- I'm Craig Melvin,
and this is
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
- It's been extremely hard.
- The hardest part was
the-the crime scene picture
of our mom.
- I always told myself
she didn't see it coming.
- A mother at work
in her office, murdered.
- Someone shot her
and just let her die.
- Four bullets.
Making sure she was dead.
- Who wanted this very nice,
professional woman dead?
- Police start to dig.
Her new fiancé...
- He was like,
"I have to move on".
- It was just very suspicious.
- Her final client...
- He owned
a nine millimeter gun.
- And she was shot with
one of those.
- Her ex-husband...
- He was under deep suspicion
by the whole town?
- He was.
- I know anyone's capable
of doing anything,
but we would know.
We're his kids.
- A chilling case...
- Greed. Hate. Murder.
- ...with a riveting end.
- Our mom's killer
is still out there.
**
- Hello and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
Pam Zimmerman
was a doting mom
and a trusted
financial adviser.
She was also a killer's target,
shot execution style
in her office.
Detectives discovered
some of the men in Pam's life
were keeping secrets,
but only one would face trial
for her murder.
The stunning outcome
would tear Pam's family apart.
Here's Keith Morrison
with "Before Midnight".
- A few minutes after sunrise
on the morning of
November 4, 2014,
David Zimmerman
rose from his bed
in the quiet suburb of
Bloomington, Illinois,
eager to dispose of
a small worry
that had been
nagging at him all night.
He padded across the room
to his bedroom door.
- I woke up and walk out into
the kind of main hallway
that we have and
the lights were still on.
- The lights he left on
when he went to bed.
Which meant what?
David was seventeen years old,
the eldest of Pam Zimmerman's
three children.
They, not uncommonly,
left the lights on for their mom
when she worked late at
her financial planning business
or when she stepped out
with her new man.
Typically, when she got home,
she'd turn the lights off,
but this Tuesday morning...
- Her bedroom is dark
and it looked like no one
had been there.
- Tell me what was going on
in your mind when you saw that?
- My mom is probably
a million different places.
I thought it was
the weirdest thing.
I was like, "All right,
she didn't come home.
So where is she?"
- Had to be
a reasonable explanation.
Pam Zimmerman was so reliable.
Two years divorced,
a successful businesswoman
and fully engaged mother,
a pillar of the neighborhood.
David and his fifteen-year-old
twin sisters,
Heidi and Rachel,
tried to push
their worries aside.
- We made up, like,
every possible excuse
there could have been for
why she wasn't coming home.
- You don't wanna
focus on that--
- Yeah.
- But some signs
were hard to ignore.
For one thing,
the night before
when Pam didn't respond to
her kids' text messages,
Heidi tried tracing her.
And what she found
didn't make sense.
- My mom and I shared a, like,
find my iPhone account,
so I looked it up
on her computer
where her iPhone was.
And I saw it was in this--
it wasn't at her office,
it was in a weird location.
I convinced myself that
she was at a client's house
'cause that was my excuse
at the time
for why she wasn't home.
- Still, their mom was a rock,
center of their universe.
They told themselves
they'd be laughing
about this later.
Or they'd be relieved, anyway.
- We said, "Let's just
get ready for school.
Let's keep on with our day."
- She'll be home
when we get home?
- Yeah.
- Same time, same morning,
and just two doors
down the street,
one of Pam's closest friends,
Julie Koh,
was still in her pajamas.
- My home phone rang,
which was odd because
your home phone
never rings that early.
- It hardly ever
rings ever anyway.
- Right. Right.
I mean, we're, I know,
one of the rare people
that still have a home phone.
And so I picked it up
and it was Scott.
- Scott Baldwin was
Pam Zimmerman's fiancé.
He lived a few hours away,
near Chicago.
- He said,
"I haven't heard from Pam.
I'm really worried.
I don't know what's going on.
I've been trying to reach
her since last night.
She's not answering."
- So she lived just a couple
houses down here, right?
- Right, she's two houses
down that way.
So I walked down here and
knocked on the front door
and David answered.
And I said,
"Where's your mom?"
And he said,
"I don't know.
She didn't come
home last night".
And I said,
"What do you mean she didn't
come home last night?"
And he said,
"Well, where is she?"
I believe they had been
trying to reach her
since 5:30 the night before.
- And nothing?
- And she didn't answer.
- For the kids,
she tried to hide the worry
flooding into her brain.
- She was like,
"Okay, just go to school
like you normally would,
and I'll text you later
when I know something".
- "Maybe", thought Julie,
"maybe there was
some simple explanation."
She rushed home, got dressed,
jumped in her car,
and headed
straight to Pam's office.
Maybe Pam fell asleep
while working late.
- I don't really know.
I don't really know
what my thinking was.
- Pam's kids tried to
concentrate on their schoolwork.
Couldn't.
- I just remember
going to school.
And Rachel and I sat
across from
two of our friends at school
and I just lost it
and started bawling.
And the whole morning
was really hard.
- By now, there was a tribe
of frightened people.
This is Pam's cousin, Vicki.
- I have a brother
who's eighteen years
younger than me.
He called and he said,
"They can't find Pam".
And I go, "What?"
He goes,
"They can't find Pam".
And I said,
"That's not good".
And he goes,
"No, it's not".
- The drive to Pam's office
didn't take long.
Julie Koh pulled into
the parking lot
and right away
she saw something
that would lead her
to call 911.
- Where is Pam Zimmerman?
A search of her office
reveals the answer,
but the questions
are just starting.
- Coming up...
- The lights were all off,
the blinds were all pulled.
- All of a sudden
I hear her say,
"Oh my god, oh my god,
oh my God!"
I remember thinking,
"Everything has changed
in my life right now.
Everything has changed
for those kids."
- There's David and his cheeks
are stained with tears.
**
- 7:00 a.m.. November 4, 2014,
Julie Koh,
full of trepidation,
arrived outside
the business office
of her missing friend and
neighbor, Pam Zimmermann.
Nobody around.
Except, wasn't that
Pam's car in the lot?
Julie called her husband.
- And he said, "Call 911".
So I called 911
and she said,
"Do you want to file
a missing persons report?"
And I said, "I don't even know
if she's missing".
And then she saw
someone who could help.
Right as I pulled in,
Ina was parked right over there
and she was
getting out of her car
and walking towards me.
- And you knew Ina well?
- And I knew Ina.
- Yeah.
- Right.
So I jumped out of my car
and I said,
"Pam didn't come home
last night".
- Ina Hess was Pam's friend
and longtime office manager.
Ina said Pam seemed fine
the day before.
Said when she left
around 4:30 p.m.,
Pam was meeting with
her last client of the day
behind closed doors.
But Ina had a key to
the building and office,
so the two women headed in.
- I opened the door there and
the lights were all off
and the blinds were all pulled.
- Was that unusual?
- Very.
Uh, the blinds in my area,
the reception area,
were never closed.
- But they were this time?
- They were closed.
And I reached over and
turned the light switch on.
- And all of a sudden
I hear her say,
"Oh my god, oh my god,
oh my God!"
And I walked over
to where she was,
and we could see Pam's body
kind of laying
in a fetal position.
- Julie is a nurse.
She checked for signs of life.
- I remember leaning down
and, you know,
checking for a carotid pulse.
And I remember thinking,
"Everything has changed
in my life right now.
Everything has changed
for those kids
and their life
will never be the same."
- So there are two things
going on at once there?
- Right. Right.
You just--
That's how you're trained.
You immediately focus.
Emotions are put aside.
I knew something was bad.
I knew something wasn't right.
I knew not to move her.
- Ina has stared,
rooted to the spot.
- I guess I kind of went
into shock because I just--
I saw her lying there.
- But you had no idea
what had happened?
- No.
- Like, she could have had
a heart attack or something?
- Could have.
- Or maybe she tripped
over a foot rest
behind the reception desk.
- Kind of
in the back of my mind,
I'm like,
"Well, did she hit her head?"
- Police arrived in minutes.
Julie's phone, still pinging.
- The kids are still texting.
I keep saying,
"Someone needs to go to them
and tell them what's going on."
- Eventually, officers went to
the high school
and one by one,
Pam's children were called
to a conference room
where the police told them
their mother was dead.
- That was the worst part,
that they didn't tell us
all together.
And they brought me
to this room,
and there's David
and his cheeks
are stained with tears,
and I just had to see that.
And then they told me,
and then I was just bawling.
And then David
starts bawling again.
- And then, like,
half an hour later,
the same thing happens
with Rachel.
- Oh, Lord!
Can't imagine a day like that.
Did you know where
your dad was?
Did you know where any sort
of center of your lives was?
- No.
- We didn't know
anything after that.
They just took us
into questioning.
- But then, it was hard
for anyone to focus on anything
other than loss,
all-consuming grief.
- She was the neatest friend,
cousin you could ever ask for.
If you needed something,
she'd be there in a heartbeat.
- Outgoing, gregarious type?
- Oh, she would
talk to anybody.
Everybody knew her.
- And she made everybody
feel like they were, you know,
one of her closest friends.
That's how she was.
And she was sincere.
- A caregiver.
Yes, that was Pam Zimmerman.
But to her sister,
Diane Gifford
and brother Larry Alexander,
Pam was also the family's
smart, ambitious star.
- She was valedictorian
of her class.
- Yeah.
- Graduating class.
- She was
a straight-A student
her entire grade school
and high school.
Except, I think, one B,
which she got in Home Ec.
- I mean, I've always known
we had the most amazing mom.
Such a bright, happy person,
full of wisdom,
smart, funny.
I could go on and on.
- She always made sure
that we came first.
She'd come home from work,
she'd make us dinner,
she'd stay up all night
helping us with homework
or doing our laundry.
- We called her, like,
Super Mom
because she, like,
literally did everything.
- And yet, for all
the love she inspired,
Pam Zimmerman must have
stirred something dark
in someone or got
in someone's way.
Wasn't long before
the police figured out
that her death
was no accident.
- What did the police
tell you?
- Nothing.
They kept the evidence
very, very, very quiet.
- When did you find out
how she was killed?
- A few days later,
um, police called me
and said that
the newspaper
is going to release
some information.
You should tell the kids.
And the only thing
they would tell me is
the cause of death
was multiple gunshots.
- Pam Zimmerman
had been murdered.
But, by whom?
- Is the answer
someone Pam knew?
As the case gets underway,
detectives discover
they have no shortage
of potential suspects.
- Coming up...
Police start with
the men around her.
Her new fiancé...
- He had at least
two other women
that he had been
involved with.
- Her final client...
- He owned
a nine millimeter gun.
- And she was shot
with one of those.
- And what about her ex?
- There was no doubt,
Pamela Zimmerman was
the victim of
cold-blooded murder.
Happened sometime
before midnight
was the coroner's
best guess.
The murder weapon?
A nine millimeter handgun.
- There were two bullet wounds
in her chest
in the front of her body.
- Edith Brady-Lunny was
a long-time pantagraph
crime reporter.
- There was one bullet wound
in her temple
and then there was
one bullet wound in her back.
- So somebody making
absolutely sure
she was good and dead?
- Exactly.
- What was that like
to hear that?
That news?
- It was...
the worst phone call
of my life.
To think that someone shot her
and just let her die.
- And Pam's kids?
When they heard that...
- I always told myself
she didn't see it coming.
Just 'cause that was
the easiest way for me
to cope with it.
- An execution is
what it looked like.
Or maybe an office
invasion robbery?
Didn't seem likely,
but...
- They wanted to do
a walk through to see
what was missing
or what was out of place.
- Did you notice
anything wrong?
Anything missing?
- The phone cords
had been cut
and the phones were gone.
And my calendar that I kept
all of her appointments on,
that was gone.
- Pam's purse was sitting
on her desk, gaping open.
Her wallet was gone.
Cell phone too.
Its case was lying
on the floor.
- Did you get the sense
that maybe the police thought
somebody wanted
to steal something
and they were
in the process of it
and got interrupted?
Or something?
- They could have
thought that.
- But there was no sign
of forced entry.
None.
And cops found
Pam's cell phone
right where her daughter's
Find My iPhone account
said it would be.
Her wallet close by
with her credit cards all there.
- So the police
believed early on
that this was
a staged effort
to make it look like
it was a robbery.
- But who'd want to
kill Pam and then stage
some strange,
half-hearted cover up?
Start close,
is the old adage.
Which meant in
Pam's world on that day
three men,
her last client
that last day of her life,
her ex-husband,
and her brand new fiancé,
Scott Baldwin, the object
of a whirlwind romance
and perhaps,
too-rapid engagement.
After all, no one in the family
really knew him,
not even her kids.
- I had only met
Scott three times.
- Uh-huh.
- And the third time was
the party that they had
to celebrate
their engagement.
- That celebration
was just days before.
Yet, when Scott heard
about the murder,
he did not rush to
Bloomington from his home
just two or three hours away
near Chicago.
- It just made me realize
and think what my mom
really meant to him
and what we really
meant to him.
He sounded fake
at that point.
- Pam's kids had
questions about Scott,
and so did detectives.
- He was asked to come
down to Bloomington
to meet with police,
which he did
the following day
after Pam's body
was discovered.
- Scott told the detectives
he'd been home alone
when Pam was killed.
Police would look into that,
but in the meantime,
they discovered
something very interesting
about Pam's new fiancé.
- They spent
a fair amount of time
checking into who he had been
communicating with.
- Sure.
- And he had
at least two other women
that he had been
involved with,
that he was still having
some pretty heavy amount
of contact with.
- Pam's kids didn't know
anything about that,
but they did get
a weird vibe from the fiancé
after their mother's death.
- He was like,
"I had nothing to do with this
and I need you guys
to understand that,
like, I have to move on."
- I'm sorry,
repeat that for me?
- We had dinner with him--
- Uh-huh.
- ...like, a week after she died
and he sat us down.
- Did you ask him if he had
something to do with it?
- No.
- No, he just
volunteered that.
- And two months later,
he was dating someone new.
- It was just
very suspicious.
- But Pam's daughter,
Rachel, thought
it was much more likely
her mom's murder
was somehow tied
to her business.
She was an accountant
and financial advisor.
Maybe she found out something
that one of her clients
shouldn't have been doing,
and this client would have
lost a lot of money.
- Ina Hess told the
investigators that
Pam's last client
the day she was murdered
was a man named
Eldon Whitlow.
- Did he have any beefs
with Pam?
- There was no evidence
that Eldon had any beefs.
They had a long-term
professional relationship
where she was helping him
with his investments.
- Whitlow told detectives
his meeting with Pam
was uneventful.
He left around
5:40 p.m., he said,
then had dinner
with his girlfriend.
He was cooperative,
but...
- He owned
a nine millimeter gun--
- And she was shot
with one of those.
- ...that that matched
the type of gun
that she was killed with.
- Now that was a development.
- Eldon Whitlow was considered
a person of interest.
- Detectives got
a search warrant
and Eldon turned over
a nine millimeter.
The nine millimeter?
They sent it off
for testing.
And as they waited
for the results,
they drilled down on
that one more possible
person of interest.
The third man,
the man who just might
have had a motive.
Pam's ex-husband,
Kirk Zimmerman.
"Look at him",
said Pam's family.
There was something
going on there.
- Um...
- Problems.
- ...it definitely
turned into hatred.
- A lot of problems.
- Problems? Hatred?
Exactly what was the problem
between Pam Zimmerman
and her ex-husband, Kirk?
- Coming up...
the ex, the client,
the fiancé,
revelations about them all.
Who was it who said,
"no secrets
in a murder investigation?"
- Exactly.
- Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Craig Melvin.
Investigators will tell you
motive can suggest a killer
before the evidence does.
But to detectives,
why Pam Zimmerman
was gunned down
remained a mystery.
So, they focused on
an impulse as old as time,
greed.
And sure enough,
following the money trail
led them to one man
in particular.
Here again is Keith Morrison
with "Before Midnight".
- Police investigating
the murder of Pam Zimmerman
now had a short list.
Her fiancé Scott,
her client Eldon
and a third man,
her ex-husband, Kirk.
Some of Pam's relatives
were convinced, though,
that Kirk should
have been the first,
maybe only name
on that list.
- She would always say that if
anything ever happened to her,
he should be the person
we should look at.
- Well, you kind of wonder
when she said a thing like that.
- Well, and you wonder
and you think,
oh, come on,
you don't really mean that.
I mean--
- Did you say that to her?
- You know-- Yeah.
And she was,
"Oh no, Vicki, I mean it."
- Hey, how are you doing?
- So in the hours after
his ex-wife's murder,
Kirk Zimmerman spent a lot
of time with detectives.
And he answered
their questions calmly.
- Not once did he
ask for an attorney.
- When they asked
about the divorce,
Kirk said his only real concern
was for the kids.
- The detectives
ask Kirk what he did
the evening Pam was killed.
He said he was at home.
Started to read.
Must have dozed off.
- Nothing, not even this,
seemed to rattle Kirk.
- They got his fingerprints
and a DNA sample,
and they did
a gunshot residue test.
- He wasn't.
But he did it anyway.
And he didn't resist
handing over his phone,
or his laptop,
or passwords, either.
His car and house were
another matter, though.
Police had search warrants
for those.
- He was dropped off
at a hotel--
- Because he didn't
have his house anymore.
- ...because he did
not have a house.
The police were there
and stayed there for six days.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- No discoveries, really.
Except, Kirk had
a girlfriend named Kate,
and she revealed
something very curious.
She and Kirk had a date
scheduled the night Pam died.
Kate arrived early
to Kirk's house,
around 6:30,
rang the doorbell.
No answer.
Well, well, well.
Kirk hadn't told them
about any date
and certainly hadn't revealed
he didn't answer the door
when she rang.
So, second interview.
They pressed him again.
- Still, the girlfriend's story
put a hole in his alibi.
Was he home the night
Pam was killed,
or was he
somewhere else?
- Well, it was one that
the police really
had to sort through--
- Sure.
- ...to see if it was
a credible story or not.
- They let him go again.
Kirk's kids couldn't see
their dad as a suspect.
They said their parents' divorce
had been drama free.
- I think they both realized
that they came to want
different things.
- Kirk's brother,
Zim, agreed.
He was Pam's best friend
and he loved her like a sister,
saw her marriage up close,
and the way it ended.
- There was never
any hostility,
open air arguments.
The kids and I,
we-we never saw anything.
- If anything, they said,
the two seemed much happier.
Kirk got a house
just down the street
and around the corner
just to be close to them.
- I'm really glad he did.
It made it
really easy on us.
- And he did stay very involved
in their lives.
- Dad videotaped all
of our sporting events.
A lot of soccer games,
a lot of basketball games,
softball games.
- Besides, their dad
now had Kate.
They'd been dating
for more than a year.
- I really liked her.
- Yeah, Kate's awesome.
- Yeah.
- So dad, a murderer?
Seemed absurd
to the kids.
- I think he was happy
with where he was at.
- Now, days, months slid by.
The detectives were busy,
but very quiet about it.
Well, everyone waited.
They tested that nine millimeter
turned in by Pam's client,
Eldon Whitlow.
- It was not the gun
that had fired the bullets
that killed Pam Zimmerman.
- They checked his alibi,
discovered he did have dinner
with his girlfriend,
and then later that evening,
he met another woman.
- He had been checked out
and then he had been cleared.
- As for the fiancé,
Scott Baldwin,
his secret dalliances
raised eyebrows
but wound up
working for him.
Police confirmed he had been
miles away when his fiancé died,
phoning and texting
two other women.
- What is it about the men
in this story?
- Both of the men
had to make
some pretty
embarrassing admissions.
- Who was it who said--
maybe it was Agatha Christie,
"No secrets in
a murder investigation"?
- Exactly.
They both had to admit
that they had been...
messing around.
- Wow.
But Kirk, not so easy
to clear him.
So police followed the money
and they heard things,
different things from what
his kids and brother
said about the divorce.
Like a simmering resentment
that Pam got the house
after the divorce.
And most important,
more money from him.
- He had a goal
of retiring at fifty-five
from very early on
in his twenties.
- And it got all messed up.
- The dispute at the moment?
Days before she was killed,
Pam Fed-Exed Kirk a demand:
pay close to $4,000
in expenses for the kids.
Or else...
- She was giving him
five days to pay it,
or she was gonna
take him back to court.
- Office manager Ina
said Pam told her
she was truly
afraid of Kirk.
- I just warned her that
when worked late at night,
make sure she went
out the front door
where all
the lights were on.
- Yeah.
- And made sure that she was,
you know, always cautious.
- Money, the root
of all evil.
And something else
they found,
what was that telltale
residue in Kirk's car?
It was enough.
On a summer morning,
eight months after
Pam Zimmerman's death,
a cop turned on
his squad car lights and sirens,
pulled over a motorist,
read him his rights.
Kirk Zimmerman was under
arrest for murder.
- Coming up...
- Greed.
Hate.
Murder.
- Prosecutors lay out their case
with a dramatic eyewitness.
- That man sitting
over there.
- She saw a guy coming out
that back door of Pam's office.
**
- What is so warm,
so pure, so bright
as a midsummer morning
in Bloomington, Illinois?
Green grass,
songbirds, fresh air.
It was July 21, 2015.
The kids were now living
in their dad's house.
- We woke up to
the doorbell ringing.
And so I go down,
I open the door,
and he's like-- introduces
himself as a detective
and he's like,
"We just arrested your dad".
- And just like that,
a second parent was gone.
The twins, still minors,
were told they'd be living
with Pam's siblings now.
- Then Rachel and I were
taken into DCFS custody,
but we were forced to live
with them for three months
in our mom's house.
So that was just
one huge nightmare.
- It got to be hateful,
angry all the time,
no matter what we did.
- But of course,
Pam's kids knew perfectly well
that their aunts
and uncles believed
their dad killed
their mom.
- I was sixteen,
and our Aunt Diane
sat me down alone
in my mom's family room,
and she just plainly said,
"Your dad killed your mom".
- What do you think
about the possibility
that your dad could
be violent like that?
- Mm-mm.
- No.
I know anyone's capable
of doing anything,
but we would know.
We're his kids,
we lived with him.
- I honestly believe if she ever
really felt threatened,
she really felt at risk,
the first person
she would have reached
out to was me,
and she never did.
- Kirk spent four months
in jail before bonding out.
And for the next three
and a half years,
remained under house arrest.
- He couldn't leave
the house.
Uh, Rachel and Heidi
couldn't stay in the house
with him alone, there had
to be another person
who's eighteen or older
the entire time.
- The whole time
waiting for trial?
- Mm-hmm.
- Up until we turned eighteen.
- Until you turned eighteen?
- Yeah.
- Pam's neighbor and friend,
Julie Koh, tried to help.
- You know, I took
his daughter driving,
'cause they were
learning to drive.
I remember driving one
daughter to college.
She went to Mizzou,
so I took her.
- But while friends
tried to help Pam's kids,
they could not protect them
from a widespread
and very public suspicion
that their father
killed their mother.
And the case always
seemed to be in the news.
- Potential evidence that
came out was pretty damaging
to Kirk Zimmerman
because a lot of it dealt
with the exchanges he had
with Pam during the divorce.
- Those exchanges
were front and center
when the State finally
presented its case at trial.
- Greed.
Hate.
Murder.
Assistant State's Attorney
Brad Rigdon told the jury
the motive was clear:
Kirk Zimmerman killed
his wife over money.
- He knew that as long
as she was still alive,
he was going
to go broke.
- The motive and the means,
said at the State.
Kirk's cell phone put him
at home the night his ex died,
but the prosecutor told
the jury that Kirk's car,
a Hyundai,
told a different story.
The car, like most cars now,
had an onboard computer,
a kind of GPS device,
and an FBI analyst
said that device
revealed that the car
was in the vicinity
of Pam's office. So...
- The police got
some surveillance video
pretty early on from a building
nearby Pam's office,
and they believe there was a car
that matched Kirk Zimmerman's.
- And, said the prosecutor,
there was an eyewitness.
This woman, so nervous
as she took the stand,
she could barely
get her name out.
- Spell your first name.
- M...
- But what she had
to say was important,
said Pam's Brother.
- You know, she saw a guy
coming out that back door
of Pam's office.
She didn't know that was
Pam's office at the time.
- And that man, she said,
was carrying a bag.
- What'd he do
with the bag?
- Put it in his car.
- That was the stuff
he took out of the office.
- And who was that man?
On this point, the State's
emotional witness was certain.
- That man sitting
over there.
That man sitting
over there.
- Investigators never
found the murder weapon,
but on the gearshift
and Kirk's car,
gunshot residue,
said this forensic scientist.
- That gearshift handle
either contacted
a gunshot residue
related item or, uh,
was in the environment
of a discharged firearm.
- But remember the friends
and family who said
Pam told them she was afraid
Kirk might kill her?
That was hearsay,
ruled the judge.
- They were not allowed to
present that to the jury.
- Hmm. You know,
in a case where, um,
they're alleging that
an angry ex-husband
killed his wife,
Motive is everything, frankly.
- Yes.
- The jury did hear
all about that letter
Pam FedExed to Kirk
days before her murder,
demanding $4,000.
Pam's ongoing
financial disputes,
said the prosecutor,
were going to prevent
Kirk from realizing
his cherished dream
of retiring early.
And he wasn't gonna take it,
so he killed her.
- The receipt of that
October 24th letter
was the triggering event
that culminated
in the murder
of Pam Zimmerman
on November 3rd.
- To which
Pam's children replied,
ridiculous.
- I didn't think it made
any sense at all.
- The woman he was married
to for 20 years...
- The defense was up next
with its own case,
its own take
on the facts.
And what a spectacle
that would be.
- He had in excess
of $240,000 in his 401k.
- The defense tries to blow up
the money motive.
And another blow up
on the witness stand.
- Yes or no?
- No!
- What would the jury do?
- Welcome back.
Kirk Zimmerman
was on trial
for the murder
of his ex-wife, Pam.
Prosecutors argued
that an ongoing financial
dispute between the two
drove Kirk to fire
those fatal shots.
The defense was ready
to counter that claim
in front of a hotly
divided courtroom.
And the verdict?
It was about to
fracture a family.
Back to Keith Morrison
with the conclusion
of "Before Midnight".
- There were
so many little pieces,
so many bits of evidence
to parade before the jury.
The case against
Kirk Zimmerman
went on for more than
four weeks,
through 40 witnesses,
and pretty much
all of it
said Pam and Kirk's
children was wrong.
- You can put together little
pieces any way you want,
but the way they put it together
wasn't the right way.
- So now Bloomington
would hear
Kirk Zimmerman's
side of the story.
- Kirk Zimmerman did not shoot
and killed Pamela Zimmerman.
He didn't shoot and kill
the mother
of his three children
over owing $3,900
in child support.
That State theory that
Kirk killed Pam over money,
nonsense, said his defense
attorney, John Rogers.
Kirk made it clear to
the police, he said.
That FedEx from Pam
was no big deal.
- Kirk had a full pension,
guaranteed for life,
which he could have taken
at any point in time.
He was making $95,000
working for State Farm.
He had in excess of
$240,000 in his 401k.
- The defense
told the court
the police had tunnel vision
from the very start.
- It's the old, "let's go
look at the ex-husband,
he must have done it".
- That grainy video
the prosecution suggested
was Kirk's silver
Hyundai Sonata?
"Really?"
said the defense,
"how could you tell?"
- Ma'am.
- I don't remember the--
- Ma'am.
- The month and the year.
I don't. And I don't want
to hear no more.
- And then there was
Maria Legg,
the prosecution's
only eyewitness.
- I had a very difficult
cross-examination with her,
'cause she simply chose
not to respond to me.
- No, I do not want
to answer to you
because I want to say
what I saw.
- And when she did respond,
her testimony contradicted
the prosecution's evidence.
Like, for example,
the color of Kirk's car.
- You said, uh,
during direct examination
that it was a black car
that this gentleman went to
with the-with the big bag,
correct?
- Yes, sir.
- All right.
That's not a silver car, is it?
- That-- I saw black. That's it.
- The defense also challenged
that data taken from
the onboard computer system
in Kirk's silver Hyundai.
Things the State said
put the car near Pam's office,
the defense called it
"junk science".
- This type of expert testimony
has never been allowed
in the state
of Illinois before.
It should not have been
allowed in this case.
- But how could the defense
answer for that gunshot residue
found on Kirk's
gearshift?
A defense expert agreed there
was plenty of it on that spot.
But...
- Finding that number of, um,
characteristic
of gunshot residue particles
is surprising.
- Maybe too surprising?
Especially because there was
none anywhere else in the car,
so it looked like
some kind of mistake.
Or worse...
- Your suggestion is what?
That--
- Either gunshot residue
was purposely placed
on the lever,
or it came into contact
with either clothing,
a firearm, or the hands
of the two police officers
that had been
in a crime scene.
- Either way, Rogers suggested
sloppy police work
was the hallmark
of the investigation.
He said police
should have dug deeper
when they heard what
this woman had to say.
- I heard what I believe
should be gunshots...
- The defense had
an earwitness of sorts,
who testified that
though more than a block away,
she heard gunshots at the office
at 5:10p.m.,
which fit the coroner's
time-of-death window
of sometime
before midnight.
And why was that
important?
- That's the exact time
that Mr. Whitlow has himself
in Pam's office.
- Eldon Whitlow,
Pam's last client of the day.
- I'm not contending
that I had enough evidence
to prove Mr. Whitlow shot
Pam Zimmerman.
But certainly when
they claimed that
they investigated Mr. Whitlow
with the same intensity
that they investigated
Mr. Zimmerman,
that was not true.
- But police said
they investigated Whitlow
thoroughly
and cleared him.
The lawyers made their
final appeal to the jury.
- ...this is not what proof
beyond a reasonable doubt
looks like.
We do not speculate people
into murder convictions.
- The evidence has shown you
that on November 3, 2014,
he murdered Pam Zimmerman.
And he made sure
his hate got carried out
in that fourth shot.
That one was for him.
Find the defendant guilty.
- The family,
as polarized
as the most poisonous politics,
waited.
- I was just pacing
back and forth,
kind of freaking out
a little bit.
- And then,
after a day and a half
of deliberations,
the signal.
- All right.
- Verdict.
- All right, welcome back,
ladies and gentlemen.
Everyone may be seated.
- I was shaking.
It just felt very long.
- The courtroom
was utterly silent.
A collective
holding of breath.
- We, the jury,
find the defendant,
Kirk Zimmerman, not guilty
of first degree murder.
- Not guilty.
The children exhaled.
- It was just this huge relief
just to know that our dad
wouldn't be going away
for something he didn't do.
- And we just cried and smiled.
It was the best feeling ever.
- Across the aisle,
was a different world.
- I remember saying, "no".
- Yeah.
Then they took us upstairs
to the State Attorney's Office.
The State was just
as devastated as we were.
- Are you used to this yet?
- No.
- Not been very long.
- No.
There's still a lot of anger.
- 'Cause there's nothing
you can do now, right?
- Mnh-mnh.
- No, there's not.
- A family truly divided.
Diane and Larry
angry, disappointed.
Their nieces and nephew,
elated and hopeful.
- My dad can actually
go out to eat now,
so we've been going out
to restaurants.
He came with me
to my dentist appointment
because he hasn't been
able to do that
in a really long time.
It's kind of awkward,
'cause I'm 20, but-
- He's just trying
to make up for-
- Yeah.
- The lost 4 1/2 years.
- Now, said David,
Rachel and Heidi,
they're hoping the state will
solve their mom's murder.
- I obviously hope that
they do catch whoever did it,
but I wouldn't be surprised
if they don't.
- What's gonna happen
to the family?
- I think all of us wanna
move out of Bloomington.
- Yeah.
- So--
- That's for sure.
- Something else.
After all the trauma,
these three are,
by the look of it, fine.
It's because,
they said,
they had a wonderful mother,
Pam Zimmerman.
- You three have all done
pretty well so far.
What would she think about
where you are in life
and what you've
accomplished?
- I think she'd be
incredibly proud
of how well we've
handled everything.
And how it hasn't,
like, derailed us.
- You think about what--
how she would want you to live
and how she would want you
to keep going.
So that's what I've
just been trying to do.
- That's all
for this edition
of "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Craig Melvin.
Thank you for watching.