- In a wealthy southern town
Where life revolves around one thing--
- In fauquier county,
You grow up literally living and breathing polo.
- --An intriguing relationship becomes the talk of the town.
- They were the new power couple in polo, by far.
- Roberto was a charismatic star polo player.
Susan was literally a reclusive mystery.
- Why is he with her?
- And when a sinful scandal rocks this insular community--
- How could this happen in fauquier county?
- --Investigators found themselves in a world
Where nothing is what it seems.
- The stories started coming out.
- I told him to stay away from that girl.
- You have to look further to try to find out the truth.
- There's something else going on that we don't know about.
[dramatic music]
[crow caws]
[indistinct chatter]
- ♪ oh, child ♪
♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
♪ ♪
- On September the 7th, a 911 call
Came in just before 9:00 in the morning.
- At that time in fauquier county,
If we had three homicides, maybe four a year,
That would have been a busy year for us.
In a small, rural, wealthy community,
Everybody's going to respond--
The captains, the majors, the sheriff--
Because it's not something that happens every day.
[siren blaring]
When I was traveling to the scene,
The address sounded familiar to me.
As I got closer and closer,
The numbers started to click with me.
Oh, now I know why I know this address.
This is ashland farm.
And at that point in time, I realized
Who we were dealing with.
- The owners of this grand southern estate
Are none other than 35-year-old reclusive
Billionaire heiress twin sisters,
Susan and diana cummings.
[tense music]
- When I got there, members of my team were already there.
Susan and diana were standing beside a police car.
- Detective lamper is brought up to speed
By the more vocal of the twin sisters.
- Diana said that she had heard shots.
And at that point in time, she was down at the stables.
When she got to the house, she found susan
On the telephone with 911.
- Investigators turned their attention to susan.
- Susan was very stoic,
You know, not crying, not, you know,
Explaining her innocence or anything like that.
It was just staring into blank space.
- The shift sergeant asked me to watch ms. Cummings
And to be with her so they could clear the house
And put the pieces together of what had happened.
♪ ♪
- I went inside the main door.
And down the hallway, I see some shell casings
And a semi-automatic luger revolver
With the action locked back.
Around the corner to the left was
The little kitchenette area.
In there, I saw a male laying face-down.
- And he was dead on the floor.
He'd been shot multiple times.
There was a large volume of blood on the ground.
And between his bicep and his forearm,
There was a bowie-style type knife.
We're checking his pockets for identification.
So we positively identified him as roberto villegas.
- Upon hearing his name, one of the detectives
Pops in with pivotal information.
- Speaking with sergeant healy, we find out about two weeks
Before this happened, susan came to the sheriff's office
And reported that roberto, the victim in the homicide,
Was her boyfriend and was threatening her.
Sergeant healy advised that, hey,
You can go next door to the magistrate's office
And obtain a warrant for threats.
- She scheduled an appointment with a magistrate
For September 8.
And now, just one day before that meeting was to occur,
Roberto lies dead on her kitchen floor.
And susan is in handcuffs, in mute silence.
- She wasn't talking to us, but ms. Cummings
Had stated on that 911 call that he had tried to kill her.
- So we let the evidence try to guide us
To confirm or not to confirm what's being said.
- She had marks on her arm that were very lightly bleeding.
- Drops were running down her arm.
It looked like scratches, as if somebody had--
Arm had gone through a screen door
Or if a cat had scratched her arm.
We're starting to put together that there was this fight,
And she was defending herself with the gun that--
That was laid on the floor.
- I had my 35-millimeter camera.
And I just started pointing and shooting,
And taking pictures of the casings,
Of the gun, the blood, the knife.
And we just preserved the scene until we could
Get some search warrants.
- Susan had given consent to search the residence.
But we decided that we wanted to get a search warrant
For the house because consent can be revoked at any time.
- As investigators wait for the warrant,
A big, shiny suv comes rolling up into the driveway.
The gentleman who steps out is blair howard.
- Blair is well-known as being unquestionably
One of the best attorneys in the country.
You know, he has his roots here.
- It was Sunday morning, and I just happened to get this call
From a fox-hunting friend...
[phone ringing] who at the time,
Was dating susan's sister, diana.
There's been a shooting,
And I want you to come to ashland farm.
- Considering susan's posh and privileged background,
She can afford the finest attorney
Her daddy's money can buy.
- Susan's father, samuel,
Is one of the leading arms dealers in the world.
Susan and diana were raised in europe.
And when they got to college, their father, samuel,
Moved the family here.
♪ ♪
- We advised mr. Howard that we were going
To transport susan back to our office for an interview.
And he said he's coming with us.
- Flanked by detectives and mr. Howard,
Susan is escorted down to the sheriff's office
For questioning.
And while their fellow investigators stay behind,
Waiting for the search warrant,
Deputy walters and detectives lamper
Can't shake something peculiar
They noticed at the crime scene.
- The thing that caught my eye was the blood.
- Blood is made up of plasma and water.
The water separates from the plasma in the blood.
The red color separates into a clear color
And takes a certain period of time.
It doesn't happen right away.
And separation had already started to occur.
- That's surely a sign he had been there for a little while--
Half an hour, at least.
The call came out just before 9:00.
And we all got there less than 10 minutes.
- But if this was an open and shut case of self-defense,
Why would susan shoot roberto
And then wait before she called 911?
- It didn't add up.
[dramatic music]
- Coming up--
- Rumors started flying.
- She became fixated on him beyond the polo lessons.
- Susan kept a tight grip on roberto.
- He says, I treat my women just like my horses.
- I know susan much more than any of you.
Let's listen to what she has to say.
♪ ♪
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Billionaire susan cummings says she shot her boyfriend,
Roberto villegas, in self-defense.
- But after noting blood separation at the crime scene,
Investigators suspect she didn't immediately call 911.
And it's key they find out why.
[dramatic music]
- After ms. Cummings was taken down to the sheriff's office,
The majority of us remained on the scene
Waiting for the search warrant.
And once they came back with that,
A search was done of the house.
The thing that immediately struck me was just
How clean this kitchen was.
Everything was in its place.
- Usually, in situations of self-defense,
There's a struggle.
The scene just did not show that struggle.
His legs were under the table,
Which immediately drew interest to me because
If you're standing up,
Your legs aren't going to go under the table.
- It seemed like he was shot and went straight down.
When people run, you get the blood patterns
And it shows movement.
I just saw no smear marks or anything,
No signs of him in some kind of sprint or some kind of charge.
- And on the table, there was a magazine that was opened.
There was a plate with some sort of pastry.
It looked like he was plain shot
While he was sitting there eating breakfast.
- The self-defense thing, the immediate danger,
I just don't think, was there.
- It just wasn't adding up to us,
That there was an attack going on when mr. Villegas was shot.
[gunshot]
- The body is transported to the medical examiner's office.
Though the autopsy will take several hours,
News of the murder spreads instantly,
Making its way to a charity polo match,
Argentina versus the u.S.,
Where fans have been waiting for the star player to arrive.
- The polo match had been delayed.
We didn't know why.
And word got around that roberto villegas is not here.
Roberto is from argentina.
And the ambassador invited him personally.
And everybody was like, he's so patriotic.
He would have never missed this.
And then the sponsor of the event got a phone call
And found out that roberto had been shot that morning.
Roberto's dead.
A shock wave went through the crowd.
They didn't just like him. They loved him.
- The heartbreaking news of his death
Travels with seismic force from roberto's
Polo-playing buddies throughout the u.S.
To his parents in argentina.
And it hits particularly hard
For margaret bonnell, roberto's ex
With whom he had fathered a four-year-old son.
- My father roberto died when I was so young.
So I was just shy of being five years old.
I didn't get to know him for very long.
I remember my mom was distraught.
They were together six years, and she was very fond of him.
And they stayed in close contact throughout the years.
She told me nothing but good things.
He was extremely compassionate, hard-working,
Very dedicated man.
He loved horses, the game,
Came from nothing, poor family,
You know, poor country.
[horse neighs]
And he went from, you know, dirt-poor in argentina
To a rock star in the polo world.
- Roberto's meteoric rise began
When he immigrated to america in 1991.
- With his charm and his polo skills,
Everybody quickly, quickly fell in love with him.
[horse neighs]
- Through hard work and athleticism,
He got hired a lot.
He had a way with people and was very, very friendly.
Always a quick smile.
- That smile, it just made you melt.
No matter what was going on, whether you were having
An argument with him at-- about a polo play, you know,
He would say cheers with this beautiful smile and just,
You're like, oh, how can you argue with that, you know?
[laughs]
What possibly could have happened that this
Would have taken place?
[suspenseful music]
- Defense attorney blair howard
Is fixing to find that out.
Though susan won't say a word to investigators
With attorney-client privilege in place,
She confides in mr. Howard.
- I learned that they had been dating two years.
But in recent times, she said,
There's been some difficulty.
She told me he wanted everything his way.
And if it didn't go his way,
That's when he would become abusive.
♪ ♪
- Susan tells her attorney that two weeks earlier,
She tried to end things.
But roberto didn't take so kindly to that.
- She said that he said, you continue
To push me out of the picture, I'm going to kill you.
And then he was going to hang her upside down
And let her blood drip on-- on the bed.
Ugh, just bad.
- That's when susan confided in sergeant healy
And made a follow-up appointment
With the magistrate.
- As a matter of fact, she told me,
I have an appointment tomorrow,
Where I was to go back to get a protective order.
- But when she woke up the morning of the incident,
She found roberto downstairs
Having himself a nice little breakfast in her kitchen.
- And she said, I told him in no uncertain terms
I wanted everything in that house that belonged to him,
I want everything out.
And at that point, he produced a knife
And said, nobody talks to me like that.
And he's running it along her arm.
And she said, it was breaking the skin, it was cutting me,
And I thought I was going to die.
And she told me that she said, let me make some coffee
And let's talk about this.
And he releases me and stops what he's doing.
- Fearing for her life, susan made a split-second decision.
- She says, I keep a handgun
In one of the cupboards in the kitchen.
And I opened the cupboard door and I grabbed the gun.
And when I turned around, this look on his face,
It was like the look of an animal,
That he was going to come after me.
And I just turned and started firing.
[gunshots]
I'm thinking self-defense right off the get-go.
So with my investigators,
I've got to prove that the victim in the case
Has engaged in abusive behavior.
- While susan gives howard an earful,
She gives police nothing.
- Mr. Howard came out and said that she wasn't
Going to be interviewed.
You're not compelled to speak.
You're not compelled to self-incriminate.
That's under the law, and we have to play by that.
- But with the 911 admission,
Police have enough to take the next step.
- She was officially charged with murder.
- When I heard the news that susan was being arrested
On murder charges, I couldn't believe it.
I said, this doesn't make sense.
I just saw them last night.
We were finalizing a deal with horses.
He was smiling. She was happy.
They both were in love.
No one will ever know, with any couple,
What's going on behind closed doors.
But they--they had their game face on for me.
- There's two people involved in this.
One of them is deceased and one of them is not talking.
Based on the physical evidence that we're seeing,
This wasn't a total self-defense.
So you have to look further to try to find out the truth.
That was our job.
[dramatic music]
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[horse neighs]
- Following her arrest for the murder
Of polo star roberto villegas,
Susan cummings continues to plead the fifth.
Leading investigators look into the victim's
Autopsy results for answers.
- At that point in time, mr. Villegas
Was a piece of evidence.
I met with the medical examiner.
I don't like to give a lot of information
To them because I want them to tell me
What they're seeing so that the evidence
Is telling a story.
- The autopsy reveals that roberto
Was shot four times with fatal wounds to his neck and chest.
But it's a more concealed finding
That piques detectives' interest.
- The medical examiner found there was food not only
In his mouth, but there was food
Between his teeth and his lips,
Which indicates that he was eating when he was shot.
It gave us the affirmation that we were on the right track.
That verified what we were seeing within the scene,
That our victim was sitting in a chair eating,
And he was shot.
That's no longer self-defense, plain and simple.
- With mounting evidence supporting
The possibility of murder, and susan still not talking,
Investigators need to uncover all they can about the couple.
- The reason why something happened
Is what you get from your interviews, ok?
And in the social circuits,
Especially the tight-knit polo circuit,
Both of them were very well-known.
And everybody that I personally interviewed
Was pretty forthcoming.
♪ ♪
- Susan met roberto villegas at the willow run polo club,
Which was a local place where you'd learn how to play polo.
Up until then, she was literally a reclusive mystery.
Her and her sister kept to themselves.
They didn't really make an effort
To become a part of the community
Until susan decided to pursue polo.
- Roberto gave her polo lessons,
Taught her about the sport.
One thing led to another.
- It was a very quick romance.
And it was very strong.
It was real. It was genuine.
- But this wasn't just a romantic relationship.
In the spring of 1997,
They fired up a business partnership.
Susan started her very own polo team.
- She started the club with roberto,
Ashland farms polo club.
Roberto not only becomes her star player,
But it makes ashland farms a cool team.
Roberto provided susan with a way into
This very insular southern subculture
Of the polo world.
She was now at beautiful events with beautiful people.
- They were the new power couple in polo, by far.
And we were all excited and happy for them.
- But investigators discover that not everyone
In the community felt the same.
- People would talk to us about, you know,
Well, why is he with her?
[pensive music]
- Personality-wise, roberto villegas
Was incredibly outgoing, charismatic.
And susan cummings was incredibly introverted
And had a hard time connecting with people.
There are a lot of southern etiquette things
That go on here in fauquier county.
It's very friendly.
You would wave at your neighbors
And talk to your neighbors on pretty much a daily basis.
But not susan.
- You could actually argue that he was more southern
Because he was affable,
He was funny, he was endearing--
The real southern qualities of sociability.
She stayed an outsider.
- Their differences fuel speculation
On what really was driving this relationship.
- Let's face it. His wallet was thin.
She took care of him.
She treated him to all the fine things in life.
And he was leading a lifestyle that he aspired to
And never would have been able to do on his own.
- Roberto was renting a room from an elderly female
In warrenton.
And I went and interviewed her.
She told me that susan was paying for that room.
He was relying a lot on, you know,
What she was providing or what she was giving.
- But word around town is that
This upgrade came with a price.
- It was pretty widely known that susan
Kept a tight grip on roberto.
- Detectives probe friends
On whether this could be a motive.
- Whether that led to his demise, I can't swear to.
But yes, susan was very possessive.
And he was very freewheeling.
And she did not like that about him.
- From what I understood from all of roberto's friends,
He was a playboy who did play the field.
She wanted roberto for herself.
- Coming up--
- The relationship had started to head
In a different direction.
- She had roberto under her thumb.
- Gregarious, outgoing, this great big smile--
But that wasn't the real roberto villegas.
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[tense music]
- Investigators are piecing together
That the relationship of polo power couple
Susan cummings and roberto villegas
Wasn't as it appeared.
- We would have a roundtable because
I would have detectives out
Doing things and doing interviews.
So I would bring them all in and they would
Go over what they had heard.
And I learned that the relationship
Had started to head in a different direction.
- My mom and roberto stayed very close
And called each other probably daily.
♪ ♪
She told me that he was planning on leaving susan
And was going to ask for the title to the truck
And some of his horses.
- She had roberto under her thumb.
And he was trying to get away from that.
And she wasn't going to let him.
- The only person who knows the truth is behind bars
And still not talking.
And on September 10, three days after the shooting,
Susan's released on a piddling $75,000 bond.
- There was a lot of grumbling in the community about that.
She just got to go back to her sister and her horses
And wait for the trial.
♪ ♪
- What was circulated through the polo community
Was that she killed roberto and he was just
Having his breakfast sitting at the table.
[suspenseful music]
And he didn't do anything wrong.
I took a step back saying, well, wait a second,
I know susan much more than any of you.
And that doesn't make sense to me.
I know her to be that kind, gentle person
That's very loving.
Let's listen to what she has to say.
- And there are many clamoring to hear exactly that.
- The media got very, very interested
Because of her father and the extensive wealth.
- With reporters swarming,
Susan's team gives a statement.
- I said, it's self-defense.
I said, this guy had taken a knife out and threatened her.
- Susan had the best legal defense
You could buy at the time.
And as the story went through the media,
She became the victim.
And he was painted as a bully.
- This statement had been made of,
Basically, he was assaulting her with a knife.
So if that's what the version from the defensive side
Is going to be, well, then,
Now I have to start looking at that.
- To dig into this claim,
Investigators enlist the help of forensic specialist
Sergeant robert zinn.
- I consult with all the photographs from
The crime scene, the autopsy report,
And the reports from
The virginia department of forensic science.
♪ ♪
- Zinn focuses on the knife, which had been found
In the crook of roberto's arm.
- The knife was laying against the shirt.
And we have significant soaking blood
That's present in the-- in the sleeve of the shirt
And on the body portion of the shirt.
Yet we don't have any blood
That's been transferred from the shirt to the handle
Or the hilt of the knife.
- The blood separation at the crime scene
Had investigators speculating
That susan hadn't called 911 right away.
And now this finding further strengthens the notion
That something suspicious occurred
During that time frame.
- The lack of any wet blood
Transferring from the clothing to the knife
Indicate the knife came to rest in that position
A period of time after mr. Villegas went to the floor.
- That knife appeared to have been placed there.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Sergeant zinn also points out a mighty peculiar detail
In those injuries susan got from the knife.
- All of those marks were parallel to one another,
Which would support the notion that the arm was stationary
At the time and was not actually
Moving as part of a defensive mechanism
Or action on her part.
- Just common sense, if somebody is holding you
And running a knife across your arm,
Your first reaction as a human is fight or flight, ok?
So you're going to pull away.
And in pulling away, you're going to get jagged-edged cuts.
But susan's wounds are more in line with self-inflicted.
- All these pieces together have investigators thinking
That susan was surely up to something.
- It was an attempt to stage evidence,
To mislead investigators,
Or to advance
A contrary narrative as to what occurred.
- As investigators digest this startling finding,
Six days after his death,
Roberto's loved ones come together to mourn.
- Roberto's funeral was really sad.
I remember like yesterday the pallbearers crying.
Everybody loved him.
- He is dead. This is actually my life now.
[somber music]
I feel robbed to grow up having a father,
Because that's extremely important in this world.
What did I do to deserve this, you know?
What did I do in my past life?
Little boy think--why does god hate me so much?
♪ ♪
- I would be remiss if I hadn't attended.
You can gain a lot of information
From people that you meet.
So I got four or five friends that we talked to.
- As police gather information,
The tight-knit polo community
Trade their own notes on susan.
- We wanted to know what happened to our friends.
And the story started coming out.
- And roberto's close friend, jean marie turon,
Shares a story of his own.
- Jean marie turon ran the polo school.
And before roberto,
Jean marie was the original instructor
For susan.
And she actually initially took interest in jean marie,
But he was in a relationship, spurned her advances.
[suspenseful music]
Jean marie saw something in susan
That the rest of us didn't, and that she might be trouble.
At the funeral, I remember jean marie come to me and say,
I told him to stay away from that girl.
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[pensive music]
- As roberto villegas is laid to rest,
His close friend jean marie turon
Confides in his inner circle
That he'd been pursued relentlessly by susan cummings
Before she got involved with roberto.
- She became fixated on him beyond the polo lessons,
To where she would show up at a restaurant
And he would be with his girlfriend,
And then susan would come in and kind of stare at them.
[indistinct chatter]
It was almost a "single white female" stalking
Kind of obsession.
So that really freaked the guy out.
I remember turon was saying,
That was an original red flag for him.
[tense music]
- When it became clear jean marie was a no-go,
Susan set her sights on roberto,
Leading some to wonder if this was actually love,
Or she'd been looking for a ticket into a world
That she long envied.
- She wanted a polo star like him
As an entrée into that community.
She didn't have to change her personality at all
To get into the social circles now,
Because roberto was her way of interacting.
- And now, as the trial nears,
The rumor mill goes into overdrive
And even more information about their relationship
Spills out from the community.
- Somebody told me along the way of her being
Frugal or penny-pinching.
- There was talk about how susan was always
A very tight person with her money.
And the more you look into the arrangements
Between susan and roberto, the stranger it gets.
This is a woman with billions in her family,
Gobs of money, an heiress.
He was her star polo player,
And the hired hand without being paid.
- Roberto would be getting up in the morning,
Feeding the horses, starting to exercise them,
Grooming the horses, and then having team meetings.
Like, what's our strategy going to be?
- He did the horses, the polo,
The transportation, the trailer.
- But with such a favorable arrangement,
What drove susan to pull the trigger
On that fateful fall morning?
- There were just the two of them
In the kitchen that morning.
So how did we know what they are arguing about?
Was it speculation?
Or was it fact?
- I heard they had been to a polo match in pittsburgh
The day or two before.
And he told his friends,
Susan doesn't want me to take the horses to the benefit,
The big polo benefit for argentina.
- She claimed that they were burnt out,
That they had already played too many days in a row.
- Susan bought the horses.
They were her horses.
- So she felt like
She was entitled to call the final shot.
- He was adamant on taking them.
He said, that's my country.
- That would have been the most important thing in the world
To him based on people that I've talked with,
That he got to play with the argentine national team
In front of the argentine national ambassador.
- When roberto dared to defy susan's orders,
Did she murder him in a fit of rage and wrath?
[gunshots]
Without solid proof,
Investigators can't say for sure.
And though the media's been pounding
At her grand old estate door,
Susan's more closed off than ever.
- She declined all the cameras,
The magazines, "vanity fair" and so forth.
She didn't have any interest in that.
She would tend to the horses and spend time with her sister.
And that was about it.
- Though she's not saying a word,
Her defense attorney, blair howard,
Insists susan is the real victim in this nasty affair.
And he's prepared to prove it.
- We put in months of work.
The strategy was to locate people,
Particularly women, that had been involved
With him that had similar abuse.
I've got the investigators out there looking for these people.
There was a lot of people in the community who had
Spoken out about what a wonderful fellow villegas was,
But that wasn't the real roberto villegas.
He was a violent person.
And I'm going to call witnesses who will testify
To his violent behavior.
- ♪ come home to the gallows pole ♪
- ♪ judgment day shall come ♪
[country music]
- ♪ my goodness gracious ♪
♪ let me tell you the news ♪
♪ my head's been wiped with the midnight dew ♪
- As the trial started, every network was in fauquier county.
I mean, they had to close off main street to the courthouse.
There had to have been two dozen bands of media.
- With a lineup of experts,
Prosecutors lay out their case against susan.
- In trial, we knew, you can't refute the physical evidence.
It is what it is, and it tells a story.
- As a reporter sitting in the courtroom,
You're thinking, there's much more to this case
Than a woman traumatized by her boyfriend
And shooting him in self-defense.
- It looks like a cold-blooded murder.
- That is, until blair howard steps up to the plate.
- If they can't attack the physical evidence,
They're going to attack the victim.
- And that's exactly what howard does,
With witnesses painting roberto not as a victim,
But a villain.
- We had two men who both, independently of each other,
Say that they had an experience in which
Roberto pulled a knife on them.
- One of roberto's former flames
Also testifies to his sinful behavior
When she decided to end their relationship.
- She said that he became very, very angry
And that he tried to run her off the road
And scared her to death.
- Howard solidifies his case
With firsthand witness accounts
Of roberto abusing susan.
- Now a ferrier, who was someone who came out
And shoed susan's horses with regularity,
Saw roberto verbally abuse susan.
And on one occasion, he actually saw
Roberto slap her in the back.
And he said roberto told him,
I treat my women just like my horses.
If they refuse to do what I want, I'll kill them.
[dramatic music]
- Roberto wasn't an angel.
People told me that he liked to play head games emotionally,
Whatever it may be.
But I had nobody tell me that he was physically violent.
♪ ♪
- He was being kind of painted as a victimizer postmortem.
And he couldn't defend himself at that point.
- After eight days of testimony,
The jury heads into deliberation
To decide susan's fate.
- We were confident with our case.
- The evidence that we presented,
That we gave to the jury, shows mr. Villegas was shot
While he was sitting in that chair eating breakfast.
That's where I stand.
[dramatic music]
- After nearly nine hours,
The jury finally emerges with their verdict.
- When I heard, "we, the members of the jury,
Find the defendant guilty," it's not good news.
[soft music]
But then I heard "manslaughter"
And I was somewhat relieved.
- Based on what I had,
She should have been convicted
Of at least second-degree murder.
Do I think she got what she deserved?
No, I don't.
♪ ♪
- A manslaughter verdict limits susan's sentence
To a maximum of 10 years, removing the prospect
Of life in prison.
It takes the jury exactly 40 minutes
To decide what punishment to dole out for susan's sins.
- She was sentenced to 60 days
In jail, a $2,500 fine.
- There's no other way
To interpret that other than,
You did wrong.
You took another person's life.
But because of the egregious activity toward you,
The threats to do you physical harm,
We think it appropriate to
Get your attention with some time in jail.
I was obviously relieved for her
And pleased at the verdict that was returned.
- Not everyone's as pleased.
- You just murdered someone.
That's not how this should go at all.
- The polo community was universally outraged by that.
- There was a sense that she had definitely
Gotten away with something.
- Though many felt susan got off easy in the criminal case,
Five years later, she's back in court.
This time, it's a $15.35 million
Civil wrongful death suit.
The plaintiff?
Roberto's now 10-year-old son.
- My mother initiated it.
And they end up making me the plaintiff on it
Because they felt the beneficiary should be me.
We flew to the civil suit, to virginia.
And that's the first time I saw susan.
I was just staring at her as hard as I could
Because I wanted her to feel that,
You know, I'm still here, you know.
I'm half my father.
But she refused to make eye contact with me.
- Before the new trial begins,
Her legal team opts for a settlement.
- I'm not allowed to talk about the amount,
But money can't replace family.
But I let her know what she did to me.
Now I'd like to move on and find god
And live a happy life.
- And for those in roberto's tight-knit southern enclave,
His memory will always live on.
- In that polo community of virginia,
He was such a beloved figure.
And that's why the tragedy was so immense.
- He was full of charisma, generous heart.
And he was everybody's best friend.
[somber music]