gal a couple years ago. >> every wednesday in the city of orange, they lower the flag for the fallen who served. but, maribel has a legacy. giselle seems well on her way to becoming the successful woman maribel had hoped for. your mom says that you were sort of in the rock. >> yeah. >> they would not have made it through this without you? >> yes. >> where did you get that toughness? >> from her. >> from maribel? >> yeah. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thanks for watching. am craig m. thanks for watching.

>> she was a married mother of two. she was a kindergarten teacher. >> she amazed them all. her whole group of girlfriends at the gym. >> she was totally gathered -- dedicated. >> a stunning 200 pound weight loss and a whole new life came with it. >> you could see that transformation. you can see the confidence in here. >> then she was gone, missing at school. >> i called all the girlfriends. >> the clues, and email to her husband and a secret she was reluctant to share. >> kind of a bombshell. heather was possibly saying another man. >> what was really behind her sudden disappearance? that would be the most mind blowing twist of all. >> do you think heather would still be alive if she had gone through this transformation?

>> welcome to dateline. heather jones, motivational teacher, had shed pounds and her past. she was starting to live the life of which she dreamed, then suddenly, she vanished. here is andrea canning with the last dance. >> there is a place in downtown memphis, tennessee, a little hot spot not far from nearby beale street. they don't play the memphis blues in this club. in the sultry darkness of the rumble room, bodies sway to the beat of latin sounds. in april, 2013, a woman named heather jones came in with her friend to dance the night away wearing a brand-new dress.

>> she had her head up so high in her shoulders back and just beaming and she felt absolutely beautiful. >> there was a time not too long ago when heather did not feel very beautiful at all, but on this evening, she had the night of her life. >> she really did not sit down very much. she was being spun around and danced. >> just two nights later, everything spun out of control. >> breaking news about missing germantown teacher. >> heather jones suddenly and inexplicably disappeared from her home. >> thinking of her being scared and hurt made you sick. >> what happened? the answer was sickening. the why, more twisted and surprising than anyone could fathom. how could all this darkness fallen a woman so sunny? >> i loved her. i love your energy.

if you could think of like a color that is a person, like she would be like bright yellow. >> friends say heather could always light up her room. her cousin, diane perry, says that upbeat attitude is what drew them together from the time they were young. >> you two were more like sisters. >> definitely, very very close. >> a bond that only grew as teenagers when heather moved closer to diane. they even went to college together in memphis, so it was only fitting diane was there the night heather fell instantly in love with a guy named chris jones. >> heather went to a party on 1999 and she came home and we sat down and talked and giggled about this new guy that she had met, chris. >> diane recalls that heather found chris fascinating.

>> he dazzled her with his knowledge of wine and just his knowledge of the world. she loved that. >> diane was surprised to see how fast the new couple was moving. within weeks, heather and chris were living together, and not long after, diane noticed a change in her cousin, a big one. >> they got very involved in a lot of online gaming and things like that and suddenly had a very sedentary lifestyle, so that is when she gained, i would say about 250 pounds. >> over how much time are we talking about? >> maybe a year and a half. it was a very short amount of time. >> that is life-changing. did she seem depressed about the weight gain? >> chris said he didn't mind what size heather was. a few years into the relationship, he asked heather to marry him and it seemed his love did not waver, as the numbers on heather scale only continue to rise after the

birth of her two children. >> did he make her feel good? >> yes. she felt beautiful. she felt loved, she felt wanted, she felt taken care of. >> chris took on the role of stay-at-home dad while heather attended college part-time. >> it took her almost 10 years to get her degree and it was almost to the day she graduated from college that everything changed. >> at one point before graduation, heather tipped the scales at 400 pounds, but diane says that hard-won diploma now became a road map for heather, pointing her toward a brighter and lighter future. >> she had so much more confidence. she saw a different life for herself. she immediately started working on her weight. >> and, that is when she found a special group of new friends, women like her who joins this high-powered dance exercise class each week to improve their physiques in their lives. carrie cooper was heather's dance instructor. >> you come here it's like happy hour. >> everyone in heather's life

noticed that happy hour was doing wonders for her. >> i said heather, turn around. i said you've gotten smaller. she's like yeah. >> were the pounds just melting off of her? >> melting off. >> it was nothing short of a total transformation. in 18 short months, she went from this to this. >> she had brought a picture of a before, then where she was now. she was so proud. she's like look what i've done. she was so proud of herself. >> no one was surprised when heather soon landed her dream job, teaching at an elementary school in memphis. fellow teacher jessica was in off of the amount of energy miss jones poured into her

classroom. >> it heather loved being a kindergarten teacher. from the moment they stepped foot into the door to the moment they left, they were dancing, they were singing, they were playing. >> by april 2013, it was all coming together for heather jones. on a saturday night, she had that rumble room dance floor to try out some moves she had picked up at the gym and to show the world what she had become. >> it was so much fun. we were there for probably about a good three hours of dancing. >> three days later on wednesday morning, jessica headed to school, expecting to see her energetic coworker, heather, already there. >> our school day did not start until 8:00 or 8:30 that school year and she was there every morning by 6:30, 6:45. >> heather could not usually wait for the school day to begin, so jessica was surprised by what she did not see that's morning. >> i pulled into the parking lot and i did not see her car. >> thinking maybe she caught a ride to school, jessica made a beeline for heather's classroom. >> i remember her door was closed, her lights were off and then saying again like her

lights are off. she's gone. >> what could that mean? as the search began to find the missing teacher, investigators would soon uncover a disturbing connection between heather's dramatic weight loss and her mysterious disappearance. >> coming up, a closely guarded secret. >> i did not even know his name. >> when dateline continues. name. >> when dateline continues. it's tough to breathe and tough to keep wondering if this is as good as it gets. but trelegy has shown me that there's still beauty and breath to be had. because with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open and prevents future flare-ups. and with one dose a day, trelegy improves lung function so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush,

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newly spelt newbie teacher did not show up for her kindergarten class on that morning in april, 2013, alarm bells went off amongst her fellow teachers and friends. >> heather would never miss a day of school. she was totally dedicated. >> homesick did not seem likely. there is no excuse for her not to be there. >> school officials cannot reach heather on the phone, and when her cousin, diane, heard she was a no-show, she headed over to heather's house in germantown where she saw an encouraging sign. >> there was relief when i saw the car in the driveway, because i thought she was there. i thought oh, she's sick. knocking, knocking, please answer the door. >> but, no answer. alarmed, she called heather's mother to bring over a key. soon, germantown police arrived,

opened the door, and when in first. >> they say she's not in there. they say nothing looks disturbed. >> as that a relief in any way? >> no, it was terrifying. something is very much wrong. >> it was now a missing person's case. detective tony kemp took the lead and it is on walk-through of the house. >> did you find signs of what might've happened in that house? >> no, i did not see any weapons. i did not see any blood or anything in that house. >> but, heather's car still in the driveway stuck in detective camps mind. >> obviously, if she left, she had to be on foot or she had made contact with somebody for them to pick her up. >> the grapevine was no working overtime.

friends from heather's dance class heard she was missing. one of them was the class instructor. she also went over to the house. turns out, carrie knew as much about crime scenes as she did about dance moves. that is because carrie is a cop in nearby memphis. >> well, i kind of took on that police officer role in that moment and i calmed every inch of her property. i found nothing, and i looked through her storage sheds and all along the railroad tracks and behind her house and there's nothing. >> the afternoon heather disappeared, chris came to the police station wanting to help. >> you've been up all night? >> yeah, i didn't want to miss a call. i didn't want to miss a chance. i didn't want to miss a knock on the door. i'm worried. >> chris told detective something that could be vital to the investigation. he said heather had written him an email the night before. the subject read, i'm sorry. in it, she mentions the little girl, ava. it read come get ava. i cannot face everyone with this. please forgive me. it is too much. please raise them to remember

them as their loving mommy. >> how concerned were you when chris told you about this email that his wife heather had sent? >> i was concerned. it did not sound good to me. >> camp thought the email was open to all kinds of interpretations, all bad. >> it basically sounded like i'm throwing in the towel. >> throwing in the towel? detective camp asked chris if heather might be suicidal. >> has she ever talked about wanting to harm herself or anybody else? since you known her? >> not that i recall. >> friends and family police spoke to were adamant, heather would never take her own life, not after striving so hard to transform it for the better, but there was another possible explanation for what might've happened to this woman who had built such a promising future. police were about to uncover a secret she kept hidden from almost everyone.

>> i did not even know his name. >> just as heather was headed off into that bright new future, her past came calling. >> coming up, the search heats up, and the secret is out. >> kind of a bombshell that heather was possibly seeing another man. >> this is definitely a person of interest that we needed to speak with. >> when dateline continues. co illness-causing bacteria detergents leave behind. clean is good. sanitized is better.

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heather jones had been missing for 24 hours. her loved ones prayed for the best, and launched into action. the memphis mother had recently lost 200 pounds with the help of a dance aerobics class and now, friends pasted the after photo she was so proud of all over town. >> we made flyers. we stopped at restaurants around germantown. >> carrie, heather's friend and dance instructor who also happen to be a cop, organized a search party. >> we had our backpacks on and walking shoes and snacks and towels and water. >> around lakes, parks, and railroad tracks, carrie and the other women searched methodically, not knowing what they might find. >> i told all the girls, you will be prepared, because we might find her.

>> your foot hit something hard and you think oh my god, is that her? but it's a branch, and you never know with each step. >> to put together the puzzle of what happened to heather, and what she meant by that disturbing goodbye email, detectives learned more about heather, starting with her relationship with chris. >> i wanted to know more about their marriage and what's been going on between them the past year. >> he knew the major event in their marriage in the past year was heather's dramatic physical change, but friends and family said it was about so much more than just dropping sizes. as heather lost the weight, she gained a whole new outlook on life. >> she was kind of quiet and reserved back when i very first met her, and to see that contrast from then to where she decided i'm going to make some healthy decisions in my life, the butterfly description with her is of great description,

just her coming out of her shell and becoming who she was created to be, you know. you could see that transformation. >> in all different aspects of her life. >> yes. >> her cousin, diane, explained that once heather the butterfly started spreading her wings, she felt that just like her old clothes, her husband, chris, was not really fitting anymore. he was not really part of her new life in the future? >> exactly. i think he saw the writing on the wall. >> saw that i'm young, i'm healthier than i've ever been, i'm prettier than i've ever been. i'm feeling good. i'm confident in them independent. she didn't have just one choice anymore. >> detectives learned that in january, 2013, heather moved out on chris without telling him. she had a name for it? >> she did, ninja-style.

>> heather moved into this rental house with the help of family and friends. >> she was backed by a lot of awesome girls, so she was ready. >> she would say you know, i don't want anything in my house but my crockpot in my mattress and my brown boots but that's okay because i'm happy. >> in his interview with police, chris said that after nine years of marriage, he and heather began to have some differences, but he said he had no clue she was going to move out on him, and was even more shocked when he found out she had filed for divorce. >> i was totally sideswiped. did not see it coming. >> tris -- chris told detective camp he was trying to patch things up. >> i want us to be together. i want to work things out. >> camp questioned what chris had been up to while trying to

win her back. >> it's common when somebody is going through a divorce and maybe somebody is seeing somebody and i asked him that. is she seeing anybody else? does she have a boyfriend right now? can you tell me what you know about that? >> the only thing i know is that they were friends from a younger age, and that is been going on for some time. >> when you're talking to chris, he brings up kind of a bombshell, that heather was possibly seeing another man. >> yes, he did. he did tell me that he believed she was seeing somebody. i tried to get information from him about that person. >> i really don't know anything other than they've been corresponding heavily. she doesn't talk about it at all.

>> they had started texting, i think, initially, facebooking, just hey, how are you? i think slowly those messages became flirtatious. >> i did not even know his name. all i knew was that she was talking to somebody that was making her happy, and she felt very special and very beautiful. >> but, police did need a name fast. chris was able to provide at least part of that crucial detail. >> can you tell me about him? can you start me off with a name? >> edward is all i got. >> did you think this other man could be a game changer in this investigation? >> this is definitely a person of interest we needed to speak with. >> detectives now launched a hunt for a man named edward. they wanted to know, did heather the butterfly leave behind her old life to build a new one with another man?

>> coming up, the other man revealed. when dateline continues. in 1984, a patient named stacy arrived, and it began her family's touching story that is still going on today. vicki: childhood cancer, it's just hard. stacey passed on christmas day of 1986. there is no pain like losing a child, but saint jude gave us more years to love on her each day. marlo thomas: you can join the battle to save lives. for just $19 a month, you'll help us continue the lifesaving research and treatment these kids need now and in the future. jessica: i remember as a child, walking the halls of saint jude, and watching my sister fight for her life. we never imagined that we would come back. and then my son charlie was diagnosed with ewing's sarcoma.

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i'm jessica layton with the hours top stories. the u.s. is sending a new weapons package to israel. while the administration is publicly expressing frustration over the administration's handling of the war in gaza. a shooting in a mall outside of indianapolis happen. victims are all under the age of 17. no arrests have been made. time, and investigators worst enemy in a missing person's case was ticking away.

days passed, and heather jones had not returned to her rented house, the place where she hoped to start a new life without her husband. >> sounds cliche, but she really vanished without a trace. >> yes, and that is what was making the so difficult. >> and, she still was not answering her cell phone, the one exchange she had used to exchange flirtatious text with a mystery man. chris jones cannot tell detectives much else about this other man, who he only knew by the name of edward. >> i just saw their correspondence and sweetie and love you. >> were you able to see some of the texting yourself? >> yeah. >> you must of had concerns about this other man. >> yes, i did, because he was one of the first names we had come up with. >> detective kemp knew that if

heather had split town, as her goodbye email suggested, she had not driven away in her car. it was still parked in her driveway. >> you know what kind of car edward drives? >> i don't know anything about him, i really don't. >> does he live here locally? >> i don't think he lives in memphis. >> detectives had to find edward another way, so they accessed heather's facebook account in mind it for clues, and there it was, a profile with the last name attached. >> edward raulerson. >> police dial the phone number they found for eddie. he told them he lived in tennessee and agreed to make the eight hour drive to germantown to be interviewed. detectives wondered, had he made the trip already once that week to take heather away, and most of portly, could he tell them where she was now? >> just because you have somebody living 500 miles away

does not mean they didn't have anything to do with this disappearance. >> police recorded edward raulerson's interview. during questioning, at made a potentially important admission. >> i love her to death i would do anything for her. if one of the detectives called me i would be here in however many hours it took me to get here today. >> but, he insisted heather never made the call, and there was more. ed told detectives he was surprised by the first question he had asked when initially contacted by the police. >> detective cook called me, but he said is your girlfriend there? i said yeah, she is in the backyard. and he said good, okay, so heather is okay? and i said heather is not my girlfriend. she is a friend of mine. we've been friends for 20 years. >> so, if ed and heather were not an item, and he was dating someone else, what was going on? the detective wanted to hear from you immediately once they

learned her name. >> oh yeah, once they knew who i was. >> detectives learned from ed that his relationship with heather went back decades, long before heather married chris. ed said he and heather met in 1993. he remembers they fell fast for each other. >> that was young love. they say you don't know what love is, but i do. >> ed said they dated for two years before he moved away, but that puppy love was something he never got over, even after heather married. >> are you still carrying that torch? >> yeah, but i did not let it show. i respected heather too much. >> around heather's birthday in the spring of 2013, after she had lost all that weight, ed told detectives he had reached out to wish her well and got

more than the thank you. heather had big news. she and chris had separated. >> at that moment in her life, she needed a friend, and that was what i was there for. i was there right when she needed me the most. >> but, ed said that shoulder to lean on soon turned into something more. >> talking, just listening to her problems, then it just progressed from there. >> progressed in what way? >> you know, i'm a flirtatious person and you know, just became flirtatious. >> detective kemp scanned the recent text from the two on heather's cell phone and it appears that things had heated up even more two days before she went missing. >> there was some sexual content that i had noticed. >> ed says it was heather who first turned the texting into

sexting. >> she was in a highly flirtatious mood that day. >> did you bite? >> i did. >> detectives wanted to know how much and whether ed was truly willing to drop everything to help heather start a new life in secret? ed knew it probably did not look good to police. >> the thing is me admitting that i would hide her if that's what she wanted, you know, i can understand them saying that you know, maybe he had hidden her. >> did you hide her? >> i wish. >> did you drive to see heather that night? >> no. >> were you with heather that night? >> no. >> did you have anything to do with her disappearance? >> no. >> ed told police he was at home, far away in eastern tennessee, and revealed that despite those steamy text, he and heather had not seen each other in person in years. >> we discussed seeing each other, i guess it would've been

in about another month. >> ed insisted to police, he had no idea where heather was, but he did give them a big clue. he told investigators that in fact, he spoke to heather on the phone the very night she disappeared, and he heard something on that call that was alarming then, and even more alarming now. >> i called her. she answered, and immediately, i could hear arguing. >> ed said he heard a man's voice in the background during that call, but his voice was it? >> the pieces of the case are about to fall into place, and those flirtatious texts? turns out they're not at all what you may think. >> are you thinking this could potentially be our last chance to solve this? >> this is our shot. >> when dateline continues. t. >> when dateline continues. everywhere. 4 out of 5 gynecologists

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as one day slid into the next and the next with still no sign of heather jones, her gym friends got back to exercise class with the hope heather would dance with them once again. >> i kept the back door to the gym open and said heather if you can hear us, we are looking for you. if you are out there, you dance with us.

we are going to find you one way or the other. >> detective tony kemp also vowed to find her. he was convinced heather did not run off with her old boyfriend, so he asked her friends, what else would cause heather to leave her husband and children? that is when kemp began to flush out what really happened when heather moved out on chris. >> it was very scary and it continued to deteriorate. >> friends and family told them how at first, chris tried to woo her with flowers and chocolates, but those loving gestures soon turned ugly. >> he would text her and call her, but this time they were just violent. you know, you're not taking my kids from me. i'm not going to let you leave. i am going to come after you. >> then, friends said chris started acting more desperate, and heather started getting really scared.

>> he would show up at her work. he would show up at the gym. he started showing up at the house in the middle of the night and i remember thinking like, this is insane. like you are literally stalking her. >> i got a lot of information on chris, on what these people thought of him. it was not good. >> detectives decided they would do more than just keep an eye on chris. they secretly attached a gps device to his car to track his movements. >> we wanted to know possibly, could he take us to where heather was at? >> they also asked chris to come in for a second interview. the interrogation was led by detective brian wallace. are you thinking, this could potentially be our last chance to solve this? >> certainly, this is our shot. >> detectives watched as

chris's car made its way toward the police station but then stopped a quarter mile away at a nearby mall. police thought he might be running an errand, but moments later, he popped up at the station. why had he parked so far away? chris was escorted in. chris told detectives he went to heather's house the night she disappeared to talk, but before he could say much to her, he said her phone rang. >> and so she is like this is a call that i've been waiting for and i said well, you know, i've really got kind of appurtenant matter to discuss with you if there is anyway you could possibly have us call you back or -- >> what was the important matter? >> it was to let her know i discovered she'd been having an affair this entire time. >> was that who had been calling her? >> i kind of got that feeling. >> in fact, it was ed raulerson.

>> i called her. she answered and immediately i could hear her and chris kind of arguing, so she's telling him to get out, and he is constantly saying i need to talk to you, i need to talk to you. >> ed said he heard something else come out of chris's mouth. >> he needs to talk to her. it's a matter of life and death. she asked him what you mean, matter of life and death? >> in his interview, he admitted chris and heather continued arguing when she hung up with that but insisted she was alive when he went home, and said she sent that disturbing goodbye email only after he left. >> i'm freaking out because i still don't know that this is in the game. >> detectives had been analyzing that strange email, and asked for and sick experts to comb through chris' computers seized at his apartment. a theory emerged. investigators now believed chris had written an email himself. did you suspect that chris was posing as heather sending that email? >> yes, i did, because chris was an expert when it came to

computers. >> what's more, they suspected it was chris who actually sent those sexy text to ed, not heather. he believed he had stolen her phone and was pretending to be her. >> that's really weird you're getting sexting from her husband. >> yeah, kind of one of the things like i need to put that out of my mind. >> chris's' plan, detective thought, was to throw them off the trail, to make it look like she ran off and was having an affair but they did not believe his story, or his concern for heather, was genuine. >> the reason you were freaking out was because he thought she was dead. everything else after that makes no sense. >> okay, so what did i do with her? >> that is what we are asking, chris. >> chris was sticking to his story, but the biggest break in the case was about to happen. what he did not know is that

while detectives were turning up the heat in the interrogation room, outside, they sent some cadaver dogs over to the mall to sniff around his car, and now the team at the mall wanted to speak with detectives immediately. they found the scent of human remains. >> i don't know why the dogs had on my car. >> i do. they don't just pick cars out of the blue. >> but, what is it they are trying to detect? >> the odor of decomposition. >> wallace had chris against the ropes and he was finally going to get some answers, not just about what happened, but why. the startling revelation. heather's radical makeover of her body and life had put her life in imminent danger. >> coming up, a whole new story from chris. was this all some awful accident, or could it be murder

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welcome back to dateline. heather jones' estranged husband maintained he knew nothing about what happened to her, but police were hot on his

trail. would it lead them to heather? here is andrea canning with the conclusion of the last dance. >> for hours, chris jones had been going over his story with detectives about what happened the night his wife disappeared, but after cadaver dogs found the scent of human remains in chris' car, detective brian wallace was not buying his story. >> your story about what happened the night she disappeared, total -- >> wallace pushed him for the truth. >> how did it happen? did she fall? she did? was she drunk? what happened? >> that's exactly it. we were struggling over the phone. and only this time, we were outside on the steps. and -- she lost her footing. she fell and hit the step.

and i heard the -- i heard the crack. >> he said they were struggling over a cell phone. she slipped, fell backwards, hit her head and died. >> did you believe this new story? >> no, no way. >> finally, chris admitted heather was dead, but insisted it was only an accident. still, the most important evidence was missing, heathers body. chris told detectives he dumped her to gas station. police went there, found nothing, and check security cameras. >> they've got videos from the last 15 days. they've looked at everything from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. >> chris then changed his story and said he paid someone to get

rid of the body. >> i jokingly asked hey, you want to make a couple hundred bucks? >> stop, stop. chris, stop. this isn't working. that's crazier than the first one. >> four hours into the interview, wallace sensed chris was out of stories and out of options, so the detective gave him one last chance. >> i said let's cut it out, chris. your time is running out. you need to tell us where she is and you tell us now. >> the room went quiet in chris motion for a pen and paper, then he drew a map. >> i said this is where she is? he said that is where she is. >> detectives raced to the area and followed chris' directions down to an area that led to the clearing. >> we could see an area on the ground that looked like a fire had taken place. once we get close to that, there was the human form there. >> seven days after she disappeared, detectives had found heather. her body had been badly burned.

>> we were brokenhearted. we had lost her. she was a big, smiling, beautiful part of our group. >> chris jones was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. now, the women who it helps heather find the courage to leave her husband supported their friend in death, staring down chris jones at every court appearance. >> there is a monster inside that hurt our friend and we want justice. >> prosecutors rejected chris' story that heather had died from an accidental fall. they believe he argued with her at the house that night, strangled her, then burned her body in the woods. but, the question remains why. heather's friends provided a surprising answer. they were convinced heather's dramatic weight loss got her killed. do you think heather would still be alive if she hadn't

gone through this transformation and bettered herself? >> yes. >> heather's friends and family said over the course of their relationship, chris used heather's weight as a tool to control her. >> at the beginning, he wanted her to be bigger, he felt like that would be more attractive to him and then a she got bigger, he would say to her that nobody else would want her because she was so obese. >> when heather finally achieved her unbelievable transformation, she confided to her friends that chris did not have the reaction she expected. >> she told me, chris wants me to gain the weight back. i said heather, that's a control technique. he wants you to stay at home. >> according to her best friend, melissa, heather said chris even brought fatty foods to her, hoping she would pack the pounds back on. >> he would go up to the school

with food, and she would not want any part of it. >> with the sole purpose of trying to get her to gain weight? >> as what she had told me, yes. >> friends at the new and improved heather never took the bait, and after enduring years of increasing unhappiness in her marriage they say heather found out something that for her, was the last straw. >> she discovered chris was having an affair with another woman. >> that is when she finally spread her wings and found the courage to leave her marriage, and she never looked back. >> you can see just her spirit biting up and her sense of security and what all the future was going to hold for her. >> in february of 2015, chris jones went on trial. heather's friends took the stand help prove the prosecution's theory. when chris realized he had lost control of heather, he took control in another way.

prosecutors laid out their case to the jury. >> it was not an accident. >> assistant district attorney danielle mccollum. >> she did not fall down. there was a struggle. he did strangle her either with his hands, or however he did it, he was up close and personal to her, and he was there watching that breath go out of her. >> but, the defense stuck to the story chris told on tape, that heather fell and died after they struggled over a cell phone. >> he never admitted to killing her. >> the judge asked chris if you wanted to tell his story to the jury. >> i think i will choose to not testify. >> it was now up to the jury to decide his fate. friends and family filled the courthouse waiting for word. finally, after delivering 40 -- for a day,

>> we the jury find the defendant guilty. >> tears flowed for heather, a woman who struggled to find yourself free from chris jones, who will now find himself behind bars. even after his conviction, chris jones insisted he did not kill heather. he told dateline in a phone call from jill that he never tried to control heather, that he is absolutely innocent of murder of any type, and that his taped statements to police were coerced. the detective said chris jones talked to them voluntarily, and could've ended the interview at any time. as for cousin diane, she has obtained legal custody of heather and chris' two children. as for hurt jim friends, they find comfort in knowing that before her death, heather had

become the person she was always meant to be. >> she got to experience that before she left this earth. she got to experience what it was like to be as beautiful as she wanted to be inside and out. >> the dance class where heather spread her wings kept a place for her, a heart with hazor's name on it, a reminder of a woman whose transformation inspired all who knew and loved heather jones. >> is she dancing? >> absolutely, and we believe that. if you believe in angels, there is one dancing up there, i promise you, and every time we have a class, she is dancing. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. ig melv. thank you for watching. hello. i am craig melvin, and this is dateline. >> he was definitely charismatic. >> he was the new kid in town. super popular, all about adventure. >> this kid