To kill this poor woman was just absolutely evil.
Barbara Iske was gunned down in her employer's driveway.
She was shot execution-style.
Who would possibly have a grudge to bear against her?
[siren wailing]
ARNTFIELD: Immediately of concern to police is why
the employer of the murder victim
is taking such a hard line and what she's afraid of.
What is the connection between a sex worker in
Detroit and a dead bookkeeper in Grosse Pointe, Michigan?
SWAT team force the doors and enter the house.
He would always say that he's smarter than
the dumb police, and he could get away with killing anybody.
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 outside of Detroit, on the shores of
Lake St. Clair, Grosse Pointe, Michigan,
is a quiet suburb of picturesque
neighborhoods and friendly people.
COLETTA: The suburb of Grosse Point
has tree-lined streets,
big, luxurious homes -- a beautiful place to live.
Clearly, this is an area of affluence.
TUJAKA: A very low crime rate.
Nothing hugely bad happened in Grosse Pointe.
NARRATOR: And by the start of 2005,
there hadn't been a murder there in 32 years.
But on June 14th, 2005,
violence finds its way to Grosse Pointe.
A delivery person spots a woman lying motionless
on the front walk of a house and calls police.
[distant sirens wailing]
Patrolmen arrive at the driveway of a home in
the upscale neighborhood of
Jefferson Avenue and Dodge Place.
There is an elderly lady laying on the ground, face-down
in a pool of dried blood around her upper extremities.
She had a gunshot wound on her face
and had another wound on the back of her head.
This was a homicide.
NARRATOR: Grosse Pointe Police homicide detective Eddie Tujaka
is called in to lead the investigation.
TUJAKA: It's a gruesome thing -- with the amount of dried blood
that there was,
we figured it had occurred several hours earlier.
Her wallet was open and laying on the ground.
NARRATOR: The victim is 57-year-old Barbara Iske,
a bookkeeper to several wealthy families in
Grosse Pointe.
There was still money in her wallet,
credit cards, things like that.
There was absolutely no evidence of any type of
sexual assault.
NARRATOR: Investigators run the plates on
the blue Ford Escort parked beside the victim.
The car belongs to Barbara, but this isn't her driveway.
The home is owned by 84-year-old Anne Marasco,
a wealthy resident of Grosse Pointe.
Barbara Iske was Ann's bookkeeper
for her personal affairs.
Barbara had just arrived for work at around
8:30 a.m. but never made it inside.
Based on crime scene evidence,
detectives have an initial theory
of what may have occurred.
TUJAKA: Barbara parked at the Marasco house and got out of
the car with her purse and walked
around the front of the car.
The murderer approaches Barbara from the street.
She thinks that it's a robbery.
She starts to open her wallet to give it to him.
The first shot was...
[gunshot blasts]
to her face.
She turned and fell,
and the perpetrator shot her again...
[gunshot blasts]
in the back of the head, which ultimately killed her.
Her wallet was left there. Her cash was left there.
Her credit cards were left there -- that will start to
move the investigation away from a robbery,
towards something else.
My first impression with the two shots
is that it was an execution-style shooting.
The common phraseology in law enforcement is
what's known as the double tap, two shots,
one's through the front, -[gunshot blasts]
one's through the back. -[gunshot blasts]
It's commonly seen and, in fact, is synonymous with hired guns.
NARRATOR: But who would want to assassinate
this suburban bookkeeper?
Police start their inquiry with Barbara's client,
the homeowner, Ann Marasco.
Ann Marasco is confined to a wheelchair
and has 24-hour care from a series of caregivers.
NARRATOR: Both Ann and her aide, Leslie, each claim they were
not aware of what happened to Barbara outside.
HUNSICKER: The police have to tell Ann Marasco
and her caregiver, Leslie, that Barbara has been shot.
The two women are completely shocked.
Ann was expecting Barbara at 10:30.
When Barbara didn't show up, Ann was worried.
NARRATOR: Ann says Barbara was usually punctual or called.
So Ann didn't know what had happened.
They didn't hear anything or they didn't see anything,
and they had been home apparently the whole time.
They had no idea that there was a dead body in
their driveway.
The fact that this murder occurred in the driveway
immediately adjoining this residence and that
you had two adults in the residence at the time
who claim to have heard nothing --
is it suspicious a little bit? It's noteworthy.
NARRATOR: Police ask Ann if there's anyone else in
the house who may have heard or seen something.
She replies that her 51-year-old son,
Joseph Michael Marasco, lives with her.
TUJAKA: Joe is not at home, and they don't know
for sure where he's at.
NARRATOR: On bookkeeping days,
Ann says that Barbara was always prompt and came prepared.
Ann tells us that Barbara brings her work laptop
computer with all of Ann's financial information on it.
There is a thorough search for this work
laptop computer, and officers are not able to locate it
anywhere in the scene, in the vehicle, or anywhere else.
The biggest question is why would the murderer just
take the laptop computer and leave her cash there?
That's very strange.
NARRATOR: The missing laptop raises
a new and critical question.
Was it taken by the killer?
And if so, was the laptop motive for murder?
NARRATOR: With no eyewitnesses and little material evidence,
investigators will need to reconstruct Barbara Iske's final
24 hours to solve her murder.
Ann Marasco tells us that Barbara
would always arrive on Tuesday
at 10:30 a.m., give or take five minutes.
According to the autopsy, we believe that she
was lying in the driveway for approximately five hours.
NARRATOR: Given that the body was discovered at 3:26 p.m.,
that would mean that Barbara was
murdered at around 10:30 a.m., right
when she was scheduled to arrive at the house.
Investigators canvass Ann's closest neighbors,
hoping somebody saw
or heard something in that five-hour window.
TUJAKA: When officers go door to door,
some of the neighbors say that they might have heard what they
thought was fireworks, but nobody on that date
had seen anything at the Marasco house
or anything in front of the Marasco house.
NARRATOR: Residents in Grosse Pointe are shocked
by the brazen violence of Barbara Iske's murder,
and the story quickly becomes front-page news.
Because there hadn't been any murders in this community for
32-plus years, when the body of Barbara Iske was found,
it sent shockwaves through the community.
Did they have a killer roaming the streets?
The police would have been under intense pressure by
the community to solve the crime and bring
the perpetrators to justice.
NARRATOR: Detectives begin their search
with the victim's inner circle
of family and friends to learn more about Barbara Iske.
TUJAKA: She was not married, she was single, no children.
She had a very close relationship with her brother.
Everyone in her family just loved Barbara.
Barbara's family tell police that Barbara is well-liked
by everybody, and they can't imagine
who would possibly have a grudge to bear against her.
Her family could not think of one suspect,
because Barbara was such a likable woman.
NARRATOR: As Michigan media continues to spread
news of the murder far and wide,
two local teenagers contact police with a story to tell.
HUNSICKER: The boys tell the police
that the previous day they were driving around the Marasco
residence at about 10 a.m.
when they hear two loud pops.
[two gunshots blast]
They saw two African American males running
quickly to a car on the street.
They got a pretty good look at the car,
a green Ford Tempo, which was kind of unusual for the area.
It's an older car, and the area
where the Marascos live was more upscale.
They also observed that the car had a missing window
on the driver's side that was covered up with plastic.
The boys observe the car make the U-turn on Dodge Place
and then speed off west on Jefferson.
Based on the direction heading west on Jefferson,
we believed that they were heading for the city of Detroit.
NARRATOR: Grosse Pointe detectives reach out to
the agencies across the state
to assemble a list of late model,
dark-colored Ford Tempos.
TUJAKA: We contacted the Michigan State Police
Law Enforcement Information Network,
which is a statewide computer system, along with the Secretary
of State, requesting a list of the cars matching that
description in the city of Detroit,
and we received literally hundreds of responses from that.
NARRATOR: As Grosse Pointe Police
begin the long task of sifting through all of them,
detectives receive a call from the daughter of Barbara Iske's
bookkeeping client. -TUJAKA: Ann Marasco's daughter,
Martha, contacts our department to let us know that
she believed that her brother Joe Marasco
may have had something to do with this homicide.
NARRATOR: A quick search of Joe Marasco
in the police database returns a hit.
Joe has a rap sheet.
Joe Marasco had a criminal record that included
drug offenses and theft. -Officers get in touch
with Joe Marasco and ask him to come into the police
station for questioning.
TUJAKA: When I interviewed Joe, he was very nervous,
which could have been from guilt, or it could have been
from the fact that somebody was murdered
right outside his house.
NARRATOR: But there's another reason Joe might be anxious.
Joe was also a heavy heroin addict.
So you had to figure out exactly
why he would be nervous.
ARNTFIELD: Joe is withdrawing from methadone.
He's jittery, he's agitated, he's sweating.
So investigators need to question is this withdrawal
symptoms or is something else going on with this guy?
NARRATOR: Detectives ask the jittery man
for his whereabouts on the morning of the murder.
TUJAKA: Joe says that he was at home
with his mother, Ann Marasco,
and then he left the house about 11:15 to go to
the methadone clinic, where his appointment was 11:30.
NARRATOR: Joe's story raises questions.
Barbara was murdered an hour earlier, around 10:30 a.m.
So how did Joe walk down
the driveway without seeing Barbara's body?
TUJAKA: Just like his mother,
Joe tells me that he did not
hear or see anything suspicious that morning.
He does not have an alibi other than that he was at home.
NARRATOR: Police wonder if Joe's anxiety
is more than just withdrawal.
Perhaps he's nervous because he's the one
who ambushed Barbara Iske in his driveway
and killed her in cold blood.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: A day after bookkeeper Barbara Iske
is found slain in the driveway of a Grosse Pointe, Michigan,
house belonging to her client, Ann Marasco,
Ann's son, Joe,
raises suspicions among detectives with
his anxious behavior and questionable alibi,
but Joe insists there's no way he could have shot Barbara.
He was right-handed, and his hand was
crippled to where he had very little
if any use of his right hand.
He could drive and things like that,
but I didn't think that he could hold a gun
or even fire a gun.
We conduct a gunshot residue test on Joe,
on both of his hands,
and we find out that there was no gunshot residue on
either hand.
Joe Marasco couldn't have been the one who shot Barbara Iske.
NARRATOR: Police eliminate Joe as the killer.
To generate new leads while
the case is still fresh in people's minds,
police reach out to the public with a reward for help.
Detectives posted information on Crime Stoppers in
the hope someone would come forward with a tip.
TUJAKA: A week after the homicide,
one of our officers tells us that there is a prostitute
who frequents an auto repair shop
in the city of Detroit who has information about
the subjects who committed this homicide.
The auto repair shop owner identifies the woman
as a local sex worker named Shannon Henderson.
I run a background check on her, and I find
that she's been arrested numerous times
for solicitation and prostitution.
So then the question becomes,
what is the connection between a sex worker in Detroit
and a dead bookkeeper in Grosse Pointe, Michigan?
TUJAKA: It was not difficult for us to locate Shannon at
the auto repair shop, because she wanted to talk to us.
Shannon was brought into
the police station to get her statement.
Shannon tells police that she's been hanging
out at this house on Parkview Street,
and she overhears two men talking
about the details of the murder of Barbara.
Shannon identifies one of the subjects in
the Parkview house as Donovan Rigby.
NARRATOR: Police records identify Donovan Rigby as
a 31-year-old career criminal, with arrests for drug dealing,
robbery, and assault.
Shannon describes Donovan as being about six feet tall,
and he's African American,
which matches the description of people seen leaving
the scene of the murder.
TUJAKA: She tells us that Donovan talked about
robbing and killing a Grosse Pointe woman.
She described several guns in the house,
one of which was a revolver, which we believed it was
a .38 revolver that was used in the commission of this homicide.
[gunshot blasts]
Shannon tells us that she saw the laptop computer
that was stolen from Barbara
in the house, and the description matches
the description of the one taken.
We hadn't released that information to anyone
about the laptop being stolen.
So it sounded convincing.
Whenever police appeal to the public
for information regarding an unsolved crime,
there always needs to be a strategic decision made as to
what information needs to be held back in order to vet
potential witnesses or informers.
And when you have someone come forward
who knows that information,
investigators know that they've got a solid lead.
NARRATOR: But Shannon also gives police a dire warning
about the men in the house.
TUJAKA: She tells us that all the subjects
who live in this house are all armed,
and that they were very vocal about killing
any police officers who came to the house.
NARRATOR: Grosse Pointe police and Detroit P.D. place
the Parkview Street house under 24-hour surveillance.
TUJAKA: We determine that Donovan Rigby
is a resident of that house.
Based on Shannon's information,
Grosse Pointe Police and Detroit Police plan a raid.
TUJAKA: If it's successful and we do raid this place
and find the laptop and the gun,
then we've got the subject, we've got the case.
NARRATOR: On August 25th, 2005, Grosse Pointe
Special Forces launch the raid to catch Barbara's killer.
TUJAKA: SWAT teams arrive at the home and force
the doors and enter the house on Parkview.
As they enter, people are running in all
different directions,
trying to run upstairs and away from the SWAT team.
NARRATOR: In all, officers take five men into custody,
including the prime suspect in the murder,
Donovan Rigby.
Once everything is secured and all the people
are in custody,
we go to search the house,
and we find a small amount of
narcotics, but we find no weapons at all,
and we find no laptop at all.
We find absolutely no evidence at all
tying anyone in that house to Barbara's homicide.
NARRATOR: A week after Grosse Pointe Police
find 57-year-old bookkeeper,
Barbara Iske, murdered in her client's driveway,
investigators arrest a man in a raid who a police
informant fingered as the prime suspect
in the robbery-homicide.
The police interrogate Donovan Rigby,
and he says he's never heard of Barbara Iske.
At the end of the day, Donovan is appearing very clueless.
He has no idea what we're talking about at all.
NARRATOR: The police interrogation of Donovan,
like the raid on his house before it,
yields no evidence of the murder.
[gunshot blasts]
So police must eliminate Donovan Rigby as a suspect.
Now investigators have new questions for their informant.
Why did Shannon Henderson claim that Donovan had
Barbara's stolen laptop computer
and a pistol like the one he used in the killing?
TUJAKA: When we go back to Shannon
about the bad information, she tries to tell us, "Oh,
they must have gotten rid of it," coming up with a multitude
of stories on why this was unsuccessful.
I told her do not come to us with any more false information,
because the word will get on
the street that you're helping the police,
and that will not be good for you.
After I told her that, she admits that
she was trying to get the reward money
and thought that by giving us this information that
we might find something and that she would get the reward money.
Police and criminologists are sort of divided up
the middle on the value of offering reward money.
It can incentivize some people,
but it also brings out false tipsters.
In this case, Shannon, who correctly deduced that
a daytime shooting of an accountant
would probably result in the theft of a laptop computer.
I mean, this was holdback information
she correctly guessed
and took investigators down a rabbit hole
in search of that reward money.
HUNSICKER: I can't imagine how discouraging it is
to the police, I mean,
you've got two different police departments
putting all this effort into
this raid in a dangerous place, and then they come up
with nothing.
TUJAKA: People were very scared.
The house where Barbara was killed
was right off of a main thoroughfare.
It could have been that she was followed,
and it did scare the community.
COLETTA: When a woman is gunned down in broad daylight,
the community wants answers.
If it could happen to Barbara, it could happen to anybody,
and that really frightened residents.
NARRATOR: With fear on the rise,
police redouble their efforts to find Barbara's killer,
and they're not alone.
Everyone in Grosse Pointe feels compelled
to help, including an unexpected source --
Ann Marasco's caretaker, Leslie.
TUJAKA: Leslie had told us that Ann and Barbara
were very close and that
Ann relied on Barbara a great deal to protect her
and her finances.
HUNSICKER: Leslie also tells the police that there's
some kind of conflict, but she's very hesitant
to say anything to the police about what's going on.
NARRATOR: But detective Tujaka draws her into his confidence.
TUJAKA: I cultivated a relationship with Leslie,
and basically, it was telling her, "Look,
we just want to catch who did this to Barbara."
I told her I need to know what's going on in the house,
so she agreed to help.
I would give her rides home, and she would give me
the information, and she had carte blanche
to call me 24-7 on my cellphone.
I had gotten a good rapport with Leslie,
to the point where she was my confidential informant.
NARRATOR: Then suddenly, Leslie goes silent.
TUJAKA: One of the detectives happened to mention
to Ann Marasco that
the housekeepers were helping us out,
and Ann Marasco was going to fire them all.
It raises red flags.
Why is she doing that?
Is it because she has something
to hide related to this homicide?
ARNTFIELD: Immediately of concern to police
is why the employer of the murder victim
is taking such a hard line and what she's afraid of.
Ann Marasco threatening to fire all of
her employees leads me to believe that
she knows what happened.
NARRATOR: Now detectives consider whether millionaire
Ann Marasco may have been
the mastermind responsible for the murder.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: Just a week after bookkeeper Barbara Iske is
executed in her wealthy client's Grosse Pointe,
Michigan, driveway,
that client, Ann Marasco, refuses to cooperate
with investigators and also threatens
her remaining staff if they do.
Ann Marasco was going to fire all
of her caregivers for talking to the police.
She's hiding something -- to protect somebody?
NARRATOR: To find out,
detectives confront the wealthy doyen on
her threat to silence her staff.
After consulting with the Wayne County prosecutor,
we informed her that she would be arrested and taken out in
handcuffs for obstruction of justice
by interfering with a murder investigation.
Ann Marasco contacted her attorneys,
who told her that yes, she is 80-something.
She's an invalid. We will arrest her.
Then her tune changes, and she tells all
the housekeepers to fully cooperate with the police.
NARRATOR: So Detective Tujaka picks up
right where he left off with
Ann's caretaker informant, Leslie.
TUJAKA: Leslie tells us that there is a lot of
arguing going on in the house
between Joe and his mother,
and a lot of the conversations overheard by Leslie
are that Ann Marasco thinks that Joe had
something to do with this homicide.
And Joe is trying to convince his mother
that he was innocent.
Joe did not have an alibi for the time of the murder,
but at the same time,
we determined that Joe did not have the ability
to have done this himself.
NARRATOR: Now, detectives set out to find the source
of the strife between Joe and his mother
and if it could have led to Barbara's murder.
BUHK: Leslie describes Joe as volatile,
ill-tempered, aggressive.
Leslie tells me of the arguments
and the fights that Joe had with Barbara
every single time that she came to the house.
NARRATOR: The police informant believes
the cause of the fights may stem
from Barbara's close relationship
with Joe's mother, Ann.
Leslie tells police that Barbara
and Ann have a very close friendship.
It transcends a mere employee-employer situation.
Ann loved Barbara like she was one of her own children.
Barbara was protecting Ann's finances.
And before Barbara had gotten involved,
Joe had convinced his mother to leave everything
that she had to Joe and nothing to his sister.
He believed that, being the only son,
that everything should go to him.
NARRATOR: Barbara advises that if Ann leaves
everything to Joe alone,
it wouldn't be fair to his sister,
Joe's eldest and only sibling.
Barbara is able to convince Ann that
she should change the terms of her will.
TUJAKA: In 2004, Ann split her will as a 50-50
between Joe and her daughter,
and also, Ann wanted Barbara as
the executor of the will,
and Barbara was also one of the beneficiaries.
NARRATOR: When Joe finds out about it,
he blames Barbara for his mother's revisions.
Joe was furious when his mother split the estate.
His fortune was cut in half.
And when we talk about fortune,
we talk about multimillion dollars.
Joe wants the entirety of his mother's estate.
He doesn't want a piece of it.
He wants the entire pie.
Joe felt that Barbara had no business
sticking her nose in his family's affairs.
Joe is enraged by this.
He views this as his money, and here's this outsider,
this interloper, who's really messing with his future.
NARRATOR: And the police informant says the tensions
between the two only escalated from there.
Leslie tells me that Joe has been vocal about harming
Barbara even to the point of,
you know, "I'll kill her someday,"
because of what she did for his finances.
NARRATOR: But did Joe's verbal threats manifest into murder?
Police already know Joe is physically unable to pull
the trigger with his right hand and passed
a gun residue test on his left.
Even hiring someone else to
kill Barbara wouldn't change what Joe really wanted,
[gunshot blasts]
which was to have his mother cut his big sister out of the will.
To get more clarity beyond house staff
innuendo, police talk to Joe's sister herself,
Martha Sutherland.
Martha tells me Joe actually had worked
for the company that his father had started.
But Joe was a heavy addict and was screwing up so much
that his brother-in-law,
his sister's husband, bought him out of the company
because he was damaging the company so badly.
Joe hated them for that.
Joe is upset that Martha and her husband
have full control over this very lucrative family business.
Joe even goes as far as sending
death threats to Martha and her family.
TUJAKA: Two years prior to the homicide,
Joe's sister and brother-in-law had obtained a personal
protection order against him,
because they feared for their lives because of his threats.
BUHK: Joe feels that his mother's estate is payment
for being shut out of the family business.
That was why he had convinced his mother to leave
everything in her will to him
and only him, 100 percent and nothing to Martha.
NARRATOR: Martha also confirms what her mother's caretaker,
Leslie, told police.
Martha heard her brother Joe
on several occasions threaten Barbara.
Joe has a known history of being
aggressive and going after what he wants.
And so now that money is in the mix,
it may increase the suspicion that's cast upon him.
NARRATOR: But for that suspicion to be true,
it would mean that Joe hired someone
to kill Barbara out of spite alone,
even though Barbara had no power
to change the will herself.
NARRATOR: A week after Barbara Iske was gunned down
in broad daylight, just steps
from the front door of her wealthy client's
Grosse Pointe, Michigan, home,
police suspect her client's son,
Joe Marasco, may somehow be involved.
So detectives haul Joe back down to the station
and confront him again with
the case details to gauge his reaction.
TUJAKA: We interviewed Joe a second time and asked
the exact same questions to see how he answers them.
If it's truthful, it will be without hesitation the same.
If there's any deception, there will be pausing
and trying to figure out
what it is, and it will not be the same answer.
He does not have an alibi for the time that Barbara was
murdered, because he admits
again that he was at home and didn't leave his home
until about 11:15, 11:20.
I asked him what time his mother had
called him to tell him that Barbara was dead.
And he says, "I don't remember for sure."
I says, "Just look on your phone.
It'll show on your phone when you got the call."
And Joe says, "I don't know how to do that."
And I says, "Well, here, I'll do it for you."
And I reach out, and he voluntarily hands me his phone.
So I look at the time around Barbara shooting, and there's
a whole flurry of telephone calls from the cellphone.
It was the same number multiple times.
And that raised my suspicions.
So I started writing these telephone numbers down.
Joe looks over, sees me, and says,
"Hey, what are you doing? Give me my phone back."
I handed him his phone back,
but I already had a whole list of telephone numbers.
NARRATOR: Joe doesn't tell investigators
anything new, but the people who called him might.
This number that's been calling Joe like crazy
is a buy-and-go phone,
so we don't have a subscriber information for him.
NARRATOR: And without a subscriber's name,
a buy-and-go phone's owner remains anonymous.
But numbers with subscribers who call that phone
are traceable.
I do a search warrant for the cellphone records
for that buy-and-go phone.
One of the phone numbers belongs to
a woman named Rhiannon in the city of Detroit.
NARRATOR: Investigators find Rhiannon at home.
They press her for the name of
the person she called with the buy-and-go phone,
but before she can respond,
detectives spot a partial answer in plain sight.
The detectives look over, and they see a calendar on
the refrigerator in her kitchen.
On that calendar is written the telephone number in question
with the name Derrick next to it.
BUHK: She is not cooperative and does not
want to give up the identity of Derrick.
NARRATOR: Still, with a first name of Derrick and a long
list of people who also call Derrick's buy-and-go number,
detectives have another option to uncover Derrick's last name.
TUJAKA: We were able to subpoena seven other individuals
linked to that phone number and, under oath, question them.
During this questioning, one of the people revealed
that this telephone number belonged to Derrick Thompson.
Derrick Anthony Thompson is a career criminal with
a lengthy history of assault and battery,
drug offenses, theft.
The list goes on and on.
HUNSICKER: The police think that because of Joe's long
history of drug use that the two men might have met
during a drug deal.
BUHK: But maybe it's more than just the drugs.
Derrick's cellphone records reveal that, on the day of
the murder, Derrick made several calls to Joe.
NARRATOR: With calls from Derrick Anthony Thompson
to Joe Marasco and back again at the time
Barbara Iske is killed,
police now have one question.
Was Derrick Anthony Thompson the one who shot Barbara Iske?
NARRATOR: To answer that question,
detectives need to determine if Derrick was
anywhere near Joe's house when Barbara was killed.
TUJAKA: I made up my own huge map of the city of Detroit
with every cellphone tower location
and locations of residences.
I find that Derrick Thompson's cellphone was hitting on
a cell tower approximately six blocks away
from the Marasco house at the time of the murder.
We find an address for Derrick Thompson.
We immediately started a surveillance,
and we find parked at the house
a light blue Ford Tempo
with a broken window.
NARRATOR: The vehicle's make and missing driver side window
matches the car that two teenagers
describe speeding away from Joe's house around
the time Barbara was shot.
But just when investigators think
they've found their shooter,
police find a second suspicious number
in Derrick's phone.
TUJAKA: I find a number that Derrick is calling
as soon as he gets off the phone with Joe
and obtain subscriber information that it
was purchased by Andre Williams.
I find that he was suspected by
Detroit Homicide of two or three other homicides.
The police believe Andre and Derrick know each other
from men in jail at the same time together.
NARRATOR: And detectives discover the men
have a mutual connection.
TUJAKA: I found five phone calls
from Andre Williams's cellphone to
Joe Marasco's cellphone on the day of the murder.
So this connected all three of
the subjects together to arrest all three of them.
Derrick insists that he has had nothing to do
with Barbara Iske's murder,
but he does admit to being in Grosse Pointe at the time.
TUJAKA: Derrick tells me that this guy that he knew as Andre
just needed a ride somewhere, and all of a sudden,
Andre got out of the car and then got back in the car,
and Andre now has a laptop computer with him,
and then they left.
Derrick puts himself at the scene of the homicide.
He admits he drove Andre Williams to the Marasco house.
NARRATOR: Derrick Thompson implies that
Andre Williams was the shooter,
but police need something more solid than an implication from
an ex-con to make any charges stick
beyond a reasonable doubt.
TUJAKA: So we interrogate Andre, and Andre is giving up nothing.
He has a backpack, and in that backpack are his school books.
In addition to that, there are several Bible passages
in which he has written down on loose leaf paper.
I says, "I know that you're a bit religious.
"I saw your Bible passages.
Would you like to use my Bible?"
And he said, "Yes, please."
I gave him my personally owned Bible.
And I tell him the only way for forgiveness in the eyes of
our Lord Jesus Christ is to stand up
and take account for your sins.
And as I look at him, I see a tear come out of his eye,
and he says, "I want to confess."
And he gave us a 15-page confession.
He confessed to absolutely every single detail.
In this moment,
good police work and divine intervention give
detectives the answers they've been searching for.
Andre tells us that in May of 2005,
Derrick Thompson and Joe Marasco
solicited Andre to kill Barbara.
We've got our killer.
NARRATOR: Andre's confession not only confirms Derrick's role as
the driver and that Joe Marasco
was the mastermind behind the hit,
it also allows investigators to finally piece together
the events that led to Barbara Iske's murder.
TUJAKA: 8:31 a.m. on June 14th, 2005,
Joe calls Derrick on his cellphone and says,
"Get ready, hit's on."
At 9:06 a.m., Derrick picks up Andre.
Sometime around 10 a.m.,
Barbara leaves her home to go to work at the Marasco house.
At 10:26 a.m.,
Derrick Thompson receives a cellphone call,
and it hits on the cell tower
near the Marasco house in Grosse Pointe.
At 10:30 a.m.,
Barbara arrives at the Marasco house,
backs into the driveway, and exits the car with her purse.
Andre gets out of the car and approaches Barbara
to make the hit.
BUHK: Andre shoots her in the face.
-[gunshot blasts] -She falls on the pavement.
He stands over her body, points his gun at
the back of her head, and shoots her a second time.
[gunshot blasts]
He quickly grabs the laptop.
TUJAKA: At 10:32 a.m.,
Andre runs back to the car with Derrick Thompson.
The car turns around, exits,
and drives west on Jefferson
towards the city of Detroit.
At 10:55, Derrick calls Joe at home
to let him know that the hit was completed.
At 11 a.m., Derrick and Andre dispose of the murder weapon,
laptop, and computer bag at a car wash in Detroit.
TUJAKA: Derrick pays Andre $3,300 for the murder.
In July 2006, Derrick Thompson
and Joe Marasco are both charged with murder.
Derrick Thompson is convicted of first-degree murder
and given a life sentence without the opportunity
for parole.
On July 18th, 2006,
Joe Marasco was also convicted
of first-degree murder and sentenced to life
without parole.
BUHK: In return for his testimony,
Andre is offered a prison sentence of
20 to 30 years, plus an additional
two years for a firearms charge.
NARRATOR: Despite all three men being locked up,
murder mastermind Joe Marasco continued to plot against others
on the outside.
Some months later, a person came to our station to make
a report that Joe Marasco was trying to have his sister,
her children, and her husband killed.
NARRATOR: But before Joe can enact his plan,
the story takes one final twist.
During the investigation, police learned that Joe Marasco
has AIDS due to his heroin addiction.
Joe was suffering from HIV and felt like the key to his health
was an experimental drug, which would have been
very expensive -- if he could have his mother's
estate, then he would be able to afford that drug.
TUJAKA: On September 7th, 2007, Joe Marasco
dies in prison of AIDS-related disease.
STOCKDALE: It's such a tragic story.
Here you have Barbara, who's been victimized by somebody's
narcissistic entitlement over
money, and that's just incredibly sad.
COLETTA: There are no winners.
Barbara's family lost a loving, generous,
kind person, and Joe,
he destroyed his family for his greed.
HUNSICKER: It always comes down to the money.
It's like an acid on the soul, and it makes people
do things that are horrible, and look at what Joe did.
Barbara was just, you know, a wonderful person.
I mean, kind as could be, loving.
I mean, she died simply because she was protecting Ann
from her ass [bleep] son, and to kill this poor woman,
you know, was just evil.