at night this is absolutely pitch dark. it was abandoned and it was secluded. this was his playground. this was the place that we'd be searching for. it was the still of the night when the killings started? >> i've been shot. me and my mother, we've been shot. >> you can feel and hear the fear in her voice. >> a single mother and her teenaged daughter ambushed in their bedrooms. >> there comes a monster into your house. >> i just broke down, you know? i couldn't imagine who would want to do this. >> then it happened again to another mother, another daughter. >> somebody's killing mothers and daughters, that's as scary

as it gets. >> scary as it gets. >> who was out there and who would be next. >> something you would never imagine would happen. >> the clues would lie here, an abandoned mansion, eerie, haunting, where was the killer hiding. >> cold, calculating eyes. lifeless. he was almost a ghost. >> could they catch him? could they stop him? >> i get chills all over. i'm kind of on the edge of my seat. >> he truly thought he could outsmart us. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here's dennis murphy with "the unusual suspect." consider for a moment that cozy word "home" and all it evoke, warmth, family, shelt, security. got it? and now reflect on what happens when those four walls are breached, when nightmares crawl through the window, kicks in the doors. when a haven becomes a house of

horrors. how does that feel? ask lloyd irving? >> i'm laying on the couch. two gunmen are holding me down saying "you're being robbed, don't move." >> many years have passed since that night in 2008 outside the nation's capital in a nice neighborhood in prince georges county, maryland but lloyd and his wife and son, just four years old at the time are still haunted by the image of the gunman. >> something you would never imagine would happen. >> what the robbers didn't count son that lloyd is a nationally renown martial arts expert and when one of the gunmen walked away to scope out the rest of the house, lloyd was suddenly one on one with his accomplice. gunman is in the corner. >> i know he doesn't have room to back up. i go, i've got the cartridge out of the gun, it drops so i hit the ground. >> where's the intruder gone?

>> he ran out of the room. he was running a like "he has the gun, get out of here, he has the gun." >> by the time lloyd managed to reload the wrestled away gun and give chase, both home invaders had escaped? >> i'm calling 911 and my son is on top of me and he's just shaking, not saying a word, not crying, just shaking and i often think, you know, were they going to kill us that night? >> the irvin family wouldn't be the first or last to ask that question. >> i'd like to report an armed robbery. >> 911. >> someone broke into my house. >> in the months that followed, the area was hit with a wave of home invasions. each time two masked men, meticulous about not leaving fingerprints or evidence behind. the prince georges county police were baffled. the community understandably on edge and on january 26, 2009, on a quiet street in upper marlborough, the county seat,

anxiety turned to full on bolt-the-doors panic. >> prince georges county 911 center what is your emergency? >> ma'am, i've been shot, me and my mother have been shot, i'm bleeding to death. >> where are you? >> it was a desperate plea for help from a dying girl. on the phone, 16-year-old student carissa lawton. >> slow down, what's the address? >> police rushed to the scene but it was too late. they found carissa and her mom karen in their bedrooms, each killed execution style with a shot straight to the head. crimes quickly become statistics but this just stands out, doesn't it? >> it stands out, makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. >> veteran prince georges county homicide detective bernie nelson was in charge of the case. the first arriving officers told him they found the main door locked shut from the inside. the killer, they thought, had likely entered the house through an unlocked side window. >> this bedroom on the second

floor facing us, that's where carissa was found. >> detective nelson wondered, did the murders have anything to do with the plague of recent home invasion robberies? if so, why was nothing stolen from the house? >> her vehicle was stolen in the driveway, nothing appeared disturbed. >> investigators didn't find any useful forensic evidence just six spent shell casings from the bullets that killed karen and carissa fired from a bloglock 1 handgun. >> two doors down the street someone saw a blue vehicle parked on the right side of the road and right now at this point that's all i have. >> so detective nelson set out to find more about his victims. karen lofton turned out to be a devoted mother and nurse with no enemies. she was diversed from carissa's father kirkland who lived in atlanta. the daughter carissa was in private school, good grades and

very attached to her father. >> carissa was a special girl for me because at a young age she had open hearth surgery and she bounced right back from it. >> kirkland says he watched carissa blossom into a gregarious teenager. a fashionista and aspiring model with a knack for selfies. >> i sing this song by bob carlisle called "butterfly kisses." ♪ she's daddy's little girl sno ♪ >> told a story of him and a daughter. i used to sing it to her and she loved me singing it to her. ♪ butterfly kisses >> she was my butterfly. that's what i called her. >> now kirkland's butterfly was dead and detective nelson recruited some of pg county's finest to help him solve the case, including this detective. >> a mother, hardworking and her daughter both think that they're safely inside their home. >> here comes the guy out of your worst dreams? >> yup. here comes a monster into your

house. >> and he's got a glock. >> it shocked us all. >> as the hunt for brutal killer went into full gear, detectives started as they always do with the usual suspects. >> there's no rhyme or reason you can come up with you have to look at family members. >> and one family member in particular, carissa's 20-year-old brother keon. he lived in the house, too, but he wasn't there when cops arrived. police spotted him near the crime scene several hours after the murders. could a son, a brother, have done such a monstrous thing? when we come back, the questions begin. >> would you have hurt your mom and sister? >> no. >> one of the detectives blatantly said "everybody in the room thinks it was you." >> was it? what happened next would launch a whole new wave of fear. ugh, this pimple's gonna last forever. oh come on. clearasil ultra works fast to begin visibly clearing up skin in as little as 12 hours. and acne won't last forever.

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a mother and her daughter executed. detective bernie nelson had investigated hundreds of murders, had learned to keep the recurring images of death at arm's length. but this case was different. he was a father to a teenager around karissa lofton's age. >> ma'am, i've been shot, me and my mother have been shot, i'm bleeding to death. >> that poor little girl, in her bedroom she has the gumption to

get on the phone and call you. >> it hurts to listen to the 911 call because you can feel and hear the fear in her voice. >> even though nothing was taken, it seemed clear the killer broke into the house. in fact, the burglar alarm had gone off but it was disabled in under a minute. that put karen's son keon lofton at the top of the person of interest list. he lived in the house, he knew the code. police brought him in for questioning. >> did your mom set the alarm for the house? >> uh-huh. >> all the time? >> everyday, every time. >> one of the detectives blatantly said "everybody in that room thinks it's you. you're the only one that has access to the pin code." >> would you have hurt your mom and sister? >> no, uh-huh. >> you would haven't hurt your mom and sister? >> not at all. i was upset, you've not going to say this was me. you can do whatever you need to do, it's not going to be me. >> keon told investigators he'd been spending the night at his fiance's house when her mom woke

him and told him the news that two women on his street had been murdered. >> i ran out of the house, many i heart is racing. i got into my car, running lights, calling at the same time, when i got there they asked me for my name and i was like i'm keon and the police officer just kind of looked into his radio and said "okay, we got the son here." and i just broke down, you know? >> keon's alibi checked out. it wasn't him. investigators also interviewed kirkland, karen's ex-husband and karissa's father. he, too, had an air-tight alibi. he'd been in atlanta at the time of the murders. >> do you go a lot of places together? >> next on detective nelson's list was karen's former boyfriend michael lacey. he refused to take a lie detector test so police interviewed him three separate times. >> did y'all have keys or anything like that. >> definitely not. >> you wouldn't walk over and walk in. >> i would call. >> it was someone we had to rule out completely and we did that.

>> so if you're thinking in your line of work the usual suspects the usual suspects weren't going to figure in this one. >> not as far as immediate family. >> the detectives realized they had on their hands what homicide cops hate, a true mystery. ish -- usually the first 48 hours you get a break. >> normally you get something within the first 48 hours. >> so this was baffling and cruel. >> it don't make sense. >> then six weeks after the laugh on the killings two unsolved murders became four. it began with the report of a stolen nissan maxima a couple of blocks from where the loftons had been killed? >> what's the nature of your emergency? >> i just left my housemates an hour ago and came back, my car was missing out of the carport. >> detective smarter er iis th

shartner was on call. >> she noticed the car come by her on a fast rate of speed. >> that's my car, it just zoomed past me. wow. >> she sees it while she's on the phone with dispatch? here it comes, there it goes? >> absolutely. >> police swarmed the neighborhood hoping to nab the car thief. he was nowhere to be found but police soon discovered the stolen car. captured on a cruiser's dash camera, it was parked in the driveway of a vacant house, engulfed in flames. firefighters called to the scene to extinguish the fire made a grisly discovery, two bodies burned beyond recognition. the victims? a mother and her teenage daughter. >> dental records confirm the identities of two female bodies found in the trunk of this car. 42-year-old delores dewitt and daughter 19-year-old ebony dewitt. >> she worked at a nursing home and loved taking care of the

elderly population. she loved those people and they loved her. >> patricia smith remembers her sister delores as a mother and nurse who worked hard to provide a good life for her two daughters but always saved a little time for herself. >> she liked to go places every year she treated herself on vacation. she felt like she worked heart, she should play hard. >> ebony was the live wire at family get togethers. >> just make the party alive and act crazy until the end of the day. she loved life. >> the last person to have seen ebony alive was her boyfriend. he told detectives the previous night at a late daner she was wearing her favorite blue sweater. then he watched her go into her house. the killer may have been waiting. and when police made no arrest within 48 hours of the murders, waiting, too, was a devastated patricia. >> i started going back to my sister's house. late at night i would go and sit

in the yard hoping he would come back. i would sit there with the knife in my hand and i would hold it real tight just in case he came up on me or something because it would be him or me. either him or me. and i told the detectives what i did. >> she couldn't sit still and do nothing. she wanted to be involved in the investigation from day one. she would actually go door to door in the neighborhood and talk to neighbors, tried to ask them questions but i had repeatedly explained to her that we can't have her interrupting our case. >> she's a thorn in your side? >> she is, but i understood because if my sister were killed, it would be hard for me to sit still, too. >> so detective schartner made patricia a promise. >> we were sitting in the car and i remember just crying and crying and crying and he promised me, he said "i'm going

to get him if it's the last thing i do. i'm going to get him." >> to do that, detectives schartner and nelson had to confront a terrifying question. so you have two murdered mother daughters within -- across the fence, virtually. >> same neighborhood. >> so you're thinking are these things related, right? >> you have to think that and if they are you have a serial murderer on your hands and you don't know when he's going to hit next or who he's going to hit next. coming up -- >> the fear that spread was absolutely amazing. >> a neighborhood on edge. police under pressure and the question everyone feared -- would there be another victim? >> it was wide open. he we had nothing. that's when it gets

prince georges homicide detectives bernie nelson and tony schartner hoped their collective experience would help them crack two of the most horrific murder cases they ever encountered. when you back up and look at what you've got, the scary thought is someone's killing mother and daughters. >> yes and where the dewitts were killed, it was just two blocks away from where the loftons were shot in their house. >> the detectives suspected they were dealing with the same murderer in both cases, especially when they realized delores dewitt was a single mom and a nurse, just like karen lofton. but first they exhausted the usual suspects. delores had an ex-husband and an ex-girlfriend, but both had

solid alibis. >> we'd given them polygraph tests, that i passed. we did background checks on them. we found out where they were. there was nothing that would lead us to say they were involved? >> as in the lofton case, when detectives searched the dewitts' home, they found no sign of forced entry, just an unlocked side window and no forensic evidence. but a different pattern. the killer had taken his victims with him. >> we don't know if they were killed inside the house and transported away or just transported away and killed elsewhere. >> the burned out nissan maxima that carried the mother and daughter's bodies didn't yield any significant clues, either. the fire destroyed everything but a tiny piece of jeans on delores' body and attached to the jeans, some leaves foliage experts identified as coming from a beech tree. odd because there were no trees like that in the neighborhood. and the mystery only deepened when the autopsy results came back. >> ebony and delores were

actually killed 24 hours prior to them being burned in the car. that was another hiccup in the case. where were these two bodies kept for a full day? >> it seemed the dewitts' killer took immense risk to get rid of the bodies. >> you're talking about taking two women out of their house and transporting them to another location and then stealing a car putting those dead bodies in the car, driving past the house that you just stole the car from and then parking it in a driveway of a vacant house and setting that car on fire and walking away. >> and the autopsy also revealed that delores and ebony were strangled, not shot as the la h loftons had been. it was a puzzle. were they dealing with a serial killer or not? >> did you think one guy was responsible for both these crimes? >> i would go back and forth. one day i would -- i was all in this was the same person, the next day i thought it wasn't

because both crimes are so different. >> then finally the detectives caught a break. they learned that a month before the dewitt murders the owner of the stolen nissan maxima had been the victim of a break-in. she reported it but at the time told police nothing had been taken. now she noticed her spare set of car keys was missing. >> -- so tony, your detectives logic goes like this. if i can find the person who broke in, who stole the key i'll get close to my killer. >> i would give me a direction whereof that person can direct me to the killer. >> 200 police officers blanketed the area and brought in more than 80 people for questioning. tuul no avail. for many prince georges county residents like home invasion victims vicki and lloyd irvin, that meant one thing, panic >> it was crazy. i couldn't sleep at night. any sound, i had alarmed put up throughout the entire house and plus we have the dogs.

>> and bars on the windows. >> yes. >> the house was turned into fort knox, a barking crazy dog who claws at the window if she hears the doorbell ring. there was no peace in the house. i was like we have to turn this stuff down, i can't live like this. he was like i don't care, this is going to save our life. just the fear that spread was absolutely amazing. >> by july, 2009, four months after the dewitt murders and six months after the lofton murders, detectives were stumped. kirkland lofton grew increasingly frustrated. >> when the dewitts got murdered they went to karen and karissa's house and started combing for evidence then. so i think the investigation started off bad because they were so sure that the usual suspects was the suspects. >> we kept calling them and they wasn't giving us no answers so that kind of pissed me off because i felt like we deserved to know something. >> it was wide open. we had nothing. >> you're out of your

investigative play book. >> that's when it gets scary. >> the detective had made a promise to patricia that he would take down her sister's killer. would that turn out now to be an empty promise? at this point, what he needed was luck, and luck was about to come his way from the most unexpected source. coming up -- >> he would only whisper. he would actually whisper in my ear. >> an unassuming neighbor comes forward with some unbelievable information. >> at that point we realized our investigation just took a drastic turn. takbbq trophies:hese best cracked pepper sauce... most ribs ean while calf roping... >>yep, greatness deserves recognition. you got any trophies, cowboy? ♪ whoomp there it is uh, yeah... well, uh, well there's this one. >>best insurance mobile app? yeah, two years in a row. >>well i'll be... does that thing just follow you around? like a little puppy!

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and it does the trick! ♪ prince georges county detectives tony schartner and bernie nelson theorized the burglar who stole a spare key to a nissan maxima might lead them toll a serial killer, but how to find him? >> we chased down all those

leads and it took us several weeks and we came up with nothing. >> then, in july 2009, schartner gotten a unexpected tip. federal agents from the atf, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms had arrested two men for selling stolen weapons. they suspected one of them had also been involved in several burglaries in the area, his name was jason scott. >> jason scott lived two, three blocks away from the dewitts' house so obviously that's somebody that i want to go talk to. >> the detective and the thief met in a police station holding room. the subject, who was quick to deny he had anything do with any of the burglaries, looked to schartner like a pipsqueak. >> he was a small guy, he was meek, his voice was very low. he wouldn't speak to me as you and i are speaking, he would only whisper, he would actually come up and whisper in my ear. >> did you think, tony, at that

point, i've got a suspect here? >> no. >> atf agents john cooney and dave sheplack led the investigation into the weapons theft and they, too, were having a hard time trying to read jason scott. >> we're usually pursuing the most violent criminals in the united states and for lack of a better word, this guy wasn't a thug. >> in fact, jason turned out to be a college graduate and valued employee at u.p.s. >> we did a background check on him and really he had no criminal history. >> jason and his accomplice were charged with weapons theft and possession, but given that neither had a criminal record, a judge released them pending trial. >> she basically had to make a decision, all right, you're not a flight risk and you're not a danger to the community so both of them were released to home monitoring. >> so they could come and go? the court is telling them go and sin no more, don't be stupid, don't be a bad guy. >> yes. >> but the atf agents weren't about to let jason scott walk away quite so easily. they suspect head had other

co-conspirators in the weapons theft and instincts suggest head just might be the kind of petty criminal happy to throw others under the bus in exchange for a lenient deal so the feds offered him what's called a proper session, sometimes called kings for a day. in monopoly it's known as a "get out of jail free" card. it's an agreement between the prosecutor and suspect that says essentially you tell us everything you know and we'll go easy on you. and the stuff that i spilled out you will not come after me? that's the agreement? >> if we can't prove that any other way beside him telling us, there's nothing you can do. you can't use his statements against him when that statement is given in that proper session. >> the agents had been on the job for a long time but what happened next stunned even them. >> so we come in and dave are sitting there, we cia son has three pieces of paper in front of him on the table, dave and i take a look at the papers and

see about 40 different addresses. suddenly he admits to breaking in to all of them. he admits that he wakes people up, points guns at people's heads and robs them of their valuables. at that point we realize we're not just dealing with a guy selling guns, our investigation took a drastic turn. >> jason rocked the federal agents off their script. the king for a day deal was about copping to the firearms charge and here he was telling them he and his accomplice marcus hunter made a living by pointing guns at so many people's heads, including the botched home invasion of the irvin family. but he's cut his deal, john, you can't go after him on his burglaries, the home invasions. >> at that point you're correct. >> he's home free. >> yeah. >> even better for jason, he believed his accomplice, marcus hunter alone, would be left to take the fall for their crime spree. >> he figures if i'm the one

willing to testify against marcus, that will be his opportunity to lessen his seine sense. >> smart, cunning, how good was this guy? >> he certainly had a plan and an idea of what he was trying to get away with. it was a real life cat-and-mouse game for him. >> back at the county, detective schartner was floored that he heard from a colleague that the pipsqueak he interviewed and dismissed the week before 'fessed up to a majority of the unsolved home invasions and burglaries in those well-to-do neighborhoods of prince georges county, including one his colleague had been investigating. >> i thought oh, good for you, you got your case closed out but i'm still here with four dead women we haven't solved. i said just out of curiosity, can you give me that list? >> when the detective plotted the addresses jason had pushed across the table on to a map, he couldn't believe the picture that emerged. is this an ah-ha moment in your investigation? >> this is the ah-ha moment. this is our first break in the

case. coming up -- >> we don't know if we have our guy, but we certainly have now something to investigate. >> the investigation was about to lead them here -- something called the spooky house. and a federal officer on this case would soon be spooked himself. >> i actually grabbed my gun and proceeded to tactically clear my house. that's how concerned i was. he's that dangerous of a guy. >> when "dateline" continues. if you suffer from a dry mouth, then you'll know how uncomfortable it can be. but did you know that the lack of saliva can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath? well, there is biotene, specially formulated with moisturizers and lubricants... biotene can provide soothing relief and it helps keep your mouth healthy too. biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth. slooking a bit grubby ♪

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this is ground zero. this is where i responded to this location and this is where the dewitts were found. >> thinking he made the deal of a lifetime, mild meek jason scott confessed to a wave of home invasions and burglaries in prince georges county, maryland. but by doing so, he had unwittingly provided by homicide investigators with the first real lead in the lofton and dewitt murder investigations. what happens as you continue to go up? what are the dots? >> these are the dots along the map, the locations where jason scott admitted to breaking into the houses here on woodlawn. >> and here's what the detective found strange -- jason had admitted to every unsolved burglary on the block -- all but one, the house from where the nissan spare keys were stolen. >> for me, the most important part of this puzzle was to find out who broke into this house right here. >> and in interrogation he did

not give you that address? >> he did not. >> an anomaly, schartner wondered? or did jason know just how important the car keys were and deliberate ly keep his that houe off his list. >> we don't see guys that break into a house and steal a steve and then morph into a serial killer. we don't know if we have our guy but we certainly have something to investigate. >> detectives schartner and nelson teamed up with atf agents cheplak and cooney to solve the riddle of jason scott. when you talked to friends and family to figure out who he was, did anybody tell you he was a nice guy, i can't believe you have him in the frame for this? >> nobody had anything like that to say about him. as a matter of fact, most people knew nothing about him. he was almost a ghost. >> a ghost, indeed. wh when investigators examined items seized at jason's home, they found this, disturbing videos he apparently shot as he snuck around the neighborhood. turns out jason scott was as

scary a peeping tom as investigators had ever seen. >> video of someone walking through the woods videotaping people through their homes in various states of dress and undress, getting ready for work or getting ready to go to bed. >> this is deeply creepy stuff? >> absolutely. >> the person who knew him best was marcus hunter, the accomplice first arrested with jason scott but marcus wasn't talking. investigators wondered, was he afraid of jason? another former co-conspirator was telling investigators jason was no one to cross. >> you got to watch how you talk to him. >> these guys would say if i ever got in a fight with jason, jason wouldn't fight me back but two weeks later he'll come back and burn my house down. >> he's crazy. >> three weeks after his king for a day deal, jason scott was still walking the streets and investigators knew enough about him to worry for their own safety. >> his mo was he would specifically go and cut the

power to these homes so one night sleeping and i became aware the power was off in my house. so knowing that jason knew my name and thinking he could figure out where i lived i actually grabbed my gun and proceeded to tactically clear my house just to make sure that he wasn't the reason for the power being out. as i worked my way through the house and into the kitchen i finally come up and i notice that in the backyard the entire neighborhood is dark. at that point in time i kind of take a sigh of relief and i realized it's not him but that's how concerned i was. he's that dangerous of a guy that i recognized he needed to be in jail. >> if jason scott was smart, the task force simply had to be smarter and investigators noticed jason didn't seem to understand an important legal nuance -- his proper didn't guarantee him complete immunity.

the cops could not use his own words against him but they could use the words of others. so when investigators found that other accomplice of jasons, they grilled him. >> do you know about him breaking into a house and just take car keys. >> yeah, he's done a couple jobs where he might go in and take keys and have them just in case he needed a car. >> these details early mirrored what happened in the dewitt murders. >> he likes to steal car keys, spare keys, and he likes to come back later and get that car. >> that was exactly the case with the nissan, right? >> he liked to park cars in vacant houses, preferably houses that were for sale. >> again, torched cars with bodies. >> with a vacant house for sale. >> detective nelson nailed down several connections between jason scott and the first mother/daughter murder, the loftons. most important of those, jason's car, a dark blue toyota camry. it matched the description of the mysterious car one of the

loftons' neighborhoods had seen. >> that could very well have been the vehicle that the neighbor had seen the night of the killing. >> yes. >> then investigators discovered another sickening piece of evidence, a video jason made of the victims of one of his home invasions, a mother and her teenage daughter. >> brought her into the bedroom and set up a video camera and in the process of setting up the video camera in which he was going to film himself sexually assaulting her, the camera just happened to pan right by his face and that screen shot showed us this. >> wow. >> and this is what a lot of jason's victims saw. it's cold, calculating eyes, lifeless. >> investigators were shocked. even more so when they dug up the old police report and noticed what the perpetrator they now knew to be jason had blurted out to the mother and daughter just before he left. >> okay, here it is. he said he didn't want to hurt

us but he said he was supposed to kill us. >> yet all this evidence was purely circumstantial. not enough to charge let alone convict jason of murder. but that was about to change and it had to do with the one case police had plenty of evidence for -- the weapons theft. when the atf agents talked to jason about it, he mentioned the spooky house, some kind of an abandoned old property off the beaten path in upper marlborough, the place where he said he and his accomplices used to go to divvy up the loot. detective schartner had a spooky feeling that they brought more than guns there. >> we're still trying to find the place or house or wherever where the dewitts were stored or kept for those 20 some odd hours. >> so this spooky house, whatever it is, could be the place. >> absolutely. >> and according to jason's proper, if his statements led to new evidence, that evidence could be used to prosecute him. >> my first thought and impressions were that this is

going to be like an old rickety house maybe falling apart. >> doesn't feel like we're heading to spooky house. >> no, it wasn't until we came here that we realized there was a long driveway here that maybe made sense. >> there it is, new. >> the spooky house was a georgian mansion up for sale and like the property where the nissan was set on fire, vacant. >> what a hideaway to do whatever you wanted to do away from prying eyes, huh? >> absolutely. at night this is pitch dark. this is a playground jason scott had. >> the task force called in the forensic team. >> walked down here through these rocks here and that's when i first initially saw sweater which was right down here in the rocks. >> it was the charred remains of a blue sweater, the kind ebony dewitt had worn the last time she'd been seen alive.

>> and once we saw that we said, hey, this is it, this is finally something. and you're talking about that, we walked down further, looked at these rocks and scattered within these leaves over here were the jean pieces. >> jeans that seemed to match the jean fragments recovered from delores dewitt's body. leaves covered the ground there and the task force wondered whether they were beech tree leaves, the type attached to delores' genes. detective schartner brought an expert to the spooky house to identify the foliage. >> he pulled up here and said this is the jackpot. >> ebony and her mom were here, no question. >> without a doubt. >> but investigators needed more. they'd eliminated his accomplice as a murder suspect so they hit him up again hinting jason is talking and if you don't you'll be the one to take the fall. that did it. marcus hunter finally agreed to cooperate. right away he dropped a

bombshell about jason. >> the specter of him becoming a monster, it grows with each and every stone that we overturn. coming up. >> i think he truly thought he could outsmart us. >> could he? what would it take to put jason scott behind bars? and -- let me tell you something that will probably freak you out. >> one more chilling revelation for the irvin family. >> are you serious?

almost six weeks after jason scott walked out of the prosecutor's office with a potential stay out of jail deal in hand, the task force persuaded jason's accomplice, marcus hunter, to cooperate. the king for a day was about to be dethroned. >> so marcus tells us that about a month prior to the dewitts being killed that he and jason are running through the backyards because they had just done a job and jason stops and

looks into the dewitts ow house and he notices ebony and he starts to stare at her and marcus gets uncomfortable and says "hey, we can't stay here all night, you need to go." >> much more damaging, the accomplice told the task force that after yet another robbery and approximately an hour before delores and ebony were killed he'd given jason a ride to his car parked just a block or so from the dewitts and the accomplice had more. >> he said that there was at one point and it was during the time the loftons were murdered that he had seen jason scott for a short time frame with a glock 17. >> a glock 17, the very weapon used to murder karen and karissa. >> i had one of our investigators try to find out who purchased glock 17s over the last two years. and then contact those people and find out if they can account for their handgun. and he found out that a home was

broken into 13 days before the loftons were killed and during that break in their glock 17 handgun was stolen. >> and here is where detective nelson got lucky. the state of maryland requires handguns to be test fired before they're sold so it can archive each gun shell casing to help identify or trace the weapon should bit later used in a crim crime. >> we immediately took out shell casings and had them compared to that known shell casing from that known handgun and during that testing they were able to verify that all six shell casings came from that one particular glock 17. that was the weapon that was used to kill both of my victims. >> once we found out where the murder weapon came from that was used to kill the lofton wes needed to find out if jason scott ever had that gun in his hands so we asked his accomplice, marcus hunter, if

they ever broke into a house in this one particular neighborhood. he said they did, it was only one house. we never told him which one it was and he took us directly to it -- the house that the glock was stolen from that killed the loftons. as far as that handgun goes, i think that was the nail in jason's coffin. we know that he stole that weapon. >> did that solve the lofton murders? >> it got as close as we were going to get. >> detective schartner and nelson arrested jason scott at his home on september 2, 2009. >> i distinctly remember telling him "jason, take a look at your house, this is the last time you will see it." >> he didn't even have a response. he just gave some type of noise, smacking his lips as if "i'll be back." >> i think he truly thought he could outsmart us. and fortunately between bernie and i and the two agents from the atf, we outsmarted him. >> and personally the takedown

of jason scott made the detective a promise keeper. >> he said "i'm going to get him if it's the last thing i do." he said "i'm going to get him." and he got him. >> in exchange for his cooperation, marcus hunter got a reduced seven-year sentence for weapons possession. it would be another three years before the atf and county police analyzed all the evidence against jason scott. when all was said and done, he was sentenced to 185 years in prison. >> one of the things the judge said, i'll never forget this, he said "you're not even a crime wave here, you're a tsunami of crimes." >> satisfaction to take down a guy like this? >> extreme. the proudest moment of my career. >> but jason did cut one final deal, in exchange for acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him for the dewitt murders, the state agreed not to prosecute him for the loftons and that didn't sit well for the lofton family. they had their doubts about whether jason really killed

karen and karissa, whether all the circumstantial evidence really proved he had pulled the trigger. >> we wanted a trial in this case because we wanted to see him on the stands admit what he did and be charged and convicted and sentenced for murder. it would have given us a reason to stop looking. >> what do you say to someone like kirkland lofton who wants to have their day in court against this guy. >> i fully understand kirkland lofton's position and the lofton family. i feel for them. i want them to have their day and court. i went ahead and typed up a statement of charges too charge jason scott, i just couldn't get the blessing from the state's attorneys office to go forward with it. >> but you would say to him jason scott is the killer? >> i would say to him jason scott is the killer. he's who took karissa away from him. but the bottom line is we know that jason is gone forever. he only has one life to give, we can't punish him anymore than what he's already being

punished. >> the serial killer, the master robber and burglar, will likely die behind bars. the neighborhoods he terrorized are safe again. but under some roofs there's been damage to that concept of home as a sanctuary. take vicki and lloyd irvin. they've kept their burglar bars, their home alarm system, they didn't know how much they needed that stuff until we filled them in. >> let me tell you something that will probably freak you out, and this comes from guy number two in your house. he said after the home invasion, they came back. >> are you serious? >> he wanted another round. they parked in front of your place, did a little surveillance, scoped it out and jason scott wanted to come back in and even the score. >> i didn't know that. that's scary. >> it could have been your picture on the 11:00 news. >> that's right. how does one person cause so much damage and so much hurt and so much loss to so many people? it still blows my mind.

that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. this sunday morning a new trump controversy. donald trump of the father of fallen muslim. >> you have sacrificed nothing. and no one. >> trump responds that he made many sacrifices and questions why the mother didn't speak at the democratic convention. the father responds. plus 100 days to go, where does the race stand now. joining me this morning are the two top strategist from both campaigns. hack attack as a russian connection, wiki leaks founder why it looks as if he's more

interested in sabotaging the clinton campaign. >> joining me for insight in analysis are david brooks, doris kerns good win. alex, and nbc news campaign correspondent halle jackson. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> good sunday morning. we're at one of those critical junctures where a campaign can freeze for about a month, during the olympics, end of summer and labor daybreak. we've heard two remarkly different visions of america offered by the candidates at their convention. donald trump sees a troubled nation that needs to be rescued. >> our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. the attacks on our police and

the terrorism of our cities, threats are very way of life. any politician who does not caress this staging is not fit to lead our country. >> hillary clinton's america, was to the use the word, certainly a bit more optimistic. >> a country where all our children can dream and those dreams are within reach, where families are strong, communities are safe, and, yes, where love trumps hate. >> the story breaking this morning comes out and that emotional moment when the father of a fallen loved u.s. army captain revealed from trump. >> have you even read the united states constitution? [ applause ]