[Mike Adamczyk] The deceased male was lying in a large pool of blood.
There was a large pipe wrench used to bludgeon his head.
Why would somebody kill a retired senior citizen?
Half the neighborhood knew Bruce.
[Keri Harrison] He has had several relationships
with different women.
He would become their handyman,
become their friend, move in.
Bruce has taken serial monogamy to a whole other level.
[Adamczyk] They were angry, they were bitter.
One said that, "I'll see you dead."
We do see a young man with her,
and this is not what she had initially said.
[Adamczyk] You're gonna go down for this
unless you tell us what really happened.
[loud thump]
[narrator] Everyday in North America,
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides.
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline.
The minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery
and catch the killer.
A stone's throw from Niagara Falls,
St. Catharines, Ontario, is the largest city in the region,
but retains a small-town charm.
It's a beautiful little old port town
right on Lake Ontario, it's called The Garden City.
It's beautiful, green, there's trails everywhere.
It's a place that a lot of people like to retire to
because there is a lake, you can go sailing,
you can go fishing, there are beaches.
It's a city that's not too small,
but not too big either.
[narrator] But that small-town charm is shattered
one fall evening in 2001.
Elizabeth Gatenby and her mother, Margaret,
return to Margaret's home to find a gruesome scene.
[Harrison] Elizabeth sees Bruce Firman
lying on the floor in the garage.
There's a pool of blood around him.
[narrator] Seventy-two-year-old Bruce Firman,
her mother's common law husband is dead.
[Harrison] They go across the street,
and they ask the neighbor to call the police.
[narrator] Niagara Regional Police Detectives Keri Harrison
and Mike Adamczyk respond to the call.
[Adamczyk] I saw a large pool of blood beside his head.
There was a large pipe wrench lying beside there
with some hair and blood on it,
which indicated that was used to bludgeon his head.
[Harrison] The medical examiner confirmed the cause of death
as blunt force trauma to the head
with the pipe wrench that was found next to his body.
[narrator] Police find no fingerprints on the weapon,
but outside, they do locate a shoeprint that appears fresh.
[Karen Hoare] We did initially find a partial footwear impression
on the back patio of the garage.
The day had been wet and rainy,
and, unfortunately, the partial footprint
did not have enough detail to be identified
to any particular footwear.
[narrator] Police wonder if the attack was the result of a robbery gone wrong.
There were no signs of a break-in,
a forced entry or any type of fight or altercation
except for the garage.
Forensics officers search through the home,
and they even searched a chest freezer
in the basement of the home.
[narrator] The freezer is filled
with labeled containers of homemade soup.
Nothing unusual.
Investigators find nothing out of place or missing inside the home,
and no sign the killer even entered the house
beyond the garage.
It's clearly not a break-and-enter that has gone wrong,
so, we're trying to figure out was has happened here.
[narrator] To find Bruce Firman's killer,
detectives will need to reconstruct
the last 24 hours of his life.
They start with his common law wife, Margaret,
and her daughter, Elizabeth, who found him.
Detective Adamczyk meets Margaret and Elizabeth at the neighbor's.
[Adamczyk] Margaret was sitting on the couch.
She was visibly upset.
She began to cry.
Margaret and Bruce, they had been living there for several years.
[Karena Walter] Bruce Firman had been a real estate agent
and he would spend his time in the garden gardening,
working in his woodshop,
and bicycling around town.
[Adamczyk] I was introduced to Elizabeth,
she was having a cigarette and a glass of wine.
I asked her, basically, what had happened.
She said that she was in Niagara Falls with her mother for dinner.
[narrator] Elizabeth lives out of town,
and has been visiting her mother, Margaret, for the past five days.
[Walter] They went to Niagara Falls
to go and see the Festival of Lights over the Falls.
They had dinner, they went and did a little bit of shopping
just picking up some tourist things,
and then they drove back home
to St. Catherines to Margaret's house
in Elizabeth's rental car.
[Adamczyk] When they came back home...
...they saw Bruce Firman
laying on the ground bleeding from his head.
[narrator] The two women are still in shock.
They have no idea who attacked Bruce Firman or why.
Based on their account,
Bruce could have been killed as early as 3:30 p.m.
when the two women left for Niagara Falls
or as late as 8:45 p.m.
just before they returned home
to find him dead near his bike.
Margaret tells us that Bruce was a man of routine.
He had a very structured day,
and he would always go for a bike ride
before he went to bed at night at a certain time.
The home is located in a very quiet area,
uh, close to the canal with lots of trails,
and that's where Mr. Firman loved to ride.
[Walter] Neighbors would see him going out,
and then he would come home again around 7:00 at night.
[Adamczyk] Half the neighborhood knew Bruce.
That was his routine, they always saw him riding his bike
the same time every night.
So, to us, it seemed that...
...whoever did this knew Mr. Firman's routine.
[narrator] With no sign of a robbery,
it's beginning to look like Bruce Firman's murder
may be the result of a targeted attack.
But why would someone want Bruce dead?
It was a shocking thing to happen in the community.
Nobody expected that this was gonna happen in their neighborhood.
Bruce Firman was seen as a quiet man.
Neighbors would see him exercising on his bicycle,
and working round his house.
He kind of kept to himself,
and people were wondering,
"Why would somebody kill a retired senior citizen?"
[narrator] To find a possible answer,
Detective Adamczyk looks up Bruce's son, Don,
from a previous marriage.
He lives in a small town about a three-hour drive away.
I'm trying to get some background in regards to the relationship
between Margaret and Bruce or anything in the past with Bruce.
[narrator] According to Bruce's son,
the relationship between his father and Margaret
had recently become poisoned.
Margaret and Mr. Firman were living in the home
that they bought together for approximately eight years,
but now their relationship was dissolving.
Mr. Firman was living in the basement of the home,
and Margaret was living upstairs in the home.
They are in the process of a separation.
They are in court dealing with this matter.
Each of them has a lawyer.
[Walter] Don Firman tells the police
that they've been, basically, separated for two years,
and fighting over everything in the house.
The property dispute had reached a level
where Margaret and Bruce weren't even talking to each other.
They would pass each other in the morning in the house,
and not say a word.
[narrator] According to Bruce's son,
recently, the tension between them had grown dangerously worse.
Don tells me that Bruce is actually fearful of Margaret.
He had been complaining about how spiteful she is,
how angry she is.
[Harrison] In a recent court appearance,
after they got home from court,
they got into a bit of an argument,
and Margaret even threw an ashtray at Mr. Firman.
[Walter] Things had gotten so bad
that Bruce Firman's son, Don,
said that his father had told him
that if he was ever murdered, they would know who murdered him.
[narrator] Bruce Firman actually named his common law wife, Margaret Benesch,
as his suspected killer.
[Harrison] Bruce would be entitled to half of the assets.
As the relationship dissolved,
and she wasn't having it.
She did not want him to have half of the home.
She even said that, "I'll see you dead
before you get this house."
So, she definitely had motive.
[narrator] Was the fight over property
enough to drive Margaret Benesch to murder?
[narrator] The same night that 72-year-old Bruce Firman
is found bludgeoned in his garage,
detectives question his estranged common law wife
and house co-owner, 68-year-old Margaret Benesch.
Did Margaret want Bruce out of the way
to take full ownership of the house?
We clearly felt that she had motive
in this situation.
She definitely wanted him out of her life.
Because of the relationship and how bad it was going,
she did not want to have to pay him
any kind of support after the relationship had ended.
[narrator] Margaret tells investigators she met Bruce eight years earlier.
She was a retired healthcare worker,
and her husband had just died.
Margaret told me that Bruce had been a real estate agent.
He convinced her to sell her house
to move to St. Catherines,
which was the house they purchased.
[narrator] Margaret paid for the new house with her own savings.
Bruce helped out as a handyman.
He also convinced her to put him on the deed,
so, if something happened to her,
he would inherit the house.
Margaret went on to explain that...
...everything was great at the beginning, Bruce was charming,
he was doting.
They had a great relationship for about three to four years
when things changed.
[Walter] The two seemed to be living happily enough
until Margaret approached Bruce,
and asked him to limit his spending.
She said that he was going through their savings.
[narrator] Instead of limiting his spending,
Bruce breaks up with Margaret,
and demands his half of the house value.
He said his name was on the deed,
and so he deserved 50%.
[narrator] Besides the property dispute,
detectives discover there's an even greater source of tension
between Bruce and Margaret.
Mr. Firman is involved in a new relationship
with another lady in the neighborhood.
He rides his bike regularly over to her house,
and has dinner with her.
And then, after dinner, he rides back home,
and they usually talk by phone
before they go to bed.
Margaret is not happy that...
...he's living in the home in the basement,
but is now in a new relationship with another lady.
Marital breakdowns are messy at the best of times.
Factor in then that Bruce now has a new woman,
and this is, essentially, pouring gasoline on a fire.
Margaret also tell us that she was devastated
by the break up of the relationship,
and that she was having a really hard time dealing with it.
And she said, "I'll see you in hell before I give you half of anything."
[narrator] Was Margaret upset and angry enough at Bruce to attack him?
Margaret tells me that she would never harm Bruce.
She was gonna win in court, she was very confident about her case.
[narrator] Margaret admits she was mad at Bruce,
but not mad enough to kill him,
and she has an alibi to prove it.
Margaret's alibi is she was with Elizabeth
during the time of the murder.
So, that's... Our next step is to bring in Elizabeth, and interview her.
[narrator] Margaret's daughter, Elizabeth Gatenby,
is a 41-year-old social worker from Trail, British Columbia.
[Adamczyk] She was very friendly, very open.
She had traveled by bus from Trail, B.C.
to St. Catherines to support her mother
when her mother's relationship went sour.
[narrator] Detectives also learn that Elizabeth had had a troubled youth.
[Walter] She had been a victim of sexual abuse,
she became addicted to drugs,
she was kicked out of school.
[narrator] But, eventually, Elizabeth turned her life around
by helping other people.
[Walter] She founded a youth center in the town of Trail, B.C.,
called Heart of Trail.
They helped homeless kids, they gave treatment for sexual abuse,
and she was kind of a model citizen there.
She was involved with their chamber of commerce,
with the United Way.
She had a reputation in the community.
[narrator] Now Elizabeth was back in town to help her own mom.
[Harrison] She is very open,
telling us that Mr. Firman's not a good guy.
That he's trying to take her mom's money.
That he's trying to walk away from this relationship
with everything that her mom has had for her whole life.
She thought it was unfair that Bruce was doing this to her.
Elizabeth, very frankly, tells us
that she doesn't like Mr. Firman at all.
[narrator] Did Elizabeth's desire to protect her mother lead to violence?
There was a settlement hearing,
which was three days after Bruce had been found dead
that would have settled what assets were gonna be split up between them.
This raised some alarm bells.
Was there a deadline here of why he was taken out?
[narrator] Since Elizabeth's mother, Margaret, benefitted from Bruce's death,
could Margaret and Elizabeth be covering each other's involvement?
We looked at Margaret and Elizabeth forensically
to see if they have any evidence on them,
specifically blood spatter,
that would tie them to the scene.
I examined these clothing, and found no signs of blood staining
or other bodily fluids on their clothing.
[narrator] But investigators don't stop there.
The next step would be to check out
Elizabeth and Margaret's alibi in Niagara Falls.
Elizabeth provided us with receipts from the souvenir shops,
from the restaurant...
...places, other places that they went.
[narrator] The receipts say Margaret and Elizabeth were 16 miles from home
from 3:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.
during the window of the murder.
It's a good start, but detectives need corroboration.
We went to the restaurant where Margaret and Elizabeth had dinner.
We spoke with the waitress who served them,
and she immediately remembered Margaret and Elizabeth,
so, everything's checking out.
[Harrison] We wanted to look at the drive time
to see if it would be possible
that they could have gotten from Niagara Falls back home to St. Catherines,
and then come back to Niagara Falls...
...and then go back.
[narrator] The drive between Niagara Falls
and Margaret's house in St. Catherines
is about 20 minutes each way.
[Harrison] Everything checked out in terms of the time frame
for them to have had dinner and to get back home.
Their alibi was rock solid.
[narrator] The receipts, waitress statements, and drive times
all confirm that neither woman bludgeoned Bruce Firman.
[loud thump]
So, next, they turn to some of Bruce Firman's
former relationships with women,
and wanted to see if any of them may have an axe to grind.
[narrator] As detectives dig deeper into Bruce Firman's past,
what they discover is alarming.
Margaret is not the first woman he's had conflicts with.
We learn from everyone that we speak to
that he has had several, uh, relationships
in the past with several different women.
[Adamczyk] He would become their handyman,
become their friend, move in...
...he'd get married under common law...
...and, after a certain amount of time,
he would divorce them or go after some of their assets.
It was more like his MO in regards to relationships,
and he had gone through quite a few.
[narrator] Investigators discover that, in the past,
Bruce had done the same thing with more than half a dozen different women.
[Adamczyk] His son, Don, tells me that he's not really surprised
that his father was murdered.
He angered a lot of people.
[narrator] Was one of his past partners
angry enough at Bruce to commit murder?
[narrator] In their search for Bruce Firman's killer,
detectives have identified a number of women
that Bruce may have taken advantage of in the past.
Any one of them could have a motive for revenge.
You always wanna be careful not to blame the victim,
but clearly in this case, Bruce's behavior
of using relationships as a source of financial gain
is clearly putting him at risk.
Bruce has taken serial monogamy to a whole other level.
This opens up a realm of possibilities
in terms of previous disgruntled partners,
many of whom lost assets to Bruce
who would be incentivized to come looking for him years later.
[narrator] Detectives track down Bruce's most recent partners for questioning.
[Harrison] In conducting the interviews with these women,
we had to look, specifically, at all of those relationships
to see if there were any issues
that might have caused this homicide to occur.
[Adamczyk] What was done with his past relationships was...
...that they were angry, they were bitter
that they had been taken for a lot of their money,
but, you know, most of them had moved on.
Everybody had their alibis.
[Harrison] There was nothing that would lead us to believe
that any of those past relationships
had any involvement in the death of Mr. Firman.
[narrator] Police clear all of Bruce's past partners
except one, his last girlfriend,
70-year-old Jennifer Wiley.
[Harrison] Jennifer lived, literally, one street south
of Mr. Firman,
and she was the last person to see Mr. Firman alive.
So, we definitely had to look at her
as a person of interest.
[narrator] Detectives bring Jennifer in for questioning.
[Harrison] Mr. Firman met Jennifer in the neighborhood.
They had been friends for about four years.
But as Mr. Firman's relationship
with Margaret was deteriorating,
he was confiding in Jennifer,
and their relationship was evolving.
Jennifer tells us that she and Mr. Firman
have dinner every evening,
and then he arrives home around 7:00 p.m..
They would speak again over the phone at approximately 10:00 p.m..
On the night of the murder,
she did not hear from Mr. Firman
for their regular 10:00 p.m. phone call,
and that was concerning to her.
[narrator] Is Jennifer telling the truth or was she angry
because Bruce was still living with Margaret?
Perhaps she followed him home and killed him.
[Keira Stockdale] It's possible that Jennifer sees herself
as part of a love triangle.
Certainly, she can't be ruled out as a suspect
because where there's love triangles,
there's jealousy that could be driving aggressive behavior.
[Harrison] Jennifer tells us
that Mr. Firman was the love of her life.
This was a new relationship,
and they were kind of starting a new life together.
[narrator] Jennifer insists that she was home when Bruce was killed,
but she lives alone, so her whereabouts can't be corroborated.
Still, without any of her DNA at the crime scene
nor any eye witnesses seeing Jennifer at Bruce's home,
detectives have nothing that says this 70-year-old woman killed Bruce.
[Adamczyk] So, at this point, we've cleared Elizabeth and Margaret,
the ex-girlfriends, Bruce's current girlfriend,
so, we have to regroup,
and review what we have.
[narrator] Based on Jennifer's statement,
detectives can now narrow the window of Bruce's murder
to between 7:00 p.m. when he arrived home from Jennifer's house,
and 8:45 p.m. when Elizabeth and Margaret found his body.
But their suspect pool is back to zero,
so, they circle back to the beginning
to reconfirm nothing was overlooked.
[Harrison] At this point,
I determine that we need to bring Elizabeth back in
for a re-interview
to maybe try and delve a little bit deeper
into this whole situation.
I set up the interview for one of our investigators...
...who is actually a former polygraph examiner.
So, he's the best of the best to interview Elizabeth.
And he conducts the interview,
but I am monitoring the interview
from another room.
[Adamczyk] I monitored the interview with Sergeant Harrison,
and Elizabeth, she was smooth.
[Harrison] She seemed very open
and candid and frank,
and almost like she was enjoying this interview.
And she was really working on establishing a rapport
with the interviewer,
which was interesting to me,
and just watching her,
I felt like she thought she was smarter than everybody else.
Suspects who are overly confident, overly talkative,
overly ingratiating, trying to butter up,
uh, and, uh, win over the investigators,
this is something very important to take note of.
[narrator] Covering all basis for new leads,
detectives ask Elizabeth if she may have met anyone
on her three-day bus trip across Canada
from British Columbia to St. Catherines, Ontario.
Her answer catches investigator's attention.
She tells us about a young man she meets
by the name of Dell.
She doesn't know his last name,
and she gives us a good description of Dell
because she's been sitting with him for three days on a bus.
[Adamczyk] She said that she befriended him on the trip,
and that's the last time she saw him.
I was able to consult
with our polygraph expert interviewer
part way through the interview, and...
...he felt that she was being very truthful
in this whole situation.
But at the end of it all...
...I really felt that something was off.
So, now I have an expert interviewer
telling me he thinks she's being truthful,
and then I have myself feeling like
something's not sitting right.
[Adamczyk] You would ask her a simple question,
it would take her 20 minutes or half hour to tell you about...
'Cause she had so much detail.
And either she was a really good liar
or she's telling the truth.
And we had to figure out which one that was.
[narrator] There's at least one part of Elizabeth's story
that detectives can verify.
They check security video inside the St. Catherines bus terminal
on the night Elizabeth arrived.
[Harrison] From that video footage,
we do see a man with her, a young man,
exactly how she describes,
and he's walking through the bus terminal with her
just as she said.
[narrator] But when police check security video outside the terminal,
what they see takes them by surprise.
[Harrison] It's clear when they leave the bus station
that they both get into a vehicle together,
and this is not what Elizabeth had initially said.
[narrator] Investigators now have a new lead...
...a mysterious young man named Dell.
[narrator] Just days after the brutal slaying
of 72-year-old Bruce Firman is St. Catherines, Ontario,
detectives search for a mysterious young man named Dell.
Dell shared a bus ride and then a car ride
with Elizabeth Gatenby
just days before her mother's partner, Bruce, was killed.
Could Dell or Elizabeth somehow be involved in the homicide?
[Adamczyk] So, we checked the local hotels and motels.
We stumbled upon the hotel that Dell had stayed at.
I spoke to the owner of the hotel.
He said that there was another unknown male staying with Dell,
and that they had checked out.
He then pulled his records,
and showed us the receipt, and, to our surprise,
the room was paid for by Elizabeth Gatenby.
So, that's a huge red flag.
Elizabeth never tells us that
she rents a hotel room for Dell.
So, I'm really feeling like this is something that we've got her on.
The boys had already checked out,
the hotel room had been cleaned.
There was nothing forensically obtained from the hotel room.
[narrator] On a long shot,
investigators ask if any trash or other items
had been collected by housekeeping
that might still be onsite.
[Harrison] The hotel manager provides us items
that were left in the room once the young men checked out.
They had left some things behind.
[narrator] Investigators sift through the bag,
and are struck by what's inside.
There was a margarine container
that had masking tape on top,
and in block letters said "Minestrone Soup".
[Hoare] I had seen these same containers before.
I had seen these containers in a freezer
in the basement at Margaret's residence.
It was the same containers, the same tape,
and the same black marker and writing.
So, this was a direct link
between what was left in the motel room
by the young men,
and what is actually in Margaret's home.
[Adamczyk] We find that Elizabeth has befriended this Dell...
...paid for his hotel,
and it looks like she has brought food
to Dell and this unknown male to the hotel.
[narrator] Back at headquarters,
detectives call Elizabeth back for a third interview.
They want to see how she reacts when confronted with their findings.
She was asked about paying for the hotel room
and the food containers.
[Harrison] She very, very matter of factly tells us...
...yes, she rented a motel room for Dell,
she really didn't think that that was important information.
That's what she does.
Dell was troubled, he had traveled here from British Columbia
to Ontario to look for work,
he really didn't have any money.
So, she rented a room for him,
and had brought him some food to help him out.
Because of how she helps kids,
last names don't really matter.
She had no idea who the other boy was that was in the room.
And she sorta let it go with that.
She said, "I never dealt with him again."
[narrator] Given Elizabeth's charity work with homeless youth,
her story rings true.
But detectives still need to track down Dell
and his associates to confirm it.
Besides the motel,
the only other place police know that Dell has been
is inside Elizabeth's car.
So they start there, looking for any trace
that could identify Dell.
We wanted to examine, uh, the vehicle
to see if there were any fingerprints that could be lifted from the vehicle.
I examined the vehicle inside and out
with an alternate light source and fingerprint powder.
I found a fingerprint impression
on a rear passenger window.
It would subsequently be determined to be an impression
of a right ring finger.
And that fingerprint comes back
to a young 17-year-old male,
Liam O'Shea,
from Kimberly, British Columbia.
And Kimberly is located
not too far from Trail, British Columbia.
[narrator] Trail was where Elizabeth lived.
So is it possible that she knew Liam
before they both got on the bus?
It could turn out that the trail from Trail
may be more twisted than detectives ever imagined.
As Niagara Regional Police
press to solve the homicide of Bruce Firman,
they discover that the daughter of Bruce's common-law wife,
Elizabeth Gatenby, lied to detectives
about who had ridden in her rental car.
It was 17-year-old Liam O'Shea,
who lived not far from Elizabeth in British Columbia.
[Harrison] I spoke to the RCMP
in Kimberly, British Columbia.
And they apprehended Liam
as he was getting off of a bus
in Kimberly, British Columbia,
and he was flown back to St. Catharines.
Liam's not really forthcoming, he's sort of,
you know, not giving too much up.
This 17-year-old had lost both of his parents.
He had sort of spent his youth living with an aunt,
living with a brother, living with friends.
He had dropped out of school and he was now dealing drugs.
[Adamczyk] That's when we really press him and say,
"Listen, you know, you're only 17,
but you're gonna be charged as an adult for murder."
And that's when he breaks.
Liam told us that he had murdered Bruce Firman.
[narrator] The brief admission is a great start.
But detectives still need to hear the how and the why.
They feel certain the 17-year old didn't act alone.
Were Elizabeth or the guy named Dell accomplices?
We asked him and we're pressing him pretty hard on, like, "Who's Dell?"
And he didn't know Dell.
So after being pressed in the interview,
O'Shea finally gives up the name of
the other male that he was hired to do the job with.
He gives up the name Byron.
Byron is Byron Gatenby,
which is Elizabeth's son.
[narrator] Byron Gatenby is just 18 years old.
The young man on the bus, who Elizabeth called Dell,
is actually her own son.
Liam claims he was hired by Byron to commit the murder.
So, our next step is to arrest Byron.
Sergeant Harrison made some calls out to Whistler, BC,
where Byron is working.
Local RCMP arrest him for murder.
I traveled to Whistler, BC
where Byron was in custody.
Prior to Byron's interview, we did an extensive background
on both Elizabeth and Byron's relationship,
especially Byron's youth.
just to see if there's anything we can bring up in the interview.
He had a very, very rough childhood,
several abusive stepfathers.
He was kicked out of the house when he was 14 or 15 by his mother.
[narrator] Despite Liam implicating him,
Byron admits nothing.
He was not very forthcoming.
He denied any involvement.
So we decided to call it a night,
and I decided, "I'm gonna walk him
from the interview room back to the cell."
And I just said to him, "You're gonna go down for this
unless you tell us what had really happened."
He just started talking.
Byron said, "We met through friends of friends."
He met O'Shea...
...convinced O'Shea to go to St. Catharines
to commit this murder.
He said his mother Elizabeth had nothing to do with it.
Byron had a key to get in the garage,
and waited for Bruce to come home from his bike ride.
And when he came in the garage,
Byron was gonna strangle him with piano wire.
Byron panicked and he froze.
He couldn't do it.
That's when O'Shea stepped up
and grabbed a pipe wrench, and starting hitting over the head with it.
Byron told me Bruce fell to the ground, he started bleeding.
Byron kicked him a couple times in the ribs when he was down.
And then O'Shea hit him
several more times over the head with the pipe wrench.
Which eventually killed him.
They dropped everything and ran the way they came.
Byron told me, before he got in the car,
he threw up because he couldn't believe what had just happened.
[narrator] Detectives want to know
what could motivate Byron to commit murder.
Byron told me the only person who ever cared, really cared for him
was his grandmother Margaret.
[Harrison] So Byron felt this weight on his shoulders
that he needed to step up
to help his grandmother through this situation.
[narrator] Detectives don't believe the two teenagers acted on their own.
They still believe Byron's mom, Elizabeth,
is somehow involved.
[Stockdale] Loyalty often trumps honesty.
Byron's not saying a lot about his mother.
It may be that he's trying to protect her,
or also maintain family loyalty.
Detective Adamczyk builds a rapport with Byron on the way back
to Niagara from Whistler,
and I think he's able
to have him understand that...
...you know, this is a really serious situation,
and he really needs to tell us exactly what went down.
[Adamczyk] Well, the information that I had about his youth
and the abuse that he had as a child and getting kicked out,
and how his mother treated him and abandoned him...
...I was gonna use that just to maybe open up a little bit.
I go, "Your mom's abusing you again. You're getting used.
And she is gonna walk free."
Initially, he didn't really bite.
But when I reiterated the fact that
he was being thrown away onto the streets
just like he was when he was 14 or 15, by his mother...
"Why are you protecting her?"
And I still remember, he put his head down.
All he said was, "I'm gonna go to Hell for this."
And he gave it all up.
He went on to tell me how his mother, Elizabeth, had arranged
for the murder of Bruce Firman.
Elizabeth told him that
the only way to save his grandmother was to kill Bruce.
Elizabeth used the love he had for his grandmother.
And he agreed to do it.
Elizabeth arranged all this.
They had overalls that she bought for them.
They had a key to get into the garage
that was left in the back yard underneath the porch.
So after Byron's confession,
the next morning
I went to the house where Elizabeth was staying
to arrest her for first-degree murder.
Elizabeth denies that she had any involvement
in the death of Mr. Firman.
And she really puts things
squarely on her son, Byron Gatenby.
She holds him responsible for the homicide.
The behavior exhibited by Elizabeth in this case,
I mean, is so pathological,
so counterintuitive to maternal instincts.
She has absolutely no qualms
in throwing her own flesh and blood under the bus,
uh, and letting Byron take the fall.
[Adamczyk] We had her credit card receipt
from the hotel in Niagara Falls
that she had paid for,
for O'Shea and Byron the night of the murder.
We were also able to find that
she paid for Byron and Liam's bus tickets
from British Columbia to Ontario
and back to British Columbia again.
[narrator] Investigators are finally able
to piece together the precise events
that led to Bruce Firman's murder.
On November 22nd, Byron and Elizabeth
traveled from Trail, BC to St Catharines on the bus.
[Harrison] When they arrive in St. Catharines,
Elizabeth rents a car
and gives Byron a ride.
She then pays for a motel room for Byron.
[Adamczyk] Liam O'Shea arrives in St. Catharines the next day.
[Harrison] Elizabeth tells the boys that she needs a location where
they can confront Mr. Firman, and she chooses the garage.
On November 27th at 3:30 PM
on the day of the murder,
Margaret and Elizabeth head to Niagara Falls.
They shopped for souvenirs and had dinner
in order to obtain receipts for their alibi.
[narrator] While Elizabeth and Margaret are shopping,
the two boys pick up Elizabeth's rental car
in Niagara Falls and drive to St. Catharines.
[Adamczyk] Byron and Liam sneak into Bruce's home
using a hidden key in the back yard
and wait for him in the garage.
[Harrison] At 6:50 PM,
Bruce Firman leaves Jennifer's home
and rides his bike home,
which takes about ten minutes.
[Adamczyk] At 7:00 PM, Bruce returns home...
...and enters the garage with his bicycle.
He is ambushed by Byron and O'Shea in the garage.
[Harrison] O'Shea strikes Mr. Firman in the back of the head
with the pipe wrench.
Byron kicks him in the ribs.
Liam O'Shea finishes the job
with several strikes with the pipe wrench
to the back of Mr. Firman's head.
[Adamczyk] Between 7:00 and 8:00 PM,
the boys flee to the back yard,
stripping their clothes and throwing them into the local dumpster.
[Harrison] They drive the car back to Niagara Falls and park it
in the parking lot where it was originally left.
When Elizabeth sees the boys return with the car,
she exits the restaurant
she approaches them
and asks them if it's done.
And Byron tells Elizabeth that
Grandma won't be bothered anymore.
And Elizabeth hugs Byron
and she tells him she loves him.
[Adamczyk] At 8:45 PM,
Margaret and Elizabeth arrive home
and find Bruce Firman dead in the garage.
[Harrison] On May 17 of 2006,
Elizabeth Gatenby was convicted of first-degree murder
and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Her son testifies against her.
Byron Gatenby pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit murder
and serves six years.
The 17-year old Liam O'Shea
plead guilty to first-degree murder and serves six years,
the highest rate of the Young Offenders Act.
[narrator] But the matriarch of the family,
whose daughter and grandson committed the murder in her name,
was never charged.
Police were never able to find evidence
to link Margaret Benesch to this conspiracy.
Byron Gatenby said his grandmother had nothing to do with it,
and Elizabeth also said her mother didn't know anything.
This is a really sad case,
that an elderly man died,
that a mother
involved her 18-year-old son
to commit murder,
and then also a young offender
was also brought into this,
17 at the time that this happened.
That's a hard thing to live with,
that you took somebody's life.