It felt devastating.
Will Walker, cut down in the prime of his life.
DRISCOLL: The Lieutenant in the Cleveland Fire Department,
he's been shot.
ARMELLI: The shooter had advanced on Lieutenant Walker
and was firing his gun at the same time.
[gunshot blasts]
KELLY: Who would want to do this to Will?
[gunshot blasts]
We come upon one portion of video that really stands out.
And it seems as though someone is not telling us
the full story.
ARMELLI: He denies any knowledge of the murder,
denies that he had ever bought a gun.
Denies, denies, denies.
Money can be the root of all evil.
ARMELLI: We had all bought into the story.
It turns out nothing could be further from the truth.
NARRATOR: Every day in North America,
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,
the minutes and hours containing evidence that can
help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
EZZO: Cleveland, Ohio, is a great city.
There are so many things going on that the city is starting to
grow again, new people moving in, new businesses moving in.
There's always stuff to do -- places to go,
people to see -- it's a fun, fun place.
Unfortunately, there are neighborhoods in Cleveland that
shootings and drug dealings are -- are an everyday occurrence.
DRISCOLL: As law enforcement,
we are out there just trying to figure
out what to do and how to help.
And we do what we have to do to make it right.
NARRATOR: On November 3, 2013,
tragedy strikes outside a home
in an East Cleveland neighborhood.
DRISCOLL: Uloma Walker is at home, relaxing,
talking on the phone with a friend.
ARMELLI: She hears a series of gunshots...
[gunshots blasting]
...coming from right outside of her house.
She hears her husband yelling and screaming,
"I've been shot."
ARMELLI: Uloma goes to the side door of her house,
and she sees her husband,
William Walker, laying in the driveway, bleeding.
NARRATOR: Uloma calls 911 for help.
ULOMA: Yes?
DRISCOLL: She's trying to comfort him.
She's telling him that she loves him
and everything's going to be okay.
NARRATOR: 45-year-old William Walker is
a 15-year veteran who leads a team of firefighters
that specialize in dangerous rescues.
He's a very beloved figure in
his neighborhood and within the fire department.
DRISCOLL: When the call goes out, and it's
indicated that a firefighter has been shot,
everybody responds -- we're talking EMS,
firefighters, and police.
ARMELLI: The fire department
and the first responders happens to
be friends and people that know William Walker that are
responding to the scene of his shooting.
DRISCOLL: As first responders arrive,
they find William Walker in his driveway with his wife,
who's screaming and frantically
trying to press towels on him to stop the bleeding.
As the first responders are trying to get him into
the ambulance and trying to put an oxygen mask on him,
he's pointing towards the backyard, indicating
that somebody came from the backyard.
William is a first responder himself,
and so he knows that he has to tell them
right away as much information as he can.
They get William into the ambulance, and they rush
him to Metro Hospital with Uloma at his side.
NARRATOR: As news of the shooting spreads,
Lieutenant Walker's friends and colleagues gather at
the hospital.
There was a lot of firefighters there,
police officers, EMS.
It was very somber, and they were still working on Will.
He was still fighting for his life.
NARRATOR: While doctors work to save Lieutenant Walker,
who is in critical condition,
homicide detective Tom Armelli is assigned to lead
the investigation.
ARMELLI: As we survey the scene,
we can see the spot where the lieutenant lay bleeding,
where his wife and the first responders
were attempting to give him first aid.
We can see takeout food bags scattered all over the driveway,
and his keys were still in the lock on the side door of
his house.
At this point, we realized that he had just arrived
home and was just about to re-enter his house.
It's apparent that Lieutenant Walker was shot
several times, and there's a lot of blood.
We search for shell casings, fingerprints,
any kind of evidence that may have been left behind by
the shooter.
DRISCOLL: We find four 9-millimeter
shell casings on the driveway.
As we're looking at where the shell casings are found,
we see that it is a straight line from approximately
where the garage is to where William Walker has been shot.
ARMELLI: That kind of tells us that the shooter had started at
the garage area and advanced on Lieutenant Walker
and was firing his gun at the same time.
DRISCOLL: The scene looks as though the shooter was waiting
by the garage in hiding and ambushed William Walker
as he arrived home.
[gunshot blasts]
So the evidence is then collected,
the shell casings sent off for testing for fingerprints
and for DNA.
NARRATOR: At the hospital, doctors and nurses
have worked tirelessly to save Lieutenant Walker.
A doctor comes in, and he informs us that Will has passed.
EZZO: It's heart-wrenching,
and it's a heartbreak to the community.
Lieutenant Walker was just a great guy.
He was friendly to everybody.
He was always smiling
and very well-liked in the fire department.
It felt devastating.
Will Walker, cut down in the prime of his life.
We just -- we just couldn't figure out
who would want to do this to Will.
NARRATOR: Lieutenant Walker's remains are sent
to the coroner for autopsy.
DRISCOLL: The medical examiner's report determines
that William Walker died
from two gunshot wounds to the torso.
He also had a third shot that
entered the forearm and then grazed the abdomen.
NARRATOR: To solve his murder,
detectives will need to piece together
the final 24 hours of
Lieutenant William Walker's life.
We attempt to locate any witnesses that may be present
and talk to family members and friends and anybody
who may have some information for us.
There's family that are distraught,
crying, and it's our job to find out
what they saw and what they know.
NARRATOR: They start by questioning his wife
Uloma's son, Marcus Jr., and his girlfriend,
Alexandra, who live on the first floor of the house.
We asked them to tell us what happened in
the time period leading up to Lieutenant Walker's death.
Alexandra tells us at about 8:30 PM,
she's arriving home, having picked up
some takeout food for herself and Marcus.
As Alexandra heads up the driveway,
she hears a gunshot.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: Alexandra saw a figure run towards
the garage, but she couldn't see any identifiable features.
She's just terrified and trying to save herself.
She runs into the house.
Her one-year-old child is sleeping,
and Marcus Harrison Jr.,
is playing video games and she is screaming.
"Will's been shot. Will's been shot."
Alexandra and Marcus Jr. head out the side door to
the driveway, and as they exit the house,
they see Uloma is already with Will,
and Uloma is yelling at Alexandra to bring some towels.
We asked Alexandra and Marcus Jr. if they know of
anybody who had any problems with William Walker,
and neither one of them can think of anybody that had any
problems with him that would do this.
NARRATOR: The next day, detectives meet
with Lieutenant Walker's wife, Uloma.
ARMELLI: She's going through a rough stage right now.
She just lost her husband a day before,
but it's important to talk to her and get this information
that she may have while it's fresh in her mind.
DRISCOLL: During this interview, Uloma is a mess.
She is devastated.
She's just a wreck, because she's just lost her husband.
STOCKDALE: It is very challenging to interview people
who've witnessed a traumatic event,
because everybody handles trauma and grief differently.
People may be numb and in shock or,
on the flip side, hysterical.
And so it's really hard to try and cut
through the emotions and get to really clear information.
ARMELLI: One of the questions we asked
Uloma was the condition of their marriage.
Uloma tells us that William Walker was a wonderful husband.
They've been together for five years.
They travel, they do salsa dancing.
They have an exciting life together.
ARMELLI: She says they just really were in love.
NARRATOR: Although the couple had been dating for years,
they were married just four months earlier.
Uloma tells us how she was diagnosed
with stage four cancer,
and William said, "Let's get married," so that she would have
his health insurance.
That was just another indication of the kind of guy
that William Walker was.
NARRATOR: Lieutenant Walker is the father of
a teenage daughter and son from his previous marriage.
He's also stepfather to Uloma's 17-year-old daughter,
Yasmin, and her 21-year-old son, Marcus Jr.
On the day of the murder,
the family was in the process of moving to a new home.
ARMELLI: Uloma explains to us that she and William
had just bought a house in Madison, Ohio,
and were just preparing to move to get away from
the stress and the crime and the grit of city living.
NARRATOR: The new house was supposed to be their dream home,
but just hours before they could finish
packing up their last odds and ends in Cleveland,
William Walker is killed.
ARMELLI: We asked Uloma to take us through
the day that William Walker was shot.
She says they start out around 8 o'clock in the morning,
they're packing and starting to shuttle stuff
out to their new house.
DRISCOLL: They went back and forth
and took some personal items and cleaned.
When Uloma arrived home, she was too tired to
make dinner, so she asked William to run out
and grab a takeout for her,
which, of course, William said, "No problem,"
and went to go get her food.
At approximately 8:30,
Uloma is inside the house when
she hears her husband screaming in pain.
[distant gunshots blasting]
NARRATOR: Detectives now know that during the last
12 hours before William Walker was murdered,
he was with Uloma, either moving or at home,
except for a brief period between 7:45 PM and 8:30 PM,
when he left the house to pick up food.
ARMELLI: We ask Uloma if she can think of anybody that might
have wanted to do this kind of harm to her husband.
And she immediately gives us the name of her ex-husband,
Marcus Harrison, Sr.
DRISCOLL: She describes her ex-husband as
a scary man with a very long criminal history.
ARMELLI: He has a violent past.
He's been arrested for domestic violence,
intimidation, contempt of court,
and possession of drugs.
Uloma explains that her divorce from Marcus was acrimonious.
In the divorce proceedings,
Uloma claimed that he was abusive and physically violent.
Uloma indicates that Marcus Harrison Sr. was jealous of
her relationship and not happy with her marriage to
William Walker.
NARRATOR: Did Uloma's ex-husband attack
Lieutenant Walker in a fit of jealous rage?
[gunshot blasts]
DRISCOLL: She says that since the marriage,
his jealousy has gotten worse.
I would say among motives for murder,
jealousy is in the top three.
DRISCOLL: We're thinking, could it have been
Marcus Harrison laying in wait
to shoot this man who married his ex-wife?
[gunshot blasts]
It is incredibly important to find
Marcus Harrison Sr. as quickly as possible.
NARRATOR: Just one day after Cleveland firefighter,
Lieutenant William Walker, was gunned down
in front of his home,
his wife, Uloma, tells detectives the killer could be
her ex-husband, Marcus Harrison Sr.
We contact Marcus Harrison, and we
bring him into the station for questioning.
DRISCOLL: Marcus Harrison tells us about his relationship
with Uloma.
He was with her from 1987 until 2002,
and he has two children with Uloma.
That'd be Marcus Harrison Jr. and Yasmin.
He tells us that despite an ugly divorce,
he and Uloma eventually got back together,
primarily a sexual relationship.
Hearing about the sexual relationship that
Marcus Harrison Sr. and Uloma had,
leading up to her marriage to William Walker.
We asked Harrison, you know, how did that make him feel?
He acknowledges that he wasn't a fan of William Walker,
but he would never kill him.
ARMELLI: Marcus Harrison tells us that there's
no way that he shot William Walker.
He was in jail for a parole violation and just got out.
To verify Marcus's story,
We checked with the jail, and we find out that, in fact,
Marcus Harrison Sr. was in jail at the time of the murder.
NARRATOR: Investigators now realize there's no way
Marcus Harrison Sr. could have pulled the trigger
on William Walker.
So we crossed Marcus Harrison Sr. off our list of suspects,
and it's time to move on.
NARRATOR: Five days after Lieutenant Walker's murder,
the community gathers outside his home
to hold a candlelight vigil.
KELLY: The street was packed.
There was several hundred people there in front
of the house, and it was very emotional.
Um, a lot of people spoke,
including myself.
I felt compelled to say a few words just to honor Will.
It was a very touching tribute to a man who...
touched many lives.
DRISCOLL: In attendance at the vigil
are all of his squad members,
and so detectives are able to talk to all of those squad
members and find out what they know about William Walker,
his relationships, and if anybody would want to harm him.
Vigils, funerals, memorials,
these are venues that are
important for investigators to attend.
It's just
prudent to observe who is
in attendance and how they're behaving.
It could be somebody acting
inconsistently or in a contrived manner.
It could be somebody who attends
who you don't expect to see there.
DRISCOLL: By everyone's indication,
nobody wanted to harm William Walker.
They couldn't think of a person that would
want to, because he was a very beloved man.
NARRATOR: The following day at police headquarters,
detectives asked for more help from William's family.
DRISCOLL: We talked to Yasmin, the 17-year-old daughter
of Uloma and Marcus Harrison Sr.
She lives in the home with William and Uloma.
And so it's important, because one of the things we want to do
is establish a clear timeline
to see if anybody in that house would
have any more information.
We asked Yasmin about her relationship with William,
and she says that they have a great relationship.
They get along very well.
She gets along well with his other children,
and she can't think of anybody who would want
to do him this kind of harm.
When asked where she was during the murder,
Yasmin indicates that she was at her boyfriend
Chad's house on the other side of town.
NARRATOR: Like everyone else among William Walker's family,
friends, and colleagues,
Yasmin can't imagine who would want to harm her stepfather.
With no known enemies of Will Walker,
detectives hope forensics can provide some direction.
DRISCOLL: We receive the results from ballistics,
and we find out that the shell casings
are that of a 9-millimeter Hi-Point pistol.
[gunshot blasts]
We also receive DNA back from those casings.
ARMELLI: When a person touches any object,
they leave behind, if not a fingerprint,
some oils or some skin cells from their hands onto
that object, and the crime lab is able now to
swab those objects and develop a DNA profile.
So the good news from the crime lab
is that we do have a DNA profile.
The bad news is that we have no match
in the system to the profile that we found.
NARRATOR: Investigators know the DNA on
the casing could belong to the killer.
Now they just need to find the person that matches it.
We go out to the neighborhood, and we start knocking on doors.
NARRATOR: When police talk to neighbors,
they start to hear things about William Walker
they hadn't heard before.
ARMELLI: During our canvass,
we were surprised to learn that William
was not popular with everyone in the neighborhood.
William was trying to clean up the neighborhood a little bit,
and he would always attempt to chase
the drug dealers off the corners of the streets
and trying to keep them out of his neighborhood.
We wonder if William could have crossed the wrong person.
We go back to Uloma, and one of the questions we asked her
is if she knows if William had any problems with anybody else
on the street.
She says, yes, there is a neighbor at the end of
the street that he did have
a problem with -- he was blocking their driveway,
smoking weed, being incredibly loud.
ARMELLI: William grabbed his gun
and went out to the street to speak with him.
Uloma said this was the first time
she had ever seen William get angry.
NARRATOR: It turns out that Lieutenant Walker
wasn't shy about confronting possible threats.
ARMELLI: We asked Uloma if she knew who the neighbor was.
Uloma said his name was Eugene Cray.
NARRATOR: Eugene Cray is no stranger to law enforcement.
We check into our system, and we find out
that Eugene Cray is quite a character.
He's got a criminal record for drug trafficking,
assault, kidnapping.
Cray has also been arrested previously for murder.
We're thinking that Cray meets the profile of
someone who could have definitely
killed William Walker.
[gunshot blasts]
STOCKDALE: People with known criminal histories always make
good suspects,
because they've engaged in behaviors that are anti-social
before, and so it's possible when confronted by William,
this is a person who is not gonna hesitate to use
violence or seek revenge.
DRISCOLL: We need to get to Eugene Cray and find out
what he was doing the night of William Walker's murder.
We immediately go to his last known address,
and he's not there.
Detectives are unable to locate Eugene Cray,
so we create flyers, and we hang them all over
the neighborhood, and we're canvassing the neighborhood,
asking neighbors, trying to locate him.
[gunshot blasts]
ARMELLI: We're thinking now that Eugene Cray could have
easily snuck into William Walker's backyard,
hid by the garage, and shot him,
[gunshot blasts]
and then disappeared into the night.
NARRATOR: Four weeks after the murder of
Cleveland firefighter, Lieutenant William Walker,
[gunshot blasts]
detectives search for a new suspect, ex-con Eugene Cray.
[gunshot blasts]
Wanted flyers for Cray posted in the victim's
neighborhood work better than police could have hoped.
Lo and behold, the phone rings, and it's Eugene Cray himself.
Eugene Cray tells us that one of his friends told him that
the police were looking for him and wanted to talk to him.
So he called us up, and he's willing to come in
and talk to us.
DRISCOLL: We talked to Eugene, and he indicates that
he's currently living in a rooming house nearby,
but he has lived in that neighborhood his entire life.
NARRATOR: Detectives want to know about his confrontation
with William Walker
just weeks before the new husband and father was killed.
ARMELLI: Cray did admit that, at one point in time,
he did have a confrontation with William Walker,
and it was about smoking weed and the loud music,
but he also says that, after that confrontation,
that's as far as it went, it never went any further,
and that was the end of it.
NARRATOR: Police don't take the word of the ex-con
over the phone.
They want to see him in person.
ARMELLI: He continued to deny having
any involvement in William Walker's shooting.
Cray tells us at the time of the murder,
he was at home listening to music on headphones when he was
alerted by a friend that there was a shooting down the street.
We asked Cray to submit a DNA sample for comparison to
confirm his story and send it to the lab for verification.
He says no problem and gives us his DNA right away.
ARMELLI: Normally, when someone is eagerly volunteering
to donate their DNA to clear up a case,
the indication is that they probably don't have
anything to do with it.
NARRATOR: Sure enough, the DNA taken
from Eugene Cray doesn't match up
to any of the evidence collected at the crime scene.
It wasn't him.
So Eugene Cray is ruled out as a suspect.
NARRATOR: More than a month after
the beloved fire lieutenant was murdered,
detectives hit a wall.
EZZO: When a case takes a long time,
the more frustration that comes out, because then you
start asking questions -- why, why, why?
Why aren't they doing this or why didn't this happen?
Everyday citizens that know a victim in a case, for them,
it's even more difficult.
ARMELLI: We've interviewed just about everybody
that we can think of.
Now we're gonna take a different approach.
One of the big motivations for murder is money.
So now we're going to look into William Walker's
financials and see if that leads us anywhere.
In terms of establishing motive,
it's very important for investigators to consider
a victim's financial profile
and who might be financially incentivized to target them.
Money is, as the old saying goes,
can be the root of all evil.
It puts thoughts in people's heads.
It's number one motives throughout
the country when it comes to homicides.
NARRATOR: As investigators follow the money trail,
it reveals something unexpected.
We learn that the beneficiary on William Walker's
life insurance policy is not his wife Uloma,
but his previous wife, Rita Walker.
In fact, at the time of William's death,
Rita was the benefactor of both his firefighter pension
and his life insurance policy.
His life insurance policy alone is worth $100,000.
Suddenly, a very viable motive comes into focus,
which is a cash windfall for his ex-spouse.
ARMELLI: We wonder now if Rita Walker was afraid
that he was gonna remove her
as a beneficiary and put Uloma's name as a beneficiary
to his life insurance and pension.
NARRATOR: Lieutenant Walker was killed
just four months after he married Uloma.
[gunshot blasts]
Did Rita kill him before he could remove her from
his benefits?
[gunshot blasts]
DRISCOLL: So now we bring Rita in for questioning.
She tells us that they met in high school.
They were married in 1992.
They had two children together,
then ultimately divorced in 2004.
However, their relationship was good after the divorce.
And they got along -- they spoke probably
twice a week about the kids.
ARMELLI: We asked Rita when was the last time
that she saw William,
and she said actually it was the day before the murder on
November 2nd.
She went by the house around 1 PM to pick up
their son, Conner, and then they went home.
We asked Rita where she was at the time of the murder,
and she told us that she was at home
with her 14-year-old son.
And, in fact, we did corroborate her story with
the son, Conner.
NARRATOR: After confirming Rita's alibi,
detectives turn to surveillance video from neighbors'
security cameras for possible leads.
ARMELLI: All this time, we're looking through
hours and hours and hours of video footage
that we've collected from
throughout the neighborhood, and we come upon one portion of
video that really stands out.
Just before the time of the murder,
we see Rita's car in the neighborhood.
It seems as though she's not telling us the full story.
NARRATOR: Rita claims she was at home at the time of the murder.
Yet police now have proof she's lying.
Rita was on her ex-husband's street just before he was slain,
and she stood to gain
over $100,000 upon William Walker's death.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: Not long before Cleveland firefighter,
Lieutenant William Walker, was gunned down
in his own driveway,
a neighborhood video camera captures his ex-wife,
Rita Walker, driving towards his house, but she told police
she was at home when her ex-husband was shot.
So this is a huge inconsistency in her story.
This is a huge piece of information that obviously
she should have shared if she had nothing to hide.
We asked her to come in, and she seems really nervous
and out of sorts about us wanting to question
her further.
We confront Rita about the fact that now her car is
seen at William's house just before the murder,
and we have to press her and find out why her car
was there and why she didn't tell us this
when we talked to her initially.
Rita seemed surprised and suddenly remembers that,
in fact, she did go to
the Walker home just before the murder occurred.
DRISCOLL: Rita explains that she had forgotten her son
Conner's shoes and had gone back the next day to
collect them.
ARMELLI: And, in fact, William was not even home
when she picked his shoes up.
And Conner confirmed that that was the case, as well.
NARRATOR: Rita was at the house just hours earlier,
but she had nothing to do with the murder.
So once again, we released Rita,
and she's no longer on our radar.
NARRATOR: Months pass without any new leads.
The investigation into the murder
of Lieutenant William Walker goes cold.
KELLY: It was frustrating.
It was a horrific event,
and months and months are going by,
and there's still no major leads.
This was a devastating event and just wanted some justice.
ARMELLI: It's been over a year now,
and we attempt a new approach.
We partner with Crime Stoppers and the members of
the Cleveland Fire Department, and we offer up
a cash reward for any information leading to
the arrest and conviction of
the person responsible for Lieutenant Walker's death.
DRISCOLL: The hope is that, one year later,
people would be less afraid to come forward, and maybe rumors
have gone around and people have heard certain things,
and the incentive of money is always a good
carrot to dangle.
ARMELLI: The offer does its job, and tips start to flow in.
[phones ringing]
One tip in particular piques our interest.
[phone ringing]
DRISCOLL: A person calls in and says that his friend
had been approached by a mutual friend of theirs
to kill William Walker.
NARRATOR: Detectives are shocked when the tipster
tells them the name.
It turns out that the mutual
friend of the friend is Chad Padgett,
who happens to be the boyfriend of
Uloma's daughter, Yasmin.
NARRATOR: According to the tipster, 20-year-old
Chad Padgett was looking to hire a killer.
It was indicated that Chad had
offered $1,800 to commit the murder.
And Chad indicated that he had a throwaway gun
that could be used in the murder, as well.
ARMELLI: The gun that was offered was
a 9-millimeter pistol,
which is the same type of shell casings that were found
at the crime scene.
DRISCOLL: It's incredible, because we have
a person that's tied to the family.
We maybe have a gun that's tied to the crime scene.
We need to talk to Chad Padgett,
so we bring him in for questioning.
NARRATOR: Police ask Chad Padgett where he was
on the night William Walker was shot.
Chad's alibi is the same as Yasmin's.
ARMELLI: Chad tells us that he and Yasmin were at
his mother's house watching the Cleveland Browns game
on TV at the time of the shooting.
DRISCOLL: Chad tells us he has no issues with William Walker
and really actually liked him a lot.
ARMELLI: He claims that he or his girlfriend,
William Walker's stepdaughter,
Yasmin, had absolutely nothing to do with his murder.
NARRATOR: Chad's alibi is solid,
but detectives' questions don't end there.
We asked Chad to explain about his asking around,
trying to find somebody to commit the murder,
and he denies any knowledge of that,
denies that he ever bought a gun.
He denies, denies, denies.
DRISCOLL: When we get a DNA sample from him,
we immediately send that DNA sample off for
analysis to be compared to those shell casings.
As we're awaiting those DNA results,
we dive into Chad's cellphone forensics.
NARRATOR: That plunge into his talk and chat history,
up to and including the day of the murder,
brings more names to the surface.
Around the time of the murder,
there's a cellphone conversation going on
between Chad, his girlfriend, Yasmin,
and a third unknown phone number.
We find out that that third phone number
belongs to an individual named Ryan Dorty.
NARRATOR: Ryan Dorty is 22 years old,
and he's already well known to police.
We're familiar with Ryan Dorty.
He's had a lot of run-ins with the law.
He's been arrested before for burglary
and aggravated robbery.
NARRATOR: Not only is Ryan Dorty
known to be physically dangerous,
he is also reported to be intellectually disabled.
We know Ryan Dorty has intellectual disabilities,
which make him a good target for people to use in this type of
situation, because he doesn't really understand
the consequences of the actions of a murder,
of a robbery, of anything that he does,
because of those limitations.
ARMELLI: We get a search warrant for Ryan's cellphone number,
and when we got the results back,
we could see that his cellphone, at the time of
William Walker's murder was pinging
very near the Walker residence.
NARRATOR: Ryan Dorty is identified near
the crime scene at the time of the shooting,
but is he the killer?
ARMELLI: When we bring Ryan in for questioning,
he's very aggressive, very defensive.
He denies knowing anything about the murder,
and he refuses to provide a DNA sample.
EZZO: When somebody tells us that they don't want to give us
the DNA, we also inform them
that we're gonna go get a warrant,
and we're going to get it from them anyhow.
It just gives us the feeling that, one way or another,
we feel that they're involved in this crime.
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: If Dorty's DNA matches the DNA found
on the shell casings at the crime scene,
it could be the key that unlocks the case.
NARRATOR: Cleveland detectives investigating the murder
of Lieutenant William Walker
have two suspects in their sights --
20-year-old Chad Padgett, who is the boyfriend of
Lieutenant Walker's 17-year-old stepdaughter,
Yasmin, and a 22-year-old felon named Ryan Dorty.
They're waiting for a warrant to get Dorty's DNA
when they catch a major break in the case.
We get the lab results back on the DNA from Chad Padgett
that we had submitted to the lab,
and it comes back that it was an identical match for
the DNA found on the shell casings.
So this is an incredible moment for all of us.
We actually have the person who loaded that gun.
We have a separate person saying that he was
approached by Chad Padgett to commit this murder.
We have Dorty, who's in the location of
the murder, and it's all tied together by Chad Padgett.
ARMELLI: We arrest Chad Padgett and bring him down to
the station again to be interviewed.
In talking to him,
he continues to deny any involvement.
But in a strange turn of events, his mother calls
and tells us that if she can talk to him,
she can convince him to tell us the truth.
We allow Padgett's mother to talk to him, and sure enough,
after their conversation,
he's willing to come forward and tell us exactly
what happened.
Chad now admits that he did
participate in the planning of the murder.
He says he didn't want to pull the trigger,
so he contacted his cousin, Chris Hein,
who in turn contacts Ryan Dorty
and offers Dorty $1,000 to kill William Walker.
NARRATOR: Chad meets Ryan Dorty to give him money,
the gun, and details of the plan
to kill Lieutenant William Walker.
Now with these three young men
linked together in the murder conspiracy,
detectives turn their attention to the other
person who Chad was texting on the night of the murder --
Chad's 17-year-old girlfriend, Yasmin,
the stepdaughter of the slain firefighter.
Now we need to know why Yasmin is involved in this
text conversation and what she had to do with this murder.
We confront her with the text conversation, and we tell her,
Chad has confessed to everything.
ARMELLI: Yasmin admits
that she asked Chad to kill her stepfather.
She says that she didn't do it alone.
It was her mother, Uloma,
who asked her to find somebody to kill William.
NARRATOR: According to Yasmin, her mother,
Uloma, was the mastermind all along.
It was Uloma who wanted her husband, William Walker, dead.
ARMELLI: This is a big bombshell to us.
We had all bought in to Uloma's story.
She really sold it and had us convinced that
she was a grieving widow of a loving relationship.
And it turns out nothing could be further from the truth.
NARRATOR: Investigators know that in order to convict Uloma,
they need her teenage daughter,
Yasmin, to testify against her.
It is extremely difficult to get minors to volunteer
information about family members
who've been involved in a crime.
They want to protect their parent at all costs.
ARMELLI: We asked Yasmin if she would submit to a polygraph
examination, and she said, yes, she would.
We asked her to walk us through step by step
how this plan came into being.
DRISCOLL: Yasmin tells us that shortly after
the marriage of William and Uloma,
she and Chad and her mom were in a car, and her mom started
talking about how she was very unhappy, and she was being
abused by William, and she wanted to have him killed.
NARRATOR: Uloma tells them that she's in danger,
and she desperately needs their help.
Yasmin acknowledged that she never saw any violence,
she never saw any bruises, any marks or anything like that.
However, she thought maybe it was happening
behind closed doors.
ARMELLI: Uloma showed Chad a check for $10,000
and said that she would
give it to him if he would kill William.
Yasmin acknowledges that Chad did not want to commit
the murder himself,
but he approached his cousin, Chris Hein, who had no problem
finding somebody to commit the murder,
and that person was Ryan Dorty.
Chad drew a map of where everybody would
be positioned at the time of the murder.
Ryan was supposed to be at the garage, waiting,
and Chad would be in the back alleyway.
On the night of the murder,
Yasmin told Uloma to text her when she knew what time William
would be home so she could text the rest of the group.
Upon completing the polygraph test,
the test revealed that Yasmin was not being deceptive at all.
I think the reason she turned on her mother
was because she just couldn't deal with it.
She was a teenage kid that was put
in a really bad situation by her own mother.
Police did a tremendous job being able to get through to
Yasmin, making her realize that her mother was using her,
that the relationship was absolutely toxic, and that she
essentially duped her into forming this conspiracy.
DRISCOLL: The further we're looking into
the fact that Uloma could have done this,
we're finding that Uloma is
an incredible actress and an incredible liar.
NARRATOR: Investigators suspect Uloma had been lying to
Lieutenant Walker long before they got married.
We bring you Uloma back in, and we start to question her,
and some of the questioning revolves
around her claim that she had cancer.
And we asked her when the last time she was to see a doctor,
and she claims that she hadn't seen a doctor in over a year,
which we thought was kind of strange for someone
who had stage four cancer.
We looked at all of her medical records,
we looked at her prescription history, and we have found
no evidence of chemotherapy, of radiation,
of cancer drugs, no evidence that she's even seen
a doctor or been diagnosed with cancer.
We believe that the cancer diagnosis was a ploy
to get William to marry her for her financial gain.
ARMELLI: We look further into Uloma's financial situation
and realize that she's drowning in debt.
She's overdone all of her credit cards,
and she's even got credit cards
in William's name that are getting ready to be maxed out.
So now we kind of think we got the whole picture.
Uloma runs into a fantastic man,
William Walker, plays on his good nature and makes up
a story about having cancer, gets William to marry her,
and then months into the marriage,
she's drowning in debt, and she's gonna use
William's pension and his life insurance policy
to bail out of her situation by causing his death.
NARRATOR: But Uloma's plan didn't work out
the way she'd intended.
ARMELLI: Things backfired on Uloma,
and she was shocked to find out that William had never
changed his pension and his life insurance policy,
and his ex-wife,
Rita, was actually the benefactor and not her.
Uloma did not receive one dime.
So she was not able to pay Chad the money
that she had promised them to commit the murder.
We arrest Chris Hein,
Ryan Dorty.
We have Yasmin and Chad already in custody,
and the four of them all point the finger
at Uloma as being the mastermind
of this murder plot.
So now we have enough to go and get
Uloma and arrest her for the murder of William Walker.
I can't really express words.
There was a lot of anger, you know, how she could
play along
the whole vigil,
funeral, a grieving widow was -- was the perpetrator.
It was just unbelievable.
You know, there's just --
there's a special place for her.
NARRATOR: Detectives can now piece together
the final hours leading to William Walker's murder
and the deadly role of no less than five different players,
including his wife,
his wife's teenage daughter, her boyfriend,
his cousin, and a hired gunman.
ARMELLI: At 5 PM on November 3rd,
William and Uloma return home after
preparing their home in Madison,
Ohio, for their move.
William decides to stay home and have dinner while
Uloma goes out to continue working on the new house.
About the same time, Chad loads the gun
that he's gonna give to Chris Hein,
who's gonna deliver it to Ryan Dorty.
In the process of loading the gun,
Chad leaves DNA on one of the shell casings.
At approximately 7:45 PM,
Uloma returns home and asks William to go
out and pick up some food for her.
DRISCOLL: At 8:21 PM,
Uloma sends a message to Yasmin and Chad
and says he'll be home in about 10 minutes.
Chad takes his position in the alley, while Ryan Dorty
takes his position
near the garage and lies in wait
for William Walker to come home.
ARMELLI: At 8:29 PM,
William Walker arrives home,
puts his keys in the side door of his house, and Ryan Dorty
approaches and shoots him four times.
[two gunshots blast]
[two distant gunshots blast]
At 8:35 PM,
six minutes after her husband has been shot,
Uloma calls 911.
NARRATOR: In a perverse act of theater,
Uloma pretends to comfort her husband as he lays
dying from the shooting that she herself had ordered.
The gun that was used for the murder
of William Walker was then dismantled and strewn about,
and so that was never recovered.
Yasmin,
Chad Padgett, Chris Hein, Ryan Dorty,
and Uloma Curry-Walker
are all charged with aggravated murder,
murder, conspiracy, and two counts of felonious assault.
Since Yasmin was a juvenile at the time of the crime,
she was charged as a minor.
ARMELLI: Yasmin agrees to testify in trial.
She gives a very moving testimony.
She speaks about her guilt and her twisted relationship
she had with her mother.
DRISCOLL: Yasmin received one month in juvenile detention.
Chad Padgett is sentenced to 28 years to life.
Chris Hein is sentenced 18 years to life.
NARRATOR: The shooter, Ryan Dorty, is ruled
mentally fit enough to stand trial.
DRISCOLL: Ryan Dorty is sentenced 23 years to life.
Uloma Curry-Walker
is sentenced to life without parole.
ARMELLI: We did a lot of hard work, and it was
a good team effort from the people in the crime lab
and the crime scene guys and the other detectives,
and we came to a successful conclusion
and got everybody that was involved,
not just one or two of the people, but all the players
were found guilty and sent to prison.
NARRATOR: Lieutenant William Walker continues
to be remembered by his family,
his friends, and his former colleagues.
We started a Will Walker Memorial Run
and Will Walker Memorial Blood Drive.
He's someone who we shouldn't forget, no doubt.
He was a great guy. He had such a big smile.