most people would call the police if they found their husband dead on the floor in their living room. >> what i did was absolutely horrible, but it's the absolute truth. >> she's in prison for murdering her husband. but she swears she's innocent. >> they look like a slightly struggling but optimistic young couple. mike, up at the air force base. wendi, building her new veterinary practice. >> at what point did this apparent dream life sour? and why? >> michael said that his marriage was rocky and that he was thinking about getting out. >> it was on this ranch that police found a decomposing body,

believed to be that of 24-year-old dyess staff sergeant michael severance. >> michael severance survived five tours of duty in the middle east. but he did not survive five months of marriage to wendi davidson. >> he was telling her that he had a secret mission he was going on. i said, wendi, that man hasn't got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot. >> you can't make this stuff up. like, dean koontz couldn't make this up. >> how is it that a wife finds the only way to get rid of a husband is through murder? it doesn't sound right. it doesn't feel right. >> i did not kill him. >> we all know that wendi is a pathological liar. >> who killed mike severance if it wasn't her? ♪ i'm traveling to the gatesville correctional

facility, about an hour west of waco. i'm there to meet wendi mae davidson, the former veterinarian, current convicted murderer. from day one she has insisted she wasn't responsible for the death of her husband, staff sergeant michael severance. when you do interviews like this, you always wonder what it's going to be like looking into the eyes of a killer. but wendi doesn't look or act like any of the killers i've talked to. i'm going to cut to the chase and get right to business. you know, you've basically kept your silence for 15 years. why did you decide to do this first network interview? >> i was kind of advised from the get-go, it'd be best not to talk. it seems like that hasn't done me any favors. so, i want my side of the story, what happened heard. so, i want people to know what did and didn't happen.

♪ >> wendi's story starts here in wst texas. >> san angelo is a funny little town because it's so isolated. there's just acres and acres and miles and miles of nothing leading up to san angelo. >> it's pioneer country. it's ranchers. it's people who go to church, have very traditional values. marriage, family, raising your children right, these are gonna be the priorities for most people. >> we are out here on our own. the closest town really of any size is an hour and a half away. so the people take care of the people here. >> in the 1980s in san angelo, texas, a bright little girl named wendi mae davidson grows up on what's a modest ranch. it's a quiet life with her father, lloyd, who's a handyman, her stay-at-home mom, judy, and her younger brother, marshall. >> wendi was a happy little

child. animals became her life. in fact, by the age of 7, she knew she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. >> wendi excelled as a student. she had to work hard, and she really worked hard. she was driven in a lot of ways to succeed. >> wendi took part in future farmers of america events and volunteered at a local veterinary clinic while she was still a student at water valley high school. >> she went to school with my daughter. she was just fun loving and she was out going and she was very responsible. >> 2,000 miles to the northeast is another small town -- lee, maine. >> it's very small, very, very depopulated. lots of open land, but all of it choked with trees as thick as any jungle. >> this area, you get all four seasons, so during the summer you're rollerblading, you're biking, you're outside in the summer.

you're outside in the winter. there's always something to do. >> in this deeply rural countryside, a little boy named michael severance also grows up in a close-knit family with his mom, dad, and younger brother, frank. >> michael loved the snow. he loved being outdoors. he went hunting. he went fishing. he went skiing. he wanted to do everything. downhill, cross-country, you name it. and he excelled at it. and he was of the fabric of the woods of maine. >> and michael's family still lives up here in north maine. >> hi, matt. welcome to maine. >> thanks for having us. >> this way. >> appreciate it, thank you. >> tell me about mike. what was he like growing up? >> i had a great son.

he was a very, very good man. he put other people first. i can show you document after document, letters after letters, of his co-workers and such that say the same thing. mike, kind of my superman.er, - he was always, always there when i needed him. >> tragedy hits this family early on, when michael's mother suddenly collapses with a brain aneurysm. >> i believe he was around 13 or 14 when his mom died. i think frankie was 11. >> tough age to lose your mom. >> yes. >> it was a shock to the system. we, as family, mike, dad, myself, we didn't know how to function without her. it was challenging. there were nights were i would cry myself to sleep, and he would be there rubbing my back or just kind of telling me, you

know, everything's going to be okay. >> near the end of high school, what were his career ambitions or just ambitions in general? >> i said, i suggest the military. and a little while later he came to me and said, dad, i'm going to enlist in the air force. >> this was the life-changing event, for him to join the air force, to do the things that he had always dreamed of doing in terms of adventure and being part of a team. >> mike was stationed at the air force base in abilene, which is about an hour and a half from san angelo. he loved the job because of the camaraderie, because of the sense of adventure, and because of the feeling he got from knowing he was doing something to serve his country. that meant a lot to him. >> joining the air force is a turning point in michael's life. being a part of that air force team and then ending up in texas, certainly he was a fish

out of water in many ways in texas. >> there are a lot of ifs about this case. if only michael had never left maine. if only he'd never joined the air force. if only he'd never been stationed in abilene, texas. but all of that did happen to a young man with a promising military career ahead of him. and then, he met wendi. >> i mean, i wish i could do it all over again, you know. i don't think i was a terrible person. i think i just made a really horrible mistake. >> a lot of people were pretty certain that something was wrong. >> at what point did this apparent dream life sour and why?

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♪ long before wendi mae davidson crosses paths with michael severance, she's an aspiring young woman with a dream of working with animals. even as a teenager at water

valley high school, she has plans to become a veterinarian. her younger brother, marshall, has ambitions to go into law enforcement. and at the heart of the family is judy, a powerful personality who's got high hopes for her children. >> the davidson family was -- people describe them as close-knit and i, i always thought that meant guarded. >> going way back, who was wendi mae davidson? who were you? >> i grew up on a farm, so my life pretty much revolved around animals. i mean, i liked to go out and have fun, but for the most part, animals, veterinary medicine, my family, that was pretty much me. >> by almost all accounts, the person closest to wendi, the central figure in her life is judy, a strong and loving

mother. judy saw the potential in her daughter and was determined to help her fulfil it. in 1996, wendi graduates second in her class from water valley high school. >> judy wanted her daughter to be successful. there was a lot of a lot of drive in that family. >> and success in high school leads to success in college for wendi. >> wendi went to texas a&m, which is one of the toughest veterinary schools, and she did very well. but she was also rebellious. she also wanted to have fun. >> i think in some ways, once she tasted freedom, she just went overboard. >> and she got pregnant while still in texas a&m. >> in october 2001, tristan is born. now, wendi says that her relationship with tristan's father falls apart, leaving her a single mother and a student. >> her mom moved across the state of texas to live with wendi, to care for the infant so

that wendi could continue to go to school. >> wendi graduates with a veterinary degree in may 2002, and she heads back to west texas. gets her first job as a vet in abilene. meanwhile michael severance is also in abilene, stationed at dyess air force base. >> after several deployments to combat zones in the middle east, mike continues to build a terrific career and assume greater levels of responsibility as a c-130 crew chief. so, he loved the air force, was doing really well. >> the worlds of wendi mae davidson and michael severance are about to collide. >> mike and wendi met when he was out line dancing. and i think she just was drawn to him like a magnet. >> i was there with a friend,

and he came and asked me to dance. and i had an emergency call before long, so i had to go see a pet. something i normally wouldn't do, i gave him my phone number just because i had to leave, and i figured i might never see this guy again. >> they had a flash romance. i think they just hit it off immediately. >> he was quite surprised when she called up and said, hello, i'm pregnant with your child. >> despite only knowing each other for a couple of months, the couple decides they want to make a go of it, and wendi introduces mike to her family. >> mike probably didn't make the best impression on the davidson family. they probably think he's a little bit too much of a playboy, a guy who's out at the bars trying to pick up women. judy did not like him from the

outset. >> why didn't your family like mike? >> um, i think it was probably primarily my mom. she never liked any guy i ever dated. she always felt like they weren't good enough. mike came along, she thought that he was rude. >> in what way rude? >> one story she told me was when we were staying at her house overnight, she told me she saw him walking in the hallway to the bathroom at night in his boxer shorts, and she thought that was disrespectful. >> judy described mike as lazy and claimed he'd get angry if anyone asked him to do anything, so she said she kept her distance from him. >> i think she looked at him as kind of a scrub. he's come into her life, and the first thing he does is get her pregnant. >> so, i found out i was pregnant with shane.

but it was just -- things happened out of order. >> kind of sounds like the pregnancy forced you into marriage? >> he asked me, you know, do you wanna get married now? and i -- of course i wanted to you know, i wasn't going to pressure him. >> in september 2004, wendi's second child, shane, is born. and mike makes a decision that will change his life forever. >> the wedding was in a justice of the peace office. they repeated their vows. the rings were exchanged. and that was that. >> michael's dad and brother travel to texas for the wedding, and it feels like an immediate culture clash. >> lloyd came in, and he said, you must be the dad. and i said, i am. and he said, well, i'm lloyd. we shook hands, and he turned around and left. and that was -- that was pretty much it. judy davidson came in pretty much just introduced herself and left. >> but judy remembers the day differently. she says she bought the wedding cake, paid for the dinner, and that mike never even thanked her. as for les, judy says she felt he was a bit standoffish. >> they were supposed to meet us

all for this dinner, which they never showed up, so there was animosity right from the get go. >> the davidsons want to give their daughter a hand, so they help her finance her veterinary clinic. at the back of the building, there's just enough space for a small apartment, and it's there that mike eventually moves in with wendi and the two boys. >> it was really very small and cramped for four people. it wasn't a very comfortable existence. >> wendi is trying to manage two small children, a tiny little residential area, her family, and her practice. so there's a tremendous amount of stress in this relationship for a young couple that basically are starting out with two young kids. >> and adding to these rising tensions, michael is about to be redeployed.

>> so, long days, and then on top of that he chose to live well away from the base, so ended up having to spend three hours out of every day commuting, which in itself takes a toll. >> it just becomes almost a big cauldron boiling, a situation that could easily boil over. >> michael's just returned from an air force training course and gets into an argument with wendi started yelling at him and michael's pretty much said, screw this. i'm going to take shane and go to abilene. that stirred up a hornet's nest. i'm worth it do you hear it? don't listen to the voices in your head when your heart is speaking i'm worth it because every day is an opportunity to be unapologetically you even when they don't see it even when it feels impossible it doesn't matter if they listen because you hear it i'm worth it

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♪music playing♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ nothing brings the pack together like a trip to great wolf lodge. now open in northern california. it's thursday, january 13th, four months to the day since wendi married mike. he's just gotten back from an air force training course and gets into an argument with wendi. >> and mike, without saying a word, took shane and drove up to abilene. >> just to, you know, cool off, lose steam, and he hadn't shown shane around to his friends. >> he didn't tell wendi he was leaving. but, i mean, he was upset with

wendi. >> wendi of course is losing her mind trying to figure out where he is and where he's taken their son. she's calling him but he will not answer the phone. >> there was a confrontation with him. >> when he got back he caught hell from wendi that he can't just take the baby whenever he likes. and mike said, "well, he's my son too." like, i can take my son where i want. >> wendi took michael's taking off with the baby as a sign of things to come. as a warning, a portent. >> he's now under significant pressure at home, and mike is also readying himself for redeployment, likely to the middle east. >> we learn today of two more american soldiers killed in iraq. 577 u.s. troops have died in action now since the war began. >> michael had deployed several times to the middle east after

9/11, so he knew what deployments were like, but this was the first time with this new wife, with a baby, that he would have to leave them behind and again go somewhere else on the other side of the world. and it creates a lot of anxiety and angst, so that house was under a lot of pressure, a lot of anxiety just prior to his deployment. >> it did seem you had a guy who had a good job, maybe he was about to be deployed, but was there for you and the children. he helped, he was loving to you, you guys had fun. at what point did this apparent dream life sour? and why? >> i still don't know that it ever did. everything was fine to ming but, see, i was busy. i was in the middle of trying to run this clinic i had just opened, taking care of two little babies. the only thing that i noticed that changed with mike was he was having a very hard time

driving back and forth to abilene every day. so i did notice that -- i did notice that every afternoon, he was drinking, but then he started kind of, at first i noticed he was using caffeine pills and like ephedra, something like that. he did ask me on a couple of occasions if i had anything that could help him sleep. and the only thing i ever gave him was benadryl. >> would you say that he was abusing alcohol and drugs? >> at the time, i didn't realize there was an issue. but looking back, you know, like hindsight's 20/20 and everything. so looking back obviously there was a problem. that's not normal. >> now, despite what wendi says, there was never any evidence that michael had a problem with drugs or alcohol. it seems that even with everything else they're going through, the couple has at least one thing to look forward to. >> they plan to squeeze in a trip to michael's hometown in maine before his next deployment. they book tickets for the whole family. mike, wendi, tristan and baby shane, for sunday, january 16th.

>> michael was very, very excited, because we were excited. a lot of his friends were going to get to see the baby and his new wife. >> i was very much looking forward to spending an hour or five minutes or just "hey good to see you," give him a quick hug and, hold the baby and spend some time with the baby. >> and you know, just kind of show, show tristan what snow was. i'm not even sure if wendi had ever seen snow. so it was going to be a change for them, too. >> regardless of the challenges they're facing, on friday, wendi and mike decide to go out for the evening, just the two of them. >> michael doesn't know it yet, but his days are now numbered. >> that last friday night that you went out to dinner together, probably had a few drinks. >> yes. >> do you remember anything about that night? >> we went out, we had fun, we came back. he slept in. i mean, everything seemed fine to me, you know, that night and even the next day when i saw him. >> that was friday.

you saw him saturday. >> yeah, he was at the clinic. >> and then everything gets murky. between friday night and sunday morning, we really just have wendi's version of events. >> describe to me the last time that you say you saw your husband alive. >> okay. so saturday morning, i stayed at the clinic until 3:00, and i was going to take shane and go get tristan. because we were supposed to go to maine on sunday. i saw mike, he was in the back watching tv. and i told him i was gonna go up to my parents' house and get tristan and i would be home in a little while. >> no one other than wendi knows exactly what happens next, but one thing is for sure -- mike will never be heard from again. >> and tristan started crying. he said, mommy, why are we crying? and i said, because i don't know where daddy is. i guess we're not going to go to maine.

and now please welcome ana montoya.

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it was january 16th, 2005, and that's when everything changed up here for the severance family. >> we were supposed to go to the airport to pick him up. i walked through the door and said, how come you guys aren't ready? let's go. let's go. we gotta get out. we got an hour and a half ride to bangor to pick mikey -- and mikey's wife and baby. we gotta get them. and brinda says, "you need to sit down." she said, "well, michael's missing." i said, "what do you mean, michael's missing? wendi can't find him. >> she's saying that she couldn't go to maine because she can't find michael. she's saying, maybe michael went to maine without me. >> i got to talk to wendi and ask, her what's going on, wendi? what's up?

she says, well, i don't know. i had taken his truck and gone to my mom's house, and when i got back he was gone. >> clearly michael, wendi and the boys are not catching that flight to maine. instead, wendi calls her mother, judy. did your parents know that mike disappeared? >> when i called i asked my mother, do you know where mike is? and she said, no. do you know where mike is? and i said, well, he's not here. i don't know where he is. and she said, well, you need to come up to the house right now.

so i got the boys. went up there. i went to sleep at some point. >> now, here's one of the first strange things wendi does. despite her parents telling her to call the police, wendi spends that sunday sleeping on and off throughout the day at their house. >> i'm definitely thinking, like, if my husband was missing, i wouldn't sleep, i wouldn't eat. i would be searching for him. i would be looking for him. i would be calling everybody i knew under the sun to come help me. >> and wendi does eventually call the san angelo police department at 6:43 p.m. that night, telling them her husband is missing. and a manhunt begins. >> i knew we had a missing airman, and they were in the process of looking for him. >> he'd totally fallen off the radar screen, totally disappeared. >> the very next day, wendi does something extraordinary. >> within 24 hours, she filed

for a divorce. >> bizarre as this sounds, wendi does have an excuse. it wasn't her idea, she says. it was her parents. >> i was a zombie at this point in time. just doing whatever they said. my dad took me to the attorney's office, told him whatever. >> you signed the papers though. >> of course i did. they told me to sign the papers. i -- i did what they told me to do. and i don't know why. >> not only did she file for divorce, but she got a restraining order against him. a restraining order that forbid him from writing to her, being around her, talking to her on the telephone. >> in that request for the restraining order, wendi claims she's worried michael will take shane away from her. just the day after mike went missing, that wendi filed for divorce and filed for a restraining order against mike.

>> red flag. >> in the days that follow, officers talk to wendi and visit the clinic. >> on wednesday, wendi is interviewed by the san angelo police department. she says that saturday afternoon was the last time she saw her husband. >> i walked in, and he wasn't anywhere. but i thought, well, that's not unusual. he's probably across at buffalo wild wings or maybe went down to graham's or something. he'll be back in a little bit. i started getting more worried and more worried, and i started crying. and tristan started crying. he said, mommy, why are we crying? i said, because i don't know where daddy is. and if he don't' hurry up and get back, then we can't get everything packed. i said, i guess we're not gonna go to maine. so, about 5:00, that's when i

picked up the phone and i called my parents, and said, y'all heard from mike or anything? >> days later the investigation ramps up when the san angelo police team up with the texas rangers. >> my name is shawn palmer. i'm a retired texas ranger. i joined the investigation with the tom green county sheriff's department and the san angelo police department as kind of a task force approach to the investigation. and so, we got together and came up with ideas of other leads that we could follow to find out what happened to michael. >> the investigators want to know if they can think of any reason why michael might have run off. they talk to some of his buddies. >> i believe i met him in the later part of november of 2004. i'd even told him that any time he was in san angelo to give me a shout. so, he said, i don't go down there a whole lot because my mother-in-law hates me and she wished i was dead. and i kind of giggled about it, and he said, no, i'm serious. i just thought, well, maybe he's had enough of it and kind of went for a few days away. and then i learned he left his

car and his cell phone. and i thought that was really strange because, you know, everybody lives by both nowadays. and that's when i really began to wonder if something was really going on. >> the more the rangers dig, the more they discover just how unhappy michael appears to be in his marriage. >> during the investigation, we interviewed a friend of michael severance named jeffrey holden. and during our interview with mr. holden. he said that he had spoken to michael around the november/december period. and during that conversation, michael said that his marriage was rocky and that he was thinking about getting out. >> now, this is something the texas rangers want to drill down into further. >> so i obtained the cell phone records for his cell phone to try and determine what activity there was on his phone around the time that he went missing. and in one case, a female had his phone number programmed in her phone. >> it was a compelling lead, these calls to michael's phone. could mike in fact be seeing another woman? >> this is not my son, michael. this is not what he does. ♪

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♪music playing♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ nothing brings the pack together like a trip to great wolf lodge. now open in northern california.

staff sergeant michael severance is missing. his newly wed wife, veterinarian wendi davidson, says he left their home while she was out with her family. there's no sign of him anywhere. his father, les, is getting anxious. at that time were you confident of the investigation by the texas rangers and the san angelo police? >> no. no, i got to be honest. i was not. they weren't asking the right questions. >> when michael doesn't show up for work, he's considered awol, absent without leave. but it's highly unusual for somebody that had been in the service this long to just

disappear. that raised the red flags and that's why the air force weas so diligent -- we need to find out what happened here. so they now need to get the osi involved, office of special investigations, because this is a mystery. >> osi has a lot of resources they can use in an investigation and as the investigation progressed such as this one, we're looking at a deserter case. >> there are now several law enforcement agencies joining together to investigate michael's disappearance. the task force then goes back to the clinic and decides they need to take a closer look at the cellphone records. >> we were able to identify some of the phone numbers that contacted him, and in one case a female had his phone number programmed in her phone. >> one of the scenarios that came up was the fact that michael might be having an affair with another woman. >> it seemed like a compelling lead. midnight calls to michael's

phone from a mystery woman. maybe he as hiding out with her. >> i believe that if michael was going to leave with another woman, he would have ended things with wendi. he would have said, this isn't divorce, and he would have done he would have said, this isn't for me anymore, i want a divorce, and he would have done it the right way before he would have walked away. i don't think he had it in him to be a cheater or anything like that. >> it turns out this would-be girlfriend is just an old friend calling michael, nothing more than that. but when investigators talk to the davidsons, the couple supports the other theory from their daughter wendi, that michael's gone awol. >> he was all concerned about he didn't want to be deployed because he was afraid that something bad was going to happen. and he kept saying like, those guys that go over to canada, it would be so easy just to go into to canada. >> what do you think happened to him? >> i think he's just hiding out. >> you think it's strange he left with no clothes and no money? >> if you would have met the guy, you wouldn't think it was strange at all. he was just one super weirdo. >> you think anybody hurt him or anything. >> yeah, he had a pretty smart

mouth on him. if he popped off at somebody -- i don't know. imean, he was obnoxious, he was rude, he was nasty. i don't want any part of him, and i don't want her or my babies to have any part of him either. i'm not gonna lie, i didn't like him, never did and never will. and i hope no harm's come to him, but if i never see him again, that's fine, too. >> i'm gonna ask this question of everybody -- did you do anything to him? >> [ bleep ] no i did not. [ laughter ] >> you just have a seat right there, i'll be right back. >> all righty. >> well, i asked judy this, too. i said, because i've got to ask you, and i don't think anything did, but i asked her, i said, did you hurt him or do you know if anybody did? do you know? >> well, i never did nothing and i never would. my thoughts are that -- at first

i was leaning towards he probably hid out somewhere in abilene because that's where his friends are and people he knew. but then, you know, the more time that went by i think -- well, maybe one of his family members hide him out. since he always, told wendi how easy it would be to go over in canada from maine. and then, according to her, he had even said something about how easy it would be to get fake i.d.s and stuff like that. >> if he'd taken off to canada or something, you wouldn't cover for him? >> oh, gosh no. i'd let y'all have him in minutes. he was telling her he had a secret mission he was going on. i said, wendi, that man hasn't got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot. do you really think they're going to send him on a secret mission? >> he reenlisted or -- >> he had three, four years left, something like that, and he wanted out. he was tired of people telling him what to do. >> the davidson family seemed to

indicate that they believed that michael was worried about a upcoming deployment, and so he left on his own to avoid being deployed. >> the task force talks to michael's family and friends and look into his service record. >> michael really loved the service. there was no indication that he was a malcontent. he liked being in the air force and he had gone to afghanistan and he was going to do it again. >> his friends' minds are starting to go to some pretty dark places. >> i mean, things started running through my head that maybe the possibility that something has happened to him, somebody did do something to him. you know? >> it's now more than two weeks since michael was last seen, and investigators search wendi's clinic yet again. >> this time they get wendi's permission to make a copy of her computer hard drive for analysis. it will be several weeks before the results come back. in the meantime investigators aren't ruling anything out. they're even considering the

possibility that if michael is awol, maybe it's wendi who's helping him hide out. >> their next move is critical. they put wendi under surveillance in the hope she'll lead them to where michael might be. >> we were given permission to place some tracking devices on wendi's car. >> with that tracker in place, the task force will know anywhere that wendi goes, and they're hoping it leads them to michael's location. wendi's car is recorded making a trip to the four sevens ranch. it's about 20 miles outside of san angelo. >> they noticed on the tracking download that she had spent quite a bit of time at the pond. >> then on march 3rd, the results of wendi's laptop search come in, and some bone-chilling revelations come to light. >> ultimately what became a breaking point in the investigation was when we learned about the research that she had done on the computer.

>> when they looked in that computer, they'd found out that she had looked to see about body decomposition. >> for her to research that, it would indicate that she had some knowledge that michael's body was in a body of water. >> ranger shawn palmer goes back to the clinic to question wendi one more time. and at first, she has seems to have answers for why she's searching the internet about decomposing bodies. >> she wasn't caught off-guard by those questions. she explained that she had researched the decomposition of a body in water because during that time period, searchers, volunteer searchers were out searching for michael. >> but he presses wendi further, telling her that he knows she's been to the four sevens ranch, and he wants to know why. >> she obviously became disturbed by the information that the pond would be searched, and it caused her to kind of lose her composure that she had

maintained throughout the investigation. >> that's when wendi started to feel the fire breathing down her neck. >> she grabbed her infant son, jumped in her car, and took off. >> if you're keeping score as to who's behaving like they're innocent and who's behaving like they're guilty, wendi's behaving like she's guilty. >> once police started really being on your tail, you called your brother, marshall. >> yes. >> wendi's brother marshall is a game warden. that's a law enforcement role. and he's now in an awkward position. >> they agree to meet at a nearby location, grape creek cemetery. and that's where wendi mae's story is about to take a major plot twist. >> so, marshall arrived first. and he said, why am i here?

what are we doing here? and she said, i've got to tell y'all something. he said, well, tell me now. >> what happened there? >> i -- i told him what had happened. that i had found mike dead and dumped his body in the pond. >> the story wendi tells her brother is that she came home that saturday and found michael dead in their living room. and in a panic, she decides to get rid of his body in a pond on the four sevens ranch. >> of course, he was a bit shocked. but she kept swearing that she hadn't killed michael. >> but wendi's revelation to her law enforcement brother, marshall, is about to tear this close-knit family apart. >> he said, wendi, he said, i'm a cop. you can't be telling me this.

you know, i can't believe you just told me this. my parents drove up, and me and my brother were telling them everything that happened, which was, you know, that i had found him dead and dumped his body in the pond. my brother told me that he was going to try to call an attorney, and instead he called the police. >> so as -- your brother had called the police. they came to take you away to questioning. what did you think? what was going through your mind? did you feel betrayal at that moment? >> i didn't feel anything except impending doom. i was crying, vomiting. i don't -- everything was horrible, everything. >> and then the bombshell. as they approach wendi, investigators hear her say that

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so let's just take a step back. you wake up saturday morning, you have a veterinary clinic, a live husband, two kids, and a life. almost all of that is gone. wendi's revelation to her brother, marshall, is about to tear this close-knit family apart. >> wendi was insisting that a member of her family had murdered mike, so she got rid of the body. >> your two boys are in the car seats in the truck, and in the flatbed is your husband who's dead. >> yes. unfortunately, yes, that's the truth.

>> if you didn't kill that young man, why did she throw him away? >> i thought if somebody killed my son, maybe somebody would try and kill my grandson. >> wendi, only a guilty person, disposes of a body the way you did. an innocent person calls the police. >> you wouldn't do anything to protect your mother or your child or your wife? ♪ >> is there one memory from the good times that you hold onto? >> the best thing that i remember about mike was one morning i had woke up on a sunday morning, and he was laying in the crib with both of the boys, asleep, curled up with him. he said shane woke up, so he said, i was trying to get him to go back to sleep. he said, and then tristan woke up and kind of crawled in bed

with us. >> sounds like a sweet dad. >> he was a good dad. >> so all in all we're talking about a good man? >> yes. >> a good man, but one whose body wendi says she left at the bottom of that stock pond. >> a couple of detectives' cars came pulling up, and they went to where the davidson family were gathered at the cemetery. >> when you found your husband dead, when you say you found him dead -- >> right. >> what did you do? >> i had both the boys with me, and i told tristan, you know, go play in the other room. and i went over to him to see if he was alive feel for a pulse. and, of course, there wasn't a pulse. he was cold to the touch. >> why didn't you call the police? >> i think that that's maybe what most people would have done if they didn't think that someone in their family was involved. >> this is what i thought -- he's dead. i can't bring him back. i can't save him, but if my mother is involved in this, i

can save her. so i made the horrible, horrible decision that i was just going to move his body and pretend he went missing. >> wendi was insisting that a member of her family had murdered mike, and so she got rid of the body to save one of her family members from getting into trouble. >> how do you make that leap to "my mother must have done this" and then another huge leap back to going, "oh, well i have a decision to make." because even if my mother must have done this, you probably still should be calling 911. >> wendi is put in the back of the patrol car and taken from the cemetery to the police station for what's going to be a very long night. >> and by the time wendi gets into the interrogation room, she's suddenly doing a lot less talking. >> we kind of know -- got to know from you why this all happened.

>> but i'm not talking right now. >> and that's just about all the police get from wendi that night. >> wendi's brother marshall is also interviewed by police that night about his sister's shocking revelations. >> what happened this evening? because i wasn't out there? >> well, i don't know if i should tell you either, but i mean, well, she did something, but she didn't kill him, hurt him, anything like that, but she knows where he's at. she's like, you know, i didn't do anything, this and that. >> now in the interview room is wndi's mother, judy. who given the circumstances, seemingly has no problem with the fact that her son called the police on his sister. >> she's pretty upset with him. >> well, and i know she is, but he did the right thing. >> i know. >> he did the right thing, and i know he's going to catch flak

for it from her, but he -- >> he did the right thing. >> he did. >> did wendi call you -- y'all at the house, or did she call your son, marshall? >> she called the house. i answered the phone, and she said, tell everybody to come to the cemetery. >> did she say, was there blood? did she say she just found him dead or? >> she just found him dead. she said, i didn't do it, but i moved him. she thought that i had done something or -- or one of us. >> did you have anything to do with -- with what happened to mike? >> i thought he had run away. no. >> okay. i understand that's a hard question. >> no, it's not.

i know you have to ask it and he knows that i hated him, but i would never, ever. i couldn't even help wendi with a dog that was bleeding. i couldn't. >> and now wendi's father, lloyd, confronted with his daughter's unthinkable accusations. >> what'd she say she found at the clinic? >> she said she walked in and said he was laying in the floor in his boxer shorts. and she went over and looked at him and said he was dead. i said. whoa. i said, well, how did he die or whatever? she said, i don't know, it didn't seem like anybody shot him or anything. she was just laying there dead. >> what did she do? what did she say she did? >> she just said she -- that's why she was so scared. she said she knew that we had

keys and stuff and just knew that one of us had done it. >> were you kind of surprised that she thought y'all had killed him? >> well, yes, i was kind of, but not totally shocked. because she knew that judy hated him. i've never heard judy threaten to kill him. >> and what about lloyd and judy urging wendi to go to that lawyer to file for divorce? >> was it y'all's idea or was it wendi's idea to file for divorce? >> that was ours and especially judy's. because we said, you know, if he's starting to pull that kind of stuff, it's going to do nothing but getting worse. i mean, if he's already getting drunk all the time, he's already running off with the baby and stuff, i said, you don't need that. you need to get away from him. >> so, at this point all wendy is being charged with is tampering with evidence and

she's going to be held at the county jail. with no reason to believe that wendi's family is in any way involved in the disposing of michael's body, they do not press charges against lloyd, marshall, or judy. but a gruesome discovery is about to be made at that pond. it turns out that dead men do tell tales. >> how do you go to a pond and stab that body 41 times? how do you do that? did you know, unless you treat dandruff regularly, it will keep coming back. try head & shoulders shampoo. dandruff is caused by irritation to a germ that lives on everyone's scalp. unlike regular shampoo, head & shoulders contains zinc pyrithione, which fights the dandruff-causing germ and helps prevent it from coming back. it's gentle on hair and provides up to 100% dandruff protection, clinically proven. try head & shoulders shampoo and conditioner. for best results, use with every wash. this has been medifacts for head & shoulders. take a picture. i'm stuck! is that the new iphone? yup, i just got the new iphone 14 with its amazing camera at t-mobile. i don't know what to do?

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i was coming home from hanging with friends and the car with government plates was in our driveway at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 at night. that's not a good sign. walked onto the driveway and dad said, "he's gone." when i lost my mom, i was still

alittle young to fully grasp the effects, so when i lost mike, i lost a big part of myself. ♪ >> so, what do we have here? >> this is michael in front of his aircraft, a c-130. it's hard to convey to people what kind of a person your son is, because everybody has a great son. >> he said to me one day, dad, i want to be a truck driver. i'm going to haul logs. and i sat him down and said, michael, you only know lee, maine. you need to go out and see the world and decide if you want to come home and be a truck driver and haul logs in lee, maine. i said, i suggest the military. but if i hadn't have said that, if i said go ahead and be a truck driver, mike, he might be

coming through the door right now. i'm sorry. >> it's not your fault, les. >> i know. but you can't always control your emotions. >> and now the true horror of what had happened to michael severance is about to unfold. the investigative team makes its way to the four sevens ranch. >> to get to this ranch, you drive seven miles north of the city limits on highway 87. you'll turn on one of the side paved roads and follow it for about three miles. >> there were approximately ten investigators, along with the texas department of public safety dive team. >> it's not a great big pond. and i know it was cold. and there's a little breeze that would come off that water and make it cold.

>> it was kind of an uneasy anticipation about what would be found. >> we're on the shoreline kind of watching where the divers are. these were guys like search divers. i mean, they have the boots and the big bell head, and they're running air down to them. all of a sudden, they said something, and the guy -- the diver that had the radio that was talking with them, he looks up, says, they got him, they found him. >> he was wearing underwear and he had lots of different implements tied to his body. >> they knew something was holding him down, because he just wasn't buoyant. and then guided him to the shoreline where other ones were able to get him out of the water. and that's when we got him in the body bag. >> because of the cold temperatures in the water, the body had been preserved. >> in all the 36 years i've been doing this, i've never had a human remains in water with apparatuses tied around his person to hold him in the water.

>> how did you move the inert weight of a 160-pound man? >> well, there was box sitting over in the corner, and in my mind i thought i was just going to roll the body in the box and i was going to pick the box up and put it in the back of the truck. >> a cardboard box? >> yes, that's what i thought in my crazy mind. look i can't make this stuff up, this is real. this is so crazy, like you can't make this stuff up. like, dean koontz couldn't make this up. what i did was absolutely horrible, but it's the absolute truth. i rolled the body in this big cardboard box, and, of course, you know, i couldn't lift it into the back of the truck like my crazy mind thought. so i devised a ramp out of a couple of boards, put them on the tailgate. >> where are your kids while you're devising the ramp and loading cinder blocks on your dead husband? >> shane was only 4 months old, so i'm almost positive that he

was asleep through that whole thing. i do remember they were both asleep when i got in the truck because i put them in the car seats. >> so your two boys are in the car seats in the truck, and in the flat bed is your husband who's dead. >> yes. unfortunately, yes, that's the truth. >> wendi says she drove her husband's body to the stock pond on the four sevens ranch. >> i had these cinder blocks and the fishing line and a knife to cut the fishing line. i put the cinder blocks on these handles on this big cardboard box and pushed it down the hill. as soon as the cardboard box hit the water, it disintegrated. so now i have to devise something different. >> so, mike's body is now floating in the pond? >> it's sitting in about a foot of water. so, i had to take these weights, and i'm trying to tie them onto

this body, and of course it's the middle of the night, you know, can't hardly see. >> and there's one other grisly detail the police now discover -- michael's body is covered in puncture wounds, 41 of them, suggesting he had been stabbed to death. >> his body is taken to the medical examiner's office to determine the cause of death. >> the main thing i think that came out of this was there were a number of stab wounds. they were in some sort of like cluster, but i don't believe a single wound would be considered lethal or would, you know, generate a death to the individual. i think the conclusion was these were post-mortem stab wounds. >> if the stab wounds didn't cause michael's death, why were they there? >> i knew air made bodies float, so i decided to make holes in the body, vent holes like so that air could escape.

>> so you were actually stabbing your dead husband's abdomen to make these holes so that gases could escape? >> yes. >> she really thought that nobody would find the body at the bottom of that pond. she took a gamble, sure. but taking gambles never seemed to bother wendi. >> so, if it wasn't drowning or the stab wounds, investigators now have to wait for the toxicology report to reveal the cause of death. >> they had found animal tranquilizers in his system. >> and how will a chihuahua named wheezy finally break the case wide open? would someone please pass me the sweet potatoes? sorry, grandma, we don't have sweet potatoes. [ whispering ] what do you mean we don't have sweet potatoes? i told you to get some. -n-no, you didn't. -yes, i did. you gave me a whole list of things, and i got them all. there's not a list that doesn't have sweet potatoes on it.

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with her husband's body now retrieved from its icy tomb, wendi mae davidson is taken into custody and remains there for the next 34 days. in calls wendi made to her brother, marshall. and her mother, judy, it seems jail is a

shock to her system. >> how are you doing? mother, judy, it seems jail is a shock to her system. >> how are you , and her mother, judy, it seems jail is a shock to her system. >> how are you doing? >> i'm holding up. i'll be -- i'll be much brighter when i get out of this little cell, because, i mean, it's about to drive me insane, because there's no tv, you know? i'm stuck here. the only girl that's -- that was normal. she was actually a paralegal. so, i didn't talk to her about my case at all. >> and then judy gives wendi some savvy advice. >> you know, they can plant people in there. >> i know. i didn't say nothing. >> then, with her brother, marshall, it's sounding like wendi is starting to worry about michael's toxicology report, which her lawyer told her is about to be released. >> they sent samples off to some federal lab to see about toxicology. >> okay. >> now, he said he doesn't know about if there's anything in his system or not.

i mean, if there is, they still can't prove that it was me or you or anybody else. >> on april 8th, wendi gets out on bond and goes back to work at her animal clinic, and then the toxicology report on michael comes back. it reveals exactly what was in his system. >> we are very confident that the cause of death was due to the combined toxicity of these three drugs -- phenytoin, pentobarbital and phenobarbital. that was why the person died. it was not the stab wounds. it was not a drowning. it was not because they were weighted down. there was no lethal blunt-force tauma. this is the cause of death. it's the taking of these drugs. >> now, that toxic cocktail of three drugs is a show-stopper for investigators. why? because of what those drugs are used for. >> the first thing the medical examiner found when he got the body was that he had been poisoned with medications that veterinarians use usually to tranquilize or euthanize animals. >> when we find out that he'd been euthanized it's kind of signed, sealed, delivered,

right? she's a veterinarian, and they had found animal tranquilizers in his system. kind of writes itself from there. >> armed with this new information, the task force conducts yet another search of wendi's vet clinic. >> we had to go back and conduct another search to go ahead and seize those drugs that were consistent with what was found in michael's body. >> now, keep in mind wendi's been out of jail for a couple of days now. she's back at work at her animal clinic when police arrive to conduct that search. >> phenobarbital is a controlled substance. it's dispensing must be documented in controlled substance logs. we seized controlled substance logs from the clinic. >> they find crumpled up records

in the trash can. >> the records belong to a dog named wheezy. he'd apparently been prescribed a large dose of phenobarbital for his seizures. >> little wheezy the chihuahua did not receive the kind of medication that was now on his record. >> such a large dose of phenobarbital would not be used to treat such a small animal. >> but it turns out a large amount of that same drug, phenobarbital, is what michael has in his system. >> it was clear that somebody did not want that record to be found, because it was clear once we found it that we would identify that the records had been doctored. > now wheezy is just fine, but is that crumpled record in the trash just a clumsy attempt to cover up that missing phenobarbital? >> those were her drug logs. those were her drug books.

they weren't somebody else's. she's responsible for the drugs. she's responsible for the logs. she's responsible for trying to change the logs. >> i believe that there were false documents written by you purported to show that a chihuahua named wheezy was the one who received the drugs that actually killed your husband. >> no, that's not true. >> but you did falsify veterinary documents about the use of medication for your animals. >> that's not true, though. the only thing that -- >> did you not falsify documents? >> no, no, there was nothing falsified. >> and here's where things really go sideways. all along wendi has been claiming she thought michael was murdered, but now, in this same interview, she's about to completely change her story. somebody planned to kill him.

somebody had access to the drugs at the clinic, and only one person here is a vet, and that was you. >> but nobody takes into account that he had access to those. he's not the only one. everybody at that clinic had access to those. but he certainly had access. >> so why didn't you say that at the time? and you also basically, you know, accused your mother. and only now do you realize that it might have been a fatal overdose? >> i didn't know drugs were involved until i read it in the newspaper. that's how i found out the cause of death. my aunt called, whenever that was, two, three months after he was dead. >> it appears that wendi davidson has changed her story from believing that one of her family members killed mike and that's why she disposed of the body, to now that possibly michael either accidentally or intentionally took his own life. >> so, could michael have taken

the drugs himself? the medical examiner on this case says that even if michael used drugs, as wendi alleges, they're not the typical kind of drugs that a user would go looking for. >> if we're talking about drugs to go to sleep, you know, generally we're not looking at pentobarbital or, you know, phenobarbital or phenytoin. this isn't generally what you take to decide to take a nap or go to sleep. is that a possibility? somebody could say that, but it didn't make sense. >> remember, wendi says she allegedly saw michael abusing alcohol and possibly drugs. she recalled caffeine pills and maybe ephedra. >> what she wants us to believe is that mike somehow made this huge leap from taking oral medications to injectable medications. >> at this stage of the game, we all know that wendi is a pathological liar.

she has told so many different stories that you cannot believe anything that wendi says. >> the toxicology report and the missing euthanizing drugs are enough for the grand jury to indict wendi for the murder of her husband. >> ultimately, authorities reject wendi's claim that someone in her family was involved in michael's murder. >> but soon enough, wendi finds herself in yet another mess, and this time, it's her son who's in danger. >> tristan was found on his little tricycle across two busy lanes of traffic, unsupervised, lanes of traffic, unsupervised, while his mother was in a bar. , thinking about going back to school to get my masters. i just saw something that said you could do it in a year for, like, $11k. hmm. barista: order eleven! yeah, see you at 11. 1111 masters boulevard, please. gonna be eleven even, buddy. really? the clues are all around us! some things are too obvious

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♪ you never want to give up that hope. but i knew. i knew in my own mind that i wasn't going to see michael again, because i believed with all my heart that if michael was alive, he would have contacted me. >> it's too much loss for one man. you're not supposed to lose a child, ever. parents are supposed to die before their children. >> on the one hand, at least there's closure. you know michael's been found. on the other hand, you now know that he's not alive. >> i can't imagine what these parents go through that don't find their children. it's got to be the worst horror in the whole world not knowing what happened to your child. i kind of count my blessings that we did find michael. >> michael is buried in maine with full military honors. >> but a few months after mike's

funeral, his father, les, gets a letter from wendi who is out on bond. >> i was at les' house, and he literally got a letter from wendi. she basically said, you know, when this is over, i hope we can become a cheerful family again and everybody can get along. we'll have a good future. >> i hope to come to maine and spend time with you guys and either become or stay a part of the family and, you know -- like, why? >> this is the role-playing that she's chosen to do. she has to ingratiate herself with mike's family, with her family, playing the role of, you know, the victim here. essentially what she's saying is mike's left. i wanted this relationship to work. i loved my husband. >> it's wendi doing wendi. this is what she does.

>> it's a hot summer night, and wendi leaves her older son, tristan, she thinks, asleep in bed while she goes out to a local bar called graham's central station. >> tristan was found on his little tricycle, having travelled across two busy lanes of traffic over to a shopping center, unsupervised. >> a waitress came out, got him, and called the police. the police recognized him, knew he was from across the street. they took him back to the clinic. wendi pulled up about the same time, went to the police officer said, oh, i just ran down to the pharmacy to get tristan some medicine. >> the policeman said, you can stop that because we know that you were at graham central station. and she broke down and she was so sorry. >> wendi gets arrested again. this time for child endangerment.

>> if my opinion could get any lower, that's where it bottomed out. because not only are you a horrible wife, you're a horrible mother. >> in the end, the san angelo police department decides not to charge wendi with child endangerment. >> now as prosecutors begin to plan for trial, there is one thing that's been eluding them, and that's motive. why would wendi have wanted michael dead? >> based on what wendi says, she has no motive to kill her husband, mike. so we have to conjecture. would it relieve the stress in her household? >> or is it a motive as old as time itself? is michael worth more to wendi dead than alive? >> congress added $100,000 to the sgli, the military life

insurance. that's $250,000 if your husband dies while he's in the military. >> she made sure she was the beneficiary. michael called me before this ever happened. dad, i got married. i have to change my beneficiary. sure, i understand that. you'd better provide for your family if something should happen. >> the trial date is set. the prosecution has, it thinks, a cut and dried case. that is until wendi's defense team pulls an ace out of its sleeve. is it possible that a key piece of evidence be thrown out?

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wendi, did you murder your husband? >> i didn't. >> if not you, then who? >> the first thing that i would do if i was an investigator, if i found a body in a pond, of course you're going to think

foul play. >> and you're going to think the spouse. >> that's always what they think. that's the first thing. >> because most often it is the spouse. >> sure. sure. >> she's just kind of like, it's horrible, it's unbelievable. i know. believe me, don't believe me. i wanted you to hear my side of the story. and that's a really hard thing to do convincingly if you're lying. her point of view, is it reliable or unreliable? is she lying or is she manipulating us? we have to go with the facts of the case. >> michael's family is feeling confident as the trial is about to begin. >> leading up to the trial, from what we had been informed, we were pretty certain she was going away for a long, long time. >> but wendi's defense quickly play their ace. they file a motion to suppress the evidence gained from the tracking device on her car, claiming it was illegally

obtained. >> wendi davidson's attorneys tried to argue that the evidence obtained from the gps was improperly collected. >> generally, police officers need by law to get a court order to allow them to attach a tracker to a person's vehicle. >> now wendi is banking her whole future on this one legal technicality, and her lawyers are confident. >> don't worry, we're going to get this whole thing tossed because they didn't have a warrant. >> without the evidence from the tracker, the prosecution would be struggling to make a case. wendi would get off on a technicality. >> based on the fact that osi followed the rule of law at the time that we gained the permissions and approval to utilize the tracking devices, i was not concerned with the outcome. >> so it isn't the san angelo police who put the tracker on the car, it's osi, and they operate under different rules and regulations.

>> we were looking for a deserter, and that was our reason why we utilized the tracking devices, to see if that would bring forth a discovery of michael severance. >> and the judge rules in favor of the prosecution. the tracker was legal, and therefore the evidence gained via the tracker is admissible. >> if they had succeeded, they probably would have taken the guts right out of the case against wendi. because it was her movement in and around the stock pond and the ranch that led police to the discovery of michael's body in the first place. >> wendi's defense has taken a huge hit. what happens next absolutely stuns the severance family. >> last minute we're -- we're sitting in a room waiting for the trial to start, and the d.a. comes in and has a conversation with dad, and they usher us into the courtroom and wendi pled no

contest. >> so, when wendi's defense team loses this legal argument about the gps trackers, it's really harmful to their case. at this point, her lawyers, based on the evidence that the prosecution has, recommends that wendy take that plea. basically saying, i'm not saying i committed this homicide. what i'm agreeing to is that if we were to go to trial that the prosecution has enough evidence that i would likely be convicted. >> the easiest way to explain that from my understanding is admitting guilt without admitting guilt. >> the judge rules there is enough evidence to support the no contest plea. he finds wendi guilty of murder. her sentence, 25 years. >> the truth is, once she took

that plea, no contest, she was saying in essence she was guilty. >> those who were in the courtroom say they saw wendi collapse onto the floor, sobbing. her mom, judy, is in tears. >> what was your reaction to the judge pronouncing you guilty? >> i think i was just in shock and i was horrified. i mean, by everything. i mean, i never went to trial. i never got to give my side of the story. >> that plea deal leaves the severance family feeling deeply unsatisfied. >> she should have got life. the death penalty would have been fine with me. i don't understand it. here's somebody out fighting for your country. what more can you ask for of a person than to go fight for your country? >> i don't think forgiveness is in my heart.

>> wendi is taken to tom green county jail where she lobs another grenade. >> so, she writes a letter to the judge and basically tells the judge, you can't send me to prison because i'm pregnant. i shop with the rakuten app to get cash back anytime, anywhere. i even get cha-ching when i ♪ sing ♪ ♪ home decor ♪ ♪ clothes ♪ ♪ electronics ♪ and mirrors. [ding] i can shop at over 3,500 stores, including travel sites. ♪ cha-ching! ♪ what's with the double mcnuggets?

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two months after wendi davidson is sentenced to 25 years for murdering her husband, she's in her jail cell

and picks up her pen. she's writing a last-ditch effort letter to her trial judge. pleading that he not send her to the texas department of criminal justice, the tdc. and then another wendi davidson stunner. >> in the letter wendi writes to the judge, she says she is pregnant. >> even if that were true, it would be so easy to verify whether she was pregnant or not. >> and wendi now says that although she thought she was pregnant at the time, she was mistaken. >> it wasn't true. and it didn't stop anything. she is a person who runs from responsibility. >> when wendi killed michael, she hurt this community. she took a part of this community. and lee, maine's a small town.

everybody knows everybody. >> there is a lot of collateral damage left in the wake of all of this, and we can't lose sight of the two other lives shattered. those two boys, tristan, now 20, ad shane, now 17. >> do you have any contact with shane? >> i do. we have joint custody. the davidsons have primary care. and i get visitation on all the holidays and spring break, and i >> mike was definitely robbed of a lifetime of getting to know his fantastic son. and it's hurtful, it's painful, because you'd love anything -- i would give nothing more than to be able to watch mike give his boy a hug. >> i didn't just lose my brother. dad didn't just lose his son. shane didn't just lose his father. the world, the country, lost a

soldier, lost one of the most decent human beings ever. for what? i don't know. >> even among all the endless futilities of homicides, this one is one of the most, if not the most, futile that i've ever seen. >> the davidsons declined a interview request for this program. >> wendi says she last spoke to her parents in 2009, more than 12 1/2 years ago. she says she has not seen her sons since they were 2 and 5 years old. >> are you hoping to be able to see them again one day too? >> yes. i would hope so. yes. >> at the very start of our interview, wendi told us she wanted to tell her side of the story. and now having served 15 of her 25-year sentence, she still seems disappointed that she never got her day in court. and she still refuses to confess to michael's murder.

would you say that in all of this story wendi mae davidson is a victim? >> no. i think my husband was a victim. i think my children were victims. i think mike's family are victims. i did what i did. i think it was horrible. i think that i made a bad choice, that there were better choices to be made. but i still didn't kill him. what i did was horrible. there's no excuse. i mean, i might have had crazy reasons in my head, but there's no excuse. >> whatever wendi might say she did or didn't do, the authorities have absolutely no doubts about the facts of this case. >> i can speak to the fact that 100% certainty that we found no evidence that anybody else but wendi davidson was responsible for michael's murder. >> what strikes me after leaving

the gatesville correctional facility, and then meeting les, is how raw the pain still is for les severance. >> wendi was kind of happy 'cause she didn't get life. she got 25 years. she'll be out in a little while walking the streets. michael's not out. he got life. he's gone. she took his life. that's forever. a double homicide.

a dark mystery. and a haunting note left behind. >> it said, i have been watching for a long time. >> dawn and antonio armstrong were pillars of the community. a business owner. former nfl football player. >> what about that note? was someone watching this family? >> the note was on a pad in a was in the kitchen door. >> it appeared to be a staged cime scene. >> next friday night. >> i'm thinking, why are they coming for my family? >> stunning details. >> what happened inside this house. somebody knows. >> the stunning, now "20/20" true crime event. next friday night, at 9:00, 8:00 central on abc news.

>> remembering a broadcast legend. barbara walters has died at 93. >> and 2022 will end with this. the next round of wet weather the next round of wet weather hiking the b ♪music playing♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ nothing brings the pack together like a trip to great wolf lodge. now open in northern california.