Bad news has a way of barging into life uninvited.

Tara Bentley: I was about 10 minutes down the road when my cell phone rang and it was my mom. And she was crying. She was saying that Lesa was gone.

She was 35 years old and healthy. And suddenly, she was dead. Why?

Before long ER doctors found a clue: six evenly spaced injection punctures, in a hard place to reach, the doctors told detective Eric Anderson.

Eric Anderson, detective: They were in the pubic area in the groin. Parallel with the femoral artery. And they appeared fresh.

Nobody had to tell the detective what that meant. I.V. drug use.

She was a mother, clean cut.

Tara Bentley: There was never any indication that Lesa was addicted to drugs.

Besides, Christ Koulis, her plastic surgeon boyfriend, told the hospital -- insisted, actually -- that Lesa had not used drugs.

Christ Koulis: Specifically, what I told the ER doctor, they asked me was, “What medication was she taking?” I told him hydrocodone and Xanax.

Lesa had used the pain killer hydrocodone for relief from her migraines and Xanax, to counter anxiety. Neither one would have killed her.

So why did the autopsy point to the startling fact that yes, Lesa's death was related to I.V. drugs?

Something didn't add up, especially when paramedics reported what they had noticed at Lesa's apartment.

Eric Anderson: The syringes in the sink, the large number of medical samples.

Keith Morrison: Something was going on there.

Eric Anderson: There was more to the story than we were getting on the front end.

For one thing, there was something Koulis had said to police back in the ER.

Eric Anderson: He basically said, "I’ve been down this road before.” We found out -- digging into their past -- this was not something out of the blue for him. This was not something out of the blue for Lesa to be involved in.

It was three years earlier, in May, 2002, when police were called to a Kentucky hospital where Lesa had been rushed for a severe infection brought on by I.V. drug use. Deputy Bobby Pate was called in to investigate.

Deputy Bobby Pate: Her mother told us that her boyfriend OD'd her, shot up a bunch of shots. Was telling us about sores and stuff all over her body, and things that he did to her that was wrong. And that we needed to do something about it. Get him off the street.

It would turn out that Lesa had gotten hooked on injecting the pain killer Demerol. It was a habit, police discovered, that she'd been introduced to by her doctor boyfriend, Christ Koulis.

It was in one of their hot romantic periods. They went on a two-month drug spree.

Deputy Bobby Pate: She was telling us the main reason he kept her drugged up -- because it kept her nice and naked.

Koulis had decided to kick his habit and had left for rehab far away in Arizona. Lesa stayed behind. The next day, she was rushed to the hospital with a severe infection caused by her drug injections.

Still, as Lesa recovered, Koulis had reached out, sending her a letter saying it was all his fault. It was an effort, he said, to help her retain rights to her daughter.

Even so, police encouraged Lesa to press charges against Chris since he'd provided the drugs and injected them into her bloodstream.

And then, a lawyer representing Lesa contacted the authorities. This was a lawyer paid for by Koulis.

Deputy Bobby Pate: Her lawyer called me and told us that she had no longer wanted anything to do with the Koulis case.

No one was surprised to discover that Koulis and Lesa were back together again.

Deputy Bobby Pate: I think he had his mitts back on her, and started controlling her again.

Tara Bentley: He absolutely did everything he could to convince Lesa that if she testified against him, that she was going to go to jail. Or that she would lose Jessie.

So several weeks later, Lesa checked into the same rehab Koulis had been to. And he paid for that, too.

Tara Bentley: Christ could threaten you and then offer to save you all in one breath.

Christ did not escape the incident unscathed, however. He was convicted of unlawfully supplying Lesa with drugs in Kentucky. Three years later, at the time of Lesa’s death in July, 2005, he was still on probation.

That incident was enough to send the police back to Lesa’s apartment, where they found the bedroom had been a very busy place that weekend.

Eric Anderson: Various sexual paraphernalia and devices that seemed odd, to say the least.

Investigators found a staggering number of prescription medications, for everything from migraines to depression, and then needles. Syringes.

Eric Anderson: We found syringes in the trash bag in a bathroom closet. That's not normal.

Keith Morrison: As if they'd been hidden away?

Eric Anderson: Absolutely as if they'd been hidden away.

And even more disturbing, why were some of the syringes filled with a potent and highly addictive mixture?

Eric Anderson: Those were found to contain the suspect material, the compound that had the oxycodone that was the proximate cause of her death.

Oxycodone is a notoriously addictive pain killer, much stronger than the hydrocodone Lesa used for migraines.

Oxycodone was legally accessible to very few people beyond medical professionals.

The oxycodone in Lesa’s apartment had been ground up and mixed with a saline solution so it could be injected into that hard-to-reach spot on Lesa’s groin.

Eric Anderson: Is it possible that someone could inject themselves in the femoral artery in the groin? Certainly it's possible. Is it probable? Not very probable.

Keith Morrison: What did that say to you, as you investigated?

Eric Anderson: It said to me that someone else did it to her.

Keith Morrison: Most likely who?

Eric Anderson: Most likely the last person to see her alive.

Keith Morrison: The doctor?

Eric Anderson: Yes.

Had Koulis administered dangerous drugs to Lesa? In Tennessee, that would make him liable for her death.

Or maybe Lesa did it herself, without Koulis's help -- or even his knowledge. There seemed to be no way to prove anything.

That is, until one last discovery in Lesa’s apartment: a video tape of Christ and Lesa, shot the weekend of her death.

And what was on that tape was not only pornographic and shocking -- it was damning, too.

Eric Anderson: What we're seeing is her demise on videotape.

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