as our correspondent "b-rad," falling into a specially-prepared stunt pad covered in cardboard boxes. - ( groans ) - he's fine. i feel good. ( chuckles ) narrator: i know what you're saying. "how fun is it if nobody got hurt?" well, notice our helpers jj and froggy. whatever impact energy isn't absorbed by the cardboard will be swiftly transferred up into those 2x4s and then across the crotch area. let's try this again. - whoa! - oh! narrator: is that more what you were expecting? rube goldberg got nothin' on us. still, it doesn't seem fair. b-rad got to fall on the nice cushy boxes and avoid all the crotch trauma. one way to fix that. - ( grunts ) - ( laughs )

e competitive action you can cram into a half dozen tiny bathing suits. it's the final round of the return of... shot in the eye-poppingly awesome 4k. plenty of drama off the beach since we last met, and a lot to report. we were supposed to be crowning points leader rochelle this time since her lead was insurmountable, but she's been called back to the mainland. meaning the title goes to... our second place contestant, ingrid, who has not been seen since she was reported hiking near the lip of a volcano. ( woman screams ) so we'd love to announce our new champion, yvette. except i'm told she accepted the proposal of a wealthy arab sheik and has been whisked off to kuwait.

depending on who you ask, which means the line of succession falls all the way down to heather, but she's in a statistical dead heat with lil' amber. this is unprecedented. so, according to the bylaws of the whacked out bikini sports challenge, we're gonna decide this thing with push-ups. this is the whacked out push-up contest. narrator: amber, you're first alphabetically, so you go first. see those gloves? she means business. let's see what you got. one, two, three... 22! that's awesome! you're a beast, girl! narrator: will it be enough to hold off heather? it all comes down to this. - girl: one... - narrator: is she wearing sandals? - okay. - girl: nine... narrator: and top-heavy heather is betrayed by her bony girl arms,

lil' amber! who could've predicted it? - girl: whoo! - narrator: amber, what's your secret? even though i'm tiny, i'm mighty. narrator: congratulations to all our competitors. you've given us so many great moments to store in our memory banks and recall for later use, but that's our business. the point is... hooray, sports! ( squealing ) you know me. i prefer whacked-out sports to professional ones. but apparently there's this great basketball guy named, uh... "kirby" or "cubby" or something like that, who just retired, and our buddy, nasty the horse asked if he could do a special tribute. you know nasty. ( grunting )

you know a tribute is gonna be classy when it involves a trampoline, and lots of cinder blocks. you got a clear path, nas. lead the break. - he shoots, he scores. - ( groans ) bad for nasty, good for the gene pool. it says here in this sports almanac that this kobe guy would never pass the ball. instead he'd take low-percentage shots that were often painful to watch. narrator: in that case, this is the perfect tribute. three 2x4s to the bag. that's what i call a "triple-double the hard way." do you love wearing plastic bracelets and gowns that show off your moneymaker? then here's "whacked out sports'" top five ways to get to the emergency room. number five, hop on your skateboard.

( groans ) narrator: number four, get airlifted. ( screaming ) narrator: number three, take a flaming horn to your tapas hole. number two, just drive yourself. ( crowd groaning ) and finally, "whacked out sports'" number one way to get to the emergency room... : shout it from the rooftops. there you have it, "whacked out sports'" top five ways to get to the emergency room. good luck, and bring your insurance card. wanna get more whacked out? go to our social sites for more "whacked out" exclusives, extras, and more of life's big regrets

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you can't shut down at you're not alone. get non-habit forming unisom to fall asleep fast. unisom a stressful day deserves a restful night. narrator: welcome back to "whacked out sports." you don't need a ged or any peds for this next one. this is your whacked out math. so, how did things add up on today's show? we discovered that one man down... plus a furious flyer... ( crowd screaming ) narrator: ...minus getting laughed out of your ged course... equals a guarantee you'll never get invited to the office christmas party, and trying to explain to your grandchildren how your crotch is permanently numb. so there you have it, amigos. all the whacked-out madness

i am outta here. - later. - woman: oh-hh!

believe that she's gone. if i would have known then what i know now, i would have spent more time with her. it's just hard. >> they married young an started a life together in the rugged beauty of montana. >> it's kind of a hidden nugget that not a lot of people know about. >> she charmed all the locals. >> very vibrant. >> delightful is the word that comes to mind.

paradise. for one of them it would also become a grave. >> i remember hysterical crying, screaming. >> kathryn's lifeless body found in the river. >> she said, accidents can happen. i said, this was no accident. >> kathryn's husband agreed. >> they told people she was drinking, she was crying and threatened to kill herself. >> suicide? her friend didn't buy it. >> somebody had done this to her. >> i had to lay it all out on this huge conference table. and i said, wait a minute. >> unearthing two bombshell witnesses. >> the andersons heard her die. >> a dark and damning tale. but would a jury believe it? >> i made a promise that i will find out who did this and i will make sure that they're brought to justice. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here's keith morrison with

>> dreams seem to flow downstream somehow, carried by the river's whims, carried where the current wills them to safety or to sorrow. here is where they came, the newlyweds, to their own beautiful river, their montana eden, where they dreamed their dreams. and where now these decades later the silent water may finally give up their secrets. >> there's never been anything that's been the same since that day. >> sherry harper is talking about a mystery that seemed beyond solving. the inexplicable thing that happened to her, sherry's sister, kathryn. >> you tell people, and you're hearing yourself speak. and you're thinking this is like something you see on tv. >> do they understand?

them to? >> and so you go back to the beginning. you search for the answer in the past. >> and we did everything together. >> this is kathryn's childhood best friend, melissa. >> either she was at my house or i'm at her house constantly. >> like sisters in a way? >> we were. we were. we played together. she just had such a zest for life. >> the memories are idyllic, said melissa. pool in kathryn's backyard. >> she taught me to swim. >> she was a strong swimmer? >> she was. she swam every day. >> sherry was the big sister, kathryn the youngest with a brother, thomas, wedged in between them. >> she was a champion equestrian rider. she wanted to continue that and then go to veterinary school. >> so, yes, she loved animals. but most of all she loved him.

every single day. his name was ralph. and it was her child. >> one of those little human-like jack russell terriers. >> yes, he was a person. he thought he was a member of that family, and he was. >> was with her at college, southern methodist in dallas, where she scored as and row crew, jumped horses and was captain of smu's polo team. there one day on the grassy polo field she brian. brian laird, another polo player, son of an imminent eye doctor. he was prelaw. before too long they were living together. and in the summer, working together in ft. smith, montana, population 161. >> it's a tiny little town. and you get to know everybody really well. and everybody knows pretty much what everybody else is doing.

due to the bighorn river on which june and gordon rose ran a tackle shop and lodge. the bighorn to any serious fly fishermen is something like mecca. >> it just had such a massive population of fish per mile. there's only half a dozen places like that in the world. >> brian worked as a fishing guide, kathryn worked in the tackle shop. >> they had both just graduated. they'd come to the river in the summer, you know, for summer jobs. >> and t law school, in the winter of 1999, they got married. the newlyweds moved to billings, montana, where brian set up a small law practice. kathryn put vet school on hold to help brian run the office. but brian's heart wasn't really in the law. not when the bighorn was calling. so they bought a mobile home in fort smith. ft. smith. and the two of them picked up

as a guide. but we did let him carry a tab in the store. >> he seemed really timid around people. >> and kathryn? >> delightful is the word that comes to my mind. >> very vibrant, intelligent, devoted. >> devoted to what? >> to brian. >> oh, okay. >> she was working three jobs that summer. >> that's true. she worked in our store, cleaned rooms at another lodge and then the shuttle business. hard-working. never showed up for work late. >> all that spring and early summer of 1999, brian and kathryn and the roses and the the other ft. smith fly fishing outfitters worked the river dawn till dark. and the current carried fish and dreams and sparkling flies and darker things. it was the morning of july 31st. one of kathryn's coworkers burst into the tackle shop.

did she say anything to you? i said, no. we haven't seen or heard from her. and she was very worried. and so the other person that was working with me that day said, well, i'll run over to their trailer and check on brian. >> but brian, roused from a deep sleep, had no idea where kathryn was. somehow, in the middle of the night, she had vanished into the vast wilderness of montana. >> when we come back, the search for kathryn is on. >> a friend makes a stunning discovery in the river. >> she alerted brian right away. she alerted the authorities right away. >> and a family grapples with the unthinkable. >> i just remember lots of hysterical crying, screaming. down came the rain and clogged the gutter system creating a leak in the roof.

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a terrible dread spread up and down the bighorn river that morning of july 31, 1999, when kathryn laird failed to turn up for work. a missing person's report was filed. brian, her distraught husband, went up and down the river calling, looking. so did her neighbors. and pretty one one of them, driving past a reservoir the locals call the after bay, saw something in the water. looked human. >> she alerted brian right away. she alerted the authorities right away. >> brian laird raced to the after bay, plunged into the

it was kathryn. it was too late. she was just 28 years old. by then, a gaggle of law enforcement had arrived. >> it was crazy. many entities out there. you got fbi, you got dia, you got the park service, you got county jurisdiction, you have state jurisdiction. >> but it was the fbi whose agent took charge of the scene. kathryn was found wearing sweatpants and a shirt and a bra, but no shoes or socks. her white 4-runner was located in a parking lot about 100 yards from where her body was found. inside the vehicle they found her purse, eyeglasses, some prescription anti-depressants of brian's and a half empty bottle of tequila. the shell-shocked brian was driven 40 miles to a doctor in hardin, montana, and sedated. and 1,000 miles away in texas, sherry got a call from her

>> she says, she just received this horrible telephone call from brian. all he kept saying was, there's been a horrible accident. i just remember lots of hysterical crying, screaming. my mom just saying, she's gone. >> sherry rushed to her mother's house. >> that's when she said, kathryn drowned. and i said, no, she did not. and she said, accidents can happen. and i said, no. i assu y accident. my sister would not drown. >> did you have an idea what happened? >> no. at that time i really didn't. >> neither did kathryn's friend, melissa. >> i'm like, who are you talking about drowned? she could swim. what are you talking about? >> not just swim but swim. >> yes. all i could picture was the swimming pool. >> a distraught family flew to montana. >> brian met us at the airport. >> what sort of state was he in? >> very lethargic. you could tell he was taking

>> yeah. >> to calm him down. >> what happened? the night before, said brian, he and kathryn argued for hours. he to a void her anger went to sleep, he said, and she, agitated, upset, woke him up, asked him to take care of ralph as if she was never coming back to the dog she loved since a child, then got into her 4-runner and drove away into the night. last time he saw her alive, he said. she must have taken his pills with her. that tequila, must have downed so much booze and medication that she must have drowned accidentally or much more likely, he said, she committed suicide. brarn's parents had arrived and they had some hard questions about kathryn's family about her emotional state. >> how long had kathryn been depressed? and both of us are like, what are you talking about? well, that's how she died. she apparently took pills and drank an excessive amount of

>> there was an autopsy, of course. two, in fact. and this was odd, given the pills in her vehicle and half empty tequila bottle. there wasn't any alcohol in her body. no trace of those pills, either. two medical examiners agreed on the cause of death. poor kathryn had drowned. but as for the manner of death? accident? suicide? homicide? they just couldn't say. so it was ruled undetermined. emergencyments through the arrangements through the funeral home so she could be flown home so we could say our good-byes. >> five days after her death, brian took ralph the dog and left ft. smith for missouri, where he moved in with his parents. and along the river, life went on. the fishing season was peaking, so much to do. and the sad story of the beautiful young woman who had drowned herself in the icy after

not forgotten, not exactly. but over. except it was not. not by a longshot. >> i made a promise to her when i saw her in her casket that i will find out who did this to her. and i will make sure that they're brought to justice. coming up -- >> kathryn's family begins its own investigation and is

when kathryn laird was found dead in the bighorn river and her family was told she had drowned, they were profoundly skeptical. they knew kathryn was a powerful swimmer. a water accident seemed most unlikely. as for suicide, they didn't buy it. kathryn phoned home often, they said, and never sounded

examiners left manner of death undetermined, her family had their suspicions. the fbi was suspicious, too. of brian. so agent randy jackson called him at his folks' home in missouri. he didn't offer much. >> i'm just totally in the dark here. i don't know if my wife -- you know, if she died because she took too many sleeping pills. i have no idea. >> in a series of phone calls, to montana to discuss the case. >> do you anticipate that you'd be able to come back and spend a few minutes speaking with me anytime soon? >> oh, not -- not too soon, probably. because that would just have to be a special trip just for that one isolated matter. >> that doesn't sound like cooperation to the fbi. and then when they asked up and down the river, they learned that kathryn had been planning to leave brian. the week before she died,

day off from work, needed it to go to the county courthouse to get divorce papers. >> i said, have you tried counselling? and she's like, june, i've done it all. i can't do anymore. i have to get out of this marriage. >> big decision and she's made it. >> she gave me the impression that she'd been very systematic about it. she tried many things. none of it worked. >> so, lots of suspicion. but the fbi simply couldn't death. by september, brian lawyered up. the investigation stalled. and kathryn's family? dismayed by the lack of progress, they went back to fort ft. smith and opened their own investigation. >> kathryn's mom came up. >> looked and asked and looked and asked. >> she went up and down the river, just looking for anything to get information and find out the truth.

>> she just said, this doesn't make any sense. she wasn't suicidal. she was trying to find out anything she could. >> we would put out reward posters or information posters. and we would talk to fishermen. were you here on this date? did you see anything? did you hear anything? we would talk to neighbors. >> the family expanded their investigation. >> we hired private investigators, both in dallas and in kansas, and they did interviews with some of her friends from smu. >> what sorts of things did you find out? >> that brian and kathryn fought a lot. and there was a time where she was afraid of him. >> and yet she got married to him. >> she did. >> fishing season after fishing season, kathryn's sister and mother returned to ft. smith. kathryn's death, receding further and further into the town's past. >> we went up there for several years, every summer, and spent a

>> she tried to find out anything she could at all. somebody might just open the door to something that would tell her what happened to her daughter. >> months of fruitless investigation turned into years. the more sherry and her family learned, the more convinced they became that brian had a hand in her death, but would never be brought to justice. and so, the business about ralph the dog is kind of like salt in a wound. all this time, brian refused to give or even sell them kathryn's beloved jack russell terrier. >> so after a couple of years, my mom called one day and she said, i'm -- i'm so tired of being nice. i want ralph. and i said, i do, too. she goes, well, then we're going to go get ralph. >> their private investigator found out where brian was, eight hours away. they made the long drive.

of course, he came immediately. >> yeah. >> jumped in her arms. and she came running back to the car. and we put ralph in the car and we drove back home to texas. >> wow. >> he was all over us. >> a few years after kathryn's death, the family learned that brian was trying to get licensed to practice law in missouri. >> so, i immediately called the bar in missouri and said, here's what's going on. perhaps you don't want to let >> he got quite a rough going over by the questioners. >> he did. >> they didn't give him his license? >> no. >> so brian laird moved to colorado. he set up a law practice in fort ft. collins, specializing in conflict resolution. in texas, kathryn remained deep in her friend melissa's heart. >> when i found out i was pregnant and when i found out it was a girl, i went to kathryn's

to name her, to take kathryn's middle name, danielle. i named my daughter after danielle, because i loved her so much. i wanted her to always be there with me. >> in ft. smith the bighorn flowed on. fishermen came and went. and fresh crimes demanded investigators' attention. kathryn's case grew as cold as the river in winter. and finally in 2004, the fbi closed the file. >> so as all these years went and nothing happened, what was that like for you? >> excruciating. devastating, knowing that he was walking around and getting to live his life. after he had taken such an amazing woman off this earth. >> it was the coldest of cold cases. >> but i never gave up, ever.

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a terrible, angry, helpless grief ground away at kathryn's family in the wake of her death. and their unrequited conviction that brian laird murdered kathryn and got away with it. he'd been the prime suspect all along, but investigators just couldn't make a case against him. >> it's completely changed our family. >> and the effects continue to roll on? >> yes. it's not easy. >> and then one day in 2012, 13 years after kathryn's death, an fbi agent named john teling happened to have some time on

so he asked his boss if he could take a look. which was a bit odd, really, given that teling worked white-collar crime. actuarial stuff. >> i work a nicer side, generally the financial crimes. >> what he did was turn his actuary's eye toward a very big file. >> and i literally sat at my desk hour after hour after hour. an i read every line. and i highlighted it. >> you didn't believe it was a suicide. >> no. >> but that was the foundational story which had been told by the main witness, the husband. >> that's right. >> he said it was a suicide. and it's your job to prove thought wasn't. >> i thought he was lying. >> the family liaison with the fbi told sherry what teling was up to. >> she said, we've reopened the case. i started crying. but they were cries of joy and

and i even told her, i said, this is the call i've dreamed about. i prayed about. >> back in the building's office, teling was trying to solve the case from its chronology, looking for the devil in the details. >> what happened the evening before she was murdered, two days before, three days before? this timeline became enormous. finally i had to lay it all out on this huge conference table. and i rolled it back and says, wait a minute. there was a hell of a lot going on the evening before. >> as the agent developed his timeline, it dawned on him he'd have to shift the focus of his investigation from the scene of kathryn's death, the after bay, back to the laird's neighborhood in town. >> i talked to the water department, the tax department, and the neighbors. and i got a plat survey of the trailer park. >> to show who was living there. >> to show who was living there.

trailer park in july of 1999. >> teling talked to everybody in town who knew brian and kathryn. and as teling poked around fort smith, he found people who told him new things, disturbing things, about the reality of brian and kathryn's marriage. >> i found new witnesses. those two had fought and fought and fought. >> and then, buried deep in the original case notehe something curious. either important or nothing. >> there was one note in there, josh anderson said his parents heard something that night. and i said, who is josh? who are his parents? and they lived next door. >> but nobody had spoken to them? >> there's no record of them being spoken to. they were never there. >> never there, teling discovered, for a particular reason.

the power boaters spent their time way up the reservoir, miles away. and then, luck intervened. when 13 years after kathryn drowned, agent teling found himself knocking on the door of the anderson's summer home. >> well, i found them on a summer day, a rare day they weren't boating, next to where brian and kathryn laird lived. >> oh, what a story they told. as teling would reveal eventually. it provided, he believed, the final piece in the puzzle about what happened to kathryn. after two years of investigation, teling believed he had a case. albeit a very old, very circumstantial case. could he sell it? >> somebody in your position could work like crazy trying to solve a case like this, and then prosecutor says, sorry. i'm not going to take a chance. were you worried about that?

>> although it had been a federal investigation, the state of montana had jurisdiction. so they turned to brad light, who runs the montana attorney general's cold case office. >> when i looked at it and i read it, i thought this was a very, very good case. and it clearly to me showed that brian laird had killed his wife. >> the assistant attorney general met with teling. >> he says, yes, we're going to do this. state of montana will charge him with deliberate homicide. mind you. more than a year passed. >> we had to find him. he was in ft. collins. he did not want to be found. >> the ft. collins, colorado, p.d. fugitive squad located him. and on september 11th, 2014, with teling in tow, they arrested brian laird for kathryn's murder. >> did you talk to him then? >> well, i tried to talk to him. he would not talk to us. he's an attorney.

>> word of brian's arrest reached sherry. >> i sat down at my desk and just started crying. and my only thought was, i wish i could have been there. >> probably imagined that scene a time or two. >> i did, yes. >> but brian was not behind bars for long. >> you may be seated. >> four months later, he was out on bail, with a first rate legal team confident they would free him. coming up, what the neighbor overheard. revelations about an encounter between kathryn and someone else on the last day of her life. >> it was fighting between a man and a woman. >> what did you hear coming from the female voice? >> just, no, no, no! the female was crying. >> who was kathryn talking to? when "dateline" continues. ok can we... sfx: (balloon squeals) i'm being so serious right now...

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...stronger so i can love my hair longer. pantene. strong is beautiful. get even faster results with pantene expert, our most... ...intensely concentrated pro-v formula. finally, the time of reckoning. 17 years after brian laird carried his wife kathryn's lifeless body from a bay in the bighorn river, he went on trial, charged with her murder. but it was a difficult circumstantial case. for veteran prosecutors chad parker and oly olsson. >> so what did you want the jury to know when you went into

>> the ultimate thing we needed to show in this case is that she didn't put herself in the water, right? and whoever put her in the water killed her. i think if we could get that across to them, the fact that brian laird did it would fall out of those facts as well. >> remember that timeline agent teling put together? that's how they laid out their case. for example, 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., kathryn's last day alive, an ugly moment of domestic discord in the laird's yard was a fishing guide who had been visiting nearby. >> what did you observe of? >> he's saying, you bitch, you burn the my [ mute ] cookies. he got ahold of her and took the bag and was smacking her with the bag on the side of her head and kind of smooshed the cookies on the side of her face. >> then late that night, another fight overheard. here, finally, was the crucial

investigation and star witnesses for the prosecution, eric anderson. >> what did you hear? >> it was you [ mute ] bitch. >> how many times was that said? >> it was repeated. >> what was the word you heard from the woman? >> the word no. >> the word no. and how many times was that said? >> over, repeatedly. >> when he looked out the window, he said, he saw a white vehicle driving away. it was a large figure, so i concluded it was a male. >> okay. >> and then this from kathleen anderson. >> it was fighting between a man and a woman. very foul language. >> what did you hear coming from the female voice? >> just no, no, no! the female's voice was more crying.

so -- >> like tapering off? >> no, it just stopped. >> she saw the white truck too, she said, driving slowly past their camper. >> is that the vehicle that you saw? >> it looks like it. >> remember, brian laird claimed kathryn drove away in the white truck after their argument. but the ander sons' testimony gave lie to that story. >> i just saw that it was a male driving the vehicle. >> and who did you understand >> at that moment the state contended kathryn lay near death, out of sight, inside the truck. the story, the anderson's story, was the backbone of the state's case. if the jury doubted them their case was lost. >> was there a worry or possibility that the story had become amplified? >> they had no motive to amplify the story. they had no connection to these people whatsoever. >> the state had to prove this was even a homicide.

officially undetermined. one of the original medical examiners had died. what he found was related by the original fbi agent. >> dr. mueller pointed to multiple areas of hemorrhaged blood in the muscles of kathryn's neck. and said, this is troubling. >> bruises, suspicious bruises, darkening her wrist, arm and thigh on a young woman making plans to leave her husband. according to her mother, mary knew little. that she was coming home. >> what was her demeanor? >> she was upset. >> how upset? >> crying. >> yes, kathryn was very upset, said her brother thomas. >> what state was she in when she called? >> very distraught, crying. >> thomas, an optometrist, identified an expensive pair of glasses he'd made kathryn as a

>> she was basically blind without glasses or contacts. >> meaning, said thomas, she couldn't have seen well enough to walk on her own to the water. >> where were the glasses? >> they were in the white car. she cannot see a thing without her glasses. wasn't wearing contacts. so unless kathryn laird went on a blind nature hike, half naked along a craggy shoreline, there was no way on earth she could have gotten down there unless brian laird put her there. >> then right after kathryn died said her sister sherry, brian startled the family with his plans. >> brian had asked for her to be cremated quickly. i begged him to let the family have her. >> but was that all, suspicious though it was, enough to convict? maybe. and maybe not. so they called him.

>> the grass person? a botanist. this was a csi of a different sort. >> inside the front there was three cheat grass, one cheat grass in the back. >> this expert in native grasses and weeds identified bits of two kinds of plants found ground into kathryn's sweat pants. >> okay. this is a needle and thread. >> which meant, he showed the dragged from where those grasses grew to where her body went into the water. >> and the way it ended up in her pants led to the conclusion that she was dragged down there. >> finally, prosecutors gave jurors a chance to hear from brian himself. sort of. they recalled the original fbi agent to read into the record what brian had said under oath to the missouri bar examiners.

contradicted everything the jury heard from the prosecution's eye and ear witnesses. >> at any time during the relationship with your wife kathryn did you have any anger outbursts? any anger control issues of any kind? >> none. >> was there any physical confrontations between you and she? >> never. >> so that was the prosecution's case. brian killed kathryn. the jury should dispense justice. >> what we're asking you to do is to give justice to kathryn laird and to give justice to her him guilty of deliberate homicide. >> but, surprise surprise. as the jury was about to hear, maybe this wasn't murder at all. coming up -- a doctor's dramatic testimony. >> ms. laird clearly died of freshwater drowning. i found no evidence that indicated that ms. laird died at the hands of another. >> what does that mean for the case against brian laird?