06x22 - Punch Line

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NARRATOR: An elderly woman was found dead in her hotel room.

Was it a natural death, or was it m*rder?

An alert doctor noticed a horrible infection

on the finger of a hotel worker who had come to the emergency

room for treatment of his injury.

The virulence of that infection was a clue to the mystery.

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NARRATOR: Cincinnati, the third largest city in Ohio.

It was named after the Roman statesman Lucius Cincinnatus,

whom legend held to be the model of virtue.

But in September of , Rhoda Nathan,

a -year-old grandmother visiting Cincinnati,

saw a different side of the city.

-She was such an up person that you could not

avoid having a good time with her.

She was just a terrific lady.

NARRATOR: She checked into this hotel

in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.

-It's a pretty nice hotel.

It does a pretty good convention business.

And nothing like this had ever happened there before.

NARRATOR: Rhoda was sharing room with their best friend

of years, Elaine Schub, and Elaine's boyfriend, Joe

Kaplan, both visiting from Florida.

They were all there to attend Elaine's grandson's bar

mitzvah.

On Saturday morning, Joe and Elaine

woke early and left the room for breakfast at :.

Joe said he pulled the door shut,

making sure it was locked.

Rhoda stayed behind so she could shower

and dress with some privacy.

After breakfast a half hour later,

Elaine and Joe returned to the room.

JOE: I opened the door and I was just

shocked I saw Rhoda's body.

She was completely nude, head was on the side.

Golly, it looked a little purple to me.

NARRATOR: Rhoda was barely recognizable.

-I thought it was someone was wasn't a Caucasian.

Her face was very brown.

To me, it looked like there was blood splattered inside

or blood vessels burst, I don't know what.

But I just didn't think it was Rhoda.

JOE: I need help!

NARRATOR: Two hotel guests, a cardiologist and a registered

nurse, answered the couple's cries for help

and immediately performed CPR, believing Rhoda

had suffered a heart attack and fallen.

Rhoda was rushed to hospital, but was too late.

She was pronounced dead on arrival.

Later that day, Elaine discovered $ in cash missing

from the purse she had left in the room while at breakfast.

ELAINE: There was $ in here. And it's all gone now.

NARRATOR: It was then Elaine also realized

that Rhoda's necklace was missing from her neck.

ELAINE: I remember looking at her and saying, oh my god.

I I I saw her breast and I just knew--

I didn't think in my mind, oh, where's her necklace.

But I know it wasn't there.

NARRATOR: Police closed room as a crime scene.

-This was one of the most heinous crimes

that I've ever seen in my plus years in law enforcement.

Bruises on Rhoda's face and chest

indicated she had been beaten with at least

two different objects in addition to someone's fists.

-She died of a severe beating.

She, uh, she was just beaten to death.

That's the simplest way to put it.

NARRATOR: The autopsy confirmed what police already suspected.

Rhoda's death was a homicide.

-I think it's a horrible thing for this community

to have out of town visitors come in here

and be brutalized in the nature that she was.

And hopefully we can bring some justice to this situation.

And, uh, we think the death penalty

is an appropriate piece of justice.

NARRATOR: A -year-old grandmother, Rhoda Nathan,

was m*rder*d in her hotel room just hours

before she was to attend a bar mitzvah.

Since there were no signs of forced entry,

Rhoda may have known the k*ller and willingly opened the door.

But since she was found naked, and still wet from her shower,

this theory was abandoned.

A large blood stain was on the window curtain.

And a bloody footprint was found on the bathroom floor.

-It was dreadful.

It was like losing a member of the family.

She did nothing wrong.

She was going for a good time.

And she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

NARRATOR: The motive appeared to be robbery.

Rhoda's gold and diamond necklace

was missing, along with $ in cash from Elaine's purse.

The door to room faced the hotel lobby atrium.

But no one was seen entering the room.

-We knew that whoever did this had

to be at the hotel that morning between : and :.

So it really limited the suspect pool,

and that was a big circumstance.

NARRATOR: Investigators questioned hotel guests

and employees, since they would have access to room keys.

The death of Rhoda Nathan wasn't the only incident

at the hotel that day.

-year-old Elwood Butch Jones, a hotel handyman

had sliced his left hand on the end of a trash dumpster.

-He checked into work maybe around o'clock that morning.

And a couple people had seen him,

didn't seem like he had any physical problems.

Yet around : or o'clock, people

noticed that he had his left hand wrapped.

NARRATOR: Three days later, Jones went to the hospital

emergency room for treatment of his left index finger,

which had become severely infected.

Jones was seen by hand surgeon Dr. John McDonough.

-It was pretty benign as far as the cut.

It was a small cut, already partially healed.

And I initially took him at his word,

that he had indeed cut it on a dumpster at work.

NARRATOR: When Dr. McDonough cut into Jones's finger,

infected tissue squirted inches

across the operating room table.

The cut was deep, penetrating the capsule or sterile

lining of Jones's finger joint.

Jones underwent two different operations, antibiotic therapy,

and a five day hospital stay.

Doctors believe that Jones could have

died had he not sought treatment.

And Dr. McDonough suspected that his hand injury was not

caused by a cut from a metal object.

Lab tests revealed that the cause of the infection

was a virulent bacteria called eikenella corrodens.

Eikenella is found typically in the human mouth,

under dental plaque, around the gum line.

-To get the eikenella to, um, propagate,

you have to break the dental plaque.

There has to be a significant injury.

And that happens when you break a tooth, usually,

or a hard object comes in contact with it,

such as a fist or a hand bone.

So just putting his hand in his mouth

would not have given him eikenella.

NARRATOR: Coincidentally, two of Rhoda Nathan's teeth

had been knocked out during the attack.

One two was found on the floor next to her body, the other,

in her stomach.

Also suspicious, Elwood Jones told doctors

that he cut his hand on the trash dumpster.

But later, he told coworkers he cut it on some metal stairs.

-So it was obvious that he was concerned about how

he had done this injury to his hand.

Even though Elwood was intelligent,

he was too dumb to keep his story straight.

REPORTER: If you did not k*ll Rhoda Nathan,

then who do you suppose did?

-I, I, I'm not guilty.

That's all I can say.

REPORTER: Who do you suppose set you up?

-It was one of the most brutal m*rder cases

that I've ever heard of, just the sheer viciousness

of the beating and the shear senselessness of it

just amaze me.

NARRATOR: The first lead in Rhoda Nathan's m*rder

came when a handyman, Elwood Jones, who

worked in the same hotel, suffered a serious hand

injury on the same day of the m*rder.

At first, police weren't overly suspicious

until they learned that Jones had given co-workers

one explanation of the accident, but told

hospital employees another.

This prompted investigators to interview

Jones' surgeon, Dr. McDonough.

-Well, they wanted me give them some information

about Mr. Jones.

And I told them, I was sorry that Mr. Jones and I had a, um,

doctor-patient relationship.

And there was an ethical problem with, uh, me

even talking to them about him in any way.

NARRATOR: The Ohio Supreme Court had already

ruled that the patient-physician privilege of confidentiality

is negated when police have reasonable cause to believe

that an injury resulted from v*olence related to a crime.

-Several days later, they came back with the court orders

and information that as a physician under the laws

of the state of Ohio, I was required

to give testimony about a case of this nature.

NARRATOR: Dr. McDonough said at first he took Jones's word

that he had cut his hand on a dumpster.

But after looking at the wound more closely,

Dr. McDonough knew that Jones was lying.

He recognized the wound as a human bite injury, which

hand specialists call a fight bite.

It happens when a clenched fist comes into contact with teeth.

DR. MCDONOUGH: Well, our definition of a fight bite

is an injury to the hand, usually

over any one of the knuckles, when someone strikes someone

in the mouth during an argument.

Um, what happens is the skin is penetrated

by the edge of the tooth, or the tooth may actually break off.

And that sharp edge will then inoculate bacteria

underneath the skin into the soft tissues of the hand.

I've been doing hand surgery for about years now.

And I've only seen it three times.

And every time I saw it, it was involved

in a human bite injury involved in a fight.

NARRATOR: The location of the cut on Jones's knuckle

pointed to this conclusion, as did the lab tests which found

the human mouth bacteria eikenella corrodens.

Hitting somebody in the mouth and cutting your hand

is pretty akin to cutting your hand

on the bottom of the sewer.

NARRATOR: Dr. McDonough found Jones' injury to be so unusual,

he took these photographs to show his medical students.

Those photographs became a critical piece of evidence.

-It was truly a case of serendipity.

Because at that point in time, we

did not know the circumstances of Mr. Jones's injury.

And what we thought was going to be a nice demonstration

for a lecture turned out to be quite a bit more than that.

NARRATOR: Further investigation into Jones's whereabouts

on the day of Rhoda's m*rder revealed

he had signed out a master passkey that morning

and never returned it.

Elwood Jones also had a prior criminal history,

three convictions for burglary and theft.

With a search warrant, investigators searched both

Jones's home and that of his girlfriend and coworker ,

Erline Metcalfe.

Investigators examined Elwood Jones's clothes and shoes.

The shoes did not match the bloody footprint

found at the crime scene.

And tests on his clothes found no trace

of Rhoda Nathan's blood.

In Jones's automobiles was a tool kit,

and a master passkey from the hotel,

two sets of door chains, along with a gold and diamond

pendant, similar to the one Rhoda Nathan

was seen wearing before her death.

Investigators suspected that the marks on Rhoda's face

may have been made by a door chain,

like the one found in Jones's trunk.

And the mark on her chest might have been caused

by a walkie talkie radio, similar to the one

Jones used at the hotel.

But the autopsy photographs were not taken exactly parallel

to the victim's body, creating a slight angular distortion.

An accurate photographic comparison

of the wounds to these items would be impossible.

-It wasn't quick.

It wasn't painless.

I'm sure she lay on the floor for quite a while,

hoping her friends would come back

and she didn't die right away.

NARRATOR: The brutal m*rder of Rhoda Nathan

was a terrible shock to her son, and to all

who knew and loved her.

-She was vibrant.

She was up.

She was an optimist.

She was-- she had a great sense of humor.

She was most proud about her kids, which is, I guess,

what most of us try to be proud of.

She had two lovely sons, and they've done very nicely.

Nice family, nice grandchild, nice people.

NARRATOR: Before going on trial, investigators

wanted to know if any of the items in Jones's toolbox

had been used in the as*ault.

But investigators had a problem.

Distortions in the autopsy photos

made it difficult to analyze the patterns of Rhoda's injuries.

But police learned that the FBI had recently developed

a new technology to correct prospective distortions

in photographs, called photo-rectification.

The machine's adjustable table is first

positioned to mirror the camera angle

at the time the original photo was taken.

The table is then moved to transform the plane

on the photograph to a flat surface plane

as viewed from directly overhead.

-So this machine had the ability to actually rectify

or to correct the imperfection in the way

the photograph was taken.

NARRATOR: Next, investigators took the rectified photos

to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

The pathologists there are experts

in the study of injuries caused by weapons.

The color of the autopsy photographs

were altered, along with the brightness and contrast,

to distinguish the injuries from marks

caused by internal bleeding.

It was then that marks on Rhoda's face

matched the door chain in Jones's toolkit.

Experts could not exclude Jones's walkie talkie

as the cause of Rhoda's chest bruise.

Although, it did not correspond exactly.

-They did not have DNA.

They did not have blood evidence or hair samples or fibers.

But they did have this rather unusual technique

of showing how the radio may have

matched up to the bruising.

NARRATOR: Prosecutors believe that when Elaine and Joe left

their hotel room for breakfast, Jones was watching

and thought the room was empty.

He took his tool kit and the door chain

so he could say he was doing some room maintenance,

in case the couple came back early.

Jones used the master passkey he signed

out earlier that morning.

Inside, he took the $ in cash from the pocketbook.

Then, Rhoda Nathan emerged from the bathroom,

still wet from her shower.

He struck Mrs. Nathan in the face

with the door chain in his hand, and struck her

on the chest with his walkie talkie.

He also struck Rhoda in the mouth with his fist,

removing two teeth, and picking up

the virulent bacteria which caused the infection.

Before leaving, Jones took the diamond

necklace from Rhoda's neck and left.

-She may have even been alive and conscious

when the one thing that meant the most of her, that she never

took off, was snatched off her neck.

That's the kind of guy Elwood Jones is.

To him, it was a little trinket.

To her, it was the main connection to her family,

to her husband, to her whole background.

NARRATOR: The necklace found in Jones's toolbox

was positively identified as belonging to Rhoda Nathan.

-Unbeknownst to Elwood Jones, this

was a one of a kind piece of jewelry.

In fact, the victim in this case, her husband

had it specially made for her from his own mother's wedding

ring.

There was five small diamonds that

were made in a very unique pendant.

And it was so special to her, even if she was taking

a shower, even if she was swimming, even if she was

sleeping, this pendant never, ever left her neck.

NARRATOR: Dr. McDonough testified that Jones's hand

injury and the eikenella corrodens bacteria were

the result of Jones' fist coming into contact with human teeth,

and not on a metal dumpster as Jones claimed.

-There was a lot of argument about how that bite could have,

or how that injury could have been infected.

Um, but the doctor was very compelling

in court when he said there is no other way it could have been

infected, other than from a human mouth.

And that proved, uh, very compelling to the jury,

I'm sure.

-But of all the hospitals in the city

and of all the doctors, the one guy that Elwood Jones ended up

just by circumstance being assigned to that night

was Dr. McDonough.

And that's, uh, again, I can't say I feel sorry for Elwood.

But I'm convinced, had he gone to any other doctor,

this case wouldn't have been solved.

NARRATOR: The enhanced photographs of Rhoda's injuries

suggested Elwood Jones' walkie talkie and the door chain

from his tool box were the most likely

items used in the attack.

-I'm still not guilty.

NARRATOR: Elwood Jones said he was framed by police, whom he

claimed had planted Rhoda's necklace in his tool box.

-His contention was that he did nothing wrong.

And he was just doing his job that day.

And, uh, they picked him out simply because he had a record.

NARRATOR: The jury deliberated just hours.

Elwood Jones was found guilty of aggravated m*rder,

aggravated burglary, and aggravated robbery.

-Again, I said I was innocent.

And I'm still innocent.

I did not commit this crim.e

-Elwood's an assh*le.

I mean, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that or not,

but-- you know, I've tried serial K*llers that

don't bother me as much as Elwood Jones.

He was just an arrogant, he was nasty to his attorney.

He's just a nasty individual.

-Based upon our review, the court

finds itself in complete, absolute agreement

with the recommendation of the jury.

NARRATOR: Elwood Jones was sentenced to death.

Outside the courtroom, Elwood Jones's sister

reacted angrily to the sentence.

-What happened in the court today, it is crazy.

The blue-ass police department framed my brother.

The prosecutor, the judge, and everybody

needs to be looked at in this case.

-This case was interesting for a lot of reasons,

and not just because it happened in a place

where you normally don't have this kind of v*olence.

Um, that, uh, made it more shocking maybe,

but the most interesting things about this case

were some of the scientific evidence that came into play,

some of the forensic evidence that they found.

Um, it was not the kind of evidence

you see in a lot of cases.

-I'd like to tell him to start making peace with his maker.

Because I think in the very near future,

he's going to meet his maker.

And he's going to pay for the vicious m*rder

that he committed.

-I'd like to pull the switch.

What would I say to him?

I'd say, I hope you die slowly and painfully.

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