A man died in his home after a long history of heart disease.

It was assumed that this was the cause of his death.

A few weeks after the funeral, rumors surfaced that the death was no accident.

When the body was exhumed, scientists needed to know whether the dead could tell tales.

On a January night in 1990, a woman called for an ambulance saying her boyfriend was unconscious and barely breathing.

Emergency personnel were at the home in Westport, Massachusetts within minutes.

We arrived on the scene, went into the house, and we found a male sitting in a chair,

and he was just kind of slumped forward, unresponsive.

The man's girlfriend said he had a long history of heart trouble.

As soon as I took his robe apart, I saw that he had a scar from a past cardiac surgery,

which she indicated that he had had a bypass surgery at some point in time.

And we began CPR.

But the CPR brought no response.

61-year-old Richard Alfredo was pronounced dead an hour later at a nearby hospital.

Because of his heart disease, the local medical examiner decided not to perform an autopsy.

Mr. Alfredo had a long history of severe heart disease, which necessitated a coronary bypass procedure.

So at the time of his death, he had every reason to die from his heart disease.

Richard Alfredo was buried four days after his death.

All of his assets worth about $25,000 went to his estranged wife and children. Alfredo's girlfriend, 39-year-old Christina Martin,

continued to live in the house the couple shared, along with her two children from a previous marriage.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Westport police officer Mike Roussel

started hearing rumors.

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