♪ i'm a big kid now! ♪ . everyone says that you and your sister were your mom's life. >> yeah. amazing person. committed to family. committed to my stir and i. and then five years later, gone. >> she was a gorgeous girl, a model who became a mom. >> said you guys made some good lookin' kids. >> oh, they sure did. >> and the eve of her son's fifth birthday she vanished. >> we're all trying to talk without kids hearing us. where is she? >> they have question force ts

man in her life, but it wouldn't be so simple. >> she came out, and grabbed me by the arms, and then she called the police. >> then there was this secret boyfriend that wasn't telling police all he knew. >> he wasn't up front in the beginning. >> then there was third man. the former colleague with a crush. >> he shared with friends that he had found the love of his life. >> so you have three potential suspects. >> yeah. it's a tangle. >> court investigators unravel it. >> we're asking ourselves, what does this mean. >> would her family ever find justice. >> this is 17 years of built-up emotions, you know. >> i'm lester holt, and this is dateline. here's andrea canning. >> it's a celebration no mother would ever want to miss, a child's fifth birthday, but suddenly, she was gone, out of his life. >> there's nothing that anybody

could really do to fix, repair that missing part. >> his mother, sandy johnson, was outgoing, energetic and an awesome mom. >> those kids were everything to her. >> so why wasn't she there to sing "happy birthday" to her son? >> she disappeared into thin air. >> she should have seen you get married, go into the military and become a police officer one day. >> it's the toughest thing i've ever had to deal with, you know. >> it was heartbreaking and baffling. >> it was a true mystery as to what happened to sandy. >> that true mystery, what happened to the vibrant young mom who vanished from a seattle suburb endured for years. those who loved sandy johnson, those who longed for her return waited almost two decades for answers and a slice of justice.

the story starts in april 1996, april 26, to be precise. a friday. in the seattle area, the weather was doing what it does in this part of the world -- clouding up and spritzing rain. that day, sandy johnson, a 28 year old wife and mother had a to-do list as long as her arm. >> she was going to run and do all her errands that day to get ready for her son's birthday party the next day. >> vickie was a good friend of sandy's. they bonded in the hospital ach their sons, both premature were born on the same day. sandy was a little younger than vickie, a tiny woman with a huge zest for life. >> i loved being around sandy. seemed like she really cared about people. >> no one knew that better than sandy's cousins. they all grew up together. >> sandy is action, action, do,

do, talkative, laugh, she's a mile a minute and gorgeous. >> tiny little thing. >> tine eye. she wore like a double 0. >> she modeled? >> she did some modeling. i remember she did some kind of a bridal thing at one time. >> that friday, sandy took her day off from her job at a car dealership. her husband says she was always a mom first. >> everything was about the kids, you know, everything revolved around the kids. >> how excited was she to be a mom? >> i think she was really excited. i think that's what she wanted. she liked it. >> sandy had a plan. the kids would spend time with vickie while she zipped around town. that morning she left vickie a message on her phone. >> i'll be down right after that. i'll probably see you around 4:00. okay. talk to you later, bye-bye. >> but 4:00 came and went and no

sandy. vickie's hands were full with her kids and sandy's. at first she wasn't concerned. >> i started calling her. you're not here yet, sandy, and it wasn't like her, and i was feeling frustrated. >> the hours went by and still no sandy. vickie's frustration turned to anger. but then she started to worry. around 7:00 that night she began working the phones. >> we started calling greg and hospitals, the police. we were just on the phones. we were worried. >> vickie and her husband kept sandy's kids at her home that night. >> did you sleep at all that night? >> probably not much. it's a fog. it's unreal. where is she? what could have happened to her? >> so the next morning still no sandy? >> had to get ready to go to the birthday party. just told sean, it's okay.

your mom will be there. >> there was nothing to indicate sandy had left in a hurry and not told anyone. >> all her stuff is there. called the police. called family, my sister. i think i probably called her father. >> were you in a panic at this point? or are you still like, okay, maybe she ended up going out with some friends or -- >> no. i was pretty worried, just the circumstances that were at the house. there's trouble. something was not right. >> the birthday party for sean went ahead on saturday. there was a cake and some presents, but no sandy. the adults huddled and whispered. >> the whole time we're all trying to talk without kids hearing us about where is she? what happened? >> i think we made second call to the police department in the afternoon. >> did you think, okay. we've got this party. sandy will show up for the party. >> that was our hope. >> we all tried to proceed as

normal. craig was crying like crazy. he had glasses on. he was trying to hide it, but there were tears. >> do you remember anything about that day? your fifth birthday? >> unfortunately, i don't, you know. >> but sean johnson, now 23, knows that was the day his life changed forever. the day the awful questions started. >> why isn't my mom around? why would this have happened? you know. >> those were the very questions the police would start asking too. because that same night they were called to a seattle supermarket. store employees had noticed an abandoned vehicle in the parking lot. had was sandy johnson's car. her keys were in it, so was her cell phone, but there was no sign of sandy. >> detectives begin the search for sandy, an investigation that would turn into an odyssey. >> when we return, that first break, finding sandy's car,

gives police hope, but a second clue will throw them for a loop. >> we're asking ourselves how does this come together? what does this mean? and if i tap my geico app here i can pay my bill. tap it here, digital insurance id card. and tap it here, boom, roadside assistance. on'tday ooklay, it's axwellmay. the igpay? otallytay. take an icturepay! onephay, onephay! really, pig latin? [ male announcer ] geico. anywhere, anytime. just an aptay away on the geico appay. [ male announcer ] people shave you, anytime. pour hot wax on you. they don't treat you like skin. presenting dove advanced care. clinically proven to reduce irritation. so you can be a softer, smoother, more beautiful little armpit. wheeee! air wick's snuggle fresh linen you love, anytime you want it. again, he's sitting in my chair.

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hours after sandy johnson was reported missing, the police made a disturbing discovery. sandy's car, a ford escort skags wagon like this one, was found in the parking lot of a seattle grocery store. the doors were unlocked. the keys were in the ignition. sandy's cell phone was lying on the seat, but sandy herself was nowhere to be found.

cousins gina and nancy. >> when they found sandy's cash, did you go from thinking, okay, she's missing. maybe we'll find her to -- >> she's gone. >> she's gone. >> oh, i figured if someone had her, that's it. >> captain scott strathy, a detective for the king county sheriff's department back in 1996 was assigned to the case. it must have been extremely alarming from the perspective of law enforcement when you find sandy's car abandoned, with the keys and her cell phone inside. >> at least it gave us an area to focus upon. the vehicle was located in southwestern king county. >> the cops noted an unusual detail. the driver's seat was pushed back. sandy, who was tiny, drove with the seat in the forward position, as close to the steering wheel as possible. then, just as they were processing the car, the cops got

another break. sandy's wallet was located lying in the parking lot of a hardware store. oddly enough, it was miles from her car. they were puzzled. >> we're asking ourselves how does this come together? what does this mean? >> what does it tell you when you find a car and wallet and no sandy. >> sandy had clearly been taken away from her vehicle in some manner. and at that point we were very focused on why was this vehicle located here. why was her wallet found across town. >> to detectives, it all added up to foul play. >> it was a very strange and compelling case. a mother of two small children, essentially just dropped off the radar screen. >> was it baffling to the whole police department what happened to sandy? >> yeah. her disappearance became a priority with the sheriff's office right away. >> sandy's friends and family

put up fliers and joined search parties in the greater seattle area. but there was one notable exception. >> were you participating in the search? >> not too much. >> why not? >> you know, i just couldn't do that. i just pretty much stayed around the house with the kids and family. >> did anyone question that, why isn't he out looking for her? >> never questioned me. maybe amongst themselves. i don't know. >> but dents were already taking a good, long look at sandy johnson's husband, digging for details about the state of the couple's marriage. >> the first thing you're doing is looking at those people closest to the person that is missing. you have to. so it made perfect sense to focus on the husband early on. >> it always seems like the spouse. >> in this particular case, we really didn't know the dynamics of what had happened in their marriage. i mean, it's up to us to find out what are the details. >> detectives learned that sandy

met greg at a hockey game in 1990. she pursued him, and he fell fast. >> she had a lot of energy. a lot of spunk. >> you seem like you might be a little more low-key? >> i am. >> was she a good complement to you? a good fit? >> i think so. >> in late 1990, sandy got pregnant and the couple married. sean was born in 1991 and daughter katie followed. in early 1996, four months before sandy disappeared, the marriage hit a rough patch. greg moved out of the house. friends told the police there were money pressures, among other things. >> what went wrong with the relationship? >> i think she said she couldn't talk to me or communicate with me. and, you know, we'd seen a marriage counselor and we were working on some stuff. and i think it was getting, you know, better. >> you wanted to get back together. >> yeah, i wasn't against that

at all. >> but law enforcement developed a very different portrait of the marriage and the chances for reconciliation. these are prosecutors with the king county district attorney. >> they were talking about divorce. they had gotten to the point, and it was assumed that they would be divorced. so that was pretty recent before this happened, within the month before that that decision had been made. >> and then investigators discovered something else that troubled them. >> law enforcement learned that they had argued only the day before she'd gone missing. there had been sort of a big argument around her people at her place of work. so that, too, focused attention on her estranged husband. >> the argument was over money, which was a frequent point of dispute with them. he had trouble. she had trouble meeting their bills. >> investigators' questions were mounting. they had a couple with money problems, a troubled marriage. a husband who didn't search for

his wife and fought with her the day before she disappeared. it was time to sit down with greg johnson. >> how did they treat you in that first encounter? the police? >> yeah, they were like, you know, you did it, you know. accusing me of, you know, killing my wife. told my sister that, you know, greg has, you know, did it. >> the usual suspect was starting to look like the right guy. >> coming up. greg and sandy's marriage turns out, it was more trouble than most people knew. >> she called me one time and just said, it's getting really bad. it's to a point, and i'm just afraid. >> and then a new very many rocks the case. >> must have been a big red flag for police. >> yes,

sandy johnson was missing. police believed she'd been killed, and they were zeroing in on her estranged husband greg. his world had turned upside down. >> life changed fast. i mean, i could tell you stories. you know, come home from work, and there's three or four tv stations in front of your house ready to do the 5:00 news. >> the more investigators talked

to sandy's family and friends about the couple's on the rocks marriage the more suspicious they became of greg. sandy had confided in her cousin gina boon that living with her husband gotten very difficult. >> she called me one time and said it's really bad. it's to a point, and i'm just afraid. and i tried to get more information out of her, and she just said i can't talk about it. i just, i said you got to do what you got to do. >> the evidence wasn't just anecdotal, a loud argument between the couple more than a year before she went missing ended with greg spending a night in jail. >> i grabbed herbie the arms and sat her down. i didn't hit her or nothing. and then she called the police. and, cause she had, there was marks on her arms. anytime there's a domestic dispute, cops are called,

somebody goes to jail. so i'm the one who went to jail. >> investigators found the domestic violence incident troubling. and when they looked for a possible motive, they found one of the classics -- money. >> were you able to collect a life insurance policy? >> i did. yes. >> how much, what's that? >> it wasn't much, but. >> do you have a number? >> i now what it was. i'm not going to say, but it was a substantial amount of money, yeah. >> investigators were more and more convinced they had their man. the polygraph they gave greg just days after sandy vanished was key. >> they asked if i'd be willing to take a polygraph just to clear my name or whatever. i said sure. i had nothing to hide. what i know is that the polygraph was inconclusive. so i guess at that point they thought it was me. they probably thought it was me before the polygraph. >> the police actually say you failed the polygraph test. >> yeah. i'm sure they did.

>> so you're disputing that? >> i am. it was, you know, it was an inconclusive results on the polygraph. >> cops felt he failed it, and the results made them even more certain they were on the right track. >> king county prosecuting attorneys kristin and carla. >> craig had not done well on a polygraph test. so they asked if he would take another test. he called a lawyer. the lawyer said you need to stop talking to police right now, and so he did. >> nus have been a big red flag for police. >> yes, i think it was. whenever someone flunks a polygraph test police get more suspicious. >> greg may have lawyered up, but the police used those poll owe graph tests to ramp up the pressure. >> they tried to turn my sister against me. >> lots of people in town were turning in that direction. in those first dark weeks after sandy went missing, her dear

friend vickie full kerrson started to think greg was somehow involved. >> the police said certain things that would lead you to believe he did it. >> what did they say? >> that he didn't pass the test. that there was people at work that heard them fighting. just enough that it was like, could he have done it? >> cops were starting to think so, especially when they considered the domestic incident that put greg in jail, the argument at the dealership the night before she disappeared and the possible money motive. >> given the history with greg, was the family immediately looking to greg as a possible? >> mm-hm. yes. >> suspect in this. >> yeah. >> were there some family members convinced greg must have done this? >> i think a few were pretty, you know, you got to put the blame on someone. 100%. >> how was sandy's family looking ought? >> there was a bunch that, you know, thought that i was the

person. >> and you're telling eaveryone i didn't do this. >> right. >> and there are people who are just not believing you. >> yeah. and i get the fact that it's, 90% of the time it's the husband or the boyfriend. i get that. but it wasn't this time. >> did you feel in this case that you were target number one? >> oh, yeah. i was the only target. >> but greg johnson was wrong about that. clue by clue, investigators were uncovering secrets of sandy's. things her estranged husband didn't know, that would provide them intriguing new suspects. >> coming up. detectives discover what sandy's been hiding. a man named jeff. did he also have a secret? >> that was suspicious to police, that he wasn't up front about that from the beginning. >> and then a former colleague of sandy's. was he hiding something too? >> cliff looked to be doing everything he could to present

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the search for the person responsible for the disappearance of sandy johnson from a seattle suburb was widening. cops had her husband greg in their cross hairs from the start, but as they dug deeper into sandy's last days, they found other people they needed to check out. >> we had to look at everyone close to sandy at that point in time. >> investigators discovered that the recently separated sandy had a friend named jeff cane she kept secret from her estranged husband. she was supposed to meet cane for lunch the day after she disappeared. cops soon learned there had been

more than lunch and the menu. after lunch on that friday she stopped by his house to touch up her tan. >> she had used the tanning bed and they were going to contact each other by phone the following morning. >> that revelation made cane the last person known to have seen sandy alive. cops brought him in for questioning. according to prosecutors, he was alarmed after he learned sandy was missing. >> he was worried about that. and he tried to get ahold of her and couldn't get ahold of her. tried to find her. so he finally went over to her house and left a note on her door because he was worried because she had not shown up for lunch. >> he was one of the last people known to have spoken to him on that friday. she'd spoken to him more recently than snehe'd spoken to her husband. >> they grew more suspicious. it turned out cane hadn't been

totally candid about the relationship with sandy. >> he held back about the fact that they'd had a romantic or sexual relationship. >> why did he hold back on that? >> i don't know. perhaps he was concerned about just in general she was a married woman. he didn't want that to get out. >> as they had on husband greg, cops put cane on a polygraph ma teen. he passed the test. cops told him he could go home for now. when they laid out their timeline for sandy's last days, it turned out cane wasn't the only man she was supposed to meet. there was a co-worker who had befriended sandy. cliff reid says she never turned up. husband greg knew reid from when he had visited the house. >> he was going to fix my car for me. and then he stayed for dinner.

>> what did you think of him? >> he seemed like a nice guy. >> on the face of his, his appraisal of sandy's co-worker seemed right. they were drawn together by mutual need. >> did sandy see cliff as someone she could lean on for help, being a single mom at the time? >> i think sandy was going through a traumatic time in her life. she was separated from her husband, had some financial challenges. and cliff reid was someone at work that would listen to what she had to say, would offer support. >> and he actually helped her financially. so he was there for her. >> cliff was, was there. he'd given a loan to sandy of about $1800 at some point prior to her disappearance. >> despite his apparent generosity, there was something about cliff the co-worker, the cops weren't buying. >> cliff looked to be doing everything he could to present

himself to sandy as a normal and caring and concerned friend. we clearly found out, as we looked closer into cliff reid, that that was not the real cliff reid. >> in fact, reid had a troubling history with women. >> cliff didn't like women at all. he was a massagist in. and he had very bad names for women that he felt had done him wrong. and basically, from what we could tell, just had a generalized hatred for the female person. apart from being sort of self-centered and narcissistic, he constantly thought that women were doing him wrong. >> but none of that was against the law. cops had no reason to hold him. weeks went by without an arrest, and all detectives had was a trio of suspects. as the investigation dragged on, greg, now a single parent, was trying to get on with his life,

working at boeing and raising his two kids. >> did you think sandy was dead, in your heart? >> yeah. >> you accepted that? >> yeah. >> how hard was that? >> it was hard. >> as months and then years passed, sandy's friends and family struggled to keep her this the public's memory. her good friend shawna took the lead. >> we tried to keep the story alive. every year, the news media would come on the anverse rivniversar disappearance. and i'd try to talk and keep the story in the news media. >> five years after his mother vanished, greg moved the family to las vegas. he'd had enough of the seattle area and wanted a fresh start without the cloud of suspicion hanging over him. as he grew up, sean and his father had a lot of questions.

>> why isn't my mom around? who did it? why would this happen? >> and detectives back in washington state had no answers for him. with no body, no new leads and no new suspects, the investigation was dead in the water. >> the case must have been growing colder by the day. >> it was. >> i'm sure you must have felt that way. >> absolutely. >> did you at some point feel like we've kind of got to give up on this until something comes our way? >> yeah. on the other hand, we knew somewhere some day sandy would be found, and the hope was that when that happened there would be some type of evidence that would assist us in putting this case together. >> they were about to get their wish. >> coming up. all the men in sandy's life claimed they didn't see her the day she disappeared. which one of them is lying? >> the neighbor saw her car, recognized her car parked

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finish dishwasher cleaner. ♪ finish dishwasher cleaner. ♪ it's hard to let go of hope. sean johnson could barely remember his mother, yet he never stopped imagining her coming back into his life. >> i just remember being there,

thinking like, like she's got to, she's going to return sooner or later, you know. she has to, you know, walk through the door. >> but it was not to be. one august day in 2004, a highway worker in washington noticed something strange just off the road. it was a shallow grave. investigators recovered skeletal remains. dental records revealed it was sandy. >> i was in seventh grade. i just remember coming home from school and asking my dad, why are there reporters trying to talk to us or whatever. my dad explained they had found her remains. >> finally, sandy's family cold comfort of a funeral. greg brought his children back for the service. it was a difficult day for everyone, especially greg. there were some at that funeral who still wondered if he had a role in sandi's death.

>> how were you received? >> i think there were people there that still didn't like me. family members that didn't like my. the people that were behind me in the beginning, those are the ones that i've stayed with, you know, and hung out with. i don't have time for those people that were against me. >> among the mourners at sandi's service were dents from the cold case squad. the discovery of her bones had jump started their investigation and cops were now taking a cold, hard look at everything and earear everyone all over again. the coroner did an ah top sichlt investigators hoped they'd find something that would point them in the direction of sandi's killer or at least tell them how she died. but no luck. >> there was so much decompositi decomposition and so little left, that there was nothing to

tell us how she died. >> where she was recovered added another piece to the investigative puzzle. it fit the m.o. of the notorious green river killer, gary ridgway. he murdered scores of women in washington and disposed of some of them in the area where sandi's remains were found. his victims were almost all believed to be prostitutes. now king county cop also to make sure there was something they didn't miss about sandi. >> did she ever engage in prostitution? a hard question. >> i believe someone, a detective asked her mom that, and it was not well received as you can imagine. sandi was not a prostitute. and that would be heart ripping to hear a question like that, even though it had to be asked. >> police then ruled out the green river killer. detectives circled back to the secret boyfriend, jeff cane. they came away convinced he had nothing to do with sandi's

death. jeff cane was cleared. as for husband greg, who had done so many things that raised suspicion early on, ultimately he had an alibi that checked out. he clocked in and out of his job at boeing the day she went missing. he was with friends who vouched for him. finally i was off the list. >> how well do you remember that moment where the police came to see you and said you're not a suspect anymore? >> i remember it very well. it was a relief. it was a good day for me. it really was. >> that left sandi's friend from work. cliff reid. cold case detective jim allen decided to see if he could find some evidence tying cliff reid to the death of sandi johnson. >> forensics had changed over the years. so there was a potential of testing a lot of things that

wouldn't have been able to be tested back then for dna specifically. >> they went back to where cliff reid lived in 1996, all these years later and tore the place apart. they found what looked to them to be a bloodstain on the carpet. could it be something? >> we took all the carpet from his room. >> they still had sandi's teal green ford wagon. they ripped that apart too. >> we purchased her car and collected some more evidence and had that tested to see if we could find anything. >> this sort of analysis churned slowly. in 2006, cold case detectives started working with prosecutors krista and carla. investigators dug deeper into cliff reid's story. >> they were learning more and more and more about cliff's lies and sort of his relationship with sandi and some specifics about that day that didn't add up. >> for instance, sandi had taken that friday, april 26, off work to get ready for sean's

birthday. among her errands, she told friends she was picking up a birthday present for sean from cliff reid. >> cliff reid never acknowledged that sandi was coming to his house that day. he said he'd last seen her two weeks before. >> what's more, cliff ryde's neighbor says sandi must have been there that day. >> the neighbor recognized her car parked outside his house. >> that was twrubling to police. but more incriminating was this. that same neighbor said he saw cliff reid driving sandi's car away from the apartment that day, and that grocery store lot where sandi's car was found was within walking distance of cliff's apartment. cliff's neighbors remember him walking home from the store. cliff told detectives he'd gone out for some air. >> this was very much out of character in speaking with the

people that knew cliff reid best. he was not the kind of person that would willie nil eye go y- walk. >> cliff, who was notoriously messy chose the day after her disappearance to clean his housetop to bottom. >> he rented a carpet cleaner. got rid of the vacuum bag. >> it turns out that cliff reid had a bitter history with two ex-wives and police had learned about allegations of a violent episode cliff reid had with an escort he'd hired two months before sandi went macing. >> he was on top of her, groping her, threatening to shoot her. >> that case never went anywhere, but it raised red flags for the cops, looking into sandi johnson's death. >> at that point we realized, my goodness, could this similar scenario have played out at cliff's residence with sandi johnson being the victim?

>> and the motive? cliff ryde was obsessed with sandi johnson. >> cliff shared with friends that he had found the love of his life. >> reid's friends used words like enthralled, head over heels to describe his feelings about sand sandi. he said he was going to marry her and even bought a bigger car to haul her kids around in. problem was the feelings weren't mutual. >> her frustration was growing. that he wanted more than she wanted and there was never going to be that. >> it was just day before she went missing that sandi had told someone that she needed to make him understand. >> had she paid for it with her life. >> i think sandi was the first attractive female that had ever

been nice to him and that's what did her in. he created this fantasy world around her because she was nice to him. >> and when she finally wised up and called it off and said nothing's going to happen, he killed her. >> even as they waited for the forensic results to come back, her friends and family kept faith that eventually there would be justice for sandi. >> did you start to feel again that maybe this isn't going to happen? >> i was hopeful. all i can say is i was hopeful. >> coming up. just as this case finally gets going, a major speed bump. >> how frustrating was that? >> very. >> and then for this family that's been through so much, a heart-stopping moment. >> i feel thrush of just, you know, hot blood.

investigators had been building their case against cliff reid. and now it was decision time for prosecutors krista and carla.

in 2012, 16 years after sandi johnson vanished, police had plenty of circumstantial evidence. >> it came back zero. >> how frustrating was that? >> very. it would have been nice to have some dna. that would have been nice. but we had tried everything that we could. >> the prosecutors faced a tough choice. charge cliff reid with murder and risk losing a potentially unwinnable case or leave sandi's case unresolved, which, as it turns out had happened before. back in the late '90s, cliff reid had briefly been charged with sandi johnson's murder, but prosecutors back then thought the case was too thin to go forward. >> the question is, is there any chance the case will improve if we wait. in this case, there was absolutely nothing left to be done. it was now or never.

>> they chose now. >> we try hard cases and are successful at it. >> after all, they did have reid's lies, a neighbor who saw him driving her car, a witness who saw him cleaning his house the day after sandi disappeared, and most importantly, his obsession with her. cliff reid was arrested in montana. he was extradited to washington state and charged with second degree murder. sean, who had last seen his mother when he was just five was now grown up, a medic in the army when he heard the news from one of his mom's friends. >> i got a call from her, just blew me away, you know. >> just have just flared things up again for you. >> yeah, like reopening, like a cut and rubbing salt in it, you know. >> going to trial was a roll of the dice for both sides. prosecutors would have to win a difficult case with no forensic evidence. >> the biggest problem we had is that cliff managed to succeed in

one crucial point, and that is that he hid sandi's body. and we had no way to prove how she died. >> without that proof of how she died, it would be hard to say cliff reid had intended to kill sandi. for the defendant there was also a risk that a jury would find the prosecutor's circumstantial case convincing. >> cliff reid and his attorney knew that he was facing a real chance of being convicted of murder in the second degree which can carry up to 20 years. >> so in early 2014, prosecutors put a plea bargain on the table and the 60 year old reid made his choice. >> how do you wish to plead? >> guilty. >> they made a deal. cliff reid pleaded guilty not to murder but to manslaughter. >> the good thing about a plea is it avoids not only the risk of losing a trial or a hung jury but the appeal and everything that drags on forever.

and this family had to deal with this loss three times. first, when sandi disappeared. second, when her remains were found. and third, when charges were filed. the case was stirred up all again. >> please rise. court is now in session. >> in april 2014 sandi's family was in court to see cliff reid sentenced. >> what was it like for you seeing him in that courtroom? >> all i feel is this rush of just hot blood, you know. it was tough. it was tough. >> cliff reid got less than four years in prison as mandated by washington law. >> how do you feel about that? the fact that he's doing time, but not a lot? >> it's not a whole lot. the guy killed my mom, you know. everybody knows it. >> cliff reid's plea wasn't just any plea. it was an alford plea, meaning he would not be required to

admit to killing sandi. in fact, when he had the chance to speak, cliff reid said something that outraged the family. >> sandi was a very good friend to me. she was one of the nicest people i have ever known, and i certainly did not kill sandi. >> do you feel like cliff reid got away with murder? >> yes. absolutely. absolutely. >> but sandi's family doesn't blame the prosecutors. >> i think they took on a big undertaking. i'm thankful. i think they did more than their job, those two. >> the good news for sandi is the world knows cliff reid killed her. she did not abandon her children. she did not go missing. he killed her and put her in the woods, and that is worth something to know that and say that. >> two decades ago, sandi johnson missed her son's fifth birthday. as a boy, he wondered what happened to his mom.

now he knows. he's grown up and married. he got some of her looks but he also has her heart. he wants to be a detective to help other families like his own. >> it took so many years to get cliff reid. is that going to motivate you to be a great cop? >> it is. i wouldn't want anything to, you know, happen to cause so much pain to anybody else. >> while justice for sandi may not look quite like anyone imagined, her family is taking solace in the beautiful person sandi was and the reflection they see of her in her children. >> your dad says he sees your mom in you and in your sister. >> that's just 17 years of built-up emotion, you know. >> i know. >> do you think she would be proud of you, what you've accomplished? >> i think she would.

>> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. next on "meet the press," president obama's war on terror in the middle east. will anything short of american military action prevent the creation of an al qaeda-linked terror state stretching from iraq to syria? i'll be joined exclusively by benjamin netanyahu. plus my interview with rand paul of kentucky that's making big news. his surprising assessment of president obama's handling of iraq and a warning that benghazi could haunt a hillary clinton presidential run. and political mud slinging, the inside story on this week's big gop senate race that's made national headlines with the secret video shot in a nursing home and even sarah palin and bret favre