Jill Halliburton Su’s brutal murder on Dateline: Secrets Uncovered - A complete timeline of events

In the community of Davie, Florida, on September 8, 2014, Jill Halliburton Su, an heiress to the Halliburton oil fortune and wife of university professor Dr. Nan-Yao Su, was found dead in her upscale home. Stabbed more than 20 times, her body was bound at the hands and feet and placed in a bathtub filled with hot, bloody water.

The scene suggested a violent intrusion, with the house ransacked and security cameras damaged. Her 20-year-old son, Justin Su, discovered the horror after his father spotted a shadowy figure on live surveillance footage and urged him to check the property.

What followed was a decade-long investigation marked by initial suspicions of family members, a DNA match to a local burglar, a dramatic courtroom escape, and two grueling trials.

The case highlights the challenges of piecing together evidence in a seemingly random home invasion turned deadly.

This story is explored in depth in Oxygen's Dateline: Secrets Uncovered season 16 episode 7 titled The Figure in the House, which aired on December 17, 2025, on Oxygen.

Dateline: Secrets Uncovered: The morning of the murder: A figure on camera (September 8, 2014)

On that day, Dr. Nan-Yao Su, professor of entomology at the University of Florida, was at work when he reviewed, about 11 a.m., the live feed of his home's surveillance system.

Jill Halliburton Su had stayed in the house to rest because the couple had just returned from Malaysia.

One camera captured a flash of a person walking through the kitchen toward the breakfast area before the feed cut out.

After this, Nan-Yao immediately called his son Justin, who was supposed to be at work but had instead overslept in his car at the parking garage of a nearby college campus.

He ordered Justin to immediately go to the house.

No stored footage of the intruder was recovered since the system retained only motion-activated clips, and those seemed to have been deleted or damaged.

The police later commented that the cameras were ripped from the walls-a sign to destroy evidence.

This became the main piece of the puzzle in the case, indicating the presence of an unknown person in the home at the time Jill was alone, as per Oxygen.

Discovery of the body and 911 call

About 12:30 p.m., Justin Su appeared at their family home and entered through the front door, which was left unlocked. He yelled out for his mother, getting no response.

He moved towards his master bathroom, where he saw Jill Halliburton Su floating face down in the bathtub filled with red-tinted water.

Her wrists were bound with a cloth belt, and both ankles were bound with an electrical cord. Blood-marked walls and floor areas.

In shock, he made contact with 911 operators, telling them that his mother might have committed suicide, although he later corrected this because he was overwhelmed with what he saw.

He also did some chest compressions until the police came. Two knives lay out of place: one of his foldable knives was found by the front entry and a substantial hunting knife was at the bottom of the bathtub.

The rearside glass door had signs of a break-in, with broken glass on the floor in the house.

The paramedics diagnosed Jill Halliburton Su as deceased, and 911 recorded Justin's expressions of dismay as he recounted what he saw concerning ligatures and water, according to Oxygen.

Initial investigation: Focus on the son

Davie Police detectives, headed by Paul Williams, secured the area and found that the crime scene exhibited signs of being staged, with open drawers and scattered belongings as if they were caught in the middle of a burglary.

Although the alarm panel showed some damage, there was no break-in.

Justin readily became the suspect because of the kitchen knives that were his and because of discrepancies surrounding his alibi, that is, that he did not go to work that day.

He was grilled by the police but described that he often slept in his car because of the tensions within the family ever since he had dropped out of college.

Cameras around the home showed that Justin left home at 9:15 a.m. but did not return until after the body had been discovered. He had no blood on him or marks that would indicate that he had been struggling.

His 911 call did not seem like a ruse. After undergoing polygraph tests and checks, the police cleared the suspect.

The disheveled condition of the home and the tied-up victim gave away the fact that the crime was committed by someone outside their ranks. But there were then no leads yet among their ranks.

Members of the family and even Nan-Yao readily cooperated by letting the police view the damaged security panel, as reported by Oxygen.

Breakthrough: DNA evidence points to Dayonte Resiles

Nine days after the killing, a DNA analysis of the hunting knife was performed, and the DNA was matched to Dayonte Resiles, a 21-year-old who had previously been involved in non-violent burglary incidents in upscale neighborhoods of South Florida, but had no links to the Su family.

The suspect, nicknamed "Moochie," was picked up by a law enforcement database where his name appeared after a DNA analysis of the bloody hunting knife and crime scene was conducted.

The police reported Resiles broke into upscale, gated homes, prising open either an unlocked door or a door that had to be forced open.

Although there was no defined reason for the crime, apart from burglary, the DNA evidence was conclusive and was gathered from the handle of the hunting knife.

The suspect was found and arrested peacefully. Although further searches of his property failed to find any items belonging to the Su house, it brought some movement to the case.

The district attorneys, Maria Schneider, and her team proposed that the crime was a burglary that had escalated into a killing, and that Jill Halliburton Su had met the burglar and was subsequently murdered, as per Oxygen.

Arrest, escape, and recapture

Following the DNA match, Resiles was charged with first-degree murder in late 2014 and held in Broward County jail.

On April 26, 2016, during a routine pretrial hearing, he slipped his handcuffs with assistance from a fellow inmate in the courtroom. Friends present created a distraction, allowing him to flee in a waiting car driven by an accomplice.

A statewide manhunt ensued, with alerts to the media and law enforcement.

Six days later, on May 2, 2016, deputies found him hiding in a Fort Pierce hotel room, about an hour north of the jail.

He was returned to custody without further charges for the escape, though it delayed proceedings.

The incident drew national attention, underscoring security lapses in court. Resiles' defense claimed the DNA could be from contamination, but preparations for trial continued amid heightened precautions, according to Oxygen.

The trials and path to justice

Resiles' first trial began in 2021. After five days of deliberations, the jury initially voted for manslaughter but deadlocked when a juror objected during polling, insisting on murder. The judge declared a mistrial.

A retrial started in early 2022, where prosecutors presented the DNA, scene photos, and expert testimony on the staged burglary.

Defense argued reasonable doubt over the entry method and the lack of theft-proofing. On March 18, 2022, the jury convicted Resiles of first-degree murder.

Sentencing occurred on May 20, 2022, with life imprisonment without parole. The Su family expressed relief in court statements, noting the verdict brought needed closure after years of uncertainty.

No appeals have overturned the ruling as of late 2025, as Oxygen reported.

Watch Dateline: Secrets Uncovered season 17 available on Oxygen.