of 1992, krystyna was four months pregnant with roger s baby. when did you learn that krystyna was actually pregnant? that was the sunday right before roger s death, maybe three days. prosecutor lewis told the jury this was motive with a capital m. beverly, the 54-year-old girlfriend, desperately afraid that this dramatic development would end her life with roger. indeed, prosecutors showed the jury an unsigned contract detailing how roger would support krystyna and the baby and possibly even live with them. there s a baby now. this is real. we ve got to deal with this. it s not going to go away. now it was time for the defense, and beverly s attorneys had a bold, if risky, strategy that would put roger himself on trial. the defense hoped to prove that roger wasn t a victim, he was a villain.
and had roger discovered something else that might have soured the deal? beverly s attorneys show the jury results of a test dated the very day roger died revealing that krystyna had learned the sex of their unborn child. roger burde, the man obsessed with a male heir, had fathered another daughter. he didn t want this at all. you think he felt trapped? i know he felt trapped. beverly told us what she told the jury, that she knew roger had shortcomings, but after more than a decade together, wasn t about to give up on him. he was going through such a hard time, that he literally asked me to promise not to abandon him. and i said i wouldn t. and so i was going to help see him through this regardless of what was there, regardless. regardless of what cost to you? i didn t see it as a cost to me. what cost was there to me? certainly an emotional cost if this is a man who s begun an
beverly told authorities her boyfriend had committed suicide. i was standing by the couch, and i just hit the floor. i don t know if i fainted or what. i just sank down to the floor. beverly called the police and told them he committed suicide and then telephoned her daughter katie, who she says was devastated but not surprised. it seemed within keeping absolutely. to roger s character that he might kill himself? absolutely. somebody whose mood swung. somebody who s so complicated. he was seeking something to be loved and admired, and he had absolutely no idea how to get it. katie was especially concerned how roger s death would affect her mother because beverly s father had also committed suicide. she lived with it all of these years, and i remember thinking, oh, god, not again. beverly says she was in a
hail mary pass because the courts refused to review 90% of such cases. but in a huge victory, in april of 1999, a federal judge agreed to hear beverly s case. steve northup and katie monroe believed beverly had been convicted of murder based on statements that were coerced. they obtained detective riley s investigation notes, which katie described as revealing. he decided up front that it was a homicide, and he decided up front that my mom had done it. and then he viewed everything through that lens. and, she says, once the detective zeroed in on her mother, he resorted to police dirty tricks, and his bullying took its toll. he wore her down. and he caused her to second guess herself and her memory. but prosecutor jack lewis contends beverly wasn t coerced, saying she went along with riley because she had to explain why she flunked that polygraph and would say anything to keep the suicide theory alive.
she knew how desperately roger wanted a boy. northup says that, if indeed the state was right and roger had been murdered, there was ample evidence that others had reason to kill him. and the evidence added up to reasonable doubt. so you believe the prosecution simply did not prove its case? oh, i definitely believe that. one of the things that you learn if you spend any significant time with beverly, is it s really almost inconceivable she could do something like this. she s just not that kind of person. coming up, would the judge agree that beverly was innocent? beverly s daughters fight for their mother. the checks and balances that people expect or that should be in the system, they re not there. after six years of fighting bltds [ sniffs ] i have a cold. [ sniffs ] i took dayquil