An outgoing and vivacious mother.
Everybody that met her loved her.
She would make every day fun.
She was vibrant, happy.
She was the life of the party.
Is savagely murdered.
The level of brutality that was
involved in the actual murder was just shocking.
Her throat was slashed almost to the point
where she was decapitated.
Police hunt for an elusive killer.
We had nothing to tell us what happened.
Crime scene evidence produced basically nothing.
We couldn't figure out
who did it and why they did it.
We were really baffled.
It could've been anybody.
And follow a twisted trail of evidence.
Why would he use a calling card?
There were 44 phone calls made
up until the day of the murder.
The officer found a loaded handgun
and hollow point bullets.
It kind of lit up like a light bulb.
Until a desperate move.
This was really the one shot
that the police had to solve this case.
Reveals a secret
that stuns everyone.
I was very surprised.
Like, I was shocked.
All of us were.
I never would have expected that it would lead to this.
At 10:27 p.m.
on a cold Tuesday
in January 2003,
Ramapo Police dispatch receives an emergency call.
Officers are dispatched to the home,
located in a quiet, family neighborhood.
When I initially approached the house,
I see a man with a young boy
with this really blank face walking by.
He didn't say anything to me.
I noticed that he had a shopping bag.
It looked like a gallon of milk.
I enter the home and go upstairs
to the back rear bedroom to give this woman aid
only to find that I was at the scene of a murder.
You know, her injuries were so severe.
She's clearly dead.
She has a very deep laceration to her neck,
and she has what appears to be a knife handle
sticking out of her chest,
and the blood is just pooled around her body.
To me, it looked like the blood was still moving,
and I was thinking to myself
this just happened.
It could be that the killer's still in the house.
So, myself and another police officer went room by room
and cleared the house,
and we didn't find anybody else inside.
At that point now I had to secure the crime scene.
I knew that it was dark,
but once it's a crime scene,
you try not to touch anything,
because you don't know what is evidence.
Detectives arrive on the scene
and begin their investigation in the bedroom.
The victim was lying on her back,
and she had a tremendously deep wound to her neck.
So deep so, you could see part of her spine.
There appeared to be two stab wounds to her chest,
and there was a large,
I would call it a kitchen knife,
sticking in her chest.
We, of course, dusted the knife for fingerprints,
which came back negative.
The actual blade had gone through her
and was stuck into the parquet wood floor.
You know, it was a pretty brutal scene.
She didn't appear to be dead for long.
Her body was cold to the touch,
but there was no rigor mortis.
There was no lividity.
We looked at a potential
attack of a sexual nature.
There was nothing obvious to the eye.
Her clothing was not disturbed.
I looked for any defensive wounds.
If there was a struggle,
there'd be some indication on her hands,
and none of that was evident.
The brutality of her injuries
and how many times she had been stabbed,
it looked more like what we would call a crime of passion.
Looking around the room,
investigators discover some unusual clues.
I found it kind of odd that there was no lights,
but the fan in the ceiling was running.
The fan light had no light bulbs in it,
and in the garbage basket were three light bulbs,
and there was one on the floor next to it.
I'm like, well, what's this all about?
There was a wall sconce
that had a light bulb that was loosened.
To me it would be indicative of somebody
looking to hide their presence.
You know, lessen the ability of the victim to see them.
The house was a little bit in disarray,
but it didn't look like it had been ransacked,
or that it was part of a burglary.
There was some expensive tools in the garage.
There was quite a bit of silverware,
which as a burglar,
they would take that I would think.
Nothing really of value was taken,
and so that started raising more questions
of what exactly happened here?
Police examine the exterior
of the house for evidence.
We didn't see any types of
breaks in the windows or the screens.
Everything appeared to be locked and secure.
On the ground you could see a set of footprints
in the snow that led to the back door,
and that door wasn't broken open,
but it was opened just slightly.
That could have been a point of entry
for whoever had done this to her.
Investigators speak with the homeowner,
Peter Visich.
He tells police the victim is his wife,
36-year-old Evelyn Visich,
and that they live in the house
with their two-year-old son, Ryan.
Peter had told the police
he'd gotten home with his son,
and that he observed that
something happened to his wife.
When the police spoke to Peter and explained to him
what exactly happened to his wife, Evelyn,
it was a strange reaction.
He just sort of had a very
stale face.
That was something that was odd to me,
but it certainly didn't point any fingers at him.
There was no blood
and nothing in his hands
or on him or on his clothes
that would indicate that he
had been part of the murder.
While Peter is taken
to headquarters to make a statement,
Ryan is looked after by his grandparents.
At the crime scene investigators
continue to look for any clues
to who has killed Evelyn Visich.
In these early stages you don't really know the victim,
and so now you have to start thinking who would do that,
and what was the reason for this brutality
that was leveled against this victim?
Born to a single mother
in Lares, Puerto Rico in 1966,
Evelyn grew up determined
to escape her humble childhood.
She came to this country
from Puerto Rico when she was 19,
to live the American dream.
Evelyn landed a job at a large
home improvement store in Paramus, New jersey,
where she made an immediate impression.
Evelyn was a great employee.
She had such a good work ethic.
Everybody loved her.
She was vibrant, positive.
You could hear Evelyn from a mile away.
She was always happy.
She loved her music.
She was passionate about dancing.
She was a proud Latina.
She was beautiful inside and out.
Such a giving person.
She was very kind.
Evelyn started dating Peter
after they met at the store.
Peter used to shop there with his father.
He was very quiet, very polite, family oriented.
He seemed like a good guy.
Someone that she could see building a family with.
That was her dream.
Peter and Evelyn married,
and soon welcomed their son, Ryan, into the family.
Ryan was her world.
Everyone knew she had a son,
and everyone knew how much she loved her son.
After four years of marriage,
the couple's relationship deteriorated,
and Evelyn filed for divorce.
Things started to go wrong.
They were just very disconnected,
but she wanted Peter to be a part of Ryan's life
while they figured out their divorce and custody agreement.
But Evelyn was killed
before the divorce was finalized,
raising police suspicions
due to the nature of her murder.
The ferocity, the level of violence,
you would think somebody really had an ax to grind,
someone that's personally involved with the victim.
If you looked at the nature of the crime,
it suggested that it was somebody
doing this for a reason.
You have a couple who are going through a divorce.
In these types of cases,
you're going to look at the husband.
Coming up.
Police discover additional suspects.
We learned that he had been with Evelyn
the night of the murder.
Maybe they were having a domestic argument, a dispute.
And unearth hidden evidence.
Evelyn had secretly audio taped some of the arguments
and fights that they had been having.
But just as the investigation falters...
Maybe he wasn't the one who actually did the murder,
because it just didn't make sense.
Was there a piece of the puzzle that we weren't seeing?
A new face blows the case wide open.
He's perspiring heavily.
I could see the vein in his neck beating,
and I said to him, I said,
"I don't want to hear what you have to say.
"I already know what happened,
"and I'm going to prove it."
Police investigating the murder
of mother-of-one, Evelyn Visich,
have their first suspect,
her estranged husband, Peter Visich.
You have to start thinking did the husband do this,
or is he involved in it somehow?
Peter mentioned that his relationship
with Evelyn was troubling to him
because they were in a different place.
He wanted her to stay home.
She wanted to work,
and the relationship deteriorated,
and Evelyn had filed for divorce.
Evelyn and Peter still lived in the same home,
even though this divorce was proceeding.
They slept in separate bedrooms,
but they were living under the same roof.
Peter claims he last saw Evelyn alive
the morning she was killed.
He had taken his son for the day.
Evelyn had gone to work.
Peter told us he went to his mother's house at 8:30
that morning with Ryan to do some household repairs.
He didn't have a steady job.
His parents supported him.
He also did a lot of odd jobs
for them that they paid him for.
He stayed at his mother's house
until approximately 8:30,
and at that time he went with his son, Ryan,
to the Palisades Mall.
Peter tells police that just after 9:00 p.m.,
he called Evelyn's cell,
and she told him she was at a friend's house.
She told Peter that she was on her way home
and would probably be home within 20 minutes or so.
At approximately 10:00 p.m.,
Peter received a telephone call
from Evelyn asking where he was.
Peter said to Evelyn that he was picking up milk,
and that he would be home shortly.
Peter said that upon arriving home,
his intent was to put Ryan to bed,
but he said that he found it odd
that the lights were not working in the hallway.
He said he looked into the bedroom.
He saw that Evelyn was on the floor,
and he said that she was obviously
deceased according to him,
and he ran back downstairs,
and ran to the neighbor's house to call the police.
Peter Visich was questioned for over 16 hours.
I mean, it was a very long interview.
He never asked to leave.
He never said, "I want a lawyer.
"Leave me alone," anything like that.
He was cooperative throughout.
He agreed to provide us with fingernail clippings,
hair samples, a blood sample, a buccal swab for his DNA.
As Peter is providing samples,
investigators run a background check.
There was nothing in his history
indicative of this violence.
Peter was typically a guy who was if he wasn't home,
working on cars, motorcycles,
he was at his parent's house.
Peter Visich's mother
confirmed his alibi for the day
and evening at the time that he said he was there.
We found Peter to be at the A Supermarket buying milk
and exiting the store consistent
with the times he described,
confirmed by video cameras,
and he produced a receipt for the milk,
time and date stamped, 10:15 p.m.
The amount of time it took to go from A
where he purchased the milk to his house,
it just would not have been possible to commit that crime
and call the police from the neighbor's phone,
and not be contaminated in some sort,
or leave behind some evidence or have evidence on him.
We found no sign of any injuries.
We found no sign of any blood on his person, on his shoes.
At this point in the investigation,
there was nothing that we could find
that was showing that Peter Visich
was involved in the murder of his wife.
He was in all these different places
where there were surveillance cameras,
and with a timeline that prevented him
from being at the scene of the murder when it occurred.
Now you have to start thinking
other than Peter Visich,
who could do something like this,
and why would they do something like this?
I asked him did he have any concern about his own safety?
You know, somebody came into your house.
Maybe they were looking for you too.
Does he have any enemies?
Does he owe anybody money?
Does he have any illegal habits, drugs, gambling?
He answered no to all those questions.
And I asked him if he knew anybody
that might want to do this,
and he said that she did have a boyfriend,
and that we should look at him.
Evelyn was dating another employee
of Home Depot, Mike Granda.
Here you have people going through a divorce,
and now you have a boyfriend thrown into the mix.
A motive could be jealousy.
Could be a fight in their relationship.
The fact that she still lives with Peter
could be a source of upsetment for Mike Granda.
Maybe it was a jealous boyfriend
who had come in there.
It fit the profile for the crime scene
being that it was so horrific.
The next morning police head to Evelyn's work
to interview her boyfriend, Mike,
and find that her co-workers
already suspect something is wrong.
I remember I kept calling her
because Evelyn was always at work by the time I got there,
and she wasn't there that day.
I saw detectives when they came in and I got suspicious,
and I said, "Something happened to Evelyn, right?"
So, the detective said to me,
"How would you know that?"
So, what I said was,
"You just confirmed it to me."
We interviewed Evelyn's coworkers,
and to a person they all loved her
and spoke highly of her,
and she had some very close relationships
with people that she worked with that loved her dearly.
That she was good to them.
They were good to her.
They looked out for each other.
Evelyn was very, very loved at work.
Emotionally it was horrible.
I mean, we were her friends.
We were her family.
She wasn't just a friend.
She was like a big sister to me.
As investigators speak with Evelyn's coworkers,
her boyfriend, Mike Granda,
arrives to start his shift.
When Mike Granda arrived for work,
we told him that Evelyn had been murdered.
He was visibly upset.
But when detectives ask Mike
where he was the night before,
his answer raises eyebrows.
According to Mike Granda,
he had been with Evelyn the night of the murder.
At that point you have to really
look at every possibility.
Maybe she was going back to her husband.
Maybe she had broken up with him.
Maybe it was a crime of passion.
Maybe they were having a domestic argument, a dispute.
We had to look at him
as a possible suspect for the murder.
Police hunting the killer of Evelyn Visich
are focusing in on the man she was dating
while in the throws of divorcing her husband.
We did look at Evelyn's boyfriend Mike Granda.
There could be a source of jealousy
based on the fact that she still lives
with her husband during this process,
so he has to be looked at.
Detectives bring the 28-year-old
to the station for questioning.
When Michael Granda was interviewed,
we ask him to describe their relationship.
He said initially they were just friends,
but as time went on,
they became romantically involved and began dating.
Investigators press Mike for details
on the night that Evelyn was killed.
According to Mike Granda,
Evelyn and he had left Home Depot
at approximately 3:00 p.m.
Evelyn had gone to
the Garden State Plaza Mall
to return to some clothes,
and she actually was supposed to be
having dinner with her son that night.
But Peter called Evelyn and said,
"I'm going to my mother's house with the baby."
So, Evelyn called Michael saying that she was free,
so she went from the shopping mall
to Michael Granda's house in West New York, New Jersey.
Mike claims he and Evelyn had dinner.
Around 9:00 p.m. Peter called to say
he was on his way back with Ryan,
after which Evelyn decided to head home to see her son.
Michael Granda's house is approximately
a 40-minute drive to the Visich house.
Michael Granda called her
when she was approximately 20 minutes from home,
when she was on the Garden State Parkway.
Approximately 40 minutes after that phone call,
Evelyn was being murdered.
We asked him to describe his whereabouts.
He said that he had stayed home for the rest of the night,
watched TV and went to bed.
So, there was a window of opportunity where he did not
have a alibi that could be corroborated by someone else.
We subpoenaed his phone records
to try to determine where he was.
Michael's cellphone records indicated
that his cellphone was in his apartment
or very close by his apartment
in West New York, New Jersey.
If he were to drive from West New York,
in all likelihood he would have to pass through a toll.
We subpoenaed toll records, E-Z Pass records.
We subpoenaed some cameras,
video records from some banks
in the area looking for his car passing by,
and none of that was ever found.
So that also led us to believe
that he was telling the truth,
and he actually was in his home
at the time that Evelyn was being murdered.
I never thought for one second
that Mike had anything to do with it.
Mike really lifted her up on a pedestal.
He gave her that support that she needed.
Mike made her feel beautiful.
Michael was most cooperative.
He offered his phone.
He offered his laptop computer.
He offered samples of his blood,
a buccal swab for DNA, hair.
He offered everything.
He said, "Please, I know you have to look at me.
"Cross me off the list and find out who did this."
It just never even dawned on me
that the police would look at me.
I just tried to give them as much information as I could.
I do remember telling them,
"Oh, I know you guys have to suspect me."
I told them if they wanted to search my house, they could.
If they wanted to search my cars, they could.
I was just very focused on trying to be helpful.
After the police obtained all the information from Mike
and speaking with him
and speaking with others,
he was quickly ruled out as a suspect
in the murder of Evelyn Visich,
and there was just nothing to suggest
that Peter Visich was involved.
So, if you don't believe the husband's involved,
you don't believe the boyfriend's involved,
you have to look at other individuals that may be involved.
At that point it could've been anybody.
You can't make assumptions on who it could be.
You have to really look at every possibility.
The day after Evelyn's murder,
as police consider possible suspects,
news of the crime hits the airwaves.
The Evelyn Visich murder
was newsworthy just because of the area.
We're in a small town.
We don't have that many murders
that it's commonplace.
This was a case that really was troubling
because you have a woman
who was violently, brutally killed,
and we couldn't figure out who did it
and why they did it.
Hoping for a new lead,
investigators look to the autopsy report
to learn more about the crime.
She had two stab wounds in her upper back area.
Those were the initial strikes,
and then she had a very deep slash wound to her throat.
And then there were two stab wounds
to her upper chest area,
powerfully done as indicative by the fact
that the knife was stuck in the floor.
Based on what the medical examiner described to us,
I can only imagine the sheer horror
that Evelyn was experiencing.
The level of brutality that was involved
in the actual murder was just shocking.
Her throat was slashed almost to the point
where she was decapitated.
It was blood-curdling.
She must have been scared.
Somebody's in her home.
She's in her bedroom.
Maybe it was a burglary gone bad,
and she came home and had startled
whoever was in her house.
We circled back to examining parolees in the area,
both New York and New Jersey, sex offenders,
people that have committed similar crimes,
burglaries gone bad or robberies gone bad.
At the time of Evelyn Visich's murder,
there was a group of young men
who were committing robberies
and burglaries in the vicinity,
including a Terrence Monk who lived
approximately five miles from the Visich residence.
I do remember that we were having burglaries in the area,
and I remember that we were having home invasions, too.
The name Terrence Monk it clicked with me.
There were cases, robberies, burglaries and assaults,
where Terrence Monk committed violent acts
on people that didn't cooperate.
He was also implicated in a robbery
probably a mile-and-a-half from the Visich house.
It kind of lit up like a light bulb.
He certainly went right up to the top of the list.
Evelyn Visich was killed in her own bedroom
in a frenzied knife attack,
and now police are investigating
if a violent local burglar might be responsible.
Terrence Monk was a known criminal,
and the detectives had been dealing
with him for years at that point.
We had been investigating him so arduously
and for such a long time there was not
any possibility of cooperation on his behalf.
To get the information they need,
investigators take a different approach.
I utilized a confidential informant
to try to determine where Terrence Monk was,
and if, in fact, he was involved in this crime.
He described to me where Terrence Monk was
at the time that Evelyn was murdered.
He told us that Terrence Monk was in Buffalo, New York,
and that was substantiated by witness statements,
and his cellphone records.
It's another dead end for detectives.
They pressed the informant for any other information
that might help solve the case.
This young man was so plugged in,
in the criminal community,
so I asked him what the word on the street was?
If it was a local guy,
chances are in the criminal community,
somebody would have been talking,
and he said there's nothing on the street at all.
No information about who killed Evelyn Visich.
With no other leads,
police re-canvass the neighborhood
around the Visich home.
There was multiple
attempts to locate witnesses,
and detectives actually went back
and conducted a road stop in the area,
hoping that somebody may have seen something.
Nothing was discovered,
and we couldn't gain anything from that.
In the Village of Chestnut Ridge,
it's prohibited to park a vehicle on the street at night.
So, we also checked to see
if any parking tickets had been issued
for any vehicles parked on the street,
and there were none found.
Collectively, between the police and the prosecution,
we were really sitting there thinking
this may never get solved.
While investigators consider their next move,
Evelyn's loved ones struggle to accept her loss.
I just couldn't believe that she was killed.
Evelyn, who was such a loved person by everyone,
something like that happening to her,
it makes no sense.
"You know there's some people that come into
"your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime,"
that's what they say.
There was a lot of respect and love there.
She would make every day fun,
always laughing, having a good time,
but, you know, that's life.
I mean, you have to take every second you got
because you never know when
it's going to end.
Detectives re-interview
Evelyn's friends and colleagues,
hoping to uncover a tiny detail
that leads them to her killer.
We did speak to many of Evelyn's friends,
to find out if she had a lifestyle
that was potentially dangerous to her
or would expose her to this type of demise.
Her life revolved around her being a mother.
She had no enemies.
Everybody that met her loved her.
There was not one person that met her
that did not instantly take to her.
She was just a really pleasant person
to be around all the time, day and night.
It was very puzzling.
What happened and why was this done?
With a violent killer still on the streets,
concern spreads through the community.
In this area, this little hamlet of Chestnut Ridge,
it's just not that kind of an area
where you would expect anything like this.
People in the community are starting to get fearful.
I remember, I was living alone,
and I certainly had my radar up,
and I was very careful coming and going,
almost to the point of paranoia.
I wasn't going to be a victim.
Three days after Evelyn's murder,
detectives receive explosive new information,
turning the investigation on it's head.
Mike Granda came to the Ramapo Police Station
with some personal items of Evelyn Visich's.
Amongst those personal items,
we found audio tapes and a journal that she wrote in.
Detectives immediately recognize
the voices on the audio tapes
as Evelyn and her husband Peter.
Evelyn, apparently, had secretly
audio taped some of the arguments
and fights that they had been having.
Everything from any money that she spent,
taking the car away from her,
shutting off her phone.
He wanted to be completely in control of Evelyn.
So, it was in stark contrast to what Peter described to us.
The fact that Peter didn't describe any turmoil,
caused us to have some doubts how truthful he was being.
Evelyn's journal contains
even more startling revelations
about their divorce.
He wanted custody.
He was told that he wasn't going to get full custody,
and he wanted the sale of the house.
So, if Evelyn is gone,
he's got the child.
He's got the sale of the house,
and he can move on.
When detectives try to follow up
with Peter about these revelations,
they're met with silence.
At this point Peter had retained an attorney,
and we were no longer able to question him.
So that again raised some suspicion.
We went back and looked harder at Peter,
based on the fact that he had
the most to gain from Evelyn being dead.
With Peter having an iron-clad alibi,
investigators consider other scenarios.
Maybe he wasn't the one who actually did the murder,
but you have to wonder
if somehow Peter is involved in this,
because it just didn't make sense
that anybody else had a reason to do this.
The suspicion is enough to get a warrant
to search Peter's vehicle.
We had no idea at the time that
that search of the van was about to unleash
a whole new avenue of this investigation
and turn this case totally upside down.
New evidence in the Evelyn Visichc]
homicide investigation has led police
to revisit her husband, Peter,
as a potential suspect,
and they are now searching his vehicle
for any trace of incriminating evidence.
You just never know what might be that little piece,
you know, whether it's a hair or fingerprint
or that one bit of DNA
might be the break in the case.
Desperate for any lead in their investigation,
police make a critical discovery.
There was an extensive search of Peter's van,
and we uncovered in the back pocket
of the middle seat of the van $3700 in cash
in a white envelope.
In addition to the money that was found,
there was a Sprint calling card.
This was tremendous,
tremendous evidence that we have just now uncovered.
It offered a lot of questions.
Why would a person have $3700 cash?
We examined Peter's financial status.
At the time Peter was not very solvent
in terms of having any money.
Somebody's who's by all accounts broke,
and he's got $3700 in the back of his van?
And of course, we couldn't ask him why,
because he had already retained counsel.
You have to now start wondering
why does this man have $3700 in $100 bills
left behind in his minivan?
It's possible that Peter may have engaged someone
to kill Evelyn, and that money was going to be used
to pay off the final payment.
Furthest thing from my mind was
that a hitman could have been hired.
That's really very rare in real life.
Let's look at his bank accounts,
his credit card statements,
you know, things like that as far as getting
any solid evidence he was involved in this.
We went back and looked harder at Peter's
bank accounts, stock market, anything like that,
in an effort to see if he had taken any money out
to try to pay somebody to maybe do this,
and nothing was found to be out of the ordinary
or even considered to be like a payoff.
Finding no evidence
Peter paid to have Evelyn killed,
detectives focus on the other item found in his van.
Why would he use a calling card?
Most folks, unless you don't have a cellphone
or don't have a land line,
don't have the necessity for a calling card,
and Peter had a cellphone.
He had a home phone.
So, we subpoenaed the records for that calling card.
There were 44 phone calls made
from that pre-paid phone card record,
beginning in November of 2002,
up until the day of the murder in January of 2003.
Of 44 calls made on that card,
almost all of them were made
to an individual named Frank Thon.
The name is new to detectives,
but when they run it through the police database,
they make a telling discovery.
Police learned that Frank Thon
was currently at the time in jail
in the state of New Jersey.
This is a man who's been arrested numerous times,
assaults, violent assaults.
His most recent arrest
was for driving while intoxicated.
The officer found a loaded handgun
underneath the armrest of the truck,
and hollow point bullets.
At the time of the murder,
he was on intensive, supervised parole.
Shortly after the Visich homicide,
Frank Thon turned himself in
to serve a year in the county jail.
Could there be an innocent explanation
why Peter called a known violent criminal
for months leading up to the murder
only to stop the day Evelyn was killed?
We subpoenaed Frank Thon's phone records.
Analyzing his phone records,
we found that he was in the vicinity
of the Visich home on January 6th,
the day before the murder,
and on January 7th, the day of the murder.
Then it became really evident to us
that he was involved in this.
So, now, things are starting to click.
We were able to secure a search warrant
to search Frank Thon's apartment,
and one of the things that
the police recovered was a computer.
Upon forensic investigation of that computer,
we found that Frank Thon had searched directions
from his apartment to the Visich home.
The evidence is compelling,
but investigators need something
more concrete to lay charges.
Based on the evidence that we had,
it still was a very weak case.
We don't have any forensic evidence
that would connect him to the murder of Evelyn Visich.
You need the probable cause.
You need the connection to prove your case
and to actually have it stick.
With little else to go on,
detectives make a bold decision.
We had no other option
other than to go at Frank Thon.
We knew our case would depend upon
Frank Thon making a confession.
This was really the one shot
that the police had to solve this case.
It was a huge gamble,
because if he decided to ask for a lawyer,
they could not question him anymore.
If he denied it,
they were stuck with what he had to say.
Police can only hope
that Frank reveals the truth
of whether Peter was involved in the murder.
We don't have a case against Peter.
We're getting closer to figuring out maybe what occurred,
but again it doesn't prove that Peter Visich
had any relationship to this murder.
We had nothing other than just the fact
that Peter is calling Frank Thon.
This case is going to rise and fall
on whether we succeed or not with an interview.
Investigators head to the county jail
to confront the hardened criminal.
I specifically requested a small room,
where we could have the table against the wall,
and we deliberately set that room up
to increase Frank Thon's anxiety.
We had lawyer boxes
with Evelyn Visich's name on the boxes.
We had maps with pins in them.
The small office was full of
as I call it a number of props.
With everything in place,
police bring in 41-year-old, Frank Thon.
They took the handcuffs off him,
and we pretty much just stared at him
for like a good minute or two,
again in an attempt to increase his anxiety.
And he was visibly nervous.
And I said to him, I said,
"I don't want to hear what you have to say.
"I already know what happened,
"and I'm going to prove it.
"I'm going to tell you what,
"a murder-for-hire in New York,
"you could potentially face the death penalty."
We told him that we had
all types of evidence implicating him,
and his face hit the table.
He's perspiring heavily.
His heart rate was obviously increased.
I could see the vein in his neck beating,
and I said to him, I said,
"You don't have any friends in this world right now."
I said, "If you tell us the truth,
"we'll try to assist you in getting the best possible deal."
There was a long pause.
He took a big sigh,
and then he began to tell us what happened.
Four weeks after the murder of Evelyn Visich,
investigators have just convinced suspected hit man,
Frank Thon, to start talking.
He almost had a look of
detachment from what was going on.
He took a big sigh and he says,
"All right, I'll tell you guys what happened."
Frank Thon told us that
he was the person who killed Evelyn.
Frank Thon confessed not only
to the murder of Evelyn Visich,
but that he was hired by her husband, Peter.
I really was surprised,
after everything was said and done,
after all of the investigative leads,
that it all came back to Peter.
Frank tells detectives that
he was introduced to Peter three months ago
through a mutual acquaintance.
Peter asked this gentleman
if he knew of anybody that could take care of his wife?
Frank Thon requested $10,000 cash,
with $5,000 being paid upfront.
We later learned that Peter obtained money
from a friend of a friend on a loan.
A short time after that,
Peter Visich met Frank Thon at a pizzeria,
where Peter gave Frank the down payment of $5,000 cash.
I looked at the money found in the van
as this could have been the final payment.
To hear that for such a small amount of money
that somebody was willing to go out there and kill someone
I was shocked and disgusted.
In his confession,
Frank describes Peter's impatience
to have Evelyn killed.
Peter Visich was pestering him to get this done,
so he decided January 7th was going to be the night.
Frank meets Peter at the Visich home
the day before the murder.
Peter told Frank that he would leave the back door open,
and he gave Evelyn's schedule for that day.
The next day Peter establishes his alibi.
He went to his mother's house
and then the shopping mall,
and then stopping to get milk,
he knows that there's video cameras.
He knows that he's going to get a receipt.
That's all adding time
to his alibi that can also be substantiated.
After sunset,
Frank enters the Visich house,
and removes the light bulbs
to lie in wait for Evelyn in the dark.
He had a gun.
He pushed her into the bedroom,
had her kneel on the bed,
and he told her he was merely here to do a robbery,
and he wasn't going to hurt her.
He said he then took a knife
that he had brought with him
and stabbed her twice in the back.
Frank Thon was the instrument of Evelyn's death,
but Peter Visich brought that instrument into his own home.
On Valentine's Day, 2003,
a warrant was issued for the arrest of Peter Visich.
Police rush to take Peter into custody.
I said, "Peter, I have very good news for you."
He said, "What's that?"
He was somewhat befuddled.
I said, "We found out who killed your wife,"
and he became like almost giggly.
He's like, "Really who?"
I said, "you did, expletive.
"You're under arrest."
It angers me and it pains me to think that
the person that she married was the one
that did that to her.
It's shocking, it's sad.
I was very surprised.
Like, I was shocked.
All of us were.
He went through this elaborate murder,
and I just thought like,
"How pathetic are you as a person?"
Frank Thon pleads guilty
for his role in the murder of Evelyn.
In exchange for his cooperation,
he was promised a sentence of 20 years to life
if he testified truthfully at the trial of Peter Visich.
In November of 2003,
in front of a packed courtroom,
Peter stands trial for plotting to murder Evelyn.
Evelyn's friends and family were
throughout the trial present.
They had to endure really gut-wrenching testimony,
particularly when Frank Thon testified.
He said that he told her at the end,
"I'm going to put you out of your misery,
"and your husband was the one that hired me."
She was just in shock.
Peter Visich never takes the stand
during the eight day trial.
He showed no emotion the whole entire trial.
I would look at him and then
just think to myself like, "Why? Why?
"Why you had to get to that point?
"Why did you do it?"
After hearing the evidence,
the jury deliberates for only three hours.
The jurors announced that
they did have a unanimous verdict.
Guilty on each and every count,
including murder in the first degree,
which carried a life without parole sentence.
We all screamed.
We were relieved,
and we felt like justice had been served,
although it was bittersweet.
It's just so hard to comprehend why?
Now the child doesn't have a mom or a dad.
What he did to Ryan
is just as unforgivable as what he did to Evelyn,
because he deprived Ryan of one of the most
incredible human beings I've ever met in my life.
I have never met anyone like Evelyn.
For those closest to Evelyn,
she remains alive in their hearts.
Evelyn is still here with us.
She's still in our spirit.
She was full of love.
She was full of life.
She was the life of the party.
She was always happy,
and if you weren't happy next to her,
she will have made you happy.
She was a good soul.
She was a good person.
She will always be missed.