A Shot In The Dark

Who Killed The Surgeon's Wife?

(CBS)  Illes told investigators that he had been on the road with Richie when Miriam was killed. Investigators videotaped and timed the route under good and bad weather conditions. "The numbers just don't seem to add up as far as the distance he traveled and the time that it would've taken him to travel," says Holmes.

Key was a stop at McDonalds, 35 miles from the crime scene. Witnesses saw Illes there, but were vague as to when. Then, Holmes said Illes' story, about where he was when his wife was killed, changed.

One person, the Illes' son Richie, may know the truth for sure. But it would take two years before he would be interviewed. "The problem there was that he was afraid of the police," says Illes.

When Illes finally did let Richie talk, the boy had little to say, and Dinges thinks he knows why. "Dr. Illes, as the physician, it would have been easy for him to get access to narcotics or something -- any kinda drug that could put a five-year-old to sleep."

But speculation isn’t evidence, and the evidence wasn’t adding up to much. The cigarette butt and three hairs found in the silencer were sent off for DNA analysis. But one of the earliest real leads came from Miriam, who made a video inventory of household possessions, as do many people during a divorce.

Police took special note of Illes' workshop. "He had drill presses," says Dinges. "He had saws, that he had grinding material. He had all the types of woodworking equipment that would of been necessary to construct this particular silencer."

"Oh yeah, I could have made it [the silencer]. But I would have made a silencer that was good," says Illes. "That silencer that they found is very amateurish."

Armed with a search warrant, police found traces of material in his workshop to make even an amateurish silencer. Police also took their own pictures in Illes’ house. On his nightstand, Dinges says they found a book titled "They Wrote Their Own Sentences. The FBI Handwriting Analysis Book."

It was a strange book for a doctor to have, but the case got a lot stranger when the anonymous letters began. The first letter was sent to Illes' attorney, and it proclaimed that the writer, not Illes, had killed Miriam because she was a racist. It was signed "Soldier of God, Soldier of Equality, Soldier of Death."

But Dinges was still suspicious: "The anonymous letter shows up. … It's postmarked four days after Illes finds out what we took from his house. It's a huge coincidence."

The letter was also written just as the book on Illes' nightstand had recommended – in pencil. "Unlike ink, you can't track pencil," adds Dinges. "And you write in block printing so it can't be tied to your other writing."

In May 1999, four months after the murder, a second letter arrived. This time, the author talked about himself. It fit the description of Illes' partner, Dr. Nche Zama. "I was shocked," says Zama.

Dinges, however, said Zama had an ironclad alibi, and since he was a very good friend of Miriam's, he had absolutely no motive.

"I think that it's probably just some nut," says Illes.

But the police thought it was someone who was methodically leaving false clues. In fact, the last anonymous letter arrived with another hair stuck in the envelope flap. Search warrants had allowed the police to take a sample of Illes’ DNA and by now, they had a lot to compare it to.

"The DNA from the cigarette doesn’t match the hair in the silencer. None of the hairs in the silencer match each other. They all come from different people and the hair in the anonymous letter comes from somebody else," says Dinges. "So we’ve got five sources of people that supposedly were involved in this crime and none of them are Dr. Illes. It led us to the conclusion that there was clearly a planting of evidence."

However, investigators got a break in the summer of 1999.