Natalie Morales

John Pearson told police back then that there was a Burger King bag, as well as a box with cranberries and a child car seat.

Seems like a lot of details about the car.

I mean, that's not details that, I don't think my husband knows what's in my car.

That seems like somebody who's very intimately involved with knowing what's in the contents of that vehicle.

Detective O'Connell, who interviewed Pearson back in 1988, said that Pearson was actually very forthcoming when he was questioned.

He agreed to many interviews, in fact, and that he even took a polygraph.

He passed the polygraph.

So Detective O'Connell felt like it wasn't like Pearson was trying to hide anything at the time.

Yeah, you know, it was heartbreaking speaking with her, of course, because here's a young woman who never even knew her mother.

She was eight months old when her mother died.

So she feels that loss still very greatly in her life.

And then now she said she feels like she's lost the only person that she feels she could count on her entire life.

And that was her father who raised her.

And she does feel like he is 100 percent innocent.

Fresh eyes and new technology.

I mean, keep in mind from 1988 now to, you know, 30 plus years later, how much DNA has changed things when it comes to cold cases.

There was, you know, Debbie's coat with that.

They take a look at the DNA evidence and everything.

They were able to exclude John Pearson and Jeff Freeburg, who was a former ex, but he was no longer romantically involved with Debbie.

However, they couldn't definitively exclude Bob Atrops.