[tense music]
- A rising star in the nypd...
- She had that mission of justice ingrained in her.
- Found murdered in her home.
♪ ♪
- You don't want to see anybody's body wind up
In the condition that her body was left in.
- Her hands, her wrists are bound by black cord.
- The most intimate clues left by the victim.
- Her diary is going to be absolutely crucial
To figuring out what was going on in her life
Before it was taken from her.
- And a young cop looking to earn his detective shield.
- The pressure was on.
This case happened in our home.
You don't want to mess up.
We want to find the bad guy.
- A killer who is determined to stay one step ahead.
- The person who killed michelle
Went through a great deal of time
To throw the detectives off to look in the wrong direction.
- That's not common, to deal with a killer
That's actually intentionally trying to throw you off.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
[tense music]
- To many, new york is a bustling city
Of overwhelming energy and noise.
[car horns honking]
But there is quiet and calm in many neighborhoods,
Places like sunnyside, queens.
Known for its low-key suburban feel
And its tree-lined blocks and art deco apartment buildings,
Sunnyside is a perfect neighborhood
For young professionals starting their careers.
And it's there that a young woman
Whose dreams were just coming true
Met a killer who snatched them away.
[train announcer speaking indistinctly]
On the morning of Monday, April 29, 2009,
Erica krantzler wakes up and begins her morning routine.
- Erica wakes up, and it was unusual
Because her roommate, michelle le, wasn't up,
And michelle is generally up before her.
- By that time, she should've already left for work,
So she goes over to michelle's room
To check on her, to see if she's in there.
Maybe perhaps she's sick
Or just hadn't woken up for the day yet.
Maybe she overslept.
And what she finds is something no roommate,
No person should ever have to witness.
[dramatic music]
There's an absolute gruesome scene in front of her.
♪ ♪
- She called the police.
And the police responded.
[sirens wailing]
And then eventually,
We from the homicide squad responded there.
- Detectives enter the bedroom.
- Michelle is in the bed.
Her hands, her wrists are bound by a black cord.
It seemed, like, sexual,
Like a crime of passion.
- When the crime scene people removed the blanket
From michelle, she had no clothes on.
She has a kitchen knife protruding from her neck.
Her head above her eye was really crushed in.
And then there was an iron on the floor.
And she had been burnt with the iron,
So there was the imprint of the iron in between her breasts.
Across her abdomen, she had been slashed.
And in the inside of one of her legs,
There was another burn mark.
It looked as if somebody heated up a knife
And burnt the inside of one of her legs with the knife.
It is awful.
You don't want to see anybody's body wind up
In the condition that her body was left in.
- I had never seen anything like it.
I was quite shocked.
- It was clear that she had been tortured
And that she underwent a significant amount of pain
Before she died.
- Michelle's roommate, erica,
Then shares something that sends a shiver
Through the spines of the detectives at the scene.
- Erica and michelle le were both employed
As criminalists in the police lab
For the new york city police department.
- The nypd is a large family,
So for us, it's no different than you coming home
Finding your sister or your brother
As the victim of a crime.
It hits differently.
- Once someone within the police department is killed,
You're really just gonna give it that, like, extra
Just to try to get to the bottom of it.
- For officer shamal tatum,
This case would be a turning point in his career.
- I had just finished working plainclothes.
I'm learning to be a detective.
I have my training wheels on.
This was my very first homicide in the squad.
The pressure was on. I mean,
This case happened in our home.
You don't want to mess up.
You want to find the bad guy.
- As csi dust for prints and looks for dna,
The detectives' investigation of the crime scene
Reveals crucial details.
- There was no signs of forced entry in the apartment.
But also, there were no signs of a struggle as well.
- The locks weren't broken. The door wasn't kicked in.
It didn't seem that anybody had come in through a window
Or anything like that.
- It could suggest pretty much that the victim
And the killer knew each other,
Or that the victim was comfortable enough
With allowing this person into their apartment.
- The position of the body, being tied up,
You figure it might be a boyfriend.
- It looked some sort of sadistic sex act gone bad.
- This might have been an intimate encounter
That went wrong.
- Detectives questioned michelle's roommate, erica,
Hoping to build a timeline on the last couple of days
Of michelle's life.
- Erica told us that she left on Saturday
To go visit with her dad.
And during the course of doing that,
She had some texting with michelle.
Erica comes home Sunday evening.
Michelle's door was closed.
She thought it was odd, but then she thought
She must've been sleeping or something.
Once she was home, she never heard michelle
Come into the house or anything,
So she just assumed that michelle was
In the room sleeping.
Well, she spoke to her on Saturday.
She had to be killed sometime Saturday night.
- Erica realizes that michelle had been dead
In the room next door to her all night long
While she was there asleep and had no idea.
- Detectives verify erica's story
And then press her for details about michelle's dating life.
- Looking at her dating life was a focus
Because of the nature of the crime.
- Does she have a boyfriend?
What's the status?
Did she ever have any bad relationships?
And speaking to erica, she indicated to us
That michelle did not have a boyfriend at that time.
- Police had the difficult task of delivering the news
To michelle's tight-knit korean family,
Who they hope will be able to shed more light
On her life before she was murdered.
[siren wails distantly]
- Detectives from the 108 squad went
To notify the le family
That their daughter had been murdered,
And they were very upset.
The parents didn't have any idea of who would want
To hurt their daughter.
- The family didn't know a lot about her personal life
Outside of what she did when she spent time with the family.
Her dating life wasn't something that they were able
To give us any information about.
- As a parent, your child recently,
You know, leaves your home, goes out on their own.
And then you have the police coming to your door
To tell you that your child has been murdered.
It's very traumatic and horrible for them.
- Michelle's parents have lost a daughter
Whose childhood dreams were just being fulfilled.
- When michelle was growing up,
Obviously one of the big things on television was "csi."
And michelle had decided that she had always wanted
To be a forensic investigator.
- Michelle's first step on that path was to attend
John jay college of criminal justice in manhattan.
- So john jay's forensic science program
Is one of the oldest program out there,
And it ranks as one of the best place
You could go for forensic science, yes.
Michelle made an impression on a lot of professors
Because she was such a forthcoming student.
She was a force to reckon with.
She had that--definitely that mission of justice
Ingrained in her.
For students like michelle,
Who graduate with a bsc in forensic science,
The top position, of course, is to enter the nypd crime lab.
- She worked in the police lab analyzing evidence
For the new york city police department.
- And now that same police department
Is investigating her murder.
The seasoned detectives on the case are starting
To sense something strange about the murder.
- This crime scene is unusual.
To get the kind of burns that she had, it would be,
Like, crazy, like, I would think, you know,
Never mind hearing it in the building,
I think that someone out on the street would
Have to hear someone screaming from getting burns like that.
Everything's very close in new york city.
If your neighbor's having an argument,
You hear them, you know?
So the fact that we didn't get any kind of calls or anything
Of someone screaming out in agony is odd.
- A canvass of the building and neighborhood confirms
Nobody heard anything unusual.
But the state of michelle's body was even more confusing.
- To be honest with you, I just remember
I was fixated on--
Her head injury was really troubling to me.
I was looking at that head
And the way that it was, like, crushed.
- A crime that horrific and violent,
You would expect there to be blood splatter,
Like, everywhere.
There was none.
And I remember that was one of the things that were puzzling.
- Almost led you to believe that,
Was she killed somewhere else
And then her body brought there?
♪ ♪
- Coming up...
- Their sex life was kinkier than normal couples' are--
Getting tied up, getting choked,
Things like that.
- Why would you go there at 3:56 in the morning?
Did we find it shocking?
Absolutely.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
- Michelle le was one of our own,
Part of the nypd family.
Her body is found in a horrific state
That shocks even seasoned detectives.
But as they look closer, the details don't add up.
[ominous music]
- It was hard to figure, like, what actually had happened,
Like, how it happened.
- There was something about the crime scene
That was bothering the detectives.
- There was definitely blunt force trauma to the head.
That was something that was puzzling us
Because we couldn't find a weapon
That would have administered that type of blunt trauma.
- While michelle's body is taken
To the medical examiner for an autopsy,
Detectives take extra care processing michelle's room.
- I made sure that they examined the garbage
In a particular manner to be very methodical with it
And examine the garbage in layers.
Because garbage is gonna tell you a story
Of what was going on for a period of time
At that particular location.
- When you put things in the trash, it gets accumulated.
Something that's newly put in the trash
Doesn't go to the bottom. It stays on the top.
Inside the garbage can, there was a receipt.
And found on top of that receipt
Was a tissue with semen.
The receipt was dated the night michelle le was murdered.
So whoever deposited that tissue
On top of that receipt was there
The day she was murdered.
- The tissue was submitted to the lab for dna testing.
And then the forensics team finds something surprising
In michelle's bedroom.
- I remember the diary being found.
That's not something that--
In this day and age, that many people actually have.
- Considering the fact that michelle's
Closest family members weren't aware
Of any kind of romantic relationships that she was in,
A journal or a diary is going to be absolutely crucial
To figuring out what was going on in her life
Before it was taken from her.
- Going through the diary,
We keep seeing the name gary, gary, gary.
So who's gary?
- She's writing about how much she loves him,
How much she enjoys being with him,
How much she wants to be his girlfriend.
She's just gushing about this guy in her life.
- Only having a first name is frustrating.
In order to put a face and get an identity for somebody,
You need a person's last name too.
- Neither michelle's roommate
Nor her family know who gary is.
So detectives ask michelle's friends from john jay,
And they are able to help.
- Detectives were able to identify gary
As gary mcgurk.
- Gary was a person that she went to john jay with.
And we were able to find him and talk to him.
Charming, good-looking guy.
He was born in ireland.
- He was pleasant and super cooperative.
Like her other friends, distraught at what happened
To michelle and wanting us to find who did it to her.
- Gary mcgurk was a forensic science major
Studying at john jay.
He was actually a senior.
- Gary and michelle met while they were both students.
They immediately striked up a friendship.
They had a lot in common.
They both had similar interests.
He was somebody that she, you know,
Started a really close relationship with.
They were kind of on and off again boyfriend and girlfriend.
- Gary reveals to detectives that his
And michelle's relationship was about more than sex.
- Gary stated that michelle le had lent him money
Because he had cancer
And he didn't have medical insurance here to pay for it.
So he felt like he owed her his life.
- And I believe the amount was, you know,
Somewhere close to $5,000.
He said that he did have another girlfriend,
And he was only seeing michelle every now and then.
- He volunteered the type of things they did.
- Gary tells police that him and michelle had
A very intimate relationship, but also that their sex life
Was kinkier than normal couples' are--
Getting tied up, getting choked,
Things like that.
- Bondage and asphyxiation.
He said that it was always safe.
- It kind of correlated with the way
The crime scene was set up
As a crime of passion,
A sexual encounter.
- Intrigued by this information,
Detectives dig into gary's story.
- When gary was asked about his whereabouts
On the night of michelle's death,
He stated that he was with his new girlfriend.
He actually showed that he had received
A phone call from michelle on the night of the murder.
He showed the phone to the detective.
Look at this. I have a missed call from her.
And it was about 4:00 a.M. In the morning.
- We obviously called his girlfriend
To verify that she was with him.
And she validated his alibi.
She said that they were together
In manhattan that night.
- I asked gary if he would be willing to let us
Voluntarily swab him for dna.
He said, sure, I'll do whatever, you know.
So we took a dna swab from inside his cheek,
And he signed a release form.
And he had no problem with it.
- With gary cooperating and providing a strong alibi,
Detectives are back at square one.
Convinced that michelle had some kind of connection
To the killer, detectives look beyond her dating life.
- It's very rare that somebody just randomly kills somebody.
♪ ♪
- Coming up...
- We figured someone tied
To one of her cases sent someone to kill her.
- There's usually some gruesome level
Of torture that's involved.
And it's a signal-- don't mess with us
Because the same thing's gonna happen to you.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
- Michelle le's occasional boyfriend, gary mcgurk,
Has a strong alibi for the time of her death.
And when no other romantic partners are found,
Detectives wonder if her dream job
May have played a role in her death.
♪ ♪
- Because she could have been part of a pertinent case
That put someone away,
We figured someone tied to one of her cases
Sent someone to kill her.
- In michelle's work as an nypd crime technician,
She was the one who was testing drugs that had been found
On drug dealers or in their stash houses
And connecting those drugs to that person,
Which is going to lead to a conviction most of the time.
Crime technicians are often called to testify
When cases do make it to trial.
And michelle had testified at numerous cases.
- With the brutality of it, we thought maybe it was,
Like, an organized drug ring.
[siren wails]
- When members of organized crime groups decide
To kill somebody as a form of revenge,
It's not just enough to kill them.
There's usually some gruesome level of torture
That's involved with it,
Something, you know, really depraved.
It becomes a kind of calling card for that gang,
For that cartel, for that crime group.
It's a signal to their enemies, don't mess with us
Because the same thing's gonna happen to you.
- Drug organizations would--
If they feel the need and feel threatened enough,
Would resort to violence against a criminal witness.
- So considering the injuries
That had been inflicted on michelle's body,
Cops are gonna be looking for somebody who's sadistic.
- Detectives open up the files of all the cases
Michelle had testified on or was about to.
- The forensic techs work on some heavy cases.
Their name does go on documents.
The idea that she could have been killed
For working on a drug case was very real.
- But none of the cases michelle worked on
Yield any suspects.
- It didn't turn out to be a fruitful direction.
The idea was eliminated.
- A week into the investigation,
Detectives abandon the idea that michelle's police work
Could have played a role in her murder.
They go back to the drawing board
And start to explore other angles.
- You don't have a smoking gun.
You don't have a witness saying someone did it.
You have to postulate theories about what happened.
It could have been someone followed her to her apartment
And laid in wait
For her to come out and make their way back in.
Someone could have got into her apartment previously,
And when she came in, just pushed their way into the door.
♪ ♪
There were tons of theories from different people
Of what possibly happened.
And as the case progressed and evidence came in,
Those theories were eliminated.
- Basically at this point, we know nothing
About who perpetrated the crime.
[somber music]
- As detectives continue to look for evidence,
The community at john jay reels from michelle's loss.
- They were shocked.
There is a profound sadness
Of losing such an important member
Of the community in forensic science.
Really just sort of... Almost like a vacuum had opened
Under their feet and sort of sucked them in
Because it was such a shocking event,
But also an impactful event on the faculty.
We were very much grieving the loss of this student
Who had gone on to do exactly
What we train our students to do
And had gone on to have her dream career.
- Detectives are frustrated by a killer
Who seems to have covered most of their tracks.
- The pressure was on. I mean, very high profile case
Within the nypd.
We try not to get emotionally involved,
But it's a little disturbing because it's one of our own.
We don't expect anything to happen to us, you know?
- It's a member of your police family,
So you're gonna do everything you can
To get to the bottom of it.
- And then michelle's autopsy comes in.
- The autopsy cleared up a few things
That were under speculation.
I was very surprised.
- Did, you know, we find it shocking?
Absolutely.
♪ ♪
- Coming up...
- And he was like, you're gonna see me
On the surveillance cameras over there
On the corner with her.
- We're combing through the footage.
And you're just like, dude, that's her.
♪ ♪
[tense brassy music]
♪ ♪
- Detectives are working around the clock
On the murder of michelle le,
A rising star in the nypd forensics lab.
And when the autopsy report comes in
Ten days after her death,
It cast a light upon the strange crime scene.
- We learned at the autopsy she died of asphyxia.
And the head,
The knife,
The slash of the stomach,
The burns
Were postmortem.
- It threw out all those theories of torture
Because it was done after she was dead.
- It was puzzling because the violence
Was immense on the victim.
- It's like, what happened here?
Why would somebody do all of this afterwards?
- As detective wilkowski processes
This new information, he comes up
With an unsettling theory.
- The person who killed michelle
Went through a great deal of time to stage the scene.
I believe it was to see if they could, you know,
Throw the detectives off and to look in the wrong direction.
- It's not common to deal with a killer
That's actually intentionally trying to throw you off
To that extent, that elaborate.
- Knowing that the crime scene was staged
Has detectives questioning the evidence gathered so far.
- You're zeroed in a little bit more.
Now you know you're dealing with someone
That's intentionally trying to alter the case.
So we're going back, reevaluating evidence,
And going over things that someone told you.
- And the first thing that detectives want
To dig deeper on, michelle's friend with benefits,
Gary mcgurk, who told detectives he received a call
From michelle the night of the murder.
[cell phone ringing]
- He said that he got a phone call from michelle
Around 4:00 in the morning
While he was at his girlfriend's house
In manhattan.
- During the interview, he was just very forthcoming.
He's like, hey, guys, look at my phone.
You know, I received a call from michelle.
- What wasn't suspicious before
Now has detectives' interest.
- We got a warrant for gary's phone--
Calls, text messages, and the towers that it hits off of.
And that'll tell you, according to the strength
Of the towers in the area, where the phone was.
The cell phone towers in the city are spaced
A lot more closer than in a rural area,
So you can definitely pinpoint an area
Where someone is in the city.
- A week after detectives' first interview
With gary mcgurk, the records from his cell phone arrive.
And what they reveal creates more questions than answers.
- The call from michelle's phone,
It hit off the tower near her home and to gary's phone.
And it hit it on the cell site in the vicinity
Of laurel hill boulevard between 48th and 58th street
In between the calvary cemeteries
Not far from michelle's apartment.
- The two cell towers are within a mile of each other,
And more importantly, nowhere close to manhattan.
- Gary's phone hitting off that cell phone tower
Disproves his alibi that he was with his girlfriend.
- That's--that's very, very strange.
Like, what's there?
There's nothing there. You're between two cemeteries.
Why would you go there at 3:56 in the morning?
- That's, uh, very, very odd.
But that alone doesn't prove that gary was in the bedroom,
Murdering michelle.
- Gary mcgurk's lie about the cell phone call
Has detectives laser focused on him as the prime suspect.
Hoping to prove that he went to michelle's apartment
On the night of the murder,
Detective knights has a special assignment
For detective-in-training shamal tatum.
- One of the protocols during an investigation
These days is that you're gonna go out
And conduct a canvass for video.
You know, there's video cameras
Pretty much everywhere now.
And may not be just one camera.
It may be a collective use of several cameras
That helps you piece together an incident.
- I was the lowest one on the totem pole,
The rookie.
It's probably the only thing I couldn't screw up.
You know? Just go grab the video, kid.
But collecting surveillance was definitely
A race against time because it overwrites,
Depending on how the system's set up.
So basically, went to every location.
Hey, how are you doing?
I see you have a camera.
Do you mind if I take a look?
And a lot of times, the cameras don't work.
- Of the cameras that do work,
There's plenty of footage to overwhelm the rookie.
- We collected a ton of video,
And now had the daunting task of watching it.
This boils down to hours and hours of painstaking work.
Like, you have to sit there and watch
Every millisecond of video.
- If you could find the victim with the person
Who did kill them on the surveillance,
Like, walking back to their house,
That would be a big plus.
- After painstakingly combing
Through dozens of hours of footage,
It's one camera on a local drugstore
That may hold a key for this investigation.
- So we're combing through the footage.
And you're just like,
Dude, that's her.
There she is.
She definitely looks like she was meeting someone there
That she knows,
Someone she definitely knew.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
- Detectives' investigation of cell tower data reveals
Michelle le's on-again, off-again boyfriend,
Gary mcgurk, has lied about his whereabouts
On the night of her murder.
And video surveillance unearthed
By detective-in-training shamal tatum reveals
New details about that fateful night.
- This is video surveillance footage at a drugstore
On the corner of the block of her building.
You see michelle walk into the frame of the camera.
And she meets a male on the corner.
And they stop and talk.
And then they walk towards her building.
The man in the video...
Is gary mcgurk.
♪ ♪
This video contradicts his entire alibi.
So now he's a suspect again.
He's our number one focus again.
- Detectives bring gary back in
And ask him about the video.
- Gary volunteered like, you're gonna see me
On the surveillance cameras over there
On the corner with her.
He goes, I met up with her for her to give me money.
Walks her back to her apartment,
And michelle tells him at the front door,
I can't let you up.
I have company.
He, you know, said good night to michelle.
And she went upstairs.
He then said that he walks around the neighborhood.
And then he says he got that phone call.
- Gary's shifting story is highly suspicious,
But there is no proof that he is lying.
- You collect all the video, and that's great,
But it has to be coupled with the evidence
That's collected at the crime scene.
- At this point, the stuff we had,
It's all circumstantial.
It's nothing that a jury would convict.
- Without more, detectives have to let gary walk
And continue their search for more evidence.
- A large case like this,
There are a lot of moving parts
And a lot of detectives working on the case.
And at the end of the day, we come back to the squad
With the evidence we collected
Or the information we collected.
And we all present it.
And a picture starts to emerge.
- And then the dna test of the tissue
Found in michelle's bedroom comes in.
It's a match with the sample given
By gary mcgurk.
♪ ♪
- It was determined that the position
That the dna was found along with the receipt
That was in the garbage as well was an indication that mcgurk
Was in the apartment at a particular time.
- It was decided that we would arrest gary mcgurk.
- He was just a final exam away from getting
His bachelor of science in forensics.
On that day, the team raced to john jay
To find out where the exam was.
[sirens wailing distantly]
Deep down in everybody's mind,
They wanted to get this guy before he finished that exam
To prevent him from getting a degree in criminal justice.
- He was at john jay taking an exam.
It was our intention to get him after he exited school.
We had several teams up by john jay
In an effort to arrest gary mcgurk.
Unfortunately, that did not work out.
We weren't able to find him up by school.
We didn't get him.
- One thing that can have helped gary
Is, of course, all the psychology courses
Which make you aware of,
Essentially, the tricks that criminals have used
To mislead police on their particular crimes.
- He is a guy who thinks he's a little smarter
Than everybody else, so he would probably--
Whether he's doing forensic science or not,
Probably think he knew a little bit more
About my job than me personally.
- The detectives worry that gary,
A student of criminal justice and feeling the heat
Of the investigation, may have fled.
- We regroup in the evening.
We surveil his mom's house, which is in forest hills.
We have quite a few teams out there
All around where his mom lives.
We were out there for a good amount of time.
And then, at some point,
There was a decision made that we would go to the door
To see if he was in the apartment.
We had just gotten there.
As we walked up,
Gary walked into us.
And we grabbed him, handcuffed him,
And brought him back to the 108.
- Gary had a passport and a plane ticket
Going back to ireland when he was arrested.
- His mom was very protective of him.
I think they had the impression
That the walls were closing in on him,
And they were going to try to get him back in ireland.
- It was very lucky timing that we were able to get
To him before he was able to flee the country.
- If gary had gotten to ireland,
It would have been a huge problem,
Logistically, trying to get him back here
To have him answer for this crime.
It's a relief, and there's a big sense of pride.
We found our family's killer.
You know, nypd detectives, like,
We're called the best in the world,
And there's a reason for it.
And it really doesn't matter what you do.
Like, you're gonna get caught.
- Detectives are convinced they have the right person,
But gary still has one last secret he's hiding.
- You want to know the why as you're questioning him.
That's the main question. You want to know why he did it.
♪ ♪
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
- Nypd homicide detectives arrest gary mcgurk
Only moments before he was set to flee the country
To his native ireland.
But while the detectives and prosecutors prepare
For the trial, one question looms.
Why did he kill michelle le?
♪ ♪
- We wanted to find out about his relationship
With michelle.
We wanted to see if he would tell us why he did it.
We asked gary about the cancer.
And he says, yeah, I told her I had cancer.
- Michelle had lent gary this money,
$5,000, for his cancer treatments
Because she was genuinely concerned for him.
They start to ask, you know,
What kind of cancer did you have?
What kind of treatments did you receive?
Where did you receive these treatments?
And soon they learned that gary never even had cancer.
It was just a cash grab.
- He made up this story about having cancer
In order to get money from michelle.
- In michelle's final journal entry,
One of the main things that she wrote about was gary
And how much she loved him.
"dear journal, he's so brave.
"I can't stop crying.
"I love him so much.
"I wish he would get better.
I wish I could hold him forever."
She was in love with him.
She would do anything for him.
And it had all been a lie.
- When we speak to her friends,
We learn that michelle, because she had gotten
This new apartment and needed the money,
Was trying to get her money back
And was having a difficult time doing it.
Michelle was becoming more aggressive
In trying to get her money back from gary.
She was not letting go.
And obviously, he didn't have the means to pay it back.
He wasn't working.
So it was a problem that wasn't going away.
- Prosecutors prepare to try gary for second-degree murder.
But facing a possible life sentence,
Gary decides to take a deal and pleads guilty
To manslaughter and evidence tampering.
Gary is sentenced to 29 to 37 years in prison
And is required to make a full confession in court.
- And that's how we found out what he says how it happened.
Saturday night, he met with michelle.
He went up into their apartment.
He claims that they had sex,
Which got rough,
And he wound up strangling her.
She's unconscious.
Gary said he wrapped her head in saran wrap.
And then he hit her in the head,
Which actually caused the skull to collapse.
Well, with the head in saran wrap,
You won't get any blood splatter.
All the damage will stay internal
Into the plastic wrap.
He did a pretty good job with not leaving anything
To lead us back to him there.
- He knew what goes into a crime scene investigation.
And so he set up all these little red herrings
And things along the way to help cover up the crime.
- It's all in the textbook. You know, he thinks
He can figure out how to get away with the perfect crime.
But real world is different for the nypd.
Just amazing, amazing work,
Skill tied with intuition.
It's just an awesome blend.
- And gary's girlfriend who gave detectives
His initial alibi...
- His girlfriend lied to cover up for him.
It wouldn't have been the first time someone's done that.
- This case is a turning point
In officer shamal tatum's career.
- I learned a lot just seeing how people operate,
How evidence is gathered, how you have to be patient
And wait for stuff to come back.
During this case, I came into it as officer tatum
And actually became detective tatum,
And actually really, really earned it.
[soft music]
- At john jay college, michelle le's memory
And legacy live on.
- The friends and family of michelle decided
To set up a fund to help forensic science students
By setting up $1,000 that would help the students
Towards paying the tuitions for their courses.
And this was seen as a way
To remember the spirit of michelle,
Whose life and career was cut so tragically.
- She worked at the crime lab,
So it lights a fire under us a little differently.
There was a tremendous sense of pride to be part of a team
That was able to put this guy behind bars
And add closure to the victim's family
And to be able to find justice for the victim.