reporter: agent schnitker wanted to know what might be going on behind closed doors in the fazzino marriage. he listened to another 911 call. and he s taking everything of mine and trying to take pills, too. reporter: one week before her death, emily called 9-1-1 to complain about alex. he s like trying to take property that is not his. emily came home inebriated the night before, and i d had it. i d had it. and i grabbed whatever pills i could grab and i was gonna flush them down the toilet. and she got angry. she got angry. she called 911. reporter: no one was arrested or charged in the incident, but it seemed to be the breaking point. the next day, emily filed for divorce. then alex did the same. both asked for full custody of the children. and both were still living in the same house. a few nights later, emily called her father, rick. the words were saying one
tub? i don t think so. reporter: and there were bruises on emily s neck. she had strap muscle bruising, so muscles to her neck area that were of concern that maybe she was possibly held under the water by her neck. remember, alex said he d tried cpr on emily. those injuries couldn t be caused by somebody trying to do c.p.r., even somebody who didn t really know what they were doing with c.p.r.? our feeling is no. how could emily have gotten those bruises? well, i know she hit her head when i was getting her out of the bathtub. or you would when i picked her up, i mean, i heard it. i heard it hit when i was pulling her out. her her head hit. the side of the tub? the floor? i don t know. i was heaving her out. it was so hard to get her out. would you have bruised her neck doing that? i don t know.
why do you ask? he says, well, i wanted to make sure the vicodin i prescribed you are working. i said, excuse me? and, i mean, i started crying. you hadn t asked for any vicodin. correct. reporter: vicodin is an opioid, a powerful pain medication that can be highly addictive. emily had asked for the prescription, saying it was for alex, but he says she ended up taking the pills herself. alex says he confronted emily. i said, you re gonna have to choose between your family and this medicine. i said, i m not gonna stay married to you if you continue down this road. and she said? she said, okay. reporter: she said it, and she may have meant it. but alex says in the months before she died, emily would seem okay one day, but not the next. i could see in her eyes they, like, a glaze. she and then she would be fine for a period.
yeah. within a within a day. you re a murderer? that s what they were saying. reporter: and not just a murderer. emily s sister, ammie, told investigators alex was also a mobster. did you say that alex and his family are in the mafia, in organized crime, and that women who try to divorce their way out of the fazzino family wind up dead? that was information that emily had told me. ammie doesn t realize that, of my mom s six siblings and my dad s one sibling, there have been 11 divorces. those people all still alive? they re not all still alive, but none of em were killed. but they weren t murdered. right. so the fazzinos are not some hooked up organized crime family? no, and i resent her saying that. reporter: alex insisted the allegations were ludicrous, and that s also what investigators determined. did you pick up in your investigation any indication that the fazzino family is involved in organized crime? no. you didn t find any evidence that that
alex says he heard emily start her bath as he and the kids watched a show. there was a lot of sward fig sword fighting and things like that and music and really loud. when it got quiet, i could hear the water still running. alex says the water was running for about 20-30 minutes. so he went upstairs to see what was taking so long. he came upon a horrible scene. em long island was submerged in the tub unconscious. i tried as hard as i could to get her out of that tub as fast as i could. she lipd out of my arms. i start screaming for help. i ran to the phone to call 911. and all i could say was help. help. what s going on. what s going on.