Encounters with other couples there. Are you still intimate . Yes, we are. Say that again. Objection. Betrayal. Its that he didnt love her. He loved me. And finally, a verdict. The years of waiting. The years of mourning her. We needed justice. Heres Dennis Murphy with mystery in south beach. If youve spent anytime down here, youve probably sensed there are really two miami beaches. You know this one by reputation anyway. South beach. A pulsating playground with energy that serves out of the ocean and exhausts itself in the allnightclubs. And then theres old miami beach. Here are the sunburned backstreets of squat apartment blocks where decades past the old people used to sit out in aluminum chairs. And thats where a young couple, wendy and michelle were trying to make a go of it. The rent was cheap, the window air conditioning good enough. But if you ever thought Beautiful People catch all the breaks, then listen to this story of 21 year old wendy, because she may be the most gorgeous doomed young woman to ever walk these streets. She was model pretty. I dont think that she thought of herself as anything spectacular. Didnt become the central part of her personality, i am pretty girl . No. It wasnt what she was about. Her older sisters and stepbrother tell her she was a bit of a daddys girl. Her father an international airplane pilot who died when wendy was just 6. Wendys mother raised her with big sister rita always pitching in. I was like that other mother for her because i was alongside raising her. The love of animals was always a part of wendy. She was always rescuing some animal, a dog, a pup eypy or a kitten. But allergies would end her passion to be a vet. But she did have another passion, and it was for fashion and makeovers. Oh, my goodness. Pretty girl. At easter, she memberably dekd out her nieces. Theres this story of the classmate without a dress. One girl couldnt afford to go to the prom, and wendy got this girl prettied up, got her a drerks everything. That was the heart she had. After graduation, two cousins who owned their own salons urged wendy to follow in their footsteps. So at 21 after a brief marriage she enrolled in beauty school, and in 2002, thats where she first saw michelle roll up on his fire red motorcycle. Michelle was a web designer and teacher of computing. But he was looking for a career change. He thought hed try hairstyling. So he enrolled, as fate would have it, in the same Cosmetology School as wendy. Michelle who fancied himself as a sensitive guy poet had a string of admiring girlfriends. But wendy, prettier than any other woman in his wardrobe was a prized catch. When i met wendy, he was on a motorcycle with her. I told myself, its that beautiful girl. I dont know what he did to get this girl. Whatever he did, it worked. The pair falling quickly and deeply. They were Like High School sweethearts. She was totally in love, sparkling in the eye. He said im going to buy her her own motorcycle, and its going to be great. Within six months, they were living to the on south beach, wendy gave michelle a makeover, dying his hair blond, perfect for the club scene. They lived for the day. Then came unexpected news, wendy was pregnant. Her mother miriam had mixed feelings. How did she feel that her baby was having a baby . Delighted with being a grandmother but not delighted with the circumstances. Wendy had had the Big Church Wedding for her first marriage. This time they got married at the city hall. You may kiss the bride. Congratulations. The next day, wendy and michelle set out for a brief weekend honeymoon. A drive down the florida keys to key west where the road ran out. Sunset drinks, dinner at a hotel room. Three days aft wedding, they were back in miami beach sunday evening. Wendy called her mother to say they were going to a movie and then dancing later at a club. Her mother urged her pregnant daughter not to drink. Then, in the middle of the night, the wee hours of monday morning, wendys mother got an unexpected call from her newson in law, michelle, saying theyd had an argument. Wendy had stormed off saying she was going to her mothers house. Since then, the bride groom said hed repeatedly called wendy without success. Right around then in a bleak Warehouse District miles and miles from the afterhours bars in miami, a sanitation worker was startled to see the body of a young woman in a blue dress slumped between two vehicles. It was the newly wed, wendy. News traveled fast. I get a phone call from my stepmother, screaming, crying. Wendys dead. They took her from me. She told me its on the news. And i went looking. And theres my sweet little sister being put on a gurney, and its just so surreal. This desolate warehouse place. All i kept thinking about was her being alone there by herself and praying to god that she didnt suffer. The killer, who blunl onned her to death also erased the beauty of her young face, a honeymoon weekend for the new bride had ended behind Yellow Police tape. Coming up. Who killed wendy, and why . Was it a kidnapping . A carjacking gone bad . Or did it have something to do with miamis wild nightlife . Whats been going on with michelle in this club scene . He did admit to having encounters with other couples there. The dark side of life in sunny miami. Is coming up. Have agreed to. Kid for a night. So we can finally get some sleep. The hotel has to be right. You can get a 4star hotel for up to 60 off, even at the last minute. In the neighborhood where we wanna go . Yes. You just wont the name until after you book. Hmm. Ooh. Definitely. Its all about sleep. Its not all about sleep. Yeah, well, for me it is. Lucky me. And a razor that understands my sensitive skin. 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Woolite detergents clean your save jeans and wont torture your tanks. So clothes look like new even after 20 washes. Miami Dade Police Detectives maria and gus had barely clocked in for their monday morning shift when word came down of a homicide in a bleak Warehouse District. Its where they found, in a parking lot, the body of wendy, flung between a car and a van. We could see the spatter of the blood on the van, meaning that whoever did it to her did it to her receipt there. So the body hadnt been disposed of there. This is the place where she was killed. Right. Her head had been bashed in, but there was no weapon to be found. What type of a rom side is this . Is this a robbery . A drug deal that went bad . Tell me what youre taking in about the victim . She is a young girl dressed like shed gone out the night before. She didnt have her shoes on, which is unusual. Why is this young girl in this industrial parking lot. No reason to be now this forlorn part of the county. No. Unless she met up with someone. So the detectives headed out to do the part of the job that never gets easier. So you delivered terrible news. Horrible news. Amid the shock and tears the detectives pieced together a picture of who the victim was. Sunday morning, the phone call, wendy sounded okay the detectives were told, but the next call at 5 38 from michelle asking if she was at her moms was worry some. He met her at her job. He was very troubled and worried about where she could be. Michelle, it turned out, was about to get an official answer to his where is she question. While were talking, the phone rings and its michelle calling. Again, asking his motherinlaw had she heard from wendy. Detectives grabbed the phone and asked where he was. They headed over to michelles apartment to deliver the news about his girlfriend of eight months, his bride of four days. We walk into his apartment, when he blurted out, is she dead . And we explain were investigating a death of wendy, et cetera. He started balling up. Doubled up, crying. Police gave him a few minutes to compose himself before going down to headquarters to answer questions. There he rae counted the brief honeymoon. There he said wendy had an idea of adding spice. Lets extend our honeymoon. So as michelle told it, around midnight they checked into a miami hotel that features fantasy suites with a private pool and jacuzzi. They had sex, slept a little and dozed off. Around 4 00 they checked out and headed home. Thats when they had their first argument. Michelle walked into the apartment leaving wendy in the car. Tree minutes later he comes out. When he comes out, the car is gone. Wendy is gone. Michelle spoke with detectives for 14 hours. They asked him repeatedly if he could identify anyone with a motive. He said he couldnt. After leaving police headquarters, he saw his friend ramon santa cruz. He was looking depressed. He looked down. Maybe tired. Five days after her murder, wendy was laid to rest. And then friends and family gathered at her parents home. Detective bias was there as well and learned something about the couple that would send the investigation down another path. A thread of this investigation takes you into the swinger lifestyle. Whats been going on with michelle and wendy in this club scene . After i, im informed of this, that wendy was part of a Swingers Club, a place called the miami velvet down here in south miami, the first thing i did was i called michelle. He did admit to having encounters with other couples there. So now you got to wonder, did somebody have a thing they developed about wendy, and is that person maybe the killer. It turns out the club is within a mile and a half of the scene. So i wanted to explore that. The Swingers Club was cooperative, and detectives took dna samples from a few employees and members. They would have to wait for the results. In the meantime, the investigation was turning up a new lead, a. Toer girlfriend of michelles, her name, yolanda. Yolanda is a person that had a relationship with michelle before he met the victim. According to her, michelle left her for wendy. She loved michelle. She was very much in love with him. Yolanda, a single mother, was she also a woman scorned . Michelle left her just six months earlier and to add insult to injury asked her to watch his dog while he was on his honeymoon with wendy. To go to the extent of taking care of somebodys dog during their honey moon, its just, as a woman, very strange to me. Does yolanda become a suspect, a woman who feels that she was cashiered, fired because of this other woman. Theres a lot to yolanda. A lot of bad, if you ask ramon santa cruz. I didnt like her from the beginning, because she was very evasive. The apartment was always dirty. She was never a good person to begin with. Detectives met with yolanda who freely admitted that shed been devastated when michelle dumped her, but she had no idea who beat his wife to death. She said she didnt know anything about it. But the detectives noted Something Else about yolanda. She lived just a few minutes from the parking lot where they found wendy. When you start adding up all the Little Things together, then her proximity to the cream scene, im very interested in yolanda. No one knew, yet, what yolanda was hiding. That would come later, and so would the revelation of a motive that seemed to explain every violent little thing. Coming up, a million reasons why someone wanted wendy dead. I asked him how much who would want to murder pretty wendy . Did her killer meet her at the sexual swapping club that her boyfriend took her to . The cops ran down those leads. The theories went no one. What about yolanda . The detectives guts told them that yolanda knew more than she was saying. And then there was the husband himself. They kent going back to their notes from the 14hour interview with him. At times it had been pulling teeth. Once we asked him over and over again, is there anybody with a motive, anything at all, anything you can tell us. I brought up the fact dont you have a Life Insurance policy . And he said yeah, we do. A hefty one, it would seem, for a healthy 21 year old woman he wasnt even married to at the time of purchase. I asked him how much is the Life Insurance policy. And he said a Million Dollars. And i said a Million Dollars. And you dont think thats a motive . You dont think thats important to tell us . And he said no, i dont, because i have a Million DollarsLife Insurance policy on myself, too. And i said, well, thats not in question because youre here, youre alive. One thing that they revealed is that she was not pregnant. Michelle shut down. Would you take a polygraph, no. Can we photograph those bruises on your arm, no. Take a dna swab . No. He didnt talk himself off your list. No, he did not. The working theory of the crime was as simple as it was brut. He bashed in her skull for the Million Dollar payout. A tire iron was missing from her car, a likely weapon but nowhere to be found. So you go to the prosecuting attorney and say grand jury . Its not that easy. Why isnt it that easy . You got to prove it. Got to prove it. So the police let their person of interest go. In the meantime, wendys family had huge suspicions about michelle. Sister rita wasnt crazy about him from the moment she first met him. Call it bad energy. I shook ma that mans hand, and i was wiping my hand as soon as i let it go. It was eerie. This guy definitely didnt pass the sniff test. No. The fact that hed bought a Million DollarsLife Insurance policy on her only confirmed his guilt. Of her murder would remain unsolved for a long time. Wed be frustrated. You know, the family of the victim, and were sitting there waiting and waiting. And then michelle did something bold. He sued the Insurance Company to pay him his Million Dollars. Would a guilty man be so brazen to do that . The family said absolutely. The family got a lawyer, and they went after michelle. We briefed he waselieved he. Two years after the murder, they filed a wrongful death suit against michelle. The Insurance Company put the money ines cr escrow and waited out. If michelle wanted any part of that money he needed to do something he hadnt done before. He cannot plead the fifth. So he has to testify. At this point, police and prosecutors were happy to help the familiar lipay prepare thei. We asked if we would be allowed to rook at the statemlo statements that he had given and we were. He was taped as he gave a deposition. His story kept changing. So the story about a fight and she takes a hike no. It didnt add up. He testified that wendy had, it was her idea all of a sudden that night to go to the miami executive hotel. However, back in 2002,io rhonrah yolanda, told police michelle had asked her to make the reservations for them. During the deposition he also admitted that yolanda was no longer his ex. Hed moved back in with her not long after wendys death. Are you still intimate with yolanda . Yes, we are. Do you have any plans of marrying yolanda . Plans as such, no. There had been one question about michelle and yolanda that had nagged detectives since 2002. They learned through phone records that on the night of the murder michelle paged yolanda at 2 00 in the morning. We find out that her daughter was not sick. So theres no reason for a middle of the night communication. No reason whatsoever. When the civil case finally went to trial, michelle got so roughed up that on the send dco day he was a no show in court. Wendys mother got the insurance money and prosecutors got to hear about his constantly shifting stories. The state attorney was taking notes. Did you have a little chitchat outside . We did. What did you say . This is your case. You have all the evidence right now. We gave him the deposition testimony anding. Michelle was arrested three days after his court no show and was charged with the murder of his wife. But police thought they needed more, so they fixed their eyes on the girlfriend, yolanda. I knew that as time goes by that relationship would deteriorate. Why did you think that . Because if they had that secret amongst each other that would be a friction. Thats two corrosive . Yes. How do you reel her in . Time. Time changes relationships. And it did. In 2006, one year after michelle was arrested, yolanda and her attorney went to prosecutors and said lets make a deal. She got full immunity in exchange for telling how she helped michelle that night. She came into the state Attorneys Office and explained that she did take him away from the crime screen. Thats a great story to tell the jury. Yes. Thats it. Police may not have had a murder weapon or helpful forensic clues, but now they haddio lawn dhad io la olanda. Coming up, an arrest and a kwns who was there. Its not the end of the story but the beginning of a whole new drama that would play out in court. Every story has two sides, especially when its a lovers triangle. I dont put it past her as being a person who would have committed this crime. And should a spurned lover be believed anyway . It was all a plan that he didnt love her. He loved me. Things were heating up. Huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Yeah. Everybody knows that. Did you know there is an oldest trick in the book . What . Trick number one. Lookest over there. Ha ha. Madeest thou look. So endeth the trick. Hey. Yes. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you. Well, you know. Wash in sweet dreams with tide, downy, and bounce. 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