there was no way you could look at this and say this was a person who ran away. the mystery had this sort of sinister side to it. oh, my god. oh, my god, this is really happening, it is happening right now. >> in the dark waters off miami miles out to sea, a federal agent hunting for drug smugglers spots a suspicious boat. >> i notice the passenger roll a large dufflebag off the side of the boat. >> drugs? the agents never found any. and back on shore no one could find a missing young mother either.

was there a connection? >> i was afraid for her. >> lynn was months away from her wedding when she vanished, leaving behind a young son and a mystery. >> any sign that someone had broken in and abducted her? >> no. >> the search continued on land and at sea. no bag, no body, no case. >> i didn't have anything that would show she was actually dead. >> decades go by and the mystery is almost forgotten, but not by everyone. >> they knew he was the bad guy, they just couldn't put him in jail. >> all they needed was a miracle or a witness. >> wasn't april fools, there was a body. >> i am lester holt and this is "dateline." here is dennis murphy with what lies beneath. >> you don't need a moon over miami for it to be beautiful by night. the skyline reflected in biscayne bay will do fine, but it is not for everyone. >> i am so, so worried about

you. >> some people are scared by the dark water, afraid of the creatures that lurk down below. afraid of the creatures above who scuttle through the night on secret errands. >> i have no idea where you are. >> you just may share those fears after you hear the story of a woman named lynn fremt. >> none of this makes sense to anyone that knows lynn friend. >> local news caster told the story of this good neighbor. >> she was that all american girl, blue eyes, beautiful smile from here to california. >> the good mom. >> she adored her son, they were inseparable. >> little did anyone suspect that for the next 20 years the story of lynn friend would haunt a young man's life, and the mystery of what happened would be unsolved

>> she hasn't been seen in days. >> what happened to lynn that put her in the cross hairs of miami tv news was that she was missing. just flat out gone. no one could imagine lynn friend, a responsible hospital administrative aide just snapping and walking out on her life, least of all on her five-year-old son christian. >> one thing is certain. >> jennifer snell, a reporter in miami, covered the disappearance. >> for her to disappear without leaving word for her son was just something that everyone knew would never happen. >> esther sanchez met lynn when she came to work at parkway hospital in fort lauderdale. at the time, lynn was still living with her fiance, a business owner named clifford friend. when the two married in 1989, esther was maid of honor. >> she wanted what every girl dreams of getting married, having a beautiful wedding, looking forward to having children, the goal of the white picket fence. >> when baby christian came along, lynn the proud mom made her boy one of the most photographed children in south

florida. over the moon with being a mom, less so at being mrs. clifford friend. >> i thought they were a poor match. >> within a year of christian's birth, the marriage was flounldering. lynn and her husband parted ways and later divorced. >> she was upset that her dreams had fallen apart but she was very happy with the fact she was a mom. >> disappointment abounded, but baby christian wasn't part of it. >> he was her number one priority in life. she lived for him. >> consumed with being a mom meant men were out of the picture for the foreseeable future, but then along came ed o'dell. a consultant from nashville working on a construction project at her hospital. >> he set eyes on her right away. he was a southern gentleman and he would walk in, say hi to her and leave. that went on for i think a year. then one day she said i think

i'm going to go out on a date with ed. >> and that one date turned into a whirl wind romance. within months, lynn and ed gotten gauged and mapped out a -- got engaged and mapped out a future together in nashville. he was very fond of the boy, looked forward to them all being a family together. lynn had been awarded custody of the child, although she ensured christian's father clifford had generous visitation rights. >> she had agreed to everything that clifford wanted to try to play nice. she said if this is what you want, we'll do that. >> in august, 1994, the clock was counting down to moving day. lynn was home packing when ed called from nashville about 8:00 on sunday night. she told him she would be running out a few minutes but would call him back as soon as she returned home. two hours went by and no lynn phone call. the fiance left a message on her answering machine. >> hello, it's me. it's about 9:15, i'm a little worried about you and hope everything is okay.

>> close friend esther lived in the same condo complex as lynn. when esther noticed her friend's car was gone late at night, she became concerned. esther started calling, too. >> i am very worried, you didn't tell me you were going anywhere. >> unanswered messages piled up through the night. >> hello hello. it is 10:30 and i had hoped i would hear from you by now. >> i am so, so worried about you. i have no idea where you are. call me. bye. >> the next day a neighbor spotted lynn's car abandoned about a half mile from her home. a front tire was flat. soon the cops arrived and esther let them in lynn's condo. >> what i noticed that was very odd, she's meticulous, very neat, and very frugal. the television was on. the lights were on. the air conditioning was on.

>> lynn appeared to have closed the door of her townhouse north of miami on a sunday night and vanished into the thick night air. >> so this has become very ominous for you. >> so now it is very, very scary. >> what in the world had happened to nice lynn friend? law enforcement officers from all over south florida were looking for any trace of her. coming up empty. >> a wedding, a move, a new job. lynn was facing enormous changes and stress in the days ahead. is it possible she just took off? and if she was a runaway bride, had she run into trouble? >> did you think maybe she got cold feet, was taking a time out somewhere? >> without her son, never. i wasc toothbrush really cleans... ...better than a manual, and my hygienist says it does. but... ...they're not all the same. turns out, they're really... ...different. who knew? i had no idea. so, she said look for... ...one that's shaped like a dental tool with a round... ...brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's rounded brush head surrounds each tooth to...

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>> reporter: days passed, and clues were few in the disappearance of lynne friend. the missing mother of a 5-year-old boy seemed to have gotten in her car on rainy sunday night and never come home. lynn's friends and fiance, ed o'dell, pleaded for help. >> all i want is lynne back. i just want to marry her and take her away and live happily ever after. >> missing friend of ours -- >> reporter: they handed out flyers and searched the residential area where her car was found abandoned. >> honestly, i was very afraid. >> reporter: a townhouse she left with the tv still on. ed royal, an investigator assigned by the florida department of law enforcement was perplexed by what he didn't find at the condo.

>> there was no sign of struggle at lynn's house. lynn's house was exactly as you would expect it. she was two days from moving. she boxes ceiling to floor. >> reporter: any sign that someone had broken in and abducted her? >> no. >> reporter: cops also came up empty when they searched her abandoned car with a flat tire. inside they found a waste pouch with her driver's license. >> there was no evidence, no fingerprints, no foreign dna in it. >> reporter: forensically you're not coming up with this aha kind of clue. >> no, we're not. >> reporter: that says this explains everything. >> no. >> reporter: so what did happen to the 35-year-old single mother? with all too few forensic clues to examine, the investigators became biographers, learning just who this missing woman was. when they peeled back the layers of lynn's life, what they saw right away were big stressful changes on her horizon. a new marriage and a new city, a new life altogether. had it all become too much?

her best friend, esther sanchez. did you think she got cold feet about moving to tennessee and was taking time out somewhere? >> without her son? never. lynne would have to be dead to not have christian. >> reporter: and what about her son, christian? could he help fill in any pieces of the puzzle? >> reporter: sensitive thing. the child here is 5 years old. maybe he has a story to tell. >> no, i don't know how much a 5-year-old child could provide at that time. >> reporter: in truth, precious little, the night lynn disappeared christian had been with his father for the weekend. like lynne, her ex, clifford friend, had also met someone since his divorce two years before. he was engaged to a woman named janet miriam. she lived in texas and learned of lynn's disappearance long distance. >> cliff had called me and said he had -- i believe had received

a phone call stating that lynne had disappeared. they found lynn's car, and they didn't know where she was. >> reporter: this is a very traumatic thing that's gone. he's lost his mother. did you shield him from it -- >> okay, the news, we shielded christian as much as possible. >> this area -- >> reporter: meanwhile, the massive investigation into lynne friend's disappearance had one goal -- to find her or at least her body if she was, in fact, dead. >> are you prepared to deal with the worst? >> no. no. i cannot think that. i will not think that. lynne is -- lynne is the woman that i'm going to marry. she is my life. >> i think he really wanted to hold it together and to be dignified. >> reporter: jennifer snell was a reporter for miami's nbc station wtvj. >> i thought that as the word would come out of his mouth, he will realize what he was saying what that the love of his life was dead.

>> i have to believe for christian's sake that she's still alive because he's just a 5-year-old child, and he needs his mother. and he loves his mother so much. >> reporter: ed o'dell was driven. he would not give up trying to find the love of his life. he called on everyone, even the president, to ask for help. >> ed o'dell started a campaign writing to president clinton, and lo and behold, we get a call from the fbi that said they would now like to join the investigation. >> reporter: but even with the top law enforcement agency in the country in on the search for lynne friend, there was still no break in the case. then out of the blue, the deep, dark blue, a chance encounter produced a lead from a most unlikely place in the case of a missing woman. coming up, a federal agent on the lookout for drug runners runs into something strange. >> i tell one of my crew members, "light 'em up." as soon as he lights up the boat, the chase is on. [ sirens ] >> when "dateline" continues.

>> reporter: the waters off miami beach are where the valley -- original is -- the waters of miami beach are where the vigil ant agents of the u.s. customs and border control agents go to work every night.

and here the cat-and-mouse game of law enforcement pursuing cocaine cowboys and their go-fast boats was the reality back in the 1990s. customs agent, tim stellhorn, remembers it well. >> in 1994, drug smuggling of very prevalent. >> reporter: on that long-ago sunday night lynne friend disappeared, agent stellhorn and crew left their dock at dusk. they knew nothing of the missing person case. their focus was intercepting drugs and smugglers. they headed out into the dark, open ocean waters that lead to the bahamas, a hotbed of smuggling. about three miles out, they idled and doused their running lights. >> it was a beautiful night. the ocean was calm. we had the engine shut off and were listening for boats in the area. so i hear this boat coming out, and through night vision goggles, i could see that there was two people on board. that two people on board were in dark clothing, goggles, bandanas around their heads. >> reporter: it around 11:00. stellhorn and crew running dark tailed the boat surreptitiously, but quickly the element of surprise was lost.

>> i watched the passenger turn around, and he spots us, i think. i tell one of my crew members, "light 'em up with a spotlight." as soon as he lights up the boat, i notice the passenger roll a large duffel bag off the side of the boat. the chase is on. [ sirens ] >> i think we have a narcotics case, a smuggling case that went bad. and at some point, they just stopped their boat, and both put their hands straight up in the air. >> reporter: the two were zipped up during the questioning that followed. agents returned to the spot where the bag was dumped, but it had already sunk. and with no drugs found on the boat, agents released the two. their boat was seized for a followup investigation. just another night in the office in the war on drugs, or so agent stellhorn thought. >> so a week goes by. sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. on one of the back pages is a story of a missing woman, lynne friend. friend is an unusual last name, so of course it registered that i just stopped a boat a week prior with a guy named friend on board.

>> reporter: it was clifford friend, lynn's ex-husband. with him was a miami beach man named alan gold, co-owner of the boat. >> the bottom of the article was the detective's name and phone number. i called the number. at first he didn't believe me. he thought it was a prank call. >> reporter: hardly. light bulbs clicked, missing pieces fell into place. a missing ex-wife, a former husband busted dumping something off shore on the very night. leslie d'ambrosia is an agent with the florida department of law enforcement. that's a fortuitous match-up in this case. >> the customs officers in this case did such an amazing job. >> is there anything that you want to say? >> reporter: now ten days after lynn's disappearance, investigators and the media laser focused on clifford friend. janet miriam, still his fiancee at the time, was caught in the whirlwind that followed. >> there was cameras wherever cliff went. >> do you expect to be charged in the murder of your ex-wife?

>> trying to tell cliff in front of his child that he was guilty of the disappearance of his ex-wife. >> reporter: and then there was this investigative nugget. ed o'dell reported to the cops that the night lynne disappeared she told him that she was going to clifford's house to pick up a child support payment. when detectives heard that, they got a search warrant for clifford's place. they seized some items and his car but found no evidence of foul play anywhere. >> i never gave thought that he had anything to do with lynn's disappearance. >> reporter: but investigators weren't so sure so they turned their attentions to the area where customs stopped clifford's boat. with waters 1,000 feet deep, agent ed royal asked the u.s. navy for help, but there was a little problem. >> the u.s. navy is precluded from providing assistance to law enforcement without reimbursement. so they were willing to provide us three days of searching for

$48,000. >> reporter: you were going to get a bill at the end of it. >> we had to pay up front actually. >> reporter: two months later, the fee covered, the u.s. navy was ready to join in the search. the ship was fitted out with side scan sonar that could image the ocean floor. no gym bag? >> no. >> no bag, no body. the experts told us that it was beyond a needle in a haystack. >> yeah. >> reporter: the navy said it had to pull the plug when the money ran out. but lynn's fiance, ed o'dell, stepped in. >> and ed o'dell wrote a check to the navy for another $13,000 to extend the search one more day. >> reporter: the extra day bought one promising sighting. >> we saw what we thought was a black bag on the ocean floor. >> reporter: grappling hooks were sent down. searchers deck held their breath, but it wasn't what they were looking for. >> a plastic garbage bag. >> reporter: what was in the garbage bag? >> it turned out to be beer cans. garbage.

>> reporter: the navy search had fizzled out. detectives were back at square one, and they would already ruled out one of the people closest to lynn. what about ed o'dell? do you have to suspect the fiance? >> not at all. he was in tennessee at the time all of this occurred. we have the phone records. >> reporter: so after months, detectives were no closer to solving the case. they had no dna, no forensics, no blood spatter, nothing to help them. and despite their suspicions about clifford friend, law enforcement couldn't say definitively what happened to his ex-wife, lynne. >> we didn't have the body, and we didn't have any eyewitnesses. >> reporter: back in 1994, katherine fernandez-rundel had been the miami-dade state attorney for two years when the case came into her office. she was determined lynne friend's name would not end up in some cold case file. >> this was not the easiest

case, as you might imagine. >> reporter: couldn't say if she was dead. she might have metaphorically taken the midnight train to georgia. nobody knew. >> that's correct. we didn't know she was missing. we believed it. we had a little boy. we didn't know what he was going to say. we didn't have access to him. really what you had was very little. so you had to really build it, you had to stay tenacious. >> reporter: tenacious indeed. because clifford friend actually had an alibi. [ sirens ] >> reporter: one he wasn't proud of, perhaps, but it explained what he was doing that night and why there were two men in a boat. coming up, an undercover sting that didn't quite go as planned. >> he said, "oh, i took the recording device and dropped it in her diaper." "let life in with new herbal essences bursting with argan oil of morocco and notes of jasmine to put more life in your head. and now with the power of bio:renew to put more life in your hair.

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>> reporter: months had passed, and with no success in finding lynne's body, police appeal to the public for help. they put together a crime stoppers re-enactment video that aired on local tv showing two men dumping a bag in the ocean, then trying to evade customs agents. a reward was offered, but the tip line stayed mostly silent. neither clifford friend nor alan gold would tell police directly what they were doing on the boat that night. customs agent tim stellhorn thought he knew when he ran a background check and found clifford's priors. >> through the investigative findings, we learned that

clifford friend did have a criminal history. part of that criminal history was in drug smuggling. >> reporter: while the other man, alan gold, had no history of drug arrests, was clifford friend, a known smuggler, dumping drugs into the ocean that night? his attorney said clifford friend was committing a crime that night, but it wasn't murder. >> they were running drug deals together. >> reporter: attorney peter heller says that's what was in the bag clifford dumped. drugs. you're saying he was dirty. he had a dirty history -- >> he did, and they knew that. >> reporter: clifford also owned a pawn shop in the miami area. according to his lawyer, clifford's drug-running career ended when lynne disappeared. he wanted to turn his life around. he had a little boy to take care of. >> husband and wife -- >> reporter: and he would take care of christian with his new bride. a year and a half after lynne disappeared, clifford and janet married. alan gold, with the waist-length braid, was there, too. the investigators never really

go away. you're putting together your new life with this man, and yet you've got to deal with all that stuff. >> after the first couple of years, the first two years, it really disappeared. >> reporter: as the case receded from the public eye, clifford and janet friend focused on raising young christian. does he remember his mother? >> i never wanted him to forget who his mother was. so i always made sure that he had pictures of his mother in his room, and he was allowed to ask any question that he ever wanted. >> reporter: you had become the only mom he remembers in his life. you are mom. >> i am mom, and he calls me mom. he understands i am not his biological mother. >> reporter: what kind of dad was cliff to christian? >> he was a great dad. they went and played ball together. they went fishing together. they went on travels together. cliff is a phenomenal father. >> reporter: meanwhile up in

tennessee, lynne's one-time fiance, ed o'dell, had moved on with his life, too. married now with children. the dwindling friends of lynne thought they would never see an end to the case of the missing woman. there was one person in particular who didn't like to see the dusty jacket of unsolved cases in his files. >> it has to be murder. >> reporter: in 2010, one of miami's most experienced prosecutors, makal von zamft, took over the case. what did you think the biggest problem was? >> i had no body, no witnesses. i had nothing to indicate she was actually dead. >> i think that especially now in 2014, juries with -- have high expectations. >> reporter: the "csi" speech that so many prosecutions give in jury selection -- >> they expect physical evidence. they want to see a body. >> reporter: the two re-examined the 16-year-old file and took a fresh look at a lead from back then that had never panned out.

an acquaintance of clifford's, someone named robert missey, told police about a disturbing conversation he had with the ex-husband not long before lynne went missing. he said it happened over breakfast at this ihop. >> clifford told them, well, she's never leaving the state with my child. she's going for a boat ride, and she's never coming back. >> reporter: this is dynamite for an investigator. >> it was great. we managed to convince missey that he should become our ally. >> reporter: in other words, a snitch. missey, a convicted felon on probation at the time, agreed to wear a wire and met clifford again a few weeks later. there was something worrying the pawnbroker about their earlier breakfast meeting. >> my biggest concern is the conversation that we had at i hop. i want to make sure you didn't talk to anybody. >> oh, no. i had no conversations.

>> okay. >> ever. >> and that gave us confirmation that there had been an actual conversation at the ihop. and there was probably a discussion about the disposing of lynne friend. >> reporter: missey turned out to be a hapless, technologically challenged informant. at another meeting, missey wanted to make sure clifford didn't discover his concealed wire, so he used his own baby as cover. >> we asked him, what was wrong with the baby? we couldn't hear, the baby was screaming. he said, oh, i took the recording device, and i dropped it in her diaper. >> reporter: you're kidding. >> the reason she was screaming is because those things get kind of hot. and we were just all appalled that he had done that. >> reporter: investigators did believe the initial ihop story, but after missy was caught out in a lie on something else, he was quietly retired from the investigation. now 18 years after lynne friend went missing, prosecutor von zamft decided to tell the ihop story to a grand jury absent missey himself. >> we used that as part of the basis for the indictment. >> reporter: marginal evidence maybe, but nonetheless a good

prosecutorial strategy. the grand jury indicted. >> are you clifford friend? >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: in 2012, prosecutors charged clifford friend with first-degree murder. his attorney was flabbergasted that prosecutors would dare to build a circumstantial case with no body, mind you, on the expected star witness testimony of a very shaky informant. >> our investigators had done tremendous amount of work on robert missey. we had boxes of files of dirt on robert missey. >> reporter: but what the defense didn't know was that prosecutors were putting up a straw man. missey wouldn't be their star witness at all. >> we were never going to use him at trial. our whole intent was to use him and have the defense running around looking for him and everything they could find on him. >> reporter: and while the defense did just that, spinning its wheels, prosecutors were quietly working on reeling in another prize -- another better witness. one clifford friend could only hope he'd never see again.

coming up, the other person on the boat that night brakes a promise and 20 years of silence. >> he said, "we have to dump the bag." >> when "dateline" continues. wha-- woof! eeh-- woof! wuh-- [silence] [engine roars to life] [dog howls] ♪ dramatic opera music swells from radio ♪ [howling continues] they carry your fans shpassions, hopes, and dreams.s.

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friend's disappearance, clifford friend, looking more jowly banker than killer, was on trial for his ex-wife's murder. the motive, prosecutors say, was sitting directly behind him. the son, christian, now 25. clifford, the prosecutors theorized, killed lynne to stop her from taking the boy out of state to nashville where she was to remarry. for the last 20 years, christian had always been in that place, right behind his father, never questioning his innocence. in court, it showed the jury his continuing support of his father even as he was about to hear until now untold family stories. >> the truth, the whole truth -- >> reporter: among the first witnesses was ed o'dell, lynne's one-time fiance. o'dell described his last call with lynne. her call waiting beeped, and she put him on hold. she said it was her ex-husband, clifford, on the other line asking her to come to his house and pick up some money he owed. >> when you hung up with her, that was the last time you ever spoke to her?

>> that is correct. >> what did you do when you didn't hear from her? >> i tried to call her and did not get through. and -- >> did you call her -- >> excuse me a minute. >> mr. o'dell, would you like to take a break? >> no, i would like to get finished. >> all right, sir. >> reporter: to prove clifford killed lynne to stop her from taking their son away, prosecutors called her divorce attorney. he testified that one week before her disappearance, clifford went ballistic in a family law court when a judge approved the boy's move to nashville. >> he was angrily yelling at his lawyer that nobody -- nobody will take christian away from me. >> reporter: but these outbursts were at best purely circumstantial evidence. the prosecution would need a lot more than that. remember, lynne's body had never been found.

however, the night his ex disappeared, clifford and his pal, alan gold, were spotted in a speedboat dumping a bag overboard. the state believed lynne's remains were in that bag. alan gold had kept his mouth shut all these years. >> the key was finding a way to force alan gold to cooperate. >> reporter: prosecuter michael von zamft made the other man in the boat an offer he couldn't refuse. he was subpoenaed to testify and given a grant of immunity with it. if he didn't testify, the hammer would come down hard. >> then i'll have the judge order you to testify, and then i'll let you sit in jail until the trial's over. >> reporter: at age 68, gold didn't like the prospect of years in jail. he chose the door marked "cooperation." stetson in hand, alan gold limped into court with a certain bravado. he passed by his former friend, clifford, moments away from telling his version of that fateful night 20 years before. he testified that when he went

to clifford's house, the son, christian, who was supposed to be spending the weekend with his father, wasn't there. it turned out, clifford had dropped the boy off at a babysitter's. gold said he right away noticed a large canvas bag on the floor. >> when he pointed to the bag or told you about the bag, who did he tell you was in the bag? >> lynne. >> reporter: gold says clifford told him he and lynne had argued, and then things got out of control. >> the next thing he knew, it was over. he had lost it. he knocked her down and choked her out. >> what did you take that to mean? >> it means that she was in the bag. she wasn't coming back, and that was of the end of lynne. >> reporter: clifford said he'd need the 30-foot go-fast boat they owned together. it was docked behind gold's condo on miami beach. >> he wanted to use the boat, take her out, pretty deep water, and dump her. >> when he told you that, did you immediately turn and run out the door? >> no.

>> reporter: gold said, "go figure." he decided to help his buddy out of a jam because of his son, christian. >> i basically didn't want to see the kid fatherless, and i figured it was the lesser of the evil. i figured it was just a tragic accident that happened, and why make it worse. >> reporter: first gold said they got rid of lynne's car. at the house, the two picked up the bag with lynne's body. >> did you as you tried to lift this bag, say anything to clifford about why did it weigh so much? >> i did. >> what did he tell you? >> it's weighted. >> reporter: once on the boat, gold says clifford weighted it down even more. >> he disengaged the anchor from the anchor line and stuffed that in, as well. >> reporter: customs agents who stopped them confirmed the boat anchor was missing. they also found cement blocks and rope. gold recalled the moment out at sea when he gave clifford a

heads up that customs was following. >> he said, we have to dump the bag. he jumped in the back, grabbed hold of the side of the bag. i grabbed the other, and it went over the side. [ sirens ] >> reporter: after a short chase with armed federal agents, gold said they had no choice now but to surrender. >> about peed my pants. other than that -- he basically wanted to know what went overboard. i told him that a towel blew over. >> basically you lied? >> oh, yeah. i don't really want to tell anybody i just got done dumping a body in the atlantic. >> reporter: gold was asked why now, 20 years later, did he finally stop covering for his pal clifford? >> you had basically told me if i refused to answer that you would put me in jail. >> certainly you're not here out of the goodness of your heart. >> no. >> were there any other considerations that kept you from coming forward? >> i made a commitment to the guy 20 years ago.

i didn't see any reason to break it. >> you broke it. >> only because you put me in a box, and i don't have any choice. >> reporter: a compelling witness for sure, but was he credible? >> he's a character. he is despicable, but he's believable. >> reporter: prosecutors had one more witness to go. a jailhouse snitch named andre scarsia flores. the judge ordered us not to show his face. flores testified that one night he and clifford were watching a spanish tv soap opera when they were in the same jail. ironically, the plot was about a drug dealer who killed his wife by throwing her off a boat. [ splash ] >> do you remember in english what he said to you? >> wow. remind me of what i did. it's like deja vu. >> reporter: more damning testimony, or was it? >> you were absolutely certain you and mr. friend were watching

that show? >> reporter: the defense had done its homework and was ready to pounce. coming up, the judge explodes at the prosecution -- >> you put on a jailhouse snitch, and you didn't check any further into his credibility? i don't want a response to that. >> and a son defends the man accused of killing his mother. >> i know that he loves me too much to hurt me by taking my mother from me. make the most of a few minutes with instant moisture from k-y ultragel.

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>> reporter: the defense was behind on points after alan gold, the state's star witness, spun a hypnotic story about helping his buddy, clifford friend, dump his ex-wife's body in the ocean. but one person wasn't convinced. christian friend, the boy who lost his mother at the age of 5, listened to two weeks of damning evidence that his father killed her. >> every night he came home feeling more and more confident that his father was innocent. >> reporter: was innocent, not going the other way? not getting shaky about -- >> oh, he wasn't shaky at all. >> reporter: did you have any moments where you wavered, janet? >> never. >> reporter: say, maybe i've been married to a stranger, maybe there's things i don't know about this? >> absolutely not. >> reporter: and the reason you stayed with him so four square behind him is what? >> we had a great relationship. >> reporter: while his son and wife still believed in him, how would the defense get the jury to buy its case?

an excellent place to start was the jailhouse snitch. he told the damaging story about him and clifford watching a soap opera together about an ocean-going wife-murdering drug dealer. clifford allegedly blurted out something like, "that's what i did." >> the prosecution when she told me, she says, "peter, you can't make this up." i said, "yes, you can." it turned out he did. >> reporter: during cross-examination, attorney peter heller caught the snitch in a lie that sent the whole trial reeling. private investigators working for the defense uncovered evidence the state didn't know about. it turned out clifford never did watch that spanish language tv program with the snitch. >> the problem with the story was i immediately pulled our phone records. and cliff and i were on the telephone when this episode was aired. >> reporter: the snitch's story unraveled, to the prosecution's great humiliation and unhappiness. after that oops, the judge ripped into the state.

>> seriously. you put on a jailhouse snitch, and you didn't check any further to his credibility? i don't want a response to that. >> you want an answer -- i made a mistake. i made a mistake. >> reporter: shouldn't have gone with it? >> at one point i turned to marie and said, sometimes when it's too good to be true, it probably is. >> reporter: the judge called in puzzled jurors and told him to disregard the snitch's testimony. >> reporter: here of the point of the defense's newly energized argument -- jurors, if the state would put on a big, fat liar like the jailhouse snitch, what did that say about alan gold, the star witness? prosecutors were concerned. >> that was the key, to say if they put on one liar, they'd put on the other. >> reporter: the defense tried to prove that like the snitch gold was a liar also. and that the reason he decided to tell prosecutors what they wanted to hear was that he was afraid of being charged with murder, too. >> no statute of limitations on first-degree murder is, there -- >> i didn't whack the broad, so

i didn't care. >> is that what it was, whack the broad? is that what she is? >> i watch "the sopranos" a lot. >> reporter: it didn't take much prodding to show the court how little respect gold had for the entire proceeding. >> you fine this whole thing to be comical? >> absolutely. >> why is that, sir? >> took 20 years to get here. >> so that's -- it's funny? >> your sense of humor is different than mine. >> reporter: the judge limited the defense from offering its drug-smuggling alibi, and the suggestion that it was drugs, not lynne's body, in the bag clifford dumped. still, the defense was able to shoehorn in the thought that gold and clifford were on a drug run that night. >> isn't this true that you needed to meet him to get drugs, isn't that true? [ bleep ] >> reporter: with no body found, no dna and no physical evidence in clifford friend's house to prove lynne was murdered there, gold admitted he couldn't with absolute certainty say that

lynne's body was in that bag. >> could you tell from your own sense that there was a body in there, yes or no? >> it wasn't april fools. there was a body. >> you didn't look in there? >> no, no. >> reporter: with the state and defense resting their cases, closing arguments boiled down to one thing -- would jurors believe alan gold. >> you know, alan gold was about as unrepentant a sinner as you're ever going to see. the state put him on because he knew things that only he would know. >> you cannot believe what alan gold says. he has an agenda. he fabricated because of his agenda to save his own life. >> reporter: the 20-year-old murder case was now in the hands of the jury. jurors deliberated late into the evening. around 9:30, they announced a verdict. >> christian and i were together holding hands. i had told him no matter what happened, we would hold our heads high.

>> we, the jury, find the defendant, clifford bret friend, guilty of second-degree murder >> reporter: second-degree murder. the jury apparently believed gold's story but not that the crime was premeditated. at sentencing a few weeks later, lynne's long-ago fiance, ed o'dell, spoke directly to christian, reminding him of what he missed in life. >> you will not be able to understand lynne's love for you until you have your own child. when you will know a love that you never knew possible before. >> reporter: christian, who'd sat silently throughout the trial, finally spoke. and he was still four square behind his father. >> i'm not going to go into the frustration i feel in hearing that i missed out on growing up with my mother. i'm not going to go into how frustrating it is to hear how i've become a good person in spite of my father because he is the best person i know.

i've been asked why i never questioned my dad about any of this many times by many people. and i never felt the need to. he raised me and taught me right from wrong. you've heard it said many times that my dad loved me too much to let me go. but i know that he loves me too much to hurt me by taking my mother from me. >> reporter: in court, judge teresa pooler had the final word. >> you treated lynne friend with unspeakable -- sir, look at me. with unspeakable cruelty. your actions left your 5-year-old child to grow up without knowing his mother. the manner in which you disposed of her body, sir, was despicable. by so cavalierly dumping her in the ocean. clifford bret friend, for these reasons i'm sentencing you to life in prison. >> reporter: more than 20 years

ago, state attorney katherine fernandez-rundel you vowed that lynne friend's story would not end up in some cold case file. now she says there is justice both for the young mother and for her son, even though he disagrees with the outcome of the case. >> reporter: ultimately it's all about a boy, isn't it? >> it's all about the boy. >> tug-of-war between the two parents. >> i would beg to say i don't think a father who would deprive a boy of the love of a mother really loves the boy. he loved himself more, it seems to me. >> reporter: markers. out west there's the great open sky. in south florida, the ocean. always the ocean. the vast churning tropical waters. for the aging friends, still remembering it is lynn's marker, too. after a violent death, the place where they prayed she might finally rest in peace. that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us.

this sunday, connecting the dots between the trump campaign and russia. after telling the senate this -- >> i did not have communications with the russians. >> attorney general jeff sessions concedes he did meet with the russian ambassador. >> i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. >> the growing evidence of the trump-russia connection threatens to consume the opening months of donald trump's presidency. i will talk to republican senator marco rubio, a member of the senate intelligence committee. plus, what happens next? many democrats are calling for sessions to resign. >> the attorney general, the top cop in our country, lied under oath. >> attorney general sessions should resign. >> this morning my interview with the senate democratic

leader, chuck schumer. did obama white house officials leave a trail to make it easier for congress to investigate russia and the election? i'll ask a man who would know, the former director of national intelligence under president obama, james clapper. and president trump's tweet claiming president obama tapped his phones. can the white house provide evidence, or is the president just trying to get people to stop talking about russia? joining me for insight and analysis, tom freyiedman from t "new york times." kim strassel. democratic polster cornell belcher and danielle pletka from the american enterprise institute. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." good sunday morning. it's a pretty good bet that the

white house hoped and expected that the big story this week would be president trump's initially well received speech to the nation on tuesday night. instead, almost immediately the white house was back in a defensive crouch, forced to fight off a parade of new revelations linking the trump campaign to russia. perhaps to distract everyone from the drip, drip, president trump yesterday tweeted, without evidence, that president obama had his phones tapped. quote, how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. this is nixon water gate. bad or sick guy. >> we'll have more on that later. but the revelations this week added to a growing list of people with ties to the trump campaign whose contact with russian officials only came to light after reporters broke the story. chief among them, attorney general jeff sessions, who was forced to recuse himself from any investigation involving the campaign, and many of the episodes traced a familiar pattern. full denials followed in effect by, oh, yeah, i forgot a