A Shot In The Dark

Who Killed The Surgeon's Wife?

(CBS)  Fisherman Matt McKay was walking 40 feet from a road just off the route Illes said he drove that night. "I didn't notice the gun first. I had tripped over it and thought it was driftwood," recalls McKay. "But I looked down and driftwood doesn't have a scope. So I took a second look, and it looked like a rifle."

"There's no doubt this is the murder weapon," says Dinges, of the loaded rifle with a sawed off barrel and stock. It was a rare savage 23D rifle, its serial number obliterated. The gun was last sold in 1949, before records even were kept.

Investigators needed to tie the rifle to Illes, who had a long history with guns. By fall of 1999, Dinges was sure Illes had used his hunting skills to shoot his wife.

Nearly a year after the rifle was found, investigators stumbled on a photo of Illes' late godfather, Joe Kowalski, who had taught him to hunt and had left him many of his guns. They showed him a photo Kowalski holding a groundhog in one hand and a bolt-action rifle in the other.

The rifle looked just like the murder weapon. And it was the biggest break in the case so far. "When I saw that photograph, I knew that we definitely had the right guy," says Dinges.

Two months later, police discovered basketball shoes in the woods -- same as the footprints at the crime scene. They were found very near where the gun was spotted.

"The killer chooses to discard the murder weapon and the shoes a quarter of a mile from the route that Dr. Illes says he took that night," says Dinges. "It’s a huge coincidence. A huge piece of evidence here."

But still, the DA felt there was not enough evidence to charge Illes, who was married to his girlfriend six months after Miriam's murder. In November 2000, he hit the road, and headed to Laredo, Texas, for a job as a heart surgeon in a hospital very close to the Mexican border. Was Illes planning to make an exit?

"If I was on the run, I wouldn’t be in the United States," says Illes. "I’d be in south Mexico in a villa somewhere. But I didn’t want to give the impression to anybody that I was guilty of anything."

But the job didn’t work out and Illes soon left for Spokane, Wash., where he applied for a position at a heart surgery practice. Administrator Cathy Austin says she received a mysterious anonymous package stuffed with newspaper articles – and a letter warning anyone to think twice about hiring Illes.

"I realized that wherever he went, that packet followed. Many institutions received that packet," says Austin. Ultimately, he was turned down.

In time, Illes' new wife divorced him, too, and the once-prominent heart surgeon dropped from sight, only to resurface in the Spokane newspaper, with a completely new career – cosmetic surgery.

But newspaper reporter Carla Johnson says she also received the anonymous package. "There was a suspicion that maybe some of Miriam's family was tracking him and just letting people know in a friendly way what was going on. But I don't know that for sure."

Meanwhile, Spokane police were watching the doctor's house, day and night, and keeping tabs at the request of Pennsylvania investigators, who finally decided in December 2002 that they had enough circumstantial evidence to prosecute Illes.

Holmes and McDermott flew to Spokane for the arrest. The stakes were high. "Four years of work," says McDermott. "We wanted to be there when he's finally taken into custody."

The plan was for plainclothes detectives to quickly nab Illes at his office. But it didn't work out that way.

While Holmes and McDermott waited nervously at the sheriff’s department, Illes eluded his pursuers. Luckily, he was spotted again and officers followed him to the freeway. Illes headed right into the heart of downtown Spokane, where he suddenly pulled over.

"This is our last shot," recalls Holmes. "We have to get him."