Texas Confidential

Who Killed The Bookie's Wife?

(CBS) 
Bob Angelton’s dreams were about to come true. After listening to that tape over and over again, the jury acquitted Bob and the state of Texas had to set him free.

But federal prosecutors were now determined to get him. And three and a half years later, they did. And they planned to use evidence the state never used - the Vanessa Leggett tapes of her conversations with Roger.

Facing a second trial, Bob saw only one way out: run. He boarded a plane in Texas, intending to leave behind his past even though he had no specific plans for his future.

Asked what his plan was, Bob admitted he wasn't that prepared. "I would be able to subsist, at least, for six months to a year. And then find myself some type of employment."

But just after he arrived in Amsterdam, Bob learned he wouldn't have to plan that far ahead. The fake passport he was using looked a little too fake.

"As I walked up to the immigration or passport agent, when he put his hands on the passport, I knew right then and there, I was done," remembers Bob. "He started rubbing at it, looking at it. I think in my mind, I was thinking, 'Oh, should I turn around and run? No, that's not smart.'"

Bob was taken into custody by Dutch officials after just 24 hours on the run.

"I was angry, disappointed and somewhat surprised. I didn't expect him to run," says Stan Schneider, who was the only attorney on Bob’s defense team who agreed to keep representing him after he fled the country.

Asked if he blamed him for running, Schneider says, "Probably not. I thought we had a chance of winning. But the pressure of another trial? Who knows what a jury would do?"

The United States immediately asked the Dutch government to extradite Bob back home and his Dutch lawyers didn't have much hope.

"They said the United States never loses. They always win. Every case, they always win. And I was preparing Bob for the worst," Schneider recalls.

Bob's lawyers argued an international treaty signed by the U.S. protects against double jeopardy and prohibits the Dutch government from sending Bob back to face murder charges a second time. Not only did this court agree, so did the prosecutor.

So Bob beat the odds and won big. The Dutch government refused to extradite him for murder.

Bob might not have to face murder charges but he wasn’t about to go free. The Dutch courts finally did agree to extradite him but not before the U.S. agreed to prosecute him only on new charges of passport and tax fraud.