for that baby. she wanted to be a mom. this wasn t somebody thinking about suicide. exactly. it made me wonder was he a murderer? you are trying to prove a murderer with pretty much no evidence. correct. is he kind of gloating he got away with it? he is thinking, well, catch me if you can. we are going to do her and her family justice. we are going to solve this murder. hello, and welcome to dateline . meg purk was a young mom to be, over the moon to be having her first child. then, just days before her due date, she died of an apparent suicide. her family struggled to understand why, but in a strange twist, a house fire set decades later would point to a possible answer and put investigators on a trail towards the truth. here is josh mankiewicz with secrets from the grave . wander through any graveyard, and you will find them, mysteries etched in stone. lives cut tragically short by war, disease, misfortune, and sometimes murder. many who arrested in
Who would want to murder you . And i just kind of looked at him like, what . I couldnt believe it. Was he watching me . That fire was set. Very calculating. Years before his wife killed herself. Yes. He claimed she committed suicide days before she was due to give birth to her first child. She was extremely excited for that baby. She wanted to be a mom. This wasnt somebody thinking about suicide. Exactly. It made me wonder was he a murderer . You are trying to prove a very old murder with pretty much no evidence. Correct. Is he kind of gloating he got away with it . He is thinking, well, catch me if you can. We are going to do her and her family justice. We are going to solve this murder. Hello, and welcome to dateline. Meg purk was a young mom to be, over the moon to be having her first child. Then, just days before her due date, she died of an apparent suicide. Her family struggled to understand why, but in a strange twist, a house fire set decades later would point to a possible ans
the two lawmen decided to pursue parallel investigations into scott purk. would lidel take lead on the arson case. mifflin, the suicide. you guys know each other and you get along? he knows exactly what he s doing. we do work very well together. we have a great relationship. mifflin his case had the highest hurdles. not only had scott purk s first wife, meg purk by 24 years earlier, but she had died in akron, only a few miles from stow. but a different jurisdiction. what s it like to go to the akron police and say hey, i m from a much smaller department but i think you ve got this case run back in the mid 1980s? you had to approach it very carefully, but we have a good working relationship with the police department in akron. and you have to make the phone call. instead of waving off this small town detective, the akron cops were willing to help. i talked to a detective who
what did you see? what stood out in my mind from the autopsy photos was on meg s neck there were lines on her neck that looked like a belt mark was on her neck, not a rope mark. the detective figured the only way to find out what had actually happened in that apartment in 1985, was to learn all he could about scott and meg purk. coming up something disturbing about meg s past. there was an on the coffee table and it said that she had i tried to hang herself. and something dark from scott s. he was an inter burglar. then in your burglar? he would actually commit burglary dress up as a ninja. how many burglaries are we talking about? at least ten burglaries. he would come into your bedroom and watch you sleep and then take your wallet or purse off your night stand. when dateline continues.
investigators were determined to add another charge. the murder of his first wife, meg. to cement their case, detectives would need help from an unlikely source, meg herself. back now to josh mankiewicz with the conclusion of secrets from the grave . meg purk and her unborn baby boy were very together in this graveyard. detective can mifflin was certain that meg had taken secrets to her grief. truths which could prove her husband, scott purk, had put her there. in september 2011, just weeks after scott purk s arrest, the remarkably well preserved bodies of and meg her baby son were exhumed. it was amazing to actually meet her. it really was. thinking that we are going to do her and her family justice. she was holding that baby in her arms in the casket?