he was really tough, hardworking. really look up to him. narrator: his vicious murder makes no sense to anyone. somebody has to have an answer. the motive in this case was tragic. narrator: a crime this violent creates evidence, and some of it can't be hidden. the jury wants to see things other than testimony. they want to see forensics. narrator: and those forensics point to a pillar of the community. people had been talking to him about potentially running for governor. ♪ ♪ narrator: the town of derry is nestled in the southern part of new hampshire, just across the border from massachusetts. it's always been known as sort of a working-class town.

you meet a lot of blue-collar, just really salt-of-the-earth people. narrator: and "salt of the earth" was how everyone described jack reid. the local handyman was a fixture around town, a larger-than-life father of five. woman: hi. there's meggie and dad. it was very difficult to find anyone who had any animosity towards jack reid. woman: here's dad with his fishing gear. he's fishing already. -trying to catch a big striper. -look at this. he loved fishing, he loved cars, he loved sports, things like that. jack was just a hardworking, loving man, with his children especially. narrator: when jack didn't show up for a job in june of 2005, people who knew him immediately suspected something was wrong. his children put up flyers all over town. days passed. i don't know, just everything just seemed off. filippone: i immediately called jack's cellphone,

and it went to voicemail, which i knew was not -- not a good sign. narrator: about a week after jack went missing, there was a potential break over the border in massachusetts. they said they found dad's truck, and i said, "oh, they found him, right?" they said, "just come up." and then when i got home, they both ran out and hugged me. my nana was there. she hugged me, too. it was just -- it was really hard. narrator: there was a body in the back of jack's truck, and it had undergone a savage beating. the victim's head had been crushed. there was a hole in his chest the size of a baseball. this was a clear case of overkill. that's one of the things that prosecutors really focused on, was that this was a personal thing. this was a deeply personal murder. narrator: dental records were needed to confirm the victim was jack reid. he was 57 years old. i was shocked. just shocking. it felt like a movie.

it was harsh. filippone: jack did not deserve that. nobody deserves that, but it's just the way everything went down. my heart breaks for him. narrator: investigators looking for who did this faced problems straightaway. in a potential setback, this was what investigators call a secondary crime scene. it was obvious to us that where we found his body was not the murder scene. narrator: and no one had any idea where that was. still, there was a lot of potentially valuable evidence with the body. it was covered in thick plastic tarps and surrounded by rocks and broken tree branches. all that material that was inside the truck would be valuable to recover and potentially, down the road, identify where the crime scene actually occurred. narrator: but while analysts collected evidence,

detectives and jack reid's family had one question they couldn't answer. "who hated a humble handyman enough to beat him to death?" ♪

her uncle's unhappy. i'm sensing an underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...”

so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. narrator: the truck with jack reid's body was found in the parking lot of a busy shopping center 40 miles from his home. the center had an old video-surveillance system. we think that having videotape could be something really helpful. narrator: the video showed jack's truck being dropped off the last day he was seen alive. the surveillance from target revealed jack reid's truck pulling into the parking lot, followed by a minivan. two people got out of jack's truck. narrator: they then walked to the toyota sienna minivan

and were driven away by the person behind the wheel. was it possible to identify these men? analysts isolated and scrubbed the images in an attempt to get better clarity. but the old tape system made it impossible. it left us very frustrated. narrator: analysts now turned to the minivan in the video and faced the same problem. so they took a bold step. keefe: we sent the video to nasa to see what they could do to enhance the video to at least identify the license plate. narrator: but glaring sunlight in the image created too much distortion. wilson: just because of the way the sun was striking the license plate was completely unable to be seen, even with nasa working to enhance it. narrator: still, this was hardly a total setback. investigators now knew there were at least three people connected in some way to jack's murder,

and one drove a distinctive vehicle. it was a limited sienna minivan, where there were fairly small numbers being sold in the united states. narrator: in another piece of surveillance video, police found an unexpected clue. keefe: jack's daughter is actually on video at target while he's dead in the bed of his truck. narrator: this was a week after the murder, and at this point, jack reid's body had not yet been found. when questioned right after her father went missing, megan said the last time she saw him was the night of june 27th, but that was impossible. her dad was deceased on the 27th. narrator: in a mix-up that took precious time early in the investigation, this turned out to be an innocent mistake. megan simply got her dates wrong and was ultimately alibied. the timing of her appearance at the shopping center

was just an unfortunate coincidence. megan felt terrible that they were thinking that she had been part of it. narrator: now detectives concentrated on their primary source of evidence -- jack's truck, and in it, they found something that revealed lots of information about jack's final days. kimble: jack reid's logbook was in the cab of his truck. that logbook was used by jack reid to write down all of his jobs. narrator: this logbook indicated that jack's last known appointment, apparently with someone named charlie, was at a specific address in the new hampshire town of deerfield. this was a large house connected to an even larger horse barn. the owner, mike connors, said he didn't know jack reid and denied knowing anyone named charlie.

detectives weren't sure what to make of this. they also weren't sure what to make of mike connors. houle: he was probably the most nervous person i've ever interviewed in my life. he was just shaking. for a person that had no involvement or a person that didn't know anything, there was no need for him to be as nervous as he was. narrator: but being skittish around police is hardly proof of murder, and mike connors had a clean police record. he said detectives could look around the property, and they saw something -- some tree branches that looked familiar. those branches were similar, if not the same, as the branches that covered the body of jack reid in his truck. narrator: police spoke to a landscaper who kept his truck on the property. the landscaper had told me that he was missing a large piece of plastic that was consistent with the plastic that was around the body of jack reid when he was discovered.

narrator: could this be the plastic tarp that was used to wrap jack reid's body? at this point, it was impossible to say. detectives had plenty of suspicions, but little solid evidence. my cousin was a boston police detective, and he said, "ginny, someday somebody is going to talk. somebody will have a loose mouth and they will give it up as to what happened to jack." narrator: and that prediction proved accurate. ♪

or: as detectives tried to backtrack jack reid's activities in the days before his murder, they turned to his phone records. they saw a number of phone calls coming in from what turned out to be a throwaway cellphone. narrator: these phones are sometimes referred to as "burner phones" because they are used and then discarded. burner phones are typically used when people don't want to be detected.

you can purchase a burner phone under anybody's name, anybody's alias. narrator: records showed that in the days before his murder, jack reid got several calls from this burner phone number. police traced this number and found it was registered to a man named charlie was. i had never heard such a name before as a last name, but there are people out there named charles was, as odd as it sounds. narrator: could charlie was be the same charlie that jack had written in his logbook -- the man he was supposed to meet at the new hampshire horse barn for his last appointment, or as is common with burner phones, was this name, "charlie was," an alias? when we pulled the records to that phone, the charlie was phone, all the calls were made to and from jack reid, and there was only one other call that came in, which became very important, and that call came in from jay brooks' londonderry lake house.

narrator: jay brooks -- his full name was john -- was a well-known figure throughout new hampshire. spiner: john brooks was incredibly wealthy. he was worth tens of millions of dollars, upwards of potentially $50 million. narrator: and john brooks knew jack reid. brooks moved from new hampshire to las vegas in 2003 and hired jack reid to help him. keefe: john brooks was going to become a real-estate developer. he had hired jack reid to pack up his entire home, all his personal property, into an 18-wheeler. narrator: was there more to this relationship? could john brooks have any motive to kill jack reid? a background check showed that he owned a gold sienna minivan exactly like the one in the surveillance video recorded after jack's murder. and the horse barn, the spot where jack reid had his last appointment?

john brooks had a longtime connection with the barn's owner, mike connors. houle: michael connors was john brooks' former chief financial officer of his company that he owned for many years in londonderry, new hampshire. narrator: enough clues were pointing to this barn for police to search it. but by this time, more than a year had passed since the murder. the first thing detectives noticed inside the barn was that it was very clean and some of the flooring was new. if the barn was the primary crime scene, the spot where jack reid was killed, there would have been a lot of blood to clean up. the interior was sprayed with luminol. houle: luminol is an agent that illuminates blood. blood can be sitting for months, years, several years, and still be detected by luminol.

narrator: the cracks between the barn's floorboards began to glow and so did some spots on the ceiling. we were able to find significant amounts of blood in areas where blood had seeped through planks in the barn floor. narrator: samples of this blood were so diluted, investigators suspected the area had been bleached. the blood was sent out for dna testing. this looked like the spot where jack was killed. but for now, it was impossible to say for sure. ♪

reid's murder soon discovered he had a contentious relationship with john brooks.

it all really goes back to the moving job. narrator: numerous sources said brooks was convinced jack reid had stolen some of his belongings when he helped brooks move from new hampshire to las vegas in 2003. john brooks became obsessed with this missing stuff. it consumed his life. narrator: though john brooks lived in las vegas, he was seen by numerous people in new hampshire around the time of jack reid's murder. tsa records revealed that when brooks flew to new hampshire, he flew with two business associates. detectives theorized these might be the men seen in the surveillance video recorded the day jack reid's truck was left abandoned in massachusetts. that was our first lead on potential suspects. narrator: when one of these suspects, robin knight,

was confronted by police, he immediately told them the whole story. that was the first time we heard a version of what happened and why to jack reid. narrator: other co-conspirators quickly confessed and also pointed to john brooks as the mastermind behind jack reid's murder. jay was livid at the guy for stealing his property. i understood the plan was to murder jack reid. man: he said, "would you like to make $10,000?" detective: what did you say? i said, "of course i'd like to make $10,000." narrator: john brooks denied any involvement in the murder, and police had no physical evidence tying him to the crime or the crime scene. confessions, while valuable, weren't nearly enough. when you're dealing with cooperating co-defendants, no matter how credible they are,

juries want permission to believe them. scientific evidence gives jurors permission to believe somebody they might not otherwise like. narrator: one suspect told detectives something they didn't know -- just before the murder, john brooks mailed a package with some very unusual contents from vegas to new hampshire. they had decided that they would ship some items, including things like a taser or handcuffs, that they may be able to use during the course of confronting jack reid so that they could ultimately kill him. -and who went to the fedex? -jay and myself. kimble: for the return label, john brooks used a fake name. it was "jay brice," and it was an address for this fictional company in las vegas. so, we filled out the shipping label. -who filled out the label? -jay did.

keefe: the address was handwritten. a handwriting analyst compared the writing on the address portion of the package with jay brooks' handwriting. narrator: that analysis proved who filled out the packing label. beyond a degree of scientific certainty, this was jay brooks' handwriting. narrator: the blood from the horse barn finally came back with a match to jack reid's dna. this, along with the luminol evidence and the confessions, left no doubt about what happened, where it happened, and who did it. wilson: jurors can say, "okay, these co-defendants, even though they cut a deal with the state, they're telling me the truth." narrator: detectives believe john brooks planned jack reid's murder for months, if not years. brooks and his co-conspirators used a burner phone to make jack think there was work for him at the isolated horse barn.

once inside, they subdued him and then beat him to death with a sledgehammer, which was never found. i come down with the hammer like this, and i hit him on the side of the head. detective: again, how many times do you hit him? three times, i think. narrator: the final blow to jack reid was struck by john brooks. i had said, "he's still -- he won't stop bleeding." jay picked up the hammer, hit him at least two times. it stopped the heart, stopped the bleeding. narrator: in his zeal to kill jack reid, john brooks made many mistakes. driving a distinctive minivan to where the body was dumped was one. putting his handwriting on the murder kit was another. leaving blood behind at the crime scene, yet another. but detectives agree that what finally did him in was his sloppy handling of the burner phone used to lure jack reid to the murder site.

without that phone call, there's a possibility that john brooks would have never been arrested for this murder. narrator: this was how john brooks ultimately got exposed. just days before the murder, he called the burner phone to make sure the voicemail worked. this was the same burner phone later used to lure jack reid to the horse barn where he was killed. when john brooks called that number, phone records of those calls clearly linked him to the burner phone, to jack reid, and to the murder conspiracy. spiner: it was less than one minute, but police were able to track down all of the murderers based on that one single phone call. narrator: in the fall of 2008, john brooks stood trial in new hampshire's first death penalty case in 70 years. he was convicted of capital murder.

wilson: out of the 12 jurors, one juror decided to exercise mercy for jay brooks and not sentence him to death, and so he is serving a life sentence. narrator: the co-conspirators got sentences ranging from 15 years to life in prison. the barn owner, mike connors, was cleared of any involvement in the murder. john brooks was the mastermind behind this whole thing. narrator: the residents of derry, new hampshire, still have trouble understanding this murder, and so do investigators who worked the case. a hardworking family man dead, a family torn apart, a slew of lives ruined, all to get revenge over a theft that never even happened. there was no evidence that jack ever stole from john brooks. keefe: this case left us and many people wondering, "why would a multi-millionaire who had the world at his fingertips

kill someone like jack reid?" spiner: i think the moral of the story is that, no matter how long you plan a crime, how much money you spend on it, even one single piece of evidence can land you in jail for the rest of your life. ♪ narrator: up next, a woman is gunned down in a crowded parking lot. this was six days after heather's 25th birthday. narrator: the murder looks like a professional hit. our victim had a single gunshot wound to the forehead. narrator: evidence reveals a killer with an elaborate plan. this was no spur-of-the-moment act of vengeance. narrator: but how many enemies can a churchgoing young mother have? it was pretty intense for us to get to the bottom of it to try to find out what was going on. ♪