Susan Spencer

He's inside the post.

I walked up to her and she slaps my hand down. And I said, don't put your hands on me, get out of the way.

And when I hit the ground, all of a sudden I felt that it was rather warm and I realized that before we hit the ground, she had urinated and I'm trying to get out of the puddle of the urine and handcuff her at the same time.

No, I wasn't.

That piece of carpet never was found. But the cops did recover the rest and hustled it off to the crime lab.

Further testing revealed that the blood, in fact, was Mona's, which convinced police that indeed she had come home the night she was murdered. They scrambled to get a search warrant. But in the meantime, Jeff Croteen hired a professional cleaning company to go through the house, a company with a snappy little slogan.

Why didn't you have this place cleaned by professional cleaners who normally come in after fires and floods? None of these things had happened in your house.

So this was just a spring cleaning?

But it didn't look like spring cleaning to Sharon Wolcheski.

Two months after the murder, police finally got their warrant, and a forensic team descended on the house. Investigators found more droplets of what they believed to be Ramona's blood in the bedroom, utility room, and on a step in the garage, a step that appeared to have as many as 45 bloodstains.

The police believe that Jeff struck Mona in the bedroom, rendering her unconscious, and then carried her down the stairs to the garage, where he placed her in the backseat of her car and shot her in the head. Your contention, just to make sure we understand this in any case, is that not only did you not kill your wife, but she never came home.

The police didn't buy it. especially after a search of his office turned up four guns, one of them potentially the murder weapon. In February of 2004, Jeff Croteen was arrested and charged with Mona's murder.

IS, the girlfriend.

But then, 39-year-old Mary Engle went to work at Jeff Croteen's insurance agency, and the rumors began.

Their affair started long before Jeff's wife's murder. You were in love with her?

Did you consider a divorce?

Mary Engle is completely convinced of Croteen's innocence.

There is just no way, Mary says, that Jeff could kill his wife, hide her body, return home without a car, and clean up a bloody crime scene in just eight hours.

Police thought perhaps she didn't need to ask, that Mary may have driven Jeff home from the parking lot after he dumped Mona's body.

Mary Engle had an alibi and never was charged, but the affair gave prosecutors a possible motive. Husband cheats on wife is, in fact, one of the oldest motives in the book.

Richard Drucker is Protein's defense lawyer. So basically we have an odd guy who is having an affair, and you're saying, so what?

But prosecutors moved ahead with a case that two juries so far have shown is no slam dunk, partly because it's so highly circumstantial. Lead prosecutor Steve Dever.

But this is the CSI effect, right? I mean, juries today really do expect footprints, hair, blood. It's all going to lay out and the guy from the lab is going to come in and explain how this implicates the suspect.

In fact, jurors from the first two trials were highly critical of the prosecution's case.

The state is stuck with the evidence it has. But this time, a new prosecutor will highlight the science, and he thinks this case is winnable.

He tells the jury Jeff's behavior after Mona's death is not just odd, it's incriminating.

Peculiar. Implying that Croteen burned the headboard to get rid of evidence. Police did find blood drops elsewhere in the house. Endeavor calls DNA expert Carrie Martin to testify.

But her results are clear. Three of the carpet stains match Mona's DNA.

In what Dever insists is a blood trail, Mona's DNA also turns up in stains on the bedroom doorjamb.

and on a downstairs wall of the room leading to the garage.

So what, says the defense attorney.

So the prosecution's contention that the blood evidence is scientific support for its case. You reject out of hand.

Especially since, as Martin testifies, those impressive 45 stains found on the garage step do not conclusively match Mona's DNA. And what about the gun police recovered from Croteen's office? Do we have a murder weapon here? Assistant District Attorney Anna Faraglia. We have a gun. A gun, not necessarily the gun.

Without direct proof, prosecutors returned to Croteen's behavior, noting that even before Mona was buried, he was on the internet looking at pornography. And they even suggest he faked the apparent heart attack that sent him to the hospital the night her body was found. The nurse who treated him takes the stand.

Why in the world would this woman say that?

But she's lying? Yes. But neither push-ups nor porn prove Croteen killed his wife, says his attorney, who's about to tell the jury who he says really did.

Jeff Croteen is an innocent man, says his attorney, Richard Drucker.

The defense scenario is that Mona never made it home that night. That in fact, she was killed during a robbery and carjacking in the hotel parking lot. And the defense attorney has two witnesses who will support that theory. Two witnesses who never before have told their stories to a jury.

Mel Twining, a friend of Mona's, says he saw something strange in the parking lot after she'd left the party.

The other new witness is Paula Smith, also at the party, also a friend, and she says she heard a gunshot.

That's what I called it. Was there really a gunshot? Paula Smith had had more than a few drinks that night. How many did you have?

People always say they want their day in court. But 57-year-old Jeff Croteen is way beyond that.

Then a third friend, Sue Ziegler, takes the stand. With an amazing new piece of information, saying someone left an eerie message on her cell phone voicemail. Just hours after the party ended.

If that voice is Mona's, then she was alive long after the prosecution insists Jeff Croteen killed her. But Ziegler never has testified about this message before, and she didn't save it. Although she did play it once for Mel Twining.

Shocked, too, is Detective Tim Robinson.

Who says neither Ziegler nor Twining ever mentioned the call to police.

After hearing testimony about the call, Croteen says he only wishes he had heard that message.

Prosecutors insist Croteen did hear Mona's last words just before he knocked her unconscious in their bedroom. But if that's so, why did Jennifer Croteen not hear something? She was sleeping just a dozen feet away.

No. Devor has an explanation as to why Jennifer may not have heard anything.

But Mona's co-worker Alice Smock is convinced Mona did go home because she was found in tennis shoes, not what she'd had on at the party.

Croteen, indicted for murdering his 53-year-old wife Ramona, has had too many days in court. He just wants it to end.

Why are the shoes so significant?

Mona Croteen, Debra suggests, took her shoes off when she arrived home that night. And after Jeff killed her, he mistakenly put the wrong pair of shoes back on. But Jennifer is adamant. Her mother was never there.

No.

So is Jennifer right, wrong or lying? In the past, jurors haven't found her very believable.

Their judgment was so harsh that at trial two, neither side even called her as a witness. But this time, all three Croteen children testify. All right, come on up. Jeff Jr., 31, says all these questions about his mother's death have split the family.

Jeff's youngest son, Jason, a former Marine, tells about getting news of his mother's death while in Iraq.

In a suddenly hushed courtroom, the jury for the first time sees emotion in Jeff Croteen, a Vietnam vet.

Two Cleveland juries have deliberated long and hard on Croteen's guilt or innocence.

To show that the children believe their father absolutely, Drucker puts Jason on the spot.

Jason is the trial's final witness. Croteen decided not to testify.

In his closing arguments, prosecutor Steve Dever highlights Croteen's alleged cover-up of the crime.

And in her impassioned closing statements, Assistant District Attorney Ana Faraglia hammers home Croteen's strange behavior.

But all either could agree on was that they couldn't agree.

Jeff Croteen says he's never stopped praying for his wife, Mona.

As the jury began deliberating, he also may have been praying for himself.

Praying that the third time's the charm. that after two hung juries, this one finally comes to a verdict, a not guilty verdict. What is it most that you want them to understand about you?

The days tick by. Jeff stays positive.

Both juries were hung. Good afternoon.

Then, midway through day five, word of a verdict.

If this defendant is anxious, it sure doesn't show.

Local reporters who have lived with this story through three trials. This is a mini OJ trial. Are clearly astonished at the verdict. What do you think of the people who think you got away with murder?

Annoying reporters and pesky photographers aside. Tabloid. I don't want to talk to you. Jeff Croteen's ordeal finally is over.

So now, at the start of Croteen's third murder trial... I first collapsed to the ground. Mona's family and friends are praying that this time, finally, justice will be done. You have a calculated killer here before you.

And back at his lawyer's office, there's a celebration.

Prosecutor Steve Dever.

Mona's brother, Greg, was the only family member who got to the courthouse in time for the verdict.

Juror Michael Lisi says he went into the deliberations convinced of Jeff's guilt. But then he began having doubts. Lisi says the jury gave a lot of weight to the testimony of Jennifer Croteen.

That's correct.

So what exactly do you think happened?

And he's not the only one. After the verdict, 10 of the 12 jurors who had just found Jeff Croteen not guilty told the judge that in their heart of hearts, they thought he probably did kill his wife. But with no direct evidence, they just couldn't vote to convict. Despite the verdict, do you feel like you're still under some sort of cloud of suspicion?

These days, Jeff, no longer an insurance agent, lives in what once was his office. Watch your feet. What do you most want to do with the rest of your life?

And Mary Engle is still a big part of his life.

But that relationship has shattered his relationship with his own children, who only rarely speak to their father.

And as long as Mona's relatives insist Jeff is guilty, the Croteen kids want nothing to do with them. Can you see a day when you might reconcile with them?

And of course, the worst injustice of all.

But Greg consoles himself by remembering all the things that were so special about his sister, Mona.

Mona Croteen was murdered on March 21st, 2003. She and husband Jeff had lived here in this suburban Cleveland house for years, raising their three kids. Perhaps there's no such thing as a likely murder victim, but by all accounts, Mona Croteen was about the least likely you could possibly imagine.

Mona's brothers, Greg and Roger Wolcheski, say that even as kids, the Wolcheskis were a tight-knit clan.

Patty Wolcheski adds that Mona was the perfect sister-in-law.

But there was one big problem with this happy picture. Namely, Jeff. How did he fit into the Waltons?

Sharon Wolczeski is Greg's wife.

But by 2003, their kids all had left home. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Protein. Oldest son Jeff Jr. was married, middle son Jason, a Marine, was in the Mideast, and daughter Jennifer was away at college. The Croteen house was empty and Mona and Jeff were alone, though hardly together.

And different interests. Jeff worked long hours at his insurance agency. And when not there, was often out on the water.

Mona, by contrast, loved people and reveled in her part-time job, managing a concession stand at Cleveland's busy convention hall, the IX Center.

Friends Alice Smock and Bev Dailey. Do you think she was happy?

On the night of March 20, 2003, Mona left her job here at the IX Center and headed off to a nearby hotel for a big party, the end of the convention season bash, an event she looked forward to every year.

While Mona was out dancing, daughter Jennifer, at home on spring break, tried to stay up until her mother got home. But by 2 a.m., she was sound asleep on the couch.

The next morning, a Friday, Jennifer woke to find her father in the kitchen getting ready for work.

But both father and daughter say they knew the annual convention party could get a little wild.

So at what point then does this begin to get alarming?

He had left for work already. So your mom doesn't come home all night, doesn't call, and your dad just gets up and goes to work? Pretty much, yeah. But you had gone to work that morning.

Because truly you saw no reason to be concerned.

Did you try to call the hotel or call any of her friends before you went to work?

But Mona's family was frantic.

They called the police, who said they had to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report.

10.30 p.m. Greg had been out looking for Mona for hours when, incredibly, he discovered his sister's car.

The dispatcher said no. 24 hours still hadn't passed. It was at that point that Greg took matters into his own hands and made his terrible discovery. His sister, beaten and shot to death.

Police descended on the parking lot. There was blood all over the back seat, and $900 from Mona's concession stand was missing.

At first, police suspected a botched robbery. Until, that is, they began to get some strange reports about what was going on at the Croteen house.

From the moment Ramona Croteen was murdered, friends and family all told police the same thing. I always thought he was an odd duck.

Jeff Croteen is, well, different.

A crime? Perhaps not. But his behavior certainly raised questions. Why weren't you out looking for your wife? Your family was out searching for her. While the Wolcheskis were out looking for Mona, Jeff was keeping a routine appointment with his accountant.

And police say odd things began happening the very night Mona's body was found.

When they first tried to interview Jeff. As the night wore on, his health seemed to deteriorate. It just got numb right here. His face was flushed. He looked ill. His sister-in-law, Patty, who's a nurse, began rubbing his back. I was really concerned that he was having a heart attack.

Jeff spent the night in the hospital. Turned out he hadn't had a heart attack after all. But over the next few days, the police didn't bother him with more questions.

And Jennifer says she even was in her parents' bedroom the next morning.

Jennifer provided her father with a rock-solid alibi. But still, people began to wonder. It just didn't jive with me. Mona's close friend, Denise Tarosky. I actually said these words. Is it possible Jeff did it? And it wasn't long before the Wilczewskis were asking the same questions.

Soon, even the detectives were focusing on Croteen.

What they heard was a jaw-dropping story that Croteen had taken a saw to the couple's wooden headboard. and then burned it piece by piece in the downstairs fireplace. You were in the house when he did this?

But why would anyone do that?

You're telling me that's why you burned the headboard in the fireplace?

The police were eager to talk to Jeff, but now, with a lawyer in tow, he no longer was talking to them.

Didn't you want to know what was going on?

The investigation dragged on until one day when police drove by Jeff's house. and saw, of all things, carpet installers arriving.

They questioned the workmen.

That's a big chunk of carpet. But as usual, Jeff can explain.

He says that during a bout of heavy drinking after Mona's death, he knocked over a bottle of cognac and a candle, ruining the carpet.

He didn't like that?

All apart, the DA thinks of a much bigger motive.

At the hospital, Dr. Zama says, the situation was downright embarrassing. What exactly was he saying?

Miriam's friend, Leslie Smith, says there was nothing normal about it.

But did he really do it? Where was Dr. Illis at exactly 10.37 p.m. that Friday night? His years as a hunter have taught District Attorney Michael Dinges a valuable lesson. Having the quarry in sight doesn't necessarily mean it's time to act.

But investigators didn't wait to probe Dr. Illis' alibi. He told them he'd been on the road when Miriam was killed, that after picking up Richie at 5, he left for his sister's house downstate around 9.30.

Nevertheless, investigators videotaped and timed the route under good and bad weather conditions. Two minutes, 48 seconds. The key was a stop at McDonald's, 35 miles from the crime scene.

Witnesses saw Dr. Illis there, but were vague as to when, and his story changed.

At 11.24, cell phone records show Dr. Illis called his sister. He told her the roads were so bad he was stopping for the night. And hotel records have him checking in around 1 a.m., some 90 miles from Williamsport. So what is wrong with his account of how he was spending those critical hours?

One person may know the truth for sure. Ritchie emerges as your best alibi witness. And yet it took almost two years, in fact, for him to be interviewed. What was the problem there?

When Dr. Illis finally did let Richie talk, the boy had little to say, and D.A. Dinges thinks he knows why.

But speculation isn't evidence, and the evidence wasn't adding up too much. Police sent the cigarette butt and three hairs found in the silencer for DNA analysis. But ironically, one of the earliest real leads came from Miriam Illis herself. As do many people during a divorce, she'd made a video inventory of household possessions. Police took special note of Dr. Illis' workshop.

You know a lot about guns, right? I mean, you have the equipment where you conceivably could have made this silencer.

But armed with a search warrant, police found traces of material to make even an amateurish silencer.

Police also took their own pictures in Dr. Illes' house, even down to what was on his nightstand.

Strange book for a doctor, but then this case was strange, and it got a lot stranger when the anonymous letters began. The first, to Illis' attorney, proclaimed that the writer, not Dr. Illis, had killed Miriam because she was a racist. It was signed, Soldier of Equality, Soldier of God, Soldier of Death.

especially since it was written just as the book on Dr. Illes' nightstand had recommended.

In May of 1999, four months after the murder, a second letter arrived. This time, the author talked about himself.

Did you look at Dr. Zama as a potential suspect?

What do you make of these anonymous letters that arrive?

No, not a nut, police thought, but someone who was methodically leaving false clues. In fact, the last anonymous letter arrived with yet another hair stuck in the envelope flap. Search warrants had allowed the police to get a sample of Dr. Illis' DNA, and by now, they had a lot to compare it to.

A loaded rifle with a sawed-off barrel and stock.

A rare Savage 23D rifle, its serial number obliterated. A gun last sold in 1949, before records even were kept.

After the biggest break in the case, the discovery of the murder weapon in this creek bed, investigators needed to tie the Savage 23D rifle to Dr. Richard Illis. who it turns out had a long history with guns. It just came with the family. His sisters say that Dr. Illis always was an avid hunter. It was just the family sport.

But by fall of 1999, D.A. Michael Dinges was sure that Dr. Illis had used his hunting skills to shoot his wife.

Nearly a year later, while casually looking at photos with Dr. Illes' relatives, investigators were shocked to stumble on this picture of Illes' late godfather, Joe Kowalski.

A rifle that looked just like the murder weapon.

Two months later, in the same woods where the rifle was found, police discovered size 14 basketball shoes, same size as the footprints at the crime scene.

But still, the DA felt not enough evidence to charge Dr. Illes, who was busy building a new life. Six months after Miriam's murder, he married his girlfriend, Catherine. Then in November 2000, he hit the road. You moved around quite a bit.

Williamsport, Pennsylvania, a small, picturesque town known around the country for the Little League World Series and not much else, which makes Williamsport a pretty pleasant place to be a cop.

First stop, Laredo, Texas, for a job as a heart surgeon in a hospital a stone's throw from the Mexican border.

But the job didn't work out, and Dr. Illes next moved to Spokane, Washington, joined by his new wife and son. He applied for a job at a heart surgery practice there.

Administrator Kathy Austin.

But then Kathy got a mysterious anonymous package stuffed with newspaper articles about the murder and a letter warning anyone to think twice about hiring Dr. Illis.

Ultimately, Dr. Illis was turned down for the job. What was his reaction?

In time, his new wife divorced him, and the once prominent heart surgeon seemed to drop from sight, only to resurface in the Spokane newspaper and with a completely new career. You were practicing cosmetic surgery?

He was offering a fairly good deal on some of these procedures.

But reporter Carla Johnson started hearing complaints from patients unhappy with Dr. Illes' work.

Spokane police, meanwhile, were watching the doctor's house day and night. keeping tabs at the request of the Pennsylvania investigators.

Who, in December 2002, four years after Miriam's murder, finally decided they had enough evidence to make the arrest. 48 hours flew Holmes and McDermott to Spokane to retrace their steps.

The plan, worked out with Spokane Detective Mark Henderson, was for plainclothes detectives to quietly nab Dr. Illis at his office. What exactly did you expect?

But into any cop's life, even in Sleepy Williamsport, can come a case so absorbing.

Because while Holmes and McDermott waited nervously at the Sheriff's Department... Illis threw a curve.

Luckily, Illis soon was spotted again.

To their chagrin, Dr. Illis headed right into the heart of downtown, where he suddenly pulled over.

After four long years, Dr. Illis' cat-and-mouse game with Holmes and McDermott finally was over. But when it came to the evidence, Dr. Illis wasn't giving an inch.

So complex, so difficult.

Nearly four years after Miriam Illis' death, Dr. Illis was back in Williamsport, charged with her murder.

Dr. Ellis' sisters weren't surprised at the arrest.

It becomes all-consuming.

At trial, District Attorney Michael Dinges argued that Dr. Illes did it to avoid a messy, drawn-out divorce in which he might well lose both his fortune and his son.

The DA presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

Pennsylvania State Trooper William Holmes and Corporal John McDermott Oh yeah, you could go right down here. spent four years trying to solve the murder of 47-year-old Miriam Illis, a woman seemingly without an enemy in the world. You have a picture of Miriam Illis on your bulletin board in your office.

In fact, Dr. Illis says, the evidence clearly points to someone else.

Do you think that some of this evidence, for one reason or another, was planted?

Well, unless all the stuff that you leave is a red herring that points to someone else, then you certainly do want to leave it.

And what about the murder weapon, believed to be the very one in this old Illis family photo?

But explaining away the state's last blockbuster piece of evidence was more difficult. When police searched Illis' Spokane home, they found a manuscript on his computer.

The plot involved the murder of a doctor's wife by a stalker.

but the characters had the same names as those in the real murder investigation.

Why would you write a book from the perspective of the killer? Wouldn't that just focus more attention on you?

And you didn't kill Miriam?

Dr. Illis never took the stand. After a five-week trial...

The jury began its deliberations. Then, after two and a half days... Do you think you'll leave a free man today?

The jury finds Dr. Illis is guilty of murder in the first degree.

For the investigators, it's justice five years in the making.

And there's no doubt in your mind that you got the right guy?

Why do you have that there?

Dr. Illis never wrote the final chapter in his book. In the real world, a judge wrote it for him. Life in prison.

Miriam and her husband, heart surgeon Richard Illis, were once one of Williamsport's most prominent couples.

Picture perfect to me.

They lived, as Dr. Illis's sisters well remember, in a spectacular mansion on a hill. And he was happy? Oh yeah, he was. You were married in 1991?

Those were pretty happy days?

Dr. Illis had known since childhood that he would be a surgeon.

And around the area, people are alive today thanks to Dr. Illis. People like Fred Sortman.

and Tom Tamberelli.

While a resident at St. Louis Medical Center in the early 90s, Dr. Illis met Miriam, who was a surgical assistant. I loved her immediately.

A few years after they married, the Illises had a son, Richie, and moved here to Williamsport, where Miriam worked side by side with her husband in the operating room, running the heart-lung machine. She also was very active in the community, volunteering at church, at the symphony. By all accounts, an exuberant, dynamic personality who had no trouble making friends.

Friends Dottie Bailey and Karen Young say Miriam was very down to earth, despite the money and the status. He was making a million dollars. They were one of the wealthiest people in Williamsport. She wasn't the rich doctor's wife?

In 1996, when Richie was two, Miriam became a stay-at-home mom, quit her job, and never looked back.

But Miriam's friends, who say they rarely saw Dr. Illes, had the impression that he was becoming increasingly distant and demanding.

And the marriage, says Leslie Smith, seemed under serious strain.

Her friends say that Dr. Illis' emotional distance made Miriam miserable. In the winter of 1998, she hired a divorce lawyer, Stephen Hurwitz, although she seemed not to really want a divorce.

At the same time, Miriam was growing suspicious. She had the feeling that her husband was having an affair because she's really highly suspected that something was going on.

And she and her lawyer soon discovered her suspicions were well-founded.

Wow, that's sort of a body blow, isn't it?

Katherine Swoyer was Dr. Illes' new assistant.

Their relationship became a scandal at Williamsport Hospital.

Heart surgeon Enche Zama was Dr. Illes' partner.

But Dr. Illes didn't seem to care who knew.

the best mother in the world there's no doubt about that everyone will tell you that and uh i had my freedom the marriage apparently over miriam moved out and took five-year-old ritchie with her she went from a very secure together professional woman to insecure looking over her back not sure who her friends were who her friends weren't friends of hers have said that she would have reconciled in a nanosecond but that you were not interested

A mess neither had a chance to clean up. On the night of January 15th, 1999, Miriam Illis would die. Miriam, it's Susan.

Where are you? Hi, Miriam, it's Susan. Give me a call when you get in. Miriam, it's Sally. Give me a call. Bye-bye.

No one knows what Miriam Illes' life might have held that final weekend. Hi Miriam, it's Susan again. Friends who tried to reach her Saturday tried in vain.

Miriam, it's Susan, where are you?

Dr. Illes' sisters, Romaine and Sue, had spoken to her only the night before.

Miriam was pleased, Sue says, that Dr. Illes' girlfriend wasn't going to be around for a few days.

In their call, Miriam said five-year-old Richie had just left with his father, the two planning to drive down for a weekend visit with Illis' sisters, who live some three hours south of Williamsport.

When on Sunday, Miriam failed to show up to teach Sunday school, worried neighbors checked the house, looked through the kitchen window, and horrified at what they saw, called police. Trooper William Holmes.

She had been shot once through the heart. Within hours of the discovery of his wife's body, Dr. Illes arrived to drop off his son after their weekend out of town.

He had no clue, he says, that anything had happened.

The police remember it slightly differently.

And how did you take that?

But investigators were too busy to think much of it then, because in fact, they were awash in evidence.

Found behind the house, a cigarette butt.

What appeared to be a homemade silencer for a rifle. These are the tracks that are leading up to where the shooting took place. And footprints in the snow. The best footprint we've got is right here. gigantic footprints from a size 14 basketball shoe. But what would turn out to be one of the best clues was the phone found next to Miriam's body. Records showed her last call Friday evening.

She'd been talking to a friend in Montana, and the friend distinctly remembered being puzzled when their call abruptly ended. It was exactly 10.37 p.m. I mean, this would make a perfect episode of CSI. District Attorney Michael Dinges says that without that call, investigators never could have pinpointed the exact time of death.

But knowing when the shot was fired did not tell police who fired it. The initial working theory, a sniper with a daring plan.

And that someone, investigators began to think, was none other than Dr. Illes.

In fact, investigators saw an excellent motive.

The couple hadn't yet begun to split up property. But already, a judge had ordered Illis to pay Miriam a whopping $13,000 a month in support. He insists that given his income, that was no big deal.

Three months after Jennifer and Abby disappeared, the investigators brought Michael Blagg back in for questioning. Again, with no lawyer present.

By now, the FBI was involved, which meant that this interview, unlike the first, was not taped.

Police found him the next morning.

Investigators also found a suicide note in which Michael Blagg insisted he was not a murderer. You had nothing to do with any of this?

But for some, Michael Blagg's suicide attempt was a clear sign of a guilty conscience.

Now, even Michael's mother-in-law, Marilyn Conway, was beginning to have questions. Michael, it's Mama. I would like it if you would pick up the telephone. She agreed to help investigators by leaving Blagg a series of phone messages. Mike, will you help me out with Jennifer and Abby?

Blagg never responded. But Investigator King is sure that he could have.

The problem may be improving it. Five months after Jennifer and Abby disappeared, volunteer searchers fanned out over the highlands and rivers around Grand Junction.

A fact duly noted in town.

Black protests that it wasn't his choice.

By spring of 2002, no bodies had been found. But Blagg certainly was a suspect.

And Investigator King had a working theory.

But if Blagg had put Jennifer's body in his company's dumpster, then her remains should have ended up here, somewhere in the sprawling county landfill. But where? Where was she found?

Did you honestly expect to find her when you came out here at first?

Using global positioning technology and landfill logs, they set up a grid system. much like an archeological site, zeroing in on quadrants where they believe they'd find trash from Blagg's company. Trash dumped the previous November.

Finally, on day 16, they found Jennifer Blagg.

Authorities wasted no time. Two days later, they arrested Blagg at his mother's home in Georgia. Has there ever honestly been a moment when you said to yourself, could this possibly be?

What do you think happened?

In the high desert on the Rockies' western slope, the mesas tower over the town of Grand Junction, Colorado, almost as if to protect it from the outside world. But late on the afternoon of June 4, 2002, Grand Junction saw the unearthing of its own shocking secret here at the local landfill.

When did you get here, Claire? I came in last night. Black sister Claire Rochester arrives in Grand Junction just as the jury is seated, and she too wonders if a fair trial is possible.

But public defender David Eisner, Blagg's lead attorney, says the cops never even considered that.

Resulting, he says, in allegations meant to undermine Michael Blagg's character in the community. Allegations never prove true. Among them, that Blagg, the good Christian, was looking at hardcore Internet pornography the night before he reported Jennifer missing.

nor did what was widely reported in the local media, that Blagg had visited an escort service for sex.

And finally, there were leaks about Jennifer seeking advice on divorce from the local legal aid office.

District Attorney Frank Daniels will prosecute the case.

Otherwise, the Blagg family rarely goes out. too many stairs. None of them is from Grand Junction, and in this town, they have few friends.

So they hole up in a hotel and wait.

As the murder trial of Michael Blagg begins... I'm trying to figure out why it says 29.

Jennifer's mother, Marilyn Conway, is no longer defending her son-in-law.

The movie plays over and over in the mind of Sheriff's investigator Steve King.

But the families of Michael and Jennifer, once very close, now find themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom.

All rise.

The prosecution lays out its case.

Arguing that that fatal weekend began with a fight on Friday. A fight Jennifer noted in one of her religious books.

The weekend ended, says Daniels, with Jennifer's murder, sometime late Monday night.

As to why Michael Blagg would murder his wife, Daniels suggests his addiction to Internet pornography had split this once solid marriage.

He shows the jury the apology email from Michael.

The devil, says the prosecution, was lurking in Blagg's computer.

Details of which were too much even for the judge.

But this sex addict is a murderer.

And the jury is spared no details of this crime.

After killing Jennifer, the DA continues, Blagg transported her body in the family van, which explains the blood traces found inside. Defense has more trouble explaining it. Well, how did it get there?

The decomposed body of 34-year-old Jennifer Blagg, wrapped in a red and black plastic tent.

They don't know how it got there. If I'm the juror, I'm wondering.

In court, the defense maintains that finding Jennifer's blood in her own van proves nothing. In fact, Eisner insists the prosecution's whole circumstantial case fails the test of reasonable doubt. He points out that no murder weapon ever has been found, and he says there simply is no believable motive, no reason why this caring husband suddenly should morph into a ruthless killer.

Family friends take the stand to praise Michael's marriage and his character.

And, says Sister Claire, Michael was devastated after the disappearances.

But the defense has a problem making that portrait of Blagg convincing. It's that first taped interview. He seems rather detached.

Jennifer and her six-year-old daughter Abby had been missing for seven months. Abby has not been found to this day, not in the landfill, nor in the desolate mesas nearby. Until one day in November 2001, the Black family lived here in this comfortable house in a quiet cul-de-sac. The mystery of what really happened inside those four walls still haunts this town.

But more damaging for Blagg's case than his demeanor is some surprise testimony from his mother-in-law.

It shocks the defense.

He hurt her in Corpus?

It even shocks the DA.

She says it happened 10 years ago, an incident apparently forgotten until now.

You think she lied outright? Yes. This assault never happened? I don't believe it ever did. But she just made it up? She made it up. As the defense deals with this setback, it also has a big decision to make.

Will Michael Blagg try to save himself on the witness stand? Do you expect that you would take the stand?

With his murder trial coming to its close, Michael Blagg is sticking to what's become a morning ritual.

A friendly nod and smile for the jurors, day after day after day.

Since Michael Blagg won't be speaking for himself.

David Eisner uses Jennifer's words.

To show that Michael never would have harmed her.

He quotes from a letter found in Michael's desk just days after her disappearance.

The verdict comes in just over 24 hours.

The Blacks, after all, seemed so happy, so normal, so very nice.

Unless he wins an appeal, Michael Blagg will serve life without the possibility of parole.

I'm glad it's over. But the jury's verdict doesn't answer the looming question. Why?

Why would a man who seemed to have it all commit such a heinous crime against a loving wife and daughter?

Faith also comforts David Lohman, who is keeping up the search for Abby.

And for answers he thinks only Michael Blagg can provide.

A child who sadly never has been found and may never be, at peace perhaps in the quiet beauty of the high desert.

The Reverend Art and Rhonda Blankenship got to know the Blags in 2000 through their small evangelical church.

Both Michael and Jennifer were enthusiastic born-again Christians. Extremely spiritual, they organized personal prayer groups for the congregation.

So if you had had to pick a couple to whom, you know, this would be the most unlikely thing to happen?

How did you meet Jennifer?

The Blags had met 10 years before in California. She was in college.

He was a decorated Persian Gulf War veteran, a helicopter pilot.

Jennifer stayed close to her mother, Marilyn, even after she married Michael in 1993. They seemed happy.

This, agrees Michael's mother, Betsy, was a fairy tale couple. And he was absolutely in love with her. What was she like? If she walked in this room now, what kind of person would I meet?

That's how people reacted?

And her parents seemed to dote on her.

Mother and daughter still were asleep, Michael says, when he headed out the door at 6 o'clock that November morning.

Off to his job as operations manager at a local manufacturing plant, the Ametek Dixon Company. Around 7, he called home. No answer.

He says he called again mid-morning.

Again then at noon.

Around four, he left for home. Later, he told police he had sensed something was wrong the second he walked in.

But he says nothing prepared him for the horror of what he saw in the bedroom.

The 911 dispatcher told him to check the garage. The couple's minivan was still there.

It was not until the dispatcher asked about his daughter that Michael finally thought to check Abby's room.

Abby was gone.

The story of a bloody bed, of a missing mother and child, rocked the town of Grand Junction. It was very frightening, very frightening.

But the more the police looked at that crime scene, the more questions they had for Michael Blagg.

Jennifer Blagg's older brother, David Lohman, has no idea how many hours he's spent combing the mesas around Grand Junction.

Searching for his missing six-year-old niece, Abby. He says it's the least he can do for his little sister.

really yeah so the last time you talked to her i love you not long after that last i love you jennifer and abby blagg were reported missing oh my god it's in my house and sheriff's investigator steve king was trying to make sense of a bloody and bewildering crime scene at the time walking out of there you're sort of scratching your head saying well this doesn't look right and this doesn't look right and this doesn't look right

No Jennifer, no Abby, no bodies, and no sign of a struggle.

On the dresser was Jennifer's purse. The contents spilled out, including her keys to the van. Also in the purse, an email from Michael, an apparent apology. I would love to take some time to talk through the problems we're having, it reads. Do not give the devil a foothold. And near the blood-soaked bed on the carpet, Jennifer's empty jewelry box.

which was exactly what Michael Blagg repeatedly told Steve King and other officers that night in an intense five-hour interview with no lawyer present.

In measured tones, he conceded the couple had had some rocky times, but he said his marriage was solid.

King found Blagg's manner, composed and collected, strangely unsettling.

After the interview, realizing that Blagg had no place to stay... I decided

Pastor Blankenship drove him to his own house. Did he talk to you?

Over the next few days, the community reached out to Michael Blagg.

And Jennifer's mother was right by Michael's side. If you know how to pray to the Heavenly Father, pray to him.

Thank you. The appeals were heartbreaking, but investigators were beginning to have their doubts about Michael Blagg. For one thing, the blood evidence was puzzling. DNA tests confirmed that the blood in the bed was Jennifer's, but strangely, there was no trace of her blood anywhere else in the house. Even more striking was the one other place where her blood was found.

It was in the family van, parked in the garage, small traces of Jennifer's blood on the door and inside. As more questions arose... You talked to him in his car, right? Yes. You talked to him in restaurants? Right. King began meeting with Blagg informally.

Slowly zeroing in on the Blaggs' fairytale marriage.

In late November, Michael Blagg, publicly so devout, privately admitted to King that he was addicted to hardcore pornography and that when Jennifer found out, she had been very upset. I mean, I would imagine that would have been a fairly heated conversation.

Like, what are you doing?

But then, Michael says, his equally devout wife decided to join him online.

They used hardcore porn sites, he says, purely as an educational tool.

For King, the explanation hardly fit the profile of a once hard partying Navy pilot. You're missing out on the party, dude.

Anytime that he would be upset, he would come home and take it out on us. He would throw me against the walls. He would hit me in the face, the stomach, the back. He would kick until he wasn't angry anymore. This was just another fight that got really bad. I told him that I thought that he needed help. That wasn't my place to tell him that he needed any sort of help.

She wanted it to seem like I did something horrible on purpose, and that night I was just fighting for my life.

It could go either way, but I'm not worried. I just don't think that God would have brought me this far.

That's just not the way that our marriage was. And we began to fight. I didn't want him to die, but I didn't have a choice. I don't want to tell it. I don't want to tell it anymore.

I would do anything in the world to be able to have them back, just to be able to watch them grow up, to know who they are.

I pray it does.

He put his hands around my neck and he choked me. He began to punch me in the chest over and over again. He shook me over and over again. Over and over again until he wasn't angry anymore. Until he wasn't angry. Until he wasn't angry anymore.

There was so much left out of the first trial.

There's a lot of new information, people coming forward and wanting to testify.

It's difficult to get up on a stand and tell a story, but no matter how we come across, the story's still the same. What happened did happen.

I know I'm going to go home.

My heart hurts for everything that happened. We had two beautiful children.

Holidays are very hard. Birthdays are hard. Sometimes just waking up and missing everyone, it's very hard.

I'd honestly expected them to come back and say not guilty.

Well, because I had gotten up on the stand and I had told them what happened, and that's just the way that life was. I expected them to believe it.

I was just horrified that anyone thought that that was what happened.

The original trial just didn't explain everything.

I just thought that we were going to have that fairytale marriage with the kids in the house, you know, the same thing that every other girl dreams about.

He told me what a fat ass that I was. He told me that I was stupid and that I was worthless.

He threw me up against the wall and he shook me by my arms as hard as he could until he wasn't angry and he began to punch me in the chest over and over again.

He had just gotten done with a boxing lesson and he wanted to box with Bradley.

Jeff got his hands up in a boxing motion and started making jabs at Bradley's head.

That just kept frustrating Jeff. The more that he didn't want to do it, he kept calling Bradley, assisting a little girl.

Yes, he did.

He came at me, and he swung me around and threw me against the wall, and he told me not to give him any f****** ultimatums, bitch, that I didn't have the right.

My eyes were closed, and I heard his voice. And it was scary. It was calm. And he said, die, bitch, and I opened up my eyes.

His head and his chest and his neck and his stomach and his leg from when he kicked me. I stabbed him in his penis for all the time. Then he made me have sex and I didn't want to. I couldn't stop because he was going to kill me and I couldn't stop.

It's a horrible story and I wish that it wasn't true. I wish that none of that happened and I wished everything was so much different. It's just the way that my life was. My name is Susan Wright. I was charged with murder. I killed my husband. I was convicted of murdering my husband. I just, I couldn't go on how things were. Our whole marriage had been just a really big cover up.

Bradley was at the door.

And then he tied up his right arm to the bed so that he couldn't get up because I was afraid he was going to get up and come after me when I was putting Bradley back to sleep.

Because Jeff was still alive.

Now I understand that. When he was still alive, he wasn't dead.

Yes, ma'am, I had always done it. Thank you.

Detective George Landry questioned the Colonel shortly after the murder and says his story was inconsistent.

Routine questioning.

Quickly became an interrogation.

Marachek still insists he didn't kill his wife. In fact, he spent hours frantically searching for her on that night in 1991.

Police patrol the area, but they said it was too early to officially declare Viparat a missing person. So Maracek says he searched on his own, searched in fact until almost midnight.

The next morning, he says he scoured the area again. And shortly after noon, he found Viperot's body here at this grassy point on the Cape Fear River.

You believe that Russell Preston is framing the colonel?

But Prosecutor Hicks wonders why the colonel didn't go straight to the place the stranger recommended to the Maracheks the day before.

You're saying that logically that should have been the first place he looked?

He looks like the least likely person on earth to have committed a crime like this.

But Maracek says the truth is in a four-page document he wrote after Viparat disappeared. This is a very meticulous document, from saying specific times to noting that your wife had low-fat cottage cheese for lunch.

So you were thinking that clearly at the time?

Rubbish, says Tommy Hicks. The statement was supposed to be an alibi. And it doesn't explain where the colonel really was. The afternoon viperot died.

Remember, Marachek says he hadn't seen his wife since lunchtime. Hicks says that's a lie, and he's got witnesses to prove it.

Off-duty cops Tom and Beth DeLue were driving past Fort Fisher that day at about 4 p.m.

When Tom says they passed a Caucasian man and an Asian woman on the road. apparently headed away from the beach toward the river.

Beth isn't so sure. I could not identify either one of them. I couldn't tell if they were coming back from the beach or going to the beach.

But like Tom DeLue, handyman Dennis Rude says he also saw the Maracheks walking toward the river a few minutes later at about 4.15.

What's more, he says, Viparat seemed upset.

Prosecutor Hicks says tensions in the Marachek marriage were obvious to many people, including the colonel's own daughter.

The year before the murder, Maracek had spent weeks at a time in the Czech Republic. Her biggest fear, if you will, was that you were having an affair with your distant cousin, Hanna. Was that true?

This former army buddy of Marachek says there was an affair.

And he knows the truth about the murder. Why? Because the colonel told him. Now he wants to tell the jury.

It's 5 a.m.

A few weeks before Colonel Marachek's third murder trial, and Butch Hendrick is hard at work. He's been brought in by Marachek's supporters as an authority on homicide by drowning.

To prove a body put in the river at the critical time... Our primary mannequin is on the move. ...would have been swept away.

The prosecution says that proves nothing about whether the colonel killed his wife.

But Marachek's lawyer Cliff Barnard welcomes any good news. Impressed with the colonel, he took this case for free.

As he collects evidence.

Barnard has asked the judge to delay the trial.

To find old witnesses. And he hopes new ones.

One new defense witness already has surfaced.

The colonel's son, Michael, testified twice that his dad hinted that he was the killer. Now, he says police brainwashed him.

But while Michael will testify for the defense this time... I loved my dad.

His sister Susan is on the prosecution's witness list, a reluctant witness for whom loyalty has lost out to what she fears is the truth.

Russell Preston is a former Army buddy of Marachek's, and like Susan, at first could not believe his hero was a murderer.

Why? Because, he says, Marachek all but told him so, almost two years after the crime.

Why didn't you run home and call the cops?

This wasn't the first time Preston had done his friend a favor. Just days before her murder, Viparat had asked Preston's Czech-born wife to translate some documents she'd found. They appeared to be letters from her husband to his Czech cousin, Hanna, and she suspected they were having an affair.

Instead of translating them for her, you call her husband. Why did you do that?

Marachek denied any affair.

And that, says Tommy Hicks, is a motive for murder. The plan is ready. I only need time and your help with it. And it goes on. I'm always thinking of you. I wish to be there with you. It will be soon. Trust me. I have to hurry. I'm sending you a kiss. I love you terribly. That's not a love letter. No.

Just friendly, says Maracek, and lost in the translation, is that he and Vyperat were planning a trip to the Czech Republic. The plan is ready. What does that mean?

At first, Russell Preston believed Marachek's story, but he says he was surprised when a few months later, the colonel's cousin, Hannah, moved in with him.

But Preston was concerned about something else.

Tommy Hicks thinks he knows where the money for that came from.

A life insurance policy that paid out $300,000. Marachek bought it for Viparat just six months before she was killed.

Marachek says insurance is just prudent.

You never took a lie detector test? Not your own attorney, not the police?

You took a lie detector? Yeah, my own attorney. And how did that come out?

Did he ever take a lie detector test?

And?

He flunked it?

Flunked it, like, flat out flunked it? Flunked it. As the evidence mounted, Colonel Marachek's one-time admirer became an important witness against him.

But Marachek insists it's actually Russell Preston who's been living a lie, and he hopes to discredit him in court.

Does Russell Preston have a shadowy past? And might he be out to frame the Colonel? That's next.

If Colonel George Marachek is convicted, Russell Preston may be the main reason why. So defense lawyers would love to discredit both him and his story that Marachek once bragged he'd get away with murder. In Preston's checkered past, the Marachek team thinks it's hit pay dirt.

Flashback to 1990, when thrilled by the fall of communism, George Marachek traveled back to his homeland and began making political connections. Preston says he was thinking big.

But the Colonel's supporters charge that Russell Preston himself set out to make sure that never happened. Why?

Because Preston was a spy for the Czech secret police. Or so says Maracek's friend Jan Beneš, a former dissident who thinks Maracek was a threat to the communist old guard.

So the theory goes Preston invented the murder confession to frame the colonel, to end his political hopes. Maracek only hopes the jury buys it. What do you know about his ties to the Czech secret police?

And in fact, Russell Preston also had a file in the archives of the Czech secret police. It shows he traveled behind the Iron Curtain in 1987 and 1988, meeting at this Prague hotel with an agent codenamed Needle.

In Prague, we met with a former high-ranking Czech secret agent, Colonel Jan Belicek.

And we asked him to evaluate the Preston file.

Russell Preston is hardly undercover. Relaxing with musician friends in Germany, Preston says emphatically he is no spy out to get the colonel. They wouldn't have sent their former agent, Russell Preston, out to frame him.

Retired Colonel George Marachek may be 68, but he's still tough as nails. Still, every inch, the Green Beret.

This is rich. This is the theory.

Preston freely admits visiting Prague in the 80s as a tourist. and says, of course, as a Green Beret, he would interest the secret police. Were you ever in contact with any agent from the Czech secret police, knowingly? Not knowingly. Indeed, the file doesn't indicate that Preston ever responded to attempts to recruit him. Did you ever provide intelligence?

Not to the Czechs.

We finally located the one shadowy figure who should know if Preston worked for the secret police, Colonel Jaroslaw Brydzik, once in charge of recruiting him. We met for an intense two hours at this hotel coffee shop in Prague, and the ground rules were simple. No cameras, no recording, and no notes. But there was no doubt about what the former agent had to say.

Russell Preston, he insisted, never worked for the Czech secret police. A high-level US military source told us the same thing. And it's clear the spy charges will be hard to get into court.

But determined to discredit Preston, The defense has another card up its sleeve.

In 1993, despite his suspicions about the Colonel, Preston looked up two friends of Hanna Marachek's in Prague. A year later, they accused him of rape.

Preston admits to adultery, but says it was not rape.

Maracek did report him to the military, and Czech officials investigated as well.

Prague detective Pavel Oswald says charges were dropped after the women told him exactly why they'd spoken up.

You took a lie detector test?

In fact, one of the most decorated Green Berets in the Army's history.

And?

The army also eventually dropped the rape charges. It was clear during the investigation proceedings that the alleged committed crimes had been fabricated. Still, the struggling defense may try to get this into evidence at the trial.

Whether or not they can undermine Preston, the defense has one more card to play.

A new witness. Do you appreciate the fact that this is, in the defense's eyes, an absolute bombshell information?

Will his testimony save the Colonel? Next, on 48 Hours Investigates.

After just 90 days preparing their case, Colonel Marachek and his team of attorneys have their backs against the wall.

The expert who did their mannequin test is out of the country, and an apparently fed-up judge has denied motions for a delay. That's it.

But on trial day, he marches off to battle, head held high.

Russ Preston is here too, also on a mission.

Marachek's one-time Army buddy is here to tell the jury how Marachek once boasted he would never be caught. All right, gentlemen.

From Heartbreak Ridge in Korea to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam, this star-spangled soldier really has seen it all.

In opening arguments, Prosecutor Hicks tells the jury that Viparat Marachek was terrified her husband was going to kill her. The defense says the evidence, the life insurance and letters, could just as easily show that George Marachek was a good family man and that the state's witnesses are either confused or lying.

One fight is made harder when the judge refuses to admit testimony about the dismissed rape charges against Preston. And with no proof Preston was a spy, the defense doesn't even bring that up.

Nor will the judge give the defense more time to investigate a new claim by Marachek's supporters that a serial killer in Michigan has confessed to this crime.

Somehow, the colonel's team remains confident.

And as it turns out, they've saved their best move for last.

Richard Tobin was a National Guardsman visiting Fort Fisher in June of 1991. He contradicts Dennis Rude and Tom DeLue, saying he saw Veeprot alone around the time prosecutors say she took her death march with the colonel. You are absolutely certain in your own mind that that is who you saw?

That's not the same as passing somebody you don't know in the doorway of a grocery store.

He says he told his superiors at the time, then let it drop.

So he did, for nine years, until the defense found him. Do you appreciate the fact that this is, in the defense's eyes, an absolute bombshell information?

Encouraged by Tobin's testimony and worried that his training in wartime killing might be used against him, Colonel Marachek does not take the stand.

After a six-day trial, the defense rests. I believe my dad is innocent.

And this is over how many years?

But they don't have to wait long. It takes the jury less than three hours to reach its verdict. Guilty of second degree murder. The sentence, 30 years.

Clearly, the jury didn't buy the National Guardsman's story.

For the man Marachek called a traitor and a rapist, it's a final vindication.

For the prosecutor who tried him three times, it's a sweet victory.

For Hanna Maracek, a crushing disappointment.

But for the colonel, what mattered in the end was not what he did for his country, but what the jury believed he did to his wife.

But the most astonishing thing about George Marachek today is not his past glory, but his present situation.

This American hero stands accused of murder. You have no doubt George Marachek killed his wife.

Bottom line, Colonel, did you kill your wife?

June 3rd, 1991. Colonel Marachek and his Thai wife, Viparat, were vacationing, as they often did, at Fort Fisher. a military recreation area near Cape Fear, North Carolina. They both loved the outdoors.

This is actually the cottage where you work?

He says they spent that morning at the beach. After lunch, he says he went back to the beach for more sun.

Viparat, he says, told him she planned to check out fishing spots.

In fact, a stranger recommended one just the day before.

When he got home at 5, he found the cottage empty. He says he never saw his wife alive again. The next day, he says he found her bludgeoned body face down in the Cape Fear River.

He dealt matter-of-factly with death on the battlefields, he says, but this hit too close to home.

Marachek took authorities to the body. Then they took him to the hospital, a grief-stricken spouse.

Because, says prosecutor Tommy Hicks, George Marachek is the killer, and Hicks thinks he can prove it.

What really did happen? The Search for Clues leads around the world. Back in time to the shadowy era of Cold War espionage and to a family split apart.

As an American war hero fights the battle of his life on trial or murder. Next on 48 Hours Investigates.

Retired Colonel George Marachek is about to go on trial for his wife's murder. And this is the third time. He calls it persecution.

The first trial ended in a hung jury. The second jury convicted Marachek, but he won a new trial on appeal. He has contended from the start that the state is trying to use his military career against him, trying to portray him as a trained killer. The police, he charges, have used him as a scapegoat to cover up a botched investigation.

He says they ignored crucial evidence at the crime scene, including a pair of shoes, beer cans, and a footprint in the sand.

This time, he thinks the jury will see things his way.

Retired General Sidney Shacknow has known Marachek for 30 years.

The colonel's incredible story starts here in the Czech Republic, in his hometown of Dolny Postevna on the German border. He was born here in 1932, and within a few years, the Nazis were moving in. By the time he was 12 years old, he was in the resistance. But the Germans caught up with him. He says he survived a concentration camp and fled Europe after the war.

He became an American citizen at 25, but he vowed to one day help free his homeland from communism. That made him a natural for the Special Forces. He volunteered to go to Vietnam. By then he was married. He left wife, Billy, and three kids behind. What kind of father was your father?

American soldier but son Michael says their relationship was sometimes rocky.

His first marriage ended in divorce. He found himself single, stationed in Thailand. Viparatse Wong, meanwhile, was in her mid-20s, living in Bangkok.

in the very neighborhood where her best friend, Jui, today still makes her living selling food on the street.

And Jui remembers that Viparat wanted more than anything to live a life abroad.

The boyfriend was Marachek. Jouy had her doubts about him from the start.

The Maracheks married in 1982.

But her best friend in America, Inga Shaw, says things were not what they seemed. From the beginning, I didn't think it was a very happy marriage. The year before the murder, Maracek made three trips to the new Czech Republic. Now retired, he talked of moving there, even running for office. Inga Shaw says Vyperat felt her marriage crumbling.

Maracek calls that ridiculous.

Never had a bad day?

He remembers that they took that fateful vacation to celebrate their ninth anniversary.

This is the last picture you have?

Dewey remembers Biparat, too.

What Inga Shaw remembers is how worried she was for her quiet friend.

Because, she says, just before the couple left for Fort Fisher, Viparat was scared to death.

Next on 48 Hours Investigates.

Prosecutor Tommy Hicks remembers the very moment his boss gave him his daunting assignment. Good morning. Convict a war hero of murder. You look at Colonel Marachek's record, he looks like the least likely person on earth to have committed a crime like this.

Not only was it fun, but it paid well. And Michelle continued stripping for nine years, long after she began her banking career.

None of your customers knew.

Neither did her bosses, and that wasn't her only secret. Did you even have a background in finance? I did not have a background in finance at all.

Michelle had been on her own since running away from an abusive home at 15. She started as a teller in a small town bank, and 13 years later, with a lot of hard work, she was a bank manager, albeit a bank manager seemingly incapable of managing her own money.

A month before the robbery, Michelle had filed for bankruptcy for the second time, leading investigators to wonder, was that motive enough to rob her own bank?

It was crushing, Michelle says, to realize that the cops weren't sure she was either innocent or a victim.

She fled to a hotel, barricaded herself and her daughter inside, and tried to cope with both her fears and Bria's.

But for all their suspicions, investigators could find not a shred of hard evidence that Michelle was involved. By contrast, Christopher Butler seemed to have gone out of his way to build an airtight case against himself. Not only was there that business card, his thumbprint also matched one left in the red paint on the fake dynamite. Big mistake.

Dale Martin, Randy Demers, and Rudy Zamora began tracking Butler and his friends.

Chris Butler was under surveillance when police nabbed him at this intersection. In the car with him was his girlfriend, Lisa Ramirez, whom police suspected was the woman in the bank.

They thought they were such master criminals they could never be caught, or what? Correct.

Wow, that's a lot of money. And in the glove compartment, this gun. It's a BB gun. It's not a real weapon, but... This is a BB gun?

The treasure hunt continued at this house, where Butler and Ramirez had been staying. How important was the evidence that you found here?

Here, investigators discovered all the ingredients for making fake dynamite. Bits of wooden dowels, red paint, wires, and empty rolls of duct tape. Everything you could ask for in one convenient place. That same day, some 50 miles away, police picked up a third suspect, Christopher Huggins. They also recovered $93,000 stashed in a safe.

For as bumbling as they seemed, Michelle was the key witness against them, and she was afraid of retaliation, especially since Robert Ortiz, the last suspect, was still on the loose.

If you know where Ortiz is hiding, please call our hotline right now. But after Ortiz was featured on America's Most Wanted... He was caught in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The four suspects now all were under arrest. The ringleader, Christopher Butler, wasn't talking.

But Christopher Huggins and Robert Ortiz began talking immediately.

And though it took her a while, Lisa Ramirez wouldn't shut up. She admitted being the voice on the radio. She even bragged that she was the mastermind.

She took credit for the idea? She took credit for the idea. She did it. But her most intriguing claim was about another woman Ramirez said was involved.

Here was Lisa pointing the finger at Michelle. Determined to find the truth, investigators again asked Michelle to reenact the crime, this time with props. Though they had reservations, they put fake dynamite on her, Kimbra, and even on little Bria and took those pictures. Were you testing her?

Investigators were inclined to believe her, but still, they were puzzled.

You mean just because they just didn't seem smart enough?

Adding to their uncertainty was another troublesome question. Who had the rest of the money?

It was a nerve-wracking year and a half after the kidnapping and robbery before the first two defendants, Chris Butler and Lisa Ramirez, went to trial.

Michelle was the state's key witness, and she was feeling the pressure. She could no longer bear to work at the bank. She left her dream house, and now she had to face her captors.

But at least prosecutor Tom Manning was on her side.

Early on, Manning felt pretty good about his case. Along with an abundance of evidence, he had Michelle's roommate to back up her story. And better yet, he had a confession from Lisa Ramirez. Even Lisa's own lawyer, Herb Weston, saw this as a long shot for his client.

He wasn't expecting miracles. Things didn't look too bright at the beginning. Things really stunk. But he got a miracle. The judge threw out Lisa Ramirez's confession.

Ruling it implicated Lisa's co-defendant, Chris Butler, who had never admitted anything to police. By the time of the trial, though, Butler dropped a bombshell. He now claimed the robbery was all Michelle's idea.

It was here at this hillside home in Vista, California, where Michelle Renee once felt happiest.

From the very beginning, defense attorneys raised suspicion that Michelle was involved.

They cast doubt on her story. Wait a minute, there's something wrong here. And then Chris Butler went one shocking accusation further, claiming that he and Michelle were having an affair.

there was no evidence at all of any affair but the very suggestion of it fed into the defense strategy of attacking michelle's credibility and unfortunately for her she made it easy for them because she had told a lie a little lie but one that would have a big impact right out of the gate i was completely up front with the jury and i told him in my opening statement that she lied

It all began when a band of masked terrorists... Michelle had misled prosecutors about, of all things, an appearance on America's Most Wanted.

Manning tried to point out that the lie was trivial, but the damage was done.

Then, on day eight, the prosecution's star witness took the stand and tried to describe the trauma of that day. Dynamite strapped to her daughter, she herself forced to rob her own bank.

She was 35, a divorced single mother raising her daughter Bria and working full time as a bank manager.

I'm going to be strong. But Michelle was her own worst enemy. She even argued with the prosecution.

Was there anything that she did well as a prosecution witness? Showed up. When it was the defense's turn, Weston went gunning for Michelle.

Specifically, why would Michelle race home to her daughter if she believed the dynamite was real?

And if she had really been bound with tape, where were the marks?

The defense also zeroed in on Michelle's money problems. They had a field day with your finances. Oh, God. They portrayed her as a financial wreck, a bank manager with a history of unpaid loans, bad checks, and two bankruptcies. Last time I checked, filing bankruptcy wasn't against the law.

the defense had yet another line of attack.

Remember Michelle's claim? It just clicked. That she recognized the voice on the walkie-talkie the night of the kidnapping?

the voice of lisa ramirez michelle insists she immediately identified lisa's voice to investigators you told them the next day i did without any question without any question i feel like this person on the other end of that line said hey chris was the woman that was in the bank she was interviewed i think four times

Until that awful night nine years ago when the three masked men charged through her back door. And everything was slow motion in that moment.

Michelle did tell investigators about the voice on the walkie-talkie, but nowhere in any FBI report is there any record of her saying that she recognized that voice.

The truth is, it was Lisa Ramirez on that walkie-talkie. She had even admitted it in her confession. But remember, the judge threw that statement out. And so all the jury had to go on was Michelle's own story. And the defense was determined to rip it apart. The more Weston went after her... I felt like I was the one on trial. ...the more combative Michelle got.

After three grueling days on the stand.

The trial took three weeks.

Now the jury had the case.

That first hour of jury deliberation stretched into a day. Then another day. I was waiting and waiting and waiting. Finally, after five days, the jury came back.

She heard nothing of the kind. While the jury found Christopher Butler guilty of kidnapping Bria and Kimbra, he was not convicted of kidnapping Michelle. What happened? What went wrong? Jurors said later some believed Butler's claim that he and Michelle were having an affair. although there was no evidence they even knew each other.

Equally shocking was the verdict for Lisa Ramirez, who had confessed, though the confession never was heard in court.

The jury found Ramirez not guilty on all counts.

Herb Weston's client, Ramirez, walked out of the courtroom a free woman.

When the judge threw out her confession, the case against Ramirez hinged on Michelle's testimony. And she'd done herself no favors.

When the trial ended, did you say to yourself, you know, I did a pretty good job up there? No. What did you think?

Michelle got a chance to redeem herself two months later when she took the stand in the trial of Christopher Huggins and Robert Ortiz. Night and day.

And this time, the entire case didn't hang on her.

Confessions in which they never once accused Michelle of being involved. It's my understanding that the jury has reached a verdict. This jury was out for only a day.

It found both Huggins and Ortiz guilty on all charges, including the kidnapping of Michelle Renee. The two men, along with Christopher Butler, were each given three consecutive life terms in prison. Which leaves just one nagging question.

This video was shot by the FBI after the break-in.

Remember, $360,000 was taken from the bank. So in the end, you recovered, what, a third? Yeah. Yeah. And you've never known where the rest of that money is? Nope. Gone.

To this day, police have no idea what happened to that missing money or who ended up with it. If you're going to ask me if Michelle has it, no. Former colleague Loretta Myers feels that the trial left an unfair cloud of suspicion hanging over Michelle. Michelle was not a part of this.

Do you still run into people who say, you know what, I wonder if she had anything to do with this?

Bria is 16 now and focused on high school activities. Cheerleading, gymnastics. But she still has flashbacks to that awful night.

In fact, Michelle discovered she liked talking about her experience. and soon turned it into a new career.

Passionate about telling her story.

She first wrote a book about the crime.

But it turns out this was not just some random crime. We've been following you for weeks.

Now, Lifetime has turned her book into a TV movie. Action. With Michelle in a cameo role. Let's do it. I can count still. As a bank teller.

Rather than running away from the worst day in her life.

Michelle continues to embrace it. I know what post trauma feels like. With motivational speaking engagements.

TV and radio appearances. Her name is Michelle Renee. And an upbeat website. It's inspirational on so many levels. with links to all things Michelle. Seems like you've done everything possible to keep this more or less as the focus of your life.

and the bank manager should know.

the intruders turned off all the lights, duct taped Michelle and Bria's wrists and ankles, and then dumped them on the couch.

At 11 p.m., Michelle's roommate, Kimbra, came home. The gunman overpowered her, duct taped her too, and dragged her over to Michelle.

Michelle says it was always clear which of the three men was in charge.

At one point, Michelle heard a female voice over the walkie-talkie. Oh my gosh. She says she recognized it immediately. It just...

clicked it belonged to a customer who had been in the bank with her boyfriend earlier in the day okay michelle stay stay calm just breathe just you know stay calm and when a light briefly was turned on she got a glimpse of the ringleader i knew those eyes the second i could see them she says she knew the man behind the mask was the boyfriend

The next morning, the gunman strapped the sticks of dynamite to their hostages.

Then they tied up Michelle's roommate, shoved her down on the bed. They had duct taped her eyes, her mouth, her hands, her feet. And pushed Bria into a closet.

Michelle was given a chance to say goodbye to her daughter. She prayed not the last.

Michelle recalled the ringleader was crouched behind the driver's seat, aiming a gun right at her back as she drove to work, the dynamite hidden under her jacket.

The gunman had warned her they would be watching everything. Don't make any phone calls. Do not call the police. None of it. When she got to the bank, Michelle parked in her usual spot. She came into the branch and she was very stoic, just off center. Loretta Myers was already at work when a subdued Michelle walked into the bank. It just wasn't like her.

Michelle says she was trying to act normal, but counting the minutes till the money was delivered. I knew what I had to do, and that's all I could think about. At 8.50, an armored truck finally arrived. And all the money is now in the vault.

For security, the bank required two people be in the vault to take out any money. So Michelle had to ask one of the tellers to join her. She has no idea anything's wrong. No idea whatsoever that anything's wrong.

Michelle took a duffel bag out of her briefcase.

Just after 9, as the bank opened, Michelle walked out with $360,000. I robbed a bank to save our lives. The gunman directed her to a nearby apartment complex.

And then he took off with the money. leaving her with dynamite still taped to her back. Tick. Tick.

Terrified and with sticks of dynamite cutting into her back. I didn't know what I would find when I got home, if I made it home.

She found Kimbra on the bed and Bria in the closet, right where she'd left her.

I've got dynamite on my back still. But Kimbra and Bria's dynamite was gone. Kimbra said one of the men just ripped it off. Later, police took these photos to illustrate what happened. And I was like, okay, get it off of me. Get it off of me. And she did. Kimbra dashed outside and put the dynamite on the retaining wall. Then all three ran up the hill to the nearest neighbor. That security gate.

Exactly.

Rick Brown never will forget that morning.

Police, the FBI, and the bomb squad arrived and quickly determined that the dynamite that had so terrified Michelle was fake. Here it is. It's pretty obvious when you really look at it that this is nothing more than some painted wooden dowels and a few bits of colored wire, and it's absolutely harmless. Investigators then turned their attention to Michelle, questioning her for several hours.

And I'm saying stuff like, I know who did this. Michelle told them she was sure her captor was a customer, the same man who had been in the bank just hours before the robbery. You honestly could be absolutely sure of this looking at his eyes through his mask. No doubt. Through these holes in his mask. No doubt in my mind.

In fact, Michelle said he'd given her his business card and it was still in her desk.

I mean, this is beyond dumb criminal. Beyond. Beyond. Tell me about this. Investigator Dale Martin showed us the card so thoughtfully left behind. Butler's card, yes. It identified him as Christopher Butler, who investigators soon discovered was an ex-con with a history of robbing banks.

But if Michelle had met him only once, investigators wanted to know, how could she be so sure it was Butler?

They acted like they found it implausible. That wasn't the only thing investigators found implausible.

Rudy Zamora, Dale Martin, and Randy Demers worked on the case. And what was your first impression when you all met Michelle? Michelle, they learned, had a colorful past. Drugs. Drugs. Sex. Lots. And it was coming back to haunt her.

Before Michelle was a banker, she was a stripper. Did you like it?

Now armed with all this new evidence, Masters lawyers have come up with their own scenario of what they think really happened to Peggy Hetrick.

David Wymore thinks it all began in a car.

key to Wymore's theory are Peggy Hetrick's boots. If you look at these two boots, you'll see that this boot has normal wear. But in this police photo, abrasions are clearly visible on the sole of the right boot. What the right boot shows us is that she stuck her foot out of the car. In tests, the master's defense team was able to reproduce these abrasions.

And they believe Peggy Hetrick is stabbed being pulled back into the car because, Barry Goetz says, the holes in her clothing prove it.

Wymore theorizes that her killer, or killers, next took her somewhere that gave them privacy, light, and room to work. They lay her on a table.

Back at the field, Barry Goetz says the evidence leads him to conclude that the body was dragged only a short distance down the embankment.

You would expect, were she being dragged, to find heel marks?

Marks like these on Goetz's own daughter after she helped him reenact a dragging scenario.

Noget says two people carried Peggy Hetrick's body to its resting place, her bloody coat painting a trail.

If true, that makes Tim Master's drag drawing, a linchpin of the prosecution's case, a lot less relevant.

Because as damning as that list sounds, these hearings are far from over. The prosecution has yet to present its answers to the defense's many charges. This is, at the end of the day, a search for the truth. The bar for granting a new trial is very high. It's so hard to undo a conviction.

Wymore and Lew would love some new evidence to lower that bar a bit, and modern science could provide it.

But can investigators retrieve DNA after all this time?

With Tim Master's future hanging in the balance, the defense team is about to go halfway around the world and risk everything to find out.

Oh, yeah. It wasn't their job to solve it. I believed in him, and I believed in the case. But Tim Master's attorneys, David Wymore and Maria Liu, knew that new evidence of another killer might be the only way to get their client out of prison.

So in the winter of 2007, they took a huge gamble, betting that there would be DNA on the clothes Peggy Hetrick wore when she was killed, and that it would help identify her murderer. DNA was such an infant science back then that although investigators did analyze hair, blood, and fibers, no DNA tests ever had been done on the clothing. But now that testing was possible, was it also smart?

Would it help Tim Masters? My job was to exclude Tim. There's not a moment when you said, yikes, you know, what if this DNA comes back and it's Tim's?

Former Fort Collins cop Linda Wheeler, by now a firm believer in Tim's innocence, was all for it. Go where the evidence leads you.

Come here.

Richard is Richard Eichlenbaum, a DNA expert who, with his wife Selma, a forensic medical examiner, loves nothing more than a chance to use hard science to ferret out the sordid secrets of crime. And Linda was very persistent.

Show me around a little bit. The only problem for the defense... Why did you want to bring this out here? They had to travel thousands of miles to, of all places, here in the Netherlands, to a tiny lab in this quaint farmhouse some 60 miles from Amsterdam.

Is there somebody in there?

What is all that? What you see there is an arterial gush. The Eichlenbaums jokingly call it the crime farm. Crime farm.

What was the biggest challenge as you approached this?

The prosecution fought hard to prevent it happening this time, but in the end... Judge Weatherby went, okay, I'm going to allow that. The judge did insist that someone had to escort the clothes to Holland.

barry getz volunteered i assume you didn't you didn't check this right this was this was carry on getz had been with the colorado state crime lab for 22 years in january of 2007 clutching his priceless suitcase of evidence he flew to amsterdam took the hour-long drive to the eichlenbaum crime farm

good morning good morning you had a good trip i did and began helping richard carefully unpack peggy hetrick's clothes jeans a blouse underwear this is all the victim's clothing okay readying the individual pieces for testing so we've got the bra so the bra is it's jt47 as usual richard eichlenbaum would use a most unusual approach.

Skin cells and so-called touch DNA are Richard's specialty. He's a pioneer in this approach, the same that finally cleared the parents of JonBenet Ramsey of her murder.

The technique, which they've used in dozens of cases, involves not just being able to retrieve the skin cells, but in knowing exactly where to look. How important is force to this? Like if I just reach over and go like that, have I left...

Before he even looks for the DNA, Richard tries to reconstruct the murder, step by step.

After being pursued for years, Tim Masters now was in prison for life without parole.

Richard and Selma often will even reenact the crime, as they did here with the help of Barry Goetz.

And remarkably, more than 20 years after the murder, it all paid off. What exactly did he find?