over time, yeah. through school events, or? through that and then, our sons both did karate together. they were in the same karate class. tom and gil also hit it off and became close. talking sports and watching giants games. and like tom, gil was a hands-on dad. he went to all his son s karate classes, where he would see linda. so gil and i would sit next to each other and just talk. and this was, like, three times a week for an hour. what was it about gilberto that you liked? very friendly, very personable. a year went by before linda says she realized something was happening between them. every time he would leave, he would give me a kiss goodbye. on the lips? for him to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, you know, see ya next week. kinda thing, really wasn t that big of a deal to me. like, it was kind of his
at that point, i was banging my head against the wall. linda was also growing frustrated. she was now a widow, a single mom, shunned by her husband s family and eagerly waiting for a break in the case. a lot of time passed without an arrest. torturous. every day are you wondering, is today the day or is it never going to happen ? you would kind of get through a point where you d say, okay, we re going to live our lives and when it happens, it happens, you know? and then they d need something from me. and i d get pulled back in again. one of those times police met with linda to explain there was a problem with the original autopsy. turns out it was incomplete because back then, no one suspected poisoning. many samples like the contents of tom s stomach that might have proved midazolam as the actual cause of death weren t saved for testing. so the da s office decided to do something radical. he said, we need to exhume tom s body tomorrow. i just started sobbing. and
ya. but he had he had a way about him. he had a very smooth, i wanna say, almost sexy way about him. with the with the accent. latin thing goin on. yes, yes, totally, totally. his personality was sucking me in. it was early 2011. both gil and linda s marriages were going through rough patches. in all honesty, you know, tom and i, we were havin some struggles in the home. what were you struggling with? i think probably the same stuff that every marriage after ten years struggles with. you know, paying the bills, workin two jobs. real-life problems. yeah. and they were stressful. so was was gilberto a little bit of an
that is in my office or anything like that. i have nothing to do with whatever was in tom s system. i had nothing to do with any of that. did you give him a polygraph, as well? we offered. did he take it? no. the next day after that interview, we were contacted by a lawyer stating that there d be no further contact with his client. meanwhile, linda was reeling from all that police had told her. from the images of the white suv in the video, to the drug in her husband s system that a dentist like gil would have access to. like investigators, she now believed her lover had killed her husband. i didn t ever want to speak to him again. but saugerties is a small place, and within days linda says she found gil waiting for her outside a chinese restaurant. he s sittin in the parkin lot and gets out of his car and starts screamin at me and we d get in a huge fight. and he s, like, they re tryin to pin this on me and they say you were involved.
doesn t care about anyone but himself. tom s family hoped the jurors felt the same. i thought that the case went very well for us and that the defense didn t do a good enough job to place doubt, i was pretty confident at that point. in the jury room, 12 men and women got right into it. fran kwak and joseph dolan were two of the jurors who debated the friendship between tom and gil. i believe they were best friends. you do believe that? oh yes. as odd as it may seem, they had a lot in common. they loved a lot of the same people. the police believe totally the opposite, that gilberto wanted to make you believe that they were best friends but they really weren t. i wasn t so sure about that. what? about the friendship? that they were best friends. i mean, i just find it difficult to believe that. but if the friendship was confusing, they say the security video made one thing clear. did you both believe that