911 emergency. >> has the jury reached a verdict? >> we the jury, find the defendant -- he showed up at their house telling a tragic story. >> his wife and two daughters had died in a car crash. >> they took him in, made him part of the family. it turned out his wife was dead all right, but it wasn't a car crash. >> he just took one of the most precious people. >> he set the house on fire. he set her on fire. >> the man who moved into their home, into their lives, was an accused killer.

what would his next move be? >> it sent chills through me when i read it. >> "the stranger." thanks for joining us. i'm chris hansen. he was a stranger who showed up one day out of the blue, a man who was quiet, charming and a little mysterious. he claimed to be escaping a tragedy that had destroyed his family. unfortunately, the kind people who made him part of their family discovered what he was really escaping from a little too late. here's sara james. >> he'd been a runner in the past. and he would run again, leaving unbearable grief behind. >> good people sometimes do very bad things. >> creating more heartache as he moved across the country.

>> when you have to pick up the pieces afterwards. a lot of pieces cannot be picked up. >> it all started during his marriage to this woman. >> she was my baby sister. she was my sweet baby sister. >> jean kilduff, grew up in a large irish catholic working class family in st. paul, minnesota. she was the youngest of four girls, sandwiched between two boys. jean was known for being thoughtful and cheery, an absolute doll, her oldest sister kathy says. she loved reading and especially enjoyed mystery novels. >> jean was a wonderful woman. just kind, good hearted, sweet, smart, i can't say enough good about jean and how many friends she had, how beloved she was. >> lucky as she was in her own family, jean seemed to have been equally blessed in the man she chose. she met gordon weaver in college. he was an excellent athlete, a competitive runner.

jean was attracted to his good looks, keen intellect and what seemed like a promising future. gordon was from an upper middle class family. his father was the one-time dean of the pharmacy school at the university of minnesota, so distinguished he'd had a building named, in part, after him. the couple married in 1981. the following year, gordon earned his masters in business, and they moved to california where he took a job at a large construction company. the following year, they had a son, sean, the delight of jean's life. >> she was a wonderful mother. >> to outward appearances, the perfect family. but the move to california had sealed a secret. what no one, not even her family knew, was that the marriage had been toxic almost from the start. >> we later found out that he was emotionally abusive to her out there. when they finally moved back here, she told us. and they separated shortly after that.

>> what did she tell you about the relationship? >> he just was not a good husband. cold, unfeeling. >> her other sister, colleen, says that even from the beginning, gordon was aloof, reluctant to socialize with the rest of the close-knit family. would you describe him as a loner? >> definitely a loner who communicated better with the kids than the adults. >> in 1987, jean moved out with their son sean, but jean's sisters say gordon pleaded with his wife to move back home. and after four years, she did so for the sake of their child. >> she wanted to keep her family intact. but part of their understanding was that he wasn't -- he still was not going to be coming to any family get-togethers. >> it was okay for a while. they went on a european trip. but i remember it wasn't long after that that things started to go sour again. >> sometime in late 1998, jean

confided in colleen that her marriage to gordon was in name only. >> she said that gordie lives in the basement. and had for the past year, and she had the bedroom upstairs. >> colleen says jean told her she was going to hang on until sean graduated high school in 2001. but in 1997, a traumatic illness in the family would change everything. the fourth kilduff sister, patty, was diagnosed with brain cancer. >> we spent the next 22 months taking care of our families but also spending as much time as possible with patty. >> we just surrounded her with love and care. the final day she waited until everyone was there, then she passed. >> it was may 1999. and then there were just three kilduff sisters. >> once patty died, it was like your world can change in a day. jean realized that.

>> that is when jean knew it was time to get out. life is too short. >> she wanted a new life. she was excited about making changes. >> the sisters say that jean told gordon in august 1999 she wanted a divorce. >> she told him, this is it. i can't do this anymore. >> she told her sisters he'd asked her to reconsider, to give it some more time. she reluctantly agreed but continued to plan for her future as a single mom. her sisters say it was as if the old jean they knew from girlhood had re-emerged, full of fun, enthusiasm and ready for the future. part of her plan was to find a new job more in keeping with her growing skills. >> she started her career as a secretary, and her immediate boss recognized her talents, and he sort of became her mentor. and she rose through the ranks. >> jean eventually was recruited by another company to be a human resources executive.

>> she was very excited to be starting a new life. she was going to divorce her husband. she was going to move on. >> as summer turned to autumn, the trees flamed scarlet and gold. jean, who had just turned 40, seemed to glow just as brightly. on saturday october 16th, the sisters were meeting for a weekend at colleen's cabin in northern minnesota. jean planned to meet kathy at her home and they would drive north together. >> she was supposed to be here at a certain time, and she didn't show up. >> were you worried? >> i called their house. there's something strange. the phone was like dead. i told my husband, something's wrong. something is just wrong. so we got in the car and started driving to her house. >> you had a bad feeling? >> oh, my god, yes. we get to her house. her car was in the garage. i ran around to the front of the house. she had a big picture window and it was all black. so i ran to the front door and i

heard beeping and then it's when it hit me that that's the fire alarm. >> terrified, kathy called out to her husband to phone 911 as she tried to get into the house. but the smoke was too black and oily. >> i smashed her bedroom window open. and she wasn't in there. then all we could do was wait for the firefighters to come. i was praying and praying. >> when firefighters arrived on the scene, they made their way into the smoke-filled home where they discovered jean lying face down in the basement laundry room. >> they wouldn't let me go near her. i understood that she was still alive when they brought her out and that they were working on her. and i remember thinking, you know, this is bad. and then the fire chief came over and said she was gone. >> a fire. their beloved sister dead. what could have happened?

was this a terrible accident or something far more sinister? coming up, police think they know the answer, but soon there's yet another mystery to solve. >> rich got the phone call and turned around and said, they can't find him. he's gone. [ thunk ] sweet! [ male announcer ] the solid thunk of the door on the jetta. thanks, mister! [ meow ] [ male announcer ] another example of volkswagen quality. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 jetta for $159 a month. visit vwdealer.com today.

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[ male announcer ] transformers. the ride. ride it at universal studios hollywood. when firefighters pulled jean kilduff weaver out of her basement that day in 1999, the choking, black, oily smoke made it instantly appear she must have died of smoke inhalation. but when firefighters lifted the limp woman, they discovered she also had a life threatening injury. >> she had that terrible head wound. >> jean weaver had a massive, deep, bloody gash in the back of her head.

had someone attacked her? >> my husband saw her and said her shirt was red. >> what's more, it quickly became obvious that this fire was no accident. chemical accelerants had been poured around the basement, including directly on to jean herself. that day jean's relatives tried to locate her husband, gordon. they called the indoor golf and tennis club he owned. >> the person that answered the phone said he was out somewhere on the property and couldn't come to the phone. so then after more phone calls, my husband called again, and he said, well, go find him. >> and what did gordie say? >> according to my husband, just acted really matter of fact, well, he left that morning at such and such a time and she was getting ready to leave and he didn't know anything about it. >> didn't act at all -- >> no, just totally acted normal. >> the police questioned gordon, who told them he knew nothing about any of it.

his wife had been perfectly fine when he left for work that morning. but police didn't believe him. neither did jean's sisters. the scene, her husband has done this. >> what made you so sure? >> because that she had told him she wanted a divorce and that he was a control freak, and i bet anything he was mad that she was going away that weekend, and he went to confront her and he was mad. and i think he shoved her so hard, after she was unconscious, he saw his chance. he set the house on fire. he set her on fire. >> jean's sisters say there was another reason they were suspicious of their sister's husband -- timing. they say while jean initially agreed to gordon's request to reconsider getting a divorce, on october 13th, three days before the fire, she told them she'd

warned gordon that his time was up. >> unlike in august when he had been very upset about it, he was very calm and matter of fact that wednesday morning. and he said, you know, this isn't what i want. >> why didn't he want it? given the way they were living. why would he want to go on that way? >> we thought maybe it had to do with the fact that he was struggling in his business and she was supporting the family, that it was a control issue. he didn't want her to be the one that left him. >> the sisters say that golf and tennis club of gordon's was in financial trouble. they believe he was counting on his wife's income from her new job to make ends meet. what would he do when she divorced him? >> i just can't get over the fact that my sister was treated like a piece of trash by him. a beautiful woman with a pure soul and a pure heart. >> police wasted no time.

two weeks later they arrested gordon weaver for second degree murder and first degree arson. surprisingly, he was granted bail. he wouldn't have to await trial in jail. then it looked like the charges were going to be even more serious. just before he was to be indicted for first degree murder in march 2000, he disappeared. the last trace of him, his mother's car, which he had been driving. police found it abandoned 400 miles away in suburban chicago, with blood inside. and a nearby hotel, police also found some of his personal items, clothing, and medication for depression. colleen got the news when she was at her brother rich's house. >> i was totally shocked. i can still remember that day rich got the phone call and turned around and said, they can't find him. he's gone. >> gordon weaver was not only gone but his parents said they feared he was dead.

in december that year, his mother sent out this christmas letter in which she wrote what they thought had happened. it read, in october of 1999, a fall and a fire in their home took jean's life. gordie suffered deep depression which was exacerbated when he was charged in jean's death and faced multiple legal complications. in march, while on a trip to illinois, he disappeared. we do not believe that he is still living. could gordon weaver be dead? if not, where was he? coming up, 2000 miles away a quiet stranger turns up telling a terribly sad story, but sympathy soon turns to suspicion. >> there's something not right about this guy. i take insulin,

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weaver went missing, his parents say he was probably dead, a stranger named david carson arrived in eugene, oregon. while staying at a motel in town, he answered an ad for a room to rent at this rooming house owned by jaime jaramillo. it would be a chance meeting that triggered unforeseen and seismic consequences. >> when david carson showed up at the rooming house, he had little more than a baseball cap, duffel bag, running shoes and a tale of woe about a tragic accident back in maine. he had no bank account, but ample cash. and offered to pay jaime three months rent in advance. soon after the stranger moved in, jaime introduced him to his son, jon, who also heard his sad history. >> his story was that his wife and two daughters had died in a car crash. he was the driver and the car

burst into flames and they all perished in the car wreck, but he survived. immediately you feel compassion for the person, think oh, what a tragic thing. >> the stranger was convincing and jaime, the father, quickly grew fond of the quiet, intelligent man from maine. and it turned out he was very handy. especially when it came to construction. jaime, who was recovering from prostate cancer and was 67 at the time, needed someone just like david to help him out at his home in florence, oregon, 60 miles west of his business in eugene. within a few weeks, jaime invited the stranger to stay at what he called the ranch, the spacious secluded hilltop dream house he shared with his wife lueene. >> i like him very much. that's why i invite him here. >> jaime and lueene had many friends, especially from their church. none closer than richard and donna dobson. >> full of electricity. full of life. the center place for people to

gather and have food and fellowship. >> the jaramillos soon began considering the stranger a part of the family. their church friends took to him as well. >> i just thought he was a quiet, nice guy. >> he was always helping people with projects, wouldn't charge a nickel. >> and he did a good job, right? >> yeah, real good job. >> especially on this sunroom he helped build on to the jaramillo's home in the summer of 2000. >> jaime had a friend come from ecuador that was a pastor, and he was going to do the construction of the sunroom to earn some money to support his church back in ecuador. the two of them built it together. when jaime went to pay david his half, david said, give my half to mario for his church. well, that was very impressive to all of us. >> he made a terrific impression.

>> he did. really touched our hearts. >> david also made an impact by helping out with two grandsons who were living with the jaramillos. he paid the boys a lot of attention, and they soon grew attached to him. >> i was divorced at the time and the two boys needed some sort of a friend or father figure. >> joconda nielson is a friend of the jaramillos and the boys' mother. >> they had a lot of fun with david. he spent time with them. >> he helped the boys with homework, took them on runs through the hills and built bonfires with them. eventually, the daughter herself became close with the stranger and they developed an intimate relationship. but there was always something about him which troubled her. >> he held back from me. he couldn't express a lot of his feelings through words like couples do. the closer we got together, the further he got away from me. >> it must be because of that horrible car crash, she thought. still, he was becoming an integral part of the family and

their community. >> he's becoming like a big hit in the home, with everybody. >> but not exactly with everybody. there was one member of the family who was never quite comfortable with him. jon himself had doubts about david carson. just who was this guy? was he really who he claimed to be? >> i tried to do some research, trying to look up a name david carson, anything i could find, even a story about some family that died in a car crash in maine. >> and did you have any luck? >> no, i couldn't find anything. >> his father even had a criminal background check conducted on david carson, and that, too, came back clean. meanwhile, as jaime spent much of each week working in eugene, his wife is at the ranch with their grandsons and david. she seemed increasingly enchanted by the stranger, despite her being a generation older, especially after he began attending her church. >> whenever i would question or voice my suspicion, she would always come back with, well, he's such a great christian man, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't swear, he's not a womanizer, and he's helped

the kids, the kids love him. >> he sounds like a perfect guy. >> you couldn't ask for a better person. so whenever she'd go into this laundry list of things of how great he was, i'm saying, mom, there's something not right about this guy. >> your mom was bewitched. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> entranced. >> yes. >> if only they'd known who he was. did jon sense it? on some level he knew something wasn't quite right with this man. was he a blessing to the family? or a danger in disguise? coming up, doubt and now fear with the discovery of a picture of a wanted man who looks remarkably like david carson. >> they both said, it's david. and i go, well, it's not david. man: there's a cattle guard, take a right.

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s i'm milissa rehberger. u.n. observers are suspending their operation in syria. reportedly, syrian government troops fired artillery again today. carlotta is now a tropical storm after making landfall overnight in the resort laden southern coast of mexico. two people were reportedly killed. now back to "the stranger." david carson had arrived by train in oregon in the spring of 2000, running from what he said were horrible memories of a fiery crash in maine that killed his family. now he'd insinuated himself into an unsuspecting family who, along with their friends, had embraced the helpful stranger. he'd made a good impression on nearly everyone, although as

they got to know him over the years, some things about him were more than just odd. >> he will never drive a car. he was traumatized by driving. >> did he ever get on a plane? >> no, he took the train. >> did he have a bank account? >> no bank account. he had cash, a lot of cash. >> cash david told them, from a computer consulting business he was able to run from his room in florence. and there was one more thing. >> he never had any pictures of his wife and daughters. there just was something that just didn't ring true to me. but i didn't talk about it to anybody. i didn't want to put doubt in their minds because i didn't have anything to go on other than what he said. we took him at face value. >> after all, david had contact with relatives, especially an aunt rita, who called him often. he also spoke lovingly about a nephew. meantime, david increasingly was inserting himself into the midst

of the jaramillo clan. as the months passed, the father spent more and more days in eugene tending to rental properties while david remained at the ranch with the wife lueene and the couple's grandchildren. >> it was a very gradual thing that things began to change. because he became more in control and jaime was kind of just being less. >> pushed out, is that the way you saw it? >> and my husband and i, we were both aware of it. we talked about it between us. we didn't talk to jaime and lueene or anybody else. but we talked about it. this was something happening that we felt very sad to see happening. >> they even got to the point where they packed up a lot of his things, the things that he liked from his travels abroad. >> they wanted the father's things out of his own house. there was also the abrupt end of the parties which the jaramillos had always loved to throw.

>> david felt that it was too much for lueene. >> she started complaining about the cleanup. >> well, it never was that way before, because she did not have to do all the cleaning up. everybody else pitched in. but he used that as a guise for it being too much for lueene because he did not want these people there. >> looking back, jaime says he should have seen what was happening. he was losing his wife. >> that's what i call master of manipulation. >> he's a master of manipulation. he's like a chess player. someone like a bobby fischer who is always thinking ten moves ahead. >> but back then all they knew was they felt increasingly unwelcome at the ranch. it seemed the stranger was becoming the man of the house. jaime felt anxious and sad, but wasn't sure how to handle the situation. while his son wondered and worried what this man, who was already causing a rift in the family, was really up to.

could he hurt the family even more in some way? there was one more reason to worry. and that was he had a fascination with fire. >> he just seemed to be so enthralled with fire, and he would pour gasoline into the ant hills and light up the ant hills to kill the ants and pour gasoline down into the mole holes. >> this was a guy that liked fire. >> yeah, that was peculiar. so my partner also began to say, he didn't ever want to come back here and he felt there was something weird about that guy living at your parents' house. >> something else struck people as odd. did david carson like to meet new people? did he jump right into the conversation? >> no, i don't think so. i never got that impression. i always got the impression that when cameras started coming out, that he was running away or not around. >> he didn't want to be in the family photos? >> the pictures that we have of him, he's always in the corner, off to the side, in the shadow.

he was not front and center with lights blaring. >> then one night in late 2002, 2 1/2 years after david arrived in oregon, a friend of jon's called to say he caught the tale end of "america's most wanted" and had seen a picture of a man who looked eerily like david. jon immediately called his mom. >> what was your mother's response? >> ridiculous. that's just absurd. she said, honey, we already did a background check on him and he came out clean. >> i said, mom, this is really serious. i can just call them. they can verify. he doesn't even have to know. >> was she game? >> she's like, no, no, you're just going to create a lot of heartache for someone who has already been through enough, losing his family and it's not him. it can't be him. >> jon tried to put the matter out of his mind but was still deeply troubled that david carson seemed to be splitting the family apart. he spent less and less time at the ranch. then on mother's day, 2004, he

decided to make a special effort to see his mom. he was shocked by how the situation had deteriorated. their close family friend was there as well. >> david will not come and eat at the table with jaime. that's how the disrespect had grown to that magnitude. >> jon said his dad seemed utterly defeated, but rather than tell david carson to leave his home, he decided he should be the one to go. >> so then two days later my father calls me on the phone. he says, i've come to a decision. i'm not going to go back to the ranch anymore. i'm not going to live there. i'm not wanted there, i'm not happy there. i get a terrible knot in my stomach every time i drive up the road. and then he showed me some boxes. they even packed my things and sent me with this stuff. they said they don't want it there in the house. so i'm not wanted there. >> indeed, his dad even seemed a little afraid of the stranger. and there was more. >> so i decide i'm going to give them the house, i'm going to sign it over to them.

>> what did you think? >> i was like, what? i don't understand this. >> jaime explained that he wanted his 65-year-old wife to be happy. since she seemed infatuated with david 18 years her junior and together they were doing a good job raising the grandsons, jaime felt his best option was to step aside on one condition. >> he says i've made the decision but before i do that, i want you to help me find out who this david carson really is. i said, what do you mean? i thought you guys already did a background check. well, yes, but we didn't get satisfactory results. he had ran the social security number and it came back as invalid. >> his father had ignored that problem with the social security number because no crimes were found in david's past. jon suddenly had a very bad feeling. >> i just had this horrible like knot and feeling in my stomach. my partner said your face is completely white. you look like you've seen a ghost. i said, no, i think that my friend was right. i think that guy was on "america's most wanted."

>> jon immediately logged on to the show's website and started scanning the mugshots of men who had appeared on the program since the fall of 1999 shortly before david arrived in oregon. that's when he saw it, a photo of a man who looked a lot like david carson in a show that aired in late 2000. he downloaded the picture and blew to it up to an 8x10 for a closer inspection. when you looked at it, what did you think? >> he changed the hair color, he didn't have the gray, he had a goatee and put on weight. but i thought this really looks a lot like him. >> trembling, hardly able to believe the evidence, jon rushed over to his dad's home in eugene, showing the photo to his father and a visiting friend. >> i put the picture down on the table and said, does this look like anybody you know? and they both said, it's david. and i go, well, it's not david. his name is gordon weaver. and he murdered his wife in

minnesota. >> now, how would they get rid of the impostor before something awful happened to the family? coming up, jon's family confronts the truth about an accused killer. >> i was totally distraught. >> will they also have to confront the suspect himself? [ male announcer ] you sprayed them. thought they were dead. [ laughter ] [ grunting ] huh? [ male announcer ] should've used roundup. america's number one weed killer. it kills weeds to the root, so they don't come back. guaranteed. weeds won't play dead, they'll stay dead. roundup. no root. no weed. no problem.

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a stranger with a sob story had charmed his way into jaime jaramillo's family. his wife had been bewitched by him, especially after he started attending her church. now jaime had just been told the man was not only a liar but an accused killer. >> i was in shock.

i tell you. i had tears. because i feel pain for my grandchildren, for my wife. and i care about him. >> even though he was pushing you out of your own home. >> yes. that's how i am. >> as jaime and his son jon sat absorbing the news, there was a knock on the door. >> all of a sudden, who shows up but my friend who saw him on "america's most wanted" walks in the door. he sees the picture on the table and says, oh, my god, that's the guy i saw on "america's most wanted." >> confirmation. >> oh, my god, we've got to call. >> just two days after what was supposed to have been a sweet mother's day celebration, everything had changed. the man at the center of the family crisis, the stranger who had lived in the jaramillo home for four years had been unmasked. what was it like for you to realize that this man, who your family had trusted, was wanted in another state on charges of murdering his wife? >> i sobbed for hours and hours and hours afterwards.

i just -- i was totally distraught. i felt horrible. i thought to myself, i kept thinking, what if this is all a big huge mistake, what if this guy really is innocent and he's not -- he's not the guy that we think he is. and he's going to go through this horrible experience after losing his family. i mean, in my mind, i was sure that it was him. >> jon had made contact with an fbi agent. the following morning, he called his mother to make sure she was at work. >> and i knew the kids were at school, so i called the agent and i said, go get him. and they came here and pretended to be church workers coming to talk to him. >> and arrested him? >> and they arrested him without incident. >> for the four years david carson lived at the ranch he'd been pretending to be someone he was not. even perfecting his deceit right under their noses. in his room at the jaramillo home, authorities found these 20 books on how to get a new identity and disappear. and when they found out that

indeed david carson was gordon weaver, did you think certainly now my mom will be so relieved that i've helped her? >> i actually did. i thought she'd be relieved, she'd be happy and that the whole family could rally around this incident to draw really close together and we could all become very tight-knit group like we used to be. but yet she said that he was innocent, that all of it was false accusations, lies. >> but the lies were actually those of david carson, aka, gordon weaver. so how had weaver turned into carson? well, he'd had some help from his parents. remember they're affluent, respected and accomplished. his father is a retired college dean with a building named after him. those calls from aunt rita? they were really from his mother, and his father had obtained a credit card for him in the name of david carson.

they also met up with him a couple of times in other cities over those years. and from letters he wrote to his parents, it's clear they were in on the plot from the beginning. in one he wrote, like mom said, try out your options. you can always kill yourself later. one of those options was to try to take on the identity of a real person. he suggested someone with aids, cancer or some form of terminal disease. that was particularly disturbing to jaime, who, as gordon weaver knew, had had cancer and his son, who is hiv positive. >> it sent chills through me when i read it. >> jon says gordon weaver apparently chose well, picking his family with more of its share of dysfunction and problems though they always found common ground before, then slowly inexorably widening the gap, preying on weaknesses until the family broke apart. >> he made himself so

indispensable, so loved and so cared for by part of our family, that he divided our family to the point where we are all completely torn apart. >> how would you describe your mother's relationship with gordon weaver? >> i think that she very much cared about him deeply as a friend. she saw him as her missionary work, the person that she led to the lord to save for jesus, and that she felt that she had to be -- practice unconditional love with him. to the very end. i'm shocked at the cost that she was willing to pay -- or the price she was willing to pay, which was to talk away from her whole family. >> the breakup of the jaramillo family, though, was collateral damage, as gordon weaver ran from a real crime. after all, during the four years he lived with the family in oregon, jean's family back in minnesota had been waiting for justice, waiting for gordon weaver to go on trial for murder.

>> prolonging our suffering. it's all about him. never about anybody else. >> gordon weaver was accused of causing a serious head injury and then setting his wife on fire. it certainly seemed like an open and shut first degree murder case. and after running from his crime, he would finally go to prison for the rest of his life, or would he? coming up, it turned out the case against gordon weaver was far from open and shut. >> is he a cold blooded murderer? >> no, absolutely not. >> the jury's verdict. plus a surprising final twist. our cloud is not soft and fluffy. our cloud is made of bedrock. concrete. and steel. our cloud is the smartest brains combating the latest security threats. it spans oceans, stretches continents.

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it seemed like a clear-cut case of murder in the first degree. after all, the victim not only

had a major head wound, she'd also been set ablaze. >> that is somebody who has absolutely no emotion. how can you do that to someone you profess to love? >> but this case turned out to be not so straightforward. the key question in the november 2005 trial of gordon weaver, exactly what caused his wife's death? the gash in her head or the fire? this was far more than a legalistic academic argument. hanging in the balance was whether or not gordon weaver, the one-time runner, who had been caught, would go to prison for the rest of his life. shannon prather covered the trial for the "st. paul pioneer press." she said prosecutors described what they believe happened in the weavers' basement. gordon was so angry about jean wanting a divorce, he attacked her, pushing her into a cement wash basin causing a deep gash in her head and rendering her unconscious. he then lit her on fire.

this, they argued, was the act of a cold-blooded killer. >> instead of calling 911, instead of rendering aid, he left his wife who was severely injured and bleeding face down on the cold hard concrete of the basement floor and picked up chemicals and poured it on her body and lit a match. >> the prosecution told the jury that tests conducted at the time revealed that indeed smoke inhalation, not the head wound killed jean. >> they relied heavily on the medical examiner's testimony. she took the stand and she describes, first of all, that they had found soot in her airways and her nose past her vocal cords. they said it was proof that she was breathing for at least ten minutes after the fire, which means that it hadn't been immediately fatal. >> an intentional act, prosecutors contended by a calculating man who set the fire to cover his tracks and ensure that his wife died.

>> they argued that gordon weaver was meticulous, that he was not a spontaneous person, that he was not hardwired to be that way. he planned everything in his life. >> the state argued the motive was control. his wife jean wanted a divorce. and the prosecutor's theory was if gordon weaver couldn't have jean, no one could, not even the couple's son, sean. what's more, prosecutors said, the defendant had practically admitted guilt by running away. but the defense argues that this wasn't murder but manslaughter. a little more than an accident. how could that be? they said gordon weaver never intended to kill his wife and they put gordon himself on the stand to try to prove that. it would be the first time he had spoken publicly about that october morning in 1999, and testifying, his defense team said, was proof that he was coming clean about what happened that day.

is he a cold blood murderer? >> no, absolutely not. >> gordon weaver wouldn't speak to "dateline" but his attorney, joseph friedberg would. he said the couple got into a spat about jean's decision to spend the weekend at her sister's when gordon wanted her to attend the son's soccer game. the attorney showed the jury this animated re-enactment of what gordon said happened next. >> he said he got annoyed with her and pushed her with his forearm. she stepped back from the push, she put her hand out behind her and she grabbed on to one of these collapsible dowel dryers, which collapsed, causing her to fall backwards in an unprotected fall. the back of her head hit the concrete wash basin that was right behind her. her brain herniated and impacted her brain stem. >> friedberg said when gordon saw what he'd done, he became desperate.

>> he was shocked. there was blood all over the place. he got down. he picked her up. he felt for a pulse. he could detect neither breathing nor a pulse. >> why didn't he call 911? >> because he panicked. he thought she was dead, which was another reason for not calling 911. not a good one, but a reason. he panicked and that's when he burned the house down. >> this wasn't premeditated friedberg argues. but an impulsive act. >> that's a pretty big panic. this isn't a teenager, this is a grown man. >> it's a big panic. bad choice. but it's our position that that isn't what killed his wife. if gordie weaver had called 911, they wouldn't have been able to save her, that's for sure. because that was a fatal head injury. she'd have never survived the head injury. >> as despicable as it was to set the fire, friedberg told the jury, legally it was irrelevant

because jean had died from the head wound. gordon hadn't meant to kill his wife when he pushed her. that meant this wasn't first degree murder but unintentional manslaughter. >> i'm sure that the prosecution was able to say, look, this is a guy who's lied all these times, why should we believe his version of events? >> the prosecution said liar seems like a strong word but that's exactly what this man is and he's a shrewd liar. >> the best lie is the one closest to the truth. >> who would the jury believe and what would they decide? after more than 24 hours of deliberation, the jury, in effect, split the difference. gordon weaver was convicted of second degree unintentional murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but that verdict was overturned on appeal. largely due to questions about lab testing used by prosecutors in their case. gordon weaver has been granted a

new trial. given that he's a proven flight risk, he remains in prison. despite the heartache that gordon weaver, aka david carson, created first and foremost in minnesota and then in oregon, he still has his defenders and not just his own mother and father. who are both charged with aiding an offender. his mother admitted in court they had helped their son and was sentenced to community service. while the case against his father was dropped because of a medical condition. in oregon, jaime jaramillo's daughter, who says the breakup of her family was inevitable, still speaks fondly of her one-time lover, who abandoned his own son but helped raise her two boys. >> i'm grateful that he came to our family because he helped me to change and grow. he helped my boys to become young wonderful men. >> and her mom appears even more devoted. she has moved to iowa, her home state, which happens to be

closer to gordon weaver's prison cell. and she often visits him there. such support is impossible to comprehend for jean's sisters. >> i think gordon weaver is a monster. in his writings, he wrote, jean has forgiven me. my sister would never forgive him for taking her away from her son. whom she adored. she would never forgive him for trying to destroy our family. he just took one of the most precious people. he just yanked her away from us. >> it is destruction to lose someone like that.