- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- Something is not right.
I just flipped out. I lost it.
We could not understand how anybody
Would want to murder him.
- He looked like he was sleeping
Except for the bullet hole.
- He was in bed.
His head was on the pillow.
His entire upper body was tucked in.
- The first guess was suicide but...
- There's no gun on the scene.
- Hard to have a gun suicide with no gun.
- That's correct.
- And this was a man who had everything to live for.
- Eric loved life.
- He loved his family and women, too, many women.
Did one of them love him too much?
No shortage of lovers to question.
No sign of a break-in, either.
- Someone either had to have a key
Or been let in by eric.
- So, it must have been somebody he trusted
Or maybe someone who didn't trust him.
- Inside the safe, was a .380 handgun.
- That's the same kinda gun that killed eric.
- It's the same- same kinda gun.
- Everybody loved him.
So, who killed him?
- We knew in our hearts
That this murder was going to solved.
We believed that justice was going to be served for eric.
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
The crime scene offered few answers,
Only questions.
By all accounts,
Eric somuah enjoyed an active love life.
Was the secret to his murder
Hidden inside his little black book?
One determined detective refused to give up
And uncovering the truth would take a stroke of luck
That might be hard to believe
Except it really happened.
Here's josh mankiewicz with "while he was sleeping."
♪♪
- He was the life of every party.
At 34, eric somuah was charming, magnetic,
Successful.
In 2012, he was living the kind of life
That young men like to brag about to one another.
Call it the good life, the lush life,
The fast lane.
It's a world without too many rules,
One in which you get close in a hurry
To a lot of people you don't know too well,
And it was perfect for eric.
Living just outside the nation's capital,
Eric somuah was not only living the american dream,
He was selling it, too.
The son of immigrants from ghana,
Eric was a top salesman
Delivering luxury cars
And the fantasies that come with them
At this jaguar dealership
In bethesda, maryland.
- He was focused and motivated to be the best,
And he turned out to be our number one salesperson.
- This was a guy who, what, could sell ice in alaska?
- Oh, yeah. - Right, right.
I tell him that, "eric, you could sell anything."
He could sell anything to anybody.
- Eric's older sisters, susie and cynthia,
Spotted his drive and business savvy
At an early age.
- And he started a lawn cutting business
In our neighborhood.
The neighborhood kids,
[chuckles] they were actually working for him.
And he would pay them I think, what, two dollars,
To cut the grass? - Yes.
- A born capitalist. - Yeah.
- Yeah. I mean, he'll tell me, "susie,
"I'm-I'm-I'm gonna be really rich one day."
- You know, he wanted to go all the way to the top.
- From the day he was born, eric was a charmer,
And his sisters and big brother, michael,
Always adored him.
- He was just a wonderful, wonderful joy to our family
And to my sisters and I.
- Eric was the baby of the family,
But we all enjoyed him 'cause he was very vibrant.
- It was just the three of us,
And then he came along. - Mm-hmm.
- So, he was sort of our little doll.
[laughter] - yeah.
- Then eric grew up and became a living doll
To the women of the nation's capital.
- He was a ladies man. It's no secret.
He loved women.
- He'd walk in a room, and everyone liked him.
Like, "oh, who is this guy?"
He was so nice, had a beautiful smile,
And he'll just start a conversation with anyone.
I mean, he just had that type of personality
Where women liked him.
- But his sisters hoped their playboy brother
Would finally settle down.
In fact, they were counting on it.
- We were waiting for a huge wedding
That my sister and I were planning for him.
[chuckles]
- The-the bride hadn't been picked out.
- No, the bride hadn't been--
- But the wedding planning was already going.
[laughter] - right.
The bride had not been picked out yet,
But we already knew pretty much
How the wedding was going to be.
- Eric's sisters admit
They knew little about his dating life.
His big brother knew much more.
- Our relationship was very, very close.
Even though he's my sibling and my younger brother,
He was my best friend, as well.
Um, we-- we'd talk about everything.
- Eric's 1000-watt charm and his work ethic
Had earned him success on the job,
A high-rise apartment in the dc suburbs,
And a busy and exciting social life.
He was a young man on top of the world,
But his big brother still felt the need
To occasionally offer advice,
Like that playing the field has its risks
And can't last forever.
- He really respected me,
The fact that I've been with my wife--
We've been together 28 years.
He always would communicate and say,
"hey, I wanna be that,
"but I just can't find the right one."
- Look at that.
- Even as the youngest and the only one
Who hadn't married,
Eric was the glue that bonded his family.
- Eric was the person
That kinda brought the family together.
- Mm-hmm.
- He remembered everyone's birthday.
He made everyone feel really special.
- So, it wasn't just his customers he was charming.
- No. - No.
He was charming his family, too.
- His family, as well. - All of you.
- You know, he wanted everyone to come together.
- In June 2012, he brought them together again,
But this time it wasn't for a holiday or birthday.
It was because they were worried sick about him.
June 5th, a Tuesday,
Eric didn't show up for work at the jaguar dealership.
Initially, his boss, brian armstrong,
Let it slide.
- I chalked it up to, hey, he was takin' a day off,
Unscheduled day off,
And I didn't think too much about it.
And then the following day,
Which was the Wednesday,
Again scheduled to come in,
No call, no show, and then I got worried.
- Word spread and soon eric's sisters
And the rest of their close-knit family
Were trying to find him.
- No one had heard from him.
- Now, you're really worried.
- I'm really worried.
- Cynthia took a deep breath and called 911.
Police were dispatched to check out eric's apartment
In silver spring, maryland.
His family raced to meet them.
Eric somuah, a man about town
Who lived life at full throttle,
Had seemingly fallen off the map.
What had happened to him?
- Coming up...
An unanswered knock and lots of questions.
- We were all in shock.
We were just shocked.
- I said, "there's no way. There's no way."
- He was in bed.
His head was on the pillow.
It looked like he was sleeping.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- It was just alarming when we heard
That he hadn't shown up for work.
Wow. I mean, that's not like eric at all
Not to show up for work.
- As his sister, cynthia, and other family members
Arrived at eric somuah's building,
Their fear level was off the charts.
They stood vigil in the lobby
As police went up to eric's sixth floor apartment.
What do you think's happened?
- I was just trying to figure out,
Well, where could he have gone.
- Sister, susie, was still on her way
When cynthia got her answer
From a police captain
Who'd been in eric's apartment.
- When the captain came and gently placed his hand
On my arm and said that, "ma'am, I'm sorry,
"it looks like your brother has taken his life,"
I mean, I was raging with screams,
And I said, "there is no way.
"there is no way he took his life."
Eric loved life.
- Through her grief,
Cynthia managed to call her sister.
- And she was screaming, and she was bawling,
And then when she told me eric was dead,
I just flipped out. I just lost it.
- And you show up how long after that?
- Oh, we showed up about 40 minutes later.
- Detective dimitri ruvin led the second wave
Of montgomery county, maryland police
After patrol officers made that initial suicide call.
- They tried not to disturb the scene,
So they didn't really look around too much.
- Tell me about the scene.
- He had a gunshot wound to his head.
He was in bed.
His head was on the pillow.
His entire upper body was tucked in.
It looked like he was sleeping.
- Detective ruvin and a forensic team
Continued to work.
No sign of a struggle.
- No sign of a struggle anywhere in the apartment.
No signs of ransacking.
The one thing I noticed right away was that,
Uh, there was no gun.
There was no gun our scene.
- Hard to have a gun suicide with no gun.
- That's correct.
- So, this isn't a suicide.
- Right. This was a-a murder.
- In some ways, dimitri ruvin was like eric somuah,
Young, successful, driven,
But even working homicides,
Ruvin had none of the world weariness
Of some veteran detectives,
So he was the right cop
To break the difficult news to the family.
- I just went downstairs, and I said, "we have, uh,
Reason to believe that eric was murdered."
That's when everybody lost it.
I mean, his sister was just crying.
His dad just had his, you know,
Head buried in his hands,
And just, like,
People just couldn't believe it.
- We were all in shock.
We were just shocked.
- Who would wanna murder eric?
- That is exactly what detective ruvin wanted to know.
- Well, we started right there.
We started our investigation with the family
And those that were close to him
Just to see if he had any enemies,
If-if there was anybody in his life
That would wanna hurt him.
- What's the answer?
- The answer is, eric was loved by everybody,
And there was no one out there that the family knew
That would wanna hurt him.
- Eric's head wound from a .380 caliber gun
Indicated to detectives
That he was shot at point blank range.
- It appeared that he was sleeping when it happened,
So it would be someone that eric trusted so much
That he went to sleep
And-and had that person there.
- And ruvin quickly learned that his victim,
Mr. Popularity, had welcomed lots of people
Into his life and into his home.
- He used to hang out a-a local bar
Just down the street from his house.
The owner of the establishment knew him by name,
And he would tell us, "he would be here every night,
"and he would go home with a different girl."
- And his family knew that.
They didn't deny that. - No.
- It was the kind of thing eric's brother, michael,
Had already warned him about.
- Could it have been some revenge situation?
You know, someone wanted to have him,
He didn't wanna be with 'em,
And they came in and took him out.
I mean, we just didn't know.
- But michael and his sisters did know
About one particular girlfriend named denise.
- There were several members of our family
Who did point to her.
- Denise dated eric for a little bit over a year.
- She's older. - About 20-some years older.
- What'd you learn about his relationship with denise?
- Majority of his family did not like denise.
- Because?
- Because they thought she was using eric,
Or she, um-- they just didn't like her.
- Detective ruvin's interest in denise intensified
When he learned something else.
He said denise told him that for a brief time,
Months before the murder,
She had a key to eric's apartment.
They were goin' out. That seems to make sense.
- Right, right,
And there was no evidence of a break-in,
So someone either had to have a key
Or been led in by eric.
- Well, I mean, denise certainly would fit the profile
Of somebody that eric trusted,
Somebody he'd be willing to go to sleep
While they were still there.
- Absolutely.
- Police were eager to interview her,
But they knew that if denise had been in eric's apartment
Recently,
Any forensic trail she might have left
Might not mean much, and the same was true
For all those other women police hadn't even identified.
- Because their dna belongs there.
Their dna belongs everywhere in the apartment.
Their fingerprints belong in the apartment.
So, now you have to prove it some other way.
- After day one, ruvin said denise topped his list
Of people to check out,
But she would not be ruvin's only lead.
- Oh, my god.
- A witness came forward who'd seen a man
Meeting with eric just before the murder.
Like eric, he was a salesman,
But he wasn't selling cars.
- Coming up...
A possible new suspect.
And a possible motive as old as time.
- Jealousy leads to murder.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- I was here, but I wasn't really here.
It was very, very difficult.
- People tell you grief diminishes over time,
But days after eric somuah's death,
His close-knit family could only dream
About whether that moment would ever arrive.
- When I received the paper the next day,
And I opened it to the obituary section,
And I saw this young, handsome guy in there,
I just lost it.
- Sadly, I meet a lot of people in your situation.
There are families that really wanna know
What happened, and then there are other people
Who are like, not gonna bring him back,
And I don't wanna spend another minute thinking about the murderer.
You guys clearly are in that first group.
You wanted an answer, didn't you?
- Oh, yeah, we-we wanted to know who would do this
Because we just could not understand
Who want to kill eric.
- The family had pointed detective dimitri ruvin
At eric's girlfriend, denise.
- We interviewed denise multiple times.
- Ruvin's interest in denise picked up
When he learned from the family
That her romance with eric was on the rocks.
- And he was with her, like, probably about a year,
And then after a while, he was just tired of, uh,
Being, I guess, bogged down by someone.
- According to ruvin, denise told him
That she and eric were talking about breaking up
By mutual agreement.
Ruvin said she also acknowledged
Eric was dissatisfied with their relationship,
Giving the detective a theory to consider.
Older woman, younger man...
And now he wants to end it
And maybe see somebody else.
- Right.
- And that breeds jealousy,
And we know what that leads to.
- Correct. Jealousy leads to murder.
- While he continued to investigate denise,
Ruvin learned from residents in eric's building
That there was a woman there he'd been dating
For just a few weeks.
- That's why we wanted to talk to katrina.
- Katrina ben came down to police headquarters
For an interview.
[groans]
- She's visibly upset her.
[groans]
Just earlier that day,
Detective ruvin and his partner
Had told her that eric was dead.
- I don't care, it's--
[sighs]
- Um, so, let's-- yes.
- They wanted whatever leads she could give them,
But they began with the basics.
- Outside their building.
Katrina did work as a nurse for the nih,
The national institutes of health.
It turned out she and eric had plenty in common.
- Mm-hmm.
- The relationship quickly turned more than friendly.
Katrina said she and eric had been dating weekly,
Usually on mondays, ever since.
Katrina wanted to know about progress
In finding her lover's killer.
- And we can't-- we can't--
- She asked if they could at least say where eric died.
[groans]
The interview topic returned to the vibrant eric she knew.
That explained, katrina said,
Why he never answered her recent texts.
The detectives consoled her
But also continued to probe
About that last night together
Two days before eric's body was discovered.
But then she said the night got strange.
Out of the blue,
Eric said he wanted to smoke some pot.
But she told him she wasn't interested.
She did agree to ride with eric,
So he could buy weed at a nearby apartment complex.
They drove up to this building.
Almost immediately, katrina said,
The pot dealer jumped into the backseat.
- Mm-hmm.
- Right. Right.
- After driving back to their building,
Eric and katrina spent the rest of the night
Watching the basketball game
Before they became focused on each other.
A little later, she told the detectives,
She was woken up by the sound of eric
Talking to someone outside the bedroom.
Through a crack in the door,
Katrina thought she could make out a face,
And the man looked familiar.
- She believed the guy to be the drug dealer.
- The same guy she'd met earlier.
- Yes.
- This was only hours before
Eric was murdered in his bed.
Detective ruvin now had another major suspect.
- So, we concentrated on this drug dealer.
- This would prove to be a critical moment
In the case but not for the reasons you think.
- Coming up...
Did police strike gold in the drug dealer's apartment?
- That's the same kinda gun that killed eric.
- It's the same- same kinda gun.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Bachelor eric somuah had been gunned down
At point blank range in his own bed.
Investigators believed it was someone he knew,
But the motive remained a mystery.
Then one of eric's girlfriends revealed
A secret about a man she said
She saw at eric's apartment the night he was killed.
Could this lead deliver the break they needed?
Back with "while he was sleeping,"
Here's josh mankiewicz.
- Detective dimitri ruvin has worked a lot of homicides,
But the death of eric somuah
Angered him more than most.
- You know, he was just sleeping.
To kill somebody while they're sleeping,
Is just-- it's horrible.
- Eric's sisters were grateful to have someone
As committed as ruvin working their brother's case.
- He is a phenomenal investigator.
- And now, just days after eric was murdered,
It looked as if detective ruvin
Might give the family some resolution.
One of eric's lovers, katrina ben,
Handed the investigators a new suspect,
Eric's pot dealer.
Katrina told them how uneasy she felt
With the dealer in the apartment.
So, at just around 5 a.M.,
Katrina said she got out of there.
- She said the guy then just came up to her
As she was leaving
And basically pushed her out with the door.
- Based on katrina's account, police believe
Eric was killed sometime in the early morning hours
Of June 5, 2012.
Ruvin brought in the dealer for questioning,
A man named william woodfork.
- And he was like, "I have no idea who that is.
"never met him before."
- Did you believe him? - No.
I knew eric called him,
And katrina's story tied him to eric.
- Ruvin hammered away at woodfork for hours,
Finally getting him to admit he sold eric marijuana
The night of the murder, but the dealer balked
When ruvin asked why he later went over to eric's.
- And he was like, "what are you talkin' about?"
He was so adamant about not even knowing
Where eric lives.
"you know, I'm a weed dealer.
"I'm not a deliveryman. I don't deliver.
"people come to me."
- Detective ruvin wasn't about to just take
A drug dealer at his word.
So, we end up gettin' a search warrant for his place,
And we recovered a safe from his apartment,
And inside the safe was a .380 handgun,
And it was like... [sighs]
Did he lie? Is this our murder weapon.
- That's the same kinda gun that killed eric.
- It's the same-same kinda gun.
- The gun was sent to the firearms lab
As ruvin checked to see if he could prove
William woodfork was in eric's apartment,
But woodfork's dna or fingerprints
Weren't on the door or anywhere else.
Do you look at the security tape?
Is he on there anywhere?
- Looked at the security tapes.
He was never on the security tapes.
- Then the tests came back on the dealer's .380.
- It was not the gun that killed eric.
It was the same caliber,
But the ammunition was different,
So it was just, uh, one big coincidence.
- Now, eric's dealer wasn't looking as good
For the murder.
Not only was the gun not a match,
Ruvin was convinced
The dealer was never at eric's apartment.
As for denise, the woman who had been
Eric's girlfriend,
Investigators interviewed her three times.
She was cooperative and allowed them
To look at her phone.
- Her phone records put her at home, uh,
The night of the murder.
- So, they eliminated denise as a suspect.
And again, ruvin started from scratch.
- You don't just come in, in somebody's apartment,
And murder them while they're sleeping
And expect to get away with it, and that felt like
This was my job to find the killer,
And I feel like I wasn't doing my job.
- The detective circled back to the person
Who pointed them towards the pot dealer
In the first place, katrina ben.
[moans]
The woman who'd been so surprised
And distraught by her lover's death.
Now, the cops wondered if she had deliberately
Misdirected them.
Ruvin and his partner asked her back for another chat.
Just days before, katrina had spoken of eric lovingly
But no longer.
- At some point, I asked her to give us her phone
Because I knew she exchanged messages,
And she just flat out refused to give us her phone.
- Well, that has to make you sort of sit up
And take note.
- Yeah, it was a little odd, but, at the same time,
If it was somebody--
If it was my significant other that was murdered,
I think I would do anything to help the police.
- And she wouldn't do it. - No.
- Katrina's abrupt change in behavior was strange,
Even alarming, to the detectives,
But all they could do was say their goodbyes
As katrina headed off to a new job in baltimore.
- At this point, um, there was enough
Weird behavior from katrina ben,
And we had nothing solid, nothing really incriminating,
But it was just something not being right there.
- The cops had a nagging feeling
Katrina ben was lying.
That pot dealer wasn't in the apartment
The night eric was murdered, but katrina was,
And suddenly, she looked suspicious,
But suspicions don't make a case.
And right now, someone was getting away with murder.
- With katrina bound for baltimore,
This threatened to stall the investigation
Into her lover's murder.
Then a remarkable roadside discovery.
Coming up...
A damaged gun helps a determined detective
Shoot a bull's eye.
- It was recovered, uh,
The day after we found eric's body,
And I was like, let's just test this gun.
This gun makes sense.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back.
The investigation into eric somuah's murder
Had hit a dead end, but detective dimitri ruvin
Was not one to give up easily.
He was about to try the near impossible,
The detective version of a hail mary pass,
But if his hunch was right,
It would help him uncover the smoking gun
Needed to blow this case wide open.
Here with more of "while he was sleeping,"
Here's josh mankiewicz.
- As his murder investigation slowly rolled forward,
Detective dimitri ruvin developed a certain affection
For eric somuah, the guy he'd never met,
The successful, charismatic, charming victim.
You kept a picture of eric on your desk at work.
- Mm-hmm. - Just to remind you.
- We called him the most interesting man in the world.
That was the name of this case,
And I've always had a picture of eric
To just kinda remind me to-to keep going
And keep working a case.
- Unfortunately, what wasn't next to eric's photo
On ruvin's desk was any hard evidence
Against katrina ben,
The woman ruvin thought knew more than she was telling
About eric's murder.
He decided to take yet another crack at his suspect,
And, along with another detective,
Ruvin paid katrina a visit up in baltimore.
- For the most part, her story remained the same.
- But katrina was also on guard and defensive.
Instead of focusing on the detective's tone,
Katrina should have paid more attention
To their clothing.
Detective ruvin secretly had a tape recorder
In his pocket.
- And that's when I asked her about owning any guns.
- Armed with a warrant,
Ruvin searched katrina's apartment
But did not find a gun.
He seized her phone and computer,
But cops didn't find anything incriminating.
There was no gun registered to her anywhere.
- No. No.
- And no sign that she'd ever owned one
At any point in her life. - That's correct.
- Ruvin kept going.
- I subpoenaed her bank records and credit card records
Just to see if she purchased any ammunition somewhere.
- You didn't find it. - No.
- Ruvin didn't stop there.
He kept looking everywhere.
He even went all the way to katrina's hometown
In mississippi
Where he learned something interesting.
- I talked to her dad, uh, who said that he had guns,
Multiple guns in the house,
And that katrina had shot guns before,
So we knew she lied.
- But that is no criminal offense.
Still, ruvin was certain he could eventually
Find something concrete, and he kept looking.
Weeks passed, then months.
- I think that's probably the toughest thing about, uh,
This job, is if it goes unsolved for a while.
- You feel like you're lettin' the family down.
- Right, exactly, and especially families
That do stay in contact with you.
- Eric's family was eager for answers.
They were not shy about letting ruvin know that.
- He gets probably daily phone calls
From each one of us,
And he was so patient in just explaining.
- Detective ruvin never said to you,
"hey, maybe, like, one of you could call me
"and tell the other people?" - never.
- Never.
- And you look at your phone, and you're like--
You don't even wanna answer 'cause you have no news.
It's the same that it was last week.
We think we know who did it, but we can't prove it right now.
- May 2013, the one year anniversary
Of eric's murder, approached.
And frankly, the investigation had come
To a standstill.
Ruvin wasn't just angry. He was frustrated.
He needed to make something happen.
Ruvin thought about the gun that had killed eric,
And he knew a lot of handguns just like it
Were already in police custody all across the d.C. Area.
He decided to examine all of them.
It was an immense task.
He began in montgomery county.
- So, I decided to look at all .380s recovered
In the past year.
- Which had been how many? - It was about 60 guns.
- Ruvin combed through the records
For each of those guns, most seized by cops
In traffic stops or drug busts,
But none matched up
Until ruvin read the second to last file.
It was handgun number 59 out of 60.
It was a gun turned in by a tourist from montana
Who had spotted it lying by the side of the beltway,
D.C.'s most traveled road.
The only reason the man saw it was because
He was parked in d.C.'s famous bumper to bumper traffic.
- It was recovered, uh, the day after we found
Eric's body.
Uh, it was a-a short distance away
From the crime scene,
And I was like let's just test this gun.
This gun makes sense.
- This seems like succeeding against
Unbelievable odds. - One in a million.
- The gun was a mess, missing most of its components,
And it looked as if it might have been run over
After it hit the pavement, but the barrel intact.
Using spare parts, the police firearms lab
Reassembled the weapon and test fired it.
[gunshot]
The result?
A close match to the bullet that killed eric somuah,
And on the gun, a serial number.
From it, ruvin learned something else.
Where was it originally sold?
- It was sold at a pawn shop in columbia, mississippi.
- Why was that a big deal?
Because that little pawn shop
Was just a few miles down the road
From silver creek, mississippi,
Which was the hometown of katrina ben.
Ruvin just couldn't buy that as a coincidence.
So, he took another trip down to mississippi,
This time to track down the gun's original owner,
Which was harder than it might sound.
- This gun had multiple-multiple owners.
It would take me 30 minutes
Just to persuade somebody to talk to me.
- Why?
Because in mississippi, you sound like a stranger?
- Uh... - That's so weird.
[laughter]
- Possibly sound like a stranger.
Also, nobody wants to talk about guns.
They always think that I'm there to get 'em in trouble.
- It was a lot of shoe leather,
And ruvin still didn't have a solid link to katrina.
- It would take some persuading from-from me
To even have people talk to me.
- But slowly, the persuasion paid off.
- And each would tell us, "yeah, I had it for a year,
"and then I pawned it at this pawn shop."
- After interviewing six former owners of the gun,
Ruvin arrived at a pawn shop that bought and sold it
Sometime around 2003.
- So, the owner, he was like,
"we kept our records in diaper boxes
"in the back of the shed, and the rats were eatin' on 'em,
"so we decided to just send 'em to the atf."
- Ruvin offered to come look through those diaper boxes.
The response from the atf? Thanks, but no thanks.
- The atf agent was just saying, "just let us take care of it."
So, we left mississippi really with nothing.
- Ruvin returned to maryland
Wondering if he'd hit another dead end.
He wondered for about a week.
It was late June,
Now more than a year since eric was murdered,
When an atf agent called back.
- "we found these diaper boxes, we found these records,
"and we're faxing you a receipt."
So, I was waitin' by the fax machine.
The fax came through.
I looked at the name, and it was katrina ben.
She was the last purchaser of that handgun.
- And you've got her. - Oh, yeah.
It was pretty incredible.
I-I was literally jumpin' up and down.
- Now, he just had to lasso katrina ben.
Easy? You decide.
- Coming up...
Was katrina ben a Monday night girl?
- A girl who you do not take out,
You do not show off,
And you do not introduce to your friends.
She has her purposes.
- And was that a motive for murder?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back.
Against incredible odds, detective dimitri ruvin
Found the gun that tied katrina ben
To the murder of eric somuah.
Investigators believed that now they could prove who did it.
But why?
It was a question they knew they would have to answer
If they wanted to get justice for eric's family.
Here with the conclusion of "while he was sleeping,"
Is josh mankiewicz.
- Eric somuah had been dead for more than a year,
And still, no one had been arrested for his murder,
But his family, bound together
By grief and faith, felt a kind of serenity.
- I believe that there are certain people
That were destined or ordained, I would say, to work this case.
Detective ruvin, outside of his normal business hours,
Was very determined, and he persevered
Beyond what a normal detective would do.
- The family didn't know it yet, but that perseverance
Was about to be rewarded.
Detective ruvin had an arrest warrant
For katrina ben.
She was living back in mississippi,
Which is where the cuffs went onto her wrists.
But katrina ben did not remain silent,
Not at all.
Ruvin had dropped the friendly facade
He'd once presented to katrina.
Now, he came at her full force.
Remember, katrina had told police
She didn't own a gun, hadn't even fired one.
- Mm-hmm.
- It was simple, they told her.
She murdered eric.
The question was why.
- Eric was absolutely wonderful.
- It's gonna be bad. I'm-I'm telling you.
You're--
- But katrina wouldn't give it up
And asked for a lawyer.
The detectives put her in lockup,
And ruvin stepped outside to call eric's family.
- I was just like, you know, thank you, god.
They're going to get this woman.
- Getting a conviction
Was ultimately the responsibility of
Montgomery county state's attorney john mccarthy.
Even with the gun, which gets you an arrest
And into a courtroom,
This is pretty far from an ideal case.
- Absolutely.
To sell this to a jury when you were basically saying
That she felt so betrayed after a three week relationship
That she was driven to murder,
That's a little bit of a tough sell.
- Mccarthy assigned the case to jessica zarrella,
Then assistant state's attorney.
At trial, in the fall of 2014,
She gave katrina a nickname that few would envy.
Why did you refer to katrina as the Monday night girl?
- It was used in the context of a girl
Who you do not take out, you do not show off,
And you do not introduce to your friends, um,
And she has her purposes,
But those purposes are relegated to Monday nights
And not the more high profile Saturday and Friday nights.
- This was the prosecution theory.
Katrina learned, maybe from eric's phone,
That she was far from the only woman in eric's life.
Jealousy and anger did the rest,
And katrina shot eric while he slept.
- Human emotion, uh, fuels most homicides.
- What I keep thinkin' of, is sort of "fatal attraction."
- Right.
- An insignificant relationship on one side,
And a very significant relationship
If you ask the other person.
- Obviously, he made a misjudgment
When he became intimately involved with her,
And the sense of betrayal that she felt,
Is what fueled this homicide.
- And, said prosecutors, after katrina killed eric,
She quickly ditched the gun and began playing the part
Of the concerned lover,
But she couldn't keep her story straight.
- Lies upon lies upon lies, um, to bury the truth,
And that ultimate truth, in this case, was that gun.
- The crux of katrina's defense was that she had no reason
To kill eric because she just wasn't that into him.
What's wrong with the argument that
This was a woman who discovered
There were other women in his life,
And she got incredibly jealous and angry,
And that tipped her over, and she killed him?
- Just doesn't work for miss ben.
- Karl-henri gauvin was one of katrina's lawyers.
- We have to look at the time in which these two parties
Were intimate with one another,
A matter of weeks.
And so, to say that the relationship was at
Such a strong level that she would become jealous
Or irate to the point where she would murder somebody,
Doesn't resonate with the time in which they were together.
- As for that gun, katrina's attorneys argued
That the traveling nurse had long since lost track of it.
They said someone could have stolen the gun
Along the way and used it on eric.
- As she shifts from one residence to another,
From state to state, because of her profession,
She may have left the gun,
Or she was unaware, rather, of where the gun may have been.
- Jurors were not swayed.
It took them just six hours to find katrina ben guilty
Of murder in the first degree.
- There's no doubt in my mind
That had she not been convicted of this crime, um,
Katrina ben was, uh, just as likely
To encounter someone else who disrespected her
In the same way, um, that she felt eric did and--
- With the same result.
- Visit that ultimate consequence,
Which is take his life.
- But the real jaw dropper came at sentencing
When katrina addressed the courtroom.
- She stood up as if she was giving a eulogy
Of my brother, telling us, "I'm sorry for your loss,"
And all this stuff.
It was like a slap in the face.
- She's talking about the murders
As though she wasn't even there.
You killed this person.
You're the reason why you're here.
It was just unbelievable.
- The judge sentenced katrina ben
To life plus 20 years.
- Justice has been served today,
And what you have sown into the life of our dear brother,
Cousin, nephew, friend,
You will reap bountifully with life in prison.
- Now, years after saying goodbye to eric,
His large, loving family
Still feels the pain of his loss.
- We do remember eric every day, all the good times we had.
- Yeah. [sighs]
- It's unfortunate that we have to think about the day
That he was brought home from the hospital
To the day that we actually closed the casket.
- What they wanna do, is warn other families
To watch out for the other katrina bens in the world.
- I pray and continue to pray that even in doing this,
That it will bring awareness to other people out there
About certain types of people and just being very cautious
And bein' aware. [sighs]
- So, the lesson is, be careful who you get close to.
- Absolutely.
- Be very careful, very aware, very important.
- That's all for this edition of
"dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.