'Forensic Files' returns, features 2 Akron cases

A popular TV series dedicated to the tenacity of detectives and forensic experts is returning to the airwaves and a pair of cases with Akron ties will be featured.

The cable channel HLN (CNN's Headline News) is bringing back "Forensic Files" on Feb. 23.

The premiere episode will center on an Akron murder that went undetected for some 30 years until detectives reopened the case.

The episode dubbed "Buried Secrets" will air at 10 p.m. Feb. 23 and tell how a fire investigation led investigators to reexamine the mysterious death of Scott Purk's wife decades earlier.

The case dates back to 1985 when Purk called police to report that his wife, Margaret, who was 24 and ready to give birth to their first child within days, had died by suicide inside their Timber Trail apartment in Akron.

Purk called 911 and later told detectives that his wife hanged herself from a second-floor stairway railing. The death was a ruled a suicide.

Investigators took another look into the death when a 2009 fire -- that was later determined to have been set by Purk for insurance money -- broke out in the Stow home he shared with his new wife and their two children.

A Stow detective became suspicious when Purk began talking "out of the blue" about his first wife's death.

This led Akron detectives to take another look at Margaret's death. After exhuming her body, they determined she had, in fact, been murdered.

He was sentenced to life in prison in 2015.

Purk, 62, remains in the Pickaway Correctional Institution.

Another case to be examined in one of the 16 new "Forensic Files II" episodes to air over eight weeks is he arrest and conviction of an Akron General ER doctor who killed his wife.

The episode "The Car Accident" does not have an air date yet but it centers on the case of Akron General ER Dr. Yazeed Essa.

The story begins in 2005 when his wife, Rosemarie, died after a minor car accident in Cuyahoga County.

Investigators later determined that she died after taking a calcium supplement laced with cyanide that her husband gave her.

It seems Rosemarie had confided to a friend shortly before her death that she was feeling nauseated and wondered whether the calcium supplement her husband had given her was to blame.

Essa fled the country shortly after his wife's death and led officials on an international manhunt that ended in Cyprus.

He was sentenced to life in prison in 2010.

Essa, 51, is in the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.

The show, which last aired new episodes in 2011, not only examines particular cases but focuses on the advancements in investigative technology that led to the arrests and convictions.

The series will be narrated by actor Bill Camp of "Dark Waters" and "Joker" fame.

Craig Webb can be reached at cwebb@thebeacon.com.

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