Case 355: Anna Lisa Raymundo

When 32-year-old Anna Lisa Raymundo was found murdered inside her Stamford, Connecticut home, investigators were left with a violent crime scene and a mysterious 911 call from an unidentified woman. Despite numerous leads, no clear motive or obvious suspects emerged. Months later, a seemingly unrelated attack changed the direction of the investigation completely. --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Matthew Dawe Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-355-anna-lisa-raymundo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  It was shortly after midday on Friday, November 8, 2002, when a call came through to the Stanford Police Department in Connecticut. The woman on the line was frantic. She sounded rushed and disoriented, as though she'd just been running. At first, the dispatcher had trouble understanding what she was trying to say. There was a pause, then the woman cleared her throat and said, “Yes, hello. The guy, he attacked my neighbor.” Unsure if she had heard right, the dispatcher asked, “You mean someone attacked your neighbor?” “Yes, yes,” the woman replied.

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  The caller said she had seen a man go into an apartment at 123 Harbor View in Stanford. She didn't know her neighbor's name. All she knew was that she lived in apartment number 105. Asked for a description of the attacker, the caller said she hadn't seen him but had heard him yelling. The dispatcher tried to keep the woman on the line, but moments later, there was a click. “Hello,” the dispatcher said. “Hello? Hello?” The line had gone dead.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  The fact that the woman had ended the call so abruptly was a major problem for the police dispatcher. She was familiar with the Harbor View address that the caller had given, and she knew that there was no apartment complex there. In fact, Harbor View was a commercial area with no residential apartments at all. Assuming that the caller had accidentally given the wrong address in a moment of panic, the dispatcher dialed the number the woman had called from. It was traced back to a payphone outside of The Duchess, a hamburger and hot dog restaurant on Shipan Avenue in Stanford. Knowing that The Duchess was just around the corner from a street named Harbor Drive, the police dispatcher figured the caller must have gotten mixed up and said Harbor View

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  by accident. She directed a team of officers to a condominium complex at 123 Harbor Drive instead, instructing them to check out apartment number 105. The officers arrived at the waterfront property, which was located in an inlet two miles south of downtown Stanford. It was a quiet area where residents walked their dogs, jogged along the nearby streets, and kept boats moored close to shore. From the outside, there was nothing to suggest that anything unusual had taken place. Apartment 105 was positioned above a three-car garage with a short set of steps leading to the front entrance.

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  The officers knocked on the front door. There was no answer. One of them peered through the narrow window beside the door, but they couldn't see anything that explained the frenzied call. Another officer tried the door handle and found it was unlocked. They pushed the door open, but after a few inches, it met resistance from something on the other side. The officers called into the apartment, but again, there was no reply. They peered through the gap in the door and saw that the entrance and hallway were in complete disarray. Furniture had been knocked out of place, and household items and broken glass were scattered across the floor.

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  An overturned house plant had spilled soil across the timber floorboards, mixing with a pool of blood. The officers drew their weapons and entered the property. Near the front entrance, at the bottom of the stairs that led to the second level, they found a woman stretched out across the floor. Her body lay at an awkward angle, with one leg resting partly on a box and the other extended. She was fully clothed, although her white sweater had been pulled upwards during what appeared to have been a violent struggle. There was blood on her jeans and bare feet, with further injuries visible around her head and face. Underneath her body, blood had smeared across the white tiles and scattered the nearby

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  walls. A check of the woman's pulse confirmed that she was no longer alive. The officers continued through the apartment and found evidence to suggest that a violent confrontation had broken out near the rear of the home. Pools of blood marked the route as the disturbance moved from one end of the home to the other, going down the hallway and towards the bathroom, where a small dumbbell lay nearby. It too scattered with blood. In the kitchen, the microwave door was open and its glass turntable had been removed and broken. While it wasn't immediately clear to the officers what exactly had happened, one thing

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  was certain: the woman inside had fought for her life. The woman was soon identified as 32-year-old Annalisa Raimondo. Annalisa lived alone in the condo, but her life extended far beyond Stanford. She had been born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in a close family with two siblings. Bright and ambitious from a young age, she had studied biology at Harvard University before earning a master's degree from Columbia University in New York. Her career took her into pharmaceutical research, and for several years, she had worked at Purdue Pharma, a privately-held pharmaceutical company in Stanford.

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  During her time there, Annalisa earned a reputation for being capable, focused, and hard-working. She left the company earlier in 2002 after accepting a position with a New Jersey-based company called Pharmacia. Although the role meant a longer interstate commute, it was another step forward in Annalisa's career. As 2002 drew to a close, much of what she'd been working towards was beginning to take shape. Annalisa was close with her parents, Susan and Renato. Even though they lived in different states, she called them regularly, sometimes more than once a day, just to check in or chat about what was happening in her life.

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  Earlier on the morning of Friday, November 8, 2002, she had called them to see how her grandmother was doing after undergoing a surgical procedure. Her parents were at the hospital at the time and had missed the call, so Annalisa had left a message on their answering machine. “Hi, Mum and Dad,” she said at 10:34 a.m. “I just want you to know what's going on. I know you're busy with Grandma, but I'll talk to you sometime.” As Annalisa's mother, Susan, drove home from the hospital later that morning, she had been overcome with the sudden sense of unease. When she returned home, she returned Annalisa's call, knowing that her daughter typically worked from home on Fridays.

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  There was no answer. Susan continued on with her day, reasoning that Annalisa must have been busy with something else or had stepped out for a moment, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Later that day, Stanford Police contacted Susan and Renato and told them that Annalisa had been murdered. Renato went numb, his body trembling and his heart pounding so violently that he thought he might be having a heart attack. He and Susan struggled to process what they had been told, hoping somehow that the news wasn't true.

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  As investigators continued processing the crime scene, another team began working to identify the woman who had called Stamford Police. They visited the Duchess Restaurant from where the call had been made. It was less than a mile from Annalisa’s apartment. Outside, there were two vacant payphones. Officers canvassed the area and asked whether anyone had seen a woman using the payphones at around midday. Nobody, including the manager of the Duchess, recalled seeing anyone using them.

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  Then, a witness approached the officers to report that he’d been driving down Harbour Drive when he noticed two men fighting near a parking lot by the boat slips, just a few minutes from Annalisa Raymundo's building. He continued on to the Duchess, where he noticed an elderly woman using one of the payphones outside. She had white, shoulder-length hair and was standing at the phone on the east side of the building.

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  The woman hung up and then got into an older-model white car, driving away shortly before the police arrived.

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  While this looked like a promising lead, investigators soon determined there had been an eighteen-minute gap between the 911 call and the arrival of officers at the Duchess. The elderly woman had used the phone too late to have been the one who placed the emergency call. Police also looked into the reported fight near the boat slips. The men described by the witness were quickly identified and ruled out as having anything to do with Annalisa’s murder.

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  Police also spoke with a man named Gary, who had been in the area that morning and later stopped at the Duchess. He told investigators he had been fishing nearby and had passed through Annalisa’s condominium complex on his way back to his car. When police looked more closely at him, they discovered stolen fishing equipment in his vehicle and learned that he had been stealing from boats around Harbour Drive. Given he had been in the immediate area around the time Annalisa was killed, detectives took a closer look at his movements that morning. Gary was questioned at police headquarters, but parts of his account were inconsistent and nothing he told detectives at the time appeared to connect him to Annalisa’s murder.

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  Back at the condominium complex, police continued canvassing the surrounding homes, focusing on the units closest to Annalisa’s. But most residents had little to offer. For them, it had been an ordinary Friday and nobody had seen or heard anything suspicious.

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  At 5:25 PM, Annalisa’s boyfriend, 35-year-old Nelson Sessler, pulled into the parking lot at 123 Harbour Drive to find the area teeming with police.

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  Like Annalisa, Nelson worked in pharmaceutical research and the two had met in late 2000 while both working at Purdue Pharma in Stamford. They began dating soon afterwards and by 2002, their relationship had grown serious. Although Nelson lived with some housemates about three miles from Annalisa’s condo, he spent a majority of his time at her place and still worked at Purdue after Annalisa made the move to Pharmacia. Upon seeing the crime scene tape on the building, Nelson parked his car a little further away from the complex and called Annalisa’s phone. It went through to her answering machine, so Nelson left a message. “I’m very worried,” he said.

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  “I’m not quite sure what’s going on up there.”

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  An officer noticed Nelson and approached to ask who he was. Nelson pointed toward Annalisa’s condo and said he was her boyfriend. Told that Annalisa had been killed, Nelson immediately asked where she was. When the officers said she was inside, Nelson asked whether there had been a burglary. Given that the scene was still being processed, the investigators skirted around the question, but they’d already begun to doubt that burglary had played a role in Annalisa’s murder. While her home was in disarray, valuables remained untouched and there were no obvious signs that someone had searched for things to steal.

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  Nelson asked if he could go inside and see Annalisa, but the investigators refused. They asked him about his movements that day and he said that he’d spent the night at Annalisa’s place and had left sometime between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM. From there, he’d gone to work, before driving straight back to Annalisa’s place afterwards.

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  While the investigators were aware that everyone reacts differently to shock and grief, they were struck by how calm and controlled Nelson seemed. They asked him to remain close by and he was taken to the boathouse at the property while investigators continued to process the scene. Officers keeping an eye on Nelson soon noticed some unusual marks on his body. There was a red, swollen mark on the knuckle of his right middle finger and another red mark near his right ear.

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  Nelson mostly remained quiet and didn’t ask many questions. At one point, he even appeared to fall asleep. Later that evening, he agreed to go to the police station for a formal interview.

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  At the station, Nelson explained that while he maintained a separate residence nearby, he more or less lived with Annalisa full-time. He explained that her parents were devout Catholics who would be upset if they knew the two were living together, so he returned to his place whenever they came to visit.

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  Asked to walk the detectives through his day, Nelson said that he’d been scheduled to attend an early meeting at work, but it had been cancelled the night before. Because of that, he had stayed at Annalisa’s condo a bit later than usual, leaving at around 9:00 AM.

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  Over the course of the interview, his account of what happened during their morning together shifted slightly. At different points, he said they were intimate, that they showered together and that Annalisa had been sitting on the bed knitting before he went to work.

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  The detectives asked Nelson what he thought had happened to his girlfriend. Again, he asked whether someone had broken into the condo and whether anything had been stolen. The detectives told him they couldn’t answer that.

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  As the interview continued, the tone in the room changed. Detectives were becoming frustrated with Nelson’s answers and Nelson, in turn, became increasingly tense. Without warning, he said he wanted a lawyer.

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  The interview stopped and Nelson was given access to a phone. When detectives returned, however, he told them he hadn’t called a lawyer. Instead, he had called his own voicemail to see whether Annalisa’s parents or anyone else had left a message. He then said he was willing to continue without a lawyer. Nelson provided a written statement and agreed to let police photograph his body. He stripped it down to his underwear while investigators documented the marks they had noticed earlier, along with what appeared to be scratches over his right shoulder. Nelson couldn’t explain where the scratches had come from.

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  Meanwhile, Annalisa’s body was taken to be autopsied. All up, she had received nine stab wounds across the front of her body with further wounds to her face, left cheek, neck, shoulder, and upper chest. Most of the wounds were angled or relatively shallow, except for one. To the left of Annalisa’s chest, a knife had entered in a direct line, passing through her left lung and severing the left pulmonary artery before continuing deep into her body. It had been driven with such force that it travelled almost completely through her torso, stopping just short of exiting through her back. The depth of the wound suggested that whoever inflicted it

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  had used considerable strength. Once it was delivered, the injury would have caused rapid internal bleeding and a sudden loss of blood pressure, with the medical examiner estimating that Annalisa would have died within four to seven minutes of the wound being inflicted. Blunt force injuries were also found on the back and side of her head. The police had been unable to find a murder weapon at the scene, but based on Annalisa’s wounds, it was believed that her killer had used a knife with a narrow blade, measuring roughly half an inch across and around four to five inches in length, possibly a fillet knife or boning knife.

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  It was clear that Annalisa had tried to defend herself. There was bruising along her left forearm and shin, as well as smaller cuts to her right forearm. The middle fingernails on both hands had also been broken. Significantly, there were no stab wounds on her back. Whatever had happened inside the condominium, Annalisa had not been attacked while turning away or trying to flee. She had been face-to-face with the person who killed her.

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  The police looked into Nelson Sessler's claims that he'd been at work when Annalisa was killed, and it checked out, with Nelson's supervisor confirming his timeline for the day. Despite their initial suspicions, they could find nothing that placed him inside the condo around the time of the murder. As the investigation kicked into gear, no obvious suspect or motive emerged. By all accounts, Annalisa was well-liked, and there was nothing about her lifestyle that raised any red flags. Ex-boyfriends were looked into and ruled out, leading police to consider whether Annalisa's work in the pharmaceutical industry might have made her a target.

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  Perhaps someone believed she had access to narcotics or prescription medication and had entered the condominium looking for drugs. But nothing at the scene supported that theory either. Police turned their focus to the evidence that had been collected from the crime scene. They were particularly interested in the handle from the hot-water tap that had been seized from Annalisa's bathroom sink. On its surface was a small spot of blood. While there was every chance that the blood belonged to Annalisa, it was also possible that it had come from someone else. The blood was sent for testing in the hopes it might place another person at the scene.

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  A blue contact lens had also been found in Annalisa's hair. It wasn't clear who it belonged to, or whether it had any connection to what had happened inside the condo. While police waited for the results of the blood analysis, Nelson Sessler was questioned about Annalisa's time at Purdue Pharma, and why she had chosen to leave the company in the months before her death. They had already heard that Annalisa had been unhappy with management, and Nelson confirmed that there had been problems at work. Detectives followed up on those concerns, but found nothing to connect Annalisa's departure from Purdue to her murder.

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  A week after her murder, on November 16, Annalisa was farewellled at a Catholic funeral service in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She was celebrated for her devotion to her faith, her friends and family, and her work in healthcare. Undercover officers were also present, recording those who attended Annalisa's wake in the hopes their footage might capture someone behaving unusually. When they reviewed the footage, their attention was drawn to Nelson Sessler. At times, he moved around the room greeting guests and speaking with those who had come to pay their respects. At others, he withdrew from the group and appeared overwhelmed by grief.

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  While detectives found the changes in his behaviour difficult to interpret, the footage proved nothing. Still, as the weeks passed without a clear motive or suspect emerging, they kept returning to the same question: was there something Nelson hadn't told them? For the next few months, the investigation moved slowly. Detectives continued reviewing evidence, following leads, and speaking with people in Annalisa's life, but without anything solid to move the case forward, it began to stall. By March 2003, four months had passed with no breakthroughs or arrests.

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  Then, on Sunday, March 23, 2003, a medical resident was standing outside the Behavioral Health Centre at Westchester Medical Centre in Valhalla, New York, roughly 20 miles from Annalisa's condominium, when he noticed a man moving unsteadily across the car park towards him. There was blood on his clothing, and a woman was following close behind. As the man drew nearer, he called out that he had been stabbed. He made it as far as the curb before collapsing into a seated position. He was pale, struggling to breathe, and appeared on the brink of losing consciousness. He told the medical resident to call 911.

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  While the call was being made, the woman walked away. A short time later, she returned in a car and pulled up beside the injured man. She told the resident she could drive him to the emergency department herself. The resident refused, saying help was already on its way. As they waited, the woman sat down beside the injured man and began speaking in a low voice. The resident couldn't hear everything she said, but he did hear one thing.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  "Don't say anything," the woman warned, "or I could get in trouble." Case File will be back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. The holidays are always such a busy time of year, and between work, socialising, and everything else going on, the last thing I want to be thinking about is what I'm going to make for dinner every night. With fresh ingredients delivered straight to your door and easy recipes to follow, Home Chef takes the stress out of dinner.

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  Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Case File to continue to deliver quality content. In 1994, Paul Christos was studying a double degree in biostatistics and epidemiology at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. Most of his time was dedicated to attending classes, completing assignments, and studying alongside the other students in his programme. One of those students was a woman named Sheila Davaloo. Paul and Sheila became friends, and gradually began spending more time with each other

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  outside class, with the friendship developing into romance. As Paul got to know Sheila, he learned that she was born in Virginia but had spent several years of her childhood in Iran before returning to the United States with her family at the age of 16. She also had a younger brother, who struggled with mental health issues.

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  As the relationship became more serious, Paul and Sheila began discussing their future together. But whenever Paul tried to learn more about her family, there seemed to be a limit on what Sheila was willing to divulge. She told Paul there was something he didn't know, a dark secret, that was serious enough to potentially prevent them from being together. Sheila refused to tell Paul what it was, but at one point, she ended the relationship because of it. They soon got back together, but Paul continued to sense there were parts of Sheila's life that she was keeping from him.

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  As their relationship progressed, he became increasingly aware that Sheila was keeping a distance between him and her family. She never invited him to her parents' home, and whenever Paul went to pick her up, she usually arranged to meet him elsewhere. At first, Paul assumed Sheila's family didn't approve of him due to cultural differences. Sheila had told him her parents were traditional and that they didn't want her dating anyone. Although Paul knew he wasn't welcome at her home, he cared about Sheila and to let the relationship continue on those terms.

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  Then, one day, while Sheila was away for the weekend, Paul received a phone call from a man who introduced himself as Amir, not his real name.

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  Amir said he was Sheila's husband. Paul thought it was a prank, but Amir calmly explained that he and Sheila were having problems and had separated for a time, but were now trying to work things out. He asked Paul to meet him near Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

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  Paul agreed, still thinking he might be calling the man's bluff. But when he arrived, Amir was there, and he wasn't angry or looking for a fight. He seemed calm, almost shy, and again, he told Paul that Sheila was his wife. To prove it, he took Paul to the apartment he shared with Sheila. Her white Volkswagen with its distinctive missing hubcap was parked outside. The building concierge called upstairs, and when Paul took the phone, Sheila answered. Convinced Amir was telling the truth, Paul confronted Sheila, and she admitted that Amir was her husband.

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  But she explained that their marriage had been arranged and that she'd been unhappy for a long time. Sheila said she wanted a divorce, but had felt trapped by the expectations of her family and the consequences that would follow if she did. She assured Paul that she intended to leave Amir and that she'd wanted to tell him the truth, but didn't know how to do it.

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  Although Paul felt majorly betrayed, he cared deeply about Sheila and believed her explanation. He decided to stay and support her while she separated from Amir. Soon afterwards, Sheila moved out of the apartment she shared with Amir and into a small basement apartment in Valhalla. With Sheila's dark secret finally out in the open, Paul felt like they had a chance to begin again.

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  Slowly, the couple began building the kind of life that Paul had hoped for from the beginning. They spent more time together, went out with friends, and eventually became engaged. But even then, their relationship wasn't always straightforward. Sheila had a habit of becoming intensely focused on the conflicts around her, particularly at work, and she often came home with detailed stories about colleagues, rivalries, and office politics. Paul sometimes found it difficult to understand why these situations seemed to affect her so deeply, but he treated them as part of Sheila's complex personality.

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  In 2000, Sheila and Paul were married. The following year, they moved into a condominium in Pleasantville, New York, a charming village 30 miles north of Manhattan. The location suited both of them. Paul was working for Cornell University at its New York campus, while Sheila had secured a position as a research scientist for Purdue Pharma in Stanford, Connecticut. On the surface, they appeared to be building the life they had worked towards. They had stable careers, a home of their own, and a relationship that had already survived a rough beginning. Over time, however, the closeness between them began to change.

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  Work and commuting took up more of their lives, and the intensity that had once held their relationship together gradually gave way to routine. They began to feel less like husband and wife and more like two people sharing the same space.

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  Around this time, Sheila told Paul that her younger brother wanted to spend more time with her. Paul knew that Sheila's brother struggled with his mental health and that he could become distressed by change. For this reason, Sheila still hadn't told her brother about her marriage to Paul. Whenever her brother planned to visit, Sheila asked Paul to stay somewhere else for a couple of days. She also said that the smallest detail could upset her brother, so before he left, Paul helped her remove anything that might suggest a man lived in the condo. His clothes, toiletries, and belongings were packed away, and their wedding photographs were taken down.

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  By the time Paul left, it looked as though Sheila lived there alone. He would then go and stay at his parents' house or book a hotel room nearby.

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  Although the arrangement was inconvenient, Paul wanted to help Sheila manage her difficult family situation in the hopes that she would be able to tell her brother the truth about their marriage once the time was right.

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  While Paul continued making room for Sheila's brother, another part of her life began taking up more of their conversations at home. Sheila told Paul that a close friend of hers from work, named Melissa, had become involved with another coworker named Jack. It was a scandalous situation because Jack was also seeing another woman. Her name was Annalisa, and she also worked at Purdue Pharma. At first, Paul treated it like any other story Sheila brought home from work, but it kept coming up. Sheila wanted Paul's opinion on what Melissa should do.

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  She asked why Jack would keep seeing both women, what he was getting out of it, and why he might choose one over the other. Over time, the story became more intimate. Sheila told Paul that Melissa and Jack were having sex often and that Melissa had become deeply attached to him, but was upset because he was still seeing Annalisa.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  The more Sheila talked about it, the stranger her interest in the story seemed to Paul. Eventually, he asked Sheila why she was so invested in the situation. Sheila brushed it aside, saying that the two of them had become boring and had known each other too long. By that point, their sex life had more or less stopped. Yet, Sheila kept coming home with stories about Melissa, Jack, and Annalisa.

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  One night, Sheila told Paul that Melissa had managed to obtain Jack's voicemail password at work and had started checking the account regularly, hoping the messages might reveal whether or not he was still involved with Annalisa. Paul was surprised that Melissa had gone that far, but after hearing about the situation for so long, he had also become somewhat invested in the story. Sheila explained that Melissa felt like she was being kept in the dark, while Jack continued to avoid making a decision between the two women. On another occasion, Melissa discovered that Jack would be traveling interstate,

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  so she arranged her own trip so that their paths would cross at the airport, as though by accident. She had even managed to book a seat beside Jack on the flight home. One day, Paul went to meet Sheila at her office. As she gathered up her things, she led Paul through the building and to Melissa's desk. She pointed to a framed photo of three women and told him which one was Melissa. She then explained how Melissa and Jack had become involved in the first place. The two had been leaving a bar after a work gathering when Melissa approached Jack and kissed him.

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  For Paul, seeing the workplace and the people Sheila spoke about made the story feel more tangible. Until then, Melissa, Jack, and Annalisa had existed only through the updates Sheila brought home. Now, he had a clearer picture of how their lives overlapped.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Before long, Sheila began asking whether there were other ways Melissa might be able to find out what Jack was doing. Years earlier, Paul had been a fan of the popular sci-fi television series The X-Files and had travelled with friends to Pine Bush, New York, a place known among UFO enthusiasts. During that period, he bought a pair of night vision binoculars from a catalogue, along with several other pieces of surveillance equipment that had since been packed away in a closet. Sheila said that Melissa wanted to borrow the binoculars so she could watch Jack and determine whether he was still spending time with Annalisa. Although Paul thought it was an unusual idea, he knew Sheila wanted to help her friend,

• 39:50Speaker 00

  so he showed her how to use them and agreed to lend them to Melissa.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Over the following weeks, Sheila returned with occasional updates about what Melissa had uncovered, but she still hadn’t been able to confirm whether or not Jack was still seeing Annalisa. After a while, Sheila told Paul that Melissa had bought a lock picking set and was considering entering Annalisa’s apartment while she was out during the day. Paul warned her that it was a bad idea and could get Melissa into serious trouble. But Sheila showed him the kit and tested it on the external doors of their own condo. The tools were inexpensive and difficult to use, and despite several attempts, neither lock opened.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  Sheila asked Paul about another piece of equipment he had bought years earlier, a small listening device that could be hidden inside a room and used to overhear conversations. She said Melissa wanted to place it inside Jack’s office. Paul showed her how the device worked, but a few days later, Sheila returned it and said it hadn’t recorded anything useful. She then ordered another device herself, one that was designed to connect to a telephone jack and record incoming and outgoing calls. When that also failed to work properly, Paul heard Sheila contact the manufacturer to complain.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  By this point, he had grown tired of hearing about the situation. Paul told Sheila that Melissa needed to stop trying to work everything out from a distance and speak directly to Annalisa. Whatever Jack had been telling his two girlfriends, Paul believed Annalisa had a right to know what was happening.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Paul waited to hear what Melissa had decided to do, but instead, the story gradually began to fade from their conversations. When the subject did come up, the details Sheila gave were brief. Around that time, Paul attended a meeting about a clinical trial with several representatives from Pharmacia. He noticed that one of them seemed unusually quiet. When Paul asked if something was wrong, the man explained that one of their coworkers had recently been murdered.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Paul was startled. Although the rapid didn’t mention the name of the victim, the comment stayed with him. On the drive home, he began to wonder whether the woman might have been Annalisa. He knew that she had recently left her old job at Purdue and moved to Pharmacia. Although it seemed far-fetched, he considered the possibility that Melissa could have harmed her.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  When he arrived home, Paul asked Sheila whether Annalisa was all right, telling her that someone from Pharmacia had recently been killed.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Sheila looked surprised. She told him Annalisa was fine and that it must have been someone else.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Paul let the thought go, but as the weeks continued, Sheila spoke less and less about the love triangle. The story that had once dominated their evenings was reduced to an occasional brief reference. Eventually, Paul asked what had happened. Sheila told him that Jack and Annalisa had broken up and that Jack was now with Melissa. The explanation surprised Paul. He asked whether Melissa had finally confronted Annalisa or what had caused Jack to end the relationship. But Sheila gave him little detail, simply repeating that Jack was now seeing Melissa exclusively.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  After that, she stopped bringing the story home completely.

• 43:55Speaker 00

  By early 2003, Paul and Sheila had been married for three years, and their relationship was under increasing strain. While Paul hoped things might improve, he knew they couldn’t continue the way they were for much longer. Sheila was spending more time away from him, and the explanation she had used for years about her brother was becoming harder for him to accept. Paul began pushing back, telling Sheila he was tired of leaving his own home and that she needed to tell her brother the truth.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  In the first week of March, Sheila told Paul she had finally spoken to her brother about their marriage. He had taken the news badly and had an emotional breakdown, requiring additional counselling and medication.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  A few days later, Sheila said she had met with her brother and his psychiatrist, who recommended that she spend two more nights with him at the condo. Sheila told Paul she would use that time to explain everything properly. After that, Paul would no longer have to leave whenever her brother visited.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  Around the same time, Sheila told Paul she had found a potential solution to the severe headaches he had been experiencing. Although Paul said he hadn’t been complaining of any such thing, Sheila explained she had gotten some vitamins and supplements from her herbalist and that they would be good for him. The pills were in a clear plastic bag and were bright yellow. Sheila had always been interested in health foods, organic remedies and alternative medicine, so although the pills weren’t labelled, Paul trusted her. At Sheila’s instructions, he took between eight and ten of the pills. That night, Paul couldn’t sleep.

• 45:50Speaker 00

  His heart raced and he felt queasy as he lay awake, unable to settle. When he told Sheila that the pills had made him sick, she couldn’t understand why. A few days later, she came home with another bag. She said she had spoken to the herbalist and the pills had been reformulated. Paul was nervous, but understood Sheila was trying to help, so he agreed to take just five. He swallowed the pills and then went to the gym. While he was on the treadmill, the same symptoms returned. That night, he and Sheila went out with his parents to celebrate his birthday, but Paul felt so sick he could barely eat.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Afterwards, he told Sheila he wouldn’t take the pills again. She dropped the subject and put the remaining pills in a kitchen drawer.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  On Saturday, March 22, 2003, Sheila came to Paul with a new idea for how they could rejuvenate their sex life. She said she had heard about a game in which one person was blindfolded and restrained while the other placed different objects against their body. The blindfolded person would then have to identify each item by touch, smell or sound.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  Paul thought it was strange. By then, he and Sheila were sleeping in separate rooms and there had been little intimacy between them for some time.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  This wasn’t the kind of thing they usually did together, but Sheila continued describing the game and encouraged him to try it. Eventually, Paul agreed.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  A short time later, they went into the spare bedroom, which doubled as Paul’s home office. It contained a desk and a wooden chair with a horizontal support running between its legs. Sheila suggested they pass the handcuffs through the chair’s support so that the person lying on the floor wouldn’t be able to bring their hands forward or remove the blindfold. She then volunteered to go first, lying face down, fully clothed, with her head on a pillow. Paul used a pair of handcuffs he had owned since high school to secure her hands behind her back through the lower part of the chair. He then pulled a pair of pantyhose over Sheila’s eyes and began presenting her with items from around the condo.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  He brought in one of their dogs, followed by a camera and a cardboard box. Sheila identified some of the objects and failed to recognise others. The mood remained light, and after several rounds, she told him it was time to change places.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Paul assumed the handcuffed position on the floor. With his blindfold secured, Sheila pressed a printer cartridge against him, followed by a calculator and a shampoo bottle.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Paul successfully guessed each item from its shape and texture. At one point, Sheila brought a candle close to his face. Paul could smell the wax, but couldn’t work out what it was. Sheila continued moving it around his head and body until he eventually gave up.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  Then she left the room again. Paul could hear her searching in other rooms before her footsteps returned to the spare bedroom. Sheila told Paul she had one final object for him to identify.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Paul was still lying on the floor, blindfolded and handcuffed to the chair, when Sheila moved over him and pinned his legs beneath her. For a moment, he could smell the candle again. He assumed it was simply the final object in the game, but then, without warning, he felt a sudden and violent impact in the left side of his chest. The force drove the air from his lungs. Before he could understand what had happened, Sheila screamed. A few seconds later, there was a second impact.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Still unable to see, Paul thought something in the room might have fallen on him. Then the pain began to spread. It moved through his chest and into his back, making each breath more difficult than the last. He started sweating heavily and felt his strength draining away. Sheila said she thought she had hurt him and that he appeared to be bleeding.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  Paul asked her to remove the blindfold, but instead, Sheila suggested that the candle may have caused the injury, or that something had accidentally fallen on him. With neither explanation making sense, Paul repeated that he needed to see what had happened for himself. When Sheila finally removed the pantyhose from his eyes, Paul looked down and saw blood spreading through the front of his shirt. He told Sheila to release him, but she began searching around the room, saying she couldn't find the keys to the handcuffs. Paul was still attached to the chair, his arms drawn tightly behind him, and the position was placing further strain on his chest.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  He told Sheila to break part of the chair so he could slide the handcuffs free. She did as he asked, and Paul pulled himself loose from the chair, but the handcuffs remained locked around his wrists. By then, he was too weak to stand. He rolled under his side, trying to relieve the pressure in his chest, but his breathing continued to shorten. Blood was soaking through his shirt, sweat covered his body, and the pain extended through both his chest and back.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Sheila left the room and returned with a glass of juice, telling Paul to drink it. Paul refused, telling her to call for an ambulance. After some delay, Sheila found her phone.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  From his position on the floor, Paul heard her telling the operator that her husband had been injured while they were playing a game, that he was bleeding and struggling to breathe, and that they needed help at the Pleasantville condo. She repeated their address and urged the operator to send an ambulance quickly.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  As the minutes passed, Paul asked Sheila to hold up a mirror from the bathroom so he could see the wounds for himself. To him, they didn't look that deep, more like scrapes, and he still couldn't understand what had happened. But he continued to lose blood and his breathing was becoming more labored. At times, Paul's thoughts seemed to drift, and he struggled to make sense of how long he had been waiting. After several more minutes, Paul asked where the ambulance was. Sheila picked up the phone again and spoke with the emergency operator. Paul asked to take the call himself, but Sheila said that the operator had instructed him to lay flat.

• 53:08Speaker 00

  She said two ambulances were already attending other emergencies, and there would be a delay before one could reach them. Shortly after, Sheila left the room and returned with a bottle of NyQuil, a cold and flu medication known to cause drowsiness. Paul couldn't understand why she was offering it to him. He was already weak and disoriented, and the last thing he wanted was something that might make him sleepier. He refused to take it. Eventually, Paul managed to pull one of his hands loose from the handcuffs. He forced himself upright and slowly made his way into the living room, where he collapsed onto the couch.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  Sheila said she was going out to look for help, but she returned a few minutes later, wrapping her arms around Paul and telling him that she loved him and that he was being brave. Paul sat there with her, waiting for help to arrive. But when it became clear that an ambulance wasn't arriving anytime soon, he asked Sheila to drive him to his mother's house so he could get to the hospital from there.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  Sheila helped Paul into the backseat of the car, and they decided to drive straight to Westchester Medical Centre in Valhalla, a hospital they both knew well, which wasn't far away. Sheila got behind the wheel, but almost as soon as she began driving, Paul noticed that she was taking an unusually long route towards the main road. Then, she pulled over, opened the rear door, and told Paul to lie down as he might feel better if he was flat. Paul found it easier to breathe sitting upright and asked her to keep driving. Confused as to why they had stopped, he told Sheila that if necessary, he would drive himself.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Sheila got back behind the wheel and they continued onwards. As they approached the hospital campus, Paul expected her to head for the emergency department. Instead, she turned towards the behavioural health centre, which was located away from the main hospital buildings.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  When Paul asked where she was going, Sheila told him she thought the medical centre was in that direction. Knowing it wasn't, Paul told her where she needed to go, but Sheila continued into the behavioural health centre car park. She drove to the quiet rear of the property and pulled over near the edge of the lot.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  Paul tried to get out of the car, but one of his feet had become wedged behind the front passenger seat. Dizzy, short of breath, and losing blood, even the effort of moving had become difficult. When Sheila came around to his door, Paul asked her to help him out.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  Then, as she leaned into the car, her expression changed. Suddenly, she lunged towards him.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Paul felt a sharp jab in his chest, and for the first time, he saw that Sheila was holding a knife. She raised it over her shoulder as though preparing to strike him again. Using his remaining strength, Paul forced his way out of the car. As Sheila moved towards him, the knife still in her hand, Paul instinctively reached for her wrists. The two struggled beside the vehicle as Paul tried to control the hand holding the knife. His palm closed around the blade, cutting into his skin, but he held on regardless.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  As they fought, Sheila began accusing Paul of trying to take her away from her brother, saying she couldn't allow that to happen. Confused, Paul said he wasn't trying to take her away from anyone and pleaded with Sheila to release the weapon. With his strength fading, Paul tried the only thing he could think of and drove his head forward into Sheila's face. The blow pushed her back, but it didn't end the struggle. Paul continued gripping her wrist until Sheila finally released the knife, leaving Paul holding the weapon. He stepped back and looked for somewhere safe to put the knife. Nearby were piles of red building bricks.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  Paul pushed the knife into a narrow gap between them, forcing it as far down as he could.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  "Good, Paul," Sheila said, "you got rid of the knife." She then rushed forward and grabbed hold of him, pleading with him to stay. Paul swung at her and missed, but the movement was enough to break her grip. As Sheila fell, she caught hold of Paul's jacket, tearing it as he pulled himself free. Paul was barely able to remain upright. About 200 metres ahead, he could see two men standing outside the behavioural health centre, one of whom was a medical resident. Paul stumbled towards them until he was close enough to call out that he'd been stabbed. Sheila ran up behind him and claimed it was actually Paul who had attacked her.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Paul tried to explain what had happened, but his body was giving way and he was struggling to speak. He sat down on the curb and asked the men to call 911.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  The resident called someone inside the hospital for help. While they waited, Sheila drove the car over and pulled up beside Paul. Quietly, she told him not to say anything. She then told the others that she could drive Paul to the emergency room herself, but they refused, saying an ambulance was already on its way. One of the men went to the car and removed the keys from the ignition so Sheila couldn't leave. Sheila sat down beside Paul and again urged him not to reveal what had happened because she could get into trouble.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  The police and paramedics soon arrived. Paul was moved into the ambulance and joined by an officer who asked him what had happened. Paul described the attack as clearly as he could and directed the officer to the pile of bricks where he had hidden the knife. Once he reached the emergency room, doctors quickly realized that his stab wounds were far more serious than they had first appeared. One had penetrated his chest and damaged a major artery connected to his heart. Paul had already lost a dangerous amount of blood, and the injury was life-threatening. He was immediately taken for open-heart surgery.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, Sheila Davaloo was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and taken to the Westchester County Police Department for questioning. From the start, her account was difficult to follow. She spoke at length about what had happened, but struggled to provide a clear sequence of events, often moving between different explanations without fully answering the question she had been asked. Sheila said she didn't know anything about the knife that had been recovered from the hospital grounds, but reasoned that if it had come from home, her fingerprints might be on it.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  As the interview continued, the detectives made it clear that Paul's injuries had been life-threatening and that doctors had only narrowly been able to save him. After he'd awoken from surgery, Paul had told the police everything he could remember about the blindfold game and the attack that followed. He said it wasn't until they had reached the hospital grounds that he realised Sheila had been trying to kill him. Police checked the recent call history on Sheila's mobile phone and discovered that while Paul was injured inside their condo, she hadn't called for an ambulance at all. She had dialed a number in Stamford, Connecticut.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  The number was traced to a man named Nelson Sessler. Unsure who he was or why Sheila had contacted him at such a critical point, two Westchester detectives drove to Stamford to speak with him. When they arrived at his apartment complex, there was no answer at his door. One of Nelson's neighbours came out and asked the police whether their visit had something to do with the murder. The detectives corrected her, clarifying that they were investigating an attempted murder that had taken place earlier that day in New York. The neighbour seemed confused. She wasn't talking about Paul Christos. She was referring to Nelson's girlfriend, Ana Lisa Raimundo.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

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• 1:04:24Speaker 00

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• 1:04:38Speaker 00

  The Westchester detectives drove straight to the Stamford Police Department and explained the situation they'd found themselves dealing with. Together, the investigators began working to understand why Sheila Davaloo had called the boyfriend of Ana Lisa Raimundo while her husband was slowly bleeding to death.

• 1:04:59Speaker 00

  Several days later, Nelson Sessler agreed to speak with the police. He explained that he knew Sheila through Purdue Farmer, where they both worked, and they had become friends. He said he'd helped her with small things from time to time, including walking her two dogs, but gave no indication that their relationship went any further than that. But the detectives already suspected there was more to it. Sheila's phone records revealed that the two spoke often, and it had become clear that they spent time together outside work. Eventually, Nelson admitted that he and Sheila had been having an affair.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  It all started when they met at an after-work gathering in the summer of 2001. What started as a connection between colleagues gradually moved beyond the office and became physical.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Throughout the investigation into Ana Lisa's murder, detectives had repeatedly asked Nelson about his relationships and whether there were other women in his life. He had mentioned two other women, but this was the first time he'd ever mentioned Sheila Davaloo. Nelson explained that as far as he knew, Sheila was separated from her husband and was living alone in a condominium in Pleasantville, New York. He had visited her there several times and never seen anything to suggest that a man or anyone else lived there too. Detectives already knew that Paul Christos had been living at the condo the entire time, only leaving when Sheila's brother came to stay.

• 1:06:40Speaker 00

  By clearing the condo of his presence, he'd thought he was protecting Sheila's brother from the truth about their marriage. In reality, Sheila's brother hadn't been visiting the condo. The man Paul had been making room for was Nelson Sessler.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Nelson told the detectives that at some point during his relationship with Sheila, he became involved with Ana Lisa Raymundo, who was also working at Purdue Farmer at the time. He continued seeing Sheila casually for a while, but things with Ana Lisa started to become serious. Over time, more of Nelson's attention shifted towards Ana Lisa, and he began imagining a future with her. Sheila noticed he was putting a distance between them and began taking a greater interest in where he was and who he was speaking to. On one occasion, Nelson was returning from an interstate trip when he unexpectedly ran into Sheila at the airport.

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  She told him she was returning from a trip to California, and they were surprised to find themselves seated beside each other on the flight home. "It must be destiny," Sheila told Nelson. "Look at us." But Nelson's relationship with Ana Lisa continued to deepen, and eventually, he told Sheila that he wanted to end their relationship and focus on Ana Lisa.

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  He said that Sheila appeared to accept the decision, playing down what had happened between them by describing it as a brief summer romance and suggesting they remain friends.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  Not long afterwards, Ana Lisa was murdered.

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  In the days that followed, Nelson left Connecticut to stay with his family. By the time he arrived, a package from Sheila was already waiting for him. Inside were cookies and a letter addressed to his parents, expressing sympathy for Ana Lisa's death and offering support to Nelson and the rest of the family. Given that Sheila hadn't known Ana Lisa well, the gesture caught Nelson by surprise. He wasn't sure what to make of the package, but he accepted that it was an attempt to reach out during a period of grief.

• 1:09:00Speaker 00

  In the wake of Ana Lisa's murder, Sheila delivered on her suggestion that the two of them remain friends. While many others in Nelson's life found it difficult to know what to say given the violent and mysterious circumstances of Ana Lisa's death, Sheila was always willing to listen. Over time, she became one of the few people that Nelson felt comfortable discussing Ana Lisa with, and slowly, they began spending more time together. In January 2003, two months after Ana Lisa's death, Sheila invited Nelson on a group ski trip. He went, only to find that Sheila was the only other one there, and they resumed a sexual relationship.

• 1:09:47Speaker 00

  While the detectives learned more about Sheila and Nelson’s relationship, they asked Paul Christos to describe what Sheila had told him about her life at Purdue Pharma. Paul explained that, for months, Sheila had spoken about her work friend Melissa, and a love triangle involving a fellow coworker Jack, and a woman named Annalisa. He told detectives everything about how Melissa had been trying to monitor Jack’s movements to learn more about his relationship with Annalisa. There were the voicemail messages Melissa was accessing, and the interstate flight she had booked to give the illusion that fate had brought her and Jack together.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  There were the night vision binoculars Sheila borrowed on Melissa’s behalf, the lockpicking set Melissa had purchased, and the listening devices she had used.

• 1:10:39Speaker 00

  Comparing Paul’s account with what Nelson had told them, it quickly became clear to the detectives that Melissa and Jack did not exist. The situation Sheila had been telling Paul about and asking for advice on was her own affair with Nelson Sessler. The only person in the story whose real name remained unchanged was Annalisa.

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  With the affair exposed, detectives returned to the call Sheila had made while Paul was lying injured inside the Pleasantville condo. Paul had heard Sheila speaking to what he believed to be an emergency services operator. She had given them their address, described Paul’s injuries, and asked for an ambulance. Later, she told Paul she called them again to see why they were taking so long. But, in reality, Sheila had made no such call. Instead, she had called Nelson and asked whether he wanted to come over for dinner that evening.

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  Nelson, who insisted to the police that he knew nothing about Paul’s existence, agreed, telling Sheila he would stop by on his way home. When he arrived at the condo later that evening, a uniformed officer stopped him near the entrance and explained that there had been a domestic incident and someone had been stabbed. When Nelson explained that Sheila had invited him over, he was informed that the man who had been stabbed was her husband. Up until that point, he had no idea that she was still married, or that Paul lived in the condo.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  With the truth slowly coming to light, another detail stuck out to Paul. Earlier on the afternoon of his attack, he had told Sheila he wanted to buy a treadmill which he could keep in the spare bedroom. Sheila complained that it would make the room look cluttered, but when Paul repeated that he intended to keep it there, Sheila made a strange remark. She said that she didn’t plan on keeping him around much longer.

• 1:12:49Speaker 00

  Caught off guard, Paul looked at Sheila, but she clarified she was talking about the treadmill’s return period. Paul had dismissed the comment as a joke and hadn’t given it any further thought, but in the wake of the attack, it had taken on a different meaning.

• 1:13:07Speaker 00

  Through their conversations with Paul and Nelson, it was clear to investigators that neither of the men knew the truth about the other.

• 1:13:15Speaker 00

  With Sheila now connected to Nelson, detectives returned to the 911 call that had been placed from the payphone outside of the Duchess Restaurant in Stamford on Friday, November 8, 2002, the one that had alerted them to Annalisa’s murder.

• 1:13:32Speaker 00

  For more than four months, investigators had been unable to identify the distressed-sounding woman who claimed that a man had attacked her neighbour before abruptly ending the call. It had remained one of the most enduring mysteries of the investigation.

• 1:13:48Speaker 00

  With this new information coming to light, the tape was retrieved from evidence and played to the detectives who had spent hours interviewing Sheila about Paul’s stabbing. As the 911 recording began, they had no doubts. The woman who had called police on the day Annalisa Raymundo was murdered was Sheila Davaloo.

• 1:14:15Speaker 00

  As investigators moved to gather evidence against Sheila, they discovered that about a month after Annalisa was murdered, she and Paul had hosted a dinner party. During the evening, one of their guests noticed the partly healed 2-inch gash on Sheila’s hand. When the guests asked what had happened, Sheila moved to conceal the injury and changed the subject.

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  Later, Sheila struck up a conversation with another guest who worked as a corrections officer. She asked him how investigators identified fingerprints and whether everyone’s prints were automatically kept on file. The guest explained that unless someone had previously been fingerprinted for a particular reason, their prints wouldn’t necessarily be available for comparison.

• 1:15:04Speaker 00

  At the time, the guests had found nothing unusual about either of these encounters. But investigators obtained medical records which showed that Sheila had sought treatment for a significant cut on November 9, 2002, the day after Annalisa was killed. Paul recalled her coming home from work with what he described as a nasty cut. Sheila said she had gotten it from opening a can of dog food.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  One of the guests to the dinner party was also familiar with the Melissa, Jack, and Annalisa saga, and noticed that by early 2003, Sheila had mostly stopped talking about it. When she asked about it, Sheila said that Melissa and Jack were together exclusively, and that Annalisa had moved to a new job in New Jersey.

• 1:15:58Speaker 00

  The circumstantial evidence against Sheila was mounting, but investigators still hadn’t uncovered anything that put her at the scene of the murder. They obtained security records from Purdue Pharma which showed Sheila entering the building at 8:09 a.m. on the morning of Friday, November 8. Shortly before this, she had called Paul asking for his opinion on whether Melissa should confront Annalisa about her relationship with Jack. She told him Melissa was already outside Annalisa’s condo, deciding whether to go to the door. At 10:53 a.m., Sheila’s security badge recorded her leaving the Purdue Pharma building.

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  The 911 call was placed at 12:13 p.m. Sheila returned to Purdue at 1:53. That left almost three hours in which her movements weren’t accounted for.

• 1:16:56Speaker 00

  Annalisa’s condo on Harbour Drive was roughly two miles from Purdue Pharma. Theoretically, this gave Sheila enough time to travel to Annalisa’s condo, launch an attack, make the 911 call, and return to work before anyone had reason to question where she’d been. A search of Sheila and Paul’s home turned up several of the items Paul had told investigators about, including the night vision goggles and listening devices. In one of the kitchen drawers, investigators also found a bag of stack-a-two diet pills containing Ephedra, a stimulant commonly used in weight loss supplements that can increase heart rate and blood pressure. Investigators also found an empty taser box

• 1:17:41Speaker 00

  and a photograph of Nelson Sessler holding his guitar.

• 1:17:48Speaker 00

  While the investigation into Annalisa’s murder continued, for the attack on Paul Christos, Sheila Davaloo was charged with attempted murder, as well as assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Her legal team made it clear they intended to fight the charge by entering a psychiatric defence. Sheila’s position was that she hadn’t meant to hurt Paul and that she couldn’t properly remember what had happened. Her defence referred to a dark figure, something outside herself that had taken over during the attack.

• 1:18:23Speaker 00

  Sheila’s trial took place before a judge only in New York in February 2004, almost a year after the attack. Her defence argued that while Sheila had stabbed Paul, she hadn’t intended to kill him.

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  They presented psychiatric evidence that she had been emotionally troubled and suffering from depression in the lead-up to the attack, arguing that her mental state had affected her ability to appreciate the consequences of what she was doing.

• 1:18:53Speaker 00

  The defence maintained that the stabbing had been an impulsive and irrational act rather than a deliberate attempt to kill Paul.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  In contrast, the prosecution presented their own expert who had evaluated Sheila and concluded that she knew what she was doing and understood the consequences of her actions.

• 1:19:14Speaker 00

  But the strongest evidence came from Paul Christos himself as he walked the judge through the strange events of Sunday, March 23, 2003, starting with Sheila’s suggestion of the blindfold game to their final struggle in the parking lot.

• 1:19:30Speaker 00

  Sheila then testified in her own defence. She appeared calm and composed as she described herself as falling apart in the weeks before the attack. She said her life had become erratic, that she had been struggling with her mental health, and that she hadn’t intended to kill Paul. The prosecutor asked Sheila whether she had been obsessed with Nelson Sessler at the time of the attack. When Sheila said no, the prosecutor reminded her that she had used a similar expression when talking about Nelson to mental health professionals. Sheila then adjusted her answer, describing it as a sexual obsession, while still resisting the idea that the obsession had controlled her.

• 1:20:14Speaker 00

  As for the phone call she made to Nelson inviting him over for dinner while Paul lay bleeding inside the condo, Sheila said she had no memory of it.

• 1:20:26Speaker 00

  On February 19, 2004, the judge found Sheila Davaloo guilty on all charges. Sheila showed little reaction as the verdict was delivered before asking that her car keys be given to a family member. She was subsequently given the maximum sentence, 25 years in prison.

• 1:20:51Speaker 00

  Stanford detectives overseeing the investigation into Annalisa Raymundo's murder had been following Sheila’s attempted murder trial closely. While she remained their number-one suspect in Annalisa’s death, she was yet to be charged, and they were curious as to whether she would divulge anything in the trial that might help them with Annalisa’s case. By this point, the 911 call made from the payphone at the Duchess on November 8, 2002 had been analysed by a forensic voice expert, who concluded that Sheila Davaloo was the caller. Along with her unaccounted-for movements during the three-hour period on the day of Annalisa’s murder, and the medical records confirming she’d received a treatment for

• 1:21:35Speaker 00

  a cut on her hand the day after, investigators had built a strong circumstantial case. Regardless, prosecutors wanted physical evidence placing Sheila inside Annalisa’s condo before proceeding with the charge.

• 1:21:52Speaker 00

  In November 2007, six years after the murder, the blood that had been found on the hot water tap in Annalisa’s bathroom was finally tested for DNA. The results showed two profiles: one was Annalisa Raymundo, the other was Sheila Davaloo. Testing of other blood-stained items recovered from the condo produced less conclusive results. Three dumbbells contained Annalisa’s DNA along with a profile from an unidentified contributor, but none contained a match to Sheila.

• 1:22:29Speaker 00

  By late 2008, prosecutors in Connecticut were ready to charge Sheila with Annalisa’s murder. But, given that she was already serving a sentence in New York, this meant that once she was formally arrested, the state would have a limited period to bring the case to trial. Investigators therefore had to be careful about when the warrant was served.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  To avoid going to trial completely, they offered Sheila a plea deal of 20 years. She refused, and on December 29, 2008, Stanford investigators travelled to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York, where Sheila was serving her sentence, and served her with an arrest warrant for murder.

• 1:23:14Speaker 00

  She was then transported back to Stanford, where she was formally charged with the murder of Annalisa Raymundo.

• 1:23:23Speaker 00

  It took nearly three years before the case finally reached a Connecticut court. By that point, almost a decade had passed since Annalisa was killed, and there had been major disputes about what the jury would be allowed to hear. Prosecutors wanted to introduce evidence from the attack on Paul Christos, arguing that it helped establish motive and show a connection between the two cases. Sheila’s defence team tried to keep it out, but in September 2011, the judge ruled that the evidence could be admitted. Sheila then made the unusual decision to represent herself, which meant she was allowed to question the witnesses testifying against her, including Paul Christos and Nelson Sessler,

• 1:24:08Speaker 00

  while also arguing her own innocence before the jury. Paul testified about the false name Sheila had used when discussing the love triangle she was secretly in with Nelson and Annalisa, and about the bizarre behaviour that followed. He also gave evidence about the attack in Pleasantville, with prosecutors arguing that in Sheila’s view, Paul and Annalisa had both stood between her future with Nelson.

• 1:24:36Speaker 00

  Nelson told the jury that his relationship with Sheila had ended as things became more serious with Annalisa, and that Sheila had been quick to comfort him in the wake of Annalisa’s death. He made it clear that he had no reason to believe she was still married to Paul at the time.

• 1:24:54Speaker 00

  After her arrest in New York, Sheila sent Nelson four letters. In one, she said that she had loved him, while others were signed “Love Always”. Nelson said that their relationship had never been emotionally serious, and that they had never used the word “love” with each other.

• 1:25:15Speaker 00

  The physical evidence centred on the bathroom near the foyer of Annalisa’s condo, with the prosecution case being that someone had stood at the sink trying to clean themselves. The jury heard that DNA from the blood on the hot water handle linked Sheila Davaloo to the scene, with the estimated frequency of someone other than Sheila contributing that profile being one in 8.5 million. A voice recognition expert also testified that digital analysis showed Sheila had made the emergency call that brought police to Annalisa’s condominium in the first place.

• 1:25:53Speaker 00

  Sheila challenged the evidence, pointing out that the voice analysis was not perfect, and that several coworkers who had heard the recording hadn’t recognised the voice.

• 1:26:05Speaker 00

  When it came time for closing arguments, she maintained that the state had failed to prove she was inside Annalisa’s condo on November 8, 2002. She pointed to several unanswered questions from the investigation, including the unidentified DNA found on the dumbbells and the blue contact lens recovered from Annalisa’s hair, whose owner had never been identified.

• 1:26:31Speaker 00

  The jury deliberated for a day and a half before returning a verdict. For the murder of Annalisa Raymundo, Sheila Davaloo was found guilty. Annalisa’s mother, Susan, put her head in her hands and began sobbing, while Sheila looked down and made the sign of the cross.

• 1:26:54Speaker 00

  On April 27, 2012, Sheila Davaloo returned to court for sentencing. Annalisa’s parents, Susan and Renato Raymundo, who had sat through the trial, were finally given the opportunity to speak about their daughter and what her death had taken from their family.

• 1:27:13Speaker 00

  Renato described Annalisa as exceptionally gifted, with a sharp mind and intellect. Susan said that she remained haunted by the image of Annalisa at her funeral, and how different she had looked from the beautiful daughter she had known in life.

• 1:27:30Speaker 00

  A letter was also read on behalf of one of Annalisa’s sisters, who described her as a caring and loving person, who would have gone on to share her gifts with the world and make it a better place. When Sheila was given the chance to speak, she refused to admit responsibility. She thanked the judge, the corrections officers, and the jury, saying it had been difficult to sit through what she described as harsh words. She said she hoped the punishment would bring Annalisa’s parents closure. For the murder of Annalisa Raymundo, Sheila Davaloo was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

• 1:28:11Speaker 00

  The sentence would run consecutively to the 25-year sentence she was already serving in New York for the attempted murder of Paul Christos. Paul, who was present for the sentencing, said that Sheila had shown no remorse, and that she seemed convinced that she’d be able to overturn her conviction.

• 1:28:32Speaker 00

  “She lives in her own shade of reality,” he said.

• 1:28:37Speaker 00

  In the years that followed, Sheila continued to challenge her murder conviction. She appealed it twice, first in 2014 and then again in 2016, but both appeals were rejected. In 2019, she gave an exclusive interview to the Oxygen TV network’s true crime programme Snapped, in which she maintained that she never intended to kill Paul.

• 1:29:03Speaker 00

  Having grown up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, Sheila said that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that her decision to stab Paul was a result of her mental illness. “It was a bizarre situation that happened on that day,” Sheila said. “I felt a lot of pain and tension, and I grabbed the knife and I stabbed him. It was very bizarre. It’s nothing I’ve ever done before. I don’t really, honestly, even remember doing it.”

• 1:29:34Speaker 00

  Sheila denied having killed Annalisa Raymundo, disputing the evidence used against her, and insisting that she would eventually clear her name.

• 1:29:44Speaker 00

  For Susan and Renato Raymundo, Sheila’s sentence brought the legal process to an end, but it could not restore the life their daughter might have lived.

• 1:29:55Speaker 00

  Both were doctors and devout Catholics who had travelled on medical missions, providing care to people in need. Annalisa had sometimes accompanied them, and Renato believed the values he had tried to pass on had shaped the person she became.

• 1:30:12Speaker 00

  “As I look back and review in my mind all the things I had shown her, taught her, and inspired her,” he said, “I think the most enduring was that to serve and love mankind is to love and serve God.” Renato said Annalisa had carried those values into her own life. While in college, she volunteered in the soup kitchen and the Centre for Women. Annalisa was very friendly, and she never thought negatively of others. “Her laugh, affectionate cheerfulness, lifted us up, especially in sad times.” Above all, Renato remembered Annalisa in simple terms.

• 1:30:55Speaker 00

  “A perfect daughter, and an excellent human being.” Human being.

• 1:31:29Speaker 05

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