The Killer Truth (2020): Season 1, Episode 1 - Blade of Betrayal - full transcript

Your emergency?
911, what is the address of

oh, my god! I need an
ambulance right away.

Ma'am, calm down. What's
going on there?

I think my mother fell down
the stairs, and there's a knife

in her hand and stabbed
herself. Oh, my god! No!

Is she breathing? Ma'am?
It looked like she was

strangled, stabbed and beat in
the head. To me, that's

definite overkill.
I see my mother laying

there. I assume she was hurt.
There was a knife sticking out.

I mean, I figured she fell.
Whenever someone of

considerable wealth is murdered,
we look at who has a motive.



They were already trying to
focus in on me. Where was I?

What was I doing? It was all
about greed and money. Who has

access to the house?
Five unique perspectives.

Five points of view.
One murder.

I'm Peggy nadell's daughter.
I was the lead detective.

I am a longtime friend. I
was a close friend of Peggy

nadell's.
I was a prosecutor.

My name is susanne
nadell‐scaccio, and I'm Peggy

nadell's daughter. My
relationship with Peggy was

very close, as I would say,
most daughters'and

mothers'relationships are. My
mother and father made a very,

very handsome couple. They were
striking. My mother used to

like to go to the city and to
the museum and to theater and

movies. They loved to travel.
They traveled all over the



world together. When I was 3,
my brother Jamie came into the

world. I think my brother
developed ‐‐ I‐I‐it's hard to

put my finger on. I think he
was a strange adolescent and he

developed into a strange adult.
His differences spoke volumes.

He was not social. He was very
cerebral. He went away to

school. Moved to Florida. Never
came home to see my family.

Never came home to see my
parents. My father passed away

in 2003 very unexpectedly, and
it was devastating. I knew that

my mother would want me to be
strong. And I didn't want to

let her down. I wanted to be as
strong as she was. My

relationship with my mother was
very close. I would speak to

her probably two or three times
a day. Not a day ever went by

that I didn't either see,
physically see, visit, or have

a phone conversation with my
mother. Saturday morning, I

always call between, I don't
know, 7:30, 8:00. 8:00, 8:30 on

the weekends. I tried the house
phone. It was ringing, ringing,

ringing. The answering machine
never kicked on. I called the

cell. Ringing, ringing, ringing,
ringing. I said, you know,

maybe she went out to the end
of the driveway to get the

newspaper, to put something in
the mailbox. I must've called a

dozen times to each number, and
she was not picking it up. So I

told my husband, Bobby, "I'm
going down there. My mother's"

not answering the phone. I want
to make sure everything's

"okay." I open the door, and I
realized the alarm wasn't on.

I'm like, "gee, why wasn't the
alarm on?" I walked in, and I

found her. And I immediately
ran over. And the first thing I

noticed, she was bashed in the
head and she was bleeding, and

I saw blood coming out around
the rise in her nose and the

side of her mouth. I said, "oh,
my god. She fell down the"

"stairs." once I got in and got
close, I saw it was more than a

fall down the stairs. The knife
was stuck in peggy's chest.

Then I'm like, "oh my god. She
stabbed herself," and I pull

the knife out. And I was gonna
do cpr, and I checked for a

pulse, and she was cold. I'm
like ‐‐ and then I realized I

‐‐ you know, I mean, everybody
says, "what did you do that for?"

What are you thinking? "You
just react. I mean, you don't"

‐‐ you don't think about what
you're doing. I ran outside. I

call 9‐1‐1. Oh, my god! Oh, my
god!

911, what is the address of
your emergency.

I need an ambulance right
away! My mother's fallen! She

fell. She had a knife in her
hand! Oh, my god!

Okay, is she breathing?
No, I don't think so. Oh,

I'm afraid to go back in. Oh,
my god. When the police showed

up, they kept me outside and
they were asking me questions.

And at that point, they wanted
to take both myself and my

husband, Bobby, down to the
police station, so I had no

choice but to go. When I was in
the police station being

interviewed that Saturday, they
came into me and said, "this"

was not an accident. Your
mother did not fall. Your

"mother was murdered." I was
shocked, and I could not

possibly conceive who would do
this to my mother. And that's

when they started asking
questions. I told them that I

pulled the knife. I said I was
trying to do cpr on her and

then I realized it was past
that point. I also told them my

fingerprints will definitely be
on the knife as my DNA will be

all over this house. I'm here
two, three times a week. My

hair will be here. My
fingerprints will be on every

doorknob. I think at this point,
they were already trying to

focus in on me being that they
had me in the police station

for several hours and were
asking me questions. I'm like,

"why are you asking me that
question?"

Your mother had some assets.
My mother has a lot of

assets. Probably close to $3
million. Do I need my lawyer?

Why?
I don't know. I'm just

asking. You're asking me all
these questions. The following

day, which was sunday, the
detectives called me and asked

me to come down to the police
station to talk to them. And at

that point, I felt it was being
directed at me, and I'm like,

"wait a second. I don't want to
talk to you now." And I hired

an attorney. They didn't like
that.

My name is Earl lorence. I...

My name is Earl lorence. I
was the lead detective working

the murder of Peggy nadell. The
morning of January 25, 2014, I

was the assigned detective
working that weekend. So at

around 8:00 that morning, I was
at the local bagel store.

That's where I received the
phone call. And the desk

sergeant said that there was a
death of an elderly woman

inside her residence and that
she had slipped and fallen on a

knife. The house is in an
upper‐middle class neighborhood

in valley cottage, New York,
very tidy, very well‐kempt. The

daughter of the victim, susanne
nadell‐scaccio, she was in a

frantic state ‐‐ panicked,
yelling, screaming. Upon

entering the home, the victim
was just inside the threshold

of the doorway at the base of
the stairwell. You try not to

harden yourself too much to
each situation. So at this

moment, it really did kind of
hit ‐‐ hit home because this

was an 80‐year‐old woman at
home alone. My mother is 80

years old. She lives alone.
That does have a personal

connection there. So you want
to do all you can. My first

instinct, obviously, was that
it was a homicide. There was no

way she accidentally fell down
the stairs and stabbed herself

in the chest three times. We
saw the knife, which was very

obvious, a few feet away from
the victim. She had obvious

trauma to her head. She also
had what appeared to be at

least one or two stab wounds to
her chest. Her neck appeared to

be quite bruised, black and
blue. Now, it looked like she

possibly was strangled. It
looked like she was stabbed,

and she looks like she was beat
in the head. Now, to me, that's

definite overkill. The first
thing I want to determine is,

is there a break‐in? I looked
at the front door, and there

was no apparent force used to
get into the house. I walked

upstairs and went to the master
bedroom. There was drawers

pulled out and placed on the
floor, totally out of place

because you don't put them on
the ground like that. So it

looked like a stage burglary.
About that time, susanne

understandably was stressed
out. She wanted us out of

there. She wanted us to clean
up the scene, get her mother in

an ambulance, and take her to
the hospital. There were red

flags immediately with this
investigation. One of the very

first things she says in the
first couple of minutes of us

arriving is that her mother is
worth high seven figures, "oh",

and my DNA and my fingerprints
are gonna be all over that

"house and that knife." It just
seemed like an odd thing to

focus in on. It struck me as
odd. Because she was so erratic,

it took a long time to kind of
settle her down and to get her

to go back to the station and
just talk about who may or may

not have done this thing.
Susanne, she said she came to

the home, her mother's home,
and when she opened the door,

obviously, she saw that her
mother had the knife in her

chest and she pulled the knife
out.

So I thought maybe she fell
down the stairs because of the

way she was, and I saw the
knife. So I pulled the knife. I

touched her neck. I touched her
face. I said, "oh, this is not"

good."
that was a big concern for

us. Why would you touch the
murder weapon?

I guess I shouldn't have
touched the knife, huh?

With susanne, we basically
just wanted to go back the last

couple of days. We wanted to
know what she was doing, where

she was going, where she had
been. We spoke to her for a

number of hours, but these
investigations take time. We

might have to revisit the same
witness over and over again. So

we made an appointment for the
following day. The next day,

she hired an attorney and
stopped talking to us. She

refused to cooperate. To me,
the biggest red flag of all is

when you hire an attorney and
refuse to help law enforcement

when your own mother is the
murder victim. So if you don't

want to help the people who are
trying to find the people who

killed your mother, who are you
going to help? After susanne

told us that she wasn't going
to cooperate any further, we

had to refocus our energies. As
it turns out, there was no DNA

evidence. There was no
fingerprints. There was no hair,

saliva, nothing. We were beyond
frustrated, but obviously we

didn't stop. We kept ‐‐ we kept
digging. We had to keep moving

forward. We go back to basics.
We take a look at the phone

records for Peggy. At the same
time, we're getting her son's

phone records and her
daughter‐in‐law's phone records,

as well. I was parsing through
each individual phone call. I

got to like the sixth number.
We discover a phone call at

approximately 1:30 in the
morning the night of the

homicide coming from a throw
phone. The burner phone, I was

ecstatic. We also get a
notification from the alarm

company that she had spoken to
the alarm company because the

alarm went off around the same
time. So we actually have

peggy's voice speaking to the
alarm company, telling the

alarm dispatcher that
everything is okay.

Hello, this is the
monitoring center with bullet

security.
This is Peggy nadell. The,

uh, code word is, uh, "Max."
I'm sorry.

That's okay, ma'am.
Everything's fine.

I'm glad everything's okay.
We'll disregard for you. Have a

good night.
It was about a 20‐second

phone call, and in conjunction
with that, the alarm going off,

and no forced entry at the
front door, at that point, we

were positive. This was not a
stranger lurking around the

neighborhood killing old
ladies. This was somebody that

Peggy knew.

I'm Anne Martin, and I was a
close friend of Peggy nadell.

When I found out that Peggy was
murdered, I mean, I just ‐‐ I

just couldn't believe it. It
was sunday morning. I remember

picking up the phone and
susie's hysterical. She's

saying, "my mother's gone! My
mother's gone!"

Anne, it's susie. My
mother's gone.

Say, "she passed away."
She's passed away.

She just didn't even know
what to do. The police were

questioning her. I think she
was just in a state of shock.

It was unbelievable. People
were saying, "oh, well, she"

could have done it. Why did she
pull the knife out? "Well, I'm"

sure if I saw my mother lying
there, I would think, "my

"goodness, maybe this hurts." I
don't know. You don't know what

you would do if you're in that
situation. The detectives came

to my home probably one or two
days right after that. You know,

asking me all kinds of
questions and, of course, they

‐‐ they did ask me what kind of
a relationship she had with her

children. Jimmy and susie, they
were both, I'd say, different.

Susie was, uh, strong‐minded.
She knew what she wanted. She

could take care of herself.
Peggy was more protective of

Jimmy. I think Peggy probably
worried about Jimmy a little

more because he was far away
and he did march to a different

drummer. After he graduated
college, when he went to live

in Florida, he started to work
for a hospital as a

psychologist, and that's where
he met Diana. They went

together for several years
before they had any intentions

of getting married. When Peggy
found out that Diana was

pregnant, she was delighted.
She was beside herself. Peggy

would fly to Florida to help.
When Peggy would talk about her

grandchildren, her whole face
would just light up. She just

thought the world of them.
Diana, she liked to have

designer clothes. She liked
nice jewelry. They really

couldn't afford all these
things. And then she would

depend on Peggy. I think the
issue started to come up

between Peggy and Diana when
Diana started to become a

little too demanding. Peggy was
always sending them money.

Peggy said, "you know, Diana,
this is just a little bit too"

"much. You know, I won't go
along with this." Diana says,

"well, if you won't come across
with the money, " she says, "I

"just won't let you see the
children." Well, that just

absolutely devastated Peggy. I
mean, not be able to see or

talk to her grandchildren was
horrible. It was a terrible

thing to do. Peggy did mention
to me that they were having

problems, Diana and Jimmy, and
that they might separate. And

of course, Peggy was concerned.
I mean, she was concerned about

her son, his happiness, and how
this was going to affect him.

Peggy was very astute when it
came to finances. She had her

will and her trust. Everything
was in order. Everything was

divided equally between her son
and her daughter. They were to

get the bulk of her estate. She
made it clear that if they ever

separated or divorced, that,
you know, Jimmy was to get the

money and that Diana was not to
get any of peggy's estate ‐‐

none ‐‐ none whatsoever. So
aunt Diana, when she found out

that this was so, of course,
was not very happy. After Peggy

died, she came in, just putting
her name on everything she

wanted. She wanted peggy's
jewelry. She wanted peggy's

purses. Peggy had a lot of nice
handbags. She wanted the

furniture from the house. You
start thinking and putting two

and two together. And you think,
"you know, she has a good"

motive. It's very possible that
she would do something like

"this."

My name is Darcy Greenberg,
and I am a longtime friend of

susanne. After susanne got out
of the police station, I was

waiting for her at her home and
we were treating it as an

accident. We were, you know,
comforting her because her

mother fell with a knife. It's
a different feeling when you're

comforting someone for a tragic
loss like that. And then you

get accused of being the one
that did it. That changes

everything. Sometimes I think
the authorities say who has

access to the house, and 95% of
the time, it's family. "Oh, it"

"must be her." Every day, I was
at her home. We would wave to

the undercover cop sitting in
front of her house. They

watched every move she made.
They had to become more

intimate with the family, with
susanne, with Peggy, to really

know who could have done this
to her. I have been speaking

with the investigator since the
beginning. You take the

information that there's a lot
of money involved and you also

take the information of a knife
being put through someone's

heart, and they tell you that
it's most likely a family

person, somebody that had
something to gain. I looked at

them, and I'm like, "everything
you're saying and the reasons"

why you think somebody would do
this, I agree with you, but

"you're looking at the wrong
person." I told them susanne

didn't need the money. She had
her own. Susanne was a

laid‐back jeans girl with the
same kitchen from the 1960s,

the same furniture her dad
picked out when she moved in.

Knowing that it wasn't susanne
100%, knowing that they felt it

was family, my instincts was
for them to follow the greed,

follow the money, follow Diana.
Anyone who didn't really know

Peggy would not know her wealth
because she was not a flaunter.

She was very smart about how
she spent her money, who she

spent it on. Peggy was always
financially providing whatever

Diana needed because it was
important to her to have a good

relationship with Diana, to be
able to have that good

relationship with her
grandchildren. Most of the

money would just go directly to
Diana. She was in charge of the

household, the bills, the money,
all of that. Jimmy trusted her.

From what the police told me,
when they spoke to her, she was

at her cousin's wedding in
Maryland and her phone pinged

in Maryland. And as far as they
were concerned, that's where

she was. I don't know. Maybe I
watch too much TV. Something

just didn't sit right with me.
Just because the phone is

somewhere, it doesn't mean a
person is there, too.

Eventually, they noticed that
the phone was not used. It was

just there. She wasn't anywhere
near the area of Maryland where

the wedding was, and that was
just the beginning of

everything just exploding and
unraveling and getting to the

truth. Shortly after that, I
started getting phone calls at

my house, and Diana started
calling me, and she was, you

know, very upset. She was
calling me almost every morning,

and it would be from different
phone numbers. And she seemed

very rattled and very off and
very asking me a lot of

questions where it seemed like
she was getting nervous, like

the police may be looking at
her, which I said, "they have"

to look at everybody. They have
to look at you. They have to

"follow their leads, and don't
worry about it." And as each

day went on, it felt like it
was getting worse and she was

getting more nervous and more
upset about her being

questioned or her being thought
of as a possible suspect. Now,

one morning she called me and
she thanked me for listening

and said she's leaving and
taking one of the kids and

she's moving back to Jamaica. I
got off the phone, and I'm

thinking to myself, "she's
leaving the country. That's it."

"Whether she's guilty or
innocent, that's it." Once

she's gone, she's gone. That
can't bring her back. So I

called the police. I said,
"listen, she's leaving. She's"

got her tickets. She's getting
on a plane. If you think she

"did this, you need to go get
her."

My name is Richard moran,
and I was a prosecutor handling

this matter. When the Diana
nadell called her friend and

said, "I'm leaving Jim and
we're going to Jamaica," it

was at that point we decided,
you know what, we've got to go

to Florida. You've got to be
very careful when you

investigate these cases because
one wrong move, and your target

knows you're looking at them.
When you first start

investigating a case ‐‐ it's
her daughter‐in‐law. Your

thought really isn't that she's
gonna be the one that did this.

Diane, she had an alibi that
she was at a wedding in

Washington, d. C. What it kept
coming back to is, yes, her

phone was in d. C., but other
than those phone calls, there

was really nothing to
corroborate that she was there.

A big key of this investigation
was the fact that just prior to

Peggy nadell being murdered,
her phone received a call from

an alarm company. And in
looking at the caller I. D., we

saw that just before the alarm
company called, it was what

some people called a burner
phone ‐‐ a phone that's prepaid,

that's not really associated
with any one specific person.

When we learned that the track
phone was purchased in Florida

so close to Diana nadell's home,
that was a game‐changer for us,

and it really shifted the focus
of our investigation. We did a

thorough analysis of Diana
nadell's phone records. Just a

day or two before Peggy nadell
was murdered, all of a sudden,

Diana nadell starts speaking on
the phone with a person named

Andrea Benson who's in
Washington, d. C. She also

starts communicating with a
person named tanisha joyner in

the days following the murder
‐‐ people she had never spoken

with prior to this happening.
At that point, we had enough to

go up on a wiretap. What we
decided would be the perfect

trigger is, let's ask Diana
nadell about her alibi. Who was

she with in Washington, d. C.?
And we were asking her if they

could just give us a call and
confirm her alibi. And once we

did that, her phone calls
exploded. She reached out to

tanisha joyner, and there was
this very interesting call.

Tanisha says, "wait a minute.
Was I with you from 9:00 p. M."

To 6:00 a. M., or from 6:00 A.M.
to 9:00 p. M.? "Because she"

doesn't know because she wasn't
with her. There were several

phone calls with Andrea Benson.
They wouldn't talk about the

case on the phone, but there
was one time where Andrea

Benson said, "listen, I'm in
this with you. I'm in this",

"too." the adrenaline starts
pumping. We feel like we're

really getting to the point
where our theories are now ‐‐

they're not theories. Now it's
evidence. It was after that

phone call about her going to
Jamaica, we decided to move. We

sent people to interview Diana
and all of the people that she

had involved in this plot. We
had the teams actually with

people under surveillance. At
the word "go," everybody went

into action. Tanisha joyner was
taken into custody. Andrea

Benson was taken into custody.
And that all happened

simultaneously. Once these
people are being spoken to and

interviewed by detectives,
Diana nadell's entire story

starts to break down. Tanisha
joyner was being interviewed in

Baltimore and was telling the
detectives there that Diana

nadell had asked her to make
phone calls that evening. When

we interviewed Andrea Benson,
we learned a lot of details

about this case that we just
didn't know, things that we

thought were always going to
remain a mystery. She met Diana

nadell through her aunt.
Andrea's aunt was supposed to

pick up Diana nadell from the
airport in Washington, d. C.,

but she couldn't, and so she
sent Andrea. When she picked

Diana nadell up, Diana asked
her if she wanted to make $10,

000, and to do so, she would
have to go up to New York and

kill diana's mother‐in‐law.
While driving up to valley

cottage, Diana had Andrea
Benson activate the burner

phone, and that was along route
95. On their way up, Diana,

every time they were at a toll
Plaza, would hide her face so

that her face couldn't be seen
on camera. Once they got to

Peggy nadell's home in valley
cottage, Diana nadell called

Peggy from the burner phone and
told her she was in the area.

Could she come in? It had to
have been such a surreal

scenario for her. Her
daughter‐in‐law is at her door

with a stranger. It's 1:00 in
the morning. Nonetheless, it

was her daughter‐in‐law, and
she let her in, gave her a

glass of water, sat down and
spoke with her. At that point,

Diana asked Peggy, "can we go
upstairs?" Peggy told Diana

she was gonna go use the
restroom, so Diane and Andrea

were in the room alone. And
Diana begins, like, "we're"

"gonna do this now." And Andrea
told us that she had taken off

the strap from her pocketbook.
It unhooked on either side. And

she was gonna use that to
strangle Peggy. Diana starts

talking to Peggy about the
family jewelry. And they start

going down the stairs, and
peggy's in front, andrea's

right behind her. That time,
Andrea starts strangling Peggy

from behind. And in
interviewing Andrea, she kept

repeating the phrase, "but she
wouldn't go. She wouldn't die."

Diana ran to the kitchen and
grabbed a kitchen knife and

brought it back and was telling
Andrea, "stab her! Stab her!"

And Andrea said she refused to
do it. And so while she was

choking Peggy, Diana stabbed
Peggy nadell in the chest. Once

Diana was picked up in Florida
and brought in for an interview,

at first, she didn't know why
she was there. And then she saw

detective lorence and detective
cole‐hatchard walk in the room,

and her face dropped. The first
words she said was, "you think"

I killed my mother‐in‐law?"
You know who we are, right?

Yeah, why wouldn't I know
who you are? They think I

killed my mother‐in‐law. Is
that what this is about? I did

not murder my mother‐in‐law.
Under those circumstances,

it was very telling. Diana
nadell and Andrea Benson were

both arrested and charged with
murder and had to wait to be

extradited to the state of new
York. Just when we thought this

case couldn't get any crazier,
it did.

I was fast asleep. It was
like 11:00 at night, 10:00 at

night, and Bobby came in and
woke me up and said, "your"

cousin is here." I came out.
They said, they told me, "they

arrested Diana, " and I was ‐‐
I was shocked, but I wasn't"

surprised. I think the first
thing I said, "I knew she had"

something to do with it."
When Andrea Benson and Diana

nadell were first charged, they
were charged with murder in the

second degree. Once Andrea
Benson flipped and became a

witness for the prosecution, we
were then able to upgrade the

charges against Diana nadell to
murder in the first degree,

murder for hire. Tanisha joyner
also became state's evidence

and pleaded guilty to a lesser
crime.

Andrea, she doesn't come
from a lot. She's had a tough

upbringing, as it were, and she
has quite a criminal history.

She has a young child at home,
doesn't have a husband, works a

menial job at one of the local
supermarkets. Diana offers her

$10,000 if she would help her
kill Peggy. She agrees on the

drive from the airport.
Andrea Benson only received

$500 up front and was going to
get the rest of the money when

Diana got her money, which
never came, obviously.

I received a phone call from
a detective in the jurisdiction

of where Diana nadell was being
held in custody, pending trial,

and we were told that an inmate
had reported that Diana nadell

tried to hire her to arrange
for the murder of tanisha

joyner. There are some people
that can't help but to try to

control every aspect of a
situation, and Diana nadell

kept trying to do that even
while she was in jail. We met

with the inmate. She was fitted
with a recording device and

went back into the area where
Diana nadell was, and at that

time, Diana nadell did exactly
what the inmate said she did.

She gave her the information of
tanisha joyner, said she needed

to be dead. We went into grand
jury and indicted Diana nadell,

at that point, for attempting
to have this witness murdered.

And at that point, she had no
choice but to plead guilty.

Diana nadell's attorney came to
us and asked us if we would

consider a plea of 23 to life.
And after speaking with the

family and weighing everything,
for us, that was something we

could live with.
I saw Diana when she was

being arraigned. That's the
first time I saw her after my

mother's murder. She wouldn't
even turn around and look at

me.
This murder was about greed.

Diana learned that if she left
her husband prior to peggy's

death, she would get nothing.
And that wasn't something she

was willing to accept.
Diana saw my mother as a

cash machine. Diana thought she
knew what my mother was worth.

I didn't know what my mother
was worth. I knew there was

money. I didn't know how much
money. It didn't matter.

It sounds cheesy, but you
become a prosecutor because

it's one of the only jobs in
the world where your job is to

just do justice and to do the
right thing. This case began

with walking into Peggy
nadell's home and seeing her

brutally murdered on her floor,
and it ended with Diana nadell

serving what I believe will be
the rest of her life in prison.

I know that Diana is not
enjoying jail. I've heard

through the grapevine, Diana
refuses to tell anybody why she

is there. I guess she's
embarrassed. She doesn't want

anybody to know she's a
murderer. I think, to this day,

she's still claiming she was
framed.

She just ruined so many
lives. You know, friends,

family. I mean, what susie had
to go through and even, I'm

sure, what Jimmy had to go
through.

Now susanne and Jimmy have
to live without their mother

and live with the nightmare of
what happened. Not only did