Phoebe Judge

It kind of threw into question what Brian and Denise had done.

If you could get divorced without stigma, without condemnation, without being thrown out of the church,

It really made what they'd done seem horrifyingly unnecessary.

Jennifer Portman became very interested in this case.

She began to meet with Cheryl.

She began to sympathize with Cheryl.

She too found it very suspicious that the man who'd sold Mike his insurance policies was now married to Mike's wife.

And she began posting an article every year about Mike's disappearance, saying how many days it was that he'd been missing, how many years it was since he'd been missing.

know gossip and implications and rumors and suggestions in the community and it really must have put enormous pressure on brian and denise they wouldn't speak about the crime

even in front of each other in a private space.

So they developed this range of hand signals that they would use to suggest that they wanted to talk about the crime.

One of them was holding bars as if you were miming that you were in prison.

And if either of them made one of these gestures,

It meant they wanted to talk about the crime.

They would go to an isolated area.

And before even having a conversation, they would leave their cell phones in the car and sometimes even take the batteries out of their cell phones.

Because by this time, they were getting suspicious of each other.

And there was even a stage where they would both actually pat each other down before they had conversations.

They said to each other many times, unless they turn on each other, nothing can be done.

The police had been waiting for this chance for 16 years.