jurors why they should convict this grandfather of murder. this is the case of the killing of paul duncsak. bergen county s assistant prosecutor wayne mello opened the state s case talking to the jurors not about the defendant, but about the victim. 40-year-old paul duncsak, a wealthy pharmaceutical executive, how he, the victim, had weathered a brutal divorce from ates daughter stacey, how paul on the day he died was trying to turn the page, on the phone chatting with his new fiancee lori adamo when he stepped into his home the night of august 23rd, 2006. he was inside the house and he said, and you left the air conditioning on. i said, no, i never turned on the air conditioning. then suddenly he started to scream. on the stand, the fiancee recounted paul duncsak s last words. he said, oh, oh, no, and then
she had been sickly with various complaints and now had fallen behind on bank payments for her home. john duncsak says the way his brother saw it, stacey had only one option to, move in with her parents, ed and dottie ates down in florida, but the child custody arrangement wouldn t allow that. every time that stacey had the kids, my brother was always and behind that fear of losing his kids was an even darker threat. paul shared it with his friend nancy bagley one afternoon as their kids swam in his backyard. he said that earlier that summer his pool had been sabotaged, its heater cranked up to a piping 101 degrees. he was convinced it was no accident. he said i am afraid for my life. i remember looking at the other mom, and we were just frozen. i mean we really were. pretty soon word was getting with his new business associates that paul duncsak was a man looking over his shoulder. co-worker janie who used the
tuesday. coaching his story. yes. the detectives were also digging into phone records and they came up with a plot. cell phones used by ed and his wife dottie ates had been registering hits at cell towers blocks from the victim s new jersey home only a week or so before the murder. the investigators also learned the florida couple had rented a vehicle in nearby pennsylvania in the same time frame. what was going on the with the ates and this trip north? they were essentially surveilling paul s house. eventually the new jersey investigators and prosecutors were convinced they had enough. in june of 2007, almost a year after the death of paul duncsak, they traveled to florida to the home of the ates family. tell me about the arrest. it s morning, isn t it? yes, i was coming out of my motor home. my wife was already out. i was starting across. my little grandson, the 5-year-old, was running to meet me, and a sheriff s car come racing up the driveway. they slapped handcuffs
you know and you re begging not to be killed, wouldn t you use their name? it seems illogical to me. that s what you would say to the intruder with the ski mask, that s right. oh, no, no, no. that s exactly right. paul didn t know the killer. but the defense had a lot of ground to make up, starting with the defendant s initial ally, which his sister seemed to smash to bits. she told the court her brother had asked her to lie to police, to say he arrived in louisiana on tuesday, one day before the murder of paul duncsak instead of one day after on thursday. on cross, the defense lawyer tried to show that brenda, a nice woman, was easily confused. if i told you that the detective sat where you are and said that brenda ates told me she gets confused, would that be true? occasionally, i do. i have diabetes and i do occasionally get my mind she believed the truth was what the detectives told her it
actually did it. they said who? i said ed ates. i couldn t believe it. i have a conscience. i would never have anybody killed. or do it myself. i couldn t. and he doesn t. he doesn t have a conscience. he s a sick man. he actually said he was going to do it, and he did it. and all of my brother s friends, every time everybody got interviewed, it all led to ed ates. ed ates. stacey s father. paul s friend michael told the police the same thing when he learned of paul s death. he even thought he might try to nail him next. we all walked around wondering if we were next on the hit list. you thought there was an enemies list of friends of paul? yes, exactly. homicide detectives always pose the question, who benefitted from the murder. and here the victim s brother and best friend are telling the police that stacey unquestionably stood to gain from her ex- s death. she would be free to move to florida with her children and raise them with money from the million-dollar trust fund pau