'Best Friends' and One Tragic Night Focus of CBS Report

SILVER SPRING, MD — The lurid murder of a law school student by his best friend during a night of drinking to celebrate a birthday will be the subject of the CBS show “48 Hours” this weekend.

Rahul Gupta was convicted of first-degree murder in March 2015 in the stabbing death of Mark Waugh at a Silver Spring apartment. Buddies for years beginning at Langley High School in McLean, VA, the two seemingly had it made: Gupta was studying to become a biomedical engineer; Waugh was at Georgetown University Law Center.

Gupta recanted his confession that he stabbed his best friend to death in a Silver Spring apartment after a night of celebratory drinking and said his girlfriend was the attacker. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The episode, entitled “What Happened in Apt. 1601?,” will air at 10 p.m. ET this Saturday, April 2.

Here’s how CBS describes the case:

Waugh, 23, was stabbed to death in the apartment where his friends, Rahul Gupta, a graduate student, and Gupta’s girlfriend, Taylor Gould, a biomedical engineer, lived.

“It’s like a horror movie,” says Montgomery County police officer Dean Skiba, describing the bloody scene in Apt. 1601. “You could see it was up all over the wall, all over the ground.”

Gupta and Gould, bloody and drunk, according to police, were interrogated immediately afterward. Police thought they would quickly solve the case, especially after Gupta seemingly confessed. “I caught my buddy and my girl cheating,” Gupta told police. “I killed my buddy.”

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But then, as the alcohol wore off, everything changed. Gupta insisted he had no idea what transpired.

Taylor had a similar story. “I don’t remember what happened,” she told police. “I told you everything I did remember.”

Police struggled to believe Gupta and Taylor completely forgot the events leading up to their friend ending up dead. “They could both remember up until a certain point, but the crucial 45 minutes nobody seems to remember anything,” Detective Paula Hamill says.

Investigators then tried something unusual in interrogations that may have changed the face of the case. They put Gupta and Taylor together without a police officer in the room, and monitored their conversations. This conversation ultimately would decide who went home, and who would be charged with murder.

Patch’s Coverage of Murder

Over an October weekend in 2013, the trio met to celebrate Gupta’s 24th birthday. Early the next morning, police found Gupta and Waugh both covered in blood in a high-rise apartment in Silver Spring.

Along with friends, the pair had been out celebrating and ended up back at the apartment to continue drinking, Gupta’s girlfriend, Taylor Gould, told The Washington Post.

Police who responded to a 911 call found a bloody, chaotic scene, with Gould confused and Gupta apparently dazed. Waugh, 23, was pronounced dead at the scene soon afterward, and had stab wounds including a punctured lung and severed jugular vein, along with “defense-type injuries” about his body, according to the Post.

Gupta testified that Gould killed Waugh, 23, of Great Falls, VA. He said he tried to stop the bleeding, gave Waugh chest compressions and told Gould to call the police. The Post reported Gupta couldn’t explain how Gould could have landed so many blows against Waugh, or why he confessed.

But during trial testimony, Gould, who earned a biomedical engineering degree from George Washington University, said after consuming at least six drinks, she was too drunk on the night Waugh died to remember what happened. She denied harming Waugh.

“I had no reason to hurt anyone,” she told the jury.

According to testimony, Gupta called 911 and Gould met police at the door. Both of them had blood on them.

More: Former Langley High School Honors Student Stabbed to Death; Friend Charged

Waugh excelled in his studies — at Langley High School, where he was an honor student, at James Madison University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 2012, and at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was a first-year law student. Debate coaches around the country had named him one of the best in the United States, Patch earlier reported.

Waugh’s mother, Nancy, told the Gazette in Montgomery County that her son and Gupta had been “best friends” since high school.

PHOTOS: Murder victim Mark Waugh of McLean, VA;friend and convicted killer Rahul Gupta; and Gupta’s girlfriend, Taylor Gould, courtesy of CBS News