>> thanks for watching the sunday showing clips of the show on youtube. to every episode is a podcast for free. scan the qr code on your screen right there to follow. hello, i am andrea canning, and this is dateline.

>> my mom found her. she said it looked like she might have slipped in the shower. she was in the fetal position in this bathtub. you could see marks on jessica's neck. they said we are going to rule this as a homicide. >> detectives using new technology to view this crime scene in extreme detail. >> there is no forced entry, no tool marks. >> there was blood on the couch. >> they say that usually it is someone close. >> an investigation focusing on friends and family. >> he brought up his association with the motorcycle gang. he came off as kind of a tough guy. >> we full around a little bit. >> he threatened to take out my whole entire family to get custody of our kids. >> wow. >> a chilling story of danger and duplicity. >> we were trying to figure out

who did this. he knew the whole time. this is the ultimate betrayal. >> hello, and welcome to dateline. jessica nelson was a hard- working single mom who doted on her little boy and kept her loved ones close, then one morning she was found dead in the house she shared with her son. the discovery left her family shattered but their ordeal had just begun. detectives would soon discover someone close to jessica was living a lie. here is keith morrison with evil intent. >> as 9:00 in the morning on the 25th of june, 2015, omaha, nebraska. missy nelson's morning ritual was interrupted by a phone call. it was the bank where her daughter, jessica, worked. she was an hour late. >> as like what, what do you

mean they're not there? they were like she is not here. we've been calling her. >> the thing was, jessica was never late. missy tried calling her. no answer. panicked now, she ran to her car. was jessica in her home sick? >> i was calling her on the way over there and thinking i went over to that then i started to think really bad things. maybe she was in a ditch somewhere, passed out, maybe she was in a really bad car accident. >> but you know it was something bad? >> i felt something was wrong. so, i get over there and her car is in the driveway and i'm like okay shop --, she is here.

she has an accident but why isn't she answering the phone. >> the door was locked so missy used turkey to let herself in. >> i walk in and the house is really dark. i can't find her and it's like you know, everything is dark so i don't know where i'm going in the bathroom is like the first door on the left and the door was closed. i hear water running. maybe she had to use the bathroom. i opened up the door and i turned on the light and she was in the bathtub. the water was running, but it was up to her nose. she was in there like this. she had a phone cord in her hand and i didn't understand where that came from. i started screaming. i had my cell phone, so i called 911. >> 91, do you need police, fire, rescue? >> i don't understand a word you're saying. what's going on? >> i had drained the water thinking i had help her, but she was already gone. i could tell. she was blue. her face was -- a really weird

pattern on her face, her face was checkered but her body was like a normal color. it was horrible. it was like a nightmare. i still see it. like one of the worst feelings in the world when you can't help your daughter because she's gone. >> by the time jessica's father, harry, got there -- >> there was a policeman in the driveway. >> not far away, he found missy, a wreck, a mess. >> i said what's going on, what do we know? don't know anything. >> had she slipped in the shower? >> we sought -- thought that at first but i saw the mark on her neck and on her hand and she shouldn't have had her phone charger there. her phone wasn't there. i didn't know what to think. i was devastated. i was not even thinking at that point. >> first responders trying to keep an open mind were not sure what to think, either. >> it was not obvious homicide. they did not know if it was a medical emergency because we find people like that who have

suffered a stroke or heart attack or some similar kind of situation so they really didn't know what they had. >> homicide detectives derek moyes and ryan davis. >> i do a cursory walk through the residence. they show me where jessica is at. she is in the bathtub and oddly enough, her clothes were in the bathtub with her. >> but not on her? >> no, they were laying near her feet. the couch in the living room had blood all over it so my reaction was maybe there was some kind of emergency. she had gone to the bathroom to clean herself often collapsed and succumb to whatever medical emergency she was having. there were not any obvious signs of trauma on her body. she had a small bruise on the side of her neck. it did not look like she was assaulted. >> but, there was something off the didn't quite look right.

they decided to treat it like a homicide. >> because you only get one chance at this. if you go through guns blazing and try to rush things are going to miss something. >> the csi people arrived, used to lean -- laser scanner to create this virtual representation of jessica's house, more accurate than any photo, then they removed jacket -- jessica's body and yes, the detectives could see homicide was the right call. >> when we were able to actually look, it was fairly evident there had been a strangulation of 60 nation that took place in one of the things we noted right away is that she had longer fingernails, and one of those fingernails was quite evidently bent back. we knew there was potentially dna there.

>> the next day, the autopsy confirmed that jessica had indeed been strangled to death. >> there was a slight ligature mark around her neck, but it was disrupted and it almost appeared as though there was possibly her hand maybe trying to pull so the ligature marks were kind of intermittent. >> one more thing the autopsy revealed, she had been sexually assaulted. >> the first thing that goes through your head was why, how, who. everybody is a suspected nobody as a suspect. who could've done this, why? >> did she have any enemies? >> not that we know of. >> coming up, the man in jessica's life in their volatile relationship. and then, the facebook post, did it put her in danger?

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choose cosequin and other nutramax laboratories brand products. oooh! this is our night! shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. and upset stomach. keith morrison (voiceover): there's nothing better than a close family and friends who are like family. missy and harry nelson had it-- three kids, kids' partners, grandchildren, until, until the morning they found their beloved eldest child there, jessica, just 28 years old, dead in her own bathtub. >> missy and harry nelson had three kids, kids partners, grandchildren so until the

morning they found their beloved eldest child, jessyka, 28 years old, dead in her own bathtub , but who was she? detectives needed to know. and, so did we. >> everybody loved her. very brave. both my girls were very smart. >> she was very outgoing, just always wanted to have fun but you know, the older we got the more she was kind of like another mom to us and she would always be there, even if we were fighting if we needed her she was there. >> big sister to the whole extended family, her cousins, her close friends were like siblings, her siblings close friends who are more like relatives. laura wunder had been a friend since grade school. >> she just wanted to have a good time. i wouldn't say she was crazy but she was kind of goofy.

she did whatever she wanted to do. >> that held true in her choice of men. her first serious boyfriend was him. >> with his tattoos and stuff it was like he seemed to be something she would've been into because she had a few tattoos, as well. >> his name was john mcdowell. he and jessyka were good together but sometimes not. >> she would call us like every other week. can somebody come get me, me and john had a fight and i'm not staying out here so we would drive out there to meet -- missouri valley in a couple weeks later she's out there again. >> a year in, there was still no wedding but there was a baby, dominic, don. >> everyone was so excited wanting to meet him. >> she loves him. i think it was just an instinct she had. she wanted to do the best for him she could and that drove everything else.

>> then one day, dom was still quite small, it all seemed to come apart. >> they were doing okay until he sent her a voicemail. >> an unintentional voicemail. the message that was left was well, bad. very bad. >> talking to friends, he did not know he left her a voicemail and told her that he slept with another girl and that was it and she was done. so, i helped her move that day. >> she must've been so upset. >> she was. she was devastated. >> to get an accidental voicemail from the father of your baby, i slept with another woman. >> kind of bragging. like you should've seen the when i was with. >> that is why jessyka elected to be a single mom. better, she decided, to concentrate on her little boy, the center of her life, dominic. >> she did everything she could for her son, just to try to do it right. i have to work, pay

bills, i have things i want them to have so i need to pay for those things. so she worked two to three jobs sometimes. >> how does a person do that? >> she worked at the first national bank. >> should like to that job? >> that was her dream job. >> and jessyka and dominic lived in the little house on the north side of town. >> it wasn't very big but dom had the bigger room and she's like well, he has more toys in his bed has a flight. and she's like well, he needed a slide. she gave everything up for him. he was her world. >> in fact, jessyka's last words on facebook the night she died when dom was at his dads were i am such a mess when dom is gone. >> she had lost the remote and thought it was the worst 15 minutes of her life. >> she was lost without dominic because he could find the remote.

>> but -- >> she just put out there that she was home alone and she did it without even realizing. >> so if anybody was following her, they would know. but of course, someone was following her on facebook. maybe quite a few someone's. but, finding the one with evil intent, not so easy. >> investigators start the search with jessyka's ex, and soon hear some troubling stories. coming up -- >> she was around the guy even though they were just friends. >> her sister ashley's ex raises eyebrows, too. >> he threatened to take out my whole entire family to get custody of our kids. >> when dateline continues. >> when dateline continues. . ♪ ♪ [ engine revving ] oh now we're torquin'! the dodge hornet r/t. the totally torqued-out crossover.

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welcome back to "dateline." who would want to harm jessica nelson? that question baffled her grieving family. when the vibrant young mom was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in her bathtub, welcome back to dateline. who would want to harm jessyka t nelson? that question baffled her grieving family when the vibrant young man was found assaulted and strangled to death in her bathtub, loved ones wondered if a facebook post had alerted jessyka's killer that she was home alone that night. now, investigators were about to drill down on her personal relationship . at least one of them was complicated. back to keith morrison with evil intent. >> word of jessyka nelson's death spread quickly, if

incoherently, among her friends in omaha. >> i got a phone call from a mutual friend of ours and she was so hysterical, i could not understand what she was saying and i thought she said that dom had been killed so i got off the phone with her and i called john and he said they found just dead and it was just unreal. i just couldn't believe that. >>'s friendship with jessyka had drifted a bit after high school but by 2015, it was a little unusual. laura and jessyka both had babies with john. laura dated him first, but it was after she broke up with john that her son, christopher, was born, and that was not long before jessyka got pregnant. >> i found out when i was six months pregnant with her son that he and jessyka had started dating.

>> two women, two children, one man. >> i wanted to be mad at her and i couldn't because she was just too nice. >> anyway, pretty soon john was no longer in the picture for either of them and then, as single mothers, laura and jessyka reconnected solar cells, half-brothers, could bond. now, her friend was dead and the father of both her sons is sitting in the police station answering questions. on (voiceover): which meant john was the last known person to see jessica alive, one -- when did you reconnect with jessyka? >> when she dropped my son off last night. >> which meant john was the last known person to see jessyka alive except the killer

unless he was the killer. detectives brought in jessyka's family members and friends and can question the mall about john. >> everybody kind of have their own impression about john. >> and, some of those impressions were not flattering. [ inaudible ] >> they had these fights over dominic, over custody, over money. jessyka was routinely upset with him. >> john seemed to be trying to minimize those issues. >> we didn't have issues where we were at each other's throats or anything like that. >>

>> she's like you have a pair of shorts that i bought him two weeks ago and i haven't gotten to see him since i send them to your house. you need to find them. >> after a few hours of questioning they let john go with a warning. he was suspect number one, and they kept an eye on him as they investigated other men who crossed paths with jessyka. >> we were interested in any mail she had recently been introduced to, anybody at all that could've been showing interest in her, communicating that with her via social media or any other means that maybe seemed kind of unwanted. >> is there anybody she is saying like right now, she's been saying until recently and then i'm talking about casual hookups, one in a great while, anything at all? >> i know her last hookup was with an old high school crush that came back to town. he doesn't live here.

>> he has a high school crush and he was in the military so when he was home on leave she would hook up with him for a few days but then he was gone again. >> i know she stayed over there once. >> detectives looked into his whereabouts the night jessyka was killed. he was nowhere around. could not have been him. the thing was, there had to be someone close, someone she knew or trusted. someone with a key, maybe. after all, there was no forced entry, but the door was locked when jessyka's mother arrived in the morning. then her family told police about someone who had been violent toward jessyka's sister, ashley, just a few days before the murder. >> i was going through a divorce and my ex is not so nice. he had threatened to take out my entire family and then myself just to get custody of our kids.

the week before that, he physically assaulted me. >> he had pinned her on the floor and left bruises on her arm. >> had been arrested, was facing charges for domestic assault. the man had been violent, threatened family. detectives checked out his alibi for the night of jessyka's murder, but also in looking for anyone else who might've had access to jessyka's home, like maybe some spurned lover , apparently there were not any, spurned or otherwise. >> everybody when i ask that date in question, they would say that jessyka often referred to the only man in her life as dominic and her other man was her job and that's all she wanted to concentrate on, was her work in providing for dominic. >> but, sometimes jessyka had friends over for saturday night gatherings when dom was at john's. in the last one, maybe 10 days before she was killed. came with trouble. >> jessyka is freaking out. she's like, are they doing a drug deal in my house? >> coming up -- >> you find all kinds of stuff

on people cell phones, i bet you. >> coming up, investigators discover odd text messages on jessyka's phone. >> there was just something weird about it. >> when dateline continues. choose advil liqui-gels for faster, stronger and longer-lasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels. because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away.

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our top stories. california officials are working to contain the park wildfire which has now grown to more than 360,000 acres since it began on wednesday. cooler weather in the area is expected to help contain it. kamala harris' campaign for president took in $200 million in just its first week according to a release from the campaign revealing that a majority of contributors came from first-time donors, and now back to dateline. welcome back to to dateline. i am andrea canning. jessyka nelson had been murdered in her nebraska home .

her ex-boyfriend, john mcdowell, was a prime suspect. then, investigators discover there was a party at jessyka's house before she was killed, and the list of potential suspects was about to grow. meanwhile, jessyka's friends and family were galvanized by their grief, but could her killer bee among them? here again is keith morrison with evil intent. >> it was a week before they could have a funeral for jessyka. a small, sad service for family and friends is what they expected, but it was not small, not at all. >> it was overwhelming. just to see that many people who knew her, or at some point had cared enough to show up and say they were sorry.

>> some of the young men vowed revenge as they were there justice for jessyka bracelets. her brother, matt, her brother's best friend, also named matt, who once lived with them who knew jessyka like a sister. >> he was with us throughout the whole thing like another son. just what you need help with. people would bring over food. he was there helping us carry it in, you know, that kind of thing. >> in there, as well, helping out, grieving, was john mcdowell, jessyka's ex. he may have looked the part of a tough guy but police and checked his alibi. he could not have been the killer. >> we were also able to look at his cell phone locations, and they were exactly where he said he was. at no point did his phone number put him anywhere near jessyka's house. >> john did not kill jessyka, and when he first learned she was dead -- >> i just felt completely lost. i was instantly trying to figure out how i was going to tell my son that his mother who

was his world was no longer here. i didn't know what to do. >> he tried, but even at jessyka's funeral, her son, then just six years old, did not seem to comprehend. what was that like for you? >> it was horrible. especially with her being right there, and he still was not comprehending that she was not with us anymore. >> that was when the detectives were tracking down -- they did not know who. the sisters x, a guy who had been charged with assault, had a solid alibi, but what about the men who had attended jessyka small party , one party in particular? >> one of her friends invited her boyfriend. her boyfriend invited some of his friends. those friends invited others, so as this get together kind of

went on in the evening, more and more people were showing up to jessyka's residence whom she did not know. >> what does that do to an investigation? >> it it opened our suspect pool up quite a bit. >> especially after friends told detective mois that jessyka thought something illegal was going on at her house during the party. >> i want to know exactly who invited the sky to jessyka's house. who thought that would've been okay to do? >> the answer complicated matters even more. friends told detectives that the man who had invited the drug dealer also tried at the party to initiate some kind of sexual encounter with jessyka. >> he was in the bathroom and she went to go grab a towel and said hey, can you grab me a towel and he pulled her in the bathroom and he was like you

want to stay in here with me and she was like no, i just want a towel. i guess he said that he had like tried to close the door and all the stuff. she's like i said no one open the door and walked away. >> now, they had to track him down, he and every male who attended the party. >> we spent several weeks. that is all we were doing was attempting to identify these people, locate them, interview them and go through the same vetting process as far as getting a timeline and alibi. >> we were taking dna samples from every single person we talked to. >> at the same time, they asked one of their tech investigators, nick herford, to look for clues in jessyka's cell phone. >> you find all kinds of stuff on people cell phones . >> my gosh, absolutely. but what is remarkable about this one, on this one it was pretty much just one thing on there and it was just pictures of her son.

her life just completely revolved around him. >> but, there were text messages, too. lots of them, and some were pretty interesting. >> one of the last people she was communicating with, someone named matthew kidder. >> he was the friend, more like a son, who grieved with the nelson family was like a second brother to jessyka. had always had an easy, teasing sort of relationship so of course, they text each other but officer herford did not know any of that when the text caught his attention. >> there was just something weird about them, just the way that he would be constantly asking her out to do stuff. he would say hey, do you want to go bowling and she would be like you know what? i got to clean up the house and he would be like oh maybe i can come over and help you clean up the house. and then she would replay like you know what, i'm almost done,

don't worry about it and now i'm really tired so i'm just going to go to bed, something like that and it was like this over and over, so i talked to the sergeant who was in charge and said, maybe we need to kind of figure out who this person is. >> jessyka's friends and family said that sort of back and forth was quite typical of their relationship. >> it was just like brother and sister type of thing. he would get smart with her and she would get smart back. >> so, apparently nothing to see here, but of course, detectives had to dig a little. who was this matt kidder, who the nelsons loved like their own? >> in the interrogation room, matt opens up to police, revealing that he feels guilty he did not stop the killer. >> i was there and i could've done something if i'd driven by that matter if i had known. >> when dateline continues. wn. >> when dateline continues. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. adults lost up to 14 pounds. i lost some weight. ozempic® isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. don't take ozempic® if you or your family ever had

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is often a collection of stories, whodunnit stories, yes, but also love, loss, regret. john mcdowell was innocent, but he didn't feel innocent. a murder investigation is often a collection of stories, whodunit stories, yes, but also love, loss, regret. john mcdowell was innocent, but he did not feel innocent. >> the only thing that went through my head is that it really was all my fault because of i would've never messed up and we would've never split up than i would've been there to protect her. >> you still feel that way a little bit, don't you? >> yes, sir. >> does she intrude upon your thoughts a lot? >> yes, sir. >> so many stories. witnesses, family, friends of the victim, like matt kidder.

>> when i walked out of the room now. just wouldn't be dead. >> when detective davis interviewed matt, he encountered a map still apparently grieving. >> she had a good heart, good mother, good friend. >> and so, davis was sympathetic, and matt opened up, talked about his brotherly relationship with jessyka. >> me and jess, we've always had a relationship where we have like inside sexual innuendo jokes, but we've never had the interest of each other like that. of kind of always enjoyed that, joking around with somebody. we know it's never delete anywhere so everything's on the table. >> like brother and sister, he

said, they would sometimes get physical in a playful way. >> we would full around a little bit, kind of like she would pinch me, i would poker in her side like teasing, sibling teasing, i guess you would call it. >> kind of like flirting, no? >> not quite like flirting. i didn't consider it flirting. as far as i know, she's never been interested in me. >> after jessyka was murdered, it was matt who vowed to take revenge and told detectives he felt so guilty for failing to protect her. >> i would do it for any of my friends. i would die for them if i had to. i know it's stupid. i've talked to her mom because she's kind of going through the same thing and i shouldn't put it on myself but i feel like i was there and i could've done something if i had drove by that night, if i had known. >> after all, he was at work that evening close by, so he said he struggled with regret even as he tried to figure out what happened.

>> i have an overactive imagination. >> whoever did it, said matt, must've been waiting to find her home alone, and must've seen her facebook post, the one about her son, don, being away that night. >> asked to be 1 million in one shot like there watching her facebook feed to go in, somebody had to of been watching the house for a while to know she was hundred percent alone there. >> may be, he said, maybe it was more than one guy. >> i'm a fairly strong guy. i have weaknesses. my body is fairly messed up and she could kick my ass. >> he knew something about bad guys. he had spent some time in prison, he said, for something he didn't do. attempted sexual assault. >> i was dating a married woman and when i broke up with her she called the cops and reportedly for bright -- rape. >> but she lied, he said, a false accusation and the

nelsons supported it. >> this poor kid had some kind of consensual relationship and then afterwards instead of getting in trouble for it she blamed him and accused him over it. >> i even knew somebody that knew her and she told me the same thing, that she was always up to no good. >> so, after matt got out of prison, the nelsons celebrated with him and his family. after all, his dad and harry nelson have been best friends for decades, just as he was best friends with jessyka's brother. >> they've had my back for as long as i can remember. >> after jessyka's death, matt provided a sample of his dna and said of course he had been to jessyka's house with his dna happen to turn up there, perfectly innocent reason for that. >> i really much bleed in everybody's houses i go to. i get bored and there are pick on a scab or cut myself on something. >> but, if they were looking at him as a suspect, they had the wrong guy. >> i would not be able to look you in the eye if i did this. i would be wearing justice for jessyka on my wrist.

i want -- would not be sharing her picture on facebook looking for people who did this. i'm not built that way. >> no, matt kidder was virtually a member of the family. >> because we are all suffering, i feel better being around the family sometimes. >> he could've killed jessyka, could he? >> coming up , stunning and heartbreaking. what this woman has to say about jessyka's murder. >> it never should've happened. >> because you had already warned everybody about him. >> what her story will mean for the case when dateline continues. the case when datelie continues. voq. check! and when my doctor saw damage, rinvoq helped visibly reduce damage of the intestinal lining. check! for both uc and crohn's: rapid symptom relief lasting steroid-free remission. and visibly reduced damage.

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welcome back. the search for jessica nelson's killer had turned up no shortage of potential suspects. investigators had cleared her ex-boyfriend, john mcdowell, and several men who went to a party at jessica's house before she was murdered. welcome back to. the search for jessyka nelson's killer qu had turned up no shortage of potential suspects. investigators had cleared her ex-boyfriend, john mcdowell, and several men who went to a party at jessyka's house before she was murdered. now, they had more questions for her friend, matt. it had been a long road but investigators were about to hear the truth from a surprising source. here is keith morrison with the conclusion of evil intent. >> matt kidder, the young man who was like a brother to jessyka, like a son to her parents was sitting in the police station three weeks after her death.

>> do you think i consider you a suspect? >> by then, the omaha police did see him as a suspect. they knew that matt checked facebook the night jessyka was killed, would have seen the post that revealed she was home alone. they had discovered that matt's cell phone was at or near jessyka's place for 17 minutes that night. police tech experts. >> right now it's about 11:00 and you're going to see a couple more activations and right there, and so, then all of a sudden it switches. >> that is at her house? >> yes. that is directly in the area of the house. >> and, there was more. the detectives had noticed a crescent -shaped cut on matt's hand. could've been made by jessyka's thumbnail bending back as she defended herself and they found his dna under that mail and on the cord she was strangled with, so now, detective davis played his hand.

>> i think you were there when this went down and i think you had something to do with it. >> and matt exploded, a stream of loud and determine denials. >> i didn't kill her. i didn't know who did. i wasn't there at -- that night. i wouldn't be able to watch my uncle harry basically collapse over the body of his funeral -- daughter's funeral if i had done this. you arrest me for something i didn't do, it's going to destroy her family. >> he was narcissistic and he is a sociopath, so if you were just watching that interview without knowing the evidence we had, you might scratch your head and go, do we have the right guy? because he was so convincing. >> but, police believed they did have the right guy, and they arrested him for the murder of his lifelong friend, jessyka nelson.

>> stand up. >> i'm not going to jail for this. >> it's not up to you. the decisions been made so i need you to stand up. >> it's the wrong decision. >> that's something you can check out with your attorney. right now you need to stand up because you are leaving here. >> now, it was time to tell the nelsons. >> we said we had made an arrest and we have arrested matt kidder . my head hit the table. >> missy and harry gathered the family to tell them. >> i said look around. look at everybody here. who was one person that would probably be here but isn't. and my son, matthew, kind of raised his eyebrows like oh my god, no. >> up until that moment, matt kidder had been matt nelson's best friend in the world, the one he trusted implicitly , the one who would never ever betray them. and, here they were. >> everyone who was there broke down, like just bawling their

eyes out. >> as matt kidder waited in the local jail, evidence piled up. he had talked to his father on the phone, recorded, of course. >> i think she fell asleep on the couch after i left. and somebody came in behind. >> after you left? you were never there? >> dad, my phone puts me there. my phone puts me there. >> oh. >> as changed now from the hundred and 69 times he denied being in the house, yelling at the detective, very sternly denying that he was even there. that was big. >> there was more. he got chatty with his cellmate, told him the whole ugly story. this is prosecutor beth benedetto. >> this informant, and the details he gave us, they were accurate from walking into her house, headbutting her, which would explain the blood we saw in the blood patterns on the couch cushions to the sexual

assault itself to the things that she said to the injury on his hand and the injury on her finger to the cell phone charging cord. this informant gave us a view into what jessyka went through. >> it was about power, control, and i think, being rejected by her via text . it just made him angry. he is a very angry individual. >> i guess in a weird way, is that his turn on that the more he is rejected, the more he needs to have that power and control and that's part of the buildup or something? >> we think so. >> which brings us to this woman, patricia springborg, the woman who accused matt of . remember, he went to prison, attempted sexual assault, but convince the nelsons she was lying. it was no lie and when patricia heard about jessyka -- >> that is the hardest thing for me, because it never should've happened.

>> because you had already warned everybody about him? >> yep. >> her experience with matt at first is not unlike the nelsons. >> he wormed his way into our family and none of us thought he would do anything like that. >> he was actually a friend of your family, too. >> yes. my husband taught him how to drive his truck, you know, things like that. things you would do if we had a teenage boy. >> and then one day, he cut her alone at home and he grabbed her neck and tried to choke her, and she, fearing he would kill her, stopped struggling and discovered something revealing about matt. >> from what i could tell, and with my situation, is the violence and stuff is what got him. >> yeah, because when you relented, it obviously wasn't a

turn on for him anymore. >> and if she had not given in -- >> i would not be here. >> you would've been in jessyka's place. >> yeah. that shouldn't have happened to that girl. >> now, it should not have. >> and she's got a little boy. and it just shouldn't have happened. that is why after everything that happened, when the prosecutor asked me if i would testify for them, yes. >> and, she did. but, there was one more thing. the police had seized matt's laptop when they arrested him and what they found -- well. >> you know, i've seen some weird stuff, but nothing like this. it was a lot of videos and torture videos and just like the combination of them. it let us know basically his

intent and his mind-set because what he ended up doing was basically re-created one of these kind of videos that he likes in real life for his storm somebody, assaulted them, killed them and then left. >> matt kidder did not testify, but his defense set all the evidence, dna, cell phone trapping -- tracking, the cellmate story all had innocent explanations and besides he said he wasn't the killer, plain and simple, but the jury deliberated just 41 minutes before convicting matt kidder of jessyka's murder. he was sentenced to life in prison. the nelsons, of course, still miss jessyka terribly, and dominic lives with his dad, john now. and also, with laura and his half-brother, christopher. after jessyka's death, or stepped in to help out as much as she could. >> we were over there all the

time with dom and john and the kids all playing together, and it was just one day after the next after the next, and you just fall together. i mean, it is the one good thing that came out of this tragedy. dom has a whole family, and he is happy about that you know, he says i've got a mommy in heaven. i've got a mom here. >> in time, laura and john got engaged, and the nelson family grew by a few more. just one empty place. >> you never fill the hole in your life, do you, when you was a child. >> no. >> how often do you think about jessyka? >> every day. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i am andrea canning. thank you for watching. ing. thank you for watching.