All language subtitles for Dateline.Secrets.Uncovered.S11E13.720p.WEB.h264-BAE.[eng]

- I'm Craig Melvin and this is
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

- Rod Covlin calls 9-1-1

and says that his wife
appears dead.

He said that Anna
found her in the bathtub.

- I've never seen my son
shell-shocked.

- It was a case tailor-made
for the tabloids.

- You have this
beautiful woman.

A tall handsome guy.
Greed. Infidelity.

He's sleeping around
with other women.

- A failing marriage
with millions at stake

- He didn't have
any money of his own.

- This is getting ugly.
- Yes.

She said, "We're broken"
and she cried.

- Was it a fall in the tub

or a husband's
fall from grace?

- We believed it was
a staged accident.

- He was adamant
about his innocence.

- The case bothered me
for a long time.

- He said to me,

"You have to help me
kill my parents."

- You can't even think about
the magnitude of it all.

**

- Hello, and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

It was a tragic
turn of events

in an upscale
Manhattan neighborhood.

Shele Covlin was found dead
in her apartment.

First responders thought
it was an accident,

but investigators
found troubling clues

that seemed
to indicate otherwise.

Answers would take years,
while those closest to Shele

believe someone was keeping
a dark secret from Day 1.

Here's Andrea Canning
with "Endgame."

**

- If you had to pick one place
that screams New York City,

it's usually this.

Times Square is the city's
heart and soul

and normally,
full of noise and lights

and people rushing somewhere,
or nowhere.

Take a short walk
uptown, however,

maybe 25 minutes on foot,

and the endless racket
of tourist hotspots

and commerce gives way
to a quieter vibe.

Here, you find the tree-lined
streets and cozy apartments

of the Upper West Side.

I started my own family
here on the Upper West Side,

just steps
from Central Park.

During the day,

this neighborhood
is buzzing with families.

At night,
it's quiet and safe.

But just two blocks
from where I lived,

in the early morning hours
of New Year's Eve 2009,

something terrible
touched this neighborhood.

It happened inside this
pricey apartment building

on West 68th Street.

Around 7 A.M.,

a man named Rod Covlin
called 9-1-1

to say his 9-year-old
daughter Anna

found his wife Shele
unconscious in the bathtub.

Rebecca Rosenberg,
then a reporter

for "The New York Post,"
covered the case.

- He sees his-his wife
in the tub.

He pulls her out,

puts her, um,
face-up on the ground,

and starts performing CPR.

Then, he calls 9-1-1

and, um, they tell him
to keep performing CPR.

- This is a horrible scene.

- I-- And I would imagine
absolutely devastating

for their daughter.

- The EMTs arrived
in minutes.

They found no pulse.

47 year-old Shele Covlin
was beyond help.

- The police
come to the scene.

Eventually, a detective
comes to the scene.

- Detectives found a tub
full of bloody water

and Shele wrapped
in a comforter

on the floor next to it.

Above the tub,

a cabinet with a door
hanging off its hinge.

They surmised
Shele had grabbed it

as she fell
and landed hard in the tub.

And so, investigators
began the difficult process

of deconstructing a life
that had just come to a sad

and mysterious end.

The police would soon learn
that Shele Danishefsky Covlin

was larger-than-life.

Nobody admired her more
than her sister Eve

and brother-in-law
Marc Karstaedt.

- We would have a blast.
We would laugh a lot.

Um, she was a lot of fun.

- She graduated
with a marketing degree

and then m-my dad had
asked her if she wanted to,

uh, come and work with him,
um, at Merrill Lynch.

- Shele eventually became
a private wealth manager.

The money was good.
So was the prestige.

- Shele was fancy.

She was smart.
She was educated.

- Shele's friend,
Stephanie Goldman,

remembers the day
Shele took her

to the upscale
Friar's Club.

- It was wintertime.

She was wearing her fur coat,
her mink coat.

Men just came over to her.

They-- It was like being
swept off her feet.

- She's got the finance job,
the style, the--

I mean, sounds like
she kinda was the-the classic

New York City woman.

- Absolutely.
Absolutely she was.

- In February of 1998,

Shele went to a Jewish
singles mixer in Manhattan

where sparks flew
with a guy she met there.

His name?
Rod Covlin.

She called her sister
that night

with an outrageous
announcement.

- She was all giggles
and she said, "I met a guy.

"Really nice guy."
And she said,

"We're on our way
to the airport to elope."

She was laughing.

And I said, "Shele,
please don't do this."

- Eve talked her sister
out of it that night,

but Shele was serious.
And so was Rod.

Shele was
11 years older than him,

but that didn't seem
to matter.

His parents,
Dave and Carol Covlin,

say he adored her
right from the start.

- He told us
he has a girlfriend

and we have to meet her.

And I said, "Okay,
Passover's coming up.

"We don't have time
right now."

"No, you have to meet her."

- A brunette back then,

Shele married Rod
6 months later

and reality set in
as they settled down

to life as a couple.

It wasn't exactly bliss

because, while Shele
was a stunning over-achiever,

Rod was, well,
not in the same league.

He was a stock trader
of middling success.

- What I did see was a guy

that really had a lot
of big ideas.

Um, and was unable
to execute on any of them.

- But he had
a couple of talents.

Martial arts and backgammon.

- And when he sat down
and played...

- He won. And he won money.
- He won.

- Two years
after she married Rod,

Shele gave birth
to baby Anna.

- She was inseparable,
um, from-from Anna.

She was doting
on that child.

She was an incredible mom.

A second pregnancy followed.
Twins.

But that ended in tragedy.

- So, they were born
prematurely

and, um--
and they died.

- Oh, my gosh. How did--
- I think at childbirth

and one,
like a few hours later.

- How did she handle that?
How did you support her?

It's just
such an awful thing.

- Devastating.
- The entire year--

- Yeah.

- Was, uh, a nightmare
for her.

- Then, in 2006,
Shele had a baby boy.

She and Rod
named their son Myles.

But now, three years later,
Shele was dead.

And the scene inside
that apartment

on the Upper West Side
was chaos.

Marc says
Eve could barely function.

- When I first saw her,
she walked down the corridor

and she was
as white as-as a sheet.

She was in terrible shock.

- Carl Roadarmel
was an NYPD detective.

He was there, too.
Pondering various scenarios.

- I've been to places

where people
have fallen in the tub,

and it's--
anything's possible.

- In this case, that would
be an understatement.

- A whirlwind romance
that ended in a storm.

- She said,
"He doesn't get a job

"and he's just
hanging around the house."

And she was very frustrated.

She said,
"He's driving me crazy."

- And, it might get worse.

- When Shele told me

that he was going to be
living across the hall,

my first instinct was,

"I don't think
this is a good idea."

**

- New Year's in the Big Apple
is usually a happy time.

Celebrations everywhere

and the promise of
fresh starts and new dreams.

But for those who knew
and loved Shele Covlin,

2010 began with sadness.

Shele's sister Eve
and her husband Marc

couldn't believe
the mother of two was gone.

Did it kind of hit you later,

the-the more emotional
side of things, as--

do you think about
your life without her?

- Ri-Right. Exactly.

- And the children
without her.

- Right.

You can't even think about
the magnitude of it all.

- Shele's in-laws,
David and Carol Covlin,

were also in shock.

Their son Rod
called with the news.

- He says, "Shele's dead."

I don't think I've ever
made it to Manhattan
faster in my life.

- Did you get any details?
- No.

- No.
- In that first phone call?

- Nothing.
- No, he just said,
"Shele's dead."

- When you arrive,
what's going on?

- Roderick
was sitting on the couch.

- He was in shock.

- Honestly, I-I've never seen
my son shell-shocked

and speechless in my life.

- The next few days
were a blur.

For religious reasons,

the family decided not to have
an autopsy performed.

- My father obviously
made the final decision.

He went by his rabbi who said,
"Don't do the autopsy."

- It was only as
his friends and family

gathered to sit shiva,
the Jewish period of mourning,

that they had time
to think about

the vibrant woman
they just lost.

- She was an incredibly
devoted mother.

She was an incredible person.

- But what was also
on their minds

was dark and troubling--

Shele's rocky marriage
to Rod.

- She said
he doesn't get a job.

He goes to the gym
twice a day,

um, and he's just
hanging around the house.

And she was very frustrated.

She said, "He's--
He's driving me crazy."

- In 2009,
Shele confessed to her sister

that her marriage
was in serious trouble.

- And she said,
"We're broken

and we just have to
part ways."

And she cried.
She wept to me.

- One thing Marc and Eve say
came between the couple

was Rod's dramatic
mood swings.

- Rod has and has always had
a violent, explosive temper.

He could be sitting
very calmly in the--

in a chair
and something can set him off

and in seconds,
he will literally explode.

- Shele also complained
about Rod's growing obsession

with backgammon.

- It became an-- a passion
and then an obsession for him.

- Did he ever say why?

- I think he had, um,
forged relationships

in the backgammon community
that he really liked.

- Even Rod's parents felt
their son was spending

too much time
on the game.

- I told him that he was being
a little ridiculous

with the backgammon
and, you know,

going to backgammon
too much.

I said,
"You've got a family."

- The Covlins say they saw
changes in Shele, too.

Ones they felt were equally
damaging to the marriage.

- She started going to the--
- Friar's.

- Friar's Club.

- From once a week, it became
much more frequent than that.

- The coupled seemed to be
living separate lives.

In what had to be
a painful moment,

Shele told her sister
it wasn't the backgammon

or the fact that Rod
wasn't pulling his weight

that pushed her
to separate.

It was Rod's cheating.

- She believes that
he left an email up

so she would purposely see it,
from another woman.

And she confronted him,
and he said that, yes,

he's sleeping around
with other women

and he wants
an open marriage.

He still loves her,
and he wants and open marriage.

- Most women don't
wanna go along

with the open marriage concept.
- And she--

- Right.
- She was one of those

who said absolutely no.

- By June,
Rod had moved out.

And he didn't go far.

Shele arranged for him
to live for free

in an apartment across the hall
to make it easy for the kids.

Her close friend,
Stephanie Goldman,

wasn't happy
with the arrangement.

- When Shele told me

that he was going to be
living across the hall,

my first instinct was,
"My goodness,

I don't think
this is a good idea."

- Nevertheless,
Shele was moving on.

And so was Rod.

- Well, he was very charming.
Intelligent.

Funny in a quirky
sort of way.

And I really enjoyed playing
backgammon with him.

- Debra Oles met Rod
at a backgammon tournament.

Months later, their relationship
became romantic.

- I wasn't looking for
any sort of relationship,

and, um, he was--
you know,

he was pretty
aggressive.

And I think I was naive
in the fact

that I'm considerably older
than Rod is--

- Yeah, like--
- So, it never occurred to me

that he would be interested
in me in that-- in that way.

- So, it surprised you when he--
- It surprised me.

- Made an overture?
- Right.

And of course, it made me
feel good, you know?

A younger man
bein' attracted to me.

- Meanwhile,
Shele was working

with divorce attorney
Lance Meyer.

- We talked about
all the problems

she was havin'
with her husband

and the concern she had
about herself, her children,

and she was really tryin'
to figure out the best way

to go about proceeding
with a divorce case.

- By fall,
she was dipping her toe

in the dating pool again.

- She was on Jdate.

She had met
some gentlemen and--

- Jdate, the Jewish
dating website?

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Shele seemed on track
to make a fresh start in 2010,

until that
fresh start ended

in what seemed like
a deadly accident.

- When I heard that she slipped
and fell in the tub,

my initial reaction was--
she wouldn't even take a bath.

- And now, Shele's
friends and family

were wondering about the story
Rod told police.

That his daughter Anna called
him that morning in a panic

and let him into the apartment
because he didn't have a key.

- I was very suspicious.

- Suspicions that only deepened
when Marc learned

the medical examiner
wasn't sure either.

- I'm reading
the death certificate

and I saw that the cause
of death was undetermined.

- Shele's
family and friends

are not the only ones
with suspicions.

Investigators focus
on unsettling clues.

- She had bruising to her lip.

She appeared to have
some scratch marks

and she had bruising
to her right hand.

- And Rod said he had
pulled Shele's wet body

out of the tub.

So, why wasn't he wet?

- Two officers found this
unusual and noted this.

How would you not get wet?

- When "Dateline: Secrets
Uncovered" continues.

- From the moment

Shele Covlin's family heard
the story of her death--

a slip and fall in a bathtub
full of water--

they felt it just
didn't make sense.

- How do you fall
in a bathtub?

And then I started thinking
and I said,

"Shele takes a bath?
She showers."

You know,
she's-she's not taking a bath.

- Plus, Shele had gotten
a keratin

hair straightening treatment
the previous morning.

She wasn't supposed to get
her hair wet for several days.

And they say
don't wash your hair

for, like, what?
- 72 hours.

- Yeah.

- Not even supposed
to go to the gym.

- This what's been
sort of labeled

the "Legally Blonde" moment.
- Yep.

- That any woman who knows
about a keratin treatment

to straighten your hair--
- Right.

- Is not going to--
- Right.

- Expose her hair
like that.

Shele's death
didn't sit right

with Lead Detective
Carl Roadarmel either.

While he felt her death
could have been an accident,

details at the scene
bothered him.

The way that cabinet door
had been yanked down.

The blood in the tub.

And marks on Shele's body.

- She had bruising to her lip.

She appeared to have
some scratch marks,

and she had bruising
to her right hand.

- And what the detective
would learn later

cast suspicion
directly on Rod.

Rod told an officer

that he had to pull Shele's
wet body out of the tub,

yet his clothes
were bone dry.

Then "New York Post" reporter,
Rebecca Rosenberg.

- Two officers found this
unusual and noted this.

How would you not get wet?

He was wearing
a light-colored shirt.

He just wasn't wet at all,

and it wasn't consistent
with the story he had told.

And their doorman remembered
Rod doing something

early that morning
that was highly unusual for him.

He stopped by the front desk
on his way

out of the building
to get a snack.

Even bought the doorman
a Snickers bar.

- The doorman thought
this was weird,

because Rod Covlin
usually wasn't chatty.

And had, in all the years
he'd been there,

never offered
to bring him anything back.

- Suspicious details indeed.

The detective was hoping

more clues would emerge
from an autopsy.

But remember,

Shele's family
didn't have one done

for religious reasons.

How did you feel
about that?

- I was uncomfortable,

but if that's what
the family wanted,

I mean,
you always wanna try

to help the family
the best you can.

It's a hard time.

- But without
autopsy results,

he says there wasn't much
he could do.

So, less than a week
after Shele died,

her family hired
a private investigator.

So, you're not satisfied.

- Not at all.

- The private investigator
had started--

um, had started talking
to friends of-of Shele's,

and we had a flood
of information

that was
extremely suspicious.

People were telling us things
that were very worrying.

- Including things
that confirmed

what the family had
already seen for themselves.

Shele's divorce attorney,
Lance Meyer.

- He would belittle her.

He would yell at her.

He'd call her ugly.

He would make fun
of her looks.

So, he was--
he was a demeaning person.

He would go low.

- So low, in fact,

that at one point
during their divorce,

Rod tried to
undermine her at work.

He called her company to report
that Shele was on drugs,

unstable, and depleting
their joint bank account.

- He was trying to get her
to lose her job, and it was--

obviously, she worked in
a family operation within UBS,

so it was-it was
a very serious thing.

He was trying to hurt her
and her family.

- The company determined
Shele was drug-free

and found that Rod
was taking much more money

from their account
than she was.

The divorce got uglier.

The two squabbled
over child support.

At one point,
a judge told Rod

he could no longer
play backgammon,

something
he blamed on Shele.

- He was beyond angry.

She was taking away
the thing

he apparently
cared about the most.

- A couple of weeks
after Shele's death,

her family took their
private investigator

over to her apartment
to check out the scene.

Something caught
the investigator's eye.

The cabinet that Shele had
supposedly grabbed as she fell?

The screws had been
pulled out of the wall.

He thought that would've
taken more force

than the 5'4",
132-pound Shele could muster.

- That it would've taken
a lot of strength

to pull the actual door
of the cabinet off.

- Something that Shele
wouldn't have been able to do,

he didn't believe?
- Most likely.

- So, there's no doubt
in your minds now

that this is
a staged accident?

- We believed it was
a staged accident.

- But none of this
was a smoking gun.

The only way to know for sure
how Shele died

was to exhume her body
and do an autopsy.

Two months after Shele's death,
at the family's urging,

her body was pulled out
of its grave and reexamined.

Detective Roadarmel
was in the room

with the medical examiner.

What are you seeing?
What are you thinking?

- Pretty much near the end
of it, he looked at us,

he showed us
the, uh, hyoid bone.

That it was broken.

- That's in the neck--
- I-Inside the neck area.

And he says it was
gonna be a homicide.

- Wow.

Shele had been
choked to death.

- The question was never,
"Is he going to kill Shele?"

The question was
always, "When?"

- What do they have going
for them with this jury?

- Covlin had access.

He was right across the hall.

He had motive,
and he is not a sympathetic guy.

- A trial of lies,
secrets, and surprises.

- Wow.
- Yeah.

- So, this is getting ugly.
- Yes.

**

- Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

I'm Craig Melvin.

Two months had passed
since Shele Covlin died.

Her family was certain
it was no accident.

They urged investigators
to exhume her body

and perform an autopsy,

which yielded
chilling information.

Shele was strangled to death.

However,
the stunning revelation

did not result
in a quick arrest.

Years passed, leaving Shele's
loved ones wondering

if justice would ever arrive.

Back to Andrea Canning
with "Endgame."

- Shele Covlin had been
found dead in her bathtub

in December 2009.

Investigators
had long believed

her husband Rod
had killed her,

but they didn't have enough
evidence to prove it.

Then, after nearly 6 years
of slowly building a case,

prosecutors finally
became convinced

they had enough
to pursuade a jury.

In November 2015,

Shele's sister Eve
got word from

the District Attorney's Office.

- She said, uh, "We're about
to arrest Rod Covlin

for the murder of
Shele Covlin."

So, um, I started to
get very emotional

and she says to me,
"Are you okay?"

And I said, "I've just been
waiting a really long time

to hear those words."

- It would take three more years
for Rod's trial to begin.

- The People of the State of
New York versus Roderick Covlin.

- After waiting
so long for justice,

Eve and her husband Marc
steeled themselves.

Why was it important
for you to be there?

- So, I can tell you
that on December 31,

I said, "I'm not leaving

until they take
Shele's body out."

And then, when it
came to the trial,

I said, "I will be there
every single day

so she knows that
I'm there for her

along with the rest
of the family."

- There's only one person--

- Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos
described Rod Covlin

as a cold-blooded killer
determined to get his wife

out of his life,
take their children,

and seize her assets
at any cost.

- Only one person had
the motive,

the opportunity,
and the means

to have done this.

- Prosecutors admitted
their case wasn't a tidy one

ready for CSI,

but they put a lot
of circumstantial evidence

in front of the jury.

We know it's
a circumstantial case.

- Mm-hmm.
- But what do they have
going for them

with this jury?

- Uh, what they have
going for them

is that, obviously,
Covlin had access.

He was right
across the hall.

He had motive.

And he is not
a sympathetic guy.

- Prosecutors presented
witnesses who said Rod

didn't even try to hide
his abuse of his wife.

The family nanny told the jury
that at one point,

he had become
enraged and violent.

- She said to me,
said Rod throw her down

on the floor.

And when he asked her
to go into the bedroom,

she said she was scared

of going in there
with him

because she didn't know
what he'll do.

- The prosecutor described
Shele as a textbook victim

of domestic abuse.

- The question was never,
"Is he going to kill Shele?"

The question was
always "When?"

- Shele was living in fear,
prosecutors said,

because her estranged husband
was boiling with rage

in their custody battle.

Shele's divorce attorney,
Lance Meyer, took the stand

to say how Rod had even
used his son as a weapon.

- Mr. Covlin, um,
took the children

and, um, accused Shele
of abusing Myles.

- It turns out that he
took them to the hospital

and made allegations that Shele
had sexually abused their son.

- Wow, so, this is getting ugly.
- Yeah, yes.

- Prosecutors said those
disturbing and false accusations

were just one example of
how Rod was becoming unhinged.

He was also obsessively
tracking Shele's every move

with secretly installed
software on her computer.

Rod told this co-worker
that it enabled him

to read her emails.

- He was reading
through things

and he was upset with
the number of people

that she was talking to

and he was upset about, uh,
the way he was being portrayed

in her emails.

- By late 2009, he was
also deeply in debt

with virtually no income.

Still, even with
their divorce pending,

he believed he would
gain control

of her 5-million-dollar estate
if she died.

But then, Rod found
some emails Shele sent

just 2 days
before her death.

- She reaches out to
a-an-an attorney

and-and also tells
several people

that she wants to
change her will

and essentially write
Rod Covlin out of her will.

- The State said
that's when Rod snapped

and hatched his plan.

The night of December 30th,

her friend
Melissa Fields saw her

and sensed
something was wrong.

- Shele was nervous
when we first met up

and she was looking
around quite a bit.

And I did ask her
what the problem w--

if something was wrong.

She was worried
that her ex-husband

was following her.

- On what would turn out
to be her last night alive,

Shele remained in fear.

It was all heavy on her mind
when she got home

to her apartment
that night at 7:51,

caught here on
security cameras.

Later, she logged on

to her online dating profile
at 10:13.

The last activity
on any of her devices.

Rod, meanwhile,
was across the hall.

He was usually online
playing backgammon

late into the night.

But suddenly, his online
presence stopped at 1:03 A.M.

No sign of him until he popped
up on that surveillance video

in the lobby at 4:13 A.M.

The allegation was that
he wanted to be seen on camera?

- Yes, he wanted
to make an a-alibi.

That this was, like, his way
of sort of building an alibi.

- The prosecution called
the New York State
Medical Examiner.

In the autopsy, he had noticed
those scratches on her face

and that fractured bone
in her neck.

- My conclusion was
that she had, uh, died

as a result of
neck compression

and I classified her death
as a homicide.

- Strangulation,
not an accidental fall.

And in another sinister twist,
prosecutors believe that

three and a half years
after Shele's death,

Rod drafted a note

composed from his 12-year-old
daughter's email account

pretending to be her.

It read:

It was never sent,
but it did hit the tabloids

after it was filed
with the court.

- What father does that?

- Who does that to a--
Who does that to a child?

- Right.

- Who basically
frames a child?

- Right, and their own.

- Prosecutors didn't get
that note admitted into trial,

but they were about to
bring forward a star witness

whose explosive allegations
would rock the courtroom.

- Coming up...

- What was it like walking
into that courtroom

and seeing Rod Covlin
in there?

- Terrifying.

- She fell in love
with one Rod Covlin.

Then, she says,
she met the other.

- He said, "You have
to help me kill my parents."

- Veteran prosecutors
will tell you

that once they've built
their case for the jury,

they try to put
a closer on the stand,

a witness who buttons
everything up

with a riveting tale.

- The whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?

- Yes.
- Thank you, ma'am.

- In the trial of Rod Covlin,
the closer turned out to be

none other than Debra Oles.

Rod's backgammon buddy
and his former lover,

taking the stand,
sunglasses on.

What was it like
walking into that courtroom

and seeing Rod Covlin
in there?

- Terrifying.

I had to look at him
one time. Once.

Just to point him out and say
that's-that's who he is.

- Debra testified that she got
a late-night call from Rod

on that fateful
New Year's Day.

- He told me that his wife
had an accident,

and died.

My very first thought was,

"That's a really weird
coincidence in timing

and that really, basically,
solves all his problems."

But then, I felt guilty
about thinking that

because he said
it was an accident

and then the paper said
it was an accident.

- You're saying coincidence
like, he needed money.

- Right, mm-hmm.
- They've broken up.

And then she dies.
- Yeah.

- So, it-it make
Rod's life easier?

- Right, but then, he was
very adamant about

his innocence, always.

- After that, their
long-distance relationship

progressed in
fits and starts.

They'd often play
backgammon online.

Debra would drive from
her home down South

to tournaments,

sometimes picking up Rod
in New York

and taking him with her.

Then, one day in 2010,

the police paid her
a surprise visit.

- I answered
all their questions

and, um, offered to give them
a copy of the games--

the backgammon games
that we played,

so they'd have exact times
that we played.

Um, then, that was it.

- Did they tell you
why they were there?

- They thought he was--
They thought he was guilty.

They said he was
a really bad person.

And, um, I didn't
believe them at the time.

- You had gotten
to know him pretty well

at this point, too.
- Right, right.

I never saw the monster
that I eventually came to know,

until later.

- But the monster
was lurking.

As Debra told the court,
over time,

she began to see just
how volatile Rod could be.

- He had
a Mer-Mercurial temper.

It didn't take much
to set him off.

- She also saw terrible fights
that he had with his parents.

By 2012,
Rod and his children

were living with his parents
in a New York City suburb

and the fighting
was constant.

- One time, during
one of these fights,

Rod, like, brought
his arms back

and he shoved his father
as hard as he could.

His father went flying
into the room.

Hit his head on the floor.

- Eventually, Rod's parents
evicted him

and kept his kids.

Rod was determined
to strike back.

Debra says he hatched
bizarre plots

to kill his parents.

She told the court about
one he dreamt up

when superstorm Sandy
struck the East Coast.

- He said that, um, because
there was no electricity,

the a-alarms-- the alarm
would not be on.

He wanted to go through
a window in the basement,

kill his parents, set his--
and set his house on fire.

I was, you know,
just stunned.

- He was going to--
- He wanted to go over there.

- Set fire?
- Kill his parents,

set fire to the house,
and somehow get

Anna and Myles out safely.

And, you know, I dis--
I discussed it with him

for like 15 minutes or so.

I'm like, "No, you're not
gonna do this," you know.

And then finally,
I said, "Just how are you

going to explain,
um, mir-miraculously,

that you just
happened to be there,

um, to save your children?"

And finally,
that, you know--

- So, he backed down.
- He finally backed down.

- Then, she said,
there was the poison plot

that called for
his young daughter Anna
to participate.

- He wanted her
to, like, put rat poison

in-in, uh, their food

or, like, sugar for
their tea or whatever.

- Why don't you leave him
at this point?

- How am I supposed
to protect his-his f--

you know, parents
if I don't know what's going--

what he's plotting?
You know?

I can't-- I can't
be there and protect,

you know, them
if I'm not there.

He won't confide in me
and let me know what's going on.

- You're helping this situation
is to be

the-the voice
of reason for Rod?

- Either-Either try
and talk him out of it

or have enough definitive proof
where I can go to the police.

- By this time,

Debra had rented an apartment
for herself

and Rod to live in
just north of New York City.

But she says she was
growing weary of his anger

and exasperated
by his lurid schemes.

One day, she testified,
things came to a head.

- We were in the car driving
and he said to me,

"You have to help me kill
my parents."

And I said,

"I am not going to help you
kill your parents."

And he-he asked me, like,
four or five times

and I finally,
I just, like,

"I'm not gonna help you
kill your parents.

And even if I wanted to,
which I don't,

you'd kill me, too."

And he had this
kind of creepy laugh

and he looked at me
in a way that, like,

oh, you're just now
figuring this out?

And then, he said, quote,

"No, I only wanna
kill the people

who try to take my children
away from me."

- Did you believe, now,
that Rod killed Shele?

- There was no questions
susceptible of doubt in my mind

that he killed her,
at that point.

- Finally,
Rod and Debra split.

In August 2014,
she called investigators

and told them
everything she knew.

Now, four and a half
years later,

she had told a jury.

And she was about to
get grilled by

Rod Covlin's defense attorneys.

- Coming up.

- So, is it fair to say,
yes or no, you were jealous?"

- No. I was mad at him.

I was mad at him
for a lot of reasons.

- Questions.

And after nine years,
an answer.

- How say you as to
the first count

of this indictment,

charging the defendant,
Roderick Covlin,

with the crime of murder
in the second degree?

- How hard was it
waiting for the verdict?

- Oh, my gosh.
That was so painful.

I had s-such butterflies.

**

Welcome back.

Rod Covlin was on trial
for murder

and the plot
was about to thicken.

On the stand,
Rod's ex-girlfriend, Debra,

described his secret plan
to kill his parents

and regain custody
of his two children.

The defense was about to
strike back,

hoping the jury would see
a gaping hole

in the prosecution's case--
evidence.

Here's Andrea Canning with
the conclusion of "Endgame."

- Carol Covlin
sat behind her son

during the long weeks of trial.

Why was it so important
for you to be there?

- He's my son.

And I think any mother
would do that for their child.

- You had to listen to your son
being called a philanderer,

a bum, an abuser,
and a killer.

How did you handle that?

- You really wanted to
get up and scream at them

and call them liars,
but you can't.

- One of the most explosive
pieces of testimony

was Debra Oles alleging

that-that Rod
had wanted to kill you.

And in grand fashion.

We're talking arsenic,
rat poison.

Rod's dad, Dave, says
Debra's claims were laughable.

- The alleged murder plots,
I think, are a farce.

- Rod's defense attorney,
Robert Gottlieb, agreed.

During a testy
cross-examination,

he tried to poke holes
in Debra's testimony.

Starting with her story
of those plots.

- Were you scared?
- Yes.

- Did you call the police?
- It--

- Yes or no,
did you call the police?

- No.

- Gottlieb says Debra's stories
of Rod's temper

didn't add up either.

- Time and time again,
when she is saying that

she felt bullied by Rod,
she was afraid of him,

the only thing she ever says
in her emails is "I love you.

Dear, I love you."
Over and over again.

- Despite her denials,
Gottlieb said Debra

had been crushed
when the relationship ended.

Her testimony, he said,
was nothing more than

the words of woman scorned.

- So, is it fair to say--
yes or no-- you were jealous?

- No.
I was mad at him.

I was mad at him
for a lot of reasons.

- Is it fair to say that
you have a history

and have admitted to being
a habitual liar.

- That is a f--
that is disgusting and false.

That is not true.
- The defense conceded

Rod wasn't always
a stand-up guy.

But he said that didn't
make him a murderer.

- You may despise him.

You may not even be able to
look at him.

You may want to convict him.

To convict somebody of murder,
there's got to be proof.

- There was none,
Gottlieb said.

Zero evidence
there'd been foul play.

No signs of a struggled.

He said Rod couldn't have
slipped into Shele's apartment

and killed her
like the prosecution argued,

because there was no evidence
he even had a key.

Remember, Rod said little Anna
had let him in that morning.

- There's been no evidence
that Mr. Covlin

was ever in the apartment
on December 30

or December 31 before 7 A.M.

- No evidence either,
Gottlieb said,

about what had caused
Shele's injuries.

He suggested one explanation--
the exhumation.

- They used backhoes to exhume.

Uh, they used, uh,
shovels to get to the--

uh, the coffin.

- Carol said there was nothing
she heard in court

that convinced her Shele's death
was anything but

a tragic accident.

If you see those photos,
it doesn't look like

she just slipped and fell.

It looks like someone
did something to her.

- Not really.

If you look at her face,
if she slipped and fell

and hit her face
into the bathtub.

- So, where did her scratches
come from, then?

I mean, you don't get scratches
falling in a bathtub.

- Depends on what's in there.
How-How they took her out.

- I have no idea.
- No. We--

- I just--
You know.

Again, you're left
with a conundrum.

- A conundrum
that would never be solved,

the defense argued,

because of bungling
by investigators.

- And you did not have any notes
for any of those interviews

on December 31,
correct?

- Not that I recall, sir.

- Investigators hadn't
dusted for fingerprints

or collected DNA samples.

There was a long list,
Gottlieb said,

of what investigators
hadn't done at the scene.

- Every single viewer
would know that

that's not the way
you investigate

a suspicious scene.

If there's even
a remote possibility

that it could be a homicide.

It was disgraceful.

- Then, in a bold move,
the defense rested

without calling any witnesses.

After more than eight weeks
of testimony,

it was up to the jury to decide.

Was this an accident
or a cold-blooded murder?

How hard was it
waiting for the verdict?

- Oh, my gosh.
That was so painful.

And I had s-such butterflies.

Oh, my gosh.
That was bad.

- They didn't have to wait long.

After only a day
of deliberations,

the jury was back.

- How say you to the first count
of this indictment,

charging the defendant,
Roderick Covlin,

with the crime of murder
in the second degree?

Guilty or not guilty?
- Guilty.

- Judge, anything to say?

- Do you want to
poll the jurors?

- Poll the jury.
- Guilty.

I've been through
a lot of trials

and I don't know that
I've ever seen

that much emotion
from a family.

And that many hugs
and that many tears.

I mean, it was pretty incredible
to watch your family.

- It wasn't a moment
of celebration.

It was a moment of relief.
- Right.

- For fear of
what would have been

if the wrong verdict, um,
came down.

- And outside the courthouse,
family and friends gathered.

- Finally!

[shouting]

- After all this time,
they felt like

they could breathe again.

- First thing I thought of was,
it's justice for Shele

and she can finally rest.

- Debra Oles hopes
she can rest now, too.

The prosecution's star witness
is happy the jury believed her.

- It was like a huge weight
has been lifted off of me

and I'm finally, like,
completely, you know--

it's-it's done.

- Do you regret the day
you met Rod Covlin?

- I do.
I really do.

- Rod is appealing
his conviction.

One of his biggest supporters
is his daughter, Anna.

Both children
live with Rod's parents.

How are the children doing?

- They're holding it together
as best they could.

- Shele's children
are growing up

without much contact with
Shele's side of the family.

- Is there anything that
you want the children to know

about their mother and
how you feel about them?

- Their mother,
with every breath she took

and every ounce of her,
she adored them.

- That's all for this edition of
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."

I'm Craig Melvin.
Thank you for watching.