48 Hours: Bob Eckhart and Toni Soren

“48 Hours Mystery” profiled the story of Bob Eckhart, and Toni Soren (Heartsong) this past Saturday. Soren was found dead at the back entrance to the family home by her husband Eckhart. Soren was badly beaten in what cops called “overkill”. If you haven’t seen the show, you can watch it here, or you can read the story here.

I think people are likely torn in this case because there was no solid evidence to directly link Eckhart to the murder, and more than that, a jury did not convict him. However, on “48 Hours”, the jury foreman spoke out and clarified his position. He said that 10 or 11 of the jurors actually believed Eckhart was guilty, but they didn’t have the evidence to convict. You must remember that the police initially didn’t think that Eckhart could have done this, so they didn’t take a close look at him at the time when good evidence was still present. Eckhart wasn’t arrested for six years.

Read moreWhen I watched Eckhart from the very beginning of “48 Hours”, his speech seems contrived. He talked slowly and methodically. He seemed calculating. His emotions didn’t match his situation, and his words, at times, were very odd and unusual. Furthermore, Eckhart’s emotions were exceptionally dull. Other times, I believe they were flat out fake. The clues, to me, in this interview, were numerous and telling.

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Eckhart says, “I remember my wife from meeting her the very first day with her eyes. I had seen her eyes for all of my life. I think I’ve… always been in love with her.”

   Notice the words, “I think” here. Does that convince you? Do you tell people you “think” you love your spouse, or that you love your spouse? The words “I think” show doubt on the part of Eckhart. I suspect it is a subconscious slip of the mind.

2. Listen to Eckhart in the 911 call. When the operator answers, Eckhart screams as if he is in a panic, or about to go over the edge. As soon as the operator talks to Eckhart, his tone and pitch changes instantly. He calms down. People who are in a panic or on the edge can’t turn their emotions on and off sentence by sentence, or this quickly. This is a notable red flag for me.
3. Also listen to how Eckhart says, “My wife has been killed…by someone…here in my house.” I find that statement strange. Notice the pauses? Someone? Here in my house? It shows thinking, which is unusual. In emergency situations, we usually go into auto-pilot and just react.
4. Eckhart says, “My fear is a guy like this could be doing it again…He’d have to be the most horrible monster in the whole universe to do that.”

   The words “a guy like this” are immediate red flags for me. It’s as if he is talking about people in general who do this, not “this guy” who killed his wife. Very strange.

   I also find his benign choice of words for the “murderer” of his wife fascinating here. I wonder if he ever used the words “murderer” or “killer” when he talked about his dead wife. He certainly wasn’t in denial about this crime, because he had the news media at his house within days of her death. People who kill often sanitize their acts, and have a difficult time saying such harsh words as “murderer” and “killer”. Why wouldn’t he say “killer”? Does he ever use “killer” or “murderer”?

5. Then Eckhart tries to say that whoever did this must be a monster. Is that to say, “Look at me, I’m not. So how could I do this?”
6. Eckhart says when talking about Toni, “An incredibly beautiful little girl knocked on my door, and her name was Toni, and we talked for must have been six or seven hours,” Bob recalls. “We could connect completely with no walls, no shields. Everything was just magic.”

   Do you notice how he never talks about Toni being the love of his life? How he loved her, how beautiful she was, how special she was, how this madman stole her from him? It’s eerily missing. Also, does he have to think back to their early marriage to say something even remotely nice about Toni?

7. Notice how Eckhart has no anger whatsoever that someone has killed his wife. Why? I would expect to see some emotions of violation. Not only was his wife killed, but the killer was in his house. I watched the tape of Eckhart showing the news media around his house a few days after the crime, and I just don’t see it. That’s puzzling.

   Also, did Eckhart stay in the house after the murders? Didn’t he worry that staying in that house with his two sons after his wife was murdered? Wouldn’t you worry about your kids if that happened to you? Especially since the killer has never been found. Wouldn’t you worry they may come back to shut you up? Or harm your kids? How come Eckhart has no worry about that?

   Also, the fact that his wife was murdered in that house doesn’t seem to bother him. That’s unusual, too. The sanctity of his home was violated, and that would bother most people.

8. Then notice when Eckhart talks about Toni’s extra-marital affairs. He says, “I think she had sex with another man once or twice.” Watch his shoulder shrug when he says this. His body language tells us he has doubts about this. This is fascinating. I don’t think he believes she slept with two men. So why is he trying to paint her in a negative light? When we lose a loved one, especially to murder, we usually idealize them. We don’t even remember the negatives. It’s way too painful, but obviously not for Eckhart. He seems to want to point them out, and possibly even exaggerate them.
9. At time marker 9:00, Eckhart says, “I used to describe it as living in nirvana.” Then a few seconds later, in a distinct change of emotion, he goes into what I believe is a “forced” cry. To me, the cry seems very contrived. Notice, too, there are absolutely no tears, which is always a huge tip-off. Somehow Eckhart went into the sob that comes naturally from tears in the sinuses, but he doesn’t have any tears. Oops! His facial expressions, too, don’t fit with a crying individual.
10. Watch Eckhart talk about how he found Toni. I find the tone of his voice an immediate red flag. It’s void of any emotions in what should have been a highly emotional and painful experience. If you didn’t know the topic he was speaking about, you’d think he was talking about something benign like lifting up or moving a sleeping dog. But he is talking about finding his MURDERED wife, the supposed love of his life. The alarm bells are blaring for me here.

    He says, “I lifted her up with my arm like this, and I held her up, and when I saw her face, I freaked out.”

    He “freaked out”? Knock me off my chair! This is nuts. Mind you, his wife was lying in a pool of blood, dead. Shouldn’t that have freaked him out? Apparently not. He had to pick her up to get freaked out. It shows you the lack of normal emotional responses Eckhart had. This is very abnormal. An innocent person would have been very traumatized by simply seeing their wife in a pool of blood. Second, they’d wonder if the killer was still around, but Eckhart is the exception time and time again.

    The words “freaked out” are also chillingly cold for a man who loved his wife. Monsters freak us out, people we love when they are injured devastate us, tear us up, cause us searing emotional pain. Notice at that point, there are no emotions on Eckhart’s face whatsoever! That makes no sense. Our memories and emotions are highly intertwined. Eckhart is just an exception again.

11. Eckhart continues, “…and when I saw her eyes were beaten closed, I was just destroyed by it. I gently laid her back down and I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to remember this.'”

    Notice Eckart didn’t cry, try to apologize to her, hug her, feel guilty he didn’t protect her, wasn’t there to help her, nothing. Notice it is all about Eckhart? Notice he has no emotions for what she endured, or her pain? There is no anger about who did this to her. It’s surprisingly missing, and so are the tears when we’d expect to see them the most. They are absent. All big red flags.

12. There was no rape, and there were no valuables taken. Clearly, this wasn’t a robbery, or a rapist, and what are the odds a stranger is going to go into overkill? What would be the point?
13. In talking about his alibi of being at the construction site, Eckhart says, “I was there until about…about 2:30.” The pause in his speech in indicative that he has to think about it. He doesn’t remember this. You would think his memories of that day would have been seared into his mind after an experience like that, wouldn’t you? But if he didn’t experience things as he tells us he did, he would constantly have to think to recreate what wasn’t.
14. Bob Eckhart says he was in tears the entire time he was at his son’s wedding six months later, yet when you see “48 Hours” show two clips from his son’s wedding, Eckhart is dancing. Check out his moves on the dance floor! He’s got this giddy swing going on, certainly not what a man would do if he was all choked up and devastated. In another clip shown earlier, Eckhart is standing by his son smiling. He certainly didn’t appear to be choked up as he said. Here Eckhart’s words seem to contradict his actions. It’s another red flag added to the pile.
15. Notice when Eckhart talks about his shrine to Toni, he is void of emotions again. His voice pitch gives no indication that he is upset, sad or emotional on any level. He talks about the object like objects. Where is his emotional connection? Is this shrine just a measure to pull on your heartstrings?
16. When Eckhart was brought into the police station six years later, he says, “I don’t think it is my blood.” If you were innocent and you knew it, would you say “I don’t think”…? I think you would say conclusively, “It is NOT my blood.” To me, the words “I don’t think” are an indication of hesitation, or insecurity.
17. Eckhart talks about being locked up before trial. He says, “Twenty months in jail is not something any one of us would want to do.” Look at his emotions! Wow. He woke up. He felt discomfort for the first time in this interview, and look at all his normal emotions that come blaring out. Isn’t this fascinating? Eckhart does have normal emotions when it is his pain. Why didn’t he have any emotions for Toni? Notice, too, he doesn’t talk about how vile it was to be locked up as an innocent man? Wouldn’t it have bothered you to be in jail for two years, if you were innocent?
18. Watch his new wife’s response when she is asked if she thinks it is conceivable that Eckhart could kill someone. Watch her head shake go all over the place as she says no. Try to say no, and do that. Go ahead. Don’t you feel ambiguous?
19. It is fascinating that Eckhart made no phone calls between 12:30 and 1:41, isn’t it? Isn’t that the perfect opportunity to commit a murder? Yet the rest of the day, he was on the phone. Hmm…. and he didn’t have an alibi for lunch. What are the odds? If he was out of town, surely he could have told police upfront that he went to Wendy’s, and they could have vouched they saw him. Surely the police should have done that. What did he do for lunch that day?
20. At the murder scene, there is a knife block on the counter right near the drawer where the knife was pulled from. As the prosecutor said, what stranger is going to ignore that and open drawers? It defies logic. It takes time to search for a knife, whereas pulling a knife from a knife block is quick and easy. That is certainly suggestive that whoever did this knew where all the knives were kept.
21. Listen in court when the police interrogate Eckhart on tape, and Eckart says he has no idea why his blood was found on her. He is calm, cool and collected. He says, “I have no idea…no idea at all.” There is no anger or frustration in his voice whatsoever. If the police are zooming in on you as the killer and you are innocent, are you going to be that calm?
22. Eckhart at one point says, “I don’t believe that any human being in the whole world has the right to harm another being in any way.” Watch how he shrugs his shoulder in doubt when he says that. You can’t miss it. He is saying something affirmative, very affirmative, yet his body language is telling us he isn’t convinced. Isn’t that interesting?
23. Dow from “48 Hours” asks Eckhart: “What would be your reaction if the jury finds you guilty?”

    Eckhart says, “I have to accept the life that’s given me. And I have to continue to walk on my path. And if it happened that way, I’m certainly going to be very, very sad.”

    Would you be sad if you were wrongly convicted? Or would you be mad and feeling violated?

    Dow says: An innocent man going to jail? Eckhart replies, “Yeah, absolutely,” Bob says. “It would be a… [raised eyebrow as he thinks]…travesty.”

    This is ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! He had to think about what it would be like for him, if he were to be wrongly convicted. He had no feelings to guide him. That was mind-blowing for me.

24. Watch Echart’s reaction when he hears the jury finds him “not guilty”.

    Suddenly he is full of emotion, yet when he talked about Toni, we saw none of this. Does Eckhart only feel for himself? That’s very common for psychopaths. The only emotions they feel are their own. You sure do wonder. Look at his true and genuine smile!

25. Listen to how Eckhart talks to the reporters. In an angry tone, he says, “All I am going to say to you is I am free.”

    You can feel Eckhart’s emotions here. This is what we should have seen when he was wrongly accused, but we didn’t (revealed or concealed). But now, his emotions are genuine, real and true. He is steaming mad! He glares at the media now. Is that because he has the confidence of a jury behind him (I don’t think he knew at that time what they would later tell “48 Hours”)?

    He continues, “As I should be. I didn’t do it.”

    I find it odd how he says he didn’t do it second, and not first. This is not a clue, it is just notable.

26. Dow says you’ve gotta know there are still people out there that think you killed your wife. Watch Eckhart. Look at his emotions. Listen to the inflection in his voice. All of this was completely missing when he talked about being wrongly accused. It was completely missing when he recollected memories of Toni. Why isn’t he Mr. Calm again? Instead, you see this anger in him. It’s the anger that I suspect bubbled up one day and was inflicted on his wife in a fit of rage–in a crime of passion.
27. Eckhart continues, “But I know what I did and what I didn’t do. I know I didn’t kill my wife, so what they think, that’s their problem to deal with. Hopefully somewhere along the line, I can create the…there will be enough truth that will be brought out in this case that exoneration will be complete.”

    CREATE? Need I say more?

28. Eckhart continues, “They’re going to have to find the people who did this incredible act. I won’t rest until that is brought out.”

    Notice “the people”? Isn’t this interesting? Does he think there is more than one person now? Why the change? Also notice he doesn’t use the words “killer” or “murderer”? Do they make him feel uncomfortable?

    Eckhart also say he won’t rest until these people are brought to justice, but then why doesn’t he go out and try to find the true killer himself? If it bothered him that badly, why isn’t he on a quest? Do you see how ridiculous this statement is? He won’t rest until everyone else does what he wants. Give me a break!

I think you can see I’m not buying Eckhart’s story.