Original subtitles

- Mary Weaver reported that her father

had been missing for quite some time.

- He hasn't filled prescriptions, he's nowhere to be found -

essentially zero signs of life, whatsoever.

MAN: You can't get away with murder just because you

successfully dispose of the victim's body.

When you follow the money, money doesn't lie.

- Everything that Gerald owned - including his bank accounts,

pension, home, everything - had been transferred.

There is a strong belief that Gerald has been killed.

Any document signed was likely a forgery.

MAN: The family were pretty shocked to learn what they were learning.

MAN: No family members had talked to him. He's not spending any money.

- When Gerald Rabourn opened the door,

he had no idea what a predator he was letting into his home.

(eerie music)

- Rancho Bernardo

is a retirement community, mostly.

It's a suburb of San Diego

located about 20 miles northeast of downtown.

It's a pretty idyllic, really nice community.

MAN: Rancho Bernardo is known for golf courses, very good climate,

pretty much a senior community.

Rancho Bernardo is known as definitely a safe community.

- There is, unfortunately, a certain breed of criminal offender

who prefers to target the elderly,

knowing that the elderly maybe have cognitive issues,

that they're lonely, they're often trustworthy.

MAN: On February 17th, 2011, the San Diego Police Department

received a telephone call from Mary Weaver from Kansas

who wanted to file a missing person's report

related to her father Gerald Rabourn.

Her father, a Rancho Bernardo resident,

had been missing for quite some time.

- It had been four months since she had talked to him,

and she was becoming increasingly concerned about his welfare.

Every single year since she was little,

he had always sent her a birthday card.

And this was the first time she never received a card.

MITCHELL: Mary told that officer at that time

she suspected that... he was the victim of some foul play.

Mary Weaver provided a little bit of background information

on her father, the fact that he had lived with his wife, Carolyn,

at their home in Rancho Bernardo.

Gerald had always been very much a tennis player,

a fitness addict, takes lots of vitamins, lots of supplements.

He had been a map maker for over 30 years

and retired from that profession.

And he owned his own home there without any mortgage on it.

So, he had done pretty well for himself.

Carolyn, prior to September of 2010,

had been suffering from lung cancer

and was in the final stages by the end of September 2010.

- So, early in September of 2010,

the Rabourns decided to hire a woman from an agency,

a hospice person by the name of Denise Goodwin.

Denise only worked for the Rabourns for about two weeks

before Carolyn passed away.

Gerald had Denise's support, helping him in his time of need

through the trauma and so forth of losing his spouse.

Mary said that the plan was when Carolyn passed away,

Gerald would sell his home

and then move back in with his daughter in Kansas.

- Mary had already had a room set up for him

and he was all in agreement that that should happen.

But shortly after Carolyn passed away, he abruptly changed the plans,

much to Mary and other family members' surprise.

- He liked living in San Diego. Obviously, the weather in Kansas

is different than the weather in San Diego.

He liked being outdoors.

They agreed to talk at least once a week.

Mary was going to come to San Diego and visit with him.

That was the plan. And then in early October, he told her not to come.

That he was having Denise help him with all of his affairs.

So, he didn't really need any of Mary's help.

The last conversation that she had had with him

was he potentially might stay with Denise Goodwin.

- That was the last time she ever spoke to him.

(rings)

MCEWEN: After October 19th, Mary could not get a hold of him.

Denise began to field his calls on his cell phone,

but would basically make excuses that he couldn't come to the phone.

- One of the first steps in any missing person's investigation,

particularly when foul play is suspected,

is to put together a timeline.

That is really thwarted

when you're dealing with someone who is isolated,

who doesn't have a consistent routine,

who doesn't have a consistent group of peers

who police can gather that type of intelligence from.

- Mary had said that Gerald was 88 years old, about 5'7",

110 pounds at the time,

but also that he was very trusting.

In addition, Mary Weaver recounted that earlier in the month

she had been contacted by a social worker

regarding a complaint that she was following up on

regarding Gerald's welfare.

- A neighbour got concerned

and he initiated a process

by which Adult Protective Services made an inquiry.

They knocked on the door and Denise Goodwin answered the door.

They asked to see Gerald Rabourn.

And first, Denise Goodwin refused saying that he was sleeping,

but when they insisted, she called him over

and he was fully dressed, as if they were getting ready to go out.

And she spoke to Gerald through the door

and Gerald pretty much assured them that everything was fine.

- He didn't want their contact or want them involved in his life.

A few weeks after the last time Mary Weaver had spoke to her father,

she received a voicemail message from a woman

identifying herself as Carmen, informing her,

"Gerald and I have gotten married.

We moved to Las Vegas. We need some time on our own.

Please do not contact us until after the holidays."

Both Mary and the rest of the family...

...thought things were getting very, very strange.

(rings)

- Mary did call Denise and Denise gave a description of Carmen,

that she was a Hispanic female;

that they had initially gone to San Felipe, Mexico,

which is just south of the border, several hours from San Diego;

and that, after a vacation of three weeks there,

that they would go and live at Carmen's residence in Las Vegas.

Obviously, the story about getting married sounded extremely odd,

but also somewhat believable because he did like to go to Las Vegas.

You know, it actually is not that uncommon for elderly people,

especially seniors of Gerald's age,

that just want the companionship.

And so, it wasn't a complete shock to the family

that Gerald would find somebody else to spend time with.

And so, they had questions, but it was enough

to dissuade the family from pestering Denise about where he was.

It's what dissuaded the reporting of Gerald going missing.

- They tried to abide by what they thought were Gerald's wishes.

MCEWEN: But Mary, she still didn't stop worrying.

There were still some little red flags

lingering in the back of her mind.

When she didn't get the birthday card

she had to know what happened with her dad.

The Adult Protective Services

advised her to file a missing person's report.

The missing persons' detectives went and spoke with Denise.

Denise's initial story was the same -

that he'd gotten married to this woman named Carmen.

Denise did not know Carmen's last name.

She gave the physical description of being an Hispanic female.

That they were going to San Felipe, Mexico, and then move to Las Vegas.

MITCHELL: She tells them that he doesn't want to speak to his family.

He's happy now. He's with Carmen.

MCEWEN: If it turned out to be true

that Gerald didn't want contact with his daughter, we'd respect that.

But we, as law enforcement,

have to talk to the person that's been identified as missing.

And we won't stop investigating until we do.

So, as the investigation began, we started looking for signs of life.

(rings)

MCEWEN: Denise gave Gerald's phone number to the detective.

Over the next couple days,

the detectives left several messages on the phone

and did not receive any callbacks.

On October 21st, Gerald had a dental appointment,

and someone called the dental office

and cancelled that dentist's appointment.

Also, Gerald had had some minor surgery

and there was a follow-up doctor's appointment.

That appointment had been cancelled.

then we checked on his prescriptions and we began to realise

that, after October 21st, there were no signs of life.

Gerald basically completely disappeared.

MCEWEN: So, as we continue the investigation

we start to look into Gerald's finances.

We determined through debit card transactions

that the activity moved from the Rancho Bernardo area

to the Valley Center area.

I was assigned to the case as a forensic accountant.

Most law-enforcement agencies

don't have forensic accounting experts that work as detectives.

I'm both.

The key is finding the evidence and knowing where to look.

If you can't find the evidence you'll never get a conviction.

The Valley Center location was important

because that's where Denise Goodwin lived.

And she was claiming that Gerald was not there,

so we began to develop enough probable cause

to execute a search warrant

at Denise's residence and property in Valley Center.

- The San Diego Police Department investigators

went out to the Valley Center home of Denise Goodwin.

MCEWEN: The Valley Center area is a rural area

located in the very northern end of San Diego County.

Denise actually lived on a compound with her mother, her son,

and her former husband.

All lived on the property together.

There was a corral there. She was into horses.

Denise said that Gerald had not been there.

- He's in Mexico. He wants to be left alone.

- Denise said that she was helping him with the sale of the house

and there were some repairs that had to be done to the house,

so she had permission to spend some of Gerald's money

while Gerald was out of town.

- She indicated at some point that she had sent money to him in Mexico,

which is what led the detectives to ask for the address she sent it to.

MCEWEN: She said she wasn't allowed to disclose where Gerald was at.

And that's when detectives told her, "We have to verify his welfare."

And that's when Denise provided an address in San Felipe, Mexico.

- I think they knew pretty soon

during their conversations with Denise

that they were not getting the full story

and that they knew that there was more to this case at that point.

- As we got into the case,

the whole concept that Gerald wasn't involved in the sale of the house,

didn't make any sense. It didn't match Gerald's normal behaviour.

- Both Mary and the other family members

described him as someone who watched his money like a hawk.

MCEWEN: Gerald was the kind of person that he was a bit stubborn.

That's why he took care of all of his own financial affairs.

And what we discovered is that Gerald had moved his primary banking

from a personal account

into a joint account with Denise Goodwin.

This was authorised by Gerald.

His signatures on the documents and so forth.

- As soon as investigators determine that money is the motive,

they need to follow the money.

In any case where you've got the convoluted movement of money,

forensic analysts are of critical importance

because they're able to determine able to make sense of this,

and provide an informed determination

as to who's likely benefitting from all this movement.

They've seen this before. They have the skill set

to be able to get to the bottom of

what's likely been designed to fool your typical fraud investigator.

The biggest red flag for investigators comes when

they realise that cheques are being drawn

by a person who's missing,

someone who hasn't been seen or heard from,

and who isn't making withdrawals. They're not on an island somewhere.

They're actually still writing cheques to third parties.

This development for investigators leads them to believe

that they're dealing with foul play.

- That caused them to want to speak with the son

to figure out why he was getting that money,

and obviously to discover

if there's a reason he should be considered a suspect.

- We find out that there's cheques being written to Carolyn's son,

and so we contact him for an interview

to find out what the cheques were for.

Carolyn and Gerald, they had been married for 25 years.

It was a second marriage and they each had kids from prior marriage.

So, essentially, they wanted their estates

to go to their respective children.

Carolyn's son, Reid, told us that he had come down to San Diego

to pick up his mother's property.

He was interested in getting her paintings,

and then also he was the trustee over her trust.

- Soon after his mother passed away,

he checked on the bank records online from Colorado,

and he could see that the account had been depleted.

- When Reid called the bank,

the teller told him that the account had been closed,

and that his mother had personally called in, called the bank,

and made the transfer from her account into Gerald's account

on September 28th.

But Reid said that would've been impossible because on the 28th,

Carolyn had already slipped into a coma.

Then she died the following day.

So, it would've been impossible for her to initiate that transfer.

Reid's initial reaction was he believed Gerald had taken the money.

That he had initiated the transfer.

He tries to contact Gerald and then, when he gets no answer,

he drove to San Diego from Colorado

and went to the house and essentially demanded to see Gerald.

He wasn't there, and the locks have been changed,

and Denise answers the door and says that he had gone to Mexico.

Reid goes into the house, he notices the house is in disarray.

His mother's paintings are now in the garage.

He explains he's upset because there were two trusts

and that Gerald had no right to access his mother's account

and had no right to that money.

Denise says she emptied Carolyn's account

and put it into the joint account that she had opened with Gerald

because she was helping Gerald with his finances,

basically as a trustee over his estate.

And that's when he explains that this money belongs to his mother,

it doesn't belong to Gerald, and he wants the money back.

At that point, Denise takes him to the garage

where the paintings were located.

And he was surprised that his...

he felt his mother's paintings had been mistreated.

Reid basically demands to have his mother's paintings.

He says that, you know, he's going to sue.

- He was irate. He told her what she had done was improper, unlawful,

and made it quite clear that,

without that money coming to him almost immediately

he'd be going to the authorities.

MCEWEN: And so, Denise ends up writing him two cheques

for a total of $28,000

to repay the money that had been taken out of Carolyn's account.

Once we had contacted Gerald's stepson,

we were able to eliminate him

as being involved in Gerald's disappearance.

They locate the address that Denise had given them

and they start to interview the people around there.

No-one by the name of Gerald Rabourn had been there.

There is a photographic record of all the licence plates

that go south at the border crossing.

And so we did a search for the licence plates.

We could not locate that Gerald had crossed into Mexico.

We checked records in San Diego County.

There was no marriage between Gerald Rabourn and someone named Carmen.

We had emergency warrants for Gerald's cell phone

and the numbers he was calling.

We found no evidence of any person named Carmen in his life.

We couldn't verify a single thing that Denise told us.

And, based on that, that's what the investigation

really began to focus on Denise Goodwin.

- We did as much analysis of it as the investigators could,

to discover who this person could have been.

Was it Denise Goodwin disguising her voice?

They concluded that it wasn't Denise Goodwin that made that call.

The investigators from San Diego Police Department

contacted the San Diego County District Attorney's office

who had a real-estate fraud and economic crimes division.

MCEWEN: What we discovered is Denise was a co-signer

on the sales documents of Gerald's home.

And it turned out that the house had already been sold

and they didn't know where the proceeds were.

MITCHELL: Detectives went there and spoke to the new owners.

The house had been remodelled, so there wasn't even anything

for them to even go in and look at.

- We also determined that Denise

had disposed of all of Gerald's clothing from his house,

all of his furniture.

So, she essentially emptied the house of everything that he owned.

After Carolyn's passing, Denise and Gerald went to an attorney

and the alternate trustee was changed from Mary, his daughter,

to Denise Goodwin.

So, Denise used the trust documents, as trustee, to sell the house.

Mary was not involved. She didn't get any proceeds.

At this point in the investigation,

we determined that everything that Gerald owned -

including his bank accounts, pension, home, everything -

had been transferred to this caregiver Denise Goodwin.

And Gerald Rabourn is nowhere to be found.

Denise portrayed herself as being Gerald's angel

yet, within a matter of weeks, she had control over the house,

she had control over all of his bank accounts,

and she had control over his pensions.

She had completely taken over all of his assets.

And then Gerald disappeared.

MCEWEN: At this point, it's been six months after Gerald disappeared.

No family members have talked to him and he's not spending any money.

Essentially there's zero signs of life whatsoever.

And there is a strong belief that Gerald has been killed

and that we were now working a homicide case

and not just a fraud case.

MITCHELL: The family were pretty shocked

to learn what they were learning.

Mary especially, I think,

had known all along something bad had happened,

but just didn't want to admit it to herself.

ARNTFIELD: The breed of criminal who prefers to target the elderly,

they're often fraudsters.

But within that subtype of offender,

there's also a more sinister variety

that's prepared to take that embezzlement

or that swindle to the next level

and actually use it as the starting point for something far darker.

- At this point we begin to believe that it's unlikely

that we're gonna find Gerald's remains.

So, it was fortunate for us

that Bill Mitchell was assigned to the case.

Bill Mitchell is what we refer to as the top

no-body homicide investigator in the state of California.

- A no-body murder case is just what it sounds like.

It's a case in which the victim's body has never been recovered

and a murder charge has been filed to initiate a criminal prosecution.

So, it becomes very much a circumstantial evidence case.

How was the victim killed and when was the victim killed?

They're rare, far and few between.

They are much more difficult to prosecute.

You're missing crime-scene evidence, trace evidence.

You're missing fingerprints. You're obviously missing everything

that that would tell you regarding connection

to the suspected perpetrator.

The chances of getting away with murder rise astronomically

if you can successfully dispose of the victim's body.

We suspected this was technically a murder for financial gain.

When you follow the money, money doesn't lie.

Detectives recover documents that showed that Gerald Rabourn

wasn't Denise Goodwin's first financial victim.

She had already done pretty much the same thing

with a person by the name of Seward Norris.

As the caregiver, she had access to financial documents

like the checking account that he had had with his ex-wife.

Denise was able to get herself

added on in place of the ex-wife to that account

and surrendered one of his life insurance policies.

- She had taken, I'd say something like $420,000 from that estate.

- When Seward Norris passed away in June,

Denise Goodwin at that time went looking for another victim,

and her initial quest for a victim

led her to get on two senior dating websites.

Her handle was "DaddyMeUp"

and said she was looking for elderly men.

And she did get some contact back and forth,

but we never had any evidence

that she actually connected with any of them.

By the end of summer of 2010,

now into August of 2010,

she started applying for a position as a care worker.

She went looking for specifically hospice care

where people are close to death.

She falsified some educational credentials

by using her mother's certificates,

and actually got her mother to give her a raving review as a caregiver.

And she was able to land a job at an agency,

and her first assignment was the Rabourns.

Gerald Rabourn, he opened the door.

He had no idea what a predator he was letting into his home.

- Denise had a very elaborate ruse

with this fake home-care-worker routine.

A home care worker, somebody who is providing assisted living services,

isn't going to be the intuitive suspect for a crime like this.

- Gerald confided in her, he wanted her help.

In fact, he called her his little angel,

coming and helping him in his time of need.

MITCHELL: In this case, there's no evidence of a crime scene...

...and there's no evidence of the victim's body.

But there also is no evidence,

other than Denise Goodwin's say-so, that he's still alive, so...

They never gave up looking for Gerald Rabourn's body.

The investigators checked with all of the coroners' offices

all over the southwest.

On April 29th, Mary Weaver received a very strange phone call

where that person was trying to pretend to be her father,

saying things like, "Sweetie Pie and I are travelling.

I don't want to move to Kansas City."

The phone call, I think, caused her quite a bit of panic.

- Immediately Mary recognises that this is not her father.

You're the daughter of this man who's disappeared

and all of a sudden you receive a phone call from somebody

who identifies himself as her father

and you're being told that, "I'm fine, leave me alone."

That just didn't sit well with her at all.

- The investigators knew that Denise Goodwin was probably responsible,

they just didn't know if it was her alone

or was she working with other people?

Mary, when that phone call terminated,

contacted the San Diego police detectives, informed them of it.

What they were able to do is get the phone number that it came from,

from Mary Weaver's phone.

And they discovered that it was a prepaid TracFone

that you can buy at a convenience store,

that had been purchased in Arizona.

When they got the phone records,

there was one other number that had been called by that phone,

and he was someone associated with a property

that was now owned by Denise Goodwin.

- We find out that Denise took some of the money

that had taken from Rabourn estate

and purchased a condominium in Escondido.

Denise met these individuals at church. They were homeless.

And so, she essentially made a deal with them.

The agreement was that she would give them a home, a place to live,

with discounted rent, in exchange for work on these rental properties

that she was in the process of buying.

When we interviewed the couple

we found out that Carmen was a fabrication made up by Denise,

and that the actual phone call was made by Jocelyn.

Jocelyn gave us a detailed account of the Carmen phone call.

Denise had brought a phone in a paper bag

and explained that Gerald didn't want his family contacting him

or his new girlfriend or wife.

- Denise Goodwin explained to her at that time

that she had to get the family, Gerald's family, off of his back.

So, Mrs Gavino told us that she thought

she was assisting Gerald Rabourn through Denise Goodwin.

She made that phone call cos Denise Goodwin promised to give her $20.

- They rehearsed what she was going to say on the call numerous times

before actually picking up Gerald's phone and making the call.

So, this turned out to be a break in the case

because now we knew that Carmen was a fabrication.

- When it was over, the way Denise handled the phone,

indicated to investigators that she had pretty much

wiped the phone clean of her DNA, fingerprints.

- Immediately after this phone call,

we were able to track GPS that Denise drove to Las Vegas

where she discarded the phone.

Trent became concerned

because he didn't know anything about Gerald's disappearance,

and all of a sudden he was in the middle of an investigation.

But when they realised that Denise likely killed Gerald Rabourn,

that's when they told us the whole story.

And, based on those conversations,

we were able to eliminate them as suspects.

- In a case where you have both cell-phone evidence

and third-party financial institution evidence,

this is really where police can dig in and put a timeline together.

Much like any crime involving a mobile phone

will necessitate that investigators

get the co-operation of the cellular provider,

any financial crime, the same rules apply.

Every transaction, every login to a banking app,

every telephone call, ATM transaction,

it's all tracked and is available for police.

- We had very clear evidence that Denise Goodwin

had completely duped Gerald

into believing that she was there looking out for his best interest.

That was the furthest thing from the truth.

Even while Gerald's wife, Carolyn, lay dying in the other room,

she convinced Gerald that she could help him

with his financial accounts,

and the two of them together called up his bank,

with Denise Goodwin pretending to be Carolyn,

even using, or trying to use, a fake accent.

One of the final ones in December of 2010

was really damning evidence

because she's basically cackling

about how she has to cash out all the accounts,

and laughing and saying, "You know how it is when somebody dies,

you have to pay all the bills."

Denise eventually cleaned that account out in December

and received well over $100,000

cashing out all of the Rabourn stocks and ETFs.

In my mind, she wasn't going to walk away.

In order to get justice and restitution for the victim's family,

we had to go forward with a murder case.

- When Denise Goodwin came to work for Gerald Rabourn,

I don't think he had any clue who he opened his door to

and what she was bringing into his home.

He believed that this Denise Goodwin

was there to help him, looking out for his best interests.

- Carolyn had been in hospice care for five years and, all of a sudden,

Denise Goodwin comes in the door and she's dead two weeks later.

- Once Carolyn died, Denise Goodwin quit her job,

making a false story to her employer

that she was going to care for a sick relative

and telling Gerald that she's going to work for free.

She was going to take care of him and do things for him.

He had no clue.

Had no clue probably up until the 21st October.

- By now we had enough probable cause to get a search warrant

to search Denise's property

for everything to do with Gerald's estate.

Denise, she's terrified. She actually has a meltdown.

And we can hear her former husband try to comfort her

and say that they're just looking for financial crimes.

The search warrant included the ability to search for a body

because now we were looking at a homicide

and looking for human remains.

- Every tool that investigators could muster

to look for Gerald's remains was used,

including ground-penetrating radar,

cadaver dogs.

The investigators even went to the extent of using a backhoe

to dig up the corral where Denise Goodwin had said

a horse had been previously buried.

But they found no evidence to indicate

that a human body had ever been there.

- While executing the warrant, including her registered vehicles,

we find the resignation from Gerald that he had signed...

...transferring control of the trust to Denise.

We also found documents that Denise had actually converted...

...a lot of Gerald's money to her personal use.

These types of cases, it's all about the money.

These are predators looking to get money.

The money went from Gerald's personal account

to a joint account with Denise, onto a personal account with Denise.

It was very systematic how she did it.

When we seized the computer that Denise was using,

we found documents that turned out to be forged certificates

that stated that Denise was a licensed or certified trustee.

We also did forensics on her computer.

Discovered that she was forging documents

with Gerald's signature on it.

At this point we're pretty convinced that everything after October 21st,

any document that Gerald signed, was likely a forgery.

We also find notes that Denise has made

trying to keep up with her scam,

that basically document the contact she has,

what she's told to detectives,

questions she asked herself,

including one question - "Is it time for me to hire a criminal lawyer?"

This turned out to be a big break in the case

because it meant that Denise Goodwin

had masterminded the entire plot of Rabourn's disappearance

and taking all of his assets.

It confirms that she had a plan all along.

Also during the computer forensics examination,

we find that Denise searched Darvocet,

which is a pretty potent drug

used to treat cancer patients like Carolyn.

She's researching how much should be administered to cause an overdose.

So, Darvocet, like other opiates...

...will cause the individual to essentially go into a coma and die,

depending on how much is administered.

Considering Gerald's age and stature, I mean,

he was an elderly man, 110 pounds.

It wouldn't have taken much of the drug.

Also, there were a lot of drugs left over from Carolyn,

who had been in hospice for five years.

And the purpose of these drugs is to make hospice patients comfortable

so that they don't feel any pain.

Yet, in Gerald's case,

administering an overdose of Darvocet would essentially kill him.

We wanted to find where Gerald's car was,

and we did a search number on the vehicle identification number.

And, based on the VIN, the car was now registered to Denise Goodwin.

We recovered the car and impounded it.

And inside the car was a receipt to have the car painted.

We knew that Gerald Rabourn's Honda Civic was white

and the car was now blue.

So, we located the individuals that painted the car

and interviewed them, and discovered that Denise had brought the car in.

And, even though the car did not need to be painted,

Denise insisted that they completely repaint the car blue,

and insisted that everything be taken out of the trunk

and the trunk actually be painted blue.

At this point, it kinda confirmed all the red flags.

MITCHELL: They know what she's done

with the Rabourn assets and real-estate fraud,

but she's hired a criminal attorney at that point in time,

and refused to answer any further questions.

So, we knew that she knew

that the eyes of the police were focused on her.

But, in my experience as a prosecutor,

I know what it takes to go forward with a no-body case.

There's huge risk in doing that. That's double jeopardy.

- Double jeopardy is the legal principle

that if you've been acquitted of a crime,

you cannot be retried for that same crime.

Cases like this are precisely why there are what is known as

filing District Attorneys in the United States -

gatekeepers of criminal investigations,

who ultimately make the decision whether or not

this package is in good enough shape to be taken to trial

because they really get one shot at it.

- But then they discovered evidence that Denise Goodwin and her son

were going to be leaving the country in July.

- During the computer forensics, we found that Denise Goodwin

was planning on leaving the country -

she was planning on doing this cruise with her son -

and that she was doing research and finding countries

that had no extradition with the United States.

Obviously, we didn't want her leaving the country

out of our jurisdiction, so we contacted the travel agents.

The tickets were still valid, so we got the flights and so forth.

- It was critical in my mind that we act quickly

in order to stop her from being able to get on that plane.

Denise Goodwin and her son,

they were flying out on July 12th of 2011,

and because I was able to have enough evidence to charge her

with the theft of the Rabourn vehicle,

we met her at the airport on July 12th.

Oh, it was a great day to see her in custody.

We decided to break the case into two parts.

Do the initial arrest for the financial crimes

including a bail restriction,

so that she couldn't use any of Gerald's estate money to post bail.

- We worked around the clock,

sometimes day and night, trying to get it put together.

- There's perhaps no other type of criminal investigation

that is as vetted and as scrutinised

before moving to trial or to charges,

as a no-body homicide.

These are among the most circumstantial cases

and the ones toughest to build.

- What the financial crimes evidence actually disclosed

is that Denise Goodwin,

even before Carolyn died,

she had used Carolyn Rabourn's American Express card

to purchase a video camera and video editing software

that she wanted to use to help film services at her church...

...which is ironic in its own sense.

- Fraudsters have been shown in several studies

to actually have psychopathic traits,

to lack empathy, to lack remorse.

This is a case really just about greed.

It was not a leap once the fraud began,

and this elaborate scheme began unfolding,

for her to mercilessly just decide to take him out of the equation.

- We were able to determine that that credit card statement

would've arrived at Gerald's home on 21st October 2010,

which was the day that all life signs ceased.

We believe the reason that he was killed

was the American Express card statement.

That would've made him upset because he was stingy with money.

He would've made a call immediately to Denise.

On October 21st is about the time she realised

that the only way for her to take the estate,

and the only way to avoid getting caught,

was to kill Gerald.

- He had to die or else she was going to get caught.

And all that money that she wanted

for her little real-estate rental property empire

was going to get taken away from her.

- We tracked her movements that day.

We did a detailed analysis on the cell-phone pings.

She started the day at her home, came down, met with Gerald.

The two cell phones were together at Gerald's residence.

She regularly made him lunch.

So likely, when she made lunch that day,

she put the Darvocet in the lunch,

and when he consumed it, he died within a not very long time.

Opiates have a tendency to act pretty quick.

It actually shows a lot of thought.

I mean, she's obviously aware that forensic evidence is important,

which is probably why she chose to poison him with the opiate.

That's what we would term to be a quiet kill.

I feel comfortable in saying that she felt like

if she was able to get rid of the body,

that she would never be able to be charged with homicide,

as long as we couldn't find Gerald's remains.

Based on photos of the residence, there is a carpet missing.

We believe that after Denise killed Gerald,

wrapped him up in the carpet that was missing from the house,

put him in the trunk of his own car.

Based on the cell-phone pings, went to an area with dumpsters

and disposed of his body in the dumpster,

which would mean that the body ended up in the landfill.

So, Gerald would be covered under tons of trash

by the time we even started to investigate the case.

- By the middle of August we concluded

we had enough to go forward on the murder charges

without ever finding Gerald Rabourn's body.

- How she found out about it was a phone call from her ex-husband.

GOODWIN: (sobs) Did they...

MITCHELL: We call that an adoptive admission.

It's where you're confronted with the commission of a crime

and innocent people would deny it or be aghast

that they're being charged with something they didn't do.

Hers was pretty much the opposite of that.

- Her reaction to that phone call also was played out for the jury.

In October of 2014,

Denise Goodwin was convicted of murder in the first degree

with special circumstances for financial gain.

And on January 31st 2015,

Goodwin was sentenced to life in prison

without the possibility of parole.

Denise has a very dark personality.

She's a con woman,

and she spent a lot of her life

taking money from other people.

- Denise Goodwin, she wanted something so bad

she was willing to kill for it.

And she saw how easy it was to steal from elderly people.

And she thought she could get away with it. She was wrong.

This is obviously the worst of the worst that can happen to someone,

where someone that they trust, a caregiver,

who's actually a predator in disguise, is let in the door.

And I hate to say it,

but I believe it happens a lot more often than we ever discover.

- It means a lot to me to get justice for the family.

If we would've not arrested her and convicted her,

there was another victim that she was gonna go to.

There was another door that was gonna get opened and let Denise in.

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