- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- I couldn't comprehend what was happening.
I couldn't sleep. Losing my husband.
Some image that is never gonna go away.
- A father out for a walk with his son.
- I heard shots. Very loud shots.
- The child survives. The father does not.
- All he was asking was "honey, tell me.
How's the baby? Is the baby okay?"
- It was an execution. - Yes.
- The killers? Never caught.
- We're waitin' for a phone call.
Waitin' for a break. Nothing was coming in.
- Then one month later, another shooting.
The victim? The dead man's partner.
And no question this time who the killer was.
- I panicked because I thought he was reaching for his gun
And that's when I shot.
- Was it self defense?
- The lead detective kept telling us
Everyone's life is in danger.
- Or was it something else?
- It's a lousy excuse to kill somebody.
- What secrets were stored on this tape?
Villain?
- I just couldn't believe what I heard.
- Or victim?
- Hug your family. Kiss your children.
You don't know when you're gonna lose them.
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
In a hail of gunfire,
Cindy carballo's world turned upside down.
Her husband was murdered.
The couple's baby boy, shot multiple times,
Somehow survived.
Wracked with grief, the young widow
Was now forced to rear their son alone.
But any hope of building a brighter future
Was threatened when a dark secret
Came to light.
Here's keith morrison with "miami heat."
♪♪
- It was dusk in miami.
The day's heat retreated. Parks filled up.
[cheering]
Soccer games were called to order.
Orlando mesa loved the evening ritual.
His and his 18-month-old son, noah.
Orlando doted on the boy.
- He was a hands-on dad.
Yay!
- And noah's mom, cindy, was there to record it all.
- My husband was an outdoor person,
So, you know, he was always doing things,
You know, with-with noah.
- And so, on a spring evening in the gathering dusk,
Orlando walked behind noah who rolled along on his toy car.
A security camera watched them toddle down the sidewalk.
They disappeared around a corner.
- That was the worst day of my life.
- What happened?
Well, that's still being debated, in a way.
A chain of events, certainly of which
A father-son evening stroll may had been the first
But certainly not the last.
But a moment first to fill you in.
Cindy, or janepsy,
The name she was born with in cuba,
Came to miami as a teenager.
And she was bright and ambitious.
She learned english pretty much from scratch.
Became a hairdresser, experimented with her own
Quite frequently, as you'll see.
It was back in 2006, cindy carballo had been invited
To a super bowl party. Lots of people there.
In the crowd and the noise, she didn't notice orlando mesa.
But he noticed her.
- According to him, it was love at first sight.
[chuckle]
- Did you feel that way too?
- Not at first.
- But then after that super bowl party,
She got very interested in
That funny handsome guy named orlando.
The mechanic with the wild curly hair.
- He definitely was a jokester, so he made me laugh.
- Orly, as she called him, was as ambitious as she was.
He didn't just fix cars,
He bought a couple of lunch trucks
And then he branched out into real estate development.
Having tried marriage once,
Cindy was reluctant to try again.
But orlando?
Not a man inclined to entertain doubts.
And one weekend, he invited cindy to a barbecue party.
- He surprised me. He knew that I love mariachis.
And then all of a sudden, all of these mariachis,
They come in and singing
And he gets on his knees and he proposed.
So, it was exciting.
- That's a day you don't forget.
- Never.
- So, in short order they got married
And had a baby and became a family.
Why'd you pick noah as the name?
- They had a book on baby names and I saw the name noah
And it said, uh, it meant "new beginning,"
So I loved it.
- So it was. A new beginning.
As aptly recorded as any new parents could make it.
But if this was the beginning,
Then what was this?
That early evening in April 2008,
Orlando and noah heading down the street
With this toy car.
They turned the corner. Out of camera range now.
And then-- - I heard shots.
Very loud shots. And I went outside.
That's when I saw my husband full of blood,
Crying for help.
I'm sorry.
It's an image that is never gonna go away.
I didn't see my son at first, so I thought the worst.
I-I went crazy because I thought my son was kidnapped.
- Then, from the front yard near where orlando fell,
A neighbor called out.
- And she said, "no, your-- I have your son."
My brave neighbor.
She took my son from my husband's arms.
When I ran to grab my son, my son was shot.
Full of blood.
- Neighbors called 911.
In the distance, as the caller spoke to 911,
A woman screamed.
It was cindy.
Cindy held her son for dear life.
Orlando tried to speak.
- All he was asking was, "honey, tell me, how's the baby?
"is the baby okay?"
- Then, an agonizing decision.
Ride in the ambulance with her baby
Or stay by her dying husband.
- Of course I was torn in two,
But my main concern was my baby,
So I jumped immediately in the ambulance.
- As cindy sped away to the hospital with noah,
The paramedics worked on orlando where he fell,
But it was too late.
They could not save him.
Felix guadarrama, then a detective with
The north miami police department,
Went to the hospital to check on the boy
And deliver the bad news.
- That's the toughest part of my job.
- How did she take it?
- She obviously became even more upset.
Everybody started cryin'.
It was just horrible to hear news like that.
- But little noah would make it.
Would be okay thanks to his father's selflessness.
- My son, um, was shot in his arm
And in his leg
But, you know, his father protected him.
- Held him and covered him?
- When they were shooting at him,
He just lifted my son up.
- Keep them away from his body.
What do you miss most about him?
- Being with him all the time.
- That was when your life made sense.
- That's what I knew. Us together with our baby.
- But now, orlando was gone
And little noah was wounded and suffering.
And so, she took him home to care for him there
In a house that felt empty.
- I couldn't sleep.
See my baby suffer with the wounds.
Losing my husband.
He was very loved by everyone in my family.
- Clearly, however, there was someone
Who didn't feel the same way about orlando mesa.
And before long, said cindy,
She and the north miami police
Came to the very same conclusion
About who that might be.
- Coming up.
Cindy points to someone she thinks is a possible suspect
And begs for help
In bringing her husband's killer to justice.
- Hug your family. Kiss your children.
You don't know when you're gonna lose them.
- And a revealing piece of evidence caught on camera.
- He was on the ground.
They come back by
And now you have a second, uh,
Rally of shots.
- It was an execution? - Yes.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- They were just going for a walk
On a pleasant miami evening. And yet.
When her husband was gunned down and killed,
Her 18-month-old son wounded,
Cindy carballo didn't quite get it right away
That hers was a particular kind of nightmare.
This was an execution.
What does it do to your head when you think that?
Somebody wanted him dead.
- I couldn't comprehend what was happening.
I was just in pain that I had lost my husband.
- Three days after the shooting,
Cindy went before tv cameras at police headquarters.
- Hug your family. Kiss your children.
You don't know when you're gonna lose them.
- Holding her son noah,
His injured arm wrapped in bandages,
She appealed for help to find the killer.
- The most little information, they-they--
You know, please just come forward.
- Police had urged her to make the appeal
Hoping that all the emotion would help generate
Some much-needed leads.
Though there was one lead both amazing
And ultimately frustrating.
Right there, just below the roof line
Of cindy and orlando's house, was a security camera.
Trevor shinn was a major with the north miami police.
- We had video footage
That we obtained from the victim's home.
- That's the camera that captured father and son
Heading out of the house and down the street
On that last walk they took together.
Then watch this. A car barrels up to the curb.
Two men burst out, guns drawn.
Run around the corner out of camera range.
That's where they open fire on orlando and noah.
Within 15 seconds,
They're back in the car speeding away.
But they're not done.
- He was on the ground. They come back by
And now you have a second, uh, rally of shots.
- It was an execution? - Yes.
- Nobody could identify the two you could see on the video.
Best witnesses could say
They were african-american males with dreadlocks.
One caller said she thought she saw a third man in the car
Besides the two shooters.
They found the car, eventually, abandoned.
It had been stolen.
And the evidence trail cooled dramatically.
As for what the motive was, no one seemed to know.
- It was shocking because my husband
Was very much liked.
He didn't have any known enemies.
- Was that true?
Detectives at the north miami police department
Threw out a wide net
And they got some help from cindy.
- When you're workin' a homicide,
You-you want to reach out to the people
Who are close to the victim. - Yeah.
- Spouses. - Of course.
- Best friends, business associates.
You want to get as much information.
Are there beefs? Are there bad businesses?
- And that's when cindy thought about
Her husband's new business partner.
Man named ilan nissim.
They guy he got involved with in real estate development.
- When the police, um, questioned me and they said,
"who are his friends and partners
"that he had any incident?"
That's when I said, "well, you know,
"there was an incident with this b-business venture."
- Cindy met ilan nissim and his girlfriend naketa
At a birthday party for their daughter,
Who was noah's age.
And then, said cindy, orlando told her later,
Not long before he was murdered,
That ilan lost a big packet of cash
Orlando had trusted him with.
- My husband gave ilan nissim money
To purchase lots to get in the business.
- A lot of money?
- Um, my knowledge was $180,000.
And there was a robbery and the money was gone.
- 180,000 lost?
In cash?
That's the sort of thing makes a cop sit up
And take notice.
Tell me about the link between nissim and orlando.
What were they doing together?
- Some small real estate, from what we understand.
- But wh-- all these sound like businesses
On the up and up. - Yes.
- Cindy began to suspect that nissim must have had a reason
To want her husband dead.
But as for what he may have done--
- I don't think she could say.
She just kept saying that he had to be involved
And it was an issue over money.
It was just like her gut feeling this guy was involved.
- And then the 20th of may,
One month to the day after the murder,
The investigation had stalled.
Cindy was at home alone,
Packing to move out of the house she shared with orlando.
What happened?
Well, sometimes it can take a while
To figure out who did what to whom.
- Coming up.
A knock, a shot, and a mystery.
- He made a move and I panicked
Because I thought he was reaching for his gun.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Burying a loved one is never easy.
Burying a loved one who was murdered?
Incomprehensible.
And to make it somehow worse, said cindy,
Police told her that her suspicions about
That guy ilan nissim were well placed
And they gave her a warning.
- The lead detective, she kept tellin' us
This are dangerous individual.
- And then, this was pretty terrifying,
Said cindy, after the murder,
Nissim called her on the phone incessantly.
- He always inquire about the investigation,
So I felt he wanted to keep me close
For information if he was, uh, maybe a suspect.
- And on the day of orlando's funeral
Who should show up but nissim himself.
That's gotta be pretty bizarre,
To have him at the funeral
When you think he had your husband killed.
- It was. It was.
I immediately told the lead detective.
- Mm-hmm. - In the case.
- The lead detective came to the funeral also.
- And she instructed us
To act natural,
Not to let him suspect
That we knew that he was the person.
- And to keep taking nissim's calls.
Cindy thought she could help the police solve the case.
But there was a little more involved
Than a pure murder investigation.
The feds were in on it now, said abbe rifkin,
The prosecutor assigned to the murder case.
- They were looking at mr. Nissim
As they were looking at her husband
As they were looking at other people
Who were allegedly in the drug, um, business.
- The drug business? Yes.
All that missing cash
And orlando's three prior convictions
For marijuana and cocaine possession.
Those things gave the crime the whiff of a classic drug hit.
- My husband, unfortunately, had a past
Before I met him, before I marry him.
- Mind you, orlando's crimes were not exactly big time.
He pleaded guilty to all those charges
And served a few days in jail.
And though nissim also had a record,
Several assault convictions years earlier
When he was not yet 20-- none of them
Had a thing to do with the drug trade.
Still, the question was, had something happened
To sour their partnership?
Just over three weeks after the murder,
The police asked cindy to do more than
Just keep an eye on nissim.
- I was asked by the lead detective
To maintain communication with him
So I could work with them wearing a wire
And help them catch this individual.
- A potentially dangerous thing to do, of course,
Wearing a wire,
Secretly recording conversations.
Still, cindy said she would do it.
And on the advice of the lead investigator,
Said cindy, she bought a gun
For the first time in her life.
She also decided to move out of her house.
But the wire?
- She never wore the wire.
- No, she did not. And the reason?
It was may 20th,
Exactly one month after the hit on orlando mesa.
Cindy was home alone, packing to move.
Then suddenly, an unexpected guest
Was at her door, said cindy.
Not just any guest. Ilan nissim.
He practically forced his way in, she said.
Peppered her with questions about her husband's business.
- He started asking me about my husband's warehouse.
And if I had my husband's keys.
And I said, "I don't know where he keeps his keys."
That's when he became aggressive and he said that
I knew more than what I was telling him.
- She watched in terror, she said,
As he walked around the house,
As he looked outside and saw that her dogs
Were securely leashed, unable to help her.
And then, she said, it got very scary indeed.
- When he grabbed me, that's when he attack me.
I was able to get away from him.
He reach out to grab me again.
He scratched my neck. He ripped my shirt.
He chased me through the house.
- Cindy said she ran to the living room
Where she kept her newly-purchased gun.
And nissim, right behind her,
Tripped on some bags she was packing.
- And when I turn around, he made a move and I panicked
Because I thought he was reaching for his gun.
And that's when I-I shot.
And I ran out of the house and I called 911.
- He she stopped him? Were there others with him?
She kept running.
- And she's frantically-- and she said,
"oh, they're chasing me. "they're chasing me."
- Back at the house,
Police found nissim on the floor.
He was very dead.
They finally caught up with cindy a few blocks away.
Drove her to headquarters.
How did they treat you that day?
- They treat me very well. They were very nice.
After my statement, they told me that n--
It was a justifiable self-defense.
- Afterwards, the lead detective
Dropped cindy at her parent's house.
- And she told my family that I did the police a favor
By taking out the trash.
- The next day, news reports quoted the police as saying
Nissim was a suspect in orlando's murder
And that cindy was justified. Shot him in self-defense.
But now, regardless of that, you had just killed somebody.
You'd taken another human life.
- Yes.
- That can't be easy to deal with.
- No, and-and it felt unreal.
It felt unreal.
- However, as you say, the police told you
You'd taken out the trash.
And did they essentially leave you alone after that?
- Um, they dropped me off at my house
And, um, they told me-- my family members
Had nothing to worry about.
- So, you went on rebuilding your life.
- Correct.
- But as they say, don't count your chickens.
- And don't judge a book by its cover.
Was this a story of self-defense or revenge?
Coming up.
- I just couldn't believe what I heard.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Cindy carballo told investigators
She had been attacked by the same man
She believed was involved in her husband's murder.
Fearing for her life, she said, she shot him dead.
According to cindy, police assured her
It was justifiable homicide.
But a dirty secret was about to surface.
Was the grieving widow as clean as she was letting on?
Once again, here's keith morrison
With "miami heat."
- Cindy carballo's husband had been murdered,
Her son wounded, and she had just killed
The man she believed was responsible.
It wasn't an easy to load to put in the rearview mirror.
But a few months after she killed ilan nissim,
It was noah's second birthday
And cindy decided his happiness
Would come first, so she organized a party.
Pony rides. A pinata.
The cake. - Yay!
- Cindy, remember, had always been an ambitious person
And now that she was the family breadwinner,
In 2010, two years after the murder,
She and a partner opened a clinic that specialized
In managing pain,
Located in nearby broward county,
Just north of miami.
She hired this man to help get the business going.
His name is john friskey.
- I was sellin' her computers
And helpin' her get set up.
- Pain management clinics were popping up
All over south florida just about then.
And some of them were suspected of being so-called pill mills
Where unethical doctors got rich writing prescriptions
For narcotics like oxycontin.
- Broward county,
I think there was a hundred and some odd pain clinics,
Which is putting around more than a mcdonald's.
- Detective rob weir was part of a dea task force
Set up to investigate these pill mills.
And while cindy insisted she ran her clinic by the books,
It came to the attention of the dea task force.
- We had received complaints on it.
So, we sent somebody in. See what we could do.
- And guess who the task force sent?
John friskey, the computer expert.
He also happened to be a dea informant.
- Every time I went in there, I wore a wire from the dea.
- When you wore the wire,
What were you assigned to do?
- My main goal was to get anything
That would piece it together and prove it was a pill mill.
- He talked to cindy a lot.
Fishing, really, for what might be evidence
Of medical fraud.
And then one day, it was just over two years
After cindy shot nissim,
Friskey got a very big surprise.
- Made me very uncomfortable and I-I just wanted to leave.
- What happened?
Friskey asked cindy about her family.
And she launched into an amazing story
About the shooting of ilan nissim.
It was a story of how her husband was murdered,
And her son wounded,
And how she suspected her husband's business partner,
Ilan nissim, arranged it all.
And then, she said, when she decided the police
Were never going to arrest him...
And that's when a completely different story emerged
About the day she shot nissim.
A far cry from the one she told the police.
Nissim didn't barge into her house uninvited, she said.
She lured him there.
She told friskey she asked nissim to take down
Some speakers in her bedroom.
And then, she went to the living room and got her gun.
She didn't shoot 'em just once.
She emptied her gun into him.
John friskey simply wanted to find out if cindy
Was operating a pill mill.
Instead, it sounded like she had confessed
To a much, much more serious crime.
- I went in the restroom.
I called rob weir, the-the dea agent,
And I told 'em she just confessed to murder.
And she wants to go to lunch.
And he said, "no, you can't--
"just get out of there, make any excuse.
"you're not goin' to lunch with her."
- Friskey gave the tape to weir.
- And I'm like, nobody could just flat out confess like that.
I just couldn't believe what I heard.
- Detective weir contacted north miami police
And prosecutor abbe rifkin,
Who, it turned out, had her doubts all along
About the story cindy told the cops.
- The persona that she tries to portray,
Of being this poor little widow
Is completely belied by that-- those tapes.
- Nissim's daughter is a little girl named imani.
- He really did love her.
- Ever since nissim was shot, imani's mother,
Naketa roberts, had been hearing people say
The man she loved was a killer.
- I couldn't see this person hurting anybody.
Or being this-- or whoever they say he was.
That's not the person that I knew.
- Prosecutors put their case together.
Miami-dade state attorney katherine fernandez rundle
Had to sign off,
And she did so without hesitation.
- Revenge isn't tolerated anywhere in the system,
Even if it's understandable,
And somebody might have some sympathy--
- But there's kind of a push in that direction, isn't there?
You oughta be able to kind of act out in your own defense.
- Sometimes revenge is-is just an excuse,
But it's a lousy excuse to kill somebody.
You cannot do it. You will be held accountable.
- And the state of florida did hold cindy accountable.
Just before christmas 2010,
She was charged with first degree murder.
- There was a dead man, an apparent confession,
And a motive,
But under florida law, was it murder?
- And it was at that point in time that you shot him
To protect yourself. - Yes, I did.
I was in fear for my life.
In my mind, he was there to kill me.
- What was your-- your impression
Of her testimony at the stand your ground hearing?
- That she was an actress.
And she was putting on an act.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Words.
What a lot of trouble they can be.
Cindy carballo's words,
Recorded by dea informant john friskey,
Could put her away for life for first degree murder.
But this being florida, she had a shot
At getting the charge thrown out.
The controversial stand your ground law.
- Both sides are ready to proceed?
- If cindy could satisfy this judge
That she had to use lethal force to protect herself
From ilan nissim, she'd walk away free as a bird.
If she couldn't?
She'd go on trial for murder.
Watching in the gallery, nissim's girlfriend
Naketa roberts and their daughter imani.
- Are there any witnesses that the defense seeks
To call at this time?
- Cindy would be the first, telling the judge that,
Yes indeed, a tape will tell the story of what happened.
But not the undercover dea tape.
That was nonsense, she said.
The true tape, the one that told the honest story
Of what she went through that day back in 2008,
Was her recorded 911 call.
After she shot nissim.
That was the true cindy, the defense said.
Tearing out of the house hysterical, panic-stricken,
Telling the operator she was sure he was going to shoot her.
Sitting here on the witness stand,
Cindy swore her story was the same now
As the one she told the cops from the start.
That she was home alone when nissim showed up uninvited
And attacked her.
- He got aggravated and aggressive with me
And he grabbed me by my shirt.
- And it was at that point in time that you shot him
To protect yourself?
- Yes, I did. I was in fear for my life.
In my mind, he was there to kill me.
- Cindy turned to the judge, fighting back tears
And explained that she fired because it looked like
Nissim was about to shoot her.
- He turned with his left hand towards h-his right
And at that moment, I just started shooting
And shooting like there was no tomorrow.
'cause in my mind, he was reaching out
For the gun I seen him with.
He was gonna shoot at me.
[crying] it was so scary.
- Cindy's attorneys reminded the judge
That after the shooting,
The police announced cindy would not be charged.
- After the detectives interviewed her,
Uh, no, they felt at the time that, uh,
This could be a case of, uh, self-defense.
- And the defense pointed out news stories of the time
In which police were quoting nissim as a suspect
In orlando's murder.
- At the time,
He was the person the police was investigating
And the only suspect in my husband's murder.
- And as for that dea undercover tape,
Which so faithfully recorded what she told friskey
About planning and vengeance.
An eye for an eye.
- This is me telling him how I felt.
My embellishment on the story--
- It was also pure theater, she said.
She was trying to impress friskey,
Not confess to him.
- I made myself to look tougher than I was
Because I-- - why'd you do that?
- Because I'm a single mom living in a man's world.
So, I wanted to sound like a-- like I'm tough.
You can't mess with me.
- Cindy asked the judge to look to one statement
On that tape that was all true and consistent
With the fear cindy showed on the 911 call.
- You told friskey that you had to defend yourself
Against ilan, correct?
- Yes, I told him that I was very scared.
I told him that I have to defend myself against ilan.
- Cindy's testimony appeared to be a powerful performance.
But there was one person not impressed.
Lead prosecutor abbe rifkin.
What was your-- your impression
Of her testimony at the stand your ground hearing?
- That she was an actress.
And she was putting on an act.
- And the act began with that 911 call.
Was that the real cindy?
Not a chance, said prosecutor rifkin.
The real cindy was the one on that friskey tape
Speaking freely when she thought
Nobody else was listening.
And during cross-examination, prosecutors said police
Were never as suspicious of nissim
As cindy claimed they were.
Instead, they said, it was she who pushed him
As the number one suspect.
- He was inv-- bein' investigated
For the murder of my husband at the time, that is correct.
- So, was nissim a murder suspect or not?
We put the question to these two detectives.
In the paper it says that she shot in self-defense
The number one suspect in her husband's killing.
So, is that what the police were thinking?
- No. - No.
- He was never a number one suspect.
- Never a number one suspect.
- Words.
Words in court, words on tape.
Which words would the judge believe?
- In a case full of twists and turns, one more.
- That blew my mind.
How they assert that I was pregnant by this man.
It was just disgusting.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back.
Cindy carballo testified that the frantic 911 call
She made after shooting ilan nissim
Accurately captured what happened.
A desperate, fearful act.
Prosecutors countered that it was good theater
But the real cindy was caught boasting
To an undercover dea informant
In a secretly recorded confession.
Now, a judge was about to weigh in.
But this tale of two tapes was far from over.
Here's keith morrison with the conclusion of "miami heat."
- It was just after thanksgiving 2012.
Cindy carballo had made an impassioned case
That she shot ilan nissim in self-defense.
And under florida's stand your ground law,
She qualified for immunity from prosecution.
- He was gonna kill me.
- She sobbed and pleaded on the stand.
Now, she stood quietly to hear the judge's decision.
- The defendant's motion is denied.
- Denied.
Cindy said the judge failed to meet the legal burden
Of a stand your ground case.
So, two years later,
Cindy went on trial for murder.
- Please be seated.
Now, prosecutors had the burden
To prove her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Evidence will show that the defendant lured mr. Nissim
To the house for revenge.
- Listen to the dea tape,
Said prosecutor abbe rifkin to the jury.
To hear not a victim,
But a calculating, cold-blooded killer.
What did she do?
She bought a gun and then, prosecutors said,
She invited nissim to her home.
Miami-dade county medical examiner dr. Emma lew
Demonstrated the path of bullets from cindy's gun
Into nissim's body.
Five shots, mostly in the back.
- Gunshot wound a was on the right upper back.
- The day cindy shot nissim, he wasn't even armed.
And if she was as frightened of him as she claimed to be,
Then how to explain this?
Phone records that showed the two
Were in constant contact,
30 times in the weeks after orlando was killed.
- We're talking about somebody who was clearly
Having a relationship with this person.
- Come on, that's a pretty thin thread.
Clearly having a relationship?
How do you-- I mean, that's your speculation,
[indistinct]. - Absolutely not.
This was someone who was calling the victim
Equal number of times that he called her.
- And then, prosecutor rifkin went a step further.
She discovered, she said, that cindy got pregnant
After her husband was killed.
Miscarried at 3 weeks.
And who did she text from the hospital?
- The person that she texted from the hospital
A little after 6:00 in the morning was the victim.
- It was clear what the prosecutor was implying,
That nissim might have been the father.
Cindy seemed stunned by the whole idea.
- That blew my mind.
How they come and can assert
That I was pregnant by this man.
It was just disgusting.
- And simply untrue,
Said defense co-counsel bruce fleisher.
- For them to suggest that she was pregnant from nissim
Wa-was ludicrous.
- In fact, said the defense,
The state's whole case was ludicrous.
This was clearly an act of self-defense.
Just listen to cindy's sister describe the time
She saw nissim talking to cindy
Right after her husband was murdered
To understand why she was so afraid.
- Then, the next thing I see is him lifting up his shirt
And he had a gun.
I saw my sister looking a little frightened about it.
- One of the detectives had told her
This person has a long rap sheet
And that she should arm herself.
- And after cindy shot nissim,
Her sister said she saw proof that cindy had been attacked.
- She had a-a bruises on her arm.
She had st-- like scratch or bruises on her neck.
- And that "shot him in the back" thing?
The defense called a medical expert of its own
Who said the first bullet was in nissim's side
When he turned his body as if to reach for a gun.
- Within a fraction of a second,
He will fall forward,
Uh, and during that period of time,
He gets all the rest of the gunshots.
- The defense wanted to ask the lead detective diana roman
Just what she told cindy after her husband was murdered.
Roman has denied ever telling cindy to buy a gun
Or congratulating her for taking out the trash
When she killed nissim.
But here in court,
The judge would not let the defense
Ask about those things.
Though she did allow questions
About all those texts and calls.
- You told janepsy to stay close to him?
- I asked her to maintain a communication
That already existed there.
- But the big issue, of course, was that dea audio tape.
This tape is the one in which she seems to confess.
- But she's not confessing,
She said that "I shot that man in self-defense.
"I thought he was armed."
It's not a confession.
- Remember, the defense argued that cindy
Was exaggerating wildly when she talked to the dea's friskey.
Embellishing to make herself look tough.
But if you listen carefully, they said,
You can hear one thing cindy did say
On that tape that was true.
The one thing prosecutors ignored.
- Five big words.
"I had to defense myself."
Now that, said the defense, was true.
Just like the 911 call was true.
To all of which the prosecutors said "nonsense."
That 911 call?
That was all an act.
And their proof of that was something cindy said
To dea informant friskey on his tape.
- What does she say when she thinks no one's listening?
"I was really nervous,
"but I made it look authentic."
- And the judge agreed with the prosecution.
Dismissed the 911.
Ruled it inadmissible.
Which was a very big problem for cindy.
And perhaps the reason that, in her trial,
She chose not to take the witness stand.
- We couldn't let her do it because we saw that
We were not being treated fairly in the rulings.
- In his closing,
Defense attorney nathan diamond insisted
That cindy was within her rights
When she shot nissim.
- The shots are being pulled off in rapid fire,
Consistent with the fear of the attack
That was being placed on janepsy in her home.
- So now, the big wait.
One day. Two days.
On the third day, jurors said they were deadlocked.
The judge sent them back.
- Please be seated. - And hours later--
- We the jury find the defendant guilty
Of first degree murder.
- I never imagined
That I was going to go to trial
And not be able to tell my-my side
And actually how the events occurred.
- The sentence was swift.
Ordained by law.
Life. No parole.
She told her son noah that she would fight the lies
That put her there.
- He told me that he understand
Because sometimes in school there's boys
That tell lies about him
And try to get him in trouble with the teachers,
So he said, "I understand, mommy."
- Ask state attorney katherine hernandez rundle
About what happened to noah,
Now living with relatives, and she calls it a tragedy.
- That is really the heart of this case
Because that's the person who really has suffered
And lost everything.
- When we talked to cindy carballo
It had been 7 years since the tumultuous events
That put her behind bars.
Seven years since her husband was murdered in a case
That still hasn't been solved.
Seven years to contemplate the act that put her here
And whether she'd do it again.
- Yes.
Because I was attacked and I-- that moment,
I felt that he was gonna kill me.
And if not having remorse
Makes me guilty, I don't--
I don't think it should be that way.
- Perhaps not.
But certainly, cindy carballo has years
To rethink the question and her answer.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Thank you for watching.