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00:00:00It was on the floor of the bathroom with multiple stab wounds.
00:00:03The son is the one who called 911.
00:00:05Oh my God, my mom!
00:00:07I remember seeing my dad just breaking down and crying.
00:00:12There'd been a party in the house.
00:00:14Correct. It's upwards of like 20 kids.
00:00:16Maybe one of my friends might have had something to do with it.
00:00:18That folding knife you found belonged to the son.
00:00:20There were facts that are weird.
00:00:23I didn't do anything, though, as you did. You killed your mother!
00:00:26No, I didn't! I didn't!
00:00:27The lab results come back and the DNA gives you a name?
00:00:29Yes.
00:00:30I have extensive history.
00:00:31All of his burglary M.O.s fit this case.
00:00:36All of a sudden, we hear that somebody escaped from the courthouse.
00:00:39He's got a crew helping him.
00:00:41This is Ocean's Eleven stuff.
00:00:43Yeah.
00:00:44I think my words were, are you kidding me?
00:00:46As you're going back to announce your verdict...
00:00:48I'm like, what am I doing? This is not right.
00:00:51This is your verdict.
00:00:52No.
00:00:5335 years, I've never had that happen.
00:00:56This family desperately needed closure.
00:00:59I just remember shaking uncontrollably.
00:01:00I just remember shaking uncontrollably.
00:01:04Hello, and welcome to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:01:15Jill Halliburton-Sue was dedicated to her family and helping others around the world.
00:01:21But she was at home when she found herself face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer.
00:01:28Police suspected someone close to Jill was hiding a secret.
00:01:32And it would take two trials to find the truth.
00:01:35Here's Dennis Murphy with The Figure in the House.
00:01:39Drive half an hour west from the beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and you're in cowboy country.
00:01:47Boots, hats, and line dancing.
00:01:51At least Davie, Florida, likes to think of itself as the Old West.
00:01:58But really, you'd have to squint to remember that era.
00:02:01The dairy farms that once ran all the way to the Everglades are mostly gone.
00:02:06Cows and horses made way for gated communities plotted with multi-million dollar homes.
00:02:13And in one of those nice gated homes live 20-year-old Justin Hsu, his mom, Jill, and his dad, Nan Yao, a professor.
00:02:22A home that would turn into a scene out of a bad slasher movie.
00:02:27All that blood. All those wounds.
00:02:36It happened on September 8, 2014.
00:02:39The night before, Justin's parents had returned from a trip to Malaysia.
00:02:43The next morning, his dad shook off the jet lag and headed to his office at the local campus of the University of Florida.
00:02:51He's an entomologist, a bug guy.
00:02:54Justin's mom slept in but was up when Justin left the house around 9.30 that morning.
00:02:59My mother was in the living room in her pink robe and she was reading a book and I said,
00:03:04see you when I get home from work.
00:03:06Justin also worked part-time at the University of Florida as a professor's assistant.
00:03:11Shortly after noon, he got a call from his father.
00:03:14And the first thing he asked me was, are you home right now? Like, are you home?
00:03:19I'm like, no, I'm at work.
00:03:21The reason for the call? From his office, Justin's dad had seen something unusual on a remote security camera.
00:03:28I just saw something weird. Can you go home and check, like, what's up?
00:03:33The cameras just went out at the house. And I'm like, yeah, OK, no problem.
00:03:39Justin's dad, Nan Yao.
00:03:41Around 12, 15. I thought maybe I should check the camera to see if it's still working or not.
00:03:48So the camera's kind of been flickering and then a reliability and you wanted to see what was going on?
00:03:53Yeah.
00:03:54The camera was in his house near the kitchen.
00:03:57What he saw, and it wasn't much more than a glimpse, was a live feed image of a figure in the house.
00:04:03He walked in from the kitchen toward the breakfast area and disappeared from the view of the camera.
00:04:12And next thing I know is I lost my image.
00:04:16He thought the figure might be his son. But if it wasn't Justin, who was it?
00:04:21When he called his wife, Jill, and she didn't pick up, he became alarmed.
00:04:25I remember I sped home from my dad telling me to go check out what's going on because the cameras are out.
00:04:32Within 15 minutes, he'd arrived. The son went in through the garage and passed the dog snoozing in the hallway.
00:04:38Just outside the kitchen, he checked out the first security camera.
00:04:42And I see a camera ripped out. I don't see the camera, but I see the wire that's connected to it.
00:04:49It has been messed with, huh?
00:04:50It's just dangling from the thing. And I'm thinking, why is my mom going crazy?
00:04:55Why is she, like, ripping out the cameras? Is she okay?
00:05:00You thought your mom accounted for the camera dangling?
00:05:02Yeah. I mean, that makes the most sense because the only other person inside the house is my mother.
00:05:07The living room cam, the same. Gone too, just dangling wires.
00:05:12He made his way to his bedroom, where he says he saw right away something was off.
00:05:16Someone had been in his stuff.
00:05:19Justin, an avid hunter and diver, was a knife collector. Blades were missing.
00:05:24Now he says he could hear water running in his parents' bathroom. And there it was.
00:05:29The bathtub read to the rim with blood. His mother's body floating.
00:05:34Her head is down, so her face is just inside this bathtub that is completely to the top full of hot, bloody water.
00:05:46When you see something so horrific, there aren't words to comprehend.
00:05:58He thought immediately of his father and called him.
00:06:01I'm like, I think mom killed herself. That's just the most, at the time, the most rational thing to think.
00:06:08He says, hang up, call 9-1-1. I remember saying, like, oh, my God, no.
00:06:11Like, something just absolute pure panic in his voice. I call 9-1-1.
00:06:16What is your emergency?
00:06:19Mom! My mom killed himself!
00:06:23OK.
00:06:24A suicide. That's what he reported to both his father and 9-1-1.
00:06:29I thought my mother killed herself at that point.
00:06:34My name?
00:06:35Yes.
00:06:36Justin 2.
00:06:38You're my mom!
00:06:39You've been on the phone with me, Justin. Are you with me?
00:06:41You lifted her out of the tub?
00:06:42Yeah, I lifted her out of the tub. I had blood all over my body.
00:06:46I started doing compressions on her CPR or something like that.
00:06:50You weren't getting flutters of anything?
00:06:51Yeah. Yeah. She was so very father gone.
00:06:54I remember after doing that, just...
00:06:57Pure shock. Just absolute terror.
00:07:00And that's when he realized he'd gotten it all very wrong.
00:07:04Still on the line with the dispatcher, but now changing his story.
00:07:08He saw that his mother was bound and now told the 9-1-1 people
00:07:12that this wasn't a suicide at all. It had to be a murder.
00:07:16You know what? I think this is... I don't know if this is a murder, I think.
00:07:20Because her hands are tied.
00:07:22Her hands are tied?
00:07:24I'm looking at her hands now and, like, her legs, and I realize they're bound. They're tied.
00:07:37Then it starts to click. I think somebody killed my mother.
00:07:41Somebody who'd bound her hands with a cloth belt, her feet with an electrical cord,
00:07:46then slashed away in a frenzy, stabbing her more than 20 times.
00:07:52Davey police were on their way to secure the scene.
00:07:55Detectives followed and would soon be rolling their eyes in disbelief.
00:07:59How could the son have thought this was a suicide?
00:08:02Weren't the multiple stab wounds apparent?
00:08:05And investigators would learn something else.
00:08:08The victim's maiden name was Halliburton, and she went by Jill Halliburton Sue.
00:08:13She was the descendant of a rich and prominent family in the American oil business.
00:08:18So there was an early theory to run down.
00:08:21Maybe Jill Halliburton Sue had been so brutally murdered for her money.
00:08:26It was way too soon to know.
00:08:29The crime scene horrifies even hardened homicide detectives and leaves a son shattered.
00:08:37Coming up.
00:08:38I remember sitting down in the grass, and there's some mulch right next to me.
00:08:42And I just started punching at it, like, screaming.
00:08:45Those same detectives would soon have some tough questions for young Justin.
00:08:50That folding knife you found, I understand, belonged to the son. Is that right?
00:08:53Belonged to the son. Yes, sir.
00:08:54When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:09:01Are you going to be able to forget that scene?
00:09:03Never.
00:09:04That woman in the bathroom?
00:09:05Never.
00:09:06That was probably one of the most horrific scenes that I've ever worked in my 28 years.
00:09:11When veteran Davey Homicide Detective Paul Williams arrived at the Sioux home,
00:09:15he wasn't sure whether he had a homicide or a suicide.
00:09:19It had been called in both ways.
00:09:21Officers pointed out the young man sitting in the grass as the son.
00:09:25He had found the victim.
00:09:26I remember sitting down in the grass, and there's some mulch right next to me.
00:09:30And I just remember looking at it and just started punching it, like, just banging and stuff like that, screaming.
00:09:36EMTs tried to calm him down.
00:09:40A few minutes later, his dad drove up.
00:09:43And I saw Justin sitting there, and I tried to give him a hug.
00:09:47He's totally in a state of shock.
00:09:50But immediately, police come to me and say, you can't get near him.
00:09:53You two have to separate.
00:09:55You can't get near your own son?
00:09:57No.
00:09:58I really want to give him a hug.
00:09:59They would not let me do that.
00:10:01Nan Yao may not have realized it, but this was the first signal that police were looking at Justin as a possible suspect.
00:10:08Meanwhile, Detective Williams got a fill-in on what had already been found that was of interest.
00:10:13At the front entry to the house, a folding knife had been recovered with what looked like a trace of blood.
00:10:19And that folding knife you found, I understand, belonged to the son.
00:10:22Is that right?
00:10:23Belonged to the son.
00:10:24Yes, sir.
00:10:25Interesting fact to tuck away as you try and figure out what's happened here.
00:10:27Yeah.
00:10:28It definitely went sideways.
00:10:31Had the killer dropped the knife while pursuing his victim through the house?
00:10:35It looked that way.
00:10:36Out back, officers noted a breach in the glass door on the porch, smallish like the size of a pet door.
00:10:43If this had been a crime committed by an intruder, is that how they got in?
00:10:47The horror show was in the main bathroom.
00:10:50It was grotesquely not a suicide.
00:10:55Did the scene speak to you yet?
00:10:57Do you know what had happened here?
00:10:58It seemed to be a pretty violent attack.
00:11:01It also seemed to me very early on that she put up a fight because of the disarray the front doorway was in,
00:11:08and also for her defensive wounds that were on her hands from the stabbing.
00:11:11Detective Williams couldn't examine the tub yet because it was still full of blood.
00:11:16But when it was drained, they found two things of major interest.
00:11:20At the bottom of the tub, beneath the victim's body, was a large hunting knife.
00:11:24They learned it had been a gift for mother to son.
00:11:27They also found destroyed security electronics, the alarm box from the house.
00:11:32The knife, the alarm panel box, and some other items that were in there.
00:11:36Got thrown into the bathtub?
00:11:37Thrown in there.
00:11:38Yes, sir.
00:11:39There was no trace of the two missing security cameras.
00:11:42It was clear to the detectives that the house had been tossed, rummaged through, drawers flung open.
00:11:47Jill had been a kind of neo-hippie and not really big on expensive pieces of jewelry.
00:11:52To the investigators' experienced eyes, this didn't look like a home invasion gone wrong.
00:11:58It looked staged and amateurishly.
00:12:01Is there a distinction in your mind, Detective, between a perpetrator who comes with murder on their mind as opposed to somebody who's trying to get into a house, steal some jewelry, and then has a violent event?
00:12:11Definitely a big distinction.
00:12:13And that one plays into the victimology.
00:12:16She was a well-respected member of the community, had no enemies that we found, a very wealthy family, well-to-do, worked for a bunch of charitable organizations, just a really, really great lady.
00:12:30And to use a knife, multiple stab wounds, are you talking about this as somebody taking it personal?
00:12:35Personal or in a fit of rage.
00:12:37Usually when somebody breaks into a home and you're a burglar, you don't rise to that level of violent attacks.
00:12:42While the crime scene techs took photos, collected prints, and swabbed for DNA, it was time for the detectives to learn more about the Sioux family.
00:12:52Nan Yao and Jill first met in Japan, where she was an exchange student and he was teaching.
00:12:58He eventually left to do a PhD in the States, and Jill left to travel in Southeast Asia.
00:13:03About two years later, he was thrilled when he got a postcard from her.
00:13:07She was in Thailand.
00:13:09She was volunteering, helping the Cambodian refugee escaping the Khmer Rouge genocide.
00:13:16And I was really moved when I see that.
00:13:19She was there for two years.
00:13:20What does that experience tell us about Jill?
00:13:23She always wanted to do something she can do to help those who need help.
00:13:28When Jill returned to the States, the two eventually married.
00:13:32This is Amanda.
00:13:33She was just handed to me a minute ago.
00:13:37Adopting daughter Mandy.
00:13:39She lives in Kentucky.
00:13:41Justin came along about three years later.
00:13:45And the years that followed were good to the couple.
00:13:49Give it up for Justin.
00:13:51Jill, a dedicated mom, still found time to continue her life's passion for volunteer work.
00:13:59When she first came back to the States, she again worked with refugees from Southeast Asia.
00:14:04Years later, she volunteered to make audio tapes for the blind, reading books and magazines.
00:14:09A master in feng shui was consulted.
00:14:12This is her reading an excerpt from a national magazine article.
00:14:16It's turn of the century America with a Chinese overlay.
00:14:20This is all very Jill.
00:14:22Yes.
00:14:23And that's the part I fell in love with.
00:14:26The Sioux family was very close.
00:14:28But in the last few months, there had been tensions.
00:14:31Justin had dropped out of college.
00:14:33His father was upset with him, and there were even arguments with his mother, Jill.
00:14:39The cops were, of course, alert to the maybe important fact that Jill had that prominent maiden name.
00:14:45She was a Halliburton.
00:14:47Her great uncle, Earl Halliburton, had once been among the richest people in America.
00:14:52His wealth didn't come from oil wells, but from developing and improving the process to extract oil from the ground.
00:14:58This is the origins of the Texas oil field work, Halliburton Industries.
00:15:02Yes.
00:15:03Yes.
00:15:04I didn't know that at the time what a Halliburton is all about, to be honest with you when I first met her.
00:15:09Turns out when Earl Halliburton died, oil rights were distributed to all family members.
00:15:14But it was parceled out so widely, little trickled down to Jill, or to her daughter Mandy, or her son Justin.
00:15:21You being a Halliburton, lo those many generations down the line, does that make you a rich kid?
00:15:25Nope.
00:15:26Did they send you a nice royalty check?
00:15:28Yep, for about $13.
00:15:30Termites, not oil fields, paid the bills.
00:15:33Years ago, Nan Yao developed termite traps used widely today, and that allowed his family to live comfortably.
00:15:40The night before the murder, the Siouxs had returned from that trip to Malaysia where the renowned etymologist was lecturing.
00:15:47After that exhausting travel, Jill decided she'd sleep in while her husband went to work.
00:15:53You go to work, and then your life has changed.
00:15:56Oh.
00:15:57It's a nightmare.
00:15:58Murdered in her own home.
00:15:59Yeah.
00:16:00But now things were going to get a little uncomfortable.
00:16:05It was time for the detective to take the father and son down to the station house for what would be an exhaustive interrogation.
00:16:14There'd be lots of questions for the son about life at home, and where exactly he was when the murder took place.
00:16:22Coming up.
00:16:23Why, man?
00:16:24Oh, why did I lie to you?
00:16:26An early lie caught.
00:16:28Detectives do not like lies.
00:16:31So you want to start coming clean?
00:16:32This is your only f***ing opportunity.
00:16:34Oh, my God.
00:16:35When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:16:45Just hours after finding his mother stabbed to death in a bloody bathtub, 20-year-old Justin Sioux, the son, found himself in a Davey, Florida police interview room, trying to explain what had become a tangled story.
00:16:59You can't say, look, I am the grieving, freaked-out son here.
00:17:02That's what I...
00:17:03Who just found this.
00:17:04What are we talking about?
00:17:05I was going through mental hell.
00:17:09And it was about to get hotter.
00:17:11Detectives always start investigating with the inner circle of family and work their way out.
00:17:16And in this case, Justin was the one who found her and made that confusing 911 call.
00:17:22At a mobile command post parked at the house, Justin had been directed to remove his clothes and photos were taken of his body.
00:17:28Is that just protocol something you do?
00:17:30It's protocol.
00:17:31We want to take that clothing to make sure we preserve any evidence or transfer of evidence that could possibly be on that.
00:17:35We provided him with a Tyvek suit, which is like a jumpsuit thing.
00:17:39Now at police headquarters, detectives look more closely for any bruising, signs of a struggle or fight.
00:17:45I'm just going to check your neck area and stuff.
00:17:47One of the worst things about the whole situation that still is a horrible memory for me is I still had the blood of my mother on my chest.
00:17:54Justin cooperated, answered the detective's questions and never asked for a lawyer.
00:18:00He told detectives that around 9.30 that morning, he drove to the local community college, then returned home after his father's call around 12.30 in the afternoon.
00:18:10He walked the detectives through the same story you've already heard.
00:18:14Him coming home to find the security cameras ripped out, the knife collection in his bedroom vandalized, then of course hearing the running bathwater and finding what he found in his parents' bathroom.
00:18:25Dude, I'm, I can't get the f*** up.
00:18:28But the tone of the interview was quickly going from good cop, bad cop to bad cop, bad cop.
00:18:34A lot of the stuff that we talked about earlier, the stuff you told us, doesn't make sense.
00:18:38What do you mean?
00:18:39The second we sat down to talk to you, you lied to us.
00:18:42About what?
00:18:43Justin had an early on problem with the story and it had to do with his whereabouts.
00:18:48When his father called him, he told him a slightly different story than he was now telling police.
00:18:53He told his dad he was working at the University of Florida.
00:18:57But that wasn't true.
00:18:59So you want to start coming clean? This is your only f***ing opportunity.
00:19:02Oh my God.
00:19:03You understand?
00:19:04What?
00:19:05What did I say to my dad?
00:19:06I lied to my dad.
00:19:07I told him I was going to work.
00:19:09He told detectives he was in the library of the community college where he was taking classes.
00:19:14Turned out, that wasn't true either.
00:19:16What if you're not in the library?
00:19:18And where were you?
00:19:19In my car.
00:19:20What were you doing in your car?
00:19:21Sleeping.
00:19:22Be honest with me.
00:19:23Did you stay in your car sleeping or did you go to the library?
00:19:25I say that...
00:19:26Okay, I'm sorry.
00:19:27I said that to you.
00:19:28You lied about that too.
00:19:29Because...
00:19:31I don't want to see that kid.
00:19:33Justin said he was concerned how his father would react to the news of him sleeping in the car.
00:19:38And for good reason.
00:19:39When Justin dropped out of college, it was a huge disappointment to his parents.
00:19:44When he was living at home now, his dad insisted Justin get a job and go to school part-time.
00:19:49Embarrassed he was doing neither that day, Justin feared the anticipated arguments back home later.
00:19:54He even thought that perhaps his mother had had enough, prompting his first thoughts that she had killed herself.
00:20:00Our lives have just been a lot worse since I moved back.
00:20:03And we've gotten into a lot of fights in between this and that.
00:20:07And so...
00:20:08That's why when I first saw her, I was like, why...
00:20:10Why would you do...
00:20:11Why could you do this to us?
00:20:12Like, why did you leave us?
00:20:14That's why I...
00:20:15I thought she was...
00:20:16I thought she committed suicide.
00:20:18The word suicide, I don't think would come out of most people's mouths if they found a loved one bound...
00:20:23Problem number one for Justin.
00:20:25911 call saying, my mother killed herself, I'm looking at a suicide victim.
00:20:29Correct.
00:20:31Detectives zeroed in on those knives found at the crime scene.
00:20:34One was found with Jill in the bathtub and the other outside the front door.
00:20:39Both were Justins.
00:20:41He was an avid knife collector and...
00:20:43Does that make you wonder?
00:20:44Yeah, sure.
00:20:45And that's another thing that we later found out that the knives actually came from his room.
00:20:49But Justin said a stranger must have broken into the house and taken his knives.
00:20:54Detectives questioned how likely was that.
00:20:57Supposedly by what you're saying.
00:20:59They went into your room, specifically got your knives, and I guess possibly used that to kill your mom, right?
00:21:06That's what you said?
00:21:07Correct.
00:21:09And then there was a puzzling story about a third knife.
00:21:12Justin said he took it from his car for protection as he first went into the home.
00:21:16Where is it now?
00:21:18In the car.
00:21:19Why is it in the car?
00:21:20I don't know.
00:21:21So after finding his mom dead in the bathtub, why would he go back outside and put that knife in his car?
00:21:27The detective's reaction?
00:21:29Nonsense.
00:21:30They pressed him.
00:21:31He finally admitted he lied.
00:21:33Again.
00:21:34Homicide cops don't like to be lied to.
00:21:36Why, man?
00:21:37Oh, why did I lie to you?
00:21:39Why did I say the thing about that pocket knife?
00:21:42I just wanted to look like I was being safe.
00:21:44But Justin stuck to his theory that an unknown assailant broke into the house with the intent to rob.
00:21:49Detectives saw it another way.
00:21:52Perhaps he and his mom had argued and fought and Justin tried to cover it up by making it look like a robbery.
00:21:58My mom was murdered, for God's sakes.
00:22:01I found her dead.
00:22:02I found her.
00:22:03I had to live with that.
00:22:05And you guys are thinking I did it?
00:22:10Yeah, yes.
00:22:11You didn't wake up saying, oh, I'm going to kill my mom today.
00:22:14But when it happened, you hit the fan.
00:22:17You really didn't.
00:22:18You were racing to cover this up to make it look like a robbery.
00:22:21And it was a bad attempt.
00:22:23Bad attempt, too, they said, in pointing to the opening in the back door where Justin said someone broke in.
00:22:29It was small.
00:22:30Too small, detectives said, for a grown man to squeeze through.
00:22:34I guess you were thinking that you were going to tell two, you know, nobodies, hey, this was a robbery.
00:22:38Check it out.
00:22:39And we were going to go salivating over a door that no one could even fit through.
00:22:43You really think that's how that works?
00:22:45Yeah.
00:22:46Because I had never seen a f***ing robbery before.
00:22:48Listen, a kindergarten kid could have done a better job.
00:22:50You're a smart kid, but you screwed up.
00:22:52Why the hell would I murder my mom in the middle of this?
00:22:57I don't see why.
00:23:00I love my mommy.
00:23:02I want her to be alive.
00:23:04I want her to be alive.
00:23:06Detectives weren't done.
00:23:08They had more questions, both for Justin and his dad.
00:23:12Oh, my God.
00:23:14Please.
00:23:15He was in the room next door, heard the yelling.
00:23:18And now he, too, was about to be confronted.
00:23:21Coming up, was it Justin his father saw on the surveillance camera?
00:23:28I think it's a male.
00:23:29Okay.
00:23:30Like a skinny.
00:23:31And they said, oh, your son is skinny and tall.
00:23:34And a stunning turn.
00:23:37Would your dad frame you?
00:23:38I guess he already did.
00:23:40When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:23:47Welcome back to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:23:50I'm Craig Melvin.
00:23:51The police were grilling Justin Sue.
00:23:54They suspected he murdered his mother, Jill.
00:23:57But even under intense questioning, Justin insisted he was innocent.
00:24:02So, detectives were about to take a new approach.
00:24:05A plan to get Justin to reveal the deadly secret with his father's unwitting help.
00:24:12Back to Dennis Murphy with the figure in the house.
00:24:16Just, why did you do it?
00:24:18That's all.
00:24:19And do you even feel bad that it happened?
00:24:20That's all.
00:24:21That's all I want to know.
00:24:24The questioning of Justin's sue started in the afternoon.
00:24:28Robberies don't happen like this.
00:24:29Oh, damn.
00:24:31And by the early morning hours, detectives were still at it.
00:24:34I saw where the body was.
00:24:35I pulled her literally out from the leg like that.
00:24:38Occasionally, detectives left Justin to talk to his father next door.
00:24:42Or check with other investigators about leads they were pursuing.
00:24:45So far, they weren't buying his story.
00:24:49Please let me out.
00:24:52And there were spells, sometimes long ones, when Justin was left alone.
00:24:56Oh my God, I'm freaking out in here, man.
00:24:59What's happening?
00:25:00What are you hearing?
00:25:01What do you see?
00:25:02When we leave the room, he's talking to himself.
00:25:05He's screaming and yelling profanities inside the room.
00:25:07He's obviously not comfortable with the fact of where we were pushing him to.
00:25:12Oh my God.
00:25:15I want my mommy.
00:25:17I'm going to go postal, man.
00:25:18I can't.
00:25:19I just keep on thinking.
00:25:20I see my mom's face.
00:25:21I see my mom's face.
00:25:22I can't think of anything else when I'm in here.
00:25:26I just want to be out of here.
00:25:28From the next room, Justin's father, Nan Yao Su, could hear his son's pain.
00:25:33That's good, man. That's good.
00:25:36The yelling.
00:25:37Why are you doing this to me?
00:25:39The cursing.
00:25:41The banging on walls.
00:25:42He was begging them to get him out.
00:25:47It was God-wrenching for me as a father.
00:25:52Of course, investigators also had questions for Justin's father.
00:25:56Remember, he first became worried about his wife when he was at his office and logged in to view remotely the home security cameras.
00:26:03He saw someone on camera.
00:26:05I saw this figure coming in.
00:26:08His face is covered with some kind of fabric, maybe a mask.
00:26:13The only thing I can saw is that his head and lower part of the face is covered with something white.
00:26:19I did not know what to make of that.
00:26:21And next thing I know is that I lost my image.
00:26:25It's just a very brief moment, probably two to three seconds.
00:26:30Break it down as well as you can.
00:26:32You're looking at eyes, essentially, huh?
00:26:34All I see is a black band around the eye area.
00:26:37What do you think?
00:26:38You have this alarming image, and then it's gone.
00:26:40Yeah.
00:26:41Hammer's off.
00:26:42Yeah.
00:26:43Then I thought, what is that figure I just saw?
00:26:47Nan Yao's first thought, it might be his son, Justin.
00:26:51So I thought, well, Justin is pulling a prank on me?
00:26:54So after seeing that image, that's when he called Justin.
00:26:58And I said, are you at home?
00:27:00He said, no.
00:27:01And he described to myself and my partner that he saw an image.
00:27:05And for a brief second, and then the camera went black.
00:27:09So he sees your suspected killer?
00:27:11Correct.
00:27:12I think it's a male.
00:27:13OK.
00:27:14But it's skinny.
00:27:15Nan Yao described the person to police.
00:27:18Kind of tall and skinny.
00:27:19And they said, oh, your son is skinny and tall.
00:27:23And I said, what are you talking about?
00:27:26The comment threw Nan Yao.
00:27:28Because while at first he thought it was his son on the camera, he was now sure it was someone else, the killer.
00:27:34Detectives asked the person's race.
00:27:36You tell white male, black male or?
00:27:38Looks like a white to me.
00:27:39OK.
00:27:40White male was something white covering his head and a body shape similar to Justin's.
00:27:45That kept Justin in the crosshairs for detectives.
00:27:48And they told him so.
00:27:49It wasn't me.
00:27:50I'm not going to call him dad.
00:27:51I'm sorry.
00:27:52He described you on that camera.
00:27:53What?
00:27:54Pretty much.
00:27:55My dad?
00:27:56Yes.
00:27:57So much so that's why he called you and said, man, are you playing a joke in front of the camera?
00:28:00Because he knew it was you in front of that camera.
00:28:02Oh, my God.
00:28:03I'm going to jail, aren't I?
00:28:07For something I didn't even do.
00:28:09Detectives tried to play father against son.
00:28:12So he's not going to come home with me tonight?
00:28:15With the stories he's telling us now, no.
00:28:18More than likely he will not be going home because he's, my department said, he's not making sense.
00:28:23There's too many inconsistencies with what he's saying.
00:28:25Back with Justin, detectives kept pressing the idea that his father suspected him of being the killer.
00:28:31How can my dad think I killed him?
00:28:34My dad doesn't think that.
00:28:36You know your dad's pretty sure that you're the one he saw in that camera.
00:28:39Really?
00:28:40Yeah.
00:28:41Oh, my God.
00:28:42Then detectives really pushed Justin's buttons.
00:28:45They switched tactics, now implying his dad might be the killer and that he was trying to frame his son.
00:28:51Someone trying to frame me, man.
00:28:54If you're seeing someone trying to frame you, the only one that's capable of framing you is your dad.
00:28:59Would your dad frame you?
00:29:00I guess he already did.
00:29:02So if you didn't do it, what you're telling me is that your dad framed you?
00:29:05No.
00:29:06I can't, I can't, I can't believe that.
00:29:09You can't believe that?
00:29:10I wouldn't, my dad wouldn't frame me.
00:29:12He's blaming me for the murder of...
00:29:14If he did it, could your dad do it?
00:29:17No, he couldn't have.
00:29:19He was at work and stuff.
00:29:20And while detectives may have had Justin second-guessing his dad for a moment, his father saw right through the game being played.
00:29:28Did you know that your name was being part of the scenario in the other room?
00:29:32They're saying, maybe your father's got something to do with this.
00:29:34The father frames the son for this.
00:29:36Yeah, it was so ridiculous.
00:29:38I did not take it seriously.
00:29:39And they probably tried to use my statement to frame him.
00:29:43That's not what you said.
00:29:44No matter what tack they took, detectives always returned to just hammering away at Justin.
00:29:49I didn't do anything, though.
00:29:50Yes, you did.
00:29:51You killed your mother.
00:29:52No, I didn't.
00:29:53I didn't.
00:29:54I didn't.
00:29:55You killed your mother.
00:29:56No, I didn't.
00:29:57No, I didn't.
00:29:58No, I didn't, sir.
00:29:59And that's the way it went for nearly 11 hours.
00:30:02Despite the pressure, Justin insisted he was innocent.
00:30:05And if investigators could only find that snippet of video of the intruder from the home security camera, then they'd find out who really killed his mom.
00:30:14Was he right?
00:30:16Right or wrong, Justin sure seems certain.
00:30:19But so do police.
00:30:21Neither side is willing to give an inch.
00:30:24Coming up, a frustrated and increasingly angry Justin.
00:30:29When you guys find out you're wrong, I hope you come and say sorry to me, man, or something.
00:30:36Justin.
00:30:37This is a horrible, no, no, this is a horrible issue.
00:30:39If I found out I was wrong, I'd seriously consider a career change.
00:30:42But I know I'm not wrong.
00:30:43Well, you are.
00:30:44On Dateline, Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:30:52Stop jumping in my brain and trying to make me say I did it, even though I didn't do it.
00:30:56Dude, stop laughing, man.
00:30:57It's not funny.
00:30:58I'm not laughing at that.
00:30:59I'm laughing if you think I have these powers.
00:31:00After hours of detectives in his face saying he'd killed his mother, Justin refused to buckle.
00:31:05He maintained his innocence and said they would end up apologizing to him when the case was solved.
00:31:11When you guys find out you're wrong, I hope you come and say sorry to me, man, or something.
00:31:18This is a horrible, no, no, this is a horrible issue.
00:31:20If I found out I was wrong, I'd seriously consider a career change.
00:31:23But I know I'm not wrong.
00:31:24Well, you are.
00:31:25No, I know I'm not.
00:31:26You should consider a career change.
00:31:27I'm serious, dude.
00:31:28Maybe.
00:31:29I'm serious.
00:31:30Maybe.
00:31:31And wrap me up to a polygraph machine right now, man.
00:31:34They never did.
00:31:35But if there was one thing that could help solve the crime, it was that snippet of video of an intruder his dad saw on his computer.
00:31:43Please say you got the, did you get the recording?
00:31:45Detectives were already working on it.
00:31:48Analyze it frame by frame and it might just clear Justin.
00:31:51Or not.
00:31:52Easy.
00:31:53You go to the tape, you pull it and you all look at it.
00:31:55That would be great.
00:31:56This camera system that he had was a drop camera service inside the house.
00:31:59And you are afforded the opportunity to pay for a service which keeps the live recordings.
00:32:04In fact, the Sue's had a trial period for recordings that lasted two weeks.
00:32:08It expired two days before the murder and was not renewed.
00:32:12That meant there was no video recording to retrieve.
00:32:15It was just a live monitor view.
00:32:17So once that image was gone, it was gone forever.
00:32:21But there were other investigators reviewing videos from outside the house, including at the front gate,
00:32:28to see if they could confirm Justin's story and timeline.
00:32:31Justin told investigators that after running errands that morning, he left the house again around 9-15.
00:32:37The security camera at the front gate showed his black car leaving.
00:32:41About three hours later, sometime around 12-30, his car can be seen again on the same security camera, returning to the gated community.
00:32:49It was just as he'd said, responding to his father's request to check on his mother and the house.
00:32:55Based on guard gate video, we had him coming and going from the house.
00:33:00And from the time that he had left and by the time he came back, that was the opportunity window that we basically put a timeline of when this murder took place.
00:33:08Justin was not at home shortly after noon when the detectives theorized the murder had to have taken place.
00:33:15The comings and goings seen on the security gate video confirmed Justin had not killed his mother.
00:33:21When we were done, we were pretty convinced that he wasn't the one who did it.
00:33:25So all these suspicions you just talked about, you believed in the end that he was telling the truth?
00:33:29I did.
00:33:30Justin got the welcome news without trumpets or drum rolls.
00:33:34He was simply told he was free to go.
00:33:37All of a sudden it's over.
00:33:38Yeah.
00:33:39It is.
00:33:40They just opened the door.
00:33:41Was your dad there at that point?
00:33:43Mm-hmm.
00:33:44Yeah.
00:33:45I remember the first memory I have of my dad is he saw me, hugged me and said, oh, don't worry, don't, obviously.
00:33:52He didn't, he did not believe for a second that I did.
00:33:56Yeah.
00:33:57Throughout his ordeal, Justin was agonizingly aware he still had his mother's blood on him.
00:34:03I had to ask him, like, can I just go to the bathroom?
00:34:06I had to go in and go to the sink and take this water and just try to wash off my mom's blood in this police bathroom.
00:34:17And I'm being blamed for this.
00:34:20Justin's interview was long, harsh, and traumatizing.
00:34:25If you keep on doing that to somebody for 12, 13, 14 hours, that's close to torture.
00:34:31And you can make someone confess to something just to end it, just to get out of that situation, which is horrible.
00:34:38And I never broke.
00:34:40You're telling me about the before and after moment of your life.
00:34:43Yep.
00:34:44Was anything quite the same afterwards, after you emerged from that interview room?
00:34:49No, no, I'm a completely different person.
00:34:51Even some law enforcement professionals felt that grilling him for 11 hours was extreme.
00:34:57I have to tell you that I have seldom in my 35 years of practice of criminal law seen an interrogation go that long.
00:35:06Prosecutor Maria Schneider would be the one to try the case when the killer was finally caught.
00:35:11Had these guys stepped over the line into bullying intimidation?
00:35:15You know, investigating the family or suspecting the family, sadly, that's kind of par for the course.
00:35:20Whether I personally think that they went a little bit too long and a little bit too hard on Justin, you know, that's me Monday morning quarterbacking.
00:35:30Lead detective Paul Williams said it was as long and hard as it needed to be.
00:35:35Did you rough him up more than you needed to get your story?
00:35:38No, I don't think so.
00:35:39And I never feel bad about that, because we do the investigation for the victim who can't speak.
00:35:43If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
00:35:46He'd be in that room as long, being grilled?
00:35:49As long as it took, without a doubt.
00:35:52And the optics of it, it's probably not what you want to see.
00:35:55My job is to find the facts.
00:35:56And if we didn't address it then, it would have come up later and it would have made us look worse.
00:36:02And the fact is that during his interrogation, Justin gave detectives a new lead to pursue, opening up a whole new area of investigation.
00:36:11The son, it turned out, had thrown a party at his house two days before his parents came home from that Malaysia trip.
00:36:18There were a number of young people smoking, drinking, wandering around the house.
00:36:23Could one of those party goers fit the profile of a suspect?
00:36:26The interview list had suddenly grown by leaps and bounds.
00:36:30Coming up.
00:36:33I was guessing maybe one of my friends might have had something to do with it.
00:36:37Had Justin guessed right?
00:36:39The people he mingles with, they always talk about robbing people, doing this, doing that.
00:36:43On Dateline, Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:36:54Detectives investigating the murder of Jill Sue were back to square one.
00:36:58Her son, Justin, was no longer a suspect, but he did offer them a tantalizing new lead.
00:37:04So, in recent days, there had been a party in the house?
00:37:07Correct.
00:37:08With a lot of kids?
00:37:09A lot of kids, upwards of like 20 kids, 20, 25 kids.
00:37:11So, that's interesting.
00:37:12Yes.
00:37:13So, there was a lot of people inside the house, which added to the problems of the contamination or cross-contamination of other people's DNA and fingerprints they could have left on the scene, as well as what we were dealing with already.
00:37:26Justin gave detectives a list of people, mostly young people, in their 20s.
00:37:31You gave them names?
00:37:32Yeah, I gave them every single one of my friends' names.
00:37:35And they went and background-checked all of them.
00:37:38Yeah, I was guessing maybe one of my friends might have had something to do with it.
00:37:43The detectives reached out, called the people from the party.
00:37:46Come down to headquarters, they told them.
00:37:48We need to talk.
00:37:51And when they did that, they were swabbed for DNA.
00:37:54Okay, I'm gonna take an oral swab from you.
00:37:57No one objected.
00:37:58By then, they all knew what happened to Justin's mom three days after the party.
00:38:03Most were happy to answer detectives' questions.
00:38:05You know if he has cameras inside the house?
00:38:07Yeah.
00:38:08Justin told me he did.
00:38:09He told you?
00:38:10Yeah.
00:38:11You're saying that there might be a friend...
00:38:12Justin told detectives during his interrogation that when guests arrived, he made sure he told everyone to be cool around those security cameras.
00:38:19He warned them that even though his parents were away, they sometimes checked the cameras remotely.
00:38:24I told them there's a camera in the room, don't go in that room because there's a camera and my parents will see you.
00:38:28And if they see you, when they're in Malaysia, when they see you, they would, like, they'll get pissed.
00:38:33Justin said most party guests were long-time friends.
00:38:36But he said there were a few he didn't know very well.
00:38:39And one guy made his way to an off-limits part of the house.
00:38:42I remember I yelled at him because he actually went into my parents' room, into, like, the bathroom.
00:38:46What for?
00:38:47He was on a phone call.
00:38:48He was, like, talking to someone.
00:38:49He was, like, walking around my house, kind of just, like, on the phone.
00:38:52Yeah, what did you tell him?
00:38:53Tell him, like, get out of there, man.
00:38:55Detectives took note.
00:38:57The parents' bathroom.
00:38:58The very place where Jill's body was found.
00:39:01So they asked the guy about it.
00:39:04I had gotten an important phone call, so I had walked away to get away from everybody, and I just, I wandered.
00:39:10I ended up in the master bedroom, and that's when he found me.
00:39:12He's like, yo, can you, like, go in the garage or something?
00:39:14My parents have cameras.
00:39:15I don't want them to see you in the master bedroom and think of anything weird.
00:39:19Actually, there were no cameras in the bedroom, and the guy on the phone immediately left to continue his call elsewhere.
00:39:25I met him that night.
00:39:26But he and some of the others told detectives they should take a look at one party-goer in particular,
00:39:32someone who had a record and an unsavory reputation.
00:39:36The people he mingles with, they always talk about robbing people, doing this, doing that.
00:39:40And my logic, A, the people he mingles with.
00:39:44B, he's in a house.
00:39:45He knows Justin's there alone.
00:39:47His parents aren't there.
00:39:48You see this big house, somebody with a lot of money.
00:39:51If he's under the impression that his parents are still gone, and they go there Monday, somebody breaks in.
00:39:57Mom's there.
00:39:58Mom catches him.
00:40:00Whole altercation ensues.
00:40:02The whole whatever happened, happened.
00:40:04They flee.
00:40:05Police traced the guy to his home and asked him to come down to headquarters to answer a few questions.
00:40:11What's up, buddy?
00:40:12He told the cops he'd actually been expecting them.
00:40:15I had a feeling I would end up here just knowing the situation and s**t.
00:40:20They asked him to take off his shirt to see if there were any signs of an injury from a struggle.
00:40:24There were not.
00:40:25He admitted he had an arrest record.
00:40:28But for drugs, not burglary.
00:40:30No rough stuff.
00:40:31Yeah, I'm on probation right now.
00:40:32Oh, you are?
00:40:33That's when they came to my house.
00:40:34I was s**t.
00:40:35I was like, oh my God, here we go.
00:40:36And when it came time for a DNA swab, he said his DNA was already in the system as a result of his arrest.
00:40:44It's not in the system.
00:40:45I mean, I don't have a problem providing again.
00:40:47The young man had an alibi for the time of the murder.
00:40:50He was at work, he said.
00:40:52In all, detectives went through close to 30 interviews.
00:40:55And except for that one person, no one else at the party had a criminal record.
00:41:00You've canvassed all the kids and they don't seem to be a lead for you.
00:41:04Correct.
00:41:05Meanwhile, CSI investigators at the crime scene had already swabbed a number of items for DNA.
00:41:14It's an electrifying moment for any detective working a case when a DNA sample comes back from the lab with not just a hit, but a name attached.
00:41:23Detective Paul Williams had one of those aha moments nine days after Jill Sue's murder.
00:41:29They've taken their sample, this genetic sample, and compared it to a known database?
00:41:33Correct.
00:41:34And they give you a percentage, like one into some trillion billion people that it's a match for this person.
00:41:40And more importantly...
00:41:41Does a hit mean you have a name at that point?
00:41:43Yes.
00:41:44They identify a name.
00:41:45It wasn't the guy from the party.
00:41:47Wasn't anyone from the party.
00:41:49They were all clear.
00:41:51Rather, it was a 20-year-old named Deonti Rasilis.
00:41:54Who in the world was he?
00:41:56The detective didn't have a clue.
00:41:58Coming up.
00:42:00Turns out there was a lot to learn about Deonti.
00:42:04Pulled up a picture, looked at him, saw his history.
00:42:07He had quite an extensive history.
00:42:09And a familiar way of committing burglaries.
00:42:12All of them were within gated communities, and they were all backed up against water.
00:42:17And most of the entries were done through a back glass doorway.
00:42:22When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:42:30Welcome back to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
00:42:33I'm Craig Melvin.
00:42:34Detectives investigating Jill Sue's murder were busy chasing leads that all led them to the same place.
00:42:41Nowhere.
00:42:42But now, DNA from the scene had just handed them a suspect.
00:42:47The name Deonti Rasilis had not been on their radar, but he was known to police.
00:42:54Back to Dennis Murphy with the figure in the house.
00:42:58Homicide detective Paul Williams was following the evidence where it took him.
00:43:02And that is what brought him to this moment, when the strongest lead pointed in the direction of Deonti Rasilis.
00:43:08Do you go to your computers and pull up the name?
00:43:10Pulled up a picture, looked at him, saw his history.
00:43:13He had quite an extensive history.
00:43:14Juvenile history.
00:43:15Juvenile stuff.
00:43:16Burglaries.
00:43:17Nothing, no violent crimes.
00:43:19It was all burglary and property crimes.
00:43:21The way Deonti Rasilis pulled off those burglaries, his M.O., sounded familiar to Detective Williams.
00:43:27All of them were within gated communities.
00:43:30And all of the homes were huge.
00:43:32And they were all backed up against water.
00:43:34And most of the entries were done through a back glass doorway into the home.
00:43:41And destroying surveillance equipment, if he could?
00:43:43Yes, yes.
00:43:44The detective wondered if Deonti had been in the Sioux house legitimately.
00:43:48Maybe he knew Justin.
00:43:50If so, that could explain the presence of the DNA.
00:43:53The detective called Justin and read him three names.
00:43:56I have three names I want to ask you if you know them or recognize them.
00:44:00Lucas Hayward.
00:44:01Lucas Hayward?
00:44:02Yep.
00:44:03No.
00:44:04Deonti Rasilis?
00:44:05Devonti who?
00:44:07Deonti Rasilis.
00:44:09No, I do not know who that person.
00:44:11Roderick Edwards?
00:44:12No.
00:44:13At any time during the past several weeks, have you given any of these mails permission to enter your price?
00:44:19No.
00:44:20Justin didn't know that two of the names were made up.
00:44:24He blanked on all three, including Deonti Rasilis.
00:44:28I've never heard that name.
00:44:30I've never seen that man in my life.
00:44:32The detective told him about the DNA hit.
00:44:35Justin was relieved, but he says it was hard to feel anything back then because of what he'd been through.
00:44:41He was, he says, shell-shocked.
00:44:44I don't know what else term to say it, but mentally scarred.
00:44:48Like, I was mentally, like, beat up, man.
00:44:51But the police were moving fast.
00:44:54They got an arrest warrant and nabbed their suspect.
00:44:58It went down like a textbook case.
00:45:00I want to talk to you about some burglaries.
00:45:03What about a burglarie?
00:45:04Well, that's what, before we talk to you, you know, I got to read these rights.
00:45:08You don't want to talk to me?
00:45:09I don't, I don't know what's going on, so.
00:45:11Okay, no problem.
00:45:13Then they told him the charge he was facing.
00:45:15You're going to be charged with first degree murder.
00:45:17Well, first.
00:45:18First degree murder, okay?
00:45:20What, what I'm being charged with first degree murder for?
00:45:23Can't talk to you, so.
00:45:25What?
00:45:26What the ?
00:45:31Police told Deontay to remove his clothing and put on a jumpsuit.
00:45:36And Deontay asked again about the charge he was facing.
00:45:39Do you know what my charge is on?
00:45:42Um, first degree murder.
00:45:45And that's it?
00:45:47I don't know what's going on.
00:45:50Where, where, where you guys going to turn it, so.
00:45:53Deontay was assigned a court-appointed defense attorney.
00:45:57And an investigator working for the defense went to talk to him in jail.
00:46:02Gentry Chambers was surprised by the young man he met.
00:46:06He's a scared kid.
00:46:07To me, that says a lot.
00:46:09Because this case, the person who did it, I don't think they're going to be too scared.
00:46:15I think this was a case where whoever did this, they either did it before or, you know, they were a real gruesome person.
00:46:23So.
00:46:24You thought they would have had tougher, thicker skin than you're seeing and you're dying.
00:46:26Right.
00:46:27Because this is what I do for a living.
00:46:28I talk to people that's incarcerated.
00:46:30Gentry learned Deontay Rosillas had grown up not far from the Sioux family.
00:46:34His single mom worked minimum wage jobs.
00:46:37He was nicknamed Moochie as a boy.
00:46:39I get up every morning.
00:46:41As a young man, he could be charming.
00:46:43Driven, too, if these selfie videos retrieved from his phone mean anything, a known burglar talking like a motivational speaker.
00:46:50If you're not ambitious, you're not going to get far.
00:46:53You want to be rich, you can't get rich sitting on your .
00:46:56When he was living the good life, he could show off.
00:46:59Got a beautiful view of the beach, though.
00:47:01You see how I left.
00:47:02This video, a tour of his room during a hotel stay.
00:47:05I wish everybody and Brian have a nice day, you know, enjoy your summer vacation and get money.
00:47:12That's all.
00:47:13He could have been anything he wanted to be.
00:47:15You feel that strong about him?
00:47:16I feel that strong about him.
00:47:17I feel that if he would have got the right direction or if one thing that would have changed in his life that would have led him to see something good, he could have been anything he wanted to be.
00:47:27Instead, he landed in jail, charged with murder one, possibly facing the death penalty.
00:47:33You'll be held without bond until further order of the court on that.
00:47:36But Gentry had his doubts about Deontay's guilt.
00:47:39The savage way Jill Sue was killed didn't seem like something a breaking and entering guy would do.
00:47:45To kill a woman in that fashion, that way.
00:47:50Tell me about that way, killing in that way.
00:47:53In that way is to bound her and to stab her multiple times, almost like torturing, right?
00:48:02Police have a word they use, overkill.
00:48:04Right.
00:48:05But the case moved forward.
00:48:07In the months that followed, Deontay Resilis made one court appearance after another.
00:48:12Then came July 15, 2016, almost two years after Jill Sue was murdered.
00:48:19Deontay was in court that morning for another hearing.
00:48:22All of a sudden, we hear that the courthouse is shut down.
00:48:26The area around the courthouse is shut down.
00:48:28David Neal, a reporter with the Miami Herald, was in his office covering breaking news that day.
00:48:34There's unusual numbers of large police vehicles in the street.
00:48:39And we're not sure exactly sure what's happened.
00:48:42Then Neal and his colleagues learned...
00:48:45Somebody escaped from the courthouse.
00:48:47Sitting in a courtroom.
00:48:48Right.
00:48:49And so we're calling around and going, wait, wait, hold on.
00:48:55Coming up.
00:48:56He's up and out.
00:48:58He's gone.
00:48:59You see a bunch of heads turn, like the utter shock.
00:49:01A suspected killer on the loose.
00:49:05When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:49:14It started out as just another pretrial hearing at the Broward County Courthouse.
00:49:19Didn't end that way.
00:49:20David Neal of the Miami Herald.
00:49:22Then suddenly, he's up and out.
00:49:25He's gone.
00:49:26He's bolted.
00:49:27Wait a minute.
00:49:28A prisoner, cuffed and shackled, had somehow escaped from a packed courtroom?
00:49:33Yes, he had.
00:49:34The guy got up and escaped from a courtroom.
00:49:37The guy, of course, was Deontay Rosillas.
00:49:40I was like, did that guy just really do that?
00:49:43He did.
00:49:44At 9.06, Deontay entered the courtroom.
00:49:47First in the line of inmates heading for the jury box out of camera range, waiting for his case to be called.
00:49:53At 9.36, a new group of inmates entered the room.
00:49:57Seconds later, Deontay, still off camera, raced out a bailiff on his heels.
00:50:02And suddenly, you see a bunch of heads turn, like the utter shock of everybody, and then you see him head out the door.
00:50:10The biggest resistance he got was when he hits the door, which is kind of a heavy door, but someone was on the other side of the door.
00:50:16So he hits the door, kind of bounces back, then pushes through again.
00:50:20And made it out.
00:50:22Why didn't somebody try to tackle him in the hallway?
00:50:24Because nobody expects that.
00:50:27Because it was just so out of, out of, out of norm.
00:50:31Courtroom 4810 is on the fourth floor of the courthouse.
00:50:35Once Deontay was on the other side of that courtroom door, he was off.
00:50:39He's out of shackles, he's out of handcuffs, he's out of the jailhouse guard.
00:50:43Yeah, he's gone.
00:50:45Past sheriff's deputies, I imagine, bailiffs?
00:50:47Yeah, past everybody.
00:50:48All sorts of court officers are there.
00:50:50Right.
00:50:51This guy was blazing through.
00:50:53Charging through this hallway, racing down that staircase.
00:50:56Caught on security camera as he busted out a back door to a waiting car.
00:51:01They're gone.
00:51:02They beat the perimeter.
00:51:03Before they could set it up.
00:51:04Yeah, before they could even set it up.
00:51:06A suspected killer was roaming free.
00:51:08Law enforcement swung into action.
00:51:10The courthouse was locked down, a manhunt launched.
00:51:13And a hugely embarrassed Broward County Sheriff faced the cameras.
00:51:17There'll be investigations and debriefings.
00:51:20But right now, my main concern is where he is right now.
00:51:24Davey Detective Paul Williams heard the news from a colleague at the Broward County Sheriff's Office.
00:51:29I think my words were, are you kidding me?
00:51:32And I said, whatever help you guys need.
00:51:34So you're working with what, known associates and family members?
00:51:36Correct.
00:51:37I ran through all my criminal histories, all the contacts that I had with them.
00:51:40Like everyone else, Justin Su couldn't believe his ears when he learned about the escape.
00:51:46I got a phone call from the victim advocates, I believe, saying, hey, you might want to pull over.
00:51:53I remember stopping at the gas station and saying he escaped from prison.
00:51:57And, you know, we're having all the, there's all these resources out to try looking for him.
00:52:04Detective Williams called the Sues as well.
00:52:07Obviously their concern was their safety and whether he was going to come back to their home.
00:52:11Look over your shoulder, right?
00:52:12Correct.
00:52:13I arranged it with our police department and our command staff to have Davey police officers maintain security at the home for the Sioux family.
00:52:22And we have the latest on the search tonight.
00:52:24The story was all over the local news.
00:52:27The sheriff at the time appealed to the community to be on the lookout.
00:52:31If you think you know where he is, you think you know where he might be, you think you know where he might be going, or you think you see him, call us up.
00:52:38Two days, three days, four days passed.
00:52:41A Crime Stopper's reward grew to $50,000.
00:52:45But the fugitive continued to elude the law, and the rumor mill exploded.
00:52:50Deontay was here. Deontay was there.
00:52:53Law enforcement running down the tips, chasing down the rumors.
00:52:57We'd actually heard at one point he pulled into a hospital in West Broward, and he died in the emergency room there.
00:53:03I happened to have an ex-girlfriend who worked in that emergency room, and I quickly texted her.
00:53:08You have a dead guy there, maybe in his early 20s, black guy.
00:53:11And she's like, no.
00:53:12So the stuff was all floating around.
00:53:13Yeah, the rumors were flying.
00:53:15And when investigators turned up at Deontay's old hangouts to talk to friends and family members, they didn't always get a warm welcome.
00:53:23In fact, just the opposite.
00:53:24They're incredibly not receptive, and they're not having it.
00:53:28The case reinforced a sentiment in parts of Broward County's black community that they couldn't get a fair shake.
00:53:35Deontay's supporters asking, as others had, why a burglar was facing a charge of murder.
00:53:40He's got a past of, you know, robbery.
00:53:44But he doesn't have a violent past.
00:53:46The feeling is they needed a black guy to pin it on, and they picked him.
00:53:49So that was the feeling out of a lot of his friends and associates, and a fair amount of the black community in Broward that knew him.
00:53:58Deontay's audacious escape generated sympathy for him on social media.
00:54:02He became something of a folk hero to his supporters, known by that childhood nickname, Moochie.
00:54:08There's a rap song?
00:54:09There's a rap song.
00:54:10Run Moochie Run, is that right?
00:54:11There was a hashtag, Run Moochie Run.
00:54:13There was this outcry on social media from his friends and associates saying they should take this opportunity to look back into that case, which is not quite the way things work, folks.
00:54:24But then, suddenly, Moochie stopped running.
00:54:29Coming up, the great escape and how it was done.
00:54:34He's got a crew.
00:54:35Help him, you know, help him get out of the shackles.
00:54:37This is Ocean's Eleven stuff.
00:54:39Yeah, but there would be no Hollywood ending when Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
00:54:53After Deontay Resilis pulled off that crazy caper at the Broward County Courthouse and went on the layout, a promising new lead came in.
00:55:00A tipster claimed Deontay was hunkered down at a Days Inn about an hour away.
00:55:05Law enforcement hightailed it north and showed up in force.
00:55:09The information that we were receiving is that he was going to go down with a fight, so obviously the SWAT teams were called.
00:55:14It was six days since Deontay had busted out of the courthouse.
00:55:17Any dramatics in the takedown?
00:55:19No, he was taken in custody without any incident and brought back to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
00:55:25A greatly relieved Broward County Sheriff wiped giant omelet amounts of egg off his face and announced the arrest.
00:55:32Broward County in South Florida is a safer place.
00:55:36So how did he do it?
00:55:38How did a 21-year-old jailhouse prisoner pull this thing off?
00:55:42Well, by enlisting the help of devoted friends and family members.
00:55:46That's how.
00:55:47This is Ocean's Eleven stuff.
00:55:49Yeah.
00:55:50We're going to break this guy out of a courtroom.
00:55:52Very coordinated.
00:55:53Deontay's recorded phone calls from jail exposed the plot.
00:55:57Once investigators listened to them, they learned they'd been outwitted by a confederacy of mostly teenage plotters.
00:56:04He rounded up the Impossible Missions force and, you know, lit the match and pulled it off.
00:56:10This is video of Deontay in jail on the morning of the escape, preparing to put a plan into play that investigators believed he'd been hatching for months.
00:56:19Beginning with a key that would unlock his cuffs and shackles.
00:56:23How did he get his hands on such a key?
00:56:26Prosecutor Maria Schneider.
00:56:28There was a deputy at the jail who, a couple of months before this, reported having lost a handcuff key.
00:56:35Losing a handcuff key in the jail is a very big deal.
00:56:38So if you lose one, you have to file a report indicating where you had it, where you lost it.
00:56:43So we don't know whether that key, in fact, unlocked his handcuffs, but you wondered.
00:56:47The investigators listened to a phone call recorded just days before the escape.
00:56:52Deontay was talking to a friend in the courthouse who was describing the route Deontay should take to get out of the building.
00:56:59We know that his friend walked from the courtroom down the stairwell that leads to the third floor to the secondary stairwell that leads outside.
00:57:07And if you don't know the setup, you could walk into some dead ends.
00:57:10Correct. Correct. You need to know where to go.
00:57:13Especially if you're in a hurry.
00:57:17On the morning of the escape, security video shows Deontay getting patted down.
00:57:22You can see he's already ripped apart the legs of his jumpsuit to make it easier to kick off.
00:57:27And underneath the jumpsuit, he's wearing street clothes.
00:57:30Later, the inmates approach the courtroom fully shackled.
00:57:34One prisoner then blocks Deontay's torso from view and unlatches his waist chain, giving Deontay's hands room to maneuver.
00:57:41It speaks to Mr. Rosilla's kind of intelligence that he was able to organize this whole thing.
00:57:48He's got a crew helping him, you know, helping him get out of the shackles.
00:57:51When Deontay enters the courtroom with the other inmates, he heads for a seat in the jury box.
00:57:57Investigators believe that's when he unlocks his cuffs and shackles.
00:58:02Now he's ready to make a run for it as soon as all his Confederates are in position.
00:58:07So there's two twins who are eyes and ears in the court?
00:58:09Yeah.
00:58:10Who are they talking to?
00:58:11They're talking to the people in the car.
00:58:13The getaway.
00:58:14Right.
00:58:15And so when the car's in position, one twin signals the other twin, twin signals Rosillas.
00:58:20And he's like, okay, now everything's in place for you to roll.
00:58:25And roll he did.
00:58:27The sheriff picked up the story.
00:58:29One of the twins coughed into a cell phone.
00:58:33That cough was a message to alert them to know that Rosillas was on his way down to the vehicle.
00:58:38The rest is history.
00:58:40Defense investigator Gentry Chambers.
00:58:42Look, was there a party gentry?
00:58:43You said, man, that was incredible.
00:58:45Of course.
00:58:46I mean, I'm saying to myself, how many guys actually evade the police and get away?
00:58:52And away for a week?
00:58:54Except for one postscript that punctures the idea the young plotters had thought of everything,
00:58:59rather than just being very lucky.
00:59:01This is a poor kid from the hood who didn't probably even think this was going to go down the way that it went down.
00:59:07Look, the car that picked them up didn't even have gas in it.
00:59:10They had to stop to the gas station.
00:59:12In the months ahead, all eight of those who helped Deontay were charged and convicted.
00:59:18He's very smart.
00:59:20He's very charming.
00:59:22Because he got all these people to put their own freedom on the line for him.
00:59:26As for Deontay Rosillas, he may have been back behind bars on 23-hour lockdown and facing new charges.
00:59:33But he wasn't done.
00:59:35The escape is not the end of it for this young man.
00:59:37Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
00:59:39No, he continues.
00:59:40Not long after he was captured, Deontay wrote this letter to the judge whose court he fled.
00:59:45He apologized for bolting, said in his defense that he didn't stray far.
00:59:50Then he offered an explanation.
00:59:52I was clearly trying to just gather evidence for my defense.
00:59:57I had to bust myself out so I could be my own detective to find exculpatory information.
01:00:04To clear myself and, you know, you're a very fair judge.
01:00:08Like I said, he buttered him up.
01:00:10Far from trying to gather evidence to help his case, Deontay was actually busy doing other things while he was hunkered down in that motel room.
01:00:18He was just hanging out and talking to friends and going on porn websites.
01:00:22But Deontay now had other business to pursue.
01:00:25Top of that list, feeding the social media machine to keep the Justice for Deontay campaign alive.
01:00:32Recording this message, which was posted on Facebook.
01:00:35But Deontay did sit in jail for years.
01:00:48The trial finally took place in 2021.
01:00:51And like everything in this story, it would end with a can you believe it twist.
01:00:58Coming up, disorder in the court.
01:01:01As you're going back into the courtroom to announce your verdict.
01:01:04I'm like, what am I doing?
01:01:06This is not right.
01:01:07In an extraordinary moment, a juror changes her verdict.
01:01:11This is your verdict.
01:01:13No.
01:01:14When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
01:01:19Welcome back.
01:01:20Six days after Deontay Resilis' astonishing escape from a Broward County courthouse, a tipster gave up his location.
01:01:33Surrounded by SWAT teams, Deontay quickly surrendered.
01:01:37Now, he was about to return to court to face murder charges.
01:01:42If you thought this was going to be an ordinary trial, think again.
01:01:47Another jaw-dropping surprise was in store.
01:01:50Back to Dennis Murphy with The Figure in the House.
01:01:54In 2019, five years after Jill Sue's murder, and three years after Deontay Resilis' notorious courtroom dash for freedom, a billboard went up in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
01:02:07It was provocative in both its wording and placement.
01:02:11This billboard, which reportedly the sheriff could see from his window, was showing the victim and the person accused of killing her saying, two victims, one truth.
01:02:20And with a hashtag, justice for Moochie.
01:02:24And it says, who killed Jill Halliburton?
01:02:27Who framed Deontay Resilis?
01:02:29To this day, no one has figured out who paid for that billboard, with its message that Deontay Resilis was yet another wrongfully accused black man.
01:02:38How provocative was that?
01:02:40It was a direct shot at Broward Sheriff's Office.
01:02:44It was really a middle finger to law enforcement in Broward.
01:02:46Right, right.
01:02:47And it didn't really, I don't think it swayed an opinion.
01:02:50To Jill Sue's family, it was a poke in the eye.
01:02:53How painful was that?
01:02:55It wasn't more painful than just made me angry.
01:02:59Deontay's supporters were angry, too.
01:03:02NBC's 6 South Florida covered some of those rallies.
01:03:05Deontay, once more a symbol of a system his supporters believed was stacked against them.
01:03:11So many people, so many odd people, that have just been railroaded through the justice system,
01:03:16and it's just not fair.
01:03:18Deontay's trial was looming, and the Justice for Moochie campaign played right into the defense's strategy.
01:03:25Ayati Dominguez, one of Deontay's attorneys.
01:03:28It's not a unique experience or a unique thing to happen that someone could be falsely arrested, especially if they're black.
01:03:34Prosecutor Maria Schneider.
01:03:36So you've got a very noisy court of public opinion looking over your shoulder here.
01:03:39We do.
01:03:40We do.
01:03:41And the defendant...
01:03:42And you have to deal with it.
01:03:43It's a factor.
01:03:44Yeah.
01:03:45And Mr. Resilis is very charismatic, and he has a group of friends who are very, very devoted to him.
01:03:49In late 2021, seven years after Jill Sue was stabbed to death, Deontay Resilis went on trial for first-degree murder.
01:03:58He'd pleaded not guilty.
01:04:00The trial came down to one key issue, the DNA at the crime scene.
01:04:04The best thing you have going is the DNA, right?
01:04:06Absolutely.
01:04:07The DNA is indisputable.
01:04:09Turns out investigators found Deontay's DNA in two places.
01:04:14Inside the house on a belt, and outside the house on one of Justin's knives.
01:04:19It should have been a slam dunk.
01:04:21But the county lab where the DNA was processed had a history of controversy.
01:04:26Listen, nothing is ever simple.
01:04:29The BSO lab in 2015 was accused by a local expert of mishandling how they calculated the numbers, the statistics, of how often in a population it is likely that you would find similar DNA.
01:04:46It was a dispute over numbers, the prosecutor said, nothing more.
01:04:50No one ever has accused the Broward Sheriff's Office of getting the DNA processing wrong.
01:04:58Nevertheless, Deontay's defense attorneys worked mightily to keep those doubts about the lab work front and center.
01:05:05They were also laser focused on Justin Su, arguing that even the police initially thought Justin was the killer.
01:05:12I didn't do it!
01:05:13He was back in the hot seat.
01:05:15That years ago intense interrogation relived now in court.
01:05:19Defense attorney Michael Orlando.
01:05:21I think it was focusing in on his behavior and where he lied to the police.
01:05:29Justin Su is going to go on trial virtually for murdering his mother.
01:05:32Yeah, basically they put him on trial.
01:05:34When jurors went out, deliberations dragged.
01:05:38Finally, day five.
01:05:41A verdict.
01:05:42Remember, Deontay was charged with first degree murder.
01:05:45A stunner was coming.
01:05:47The defendant is guilty of the lesser included crime of manslaughter.
01:05:51Guilty of manslaughter.
01:05:53With a considerably lighter sentence than murder one.
01:05:56A blow to the family.
01:05:58So why?
01:05:59As is customary, the judge polled the jurors, asking each if this was their verdict.
01:06:04He started with the foreperson.
01:06:06Another stunner.
01:06:07Is this your verdict?
01:06:08No.
01:06:09Let's play that again.
01:06:12No.
01:06:13The camera was not allowed to show jurors' faces.
01:06:17But this was unheard of.
01:06:19A juror changing her verdict.
01:06:21He asked me, do you agree to manslaughter?
01:06:25I took a pause.
01:06:26I felt like forever, and then I just said no.
01:06:29Meet the juror who recanted.
01:06:32Her name is Jackie.
01:06:33We changed her appearance because she's concerned about her safety.
01:06:37I sat there and I took a deep breath and they're just waiting and I see them leaning forward, like waiting for me to give the answer.
01:06:44Minutes earlier, she says, she'd been disturbed by the reaction at the defense table when the verdict of manslaughter was announced.
01:06:51They were patting each other on the back and they were all smiles and giggles.
01:06:55And that didn't go down well with you?
01:06:57It did not.
01:06:58It just bothered me so much.
01:07:00It stiffened her resolve.
01:07:02And then I just said no.
01:07:05And I felt relief.
01:07:07Jackie was convinced Deontay Resilis deserved the more severe penalty of murder one.
01:07:12But she says she presided over a deeply divided jury.
01:07:16The dividing issue, she says, was race.
01:07:19Jackie herself is Afro-Latina.
01:07:21Remember, the country was still gripped by an anguished debate about racial justice following George Floyd's murder.
01:07:28And so, Jackie says, was Deontay Resilis' jury.
01:07:31One of the men started crying and was like, I can't send another young black man to jail.
01:07:37And I looked at him and I said, excuse me.
01:07:40I was like, if it was my brother that committed this murder, I would have no problem sending my brother to jail for the rest of his life.
01:07:47They'd been sequestered for five days.
01:07:50They'd argued and argued again.
01:07:52Eventually, Jackie says, she and others gave in and went with the lesser charge.
01:07:57So you voted for manslaughter?
01:07:59I voted for manslaughter.
01:08:00In the jury room.
01:08:01Correct.
01:08:02But as you're going back into the courtroom to announce your verdict, are the wheels moving in your head?
01:08:06The wheels were moving, sir.
01:08:07Yes, sir.
01:08:08And I'm like, what am I doing?
01:08:09This is not right.
01:08:11So she did what she did.
01:08:13Said that one little word.
01:08:14The judge dealt with the divide.
01:08:16Rule the jury.
01:08:17Going back, they'll continue with their deliberations.
01:08:19Back in the jury room, Jackie says things got ugly.
01:08:22She says she felt threatened by one juror.
01:08:25He said, you **** Puerto Rican.
01:08:27If I was to see you out in the street, I would smack you in the face.
01:08:32But Jackie wasn't budging.
01:08:34I knew that what I was doing was the right thing.
01:08:37So you come back into court and judge, we're not going to get there, right?
01:08:40And he just said, thank you for your time served.
01:08:43And that was it.
01:08:45A mistrial.
01:08:47We spoke to five other jurors and some, not all, agreed race was a divisive issue during deliberations.
01:08:54After she was dismissed, Jackie spoke with Jill's husband.
01:08:57Dr. Sue is a lovely man, very humble, very kind.
01:09:00We spoke about it and he started crying.
01:09:03I started getting a little teary-eyed as well.
01:09:06And, you know, I told them, you know, I had to be the voice for Jill because no one else wanted to be.
01:09:12And give her the justice that you and your family deserve to at least get a little bit of closure.
01:09:18In a matter of months, a new group of 12 would gather in the same courtroom and begin to weigh the matter of Deontay Resilis all over again.
01:09:27Coming up, three little letters that no one can agree on.
01:09:33That man's DNA.
01:09:36DNA.
01:09:37His DNA was nowhere in her bedroom or the bathroom where this murder occurred.
01:09:42And Justin back in the hot seat.
01:09:45He lied about his whereabouts.
01:09:47When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
01:09:51Well, the second trial of a man accused of a gruesome murder has started.
01:09:59Three months after the mistrial of Deontay Resilis,
01:10:02Prosecutor Maria Schneider was hoping this time the verdict would match the crime to her unquestionably first-degree murder.
01:10:10I know the strength of the evidence that I have.
01:10:13I don't need to play games.
01:10:14I just have to tell these people what it is.
01:10:17The state's theory of the crime was this.
01:10:19Deontay broke into the house to rob it, unexpectedly came across Jill and the two fought.
01:10:25At some point, Jill tried to escape out the front door.
01:10:28A neighbor said it was noon when she heard an unsettling cry coming from the Sioux house.
01:10:34I heard a high-pitched, shrieky sound.
01:10:39And I saw a light-colored object at the front door.
01:10:44And it was going back into the house.
01:10:48The woman thought it was the Sioux's dog.
01:10:50But the prosecutor said it was Jill who let out that shriek as Deontay dragged her back inside.
01:10:56She puts Mrs. Sioux at noon when Justin and Dr. Sioux are not at the house alive.
01:11:02The prosecutor has a theory as to how Deontay was able to drag Jill back in and tie her up.
01:11:08It is possible that during the struggle, when she tried to escape through the front door,
01:11:12that she was hit on the back of the head, and that could have knocked her out.
01:11:15The knife used to stab Jill had a sharp edge at the end of the handle.
01:11:20The medical examiner said an injury on Jill's head matched that shape.
01:11:24Once unconscious, the prosecutor said, Deontay dragged her into the couple's bathroom, where he murdered her.
01:11:31There's very little blood in and about the bathroom.
01:11:34So that indicates to us that she was stabbed while she was in the bathtub.
01:11:37The bedrock of the state's case were the three letters all juries love to hear.
01:11:42That man's DNA. DNA.
01:11:47And in the second trial, prosecutors again pointed out those two items, the belt and knife, that contained Deontay's DNA.
01:11:54But in this trial, there was something new. A third hit with Deontay's DNA.
01:11:59It was found on that broken glass door.
01:12:02The point of entry, which I think is very important, you know, that glass that he went through.
01:12:08The shimmy under the glass.
01:12:09Correct.
01:12:10How certain was the analyst who tested the DNA?
01:12:13This is what she said about the broken glass door.
01:12:15The DNA results are at least 2.333 quadrillion times more likely if they originated from Deontay Resilis.
01:12:24That is one number with 27 zeros behind it.
01:12:27That is multiple times more than the population of the world.
01:12:31And when prosecutor Schneider told jurors about that infamous breakout, she said it was evidence of his guilt.
01:12:38Deontay Resilis escapes from a packed courtroom.
01:12:44And there was more.
01:12:45After his capture, Deontay tried to enlist friends to help him fabricate an alibi for the day Jill was murdered.
01:12:52So he bribed a corrections officer to get him a phone.
01:12:56He was looking to get a cell phone smuggled into the jail.
01:13:01Sergeant Jason Hendrick testified that with that device, Deontay started enlisting people in his conspiracy.
01:13:07Everything that you, like, I need you to do is basically just to help me or whatever and help my alibi or whatever.
01:13:14Little did Deontay know, the phone was tapped.
01:13:17Hello.
01:13:18What's going on?
01:13:19In one of those calls, he asked someone to lie for him, saying he was in Georgia, not Florida, on the day Jill was murdered.
01:13:26How?
01:13:27About, okay, I know he was in Georgia from, like, up there from the 3rd.
01:13:32And then I came back on the 9th.
01:13:34Jill's murder was on the 8th of September.
01:13:36And Deontay's own cell phone record showed he was in Florida that day.
01:13:41He posted, um, posted or received messages and the GPS put it in the location of Pompano Beach.
01:13:48And in an attempt to counter the state's strongest evidence, his DNA at the crime scene, Deontay asked one friend to lie about that, too.
01:13:57To pretend that some guy had a fight with the defendant, caught him, took his blood, and planted it at the crime scene.
01:14:06That's correct.
01:14:07Okay.
01:14:08Only problem is none of the DNA from the crime scene is from blood, is it?
01:14:11No.
01:14:12Okay.
01:14:13So was this case impossible to defend?
01:14:16Far from it, said Deontay's defense attorneys, Michael Orlando and Ayati Dominguez.
01:14:21The strategy was similar to that in the first trial, attack the DNA evidence.
01:14:25Our main theory in the case was that he never was the person that killed Jill Halliburton Sue, because his DNA was nowhere in her bedroom or the bathroom where this murder occurred.
01:14:36His DNA might have been found in other parts of the house, but not where Jill's body was found.
01:14:42Why is his DNA not in the place where there's a clear struggle?
01:14:47The person was put in the bathtub, somebody turned on the sink, threw things inside, and DNA survived in the bathtub.
01:14:54But Deontay's DNA is nowhere there.
01:14:57And then there was that murder weapon found in the bathtub with Jill's body.
01:15:01Deontay's DNA simply wasn't on it.
01:15:04He's excluded from being any type of a contributor to the DNA that's found that night.
01:15:12Prosecutor Schneider disputes that.
01:15:15She says it is possible for DNA to dissipate in water.
01:15:18Still, the defense remained critical of all the DNA collected at the scene.
01:15:23Are you saying that is his DNA, but somebody planted it?
01:15:26Or was the lab got it wrong?
01:15:29I wish we could have a crystal ball and go back and find out how exactly it got there.
01:15:35We focused in on a couple things.
01:15:37One was to highlight the issue of potential contamination.
01:15:42The other was to bring out some of the issues that the lab has had.
01:15:47The defense also raised the possibility of other potential suspects for the jury to consider.
01:15:53Did the people that Justin had invited over to the house have a role in the murder of Jill Halliburton-Sue?
01:16:04And in its cross-examination of Nanyal-Sue, the defense made sure jurors heard his description of the person he saw on the security camera.
01:16:13You said that the person that you saw was white.
01:16:16It appeared to be white, yes.
01:16:19And if the defense went hard at Justin during the first trial, they drilled down even harder during the second.
01:16:25Justin was a suspect in this case.
01:16:31But after Mr. Bracillis was arrested, then they no longer pursued that angle.
01:16:38But police should have pursued him, the defense said, reminding jurors of Justin's inconsistencies.
01:16:44Even after police detectives accused you of murder, you continued to lie to them about where you were.
01:16:55When I was being interrogated, I possibly said that.
01:16:59I was under a lot of distress.
01:17:01He lied about his whereabouts, saying that he was at the library.
01:17:07And then it was like, oh no, I was in the parking garage in the middle of September in South Florida, and I was taking a nap in my car.
01:17:18In closing arguments, the defense said the state didn't do its job.
01:17:23What they've shown you here today is not in any way proof that Deontay killed Jill Sue, at all.
01:17:30But the state doubled down on its physical evidence.
01:17:33The science puts him there.
01:17:35The science puts his hands on a weapon.
01:17:38The science puts his hands on an item that tied Mrs. Sue up.
01:17:44Jurors started their deliberations.
01:17:47The last time it took five days.
01:17:49Once the jury went into a second day of deliberations, I started despairing.
01:17:55Groundhog Day.
01:17:56I thought, oh my God, it's either going to be another hung jury, or there's some jurors in there who just are not seeing the evidence for what it is.
01:18:06Coming up, after seven years of verdict.
01:18:11Can you hear the words? Tell me what's going through your brain and your stomach.
01:18:14I know that my body was clenched so tightly.
01:18:19When Dateline Secrets Uncovered continues.
01:18:30Deontay Resilis' first murder trial ended in a mistrial.
01:18:34Now, after three days of deliberations in the second trial, there was a verdict.
01:18:39Everyone braced for the reading.
01:18:41Ladies and gentlemen, it's my understanding you have reached the verdict, is that correct?
01:18:44The defendant's supporters and family sat near him.
01:18:47But Jill Sue's family chose not to attend court for this verdict.
01:18:51Not after their experience the last time around.
01:18:54Guilty of murder in the first degree.
01:19:06Quiet gratitude at the prosecution table.
01:19:09Can you hear the words? Tell me what's going through your brain and your stomach.
01:19:12I don't even know. I know that my body was clenched so tightly that when I heard the words, I just felt my whole body like relax and say thank you God, you know. Justice was done.
01:19:27Jill's husband was driving when he got the news.
01:19:31Oh my God, I have to stop my car. I scream and I say finally, finally, finally. All these years, finally. Maybe we'll start to heal again. Maybe we can start to heal, really heal.
01:19:48Across the room at the defense table, little reaction from Deontay Resilis.
01:19:53He knows that any reaction he would have, you know, at that point, it wouldn't matter. It was not going to change the verdict. But he knew. It was a somber event.
01:20:06A manslaughter verdict would have meant a 15 year max sentence. A first degree murder conviction meant the death penalty or life without parole.
01:20:15And now he's coming out of corrections in a pine box, probably. It's that severe.
01:20:21And the jury believed the state's version of events.
01:20:24But a verdict is a verdict. Both sides now had urgent business. Should Resilis get the death penalty or not?
01:20:32We strongly felt that this should not be a death penalty case.
01:20:38There was a lot of mitigating circumstances.
01:20:42The Sues were also consulted and they wrestled with the decision.
01:20:46I think in some respects that he should die just because of what he did.
01:20:53And in another sense, too, I want him to suffer in another way, just living the rest of his life in a smaller enclosure that he did than the bathroom that he took my mother's life in.
01:21:05What do you think Jill would have said?
01:21:07Jill would have said, no, she doesn't want to take another life.
01:21:10In the end, the state took the death penalty off the table.
01:21:15That meant the judge had no discretion in sentencing.
01:21:19Deontay Resilis would serve mandatory life in prison with no parole.
01:21:24At sentencing, the Sues got the chance to confront the now convicted killer of their beloved Jill.
01:21:30Deontay, Jill is the kind of person who could help you.
01:21:35Instead, you kill her.
01:21:38You kill her in cold blood, like a psychopath.
01:21:44Then, he dismissed his wife's killer.
01:21:47After this, today, young Deontay Resilis, I'm going to erase you from my memory.
01:21:55In my mind, you do not exist.
01:21:58From Justin, the son whom Resilis' side had tried to portray as the real killer, came another dismissal and a grim prophecy.
01:22:06Deontay, if I'm watching everyone you know that you think love you and that love you, slowly go on with their lives and just forget about who you were, you slowly become nothing.
01:22:21Normally, when the sentence is mandatory, defendants have little to say.
01:22:26But Resilis spoke for 25 minutes.
01:22:29Resilis, you have a seat.
01:22:30He made the inevitable declaration of innocence.
01:22:33I don't possess the hate, rage inside my heart to commit such a heinous crime.
01:22:41And then the insistence that he, Deontay Resilis, was another wrongfully accused black man.
01:22:47This courtroom that I currently sit in is no place for people of my skin color.
01:22:56Finally, it was the judge's turn.
01:22:58The court now finds you guilty, adjudicates you guilty, and sentences you to life from prison.
01:23:04Afterwards, the sues, Nan Yao, Justin, and Sister Mandy went to a local park.
01:23:14The ordeal was behind them, but scars lingered.
01:23:18Justin still battles the effects of trauma, first from finding his mother's body, and then being accused of killing her during that painful interrogation, reprised again and again in the courtroom.
01:23:29One positive, he did get the apology he demanded from the police.
01:23:34I took it upon myself to go talk to him, and I told him, listen, if your feelings are hurt, basically I'm sorry, but I'm here to do the job for the victim.
01:23:40And that's my responsibility is to the victim to find out who did this, sir.
01:23:44Justin says the apology felt matter of fact.
01:23:47I went to the police station, and they apologized to me, and then right after, they just went into, like, business stuff.
01:23:53I don't think they really know, even to this day, they really know what doing something like that to somebody can cost them.
01:24:02In the park where the family gathered, there's a bench dedicated to Jill embossed with her artwork.
01:24:09They remembered the woman who made helping others her life's work.
01:24:13It's turn of the century America.
01:24:16The hundreds of hours she spent recording books for the blind.
01:24:19She touched more lives than you'll ever be able to count.
01:24:22Yeah, definitely. She touched a lot of people's lives.
01:24:25You know, and it's a true fact that if she were still alive, she would be helping out.
01:24:32Justice now done for Jill Sue, the gentle woman with a huge heart and generous spirit.
01:24:41And an unfinished agenda of good works remaining.
01:24:47That's all for this edition of Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
01:24:51I'm Craig Melvin. Thank you for watching.
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