we hear a knock at the door. i open it, and there are these two big guys who are saying, "can we speak to your mom, please?" i could eavesdrop some, but i couldn't hear everything. i could hear my mom crying. i'm like, "are we in trouble? is someone after us?" >> the banker. >> it was a shock. >> his wife. >> you're just terrified. >> their daughters. one of them had been targeted for a hit. >> it's not every day that somebody comes and tells you that there's a well developed plot to end your life. >> but this would-be hitman couldn't keep a secret. >> i asked the officer, "could i speak to a detective?" when he asked me what it was in reference to, i told him a murder. >> a would-be hitman who confesses before the hit. that was a first for investigators. but could they believe him?

>> can this get any stranger? >> enter the beautiful blonde with an x-rated career. >> we just had high-end clientele that would pay to come in for a private strip show. >> she seemed to know everyone, from bad guys to the banker. what did she know about this hit? >> i figured that it would all get figured out. i didn't do this. >> was it a hit that couldn't miss? >> what did i do? >> were you having an affair? >> no, i was not. are you offering? >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here's keith morrison. >> reporter: there are places even in our finest cities where only a particular kind of tourist might find what he or she is looking for, attractions for the damaged and the lost catered by agents who, for a profit, would damage them more. it was late. early april, 2013, peak of the spring tourist invasion, here in

charleston, south carolina, so lovely, even in the dark as the horde of tourists drifted out of famous restaurants and into fine hotels. not far away, the moneyed elite of this storied city prepared to tuck securely into their beds, unaware of the cop prowling the avenue that runs north from the heart of the antebellum mansion district past century old houses now sadly derelict to a part of the street more comfortable in the dark. and under the watchful eye of officer daniel wilson. >> we've had various problems with different narcotics, and primarily crack cocaine. heroin's one of them. >> reporter: how horrified those wealthy folk would have been had they known the deadly secret officer wilson was about to expose about the prominent banker. >> i said, "i don't understand." >> reporter: the glamorous ex-stripper -- >> i'm just not who they say i am. >> reporter: the sparkling society hostess. >> it felt like somebody has kicked me in the stomach.

>> reporter: and the deadly plan afoot here on the wrong end of the american dream. >> that night, i was just conducting my normal patrol activities within the downtown area and the areas that i was assigned. >> reporter: that's when he saw it the car with kentucky plates dead still in the middle of an intersection. >> i observed the car's headlights turn off and begin to leave the area. he seemed to start kind of an evasive pattern on his part. >> reporter: and if by some magic the cop could have read the driver's mind, the result would not have surprised him one little bit. >> i had run out of the heroin i brought with me. so i was faced with trying to find heroin 500 miles away from where i live in a town i'd never been to. >> reporter: the driver's name was aaron wilkinson, a visitor in town, like so many others. >> so i used the google app on my phone and typed where to find heroin in charleston, south carolina, and it told me on america street. >> reporter: aaron's wife

bethany was in the passenger seat beside him. his dog rusty in the back. >> people just started coming up to the car and asking what i wanted. i told them that i was looking for heroin. >> reporter: had aaron been more attentive to the pesky details of his troubled life our story might have had a very different end, but addicts, as everyone knows, sometimes forget the little things cops look for, and thus, just after midnight, on the morning of april 5th, with a tiny prod fates shifted in a most amazing way. >> i initiate a traffic stop. initiated with my blue lights. >> as soon as the lights came on from the police car, i pulled over. >> the drivers side window rolls down and i see a white male in his 30s. he's got tattoos pretty much up to his neck. >> i was thinking i might get arrested for driving on suspended license. >> reporter: he lied to the officer. lied like a sidewalk. >> reporter: when the officer came up to the car, he asked what i was doing in the neighborhood, and i think i told

him i was looking for a liquor store. >> i said all right you know liquor store closed about four and a half hours ago. he basically looked me dead in the face and said, "i -- you know, i got to tell you, i don't have a license. kentucky suspended it." >> reporter: but, trouble tends to follow trouble. the suspended license was the least of aaron's problems. the cop invited him, and his wife to a spot outside the police car. bent over the hood, actually. >> i said, "ok, well you realize that with you not having a license i can search your car. the car's going to be towed," and he said, "yeah there's nothing in that car. go ahead." >> reporter: by this time, aaron had let it slip he, was on parole had done time for a string of forgeries which he committed to finance his heroin habit. aaron tried to explain, as addicts often do, that one thing leads to another. >> when you're in -- in the midst of addiction, you might know it but there's always -- i'm going to take care of it tomorrow. >> reporter: sad story, certainly, but when officer wilson searched the car - - >> underneath the steering column, i found a loaded 32 caliber

revolver. >> reporter: for an ex-con like aaron, gun possession could be a one-way ticket back to prison. >> any type of collegiality he might have had with me was -- was pretty much lost after the discovery of a loaded pistol in his car. i placed him under arrest. i put him in the back of my cruiser. >> reporter: a typical bust on a typical night on america street. and then -- then something happened that was not typical at all. >> i just felt like it was a good time to just get what i knew out in the open. >> aaron is in the backseat telling me, "you just want to take me to jail. you don't want to hear what i have to say." and he was adamant enough and persistent enough that i finally said, "okay aaron, i'm going to come back there and i want you to tell me a tale." >> when he asked me what it was in reference to, i told him a murder. and he didn't believe me. he went and asked my wife. >> and she immediately broke down into tears, started crying, and said, "i'm not supposed to talk about that." >> my wife, after a little bit,

told him that it was true. >> reporter: oh, it was true, all right. and something else, the murder hadn't happened yet. but it was due. oh yes, any day now. >> there is more to this story than just aaron wilkinson trying to tell me a tale to get himself out of trouble. >> reporter: oh, and the intended victim? back at police headquarters aaron begged the detectives to believe him. the victim wasn't just anybody, but a member of charleston's elite. >> i think it's l-a-t-h-a-m. >> reporter: latham, a name to reckon with. >> it's not every day the police get told about a hit before it happens. and this wasn't just about some drug deal gone bad. this led right to the bedroom of a rich and powerful couple headed to divorce court. >> his exact words were i don't want to be married to you anymore. >> i found out about nancy's secret life. >> it was horrible. it was nasty.

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>> reporter: in a tiny unadorned room, deep in the charleston police department, aaron wilkinson, a quivering heroin addict, summoned every ounce of his limited store of credibility. >> you want to talk about what's going on? >> yes, ma'am. >> ok. >> reporter: out rolled his wild story of impending murder, his urgent warning for an intended victim named latham. >> they wanted to make it look like a, you know, like a murder robbery or a home invasion. >> reporter: a few miles from aaron's police confessional, the sweetly soft spoken wealth of charleston slept. secure in the knowledge that their fortunes were tended, many of them, by the sure and steady touch of the city's highest paid banker. this is he, chris latham, a bank of america rainmaker, entrusted with billions of dollars of

investor money. board member of the prestigious annual spoleto festival and of the united way. >> the best job in the world. you work with people of wealth, and people of wealth have so many challenges today, more so than ever before. >> reporter: and here is his wife, nancy. the sparkling society hostess, real estate agent, and trusted member of the south carolina lottery commission. here behind the gates of their exclusive community, the lathams were blue ribbon. thwy seemed destined for those lofty heights from the moment they met. summer of 1988. >> we actually met on a blind date. it was a lunch date. and when he got out of his car to pick me up, i looked at one of my girlfriends, and i said, "that is the man i'm gonna marry." >> i was in a convertible, and got out and met her. and yeah, we went to applebee's. >> and over lunch, he said to me, "you are so fabulous. why about you dating somebody?" i said, "well, i've always believed that the day i meet the man i'm gonna marry, i'll know."

>> i think i made the comment, "well, shouldn't we let our parents know first before we move, you know, any further?" >> and he said, "so when do you wanna get married?" >> and yes, i fell in love with her. >> reporter: it was electric -- an attraction of opposites. she with her outsized sense of humor while he was reserved, quiet, serious. by the end of that magic year, they were married. >> and there was a huge, big, southern wedding. >> reporter: they had two girls. emily in '94, and madison two years later. cathy harrell and her husband were the latham's best friends. >> it was fun watching chris make his way up through the food chain of the business world. he was always happy to have nancy there because she was the life of the party. >> reporter: with nancy by his side, a driven chris rose to become a bank of america superstar. and all the while they entertained, a lot. >> the bank, every time they contributed to an organization, or sponsored an event, we would typically go to that event, usually as a host and hostess.

and we would just entertain, and make everybody feel comfortable. it was almost, like, a p.r. job for bank of america. so that when they go home at night, it's, "gosh, wasn't that a great night?" >> sure. you were good at it. >> to pep it up. yup, that's what i did. don't you feel enthused already? >> i do, actually. yeah. >> reporter: but life and marriage are complicated, as everybody knows. chris had to travel quite a bit for work. a quiet strain entered the relationship. then nancy had to fight off breast cancer and it seemed to her that he wasn't helping as much as he might. >> my l -- very last chemo treatment, chemo's cumulative. i can remember he came home from work one day, and was, like, "what's for dinner?" and i said, "i don't think i can get outta bed." he said, "you need to get out of bed because we need to have dinner." >> reporter: and, once she was well again, chris developed a deviated septum. he said he had trouble breathing

at night. >> and he knew he was going to be snoring and in a lot of pain, so he was going to start sleeping in the guest room, and i thought, well, weird, but okay. you know, i appreciate his letting me get a good night's sleep. that's fine. >> reporter: but, no. it was more than a deviated septum. it was secrets, roiling somewhere out of sight. and suspicions which metastasized into searing jealousies. and finally burst into the open air in the 23rd year of their marriage, the last day of a summer vacation. they were sitting in a boat on the lake, said nancy, and quite out of the blue, no warning at all. >> his exact words were, "i don't wanna be married to you anymore." >> reporter: but chris was the jealous type, she said he had over-reacted before to her chatty ways with men at their parties. >> so i thought, "he'll get over it, whatever it is, he'll get over it." and -- he didn't. he meant it. >> reporter: oh, chris meant it alright, but without warning? no, he said, he'd been brooding

over a bitter discovery. >> i found out about nancy's secret life that she had for six years. >> reporter: found out, he said, by discovering quite by accident -- a stash of emails that proved infidelity. >> i said, "why would you do this?" and she says, "i'm a narcissist and i need the attention." and i asked her -- i said, "how can you do this to me? how can you do this to our daughters?" and i said, "there's no way i can go forward in this marriage." >> reporter: but chris's so-called discovery, said nancy, was no affair. the emails came from a professional colleague in real estate. were you having an affair? >> no, i was not. are you offering? oh, i'm sorry. >> and because this became a very serious allegation. >> it was huge. it was huge -- >> reporter: a wounded nancy, still living with the man who wanted out of their marriage, responded, what's the word, proactively. >> i sniffed around to see if there was another woman. i pulled up his phone records, and noticed that from the time

that he had moved out of our bedroom, and into the guest room, he was texting a phone number all night long. >> reporter: so then nancy hired a private investigator who followed chris on his business trips, and recorded this video of a woman who seemed to accompany him and repeatedly spent nights in his hotel room. >> and i said, "do not let her destroy our marriage." and he said to me, "don't you ever mention her to me again. it will kill the kids if you start down the road." >> reporter: anyone could see where this was going. and it was nowhere good. oh, the relationship with that other woman ended, but the marriage was beyond saving. he moved out. they hired lawyers to work out an amicable divorce. but before long, in the escalating tit for tat, replaced them with courtroom gladiators out for blood. >> it was horrible. it was nasty. >> it was a soap opera? >> it was a soap opera.

>> reporter: by christmas time 2012, it was all out war. neither side ceding a point. hatred blooming like a noxious weed. >> it's getting tougher and tougher and tougher between the two of you. more and more expensive. how much money did this thing cost? >> i would say just in legal fees for both of us, at least $600,000 to $700,000. >> reporter: they had finally managed to divide their investments and property. but the issue now was alimony. nancy demanded $7,500 a month the from chris. >> i said, "$7,500 a month, i'll walk away. in the scheme of things, that is nothing. and he wouldn't do it. >> reporter: in fact, he claimed he didn't have to. why? >> reporter: marital politics varies from state to state and here in south carolina, said chris, an old rule governing the fidelity of married women still applied. if he could prove nancy had that affair, he wouldn't have to pay alimony. you had proof that you could present -- >> yes, we had proof -- >> reporter: what was your proof? >> absolute proof.

well, number one is there were 9,355 phone calls. also that various emails back and forth between her and her paramour. >> reporter: what was true? just three days hence, a judge would be asked to decide. >> you know all of this was going to be settled in the divorce. the proceedings that were gonna take place april 8th. >> reporter: but if what aaron wilkinson was telling investigators was true, one of the lathams wasn't supposed to live that long. >> coming up, aaron's story of murder and money. >> tells you to go deposit it? >> in my bank. >> but could he be believed? when "dateline" continues. okay guys! so who wants some

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>> you all right? >> i'm just starting to get sick. >> is it uh -- like withdrawals? >> yeah, a little bit. >> yeah? is there anything i can get you? >> no, ma'am. just another body. >> reporter: charleston's finest was used to this sort of thing, of course. far too used to it, frankly. addicts, drying out in little rooms like this. >> i was just in bad shape physically. i was sick. >> reporter: no cop could simply, naively, believe the tall tales of a man like him. but aaron wilkinson insisted that his news was too urgent to put off. a prominent charlestonian named latham was in mortal danger, would be dead within hours or

days if the cops didn't believe him. >> i promise what i'm going to tell you, every bit of it's true. >> reporter: it began, said aaron, with a friendship. not a good one. his friendship with a volatile man named sam yenawine. >> it takes very little to set him off. he doesn't -- he doesn't have talks. he doesn't argue. he just kind of lashes out. >> reporter: aaron was in prison for forgery when he met sam and heard sam's story about killing a man in self defense, then setting his own house on fire. so they both did their time, and then resumed their friendship in louisville, kentucky. where aaron was sometimes sam's little helper in the illicit drug business. and thus, one day -- >> sam called me and asked me if i'd ride shotgun with him to nashville to pick up some drugs. i told him that i would. >> reporter: except that was a lie. couple of hours down the road, said aaron, sam admitted they weren't going to nashville and

it wasn't a drug deal. >> and he said -- "no, we're going to south carolina because he had taken money to kill someone. >> reporter: kill someone? was he kidding? aaron wilkinson is many things, he told us. not all of them good. but a murderer? no. >> i'm just not violent. i don't ever want to be the cause of somebody being hurt. >> reporter: but firm resolve was never aaron's strong suit. >> and he asked me if i would just ride with him. that he would give me $2,500 if i would just ride along. >> reporter: as aaron told the police, sam gave him even more money than the $2,500 he promised. when they finally got to the outskirts of charleston and checked into this roadside motel. not exactly upscale. >> he had $5,000 in cash or a check? >> cash. >> in cash when he came back to the room? >> yes, ma'am. >> he gives you 4,000? >> yes, ma'am. >> tells you to go deposit it? >> yes, ma'am. >> where'd you deposit it at? >> in my bank. >> reporter: then said aaron, sam drove them to a nearby beach for a secret rendezvous with a woman, a good looking blonde,

who handed sam a big envelope. apparently containing instructions for the hit. >> he came back and he had that manila envelope with all that, you know, pretty much all the biographicals, and then it had like a google map, not satellite image but more just like a -- just like a colored map or whatever. >> reporter: and the woman gave them a deadline, said aaron. the murder had to happen by the following monday, april 8th. and that, said aaron, is when he panicked. because now he knew too much. if he backed out, aaron feared sam would kill him and possibly his wife bethany too. and then he got lucky. back in the motel, sam's girlfriend called, accused him of cheating on her, and the two got into a vicious fight on the phone. >> saying that when he gets back there he's going to break her jaw. she's just making threats and threats and threats.

>> and what do you know? sam slammed down the phone, got in his car and roared back to louisville to have it out with his girlfriend. and the relieved aaron went home with him, hoping the murder plot would just go away, but it didn't. a couple of hours later, sam showed up at aaron's door again, eager to get it done and collect his fee, $20,000. >> so i had the time from me walking out of my bedroom to walking out of my front door, to being beside the car talking to him, to come up with a way beth andry are both safe. >> reporter: a way out is what he wanted, though he couldn't tell sam that. >> the only thing i could think of was just tell him that i would do it instead -- that i would go in his place. >> reporter: go in his place? lame idea, perhaps, but, sam went for it. so aaron put bethany and their dog, rusty, in the car and by wednesday night they were back here in charleston. the plan here was to wait for the monday deadline to passes so

nobody would get killed. but then aaron got to jonesing for dope and found themselves down near the wrong end of america street, talking to a cop. and now here they were, he and bethany, trying to explain what sounded to the charleston p.d. like the plot of some bizarre caper movie. >> i'm trying to understand. i'm trying to follow you here. because there's -- there's pieces that don't make sense to me. >> reporter: no kidding. and know what else, said the police, because aaron crossed a state line to commit murder for hire, this was now a federal matter. maybe the atf could figure out what was malarky and what was the deadly truth. >> coming up -- >> i never heard of a hit packet before. >> an 11-page hit packet. but which latham was going to be hit? nancy or chris? is and who hired the hit man? >> this was very elaborate. >> it was very clear what was supposed to take place.

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>> hey, aaron. >> hey. >> how you doing? so, i'm agent boykin. i'm a federal agent with bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms. >> reporter: not every day the atf hears a tale about a murder for hire that hasn't happened yet. in fact, as agent joe boykin told us -- >> in 26 years of -- in law enforcement, it's the first one i've ever gotten like that. >> reporter: about a murder for hire? >> about a murder for hire that was in play. >> reporter: and yet, early that friday morning, as agent boykin and his partner bobby callahan asked their skeptical questions aaron did not come off like some dissembling drug addict at all. >> even despite his demeanor, you know, having been on drugs and coming off of them, he had -- he was very lucid. >> reporter: aaron begged the agents. if they just take him to his motel room, he could show them proof positive that a murder for hire was in progress. grand hotel? >> yes it is. >> reporter: this is the hotel where aaron wilkinson, still twitching through a nasty heroin withdrawal brought atf agents boykin and callahan to show them that manila envelope he called the "hit package."

>> he told us, you know, that this is the room that he and his wife, bethany, were staying at and said that the hit package was in this room, so this is where we came to retrieve it. >> reporter: what did the room look like when you came in? >> it was disheveled. it was -- it was like they had literally came in, thrown everything about, clothes all over. there was drug paraphernalia on the -- bedside tables. it was a mess. >> reporter: so where was this packet? >> this package was literally in the drawer. >> reporter: huh? >> and we opened up. it was laying right on top, right where aaron said it was. and we pulled it out. of course, we took precautions and wore gloves and -- >> reporter: yeah. >> basically laid it out on the bed so we could examine its contents. >> reporter: what was inside of the thing? let me see. the 11 pages inside the plain manila envelope left no doubt about who the intended victim was. it was a latham, alright. nancy latham, the soon to be ex-wife of uber banker, chris latham. the details in the package made it very obvious this was a real murder for hire.

>> it included, you know, her age, her car, her license plate. and also, you know, how she came and went from her neighborhood. and what grocery store she even shopped at. >> reporter: i mean, i've never heard of a hit packet before. is it -- was all -- it's been bandied about as if that's a phrase people know or something. >> it would be an accurate description of exactly what it is. that package has very personal information about nancy latham and her family, photos of herself, her family, her children, her residence. and it even gave the hired killers a way to access her house undetected to commit the crime. >> as you can see by the -- the hand-scribed notes on the map there. >> reporter: oh yeah. yeah. how to get in successfully. >> exactly. without having to go through the security gates. >> this was very elaborate. it took a lot of time and effort to produce this. it was very clear what was supposed to take place. >> reporter: aaron, meanwhile, grew more frantic by the minute and not just from heroin withdrawal, he had to, he told them, just had to call sam

yenowine. if sam didn't hear from him, and very soon, said aaron, two things would happen. thing one, sam would find some other way to kill nancy before the monday deadline, and thing two he'd come gunning for bethany and aaron. >> i was supposed to call him. >> what time were you supposed to call him? last night? >> just anytime. the earlier this morning, the better. >> okay. well, we were going to, we're going to make that happen. are you okay to make the phone call? >> i asked him to make the undercover call, to record sammy and to get incriminating information from sammy, regarding his participation in this plot. >> yeah. >> he didn't want to do it. and i think he was afraid, you know, to set sammy up. and it took a little convincing to get him to make that call. >> reporter: but he did. swallowed his fear, and followed the agents into a conference room, where they set up the call. >> this is an undercover phone call made to an individual known as sammy. >> hello. >> i'd rehearsed aaron, to some

extent, of what to say to see what sammy's responses would be to his own statements. >> what's up, boy? >> where are you, young man? >> i'm still at same place i was. >> all right. now look, you going to make it work, right? >> i'm going to make it work. um, let me ask you this. >> reporter: aaron lied that he'd been watching nancy, had seen her in her car but had no shot because somebody was with her one of her daughter's friends. seemed like she was rarely alone, he said. so should he kill whoever was with her? go ahead, said sammy. >> can i pop her with him in the car? >> i don't give a [ bleep ]. >> i don't know what else to do. >> maybe it'll look better. >> reporter: as far as agents boykin and callahan were concerned the call was pure gold. >> you want me to just pitch that [ bleep ] pistol here, or

do you want me to bring it back, let you pitch it? >> uh, yeah. i mean maybe no, 'cause that's too much like damn -- >> i'm just throw it in the water here. >> yeah, i mean, why wouldn't you? >> and i'll call you when it's done 'cause i want to do it today. >> all right, bye. >> in that phone call it's very descriptive about killing nancy latham and disposing of the murder weapon. >> reporter: so he laid it out in a way that left no doubt? >> no doubt. >> reporter: so, at least they knew something for certain, aaron and his buddy sam had been hired to kill nancy latham. it's what they didn't know that they had to worry about now. >> we didn't know if there were any other persons out there that were part of this plot that we didn't know about. is this the only people they hired? is there anyone else out there? so surely you had to be very careful. and where was nancy latham, anyway? time to find her, fast. coming up -- a knock and a shock. >> i open it, and there's these two big guys who are saying, can we speak to your mom, please? >> and a clue to the possible

mastermind. >> it was just a picture of me and madison. essentially saying, these are the two people that are going to be in the house. do whatever you have to do. >> when "dateline" continues. to homesin the country,se we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ they carry your fans shpassions, hopes, and dreams.s. and maybe, a chance at greatness because shoulders were made for greatness. not dandruff.

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>> reporter: on the morning of what was to have been the last friday of her life, nancy latham was sitting in her bath tub. so it was not she, but her daughter madison, who responded to a knock at the door. >> and i open it, and there are these two big guys who are saying, "can we speak to your mom, please?" >> madison came in and said, "mom, there are two police officers at the door." she said, "but they said for you not to panic." and i said, "well, maddie, if there are two police officers at the door, at 8:00 in the morning, it's not good." and i jumped out of the tub, and

i put on my big, heavy, marshmallow robe, and threw a towel on my head, and kind of peeked out the door. >> reporter: sure enough. two policemen, big. >> they said, "well, ma'am, we need to tell you that apparently there's been a hit taken out on you." yeah. really? is that the story you're going to try to sell me this morning? and they were, like, "no, ma'am, it's very serious. and we need you and your daughter to get your stuff together, and, you know, pack a bag. we need to get you out of the house, because this is where the hit was supposed to take place." >> i was told to go to my room. and i could eavesdrop some, but i couldn't hear everything. i could hear my mom crying. >> reporter: tell no one, said the policemen. don't even make a phone call. so of course, she did. called her long time friend cathy harrell. >> and i picked up the phone and she said, "cathy, i need you to come get maddy and keep her safe." and i said, "what are you

talking about?" she said, "i can't tell you anything." >> reporter: so what did you do? >> i got my gun. and i went and got in the car and drove over to the mount pleasant police department. and nancy and maddy and one of their officers met me in the parking lot. >> reporter: other officers rushed to north carolina to get daughter emily at college. nobody knew if the threat extended to her too. >> and i was told to pack. i didn't know for how long. i grabbed some clothes, filled a suitcase. i had to eventually actually leave school for the rest of the year. my school told me that i was a danger by being on campus, so they made me leave. >> reporter: so now nancy and her daughters holed up in cathy harrell's house, while police patrolled the neighborhood watching for -- well, who knew. so were you, you know, pretty nervous about it? >> we were very worried about that, about someone coming up the creek, coming into the house. >> reporter: aaron told the agents he was supposed to murder nancy by the coming monday, the

very day nancy's epic divorce battle with chris was due to reach its climax. so agent boykin hurried to nancy's new safe house with the hit pack. >> i brought the hit package that we retrieved from the hotel room earlier in hopes that she could look over the contents of it and give us an idea, or put some light on where these documents could have come from or where they put this hit packet together. >> reporter: he spread out the 11 pages on the kitchen table. and nancy could see that no detail had been left to chance. >> they proceeded to pull out maps of my home, and then they pulled out -- was almost like a procession building up to the pictures. >> pictures of the residence, license plates for their cars, people that are generally around them. other folks who might be in the house or in the car traveling with them. you know, where they shop, where they go, where they spend time. >> reporter: everything a killer would need to know to kill them. >> yes. >> reporter: it was terrifying to see these personal

photographs, once treasured, now, suddenly, full of malice. >> the final picture that we had taken as a family was a picture of the four of us at a japanese restaurant. >> reporter: somebody had cut off half the picture. >> and so it was just a picture of me and madison. and it felt like somebody had kicked me in the stomach. essentially saying, "these are the two people that are going to be in the house. do whatever you have to do." >> reporter: how'd she take it? >> she was very vulnerable and very fragile on that evening. it's not every day that somebody comes and tells you that there's a well- developed and underway plot to end your life. >> reporter: oh yes. and most upsetting of all, said nancy? she was convinced she knew who was behind it. >> the very first thing that i saw was my address, handwritten

on a piece of paper. and the handwriting that was written out, i will never forget. i grabbed joe's arm, and i said, "that is my husband's handwriting." he said, "are you sure?" i said, "i am positive that is his handwriting." >> reporter: but people mired in divorce are not always the best judge of such things. it appeared she was wrong. when the agents asked aaron if chris latham had a hand in hiring him to kill nancy, aaron said he'd never heard of the guy. but he was certainly terrified of the violent man who did hire him to commit the murder, sam yenawine. when he found out he'd been double-crossed there would be hell to pay. >> i know you're scared. i know you're scared. >> care for my wife. what if she goes back to louisville?

you don't care if she's dead. >> reporter: so next question -- >> do you know if this originated with sammy? >> no. it was that girl. >> which girl? >> that girl. >> reporter: that is, the blonde, the woman who gave them the hit pack. she had to be their prime suspect, alright. but who was she? and why would she want nancy latham to die? >> coming up -- a mystery revealed. >> so sammy was to her. >> he useded to be married to her. >> and the prime suspect cornered. >> once we let the cat out of the bag, she became white as a sheet. and clearer skin. this is my body of proof that i can take on psoriatic arthritis with humira. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage, and clear skin in many adults. humira is the #1 prescribed biologic for psoriatic arthritis. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure.

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>> reporter: chris latham was in a fine state of mind that glorious first weekend of april 2013. >> i was out actually celebrating because we'd just finished up with my divorce attorney and we were all set to go to trial the beginning of the next week. >> reporter: come monday morning, he'd finally get his day in court against his soon-to-be-ex-wife nancy. "couldn't wait," he said. >> the day of reckoning, if you will, was coming and we were set for it. >> reporter: so, said chris, you can only imagine what it was like to hear the news that somebody had taken out a contract to kill her, this very weekend. >> my first reaction was -- i said -- i said, "none of this makes sense." >> reporter: but no getting around it. nancy and her two daughters were under heavy guard at what was then a secret location. her best friend's house, but for how long? and what then? >> you're just terrified. because, is it gonna be just the three of us? are we still gonna have security? and if it's just the three of us, where are we gonna go, and what are we gonna do? >> reporter: nancy's conviction that chris was behind the plot was apparently groundless, remember, because one of the contracted killers, aaron wilkinson, actually saw the person who ordered the hit. and it wasn't chris, wasn't even a man according to aaron. it was a tall willowy blonde, an absolute knockout, who hired his friend sam yenawine. >> what -- what kind of car was

she in? >> she had a 2001 white durango. she said it right on the speaker phone. i mean, when we got there -- >> she was telling you what to find her when y'all got there? >> reporter: the woman arranged and paid for everything, he said. like untraceable 'burner' phones and sam and aaron's hotel room in charleston. >> she walked into the hotel that she paid for. seen her walking in there. she was wearing a black skirt, white top. walked in there, paid for the room, come back out. when he got back in the car, she gave him $5,000 and bottle of pills. >> reporter: the pills were painkillers and valium, said aaron. the plan was to scatter the drugs around the murder scene to confuse the cops. >> act like it was like a drug deal gone -- gone wrong or somethin'. >> reporter: then, later that day, said aaron, the blonde showed up again. this time at that secret rendezvous at the beach. >> did you see her give him the packet? >> oh, yeah. >> and you saw her hand it to him? >> yeah, she was dressed. she was wearing jeans and black shirt. >> black shirt, jeans?

>> jeans. >> we got all our agents on duty immediately. >> reporter: they had a lot to do, and now, before it was too late. >> we sent out agents to all the locations where we had knew aaron and sammy had been. >> we sent them to the banks. we sent them to the hotels to collect receipts. >> reporter: at almost every stop, security camera footage confirmed the duo's movements. there's aaron in a store that houses a bank. the bank in which he deposited his fee for helping sam. and here they both are in a walmart, where they're buying gloves to use in the intended murder. and here's that mysterious woman, caught on camera at a grocery store trying to buy a prepaid drop phone. which she found a little later, in a store next door to this one. here she is a little later, in that durango aaron described at the hotel she rented for sam. >> wearing exactly the clothing as described by aaron wilkinson.

as for the hand off of that envelope containing instructions for the murder, traffic cameras and cell phone triangulation put the woman, and sam yenawine, exactly where and when aaron claimed she met them. here she gave sam $5 grand in cash, a total of 10 now, half the fee upfront. >> reporter: so she was real, alright. question now was, who was she? and how did she know to call sam in the first place? >> how do you know her? >> because i was in prison with sammy. i was in the cell with him for two years. i seen her picture every day. >> so sammy is what to her? >> well, he used to be married to her. >> married to her? why yes. her full name, now, was wendy moore. but it wasn't always. like for the years she was known as mrs. sam yenawine. he was not only her ex, but the father of two of her children. and he was a man who had killed before. >> we were extremely concerned.

>> reporter: now events moved very quickly. >> we had agents in louisville, kentucky, working with us to ascertain sammy yenawine's whereabouts and keep him under surveillance. and literally while the ink was drying on the arrest warrant, there were agents watching him, so that immediately as soon as possible he was taken into custody. >> reporter: as for wendy, agents boykin and callahan tracked her down to this beach house near charleston. >> she came out. she looked calm. you know, nothing out of the unusual. once sh -- >> i would say inquisitive on -- >> yes. >> why we were there. >> but, once we let the cat out of the bag and told her that we knew about the murder, a murder-for-hire plot, and that we had sammy and aaron, she became white and a sheet, and told us she needed a lawyer and spun around on her heels and went back in the house. >> reporter: but, the evidence they already had -- like the hotel receipt, and wendy's purchase of a no-trace cell phone, and the money to sam yenowine. it was plenty enough for an arrest warrant. and accompanied by a well known

charleston lawyer, wendy moore, looking as innocent as can be, turned herself in. then? it was, to say the least, "odd", said agent boykin. they were standing in intake in the county jail, filling out paperwork. and -- >> she leaned over to me and she said, "i know you guys probably don't like me very much, but i could sure use a hug." >> coming up -- wendy tells her side of the story. >> i'm just not who they say i am. >> so who is she? >> we had high-end clientele that would pay for a private strip show. >> when "dateline" continues. new lysol kitchen pro eliminates 99.9% of bacteria

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returning to our story now. has the divorce of a rich banker and his socialite wife gone from nasty to deadly? a would-be hitman confessed he

was part of the failed plot to murder the wife, and now he has told police the person who ordered the hit was a beautiful blonde named wendy, and she's ready to tell her story to keith morrison. >> reporter: you can just imagine how it played among the pillars of charleston society. bad enough that chris and nancy latham's ugly personal war had become the talk of the town, now nancy was the target of a murder plot. tongues wagged. and who was that mysterious blonde femme fatale, the one who seemed to be pulling the strings? wendy moore did not indulge the accusations, the shocked whispers of the curious. she merely stared blankly from her mug shot and said nothing at all. until this -- >> i'm just not who they say i am. >> reporter: this is wendy moore. and here is her story. a story of overcoming a sea of obstacles, she told us. how much of it is true? every word, she said. really. >> i always joke and say a lot of kids had imaginary friends and i had jesus. you know, like they would play with their imaginary friends and i would talk to jesus. >> reporter: but life, back where she came from in ohio and west virginia, was not always easy, said wendy. >> i say i lived 80 years in my 38. so it's been a long, long road. >> reporter: which got very tough around 6th grade. that, she said, is when the abuse started. >> and things in my life changed pretty big. >> reporter: that was tough on you. still tough on you.

>> yeah. and she was horrified, of course, that sam supported his young family by selling drugs, while she -- >> i was a stay at home mom. >> reporter: well, a little more than that actually, as it turned out. >> he said, "well, you could be a stripper. you could do a -- you know, be an exotic dancer and you'd make a lot of money." and i was like -- i was crushed. >> reporter: this was her way of describing the moral nature of the arrangement. >> i was like, "how could you love me and want me to do something like that?" and i said, "sam, that's a sin." and he said, "so is pride." >> you look at your kids and you say, "okay, i'll swallow my pride." how'd it feel to do that stuff? >> horrible. you come from an abused background anyway. all you're doing every single time is reabusing yourself. it's awful. >> reporter: their new enterprise was called brooke and wendy entertainment. sam hired a bouncer to handle clientele who got a bit too frisky, she said, and they set

up shop in their house. exotic dancing downstairs, the family living quarters upstairs. >> there was me and a couple other girls. and we just had high end clientele that would pay to come in for a private strip show. >> the first on scene reported heavy fire in the rear section of the home. >> reporter: and then, one awful night, said wendy, she woke up to a house on fire, had to scramble to the roof to save the kids. >> then later that day, i found out what had actually happened. >> reporter: sam saw the bouncer sneaking out of the children's bedroom, said wendy. so sam stabbed the guy, killed him, then set him on fire. so sam got prison and wendy a divorce. and then, so she told us, she worked from home and cared for her children, and while they slept, attended jerry fallwell's liberty university online. >> i got my degree, my bachelor's degree, and started in the master's program for

management and leadership. and i actually got that degree too. >> reporter: wow. >> while i was getting my kids raised, so -- >> reporter: and then she packed up her kids and moved to charleston, where she parlayed her considerable interpersonal skills into a wonderful new job. $60,000 a year as an executive assistant to a banker. but not just any bank executive, the highest paid banker in town. who? well, we know who, don't we? chris latham. >> it was great, you know? i streamlined things and it actually got easier as i went along. >> reporter: along with her bank duties, said wendy, she helped her boss with personal matters, like his divorce. all purely professional, of course. >> we were friends but not really close friends. >> reporter: but then, all those hours of working together, it's a story as old as office romance. in their case, said wendy, it

was a romance for the ages, chris was soon the love of her life. >> i really got to know him as a person and how sweet he was, and how -- i mean, kind. and chris has a good faith in god too. and that means a lot to me. and yeah, one day i looked over at him, and i'm like, i'm so happy. >> reporter: and as for how she fell victim to a misfortune as humiliating and unfair as her arrest and incarceration here? just a simple misunderstanding. all she did, she said, was give her ex, sam yenawine a disposable phone and then set him up in a cheap motel. for reasons not sinister at all. really. >> reporter: why did you rent him a hotel room and send him that money, wire him the money? quite a bit of money. >> we were supposed to be getting a car together for our daughter. and he sent me an email and said, "wen, i'm here, lost my wallet, lost my phone, need help." so i'm like, "crap, what is he up to?" didn't know he was coming.

get him a phone. say, "here i got you a phone. here's the number. i will be there when i leave work." >> reporter: and the 10 grand she sent him? just her contribution toward the car, she said. mind you, maybe sam wanted nancy dead himself, said wendy. why would that be? well, when the latham divorce got particularly nasty, wendy claimed that somebody slashed her brake lines and sam's daughter drove that car too. sam wouldn't have liked that at all. of course, there wasn't a shred of evidence nancy had a thing to do with it. you were never able to tie those directly back to nancy, right?

>> well -- >> reporter: but you had your suspicions. >> well, we had our suspicions. we were worried. we were scared. >> reporter: and sam, who had >> reporter: but remember, aaron told the police that she, wendy, gave sam that hit pack, stuffed full of information about nancy. that made it look more like it was wendy who wanted nancy out of the way for good. >> reporter: so i'm puzzled. and if you can enlighten us in any way, it would be helpful. >> yeah i'm not willing to talk about that. >> reporter: no elaborate story about that. subject closed. but for this -- >> i never set anybody up for -- or never set anybody up for murder. i never paid anybody money to murder someone. i would -- and that's not something that's in me to do. >> reporter: why would she, asked wendy. she and chris, and her kids, had moved into that lovely six bedroom beach house on tony sullivan's island. and life was going to be kind of perfect. >> the monday that i was arrested, that would've been the beginning of the divorce trial. and it would've been finally

behind us. it would've been great. >> reporter: and then, though she had done no wrong, she said, her happy ending came undone. in jail, falsely accused by an addict she'd never heard of, of plotting to kill nancy latham, her sweet and gentle love match with chris, a coincidentally wealthy man, was exposed on tv and in the papers. shocking! though not so much to her allegedly intended victim. >> i thought, "yay, now one more to go," because i think they arrested wendy. >> reporter: so you never really thought of her as the prime mover here? >> no, no, i did not. >> reporter: but chris said he was guilty of nothing but loving wendy. he'd been living with her, he said, for almost six months. >> if anything, going through this has brought us closer. >> reporter: closer? >> yes. >> and that makes me love him more.

>> reporter: and, any day now, chris and wendy said, the agents would figure out that wendy was a god fearing woman who had nothing whatever to do with any murder plot against nancy. >> coming up -- phone sex and more caught on tape in a call from prison. what were they thinking? >> i can't wait to ravish you when i get home. >> i can't wait either. e a minu. -swing and a miss! -slam dunk! touchdown! together: sports!

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>> reporter: as spring turned to summer in charleston, south carolina, and wendy moore languished in the county jail, she took comfort, she said, in her faith, and bible stories about unjust imprisonment. like the old testament tale of joseph, locked up in ancient egypt. >> i can only think of joseph and potiphar's wife.

joseph didn't do it either but he spent some time in jail. and it ended up being to the benefit of his family later, so -- >> reporter: so you hang onto that. >> i hang onto that. >> reporter: but, as prosecutors nathan williams and rhett dehart plowed through the mounds of phone and computer records, they were soon convinced -- >> it's clear there was a murder for hire going on. >> reporter: and it looked like wendy was in it up to her neck. she rented that motel room for sam and aaron. she bought that cell phone, which records showed she used only to communicate with sam. the phone also proved she went to exactly the spot where aaron wilkinson said she delivered the hit pack and agent bobby callahan collected receipts that traced the cash she'd given her ex-husband before the hit was scheduled, some of it sent under a fake name. wendy claims she wanted to cooperate with sammy in buying a car for their daughter. >> if it was money to purchase a vehicle, it just doesn't add up. why not just send one payment? why not write a check?

certainly, using an alias name doesn't show credence to that. >> reporter: but the trail didn't end there. what was the best supporting evidence to show that wendy was actually deeply involved in the plot? >> the clearest evidence was the searches that were done on her computer where she actually not only located items for the hit packet, but printed them out. >> reporter: traced back to wendy, the web search that led to this photo of nancy and those pictures of the front and back of nancy's house. >> i mean, anytime somebody searches through the internet or through cyberspace, there's, you know, what's called a cyber-shadow or, you know, an electronic fingerprint. >> reporter: and get this, she printed them on her office printer at the bank. but then, when investigators got a search warrant to seize her bank laptop and printer, both turned out to be missing. good thing banks like to keep quite meticulous records. >> the bank of america server had the same information. it had their internet search

logs and their print logs independent of latham and moore's individual computers and printers. >> reporter: especially when they could prove this particular page was typed on wendy's computer, and came out of the printer in her office. >> so it's not just some directions, but it's instructions on where nancy latham will be, when she'll be there, and how to get there. >> reporter: see the handwritten notes on the page? they showed it to handwriting expert. >> when the handwriting came back and it was wendy's, yeah, it was an important piece of evidence. >> reporter: but why would she do it? to keep chris and the money he might have to spend on alimony all to herself instead? or was she doing it all at the request and under the guidance of chris latham? wendy wasn't about to turn on the man she claimed was her soul mate. how would prosecutors tie them together in the plot? >> hello? >> reporter: and then? manna from heaven, down it came. >> this call is from wendy

moore, an inmate at charleston county detention center. >> reporter: listen to this. the two talked virtually every day on the phone. and jail house calls, of course, are recorded. >> i think of you every second, honey. >> i think of you all the -- i dream of you every time i close my eyes. >> reporter: there were hours of this sort of talk. >> i can't wait to ravish you when i get you. >> i can't wait either. >> reporter: prosecutors ears really pricked up when they heard this. >> i'm telling you though, there will be a plan. >> okay. >> and we're going to work on it. >> okay. >> i'm going to do everything i can do. >> okay. >> just hang tight. >> i am. >> reporter: a plan? what could that possibly be? coming up, was there another hit man for hire waiting in the wings? >> is he calling somebody else?

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>> reporter: summer sweat bathed the good citizens of charleston, south carolina, in those middle months of 2013, as nancy latham's blood boiled. >> it was not easy. >> reporter: by this time she had passed mere terror and moved on to a nasty mixture of fear and fury, even as authorities told her -- >> i had to be patient. i didn't like it. >> reporter: true, the cops were keeping a very close eye on her. but that was no guarantee of safety. >> the thought that you try not to let consume you is, if sammy's in jail, has he called somebody else? >> reporter: and remember, from day one nancy believed soon-to-be ex-husband chris was behind the whole thing. and yet, though she begged prosecutors to charge him, he -- free as a bird -- was still going to work every day at the bank. >> he certainly has the financial ability to pay someone

else to do it. >> reporter: that is, kill her. >> so, you know, what's he doing? how is this working? >> reporter: wasn't working for nancy at all. so if the law wouldn't go after chris, she decided, then she would. >> she is experiencing extreme emotional distress, as you might imagine. >> she filed a suit against chris and wendy. >> reporter: awkward, said u.s. attorney bill nettles. not that he blamed her, but it did muddy up the investigation, which was, bit by bit, coming together. so why didn't you charge chris right away, too? >> i felt like we really needed to make sure that we had all the evidence before we went in. >> reporter: after all, chris was a big deal in charleston, a man with a sterling reputation. so, carefully, they pored over everything, mind-numbing logs of phone calls and digital records from chris' cell phone and computers. it took months to process. well, all the while, they maintained constant surveillance of mr. latham at his bank office and here at his beach house. but you were pretty confident he wasn't going to kill her after

the plot was revealed, and -- >> well, i mean, yeah. i mean, i wasn't certain. i mean it kept me up at night. but i felt that, you know, he was one of the most watched men in south carolina at that point. >> reporter: nancy, remember, said she had no doubt from the minute she saw the handwriting in the hit pack that her soon to be ex-husband wanted her dead. was chris' handwriting found? >> no. that was inconclusive. there was handwriting in there, but it was not determined to positively be chris'. >> reporter: and then, aaron wilkinson told them that was his handwriting on the hit pack, not chris'. and when they checked? sure enough, looked like aaron might have been right. but if that was a dead end, other trails were not. particularly, electronic ones. the day that sammy and aaron came to charleston, there were searches done on chris latham's computer for maps indicating nancy latham's residence. those maps were printed from

chris latham's computer, his printer. and those exact documents were recovered in the hit package. prosecutors assumed chris latham's defense might be to claim wendy did that, since she worked in the office and knew all of chris's computer passwords. but then, imagine this. chris's office printer turned out to be missing, too, just like wendy's. wendy, of course, says, "well, you know how it is in an office. somebody leaves for a while or away, and so it -- somebody else from a different office comes and scoops the printer and takes it." is that possible? >> everybody we interviewed said they did not know where those printers ended up. >> well, let's just say, also, in our investigation, we didn't undercover a rash of printer theft. >> reporter: just a couple of missing ones? >> just two particular ones. >> reporter: meanwhile, as investigators closed in, wendy kept on phoning chris from jail. prosecutor rhett dehart sensed chris was taking extra care to

sooth his anxious mistress. >> even when you feel it's bad, you feel dark or you feel like you're at your lowest point, you need to know i'm there for you, okay? >> okay. thank you. that means so, so, so much to me. >> it was almost as if he was doing everything possible to stay close to her so she wouldn't cooperate with the authorities. >> whenever we get all this behind us and all that you know, one day we are going to make that official, okay? >> yeah. i would love that. i would absolutely love that. >> you and me together. >> yes, just you me and jesus. >> yes, honey, absolutely. >> yeah. >> i mean, this woman's been publicly charged with trying to kill his estranged wife, and he's telling her on these jail calls, "i love you, we'll get married." >> there's one phone call where wendy was sort of worried about how things were going and his response was, "you know, it's all a chess game." >> it's very complicated, but we have to make the right moves and the right turns.

>> i think he felt like the laws that apply to people like sam yenawine and aaron wilkinson don't apply to, you know, rich bankers. >> reporter: and maybe that was right. after all, sam wasn't talking. wendy wasn't talking, except to chris. and chris was claiming there was simply no case to make against him. for four months the prosecutors searched for an undeniable link between chris and the murder plot. not too easy. part of that, they asked the apple company to do a search of chris' iphone, the contents of it, a court order process that takes awhile. but finally, patience was rewarded. >> they discovered this photograph was actually taken with his iphone. >> reporter: a key photo that ended up in the hit pack. >> it's clearly a picture of nancy latham's residence. it also shows her vehicle that she was driving at the time. >> that was significant because that was one piece of evidence that came directly from chris latham. that couldn't have originated from any other person.

>> it originated with his phone, and it drew him into the conspiracy firmly at that point. >> reporter: and so, on august 6th, 2013, agent boykin tracked chris latham to a lakeside vacation retreat in the mountains. he had an arrest warrant in his hand. >> and chris latham was standing downstairs, and he looked right up at me, and all he could say was, "you got to be kidding." >> reporter: after months of anxious waiting, nancy finally got the call she'd been hoping for. >> he was actually booked in the charleston county detention center on my birthday. best birthday present ever. happy birthday to me. >> reporter: coming up -- there are two sides to every story. you're about to hear chris latham's. >> i certainly want to answer all the questions. >> reporter: but one of the accused plotters won't be telling his side. >> i just remember that night thinking, you know, can this get any stranger? ght distribution...

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so close, yet so far apart. >> i figured that it would all get figured out, you know? that they would figure out that this isn't what happened. i didn't do this. >> reporter: in one of his last calls before he was charged with three counts in the murder-for-hire plot, chris comforted wendy about the fix she was in. >> am i ever going to be able to join my family? >> yeah, don't give up. >> reporter: but no more jailhouse phone calls now. instead, one floor up, or was it down, chris latham waited to go on trial with his mistress, growing ever paler, the gloss of his high flying career at least temporarily, quite absent. even the banker's clothes he wore for our interview didn't quite fit anymore. >> reporter: you were a big deal once in this town.

>> that's what the media says. >> reporter: media he avoided, until this. >> i said i certainly want to answer all the questions. i want my side of the story told, as well. >> reporter: so we asked chris about the prosecution's evidence against him, the maps and instructions prepared on his office computer, and photos, which appeared to have gone directly from his cell phone to the murder-for-hire hit pack. >> i never saw that package until my arraignment. >> reporter: a family photograph, which, you know, was in your possession and then turned up in the hit package with half of it cut out? >> sure, that was in my possession, but also -- >> reporter: so how'd it get to them? >> well, hold on. you've got two law firms that have access to that information. there's a lot of people that had access to that information. it wasn't proprietary, just from me. >> reporter: remember, he was in a nasty divorce battle and he'd been turning over to his lawyers reams of ammunition to use in court against nancy. >> i had conversations with my private investigator to gather

this information. and this information would look very similar to this package of information. >> reporter: but much of this material would have to have come from your computer or even your camera. i mean, you're the one who took the picture of the front of the house that day, and -- >> absolutely, i took that picture. >> reporter: and that picture wound up in that package? >> that picture was also sent to my divorce attorney two days later. >> reporter: so somehow, magically, all of this stuff went from an attorney to a private investigator to a drug addict on the street, telling the police that he's got a hit package and he's supposed to kill somebody? >> well, keep in mind, i mean, you talk about it coming from my computer. number one, other people had access to my computer, access to my passwords. >> reporter: chris offered no evidence that the legal teams or investigators had any hand whatever in the plot. but he couldn't deny that his executive assistant wendy moore had all his computer passwords. are you denying that wendy did

these things? are you saying it couldn't possibly have happened? >> don't think wendy would do this. there's no incentive whatsoever for wendy to want to harm, you know, nancy latham. i mean, what's in it for her, i ask you? >> reporter: well, what's in it for her? i mean, she can have you without you having to pay alimony, without you having to play house payments, without you having all those financial obligations, and without you having that woman around who's been driving you crazy for years. >> yeah, no. if anything, wendy wanted this chapter closed. she was very supportive of trying to settle it without going to court, to take the high road every single time. just to get this chapter closed in my life so that we could begin our chapter in our lives. >> reporter: just as wendy had done, chris denied he had any motive at all to kill nancy. because, he said, he had been looking forward to his day in court with her. he believed, he said, he was going to win. would not be required to pay a

penny of alimony. so of course he wanted nancy to be there in court, alive. >> that was my vindication. this is when it was all going to come out. >> reporter: so, who was behind it all? chris, just like wendy, told us it had to be wendy's ex, sam yenawine. with aaron's help, of course. >> i don't know if he wanted to harm her or if he wanted to go in and vandalize her car or if he wanted to confront her. i don't know what was in his mind. >> reporter: so you're suggesting sam, all on his own, without wendy's help and payments from wendy aside, put together that hit package? material that he, what, sneaked from somewhere? he would have had to got it from wendy or somebody, and secretly put it into a package so that he could do something to nancy? >> i'm saying -- >> reporter: without telling wendy? >> i'm saying sam and aaron wilkinson did this on their own. >> reporter: really? what would sam yenawine say about that? so far he'd been talking only to his lawyer and family during

jailhouse calls. >> they're charging me with being in possession of a gun that that guy had in his -- he had it. i was 800 miles away. >> reporter: and all the while prosecutors waited and dangled potential deals. sam knew the secrets. sam could break the case wide open. and then -- >> yeah, i remember very distinctly. i got a call from agent callahan. it was about 11:15 at night. >> reporter: sam yenawine wasn't going to be talking ever. he hanged himself in his cell. this came from a note written on a napkin, left for his girlfriend. "i love you, ray ray. i'm finally free." >> and i just remember that night, thinking, "you know, can this get any stranger?" >> reporter: you were going to say, "any worse." >> yeah. >> reporter: so time to roll the dice and go to court. but without sam yenawine, did they stand a chance of making a case against charleston's now infamous banker?

coming up, a tough question for the prosecution. >> there's no body. there no sort of crime scene. so how do you proceed? >> and a telling question from the jury. >> i watched as wendy turned around and smirked to her family, like, yeah, we're going to get off. >> when "dateline" continues. in improving your depression. tell your healthcare professional right away if your depression worsens, or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens and young adults. do not take with maois. tell your healthcare professional about your medications, including migraine, psychiatric and depression medications, to avoid a potentially life-threatening condition. increased risk of bleeding or bruising may occur,

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>> what he told me initially, was that the person he was going to have killed -- >> reporter: ten months after the long night aaron wilkinson spilled the beans about a plot to murder nancy latham, charleston was transfixed by the trial of the year. banker chris latham and mistress

wendy moore together again in court, where one jury would decide the fate of both of them. >> the trial began with nancy convinced that chris was the mastermind of the plot. and she very much hoped the testimony would prove that and would answer her question, why? >> i cannot fathom what was that thing that made him think, i have to kill her. i have to kill her. i cannot coexist with her anymore. i cannot have her -- >> reporter: on this planet. >> spend one more day on this planet. what did i do? what did i do to deserve it? >> reporter: mind you, remember, chris was innocent until proven guilty, and there was no assurance the trial would give nancy any of the answers she so wanted. the prosecutors had a very difficult task. oh, it sounded, to hear them talk, like the conspiracy was obvious. >> a rich banker, you know, his

blonde secretary he's having an affair with, the ex-husband, who's killed people, and sort of the flunky assistant, all got together and lined up for this big conspiracy. it sounds, sort of, implausible when you say it that way. when you look at the evidence? it's undeniable. >> reporter: wendy faced four conspiracy charges and, potentially, 30 years in prison. chris was charged with three counts, maximum 25 years. and the jury would have to decide, was chris the mastermind, or wendy, or both? not your standard courtroom drama. there's no body, there's no, sort of, crime scene, so how do you proceed? >> the crime's a communication. the crime is the agreement, and then the use of interstate commerce, so we did have plenty of evidence of that. >> reporter: almost all of that evidence, said the prosecutors, led directly to wendy. >> wendy moore, her goose was cooked. there was just overwhelming evidence.

we really didn't worry much about moore. >> reporter: but the case against chris latham? much more difficult to prove. >> this, to me, was the biggest challenge. chris latham is an impressive guy. you know, he's the highest paid banker in charleston, and he was sort of a pillar of the -- >> reporter: a member of society, yeah? >> yeah, he's a pillar of the community. and i think one challenge we had as prosecutors, was to convince a jury why such a distinguished and successful person would commit this crime. >> reporter: but motive? clear as day. the prosecutors told the jury, chris in fact had a lot to lose in his divorce, like reputation, when people found out he'd been living in sin with wendy. >> it's going to come out that he's cheating with his secretary on his wife. >> reporter: and there was money at stake. buckets of money. >> i mean, there's so much evidence that he faced exposure in alimony. $75,000 a year in alimony, forever. >> reporter: prosecutors told the jury that chris was involved every step of way. in fact eight of the 11 pages in the hit pack could be linked to chris latham's phone, computer

or printer. and after the plot was exposed, chris arranged payments, through other family members, not just for wendy's defense lawyer, for sam yenowine's lawyer too. as jurors heard, chris and wendy used a code word for sam's lawyer in their jail-phone chats, "bluegrass." >> bluegrass music is coming to them. >> okay. >> it should be going on right now. >> reporter: and when bluegrass got expensive -- >> bluegrass needs another benjamin. five-oh. hawaii five-oh. >> reporter: that is $50,000. >> i know. >> whatever. don't even get me started. but we will figure that out too. >> reporter: nancy sat in court listening to those recorded calls. they made it obvious who was in charge, she said. >> chris was trying to speak in code when he was saying, "don't worry. i take care of things. i'm the problem solver."

>> reporter: the star witness, of course, was a man who, hired for a killing, prevented it. aaron wilkinson. here in court, aaron told the jury the whole, strange, tale. and as he did, for the very first time, aaron laid eyes on the man he had come to believe was behind it all. >> looking at chris latham in court was really the only good feeling i had about testifying. he's just a self-righteous, smug -- he's a jerk. it felt good to sit there and tell the truth, and knowing that it might help convict him. >> reporter: but who was a jury to believe? an establishment banker and his executive assistant or an ex-con heroin addict trying to save his own skin? easy answer, said the defense attorneys. david aylor spoke for wendy and told the jury that drug addict aaron wilkinson was not a reliable witness. >> his testimony would change. you also saw him admit to various things on the stand that

he had originally had lied to police about. >> reporter: chris' attorney, steve schmutz, called prosecutors claim that killing nancy was about saving money in a divorce ridiculous. alimony would hardly put a dent in his $650,000 salary said schmutz. and as for exposing his affair with wendy moore? >> everybody knew about his affair. chris latham was not going to get fired because of his relationship with wendy moore. >> reporter: but it was tricky, too, for the defense. neither chris nor wendy would say anything to harm each other. didn't testify at all, actually. except, unintentionally, in those jail house phone calls. which were certainly a worry, said the defense. >> everything still good? >> the house is secure. >> reporter: eight of them a day, 15 minutes each. wendy moore calling chris latham. the two of them talking. arguably incriminating conversations on those phones.

even though the incrimination part of it is dubious. but it was the prosecution's job to persuade the jury that the bizarre story of the heroin junkie was actually true. did they succeed? the jury got the case. everyone waited. nancy had such hopes. but, when the jury came back into the courtroom to ask a question -- >> they asked the judge, "does the conspiracy have to meet every single criteria to be found guilty?" i watched as wendy turned around and smirked to her family, like, yeah, we're going to get off. they're not meeting all of the criteria. and i remember chris kind of got this look on his face, like, you know, it was kind of, a little nod of his head, and a little, you know, we're getting off. i mean, you just -- you could see it emanating from them. if he was not found guilty of something, i was going to be in a world of hurt. coming up, the verdict.

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a place to be alone, as she waited for the jury to decide the fate of the husband she used to love. >> and i just started sobbing profusely. i couldn't stop. i could not stop. >> reporter: and in fact, this jury's decision was at that very moment the subject of a heated debate, intense disagreement, except where it came to wendy. wendy, who presents herself as a, you know, churchgoing, go fearing, evangelical, caring, emotionally delicate human being, swears up and down that the money that she went was really intended for the purchase of this car.

>> car. >> reporter: you heard the explanation. >> uh-huh. >> yes. >> reporter: what did you think about it? >> no. >> didn't believe it. >> didn't buy it. >> didn't buy it. >> didn't buy it at all. >> why did she use a fake name to send money? >> yeah, she used a fake name on the money order. >> reporter: that is, the three money orders wendy wired to her ex-husband, sam yenowine, one sent under the stage name of a famous ex-stripper. now, the recovering drug addict turned whistle-blower aaron, him, despite all the defense efforts to discredit him, him they believed. >> i'm like, "okay, we know that he's a bad guy." but you know, he admitted it up front. i'm a bad person, but i'm no murder. >> reporter: but was chris the mastermind of the murder plot? or was it all wendy? that's where it got sticky. most of the jurors, including most of the group assembled here, believed chris was up to his neck in the plot. >> i felt like he was the one who orchestrated it and was smart enough to know how to keep his hands off of it. >> he was a part of it all along.

>> reporter: but to convict chris of any of the three conspiracy counts against him they would have to be unanimous. and this jury was not. chris, some of them were sure, was wendy's dupe and not the boss of the plot at all. >> i don't think that he orchestrated it. i always thought that she did. and that she was the mastermind because it was her ex that she went to for all this because he's done stuff in the past or whatever. >> reporter: for hours and hours the minority view refused to yield. >> i was one of three. >> reporter: and then, finally, they agreed on what they could and returned to the courtroom. >> it took everything i had just to stand there and hold my breath, not fall apart. >> reporter: wendy moore, guilty

of all counts, including solicitation and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. so what was it like when you heard that verdict? >> it was like being run over by a truck. >> reporter: and chris latham, guilty on just one count of participating in a murder for hire. >> and the moment they said, "guilty," it just -- i felt like i could breathe for the first time in those two minutes. you know, because you really do sit there and you're not breathing, and you feel like your heart isn't beating. and you've turned into a statue. so it was like all of a sudden i was human again. >> reporter: it was not what the prosecution asked for, but enough to send him to prison and end a stellar career. and now here you are in one of these units sleeping on a bunk about, what, 2 1/2 feet wide, and on a plastic mattress. what do you think about when you go to bed at night?

>> it's like a horrible nightmare that you cannot wake up from. you know, you dream about the outside and then you wake up inside and it pierces your heart. it makes you jump. you can't believe that you're here. >> reporter: at the sentencing, nancy latham begged the judge to give him the maximum. so did daughters emily and madison, who decided to change their surnames to nancy's, "cannon," erasing latham from their lives for good. >> i don't want him to be known as my father anymore. i think he lost that privilege when he put my picture in the hit packet. i think he's disgusting and he deserves punishment. >> reporter: lovers turned conspirators. wendy moore was sentenced to 15 years in prison. she could be out by the time she's 50 or so. chris now famously told you in one of those conversations, which they always record from

prison, that he wait for you. he'd be here for you. you'd get married. is that kind of forgotten about now? >> no. >> reporter: you still soulmates? you still care for each other? >> i've never met anyone better than him and i never will again. he is a good person, and i love him. >> reporter: and chris was sentenced to ten years, five fewer than wendy, who, perhaps, shouldn't hold her breath for wedding bells. can you hold a candle that long? >> i'm not going to comment on the future. >> reporter: and nancy said she's trying to make peace and rebuild her life after the whole sordid drama. >> a friend of mine said to me, "well, you know, if you can't forgive, you need at least want to forgive." i said, "i don't really want to forgive." and they said, "well, you should want to want to forgive." and i said, "i think i'm a few more wants away from even that. but i'll start trying to whittle

it down." so i think i'm at a want to want to forgive place. >> reporter: but there is one person nancy latham has forgiven completely, the man once hired to kill her, and who, it seems, saved her instead. for the crimes he admitted to aaron wilkinson was sent to prison for four years. nancy argued for leniency in court. >> hi, i don't think we've met before. i'm nancy. >> reporter: perhaps, in part, because of this, the night before aaron's sentencing nancy went to see him in jail. >> i cannot possibly thank you enough. i think we all completely understand the outcome would have been very different were it not for you. you okay? >> thank you. >> i have prayed for you. i wish i could do something other than to tell you thank you.

but it just -- there's nothing else. i mean, you saved me. you saved my daughters, and i'm so appreciative. >> it's unbelievable that you, i mean, through the graciousness it's overwhelming. >> reporter: oh, and one more thing about nancy. she finally got her divorce between investigation and trial. >> hello, i am nancy or "naaaanceeee" if you are southern. >> reporter: and now has taken up an old dream, stand-up comedy. >> any divorced people here? >> reporter: seriously. >> yeah, it was good for me, too. >> reporter: and she certainly has no shortage of material. >> my divorce, like probably most of you, didn't go the way i hoped it would go. >> reporter: there is a mystery still, which the prosecutors

couldn't quite solve. >> we don't know if it was her idea and she pitched it to chris latham. we don't know if it was chris latham's idea and he pitched it to wendy moore. but to be honest with you, i think we'll, probably, just never know. >> reporter: but this we do know. because of the conscience of an addict on america street, we did not have to tell you the mystery of the murder of the banker's wife. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. unit fire in the south bay. and firefighters battle to knock down the flames. a plane crash lands into a bay area intersection. how did the pilot pull it off without anyone getting killed. and a car fire on the 101 unlike anything you have ever seen, next.

right now at 11:00, prized possessions up in flames. we're following breaking news in the east bay. a fire at a storage facility. at one point the smoke could be seen for miles. the news at 11:00 starts right now. good evening, i'm terry mcsweeney. >> i'm janelle wang. raj and jessica have the night off. we begin with breaking news. a fire at freemont mini storage on industrial parkway just off 880. that's near the tesla factory. 40 units sufferede