Dateline: The Good Husband - 5 harrowing details about Tom Kolman's murder, revisited 

NBC’s Dateline: The Good Husband follows a chilling case that began as a mystery and unfolded into something much darker. The episode focuses on the death of Tom Kolman, a husband and father from Kingston, New York, who was found dead in his car outside a local gym.

What initially appeared to be a natural death soon unfurled into a case involving a best friend’s betrayal and a love triangle gone terribly wrong. This Dateline episode aired on 4th November 2016 and revealed the harrowing details of the case.

5 harrowing details of Dateline: The Good Husband

When Tom Kolman didn’t show up to work on 29th November, 2011, his wife, Linda, drove to the gym where he usually went early every day. There, she found him unresponsive in his car, his seat reclined and his pants undone. Police first believed it was a medical incident. But as the Dateline episode reveals, he was most likely (since he has not been convicted by a court) murdered by his best friend, Gilberto Nunez. Below are five of the most disturbing details from the case.

1) Tom’s body was found in the parking lot

The way Tom Kolman’s body was found was unsettling. His car was parked behind the gym, his seat leaned back as if he were sleeping, and his pants were partly unzipped. At first glance, it seemed like he had died in his sleep. But the position in which he was found was suspicious. Investigators would later also consider that someone had deliberately placed him that way after giving him a drug.

2) A deadly triangle of trust and betrayal

Gilberto Nunez wasn’t just Tom’s dentist; he was also one of his closest friends. But as Dateline reports, Nunez had been having an affair with Linda Kolman for nearly a year. Despite Tom eventually finding out, the affair didn’t end, and their love triangle continued. According to the Times Herald-Record, Linda even testified that Tom had said,

“[Nunez] was the best friend he ever had.”

It is terrifying that a close friend, who was also Tom’s dentist, was the one who drugged and possibly killed him.

3) CIA forgery and phony messages

One of the strangest and most harrowing twists in the case was that Nunez claimed that he worked for the CIA. Linda testified in court that he even gave her a letter supposedly from a CIA colleague confirming Tom had been unfaithful but encouraged her to forgive him. The letter was fake. Nunez also used a burner phone to send messages to both Tom and Linda, pretending to be people they didn’t know.

4) Midazolam and the perfect plan

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Nunez had drugged Tom with Midazolam, a powerful sedative often used in surgeries. Traces of the drug were found in Tom’s body after his dead body was exhumed a second time. Surveillance footage suggested Nunez’s SUV was near the gym around the time of Tom’s death.

5) A verdict that does not seem

In June 2016, Gilberto Nunez was found not guilty but was acquitted of murder and was convicted of forgery for the fake CIA documents. The defense argued that Tom died of heart failure, not poisoning. Still, Nunez’s actions remain suspicious. He served time for forgery, insurance fraud, and perjury. Though acquitted of murder, the Dateline episode left viewers wondering if justice had truly been served.

Dateline is streaming on Peacock.

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