nurses who kill S03E03
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CreativityTranscript
00:00Nurses and carers, we place our life in their hands, but are we always safe? This is the
00:14series that tells the stories of those who take the lives of the people they're supposed
00:18to care for. When you're trained to nurse, you get to know how to sedate someone, and
00:31that can come in useful for the wrong reasons. But even the best laid plans can go wrong. So
00:54Paul Novak tried something less subtle. I mean, he killed her. He strangled her to death. And for
01:00years, the emergency medical technician got away with murder. So what or who gave him away? His
01:07nursing colleagues. You have Mr. Sherwood, who always wants to do the right thing, and always
01:15is a caring and generous person. And then you have a person like Paul Novak, who kills someone for
01:23ease and money. Paul Novak, the nurse who loved life in the fast lane and was prepared to kill
01:30to pay for it. So you knew the house was on fire? Yes. Did he say how he strangled her? No. Did he
01:39say where he strangled her? Where in the house? In the basement.
02:09Emergency medical technicians don't take lives. They help save them. They
02:39are the people who do the nursing side of their work under pressure on the road. Paul Novak was
02:46an EMT in New York who cut quite the action hero figure. He would show up on occasion to the morning
02:54drop-off wearing his uniform. And in those days, right after 9-11 and the very early years of the
03:01Iraq War, anyone with a paramedic uniform on from New York, you kind of assumed might have been a
03:08hero. Paul Novak may indeed have been a hero in the eyes of his wife Catherine, but not to
03:15everybody. Lawyer Ben Greenwald was a key player as the truth emerged about the man whose EMT and
03:23nursing skills led to commendations. I think Paul Novak only cared about Paul Novak. I interviewed
03:32many of his colleagues among the EMT community in New York. John Lesten neighbor to the Novaks,
03:40Nina Burley. They described a person who was very different from the heroic post 9-11 paramedic that
03:48I had imagined he was. Novak was known to be a thrill seeker, riding a motorbike at extreme
03:55speeds, known for other things too. His partner talked about how they would park near Wi-Fi
04:02hotspots so that Paul could download hardcore pornography onto his devices. The real Paul
04:09Novak was cold, not social, had a porn addiction, was reckless in the extreme, was an adrenaline
04:18addict, as many EMTs will admit that they are. He needs this kind of extreme stimulation that
04:27the high-speed motorbike riding, that the hardcore porn in the middle of the day gives
04:31him. It's only this extreme stimulation that enables him to feel anything at all. So it
04:36tells me that actually Paul Novak didn't have normal emotional responses. These are clues as
04:42to where the evil came from. The man who appeared to be a 9-11 lifesaver was in reality a life
04:50taker. He had said that the chloroform didn't work. I had to strangle her. This man is Scott
05:02Sherwood, who came to know all about Paul Novak. Sherwood was a fellow EMT. He was six foot nine.
05:11He had a history of bipolar disorder. He and Novak worked together at times, but were also
05:17just becoming increasingly friendly. Paul Novak knows that he has the ability to play with his
05:25mind a little bit, get him to gravitate towards him. Did he say, if Catherine mentioned anything,
05:32during the struggle? Why are you doing this? And what was his response? Doing this for the kids.
05:55In the interview, detectives were trying to get the truth from Sherwood about what Paul Novak did
05:59at this remote homestead just outside Narrowsburg in New York State. There are telltale signs here
06:06of a murder made in a world of medics, one of whom was Scott Sherwood. The guy who drove Paul Novak
06:16up here to to commit the murder that night was a fellow EMT.
06:23Sherwood agreed to help Novak deal with the problem of Catherine.
06:29And when he was interviewed by the police, he actually did cooperate. Well, I started
06:35I started heading out of the area, I guess made it to the closest county road,
06:43and it was a little too windy and it was dark. So I told Paul, you better,
06:51you better drive, I can't. Sherwood would unwittingly get in way too deep to get out of
06:57what was happening. I truly believe everyone saw what type of person he really was. You talk to
07:04him for a minute, you saw how earnest he was, that he truly wanted to do the right thing.
07:11So why had Scott Sherwood done a very wrong thing? Because of Paul Novak.
07:17Scott Sherwood obviously has the ability to be manipulated. And so Scott Sherwood,
07:21he's going to help him right along because he is in fact brainwashed by Paul Novak.
07:30Paul Novak enjoyed four happy years in Florida after his wife Catherine's death in 2008.
07:37Then one day in 2012, he was asked to answer questions about how Catherine had died.
07:42And so began the unravelling of a love story, which became a tale of conspiracy,
07:48lurid pornography, marital affairs and murder.
07:55All ending in sleepy lava, a hamlet just outside Narrowsburg.
08:00It was in Florida when detectives received the tip-off, which made them curious about the life
08:05of Paul and Catherine Novak. They would soon learn that the couple met at Jamaica Medical
08:10Center, Queens, where Catherine was an EMT too. Reporter Kay White is amongst those who have been
08:18looking at the life of Catherine Novak. So Catherine has worked really hard to get where
08:23she wanted to be in life. So she worked odd jobs to be able to get the money that she needed to
08:27go to college and to complete her EMT training that she wanted to do. Catherine made friends
08:35quickly. In the summer of 1996, Paul Novak met Catherine at an Ambulance Corps barbecue.
08:40Paul was already a trained EMT, and she liked him. She's someone who clearly, she's very driven in
08:50what she wants to do with her life. And so when she meets somebody who's also, they have that
08:54similar interest in helping people, of course she's going to be attracted to someone like Paul Novak.
09:02The couple aspired to different lifestyles. Paul liked to ride his motorcycle quickly,
09:08party hard, work hard. That was not Catherine. Catherine, by all accounts, was frugal and she
09:15was hardworking, and she wasn't really into the kind of thrill-seeking lifestyle of an EMT.
09:20The opposites attracted each other, and things moved pretty quickly after that.
09:25Catherine and Paul were married on Valentine's Day in 1997, and around two years later they had their
09:30first child, a girl. A second baby followed soon after. Catherine wants to take her kids and she
09:36wants to move to a smaller community, maybe where there's less crime, you know, where they're just
09:41going to get a good upbringing. So she believes that she's starting this new life, and she's
09:45It was. Two and a half hours out of Queens where both she and Paul worked, they came across a house
09:54outside Narrowsburg. A town of just 431 people. It's a community of contrasts, where it's not just
10:03the people, it's the people. It's the people, it's the people, it's the people, it's the people, it's
10:10people. It's a community of contrasts, where rich and the not-so-rich live side by side.
10:20Narrowsburg is a town about an hour and a half northwest of New York City.
10:27It's on the Delaware River, and it's a very small town.
10:32It has gone through some changes. It used to be a dairy farm area up here, and then the dairy farms
10:41kind of subsided. And when we moved here, when we bought our house in 2000, it was a pretty depressed
10:49area. The main street was filled with thrift stores and boarded up shops. But since 9-11,
10:57this area, because it's so close to New York City, has attracted a lot of New Yorkers who wanted to
11:05buy second homes. So there are a lot of second homeowners up here, and that brought Narrowsburg
11:11up. So now there are fine restaurants and lots of places to shop, and it's a lovely little town.
11:19Good schools, too. Neighbor to the Novaks, Nina Burley.
11:25We got to know each other at the school. Every day, we would bring our children to kindergarten,
11:31and we were dealing with the same things as mothers of our first child going to school.
11:38So we were experiencing a lot of the same things. And she was a lovely person. She was a great
11:43mother. She sometimes babysat for my kids. I would bring my son over to play with her daughter,
11:51and our toddlers would play together. A big part of the community, Catherine Novak,
11:58Mrs. Standard American, with her 9-11 hero husband of some sort, and their perfect family.
12:05She was also somebody who volunteered a lot. I was working, working on both of my children's
12:12working, working on books. And I'm a journalist, so I was working at home a lot. And while I was
12:17working, she was donating her time to the school and making cupcakes and chaperoning children. And
12:25just a really involved person, really concerned, I think, about, you know, her civic duty.
12:32She was a churchgoer, and she liked to put in time helping other people. And she gets involved in her
12:40and her kids' scout troops. She is a volunteer at the Lutheran Church. She also volunteers at school.
12:47She's got this perfect life, and she's married, in her mind, the perfect man as well, who's also
12:53saving lives. What could go wrong? A lot could go wrong. This was not quite such a picture-perfect
13:04world. Paul Novak was no hero. The medic may have known how to keep people alive,
13:11but he knew how to kill them too. He had said that the chloroform didn't work. I had to strangle her.
13:20Narrowsburg thought they had a happy couple with two children in their midst.
13:25But inside the Novak home, developing turmoil.
13:32The move to the country didn't really work out quite the way Catherine had hoped.
13:36Paul was still working in the city, and he was in the hospital.
13:39He was in the hospital for a couple of days, and he was in the hospital for a couple of days.
13:43The move to the country didn't really work out quite the way Catherine had hoped.
13:48Paul was still working in the city, and he was actually spending more time in Queens than he was
13:52in their home in Narrowsburg, which was a farmhouse that needed a lot of work.
13:58Her husband was kind of a quiet guy. I didn't really talk to him very much. A burly man who
14:04often showed up again in a uniform. And I didn't really get to know him because he wasn't around
14:09often. There was something else those around town didn't know. The Novaks had money problems
14:17because of Paul. Novak had a history of being bad with money. In 1998, he had filed for bankruptcy.
14:25In 2003, Catherine, who had always been very good with her money, very cautious and very careful,
14:31also filed for bankruptcy. As it turned out, Novak had spent most of their money on electronics and
14:36motorcycles that he was rebuilding. In 12 years, the couple had met and married, had two children,
14:43and were apparently living the rural dream upstate in New York. But in reality, there was trouble
14:49brewing for Catherine. Big trouble, as police discovered in another candid interview, this time
14:54with Novak's lover, Michelle LaFrance. What is he telling you that he wants to do, or how does
15:00that come about? That he was going to kill Catherine. And he says that to you? Um...
15:14Catherine loved the slower rural lifestyle. She appeared oblivious to the growing discontent
15:20felt by her husband. She got on with being Mrs. Nice, Mrs. Normal, Mrs. Happy of Narrowsburg.
15:27She was a very unusual type because of her sense of civic duty, her willingness to plunge in,
15:36donate her time to her church, to her community, to the school. She was a volunteer. She was a born
15:44volunteer, a giver. And there aren't a lot of people like that. And communities depend on them.
15:51They're often unsung. Paul was a complete contrast. Domestic duties, civic duties,
15:58they were not for him. The fellow EMT and then fast-loving New Yorker that he had met
16:05and married was not that anymore. She wanted cozy, he wanted kicks, and preferred to stay
16:12in Queens rather than travel the two hours home to Narrowsburg each evening. Fishing was not for
16:19the speedster motorcycle man. He was addicted to this sort of high-adrenaline lifestyle,
16:26this thrill-seeking lifestyle that seemed to come with being an EMT.
16:32What to make of the conflicting perspectives on life in Narrowsburg?
16:36Catherine, seeking a settled home life, Paul, the excitement of the city.
16:41Prominent amongst those following an emerging investigative method,
16:45British forensic psychologist Donna Youngs picks apart evidence of the character's lives
16:50of those involved in murder cases. What we had was two completely opposite personalities here.
16:57Just as Paul Novak is incapable of understanding other people's and her emotions,
17:05she was equally incapable of understanding his total insensitivity, his total unresponsiveness,
17:13his total lack of any emotionality. She just wouldn't, she wouldn't have been able to understand
17:18it at all. And in that context, out of the blue, Novak decides to do something which arouses fear
17:26amongst some of Catherine's friends, and then he makes a dramatic suggestion.
17:32He decides to take a life insurance policy out on her. Red flags for her friends. She says,
17:38no, everything's fine. It's just marriage. And things are kind of rocky, but then he decides to
17:44be romantic and they renew their vows. So automatically Catherine's going to think,
17:49oh, my husband's so great. We're moving forward. The marriage was clearly on the rocks, but Paul
17:56did seem to want to make a go of it. He suggested that they renew their vows on Valentine's Day 2007.
18:02Catherine was excited, she was ecstatic, and she was really hoping to be reinvested in their
18:07relationship in that way. But the fact was, is that when Paul came to stay, he still slept in
18:12the guest bedroom. New marriage vows or not, the main change in the world of the Novaks was that
18:18Catherine's life was now insured for nearly a million dollars. And the beneficiary in the
18:22event of her death was Paul Novak. A few months later, out in Narrowsburg, Cathy spots her friend
18:32Nina makes a revelation. All of a sudden, this van pulled up at the bottom of the stairs
18:39outside of our yard on the street and outbounded Catherine and her daughter.
18:47We kind of chit-chatted and right away she said, I've been looking for you because
18:52my husband's having an affair and I need to get a job. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. And she
18:59sort of giggled and acted like it didn't matter that much that he was having an affair, didn't
19:04go into any of the details and just said, I need to get a job. Paul Novak's new woman was one that
19:10he had met at work. Another would-be nurse on the road, officially designated emergency medical
19:15technician. He had not hidden from her that he was married with children. She didn't seem to mind.
19:22Michelle LaFrance was an attractive 25-year-old who was assigned to ride the bus with Paul and
19:27his partner as part of her paramedic certification. She and Paul's partner got along quite well.
19:36Michelle was a complicated character.
19:40Did he ever talk about his plan or was he working out a plan?
19:45The plan came out in probably November, December. December, probably.
19:53Paul's girlfriend was an unstable character.
19:58She had a history of suicide attempts. She was on all kinds of psychiatric medication.
20:06Despite that, the couple get along. Initially, Novak had kept the affair secret from his wife.
20:12But then... So Catherine's at home and she gets a phone call from Michelle LaFrance
20:17and she asks for Paul. And that's the moment that she knew. Deep down, she knew that he was
20:24having an affair with this younger woman. And that's when her life crumbles. She's got two
20:29kids she's got to raise on her own with no job. Novak spends a picture of Catherine to LaFrance,
20:35which simply isn't true. Meanwhile, however, his anger towards Catherine was growing.
20:41And he described her to LaFrance as that fat, ugly troll and started to talk about what a terrible
20:46mother she supposedly was. He begins to confide in her and tell her about how he's the victim,
20:54how Catherine is a terrible mother. He was turning LaFrance against Catherine.
21:01He had me convinced that Catherine was the bad guy and he was the good parent and these kids
21:07are abused and these kids are miserable and we need to save the kids. In 2008, Novak moved into
21:13an apartment on Long Island with LaFrance and Catherine filed for divorce. Novak agreed to a
21:18child support payment monthly and he agreed to take the children every other weekend.
21:26LaFrance would one day spend seven hours with investigating detectives. And at the heart of
21:31her testimony, Novak's insistence that his wife was ruining his and their children's lives.
21:37There really was only one thing to do.
21:46Going to save the children by killing their mother.
22:00Novak was threatening to file for custody of the children.
22:04Meanwhile, Catherine had the locks changed on her house.
22:09He's now getting angry that he's having to pay $1,700 towards child support to his wife. He
22:17doesn't want to do that anymore. His behaviour was becoming part of an all too familiar pattern
22:22for some who go on to kill. The thing with people that don't really have their own sense of emotional
22:28core is that they just pick up on ready-made explanations. They pick up on storylines within
22:35the culture and that's a very easy story to just tap into that she's a poor mother and he's just
22:40saving himself and the kids from her, essentially. It's a very easy explanation.
22:47Having convinced the new woman in his life that the old woman in his life was a bad wife,
22:52bad mother, bad person, Novak then turns to another EMT for a shoulder to cry on.
22:58And in time, he asks for a whole lot more.
23:02One day soon, the EMT Scott Sherwood would need a lawyer.
23:08From the first minute that I met Scott Sherwood, I found him to be a kind and nice person. Very
23:16scared of being in the situation that he was in, but a good person.
23:21Scott Sherwood was scared of the position he was in because of what Paul Novak had convinced him
23:27to do. He manipulated someone into helping him commit a heinous crime and without even
23:36carrying one wit, as far as I'm concerned, about what happened to Scott.
23:40How did Scott Sherwood become central to Paul Novak's planning? Sherwood had been through a
23:57bitter divorce. Since Paul and Scott worked together as paramedics in Long Island and
24:06they were in ambulances together, they went and they had a lot of downtime. They spoke a lot.
24:12And in the course of this, Paul learned a lot of intimate facts about Scott's life, mostly about
24:20a messy divorce that he'd been going through and the pain he was suffering because of that.
24:26So Scott, being the kind person that he is, wanted to try to help Paul with not being in pain.
24:34And what sort of help did Paul need? He had been talking about researching the perfect crime,
24:41how to hide a body, had told his friends that he thought fire was the best way to hide a body.
24:50Paul Novak is still working at Jamaica Hospital at the time and his colleagues are starting to
24:55overhear him in conversations with Catherine. At one point he threatens her, you may be the
25:00mother of my children, but I can still kill you. And they think that he is just letting off some
25:07steam. As people do, you get angry, you get riled up and you're going to start talking
25:11about things that you don't actually mean to say and that you don't actually think you're going to
25:15do. But Novak did mean it. It was time to call on Scott Sherwood. Sherwood is emotionally unstable
25:24and oftentimes unable to make it through a shift without crying. At the same time,
25:28he was divorced and he rarely ever saw his children. Novak began talking to him about
25:33how Catherine wasn't letting him see his own children. And he told Sherwood that he didn't
25:37want to end up like him, broke and never seeing his kids. And you have gone through a very rough
25:45divorce and are in a very difficult predicament with your ex. And obviously you're not happy about
25:50that. They're just chit-chatting about the commonalities that they have about an ex-wife.
25:57They're both down on their luck at the moment. They don't have much money. And
26:01Paul makes the point that he doesn't want to end up like Scott Sherwood, who is broke, unhappy and
26:07divorced and alone. And Paul makes the point that he does not want to be like him. He's going to do
26:11something about it. He's going to kill Catherine and he wants Scott's help. And to do it, he was
26:18going to use his nursing skills. First, drug her. Then when she was unconscious, set the house on
26:26fire. He was going to chloroform her, leave her and then burn the house down around her and she
26:32was going to die in the fire. That was his plan. And we were going to do it on a weekend that,
26:41you know, we had the kids, the kids would be safe. Novak had his team. Michelle LaFrance
26:47would be useful cover as he laid the ground for the murder. In early December 2008, LaFrance
26:52accompanied Novak to Narrowsburg under the pretense of picking up a motorcycle.
26:57Novak snuck downstairs and unlocked the basement door in preparation for the next week.
27:03The following week, Novak felt he would need another accomplice, a driver. That would be
27:08Scott Sherwood. Paul Novak paid him to drive him upstate to kill his wife.
27:15The plan was that Catherine Novak would be asleep when the two men were to arrive.
27:20It was time to act. On the night of December 12th, Sherwood drove to Novak's home. When he arrived,
27:28Novak was in the kitchen mixing something up that he said was chloroform.
27:33Novak did not want to use his own car.
27:35The reason why I think Paul Novak needed Scott Sherwood is that Paul didn't want his car to be
27:43traced to his ex-wife's house when he was going to try to murder her. So, having someone else's
27:50car would be in his best interest. Sherwood and Novak got into Sherwood's house and they
27:59drove in the direction of Narrowsburg. They stopped on the way at a Walmart where Novak
28:05bought duct tape and gloves. When they arrived in Narrowsburg, they parked
28:09a little bit away in a secluded wood and Novak walked to the house.
28:18He's driven to the house by Scott Sherwood.
28:20He goes into the house, goes into the basement, sets off the smoke alarm, which then wakes
28:26Catherine up. She's alone in the house. Well, he wanted her to come downstairs.
28:34She goes downstairs, lures her down to the basement.
28:39Paul Novak tried to kill Catherine, but she didn't want him to kill her.
28:44She goes downstairs, lures her down to the basement. Paul Novak tried to chloroform her.
28:55Didn't work. He had said that the chloroform didn't work. I had to strangle her.
29:05He tried to strangle her. The entire time she's shouting,
29:08think of the children, think of the children, and he's saying, I'm doing it for the children.
29:13Did he say if Catherine mentioned anything during the struggle?
29:17Why are you doing this? And what was his response?
29:22Doing this for the kids. I mean, he killed her. He strangled her to death.
29:29When she's finally dead, with her throat crushed, he then tries to light the house on fire.
29:34He fails. After Catherine is dead, Novak walks back to the car. He realizes, though,
29:45that the fire hasn't lit. So he goes back to the house and lights the fire again.
29:53And he just leaves, goes in the car with Scott Sherwood and says, it's done.
29:58He said he tried to use the chloroform, but it didn't work, and he had to strangle her,
30:02and then he burned the house down, or the gas line to ignite. And then when you leave, who drives?
30:12I had Paul drive because, well, I started heading out of the area, I guess, made it to
30:22I started heading out of the area, I guess, made it to the closest county road,
30:30and it was a little too windy, and it was dark. So I told Paul, you better drive, I can't.
30:40What was his demeanor when he came back from the house?
30:45Seemed cold, distant. What about you? Were you like, holy f***? Why?
30:51I was beside myself.
30:59Firefighters had arrived within minutes, but there was nothing they could do to either save
31:04Catherine or the building. The house was completely destroyed by the fire. Police and fire department
31:10officials spent hours combing through the wreckage, trying to find evidence of the bodies.
31:15They found Catherine's body in the basement. There was no evidence at that time that the fire had
31:21been deliberately set. The morning of her death, neighbors were waking up to, you know, in the dark,
31:31seeing this glow in the distance. Some people thought it was a sunrise, but somebody nearby
31:38recognized it was a fire and called the police. The police arrived, it was a cold morning,
31:45it was December. The police arrived and the house was almost burned to the ground already,
31:52and they put the rest of the fire out. They started digging through the wreckage,
31:56and by the afternoon they had come to the basement level of the house, and they found
32:01Catherine's body on the floor. As for Catherine's killer, he and his fellow emergency medical
32:07technician had long gone. Novak and Sherwood drive back to his home in Nassau County, where
32:13Michel Lafrance has been waiting with his sleeping children. Novak had taken the precaution
32:17of giving them several tabs of Benadryl, just to make sure they'd sleep through the night.
32:22The remoteness of Narrowsburg helped Paul Novak. Nobody had seen what had just happened,
32:27heard a thing, just like Paul had planned. He's up there in the middle of nowhere, and
32:33nobody would know, nobody would see it, and you know... But to many locals, things didn't add up.
32:41I went along Main Street and talked to some people that I knew, I think at one of the shops,
32:48and I asked what they had heard, and the person I was talking to said,
32:53oh yeah, everybody here is very suspicious about that. I remember picking up the phone
33:00and calling the state police and saying, you're aware, of course, that she was engaged in a
33:07divorce, and he said yes, and that was the last I heard about it.
33:16But official investigators could not find cause to launch a murder inquiry.
33:21The pathologist investigating Catherine's death ruled it an accident,
33:24a result of debris falling on her body during the fire.
33:29And there were people in the state police, and especially the fire department here,
33:35who suspected that that was not accurate, but there was nothing they could do about it.
33:42Paul passed a lie detector test, they interviewed him, he had an airtight alibi.
33:52So I actually found out that they found a body in the basement from my mother, who found out
34:00from one of the volunteer firefighters that was there. So when I initially went to the state
34:06police as directed to give my statement as they wanted, they told me that at that point,
34:13they told me that a body was found there, but they weren't sure if it was Catherine's or not.
34:22State investigators questioned Paul Novak several times, as well as Michelle LaFrance.
34:26She confirmed that he was home the whole night of December 12th and 13th.
34:31I tucked it away. I was very suspicious. I didn't do any research or digging into it.
34:42I just sort of filed it away as one of those things that might happen in this community.
34:48It's a place where things can happen because it's a rural community, and you're far from
34:57neighbors, you're far from the authorities, and on a dark night,
35:03a lot of things can happen if you have somebody with malign intent.
35:09Novak did not break stride. He went back to work, waited for the insurance payout.
35:15For a short time after Catherine's death, Paul continued to work as an EMT. But once the payment
35:20arrived, he moved himself, his two children and LaFrance to a house on the Palm Coast of Florida
35:25with an in-ground saltwater pool. It was luxurious.
35:34Novak had boasted he was researching the perfect murder, and it looked like he'd carried one out.
35:39The death of Catherine Novak was officially an accident. Her two children would now live with
35:45their father and his new partner in sunny Florida. No more dark winter nights upstate in New York.
35:51No more reminders of the lives the Novaks used to live.
35:56But Paul Novak had a wandering eye when it came to women,
35:59something Michelle LaFrance would one day discover.
36:04For the moment, she still had a big part to play in the story of who killed Catherine Novak.
36:09I appreciate you doing a nice job talking, okay? I know it's not easy,
36:13but can you see anger building up in Paul, or is Paul talking about...
36:18Paul was very calm.
36:19Very calm.
36:20Very calm, very controlled, very neutral.
36:35At first, life seems fine for the Novak family. Paul, his two children and Michelle LaFrance.
36:43So now Paul Novak has the ability to move on from his past officially,
36:48and they're just living the life of luxury at the moment.
36:52But Paul's way with women wasn't left behind in New York.
36:56Despite their new circumstances, the relationship is troubled.
37:01The insurance money had not lasted quite as long as Novak had hoped it would.
37:05He got a large sum of money from the insurance,
37:09where his kids pretty much got nothing, as far as I understand.
37:12Novak was soon facing financial worries.
37:16But then he was living not one, but two expensive lifestyles.
37:22By early 2012, Michelle is convinced that Paul is being unfaithful to her.
37:28And when she confronts him about it, he admits it. They decide to separate.
37:33It would prove a fateful day for Paul Novak.
37:36By the summer of 2012, Michelle LaFrance is in another relationship,
37:39this time with a police officer.
37:41And she tells him about the circumstances around Catherine Novak's death.
37:47He encourages her to go to the police.
37:51Michelle LaFrance contacts the New York State Police Department
37:54and says she has new information about the death of Catherine Novak.
37:58They interview her for six hours, and she says she has no idea what's going on.
38:02They interview her for six hours, and she says she has no idea what's going on.
38:06in which she tells them that she lied in her original 2008 statement
38:10about the whereabouts of Paul Novak that night.
38:14Did he ever talk about his plan, or was he working out a plan?
38:20The plan came out in probably November to December.
38:26December, probably. It was a very short time that I knew about.
38:32And he was going to do this.
38:37LaFrance told police that Novak had not been at home on the night of his wife's death,
38:42that in fact he and Scott Sherwood had driven to their home in Narrowsburg
38:46to kill Catherine Novak.
38:49Scott Sherwood did not take much convincing to help detectives.
38:53His lawyer encouraged complete cooperation.
38:57My job was to focus on Scott Sherwood and to make sure
39:01he came out of this the best he humanly can.
39:05What does he say happened inside the house?
39:11He says it's to you, right? In the courtyard.
39:13He helped corroborate what Michelle LaFrance testified to,
39:18and probably if it was up to him, he would have cooperated from minute one.
39:24So you knew the house was on fire? Yes.
39:26Did he say how he strangled her? No.
39:30Did he say where he strangled her? Where in the house?
39:32In the basement.
39:34And when he was interviewed by the police, he actually did cooperate.
39:39He made a whole statement.
39:41So I think that's what it is, is that they saw the type of person he was.
39:49The evidence of Sherwood and LaFrance on the night of the murder of Catherine
39:53Novak in Narrowsburg became crucial.
39:56LaFrance was granted immunity for her testimony, and five months later,
40:00after they had billed a sufficient case, police were able to arrest Scott Sherwood.
40:05Paul Novak initially denied everything after his arrest in Florida and removal to New York.
40:11Did you kill your wife? No, I did not.
40:14In the face of the evidence, why did he not simply admit the crime?
40:18This man, in the end, was caught because the people that were closest to him actually felt
40:23no loyalty whatsoever. He would have had very little emotional loyalty towards them,
40:28so it's quite fitting, I think, that in the end, that turns on him, and that's how he is.
40:33He's caught.
40:35You have Mr. Sherwood, who always wants to do the right thing and always is a caring
40:43and generous person, and then you have a person like Paul Novak, who kills someone for
40:50ease and money. I don't think there can be a comparison. It's just,
40:54it's literally polar opposites between giving and selfish.
41:04Scott Sherwood faced charges which left him with a sentence much reduced from the one that he could
41:09have received for helping in the murder of Catherine. Why did he do this to Catherine?
41:18Well, he said it to me because I don't want to end up like you.
41:22You can manipulate even good people to do the wrong thing,
41:26and you just need someone with some very twisted morals to do that.
41:31The jury in the trial of Paul Novak took the word of Scott Sherwood and Michelle LaFrance,
41:37alongside the evidence of the insurance payout, the witnesses who had heard him threatened he
41:42would kill Catherine, and they found him guilty. His appeals failed, and he will
41:46serve the rest of his life in prison. He will never be eligible for parole.
41:52In court, Paul Novak wore a baggy black suit. He had chains around his ankles. He was pale. He
42:01was mostly expressionless at odd times, especially when his daughter was sobbing,
42:09you know, utterly expressionless, just a strange man. I think Paul got what he deserved.
42:16Paul Novak got what he deserved, spending the rest of his life in prison.
42:23The murder deprived this community of a person who probably would have been a community leader.
42:31It deprived two children of a mother. But aside from, you know, the concept of closure
42:40that this trial brought to the community, to me, the trial and the verdict indicated
42:48a kind of a hope for me that this community and the justice system really can work.
42:56Nurses are trained in many ways. In this case, no fewer than four who, as EMTs,
43:02were skilled in giving medical help to people in emergencies,
43:06and who had become wrapped up in a story of love, deceit and murder.