Lester Holt

And you're going to have to make up your own mind when you listen to this.

So tell us about the couple at the center of this, 23-year-old Marine Sergeant Todd Summer, his wife, Cindy.

What do we know about them when this story begins?

Well, you know, he's a Marine.

She'd been married before.

She had three kids.

They had this whirlwind romance, and it was very hot and heavy very quickly.

And then Todd was willing to not just marry her, but like take on her three kids.

And then they had another kid together, a son, after they were married.

And then he gets deployed, as Marines do, and he's overseas and he's away from her.

And so suddenly she's raising four kids on an armed services salary, which is a very difficult thing to do.

and their problems just sort of compound from there.

You begin the story by painting a pretty vivid picture of the night Todd died.

Cindy describes hearing him wake up and struggling to breathe.

Let's take a listen to that.

It's very dramatic.

What was it about Cindy's behavior that made them suspicious that this might have been a murder case?

First of all, this was a very healthy young Marine in very good physical condition who essentially just dropped dead after having been sick for like a week.

And as they're taking him away, Cindy says to an MP who had come because of her 911 call.

And she says to him—