and who was the shooter in this theory? her father. giving his daughter a monstrous and bloody gift of liberation from a man they both loathed. so detectives tried to call ed ates at his home in florida. they say his wife dottie answered and told them he was away and had no idea how to reach him. he is essentially out of touch for 24 hours from the time of the murder, and he s the person that we re looking to talk to, and when you have that type of situation, it starts throwing up red flags. the night after the murder, thursday, ed ates did return the police s calls. he told them he was currently in louisiana at his elderly mother s. obviously the new jersey detectives were eager to interview ates in person, so they flew to louisiana. by the time they arrived, the father-in-law had already hired a lawyer and invoked the right not to talk.
but the detectives did get in a few words with ates sister brenda that night. she told them that her brother had arrived at their moms in louisiana on a tuesday evening, one day before the murder of paul duncsak. did you think she was telling the truth? i wasn t certain. it was still very early on in the investigation. so the detectives kept look at the ates family s possible involvement in the murder. roughly a month after the crime, they obtained wiretaps on various ates phone lines. what they heard sounded to them like a classic cover-up in the works. ed ates tried to make sure his family stayed on script when it came to the tuesday story, his alibi. you were there when i got there on tuesday. yes, right. okay. i ve just got to make sure we re all saying the same thing when it comes to it. at least one of them is ed ates forcing his alibi on his sister, basically saying i got there on tuesday. coaching his story.
from there, has been ever since. taken in front of your family. yes, they came in with a s.w.a.t. team. the grandfather then about 300 pounds remembers being overpowered by sheriff s deputy as his 5-year-old grandson looked on in horror. ed ates had been arrested for murder and his wife arrested for hindering apprehension and obstruction of justice. the authorities thought they had their man for the crime, but how were they going break his alibi story? in louisiana on tuesday, the day before the killing, the relatives had circled the wagons around big ed ates who was about to tell the world a larger-than-life story about why he couldn t have possibly killed the man he once called family. coming up drama in the court as ed ates sister takes the stand. she was his alibi, but what will she say under oath? i wanted to do what i thought was the right thing to do.
what the detectives told her it was. they told her the truth is thursday. they told her we drove and followed ed down. we followed him from ramsey all the way to selby. we know exactly when he got there, it was thursday. and she said well, you know, sir, you re a smart detective, and i m just a simple lady who gives people baths in a nursing home. if that s what you say, it must be true. but the defense was about to tell the jury something really surprising. sister brenda hadn t been the only one who got it all wrong about when ed ates made it to louisiana. the defendant himself now said he had misspoken in those damning wiretaps about arriving on tuesday. you were there when i got there on tuesday. yes. in fact, the lawyer said, ed ates had arrived in louisiana not on tuesday, the day before the murder, and not on thursday, the day after the murder after the police claimed. ates was now saying he had
gotten to louisiana on wednesday at around the very hour paul duncsak was being killed in new jersey. to verify the amended day, a man who lived in the same neighborhood as ates mother and sister took the stand. his name was matlock, and he remembered seeing ed ates and his car on a louisiana block on wednesday. did you see his beige honda that week? yes, i did. what day? on wednesday. he said 17 times i am certain it was wednesday. this man had no reason to lie. he is intelligent. awake. sitting right there staring at the house. the lawyer was trying to show that ed ates could not have been killing paul duncsak in new jersey and been in louisiana on the same day at virtually the same hour, physically impossible. and he was about to show why he thought the prosecution s theory was also straining reality. his abdomen was obviously