that day, don't you? >> yes. >> these days monica is making new memories at the bingo parlor. remember how skittish she was around ashlea's girlfriend? no longer. now they are family. >> when monica going get our nails done, they always say, your daughter is so pretty. she never corrects them. as far as she is concerned, she gained several daughters. >> when there altogether, ashlea is there too. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i am andrea canning. ndrea cann. >> hello. >> hello. i am andrea this is dateline. >> i got a phone call. something is wrong with brandy. she's not moving and the car is

running. >> emergency vehicles, officers, and that's as far as i could go. >> there is my baby. and i can't do nothing about it. >> she was a hard-working young wife and mom. >> sweetest girl. >> minutes from home when she saw the headlights. >> somebody was tailing her. >> you buried your little girl then it's a murder investigation. >> there were two people brandy feared. one in town. >> she thought she was being followed. >> one thousand miles away. and then a new man in her life. >> anybody close to brandy we needed to take a serious look at. >> no fingerprints, no dna, and no arrests for years. >> how do you put that awful time together? >> then someone's dark past.

>> you've got robberies, homicide. >> one brave woman willing to talk. the question wasn't just who murdered a young mother but why? >> there was no money. there wasn't a reason to do it. >> why did they have to kill her? >> hello, and welcome to dateline. imagine driving on a dark isolated road then suddenly there's a car behind you. it gets closer and closer. too close for comfort. is someone tailing you raise your imagination and overdrive? for brandy daniels, her mind was not playing tricks. someone was stalking her and then the single mother was found slumped over in her passenger seat shot dead.

investigators would spend years navigating the twists and turns searching for her murder. here is dennis murphy with out there in the dark. >> it was a chillier than usual monday night as brandy daniels drove home from her shift. zanesville in eastern ohio is a kind of not too big or not too small city where you can be off the downtown grid and in the rolling hills in a few minutes. out there in the dark, that's where this 25-year-old single mom was heading. back home to her daughter waiting to be tucked in a brandy's mom's house in the country where she had been living. brandy had been through a rough few months, years really. one of the reasons things were turning around is a soothing voice on a cell phone. her fiance talking her home. >> i'm talking to her as she's trying to drive home. trying to drive a stick shift. >> her older boyfriend, craig.

one day, brandy walked into his salon. >> we hit it off. >> women are funny who they turn their head over to. >> we turned out to be good friends. the most beautiful eyes you ever saw. >> brandy turned out to be a -- and right away, mutual attraction grew into something more serious. >> it was a connection like i never felt. it kept getting bigger every time we talked. we were looking at houses. >> you were fixing to get married? >> oh, yeah. >> her mom was thrilled of the arrival of craig in her life. what did you think of craig? >> he was really nice. he put her first. >> growing up, brandy wasn't much for barbie dolls but give her a sketch pad and pencil and she was lost for hours.

she loved to draw. >> she took every art class there was if it had anything to do with art, she took it. >> she enrolled in the local college before freshman year was up, she left school to mary josh daniels, a part-time student she had met. not too long after she had news for mom. >> she called me and said she was pregnant. >> you must of been torn up. >> i was. >> randy and josh in the baby daughter were living nearby. >> you couldn't ask for a better mother. if it was something she needed or the little girl needed, the baby got it first. >> and had a grandmother. >> the baby got everything. yeah. >> the marriage after seven years of trying floundered. she filed for divorce. she seemed to be having a rough

patch in her life. >> yes. >> on this night as she was driving home with her fiance craig in her ear, she heard brandy sounding edgy. >> she said somebody was tailing her. these people need to get off my butt and the phone went dead. i texted her, what's up? 10 minutes passed by and i called her sister and said is brandy home yet? she said no. i said her call dropped on the and she should've been coming in the door by now. she said you want me to check? >> she headed up the half mile long drive from her mom's house. >> a few minutes later and she and her sister calls me back and is using it. she was at the top of the driveway and she says, i see her car and her headlights are on and her head slumped down and she becomes hysterical. i said, i will be there. i said call the cops. >> 911.

>> the 911 center fielder the call. ght behind her car, and there's the sheriff there already. and i'm walking up to the car, and i see her in the driver's seat. >> fiance craig was on hehis wa there was his girlfriend's little nissan sentra and that drive. >> i pulled in behind her car and there's a sheriff there already. urphy (voiceover): brandy's mom was just leaving the bottle factory where she worked. 11:05, i got a phone call. and i went running out to the truck. the guy said something was wrong with brandy. we get home. see emergency vehicles, the officers. we go right off into the driveway, and that's as far as i could go. dennis murphy (voiceover): the car, with the driver's side

window down, the vehicle stalled in first gear, and brandy inside, looking ragdoll, shot three times execution-style. the detectives were arriving. who would want brandy dead? it's always the husband, right? maybe not this time. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up. josh was, in fact, still in alaska that night. andrea canning (voiceover): but there was someone who lived right in town. dennis murphy: did you wonder what was going on with the boyfriend? andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ when your child has moderate-to-severe eczema, it's okay to for them to show off. show off their clearer skin and noticeably less itch with dupixent. because children 6 months and older with eczema have plenty of reasons to show off their skin. with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, they can stay ahead of their eczema.

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dennis murphy (voiceover): it was may 5, 2014. the car was at the head of the driveway, lights on and two county detectives arriving to try to figure out what had happened to the young woman dead in the driver's seat. detective mike ryan and captain steve welker in the first minutes of what would be a years long investigation. mike and i arrived at about the same time. did the scene explain itself to you? we could see the basics of what had happened. dennis murphy (voiceover): their victim, brandy daniels, had been shot three times at close range. crime scene techs would later recover three shell casings and a clip for a semiautomatic pistol. brandy's purse and phone were beside her. we eliminated robbery almost immediately because there was an amount of money there that somebody would have took if it would have been a robbery. dennis murphy (voiceover): as the csis took their photos and estimated bullet trajectories, gathered blood,

dna, brandy's mom, sister, and fiancé watched on in blank horror. dennis murphy: what do you remember about the rest of that night? sitting in the vehicle behind her car, just watching it. and there's your girl, gone. and here's my baby, and i can't do nothing about it. it was 2 o'clock, went to the house. 4 o'clock, detectives came down to the house, said that they removed her and the car. dennis murphy (voiceover): who would benefit from a single mom's death? of course, the questioning turned quickly to the soon-to-be divorced husband, the father of the little girl. brandy's mom told them about josh daniels. said he was a personal trainer at the gym and an obsessive weightlifter. when you ran him through the computer, what did you find out about him? did he have priors? he did not. he was not on law enforcement's radar. not on law enforcement's radar, but nonetheless, somebody they wanted to talk to right now. but there was a problem, a big one. there was every reason to believe he wasn't in the driveway that night, but 4,300 miles away

in alaska. josh had moved up there to be near his mom, and he'd found work in the prudhoe bay oil fields. josh was, in fact, still in alaska that night. so that's a pretty good alibi. yes. because there's domestic trauma doesn't mean you necessarily have a suspect, though, does it? [interposing voices] not necessarily, but it's a good idea to eliminate the husband as a suspect in the get-go. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective ryan called josh daniels on alaska's north slope. can you discern things like demeanor or attitude through the phone line? not really. i wasn't detecting shock or grief or anything like that. but nothing you can hang your hat on either, huh? one of the questions i asked him was, who have you been talking to here in zanesville? and he gave me a list of about a half dozen people. dennis murphy (voiceover): daniels told the detective he'd return to zanesville as soon as he could. but there was another person much closer that the cops had to figure out--

craig berry, the fiancé. he is the last person known to have talked to her? yes. did you wonder what was going on with the boyfriend? he's quite an older guy. he's got 20 years on your victim, right? yes. so he's a person of interest until he's not, i'm guessing, huh? well, at that point, anybody close to brandy, we need to take a real hard serious look at. dennis murphy (voiceover): within hours of brandy's death, craig got the third degree. dennis murphy: were they asking you hard questions? you know, where have you been? what were you doing? did you think, wow, they think i'm a suspect? oh, yeah. well, that's common, right? until you're in it, and there's a cop right in your grill. right, they asked for my cell phone. i handed it over right then. how long did that last? i got home at 5:30 that morning. dennis murphy (voiceover): then the legwork of the investigation began in earnest, starting with where she was last seen alive. so you're talking to your victim's coworkers. what's the picture coming together there? they all describe brandy as a very good young lady, a devoted mother in a marriage that she really wanted to get out of. dennis murphy (voiceover): patrol officers

traced the route from kohl's to the murder scene, hoping they'd find a security cam that recorded brandy's car headed home. the boyfriend story is there's a guy right on her bumper, but that image doesn't show up anywhere, huh? no. dennis murphy (voiceover): when the lab results came back, disappointment-- no useful fingerprints or dna. and the long slog of getting search warrants to recover data from the cell phone and the towers the signals bounce off of had only just begun. a few days after the murder, brandy's husband josh returned to zanesville from alaska. they met him downtown at his lawyer's office. he was fully cooperative. the detectives asked for his cell phone. he and his attorney had voluntarily turned it over. now you can look him in the eye, and you can check out his demeanor. what are you seeing? josh was very cool and collected. he looked very confident. dennis murphy (voiceover): with the data from his phone on the way to the lab, josh returned to alaska with his eight-year-old daughter. molly and her family had buried their brandy, but no one was coming to terms with the magnitude of this crime.

did the officers tell you anything about how the case would go? they figured that it would be summed up within a couple of days. dennis murphy (voiceover): if only. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up, a new suspect, but he has an alibi. andrea canning (voiceover): was he telling the truth? the texts tell the tale. when "dateline" continues. protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. arexvy is number one in rsv vaccine shots. rsv? make it arexvy.

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dennis murphy (voiceover): brandy, the young mom found shot to death in the front seat of her car in the family driveway. detectives put her fiancé, craig, through the ringer. but his story, including the part about his last text to brandy, checked out. within two or three days, we were sure that he was cleared. dennis murphy (voiceover): but craig wasn't a total dead end. the fiancé did have a tip for the detectives. he told them they should check out a fellow gym rat of josh daniels, a guy who gave brandy the creeps, someone with an unusual first name-- sirius, sirius e. underwood. when they ran the name, investigators found a son of a local preacher who had had some juvenile offenses, but in the years since, had redeemed himself. he graduated from zane state, got a good job with a local manufacturer, and seemed to charm every woman he met. four days into their investigation, detective brady hittle found sirius at a girlfriend's place. i asked him if i could look at his cell phone,

if i could take it back to the office and download it. he agreed to let me do that. how did he present himself? calm. he claimed he didn't know brandy was killed. just calm, cool, and collected. dennis murphy (voiceover): sirius came to the sheriff's office. dennis murphy (voiceover): while the squad's phone expert examined his cell, sirius explained how he knew brandy's husband, josh. dennis murphy (voiceover): he said he hardly knew brandy. dennis murphy (voiceover): as for his pal josh up in alaska, sirius said they hadn't been in contact for a while. dennis murphy (voiceover): sirius said he'd been with his girlfriend around the time cops believe brandy died. dennis murphy (voiceover): officers returned sirius's iphone and thanked him for coming in. wendy lemon, the girlfriend in sirius's alibi,

was next up on the detective's list of people to talk to. wendy, a mother of five, said she met sirius a couple of years earlier at the same place brandy and josh got together, zane state college. i just knew from the moment i met sirius that this was just a new friend. happy, always smiling. dennis murphy (voiceover): the mid-life single mom back to college and dean's list student sirius were ambassadors for their school. they were just looking for a face for zane state college that would be friendly and that would be outgoing, so that we could go to different events in the community, as well as giving tours on campus. dennis murphy (voiceover): sirius had found time to work as a campus security guard, and that's where he met josh, who did the same thing. sirius was an overachiever, even featured in brochures about the college. wendy liked almost everything about him. they became a couple. one year, for my birthday, he totally set up an entire day skydiving. sirius underwood (on recording): happy birthday.

thank you. it was so amazing, so awesome. we took motorcycle rides and went on picnics. dennis murphy (voiceover): now wendy found herself caught in the undertow of a homicide investigation. cops had her downtown the same day as sirius. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective ryan asked about the night of the murder. he used wendy's texts with sirius to refresh her memory. dennis murphy (voiceover): did wendy's text that night fit in the timeline they were building of brandy's murder? and did they speak to sirius's whereabouts? dennis murphy (voiceover): sirius arrived, wendy said, after that 11 o'clock text. sirius had given the cops wendy as his alibi, and she'd inadvertently only made him someone detectives needed to take a closer look at. dennis murphy: there's a window of opportunity in there in which he could

easily have done this crime. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): and there was another thing-- the squad's phone expert filled them in about some internet searches he'd found on sirius's device. sirius had open every news article that had to do with the homicide. dennis murphy (voiceover): interesting because earlier in the day, he claimed he didn't know brandy was murdered. question-- was sirius the gunman in brandy's driveway? he seemed to be no more than a casual friend of josh's from the gym. but when the it guys cracked josh daniels' phone use history, it told a different story. dennis murphy: what had he deleted? a lot of text messages. dennis murphy: to whom? sirius underwood. sirius underwood was by far the one he was in contact the most. what's your thinking? when we first talked to josh, he never mentioned sirius underwood. why would they be lying to us about that? dennis murphy (voiceover): why, indeed? the story told by the phones, the concealed relationship, fed a growing theory of the crime, that they were looking at a long distance killing between ohio and alaska. if that was their case, then technology

was going to be as valuable to them as dna or bloody fingerprints. the first big question-- did the killer, assuming he was a man, have a phone on him when he did the shooting? and what tower near the murder scene had the phone pingedff we had tons of-- and i'm not exaggerating-- thousands upon thousands upon thousands of phone calls that hit all these various towers. dennis murphy (voiceover): in that electronic haystack, a sharp-eyed cop noticed a call around the time they believed brandy was killed. it was made from a number with a 310 area code. now, normally, that's southern california. the county lawmen traced that 310 number back to an anonymous disposable phone, a burner, purchased in zanesville a week before brandy died. i get the call records for the 310 area phone and start combing through those. he only called two people-- a second burner phone and josh daniels. those were the only two. dennis murphy (voiceover): was this their breakthrough?

that burner phone at the right time, right place, had called josh's phone in alaska. then the phone techs did another extraction of josh's phone, and they retrieved something josh thought he deleted. a voicemail that was left on josh daniels' cell phone from this california area code. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective hittle's ears perked up when he heard it. i listened to it and now i know that that phone, 310, is sirius underwood's, and that is his voice. dennis murphy (voiceover): the detectives wanted another technically deeper dive into sirius's iphone, which they'd returned to him. sirius came downtown again as requested. but while the cops were preoccupied, chasing down a search warrant for his device, he outfoxed them. sirius found a computer and remotely wiped his phone clean. when i reached in and got sirius's phone, i could see that it had been reset, factory

restored from the icloud. so whatever story it was going to tell, you weren't going to hear it. there was nothing left on that phone. dennis murphy: pretty clever. dennis murphy (voiceover): it was like a whole evidence locker going up in smoke. their whole techie crime trail, poof. detectives by then were sure sirius underwood and josh daniels were behind brandy's murder, but could they prove it? we knew at that time we had a serious problem with our evidence. we were not dead in the water, but we were definitely struggling. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up, a stalled case. are you starting to lose faith in your police? the investigation? it was stressful. andrea canning (voiceover): and then a threat convinces a woman to talk. andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. you can feel it, when your dream becomes a pursuit. and with vitiligo, the pursuit for your pigment

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hi, i'm richard lui with a news update. hours away from the kickoff of the democratic national convention in chicago. president biden is delivering the keynote speech will protests are expected to continue. secretary of state antony blinken is in israel and said to meet with the prime minister regarding a cease-fire deal. u.s. officials have been optimistic to reach a deal to end the war but cautioned more work needs to be done. us manago wipe his cell phone, erasing any potential evidence police believed could tie him to the shooting. and josh had an ironclad alibi. soon, though, detectives would get startling new information. and it would be a game changer.

here's dennis murphy with "out there in the dark." what is the next thing we've got to do then? dennis murphy (voiceover): investigators were pretty sure they had the right guys for brandy daniels' murder, and they learned a lot about just how awful her marriage to josh was. cops found a 911 call brandy had made six months before her murder. dennis murphy (voiceover): brandy didn't request a deputy that night, but she did file a restraining order against josh when she left him. cops knew josh's buddy from the gym, sirius, was likely involved in the murder, but they just couldn't tie the two of them together, despite some suspicious phone traffic between the pair. an additional difficulty in the investigation was the fact that josh was still living in alaska, about as far away as you could get from ohio

and still be in the same country. josh daniels was here starting his new chapter, living in wasilla, about an hour outside of anchorage, with his mother and stepfather. keeping tabs on him from thousands of miles away were the zanesville police, and they were seeing some patterns. when he wasn't working a job in the north slope oil fields, he was partying, pumping iron and chasing women. dennis murphy (voiceover): back in zanesville, meanwhile, the cops kept their pressure up on the person of interest they did have in their zip code, sirius underwood. the detectives were all over his girlfriend, wendy. every time that i had a little spat or whatever, i was frustrated or disgusted with sirius, he would always show up again. just wondered if maybe you remembered something. trying to find a vulnerable moment and now you're finally going to spill this. yes, and it was just like, i've already told you every single thing, and it's never going to change. if you don't lie, you don't have to cover a lie. dennis murphy (voiceover): brandy's mother was losing faith in the cops ever making an arrest in the case of her daughter's brutal murder. dennis murphy: are they saying, trust us?

yeah. every time we'd hear something, we'd contact them. still need to get more evidence. still need to get more evidence. dennis murphy (voiceover): but something was about to happen, and it was enormous. call it a good luck bolt from the land of the midnight sun-- alaska was calling. it was three months to the day after brandy's murder when the ohio investigators got a phone call from up here in wasilla. it was a woman on the line saying that she had been seeing josh daniels, and she had a story to tell the police, something he had told her. well, when detectives hittle and ryan heard that, they were on the plane to alaska within hours. dennis murphy (voiceover): the young woman explained she and josh had been engaged at the time of brandy's death, but he had commitment issues. dennis murphy (voiceover): she had the detectives' undivided attention as she related what an intoxicated josh told her on the 4th of july.

dennis murphy (voiceover): it looked as though the detectives were ready to put a bow on their investigation. take the blizzard of messages between the two men, mix in the geography of the cell phone towers that put a suspect burner phone tied to sirius right near the crime scene, and now add in the story of the woman from alaska, who'd apparently heard a confession, and you should be ready to swear out arrest warrants-- not quite. when the detectives got back to ohio, their first stop was at the office of state's attorney mike haddox. and they come to you and say, are we there yet? yes. and you're telling them, no, you're not quite there.

yeah, i wanted to make sure that before we took the case to grand jury, that we had a motive. obviously, in the case of josh daniels, the husband, we had a motive. marriage was breaking up. he had been violent with her in the past. but he was thousands of miles away-- that's correct. --in alaska at the time. we knew he didn't pull the trigger. put the gun in his hand. he didn't pull the trigger. when we came up with, with sirius underwood, the most obvious is, there's been some sort of a payment. we spent about a year looking through bank accounts. couldn't find any. dennis murphy (voiceover): almost two years went by and nothing. dennis murphy: how do you put all that awful time together, molly? day by day. are you starting to lose faith in your police? the investigation? it was stressful. mike ryan, he would call, messaged. have you heard anything? we still have to get some more, more evidence, more evidence.

dennis murphy (voiceover): but it's funny how things sometimes work out because the investigators were about to get another bolt out of the blue lead like the one from alaska. it began with, of all things, a message to the facebook page of the zanesville pd. the tipster had volunteered that her husband was part of a stickup gang. we came in and spoke with her and obtained a lot of valuable information for this investigation. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective phil michel of the zanesville pd had been working for two years on a string of armed robberies. when he got the facebook tipster in for an interview, guess who she identified as two members of the robbery crew? none other than sirius underwood and josh daniels. if the tipster could be believed, they'd been bandits together two years before brandy would be found shot to death. the woman confirmed something detective michel had long suspected, but been unable to prove, that the robbery of a local department store had been an inside job. josh daniels had been working at the store at the time and handed over $7,000 to a masked gunman.

if we had been here on january 1, 2012, what might we have seen? you can see an individual come from the southwest side of the parking lot. he stuck the gun in josh's face. shows a pistol. yes. he ended up falling down, being knocked down. dennis murphy (voiceover): the tipster claimed that josh wasn't the victim of the robbery, but actually one of the participants, and that his pal, sirius, had been the mastermind not only of the department store job, but the prime mover in a crime wave, responsible for multiple armed robberies, most of them captured on surveillance video. the two bodybuilders' secret sideline was a head snapping revelation. sirius underwood at nights over here, robbing drug dealers, or he's robbing tumbleweed restaurants, or they're hitting, you know, gabriel brothers. but during the day, he's the sweetest guy, loves the women. they love him. he'll train with you. poster boy, just an all around great american. dennis murphy (voiceover): the cops

believed that linking sirius and his partner in crime, josh daniels, to the violent robberies would help nail the two for brandy daniels' murder. we were on the right track for the robberies. we were going to go try to confront josh. dennis murphy (voiceover): back to alaska. when josh landed at anchorage international on his way home from the north slope, airport police whisked him into their office. detective michel showed josh photographs of the department store robbery suspects. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective michel then handed josh another photo. dennis murphy (voiceover): really? the cop accused josh of lying, of being up to his eyeballs in the robberies. dennis murphy (voiceover): josh stuck to his story, then lawyered up.

the detectives flying home to ohio knew they had more work to do. but in any conspiracy, there's a weak link. they just had to pick their man and break him. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up, who would crack first? we get the phone call saying, hey-- let's make a deal. let's talk. andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. -we're done. -what about these? looks right. nooo... nooo... quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty absorbs spills like a sponge. and is 2x more absorbent so you can use less. bounty, the quicker picker upper. 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.

because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. dennis murphy (voiceover): a dogged investigation

with a generous dollop of luck had revealed that josh and sirius were more than gym buds spotting each other reps. they were armed robbers together. detectives surmised that brandy, their victim, must have known about sirius and her husband's part in the holdups. for state's attorney mike haddox, the homicide case had achieved critical mass. so what was the final green light for your investigators? when did they have it? when we found that these two guys were criminal conspirators, violent criminals in several robberies, there was our motive. and once i felt that we had the motive for sirius underwood to be involved in this murder, we were a go. which is josh's wife might be a risk for him. that's correct. she might snitch him out. she might snitch him out. dennis murphy (voiceover): haddox convened a grand jury. assistant state's attorneys ron welch and john lytle would present the case. there would be a lot of convoluted storytelling and evidence for the jurors to follow.

you've got robberies going on, the homicide, the cell phone data, how you link all these people up. you're going to have multiple snitches, who are all going to be testifying, who all have their own issues. dennis murphy (voiceover): the grand jury sat for three months and heard more than 100 witnesses. in march 2016, it returned indictments against josh daniels and sirius underwood. at the request of authorities in ohio, the alaska state troopers located josh at his mother's home in wasilla. once ohio gave the green light to the troopers to move on their suspect, they did. the cuffs went on without incident. a bulked up josh was put in the back seat of a cruiser and driven downtown. dennis murphy (voiceover): detective michel confronted him. dennis murphy (voiceover): josh was shown a graphic crime scene photo of poor brandy.

dennis murphy (voiceover): meanwhile, back in zanesville, police surrounded sirius underwood's car and arrested him. his interrogation didn't last long. dennis murphy (voiceover): josh waived extradition and was brought back to ohio. brandy's mother got word at the end of her shift.

i get a phone call-- you need to get down here now. there you are in a courtroom. what's going on? josh is there, doing his plea. and then they go over details that we weren't aware of. dennis murphy: so it's got to bring all the pain right back again, huh? how did he look to you in that courtroom? not a care in the world. dennis murphy (voiceover): wendy was in the courtroom as well. dennis murphy: this is big news. sirius is charged. he's in jail. do you believe that he killed brandy daniels-- wendy lemon: no. dennis murphy: --that he shot her to death on that road? no, i don't. sirius had just so much going for him, and he had worked so hard. and i would just say, why? what did he have to gain from doing something like that? dennis murphy (voiceover): over the next few months, welch and lytle prepared their cases. josh would be tried first, then sirius. they laid out their case on index cards. motive was looking more complicated than ever. in opening arguments, they'd have to explain to jurors just who these defendants are.

sirius, the overachieving charmer, and bad husband josh, who'd been abusing anabolic steroids for years. josh was roided out. he was out of his mind, using steroids. sirius is a sociopath, whereas for josh, it was a, a status of being enraged and jealous. i think he still loved her, and she was just done with him. dennis murphy (voiceover): josh sat behind bars for seven months. deprived of elephant doses of steroids, his chemically enhanced muscles deflated like spent balloons. they'd found their weak link. we get the phone call from josh's defense attorney, saying, hey-- let's make a deal. let's talk. the issue that we had was, who do you make the deal with-- the guy that had his wife killed or the guy that shot her point blank range in the face? dennis murphy (voiceover): the state's attorney agreed to a plea deal, but josh daniels would have to tell all. i want to start off with the murder.

making a deal with the devil, but who would get burned? andrea canning (voiceover): coming up, one down, one to go. what was the weakness in the case? you're still going to have josh come in as your witness. josh. the jury wouldn't like him. so within that, there might be wiggle room for sirius. right. andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. [coughing] copd isn't pretty. i'm out of breath, and often out of the picture.

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because breathing should be beautiful, welcome back. it had been 2 and 1/2 years since brandy

daniels was killed. the state's attorney had been holding out hope that one of the two defendants would take a plea deal in exchange for their detailed confession. then, after seven months in prison, josh daniels agreed to tell investigators what he knew, but would his story help them convict sirius underwood? here's dennis murphy with the conclusion of "out there in the dark." dennis murphy (voiceover): as part of pleading guilty to murdering his wife, brandy, josh daniels had to admit what he'd done-- provide what lawyers call a proffer. he was brought to a conference room at the prosecutor's office. when was the first time that this idea came about? well, i've known sirius underwood for quite a while. we were having a conversation one day at his apartment, and i was telling him about, i mean, how hard this was on me, me and brandy splitting up, how pissed off i was that she was seeing that guy, craig.

and he made the comment, well, [bleep] that bitch. let's just off her. and at the time, being emotional and mad, you know, i made the decision that maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea. dennis murphy (voiceover): josh helped him stalk his wife. and sirius asked me where she lived. and i told him. he asked me about her work schedule, and i told him. dennis murphy (voiceover): and it wasn't just brandy josh wanted dead. and i told him, well, see if you could go over to her boyfriend's house, craig's. see if you can find him where he lives, and break into his house and kill both of them. - did he? - huh? did he find out where he lived? yeah. did he try to break in the house? no. not that i know of. dennis murphy (voiceover): they schemed together on the eve of the murder. he asked me a day before, are you

sure that you want this done? have i been drinking? and [inaudible] alcohol problems and steroid problems, and i was just mad. i said yeah. how did it go down? i told him that she was getting off work. i would text sirius and just say the word "close." he just said that i've got this. i see her car. i don't know actually what took place on the night. i mean, i know that she was shot. so i don't know if he parked his vehicle somewhere and came running out of the bushes. i never talked to sirius after the murder actually happened. he certainly confirmed with you that it happened. he said done. dennis murphy (voiceover): they asked how could josh live with himself after killing the mother of his child. i thought that it would just go away, that this day would never come. me getting arrested would never happen. after brandy's death, i became an alcoholic, drinking every day, taking or using heroin, downers, just

anything to numb that pain. dennis murphy (voiceover): the killer husband sounded almost contrite. if i could go back and i could change it, i would. brandy didn't deserve what happened to her. she was a good girl. and ultimately, years down the road, having brandy gone, seeing how that affects my-- that's going to affect my daughter's life, [inaudible] home. and knowing that i played a part in that, i can't live with that. dennis murphy (voiceover): with josh about to throw himself at the mercy of the court, prosecutors still had the accused triggerman to deal with, but sirius was hanging tough, not saying a word. so with only one of the two accused going to trial, the state's star witness would be josh daniels. as prosecutors prepared him to testify, they were still trying to wrap their arms around sirius's

motive for the murder. what's he telling you? when i pushed josh on why, why would he do this, and he says, that's what dudes do for dudes. that's what sirius told him. because he asked him. he's like, you'd do that for me? and he just said, that's what dudes do for dudes. kill your wife? right. dennis murphy (voiceover): crunch time for the prosecutors. sirius's trial was looming, and they were far from confident. what was the weakness in the case? you're still going to have josh come in as your witness? josh. that the jury wouldn't like him. you're asking the jury to rely upon somebody that's admitted to having their wife executed. that's a tough pill to swallow. so within that, there might be wiggle room for sirius. right. dennis murphy (voiceover): just days before sirius's trial was scheduled to begin-- i was writing my opening. i got a text message from the defense attorney, saying, you guys do an alford plea? dennis murphy (voiceover): sirius's lawyer was proposing a plea deal, an alford plea, the screwball pitch of american jurisprudence. alford plea, to civilians, to laymen, has a very sketchy kind of feel to it.

do you want to take a crack at trying to explain what an alford plea is? sure. it basically is when somebody says, i'm willing to say that you have lots of information. and i'm going to plead guilty, but i'm not going to say i actually did anything wrong. and i say, huh? right. and then i turned around and say, how's this go again? so he's going to take responsibility without saying he did it. dennis murphy (voiceover): the state's attorney signed off, and the trial judge accepted sirius underwood's alford plea. sirius was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 38 years. josh daniels got life with a possibility of parole after 28 years-- not enough time for some of brandy's loved ones. dennis murphy: so where do we stand now? they've both been dealt with, huh? yeah, i guess. your opinion, do you think they both got off easy? yes, they did. they're still breathing. she's not. dennis murphy (voiceover): josh and sirius are serving their sentences in separate maximum security

prisons. brandy's parents are raising her daughter. the family is left with a snapshot album, itself getting older, but the young woman pictured in the pages inside staying the same, never to have her own album of her daughter graduating, getting married. time ran out for brandy on a dark hilltop before she could kiss her daughter goodnight. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. campaign. after president biden withdraws from the race, donald trump faces a new opponent in vice president kamala harris upending the campaign dynamics with just two and a half months until election day. >> i th