Grapes of Wrath

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911, where's your emergency? He calls 911 and he's yelling at the phone,

help me, help me, he's shot me. This is the actual transcript from the 911 call.

Yes. So he's running through the vineyard. He is running through the vineyard and the shooter is in

the truck coming after him shooting out the window. This is crazy, crazy. Who are these guys?

These guys were a couple of rich, ambitious wine lovers who wanted to be in the business and own

their own vineyards. Look, I have pictures. Here's E-Mod, E-Mod Tophilus. He's a smart guy from

Silicon Valley who loved Hollywood. He even financed a movie. And here's the other guy,

Robert Dahl, an operator who people said could make money grow on trees. In this case, vines.

Take one, Amar. My name is Jonathan Kesselman. I'm a filmmaker. Jimmy Vestful, there's a

terminus. I was directing a film and E-Mod was the principal investor in the film. E-Mod

made his money in Silicon Valley and then was looking for other things to invest in.

Yeah, I think, you know, he made a good living, wanted to invest his money into things he was

more passionate about, movies, wine. Robert Dahl, did he come with a dream?

Oh, definitely. He really did have the vision of having some form of a winery.

Robert made me feel like we'd been friends forever.

On first meeting. No, within the first 10 minutes. He was a very nice outgoing, hardworking guy.

So it seemed like a good guy to partner up with? Absolutely.

One time, I don't know how I ended up on the back of his motorcycle and he looked out

and he pointed at this mansion. I mean, he said, you know what? Greg and I are going to make so

much money that he's going to be able to buy a house like this for you someday.

Everything seemed to be going great. Oh, it was awesome. Yeah, perfect.

Until it all went wrong. Yes. And this is over money. This is over money.

$800,000 in a gym bag. Broken dreams. Broken dreams.

Who lives? Who dies? It's an incredible tale of wine, money, and murder.

So we have a nail and help me, help me. We advise for some to explain that he has been shot again twice now.

It was a showdown between two millionaires. Robert Dahl and Imad Taufilis.

While the tales of a shocking murder in the Napa Valley, a bitter money dispute ends in an execution

style shooting. That's all started at Dahl vineyards on Solano Avenue, the victim.

I mean, just look at this place. Napa Valley, who wouldn't want a piece of this? That's what these two

men wanted and they went for it, but it ended in murder. So we came here to figure out what happened

and what we discovered is really interesting. It turns out that no less than four people

thought that they could have ended up targets of the killer too. Could have been me running through

the vineyard and ducking from flying bullets. I was probably number one on his list to kill.

My first thought was that could have very easily been Greg. What do you think would have happened if you

were there? I think you would have killed me. Hold on, let's just slow down for a second. How do you

get from two ambitious guys trying to make it in the wine business to a murder mystery with

four or five other potential victims? Well, we found a guy who can explain it all.

Because his family has worked in these valleys for generations. And he says he could have been a

victim that day too. So is it customary if we visit to open a bottle of wine? The only way that you

can visit sure could have someone. Cheers.

Meet Dominic Fopoli, pretty close to royalty around here. Me and my brother and two sisters

were the fourth generation of our family to be involved. I mean our great-grandfather started

doing this with grapes and making some wine in the early 1900s. Now he and his brother and sisters

and friends run the Christopher Creek winery. We've known each other for all of our lives and so

we are family above and beyond. Are there a lot of dreamers who come here? Oh yeah, big-time

tech tycoons, Wall Street guys, rock stars, movie people, and they all want to come and have a

slice of this. And a lot of people see the glamorous side of it without you know seeing the hard work

that goes into it. The blood sweat and tears that it really takes to get to the point we're at

right now of drinking a great bottle. How tough is it to break in? It's very, very tough unless

you're coming with a lot of money. And then there's the matter of trust. Doing business in the wine

country is often very personal. You know their word is their bond. Shake their hands, you look in

their eye and you're good. You bond with a person and then maybe go into business with them?

Absolutely. That's a huge, huge part of it. So because you need to know that you can trust

that person. But as we'll find out, watch out if that bond is broken because the stakes are high.

The money makes people crazy. Blue Purdue is a tech entrepreneur and the most respected

wine writer in Napa. Money is intoxicating and when you mix money and wine, I think you get

intoxicated to the second or third power. How often does it happen that somebody comes in with

a lot of money and not so much knowledge about wine, but just wants to be a part of this?

Every day. Every day. Back in 2011, a guy named Robert Dahl was about to get drunk on all that

money. He decided to leave Minnesota where he had an unglamorous, mold removal business

and become a Napa Valley wine entrepreneur. He had a booming voice. He was always the

loudest guy in the room. Just a big presence. Yeah, big presence. Miles Davis is an

electrician who worked for Dahl almost from the beginning of his time in Napa. You were friends

of them initially when he was doing what business? I'm selling and buying grapes.

Selling and buying grapes. That's one way of saying Dahl was in the lower end of the wine business.

He wasn't making fine wines. He was bottling no name wine, making what they call shiners.

The shiner is a bottle that doesn't have a label and then he'd sell you that fruit. You put your

own label on it. Was he a good salesman? Oh, great salesman. Oh, he could sell anyone.

So the wine didn't even have to really be that good. He could sell it.

Oh, it never was really that good. And he talked a good game. He talked a great game.

And you knew enough to know that he didn't know a lot. I knew that he had a good line of BS,

which is fine and made him funnier. It was part of his charm that he could BS. Yeah, I loved it

about him. Dahl had moved to wine country with his wife and three children. His family is amazing.

They're just wonderful people. His wife's a very sweet loving woman. The kids are amazing.

In fact, they call me their godfather. Within a couple of years, his bottling business was a big

success and Dahl liked to show it. He showed up my office with $10,000 and said, let's buy a Harley.

I'm sorry. He showed up my office with $10,000 in cash and said, we're buying a Harley.

You pay me back in the next few months or whatever. That's Robert. He was all about stuff like that.

Did he seem concerned about money? No, never.

So it was in 2011 that Robert Dahl took his next big step toward his dream of making it big in

the wine business. He linked up with that Prince of the Wine Country, Dominic Fopoli.

I had met some people from Asia who were looking into getting into importing California wine.

Fopoli was young. He didn't have his own personal vineyard yet and he needed more products.

I couldn't literally package wine fast enough because they didn't have my own facility.

And so I met Robert. He was very new to this, but he was willing to work really, really hard.

And he had a genuineness that he could project that made you want to trust him, made you want to like him.

Over the next year, Fopoli and Dahl became close.

We got dinner and hang out. And as a friend, he was always there. I could text him at 11 o'clock at night

and he'd get back to me. Business was good and one day, Dahl made him a proposition.

He called me up and said, hey, there's this place in your neck of the woods.

They'd buy their own vineyard. And so I came over and I met him here and I looked at this view and

the vineyards and literally an hour after sitting down with him, we drank a bottle of wine on this deck.

I said, I mean, let's do this.

Fopoli staked everything he had on this partnership, even his house.

You know, I said, this is something I'm going to do. I'm going to have to go all in and I need you to

be all in too. And he said, I got you.

Fopoli didn't think it would be a stretch for Robert Dahl.

I assume that this was a fun little side project for him.

I never had any reason to doubt that he was doing tremendously well.

Did you feel like he had your back?

Oh, completely. There was not. I didn't doubt for a second.

But almost as soon as the vineyard deal with Fopoli was closed, Dahl was looking for the next big thing.

Sharing ownership in a vineyard wasn't good enough. He wanted to be the boss.

To do that, he needed new partners. And then he found just the man he was looking for.

A man with connections to the bright lights of Hollywood.

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Thanks for not judging me. I'll try something new next time.

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I directed a film called Jimmy Vest with American Hero.

It's a comedy. It's a comedy. It's a comedy starring a comic named Mazra Bronny.

I'm Jimmy. Jimmy Vest food. Like Clint Eastwood. What a Vest food. Very funny film.

Hello Mr. Cara. Director and screenwriter Jonathan Kesselman was shooting the film's wedding scene

when one of the extras struck up a conversation. While we're sort of in between setups,

we started talking and he said hi. I'm E-Mod. I'm the investor in the film and just a really

nice guy we chatted. E-Mod Tophilus was a young businessman from Silicon Valley.

What kind of actor was he? He was a better humanitarian than an actor. He was a good extra.

He was very good. He hit his marks. E-Mod was principal investor in the film.

He put up about $200,000 and Kesselman became friendly with him.

He was like a business person in tech and I think he was excited to be not a corporate guy anymore.

He had sort of made a lot of money and he was tired of it and wanted to sort of explore

other things in his life. Things that he had passion for. One of those passions was film.

The other was wine. E-Mod invited his new film director friend and his wife to the fancy

home he owned near the wine country. It was just, you know, I love wine. You guys like wine.

Let's go wine tasting. He actually gave us his bedroom. His bedroom was very flashy.

Like his bathroom he had redone. Like there was a television inside the mirror of the bathroom.

And he was very excited about his bathroom.

But wine was more than a passion for E-Mod. It was a driving ambition.

In 2011, E-Mod Tafilis got to know Robert Dahl and they talked about the dream they shared

of making it big in the wine business.

But this story isn't just about wine. It's about cash close to a million dollars in cash.

Now if you're wondering what that looks like, well, so were we. So we got some Hollywood prop

money, which looks a lot and feels a lot like the real thing. And this is how Robert Dahl did

his next deal. $800,000 in cash in a gym bag.

The money came from that movie investor, E-Mod Tafilis. In 2013, according to E-Mod,

Robert told him that returns on his investment would be big. And if he invested cash,

they'd get better deals. E-Mod was jumping into business with Robert Dahl with both feet.

It sounds like the perfect match, Robert, who supposedly knows about wine, but doesn't have

the money. And then E-Mod, who doesn't know a lot about wine, but has the cash. Exactly.

Remember, Dahl had already started a vineyard business with Dominic Fopoli. But that wasn't

enough for him. Shortly after Dahl's partnership with Fopoli began, it ended. There'd been problems.

Now Dahl wanted his own thing. He wanted his name on the bottle. E-Mod was going to make that

happen. His investment, which now totaled $1.2 million, would help launch Dahl Vineyards.

E-Mod was finally a player. And Dahl was center stage.

Welcome to Dahl Vineyards and lovely Yachtbrook, California. He's a salesman. It's a show.

Did people seem like they were having a good time? Oh yeah, always. He pours good wine and he pours

it well. Generously? And it was a nice product. He did a nice job on that wine.

And the business prospered. So much that Dahl was soon able to repay E-Mod part of his investment.

And that's the thing. Everything that Robert Dahl touched seemed to be turning out golden.

And it was happening so fast. Now, armed with E-Mod Tafilis's money, Dahl was on his way to

being everything he wanted to be. The big man in Napa. Did he exude confidence? Exuded confidence.

Oh my gosh, like nobody I've ever met before in my life. That same year, Dahl started up another

brand new business with that Napa couple, Francine and Greg Knittle. This is just an abstract vineyard

scene. They'd been pursuing their passions in Napa for years. Francine did her art. So Napa

clearly inspires you. Yes, definitely. And Greg's construction business. This is one of our custom

remiles. Oh, this is beautiful. Built some of the area's nicest homes and tasting rooms.

Look at the ceiling. It's like the cysteen chapel. Some of this stuff I feel like we can't show

on television. But life was good. Every time we come home, we just say to each other,

look at where we live. We're so blessed. And there was no hesitation when the new guy,

Robert Dahl, came into their lives. He was very outgoing, charismatic, hardworking, very hardworking.

So it seemed like a good guy to partner up with. Absolutely. Oh yeah.

Dahl and the Knittles started a craft beer brewery, a business that created fancy hand-made

beers. Greg was a handy partner for Dahl. His construction company built the brewery.

What did he promise you? Well, we were going to have an opera, a reputable business that we

would be able to hand off to our kids. And he pointed at this mansion that's right office

over at a trail. And he looked back at me and he said, you know what? Greg and I are going to

make so much money that he's going to be able to buy a house like this for you someday.

The business was off to a good start. They added a brew pub. I mean, we had

the best beer ever. Our restaurant was booming. The brewery was brewed. I mean,

like within like three or four months, like it was incredible. It was incredible.

Francine and Greg even became close friends with Dahl and his wife, Janelle. We did everything

together for a year. And it was boot like it was going really well, like really, really well.

He liked to live well. You know, he can live in a 3,000 square foot house. It had to be a 5,000

square foot house. It was all about looks. He didn't have to have one brand new motorcycle he had to have.

Two brand new motorcycles. I'm sure you'll play the video of him after the nap earthquake.

In fact, I have that video right here. This was taken after the 2014 earthquake in Napa.

If an East Coasters thinking about coming to Napa for harvest season to have some nice wine and

have a few dinners, is it time to call that vacation off? Oh, absolutely not. Everything is

back going in wine country. It's a great time to visit wine country. See some grapes being

crushed. Taste some fresh juice and really taking the wine lifestyle. I'm listening to him and

almost sounds like he could be the mayor of Napa. But things aren't always exactly as they appear

to be. Remember Dominic Fippoli, Dahl's former partner? Dominic had been running the winery

and Dahl was running the books. We're going to we're selling a bunch of wine. I mean,

the winery was a hit, but there wasn't enough money to keep paying our bills, which I didn't

understand. I didn't get. Where's the money going? Where's the money going? Where's the money going?

That was the question plenty more people in the wine country were about to start asking.

By 2014, the new Dahl vineyards seem to be taking off. Robert Dahl and Imad Tafilis, the two

ambitious entrepreneurs, were living their dreams. Robert himself running the show and Imad,

silent partner, providing the money. But what Imad didn't know was partnerships with Robert Dahl

had a way of turning sour. Remember Robert's first vineyard, the one he shared with Dominic Fippoli?

One day Dominic got a phone call from their lender. I'm starting for closure proceedings on you guys.

For closure proceedings. For closure? Yeah, because we had missed our first payment to him

as for the winery. So I called Robert and he said, you shouldn't be worried about that. I've got

all that covered. I said, are you kidding me? Fippoli went ballistic. This is my dream and we were

successful in everything we were doing. His life savings and reputation were on the line. He had

to get rid of Dahl. So my family and my partners, my brother and my best friends and came around

and said, we'll do whatever we need to do and let's give this guy out. Fippoli got control of

the vineyard, but he had to pay Dahl to go away. He was bitter. You know, I introduced him as my

partner and my friend. So I brought him into that circle of trust that we have here. Everybody

opened him with open arms because I vouched for him. I had never been burned before. I was naive.

And it turns out Fippoli wasn't the only one. No one that ever put money into something that he

was doing was ever going to get anything back. Steve Birch knows he's a winemaker who worked for Dahl.

Back when Dahl looked like he was the golden boy of wine country, Birch introduced him to

celebrities for the comic and TV personality Adam Corolla. He bottled a sangria, called Mangria.

He made money on it, but I know that there was a significant amount of payment for that that

Adam never received. And there was the rapper E-40. He had Dahl package some wines for his label,

Earl Stevens wines. We started his product and it went really well, but I know he wasn't,

he wasn't paid either. And there was Birch himself. I left with him owing me a lot of money.

Can you give me a ballpark? I will say it was well over ten thousand dollars.

The same thing happened to Dahl's friend, electrician Miles Davis,

Dahl owed him fifteen thousand dollars. Did you ever see that money? No,

but you were friends with him again? Yeah, because he's a great, yeah I'm fine with that. I mean,

it wasn't about the money, it was about you know there was concerns that he was in trouble.

So I didn't feel like my little fifteen thousand was anything to worry about.

Because he was getting underwater. Yeah. Do you say anything? No. No.

No. Did you figure he'd find a way out of it? Yep. I hope he would.

And then there was Francine and Greg Canittle. Just a few months after the successful debut of the

brewery they started with Dahl and a well-known brew master, the business started slipping.

I got the first inkling that Dahl wasn't what he says he was because a friend of mine went to

his brewery and I put quotes around that because the friend of mine like craft beer and he wasn't

making beer at his quote unquote brew pot. Apparently by the time loose friend stopped by for a drink,

the brewery was no longer making its own beer. He wasn't making beer at the brewery? No,

he was buying our kegs from somebody else and when this friend of mine came face to face and

told him about that he just went ballistic. Like he'd been found out. Like he had been found out.

Dahl's partners Francine and Greg say they didn't know what Dahl was up to at the brewery

and they were shocked when Dahl came in one day and announced he was shutting down the whole thing.

Francine and Greg say they not only lost $250,000 of their own money. They'd encouraged

friends to invest too. And unlike Miles Davis, they felt personally betrayed by their friend Robert Dahl.

What gets to you the most? Somebody that we trusted had this capability, had this, I mean,

Robert knew the whole time going to pretty much screw us over.

But no one felt more ripped off than Imad Tafilis. He thought he'd invested more than a million

dollars in a vineyard. Instead, Dahl diverted the cash, spending it on his lavish lifestyle,

the brewery business, just about anything else. Dahl had stopped paying back the money he borrowed

and Tafilis hired a lawyer. He was angry. He wanted his money and he wanted to find out everything

he could about Robert Dahl. You amassed a pile of information about Robert Dahl.

This is the pile of leans that Robert had against him. Civil judgment from Ford Motor Company,

$19,000. Allied building products company, $61,000, $53,000, $7,900.

Imad hired Don King, who has her own special niche in Napa Valley.

Well, I'm a private investigator here in Napa and I was an FBI agent for 10 years.

An FBI agent? Yes. So you can smell a rat. Well, I'd like to put rats in prison anyway.

Don started digging. So he was just not paying his bills. I mean, he was just like, you know,

charging credit cards. Here's the federal credit union, $53,000. And then you get into his lawsuit.

A lot of what Don discovered happened back in Minnesota during the years before Dahl came to Napa,

but to Don, it told a story. You know, this is the theft. One of his theft charges.

One of his theft charges. He had two. This was the theft by Swindle. So he actually was convicted

of theft by Swindle. He was.

Thiefs and Swindles got Dahl thrown into jail, not once, but twice back in Minnesota,

and left him a convicted felon. I mean, this guy was a criminal.

Now here in the wine country, Dahl seemed to be scamming again. Every time he'd get a business

investment, the money seemed to go right into his pocket. Was this kind of a Ponzi scheme?

Yeah, to some extent. I mean, he said that no one got paid. He was like,

a Ponzi scene, the first people didn't get paid. But it is. No, no. It was it right.

Robert got paid, but Robert spent all the money.

In 2014, wine reporter Lou Perdue began to uncover the Swindles Robert Dahl was pulling

right here in Napa Valley. He started blogging what he found and guests who responded.

And those are his comments. Robert Dahl. Those are his comments. And then he starts to rant.

Paragraph. Oh, I see this. By paragraph. By paragraph. Oh, my goodness. In big red capital letters.

Just keeps coming. Oh, my goodness. And it comes just like one of those magic scars and it comes.

Just ranting and ranting and ranting. I think I measured this at 26 feet.

And what did this say to you? This says to me, the guy's it was off his nut.

Things were really heating up. Both sides were suing. And it looked as if things were

headed for a showdown. A mod was just like so crazed and he was becoming like a desperate man.

For years, Gunn South has been a podcast about crime in the American South.

But for our new season, we're widening the lens. Through deeply reported narrative driven stories,

we're digging into the myths, scandals, and power structures that still shape the south.

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Oh, my gosh. I mean, I used to get 10, 15, 20 phone calls a day.

Emod Tophilus was angry, very angry. He wanted his whole investment back, but it wasn't looking good.

How desperate was Emod? He was a desperate man. On a scale from one to ten, he was about a nine.

He was not going to let someone like Robert Dahl take advantage of him and bully him into being

submissive. Attorney David Wiseblood. Emod came to me saying, I have this problem,

so I looked at it and said, yeah, you have a problem. So we devised a strategy.

That strategy was to hammer Robert Dahl in court and force him to pay up.

So the strategy was file a lawsuit in Napa to basically get control of the collateral and to prevent

stuff from disappearing. That collateral was mostly the wine tanks and all the equipment used

to make the wine and what happened. Robert didn't roll that well. What happened? I had in a four-month

period 19 court appearances in the Napa court, which is crazy. I mean, the short answer is the Napa

court issued an injunction against Robert saying you can't sell inventory, which in effect should

have shut down his wine making and wine selling operations. That all belongs to Emod basically.

Pretty much. Even though Emod was winning in court, Robert Dahl was doing everything he could to

cheat. He was even secretly taking equipment and trying to sell it off. Robert, at that point,

it started hiding equipment, hiding whatever he could. He started moving stuff.

But Robert Dahl's attorneys, Jasmine Dahl and Kusha Barakim. There's a lot more than the headlines.

Say, Dahl was a clever businessman, but he was no crook. You think Robert's mindset was,

I'm going to take this, but I'll be able to pay it back and everything's going to be okay.

Absolutely. I think he had every intention to pay back the entire loan.

Dahl's lawyers believed Dahl was a stand-up guy that classic all-American risk-taking entrepreneur

who puts it all on the line, and at the last minute comes out a hero.

The business was growing, and it was not a Ponzi scheme or house of cards.

I was shown a document that says Robert Dahl was convicted of swindle in Minnesota.

If you look at that document again, you will see that that goes back to when he was about 19 or

21 years old or so. But still, people look at that and say, once a con man, always a con man.

Robert definitely had his share of failed ventures before as well.

But you don't think that proves that he's a thief.

Not at all. A thief takes money and runs with it. A thief doesn't go to court.

He was a risk-taker, and when you take risks sometimes you end up harming other people as well,

but our system is set up for that.

In the wine business, Dahl's lawyers say, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

And they insist Imad Taufilis was the real villain in this business deal.

You think this was a scam for Imad?

Absolutely. How would one come up with that much cash and why?

It's still a mystery where all that cash came from.

But Dahl's lawyers say Imad was so angry he was determined to destroy Robert Dahl's business.

His barrels of wines were taken. His cars were taken. His brewing systems were taken.

He was in an impossible place.

With no business to operate, Dahl couldn't earn any money to pay off the debts he owed to Imad and others.

And then, surprisingly, there was a breakthrough. It looked as if Imad might get more of his money back.

The lawyers had come to a deal, and Imad and Robert were going to get together to hammer out the

details. Robert wanted to meet here at his vineyard.

I went to my office Monday morning, and I got a phone call from Imad.

David, I've decided to go to the wiring.

On that morning, I was on the phone, and Imad's attorney was on the phone.

Imad and Robert were there in person. Their attorneys joined them on a conference call.

There was a definite agreement on what was going to be paid to Imad. It was just so eerily calm.

It was eerily calm. It was eerily calm.

But then, Robert Dahl rocked the boat. And he said, why don't you give an

ass what the lawyers negotiated? This is my offer.

What seemed to be a nearly done deal suddenly started unraveling.

Which was several hundred thousand dollars less than what was agreed to.

The lawyers felt it was a breakdown that Imad and Robert should deal with themselves.

They were both business savvy, and this was something that they both could have easily handled.

So both lawyers got off the phone, both expected to hear right back from their clients.

20 minutes go by. We had no idea what was going on.

I don't hear from Imad. I was expecting to call.

Then I got an email saying there was a shooting.

I got a call from Mr. Weisblatt. He said, push her, tell me this didn't really happen.

You thought Imad lost it. I thought Imad lost it. We both thought that.

That's the winery up at the end of the road.

Yeah, up at the end of the road.

On March 16th, 2015, Imad Tophilis and Robert Dahl had finally gotten together to try to settle

their ugly dispute. They'd been meeting one-on-one in a room inside that barn over there at Dahl

Vineyard. The lawyers were on the phone on a conference call, but just a few moments after everything

started, they hit a snag.

Imad wanted to settle it and Dahl wanted to settle it.

But something went wrong. Clearly they can't come to an agreement down there in the Vineyard.

Not only couldn't they come to an agreement,

all hell breaks loose. There's a burst of gunfire and evidence shows the men come tumbling

out of the barn. One has a gun. He's firing. The other man is wounded,

running for his life into the vines. They can't agree, and suddenly one person takes off,

down these rows like in between these grapes here. Right. Running through here. Right.

Imad and Robert both take off, one hunting the other.

Running down the row, being pursued by the other one, who is shooting at the guy who became

the victim. Is shooting through these grapes just as the guy's running? It's a wild chase,

something out of a movie. The hunted man desperately dials 9-1-1. He's calling 9-1-1 as he's

running through the vineyard. He's still running even though he's been shot. Right. So what does

the shooter do? The shooter knows he can't catch the victim. So he goes back to the winery,

gets in his car and drives over, hoping to cut the victim off as the victim runs out. As the

victim gets here, he tells 9-1-1 that he can see the deputies arriving here. So he's saved. He can

see the deputies. And the shooter comes around, gets out of his car, and shoots the victim in the head

with a fatal shot as the police cars are arriving. So the shooter gets out, stands basically,

stands over the guy. Yes. Delivers the Cudagra. While the sheriff's deputies were right there.

The sheriff's deputies were arriving right at this corner.

And this is where it all ended. The winery, these two men had dreamed of building together.

Imad Tafilis was lying dead on the ground, murdered by Robert Dahl.

He knows it's all over. I mean, he knows that no matter what he does, he's been caught. He can't

talk his way out of it. So he gets in the vehicle, drives up a terrible road here, where there are

very few outlets. And as the police are closing in on him, he shoots himself in the head and kills

himself. He kills himself. All over. The final bad life choice on a crooked life that's led all the

way back to Minnesota. It's hard to say what set Robert Dahl off that day.

It certainly seems the crime was premeditated. Dahl had brought a gun, and remember,

he was a convicted felon, and he wasn't allowed to own one. And at that final meeting,

he pulled out a bizarre document that he wanted Tafilis to sign, a document that seemed almost insane.

There was basically a manifesto that Imad was trying to ruin his life. This was supposed to be

a confession by Imad that it was all a hoax and it was all his fault. So the idea is Robert

pulls out this crazy manifesto and says, sign this. And he pulls out a gun and says, sign this.

There was evidence that Dahl may have been ready to kill more people, duct tape,

flex cuffs, a tarp, gloves, and there was ammo more than 750 rounds. A magnetic gun holder that

goes on a car. To me, that is a murder kit. I mean, plain and simple. I think he was trying to figure out

how to kill the people that had brought him down. And that theory fits what we've discovered here in

Napa. In the course of our reporting, so many people told us they too could have been victims.

There was Dawn King, the dirt digging private eye. Could have been me running through the vineyard.

Could have been. Loupardew, the dogged wine journalist. And I think I was probably number one on

his list to kill because I was the guy who blew the whistle on everything. Francine and Greg

Knittle, who filed a criminal case against Dahl. My first thought was that could have very easily

been Greg. And Imad Tafilis' attorney, David Wiseblood. And certainly could have been me. And I'm

sure that it would have been. There was even that prince of the wine country, Dominic Fopoli.

You think you would have killed you too? Oh yeah. Finally, we were left with one more question.

How could Robert Dahl have convinced all these people to believe in him?

The Robert Dahl was an Academy Award-winning actor when it comes to convincing people to trust him.

How did he not get found out? Nobody checked. People like this, they keep moving,

destroy somebody else's life for their own good, their own benefit.

Imad Tafilis' murder haunts almost everyone he knew in the wine country.

You think about this case every day? I do. Yeah. Two years, two years plus.

Dominic Fopoli says back when he and Dahl were still partners, he tried to warn Imad.

I said, I want to give you a heads up. I'm having all these issues with Robert.

You warned him. Yeah, we sat here on this deck and talked. How did you hear about what he did?

Somebody pulled up their phone and they showed me the article or what had happened.

I was just in shock and I immediately, honestly, I started crying and it was a mix of guilt

because I guess I didn't do enough to warn Imad about him. Jonathan Kesselman, the director,

felt deeply about Imad. He was a really sweet, kind, generous guy and just felt like I needed to

say that. You know, just so that it's on the record. You know, there's some legacy of Imad or,

you know, he was remembered. He was a good person.

As for Robert Dahl, he may have shown up in Napa with a grand vision.

But in the end, he brought his dreams and those of so many around him crashing down.

We wanted to be that guy that had a vineyard and had wine with his name on it.

He wanted to live a life of the big fish. He was a little fish.

This is not your typical wine story. No, it isn't.

And one that we don't want to hear about around here again, for sure.

I'm back. I'm really back.

School spirits returns. Why am I here? Not dead, right? Disruption on this campus will not be

created. I look crazy. It's because that's how I feel. I don't know how to live in two worlds.

Secrets lurk. There are others beneath the surface.

School spirits new season now streaming only on Paramount Plus.

Me and my brother, we grew up off the grid. A new Paramount Plus original documentary explores

the wild true story of two brothers. They were dubbed the wild boys. No driving records,

nothing tangible. What's their story? Who shook a small town after

the emerged mysteriously from the Canadian wilderness? Are they criminals? Maybe they're in

hope. Who are these guys? Why are they here? Not my job to tell you the truth. Wild

boys, strangers in town, now streaming on Paramount Plus.