>> he was stressed out, something was going on there. >> what had happened to ray? soon it wasn't just doctors and his family asking that question, it was detectives. >> this was most likely not a suicide. >> he had enemies. he received a surprise package from one. >> this man sent my dad a bomb. >> we were there for a surprise phone call from another. >> she went into this. >> oh. >> can i get snt. >> yeah. >> one second. it is josh mankiewicz from "dateline." is there anything you want to say? >> no shortage of suspects, just a shortage of detectives. >> the police department running out of money is not usually one of the things you think of. >> no. i pressed on. i did what i had to do. >> would she ever find justice? >> it is your father. your father is murdered. you are not going to give up. ♪♪ welcome to "dateline". on a warm day in august of 2009, 65-year-old ray kotomski quenched his thirst with a cool drink, but that drink contained a secret. a potion so sinister kotomski would be dead within hours. not only did investigators have to figure out what killed the happily retired pennsylvania man, but would who want him dead and why. here is josh mankiewicz with "something sweet." >> the course of true love takes some strange twists and turns. particularly when it flows out of an online dating site. occasionally a cyber fling blossoms into a marriage. this is the story of one of those marriages. what went right and what did not? back in 2002 ray kotomski was a 60-year-old happily retired former corrections officer living comfortably by himself in a house in the pennsylvania woods after his 36-year marriage had ended in divorce. ray had three grown children. monica is his middle child. tell me about your dad. >> a man's man. he loved outdoor kind of stuff. he loved hunting, fishing. a hard worker. he had a heart of gold. . >> after his divorce from monica's mother, ray was lonely. the next step was as close as his keyboard. >> so he tried online dating? >> yeah. >> yeah. did you make that face when he said he was doing it? >> yes, absolutely i did. yes. yes, i did. >> you said, you never know who you're going to wind up with? >> that's right, yeah. >> and when he tells you he met someone? >> he said he liked her. he was going to go on a few dates with her. >> the woman ray met was teresa bowers lovin. she lived one state over in ohio. a 43-year-old nurse's assistant. teresa had three kids herself. a grown daughter and son and a younger son at home. >> i've kind of known her my whole life. . >> beth burcham is a friend of teresa's who grew up with teresa's daughter, sara. the three women all went to meet ray on the first date >> she was, like, well, i'm going to go meet him. do you guys want to go with me? >> reporter: so what did she think about him? >> oh, i really like this guy. i'm going to see him again. >> reporter: and see him again she did. soon teresa was driving two hours to be with ray on weekends. teresa's son josh was a high schooler when his mom and ray got together. >> he made my mom happy. she definitely had a smile. she hadn't smiled like that in years. . >> things were clearly clicking for josh's mom and ray. in may 2004 they got married. friends and family say ray couldn't do enough for teresa, starting with an elaborate wedding. >> your dad kind of doted on teresa? >> yeah. >> spent a lot of money on her? >> yes. >> did whatever she wanted. >> absolutely. >> took her out. >> absolutely. >> pampered her. >> absolutely. >> sounded like he was an old fashioned gentleman type. >> yes, he was. >> it seemed a match made in cyber wedding. the newlyweds bought a house close to teresa's family in ohio. but happily ever did not last. in october 2006 came a terrible blow. teresa's daughter was killed in a car crash, leaving her infant daughter and toddler son without a mom. roy lovin jr is teresa's older son and sara's brother. >> she was 21 years old, on her way to work one morning, and i guess hydro planed, swerved and hit a tree. >> parents are not supposed to bury their children. >> no. and then the fact that she had two little babies, two little kids and the fathers were not really in the picture, somebody had to step up and take them kids. >> and that was your mom? >> she was the first one with her hands out, ready and willing to take them. >> teresa and ray transitioned from the joy of hand-them-back-when-they're- crying grandparents to the daily grind of surrogate parents to 2-year-old gavin and baby helena. then not long after her daughter's death, another blow. her daughter was diagnosed with cancer. they did the right thing. they were soon spending alternating weeks at a cleveland hospital where she was being treated. ray even shaved his own hair when the little girl lost her hair from the chemo. helena's cancer went into remission but ray and teresa's relationship suffered collateral damage. according to teresa's family, the strain of becoming a father again had made ray toxic. he was, they said, angry and drinking more beer than usual. >> mom was scared. so mom couldn't tell him to cut back on his drinking. i mean he was stressed out or something was going on there. >> it sounds like a pretty unhappy guy. >> totally. >> ray's family says he was fine and that his drinking was never a problem. but by august 2009, teresa apparently had enough of ray. she and the grandchildren moved to an apartment in a nearby town. on tuesday, august 11th, a few days after she moved out, teresa and ray reconciled enough to take the grandkids to lunch and feed the fish at a state park. the following day, teresa left the children with her friend beth and went back to the house to do laundry. what teresa said she found when she got there mid-morning was a clearly sick, nearly naked, somewhat incoherent ray. he refused to let her call a doctor. teresa told beth about it. >> she said he was acting so weird when she came back to get the kids and he wasn't feeling good. >> the next morning when she couldn't reach ray on the phone, teresa asked her mother, who lived near ray, to check on him. when teresa's mom got to the house, she found ray unconscious. she called teresa, who alerted 911. >> no, i need an ambulance. >> okay. >> he's down. barely not -- it's my husband. >> all right. i'll send the ambulance. >> all right. thank you. >> teresa phoned beth and raced to be with ray. >> what did she say had happened? >> that her mom had found him on the floor naked, unresponsive. >> the ambulance arrived at the house around the same time as teresa. emts scrambled to stabilize ray. teresa rode with her husband to the nearest hospital. there an emergency room team struggled to revive him, but whatever ailed ray, it was too serious a case for the local hospital. he was taken to a level two trauma center in erie, pennsylvania, and he was barely clinging to life. coming up, a medical crisis but also a mistry. what had happened to ray? investigators uncover their first clue. >> he had those crystals, there was no question? >> no question. >> when "dateline" continues. nurse mariyam sabo knows a moment this pure... ...demands a lotion this pure. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin. we're carvana, the company who invented car vending machines and buying a car 100% online. now we've created a brand-new way for you to sell your car. whether it's a year old or a few years old. we wanna buy your car. so go to carvana and enter your license plate answer a few questions. and our techno wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds. when you're ready, we'll come to you, pay you on the spot and pick up your car, that's it. so ditch the old way of selling your car, and say hello to the new way at carvana. ♪i want to break free♪ (vo) ready to break free? let's get away to a place where we can finally be free. ♪i've got to break free♪ (vo) plan your getaway with norwegian. sail safe, feel free. early audiences give "sing 2" an a+. i counted nine smiles, two belly laughs and five chuckles. it's a heartwarming crowd-pleaser. woo! -i love you! i don't suppose any of you could tap dance, huh? ♪ come on, dance with me ♪ it's the holiday event you won't wanna miss. ♪ come on, dance with me ♪ ♪ i'm levitating ♪ ♪ i'm levitating ♪ [ groans ] i think she's trying to kill me. . ♪♪ a worried family converged on hamot medical center in erie, pennsylvania, on august 13th, 2009. there in the icu ray kotomski lay deathly ill. doctors tried to determine what was killing him, and blood work told the story. ray had somehow ingested a toxic dose of ethylene glycol, antifreeze but it looked as if they figured it out too late. even in small amounts, just a few ounces, it is almost always fatal. ray's daughter monica was with her dad. >> he was just laying in bed. >> how did he look? >> horrible. >> what were you thinking? >> i didn't know what to think because nothing was making any sense. >> ray kotomski had missed the narrow window in which antifreeze poisoning can be reversed. end-of-life discussions with doctors began. as his wife, it was teresa's call. three days after he was admitted to the hospital, teresa told the doctors to let him go. her son, josh, watched teresa make that agonizing decision. >> she was devastated, absolutely devastated. i could see it in her face. >> hard to do? >> uh-huh. >> ray's death was referred to dr. eric vey, the medical examiner in the erie county coroner's office. >> by the time mr. kotomski got to you, antifreeze poisoning was already suspected so you were looking specifically for that? >> my job at autopsy was just to confirm the presence of the crystals in the kidney which clearly indicated he had ethylene glycol on board. >> and he had those crystals, there was no question? >> no question, slam dunk. >> the medical examiner determined that the cause of death was ethylene glycol poisoning but the manner of death was listed as undetermined. teresa said ray told her he drank something sweet around the time he got sick, and antifreeze had a very sweet taste. she also told the er doctor in the ohio hospital that ray had been threatening to kill himself. it was looking like suicide. ray's children didn't buy it. what were you thinking? >> the only thing i was thinking was i didn't believe the whole he drank something sweet, it was antifreeze. my dad would never do that. all of us knew that. >> and so when ray kotomski died, the wheels of justice began to slowly spin. taylor cleveland is a detective with the county sheriff's office. >> we received a call from the erie county coroner's office, and they wanted to give us the earliest heads up that they could that there was probably something in this case, raymond kotomski's death, that was not natural, something that was quite possibly a homicide. >> if this was homicide, investigators had plenty of work to do. >> raymond had been a corrections officer. >> yes. >> and had unquestionably during his career dealt with some pretty bad guys who were locked up? >> yes. >> cops started looking into ray's past to see if someone was settling an old score. three days after his death, techs processed teresa and ray's house as a crime scene, but it had been cleaned by the time they got there. ray's bedding was in an outside trash can. there were numerous crushed beer and dr. pepper cans and, in the garage, right where you'd expect to find them were two containers of antifreeze, one sealed, one open. and that told investigators nothing because there were no fingerprints or dna on either container. >> how long after raymond died did you speak with teresa? >> a couple of days after. >> typically when investigators start looking back at somebody's marriage, they see either a great marriage or a bad marriage or something in between. this was what? >> according to teresa, this was not a good marriage. >> she admitted that? >> yes. >> so she had to be a suspect pretty much right from the get-go. >> unfortunately, wives kill their husbands and we see that quite often. so you have to at least look at her. >> teresa laid out for investigators her actions in the days leading up to ray's death. she again said she tried to get ray to seek medical assistance when he first got sick, but he refused. she said ray had been miserable and unhappy, and she speculated that he committed suicide. this was looking like intro to detective work 101. teresa, the suspect's spouse, had means, motive and opportunity. but when investigators dug deeper into the strange life and times of teresa and ray kotomski, their case took a head-snapping turn in the direction of a totally new suspect. coming up -- a blast from the past. >> this man sent my dad a bomb. >> turns out there was someone who had tried to kill ray once before. when "dateline" continues. at v, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. there's a different way to treat hiv. it's once-monthly injectable cabenuva. cabenuva is the only once-a-month, complete hiv treatment for adults who are undetectable. cabenuva helps keep me undetectable. it's two injections, given by a healthcare provider once a month. hiv pills aren't on my mind. i love being able to pick up and go. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems,...and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns, and if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. some of the most common side effects include injection site reactions, fever, and tiredness. if you switch to cabenuva, attend all treatment appointments. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. ask your doctor about once-monthly cabenuva. new vicks vapostick. strong soothing vapors... help comfort your loved ones. with once-a-month cabenuva, i'm good to go. for chest, neck, and back. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort. try new vicks vapostick. every day in business brings something new. so get the flexibility of the new mobile service designed for your small business. introducing comcast business mobile. you get the most reliable network with nationwide 5g included. and you can get unlimited data for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. ♪♪ ray kotomski was dead and his wife teresa believed it was a suicide, but law enforcement thought this smelled like a murder, that someone had poisoned ray with antifreeze. detectives looked for his killer among the thousands of the worst of the worst criminals that ray had spent a career guarding in pennsylvania's maximum security prisons. >> raymond was not the corrections officer that all of the inmates hated and, you know, vowed to get even with once they got outside? >> quite the opposite. that raymond and the people that raymond associated with during his time at the prison were generally respected and did not run into a lot of problems with inmates. >> so to the cops, it didn't look like anyone from back in the day had it in for ray, but there was someone from his and teresa's recent past who had once wanted ray out of the way, if not dead. detectives learned that in the winter of 2003, when ray and teresa were first getting to know one another, she was also seeing another man she'd met online, a fellow by the name of robert reichard, and she left ray for a few weeks to be with robert. when teresa went back to ray, robert did not take that well, not another all. >> robert was infatuated with her and wanted teresa to leave ray, to leave ray for him. >> reichard stalked the couple. he vandalized teresa's car and then it really escalated. >> robert sent raymond a letter bomb. >> a real bomb? >> a real bomb. a functional, working bomb. raymond went to his mailbox, found a package that looked odd and brought it to the state police barracks. the bomb squad detonated it. >> if raymond did open that package, would he have been killed? >> he would have been severely injured if not killed. robert said at the time that he had wanted to be with teresa and that he thought that raymond was in the way. >> now, when i look at teresa i guess i don't see the femme fatale that guys want to kill for. >> neither do i. >> but it is there? >> in some fashion, yes. >> ray's daughter monica remembers a phone call from her father about the bomb. >> his voice was shaky. it was something i have never heard before. >> what did you say, what did you think? >> i didn't know what to think. i -- i think at first i couldn't believe it. >> robert reichard pleaded guilty to manufacturing a firearm and was sentenced to five years in prison. he was paroled just months before ray kotomski became mysteriously ill. >> did you wonder whether he had anything to do with it? >> yeah, absolutely. i mean teresa was the last one with him, but this man sent my dad a bomb. >> monica wasn't the only one wondering about that. >> when you discovered that somebody else tried to kill your victim and is now out of prison, that changes everything? >> it does. we -- we had one of two options in this case. either it was a wife killing her husband or some elaborate plot to finish what mr. reichard had started and was unsuccessful with. >> detectives tracked down their new suspect. >> he was living what appeared to be a normal life in western pennsylvania. >> you or other investigators probably spoke with his employer, co-workers, family? >> investigators from our office spoke with a lot of people associated with robert reichard. >> could you track mr. reichard's movements? >> he was not on gps monitoring at the time, no. >> so if he was going to see teresa or if he was going to stalk raymond, no one would have known about it? >> a fair assessment. >> he certainly would have access to antifreeze. >> everybody has access to antifreeze. >> while detectives were trying to find out if teresa's ex-boyfriend turned letter bomber had anything to do with ray's death, they dug deeper into teresa's past, but the investigation went slowly. weeks became months and ray's family counted the days. >> it just felt like we were getting swept under the rug. >> some people would have given up in that instance? >> how could you? it's your father. your father was murdered, you're not going to give up. >> so what did you do? >> i pressed on. i did what i had to do. i made sure that there was justice. >> that was easier said than done. hard times were coming to ashtabula county. two strong suspects, but the case is about to go cold. why? because instead of looking for killers, detectives are looking for work. coming up -- >> all kinds of things go wrong in murder investigations, but the police department running out of money is usually not one of the things you think of. >> no. >> when "dateline" continues. age before beauty? why not both? visibly diminish wrinkled skin in... crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond. ever notice how stiff clothes can feel rough on your skin? it's because they rub against you creating friction. and your clothes rub against you all day. for softer clothes that are gentle on your skin, try downy free & gentle. just pour into the rinse dispenser and downy will soften your clothes without dyes or perfumes. the towel washed with downy is softer, fluffier, and gentler on your skin. try downy free & gentle. recognized by the national psoriasis foundation and national eczema association. hi susan! honey? yeah? i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad... try this robitussin honey. the real honey you love... plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? now get powerful relief with robitussin elderberry. ♪♪ i'm dara brown. here is what is happening. nearly 2,500 flights were cancelled on christmas day due to the spread of the omicron variant. thousands of travelers were left stranded at airports, almost 200,000 new covid-19 cases were reported in the u.s. on christmas eve. scientific history was made this christmas. nasa launched the world's large ebbs and most powerful telescope into space. more than 30 years of development went into the project. the telescope will seek out the most distant stars and galaxies in the universe. now back to "dateline." ♪♪ welcome back to "dateline." i'm natalie morales. the investigate into whether ray kotomski's death was murder or suicide would suffer a setback few saw coming, but ray's family was not about to give up. could a group of amateur sleuths help answer the many questions? here again is josh mankiewicz with "something sweet." ♪♪ >> in america our do-it-yourself culture extends even to killing. there are more than 40,000 suicides each year in the united states, far more than the number of homicides, and that was the issue. there wasn't any question what killed ray kotomski. that was antifreeze. but by whose hand? ray's widow, teresa, and her family maintained a despondent ray killed himself when teresa left him. ray's children and the cops thought it was murder. two theories. and if murder, two possible suspects, teresa, the grieving wife, and teresa's fresh-from-the-slammer ex before boyfriend who had once tried to mailbomb ray out of the way, but his story was checking out. >> we just couldn't find anything other than his prior association with raymond that would suggest that he did this. >> what kind of vibe did you get off mr. reichard after raymond kotomski's death? >> the last thing that he said to me was, that could have been me, and he looked -- he looked concerned. he looked like somebody who had dodged a bullet. >> i'm guessing now she and robert reichard changed places in the suspect pantheon? >> 100%. >> she is at the top of the list? >> yes. >> but the investigation into the death of ray kotomski was about to turn as cold as ashtabula county in february for a very odd reason. >> shortly after this case was investigated by our department, there was a financial collapse and we laid off about 90% of our officers. >> the county, what, ran out of money? >> yes. >> and the result was -- >> murders were not getting solved. >> ray kotomski's case was one of them. his children were not happy. >> i wasn't trying to be a pain in the butt. i didn't want them to drop the case. >> then the county runs out of money. >> yeah. >> i mean all kinds of things go wrong in police investigations but the police department running out of money is usually not one of the things you think of. >> no. >> and for almost two years, nothing happened. >> yeah. >> monica's two children were out of the house. she was able to take time off from helping her husband with his construction business and devote hours to her mission. >> i sent letters to everybody. i was constantly calling the sheriff's department for new information and whatnot, but i wasn't getting anywhere. >> and meanwhile, back in ashtabula county, life went on. >> what was teresa doing during those 18 months that you weren't able to investigate? >> she was filing for life insurance, collecting life insurance from raymond kotomski. >> some of the $150,000 in insurance went to buy a house where teresa was raisin her grandchildren. and about a year after ray's death, there was a new man in her life, tim shumaker, was an over-the-road trucker when he and teresa found each other. >> how did you and teresa meet? >> on the internet. >> what did you like about her? >> she was attentive, just a sweet lady. >> before long tim and teresa were living together. tim gave up long-distance trucking for a job closer to home. >> did she tell you she was a suspect in a murder investigation? >> she told me. >> and she said, i didn't do it, i didn't have anything to do with it? >> she didn't have to say she didn't do it. i knew she didn't do it. >> ashtabula county's investigation may have been frozen in red ink, but ray's daughter, monica, was still in action, e-mailing, cajoling, pleading. >> i wrote letters to the ohio attorney general and i got a phone call, and they -- they said they were looking into it. >> ohio attorney general mike dewine had recently started a cold case unit, and in september 2012, three years after ray kotomski's death, dewine's office reopened the case with teresa the prime suspect. >> i didn't want her to get away with murder. my prosecutors and detectives didn't want to see that happen either. >> those investigators were glad to be back in business. there were reasons they liked teresa for ray's murder. one had to do with a story they heard about her first marriage. >> her previous husband, roy lovin, told us that teresa had put rat poison in his mashed poe potatoes. >> and he knew that how? >> roy said he took two bites, put some in their son's mouth. roy said that he got pretty ill after. >> and their son was okay? >> their son was okay. roy said he never gave it a thought until their german shepherd was poisoned. ray said he never connected the two until raymond was poisoned. >> teresa's son from that first marriage is roy jr and he says it never happened. >> there is a story out there that your mom tried to poison your father. >> it is all lies. >> why would your father lie about this? >> maybe he is jealous. maybe he -- maybe he feels that she ruined his life. i don't know. maybe it was his way of getting back at her. >> and there was a polygraph exam she took early in the investigation. the examiner had asked teresa two questions. did you poison ray with antifreeze and do you know who poisoned ray? teresa's answer to both, no, which was also the answer to whether teresa was telling the truth. >> she failed her polygraph test. >> that lie detector failure was inadmissible in court, but it helps convince cops they were on the right track. they turned the heat back up on teresa. >> and they told her that they know that she snapped and she -- she killed him. she needed to confess, they kind of threatened her. >> she didn't bend to that? >> no. she goes, well, i want a lawyer. >> teresa's family and friends like beth burcham rallied around her. they felt ray's family just wouldn't or couldn't face the fact that he committed suicide. >> i think they don't want to believe that ray would do that, i really do. >> you think they're just looking for somebody to blame? >> yeah, other than ray. >> but on march 28th, 2014, five years after ray's death, officers surrounded teresa's house. >> we knocked on the door early in the morning, told teresa that we had a warrant for her arrest and she was under arrest for the murder of raymond kotomski. she didn't look surprised. >> she kissed me and she was going -- she almost started balling, but something -- god came over her and she was okay. >> i was crazy happy. it was like, wow, we finally got somewhere. >> after a few days in jail, teresa was released on bond. law enforcement officials knew the case had problems. ohio attorney general mike dewine's people gave ray's family a depressingly realistic appraisal. >> we told them all along this is going to be a tough case, be prepared. be prepared for a loss. >> we might not win this? >> we might not win this case. coming up -- proof teresa is innocent or proof of the perfect crime? >> did you find any dna on the part of mrs. kotomski? >> no, we found no dna. >> and you found no fingerprints, correct? >> that's correct. >> when "dateline" continues. 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[ yelling ] wayfair is my therapy. amen, kim! yup! i'm hiding from my kids, as we speak. ♪♪ it was july of 2015, almost six years after ray kotomski's death, when his wife, teresa, went on trial. there were two charges, contaminating a substance for human consumption and murder. both part of the accusation that teresa poisoned ray with antifreeze by somehow slipping it into something he ate or drank like beer or soda. teresa's lawyer, veteran trial attorney paul hentemann, was confident. >> there was no question in my view she was absolutely innocent of the crime. >> prosecutors offered teresa plea deals which would have resulted in little jail time. >> she was absolutely categorically convinced she did not commit the crime and she felt god was in her corner and she was not going to be convicted of any crime. she did nothing wrong. >> another twist. attorney hentemann asked for a bench trial, no jury. judge gary yost alone would rule on teresa's guilt or innocence. if she killed ray or if he committed suicide. in her opening statement, prosecutor emily pelphrey attacked the idea that ray killed himself. >> he was planning for his future. he loved his grandchildren. >> the doctor who treated ray in the hospital where he died testified teresa herself said ray was not suicidal. >> and she had indicated that she had not mentioned anything about feeling suicidal at that time. >> no, the state argued, this was murder. medical examiner dr. eric vey testified that antifreeze killed ray. >> he died as a result of complications of ethylene glycol toxicity. >> but exactly how antifreeze kills was critical to the state's case. >> when somebody ingests antifreeze either deliberately or because somebody else gave it to them, what's the progression of symptoms? >> well, initially they'll appear to be drunk or stuperouss and then they will become progressively lethargic and then become com owe toes and then start to have congestive heart failure and then go into renal failure and eventually die. >> you can sort of estimate when they ingested the antifreeze based on where their symptoms at are that point? >> that's right. you can get a rough estimate of when the ingestion occurred. >> the keystone of the state was when they could show when ray ingested the antifreeze. >> you were able to establish a timeline? >> when ems arrived at his residence he was lethargic and almost comatose. we know at that point he is probably 12 to 24 hours in. >> the me's estimate dovetailed with the prosecutor's timeline that ray must have ingested the antifreeze the day he and teresa took the outing with the grandchildren. to support their timeline prosecutors introduced this voicemail. ray left it for a friend several hours after the state says teresa poisoned him. >> i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry. >> on the tape, the prosecution argued, ray sounds drunk. >> have i told you that i think you're a nice person? please call me back if you can. okay? bye. >> prosecutors say he was really in the stuperous of antifreeze poisoning. >> we contend that's when the antifreeze was ingested. >> and they argued it had to have been teresa who gave it to him because no one else was with ray then, and how did they know that? well, from what she told this fbi agent. >> she stated that over that week he did not have any visitors and she was the only one there. >> in addition to their science-based timeline that put teresa in the bullseye, the state wanted judge yost to consider teresa's behavior while ray was dying. in the gallery monica wept as her younger sister, kimberly, testified how teresa ended life support for their father without consulting ray's side of the family and the terms she said teresa dictated for releasing ray's body to her. >> the conditions were that i had to have him cremated and that she wanted to make sure i wouldn't be the beneficiary. >> it was all part of a pattern, prosecutors argued, that added up to murder. >> the state contends there was absolutely no evidence that it was all reasonable to conclude that anyone other than the defendant, mrs. kotomski, is the one who provided that antifreeze to her husband. >> when the defense had its turn, attorney hentemann told the judge the state had no case, not a scrap of evidence. he got the fbi agent who took teresa's initial statement to concede she may have been confused about whether she was even with ray on the day the state says she poisoned him. >> she may have been wrong about that, correct? >> she could have been wrong about that. >> this was suicide, he argued, not murder, and what practically proved it according to the defense was the fact that ray did nothing to save himself. >> and one can conclude if someone gave you poison and you became ill, what would be the first thing you would do? you would call the police or you would call a hospital. that never occurred. >> hentemann then attacked the state's most glaring weakness, a total lack of physical evidence connecting his client to containers of antifreeze. lead detective taylor cleveland was cross-examined about the absence of any forensics. >> did you find any dna on the part of mrs. kotomski? >> no, we found no dna of mr. kotomski or otherwise. >> and you found no fingerprints of mrs. kotomski on the can, correct in. >> that's correct. >> teresa's attorney went after the prosecution's timeline. he got one of the state's medical witnesses to concede she couldn't tell exactly when ray drank the antifreeze. >> but you don't know how long that he suffered from it nor do you know how much he had ingested? >> correct. >> under cross-examination, the m.e. admitted he couldn't answer the question at the heart of the case. >> that means you don't know whether it was a homicide or you don't know whether it was a suicide, is that a fair and correct? >> that is correct, yes. >> hentemann produced his own ebbs pert witness to refute the state's toxicity timeline as suspect science. >> it is impossible to determine when the ethylene glycol may have been ingested because it may have been ingested as one dose or -- at one time or several smaller doses over an undetermined period of time. >> in his close, attorney hentemann suggested all of it amounted to, at the very least, reasonable doubt. >> i'm suggesting to you that it's a suicide, and if the facts don't add up, then you have to rule in favor of the defendant. >> teresa never testified. her family and ray's waited as judge yost retired to his chambers to make his decision. coming up -- >> i was so afraid that she was going to get away with it. >> i have faith in her. >> the verdict, when "dateline" continues. i was uncertain... was another around the corner? 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>> yeah, we're done. she got away with it. >> it is a moment monica will look back on for the rest of her life. >> were you looking at teresa? >> yeah. >> and thinking what? >> i have hate. i did. >> the judge reads the second count. >> the court finds that the state has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, teresa kotomski, is the person who administered the antifreeze to raymond kotomski. the court finds the defendant guilty of murder. mrs. kotomski, do you wish to make a statement at this time? >> your honor, i want you to know i did not hurt my husband. i did not give him poison. i did not give him anything to harm him at all. i loved my husband. i swear before god. i never, ever, would hurt anybody, especially my husband. >> the sentence was mandatory. >> an indefinite term of imprisonment of 15 years to life. >> i love her and i want to be with her, and i have faith in her. i don't think she's guilty. >> tim shumaker, teresa's boyfriend of five years, is standing by his woman. he's raising her grandkids, and not long after teresa began serving her sentence tim asked her to marry him. teresa said yes. >> you meet this woman. she's already a suspect in a murder investigation, and then she is arrested and tried and convicted. you could find somebody who wasn't locked up, but you don't want anybody else, you want her? >> yeah, i want her. >> why is that? >> because i love her and i -- i want to spend the rest of my life with her. i think she's an awesome woman. she's -- she's everything that a man looks for in a woman. >> while we were talking with tim, he got a call. >> she went into details. [ phone ringing ]. >> oh, can i get it? >> yes. >> it was teresa calling from behind bars. she and tim caught up for a few minutes, and then he put her on speaker. >> hi, teresa. it is josh mankiewicz from "dateline". >> hi. >> hi. how are you? >> could be better, could be worse. >> i understand you and tim are engaged. >> yes, we are. isn't that awesome? >> congratulations. >> thank you. thank you. i appreciate it. >> is there anything you want to say? >> well, i just -- i just want everybody to know that, you know, i'm innocent. i didn't do what they're accusing me of doing. i loved my husband, and some day we will know why he did what he did. >> you think he killed himself deliberately? >> i think it was an accidental suicide. i think he took in that antifreeze, enough to make himself sick and called me out there, thinking that i would feel sorry for him because that's the type of person i am. >> this call is originating from an ohio correctional facility. >> i just want to be clear. you think ray took the antifreeze deliberately to make himself sick and get you to come back to him? >> yes. yes. i believe that his intentions was to get me to come back. >> do you think you'll be out of there one day? >> i believe i'm going to be out of here. i believe that the truth is going to set me free. i'm hoping that somebody really goes over this and finds out that i had no part of that, because they have no evidence on me. they have none because there's no evidence there. >> i love you. we're going to get cut off, babe. >> thank you for using -- >> yeah, we got cut off. >> okay. well, thank you for letting us talk to her. we wanted to interview teresa in person, but our request was denied by the department of corrections. teresa's hypothesis that ray took antifreeze so she would come back to him is one that her family and friends to a person are on board with. they see teresa as a decent person who somehow attracts men who through no fault of hers become obsessed with her. >> let me make sure i understand. one guy, mr. reichard, wants to kill to have teresa. another guy, roy, makes up a story that she's a murderer because he doesn't want anybody else to have her, and ray tries to kill himself to get her to come back. have i got that about right? >> yeah. >> do you know anybody else around here who leads that kind of life and who drives men to do those kind of things? >> no, no at all. >> what's her secret? >> i have no idea. i think she's just a good woman. >> that's pretty much the opposite of what ray's daughter monica thinks. for her, this was all very personal. >> this was my dad. this was -- this was justice. this is the way it should be. you killed my father. somebody's going to pay for this. and damn well right she's gonna. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. ♪♪ thank you for watching ♪ i'm craig melvin and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline". this is the entrance to the park where richard was killed. the gunman lay in wait in this secluded dark place at night. . >> one way or another, that's an execution. >> absolutely. >> they were a busy, married couple meeting up for a romantic valentine's night rendezvous, but that night someone had other plans. >> he's been w