- I'm kate snow, and this is dateline: Secrets uncovered.
- How could this happen?
A very healthy 31-year-old, just winds up dead.
- A young father's death, so sudden, so strange.
- We wanted answers.
- The word "poison" just kept coming up.
- It was anti-freeze poisoning.
- You can't smell it.
You can't see it.
- Someone wanted him dead.
Someone who was hiding something.
- The details of the case are very salacious.
There's sex,
There's the allegation of poisoning.
- Cleaned out the bank account.
- Are you trying to accuse me of doing something to him?
- A brother determined to find a killer.
- How dare anybody do that to my little brother.
- It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
- A toxic mystery, an emotional trial.
- Is the jury being out long, a bad thing or a good thing?
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to dateline: Secrets uncovered.
Navy vet, matt podolak
And his fiancee, holly mcfeeture,
Were a loving couple raising a family together.
Then, quite suddenly, matt's life was cut short
When the healthy 31-year-old died
Under very strange circumstances.
His premature passing was met with disbelief,
Then sorrow, then suspicion
That maybe someone was keeping a deadly secret.
Here's keith morrison with manner of death.
- It was a mystery from day one.
From that time right around the end of the hockey season.
Didn't make sense what was happening to matt podolak.
Matt, the happy hockey amateur.
Matt, the outdoorsman.
The hunter, the fisherman, athlete.
Didn't make sense from the very first day
Matt podolak woke up in the morning
With that pain in his back.
And after what happened in the hospital
A couple of months later,
Nothing made sense after that.
[flat line droning]
Though god knows, there were accusations.
Oh, yes, plenty of those.
Then a brother, mark, for whom the story,
The mystery became a kind of obsession.
It's had quite an effect on me over the past seven years.
- But the story of what happened to matt podolak
Is one of those that-- well, you be the judge.
♪♪
Let's begin in the spring of 2006.
Matt was 31-years-old, maybe more than ever,
He was loving the intense male roughness
Of amateur hockey.
He was number ten, and he was good at it.
Even managed to keep all his teeth.
- He started to take it up when he was in high school.
And that was really one of his loves.
- Mark podolak was just a little older.
A little more academically accomplished
Than his kid brother maybe.
But mark loved him. Loved him for what he was.
- He was a good kid.
I mean, he didn't get in any trouble.
And to be honest with ya, my dad is a cop,
So... - Yeah.
- ...He sorta put the fear of god into me
And my brother when we were growin' up.
- Matt told his mom patricia
He was going to join the police force
When he came home to brooklyn,
After a stint in the navy.
Brooklyn, ohio, by the way.
It's one of the towns around the edge of cleveland.
- Matthew always wanted to, uh, be a police officer
Ever since he was little.
- His dad, len, was a 39-year veteran
Of the brooklyn pd.
- There was a point in time where it looked like
We may even work together.
- But life is full of disappointments.
Matt didn't get the call.
And so instead he went to work for his uncle,
Whose phoenix industrial powder coated engine parts
For ford and other companies.
- What did he think of that job of his,
Over at the factory?
- The thing that excited him about it
Was that he was gonna take over.
My uncle was kinda grooming him
To become the boss.
- But what matt wanted perhaps most of all
Was a family.
And so, when he met holly, holly mcfeeture.
- When matthew fell in love, he fell 110 percent.
And, um, he really loved holly.
- There are some people who plan out their lives
Very carefully.
Those people may have taken issue with matt and holly,
Whose daughter samantha was born give or take,
Nine months after they met.
The marriage part would come later they decided.
- He loved being a dad. He loved that little girl.
- And loved holly.
Holly loved him.
Holly told her sister chrissy, the story
Of how they eventually got engaged.
It was during a romantic weekend in niagara falls
Just before samantha was born.
Holly was preparing a bubble bath.
- And she couldn't hear because the faucet's running,
And here's matt down on his knee,
Like, hello.
And then she realized, "oh, my gosh! You're proposing!"
- That is a kind of romantic little story.
- I thought so. The bubbles and--
I thought that was pretty romantic.
- After samantha came along, matt and holly now engaged,
Went to vegas to witness a friend's wedding, lynn.
Did you almost make it a foursome wedding.
- Oh, yeah. Actually, yes.
Holly and matt said we should do a double wedding.
- But holly knew that her family
Would not be happy with that.
So, I think that's what made them not get married.
- Didn't get married,
But something happened in vegas.
Nine months after that, josh was born.
- From what holly has told me, josh was planned in vegas.
- Ready or not, matt was now the father
Of samantha and a baby boy he nicknamed "little man".
And holly's daughter from a previous relationship.
Big changes, in a very short time.
And by the end of the hockey season,
A lot of things started going wrong.
Josh was still very new then and colicky.
Matt was stressed.
And with that young family to support,
He'd gone and lost money gambling on the internet.
He complained of feeling depressed.
So depressed, his doctor prescribed anti-depressants.
Now that's about when it started.
The pain, that is.
Spasms of back pain.
He ignored it.
Figured it would go away on its own.
But it just got worse.
After weeks of this,
Holly insisted he go see a doctor.
- He had been complaining of pain,
And she finally said, you need to go.
Obviously, something is not right.
So... She basically, you know, had to drag him there.
- Kidney stones was the diagnosis.
The doctor gave matt pills to help dissolve them.
Four days later, he took a turn for the worse.
Way worse.
Holly called her father, matt's father and 9-1-1.
- I got a call from holly
Saying something's wrong with matt.
So, I talk to matt, and he says,
"dad, I don't feel good.
"I fell off the couch. I'm really dizzy."
I said, "well, get in the ambulance."
- Holly's father, mike arrived,
And followed the ambulance with holly to the hospital,
Where things went bad fast.
- I was nerve wracking because all we kept hearing about
Was, okay, they're trying to dial in on his kidney issue.
Well, then that medication was making his heart go.
So then they tried to address the heart,
And it kept seesawing back and forth.
- And nobody seemed to know really what it was causing it?
- No.
- Matt faded in and out of consciousness.
Doctors told holly and family members,
Go home, get some rest.
And then a few hours later, they called everybody
Back to the hospital. Right away, they said.
One look at the icu,
And big brother mark, felt his world come apart.
- When I saw him in the hospital,
It's something I won't forget.
It seemed like he was in a coma.
I knew if he made it through,
It wouldn't-- it wouldn't be the same.
- And everyone felt a particular kind
Of helplessness, knowing something was killing him,
But not knowing, how could they, what it was.
- How could this happen?
All of the sudden, a very healthy,
31-year-old young man, just winds up dead.
Family and friends ask a simple question,
Which will take seven years to answer.
- How can you go into the hospital for kidney stones,
And then die eight hours later?
- When dateline: Secrets uncovered continues.
♪♪
- The end came on Monday morning, July 31, 2006.
There in the icu, the mysterious ailment
That attacked matt podolak
Overwhelmed his defenses completely.
- I got a call that said you better get here
Because he's gone into full arrest,
And we've revived him already once.
So, when I got there, it was just downhill.
- Matt's fiancee, holly mcfeeture
Begged the doctors, keep trying.
- And holly said, "don't stop. Don't stop!"
And saying, "matt, don't leave me."
- It was no use.
- And once the doctor, or nurse stepped away,
Holly just lunged on matt and just wouldn't let go.
They actually had to pull her off of his body.
- He was just 31-years-old.
And now his children were fatherless,
And holly, a single mother of three.
At the funeral, said her sister,
She did not take it well.
- Holly was sitting in her car
For about 20 minutes bawling her eyes out
Before she even went in.
I don't know how I would be able to do that myself.
Go in and see him, lying there in the casket.
- Matt and holly's son, josh, was just six months old.
And he cried, a lot.
So, said, chrissy, holly repeatedly
Had to leave the reception line
To care for her colicky baby.
She was in the basement with josh
Because she was nursing.
She had to still take care of her kids
And show them that she had to be strong.
- Holly's friend rebecca vega did what she could to help,
Especially with that little boy.
So young.
- This poor baby,
He would have never known his father.
How could this happen?
All of the sudden, a very healthy, 31-year-old
Young man, just winds up dead.
It's kinda strange.
- Kinda strange? It certainly was.
Matt's brother mark, couldn't stop thinking
About how strange it was.
Matt's brother, mark, couldn't stop thinking
About how strange it was.
- He had kidney stones.
How can you go into the hospital for kidney stones
And then die eight hours later?
- Exactly what the coroner was wondering,
When he had a look at some of the damage
To matt's organs as if he'd been exposed
To some toxic chemicals in his environment.
Matt had worked for four years
For his uncle's phoenix industrial,
Supervised an assembly line,
Involved in painting and powder coating.
Any toxic chemicals there?
The coroner called holly to ask
Her friend lynn [indistinct].
- The coroner told her a lot of the chemical compounds
Were very similar to what the chemical compound was
That they found in him.
- Right after that, holly called matt's uncle,
The man who owned the factory.
- Saying that my brother needed to call the coroner
So that he can explain what matthew was exposed to.
- But soon after the coroner talked to matt's uncle,
After he got a proper list of the chemicals they used,
He pretty much ruled out any industrial cause.
- All those chemicals were safe to work with,
They were osha approved,
And, um, they had masks to wear.
- So if not that, what?
Perhaps a cause unhappily all too common
When death occurs in one so young.
That a depressed young man,
Overwhelmed by his sudden responsibilities
And the pain of his kidney stones
Decided to end it all.
It was a coroner's investigator who brought up the subject
To matt's mother.
- And she was questioning me,
Would matthew have committed suicide?
- Never, said his mother. Never!
But it was, his family had to admit,
A not unreasonable question,
Given matt's depression and all,
Even though mark believed
His brother had that under control.
- He went to a doctor to-to get some help with that.
The doctor gave him some antidepressants.
- Did that help?
- I thought it did.
He, um, he seemed to be better.
- But then, matt had a new family now.
You know how it is, matt was spending
Most of his time with holly and the kids
And her parents, they said,
So maybe mark didn't know.
Did he go to his own parents' house very often?
- I don't recall him talking about them much.
- His connection didn't seem to be that close, then.
- It didn't seem to be.
- And mark didn't know, not then anyway,
That matt actually asked a friend to remove
His hunting guns from his house
As if he was afraid, perhaps, he might harm himself.
Was he really thinking about killing himself?
- From what I heard, yes.
I heard that he was having thoughts.
He had told holly. I think he actually told my dad.
- Just as she insisted he see the doctor for kidney stones,
It was holly, said her sister,
Who insisted she get help for his depression.
- She had sent him to the doctor
And got him on medication for that as well.
- What happened to matt podolak?
Who knew? Apparently not the coroner,
Who had still not issued any official report.
And then, finally, three months after matt's death,
Mark got a call from his mother.
Come to a family meeting, she told him.
She refused to tell him what would be said there.
- Because I knew he would be very, very upset.
- The news was too bizarre, too shocking
To share over the phone.
- Why keep the topic of this family meeting
A secret from mark?
Must be something big.
Well, turns out, it is.
Coming up...
The coroner's report makes it clear,
Matt's death wasn't just strange,
It was also highly suspicious.
- We were all thinking it was kidney failure.
We were not expecting that.
- It was my mission to find an answer for this.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- There were just the two of them,
Big brother mark and the kid he looked out for,
His little brother matt.
And now, matt was dead,
And nothing made sense to mark podolak.
- There's no way that a guy's gonna go
Into the hospital with kidney stones
And you're gonna die because of kidney stones.
- Three months after his death,
Matt podolak's family gathered for a meeting.
Matt's mother arranged it.
Beforehand, she told mark they'd be discussing
A possible wrongful death suit
Against the hospital where matt died.
- My mom called me over and she said,
We're gonna talk with the lawyer tonight.
We're gonna find out our next steps,
What's gonna happen.
- But mark's mother wasn't exactly straight with her son.
That was not what was going to happen.
- So when I got to her house,
The whole family was there.
And I-I was like, where's the lawyer?
And she's like, "he's not here."
- No lawyer. Something far more disturbing.
The autopsy report.
Matt's mother did not want her surviving son
Hearing about this over the phone,
Afraid of how he'd react.
- The whole family was there as a support thing,
And they said, "we got the coroner's report back,
"and it was anti-freeze poisoning."
And I kinda lost it.
- Anti-freeze poisoning?
That's just-- - yeah.
- The correct phrase for this, said the coroner's report,
Was "chronic intoxication by ethylene glycol."
Ethylene glycol being the active and toxic ingredient
In anti-freeze.
- So I was like, what is-what is that?
I mean, ethylene glycol is anti-freeze,
But-but chronic?
And so, you know, it happened over a period of time.
So once that kind of set in,
I-I-I was shocked. I was speechless.
- And that's when something profound
Happened to mark podolak, maybe right that moment.
A decision snapped into place.
- From that moment on, when we found out,
It was my mission to find, uh, to find an answer for this.
- A mission complicated by the fact there was
One very big question the coroner couldn't answer,
Was matt's death the result of some terrible mistake?
Or a suicide? Or was it murder?
Nobody knew.
And so the coroner labeled the manner of death,
"undetermined."
Across town, matt's fiance holly was getting the news, too.
Holly's sister, chrissy.
- What did she say? - What can you say?
What do you mean there's anti-freeze in his system?
We were all thinking it was kidney failure.
We were not expecting that.
- Was it really possible that matt somehow
Ingested small amounts of anti-freeze
For a period of weeks if not longer?
That was the implication of the phrase,
"chronic ethylene glycol poisoning".
Mark had already made up his mind
That his brother did not commit suicide,
And certainly not gradual suicide.
What did he have to go on?
So far, only a growing suspicion,
And rage, which he made perfectly clear to the police.
- I finally got a hold of the-the detective on the case,
And he-he did some initial stuff,
But it wasn't the follow through that I had hoped.
Maybe that was just because that I was just screaming
And I was so upset.
- But when something like that happens,
You want the whole world to stand up
And pay attention and do something.
- When something like that happens,
I want every member of cleveland police department
To be on-on it.
- And it seemed like nobody was running it.
- And it-it didn't seem that way, no.
It just, um-- and just time started to go on.
And I-I... I became extremely frustrated.
- Matt's father, len, a former cop himself,
Could see the problem.
The case file was stuck.
- It kinda became a catch-22 situation.
- The coroner said he couldn't label it a homicide
Without more evidence from the police.
Well, at the very same time...
- Cleveland homicide was saying that
They can't investigate it as a homicide
Until the coroner rules it a homicide.
- And so it remained, month after month,
Year into years.
And still, the manner of death was listed as undetermined.
Just like mark, matt's father, len,
Made something of a pest of himself.
- I would call a detective that was assigned to the case
And say, "what have you got?"
Uh, and his standard answer to me was,
"I don't have anything. What have you got?"
I said, "well, this is your job not my job."
[chuckling] you know?
- Not unlike the way matt's fiance, holly, was thinking.
- She was upset, you know, that there was
No cause of death, yes. - Nobody doing anything.
Yeah.
- None of our family was interviewed.
- It's like they were letting it go.
- Exactly.
- But holly had three children to raise, alone.
Police versus coroner politics was not exactly
Uppermost in her mind.
To make ends meet, she took on two
And sometimes three jobs at the same time.
And threw herself into coaching
The children's little league baseball teams.
Meanwhile, mark kept hounding investigators,
But getting nowhere.
- It made me feel like there was nothing being done.
It made me feel like there was a--
My brother's case was on a-on a desk of somebody
Who could care less,
And was counting down the days to his retirement.
- But though mark was getting nowhere,
Holly was hearing things not from the police.
Remember the plant where matt supervised other workers?
What was really going on around the powder coating machine?
- Coming up...
Holly and her sister had their own theory
About how matt died.
- There were some people at his job that
May have not liked him.
He was supposed to get a promotion.
And I think there were some people that
Didn't think he deserved it. - Didn't think he deserved it.
- Were they right?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm kate snow.
Matt podolak went in to the hospital for kidney stones
But never came out.
When the coroner's report revealed he died
From anti-freeze poisoning,
Matt's family was stunned,
With his brother now hell bent on getting answers.
How did this toxic chemical get into matt's system?
More importantly, who put it there, and why?
Back to keith morrison with "manner of death".
- Holly mcfeeture was up against it, big time,
Three kids, two still in diapers.
She'd lost the father of her children.
The police couldn't seem to figure out what happened to him,
Didn't seem even to be trying.
The little bit of cash left over in matt's checking account
Was soon gone.
Eventually, matt's work-based life insurance
Paid out $10,000, but that was way off yet,
And it wouldn't be very much.
So in the meantime, she did what she had to do.
She took on several jobs at a time,
Even babysat for neighbors
When she had a spare hour or two.
- The children needed food.
They still needed a roof over their heads
And that's exactly what she was doing.
She was paying their bills and making sure
The kids were taken care of.
- And the thing is, holly mcfeeture loved kids,
Not just her own.
While matt's passion was playing hockey,
Holly's was coaching little league baseball.
She threw herself into it after matt's death.
Baseball is how rebecca vega met holly.
- Our kids were in little league together
At that time.
- That was the spring of 2006 before matt died.
Their oldest girls were school classmates
And sports teammates. And holly--
- She was, um, friendly in a way
That was intoxicating, I guess.
So, it was like an intoxicating friendliness.
- You just wanted to be around her.
- You did. You did. You wanted to be around her.
- Being around holly was how rebecca met matt actually.
And then one day matt tagged along with holly
To one of the kid's tee-ball games.
He was already sick by that time,
Though nobody knew yet how sick.
He was sitting under this tree all alone,
Said rebecca, watching the game.
- You could tell he didn't feel well.
You could tell that he was in pain.
He shifted in the chair quite often.
- And four days later, matt was dead.
After the funeral, rebecca tried
To comfort holly and help with the kids.
- If she needed help with the children--
If the children needed something, um, yeah.
It was just to-to kind of help her.
- When the coroner's report came out and shocked everybody,
Holly told rebecca of course right away.
What did you think when you heard that
He died of antifreeze poisoning?
- It kind of put the mystery of,
"how does a healthy 31 year old actually pass suddenly?"
You know, he was poisoned.
- But who would want to poison matt podolak?
Just a regular guy. No enemies.
No known enemies, anyway.
Holly told rebecca that police didn't seem
To be doing anything to find out,
But that she had some leads of her own.
- And she suspected somebody at work.
- She had suspected some-- somebody at work.
- And eventually she told rebecca the police did too.
- They thought that somebody poisoned him at-at work.
The word poison just kept coming up.
- Sister chrissy heard the rumors too.
- Why would they do such a thing?
- There were some people at his job
That may have not liked him.
It was his uncle's company
And, um, people I think were a little jealous.
He was supposed to get a promotion
And I think there were some people that--
- Didn't think he deserved it. - Didn't think he deserved it.
- Increasingly, holly and members of her family
Became all but convinced that somebody at work
Found a way to put antifreeze
Into, uh, matt's drink or something.
And if that phrase in the coroner's report was true,
Chronic ethylene glycol intoxication,
That somebody would've done it several times.
But one person who wasn't buying that theory
Was matt's brother mark.
- He didn't have any enemies.
- Matt had worked his way up from the production line
To supervisor at the plant, said mark,
And he was well liked by the people
At phoenix industrial.
- He wasn't this guy that was going around
Picking fights with people.
He was loved by his coworkers.
- By then, solving the case of his brother's murder
Had become mark's obsession.
He collected stories from matt's factory coworkers,
From the streets, from friends.
He fumed when the official investigation
Seemed to go nowhere.
And then after three frustrating years,
One small change that made a huge difference.
A new supervisor in the cleveland homicide division
Took over matt's case.
His name: Detective sergeant mike quinn.
So at the time, you took it over.
- I took it over. - It was pushing three years.
- Pushing three years and, uh, I reviewed the file.
- With fresh eyes, quinn went over the case,
Re-interviewed people who knew both matt and holly,
And suddenly...
- I felt a completely different sense
Of what was happening.
- Now, said mark,
When he called with questions or suggestions,
He felt like somebody was listening,
Especially when he told him
What he was hearing on the street.
- I was trying--
Hey, maybe this is something that could help you.
Maybe you should look into this.
- You heard about things.
- Absolutely, it was a really, um, close knit town,
So people talked. There's chatter out there.
- Strange how that chatter seemed to focus
On one particular person.
- A possible motive for murder.
- She wrote checks, writing his name on the checks.
Cleaned out the bank account.
- What did that say to you?
- Obviously a huge red flag.
- In my mind, there was nobody else.
There was no other way that it could have happened.
How dare anybody do that to my little brother?
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Three years after matt podolak died
Of antifreeze poisoning,
Two families had sharply different theories
About the cause.
Matt's fiance holly, her whole family in fact,
Suspected somebody at work had it out for him.
But mark and his family were looking closer to home.
How close?
Let's put it this way.
The two sides of the family weren't talking anymore.
An already existing mistrust
Ramped up that night in the hospital years before
When matt was in the icu.
That's when matt's brother mark began to wonder
If holly was in some way responsible
For matt's mystery illness.
- My mom and I had a specific conversation.
I remember it. She said, "you don't think
She could've did this to him, do you?"
And we kinda were like, I don't know, maybe.
But at the time, we didn't know why he passed.
- And then there was the funeral.
Holly's family said she was very upset,
Cried in the car before going in,
But when sergeant quinn read the old case file,
He found a curious statement
From holly's friend rebecca vega.
What sort of grief was this?
- She was back and forth
Talking to different individuals,
Um, almost like a flirtatious--
That intoxicating friendliness that she had
As if her fiance wasn't even laying there
In front of everyone.
- Talking to just everybody or--
Or was she concentrating on men or women or...
- Mostly men.
- Flirtatiously? - Flirtatious, mm-hm.
- That's how she was, said matt's family.
How she always was.
At first friendly, magnetic even,
But didn't stay that way for long.
Later matt told him holly became controlling
And demanding.
Did he ever complain about his relationship?
- Of course he did, yeah.
He-he did.
- What did he say?
- "oh, she's nagging me," type thing.
Um, "she's yelling at me.
She's calling me all the time. She's doing all this stuff."
There were some incidents that happened.
Sometimes where they had to, um, have police show up.
- Matt's protective big brother called it downright nasty
The way she treated him.
Said so, too.
- It's not worth the heartache to keep going through this.
He was afraid that he wouldn't see his kids
If they were apart.
- And now he was dead
And his family was raw with suspicion.
When they went to collect some of matt's personal effects,
Like his computer, they told sergeant quinn,
Holly told them she no longer had it,
That the hard drive was being fixed,
Which sounded fishy to the detective.
- Was this any effort to destroy evidence?
- That's what most people do when they get rid of a computer
And, uh, that may have been connected with the crime.
They're going to get rid of it.
- Not evidence really, but suggestive.
Like when, according to them,
Holly said right after matt died
He wanted to be cremated,
An idea matt's family quickly shot down.
Still, why would she have said that?
And then they said when they asked her
For his clothes and other effects,
She told them she'd already gotten rid of them.
It was as if she wanted to erase matt from her life.
Was there anything left to this guy at all
In her house?
- Not that I'm aware of. Not too much.
- Then there was the business about the money.
A big deal of that, said detective quinn.
- She went to the atm machine
And used his card the day after his death.
Two days later she wrote checks,
Writing his name on the checks.
Cleaned out the bank account and left one penny in it.
- Wow, well, what did that say to you?
- Obviously a huge red flag.
- It was a measure of the suspicion,
The broken trust,
That matt's mother, in charge of his estate,
Reported holly to the police.
Holly was arrested and charged with theft
And two counts of forgery.
She'd agreed to make restitution
And was put on probation for a year.
In return, prosecutors dropped the charges.
What happened to her? What was the sentence?
- She was given a first time offenders program,
So she didn't do any jail time.
- Then there was the life insurance.
It wasn't much, including matt's 401k
It amounted to just $15,000,
But here's what made matt's brother mark suspicious.
- My brother was talking about a couple days before,
"we're moving her from a life insurance policy.
"we're moving her from a-- as a beneficiary
Of-of the policies and the 401k."
Uh, and that's how serious it was getting.
- And so, when holly actually got $10,000 of that insurance,
It seemed to mark to confirm what he had been thinking
Since the beginning.
She must have killed him.
- In my mind, there was nobody else.
There was no other way that it could have happened.
None.
- So, the first reaction is the shock.
What's the second reaction?
- Anger and then sadness.
How dare anybody do that to my little brother?
How dare they?
- But really, $10,000 in life insurance?
A motive for murdering the father of your children?
What did you think when you heard that?
I mean, this was a fairly serious allegation, right?
- I thought it was ridiculous
That somebody would actually think that.
- Ah, yes.
Holly and her family heard all the whispers.
They knew all about the podolak suspicions,
Which were, they said, absolutely baseless.
That business about stealing money
From the bank account for example?
Did she understand that she was breaking the law
When she did this? - No, absolutely not.
She was thinking that she had to take care
Of her children and his.
What else was she supposed to do?
- And as for getting rid of his stuff,
Erasing him from her life-- - that's not true at all.
As a matter of fact, she still has some of--
A-a lot of matt's shirts, that she actually wears.
♪♪
- But quietly, four years after matt's death,
Sergeant quinn collected the stories he heard.
But there was one story he hadn't heard.
Nobody had.
Holly's story.
- Holly is invited downtown
For a little chat with detectives.
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back.
Matt podolak and holly mcfeeture
Were in love, engaged, and had two children together.
But when matt's life was mysteriously cut short,
His family became suspicious of holly.
Could it be that she was hiding a dark secret?
Detective sergeant mike quinn, now about to question holly
For the first time, planned to find out.
Back to keith morrison with "manner of death."
- Four years after matt podolak's death
By antifreeze poisoning, the machinery of justice
Was coughing and sputtering to life and pointing...
At her.
Matt's fiance and the mother of his children,
Holly mcfeeture.
- Holly mcfeeture was a suspect from day one.
- Prosecutors were appointed.
Brian mcdonough and allison foy,
Though they were soon frustrated.
- But we were missing-- missing pieces,
Missing critical links on the case.
- Evidence already collected was maddeningly inconclusive.
For example,
Detectives recovered two bottles of antifreeze
In the garage where holly and matt lived.
But it turned out somebody else had been living in the house
For more than a year by the time they found it.
Whose antifreeze was it? Nobody knew.
- But still, was there a way that we could go ahead
And link it up?
- Nope. Just confirmed,
The garage antifreeze didn't match the antifreeze
That killed matt.
But remember holly's friend, rebecca vega?
Detective quinn found her name in the old file, called her up,
And discovered that after matt died,
She spent practically every day with holly.
And here's where detective quinn's eyes
Really opened wide.
Rebecca told him that one day, she was at holly's house
When she noticed some odd-looking jugs of chemicals
In holly's kitchen.
- She had said that, uh, it was antifreeze,
And that it was, uh, to winterize matt's boat.
- Did you ask why they were there?
- I mean, besides-- - yeah, I--
- ...Fixing the boats, but--
- I thought, "well, it's in the kitchen.
"the boat's outside," you know?
And why would antifreeze be in a kitchen?
- And then there was the time she, rebecca,
Was complaining about her husband,
And holly said...
- "I can get rid of him." [scoffing]
- I can get rid of him? - I can get rid of him.
And I kind of thought, "oh, that was kinda..."
Kinda joked about it and I laughed.
But she actually backed up that, uh, statement with
"well, you could work, and we could just move
"into your house."
- Weird, as she looked back on that.
So once she heard about the coroner's report,
And the podolak family suspicions,
She cut off all contact with holly,
Ended the friendship without saying why.
- I had thought to myself, I had exposed my family
To murder.
- She seemed to me like she believed that, uh,
That holly poisoned matthew.
- Was she a little freaked-out by this?
- She stated that she was afraid of holly.
- So quinn kept an eagle eye on holly mcfeeture.
And one day, he heard about holly and the karaoke bar.
- Holly and her sister were singing a song
By the dixie chicks.
It's a song about a, uh, an abused woman
In a relationship with a man, who, uh,
To get back at the man, ends up poisoning his food,
And, uh, they were up there singin' the song
And laughin' about it.
This was after matthew's death.
I thought it was really cold-blooded
When I heard about it.
- That was 2010, four years after matt's death,
The same year sergeant quinn received a big gift.
Maybe it was the fact prosecutors were appointed.
Maybe it was sergeant quinn's investigation.
Maybe it was the karaoke.
Whatever it was, that's when the coroner changed his ruling
On matt's manner of death from undetermined to homicide.
And with that little bureaucratic stroke of the pen,
Everything changed.
- You can see that, uh--
- Thing one: For the very first time, holly was invited
To the police station to give a formal statement.
Chewing gum, looking casual, holly came in without a lawyer,
And was read her miranda rights.
So, what would she say about her relationship with matt?
Holly said it happened when she had a male friend
Over at their house.
She told them if they really wanted to solve the mystery,
They should look for answers at matt's factory.
And remember the $10,000 in life insurance bandied about
As a possible motive for murder?
Holly said she didn't know there was life insurance
Until after matt was dead.
But how about that night in the karaoke bar?
Over and over, the detectives challenged holly
With the accusing question.
Holly protested.
None of this made sense, she said.
And with that, detectives thanked her
For coming in, and sent her on her way.
With a warning that most likely,
She'd be indicted.
That was late September, 2010.
But holly wasn't indicted.
Not that year, not the next year either.
But something strange happened in 2011.
Holly answered her phone and found herself talking
To a guy she dated briefly, after matt died.
- Do you remember what you told me about the drinks?
- Do you hear the trap snapping shut?
- Police and prosecutors think they've hit pay dirt
With the new witness.
- He claimed to have heard holly mcfeeture confess
By saying she put something in this drinks.
- But is that enough to take this case to court?
- The details of the case are very salacious.
There's sex, there's the allegation
Of poisoning, it's very interesting,
But that doesn't make it necessarily
A dead-bang winner for trial.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm kate snow. It was all very strange,
If not suspicious.
A healthy 31-year-old man mysteriously dead
From antifreeze poisoning.
The manner of death was initially ruled undetermined
By the coroner, then changed to homicide
Four years later.
More time passed without an arrest,
But police seemed to be zeroing in
On the victim's fiance, holly mcfeeture.
Now, someone from holly's past was about to reveal
What he knew. Once again, here's keith morrison
With "manner of death."
- In the summer of 2011, five years gone,
Matt podolak's death was still an unsolved mystery.
All that time, mark podolak had neglected his own life
In his quest to prove holly was the killer.
- I know that my relationships with my friends suffered.
Ultimately it led to me gettin' divorced.
It was destructive on a lot of levels,
'cause you focus so much on a certain...
Goal, a certain mission. - You're so damn angry, huh?
- And I'm angry.
- Even angrier now, if that was possible.
Because there had been a change.
The case was reclassified as a homicide.
But holly was living her life,
Free, no charges filed.
- I became extremely frustrated.
I'm not gonna lie.
- So frustrated
He sent a message to "dateline" on facebook,
Asking us to look into his brother's death.
Holly and her family, meanwhile,
Were waiting to see if the hammer would fall.
- I can't tell you how many times she's cried,
Knowing that people are saying, you know,
That she's a murderer,
And that this loving mom and softball coach
Can kill a man that she loved.
- But day by day,
Sergeant mike quinn was closing in on holly,
Just one more big thing,
One more solid piece of evidence
All he needed. And maybe,
He and the prosecutors decided,
Maybe a jailbird could provide it.
Holly briefly dated a man named jamison kennedy
A year or so after matt died.
And according to kennedy,
During a wine and sex driven evening,
Holly made some kind of confession.
This, thought the prosecutors, was gold.
What did he claim he heard?
- He claimed to have heard
Holly mcfeeture confess by saying
She put something in his drinks.
- Then-prosecutor brian mcdonough.
- And that she wanted to stop, but that his kidneys had failed.
And that was compelling evidence.
- But always something.
Mr. Kennedy was not exactly the local church pastor.
His rap sheet was longer than a Sunday sermon.
In fact, when he came up
With that little offering about holly,
He was in county jail under arrest
For beating up some cops.
So a snitch.
- As a prosecutor,
We don't like informants.
But what was so compelling about his testimony
Was that he was the only person to have that knowledge.
- How would he have that knowledge in the first--
Where would he-- how would he hear that?
- He heard that from her lips to his ears.
- But how could they possibly prove it?
One possible way, sneaky,
But it might work. [phone ringing]
They set up a phone call.
Kennedy in prison called holly,
And they turned on a tape recorder.
Sometimes these things work, sometimes they don't.
- So what's going on with you?
- Just how it is with investigations of this sort.
Suffice to say the call wasn't everything
They'd hoped it would be.
So here they were at a kind of crossroads.
Should they go forward or finally drop it?
The evidence? The story of a jailhouse snitch
With multiple felony convictions,
Never an easy sell,
An ex-friend whose talk of antifreeze in the house
And offers to get rid of her husband
Might've been real or imagined,
A financial motive that at most might've amounted
To a paltry 15 grand,
And a bit of dixie chicks karaoke,
The performance of which
May have been monstrously cruel
Or perfectly innocent.
Still, who else could have done it?
- The details of the case are very salacious.
- Then-prosecutor alison foy.
- There's sex,
There's the allegation of poisoning.
It's very interesting, and it's certainly enough
To keep anyone's attention.
But that doesn't make it necessarily a strong case
Or a dead-bang winner for trial.
- And so the prosecutors consulted mark and his family.
They were all committed now, all emotionally attached,
That the family should decide.
- We all agreed that we wanted to go with it.
We've suffered long enough.
- Case number 564265,
Holly mcfeeture.
- So in 2012,
Six years after matt podolak's death,
Holly mcfeeture was indicted for aggravated murder
And contaminating a substance for human consumption.
From her mug shot, it didn't look like
She was too worried about the outcome of the case.
But this was serious.
Maximum sentence, life without parole.
Her attorney, bret jordan, applied for bail.
- She was scared. She missed her kids.
I would say probably in some state of shock at that point.
- The judge took a look
At the circumstantial case against her
And granted the bail request,
Half a million bond with an ankle bracelet.
But though the case was not the strongest,
There was publicity.
Antifreeze poisoning?
Holly was suddenly famous,
And not in a good way.
The old brooklyn little league
Told the once-beloved coach
She wasn't welcome anymore.
And holly mcfeeture prepared to defend her life in court.
- Iced tea spiked with antifreeze.
The prosecution's theory of how holly poisoned matt.
- You can't smell it,
And you can't see it in the tea.
He would have no way to know that it's coming.
It's so secretively done.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Seven years,
Seven years of pestering the investigators,
Seven years of brooding in the cemetery,
Seven years after the sudden, agonizing death
Of his kid brother, matt,
Mark podolak watched with grim satisfaction
As holly mcfeeture walked into the courtroom.
- I finally felt that we were gonna make this happen.
- Please rise.
- Mind you, the case against holly
Was possibly a reach.
No guarantees here, and mark knew it.
- I was extremely nervous. Oh, my gosh.
Being in that courtroom...
- And you don't know how it's gonna turn out.
- And I have no idea how it's gonna turn out.
- Truth was, the prosecution didn't have much to work with.
Without any hard evidence to pin on holly,
Their case boiled down to a process of elimination.
Someone did this to matt.
Who else could it have been other than his fiancee?
In this case, telling a story could be crucial,
Because there wasn't a whole lot else to do, right?
- Absolutely.
- Prosecutor brian mcdonough began his story
With the scene inside the hospital room
The night matt died.
- His body was shutting down.
His organs were systematically shut down.
- And then matt's father, glen podolak,
Described the horror of watching his son's final agony,
So much pain he couldn't talk
Except to ask for his children.
- He would say, "where little man,
And where's samantha?"
- A picture was passed around the courtroom,
Matt dead, lying on the autopsy table.
Mark began to cry.
Across the courtroom, so did holly.
And then coroner dan galita told that jury
What he found during his autopsy,
Discoveries that became the core
Of the case against holly.
- The cause of death was chronic intoxication
By ethylene glycol.
- Poisoned with antifreeze, very, very slowly.
He explained he'd found crystals in matt's heart and brain,
Having inched their deadly way through his body,
Kidneys to heart to brain.
- How much time would it take for the crystals
To deposit themselves
In the blood vessels of the heart?
- It takes weeks at least.
- The fact that his--
That crystals were forming in his heart
And actually had traveled to his brain,
Indicated long-term exposure,
And not a one-dose deal.
- And matt's friends and work colleagues testified.
They had seen his body disintegrate before their eyes,
Starting weeks, if not months before his death.
- He began sweating profusely,
And he complained of back pain.
- He was sitting beside me,
And practically was hunched over
To where his chest was on his knees.
- Who could've made that happen and how?
Investigators, remember, had found antifreeze
In holly and matt's garage,
Admittedly a year after holly moved out.
Prosecutors knew they couldn't link
These bottles to the crime,
But even so, detective quinn took them
Out of the evidence bags for the jury to see,
Left them on the witness stand,
A prop, a little courtroom theater.
- A bottle of saturn antifreeze and coolant.
- Take a look at those bottles,
The prosecution seemed to be saying.
And common sense would tell you
It wasn't suicide.
Nobody would down antifreeze on purpose,
Said the prosecutor, let along bit by bit
As indicated in the coroner's report.
- There was no suicide note.
He didn't go ahead and give away his possessions.
Suicide did not make sense.
- No, there was one person, the prosecutor argued,
And only one who had the means and the motive to poison matt,
His fiance, holly mcfeeture.
A parade of witnesses testified
About matt and holly's rocky relationship,
The bitter words, fierce arguments
They couldn't help but overhear.
- When we would be fishing,
That phone would be ringing every five minutes.
She'd be screaming so loud
He'd be holding the phone out to this--
Way away from his ear.
- I told him that he needed to protect himself,
And I told him that
He should remove his shotgun
And-- from his house.
- And far from being shattered by matt's death,
As her family claimed,
Prosecution witnesses describe how holly seemed
Almost giddy after matt died.
- What did you observe of the defendant at the wake?
- Almost a party atmosphere
Like nothing had happened.
And then the prosecution called holly's old friend,
Rebecca vega.
If anybody had a ringside seat
To holly's life after matt, it was rebecca.
How was it to actually be in that courtroom,
See her there, and answer those questions?
- Couldn't even look at her.
- Rebecca told the jury
Holly didn't wait long after matt's death
To remove any trace of him from their house.
- It seemed as if everything that-- being of matt
Had been taken out of the home.
- But it was what holly hadn't cleaned up
That made the biggest impression on the rebecca,
Those bottles of chemicals on the kitchen floor.
- What was holly's response
When you asked her about those items?
- One of the items was brought up as antifreeze
For matt's boat, to winterize his boat.
- But who winterizes their boat in the summer?
Remember, matt died in July, said the prosecutors,
So rebecca's story was evidence
That holly had access to antifreeze
Around the time of matt's death.
- She was able to put antifreeze
In the kitchen of holly mcfeeture
After the death of matthew podolak.
- Now they needed to convince the jury
That holly actually fed the antifreeze to matt.
That would take a little doing.
First several of matt's coworkers testified that
Holly sometimes dropped off matt's lunch at the factory.
- Uh, holly would bring it in every once in a while for him.
- How many occasions do you recall that happening?
- Half a dozen?
- And holly always made sure to include
Matt's favorite drink, he said,
Half a gallon or more of raspberry iced tea.
Antifreeze is sweet but otherwise tasteless.
Did holly spike the tea?
- You can't smell it, and you can't see it in the tea.
He would have no way to know that it's coming.
- But why in heaven's name would she do such a thing?
What was her motive?
Well, as the prosecution saw it at least,
All those arguments matt and holly were having
Represented the death throes of their relationship,
A relationship she wanted to leave
And he did not, stubbornly,
Because he didn't want to lose custody
Of those kids.
So it's your claim that he was sticking like glue,
And to get rid of him she had to poison him.
- That is what she saw as the way out.
- A way out sweetened, suggested the prosecution,
By the fact that holly was the beneficiary of matt's
Life insurance policy and 401k.
He was worth $15,000 to her if he died.
So that was clearly not a motive, really.
I mean, it's chump change basically, right?
- Well, $15,000 for some person
Might be worth $150,000 for another.
- Interesting theory.
Trick was to persuade the jury
That a hard-working, committed young mother,
A woman who was always volunteering to help others,
Who coached tee ball teams,
Could at the same time be a devious,
Cold-blooded murderer.
Yep, absolutely possible,
Said the prosecution's star witness,
Still to come,
The man who knew all about violence and secrets
And kissing and telling.
- Holly melts down in court.
What happened?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Way up on the 22nd floor of the criminal courts building
Here in downtown cleveland,
Holly mcfeeture sat through a hailstorm
Of allegations and attacks on her character and motivation.
Practically a monster,
If you believed some of the witnesses.
And for the most part, she listened politely,
Turned occasionally to smile at her sister
Or share a word of encouragement,
But then-- then the announcement was made.
- Your honor, at this time we have jamison kennedy.
- And with those words, "jamison kennedy,"
Holly went into a kind of shock.
And then as quickly,
Even before kennedy walked into the courtroom
Came the tears,
And something in her seemed to crumble.
The tears became wracking sobs,
As if she in full-blown terror or panic
Simply could not go on.
All this happened
As the attorneys were at the bench
Conferring with judge brian corrigan
Before kennedy's testimony began.
Holly left her seat, rushed to her sister chrissy
In the gallery, and broke down.
And it all happened in front of the jury.
Mark podolak was not moved.
In fact, he was disgusted.
- Where was that emotion during the funeral?
Where was that emotion, uh,
When your lover was dying in the hospital?
Yet a guy that you haven't seen in years
Steps into the courtroom,
You have an emotional breakdown?
That's courtroom drama to my opinion.
- Was she afraid of the man,
Or was she afraid of what he had to say?
The whole business was highly unusual.
Holly, visibly shaking,
Was allowed to leave the courtroom
While kennedy testified.
- How do you know holly mcfeeture?
- I originally met her at a bar that she worked at,
The dirty dog.
- Jamison kennedy was that ex-con
Holly dated a year or so after matt's death,
The snitch who peddled his story from the jail cell.
Was it wise to call him a prosecution witness?
The man had eight felony convictions under his belt
And was serving ten years for beating up cops.
And yet here he was, central witness against holly.
He's an alcoholic, he's a drug addict,
And he wants something from you guys,
So he'll say whatever he has to say, right?
- The thing about this witness, about jamison kennedy,
Is that he didn't want anything in exchange
For what he was going to come into court and say.
He knew that he was going to be in prison for quite a while
And that nothing he could say in court would ever change that.
- And kennedy's story,
If the jury chose to believe him,
Was a potential game-changer.
It was September 26th, 2008, two years after matt died.
Kennedy was on probation, he told the jury,
When holly stopped by the law office
Where a kindly defense attorney had given him
A job and a place to sleep.
They shared a bottle of wine, ate some takeout.
- We both were kind of, you know,
A little bit tipsy.
And after-after drinking we ended up having sex.
And after the sex is when things got really emotional.
She just started crying.
- What did she say?
- She made some remarks
That she just wanted it to all go away.
She wanted to move out of cleveland.
Um, she was regretful for what had taken place.
- Regret? About what?
Kennedy told the jury
That he pushed holly to tell him more.
- She just told me at that time
That she was sorry for what she had done.
- What had she done? - Um, on her words
Was that she had put something in his drink.
- What had she put inside of his drink?
- She didn't tell me.
- Did she say what happened
After putting something inside of the drink?
- Um, that he had gotten sick and passed away.
- It was, quite simply, stunning.
But-- big but-- was it true?
Could the jury really take the word
Of this eight time convicted felon?
Yes, said the prosecution, because of this.
- Did you tell anyone about what holly mcfeeture told you
About putting something in his drinks?
- Yes.
- Who did you tell?
- Uh, my attorney.
- Well, not exactly that, said the attorney in question,
Who testified that kennedy asked him
In a cryptic sort of way what he should do
If he knew about a murder.
Didn't name holly or any particular murder.
- As an officer of the court,
Did you provide him with any advice?
- I told him that if he had any information of that nature,
That he had to inform whoever
About this supposed situation.
- But kennedy didn't tell authorities anything then.
Not until he was sitting in a jail cell
Under arrest for assaulting those cops.
Did he hope police would go easy on him
If he told them something they wanted to hear?
Sergeant quinn told the jury he believed kennedy's story
Because kennedy offered details
Only someone close to the crime would know.
- There's no mention in the media anywhere.
Where did it come from?
- The fact that this is the one witness
Who we could bring forward for the jury
To say that "I heard holly mcfeeture confess
To putting something in matthew podolak's drinks."
It's so important that I think in our minds
It couldn't not go to the jury.
Thank you so much for your time
And your consideration.
- And with that the prosecution concluded its case
Of circumstantial evidence.
But there was a giant void in the room,
A big, empty hole
Where the hard evidence usually goes.
What would the defense make of that?
- The defense strikes back.
- I asked the question, you have no idea whatsoever
How that man died, do you?
- Not to my knowledge.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back.
The trial against holly mcfeeture
Was well underway.
The prosecution called on a witness
Who gave damaging testimony that holly told him
That she put something in her fiance's drink.
Next up, it was the defense's turn,
And they were about to make a bold accusation
As to who was responsible
For turning the rumor mill against her.
Back to keith morrison with "manner of death."
- For almost a week,
Holly mcfeeture's family sat in a courtroom
Listening to prosecutors accuse holly
Of drip by drip, ounce by ounce
Feeding her fiance the poison
And watching him die.
Monstrous, evil,
And, said her family, completely untrue.
Just nasty gossip, gussied up as evidence.
- It was just a bunch of people talking bad about my sister.
- Such a one-sided, burn her at the stake
Type of scenario.
- Defense attorneys bret jordan and billy summers agreed.
- It was all speculation.
It was all just finger pointing without any basis.
- And now they knew they'd have to persuade the jury
To buy something they personally believed in their gut,
That holly mcfeeture was wrongly accused.
- I don't think that I have ever believed
In the innocence of a client
More than I believe in holly mcfeeture.
- The defense began by putting
Some negative cards on the table
That is the fighting.
Holly and matt had been fighting a lot,
But that was hardly a surprise, said the defense.
Two babies, one of them colicky,
And matt was out fishing all the time.
- You can't say that
Just because somebody's arguing every day,
That's a sign of-- of hatred
And "I'm gonna kill that person."
- And that story that went around
About holly's behavior at matt's funeral?
Uninformed judgments made from afar,
Said the defense,
That somehow became this big myth
That holly didn't care.
- Oh, I can tell you right now she didn't care.
- You can? - You betcha.
- So you can-you can crawl into her mind.
- No. - You can tell everybody here
What she was thinking.
- No, you can read it on her face.
- Read it on her face.
- You don't have to be crying your eyes out
At a funeral to not be grieving.
- No, the defense argued,
All the testimony maligning holly's behavior
Was really a product of the six-plus years
Of rumor and innuendo, which had,
Courtesy of the authorities and matt's family,
Hardened into what sounded like truth
Even if it wasn't.
- If you listen to all the witnesses,
Anybody that was holly's friend,
They all turned away once they talked to the detective.
- That was certainly the case, said the defense,
When holly's friend rebecca vega
Cut off contact with holly about a year after matt died.
- Who's the accused murderer in this room?
- Holly is. - Yeah, and you don't--
You can't even look at her anymore.
- No. - Only then,
After she heard from the police,
Said the defense, did she begin saying
What she said at the trial.
- But you have no idea how that man died, do you?
- I didn't have to see physical proof
In order to make-- - please, I asked a question.
You have no idea whatsoever how that man died, do you?
- Not to my knowledge, no.
- Did the memory of all those happy days
Rebecca spent with holly suddenly sprout
With dark suspicion once the police
Whispered in rebecca's ear?
Like the bit about the antifreeze in the kitchen.
- Holly has children,
And she's very careful,
And I know she would not leave chemicals like that
Just lying around the house.
- No, the assault on holly by her former friends,
The defense said, was just a smokescreen
For the hard evidence the prosecution did not have.
Like anything connecting holly to the murder weapon,
By which, of course, we mean the antifreeze.
Remember those two bottles of antifreeze
Investigators found at holly and matt's house
After she moved out?
- Those two bottles of antifreeze
Are not linked to matthew podolak at all.
- No.
- And those two bottles of antifreeze
Are not linked to holly at all?
- Other than the fact that they came from that address.
- What was the point in that?
- That's what-- - exactly.
There wasn't any.
- Another glaring weakness, the defense said,
Was the prosecution's theory that holly disguised
The antifreeze in matt's beloved raspberry iced tea.
Zero forensic support for that,
Said the defense.
- Do you know how that iced tea got into that thermos?
- I have no clue.
- None of the cups at the homes were ever tested.
The thermos that he allegedly brought to work every day
Was never tested.
There was nothing ever connecting
That it was even iced tea.
- And the motive, the prosecution suggested,
The modest life insurance money?
Laughable, said the defense.
Wouldn't even buy a decent car.
Besides, holly said she had no idea the insurance existed.
Matt's uncle, who owned the factory where matt worked,
Couldn't say otherwise.
- The question is do you have any personal knowledge
That holly actually knew there was a life insurance rider
On his health insurance? - Uh, I-I can't say that I did.
- But holly's defenders did have a problem,
No getting around it, huge problem.
That pillow talk with jamison kennedy,
When, according to him, holly actually confessed.
If they couldn't knock him down,
They were done.
- Was the prosecution's bombshell witness a dud?
Coming up...
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- What in heaven's name would holly mcfeeture's
Defense attorneys do about this?
- Her words was that she had put something in his drink.
- There was no avoiding the impact of those few words
From jamison kennedy.
Remember, just the mention of his name
Sent holly into an epic breakdown,
Weeping, sobbing, fleeing the courtroom.
The next day was the defense attorney's turn
To take him on.
- Good morning, mr. Kennedy. - How you doin'?
- Holly had regained her composure,
And she came back into court.
The strategy was to pick apart kennedy's story,
Expose him for what the defense said
He most certainly was, a liar.
Like the bit about being tipsy.
Holly, kennedy said, had a glass of wine or two that night,
While he knocked off an entire bottle himself.
- You still are telling the jury here
That holly was tipsy
Or drunk that night, right?
- Yes, sir.
- When in fact it was you that was drunk that night,
Not holly.
- I think we were both, you know, feeling a buzz.
- Now this is the sort of moment
A defense attorney probably lives for.
Listen.
- Were you aware that holly's allergic to grapes
And she can't drink wine?
- No.
- Was this a man who could be believed,
When he said he had a real relationship with holly?
- She had told me that he was stalking her.
He had got her name tattooed on him.
He would not leave her alone. - How'd she feel about this?
- Oh, she was afraid.
- And kennedy admitted under defense questioning
That he got very angry with holly when he heard a rumor
That she was with another guy.
- So angry that you-- you grabbed her by the neck,
You threw her against the wall,
You punched her numerous times,
That type of angry, right? - No, sir.
- No, that didn't happen. - I-I do believe I pushed her,
When she-- only when she approached me
To try to hit me, I think, with the phone,
Or to smack me or something,
I just kind of stiff-armed her away.
I think she fell down.
That was the extent of it.
♪♪
- Really?
Holly called the cops that night and said
Kennedy punched her five times.
He'd already fled, but she said she was
Gonna get a restraining order against him,
But before she could, he was at her door again.
And when holly called the police this time,
Kennedy tried to escape and fought with two of them
Before he was finally arrested.
And it was only then, after she'd turned him in
And he was in jail facing years in prison,
Burning up with anger toward holly,
That he called his attorney, charlie feliciano,
To try to make a deal.
- You say, "charlie, get me the police.
"I gotta help myself get out of this jam.
"I'm gonna tell on holly." right?
- Also, he was concerned that she would try to
Put this on me. - Oh!
So now we got a conspiracy theory goin' here,
That holly's now gonna blame you for the death of matt.
Is that what you're tellin' me?
- It's just attorney's recommendation.
- This attorney, who'd bent over backwards
To provide jamison with a job and a place to stay
While he was on probation from an earlier conviction.
And what happened?
Kennedy stole from him.
And...
- Jamison threatened your life? - He threatened me, yes.
- And he threatened your family, also?
- Yes.
- He had mental problems and was not stable, right?
- Correct. - According to the defense,
Not even the police believed kennedy.
For more than two years, they did nothing
About his allegation. And after those years?
Well, according to the defense,
They couldn't find any other evidence.
They put his story to the test
By orchestrating that phone call from kennedy
In prison to holly, trying to get her to incriminate herself.
Curiously, the prosecution didn't mention that call
In court, so the defense was only too happy
To push play for the jury.
This was something they had to hear.
- Holly. - Yeah?
- Do you know who this is? - Uh, yeah, hi, jamison!
- Holly was taken by surprise. Hadn't heard from him for years.
Police, of course, were listening.
Didn't work out so well for the police,
Or for mr. Kennedy.
No, said the defense, holly didn't confess.
Not then, not ever.
And kennedy was a sick puppy who saw an opportunity
To combine revenge with a little self-help.
- You are now trying to tell everybody
That holly confessed to you...
About this case, because it would benefit you,
Correct?
- Uh, I don't think-- I know it's morally right, sir.
- You know it's morally right.
If you knew it was morally right, sir,
You would have gone to the police on September 26.
Isn't that correct, sir?
- I should've. - Big morals, right?
- I should've, but I was very confused.
- Thank you very much. I have no further questions.
- The prosecution said kennedy did not get a deal
In exchange for his story.
One more question to answer:
If it wasn't holly, who was it?
For that the defense offered dr. Robert bux,
Forensic pathologist.
Matt wasn't poisoned slowly over time,
Said dr. Bux. The coroner simply made a mistake.
All that pain matt suffered in the weeks before his death?
That was from simple kidney stones, said dr. Bux.
Nothing at all to do with antifreeze.
- Is flank pain a symptom of ethylene glycol poisoning?
- Uh, shouldn't be, no.
- No. This wasn't a case of chronic antifreeze poisoning.
This was a textbook case of acute poisoning.
One large does, said dr. Bux.
- This is a massive acute ingestion.
These types of ingestions, he's gonna have to drink
Almost a pint of it.
- And the most likely person to have poisoned him
With a drink of that size was matt himself.
- As to the manner of death,
What would your ruling be?
- Probably be a suicide.
- Suicide by antifreeze.
A method more common than most people realize,
Said the defense.
Who kills themself with ethylene glycol,
With antifreeze?
That stuff would be horrible. What a terrible death.
- Not true. It happens all the time.
- And there have been some famous cases
Covered in the media:
A retired pro football player,
A writer for "Saturday night live."
But why matt?
- He had gambling debts.
He was depressed.
He wasn't happy at work.
Throw in experience of pain from kidney stones.
Throw in maybe they weren't having
The best relationship at that time.
That all adds up to suicide.
- And at that, the defense asked the judge
To throw out the charges against holly.
- Your honor, there has to be evidence,
There has to be proof,
There has to be something that the state did
To show that holly was the one who did it.
And it just doesn't exist.
- For a moment it seemed
The judge might grant the motion.
But, no, he ruled holly mcfeeture's fate
Would be decided by the jury.
As it turned out, very slowly.
- Ethylene glycol.
Odorless, colorless, sweet tasting.
- But did holly use it to kill matt?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- It was seven years almost to the day
Since matt podolak took his last painful breaths.
The prosecutor appealed to the jury,
Convict holly mcfeeture.
- He fell in love with the wrong woman.
She was toxic to him.
This was the closing message, a stark visual.
Look how easy, said the prosecutor
For holly to mix antifreeze to matt's beloved iced tea.
Look how hard for matt to detect the poison.
- Ethylene glycol.
Odorless, colorless, sweet tasting.
The defense appealed to the heart.
There were two tragedies in this story, they said,
Matt's death and holly's suffering.
Nothing could be done about the first,
Said the defense,
But the jury could rectify the second.
- You've gotta end the nightmare.
You've gotta put to rest this family's tragedy.
- This could be a close call.
The jury went out, no verdict at the end of that first day.
Or the next.
Matt's brother mark didn't know what to think.
- You don't know, is the jury being out long
A bad thing or a good thing?
- Holly's sister chrissy was nervous,
Tried to stay confident.
- I mean, they had hearsay from a man that was in prison
And some iced tea on a table.
- Finally, toward the end of day three,
Cell phones started buzzing.
Verdict.
Holly, looking like she'd seen a ghost,
Headed toward the courtroom surrounded by her family.
- Please rise.
- As the jury filed in,
Holly began mouthing the lord's prayer.
- I understand you've reached a verdict in this case.
Is that correct?
- And then the judge began to read.
- "we, the jury in this case being duly impaneled and sworn,
"do find the defendant holly mcfeeture
Guilty of aggravated murder, violation of section..."
- I heard those words, "guilty,"
And, uh, it was emotional.
- Please...
- Mark turned to hug his mother,
Her face awash in tears.
Across the courtroom...
- Nobody could react,
Because it was total shock.
Nobody was expecting that.
- The guards came then,
Wrapped handcuffs around holly's wrists.
She shook her head no, seemed to be reeling,
The words less than a whisper.
- She looked at me and she was gone.
- What did that do to you?
- It tore me apart.
I-I really couldn't understand how this happened.
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
- The defense team felt gutted.
The prosecution's case had been so flimsy, they thought.
How had it all gone so wrong?
- I'm still wondering what happened.
- This was not an easy one for the prosecutors either,
The sort of case you might have reasonably walked away from,
If you didn't let yourself get caught up
And start to care a lot.
What was it like to get your guilty verdict?
- It affirms the work that we do.
- It was a good one. - A very good one.
- What made it so good?
- You meet with the family at the beginning,
And you're on this journey all the way through,
And to be able to deliver something to them
That they believed from the beginning,
Um, made it very satisfying.
- A month later at the sentencing,
Holly's sister wanted the judge to know
What the children thought,
That their mother was not a murderer
And that they were begging him, send her home to them.
- "my mom is the greatest mom in the world,
"because she is sweet and kind.
"I really want to see her again.
"I really miss her.
I wish I could have my mom back."
- Then a surprise.
Matt's father, the retired cop,
Had become an ordained minister
Since his son's death,
And he told the judge he had made a decision.
- I have come to the point where I can forgive holly.
And I have forgiven her,
And I'm asking you, your honor,
To temper justice with mercy.
But mark?
Seven years of suspicion, frustration, anger
Finally came bursting out and filled the courtroom.
- I just have one simple question, why?
Why put someone in unimaginable pain
When you could've just walked away from the relationship?
Why continue to slowly poison him
When you could've stopped?
And why take him away from those children
That he so dearly loved?
- The sentence was swift and stern.
- The nature of the crime in the case
Cannot be overlooked in this matter,
And the court's going to impose a sentence of life
With parole eligibility after 30 full years.
- Holly mcfeeture won't be eligible for parole
Until 2043.
As for the children,
Samantha and josh moved in with one of holly's sisters.
Mark said he and his parents see the kids often
And that both families have been
Very friendly toward each other,
Something that would have made his brother proud.
- We want them in our lives.
We want them to know who their dad was.
- The night before holly was shipped out to state prison
To start serving her life sentence,
Chrissy took the children to visit with her.
They couldn't touch.
The glass barrier separated them.
They spoke over a jailhouse phone.
- That just breaks my heart. - It's hard to watch, huh?
- Very hard to watch.
I had to turn away numerous times
Because like I said it was just heartbreaking
Knowing that they couldn't just touch,
She couldn't touch her babies that she loves so much.
- And mark podolak went where he always goes
On the anniversary of matt's death,
To talk to his brother at the cemetery.
- I hope that you're proud of your big brother, a little bit,
Because I kinda hopefully helped you rest in peace
A little bit more than-- than you have been.
- And there was still a podolak
Playing amateur hockey here in cleveland.
[shouting]
Matt loved the game.
Mark took it up in his memory.
And since matt couldn't be here to play, said mark,
He'd play for him.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm kate snow. Thank you for watching.