[girl speaking indistinctly]
[Paul] Sherri was a person
who just wanted to see the world.
And Eric had those same ambitions.
[people cheering]
[Rick] He was very charismatic and likable.
He was about to graduate law school.
[Eric speaking]
[Paul] I really believed
that they were going to be happy.
[Sherri speaking]
[Paul] I was wrong about that.
[Eric sobbing]
-[female 911 operator speaking] -[Eric speaking]
She saw that dark side of him
that nobody else did.
[interrogator speaking indistinctly]
[Eric sobbing]
[bleep]
He believes the lies that he told everybody else.
Eric had everybody fooled, including me.
[opening theme music playing]
[upbeat music playing]
[narrator] June 2012,
Watertown, Wisconsin.
[guests clapping and cheering]
[narrator] Eric and Sherri Ponsati are
having the wedding day
they always dreamed of.
[Paul] It was a beautiful day.
I was happy for them both.
[indistinct chatter]
[man laughs]
[Paul] There's myself,
I'm walking Sherri down the aisle.
-[guests speaking indistinctly on TV] -[man laughs on TV]
[Paul] Every dad should be able
to walk his daughter down the aisle.
She was a gorgeous bride.
I was a fan of Eric.
I was actually proud to say he was my son-in-law.
We welcomed him into the family
with open arms.
[guests cheering]
He seemed to really be enjoying himself.
Everybody thought he was great.
[guests clapping]
[acoustic guitar music playing]
[narrator] Growing up,
Sherri's family vacationed
at Lake Camelot, Wisconsin.
[Paul speaking]
[Sherri speaking]
[Paul speaking]
Aww.
Sherri was Sweets.
I always called her Sweets.
She was just a Midwestern country-type girl.
[Paul speaking]
We're definitely small-town kids.
Growing up and going to school
in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin,
we had a lot of fun.
[Paul speaking]
Sherri, she wasn't big into having to go
get her hair done
and nails done all the time.
She liked camping a lot up at Lake Camelot.
[Sherri speaking]
[Paul speaking]
The kids were always together,
and I think they enjoyed that a lot.
Um, they were close.
[Paul chuckles]
She definitely was always the big sister.
She would try to mentor me
on how to deal with, you know,
relationships at school or relationships at home.
She'd be able to help me.
-[Sherri speaking] Boom. -[Paul speaking]
[Rick] Sherri was definitely very caring and empathetic.
Example that stands out the most is
the impact that she had at her job.
[Paul] She got a little older.
She became a cardiac tech
at a heart hospital in Milwaukee.
I remember one time receiving a phone call
on a very early morning.
Sherri was calling me.
"Dad, just wanted to tell you,
walked into this patient's room,
-and all of a sudden" - [beeping]
[Paul] " the heart monitor flatlined."
[continuous beeping]
[Paul] Sherri began doing, like, CPR.
[machine beeps]
[Paul] Right then and there, this heart monitor took off,
and it started beating again.
And she says, "Dad,
I saved my first life tonight."
I was so proud of her.
Very emotional, very...
very, very cool.
[Paul] Sherri met Eric.
He was a college student in Madison.
They met online.
I think she saw him
for probably a month or six weeks
before she introduced him.
I do remember the first time I met him,
it was at a restaurant,
uh, with my dad.
He was about to graduate law school.
He seemed very charismatic and likable.
[narrator] Mark-Eric Ponsati was
born in Sacramento, California
on April 26, 1981,
but tells Sherri he spent his early years in Spain.
His parents divorce when he is a child,
and he returns with his mother to the U.S.,
where he goes by his middle name, Eric.
[Paul] Sherri was attracted
to his travel ambitions.
Sherri was a person
who just wanted to see the world,
and Eric had those same ambitions.
[narrator] After graduating, Eric is recruited
as a Judge Advocate General or JAG officer,
providing legal advice to the military.
His first posting is 4,200 miles away
in Hawaii.
[Paul] Well, the Army doesn't cater to girlfriends,
he couldn't bring Sherri with him to Hawaii.
So he asked me for permission
to propose to her.
I was moved by that.
They were going
to the Jefferson County Courthouse
to go get a marriage license.
They said,
"Well,
we got an opening here right now.
You guys want to get married right now on the spot?"
And they did.
I got a phone call.
"Dad, we did it."
I'm like, "You did what?"
"We got married."
[Rick] She was very excited to go to Hawaii.
That's a place that she always wanted to go to.
It's the first long-distance trip
she ever did.
[narrator] Just four months after they arrive,
Sherri gives birth to a daughter.
[Paul] I always knew
that Sherri would make a great mother.
I could tell her heart was really into it.
[Eric speaking]
-[girl] Two, one. -[Eric speaking]
[girl whoops]
[Paul] I never had any reservations
that Eric would be a good father.
[Eric] Say "Hi, momma."
[Paul] I really believed
that they were going to be happy
and this was the beginning of their family.
[girl speaking indistinctly]
Eric was actually a big reason why I joined the Air Force.
He really talked me into it,
that it would be good for me at that point in my life.
I was hoping that my first duty station would be
something similar to Hawaii.
[Paul] They had a position
in Hickam Air Force Base in O'ahu.
Rick saw an opportunity,
"Oh, my goodness, I can be with Sherri again."
Sherri was ecstatic
when she found out Rick was coming.
[Sherri speaking]
[Sherri chucking]
[people laughing]
You could always tell Sherri was laughing,
even in a crowded room.
[girl speaking indistinctly]
[Eric speaking]
[Rick] Between her daughter and her dog,
we were always entertained.
Pretty much every weekend
for the first four months there,
we would just explore the island.
I definitely felt comfortable with Eric.
He genuinely enjoyed
having me over as company.
I thought very highly of him.
I would tell all my friends,
my brother-in-law is a captain.
But at the same time, there was some things
that made me question his character.
At times, he seemed to be very arrogant.
He kind of had a tendency to talk down to Sherri.
He wanted his wife to stay at home
and man the home front
and take care of the kids.
He'd get crabby very easily.
Like, for example,
if she didn't do the dishes the night before
and there was dirty dishes in the sink
and he woke up and saw it,
he'd be throwing a fit.
At those moments,
Eric definitely seemed to change
from the person you wanted him to be
to the person he actually was.
[narrator] Two and a half years into their relationship,
Sherri and Eric planned the wedding day
they didn't get the first time.
[Rick] I knew they had minor issues,
but we all flew home together
for Sherri and Eric's wedding reenactment
in Wisconsin.
[guests clapping and cheering]
[people whooping]
[Rick] Sherri looks very happy.
She's waving to the crowd,
and Eric's all dressed up in his uniform.
[guests speaking indistinctly]
This was Sherri's big day to be a bride.
-[woman] Wow. -[whoops]
[Rick] People that never met Eric before
told her how lucky she was to have
such an amazing guy for a husband
and that they're jealous of her.
[narrator] But during the wedding,
a cloud looms on the horizon.
[Paul] He knew that he was going
to be getting deployed to Afghanistan.
He would have to leave right away
and be gone like six or seven months.
[narrator] As they returned to Hawaii,
Eric's impending tour weighs heavy.
[Rick] We were on the North Shore,
me and Eric and Sherri and their daughter,
and Eric was driving.
Somebody stole his parking spot.
Eric got really mad.
[car honks]
[Rick] He wanted to get out of the car
and start fighting this person.
Sherri was kind of freaking out.
She grabbed his shoulder.
I was like, "Really, man?
Your wife and your kid are in the vehicle with you."
It was shocking.
He's not the person that I knew.
[narrator] Eric deploys to the Middle East
and video-calls his infant daughter.
[Eric speaking]
[Rick] Eric enjoyed the prestige and respect
that comes along with being an officer.
He liked being superior to everybody else.
[Eric speaking]
He did not enjoy his deployment to Afghanistan.
He hated it.
He didn't really look like a soldier.
He never saw combat.
Some guys would kind of tease him.
Eric didn't like the fact
that they were disrespecting an officer.
He felt pretty alone over there.
He was ready to be done with it.
After he got back from Afghanistan,
when I would come over, he would mostly lay on the couch
and he wouldn't talk a whole lot.
[Eric speaking]
[Rick] He didn't try to reach out to me
to go diving anymore.
It just seemed like...
the relationship between me and him wasn't the same.
[narrator] Sherri, on the other hand, is
excited to start a brand-new friendship.
Our mutual friend put us
in touch with Sherri.
[Jennifer] We were kind of messaging
back and forth.
For two months before I got on the island,
it was my first time away from my family.
It was very scary.
Out in Hawaii,
their life on social media looked
like a picture-perfect life.
She was telling me all the fun things
that she wanted to show us around the island.
The day that we landed,
she actually came and visited us.
I felt like I knew her for years.
And that friendship just blossomed.
Eric is a very good-looking man
who is a lawyer in the Army.
That was kind of intimidating at first,
but we developed a friendship as well.
When we started hanging out more,
over time he would say comments to Sherri
that he didn't say at first.
He made the comment,
"Why can't you be a better wife
and have this house cleaned?"
Of course, I was shocked.
You could just tell there was tension
between the two of them.
[narrator] Over the months,
Sherri begins to confide
hidden details of her relationship.
[Jennifer] Sherri said that he was very critical
about the way that she looked.
She became very self-conscious.
She did not like to be photographed
or videotaped.
I noticed some bruises on her body,
and I asked what happened,
and she made the normal excuses.
"Oh, I fell",
or "We're moving some things around."
After she had told me about this,
I was absolutely shook.
Made me feel very, very worried.
[narrator] After three years,
Eric's posting in Hawaii comes to an end.
[Rick] I remember their last night in Hawaii.
Yeah, it was pretty sad and emotional.
I wished that they were staying.
They wished that they were staying.
[Jennifer] I was very nervous for her
to lose her support system in Hawaii
because I didn't want her to be alone.
[Paul] Leaving Hawaii wasn't a choice.
They had to move on.
They had to go to Fort Rucker in Alabama.
[birds chirping]
[Eric speaking]
[Sherri laughs]
[girl speaking]
[Sherri continues laughing]
[Sherri speaking]
[music playing in background]
[narrator] March 2015.
Sherri and Eric celebrate
their daughter's fourth birthday.
If you were to see this on social media,
you would think that it's a sweet moment.
But if you know what's really going on
behind the camera,
you would think differently.
[Rick] I know it was a stressful time
for both of them.
Sherri would say that Eric was very unhappy
with the military
and just being angry all the time.
I did start to suspect
how Eric was really treating her.
[Paul] While they were in Alabama,
I think I was really kept in the dark.
I didn't know a lot
about what was going on exactly.
[Jennifer] I could not get her out of my head.
I could see things start to go downhill.
It made me scared to see
where that was going to go.
[narrator] In early 2015,
Eric announces he is stepping back
from full-time duty
to join the reserves
and seek employment in the private sector.
Sherri said Eric had a hard time at work.
He painted a picture to everybody
that being in the military just wasn't
a good fit anymore.
-[Eric speaking] -[girl] Ah.
Ah. Ah.
[mimics girl] Ah. Ah.
[Paul] Eric was excited to begin a new career
working with Sikorsky Helicopters
out of Connecticut.
[upbeat music playing]
[Paul] Sherri was viewing that as a fresh start.
And Sherri just seemed like
she just wanted to make it work.
[Sherri speaking]
[Sherri] Mmm.
[daughter speaking indistinctly]
[Sherri kisses]
[Jennifer] Sherri called me.
She told me that she was pregnant again.
And I asked if it was planned.
And she said,
"We talked about having another one,
but just not right now."
And I said, "Is Eric happy about it?"
She said, "He's over-the-moon excited about it."
[narrator] Late into her pregnancy,
Sherri decides to pursue a longtime dream.
Sherri wanted to write children's books.
That was a passion of hers,
to become an author.
And she wanted to do this seminar
in New York City.
[Jennifer] She was very excited
about taking this writing course.
It was her way
of being able to start taking back
some of her independence.
[Paul] While she was at that course,
that's when her water broke.
[siren wailing]
[Jennifer] She was having him early
without Eric there.
His lungs were underdeveloped.
She was very scared.
And she needed support, but Eric was annoyed
because nothing went according to plan.
He said
her going into labor was all of her fault.
He made this whole experience even worse by yelling at her.
[Sherri speaking]
Not long after Sherri gave birth,
Eric took a work trip.
She got an alert on his computer.
[bell chimes]
[Jennifer] It showed a receipt for a prostitute.
That's when her world started crumbling down around her.
Just understanding that he was over there doing that,
that soon after she had a baby,
I think really hit her the hardest.
[baby cooing]
[baby speaking]
[baby coos]
[Paul] I thought he was a good man.
Wow.
I was wrong about that.
[Jennifer] I told her,
"Sherri, you need to leave him.
These are very justifiable grounds for divorce."
[Paul] Sherri left him
and came to Wisconsin.
Sherri seemed very stressed at that point.
And Sherri actually confided in me
how angry and scary Eric can get.
She told me if anything ever happened to her,
I should tell the authorities to look into Eric.
She never opened up to me before
about being afraid of him physically until then.
We thought the safest place
for Sherri was to stay in Wisconsin,
you know, with my parents.
[Paul] She contacted a divorce attorney,
so she was starting to get that ball rolling.
[Rick] We were all concerned
that Eric would try to get custody of the kids.
He's a lawyer, so I mean,
if anyone knows how to win a custody battle,
it's someone that is educated in the law.
[Sherri speaking]
[man chuckles]
[Paul] I think Sherri was kind of scared
about what the repercussions would be
if she filed for divorce.
[Jennifer] Him taking control of the kids was
her ultimate nightmare.
[Rick] For her, that was unbearable.
So she did what she had to do.
When I found out she went back to Eric,
that was bad news for all of us.
I was furious.
He's just going to keep doing this
over and over again.
Something bad is going to happen.
[narrator] Shortly after Sherri returns to Connecticut,
Eric is fired by his employer.
His civilian job didn't work out
the way he thought it would.
He had a lot of drama with his co-workers.
[Paul] When he got fired,
he was scrambling to find another job
and then found one in Arizona.
[Rick] Initially, I was somewhat happy,
only because the area in Arizona
that they were moving to,
my Aunt Eva and Uncle Joe were close by.
[Paul] Something that Sherri told me...
was, "Dad,
I promise you,
this is the last time.
If this don't work,
I'm done."
[narrator] With her aunt and uncle's support,
Sherri starts to rebuild her life.
[Sherri speaking]
[Paul] Besides taking care of two kids
and running the house,
Sherri went back to online courses
and she got a associate's degree,
again in the area of cardiology.
Then she went and she got a job.
She was over the moon to go back to work.
Then she started writing her book.
It was actually published
and I was so proud
that she had something for her own
and it wasn't anything to do with Eric.
[narrator] But Sherri's happiness doesn't last long.
Eric's job in Arizona didn't work out
just like the rest of his jobs.
He was unemployed
for an extended period of time.
Eric was extremely unhappy
with the parenting and house duties.
It wasn't the traditional marriage
that he was used to.
-[Eric speaking] -[baby coos]
He just didn't handle it well.
He didn't want to handle it.
[Eric humming]
[Jennifer] He just could not understand
how people liked her so much
and didn't like him.
[Paul] Eric did have an ego.
Yeah, that had to be a real punch for him.
[Rick] Eventually, Eric decided
on taking a job offer
that he got, in Kentucky,
you know, hundreds of miles away.
[Jennifer] You could just hear the annoyance in her voice
that she didn't want this.
She had family in Arizona.
She was comfortable at work.
She did not want to move.
[Rick] And I questioned her,
"Why are you still with him if this is how you feel?"
[Jennifer] She called me, and we were catching up.
She started talking about leaving him.
When we were on the phone,
Eric was following her around,
and it got to the point where I said,
"Hey, Eric, do you want to talk to me, too?"
And she's like, "Okay, I got to go."
That was the last time that I spoke to her.
-[phone ringing] -[phone beeps]
-[female 911 operator] 911. What's your emergency? -[Eric speaking]
[Eric sobbing]
[emergency dispatcher speaking]
[Eric sobbing]
[line ringing]
[Eric speaking]
[male 911 operator speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[911 operator speaking]
[Eric speaking]
[siren wailing]
[Mike] Patrol officers with the town of Gilbert were
responding to this 911 call.
They arrived at the house
and encountered Eric Ponsati in the living room.
[officer 1 speaking]
-[Eric sobbing] -[officer 1] Okay.
[officer 1 speaking]
Eric directed the first officer upstairs
to where Sherri was in the bathroom.
[officer 1 speaking]
-[officer 2 speaking] -[officer 1 speaking]
[Mike] And on the floor around her was
a blue, slippery substance that was bath soap.
[officer 3 speaking]
You ready, Sam? On three.
[Mike] They loaded Sherri quickly onto a backboard
and transported her to the hospital
as quickly as they could.
[phone ringing]
[Paul] I received a phone call from my brother, Joe.
[phone ringing]
[Paul] They regretted to tell me
that Sherri had been involved in an accident.
She's at the hospital now and she's unconscious.
I'm like, "Really?"
I can't-- You know, I was just in shock.
[narrator] Eric is taken to Gilbert Police Department
for questioning.
[Mike] I asked Eric to describe to me
how their marriage had been.
[Eric speaking]
Eric told me they were planning
to have their third child together.
When he got to this point about what happened tonight,
he described this wonderful bath
that he and his wife took.
[Mike] I felt that was odd.
Why, if you're waiting for your wife
for an exciting evening,
are you going to take sleeping pills?
[narrator] Eric claims he wakes up sometime later
in an empty bed.
[Eric speaking]
[Mike] Okay.
[Mike] It struck me as odd
that this person who's telling me
how much he loves Sherri is not
going to attempt CPR.
[Mike speaking]
Eric had a large reaction
to the news that Sherri was dead.
[sobbing]
But I never saw any tears.
I didn't know exactly why yet.
I didn't have all the details that I needed.
But I really felt like there was more going on
than the purported slip and-fall accident.
[narrator] Without any incriminating evidence,
Detective Bishop concludes the interview with Eric.
[Mike] I returned to the house
and began processing the scene.
Eric reported Sherri hitting her head
on a tile outcropping
from the bathtub.
I noticed that there was
blood on top of that tile outcropping...
and not a lot of blood on the floor.
If you slip
and fall and hit your head on an object
and then fall to the floor,
you should find a lot of blood on the floor,
not on the tile outcropping.
The amount of soap on the floor was ridiculous.
We located the bottle for that soap
laying between the bathtub and the vanity.
Physics tells me that when a bottle is turned over,
soap won't spill past the lip of the bottle.
This bottle had an inch-and-a-half lip
and no soap left in it.
So I began thinking the soap had been poured out
after Sherri was injured.
[phone ringing]
[Mike] I didn't even make it through the search
before family members started trying to contact me.
[Rick] First thing I thought of to tell him was
that if Eric was home when this happened,
this was probably not an accident.
I learned that she had a plan and a timeline to leave Eric.
I am now 100% treating this as a murder investigation.
[narrator] Sherri's father, Paul, arrives in Arizona
in the early hours of the morning.
[Paul] First thing I did is call my brother.
I go, "Hey, what's going on?
Is she okay?"
And then, um, there was a pause.
And I go, "Are you there?
Is Sherri all right? What's going on?"
And... he said,
"Sherri's gone."
And, uh...
I was just in shock.
I was speechless.
I had no words.
[narrator] Five days after Sherri's death,
the autopsy report comes in.
There were multiple linear bruises
along Sherri's upper back.
There was also damage to her neck
that is indicative of strangulation.
I knew there is a 0% chance that Sherri slipped and fell
and attained all these injuries.
I believe whatever injuries had
occurred to her head
happened in the bathtub.
There had been some type of event
where Eric lost control of himself...
injured Sherri.
And once she was injured,
he felt he had no choice
but just to continue and kill her.
Eric had to make this look like an accident.
So he struck her bloody head against
that tile outcropping
and then placed on the floor, Sherri.
The bottle of soap was poured out over top of her.
He just had no choice but to cover it up
and try to justify it in his own mind
to get through it.
She made efforts throughout her marriage
to get away from him.
I think she saw that dark side of him
that nobody else did.
I was concerned that Eric would try
to leave the country.
He was smart enough
and he had the resources
to avoid the inevitable arrest.
One of the family members contacted me and said
Eric's leaving.
He was arrested and brought back
to the Gilbert Police Department.
It's a horrible feeling to lose a child.
That very moment that phone call came in
from Detective Bishop...
it was like that feeling just got trumped.
[Paul speaking]
The feeling of losing someone is one thing,
but the feeling of having her taken from you,
that really, really hurt.
I wanted to do to him what he did to my Sherri.
[narrator] It takes five long years
to get to trial,
but on January 23rd, 2023,
the day finally comes.
[Joshua] Just looking at the medical examiner photos,
a layperson could tell that this was not an accident.
His statements and his behavior
and the evidence from her body
just solidified his guilt, in my opinion.
[narrator] Against his counsel's advice,
Eric wants his time on the stand.
[Joshua] He specifically built stories
that addressed the injuries that Sherri had.
I believe that he still thought
he was the smartest person in the room
and that he was going to fool everybody.
To me, it was just an indication
of his narcissism.
He claimed that he put a wooden plaque
up on its edge underneath her neck.
And then he said that he fell on her,
and that would have caused
the injuries that Sherri had
to the back of her head and neck.
Nothing made sense.
It was so far out there.
He just really dug himself a hole.
When the jury walks in the room,
it's hard to describe that feeling of anticipation.
[narrator] Mark Eric Ponsati is found guilty
of second-degree murder.
[Rick] He received the maximum sentence
of 25 years.
So we were very grateful
that we achieved justice for Sherri.
[Paul speaking]
[Sherri speaking]
[man chuckles]
[Rick] I think about Sherri all the time,
what our future would have been,
what she would think about my wife.
I've never been down a rougher road in my life.
And it's all because of one person's actions
and choices.
[Sherri speaking]
[Rick] Her kids were the most important thing
in her life.
[Sherri speaking]
[Rick] She would have wanted to see her kids grow up.
Everything she did was for them.
Sherri's son was so small when this happened
that I'm sure he's never gonna remember his mom.
[Sherri kisses] Little kisses?
[kisses]
-[boy coos excitedly] -[Sherri] Yeah?
[Sherri kisses]
I'd like to, of course, tell her how much she's missed
and how much she's loved.
[people laughing]
[Paul] She was just taken from us way too soon.
[girl laughs excitedly]
[girl] Whoa.
You thought they were a happily married couple.
[woman speaking]
[man] I said, "Mom, you need to get out of there
and you need to stay away."
[woman] It was just horrible,
How could you let her lay there?
It's nothing but evil.
[ominous music playing]