The Pawn (Don Vaughn)

Summary

Anatomy of Murder: The Pawn (Don Vaughn) - Detailed Summary

Anatomy of Murder, hosted by Scott Weinberger and Anna Sega Nicolasi, delves deep into the intricate layers of a murder case, exploring the victim, the crime, and the ensuing investigation. In the episode titled "The Pawn," released on June 24, 2025, the hosts unravel the 1988 murder of Don Vaughn, a traveling jewelry salesman, highlighting the meticulous detective work that led to justice.

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1. Introduction to the Case

Scott Weinberger introduces the episode by outlining the focus on a 1988 murder case in Broward County, Florida, emphasizing the lack of modern forensic technologies at the time. Instead, the case was solved through traditional detective methods combined with keen observation and fortuitous discoveries.

Notable Quote:

“Homicide detectives have a powerful arsenal of high-tech weapons at their disposal. But today we're exploring a case that took place in 1988 when none of that was available.”
— Anna Sega Nicolasi [03:07]

2. Discovery of the Crime

The investigation begins at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, where a Broward County deputy detects a foul odor emanating from a parked blue Toyota pickup truck. Detectives Phil Amabile and his partner respond to the call, uncovering a decomposing body wrapped in Visqueen plastic.

Notable Quote:

“The minute you turned the corner onto the designated floor, you immediately smelt the foul odor, which my partner myself knew exactly what it was. It's a decaying body.”
— Phil Amabile [05:06]

3. Identifying the Victim

The body was identified as Don Vaughn after confirming through fingerprints and dental records. Vaughn, a 40-year-old semi-retired jewelry salesman, was reported missing by his wife ten days prior to the discovery of his remains.

Notable Quote:

“The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. And the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”
— Phil Amabile [09:14]

4. Initial Investigation and Suspect Identification

Detectives traced the pickup truck to Otis Donald "Don" Vaughn and began exploring his last known activities. Vaughn regularly traveled across Florida selling gold jewelry, making him a potential target for robbery.

Notable Quote:

“Don traveled with a lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars on him in jewelry and cash, making him a prime target for anyone who knew his business.”
— Scott Weinberger [11:04]

5. Exploring Relationships and Possible Motives

The investigation led detectives to Bruce Weiss, a pawn shop owner and long-time friend of Vaughn. Weiss had recently renovated his store, raising suspicions due to the timing and circumstances surrounding the murder.

Notable Quote:

“When every, anybody gets hit in the head, even a small cut, for some reason, you just bleed profusely. So once he fell on the ground, he just bled out from his head.”
— Phil Amabile [35:26]

6. Breakthrough with Dennis Mosley

Detectives interviewed Dennis Mosley, a bowling league member and friend of Weiss, uncovering that Mosley owed Weiss money due to a gambling habit. Under pressure, Mosley confessed to participating in the robbery and murder of Vaughn, revealing Weiss's role as the orchestrator.

Notable Quote:

“He immediately jumped up out of his chair and he tells me, I don't have to stand for this bull. I'm gonna leave.”
— Phil Amabile [08:00]

7. Confronting Bruce Weiss

With sufficient evidence from Mosley's confession and forensic analysis linking carpet fibers and dog hair from Weiss's pawn shop to the crime scene, detectives confronted Weiss. Despite his attempts to deflect blame onto Mosley, the overwhelming evidence led to his conviction.

Notable Quote:

“I gave you an education in hair fibers. I’m telling you how all hair fibers are different. And animal hair fibers, human hair fibers, men’s hair fibers, women’s hair fibers. We can tell through our lab, through advanced testing, where that particular hair came from so we can pinpoint it, almost like a fingerprint.”
— Phil Amabile [38:33]

8. Trial and Conviction

Dennis Mosley testified against Bruce Weiss in court, leading to Weiss being found guilty of first-degree murder and robbery. Weiss was sentenced to life in prison, bringing closure to the case but leaving a lasting impact on those involved, especially Vaughn's grieving wife.

Notable Quote:

“In February of 1989, Bruce Weiss was found guilty of first-degree murder and robbery and ultimately sentenced to life in prison.”
— Anna Sega Nicolasi [41:45]

9. Reflections on the Case

The episode concludes with reflections on the nature of betrayal and the duality of human character. Weiss's ability to appear as a compassionate friend while orchestrating a calculated murder underscores the complexities within criminal psychology.

Notable Quote:

“There's something uniquely chilling about someone who doesn't just take a life, but then has the ability to step into the role of comforter, to console the very people they just shattered.”
— Scott Weinberger [42:10]

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Key Insights and Takeaways

• Traditional Detective Work: The case of Don Vaughn highlights the effectiveness of traditional investigative methods in solving complex crimes, even in the absence of advanced technology.

• Human Psychology: Weiss's deceptive nature exemplifies how individuals can mask their true intentions, making trust and verification critical in investigations.

• Forensic Evidence: The meticulous collection and analysis of forensic evidence, such as carpet fibers and dog hair, played a pivotal role in linking suspects to the crime scene.

• Psychological Interrogation: Phil Amabile's strategic interviewing techniques demonstrate the importance of psychological tactics in eliciting confessions and uncovering truths.

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Conclusion

"The Pawn" episode of Anatomy of Murder offers a compelling narrative of Detective Phil Amabile's relentless pursuit of justice for Don Vaughn. Through a blend of forensic evidence, strategic interviewing, and perseverance, the true perpetrator was brought to light, emphasizing the intricate dance between crime and investigation.

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For those intrigued by the complexities of criminal investigations and the human stories behind them, "The Pawn" serves as a testament to the dedication and skill required to uncover the truth beneath the surface.

Transcript

[Delia d'Ambra]

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Phil Amabile]

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[Phil Amabile]

He immediately jumps up out of his chair and he tells me, I don't have to stand for this bull. I'm gonna leave. I said, go right ahead. Says, you mean I could just walk out of here? I said, I'm not holding you back. Now inside, I may be sweating, but never let them see you sweat.

[Scott Weinberger]

I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy Sheriff.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

I'm Anna Sega Nicolasi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discoveries True Conviction.

[Scott Weinberger]

And this is Anatomy of Murder. Genetic Identification, Cell Tower, Triangulation, Micro ballistics. Homicide detectives have a powerful arsenal of high tech weapons at their disposal.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But today we're exploring a case that took place in 1988 when none of that was available. This case was cracked old school style with a combination of careful observation, street Smarts and sheer luck.

[Scott Weinberger]

Our guest today is a former homicide detective, Phil Amabile, a colleague of mine back in my law enforcement days at the Broward County Sheriff's Office in Florida.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

To refresh our listeners on Florida's geography. Broward county lies just north of Miami Dade and just south of West Palm Beach. And in the late 1980s, homicide detectives like Phil were busy.

[Phil Amabile]

During the 80s, crack and drug dealing and Miami Vice was the norm. Miami Vice wasn't created in a laboratory. It was created by real life events. Broward county was definitely a lot of crime happening. Sun, fun and guns, I guess would be the proper way to say it.

[Scott Weinberger]

Our story begins at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Florida airports don't have their own security force. Fort Lauderdale's falls under the jurisdiction of Broward County Sheriff's Office.

[Scott Weinberger]

That's why at around 2pm on a February Friday afternoon, it was a Broward county deputy patrolling the parking garages, the third level, who first reported smelling something terrible.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

It was coming from a parked 1985 blue Toyota pickup. And after he called it in, Phil Amabile and his partner responded.

[Phil Amabile]

We get notified of what appears to be a foul odor is how it was described. So we head over there from our office, which at the time wasn't all that far. The entire parking lot was pretty crowded with cars parked. And the minute you turned the corner onto the designated floor, you immediately smelt the foul odor, which my partner myself knew exactly what it was. It's a decaying body, decomposing body.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The deputy had tracked that smell into the blue Toyota pickup truck, one of those ones with the camper on top, which was pretty common in those days. And it was backed into its parking spot.

[Phil Amabile]

We looked down and you could see fluids dripping from the bed of the car right away. We know exactly what that's going to be. We're able to look inside the vehicle without molesting it or going inside and seeing a large package that is wrapped in in Visqueen.

[Scott Weinberger]

For those who don't know, Visqueen is a thick, heavy duty black plastic wrap that comes in long tubes. You see it used in landscaping all of the time. It's available at most hardware stores.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

At the time, there was no telling for sure if the person wrapped in the plastic tied with a rope was male or female.

[Phil Amabile]

Wrapped in this Visqueen cocoon, almost being in an enclosed compartment. The human body, especially in south Florida, is going to decompose very rapidly. And for the fact that fluids are dripping out, he's been there quite some.

[Scott Weinberger]

Time, it's most likely the person was killed somewhere else and then dumped in the back of the pickup truck and then driven here. There was nothing visible in the cab of the truck to suggest who had abandoned it and its gruesome contents. But if they caught a flight from the airport, they could be anywhere by now.

[Phil Amabile]

Once we contact the medical examiner's office, a decision was made to tow the entire vehicle without entering the vehicle to the medical examiner's office.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

But first, detectives ran the place to determine who the vehicle belonged to and tried to figure out how long the truck had been there.

[Phil Amabile]

One of the first things we obviously did was go down to the ticket booth to park into the garage again.

[Scott Weinberger]

Remember, this is 1988.

[Phil Amabile]

There were no video cameras available, no computer printouts. There was a computer that could tell us when the vehicle entered, but that was it.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The data revealed the truck had entered the lot a full 10 days earlier.

[Scott Weinberger]

In 1988, Fort Lauderdale's international airport handled as many as 3,38,000 passengers a day, many of whom pass through that lot.

[Phil Amabile]

I'm thinking to myself, how the hell did no one discover this? Up until now, this body didn't just start smelling. This has been for a while.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

It didn't take long before the information on the owner of the truck came back. His name, Otis Donald Vaughan, or as he liked to be called, don Vaughn.

[Scott Weinberger]

The 40 year old had been reported missing by his wife and 10 days earlier, around the time the truck had been left there. Of course, they couldn't know for sure if it was him wrapped up in the back of the truck, but it did seem likely.

[Phil Amabile]

Until we have a positive confirmation, either through fingerprints or dental records, we can't say this is Don Bond's body.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

One thing was sure, the detectives now had a murder case on their hands.

[Phil Amabile]

Once we get to the medical examiner's office, we then open up the trunk. The black package is pulled out, it's placed on a gurney, medical examiner's there. The Visqueen is then cut open and there's the body, later identified as Don Vaughn, lying there.

[Scott Weinberger]

The body was in an advanced stage of decomposition, but right away, Phil noticed something odd.

[Phil Amabile]

What was really, really strange to me, on the chest, on the outside of the shirt, there was what I described as a clump. I couldn't tell you what it was a clump of, but it was a clump and it was black. So I asked the crime scene detective, what the hell is that? He couldn't tell me. I said, you know what, collect that. Let's find out what it is.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And while that material was being analyzed, an autopsy confirmed how Don Vaughn had died.

[Phil Amabile]

The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. And the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head, which means he was beaten from behind with an object.

[Scott Weinberger]

But with what? It's most likely he was killed somewhere else and then dumped in the back of his own pickup truck and left in the garage with the hope that no one would bother the vehicle for days.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

To kick off their investigation, the detectives reached out to their counterparts in Fort Lauderdale. They wanted more details about the 40 year old Don. Apparently he and his wife spent most of their time on the west coast of Florida, near Tampa.

[Phil Amabile]

They had a very, very secure marriage. They were life partners. They did a lot of things together. Don Vaughn is semi retired. He's jewelry salesman. It was gold jewelry, but it wasn't high end gold jewelry. And during the 80s and 90s, you know, with the prevalence of discos, everybody had gold chains and gold bracelets. And so it was a booming business.

[Scott Weinberger]

I'm sure it turned out Don and his wife used to live in Fort Lauderdale and he still had a lot of buyers over on the east coast. So on most Mondays, he head across the state with a typewriter case full of 14 karat gold chains, bracelets and rings.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

He'd visit with various clients at pawn shops and flea markets in the Fort Lauderdale area, showing them his goods. They'd haggle a bit over price and then he'd leave, hopefully with the cash.

[Phil Amabile]

At any given time, if he's coming over from the west coast, if he's coming to do business, that means he has jewelry with him. If he's leaving, that means he's going to have cash with him. And don't forget, 1988, cash is the number one form of currency and transactions.

[Scott Weinberger]

So Don traveled with a lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars on him in jewelry and cash, making him a prime target for anyone who knew his business.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

It was Don's wife who reported him missing back on Tuesday, February 9th. The night before, after he was done making his rounds, the two were supposed to meet up at their local bowling lanes just outside Fort Lauderdale for their weekly league game. But he never showed up.

[Phil Amabile]

The family were avid bowlers and they bowled in multiple bowling bowling leagues, which if you know anyone who's in a bowling league, it's a very passionate sport.

[Scott Weinberger]

Don's wife said it was very unlike her husband not to call if he was going to be running late. But the other guys on their bowling team Dennis Mosley and Bruce Weiss hadn't heard from him either.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Dennis was an auto mechanic who didn't know the Vons that well outside of the league. But Bruce was a longtime friend of Don's. The two had managed a business together years earlier. Bruce ran a local pawn shop and was one of Don's jewelry clients. He'd actually seen him earlier that same afternoon at his shop, but had no idea where he was.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now, the whole next day, while Don's wife stayed home hoping to hear from her husband, Bruce helped organize their friends to conduct a search.

[Phil Amabile]

They were looking for his car. They were looking for whatever they can find, find to help find Don. So they were arranging all these search parties, and I believe they were also starting some kind of, for lack of a better word, a GoFundMe or a charity drive to drum up some support and some monies to help with the investigation.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bruce and the others retraced Don's entire sales route, driving all over Broward county, visiting the various shops and dealers he would have seen. But no one knew where he'd gone.

[Scott Weinberger]

Only then did Don's wife report him missing to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. And the police began looking into another possibility, that the missing man had gotten into an accident somewhere.

[Phil Amabile]

For those that aren't familiar with South Florida, from the east coast of Florida, Fort Lauderdale, to the west coast of Florida, the Naples area, there's one road that you would have to take and that is known as Alligator Alley. And Alligator Alley was one continuous stretch of roadway through the Florida Everglades. There is nothing out there except a lot of wildlife out there. Alligators, obviously, bears, deer, Florida panthers. And a normal trip would take, what, maybe an hour and 25 minutes to get across. Could he have gotten into a crash? Did the car veer off into the ditch and so forth?

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Hoping to spot his vehicle from the air, Fort Lauderdale police sent helicopters up over Alligator Alley, but after days of searching, they found no signs of him.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now, with the discovery of Don's pickup truck and its gruesome contents at the airport, it was clear that there hadn't been any accident. Don Vaughn had been murdered, and all of his cash and more than $100,000 worth of jewelry were gone. Did someone know more than they were telling? As the temperatures rise, it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with not just summer essentials, but versatile pieces for every season ahead. Quint's pieces are timeless, lightweight, and far more elevated than. Than anything else at this price, like 100% European linen shorts and dresses. From $30 luxe swimwear, Italian leather platform sandals and so much more. They work directly with top artisans and cut out the middlemen, giving you luxury without the markup. Now that the weather is getting warmer, I have added my soft stretch crew neck undershirts from Quints. They're perfect. Give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quince.com anatomy for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com A-A T O M Y to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com anatomy Foreign.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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[Scott Weinberger]

The question was, had they been able to identify the last person to see Don alive?

[Phil Amabile]

We find out one of the last places he was at that we know of was a pawn shop, and that was in Fort Lauderdale. The name of the pawn shop was All Cash Pawn. I believe I got that information from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department who told me that they went there. They interviewed the the owner who told them that he was there and then he left to do his route.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So was that pawn shop owner a suspect? Fort Lauderdale police didn't think so because the owner was Bruce Weiss, the same friend who'd organized search parties when Don first went missing.

[Phil Amabile]

We were told that he was not involved that Fort Lauderdale detectives had interviewed him, and he was not involved. In fact, one of them said, oh, he's renovating his store. So, you know, he's been busy with the renovation in his store. And, you know, he's still going out and helping to try to find him, but he was not involved.

[Scott Weinberger]

Still, the mention of a recent renovation is a red flag for any detective working a homicide case with these types of circumstances.

[Phil Amabile]

I looked at my partner and we said, let's go interview this guy. We make our way over to All Cash Pawn. You know, we go in the front door.

[Scott Weinberger]

It's a typical pawn shop, not uncommon in that part of Florida. Inside, it's arranged almost like a teller at a bay. There's a lot of security. The pawn broker sits behind a glass enclosure with a large drawer that he can open and close manually from his side. And you can drop off whatever you're pawning, whether it's something like a watch or something like a really large television set. And then he gives you the cash in return. To get to that back area, you have to be buzzed in through another door.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And that's where the detectives spoke to pawn shop owner Bruce were in the.

[Phil Amabile]

Back, which is not a big space, but it's a space, and it's all these racks of different pond items, you know, drills and sports equipment and whatever people would pawn at the time.

[Scott Weinberger]

Right away, Phil noticed that the place had been recently remodeled. The floor had been tiled over some green carpeting.

[Phil Amabile]

I make comment of it. He goes, yeah, yeah, we're trying to do it because we. It's too heavy to lift the shelves up to get the tile underneath that. So we decided just to leave it the way it would. Not a problem. He also had a very, very large dog in his office. And for some reason, this dog took a liking to me. Where, as you know, when you greet a dog, especially if it's a large dog, it wants to smell you.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The detectives informed Bruce about what they'd found at the airport and asked him about the last time he'd seen his friend.

[Phil Amabile]

He said, damn, that's a shame. You know, he was in here, he showed me his wares. Bruce had told us that one of his friends had stopped by a guy by the name of Dennis Mosley. I can't recall if he told me that he bought some stuff from him, but he said that was it. He packed up his stuff and he left, and that was the last we saw of him.

[Scott Weinberger]

According to Bruce's statement, Don left the shop sometime around 4:15, as did their Buddy Dennis Mosley. Bruce figured they'd all see each other later for their bowling night. But Don never showed up. His wife was frantic with worry. They'd all spent the whole next day looking for him.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bruce made clear he wished he could be more helpful, but he had no idea what had happened to Don.

[Phil Amabile]

We leave, and we continue on with investigation. We didn't believe Bruce Weiss. There was something about him that bothered us.

[Scott Weinberger]

But then the detective got a call from the medical examiner's office about that strange, strange clump on the victim's body.

[Phil Amabile]

The clump that was found on the chest turns out to be carpet fibers mixed with dog hair.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The color of those carpet fibers, green.

[Phil Amabile]

As I would often exclaim to my partner, jesus Christ, we know who it is.

[Scott Weinberger]

So many of you may be thinking that the next natural step would be to go back and question Bruce. But the detectives had a different strategy.

[Phil Amabile]

As any detective knows, especially if you work in a murder, you know, if you have a great idea who your suspect's going to be, that's the last person you're going to interview. We actually put together a search warrant because we needed to search that pawn shop in much more detail. What we wanted to search was we wanted samples of the carpet fibers, we wanted samples from the dog, and we wanted any evidence that a crime was committed therein.

[Scott Weinberger]

When it comes to searching pawn shops, investigators obviously are aware don't have jewelry and other valuables. They also likely have guns. And that put together with a potential suspect who may be starting to feel like the walls are closing in on him, things could get pretty dangerous pretty fast.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

With the plan now in place, the detectives executed their search warrant on Bruce Weiss's pawn shop.

[Phil Amabile]

You're not coming in there like gangbusters. Plan's going to be we're going to get him outside of the store and we're going to leash the dog if the dog's there. Because just like our canines, dogs can be a weapon as well. So we get the dog leashed, we tell them, listen, we're just being very, very thorough in this investigation. I'm coming in as being helpful. This isn't the only place we're searching, but we need to try to gather evidence. And don't worry, don't worry. Whatever you do, don't worry, because the sheriff's office will put everything back together just like we found it. You would never even know we were.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Here and this search began.

[Phil Amabile]

The crime scene techs go in and they love nothing more than to tear apart a place which they Proceed to do. They gather carpet fibers, you know, and obviously, everything's documented through video and. And photographs. The decision is made. Well, we need to start lifting up this tile. So the newly set tile that was in there starts getting ripped up. Once it's ripped up, they then come in there with luminol.

[Scott Weinberger]

Luminol can be an important forensic tool at a crime scene. It's a chemical that reacts to the oxidation of enzymes typically found in blood by literally glowing under a black light. I've been to lots of crime scenes where there was no blood visible to the naked eye, but when we used luminol, wow. You really can detect it through this important tool.

[Phil Amabile]

They spray it, and lo and behold, there's a ton of blood, blood splatter, and big puddles of blood, which would be indicative of someone bleeding profusely from a. They also ripped up the paneling, the newly installed wood paneling on the wall, and there was blood splatter that was found on the wall.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The techs then took photographs of the stains and collected fiber samples from the carpet and any dog hairs they could find so that they could then be compared to what was found on and around Don's body.

[Scott Weinberger]

But they didn't arrest the pawn shop's owner, Weiss. While the investigation is pointing in his direction, as far as the case, it's far from ready to head to court.

[Phil Amabile]

We don't know anything here other than we're 99% sure this is where Otis Don Vaughn met his demise. There's nothing more than that. So the next logical step is to interview the other person that was there.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Bruce had told detectives that their bowling partner, Dennis Mosley, had been at the pawn shop that day, too, when Don had stopped in. So the detectives then decided to track him down.

[Phil Amabile]

He was working as a mechanic. So I go to the mechanic shop, and I speak to him. He's very, very reluctant to speak to me. And I told him, look, I don't want to speak to you in front of everyone here at your job. I said, come with me. I'll drive you to my office. We'll sit down like gentlemen, and I'll bring you right back. I said, but we're not going to speak here. So he doesn't want to do that. And he says, can I drive my own car? I said, absolutely. You know, because the goal is to get him in a interrogation room with me. That's my only goal right now. How he gets there, as long as he gets there, I'm not concerned with.

[Scott Weinberger]

Once back at the station, Phil Sat down with Dennis Mosley.

[Phil Amabile]

In an interview room, you'll often see people that are in an uncomfortable situation. They'll always lean towards where the escape route is. Anybody could see that whenever you're sitting in an office with somebody and they need to be out of there for whatever reason, they'll start leaning because they're sending you signals. They have to get out of that room. This room would have been set up. My back would be to the door, and his would be behind the table facing me. Well, he immediately took the. The chair where his back was to the door. I wasn't going to move him. I was going to let him be comfortable and sit where he wanted to sit.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, Anaco, we've always talked about the fact, the mindset of going into an interview like this, especially when you want your suspect to be talkative, it's sort of a psychological game, in a sense, to make them comfortable, but not too comfortable.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

And again, it also goes to remaining in control. It's why you usually want to speak to a suspect in a precinct or in controlled environment, rather in their own home. And that goes to the positioning, too. Right. But again, you just said it, Scott. It's about making that person comfortable so that they feel that they're in a position that they want to speak to you.

[Scott Weinberger]

And I do respect Phil's decision here because essentially what he wanted to do was, okay, he seems to be open to talking, so let's just leave him where he is and hope he opens up.

[Phil Amabile]

I said across from him, and we start discussing this case, and I tell him what happened. I said, look, I don't know if you know Don. And he's very defensive. He's telling me he'd never met him before and so forth. And he just happened to be in the pawn shop at that time visiting Bruce, who he knows. He knows Bruce from the bowling alley and so forth.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

To try to back him down a bit from his defensive posture, Phil asked Dennis a bit about his background. He had no significant criminal record, although recently he had been having a tough time, thanks to a gambling habit that he spoke of. And from there, Phil started turning up the heat.

[Phil Amabile]

I started hitting him with some cold, hard facts about the search warrant, the dog hairs, the missing jewelry, because the jewelry was never recovered. And we said, look, this was a robbery and you're involved. He immediately jumps up out of his chair, and he tells me, I don't have to stand for this bull. I said, no, you don't. He goes, I'm gonna leave. I said, go right ahead. Says, you mean I could just walk out of here? I said, I'm not holding you back inside. I may be sweating, but never let him see you sweat. He says, so what's gonna happen next? I said, this isn't going away. I said, a man is dead. I said, we're not walking away from this. He then did something that hasn't happened too often in my career. He just sat back down and slouched over and I knew I got him. This is it. Whenever somebody is giving something up, especially when we're talking murders, because that's a heavy burden that someone's carrying around on their shoulders. The minute they give it up, it's almost like they become deflated, where there's a physical change, where they just exhale and they've gotten that burden off their shoulders. So I noticed that change, and I'm thinking to myself, here we go.

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The Broward County Sheriff's Office, homicide detective Phil Amabile was on the verge of getting his suspect, Dennis Mosley, to talk.

[Phil Amabile]

I asked him, I said, did you or did Bruce plan this? And once he said, bruce did, I said, I thought so. I thought you were a good, decent person who got themselves tied up in some. So now he's not going to leave. Now, I know he's implicated himself, and I give him his Miranda warnings.

[Scott Weinberger]

And I could tell you it's never easy to stop an interview when you're on the brink of a breakthrough. But Phil had no choice.

[Phil Amabile]

Choice.

[Scott Weinberger]

He had to pause right then, right there to Mirandize Mosley. That meant laying out his rights. The right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, and everything that comes with it. Because without warning, anything Dennis said next could be tossed inadmissible, game over before it ever began.

[Phil Amabile]

You want to make sure that you're doing everything that's going to secure a guilty verdict, because you could solve all the cases you want. But until that judge slams that gavel down and says guilty, you did not do your job.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

So Phil next took Mosley through the warnings, hoping it would still lead to further conversation.

[Phil Amabile]

I said, this allows me to speak to you if you want. And I know you want to speak to me because you have a million questions you want to ask me, and I want to answer your questions. You know, I've kicked the ball into his court, and now he's in control.

[Scott Weinberger]

And after being given his warnings, Mosley did agree to speak with Phil. And the truth eventually tumbled out.

[Phil Amabile]

The long and short of it is he owed Bruce Weiss money from gambling. And Bruce, who had planned this, recruited Mosley and was going to wipe away the gambling debt that he owed, which was maybe about five grand. Five grand is a lot of money, especially 1988.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Moseley said that Whites had instructed him to show up at the pawn shop that day, that a man would be coming by with jewelry and cash and that they were going to rob him.

[Phil Amabile]

We'll take whatever cash, and I'll give you something extra for your trouble. I don't know if murder was what was actually planned or just to rob him, but it doesn't make too much sense just to rob him when he would know who everyone was.

[Scott Weinberger]

According to Mosley, when Don showed up, Weiss buzzed him into the back area, and the two started talking behind the front counter. And that is when Mosley came up from behind holding a heavy pipe.

[Phil Amabile]

It turns out that Dennis is the one who strikes him in the back of the head using, I believe it was a pipe that they used. Dennis came up from behind, struck him in the head. He fell down, and that's when he was struck again multiple times. And that's where he bled out. According to Dennis, they take the jewelry they go through his pockets, they take all the money out, which comes out to about 5,000 because he wasn't the first stop of his trip.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

They also grabbed his typewriter case full of gold jewelry worth an estimated $100,000.

[Scott Weinberger]

The autopsy revealed it all. Don had no defensive wounds, no sign of resistance. It was a clean ambush. No threats, no struggle, no plea for his life. He didn't just lose a fight. He was never given the chance to be in one.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Mosley continued his story about what happened next. He said Weitz then sent him next door to a hardware store to buy Visqueen and rope, which the detectives were later able to verify with a visit to the store.

[Phil Amabile]

Unfortunately, 1988, there were no video cameras inside the store, but I have a receipt for both of those.

[Scott Weinberger]

The two then rolled up Don's body in the plastic sheeting and tied it up. Then they used that large drawer to get him through the glass partition, out of the back area and into the front.

[Phil Amabile]

They were able to lift him right into the bed of his small Toyota pickup truck.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Mosley was the one who drove the truck to the airport parking lot and left it there, while White stayed behind to begin the nearly impossible task of cleaning up their mess. It was probably a lot more bloody than he expected expected it would be.

[Phil Amabile]

When every, anybody gets hit in the head, even a small cut, for some reason, you just bleed profusely. So once he fell on the ground, he just bled out from his head. And there's no way they're going to clean that up there. So the decision is made. They're going to rip up the carpet and retile. And they cleaned up pretty well, but not well enough.

[Scott Weinberger]

With this confession, Phil had enough to place Mosley under arrest for murder. But still, it was pretty clear that he wasn't the one behind the plot.

[Phil Amabile]

Bruce was the alpha male. Dennis was the furthest thing from an alpha male. He was the go along guy. He was the sidekick to whatever cowboy star you want to pick. He was the sidekick. He only took orders. Desperate men do desperate things, and he was obviously desperate get out of his debt.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

To catch the puppet master behind this scheme, Phil knew he had to act fast.

[Phil Amabile]

I hate to keep harping on this fact, but this is 1988. I didn't whip out my cell phone. I probably got to a landline and I paged my partner to call me. I said, finish up what you're doing now get in here. I'm going to get this guy transported. We'll go pick up Bruce.

[Scott Weinberger]

As fate would have it. That very night, the detectives knew just where their main suspect would be. It was league night down at the Lanes.

[Phil Amabile]

We picked him up at the bowling alley, and we told him, it's very important. It's very, very important. We've just had a major breakthrough in the case. So naturally, he wants to be cooperative as all hell. And he says, listen, the league's just about to start. If you let me bowl, can we wait until afterwards? Now, keep in mind, this guy is involved in a murder, and he has the two homicide detectives standing in front of him. Tell him, we just had a major breakthrough in the case. And he's saying, if you let me bowl, I'll come with you. We said, no, no, we need you now. It's real important. It's real important. So we were persuasive enough, he gets in the car with us, and we drive him to our office.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Once back at headquarters, they sat down with Weitz for another interview.

[Phil Amabile]

We text, tell him, oh, listen, by the way, Bruce, because we're at our sheriff's office, because we're here, we are obligated to give you your Miranda warning. We have to do it so we can speak. So he's, oh, yeah, I understand. Oh, I love those words. I understand. Everyone understands. So we give him his rights again in written form. Get that piece of paper out of the office. And now we start it with him.

[Scott Weinberger]

This time. The detectives didn't take long to get to the point.

[Phil Amabile]

We hit him with the. With the cold heart fact. You know, Dennis is sitting in jail right now. To which he says, what did he do? That's not important right now. We know everything. We know exactly what happened. We know about going to Ace Hardware. We're giving him breadcrumbs.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

The detectives built up the reliability of the forensic science, then revealed the evidence they'd obtained.

[Phil Amabile]

I'm giving you an education in hair fibers. I'm telling you how all hair fibers are different. And animal hair fibers, human hair fibers, men's hair fibers, women's hair fibers. We can tell through our lab, through advanced testing, where that particular hair came from so we can pinpoint it, almost like a fingerprint. Is that true? No. Do I make it sound true? Absolutely. So I tell him. Remember when we came and we took some. Some pieces of hair from your dog? Bruce, I hate to tell you this, but we found dog hairs, and we matched those dog hairs to your dog on Don's body.

[Scott Weinberger]

Next came the carpet fibers, a match between the ones from his shop and the ones found on the body. Then the. The luminal testing results exposing what the eye couldn't see. Bit by bit, they laid out all of the evidence, and it was stacking up. But to their disbelief, Bruce had just one reaction.

[Phil Amabile]

He's begging us to let him go bowling. He actually told us, if you let me go bowling, you could stay and watch me so I don't leave, I will come back and tell you everything. I swear to God. This guy killed someone. That he knew that he was arranging search parties for and organizing fundraising. He's responsible for the man's murder, and he wants us to let him go bowling. I'm thinking to myself, you better hope there's a bowling alley in the. In the prison you go to. Needless to say, he didn't go bowling that night.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Weitz didn't try to argue against the evidence, but he did go on to try and blame everything on Dennis Mosley. It was Mosley's idea to rob Don, and Mosley, who went berserk on him, clubbing him repeatedly with a pipe.

[Scott Weinberger]

Detectives just weren't buying it.

[Phil Amabile]

The reason you know, when someone's lying is because no matter what's coming out of their mouth, their body language is telling you a true story, and that's what you're seeing. Anyone who does anything often mitigates their involvement, and they sugarcoat their involvement. And that was here.

[Scott Weinberger]

When Phil told Don's wife that the person responsible for her husband's murder was. Was in fact, their friend Bruce Weiss, the very man who organized those search parties and raised money to help look for him, she didn't seem shocked at all.

[Phil Amabile]

I told her about Bruce, and naturally, a woman's instinct is, I knew he was no good. I knew something was up, you know, because nobody's a great actor. Even great actors aren't great actors. And you can't fake sincerity. You can't fake empathy. I think what really disgusted me in this case is he knew the wife. He was consoling the wife. He wanted to be the good guy in this thing, throw everyone off. It couldn't have been Bruce. Bruce was organizing the search party.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

In the end, Dennis Mosley took the stand and testified for the prosecution at Weitz's murder trial. And In February of 1989, Bruce Weiss was found guilty of first degree murder and robbery and ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

[Scott Weinberger]

Thanks to some great detective work, justice was served in the murder of Don Vaughn, though their friend's betrayal likely haunted his wife for the rest of her life.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

For Phil, thinking back to Don's age, when he died still remains a reminder of how precious every day of life truly is.

[Phil Amabile]

Don was only 40 years old, so you know, he was like, right, right in the middle of living his life.

[Scott Weinberger]

There's something uniquely chilling about someone who doesn't just take a life, but then has the ability to step into the role of comforter, to console the very people they just shattered. It's not rage or impulse we're looking at here. It's calculation. It's performance. It's the weaponization of trust. And that's what stays with you long after the evidence is laid out, long after the verdict is read. Because the worst kind of betrayal isn't always loud. It doesn't always look like evil. Sometimes it's quiet, measured, and delivered with a steady voice and a smile. It forces us to reckon with something deeply uncomfortable. That a human being can be both capable of kindness and cruelty in the same breath.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Don Vaughn was enjoying semi retirement with his wife. While he tried to maintain some income by keeping up with his jewelry business a bit, he met a con man. But his earnestness made Don believe Whites was his friend. Don was robbed of money and of course, most importantly, his life. His wife was robbed of her partner, the man she loved and had planned to live out the rest of their days with. Don't this AOM community thinks of you today, and we hope that your wife has been well cared for as she was left to live without you. We will be off next week, but Anatomy of Murder will be back the following week with an all new episode.

[Scott Weinberger]

Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

Original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

[Scott Weinberger]

Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sierra and Phil Jean Grande. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

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[Anna Sega Nicolasi]

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