it was very surreal. >> i was reeling from shock that my parents were gone. >> a devoted couple killed in the home they shared with a museum's worth of collectables. >> he was big into the civil war, guns, coins of all kinds. >> was there any connection between the memorabilia and the murder? >> the question is who's going to benefit by these two deaths. >> jessica was the only child. >> she's the soul heir? >> soul heir. >> but wait. hidden among the treasures, something odd. >> it was by far the most important piece of evidence in the case. >> a clue. pointing to a most surprising and calculat. >> someone with a sick mind. that's all i know. >> h

>> if your travels take you to in southwestern missouri, that splendid lake country, you maybe have bass or trout fishing on the mind. or perhaps you're heading to branson to catch a few of the stage shows, but there was no tour guide that would have directed you to this modest home in springfield, missouri. and that's a shame because it was an old curiosity shop well worth seeing. floor to ceiling collectables, valuable stuff everywhere the eye landed, but still, every object just so. think neat hoarders. >> anything from coins to arrowheads to -- he had probably 10,000 to 15,000 books. >> he's big into gold and silver, gems. >> bayonets from world war i and just all kinds of stuff, a leg cannon. >> but did these collectables have a less discerning eye when it came to sizing up people. did that go towards explaining

the dreadful toll in that house that evening. >> i said he's off in some way. i don't know. he could be a psychopath or something. i said he scares me. >> on april 30th, 2014, did they fall prey to someone they believed could be trusted? >> i had to be lowered to the ground. and i started crying and screaming. >> oh, not those -- oh, such good people. why? >> springfield, missouri is called the queen of the ozarks, a church-going, neighborly city of mid size with good colleges. gary terrell knew early on that his adult life would be all about education, teaching kids in his classrooms by day. the history book in his lap at night. he and his wife jan raised two kids, a girl and a boy who sadly died young of a brain .

jen kept the house mainly and sold avon products part time. they lived and gardened in the same house for almost 25 years. they even designed it themselves. life in missouri was good for the two. >> they loved each other very much. >> daughter jessica remembers how extraordinarily close her parents were, joined at the hip. >> if my mom went shopping, my dad took her. they gardened together, talked on the phone several times a day if they were apart. they really did everything. >> so they really were for the ages, huh? >> yes, yes. >> personalities, gary was the fun, outgoing one. >> he was a very jolly man. you know, kind of like a santa claus. >> jan, a little more reserved. >> it took a little bit more to get to know her and then once she warmed up to you, she was >> when gary retired as a beloved assistant school superintendent, he suddenly had all the time in the world to visit civil war battlefields, scour flee markets and pour over his antique dealer's cal logs.

but there was a lucrative sideline. >> he was big into and selling gold and silver. >> gary's brother larry. >> he constantly collected coins and silver trinkets and did very well at it. gary was a very good businessman. >> the gold and silver went into one of the five saves in the house but the artifacts, many of them museum quality, were out on display. >> had a lot of rare pieces, a lot of indian jewelry that was very quality pieces that he loved. >> what was his most treasured piece do you think? >> probably the walrus tusks. he had three of those. >> rare, 19th century engraved and each worth around $10,000. >> how would he find these things? >> i'm not really sure. they did go to flea markets and

garage sales and things like that but any time i would ask him, you know, where did you get this, he would say, oh, in my travels. >> in 2013, jason murray became one of the family when he and jessica got engaged. he remembers the walrus tusks as well as all the other unusual items in the terrell home. >> there was so much stuff in that house and yet it was immaculate. everything had a place. it was like on off beat museum. >> jessica and jason lived almost 300 miles away in oklahoma city, but jessica spoke with or texted her parents several times a day. but that all changed on may 1st. >> i had called my mom on my way to work like i always do. and she didn't answer. so i thought, well, maybe she's in the bathroom. maybe she's outside. and i called back and i still didn't reach her. >> by noon jessica says she still couldn't reach her. so she called the springfield police and asked the >> and when the officer did

that, what did he report back to you? >> that nothing seemed out of place. they couldn't see anything inside the house. all the doors were secure. absolutely no signs of forced .ntry or that anything appea >> the officer had no cause to force his way into the. but jessica says she was still worried, so she and jason jumped in their car to make the five-hour drive to springfield. they arrived at the house around 7:00 p.m. >> as we were coming around the corner to the house, i hit the garage door button and both of their cars were in the garage. >> and that was bad news for you? >> yes. >> what did that imply? >> that there was something terribly wrong. >> jessica called 911 without ever going past the garage into the house. two officers arrived within minutes. >> they entered the home and then another officer arrived and then another and then another

and then another. >> and you're waiting outside. >> and we're waiting outside. >> no one said a word to jessica and jason. and then, they noticed police blocking off the area with crime scene tape. >> i kind of grabbed onto the officer and i said what is going on, why are they calling for crime scene tape? and he kind of, you know, held me and said, i don't know what's going on. all i know is there are two people in the house that are deceased. >> chilling words outside the terrell's house. but they were nothing compared to what investigators would find in. when we come back -- >> it seems to be an element of personal a

as darkness closed in on springfield, missouri, the daughter who had asked local police to check on her parents was now being told two bodies were found inside her parents' home. they didn't identify them, but jessica says she knew it could only be her mo >> and i started crying and screaming. um, because i knew. it was my worst fear. >> her fiance, jason, was by her side, trying to console her. >> she was beyond upset. she kept saying, i'm sorry, mom, i'm sorry, mom. >> i had no details. i had no idea what had happened. >> i'm thinking this is horrible and also hoping it's like carbon monoxide. >> something not benign but something explainable. >> right, right. >> but inside officers quickly grasp the cold, stomach churning

truth. jan and gary's death were not accidental. >> it was going to be a long investigation. >> detective neil mcaim moss was one of the first detectives on the scene. that night he entered the home through the garage and saw gary first. >> we could see that there was a deceased male in the hallway of the home. >> his parents were pulled down. what did you make of that? >> we didn't know. the only thing that we could think of was he's trying to get away from somebody, that they're grabbing ahold of him. >> or was the killer rifling his pockets for something, a key maybe, a combination? in gary's office downstairs, the detectives saw jan. >> she was on the ground. she was lying face down, but it was obvious that there was severe trauma to the back of her head. >> so was this a violent home invasion? jan and gary had more than half a million dollars worth of valuables in the house there for the grabbing. so a botched robbery was a likely scenario. and in the garage, police did

find strange marks and scratches on a tornado shelter that was also used as >> it appeared that somebody had tried to pry the lock open. there were some marks that were by the lock on the door of the tornado shelter. >> they didn't get inside? >> it did not appear that they did, no. >> that would suggest somebody's looking for something. >> but if robbery was the plan, the killer had left the odd ball museum strangely intact. nothing appeared tossed or out of place. and the nature of the killings, gary was shot as well as beaten, spoke volumes to the prosecutor assigned to the case, todd meyers. >> it seems to be an element of personal anger in this thing, todd, this close quarter killing of somebody with a weapon in your hand. >> yes. it definitely seemed to be personal type killing, just the brutality involved. >> investigators determined jan and gary were likely killed the night before, but search as they might for the murder weapon, a gun and the bludgeoning

instrument, officers came up empty handed, but they did recover some unusual evidence. >> around jan's body there were small white flakes of a substance that were obviously either from the murder weapon or on the murderer's body. there were similar flakes found by the wound to gary's head. >> so they bagged them and sent them off for testing. and the crime scene techs recovered something else that could be a crucial piece of evidence. a discarded latex glove. >> so a latex glove on the floor jumped out at you? >> totally out of place. and from talking with everybody, that there is no way that gary or jan would have left that glove there. it was right in the middle of the floor for everybody to see. >> did it belong to the victims or the killer? no one knew. so it's collected, you don't know what it means. >> we don't know what it means. it was collected, sent to the highway patrol crime lab. >> they had no idea, no working theory yet of why the couple had been murdered, but they did have

a sequence that made sense as to the order of deaths. >> it is hard to believe that gary had shot upstairs if jan is still fully functioning and mobile that she would not have called 911, would not have tried to intervene in some way. >> speculation but common sense tells you she's the first victim. >> she's the first victim. >> bludgeoned to death downstairs. gary arrives at some point later. >> most likely he arrives either while that is ongoing or the killer is waiting for him, but yes, it appears that she would have been the first to have died. >> a big question early on for detectives was understandi their crime scene. how did the killer gain entry into the house? >> there were no signs of forced entry. >> windows haven't been forced, the doors are all intact. how did the killer get in? >> there are only two ways the killer could have gotten in. one would have been to have their own access device, whether it's a key or garage door opener, some way to open the doors up, and then upon leaving be able to lock it that way, or

to have been let into the house by either gary or jan. >> it didn't appear to the cops to be a random home invasion, but rather that the killer or killers had been someone the couple knew. was it a person gary encountered in his antiquing travels, or terrible to think about it, was e perpetrator someone much closer to home, was this all in the family. >> i was shocked, really confused and baffled. >> coming up, who had a motive to kill the terrells? investigators have at least one idea. >> she is the person who could benefit crime in terms of getting money. >> she's the only child from parents that are very well to do with a lot that's going to be >> when "dateline" continues.

two dead. the wife beaten about the head downstairs. the husband shot twice upstairs. and springfield police had determined this was no random break-in gone wrong. jan and gary terrell's modest home was filled with valuable items, and yet at first glance, nothing appeared to have been taken. an early supposition was their killer was likely someone close to them, and no one was closer than daughter jessica. >> she is the person who could benefit from this crime in terms of getting money. >> she had the most to gain.

she's the only child from parents that are very well to do with a lot that's going to be left to her. >> so she's going to be questioned hard? >> yes. >> so that night detectives asked jessica and fiance jason down to the station to answer a the cops didn't let on they were talking to them not just as grieving relatives but also as potential suspects. the interviewer withheld details about the crime scene, a standard investigative tactic to see if a subject knows more than they should. he even threw out a theory that wasn't true, murder/suicide. >> one of those things to look at as to whether or not one of them would have injured the other and then maybe themselves. >> jessica seemed to go with it. >> do you think that's a possibility? >> my dad, since his mom died, has been super depressed and has made comments, and my mom called

the doctor's office and i told her if he said something stupid again, that she needs to call the police, like get the [bleep] away from him and call the police. >> as they continued talking, police had another reason to be suspicious of the daughter. she had driven five hours to check on her parents, then didn't go inside the house. >> and you wonder why she would do that? >> yes. people sometimes that commit a crime or know a crime that's been committed, you know, they don't want to see the bodies in there so they call somebody else. >> detectives pressed the couple about their movements that day, what they did or did not do at the scene, had they tampered with that tornado shelter in the garage. >> you guys didn't do anything to try and get inside? >> oh, no. i pushed my hand on the handle and that was it. >> did you think are we looking at maybe having a situation here where we got to call a lawyer and be careful about what we say? >> i did a little bit. >> but neither jason nor jessica asked for a lawyer and offered the detective more detail about what was in that tornado shelter

that had been tampered with. >> it was full of gold and silver and gold bars. >> we actually don't know what all is in there. >> he has books that are signed by presidents. he has indian peace medals. >> for investigators, the entire interview was a test. >> how are you going to hold up, are you going to give answers that we can go back and verify. >> so you intend to sweat them? >> yeah, that was the detective's intent to the degree that we get the truth. >> so had they passed the investigators' test? detectives let them go but held onto jessica's car to test it for potential evidence. >> why did they have a reason to look in your car? >> i didn't really know. i assumed just because my car was there. >> now jessica had to call family and friends to tell them the news about her parents. her uncle larry, her father's brother, was at his law office when he got the call. >> she said that mom and dad are gone. i said what do you mean, are they out of town, and she said

no, they're deceased. i collapsed on the floor. >> you were a mess? >> i was a mess. the unknown was terrifying. i didn't know what had happened. >> but larry wasn't shocked or outraged to learn his niece was being looked at as a potential suspect. he was, after all, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. >> i knew she had to be eliminated, i understand that, due to the fact that she was the only child. she just had to be eliminated so the case could move on. >> and the case did keep moving, but after a full week of investigating, the daughter and her fiance were not eliminated. rather, detectives called them back to the station, this time interviewed separately. jason first. cops by now had figured out that the murders took place the night before the bodies were discovered. so where exactly were he and jessica th >> we went to the pizza hut up

on -- i don't know y-- probably 5:30, something like that and stayed home. >> home, five hours away in oklahoma city. >> do you remember how you paid for the pizza hut? credit card? >> i'm sure it's on my card. >> do you have any reason to want to harm gary or jan? >> not at all. >> didn't do anything to them? >> no, sir. >> everything you're telling me the truth? >> absolutely. >> next, jessica was in the chair, answering questions about her relationship with her parents. >> were they paying any of your bills? >> they pay my at&t bill for my cell phone. they pay my car insurance. and i think that's it. >> i'm just going to ask, did you have any ill feelings toward your folks, anything that you would have been mad at them for, any reason to want to harm them or anything like that? >> no. my parents were my life. >> -- to better your financial

situation or anything like that? >> no. i mean, if i needed something, all i had to do was call and ask. >> so you're a suspect? >> right. >> in your parents' double homicide. >> yes. yeah. >> how do you deal with that? you haven't even buried them yet. >> i wasn't really dealing with it. it was more just going through and saying i -- you know, i didn't do it. >> police asked both jessica and jason for dna samples, then set out to verify their alibis. >> my boss and i took a trip to oklahoma city and we went to employers and spoke with fellow employees, with jessica's boss, and we went to the pizza hut to see if we could see some surveillance video. >> would it all check out or would an unexpected lead send the investigation into a new direction. >> this was a huge bingo moment. >> it was. >> coming up, gary's best friend offers detectives some clues, including texts he says he saw on gary's phone.

>> from some guy that he had taught in a class that was asking for money. >> did someone need cash badly enough to kill

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in may 2014, the very day jessica terrell had planned to go wedding dress shopping with her mother, she was instead burying both her parents. >> i basically just cried and was constantly ill. >> what she was going through at this point was unfathomable. i mean, she is just broken at this point. >> the funeral service was held at a high school in the mountain grove school district where gary worked for 30 years. nancy la trel was a school board secretary. >> just so hard to believe that something so bad could happen in springfield and double unbelief it's somebody you know. my heart has just gone out for poor jessica. >> the outpouring of love and support was a huge comfort to jessica at a time when she needed it most. word had gotten out that the cops were looking at her. >> yeah, lots of rumors that i did it. >> that's tough to go out every

day and say i didn't kill my parents. >> right. and it got very tiring to hear, you know, someone say, you need to look at the daughter, she did it, she has the most to gain. >> and they did take a hard look. >> yes, they did. >> they think the daughter has killed them in order to get the money, that she's in cahoots with her join. >> isn't that awful. >> you might not have believed it or your circle of people didn't believe it. >> my circle was not believing that. >> behind the scenes, police and prosecutors had come to the same conclusion. jessica and jason were innocent. >> everything that jessica and jason were telling the police, the police were able to corroborate and verify. >> and they went through everything. they went through the phone records. the alibi was checked out top to bottom. >> it was. >> and when the dna results came back on the latex glove, either of them was a match. the dna belonged to an unknown male. >> was that a relief for you? >> yes. i mean, we knew we didn't do it so i mean it was like, okay, well, now you need to find who did it. >> and the couple felt they could help the investigation with their own amateur

sleuthing. for instance, when jason went back to jessica's parents' house for the first time, he noticed something was miss sglg there was a display of little ivory pieces and multiple walrus tusks that are kind of engraved art type things and they had been moved. >> walrus tusks, jason, are we talking about like so? >> the big one is about yay big, the large one was not where it was supposed to be and the other one was not there at all. >> he told police one of the prized tusks could be the murder weapon. and jessica noticed something, too. someone had been at her dad's desk where he sorted coins. >> he kept them around his desk in coffee cans and bags, and he would be sorting them or organizing them. >> and a container with what would have looked like loose parking meter change was missing. its actual value, around $20,000, according to her dad's records. the killer would have known the

real value only if he moved in the same antique circles as gary. at least that's what the brother suspected. >> perhaps someone -- gary went to buy some gold or silver, someone had set him up and had someone follow him home and got the drop on him or jan and had robbed him and killed him. >> sounds very plausible. >> that was a big worry i had. >> but as they dug into gary's business dealings, no potential suspects emerged. few people had any idea how wealthy they really were. >> they did not show that type of wealth to people. it was always kept very quiet. the people that he would interact with as far as selling the gold were always very reputable type people. >> and because there was no forced entry to the home, larry offered up the very limited list of people who had access to the house. a handful of local contrac >> i assume you were asking the garden guy and the cabinet maker, whoever might have been in that house from larry's list of people to give dna. >> right. >> at the same time, officers

were reaching out to others in the couple's inner circle. gary closest friend was mark porter, a married father of two, prominent guy around town and a former school superintendent. >> it's a wise thing to do -- >> he was handsome, he looked good, he dressed good. when he first came to the district, he drove a jaguar. >> nancy worked with both gary and mark. >> and they seemed to get along really well. worked well together. i thought they were friends at school and off of school. >> so mark went down to the police station to talk with >> all right, mr. porter. it's mark, correct? >> yeah. >> do you mind if i call you mark? >> no. >> i just want to touch base with you and talk to you a little about how you know them, how long you've known them. >> known gary since probably maybe 15, 20 years. he was my assistant superintendent. i was the superintendent. >> mark knew a lot about gary's coin business. he had started dabbling in it as well.

he told detectives details that suggested a fellow collector could have targeted the terrells. >> he's got pe a ove the missouri that collect for him and i know he goes to hotels and meets people and he runs ads in the paper. >> according to mark, gary set up one of those meetings around the time of his death, and it involved a lot of money. >> he was actually going to sell $50,000 of gold for cash. it was actually a buyer who was going to give him $50,000 cash. that's all i know. >> he also mentioned text messages he had seen on gary's phone. >> gary asked me to read some text mess aemgs. there were five in a row from someone he had taught in a class that was asking for money. >> okay. >> and i have no idea -- >> was there a name attached to the number? >> and remember, gary was shot as well as beaten. could it have been with one of his own guns? >> gary has guns everywhere. gary has guns in every drawer of the hous.

he likes his guns. he loves guns. >> but then mark gave detectives a detail that took them completely by surprise. >> he was supposed to meet me actually at 8:00 on wednesday and didn't show. >> wednesday, the night of the murders. it was the first police were hearing of gary having plans that night. what else did the best friend know? coming up, mark gives a detailed account, one that troubles investigators. >> there were several things about that story that raised some questions. >> and then, larry's brother reveals who he thinks had a motive for murder. >> i know he had some sort of

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when older adults live alone, it can lead to loneliness. checking in is simply a call, letter, or lunch date away. keep the conversation going from one generation to the next. springfield police were talking to gary's best friend, mark porter, who suggested plenty of theories about why gary was killed. he said gary's money was cat nip for all kinds of folks. >> people who knew him, if they knew he had money were always asking. >> then mark revealed something detectives didn't know. he and gary had plans to meet at mcdonald's on the night of the murders. >> how long did you wait? >> i got there probably 7:45,

probably 45 minutes. >> okay. >> so the friend said he drove across town to stop by gary's house. >> i went back to the house, knocked on the door, nothing, didn't answer, so i thought maybe they were gone because sometimes he'll leave, he'll go and say, oh man, i forgot, my bad, i'm in kansas city. so i had no clue. >> mark told detectives that gary had stood him up before, no big deal, so he went back to his office at ibm to do some work. >> there were several things about that story that raised some questions. >> like? >> like why would you wait 45 minutes for someone and not pick up your phone and give them a call and say, hey, what's up, did you forget? >> but what seemed really strange was that mark porter had just admitted to going to the house the night of the murders with a story that just didn't ring true. why drive across town if he wasn't all that concerned about his friend missing dinner? >> so he drives a few miles across town to go knock on the

door when his office is across the street, when it doesn't appear that gary is showing up. >> so he puts himself at the house with a benign explanation. >> yes. >> inside the interview room, the decided it was time for a break. >> give me a couple seconds. i'll go back there and see if there's anything else. can i get you anything, coke, water? >> trying to make sense of it all, including this bit of information. gary's brother had told police that not long ago mark asked gary for a loan, put the request in writing, and not just a little bit until payday, but an eye-popping $250,000. >> that's the kind of money if you can get it out of your house as a second mortgage, maybe you're lucky. >> right. >> what did your father make of it? did he consider it even for a heartbeat? >> no,, not at all. he said i don't know where he thinks i would have this kind of

money. >> gary's former boss had a nice pension and was currently earning a six-figure salary at ibm. brother larry suggested mark might have a gambling problem. >> i know he had some sort of bad financial issue. >> when the detective came back d changed completely. >> have you ever asked gary for money yourself? >> no. only for -- only in trade or buying. >> suddenly mark porter was in the hot seat. >> so if i was getting information from somebody that told me you might have a large gambling debt and you asked gary for some assistance with -- >> that's not true. >> he denied asking for the loan, said the only time he discussed large sums of money with gary was about a real estate deal. >> he's looking for investments or whatever. >> then detectives asked him the question they asked everyone else, would he offer up a dna

sample. >> all i have is a cheek swab and i'll ask if you want to do that today -- >> no, i'm going to wait. >> any particular reason? >> i don't know. i don't know the legality. i don't want to do something and my attorney say i shouldn't have done that. you not give a dna sample. it's your best friend, we're doing everything we can to try to find who brutally murdered your best friend and you're telling us that you're not sure you're going to give us a dna sample. >> the refusal wasn't evidence of mark's guilt, so police let him go. but the investigation suddenly shifted away from the workers at the terrell home and toward mark porter. some detectives hit the pavement to check out his alibi while others continuing mining other avenue for leads. one cop thought to check a local database of pawn shops. that search led them here to r&k coins. >> tell us how your business ended up being very important in

a murder investigation in springfield. >> yes, sir. >> it was just two days after jan and gary were killed when telly educatington was working behind his desk and a guy with a tub of coins walked in. >> what were you seeing in him? was he okay? >> he just looked like any average guy to me. nothing actually stood out about him at all. >> he had piles of dimes, quarters, 50 cent pieces. when you added up the face value of that stack of money, what was it worth? >> he had $1210 in face money. >> but the meltdown value of the metal itself was worth what? >> i paid him $18,351. >> $18,351, a lot of money, and not far off the value of the coins jessica reported missing from her parents' home. >> and when he walked in and stacked his coins, if you did the transaction, your security cameras caught it all. >> sure did. >> so, who was

coming up, how a mcdonald's coffee cup was about to blow the case wide op. >> does your dashboard just light up when you hear that? >> can't even describe the emotion of it. >> and finally, a family learnilear the incredible survival sory he

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detectives finally had a major break in the investigation. silver coins worth around the same amount as the ones taken from the terrell home had turned up in a local coin shop. surveillance cameras caught the transaction on video. the man certainly looked familiar, but if there was any doubt, he left a copy of his i.d. >> mark porter. >> yes. >> mark edward porter. that's a real license. this is the real guy >> but selling a load of coins didn't prove mark porter was guilty of murder. remember mark also had an interest in the coin business. >> the best explanation for that was simply that these were coins that mark porter had, it was a coincidence that they happened to be sold the day after the terrell's were killed. >> still, retired superintendent and by all appearances a pillar of the community was now a prime

suspect in the murders of jan and gary terrell. >> i never did like the guy. i didn't trust him. i thought he was something of a fake. >> gary's brother larry always had a bad feeling about mark and he was convinced if mark was the killer, the motive was money. >> i thought that he was befriending and recruiting and grooming my brother so he could gain access to his money. i think over a period of time he saw jan as an obstacle. >> when jessica heard detectives were looking at mark, she wasn't surprised. >> he didn't show up at the visitation or the funeral, either one. >> conspicuous in his absence? >> i think it was pretty obvious at that point was someg going on. >> his former secretary said she hated working for mark porter, ended up quitting her job to get away from him. >> i said he's off in some way. i don't know. he could be a psychopath or something, i said. he scares me. >> you used that word? >> i did. >> but what bothered police was

his lack of cooperation. >> he wouldn't give dna, he wouldn't take a polygraph. >> add to that the suspicious pawn shop transaction and the story about stopping by the terrell house on the night of the murders. and a talk with mark's wife about the night of the killings only made them more certain. >> she had talked about making a couple phone calls to mark and that she couldn't get ahold of him and she didn't know where he was or what . >> but police still needed physical evidence, a dna sample to match to that latex glove found at the scene, so they hatched a plan to get one. >> you start talg mark porter? >> yes. >> cars outside the house? >> yes. we had undercover officers doing surveillance for weeks and weeks and weeks to somehow try and attain a dna sample from him. >> but nabbing a sample proved more difficult than expected. in all those weeks officers continued to c. >> they watched him eat his lunch. they watched him get a to go cup

and they were all excited because they thought he could get the straw only to see him pick the straw up and put it in his to-go cup. >> he knew that you guys had eyes on him? >> it's difficult to know what he knew at that time. >> then, three months after the murders, an undercover officer followed mark into an automobile oil change shop. >> he goes inside. mark's got a coffee cup that he had gotten from mcdonald's. he's drinking from the coffee cup. he strikes up a conversation, just casual conversation there. >> the suspect and the undercover cop? >> the suspect and the undercover cop. obviously mark has no clue what's going on. as he speaks with him, mark's car gets done, he gets up, leaves, and leaves behind the coffee cup. police had their sample. and in less than 24 hours they >> it's confirmed. it's a match. the same dna from the coffee cup at dna from the latex glove.

>> does your dashboard just light up when you hear that? >> i can't even describe the emotion of it that we're going to be able to hopefully bring some resolution to the terrell family. >> two weeks later, armed with search warrants, detectives .rrested mark port >> how did he take that, you got the wrong guy, this can't be, fussing? >> absolutely not. he said okay and turned around and put his hands behind his back. that was it, the only words he said. >> jessica was at work when she got the call. >> two of my very good friends were with me and he said, he's been arrested. and i remember falling to the floor and just being so overwhelmed with relief that he was finally caught. >> even the former secretary who didn't like him was horrified. >> i couldn't believe it. i mean, oh, i thought, no, not -- >> investigators went back to mark's wife and told her that her husband's own story put him at the scene of the crime. >> you really need to help us

out here. >> but when did mark say he was there? >> the time they were killed. >> no. >> yes, ma'am. yes, ma'am. >> okay. still circumstantial. >> we have a man here -- >> and that's exactly why mark porter's defense attorney seemed ready to argue. mark hired one of the best to plead his case. >> he has a spotless record, five college degrees, and has an outstanding past of good reputation. >> at a bond hearing, the defense argue that there was nothing suspicious about mark's dna inside his best friend's house. >> he was a regular visitor to the house, porter. he would get with gary and they would put on their gloves and handle the old coins and the objects and that's why the glove is there. to jurors it's benign. do you think that works as an argument in the real world of courtroom drama? >> potentially yes. >> but what about that suspicious coin sale? >> well, there was no way to know for sure the coins had come

from gary's house. and as for the assumption that mark porter was a compulsive gambler hopelessly in debt -- >> you had to wonder whether he got behind with a bookie or the mob, did he owe money to people. >> that was a theory that we frequently talked about. there was never any evidence that we found that led to that. >> so the case, a potential death penalty one, was not airtight. and when mark hired new attorneys who asked to talk about a plea deal, the prosecution was willing to listen. >> what are we willing to risk to try to get the death penalty and can we achieve what we need to achieve without the risk of going to trial. there's the chance of a hung jury and you have to do it all again. there's a chance they come back on a lesser crime. >> both sides agreed. mark porter pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. no el jith for parole until he's 82.

>> i'm still very shocked, very sad, and i have a lot of relief that mr. porter is finally going to be behind bars for presumably the rest of his life. >> he has to live every day with what he did. every day he has to think about what he did, and all of the lives he destroyed. >> you're saying that he has to live the rest of his life in remorse but you haven't seen any sign that he has that remorse. >> that is the only bad part, but he still has to si >> today, jessica is doing her best to move on. in february of 2015, she and jason finally got married. >> we got married on valentine's day. while it was a great day, it was still very sad. your parents weren't there. >> larry took his brother's place and walked her down the aisle. >> she asked me to give her away which should have been my brother's job. >> kind of bittersweet moment? >> yeah, it's true. honor to do it but it didn't

feel right doing it. >> to keep her parents' memory alive, jessica has set up a scopership in their names. as for that off beat museum of a home, it's still there with a loving daughter as caretaker. >> i still feel them there. they loved that house. my mom built that house. i grew up there and so i can't -- i can'tt. >> that's all the for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joini next at 11:00, two storm systems as we wrap up the weekend. the impact on your sunday plans plus trapped in a rushing creek all night long. the final story here in the bay area and how the driver ended up being saved next. in her car for hours in a

rushing creek. the incriblordeal for e lol right now at 11:00, tranned in her car for hours in a rushing creek. the ordeal for one local driver. but first, two new storms that will impact your weekend. we're tracking the timeline. the news at 11:00 starts right now. good evening, thank you for joining us. i'm terry mcsweeney. >> i'm peggy bunker. emergency officials keeping a close eye on the forecast. take a live look outside in