♪ you may have struggled ♪
♪ you may have lied ♪
♪ maybe you're hopeless mixed up inside ♪
♪ maybe there's heaven and maybe there's hell ♪
Siegler: You're ready to start working on our next case
- In kankakee? - Spingola: I am.
I can't wait to figure out what we can come up with
And maybe assist the officers here in solving this.
What did you think about the deborah farlins case?
Well, it's a typical, you know, kind of a sad case.
- She's pregnant. - Five months pregnant.
Young kids are probably the most damning deaths.
- But to lose a baby. - I know.
Steve and I have extended our stay here in illinois
To work with the kankakee police department
On another case,
The unsolved homicide of 21-year-old deborah farlins
And her unborn child.
She was a beautiful, young mother-to-be
Caught in a love triangle
With a man who was engaged to be married to another woman.
A man that she claimed was the father of her baby.
She goes missing on September 23, 1987.
Her remains are found about two months later.
When you look at the reports and, like, what wasn't done...
Siegler: I feel like there were all these people in kankakee
That knew her situation.
But the details of what they knew aren't really documented.
How are they getting along?
How does she feel about being pregnant?
How does she feel about her boyfriend
That she seem to still be pretty in love with
Getting married on her?
How did that new bride feel about the fact
That deborah wasn't leaving him alone?
And now we just got to figure out
Who's alive 37 years later and what do they remember.
For sure.
Spingola: When deborah farlins was murdered back in 1987,
Her case wasn't investigated as thoroughly as it would be today.
It's a sore subject for the kankakee police department
Who has received much criticism from the community
And deborah's family for the past 30 years.
Can you imagine living your whole life like that
Where your daughter is found murdered
And nothing appears to have been done?
I can see why people lose faith in law enforcement.
I honestly can.
And I had to pray to god to keep you going
So that I wouldn't be bitter.
I think for the black community, you want the same justice,
But you don't hold out hope.
You just learn to live with it.
Siegler: I know from talking to detective logan andersen
And his boss, donell austin,
That they are trying to fix all that.
I mean, the da seems fired up,
And I know for sure the police department is.
We might have some luck.
- Good morning, guys. - Good morning.
- Glad to see you. - Good to see you.
Well, we had some good luck with jannette's case,
So maybe we'll get the same kind of luck
With deborah farlins case.
- Oh, yeah. - We're pretty hopeful.
In 1987-- I know I'm the oldest one here--
I just started working at the da's office.
'cause it's 36 years ago. What were you all doing then?
I was seven years old.
I was a sophomore in high school.
In high school?
I was not born for several more years.
- You wanna get cranking again? - Absolutely.
Siegler: So back then, 37 years ago,
At the time this happened, she was only 21 years old, right?
Correct. She had a good family core, four sisters.
Her dad has passed, but mom actually still lives
In the same house that she grew up in.
She seemed to me very vocal and outgoing
And feisty and spunky, or whatever you want to call it.
She wasn't a shrinking violet. Didn't feel like to me.
- No. - For date, going missing?
- The 23rd. - Deborah farlins goes missing.
Her family reports her a short time later.
Her vehicle is located in the neighborhood where she lived.
Deborah went missing for approximately two months
Before she was located by hunters
Next to a railroad track.
There were little remains left of deborah
When she was found and no remains of her unborn child.
She was actually identified by dental records.
However, we have no cause of death.
But with no trauma to her skull,
Strangulation is definitely a possibility.
All right, so who all do we want to put up on the suspect board?
I would say robert price would be number one.
She was dating and supposedly had gotten pregnant by him.
The issue with that was he was engaged to be married
To another woman, and that date was quickly approaching.
So the month she goes missing
Is the very month he marries somebody else.
- Yeah. - Okay.
- We knew he was violent. - What did he do to deborah?
Grabbed her by the throat and threw her off the porch.
She goes into the hospital.
She had some good injuries,
And this is what led to her filing the lawsuit against him?
Yes. 9-24 robert doesn't show up in court.
Which is going to be the day after we think it happened.
Ooh, that's a good one. "I got a civil lawsuit on me,
And I got a criminal case filed on me."
His world is crashing down 'cause of this woman.
"and supposedly she has my baby."
Spingola: Robert price was having a relationship
With multiple women at the same time
He was abusing his pregnant girlfriend deborah,
And both were catching up to him.
He had plenty of motive to want deborah out of his life.
So next we're going to put up leila thomas price.
Been with robert 10 years.
Koerner: They're high school sweethearts.
Then the younger deborah farlins comes in.
Leila and robbie price got married September 5th,
Just a few weeks before the murder.
Deborah parked outside the wedding
And watched it basically.
That had to really set him off.
She's driving by the houses and ringing doorbells.
- Where leila lived. - Just in her face.
Siegler: Deborah and leila had been at each other's throats
For months,
Taunting and harassing each other.
Which was especially easy
Because leila and robert
Lived right across the street from deborah.
Me and another detective went over a few years ago
And talked to leila at her door. She wouldn't come out.
We had a very brief conversation at the door.
She didn't know anything, she didn't remember anything,
And she hadn't talked to robert in years.
Just like robert, leila had more than enough reason or motive
To want deborah out of her life.
I've seen my share of female killers.
I have not seen very many that would kill a pregnant woman.
I think it's also important to talk about with her.
I mean, they got married September 5th of '87,
And she files for a divorce may 26th of '88.
That's pretty fast.
Does any of all this have to do with filing for that divorce?
Yeah.
♪ you may have struggled ♪
♪ you may have lied ♪
♪ maybe you're hopeless ♪
♪ mixed up inside ♪
I guess now deborah's mom, emma, is 91 years old.
This will be my first time meeting her.
It'll be nice to find out more
About deborah's personal life, you know, her pregnancy,
How much she vented about robert price.
And I would love to see if these ladies know more
About their lives and leila's life.
Back in 1987, a lot of people in this town
Felt like the kankakee police department
Didn't do a really thorough job looking into this case.
- Hello. - Hello.
- Good morning.
Especially deborah farlins's family.
I'm kelly.
And I think that what we want them all to know
Is today it's a whole different world of cops
Looking at this case.
And we're going to do every single thing that we can
To get as far as we can in trying to solve this case.
We got lots to talk to y'all about.
Y'all called her tina, huh? How'd you get tina?
My mom started because she was a sickly child.
- Sick and puny one. - The sick and puny one.
When she was a baby, when she was young.
She was very outgoing.
- She had lots of friends. - Mm-hmm.
She was very poised.
She loved cartwheeling, turning flips.
She loved modeling. And she was doing modeling.
She loved show choirs and bands
'cause she wanted to form a band.
- Okay. - She was a singer.
She was my older sister,
But she was like my best friend.
Last time I saw her was September 18th.
Days went by. We didn't hear anything.
And then my dad got a call from the detectives.
They said that remains had been found.
"we just had bones," you know.
And to hear my father cry, it was, like, gut-wrenching.
How do you sleep at night
Knowing that you did this to not only her
But to an unborn child?
When were you guys made aware of the pregnancy?
I think she was about three months in.
- It was easy to tell. - She was very much showing.
- She was wearing... - Maternity clothes. Yep.
Did she tell you she was pregnant by robbie?
- Yes, she did. - Okay.
Did you ever hear from tina
What robbie thought about tina being pregnant?
- Mm-mmm. - No.
If he was excited. If he was upset. We don't know.
She never said anything about that.
What was tina's thoughts on,
"I'm pregnant with this man,
And I'm going to make sure he's involved with the baby
Or not or child support or not"?
She never said anything about him being involved.
Okay.
I was really hoping that we would learn a little bit more
About deborah's relationship with robert from her family.
So this is a little frustrating. Then again,
Maybe an affair with an abusive, soon-to-be-married man
Is not something you talk a whole lot about
With your family.
When I discovered that he was living
With the woman down the street,
I kept saying, "what are you doing?
Why don't you just leave him alone?"
And she said, "I'm going to leave him alone.
I'm not going to be bothered with him anymore."
- Okay. - But then turn around,
She would be off with him again,
But the problem would be leila.
Tina is dating robbie,
And leila is angry and upset about that.
Wanna find out truth.
Wanna find out whether robert had any thing to do with it.
Could not be. Could be. Whoever.
Wanna be fair with it. 'cause she gone.
Somebody killed her. Took her life.
Took her child life.
And, you know, the police didn't find nothing.
Couldn't find out who did it either.
Maybe they did they best and maybe they didn't.
But they never did come up with nothing.
And I been waiting.
I got patience. I'm still waiting.
We got to get some leads here
On who she was dating or who she might have talked to.
Siegler: This is a 1987 case.
Deborah farlins and her unborn baby.
The evidence, because it's such an old case,
There's just not a lot of it.
There aren't a lot of witnesses.
There's not a lot of physical evidence.
Koerner: It's gonna be tough tracking people down
This far after.
And then they've given beautiful statements.
1987. It's like "I said that? I don't remember anything."
Every time you work on a cold case,
You start out thinking like it's day one,
Trying to feel fresh.
This time, though, it really does feel like it's day one.
Got your camera on?
Automated voice: Recording.
Siegler: We want to do our very best
To find any of deborah's old friends or co-workers
Or relatives who can tell us something,
Anything about deborah or any of the suspects in this case.
Spingola: Hi. How are you?
Koerner: We're looking for carlotta aldridge.
That's me.
Spingola: You're not in any trouble. Just relax.
Koerner: We're actually here to jog your memory a little bit
And see if you can tell us anything
About an old case of ours with deborah farlins.
- She went by tina. - Oh, my gosh.
- Back in the '80s. - Oh, my gosh.
I think I called her something else.
- Tina, probably. - Tina.
- Yeah.
- I did. - Tina.
- Oh, my god. - You got goosebumps on me.
- It's been so long. - Siegler: Yeah. Yeah.
But I do remember that happening.
Do you remember any men in her life at that point in time?
- Mm-hmm. - Who rings a bell for you?
Um, there's only one. Robert price.
Do you know anything about their relationship?
Carlotta: It was tumultuous.
- Why you say that? - Because it was a triangle.
Did she tell you anything about how he took the news
That she was pregnant by him?
Okay.
Do you remember anything about her and robbie
Getting into an altercation at the house?
Who was that?
Leila mae.
Leila mae would ride past debbie's house
And they would fight.
They were in the street. They were fighting.
That's pretty strong to be fistfighting over a guy.
There's a well-documented history here
By the kankakee police department
Of conduct by not only deborah, but also by leila.
Deborah filed multiple police reports
That leila was stalking her, harassing her,
Including throwing rocks and stones at her car.
And then leila also contacted police
About deborah's behavior, including street fights,
Where deborah produced karate sticks
And leila produced a gun, all over robert.
Miss evelyn, back then, when you talked to the police,
You had the date down that you last saw debbie.
Andersen: It was the 22nd.
She had come over to your place to eat some pizza.
You were the last person that saw her.
- Oh, yeah. - Okay.
- What do you remember? - She was nervous.
That's when she told me she thought
- Somebody was following her. - Okay.
She was right, 'cause she's not here anymore.
And after that night, you don't remember ever seeing her again?
I didn't. I never saw her again.
Siegler: Fortunately, a lot of people
Are remembering deborah's love triangle
And that robert wasn't too happy
About the fact that she was pregnant,
Which we're thinking might very well be his motive.
But it seems like robert kind of wanted to distance himself
From the relationship, but his then fiancée leila
Was not backing down from that fight.
Sit in the far chair.
Siegler: Deborah's sister, beverly,
Wasn't able to meet with us the other day
When we talked to deborah's mom and her other sisters.
So she's come in today to tell us what she knows
And also to hopefully help us make sense
Of some of deborah's old writings.
Let's start off with the relationship
Between tina and robbie.
Tumultuous.
- Tumultuous? - Yeah.
It was--it wasn't a very-- it wasn't a good relationship.
I really didn't care for robbie at all.
To me, I felt like he was a little too old for my sister.
And he was already in a relationship.
Andersen: Yeah.
When he tossed her off the porch,
That's when I told her,
"get away from him and stay away from him."
My dad used to tell us if a man hits you one time,
- He's going to hit you again. - Mm-hmm.
Siegler: These are the letters in your sister's purse.
When the police discovered deborah's abandoned car,
Inside the car, they also saw some letters
That she had left behind that she had written to robert.
She clearly never gave him the letters,
But maybe she was planning to do that.
In any case, the letters still give us pretty clear evidence
Of her state of mind back then.
"did you have a nice weekend?
Me, too. Anyway, the baby will not get aborted.
It's too late.
It's our responsibility
To see to it that it is well taken care of.
No, I won't be leaving. I'll be right here in kankakee.
I love you dearly, but at this point,
There is no need to further prolong a one-way relationship.
Hey, you and leila appear to be having a blast
Pulling bull[bleep] on people together.
So I tell you what.
Stay with leila because I don't have time for you anymore.
And p.S. It's definitely over. Deborah."
That's her signature right there.
"I should have lost it when I fell.
Must be here for a damn good reason.
And we're both, especially you, will provide for the baby."
So think about that.
Those letters kind of show
The true state of their relationship.
And those letters are sitting in tina's purse
And she doesn't give them to him.
Beverly: She was afraid to give them to him.
Siegler: I know, but I'm thinking she still talked to him
About what's in there and told him the same things.
I mean, this conversation could have gone on way before then.
And it could have been going on for a while, too.
And every time he saw her or whatever,
And with her saying the baby is going to be taken care of,
Back then it was child support.
Yeah.
Beverly: She was definitely in love with him.
Robbie had my sister on a string,
And he was playing her like a fiddle
Because she was 21 years old.
She was a baby.
- That's right. - That was his toy.
And that was the first man that she had ever been with.
We both want you to know
That everything that we can think of,
Every name in the file, everything we can run down,
- We're trying to do. - I know you are.
It's really hard 'cause the case is 36 years old.
When this man came to my door
And he told me that he was looking into my sister's case,
I almost fainted because it's been so many years.
It gave me some hope that this could possibly be solved.
And I can never thank you enough, detective andersen,
Forever thank you, 'cause I never thought
That I would ever hear anybody care about her.
We, as black women, come up missing every single day
And nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
And my sister was one of those people that ended up missing.
And her life wasn't good enough for nobody to care.
And for you people to care means the world to me.
Siegler: She's lived her whole life dealing with this.
She thought for all these years that nobody cared.
And that's just not true.
To have to live thinking that
And then for her to be so grateful and so hopeful
That we're going to be able to solve this.
She's not trying to put any pressure on us,
But, damn, I hope we can.
- Thank you so much. - You're welcome.
Ler: Where do you want to start from first, logan?
We're going to be going up towards the diamond motel.
It's just a little bit outside of manteno.
This is the hotel that we think
That she and robert were at sometime close to the end?
Yeah, late September.
Siegler: We don't know exactly how deborah farlins was murdered
And disposed of back in September of 1987.
But the police department has a theory,
So we wanna go check it out.
This is a structure that was the diamond motel.
We know that evelyn last saw debbie around 10:00, 10:15.
And debbie leaves, and she's acting kind of nervous.
But she had to hook up with who her killer ends up being
Somewhere, somehow, and you're thinking it's here.
So, caslynn smith, who is no longer with us,
She remembers seeing deborah.
There was a male in the car, but she never sees the male.
It's believed that because deborah still lived
With her family and robert lived with leila,
They frequently met at hotels around town to have sex.
Back in 1987, there was a clerk at a motel
Who said in late September,
There was a night where deborah rented a room.
She pays for an all-night
And then only stays half the night.
When asked if she wanted
The four-hour rate or the all-night rate,
Deborah conferred with a black male waiting in his car
And told the clerk that they wanted the all-night rate.
Strangely, just within a few hours,
That clerk heard that car leave the motel.
The clerk has since died, so that is all inadmissible.
But it does help form a theory of what happened that night.
Do you think when they drive away from this motel,
She's still alive?
- No, I don't. - Oh, you don't?
- I don't. - Okay.
My theory of what happened with deborah
Is that this was a crime of passion.
It wasn't well planned out.
She went to that motel and she's murdered there
And then placed in the car
And just driven a short distance from that motel,
Carried out and dropped along the side of the railroad tracks.
That wasn't even a mile, was it?
No.
The remains would have been in this area right here.
He didn't even cross the railroad tracks.
No, they were on this side of the railroad tracks.
And remind me, how much was she buried or covered up?
- She wasn't. - Just dumped.
- Like dropped? - Yeah.
That's lazier than I thought.
I just think he does the simplest things.
When she's dead, dumps her and gets out of here.
Siegler: Whoever dumped her there simply did just that.
They just dropped her there.
They didn't make any attempt to bury her or cover her up.
So it was a pretty lazy effort at disposing of her body.
Debbie's house is going to be right here.
So this is the house they used to live in.
And then across the street is where robbie and leila lived.
- It's this one. - Yeah. This is it.
Okay, so then from here,
How close is where they end up finding
The red fiero that belonged to debbie?
A few blocks.
But somebody threw the keys
In debbie's mom's house, flower bed.
Then just one street over, that's robbie's mom's house.
You've got to understand how close everything is
In relation to one another.
Deborah's car was found close to robert's mother's house,
While her keys were found around the corner
At deborah's house in the flower bed,
Which was across from where robert and leila lived.
It's possible that after the murder of deborah,
Robert drives the car,
Parks it near his mother's house,
Walks home, realizes he still has the keys,
And maybe in some sort of an act of empathy,
Throws him into the flower bed where her mother lives.
Or just simply to get rid of the keys
And leave no evidence behind.
Wonder how he dealt with two cars that night,
His car and her car.
Andersen: I'm thinking she parks her car across
From robbie's mom's house and then they take his car up there.
Siegler: But her purse was in it.
If she parked her car and got out voluntarily,
She would have taken her purse.
So then he's still dealing with two cars,
Which brings up the better possibility
There's two people involved than I appreciated.
I don't know. Two people, and now they hate each other.
Leila, let's see what she says.
That's a good day. Let's knock it off
And get back to it tomorrow.
Andersen: All right, sounds good.
It's hard to believe that robert would have asked
His new wife to help kill his pregnant girlfriend,
Or if she would have ever even agreed to that back then.
Neither one of those makes a lot of sense to me.
- How you doing? - Can he get a diet coke?
Do you have any white wine?
- Bartender: Um, moscato. - I'll take a glass of that.
So...
Do you think leila did it or is involved?
I don't think leila's involved.
I don't think she's involved at all.
I just don't. I think she basically
Gave him the ultimatum, you know,
"she goes or I go," one of those types of things.
And I think price is so in love with leila
That he's not going to let her go.
Whenever y'all go try to talk to robbie price in kentucky,
He's gotten away before with not talking pretty easily.
- Right. - So you're going to be
Catching him flat-footed, hopefully.
If he starts coming out with new lines
And he doesn't go as far as any kind of
Admission or confession,
I feel like if he says something like,
"that wasn't my baby,"
"she was making that [bleep] up. She was pressuring me."
That could be. That could be, absolutely.
I mean, that's new stuff. That wouldn't hurt
If he insisted something like that, right?
You know, once you get put into a corner,
People come out with all kinds of good stories
Every once in a while, you know.
And I've always thought a lie
Is as good as a confession at some point.
Siegler: I do, too.
♪ we got nowhere to go ♪
♪ so try to live things slow ♪
Gps voice: Exit right to
I-64, east lexington.
Spingola: Deborah farlins's ex-boyfriend
And the alleged father of her unborn child, robert price,
Now lives 300 miles away in kentucky.
The evidence clearly suggests he had
The strongest motive to kill deborah.
But what will he say now when we confront him about it?
Hopefully, he'll be around. We'll knock on the door,
And we'll see what happens.
Gps voice: You've arrived. Destination is on your right.
Andersen: You want to walk up?
[spingola grunts]
Andersen: Hi, mr. Price?
I'm logan andersen. I'm from kankakee city police.
You got a minute that we can talk about
An old case concerning maybe one of your friends, debbie?
Farlins.
You don't know debbie farlins at all?
Deborah, yeah.
Spingola: Leila and deborah were having some arguments,
Apparently over you.
Did deborah file a civil suit against you at some point?
Not that you know of? Was there an incident
On a porch with deborah?
Pushed off the porch?
Allegedly, you pushed deborah off a porch
And she was in the hospital for a week.
Nothing. Never happened.
Did deborah ever accuse you of getting her pregnant?
She never said you were the father of a child?
Andersen: Did she ever tell you that she was pregnant?
She never told you that?
Did you hear that rumor that she was pregnant?
Never knew that she was pregnant.
Spingola: Did she ever write you any letters
Or anything like that? Nothing. Nothing.
Andersen: That way.
Okay.
He's downplaying everything--
His relationship with deborah,
The fact that she was pregnant, that he's the alleged father,
The fact that he allegedly pushed her off the porch,
That she filed a lawsuit against him.
This is all new to robert.
How can this all be new to robert?
His story has got all types of holes on it.
Andersen: Debbie was living with her parents.
She's not going to hook up at her parents' house.
Where would you and debbie hook up at?
Just wherever?
Was there any hotels around the area back in that day?
Do you guys ever go to a hotel in manteno at all?
Never?
Where?
This girl that went to-- when were you with her?
Your wedding night?
Okay.
- Your wedding night to leila? - Yeah.
Spingola: Could that have been deborah?
Or was it [bleep]?
Robert denies going to the motel with deborah,
Yet he's now bringing in a third person
The night before he marries leila,
That he shows up at a motel with.
He's actually given us a new witness.
That's a good point for us.
Do you remember when deborah went missing?
Nothing.
Deborah had to be making your life hell with leila mae.
Not at all.
Unless you get her pregnant, right?
You get some woman pregnant,
You're never going to break that bond.
It's gotta be making your life hell.
Because she was telling people
And she wrote letters about it.
She wrote letters about it.
Andersen: And she never said anybody else's name.
Just one person.
Spingola: So, do you deny that you might have
Had sex with her the night she goes missing?
Late September of '87,
About three weeks after you're married,
It's possible you had sex with deborah that night?
But it's possible?
Let me just ask you this. Did you kill deborah?
You're sure?
Didn't black out the last night you saw her?
Something happen?
That's not true, sir. Not at all.
Andersen: You had every reason to hurt her.
Spingola: You're sweating a little bit. You okay?
You're not sick, are you?
Andersen: I'm in a full suit and I'm not sweating at all.
Spingola: Me, either.
- Okay. - Robert: I don't-- I mean...
- Andersen: What do you think? - Spingola: I don't know.
You know, he's playing it off, obviously.
I think you got as much out of him
As you're ever going to get.
Calling kelly.
[line ringing]
Siegler: Men, we're dying over here. What happened?
Andersen: He says that he couldn't pin down a time
When the last time that he was with debbie.
He denies that debbie ever told him
That she was pregnant with his kid.
Wait, wait, so he denies that completely?
Completely. Knowing that she was pregnant.
Well, that's huge, don't you think?
I think it is.
There's no problems between him
And leila mae that...
She's--that he's out with debbie at this point.
Okay, so he's saying that there was no friction
Between him and leila over debbie.
- No friction. - Correct.
That's a good one.
We can prove otherwise on that.
What does he tell y'all about when debbie goes missing?
Is he aware? What does he know about that?
He played like he didn't know anything about it at all.
Y'all got three big things that I feel like
We really can disprove.
The three things that he's trying to back away from
Are the whole relationship motive,
The whole reason for why he would want her dead.
"no friction in our relationship.
"she never even got pregnant by me,
And I never knew she went missing"?
I mean, could he pick three bigger things
To act like he doesn't know about?
Y'all got some good stuff, man.
- This was a big day. - All right,
Well, we're going to go try and find leila,
And we'll let you know how it goes.
- Sounds good. - All right.
Good job, men. Ooh!
Eila is across the state line,
And then the three things that he said yesterday
That we can work with are
There was no friction in his marriage with leila
Because of debbie,
That he didn't even know debbie went missing.
And he didn't know that she was pregnant with his child.
Yeah, so if leila can discount any of those,
That's a win. That's a win.
We're on our way to speak to robert price's ex-wife
And deborah's former enemy, leila thomas.
She's not only still a suspect in this case,
She could hold the key to solving it.
- Ready? - Yep. As I'll ever be.
We're standing outside.
Koerner: Morning. Sorry for bothering at your home.
My name is todd koerner. Nice to meet you.
- I didn't get your name, sir. - Cyrus.
- Nice to meet you. - Gotcha.
We're talking about an old case,
Deborah farlins's case.
I did talk to robert. We talked to him yesterday,
And I would hate to just go off what he said.
So what did he say?
He made it sound like,
Around the time of deborah going missing
That deborah wasn't a problem for you guys at all.
He made it seem like he didn't have any problems.
It was just all these girls that wanted him, you know.
Right, which is why it sounded kind of...
- Siegler: He said that. - Koerner: ...Funky to me.
Exactly. Your reaction is what mine was.
We also have the old reports where
Deborah was pretty much a pest to you.
- She was. - Siegler: I know.
She threw the rock in the car story,
Driving by your house story.
We have the old police reports,
So how could she not be a problem
- In your relationship? - Leila: Exactly.
Siegler: He's saying none of it ever happened.
- Well, that's not true. - Siegler: Okay.
He also said that
He didn't even know that deborah went missing.
- He said that. - Koerner: Exactly.
He said that he never knew
That deborah was pregnant with his baby.
Didn't y'all get into arguments about it?
You and robbie?
Yeah, because I told him that I heard
That she was pregnant by him.
Did he deny it to you or did he just...
Yeah, he did.
Siegler: Going back 36 years ago,
If people were thinking you had something to do with it
Or you helped move the car or you got mad enough
To where you wanted to kill her, what would you say?
That's not true.
She could have dealt with him and not bothered me,
- And I wouldn't have cared. - Koerner: Right.
Because I was not in love with him,
And she just didn't know that.
We also think that the person who killed her
Strangled her to death.
- Siegler: See there? - Koerner: Yep.
Siegler: And what was in the middle of that
To cause that to happen?
My husband was very jealous.
You know, and...
He did. I was a little terrified.
Siegler: Did you ever think back then that he was involved?
Is that kind of part of why you divorced him?
I actually asked him.
I said, "you didn't have anything to do with that?"
And he was like, "hell, no!"
You know, like, he got an attitude with you.
Leila talked about the relationship
She had with robbie and how much difficulty
Debbie was bringing into her life.
When we told her what robbie said yesterday,
She called bull on it and she admitted
That during one of their arguments,
And they had a lot of them,
She said he put hands on her and tried to strangle her.
Honestly, you're a victim too.
He strangled you and he beat you
And you were smart enough to leave his sorry ass.
Koerner: He got away, yeah.
Siegler: And, you know, they say, in psychology terms,
That if a man tries to strangle a woman once,
He's likely to repeat doing that,
Which is exactly how we think debbie was killed.
Oh, that was so good.
I like her. I really like her.
- She's gonna be a good witness. - I'm sweating.
You tell your da how good she is.
Siegler: It's so weird to throw
A brand-new name in the mix, right?
We didn't even know about her.
We're feeling good about the case,
But there's one last potential witness to talk to--
The woman that robert said he was with
The night before his wedding,
Just weeks before deborah was murdered.
We did a little digging and it looks like
She and robert had a child together.
Are you the [bleep]
That used to run with a robbie price?
- Yes. - We are actually investigating
A cold case from '87.
Deborah farlins. I don't know
If the name is... Familiar to you
Having a thing.
- They found their body? - Up in manteno.
We know that robbie obviously had
Some stuff going on with you.
We believe he had some stuff going on with her and
Then he also married leila thomas at the time.
Well, we were kind of wondering how your guys relationship was.
We sort of parted when I was pregnant with my son in '84.
Siegler: He said y'all had hooked up September of '87.
Koerner: Yeah, he gave us the interpretation
It was day before his wedding.
He said he was with me?
Koerner: The night before he got married, yeah.
[witness laughs] god. No, he was not.
Siegler: And we know that debbie
Had just found out she was pregnant
And she was pressuring robbie and she was saying,
"this baby's yours. You're going to support it."
So at that time, what kind of financial pressure
Was on robbie from you, for your son?
- He never claimed them. - Siegler: Oh.
- Koerner: Really? - It was a paternity suit.
- We took him to court. - Siegler: What year was that?
About '86.
Siegler: So when the baby was a year, two years old,
You were trying to get him to be responsible.
Right. Right.
They actually had to garnish his wages...
- Because he denied it. - Did leila know that?
That he was paying child support?
I'm not for sure, because
His new wife that he's with now never even knew he had a son.
If this woman was really done with robert
Well before 1987, then why is he lying
About being with her the night before the wedding?
- Siegler: Thank you. - Koerner: Thank you.
All right, bye-bye.
More importantly, though, now we have a brand-new witness
Who also gives us a better explanation
Of a possible motive for robert price
If he's the killer,
I think he just was not going to have
Another pregnant woman wanting child support.
He already went through court.
He went through the garnishing the wages.
To have to tell that to leila, twice.
He tried denying paternity. He lost.
Now he's getting his money sucked away,
And he wasn't going to have it happen again.
Yeah, that's tough to explain to your girlfriend
Of several years that whoops, I did it again.
- Morning. - Good morning. Good morning.
With everything that we've learned,
We are confident that leila thomas
Had absolutely nothing to do
With deborah farlins' murder.
And the circumstantial evidence suggests that robert price
Is solely responsible.
Now we're going to help detective andersen
Prepare for his presentation of the case
To his state's attorney, jim rowe.
How many times have you ever had to run down a cold case
- That's circumstantial? - Zero.
That's what I feared. That's because it's not very common.
I used to be the prosecutor that sat
On this side of the desk
That all the cops ran those cases down to.
Look at me and tell me what was going on with her.
So at some point,
Robert and his longtime girlfriend leila mae
Move in across the street from the farlins family.
Deborah and robert start hooking up.
Deborah ends up getting pregnant,
And the relationship starts to go south,
And deborah wants more from robert.
Yeah, and it's important to set the scene
With the way things are building to a crescendo.
At this time in his life,
Robbie has already gotten another woman pregnant.
She's already taken him to court.
He's having to pay child support.
His wages are being garnished.
And now, all of a sudden, here's a new girl
Saying, "I got your baby, too."
And now talk about these letters.
She's basically telling him that
He's not going to get out of this.
He's going to end up paying for it
One way or the other.
"I ain't getting no abortion.
You're stuck with me for the rest of your life."
Then the next thing we know is...
She doesn't show up for work,
She doesn't come back to the house.
Her red fiero is found right around the corner
From robbie price's mom's house.
The keys ended up in the flower bed of the farlins's house.
Rhetorical question:
Do you think debbie threw her own keys in the flower bed?
Do you think some random person
Bothered to go back to her parents' home
And throw the keys in the flower bed?
Who lives across the street?
- Andersen: Yeah, robbie. - Siegler: Okay.
So November 28, hunters find the remains.
One of the hotels that he frequented
Is approximately half mile to a mile down the road.
With the strangulation aspect,
Debbie makes a report that
Robbie's already battered her.
He's got upcoming court dates.
And when we talk to leila,
She confirms his qualifications
Before and after their marriage.
Okay, so now,
I think you jump to your interview of him.
We go to kentucky. We approach robbie.
He denies that he knows that she's missing.
Spingola: Do you remember when deborah went missing?
Nothing.
He claims to have no knowledge that she was pregnant.
- Siegler: Yes! - Even though it caused
Quite a bit of arguments between robbie and leila.
Give me a break. And then, what else does he deny?
No problem with leila.
Didn't y'all get into arguments about it,
You and robbie?
Yeah, because I told him that I heard
That she was pregnant by him.
The three things that he's backing away from
Are the three biggest pieces of the whole damn case.
Friction in the marriage over a woman.
"I get the woman pregnant,
And I didn't even know she went missing"!
He's got everything to lose by her being alive
And everything to gain by her being gone.
Yes. Only one person in the world needs to lie--
The person who did it.
And in the whole wide world,
You think somebody else killed her?
Well, that's some hell of a coincidental timing.
Some random guy happened upon her and killed her
When all these things are coming
To crash down on his head.
Logan, you also get to say
There's a community of people out there
That think the kankakee police department
Didn't care back in 1987,
And they're wondering how much we care today.
And I want you to show them how much we care.
And I want you to file this case.
♪ I have plenty of regrets ♪
♪ all of them are soaked in silence... ♪
Siegler: You should be very proud of yourself.
Andersen: I'm proud of the team.
Everybody really brought this together.
There's so much that was done,
So much that was looked at that
I never would have done and I never would have looked at
Without the team.
- Hello, ladies. - Hello.
- Doing okay today? - Yes.
Yes, good.
So we called you here today, obviously,
To let you know how the case has gone thus far.
We've done a lot of work in the last couple weeks.
We had the meeting with jim rowe
From the state's attorney's office this morning,
And after hearing the facts of the case,
He wants to shore up a few last minute things
That he feels are important,
But he's confident in filing charges.
Against who?
Robert price, jr.
Okay.
All these years, I wanted to be mad at that man
And really hate him, but I wasn't sure whether
He was the one who did it or not.
And I know tonight she is happy,
And she gets to rest in peace.
It has changed my perspective
Of the kankakee police department,
And sergeant andersen is the one who did that.
Thank you, detective andersen,
For sticking with this
And believing that you could solve it.
- Thank you. - Andersen: Absolutely.
If you trust god, he will see you through.
But thank god for favors.
- He sent this man. - That's right.
Thank you.
I'll never forget our time working here in kankakee,
How detective andersen brought us in and gave answers,
Peace of mind, and hopefully soon, justice
To deborah farlin's family.
He's a good man and a great cop.
Well, it was wonderful meeting you ladies.
Thank you. Thank you for the work,
- Thank you. - So good. Thank you.
Can I hug you, miss emma?
It was nice to meet you.
Thank you.
[siegler sighs]