. >> tonight on 20/20 saturday, a kroo courtroom showdown. >> who is your daughter? >> my daughter is paige >> a father with a daughter who had a secret life. divorced soccer mom by day, something else by night. >> did you give her reasons why you wanted her to quit? >> because she could get killed for one. >> so who did it? >> does it make you nervous that we think you did something? >> no. >> it should. >> there's not a lot of people

around. >> tonight, a "20/20" investigation piecing it all together. >> it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. >> it is. and we found a lot of needles. >> she was extremely scared. >> 911 what is your emergency? >> that car smelled a dead body in the backseat of this car? and dozens of calls from men who wanted her her last night. >> this is buddy. >> hey, this is jason. >> i many name is bill. >> with no lack of suspects. >> i have lied about a lot of things. >> do you think he killed her? >> now the jury says it knows who kill ed a soccer mom of three's secret

life has become open in a courtroom. ryan smith has the very latest on this long journey to justice. >> reporter: grand junction. the largest city on colorado's western slope, home to these breathtaking mesas, and a pleasure center for adventurers. a place where it's easy to get lost, and hard to be found. >> hi mom, i was just wondering where you been? >> reporter: thursday, june 28th, 2007. 8-year old jess dixon picks up the phone and calls her mom, paige birgfeld. >> hey mom, you are really, really mean. you said you would be back before dark and you haven't even been back. >> reporter: jess is worried. it's getting late and the 34-year old single mother of three hasn't come home. >> paige. please, please, please call someone. >> reporter: by friday morning, even more worry. paige's father, frank, can't reach his daughter either.

>> give me a call on my cell phone. this is dad, bye. >> reporter: all of the calls going straight to voicemail. >> paige, this is carol. what's going on? i hope you're all right. >> reporter: close friend and babysitter carol linderholm remembers becoming increasingly concerned. >> at first i thought, well, she's probably really busy, and then i kept calling her and there was no response. >> it's carol. where the heck are you? >> she said it was completely out of character to abandon her kids. >> she always created costumes for her kids and had dance classes for the toddlers. her life was centered around the children. >> reporter: so the children were really attached to paige? >> definitely so. >> reporter: by saturday, it's a full panic. a family friend walks daughter jess, the oldest of three, into the mesa county sheriff's department to file a missing persons report.

they gave her father the news -- she has vanished. >> i thought this isn't someone who wouldn't come home. there's a crime here. >> frank doesn't waste a minute. he jumps in the car and drives the 200 miles from denver to grand junction. >> when my dad called me to tell me that paige was missing, it's the first time i had heard him cry since i was a little kid. >> reporter: saturday evening, frank birgfeld finally arrives in grand b junction. >> we searched the house, we ser searched the property. by about 9:30 they had blood hounds on the grounds trooing to see whether there was a trail leading away from the house. then sunday night, a disturbing development. >> what's your emergency? >> there's a car on fire in the

parking lot. >> paige's ford red focus is discovered on fire in a parking lot two miles from her home. >> do you see flames or smoke? >> yeah, there's a lot of flames. but there's nobody around that i could see. >> reporter: by the time firefighters rooi s arrive, the able to salvage little. the car is vandalized. the fire ruled arson. >> we have a lot of work to do and we don't know where paige is at. >> the front seat on the driver's side is pushed all the way back. they asked a woman paige's height to try to reach the pedals. she can't. plus there's this -- paige's daily planner survives the blaze, almost laminated by the plastic keeping it intact. but someone has ripped out four days of pages. >> they found the dates, 26, 27,

28, 29 had been torn out. tells me somebody thought those days were incriminating. >> reporter: suddenly, the missing person's case is beginning to look more like a kidnapping. >> this isn't a situation where paige left on her own volition. >> reporter: frank birgfeld goes to the crime scene, and the reality begins to sink in. >> you know, it occurred to me, i haven't cried in a long time. i've learned how to do that. that's it. >> reporter: the family prays, waits, and worries. but paige's mom, suzie, never gives up hope. >> i hope that she's safe. we want her to come home for her children and family. >> reporter: she wonders who would want to hurt her daughter? the stunning young woman with the long, strawberry blonde hair, just 34 years old. >> she'd enter a room and people turn heads. >> reporter: tell me about the time you first met.

>> i drove up to her house, knocked on the door, she opened the door and i said, "oh, my gosh," i said, "you're so beautiful." [ laughter ] >> and she says so sweetly, "i haven't been told that in so long." >> reporter: but linderholm soon learns there's trouble lurking behind paige's façade. the soccer mom with model looks is twice divorced. she struggles emotionally and financially after her second marriage crumbles. >> paige had definitely fallen on hard times. >> reporter: journalist carol mckinley is following the case for "20/20." >> she's suddenly broke, but she's used to living the high life. her friends told me her ex-husband wasn't helping at all with all of those bills. >> things happened. they got divorced. she ended up with the house, and that was her home. >> reporter: but this was no ordinary home. >> at one point, paige is paying a staggering $6,000 a month for that million dollar home. >> so paige starts taking odd

jobs to pay fer mounting bills. >> all these crazy jobs. she's selling cooking products for a company called pampered chef, selling baby slings -- she's even teaching children dance classes. >> reporter: and suddenly her three small children have no idea if they'll ever see mom alive again. as soon as paige's car is discovered abandoned in that parking lot, the search parties assemble. back in 2007, "20/20" accompanied frank, and more than 200 volunteers flanked out in fields just south of grand junction looking for any sign of paige in the scorching colorado heat. connie led those official searches back in 2007. how many people would be out here? >> we had anywhere from 150 to 220 a day. >> reporter: so 150 to 220 people a day walking these mountains and hills looking for paige. anything they could find? >> yes. >> reporter: when we come back, frank birgfeld expands his search, desperate for any clue that might lead to his

daughter's recovery. >> she's out there somewhere and i can't protect her. >> reporter: while investigators seem to wonder if paige's complicated love life with two ex-husbands has something to do with her disappearance.hat is y?

>> "20/20" saturday continues with "soccer mom by day."

>> i mean, this is big country here. >> reporter: 24 days after paige birgfeld vanishes without a trace -- >> we look along the bank, look in a snag. >> reporter: -- her father, frank, moves his search to this vast canvas, the winding colorado river. >> i don't know when you give up. when do you say, "she's gone?" i don't know. >> reporter: weeks turn into months as investigators and volunteer searchers paddle through murky waters and trudge through dessert scrub brush, but connie flukey says there is no sign of paige. how daunting was this search? >> this was one of the hardest searches that i personally have been on. >> reporter: like trying to find a needle in a haystack. >> it was, but we found a lot of needles. >> reporter: perhaps the biggest clue came from the unlikeliest of sources. a motorist got a flat tire and pulled along the side of this road to fix it and then notices

something strange -- paige's checkbook. investigators soon find paige's personal checks, business cards and other personal items dropped all along this road. how important was that trail of breadcrumbs left along highway 50 for your search? >> i think it was very important for the case, and i think it was very important for the family too, just to know she was brought to that area. >> reporter: but, who abducted paige birgfeld? when a divorced mother goes missing, it's only a matter of time before the police zero in on the ex. in paige's case, she had two. starting with ron beigler. journalist carol mckinley says the two were teenage sweethearts. >> paige did have big dreams out of high school. she went to florida to go to school, wanted to be a midwife. but ron beigler followed her out there. her grades start failing and she drops out. >> reporter: ron and paige move back to colorado. they have a huge wedding set on a peak over looking the denver skyline, but their youthful rush

to the altar ends as quickly as it starts. >> early on paige made it real clear to ron she wanted children. she adored children. but ron wanted no part of that. it turned out to be a deal breaker. her friends say she got a divorce after two years. >> reporter: in the wake of that divorce, she meets rob dixon, an emergency medical technician who friends say really didn't need to work because he came from a wealthy family. >> her in-laws, the dixons, were loaded. they made a fortune getting in on early technology with cell phones. >> reporter: that family fortune lined their son rob's pockets for years. >> he loved spending his daddy's money. he had six sports cars. >> reporter: in a town full of pick up trucks, rob dixon is driving a bright yellow ferrari. >> that definitely got everyone's attention. she was being showered with gifts. there were bracelets, a $12,000 necklace. >> reporter: rob pops the question with an $85,000 thousand engagement ring. the newlyweds start a family right away. first, there's daughter jess,

followed by two adorable boys -- taft and trigger. >> i'm six and a half, and my sister is eight, and my baby brother is 3 and a half. >> they appear to be the perfect family. they have beautiful children in the expensive home, they're living a champagne life in what's really a six pack town. everything is going well, but then the bottom falls out. >> reporter: paige's dad says dixon makes a series of bad investments, and those bad investments lead to some bad blood. >> i think as rob's wealth kind of toppled, i think he came under more and more pressure, and it bled out into the relationship. >> reporter: then one night in 2004, this -- >> what is your emergency? >> my husband and i were in a fight, and he was supposed to watch my children while i went to work. and he said that i would come home and find them all murdered. >> reporter: no charges were filed against dixon that year. but twelve months later he is charged with assault -- slapping and punching paige.

later this year, the couple divorced. >> she had some scary times but she got out of them. >> reporter: paige's friends barbara campbell, rina stockmeyer and andrea land spoke to "20/20"'s john quinones in 2007. >> lately, she was very concerned about him being around the kids. she had a lot of worry that it wasn't a healthy situation. >> reporter: then in march 2007, paige writes this bone-chilling blog -- "my children would ask me if dad was going to kill me. i can't imagine what life would be like for them after he killed me." >> the first person you thought might have done this? >> rob was the first person that came to mind. >> my immediate thought on this thing was, rob dixon. >> reporter: to investigators, that all sounds like homicide 101 -- a roadmap leading right to rob dixon. except dixon has an airtight alibi the night paige disappears.

his cell phone records indicate he's 2,000 miles away at his new home in philadelphia the night paige goes missing. >> it quickly scratches dixon off the list. he's effectively alibied because he's on the east coast. but then investigators turn their focus to paige's first husband who lives four hours away in aurora, colorado. >> reporter: and here's why -- it turns out that paige had rekindled her romance with her first love, ron beigle, and was with him just hours before she vanishes, having a picnic at this park in eagle, colorado. >> it wasn't anything that was out of the ordinary. we just decided to meet that day. eagle was the halfway point for both of us. we left at the same time and arrived back in our towns at approximately the same time. she called me to make sure i made it back into denver and that's the last i ever heard from her. >> i need to talk to you about a missing person emergency. >> reporter: two days later, beigler calls 911 to report his

ex-wife missing. >> i saw her all day on thursday and then i talked to her when she got back in town. she is definitely missing because she would never leave her children. >> reporter: her first husband, ron. she was with him that day. she leaves him. he's the last person to see her. but he was ruled out pretty quickly? >> effectively alibied by cell phone, et cetera. >> reporter: former district attorney pete hautziner says like dixon, beigler has an alibi, too. cell phone records place biegler four hours away in denver the night paige disappears, making it impossible for him to be in grand junction. so if it wasn't either of paige's exes, who might have had it in for paige? >> a major complication in the case was the fact that there's such a large number of alternative suspects who have to be eliminated by virtue of what she did for a living. >> reporter: when we come back, the secret life of the soccer mom exposed. was it just massages or was it something more? the baby-sitter's revelation about why paige birgfeld may have been in harm's way with dozens of men. >> it was after hours. and as she was getting ready to leave, she sees this truck pull up. she just wanted out of there. she was extremely scared. >> reporter: see wha

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. >> "20/20 saturday" continues with "soccer mom by day." >> reporter: nightfall in grand junction, as shadows grow long beneath the cliffs of the western rockies, secrets have easy hiding places. friend and part-time baby sitter carol linderholm recalls the night when 34-year-old paige birgfeld had a date with danger. >> she had a call to meet somebody at her office. the building was closed, it was after hours, and she'd see this white truck. she went downstairs to the car, and as she was getting ready to leave, she sees this truck pull up. she just wanted out of there. and the white pickup took off. >> was she shaken by this? >> she was extremely scared. she told me about it and she

says, "i've never been so scared in my life." >> reporter: in the light of day, paige's office, where she was selling pampered chef cookware, was located in this non-discript, cluster of commercial office spaces. but after hours, paige reveals to only a few close friends it was also a front for "pampering" a much different brand, a side-business she was running named, "models, inc." >> what did she do? >> bachelor parties. >> reporter: paige's double identity is still a touchy subject for those with whom she shared this dirty little secret, as we found when talking to some of them in 2007. >> she was learning to give massages. but, you know, lots of people give massages. so, i knew she was doing a little extra on the side, but it fit perfectly. >> reporter: the little extra was that paige, for the right price, would perform those ma e

a -- massages topless. surprisingly, even her ex ron beigler knew, and seemed to give it a rubber stamp. >> average call was $450. there was no sexual touch touching. no sexual contact. no intercourse. that kind of thing, she charged more for each little thing that came off. >> reporter: in fact, she had this ad in the local paper, calling herself, "carrie, "and even posting a picture on a website called, "naughty nightlife." former district attorney pete hautzinger puts it this way. >> i can't really say i ever knew exactly what specific services she was running. it was clearly an adult escort service. it was clearly highly unusual for western colorado. >> reporter: in her profile, paige seemed pretty adept at double-entendre, boasting, "tired of chopped meat showing up when you ordered filet mignon?" >> she didn't tell you about this other life she was leading? >> reporter: "2020's" john quinones first spoke to paige's family in 2007. >> i think she realized that we would not approve. and actually now that i know

about it, i think she was trying to keep the house and the kids together. >> it's not exactly what a brother likes to hear his little sister is doing. i'm continually having to talk about things that if i heard people talking about them in the locker room after a football game, i'd beat the crap out of the guys. but, it was part of her life. and, like it or not, that's the way she chose to provide for her kids. >> reporter: paige's former roomate, jaime sivernail says that was the only conceivable reason the otherwise wholesome single mom of three would moonlight as a sexy massuese. >> she felt like it's something she needed to do to be able to keep a roof over their head and put food on the table. >> she needed the money? >> yeah, yeah. she's one more single mom out there trying to figure out a way to make ends means without her kids suffering. >> reporter: it wasn't until after paige's disappearance, that the shocking news of her side business came to light. when it did, it spread like a wildfire across a dry colorado mesa. >> investigators say she was a

mom who led a secret double life, running her own escort service. >> reporter: paige now had the proverbial scarlet letter on her chest. >> when it came out that she ran an escort service it dwindled down to practically nothing. nobody cared anymore because she was that sort of woman. >> reporter: but investigators care, and they learn the night paige birgfeld disappears, she receives dozens of calls from men seeking her services. >> yes this is buddy. i was wondering if you had any girls available this afternoon. >> hey this is jim. i'm going to go get me a motel room now. >> hello my name is bill. just calling to see if anybody's still available for the night. >> a major complication in the case was the fact that there's such a large number of alternative suspects. >> reporter: which brings us back to that office parking lot, the spot where paige ran models, inc. and a burning question, who was that man in the white truck who frightened paige birgfeld right now. >> what are you driving right

now? >> a pickup. >> why? >> police have a suspicion, but is this the right man? when we come back, big breaks in the case. a confrontation. >> bang on the door. i said i know what you did to paige. >> a discovery in a canyon. >> many searchers had been up that gulch right in that area.

disappearance of paige birgfeld have little to go on. all that's come to light is a burned out ford focus, a monthly planner with missing pages, and the clues strewn like breadcrumbs along a desolate colorado highway. the escort missing mom who called herself "carrie" had

dozens of clients, and now one of them is called in for questioning. >> and you are, um -- mr. johnson, right? >> jones. >> jones. you know what? that's funny. sorry about that. okay. >> reporter: he's 55-year old lester jones, a local rv mechanic who's married, with a rap sheet as long as a winnebago. >> i'm guessing you can probably guess as to what we're investigating? >> he just said he's investigating the disappearance of a young lady. >> okay. >> reporter: without a lawyer present, homicide detective lissah norcross questions jones about the proximity of the garage where he works and the spot where paige's scorched sedan is recovered. >> does it make you nervous that we may think you did something? >> no. >> it should. [ laughter ] okay? it should. >> reporter: turns out, paige and jones had once been much closer. investigators discover jones had hired her for a pricey

$400 erotic massage a year earlier. >> and what are you wearing? >> um, i had nothing on. >> okay, and her? >> she had nothing on. >> okay. >> we did not have sex. >> okay. >> she tells me up front she doesn't do sex. >> okay. >> reporter: but then they find out jones is one of several men feverishly calling paige in the days before she disappears. >> lester jones was calling and calling her. >> reporter: carol linderholm tells investigators jones made another appointment with paige the day before she went missing. this time paige is worried that jones has figured out her true identity. so she sends carol on the call instead. >> what was your first impression when you walked in the door? >> fear. [ laughter ] >> reporter: really? >> yeah, he's a very large overpowering person. >> reporter: what's the first thing he said to you? >> um, "i want sex." i -- i looked at him and i said, "then you should probably call another escort service, 'cause it's not gonna happen with me."

that's not what i'm here for. >> reporter: no sex, but lots of talk. and the topic? paige birgfeld. carol says he seems obsessed with paige. and sure enough, he tells her he recognizes paige as the once wealthy wife of rob dixon. >> you knew when you saw her the first time that she was rob dixon's ex-wife. >> yeah. i knew that. >> okay. >> reporter: during 2 1/2 hours of questioning, jones cooperates fully, letting them take his fingerprints, giving them his dna, and handing over the keys to his truck. >> what are you driving right now? >> it's a white dodge pickup. >> white? >> reporter: a white pickup. could it be the same white pickup that frightened paige that night outside her office? the no-nonsense detective norcross puts the screws to the rv mechanic. >> do you know where she is? >> no. >> do you know what happened to her? >> no. >> now, i have to be convinced of that.

>> i can't convince you of it. i -- i don't know what happened to her. >> reporter: before she disappeared, paige had gotten five calls from a mystery man calling from a disposable tracfone. jones denies it was him. he tells investigators he doesn't even own a tracfone. >> did you buy a tracfone? >> no, sir. >> never bought a tracfone? >> never. >> reporter: cops search his home and scour the mechanic's workspace at the rv shop in grand junction. they find viagra, condoms, a black victoria's secret bra, and under his desk, a gasoline can. >> now, you may think, "well, maybe he used the gas can. it's rv repair. maybe they had a gas can." no. police question the owners and co-workers and there was no reason for him to have a gas can at his workspace. do you have a gas can at your workspace? because i don't. >> reporter: but the most compelling evidence -- in the trash. packaging for a disposable tracfone, just like the one

jones swears he doesn't own. abc news chief legal analyst, dan abrams. >> he is claiming, didn't have a tracfone. >> reporter: investigators track that disposable phone to this wal-mart. security cameras pick up a man that looks a lot like lester jones purchasing it. >> i have you on video buying a tracfone at walmart. >> no, sir. >> yes, sir. >> no, sir. >> the fact he appears to have lied about it makes it that much more incriminating. >> reporter: desperate for more direct evidence, detectives fly in trained dogs to search paige's burned out car. k-9 handler julie jones shows us how she says they found the scent of death. >> they smelled the dead body in the backseat of the car?

>> a dead body in the car. >> reporter: a dead body in the back seat. and in the front seat, the one pushed way back? the handler says, the smell of a man. who else did the dog find in this car? >> he was given the scent of lester jones and he found the scent of lester jones in the driver's seat of this vehicle. >> reporter: 6'4", 275-pound lester jones. but many question the science of dog scent evidence. >> problem with the dog? you can't cross-examine him. >> reporter: and the rest of the case against jones is circumstantial -- without paige's body, hautzinger is reluctant to press charges. >> we were all sure she was dead. we were sure she was murdered. but i was unwilling to file charges until i actually had a body. >> reporter: the case went cold until an afternoon in march of 2012. a hiker hiking not far from the highway, just a short distance from where paige's personal items were found, made an astonishing discovery. down in this gulch, in a dry streambed, amid all of these

rocks and weeds and brush, were human remains, the daughter that frank and suzie had been searching for, for five long years. >> there's no soft tissue left. all she is, is a skeleton. >> reporter: unfortunately, the years have hidden the cause of her death. one clue that it was violent -- duct tape wrapped around the skull. >> sheriff's office arrested lester jones in morning in connection to paige birgfeld's death. >> you have immediate prosecution. >> reporter: next, the trial of lester jones, the man charged with paige birgfeld's murder. and the men defense attorneys say should be. >> let me talk to you about a few of the real killers in this case. >> i have lied about a lot of things to protect me. >> i would have put her in a wood chipper. >> this is john at motel 6.

i was just checking to see if you had somebody coming out or not. >> is that your voice, sir? >> yes. >> does

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>> announcer: "20/20" saturday continues with "soccer mom by d day." >> reporter: getting to the mesa county justice center is easy, go to grand junction, can't miss it. but getting justice for murdered soccer mom paige birgfeld? much harder. it has taken nearly a decade. finally, just weeks ago, her alleged killer was hauled into court. there he is, lester jones. >> today, a man accused of murdering a single mother is said to stand trial in junction. >> he is charged with kidnapping and murdering paige -- >> whose remains were found in deal the county. >> reporter: he will be a hard man to convict. >> i would like to say, the jury, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. it probably is a duck. >> man it's like a dagger.

>> reporter: the court gets a workout. the prosecution calling 80 people to the stand. investigators and experts, dentists and former call girls, hikers and dog handlers. wlafs what was your understanding of where he was? the prosecution theory? sometime after 8:57p.m. -- the time of the last known call from her cell phone - jones kidnaps and kills paige, then uses her own car to dispose of her body in that gulch down highway 50 . a few nights later, telling his wife he has to go out. >> where did he say he was going? >> back to the shop. he thought he left the lights on that morning and wanted to get them turned off. >> reporter: investigators believe, instead, he takes that opportunity to burn paige's car, incinerating any evidence of his crime. in his police interview, jones himself conceding things don't look good. >> her car was found next door. i have no alibi for sunday night when the car caught on fire.

i have no alibi for the whole week and i called multiple times. >> reporter: prosecutors close their case with a star witness, jones ex-wife, lisa nance. >> he said i'm going to kill you and he just slapped me repeatedly. i could taste blood. i grabbed his hand and asked him to stop. >> reporter: nance says in the late '90s, when their marriage was ending, jones kidnapped her at gunpoint and threatened to kill her. >> he said he was going to put me in the bottom of the lake where no one would find me. >> reporter: she escaped, and jones served five years in prison. but then lester jones' defense attorneys get their turn. they argue jones is the wrong man and proceed to present a parade of alternate suspects. there's john livingston. >> i did call some services back then and dumb, but i did. >> reporter: a ranch hand waiting for paige at motel 6 the night she disappeared. >> this is john at motel 6, room 237. i was just checking to see if you had somebody coming out or

not. >> you called a company models, inc. that day? >> right. >> reporter: he says she never showed up. >> do you have anything to do with disappearance of paige birgfeld? >> no. >> have anything to do the murder of paige birgfeld? >> no. >> reporter: then, there's wayne d'amico - a car salesman and another of paige's clients. >> did you know paige birgfeld? >> at some point set up a time and we hung out together on a professional basis. >> you paid her money? >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: he admits he joked about disposing of her body. >> i said if i had something to do with it, i would have put her in a woodchipper. believe me. if i could take something back, i would take that back right now. >> reporter: but the woman who heard him say it, a former 'call-girl,' kristy steves, was worried enough to call the police. >> i typically have

intuition. i was under the influence of drugs but i believed him. i really did. >> did it scare you? >> yeah. >> reporter: if anyone had a motive, defense attorney's say, it was steven heald. >> i had no reason to want her dead. >> reporter: the construction manager, who embezzled $17,000 of his company's money, supposedly buying pampered chef products from paige. >> she created an invoice. i'd paid the invoice. the invoice would say "pampered chef," or some other type of work, but it was for sex. >> reporter: heald first tells detectives paige was blackmailing him to hide their relationship, but then changes his story. >> that's the dumbest thing i ever said. she never blackmailed me. our relationship was mutual. >> reporter: but heald has an alibi for the night paige disappeared. his ex-wife says for once, he was where he belonged -- at home with her. >> you have every reason to basically throw him under the bus, wouldn't you say? >> yes.

and i would have. >> reporter: but if anyone might give this jury reasonable doubt, defense attorneys say it is this man -- another client - george coralluzzo. a painter, with a colorful past. theft, burglary, dui and kidnapping. phone records show in the hours before paige goes missing, coralluzzo is robo-dialing her something like 20 times trying to set up a massage date. >> it boiled down to lester jones or coralluzzo and i was the stick in the mud, frankly saying, "yeah, i think we have a case against lester jones, but i'm not convinced that we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt until coralluzzo has been effectively eliminated. >> reporter: two days after paige disappears, an acquaintance of george coralluzzo, meghan williams says he came to her in a panic.

claiming he had to leave town in a hurry because his family had been killed in a car crash, which was a lie. >> was he acting like someone who did something very bad and was trying to get away? >> he was emotional. he was sad. he was frantic. he was just like, you know, "i gotta do things. i gotta go. i gotta go. i can't be here. >> do you think he killed paige birgfeld? >> i do think he killed paige birgfeld. and i have stuck with that since day one. >> reporter: but prosecutors say coralluzzo was thoroughly investigated and eliminated as the killer. coralluzzo can't testify - because he drowned in a new jersey river in 2011. which brings us back to the case against lester jones and two final bizarre pieces of the puzzle. soon after police interrogated him, jones attempts suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. coincidentally, he gets a call from detectives soon afterward, they're simply trying to arrange the return of his now notorious white pickup. >> mr. jones? >> yes, sir. >> this is art smith with the sheriff's office. >> reporter: but a groggy jones makes a bizarre statement. >> you asked if me where i would bury a body? >> i'm sorry? >> you asked me where i should bury a body? >> when did i ask you that?

>> reporter: does that sound like some sort of accidental confession? what will the jury make of it? >> please rise for the jury. >> reporter: when we comeback, a courtroom stunner. gus is a handful. we don't know what this thing is, but someday, gus will because this is the thing that gus will build that will change the world. and this is the thing that could change gus' world. gus doesn't know what this thing is, but we know what this thing is. this is the thing we'll help gus get rid of. and without this thing, gus can grow up to build this thing, whatever that thing is, because that's what we do. we do health things, and we do those things for northern california, birthplace of pioneers.

>> announcer: "20/20" saturday continues with "soccer mom by day". >> reporter: frank and suzie birgfeld spent their summer here at the mesa county courthouse to bear witness to the prosecution of lester jones. he's the man they believe murdered their daughter, paige, back in 2007. it's been nine long years, for you to get to this place. that courthouse right there? >> man, you know what, it -- it's like we're on a merry-go-round. except the merry-go-round doesn't stop. >> reporter: the prosecution's closing argument? reminding the jury of that young

mother, kidnapped, thrown in the back of her own car, taken off to be murdered. >> paige must have been so scared. it is hard to even imagine what was going through her head as she was laying either in the back of the vehicle or in the trunk. >> reporter: when it's their turn, attorney's for lester jones say there was a virus in the investigation. >> they screwed up this investigation from the get-go! let's talk about who's the real killer. >> reporter: the judge sent the 12 jurors, nine men and three women, off to deliberate. >> it's not an easy case. it's not a simple case, and just one juror could derail a conviction for prosecutors. >> reporter: and sure enough, the case that confounded the nation for almost a decade stymied this jury too. >> we are unable to come to a unanimous decision. >> reporter: the judge declaring a mistrial. afterwards, the jurors spoke,

revealing nine of them thought jones was guilty, but there were three holdouts. >> nobody in their mind thought that there was -- that he didn't do something wrong. that he committed this crime. it's the fact that there was not enough evidence for them to get past the reasonable doubt. >> reporter: but the prosecutor wasted in time retrying jones a second time this past november. and this time a new jury locking at the same evidence with fresh eyes, convicts lester jones of first degree murder. >> we, the jury, find lester ralph jones guilty of count one, murder in the first degree. >> nine years and two trials later -- >> a junction mother -- >> reporter: the rv mechanic was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole two days after christmas. as for paige's father, we

accompanied him back to that dusty, dirt road to the desolate gault where his daughter's body was discovered. >> we all think we're going to live to 100. and, then you get a phone call like i did. >> reporter: it's now a makeshift memorial, where a grieving father can finally put this case and his daughter to rest. >> you know, i hear this term closure, and i'm not exactly sure what that is. it's not like we turn the switch off and she's out of our lives. >> paige birgfeld, never out of her parents' thoughts. that's our program for tonight. thank you so much for watching. i'm elizabeth vargas. for david close call, a bay area man makes his way over the fence