perfect fit. i wanted to be that person that would show up that would help my parents, help my sister if she was in a car accident or something like that. reporter: but he also saw the dark side of city life. a little too close to home. i would do shootings and stabbings two blocks away from my apartment, and i always thought to myself that i could just never raise a child in this area. reporter: so in 2002 paul and his wife, catherine, went house hunting in narrowsburg, new york, a small hamlet tucked between the catskill and pocono mountains. they didn t need to look for long. it was the big red house as she called it. and she would talk about the big red house all the time. reporter: catherine s brother michael and sister-in-law joanne said she worked hard to make the big red house a home. growing up, we lived in apartments. you know, this was a space of her own. yeah, she was thrilled to have five acres or ten acres of property, and she loved it there. reporter: t
it proves nothing. there s a picture of the license plate. there s no picture of who s in the vehicle. how do you know as we re sitting here now that scott sherwood or possibly michelle were not in that vehicle? the answer is you don t. reporter: and greenwald dismissed that receipt from the walmart in middletown. is it just a coincidence that someone went into walmart around 1:30 in the morning the morning of catherine s death and bought a hat, gloves, and duct tape, all the things that were supposedly used in her murder? okay. first of all, mr. sherwood admitted under oath to me that he got to middletown at 12:00. he never could have been there at 1:30 or so because he was out by 12:15. reporter: still, there was an age-old motive, money, to explain away. and in our interview paul himself had an answer for that. are you having any financial issues at this point? actually, at that point i was in a much better financial situation than i had been
i still miss my daughter the same. i miss her, no matter what happened to her. i miss her. reporter: seven months after catherine s death paul and his girlfriend packed up the kids and their apartment on long island and moved 1,000 miles south to florida. i figured with my experience that it would probably be pretty easy for me to get a job somewhere. kind of a fresh start? a fresh start. i thought it would be good for the kids. great school, nice neighborhood. reporter: but paul said not long after their move things with michelle started to sour. when they first met, she was a paramedic in training. he was her teacher, her friend. she had confided in him about her history of mental illness, long bouts of depression and alcohol abuse. but now he says her problems were beginning to take a toll on their relationship. his young daughter, a sore spot. she was very jealous of natalie. and her mental issues definitely became more apparent as time went on.
reporter: their romance blossomed, and she eventually moved in with paul and his kids. do they look up to him? they worship him. they completely worship him. he s always up with them, checking homework. we do a lot of things as a family. is it a nice life? mm-hmm. we were really happy. really, really happy. and then you get a knock at the door. yep. yeah. that was a tough day. reporter: it was an early morning in september 2012. four years after catherine s death. i was asleep. i just got off of work. i worked 12 hours at the hospital. and i remember my girlfriend comes in and she goes, there s something fishy going on outside. there s two police detectives outside and they want to talk to you about your car being involved in a hit and run. reporter: but when he arrived at the police station he saw a familiar face and realized this had nothing to do with a car accident. this is investigator kelly from new york. so i m like, okay. so he sits down, he grabs a chair
welcome back to dateline. i m craig melvin. after the mysterious death of his wife catherine, paul novak was trying to move on. he relocated to florida and had a new girlfriend. but then came that knock on the door and detectives placed paul under arrest. soon, he would learn that someone was claiming they had disturbing new details about the night of the fire. paul s world was about to turn upside down. once again, here s andrea canning with secrets & lies. reporter: catherine novak s death had been a cold case for more than three years when, out of nowhere, a witness came forward, pointing a finger at catherine s estranged husband, paul. so who was this mystery witness? a woman from paul s past. his ex-girlfriend, michelle.