- I'm kate snow,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- Very bubbly personality, huge smile...
It's a child's worst nightmare to lose a mom.
Every day, I wanted answers.
Every day, I was told it was unknown.
People don't just die.
- She was a loving mother.
He was a crime fighting prosecutor.
- You are a pillar of that community.
- I did what I thought was right.
- Then one day, the law was at his door.
His wife was dead in bed.
- Her eyes were open. She was pale.
- I just remember crying and not believing it.
- Sudden, suspicious, but no evidence of a crime.
- Any signs of a struggle?
- No. It was case closed.
- Years pass, new lives, two new wives.
- He's extremely charming.
- We just had the most amazing time.
- Then a new detective dusts off the old case.
- What jumped out at ya?
- Most definitely that her arms were in a--
An unnaturally raised position.
- My first thought was we missed somethin' here.
- The manner of death would be homicide.
- What really happened in that bedroom?
- I wanted to answer all their questions.
- He didn't remember a whole lot about that day.
- A young mother's death was a mystery,
But was it a murder?
- Tell me what happened to her to my face.
Don't give me excuses.
♪♪
- Hello and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
There was nothing cory lovelace wouldn't do
For her four kids.
They kept her on the go
Until the weekend she fell gravely ill.
Her death was as sudden as it was heartbreaking,
And it was also unexplained.
But years later, a keen-eyed detective
Picked up a clue.
His investigation revealed long buried secrets,
But did it point to murder or something else?
Here's dennis murphy with "mystery on the mississippi."
♪♪
- It runs through the heart of america,
A long, meandering lifeline
Feeding industry, towns, and imaginations.
The mississippi river gave us tom sawyer
And huckleberry finn.
Samuel clemens, mark twain,
Grew up in hannibal, missouri.
And just across the river, in quincy, illinois,
Lived another larger than life character,
Curtis lovelace, a small town kid
Who wanted to be a star, and, for a time, he was,
A football champion for the university of illinois.
He's an all-american?
- Mm-hmm, all-american.
- This is what kids dream about.
- Right. - He was living that life.
- Absolutely. You know, he--
It was looking like he would go to the nfl.
You know, that was kind of a-a dream of his.
- Then he realized grander ambitions,
Fighting crime as a prosecutor,
Serving his country in the national guard
And his community in politics.
- I'm someone who wants meaningful work,
And it's going to make the difference
In-in-in the lives of people.
- But it was what happened in this little house in quincy
To one person in particular
That made curtis really stand out
For all the world to see.
- Well, now to continuing coverage
In the curtis lovelace murder case.
- Well, it was a heated day at the stand.
- Right now, the defense is presenting
Its closing arguments in the case.
- Big dreams on a mighty river can carry you far,
Or they can drag you under.
This is the very strange journey of curtis lovelace,
All-american to criminal defendant.
Let's roll back the years to high school
And to the woman who would become the focus
Of so much speculation,
Cory didriksen.
- Cory and I went to high school together.
We-we really didn't run in the same crowd.
Uh, we had some mutual friends,
And we didn't date in high school.
- Back then, curtis was more focused on football than dating.
It wasn't until he went off to the university of illinois
Roughly 200 miles away and became a star athlete
That he truly noticed the girl from back home
For the first time.
It was during a college break.
The former classmates bumped into each other in quincy
And quickly became an item.
Cory wasted no time spreading her good news.
- I'll never forget the day.
I was playing tennis with a friend of mine,
And cory came over and, you know, met us,
And that was when she told us that curt was--
Curt was it.
- Beth dobrzynski went to high school
With the new couple.
Surprised? - Not really, no.
They seemed a-a great fit together,
And she was-- she was very, very much smitten.
- It wasn't long before cory was also telling
Her mother, marty, she'd found the one.
- She comes home, and we're sitting there,
And she said, "I've met the man I'm gonna marry."
Uh, whoa.
[laughing] - back up.
- And she kept her promise.
In 1991, just after college, cory and curtis married.
He studied law.
She worked a small job to support them both.
After graduation, they decided to buy a home in quincy.
- They wanted to be in the neighborhood,
And they wanted to be close by,
And that just made it all the better.
So, we found 'em a house, and they moved back.
- Virtually over the fence, huh?
Over the back line.
- Two houses up and one over, yeah.
- Curtis' ambitions drove the young couple.
He became a prosecutor
In the adams county state attorney's office
And dabbled in school board politics,
Winning a seat and serving as president.
He even found time to teach a business law class
At quincy university.
In between the professional milestones,
The lovelaces started a family,
First a girl, lindsay, then three boys.
Cory juggled that part of their lives.
How was your cory as a mother? She's a young mom.
- Fantastic.
She was a great mom.
There wasn't anything she didn't do for those kids.
- Cory's days were filled with diapers,
Playdates, and tantrums.
But even then, this great mom never forgot
How to be a good daughter.
In early 2006, her dad, john, was dying of cancer.
That was a major event for all of ya.
- That was a major event. Yes.
- John's decline, huh?
- Well, uh, four years he fought it,
And the last six months of his life,
She came every night at 5 o'clock and sat for,
Like, a half an hour and visited.
That was her time with him.
- Worn down with the stress of caregiving,
Raising four kids,
Was it any wonder when cory herself fell ill?
It was the weekend before valentine's day 2006.
- She was feeling poorly and-and spent most--
- Feeling poorly how, curt? What was she ailing from?
- Uh, just flu-like symptoms, um, uh, throwing up.
Um, we-we-we thought she had the-- had the flu.
- But on Monday, the night before valentine's day,
Cory still managed to get the kids' valentine's cards
Ready for school the next day.
Her daughter, lindsay, then 12,
Remembers cuddling up with her mom
Watching the winter olympics and snowboarder shaun white.
- I remember watching him with her and being like,
"mom, he's so cute."
Like, as a 12-year-old, like, that was awesome.
- But it wasn't that she-she was bedridden
Or anything, at that point.
She could-- - no. She would, uh--
- She was just feeling crummy, huh?
- She was feeling sick, and even for my mom,
That was not common because she,
Even if she was sick, she did what was, like,
What she thought was expected of her,
And took care of us, and made us dinner,
And did laundry and everything because that was her role.
- But when Tuesday, valentine's day, dawned,
Curtis says he urged her to take it easy.
- And we decided that, uh,
I would cancel my morning class
At quincy university in-in order to--
To get the kids to school, and so that's what we did.
- So, dad is gonna be on deck.
It's gonna be dad's time to get everybody
Up and running here, huh? - Right. Uh, and so, uh,
So I canceled my class.
Um, uh, helped the kids get ready for school.
She did come downstairs to, uh,
Uh, help out with that.
- He says cory was so ill
He had to help her back to bed
Before driving the three eldest kids off to school,
Their backpacks stuffed with valentine's cards.
Within minutes, he was back.
Only, the home, still cluttered with clothes and toys,
Was now filled with something else, silence,
Quiet enough to break a family's heart.
- What had happened in that house?
- As I got closer, I immediately knew
That something was-was really, really wrong.
- So wrong it would tear apart a family
And puzzle police for years to come.
- Every detective needs to keep in mind
That there could be a bigger picture.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- The routine of the house was in a tizzy.
With cory sick in bed, it had been up to curtis
To get the three oldest kids off to school.
Now, he was back.
- When I arrived home, um, everything was quiet.
I assumed that cory was sleeping, resting.
She hadn't slept, uh, most of the night.
I was just going to leave her alone
In order to, um, sleep.
- Before looking in on her, he said,
He went over his emails in the kitchen.
Then he headed upstairs.
- I needed to take a shower, and as I walked up the steps,
I-I looked to the left.
Um, the door to our bedroom was as I left it, open.
I could see her lying in bed, and I could see, uh,
Something from the distance didn't seem right, um,
So I-I approached her.
- What-what made you say that, looking back?
- Just, uh, I'm-I'm really not sure.
As I got closer, I could see that, uh, she was pale,
She was motionless, and, uh, I-I immediately knew
That something was-was really, really wrong.
- Did you think she's dead?
[sighs] - I shook her.
I called out her-her name.
Um, and at that point, I-I knew that she was dead.
- In that moment, he said, his thoughts turned
To his four-year-old boy, larson,
Who was still in the house.
- And I needed to get larson out of the house.
- And what did you do?
- Uh, I grabbed larson.
Uh, I believe he was in bed, and, uh,
I took him immediately over to, uh,
To his grandparents' house.
- Cory's mom, marty, answered the door.
She remembers her son-in-law standing there
With the young boy and saying something nonsensical
About her daughter being dead.
- It was just kinda mid-morning and--
- And there he is, your son-in-law.
- And-and there he is, and I opened the door,
And he hands me larson, and then he said something
About people are coming or something.
And I-I often regretted not just putting larson down
And running over there.
- Stunned, she called her son, cory's brother, pedar,
At his dental practice.
- I get a phone call from my mom, and it was just
Kinda out of the blue. I didn't think anything.
- Cory is dead. That can't be. - Yeah, exactly.
- Thirty-eight years old, right?
- She's-she's 38 years old. There's no way.
I just-just saw her a couple weeks ago.
- Jeff baird, then a detective
With the quincy police department,
Was assigned to head the death investigation.
When he arrived at the scene, he went straight upstairs.
He was in the bedroom
When the coroner examined cory's body.
- He tested her body temperature
By placing his hand against her abdomen.
I followed suit.
- Was the body warm or cold to the touch?
- The abdomen was warm to the touch.
- Was warm. What did that tell the coroner?
- He knew that the time of death,
Uh, was-was narrowed then for the body to still be warm.
- It seemed clear that cory's death had been recent,
Within the past hour or so.
Not at all certain why or how the woman died,
The detective couldn't rule out any possibility,
Including foul play.
Around the room itself, any overturned glasses
Or any signs of a struggle?
- No.
- So, as I hear you, you're telling me
You're seeing a woman who has apparently died in her bed
And not that long before authorities arrive.
- That's right.
If I can stress, there wasn't a single mark on her
Other than what appeared to be a skin blemish
Under her nose, not a mark.
- And yet, there was something about the position
Of cory's body that did strike him as odd.
He thought death and gravity
Would have caused her arms to drop.
Instead, they were both fixed in mid-air,
Hovering above her chest.
- I was looking for an explanation for that,
And I even addressed it to curtis lovelace.
I asked him if there was a possibility that blankets
Had been under her arms when he discovered her.
- And what'd he say?
- No. - He said, "no."
So, he said the scene that you were seeing
Was the way he saw it when he came and found his wife
By his account. - Yes, yes.
- But then the detective was careful not to get hung up
On one strange detail, not this early in a case.
- Every detective needs to keep in mind
That there-there could be a bigger picture.
- And, oh, yes, there was, a portrait of a woman,
A portrait of a marriage filled with details
Painted in a most unflattering light.
- A peek behind closed doors.
- You were drinking too much? - I drank too much.
- Cory was drinking too much?
- Cory was drinking too much.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- The quincy, illinois detective was trying to understand
Why a 38-year-old woman had died suddenly.
As he looked for clues inside cory lovelace's home
Filled with the clutter of young family life,
Jeff baird noticed one item in particular,
A white cup by her bedside.
- I collected an unknown liquid that smelled faintly of alcohol
From a styrofoam cup.
- The detective asked her husband, curtis,
What it was.
Did he tell you that she liked to have a vodka tonic?
- Yes.
- And that's likely what was in the styrofoam?
- Yes.
- The big 24-ounce glass? - Yes.
- As curtis told it,
Alcohol had been a constant in the home.
- There was alcoholism in our family,
So there was the-the ugly side of-of that. Um--
- You were drinking too much.
- Uh, I, looking back, yes, I-I drank too much.
- Cory was drinking too much?
- Cory-cory was drinking too much.
Um, it was, uh, it was impacting her ability,
Um, to take care of things at home.
- He also told the detective that cory had been taking falls,
Sometimes out of bed.
What's more, the detective later found out
Cory had been battling bulimia.
The picture quickly emerging.
Cory had not been a healthy woman.
I know you guys are listening to the words
That a subject is telling you,
But you're also looking at them.
Why is he telling me this?
How does he phrase it?
What were you seeing on that score?
- It's very important, and I saw a man
Who was answering my questions.
- Not being evasive, not shifty.
- He appeared to be cooperative, solemn, upset.
- Curtis also retraced the family's steps
That morning.
- He last saw his wife around 8:15.
He took the kids to school.
He returned and found her deceased.
- With that, the detective finished the interview and left,
But curtis knew his awful day was about to get worse.
Not least, he had four children
Ranging in ages from four to twelve to look after.
How do you tell the children?
- That was, um-- I-I-I think, to this day,
That is the most difficult thing
I have ever had to do.
Um, I-I believe I-I-I called the schools
And let them know that I would be on my way.
- Lindsay, the only girl,
Was the eldest of the lovelace kids.
- I remember being at school.
I remember getting a call from the office
That I was getting picked up,
And, in my mind, I thought, oh,
Maybe my mom went to the hospital.
She didn't feel good the days prior. - Yeah.
- Maybe she just had to go to the hospital.
Like, it's fine.
- But once inside the principal's office,
Her father broke the news.
- And told me that my mom had died,
And I just remember, then on, my world crashing down.
- Did you say, "what had happened?
"what's going on?"
- I'm sure I asked what had happened.
I just remember crying and not believing it.
And so, we went-- we left,
And we went to my grandma's house,
And I was like, "I wanna go back to school,"
And I went back to school.
- And you did on the day you lost your mom.
- 'cause that was normal for me.
It was a normalcy thing.
- And in hindsight, she says,
Maybe the best thing she could have done.
Her favorite teacher had something for her.
- And she actually had wolf pups.
She had a friend who was caring for wolf pups.
So, I remember holding these wolf pups.
I'm pretty sure they had just lost their mom.
Like, they were orphaned.
- What a jumble of things going on for you that day.
- And that was the most comforting thing
I could have done, was hold those wolves.
- By then, news of cory lovelace's untimely death
Was rippling across town.
Students from curtis' business law class
That morning were the first outside of the family
And authorities to suspect that something had happened.
- His class was all outside of his classroom
Waiting for him to come.
- One of curtis' students, erika, was surprised to learn
Professor lovelace's class had been canceled.
Later, she learned why.
- Everyone was just in shock
Because she was a very young 38-year-old,
And she seemed healthy from what everybody understood.
So, it was a huge shock that--
- So, that's very sad.
Your professor's wife has died.
- I-- - you didn't know her.
- I didn't know her, and I really didn't know him,
At that time, either.
- Soon, everyone in town
Was wondering what had caused cory's death.
The pathologist who performed the autopsy a day later
Noted some trauma,
A small abrasion on cory's upper lip
And another mark inside. It appeared to be a cut.
Curtis mentioned that cory had fallen
In the days before her death.
Those falls, as they described 'em,
Could account for that injury to the lip,
Right, presumably?
- I wish I knew,
But, yes, a fall could account for an injury.
- The pathologist also noted
Cory had what's called fatty liver,
Often caused by heavy drinking.
Still, the doctor labeled the cause of death undetermined.
She doesn't know what killed this woman.
- That was frustrating.
She does find a disease of the liver,
Which can be associated with sudden death.
- Unusual for a young woman to die of unknown causes,
But it does happen.
Without more to go on, the detective closed the case.
Cory's mother, marty, still in shock,
Could barely bring herself to read the autopsy report.
- Cory was drinking.
We don't deny that.
She was, um, bulimic,
And-and I did try to talk to curtis about that,
At one time.
Told me it was all okay and was gonna be fine.
- Now, as she mourned cory, marty knew her suffering
Would only deepen.
Her husband, john, was dying.
- We had a visitation for cory, and john sat next to me,
And it was like he was saying goodbye to friends, too.
- Hmm.
- He didn't come home from the hospital after that.
- Mm-hmm. - So, both those losses,
One right on top of the other.
- Yes.
- Within the span of a month,
Marty lost a daughter and a husband.
She purchased two burial plots at the local cemetery
Even though cory's remains were cremated.
That was a choice curtis says the entire family made together,
But the decision to cremate
Would be one that would haunt this river town
For years to come.
- She was different than anyone I had ever dated before.
Maybe in some ways, that difference,
Um, intrigued me.
- Curtis moves on, much too fast for some.
- She arrived as the girlfriend.
Did I think it was too quickly? Yes.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm kate snow.
Cory lovelace was suddenly gone,
And her cause of death was a mystery.
She left behind four children and her husband, curtis,
Now faced with raising them alone,
But not for long.
The newly single dad would soon be raising eyebrows,
Leading some to question whether
He was a man truly lost in grief.
Here's dennis murphy
With more of "mystery on the mississippi."
♪♪
- For so many years, he'd been the guy in town
People looked up to and admired.
Curtis lovelace, football star,
School board president,
Suddenly a pitiable widower who needed help.
- It was overwhelming.
People did come forward,
Uh, friends and family,
Helping get the kids to school in the morning,
So I could also go to work,
And then picking them up from school.
- It's a lot. - It's a lot,
But we came together as-as a family
And-and-and did what we needed to do.
- To longtime friend beth dobrzynski,
Curtis was stoic in the weeks after cory's death,
But one time she noticed the mask slip just a little.
It was at a high school reunion later that summer.
- They were doing a video montage,
And cory's picture came up,
And he turned around, and he looked,
And he goes, "hey, that's my wife."
And it was just times like that
That made, you know, made me really think that,
You know, it just-- you know, grieving husband.
- That's why, a few months later,
She and other friends were surprised to hear
That curtis had met someone new.
That was fast.
- She was different, um, than--
Than anyone I had ever dated before.
Maybe in some ways, that difference,
Um, intrigued me.
- She was erika,
As in the former student who showed up
To professor lovelace's cancelled class
That fateful valentine's day morning.
- He's extremely charming.
Anything that I needed or wanted
He could take care of, and he did.
- At the time this interview took place,
Erika asked us to alter her appearance some
To protect her privacy.
She began her story by recounting how she,
As a 33-year-old single woman,
Had bumped into her 37-year-old professor
At a nightclub not long after cory's death.
A fish out of water, she thought.
- And I felt really bad for him,
So I gave him my number, and I told him, uh,
That there's, uh, places that he could go in town
That there's people more his age
Because I thought he was a lot, lot older
Than what he was. He just seemed--
- Just stood out at that club, huh?
- He did, quite a bit. [laughing]
- But not long after, pity blossomed into friendship
And then love.
They started dating about six months after cory's death.
Erika and her daughter from a previous relationship
Eventually moved in with curtis and his four children.
- It was nice that my child kinda just tucked in there
With the rest of 'em.
All of us just fell into place.
- That's not the way curtis's daughter,
Lindsay, saw it.
What'd you think of her, erika?
- We did not get along. - From the get-go.
She arrived as the girlfriend,
And that's just how it was.
And did I think it was too quickly?
Yes, but adults make their own decisions.
- In fact, lindsay was so unhappy
With her dad's girlfriend she picked up
And moved in with her grandmother, cory's mom,
Just a few doors down.
After nearly two years of living together,
Curtis and erika married.
She'd admired how he coached local kids in sports
And devoted spare time to his community.
Eventually, they both served together
In the national guard.
And he had an outstanding resume.
- He did. He-- - this is the all-american boy.
- I loved the fact that he was on the school board.
That was where my profession was leaning,
And I loved that he worked with children.
He was great.
He seemed to be great with the children.
- They even bought a new place in town together
And moved from the house where cory had died.
There was domestic tranquility at first, but eventually,
Erika says she saw a change in her husband.
- He'd detach once in a while just from the whole family,
And I was kinda left all to myself,
And he would just hide in the basement
And blame it on work.
- She says their mutual silence separated them.
Then resentment exploded in loud confrontations.
It just wasn't working.
- I believe, looking back,
That was a-a rebound relationship, um, and, uh,
And a relationship that I-I should have not done,
Not only for me but-but, more importantly,
For my children.
- In 2013, after five years of marriage,
Curtis filed for divorce.
Now, you might think that he would have been gun-shy
About jumping into love again, but not curtis.
- It was just surreal and lovely.
- This is christine.
She'd known curtis since high school.
He even took her to their homecoming dance.
Marriages and careers separated them for a time.
- It was odd because I wasn't prepared
For any kind of a relationship,
And I wasn't looking for anything like that.
- Now, where were you in your life, christine?
Were you single, again?
- I was. I was single.
- After reconnecting on facebook,
The former classmates decided to catch up face to face
For the first time in nearly three decades.
There he is at the door.
- There he is at the door. - Who do you see?
- I see curt lovelace,
My senior high school homecoming date, standing there,
And then we spent that evening with friends,
And before we knew it, everyone else had gone,
And we just had the most amazing time.
- I was meeting in many ways the-the-the same person
Who I took to homecoming just more beautiful,
Uh, more interesting, and-and more, uh, more kind
Than-than I had ever remembered.
- It just worked.
- More than six months later, on the day after christmas 2013,
Curtis was once again standing at the altar.
Only this time, the new mrs. Lovelace
Seemed to have approval from everyone,
Even 20-year-old daughter, lindsay,
Who'd packed up at the arrival of her father's last flame.
- She seemed very genuine.
Um, I liked that she cared a lot about the boys.
- Did you think maybe this could be the restoration
Of the family? - Yeah, I did.
- After the nightmare, as you see it, of-of erika,
Now here's christine, who seems okay to you.
- I felt-- - and she's certainly making an effort
To reach out to you, right?
- I-- yeah, and I felt like our family deserved happiness,
At that point, after everything we had been through,
So I was hoping that it would all pan out okay.
- And it did go okay.
Christine kept all the lovelaces running
Like a swiss train schedule, kids off to school
While curtis worked at his own law practice
In downtown quincy.
Christine, meanwhile, put on her baker's apron.
- I opened an actual pie shop.
I was making 100 pies a week,
And I was selling out of pies before 9:00 in the morning.
By all accounts, it was--
- So, this wasn't just a little hobby
To keep you busy. - No.
- This was a going concern, huh?
- Yes, absolutely. - What's your go to pie?
- I love blueberry. - I'm with you.
- But-but I make a mean gooseberry.
You name it. I can probably do it.
- After years of turmoil,
It seemed the lovelaces were reborn.
Lindsay was back in the family fold.
Christine had even adopted curtis's sons as her own.
Everything was working.
But darker souls wait for the train wreck
Just when things are looking all hunky dory.
Turned out, that train was hurdling down the track at them.
A new detective leads to new suspicion.
- What jumped out at ya?
- Most definitely that her arms were in a--
An unnaturally raised position.
- And the start of a new investigation.
- In this particular autopsy, there were things listed
As suspicious or traumatic findings.
- My first thought was we missed something here.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- The river rolled, the barges slid by,
And cory lovelace's death slipped further into the past.
Her mom, marty.
- I would go sit in the cemetery by myself
For a little while.
And, of course, valentine's day now is nothing.
You know, I don't do valentine's day.
- Cory's husband, meanwhile, had remarried,
Divorced, and married again, and in all that time,
No one really questioned the why or how of cory's death,
But all that changed one day
When a man in a windowless room
A few blocks off the mississippi
Found himself with spare time on his hands.
- I was sittin' in my office,
And all of our files are on computer.
- It was late 2013,
Almost eight years after cory's death.
Adam gibson, a newly minted detective
With the quincy police department,
Began idly pulling up old files.
- Not looking for anything in particular,
Just reading old cases,
Cory lovelace popped into my head,
And I read the report.
- The name mean anything to ya?
- Yeah, I knew-- I knew curtis lovelace,
Uh, 'cause he was-- had been, at one time,
One of our assistant state's attorneys.
- There wasn't much to read in the file,
Truth be told,
A statement from curtis, the husband,
Police interviews with the three older children,
And the pathologist summary of her autopsy findings
With some photos.
So, you knew what had happened in 2006 sort of or--
- Yeah, I knew that she had passed away
On valentine's day of 2006.
- What was the medical examiner's finding
About the death of that woman?
- That was-- undetermined, was the original autopsy.
- What did that mean to you?
I don't know if you'd encountered that before.
- Undetermined could mean a lot of things, uh, but,
In this particular autopsy, there were things listed
As suspicious or traumatic findings.
- For instance, the report mentioned that abrasion
On cory's face, just under her nose,
Something the arriving officer had observed that day.
The pathologist also noted the cut,
What she called a laceration,
On the inside of cory's upper lip.
The detective kept scrolling and then saw something
That just stopped him cold, an electrifying image,
The police photos of the dead wife and mother
As she lay in her bed.
What jumped out at ya?
- Most definitely that her arms were in a--
An unnaturally raised position.
- The hands in an unnatural kinda way.
- Her hands defied gravity.
- Not supported on anything.
- No.
- Just kind of out there like a statue.
- Yes.
- Using police photos from the scene,
We created this graphic representation
Of cory's bedroom.
You can see cory's arms frozen in death above her body.
That final pose had caught
Detective jeff baird's attention years before,
A curiosity, but he didn't assign it any real significance.
Now, adam gibson did.
- Rigor mortis?
- Yes, in my opinion.
- The mechanics of rigor mortis go like this.
Upon death, a human's muscles start to stiffen,
But, to the detective, it looked as though
Cory's arms and hands were in an advanced state of rigor,
Meaning she likely died many hours before
This photo was taken.
Remember, curtis said he tucked his sickly wife into bed
Only an hour before finding her dead.
It didn't make sense to the officer.
Detective gibson went straight to his bosses
With the old lovelace file.
- My first thought was we missed something here.
- Chief robert copley had been in charge in 2006
When everyone assumed cory had died a natural death,
But he says he never saw the photos the detective
Was now holding before him.
- And that's when I saw the pictures the first time.
- What'd you think?
- I thought, uh, this-this is odd.
This is not natural.
- This posture of the arms?
- The posture of the arms, uh, definitely appeared to me
That rigor mortis had set in.
I-I look at those pictures, and I can't believe
That we accepted an-- a undetermined cause of death
And a natural death.
- Detective gibson agreed, but they had a problem.
Very thin what you're working. - Yes.
- There's some-some notes from a medical examiner
From eight years before. - Right, right, yeah.
- And a-a few photos, very few.
- Yeah, and only two, uh, two slides,
Uh, were-were taken by the pathologist
And-and passed on in evidence.
So, yeah, very thin file.
- So, police went back to the doctor who did that autopsy
And asked her to review the case.
She did, but she would not alter her original findings.
The next step might have been to order a new autopsy,
But that wasn't possible since cory's family
Had her remains cremated.
The only option was to work with what they had.
Detective gibson had a suggestion.
- He wanted to have the autopsy reviewed by someone else.
Have basically a-a review of the original autopsy done.
Couldn't do a-a new autopsy
Because the body had been cremated.
- The chief okayed the request to hire a new pathologist
To review old autopsy notes.
The detective also had something else in mind
To beef up his case-- talk to anyone and everyone
Who'd known cory.
His first call was to her mom, marty.
He told her he wanted to meet but not why.
- He said, "well, you know, can we set up a time,
"maybe tomorrow, or, you know, whatever?"
I said, "well, I'll scratch what I'm doin' this afternoon.
"you just come now,"
Because I was so nervous about what it was.
- Everything old was about to be new again,
New and very unsettling.
- The thing that struck me first
Was the position of mrs. Lovelace's arms.
- A different medical examiner reaches a different conclusion.
- The manner of death would be homicide.
- And a detective has a question for curtis' daughter.
- What did you think was happening?
- I didn't know.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Cory lovelace's mom had tried hard to move on
After her daughter's sudden death in 2006,
But after a phone call and a visit
From detective adam gibson in early 2014,
She started to wonder.
- A lot of things I shoved away, really shoved away,
And one of 'em was really why cory had died.
- Did you ever suspect that there might be foul play
Involved in her death? - No.
- Friends of both curtis and cory
Also started getting calls from the detective.
Beth dobrzynski remembers his message
Asking her to call asap.
- So, then when I called detective gibson, and he said,
"we're reopening the case of cory didriksen lovelace,"
I was shocked.
I was shaking.
- So, the detective seemed to be interested in
What you could tell him about the marriage.
- Correct.
- Which she admitted wasn't much.
Beth and other close friends
Said cory didn't really talk about her marriage.
So, the detective did something
No one else had done on this case.
He started knocking on doors,
Talking to cory's former neighbors.
- All the neighbors talked about, uh,
All the-the constant arguing and fighting.
- So, you were getting a picture of what
Was goin' on in that marriage that wasn't in focus in 2006.
- Right.
- The detective went a step further.
He got in his car and drove more than 100 miles
To the university of iowa to talk with someone
Who would have been an eyewitness
To the lovelace marriage.
- Lindsay lovelace, curtis and cory's oldest,
Was in college at her mom's alma mater
When she was summoned to the campus police department
To talk with detective gibson.
- I was very confused why someone from quincy
Had driven there.
- The questions that followed didn't clear things up,
At least not at first.
The detective started talking about her late mom
And asking about her parents' marriage.
For the first time,
Someone inside the lovelace family
Was revealing the turmoil before cory's death,
But then the detective asked lindsay to describe
That Tuesday in 2006 when her mother's body was found.
The answer seemed to take the air
Out of his theory of the case.
The young woman,
Candid about her parents' troubled marriage,
Was nonetheless supportive of her father's account.
Cory had died minutes after seeing her children
Off to school,
Not hours earlier as the detective suspected.
If he'd been disappointed in lindsay's answer,
He didn't show it,
But he did make a request that caught her off guard.
What did you think was happening?
- I didn't know, especially when he said,
"don't tell your father I was here."
- So, what's that mean?
- And I went back to where I was living
And just sat there and thought, "what is going on?"
And then it slowly hit me.
- She realized the detective, for whatever reason,
Suspected her father had something to do
With her mother's sudden death.
Even so, she kept her promise
And did not tell her father about the visit.
In the meantime, detective gibson was waiting
To hear from dr. Jane turner, then assistant medical examiner
For the city of st. Louis.
He had hired her to review that old autopsy report.
- The thing that struck me first
Just looking at the scene photographs
Was the position of mrs. Lovelace's arms.
- She said the photos show cory's body
In full rigor mortis.
Like the detective, the m.E. Believed
The picture and curtis' story were out of sync.
- I estimate that the time of death
Was somewhere ten to twelve hours, uh,
Prior to her photograph being taken that morning,
So it was somewhere around 9, or 10, or 11 p.M.
The night before.
- In other words, the night of February 13th,
Not the morning of February 14th
As curtis claimed.
Something else bothered her.
Turner thought the scene appeared altered,
As though something under cory's arms was removed.
- Why were her hands not resting on a surface?
And that surface, whatever that object was
That her hands had been resting on,
Why wasn't it there anymore?
- Turner noted the abrasion on cory's face
And the cut inside her upper lip.
To her, that suggested something had been pressed
Against the woman's mouth.
- And then seeing the-the marks around the mouth
And inside the mouth
All suggest that suffocation occurred.
- Suffocation, an abrasion,
An accepted timeline that no longer fit--
Turner was convinced cory had not died a natural death.
She concluded someone had used an object,
Likely a pillow, to suffocate the woman,
Left it under her arms, and removed it many hours later.
- The manner of death would be homicide.
- For the detective, cory lovelace's death
Came down to two competing narratives
From two compelling women.
One relied on science to explain a murder.
The other relied on memory to describe an ailing mother
Just before she passed away.
In the end, the detective believed the science.
He believed that a crime had indeed been committed.
But now chief copley had a little problem
Back at the quincy police department.
There were two officers who'd conducted
Very different investigations of the same case.
Detective gibson, you believed that this was a homicide.
- I-I do believe that. - Officer baird,
Do you believe that this was a death of natural causes?
Are you divided on that fundamental issue?
- I'm now uncertain from what I have heard
And been told under the-- under the new investigation,
Much more uncertain than I was in 2006.
- Their boss, chief copley, still backs both men.
He says, if there is blame to be had in this case,
He'll take it.
- You hate to admit that mistakes were made,
And-and I wanna say that I-I take full responsibility.
I was chief in 2006.
You know, yeah, I-I had detectives
And their supervisors workin' on this case but--
- Did, chief, did he get a pass
Because he was a pillar of the community?
He was a-- he was a big shot guy.
- I don't know that he got a pass.
I think he may have got, um, the benefit of the doubt.
- But on a warm August morning,
That benefit would evaporate along with
The peaceful feelings of a lazy summer day.
Christine lovelace had been aproned up in her new shop
Baking pies all morning.
Curtis was meant to stop by with lunch.
- I just knew that he was gonna be there,
And I really kinda had a notion
That he was gonna bring me fried chicken that day,
And, um, lunch came and went.
- And no curt. - And no curt.
- A few blocks away,
Curtis had just stepped out of his law office.
He was, in fact, on his way to the pie shop.
- And as I was walking to my car,
Um, there was a-- there was a gentleman
In a-- in a-- in a suit, um, waiting for me.
- It was detective gibson,
And he was armed with an indictment
From the grand jury.
He was there to arrest curtis
For the murder of cory lovelace.
And he said what?
- The only thing he said was, "my wife died in 2006."
- What'd you think of that?
- That was not the reaction that I was expecting at all.
- Then again, curtis lovelace never saw it coming.
- Told me to put my hands behind my back
And, uh, put me in handcuffs.
- What was goin' on? - I didn't know.
I remember hearing "murder."
I remember, uh, hearing him use the word "wife."
I was not aware that, uh,
That there was an investigation. Uh--
- You were totally blindsided.
- I was totally-- totally blindsided.
- Blindsided because no one had really questioned
Cory's death before.
Even the police concluded she died of natural causes.
Back at the pie shop,
An increasingly anxious christine got a phone call.
It was someone from a local tv station.
- He said, "I'm holding a piece of paper in my hand.
"it's an indictment for the first degree murder
"of c-cory lovelace."
And I-I-I immediately said, "what?
"cory-cory wasn't murdered."
- Give me a word. That day in your life?
- Horrifying.
- I was placed in an interrogation room immediately.
- Curtis lovelace had a crucial choice to make.
Either talk to the detective and try to clear this up
Right then and there,
Or would the attorney lawyer up?
- I don't remember anything significant
About the night before.
- You said that-that the two of you went to bed together.
- Yeah, I-I bel-- I believe we did.
- I have a problem with you not remembering
All these things.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Seven years after the mysterious death
Of cory lovelace...
- I just remember crying and not believing it.
- Police have reopened the case.
- We missed something here.
- Her husband, curtis, who had remarried twice,
Is the prime suspect.
- What jumped out at ya?
- Most definitely that here arms were in
A-an unnaturally raised position.
- Had the mystery finally been solved?
- The manner of death would be homicide.
- Then the suspect and his wife
Got some very bad news.
- I said, "what?
Cory-cory wasn't murdered."
- You were totally blindsided.
- Totally blindsided.
- Now, the hometown hero was headed to jail.
Could his children help set him free?
- They saw their mother alive that day.
- She couldn't have been dead upstairs then.
- Right.
♪♪
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm kate snow.
Fortunes can change in an instant.
One minute, curtis lovelace was a successful attorney.
The next, he was in custody,
Charged with murdering his first wife, cory.
The stunning turn came courtesy
Of a dogged detective with a hunch.
Now, the investigator was about to go head to head
With the accused killer.
Did curtis have secrets to spill?
Here's dennis murphy with more
Of "mystery on the mississippi."
- Curtis lovelace had seen plenty of interrogation videos
During his career as a former prosecutor,
But, in the summer of 2014,
For the first time in his life,
Curtis was the one in the hotseat.
- You have the right to remain silent.
Do you understand that? - Yes.
- Anything you say can and will be used
Against you in a court of law,
And you're a lawyer,
And you know the number one rule is,
You do not talk to the police without
Having a lawyer present.
- I-- - but you talk.
- But-but I talk.
I wanted to answer all their questions.
I thought that they wanted to know the truth.
She indicated she didn't feel well.
- On that valentine's morning,
Curtis said cory was still nursing
That bad cold or flu.
- I walked back upstairs with her.
Uh, she climbed into bed.
- He described leaving the house, then coming home
Only to find his wife dead in their bedroom.
- She was cold and-and stiff.
Uh, I just recall her, like, her hands being up
Or something like that.
- And yet, many other details surrounding his wife's death
Seemed to elude curtis.
- But, no, I don't remember anything significant
About the night before.
- You said that-that the two of you went to bed together.
- Yeah, I-I be-- I believe we did.
You know, it was--
Been a long time, so, I-I-I mean,
I guess it's possible that I would have left,
Uh, you know, slept on a couch or something.
- You said you took the kids to school.
- I-- again, I believe I did.
It's been so long.
- Ironically, he didn't remember a whole lot about that day.
- Couldn't even remember whether he, in fact,
Took the kids to school that day.
- Right.
I just would have thought that
Finding your wife dead in bed
Would have left more of an impression on ya.
- To the detective, curtis was trying to look helpful
Without really being so.
Gibson cut to the chase.
- Did you smother cory with a pillow?
- No, I did not.
- Okay.
- Did you and cory have a bad argument, curt?
Did it get out of hand?
Did you snap and then put a pillow
Over her nose and mouth and suffocate her?
- No, no, I-I-- there-there were
No bad arguments the night before.
Um, it's-it's exactly what-what I've--
What I've told detective baird in 2006,
And what I told detective gibson in 2014,
And what I'm telling you now.
That-that is what happened.
She was sick, and I came home,
And I found her that morning,
And she was dead in bed.
- It was clear the detective's strategy
Hadn't yielded what he wanted,
A confession.
- I have a problem with you not remembering
All these things.
- The lawyer's goal of talking his way out of trouble
Hadn't exactly worked, either.
Even after he agreed, curtis says,
To take a lie detector test.
In a short time, he was swapping out
His buttoned down shirt and leather loafers...
For a very different courthouse look,
Jailhouse black and white stripes.
- Coming up...
- Yeah.
Yeah.
- Are his kids the key to his freedom?
- They saw their mother alive that day.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Curtis lovelace could not believe
How his world had fallen apart.
One minute, he was quincy's fair-haired boy.
The next, he was being interrogated by police
For killing his first wife, cory.
- On my side of the bed when I found her dead.
- Meanwhile, christine was in a panic for two reasons.
Her husband had just been arrested,
And now she was looking for her sons.
- I found out that all three boys
Were at the police station.
- The boys were down there.
- They had been taken out of school,
Um, and held in isolation earlier in the day.
- There were just 17, 15, and 12 years old at the time,
All alone at the police headquarters.
Once christine found out they were there,
She rushed to the station.
What were the kids told?
What did they think was going on?
- They actually thought that something had happened to me.
I walked into the room, and they got up,
And they all, um...
Were very scared
And, um, they hugged me,
And I told them everything would be okay.
We'll figure this out.
- Detective gibson had rounded up the boys
Because he was looking for more information.
- Mm-hmm.
- The detective started to question them
About the last days of their mother's life.
- Yeah.
- Larson, the youngest son, wasn't interviewed by police
Back in 2006 because he was only four years old.
Now, he was telling detective gibson
He wasn't sure if his mother was alive that morning.
He said he only remembered getting out of bed
And going to his mom's room,
But she didn't answer him.
- But the two older boys said they did remember
Seeing their mom that morning.
This is lincoln, the middle boy.
- Logan, the eldest son, said he knew for certain
That his mom was alive that February 14th.
- Christine was still trying to find her husband.
She didn't know he'd been transferred
To a different jail.
Eventually, he called.
- And he told me everything would be okay
And that we were gonna have to-to fight some things.
- Christine was a wreck.
Her husband was in jail,
And she was dumbfounded as to why the police
Had taken the boys out of school
And then interviewed them without parental permission.
She felt better about this, though.
The two oldest boys backed their dad's story.
They had seen their mom, cory, alive valentine's day morning
Just as curtis said.
- They saw their mother alive that day.
- And that's-that's the gist of their story.
Yes, I saw her alive that morning
When dad took us to school. - Yes. Mm-hmm.
It was valentine's day. - So, there--
So, therefore, she couldn't have been dead upstairs.
- Right, right. - And dying
And rigor mortis setting in because we saw her alive.
- Mm-hmm. Yes.
- The boys' sister, lindsay, had also told police
Two separate times her mom was alive that morning.
Had seen her off to school on valentine's day.
On the day of her father's arrest,
Lindsay was away at college
When she had an emotional talk with her brothers.
- Talked to 'em on the phone the day he got arrested,
And they passed the phone around,
And they were sobbing because they were scared.
Hold on. [chuckles]
Whew, okay.
And they asked me to come home,
And that was the last thing I ever said to them,
Like, ever talked to 'em.
- That's when another tragedy unfolded
Within the lovelace family.
Around the time of curtis' arrest,
His relationship with his daughter,
Once again, deteriorated.
The family doesn't wanna get into details,
But soon, lindsay found herself cut off
From her brothers, too.
- I had been shut out, completely shut out.
- Well, you knew the charge against your father
And the theory of the crime,
That he had put a pillow over your mother's nose
And smothered her.
That's a stark image to deal with.
- It's something I didn't ponder,
And I chose not to ponder.
- Though a jury would soon be pondering
Curtis' guilt or innocence.
In August 2014,
The 45-year-old former assistant state's attorney
Found himself standing in a courtroom,
This time as a defendant at his own arraignment.
- Having to appear in a courtroom
That I had served as a prosecutor,
And dressed in-in stripes,
And-and having my-my hands and my feet shackled,
Um, those-those were some-some really low times.
- Marred just eight months, wife number three's commitment
For better or for worse
Was immediately put to the test.
- My husband, who is kind,
And caring, and compassionate,
Is charged with something so heinous
That it makes no sense.
- If convicted, curtis lovelace could spend
The rest of his life in prison
For the murder of his wife, cory.
As if that weren't enough stress,
His daughter, lindsay, was about to drop a bombshell.
- Coming up...
A daughter's difficult decision.
- I don't know what's in lindsay's head
And in her heart.
One day, she was happy, and then everything changed.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Curtis lovelace was the hometown hero.
Now, his face was plastered on the front pages
Of quincy's newspaper as an accused murderer.
- We're relying on scientific medical evidence--
- The media, including nbc's quincy affiliate,
Were all over the story,
Covering nearly every moment of his fall from grace.
- He is accused of killing his first wife.
- The former prosecutor would himself be prosecuted
By ed parkinson.
- You can't get around rigor mortis, in my opinion,
And make sense of this case,
And the timeline doesn't make sense with curtis lovelace.
- In January 2016,
Nearly a decade after cory lovelace's death,
Curtis arrived for the first day of his trial.
He faced 20 to 60 years in prison
Upon conviction for first degree murder.
He pleaded not guilty.
Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom.
- It's clear to me.
It-it-it didn't matter what I did
As far as the prosecution was concerned.
Their only concern was that they needed to create a crime,
And they needed for me to look bad in order to do that.
- Curtis didn't necessarily need prosecutors' help to look bad.
Some of his own actions the day cory died
Were, at the very least, unusual,
Including never calling 911.
He called who? - His boss.
- His wife is dead in the bed.
- Yes. - And he calls his boss.
- Yeah. He said, "my wife is dead."
So, his boss said, "well, would you like me
To call the ambulance people?"
"yes. Would you do that?"
- Cory's mom, marty didriksen,
Who lived just a few houses away,
Testified that curtis broke the news of her daughter's death
In what she thought was the most callous way.
There was a knock at her door,
And curtis was standing there with four-year-old larson.
- I open the door, and he hands me larson.
- And says?
- "oh, and by the way, cory is dead,"
And leaves.
- Marty, I've gotta say I think that's very strange.
"take your grandson and, by the way,
Your daughter is dead."
- He was emotionless. Let's put it that way.
Uh, people who saw him that day
Claimed that he was without emotion.
- Curtis also knew cpr,
And yet he never tried to revive his wife.
On the day, why didn't you do cpr?
- I don't know.
Um, I don't know why I didn't do cpr.
I don't know why I-I-I didn't call 911.
Um, in looking back, um, I, uh, saw
My wife, cory, uh, dead,
And I didn't know how to react.
- Prosecutor parkinson next went after
The first police investigation,
Pushing hard against detective baird
Who handled the case.
He questioned if baird gave curtis,
Who was then an assistant state's attorney,
Preferential treatment.
- He was a prosecutor. They were the police.
He gave 'em a story that he-- uh, how it happened.
They bought into it.
After all, he's one of us.
- So, maybe tougher questions didn't get asked.
- I think so.
- Neighbors testified the lovelace household
Was sometimes a stormy one,
And that, parkinson suggested to jurors,
Is the backdrop of cory's death.
- They fought all the time.
It was a rocky marriage
With lots of arguments going both ways,
And it got out of control.
Maybe the evidence indicates that placing
A pillow over one's face
To make them stop yelling at me,
Maybe, in her weakened state,
If she was-- had flulike symptoms,
Maybe it went too far.
- The state's theory, remember,
Is the force of the pillow
Caused that cut and abrasion
On the outside and inside of cory's lip.
The prosecutor then implied the pillow was placed
Under her arms after she died
And later removed.
- If you leave it there through the night
And while rigor mortis is setting in,
And then if a person is thinking,
Oh, my god, what did I do, and, oh, there's that pillow,
And her-- I'm gonna get rid of that pillow,
Then the arms are already up.
- And you think that's what happened.
- Yes.
- But then came perhaps the most anticipated testimony
For the prosecution.
Lindsay, curtis's own daughter, took the stand.
Two times over a span of eight years,
She told police her mother was alive that morning.
- She said she had felt better.
- But on the stand, with her dad's life on the line,
She changed her story,
Telling jurors she was no longer sure
Her mom was alive that day.
- Don't remember any of it.
- But it doesn't stick in your memory.
- No.
- And you had detective baird's notes.
You do tell him the story about seeing your mother,
And then with a videotaped interview
With, uh, detective gibson,
You seem quite clear about that morning,
And, yes, you saw her and went off to school.
What had had happened in the interim
Between your statement and going into trial
On the stand and then kind of stepping back
From all of that?
- It was the fact of no one had honestly asked me
Sincerely what had happened that day,
And I'd never taken time to actually think about it.
I-- - well, detective gibson did
A couple of years before when he took your statement, right?
- But, uh, again, I didn't know why he was asking me.
I didn't know what was going on,
And I gave the story I always gave.
So, when I had to sit there and think about it,
I had to be honest with myself,
And it wasn't the answer I wanted.
I wish I could say-- I really do wish I could say,
Yes, I remember her,
Or, no, I know I didn't see her.
- But you cannot say that. - But I cannot say that.
- And this is not you getting back at your dad,
Who you're very sideways with, at this point.
- No, because it hurts my-- - he needs that story,
And you're not gonna give it to him.
- No, because it hurts my brothers, too, to--
For me not to honestly say, "yes, I saw her,"
But I'm gonna say what I can remember,
Which is nothing.
It's a black hole.
It's a traumatizing event,
And when kids go through traumatizing events,
They block things out,
And losing my mother was the worst day of my life.
- How are we to understand what's going on with--
With lindsay, christine?
Because she has told the story that,
Yeah, she, like her brothers, remembers seeing her mom alive,
But then she backs away from it and says,
"I think-- I can't remember, really."
- I don't know what's in lindsay's head and in her heart.
One day, she was happy,
And then everything changed.
- The prosecution still had to explain
Why the two oldest boys were adamant
Their mom was alive that morning.
Parkinson told jurors there was a two day gap
Between cory's death
And the first police interviews with the kids,
Ample time, he suggested, for the boys to be
Influenced by their dad.
- I think the children were confused as to which day.
After all-- - how about coached?
Do you think that he told them a story?
- He had custody of the children
From the moment of her discovery
Until Thursday afternoon.
So, from Tuesday 'til Thursday afternoon,
I don't know what was said.
- Dr. Jane turner, the pathologist
Detective gibson hired to review the case,
Took the stand and said science
Is where the truth lies.
She concluded the most reasonable explanation
For cory's arms appearing to levitate
Is that cory was dead up to 12 hours
Before police arrived on the scene.
- I viewed this material and reviewed it
With the eye of a scientist
And-and what we know about the development
Of rigor mortis.
- What would a jury believe,
Science or the words from two of cory's own sons?
Cory's brother, a dentist, found himself
Struggling over the conflicting facts.
- Science is my living, you know?
[chuckles]
I have to believe in that, but I also have to, you know,
Believe in the family at the same time.
So, I'm completely torn.
- I've never seen a more difficult case,
More closely argued,
And there doesn't seem to be middle ground to--
- There's-there's none.
- Parkinson urged the jury to focus on the science
And one image, cory in her bed,
Her body in rigor mortis.
He said it proved she died hours before curtis claimed.
It proved he was lying.
It proved, he argued, that curtis killed her.
- Coming up...
The defense gets its turn,
And christine is feeling optimistic until...
- They explained to her what was about to happen.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back.
Prosecutors in the curtis lovelace murder trial
Painted him as a callous husband
Who smothered his first wife, cory,
In a moment of rage.
Now, the defense was about to come out swinging
With startling allegations of their own,
But a stunning twist would take both sides by surprise
And leave curtis' family
With a difficult decision to make.
Here's dennis murphy with "mystery on the mississippi."
- The defense had a simple message for jurors.
Curtis should not be on trial.
That's because there was no crime,
And this was not a murder.
It said the state's case was built on faulty science.
- I've stated repeatedly in this matter
That there is no physical evidence
To prove that he murdered his wife.
- Veteran pathologist dr. George nichols
Created the office of medical examiner
For the state of kentucky back in the 1970s.
Now, as a defense expert, he told jurors
Rigor mortis is not an accurate indicator
Of time of death,
And, he added, where is the evidence
That cory fought for her life?
There were no signs of struggle
And only the cut and abrasion on her lip.
- You will fight until you no longer can.
The thought that somehow you could suffocate someone
With a pillow,
And there would be only one dental mark
Is ludicrous.
- Detective baird testified that when he
First arrived on the scene,
Cory's stomach area was still warm.
How is that possible, the defense asked,
If she had died up to 12 hours earlier?
So, if the body is warm to the touch,
My common sense tells me, not science,
That this is someone recently deceased.
- Absolutely. - Is there an error in that assumption?
- No.
- As far as the prosecution's contention
That curtis killed cory after a heated argument,
The couple's oldest son testified
He didn't hear anything like that the night before,
And he should know,
Because his room was right next to his parents.
It was even connected by an extra door
That was usually left slightly open.
The two older boys, unlike their sister,
Stuck to the story they told police.
If jurors believe them,
It blew apart the prosecution's timeline
That cory was murdered the night before.
- They said the same thing that they had told baird in 2006
And detective gibson in 2014.
- And the defense had its sights on detective gibson.
They claimed, in 2013, he was an overeager,
Newly promoted detective
Primarily assigned to work crimes against seniors.
This was his first murder case.
- He transferred from k-9 officer
To elder service officer,
And, around the same time, he went to a one-week course
On being a lead detective in a homicide case,
And, uh, he embarked on, uh, this investigation
That-that led to my indictment.
- Finally, the defense's medical expert concluded
There was only one plausible explanation
For cory's death.
She had a history of drinking and falling,
And that caused that abrasion and cut.
The bottom line, she was an alcoholic and bulimic
Suffering from a liver disease,
Someone who unfortunately died of natural causes.
- She's not a normal 38-year-old woman.
She has a significant disease of a major organ
That is associated with sudden death
And with liver failure.
- In the end, curtis decided not to take the stand.
Ten women and two men
Would decide lovelace's fate.
The deliberations went on for two full days.
Then christine got the call
To come back to the courthouse.
- I knew in my heart he was coming home.
- That was it. You were gonna prevail.
- He's-he's coming home. Yes.
- But once she arrived, bailiffs led her
To a small law library.
- Christine came in, and, uh, they explained to her
For the first time what was about to happen,
That the judge would declare a mistrial.
- Curt was sitting across.
He said, um,
"I'm not gonna be able to come home tonight,"
And, um...
And, um, I lost all my air.
It was terrible.
- The jury was hopelessly deadlocked.
The vote? Six guilty, six not.
Curtis would face another trial.
Since he couldn't make bail,
He'd remain in jail unless...
A deal? A plea deal?
- They-they had-- they had offered,
Uh, a-a second degree, uh, murder plea,
But I knew it was a decision
Not only that I had to make, but we had to make as a family,
And I didn't know,
Um, whether I could put them through,
Um, another year of what we had already gone through.
- That's when one of curtis' lawyers
Turned to christine.
- And he said that this can all end right now
If curt agrees to take this deal.
He said it would keep him from dying in prison.
- But he'd have to admit his culpability,
Responsibility in cory's death.
That's the condition, right?
- Correct,
And that he wouldn't have to spend
Probably any more than 13 years in prison.
- The two said, "no, thanks," to the state's offer
And geared up for a second trial,
But that forced them to face another dire reality.
They were totally broke, unable to afford another lawyer.
- What are we going to do?
Um, I mean, at that point, it--
There didn't appear to be any option.
- This could be a moment for christine
To say, "I'm outta here.
"I didn't sign on to be some tammy wynette
"for this guy, standin' by her man.
"I'm gone."
- Yeah, and-and-and who-who could--
Who could blame her,
Uh, if-if she would have done that?
Um, but that's not-not who she is.
- It looked as though curtis would have
To use a public defender,
But christine wouldn't accept that option.
She worked her connections
And eventually ended up here in chicago.
- She came to our office and, uh,
Told us her story,
And, uh, I remember finding it compelling
And certainly worth exploring further.
- Jon loevy is not a criminal lawyer.
He's a civil rights attorney by practice
Who also does pro bono work with the exoneration project.
Its aim? Overturn wrongful convictions,
But curtis hadn't been convicted,
At least not yet.
Still, loevy and co-counsel tara thompson
Decided to take the case.
Their services would be free.
- The main concern that I had in this case from the outset
Was really the lack of evidence.
This didn't feel like a murder case
From the beginning.
- With a new defense team in place,
Christine got working on her next goal,
Making bail to get her husband out of jail.
Friends eventually put up the cash.
Almost two years after his arrest,
Curtis was released to his wife and sons.
- They greeted me at, uh, hancock county jail,
And I-I came home, um,
To a-a dog that I had never met.
[chuckles] and, uh, um,
And for the first time, got to be
Back in my house and-and back in my home.
- But it wouldn't be home sweet home for long.
While curtis and mrs. Lovelace number three
Waited for the next trial in the alleged murder
Of mrs. Lovelace number one,
The judge ruled mrs. Lovelace number two
Could testify against her former husband.
And what a story she had to tell.
- Coming up...
Erika out of disguise and on the stand.
- He ripped my shirt,
And then he let me go, and he tried to grab me, again,
And then I kept on trying to fight him off.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Curtis lovelace was a local celebrity,
Or at least so infamous,
According to his new defense team,
That he couldn't get a fair trial in his hometown.
A judge agreed.
So, trial number two was moved from quincy
To springfield, illinois.
- All rise. - About two hours away.
David robinson would join ed parkinson
For the prosecution.
This time, cameras were allowed in the courtroom
When the trial started in March 2017.
- Our houses were 15 feet apart from each other.
So, um, yeah, I feel like-- - as in the first trial,
Neighbors testified they often heard arguing
From the lovelace home.
This woman lived next door
And says she heard shouting almost every day.
- Essentially, for the entire time that we lived there,
So... Six years.
- As I walked by the house, I-I heard an argument,
A loud argument.
- Another neighbor testified she heard cory and curtis
Really going at it and on a specific date,
The night before valentine's day 2006.
She happened to be out for a stroll.
- It actually-- it did cause me to pause.
I guess I was listening to see if somebody was in distress.
- The prosecution's theory this go around
On how cory died remained the same.
After a heated argument
The night before valentine's day,
Curtis suffocated his wife with a pillow
In a fit of rage.
He then waited up to 12 hours before police were called.
- Come over here and have a seat, please.
- And once again, science would play a leading role
In the prosecution's case,
But prosecutors had a new witness,
A star forensic expert.
- I have also testified before the house of representatives.
In a 64-year career, dr. Werner spitz
Has consulted on the jfk
And martin luther king assassinations,
As well as in other high profile cases
Including those of phil spector and casey anthony.
- In a darkened courtroom,
Spitz showed photos and talked about
That cut inside cory's mouth.
Curtis had told police his wife had fallen
In the days before she died,
His explanation for that injury.
But this expert said
He saw no signs the cut was an old one.
- The abrasion on the outside of the lip
And the cut inside
Indicted to spitz that an object, like a pillow,
Had been placed on cory's face
Shortly before she died.
- This is not an accident.
This is not a natural death.
This is not a, uh, um,
A suicide. This is a homicide.
- Then came testimony
The first jury never got to hear,
And it was explosive.
For this trial, the judge allowed erika gomez,
Wife number two, to testify.
Remember, when we interviewed her,
She wanted to protect her identity,
But now on the witness stand,
She could no longer be shielded by a disguise.
- He violently attacked me.
- Prosecutors called the ex-wife to the stand
To try to show that curtis had a history of violence.
She recounted one incident, she says,
That happened at home during their marriage.
- That morning, he had started probably drinking
Around 9 a.M.,
And we had been arguing about kids,
And he came rushing at me
And tried to grab me and tried to hurt me
And grabbed my shirt,
And he yanked it up really hard,
Hard enough to injure my knee.
He ripped my shirt,
And then he let me go, and he tried to grab me again,
And I kept on trying to fight him off.
- Then erika told the jury another shocking story.
She said curtis had been drinking at a party,
And later that night,
He blurted out something she found disturbing.
- He's rarely honest except for
When he's been drinking,
And he was talk--
He was upset about something,
And I asked him what he was upset about,
And he stated something about,
"she was writhing underneath me,"
And then he said, "oh, the black cat."
- As strange as that story sounded,
The prosecutor took it to mean this.
Curtis wasn't talking about a cat
But about cory's last minutes of life
As she struggled while curtis smothered her.
Erika had a story to tell.
There was one particular quote that came out,
"and he says, 'I could hear her writhing beneath me.'"
- Yes. That was evidence.
She gave-- - and it sounds as though
He's talking about killing his wife, at that moment.
- That's right. We thought it sounded like,
And she testified to that under oath
On the stand.
"I could feel her writhing beneath me,"
And that's pretty much what would have happened
If suffocation was occurring.
- The prosecution believed its evidence against curtis
Was overwhelming.
"not so fast," said the defense.
That's because it had some things up its sleeve,
A new piece of last minute evidence
And what an interesting nugget they had found.
- Coming up...
Bombshell testimony.
- I did not.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Uh, we told the judge we weren't gonna talk.
- Curtis lovelace was putting his life
In the hands of jon loevy.
His new attorney who took on the defense for free
Had more than 20 years of experience,
Just not in criminal law.
Was this your first murder trial?
- It was.
I did a battery criminal defense case
Right out of law school,
But, other than that, this is basically
My first criminal defense case.
- Curtis was taking a huge gamble.
On the other hand, since he was broke,
He didn't have a lot of options.
In his opening remarks,
Loevy said the state hadn't presented
Any evidence of murder for a reason.
There was no murder.
One of the defense's key goals was to debunk
The damaging testimony of curtis' ex, erika,
That he had violently attacked her
And ripped her shirt.
- Once we'd finished talkin', and, uh, I had taken my notes--
- And one of the first defense witnesses
Was major larry fuller
With the illinois national guard.
- I asked her if she wanted to make a sworn statement,
A formal sworn statement, which is in writing.
She said, yes, she would.
- Erika had filed a domestic violence charge
With the guard since curtis, at the time, was still active.
The major was appointed to look into the charges.
He testified as to what erika told him.
- She started backing up.
While backing up, she fell.
Then he went down to pick her up,
And when he did, she said that he accidentally struck her
In the chin as he was reaching for her shoulder.
That was her words.
- Erika, at first, reported curtis accidentally hit her.
The major added she initially didn't mention anything
About curtis ripping her shirt.
After conducting an investigation,
He concluded her charges were unfounded.
- There was nothin' there to actually lead to
A domestic violence finding.
- Armed with that information,
The defense confronted erika in cross-examination
With her own statement,
But erika said the document used in court was a fake.
- That's not right. Someone made that up.
Someone put those words in there.
My signature should be there. My signature is not there.
This is typed. This isn't written.
Anybody can redo this.
- Then the defense did something unusual.
It asked erika about other accusations
She's made against curtis,
And she had a laundry list of complaints.
- He knows how to forge paperwork.
He used my social security number
To try and steal money out of my account.
He knows how get rid of evidence.
He stole my daughter's bicycle out of the garage.
- At one point, an overwhelmed erika
Asked for a time out.
- Can I get a break, please?
- But erika wasn't folding.
She blurted out another allegation in court
Against her ex.
- He was poisoning me.
There was-- my hair was falling out.
There were white lines on my fingers.
I was extremely sick.
- Erika claimed curtis had tried to poison her
And her daughter.
She told police he likely put something
In their orange juice,
But according to the defense,
There was a problem with that charge.
Erika had never sought medical care.
- It wouldn't have mattered.
- When erika left the stand,
What do you think the jury made of her?
- I think they were shocked that the state called her.
You know, the state thought that they could score a point,
But when she was subjected to cross-examination,
She wasn't a credible person.
- There was one other theme loevy wanted
To drill into this jury,
And it concerned the lead detective.
Adam gibson, he argued, had gone pathologist shopping.
That is, he consulted a series of pathologists
Before finding one to give him the answer
He was looking for,
That, yes, cory's death was, in fact, a murder.
- If my opinion is not what he wants,
He's going to be going looking for somebody else.
- Dr. Shaku teas was one of the pathologists
Gibson approached.
Her opinion? Detective gibson wanted her
To call this a homicide
When that was not her conclusion.
- He had a theory, and he was looking
Somehow to substantiate that theory.
- The original pathologist, the original coroner
Said that there was insufficient evidence
To find a homicide.
He got other opinions from other pathologists
Who also told him, "there's nothing unusual here.
You're barkin' up the wrong tree."
- Then came even more damaging accusations
Against detective gibson.
The defense said it obtained, at the last minute,
Important emails and other documents
It was supposed to have received from the police
But never did,
Potentially exculpatory evidence.
- It was not something that I thought of, no.
- One email was from a medical expert.
He warned detective gibson that if the first pathologist
Left the cause of death as undetermined,
That opinion would trump anyone else's,
And he implied that would give
Plenty of reasonable doubt to a jury.
- I believe so. It should, yes.
I did not.
- The prosecution's case appeared to be teetering.
Then came another blow.
- Hello, mr. Ballard.
- William ballard was one of the first emts on the scene.
When he arrived, he wanted to place ekg stickers
On cory's body to check for a heartbeat,
So he moved her arms.
- Her arms were down against her chest.
I had to pull them up to, uh, check for a pulse,
Check for, uh, any rigor mortis,
And to also move her arms up to where I could place
My stickers where I'm supposed to place them.
- He moved cory's arms before the police photos were taken.
That means her arms were not in the same position
As seen in the photographs,
The ones that started this entire second investigation.
The defense seized on that fact.
- I did not.
That the arms have been moved prior to the pictures, yes.
There-- yes.
- Mr. Lovelace, come up and be sworn.
- A final surprise, for the first time,
The defendant, curtis lovelace, took the stand.
He insisted he wasn't a violent man.
He never harmed his second wife, erika,
And certainly did not kill cory.
- I did love cory, and, uh,
And I know the kids loved her,
And-and, uh, it's been difficult.
- The defense wrapped up its questioning
With an emotional curtis
Telling jurors of the enormous toll
The two trials had taken on him and his family.
- It's been two and a half years.
- Whenever you're ready. - On cross-examination,
The prosecution pointed out that a whole bunch of witnesses
And facts in this trial
Would have to be wrong for curtis to be innocent.
- It's up to them to decide who is lying.
- After seven days of testimony,
Curtis lovelace's trial had come to an end.
The jury began deliberations.
Remember, the first panel was deadlocked six to six.
- Let me ask you this.
Have you reached a unanimous verdict?
- But this go around,
The jury was out about two hours
Before it came back with a decision.
- We, the jury, find the defendant,
Curtis t. Lovelace, not guilty.
[cheering] - yay!
- Signed by the foreperson.
- Eleven years after cory's death,
Two and a half years after curtis' arrest,
And two jury trials later, not guilty.
Two-hour verdict, murder trial,
I mean, what does that tell ya?
- That tells me that, uh, that they were
Absolutely convinced curt was innocent.
- That's not how prosecutor ed parkinson sees it.
So, does the system work,
Or has a guy gotten away with murder here?
- Sometimes it works.
I think my partner in the prosecution said,
"you're lookin' at a guy who you think
"might have got away with murder."
I feel bad because I think we were right.
- How do you feel, right now?
- While the legal consequences for curtis are over,
The fallout from cory's death
Paralyzed the extended family.
- I don't know what to believe anymore.
- Lindsay, now a teacher, remains estranged
From her father,
But she hopes to salvage something
Despite all that's happened,
A relationship with her brothers.
- I just pray every day and hope that one day
I'll get a call, a text, a message, an email,
Something from one of them.
- Cory's mom, marty.
Did you come to an opinion about what role,
If any, he had in-in-in cory's death?
Curtis?
- Those are tucked here.
I have kept my mouth shut for a long time,
And I'm gonna keep it that way.
- Curtis says the state offered
Increasingly attractive plea deals
Before the start of the second trial,
But he turned them all down.
He has since filed an 11-count lawsuit
Against several police officers,
The city of quincy, and adams county.
The suit alleges malicious prosecution
And the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
It also claims curtis' kids were falsely imprisoned
During those police interviews.
A federal court granted summary judgment
In favor of the defendants
In regard to the emotional distress claim
But allowed the case to move forward
On all other counts.
The lovelace family has moved out of quincy,
And curtis has opened a new law office
In champagne, illinois.
- A couple of requests that we go ahead and get--
- He and christine started
An exoneration type organization.
They said they wanted to help others
Wrongfully accused or convicted.
Christine, what happened to you guys in this whole thing,
Do you think?
- I don't know what happened to us, dennis.
We're still figuring that out.
These kinds of things happen across our country every day,
And now I think we have an obligation
To share this story and to help other people.
- Your goal was to-to leave that courthouse an innocent man.
- Yes. I believe, um, looking in the eyes of that jury,
Um, seeing, you know, the tears from some of them,
How quickly that they came back,
That they were declaring to-to me
And-and-and-and the world that-that-that I'm innocent.
- Curtis lovelace, a life interrupted.
- That's all for this edition of
"dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm kate snow. Thank you for watching.