On April 17, 2011, Helen Lander was found dead in her home. The medical examiner Dr. Robertson originally declared the death an accident. After an anonymous letter and belief from former medical examiner Meryn Jumble that Helen’s death was a murder, the case was reopened.

    Helen’s husband, Mr. Richard Lander, was indicted on charges of murder and tampering with evidence. However, Lander had a solid alibi. His daughter, the sole eyewitness, claimed that the door to the bathroom was shut, and when Lander heard no response from his wife, he opened the door and found his wife, and then he moved her to the bedroom to lay her on a more comfortable floor. Besides, the prosecution failed to come up with a murder weapon and motive at beginning.

    Later in the trial, an alleged murder weapon was brought forth, the shower bench. But Lander’s defense team called upon many witnesses to testify for Mr. Lander. One of them was Tracy Williams, a personal trainer, who said Helen Lander had dizziness, which would explain why she fell in the shower.

    The possibility that Lander was innocent was quickly disputed by the facts that District Attorney Will Thompson displayed. From the opening statements of the trial, the prosecution stressed the idea that, in view of the rigor mortis, i.e., the stiffening of the limbs after death, Helen Lander had been dead for hours before her daughter called the police. The rigor mortis, which would not happen in twenty minutes, contradicted Lander’s alibi that he moved his wife’s body from the bathroom where he claimed that she fell to the bedroom almost 60 feet away. Lander’s movement of the body also became more noted when the prosecution began to investigate blood spatter around the bedroom. There was blood spatter at the scene on a bedside lampshade, a slanted wall and water bottles next to the bed. This blood spatter indicated to Rose Green, a forensic scientist, that the injuries occurred while at the bedside, not the shower as Mr. Lander had claimed.

    After a two-week-long trial, Mr. Lander was found guilty of second-degree murder in killing his wife. He was also convicted of tampering with evidence in his attempt to cover up the crime.