but to show that she was there, to show that the print, the shoe print, the thumbprint, were from her, we wouldn't have had a case. ♪ religious faith can often unite families. but not always. a young woman's death raised questions about her church, and in the end it tested the faith of all involved. 24-year-old natalie vasquez worked as a dental assistant in longmont, colorado, and natalie was a very active member of the apostolic church, a denomination with very strict rules for women. ♪ >> basically, it's the strict teachings of the apostles. they have to follow very, very

strict commands from the church leaders. in this church, they weren't -- women were only allowed to wear dresses. they couldn't wear makeup. they couldn't dance. they couldn't drink. they couldn't smoke. >> music, television, movies, all were forbidden. the church pastor, troy hancock, claimed to have a special relationship with god. >> he would point somebody out in the congregation and say i've just received a revelation that you need to give $1,000 to the church. i've just received a revelation that you need to give $300, and they would do it because, i mean, they're very, very faithful people. >> and troy hancock had a revelation for natalie vasquez too. he said that god wanted natalie to marry another church member, a 21-year-old house painter, matthew mirabal. >> he had this epiphany from god, and this is what it was supposed to be. troy hancock saw these two

youngsters married, and that's how they came to be a couple. >> not surprisingly, natalie's family was appalled. >> i knew that it wasn't the church anymore. i knew that it was a cult when they started controlling and monitoring the people. >> over the objections of her family, natalie married matthew, and they had a baby daughter, micayla. by all accounts, natalie was happier than she had ever been. >> she had the room fully decorated. she had the crib. she had the whole bedroom set for the baby. she was just, you know -- she had already started making outfits. she loved to sew. >> i was seeing the life in her, that energy. now i can just see her jumping and just having fun. and she was coming back, little by little. >> late one saturday night in 1999, matthew mirabal called police to report his wife missing. he said natalie went to the grocery store while he stayed home with the baby, but she

never returned home. >> she hasn't been back. it's been three hours. she is not in the store either. oh my god. >> you don't think maybe she went with a friend or something? >> no. she would have told me. she would have let me know. i know she would have. she doesn't do that stuff. oh, my god. >> police found natalie's car abandoned in the grocery store parking lot. >> i'm just freaked out. my sister is missing. she's gone. what -- what can i do? >> security cameras revealed natalie hadn't been in the store that night. investigators found no trace of natalie anywhere in the area. the next day hikers found natalie's body 20 miles away in the rocky mountains. >> this was the scene on 9/26/99 of a homicide.

natalie mirabal's murder had been exceptionally violent. the medical examiner discovered

that she had been beaten, possibly with the wood found near her body. but the cause of her death was strangulation. she had also been decapitated. >> we never found the tool that was used to decapitate her. we had search teams go up and down that canyon. we had people actually scuba dive into the different lakes in the area to see if it had been thrown out into a lake. >> the lack of blood at the crime scene confirmed this occurred after death. >> it was very clear immediately that she had been killed elsewhere. >> by all accounts, natalie led a quiet life and was happy in her marriage. >> i mean, this is a loving husband. we found absolutely no evidence of domestic violence, ever. no one ever heard a cross word between them. from all accounts, this is a very loving couple.

and additionally, they just had a brand-new daughter born on the 28th of may, four months before. >> forensic investigators searched natalie's abandoned car and found a wealth of evidence. >> vehicles are like a magnet. it's a very hard place to hide evidence. >> near the windshield wipers, dr. bock found bits of mountain grass and some unusual pine needles, neither of which was common in the area. >> it was material that had come from approximately 9,000 feet elevation in a canyon along the front range. >> this vegetation was consistent with the type growing near left hand canyon. >> the car had been in the mountains, and it certainly fit the crime scene vegetation. >> and there was even more evidence natalie's car had been to the crime scene. >> natalie's car had three different types of tires on it, three completely different tread

patterns on her car. >> those same tire impressions were discovered not far from natalie's body. and the entire right side of natalie's car was scratched. it appeared that the driver had misjudged the distance between the car and the bushes along the road leading to the crime scene. natalie's husband, matthew, had a well-known aversion to night driving. >> matthew, when he was 12 years old, had an accident where he was blinded in his right eye. and he wore glasses. but he was blind in this eye. >> a driver with a visual impairment in his right eye would have had difficulty judging the distance on the right side of the vehicle. now suspicious, investigators checked the mirabals' telephone records, looking for possible clues. and they found something. matthew spent hours on the phone talking with his brother's wife, lisa.

this call was recorded after natalie's murder. >> what would you like me to do? >> i'd like for you to lay on the bed and pull me down on top of you, naked, both of us. >> you know i like that, huh? >> uh-huh. >> mmm, you know me better than anybody. >> and lisa's neighbors told investigators that matthew had been visiting lisa's apartment for months when her husband, marcus, wasn't there. >> he said without fail, within five minutes after marcus would leave to go to work, he said this guy would come around the corner, peek into his apartment, wearing white clothes, which is what all the painters wore, and go into the apartment next door. furthermore, his wife said that she had heard him on several occasions, she had heard the sounds of sex coming from this apartment next door. >> and investigators uncovered these photographs lisa sent to matthew after natalie's murder.

and this was matthew's written reply. >> "i got the pictures of you today. oh, my god, they're so beautiful. i never had any idea sex was so fun and exciting until i got with you. i love you, lisa, now and always." >> ironically, the two couples were members of the same church. >> i guess if i have to say personally what i thought, i would start to think, you know, matthew is looking pretty bad right now.

♪ after natalie mirabal's murder, investigators discovered that her husband, matthew, was having an affair with his brother's wife, lisa. for reasons not entirely clear, the pastor of the local apostolic church told members not to speak with investigators. >> troy hancock, when he would get up there and he would give his sermons, he would say "matthew mirabal did not kill that woman." so she went from being this mother and the light of the church to "that woman." >> and i said, troy, you believe in the old testament and the ten commandments, right? and he says, yeah. i said, are you for them or against them? and he just kind of looked at me like this and turned around and

slammed the door. he went in the house and slammed the door. >> matthew mirabal said he had an alibi for the night of the murder. he claimed he was home with his daughter, micayla. his brother, marcus, and his wife, lisa, said they too were at home that night and went to bed early. by now, investigators knew that natalie's car had been driven to the crime scene. but who had driven it there? inside the car, tucked between the seats was a pair of bloody gloves made by the wells lamont company. dna testing showed that the blood on the gloves was natalie's. but to whom did the gloves belong? investigators went to matthew's workplace and found a walmart shopping bag in a trash can outside. >> there was a tab for pairs of wells lamont handyman cotton jersey gloves in there.

>> to see who purchased the gloves, investigators looked for fingerprints using heated superglue, which adheres to any finger oils present. the test revealed matthew mirabal's fingerprint. >> and this stuff was bought at walmart, which is a mile from their house. i'm thinking, holy cow, this is incredible. >> it also helped establish that the gloves were brand new and that matthew had purchased those gloves. >> there are some murder cases that it's a no-brainer. but there are other cases where you have to build this wall, brick by brick. and when you get the wall built, you push it over on them. >> in the back of matthew's truck, investigators found a broken piece of wood. it looked strikingly similar to the other pieces of wood found near natalie's body. >> those pieces of wood were splintered and broken, and colorado bureau of

investigations was able to put them back together and they fit perfectly. >> when investigators questioned matthew, he insisted he had nothing to do with his wife's murder. but they noticed something. >> as he is talking, he is kind of going like this with his thumb. and we said what -- what is that you got there? he said oh, it's a band-aid. you know, he is pulling this band-aid off. he said i have a lot of sharp knives at work. i'm a painter. and i'm always flipping them in and out, and i just cut myself right here. we said, can we take a look at that? >> matthew had a cut on the webbing between his left thumb and index finger. when investigators looked more found in natalie's car, they found a similar hole in the left-hand glove between the thumb and forefinger. dna testing revealed that blood on the outside of the glove was natalie's. but the blood on the inside of the left-hand glove was matthew's.

>> the dna matched back to both, a commingling of matthew's blood and natalie's blood. and there is all this forensic evidence that starts to tell the truth as to what happened that night. >> in the mirabals' apartment, investigators found evidence of motive. matthew had purchased a $250,000 life insurance policy on natalie that was due to expire three days after her murder. the insurance company revealed that matthew originally tried to buy a million-dollar policy. >> he made $19,000 a year. so the insurance company said, you know, we don't think we're going to give you a million dollars. would you settle for $250,000? and he jumped at it. he said, yeah, i'll take $250,000. >> matthew mirabal was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. >> matthew is just pure absolute evil. the way he lived his life, what

he presented himself to be, and the way he took his wife's life, and the things that he did, not only to her, but to her family and the people around her is absolute evil. your baby is getting more than clean. your touch stimulates her senses and nurtures her mind. and the johnson's® scent, lather and bubbles help enhance the experience. so why just clean your baby when you can give her so much more™? but a lot of us leave our identities unprotected. nearly half a million cars were stolen in 2012. but for every car stolen, 34 people had their identities stolen. identity thieves can steal your money, damage your credit, and wreak havoc on your life. why risk it when you can help protect yourself

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prosecutors say the murder

of 24-year-old natalie mirabal was about money, that her husband, matthew, killed her for the $250,000 in life insurance money in order to start a new life with his brother's wife, lisa. letters and phone calls between the two indicated they were in love. on the night of the murder, matthew lured natalie out of the house. >> i suspect the pretense is that he said we need to go get my check, because he hadn't picked up his paycheck on the friday previous, which he always did and then took it the bank. he hadn't picked up that paycheck. now, i think that's how he got her out of the house, took the baby, took the diaper bag and left. >> when matthew went in to get his paycheck, he put on his new gloves and threw the shopping bag in the trash. he left his fingerprint as evidence.

he then got natalie out of the car and struck her with a piece of wood, but it splintered, so matthew strangled her to death. he loaded her body into the car, picked up the pieces of wood, and drove 20 miles into the mountains. the high-elevation plant material and the tire impressions were clear proof. prosecutors think matthew mutilated his wife's body to make the murder appear like other unsolved homicides. but in doing so, he cut his left thumb, leaving his blood on the inside of his glove. that's when matthew's plan started to fall apart. >> and especially the first timers, they don't account for that rush of emotion once they've done it. we call it the full-tilt boogie. when your mind goes into the

full-tilt boogie, you forget everything. your brains goes out the window and you start doing stupid stuff. >> among them, matthew threw most of the wood away, but forgot one piece, later found near his office by police. he scratched the right side of natalie's car with the bushes, most likely due to his visual impairment. he left the bloody gloves in the car, gloves that could tie him to the crime. and he left his daughter's diaper bag in the back seat, proof that their baby was present during the murder. >> even when you collect the forensic evidence, oftentimes, you don't know what you have. and we had the photograph of the baby bag in the car for months before it dawned upon us that he must have taken the child with him on this murder. so, it's not just that it takes a long time to collect the

forensic evidence, it also takes a lot of processing to figure out what the forensic evidence is telling you and to piece it all together. >> well, first of all, i think he thought he was going to get away with this whole -- with this whole thing and collect some insurance money, and possibly move off and live in a little fantasy world. but, you know, thanks to god, first of all, and it just didn't work out that way for him. >> although there is clear evidence that matthew was in love with his sister-in-law, lisa, investigators found letters from another woman sent to him while in prison. >> "matthew, i can't wait to hear your sound and feel you moving against me as i love you. i do want to have a wild and passionate sex life with you, but i also want us to have a romantic sex life, too." >> and there were telephone conversations between them, too. >> i love you, matt. >> i love you, janet. >> i'm all alone. >> all alone? >> uh-huh. >> so tell me something, then.

>> what do you want to tell me? >> i don't know. something nasty. i want you so bad. >> i miss you, matt. >> i miss you, janet. >> the letters and phone calls were from janet hancock, the pastor's wife. prosecutors have no evidence that either janet hancock or matthew's sister-in-law, lisa, had anything to do with natalie's murder. matthew mirabal was tried and convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. after the trial lisa mirabal divorced matthew's brother, marcus. troy and janet hancock also divorced, and the apostolic church in longmont disbanded. natalie's daughter, michaela, now lives with her grandmother. >> michaela knows that her dad

murdered her mama, took her life. >> there's not a day that doesn't go by that i don't think about you. >> she doesn't know the violent part of it. she doesn't know anything about what he did to her, nothing. i'm saving all of the newspapers for when she's older, maybe 16. i'll bring them out to her and -- i don't know exactly. the time will come, you know, i will judge that when we cross that bridge. >> investigators point to this case as a textbook example of how forensic science can decipher a complicated crime scene. >> this case wouldn't have been solved without forensic science. we had nothing in the way of interviews as far as getting anybody to confess. we had nothing in the way of any other evidence, other than the forensic evidence that we were able to identify. >> in most of my closing arguments, i used to quote

oliver wendell holmes who said, "memories may fade and witnesses dissemble, but circumstances never lie." and the circumstances of this case are forensic circumstances and they did not lie. a drive-by shooting on an alaskan highway. and a bomb sent through the mail. two apparently random acts of senseless violence, until forensic science discovered an important link. on an october night in 1990, rob chamberlain and his friend were driving along glenn highway in anchorage, alaska, headed to a local restaurant. as he approached the exit ramp, chamberlain heard a loud crack. he looked band