Caption (L-R): Jason Bohn and Danielle Thomas

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Troy Roberts and 48 HOURS go inside the investigation into the death of Weight Watchers executive Danielle Thomas, and the murder case against Wall Street attorney Jason Bohn, who claimed being neglected by his mother as a child should keep him from spending his life in jail in “A Raging Son,” to be broadcast Saturday, May 10 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

48 HOURS: “A Raging Son” tells of a murder so brutal it made a hardened New York City detective not want to be a cop any more.

Thomas was found dead in June 2012 in the bathtub of an apartment she shared with Bohn. While there was talk of marriage, the relationship had become physically and emotionally abusive. Police found her body surrounded by bags of ice and a fan placed facing the window to remove any scent.

Retired NYPD Detective Dennis Frawley says “someone tried to preserve” this body.

“This was murder,” says Frawley. “Pure and simple, and it was vicious.”

But was Thomas’ murder intentional or something else?

Police found two notes left behind by Bohn, one saying Thomas’ death was an accident after a night of drinking.  Three days later, Bohn was arrested and charged with murder. What happened next, however, stunned everyone.

Bohn’s attorney asserted he was abandoned by his mother three decades earlier, and experienced profound neglect and abuse that caused a mental illness called Intermittent Explosive Disorder. His mother, Maureen O’Connell, is now a wealthy publishing executive. But when Bohn was 9, O’Connell left him to live with abusive family members, his defense says. His attorney maintains that because of his childhood trauma he shouldn’t spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing Thomas.  Despite knowing what the defense strategy would be, Bohn’s mother paid for his legal bills.

Thomas and Bohn had a whirlwind romance. Thomas, a graduate of the University of Florida and a former revenue analyst at Disney World, met the Ivy League-educated Bohn in 2011. Five months later, she moved to New York to be with her new love and landed a job at Weight Watchers. To her family, everything seemed great. But what Thomas hadn’t told her family was that Bohn was abusive.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” asks Thomas’ mother, Jamie.

            Police knew about the abuse Thomas faced. A month before she was killed, Thomas went to the 114th Precinct and showed police bruises she’d gotten from Bohn. While she was there, Bohn called and threatened to “hunt you down like a dog in the streets.” Bohn was arrested and charged with assault.

The night she was killed, Thomas and Bohn returned home after drinking with friends. About an hour before she was killed, Thomas dialed 911, though police never responded.

Bohn’s defense is that the explosive moment of anger that resulted in Thomas’ death was directly connected to his bad childhood.

Prosecutor Patrick O’Connor dismisses Bohn’s claims by saying, “it’s absolutely ridiculous to believe that because his mommy didn’t treat him necessarily as well as she should have that somehow 15 years later he’s not responsible for the torturing [and] murder of his girlfriend.”

 Audio recorded in an accidental phone call made in Thomas’ last moments alive suggest Bohn knew what he was doing. In the voicemail, sometimes garbled, Thomas is begging for her life.

“I can’t breathe, help me, Jason,” Thomas says.  “Help me… Jason, I love you.”

And then there’s silence, during which time prosecutors believe Bohn was strangling Thomas.

Was the recording enough to convince a jury that Bohn knew what he was doing, or would the defense strategy to blame his actions on his rough childhood spare him life in prison?   Roberts and 48 HOURS examine the case story through interviews with Thomas’ family, prosecutors, detectives who investigated the case, the defense attorney and a forensic psychiatrist. 48 HOURS: “A Raging Son” is produced by Patti Aronofsky, Jamie Stolz, Gail Zimmerman and Elena DiFiore. Michael McHugh is the producer-editor. Al Briganti is the executive editor. Susan Zirinsky is the senior executive producer.

Chat with members of the 48 HOURS team during the broadcast on Twitter and Facebook. Follow 48 HOURS on Instagram.

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Press Contact: Richard Huff    212-975-3328   HuffR@cbsnews.com