Mom, hear mom, i had to do it. Yes. A brave son protecting his mom, a harrowing story, but was it true. Hes seat bed hind a desk . Defenseless really. This seems to be an execution. Was this campus hero actually a coldhearted killer. The defendant sends an email to his Fraternity Brothers calledcall called show time. Or was the truth completely different . One of the things that was always a question was was charlie covering a trial where nothing went by the book. Three of the jurors were crying really hard. They were turning around in their seats getting emotional. They see whats coming. He was becoming unhinged. Im lester holt and this is dateline. Heres Dennis Murphy with house new york, and where youll find one of the most prestigious universities in the nation, cornell the Ivy League Big red. . Hail, oh, hail cornell. More than 13,000 graduates will take their places in the law, the arts, medicine. Only the best need apply. Students like charlie tan. He was so kind, his High School Classmate featured him in a video random acts of kindness giving gifts to complete strangers. Not just a great kid but the greatest of great kids. Charlie was the son of chinese immigrants who became mr. Everything in his high school year. Scholar athlete, class president , the guy with the cool to charlie and her own teenaged pals. He was happy and energetic. The kind of guy that comes in the room and tells joke s . Ever Everybody Knows him. The room lights up he starts telling a funny story. So youd think charlie tan was another ivy league overachiever poised for takeoff and great things to come. But thats not this story. This is about the charlie tan, keeper of secrets and quite possibly something he was so excited. He was super happy. So in thefall of 2013, charlie tan left his parents home near rochester, new york, and drove the few hours to cornell. His exciting new chapter in a life already filled with early achievements. He pledged a frat, he wasnt big call the sprint Football Team. I met charlie the first day freshman year actually. I had just gotten my locker and charlie was one of the first people i met. Quarterback rob pinolo. One of the most encouraging team players we have. Leader of the team by example and his words. T they he was selfless charlie impressed his teammates and his coach. Thor are i cullen coaches the lighter wait players. Always a smile never late, hard worker, good kid, solid. Go back to thes now the rochester suburbs where charlie grew up in his teenaged years. Its called pittsford new york and this newspaper man knows it well. A very nice community. Big lawns, nice cars in the garage. Big house, lots of executives lawyers. Charlies parents lived in canada before moving charlie and his brother to upstate new york. His dad ran a tech business that thrived. The home just radiated upper middleclass comfort. His friends anna had been there on occasion. I went over to his house. I didnt know his parents very well. I talked to his mom a couple times but i didnt have much conversation with them when we were parents and charlie didnt offer details if someone asked. If he had secrets, sorrows, they werent for the outside world to know about. Hes very good about keeping his emotions in. I didnt know what the home situation was like. I didnt know then and i dont know now. Other than a few 911 dispatchers and a few town officers, the wider community, the friends of charlie tan, certainly, knew nothing about the whispers of domestic lane. Hes a very stoic individual. Its a tough part of his life. The record is still sealed but its safe to say the tan house was known to authorities. Go back to cornell. Its the winter of 2015 and charlie is now a sophomore. On a chilly thursday morning, he stopped in unexpectedly to visit his football coach. There is a softer side to this coach than drills an xs and os and his kids know hell always be there for them. Our rule is if you have a problem come on in and close t were here. Now it was charlie who needed a shoulder or something. I said how are you doing . He said good but i cant make weightlifting on friday. I said whats the problem . He said ive got to go home. Charlie seemed emotional. Clearly something was eating at the student. I asked him if there was anything he wanted to talk about and he declined. He just said he had to get home. It wasnt spring break, classes were in session, but charlie got in his car and coach didnt know that charlie tans life as a student at cornell would soon be over. We didnt worry about charlie, charlies very squared away. Got his act together. Knows what hes doing. Only charlie tan wasnt at all okay. It snowed that night. A muffling blanket, covering the home where something awful was about to happen. Why did charlie need to rush home . When we come back, the first who called 911. He didnt give us a lot of details. Im just worried that he might do something at his house. And then charlies mom makes a 911 call of her own. Did you say you heard a shot. Yes. Does somebody in the house have a gun . Our bacteria familys been on this cushion for generations. Alright kiddos everybody off the backpack, we made it to the ottoman. Finally theres a disinfectant mist designed for sofas, mattresses and more. Introducing new lysol max cover. Its innovative cap has a 2x wider spray that kills 99. 9 of bacteria. Max cover is another great way to lysol that. I tried hard to quit smoking. But when we brought our daughter home, that was it. Now i have nicoderm cq. The nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release Technology Helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. Its the best thing that ever happened to me. Every great why needs a great how. Take one of those pillows and take a big smell. They smell really fresh. What if we told you we washed these sheets 7 days ago. Really no way downy . 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Defy expectations any day with always infinity. Made with flexfoam. Absorbs 10x its weight. When charlie tan left cornell and made the 100mile trip on a winter morning,is football coach knew hed been upset. I asked him to call me when he got home just so i knew he was okay. And that very evening back in pitts ford, new york, charlie spent time at an old friends house where he seemed to his pal deeply despondent, sad, possibly depressed. Not the charlie hed known since childhood. After charlie left, the friend and his mother were so concerned they called 911. Was charlie suicidal . He didnt give us a lot of details. Im just worried that he might to happen but i i just cant take a chance. All right, well im going to have them go to that house and check on him. And a deputy did just that. Detective steve peglo of the Monroe County sheriffs office. Charlie told the deputy he was upset and he came home to talk to people and he was just working out some things and he would be okay. It was now late thursday night, almost the weekend. Charlie didnt go back to School Friday morning and come monday he wasnt at practice. There wasnt much i could do other than text him and he didnt respond. And then it was monday night, something awful. 911, what is the address of the emergency. Yes. Hi. The call sore distraught confused the dispatcher. My name is jean tan. I just i heard an argument and my my son was talked to does anyone need an ambulance . It was jean tan, charlies mother. Did you say you heard a shot . Yes. Does somebody in the house have a gun . Now the garbled story was coming into focus. Shots fired, the husband, the man of the house was dead. My husband is dead. Whos already dead . My husband. Your who . My husband. Are you in a safe spot . Yes, i am. We need you to wait outside of the house officers safety. Detective peglo was soon on route to coachside lane. He still had only a garbled account from the 911 call. Who had shot whom. He was trying to protect me. Your son was trying to protect you . Yes. It looked like it was what we call domestic murder. It was had something that just occurred. On arrival, the first deputies on the scene saw a young man who would turn out to standing in the driveway with his mother. Theyre outside the house . Outside the house. Its a safety thing for the deputies. No reason to go in. Let the people go out. They asked who else was in the house. In the next moments the deputies heard the son tell a story that sounded like selfdefense. He had to shoot, he said, to save his mother. He used a shotgun. Charlie said my dads in there, hes dead, i had to do it. He was going to hurt my mom. The father is shot because the boy feels his mothers in jeopardy. Yes. It was getting late. The deputies put the son and his mother in a patrol car. They asked where the shotgun was. After securing the weapon, the detectives made their way into the house. They found their victim. The father is behind the desk, spent shotgun shells are in the doorway area. The detective would learn more about jim tan, father, they had lived in canada and moved to the United States some years earlier. Successful executive . By all accounts, yes. But was the successful businessman an abuse i husband . Detective peglow looked around the household. They came upon an appointment card for jean tan to appear at Domestic Violence court so the working theory, justifiable homicide, made some sense. But detective rookie. His investigation into charlie tan and what happened inside that home was just getting started. One of the investigators found what appeared to be newly taken passport photos along with a list of prominent local Defense Attorneys. Thats interesting. Yes, sir. His story is i had to do it but youre not taking that at face value . Correct. Coming up, a discovery on death. How many days prior is the last email check . Deputies canvassed the neighborhood but no one heard the shotgun blast that killed jim tan. But this wasnt a who don e it. The son admitted he did it to protect his mom. Receiving defense is what well listen to. If thats what happened, the law determine that. That same night, charlie and his mother were taken down to the station to tell their stories. Were you able to get a statement from the son charlie . His lawyer would not allow us to speak to him. His lawyer was on scene . His lawyer was on scene a few minutes after me. Without the cooperation of the admitted participants, the mother and the son, the detectives were on their own. It turns out a very large piece of evidence was waiting to be found right there in their very office, a federal court the house on coachside lane. Just two weeks before the shooting, Police Records show the wife placed another 911 call. Yes, hi, my name is jean tan and my husband just beat me up, i need your protection. Are you injured. Yes, im he choked me and im so scared. Please. Do you want an ambulance . Oh, hes coming. No. Please come. Please come. The dispatcher heard what sounded like an ongoing fight between husband and sorry, yes. No, no yes, sorry about that. Its all right. My wife is probably upset at me. Help me help me you choked me. Dont be childish, its all right. A deputy was sent to the house and noticed jean tan, the wife, was clearly rattled. Reporter john hand of rochesters democrat and chronicle newspaper. Upset, she had some red marks on her neck but that there wasnt enough there to charge jim tan with a crime. So incident over . That night. He tried to kill me but nothing results in terms of charges or into the paperwork. Correct . So a history of abuse, it appeared. If that were the case, charlie told no one in his circle at cornell university. Up on campus, coach cullen hadnt heard from charlie in days and now his phone rang. Campus and asked me to come to his fraternity house, which i did. They wanted me to know that charlies father had been killed. It was rugged. Weve got a bunch of players in the fraternity and everybody was obviously very upset. Charlie admitting hed shot his father to death. I think it was probably disbelief more than and shock that this occurred. It but immediately after, there was so much support for him and everyone was amazed by the support. From the getgo, there was no debate. The entire frat and team had charlies back. Not just the Football Team but everybody on cornells campus that he knew well was showing support for him. Everyone was always trying to help him and ask if theres anything we could do for him. To his friends at home there was shock, of course, there, too. And, yet, the heartbreaking his mom by any means necessary made some kind of weird sense. He was, after all, the kid who was always trying hard to help. People talk about him being selfless. Yeah. Lives to help other people . He would do anything for people. Close friend anna had a hard time wrapping her head around charlie doing anything violent. The charlie she knew was a thoughtful k things no ordinary teenager did. My mom went through cancer stuff so he was always there supporting anybody. So anna, too, would be there supporting charlie through this difficult time. A friend to the end. Neither she nor anyone else could have guessed where the investigation was heading next. That the detective whod examined the scene that night was wondering if there was more to the story. It was all obvious right away that something was off with the working theory of the crime. A heat of passion homicide. We we were there for hours searching every bit. One of the things noticed by one of the investigators is just, you know, the dried blood that was all over. Dried blood, the timeline, and the whole story, in fact, demanded a closer look. Its certainly one of the things that starts to get your attention that, okay, hang on, there might be more, lets make sure were on the right path here. And there were other observations that set their timeline back. On jim tans desk computer where hed apparently been working before the weekend. Jim is trading some emails with an employee and then at some point after that he clearly stops using his computer. He is no longer sending and hes no longer opening. And as detectives poked around that Office Monday night how many days prior is the last email check . Four. Four days . That was really a big thing for me. This was a guy that ran his own company with employees and with activity. Going back four days, that thursday night charlie came home from cornell. And a fourdayold crime scene would also explain what had been plainly obvious to the seasoned detectives nose. The odor of decomposition was very strong. The detective now believed that emotional 911 call was bogus. A charade. Did you say you heard a shot. Yes. His mother was in peril and he had to shoot the husband but correct. That first inference from the 911 call and from what charlie said in the drivewaytothe deputies seemed to be in confrontation with what we were starting to see inside. Down at the sheriffs office, jean tan, the mother, was released from custody. But not charlie. The 19yearold ivy leaguer was charged with Second Degree murder. What did you think, anna . I was shocked. I was just so confused about i didnt think it was real. I didnt think the great kid if convicted was facing 25 years to life in prison. Coming up, store video shows the gun that killed charlies father being purchased. But its not charlie buying it. New name all together here . Correct. And then the strange thing charlie did just before his mom placed the 911 call. The defendant sends an email to his Fraternity Brothers someones hacked all our technology. Technology. 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Anna started a defense fund support page for charlie. It spread crazy. I had no clue what would happen. So you just spread it out there on the net. I put it on the page and told my friends i did it. People i hadnt heard of were supporting him. Everyone was doing. It how much money did you why did people come out of the woodwork to support charlie. He had just been one of the nicest guys ev