police were saying you were involved? and i was, like, okay. you know, liar, and he was, like, i didn t, i didn t. but while both linda and the police were convinced gil was behind tom s death, investigators had no solid evidence. that grainy video didn t conclusively put him at the scene and they couldn t prove the sedative found in tom s system came from gil s office. the district attorney told his chief investigator they didn t have a case. we didn t have the evidence that i felt or that my boss felt was compelling to put before a jury. but the investigation wasn t over. detectives were hoping they would find gil s d-n-a in tom s car and link him to the crime scene. while they waited for those test results, they let tom s family know they were investigating the death as a homicide. tom s ex-wife, michele, called linda for an explanation. linda told me she had had an affair with gil. she was crying on the phone,
and i would see him lunchtime. linda thought it was a well-kept secret. but maybe, not so much. a few months into the affair, someone tipped off tom with an anonymous text message. he comes right at me with it. you know, i m getting these text that is you re with gill. what the hell s goin on? it s so scandalous. and i said, this is what s been goin on. i i cleared the table. you know, i have been having an affair. it was with him. was there any part of it that felt, i don t wanna use the word good, but you got it off your chest, you weren t carrying yeah. around this secret anymore? it did. because then, because then at least i could talk to tom about it. at one point he said to me, linda, i can see he has some kind of hold on you. he s like, i see it. and he did. and linda told us what detectives had found so hard to
do i have doubts about his whether he murdered someone? absolutely not. why are you so sure that there s not a darker side to gilberto nunez? i m not sure about anything. i think there s a darker side to all of us. people are complex. but there s absolutely no evidence that the guy committed murder. in court, gilberto was represented by two heavy hitters from new york city, evan lipton and gerald shargel who had previously defended mafia boss john gotti. they argued that the prosecution s case against their client was pure fantasy. they say that gil is such a schemer, but the plot they ve described here, it s like something out of a bad lifetime movie. the defense said if anyone was manipulating things it wasn t gil. it was linda. they read her texts to gil sent the very weekend she said she was rekindling her relationship with tom. i love you, i miss you. miss holding your hand. that soft spot scar on your face. mwah mwah mwah. can you just picture it? you re
you texting her lover? they weren t repairing things. so gil had no reason to kill tom, the defense said because he didn t think the affair was over. reporter, james nani. linda admitted on the stand that up to the night before mr. kolman died that they had still seen each other, they had still spoken via text. i think that weakens the prosecution s narrative that there is an obsessive person that ll do anything to get this person, to get linda to go back into his arms. the defense was trying to say that you re telling tom one thing, you know, that you wanna patch things up, you re telling gilberto another, stringing him along. yeah, i was. was there any truth in that? or did you feel that was unfair? no. there was some truth to it cause, you know, i i was stringin him along. we were playin his game so that he wouldn t kill himself over the holidays.
crying that this had happened and she didn t use the word, responsible, but i know that s what she felt. tom s daughter jillian, who d been close with her step-mom, was now furious. why would you do this, how could you be so irresponsible, just mad really and confused and trying to process, it took a long time to process. i stopped talking to linda at that point. linda s sister was also finding out about the the affair for the first time. she was just very sad and very upset. and i think embarrassed or ashamed for having been in a relationship other than her marriage. what did you tell her as the protective older sister?