A Shot In The Dark

Who Killed The Surgeon's Wife?

(CBS)  Illes' sisters, Romaine and Sue, had spoken to Miriam the night of the murder.

Romaine says Miriam was pleased that Illes' girlfriend wasn’t going to be around for a few days: "She's away and perhaps he's going to see this is not what he wants. He wants to be back with his family."

In their call, Miriam said Richie had just left with his father for a weekend visit with Illes' sister – who lived three hours south of Williamsport. But when Miriam failed to show up to teach Sunday school, worried neighbors checked the house, looked through the kitchen window and, horrified at what they saw, called police.

"The residence was locked and we had to kick in the door. And Miriam was lying on the kitchen floor," recalls Holmes. "There was a cordless phone very close to her as she lay on the floor."

Miriam had been shot once through the heart. Within hours of the discovery of his wife’s body, Illes arrived to drop off his son after their weekend out of town.

"Two policemen came out, and they said, 'Who are you,' and I told them," recalls Illes. "They said, 'She was killed.' And I said, 'Oh, my God,' and I said, 'How was she killed?' And they said she was shot."

The police remember it slightly differently. "Certainly one of his first questions was 'What evidence was found,'" says Holmes. "It was interesting to us at that point that he would ask that question."

But investigators were too busy to think much of it then, because they were awash in evidence. They found a cigarette butt behind the house, what appeared to be a homemade silencer for a rifle, and footprints in the snow from a size 14 basketball shoe.

The initial working theory was that a sniper, with weapon in hand, snuck along a drainage ditch to enter the property from the back. Stopping near the spot where the cigarette butt was found, approximately 70 feet from the house, the killer had one shot in the dark – through the only window with open blinds. Then, the killer ran away, discarding the silencer along the way.

What turned out to be one of the best clues was found next to Miriam’s body. Phone records showed she’d been talking with a friend in Montana, and the friend remembered being puzzled when their conversation ended abruptly. It was exactly 10:37 p.m.

District Attorney Michael Dinges says that without that call, investigators never could have pinpointed the exact time of death: "It's my belief that the killer didn't know she was on the phone. And it was one of the fatal mistakes in this case, on the killer's behalf."

But knowing when the shot was fired still didn't tell police who fired it. "I was a suspect absolutely from day one," says Illes, even though he had a solid alibi for the weekend. "Why would I do it? I didn't have a motive."

Investigators, however, saw an excellent motive, and they think that money had a lot to do with it. The couple hadn’t yet begun to split up property, but already a judge had ordered Illes to pay Miriam $13,000 a month in child support.

Illes insists that, given his income, this was no big deal: "There's plenty of money to go around. My lifestyle wasn’t cramped."

"He was going to lose this divorce," says Holmes. "He had already lost money, and was certainly going to lose more. He may lose custody of this son."

"This is a guy who spent his life as a heart surgeon," adds Dinges. "He was always in control. In this separation, he was no longer in control. … He had lost control of Miriam and of his finances."

Did Illes kill Miriam? "Of course not," he says. "And I have no idea who did."