it was her daughter-in-law diana. detectives knew that diana s friend, karen hamm-samuel, had bought the tracfone that called peggy s house just before she was murdered. diana had told police from the beginning that she d been in washington, d.c., to attend a wedding. but her alibi was wobbly. diana couldn t account for her time in d.c. she hit washington at about 9:30 and didn t reappear again until about 8:00 the next morning. reporter: so detectives called diana, asking her to fill in the gaps. i just have to confirm that you were up in washington. is there somebody i can talk to? what do you mean? we had to keep it real simple with her. listen. we just want to get you cleared. where did you spend the night? reporter: what did they not tell diana? detectives had a warrant and they were tapping her phone. police now sat back and listened as diana made multiple calls to
assistant d.a. moran didn t think so. peggy would never have let a stranger like andrea benson into her house. so that had to be a friendly voice on the phone? yes. reporter: detectives thought that voice might have belonged to diana, but they had nothing to put her on the scene, in peggy s house. at this point, is susanne off the hook? diana is now the higher suspect. susanne wasn t off the hook. reporter: they could be in this together? correct. yes. that s where it was. reporter: because they both benefited. absolutely. yes. reporter: now eight weeks into the investigation detectives still didn t know who had killed peggy nadell. with suspects in florida, d.c., and new york, detectives came up with a new strategy. and their phone expert liked it a lot. gutsy. like, i mean, a lot of people don t go to those lengths on a homicide case. i thought it was a brilliant strategy.
reporter: soon clarkstown police detectives stephen cole-hatchard and earl lorence were on the scene. they noticed that susanne looked a wreck, standing in front of the house in the snow. susanne is in the driveway, at the foot of the driveway, kind of pacing, looking rather frazzled. reporter: she told detectives what she told the 911 operators, that peggy tripped over the cat. her mother must have tumbled down the stairs and stabbed herself with the knife. reporter: while detective cole-hatchard stayed outside with susanne, detective lorence went inside the house. this is police video of the scene taken that morning. lorence knew right away, this was no accident. no way did she fall down the stairs and trip over a cat. reporter: detective lorence saw peggy had been strangled, then stabbed. and it also looked as if she d been beaten with a statue head found under her body and a gold metal ball near her hand.
she did say he has a gun and i m frayed he might use it, i m not gonna stay here, i m gonna go spend the night at my brother s house. that same day, saturday october 23rd, beth stopped by the nantucket police department to ask about which filing a restraining order. for her to stop at the police department, that probably tells you all you need to know about what was going on inside of her. yeah, i would think so. i think she had well founded fears, especially after the incident in new york when he held her captive. beth did not file the paperwork, she spent that night and the next at her brother peters home. she was frightened enough not to go home. i would have to say she had fear that something would happen to her. on monday october 25th, best return to her cottage in the morning collected his clothes, mail them back to him. she returned to the cottage and
move from where you were living because it wasn t safe. are you safe right now? the question is hard. i have left my home and i m in my brother s house. it is really hard to live here with my best friends, some of family members and also, sorry, it is hard for me to leave my house and yes, i now i m okay because i don t go out and we have to be safe but if you go out, there are talibans, group of taliban walking on the street and if we go out, they ll.