she was not part of that party. we kept going deeper and deeper into the box, trying to find where was michelle? she had missed everything. >> the family album goes on but she's not in it. >> she is not in it. >> she's only in the old photos. a girl smiling out into a world of possibilities, stolen on a cold december night. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. watchin i'm craig melvin and this is dateline. >> i got a call saying that the house was on fire. the first thing they asked me was, who would want to kill you, who would want to murder you, and i just kind of looked

at them like what? i could not believe it. was he watching me? >> that fire was set to throw us off. he was very calculating. >> years before, his wife killed herself. >> yes, he claimed she committed suicide days before she was due to give birth to their first child. >> she was extremely excited for that first baby. >> it made me wonder okay, is he a murderer? >> so, now you are trying to prove a very old mother with pretty much no evidence. >> is a kind of gloating that he got away with it? >> he is thinking well, catch me if you can. we're going to do her and her family justice. we're going to solve this murder. >> hello, and welcome to dateline.

meg purk was a young mom to be, over the moon to be having her first child. then, just days before her due date, she died of an apparent suicide. her family struggled to understand why, but in a strange twist, a house fire sat decades later would point to a possible answer and put investigators on the trail toward the truth. here is josh mankiewicz with secrets from the grave. >> wander through any graveyard and you will find them, mysteries etched in stone. lives cut tragically short by war, disease, misfortune and sometimes murder. many who rest in these peaceful places took secrets to their graves. but, some here are merely waiting, waiting for someone to take interest and ask questions, and as you are about to see, the dead can be

exceedingly patient. our story begins on a frigid march night in 2009 with a house fire in stow, ohio. that fire was important, not for what it destroyed, but for what it illuminated. >> 911, where is your emergency? >> there is a fire. >> a house or what? >> the house. >> the caller was a 16-year-old girl who told the 911 operator that she, her parents, and her younger brother had all escaped, but barely. and then, her father took the phone. >> i don't really understand. the entire front of our house is just engulfed. >> okay. i'm glad everybody got out. >> that deb was scott purk. you will be hearing a lot about him.

purk said his family had been sound asleep when he heard a loud boom. >> it was like we heard an explosion. >> you did? >> yup. and that's what woke us up. >> purk said he scrambled to get everyone up and out. by the time the first fire units rolled up, the purk home was a roaring bonfire. firefighters smelled gasoline as soon as they got out of the trucks , so a call immediately went out to stow police detective, ken mifflin. >> when i got there, i saw the fire department still putting out the blaze. someone had taken probably a pipe wrench to disconnect the gas line, and it was blowing out natural gas . it sounded like -- it was a very large roaring sound. >> at that point, the gas had not ignited. >> no. the person who set the fire

poured gasoline all the way to the gas meter and on top of the gas meter. >> the idea was, fire starts at the gas line, goes to the gas main and possibly destroys the house and everybody in it? >> absolutely. >> mifflin found the purk family sheltered at a neighbors house and asked father, scott purk, to step outside. >> we actually went over to my unmarked detective bureau car and sat in my car where it was nice and warm. >> i guess, the first question is, who would want to burn down your house? >> exactly, and scott said he really didn't have any. there was no one he knew that was so angry at him that would want to try to harm him or his family, so you know, the investigation took off from there. >> perhaps it was the warm car on such a cold night, or maybe it was mifflin's warm manner. either way, scott purk was feeling chatty. >> he had lost his job about eight or nine days prior to

this . things were not going well in his life. >> when asked how he and his wife, tammy, had spent the evening prior to the fire, purk responded with this little shocker. >> scott and tammy, they are swingers, and they spent the evening basically apart because scott was at home, but tammy was out with a friend of hers. >> another man? >> she was out with another man. she was dating their son's martial arts instructor, so she spent the evening with him and came home roughly around 1:00 in the morning. >> strange? sure, but trend -- scott purk was just getting started. >> he told you tammy brought him the leftovers from the

dinner she had with the guy she was seen? >> right. >> this is just like you know, hey, honey, here's some leftover orange chicken that this other guy and i didn't eat. >> right. tammy went to bed first and scott finish off the leftovers. >> no detail, it seemed, was too small or insignificant for scott purk. >> it was like turning a faucet on. once you turned it on, he kept talking and i kept writing down the answers. >> at times, it was hard to keep up. scott purk kept offering answers to questions the detective had not asked. there seemed to be so much more he wanted to say. >> what scott purk said next would leave investigators stunned and wondering if he was more than just a distraught homeowner who liked to gab. coming up -- >> is doing almost everything he can to make himself sound like a suspect. as scott purk keeps talking, suspicion keeps mounting about this house on fire, and a

burning secret. >> i was shocked, and it made me wonder okay, i need to look into this, and i'm looking at someone who i believe is an arsonist. now, i'm wondering okay, was he a murderer? >> when dateline continues. mur >> when dateline continues. ases because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. [ doorbell rings ] you must be isaac. come on in. because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. [ sighs ] here's my pride and joy.

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in 20 years with the badge, detective ken mifflin had never encountered anyone quite like scott purk. as the two of them sat in his car watching purk's home been reduced to ash, purk kept talking, saying things he probably should not have been saying to a cop who already suspected this fire was arson . >> he was heavily in debt and made no bones about telling us that he had figured out of his house burned down he would only owe about $70,000 in debt. >> it's essentially him saying i'm not can hide anything. you're going to find out that i'm in debt. arson for insurance money? too early to say, but a real possibility. >> he videotaped everything in his house. he told us that, too in case there was ever a fire, and he just did it recently. >> is doing almost everything he can to make himself sound like a suspect. >> yes, exactly. >> what was mr. purk up to? the detective could not guess. he parked down the driveway

well away from the burning home , the perk family van, cleaned up and ready for a road trip. according to scott, he and his son had been planning to visit family in north carolina. >> what drew our attention was what he had packed inside the van. >> i'm guessing it was not stuff you would typically bring on vacation. >> old family photos, cookbooks with family recipes for generations in their to which he could offer no explanation as to why those were in the van. >> it was a few days after the fire at scott purk's house that stow's chief arson investigator, jim idell, back from vacation, called detective ken mifflin. >> he says you've got to hear this. he played me the 911 tape. >> its union dale drive. there's a fire. >> mifflin had heard something on that initial 911 call from scott purk's daughter, something he wanted why dell

to here, too. during a lull, scott purk can be heard calmly for spring to someone. he was talking about a pet ferret, and his tone seemed to be more rueful oversight than anguished alarm. >> that was a bit of a flag, you know. leading us to believe that there had been a plan, anyways, all along. >> in scott perks -- purk's money was in the idea that it would. his debt, lidel was presold on scott purk as a person suspect. ken mifflin wasn't finished. on the night of the fire, the tech -- detective told lidel, scott purk had added a tantalizing detail to his life story. scott just out of the blue says to me his first wife had

committed suicide in 1985 and she was nine months pregnant. >> as if like you know, not only is my house in embers, but this is not even the worst thing that happened to me? >> i was shocked and it made me wonder okay, now i need to look into this. i'm looking at someone who i believe is an arsonist. now i'm wondering okay, was he a murderer? >> the two lawmen decided to pursue parallel investigations. lidel would take lead on the arson case. mifflin was suicide. >> you guys know each other and you get along. >> we do work very well together. we have a great relationship. >> mifflin knew his case had the highest hurdles. not only had scott purk's first wife, meg purk died 24 years earlier, but she had died in akron , only a few miles from stow, and a different

jurisdiction. >> what is it like to go to the akron police and say hey, i'm from a much smaller department, that i think you got this case wrong back in the mid-1980s? >> you have to approach it very carefully, but we have a good working relationship with the police department in akron, and i had to make a phone call. >> instead of waving off the small-town detective, the akron cops were willing to help. >> i talked to a detective i had dealt with in the past. he said it's not a cold case, will send you a copy of the report. and he did. >> according to the original police report, meg purk was 24 years old and nine months pregnant on the day she died. >> scott stated that the morning of march 18th, 1985, meg had woken up sick and scott have made a doctors appointment for her to go see her doctor.

>> later that morning, scott says he was taking a bath when he saw meg walked past the bathroom door. >> he gets out of the bathtub four, five minutes later and sees meg hanging from a rope in the stairwell of their apartment. >>'s story is that he cuts meg down and tries to do some cpr? >> yes, once he saw her hanging, he grabbed a steak knife from one of the tables nearby and cut the rope and then he started to do cpr. he calls for ems to respond and meets them at the door when they get there. >> meg's unborn baby, a boy, died that same day. meg lingered another 24 hours. she never regained consciousness. the detective had nothing to test or examine. in fact, even the police photos from the scene had been tossed long ago. still nothing about scott purk's version of the story felt right. >> most women who are nine months pregnant and carry their

child full term typically do not commit suicide. that was the first thing. the second thing was he was in the apartment when his wife hung herself in the stairwell of their apartments. most individuals do that by themselves with no one around. >> all of those facts were available to the akron police back in 1985. >> they had their doubts that this was truly a suicide. however, they did not have enough. >> next, the detective examined the original autopsy photos. >> what stood out in my mind from the autopsy photos was on meg's neck, there were lines on her neck that looked like about mark was on her neck, not a rope mark. >> the detective figured the only way to find out what had actually happened in the apartment in 1985 was to learn all he could about scott in meg purk. coming up, something disturbing

about meg's past. >> it was a note on the coffee table that said she had tried to hang herself. >> m, something dark from scott's. >> he was the ninja burglar. he would actually commit a is dressed up as a ninja. at least 10 burglaries, he would come into your bedroom and watch her sleep, then take your wallet or purse off your nightstand. >> when dateline continues. >> when dateline continues. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup, find your new favorite bra today at knix.com

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in the weeks after scott purk's house burned down, police in stow, ohio. and hearable from people who either knew him or knew of him. >> him and his wife are swingers. they go to the holiday inn. they have these and stuff. >> there was plenty of gossip and speculation and tip calls like this one, but occasionally, there was something new. >> his wife and child back in the 80s had been hit by a drunk driver. >> remember, purk until the detective his first wife had taken her own life. now it seems he told at least one of his former lovers an entirely different story. >> he told my girlfriend he went over there and kill the guy, cut them up and buried him and she's like you know, they just had sex, you know what i mean than he's confessing. >> the detective of course knew better.

scott purk's wife and unborn son had indeed died in akron in 1985. her death was suicide by hanging according to the coroner's report. 35 years later, meg's memory is still fresh for dawn kracker. they were best buds in high school. >> she was quiet but people would always say she reminded them of janice jaclyn -- joplin and her kind of hippie, bohemian attitude but she was very much more reserved. she would come into a room or something and people just wanted to be with her. >> meg had been a serious student back there,, an amateur poet who managed to get several of her pieces published. meg's brother, mike metcalf. >> sometimes they were about status or about loss. even death. >> you ever worry about her? >> back then, not really.

>> don, who had known scott since first grade, told the detective he seemed like a model boyfriend to meg. >> he did everything you would expect a good boyfriend to do. he opened doors for her, he took her out, he did everything like you know, you would expect from someone who is interested in somebody to do. >> though meg was charmed, her family never warmed to scott. when they married in 1981, her family was not invited. >> they did not run off and elope. there actually had a wedding ceremony in the area and reception. >> but, her family wasn't there? >> she knew how we felt. >> nevertheless, meg was over the moon when she learned she was pregnant. as her due date approached, she wrote this letter to her grandmother.

it is a letter she never got the chance to mail. just think, any day now you're going to be a great grandmother, and i'm going to be a mother, a mother. it is even hard for me to believe, but i am looking forward to it. those did not sound like the words of someone thinking of suicide. >> she was extremely excited for that baby. that was one of the things she always wanted. she wanted to be a mom. she wanted a family. >> don was stunned when on march 19th, 1985, she heard meg had been rushed to the hospital. >> then i get the phone call. and kind of like the floor drops out from under you. it was a shock. >> who was it on the phone? >> scott. >> do you remember anything he said? >> it was dawn, i've got bad news.

meg tried to kill herself. she's in the hospital. they don't know if she's going to make it. >> she did not. as for suicide, there had been times before she married scott >> has spoken of taking her own life. >> there was an incident one time where she was -- she had locked herself in a bathroom and said she was going to cut her wrists. that was over at a friends house, but after that, she came out. she had not cut herself at all or anything like that. >> dawn kracker says something similar happened once when she and meg shared an apartment. >> i came home and saw the miniblinds on the floor and there was a note on the coffee table and it said that she had tried to hang herself using the cord from the miniblinds. >> did that note explain why meg wanted to take her own life? >> there was not really an explanation other than she felt

everybody would be happier if she was gone. >> to underscore his claim that meg had hanged herself, scott gave one of her poems to the akron detective investigating her death. >> at the very end of the poem, it says, and then she killed herself. >> maybe that is reflective of the way meg was thinking. >> exactly. >> except, according to family members, that paul was something megan written in high school and in no way represent her mood in the days before she died. scott, they felt, was using that poem to promote his own theory and her family was not buying. >> honestly, my first thought is what did he do? >> you know, investigators were getting information from family members that nobody could believe meg had killed herself. >> scott said he could not believe it either, and was as shocked as anyone. in fact, he told the detective

he was so rattled by his wife's death that it changed him into a criminal. that's right, on the night his house burned down, amid all the talk of death and debt and his swinging lifestyle, scott purk told the detective he had been a famous burglar. dressed in black from head to toe, carrying nunchucks and throwing stars, scott had been so prolific he had been nicknamed the ninja burglar. >> that was a thing in stout? >> in stow and the surrounding cities because he burglarized homes and businesses and broken does cars and stole things from cars. at least 10 burglaries, at least for bnds he would come and your bedroom and watch you sleep then take your wallet or purse off your nightstand. >> once arrested, scott confessed, and started in 1986,

did six years in the joint. he used the time behind bars to earn a degree in criminal justice. >> scott fancied himself as a very smart individual whenever i talked to him, and i think it was part of his strategy to try to show me how smart he was. >> of course, it was possible that scott purk was not as smart as he thought he was . thanks to his own loose lips, scott had already made himself the prime suspect in not one but two criminal investigations. so, imagine the investigator surprise when in 2010, a year after the purk's house burned down from an arson fire, the same thing happened to another house just around the corner.

>> i got a call in the middle of the night saying the house was on fire. >> another house in flames. >> the gas meter was disconnected and just hanging by the inlet fitting. >> so gas is just escaping into the air? >> correct. >> the first thing they asked me was, who would want to kill you ? i just kind of looked at them like what? what are you talking about? >> when dateline continues. >> did you know taking billy: one second, grandma. this guy is going to buy my car. okay? grandma: you need carvana... entering plate number... grandma: no accidents, right? billy: no. grandma: generating offer... carvana can pick it up tomorrow! billy: that's an amazing offer. announcer: sell your car the easy way with carvana. [♪♪] your skin is ever-changing, take care of it with gold bond's age renew formulations

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the news update. on king charles' birthday celebration, all eyes were on kate middleton. this was her first official. since she revealed her cancer diagnosis earlier this year. father's day weekend kicked off with soaring temperatures across the southern united states. the southwest is forecast to receive triple digit temperatures while parts of the southeast and southern plains may experience temperatures in

the upper 90s. for now, back to dateline. welcome back to dateline. i am craig melvin. as his house sat ravaged by flames, scott purk made a series of startling claims to detective ken mifflin. he and his partner quickly suspected scott was not only the arsonist, but a murderer who killed his pregnant first wife, meg. no, a stunning new development was about to add fuel to the fire. back to josh mankiewicz with "secrets from the grave." >> amy remembers well the night her duplex apartment in stow, ohio caught fire. it was march 27, 2010, a rare night off for the 24-year-old intensive care nurse. >> i was at my boyfriends. i got a call in the middle of the night from a neighbor

saying that the house was on fire. we were only about two minutes away, so drove over very fast. >> amy says she jumped out and ran toward the firefighters who were working her half of the duplex, where the worst damage was. >> the first thing they asked me was who would want to kill you. who would want to murder you? i just kind of looked at them like what? what are you talking about? and then, they asked me, don't you smell all the gasoline? and that is why i stopped and i realized that was all you could smell, was the strong odor of gasoline. >> were you involved in anything illegal? >> no. >> anything extramarital? anything that's going to make somebody angry enough to make them want to do away with you? >> nothing that i can think of it all.

>> investigators heard the same story from the older woman who lived in the other half of the duplex. jim lidel was there that night. he says even the landlady was checked out to see if she might have had her own building torched for the insurance money. >> obviously had to go look at her. you know, she lived nearby, but she was fine. financially, she was stable and was successful with her rentals so she had absolutely no motive. >> one thing was obvious, this fire was no accident. >> the gas meter itself was disconnected and just hanging by the inlet fitting. the responding fire crews had a difficult time extinguishing this fire until they were able to shut the gas off to the meters. >> so, the gas is just escaping into the air? nothing like that looks like an

accident and it doesn't even look particularly subtle. >> not at all. >> the scene had all the earmarks of the fire at scott purk's house a year earlier. the disconnected gas lines, gasoline poured around the foundation , everything seemed to match. >> i'm not the brightest bulb in the box, you know, but all of a sudden the light didn't come on and i realized the modus operandi, or the m.o., was the same. >> one block away? >> correct. one block away. at almost the same time in the morning. >> for the past year, jim lidel had analyzed the evidence from the blaze at scott purk's home. he was convinced that fire had been an inside job and based on what he knew about arsonists, the fire was likely set by the same person. >> it is unusual for them to switch methods once they have a pattern that works for them, find something that works, they will do something very similar on each of their fires. >> it had to be scott and we took that also as another scott

was trying to show us that there was a serial arsonist in the neighborhood but it wasn't him because he lived on the other side of town now. >> investigators were not fooled. mifflin and lidel went to the apartment complex where the purk chicks had been living since their house burned down, the family car parked outside and still warm on that freezing night, reeks of gasoline. >> and then in the apartment, we find the gas cans sitting right inside the apartment, and a pair of boots that had fresh mud on them. that is just screaming to us, we have found our guy. >> of course, scott purk had always been there guy. that said, the lawmen were still no closer to actually making arrest. >> you can't really connect scott to the gas use that i the fire. and, nobody saw him. it's the middle of the night.

>> correct. exactly. >> so, you have a pretty strong circumstantial case, but not a tremendous amount of proof. >> right. now, we have to dot our i's and cross our t's into our due diligence because he is our guy still. >> he was pretty confident that it was not a suicide and that this was a murder. >> the death of meg purk, a decades-old case, and a bold new strategy to solve it. >> he looks at me and you could just tell that all the color and his face drained right out. he just looked like he had just seen a ghost. >> when dateline continues. hos >> when dateline continues. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function,

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it takes time to prove an arson case, even for one that seems open and shut, but approving a decades-old suicide that might actually be homicide is more a matter of timing and luck. in the case of meg purk, the stars aligned in the summer of 2011. detective ken mifflin walked into the office of summit county ohio prosecutor sharon devon walsh. >> i actually still remember when detective can mifflin came to my office, and he was basically asking for my assistance to file a motion to exhume the body and reopen the case, and he was pretty confident that it was not a suicide, and that this is a

murder. >> my guess is that you guys have plenty of open cases as of that moment that are installed. you probably didn't need one that was in the closed file reopened right away. >> we have, unfortunately, a lot of homicides in summit county, ohio and we were probably, i would estimate, at that time already working on another 50 homicide cases when the detective from stow came to us and said hey, i have a really old case that i really want you to consider presenting to the grand jury. >> what evidence did the detective have? almost none beyond a few old autopsy photos and his theory of what had happened. the only physical evidence, if any existed, would involve meg purk's body, so if this case was to go forward, meg would have to be exhumed.

deciding to dig up a body that's been buried for a long time is not an easy decision. she's got a whole family that was there when she was put in the ground, and they maybe have their own opinions about whether or not digging her up again is the right thing to do. >> exactly. it was a tough conversation to have. i went and spoke with meg's mom. >> meg's mother believed along with a bunch of the rest of the family, that it wasn't a suicide? >> exactly, and they were very supportive of all of us to do the examination. >> with meg's family on board, the prosecutor asked the court to order her exhumation. >> we definitely needed the body of meg purk to be exhumed before the medical examiner. >> if the body is not in good

shape can this go forward? >> if it had been too decomposed it's really unlikely that this case would ever have been prosecuted. >> while the detective pressed forward, that summer, lidel wrapped up the arson investigations. in august, 2011, scott purk was indicted for two arsons. the one at his home and the wanted amy's duplex. did the police show you pictures of scott purk asking if you knew him? >> yes they did and i had never seen him before in my life. >> the day after the indictment was handed up, jim lidel and another officer staked out scott's apartment. >> we were not there maybe 15, 20 minutes at the most and here comes scott's van pulling in, so he pulls right in front of his apartment so we pull in and block him from leaving . >> 2.5 years after the fire at his home, 18 months since the fire at amy's duplex, scott. was in custody, and based on what he saw inside the van,

lidel feels the arrest was made in the nick of time. >> he's got a cooler full of pop and on the front passenger seat of his vehicle was his cell phone that had the battery removed so that no one could track him. we are pretty certain he came back to the apartment to grab some clothes and was about to head out. >> purk was read his rights and at that point, the man who had talked himself into serious trouble suddenly refused to say anything to investigators. after been processed, detective mifflin paid him a visit and delivered a message she probably never saw coming. >> i let him know that we are looking into his first wife's death. he looks at me and you can just tell that all the color in his face or drained right out and that was that what he expected. he looked like he had seen a ghost.

>> scott purk was done talking but the long buried body of his first wife, meg, had an astonishing tale to tell. within two decades after her death. >> coming up, the bruises on her neck are going the wrong way? >> yes, and they are not from a rope. >> bombshell new evidence emerges from the grave. how is this missed back in 1985? >> i don't know. >> all these years later, a dramatic demonstration of scott's story. >> you think to yourself, we are getting close to the finish line here. >> yes, we are. >> when dateline continues. >> when dateline continues. s i. 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.

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welcome back to, scott. -- scott purk was arrested for arson. back now to josh mankiewicz with the conclusion of "secrets from the grave." >> meg purk and her unborn baby boy were buried together in this graveyard. detective ken mifflin was certain meg had taken secrets to her grave, truths which could prove her husband, scott purk, had put her there. in september, 2011, weeks after

scott purk's arrest, the remarkably well preserved bodies of meg and her son were exhumed. >> it was amazing to actually meet her, it really was, thinking that we are going to do her and her family justice. >> she was holding that baby in her arms in the casket? >> yes. >> hard to see? >> very tough. it really brings everything home. >> a lot had changed since the day 1985 when the summit county coroner had declared meg's death a suicide. first of all, instead of a corner, the county now had a board-certified medical examiner. the staff was all new, better trained. forensic technology was much improved and thanks to an excellent embalming job, the marks on meg's body were still there. >> you could still see the belt marks that go across her neck

and then down toward her back. >> so, the bruises on her neck are going the wrong way? >> yes, they are not from a rope. the boat market is going down toward her lower back, which indicates someone is behind you and they're pulling the belt towards them in a downward direction to strangle you. >> how is this missed back in 1985? >> i don't know. >> the second autopsy also revealed other things that were missed the first time, but were no less damning for scott. >> they found a bruise in the lower back, which was amazing. >> all those years later? >> yes, and that was scott purk probably using his knee to hold his wife down while he was strangling her with the belt.

>> to test their theory, investigators went to the actual apartment for scott and meg had lived in 1985 with cameras rolling. >> according to the maintenance records there, there had never been any replacement of any of the railing around the stairs, so all of that was still in its original condition. >> the railing was smooth. no sign anything heavy had ever dangled there. investigators then went to a vacant apartment a few doors down and hung a dummy roughly the same size and weight as meg, from the banister for a few minutes before cutting it down. >> well, just that action alone created several indentations in the soft pinewood that we were tied off to. >> and, the first time around when meg actually died, there were no indentations? >> correct. correct. >> later, investigators used modeling clay and ropes of

varying sizes to try to re- create the marks they had seen on meg's body. >> we cannot re-create that ligature mark withrow. >> only a belt or strap of some sort, they confirmed, could've made those marks on meg's neck. you think to yourself, we are getting close to the finish line here. >> yes, we are. we are building this case. it's going to be justice for the victim. >> the summit county prosecutor agreed. >> we wanted to make sure that justice is done and we also were working with a family that never believed that meg purk killed herself, and we wanted to make sure they got justice.

in november, scott purk was brought from his prison cell to be charged with meg's murder. he pleaded not guilty. the testimony of the medical examiner who re-examined meg purk's body proved decisive. >> the medical examiner had some really key findings that showed strangulation, and not suicide by hanging. >> and, that was never in the original report? >> the original report did not reflect anything about the strangulation mark from a belt. it even had markings of the stitching in a belt that the medical examiner was able to find 30 years later that was never noted at all in the initial exam. >> don hicks was scott purk's court-appointed attorney. >> there was never a time when i thought that he had a role in the death of his wife. >> hicks argued that since meg

had a history of attempted suicide and nobody knew what really happened, it was reasonable to conclude that the corner in 1985 had actually gotten it right. you pointed out to the jury that prosecutors didn't really have any hard evidence. what they had was this wonderful recreation. >> that's true, yes. >> juries like hard evidence. >> you are absolutely correct. we fought very hard. >> after a six-day trial, the jury found scott purk guilty of murdering meg, as well as tampering with evidence. >> it was almost unbelievable after all this time, it finally came through, you know. the truth is out. he is guilty, he is going away. >> the judge gave scott purk 15 years to life on top of his arson sentence. we may never know why scott

purk murdered meg or why he mentioned her to detective ken mifflin that night as they watched his house burn. we do know that if he had not, meg's secret would likely have remained buried with her. >> i got into this job to help people, and there is nothing better than making a family happy with an outcome for a case, and in this case, it's beyond happy. it's beyond words. they can finally rest in peace that this has been resolved the way it should've been. >> that is all for this edition of i'm andrea canning and this is "dateline". >> two guys saw what they thought was a mannequin. she had woodpiled on top of her. no identification. >> we all came together by becoming volunteers to identify jane does and john does.

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