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00:06we don't want to accept that there's actually evil that walks amongst us
00:13but it does and this was pure evil
00:22the han family i felt better whenever i spent time with henry jenny and emily henry was
00:29born to be the healer henry was the guy in the alternative medicine world patients would come
00:37in from all different parts of the country to see him when you go to the clinic it just
00:42kind of oozed of peacefulness he had the magic emily had her own little table and her crayons
00:52her mom jenny was there working in the clinic it's kind of good therapy to be with the three
00:59of them they did make a good team we were business partners with henry and we were becoming friends
01:06we really had a beautiful road ahead of us
01:12he had a 10 a.m meeting with his normal investment group it was probably you know a good 45
01:18minutes
01:18um after the meeting was supposed to start that we all kind of went where is henry if he was
01:23going
01:23to be two minutes late he called we're trying to call henry and was going straight to voicemail
01:28so for him to miss this meeting would be a big deal he just wouldn't something was not right we
01:34all
01:35had a pit in our stomach and we were trying to find a reason why that pit shouldn't be there
01:40emily's birthday is coming up maybe they took her to disneyland somebody's got to go over to their
01:46house and check on them mark finally gets in touch with don goldberg very unusual not to get any
01:53communication from either jenny or henry by midday i decided to go to the home from the outside it looked
02:01normal went to the front door door was closed but it was not locked the two vehicles were in the
02:07garage
02:07which you could see through the windows at the top of the garage door then i called 9-1-1
02:13they came over
02:15and did a welfare check around 5 30 that evening two deputies arrived made entry called out no
02:22response and then started to look to see if there was any sign of foul play and that's what led
02:28them
02:28to open the garage door and then if you walk around the first car they can see what appears to
02:36be three
02:36bodies wrapped in plastic and duct tape within a minute or two sunk in that the the three
02:44bodies were henry jenny and emily my friends were gone there's a certain amount of shock that that sets in
02:53we didn't hear back from don we didn't eat that night we didn't sleep that night
03:00a five-year-old three days short of her birthday it shook us all to our core it was
03:07rough things started rapidly going into the next phase who how and why it's a huge home there was
03:18biological evidence throughout primarily in the upstairs in the bedrooms where the murders took place
03:24the smell of bleach was there indicating a cleanup attempt an entire family killed presumably while they
03:32slept we knew there was a monster out there and we were going to find him and get him
03:39so
03:48so
03:50so
03:50so
04:19Transcription by CastingWords
04:26Mark and Marla Palumbo were concerned when their friend and business partner, Dr. Henry Hahn, failed to show up for
04:33a meeting on March 23, 2016.
04:36They would learn the horrific reason why the following day from a news report.
04:42I was in the kitchen on my computer and I kept checking and I just remember screaming they're all dead.
04:52Dr. Hahn, his wife Jenny, and their five-year-old daughter Emily were found dead in the garage of their
04:59Santa Barbara home.
05:01Mark had just seen them on his way back from a business trip.
05:05We went out for dinner, played Connect Four with Emily.
05:09He's brought his phone to me and I'm just looking at all these pictures of Emily and they were taken
05:15the Friday before.
05:16Just horrific.
05:18Yeah.
05:21And she was just goofing around with a book.
05:25Making all these funny faces and you could tell she was loving life.
05:33The Palumbos had recently embarked on a new business venture with Dr. Hahn.
05:38I really love the guy.
05:39I mean, he really was smart and curious and open-minded.
05:43He had to come with food and in shorts and flip-flops, you know.
05:47Just no air about him.
05:49But what made you trust him?
05:51His passion.
05:53Yeah, well, he cared about people.
05:55Don Goldberg had known Dr. Hahn for more than 25 years and thought of him as a brother.
06:01To Don, he was just Henry.
06:04I was approximately 10 years older than Henry, but he still called me his younger brother.
06:11You just don't come across a friend like Henry.
06:15It's once-in-a-lifetime friendship.
06:20When they met, Henry was making a name for himself after emigrating from China, where
06:25he came from a family of physicians.
06:27He would soon take over the Santa Barbara Herb Clinic.
06:31I had several patients who had had medication side effects.
06:37They would say, I went to see Dr. Hahn and it went away.
06:41And it was like, I got to meet this guy.
06:44Dr. Glenn Miller, a psychiatrist, says he and Henry developed a mutual respect and even
06:50partnered on a book about how Eastern and Western medicine could work together to improve
06:56patients' quality of life.
06:58Henry's practice was flourishing.
07:01As far as active patients, he would see, like, in a month, it was hundreds.
07:05But he also tried to balance it.
07:07In 2009, that balance he was seeking became a reality when Henry met and married Jenny Yu.
07:17He seemed incredibly happy.
07:21It was good to see Henry that happy.
07:23Jenny was absolutely warm and lovely.
07:28When they had Emily, the dream was complete.
07:32Henry was just on cloud nine.
07:34He was a very proud father.
07:38They were often together at the clinic, where Jenny had quickly become Henry's right hand,
07:44says her friend Isaiah Oregon.
07:46He really trusted her and let her kind of take the reins.
07:51In the spring of 2016, they were getting ready to celebrate Emily's sixth birthday.
07:57Where should I go?
07:59Go wherever.
08:00Go wherever?
08:00We were making plans for her birthday party, and, you know, I had all her presents wrapped.
08:05But just three days shy of her birthday, her loved ones were stricken with grief.
08:12I don't really have adequate words to describe how I felt.
08:19The sadness is too deep.
08:20As night fell on the Hahn estate on Wednesday, March 23rd, Don tried to process what he had just witnessed.
08:29He had called 911 when he couldn't find the Hans anywhere, and he was with sheriff's deputies when they discovered
08:36the bodies in the garage wrapped in plastic.
08:39None of it made any sense at all.
08:45Prosecutor Ben Ledinig says it was shortly before midnight when Santa Barbara sheriff's investigators obtained a search warrant and began
08:54to piece together what had happened inside the house.
08:58It appeared the family had been shot while they slept upstairs on the second floor, Henry in the couple's bedroom,
09:06and Jenny and Emily across the hall in Emily's room.
09:11Emily's room was tough to see.
09:13Mom probably read her stories to have Emily go to sleep that night and was sleeping with her.
09:20What did that tell you about the depravity of the kind of person who could do something like that?
09:25What were they after?
09:27We didn't know what he was after, but the depravity, I've never seen anything like it.
09:34Detectives picked up on the distinct smell of the murderer's attempts to cover his tracks.
09:40The smell of bleach was there.
09:41We had bleach bottles found.
09:43There were bleach stains on the carpet and throughout other items upstairs, and then you see bloody things in a
09:50washing machine.
09:52All the bedding, which had been stripped from the beds, was found piled in the laundry room and in the
09:58machine.
09:59The washing machine, the alarm had gone off because the load was unbalanced, and within there are a huge group
10:08of bloody sheets.
10:10Wedged in pillows in the laundry, crime scene investigators found a .22 caliber bullet and bullet fragments.
10:16Three matching shell casings were found within the wrapping of Jenny's body, and one was later found lodged between the
10:24baseboard and box spring of Emily's bed.
10:27We had one bullet that was a .22 caliber bullet.
10:30It was perfect for comparison for the murder weapon.
10:35As things are going, we start to find clues as to who potentially could be involved.
10:43Inside a paper bag next to Henry's bed, detectives found a document signed the last day Henry was seen alive.
10:51It provided a name.
10:53It's basically a four-page business contract between two partners, partner one, Pierre Hopsch, and partner two, Dr. Hahn.
11:01Don Goldberg knew a Pierre that Dr. Hahn was associated with, but Don thought he was harmless.
11:08I did not think that Pierre was capable of murder.
11:13I never really saw Pierre become angry or agitated.
11:18But the Palumbos had a bad feeling.
11:21You didn't trust him?
11:22I did not.
11:42This community was left with a scar.
11:46The indelible scar left by the murders was the kind that not even Dr. Hahn could have healed.
12:04Kimberly Ruff says Dr. Hahn treated her family for two decades.
12:08He could do anything.
12:10Ever since she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after giving birth to her son.
12:16Kimberly says Dr. Hahn's holistic approach allowed her to nurse her newborn while still treating her tumors.
12:23No matter how scared you might be or frightened, you just left feeling like it's going to be okay.
12:31Yeah, he was something.
12:33Instilling hope may have been one of the secrets to why his patients say Dr. Hahn could heal just about
12:40anything.
12:40Dr. Hahn, like, saved my life.
12:44Sherry Biron was also a young mother with cancer when she went to Dr. Hahn.
12:48My daughter, Abby, was 15 months old.
12:52I felt a lump under my armpit.
12:55Even though she had the prescribed surgery and chemotherapy, she credits Dr. Hahn with her survival.
13:02There were so many people that passed away around me.
13:05He got me through it.
13:06What was the impact for you of his loss?
13:08It's the fear of if something comes back.
13:11And I'm trying every day to be positive and try to stay with his level of calm and how much
13:17confidence he had that, like, everything's taken care of.
13:20That conviction is what had drawn the Palumbos, who worked in the skincare industry, into their partnership with Dr. Hahn,
13:28hoping to treat various skin maladies.
13:31Henry was very interested in CBD.
13:33Having used CBD in his practice to treat pain and inflammation, Henry wanted to harness its full potential.
13:41It was groundbreaking science at the time, and he wanted 25-year-old Pierre Hopsch to help develop it.
13:48Pierre, from what we gathered, had a lot of experience in laboratories, in this case relating to CBD.
13:57Henry had taken a liking to Pierre after meeting him through another associate.
14:01But the Palumbos were uncomfortable with Pierre from the start.
14:06You know how when you meet somebody, you can't put your finger on it, but something's not right?
14:12That was Pierre.
14:14There was always this kind of little boiling simmer.
14:17When it came time to do the lab work, the Palumbos say the results were disturbing.
14:23What we came to find out was he was using toxic materials.
14:27When we called him on it, he said, you know, I'm just learning more about the molecules.
14:32It was just weird.
14:33As it turned out, Pierre wasn't a formally trained scientist.
14:37He didn't even have a college degree.
14:40The more you got onto that surface, the more you realize that he could talk a game and stay over
14:47the folks' heads a bit scientifically.
14:50Sounds like he was sort of a snake oil salesman type, right?
14:54He was.
14:54Sophisticated one, but yes.
14:56Yeah, very sophisticated one.
14:57There was more eyebrow-raising behavior.
15:00Pierre had also made odd charges on Henry's account.
15:04I was doing all the finances, and I'm like, this doesn't look right.
15:09Not a business expense.
15:10Not at all.
15:11After Marla flagged the charges to Henry, he discovered they were for escort services.
15:17Henry was, you won't believe this.
15:19Pierre's out.
15:20That was the final straw.
15:21That was Henry's final straw.
15:23But then, a few weeks before the murders, Mark and Marla say Henry brought up Pierre out of the blue.
15:29Henry mentioned that he had learned a lot more about Pierre's upbringing.
15:36How much Pierre had to overcome from his childhood.
15:40Mark nor I really responded.
15:42We didn't want to have Pierre back in our fold at all.
15:47The Palombos were not alone in being wary of Pierre.
15:51Jenny's friend, Isaiah, says Jenny also had concerns and confided in him about them four days before the murders.
15:59It was weighing on her heavily.
16:01Do we trust him?
16:02Do we give him another chance?
16:04I was like, absolutely not.
16:05If he stole from you before, he's going to steal from you again.
16:08But Pierre had already ingratiated himself back into Henry's goodwill.
16:13Henry had a very trusting nature.
16:16Henry had shared with me that Pierre told him that he was ill, that it was late stage cancer,
16:23and that he was going to do what he could to help Pierre.
16:27Using Henry's good nature by lying to him, by manipulating him.
16:32Authorities learned that Pierre had been an overnight guest at the Hans' home before the murders
16:38and had formed a new partnership with the healer.
16:41There was that contract found in the master bedroom they had signed the last day of Henry's life.
16:47But prosecutor Ben Ledinig says it didn't seem legitimate.
16:51It was like a college sophomore drafted it.
16:55It was not notarized, not witnessed.
16:58Detectives had found something else of interest.
17:01A brilliant detective found packaging to the plastic wrapping that all three of the Hahn family were wrapped in,
17:09in a trash can in the kitchen area, next to packaging of 3M duct tape,
17:15similar to the duct tape that was used to wrap all three of the bodies.
17:19He recognized the plastic wrap was a Home Depot brand and reached out to the company's security department.
17:26And Home Depot was, within hours of us getting an entry into the house,
17:32able to run those two items together to see if they had been purchased in the Southern California region
17:39within the last several days or weeks.
17:43A Home Depot in Oceanside, California, had security footage of a man who matched the DMV photo of Pierre Hopch,
17:52who also happened to have an Oceanside address.
17:55And that was bam.
17:56We knew.
17:57He's walking out with three huge plastic rolls and, sure enough, duct tape.
18:02So within hours of the crime scene being discovered, Pierre Hopch became person of interest.
18:10Yes.
18:10But where was Pierre now?
18:13Detectives had a hunch.
18:15Data from the Hahn's cell phones, which were missing,
18:19showed they were traveling south, further and further from Santa Barbara.
18:23Then, inexplicably, Henry's phone goes dark, but Jenny's is still on, and it keeps going south.
18:31We're getting basically digital footprints leading down to the Oceanside area from a dead woman's phone.
18:55Any time you're trying to stop somebody that is wanted for homicide, the stakes are going to be high.
19:00The day after the Hahn family was found murdered, a manhunt was underway in Oceanside, California, nearly 200 miles from
19:09the crime scene.
19:10Sergeant Anthony Flores and his partner were part of the local Oceanside police team assisting the Santa Barbara investigation.
19:17We had come in to work with our special enforcement section, and we were going to be the stop car
19:23for that day,
19:24if given up a window of opportunity to take him into custody or potentially stop him.
19:29Meanwhile, undercover detectives were conducting surveillance at the residence Pierre Hopch shared with his father,
19:35and updating all units, including the homicide team that had driven down from Santa Barbara with Prosecutor Ben Lidine.
19:44All of a sudden, we get chatter on our intercoms. Dad's on the move.
19:49The surveillance team followed Pierre's father as he drove to a Walmart parking lot,
19:54where security cameras captured him meeting up with none other than Pierre.
20:00That's Dad driving in a sedan, and then you see the Lexus following shortly behind.
20:07They appear to be communicating briefly together.
20:11You can just see that trunk pop on Dad's car.
20:15After transferring two large duffel bags to Pierre's car, they both drove off.
20:22We got to move quickly.
20:23It was a little after midnight, and we just got the update that the suspect was on the move.
20:29As we're traveling, we're hearing that he's pulling into the ARCO station.
20:33We had a few miles of a head start.
20:34The other units and Lidine had pulled over by the ARCO station, waiting for the arrest team to arrive.
20:41And all of a sudden, you see an unmarked car drive right through the middle of that intersection.
20:47Sparks fly, and it just basically comes in and pulls in and lays on the brakes.
20:52Two huge dudes get out of the car and pull a gun on him and prone him out.
20:56And our eyes are like saucy.
20:58We're like, whoa.
20:59Wow.
21:00It's 200 miles away that this investigation started, and it culminated here.
21:05Sergeant Flores had handcuffed Pierre.
21:07What do you remember about that arrest?
21:10I remember it going down really fast.
21:12All of our senses were heightened.
21:13Within 48 hours of the murders, investigators had the Hahn family's alleged killer in custody.
21:20Pierre Hopche waived his Miranda rights and started talking to detectives.
21:26What he told them was something out of a spy thriller.
21:29He claimed that his life was in danger.
21:32Over the past couple of days, I kid you not, I've been shot at.
21:37Probably about five individuals so far that I've shot in self-defense.
21:44He claimed he was being targeted because of a scientific marvel he had invented.
21:50What does it do?
21:51It's a very, very advanced energy source.
21:54It's a quantum kind of energy source.
21:56I think probably at least 15 individuals who have been connected to this project are dead.
22:02Pierre said he had gone to Dr. Hahn's house earlier in the week to install one of his perpetual energy
22:08devices,
22:08and that the plastic wrap and duct tape he was seen purchasing were for that purpose.
22:14Dr. Henry, we signed a contract together.
22:17He was going to facilitate taking the technology out to China.
22:20Loved the guy to death.
22:22He really, really liked this project.
22:25Pierre said he had left Santa Barbara around 2 p.m. on March 22nd,
22:29the day before the murders, after signing the contract.
22:33But detectives pushed back.
22:35There's more to this story that you're not telling me.
22:37He thought the Hahn is dead or murdered whites?
22:40I had no clue that, oh my gosh, everything was perfectly fine when I left.
22:47Pierre was adamant he would never hurt the family and insisted the shadowy figures who had been after him
22:54had killed the Hans and were trying to frame him for murder.
22:58I invented a technology that changes the world at oil companies and people don't want this technology out there.
23:04It was this massive conspiracy to keep this next-level energy system from getting out to market.
23:12James Bond, Mission Impossible, this fantastical life.
23:15I jumped out the window.
23:17Pierre's outlandish story continued.
23:19But then detectives received an unexpected call from someone who claimed to have information about the murders.
23:27Oh, I'm a pretty rough-around-the-edges guy.
23:29I have rough-around-the-edges friends.
23:31T.J. Dorito was a marijuana grower who said Dr. Hahn had approached him about supplying CBD-rich strains.
23:39T.J. had also met Pierre.
23:41Dr. Henry had told me that he was like a prodigy street chemist.
23:45He had done some stuff that was ahead of his time.
23:47So a little bit of a mad scientist.
23:49Yeah, I would say.
23:50According to T.J., Pierre had a penchant for making up grandiose stories to seek attention.
23:56But he befriended him nonetheless.
23:59He was that awkward kid that wanted to fit in.
24:03And I was the guy in high school that stuck up for kids like that.
24:07So I took an interest in him in that regard.
24:10You think he trusted you then?
24:12Oh, he absolutely trusted me.
24:14As T.J. revealed to detectives, Pierre had reached out to him via text the morning of the murders.
24:21The message sent at 9.39 a.m. said,
24:25I need your help with something urgently, like it's urgent.
24:29What was he asking for?
24:32He needed my help moving something.
24:35He says Pierre told him he was in Santa Barbara and needed to talk face-to-face.
24:40So T.J. had him come to his house in Thousand Oaks, about an hour away.
24:45The first thing out of his mouth, just so you know, I'm a monster.
24:48He had told me right then and there that he had killed Dr. Henry, his wife and his child, and
24:54needed help.
24:55Did he give you details of what he did?
24:58He did.
24:59T.J. told detectives Pierre said he had tried to put the bodies in his car.
25:04But they wouldn't all fit, and Henry was too heavy.
25:08Details Lodinig says only the killer would know.
25:12How the killings were done, how the bodies were wrapped up, how he had the doctor's phone.
25:18T.J. told detectives Pierre had also revealed his motive.
25:22$20 million that he planned to drain from Henry's accounts after killing the family.
25:27T.J. says he didn't know if what he was hearing was another one of Pierre's far-fetched stories.
25:32And until he knew for sure, he decided to play along.
25:37I just wanted to get him out of the house and confirm whether what he had just said was true
25:42or not.
25:42I said, let me work on it and I'll call you later.
25:44Once Pierre was gone, T.J. tried to reach Dr. Hahn and anyone who might have information, to no avail.
25:53I didn't want to call the police because I wasn't sure yet.
25:56It was chaotic.
25:57It was scary and also confusing.
25:59Pierre kept messaging him.
26:01Around 5 p.m., when T.J. still hadn't provided any assistance, Pierre texted him with a proposition.
26:09Want to come to Vegas tonight, I'll pay.
26:11What did you think the reason for that all of a sudden trip to Vegas?
26:16At that point, I wasn't sure.
26:18It didn't sound right.
26:19It was probably going to kill me and somehow make it look like I had something to do with it.
26:24You were going to be the fall guy.
26:26Right.
26:26T.J. made up an excuse why he couldn't go, and Pierre would send him one final text at 7
26:33.35 that night.
26:35Yep, I'm screwed.
26:37They just found everything.
26:38My life's over.
26:40Only if I'd got to it all sooner.
26:43Ledinig says Pierre had just returned to the crime scene with a big truck to transport the bodies.
26:50But law enforcement had beaten him to the scene.
26:54He knew his goose was cooked.
27:07Pierre Hopche's arrest near Oceanside, California, had come at a critical juncture.
27:13He was armed with a 9mm handgun that was in plain view on the driver's side floorboard.
27:20He also had his passport and those duffel bags, which he had received from his father minutes earlier.
27:27Two go bags.
27:29Basically, whatever you need, clothes, everything for the person to live for months.
27:35Hopche's father was also detained and questioned, but he was released later that morning.
27:40We could have charged him as an accessory,
27:43but we didn't have any indication that dad was involved in any way, shape, or form in the killing.
27:49The next day, during a closer examination of Hopche's car at the crime lab...
27:54You name it, we found it in that car.
27:56...there was Henry's wallet, credit card, and social security number,
28:01along with an expended shell casing.
28:03There were also the victim's phones and tablet, all wrapped in aluminum foil in an attempt to evade tracking.
28:11In the trunk, you lift up where the spare tire would be, the murder weapon, suppressor, silencer, ammunition.
28:19A week after the murders, the autopsies revealed the victims had been shot 14 times,
28:26three each into Henry and Jenny, and most disturbing, eight in Emily.
28:31That ammunition is the same stuff that we found at the crime scene, in the decedent's bodies.
28:38Match, match, match, match, match, everything.
28:40Pierre Hopche was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, making him eligible for the death penalty.
28:47It was one of the most challenging cases, if not the most challenging case I ever came upon.
28:53Defense attorney Christine Voss, who was with the public defender's office at the time, represented Hopche.
28:59He really wanted to be vindicated.
29:03To me, the goal was for him to not get death.
29:07At the 11th hour, the DA's office agreed to waive the death penalty in exchange for a more expedient bench
29:14trial,
29:15which meant a judge, not jury, would render a verdict.
29:19On October 25th, 2021, more than five and a half years after the murders, the prosecution delivered its opening statement
29:27and laid out its theory of the case, that Pierre Hopche had plotted the murder of the Hahn family for
29:34financial gain.
29:36They painted him as a career con man who, up until the murders, flaunted his intelligence and supposed wealth.
29:43Well, his entire life's drive was being rich.
29:48He sent screenshots of his Chase account from anywhere from about $3 million up to $940 million
29:55to various people attempting to dupe them that he's this jet-setting billionaire.
30:01Hopche claimed he had received big offers for his energy technology.
30:06I'm not a scientist, but I don't know that there's such a thing as a perpetual energy machine.
30:10But several years before the murders, Hopche was actually being paid to build one.
30:15It was going to be a new source of energy, as if he was, you know, an Elon Musk.
30:21Samantha Spidell met Pierre Hopche circa 2012 when he moved into a penthouse apartment
30:26in a luxury high-rise she managed in Tempe, Arizona.
30:30He pulled up and had this bright red Ferrari. It was very flashy.
30:35Ledinik says Hopche had duped a group of high-rolling investors into financing his invention
30:41until they realized it didn't actually work.
30:45He had basically defrauded all these people and the money dried up.
30:48When the murders were committed, I think he had less than $500 to his name.
30:54Prosecutors presented a detailed timeline, retracing Hopche's movements,
30:59including his digital footprint in the days before and after the murders.
31:04They say as early as March 17th, six days before the murders,
31:10he had looked into impersonating the doctor at his bank.
31:13He's searching for Asian disguises and real-flesh masks.
31:19Like a Mission Impossible face mask.
31:21100%. This is his fantastical world that he lived in.
31:24There's no evidence he ever purchased a mask.
31:27But a time-stamped receipt and security video placed him at an Arizona gun store
31:33four days before the murders, purchasing ammunition and two firearms,
31:39including the alleged murder weapon.
31:42.22 pistol with a threaded barrel for what is a silencer or suppressor.
31:49On March 20th, he was back in Oceanside, California, buying supplies
31:54before driving up to the Hans' house under the guise of installing the energy machine.
32:00Instead, Ladinig says Hopche bugged Henry's computer with a spyware app called a keylogger.
32:07What keyloggers do is every stroke, every click of the mouse, every navigation page you go,
32:14it documents all of it.
32:16To their surprise, investigators also found the keylogger on Hopche's laptop.
32:22On March 21st, while Hopche was still at the Hans' home,
32:25the keylogger had recorded chilling search terms on his laptop.
32:30What part of the skull is more penetrable?
32:33What ammunition would be better?
32:36As a guest in Dr. Hans' house, you've been staying there for the two nights before,
32:41planning this execution-style murder.
32:44Yes.
32:44Pierre Hopche left the Hans' residence on March 22nd.
32:48The prosecutors allege he went back around 4 a.m. the next morning to carry out the murders.
32:54They say later that day, he began frantically trying to siphon money from Henry's accounts.
33:01He's using phones.
33:02He's using fake email accounts.
33:04He's doing all these things from personal identifying information of Dr. Hans' that he stole earlier that week.
33:12A chase fraud alert had flagged an attempted payment for $72,000.
33:19Meanwhile, Hopche also rented that big truck he allegedly drove to the crime scene, hoping to move the bodies.
33:26There are black and whites all over that house.
33:29The crime scene's being processed.
33:31The Plumbo's say the meeting they were supposed to have with Henry just hours after he was murdered had foiled
33:38Pierre Hopche's plans.
33:39He thought that he had that whole day to clean up his mess before Henry would be missed.
33:45I think we screwed it up for him, happily.
33:48That's when prosecutors say he fled, driving south toward Oceanside.
33:54Ledinig argues Hopche's subsequent searches betray his guilty conscience.
34:00His car searched entering Tijuana, how crime scene investigation works, and how long do fingerprints take to process.
34:10Incredibly, he even consulted an online psychic named Count Marco and asked him,
34:16will I get caught for what I did?
34:18And Count Marco replies, well, what did you do, Pierre?
34:24Pierre Hopche never gave Count Marco an explanation.
34:28But on the stand, he couldn't stop talking.
34:48This was a tough case.
34:51But that didn't change the fact that Pierre was entitled to a vigorous defense.
34:56Defense attorney Christine Voss was in an unusual position.
35:00This was a really well-investigated case.
35:04Because my client wanted to have a trial and wanted me to turn every stone, I did.
35:11Turn every stone and raise any possible reasonable doubt.
35:16You argued that there were elements presented that were implausible, unprovable, and simply impossible.
35:23Those were your words.
35:24Yeah.
35:24Voss expressed concerns that the alleged murder weapon and silencer found in Hopche's car didn't match up.
35:32It absolutely did not connect to the firearm that they believed was the murder weapon.
35:38She seized on discrepancies in the location data from Hopche's car and phone that the prosecution had used in its
35:46timeline.
35:47He could not possibly have been in San Diego and Santa Barbara simultaneously, or Thousand Oaks and Santa Barbara simultaneously.
35:55But that's what the GPS data showed.
35:58And she attacked the credibility of the prosecution's star witness, TJ Dorita.
36:05Voss questioned why Dorita waited nearly two days to contact authorities, and argued in that time, he could have gotten
36:14details about the crime scene that the prosecution claimed only the killer knew.
36:19It was not the best-kept crime scene, he was making various phone calls after he heard about the death
36:28of Dr. Hahn.
36:29But Voss concedes much of Dorita's testimony was corroborated by the evidence.
36:35This case was over within the first 72 hours.
36:38In fact, the only witness who provided testimony that someone other than Pierre Hopche was the killer was Pierre Hopche.
36:48During three days on the stand, he repeated the action-packed account he had given detectives about having shootouts with
36:56shadowy figures.
36:57Now he said he was sure they were sent by the Department of Energy.
37:02It sounds like there'd be a trail of bodies, but yet, is there proof of this trail of bodies anywhere,
37:08to your knowledge?
37:10No.
37:10Which further made him believe it was the Department of Energy.
37:14And what about all that evidence?
37:17Investigators found.
37:19The DOE planted them there. It's all a frame. All that stuff is framed.
37:23The banking stuff, frame job. What's in my car, frame job.
37:27It was difficult for me to embrace Pierre's testimony.
37:34Do you think he himself believed some of the things he was saying were true?
37:39Oh, yeah. Definitely.
37:41He was obsessed with the government.
37:45Samantha Spydell attests there were some kernels of truth in his stories.
37:50Pierre mentioned that his dad had ties to the CIA.
37:55And I could tell that he wanted his dad's approval.
38:02When his father died in 2023, his obituary stated he was a key player in clandestine central intelligence agency operations
38:11during the 1980s.
38:13Hopps also told Spydell that his sister was going to star in a reality TV show.
38:18She got cast on a newlyweds reality show and Pierre was going to be in it.
38:25Come to find out, that was true.
38:28In fact, both Hopps and his father made appearances on the second season of the Bravo TV series, Newlyweds the
38:37First Year.
38:38Start by filling that up.
38:39Pierre was even shown giving his brother-in-law a cooking lesson.
38:43More black pepper.
38:44But prosecutor Ben Ledinig argued any grains of authenticity in Hoppsha's life were far outweighed by deceit.
38:54You called him a lying liar who lies about lying.
38:59Right. Lie, lie, lie, lie.
39:03Hundreds of lies we found on him.
39:05His life was a con.
39:09On November 24th, 2021, Judge Brian Hill would get the case.
39:14None of Pierre Hoppsha's family members attended his trial.
39:18The judge made his ruling.
39:20Guilty on all counts.
39:23The judge, when he issued his ruling, said his decision was beyond a shadow of a doubt.
39:29Absolutely no doubt of Pierre Hoppsha's guilt.
39:33Yeah, very satisfactory to hear that.
39:35I wasn't surprised.
39:38And what was Pierre's reaction upon hearing that ruling?
39:41Well, he was visibly disappointed.
39:44On April 15th, 2022, Pierre Hoppsha was sentenced to three life terms without the possibility of parole.
39:54It was little comfort to those still mourning Henry, Jenny, and Emily.
40:00I don't understand how there really could be justice.
40:05He's still alive.
40:07And they're not.
40:09He took precious moments that we'll never get.
40:15I want him to feel every pain possible for what he did.
40:19Not enough bad things can happen for him.
40:21Nearly a decade after the murders, the wounds are still raw.
40:27It's hard to think of him.
40:30He was a really good man.
40:33You don't replace a Henry Hahn.
40:36No.
40:38Pretty much every day, I think of Henry, and Jenny, and Emily.
40:42I love you.
40:45There's an old phrase that a good man and a good family lives for a limited time, but a good
40:53name shall live forever.
40:56They lived too short, but their name lives on forever.
41:25I love you.
41:45Transcription by CastingWords
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