A story of tragedy and triumph -- the murder of a young woman and how a her killer’s heart saves the life of a dying woman. CBS News' Jim Axelrod reports for "48 Hours."
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Simply on audible. Milan burg is a master manipulator with a photographic memory and a shameful secret. He never learn to read. So when a car stops in front of him and traffic
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And I have never
encountered a story like this. That was so
the combination of utter tragedy and happiness
We call this story the beating heart, because a heart survived a tragic event,
So's christmas site
eighty six, all the christmas cheer
season. Everyone's
He smiled and so is the best christmas ever I was following hard in love and then
police gotta call around two am that shots were fired at an apartment, complex and they rushed to the scene
first detective on the scene, was detective commonly went up to the second floor to the apartment.
I walked in and a young nineteen year old female was lying on the floor with what appeared to be bugged. Coming from her face, and
her head and her eyes. The victim was Karen irmak.
thirty, I am Saturday apparent murmured was found dead in her apartment shot three times and they had detective leans. Looking at this horrifying scene.
and suddenly a woman shows up and it's the victim's mother.
We looked at each other in the face, and I said I hate to tell you this, but
Nineteen year old, daughter, dead, she was murdered and shit.
Perhaps in my arms tommy I can't imagine
There's anything you learn in the academy that prepares you for a moment like that. I'll, never forget it.
You never forget time. Mother, there
Nineteen year old daughter has been murdered, shocked. I believe it at first. My name is rich leap. I don't care karen earmarked for several years and we have recently started dating and it just hit me like
ton of bricks. I couldn't imagine what happened when
my room laid down in my bed, I think I cried for twelve hours. It was just she's gone
I didn't get to say goodbye to her. It just kind of the whole, but
that's not where the story ended.
something amazing came out of something horrifying, doesn't happen that often and
the-
If there are two things in this world did washing
both columnist jean Weingarten loves. They are writing old clocks are kind and tinkering with time. This
was made around eighteen ninety five and when I'm done with it, it'll be working like new. When you
Repairing a really old clock
feel as though you are in touch with time itself
gene is one believe there is no such thing as an ordinary day. The countless stories lay hidden in space and time some lost forever. Others destined to be discovered. My theory has been, then, if you take a day midnight to midnight
All day you would find encapsulated in that day the entire human experience
and I decided to challenge that theory. How
I wholly numbers randomly out of a hat
gene and is editor Tom Schroeder went to the old debit grilling
washington DC through twenty years.
Of random dates into a green for door and take one to prove genes theory that something extraordinary happens. Every day we came up with december twenty eighth night
in eighty six. It was the slowest news day of the week a sunday
during the slowest time of the year, the christmas holidays, if we could read the thought bubbles over both of your heads, you couldn't print them. We felt we hand really drawn a terrible terrible day, but
rooted genes theory, he would soon learn. This was no ordinary day. Something amazing had happened, a medical feet that would make history
something astonishing happened, it remarkable triumph and then I investigated fervour in an entirely
Different story related to it emerged.
and then involved a savage murder, the murder of Karen murmured? He met a detective need Tommy Lee, who had held on two counts file for thirty years, for reasons he couldn't quite explicit,
The case was closed, but I couldn't just store her away.
a bother me that our life was cut short. I thank god.
For virgin wine gardener, because she's gonna have,
a little more of a legacy. Then just a obituary earn a year, but can you described karen for me a little bit from a purely physical standpoint? She was effortlessly beautiful. You look at her pictures and you just see someone who wasn't trying to be pretty. She just was pretty. She was
How did she played the flute and everybody really loved her, including rich leap? I think about all the time. Rich,
first met karen in high school when she started dating,
another guy. His childhood friend mark wily worshipped the ground she walked on this
a teenage boy that was really proud to be on the arm of a beautiful young girl. But over time ridge shoe double dated with mark and Karen says marks. Pry
do obsession. If she wasn't with him, he always want to know where she was actually at times
drove around northern virginia following her
the fine drought which he was doing and where she was here,
was a young man who was furious.
in love with a young woman,
and I'm using the word furiously deliberately. He was what we would now call stalker. This was a guy who had this beautiful teenage girl on his arm and lived in
fear that he was going to lose her. Definitely if she were somewhere and seventy smiled looked at her and she smiled back. What are you looking at
for. This is not somebody who got a little too into his romantic partner. He wanted to
on her marks affection for whisky made matters worse.
Is he started getting alcohol in him? He got paranoid defensive about
real thing and really
reason
and moody. He became a dark figure.
Yes, he was commonly known as an angry drunk and karen was not one to back down from a fight. They became very fiery together. He would start an argument. Oh he looked at you, you looked at him, but she would argue back, and I think that
made him angrier. Rich, this is combustible mix. It really was rich
grew so disgusted by marks behaviour towards Karen. He seven his friendship with mark, but he would later learned just how combustible mark and currents relief.
kinship was she gone gonna hospital number times for injuries. She said that they would get into fights, and it was literally like a fistfight that she does.
try to defend yourself. That was very disturbing to hear that he overwhelmed her over the years to the point where she realized
We could take this no more and she broke up with him. Around
this time rich, received a letter that would change his life
I got an anonymous letter and it was a love letter. I was just
I don't know who this is I'd like to know who this is, but I have no idea completely
completely anonymous. It was obviously for
someone who knew me and that she thought that I was
and inconsiderate, and she hoped that she couldn't get up the nerve to tell me who she was. Finally, she did come christmas day. I got a phone call and its current and she tells me I broke up
mark I made my apartment all by myself. My roommates are gone. Come over. Keep me company, sure love turn great friends, so we spend
a wonderful evening, together, talking and just having a great time
way through the night. She tells me to get a letter couple months ago.
And I was just floored no idea she
Call me that she had always had feelings for me and we just.
fell right into step. If I enjoy it
with truth serum on the night of twenty six? You think you found your life partner problem. I can't help but wonder what might have been. It was like a reverie.
patient to her. As soon as the sounds that you could have a romantic relationship that didn't cause pain,
She had known that but mark wildly
fuse to let her go says rich. Who was there, when current called mark to tell
There was no chance of getting back together.
It was look. I've tried to tell you
Nicely I've tried to explain it to you. I've tried to be general about it, but we're through I'm not gonna, put up with your abuse anymore,
and I don't want to see you anymore. Why did you hear just raised voice angry raised voice
But she was smiling and I think she felt a huge sense of relief to finally felt, like I'm done with this noble
really cause the pure horror of this break up. He told her at the time he was going to kill her. She laughed. She didn't think this was going to be possible
seymour. The evidence photos that forty eight hours dot.
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Reach leave will never forget the last time he saw carrying murmured. He was saying goodbye before leaving on a one day. Ski trip I told her.
I I really don't want to go. I just want to spend time with you, but I
men obligation their expecting me and said: ok I'll see you tomorrow
ah said sure. I will call you as soon as I get in and reported ways. Neither one imagine to restrain boyfriend mark wily was
making plans a bizarre. He was either going to be able to get back together with this woman. He had this obsession about yes, where he was going to kill him. That's correct
armed with a bottle of whisky and twenty two caliber rifle market
we got into his car and headed two counts apartment market,
in a rage, obviously he's not thinking. Clearly Karen had every right to break up with him. She almost had an obligation to break up with him, so he's got a bunch of rage. Yes, he does he's, got a bunch of booze. Yes and he's got a rifle. Yes, awful combination deadly one-
so take me through. He shows up here.
He doesn't go in through the front door. Now he parked his car around the other side walks over. Here. He climbed up a tree to a balcony near her bedroom. He apparently had the rifle on his
He started on the balcony walked in two,
The house detective lee believes it was marks last ditch effort to winner back and they got in
rather heated argument
and I think it was at that time that did he
sided, it's not going to work out when he goes back out and gets to twenty two
and shoots five rounds in killing her richly got the news
He returned from his ski trip. I walk in the door drop. My stuff immediately go to pick up the phone and my mother comes in and stops me from dialing and says: rich Karen was shot last night and I'm just in shock. Oh my gosh. What hospital where she had she didn't make it.
and this is the part of the story where out of something horrifying came, something amazing says jean departed. The story that belong to this young woman either base
a very sick. Twenty year old, nursing student fighting for her life in fairfax hospital
A couple of months earlier, this single mother of two young children had said
they fallen ill. She couldn't walk more than a half block without stuff
and we using climbing a set of stairs, had become a him away and
ask for her. Her own doktor felt she had possibly a month or two to live,
finally went to see her heart, specialist and hard specialist. Did some tests and said I need
put you in touch with a man? I know it was dark. Color frack when doktor read me, frank, chief of cardiac surgery at fairfax hospital in Virginia met, even beijing. She was suffering from it.
perfect, cardio, my appetite, you powdered means. We have no idea what cause the heart failure. Her heart began to fail doctor
rack knew she would not survive without a radical procedure. A heart transplants there was just one hitch had you ever performed a hard transplant before no, I had known,
in nineteen. Eighty six heart transplants were so uncommon. No hospitals in the greater.
captain b c area were legally allowed to perform metal, doktor frank determined to make fairfax the first fought relentlessly to get permission. The local health agency said no, there was
enough demand. Some people might hear the no and go away
my role, as is the opposite
A dillinger was his surgical nurse. He was very determined and he wouldn't take no for an answer. The frank catch to plan bring the man who performed the first successful hard transplant ever in nineteen. Sixty seven celebrated on the cover of time magazine, doktor, christian barnard, to lobby the state of commissioner,
on the franks behalf. He arrived in virginia like a superstar. He said it would.
A moral do not permit a quality.
I'd surgeon like doktor le to do this surgery and instantly think they got permission technology
I just came in the o r the next day, and he says we got it. You think well.
Second, ok we're on now. We need to find the first perfect patient. First perfect patient was
the base, but she was running out of time.
was dying. She was getting sicker and sicker deirdre carolyn deaf linger receivers, primary care.
nurse. It was a very real possibility that she could die before she got a heart. Many people do not knowing when or if a donor would come through, doktor le Frank, his wife, Trudy and therefore girls cancel their family holiday ski trim. He only had one thing on his mind.
after a frank and his team they're looking for a heart, they have somebody to save, and then it came the call they didn't been waiting for its ago. It's a girl.
Doktor doctor refract in his team, were getting ready to make history about to become the first team
the greater DC area to attempt a heart transplants. They had finally found the perfect donor for even basic. Did you know
anything about the donor. At that point, no, I really did not know anything about the donor. I think they are
man told me it was a donor with a gunshot wound to the head, but it was karen murmured in the perfect narrative. Karen urge heart would have been the one that says
if even basic, but that's not how it happened. Things are not always said simple. It was the killers heart that safety for basic after mark wily shot his ex girlfriend karen irma day,
He paused he waited in the house until the police arrived and started, knocking on the door and then a shot himself in the far
So if the relationship was over, then life was gonna, be over yes, for both can and for him that's correct. Mark wily was declared brain dead, but his heart,
was still beating. How was it still beating the bullet passed through both
miss fears of the brain. Somehow when,
happens. Often
but not always, the heart keeps beating.
By the time you arrive at this apartment. He's gone, yes
he's been transported to last, but yes, his body
rushed to the same hospital where even basic lay dying is the transplant coordinators saw permission from marks parents to donate their son, still beating heart
marks. Father Larry wily gave a brief
voice only statement to local media who founded have covered a terrible tragedy. One
they never bitterly eel. Hopefully something good can come out of this tragedy. There were good people,
they were horrified. They were in grief and yellow thing they may do. I call
Even baby was wheeled down the operating room. Six, I said a prayer for her
A believer in prayer were excited for her, but were also terrified. I mean she could die downstairs. Doktor left,
and his team gathered in operating room twelve to remove for the first time a living beating heart.
They had been working with corpses in the morgue heart transplantation was not taught in colleges in men
schools at the time. The only way to learn it was to do it.
Do regular hard operation in the morning and then be in between operations
to the more with a team and then go back to the operating room
doctor. You were learning how to perform heart transplants on your lunch hour because you could say, but this time
was for real as ready, as you were, was any part of you at all levels,
scared. No, not at all felt totally comfortable work done this many times in the morgue.
We like you practice exactly yeah, doktor, frank
began. To remove the donor. Heart left
is a man with a pair of scissors, and here
essentially cut it out of that body with
scissors that aren't very different from what
can greater would use to cut colored paper religious scissors. We cook cod caught,
cut the aorta
poland. I already there.
it is free taken.
How hard out donor takes five minutes. It's fine
Three he's so I take it out coal because we
with cold solution and then immediately put it in bags with eyes the heart which idea
We shouldn't stay outside the body. More than four hours was bad and put into an igloo cooler, same kind, you by the soup,
market. When we were gathering all our supplies, it was like one. Who's got a cooler as a walker, an igloo cooler,
cooler and from all about my cooler and from home last I still have that cool or the cooler with the heart was carried from our twelve ninety feet, down the hall to our six beavis room. What was the mood like an hour? Six
I think it was a high, real high sense of anticipation. Oh my gosh, where,
I doing this twelve,
trauma and despair. Sixes hope, yeah absolutely, and you know that we're fixin somebody doktor frank, began. Replacing eve is dying
hard with the healthy one. You remove evils heart and now why
whence it out. Now we take the
donor heart out of the cooler and
have to do a little preparing on
to so it into this big empty space, which is quite dramatic, seen, there's a person I and there on the operating table, evo, whither, just open and no heart
and she is alive because she's getting circle
and through the heart lung regime he began
so the new heart into even chest,
wall of eve. Is heart was left in place that makes it
much easier to so.
donor heart to even after about forty five minutes, the new heart was in either base
his chest now came the moment of truth. Usually
you need an electric shock. You have those paddles. There is in this case.
Like this odd alchemy in the harshest started, beating that must have been a was,
Incredible exhilarating very rewarding gus see I did tearful of ireland
And is that the moment you think to yourself? Did it
I don't usually think like that, because.
Our two it's over the sea goes on.
Join the conversation with the forty eight hours to on facebook and twitter.
Every detectors has a case to hygiene, and this case,
her heart. Man tell the day I die. The carrying murmured murder case was closed. The killer was deck, but detective tommy late, couldn't let it go. He went to her funeral
You didn't know our now, but I had some time where their mother or been wrong.
For me not to go pay respects to turn whose life was cut so short,
There's no way you can wipe away the central tragedy of the story. A deeply disturbed man killed an innocent young.
You can only move on from it and say something past
happened as a result. The washington in areas first heart transplants cases, a dramatic story.
One district woman's life renewed. It was huge news, the first tar transplant recipient in the garage-
washington, DC area. It made it through the operation.
Twenty year old mother of tools and serious but stable condition and fairfax hospital tonight, it's a miracle. It's a miracle! I was very touched and happy
the fact that she was doing well and had gotten through the surgery. Finally, either bays opened her eyes, as just woke got like others went to sleep tat night
guinea overnight night. You. I have forgotten that I was sick. When I woke up and I just want to go home,
it's like you know, go home. You already know so hey while they're like what part of transplant did you understand exactly yeah, she didn't know it, but the hardest part was still to come. The fight against her body's natural instinct to reject her new heart transplant coordinator, Mary beth meadows. The body never never accepts that heart as their own. It's always somebody else's jeans, so we have to fool it, always
the way to fool the bodies with anti rejection, drugs and since eva was patient number one doktor frank,
was teaching himself all about it. It was a delicate balancing act
suppressing her immune system to prevent rejection without leaving her too vulnerable to infection was quite a while she was in the hospital. I think every time either had rejection. I was worried that we would lose her because her rejections were quite severe. Sometimes eva was korean
in to guard against infection. You looked like from the movies now, where people going to their own way that someone has a bowler or something, and I we put booty
on the head coverings in gaol-
in everything just going to know she must have felt so isolated and scared, and there it was difficult. There was the hardest
I want to see my babies, they
Let my mom come in and she had to stand in a corner for five minutes with a mask and gloves you know, is you couldn't hug lol know as the weeks ticked by
even seem to be doing well medically, but struggled in her small lonely world says deirdre, who was one of her few connections to the outside
Jerry lonely: that's why I used to stay after sometimes and just sit with her, so the chechen company. I mean we try and bring her in
things if she wanted it or you know, we'd get her stuff.
Come home and bring it in. We did whatever we could to keep her more comfortable either with particularly upset one day, and she said I just I want to get out of here. I want to breathe fresh air, so deirdre devised a play.
She carefully cleaned her car put eva in a mask and gloves, and the two hit the road we just went out for a drive. They even stopped at mcdonalds. She got a hamburger and, I think, a coke or something and she wanted french fries
we ditched the french fries. I said: let's not push it I'd like to keep my job. God bless danger, huh yeah and oh, my god. It was the best burger I have ever had. I was so tired of hospital food. Dr Le frac had reluctantly agreed to be audi, but deirdre and eva kept the fast.
Own part, a secret army. We gave our guidelines but see wasn't a big guideline person. It turns out that the transplant transform more than just the
asia surgeons are usually known for their bedside manner.
yeah. That's how he wasn't in vienna in the beginning. Yes, he's foreign quiet he's very
quiet he's very high,
if I'm going to inject this into you and by eva stay to the point and get out my wrong. How did that relationship evolve? I think that he was happy that it was his.
fast, so he became a little more open and then
Italy he's you know just came
this shell.
I learned to love even accept all parts of our. So I love
who was not standard operating procedure, banal surgeon impatient? No, I don't think I've ever had
What kind of relationship with any other frac wasn't the only one following under even spell she so thankful and kind. If you'll pay, you appreciate back
nearly two months after being we'll din so close to death even base. He was finally given the ok to walk out the hospital doors.
The day she was ready to go home, the whole team was there to say goodbye to even her mom with their mother.
heaven
it was wonderful type,
I mean that was so exhilarating to see her go out that door and to know she had gotten through this.
Did you allow yourself a moment when she did go home to think to yourself? I have now accomplished. I try
yeah. That was a good day. I can pictures.
lay her getting into the car patient number one went home, but it would be years before she learned the whole story behind her new heart.
It's going to be a very special valentine's day for one district woman, either busy finally went home, but life was not the same
at first. She could only see her kids an hour a day due to the risk of infection, and she was told she could never work as a nurse doctors were concerned that she would be susceptible to disease.
if she worked around sick people. The procedure that saved her life was going to cost her her job more than her job was going to cost her her dream. She wanted to work with babies and old people.
Instead, he concentrated on raising her two children chiquita and Antonio. She always asked the lord to just let her see as to make it until eighteen. So I think that that was her. Her main drive behind standing half lets her kids stay alive. She did surpassing all expectations. We thought transplant people were going to live five years. I think it was actually a shock to her after five years that we said to her. You know
you're still here? Maybe you need to catch up doctor the frack agreed ever was doing so well, he changed his mind. She could work in health care. After all, she's been helping sick people deal with their health problems.
for since I'll tell him of my story about my you now the transplant essay things out now always gonna be like this. I promise you they will get better and they do either continued to defy the odds. Five years became turn turn became. Fifteen fifty became third.
The adversary, happy anniversary, eva happy december, twenty eighth on december, twenty eighth, two thousand and nineteen dr le frac, made the call he's made on that day every year to do a christmas since the transplant. What do you say to each other?
In that anniversary phone call? Will I congratulate you
I love her. Aren't you intend to do
I love you
Is it just your doctor? Yeah he's my friend. You know I still call him doc. The fact that he's and he's my friend now yeah, I love them. I love them dearly and the feeling is quite mutual. What is that all about?
No, I just I respect her ill. Fifty sorry, but I just saw just lover
in order to to really appreciate her?
It's all! It's all good! I just sumptuous forever. Evil basie, who had a life expectancy of one to five years, is now one of the longest living heart transplant recipients in medical history. Twenty years is considered great in two thousand and nineteen eva celebrated, her thirty third anniversary. Why do you think she's doing so? Well, why has she done so well and lived so long? Some of that is luck, and a lot of it is tenacity. She's really sweet, but if she didn't have a certain
tenacity, backbone and grit. She wouldn't have gotten out thirty three years, doktor frank celebrating here with his five daughters retired ten years ago. He happily tossed his pager into the potomac toasting. I next chapter he was determined to make great.
its. Seventy six recently wrote in a hundred mile bicycle race. The hard transplant programme he started continues to thrive.
And so does his message best summed up by patient number one: it's! Ok, it's a little loved once organs being donated to help
One else is was I was naive to donation until it actually happened to me, and I think a lot of us are until we actually know someone mail. Even a you know me it work
even busy- never knew the whole truth about the heart that saved your life. Thank you. Thank you. It wasn't
till Jean Weingarten published his book one day that she learned the full story, a story that led back to that senseless murder of karen armoured by her estranged boyfriend mark when.
Do you ever think about her Karen now? I know a little bit more since jean wrote the story I do now. Yes,
he'll be a mom, the share of grand key,
I think about her alive now. If you could speak to Karen's family, what would you want to say that I'm sorry, thank you. You know in the movie
Should you get her heart and a real life. You got his heart, he doesn't make any difference. To now. Is this a high
What did it matter?
organ.
As it only the hadn't saved my life and the story here is what the person who received the oregon does with the extra years. She then gets. That is correct.
When you heard this woman, even busy got a hard and she's still alive. Thirty. Three years later, the zoo
hope you make any sense of what happened is. Does it really? Does it lightens my soul to know that somebody got a second chance in life out of the tragedy that happen
And so it seems, gene Weingarten was right. There is no such thing as an ordinary day
no way to make sense of who lives and who dies at any? Given time,
apps. All we can do is treasure the memories of those now gone and thank the heavens and, in this case, a team of extraordinary doctors and nurses for those who still walk among us
and I'm still here and now in others, just how blast I.
Andrew and abbe boarding to death
There is only one plausible explanation: lizzie lizzie important was acquitted. If not her, then who this is somewhat,
who may have quite literally done away with murder forty eight hours. Next,
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Transcript generated on 2023-06-02.