CARPENTIER: There is blood everywhere --
on the bed, on the floor.
It's a horrific scene.
His eyes have been gouged out.
His estate is worth $10 million.
He was ruthless in business
but successful, and he always got his way.
Business begets business.
It also begets enemies.
O'DONOVAN: He was cheating on her with a former porn star.
CARPENTIER: Ben Novack had a sexual fetish.
He enjoyed tying women up.
Everybody's pointing the finger at everybody else,
and everybody has a motive.
It was all about the greed and the money.
NARRATOR: Every day 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.
Just a 40-minute drive north from New York City,
Rye Brook is a small, prosperous village in
Westchester County.
O'DONOVAN: Rye Brook, New York, is a very affluent town.
There's a lot of successful people living in Rye Brook.
CARPENTIER: Rye Brook is a beautiful community
with beautiful big homes, wealthy families.
Rye Brook is one of the safest towns in America.
NARRATOR: But on the morning of July 12th, 2009,
the town's facade of peace and calm is ripped away.
CARPENTIER: We received a 911 call for
police to respond to Rye Town Hilton
O'DONOVAN: At 7:45 a.m., on the fourth floor,
this hysterical woman comes running out,
and she's screaming, "My husband, my husband!"
He's deceased, and it's a violent-looking scene.
NARRATOR: Police confirm the victim's identity as
53-year-old Benjamin Novack Junior.
He's a wealthy Floridian who
made his fortune producing conventions.
Ben and his wife,
Narcy, were booked at the Rye Hilton
running a large Amway event at the hotel.
Narcy had just returned from a breakfast meeting
when she found Ben and screamed for help.
Westchester County Police
Detective Alison Carpentier responds to the call.
CARPENTIER: When we arrive at the Rye Town Hilton
around breakfast time,
the hotel was triple-booked -- the parking lot,
the lobby, is abuzz.
I mean, there are people everywhere.
There's over 2,000 Amway Convention participants.
So in my mind, I'm thinking, this place is packed.
What could have happened?
So we were directed to the fourth floor.
As we enter the main bedroom of this suite,
there is blood everywhere -- on the bed, on the floor.
We see Ben Novack is badly beaten.
He's laying face-down on the floor to
the left of the bed, bound and gagged.
CARPENTIER: He is duct-taped with his hands behind him.
His feet are also bound with duct tape.
They had wrapped the duct tape around his face.
CARPENTIER: There's blood on the bed,
so it looked like the attack might have started in
the bed, and then he was dragged to the floor.
His head and his body looked like
it had been beaten with a blunt object.
It wasn't left in the room,
so it must have been taken with the people
that did this crime.
There's a star-shaped bruise on the side of his head,
and it resembles a dumbbell.
The investigators turn him over, and it's a horrific scene.
His eyes have been gouged out,
and his throat has been cut.
The medical examiner is able to report that he has
had 34 blunt force injuries and 12 sharp force injuries.
When you see severe beatings combined with restraints,
this, to me, speaks of two offenders whereby overwhelming
physical force was required
in order to get the victim into the bindings.
CARPENTIER: This is a vicious attack.
The attackers probably sweated.
They might have cut themselves.
Obviously, we're looking for DNA.
One of the pillows has some kind
of moisture on it and also blood.
Inside his bed was a piece of sunglasses.
It was a knock-off of a particular designer brand.
O'DONOVAN: At first, you think robbery.
This must be a robbery, because these are wealthy people.
This is an expensive hotel.
We realized that there was no forced entry
into the hotel room.
O'DONOVAN: There's an expensive watch there.
There's an envelope with quite a large amount of cash there.
This isn't a robbery. This is something else.
This is a very brutal crime scene, to say the least.
Why would you need to engage in that excessive
level of violence unless you wanted someone to suffer?
It could mean a close proximity between him
and the offender,
somebody who is that angry at him, or maybe
somebody who's gaining pleasure from exacting this
level of violence.
NARRATOR: Based on evidence at the crime scene,
investigators form a theory on how the attack likely occurred.
There is no defensive wounds.
So we believe he was sleeping at the time
when he was attacked.
He is bound and gagged and subsequently beaten.
They tried to muffle his sounds,
because he would have been screaming out for help.
Somebody took some kind of very sharp
object and purposely gouged out his eyes.
Ben Novack died choking on his own vomit.
He couldn't breathe.
NARRATOR: Detectives have a daunting task to find
Ben Novack's killers -- with so many people
at the hotel for the convention that Ben had produced,
the pool of possible suspects is immense.
O'DONOVAN: There's at least 2,000 people at this convention,
and then there's all the staff at the hotel.
Any one of them could have been responsible for this.
To find out who savagely murdered Ben Novack Jr.,
detectives must reconstruct his last 24 hours.
We learned that Ben Novack receives a telephone call from
one of the hotel workers at 6:54 in the morning.
The employee wanted to let him know that the attendees were
crowding the breakfast room and they had more attendees
than they could handle at that time.
Ben goes back to sleep, knowing that his wife,
Narcy, will troubleshoot the issue.
Her meeting lasts 40 minutes before she returns to
their room.
CARPENTIER: Narcy Novack found her husband's body at
about 7:40 or so that morning.
So Ben Novack is attacked and killed somewhere between
the phone call with the hotel worker
and Narcy Novack coming back to her room,
which is less than an hour.
Obviously, the first place to start is speak
to Narcy, and she's now calm enough to talk.
CARPENTIER: When we interview Narcy Novack,
she tells us that Ben Novack is
a very well known man in the convention industry.
Ben Novack Jr. is the owner of Convention Concepts Limited,
and he operates from Florida, and he is a multimillionaire.
CARPENTIER: Narcy tells us that Ben was ruthless
in business but successful.
Even Ben's friends described him as somebody
hard to deal with.
O'DONOVAN: Ben Novack owns his own private jet.
But even then, his own pilots have refused to fly him
on occasions, because he is absolutely so horrid and rude
to them.
CARPENTIER: Ben Novack has a long list of people that
have a grudge against him, that did not like him.
Any one of these people, that could be our suspect.
Business begets business.
It also begets enemies.
This is almost a crime plucked from the pages
of detective fiction, where you've got
so many potential persons of interest that
eliminating suspects becomes almost impossible.
NARRATOR: As investigators try to narrow the list of suspects,
Miami Beach Detective Charles Sceraydar contacts investigators
in Westchester County
about a bizarre incident involving Ben Novack
and his wife, Narcy.
I had to let them know that there were events previously
which could have had an impact on the murder of Ben Novack.
In 2002, there was a home invasion
robbery that occurred at Ben Novack's home.
At approximately one o'clock in the morning,
five males broke through his bedroom door.
As the five guys barrel through the door,
Ben hears Narcy yelling at these guys, "Look out,
he has a gun on his nightstand."
So Ben doesn't know what to do.
They tie him up in a chair, they rifle through the house,
they take his business records,
they take $370,000 in cash.
Ben was tied up for 25 hours in this chair.
A neighbor hears him yelling, goes upstairs, unties him.
He picks up the phone, he calls me,
tells me he was robbed,
tells me what Narcy said.
CARPENTIER: According to Ben's friends,
Narcy admitted doing this
because she had been very frustrated with Ben
seeing other women
and demanding kinky sex from Narcy.
So this was a little bit of a payback.
Ben decided not to press charges against his wife.
He actually had her back in
the home, and they continued their marriage.
There were so many similarities to the way that
Ben was tied up
and the crime that occurred seven years earlier
to our crime scene.
So we had to look hard --
is Narcy involved in this crime?
NARRATOR: At the upscale Hilton in Rye Brook, New York,
convention king, Ben Novack Jr.,
is found bound and beaten to death.
Police take a closer look at Ben's wife, Narcy.
Ben had suspected her in
a previous incident at their Florida home.
Seven years earlier, Ben was a victim of a home invasion
where he was tied up
and a large amount of money was stolen from his home.
He believed that that attack was
orchestrated by his wife, Narcy Novack.
So we're raising some questions about her background,
and we're learning about her history.
Narcy is from a very rural area in Ecuador.
She came to the States and settles in Miami, Florida.
She was a stripper at a local club in Hialeah.
Ben Novack bought a home on South River Drive in
Fort Lauderdale, and during these years is
when he met Narcy, and they hit it off.
NARRATOR: With Ben Novack,
Narcy felt like she'd hit the jackpot in love and money.
Ben Novack's father built the Fontainebleau Hotel,
which was one of the hottest spots to be in Miami.
There was a star-studded appearance
of people always going through the hotel.
Ben lived in the penthouse, and that's the way he grew up.
After Ben was no longer involved in the Fontainebleau,
he started his own company, where he ran conventions.
Narcy says they were earning an upward of $50 million a year.
Ben and Narcy married on August 16th, 1991.
NARRATOR: But not long after their nuptials, Ben's bedroom
antics become off-putting for Narcy.
CARPENTIER: Ben Novack had a sexual fetish.
He enjoyed tying women up,
and he enjoyed watching porn of women that were amputees.
He often would like Narcy to play sexual games with him
where he could tie her up
and tie her legs back and pretend that she was
missing a limb.
NARRATOR: Their disconnect in the bedroom
sometimes led Ben's eye to wander.
Still, Narcy worked long hours to
keep Ben on the straight and narrow.
CARPENTIER: Narcy went everywhere with Ben,
partly because she wanted to help with his business,
and partly because she didn't trust him to be alone.
And Narcy was an extremely jealous woman
and she wanted to be his number one,
and it became more of an issue as the years went on.
SCERAYDAR: He tried to be a good boy, but he wasn't.
In their later years,
she became very defensive that he was going to leave her.
NARRATOR: Narcy admitted that Ben's cheating had led her to
have him tied up and robbed seven years earlier.
So could his wandering eye have pushed her even further
this time?
Jealousy is a mixed bag full of anger, hate, rage,
and so it can escalate and end in violence.
That robbery indicated that she had the potential
to harm him.
NARRATOR: And that's not the only coincidence
detectives point out.
We tell her that we find it odd that
he dies tied up in the way that he finds
sexually arousing.
But Narcy insists that when she left Ben in the hotel room to
go down and help with breakfast
that he was sleeping in the bed, and he was not tied up.
She basically goes on the defense and says,
"Do you think I could have killed?
If I did this, you should kill me."
NARRATOR: But whether or not Narcy had a motive,
did she have the opportunity?
Narcy provides detectives with a detailed itinerary of her
and her husband's activities leading up to his murder.
Narcy tells us that the day before Ben was murdered,
that her and Ben had worked a 16-hour day, because
the convention was supposed to have maybe 1,200 or so
participants, and they wound up close to 2,000.
Narcy tells us they had a late dinner.
A few minutes after midnight,
they enter their suites,
which is confirmed by a key swipe.
Narcy, she went to bed.
She was exhausted from her long day.
As was his routine,
Ben Novack worked through the night
into the early morning on convention material.
SCERAYDAR: And about 6:30 in the morning,
Ben got a phone call about issues in the dining room.
Narcy told Ben,
"You catch some sleep, and I'll go to handle it."
CARPENTIER: Narcy tells us that she got down
to breakfast around 7:15 and found out
that the staff was using plastic to serve some of
the guests, and she said
that was not with Ben's standards
and that he would be furious
and that she was down there to try to fix things.
Narcy had tried to reach him on his cell,
and when he didn't answer,
she went up to the suite to try to fill him in
on what was going on.
She entered into the bedroom.
And that's where she found Ben.
NARRATOR: Narcy's story sounds plausible,
but detectives won't just take her word for it.
They have a way to verify her every move throughout
the hotel.
So now the police have to go back
and look at the surveillance footage from the hotel,
see what investigators can learn from that.
She does leave her hotel room a little after seven.
She goes down to the area where breakfast is being held.
We could see Narcy making a few calls, and then we get her
going back up and entering her room at 7:40 in the morning.
O'DONOVAN: Narcy Novack does have a strong alibi.
CARPENTIER: We don't have any reason to charge her.
So Narcy is able to go home.
NARRATOR: Police eliminate Narcy as a suspect,
but the grieving widow does tell police about
someone else who had access to the couple's room,
May Abad,
Narcy's 32-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
O'DONOVAN: May arrives at the suite.
Her mother, Narcy, is hysterical, and she's screaming,
"He's dead, he's dead."
The duty manager says that Narcy was so upset
and hysterical that she had to be led out of the room.
May's reaction to this is to look at her mother
and say, "Shut up."
She tells her mother to shut up, because she's
going to make her sick, the way she's behaving.
NARRATOR: Detectives call May down to the station
for an interview.
They want to hear her perspective on her family
and find out why she treated her grieving mother so poorly.
May had a very difficult upbringing.
Her father abandoned her and her mother,
and she was passed around from
family member to family member while her mother was working
as a stripper.
Narcy and Ben got married when May was 13 years old.
CARPENTIER: Narcy made it very apparent that she didn't
want May around in her relationship with Ben.
She would rather have her in
boarding schools or with family members.
NARRATOR: May tells detectives that unlike her mother, Narcy,
her stepfather, Ben, welcomed her into the family.
When May grew up and had children of her own,
the bond between her and Ben grew stronger.
SCERAYDAR: Ben wanted May to be part of the family.
He adored May, and he adored her two boys.
CARPENTIER: Ben was trying to teach her about business
and brought her into the convention so
she could learn and maybe one day help him run it
or take it over.
NARRATOR: But that idea didn't sit well with Narcy.
CARPENTIER: May told us that
how jealous her mother was of her own daughter.
She hated that May would spend any time with Ben.
May points the finger at her mother
and says her mother may be involved in Ben's death.
May claims that her mother was furious when
she discovered a new mistress in Ben's life.
There was a porn actress in Fort Lauderdale at a strip club,
and Ben took a liking to her, and Narcy was aware
of it, and there was growing animosity from Narcy
that she was losing her husband and that
she was losing her financial security.
O'DONOVAN: So now investigators start to look at what Narcy
was going to gain from Ben's untimely, violent death.
We get a copy of Ben Novack's will.
We see that his estate is valued at close to $10 million,
if not more, with his real estate investments,
his company, his life insurance.
When police scrutinized the victim's will,
they determine that his spouse ultimately stands to
receive millions.
This is a potential motive now.
NARRATOR: Investigators also discover
that Ben Novack's estate had recently grown
after another family tragedy.
Just a few months before Ben's murder,
Ben Novack's 86-year-old mother, Bernice had died,
and because of her death,
Ben's personal wealth had grown, as well.
SCERAYDAR: In April of 2009, Bernice Novack
was found deceased in her home in Fort Lauderdale.
There was blood that went from her car, which was parked in
the garage with the door open, all the way through
the kitchenette area.
And then it traveled into the dining room.
NARRATOR: At the end of that bloody trail,
police found the lifeless body of Ben's mother.
It was ruled by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department
as several accidental falls by this 86-year-old woman.
Ben was absolutely distraught.
He was an only child.
His mother was everything to him and vice versa.
NARRATOR: And for her only child, Bernice left everything
to Ben and his family, including his wife, Narcy.
But for Narcy, there was a catch to
the inheritance and to the rest of Ben's wealth.
There was a prenuptial agreement in place.
And if Ben and Narcy divorced,
Narcy would only receive a payment of $65,000,
and not the entire estate.
However, as his legal wife, if Ben dies,
Narcy gets to inherit the entire estate.
Narcy has a very big motive for Ben to die instead of her
and Ben just to get divorced.
NARRATOR: But Narcy wasn't the only one
who stood to gain from Ben's death.
O'DONOVAN: May herself has a motive.
Police discover a loophole in the will whereby if the wife is
involved in any capacity in his death,
that, in fact, all of the inheritance flows to May.
May's sons inherit the majority of
the estate, and May herself inherits $150,000.
Given what is revealed to be the animosity between Narcy
and May, investigators begin to
question whether or not May had been incentivized to
actually frame her mother for this murder.
NARRATOR: Just days after millionaire Ben Novack is beaten
to death in his room at the Rye Brook New York Hilton,
investigators discover motives for two people close to him.
Ben's wife, Narcy, was jealous of
his affairs and would inherit his fortune.
But Narcy's 32-year-old daughter,
May, and her young sons also stood to gain if May could pin
the murder on her mother.
O'DONOVAN: It could be that May wants to get her mother out
of the way so that her sons and her can inherit.
It could also be Narcy is concerned that she's going
to be replaced by Ben's mistress.
Despite the suspicions, there's not enough evidence
to focus on either of these parties.
Both women are released.
They return to Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
NARRATOR: They're out of New York detectives'
jurisdiction but not off their radar.
O'DONOVAN: Investigators request the police in Florida to do
round-the-clock surveillance on both of them.
NARRATOR: Just a few days later, the team finds
itself in the right place at the right time.
I get a frantic call that May is at the house
and Narcy is there.
So I hop into the car, and I drive to the house,
and Narcy has a crowbar in her hand
and starts swinging at May.
May had been hit several times already from the assault.
So I grab the crowbar away from Narcy, and I tell May,
"Go sit in my car."
NARRATOR: Detective Sceraydar finds out
what triggered the attack
and reports it to detectives in Westchester, New York.
CARPENTIER: May Abad had gone to the home
to gather some of her things.
She also went into the office of Ben Novack
and started to gather some of their business records.
Narcy sees May going through paperwork at the business.
Narcy tells May that she has to get out of the house,
because she believes that May
has something to do with Ben Novack's death, and she doesn't
want her at the house anymore.
Witnesses tell us that May was screaming
at her mother that, "You killed Ben.
You killed my dad."
At that time, Narcy grabs a crowbar.
A report is taken, but nobody is arrested.
O'DONOVAN: Everybody's pointing the finger at everybody else,
and everybody stands to gain.
Everybody has a motive.
This is just making it impossible
to focus on one particular direction.
CARPENTIER: This was a case that was difficult.
I mean, you have to realize
we're going from New York to Florida.
It was a constant roller coaster -- right now,
we're at the bottom of the roller coaster.
You know, we're trying to figure out
what direction we need to go in.
NARRATOR: But just nine days after the murder,
police receive a promising lead.
An anonymous letter arrives at the Rye Brook
Police Department.
CARPENTIER: This anonymous letter,
it's written all in Spanish.
We have it translated, and it's very clear
that the person that's writing this letter
has inside knowledge of the dynamics of
the Novack family.
They also give details of how this homicide occurred.
NARRATOR: The writer shares specifics known only
to the police or the killers.
This anonymous person knows that Ben Novack's eyes were
gouged out and claims to know who did it.
CARPENTIER: The letter writer points the finger at
Narcy Novack and her brother, Cristobal Veliz.
NARRATOR: Cristobal Veliz is a 56-year-old
bus driver who lives in Philadelphia.
Cristobal's very close to Narcy.
CARPENTIER: We decide it's time for us to jump in
the car and head to Philadelphia,
where Cristobal Veliz lives.
We show up at Cristobal Veliz's house unannounced.
We knock on the door -- he welcomes us in.
There's things all around his kitchen.
His kitchen table is filled with a bunch of paperwork.
So he says, "Please sit down."
At this time, we decide not to tell him
about the anonymous letter we received.
But we ask him if he was
involved in his brother-in-law's death.
He denies it.
We asked Cristobal who could have done this,
and he points the finger at May Abad.
He said that she was an evil woman
and that she had a lot of bad people around her
and that she would be the one that could
orchestrate this.
NARRATOR: May's uncle joins her mother
in pointing the finger at May.
But police still need to know where Cristobal was when
his brother-in-law was killed in Rye Brook, New York.
CARPENTIER: We question him about his whereabouts
on the day of the homicide.
He states that he was driving a bus
and didn't finish up work until almost 11 o'clock
at night and then drove to his girlfriend's home
in Brooklyn, New York.
And from there, he slept in -- he was tired from work.
And then later on that afternoon,
he took his girlfriend out for dinner.
NARRATOR: Despite the anonymous letter
accusing Cristobal of killing his brother-in-law, Ben Novack,
Cristobal's cooperation with police and alibi during
the murder lead detectives to believe he's not the killer
and that the trail once
again points back to Ben's stepdaughter,
May Abad.
NARRATOR: Westchester, New York Detectives
investigating the murder of millionaire
Ben Novack travel two hours south
to Philadelphia to interview Cristobal Veliz,
the brother of Ben's wife, Narcy.
CARPENTIER: So we ask Cristobal if he can assist us
and come to the Philadelphia Police Department
and give us a formal statement,
a written statement, and also a DNA sample.
And he agrees.
Cristobal leaves the room to go get ready to come with us.
But the table is full with a bunch of paperwork,
and we glance down, and we notice Western Union receipts
are on the table.
NARRATOR: Investigators consider the possibility
that the wire receipts may
hold names of people paid to kill Ben Novack.
We're taking notes on the names we can see in plain
sight that we believe that might be useful in
our investigation.
We bring Cristobal to the local station,
we take DNA from him, we interview him.
He writes a statement, and now it's time for us to take
a closer look at some of the names that we came across
that we saw on Cristobal's table.
Among the receipts that we find,
we come across a name, Alejandro Gutierrez-Garcia.
He was wired $500 approximately a month after
Ben's killing.
We track Gutierrez to a Florida address.
We have to look a little further into that
and see Gutierrez is
from Nicaragua and came to the United States
on a work visa in 2005.
Gutierrez has a record that runs from theft
to violent crime.
NARRATOR: With Gutierrez's mugshot in hand,
investigators take a second look at the Rye Brook Hilton
surveillance footage from the weekend of July 12th.
CARPENTIER: We hit pay dirt.
We were able to identify Alejandro Gutierrez one day
before the homicide at the hotel
with another Hispanic male.
We believe that they are casing
the hotel to look for their quick getaway.
We noticed that Alejandro Gutierrez was wearing glasses.
The glasses were also the same style
glasses that were in Ben Novack's bed.
NARRATOR: And video on the day
Ben was killed reveals something more important.
Surveillance cameras from the hotel pick up Gutierrez
and his partner on the day of the murder
within minutes of the time we believe Ben was killed.
That video shows him walking with
the sunglasses and coming out without them.
NARRATOR: The video confirms that the man who Cristobal Veliz
wired $500 to,
Alejandro Gutierrez, was at the hotel when Ben Novack
was murdered.
Detectives are on the right track, but they need
more than circumstantial evidence to make an arrest.
We gather search warrants for Cristobal Veliz's phone records,
and we identified a Florida number
that he frequently called.
We learned that number to be a number that
Alejandro Gutierrez had used -- Gutierrez works at
a local car wash in Miami, where the owner is connected to
some pretty shady characters.
Four months after the murder,
we locate Alejandro Gutierrez, and we arrest him on
an outstanding warrant for petty larceny.
Gutierrez is transported back to
the state of New York, and he's interviewed.
Gutierrez is a tough-looking, violent person,
and then you look at his criminal history.
It's everything, from petty larceny crimes to homicides.
We ask him if he knows anything
about Ben Novack's murder.
He says he doesn't know anything about it.
NARRATOR: Detectives feel sure he's lying.
So they press him to explain why he's
at the hotel on the day of the homicide.
CARPENTIER: He's shown surveillance pictures of himself
in the Rye Town Hilton.
They're able to show him walking with another guy,
going in with his sunglasses and coming out without them.
NARRATOR: The ex-con knows it's only circumstantial evidence.
The photos and video aren't proof he had
any involvement in Ben Novack's murder.
CARPENTIER: He denies it's him and that he's not
involved and he's never been to New York.
And he says to me that he's scared.
He's scared for his family in his country, that he has
a daughter that he needs to protect, and the people involved
in these crimes that we're speaking of
are very dangerous people.
NARRATOR: Four months after millionaire,
Ben Novack, is slain at the Rye Brook Hilton,
police are sure that prime suspect
Alejandro Gutierrez knows more than he's admitting.
He says he's fearful of reprisals against
his family by the violent people involved.
But police show him there's only one
way to help himself and his family.
Gutierrez is confronted with
the evidence that they have against him.
He was seen coming in with
his sunglasses and coming out without them.
The arm of the glasses that was subsequently
located in the room, matches his sunglasses perfectly.
He does give it up.
He admits to killing Ben Novack.
NARRATOR: To confirm his truthfulness and prove
that Gutierrez is now a cooperating witness,
detectives ask the confessed killer to identify
the second man with him on surveillance.
But Gutierrez claims he only knows the man by his first name,
Joel, and that Joel stayed somewhere local the night
before the murder.
We don't have a last name.
We find a motel in that area,
and a lovely manager there says,
"You can go through our records. We keep copies of licenses."
We were able to locate a person by the name of
Joel Gonzalez
that had given a copy of his license when he stayed at that
hotel on the date that Alejandro Gutierrez
tells us he stayed in New York.
Joel Gonzalez lives in Miami,
and he once worked at
the same car wash that Gutierrez worked at.
Gonzalez has a record of petty crimes, and he hears
from the streets that police are looking for him.
He walks right into the police station and turns himself in.
NARRATOR: With both men responsible for
the brutal slaying of conference king, Ben Novack,
now in custody,
investigators pressed the killers to reveal the rest
of the hows, the whys, and the who elses.
Gutierrez and Gonzalez say that they traveled
from Miami to New York
three days before the murder on July 9th, when their vehicle
broke down.
The investigators find surveillance video that shows
a man towing the two hitmen to New York.
This man, Cristobal Veliz,
brother of Ben Novack's wife, Narcy.
Cristobal's alibi is destroyed.
He wasn't driving a bus in Philadelphia.
That puts Cristobal with the two
killers just days before the homicide.
NARRATOR: Now Alejandro Gutierrez goes even further.
He admits that he was hired by Cristobal.
NARRATOR: And Cristobal did more than just pay the hitmen.
O'DONOVAN: Investigators look at Cristobal's banking
records and credit card receipts.
He actually purchased dumbbells, which are similar
to those Gutierrez used to kill Ben Novack.
NARRATOR: With Cristobal now directly
linked to Ben's murder,
Gutierrez finally gives up the last
co conspirator who brought it all together.
Alejandro Gutierrez points the finger at Narcy Novack.
Narcy Novack lays out the plot to kill Ben Novack.
Narcy asked her brother, Cristobal, to help plan
the murder nine months before it actually happened.
And Cristobal enlisted Gutierrez and Gonzalez.
Narcy had a secret flip phone that
she received from her brother, Cristobal.
She kept this a secret from her husband.
Police have the ability to trace this phone and trace
the phone records both in and out from this phone.
That phone was used at 6:39 a.m. the morning of the murder,
where Narcy used the phone
to call her brother, Cristobal, to set up the events that'll
lead to the assassination of her husband.
NARRATOR: And Narcy triggered the final assault.
Narcy allowed them into the hotel room
while Ben was sleeping.
This is the final piece of
the puzzle that puts it all together.
Now investigators know that Narcy is behind the whole thing.
On July 8th, 2010, a year after the homicide,
we arrest Narcy Novack and Cristobal Veliz
for their part in this homicide.
NARRATOR: Investigators finally have enough information to
piece together the events
that led to the murder of Ben Novack Jr.
CARPENTIER: On July 12th, 2009, at 12:07 a.m.,
Ben and Narcy Novack used their key card
to enter their hotel room.
At 5:10 a.m., Gutierrez and Gonzalez arrive
at a gas station close by to the hotel.
O'DONOVAN: At approximately 6:30 a.m.,
Ben is getting ready for bed.
He strips down to his boxer shorts,
and he gets in next to his wife, Narcy.
At 6:39 a.m.,
Narcy sneaks into the adjoining room of the suite
and uses her secret phone
to call her brother, to call the killers,
and invite them into the suite.
CARPENTIER: At 6:54 a.m., an employee of the Rye Town Hilton
calls Ben Novack and says for him to send somebody to the desk
immediately because this problem at breakfast.
NARRATOR: Narcy tells Ben she'll take care of it.
But instead of going downstairs,
Narcy waits in the room for the killers to arrive.
O'DONOVAN: At 7 a.m.,
Narcy opens the door and lets Gutierrez and Gonzalez into
the room while her husband, Ben, is sleeping.
As Gutierrez and Gonzalez enter the bedroom,
they hit Ben Novack on the head with one of the barbells
as he sleeps -- Gutierrez and Gonzalez
then bind Ben with duct tape.
Narcy is present in the room while
the men brutally beat Ben with barbells.
O'DONOVAN: Narcy even throws the hitmen a pillow to muffle
Ben's screams and keep it quiet in the room.
Narcy then orders Gutierrez to gouge out Ben's eyes
so he can never look at another woman.
CARPENTIER: Narcy stays in the room and watches
as Gutierrez gouges out her husband's eyes.
NARRATOR: The entire brutal torture and murder
took 11 minutes.
CARPENTIER: At 7:11 a.m.,
Gutierrez and Gonzalez are seen
on surveillance cameras leaving the hotel.
O'DONOVAN: Afterwards,
Narcy leaves and goes downstairs to establish her alibi.
Narcy makes sure she is
captured on numerous surveillance cameras.
O'DONOVAN: And at 7:45 a.m., Narcy returns
to the bedroom and starts screaming for help.
NARRATOR: Narcy insisting that her husband's eyes
be gouged out
isn't even the full extent of her depravity.
When we are interviewing Alejandro Gutierrez in New York,
he has a wallet.
When we go through it, we see a picture of May Abad.
Gutierrez tells us that Cristobal
approached him with another job.
He wanted him to hurt or kill May Abad.
O'DONOVAN: This is why he had her photograph in his wallet.
It was because May was interfering
in the possibility of Narcy inheriting everything.
NARRATOR: To guarantee a higher windfall,
May's own uncle and mother plotted to kill her,
the mother of their nephews and grandsons.
CARPENTIER: Gutierrez has one more bombshell
to throw in this investigation.
He says in April 2009, he was hired by
Cristobal Veliz and Narcy Novack to kill Ben Novack's mother
in her home in Fort Lauderdale.
O'DONOVAN: With Ben's mother, Bernice, dead,
Ben's fortune increased,
and now there is more for Narcy to inherit -- at the time,
Bernice's death was recorded as an accidental fall,
but that case was reopened.
CARPENTIER: In 2012, both Narcy and Cristobal Veliz
are convicted of the murders of not only
Ben Novack but Bernice Novack, with life in prison with
no chance of parole.
Gutierrez and Gonzalez plead guilty for lesser sentences
and get approximately 17.5 years
in prison for their assistance in this investigation.
The anonymous letter writer that tipped off police to Narcy
and Cristobal's escapades
is discovered to be none other than
their older sister, Leticia Torano.
O'DONOVAN: Leticia believed that her sister,
Narcy, and her brother, Cristobal,
deserved to be caught, and they deserved
to go to jail for what they did.
I believe justice in the long run was served.
I wish it was served a little earlier.
NARRATOR: But for those who knew Ben Novack Jr.,
long prison sentences for the guilty
will not bring him back.
I had known Ben since he was in his late teens,
and the horrific nature in which he was murdered leaves
a lot to be desired.
This is the epitome of evil from people who just have
no regard for life, and it was all about the greed.