48 Hours Mystery: The War in Chicago - CBS News

A "48 Hours" investigation into drugs, guns, gangs and the battle for America's third-largest city

Produced by Josh Yager, Doug Longhini, Josh Gaynor and Kathleen O'Connell

[This story first aired on May 18, 2013. It was updated on June 28, 2014]

After Hadiya Pendleton was shot in a Chicago park, she quickly became a symbol of the deadly street violence in the city. But nearly every day, someone is gunned down in Chicago, often the result of gangs fighting over territory to sell drugs.

In the fall of 2012, "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher and CBS News correspondent Armen Keteyian began reaching out to some of the victims who are hurting and some of the people who are fighting back in this city at war over guns, gangs, and drugs.

"I wish you guys could've been here asking me about, you know, the dancing at the inauguration, but unfortunately this is what we're dealing with," Hadiya's father, Anthony Pendleton, told Maher.

"We know from years of working the streets ... that much of the gang-related shootings -- are drug related," Jack Riley, who heads up the Chicago division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, told Keteyian.

To get the gangs, Riley and the DEA go after their drugs -- heroin in particular.

"That's why I look the way I look, that's why I don't sleep a lot," he said. "One homicide in this city is too many. One person abusing heroin in the suburbs is too many."

Paula Nixon started using heroin when she 16. "... and the first time I did it ... I was in my family room ... and I was thinking, 'this is the best feeling in the world,'" she said.

Heroin has taken many of Paula's friends, but she can't kick it on her own.

"I'm not strong enough... if I saw heroin in front of me right now I can't tell you that I wouldn't do it," she said. "There is no amount of willpower I have on my own that I can stop."

With drug dealers at his doorstep, David Muhammad risked his life to stop them.

"Every day for about a year I videotaped them," he said. "It's worth it to lose my life if I have to try to slow this down."

For six months, we watched David Muhammad stand up to drug dealers, Paula Nixon battle her heroin addiction and the Pendletons search for justice.

The Chicago Police force and the DEA have been hunting down drug-dealing gangs and "48 Hours" is there as it all unfolds.

HADIYA PENDLETON
In 2012, the murder rate in Chicago soared to more than 500 - that's more than New York, though Chicago is only a third the size. "48 Hours" had been in Chicago for six months investigating gun violence when Hadiya Pendleton was shot to death.

Suddenly, what had been a local story began to fuel a national debate.

"One of those we lost was a girl named Hadiya Pendleton," President Barack Obama said in his State of Union Address. "Hadiya's parents Nate and Cleo are in this chamber tonight."

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Hadiya Pendleton AP PHOTO/COURTESY OF DAMON STEWART
Hadiya, 15, was gunned down on January 29, 2013, in a park only a mile from President Obama's Chicago home when members of a street gang apparently mistook her group of friends for a rival gang.

Until that moment, Hadiya's life had been largely untouched by Chicago violence, according to her parents, Anthony and Cleopatra. And "48 Hours" found Hadiya had no connection to gangs.

As early as the sixth grade, when she made a school video, she seemed to understand the risks for kids in her city:

Hi. My name is Hadiya ... this commercial is informational for you and your future children. ... so many children are joining gangs and it is your job to say no to gangs and yes to a great future.
"Amongst everything else she was doing, she was on the debate team ... she was a majorette, she did volleyball," Pendleton said. "Basketball... cheerleading," Cleo Cowley added.

Her parents say Hadiya was a normal, happy teenager who dreamed of being a veterinarian or a journalist.

"What did you see her growing into?" Maher asked.

"Whatever she wanted to, to be perfectly honest," Cowley said. "Best answer," Pendleton agreed.

"It's the truth, whatever she wanted and whatever it was she was going to be hugely successful at it," said Cowley.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
Hadiya Pendleton's parents speak out
Less than a week after Hadiya's high school marching band had returned from the president's inauguration, school had just let out on an unusually warm winter day.

"When I got a phone call from her friend and she was like screaming, 'Hadiya's been shot. Hadiya's been shot...' Cowley recalled in a whisper.

She says she literally could not make sense of it -- even after meeting her husband at the hospital.

"This can't be us," she said. "This is not our life! This is not the rest of my life!"

"I mean, only thing I could really remember is 'why they bringin' these tissues in here? Why they bringin' these tissues in here?"" said Pendleton.

"After the doctor came in and told you that she hadn't made it, what do you remember happening after that?" Maher asked.

"I died," Cowley replied. "This is my best description...you ride roller coasters? ... I think the intensity of riding the ride is hearing the click, click, click ... and then the roller coaster starts to roll ... your stomach goes, like crazy, and you reach instinctively for that bar ... it's like reaching for that bar, but never having it and never falling any further to level off."

Just days after Hadiya's murder, the Pendleton family was riding an emotional roller coaster. But they agreed to let "48 Hours" into their lives as they remembered Hadiya's life as a typical teenager.

They wanted to share their memories, in the hope that her death would mean something.

"I just think that there needs to be an awareness that, you know, there are good people out here that have promising futures that are not living to see them through because -- because something's wrong," said Cowley.

"We've got people dying ... and I'm not rolling over, I have not thrown the towel in," said Jack Riley, who thinks he knows why so many of Chicago's children are dying.

Riley is a long-time veteran of the DEA and heads the agency's Chicago office, which controls five surrounding states.

"I wanted to retire a few years ago ... my wife's naggin' me every day... get outta the job," he said. "I can't do it!"

While Hadiya became a celebrity in death, shootings happen just about every day in Chicago.

Riley says many Chicago shootings are carried out by the area's roughly 70,000 gang members who are going to war over one thing in particular: drugs

"In your mind, there is an absolute direct connection between the murder rate in Chicago and the drug wars in the streets," Armen Keteyian noted to Riley.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
Street gangs are "selling death and misery in the form of heroin"
"As sure as I'm sitting here telling you," he replied.

He said these days, the gangs are fighting mostly over distribution of one drug alone: heroin.

"It is right now the drug of choice for street gangs," said Riley.

A man who is risking his life to talk to "48 Hours" says the heroin is brought to Chicago by one main source: Mexico's infamous Sinaloa Cartel.

"And the worst part is they are armed," the man said. "It's practically a time bomb, and this is the reality we're living."

"How powerful is the Cartel influence in Chicago right now?" Keteyian asked.

"Very strong the influence of the Sinaloa Cartel here in Chicago and it's getting stronger," the man said.

He should know. He was once trusted by the cartel to smuggle drugs to Chicago. "I tell them if they have 50 kilos, I'll buy that...if they have 100 kilos in a week, I can sell that too," he said.

Jack Riley says the Sinaloa Cartel was run by one of the world's most dangerous men: Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, who escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001. The Feds say Guzman targeted Chicago specifically.

Why Chicago? "It's the same reason there's many fortune 500 companies here," Riley told Keteyian. "It is a business logistic home run."

"We're over some of the biggest interstates in the country here in addition to the trucking and obviously the rail and that's what makes this area so important to traffickers," Riley explained while flying over the city with Keteyian.

"Jack, you've got a personal history with Chapo Guzman?" Keteyian asked.

"Yeah, I hate the guy," Riley replied. "He made it clear to some of his subordinates that he would like to see my head lopped off. ... I still got my head ... get in line Chapo! C'mon let's go!"

Guzman was considered such a menace to these streets that the city's crime commission named him "Public Enemy Number One" -- a title they last bestowed on notorious gangster Al Capone.

"Chapo to Chicago right now is what Al Capone was in my opinion," Riley explained.

"Does that make you the modern day Eliot Ness?" Keteyian quipped.

"I've been called worse!" said Riley.

Until Guzman and the Sinoloa cartel are is brought to justice, Riley and a multi-agency "strike force" are vowing to take down the violent Chicago street gangs that do the cartel's bidding.

"They're demanding a safer place to live, a safer place to raise their kids...and that's what it's all about today," he said.

"This is good versus evil and you're riding with good today," Riley commented to Keteyian as they headed to a pre-dawn raid.

THE HEROIN HIGHWAY
It may look like a scene from Iraq or Afghanistan, but, just 20 miles from Chicago, Jack Riley of the DEA is training an army to fight a drug war.

It's a new strike force to target middlemen between the violent street gangs and the Mexican cartels. They're making raids all over the area - from one on a quiet suburban street in Plainfield, Ill., to one in Gary, Indiana -- only about 15 miles from Chicago.

More and more these days, heroin is making its way out of the inner city, where it is cut and packaged for sale at secret locations. The workers in a so-called chop house on Chicago's west side are naked to keep them from stealing the drug before it reaches its suburban clientele.

To get their drugs, many suburban users drive down a stretch of Interstate 290 onto the city's west side. The street gangs in control of the neighborhoods there grant them safe passage. So many addicts are using the road that it's earned a nickname: the heroin highway.

"Well from what we're seeing is that heroin users take that road and head right into the west side of the city to purchase heroin. This is a crucial artery to the whole regional problem," he told Keteyian as they flew above the heroin highway.

"After I would get my heroin ... I would drive home high," said 18-year-old Paula Nixon.

Paula was a good student, an athlete and an avid photographer living in the leafy suburb of Glenview. While Hadiya Pendleton lost her life to Chicago's violence, Paula has been living through a different kind of war.

"You live to get high!" she told Maureen Maher.

Photos: Lives lost - The faces of suburban fatal heroin overdoses
Understanding heroin and its hold
Her ordeal began in 2011, when she was sitting in the family room with her boyfriend and he encouraged her to try a little bag of white powder. Paula was only 16.

"I remember saying, 'I love this feeling!'" she said.

Like much of the heroin coming from Mexico these days, it was cheaper than a six pack and easier to use -- so pure it could be snorted.

"I snorted the first time," Paula told Maher. Asked if she was hooked right away, Paula said, "Yeah ... The first high is the greatest. It really is. ... All your problems are gone..."

It was so good, Paula says, that she couldn't stop. She began driving the heroin highway nearly every day -- even after the boy who got her started died of an overdose.

"People ask me, 'How do you continue to use after you lose someone like that?'" she said. "... and it's indescribable how strong it is."

In suburban Will County, a middle class area southwest of Chicago, Coroner Pat O'Neil says heroin use has become an epidemic.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
Will County Coroner: "Heroin is everywhere"
"I've signed four death certificates this week and all four have been heroin overdoses," he said.

In 2012, fatal overdoses were up 76 percent over the year before.

"We have more heroin overdoses than car crash fatalities and homicides combined," said O'Neal.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
Heroin diaries: Jaymes Lindbloom's journey from addiction to recovery
In nearby Naperville, Jaymes Lindbloom knows the heroin scene well. He admits he was a dealer while at Neuqua Valley High School and drove the heroin highway to pick up his product.

"Kids from suburbs ... ride down to the west side [of] Chicago all the time," he explained. "People think it's such a far-fetched idea, you know. But it's just - it's in everyone's back yard now."

"It's taking over slowly but surely. I mean...It's everywhere," said Paula.

"It's like living with someone that's crazy," said Paula's mother, PJ Newberg.

Newberg forced her daughter into rehab.

"She made a horrible scene... I mean, she started swearing and yelling and kicking," she said. "I didn't recognize her; she was a completely different person."

When she got out, Paula did well for a while, but then fell of the wagon. After four more failed rehabs, Newberg decided tough love was her only hope -- and kicked Paula out of the house. In some ways though, that decision only made matters worse.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
Heroin diaries: A mother's mission in the face of addiction
"I couldn't even sleep," said Newberg.

"What would you lay in bed thinking about?" Maher asked.

"Where is she? What's gonna happen to her? Is she alive?" Newberg replied.

Paula was alive, but within a few months, she was homeless -- injecting heroin five times a day.

"You'll do anything for it. You'll betray your family, your friends," she explained. "I stole my father's wedding ring and pawned it. ... like who does that?"

In September 2012, Paula was jailed for shoplifting. Four months behind bars forced her to get clean. But once she was released into rehab, the question was, could she stay clean? Even Paula had her doubts.

"I am scared! I am scared that I'm gonna relapse," she said. "I am scared that, you know, I won't get it this time, just like I don't every other time."

What's so hard for kids like Paula is that they know the heroin they crave is just down the road.

"My corner ... was dominated by gang members and drug dealers," David Muhammad said.

It's a neighborhood where "48 Hours" found one man risking his life to stop the gangs, guns and drugs.

Said Muhammad, "... one of the drug dealers told me that he would shoot me, I knew it was time to do something."

TAKING A STAND
On an early Sunday morning, the believers at the Sun Rise Baptist Church on Chicago's west side are already wide awake.

Inside, the spirit is high. But on any given day, just outside on the corner of Kilbourn and Van Buren, a much more sinister gathering takes place.

"All nationalities, all ages ... come and buy the drugs out of this community," said 58-year-old David Muhammad. The retired diesel mechanic for the city lives across the street from the church. For him, this corner is at the center of the city's drug war.

"... the whole block, the intersection, sitting on the church steps. All of that was used for drug activity," he told Armen Keteyian.

It is the heart of Chicago's 11th District, one of the most violent in the city -- the de facto property of Chicago's largest gang, the trigger-happy Gangster Disciples.

"I heard about 10 shots just go off. ...It was like pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa," Muhammad said, imitating the sound of the gunshots. "It's a common thing. When people around there hear gunshots ... you don't duck or anything. You're just used to it."

Seventeen convicted gun offenders lived within a 10-block radius from Muhammad's doorstep, where he says gang members deal heroin and crack from morning until night.

"Sometimes I would call the police and they wouldn't even come," he said. "It was like the wild, wild west."

When he saw dealers doing business right in front of the Baptist church, Muhammad, a Muslim, took a stand.

"It's a Baptist church. But in Islam we're taught to protect all institutions of God. So it was like a slap in my face for them to deal drugs right out of the door of the Church," he told Keteyian.

Politely, he asked the local dealers to take their business elsewhere. They pulled a knife and threatened to kill him. So Muhammad retreated to his house and armed himself, vowing to fight back. His weapon? A small digital camera.

"You were videotaping the drug sales?" Keteyian asked.

"Yes," Muhammad said. "Every day for about a year I videotaped them."

Every day, he sat at his third-floor window filming through a crack in his tightly-drawn blinds, capturing one stop on the heroin highway; each car, each face, each deal, each dealer.

"How many people during the course of the day on a busy day would you see come to that corner?" Keteyian asked.

"I'd say at least 75," Muhammad replied.

Like customers at a fast food restaurant, they came in sunshine and in snow.

"Every walk of life. Every walk of life," Muhammad noted -- black, white, Latino, housewives and businessmen. "All of that," he said.

The deals went off like clockwork: drugs in, money out. Everyday people getting their fix.

"It's not exactly subtle, Dave. The guy's driving a dump truck," Keteyian commented as he and Muhammad watched one of the deals captured on video.

"OK, now watch the hand come out of the window," Muhammad said. "...money ... drugs. It don't get too much better than that."

"Your sense is these are heroin dealers on your street," Keteyian noted.

"Oh, absolutely. The people come back every day, sometimes two and three times a day," Muhammad said.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
David Muhammad takes a stand against gangs
The threats to his life kept coming, but David Muhammad decided to take it a dangerous step further by posting 75 of his videos on YouTube, to let the world know what was happening on his block.

"David, I hate to be blunt about this, but one of these guys could just walk up to you and say, 'You know what, it's over,' and put a bullet in your head," Keteyian said. "You think about that?"

"No," Muhammad replied. "No, I don't think about it. I just be careful as I can be ... If it's meant for me to leave here like that, I'll leave."

For Muhammad, each video in his vast collection tells a personal story of addiction, none more vivid or powerful than the man in the pickup truck.

"...he's gettin' ready to snort," Muhammad points out.

"There he goes. Wow! Head down," Keteyian said as he watched the man taking a hit while sitting in the driver's seat.

"...he's serious," said Muhammad.

"... and he just gives that little bit of a ... wow -- that's like five hits. Snortin' heroin," said Keteyian.

David Muhammad's goal is boundless yet simple: clean up just one street -- his street.

And he did clean it up. The dealing has stopped on Kilbourn and Van Buren and his neighbors have noticed. The church steps are clear; his block is, too.

But this is real life. He says the dealers have just moved to another corner close by, away from the eye of David Muhammad's lens.

The problem remains, but for one man, a little progress outweighs the enormous risk.

"...it's worth it to lose my life if I have to," Muhammad said. "I don't think I can stop it, but I think that someone has to try and slow it down because it's moving too fast."

Hadiya Pendleton's family didn't have to call for attention. Their tragedy seemed to attract it.

"I was just a woman that lost her kid...and then I got up off the floor and the world knew her," Cleo Cowley told listeners of radio show.

It was a constant buzz of calls and cameras, vigils and rallies, including attention from the governor and the mayor.

"I have called Cleo and Nate ... either every night or almost every other night," Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told reporters.

It was all overwhelming, but it was also a helpful distraction.

"...all of it was just taken in stride. Like, 'Look at you, Hadiya. You know, I'm proud of you,' because they were callin' because of her," said Cowley.

And it got results, Just two days after Hadiya was gunned down, Chicago Police Superintendant Garry McCarthy made an announcement:

"We are going to take approximately 200 sworn officers and reassign them from administrative assignments to field duties," he told reporters.

The law enforcement surge immediately flooded Chicago's streets and neighborhoods with the power and presence of hundreds of uniformed cops.

"Before a flame becomes a fire, to put it out," Emanuel told reporters, "and, uh, have the resources to do that."

And then, just two weeks after Hadiya Pendleton's death, 18-year-old Michael Ward and 20-year-old Kenneth Williams, ID'd by police as Gangster Disciples, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Police say Ward confessed and indicated that Hadiya was not the intended target.

"Do you think the attention that was placed on Hadiya's case helped to have it solved more quickly than others?" Maher asked Cowley.

"Probably, probably," she replied.

"Would the pain you're in right now be more difficult if it was six months from now and there had been no arrests?" Maher asked.

"Yes," Cowley replied.

"And no answers?"

"Yes."

And that is a pain another mother knows all too well. Her 15-year-old daughter was gunned down in Chicago in November 2012. But the response to that senseless murder has been very different.

"My daughter's murderer is still standing on the streets," said Bonita Foster.

ANOTHER SENSELESS MURDER
To hear Cleo Cowley and Bonita Foster talk, it almost sounds like the two grieving mothers shared the same 15 year-old daughter.

"She was sweet, she was loved, she was a peacemaker," said Bonita Foster.

"She very much liked helping people," said Cowley. "That was my baby girl."

"A happy person, she was always happy," said Foster.

Porshe Foster and Hadiya Pendleton never met, but both fell victim to Chicago's merciless street violence.

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Porshe Foster
Porshe was shot in November 2012, when -- as with Hadiya two months later -- a gunman opened fire on her and other teenagers who were standing around talking.

Bonita Foster was at work, driving a public transit van when she found out her daughter had been shot. By the time she got to the hospital, Porshe was already gone.

"I knew by the look on the doctor's face," she said. "[Sighs] That was an unbelievable moment."

The lives of both 15-year-olds have been frozen in time. Neither girl will go to a prom, go to college or get married and have her own children.

"You know, I just whispered to her, 'I'm sorry this had happened to you. I'm sorry," said Foster.

But that is where the similarities end. It is as if Porshe and Hadiya died in a city with two very different police departments: one for high-profile cases, the other for almost everyone else.

One department, as Chicago's Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy described, moved heaven and earth to solve the murder of the teenager who had been at the president's inauguration.

Arrests were quickly made. But most killers in Chicago never get caught. In fact, that other police department solved only 26 per cent of the homicides committed in 2012.

"What irritates me, my daughter's murderer is still standing on the streets," said Foster.

More than a year after Porshe Foster's murder, there still have been no arrests.

"I don't see why one gets more attention than the other. I am thinking that had they took the action that they're taking now, with her, with Porshe... maybe little Ms. Pendleton would still be here," said Foster.

Porshe's family says there's has been almost no information from the police, though shortly after she was killed, a detective did stop by.

"He came - shortly after. He was on his way to another shooting," Foster told Maher. "He gave me his card. And - that's the last I've heard from or seen him. ... We have tried to call. ... And we find out he's on vacation. I haven't talked to him [in two months]."

"We've made calls to the officer doing the investigation," said

Demetria Rogers, Porshe's aunt. "I did just call him last week and I haven't gotten a response - phone call yet."

Chicago police dispute those accounts. Two months after "48 Hours"' interview, a detective did pay another visit, but the family believes more should be done. So they're trying to find Porshe's killer themselves, putting up reward posters near the crime scene.

"That's gonna happen again next week if it's-- if it's not happening right now as we're speaking. It's gonna happen again next week. It's gonna happen again. It's gonna keep happening," said Foster.

"And why does it keep happening?" Maher asked.

"I actually believe this thing is bigger than the police. Can the police handle this?" Foster asked.

"Can they?" Maher asked.

"Can they?' Cause if they can, then what's the problem?" said Foster.

"She was told repeatedly by -- when she called the department, 'He's on vacation. No one else can talk to you. You'll have to wait till he gets back,'" Maher told Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

"OK -- that shouldn't have happened," he said. "There's a system where if the detective's not there there's supposed to be somebody else picking that up and taking care of it.

"You've gotta treat every individual, every victim like you're treating one of your own family members or you would want your family members to be treated," said McCarthy.

"Can you understand how the parents of some of these other victims felt like the Hadiya Pendleton case got more attention than their case did? Maher asked.

"I speak to -- I speak to the families all the time. So absolutely I understand it. But you know that's not something that we did. That's something that happened in the press and in the media. That's where that got blown up," said McCarthy.

McCarthy says it was good old-fashioned detective work that quickly solved the Pendleton case, not the extra 200 cops on the streets.

"Was that just a coincidence then, the timing that it came right after Hadiya was killed and there was such national attention?" Maher asked McCarthy.

"Yeah, probably was a coincidence," he said.

Whether by coincidence or as a result of the surge, McCarthy says, "We're starting to hit a point that I am hoping will be a turning point."

In the year since Hadiya Pendleton was killed, Chicago's homicide rate dropped 22 percent.

"We're getting progress, not victory," said McCarthy. He says most homicides are gang-related, one gang member shooting another.

"So how are you getting in front of it today?" Maher asked McCarthy.

"We actually ... charted out the territories that the gangs call their own, and every gang member within those gangs and every gang they're in conflict with," he replied.

Chicago police now track gang conflicts to try to predict -- and stop -- the next shooting.

"We put our resources into that neighborhood, picking up those guns that we're seizing more than anybody else in the country and preventin' those retaliatory shootings," McCarthy explained. "The mayor recognizes as do I that we're not going to fix this thing by throwing on a light switch."

But like many big cities, Chicago has serious budget problems. The extra police on the streets is costing the city millions. Can they afford to keep up the fight?

SUCCESSES & SETBACKS
There are lines of demarcation in every city. For the uniquely American city of Chicago, the death of Hadiya Pendleton may well be one of them. After her murder on Jan. 29, 2013, the number of extra police on the streets -- in high-crime neighborhoods -- doubled to 400 with officers working seven days a week

In the six months we shadowed the DEA and its newly-formed strike force, it had its fair share of success.

Jack Riley's agents seized millions of dollars of Chapo Guzman's heroin. But by the end of 2013, they had failed, as yet, to execute the type of big-time bust needed to cripple the cartel's hold on Chicago.

"Someone might say, Jack ... the war on drugs has been a failure and this is just the next chapter of that failure," Keteyian commented.

"Now you've got my Irish going," he said. "The changes we're making, the way we're attacking organizations, the way we're educating suburban police departments for the first time, by the way, is going to have an effect. It's gonna take time. And if you hold tight with us in the next couple of months, I think you're gonna see the fruits of our labor come to fruition."

On Feb. 22, 2014, the world's most notorious drug kingpin finally was captured after 13 years on the run. American agents pinpointed Joaquin Chapo Guzman's location at a seaside hotel in Mazatlan, Mexico, using cell phone signal tracers while Mexican Marines moved in for the arrest.

Guzman is being tried in Mexico on several organized crime charges. He has also been indicted in seven states, but it is unclear if he will ever be extradited to the U.S. to face trial.

But even with Guzman behind bars, the drug war is far from over. Either the Sinaloa cartel under new management or one of their rivals is expected to go right on sending billions of dollars of illegal drugs up the "heroin highway" to Chicago and around the world.

"48 Hours" was there in April 2013, when Paula Nixon completed rehab and moved into a halfway house.

 48 HOURS SEGMENT EXTRAS
Paula Nixon's heroin journey
"I'm doing good, I'm really happy to be here," she said. "I'm waiting for this place for almost six weeks..."

But less than three weeks later, she disappeared. Her mother was frantic.

"I called her eight times in the last two days and she wouldn't pick it up. She doesn't want to talk to me," PJ Newberg said in tears.

Then she discovered her daughter had been picked up for shoplifting again. Paula was back in jail, but alive.

"It's tragic ... it's tragic ... it's life or death. I know how easy it is to overdose...I don't want her to die! I really don't," Newberg cried.

For Hadiya Pendleton's family and friends, her funeral was a day filled with love and loss.

"I'm so broken ... like I'm so like distraught. Like I don't know how to explain it," Cleo Cowley said. "There's not enough for me to try to understand that, like, someone actually did this to my family ... like someone actually did this, stole my baby."

With Hadiya's 10-year-old brother, Anthony Jr., in tow, the Pendletons arrived at a church already overflowing, with people and emotion.

It wasn't just family and community. It was media, local and state dignitaries -- even the first lady came. As one Chicago mother comforted another, an emotional Cleo Pendleton continued riding a roller coaster of grief and gratitude.

"No mother, no father should ever have to experience this," she told the crowd packed inside the church. "I just want to say thank you to everyone who had something to do with grounding her and making her who she was."

The same community that helped raise Hadiya, seemed to raise her family's spirits.

"... precious Hadiya, you were excited to have been at the inauguration in the presence of the President. Today you sit at in the welcome table, in the presence of the King of Kings. ...Welcome home sweet Hadiya, see you on the other side," Father Michael Pfleger spoke from the pulpit.

Damon Stewart was Hadiya's godfather. "I loved that child... nobody knows how much I love that child," he said at the funeral.

As a Chicago police officer, he reminded everyone a city is only as strong as its citizens.

"If you say this is painful to you - then prove it," he urged the crowd." Police your own family... find someone with your blood and make a decision you're not going to turn your back on them."

Hadiya's parents say they were always there for her.

"How many times do you ask yourself, 'Why?'?" Maher asked.

"Too many to count," Cowley replied.

"Then you still ask yourself ... 'why mine?'" said Anthony Pendleton.

The answers live in the hearts and eyes of those left behind, like Hadiya's little brother.

Photos: Lives lost - Caught in the crossfire
For Porshe Foster, the hundreds of others who were lost and for 15- year-old Hadiya Pendleton who came to symbolize all of them.

"She's important because of those other people who died are important. She's important because all those lives and the voices of their families that was ignored or that was silenced she now speaks for," Stewart said of Hadiya.

This was a family's plea for peace.

Said Stewart, "She's a representative not just of the people of Chicago. She's a representative of the people across this nation who has lost their lives ..."

The two men charged with the killing of Hadiya Pendleton have pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.

There has still been no arrest in the killing of Porshe Foster.

The murder rate in Chicago in 2014 is down 33 percent compared to the first half of 2012.

48 Hours Mystery Murder In The Hamptons - CBS News

48 Hours Mystery Murder In The Hamptons - CBS News

Danny Pelosi, an electrician who married Generosa Ammon three months after her multimillionaire husband was bludgeoned to death in his Long Island mansion, was convicted of second-degree murder on Dec. 13, 2004.



This Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, Correspondent Richard Schlesinger updates a 48 Hours report on the Ted Ammon murder case, which was broadcast last February.
It has all the ingredients of a Hollywood drama. It's a horror story, in a fairy-tale setting, complete with love and hate, money and murder.

"Bad news is a good story," says Kieren Crowley, a reporter for the New York Post, who has written a book, "Almost Paradise," about the murder of Ted Ammon. "This guy was tall, dark and handsome. He was brilliant."

Ammon, who grew up in a middle-class childhood, breezed through Bucknell University as a frat boy and lacrosse player. He married in 1973 and moved to London to practice law.

When his first marriage ended less than 10 years later, Ammon started looking for an apartment in New York City. He booked an appointment with a real estate agent named Generosa Rand.

Generosa was tough and outspoken, and Ammon wanted to meet her in person. They married in 1986, and Ammon went on to make tens of millions of dollars on Wall Street before he quit. That's when the couple adopted 2-year-old twins from the Ukraine, Greg and Alexa.

A few years later, the Ammons abruptly left New York to move into a rambling, stone manor house in the English countryside.

"She was trying to pull Ted out of New York City and the very busyness of his life," says Ed Meyer, one of Generosa's lawyers. "She persuaded him to start to relax, to enjoy the family. Enjoy the English countryside."

But the couple didn't enjoy it for very long. Ammon took frequent trips back to New York, and Generosa became convinced that they weren't all business-related. She began telling friends he was having an affair.

By the summer of 2000, they were both back in Manhattan, living apart. Generosa had filed for divorce and was looking for more than $1 million a year in living expenses.

"Between $100,000 and $150,000 a month was not that much, believe it or not, when you're talking about that kind of income," says Meyer.

Generosa evidently wanted to hurt Ammon, and not just financially. Before the divorce was final, she found a new boyfriend – Danny Pelosi. And he was everything that Ammon was not.

"It was the princess and the pauper. That was the relationship," says Pelosi. "She came from a world of enormous wealth. Been to every continent, and I've been to Florida."

To see the full report, tune in to 48 Hours Saturday at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Pelosi and Generosa remained the focus of scrutiny and suspicion and soon they gave everyone even more to talk about. The couple got married in January 2002, just three months after Ammon was murdered.

Then, Generosa moved with her two kids to Danny's hometown, Center Moriches. It was a nice town, but hardly a millionaire's playground.

"Generosa moved to CM for the one reason that she wanted her kids to have a family," says Pelosi. "She wanted me to be around my kids. They live four minutes from here."

Joanne Matheson, Generosa's full-time housekeeper, says her boss was happy with her new life: "As long as she was with Danny, she didn't care. If she was in East Hampton or over there, it didn't matter to her. She was happy."

But just months after they were married, Generosa, 46, learned she was dying from breast cancer. Matheson says the couple spent the next year trying to enjoy most of the time they had left.

Meanwhile, Generosa and Pelosi were emerging as the prime suspects in Ammon's murder and their marriage started falling apart under pressure from the investigation and Generosa's illness.

In July 2003, after nearly two years of marriage, Generosa left Pelosi and moved with her two children back to the East Hampton mansion, where she would spend the last weeks of her life.

But when Generosa died, Danny was on his own, as the lone suspect. "I was freaking out big time," says Pelosi. "Because that's when I realized this is for real."

It made perfect sense to Danny Pelosi at the time to go to the Stanhope Hotel for a farewell drink, with his wife's ashes.

"She told me to take her remains, to go to the bar and sit in the booth that we sat in every night," says Pelosi.

Photographer Robert Kalfus says he found Pelosi sitting in a booth, drinking a beer: "He had a lit cigarette lit for her."

When the New York Post ran the picture the next day, Pelosi started to have some regrets. "Was I embarrassed by that picture they showed? Yes, absolutely."

But Pelosi would soon have a lot more than his image to worry about. He had become the lead suspect in Ammon's murder. In March 2004, after nearly a three-year investigation, Pelosi was arrested and charged with murder.

"We had some pretty powerful circumstantial evidence," says Albertson. "But we did not have the smoking gun. And by no means was this a slam dunk."

"He may not speak the King's English. And he doesn't have a PhD. And in fact, he's a high school dropout. But he's not a killer," says Pelosi's lawyer, Gerald Shargel.

There was no physical evidence linking him to the murder -- no forensics, no witnesses. And Shargel insists that Pelosi, who was only Generosa's boyfriend at the time of the murder, had no motive, because he had no right to Ammon's wealth.

"I will tell you that there was absolutely no motive here," says Shargel. "There was no financial motive, and there was no other motive of any kind."

In fact, according to Generosa's attorney, Ed Meyer, Pelosi got along with Ammon: "He liked Ted Ammon."

But everyone knew that Generosa hated Ammon. In fact, she hated him so much that she didn't want his family caring for her twins after her death.

Generosa was raised an orphan, and had no family of her own. But as she entered the final chapter of her life, Generosa had to pick a guardian for her children. She thought Pelosi was unsuitable, so that left only one person -- 57-year-old British nanny, Kay Mayne.

Pelosi says the Ammon children did not like Mayne. He says he spoke to Generosa about how the kids felt about their nanny. He had a habit of recording his private conversations, he says, to protect him legally.

Generosa's full-time housekeeper, Joanne Matheson, says, "Kay made her feel that she was the only one that could really possibly take care of these children. That she would raise them the way Generosa wanted them to be raised."

When Generosa died of breast cancer in August 2003, she took the answers to many questions with her to the grave.

Last year, when Danny Pelosi was arrested for murdering Ted Ammon and in jail to await his trial, he was trying to move on with his life. He was expecting a new baby with his new fiancee, Jennifer Zolnowski. 

But now, there is another woman in his life: prosecutor Janet Albertson. 

"Danny Pelosi is a drinker, a gambler," says Albertson. "He's a petty thief."

As the trial begins, all she has is a lot of circumstantial evidence to offer as proof that Pelosi killed for money. 

So who says Pelosi was at the murder scene? According to Albertson, Pelosi himself. She says he confessed to a number of people: "Stupid people do stupid things. That's why we catch them."

Albertson calls a contractor to the stand who worked with Pelos who says a year before the murder, Pelosi talked to him about killing Ammon. One of Pelosi's ex-girlfriends also testifies that Pelosi admitted to the murder.

But Pelosi's own father may have been the most damaging witness of all. He testifies that Pelosi asked him, just hours after the murder, how to dispose of something where no one could ever find it. 

The prosecution thinks Pelosi was trying to get rid of evidence from the crime scene, especially the hard drive with pictures from the night of the murder. 

"That unit recorded 24 hours a day, so of course it would have recorded the image of the murderer, coming in, going out, removing all the evidence," says Albertson. 

But for jurors, it was what Pelosi did and said to his father as he left the courtroom that was the most telling. He snarled at his father in front of the jury and said, "I hate him."

"That had a tremendous effect on me," says one juror. "Not just his relationship with his father, but the anger and rage that just suddenly came up like that."

Pelosi's attorney argues that his client had a love-hate relationship with his father. He also tells the jurors that each of the witnesses had a reason to lie about Pelosi's confession. 

But another relative, Pelosi's sister, Barbara, was subpoenaed by the prosecution. Generosa had hired her to monitor the surveillance system on her laptop and spy on Ammon in the mansion. 

Barbara says she saw something suspicious earlier in the evening, during a routine check, and that when Pelosi arrived the night of the murder, she asked him to log on and check it out. "I think I hurt Danny," says Barbara. "Because I told him to go on the computer that night. Because he honestly did not ask me to turn it on."

But Albertson says Pelosi had his own reasons for logging on that night: "I think what he wanted to know was when Ted Ammon was at the house. I think he also had an interest in whether anyone else was there." 

Shargel, however, set out to prove that there is no evidence Pelosi was even at the crime scene: "Ted Ammon died at a time when Danny Pelosi was not on Eastern Long Island. And as far as I'm concered, that's the case." 

The night of the murder, Ammon went out for dinner, paid for his meal and left around 9:30 p.m. At 9:44 p.m., he made what could be his last phone call, to his girlfriend. He said he saw something that scared him and he was heading back home. 

That phone call is the cornerstone of Shargel's defense. He believes that someone could have followed Ammon home from the beach and killed him: "To have what seemed to be a confrontation, or a near confrontation, I think, is significant."

The timing of the call fits neatly into Shargel's theory. According to his star witness, Dr. Werner Spitz, a world-renowned scientist, there was still enough undigested food in Ammon's stomach to prove he could not have lived more than four hours after eating. 

Spitz insists Ammon was dead by 1 a.m., and Shargel proves that Pelosi was miles away from East Hampton during that time. His cell phone records show he was driving from Manhattan to his sister's house. 

Medical experts brought in by the prosecution, however, say Ammon could have been alive much longer, giving Pelosi time to get there. 

As the trial wears on, all eyes turn on Pelosi himself. He told 48 Hours in a phone call from jail that he's feeling the pressure: "I'm afraid to look at the jury. I'm afraid to do anything, because I'm too emotional, everyone says. I'm too emotional."

Pelosi won't take the stand in his own defense. But can he really keep quiet? "I'm going to follow the advice of my attorneys because it looks like I don't even have to testify at this point, because the truth is the truth," says Pelosi. 

On the day that Shargel hoped to hand his case over to the jurors, there's a surprise witness, one Shargel never wanted to call. 

Pelosi, against Shargel's advice, had ecided to take the stand. "My mouth dropped to the floor," says Shargel. "I couldn't believe he took the stand." 

Pelosi told 48 Hours by phone from jail that he knew what was at stake from the moment he took the oath. "When I got on the stand, the first thing I had to do was get my heart back in my jacket," he says. 

Albertson says she was hoping to get a rise out of Pelosi.

"She got under my skin a few times," says Pelosi. "And I know I came back a little arrogant a few times, but the woman was attacking me."

While Pelosi was on the stand, he dropped what he called a bombshell and implicated his late wife, Generosa. He says she asked him to kill Ammon for her, but he refused. He also said Generosa's alibi, that she was in her Manhattan apartment the night of the murder, was a lie. In fact, he says she left the apartment before he did. 

"This woman told me a hundred times that she was going to go kill her husband," says Pelosi. "Maybe this time it happened."

On the stand, Pelosi only suggested Generosa was involved. But later, in a phone conversation, he went further. "I kept my mouth shut because my wife, right," he says. "Generosa married me to keep my mouth shut. That was the whole reason, to keep my mouth shut."

Pelosi also says the evidence shows Generosa did it, but not alone. And that he was not involved: "I had nothing to do with it." 

In his closing argument, Shargel asked repeatedly, "Where was Generosa Ammon that night?"

"I don't think she was there alone," says Shargel. "But she wasn't there with Danny Pelosi."

Finally, after more than two months of testimony, the jurors got the case late on a Friday night. All throughout the weekend, both sides camped out and waited. 

Inside the jury room, the jurors were troubled by the lack of physical evidence. And that was reason for Pelosi to be optimistic. "If they do their job properly, and they weigh the evidence, and they listen to everything that was said, I'm going to be sitting home for Christmas with my son that I still haven't seen," he says. 

After three long days of deliberating, the jury reached a verdict. Pelosi was convicted of second-degree murder. When he heard the verdict, he started softly crying. 

"When I heard guilty, I was in shock," says Pelosi. 

In the end, the jurors couldn't ignore the missing hard drive that could have recorded images from the murder. And, there was the matter of the millions in fortune.

Jurors believe Pelosi was worried that he might lose access to the money if Generosa signed a proposed divorce settlement, as scheduled. 

But jurors still believe there's room for more suspects. In fact, some jurors still aren't sure if Pelosi was there at all. 

But in the end, the jury voted that whatever his exact role was that night, Pelosi intended to kill Ammon, and took part in the murder. 

In January, Pelosi was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. 

"I'm not doing it for 25 years. Listen to me loud and clear," says Pelosi. "I'm appealing this issue, and on the appellate circuit, it will be heard. I guarantee it."

The Ammon twins are now 15 years old. They live in the South with Ted Ammon's sister

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Serial Killer Paul Durousseau The Jacksonville Serial Killer Documentary

Serial Killer Paul Durousseau The Jacksonville Serial Killer Documentary

Paul Durousseau (born August 11, 1970) is a serial killer from the United States who murdered seven young women (including two who were pregnant) in the southeast United States between 1997 and 2003. German authorities suspect he may have killed several local women when he was stationed there with the Army during the early 1990s. Typically, Durousseau would gain the victim’s trust, enter the victim’s home, tie their hands, rape, then strangle them to death.[2] All of his known victims were young, single African-American women.

Personal life

Paul Durousseau was born in Beaumont, Texas. Little is known publicly about Paul Durousseau's childhood. His first offenses with the law as an adult took place on December 18, 1991 and on January 21, 1992 for carrying a concealed firearm in California.[3] In November 1992, he enlisted in the US Army[3] and was stationed in Germany, where he met Natoca, who would later become his wife.

The two married in 1995 in Las Vegas. In 1996, they were transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia. On March 13, 1997, he was arrested for kidnapping and raping a young woman. However, in August of that year he was cleared of those charges. Soon after, he was found in possession of stolen goods. He was court-martialed in January 1999, found guilty and dishonorably discharged from the Army.[4]:3

The two moved to Durousseau's hometown of Jacksonville, Florida where they had two daughters. It was during that period that he committed most of the murders. He struggled to keep jobs and make ends meet, and the couple would often have fights over the issue of finances. In 1999, the police advised Durousseau's wife on how to file for a restraining order after he allegedly slapped her in the face and grabbed her by the neck. Later, she testified he got violently angry when she talked about getting a divorce. In September and October 2001, Durousseau spent 48 days in jail for domestic battery.[4]

Durousseau still managed to hold various legitimate jobs. In 2001, he was hired as a school bus driver and an animal control worker despite being a convicted felon. In 2003, he worked as a taxi driver in Jacksonville. It was erroneously reported that Gator City Taxi Company failed to run a background check on Durousseau[5] and it is now accepted that this is how he first came into contact with some of his victims. The City Of Jacksonville Department of Motor Vehicle/Taxicab Inspection office is responsible for background investigations of all persons applying for taxicab driver permits. Durousseau was issued a Taxicab Driver Permit from the City of Jacksonville.[6]

Neighbors and friends described him as a "lewd womanizer". He often asked young women when they planned to "make flicks" with him. A witness recalled Durousseau hitting on a girl that appeared to be 13 or 14 years old.[7]

Chronology of the murders

Less than one month after the acquittal over the rape charges, the nude body of 26-year-old Tracy Habersham was found on September 7, 1997 in Fort Benning.[8] She had been missing for 48 hours and was last seen leaving a party. She had been raped and strangled to death with a cord. Paul Durousseau was not a suspect in the murder but DNA would later tie him to the crime. He also would confess in Habersham's killing after his arrest.[3][9]

In 1999, he raped and killed 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in her apartment. Witnesses saw him leave her place with a television.[10] In 2001, he was arrested for raping a young woman in Jacksonville. He spent 30 days in jail and received two years' probation. On December 19, 2002, 18-year-old Nicole L. Williams' body was found wrapped in a blue blanket at the bottom of a ditch in Jacksonville. She had been reported missing two days earlier.[8]

On January 1, 2003, family members of 19-year-old Nikia Kilpatrick went to check on her. They had not had any news from her for several days. They found her body in the bedroom of her apartment. She had been raped then killed by strangulation with a cord two days before. Her two sons, an eleven-month-old and a two-year-old, were alive but malnourished. Kilpatrick was approximately six months pregnant at the time of her death.[4]

On January 9 of the same year, 20-year-old nurse assistant Shawanda Denise McCalister, who was also pregnant at the time of her death, was raped and strangled to death in her Jacksonville apartment. The murder scene was almost identical to that of Nikia Kilpatrick. She was killed on Durousseau's first day of driving a cab for Gator City Taxi. Her body was found the following day.

The next two victims were 17-year-old Jovanna Jefferson, and 19-year-old Surita Cohen. Their bodies were found close to each other in a ditch next to a construction site on New Kings Road in Jacksonville on February 5. Police estimated that Jefferson was murdered around January 20 and Cohen was killed 10 days later. Witnesses recount having seen the two last victims with a taxi driver fitting Paul Durousseau's description on the night they disappeared.

He was arrested and charged with five counts of murder on June 17, 2003. On December 13, 2007 he was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the murder of Tyresa Mack. As of August 18, 2013, he was still a resident on Florida's death row at Union Correctional Institution. No execution date has been set.

48 Hours Mystery - Muscle and Mayhem Documentary

MUSCLE AND MAYHEM: THE REAL-LIFE STORY BEHIND MIAMI'S MURDEROUS SUN GYM GANG

Group of bodybuilders at center of one of Miami's most notorious crimes: a complicated and deadly plot that involved kidnapping, money and murder

Produced by Chuck Stevenson, Jamie Stolz, Tamara Weitzman and Alicia Tejada

(CBS News) MIAMI -- Zsuzsanna Griga will never forget the kidnapping of her brother, Frank, and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton in 1995.

"...he loved fast cars, beautiful girls and life," Griga said. "She was very beautiful. She was only 23 years old. My heart breaks when I think of what she went through."

Felix Jimenez, now retired from the Metro-Dade Police homicide department, was the lead detective on the case.

"Very handsome couple, they looked like they were made for each other," Jimenez explained. "Frank was the American success story -- an immigrant, came to this country with $10 dollars in his pocket and made millions."

He came from Budapest, Hungary, and found a minimum wage job in New York City.

Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton

Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton

"It was like a service station ... he was changing the oil, washing cars," Zsuzsanna Griga explained. "What he accomplished ... should make everyone proud because he went from nowhere to a millionaire on his own just by using his own resources."

In fewer than 10 years, Frank was living in an upscale Miami enclave called "Golden Beach" and running a phone sex line empire. He was on top of the world until May 24, 1995.

"I started calling him and he wouldn't pick up the phone," Zsuzsanna Griga said. "I kind of knew that something really bad happened then..."

The disappearance of Frank and Krisztina would become one of Miami's most notorious crimes. But who would want to kidnap them?

"How did this all go down?" Roberts asked Jimenez.

"So we got a call that there was a missing -- a wealthy couple that was missing out of Golden Beach," he explained. "That was a little strange because in homicide we need a crime scene. We need a dead body to respond to. They're few and far between when there's actually a missing person that we would respond. It has to be highly suspicious circumstances. And it so happened in this case there was."

At first, the detectives hoped they could find Frank and Krisztina alive.

"...the missing Hungarian couple had said that they were going to the Bahamas the -- the-- following day. So all their friends assumed that the reason they weren't home was because they were in the Bahamas," said Jimenez.

All that changed, though, when a police made a stunning discovery.

"Their Lamborghini was found in an abandoned, wooded area far outside of Miami," said Jimenez.

"At this point, we realized that something bad -- something bad had happened to this couple," said Sam Garafalo.

Garafalo, also retired, worked the case for his boss, Felix Jimenez. They are now both CBS News consultants.

"We got information and -- as soon as we got it, we ended up going to Golden Beach," he said.

"So you have a missing Hungarian couple and a Lamborghini," Roberts noted.

"We had more than that. We had a next door neighbor ... that had actually been to the house the last time they were seen alive and they invited her in and introduced her to two muscle-bound men that were driving a gold Mercedes and told them they were going out to dinner to discuss a business deal," said Jimenez.

The neighbor would tell police she'd met the driver of the gold Mercedes and knew his name: Danny Lugo.

"Danny was a big muscular guy," said Jimenez.

Police would soon learn that Lugo was a burley ex-convict who had served time for running a phony loan scam operation. After his release, he became the manager of a suburban Miami health club called Sun Gym.

"This is where the Sun Gym was located. This is what we would call the gang headquarters," said Jimenez.

"Danny Lugo was a Puerto Rican-Cuban kid from the Bronx," added Garafalo.

"He thought he was smarter than anybody else," Jimenez added. "He had a way of convincing people to do things they didn't want to do."

The investigation into Frank and Krisztina's disappearance continued. Detectives learned Lugo was the leader of a group made up of drifters and petty thieves who hung out at the Sun Gym. His main partner in crime was another muscle head, Adrian Doorbal.

"Adrian Doorbal was Danny Lugo's protege," said Jimenez.

"Doorbal was just an evil, he reminded me of just an evil guy," said Garafalo.

"He was a steroid freak. ... He's like 5 foot 7 tall and 5 foot 7 wide," Jimenez continued. "He'd do anything and everything that Danny Lugo told him to do."

In May 1995, Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal would be at the center of one of the most notorious crimes in Miami history: a complicated and deadly plot that involved kidnapping, money and murder.

Eighteen years later, the story was too much for Hollywood to resist. In the new movie "Pain and Gain", Lugo is portrayed by Mark Wahlberg.

The film, released by Paramount Pictures, is part of Viacom, a company affiliated with CBS.

The movie captures what Lugo was about in real life: his infatuation with getting rich, says Patty Barrientos, who worked alongside him at a gym.

"He'd say... 'I'm gonna have a lot of money... I wanna grow, I wanna be somebody very big...'" said Barrientos.

Asked if he was money hungry, Barrientos told Roberts, "Yes."

With the little money he had, he spent a lot of it at the Solid Gold Strip Club. It was here he began an affair with a one-time Penthouse model-turned exotic dancer named Sabina Petrescu.

"She was a very, very attractive woman," Jimenez said. "She fell for Danny and believed everything he told her."

Petrescu was another recent immigrant who made a splash in Miami. She was a finalist in the Miss Romania contest in 1990, then came to the United States to begin a modeling career. She made it onto the pages of Penthouse magazine, but filled the rest of her time as an exotic dancer.

"Danny treated her well ... he gave her a BMW," said Jimenez.

Petrescu would play a crucial role as police continued gathering more evidence connecting Lugo and Doorbal to the disappearance of Frank and Krisztina.

"We have the housekeeper who was also at the home when the -- the musclemen were there. We have the next door neighbor. We show them photographs. They make identification. So we have a lot to go on," said Jimenez.

Search warrants were executed for the homes of Lugo and Doorbal and their associates.

"I mean we had so many cops it wasn't even funny," said Garafalo.

"... in fact we mobilized right in this park," Jimenez pointed out.

Police quickly hit pay dirt in the apartment of Danny Lugo's girlfriend.

"There was some damning evidence there ... bloody clothing belonging to Frank and Krisztina, there was the kidnap kit -- a case with duct tape ...guns, [stun guns], handcuffs -- there was so much evidence in that apartment," said Jimenez.

Soon Adrian Doorbal was in custody and refused to talk to police.

"The main guy that we're after, Danny Lugo, is nowhere to be found," said Jimenez.

Danny Lugo had given them the slip.

"This case was all over the news," retired homicide detective Felix Jimenez told Troy Roberts. "Miami was riveted as to this attractive Hungarian couple ... you know, this yellow Lamborghini found in the Everglades and that they're missing and they continue to be missing."

But detectives had lost their lead suspect, Danny Lugo.

"Lugo's gone, we have a warrant for his arrest," Jimenez said. "He's just vanished. We don't know where he is."

They did have one good lead.

"We had his girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu," said Jimenez.

Sabina Petrescu, the magazine model-turned stripper, had quite a story to tell. She said her boyfriend wasn't a criminal. He told her he was a CIA agent.

"Number one, she was smitten with Danny Lugo, and number two, I think she believed what he was saying -- that he was a CIA operative -- that he was working for the U.S. government in kidnapping people that were dangerous to this country," said Jimenez.

Danny Lugo had convinced her he was a spy on a secret mission. So for now, she wouldn't tell detectives where Lugo was. But it would be just a matter of time.

In an incredible twist of fate, detectives in another department at Metro-Dade police had also been looking at Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal. Their case was the bizarre kidnapping of another Miami millionaire. Now, Lugo and Doorbal were front and center of two cases.

The Miami millionaire was Marc Schiller, an accountant.

"He was Argentinean born, grew up in the U.S., went to school, got his CPA license, he had a medical billing business that did very well," Jimenez explained.

The two crimes would become one huge case -- a case that Judge Alex Ferrer, now TV's "Judge Alex", and Miami-Dade prosecutor Gail Levine would never forget.

"This case was what made me who I am today, a career prosecutor," said Levine.

"Of all the cases I've tried this is by far the most fascinating case," said Ferrer.

Schiller would eventually tell police a wild story -- that five months before the murders of Frank and Krisztina, Schiller himself had been grabbed by a gang. Bound and gagged, he'd be dumped at a warehouse and held for more than a month.

"This is a warehouse that was rented by one of the members of the Sun Gym Gang," Jimenez told Roberts as they stood outside the building.

"They drove the van with Schiller inside into the warehouse."

"Mark Schiller was the perfect victim because he was involved in something that was illegal," said Levine.

"I think he got greedy and started to get involved in Medicare fraud," said Jimenez.

Danny Lugo learned about Schiller from Jorge Delgado, who also worked out at Sun Gym. Schiller and Delgado had been in business.

"Him and Jorge Delgado started a mortgage business together," said Jimenez.

But business went badly, and later Schiller and Delgado had a falling out over a deal. Delgado wanted revenge and told Lugo that Schiller would be an easy mark.

"They basically go 'He's not goin' to the cops ... he's involved in Medicare fraud. We'll shake him down...'" said Ferrer.

So what was the plan?" Roberts asked Levine.

"The plan was actually very simple: kidnap Marc Schiller, have him write his own ransom and then kill him," she replied.

"Simple as that?" Roberts asked.

"Simple as that," said Levine.

But catching Schiller to shake him down was tougher than it looked.

"It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic ... because they made these stupid attempts," Ferrer explained. "They would hide in his yard under blankets like they were some kind of ninja ... waiting for him to come out and get the paper at five in the morning and they were gonna kidnap him ... only to be surprised that cars were coming down the street and lighting them up with their headlights...

"So then they're running through yards, screaming 'abort, abort like they're on some secret mission for the government," he continued.

Hollywood could not resist this crazy scene. The gang used costumes and comic book code names like Batman and Robin and tried to stage an accident to kidnap Schiller.

"They're waiting for him to drive by to stage this accident," Ferrer explained. "They turned the car off and as he's driving by they're cranking it and the car won't start and he goes driving by. So it's like the Keystone Cops gone bad."

Finally, after multiple attempts, the "gang that couldn't shoot straight" enlisted some serious muscle and planned to take Schiller down outside a restaurant he owned.

"They waited in a van and they had their biggest gym rats come out," said Levine.

A co-conspirator, who "48 Hours" agreed to keep anonymous, worked with the Sun Gym gang to kidnap Schiller.

"I'm a good hearted person. I just made a mistake," he told Roberts.

"I was pretty hardcore..." he said of his weightlifting.

"At your peak you could bench 475 pounds?" Roberts asked.

"505," he replied.

"505? How big were you?"

"I was like a lean 270 pounds," he said.

"Big guy... intimidating," Roberts commented.

"Yeah."

He was desperate for money and sometimes worked at the Sun Gym. In 1994, Lugo and his gang were offering cash for a little help.

"He told me, 'Look, I gotta talk to you about something,'" the co-conspirator continued. "'... he owes me money'... and 'I need you to come with me and help me collect.'"

He agreed, and in November of 1994, brought his gun.

"So you had your .45 with you?" Roberts asked.

"I always carry my firearm," he said.

"We were parked right there," the man said, standing with Roberts in the parking lot, "... and as soon as he came out of his restaurant, they saw him so they said... 'There he is, there he is...'"

"It was one of those days in Miami where a storm was coming in," Schiller recalled.

Schiller is a man who cheated death and whose harrowing ordeal is now dramatized by actor Tony Shalhoub in the new movie.

"Why are you alive?" Roberts asked Schiller.

"I guess its divine intervention. I can't explain it," he replied.

Schiller's nightmare started just as he was about to head for home after work.

"I walked out to my car ... as soon as I opened my door ... I'm grabbed from behind by three guys," said Schiller.

"... and as soon as they grabbed him the guy grabbed the steering wheel... he was screaming the co-conspirator told Roberts.

"They just kept punching me ... and they had a Taser... and they kept Tasering [sic] me," said Schiller.

"They were Tasing him," the co-conspirator continued. "He was screaming ... 'What do you want, what do you want with me, what are you doin?"

"At that point, they dragged me to the van -- a white van," Schiller said. "They handcuffed my hands behind my back."

"You must have been terrified," Roberts commented.

"I thought they were gonna take me and kill me," he said.

"They duct taped him... they put tape on his mouth ... and we took off right out of here," said the co-conspirator.

"When we got to the warehouse," said Schiller, "they called the boss."

The boss was Danny Lugo, the same man at the center of the Krisztina Furton-Frank Griga murder case.

"... told him, 'The eagle has landed.' I guess I was the eagle," said Schiller.

"When I left ... Schiller was sitting in the chair ... he was taped up -- hands and legs ... and they were beating on him," the co-conspirator told Roberts.

Schiller was tortured endlessly. Sometimes, it was with fire.

"Doorbal would yell, 'Fire! Fire!' but real sick," Schiller said. "And he would burn me, you know, burn my skin ... and then he'd do this again ... and he was laughing so hard he was crying."

Other times, they played Russian roulette.

"They would place a gun to his head, they would take a revolver and spin it and pull the trigger," Jimenez explained. "For the first couple weeks, he wasn't even allowed to use the bathroom. He would have to urinate and defecate on himself."

But the worst was yet to come.

"At this point they told me, 'Well if you don't give us a list of everything you have ... we're gonna bring your wife down here and rape her in front of you," said Schiller.

Schiller says he was allowed to make one phone call. He called his family, telling his wife to take their two young children and flee to Colombia. She chose not to call the police.

Asked why she didn't she call police, Schiller told Roberts, "I don't know. I think at that point, it was prudent not to."

And for some inexplicable reason, none of Schiller's employees, friends or extended family raised the alarm. With his family safely out of the country, Schiller was still suffering. Finally, the daily torture was too much. He gave up, giving the gang everything.

"I signed. They told me my death sentence," said Schiller.

"He was signing over everything, including his life," Levine said. "It was $1.2 million in cash and assets and a $2 million life insurance policy."

"And pretty soon they had everything the man owned. They moved into his house, they changed the pool contract to their name. They were living there ... and partying in his home," Ferrer explained. "And they were taking some of the furniture they liked and putting it into their own apartments, wearing his jewelry, driving his Dodge Viper, and his Mercedes ... and just basically living off his money. ... Well, at that point, you can't let the guy live ... so they decide he's gotta go."

Having forced him to sign over his assets, the Sun Gym gang, led by Danny Lugo, was partying in Marc Schiller's house. In the Hollywood feature, "Pain and Gain", Mark Wahlberg's character depicts the depravity.

"They were living in the house. In my house," Schiller told Troy Roberts.

Despite his cooperation, Schiller still remained chained like an animal in the Miami warehouse.

"Schiller was tied to a pipe in a very small bathroom. That's where he spent the next 30 days, was handcuffed to that pipe," former homicide Felix Jimenez explained.

The businessman and father was living in kind of a hell associated with a Third World dungeon -- complete with racial slurs.

"They just told me, 'We got a matzo ball' ..." said Schiller.

"What does that mean?" Roberts asked.

"I guess they were referring to the fact I was Jewish," he replied.

Schiller can't forget the sick soundtrack that came with his daily beatings.

"They, I mean this whole time they were laughing uncontrollably. To them it was just a fun game," he said.

"While they were beating you?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah."

"Did any of your captors show you any kindness?"

"Yeah, the guy that was at night there, because they stopped feeding me," Schiller explained. "I was starved. I hadn't eaten for like three days. He brought me a can of a - canned ravioli, which I had to eat with my hands."

That would be one of the last meals the Sun Gym gang intended for Schiller to have as Lugo put his final plan into action.

"They give him alcohol to drink. Get him all drunk," said Judge Alex Ferrer.

"They plied you with alcohol for three straight days" Roberts noted to Schiller.

"It was probably more than that, it was probably like five days," he said.

"And then what did they do?"

"The last day? ... They set me in a chair, and they give me this concoction, a drink," said Schiller.

"Liquor, tequila, vodka and gave him sleeping pills. And eventually he passed out," said Jimenez.

Schiller was unconscious.

"They put him in his Toyota 4Runner, his SUV," said Ferrer.

"And they drove the car into a light pole. Doorbal was driving," Jimenez explained. "... and then douse the car with gasoline and set it on fire. And that was their attempt to kill him. They backed out about a block away to watch the car as it was engulfed in flames."

"The problem is, they don't buckle him in," Ferrer explained. "The flames revive him enough that he stumbles out of the car and towards the road."

The surprised Sun Gym gang moved in to finish off Marc Schiller.

"... and they see this guy that they just lit on fire standing by the side of the road and they yell, 'Run him over, run him over,'" said Ferrer.

"They drive forward and they try to run him over, they missed. But then they were able to back over him and then run over him again," said Jimenez.

"And they get back to their place, and they go, 'You think we killed him?' They're looking at the dent of the car, and they say, 'I don't know it's not a big dent, yeah but we ran him over, and we backed over him, I mean he must be dead,'" Ferrer continued.

Asked what he remembered next, Schiller told Roberts, "Waking up in a hospital."

It would be months before Schiller could grasp the full horror of how he ended up half dead at Jackson Memorial, Miami's top trauma center.

"I was in a coma when they picked me up," he told Roberts.

In the frenetic haze of the intensive care unit -- burned and bruised, his pelvis broken -- Marc Schiller tried to tell his story of abduction and torture to nurses, doctors -- anyone who might listen.

"Yeah, I told 'em I was kidnapped, and they go, 'No no, you were in a bad accident,'" he said. "And I go, 'No, no, no, no. I was kidnapped. And they just blew it off."

"How many times did you insist you had been kidnapped?" Roberts asked.

"About three and then I gave up," said Schiller.

"He's trying to convince the nurse to give him a phone, because he says he was kidnapped. And she just keeps going, 'No you weren't kidnapped, you were drunk, you hit a pole," said Ferrer.

"I knew they weren't gonna do anything,"said Schiller.

"Finally, she gives him the phone. He calls his lawyer," said Ferrer.

From there, it took just moments to figure out Marc Schiller needed a lot more than just a lawyer.

But even Ed Du Bois, with 50 years of experience as a private investigator, had never heard anything quite like Schiller's story.

"The call was unusual because the story was so bizarre," said Du Bois.

Du Bois met Schiller and believed his story. Soon, both men realized

Schiller had an even bigger problem: Lugo and Delgado were intent on finishing the job.

"I was a sitting duck," said Schiller.

"Did you fear that Delgado and Lugo were going to come to hospital to finish the job?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah. And my sister was there and my brother. And we were all in a panic," he said.

"And I said, 'The easy answer is for you to get out of the hospital," said Du Bois.

"Why didn't either of you go to the police at that point?" Roberts asked.

"Well ... we couldn't wait for the police," Du Bois replied.

Schiller's sister ripped the medical tubes from his arms.

"And the doctor said, 'You can't move him. He's in critical condition,'" said Schiller.

Schiller's brother and sister booked an air ambulance, grabbed their brother and bolted out of Miami, heading north -- not a minute too soon.

"We left at 8 o'clock in the morning. I guess they came at 10 to look for me, to kill us all, all three of us," said Schiller.

"Delgado and Lugo?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah, to the hospital," he replied.

The now desperate Sun Gym gang had tracked down their former captive.

"As they're walking the halls of Jackson Memorial Hospital looking for him, he's on an air ambulance flight to New York," said Ferrer.

A thousand miles from Miami, Marc Schiller, now supported by his family, began to heal; his body and bones fractured.

"First, I can't walk and second of all, who knows how many of these people are out there," he said.

Schiller would reunite with his family in Colombia. Weeks would pass, and, strangely, despite his ordeal, Schiller did not report it to police.

"What person gets kidnapped, held for a month, and when he finally gets free, leaves the country and doesn't call the police for four months?" Ferrer wondered.

"I think what's difficult to understand is why you did not go to the police sooner," Roberts commented to Schiller.

"I did," he said.

But according to authorities, it wasn't until April 1995, four months after his escape, that Schiller contacted police.

"'They want you to come to Miami to report it,'" Schiller said. "And I'm like, 'That's not happening.' ... who knows how many of these people are out there. ... I run into them by accident, I'm dead."

"Marc Schiller was asked to come and give testimony under oath four times ... and he stood up not only the prosecutor, but the police, to give that testimony four times," said prosecutor Gail Levine.

Prosecutor Levine would eventually lead the investigation and try the case. She says Schiller didn't come forward, because he had his own credibility issues due to his alleged involvement in Medicare fraud.

"The victim comes from Colombia. He has a lot of money, more money than

I would imagine most CPAs in Miami have," she explained.

"So after a while, you and Marc decided to go to the police?" Roberts asked Du Bois.

"Yeah," he replied.

But according to Du Bois and Schiller, when they finally did sit down with the cops...

"They've never listened at all," said Schiller.

"They never went out, never read them their rights, they never asked them a question, they never even said, 'Hello, here I am. We're breathin' down your neck,'" said Du Bois.

"They went to Metro-Dade's top unit that handles just crimes of this nature --just the biggest crimes. And they just didn't believe him," Ferrer explained.

It had been five months since Marc Schiller's ordeal. The muscle-headed gang had trashed his home and burned through his money. They were now hungry for another score.

"If the police had listened to him and investigated, Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton would probably be alive today," said Ferrer.

By May of 1995, five months after his harrowing escape, the Sun Gym gang had burned through all of Marc Schiller's money.

"They'd been partying and going to strip clubs, and dropping thousands of dollars on strippers and it was all his money," said Judge Alex Ferrer.

With Schiller's fortune spent, the gang targeted their next victims: Frank Griga and his beautiful girlfriend, Krisztina Furton.

"There was never any pretense. They knew they were gonna kill them from the outset," said Ferrer.

The millionaire had it all.

"Lugo and Doorbal, on the other hand, they wanted to live that life," Ferrer continued.

The life Frank Griga had built on those dial tones of his sex phone empire.

"It made me very proud that my kid brother made it so big," Zsuzsanna Griga said.

"You know we were very poor when we were young..." she continued.

"It's a true rags-to-riches story," said Roberts.

"Yes it is," Griga replied.

Zsuzsanna had seen her brother's love for the glittery side of the American dream.

"Money was there for him to make other people happy and to play, to buy toys," she said.

"His wealth did afford him certain luxury items," Roberts noted.

"Oh he loved cars, yes, he loved cars," Griga said.

Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini was legendary. It was that car that caught the eye of Adrian Doorbal. He'd been told about it by a woman who once dated Frank Griga.

"And Doorbal's face lights up and says, 'Who has the yellow Lambo?' And she says, 'Oh, don't you know? That's my friend Frank. He's my old boyfriend," Levine explained. "And he says, 'How would I know him?' 'Oh, he comes into this dance club Solid Gold all the time. Don't you know him?' Doorbal wasn't that stupid. Bingo. We got our next victim."

Doorbal and Lugo approached Frank Griga with a phony, made-up business scheme and a meeting was set at the Solid Gold strip club.

"And they told him that they were investors and that they had a way to make 20-percent return on the dollar," said Levine.

But the real plan mirrored the violent abduction of Marc Schiller: kidnap and torture Frank Griga until he signed over every nickel he had and revealed to the gang where his assets were kept.

"They also needed Krisztina," said Levine.

Asked why, she told Roberts, "They needed Krisztina because if Frank was missing, Krisztina was going to go to the police, 'cause why wouldn't she go to the police? Frank was completely legal."

Lugo and Doorbal, posing as businessmen, lured Frank and Krisztina back to Doorbal's apartment. Within minutes, Doorbal was strangling Frank in the bedroom.

"Doorbal, not knowing his own steroid strength, either broke his neck or suffocated him," said Levine.

And she screams, and Danny tackles her and injects her with horse tranquilizer, which they had basically bought to tranquilize the two of them," said Ferrer.

"And it killed her?" Roberts asked Levine.

"Not initially," she replied.

"They had a dead person and another one, another person near death," said Garafalo.

Krisztina Furton, 23, who loved animals, swimming and had dreams of being a professional diver, was now shot full of horse tranquilizer. Then, Lugo demanded she give up the access code numbers to Frank Griga's house.

"And Doorbal goes and speaks to her and he comes back and says, his exact words were, 'The bitch is cold.' They had injected her with enough horse tranquiller to kill four 1,000-pound horses. And now they're both dead -- Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton. And these two guys don't have a dime," Ferrer explained.

Asked what did they do with the bodies, Levine told Roberts, "Well, they got creative."

With the help of Jorge Delgado, Doorbal and Lugo stuffed the bodies of Frank Griga into a couch and Krisztina Furton into a large cardboard box.

"So here you have these two muscular guys, and on a Saturday morning, during the middle of the day, it looks like they're moving. And they're moving boxes and they're moving a couch. And what they contain are two bodies," said Jimenez.

They took the bodies to an empty warehouse. The horror was just beginning.

"So they went to Home Depot and bought a chain saw. They come back and they're gonna use this to dismember the bodies. But the chain saw doesn't have enough power. So these geniuses take this chainsaw back to Home Depot and return it," said Ferrer.

"You're kidding me," said Roberts.

"... and they brought that back and they end up buying an electric chainsaw," said Garafalo.

"It boggles the mind that they would return a chain saw that they were going to use to dismember these people," Roberts told the detectives.

"There's a lot of things about this case that boggle the mind," said Jimenez.

But the second chain saw jammed in Krisztina Furton's beautiful, thick hair. That's when Doorbal and Lugo reached for an ax.

"And they started chopping the body parts. For hours," said Levine.

"And they disposed of the torsos in one part of the county in oil drums," said Ferrer.

"And they left those hands, heads and feet in buckets at the 31 mile marker," Levine continued.

"... in the Everglades, on the Alligator Alley that goes from Ft. Lauderdale to Naples," said Ferrer.

"I have never passed that mile marker without saying a little prayer for Frank and Krisztina," said Levine.

Another gang member would dump Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini on the side of the road, in the swampy Florida Everglades.

Police didn't need a GPS. The map was clear and it led straight to the Sun Gym gang.

"And I remember saying, 'We don't have a missing persons, we have a very major homicide,'" said Levine.

Soon, Frank's big sister was on a flight to Miami.

"The bodies were found that day," Zsuzsanna Griga told Roberts of the day she arrived. "Sergeant Jimenez and Sgt. Garafalo ... came and picked me up at the airport and they explained that they just had, you know, they had the bodies. Yes." Griga paused before continuing. "Sorry. It's still very hard after 17 years."

As investigators put the pieces together, Marc Schiller's kidnap story echoed like thunder.

"And they said, 'I think we got another case just like yours ... could you come down to Miami?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah. I'll come to Miami,'" said Schiller.

The Sun Gym gang left a massive, bloody trail of evidence. The last of the muscle heads would be busted when Danny Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, told police that Lugo was hiding out in the Bahamas.

The crimes and the trial would captivate and horrify all of south Florida.

"It was disturbing on every level. And I've tried serial killers," Ferrer said. "But this case really got to me."

Almost four years after he was left for dead, Marc Schiller faced off again against the Sun Gym gang.

In February 1998, almost three years after the gruesome murders of Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton, Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal were set to go on trial.

The case would be career defining for prosecutor Gail Levine.

"It was so encompassing ... from the day I got the call, from the day I started investigating it, from the day I met the victim's family, from the day I met everybody involved, from the relationship that I developed with police in investigating the case," she explained.

Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, was granted immunity in exchange for her testimony. She knew all the gang's secrets and details of their plots, though she believed they were undercover CIA agents.

"Sabina Petrescu's probably one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life," Levine said, "but she was also one of the most naive women I have ever met in my life. She was in love with Danny Lugo and she thought he was her CIA agent."

With 100 witnesses and thousands of pieces of evidence, the case would drag on for 10 weeks, overseen by Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the State Attorney for Miami-Dade County.

"... when you have a case that's that grotesque and you know people suffered ... what do we do to bring justice to the victims of this case, either in their name or for their surviving members ," said Rundle.

Justice was what Marc Schiller got this time. He was in control as the prosecution's star witness.

"Walking in and seeing Lugo and Doorbal ... I realized that -- I was in the driver's seat ... because they never imagined that I'd be sitting there accusing them," said Schiller.

The prosecution rested. Lugo and Doorbal's attorneys chose not to put on a case.

"There's sometimes when, as a defense lawyer, you don't have anything to go on. You just don't. You can't claim misidentification. You can't claim anything," said Ferrer.

"What was the defense strategy?" Roberts asked Levine.

"Save their lives," she replied.

Jurors wasted little time making their decision. Within hours, they reached their verdict: Daniel Lugo was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Krisztina Furton and Frank Griga.

Doorbal was also found guilty and both men were sentenced to death.

It's a moment Judge Ferrer will never forget.

"As I was sentencing him, Danny Lugo was standin' there lookin' at me, and his eyes were ... watery. Noel [Adrian] Doorbal, on the other hand, he was joking. He was turning around to his girlfriend, and making faces like a goofball," said Ferrer.

"You believe the jury got it right?" Roberts asked Levine.

"One-hundred percent," she replied.

"Think my final words were, probably, 'May God have mercy on your soul,'" said Ferrer.

Asked is she's gotten justice, Zsuzsanna Griga told Roberts, "What sort of justice can be done, OK? Short of bringing him back?

... he was reaching for the skies, " Griga continued. "And the message that he -- he had out there was ... you can do whatever you want. And this is what these guys -- broke short.

"Were you satisfied with the verdict? Roberts asked Schiller.

"Well, guilty, yeah, but -- I don't believe in the -- death penalty," he replied. "I think being in a jail cell for the rest of their life is worse punishment."

The ordeal wasn't over for Marc Schiller. As he left the court after the trial, he was surrounded by armed FBI agents who arrested him on charges relating to an extensive Medicare scam.

The Medicare fraud that made Schiller such an easy target for the gang had come back to haunt him.

"It was a sham," Ed Du Bois said. "They never returned the money to Marc Schiller. Marc Schiller did not commit that $14 million worth of Medicare fraud."

In a highly unusual twist, Judge Alex Ferrer stood up for Schiller during the federal fraud investigation. He described how important Schiller's testimony was in bringing down the Sun Gym gang.

"He was treated like a prisoner of war or actually worse. The torture and the beatings and the -- the attempts to kill him and all of that. For some reason, it just felt to me that that should be taken into consideration," said Ferrer.

Incredibly, one of Schiller's torturers, Jorge Delgado - the Sun Gym member who had first told Lugo about Schiller and his millions - ended up helping the federal government make their case.

In a plea deal, Schiller ended up serving two years in federal prison and paying $137,000 in restitution.

"He felt betrayed," Roberts noted to Levine.

"His jail sentence is what he did, but the pain and suffering that he endured, that -- nobody deserves that," she said. "Did Marc Schiller deserve to go to prison? I leave that to the federal government. I wasn't involved in that at all."

Today, while Schiller refuses to talk about the charges, he does say he lost everything -- his health, his home, his millions. Even now, with a big Hollywood movie, he won't get a dime.

"It's a comedy, which is unfortunate, because there was nothing funny that happened to me," he said. "These were inept, incompetent people, but they were at the same time malicious and cold-blooded murderers."

Ultimately, the rest of the gang went to prison, too. The co-conspirator was sentenced to two years imprisonment for his involvement in Schiller's kidnapping and Jorge Delgado got 15. In all, seven members of the gang would do time.

It's been 18 long years since the gang tortured and killed their way through Miami.

Gail Levine has continued her career at the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. She's tried more than 80 cases.

Judge Alex Ferrer left the bench in 2005, and continues to enjoy success with his syndicated television show.

Video: Ferrer on his early life, career in Miami

Marc Schiller has just released his tell-all tale, "Pain and Gain - The Untold True Story".

Lugo and Doorbal remain on death row.

Lugo and Doorbal have appealed their convictions multiple times over the past 15 years.

Once their appeals have been exhausted, Florida's governor will sign a death warrant and they will be executed by lethal injection.