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- [00:01]
Audible Advertiser
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Carl
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Narrator
After his family endured a heartbreaking tragedy, she stepped in to fill the void left behind.
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Bernie's Child
She agreed to adopt us all and become basically our new mother.
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Narrator
And after years of turmoil, she finally felt she belonged.
- [02:01]
Bernie's Child
She had a very noticeable and deep scar that she carried with her for the rest of her life.
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He didn't see that. He saw the beautiful person on the inside.
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Narrator
But a terrible crime abruptly upends the life they built together.
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Detective
The family found him inside of his vehicle. He was struck blunt trauma, right side of the head over the ear.
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Carl
It didn't happen in the vehicle.
- [02:29]
Narrator
As an investigation launches, detectives must wade through a sea of lies and deception to catch a killer.
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Detective
She pretends to be an entirely made up flight attendant. He seems confused and he Says he's never even heard of the couple.
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Bernie's Child
She was using me and a lot of her stuff, scams and cons.
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Narrator
Detectives quickly find that outward appearances can't disguise the monster within.
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Carl
When a person closes the door at night, nobody knows what goes on inside.
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Bernie's Child
They would get into huge fights and they were all yelling fights, screaming, matches.
- [03:08]
Witness
She goes, I don't remember anything about this murder. I don't remember being part of the murder.
- [03:15]
Bernie's Child
If the word evil could be applied to a person, it would definitely be applied to her.
- [03:33]
Narrator
In the late 1980s, Wilton Manors, Florida had all the charm of a beach town. Without the hustle and bustle of visiting tourists.
- [03:43]
Carl
Wilton Manors been a small, quiet area where people moved to to get away from Fort Lauderdale, Illinois that you would get from the beach area.
- [03:50]
Detective
A quiet bedroom community for the most part, definitely a low crime area.
- [03:58]
Narrator
But on March 24, 1987 at 9:22pm an urgent 911 call comes in from the family of 37 year old Bernie James, reporting a dire situation outside the family home.
- [04:13]
Detective
It was reported to us that the victim's wife found him inside of his vehicle with the front seat, front passenger seat fully reclined. He was slumped over to the side. He was unresponsive. And the family as reported, removed him from the vehicle and began CPR on him. EMS responded along with Wilton Manus pd.
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Carl
When the first unit responds on scene, the person was on the lawn being attended to with cpr.
- [04:45]
Detective
EMS determined that the victim was deceased.
- [04:51]
Narrator
Assessing his Injuries, it's clear 37 year old Bernie James didn't die of natural causes.
- [04:59]
Carl
The first officer observed that there was some blood on the right side of the ear.
- [05:03]
Detective
There was blood inside the car by the center console. There was clear trauma to the right side of the victim's head. The victim also had ligature marks around his neck. That means that somebody was strangling him.
- [05:19]
Carl
This was done to him and quite effectively because he was lifeless. First thing the officer's gonna find out is how did he get there and what happened.
- [05:30]
Narrator
When detectives arrive on the scene, they find three of Bernie's family members outside. His brother in law Michael, his mother in law Jane, and his wife, 36 year old Patty James.
- [05:43]
Detective
The family is shocked. This is not someone you would expect to be murdered. He's known as a man that everybody loved.
- [05:57]
Narrator
Born on July 1, 1949 in Washington D.C. bernie James was raised within a large family in the Maryland suburbs.
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Bernie's Child
Bernie was the eldest of nine children. My father was really big into boy scouts and nature and you know, he loved to camp, he loved to canoe hiking.
- [06:18]
Narrator
After high school, Bernie enlisted in the Marines and ended up in Vietnam.
- [06:24]
Bernie's Child
He served two tours, was a lance corporal in the Marine Corps. He wouldn't talk about Vietnam very much, but I do know it had a profound impact on him.
- [06:36]
Narrator
In the 1970s, Bernie returned to Maryland and joined the fire department.
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Bernie's Child
He came a firefighter because he did have a very protective nature and he loved to help people. He was a paramedic, which is how he met my mother, Lisa, Jean Paul. They were both paramedics and they actually met on a call. They were both responding to a medical situation. They kind of hit it off a little bit. One thing led to another and they were married within a year.
- [07:01]
My mom and dad just loved each other so much. They had like a magnetic attraction to one another.
- [07:10]
Narrator
Bernie and his beloved wife Lisa welcomed three in just over three years of marriage. Michael, Irene and Nicholas.
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Bernie's Child
My brother is two years older than me, My sister is one year older than me. I am the youngest.
- [07:29]
Narrator
But the close knit family would be ripped apart. Just before Christmas 1980, my mother Lisa.
- [07:36]
Bernie's Child
Had an aneurysm and collapsed. Unfortunately, there was nothing the doctors could do for her. And after the 12 hours they, you know, had ceased life support.
- [07:48]
Narrator
With three children under three years old, Bernie struggled to hold his family together.
- [07:54]
Bernie's Child
My mother's death had a huge impact on my father. He was completely distraught afterward. He didn't know what he was going to do because he had raised three children who were all very close in age.
- [08:04]
I can imagine how difficult it must have been to be a single man with three very young children.
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Narrator
As the years passed, the single father yearned to find love again. And in 1982, yet another chance encounter would bring him just that.
- [08:27]
Bernie's Child
My father was working dispatch for the fire station and was working, you know, the emergency line. This was the days before 911. And this woman named Patty called him up.
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She was looking for a different person, but he was the one on duty that day.
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They struck up a conversation and, you know, he told her about his problems and they kind of built up a little bit of a friendship over the phone.
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They got to talking. She would call every single day just to talk to him.
- [09:01]
He'd been a widower for two years now and was having a hard time raising his children. So a woman expressing interest in him was appealing to him. She seemed nice. She really seemed to like us. Patty and her family were from Silver Spring, Maryland. Her father was a police detective. Her mother was a banker. She was the mill child.
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Narrator
Despite her Stable upbringing, Patty struggled with her self confidence.
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Bernie's Child
She had this scar that literally dragged a portion of her face down so that physically is the first thing that you really notice with her. Patty developed a tumor when she was very young. Had to have it surgically removed. That left her with a very noticeable and deep scar that she carried with her for the rest of her life. It became like the focus of her life is like, you know, I'm hideous, I'm deformed. No one's ever going to like me over love me.
- [10:01]
Narrator
In spite of her insecurities, Patty found love not once, but twice.
- [10:07]
Carl
She had two prior marriages. Previously, she had been married to Richard Menken, who was a Fort Lauderdale police officer.
- [10:15]
Narrator
Divorced in 1982, Patty was ready to put herself out there again when she struck up her friendship with Bernie.
- [10:23]
Detective
Things were going well with Patty and Bernie on the phone. You know, they just clicked. But she was a little apprehensive to meet him in person because of course, she didn't know how he'd react to that scar on her face.
- [10:38]
Narrator
Finally, Patty and Bernie agreed to meet.
- [10:41]
Bernie's Child
He didn't see that scar on her face. He didn't see that. He saw the beautiful person on the inside.
- [10:49]
Carl
As we speed up the relationship, she ends up moving in with Bernie. Patty ended up being the surrogate mom to these three children of his because basically he was working all the time.
- [11:00]
Bernie's Child
Patricia made it seem like she would be a loving, devoted mother to us, that she would help him and that, you know, like, I could imagine that. He saw it as a great weight lifted off of his shoulder.
- [11:16]
Narrator
The couple quickly married in 1982, and Patty took steps to show her commitment to Bernie's three toddlers.
- [11:23]
Bernie's Child
She said, you know, she really loved us and she wanted to be our mother, you know, legally as well as, you know, in name. So, you know, she agreed to adopt us all and become our, basically our new mother.
- [11:38]
Narrator
About a year after their wedding, the James family made an abrupt move.
- [11:43]
Bernie's Child
So we were living in Edgewater, Maryland. Our father's family is there, and Patty's family has moved to Florida. So she decides to move us all down to Florida to be with her family.
- [11:53]
Narrator
Florida provided a fresh start for Bernie to pursue something he was passionate about.
- [11:59]
Bernie's Child
He finally landed the Florida State park job. What affected his decision to become a park ranger and his love of the outdoors stemmed from his time in Vietnam.
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I used to go with him on some of his ride alongs. He was charged with caring for the alligators. So when we got down to Florida, you know, everything is hunky dory. This is going to be good for us.
- [12:27]
Narrator
But three years later, things have gone terribly wrong.
- [12:31]
Carl
Patty discovers him seated in the front seat of the vehicle, unresponsive.
- [12:37]
Narrator
Patty explains to detectives she is willing to help with the investigation as much as she can, but first she needs to tend to her children.
- [12:46]
Witness
She's got to focus her attention on the kids while the detectives are, like, standing outside trying to piece together what happened out there.
- [13:00]
Narrator
While Patty and her family head inside to break the news to her children outside, a homicide investigation begins.
- [13:08]
Detective
EMS and Wilton Manor's PD then secures the scene. And we come in to do our job. We had motor oil off to the side and some tools inside the vehicle. The victims. While it was a few feet from the vehicle, it appeared to have been rifled through, and it was tossed on the driveway area.
- [13:31]
Carl
There was no cash, but his ID and credit cards was still in a wallet.
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Detective
In my experience, if someone's gonna commit a robbery and they take a wallet or a purse, they're not gonna inventory it right there. They're gonna run down the street or hop in the car, and we'll find the purse or the remnants of their wallet, you know, blocks away, not at the scene. That's an inconsistency with a traditional type of robbery.
- [14:00]
Narrator
With Bernie's murder seeming less like a random act of violence, investigators suspect something more sinister may be at play.
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Detective
So police were asking the question now, was this personal?
- [14:17]
Narrator
Coming up, a potential suspect emerges.
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Witness
She came out there, and he was talking to a black guy.
- [14:24]
Narrator
And a calculated scheme is revealed.
- [14:28]
Detective
The scene was set up.
- [14:29]
Somebody's not telling the truth.
- [14:39]
Narrator
March 24, 1987. Wilton Manors, Florida. Investigators are inspecting a puzzling scene outside the home of murder victim Bernie James.
- [14:53]
Detective
We have the wallet, which was strewn about. You also had the victim, who was again, out laying on the driveway, partially on the grass outside of the vehicle. We also have the vehicle, which is a significant piece of evidence because this is where the crime is alleged to have occurred.
- [15:16]
Narrator
As the crime scene survey wraps up and Bernie's body is sent to the medical examiner's office for a proper autopsy, reality sets in for Bernie's kids, who are just 6, 7, and 8 years old.
- [15:30]
Bernie's Child
@ that time, we were living with Jane Donohue, Patricia's mom. And Patricia woke us all up, and she brought us all into her bed, and she had said, you know, I have something terrible to tell you. Your father's been murdered. And I remember crying. I started to shut down.
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I'm in total shock. I Can't believe anyone would ever kill my father. He was the nicest person in the world. No one should ever have had a reason to kill him.
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Narrator
After settling her children, Patty heads back outside to recap the chilling events that led to the 911 call.
- [16:12]
Carl
Patty initially told the detectives on the scene that they had just gotten home from the grocery store and she was putting groceries out. Bernie told her that he initially had it to take care of electrical problem in the vehicle and also had to do an oil change on the car. And she subsequently went inside the house and he stayed outside in the front yard with the vehicle.
- [16:38]
Witness
Patty, she's in the house and she decides to go outside and check on Bernie. She came out there and he was talking to a black guy who's looking for some matches. He just wanted to light his cigar down the road.
- [16:52]
Narrator
Patty says though she got a good look at the man, she didn't recognize him.
- [16:57]
Carl
He was approximately 6ft tall, in his 20s, spoke with a French accent, was wearing a light colored shirt and dark colored pants.
- [17:06]
Narrator
Although she thought the situation was odd, Patty says her husband told her to go back into the house.
- [17:14]
Carl
She said she went back inside the house. Approximately 20 minutes later, she come back outside the house and that's when she found Bernie inside the vehicle and the blackmail gun. So she went back in the house and called the mother who came outside and checked on him and found that he didn't have a pulse.
- [17:33]
Detective
She then calls her brother Michael, who lives just a few houses down the street.
- [17:37]
Carl
That's kind of out of the ordinary to call her brother before she called fire rescue. In stressful moments, people react differently and sometimes panic. And the first thing they do is they call somebody that they know to come help them.
- [17:56]
Narrator
After speaking with Patty, police turned to her mom and brother who'd rushed to her side after the discovery of the body.
- [18:05]
Carl
Patty's mom, Jane, said that evening she was sick and she went to bed about 6:30 because she wasn't feeling well. And approximately 8:45 she was waking up by Patty screaming, telling her to come outside. And basically her story is consistent with what Patty had said.
- [18:27]
Witness
They cooperate. Everything that she's telling the police, her brother saying, yeah, my sister called me and she's crying, she's screaming. I couldn't understand the word, but she said, get over here. Something's happened to Bernie. So he rushes over.
- [18:43]
Carl
A brother came over to the house and removed him from the vehicle. And then they began doing CPR.
- [18:53]
Narrator
With the immediate witnesses stories all matching up. Investigators take a different approach Patty works.
- [19:00]
Detective
With a sketch artist to give him all the details and describe the man who she saw talking to her husband.
- [19:06]
Carl
There's a quiet residential neighborhood in Walt manors, so things like that don't usually happen, and people know who's in the neighborhood. So once the sketch is done, the police went around knocking to knocking on doors of several houses in the neighborhood, showing the composite, and they got no response from anybody that has seen this individual. So the first night of search, basically nothing comes up. There's no suspect located that night.
- [19:34]
Narrator
The next morning, investigators hope the autopsy will help explain the horrific chain of events.
- [19:42]
Detective
The victim was struck. Blunt trauma right side of the head over the ear. He had several ligature marks that were around his neck in an ascending position, which means somebody was pulling up on his neck with some type of ligature, whether it be a rope, whether it be wire. He died of asphyxiation, as determined by the medical examiner.
- [20:09]
Bernie doesn't have any defensive wounds at all, which means he was probably surprised by his attacker.
- [20:17]
So basically, he didn't know it was coming. He just got hit, went down, ligature is applied, he's choked out, he dies of asphyxiation. And that could not have occurred in the car.
- [20:30]
Carl
It didn't happen in the vehicle because there was no room in the vehicle to be able to strike somebody in the head. And with blunt force trauma to the head, you're going to have tremendous amount of bleeding coming from the ear and that area. So in this instance, when you observe the vehicle and the passenger side, you're not seeing that amount of blood. That should coincide with the type of injury that he has sustained.
- [20:55]
Detective
Now, detectives know that the murder didn't happen in that car. It happened somewhere else.
- [21:06]
Narrator
After reviewing the medical examiner's findings, investigators turned to the victim's vehicle for more clues.
- [21:14]
Detective
We have a garage facility where we conduct further investigation about the vehicle. We take blood samples from inside the car. We look for any other trace evidence that may be present.
- [21:25]
Carl
One of the things that Patty had said was that he was going to do an oil change. They checked the dipstick. They noticed the vehicle was at full. So that's inconsistent to what she had said, that he was going to do an oil change.
- [21:39]
Narrator
The discovery casts doubt on Patty's initial story.
- [21:44]
Detective
The lack of excessive blood within the vehicle. The scene was set up with the oil cans when the car didn't need oil. The fact that the wallet was rifled through within a couple of feet of the vehicle. When you look at all the physical evidence, it is absolutely inconsistent with the report to 911 and to the police.
- [22:09]
Somebody's not telling the truth. And investigators begin to look at Patty.
- [22:14]
Carl
We need to talk to her again.
- [22:19]
Narrator
Coming up, investigators learn things aren't all they seem in the James household.
- [22:26]
Bernie's Child
I could see it in my dad's eyes and face that he just wanted to get far away as possible.
- [22:33]
Narrator
And a stunning confession adds a new twist to the investigation.
- [22:37]
Carl
She paused for a second. She lowered her head, said that she knows who killed him.
- [22:49]
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- [25:10]
Narrator
Two days after beloved father and park ranger Bernie James was murdered, investigators in Broward County, Florida, are beginning to poke holes in his wife Patty's initial statement.
- [25:24]
Witness
Patty implied that the murder must have happened outside the house. She had just seen him earlier with the black male, and then 20 minutes later, she comes out again and then he's dead. You know, it just didn't make any sense. I think she totally made up the story.
- [25:42]
Narrator
Rather than tip Patty off with probing questions, they begin digging into her relationship with Bernie through other means.
- [25:50]
Carl
We want to know what their personal life is about, so we start talking to other people to see if there's any issues with the two of them.
- [26:02]
Narrator
On March 27, 1987, investigators question Bernie's parents, Dolores and Bernard James Sr. And they paint a troubling picture of the couple's relationship.
- [26:15]
Detective
Bernie's parents fly into town for their son's funeral, and detectives do meet with them. And they discover that after Bernie married Patty, there was definitely some bad blood within the family.
- [26:28]
Bernie's Child
Patricia had told my dad, I'm the woman of the house now. Care for me. Care for your children, don't care for other people. And so he kind of stopped helping out his parents. He stopped buying them food, you know, stopped doing all those things. And she had somehow convinced my dad to move down to Florida because there was this rift in the family.
- [26:52]
Carl
Bernie's mother Dolores, said she hadn't talked to her son very often. One of the things that she did brought up is that they left Maryland and moved and they lost contact with him. Dolores kind of said that the reason that Bernie married Patricia is to fill a void in his life and have somebody who could take care of his children. So in that capacity, he kind of rushed into this whole relationship with her.
- [27:21]
Bernie's Child
I never saw them kiss. I never saw them hold hands. I never saw them hug. I saw it more of like a companionship or friendship type relationship.
- [27:32]
Narrator
Bernie's parents say that a lack of affection wasn't the only issue plaguing Bernie and Patty's marriage.
- [27:39]
Bernie's Child
They would get into huge fights and they were all verbal yelling fights, screaming matches. And she Would make him leave. As I got older and I started to see their dynamic, I could see it in my dad's eyes and face that he just wanted to get as far away from her as possible.
- [28:01]
Narrator
Bernie's mother says that after years of silence, she finally heard from her son in the fall of 1985.
- [28:10]
Bernie's Child
Before my father's murder was the first time he called his mother in years. My father told her that he was coming home, that he was going to leave Patty, that he had had enough, that he was going to, you know, leave her, divorce her.
- [28:26]
Narrator
But dolores says Bernie never followed through with the move. And almost a year later, she received a disturbing communication from her son.
- [28:36]
Carl
Dolores had said approximately six months prior to the murder, she received a typewritten letter, supposedly coming from her son, that he had been drinking and that he had been abusing Patricia. And she felt that was kind of odd, that he would send her a typewritten letter.
- [28:54]
Detective
It was completely out of character for Bernie. So the family started to wonder if patty wrote that.
- [28:59]
Narrator
Let's. On April 8, 1987, investigators confront Patty with their suspicions about her story and her strained relationship with Bernie.
- [29:16]
Carl
So originally, patty was called down to the station to look at some mug shots, and she said she couldn't identify anybody. And from that, they segued into some questions that they wanted to clear up.
- [29:30]
Witness
Her story just doesn't make sense. I don't know who has an oil change that late at night.
- [29:35]
Detective
You know, whatever people say from the first time they speak to a law enforcement, they're locked into that. If they change their story, they're going to have to explain why.
- [29:50]
Narrator
As investigators push patty, her demeanor suddenly shifts.
- [29:55]
Carl
The detectives asked patricia if there was anything else she had to say. She paused for a second. She lowered her head and said that she knows who killed her husband.
- [30:08]
Narrator
Investigators press patty for more details.
- [30:12]
Detective
Patty says she knows who killed Bernie, but she didn't see what happened. And she says the man that did it she met a few months ago at a bowling alley, and his name is Tim ott.
- [30:23]
Narrator
According to Patty, she, tim, and bernie were in a bowling league together, and tim had witnessed firsthand the abuse she'd endured at the hands of Bernie.
- [30:36]
Carl
One of the incidents she recalled is that one time her and bernie were at a bowling alley, and Bernie became abusive with her, and Tim had seen that incident.
- [30:50]
Narrator
Patty's new story is that a few weeks later, on the night of March 24, she and Bernie went to tim's house to discuss the bowling schedule.
- [31:00]
Detective
Patty says when she gets there, she doesn't feel well, so she asked to use Tim's bathroom.
- [31:06]
Narrator
Once she went to the bathroom, Patty says things took a turn.
- [31:11]
Carl
She knows the volume of the TV was up. She said when she tried to get out, the bathroom door was locked and she was unable to get out of the bathroom.
- [31:23]
Detective
Tim tells Patty to stay inside the bathroom. After a while, he lets her out. When she gets out, she doesn't see Bernie in the living room. Tim grabs her by the arm and takes her outside. And that's when she sees Bernie inside of his car. According to Patty, Tim drives her back to her home. Tim then drives back home, gets inside Bernie's car, and drives Bernie's car back to Patty's house and then leaves on foot. Patty says once she felt safe, she went outside and she checked on Bernie. But she says Bernie didn't have a pulse.
- [32:03]
Carl
Patricia realizes that Bernie's dead.
- [32:08]
Narrator
Patty claims that she felt she had to keep this horrible secret.
- [32:14]
Audible Advertiser
She was afraid, afraid of Timothy Ott.
- [32:17]
Bernie's Child
So she engineered this robbery scenario.
- [32:22]
Narrator
To detectives, the idea that Tim would orchestrate such an elaborate plot to save Patty from Bernie's alleged abuse feels far fetched.
- [32:32]
Carl
The police asked her to take a polygraph test. She said she couldn't take it at that time, that they would reschedule it.
- [32:41]
Narrator
Though Patty's story sounds extreme, without anything to hold her on, investigators release her and immediately bring Tim Ott in for questioning.
- [32:52]
Carl
He agrees to cooperate with the police and go down to the police station. When they get down there, he's very soft spoken and very intelligent, and he proceeds to answer all their questions.
- [33:04]
Detective
Detectives ask him about his relationship with Patty and Bernie, and he seems confused, and he says he's never even heard of the couple.
- [33:14]
Carl
They then show him a Polaroid picture of Patricia James, and he goes and tells them, I know her by the name of Demi. I don't know her by the name of Patricia.
- [33:29]
Narrator
Coming up, investigators unmask a master of deception.
- [33:35]
Detective
She is pretending to be not one, but two different people.
- [33:39]
Bernie's Child
She was using me in a lot of her scams and cons.
- [33:43]
Narrator
And a chilling plot is exposed.
- [33:46]
Detective
They discussed several different ways on how to kill Bernie. They were going to grind up apple seeds and apricot seeds, along with some Valium.
- [34:05]
Narrator
Investigators sitting down with potential murder suspect Tim Ott are shocked to learn that the woman who accused him of murder may be leading a double life.
- [34:16]
Witness
They're presenting him with photo IDs of Bernie, the victim, and Bernie's wife Patricia. And he's like, confused. And he goes, wait, what? He goes, that's that's Booth and that's Demi. That's how I know them. We're on the bowling league. Demi's a friend of my fiance, T.J.
- [34:42]
Detective
Tim says T.J. his fiance is a woman that he's only met over the phone.
- [34:48]
Witness
And he goes, booth was married to my fiance, tj and she told me he's an abuser.
- [34:57]
Detective
He also says that TJ Told him that Booth was a child molester.
- [35:04]
Narrator
On the night of March 24, 1987, Tim says he and Demi, aka Patty, put a murder plot into motion to stop Booth from hurting anyone else ever again.
- [35:18]
Carl
Tim says that they show up at his apartment, and Demi, he goes to the bathroom, and Tim knows that this individual was a child molester. And sometime during the conversation, he grabs a baseball bat and hits the Booth on the side of the head. He said that he didn't go down, so he grabbed some wire and began to strangle him. And he said he had a hard time gripping the wires, so he had to have several times where he had to readjust the wires in order to strangle them, where he had no breath left. Ott went on to say that they then load Booth in his car, and he drove him back to the house.
- [36:03]
Narrator
After listening to Tim's chilling confession, detectives attempt to understand the roles of the other people involved in the plot and their real identities.
- [36:15]
Detective
At this point, they know that Patty is pretending to be Demi, and they know that Patty brought Bernie to the apartment to get killed. Now they're trying to figure out who is this mysterious TJ.
- [36:31]
Carl
Tr, After making the statement, produces a picture of TJ from his wallet and shows the investigators there's not somebody that the investigators knew at all.
- [36:41]
Narrator
Since Tim says he has never met TJ in person, investigators have a sneaking suspicion she may not even exist.
- [36:50]
Detective
Based on all of Patty's manipulations, police are now realizing that Patty is pretending to be not one, but two different people. She pretends to be tj, an entirely made up flight attendant. And then when she realizes that TJ Is gonna actually have to meet Tim in person, she creates Demi. Demi is the one that actually goes and meets face to face with Tim and puts the entire murder plot in motion.
- [37:23]
Narrator
Tim says he and Demi, AKA Patty, had discussed several potential plots prior to the murder.
- [37:31]
Detective
They discussed several different ways on how to kill Bernie. One was they were going to grind up some Valium and bake it into a cake. They did that, but it only made him sick. Then they talked about shooting him, but they couldn't find a remote Field to make that plot happen.
- [37:48]
Narrator
Ultimately, the pair decides Tim's apartment was the most secure location to commit the crime.
- [37:55]
Carl
Right after his statement said that he tried to clean everything up, but there were still spots of blood on the carpet.
- [38:03]
Narrator
Tim accompanies investigators to his apartment on April 8, 15 days after Bernie's murder.
- [38:11]
Witness
He brings the Texas to his house. He shows them where the event took place. There's still a little bit of blood there, Even though he said he had cleaned it. It all, it just came together.
- [38:24]
Detective
When we did the follow up investigation at Mr. Art's apartment with luminol, we discovered a great amount of blood there. Our discovery is consistent with the explanation that the incident, the blunt trauma was initially induced in the bedroom of Mr. Art's apartment. And this adds credibility to the confession that was obtained.
- [39:00]
Narrator
Detectives formally charged Tim Ott with first degree murder. But before they go after Patty, they circle back to Bernie's family and uncover more evidence about the extra extent of her deceptions.
- [39:16]
Bernie's Child
Patty was a manipulative con artist. Her primary means of income was frivolous lawsuits that she won.
- [39:23]
Carl
If you start to look at her background and you go, wow, you know, this was a culmination of a lot of years of her going around and scamming people and getting what she wants.
- [39:37]
Bernie's Child
She was using me in a lot of her scams and cons. I was the focus for her scams because I was the easiest to manipulate.
- [39:45]
Carl
One of the scams that Patricia did was she went and told everybody her son Nicholas was deaf. She tried to raise money for Nicholas and for the family.
- [39:57]
Bernie's Child
We would go to the library and she would check out books on American sign language and, you know, she would try to teach it to Nicholas and have him do it back to her.
- [40:06]
Detective
She used this as a way to scam churches out of money.
- [40:13]
Narrator
On top of using her children for financial gain, Patty isolated them from the outside world as much as possible.
- [40:22]
Detective
Neighbors were shocked to find out that Patty had children. They said they had never seen him before.
- [40:29]
Bernie's Child
We never really left the house. We would be allowed to go to the backyard, but we didn't, you know, play on the street. We didn't go outside, really. People didn't really see us.
- [40:38]
Narrator
According to Bernie's family, Patty even kept them from their own family.
- [40:43]
Bernie's Child
I know that she was trying to cause a rift not only just between him and his family, but between him and us. One of the stipulations working as a park ranger is that you're on site and she would hardly ever let him see us. She was Completely trying to isolate us three from everybody. We were kids. We absolutely trusted Patty implicitly. We didn't really know any better.
- [41:15]
Detective
It was clear that those children suffered years of abuse by Patty.
- [41:22]
Carl
Her being so abusive to the children and involved in so many illness scams. The police come up with she was this person that could manipulate someone to commit a murder.
- [41:36]
Narrator
Coming up, a layered motive exposes the twisted mind of a criminal.
- [41:42]
Bernie's Child
She had him take out a life insurance policy on himself.
- [41:45]
Detective
She tells them that she has suffered abuse the entire time.
- [41:50]
Witness
She knew how people were sympathetic to her, and she knew how to manipulate them.
- [42:05]
Narrator
After learning more about Patty James capacity for manipulation and violence, investigators are nearly certain she's responsible for the murder of her husband Bernie James.
- [42:18]
Carl
At this point, realizing that she was capable of doing that, they think she is. Now they're trying to figure out what her motive was to have killed.
- [42:27]
Narrator
Investigators believe Patty felt forced to act when Bernie decided to leave her.
- [42:32]
Witness
In my opinion, she realized that her husband Bernie was going to divorce her and she couldn't handle it.
- [42:45]
Bernie's Child
Patty couldn't stand rejection, and this would have been her third. If my father had successfully divorced her, it would have been her third divorce.
- [42:53]
Narrator
Investigators contact Bernie's insurance agent and learn of another possible motive.
- [42:59]
Bernie's Child
Before my father died, she had him take out a life insurance policy on himself and had all three of his children declared non beneficiaries. So Patty was the only beneficiary to his policy.
- [43:13]
Detective
With the physical evidence, Tim Ott's confession, the life insurance policies, and the history of abuse and manipulation, detectives now believe they have enough for an arrest warrant.
- [43:28]
Narrator
On June 8, 1987, investigators make their move.
- [43:33]
Carl
Police were able to build a case and meet with the prosecutors that led to her arrest at the children's school.
- [43:40]
Witness
The police go to the school. She drops off the kids, she sees police, and they affect the arrest on her for first degree murder.
- [43:53]
Narrator
Now in custody, Patty says she is finally ready to come clean.
- [43:59]
Detective
She tells them that she has suffered abuse the entire time she's been married to Bernie, and she just couldn't take it anymore.
- [44:08]
Narrator
But according to Patty, it wasn't really her who orchestrated the plot.
- [44:14]
Witness
She literally drops her head down. It's quiet for a few seconds. She pops up, and then she goes, I don't remember anything about this murder. I don't remember being part of the murder. It must have been TJ who has another personality in me.
- [44:34]
Narrator
Investigators are not convinced, and she remains in custody to await trial. While Patty is ready to take her chances in court, her accomplice Isn't willing to risk it.
- [44:52]
Detective
So rather than take his chances with a jury, Tim decides to take a plea for second degree murder and testify against Patty.
- [45:01]
Narrator
On November 30, 1987, Patty's trial kicks off.
- [45:08]
Carl
The prosecutor painted Patty as being the manipulative one who set up the murder of her husband. The defense came back and said this was all Tim otz dealing. He was the one who did the murder, and Patty was the victim of the case.
- [45:30]
Narrator
When both sides rest, it's hard to tell what the jury will believe.
- [45:36]
Audible Advertiser
There was one juror who stopped listening, stopped looking at the evidence, would not engage in discussions.
- [45:45]
Bernie's Child
When it went back to the jury and he refused to say guilty or not guilty. He just refused to work.
- [45:56]
Audible Advertiser
And at that point, the court had.
- [45:58]
Bernie's Child
No choice but to enter a mistrial.
- [46:01]
Narrator
But in Patty's second trial, she is quickly convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
- [46:12]
Carl
I think they did a great job with building the case against her, Showing what a manipulative person she was.
- [46:19]
Bernie's Child
If the word evil could be applied to a person, it would definitely be applied to Patty. She has no conscience, no compassion, no remorse. She truly doesn't care about anyone else but herself.
- [46:33]
I don't view her as human. That's why I called her my evil step monster is because she is pure evil.
- [46:43]
If I could talk to my father right now, I would say, you know, I wish you had never married Patty. I wish you'd never met her. I wish we'd been closer. Cause I do miss you. I miss you tremendously.
- [46:59]
Audible Advertiser
Bernie's children were raised by their maternal grandparents. Timothy Ott was sentenced to 20 years in prison and has since been released. In 2018, Patty James died in prison after serving 30 years of her life sentence.
- [47:17]
Narrator
You don't believe in ghosts. I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that link in the darkness and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone chilling stories of the unexplained Search for haunted Canada on apple podcast, Spotify, Amazon music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.