.
- Your Honor, my client's accounts have all been frozen
pending another criminal proceeding.
- Well, then she certainly has a problem.
Next.
- Be strong. I'll see you soon.
I know, I know. What am I doing here?
Well, turns out that my client, her firm,
has a satellite office in Chicago,
and I did some work for her once upon a time.
Mrs. Mill is a...good lady.
Bedbug crazy. But a good lady.
You look, uh, I don't know, distraught?
Three murders does that to me.
♪
- I loved them.
I loved them all more than anything.
- Then I don't understand why you killed them.
- I ate lunch at a diner every day
round the corner from my office.
I bring my work. I sit at the counter.
And last week, I saw a cockroach.
And it was scurrying its way up the metal hood
right above the grill.
And it could feel the heat...
and it was doing its best
not to fall down into the sizzling grease.
And up he'd go, scurrying up the hood,
and then he'd slide back down, catching himself on the ledge.
Over and over, up and down.
And then finally he just dropped.
Ssss.
Sss...pop.
- No, I was the ledge.
My children...
I had to save them before they dropped onto the burning grill.
- Wouldn't you rather die in your sleep, Doctor?
'Cause I couldn't bear to watch them pop.
- She's what the textbooks call a family annihilator.
It's typically an upper middle class male--
in this case a female--
who can't stand to see their family suffer.
- So she kills them.
- In her mind, it's better than the alternative.
It's usually triggered by a big financial setback.
- Like when you're caught stealing from your clients.
- Her life is over. She wants to spare her husband
and her children the pain of going on without her.
- I'm sorry, are you buying any of this?
because to me it sounds like some made-up syndrome
cooked up by a defense attorney.
- Bottom line: She believed the murders were necessary
even though she knew they were wrong.
- Good, then she's not legally insane.
- Not to us, but to a jury looking at a woman
who killed her children, she's per se crazy.
And Mr. O'Boyle's going to make
a seven-course meal out of it.
- Prove she planned the killing?
♪
- You didn't come to the Bronx to apologize to me.
- Actually I did, but I do have some questions
that I'd like to ask you.
- To help you convict Mrs. Anna?
- I'm just trying to figure out what happened
and why she did what she did.
- I will never understand.
- Well, to be honest with you,
I won't either, but...
but I've got to try, if that's okay.
So, Delores, when--when is the last time you spoke with her?
- The night before.
I stayed late because Mr. Julian went to sleep early.
- The children.
She wanted to know if Rachel did her homework.
- Okay, did she...
did she say anything about her husband?
Did she...
did she say anything about Charlie?
Dolores, did she say anything else?
What is it?
- It's nothing.
- Just tell me.
- Usually when I'm leaving,
Mrs. Anna says "Buenas Noches."
Good night.
That night, she said "adios."
- And she kissed me.
She never kisses me.
- Well, thank you, um, thank you, Dolores.
Um, you've--you've been extremely helpful.
- For ten years, she treated me so well.
She helped me stay in this country.
My brother, too.
I would have nothing without her.
- You take care of yourself.
- Well, it's a start.
Anna knew what she was gonna do the night before she did it.
- Look, we're splitting legal hairs here.
Insane. Not insane.
She kissed the nanny. She said, "Good-bye."
She planned on killing her family.
- And she deserves to be punished.
- Exactly. So what kind of legal system do we have
if a woman like Anna Mill could end up in a hospital
and not in prison?
- I hope one of you had the clam chowder.
It's the best I've had since I dropped my kid off at BU.
Billy O'Boyle. - Olivia Benson.
- Like I don't know. - Mr. O'Boyle does--
- Billy. - Does his homework.
- Well, can I buy you two a drink?
- Actually, I have a son at home.
But thank you.
- I don't know how you do it.
I know you're top-of-the-line at one,
but how do you rate at the other?
- Good-bye. - Good night.
- Open mouth, insert foot.
I don't know when I'm gonna realize:
the fairer sex is the more sensitive sex.
So you gotta hand it to 'em these days.
They gotta be smart, pretty,
bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan.
- Hm. You know, that sounds like an opening statement.
- Oh...why didn't I think of that?
♪
- I spoke with Mrs. Mill several times.
The first was shortly after she committed the murders.
- Objection.
- The defendant admitted she murdered her family.
- No, she did not--she stated that she killed them.
It does not become murder until the people establish
the necessary mens rea.
It is the defense position that a mental defect
prevented her from ever forming the requisite intent.
- Sustained.
- Please continue, Lieutenant.
- I spoke with her shortly after she killed her husband,
Julian, her daughter, Rachel,
and her son, Charlie.
- She was traumatized by their deaths,
she was emotional, she was disoriented.
- Yes. - What about the last time
you spoke with her? - I've been a cop for 20 years,
and never in my career
have I seen anything like this.
She convinced herself that murdering her children
and murdering her husband was the only choice.
So, this woman deserves to be in prison.
She's not "legally" insane.
- Thank you.
- How many years have you been a professional psychiatrist?
- I'm not a psychiatrist.
- I'm just a cop.
- So you really can't tell us whether or not Mrs. Mill
is a card-carrying schizophrenic who hears voices
telling her to kill her family.
- No, but the psychiatrist can.
You heard Dr. Abernathy's testimony.
She said that the defendant did not hear voices.
- So then is it fair to say, in your professional opinion
as a cop, that when you spoke with Mrs. Mill
after the killing, she did not appear to be legally insane?
- Yes, that is correct.
Earlier, when she raised the knife and plunged it
into the tender bodies of her children and her husband--
the three people that she loved the most in the world.
What about then?
Did she appear to be insane to you then?
- Unfortunately I wasn't there then.
- But that's the moment.
That's the only moment that matters.
Isn't it, Lieutenant?
♪
- I said, "not at work."
I know, but...
Oh, damn it, Al, I hate word games.
Okay, we'll talk.
- Those are pretty.
- I said, "not at the office."
And he said that they're not for me.
Ah. Smooth.
- Yeah. How was court?
- I couldn't even step into that building.
I don't care if she's crazy.
That woman should be taken from the earth.
- You know, last night I--
I put Noah to bed, kissed him good night,
I turned out the light and then...
And then I just stood there... watching him sleep.
For two hours.
- I did the same thing.
- Sometimes life just... sucks.
- Amanda.
- You should keep those flowers.
'Cause sometimes we just...
we just need a little pretty.
Right.
.
- And if I told this jury that you loved your family,
would that be a true statement?
- Of course I loved them. I would do anything for them.
- So, you wanna hide them from all the ugliness in the world?
- That's right.
- Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?
- Well, who told you that, Anna?
- I knew that.
I grew--I grew up in a basement apartment.
My family had nothing,
I had to work for everything that I have.
And everywhere I looked, every book I read,
every magazine, or television show, movie,
there were successful and happy women with beautiful families.
They were running companies. They were running for Congress.
- What if you couldn't do that?
- I had to do that.
I had to do that so that my life would be perfect.
- I had to. For Charlie, for Rachel.
And is that what you were thinking
when you... killed your family?
- I was outside of myself.
I watched...as another woman stabbed them.
She was saving them from the pain.
From the ugliness of a life that just wasn't...
- Wasn't perfect.
I'd like you to look at this photo
if you don't mind, Mrs. Mill.
I know it's a lot of ugliness.
- Objection.
- Withdrawn.
It's a lot of pain.
- Your honor.
- Move on, Mr. Stone.
- This other woman,
the one you saw saving your family from the suffering,
did you say anything to her?
- You testified
it was like watching another woman.
I just wanted to know if you spoke to her
before she stabbed your husband and your children.
- No.
- She wasn't real. - But you thought she was,
isn't that right? I mean, that's your proof
that you're insane.
- No, I didn't try to stop her.
- Because you wanted them dead, isn't that right?
- Because I wanted to protect them.
They're better off now.
- Facing a world without--
- No. It's not.
- Without me.
- I've got news for you, Mrs. Mill.
You're not so great. - Objection.
- Sustained.
- I shelter them, I protect them.
It is a hard world, Mr. Stone,
and I didn't want to watch my babies be swallowed up by it.
- Then why didn't you just kill yourself?
- Objection. - Sustained.
- Nothing further, Your Honor.
- Everything has to be perfect.
That...
that is exactly what Anna Mill had in her head.
"I have to.
I have to.
"I have to go to school, get a job,
"get married, beget 2.3 children.
"If I don't, I have failed.
What happens to my 2.3 children?"
Anna Mill, she heard voices in her head.
She heard the voice of her own mother telling her,
"You need to earn money, or the world will eat you
and your offspring raw."
She heard Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem telling her,
"You are the equal to any man."
She heard Hillary say,
"Aim high, but rely only on yourself."
"I have to, I have to, I have to, I--"
And then what happens when you can't?
It's enough to... drive you crazy.
Crazy to do what Anna Mill did.
You would have to be... crazy.
- You know, I almost fell into Mr. O'Boyle's trap.
I very nearly stood up here and told you that today's woman
can do it all.
She can have everything.
But that's a lie,
and we--we all know it.
Surely women can have it all--
but just not all at the same time.
This case, it isn't about feminism.
It's about what was going on in Anna Mill's head
when she stabbed her son, her daughter, and her husband.
Did she know what she was doing?
She told us she wanted them dead.
Did she know it was wrong?
She let the police believe her nanny was the killer.
That's it. It's that simple.
Under hundreds of years of case law, she is not insane.
And here's the truth:
I feel for every woman in this courtroom
and the completely unrealistic expectations
that society puts on you.
But that does not allow you to kill without consequence.
♪
- Has the jury reached a verdict?
- We have, Your Honor.
- On the first count of the indictment
of murder in the second degree of Charles Mill,
we find the defendant
not guilty.
On the second count, murder in the second degree
of Rachel Mill, we find the defendant
not guilty.
- On the third count of the indictment,
murder in the second degree of Julian Mill,
we find the defendant, Anna Mill,
guilty.
- The jury couldn't accept
that a sane woman would kill her children.
- I meant legally sane.
- I know what you meant.
Lieutenant Benson.
Thank you.
Anna Mill just hung herself in her cell.