07x09 - Last Night Apart

[bunniefuu]

[ominous music playing]

[narrator] A night out...

[Noelle] They looked relaxed.

They looked like they're about to have fun.

[narrator] ...turns into a nightmare.

[Jay speaking]

[narrator] A brutal attack with a k*ller

covering their tracks.

[Noelle] The first concern is, is the DNA gone?

[narrator] Video evidence holds the key

to their identity.

[Michael] This was the "I got you" moment.

The frightening part is it could have

happened to anyone.

[theme music playing]

[narrator] Adrianne Robert and her boyfriend,

Justin Pounders,

are getting ready to move

into their first home together.

I can't wait to wake up with you every morning.

[Justin] I was just very drawn to her

from the second I saw her.

It's okay. [laughs]

-[indistinct] night. -[Justin] Just like a [indistinct] night.

Duck. [laughs]

She's very beautiful,

so she caught my eye really quick,

full of life, just a happy person.

-Okay. -[Justin] Someone you love to be around.

[laughter]

[Justin] My lease was coming up

with my roommate and we just had such

a great connection that we felt like

we might as well just have our own place

and start our future.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Up to now, Adrianne has been sharing

a townhouse with her friend, Jay.

[Adrianne] Hey, it's me.

Listen, if you don't mind, we were thinking

of hanging out here tonight, is that okay?

[Justin] She told me, "Me and Jay, my roommate,

we're gonna have, kind of, like a last roommate

hangout night and, um, go maybe catch

a movie or something."

And I said, "No, that... You know, that's fine.

Um, I had stuff I had to go through

and get organized anyways."

[Jay laughs] Cheers.

-[Adrianne laughs] -Let's go.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Later that night, Jay returns home alone.

Adrianne?

Adrianne? Adrianne?

Adrianne, what are you doing?

Adrianne?

[tense music playing]

[woman speaking]

-[Jay speaking] -[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[woman speaking]

[siren wailing]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] But there's nothing they can do.

Adrianne is pronounced dead at the scene.

[siren wailing]

[narrator] Police raced to her apartment.

The first thing I saw when I walked in

was that there's no signs of forced entry.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] It was a two-floor condominium.

And the m*rder scene was right in the bathroom.

Adrianne, um, was lying on the floor.

She had a knife wound to the upper chest

and she bled out.

There's a broken toilet seat.

There's a lot of blood spill

from this chest wound that she had.

And the bathtub, um, you could tell

that there have been some movement

with inside the blood,

and that tells me that there is some type

of struggle going on inside there.

What was obvious to me is that this wasn't a suicide.

The way she was dressed and the fact

that she had a stab wound in the upper chest area,

that's not something where somebody commit suicide.

[narrator] Adrianne's body is in a state of undress.

[Michael] There, more than likely,

was some sexual components to this.

Just the way that she was laid out

and that she was undressed.

You could see blood prints from the suspect

because obviously she did not leave the area

where she was at.

Blood prints on the door frame

of the bathroom.

We'll probably get something productive

by the prints because you could actually

visually see some of the fingerprints.

The next room that was significant

was her bedroom.

Inside her bedroom was obviously a bed,

there was a sheet on top of it,

and what was interesting about it is that there

was a 10 or 12-inch cutout on top of her sheet.

And because that we knew there's gonna be some type

of sexual component to this, we thought that

that was gonna be relevant.

This would be a person that's calculating

and thinking this, kind of, through even in a frenzied,

you know, short attack like this,

the person was thinking that, "Hey, this is gonna link me

to the scene and I need to make sure

I dispose it in some way."

They felt that the underlying material

underneath the sheet would be productive.

So you start to put a vision in your head about,

okay, the person fled probably in a hurry,

let's make sure we do this correctly,

let's find out who's responsible for this.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Investigators discovered that Adrianne's

orange Jeep is missing.

[Michael] In the cases that I work,

if the vehicle has been gone, it's gone by the person

that actually k*lled the person.

They don't do it for monetary gain.

They're trying to get away from the scene

without being seen.

A team of people will go out now and canvass areas...

going door to door, looking who has cameras.

And you sometimes get lucky and somebody actually see

something that turns out will be significant.

[dramatic music playing]

[phone ringing]

Hello.

I picked up the phone and it was, uh,

Det. Bailey from the Pinellas County

Sheriff's Department.

And, uh, he asked me,

"Is this Lori Robert, Adrianne Robert's mom?"

And I said, "Yes, it is.

Is she okay?" He said, "No."

I said, "Is she alive?" He said, "No."

And then I took my phone and I threw it

as hard as I could at the wall.

[Lori screams]

[Mark] I hear her screaming, the phone

flying through the air,

I had no idea what was going on,

but I went and picked up the phone and...

Det. Bailey told me exactly what he had told Lori.

I felt removed from my body.

I couldn't comprehend what had just been told

to me or what was happening because I had to try

to hold my composure because now it's time

to find out what we need to know, right?

What do we have to do?

Of course, the immediate thing was,

is you need to make arrangements to get

to Florida as soon as you can.

[dramatic music playing]

[Justin] My dad and I were driving through

the neighborhood and as we were going around

a little bit of a loop, I started noticing a bunch of,

uh, vehicles, kind of, parked all around the place.

I noticed there was caution tape going

around and that's when I jumped out of the truck.

I wasn't sure like if somebody stole her vehicle or,

you know, what had happened.

Have...

Like tried to ask questions and finally I just said,

"Is she dead?"

Kind of she said, "Yeah."

And it went from being what I and Adrianne

were playing it to be like the best day of our lives

to that point to being a total nightmare.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] We got a call to say the Jeep

was found very nearby, probably three

or four blocks away, parked at a strip mall.

The lights were on. It was still running.

The Jeep became a priority because,

obviously, that was our source of evidence

because that person definitely took the Jeep.

Once the Jeep is recovered, then the...

We wanna capture video surveillance of the person

actually exiting the Jeep and connecting them

to the Jeep.

So the businesses surrounding where they recovered

the Jeep also then became another

facet of the investigation.

CarMax is a very large car dealership here.

It's in close proximity to where the Jeep was at.

And we knew that that would definitely

have video there.

If he went northbound from where the Jeep

was recovered, they probably would have captured him.

[man] Okay.

Can you show us everything from the night of the 13th?

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] Very exciting to look through this

because you never know what you're gonna get out of.

Sometimes it bears fruits, sometimes it doesn't.

But you're always on that edge

of wanting to see that video.

[man] Gear it up to 4:30 AM when the witness

found the Jeep.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] There was shadowy figure

walking through there.

[man] Rewind it back. Go again.

[dramatic music playing]

[Noelle] Black male, baseball hat,

long hair, and shorts.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] So somebody walking away

from where the Jeep was recovered,

you... Immediately your mind want to go to

that this is probably gonna be your k*ller.

[narrator] Detectives look for anything

that might help them track where this person went next.

Just around the corner, they spot another camera.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] We wanna see this quickly,

we wanna get some leads from it,

we wanna pursue those leads.

[narrator] They rushed the footage back

to the station.

[Michael] You're always wanting to see that video

so you can actually capture that event,

then we can come up with a timeline

at all these events.

We're hoping that this would have been actually

of the person leaving the Jeep,

him walking in northbound crossing

the path of the CarMax.

This could be the time that we're getting

that one shot that we need.

[dramatic music playing]

There's no sign of...

[Michael] Sometimes it bears fruit,

sometimes it doesn't.

This is one that did not.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Officers continue to canvass the area

near Adrianne's apartment.

[Noelle] A witness told the police

that he observed Adrianne and an unknown Black male

jogging down Wolford Road.

He described the behavior is odd.

It was late in the night, they weren't wearing

workout clothes, and he observed

Adrianne wearing a dress and holding shoes

in her hands.

[Michael] In fact, at the bathroom scene,

her feet were scarred and marred up

from running so I don't know if she was like possibly

trying to get away from this person

versus actually running away from him.

We more of likely thought that she had been

followed home right into her residence.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Detectives bring in Adrianne's roommate,

Jay, to find out more details about their night.

[Jay speaking]

[narrator] After a few drinks, they decided to go

to a local strip club called Diamond Dolls.

[Jay speaking]

-[man speaking] -[Jay speaking]

[narrator] The venue raises some concerns for detectives.

You have shady people that go there,

you have just every walk of life

that goes through there.

But I've got the impression they've been out at other

outings in this... In this type of environment.

So I don't think it was gonna be foreign to her.

And I don't think there was anything sinister

about any of that.

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[narrator] Jay recalls he and Adrianne arrived

around 10:30 PM and stayed

at the club for several hours.

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Michael] This is not person that they knew prior to,

this is something they had just met

that evening and that they had not...

No idea any of this person's background or the real name

or anything like that.

Adrianne wanted to go home.

She knew that she had to get up early

in the morning because she was moving.

She decided to leave on her own and walk home,

and he stayed.

[Jay speaking]

[man speaking]

[Jay speaking]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Detectives try to verify

Jay's version of events.

[Michael] We knew that they went to the club,

we did talk to folks at the club...

and also to track the whereabouts of both

the victim and Jay.

Now, you're looking at places where people

with cameras all the time.

And they knew that this is gonna be a club,

there's gonna be cameras there,

go through the entire evening,

what had happened, who they had encountered,

and when he came back home to verify his story.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] The footage from Diamond Dolls

has loaded up back at the station.

[man] Okay.

Let's see if this gives us what we need.

Get it to 10:00 PM and let's go from there.

[dramatic music playing]

[Noelle] The camera that overlooked

the car lot had a wide-angle so you could see people

coming and going that night.

[dramatic music playing]

[Noelle] You see Jay and Adrianne walking

from the street into the parking lot

entering the Diamond Doll.

[Michael] They were kind of, you know,

have an exchange, everything is good,

they're looking for a night out.

Switch to the next angle.

[dramatic music playing]

[Noelle] When Jay and Adrianne

walked into the club, they were by themselves.

They looked relaxed.

They looked like they're about to have fun.

They looked like it's gonna be a good night that evening.

[Michael] At that time there was very few people

trickling in.

You knew what they were wearing,

you knew that was them.

The quality of it was pretty good.

Let's check out Jay Leffue's timeline.

Fast forward to 2:30 AM.

[Noelle] At 2:53 AM,

the video surveillance shows Jay Leffue

leaving the club alone by himself.

He's walking across the parking lot

to the sidewalk and starts walking home.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] We want to be able to put people

at different times where they were at

by this timestamp of the video.

It just solidify that he was not a suspect in this.

Okay. Let's take it back.

[Michael] We knew how critical the video was going to be

that we didn't want to leave it to chance.

We wanted to make sure when is she leaving.

[dramatic music playing]

At 1:38, Adrianne is leaving the club.

The video shows she's by herself

and there's no one with her.

Keep it playing.

[dramatic music playing]

[tense music playing]

[Noelle] Four seconds later, a stranger comes out

that door and he's running.

Could that be the guys she's been sitting with?

Hold it there.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] Based on Jay's description,

I was able to look at and said that's the guy

he described.

Because he was wearing the hat,

you could tell the whole thing.

Switch to the next angle.

[tense music playing]

[Noelle] You'd see that there was a Black male,

he runs out into the parking lot,

he hands Adrianne her black sweater

or her shawl that she had left behind in the club.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] They engaged in some type of conversation.

You don't know what it is but you can see

there's conversation going back and forth

between the two.

The difference in this was usually that interaction

stops right that point, the person is leaving,

they give them the item they left in,

they run back in on their own,

and that's the last contact.

[tense music playing]

[Noelle] The video shows Adrianne and the Black male

walking out of the parking lot and turning right.

[Michael] She was heading towards her residence.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] Detectives return to the CarMax

surveillance footage.

[Noelle] The individual on the video surveillance

could have been the suspect that followed Adrianne home

that night.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] He was not the same person,

so we can actually eliminate him as a suspect.

[narrator] Detectives figured the driver of the Jeep

must have fled in the opposite direction.

[Michael] It was frustrating.

But any time you have a m*rder case

you always gonna have something thrown in your path

that you are hurdled with and you're gonna have

to overcome. And this wasn't any different than any other.

[tense music playing]

[Mark] We went to pick up Adrianne's things

which was very difficult to do,

to walk in there and see all her personal items.

She had everything all ready to go.

She knew that they were gonna their first night

at the condo together, I mean, she even had a pretty

little thing that she was gonna wear for him.

[melancholy music playing]

[Mark] It's hard.

It's hard to look at... This is your...

Part of your daughter's life you're looking at.

And, uh, it ends there.

And it shouldn't have.

You're not supposed to bury your children,

you're just not.

It's inappropriate. It's not right.

[tense music playing]

When it was first noticed that the sheet was cut

from the bed, the first main concern is,

is the DNA gone?

Clearly the person cut the sheet

because they wanted to take evidence from the scene.

[narrator] The forensics report from Adrianne's home

is sent to investigators.

DNA was found on the mattress,

it was on her body, it was on her hands,

it was on the bed,

it was a huge break in the case.

[narrator] Detectives run the DNA through the database.

While they wait for results,

they piece together the suspect's movements

that night.

Load up the Diamond Dolls footage.

See if this gives us what we need.

[narrator] There is no sign of the man who followed

Adrianne home arriving in the evening.

Let's look a little earlier.

[tape rewinding]

If he's not there in the evening hours,

when did the guy come there?

[heart beating]

[tense music playing]

[man] Stop.

Zoom in.

That's our guy.

[Michael] In the past, you see a great shadowy subject

and you don't know who it is.

This is actually pretty pinpoint and then very good.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] Detectives now have a face

but they need a name.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] We're trying to determine how this person

got there. He could have been... He could have brought

his own car, he could have,



[tense music playing]

To see somebody come up in a taxi

made it, kind of, unusual.

In a town like this,

everybody has their own car.

They're not used as frequently

as they are in New York.

[dramatic music playing]

[Michael] If the person getting out of the cab

was the person that had followed Adrianne out,

we knew that we could quickly get that person identified.

[tense music playing]

When the cab showed up and he got out of that car,

this was the "I got you" moment.

[Noelle] At that moment, we knew we would be able

to identify him.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] And the melee wheel start going fast.

What cab number is that, what's the phone number?

[man] I need some information on a cab that

did a drop off at the Diamond Dolls on the 13th.

[Michael] Who he said he was?

What phone number did he give? What instruction...

Where did you pick this person up?

This is all happening in like a millisecond.

Everybody's having the same idea.

We got a number.

[dramatic music playing]

[Noelle] The police were able to search that phone number

in a database and learned that that phone number

belong to Thomas Frederick.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] I was able to get his driver's license photo.

And obviously, we could tell

from the driver's license photo

and the surveillance video

that this is one and the same person.

[narrator] There's no DNA on file for Thomas Frederick.

We then have our surveillance team sitting on him.

They had instructions to get a DNA sample from him.

Like soot of a cigarette or a coffee cup

or something like that clandestinely.

You don't want to obviously alert him

to what was going on.

So you have to pick your opportunity.

So, you may surveil this person or something

like the time and only get one opportunity to do this.

[dramatic music playing]

[Mark] Picking up the Jeep

when they were done dusting it,

it was hard to see when I got there

because I know that he stole it.

The seats were covered in brown paper and...

So that we could sit in there and drive it.

And when I got into the driver seat,

of course the animal that took my daughter's life

was the one that drove it last.

So, all I could feel was like,

oh, I didn't...

It was just hard to sit in that seat.

[melancholy music playing]

[Lori] Driving the Jeep...

from the impound

was the hardest thing to do

because I had ridden in that Jeep

and had fun in that Jeep with her.

You know, I just want her back so bad.

[tense music playing]

The suspect was being followed

by our surveillance folks for some length of time.

Ultimately, the hard work paid off.

As he threw the cigarette butt,

this is the time they've been waiting for.

[intense music playing]

[Michael] They had grabbed the cigarette butt,

jumped back in the car and continue on.

All without him seeing what was going on.

They rushed that over to the lab so we can now compare

this to this person.

[tense music playing]

[narrator] They ran Frederick's DNA

against the samples found in Adrianne's home.

This is a very tense moment,

we're all waiting for this particular moment.

They had already developed the DNA profile.

I've made several calls to the lab to try

to get this rushed and they were already rushing it.

Because I knew that we had a small window of time.

As he could be thinking about leaving the state,

going to visit people in another part of the country.

[tense music playing]

So clearly, time is of the essence.

[tense music playing]

[Noelle] There was a match.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] The undercover people went in,

made contact with him.

Put him in the police car and drove him to the station

without incident.

[Noelle] They finally were able to now make an arrest

for the m*rder of Adrian Robert.

[tense music playing]

[Noelle] The first 40 minutes of the interview,

Thomas was very casual talking

about sexual encounters he has,

talking about friends, talking about strip clubs.

Police then showed Thomas Frederick

a picture of Adrianne Robert.

[tense music playing]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Michael] Once you show the photograph,

he knows exactly what's going on.

He's gonna act like he doesn't but he's like,

"Somehow these guys could put this together."

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[Noelle] They then confronted him with

the video surveillance.

At that point, he indicated to police

that they walked off to the ends of the road

and went their separate ways.

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[Michael] He's like, "Okay. The police have me,

what is my story gonna be?

Let me leave my way through all of these

and give them some type of BS type of story."

[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[man speaking]

-[Frederick speaking] -[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

-[man] All right. -[Frederick speaking]

-[man] Okay. -[man speaking]

-[Frederick speaking] -[man speaking]

-[Frederick speaking] -[man speaking]

-[Frederick speaking] -[man speaking]

[Frederick speaking]

[Michael] There's a pivotal point in this

where I just flat told him

"You k*lled her and we have your DNA,

how did this happen?"

He now knows that we knew this all along.

So then now is... He's looking out

for his best interest in this.

[Frederick speaking]

I knew that was gonna be his story,

was never to come off of it,

I got out of that interview that I needed,

then we shut it down.

Thomas Frederick charged with, uh, one count

of first degree m*rder.

[narrator] In January 2014,

Thomas Frederick stands trial.

Prosecutors put forward their version

of what happened that evening

when Adrianne and Jay went to the strip club.

She's walking in with Jay,

she's all happy and things are going well.

They're initially sitting together

and for some reason, he went to another part of the club

and was not within the eyesight of her.

Thomas Frederick was still sitting with her,

so he probably saw this as an opportunity that Jay

was no longer there and then, she was leaving,

he took that as an opportunity to try to approach her.

[tense music playing]

[Noelle] When Adrianne left the club,

the suspect ran out after her.

I believe that he saw something he wanted

and he was gonna take it by any means.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] "What can I do? Can I go back to the bar?"

Telling him as she was thinking

going back and forth.

"Should I go back in there and seek safety,

should I call with Jay, what should I do?"

[tense music playing]

[Michael] Probably she's walking... She's like,

"This is going bad."

So that's when I think where the running start,

she was like, "I'll probably outrun this person

and let me get out of here."

I think that he probably just followed her home.

Got into her house.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] She probably was being kind,

"Maybe if I let this guy use the restroom or use the phone,

he can just get the hell out here and I'll be done

with him. I'll lock the door, and I won't answer the door

and we'll all be done."

He was not going to leave without taking what he wanted.

He went into the kitchen, he grabbed the knife.

He went up the stairs and went into her bedroom.

At which time he used the knife to overpower her.

The injuries that she had to her body

were not the result

from consensual sex whatsoever.

The bruises to her arm

were consistent with being held down.

The bruises were consistent

with sexual battery.

I believe he r*ped her

and forced her to go into the bathroom

at which time he then k*lled her.

The last moments of Adrianne's life

were absolutely terrifying.

[Michael] He obviously attempted to clean up

the crime scene by cutting out the sheet

on the... on the bed

and grabbed her car keys

which were on the hook downstairs,

then took her Jeep for a few blocks

and abandoned the Jeep nearby.

[narrator] Thomas Frederick is found guilty

of first degree m*rder

and one count of grand theft auto.

Due to a lack of evidence,

there was no charge of r*pe.

[Noelle] There was nothing that he told police

that was backed by the evidence.

[tense music playing]

[Michael] Video footage

was extremely critical to the case

and also finding the k*ller.

Without it, we may have been unsuccessful.

[Noelle] Thomas Frederick was sentenced to life

without parole.

In Florida, that means he will spend the rest

of his life in prison and will never get out.

Adrianne went out with a roommate for a night

of fun until he came along.

And the frightening part is it could have happened to anyone.

[dramatic music playing]

[Mark] Tired. Every day I struggle.

It doesn't bring her back

but they'd got the guy that did it.

And I know the biggest thing

that I kept thinking was this,

that he won't be able to do it

to any other young woman again

because you got to be an animal to do what he did.

[Justin] Whenever I see photos of Adrianne

I just think of, like, how, like, special a person,

you know, she was and how much,

like, love she always gave and, uh,

we just try to focus the good times,

the fun times that we all had.

[Lori] My iPad which I seem to have been

clinging onto as if it was the only last piece

of life that Adrian had in her

because the videos on there with her voice.

I made it. [laughs]

Her laugh, everything. Just being alive.

I wanna see myself. Oh, you can't see myself. [laughs]

[Lori] I'm gonna miss her until the day I die.

I used to tell her all the time, "You know,

Adrianne, I'm your mom until the day I die."

She had a smile on her face from...

When she was born,

she was just... You knew she was special.