her equilibrium gone, in a whirl of bad feeling. i was hurt and angry with him and myself and it was just unbelievable to think that those two years had been a sham. oh, yes. and in fact more than one sham, a whole quilt of shams. detectives back in northern california had begun to uncover details of a double life which appeared to be, shall we say, prodigious. it seemed like at every turn there was another woman that this guy had some involvement with. coming out of the woodwork. there was quite a few of them. he said he was recently single. like pamela icles, for example, who responded to ernie s ad in march of 2008 in the dating section of craigslist in las vegas. she met him for drinks. ernie s personality was very nice, friendly. the two made plans to have dinner march 14th, 2008.
but about 2:00 in the afternoon, said pamela, ernie called to cancel. saying he needed to go home. that his parents house was broken into and burglarized. and they were both murdered. but in the weeks after the murder ernie s craigslist conquest resumed. he did it in las vegas. he did it in new orleans. he did it everywhere he went. and he got lots of responses. does that surprise you? it surprised me that he was able to form the level of intimacy very rapidly with so many different women that he did. kimberly olson was one of them. kimberly formed a very intimate relationship with ernie scherer. met him in september 2008, six months after his parents murder. she was at a casino in mesquite, nevada. he came over and said he needed a pretty girl to blow on the dice at his craps table. so. he was a smooth talker. now, that s a line.
sure looked like his car to a cop s eye, anyway. trouble was they couldn t see the license plate or the driver s face. could have been coincidence. and even that, the car and the other evidence they gathered, wouldn t be enough to persuade a d.a. to file murder charges. so the cops brought everything they knew to the forgotten woman in our story, ernie s wife robin. she had been left behind when ernie took off a couple of weeks after the murders. when she saw what investigators had, she was not only ready to divorce ernie, she told the police she d help them by attempting to bluff the poker player. [ phone ringing ] hello? hi. hi. how are you? detectives recorded this phone call in which she tells ernie about the video but chooses to embellish the facts a bit, telling him his face was visible. the video was sent to a studio like disney or something and was enhanced. and it looks like you in your
to testify against his own grandson, his namesake. and once again, adrian had a date to see ernie in court. they asked you to testify. they did. it was overwhelming and terrifying. adrian told the jury about ernie s two years of deception, the double life, all those lies. i made it a point not to look at him during the entire time i was in the room and during the entire testimony. was it enough for the jury? ernie s defense jumped to its task, arguing that the evidence, the red chevy camaro on the surveillance video, the dead cell phone around the time of the murders, asking his friends to buy a gun, all of that could have been simply coincidence, it could be explained away. and besides, said the defense, there was actual physical evidence to prove someone other than ernie committed the crime, that speck of bloody dna found number one of the shoe prints at the crime scene. the prosecution argued it was just a mistake, contamination.
her good heart, her ability to reach out and help people. which she d also been doing professionally for decades as an accounting teacher, said this colleague at cal state east bay. she not only wanted to help the students with the particular subject area and the class, she also wanted to help the students with their career and their life. so who was responsible? who knew? not a suspect in sight. i instantly got my phone out and sent him a text message. the minute adrian solomon heard what happened, she reached out for her ernie. they decided to meet in san francisco for dinner that very night. even though we weren t in a relationship anymore, we d been friends for a long time. i felt good that i was able to be there for him. he got really upset during dinner. i was just there to be a listening board for him. and that was that. until a few days later when ernie phoned again very upset.