what they need to do with family you're lucky to make it out alive streaming on peacock these men are going to come after me taking the belts like a chance put a bullet in her head from the co-creator of ozark looks like a family was buying drugs execution stop calling us where's the keys the cartel killed my family i'm gonna kill them all of them mia streaming may 7th only on peacock i'm lester holt tonight on dateline we went home and had cocktails more cocktails and got kind of carried away dramatic new developments in a deadly mystery that begins with cocktails and ends with a twist they start drinking one of them wound up dead i don't get it i remember walking out and just saying what what are you doing it came down as a possible suicide red flag went up immediately my way things didn't make sense i never believed that my brother with his daughter's 20 steps away sleeping would take a gun and chew himself in the eye i keyed on a gun that was in his right hand it looked like he was placed it it just kind of hit her back my next time i mean why didn't i do anything to stop it it was disbelief shock anger we just asked why why it wasn't about the truth it was about them winning a case and we paid the price for it here's keith morrison with in the light of day some people blame the booze that is when it was all over the hard light of winter morning here in phoenix arizona it was extremely intoxicated when the body bag made its way to the morgue and the folks from csi craned their necks around fallen furniture and telltale booze of blood and the survivors struggled to explain i'm trying to remember it as best i can that it must have been the booze with a gun a pistol i sent an automatic handgun where did that come from but that email the one that preceded so much vodka and i was like why are you trying to worry about this now like there's nothing you can do something had to be going on that no one understood this doesn't make sense my brother would never do this when you start putting all the pieces together you only get one explanation that's murder well to understand any of it this is as good a place as any to begin san clemente california time the morning of the previous day a wednesday december 29th 2010 a man named rob fisher ex-police officer turned attorney with a thriving practice of family law got into his car and pointed east to phoenix six hours into the desert where his grandchildren were eager to see their papa it was a short trip just to kind of exchange presents this every christmas was one of his favorite errands of the year i'm sure every grandfather says this but you know they throw up their hands and scream papa and come and run and almost knock you over something quite like that it's pretty wonderful in fact rob fisher felt like a lucky man again didn't for a long time not after an injury prematurely ended his police career and certainly not when his then wife suffered so horribly through her cancer and then died holding onto his hand but now he was surrounded by good friends his career was finally back on track he was happily remarried and still cherished the relationship with his former wife's family he was gonna come and see the girls and spoil them like he always did take him shopping for christmas this is rob's one and only stepdaughter belinda they'd run run and jump in his arms papa screaming and it would just brighten his day you could see that it was just genuine the love between them the brief christmas holiday visit from rob would be for belinda another chance to work through the grief the searing grief she still felt that the mother lost a cancer so this is when something that you still had with rob afterwards is that you had your mother and you helped each other work through that loss it was hard for me because that was still sure a connection to my mom rob is also looking forward to seeing belinda's husband nobody call him his stepson-in-law lee rider hardly a classic son-in-law relationship they were only they're only like a year and a half apart in age yeah do they do they behave like friends or like father and son no not like father and son more like buddies i don't have any biological children so that was my family rob like belinda love lee's outsized personality his bursting confidence and charisma loud talking new yorker big salesman always filled up the room i'm macho kind of guy this is lee's sister lisa he was a self-made entrepreneur no college degree started several companies sometimes they did reasonably well sometimes often in fact not so much but give up no in fact even as rob drove across the desert to phoenix on that 29th of december lee rider was waiting for news about his latest adventure a big one the big one waiting for what he believed could be the best news of his whole business life it was gonna make us loads of money and that was where things were when pop pop came to visit yep rob arrived a little afternoon belinda was at work when he picked up the girls and took them shopping for their belated christmas presents then the whole family got together for dinner at this restaurant and afterwards went back to the house where happy little girls were tucked into bed and lee poured the nightcaps lee was a good host okay he liked to make sure that you had you know that there was beverages there if you wanted to partake then well into their evening of liquid refreshment lee received an email the moment you want to remember as you hear this story and after he drank quite a lot willing to wine the men vodka cocktails more cocktails and got kind of carried away with cocktails yeah a great deal of vodka they started drinking and the girls went to bed and robert and my brother stayed up and one of them on that bed one of them on that bed what happened in those boozy bleary hours between midnight and dawn well that's the mystery isn't it and a very strange tale it will be he shot himself i don't get it he shot himself okay who shot himself when we come back an evening of holiday cheer ending in gunfire it is horrific and numbing to see someone you love lying there dead a tragic scene and for belinda a haunting question i remember walking out and just not even believing this just saying what what are you doing it was an early winter morning december 30 of 2010 outside it was very dark inside ice melted in glasses half full of vodka and finally silence descended on the house do you remember going to bed that night i remember saying i gotta go to bed because i gotta get up early any idea how much you had to drink probably quite a bit of wine and then a single gunshot it was rob who discovered his son-in-law lee clearly dead lying on the kitchen floor it is horrific and numbing to see someone you love lying there dead i remember walking out and looking and just not even believing this just saying what what are you doing it didn't look real said belinda certainly not in her still inebriated days is that they were putting on some sort of act for you i thought it was like a bad joke i really did but it wasn't of course not a joke at all instinct kicked in then rob the cop turned attorney called 9-1-1 around 5 a.m 9-1-1 what's your emergency he shot himself i don't get it he shot himself sergeant chris lafcoe of the maricopa county sheriff's office got the call rushed over there it came down as a shooting call uh shooting victim on a possible suicide once inside the house the sergeant took a good look at the victim there was an entry wound at lee's eye his hand was grasping the gun and there was rob fisher still kneeling beside lee still holding the phone he used to call 9-1-1 mr fisher stood up and said um i'm retired police officer police officer and there was belinda she was what's going on what's going on she was in shock then the associate said later still perhaps unwilling to get her brain around what happened i don't think in your worst nightmare you wake up and see someone you love on the floor with blood around them and then to be told he shot himself sure he seemed a little upset by the news he got in that email the night before but business troubles were nothing new to lee and belinda rather they've been on the financial roller coaster for years lee was always chasing the next big thing even when they suffered when the car was repossessed or when he couldn't pay the electricity and the power was off for five days they got along but during the years you were together the big thing wasn't happening no pretty frustrating i think it was frustrating it was frustrating and on occasion lee turned for financial help to his stepfather-in-law rob fisher in the years i knew him he went from owning a very successful company to being bankrupt and needing our help that's why belinda went back to school got her nursing degree her paycheck maintained some stability while lee kept trying did you ever have any regrets about being with lee no we did the roller coaster did i want him to get a stable job hell yes everyone who knew lee was used to the roller coaster but never saw it get lee down what did you admire about him i think his ability to always see the glass half full he was not an person this is lee's friend and sometimes business associate eric lample i've seen lee be rich rich rich with a new jaguar i've seen him in bankruptcy and losing the house and besides that latest thing looks so promising well we started this uh company called santa con came up with this technology that uses computers to track gaming trends this time lee was on the verge of scoring big closing a big deal that would make them both rich lee was certain it was going to happen in the new year so that evening said rob lee was in a very good mood indeed he was enthusiastic and then it was late they were already well into their cups lee got that email and left the room to make a phone call so this wasn't just a little quickie he was called away for it was a longer no longer period of time and i remember him coming back and showing me something on his phone like the email or something um and being upset about it and i was like there's nothing you can do it's 11 o'clock at night or whatever it was and like save it for tomorrow that was it she said she didn't give it a lot of thought because she and rob were in deep conversation about her late mother though rob did notice lee seemed a little thrown he did make comments that night that again i took a sarcasm uh-huh um in retrospect i wish i would have paid more attention about his situation yeah but really what could have been in that email that was so bad he decided to kill himself there's probably a lot more pressure on him than he would let on but that conclusion reasonable or not came later with sobriety when the cops arrived that early bloody morning the rob they encountered was clearly plastered barely coherent but how's this for a red flag he acted said the sergeant like he didn't even know who was dead he asked me is that lee in there meaning a sun line it's just in the back of my mind well why would you know this person is so what was really going on here a detective named michael brooks arrived took one look at two intoxicated adults and suggested a ride to the sheriff's department for a few questions something about this did not look right coming up and somebody wasn't acting right either according to investigators if my spouse was lying on the ground suffering a fatal wound i'd make every effort to at least look at my spouse you can do that when dateline continues it was still early morning when police descended on the house where lee ratter was shot dead on the kitchen floor and a detective told belinda he wanted to meet her privately didn't give her a choice actually we're taking you to downtown phoenix and we need you to drop off your daughters somewhere detective michael brooks if apparently he has shot himself why'd you take belinda down to the station in suicides and in any any death investigation that could be grandma that dies in her bed yeah you're gonna talk to the people that are there to find out what happened there was a reason the arriving officer thought something was off about the way belinda was reacting i mean to me if my spouse was lying on the ground suffering a injury a fatal wound i'd make every effort to find out look at at least look at my spouse she didn't do that so there was belinda being interviewed by the detective i'm trying to figure out what happened you and me both i don't know though as detective michael brooks why would lee have killed himself we've had financial trouble we all seem to make it through you know it's like i just i just don't get it i don't get it we don't own gun which was another question not only why but how when he didn't have a gun so to the beginning asked detective brooks don't leave anything out we went to dinner about seven you came back to the house and cracked the phone but you talked a little bit and the girls went to sleep what time about what time the girls went to sleep and that was about the time lee got that email about the big business deal he was banking on said belinda and then the phone call with his business partner and we had a room to talk to and then rob and i just had the two and you know just kept talking and came back i got up to the bathroom and came back and there he was about what time did this happen my problem said about 10 30 um so it was after that i don't know wait sometime after 10 30 detective brooks was baffled after all that 9-1-1 call reporting lee's death came in at 5 a.m was belinda saying she couldn't account for what happened from 10 30 p.m until 5 the next morning didn't make sense okay were you um intoxicated probably oh yeah i'm sure we got our first call on this at five o'clock in the morning okay i know that's pretty significant from 10 30 right from the kids going to bed 10 10 30 right to 5 o'clock in the morning but was she just confused the detective wonder or was she hiding something is there something more to this do i need to have a lawyer or something well that came out of her fog she could sense where this was going i'm just trying to put the piece of the side i would never do anything like that was there an accident no no nothing i mean nothing wouldn't you agree that there's a big difference between 10 30 at night and 5 o'clock in the morning oh absolutely i mean you would know that i didn't tell my husband exactly what this is going this is about them before sending her home detective books kept belinda in this little room at the sheriff's office for hours that business at the time shift bothered him immensely he didn't feel like she was necessarily be straight with you i didn't want to talk to any conclusions at that point if the detective was suspicious so was lee's family back in buffalo or at least they were when belinda finally called to break the news to them two whole days after leave it up Lee's mom, Liz Retter, described her memory of that phone call. It was New Year's Day. Liz, yes, this is Belinda. Yes.
Lee shot himself. Then in the course of talking to them, we found out that it happened Thursday morning. And this was a Saturday afternoon? This was a Saturday night.
This is what took you so long. Why didn't you, you know, I could have gone there immediately. Oh, well, the police confiscated our phones. I didn't know your phone number.
The call was brief, said Liz Retter. And that's the last thing. Probably the last word I heard from her. But that shocking word, suicide.
It was a word Lee's family did not buy. Not for a minute. This doesn't make sense. My brother would never do this.
I don't believe that he killed himself. Coming up, why police thought this might just be a major clue. I keyed down that gun that was in his right hand, and it just didn't look right. It looked like it was placed there.
The mystery surrounding the untimely death of Lee Retter should not, by rights, have been so terribly difficult to solve. If it wasn't suicide, that is. And within minutes of his arrival, the first officer of the scene strongly doubted that it was. I was pretty certain in my mind that this was going to be a homicide investigation.
So if he was right, it would be the first homicide he'd ever seen in that little Phoenix suburb. But why murder and not suicide? I keyed down that gun that was in his right hand, and it just didn't look right. It looked like he was placed there.
In fact, it looked to him like somebody moved a bunch of things around. It just kind of hit her back my next hand on it. Which perhaps explains what felt to Belinda like an inquisition down at the sheriff's office. They wouldn't let me go to the bathroom.
They wouldn't let me have water. I was freezing. I asked for a blanket. Nothing.
Was Belinda involved? Too soon to say, perhaps? They turned the same focused attention then on Papa, or if you will, Rob Fisher. I loved him as the father of my grandchildren, the husband of my stepdaughter, and a friend of me.
Rob was still in his pajamas and stewing in an alcohol level that was still twice the legal limit when the detective ushered him into the interview room. Can you tell me what happened? What condition was he in when you talked to him? Well, he was intoxicated.
He wasn't a fall-down stupid drunk. You know, I carried on a conversation with him. He was answering questions. Rob told the detective he was asleep in the guest room when it happened.
You heard a pop? Did he come out of me? What did you see? You know, still to this day difficult to think of, of Lee lying there, dead.
But remember, Lee did not have a gun, nor did Belinda. So where did it come from? Sergeant Lafko may have answered that question himself when he looked in Rob's gym bag in the guest room. I find a blue nylon double bag, and I see a gun holster.
An empty holster? Rob admitted it was his gun that killed Lee. Always took it with him on the road. After all, he was an ex-cop.
Was fully licensed. Okay, can you see your bag within your room? But how did Rob's unloaded gun get from a holster in the guest room into Lee's hand and with bullets in it? Good question.
Rob couldn't seem to answer it. Mike, I was really good here. And I don't remember a lot. You know, you know, you know.
After a round of questions, they paused, and standard procedure took Rob's clothes for testing. And then the detective bored in for answers. It looks like we do. It's suicide.
And that's why I'm trying to get help to learn some of the boys. It's something you've done. What do you feel about it? What do you feel about it?
What do you feel about it? What do you feel about it? What do you feel about it? What do you feel about it?
What do you feel about it? I'm trying to remember it as best I can. I will say I don't remember everything. And it is, it's, and that's maddening in and of itself.
Maddening indeed. So many I don't knows from both Rob and Belinda that morning. By the end of the interviews with both Belinda and with Rob, Rob, what were you thinking about their stories, taken collectively? Were there questions that I had?
Absolutely. I didn't know what I was dealing with. But for all the immediate suspicion, the police investigation didn't seem to go anywhere. Rob went home to his law practice in California.
How much did you beat yourself up that you allowed yourself to take that gun into their home? It was my normal practice. Do I wish on that one particular trip I wouldn't have? Of course.
And Belinda went to California, too, with her girls, to be with her biological father, Jerry. And it was there she tried to explain that they lost their father. We were on my dad and my step on the couch. We were just like a little powwow circle.
And just told them that daddy was in. Up in Buffalo, meanwhile, Lee's mother and siblings were suffering from their own brand of agony, of the mushroom and the dark variety. They kept asking what was going on, and nobody told them anything. It was an open investigation.
And it remained an open investigation for a very long time. Even the coroner maintained an official silence. For months, there was no ruling on the question of suicide or homicide. And then, half a year after Lee's death, Belinda organized a celebration of life.
Lee's Buffalo relatives got the invitation and flew out to attend. The tension was palpable. Lee's sister Ann confronted Belinda. I went up and said, you know, I just need answers.
You were there. You must be able to, you know, just tell me what happened. You'll never know what happened. Not, I don't know what happened myself.
You'll never know what happened. We asked Belinda, what did she remember of that conversation? Not what I said. I would never say that.
What I said was, this is not the time or the place to have that kind of discussion. And Rob, he was there too, but... Never said a word to us. If my gun killed your son, I would certainly apologize to you.
So, as we say, tension. I don't know if I could ever say anything that would change how they feel. Lee's family was more frustrated than ever. Seemed like a cover-up to them.
Do you have any firm ideas about what happened to your son? Somebody killed him. Beyond that? There were only two adults in the house besides him.
And if nobody else would tell her what happened, Lee's sister decided she was going to find the answer herself. Coming up, Lee's family gets hold of the entire 911 call. Who is this person that's a family friend? He is my daughter-in-law's dad and I think.
Triggering new suspicions about Rob's behavior. It doesn't make sense to me. I mean, if you've known a guy for 12 years, you certainly knew who it was that was laying there. When Dateline continues.
It was a dark time for Lee Brider's family at Buffalo. We're not in Arizona, so all of our angst is almost compounded because we're so far away from it all. A beloved son and brother gone. No answers to satisfy their deep suspicion.
It was Lisa who decided, if nobody else will give us answers, I'll find them myself. It's just my detectiveness inside of me. How'd you go about doing that? I called the sheriff's office and said I'd like to request a 911 tape.
Got my CD in the mail. Then the family gathered to listen, and what they heard on that 911 recording seemed very odd indeed. 911, what's your emergency? He shot himself.
I don't get it. He shot himself. Okay, who shot himself? I don't know who he is.
He's, like, wife's cousin. What was that? Rob told the 911 operator and later the police he wasn't sure who the dead man was. Might have been his wife's cousin?
And who is this person that shot him? Is his family friend? He is my daughter-in-law's cousin, I think. It doesn't make sense to me.
I mean, if you've known a guy for 12 years, you certainly know who he was that was laying there. Do you know how old he is? He looks. No, I don't know his age, but I'm looking at him.
The family thought they were hearing a cover-up in progress. Some kind of act. The call was disconnected. Rob called 911 again.
Who is this person to you? What? Who is this person to you? He, who is he?
Who is he? And what was also strange? Belinda's voice in the background to them seemed far too calm. Is his friend or relative, or?
He is my daughter-in-law's friend. How old is he? How old is he? I don't have a frantic wife in the background screaming, oh my god, my husband's dead.
It was heart-wrenching. Heart-wrenching. I think it really kind of solidified our belief that my brother did not commit suicide. So, they went back and forth.
Was Belinda covering up for Rob? Was Rob covering for Belinda? Back at home, Rob did the prudent thing. He hired an attorney.
Just to let Miracle County know that I was willing to cooperate. In fact, I said Rob, his attorney called the police in Arizona to check on the investigation, but as far as Rob could tell, nobody was interested in talking to him again. We made those types of inquiries multiple times with him. Oh, but the same was not true for Belinda.
They came to my house five, six, seven times. I wasn't resisting anything. I didn't have what they wanted. I didn't have any answers.
Lee had life insurance. Belinda was a beneficiary. It was blocked for months while the police investigated. And when the DA summoned Belinda's children to a deposition, she, for a while at least, resisted.
And it wasn't until the harassing got to a point that the district attorney threatened to call child protective services on me if I didn't have my children forensically deposed that I ended up hiring an attorney. And that was the only reason. But it wasn't harassment at all, said the sheriff's deputies. Asking questions was just their job.
And eventually, they heard Belinda's sobered-up answers of going to bed by midnight and being woken up by Rob right before his 911 call around five in the morning. I remember getting up, him shaking me, waking me up, and saying, where's Lee, where's Lee? And I'm thinking, what do you mean? How is it that you didn't hear the shot?
I, myself, am a very sound sleeper. Praise God, my daughters are very sound sleepers because they didn't hear it either. So if her demeanor seemed off on the 911 call or later to the arriving officer, she said, remember, at first she thought the bloody scene in the kitchen was a prank. I was thinking that it wasn't real.
Yeah. That it was fake. 10.30. And not knowing the difference between 10.30 p.m.
and 5 a.m. in her first police interview, well, that she blamed on the wine. And later Belinda told police a timeline that made sense. Why was your story different later than it was earlier?
I don't think that I was remembering everything that had transpired. I don't think that I was really thinking of, you know, the chronological order of things. After many sessions with Belinda, investigators were finally satisfied that she was telling the truth. And then, almost six months after Lee's death, May 2011, the medical examiner finally issued an autopsy report.
In Buffalo, beliefs confirmed. It was not rule of suicide, it was rule of homicide. But in Phoenix? That was completely surprising.
And at Ruff's place in California? There's a level of disbelief. It's, you know, how do you, how did that happen kind of thing. Good question.
And here's another one. Why, still, wasn't anybody arrested? In spite of the medical examiner's ruling that it was homicide, a whole year went by. Rob thought this might be a case they simply weren't going to pursue.
You're looking forward in your life, you're not looking over your shoulder. Maybe he should have been, or would have been, had he known the questions Belinda was being asked back in Phoenix, Arizona. They kept saying, well, do you think there was a fight between them that night? Like, no, no way, they wouldn't.
They never fought. No, the case wasn't dead at all. The murder suspect, still under the microscope, was Rob Fisher. Coming up, why Rob?
Though he claimed he was nowhere nearly when the gun went off, evidence seems to tell a different story. There are two glasses with ice in both of those glasses. Tells us that two people are uptracking. Rob Fisher was a busy man in the spring of 2012, tending to his thriving law practice and his horses in Southern California.
Almost a year and a half after Lee Ratter's sudden demise, Rob had begun to put the whole sad business behind him. Though, in the back of your mind, there's always a part of you that knows there's no resolution to this yet. But of course, Rob did not know what investigators have been saying about him since those very first hours after the shooting. A red flag went up immediately in my mind.
Didn't know what the prosecutor was hearing. That just like Lee's family, detectives believe Rob may have been faking the extent of his drunken confusion. I don't know if he's, like, wife's cousin. I would think you'd be able to identify him.
I mean, the wound wasn't that disfiguring, that he shouldn't have been able to tell it was his son-in-law. Investigators also believe that it wasn't the haze of inebriation, but a deliberate lie. And Rob said here during his only interview, the one conducted that morning, that he was nowhere near Lee when the gun, Rob's gun, went off in the kitchen. Problem was, cops snapping pictures of the house didn't think the guest bed looked sucked in at all.
And when prosecutor Jay Rademacher was shown photos of the kitchen table, looked at him like Rob Fisher was caught in his lie. There were two glasses, one on the table, one on the kitchen counter. With ice in both of those glasses, tells us that two people are up drinking. And then, it was a fine day morning, and Rob walked out of his house to go to work.
I was in the driveway, and I saw people running up at me with both sides with guns pointed at me. At first, I didn't recognize them as law enforcement. I wasn't thinking of law enforcement. And so, you kind of, my split-second initial reaction is, you know, I'm being attacked.
And, in a way, he was, not by thugs, by cops. They put me down on the ground and, you know, handcuffed me. And then, Rob Fisher was carted off to jail and extradited right away to Arizona and charged with second-degree murder. My phone rang.
I answered the phone. It was Detective Brooks. He said, I just want to tell you that we've arrested Rob Fisher, that we have Rob Fisher in custody. And that was almost like disbelief, like, finally.
Like, we waited 490 days from the date of the accident to the date that he was charged. Finally, some satisfaction for Lee's family in Buffalo. But when word of the arrest raced around Rob's circle of friends, not a single one of them could believe it. Like fellow attorney Chris Miller, who was appalled, she said.
Absolutely the last person in the world. I mean, if you told me these 20 other people did it, yeah, okay, mm-hmm. But not Rob, not the Rob, I know. Not our Rob.
He didn't do it. Somebody made a big mistake, said Chris, and as a former sheriff, she ought to know. But aren't the law enforcement officials and officers just trying to get out the truth here? Possibly, but even wanting to get out the truth doesn't prevent you from making mistakes.
I mean, I saw it when I was a sheriff. From his jail cell, Rob found a Phoenix-based defense attorney, a man named Dwayne Cates. I don't think Robert Fisher should ever have been charged with a crime. Why not?
Based on the evidence. There is absolutely no evidence that he killed the ratter. Cates got Rob released on half a million dollars. bail but rob was ordered to stay put in arizona that's where we talked to him as he waited for his trial and belinda she had no idea whether or not she might be charged too were you afraid you were going to be arrested oh sure you're just in knots all day long you just don't know what to expect and you know you think if they're if they think rob's capable of this rob's like this super good guy then they for sure think i'm capable of it and belinda had to face the fact that either her husband took his own life or he was murdered by her stepfather she found both options very hard to believe but as time went on she began to think maybe the prosecutor knew something she didn't they wouldn't arrest him if they didn't have some right and we're you know i was brought up that we believe the police officers we believe that my grandfather was a police officer rob was a police officer like they don't just charge people he had he had to come in coming up at trial the blood expert's bombshell theory why he says the evidence points to only one conclusion mr fisher uh look mr everybody to make it look like mr grader has a team shot and that's how that works when dateline continues hey guys willie guys here reminding you to check out the sunday sit down podcast on this week's episode i get together with red hot stand-up comedian nikki glazer to talk about the long career grind that has brought her to this starring moment hosting the golden globes killing at the tom brady rosen now with another hit special on hulu you can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts get the best of nbc news with a subscription fewer ads deeper access and exclusive content and now during the xfinity member celebration members can get an exclusive 50 off an annual subscription head to xfinity.com slash membership to learn more xfinity imagine that subscription automatically renews each year at 65.99 plus taxes and fees until canceled offer ends may 20th 2026 prices subject to change visit nbcnews.com slash xfinity for full offer terms and details as they wrap up get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the scoop a new podcast for nbc news with me your host gathering the studio we'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with nbc news's trusted journalist get the fresh take that's sharp thoughtful and informative bringing you closer to headlines conversations are shaping our world what page the zeitgeist here's the scoop from nbc news listen daily on sirius xm it was the morning of november 6 2013 a wednesday when prosecutor jay ratemaker rose in the phoenix courthouse to present his murder case against rob fisher this case is about a couple he had his family watched from the gallery hoping three years after he's dead for justice will we ever find out what happened truthfully i don't know do i want somebody to pay for his death yes most seriously dessert to die at the defense table rob fisher was confident there was simply no case against him i've never heard a theory i've never heard a motive i've never heard anything that was about to change point number one said the prosecutor lee ratter's death was clearly not a suicide lee loved his family especially his girls lee would have never done something like this inside of his home evidence of that this is lee's childhood best friend who told the jury lee never got depressed about money one of his favorite sayings to me that i've tried to be motivated by is just adam you can always make one money and there was this lee spoke with his business partner donovan durbin that night and durbin told the jury lee did not sound suicidal at all he was happy he said he had family over he's gonna go have a cup of cocktails and he'd call him tomorrow the prosecutor called belinda to the stand too later she told us she wanted to testify but was not happy to be a prosecution witness she told the jury that the lee did fret a little about the email he received that night he was otherwise the same old lee just like a regular night nothing so lee had no reason to take his own life said the prosecutor now the only possible explanation was that he was murdered see the physical evidence the blood the trajectory all of that that doesn't lie murder explains all of it this theory as lee radder and rob fisher sat at the kitchen table drinking vodka into the wee hours of that morning something must have happened something that so aroused rob he went and got his gun and came back and shot lee through the right eye and then hand it what about staging the scene the science doesn't lie people do so forensics the arriving officer told the jury how he got suspicious when he saw the gun still wrapped in lee's dead hand to me it appeared that it was placed in his hand a very important first discovery the prosecutor told us how is gravity not taking its course from either pulling lee's body forward or allowing that gun to drop out of his hand but it doesn't really work with robert putting the gun in his hand either does it i mean why would a cop for example put the gun in his hand that way with a thumb through this is an ex-copper talking about an ex-cop that's drunk but said the prosecutor not so drunk he wouldn't know who his son-in-law was when he made that 9-1-1 call that was pure theater i knew that was lee on the ground but he's trying to cover up a partner there was more said the prosecutor rob did something any ex-cop should know you don't do he disobeyed a direct order they said i'm sorry please officer i said okay just wait i'm gonna wash my hands no no washing but rob washed his hands anyway the prosecutor showed the jury the pictures of the scene that seemed to prove rob lied about being in the guest bedroom asleep when the gun went off the neatly made bed those two glasses in the kitchen with ice still fresh in the wee hours of the morning did you find it odd that there was ice in the glasses at 5 15 in the morning yes but the key piece of evidence that the prosecution was a story told by the blood at the scene there was blood on the pants rob was wearing that one examined certainly looked like rob had been sitting very close to lee when the gun went off and there was blood on the floor which said the state proved rob was involved mr fisher uh moved mr ratter's body and uh manipulated the area to make it look like mr ratter had the same shot and fell backwards the prosecution's blood spatter expert rudy acosta was his name demonstrated how in his opinion lee's body would have sunk forward in the chair after the gun went off not backward the way his body was found meaning rob must have moved lee's body i believe he just dragged him out of the ground that's more said the expert as rob moved around the body he left his footprints in lee's blood when friends tell me that he obviously stepped in the blood where the blood where the original blood happened the left foot was in the blood obviously said that so that we showed there's an interruption of blood at least more than once but as we heard the state's case we couldn't help but wonder was some of it guesswork did it really amount to proof that rob shot lee or walked around in the blood in order to move lee's body we challenged the prosecutor on that so those footprints don't show culpability though they show movement they show movement yeah but that's all they show right i mean he may have been surprised by he may have been sitting there he shoots himself he gets up walks and you know that doesn't necessarily mean that he's manipulating the scene just because the footprints are there you keep coming up with these possibilities well so do you i don't come up with possibilities i have the physical evidence that supports the state's theory of this case so said the prosecutor the forensics said murder even though there's no evidence of a disagreement between the two of them there's nothing like that no but that wasn't the issue said the prosecutor hard evidence was murder is supported by the blood evidence by what the me testified by the blood experts murder is supported by common sense and gravity in this case but of course it wasn't quite that simple there was another possibility altogether as the jury was about to hear coming up a defense witness reveals that a big business opportunity went up in smoke before lee died you're telling no yes i need somebody who has distribution centers worldwide so he was told no but that was not going to happen and then testimony that the blood spatter evidence actually makes the case for suicide this is a self-infected gunshot wound rob fisher's attorney dwayne cates has stood after a long parade of clients over the years many of them guilty as sin but this case this was different than mr cates innocent people are the hardest to represent i don't sleep at night representing innocent people because losing is not an option rob supporters including fellow attorney and good friend chris miller traveled to phoenix for the trial what's your expectation of the eventual result here i believe that rob will eventually be found not guilty ladies and gentlemen this case is all about whose finger was on the gun the night that lee rather died you know rob didn't have any motive to shoot lee and lee certainly had some reasons to commit suicide wait he did have reasons for suicide yes said rob's attorney this time lee's life was spinning out of control there's no money coming in and lee doesn't know what he's going to do lee's friends had no idea how bad it was at case tens of thousands in loans and unpaid credit cards fifteen thousand dollars owed to the irs another twenty five thousand still owed to a former employer no doubt that we you know had some financial troubles ahead of us belinda was a prosecution witness remember but she told the jury that lee with his one hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy told her joking or not that he was worth more to her dead than alive he would say that numerous times over his life then that night december 29th he got that email remember and excused himself from the table to take a call from his business partner he'll remember that business partner told the prosecutor lee seemed to be in good spirits at the end of the call but he also had to admit that when the conversation started lee was not happy how was he acting so he was kind of upset the jury never got to read the email no one seems to have a copy but lee showed it to belinda that night and she recalled it was bad news about the deal something about he had introduced these two companies together and now he was kind of being squeezed out of it well he was frantic he felt betrayed that the two companies were trying to cut him out of the deal also said the defense lee had been exaggerating for everybody the size and value of the deal this man is from the company igt with which lee was hoping to make his multi-million dollar deal of a lifetime he testified he had told lee prior to that night there wasn't going to be a deal you're telling no yes i need somebody who has distribution sandwich worldwide so he was told no but that was not going to happen he communicated that clearly to lee and lee was telling everybody that there was a big deal pending and it was living a lie and it was all about to come crashing down on him he rather was more dead than alive he knew it for some reason he couldn't bring himself to tell his partners and his friends that this big deal wasn't coming so the defense theory of what happened after all those drinks with lee rob passed out right there at the kitchen table his blackout starts as a unblock blackout meaning he has no memory it's like nothing rights to the hard drive but lee kept right on drinking and drunk and discouraged he went and found the gun he knew rob always traveled with and turned it on himself and pulled the trigger and then at the sound of the gun rob was startled into a confused consciousness and merely assumed when he spoke with police he must have been in bed imagine you're still drunk there's somebody laying on the floor in a pile of blood with a gun in their hand you look down you're in your pajamas you're barefoot you know and you're standing in the hall facing away from your bedroom wouldn't you're when's your first thought you jeez i must have been in bed later when he sobered up said rob he realized he must have been at the table with lee what is it about you that should make us think that you aren't the sort of person who might have been showing lee the gun and you're you know five sheets to the wind and you went off back to that level whether we're drinking or not i don't believe that i would ever be so irresponsible as to introduce a gun into that environment it goes against my core being a defense called this doctor an expert in alcohol abuse who explains of a rob's strange behavior around the time of the 911 call rob's blood was three times the legal limit in my opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty he was in a blackout which certainly explained not recognizing lee said the expert as for the big deal the state made about rob washing his hands when the officer told him not to have you ever told a drunk friend to do something kind of like herding cats i know but he's a lawyer and an ex-cop right he's an extremely drunk lawyer and ex-cop but what about the forensic evidence at the very heart of the state's case the state's expert remember told the jury the law gravity dictated that the gun should have dropped out of lee's hand as soon as he fired a bullet into his head but the defense medical expert produced statistics showing that guns actually remain in the hands of suicide victims 25 of the time have you ever seen the gun stay in the hand of somebody committed suicide in fact in attorney case it would have been almost impossible for rob from where he had to be sitting in the kitchen to shoot lee and produce the actual route the bullet followed rob would have gone something like this in order to have done it then attorney case attacked directly the state's blood spatter expert you really have no idea what happened in the chair other than how that chair gets from point a to point b i don't know i don't know he would say one thing and then on cross-examination i would ask him he'd say well i really don't know how it happened you don't know how mr fisher picked up mr rabbit correct yes it's it's assumption there's too many variables after my cross-examine and redirect of that witness i thought we won the trial still the confident case wasn't done making his case he called his own blood spatter expert too who looked at the very same evidence and said there was no doubt in his mind the state had it wrong finally said defense attorney case the case came down to one crucial question whose finger was on the trigger of the gun gates with the question to the state's crime analyst you at least said you couldn't exclude mr ratter correct and that's because there were portions of this print that matched portions of mr ratter's print there was yes and the person whose prints did not match was rob fisher his fingerprints weren't on the gun his dna wasn't on the gun and lee's was they didn't find any fingerprints that match rob fisher anywhere on the gun well what did that say to you he was the last one to handle the gun because at duane cates lee ratter shot himself true up to the jurors to decide that their turn now coming up the news that would rock this traumatized family all over again joy called me my attorney and said are you sitting down when date line continues it was december 2013 when the murder case against rob fisher went to the jury rob said he felt at peace then or at least as much as a person could be given anyway he knew he said he knew that he didn't deserve to be hauled off to the slammer i knew i should be going home and so um i was hopeful that the jury would have seen it the same way you had to be doing some strategic thinking too if this if that was what was in your head i did feel very confident no surprise the prosecutor read the tea leaves ready ready I knew when the jury was going back with this case That they had enough information to come to the right conclusion And they were going to realize that murder explains all the evidence Practically everybody thought it would be over soon, including Rob's attorney I thought they'd be back in a couple hours with a non-guilty verdict Didn't happen, the hours ticked by As the jurors apparently wrestled with something One day became two days, two became three What are they talking about back there?
Exactly As the debate went on in the jury room, outside Lee's New York family was desperate for a guilty verdict So the world would know that Lee didn't take his own life Didn't do what the defense said he did Lisa Radder I want to put my hand on my pillow at night saying That was a terrible, terrible thing that happened And my brother did not commit suicide, his life was taken by somebody else And that would give me closure And then, it was December 19th It just happened to be Rob's 53rd birthday And word came, there was a verdict Rob and company hurried to the courthouse, hoping for a birthday present from the jury What did you see when they walked in? They didn't look at me, which, as a lawyer, I know is not a good sign How do you wish to do it? We jury found the defendant as a count one, second degree murder, guilty Guilty, Rob Fisher stared straight ahead, stunned In the gallery, Lee's family and friends quietly saw it They had their justice The prosecutor took his victory in stride Were you surprised at all? No A lot of people around the courtroom were Depends on what side of the eye they were sitting on You were not surprised at all I wasn't surprised for the fact that I thought we did an excellent job in educating the jury On the scientific evidence in this case And that they could only come to one conclusion, and that was murder The consequences in a situation such as this are immediate Rob Fisher was handcuffed and led through a door that led to the county jail I want to say it's a little surreal And then he was installed in a temporary cell While he awaited a sentence of something like 25 years in prison The thought of spending the next, in essence, the rest of my life in confinement Very difficult to try and process Belinda wasn't in court to hear the verdict But she certainly did hear about it, and was shocked I was at the gym, and Joy called me, my attorney, and said Are you sitting down?
Because, you know, everybody that knew information They really thought that he was going to be found not guilty Well, she herself, as she told us in a separate interview Didn't know what to think, or who to believe I didn't, I don't know, I'm 100% honest I don't know what I wanted I really don't I don't think that there was A verdict either way that would have been what I wanted Certainly wasn't what Wayne Cates wanted How had he so misread that jury? I was perplexed I had no idea how they could have come to that conclusion Given what the evidence in the case was A give-up? No That he could not do, said Rob's attorney Still, any chance that a new chapter would be added to this story Was very remote indeed Unless, well, we shall see Coming up, Dwayne Cates gets a bold idea That's gotta be such a long shot, though Absolute long shot Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the Dr. Today app Workouts, meal plans If you're fast-tracked, what healthier you And now, during the Xfinity member celebration Members can get an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription Head to Xfinity.com slash membership to learn more Xfinity, imagine that Subscription automatically reduced each year at $65.99 Plus taxes and fees until canceled Offer ends May 20th, 2026 Price is subject to change Visit today.com slash Xfinity for full offer terms and details It was Christmas again In Lee Radder's family, a difficult season Ever since what happened during that Christmas holiday of 2010 But now, Rob Fisher was a convicted man And the New York ranch felt the kind of consolation That comes with the belief that justice has been done Do you think about him a lot?
About Rob Fisher? No I try not to put him in my mind at all Because I don't want I don't want to hate in my system Out west, Belinda was a mess of contradictions And of course she had to tell her daughters The eldest, then 12, took it hard Couldn't grasp that her papa had killed her father My daughter finally asked me About three days later If the verdict had come back And I said yes And she just looks at me and I just started crying And right then she knew That was her papa? She wants to have a connection with him But yet she doesn't want to talk to him So I think she struggles with that And maybe feeling like she's not being loyal to her dad In some way Belinda had been leaning on her father and stepmom For support since Lee died Her father, Jerry Dupree, is a psychologist He loved his son-in-law, Lee, very much, she told us But he was convinced the jury got it wrong My wife and I are both 30-year clinicians, okay? We knew Lee committed suicide from the get-go Really?
Yes What made you think so? Lee was a salesman And there's a lot of false providence to that process A good man, he cared about Belinda He cared about his children But a lot of false pride When that collapses, there's nowhere for it to go Which is exactly what defense attorney Dwayne Cates had argued all along An argument that clearly failed to persuade the jury But Dwayne Cates wasn't ready to say uncle, not him So what can you do about it If you believe a jury has reached really the incorrect conclusion And it's an injustice What can you do about it? Well, the first thing I do is file a motion for a new trial So, as Rob Fisher endured claustrophobia And fought despair in his temporary cell over the Maricopa County Jail Cates went to work to try to get the guilty verdict tossed He had to file his motion 10 days after the trial ended He worked around the clock, straight through the holidays You know, this was my Christmas vacation I was writing this motion Cates based the motion for a new trial on two central complaints Number one, an allegation of prosecutorial misconduct Accusing the other side of using unfair language during the trial And unfair tactics even before it started They played hard with the discovery Getting us discovery Getting us notes after I do the interview Instead of before the interview It could have been more forthcoming Yeah, I mean, you know, the practice law Doesn't have to be as hard as it was in this case So there was that A common complaint, though, which frankly doesn't have to go anywhere But something else, too Gates argued that the jury's verdict Was contrary to the weight of the evidence Which is a pretty big deal And also a pretty big stretch The judge can re-weigh the evidence Because the judge was there The judge got to see all the testimony Got to hear all the witnesses Got to see everything that happened in the courtroom There's got to be such a long shot, though Because judges look at jury verdicts all the time And they say, well, the jury, you know They look at the same evidence They made their decision And that's the way the law works Absolute long shot Gates put it into his motion Almost as an afterthought, really Hoping against hope the judge would see What the jury apparently did not But the state's blood expert's testimony Didn't add up Dwayne Gates had been around for quite a while So he knew he was stilting at windmills Feels of that sort almost never succeed Almost never Absolutely It was a Hail Mary pass But I felt confident in it The prosecutor submitted his own brief, too Denying any misconduct And standing by the evidence And his case Then So then what? You sit back and wait?
Absolutely How was Rob doing in the meantime? Rob was in jail So I don't think Rob was doing very well In his cell, Rob Fisher Lawyer that he is Figured out the timing of the thing First the judge would hear the arguments Then spend some time working on her ruling So that first week He didn't even think about it Same the second week And then Rob started to worry Gates would visit him periodically Did you get a chance to talk to him much? I did And it was hard I hated to go see him in jail What had happened to this man's life? Same business as you Successful attorney In a different type of law But just the same What had happened to that life of his?
It was gone Imagine, Keith Police walk in the door right now They put you in handcuffs And they lock you up In just one instant Lee Radder's life Was gone forever What prison term would atone for that? That was also up to the judge But for her As the date for sentencing approached There was not a word Coming up Stunning news Jolts everyone in the case It was like a shot to the heart How is that even possible? Does that happen? I'd never even heard of that When Dateline continues As 2014 began Rob Fisher was waiting Waiting For the judge's ruling On the motion for a new trial All the while sitting in an Isolation cell In the Maricopa County Jail Your next cop What did you add to it?
Right How did that complicate your life? They put me in protective custody Locked down for 23 hours a day One day at a time Through all of January Then February And then it was the 28th Rob was due in court In a week For his sentencing hearing And that's when Dwayne Cates came to call I asked him Do we hear anything? He goes Well before we talk about that Let's talk about next Friday's hearing I told him that He's got to get ready And then he looks at me With a big grin and says It's not a sentencing hearing It's a bond hearing Because you're getting out of jail It was stunning Overwhelming I was ecstatic I was elated I was thrilled And Dwayne Cates Felt like he just won the lottery It very rarely happens The judge will step in And re-weigh the evidence And say the jury Just plain got it wrong Remember Cates made two arguments For a new trial The first An allegation of prosecutorial misconduct Was rejected by the judge His second argument The total long shot Was that Rob's conviction Wasn't supported by the evidence And what do you know The long shot The Hail Mary Succeeded And caused the judge To throw out the verdict I'm going to read a little bit of it here The detective's opinion That the defendant Saves the scene By manipulating Lee's body Is not supported by the physical evidence Lax credibility And is sheer speculation The DNA and fingerprint evidence Are completely inconsistent With the verdict Sheer speculation Have you ever heard that From a judge before? Yes Guilty of a fatal flaw When he tried to decipher Those bloody footprints Because he wrongly interpreted The prints as facing The opposite direction And the judge said All but wagging her finger That he backtracked And repeatedly provided Inconsistent testimony in the sand That was their key witness I mean that was the key to their case And he was not credible And so one chilly night In March 2014 Rob Fisher walked out Of the county jail And into the arms of his lawyer The guy who took a chance On the long shot It's been a long long road Rob's out He's tired But if Rob was believed And happy Lee's family was not They'd been making plans To fly to Arizona For the sentencing When they got the call And the prosecutor said Don't get on the plane Like a shot to the heart Because how is that even possible That a judge can step in As a 13th juror And overturn a verdict Belinda couldn't wrap her head Around the judge's ruling either I'm like really this I mean does that happen I'd never even heard of that So now Belinda had to accept A second of those two bad options That her husband took his own life I got a text from my dad After he read it And he just said There's no doubt Rob didn't do this That we committed suicide I guess there's just No denying it No Well I get it now It's like you've been through A rollercoaster Of different kinds of grief Right Yeah And with that kind of grief Came guilt Why didn't I do anything To stop it What if I'd only said this Or what if I'd only Done something To make that Different For him to still be here For him to know How important And that the money didn't matter So Of course the The good old what if game And if only I Yeah sure Took it more seriously You know really listened To what he was trying to say to me To To maybe have been A better wife I went back to California Trying from scratch To put his life back together State of Arizona Has taken two years Out of my life And I refuse to let them Take any more time So we are going forward In our life As the list is behind us But prosecuted Jay Rademacher He had different plans For Rob Fisher So End of the story Oh no Not at all Coming up For Rob A devastating turn of events Jay called me directly And said that We got another grand jury And we're going to Arrest him again I just Broke down And Started crying And just In disbelief After his murder conviction Was thrown out Rob Fisher Tried to get his old life back Which meant Starting From scratch The family law practice That imploded and died When he was charged We lost our home We are living You know At the big graces Of close friends I joke with my wife That it's like We're 17 again We're starting over Lee's New York family Was stuck in place Felt like justice Had been stripped away It was horrible It was horrible The prosecutor told him Be patient And he filed an appeal To get the conviction reinstated Claiming the judge Had abused her discretion It's like kicking a hopeful Can down the road You know Just praying that You know We get a resolution And Belinda Told us recently She just inched along No choice really As a single mom Pretty horrible Most of the time Trying to Navigate things For the girls Full of uncertainties Full of uncertainties And full of questions But she did not Ask Rob those questions Never talked about What happened Were you afraid to do that?
I think I was Anxious Nervous Emotional And here's the sad truth really Belinda and Rob Had bonded over the shared grief Of losing her mother His late wife To cancer But Lee's death Did the opposite What happened to the relationship With Rob Your relationship It was difficult The losses on so many levels It drastically changed Our relationship In a lot of ways 2017 was when The prosecution's appeal Finally made its way To the Arizona Supreme Court Which agreed with The trial court judge The justices wrote There was quite simply No physical evidence That the defendant Fired the gun That killed Lee A loss for the prosecutor Jay Rademacher And Lee's family So case finally closed No I think Jay called me Directly and said That we got another grand jury And we're going to Arrest him again Wait Rearrest Rob That's right Despite a judge In the highest court Saying they did not Have the evidence The state was free To try him again And that's just What the prosecutor Planned to do So basically We're back at square one In February 2019 Rob Fisher Was again charged And that was second-degree murder. He was released on bail, returned to California as he awaited trial. While we were excited, I think, when we got the first trial date, they led us to believe that they had a strong case going forward, stronger than the first time. But did they?
A year passed, and then it was 2020, and COVID closed down courthouses that year and the next year. Lee's mom had suffered a debilitating stroke, but said her family, hope of seeing a conviction, kept her alive. By the fall of 2021, it had been more than a decade since Lee was killed, and that's when Lee's sister got this update from the family's victim advocate. And she's like, I have some bad news.
And you know, the worst news that you could ever possibly imagine her to say would be they're robbing the case, and that's what she said. The state of Arizona had dismissed the case against Robert Fisher. The court paper simply said it was in the interest of justice. Disbelief and shock and anger.
I'm like, I'm shaking just thinking about it. What she told us was that it wasn't Jay's decision, that the decision came from above him, from his superiors, from a committee of higher-ups. Lisa had one phone call with the prosecutor's office in which she said they mentioned concern about the blood evidence. So they did say that there was a stain that was looked at, and it was inconclusive for homicide or inconclusive for suicide.
I don't know if that's what made them decide. Let's not go to trial, then. We wanted to ask Prosecutor Jay Radhemaker what happened to the evidence he so confidently said pointed to murder. He declined to the interview, referred us to a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, who told us it was determined there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the criminal prosecution.
Just in disbelief that 11 years was over just like that. That was the closure. Belinda said that she finally got that elusive thing called closure. She's angry it took so long.
When there wasn't enough evidence, they should have stopped. And yet, they kept going, irregardless, because it wasn't about the truth. It was about them winning a case. And we paid the price for it.
I knew Rob's case was dismissed without prejudice, which means the state could theoretically come after Rob yet again. But this time, it seems everyone wants to move on. Now has to be the time, because it's like quicksanders stuck, and you can't move. And, you know, it's paralyzing, and it takes your breath away, and you can't sleep, and you can't live your entire life like that.
And now, finally, Belinda could find the courage to ask Rob the hard questions she'd been holding in her heart for 11 years. What were the central questions? How the gun got introduced that night. What did he tell you?
Before I got home that evening, Lee had watched Rob take the gun apart and placed it in his bag, which answered one of the questions, how did he even know the gun was there? That was a key for me. While some of the questions won't be answered until I hopefully see him again, Lee, in heaven, at least I've got a little bit of clarity. Which is that Lee knew where to find the gun he must have used to take his own life.
It's been more than seven years since we last interview Rob Fisher. But recently, he told us off camera he is still trying to piece his life back together. Rob has decided not to talk to us for this report, but what has this done to him? He's ready to move on with his life, and he wants a relationship with the girls and I, and I think he's ready to close this chapter.
And now? And now we move forward. You know, my girls have a bright future ahead of them, and he would be so proud. And we march on with memories of a great man.
That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Hull.
For all of us at NBC News, goodnight. Friday night on an all-new Dateline. It was a workplace obsession. The chills that sent down my body was just unreal.
That went way too far. HR issues don't usually lead to somebody getting killed. It wasn't just one person, it was a couple of people that would rub the wrong way. I think it is a true definition of a fucking hot for it.
Nobody can. An all-new Dateline, Friday night at 9, 8 central. Only on NBC.