A Veteran Accused
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He is one of the most decorated Green Berets in history. George Marachek is the American story of success. The hero on the battlefield. The silver star, three purple hearts. A colonel. I stand for integrity, devotion to duty. But in civilian life, he's in a world of trouble. I loved her. I still love her. The colonel is accused of murdering his wife. What did you kill her with, Colonel? I did not kill her. Even the colonel's old army buddy says

He confessed. "Reach over and grab my arm. They'll never catch me. I'm too smart for them." Susan Spencer tracks down an incredible story. Could this American hero be the target of an international plot to destroy him? "You believe that Russell Preston is framing the Colonel?" "Yes, I do." "He looks like the least likely person on earth to have committed a crime like this." "What's a murderer look like?" 48 Hours investigates: Who killed the Colonel's wife?

Welcome to 48 Hours Investigates. I'm Leslie Stahl. His name is Colonel George Marachek, a real-life American hero. To his admirers, he's a man of honor, but he's also accused of murder. The question a jury must decide: Did this former Green Beret, who learned well the arts of war to defend his country, cross the line in civilian life?

Our Susan Spencer traveled around the world to Asia and Europe for this story, but her report begins near a place in North Carolina called Cape Fear. I stand for integrity, devotion to duty, love for your nation, and above it all, truth.

Retired Colonel George Marachek may be 68, but he's still tough as nails. Still every inch the Green Beret. These are my decorations.

the Destiny's Service Cross. In fact, one of the most decorated green berets in the Army's history. The Destiny's Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, three Purple Hearts. From Heartbreak Ridge in Korea to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam, this star-spangled soldier really has seen it all.

I kind of pride myself that out of all the years in wars, I only lost three people. And this is over how many years? 36 and three wars. Only three people I had to write a letter to the parents saying they died. I took care of my people.

But the most astonishing thing about George Marachek today is not his past glory, but his present situation. George Marachek was one of the best wartime soldiers the Army had ever seen. But he did not do nearly as well in peacetime. This American hero stands accused of murder. You have no doubt George Marachek killed his wife? No, whatsoever. He struck her with a blunt object.

and drowned her. Bottom line, Colonel, did you kill your wife? No, I have not. June 3rd, 1991. Colonel Marachek and his Thai wife, Viparat, were vacationing, as they often did, at Fort Fisher, a military recreation area near Cape Fear, North Carolina. They both loved the outdoors. I like to come here because I feel like she's here with me.

This is actually the cottage where you were? Yes. He says they spent that morning at the beach. After lunch, he says he went back to the beach for more sun. I left the cottage about 1:20, which was at the beginning of the second episode of All My Children.

Viparotti says told him she planned to check out fishing spots. I told him to go down on this sand that you're seeing over here. In fact, a stranger recommended one just the day before. He asked me where a good secluded area was. When he got home at 5, he found the cottage empty. He says he never saw his wife alive again. The next day, he says he found her bludgeoned body face down in the Cape Fear River. This is what a poor little girl was when I found her dead.

She was somewhere in this direction, right here. Somewhere in this direction, okay? She was bobbling on the water. I think I screamed. I think I, yeah, I know I screamed. And I just grabbed her, holding her, like if I want to kiss her. He dealt matter-of-factly with death on the battlefields, he says, but this hit too close to home.

I don't think you really can describe it. That's like a lightning going through you. Flashes and anger and uncertainty and frustration. That's the worst thing ever happened to me in my life. Marachek took authorities to the body. Then they took him to the hospital, a grief-stricken spouse. I loved her.

I still love her and I will always love her. Will always carry her in my heart. I think that's sort of the surface that George Marachek wants the world to see. Because, says prosecutor Tommy Hicks, George Marachek is the killer and Hicks thinks he can prove it. George Marachek's version of how he found the body

was not the case. What really did happen? The Search for Clues leads around the world. Back in time to the shadowy era of Cold War espionage and to a family split apart. It's time that everybody gets over. As an American war hero fights the battle of his life on trial or murder. Next on 48 Hours Investigates. Who did it?

who killed Whipporack Marachek. Retired Colonel George Marachek is about to go on trial for his wife's murder. And this is the third time. He calls it persecution. I know that I haven't done anything. I know I'm innocent.

The first trial ended in a hung jury. The second jury convicted Marachek, but he won a new trial on appeal. He has contended from the start that the state is trying to use his military career against him, trying to portray him as a trained killer. The police he charges have used him as a scapegoat to cover up a botched investigation.

They didn't preserve anything. He says they ignored crucial evidence at the crime scene, including a pair of shoes, beer cans, and a footprint in the sand. They destroyed it. This time, he thinks the jury will see things his way. If anybody treasures life, it would be a guy like me who'd been on battlefields. George was extremely brave.

Retired General Sidney Shacknow has known Marachek for 30 years. If I was to go back into combat, I would want George Marachek with me. He led by example. He commanded respect because of what he has accomplished. George Marachek is the American story of success.

The Colonel's incredible story starts here in the Czech Republic, in his hometown of Dolny Postevna on the German border. He was born here in 1932, and within a few years, the Nazis were moving in. By the time he was 12 years old, he was in the resistance. But the Germans caught up with him. He says he survived a concentration camp and fled Europe after the war.

When I saw the Statue of Liberty, when we pulled into New York, I was speechless. He became an American citizen at 25, but he vowed to one day help free his homeland from communism. That made him a natural for the Special Forces. He volunteered to go to Vietnam. By then he was married. He left wife, Billy, and three kids behind. What kind of father was your father?

He wasn't home a lot. He was in the Army and at war. Daughter, Susan Kirk. I loved him. I missed him. I adored him. He was kind of like a hero. Honest, straight up, American soldier. But son Michael says their relationship was sometimes rocky. He's firm, he's hard, you know, he runs a straight ship and, you know, that's the way he wants it. It is difficult.

to maintain good family ties when you're an infantry officer that is usually committed in trouble spots around the world. His first marriage ended in divorce. He found himself single, stationed in Thailand.

Viparatse Wong, meanwhile, was in her mid-20s, living in Bangkok. We were walking toward the dormitory where Viparat used to live. In the very neighborhood where her best friend, Jui, today still makes her living selling food on the street. We were like sisters. We were really happy.

I remember her smiling face. And Jui remembers that Viparat wanted more than anything to live a life abroad. She was ambitious. She wanted to have a brighter and better life.

She introduced me to her boyfriend here, and we had coffee. The boyfriend was Marachek. Jouy had her doubts about him from the start. He was handsome and a good-looking Westerner, but his eyes showed that he was a playboy. I wanted her to change her mind, but she said there was no problem.

And this is our wedding picture. The Maracheks married in 1982. My nickname to her was Tukota, which is a Thai word for baby doll. And that's really what she was. Just a warm, cuddly, very efficient, trustworthy. Good wife? Good is not good enough.

Excellent. She gave me from Thailand, and I always have it on. But her best friend in America, Inge Shaw, says things were not what they seemed. From the beginning, I didn't think it was a very happy marriage.

The year before the murder, Maracek made three trips to the new Czech Republic. Now retired, he talked of moving there, even running for office. Inga Shaw says Vyperat felt her marriage crumbling. Many times she had tears in her eyes and she said, "Always my fault, always my fault." Maracek calls that ridiculous. I don't think that we ever had a bad day in our marriage. Never had a bad day? No.

I really don't think so. You couldn't be mad at her. He remembers that they took that fateful vacation to celebrate their ninth anniversary. That's her. This is the last picture you have? Yeah. 3 June, 9 o'clock in the morning. Today she got killed sometimes in the evening. Jouy remembers Viparat too. It is so hard to talk about.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't give food to the monks. And when I do that, I say her name. We believe the person will get what we are giving. What Inge Shaw remembers is how worried she was for her quiet friend. And I prayed and I said, "Dear God, let her come back." Because, she says, just before the couple left for Fort Fisher, Viparat was scared to death. She said, "Inge,

If I don't come back, promise me, call the police. This case is about a woman who knew she was going to die. And that was what the case was about. Next on 48 Hours Investigates. Now streaming. Hi again. TV's quirkiest crime solver. I'm Elsbeth Tassini. I work with the police. It's on the case. I like my outlandish theories with a heavy dose of evidence.

And ready to go toe-to-toe with a cavalcade of guest stars. Are you saying that this is now a murder investigation? It's starting to look that way. Don't miss a moment of the critically acclaimed hit, Elspeth. All episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus and return CBS Fall. That sounds like fun. Obviously, murder's not fun. Now streaming. When everything's on the line, real heroes rise to the occasion. TV's hottest show is Fire Country. We're firefighters. We're gonna find a way to get you out of here.

We take the hits together. We're on the same team. I'm right here with you, no matter what. I would never leave you hanging in the deep end. This place is a way of giving you new family. Fire Country. All episodes now streaming on Paramount+. It was the most unusual homicide I'd ever seen. Prosecutor Tommy Hicks remembers the very moment his boss gave him his daunting assignment. Good morning. Good morning.

Convict a war hero of murder. You look at Colonel Marachek's record, he looks like the least likely person on earth to have committed a crime like that. What's a murderer look like? This murderer left few hints. She was sitting on the bottom of the river. She had been completely stripped of everything. No crime scene and no murder weapon either. And at first, no clear motive.

But they certainly had a suspect. They pretty much focused on Marachek because from the very beginning, they can tell he wasn't being truthful with them about what he was saying about his wife's disappearance. What you're saying and what we see are two different things. I felt sure that I had the killer sitting in front of me.

Detective George Landry questioned the Colonel shortly after the murder. That was Sunday morning. And says his story was inconsistent. It was Monday. Routine questioning. It was very harsh, very intense. Quickly became an interrogation. What did you kill her with, Colonel? Police. What did you hit her with? I did not kill her. I needed to get his attention. Oh, Colonel. I beat on the desk. And you were here.

I called him a killer. You killed her. What did you do with her clothes and jewelry? I did not kill her, Lisa. This is ridiculous. Marachek still insists he didn't kill his wife. In fact, he spent hours frantically searching for her on that night in 1991. Once it got 7 o'clock, I got very concerned. Somebody could have abducted her or sexually abused her or something. At 8 o'clock, we called 911.

Police patrol the area, but they said it was too early to officially declare Viparat a missing person. Samarachek says he searched on his own, searched in fact until almost midnight. I didn't go to sleep. I was drinking tons of coffee. The next morning, he says he scoured the area again.

And shortly after noon, he found Vyperat's body here at this grassy point on the Cape Fear River. Just ran down there and grabbed her and pulled her in on a more solid surface. But Prosecutor Hicks wonders why the colonel didn't go straight to the place the stranger recommended to the Maracheks the day before. Here you've got a man that is so intelligent and is so smart

He's talked to a guy who says this is a good place to go fishing, tells him how to get there, and it takes him 12 hours to figure out that might be a place to go look for. You're saying that logically that should have been the first place he looked? Wouldn't that be the first place you would look?

But Maracek says the truth is in a four-page document he wrote after Vyperot disappeared. This is a very meticulous document, from stating specific times to noting that your wife had low-fat cottage cheese for lunch. Yes. So you were thinking that clearly at the time? Well, of course.

I have to be specific all my life because my job in the military as a leader, I have to pay attention to what I'm doing and when I did it. Rubbish, says Tommy Hicks. The statement was supposed to be an alibi.

And it doesn't explain where the colonel really was. The afternoon viperot died. And nothing really becomes contested until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Remember, Marachek says he hadn't seen his wife since lunchtime. Hicks says that's a lie, and he's got witnesses to prove it. It was probably right along in here.

Off-duty cops Tom and Beth DeLue were driving past Fort Fisher that day at about 4 p.m. I would probably say when I first noticed them, they were probably about where the car is. When Tom says they passed a Caucasian man and an Asian woman on the road, apparently headed away from the beach toward the river. I'm sure the man standing in the road was Colonel Marachek.

Beth isn't so sure. I could not identify either one of them. I couldn't tell if they were coming back from the beach or going to the beach. She seemed distraught. But like Tom DeLue, handyman Dennis Rude says he also saw the Maracheks walking toward the river a few minutes later at about 4:15. I could actually feel her eyes. What's more, he says, Viparat seemed upset. She just looked at me and she wouldn't take her eyes off.

Something just didn't seem right. To me, it just looked like somebody just was walking with somebody that they just didn't care to be with. Prosecutor Hicks says tensions in the Marachek marriage were obvious to many people, including the colonel's own daughter. He acted like he didn't even want to speak to her, would prefer she wasn't in the same room with him. The phone would ring and it was always the same thing, you know, I think he's having an affair and your dad's not, you know, doing right.

The year before the murder, Maracek had spent weeks at a time in the Czech Republic. Her biggest fear, if you will, was that you were having an affair with your distant cousin, Hanna. Was that true? No, not at all. We do have letters that tend to indicate that there's a relationship, and I think his language is the important thing is that we be together. It stunk. It reeked.

This former army buddy of Marachek says there was an affair. Let's go check this out. And he knows the truth about the murder. Why? Because the colonel told him. Now, he wants to tell the jury. I reached over and grabbed my arm. They'll never catch me. I'm too smart for it. With a real firm grip. Cold. Cold as ice. Mean as a snake. They call them special ops, the elite troops now at the center of America's war on terror.

As a highly decorated Green Beret, George Marachek was one of the best of the best. Now the 68-year-old retired colonel is in a very different kind of fight. He's on trial for the brutal killing of his wife. The prosecution says it's a very simple case. It was murder for money and another woman. But the colonel's defense team points to a dark conspiracy, an international plot to discredit an American hero.

Here again is Susan Spencer. Number one is going in up there. Number two is going to get ready to go right here. It's 5 a.m. Get the arms forward, roll the feet around properly. A few weeks before Colonel Marachek's third murder trial. And Butch Hendrick is hard at work.

He's been brought in by Marachek supporters as an authority on homicide by drowning. This one she's found. Yep. We're within 10 feet. To prove a body put in the river at the critical time... Our primary mannequin is on the move. ...would have been swept away. If it gets out and makes it past this point, it's going to be gone. It's going to be traveling down the river. If she was put in while the tide was going out...

She would have gone out to sea. The prosecution says that proves nothing about whether the colonel killed his wife. We need to have a final strategy meeting. But Marachek's lawyer, Cliff Barnard, welcomes any good news. Impressed with the colonel, he took this case for free.

We are scrambling, trying to do the best we can. As he collects evidence. I am feeling apprehensive about getting this all together. Barnard has asked the judge to delay the trial. I'm an attorney who's representing Colonel Marachek. To find old witnesses and he hopes new ones. Trying to find everybody we can.

How far is that mannequin out there? One new defense witness already has surfaced. If they would have just run out here and thrown a basketball in the water back then, they could have figured it out. The colonel's son, Michael, testified twice that his dad hinted that he was the killer. Now, he says police brainwashed him. It pisses me off because they lied to me.

been the truth, you know, make up something else to be the truth that ain't. But while Michael will testify for the defense this time. I loved my dad. I still love my dad. His sister Susan is on the prosecution's witness list, a reluctant witness for whom loyalty has lost out to what she fears is

is the truth. If dad has done something he shouldn't have done, he needs to be in prison. He planned it down to the last detail. Russell Preston is a former army buddy of Marachek's and like Susan, at first could not believe his hero was a murderer. But now... No doubt in my military mind. Why? Because, he says, Marachek all but told him so almost two years after the crime. We were sitting side by side and I squirted around to him and said, "George, listen, this has gone on long enough.

It's starting to stink. You reach over and grab my arm, they'll never catch me. I'm too smart for them. With a real firm grip. Cold. Cold as ice. Mean as a snake. Why didn't you run home and call the cops?

several reasons, several excuses, none of them good. This wasn't the first time Preston had done his friend a favor. Just days before her murder, Viparat had asked Preston's Czech-born wife to translate some documents she'd found. They appeared to be letters from her husband to his Czech cousin, Hanna, and she suspected they were having an affair. She suspected it was between her husband and his mistress and she was going to get them translated to use in a divorce trial. Instead of translating them for

her, you call her husband. Why did you do that? Loyalty, special forces brotherhood. Marachek denied any affair. Still... In those letters were some language which tended to indicate that they had some sort of plan to be together. And that, says Tommy Hicks,

is a motive for murder. The plan is ready. I only need time and your help with it. And it goes on. I'm always thinking of you. I wish to be there with you. It will be soon. Trust me. I have to hurry. I'm sending you a kiss. I love you terribly. That's not a love letter. No. Just friendly, says Marachek, and lost in the translation, is that he and Viparat were planning a trip to the Czech Republic. The plan is ready. What does that mean?

The plan was to have a big celebration, to welcome her to my country of birth. At first, Russell Preston believed Marachek's story, but he says he was surprised when a few months later, the colonel's cousin, Hannah, moved in with him. And then... She told us that they'd gotten married and...

But he didn't want anybody to know just yet. Hannah Marachek today says, so what? Is it law in America to inform everybody immediately after you got married? But Preston was concerned about something else. He had remodeled his house extensively, black-topped.

his driveway just an exorbitant show of wealth. Tommy Hicks thinks he knows where the money for that came from. I do know that he bought the insurance. A life insurance policy that paid out $300,000. Marachek bought it for Viparat just six months before she was killed. There's a woman, there's money,

Those are two of the oldest motives in the history of all time. Marachek says insurance is just prudent. I do it because it's a good management thing. And he resents any implication he is lying. Did you take a lie detector test? No. You never took a lie detector test? Not your own attorney, not the police? My own attorney did. You took a lie detector test? Yeah, my own attorney. And how did that come out? I really don't know. He never said. Weren't you curious? No, because I don't believe in lie detectors.

Did he ever take a lie detector test? Oh yeah. And? Flunked it. He flunked it? Yep. Flunked it like flat out flunked it? Flunked it. As the evidence mounted, Colonel Marachek's one-time admirer became an important witness against him. Colonel Marachek was living a lie. But Marachek insists it's actually Russell Preston who's been living a lie and he hopes to discredit him in court. He's a rapist. He's a womanizer. Matter of fact,

He's a traitor. Also, does Russell Preston have a shadowy past? And might he be out to frame the Colonel? That's next.

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He'll be voted guilty by a jury of his peers, sent away for a long period of time, which is as it should be. If Colonel George Marachek is convicted, Russell Preston may be the main reason why. So defense lawyers would love to discredit both him and his story that Marachek once bragged he'd get away with murder. In Preston's checkered past, the Marachek team thinks it's hit pay dirt.

Flashback to 1990. When thrilled by the fall of communism, George Marichek traveled back to his homeland and began making political connections. Preston says he was thinking big. He wanted to be, of course, president of the Czech Republic, thought that he was a natural. But the Colonel's supporters charge that Russell Preston himself set out to make sure that never happened. Why? I believe Preston is a tool for someone.

because Preston was a spy for the Czech secret police. Or so says Maracek's friend Jan Beneš, a former dissident who thinks Maracek was a threat to the communist old guard.

Anybody who lives free and who thinks free is a threat for the system. So the theory goes Preston invented the murder confession to frame the Colonel to end his political hopes. Maracek only hopes the jury buys it. What do you know about his ties to the Czech secret police?

Well, he was definitely on the books. He had a number. And in fact, Russell Preston also had a file in the archives of the Czech secret police. It shows he traveled behind the Iron Curtain in 1987 and 1988, meeting at this Prague hotel with an agent codenamed Needle. Even from what's left of the file, it shows they met five times.

In Prague, we met with a former high-ranking Czech secret agent, Colonel Jan Belicek. Every foreigner of any interest was put into a room which was tapped. And we asked him to evaluate the Preston file. It is clear that he was working on to be an agent for the STB.

We are looking at a possibility when Preston was controlled in the past. So whoever it was could be still controlling him and might try to use him against Marecek. Russell Preston is hardly undercover.

Relaxing with musician friends in Germany, Preston says emphatically he is no spy out to get the Colonel. They wouldn't have sent their former agent, Russell Preston, out to frame him. Oh, this is rich. This is rich. This is the theory. Oh, you've got to do better than that, George.

Preston freely admits visiting Prague in the 80s as a tourist and says of course as a Green Beret he would interest the secret police. Were you ever in contact with any agent from the Czech secret police knowingly? Not knowingly. Indeed the file doesn't indicate that Preston ever responded to attempts to recruit him. Did you ever provide intelligence? Not to the Czechs.

Not to the Czechs. Not to any foreign government. Let me make more sweeping. We finally located the one shadowy figure who should know if Preston worked for the secret police, Colonel Jaroslav Brydzik, once in charge of recruiting him.

We met for an intense two hours at this hotel coffee shop in Prague and the ground rules were simple. No cameras, no recording and no notes. But there was no doubt about what the former agent had to say. Russell Preston, he insisted, never worked for the Czech secret police.

A high-level U.S. military source told us the same thing, and it's clear the spy charges will be hard to get into court. I just don't think that I'm going to be able to get enough evidence to present this. But determined to discredit Preston, This goes in your car? the defense has another card up its sleeve. There were some allegations that Russell Preston sexually assaulted some women. In 1993, despite his suspicions about the colonel,

Preston looked up two friends of Hanna Maracek's in Prague. A year later, they accused him of rape. You have sex with both of them? Yes. You're telling me that this was totally consensual? Absolutely. Preston admits to adultery, but says it was not rape. He knew he did wrong. Maracek did report him to the military, and Czech officials investigated as well. My decision was this was not a rape. Prague detective

Pavel Oswald says charges were dropped after the women told him exactly why they'd spoken up. They would never report this on their own. They stated they reported it after being asked, pressured by Mrs. Maricek.

She really pushed it to women because it would help in the case of her husband happening in the U.S. You took a lie detector test? I took two. And? Passed them both flying colors. The Army also eventually dropped the rape charges. It was clear during the investigation proceedings that the alleged committed crimes had been fabricated.

Still, the struggling defense may try to get this into evidence at the trial. That might show some of his motive for trying to testify against the colonel. Whether or not they can undermine Preston, the defense has one more card to play. She walked in as I was walking out. A new witness. Do you appreciate the fact that this is, in the defense's eyes, an absolute bombshell information? I do appreciate it greatly.

but I know what I saw. Will his testimony save the Colonel? Next on 48 Hours Investigates. Good morning.

After just 90 days preparing their case... This guy's doing a super job. Colonel Marachek and his team of attorneys have their backs against the wall. We are scrambling, trying to do the best we can at this point with what we've got. 60 feet now. The expert who did their mannequin test is out of the country, and an apparently fed-up judge has denied motions for a delay. That's it. Of course I'm scared. Only fools are not scared.

But on trial day, he marches off to battle, head held high. You clear your mind and you start focusing on the objective. Russ Preston is here too, also on a mission. Go up and tell the truth, the whole truth, not about the truth. Marachek's one-time Army buddy is here to tell the jury how Marachek once boasted he would never be caught. Good morning, gentlemen. If the jury believes him, we're in deep trouble. Justice will prevail. Of course.

In opening arguments, Prosecutor Hicks tells the jury that Viparat Marachek was terrified her husband was going to kill her. The defense says the evidence, the life insurance and letters, could just as easily show that George Marachek was a good family man and that the state's witnesses are either confused or lying. The real fights are going to be coming up in the next couple of days.

One fight is made harder when the judge refuses to admit testimony about the dismissed rape charges against Preston. And with no proof Preston was a spy, the defense doesn't even bring that up. And that's one of the things I would like to have gone into further.

Nor will the judge give the defense more time to investigate a new claim by Marachek's supporters that a serial killer in Michigan has confessed to this crime. They don't have a confession. They've never showed us a confession. First of all, he was in school on June the 3rd, at least for part of the day. He did not have a driver's license until sometime in 1992. It took us approximately three hours to determine that this person was not a viable suspect.

Somehow, the colonel's team remains confident. Of course we're ready. Good people in North Carolina are going to quit our client.

And as it turns out, they've saved their best move for last. He was the last person to see her alive. Richard Tobin was a National Guardsman visiting Fort Fisher in June of 1991. He contradicts Dennis Rood and Tom DeLue, saying he saw Veeprot alone around the time prosecutors say she took her death march with the colonel.

You are absolutely certain in your own mind that that is who you saw? Absolutely 100% certain. I can tell you exactly what the person who's my ex-wife was wearing the first night that we met.

That's not the same as passing somebody you don't know in the doorway of a grocery store. I didn't know she was going to be my wife either. He says he told his superiors at the time, then let it drop. He told me to stand by. So he did for nine years until the defense found him. Do you appreciate the fact that this is in the defense's eyes an absolute bombshell information? I do appreciate it greatly, but I know what I saw.

Encouraged by Tobin's testimony and worried that his training in wartime killing might be used against him, Colonel Marachek does not take the stand. I'm an innocent man and the jury should be able to reach to that conclusion. By this time tomorrow, the jury will have the case and they will decide if George Marachek will go to jail or have his name cleared once and for all. After a six-day trial, the defense rests. I believe my dad is innocent.

Anything could happen. You have to live with the outcome. It doesn't matter what you think or how you feel. You just live with it. We wait right now. But they don't have to wait long. It takes the jury less than three hours to reach its verdict. Guilty of second-degree murder. The sentence, 30 years. It's a disbelief. It's just like somebody hit you in the head with a hammer. I don't think there would have been a word that came out of my throat even if I wanted to. You're just numb.

Clearly, the jury didn't buy the National Guardsman's story. It's stunning. I didn't expect it. He's not got any choice. He's going to go to prison. There's no good out of him. He's my dad, and I love him. I wish he could go back nine years and change everything, but you can't. For the man Marachek called a traitor and a rapist, it's a final vindication. I knew he was guilty. The truth came out.

For the prosecutor who tried him three times, it's a sweet victory. He most certainly deserves every bit of those 30 years. For Hanna Maracek, a crushing disappointment. I don't understand how the people can do this to men who spent 36 years fighting for this country.

But for the colonel, what mattered in the end was not what he did for his country, but what the jury believed he did to his wife. I'd rather die in this prison than to admit to something that I have not done. I'm not going to be free until I find out who killed me. It may take a lifetime, but that's what I'm going to pursue. George Marachek was released from prison in 2003. He died in 2020.

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