Page 2 - Attacking Paul News Today

>> michelle la france, who was the defendants alibi in 2008, has now come forward and said paul was not home and that paul went to narrowsburg and that paul killed catherine. >> what was that phone call like? >> it was now time to get to work. >> reporter: jim farrell was now the district attorney. he teamed up with the former d.a., steve lungen. >> didnt it feel good you had a break? >> its a break. but again, i needed more information. >> reporter: investigators sat la france down to hear her ...

When catherine died, paul cashed in on her life insurance policy and homeowners insurance. it all totaled around $700,000. >> the defendant said he would kill catherine and burn up the evidence, and he did just that. >> reporter: now it was the defenses turn to attack. jurors would hear more about the checkered pasts of the witnesses at the very heart of the case. coming up -- and what a very checkered past some of those witnesses had. >> i think i slept with half the town. crests three dimens...

Perfect fit. >> i wanted to be that person that would show up that would help my parents, help my sister if she was in a car accident or something like that. >> reporter: but he also saw the dark side of city life. a little too close to home. >> i would do shootings and stabbings two blocks away from my apartment, and i always thought to myself that i could just never raise a child in this area. >> reporter: so in 2002 paul and his wife, catherine, went house hunting in narrowsburg, new york, a ...

It proves nothing. theres a picture of the license plate. theres no picture of whos in the vehicle. how do you know as were sitting here now that scott sherwood or possibly michelle were not in that vehicle? the answer is you dont. >> reporter: and greenwald dismissed that receipt from the walmart in middletown. >> is it just a coincidence that someone went into walmart around 1:30 in the morning the morning of catherines death and bought a hat, gloves, and duct tape, all the things that were su...

>> i still miss my daughter the same. i miss her, no matter what happened to her. i miss her. >> reporter: seven months after catherines death paul and his girlfriend packed up the kids and their apartment on long island and moved 1,000 miles south to florida. >> i figured with my experience that it would probably be pretty easy for me to get a job somewhere. >> kind of a fresh start? >> a fresh start. i thought it would be good for the kids. great school, nice neighborhood. >> reporter: but pau...

>> reporter: their romance blossomed, and she eventually moved in with paul and his kids. >> do they look up to him? >> they worship him. they completely worship him. hes always up with them, checking homework. we do a lot of things as a family. >> is it a nice life? >> mm-hmm. we were really happy. really, really happy. >> and then you get a knock at the door. >> yep. yeah. that was a tough day. >> reporter: it was an early morning in september 2012. four years after catherines death. >> i was ...

Welcome back to "dateline." im craig melvin. after the mysterious death of his wife catherine, paul novak was trying to move on. he relocated to florida and had a new girlfriend. but then came that knock on the door and detectives placed paul under arrest. soon, he would learn that someone was claiming they had disturbing new details about the night of the fire. pauls world was about to turn upside down. once again, heres andrea canning with "secrets & lies." >> reporter: catherine novaks death ...

Murdering her in the basement of her own home. >> reporter: prosecutors set out to prove that paul orchestrated this murder down to the last detail. >> he was planning this for a period of weeks and maybe more in his own mind, of how to rid himself of catherine. >> hes a murderer. hes a sociopath. he planned. he executed. and he killed catherine novak in cold blood. >> reporter: their star witness was pauls ex-lover, michelle la france. the jury heard every minute of those police interrogation t...

>> i think what some people are going to have a hard time wrapping their head around is why three separate people would all lie. >> the reality is i take elyse out of the picture because she lied to support her husband. scott had a psychiatric problem. and he was manipulated in my opinion by michelle. michelle was a woman scorned. >> reporter: and the defense argued their stories were tainted because michelle had been given full immunity when she agreed to testify against paul, and sherwood made...

The glow of that getaway faded, and life became routine again. soon pauls eyes wandered to a much younger woman, someone from work. they had an affair, and paul moved out, leaving catherine and the kids alone in the house. >> she was beside herself. she was absolutely hysterical. >> reporter: catherines good friend and neighbor, sue muller, remembered when the marriage ended. >> she couldnt even get her breath, she was sobbing so hard. >> reporter: but catherines family, who considered her the e...