Homicide at Rough Point (Part One)

01/26/25 • 50 min

In the fall of 1966, Eduardo Tirella, close confidant of billionaire Doris Duke, informed the possessive and vindictive heiress that he was leaving her employ as chief designer and art curator to return to Hollywood where his career as a set designer was just catching fire.
Minutes later, she crushed him to death under the wheels of a two-ton station wagon as they were leaving Rough Point, her Bellevue Avenue estate in Newport, RI, the storied resort.
In a murderous quid-pro-quo, the local police quickly ruled the incident "an unfortunate accident" and Doris began giving a fortune to Newport, restoring 70 colonial-era homes that quickly turned it into a tourist Mecca.

In 2018, Lance, who started his career as a cub reporter for The Newport Daily News eight months after Tirella's death, began a re-examination of the case and proved that the mercurial tobacco heiress got away with murder.
In a riveting, doggedly researched book with 105 illustrations -- including never-before seen forensic files -- Lance, a five-time Emmy winner, rewrites history and finally restores the reputation of Eduardo Tirella, a Renaissance man and war hero whom Duke went to great lengths to erase from the history of her troubled life.

Book available at AMAZON at: https://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Rough-Point-Peter-Lance/dp/0996285598/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&asc_campaign=2b5a785186b501c352c95398a3440b1b&asc_source=01G8XG0GEG1CT4D3C07B4FAY7P&tag=namespacebran131-20

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Homicide at Rough Point (Part Two)

In Part One of our two part series on 5 time Emmy winning investigative reporter Peter Lance’s Book, HOMICIDE AT ROUGH POINT, we left off as Mr. Lance was detailing how, back in the fall of 1966, the Newport, Rhode Island police covered up the murder of art curator and designer Eduardo Tirella, whom Doris Duke, crushed to death under the wheels of a two-ton station wagon just minutes after he told the notoriously possessive, billionairess that he was leaving her for a career in Hollywood.

As Peter explained, with little or no investigation, Newport’s police chief, Joseph Radice, closed the case in 96 hours. Calling it an accident, he went so far as to create a fabricated transcript of an interrogation of Doris that never took place, that was purportedly conducted by Newport’s Chief of Detective’s Captain Paul Sullivan.
For decades, after starting his career as a cub reporter for The Newport Daily News just eight months after Tirella’s death, Lance was driven to tell the true story and in 2020, after an 8,000 word article in Vanity Fair, he wrote HOMICIDE AT ROUGH POINT, which was published in 4 editions in early 2021 – leading the police to reopen the case.
We begin Part Two as Peter describes an encounter he had with Captain Sullivan when he was covering a case involving the murder of two sailors by a friend and former classmate of his, named Stephen Robertson, whose incredibly story of homicide and redemption serve as bookends to HOMICIDE AT ROUGH POINT.

Book available at AMAZON at: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Rough-Point-Peter-Lance/dp/0996285598/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&asc_campaign=2b5a785186b501c352c95398a3440b1b&asc_source=01G8XG0GEG1CT4D3C07B4FAY7P&tag=namespacebran131-20⁠

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Death By Dentist

At just 41 years of age, Florida State law professor Dan Markel was among the most well-known and accomplished criminal law scholars in the country. He was also a newly divorced dad, his toddlers Ben and Lincoln the center of his universe.

On the morning of July 18, 2014, Dan dropped his boysoff at preschool, hit the gym for a workout, and headed home to his quiet, tree-canopied neighborhood. Within seconds of pulling into his garage, two .38-caliber bullets fired from point-blank range were lodged in his brain.

His brutal slaying seemed to defy logical explanation, the case stone cold for nearly two years. Finally, dogged pursuit by the Tallahassee Police and FBI led to the apprehension of two men with lengthy rap sheets who had apparently driven ten hours from Miami with one singular purpose: to assassinate the revered professor.

But why? Were his ex-wife Wendi Adelson and her South Florida family the masterminds behind this horrific crime?

My guest today, author Steven B. Epstein may have theanswer as we dig into a story I call DEATH BY DENTIST.