The Murder of Samira Frasch | Millionaire Murders | Forensic Files

[theme music] The neighborhood this homicide occurred in is one of the few gated communities
we have in Tallahassee. It still is one of the nicer neighborhoods in town. Very little crime.
The gates obviously assist with that. Had a roaming security patrol for years. Beyond the fact that Golden Eagle is a gated community,
it's also on the edge of town. It's in a very safe part of the community. It is not a place where you have frequent calls for service
from the police department. It's definitely one of the more affluent areas in town.
It's just a tight-knit little community. And, you know, a lot of people know each other and their neighbors know each other
and look out for each other in that area. JENNIFER PORTMAN: All of the homes out in Golden Eagle
are large homes. You know, you might call them like mini-McMansions, some of them.
Adam Frasch is a podiatrist. He runs a successful podiatry practice in Thomasville, Georgia, which is about 30 miles north.
You know, Tallahassee is very close to the Georgia line. He's doing very well in that practice.
Samira is a former model. She is very glamorous. She drives around town in a big Hummer.
They're affluent and kind of showy people, I think you might say. You would know that they are doing well for themselves.
[somber music] The Frasch family had a handyman, kind of maintained their house.
He was supposed to be picked up by Mrs. Frasch that day, but he hadn't heard from her.
And she hadn't shown up, which was unusual. JASON NEWLIN: He's at the gate. He couldn't get in.
That was odd for him. Once he got in the gate, he goes to the residence. And the two of them knocked on the door, got no answer.
He can't get in the front door. He can't get Mrs. Frasch to answer the phone. He knows there's another way into the house,
so he goes around the back. He opens the pool screen door, and that's when he sees miss Frasch in the pool.
[ominous music] He immediately knew that she was dead. He panics, does the right thing, he calls 911.
And 911 suggested that he might do something to pull her out of the pool or attempt to resuscitate her.
His answer is, no, there's no way I'm getting her. You can tell she's deceased. I don't want my DNA anywhere near this scene.
I'm not touching this. [ominous music] So first responders came to the scene immediately upon getting the 911 call.
They jumped in the pool. They pulled out Mrs. Frasch and attempted to resuscitate her
unsuccessfully. They were not able to get a pulse, and she was pronounced dead. And once the scene was controlled,
they would have notified the detectives unit who would come out to begin the investigation.
Firefighters had removed her by the time law enforcement arrived on scene. It looks like a two-storey house because the roof
is extremely tall. However, it's just a single-storey residence. When you walk in, the screened-in porch
is behind the residence. The pool is obviously within the porch. So there was a hose across the pool deck,
a flip-flop tucked under the hose, a second flip-flop on the first step of the pool, and then Mrs.
Frasch's body in the deep end. It was well-known that she could not swim. She was kind of afraid of the pool.
This pool was in a kind of a lanai and enclosed kind of a screened-in pool in their backyard.
There was a dog running around the pool that was loose, but it was still contained within the residence.
It was not implausible to think that maybe it was an accident. She didn't swim. There was this dog running around.
There's a hose that she could have tripped over. It was put out early on, could she have been drinking?
Was there some sort of an accident? Did she like the pool? Absolutely not. Did she swim?
She didn't know how to swim. So this did not make sense at all. The way that the scene was set up
to make it look like she fell in the pool immediately raised the suspicions of the officers.
And law enforcement immediately thought, that just looks a little too perfect for her to have actually tripped over the hose
and fell in the pool. So it was immediately treated as more than just as suspicious incident.
I think it was immediately treated as a homicide until it could be proven otherwise.
[ominous music] In all homicide cases, you start really close to home. The concentric circle, you start close,
and then you get bigger and bigger and bigger. The deceased had been found in the pool.
We did not have a cause of death. We did not-- there was a lot that wasn't known.
So that first day when her body was discovered, what was really concerning the law enforcement was,
where are the children? What happened that day was this mad search for the children
and for Adam Frasch. JASON NEWLIN: We knew the victim Samira Frasch was French, from Madagascar,
of African and French descent. She had a family over there. So Samira was raised in Africa.
And it seems like, according of a few conversations she shared with me, she had a very challenging childhood.
It was extremely challenging. Samira came from a relatively impoverished background.
I understand that she didn't have a strong family system. Her mom was really her only close family
member, and that that relationship was somewhat estranged. From Africa, she went to Paris and pursue a modeling career.
And she was actually extremely successful. I think she saw him as somebody who could offer
her opportunities to pursue her goals of becoming a model, an actress, and a singer.
She was extremely beautiful. She was so enthusiastic, so happy. Never mentioned anything negative.
She seemed so happy. It was kind of like a Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, you know, "Pretty Woman" situation when
he started to shower her with a lot of gifts, expensive gifts-- from Chanel bags and shoes and clothing.
He wowed her and he made her believe that she was going to give her an incredible life in America,
and she believed him. He had two houses in Tallahassee within 5 miles of each other.
He had a third house in Thomasville. He had another house in Panama City. He had businesses that he owned.
He had 81 cars registered to him. I can imagine her being thrilled at the prospect
of moving here and having this attentive, enthusiastic, wealthy partner to begin a new life with.
She met Adam Frasch during Fashion Week in Paris in 2009. It was sort of love at first sight.
They became inseparable. They had this whirlwind courtship. They married in Las Vegas.
He was promising her, you know, a really incredible life. And we established Samira and Adam's relationship
history of domestic violence. And it was more recent. I mean, within weeks, there was domestic violence
incidents there. Late 2013 into 2014, divorce paperwork was filed. Adam was just losing the battle.
Mrs. Frasch had sole custody of the children. [ominous music] Within the first 24 hours, the priorities
were to locate the children. So law enforcement was going up on phones, meaning tracking the location of cell phones
that may be in Mr. Frasch's possession to try to determine his location. So an exigent phone order was done on Adam Frasch's phone.
We locate him in Panama City, Florida, with the two children. He's found within hours.
The Sheriff's deputies showed up there that afternoon. He was putting the children into the car seats,
looking like he was going to go somewhere. And that is when he was arrested. [siren wailing]
We then begin to get some information about the couple and their history. It didn't take very long to realize that we were
looking at a couple that was really in a lot of conflict at the time. Domestic incident started to occur.
Their relationship was falling apart. She continued to catch him with other females.
She would go through his phones and there was always somebody else on there. She had hired a private investigator
to follow him around. The evidence was plentiful for a divorce. He left his phone, you know, on the desk.
And then message would pop up here and there, and she would look at those messages.
Obviously, she took the phone number, and then she contacted this woman, you know.
And sure enough, she found out that he was having an affair with all these strippers.
So when she started to find out, she was heartbroken. The court had ruled that he was
not supposed to have the children, you know, without permission. So he was, in fact, initially arrested
for violation of the order involving the children. So kids are safe, he is in our custody,
now we have to figure out what happened. Initially, Mr. Frasch was questioned regarding
the interference with child custody, basically kidnapping the children. And that's where he kind of lays out his story.
Mr. Frasch would claim that they had had a romantic evening together the night before and had been sexually intimate,
and that she had become quite drunk. And that's why he was giving her some time that morning
to recuperate from being intoxicated and just going to take the kids to Panama City to give her a break.
Even though, according to the terms of the protection order, he was not to have the children that way.
But he said that they had been getting along and he had taken the children. He does tell us that he and Samira were trying to make up
and things were getting better. They spent the night together. And they were on their way back.
They were going to make this work. He has told she has passed away. And he's told there's an incident with his wife.
And he goes, oh, my gosh, I hope she didn't trip over that hose in the pool. I bet she was chasing the dog around the pool
and tripped over the hose and fell in the pool. The sandal supposedly fell off her foot.
Well, when you look at these sandals, it's a single wrap around a toe. That doesn't just easily come off.
You don't just trip over it. One of the detectives, he goes, Adam, you've sat here for hours
and told us this story about you're making passionate love with your wife, you've got your kids,
you're back together, and you haven't shed a single tear. Explain that. He doesn't have an answer to that.
So we dig deeper. Adam was certainly a millionaire. He was a very, very successful doctor.
So Mr. Frasch was a guy who enjoyed cars, women, trips, gambling. He wore flashy clothing.
He had something like 80 cars registered to him at the time that this murder happened.
They had multiple homes. They traveled a lot. So there was a lot of sort of flashy lifestyle going on.
He liked to go to strip clubs. He loved going to Vegas. He indulged in these kind of behaviors.
I mean, he lived fast, and it was a problem that plagued him in his relationships, you know, throughout
his various marriages. I mean, yeah, he had women and he had lots of expensive toys.
I don't know of anything they wouldn't try to purchase, at least. I mean, you know, the cars in the driveway
were Maseratis, Hummers. He had boats. He had at least two boats in Panama City.
Mr. Frasch had multiple girlfriends during the time that they were together. He impregnated another woman during the time
that they were together, so that was certainly a big issue. We went to Panama City to interview the people
where he had his boat stored. He had one that was being worked on and one that was functional.
The one that was being worked on became relevant later in the investigation was a go-fast boat.
The dockworkers at the Marina referred to him as the legend because, you know, he always have a different female.
Mr. Frasch's relationships all tended to be one direction, right? He paid for his relationships.
He lavished gifts on Mrs. Frasch. That's how he secured her to become his wife. He promised her the moon.
He promised her this career with singing and acting and modeling was going to all come true,
and they were going to have this fabulous home and family and everything. And I think his relationships with his friends
were the same way. He bought and paid for his friends, and his friends were along for the ride
because they liked to go out on the fancy boats and ride in the fancy cars and wine and dine with fancy women,
you know. I think Mr. Frasch didn't have a lot of genuine relationships in his life.
It was an illusion, right? It was all just sort of a fraud with this money, which
was the product of a fraud. During the investigation, we did learn that the Feds were investigating Adam
for a large Medicaid fraud. It was like really excessive overbilling to the tune of millions of dollars.
His podiatry practice in Thomasville was the subject of a Federal investigation that he was--
that there was fraud involved with Medicare and that he was bilking the system and overcharging.
He would bill Medicaid as if he was seeing his senior citizen patients twice a day,
every day of the year. And it was millions. I want to say $14 or $15 million in fraud.
His practice was a solo practice for podiatry. And he had an office in Thomasville, Georgia, which
is a very small town near here. So it tracks that he was stealing a lot of money
because you would not expect him to be able to afford the lifestyle that he was enjoying on the salary
or income of a podiatrist. They had that investigation going on. And it was just-- we were worried
we were going to lose him. We were worried he was going to get out of the country
before we were able to establish probable cause on our case. It was a lot of pressure.
The interference with child custody charge was primarily designed to hold him, to buy us some time to try to get the results
from the medical examiner, find out if we, in fact, had a homicide. Because the fear was if he got out,
that he had the resources to flee and potentially not be able to be recovered once
we developed enough evidence to charge him with the murder. Typically, an autopsy is conducted
within 24 hours of the death, and that was the case here. We were hoping the autopsy would reveal a time of death.
Because the time of death was very important in this case to establish that she had to die while she was with Mr. Frasch,
prior to him departing with the children that morning. Unfortunately, because of the temperature of the water being
quite cold, that interferes with the decomposition process that would give clues as to how long she had been in the water.
We were frustrated when we were unable to obtain the time of death. That would have been the most obvious
piece of evidence to definitively prove Mr. Frasch was the suspect. Another potential problem we had in the case
was there was some unknown DNA that was on the robe that Mrs. Frasch was wearing in the pool at the scene.
We collected as many buccal swabs, DNA swabs as we could from everybody, and compared
it to unknown DNA in the robe. Compared it to Adams, compared it to Samira's, compared it to firefighters, police officers.
We tested that DNA against every known person that would have had contact with her that we could think of,
every potential other suspect that there could be. And we were not ever able to identify the owner of that DNA.
However, the autopsy revealed several damning pieces of evidence. Dr. Flannagan observed large swelling
and bruising on the side of Samira's face. The injuries to both sides of Mrs. Frasch's head,
indicating that she did suffer a blow to the head that, in the expert's opinion,
resulted in her falling and receiving a second blow to the head on some hard, flat surface,
possibly the pool deck or a marble flooring inside the home. So that was a really important piece of information
in refuting the possibility of her having fallen and hit her head and drowned in the pool,
because she's not going to hit her head twice on both sides on the way in. Secondly, there was DNA evidence under Mrs. Frasch's fingernails.
And there was also her toxicology results. Although the scene had been staged well
for that with champagne bottles around, there was no champagne at all in her system.
Zero alcohol, zero nothing. I mean, it was zeros across the board. Let's take it one step further.
And we tested other fluids, the vitriol fluid, which is, like, in your eyes. And apparently, it's the last place
that if alcohol was in the body, this is the last place you would find it. Zeros, no alcohol.
Definitely no alcohol within the last 24 hours. In trying to determine the cause of death,
there was a frothy liquid. Frothy-- no, fluid in her lungs, which is indicative of inhalation of the water.
So, the cause of death was actually listed as blunt force trauma and drowning. There was a possibility that had she not been placed in the pool,
she could have survived the trauma. There were officers calling through all the paperwork,
learning what was happening between the two of them leading up to this incident.
It was clear that it was very contentious and very ugly and a lot of he said, she said.
So the volatility that was present in the relationship, you could see in these court documents
that we're playing out. We found a history that suggested that this was something that was ongoing and was escalating.
Mr. Frasch wanted to control Mrs. Frasch and she was pushing back. They were having each other arrested,
calling the law on each other, making accusations against each other, which the other claimed were false.
And there was a power struggle going on regarding the children, the money, the marital home, et cetera.
Law enforcement reports that suggest that they had kind of a push and pull relationship over the years, and that Samira
could have a sharp tongue. Others stated that their relationship was volatile. Adam actually was the victim first in all of this.
Adam had Samira arrested for domestic violence, received an injunction against her and custody of the children.
An abusive husband will try to beat his victim to the courthouse to file an injunction to prevent her
from doing the same thing, to control her, to control their resources. So, you know, can you imagine Samira's surprise,
you know, not knowing anything about the legal system in the United States. And suddenly, she's slapped with this injunction, where
she's suddenly homeless, her children have disappeared, she has no resources, and likely very little
understanding of just what happened. Samira so courageously began by fighting back against Adam.
She had reached out to get her own lawyer to fight back for custody of her daughters.
Initially, Mr. Frasch had all the control because he was from here. He was familiar with the legal system here.
And she was someone who had no control. She didn't speak the language. She didn't have any friends.
She didn't have any connections. She wasn't familiar with the system or how to manipulate it.
So I think that how he controlled her was, everything is mine, nothing is yours.
If you leave, you'll have nothing. You will never see your kids again. You won't have all these gifts and things.
You won't have a home. You won't have anywhere to go. You don't have any support.
And so the tables really turned once she began to make those connections and learn
how to navigate the system. And I don't think that was an acceptable result for Mr. Frasch.
[ominous music] I think the trouble definitely began to emerge around the time that the children were born.
When a new baby comes into a relationship where these dynamics of power and control are emerging,
her attention now is divided. He may see the child and the mom in some kind of an alliance against him, or they
can challenge his authority. A partner who is on the road towards exerting greater control
and dominance in the relationship can be escalated or accelerated by the presence
of a baby in the household. As is customary in domestic violence relationships, there's a honeymoon phase--
so there's abuse, and then there's a makeup period. Take me back, please forgive me, let me lavish you with gifts,
let me make it up to you, it'll never happen again. So that was true in this case, maybe even more so
because of the resources available to ply her with all of these types of gifts and travel
and things that would basically give her hope that things were going to change or improve.
[ominous music] We go back to the residence and go through everything and photograph it.
We sprayed a chemical, it's blue star, that tries to illuminate blood on the patio.
There was a small area that illuminated. We did swab it. We submitted it for analysis.
It came back negative, but that could very easily be explained with the bleach bottle in the pool.
But it did illuminate as if there was blood on the patio. Not a lot of evidence was truly collected.
I mean, her articles were collected, the clothing items were collected, but photographs was the biggest evidence we had at the time.
The other thing you have to understand is the interior of this residence is a mess.
It is so full. I don't know if these two went by a store without buying anything.
I mean, they had-- it was just clutter. Clutter, clutter, clutter. Living room, dining room, family room, bedroom.
The decor in the Frasch home was kind of astounding in its lavishness. It was all black lacquer and gold gild,
and there was just a lot of it. I think there are some people who use their wealth
to try to acquire more and more and more things, and it's a bottomless pit. And he's a great example of that.
If you look inside any of their homes, it was just stuff. You know, nice stuff, expensive stuff,
but nobody really needs that much stuff. I said, there's no way she could be killed in there because you
couldn't swing a dead cat in there without knocking over 10 gold statues. Everything was large.
I mean, let's just say it was extreme. As an example, he had a painting of, like, imagine King Henry VIII poised
at his throne in his living room or dining room. And the face on the king was his own.
Nothing that stood out as a murder weapon or what could have caused any of this.
It was just-- it was just clutter. Their house had cameras-- camera in the pool, camera everywhere.
The DVR was not plugged in the date of the homicide, or we could have seen everything that happened.
As their relationship is falling apart, Samira hires a private investigator. Days prior to this homicide, he took
the DVR from their house to extract information to review it. To show up and do the first search of the residence
and see cameras everywhere and then realize the DVR is gone was beyond frustrating.
Hoping it would be tapped into a Wi-Fi or anything. We were hoping neighbors, we were hoping anybody.
Nobody had any video in the neighborhood. The only video we had from the neighborhood
was the gate entrance. And we learned that they were together in the hours leading up to the murder.
We do have evidence they drove to Thomasville, to Panama City, and back to Tallahassee the day before she was killed.
We did get information that she was making him take her to all of his houses so she could see if there
was other women's clothes. Three days before her death, Samira asked me to go to her house because she
wanted to show me something that somebody sent her in the mail. It was kind of an SD card with some footage in it.
It was wild intimacy between Adam Frasch and the stripper. And she was beside herself.
Let me tell you, she was so heartbroken. She was very upset when she learned about the fact
that he was having affairs with other women. And, in fact, in one case, you know,
she thought that he had fathered a child with another woman. This was all incredibly upsetting to her.
Samira came to know about Adam's infidelities. And it's a humiliation that her feelings
and perspectives and self-respect were not important to him. I told her, you are in love with the few two,
three years he gave you at the beginning. You're not enough with this guy. He's a monster.
I said, listen to me, I had a similar situation with a friend of mine in LA. And I'm telling you, this guy has the same pattern.
He's going to try to kill you. Get out. Don't care about the money. Don't care about anything.
We help you get out. And three days later, she was dead. They were seen on a surveillance camera
shortly before the murder at a car repair place parking lot on surveillance in what appeared to be an argument.
They're in separate cars, but they're getting out of the cars and you can see them sort of engaged in an interaction
that appears to be unfriendly. Frasch comes through the gate, and then you see her husband get in his vehicle
and follow her through the gate. That's the last time Mrs. Frasch was seen alive.
The Sheriff's office sat down and reviewed every camera from the three gates, entering and exiting,
for two days-- two full days. We can see Adam leave the neighborhood at 7:59, 7:58,
like 8:00 o'clock on the dot. We see it. He's in the same clothes that he wore the night before.
On the morning of the 22nd, Mr. Frasch is seen loading his children into the couple's black SUV and leaving the neighborhood
with the children. That's early in the morning, earlier than Mr. Frasch typically would be up and moving.
And it would be very unusual for him to do anything with the children without her ever.
One, because he was legally prohibited from doing so at that time, but also just it wasn't his practice to do
things with the children alone. So there were a lot of things about that conduct
that were odd. Phone records were improving. They were getting better. We were able to use the records of Adam's phone to track
Adam throughout that day. You could follow it down the interstate. And we see that his cell phone travels to a bank,
and we're able to get the surveillance from the bank. Adam withdraws $5,000 in cash.
Still wearing the same clothes, and his kids are in their pajamas. Everybody we talked to says they're not going to run out
of the house in their pajamas. They were dressed to the nines everywhere they went.
So it was really unusual for them to be out with their dad at that hour dressed that way.
Everything about the scene that morning was really unusual. Cellebrite extraction tells us,
there is a phone in the diaper bag traveling with the kids to Panama City. Adam is calling this phone, asking Samira how's she doing--
just checking on you. Haven't heard from you. Why aren't you answering the phone?
He has the phone with him. It's not with Samira. His wife is dead in the pool. So we talked to many different kinds
of witnesses that started to paint a picture of Mr. Frasch. We were able to establish several different girlfriends
that Mr. Frasch was having at or around the time of the murder. So maybe not all ongoing, but certainly in the recent past.
And part of our motivation for doing that, identifying those women, was to rule them
out as the potential killer. And the other thing we were trying to do with them is to establish that Mr. Frasch, when he left
the residence, did try to take the children to one of these other women's houses.
Which would be inconsistent with what he was claiming, which is, I was just taking the girls for the day
to give Mrs. Frasch a break. Adam is in custody pending the child custody hearings.
While Adam is in jail, he befriends Dale Folsom, another inmate, and they discuss their cases.
Adam apparently started asking, inquiring about prison life and what's it like and how do you survive.
And this guy's like, wow, what did you do? What are you in here for? This was a guy that Mr. Frasch was
housed with in the Leon County Jail, who was about to be released. We get these kinds of calls all the time.
This is not new jailhouse snitches are a dime a dozen. I don't like relying on them.
I don't like my cases relying on them. But you can't turn them down either. Jailhouse informants are always suspicious.
The juries don't like them. And their testimony is frequently not used, unless it can be corroborated
with some outside evidence. What I generally do is I go kind of feel the water real quick.
I'll go out and talk to them and say, what do you have? He starts telling me things that I knew were factual,
that were not public knowledge. Well, through their relationship, they start talking about the case.
They start talking about books. "The Scarpetta Factor" was a book about a homicide,
where the subject was the victim was thrown in the pool and the pool cleaned the scene.
And Adam is telling him, this is what I did, put her in the pool because it would clean it.
And then he talks about the confrontation. Adam told Dale Folsom, you know, she confronted me about a female.
We got in a fight, I knocked her out and I panicked. I pushed her in the pool. A jailhouse snitch informant informed us
that he had been asked by Mr. Frasch to travel to the marital residence and tamper with this evidence.
We kept having to go back and forth to interview this guy to corroborate, all right,
what more has he told you? He told me he was going to flee the country. He told me he had a go-fast boat in Panama City.
We go to Panama City. Sure enough, he's got to go-fast boat in Panama City. It was in the shop.
It was in the shop. Confirmed it was in the shop. He took the cash out because he was going to flee.
He took the cash out. Just little things that he had that there was only one person
he got it from. He didn't get it from us because we didn't know it. It wasn't in a report because we didn't put it in a report.
He had been asked by Mr. Frasch to look for a golf club, or a set of golf clubs,
at the couple's residence. So I guess the suggestion is, this golf club might be involved in the murder,
potentially the murder weapon. Adam says, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to get rid of the golf clubs.
I want them thrown away-- river, lake, ditch-- somewhere they'll never be found again.
I don't want these golf clubs found. By the time this search warrant was executed,
this house has been emptied. There is nothing left. The cars are gone. Golf clubs are gone.
Everything in the garage is gone. All the curtains and the blinds and everything that
was hung on the walls are gone. The photos are gone. This is a bare bones structure of a house.
Walk into the master bedroom and there is a golf club leaning in the corner, just sitting there.
It's a golf club. And I literally laugh. I'm like, OK, we've been set up. This is a good joke.
Got us. There's a golf club in the house, wow. When that golf club was processed,
it did have the presence of Mrs. Frasch's DNA on the club face consistent with that potentially being the murder weapon.
However, the medical examiner did not think it was consistent with the weapon that could have been used.
So we had a discrepancy in what could potentially have been the murder weapon. The medical examiner felt strongly
that it was more-- the injuries were more consistent with her having been hit with his fist, and then falling and hitting
a flat, hard surface. I still think that it could have been this club. Or at a minimum, this club was used to push
her right on out into the pool. Who knows? But her DNA was found on that golf club.
[ominous music] There's two ways you can get a murder charge-- one, you can do it by probable cause affidavit,
or you can get an indictment by a grand jury. The decision to take this case to the grand jury
was made because we needed other people to hear what we have and see if they could see through the same problems we
saw. When we ended up taking the case to the grand jury for the murder charge, Mr. Frasch
elected to appear on his own behalf and testify to the grand jury. In 25 years of doing this, I can tell you
that that is the only criminal defendant that has ever come to testify at grand jury on his own behalf.
And I think that shows a level of arrogance. He felt that he could come into that courtroom
and convince those grand jurors that he had nothing to do with this and absolve himself.
Mr. Frasch's decision to testify at the grand jury proceeding, it didn't go very well.
The grand jurors did not believe him. This was given to 21 people, and said, here, you guys tell us if we have enough to charge him
or not. They decided we did. From that point, he was in custody for another, maybe a year until we tried the case in 2017.
[ominous music] It took about three years to get Mr. Frasch to trial on this murder case.
I felt extremely confident that I had the right guy, but extremely nervous that I might lose him.
I can tell you she was alive at 11:00. I can tell you he was driving out of the neighborhood at 8:00 AM.
But what happened between when she came in that gate, what, 11:00 at night and he's leaving the gate
at 8:00 o'clock in the morning. We just have to try to prove now to another set of jurors
that Adam Frasch had murdered his wife, Samira Frasch. The strategy at trial is to present the case
in a way that is digestible and makes the most sense to the jurors. So I try to tell a story.
I start with the scene typically, and then build out from there. What evidence was gleaned from the scene?
What evidence was gleaned from the body? Tracking the phones, and then what evidence
did that lead us to-- so witnesses, people he was talking to. And sort of start to follow the story
as it developed during the investigation itself. The history of the relationship fell into trial strategy
as something that came to light after the discovery of the body. So you have this shocking discovery,
these dramatic events, this 911 call, and this beautiful woman who's been murdered.
And who would do such a thing? So then you sort of develop the motive through showing everything that was happening
in the relationship between these two in the days and months leading up to the killing.
The problem with his defense is he kept trying to come up with another person. I mean, he blamed everybody.
It was somebody else. So I monitored a lot of jail calls, listen to this case preparing.
And he had more theories that you could imagine. But it was a, somebody else did it, it wasn't me.
But nobody else had a reason. Nobody else was there. You were the last person to see her alive.
I struggled with what to do with that golf club, and ultimately just decided I would give it to the jury,
not oversell it, and let them make a decision about the relevance of any. But I think the most compelling evidence
in the case for the jurors was probably the testimony of the medical examiner that was really compelling
and the testimony about the DNA. When you pair that, it's like the victim is telling
us the story of what happened. His DNA is under my fingernails. And look at the scratch on his face.
And he's lying about it, saying that the baby did it. His own words being refuted by the evidence
is really compelling, I think, for a juror. Mrs. Frasch had a voice from the grave,
both with the evidence that was collected from her body, the court records, and the efforts
that she had made to try to document what was happening to her, the abuse that she was suffering,
and the power dynamic that she was caught up in. We put it to the jurors that Samira
was winning the legal battles. She was winning in court. He was unraveling pretty quick, too.
She got the house. She got the kids. She was going to get a lot of money out of this.
Where was he going to land? What was he going to do? I mean, there's no telling what more she had on him.
What was he afraid of coming out? I don't know. But, yeah, he was losing the battle.
So the trial took about a week. When we got to closing arguments, my job there is to make the jury care.
Remind them what this is about. Tell the story of how everything led up to this moment,
where this guy made the decision to kill his wife. And to remind them what the biggest pieces of evidence are,
but also to push back against whatever the defenses that are being raised. I think money was an issue.
There was a lot of money involved in the case. But I think it was all about the power and control.
So what happened that night, I'm sure she threatened him to divorce. And I told her, please don't confront.
Don't confront him. Don't confront Adam. Because who knows what can happen? He got caught again.
I think she confronted him with it. I think a fight ensued. I would even go as far as to say she probably
was aggressive towards him. I think he hit her, panicked-- what do I do? Put her in the pool.
Pack the kids up, gotta go. And I truly think that's the case. We closed, gave closing arguments.
We all left to go eat lunch. And we weren't far down the road, we got a call to come back.
That they'd reached a verdict. [ominous music] After deliberating, the jury came back with a guilty verdict.
In Florida, there's only one sentence for first degree murder, and that is mandatory life in prison,
so that is what Mr. Frasch's sentence was. Adam's decisions, the ripple effect are far and wide.
Adam had six kids in total. All six lost their dad for life. He's in prison. Those two girls lost their mom.
The kids are doing well and actually living a normal life. Samira, who was so cheerful and so happy
and so giving and so special. To have this human being, this wonderful human being removed
from this Earth in a way, way too early, you know. it was not her time, you know.
It was way too early. I felt very guilty because I had another friend who lived the same situation, and I felt like I
should have been stronger. I should have said, no, get out of here, like, right now.
I felt extremely guilty. I think Mr. Frasch was incredibly surprised that he was
undone by his wife, who he thought he had ultimate control over. And maybe just the chef's kiss on it
that it was a female prosecutor that put him away. [theme music]

In 2014, Samira Frasch was found lying dead in her own pool. Her estranged husband Adam Frasch was arrested in a case involving allegations of abuse and a financial motive in her killing.

Greed, jealousy, revenge, lust, anger — any and all are motives for murder. When there's cash involved, the stakes are even higher. Explore a new case in each episode of Millionaire Murders.

Brief Summary

Samira Frasch was murdered by her husband Adam, who was later convicted of first-degree murder after a tumultuous investigation and trial.

Key points

The Discovery of Samira Frasch. Samira Frasch is found dead in her pool, raising immediate suspicions of foul play.
A Volatile Relationship. The investigation reveals a history of domestic violence and conflict between Samira and Adam.
The Illusion of Wealth. Adam Frasch's lavish lifestyle is revealed to be built on fraud and superficial relationships.
The Autopsy Results. The autopsy reveals evidence of blunt force trauma, contradicting the initial accident theory.
The Fight for Custody. Samira begins to fight back for custody of her children amidst a tumultuous relationship.
Guilty Verdict. After deliberating, the jury found Adam Frasch guilty of first-degree murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This did not make sense at all.

Discussion about Samira's fear of the pool and inability to swim.

4:52WatchMar 21, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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