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00:00Field in an affluent golf community yields a gruesome discovery.
00:04I immediately saw a deceased white male with a single gunshot wound to the left side of his chest.
00:10This could have been a robbery gone horribly wrong, but there doesn't look like there's any struggle.
00:16Detectives wonder if the victim's past has finally caught up with him.
00:20He knew who did this.
00:22Your father was not a Boy Scout.
00:24He was not a Boy Scout.
00:25I don't know what his business dealings were. I don't know if he pissed the wrong person off.
00:30Why would somebody want to shoot Alan?
00:34You're the only person that knew he was going to be walking out of that gate that night.
00:37Until strange new evidence challenges everything police thought they knew.
00:42Why is he buying the 350-gram weather balloon? It was very strange.
00:49The more we're digging, the more questions we're adding, and there are no answers.
00:54Many of the searches were in his own voice.
00:57Shut the heart. You die instantly.
01:00It was like he was leaving evidence from beyond the grave.
01:05And all of a sudden, this takes a 180-degree turn.
01:08On a quiet Thursday morning shortly after 7 a.m.,
01:14West Palm Beach, Florida, Dispatch receives a call from a bicyclist who says they spotted something in an empty field.
01:19Adjacent to the bike path.
01:24On a quiet Thursday morning shortly after 7 a.m., West Palm Beach, Florida, Dispatch receives a call from a bicyclist who says they spotted something in an empty field adjacent to the bike path.
01:45On a quiet Thursday morning after 8 a.m., West Palm Beach, Florida, Dispatch, Dispatch, Dispatch, Dispatch, Dispatch, Dispatch, Dispatch, Dispatch.
01:51They're going to stay away before going out on PGA.
01:54OK.
01:55And it's a guy laying in the field.
01:57He's a white, older guy.
01:59He doesn't realize he's breathing.
02:01We arrived.
02:04I immediately saw a deceased white male laying on his back, facing up with a single gunshot wound to the left side of his chest.
02:13First responders, they assessed the body for signs of life.
02:18And upon not finding any, they pronounced him deceased at 7.16 a.m. that day.
02:24I immediately called the other detective supervisor and said we need to deploy our team and get to the scene as fast as possible.
02:31I get my stuff and I head out there.
02:33Right now, you're just scanning the area because we're not going to touch the body until the medical examiner gets there.
02:39He's already been pronounced dead.
02:40So you're examining the scene.
02:42You're not moving anything yet.
02:43You're waiting.
02:45So patrol officers immediately locked down the scene for preservation.
02:50Detectives turn their focus to the body of the deceased male.
02:54The body was still warm when the investigator came to scene.
02:58Rigger had not sit in yet.
03:00We suspected that death had occurred shortly before law enforcement and first responders arrived.
03:10The gunshot that we observed was right about here, just near the heart, to the left center of the heart.
03:16Small entry wound, like about the size of a pen.
03:19You could tell it was a low caliber shot.
03:22Detective Moretti also notes the location of the victim's body in an empty field next to the affluent Ballin Isles Country Club and Residential Community.
03:30It's in the middle of a field, and it's bright and early in the morning.
03:37So number one, what are you doing out in the middle of the field?
03:39Right around the corner from the Ballin Isles entrance with the guard shack gate right there, he's an elderly gentleman, so maybe he was taking a walk.
03:49We don't know at this time.
03:51I thought it was odd that he was laying face up, almost like he had kind of fallen over perfectly.
03:59The gunshot wound early on was placed so perfectly in the center of his chest, I thought possibly that we were going to find a firearm underneath him that maybe he committed suicide.
04:09Also, the area is very, a very safe area, there's not a lot going on there, especially at that time of day.
04:19This could be a suicide, there has to be a gun underneath him.
04:24But when medical examiners at the scene turn over the man's body, they find nothing.
04:31When you don't have a gun and you've got a deceased person right there in an open field with a single gunshot wound to the chest,
04:39it looks like a homicide.
04:43Once the medical examiner arrived and gave us permission to move the body at the scene, we found his wallet in his back pocket.
04:53We were then able to identify him as Alan Abramson, a 71-year-old resident of the bordering community, which is Ballin Isles.
05:01Detective Clayton did locate next of Ken, which would have been his wife Linda, who they
05:09reside in Ballin Isles.
05:11And we all went to the house first and no answer, nobody was there.
05:14We checked with security and there was no alarm set or triggered or anything like that.
05:20And so Detective Clayton researched and found that Linda was in Boston.
05:27While law enforcement attempts to reach Alan's wife Linda 1,400 miles north, detectives at the
05:33scene focus on collecting evidence.
05:35I see a cell phone, earbuds, white earbuds were attached to the cell phone.
05:43We noticed a pair of scissors.
05:45There was some string nearby, some rubber bands and the binder clip.
05:51And I thought that was unusual because I always carry my money like this.
05:57So we're thinking possible robbery, don't know.
06:01This area where he was found is used as a parking lot, an overflow parking lot for the
06:06Gulf community Ballin Isles.
06:08So some of the items at first we thought possibly weren't involved in the case.
06:12But as an investigator, you want to take everything you can, because sometimes in the end, it'll
06:16come back and prove that it was part of the case.
06:18While evidence at the scene is processed, detectives are able to reach Linda and inform her that they
06:25found Alan shot dead in a field near their home.
06:29Linda is in complete distress, disarray.
06:33The Boston Police Department was there with her for safety reasons while we made that call.
06:38And she advised that she was there visiting her daughter who recently had a child.
06:43From his wife, we learned that they had both traveled to Boston together.
06:48And a few days into the trip, Alan had been complaining of boredom.
06:53He was tired of the cold, tired of the hotel, and decided he wanted to come back home
07:00to Palm Beach Gardens. So he flew back down on his own to West Palm Beach on the 21st.
07:07He told her he'll be back up on the 28th.
07:09Linda described Alan, her husband, the deceased, as the life of the party.
07:17She said he only has friends and no enemies. He was always having a good time. He seemed to be
07:21happy and everything seemed to be going well. And he loved living in that community because he could
07:25play golf with the many friends that he had there.
07:29Linda also informed Detective Clayton that Alan would normally walk his neighborhood very early in
07:35the morning around 5 30. Linda was able to tell us that the property that was found at the scene,
07:42the phone was his, the binder clip was his. We also learned from his wife, Linda, Alan would regularly
07:48carry three to five hundred dollars in cash in his binder clip and that she had just given him a watch
07:54and the watch meant something to him coming from his wife. So we know that the watch is missing and the
07:59money is missing from the scene. So once we learned that, we thought, wow, he was robbed and killed.
08:11From Palm Beach Gardens, we don't have a lot of homicides come through our office. It's a very affluent
08:18part of town. It's got great security. Linda wants to do whatever she can to help us investigate to find
08:25out, you know, who killed Alan. So then at that time, we determined that we need to interview Linda
08:31and she advised us that she was going to come home to speak with investigators.
08:36As Linda prepares for a return to Palm Beach Gardens, detectives shift their focus to the upscale
08:41golf community and any residents who may have witnessed something to help the investigation.
08:47We had tactical crime units surveilling the area. We had them stopping cars and interviewing subjects.
08:53So we can gain as much information from them as possible.
08:56Did anyone talk to you specifically this week? Anybody that stood out to you as suspicious or
09:01dangerous or anything? Yes. There's a gentleman that always walks or runs this path, elderly gentleman.
09:07Yeah, I don't know. Unable to find witnesses, detectives turn back to the crime scene and what's
09:14left behind continues to raise questions. There doesn't look like there's any struggle just from
09:21outside looking in. Doesn't look like there was a fight. The shoes, bottom of the soles of the shoes
09:27were clean. Didn't see any wounds on the hand or anything like that. And his hat was still on his
09:33person. There was no struggle. That really put another question mark into this case.
09:40You don't know what you have at this point. Anything it could be. You got to follow the clues or wherever
09:48the evidence may take you. Alan drove his vehicle to the exact location where he would be found deceased
09:58less than 12 hours later. He is there for 55 minutes that evening.
10:03What was he doing in the field the night before his death? Now you're asking yourself a lot of questions.
10:21At first glance, the shooting death of 71-year-old Alan Abramson appears to be a robbery turned homicide.
10:27But as detectives examine the evidence, nothing about the case adds up.
10:31With no signs of a struggle, we're floating any possibility. Right now we're, you know,
10:38a few hours in, so we've got to collect evidence and we've got to see where this evidence is going to lead us.
10:45At that point, you want to find the crucial evidence, which is a firearm,
10:49the murder weapon, or a shell casing. Investigators combed the field where Alan's body was found,
10:56zeroing in on any sign of a murder weapon. The field is probably several acres larger
11:03than a football field. We searched that whole field. Trees, bushes, grass, even a waterway that runs to
11:09the south, a canal, we searched with a dive team. We had workers come out and search storm drains,
11:14and we couldn't find anything. As the sun sets on day one of the investigation into Alan Abramson's death,
11:23detectives hope the next morning's autopsy will provide clues.
11:26The body did not present any defensive wounds. There was a single gunshot wound to the left chest,
11:38and the defect on the shirt had a little bit of blood staining around the defect,
11:44and then a little streak of blood coming up around the 12 o'clock position and going up to the left
11:51shoulder. Something appeared to us that something dragged through the blood post being shot,
11:59from what we don't know at this point. And I could see unburned gunpowder particles
12:05on the shirt. Those unburned gunpowder particles tell me that the gun was discharged
12:12very close or near contact to the body surface. We feel this is more evidence we have a homicide,
12:20and that he knew who did this, because he let someone get that close to him to shoot him straight
12:25directly in the chest. Despite their theory that Alan knew his killer, detectives have not
12:31identified a suspect. Outrage, shock, and fear. Tonight, the Palm Beach Gardens community is on edge
12:39after one of their own is gunned down and left for dead just outside a well-to-do neighborhood.
12:44Now police are on the hunt for the killer. You did not have people being shot
12:50outside of Ballin Isles. It was not a common occurrence. This was in public. It was inexplicable
13:00for the police department, and it had to be a really big deal. Media is barking at their door
13:04saying, what's going on here? You know, so they had a lot of pressure on them. They thought someone
13:08was killed here has many locals on edge, and there's still many questions surrounding his death,
13:13as police have not confirmed an arrest. I was sitting at my desk, and the phone rang, and it was the
13:24newspaper. I don't recall the name of the newspaper, but they identified themselves and, you know, broke
13:30the news to me. It was devastating to hear this because I had just talked to them, you know, hours before.
13:39I met Alan Abramson through an introduction from another sales rep that was working for me. I
13:50immediately liked Alan. Why would somebody want to shoot Alan? He had, you know, he had no enemies.
13:59He was this, you know, happy-go-lucky guy. He was like the model person for that stage of life.
14:09He had a successful career, got out of a marriage that he wasn't happy in, moved to Florida, found
14:19Linda, had a wonderful relationship with Linda, living in a nice neighborhood. Alan and Linda were like
14:27two teenagers in love, and he always talked about Linda. Well, they were a great couple and a happy
14:35couple. And, you know, I immediately thought about Linda and how I wanted to reach out to her, which I
14:41did. And, of course, Linda was, you know, totally beside herself. She couldn't even talk, really.
14:51But the grieving Linda, having returned to Florida from Boston, allows detectives to come to her home
14:56for a formal interview as they hunt for any information that will help identify Alan's killer.
15:02She was really still grieving and was upset. It's not an easy thing to handle. She reiterated a lot
15:09of things that she had told Detective Plague over the phone, that he would carry two to three hundred
15:13dollars cash on him, might have been wearing a watch. You know, there were scissors left at the scene,
15:18a small pair of metal scissors, and we asked if they were hers, if no one was him. And to her
15:23recollection, absolutely not. She doesn't know anybody would hurt him. Detective Moretti advised
15:30that he felt that Linda had nothing to do with this homicide, that he was able to clear her as a
15:35suspect. Linda tells detectives that Alan recently altered his early morning walks around the
15:41neighborhood, and he was meeting a golf buddy for coffee, a member of the Ballin Isles community,
15:46named Victor. He had learned from Alan's wife, Linda, that Alan was supposed to meet Victor
15:53for coffee that morning of his death. One thing stood out. In order for Victor Greenstein to go home,
16:00he had to drive past the crime scene to enter his neighborhood.
16:06Why wouldn't you call 911 if your friend doesn't show up at Starbucks? Victor has not reached out to
16:11Linda or Palm Beach Gardens detectives in the days since Alan's death. And the question is, why not?
16:19I thought Victor Greenstein was a person of interest.
16:22Detectives investigating the killing of 71-year-old Alan Abramson have just learned that Alan was set to
16:41meet a friend the morning of his death. Because Victor Greenstein was supposed to meet Alan for coffee that
16:47morning, and then Alan didn't show up, Victor was definitely identified as an early person that we
16:53wanted to talk to. Victor, how are you doing? Good to see you. Well, not like, how long have you known Alan?
17:02Basically, when he moved in the Ballin Isles, and I'm going to say five years. From what we understand,
17:08that you and Alan recently started meeting at Starbucks. He gets a small coffee, tall coffee with
17:16two ice cubes. Now, Alan doesn't show up on Thursday. You call, he goes to voicemail, call again.
17:25The last time I tried him was, um, 649, I think. And I probably left around, yeah, left to a seven.
17:33I left for seven. Is that out of character for Alan not to show up?
17:36You know, I mean, I thought nothing of it, that maybe he overslept.
17:41Whatever, I mean, I wasn't going to go to his home and ring the doorbells and get legal.
17:46Quite frankly, that's what I kind of figured. As an investigator, you put yourself in my shoes,
17:51okay? You're the only person that knew he was going to be walking out of that game that night.
17:59You're there, he doesn't show up, you call him. Okay, so where do you go after that?
18:03I went to the gym. What gym?
18:06Mellon House. When you left the Starbucks that morning, I would assume you went, uh,
18:13westbound on PGA towards Mellon House and went right by that lake shore.
18:17How many police guards do you think were there?
18:19I don't know, six maybe, seven. I mean, it was, and guys, honestly, it felt that
18:24the injured never gone on me. In hindsight, I mean, maybe it sure, it didn't.
18:31So Victor had told us that he did see the crime scene, he saw all the police cars,
18:35but he just didn't think anything of it.
18:37What would you say the general consensus of Alan is amongst the community, amongst his friends?
18:43How would you describe him to somebody who never met him, which is us?
18:46Well, it's the guy you'd want to go out and have a beer with or hang out with or spend four hours
18:51on the golf course with. He was just a fun guy. Did he talk about any business dealings
18:57that are coming up or anything like that? Having to meet anybody, anything at all?
19:01No. And how would you describe, if you know, his relationship with Linda?
19:07I think it's great. Two second marriages, both bad first marriages, from what I understand.
19:12And I think they were just really soulmates. Do you know anybody who would want to harm him?
19:18No, I do not.
19:22But detectives are eager to learn more about Alan's past,
19:25specifically the family he built before he met Linda. They set out to question Alan's ex-wife
19:31and their two grown children.
19:32We found out that Alan had two adult children that were estranged from him, his daughter Rachel
19:41and his son Daniel. Alan's children didn't have a great relationship with him. He was remarried and
19:47had three stepchildren. He didn't really speak to them that often and it seemed like he was losing
19:52his relationship with them. That makes us want to talk to them and interview them extensively.
19:58Are they angry enough to have something done to their father?
20:01These are all questions that you have to have answered.
20:04Over the phone, you said you've been basically estranged since 2003.
20:08Yeah.
20:09What made you estranged?
20:10He was a distant dude. Like, he had a hard childhood. He didn't have a maternal mother and
20:15he didn't have a paternal father. And he's telling a guy, like, shouldn't have had kids and we were
20:20just sort of like, my brother and I were an afterthought.
20:25Right. Well, you told me on the phone that you wanted me to know that your father was not a boy scout.
20:28He was not a boy scout.
20:29That he was a big partier, he was obnoxious, and he knew what buttons to push.
20:33He did.
20:34Could you elaborate on that?
20:35He could be very offensive, he could be loud, he would just, like, say things.
20:39I think my dad really wanted to, like, be more of a party guy again.
20:42Just once he got Linda, he, like, became Mr. Party Guy again.
20:47I know, you know, my father liked to drink, my father liked to party. Even at the funeral,
20:52they were like, oh, Ellen loved to have a cocktail or two.
20:56You said that your dad was unfaithful to your mother.
20:58As far as I know.
21:01Elaborate.
21:02We would have these baby services for the summer, and...
21:05When you were?
21:06When we were little, yeah, they would come for the summer, like, college students.
21:09And then one year, my mom got a letter from one who was Mormon and was making amends for
21:14all the things she had done. One of them was apologizing for my father,
21:19having, like, been romantic with him.
21:21My parents were still, like, allegedly happily married, and my dad was on match.com, actively.
21:27And he left, he had been printing profiled out and left them on the table.
21:32He was just cocky to, you know, like, that was a cocky move.
21:36But it was that he was doing that to my mom, even if you are unhappy, but who leaves it out?
21:40Like, you said no buttons to push.
21:42Or just so cocky, like, you think you won't get, like, I don't know.
21:46Do you know anybody would want to cause your father harm?
21:53The short answer is no. I don't...
21:57I also wasn't that involved in his life now, so I don't know what he was doing.
22:01I don't know what his business dealings were.
22:03I don't know if he pissed the wrong person off.
22:05Detectives also speak to Alan's ex-wife and learn that all three members of Alan's
22:11estranged family have alibis hundreds of miles away on the morning of the killing.
22:16While his family are ruled out as suspects, the details they've shared
22:20forced detectives to reconsider Alan's spotless reputation.
22:25A man 71 years old has a past. There's a whole world of things to dig into.
22:32Why did he leave his wife alone in Boston? Who was he coming here to meet?
22:36Was he having an affair? Was he living a life that his wife, Linda, didn't know about?
22:46I don't know.
22:48I don't know.
22:48I don't know.
22:49I don't know.
22:50I don't know.
22:55Police in West Palm Beach, Florida are searching for clues in the mysterious death of Alan Abramson.
23:01They suspect information on his cell phone may hold the key to finding his killer.
23:06A forensic extraction was completed on Alan's cell phone, and I had looked over that report,
23:12but didn't see anything really of any evidentiary value. So I decided to start manually looking
23:20through the phone. I was able to get into his Google Maps timeline, which started to paint a picture
23:27of where he had been over the last few days. It showed him going from the airport on the 21st
23:34to his house on that day with an Uber. He went to Bank of America. He went to a gas supplier for like
23:43helium propane on 95 to another gas supplier.
23:47What it also showed is the night before, so on Wednesday the 24th, it showed that Alan drove his
23:58vehicle to the exact location where he would be found deceased less than 12 hours later. He is there
24:07for 55 minutes that evening. Doing what? We don't know. After that almost hour passes, he returns
24:17back home, and then that morning the Google timeline picks back up again, shows him in a walking
24:23distance from his residence to that same field where he was found deceased.
24:31It was very unusual. What was he doing in the field the night before his death?
24:35And there's nothing there. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's in an open field.
24:40In the meantime, while everybody's doing everything else, we were able to obtain video footage
24:45footage from the guard shack at the Ballin Isles entrance of PGA.
24:51We start looking from the previous days there, so we've got him leaving on the 23rd.
24:56He's walking out the gate at 5.50 a.m.
24:59Alan was on his way to meet Victor for coffee. We were able to pull up video footage from Starbucks
25:05showing Alan entering in and meeting Victor for coffee.
25:10So that's when we were able to confirm that Victor was telling us the truth, that he did regularly meet
25:15him there, and that he did meet him there several days before the homicide. We would talk regularly.
25:21I actually met him for coffee on several occasions, and as I slowly got to know Victor, you could
25:27clearly see that he had nothing to do with the shooting, and we were able to rule him out as a
25:31possible suspect. And then on the morning of the murder, Thursday the 25th, we had Alan on video
25:40walking out. Alan was shown on video walking out of the gate at 5.53 in the morning,
25:47carrying something in his left hand. We let it play, see if we can hear anything, because it also had
25:54audio. 37 and a half minutes later, you hear an audible gunshot, plain as day.
26:03Detectives can hear the shot that killed Alan Abramson, but with Alan out of the camera's view
26:08200 yards away, they can't see who pulled the trigger. So we've got 37 minutes of unaccounted for time.
26:16What happened in that 37 minutes? I walked from that guard arm to the location where he was found,
26:23and I just took a normal walking pace, and it took me four minutes and three seconds. So you minus four
26:30minutes from the 37, we got 33 minutes of unaccounted for time. What is happening in that 33 minutes?
26:35Investigators wonder if the package that Alan carried can provide answers,
26:39a package that was absent from the crime scene.
26:43We want to know what that was. Like, is that something that could help us?
26:47Was he exchanging something with somebody in the field? What was he carrying?
26:51For answers, investigators turn back to Alan's timeline within his cell phone data,
26:56and look for any unusual movements before the shooting.
26:58A trip to the bank, then to gas supply companies, catch their eye.
27:06Eventually, we get the documentation from Bank of America showing he withdrew $300 cash.
27:12I got surveillance video of him withdrawing the money. Then detectives go to Nexair and find out
27:18at that time that he purchased a 40 cubic foot helium tank. He paid cash for it. We were able to obtain the receipt.
27:29Alan asked the air supplier for another 40-pound tank of helium, but they were sold out and referred him to another store.
27:35So Alan went to that air supplier, bought another 40-cubic tank of helium. He paid cash for that as well. We got the receipts for that.
27:47And so why is he buying 80 cubic feet of helium?
27:55I don't know.
27:56It made no sense.
28:00To make sense of the strange purchases, investigators turn again to the data found within Alan's phone.
28:08On February 1st, I was going through Alan's emails in his Gmail account, and I had found that he had
28:17placed an order for a weather balloon on Christmas Day 2017.
28:22I thought a weather balloon purchase about a month prior was odd.
28:32Investigator Machado follows her instincts and digs deeper into Alan's unusual purchase.
28:37She finds emails from Alan to the weather balloon supplier dating back months before his death.
28:43October 17th, 2017, he emailed High Altitude Science.
28:48Will a 350-gram balloon be able to hold 65-plus cubic feet of gas?
28:54Also, what will the approximate diameter of the balloon be at launch?
28:58Those are very specific questions, if I would say so.
29:05What we're thinking now that we've got those emails,
29:08that might explain the helium. We eventually go back to the residence again, and in the garage,
29:18on the shelf was an empty box from High Altitude Science, empty. Linda had no knowledge that that
29:27was even there, had no clue about why he would be purchasing weather balloons, had no clue whatsoever.
29:34Okay, well, now what?
29:40At this point, we still kind of have nothing until a detective comes up with kind of a wild theory.
30:03Investigators working the mysterious shooting death of Alan Abramson are spitballing ideas
30:10as they search for his killer. A few of our detectives were together with the Florida Department
30:16of Law Enforcement investigators, and they started talking about a theory.
30:20There was an episode of CSI Las Vegas where a person had tied a handgun to a regular helium party balloon
30:31and had tried to shoot themselves, and the balloon took the gun away.
30:37Maybe Alan committed suicide by purchasing the weather balloon, tying a string to the weather balloon,
30:48attaching the gun to the string of the weather balloon, and shot himself, and then the weather balloon
30:55took off with the gun, and off it goes. Well, initially, we're back and forth.
31:01We're back and forth. Okay, yeah, okay, sure, no problem. This is the movie Up, whatever.
31:07So we do some more research with this, and I find that there's a case in New Mexico.
31:12A gentleman did try this, did commit suicide. The balloon did take the gun from the scene.
31:18However, it was found about 20, 30 feet away, and it was popped by a cacti.
31:23Okay, this, this has been thought of an attempt, attempted on TV before. Okay, so, but it's also been
31:33attempted in real life before. Maybe Alan's the first one that was successful. This case maybe was
31:41not a homicide, but actually a suicide. At this point, it was kind of the only theory that made any
31:50sense, but at the same time, we didn't have enough to prove it. We just have the purchase of the tanks,
31:57and the purchase of the weather balloon. That's all we have. We still got to keep digging.
32:07Once we had the theory, we decided to widen our search of the field. We went approximately 100 feet
32:13to 200 feet west of where Alan was found, and we found multicolored rubber bands in strength. At that
32:19point, I decided, let's go back out to his house and do a more extensive search. So, Alan's wife,
32:25Linda, led us in the house, and in the top drawer of Alan's office, we matched the rubber bands and
32:31the string found in the field. So, we knew that that string and rubber bands that were found on that
32:36morning linked to this case. For more evidence to boost the suicide theory, investigators take another
32:43look at Alan's autopsy report and revisit an unusual finding that remains unexplained.
32:49Our CSI team and Dr. Tormoz had noted that there was a thin line of blood up on his sweatshirt that looked
33:00like something was dragged through the blood along the shirt. In all likelihood, once the gunshot was
33:08fired, that string from the weather balloon holding that tied the weapon to it went across the chest there.
33:16We now know what happened. We now know how that mark got on Alan's shirt. Part of the string on the
33:22weather balloon leaving a trail of blood. Despite the mounting evidence, investigators realize they face
33:30an uphill battle. It's very rare that a homicide will be reclassified as a suicide. We went to the medical
33:39examiner's office to reveal what we thought happened to Alan. He would run the new findings by me and say,
33:45what do you think? Is this even plausible? And I would say, yes, but we need more.
33:51We need more facts. We need more evidence to prove your theory. So we weren't quite there yet.
33:57For the next three weeks, investigators attempt to collect more evidence to support the suicide
34:02theory, but they continue to come up empty.
34:04On February 27th, I was at home and my son had been playing with my cell phone, my Android phone at the time.
34:16And he had said, hey, Google, and he was asking it some silly questions that a seven-year-old would want to know.
34:23And when I took the phone back from him, I saw that it was on a screen called my activity.
34:31I found that it was recording his voice and I could play his searches back in his voice.
34:39At this point, I am immediately going into work and getting Alan's phone out of evidence again.
34:46Once I got Alan's phone out of evidence, I immediately went to the Google app and I started
34:54just scrolling through the past few days. One of the first searches that came up was how to commit
35:03suicide and ways to kill yourself. And I just turned to Rick and I said, Rick, we've got it.
35:09This happened in January of 2018. But these searches started in 2009. How to commit suicide
35:22and ways to kill yourself was in July of 2009. 380 ammo for sale in 2010.
35:31In 2016, his search started to include the weather balloon research.
35:36Sunset and sunset times in West Palm Beach, traffic counts in Palm Beach County,
35:40traffic volume along PGA Boulevard. He was contemplating this, not for a week, not for a month.
35:49He was contemplating this for 10 years. And then we learned many of the searches were in his own voice.
35:58To life insurance policies, pay for suicide.
36:09Lifting capacity of a three foot balloon.
36:14How to tie a large balloon.
36:20Is there a way to hide a suicide gunshot?
36:25How to tie a giant gunshot?
36:26How to tie a rod.
36:27How to tie a gunshot?
36:28It's shot in the heart. Do you die instantly?
36:32Oh my God. It was like he was leaving evidence from beyond the grave.
36:44Investigators have just found a number of searches
36:53on Alan Abramson's phone, which support their suicide theory.
36:57It wasn't just the helium tanks.
36:59It wasn't the purchase of the weather balloon.
37:01This tied it all together.
37:04Armed with a massive pile of evidence,
37:06investigators formulate their final theory
37:08to present to the medical examiner and the state's attorney.
37:12On the evening prior to us finding him deceased,
37:14Alan went out to the field.
37:17And we theorized that he drove his car there
37:20and he had the two 40-cubic-foot helium tanks in there,
37:24prepped them somewhere in the field.
37:26His helium tanks, his string, the rubber bands,
37:29probably the scissors, everything was in place
37:31and probably ready to go.
37:35That morning we saw Alan walk out past the...
37:39He made it out to the field probably in approximately four minutes.
37:42We think that package he was carrying was the weather balloon.
37:46If you remember initially,
37:47we had that 33 minutes or so of unaccounted-for time.
37:51It takes time to inflate that.
37:53Not a lot of time, but enough time to inflate that.
37:56Then you've got these helium tanks.
37:58We never found the helium tanks,
37:59but there was a waste management dumpster in the plaza next door.
38:05And the morning that we were arriving at the scene,
38:07the waste management truck was pulling out as we were arriving.
38:11So were his helium tanks in the dumpster?
38:14Maybe.
38:14And maybe Alan was so thorough that he knew that.
38:17He then had time to set up his system of tying the gun
38:22to the weather balloon, cutting the string.
38:26We cannot prove, but we theorized
38:28that the reason we did not find a shell casing at this point
38:31was we think he tied some type of catch bag
38:34to catch the casing when it ejected on there
38:37because that would be taken away as well.
38:39Alan is able to pull the trigger, fall backwards,
38:44and let the balloon take away the firearm.
38:51And you ask, where would the weather balloon end up?
38:56There are these things called weather balloon trackers.
38:59Type in the weather conditions for that day,
39:02capacity of the balloon.
39:04You enter all that information in, and it gives you a track.
39:07It took off, up, to the west,
39:13made a U-turn, and headed east out over the Atlantic Ocean,
39:19and the approximate burst point was about 40 miles north
39:25of the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean.
39:30Once presented with the totality of information,
39:34there is no doubt in my mind,
39:35Mr. Abramson committed suicide,
39:38and we changed the manner of death
39:40from homicide to suicide.
39:44With the manner of death changed,
39:46investigators must now notify Alan's wife, Linda.
39:49We sat down, and we went and started going over
39:52step by step from the beginning,
39:53and we're probably 10, 15 minutes into this.
39:57She asked us to, can you please stop for a moment?
40:00And I heard her say, did he kill himself?
40:04So she could see where it was going just that early, too.
40:08Linda was taken aback, for sure.
40:11It was shocking to them.
40:13Everything seemed to be fine in life of the party
40:16and love of his life,
40:17and they were going on trips together.
40:22I believe that she thinks that Alan
40:24had committed suicide to benefit everybody.
40:27There were several life insurance policies
40:29written out to all the family members.
40:33I mean, you can't take a million-dollar policy
40:36out on yourself and then for your family
40:39and then kill yourself the next day.
40:40It's not going to cover that.
40:41But these insurance policies were taken out way prior.
40:46The insurance companies tell investigators
40:48that the policies were past the point of contention.
40:51Since several years had passed since Alan opened them,
40:54they were to be paid out
40:55regardless of whether he committed suicide.
40:59So when Alan killed himself,
41:01he knew before he left this world
41:03that everybody would be taken care of financially.
41:07Even though Alan's family
41:08would benefit financially from his suicide,
41:11those around him still find it shocking
41:13that such a vibrant man
41:15would choose to end his own life
41:16and stage it to look like a homicide.
41:20Not the slightest hint
41:23that he was depressed
41:26or unhappy with his life.
41:29He was suffering in silence
41:30with a smile on his face.
41:36I would want people to know
41:37that Alan was the type of person
41:40that everybody loved.
41:43He apparently was a master of two lives,
41:49two emotional lives,
41:50but he concealed it
41:52and did a very good job concealing it.
41:56I think he went through this elaborate scheme
41:59so his family would not find out
42:00that he did commit suicide.
42:02He wanted it to make it look like a homicide.
42:05He wanted everybody to think
42:07that he left happy.
42:09He didn't want to reveal to his family
42:11and his wife that he was sad.
42:14At the end of the day,
42:16the reason why
42:18will really never be known
42:21because Alan took that with him to the grave.
42:23So,
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