at the center of any criminal investigation is a dark heart and the iron hand of justice. >> it made me physically ill. it really did. this one got to me. >> a beautiful woman. a brutal crime. >> had her like a p.o.w., like this, took pictures of her all the time. >> her friends and family live with the unimaginable grief, knowing exactly how she was tortured, exactly who did it. police have what they think is an air-tight case against their suspect. >> i don't give a [ bleep ] dig eight feet down the whole length of the property, okay? don't get rattled.

>> her family must live with the horrifying fact her killer will get away with murder. >> he's as guilty as homemade sin. >> we all feel in our hearts he's guilty. >> how could a confessed killer escape punishment? >> we were outwitted by a psychopath. >> on this "dark heart iron hand: getting away with murder." you're about to hear a story of a family grief stricken and enraged. they know beyond a shadow of a doubt who murdered their loved one. so do the police and the courts. there are pictures of the crime as it was taking place and even a confession. so, why will no one be punished? here is chris hansen. >> for over a century, families of louisville, kentucky, have brought their dead through these gates, each casket carrying with it a story of grief and loss. but of all the graves spread over these acres, perhaps none

conjures up a story more haunting than this one. mike and tom schaefer meet at this cemetery plot every month or so. their mother and father are here along with their oldest brother. but it's the fourth loved one in this grave that has caused them endless nights filled with despair, frustration and rage. in it lies the body of their younger sister brenda. a beautiful woman, sadistically tortured and murdered and she was only 36 years old. >> she was the last child. we used to call her mom's shadow. she was always following her around. she was very close to her. >> what makes her death so painful, her brothers know every explicit detail of how she was tortured and killed. but because of a bizarre series of twists and turns, the brothers and all those in law enforcement who worked so hard for justice, feel only confusion and frustration. this story begins on the night of saturday, september 24, 1988.

brenda schaefer kisses her mother good-bye and leaves for a date with her fiance. she would never come home. by the early morning hours, anxious family members gather at the home of brenda's parents. brenda's fiance, mel ignatow, a 50-year-old furniture salesman and divorced father of three, is there also. two years earlier, ignatow swept brenda off her feet with roses and expensive jewelry. but her family was hoping for a breakup. >> a man who is much in love with the sound of his own voice. he would not only dominate a conversation, he would be the conversation. >> to brenda's brothers, he seemed arrogant and compulsively neat, especially when it came to his boat. >> you would be sitting there, sipping on a soft drink and set it down on the table. and he would run over and pick it up and wipe the table off. >> did you ever pull your sister

aside and say i just don't feel right about this guy? >> it was obvious how everybody felt. we were nice to him when he came around, but she knew. >> by noon sunday, the day after brenda disappeared, police find her car along this busy highway only a mile and a half from her house. the windows smashed, tire flat. did you think at first this was maybe some kind of random crime? >> it appeared that way at first. >> jim wesley is on weekend duty at the jefferson county police department. >> the first interview with mel told us a lot. >> he and another detective start with the last person to see brenda, mel ignatow. right off, wesley has a bad feeling about him. he seems overly friendly. >> moments into the interview, it was no longer detective wesley and detective perkins. it was, well, jim, it was like this. or, bob, you understand.

>> he's trying to be your buddy. >> he was trying to be our buddy right off. >> how suspicious did that make you? >> extremely. >> there was something else. >> he had the day's events written down. >> he had notes? >> he had notes for that interview. >> so you go in there to interview this guy about his girlfriend, fiancee -- >> right. >> -- disappearing and already has notes about what they did the day before? >> he sure did. i have never seen anything like that. >> ignatow tells detectives he and brenda met in the late afternoon, went for a drive in her car, visited a boat show and art fair. he says he doesn't think anyone saw them, though, because it was raining and they mostly stayed in the car. then he says brenda dropped him off at 11:30 that night and he kissed her good-bye. >> don't you think it sounds suspicious that every place you told me you have been, that nobody could corroborate that? >> what did he say back to you? >> well, jim, i guess it does look sort of bad and i guess maybe even i could look like a suspect.

>> how did you feel when you left mel ignatow's house? >> i felt like i had a body somewhere. >> back at brenda's house, her family is growing suspicious too. ignatow's anguish seems forced. >> he would cry, but there never seemed to be any tears, which is very strange. >> you thought he was acting? >> yes. >> by the next day, monday, there is still no sign of brenda. detective wesley tracks down her best friend, joyce smallwood. >> he had to have her total attention. >> wesley learns brenda was trying to break up with ignatow, because he was becoming more controlling and obsessive. >> she used the bathroom one day and he got upset with her that she hadn't tore the toilet paper off straight. >> he was upset because she didn't tear the toilet paper off evenly? >> evenly, exactly. >> wesley learns that brenda and ignatow had problems sexually too. ignatow pressured brenda for

group sex, bondage, but she resisted. but what alarmed wesley the most is what smallwood said happened to brenda in tennessee on vacation. she woke up to find ignatow pulling a rag way from her face. her nose and throat were burning. did he tell her why he put a rag over her face? >> she was too uptight about life and sex and, therefore, he did this to relax her. >> your gut is telling you that mel ignatow is your guy? >> yes. >> you still do not have a case at this point? >> i don't have a case because i do not have a body. >> all they have are suspicions they can't prove. months go by with no new leads, no new evidence. frustrated, detective wesley looks back through his notes. he remembers a woman he interviewed just days after brenda disappeared. an old girlfriend of mel ignatow's, maryann shore. something about that meeting bothered him.

just a feeling, something about her body gestures. >> she knew more than what she was saying. in fact, was lying. >> wesley asks around and finds out ignatow and shore have been connected for years. starting when shore was in her early 20s. ignatow was older, successful. she became his live-in babysitter, hoping for marriage. after ten years, they broke up. two years before ignatow began to go out with brenda. it's just a hunch, but detective wesley thinks shore might be the key to cracking the case. he does a computer background check and finds shore has five outstanding arrest warrants for writing bad checks. but instead of arresting her, he first invites her down to headquarters to take a polygraph test. >> she flunked the polygraph. >> it wasn't a case where it was inclusive? >> no. she failed the polygraph and she knew she failed the polygraph, but it just was not enough to

get her to talk. >> so they take her back to the house where she works. stay and watch from down the street. who shows up? mel ignatow. even though it's pouring rain, shore and ignatow begin walking up and down the street. >> we knew that the conversation had to be serious, because, i mean, this was a downpour. >> police gathering nearby an unmarked car decide this is a chance to unnerve ignatow and get shore off-balance. three cars suddenly surround them. >> i jumped out of the car and said maryann, you're locked up. >> you drag maryann shore, soaking wet, back to the police department? >> that's when i let her have it. i yelled maryann, brenda schaefer was beautiful. mel loved brenda schaefer and he killed her. i said you're fat, you're ugly and i'm telling you, he's going to kill you. >> you're right in her face?

>> i'm in her face and i'm telling her, she's dead. >> what did she say to you? >> she doesn't say a word. she's just -- she just lowered her head and closed her eyes and i felt for a fleeting moment she's going to raise back up and say, okay, here's what happened. but she didn't. when we come back -- >> he's bawling about how much he misses his sweetie and things like that. i thought that was strange that he would be having sex with this woman one month after she disappeared. [ mom ] alright guys, play with your toys after dinner.

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september 24th, 1988, the night that will forever change the schaefer family when a loving sister and daughter went out on a date and never came home. police suspect her fiance killed her, that his former girlfriend

was his accomplice. they interrogate her, but she doesn't crack. are their suspicions right? here's chris hansen. >> police are convinced mel ignatow killed his fiancee, brenda schaefer. but they can't quite make their case. maryann shore, mel ignatow's ex-girlfriend, has withstood their barrage. and now they're out of options. for the schaefer family, the wait is excruciating, especially for her mother. >> every time a car came down the street, she would run to the front door, just knowing it was brenda coming home, just knowing that it was her, and then the car would go on past. >> five months turned into a year. brenda's mother never loses hope. every night she sleeps on the couch to be close by when brenda comes home. the entire family feels paralyzed. >> the depression, the total silence in the house. >> enter scott cox, 13 months

after brenda disappears. a young, relatively inexperienced assistant u.s. attorney. he's thrilled to be thrust into the middle of a highly publicized criminal case. by hounding the fbi, cox finds a way to break the case wide open. >> they told us at one point they thought he wanted to come forward and we just had to keep pressuring him a little bit more and a little bit more. >> cox has an idea. ignatow has never been arrested, and is still living well, he is surrounded by a cloud of suspicion and is having trouble hanging on to a job. employers are telling him he's bad for business. so cox convinces ignatow and his attorney that testifying before a grand jury can help him. >> he could get out on the courthouse steps and say, hey, i volunteered to come down here. i'm trying to assist authorities in this case and shift the community's ire away from him on to somebody else. >> the plan almost backfires on cox when ignatow testifies, he

sticks doggedly to his story. there is one thing ignatow says that sticks out in cox's mind. he admits to having had sex with maryann shore soon after brenda was reported missing. >> he is bawling about how much he misses his sweetie and things like that. i thought that was strange he would be having sex with this woman one month after she disappeared. >> so cox subpoenas maryann shore to testify before the grand jury too. by now, brenda has been missing over 15 months. the questioning seems to be going nowhere. then cox asks shore how many times she has seen brenda schaefer. shore says once in a bar.k her, describe what brenda schaefer looked like and she said, you mean the last time i saw her? i said what do you mean? you just said 15 minutes ago you said you only saw her once in your life. she stood up and said i need to talk to my lawyer and fled the grand jury room. >> bolted? >> yes. it was fascinating. i've never seen a witness do that either before or since.

>> what did you think was going non >> we thought we were onto something. >> he keeps pressure on maryann shore, calling her lawyer every day. >> i told him she's going to be arrested for this eventually and she's going to get the death penalty. if she will come in now, we'll really help her. >> after a week of badgering, shore's attorney arranges for a meeting with cox. shore sits in one office, cox and his colleagues in another. shore's lawyer acts as a go-between. >> finally, he went to talk to her privately. he came back a couple minutes later and says, what if she knows where the body is? >> that must have been an incredible moment in this case. >> you could have heard a pin drop. we're right there on the edge, getting ready to find out what happened. >> who killed brenda schaefer? was it mel ignatow, as police have suspected all along, or was it someone else they overlooked? those in the room are about to hear for the first time shore's account of what happened to brenda schaefer. when we come back --

>> mel ignatow went out in the street in front of maryann shore's house and she stayed in the house and screamed and the scream could be heard out in the street. [ indistinct talking on radio ] [ tires screech ] [ crying ] [ applause ] [ laughs ] [ tires screech ] [ male announcer ] your life will have to flash by even faster. autodrive brakes on the cadillac srx activate after rain is detected to help improve braking performance. we don't just make luxury cars. we make cadillacs. we don't want anything to slow us down so it's surprising that most women aren't getting enough calcium. with over 25 flavors, yoplait original gives you 50% of the daily value of calcium in every cup.

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it's the moment everyone has been waiting for. finally, after 16 months of waiting and wondering, the answer to the question of what happened to brenda schaefer? the investigation centers on brenda schaefer's fiance, mel ignatow. his former girlfriend, maryann shore, is sitting in the offices of the kentucky u.s. attorney, surrounded by prosecutors and fbi agents. she has just admitted she knows where brenda's body is. now, she's ready to tell the group just how brenda died. the shocking, gruesome details horrify everyone in the room. >> we were all stunned. i think we were all pretending that it wasn't bothering us, we were professionals, but all of us were churning inside.

>> shore did not respond to our repeated requests to tell us her story. but this man, bob hill, columnist for louisville's "courier journal," and author of the book called "double jeopardy," has studied all of shore's on the record statements and agreed to tell us what she told the assembled group this day. >> the word evil keeps coming back to me. >> as shore describes it, the story begins at about 6:00 p.m., the rainy night brenda vanished. she says ignatow tells brenda a friend of his wants to see her jewelry and takes her to maryann shore's house. >> the shack of a place, two bedrooms, living room and a kitchen and dingy, awful place. >> shore is waiting for them. once inside, shore says ignatow dead bolts the doors, trapping brenda. >> they put brenda on the couch between the two of them and said we're going to have a sex therapy class. >> a sex therapy class? >> this is what he said, brenda

was cold, not responsive and needed sex therapy. >> what brenda doesn't know is that what is about to happen to her has been planned for weeks. shore and ignatow have scream tested the house. >> mel ignatow went out in front of the street in front of shore's house and she stayed in the house and screamed to see if it could be heard out in the street. >> and there's something else brenda doesn't know. out behind shore's house, deep in the woods, her grave has already been dug. back in maryann shore's house, the so-called sex class begins. at first, brenda resists. but after she realizes she can't escape, she does what she's told. ignatow orders brenda to take off all her clothing. one item at a time. ignatow takes pictures as she strips. >> finally, he had her stand like a p.o.w. like this, taking pictures of her all the time. >> shore says at this point,

brenda is crying, humiliated. >> then he gets a while towel, lays it down on a glass top coffee table and ties her arms and legs to the coffee table. he gets behind her, takes off all his clothes except his black socks. >> shore says ignatow hands her the camera and orders her to start taking pictures, making sure she does not show his face. >> and then rapes her from behind 45 minutes, brutalizes her and tortures her while she is tied to this glass top table. he has a list. he knows what he wants to do and checks them off as he goes. all the while, maryann shore is taking pictures of this. >> when he's done there, shore says he takes brenda into a back bedroom, beats her with a paddle and rapes her anally. >> she was crying, whimpering and sobbing. she had to know at that point it was over. she couldn't escape this. ignatow had a brown bottle of chloroform and kills her with it.

holds it up to her mouth and nose until she dies. he's got these pieces of rope and ties it up in these neat knots, this little bundle about the size of a suitcase shoved into several garbage bags. together they carry the body out the back door into the rain, into the hole they dug two weeks before. >> shore says ignatow had already removed all of brenda's jewelry, including her diamond engagement ring, and now hands over to ignatow the film they shot. three rolls that look like these. what happens to brenda's jewelry and that film will haunt everyone involved in this case for years. back in the u.s. attorney's offices, the story stuns the prosecutors and fbi agents, who are listening to it. >> you just think to yourself, we need to get prosecutors in here and police officers. well, i am one. it's really dramatic. >> jim wesley, the detective on the case from the beginning, hears the story a few hours

later. >> it made me physically ill. it really did. and i'm not one to become that way. i had already been in homicide nine years and worked many a grotesque crime. but this -- this one got to me. >> after 16 months of dead ends and disappointments, the police and the fbi are almost ready to arrest ignatow. but, first, they want to find brenda's body. they want something else, something to prove maryann shore is telling the truth. in exchange for a lighter sentence, shore agrees to set up a meeting that day with ignatow so that authorities can tape their conversation. >> things were hopping. this is not something where it's a calm, deliberate process where you're sitting around bouncing ideas. we're hustling. >> while one group begins searching the woods behind shore's house, another group, including wesley, wires shore with a microphone. she and ignatow meet outside an ice cream store.

>> i talked to my attorney today. >> talked to who today? >> the fbi, that murray guy. >> shore has been instructed to tell ignatow she's getting pressure from the fbi. for most of the 13-minute conversation, ignatow berates her. >> you're just plain [ bleep ]. afraid to stand up in the face of authority. that's all it amounts to. you're letting them intimidate you and they know it. >> shore also tells ignatow a story the fbi concocted, that the property behind her house, the woods where brenda's body's was buried, has been sold. >> i'm worried about the property back there. >> i am not. that's it, okay? i don't give a [ bleep ] if he tells you they're going to dig eight feet down the whole length of the property, okay, don't get rattled. it isn't going to stir up anything, believe me. it's not shallow. that place we dug, it's not shallow. >> those listening believe they have enough to convict ignatow and brenda's body is found the

next day, wrapped the way shore described, bound with intricate knots and stuffed in garbage bags. earlier that morning, afraid ignatow will flee or try to kill himself, police arrest him. >> i'm the one who handcuffed him and walked him out to the car. >> what did he say to you when you put the cuffs on him? >> he did not say a word. >> not a word until wesley asks him to sign a paper saying he understands his rights. >> once again, like from day one. it was like, well, jim, i don't think i ought to do that. i mean, he was still my buddy. >> that night, police thoroughly search ignatow's house. they find the shovel shore says was used to dig brenda's grave, the paddle she says was used to beat brenda and the camera, shore says, that was used to take pictures that night. but what they don't find is the jewelry brenda was wearing. and even more important, they do not find the three rolls of film that shore says document the

torture of brenda schaefer. >> there was no doubt in our mind that there were pictures. >> that evidence is considered so crucial, police go back a few weeks later and search a second time. but, again, they turn up nothing. still, ignatow is charged with murder, kidnapping, sodomy and assault. how did it feel for you to finally have mel ignatow behind bars? >> it was a great feeling. i truly felt like, i gotcha. >> but no one yet has heard ignatow's side of the story. could he be the victim of a malicious plot to frame him? could police have overlooked clues that would lead to the real killer? and what would the jury believe about a crime that shook a town to its very soul? capital one's new cash rewards card gives you a 50% annual bonus! so you earn 50% more cash. according to research, everybody likes more cash. well, almost everybody...

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msnbc now. i'm alex witt a disturbing

scandal at penn state university. football coach jeff sanduski is facing charges for abusing eight young men. and a 26-vehicle accident in britain claimed several lives and injured 53 others. investigators don't know what caused the cash on the expressway. i'm alex witt. see you in an hour. at the center of any criminal investigation is a "dark heart and the iron hand of justice." >> a young woman goes out on a date never to return. police eventually gather enough clues to find her body. along with prosecutors and her family, they believe they found brenda schaefer's killer. his trial is about to begin with authorities confident they have the evidence they need to get a conviction. the case rests largely on the testimony of one witness.

does she have the motive to lie? here again is chris hansen. >> maryann shore's story of the torture and murder of brenda schaefer horrified all those who heard it. >> commonwealth of kentucky versus maryann shore. >> in return for her testimony against ignatow, prosecutors agreed to charge her only with tampering with evidence in her role in helping to bury the body. she was later sentenced to five years in prison. ignatow was in jail, too, awaiting trial. he turned to religion, claiming to be a born-again christian. he was also going broke, paying his legal bills. he sold his house and his boat. >> accused murderer mel ignatow. >> all of the publicity made holding the trial in louisville impossible. it was moved north to kenton county. just before christmas 1991, more than three years after brenda

was murdered, the trial began. but there were two people who were not there, both brenda's mother and father had died, waiting for the trial to start. >> as far as i'm concerned, melvin ignatow murdered our parents as well as our sister. >> but tom and mike, brenda's brothers, were there every day. and so was jim wesley, the homicide detective who had been on the case from the start. >> he was as guilty as homemade sin. >> louisville's prosecutor sought the death penalty for ignatow. >> this was a very strong case. we found the exact spot. >> the prosecution went in confident. after all, they had a body, a motive and an eyewitness, maryann shore. >> do you solemnly swear -- >> who told the jury the same story she told in the u.s. attorney's office, that ignatow sexually assaulted brenda. >> he told her to lay on the coffee table and then he tied her hands and legs. >> and forced her to take

pictures. that he took brenda's jewelry and buried her. >> why are you getting so upset? >> and then there was the most damning evidence of all, that tape. >> i don't give a [ bleep ]. i told you to dig eight feet down the whole length of the property, okay? don't get rattled. >> but ignatow's attorney came back strong, chipping away at the prosecution's case. >> it just isn't credible. >> first, he pointed out the state had no physical evidence. there were no fingerprints, semen or blood samples to tie ignatow to the murder. too much time had passed before brenda's body was found. >> they took lots of things from his house, but what they didn't take was any evidence that had anything to do with this crime. >> as for the motive, ignatow's attorney argued the prosecution's star witness might herself, in fact, be the killer. >> she was strong enough to do it, and she was mean enough to do it! >> he easily portrayed maryann shore as a jilted lover, vengeful enough to commit murder

and accuse ignatow of the crime. >> if i can't have mel ignatow, says maryann shore, nobody's going to have mel ignatow. he'll go to hell first! >> the way she was dressed didn't help. brenda's brothers were horrified by shore's very short skirt. >> she was a sight to behold. she looked like a tramp. >> this was the prosecution's star witness? >> this was the witness to the crime. >> and then there was that tape, the one ignatow's attorney had hoped the jury would never hear. he fought to keep that tape out. >> for years, for two years to keep it out. >> jurors did hear it. but there was one word on the tape that prosecutors had disregarded, a word the defense argued changed the entire meaning of the tape. the word was safe and it seemed to come out of nowhere. >> that one area right by where that safe is does not have any trees by it.

>> ignatow's attorneys argued he had been talking about not a body, but a safe buried in the woods, a safe filled with items shore had stolen. you believed that instead of saying that they buried brenda schaefer's body eight feet under that they were talking about a safe? >> a safe. >> a safe that contained stolen property? >> exactly. >> owned by maryann shore? >> precisely. that's what she wanted not to be found by the police. >> despite the setbacks, the prosecution was still confident it would get a conviction. >> i truly felt we would pull it off. >> but would they? was the prosecution's case as solid as they had hoped? what was about to happen would send shock waves through the entire community and horrify brenda schaefer's grieving family and friends. when we come back -- >> they kept mentioning pictures and jewelry. yet, nobody showed us any, you know. no pictures, no jewelry. where are they? >> i believe we all feel in our

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[ shapiro ] we created legal zoom to help you take care of the ones you love. go to legalzoom.com today and complete your will in minutes. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. police and prosecutors who had worked so hard to put together their case against brenda schaefer's fiance were confident he was about to be convicted of murder. would the evidence they had gathered be enough to convince the jury the case had been solved? that they had brought the right suspect to trial? here again is chris hansen. >> after two weeks of testimony and arguments in the case of the commonwealth of kentucky versus

melvin henry ignatow, the jury got the case. would they send mel ignatow to prison for the murder of his fiancee, brenda schaefer? four jurors agreed to speak with us about their deliberations. >> i believe we all feel in our hearts he was guilty. >> but they say they were bothered by the lack of physical evidence against ignatow. >> i have to have one hair, one blood sample, one anything. >> they kept mentioning pictures and jewelry, yet nobody showed us any, you know. no pictures, no jewelry. where are they? >> as for the eyewitness, maryann shore, they had trouble believing her. >> she didn't shed one tear. she didn't -- she was cracking smiles. how can you tell such a horrid story and sit on a witness stand cracking smiles? there's no way. >> so, then you start questioning, was she just involved or was she the one who did it all? >> and that tape, the one prosecutors felt so sure would

win them a conviction? jurors thought it was very suspicious that neither shore nor ignatow ever got specific about what they were talking about. >> we played that tape probably 15 to 20 times, searching for the word grave. we did not hear that. >> out in the courtroom, detective wesley waited anxiously for word. from the nearby jury room, he could hear bits and pieces of conversation. >> what i heard just made me sick. >> what did you hear? >> i heard laughing. i heard jokes being told, and i said something's wrong. something is wrong. >> brenda's brothers heard it too. >> they aren't studying the evidence. they're laughing and telling jokes. >> what they didn't know was that after only two hours, the jurors had made up their minds. now, finally able to relax, laughter was breaking the tension as they waited for the chinese food they had ordered to arrive. >> has the jury reached a verdict? >> finally, jurors emerge. it was the moment so many, who

had worked so hard to bring ignatow to justice, had been waiting for. >> we, the jury, find the defendant melvin henry ignatow not guilty under instruction number one. >> you heard the first not guilty. >> immediately right then i felt, well, there's a mistake or something. and then i thought, well, they'll get him on the other charges. >> instruction number two, we, the jury, find the defendant melvin henry ignatow not guilty. >> you heard the second not guilty? >> i knew then that was it. that was it. >> i really just felt like my legs wouldn't move at first. it took a while, still just totally shocked. >> with each time he said not guilty, i just felt more and more flushed. >> you knew at that moment that mel ignatow had gotten away with murder? >> i sure did. >> justice has been done. >> ignatow and his lawyer were ecstatic. ignatow was a free man. >> he was, indeed. >> it's been 23 months and you're out here on the streets of louisville. how do you feel? >> i feel great.

i want to take this opportunity to thank my lord and savior, jesus christ, for delivering me from this -- freeing me from these bonds of incarceration. >> it was like a land mine went off in louisville. >> people in louisville were stunned by the news. >> we were convinced he was guilty. and then to come back innocent was just beyond belief. >> frustrated, federal prosecutors search for a new charge to lodge against ignatow. what they came up with was perjury. although ignatow never took the stand in his own defense, he did testify before the grand jury and prosecutors hoped they could persuade another jury that ignatow lied when giving that testimony. but just before that trial was scheduled to begin, there was an extraordinary, almost unbelievable, discovery. >> stops you cold, absolutely cold. >> it was a discovery that left no doubt as to who really killed brenda schaefer. when we come back --

>> did you have any idea that what you found was crucial evidence in a murder case? >> no. i just thought it was the homeowner's hiding place. >> and what was the scene like once -- >> it seemed like they swarmed the place. agents kept coming in and coming in. i was like, do i need a lawyer? at the time, i didn't know. [ male announcer ] if you're gonna build a fuel-efficient car, the first thing you got to do is make a car that's worth building, that has all the luxury you'd expect. then you put in an 8-speed transmission that gets 31 miles per gallon. that combination of luxury and efficiency only comes from one place in the world. ♪ now lease the 2012 chrysler 300 for $339 a month for well-qualified lessees. [ slap! slap! ] [ male announcer ] your favorite foods fighting you? fight back fast with tums.

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family and friend's grief would solve this case once and for all. here again is chris hansen. >> it was now ten months since the verdict that outraged louisville. not guilty of the murder of his

fiancee, brenda schaeffer. his perjury trial was only a few weeks away. though ignato never took the stand in his own trial prosecutored hoped they could get a conviction based on his pre-trial testimony before a grand jury. >> i would certainly like to get these proceedings over with and get on with my life. >> mel ignato had been freed to walk the streets of louisville and for many it was a difficult sight. >> i felt like i had let the schaeffer family down. i know i let the schaeffer family down, and i let myself down. >> but across town events were in motion that would change everything. steve dougherty was a carpet installer. one day he got a call from a customer who wanted to replace some carpet in her family room. >> just an average day. >> a regular day. going to the house and pulled up the old stuff and laid down the old stuff. >> but what he didn't know was that his job was atmel ignato's

former house that ignato had to sell while he was in jail. the job of removing the old carpet was going smoothly until he reached an area near a wet bar, behind a set of french doors and it was real hard to pull up around that wall so i had to tug on it harder and when i pulled it up it brought me to my feet. dougherty found a heat vent. taped inside was a plastic sandwich bag. >> i looked at the bag to see what it was and i seen jewelry and some canisters. >> when you say canisters. >> you were talking about film canisters. >> three roles of undeveloped film. the critical evidence police had failed to find. the case against mel ignao was to break wide open. >> did you have any idea what you found was crucial evidence. >> no. i just thought it was the owners' hiding place.

>> he changed his mind and took the bag to the homeowner. she knew immediately what it was and called the fbi. >> what was the scene like once -- >> they just -- it seemed like they swarmed the place. they just kept coming and coming. i was, like, do i need a lawyer? at the time i didn't know. >> elated, police and fbi agents took the undeveloped film back to the photo lab. carefully they sent it through the processor. within minutes the first frame appeared and then the next and the next. more than 100 pictures in all. >> it corroborates jurors' testimony to the letter as you can imagine it. it starts off with her coming into the home and being forced to disrobe and the sexual assault, the rape, her being tied up. it was terrible. >> but no one was taking any chances. ignato's face was in none of the pictures. so the fbi got an arrest warrant that allowed them to strip

ignato and photograph his body for comparison. one of the fbi agents was a woman. she told him to get naked and he told her to go to hell. she said you can do it voluntarily or force you so i thought that was poetic justice. >> they made him strip before her and one of the poses they made him do was the same pow pose that he'd made women do, the exact same pose and the people there at the time said that when ignato did that he knew for the first time that they'd found the pictures and his face just kind of melted. >> and his body hair, the moles on his body, everything matched up perfectly to the body in the photographs. >> it was all chilling proof that ignato was not only a killer, but according to an fbi study, a rare kind of sexual criminal. a sexual sadist, someone who is aroused by the suffering of his victims. roy hazelwood who co-wrote that

study says ignato fits profile, he's narcissistic, controlling, sexual deviant and like most sexual sadists, he recorded his crime. >> why was it so important to mel ignato to hang on to that film? >> this is affirmation of his superiority. this is the record of his conquest, his victory and the trophy that he can't put on the shelf. >> news of the photos spread quickly around louisville. >> it stopped for 20 minutes for people to say, did you hear? did you hear? >> his lawyer, the man who passionately exam oned his cause was flabbergasted. >> my secretary told me that my com flexion changed immeasurably that the blood drained out of my face. >> do you feel that ignato duped you. >> i don't feel it. i know it. >> stunned jurors heard the news. >> we were wrong. we failed. we failed the sit of kentucky.

we failed brenda schaeffer's family. we failed a lot of people, but this in our hearts, i feel that we felt what we felt was right at the time. >> do you owe the schaeffer family an apology? >> we're sorry because, you know, any family would be devastated, but we made a decision on the evidence that was given to us and that i just don't feel that we should be blamed. >> as shocking as the murder was, the people of louisville had yet another shock to come. in this country there's a constitutional protection from double jeopardy that is once you've been acquitted of a crime you cannot be retried even if new evidence, no matter how compelling surfaces. it was designed to protect services from an overzealous government, but what it means in this case is ignato will never spend a day in jail for the murder of brenda schaeffer. >> and you're sick to your stomach that you can't get justice in the case. >> why not give the government a second bite from the apple if,

in fact, evidence like this is found after the fact. >> you'd have prosecutors prosecuting people again and again and again and it's not worth amending the constitution for an occasional fluke. >> he confessed in open court that he killed brenda schaeffer. >> do you have anything to say? >> ignato had to ruin the moment because he did say, yes, i killed her and he looked at us in the courtroom and said but she died peacefully. >> she died peacefully. >> yes. how could anyone have the nerve to say that after knowing what he had done and knowing that everybody else knew what he did. >> we were outwitted by a psychopath. >> detective wesley says that even though he knows police don't typically pull up wall to wall carpet in a search, he'll always be haunted by what he could have done. >> i don't need to tell you had you found that film mel ignato

could be sitting on death row. >> that is a -- that is a constant reminder that always goes through my mind. the county police and fbi had searched that house twice and we missed it, and -- it's a terrible feeling. >> ignato was sentenced to eight years for perjury conviction, but federal rules gave him two years' credit for time served and he got another year shaved off for good behavior. >> before his scheduled release in october 1997 he called our louisville affiliate wave and spoke with rotor greg hoffman. >> the whole time you knew you killed brenda schaeffer and god has forgiven you with that murder. >> well, sure. don't you believe in that? >> not only does this confessed killer believe he's been forgiven. he said he'd like to spend the rest of his life preaching a

gospel. >> possibly start a ministry of my own where i can minister to people in those situations. >> but for the schaeffers, there is only an unshakeable sense of bewilderment and loss. >> it's a life sentence. you never get over something like that. a total miscarriage of justice. >> in 2002 mel ignato headed back to prison. a jefferson county circuit judge following a jury recommendation sentenced ignato to nine years of perjury after testifying that he and schaeffer were in a loving relationship. ignato served four and a half years with time off for good behavior and was released in 2006. mary oon sure, the old girlfriend and admitted accomplice of ignato died in 2004 at the age of 54. that's our report. thanks for watching. i'm john seigenthaler.