Narrator: Up next, a car crash baffles investigators.
At first, it was like a sad, you know, tragic accident.
Narrator: No one can determine exactly what killed the victim.
It wasn't something that was a normal death.
Narrator: Detectives and doctors try to find a cause.
There were no internal injuries.
It's not an accident. It's not medical.
What else can it be?
♪♪
Narrator: On a frigid afternoon in February of 2005,
police in Highland Heights near Cleveland, Ohio,
got an unusual call.
A woman was behind the wheel of a car
that was drifting along in a residential neighborhood,
moving slowly, but still out of control.
She's driving through a school zone.
Witnesses advised us that she's slumped over the wheel.
The car drifted left of center, sideswiped the other vehicle,
then drifted back into her lanes.
It was traveling so slowly
that one of the witnesses was able to open the door
and actually stop the car physically.
Narrator: The driver, who appeared to be in her 30s,
was semi-conscious and having trouble breathing.
McKee: When the paramedics arrived, they were confused
because there were no physical injuries on her body.
There was no outward appearance or cause --
obvious cause of why she was in this state.
Narrator: The driver had an open cellphone beside her
and had apparently been trying to call for help.
She was rushed to the emergency room
where she died a short time later.
The victim was identified as Rosie Essa,
the 38-year-old mother of two young children.
Whoa! Who's this?!
O'Mara: She was married to a emergency room doctor
who worked down in Akron.
His name was Yazeed Essa. Everybody that I talked to said,
"classically sweet, kind, giving mom" --
all the things that we think would be the salt of the earth.
Great person.
Narrator: Her husband, Yazeed, whom everyone called "Yaz,"
told his fellow doctors and police
that Rosie had no serious medical issues,
certainly nothing that would cause her death.
He couldn't offer any information as to why she died.
Narrator: And an autopsy offered no answers as to what had happened.
She did not have any natural disease either
that would cause her death.
Narrator: A subsequent toxicology scan also provided no clues
about what killed her.
Doctors and police were baffled.
Rosie had no injuries, no diseases,
she wasn't using drugs,
and there was no sign of her encountering
any toxic substances, even accidentally.
Yet she was dead from a fender bender
that wasn't fast enough to cause any serious injuries.
It became, in my tenure as a reporter,
one of the strangest cases I've ever seen in terms
of what looked from all appearances
a tragic death of a woman -- a mother, two small kids,
high-profile couple, doctor, husband,
and then all of a sudden -- oh, my goodness.
Narrator: Police and doctors wanted answers and fast.
Rosie's initial toxicology scan
showed no illicit drugs in her system.
There was nothing obvious at this stage of the autopsy
to say why she died.
So the cause of death was deferred
pending further examination.
Narrator: A second, more extensive test also came up empty.
There's always testing that can be performed,
almost limitless, but the sample is limited.
The coroner informed the police department
that they had exhausted all of their testing possibilities.
Narrator: That meant investigators had to narrow it down
to one or two possibilities
before they could do another test.
This stalled the investigation until detectives discovered
a phone call Rosie made just before her death,
a phone call that told analysts what to test for.
♪♪
Narrator: Just before the low-speed crash
that sent Rosie Essa to the hospital,
she made a phone call to a friend on her cellphone.
She was on the cellphone with one of her buddies,
Eva McGregor, and she mentioned to Eva,
"I feel like crap because I took this calcium pill.
God, I feel like just -- ugh!"
Narrator: Before her death, Rosie was preparing for a bright future.
She and her husband, Yazeed,
were planning to have another baby.
Yazeed, a doctor, was giving her supplements.
There were three or four different prenatal vitamins
that he was supplying to her,
one of which was calcium supplements.
Narrator: As far as detectives and doctors knew,
taking the calcium and prenatal medications
were the only changes from Rosie's normal routine.
Was it possible these supplements
could have caused her death?
Her husband said that was impossible.
According to Yaz, her death was a mystery, medically,
to him as it was to everyone else.
When I asked Yazeed about the calcium supplements
and the prenatal vitamins,
"Did you think they would have any cause for her death?"
And he said, "No, calcium won't hurt you."
Narrator: But what if it wasn't calcium Rosie had taken?
Could this be a case of product tampering?
The idea wasn't far-fetched.
Something similar had happened before, in Chicago in 1982.
Our top story -- authorities in Chicago
have officially confirmed the death of a seventh victim
from Tylenol capsules laced with deadly cyanide.
Narrator: This was one of the first cases of its kind
anywhere in the world.
Someone -- to this day, there's been no arrest --
laced over-the-counter Tylenol with cyanide.
Reporter: They also report finding for the first time
contaminated capsules in an unsold bottle of Tylenol
removed from a store shelf at a major suburban shopping center.
Narrator: It came to be known as the "Tylenol Murders,"
and it forever changed the way over-the-counter medicines
and even some food products are sold.
If this was a repeat of the Tylenol murders,
if Rosie's calcium pills had been tampered with,
there was a very real possibility
that the public at large could be in danger.
So you have to continue on and make a further investigation.
Keep in mind this is not homicide, but unexplained death.
You have to include all possibilities.
Narrator: Meanwhile, police were getting some interesting information
that might offer another explanation
for what happened to Rosie.
It turned out that the Essa marriage
was not quite as happy as it seemed.
McKee: Yazeed Essa had several extramarital affairs
since he and Rosie had been married.
As a matter of fact, the extramarital activity
never stopped once they were married.
These are signals that the representation
or the outward appearance of this loving, happy marriage
were starting to be questioned significantly.
Narrator: The key evidence appeared to be Rosie's calcium pills,
and no one knew where they were
or even whether they'd been destroyed.
The detective then says,
"Well, let's go get those pills,"
calls Yaz and says,
"Doctor, we would like to go get those pills."
He goes, "Absolutely. No problem."
So they rush to the house,
and the calcium pills are still there.
They hadn't been flushed down the toilet.
The bottle was still there.
They bag and tag them, send them down to be analyzed.
Narrator: But that analysis took a few days,
and in the meantime, something happened
that took an unexplained death in Cleveland
and launched it into an international investigation.
It got even stranger.
I mean, I just kept going, "How does this get any weirder?"
And it did. It was extraordinary.
♪♪
Narrator: The key to the unexplained death of Rosie Essa
seemed to lie in the calcium pills
she'd taken just a short time before she died.
Rose's husband, Dr. Yazeed Essa, known as "Yaz,"
freely provided those pills to the police.
The pills were sent to Dr. Douglas Rohde,
a forensic toxicologist.
Immediately he saw something amiss.
Nine pills in the bottle didn't look like the others.
The nine that looked different
had a crystalline appearance to them,
and the remaining capsules that were in that bottle
looked powdery and had some pink tinge to them.
Narrator: Both sets of pills were subjected to a process
called Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, or FTIR.
The FTIR test is a test that will allow me
to look at the molecular structure
of a molecule using infrared radiation,
and the bonds of the molecule will vibrate,
releasing an energy.
And that energy pattern is what I use
to identify what the substance is.
Narrator: The amount of energy a substance can absorb
is unique to that substance,
and the resulting vibrations can be measured by a spectrometer.
That's then checked against a library of known substances.
Most of the pills in Rosie's bottle were calcium,
but the nine that looked different were not.
The vibrational pattern of the unknown crystalline
material matched the vibrational pattern of cyanide.
Narrator: To make absolutely sure,
analysts turn to a confirmatory test.
It's called the Prussian Blue Test --
and for a very good reason.
The active ingredient in the Prussian Blue Test
is ferric ferrocyanide,
which will react rapidly with the cyanide
molecule to elicit a blue color.
Narrator: Which is exactly what happened.
I was shocked to see that this was cyanide.
And I was alone in the lab and exclaimed to myself, "Wow."
I have my smoking gun.
Narrator: As these tests were being conducted,
investigators and Rosie's family got some stunning news.
Dr. Essa apparently decided
that he was going to leave the country.
If you have seen Dr. Yazeed Essa and know his location,
tonight authorities would like you to call.
Where is Yazeed?
Wow.
And from there, it really went crazy.
Narrator: Dr. Essa had money
and family connections in the Middle East.
Investigators brought in the vast resources of the FBI
to help track him down.
Torsney: You can't let people get away
with killing their wives and mothers of their children
and just go to another country, and think they're safe.
Narrator: The FBI soon located Dr. Essa in Beirut, Lebanon,
a place that offered a layer of protection for a man on the run.
The problem with Lebanon was that
there was no solid extradition treaty
where an individual could be returned
from Lebanon to the United States.
I thought, "Well, then, he may have committed
the perfect crime, in that we can't get him
and there's no way to go over and pull him back.
So this story is almost over then.
I mean, how horrible."
Narrator: Dr. Essa insisted
that he didn't kill his wife and also insisted that fleeing
the country was no admission of guilt.
He said that, "I only left
because I could not get a fair trial here."
Narrator: In Beirut, Dr. Essa was being watched
by FBI agents and local informants,
and he certainly didn't seem to be a grieving widower
who missed his children.
O'Mara: He was the playboy of Beirut because he had plenty of money.
His brother had a very successful business
that he was partners with.
He was having a great old time.
Narrator: In fact, to the dismay of some of those
who were helping him hide,
Dr. Essa was open about what he'd done.
McKee: He would brag to the neighborhood people
that he had killed his wife
and that we were looking for him in the United States.
He created an e-mail account -- fugitive@hotmail.com.
That kind of sums it up.
And when I found that out, I went, "Who does that?"
Who is so brazen that you say,
"Yeah, I don't mind if you know that I'm a fugitive,
I'm proud of it, and I'll laugh at it"?
Narrator: If Dr. Essa was so confident
that he'd brag about murdering his wife,
he might let his guard down just long enough to make a mistake,
which was exactly what the FBI was counting on.
You know, Dr. Essa -- you know, he was a smart guy,
but I think he thought he was smarter than everybody else.
♪♪
Narrator: As Dr. Yazeed Essa
was living the high life in Beirut,
U.S. and international law enforcement
were watching and waiting.
Dever: Through the use of informants in the Middle East
and also with law enforcement partners
outside of the United States
that we were able to learn that Dr. Essa
would be making his way to Cyprus.
Him going to Cyprus was a bad decision.
I think he thought he could get away with it.
Narrator: Unlike Lebanon, Cyprus has an extradition treaty
with the United States.
Cypriot police, who'd been working with the FBI
and knew what flight he was on,
were waiting at the airport and took him into custody.
We had some indication that he was gonna travel
under a false passport. When he got to Cyprus,
his appearance had changed quite a bit.
Narrator: Even with a false name and a false passport,
Dr. Essa soon found there are
some things you just can't disguise.
You can change your appearance all you want,
but we were able to get fingerprints for Dr. Essa.
Narrator: The FBI had Dr. Essa's fingerprints
because of his work as a doctor,
and his prints matched the prints of the man
who'd just landed in Cyprus,
the man who claimed he was not Yazeed Essa.
After 17 months on the run, Dr. Essa was finally behind bars.
His lawyers tried to fight extradition,
but after two years,
he was finally back in Cleveland in cuffs.
Finally, we have this guy who did this heinous crime
and we can make him answer for what he's done.
Narrator: But that was far from a foregone conclusion.
It has all the elements of a Hollywood movie --
deadly cyanide, the doctor who had access to it,
and the doctor's dead wife. He fled the country.
The question is, "Did he actually commit murder?"
The whole thing about the cases is that it was circumstantial,
so we had to put the case together in a fashion
that would be understandable for a jury.
Narrator: And they had to convince those jurors
that someone who appeared to be an upstanding family man
would be cold-blooded enough
to hand his wife a fatal dose of poison
as she walked out the door.
In February of 2010,
Yazeed Essa went before a jury and his own family.
I think the turning point was when we had called
Dr. Essa's brother to the witness stand.
Judge: Mr. Essa, if you would come forward
and raise your right hand for me, please.
Narrator: Dr. Essa and his brother, Firas, had been in extensive contact
while Dr. Essa was in jail.
On the stand, Firas Essa was caught lying
about conversations he'd had with his brother,
conversations that were recorded and played for the jury.
Facing a perjury charge, Firas Essa changed his story.
The prosecutor comes back up and goes,
"So, let me ask you again.
Were you cooperating with your brother to hide this crime?"
"Yes."
"Did you know that he killed Rosie?"
"Yes."
-"How did you know that?" -"He told me."
Dever: What did he tell you that he did?
He said that he put the cyanide into capsules.
Dever: When you found out that information,
what did you say to your brother?
-I told him he was a [bleep]. -Why did you say that?
Because he took Rosie's life, and I loved her.
He just ruined his whole family.
The jury -- I looked over at them, and they're just shocked.
His own brother said, "That person killed Rosie."
The case was over right there.
Narrator: Prosecutors say Dr. Essa simply wanted out of his marriage,
but he didn't want to lose money or custody of his children
because of a divorce, so he hatched a plan
to give his wife calcium pills laced with cyanide.
And he gave one of these to Rosie
right before she got in the car.
If the plan had worked, she would have died
while driving and would likely have been
part of a crash violent enough to explain her death.
But the pills took effect before she had picked up
enough speed for a high-speed crash,
so there was no serious trauma to her body
and no explanation for her death until doctors
and detectives uncovered the cyanide-laced calcium capsules
and the only person with the means, the motive,
and the opportunity to lace those capsules with poison.
I still to this day can never understand
why he didn't get rid of the evidence.
To be that brazen is bizarre,
but it was part of the facts of this case.
Woman: Ladies and gentlemen, I understand
that you have reached a verdict in this case.
Is that correct? -Yes.
"We, the jury in this case, being duly impaneled and sworn,
do find the defendant, Yazeed Essa,
guilty of aggravated murder."
Narrator: In March of 2010, Dr. Yazeed Essa was sentenced
to life in prison with no parole for at least 20 years.
Rosie's family has custody of her children
and are grateful she and forensic science
were able to expose her killer.
To me, Rosie solved her own murder.
It was pure serendipity
that she was on the phone with her friend.
But by her saying, "Yaz wanted me to take these calcium pills,
I feel like crap" --
you know, her girlfriend is going, "Well, geez."
And so that conversation -- pure chance --
helped solve the case.
Without that phone call, she dies,
we never find out what happened.