All language subtitles for Accident.Suicide.or.Murder.S06E08.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

-A naval officer battles
a mysterious illness below deck

on the open seas...

-He was a healthy,
reasonably young guy.

It was a puzzler.

-...but loses the fight.

-They still hadn't
determined yet what killed Lee.

-But an autopsy
provides investigators

with a chilling answer
for his death.

-We found out
that he had an elevated amount

of arsenic in his blood.

You say to yourself,
"Holy cow, how did that happen?"

-It could have been
an accidental poisoning.

Was it a suicide?

-Somebody had painted graffiti
on the ship.

Maybe somebody on the ship
was trying to kill him.

-I said, "Oh, man,
I hope they find out who did it,

and I hope they pay."

-All roads lead to dead ends...

-If your primary suspect
passes the polygraph,

that certainly creates
a roadblock

and the case becomes
a cold case.

-...until investigators work
towards a shocking admission.

-It's just one
of the most bizarre confessions

I've had in my entire career
as a prosecutor.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-In the Mediterranean Sea
off the coast of Spain,

the USS Forrestal cruises
the open waters.

The aircraft carrier is one
of the crown jewels

of the U.S. naval fleet.

-The ship itself
would house about 5,000 people

and had the ability to provide
services that people require.

Medical services --

There was a hospital and doctors
facility on board,

a surgeon on board

because they had to be prepared
to treat battle injuries in case

they were called
upon to go to war.

-But below the deck,

doctors are not treating
a sailor injured in battle.

They are tending to 37-year-old
Lieutenant Lee Hartley,

who is battling
a mysterious illness.

-His job on the Forrestal
was as the disciplinary officer.

-Lee Hartley was
very well respected by friends

and by the people
he actually supervised.

-I got to know Lee
fairly well,

and I knew
that he was recently married.

I knew that he was divorced.

I knew he had a child.

He and I would talk

whenever I was in the
staff judge advocate's office.

Every once in a while,
he'd drop down.

We would eat dinner
together in the officer's mess.

Just a good guy.

When Lee became sick,

he started to exhibit symptoms
that required treatment.

-He was suffering from nausea,
diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness.

-He had ulcerated areas
in his mouth,

his lips,
severe stomach pain.

-Mom told us
that Lee was really sick.

The ship doctor thought
he might have the flu.

And the flu can hold on for days
at a time.

-You know, there is a lot
of things they examine,

but they really weren't
sure what was going on.

-While the ship was
in the Mediterranean,

his situation deteriorated
over time.

He had great discomfort.

He was just sick
and sicker to the extent

that the ship was
not capable of doing

the diagnostic work
that was required to figure out

what the heck was wrong
with him.

The ship said,
"We just can't help him.

We got to get him home."

Lee eventually was medevaced,
medically evacuated,

from the ship
back to Jacksonville

and was treated at
the Jacksonville naval Hospital.

-While doctors order
additional tests

to determine what is ailing Lee,

his wife, Pamela,
rushes to her husband's bedside.

-He'd get better,
but then he'd get worse.

He was very, very ill.

It caused a severe bloating
of his body.

-Dad called and said,
"We got to go to Florida now."

He said,
"Lee is in the hospital,

and they don't expect
him to make it."

And we got there,

but Lee was
not cognizant at all.

He looked like
he weighed 300 pounds.

-The cause of Lee's illness
remains a mystery

as his body begins to shut down.

-Lieutenant Hartley,
after approximately five months

of being ill
starting on the Forrestal,

ended up finally passing
away on November 18th of 1982.

♪♪

-Mom got the phone call

and she called us
and we got together,

and then we drove down there
after he passed away,

of course,

because he was already gone
and it was just devastating.

-Verle Lee Hartley was
my older brother

by about 14 months.

-There are seven of us
and the oldest one is Verle Lee.

We all grew up in Elwood,
Indiana.

We'd play hide and go seek,
tag and kick the can,

and we had a really good time.

-He was a very laid-back
person.

He really was.

Wasn't a mean streak in him.

-Being our big brother
who always --

when something came up,
he tried to handle it.

And that's what big brothers do.

-As a teenager, Lee
had ambitions to join the Navy.

At 17,
with the support of his parents,

he enlisted
and left home for the high seas.

-He was all Navy.
He really was.

He was all Navy.

-He just really loved being
in the service.

He was quite good at the job
he did.

-Lee quickly makes
a name for himself in the Navy,

and his high aspirations draw
attention from superiors.

While stationed in Florida,

the rising star Lee Hartley
falls in love with Linda Patel,

and the two are married.

Seven years later, Lee and Linda
welcomed their only child,

a daughter named Stephanie.

-He thought that Stephanie was
just the cat's meow.

You know, she could do
no wrong.

That's a real daddy's girl,
you know?

-After years
of climbing the ranks,

Lee Hartley became a naval
lieutenant on the USS Forrestal.

When Lieutenant Hartley
turned 37,

less than a year before he died,

he experienced a little bit
of a midlife crisis,

and he fell in love
with his secretary.

Her name was Pamela Johnson.

She was a pretty redhead
and 12 years his junior.

-When Lieutenant Hartley
had met Pamela Johnson,

she actually was in the Navy
and worked for him.

And then that's when they
became a couple.

In the military, that actually
is fairly frowned upon.

So she had left the Navy.

-Lee decides to divorce Linda,
and he and Pamela

are married just a few months
into their relationship.

-They fall in love.
They get married.

They're making a life
for themselves.

And all of a sudden,
Lee subsequently passes.

-They still hadn't
determined yet what killed Lee.

-He was a healthy,
reasonably young guy.

It was a puzzler.

-Nothing seemed right
at the time.

Why Lee?

I mean,
it just didn't seem right.

They kept saying
that he'd come off the ship

with flu-like symptoms.

And I said, "No, it can't be.
The flu don't last this long."

And my stepmother decided
that she wanted an autopsy.

She pushed enough,

the Navy decided to go ahead
and do the autopsy.

-From the autopsy,
the medical examiner determines

that Lee Hartley died
of cardiopulmonary arrest

due to the stress
that the 5-month-long

mysterious illness put on
his body.

But with the cause
of the sickness still unknown,

Lee's blood and hair samples

are sent to
the toxicology lab for testing.

As his family awaits
the results,

they prepare to lay the
decorated naval veteran to rest.

-We went to the funeral
in Augusta, Georgia,

at Pam's mother's home.

-But it didn't even
look like him in the casket.

I mean, he was so blowed up.

His face looked like
it could bust any second.

He just looked like somebody put
air in him and blowed him up.

It didn't look like him.

Mom had a nervous breakdown,

complete nervous breakdown.

I mean, she shut down.

It was awful.

We should have just buried her
with Verle

because it was that bad.

♪♪

♪♪

-Weeks after Lieutenant
Hartley is laid to rest,

his toxicology tests arrive
with unexpected results.

-When we received
the toxicology report back

after the autopsy,

we found out that he had
an elevated amount of arsenic

in his blood, quite elevated.

Lee had approximately a thousand
times more arsenic in his body

than one would expect.

That was the cause of his death.

Well, when we found out that Lee
had this high level of arsenic

in his blood,
you say to yourself,

"Holy cow,
how did that happen?"

It became obvious that not only

was Lee homesick
for being with his wife,

but he was also
a little bit jealous.

Clearly, he wanted to be
with his new wife.

Maybe he was trying
to be relieved from the ship

and sent home.

♪♪

-Lieutenant Lee Hartley's
blood sample

shows lethal levels of arsenic,

finally giving NCIS
investigators an explanation

for his months-long sickness.

-He was losing weight.
He had severe stomach pains.

He was vomiting.
He had diarrhea.

All of these were typical
symptoms for arsenic poisoning.

-In my experience,
he's the only person I know of

who has died
from arsenic poisoning.

We are exposed to arsenic
in the dirt

and maybe a little bit in water
and other things,

but only minute amounts
that don't affect us over --

even over a long lifespan.

But a thousand times
more is a lot.

-It is tasteless, odorless,

but once it gets into
the system, it doesn't go away.

-And so if you get
a little bit of arsenic today

and a little bit of arsenic
tomorrow

and a little bit more arsenic
the next day,

each day that amount of arsenic
is building in your body.

-Once it was determined

that Lieutenant Hartley
had been exposed

and died from arsenic poisoning,
at that point,

they had to look at, "Well,
where did it come from?"

And the first thought is,

could it have been
something on the ship?

So could it have been
an accidental poisoning?

-For all we know, there
might have been arsenic used

in various ways on the ship.

There might have been piles of
arsenic laying around the ship

for some purpose
at various times,

which would be
of critical concern to the ship

because if they used arsenic on
board the ship for any purpose,

well, then everybody on the ship
will be exposed to this.

It would be an epidemic
of people dying

if this stuff was all
over the ship for some reason.

We need to find out
from the supply officer

whether or not there's
arsenic on board the ship

and what's it used for?

And the answer was
they had no arsenic on the ship,

and they didn't use it
for anything.

So, Lee,
if he was exposed to arsenic,

it wasn't an environmental
or an industrial issue now

for the Navy.

It was something else.

-That's when
they were looking at,

"Could this have been
intentional?"

-Was there some reason for
somebody to want to do him harm?

The challenge that we faced

is we didn't even have
all the puzzle pieces.

-With the USS Forrestal
in the Mediterranean

on a 6-month deployment

holding potential clues
in Lee's death,

NCIS investigators are forced
to get creative,

and recent headlines spark
a theory.

-In 1982,
there was a number of cases

where people were poisoned
by Tylenol

that they bought on the shelves.

And back then,
if you took the capsules,

you could open it
and put something in them.

And somebody had put
potassium cyanide in a number

of different bottles
in a number of different stores,

and it's never been solved
to this day.

-Tylenol poisonings
have just shocked the nation

after seven people died.

Only a month earlier,
on October 5th,

a nationwide recall of
Tylenol products was announced.

-Investigators notice
in the personal effects

that came home with Lee
from the Forrestal

is a bottle of Tylenol.

They're concerned that
Lee Hartley could be the victim

of a similar case,

and he's unknowingly
ingested capsules

purposely tainted with arsenic.

-So we seized medicines
that he had

and had them examined to see
if there was anything in them,

see if they'd been tainted.

None of those tests showed
that there was any problem.

It didn't turn anything up.

-As NCIS agents continue
to rule out possibilities

of the arsenic source,

they must determine if
someone aboard the USS Forrestal

was trying to harm Lee.

To explore the theory,

they set up an interview with
Lee's widow, Pamela Hartley.

-I drove up to Georgia,
met the agent there,

and we then went to
her mother's house.

And it was a difficult interview

because she was
the grieving widow,

and we were sorry to be there
talking to her

about the death of her husband,
which had to be heartbreaking.

The idea would be to go and see
what was his life like at home?

What happened?

-Pamela tells agents
that during Lee's

final deployment
in the Mediterranean,

his demeanor changed.

Lee became unusually paranoid,
and in letters and calls,

he had expressed concerns
for his safety.

-Because of
Lieutenant Hartley's position

as a legal officer,

he was in a disciplinary role,
and so there always was,

"Could this be somebody
who he made so mad

that they would come back
and try to kill him?"

-Was there somebody
who didn't like him?

Was there somebody
who had some grudge against him?

Maybe somebody on the ship
was trying to kill him.

♪♪

-NCIS investigators wonder
if someone on the USS Forrestal

held a grudge
against Lieutenant Lee Hartley,

a grudge that would lead them
to poison the naval officer.

-He was a legal aid
aboard ship.

Anybody got in trouble
aboard ship

had to go through Lee.

So that's what I was thinking.

Somebody aboard ship was taking
it out on Lee and poisoned him.

-Somebody could be
putting something in his coffee.

Somebody could be putting
something in the coffee

in the office that he worked in.

Somebody could be putting
something in the food

in the officer's mess.

-Investigators ask
Lee's widow, Pamela,

if he mentioned any threats
below deck on the high seas.

-We became aware
that there were two incidents

that were reported by Lee
that might be of interest to us.

First, it was in a letter
that Lee had written home,

where he claimed
that there was somebody

who attacked him on board the
ship with a sword of some type,

and that he had managed
to disarm the individual.

He had reported another time
in a letter or a telephone call

that somebody had painted
graffiti on a bulkhead,

a wall on the ship that said,
"Hartley is a dead man."

Now, that seemed
a little incredible,

because if you're on board
a U.S. naval vessel

and somebody
attacks you with a sword,

there's a whole lot of people
in the world

who are going to want
to know about that.

Lee was
the disciplinary officer.

I mean, my goodness,
who would not report

being attacked
by somebody with a sword?

Well, curiously enough,

there was no report
made of this alleged attack.

We could not imagine
why he would have said that.

-Did Lee not report
the incidents

because he feared for
his safety?

As investigators contemplate

Lee Hartley's
unsubstantiated claims,

the USS Forrestal
arrives at the port

after months away.

-The Forrestal returns
to Mayport after its deployment.

We execute a search
of his belongings on the ship

and a search of the stateroom

that he shared
with another officer,

but none of that showed
that arsenic was resonant.

We had to interview
various people

that might have known him
on board the ship

in order to determine
whether or not there was anybody

that they knew of who might have
had an interest in harming Lee.

We didn't come up with anybody

who had any experience
like that.

-Lee Hartley was
very well respected,

both in his job but also
as a friend, people he knew.

-We did, however, at one point
come up with indications

that Lee had represented
that he,

understandably being a newlywed,

wasn't looking forward to going
on this particular deployment.

Whenever the ship pulled into
port, he would go up to the USO,

where back then they had
a bank of pay telephones,

and he would spend
an awful lot of time

on the phone talking to his wife
at home.

-He was lonely, sure,

but it's not an uncommon feeling
for most of the crew

on an aircraft carrier.

-During the course
of the investigation,

it became obvious that not only

was Lee homesick
for being with his wife,

but he was also
a little bit jealous.

He had married a pretty woman
who was younger than him,

and now he's at sea
for six months.

And, you know, he was just
jealous that she was so pretty

and he wasn't there.

My thought at the time

was he might have
been setting up a scenario

whereby it was unsafe for him
to remain aboard the Forrestal

because somebody was trying
to kill him

or hurt him.

By not reporting it,

he doesn't have to suffer
the consequences of myself

or the other agents finding out
that he was lying

and filing a false report,

or the Navy finding out that
he was filing a false report

and taking disciplinary action
on him,

but rather somebody at home
might report

that, "Gee, Lee is
under threat on the ship."

Clearly, he wanted to be
with his new wife.

Maybe he was trying
to be relieved from the ship

and sent home.

-And possibly
the lovesick sailor was willing

to take this ruse
a step further.

-And then to follow
on that same line of logic,

maybe Lee was taking arsenic

so that he would be
ill enough to be sent home.

-So was it maybe
not intending to die,

but could he be making
himself sick?

-Maybe he unwittingly took
enough

of whatever the substance was
to make himself sick,

without understanding that
it just builds up to the point

that there's so much
in your body that you die.

-So it could have been
an accidental poisoning.

♪♪

-Investigators working
the arsenic poisoning

of naval Lieutenant Lee Hartley

develop a theory to help
explain the rare circumstances

around his death.

-Maybe Lee Hartley
was taking arsenic himself,

setting the stage to be relieved
from the ship and sent home.

-Desperate to return home
to his new wife,

Lee may have
accidentally ingested

a fatal dose of arsenic.

-But investigators
also ask themselves,

what if the fatal dose wasn't
an accident?

-Was it a suicide?

Lieutenant Hartley
had expressed some homesickness.

Also, there was some jealousy
with his wife.

-You collect anything
that might be of significance.

And so one of the things
you certainly want to collect

are any writings,
any notebooks, any diaries,

and any letters
that the person might have made.

-That's how they determine,
was he suicidal?

Could this have been
intentional?

-And we sent them
to a psychologist

in order to have them examined

and try to get some insight
into his state of mind.

The examination of those
by the psychological staff

did not show any suicidal
thoughts on Lee's part.

-With all their theories
leading to dead ends,

investigators hope new data
from Lee's autopsy

can provide answers.

The results of his hair-sample
analysis have just reached NCIS.

-Through the hair,

you can actually tell when the
person was exposed to arsenic.

So they were able to,
month by month,

tell when he began
to be exposed to the arsenic

and how it progressed
to the time of his death.

So literally,
you can look at the hair

and do a graph or a timeline

of exactly when
he was being exposed to arsenic.

-Lee's hair indicated
a level of arsenic

in his body
peaked at various times.

The spikes occurred
both before the cruise

and then, during the course
of the cruise,

when the ship was
in a port visit.

When the ship was
in Benidorm, Spain,

there was a spike.

When the ship was
in Naples, Italy,

there was a spike.

So we said, "What is
the common denominator here

that would give us
these spikes?"

-Investigators note
an unsettling common denominator

associated with Lee's
arsenic spikes.

-Lee's wife was sending packages
to him

and visiting him when the ship
pulled into foreign ports,

which was not uncommon.

Navy wives,
and especially officers' wives,

will travel in groups to the
port to visit their husbands.

We thought, "Well, gee,

he's getting packages
and Pam is visiting him."

But at that time, we didn't
have her as a suspect in this.

-I still hadn't
thought about Pam.

They hadn't been married
that long.

I couldn't figure, you know,
why would she want to hurt him?

-Pamela was not
initially considered a suspect

because Lee's poisoning began

while thousands of miles
of ocean separated the couple.

But further investigation
forces agents to reevaluate.

-There were more
and more common denominators

that were linking her
to the spikes in the levels

of arsenic in his body.

-Pamela Hartley became one
of the primary suspects,

partially because you always
look at the significant other.

Also, just hearing, you know,
how they became involved,

the differences in age, the fact
that he had been out at sea.

But also,
I think some of her actions

after he died were
suspicious in some ways,

because she pretty much just
cut off contact with his family

and didn't want to talk
about it

and moved on a lot quicker
than you would think.

-And paperwork shows

that Pamela benefited
financially from Lee's death.

-Pamela Hartley
received benefits as the wife

of a service person
that she got monthly.

She also had $35,000
through a life insurance policy.

-Investigators dig
into Pamela Hartley's past,

and a job at an animal
laboratory catches their eye.

-Pamela Hartley,
before joining the Navy,

had been a wildlife officer,

where they did investigations
into how arsenic

and other substances
affected wildlife.

So she did have
some scientific background.

She possibly had
a little bit more knowledge

than maybe your average Joe,

but also arsenic at the time
wasn't that hard to get.

You could get it through
rat poison, anything like that.

-For evidence
to tie her to Lee's poisoning,

the NCIS team interviews friends
and neighbors of Pamela,

both inside the Navy
and civilians,

to determine
if she's a viable suspect.

-We learned
that after Lee died,

Pamela became allegedly
romantically involved

with one of the officers

who was an acquaintance
of Lee Hartley.

And this was not years later,
but weeks later,

after Lee passed.

During the course
of the investigation,

we learned the wives
not only do they travel

to the foreign ports,

but they form the Officer's
Wives Club

and have dinner and drinks
and things like that.

And during the course of that,

they on occasion
would joke about, "Hey,

it's pretty nice
not having the guys home

because we can do
whatever we want.

We can stay in our pajamas
all day if we want to."

And at one point,
Pamela allegedly said,

"Well, you know,
maybe it would be nice

if we just got a hit man
and got rid of them,"

and everybody else laughed.

And all of the people that were
present for that conversation

when we asked said, "Oh, no,
we just took it as a joke.

Everybody was goofing around,

everybody had had
a couple of drinks

and nobody thought
she was serious."

-Further interviews help
investigators to determine

if Pamela did the unthinkable
and poisoned her husband,

causing a slow
and painful death.

-Lee's roommate,
who shared his stateroom,

also was sick on occasion,

but not nearly as sick
as Lee was.

Then we thought if he
was getting things in the mail

that was making him sick
and tainted for some reason,

and he was sharing these
with his roommate,

that would explain
why the roommate got sick.

And at one point during one
of the import periods,

Pamela cooked breakfast
for everybody.

And after that again,
they get sick.

And at this point,

the only common denominator left
was Pamela.

She was a suspect at this stage.

We requested she takes
a polygraph examination.

We're hoping at this stage
of the game

that her answers will indicate
deception or that she was lying.

Then prompt her to confess.

♪♪

-Pamela Hartley has agreed
to take a polygraph test,

and investigators hope
deceptive answers will lead her

to confess to the
poisoning death of her husband,

Lieutenant Lee Hartley.

-Now, the polygraph initially
would have been administered

by a licensed polygraph examiner
who was also an NCIS agent.

-After analysis, investigators
received the results.

-When she was asked
questions particularly related

to the death of her husband,

she, in her answers,
indicated no deception.

-The results were
that she passed,

that she was not involved
in his death.

-If your primary suspect
passes the polygraph,

that certainly creates
a roadblock

and a bit of a problem for
the investigators going forward.

There are no
more outstanding leads.

There's no logical leads
to follow.

-Wasn't anything else
they could do at that point.

-I was subsequently
transferred away.

We went about our careers
and the case sits.

-They're called going cold,

but basically they're put on
the back burner.

-And I kept thinking about it,

and my younger brother Art,
him and I went for a ride,

and Art looked over at me and
said, "That bitch killed him."

I said,
"Why would she kill him?"

And Art says, "I don't know."

But he said,
"That bitch killed him."

-It had to be her.

But, you know,
you can't prove anything.

You just have to wait on the law
to prove who did it.

-13 years pass,
and the case remains untouched

until a new directive begins
to make its way

through law-enforcement agencies
across the country.

-The NCIS gets interested
in cold cases,

as does my office,
and somebody from NCIS suggests,

"Hey, let's look at this one."

Is this something that there is
a reasonably good chance

that we possibly can resolve?

There was just so much evidence.

It just seemed like a good case.

Lieutenant Hartley deserved
better.

He died a very,
very painful death.

And he really deserved
our trying to resolve it.

The case involving
the investigation of the death

of Lee Hartley was reopened
in September of 1995.

-My brother Wilbur called me.

He said that they was opening
the case.

I said, "Oh, man,
I hope they find out who did it,

and I hope they pay dearly
for what they did."

-The investigators,

both from NCIS
and from my office,

as well as from
the medical examiner,

pretty much start from scratch.

They go through everything.

They also, at that point, start
looking at where are the people?

So particularly in this case,

where was Pamela Hartley
at that point?

Where was she living?

What had happened in her life
since that time?

She had returned
to her hometown in Georgia.

Once they determined
where she was,

they began a surveillance
to determine what she's doing.

Is she working?
Anything like that.

Her life had not taken
necessarily the best turn.

She had received some money
after her husband had died,

but I believe she was
unemployed.

I think she was living with
her mother.

And it turned out she had had
some drug and alcohol problems,

which that's something
that we look at in these cases

because does that mean

that somebody might now be
ready to confess to something?

Or was that
why she had these problems?

Because she was living with
the guilt.

-Investigators keep
a close watch on Pamela

and comb through
original evidence sealed away

for over a decade.

Pamela's polygraph test,

the one in which
she showed no deception,

is closely scrutinized.

-The Technical Services
Division at headquarters

re-examines
the polygraph results

and determines that initial
determination was in error.

And in fact,
it was inconclusive.

She had not failed it,
but she had not passed it.

-Once we determined

that the original polygraph
might have been interpreted

incorrectly, it was one factor.

It wasn't everything,
but it did take away from that,

"Wait a minute.
She passed a polygraph.

So are we on the right track?"

-So during the course
of the initial investigation,

many, many people
were interviewed.

People on the ship,

people who knew Pam, people
who knew Lee, family members.

And one of the family members

that would have been interviewed
was Pamela's brother,

and initially he did
not indicate anything unusual.

When the cold-case people
go back

and do the interviews
as they do,

they reinterview Pamela's
brother

and at this point,
his story changes.

Now he says

Pamela approached him
to be a hit man

and kill her husband.

-And he tells investigators
the whole sordid story.

Pamela told him she was unhappy

and wanted
Lieutenant Hartley dead.

She offered Fred a share
of the life insurance money

if he would do it.

Pamela said they
were going to poison her husband

while he was on the ship.

Fred wanted no part in this.

He refused to help.

-Fred tells investigators
he's worried

that his sister may place blame
for Lee's poisoning on him

now that the case has been
reopened.

But instead of taking
the fall for any involvement

in the murder,

Fred makes a proposition
to save his own skin.

-And he indicates to them

that he's also willing
to testify to this

against his sister.

The NCIS agents realized

that they have a good witness
now in Pamela's brother.

-Investigators plan to use
Pamela's brother's admission

against her for leverage to see
if her story will change.

-They know
that this has been a case

that was unsolved technically
for years,

and they are not going to have
a million chances

to close this case.

They're probably going to have
one chance.

Pamela has already
been interrogated

earlier in the case.

She's already taken
a polygraph earlier in the case.

She's gone on with her life,

and they're going to approach
her now

and try to talk to her again.

-Investigators have one goal --

to induce a murder confession
from Pamela,

as it may be their only path
toward getting

a conviction and justice
for Lieutenant Lee Hartley.

They sit down with Pamela
at her mother's home in Georgia,

and what she tells investigators
is the last thing they expected.

-During her interrogation, she
confesses to the killing of Lee.

♪♪

-Pamela Hartley has just stunned
investigators

and confessed
to poisoning her husband,

Lieutenant Lee Hartley,
with arsenic.

-Pamela Hartley,
according to her statement,

bought rat poison
at a feed store

where you could buy feed
for animals but also poisons.

So she bought this rat poison,
which did contain arsenic.

And then she would administer
spoonfuls in the baked goods

that she sent him.

Then once he got home,
in his meals.

-Even when he was
in the hospital,

Pamela would go and visit him
and mix some of the poison

into the juice
that she was helping him drink.

-At that point, it became
obvious he was going to die.

She realized she had
some evidence there,

so she emptied it
and put it in a nearby lake.

Later, NCIS sent
investigators or divers.

They were never able to find it.

-It's my understanding
that at one point,

she also said
that the reason she did it

is that she didn't want to be
married to Lee anymore.

Even though their marriage was
of such short duration.

-He was talking
about leaving the military

and she didn't want that.

She enjoyed being the wife
of a naval officer,

having the prestige,
the benefits of that.

-And so, rather than hurt
his feelings and divorce him,

she decided to simply kill him.

-She experienced divorce
in her own family.

She knows how painful it is.

And so somehow she was sparing
him by killing him with arsenic.

Just the fact

that she was witnessing
what he was going through daily

for her to say, "Hey, I don't
know what death feels like,

but I know divorce isn't fun,"

is just one of the
most bizarre confessions

I've had in my entire career
as a prosecutor.

-She killed a good man.

It just didn't make sense.

-You never think that someone
that he loved would hurt him.

You know?

But when we found out
that it was her,

Mom was just devastated.

-On March 2, 1996,
14 years after Lee's death,

Pamela Hartley was arrested

and charged
with first-degree murder.

-Unfortunately,
in this particular case,

we had evidentiary problems.

In order to go in front of
a jury and prove this case

and introduce the evidence
of the hair

and the arsenic,
which laid out the whole case,

the public defender
who represented her

would have had to have an
opportunity to have it examined,

have his own expert examine it.

Because the hair was used up
in the initial testing,

it didn't exist.

And so therefore, the only way

to have brought that evidence
in front of a jury

would have been Lee Hartley
would have had to be exhumed.

The family was adamant
that they did not want that,

and that's understandable.

And their thing was,
well, they're getting closure,

which is very, very important.

-On October 16, 1996,

Pamela pleaded guilty
to second-degree murder

in a Florida state court,

and she was sentenced
to 40 years in prison.

Since the crime occurred back
in 1982,

Pamela was subject to the rules
of sentencing and parole

based on the laws at the time
the crime occurred.

-And she ended up spending
14 years

and her mother got sick

and they let her out
for humanitarian reasons

to go so she could help
her mother while she was bad.

I mean, he didn't go easy.

Lee went out hard, and
she had to be so hard-hearted

to do something like that.

Watch him and give him
last dose in the hospital.

It just...

It made no sense to me.

-The sad thing is,

is that both lives and the lives
of their family get destroyed,

and all she would have had to do
is simply walk away.

Just walk away.

-And there was no reason
even for Lee to even be dead.

Whenever people kill
somebody else,

it's not just the person
you're killing,

it's the whole family.

It does leave a big void

because you just
don't ever get over that.

Because you always
think about that.

I think that people
would love him if they knew him,

talked to him.

What a kind, gentle, loving
brother he was.

And we miss him.