The 48 Hours episode “The Good Girl” investigates the 2009 murder of 32-year-old Michael Sinclair. He was shot in West Babylon, New York and left in the middle of the road. One of his friends told police he thought Sinclair went to a club in Manhattan called Tacu Tacu that night. Video survelliance tapes from the club showed Sinclair there that night with a woman. When they looked into his cell phone records, they found the number of 19-year-old honors student Noriella Santos. According to Santos, Sinclair asked Santos to be his girlfriend but she said no because she just got out of a very serious relationship with Daniel Greenspan, her first boyfriend, who she met in high school. Santos says Greenspan was abusive and became jealous when he found out Santos was seeing Sinclair. Santos had contracted herpes from Sinclair and gave the disease to Greenspan. She says she was then manipulated by Greenspan, “forced to” lure Sinclair to the West Bablyon street where he was shot five times. (She says she thought Greenspan was plotting a robbery.) “I did not have a choice,” Santos tells 48 Hours.
Suffolk County prosecutor Nancy Clifford made a deal for Santos to testify against Greenspan, who was accused of murdering Sinclair. Greenspan’s attorney Arthur Aidala said there’s no physical, forensic or circumstantial evidence to prove that Greenspan was even at the scene of the crime. There is only Santos’ word. “That’s it,” says Aidala, “There’s nothing else.” In 2017, Daniel Greenspan was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to the maximum 25 years to life in prison. Greenspan continues to proclaim his innocence in the killing. 48 Hours airs Saturdays at 10pm on CBS.
