- 4 weeks ago
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00:00The chief of police called me and told me that Seth Perrault,
00:13one of his police officers, his wife was dead.
00:19Amanda Perrault was lying on her back with her legs together.
00:25Her arms were against her body with her hands cut like this.
00:33Six or eight inches from her right hand was a magazine from a pistol.
00:39Another six inches on the bed from her left foot was the pistol.
00:46Something's not right about this.
00:48This video provided by a neighbor shows a threatening man.
00:58He's seen walking past a hole holding an axe.
01:00This is Long Island Drive.
01:29This street where this occurred.
01:35Other than the flowers and things, it looked exactly as it did that day.
01:43I got there and Seth Perrault was sitting right in the middle of those steps toward the front door.
01:51And he was sitting there on those steps.
01:54He had a pair of short pants with his face held in his hand.
01:59One of my officers was there.
02:02He was blubbering and not making very much sense.
02:08Just uncontrollably crying.
02:11When he disconnected the call, he just sat his cell phone down.
02:15I couldn't imagine what he was going through.
02:19And I felt bad for the guy.
02:23Any unattended deaths in the state of Georgia have to be investigated by a law enforcement agency.
02:29It's early afternoon, and Sheriff Sills has sealed off the home of Seth and Amanda Perrault.
02:46I look at the scene, and I shut out my emotions, okay?
02:58You have to.
02:59You can't be objective.
03:01You can't concentrate if you don't.
03:03When I walked in the room, I saw her body first.
03:10The bed closed.
03:12You've got the gun that's been partially unloaded, shall we say.
03:17At least the magazine's been removed.
03:21I noticed empty cigarettes, empty fireball, which is some sort of cinnamon-flavored whiskey bottles.
03:29More in the trash can.
03:31But you're trying to piece together what happened.
03:36And that's what you're looking for in every investigation.
03:39While the scene is being processed, Sheriff Sills talks to the last person to see 44-year-old Amanda alive.
03:47Her husband, Eatonton City Police Officer Seth Perrault.
03:52I questioned Mr. Perrault, and he was adamant that he didn't move the body or move the gun.
04:01Or anything.
04:11As a detective, you're a trained observer.
04:14You're looking at everything all the time.
04:17And then you find out what they say happened, and then you go look some more.
04:22My priority was to get Seth Perrault to tell me what happened here.
04:30Let's get this guy downtown and get him on the record.
04:33Listen, Seth, I need to know what happened to the day.
04:38I don't know what to tell you.
04:40Were you in the room?
04:41Yes, sir.
04:42Okay, where were you in the room?
04:44I was sitting right there.
04:45But we were arguing, sir, and I had a 380.
04:47And I put it in my nightstand, and she never once ever said a word about it.
04:54I swear to God, if I would have locked it up, my wife wouldn't be dead.
04:59So she gets it out of the nightstand while you're laying in the bed?
05:02The sheriff, she got it before I ever lay down.
05:05You know what she did?
05:06She looked at me and said, I can't do it no more.
05:09And I was like, I couldn't even say a word.
05:12I couldn't even say a word.
05:13What happened?
05:14She looked at me and said, I'm sorry.
05:19I'm sorry I put you through this.
05:22Boom.
05:26The question, of course, is could this be a suicide?
05:29And the answer to that is yes.
05:31This could have been a suicide.
05:33But a good detective needs to approach all death investigations as if it were a homicide.
05:52Amanda is described by her family as a free spirit, warm, strong, and resilient.
05:58A mom of two, Amanda was separated from her first husband when she met Seth Peralt in fall 2011.
06:10Seth was also father to a little girl.
06:15Say hi, honey.
06:18Say hi, honey.
06:19Hi.
06:21He doesn't want to say hi.
06:22The relationship blossomed, and the couple married, celebrating the big day with Amanda's children and Seth's daughter.
06:36She cared for him, and she cared for his daughter.
06:43She treated his daughter as if she was her own.
06:46Two years after marrying Amanda, Seth Peralt had qualified as a police officer.
06:53He frequently crossed paths with district attorney Wright Barksdale.
07:00He came to the Edenton Police Department.
07:03I was familiar with him.
07:05I could say, good morning, good afternoon.
07:09He applied for a job here, and I could have met him in the lobby.
07:16That could have happened.
07:17If it did, I don't remember it.
07:19The couple moved into a family home on Lake Oconee.
07:28Lake Oconee area is a very affluent lake community where people live.
07:33We hardly have any cause out here.
07:36It's not just a low crime area.
07:38It's kind of a zero crime area.
07:40But now, Amanda is dead.
07:44And police need to find out what happened.
07:52We saw a camera in the living room.
07:56And then we saw that it had that type of doorbell camera.
08:01The doorbell footage reveals something surprising.
08:06One of Putnam County's own deputies was at the property shortly before Seth called in his wife's death.
08:13It was the middle of the day.
08:21I just was on routine patrol.
08:24Nothing seemed unusual.
08:27Pulled up in the yard.
08:29There were no cars in the driveway.
08:31I wasn't expecting much of a response at the door.
08:34I walk up to the front door.
08:39Ring the doorbell.
08:43Deputy Abernathy had gone there to serve a fellow police officer with a subpoena.
08:50I didn't know what the subpoena was for.
08:53I assumed it was a ticket or some case that Peralt had prosecuted.
09:00People in law enforcement, they get subpoenas all the time.
09:05There are numerous reasons an officer would be served a subpoena at his house.
09:12I heard footsteps.
09:15But they weren't coming to the door.
09:18Eventually, these footfalls approached the door and stopped.
09:23And I thought to myself, why would this guy not answer the door?
09:25You know that this is the worst part of the job.
09:29Just take the paper and let me get back on patrol.
09:33And after about six minutes of waiting around, I got back in my police car and scribbled a
09:41little note on the paper saying nobody answered the door and went back on patrol.
09:46I think it was 28 minutes after I left the Peralt house.
09:55My sergeant called me on the cell phone and he told me to get back to the house.
10:03Because Amanda Peralt was dead.
10:06The question is, could this have been a vendetta?
10:10Could there have been a third party?
10:13Yes.
10:16Using the latest software, forensic video analysts can extract hidden information caught on camera.
10:22At first glance, it seems like there's not a lot of action happening here.
10:31It looks like a deputy ringing a doorbell and not receiving an answer.
10:36But since the deputy said that he heard shuffling and breathing noises inside the house after he rang the doorbell,
10:42I want to see if we can hear any of that.
10:45The audio is just not great.
10:54We can't hear much of anything.
10:56He rings the doorbell.
10:57We can hear the click.
10:58And then after that, there's some very faint sounds.
11:01I want to be able to hear the audio as clearly as possible to see if there's anything happening inside this house that's captured on this camera.
11:14There we go.
11:15So now I notice that there's this rhythmic anomaly.
11:27It sounds a bit odd.
11:28So I'm going to make a simple gain adjustment and bring the volume up to almost its maximum.
11:35And now we'll listen again to see if we can hear anything else.
11:39The sounds are very rhythmic, which could be footsteps, could be rapid breathing, or it could be an artifact created by the camera itself in the way that it's recording the audio.
11:58So we can't definitively say what this weird rhythmic sound actually is, but it's possible that it's footsteps.
12:06And it's possible that it's breathing.
12:07Detectives search for witnesses who can shed some light on the victim and her husband.
12:28I instructed deputies to go house to house, ask the neighbors what they knew about these people, this, that, and the other.
12:37All I knew is that the guy was a policeman and that his wife was dead and that he had a daughter.
12:43It took 12 hours to interview these people and the stories that they told horrific tales.
12:57We found a long history of them observing Peralt assault her, constant, loud arguments and things of that nature.
13:13Chair Sills taught with the sisters of Amanda Peralt.
13:17I asked him, had there been any history of domestic quarreling of any kind or violence between the two?
13:26And they said, by God, yes.
13:28He was a very controlling person when it came to Amanda.
13:33I mean, she had no way to even leave the house unless he took her.
13:36And according to her family, he kept constant tabs on her and things like that all the time.
13:42That demonstrated a history of abuse and echoed the same type stories that the neighbors talked about.
13:55One of the neighbors said they were reluctant to call because he was a police officer.
14:02All of them were so afraid of him that they never reported any of this.
14:05They were afraid that the cops would look after another cop.
14:12The neighbors paint a disturbing picture.
14:17And yet, Amanda gave everything to Seth.
14:21Amanda cared for Peralt.
14:23He had gone through some type of cancer treatment.
14:27And she had spent her inheritance from her father in maintaining the household during his illness.
14:35Seth Peralt was somebody that was never really on stable ground.
14:40He came from a father of wealthy means, or at least had some financial resources.
14:48The house that he was living in was purchased by his dad.
14:53But Seth just was a guy that never could really hold that steady job, from what I gather.
14:58According to family and neighbors, heavy drinking helped fuel his anger.
15:04I was just shocked by the things that the neighbors were telling me.
15:09Screaming and yelling.
15:10Times when Peralt would grab Amanda by the hair, yank her on the ground, and kick her.
15:18They talked about how Amanda had cared for Peralt's daughter.
15:22How she would shield the little girl from her father's abuse.
15:27When the neighbors had asked Amanda why she didn't leave, she told them that she had stayed to defend the little girl from her dad.
15:38The image of Amanda that I got was of a woman who had surrendered her independence, both physically and financially, to Peralt.
15:50After hearing what a horrifically toxic environment was in that house, I thought maybe this is something that you might try to escape by killing yourself.
16:08A week before Amanda's death, things came to her head.
16:22She called 911.
16:24Can I help you?
16:26Yes, can you please send the officer out?
16:29What is your name?
16:30Amanda Peralt.
16:31Hey, what's going on today?
16:33It's my husband. He's putting his hands on me.
16:36Who is it?
16:36My husband. He works for Income Police Department.
16:41What's his name?
16:42Michael Seth Peralt.
16:44He has put his hands on me.
16:46He's, like, putting his finger in my face and pushing me against the wall and putting his hands on my neck.
16:53Okay.
16:53Already we'll get somebody out there, okay?
16:56Thank you very much.
16:56Yes, ma'am.
16:57Bye-bye.
16:58Bye-bye.
17:01Putnam County deputies arrested Peralt for domestic violence.
17:05Obviously, when you arrest a police officer, that's not something that happens very often.
17:13But if you commit a crime, you will be arrested.
17:17Peralt was released on bond.
17:19At his bond hearing, the judge asked Amanda if she wanted protection from her husband.
17:24Typically, a lot of times in domestic violence cases, the court would make a condition of bond that the person could not have any contact with the person thereafter until the case was disposed of.
17:36Amanda was here.
17:37And the judge asked, did she want that to be a condition of bond?
17:42And she said no.
17:43It's very typical of domestic violence victims to start blaming themselves.
17:49It's very typical of them staying with the abuser.
17:54Six days after Peralt's arrest, Amanda was dead.
18:02Detectives want to know more about what went on behind closed doors.
18:07We were very, very interested in having a recorded interview with Seth's daughter telling us whatever the child knew about their relationship.
18:18The eight-year-old lived with Seth, who had custody, and stepmom Amanda.
18:23He was concerned about losing custody of his daughter.
18:27And who told us that?
18:29The daughter.
18:32After Seth had been arrested for that incident of domestic violence, the daughter slept that night in the room with Amanda after Seth went to jail.
18:42And she told us that Amanda told her, if he loses custody because of me calling the sheriff, he's going to kill me dead.
19:01Out of the mouth of babes.
19:05This shocking revelation strengthens detective suspicions about Seth Peralt.
19:10You ask yourself, why would this full-of-life lady kill herself?
19:19Law enforcement continued their investigation into the case, which involved going through Amanda Peralt's cell phone.
19:29Her cell phone contained some images and videos that further supported the abuse that was taking place.
19:38We were able to get evidence from that phone that went all the way back six months before.
19:44Photos of Amanda where she had documented getting punched in busted lips, black eyes.
19:50And we were able to recover a video of the defendant where he's just extremely angry.
19:58This back and forth verbal lashing.
20:01It's sad.
20:02It's sad.
20:02Because you know what?
20:03I've married you.
20:05And I'm not going to...
20:06I'm...
20:06Dude, you're...
20:07I'm done.
20:08It just painted this picture of a relationship that was fueled by violence and alcohol.
20:13I want to have a good weekend.
20:15You burn that up when you try to put that phone in my face.
20:18What phone in your face?
20:18Oh, right there.
20:19Oh, you're...
20:20You're beating.
20:20Yeah, because you're beating.
20:22And I'm going to show you tomorrow.
20:23You hit through your table.
20:24You when you hit me and smash me.
20:25Hit you?
20:27You choked me eight f***ing times.
20:30Evidence of abuse is not the only thing that Amanda's phone reveals.
20:34What we did find in her cell phone on a day, she was Googling homes for sale.
20:43She was Googling for how to gain access to a government assistance card.
20:49Those are not typically searches of somebody that hours later shoots himself in the head.
20:56You're on bond for domestic bonds.
21:08Yes, sir.
21:09I know.
21:09It looks horrible.
21:10It looks horrible.
21:12I've got all these charges on me, and I'm a good officer, and I've put my...
21:19My whole life has been to serve the law.
21:22I've never done anything wrong.
21:24And then...
21:24I got arrested.
21:26And...
21:27I'm so sorry this happened, man.
21:31Like, I mean, a lot of...
21:32I lost my wife.
21:35You know...
21:36And I told my wife.
21:39I said, they could take me to jail.
21:41They could prosecute me.
21:42They could put me through fire, man.
21:44But I'm not going to let my wife...
21:46She was...
21:47She hated to see my reputation destroyed on the news, because she knows what a good police officer I am.
21:53It was like my whole name got destroyed.
21:56And she got...
21:57Every time she'd go click on Facebook, she'd be like, there is, there is, there is.
22:01I'm not a social media person.
22:03She is.
22:04And she saw everything.
22:07And she saw my...
22:09I'm a good police officer, sir.
22:10There we go.
22:11I'm not worried about that.
22:12I'm a good police officer.
22:14Wait, look at me.
22:16Look at me.
22:16I'm not a good officer.
22:18I'm a good officer.
22:22I'm a good officer.
22:24How many times have we heard that already?
22:31If my wife's dead, I don't need to brag about myself.
22:38We talked for almost an hour.
22:41But he was not interested in anything but telling me what a good police officer he was
22:46and how we wrongfully arrested him, which is a bizarre attitude to take when your wife is dead.
22:58It was about Seth.
23:00It was not about Amanda.
23:03She was like, your whole reputation is destroyed.
23:10And I was, I'm a good police officer, man.
23:12I am.
23:12She was going down here to give you a statement, and I knew.
23:16If she came down here, it was a false statement and a felony.
23:20And she got depressed.
23:21I was like, don't go f*** yourself up.
23:25Don't go in there and get in the newspaper.
23:26I'm already in the newspaper.
23:27I said, please don't go down to the sheriff's department and do that.
23:32They're going to arrest you, and they're going to sit there, and they're going to take,
23:35and they're going to charge you for a false statement.
23:37She was coming down to say, I lied.
23:40Because she did.
23:41Sorry, sheriff, she did.
23:43I'm not going to vain my wife now.
23:45I'm not going to do that.
23:46I'm not going to do anything.
23:48I'm not going to, you know, say anything bad about my wife.
23:50But she lied, okay?
23:53I just got through telling him I want to know about what happened today.
23:56And here we are right back again about him being arrested.
24:00It's hard, I mean, I was like, sit there and watch my wife execute herself.
24:05But tell me.
24:06Execute.
24:07That's an unusual term here.
24:10Never in my career have I ever heard anyone use that term.
24:17My wife executed herself.
24:21Never heard that before.
24:22So, yes, from that point on, I was very suspicious of Perrault.
24:34Adding to Sheriff Sill's suspicion is the crime scene.
24:38You can't get over this body.
24:42It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
24:48It doesn't take, you know, a PhD in forensics to know that this body did not get in this position
24:57after the person had shot themselves in the head.
25:02This body has been positioned as if it had been done by the funeral director.
25:13Her body could not have been in that position after a press contact wound to the brain.
25:21When you shoot yourself, the gun's going to drop wherever you are.
25:25It's not going to unload itself.
25:28There's no way to look at this picture and tell how many people were in the room when this occurred.
25:34That's impossible.
25:35Could have been no one.
25:36But that's ruled out how.
25:38The positioning of the body, the gun, the magazine.
25:42Somebody has manipulated this body.
25:45I want to know how this body got in this position.
25:49How did this magazine end up where it is?
25:53And then I want to know how did the gun end up over here?
25:57How did that happen?
26:00The only person who I'm aware of that was there was Seth Perrault.
26:06Less than 30 minutes before Perrault told police of his wife's death,
26:13Deputy Abernathy was ringing on their doorbell.
26:17And you look at the paper and a little service sheet,
26:21and you're just waiting and waiting.
26:24And then you can see on my face,
26:29I could hear the footsteps inside the house.
26:33So I'm waiting on the person to come to the door.
26:36And it never happened.
26:42It's important to establish the precise timing of Deputy Abernathy's visit.
26:48I noticed that there's no timestamp on the screen for this video.
26:52So to get an accurate time that this video was actually recorded,
26:58I'm looking at the metadata.
26:59This is tremendously valuable for an investigation
27:03because the metadata records an accurate date and time
27:07that this doorbell was actually rang by the deputy.
27:11So if we look at the first one,
27:12it shows that the file was created on February 3rd of 2020 at 1811.
27:19Oftentimes, the date and time that's stored in the metadata is stored in UTC time,
27:25or universal coordinated time, military time.
27:29And since we know that this occurred in the eastern time zone,
27:32we know that the offset would place the true time at 1.11 p.m. in the afternoon.
27:38We know exactly when the deputy rang the doorbell,
27:43and this is the time that he said he heard sounds coming from inside the house.
27:48And we know that the call came in at 1.36,
27:51which was just 25 minutes after the deputy was ringing the doorbell.
27:55So then the question is, what happened in the meantime?
28:00The nature of those sounds that he heard in combination with the date and time
28:06that's recorded in this video allows investigators to paint a picture
28:11of what was happening at that time.
28:16I can't help but think about whether or not Amanda was already dead when I got there.
28:23If the scene was being staged, if maybe the killer worried that the shot had been heard,
28:31that's why the police were there.
28:35It's scary to think about this guy standing on the other side of the door.
28:39It's entirely likely that I interrupted something.
28:43There's no doubt that Seth Perrault's in that house.
28:48It raised a red flag to us.
28:51Why didn't you open the door?
28:53Why didn't you open the door?
28:55You're law enforcement.
28:57He's law enforcement.
28:59Why wouldn't you open the door?
29:01I believe in my heart of hearts
29:03that Seth Perrault was interrupted in staging his wife's murder
29:10by Deputy Terrell Abernathy.
29:13I think it spooked him.
29:14It interrupted him.
29:15He panicked.
29:16You can feel through the investigation of this case,
29:22maybe it's a suicide, but something's wrong,
29:25to maybe it's a murder.
29:27And it felt like as the investigation just kept moving forward,
29:31it was, this is a murder.
29:33The evidence against Perrault is mounting.
29:45This is a note we found written in Amanda Perrault's handwriting,
29:51where she basically says that she was not coherent
29:56when she called the sheriff's office and reported the assault.
30:00She'd taken some medication, had alcohol,
30:04and that he never touched her.
30:05Now, the note in itself is suspicious, okay?
30:09This thing is perfectly written.
30:13The script is perfect.
30:15There's no smudging.
30:17There's no misspelled words.
30:19This is obviously scripted, in my opinion.
30:24What did Perrault's main thing he was talked about,
30:28not about the body, not about the suicide,
30:30what did he talk about?
30:32He talked about how he had been wrongly arrested.
30:36And this is a document that he thought
30:39was going to be presented to the sheriff's office
30:41to get him out of the trouble he was in.
30:44And in that case, it doesn't say I'm going to kill myself.
30:47It says I'm willing to take the punishment
30:49I deserve for what I've done.
30:51I don't know how the hell you get suicide out of that.
30:55That's not what this is.
30:56This is a concocted note that he has convinced her to write
31:00because he's a good police officer, okay?
31:04And he shouldn't have been arrested.
31:14Then, Amanda's autopsy report is released.
31:28The Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued a report,
31:31and that report indicated that she lost her life
31:36by being shot with a gun
31:38and that the medical examiners classified it as suicide.
31:43If you're talking about a shock, that was a shock.
31:50I mean, I was flabbergasted.
31:52Literally, I thought it was a topographical error
31:55from some other case, you know what I'm saying,
31:57and the transcriptions got mixed up.
32:01The medical examiner's conclusion is based on the evidence
32:14collected by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
32:18Sheriff Sills called them in to document the crime scene.
32:23You have to understand that to process a crime scene
32:26could take hours or it could take days.
32:29And so Sheriff Sills wanted the Bureau to process the scene
32:34careful and diligent and really taking their time
32:37while he was going to conduct the interview of Seth Perrault.
32:42When we use the term process a crime scene,
32:45that means documenting what you see,
32:47photographs, measurements, and things like that.
32:51But the crime scene technicians had this theory
32:55that she shot herself,
32:57and therefore, if someone shot her
33:00and had been standing here,
33:02there would literally be an outline of a man.
33:06There wouldn't be any blood splatter on that wall
33:10because that would have been on the person.
33:14Now, I did not call them to investigate this case.
33:18I called them as crime scene technicians
33:21to document the scene and collect evidence.
33:25I didn't request them to come up with any theories.
33:28They didn't know anything at all about the investigation.
33:34And that doctor said to me,
33:37I have to go by what they say.
33:39It doesn't matter about anything else.
33:41Well, that's a hell of a note, isn't it?
33:43It didn't hinder my investigation,
33:46but it was an obstacle that we were going to have to prove incorrect to a jury.
33:52With the autopsy report concluding the death as suicide,
34:08detectives want to gather more evidence.
34:10We took my daughter to school, but...
34:18We both did.
34:20That's right.
34:21Yes, sir.
34:21We got her there by 7.25.
34:23Okay, and then after that, what did y'all think?
34:26We stopped, got gas, and he came home.
34:28Never went back, never left the house?
34:31We got cigarettes.
34:33You left the house and went, you got cigarettes?
34:34Yes, sir.
34:34Where was that at?
34:36It said, okay, right there on the road.
34:38Yes, sir.
34:38Now, he's talking about a little store right now on the road from this house.
34:43About 4 or 10 o'clock, and we didn't go anywhere.
34:47We didn't go anywhere the entire day.
34:49We didn't go anywhere the entire day.
34:51I mean, you can't sit there and tell me all you want, man.
34:53You're talking way more than I am, sir.
34:57Deputies check Peralt's story.
35:00Law enforcement went to this particular gas station
35:03to ask for the surveillance footage,
35:06and he wasn't there.
35:08What we knew was that there was a gas station
35:12in close proximity to the Peralt home
35:15that had a liquor store connected to it.
35:18That led law enforcement to ask for the surveillance footage of that gas station.
35:30And lo and behold, at roughly 10.30 that morning,
35:34you see Seth Peralt walk in with a ball cap,
35:38some pants on, and a pink Floyd shirt.
35:42Seth Peralt goes into the store and buys some cigarettes or something.
35:49The wife purchases the fireball cinnamon whiskey stuff,
35:54then circles back around, and then Seth gets in the car,
35:57wearing totally different clothing than he is a couple hours later.
36:02Where's the clothing that he's depicted wearing in the store?
36:07Where do we find it?
36:09The washing machine.
36:11It proves that he's a liar.
36:13He went to a liquor store eight miles away,
36:17and he's changed clothes.
36:20That became crucial evidence, too.
36:24It gave us a timeline.
36:25It helped poke a hole in his story.
36:29And that's not all.
36:31A witness gives detectives an incredible piece of testimony.
36:34The next-door neighbor told me
36:38that Amanda had, on more than one occasion,
36:41told her that if she wound up dead,
36:44that Peralt's the one that did it.
36:47In fact, she had gone so far as to say
36:49that she wouldn't commit suicide,
36:52and if her death was ruled as suicide,
36:56she wanted the neighbor to demand
36:58that it be investigated as a homicide.
37:01With any murder, you ask yourself,
37:06what is the motivating factor here?
37:08In this case, this was a law enforcement officer.
37:12And what we were able to uncover
37:13was that he was extremely concerned
37:18about losing his job,
37:21and that's demonstrated by his interview with Sheriff Sills.
37:25I'm a good police officer, sir.
37:26There we go.
37:27I'm not working on that.
37:28I'm a good police officer.
37:30And then you go to the interview with his daughter,
37:35and she tells the forensic interviewers
37:38that Amanda told her,
37:41if your daddy loses custody of you,
37:44he's going to shoot me dead.
37:46And the last reason is he came to the realization
37:50that he was about to lose control of Amanda.
37:54I knew I had enough evidence to sustain probable cause,
37:59and I thought I had more than that.
38:01I obtained an arrest warrant
38:02and went and personally arrested him myself
38:04up in Newton County.
38:08He didn't resist.
38:10Brought him back here,
38:11book, fingerprinted, photographed,
38:13just like any other prisoner,
38:15and then brought before a judge,
38:17and then he was transported on to the Jones County Jail.
38:24The medical examiner's finding of suicide
38:27hangs over the case.
38:29But while Peralta waits trial,
38:32prosecutors get a major break.
38:34I'm sitting in my office,
38:37and I get a phone call
38:38from the sheriff of Jones County,
38:40and he says,
38:41Howard,
38:42his cellmate's told us some stuff.
38:46You better come over here.
38:49And he sat there and told me
38:52that Peralta told him how he did it.
38:54And I said,
38:55well, explain it to me.
38:56And he said,
38:58well,
38:59he had gotten her drunk
39:00and given her pills
39:03to the point
39:05where she was just completely
39:07zonked out
39:08and that he was in the bed
39:10and holding her up some way
39:12in the bed with her
39:13from when he shot her.
39:16Okay?
39:17And that certainly answered
39:18any questions there might have been
39:20about blood spatter
39:21or things like that.
39:23He knew details
39:24that he could not have known
39:26had Peralta not told him.
39:29I didn't offer this man anything.
39:33He had someone close to him
39:35or a relative
39:35that was a victim
39:37of continual domestic abuse,
39:41as what he said
39:42was his impetus for it.
39:43There was no quid pro quo.
39:51Two years after Amanda's death,
39:53Seth Peralta goes on trial.
39:56He pleads not guilty
39:57to charges of malice murder,
39:59felony murder,
40:00and aggravated assault.
40:02In the opening statement
40:03of this trial,
40:04I wanted to hit head-on
40:06the worst piece of evidence
40:07we had,
40:08that being the autopsy report.
40:11The district attorney
40:12mentioned that right off the bat
40:13in his opening argument.
40:15If you know that
40:16something's coming up
40:17that may be contentious
40:19or cast some sort of doubt,
40:22then let the jury know
40:23that you know it
40:24and you're telling them that.
40:26I flat out told the jury,
40:28this is what the autopsy report says.
40:31But you're about to have
40:32enough evidence
40:33to fill a wheelbarrow up
40:35as to why Seth Peralta
40:37is guilty of murder.
40:38We showed the door camera video
40:42because it showed us
40:44the timeline
40:45from 1.10 in the afternoon
40:48to when he calls
40:50the police department
40:51and reports it.
40:53I was asked to testify
40:55in the trial
40:55because I bracketed
40:56the time frame.
40:58During my testimony,
41:00I recounted that
41:01I heard someone
41:02in the house
41:03and that they refused
41:04to open the door.
41:05Seth Peralta was in that house
41:08and he didn't come to the door.
41:11Why didn't he come to the door?
41:13He didn't come to the door
41:14because his wife's dead
41:15in his master bedroom.
41:21That ring camera footage
41:23was critically important
41:24to our case
41:25in being able
41:27to establish that timeline
41:28and leave the jury wondering
41:32why didn't he answer the door?
41:35I think it was
41:37the totality
41:38of the evidence.
41:41There were key things,
41:43the impossibility
41:44of the body
41:45being in that position.
41:47The neighbor Amanda told
41:48all the neighbors
41:50knowing about
41:51the domestic violence
41:53against Amanda,
41:54the physical evidence,
41:56and maybe the most profound thing
41:59was what the little girl
42:00had said.
42:01And Peralta said to you,
42:03it's all about Peralta,
42:06not about Amanda.
42:08She hated to see
42:10my reputation
42:11destroyed on the news
42:12because she knows
42:13what a good police officer I am.
42:15Not about anything,
42:16but hey,
42:18I'm a great police officer.
42:21It was like
42:21my whole name
42:23got destroyed.
42:25Our evidence
42:25just was overwhelming.
42:26On day four of the trial,
42:31the jury decides
42:32Peralta's fate.
42:34It took the jury
42:35roughly three hours,
42:37give or take,
42:38to reach a verdict.
42:39They came back
42:40with a guilty verdict.
42:42Peralta was convicted
42:43of malice murder
42:45and felony murder,
42:46aggravated assault,
42:48and simple battery,
42:50which is a family
42:50violence crime.
42:54The doorbell footage
42:55proved crucial.
42:56Door camera footage
42:58and surveillance videos
43:00in general
43:00continue to solve crime.
43:03It recorded the time
43:05when a deputy sheriff
43:07went to a police officer's house.
43:10Who knows what Seth Peralta
43:12would have done
43:13if that hadn't occurred.
43:16I don't believe
43:17it would have been reported
43:18in 15 minutes,
43:19do you?
43:21Seth Peralta is sentenced
43:22to life in prison
43:24without parole.
43:26Seth Peralta got
43:27what he deserved
43:28in the eyes of the law,
43:29and it was a great relief
43:32for her family.
43:38Her sisters,
43:39I know,
43:40were very emotional
43:41about having some sense
43:42of closure.
43:44These cases are always sad.
43:47Even when you get
43:47a great result
43:48in a courtroom,
43:49these families
43:50are still left
43:51with a big hole
43:52in their life.
43:55When I heard
43:56about the sentence,
43:57I was relieved.
44:00Life without parole.
44:02That means nobody else
44:03has to be this man's victim.
44:05Through the course
44:08of this investigation,
44:10what we realized
44:11was the motivating factor
44:12here was twofold.
44:14His answer
44:15to saving his job
44:16was to eliminate
44:17the problem.
44:18His answer
44:19to making sure
44:20he maintained custody
44:21of his child
44:22was to eliminate
44:24the problem.
44:25And the problem
44:26was Amanda Peralta.
44:30Seth Peralta's daughter
44:32now lives
44:33with her biological mother.
44:35My prayers
44:36are with her.
44:38This little girl,
44:39she's got to live
44:40with the fact
44:41that somebody
44:42that she loved
44:43very much,
44:43an Amanda Peralta,
44:44and she did love Amanda,
44:46is gone.
44:47She's got to try
44:48to grapple
44:49with the idea
44:51that her daddy,
44:52who she loved,
44:53was responsible
44:54for that.
44:55I feel so sorry
44:56for that little girl.
44:58I feel sorry
44:58for her then,
45:00as soon as I found out
45:01what that household
45:01was like.
45:02This case,
45:09from the very beginning
45:10to the very end,
45:11was devastating.
45:13But the part
45:14that was just crippling
45:16to us
45:16was the person
45:19that murdered Amanda
45:20was her husband
45:23and was somebody
45:24that was walking around
45:25with a badge.
45:28Does this cause
45:29a mark on all
45:30of our badges?
45:31Yes,
45:31but it doesn't mean
45:33that law enforcement
45:34officers are bad,
45:36because who caught
45:38this police officer?
45:40Other police officers.
45:42Who gets the bad guy
45:44with a gun
45:45is a good guy
45:46with a gun.
45:47I do believe
45:49that this case
45:50can serve
45:51as a warning
45:52for everybody,
45:55that no matter
45:55who you are,
45:56you can be a victim
45:58of domestic violence,
45:59and you can be a perpetrator
46:00of domestic violence.
46:02And if you see something,
46:05call 911.
46:06Call somebody.
46:07Ask for help.
46:08He thought he'd be able
46:12to continue
46:12to be a police officer.
46:14Well, he picked
46:14the wrong damn county
46:15for all of those thoughts.
46:17Okay?
46:18I mean,
46:18that's the bottom line.
46:20He picked
46:20the wrong place.
46:21The wrong place.
46:51We love you.
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