Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. When your schedule is packed, it's easy to let things slip, but self-care shouldn't be one of them. Whether it's hitting the gym, therapy, or a walk on the beach, those just-for-you things are often more important than ever.
If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient and flexible. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash AOM today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash A-O-M.
Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.
Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts. She's not breathing. I'm trying to do CPR. I can't get her to breathe. Okay, listen to me. Your wife is not breathing? Okay. Okay. Sir, I need you to take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Listen to me. I'm going to get the paramedics so we can try and get her some help, okay? Don't hang up. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murmur.
We've come across all sorts of motives for murder, from the tragically common like money, jealousy, and rage, to the downright psychopathic. But I don't think we've ever covered a story in which the cause of a homicide comes courtesy of a house. Shanti Cooper and her husband David Tronas had been renovating their dream home in Orlando, Florida for over a year. They were both on their second marriage, looking for a fresh start in the Sunshine State.
Now, every marriage has its challenges, and a big renovation is the kind of thing that puts any relationship to the test. But tragically, this do-it-yourself project went from bad to worse to fatal.
I think Orlando's like any city. It's got its nice parts and it's got its more dangerous parts. Meet Michael Smith, a veteran prosecutor in Orange County, Florida, who over his long career in law enforcement, civil law, and criminal defense thought he had seen just about everything under the sun.
Where this actually happened in Delaney Park was generally considered a safe, nice area of Orlando, about a mile south of the central business district. So, you know, very close to downtown, a lot of older, nice homes in that area. A lot of people that had been there had been there for a very long time.
And it's safe to say that nothing quite like this has ever happened here in this quiet little enclave, dotted with palm trees and million-dollar homes. It all started with a 911 call placed on April 24th, 2018. The caller, David Tronis, was frantically trying to explain how he had just discovered his wife, 39-year-old Shanti Cooper Tronis, in the bathtub and unresponsive.
David explained how he pulled Shanti from the bathtub, but despite his attempts to revive her, he believed she was deceased.
He says that he had found her basically half submerged, face down in the tub with her bottom half sort of out of the tub. He says he brought her over there, attempted CPR, then after five or six minutes called 911. Here is a portion of that 911 call. She's not breathing. I'm trying to do CPR. I can't get her to breathe. Okay, listen to me. Can you tell me what your address is?
Emergency first responders reached the scene within three minutes of that 911 call, and the quiet street was suddenly ablaze in emergency lights and sirens. That's when law enforcement got their first glimpse of the third player in this tragic tale, the Tronis' new house, a house under major renovation.
Another piece of that call. They'll just park out in the street. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're in the back. We're in the far back. They have to come back to the gate and come up the stairs. Oh, God. I hate it.
It's sort of a strange setup. So it's a big, you know, nice house, but it had been destroyed from attempted renovation work on it. So the entire sort of living area kitchen was like gutted, sort of like a cardboard box. David directs the paramedics upstairs to the makeshift bedroom that Shanta had been sharing with her son while construction was completed on the house. And they go up the stairs and they find her on the ground on top of a bed cover next to the bed. It's
Sadly, there was no hope of saving her. It was clear to first responders that Shanti was dead. The initial responding officers and fire rescue people, they noticed that rigor mortis had already started to set in. Her hand was like fixed in the air. She had clearly been dead for like a period of time.
And in fact, this observation was the first indicator to law enforcement that something about the scene didn't line up with the information that David had given during that 911 call. So he's on 911 calls. They're telling him how to perform CPR and he's acting like he's performing CPR. She'd clearly been dead for a while at the time that they got there, which he claims was just a few minutes after he found her. So that was immediately inconsistent. He's trying to perform CPR on someone whose arm is
and rigor in the air. Basically, rigor is just post-death change. It's within our body when muscles stiffen due to what is the chemical changes in something called, and I'm going to get this wrong in pronunciation, but the myofibrils, which are basically the threads in our muscle cells. The longer someone has been dead, the more that stiffness sets in.
Clearly, Shanti had been deceased much longer than David had thought when he discovered her body and then called 911. David had also said he found Shanti partially submerged in the bathtub water. But according to first responders, Shanti's clothes were damp, not soaking, and there was no water on the floor or in the surrounding area. So Scott, to me, that's a big one. Just picture anyone getting out of the shower...
without drying off, you're going to leave water. And here, and you and I talked about this offline, we're talking about getting out of a bathtub.
One of the first things you would notice is some type of water outside of the tub and even leading to the place that her body was put on the ground where the husband was attempting to do CPR. And it's the very place that officers who were first on scene found her. So yeah, that's kind of a head tilt, but there's a lot more information that we need to get. But there was something else that was very telling to first officers. They looked at her face and
And they noticed something that gave them the sense that this really was no accident. The officers, they got the call out and they thought they were going to what sounded like maybe an accidental fall or something like that, maybe a medical emergency. And they could tell, you know, pretty much immediately that this was not an accident based on visible injuries. Her left eye was swollen shut. She had injuries clearly to the right side of her face as well, both her eye and face.
her jaw area. She had a huge contusion on her cheek. They didn't know what happened, obviously, but this wasn't likely a fall.
Shanti's visible injuries to both sides of her face indicated that her death was likely the result of a brutal assault. And the possibility of foul play meant that it was time to clear the potential crime scene and call for reinforcements. So they reached out to detectives and detectives took over the investigation. And given the circumstances of what looks like it could be a homicide, they would be looking at obvious signs of what could have happened specifically in
Was there any evidence of a home invasion potentially? Exactly, like a broken window, a busted door, missing or scattered belongings. But even despite the condition of this partially renovated house, there didn't seem to be any indicators that the home had been robbed. There was no sign of a break-in or a robbery or anything like that. There was a lot of valuables that were just left there. Multiple cell phones, laptops, computer things, cash, a lot of valuable items.
And while her bed seemed to be hastily made, the bedroom where Shanti's body was found was relatively in good order. Nothing appeared to be rifled through or taken or anything like that. There was also a diamond earring left on the nightstand and then there was one in her ear. Cash, laptops, even a diamond earring left at the scene?
Clearly, theft was not the motive here, and not until a medical examiner had performed an autopsy would investigators know if she had been the victim of additional assault, sexual assault, which, if observed, could sadly also reveal another motive for her possible murder.
In the meantime, there was some forensic evidence at the scene that might provide some clues to how she died. Specifically, traces of dried blood on the sheets, the bed frame, as well as in the bathroom.
Shanti's husband David thought that maybe she had hit her head and fallen into the tub, a scenario that could explain the blood.
But given her other facial injuries, as well as David's increasingly strange behavior at the crime scene, investigators thought his theory on her so-called accident seemed less and less likely. He was intermittently hysterical, but they also noted that they didn't see any tears, like actual tears coming from his eyes. It seems almost over the top or put on. Want to connect with more family and friends and their native language isn't English?
then Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program, is for you. Rosetta Stone teaches through immersion, like matching audio from native speakers to visuals, reading stories, participating in dialogues, and more. The True Accent feature even provides feedback on your pronunciation. Learn on the go with convenient, flexible, and customizable lessons as short as 10 minutes. From my own personal experience,
I could see the benefits of Rosetta Stone becoming more familiar with the local language when I'm traveling. Something as simple as understanding direction from the locals, but it also can help you stay safe, becoming even more aware of your surroundings. On my recent trip to Italy, I found Rosetta Stone so helpful. For a very limited time, our listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's
That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash anatomy. That's rosettastone.com slash N-A-T-O-M-Y.
It feels great to receive a gift from a loved one. It's the thought that counts, and there's of course that element of surprise. But when you're shopping for something as personal as jewelry, it can be really satisfying to buy the exact piece you know you'll love. There's no better place to find that perfect something than BlueNile.com.
Blue Nile offers thousands of independently graded diamonds and fine jewelry at prices significantly below traditional retail. Whether you're looking for a bit of sparkle for yourself or the best gift of all time, Blue Nile offers some of the highest quality standards in the industry. I'm a big fan of shopping from home. Blue Nile's website is easy to navigate and I always get new ideas.
I've been really into layering necklaces this summer, and Blue Nile has a great selection with quality I know I can count on. If you have questions, Blue Nile's jewelry experts are on hand day and night via phone or chat. You can't beat the ease or convenience of shopping at Blue Nile. Go to BlueNile.com to find the perfect piece today. That's BlueNile.com, BlueNile.com.
So there are no shortage of reasons to sit David down for questioning. And that's exactly what investigators did. They asked David if he was willing to go to the police department and give a statement. And he agreed. The reasons that they're at least tilting their head in his direction at the moment, like just the injuries to her face, CPR went clearly rigor or that stiffness has set in. They're not really lining up.
So I think there's two reasons really to sit down with David at this point. The first one is really to get a lot more information in a quiet setting on what led up to his wife being deceased. And of course, as an investigator, you're going to pay very close attention to his demeanor, his actions, and start to develop your timeline based on the only information that you have so far. And then you start to circle back on any potential inconsistencies.
We already know that first officers on scene noticed a few things that were off about David. And let me just add one other big question will be answered when the medical examiner has the opportunity to perform the autopsy. That information, as you know, Anasika, could be very interesting. So in that interview room, the detectives were careful not to press too quickly because if they did, not only does that run the risk of a person of interest, a suspect, frankly, anyone at all might shut down to any more conversation.
But it was still early in the investigation, and they just simply needed more information about Shanti, about the marriage, and most importantly, about who might have had any reason to hurt her. They started with a much softer touch. So we're sorry for your loss. And then as it went on, they pressed him more with the facts that they found on scene that were kind of inconsistent with what he was putting forward as, you know, an accident or something of that nature.
So David is being very cooperative at this moment and really giving his sense of what occurred leading up to finding his wife deceased in their home. And that's also an opportunity for investigators to start to believe or disbelieve this story.
He says that in the morning, she came down about 7.45 while he was out on a sort of pool deck area, a nice sort of area because there wasn't really any living area inside. Smoked a cigarette, went back upstairs, and then came back down maybe about 9.15, 9.20. She had made a dental appointment the day before, but she had broken a tooth, like an emergency dental appointment that was set at
10 and he claims that she at that point was saying i don't know if i'm going to go to the appointment i'm feeling kind of tired not feeling great she then went back up to the apartment
And just to clarify, by apartment, he means a separate bedroom that was just above their garage where Shanti was staying and spending nights with her then 10-year-old son, Jackson. The two of them were sleeping there while the rest of the home was being gutted. That's right. In fact, I think it's very telling about the state of their relationship. David was sleeping in a separate area in the garage along with the family dogs, which means, yes, on the surface, it appeared that things weren't going very well.
He says that after she went up, he took the dogs for about a 15-minute or so walk
He then came back to the house, you know, did some work around the house, like yard work, worked on the pool, cleaned the pool, which he did typically. He then decides he's going to take the dogs to a park. It's about 15 minutes to get to the park, he says, and then they're there about two hours. So that two hours, you know, I love taking my dog Baxter for a walk and I like taking him to the park, but two hours sitting in a park after just going on a previous walk, that sounds like a lot of work.
as in you want to be deliberate about maybe something else. But even more strange is the fact that during this entire time, Tronis claims that he had never once talked to Shanti on the phone or texted just to see how she was feeling or to let her know where he was. You know, Anasik, I think you'll agree with this. Even for couples that are fighting, spouses usually find some reason to exchange a text, at least one or two during the course of the day.
he didn't receive or send any messages during that time he just sort of i guess sat there and watched the dogs as his story for two hours then comes back does some more work around the house guard work type stuff he cleans the pool again and then he decides he's going to go up in the afternoon where somebody would be needing to go get jackson her son so that's when he decided to go upstairs to see if she was going to get him or if he needed to pick up jackson
And then as he claimed at the scene, that's when David heard running water and discovered his wife Shanti in the half-full bathtub, still dressed in her pajamas. Here's a part of his conversation with police. So the water's like half full. She's submerged partially, but she's also partially not submerged. And one of her legs is kind of sticking out a little bit. And it's just extremely awful, and it doesn't look natural.
He also reiterated what he had told first responders at the scene. She had had like appendicitis about two or three months earlier and that she had been sort of weak and recovering. His theory is that she was turning the water on and maybe she slipped and she hit her head. But that steroid just doesn't hold water.
Shanti's severe bruising and multiple skull fractures were consistent with a beating, not a bonk on the head from a fall. The different places that she had injuries on her face and on her body, I mean, she would have to fall down a flight of stairs that are extremely tall. And even then, you couldn't explain everything. The autopsy would further discredit David's theory of an accidental drowning.
First of all, there was no water found in her lungs, which usually means a victim stopped breathing before their head was submerged in water. While there was no sign of sexual assault,
They did find her hyoid bone was fractured, which means Shanti Cooper had been choked in a deliberate and intentional act of homicide. The medical examiner was huge in dispelling any idea that this could have been an accident. She was strangled. That doesn't happen instantaneously. When you take the time after beating someone in the way that she was beaten...
to then strangle them, which takes some time, but there's definitely premeditation and a design to kill when there's a strangulation, as there was in this case. Even as detectives pressed, Tronas was adamantly sticking to his story that he had nothing to do with his wife's tragic death. She didn't stick her foot in the shower and slept. That didn't happen.
The way he would
That initial interview with Tronas lasted over 10 hours. So safe to say, investigators were treating him as their prime suspect, not just a family member of the victim.
And when they checked his alibi, it didn't really help his case.
The cameras at the park were unfortunately not working at the time. They couldn't prove or disprove that he went there at all. But there was a neighbor that saw him the time that he said he was going with the dogs to the park. And they said he was just walking alone without the dogs, you know, around 11, 50 or 12 o'clock.
Data recovered from Shanti's phone also seemed to contradict Tronis' version of events, specifically the fitness app that she used to track her daily steps. He's saying that she came down at 7.45 and then again at 9.15. Meanwhile, she shows no steps after, you know, 11.45 or 11.50 or so the night before. Her phone's sitting on the nightstand.
Shanti was a financial consultant and her career kept her very busy. So like many of us, she tended to spend a lot of time on her phone. The day that she at least supposedly died, do you know how many calls she made? How many texts she replied to? Zero. She's getting all these texts, receiving all these calls, no outgoing calls. After about 11.45, the night before. All that's, you know, hugely inconsistent with her practice.
David Tronis continues to seemingly be cooperative and transparent in his interview with police. And they had to consider the possibility that while Tronis may have been wrong about when his wife and how she died, that doesn't necessarily mean he is the person who killed her.
Which is why at the end of that many hour long interview, Tronis was released and Orlando detectives were forced to explore who else in Shanti's life may have had a motive to commit murder.
Is your child asking questions on their homework you don't feel equipped to answer? Maybe your child is too shy to ask questions in front of the entire class, but they can get extra help and positive feedback with IXL Learning. IXL Learning is an online learning program for kids. It covers math, language arts, science, and social studies. IXL is designed to help them really understand and master topics in a fun way with positive feedback.
This program will improve your kids' grades. Backed by research, kids using IXL are scoring higher on tests. From studies done in almost every state in the country, the kids who had IXL are consistently doing better. And one subscription gets you everything for all the kids in your home, pre-K to 12th grade.
If your child is struggling, this is the smartest investment you can make. And a month of IXL costs less than an hour of tutoring. Additionally, IXL is used in 95 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S.
Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And Anatomy of Murder listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com slash anatomy. Visit ixl.com slash anatomy to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.
David Troinas was certainly the primary suspect in his wife's murder, but that didn't mean investigators could discount other possibilities. Her ex-husband, for example, are criminals that may have demonstrated similar M.O.s in crimes in the area.
And as most of you know, even just the process of eliminating those other people or suspects can serve to bolster the case against Tronas. Obviously, he's the one that makes the call. He's the only one there. But, you know, they wanted to check out everything that he said. They wanted to get an alibi for the ex-husband who had Jackson. They wanted to, you know, talk to people in the neighborhood about transients in the area and if any of that went anywhere that made sense. And none of it did.
So what about Shanti's ex-husband and father of their son, Jackson? He claimed to have been in Tampa the day that Shanti was killed, an alibi that police were able to confirm. And while the city of Orlando and its suburbs does see its fair share of crime, there were no reported home invasions in the area that matched this type of crime, where a victim had been brutalized and strangled to death with no apparent reason.
And that is a key detail that police keep going back to. No forced entry. Nothing was stolen and Shanti was not sexually assaulted. The motive must have been personal, which means the killer must have been someone she knew. And the manner in which she was killed, strangulation, certainly tracks with that theory because there might be no more personal method of killing someone than looking them in the eyes while you squeeze the life from them.
That doesn't happen instantaneously. It can take minutes to strangle someone, depending on the circumstances. But if David Tronos was in fact the one person in Shanti's life with the means and opportunity to kill her, what was his motive? To answer that question, investigators would have to rely on Shanti's friends and family, and they would have to go back to the beginning.
David Trones and Shanti had met each other online. They were both recently divorced and ready to start the next chapters of their lives. She would go to Minnesota, he would come to Florida. But within the year, he moved down to Florida to be with her. By all accounts, they were very much in love at the time. Trones even cashed in his savings to put down $600,000 in cash on their now home, a large fixer-upper in Delaney Park.
He had grand visions of this Spanish-style house, which he hoped one day would be the perfect home for the couple and Shanti's son, Jackson. And so he decided to begin some substantial renovations. And according to Shanti's friends, that's where the trouble began. In early 2017, they started sort of a demo on the house, and it got to
to the point that that part of the home became completely unusable and liberal. So they didn't have a kitchen. They didn't have a living room, sort of a general area to be. They just end up with these two separate rooms. Initially, it was going to be a short-term proposition, a few months, and they'd be able to work it out. But it drug on for well over a year. They went through multiple contractors. The house just got kind of more and more destroyed because David was trying to
you know, oversee and do a lot of it himself, which was kind of over his head, I think, in the construction. Pressure, I think, definitely, you know, led to some tension in the marriage, along with, you know, sleeping separately, along with her working constantly and basically living in this one room.
And not only was living in a construction zone uncomfortable, Shanti found herself financing the bulk of this bungalow boondoggle. She worked as a financial consultant. She had her own company. She was, by all accounts, extremely savvy at business, extremely good at her job. And she had the income to prove it. Her new husband, not so much.
The defendant didn't work from the entire time he moved to Florida, about five years before this happened. So she was the only person bringing revenue into the home. She was largely funding the day-to-day operations of this, which is another reason that, you know, obviously she felt pressure to work a lot. Another frustration of hers was that, you know, he had the house before they were married and he owned it with his mother in a trust that she was not on. That's something that was another point of tension.
In his conversations with detectives, Tronas had downplayed any financial issues in their marriage, nothing more than typical spousal squabbles. But there were others that could vouch for the strain this house renovation was having on their marriage, including Shanti's personal assistant who spent considerable time at the home.
Her personal assistant that was there daily talked about sort of little arguments they would have over the house and the stress that that would cause. She never saw any like physical fights. I mean, she said she saw like arguments and bickering, but nothing of a violent nature. But with his home renovation spiraling out of control, David Tronas was ready to take drastic measures and what can be more drastic than reality TV.
He talked to this local guy, Keith Ory, that had done a lot of historic renovations and overseen projects. He was involved with a show, Zombie House Flipping. Even though I also do work in the field of television, I do have to admit I haven't heard of that show. But apparently it's about renovating homes that appear to be beyond repair and then bringing them back to life, like, well, a zombie. I don't know about you, Anastasia, but I don't think I'd ever want to live in a home called the Zombie House.
but I guess really to each his own. He reached back out and said, "Look, we've gotten to a place with a house. I don't even know what to do. Where to go from here?" At this point, Keith Horry comes back out with some engineers. He testified it was like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was like a cardboard box that was being held up by a couple of inches of stucco. He wasn't even sure that it was structurally sound to do any work on. At that point, Keith Horry decided this would be something that would be interesting for the television show because it would be such a complete turnaround to try to fix this house.
The show's producers committed to featuring the house in a future episode, and according to friends, Trona saw this as a solution to all his and Shanti's problems.
But clearly, Shanti had her renovation reservations. Speaking with neighbors and friends, it seemed like at first she was on board with it. She was to the point where she just wanted the house to be fixed. You know, she wanted to have a kitchen. She wanted to have a living room and she didn't want to be living, you know, in the same room that she's working all day, sharing a room with her son, especially when you've got this
giant house, but you're essentially living in a, you know, 800 square foot apartment. So she just wanted it to be fixed. And if this show was going to be a means to get that done, then she was on board. And there was just one little problem, which in the television world usually means just one of many big problems. If they wanted to be on the show, that they needed to pause work on the house for a few more months to align with the production schedule of the show.
For Shanti, this was the last straw. And according to producers, she was ready to pull the plug on the whole show. But tragically, she never had to because just a week later, she was dead. After piecing together this story of their short, turbulent marriage and this disastrous home renovation, investigators believed they had established Tronis' motive and had enough circumstantial evidence to finally make an arrest.
And while detectives thought they had a strong case against him, they also knew that physical evidence would go a long way in helping prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So they executed a search warrant at his mother's house where he had been living since the murder.
And it was right here where they made a significant discovery in Tronis' luggage. Not a smoking gun, but something equally as damning. Shanti's missing engagement ring. Quick math. The less your business spends on operations on multiple systems on delivering your product or service, the more margin you have and the more money you keep.
Reduce costs and headaches? Graduate to NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one platform and one source of truth. With NetSuite, you reduce IT costs because NetSuite lives in the cloud with no hardware required accessed from anywhere. You cut the cost of maintaining multiple systems
because you've got one unified business management suite. You improve efficiency by bringing all of your major business processes into one platform, slashing manual tasks and errors. Over 37,000 companies have already made the move. So do the math.
See how you'll profit with NetSuite. By popular demand, NetSuite has extended its one-of-a-kind flexible finance program for a few more weeks. Head to netsuite.com slash AOM, netsuite.com slash AOM, netsuite.com slash AOM.
David
David Tronis was charged with first-degree murder of his wife, Shanti Cooper Tronis. Unfortunately for Shanti's family, who, like any survivors, suffered and waited every day that Shanti's murder remained unsolved. And even after the charges were brought, it would take another four years before his case would go to trial.
First, Tronis' original defense team withdrew from the case. Then his next lawyer raised the issue of the defendant's mental competence, which caused another delay in the trial. He goes up to the state hospital where he's monitored 24-7. He's only up there a month or two, and then they determine he's competent, send him back.
These kinds of judicial delays can be maddening for families, for law enforcement, not to mention wreak havoc on the prosecution because in four years, a lot can happen. Memories fade, witnesses move, their health deteriorates. You have things like turnover in a prosecutor's office, for example. And when a new lawyer is assigned to the case, that person needs to quickly get up to speed. And that's exactly what happened here.
I actually took this case over pretty late in the game in July of this year. It was a pretty big undertaking to get, obviously, myself familiar and caught up with the case, get it ready to go to trial. The main thing I had to do was just familiarize myself with all the facts and evidence and then actually speak with, you know, all the witnesses.
Michael Smith was also able to lean on his years as a criminal defense attorney to really zero in on the particular strengths of the state's case. And there were other things that motivated Smith as well. You know, anytime you've got a kid that's left without a mom, you really want to make sure you do everything you can to do right by that situation.
The prosecutor presented a timeline of the crime that began the night before Trona's call to 911, placing the time of Shanti's death likely between midnight and 3 a.m. And this was due to several factors. The data on her phone showing that she hadn't moved since the night before around midnight. The state of rigor mortis when first responders arrived, which showed that she had been dead for some time before Trona's call to 911.
and the presence of a single earring on the bedside table. She had the one diamond earring in her ear and the other on the nightstand. We think she was either going to bed for the night and he hit her, then began just attacking her and ultimately strangling her sort of right in the area of the bed, and then decide after that how he was going to try to make it look like he didn't do it.
And here is where Michael painted a gruesome picture for the jury of Trones dragging his wife's battered body to the bathtub in an attempt to wash away the blood before dragging her back to the floor of the bedroom to stage the scene. There were signs from her knees of scrape marks where it looked like she had been drug from the tub to the area she was found.
The prosecution also exposed the lies and contradictions in Trones' alibi before concluding with the strange story of how a house drove a man to murder. This house was like his baby. I think realistically, he cared more about this house than anything else. After building up, he just decided he'd had enough. Trones' attorneys contended that there was still insufficient proof that Trones was responsible for Shanti's death.
But thanks to forensic science, the prosecution had a definitive answer to that.
I said in my argument, you know, when CSIs are trying to pull latent prints off the tub or off the door, they don't know that it's going to be David Trana's or hers or whatever the case may be. It could be anybody. And the fact that everything they were able to find in that house was either his or hers and no indication of another person.
You know, Anna Sinker, for so long, juries have been seeing television shows which show, you know, a crime being solved before the commercial break or the fact that so much of their case depends on forensic evidence like DNA or fingerprints or blood.
And if you don't have those, it doesn't really mean that you can't win for the prosecution. Not only do we see it, it's something that we as prosecutors and homicide prosecutors, we actually talk to the jury about this just about every case because it is that prevalent in our world.
But you know, when you kind of move past that, also you have this circumstantial evidence case, right? And while largely circumstantial, just think about that for a second. I love circumstantial evidence cases because you don't have to rely on whether a witness is telling the truth or not, whether there's a bias, whether they are inaccurate. It really comes down to the pieces of this puzzle that if all those pieces fit, well,
Well, common sense will tell you that there is only one reasonable explanation, and that reasonable explanation, coupled with evidence, hopefully gets you to guilty.
You always ask jurors in jury selection their exposure to podcasts like this or crime TV shows, be it true crime or scripted, and see how much exposure there is to it. And you ask them questions about that to see what you're looking at. And then you want to explain to them, look, it's not like CSI. We're not going to get this wrapped up in an hour. There's not necessarily going to be a smoking gun of DNA that proves something one way or another. And you just want to make sure you get jurors that can accept that.
And so while he believed he presented a strong case, Michael knew that no jury is predictable.
Anytime you've got a circumstantial case, you've just got to get a jury that's willing to put the pieces together. You can't get a juror that says, well, you know, nobody saw it and it's not on videos. I can't convict. You just want to make sure you get jurors with common sense that are willing to kind of look at the totality of everything. And that's always your worry in a circumstantial case that, you know, there was never going to be an eyewitness to this. It was never going to be captured on video. So you just had to make sure you get the evidence out in a way that made sense to people that the inescapable conclusion was that he was guilty.
After more than five hours of deliberation, the jury found David Tronis guilty of first-degree homicide. Shanti's young son was there throughout the trial. Jackson is very brave for sitting through a trial with all that had-to-be dramatic information about what happened to his mom. I just really feel for him and sitting through that, but I'm glad he was able to get at least some measure of justice and hopefully resolution.
Following victim impact statements by Jackson and Shanti's father, the judge handed down his sentence. There's only one sentence, obviously, in Florida for first-degree murder. If you're not seeking the death penalty, it was a mandatory life sentence. So he was sentenced to life in prison. The heartbreaking story of Shanti's murder plays like yet another unfortunate instance of male unchecked rage and should serve to highlight the ongoing epidemic of fatal domestic violence in this country.
But there is also evidence that Tronas did not just snap in a one-time fit of violence. During the investigation, a tip emerged from an acquaintance of Tronas' ex-wife that he may have attempted to kill before. Apparently, his ex-wife had experienced a series of troubling, unexplained health issues shortly after marrying Tronas, illness that led her friends to suspect she may have been the victim of poisoning.
The symptoms? Nearly identical to the symptoms that Shanti Cooper Tronis complained of just weeks before her murder. Shanti Cooper Tronis, mother, successful career woman, and wife. She trusted in the man who she said, I do too. Even on their rocky past, she never could have imagined that a house or Tronis' greed would have caused such violence at her expense.
You will be remembered, Shanti, for the woman that you were, and we hope that your son is being supported and loved as he moves forward in life without his mom.
We often talk about how powerful family impact statements can be at the conclusion of the trial as part of the sentencing phase. In the courtroom, there is a palpable and somber air. The room is filled with a heavy silence and the words of a loved one quickly reveal the gravity of their loss and their pain.
Shanti's son Jackson stepped forward on that sentencing day to give his feelings about what David Tronis took from him and the unimaginable thoughts of life without his mother. Words so powerful that we wanted you to hear them for yourself. This is Jackson in his own words. My family and I have been waiting for about five years for justice. I miss her so much. I would have never thought the day before that
That was the last time I would see my mother alive. She did not deserve anything that happened to her that night. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Forseti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer.
This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa, Megan Hayward, and Philjean Grande. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice.
Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts.
