A Mind For Murder

This story was first broadcast on May 14, 2005.

When they talk about Carmin, the oldest of their four daughters, Danny and Judy Ross are never at a loss for words.

"She's bubbly, she's fun to be around. She makes the room warm. She's the sunshine," recalls Judy Ross, who even put together a list of words that come to her mind when she thinks of Carmin.

"Brilliant, empathetic, thoughtful, spiritual, patient, political, loving, peaceful, delightful, silly, playful, courageous," reads Judy. "Full of life -- daughter of our youth."

Looking back, Danny and Judy say their daughter's 1985 wedding to her sweetheart, Tom Murray, was one of the best days they ever had. "Both of them wrote their wedding vows," recalls Danny. "I stood there and cried through the whole thing."

Carmin met Murray at Ohio State University, but it wasn't a typical college romance. Carmin was a junior, and Murray was her English professor.

"I was hesitant, because I didn't know why a professor would be interested in one of his students," says Judy.

Murray was only 27, a first-year professor. But once Judy Ross met him, she says she was impressed: "He was very easy to talk to. Very proper. Good manners. Everything."

Carmin's three little sisters, Samantha, April and Heather, never had a brother, but they were delighted to have a brother-in-law.

"He was attending church with us. He didn't drink excessively. He didn't smoke. He exercised," Danny remembers. "He was polite all the time, around everyone, and I said, 'Tom, you're too good to be true.'"

In 1988, after Carmin graduated from law school, the couple moved to Manhattan, Kan., where Murray took a job teaching linguistics at Kansas State University. His colleague, Lyman Baker, says Murray made an immediate impression.

"A very gentle guy. A very good, very sharp mind," says Baker. "Personal, reasonable, good listener. He was serious, did his work. People really appreciated having a colleague like that."

But while Murray was on the academic fast track, Carmin was struggling to find her place in the world. She gave up on law after just a few years, and she became a mediator.

During this time, the Murrays were searching for a solution to their own problem: they couldn't decide whether to have a child.

"When they first got married they were gonna have children. Tom wanted a bunch," says Judy Ross. "Then they were married for 13 years, and now Tom doesn't want any children. And she's now changed careers, and now she wants children."

In 1998, despite their disagreement, Carmin became pregnant, and gave birth to a daughter, Ciara, that December.

"He was angry, I think, with Carmin being pregnant," says her sister, Samantha. "And he never treated her the same after that. I think he punished her."

Carmin stopped working. She loved being a mother, but felt she was raising Ciara alone. Murray's indifference to the baby also led Carmin to question other parts of her life.

Her best friend, Angela Hays, says, "She felt as if she was living a life that just didn't fit very well with how she felt about things and how she believed."

"It sounds cliché, but she wanted so much to help people," adds Hays. "And she felt as if she wasn't doing that in the way that her life was playing out."

Carmin, however, was about to make a momentous decision. When Ciara was still a toddler, Carmin changed careers again and became a healer.

"She was in an apprentice program where she was physically doing treatment of people in the local area," says Danny Ross. "And of lot of people made fun of it because they didn't understand it. Perhaps even her husband."

Carmin was practicing "consegrity," a spiritual approach to medicine that claims to teach the body to heal itself. In September 2002, she went to a consegrity conference in Wichita. That's where she met Larry Lima, a social worker living in San Diego. Shortly after they met, the couple began an affair.

"It hurt me because she was acting in ways that a lot of people in the world act who don't have respect for their spouse -- and just are out living for their own self-gratification," says Danny Ross.

But after years of living what Carmin considered an unfulfilled life, her friends thought change was good for her. "She was extremely happy. And not only had I never seen her that happy, I had never seen anybody that happy," says Hays. "She felt that her life was unfolding as it should, or as she'd always wanted her life to be."

And it wasn't long before Carmin decided she no longer wanted to be married to Murray.

"She tried to get him to go to counseling," says Danny Ross. "She tried to make it work. And she eventually just said, 'It isn't going to work.'"

But the trouble was only just beginning, because Carmin had not only decided to leave Murray -- she decided to take their daughter with her.

Lima still remembers the first time Carmin caught his eye.

"We met at a workshop in Wichita, Kan. She had this plate, and I walked by, and she just very kindly asked if I wanted a piece of watermelon," says Lima. "And I grabbed a watermelon seed and ate it, and walked away, and she just kind of raised her eyebrows. And said afterwards, she knew that that was the moment."

Lima lived in San Diego, and by the fall of 2002, Carmin was flying to see him as often as possible. She confided to Lima that her marriage to Murray was ending. "Something had kind of died inside," says Lima. "She had worked very hard and been unhappy for a very, very long time in her marriage."

In June 2003, after Murray grudgingly agreed to divorce Carmin, she began making plans to move to California. But Murray was not about to let go of their daughter, Ciara.

"We had hoped to work out some sort of an agreement that would be best for Ciara to go back and forth, and clearly it wasn't gonna be feasible," says Lima, who adds that Carmin wanted Ciara to have both parents in her life.

So Carmin left Manhattan and moved to Lawrence, Kan., about an hour-and-a-half away from Murray. Lima planned to move there as well. Carmin and Murray were temporarily sharing custody of Ciara, but they were meeting with a mediator to work out a permanent agreement. According to her parents, Carmin was determined to work things out.

"She didn't want to hurt him. Even though she was leaving him, she still wanted to be friends with him," says Danny Ross.

But while Carmin was trying to bridge their differences, Lima says Murray was busy burning bridges.

"Clearly he was angry. And certainly sent emails and phone calls that upset her," he says.

Judy Ross, however, says she wasn't surprised that Murray was putting up such a fight. "He wanted to win. He's a winner," she says.

But this time, Carmin was determined to win. On Nov. 11, 2003, she arrived at the mediation session, and put her foot down. Lima says Carmin told Murray that she wanted Ciara to live with her, and that Lima was moving there, too.

"I think, in the midst of feeling anxious and a bit afraid, that there was also a sense of relief," says Lima. "She had done it, but she was clearly saddened, and afraid of how it was gonna turn out."

By the next night, when Lima called from San Diego, Carmin was feeling better. It was the last conversation they ever had.

"I hadn't talked to her in over a day," says Lima. "And we spoke many times a day. And I just really think something was wrong."

On Friday afternoon, Lima frantically called the Douglas County Sheriff's Department. Det. Doug Woods went to Carmin's house to investigate.

"Blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. Blood on the ceiling," recalls Woods. "Furniture had been turned over, potted plants and stuff broken against the fireplace. It was quite a struggle in there. There was a great degree of brutality."

In the middle of the room, Carmin Ross, 40, lay dead.

Carmin's house was now a crime scene - and one that promised a wealth of physical evidence. As crime scene investigators combed the house for clues, Woods drove to Manhattan to tell Murray that his ex-wife was dead.

"I told Mr. Murray that his ex-wife, Carmin, had died and that we needed to speak to him about that," says Woods. "Murray asked me if we had to do it right now."

Murray agreed to go with Woods to a nearby police station, and Woods said he didn't have to convince Murray to talk: "He was free to go."

Woods: You're here of your own free will and you're agreeing to stay.

Murray: You don't have to keep repeating that stuff. You haven't been mean to me, and you're not holding me against my will.

In fact, it turned out that Murray couldn't stop talking. He sat with Woods and others from 8:30 p.m. that night, until 6 a.m. the next morning - without a lawyer.

When the interrogation began, all Murray had been told is that his ex-wife had died. Yet, says Woods, "He never asked me how she died."

Murray: If I were you, I'd look at me. I think you should.

Woods: So in my mind then, tell me what a great guy you are. Tell me why I shouldn't be pointing the finger at you a little bit right now.

Murray: Oh, you gotta know me. I'm sort of the original Boy Scout. I've always been the straightest arrow in the quiver.

"He could explain away everything that we would bring at him," says Woods.

Murray's right hand, which he appeared to be hiding during the interview, had small cuts. Both of his wrists were also bruised.

Murray vehemently denied killing Carmin, and it continued all night. But if Murray was guilty, he wasn't getting caught that night. At 6 a.m., Murray headed home. "I was upset with myself because I didn't push the right button or ask the right question, or go into the right direction to get him to confess," says Woods.

Murray talked so much that he was now the No. 1 suspect in the case, but police had nothing against him but a lot of talk. They waited for evidence from the crime scene and but nothing was found. "We never found any bloody clothing. We never found the murder weapon. It just didn't exist," says Woods.

Murray continued to teach and to raise Ciara over the following weeks and months. Danny Ross feared the murder would never be solved, though he was growing suspicious of the son-in-law he once loved.

Nearly one year after Carmin's brutal murder in November 2003, police still had not arrested anyone.

Then, in October 2004, detectives Woods, Pat Pollock and Lyle Hagenbush decided they would have to take a chance on a circumstantial case, and they arrested Murray, their No. 1 suspect.

Things were about to get tougher for the Rosses. Just three months before Murray's trial began, the district attorney in Lawrence was voted out of office, leaving this case in the hands of Angela Wilson, an assistant D.A. The trouble was she had never prosecuted a murder before.

Kansas has an unusual law that allows victims to pay for a special prosecutor to help the district attorney's office. So the Ross family hired Tom Bath to be part of the prosecution team.

Murray hired two of the Kansas' best criminal attorneys, Pedro Irogonegaray and Bob Eye, to take on his case.

In February 2005, the Ross family came to Lawrence, determined to win two things: a guilty verdict, and custody of Carmin and Tom's daughter, Ciara, who had been living with them since Murray's arrest.

After investigating for more than a year, the best piece of evidence against Murray is still his 10-hour videotaped interview with the police.

Investigators asked Murray about the day of Carmin's murder. He was seen at 8:30 a.m. when he dropped his daughter off at the babysitters and again around noon when he got her back. No one saw him in between and detectives believe that's when he drove 90 miles to Lawrence to kill Carmin.

Murray: In my mind, I can't get there and back inside the time I have available.

But Hagenbush says Murray could, because he did it: "We were able to show that Tom Murray could drive from Manhattan to Lawrence, have plenty of time to kill Carmin Ross, and return to Manhattan."

Detectives think it took Murray just a few minutes to kill Carmin - first by beating her, and then stabbing her with a knife they believe he got from her kitchen.

When the defense got a chance to speak, Irogonegaray says even though the questioning lasted 10 hours, Murray's statement proves nothing.

In fact, the state's own forensic experts, who prosecutors hope will link Murray to the crime, actually help the defense team make its case. They say that there was no DNA found at the crime scene - and only one fingerprint matching Murray's.

Then, the defense says, the evidence suggests there was more than one person at the crime scene. Police found what looked like two bloody shoeprints.

Faced with a lack of forensic evidence, the prosecution argued that Murray was the only person with a motive to kill Carmin. They believe he exploded after a mediation session just two days before the murder. Prosecutors also say that Murray had another motive - jealousy - because Lima was about to move to Lawrence.

As the state methodically works through weeks of testimony, the trial is long, and at times, difficult. "It's a numb feeling," says Danny Ross. "Because as I sit there, and I saw all the pictures, it makes me think thoughts that I don't think a human being should have to think."

Prosecutors say Murray carefully planned and cleaned up after Carmin's murder - and they next present some startling evidence explaining how an English professor could possibly know so much about murder.

After weeks of testimony, Murray's attorneys said things were going their way and that Murray was not at the scene of the crime.

That's just what Danny Ross is worried about: "If, in fact, the worst case happens and he is acquitted, then the jury is going to put him back with my granddaughter."

Three generations of the Ross family, from five different states, have moved to Lawrence, Kan., for the duration of the trial. But the routine is becoming a grind. "Is he going to get the justice he really deserves?" Danny Ross wonders.

The prosecution started strongly - playing Murray's revealing police interview. But now, the trial has settled into a grueling, sometimes plodding marathon. But things started to look up for the prosecution and the Ross family, when the jury was about to hear the most powerful forensic evidence yet, and it's got nothing to do with blood or DNA.

Investigators could not have imagined what they'd discover when they confiscated Murray's computers. It turns out, the professor wasn't just researching linguistics.

Forensic computer expert Dean Brown dug around in the recesses of Murray's computers and found a Yahoo! search for "murder for hire," "how to hire an assassin," "how to make a bomb," and "how to murder someone and not get caught."

Investigators were thrilled with the secrets Murray's computers revealed, especially when they learned the searches were conducted just as the custody battle the Murrays were having was getting nasty.

But the defense has an explanation. They say that Murray was interested in possibly writing an episode for a CSI-type program. The computers, however, offer up more bad news for Murray, including e-mails that show his anger with Carmin was growing: "I'm increasingly coming to feel like an animal that's been backed into a corner."

The prosecution rested.

Now, Murray's defense would make three main points. First, a custody attorney told Murray that he had no reason to fear that Carmin would take Ciara away. Next, the defense says that, according to mediator Nancy Hughes, Murray was still committed to working with Carmin, even though he expressed his anger in emails.

And finally, the defense argues, there is a mystery bloodstain on Carmin's sink that suggests someone else was at Carmin's house. But the prosecution attacks the defense's expert, saying the expert did not have any certification in the area of bloodstain analysis.

Murray never took the stand. Instead, the defense pinned its hopes on reasonable doubt - and argued that there is plenty of it.

For the Ross family, however, waiting for the jury to decide is one of the hardest parts of the trial. "If he is found innocent, then my heart will be broken again," says Danny Ross. "Because we'll have to give our granddaughter to him."

It's been nearly a year and a half since Carmin was murdered - and the fate of the accused murderer now rests with the jury. They jury has only circumstantial evidence to consider against Murray. There's no wiggle room for the jurors -either they have to convict Murray of first-degree murder or set him free.

But Murray's life is not the only one at stake. If he's acquitted, the Ross family would have to give him Ciara. It's the worst-case scenario the Rosses hope they'll never face.

"My daughter was killed, and we can't bring her back," says Danny Ross. "But having my granddaughter raised in a proper environment is what my daughter would have wanted. And that's the most important thing to our family."

It took five weeks to present all the evidence, and the jury took its time going through it all. After three days of deliberation, a verdict was reached on St. Patrick's Day: Murray was found guilty of murder in the first degree.

Carmin's family was overwhelmed by the verdict. "For so long, it has been all about this process, coming to an end today," says Carmin's sister, April. "And that we have Ciara. She's safe. Now, I can really mourn for Carmin."

It was also an emotional victory for the prosecution. "There was just so much emotion around this case, and around the family," says Wilson. "It's been very good to be included in the family fold. I joked early on that I was an honorary Ross girl."

"I'm convinced that this is a domestic violence-related homicide," says Lima, who remembers Carmin by volunteering with domestic violence victims at the Family Justice Center in San Diego.

However, it will be a little harder for the Ross family, who once considered Murray a son and a brother.

"It's a very confusing, conflicting feeling," says April. "Because I have no doubt it was his hands that hurt her. But I don't know what happened to his head."

She adds: "How am I supposed to explain to my kids, when I don't get it - and to his daughter?"

There will be no explanation from Murray, who insisted he was innocent, even at his sentencing: "I have never raised my hand in anger against anyone - not ever."

He also showed a rare display of emotion for his daughter: "Since I can't be with you, I'm glad you're living with people who love you very much."

Ciara is now 9 and lives with the Ross family at home in Indiana.

"I asked her, 'Are you worried about who's going to take care of you?'" asks Carmin's sister, Heather. "And she said, 'No, I'm glad I have my family to take care of me.' She's got an entire family that adores her, and would do anything for her. We'll take care of her. Together, we will take care of her."

Tom Murray was sentenced to life in prison. He'll be eligible for parole when he's 73.

The Kansas Supreme Court denied Murray's appeal in January.

Carmin's sister, Heather, adopted Ciara in August 2006.