[Neil] I always thought that Stephanie could have the world at her feet.
She had the, the ability to be in front of the camera
and to be in front of an audience.
Whatever she gravitated towards, she...
she did 100 percent always.
She was on track with her job, with her career,
she had a really strong friendship group.
I thought it was perfect.
I guess I was wrong.
[woman 1 speaking]
It's not so much what's in the 911 call as much as it is,
uh, what is not in that 911 call.
No one ever saw any signs of somebody
even remotely having the capability to do these things.
How could you foretell something like that?
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] It's 1988 in Corsicana, Texas.
Today's a special occasion for young parents Neil and Cindy Kirkpatrick...
the baptism of their two-month-old son Dean.
Dean was baptized on January the 17th of 1988...
uh, at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Corsicana.
Baptism is a, a big event in most families and it certainly was in ours.
[narrator] Neil stands behind his son's proud godparents,
Neil's brother Steve and his wife Peggy.
Neil's wife Cindy holds the couple's three-year-old daughter Stephanie.
When Stephanie was born, well, my first thought was,
"What in the world am I going to do with a daughter?"
I've only got two brothers. I have no sisters.
And then they handed her to me and none of it mattered.
It was a an amazing thing for me.
[indistinct chatter]
[cries]
[Neil] During the baptism, Stephanie asked her mother
what was going to happen and Cindy told Stephanie
that the priest was going to pour water on Dean's head.
And... that just terrified Stephanie.
[indistinct chatter]
[cries]
[Neil] You know, I had forgotten...
how genuinely upset she was.
She did not want anybody to do anything
that she thought was going to hurt her little brother.
[crying]
[Neil] Let me tell you, Dean was not concerned about it one bit.
He, he was just fine.
[indistinct chatter]
[Neil] After the baptism, everybody came over to our house,
um, and we celebrated Stephanie's third birthday.
She had turned three the day before.
[narrator] Stephanie and her two-year-old cousin Brian
sing Baby Dean a lullaby
before Stephanie receives her presents.
[singing]
♪ Like a diamond in the sky ♪
[Brian] Stephanie and I were nine months apart,
so we spent a lot of time together.
We were quite the unit when we were kids.
We, we, we played all the time.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
[cheering]
- You can't take that. - [woman 2] You gonna help?
[Neil] Birthdays for the children were always a big deal.
[indistinct chatter]
Stephanie developed the ability to talk very clearly early on.
[Neil] When she was about 18 months old, I counted 100 words.
And by the time she was two...
uh, Stephanie talked in full sentences.
And by the time she was three,
she could conduct a conversation with pretty much anybody
and would be happy to do that.
[soft music playing]
[narrator] Fast forward to 1991.
[narrator] Stephanie is six years old.
[Neil] Stephanie and Dean loved pets.
And so for them to have puppies
was just a huge thing for them.
I don't really remember how it started...
but the puppies became the subject of Puppy Newsbreak.
I'd get out the video camera
and Stephanie would give an interview.
[Neil] She would conduct a little news interview about the, the dogs
telling us about each one, about what their name was.
When it came to performing, I don't think Stephanie really cared
whether it was a camera or an audience.
She just, she loved doing it.
[Neil] When Stephanie was six,
she portrayed Little Red Riding Hood
in a production in a community theater there in Corsicana.
She knew her lines and everyone else's.
[Neil] She knew exactly what was going on
and, and who needed to say what and when and where they should be and...
She, she was not afraid to help.
[laughs]
She just moved around that stage like she belonged there.
Okay, get it on tape.
- Get it on tape. - Here we go.
[narrator] Stephanie loves to put on a show at home too.
[playful music playing]
The seven-year-old plays keyboard
and her six-year-old cousin Brian dances for the camera.
[Neil] Stephanie had a way of roping everybody
into what she was doing.
And she did that a lot with Brian.
With them being so close in age,
they were, they were big buddies.
Entertaining is something that both her and I have always enjoyed doing,
especially at a young age.
[indistinct chatter]
And that's about as good of dancing skills that I still have.
[narrator] Fun family gatherings like this one
will soon become a thing of the past.
In July of 1998, we loaded everybody up
and moved to Sugar Land, Texas.
It's about 250 miles from Corsicana.
Stephanie was 13...
and Dean was ten.
I was sworn in to the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office
as a deputy in March of 1999 on a volunteer basis.
You know, it allowed me to do something
that was very meaningful for me.
Stephanie started her ninth grade
or freshman year at Saint Agnes
in, in the fall of 1999.
I think over the four years that she was there,
she did a lot to improve her, her vocal ability and her confidence.
[vocalizing]
She joined the choir immediately when she got to Saint Agnes.
Uh, and that became a huge focal point for her.
Her best friends were people that she met... in choir.
[Nicola] I remember walking in that first day of school
and seeing a girl sitting by herself,
and I thought, "Well, she's alone and I tend to be alone,
maybe we could be alone together."
So I walked up and introduced myself
and that was the first day of being best friends
with somebody for the first time.
[narrator] Stephanie wins a place in Saint Agnes High School's elite choir,
the Triple Trio.
The Triple Trio was a group of singers.
So it was nine women singers.
It was very, very, very difficult to get into.
Everyone wanted to join.
[Neil] She auditioned and she got it and was absolutely thrilled.
It was a very big deal for her.
She had literally wanted it for several years by that point.
So, she was, she was very happy.
[Nicola] Saint Agnes is an all-girls school
and it is just across the parking lot from an all-boys school,
uh, Strake Jesuit College Preparatory.
So we actually would join forces for things like the choir.
One of the boys at Strake, a boy named David Brueggen,
he and Stephanie were like best buddies.
David was actually Stephanie's date to homecoming,
I think it was their sophomore year.
He was a good friend to Stephanie.
He turned out to play a significant role
in a number of things in Stephanie's life.
[dramatic music playing]
[Neil] In the fall of 2003,
Stephanie graduated eighth in her class at Saint Agnes.
Her academic record gave her the opportunity
to go to just about any college she wanted to.
She had made up her mind that she wanted to go to Notre Dame.
[Nicola] Notre Dame is a fantastic university.
Stephanie went off to study psychology and PLS at Notre Dame.
PLS is the Program for Liberal Studies.
She would always want to work with autistic children.
[Neil] She had gotten into this research project
and she had to take a camera with her
and videotape these learning sessions
because that was part of the research.
Stephanie exhibited the patience of job with this boy.
She was very gentle with him and, and very, very patient.
Stephanie wanted to be the very best she could be
and to do the very best she could in anything that she did.
[narrator] Behind the scenes, Stephanie faces her own challenges.
I know she was nervous about going to school out of state away from home.
She'd never lived that far away from home before.
She was doing so much work with the double major.
There's a lot of pressure that she put herself under.
[narrator] Stephanie returns to Texas for Thanksgiving 2006.
To say that we were worried about Stephanie
and her eating's a bit of an understatement.
We were extremely concerned.
You know, when we first approached her about it,
she denied that anything was wrong.
She eventually recognized that she had an eating disorder.
She was very sick at one point.
[Nicola] It was very hard at university to see her going through that...
and not be there to help, not be there to support.
[Neil] She came to acknowledge her, her problem
and she addressed it and sought counseling and, and did the work.
And I think it speaks very much to her strength of character...
how well she handled everything
and that she did all the right things, she did get help.
[soft music playing]
[Neil] Stephanie graduated from Notre Dame in May of 2007
with a bachelor of arts in two majors, Psychology and Liberal Studies.
She moved back to Sugar Land and actually lived with me for a while.
She immediately started trying to get a job
with the Monarch School in Houston.
It's a school for children with neurological disorders
and it's the place that Stephanie had decided early on that she wanted to work.
She enrolled in the University of Houston to get a master's in special education.
And that's what allowed her to get her teaching credentials
and to become a teacher at the Monarch School.
Within a very short period of time of moving home after college,
Stephanie began performing in a number of community theaters.
[narrator] Here she plays Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz for a local drama group.
[Neil] I think over the next few years
she performed in at least five or six different community theaters
around the, the Houston area.
She had done really, really well from the start
with her teaching career at the Monarch School.
She was always working or always rehearsing or always performing.
She was busy, busy, busy.
She was very happy with, with what she had chosen to do with her life.
I think at that point
all that she felt was missing was a partner, romance.
I know she always wanted to find the right, the right guy
because she wanted her own family, she wanted to get married,
she wanted to have children.
[Neil] When Stephanie moved home, she of course got a chance
to, to be around some of her friends from high school
and to do some things with them.
That included David Brueggen and some of his friends from Texas A&M Galveston
where he had attended school.
[Nicola] I think they'd been hanging out one night
and she asked if maybe he knew somebody that she'd be interested in.
And he thought, "Oh, I know this guy that I can call for you."
David Brueggen was the one that introduced Stephanie to Daniel Politte.
[Nicola] I think David imagined that they would be a good match.
Daniel had been his college roommate, they had the same major
and they ended up working together at the Houston Shipping Channel...
and it only made sense, you know,
two of his best friends, why wouldn't they hit it off.
He dialed his friend Daniel...
he stuffed the phone into Stephanie's hand
and made her start talking to him.
And they really, really got on well from the get-go.
[Neil] When I first met Dan,
he had come to the house to pick Stephanie up to go to dinner.
You know, he seemed like a nice enough guy,
just a little skinny kind of nerdy guy.
Stephanie sure seemed to like him and that's all that really mattered to me.
I think what made Daniel so appealing to Stephanie
is that he did genuinely seem to care about her.
They got into each other's worlds.
Daniel was really into gaming
and so Stephanie played video games with him, online games with him.
And Daniel would man the ticket booth at some of her shows.
They became pretty much inseparable.
In 2010,
Daniel asked if I would go ring shopping with him
because he wanted to propose to Stephanie.
We went to a bunch of different stores all over Houston.
He really had a good idea of what he thought she would like.
And I was thrilled. I was so happy for her
because this is what she'd wanted.
[Neil] Dan actually came to me to ask me for permission to marry Stephanie.
And I told him that the only thing that mattered to me was that he took care of her.
[Nicola] Obviously I knew that the proposal was coming.
But when Stephanie told me she was engaged,
she was happy in a way that I hadn't seen before.
Stephanie and Dan were married in December of 2011.
A daughter's wedding is one of those things
that I'm not sure that any father could quite describe it.
You know, it's, it's a combination
of an extraordinarily difficult thing
and a very proud day as a father.
I mean tears were just running down my face.
[Nicola] David was the best man, which was, of course, very fitting,
and he gave a wedding toast and he had talked about how he got them together.
And it was lovely to see how proud and happy he was
to have two of his friends end up together.
And it was beautiful. It was a beautiful wedding.
Not too long after Stephanie and Dan married,
they bought a house in Missouri City.
Missouri City and Sugar Land are right next to each other.
It was a nice little neighborhood of these very quaint cottage style houses.
[Brian] I remember having a conversation with Stephanie
uh, shortly after they were married
that they were going to start trying to have children.
I could tell she was excited about that.
[Neil] By the fall term of 2013,
she had really started to come into her own as a teacher.
The administration and her fellow teachers at the school,
I think had started to recognize her ability.
[Nicola] She was happy. She's fulfilled.
And she's doing very, very well and she just kept progressing with her career.
[narrator] Daniel takes the opportunity to develop his work prospects too.
Dan went back to school in August of 2013.
So, that's when he quit his job
and they were living just off of Stephanie's salary as a teacher.
Daniel had thought engineering would have a bit more usefulness
and a bit more earning potential for the future.
[Neil] Going back to, to school to get a degree in engineering,
he clearly was not cut out for it.
He was struggling in class, he, his grades were, were not good,
he was failing at least one of his classes,
I think, maybe perhaps all of them.
[Nicola] At one point Stephanie and I were talking...
she told me that she had come home one day
and found him passed out on the sofa and he'd been drinking.
And he was supposed to have been in class, but he'd been just playing video games.
And she was so disappointed and so upset
because she told me, you know, "I'm doing everything right now
to keep us afloat and he can't even be bothered
to, to take this one class he's failing."
[Neil] By the beginning of 2014,
their finances were not in the greatest shape.
I, I know that they, there were a couple of bills
that they just hadn't been able to pay on for several months.
[Nicola] I think Stephanie wished he had just cashed in with school
and gone back to get a job.
There was obviously no point in his being at university
if he wasn't going to take it seriously.
There's no point in their spending their money
on tuition payments for classes that he wasn't attending.
[Neil] I think that perhaps one of the things that created some friction
between the two of them was the fact
that she was doing better, she was doing well.
[Nicola] Daniel I think was floundering a little bit.
I think he felt ashamed that he wasn't bringing in household income.
So I think he felt frustrated there.
And I think maybe that's when they started to drift apart.
In February of 2014, my husband and I had a party in Houston.
And at one point Stephanie had quite a bit to drink
and so, we went into another room to sit down
and, and just chat, the two of us.
And she started crying.
And it was at that point that she started talking about leaving him.
[woman 1 speaking]
[Amanda] On Tuesday, March 11th at 11:26 pm,
a 911 call came in to the Missouri City Police.
The caller identified himself as Daniel Politte.
[woman 1 speaking]
[siren wailing]
[Amanda] At the beginning of the 911 call, EMS
and the fire department is dispatched immediately
because of the medical emergency.
[woman 1 speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
[Amanda] So at this point the dispatcher instructs him
to get her off of the bed onto the floor onto a flat surface
so she can then give instructions for CPR.
- [woman 1 speaking] - [Daniel speaking]
[woman 1 speaking]
[Amanda] The fire department and emergency medical technicians
arrived at the Politte home pretty much simultaneously
with the first police officer, which was Officer Sanye
from the Missouri City Police Department.
EMS were quite shocked by what they discovered.
They found Stephanie laying on the floor in a pool of her own blood.
The bed, the pillows were covered in blood
and there was also significant blood spatter
all over the wall of the bedroom.
The first responders determined that she clearly had a wound to her head
and they saw a revolver laying on the floor nearby her.
In 15 and a half minutes of conversation between Daniel and the dispatcher,
there is never, not once, a mention of anything related to a gun.
[Amanda] Officer Sanye walks Daniel out of the house down the sidewalk
and then places him in front of his patrol vehicle
so that the camera from his patrol vehicle will pick up what is taking place.
[Daniel] Okay.
[policeman speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
[policeman speaking]
But for now I need you to slide back.
[Daniel speaking]
[policeman speaking]
Daniel's in the back of the patrol car by himself.
And within seconds of that patrol car door closing, you hear some mumbling.
[Daniel speaking]
[indistinct chatter]
[Paul] While Daniel's back in the patrol car,
Daniel goes from being rational to irrational.
[Daniel speaking]
His demeanor was constantly changing.
It would go from pure silence to what appeared to be crying.
[Daniel crying]
At another point he shouts out another expletive
that is clearly something that is derogatory towards women.
[Daniel speaking]
[Paul] Once EMS discovered that Stephanie had actually been shot,
they quickly realized that this was a fatal shot
and there was not really anything they could do for Stephanie.
And that's when our crime scene investigators were also notified to come to the scene.
[indistinct chatter over PA]
[Paul] I went to the patrol car and opened the back door and...
briefly spoke with Daniel and he actually asked me how his wife was.
And I told him, I had no other way to tell him, but..
- [Daniel speaking] - [Paul speaking]
As a heart attack.
[Daniel speaking]
[Paul speaking]
He didn't really show any emotion as to being, you know, sad or distraught.
That's when we took Daniel down to the police station.
Daniel insisted that he wanted an attorney.
And so, the detectives did not attempt to take any kind of formal statement from him.
At around 4:30 in the morning
on March the 12th of 2014, our doorbell rang.
I have made death notifications before as a police officer,
so I knew what this was before I ever went to answer the door.
And he said to me that Stephanie is no longer with us.
Those were his exact words.
The physical effect...
of hearing the words that your child is dead...
are very real.
I, and I had seen these before.
I had seen the physical reaction in other people.
And, and unfortunately I hadn't, I didn't really fully understand it...
until it happened to me.
It is an effect that I will never forget.
[Paul] In the early morning of March 12th,
Daniel Politte was charged with the murder of his wife Stephanie Politte.
Daniel is permitted to make a phone call to his parents.
[phone line rings]
[Mark speaking]
Yeah.
His father pretty quickly passes the phone off to his mother.
Daniel then starts launching into all these reasons
why she might have been trying to hurt herself.
You know, she was so depressed and, you know, she took that medication, mom,
and there was this award she was trying to win at school
and she'd learned that she didn't win.
[Daniel's Mother speaking]
Daniel tells them between her depression and her level of intoxication
she attempted to take her own life
and that Daniel attempted to intervene and save her life.
[Paul] When toxicology report came back,
it somewhat supported Daniel's story of Stephanie had been drinking.
[Amanda] Daniel was seen by a judge and his bond was set at $125,000.
Daniel was released the following day on what we call an attorney bond.
So really all the way up until the trial Daniel was free and out on bond.
[Paul] Once Daniel was released from jail, we still had to work on the case
so there would be no doubt
as to what actually happened in the house that night.
[Amanda] You certainly have to give consideration
as to whether this could have been a suicide or even an attempt at a suicide
that Daniel attempted to break up
and, you know, some sort of accidental discharge.
And that's where the forensic evidence became very important.
Memorial Day weekend of 2014.
[phone rings]
My cell phone rings and it's Dan.
But I just couldn't, I just couldn't answer the phone.
He sent me a text message explaining that he just wanted to talk to me.
And I thought about it for, for about a half hour...
because frankly, I didn't know if I could do it.
I finally decided to call him.
And I talked to him for about an hour and 20 minutes...
and I recorded the entire conversation.
[Daniel speaking]
[Neil speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
[Neil speaking]
[Daniel speaking]
The conversation that Daniel had with Neil was quite different
from the comments he initially made as to what occurred that night.
He's changed his story now from trying to prevent Stephanie
from committing suicide to now it's just some sort of tragic accident.
Once we received the autopsy results back,
we discovered that the gunshot
had been inflicted to the top of Stephanie's right side of her head
near the rear and the bullet had actually lodged
just under her left eye in her cheek.
[Amanda] The medical examiner was of the opinion
that her cheek was in contact with something at the time
that she was shot, which is why we developed the theory
that she was lying on her left side in the bed
with her cheek up against the pillow.
That's not at all consistent with some sort of struggle taking place.
No one would be in the course of a struggle with another person
and then at the same time have their, their cheek
pressed down onto a pillow or some other surface.
We also removed cell phones from the scene as part of the investigation.
Police discovered that at 11:04 pm a photo had been taken
using Stephanie's phone, but a picture of Stephanie asleep in the bed
and that was approximately 22 minutes before Daniel made the phone call to 911.
[Paul] The photo showed Stephanie lying in the exact position
that we believed her to be when she was shot.
We immediately realized that this was a crucial piece of evidence
that Stephanie did not shoot herself, that she was actually shot by Daniel.
Stephanie was not happy with what was going on in the marriage.
There was certainly some strain involved with Stephanie being the sole breadwinner...
with him being at home, you know, spending money, playing games but not working.
That night Daniel, for whatever reason,
whether it was something that caused him to snap...
he comes in while she is asleep in that bed, turned away from him
with her cheek against the pillow, takes a picture of Stephanie.
Daniel pulls the trigger one time, shooting her in the back of the head.
[gunshot]
He then determines that he's got to at least call 911
and come up with some reason for an ambulance to come there and not police.
[woman 1 speaking]
The trial in this case began on October 25th 2016.
The jury deliberated for just 90 minutes
before Daniel Politte was found guilty of murder.
After that guilty verdict, we learned that Daniel had had a visitor over at the jail...
and it was a woman who he had been having romantic conversations
with on the night of the murder
and that he had sort of a secret hidden photo folder on his phone
with illicit photographs of this woman.
We actually called back to the stand a cell phone expert
who could testify about the contents of his phone.
Not only is there potentially this other woman at the time Stephanie was alive,
but now this other woman is visiting him at the jail
right after he's convicted of Stephanie's murder.
[narrator] There's no evidence that the mystery woman knew about
or was involved in the murder.
On November 10th, 2016, the jury returned a verdict
sentencing Daniel Politte to 85 years in prison.
[Neil] Hearing the jury's verdict being read,
it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off of me.
He's where he needs to be.
And it, and he needs to be there for the rest of his life.
David Brueggen was the one who introduced Stephanie to Dan.
For Dan to have murdered Stephanie devastated David,
not only because he lost a good friend but he, he himself felt responsible.
And he wasn't.
There's only one person responsible for Stephanie's death and it's not David.
[Nicola] It still doesn't feel like a fair trade.
He may get 85 years in prison but...
you know... I would still rather have her back.
We're glad you're watching with us today.
And...
[Neil] I tried to watch this once, um...
not too long after she was killed and I couldn't do it.
I mean, if I could turn the clock back...
not only do I get my daughter back but I get that little girl.
And...
yeah, I think I'd give anything for that.
We'll be back after this commercial break.