they had no idea if anyone was still inside. does anyone live there? yes, yes, the kids! are they out of the house? i don t know. neighbors knew paul wasn t there. he wasn t living in an apartment three hours away with his new girlfriend. that morning he got a call from catherine s pastor. i picked it up and it was pastor phyllis she goes, where are the kids, where are the kids? i m like, they re with me. what s going? she goes, the house is on fire. firefighters worked for hours dousing the flames. when catherine s friend sue muller arrived, the fire was still we raging. she stood vigil for hours, waiting to hear news of her friends. all of a sudden, the firemen were all concentrated in one area looking down into the basement. and then the local funeral home was there with the body bag. and i saw them bring the body
into the house and she would know. according to michelle, paul wasn t with her on the night of a murder. that alibi was a lie. instead, he said was with another paramedic who drove to narrowsburg. as far as i know paul walked out of the house. michelle said paul told her he went inside, set off the basement smoke alarm, hid behind the stairs, and when catherine came downstairs to investigate, he tried to knock her out with chloroform. this was supposed to be quick and painless and, you know, she was supposed to be passed out before she knew what happened. but i guess he put over her mouth and it didn t work. she was screaming and begging for her life. through her tears, michelle spilled out gruesome details of
the positive side, the good things. and she would want us to move on. and that s what we try to do. we made our peace with it. and we went on living. but as time went by, in the last little town of narrowsburg, dark suspicions were whispered from neighbor to neighbor. and one name kept coming up, catherine s estranged husband paul novak. her close friend, sue muller. i was angry as time went on, and as i thought more and more about it, and i thought paul might be involved. as she looked back, she was particularly haunted by the way paul acted the day of catherine s memorial service. the whole congregation was sobbing so loud. i mean, the pastor couldn t even finish her sermon. i went up to him and i held him and was struck by how he didn t show any emotion. after 11 years of marriage, you would ve thought she might ve meant a little bit more to him. that he might shed a tear. but i didn t see any.
inside my own house. this was no surprise to ilona and her mom who loved catherine, but never approved of michelle. what are your first impressions of michelle? we didn t like. why? she walked into my mother s, and she immediately wanted to catherine s pictures, she turned them around because she thought that catherine s looking at her. paul said that it took a little longer than his family to realize that he had michel were not the best match. they have been together for three years when he found out that she was cheating on him with a married man. he didn t want to stand for that so we had to ask her to leave. and he did it very nicely, and she did not want to go. and what paul described as a bitter breakup, he forced michel to move out and told her it was over. we by that time, it had been more than two years since catherine s death. investigators back in new york had moved on to other cases. the years were ticking by with no new leads, but the da was a
but there was no evidence that paul had anything to do with catherine s death. no dna or fingerprints at the crime scene. no witnesses. he had even passed a polygraph test. and he had an alibi for the morning of the fire. he was three hours away with his girlfriend michelle in their apartment on long island. paul continued to enjoy his new life in florida with his two children. working again as a paramedic and now dating a new woman he fell for quickly on match.com, kat delgrasso. we started texting and we made a date. and we went on the day and really that was. it was instant? instant. instant. what was the attraction? i don t know, it s really hard to put your finger on something like that. we just seemed to had an immediate connection. there was zero stress talking. no uncomfortable-ness. their romance blossomed and she eventually moved in with paul and his kids. do they look up to him?