if your phone's ever rung in the middle of the night you know that feeling of dread. >> i remember just saying no, no, no, no. >> there's a giant hole. nothing will ever fill that. >> their beautiful daughter dead. everyone heartbroken. >> she was my best friend, my kindred spirit. >> found here, victim of a hit and run or was that what someone wanted them to think? >> there were findings consistent with strangulation. i said you have to treat this as a homicide. >> homicide? how could a girl like this have enemies?

or was there more to justine? >> she's an accomplished teacher and then she has a separate life. >> clues they missed. >> you're seeing your daughter come unglued right before your eyes. >> absolutely. >> premonitions they'd felt. >> i just knew with every fiber of my being he had killed her. >> secrets she kept. >> she never told us that. >> but maybe only a complete stranger could reveal what really happened on that lonely road. >> it was a crazy night. >> dennis murphy with "shattered." thanks for joining us. i'm lester holt. as a dad of grown kids, out on their own, i felt the agony of the parents in this story. the call, the dreaded call in the middle of the night n. this case, it's about their beautiful young daughter dead, killed by a hit and run driver. they were told. but to find out what really happened, they soon found themselves on a road of their

own, one full of twists and turns that led to a place much darker than they could have ever imagined. here's dennis murphy. ♪ >> the yellow buses pulled up. as the grade schoolers headed for their classroom the principal inside was calling an unexpected meeting of the teachers inside their office. it was about the pretty young kindergartner teacher. >> there's no easy way to tell you this. and then he said, justine was killed last night. she was hit by a hit and run. and there was a silence. >> fellow teacher pat 'em mondays could not believe what she was hearing about her friend, the newly wed who taught

one door away. kathleen wittily, another fellow teacher, was devastated. >> i was just shocked. just in disbelief that she was gone. she was my best friend. i mean, she was my kindred spirit. we were the same person. >> 27-year-old justine had married her long time boyfriend eric just that spring. she loved being a teacher and by all accounts the little kids in her classroom loved her back. >> she was a very darling teacher. she's the kind of teacher that you would want for your own child. >> but on that november morning, the stunned teachers had few details. it seemed justine had been out driving after mid night and her car had broken down. she was apparently struck by a vehicle as she walked down a dark country road in the county where she and her husband lived north of charlottesville. >> i hear a kick at the door.

>> amber lamb was up late at her grandmothers. >> a stranger, a man was asking her to call 911. >> orange county 911. where is your emergency? >> this man came up to the door and said his wife was hit by a car. >> amber followed the man, eric, in to the chill night. she watched as he fell to the black top and embraced the body of the young woman sprawled there. >> he was laying over top of her. >> the five-month marriage of eric and justine ended with that embrace. the husband weeping, his bride clearly gone. they barely had time to make a scratch on a life together. they had a modest little house. he was working on getting a construction business going while she taught at the grade school. they told friends they were looking forward to taking a delayed honeymoon over the upcoming holidays but the cruise like everything else for them was now ever going to happen.

it was just after 2:00 in the morning when virginia state trooper ben hobbs was awakened at his home. >> i telephone call saying we have a motorvehicle crash. >> he raced to the scene. >> i'm talking to the deputy. where's my vehicle at that struck the person that's laying in the road? the deputy looks at me and says, well, i guess your dispatch didn't tell you. this is probably going to be a hit and run. we don't have a vehicle. >> for you as the investigator, this is a long night ahead of you? a. >> very long night. >> a victim and no vehicle. >> exactly. i look at the scene, what i have, what i don't have. >> one of the first things he saw was the devastated husband. >> he was knelt down beside justine crying. he was very, very distraught, up set. seemed very concerned about his wife laying in the road. >> it was up to trooper hobbs to gather what he could at the

scene to help identify the driver who struck and killed this young woman and kept on going. it wasn't going to be easy. >> nobody tried to stop. you know, if they saw this lady at the last minute, why didn't they slam on the brakes? >> as the trooper's emergency flashers stabbed at the darkness, a phone was ringing at a home in chattanooga, tennessee. >> it's just like your whole world just caves in on you. it's like a black hole. >> justine's dad steven schwartz and mom heidi were getting one of those awful calls in the middle of the night. a voice telling them their daughter was lying dead on a back country road in virginia. >> it's completely devastating. worst thing that you can imagine. it's kind of thing parents dread. >> i remember him putting the phone down and saying it's justine, she's dead. just -- you know, there's no way

to describe that feeling. >> steven and heidi called their daughter lauren living in philadelphia. she was younger than justine by two years. cyst earls who'd always been inseparable. >> i remember saying no, no, no over and over. i turned in to a puddle on the floor. you can't stand. you get these pangs in your gut. and you can't -- you can't breathe. >> in the predawn hours, the family made a plan to meet at the airport in charlottesville. >> the fact that she is dead, of course, seems impossible but at that moment, you think this can't make sense. >> back at what was now a crime scene in virginia trooper hobbs was trying to figure out the sequence of events of how this woman came to be dead in the road. the husband told the trooper that after his wife called him to tell him she was broken down, he hopped on the motorcycle to come help her. >> coming down the road, comes up on her, stops, got out. cradled her in his arms.

>> justine's car, a mustang, discovered parked by the side of the road about a distance of two football fields from where her body was found. >> a wooded area. unlit highway. back road in the middle of nowhere. >> the investigators wondered why she'd leave the safety of the car when help was on the way. >>. she left behind her purse? >> purse. >> nice, warm coat. >> nice, warm coat. >> flashlight? >> flash flight was in the glove box. had fresh batteries still in it. >> had a routine auto malfunction turned suddenly crazy? was justine in her last moments being pursued, fleeing an attacker? trooper hobbs' gut told him things were not adding up. >> the scene was telling me something's not right. >> a scene, a set of lies it would take years to untangle. the mystery of the puzzling death had only just begun.we co

investigators troubled by what they didn't find. >> no tire marks on the road. no broken glass. no broken plastic from headlights. >> you almost always find that kind of debris? >> yes, sir. the cuddlers and the keepers. at petsmart, we know that your pet is unique. we also know how much you love to make him happy! that's why petsmart has so many new, fun and surprising toys you can't find anywhere else. we know, because like you, we're pet parents too. petsmart®. happiness in store.™ hey! totally got it all!m! don't forget your favorites, girls. hey girls! the good ol'days when we could eat as we wanted. yes, but we are not 18 anymore. sometimes if i eat as i used to my digestive system gets out of whack. it's not easy keeping it working as it should. it's easy if you enjoy an activia everyday.

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justine abshire was found dead on a rural virginia road after midnight five miles from her home. an apparent victim of a hit and run but little about the accident scene made sense. trooper hobbs scoured the road looking for any of the telltale signs he usually sees from a car accident. >> i'm looking for vehicle debris, any kind of skid marks, things like that. i've got none of that. you know? no paint chips on her clothing, no tire marks on the road, no broken glass, no broken plastic from headlights. >> and you almost always find that kind of debris? >> yes, sir. >> so you're curious about things you weren't seeing, huh? >> correct. >> not only was there no debris there was relatively little blood in the road.

>> she had huge lacerations on her head, should have been blood everywhere. and basically there were just two little small puddles of blood. not a lot of blood for what should have been there. >> and that didn't make sense either. >> right, correct. >> the victim's husband eric told the trooper that he and his wife had had a minor spat that night and she was driving around to blow off some steam when her car broke down. okay. but when trooper hobbs checked out the mustang he found nothing apparently wrong with it. >> i have the keys to the car. well, let's see if the car is, you know, broken down. i put the keys in the ignition. it starts right up. we think, well, maybe it won't go in to gear. i put it in to gear, it rolls forward. >> car's working fine. >> car's working fine. >> and already strange hit and run case was now looking even more complicated. the husband meanwhile eric had been out in the road for hours. >> he wanted it hurried up. it was you need to hurry up and get her out of the road.

>> but an emotionally exhausted husband who wanted to get his wife's body off the road and in to a funeral home was perhaps understandable. the troopers work out here on the scene was wrapping up. he'd turn his notes over to senior investigator special agent mike jones of the virginia state police. jones would run the case from here out. >> what did i think i had here? thought i had a lot of work to do. >> one of jones's first tasks to accompany the body to the medical examiner's office. with little forensic value of the scene itself, the m.e. science would start to explain what had happened to this young woman, an accident, foul play. when the trooper spoke with eric at his house just hours after he'd come upon justine's body he talked about a grim scenario that occurred to him. maybe someone unknown had happened upon his wife, a woman in distress. >> he offers a theory that justine was out on the side of the road and that some unknown

individual was attracted to her, her beauty and pulled up and tried to abduct her. maybe she was running off. >> you have any suspicions of what might have happened? >> i like to see she got hit and she wasn't scared to land. i think that, you know, these people and somebody out there driving, i think they drove by, saw a beautiful woman on the side of the road and turned around and tried to get her in the car and i think she got scared and started running. she saw their face and they hit her. >> at this stage of the investigation, it could be anything. >> the range is wide open. and we had to start tracking in a direction that made sense. >> the medical examiner, dr. todd lucasevic performed lots of autopsies but this victim appeared to be different. >> you're unzipping the bag. is there a moment you say something like, i don't like

what i'm saying here? >> almost instantly with the lack of blood on her clothing. >> what do i have here? >> i said to the technician, this doesn't appear to be a typical hit and run. those tips of lacerations bleed profusely and she had no blood on her clothing new york city blood on her skin and really no blood within the body bag. >> so there's an absence of blood that catches your interest right away. >> correct. >> and equally troubling, while more than 113 external injuries her body, they weren't he thought consistent with someone standing and being struck by a vehicle. was it possible justine hadn't been a hit and run victim at all? how could that be? >> you typically see a bumper bruise where the bumper hits the calf, the knee and it's also going to cause a fracture underneath that bruise. >> you say i know what that is? >> correct. >> did you see it on justine? >> no, i didn't. >> there was more he wasn't

finding. >> usually tire tread on the skin or the clothing. there was no evidence of glass, no evidence of transfer of paint chips or metal. there was no evidence whatsoever. there was actually no evidence of debris from the road, no pebbles, no asphalt, anything like that. >> yet with injuries this severe, he wasn't rules out that a vehicle was smau involved in justine's death. your best guess is a vehicle involved causing the injuries? >> correct. >> but it didn't appear that person was standing? >> that is correct. >> but if a vehicle had been involved in the teacher's death, how? the m.e. needed more tests. >> i was prepared to fill out the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, trunk and extremities but we needed further investigation. >> he turned to agent jones taking notes throughout the autopsy. i said, you have to treat this as a homicide. this is homicide until proven

otherwise. >> a homicide? a murder case. but where to start? if she had been killed and by what reason? so little to go on, agent jones called in all the troopers from the scene for a brainstorming session. >> after we finished the autopsy, get division headquarters and we had a roundtable. everybody was parted out to run in different directions. >> what had happened to justine abshire? the crime scene and autopsy could only tell the investigators so much. >> i didn't by any means have enough to make any conclusions that day. i walked away with, well, i need to come back and inquire further. coming up -- justine's husband says he blames himself. >> he said, well, you know, we had an argument. i wouldn't have argued with her then this wouldn't have happened. grill master brett gal. he's serving his guests walmart choice premium steaks. but they don't know it yet. they will. it's a steak-over. steak was excellent. very tender. melts in your mouth.

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the death of beloved teacher justine abshire on this dark country road in central virginia was becoming a mystery for investigators. what started out as an apparent hit and run accident was turning in to a potential murder investigation. but for her family, trying to grapple with the news of her sudden death it was all threatening to become a personal tsunami, sweeping away everything in its path. >> we're both in shock and i remember standing in our bedroom and steve and i just holding on to each other and just saying, you know, we have to take care of each other. we can't let this destroy us. >> the four head always been so close. now, the sudden death shattered them like so much broken glass. pretty little justine, a golden child, had been raised to be happy.

in the years the girls were growing up, steve was an executive in the tell telecom industry. heidi worked for the airlines. >> here we are in the house. >> in steve's field, frequent corporate relocations came with the territory. new states, new houses, new schools for the girls. lauren remembers thinking how easily justine handled all that uprooting of their lives. she'd arrive at a new school and immediately become the center of attention. >> it was impossible to not notice her. she was pretty in a barbie doll type of quality. the long blond air and blue eyes and porcelain skin that drew a lot of attention. >> so embarrassing. >> not that justine welcomed the looks she was getting. hardly. she was shy by nature and had no interest in becoming the cool girl at school. she was content to hang out with a few close friends and to dote on her pets. >> she was always passionate about animals and little kids

and she was a natural born nurturer. >> and it seemed just yesterday they were sending her off to a women's college in virginia. holly boardman was assigned to be her freshman roommate and the two became instant friends. >> we would actually walk arm in arm everywhere. we would do everything at the same time. >> dressed alike? swap clothes, shoes? >> when we buy clothes, we buy them in two so i can have one and she could have one. >> if justine wanted to learn martial arts, she'd sign up holly, too. when holly had a hankering fly a plane, justine went along for the ride. they were best friends forever. >> the best friend sister combined. we really could n't get any closer. >> eric was also a member of an extended family. tracy is his extended cousin. >> a caring, sweet, nice kid. just always good.

>> it made it all so hard, such a cute couple everyone thought. and now eric a widower after only five months of marriage. tracy was utterly heart broken by justine's death, almost too much to comprehend how an awful accident like that could happen. >> horrible news. >> horrible news. >> this is a loved woman in your family. >> yes. >> eric's family began gathering at the couple's home to comfort him the morning of the accident. cousin tracy remembers looking in on him in the bedroom so forelorn. >> he's standing up against the wall. left arm propped up looking out the window and just crying. uncontrollably. >> by the afternoon, justine's family arrived at couple's home to comfort their son-in-law. >> i remember, you know, all of us hugging. i remember steve putting his arm around him and saying, eric, you know, we want you to understand that we know that accidents happen. and we're not blaming you for what happened to justine.

and he said, well, you know, we had an argument and if, you know, if i wouldn't have argued with her she wouldn't have left and this wouldn't have happened. we tried to make it clear it was an accident and we didn't hold him responsible. >> there were arrangements to be made. flowers, music to be selected. the two families gathered at the packed funeral home where so many turned out for the beloved teacher taken away from them too soon. pat hammond spoke at the service. >> i wanted people to understand this was a terrible thing that happened but she was a wonderful gift. and sometimes people don't value the gifts that we're given. >> justine's sister lauren recalls looking at eric and thinking how crushed he was by the sudden turn of fate. his two young daughters, children from a previous relationship by his side. >> eric was crying. he was really emotional. holding on to his two children. >> and among the mourners that day there was a stranger. special agent mike jones.

the investigator was the son of a grade schoolteacher himself and went to justine's funeral to pay his respects to the family and to see how eric was holding up. >> he's a victim. it's his wife that's gone. >> and as the wife's friends would soon be telling the troopers as the investigation moved forward justine, the justine they knew and loved had been gone for a while. those sunny good looks aside, justine abshire somehow lost her way long before she'd apparently broken down on that virginia road. >> when we come back, investigators shift focus from road to home. >> we got to go back in to the epicenter and the epicenter is yus teen and eric. cans and they ran amuck. come through with the 'ye mask on. spray everything like samo. though i won't scratch the lambo.

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it was just after 2:00 in the morning when trooper ben hobbs had come upon a sobbing eric abshire cradling his wife's body beside this road. >> he was kneeling beside her and crying. >> he what? put his leather coat over her? >> he had put his leather coat over the top of her. >> after the couple's quarrel earlier in the night, she had taken off to blow off some steam. >> she had left and then called him shortly before i got there, said, hey, i'm broke down, i need you to come and get me. >> eric assumed the whole storming out and i broke down

story was a ploy by justine to get some attention, a pout and a little snit. before making up. >> i had no doubt in my mind she was just going out and making a -- big circle and coming back home. >> herufully told anyone who would listen, he was haunted by that split second decision to let her walk out of the house. he hoped investigators could find the person who struck and killed his new wife. >> in situations like this -- >> but eric worried investigators had too little to work on. >> never tapped their brakes, tried to swerve. away from her. >> and the medical examiner would tell lead investigator mike jones that justine's injuries were not consistent with a person being hit by a car while standing. >> it didn't add up. we left with more questions than

we did answers. >> special agent jones knew he needed to hear more of the human story if he was ever going to find out what had really happened on this road. >> we got to go back into the epicenter and the epicenter is justine and eric, and we've got to understand these two individuals. >> the couple had met when justine was in college and to earn a little pocket money she got a cash register job at a lowe's. and it was there that she struck up a relationship with eric, a store manager and marine veteran. >> what do you think she saw in him? >> he's a very strong person and he's very decisive and determined. he did have two children, but he was working and taking care of them and she liked that. she really respected that about eric. >> but here was the complication about eric. with two children from a previous relationship, decisive eric was determined to have no more.

he was opposed to marriage. justine on the other hand wanted a husband and children. lauren said to say good-bye to eric and move on with her life. >> what are you doing with him? those are the two things that you ultimately want in your life. >> but justine stayed with eric. they had been a couple for months, but she still wasn't introducing him to the parents. >> he's the phantom boyfriend? >> yeah. when you know your child is seeing someone on a steady or on an exclusive basis, you would kind of at least like to see who they are. >> finally, after a year and a half of nudging her daughter, heidi got to meet the boyfriend for dinner. >> i just insisted that i meet him. >> dinner was awkward. eric squirmed as though he wanted to be a thousand miles away. >> my feelings were, well, okay, i don't really get it, you know, but it's really not mine to get, you know. it was justine's boyfriend. >> did you think that he was the guy? >> no. >> that this was the intended? >> no.

>> and justine and eric did have their ups and downs. they were one of the chronic on again and off again couples. at one point her former college roommate holly thought they might finally break up for good. for years she had been trying to convince justine to leave eric and come live with her on the west coast. >> you had a plan in place. all you needed really was a commitment and a boarding pass? >> yes. and i told her i would pay for the plane ticket, fly out there, pick her up, and bring her to oregon. >> after one particularly bad justine and eric period, holly was so convinced that justine was finally coming, she rented a two-bedroom apartment for them. but in the end, her plan not only went nowhere, it backfired. >> i just feel her distancing herself. >> perhaps justine thought holly was interfering too much in her relationship. but there was one breakup where justine did leave eric and went to stay with her parents in tennessee. still, the two managed to patch up their difficulties. >> i never really thought that there was a match.

it didn't seem like a good fit to me. >> so you thought he'd just disappear from the scene? >> i thought eventually it would run its course, they would break up and she would move on. >> but she never did. for years, justine and eric slogged through their on again/off again relationship. >> there were times she would come see me on the weekends and figure out what she wanted to do next and know that this wasn't the right relationship for her. but they never really broke off communication. there would always be the phone calls. >> he was always in the orbit there? >> yes. >> finally, justine gave eric, who, remember, had started the relationship saying he wasn't the marrying kind, an ultimatum. give me a ring or be gone. >> he came home late on christmas eve and gave her the ring back and said, you win. >> oh, come on. >> that's what she said. >> here at the 11th hour? >> uh-huh. and she showed up with a gorgeous like $5,000 diamond on her hand. and said we're engaged. and that was how we found out. >> and it would be a wedding no

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we don't have a ten step filtering process for our water. we don't need it. because crystal geyser is made by nature, not by man. crystal geyser is always bottled at the mountain source. special agent jones' investigation was moving beyond the autopsy and crime scene to bore in on just who this couple, justine and eric, really was. the strange stories he was starting to gather would turn out to be as important as any lab results. >> you've got a mystery to solve. >> it was a mystery. it was. >> at the close of the christmas holidays, two years before her sudden death, justine returned to emerald hill elementary. on her finger, that diamond engagement ring she fought so

hard for from the man she loved and dated for six long years. >> everybody is thinking, well, is she really going to marry him? is he really going to marry her? and some of it was, he finally came to his senses, saw what a precious person he was. >> eric was getting ready to start a construction business. to justine, his new venture and their marriage would be the beginning of the life she dreamed of since she was a little girl. a husband, a house in the country, and a baby. to her friends, it was a disaster waiting to happen. >> consensus was that eric was not the guy for her. >> they didn't seem to match. she was a very sweet young thing that taught kindergarten and he was mr. tough guy. so where's the match? you know, it's like you have to have some cross-ties to connect. and i never could see what the cross-ties -- what was the connection? >> still, pat and kathleen, her teacher friends, came around.

>> we planned a really nice shower, and we were excited and she wasn't. >> she wasn't? >> no. >> pat hosted the shower with all of the crepe paper you would expect from fellow kindergarten teachers but justine's gloom never lifted. perhaps it was just a bad case of bridal jitters. >> she didn't seem very happy. the whole time during the shower i wanted to get her aside and say, you don't have to marry this person. but that conversation didn't happen. >> justine's mom, meanwhile, was fearful her daughter was heading into a train wreck of a marriage. the may wedding was two weeks away. they had booked a charming bed and breakfast in the rolling hills of the virginia countryside, but justine was the polar opposite of a bridezilla. she didn't pick up the dress, order the cake or finish sending out invitations. >> i just didn't feel right. part of me was concerned because i had heard for years about eric's opposition to get married that she was going to get left standing at the alter, that he

was going to get cold feet and there would be 100 people there and her in her pretty white dress and he just wouldn't dress up. obviously if that's a possibility, you want to protect your child. >> heidi and steve got in the car and drove to virginia. surprise intervention of sorts. it turned out poorly. >> what did you see? >> oh my god. just blind rage. >> really? >> oh yeah. she stormed into this hotel room. i've never heard her talk to anybody like that. she just screamed at me and called me names and said she hated me and she would never, ever forgive me for intruding on her life. i was shocked. i was absolutely shocked. >> you're seeing your daughter come unglued right before your eyes. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> was eric the elephant in the room? >> absolutely. >> of this confrontation? >> at one point in the conversation before she had calmed down, she said something to the effect of, do you understand how hard you have

made things for me by coming up here? that stuck in my mind. what did she mean by that? >> maybe she was telling her parents to back off, that she had come of age. she was, after all, 27, a woman with a profession she loved and her decisions from here on out would be her own. >> we pushed as far as we could and so now the only strategy available to us was the opposite. let's have the wedding, let's make it as nice as we can, let's make it as enjoyable as we can and that's exactly what we tried to do. >> and they pulled out all of the stops. the beautiful ceremony went off without a hitch. sister lauren, the maid of honor. there was dancing and a private chef picked out by heidi. a picture perfect may day in a charming setting. >> and it looks like weddings in a hundred thousand different family albums. >> that's what it looked like. >> there was a lack of joy. mostly i would say that was it. there was a lack of joy.

it was like you're going through p p prefunctory motions and it was just very strange. >> the bride posing with her new husband would be dead in five month's time. some of the guests would never see justine alive again. the day after taking his vows, eric took off on his motorcycle. >> he left the next day and he never came back. he didn't continue to stay at the bed and breakfast with her. >> he wasn't there for the gathering for the opening of the wedding presents. justine saw her family off alone. >> we never saw him again. >> stranger still, holly, justine's closest sister's college roommate wasn't even told that there had been a wedding. >> i didn't know she was getting married. she didn't send me an invitation. >> you're her best friend. >> uh-huh. yeah. >> but maybe not so surprising since holly had never made much of a secret of her dislike of eric. >> i honestly hated him from the first second i saw him.

>> really? >> despise. really. just gut instinct. i felt sick. i felt nauseous. >> to be in his presence? >> uh-huh. yeah he made me want to throw up. >> what was it about him that made you make that decision so quickly? >> i didn't like the way he looked at her. i didn't like the way he kind of treated her and he kind of acted like he was better than she was and i didn't ever see him valuing her. >> from the moment justine met eric, holly thought her friend was taking a slow-motion tumble into an abyss. this dear friend from their private women's college, nice homes and solid upbringing with a loving family was now living in a dreary little cinder block house. >> she was living in a world that so different than the world essentially we came from. it wasn't even really reality. >> and to eric's cousin tracy, that was all part of the problem. in her opinion, justine's friends and family flat out didn't think eric was good enough for her. >> i just think that from the beginning they didn't approve of eric and --

>> and as you remember, that was really the source of all of that kind of anxiety at the wedding? >> yes. >> the simple fact was, she said, this was a guy and girl in love, newlyweds. >> whenever i would see them together they always seemed happy. >> the couple was even looking at buying a big piece of land in the country. eric was planning to build his new bride a fine new house and justine all mopey, not in august. only three months before she died when cousin tracy snapped this picture of her at her brother's wedding. the whole big abshire family had embraced eric's bride she said and made her feel welcome. >> they had a great time. justine and eric really had a good time at the reception. >> agent jones sifted through these stories told about a couple's life that ended on this road. eric, her husband cradling her body. while investigators started the long search for answers. >> we were starting to determine that, okay, she's an

accomplished teacher during her daytime and then she has a separate life and the two hardly mixed. >> and investigators needed to know exactly how justine had spent her final day. >> something was totally -- >> what do you think was going on with her, as you look back? she was a wreck, huh? >> yes, she was. coming up -- was justine afraid for her life? >> she had been crying. she had been crying uncontrollably. she had told me, if i'm not at school, if i'm not here, this is where you can find my lesson plan. ♪ ♪ this is the car that loves to have fun ♪ ♪ it's got something for everyone ♪ ♪ the car of the future many have said ♪ ♪ 'cause at the pump it's miles ahead ♪ ♪ and let's hum, hum, hum, hum ♪ let's hum ♪ a prius for everyone ♪ [ male announcer ] now get 0% apr financing for 60 months on the prius liftback, the number 1 selling hybrid.

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they have no idea what it was like before u-verse high speed internet. yeah, you couldn't just stream movies to a device like that. one time, i had to wait half a day to watch a movie. you watched movies?! i was lucky if i could watch a show. show?! man, i was happy to see a sneezing panda clip! trevor, have you eaten today? you sound a little grumpy. [ laughter ] [ male announcer ] connect all your wi-fi-enabled devices with u-verse high speed internet. rethink possible.

here was the investigator's big headline so far. they had a hit-and-run accident that looked nothing like a hit-and-run. >> none of it made sense. it didn't look legitimate. >> so the red flags go off by what you're not seeing? >> it looked like a staged failed attempt to make it look like a hit-and-run. >> not a standing person hit by a vehicle? >> not at all. >> so if what occurred was staged, why go through all of the trouble? even eric knew in an unnatural death like this one the spouse can be the number one suspect.

that's "law & order" 101. >> always question the husband. >> but he was talking to the police and with his help they would build a timeline of the day for both him and justine. justine, as usual, had shown up that morning in her classroom but her teacher friends were struck by how troubled she appeared on the last day of her life. kathleen whitley knew something was wrong the moment she went to see kathleen the moment school started that day. >> i could see her sitting in the classroom with her back to the door when she was on the phone. and i went to open the door and it was locked. >> at recess, justine stayed inside. >> she didn't come outside that day. so i didn't see her again until lunchtime. when i saw her at lunchtime, she had been visibly crying. her eyes were just red and puffy and her face was blotchy. >> any idea what was going on with her that day, what had caused it? >> she had told everybody that she was sick, that she had allergies. but i didn't buy it. >> she had been crying?

>> she had been crying. she had been crying uncontrollably. >> pat hammond was taken aback when she saw justine as they walked the children to the bus at the end of the day. >> i turned to say something to her and looked at her and her eyes were so incredibly swollen that they looked like little slits. >> before leaving, justine told the principal she'd be out sick the next day. but still, she went to the after-school graduate class she was taking with kathleen. they were both working on their master's degrees. >> she came into the class upset still, wearing sunglasses, carrying a box of tissues. she cried a little bit here and there through the class. >> kathleen made a point to catch up with her during the break. >> she had said something that made me wonder what was going on with her. she had told me, if i'm not at school, if i'm not here, this is where you can find my lesson plans. >> this sounds like more than, i'm just not going to be in tomorrow. >> it sounded like she was going to be gone for a while.

>> when class ended at 7:00, justine hurried out. >> we said our good-byes in the parking lot. >> is that the last time you saw her? >> it was. >> as for the husband's day, eric told investigators that after a routine workday doing construction, he had taken his kids to the mall after school and then in the early evening stopped by the hospital to visit his terminably ill mother and then was called back to the hospital where his mother was in rapid decline. eric recounted the final part of his night for investigators. >> after i left my mom i went and got my motorcycle out. i don't remember exactly what time it was. >> surveillance footage from the storage facility shows what investigators believe is him getting his bike at 12:04 a.m. following his motorcycle ride, eric says he got home not too long afterwards. >> you know, i didn't look at

the clock. i know it was late. >> was your wife here? >> yes. i didn't want to talk to her about my mom and she started saying that i'm emotionally unattached and i told her, i don't want to talk about it. i want to be left alone. >> that's when eric says justine got ticked at him. >> saying maybe i need some time by myself and i said, maybe you do. that's when she got in her car. >> and records do show justine's cell phone calling eric's at 1:19 a.m., he says the come get me call. but the cell phone records also showed investigators something else. even though on a typical day he made a lot of calls, his phone calls go completely silent at two points on the night that justine is killed. >> we have two extensive blackout periods, from 10:04 to 11:00 p.m. until justine's call for help. >> interesting gaps for you. >> during those blackout periods, we weren't having any

activity. >> eric tells investigators he's not sure when he left the hospital the second time. >> i want to say it's around 10:30 or 11:00, give or take. it very well may be later. i don't know. i wasn't watching, you know. >> but investigators say his cell phone was pinging off towers north of the hospital starting a little after 9:30 that night. >> the phone information and his story just don't go together? >> correct. it just -- >> he says i'm in charlottesville and he the phone says, no, you're not. you're half an hour north? >> correct. we're not connecting the dots. >> but air eric's cousin tracy would come forward to say she was certain she was at the hospital with eric late into the night. >> what time do you think you would have left the hospital? >> i think i left around 11:30. >> and eric was still there at that point? >> i found him and i said good-bye to him? >> at 11:30 at night at the hospital? >> it was around 11:30. >> that would make it difficult for eric to pull off a time-consuming elaborately

staged hit-and-run if that's what investigators were starting to theorize. essentially, he'd have to be in two places at one time for that to work easily and there was another reason eric didn't drop in neatly as a suspect in his wife's death. the cousin said eric had a grave family responsibility that night. the authority to say yes or no to a do not resuscitate order to his mother. he was basically on call. >> why would you choose the night your mother is dying to set up this plan in action when you could be called back at the hospital at any minute. they didn't clear you and say she'll be good for a week or two. >> eric himself gave perhaps the best reason he shouldn't be regarded as a suspect. he loved his wife. they got along great. >> you can speak to anybody that's ever seen us and i bet you in five years we would have had ten arguments. if there was, like i said, the

definition of nice was her. >> yet soon the investigators would start to hear stories disputing eric's sunny take on his relationship with justine. it would turn out that almost everyone around her had been keeping her secrets, scary secrets. coming up, friends and family ready to spill. >> he pinned her up against the wall. i said, if you don't get your hands off of her i'm calling the police. [ female announcer ] introducing all with in-wash pre-treaters. to prove how amazing it cleans, we set out to find tough stains. and every mom knows, little league plays... mean major-league stains. and now all is the official detergent of little league baseball. all combines in-wash pre-treaters with its active stainlifters to attack tough grass stains for more cleaning power... than just washing with the leading value detergent and booster combined. give us your worst, we'll give it our all.

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a beautiful young newlywed apparently mowed down by a car on a back road. at first, they thought it was a classic hit and run. but things just aren't adding up. and now close to her about to start talking, sharing some troubling secret that is reveal why for years this beloved kindergarten teacher might have been on a collision course with a killer. again, here's dennis murphy. >> while justine's parents had admittedly never been overly fond of eric, they always tried to keep an open mind about it. yet a few days after the funeral, they say he blurted out just some awful things. >> he told me, i never wanted to get married or have any more children or anything anyways. he thought he would be just fine without justine in his life. >> and in their grief, as the

friends and family gathered, stories started to tumble out. and not your typical recollections about a loved one that suddenly passes away. justine's friends had never shared with each other what they call their violent eric stories. they worried if they spoke about them they would lose their friendship. yet now lauren is talking about the day that eric stormed into an apartment the two sisters were sharing for a summer. >> he pinned her against the door and so i came out and said, get your hands off of her and he was extremely startled to see me. i said, if you don't get your hands off of her i'm calling the police. get out of here. >> kathleen, her teacher friend, remembers vividly a few months before the wedding justine confiding in her she was scared of the man she was about to marry. >> i encouraged her to walk away. i gave her the option to come live with me and she denied that, telling me that she feared for my well-being.

if she lived with me. >> for you, too? >> yes. >> did you ever say to her, justine, this is a crazy situation? you've got to get yourself out of this. >> i did. i told her she could do better. she was beautiful. she was young. she still had her whole life ahead of her. she could meet somebody else. she told me she had invested too much time in the relationship, nobody else would want her, she would never find anybody else, which i just thought was crazy. >> while eric denied having any stormy physical fights with justine, there was talk of other women in his life. >> did you hear stories that he was running around on her? >> i did. >> how did she deal with that? >> i think she just tried to push it to the back of her mind. >> do you think she was happy? >> i don't. >> and when investigators looked at eric's cell phone records,

there was one call in particular at 11:46 the night justine died, that caught her attention. it's a call to the mother of his two children. >> it ended with eric asking her if there was any chance for them romantically, and she said, no, not as long as you're married or that you're married. he said that he thought he made a mistake in getting married. >> is that important to hear or is that just somebody shooting a breeze with an old girlfriend? >> well, the timing of it is very peculiar and the fact that it's only an hour and 10 or 20 minutes before our victim's alleged call for help. >> but that woman, alison crawford, says that midnight call that had gotten investigators suspicious was being misinterpreted. she's a nurse at the very hospital where eric's mother lay dying and says it only made sense for him to call her. >> i believed that it was easier for eric to ask me questions about his mother. >> even the part when eric told her that his marriage had been a mistake and asking if they had a

chance as a couple wasn't out of the ordinary and certainly not a watershed moment signaling he was going to kill his wife, if that's what investigators were thinking. >> i think that it was dramatized for reaction, and i don't think that it was really looked at as just two people exchanging information. i think we underestimate our emotions and the things that we say when we're upset, and i think that it's very easy to go from point "a" to point "b" and not really know how you got there. >> and if we talk about eric feeling he has regrets in his life, this is not a one-time conversation with you? >> no. we talked many times and throughout many phases of his life so that would not have been uncommon? >> including after he got married? >> correct. >> and even though eric tried to call her many times that very day, she points out they had two children together, so of course they'd talk.

it didn't mean there was still a romantic connection between them. >> eric and i cared for one another for a long time and then he decided to choose another path and we became co-parents. i've always cared for him. i will always care for him in a different way now. >> but it's still there? >> we have children together. there will always be a connection. >> yet another woman would tell investigators that she did have a romantic connection with eric. she says she'd slept with him a few days before the marriage to justine, then again a few days after the funeral. steve confronted him about the rumors running around on his daughter. >> i said, there was never any other woman? he said, there was one after justine was killed. i got drunk one night and slept with a woman. >> and while eric would say later he was only acting out of grief, it was when steven swartz, ever the businessman, started looking into the couple's finances that he got really worried.

it was starting to look as though his daughter may have just been a piggy bank that got cracked open on a cold back country road. when we come back, a husband who needs money and a wife -- well, you'll see. >> when you add up all of the money, she was worth quite a lot dead? >> yes, sir. if you're seeing spots before your eyes... it's time... for aveeno® positively radiant face moisturizer. [ female announcer ] only aveeno® has an active naturals total soy formula that instantly brightens skin. and helps reduce the look of brown spots in just 4 weeks. for healthy radiant skin. try it for a month. then go ahead and try to spot a spot. aveeno® positively radiant. naturally beautiful results. ♪ boo! i am the ghost of meals past. when you don't use new pam, this is what you get. residue. [ female announcer ] bargain brand cooking spray leaves annoying residue.

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there were the stories of other women, the stories of eric's volcanic temper. but for steve swartz, the corporate businessman, it was when he started looking into his daughter's finances, he began to nurse his darkest suspicions about his former son-in-law. he was shocked to find by his estimate the husband and wife were $130,000 in debt. >> it was like five or six times her take-home salary. it was credit card debt at high interest rates. no way would you ever pay that off. >> a big chunk of that debt was a dump truck that eric bought to buy a hauling business. he put the loan for the truck in justine's name. >> between the dumptruck payment and the insurance on the dumptruck and the upkeep on the dumptruck, that was just enough to tip them over the edge financially to where things became unsustainable. after that point was when she began to have insufficient fund charges show up in her checking account. >> they are running on fumes. they're in negative numbers

every month. >> that's right. >> justine paid for everything. >> even, they would sadly discover, the big rock of an engagement ring she triumphantly brought home that christmas holiday. >> she bought and paid for it. she never told us that. she indicated to us that eric, you know, picked it out and surprised her with it. >> but perhaps most ominously, when it came to the couple's finances, about three months before she died justine had called her father to ask for a $40,000 loan. eric wanted to expand his fledgling construction business. steve had no idea at the time how deeply in debt his daughter was. >> she was very upset when i told her i couldn't do it. and it wasn't upset in a, you know, petulent or angry kind of way. she seemed kind of devastated by it. i could hear her voice cracking on the other end and then she started to cry. >> is this a watershed moment where eric maybe realizes, justine is not going to be my

bank anymore? >> i think very much so because by that time it was already evident to him that he had pretty well tapped out all of her resources. i mean, her credit lines were all run up. >> and if you can't give us that $40,000, what use are you? >> right. >> well, that's exactly right. he had gotten everything that he could get out of her and now she was just a liability. >> steve swartz shared the results of his financial digging with special agent jones and investigators hadn't forgotten how in those early interviews with eric he'd weirdly bragged about justine's credit rating. >> anything else that we should know or you need to tell us? >> no. all i can tell you, when you look it up, her credit was absolutely spotless and like i said mine was not because we made sure we paid her for the house and it was in her name. >> eric initially told us that his credit was slow and they protected her credit. >> justine, good for credit?

>> good for credit. >> investigators were piecing together their own picture of the couple's finances. they had come upon some insurance. there were four policies on justine and it was the one on the dumptruck bought in justine's name that really caught their eye. if she were struck by an uninsured motorist, say in a hit and run, that one policy could pay out a million dollars. >> when you add up all of the money, do you have enough there for motivation? >> i think so. it was a very substantial amount. >> she was worth quite a lot dead? >> yes, sir. >> and investigators discovered that eric was familiar with how insurance worked. they found he had successfully filed several high dollar vehicle claims in the six-year period before justine died. >> over a period of time there was more claims than what you'd normally find with somebody. >> interesting money angles for sure, but agent jones knew he

didn't have enough to build a case on. and eric, while cooperating, also made it clear to the investigators he would only go so far. >> the question is, um, if need be, would you submit to a polygraph examination? >> no. i'm not taking it. >> any reasoning for that? >> just because i know they are completely inadmissible in court so it's pointless to take one. >> the case always seemed to end up back at square one and special agent mike jones knew that his suspicions, no matter how deep, were not enough to secure an arrest warrant. >> it's a difference in knowing and proving. >> but justine's family wasn't waiting. they would publicly volley the most direct charges. they were coming to believe not only that their former son-in-law killed their daughter but that he might just get away with it. >> he's very clever. he's much smarter than most people give him credit, too. coming up -- investigators focus on a black suv. >> the question was, is this the vehicle that could have been

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and while he seemed to be moving on with his life, justine's family was falling apart. at one point, heidi was hospitalized for two months for clinical depression. >> just couldn't get up and get going? >> uh-huh. posttraumatic stress. severe depression. >> lauren, too, found work and life meaningless life without her older sister. not long after justine died, she left her job. >> it was just too overwhelming to try and figure out how to get up in the morning and how to go through a normal life and also be dealing with this. >> they had all sunk into a black hole of would a, could a, should a. what do you tough on yourself about? >> not having been more involved and attentive. >> you're a career-driven guy? >> yeah, i always have been and i'd trade all of that away in a

heart beat to have a second shot at getting things right with justine. >> on the one-year anniversary of her death, justine's parents organized a vigil in a downtown park to bring attention to their daughter's unsolved case. they had initially posted a $10,000 reward for any information leading to justine's killer but by now had upped it to $50,000. they were determined to do whatever they could to jump-start an investigation that they worried was grinding to a halt. >> we were like, well, okay, next week, next month. >> eric came to the vigil. the swartz family hadn't seen him in months. in steve and heidi's minds he had migrated from simply being undeserving of their daughter to the prime suspect in her death. someone else in the eric's guilty camp was college roommate holly boardman who joined them at the vigil. she had been convinced he was the one from the moment she got the letter notifying her that her good friend was dead.

>> all i remember i was just reading "tragic death." as soon as i got to the word death, just instantly, not even half a second, my mind just said, he finally killed her and i just knew with every fiber of my being that he had killed her. >> yet even though justine's family firmly agreed with holly about eric's culpability, they were less certain he would ever be charged with the murder. >> he's very clever. he's much smarter than most people give him credit to and i think that's made the investigator's jobs much harder. >> with the investigation seemingly stalled, they tried to become their own detectives of sorts. after all, they knew their former son-in-law best and were determined to figure out what really had happened to their daughter. with no criminal charges in sight, they file a wrongful death civil suit pointing to eric as their daughter's killer. courtney stewart, a reporter for the local newspaper "the hook" had launched her own investigation into justine's death. she said everyone understood

where the family was coming from. justine's parents believed eric had brutally killed their daughter and were going to do everything they could to bring him to justice. >> it's a pretty blunt allegation but i think that civil suit is part of this maneuvering that her parents felt like they were going to do whatever they could to make sure he did not get away with her murder. >> they're squeezing him. they're putting pressure on eric? >> yes. >> the swartz family wrongful death civil suit alleges nine others, most of them unnamed, had conspired with eric to kill their daughter. he denied the allegation and so did alison crawford, his former girlfriend and one of the named defendants in the lawsuit. and while sympathetic to the swartz family mission to find answers to their daughter's death, she believes they crossed the line by filing the civil suit. >> although initially this situation was a pursuit for justice for justine, it has

transitioned into a punishment for the people that are associated or connected with eric. >> the focus became nailing eric and getting him put away? >> correct. >> and eric's family says he found himself living in a very uncomfortable investigative limbo. >> eric is a guy with a bull's eye around him? >> right. >> people pointing a finger, he killed his wife, getting away with it? >> yes. >> crawford says the investigation put so much pressure on eric that it erupted in their investigation. she ended up receiving a protection of order against him after they had an argument. >> it ended with eric touching me physically and i simply wanted to make sure that that wouldn't happen again. >> but alison chalks his behavior up the behavior to the intense scrutiny because of the investigation and says it has been taken out of context. >> it was used in a manner that manipulated the public opinion. >> the story is that he went for you by the throat.

>> eric's life was turned upside down in an effort to turn against him. public opinion against him. he wasn't perfect by any means but the eric i knew was an active participant in his children's lives. he was not abusive. >> but it was the medical examiner's final findings that helped tie things together for agent jones. maybe he hadn't seen debris or much blood on the road because justine wasn't killed there. >> there was findings that are considered consistent with strangulation. it's telling me that she was incapacitated in some which and placed in the middle of the road. my theory and the body tells me that she was likely manually strangled to near death, transported to the location that she was found and then run over. >> the m.e. believed justine's injuries pointed to a large vehicle, something much bigger than her mustang. >> the vehicles lower to the ground you're going to see more scrapes and drags whereas a taller vehicle, usually the wheels just catch you and they might grab you a little bit. this case is more consistent

with probably a suv. >> something with a little heft to it? >> yes. and a lift to it. >> turns out there was a vehicle like that that made its way into the investigator's case file. a big black ford expedition like this one that eric looked at the week before justine died. an ignition key went missing and the suv itself went missing a few days later. >> and the theory of foul play, what might this black suv, what role might it play? >> i think the question was, is this the vehicle that could have been used to run her over? >> big, heavy, gigantic suv? >> right. her injuries were consistent with being essentially crushed under the wheels of a large vehicle. >> a little over a week after justine died, the suv turned up in a storage unit about a mile from where justine's body was found. >> it has less than 50 miles on the odometer. there was no damage to the ignition which to them seems to suggest that somebody used a key

but it's not connected with justine's death far couple of months and in, in fact, before police ever get to look at it, it's detailed, cleaned, and sold. >> eric indicated to the investigators he had nothing to do with the missing suv. but did say something else that caught their attention. >> he tells them that, oh, yeah, she came to look at the car with me and she crawled all through it. >> leaving dna? trace evidence? >> right. that would be perfect if they happened to find one of her hairs, well, she was crawling through it when we were thinking about buying it. >> again, the investigators were left with a little more than suspicions. they couldn't tie the suv to eric. >> we were far from saying homicide. >> the case, once again, seemed to be at a standstill. and not the least part of the dilemma was the commonsense problem with the crime itself. step back and look at how complex the investigator's operating theory was. that eric strangles justine within an inch of her life, runs her over with a large vehicle. now he has to get her body, her car, and his motorcycle all out

here to the scene. that was a scenario with a lot of moving parts, one that needed time to execute and maybe one with several vehicles. it just seemed like more than one man could hand until a narrow window of opportunity. so the investigation sputtered for more than two years when an odd thing happened. someone came forward with a very bizarre tale of happenstance involving a parade float. when we come back, a motorist lost and then found by a stranger with a request. >> this gentleman comes around to my car and he says, can you follow me? my wife's car is almost out of gas. crystal geyser is always bottled at the mountain source. crystal geyser. crystal geyser. crystal geyser. then we deliver it directly to you.

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and that's what occurred next in the investigation into the death of justine abshire. a man had stepped forward with a strange tale about how he inadvertently became involved in the case one november night. it was late when the man says he found himself hopelessly lohse on these winding country roads. >> it was a crazy night. i mean, i know i was way out in the middle of somewhere i'd never been before. >> sicil pursued his passion for building parade floats. so here he was after work only two months away from his deadline to finish floats for the big charlottesville, virginia, new year's eve parade and he was in dire need of one more old school bus chassis to build upon. >> that was a normality of my life, looking for something to put this last unit on. >> his float building partner left him directions to check out a school bus he heard was for

sale. but instead of going south from charlottseville mistakenly headed north. >> you were upside down? >> i was upside down. >> left was right and right was left. >> correct, right. >> lost and late, he said he did finally spot one parked school bus parked in his headlights but there was no for sale sign in it. he gave up and was pulling in a driveway to head for home when a man approached out of the night. >> i was turning around and a gentleman comes around to my car and he says, can you follow me, my wife's car is almost out of gas? can you follow me to a gas station? i said, well, it would be great because i'm totally lost. and he said, well, no problem. we'll get to the gas station and this is going to be right on the main road. >> so you can do each other a little bit of good here? >> exactly. absolutely. so i pull out, he pulls out, i follow this little car all the way through these little winding roads. >> a few miles down the road, he says, the man pulled over. >> i pulled up behind him and said, i ran out of gas.

so can you take me back home? i said, well, i can run you up the gas station? maybe we can get something. oh, no, it's fine. just take me back home. >> that would make sense, let's go to the gas station and get a five-gallon -- >> yes, that's what i thought. >> get this road off the road. >> he said he could take care of it from there. i took him back home, left his driveway. >> as you dropped him off -- >> that was it. >> hopped out of the car. >> and went into his house? >> went right away. >> helping out the man with the car was a story quickly forgotten, forgotten until two years later when a friend sent him a news report about an unsolved hit and run case. the few details, the victim who walked away from her car, the picture of the husband took secil back to that night. he was certain that eric abshire, the man in the news report under suspicion for killing his wife was the same person who had asked him for help the night he was lost. cecil got in touch with the authorities. >> all i knew was that the guy that was in the picture was the guy that was sitting next to me in my car when i drove him back. >> it had always been a missing link for investigators.

if eric abshire had killed his wife, how did he do it alone? at minimum, staging the hit-and-run required getting their vehicles out here five miles from the home. now the parade float builder's story provided a possible solution to those complex logistics. as a good samaritan motorist, he followed eric to where justine's body was later found. convenient but what are the chances that that story was true? you had to believe he appeared at the very moment that eric staged help. >> i was skeptical. you know? it's a nice story but without anything to go along with it, it's just a story. >> special agent mike jones started the long process of trying to verify the float builder's account. >> i wanted to check the area to see if there might be a school bus that was where he said he was going and that proved to be true. >> next, he wanted him to trace the route he took.

>> put him in the car, said, okay, this is where you said you started that night. now tell me where to go. >> you're in charge. which way are we going, huh? >> i didn't give him any feedback. it was always one way and i was on the receiving end of it. if he told me to turn, i turned. if he told me to stop, i stopped. pull off, i pulled off. >> in his show and tell recreation of the drive, cecil did not point to the very spot where the car had been found. >> he didn't get it to the right spot? >> he didn't. i thought, well, if he would have picked that up in the media or something like that -- >> well, what about that? didn't everybody in the county know where all of these things had happened? >> well, that's the thing. it wasn't too perfect. and generally, i don't know, sometimes when it's too perfect, it can be regurgitated and i thought, all right, he had enough room of ir ror in there that he might be credible. >> nor did he have anything to gain by coming forward. >> was he interested in any of the reward money that had been posted? >> he's never asked about it.

>> and cecil willingly underwent a polygraph. >> so you took a lie detector test about your story? >> absolutely. >> how did you do? >> i passed it. 100%. no problems at all. >> and yet it all seemed so pat. a solution to a mystery in the movies but not in real life. even cecil saw the problem posed by his story. it is perplexing, here this guy we're told is staging a murder, and here's the part where cecil shows up in the driveway. he can't plan on you showing up. >> no. >> what would he have done if you didn't appear in the driveway? >> i have no clue. >> i felt like that the information he had is fascinating but the information that mr. abshire provided was fascinating. >> do you think the story is true? >> i do. >> did he become the guy that had helped him get the car out on that back road? >> i do. >> the investigators now had another piece to the intricate puzzle that they were piecing together. and when they looked at it all,

the medical examiner's findings, the insurance, the troubled relationship, and the story of the lot of parade float builder, a special grand jury was convened. after four long years of investigation, they finally felt they had their case. >> when we were able to get all of the information that we felt that we were ever able going to be able to get, we looked at the picture and it was clear to us what had happened and that who was responsible. >> go arrest abshire? >> yeah. >> news of an arrest that justine's family thought might never come. >> it felt like this huge bag of rocks i had been carrying on my back for four years was lifted off me. >> yet they knew the arrest was only step one and that their former son-in-law could easily beat the charge. that tlunt a shred of physical evidence to link him to the murder. it would be an entirely circumstantial case. >> we were nervous but we just had to put our faith in to the system that this was the right

time to roll the dice. >> eric abshire would stand trial for the murder of his wife but 0 conviction was anything but certain. coming up -- the defendant gets ready to dismantle a particular part of the prosecution's case. >> there's so many holes in it, it's unbelievable. what's better, saving a bunch or not saving at all? [ kids ] a bunch! what would you buy with all this money you saved? i'd buy a change-o machine so i could change my brother into a puppy. change-o machine? couldn't you just buy an actual puppy? but if my brother's a puppy i could bring him to show and tell and say,

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we also know how much you love to make him happy! that's why petsmart has so many new, fun and surprising toys you can't find anywhere else. we know, because like you, we're pet parents too. petsmart®. happiness in store.™ almost five years from the night when justine abshire was found lying dead on this dark, country road, her husband would finally stand trial for her murder. as we speak, we're awaiting trial, what do you want out of trial? out of the process? >> the truth. i want to know. >> the truth and justice. >> it had been a long wait for justine's parents, who had come to believe the worst about the man who had married their daughter. >> my personal belief is that eric intended to kill her when he married her. he had made up his mind before they even got married that at

some point he would do that. >> they knew, though, that there was a big gulf between what they believed and what could be proved at trial. there was no eyewitness to the murder. no confession or physical evidence linking eric to the scene. >> i know circumstantial cases are hard to prove. >> prosecutors were committed to finding justice for the swartz family but it took so long to bring the case to trial because they knew they had only one shot at a conviction. if eric abshire was acquitted, double jeopardy kicked in. he would walk out of this courtroom forever a free man. >> a guilty vote was not guaranteed in this? >> no. >> no. >> the prosecution's theory was that justine had been strangled but was clinging to life when eric ran her over and placed her in the road as part of an elaborate plot to stage a hit and run for the insurance money payout. the problem with this theory is it raised as many questions as it answered.

reporter courtney stewart covered the trial. >> you don't really even have a crime scene. if she did not die on that road, where did she die? they don't know. they were never able to determine where this happened or even exactly what happened. they're just quite certain that she's dead and he did it. >> the prosecutors called their witnesses. the medical examiner told the jury what he believed had caused justine's death. other witnesses testified about cell phone records and insurance policies while justine's friends and family talked about the troubled marriage and there was that parade float builder who said he helped eric get his wife's car out to the crime scene that night. at the end of the their case, the prosecutors felt they'd done the best they could with what they had. >> it was all the evidence together and he's the last person to see her alive, the first person to find her, the only person to have any access to her between 7:00 p.m. and 1:00 in the morning.

>> but charles weber, eric's defense attorney, would dissect the prosecution's case. he told the jury that even if his client wasn't always a model husband, it doesn't make him a murder. >> it's not beauty or a personality contest. >> he challenged the medical examiner's finding that justine could have been strangled and then ran over. >> it is not supported. >> medically, scientifically, you do not see that? >> i do not see that scientifically. >> the defense attorney called his own forensic pathologist to the witness stand to pose an alternative theory for how justine died. he testified that justine was struck in the road by a large vehicle that hit her hard enough to propel her through the air. >> it would be sufficient to do a snap of the neck. it's an area of the spine that is attached directly to the brain that controls heartbeat and breathing and would cause that to stop immediately. >> so scientifically and

medically you're saying there's no reason to believe she wasn't standing in that roadway? >> the evidence from our perspective cannot rule out the possibility of a hit and run. >> and webber says there was a report of a large vehicle on the road that night that could have caused justine's grievous injuries. >> there was a witness statement that was jacked up toyota yet somehow that vehicle disappears and nobody ever sees it and the police don't see it. >> he also didn't believe the story of the parade float builder who said he got lost and ended up in abshire's driveway that night. >> there's so many holes in it it's unbelievable. >> the prosecutors had also argued that eric's cousin tracy was mistaken seeing him late at the hospital the night justine was killed but the cousin held firm. >> at trial they would say we think you're confused about your evening.

>> i'm not. >> you were at the hospital that night? >> yes. >> not the night before? >> no. >> and the family was lined up saying their good-byes. >> yes. >> and eric was there? >> yes. >> eric's family says he was wrongly accused. >> he said, no. >> as the case heads to the jury, reporter courtney stewart thought it too close to call. she could see how the defense may have seeded the jury with reasonable doubt. >> how can you convict somebody when there's not one shred of physical evidence tying him to do is this this? how can you be sure? >> the courtroom buzz was he may walk on this. >> a circumstantial case, when there's no eyewitness, no nothing, it could go either way. because it's going to be up to the jury to decide what's reasonable doubt. >> and soon they would have their verdict. coming up -- jurors struggle. >> i spent a lot of nights laying there trying to put it together.

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crystal geyser is always bottled at the mountain source. after two weeks of testimony, the case was in the hands of the jury. justine's family fretted. >> oh, i felt so nervous. it only takes one person on a jury to not be sure and that seemed pretty likely. just one person would say, i'm not totally convinced, guys. i'm not going to vote with you. >> they waited for the verdict. >> you see movies, you know, everything happens like this. in the movies. it is just not the way it is. >> whenever they could, they visited the makeshift roadside memorial where justine had died. >> it's hard in a way. it's a really peaceful place for me and then it's really, really sad place to think that, you know, this was her last place on

earth. >> but as they each acknowledged, nothing had ever been the same since getting that call in the middle of the night that justine was dead. >> what was the impact of it, to your family? >> it is like the big bang. we sort of exploded. and went in different directions. >> grief consumed them. the marriage of three decades fell apart. >> eventually our marriage crumbled. you know? it's -- it goes on and on. it's endless. >> and unstoppable shock wave. >> there's this giant hole and nothing will ever fill that. >> the prosecutors hoped the trial would bring the family some measure of peace but from years of experience, they knew that even a guilty verdict would only do so much. >> there's collateral damage everywhe everywhere. >> we can't avoid that but it's a fact of the world we live in. >> the trial had been an uphill fight. the prosecutors hadn't been able

to tell the jury precisely how or even where justine had been killed. >> you like to be able to explain exactly what happened. step by step. >> but these jurors would be the people to say, guilty or not. >> and they were having a hard time figuring out how one man could pull off such an elaborate murder plot. eric, they figured would have likely had to run over her with some large vehicle, found a way to move the body to the road and then gotten both justine's mustang and his motorcycle to the crime scene, all in a short window of time. >> i spent a lot of nights laying there trying to put it together. >> there are a lot of moving parts here. >> there were. >> and the jurors didn't see the parade float maker as the solution to eric's problem of moving all those vehicles around. >> could that have happened? possible. anything can happen. how likely? one in a million chance would be my guess. >> we didn't really weigh that in on our decision. we kind of put that towards the back. >> it was not a decider, you're saying?

>> no, no. >> no. >> but they also weren't persuaded by the testimony of eric's cousin tracy saying she was with him around 11:30 the night justine died as he cared for her mother. >> she could have been confused on the dates. you know? mother was in and out of the hospital a lot. >> they returned to the courtroom to ask the judge to define circumstantial evidence. >> he said, use our common sense and take in all the evidence and make our decision that way. >> so many unanswered questions. from the complexities of an elaborate plot to the mysteries of the human heart. >> how someone could do that to someone they claimed that they loved so much. >> they struggled to reach a decision. >> we had a timeline up on the board so that we could kind of look at what happened, who said what, you know, to try to figure out what was -- what we could believe and what we couldn't believe. >> finally they decided to take a vote. they were unanimous. >> we were kind of stunned for a minute. >> word went out.

the jury had a verdict. >> steven! we have a verdict! >> oh. got to go. >> i felt like i was just going to explode. about as tense as i've ever been in my life. >> the family had been waiting almost five years to the day for this moment, a moment they thought might never come. >> i remember having my hand on steven's forearm and i felt a little muscle pulsing. you know? i just kept saying it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. >> the jurors walked back in to the courtroom. they announced their verdict. eric abshire guilty of murder in the first degree, sentenced to life in prison. >> it's a huge feeling of relief, release. >> as steve and heidi swartz walk out of the courthouse, they hug. the long ordeal, the five-year pursuit of justice for their daughter finally ended with a guilty verdict. >> it was a lot of work. it's worth it. >> and the prosecutors knew without the family and the dedicated investigators, eric abshire likely would have never been charged. >> i think eric almost got away with murder.

it would have been easier to say, what a tragedy. you know? a young groom has lost his beautiful bride, what a shame. we're so sorry. >> in the end, the jurors acknowledge the case did have unanswered questions but they nonetheless felt confident with their verdict. >> we don't have to know exactly how it happened. we just know from the circumstantial evidence that he was the one that did it. >> abshire is appealing the jury's verdict. and his cousin tracy believes the jury got it wrong, that eric did not kill justine. >> i don't believe he could do something like that. >> you have read the articles. out there. everybody can read them. pretty easy to put together a picture of eric as a monster. >> it is. >> looking for fights and women gets restraining order. runs up debt. easy to put together a bad picture of eric. what do you think's incomplete here? >> it doesn't make him a murderer. a lot of men are like that. i mean, i hadn't seen that side

of him, act that way towards her, but a lot of men make mistakes. act certain ways that doesn't make them murderers. >> for justine's family and friends, one of the greater unsolved mysteries has always been why she stayed in the relationship with eric. they speculate that she was planning to leave him the night she was killed. after the funeral, they discovered her luggage was missing. she had also left behind two months of lesson plans in the drawer at school. >> i think she realized that if she stayed something terrible was going to happen to her. >> and you think she did try to get snout. >> i think that that's what she was doing. >> but didn't make it? >> didn't make it. >> but all of justine's friends and family are tough on themselves for not intervening even more forcefully in what to them had become a miserable marriage. >> it's the guilt club. we're all in the guilt club. her parents, everybody. and that's the hardest thing for me.

i mean, i could have just flown out there because in my heart i felt that it was wrong. so, you know, sometimes you say you can't borrow trouble but i guess after years of it you have to put your foot down and do something. >> lauren likens the long-term domestic abuse she believes her sister suffered is watching her slowly die from a chronic illness. even with the guilty verdict in, the agony hasn't faded. >> peace and justice seem like these lofty ideals and will be blue skies and sunshine but that's not the case. >> at the elementary school where justine taught, they've planted a tree in memory of the kindergarten teacher whose happiest moments in her final year were likely spent in the comfort of the children she loved. >> that's for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. you reach your late

20s, you might be surprised to discover you still don't have life quite figured out. like with aunt lily. even though she was back from san francisco, she was still on a quest to find herself. it's just that all i've ever done is teach kindergarten. i want to get out there and change the world. i want to find my passion. and she did find it. i'm going to be a life coach. in fact, she found it again and again.