a vegas crime unlike any you've seen before. we put you inside the case. >> it was pretty emotional. >> a single mom goes missing. a heartbroken daughter learns the truth. >> she said one day i want to share my story with the world. >> now police are on the trail of a killer. >> he buys a tarp, bleach and an axe. >> our cameras are there as the mystery unfolds. every step of the way. >> holy cow.

this is something you would see in a movie. >> vegas homicide, living with a killer. thanks for joining us. i'm chris hansen. las vegas. you've seen the bright lights, the glamorous side. now we shine a light on the dark side. there are about 115 murders a year here, but this murder case is unlike any you've experienced before, because our cameras are there every step of the way, from the moment the crime is discovered to the moment the mystery is solved. it's a powerful and emotional story, both for the officers working to crack the case and for the family who lived it. you'll see it all unfold as it happened. >> the body appears to be wrapped in a sheet, fitted sheet. >> it all began in this quiet suburb of las vegas, as police made their way to 3136 westfield street.

>> we'll figure out where we're going to start. i think the kitchen, the little office area, go through there. >> all detectives joel kisner and dolphis boucher knew is the body of a female was inside the garage. >> master bedroom will be the last we touch. >> i kind of explained to you what happened. >> why were you called to this house? >> i got a call from a missing persons detective, lady named ginger, her daughter had called and said they couldn't find her. >> ginger is 44-year-old ginger candella, aspiring writer and single mother of two daughters. 23-year-old tabbitha, her youngest, reported her missing. >> told the officer that i had a concern she might, you know, she might be missing or something might have happened to her. >> tabitha described her mom as a spiritual seeker and said it wasn't unusual for her to leave town once in awhile. in fact, she said she had been receiving text messages from her mother, including this one from

two weeks earlier saying just letting you know i'm going to a meditation retreat tomorrow, can't wait. and a few days later, all is wonderful. my body has no pain anywhere. i'm in bliss. you'll have to do this, too. love and life. but tabitha sensed something might be wrong when each time she tried calling her mother's cell phone, there was no answer. stranger still, no return calls. but the text messages continued. >> you were starting to get a little worried about her? >> yes. >> finally, tabitha says she drove to her mother's house. >> there was nobody there. it really hit home when i saw the animals' food bowls. i turned to the neighbor and i said did she tell you she was going? because any time she went anywhere, it was always a neighbor or myself who fed the animals. >> so what did you do? did you call police? >> yes. >> detectives searched the

house. slowly, methodically. >> things were ransacked within the house and there were a large amount of empty bleach bottles in the garage and a trash can that was filled with a funny-looking liquid that smelled like bleach. >> and when they opened the lid of that trash can, they realized this was a lot more than a missing persons case. >> we saw what we believed was a forearm and at that point, that's when we were certain that we had a body. >> but they weren't able to determine if the body was ginger's and the next day, they were still trying to identify the murder weapon. >> it's all obvious cutting utensils, probably big knives. >> a hazmat team transported the trash can to the clark county medical examiner's office for analysis. getting to the body itself

wasn't easy. >> at the front of the trash can had to be cut open to access the evidence so that's why the trash can's here in a couple pieces. >> we're going to go into the room. >> and the more they investigated, the more grisly it became. >> it was kind of a real surreal thing because i remember telling him get off the phone, you got to come over here, she's been cut in half. those cuts on the leg look to be like consistent with torture. >> once they removed the body, they found clues that might help in the identification. the tattered remains of a leopard patterned sheet and a woman's ring. but again, was the victim ginger candella? the ring found on the body was their best clue. could ginger's daughter tabitha identify it?

>> tabitha is the daughter. she's the one here locally. >> it had been about 40 hours since police had discovered the body. they now had to ask tabitha if the ring belonged to her mom but who would speak with her? the coroner or the cops? >> if you want, i will send somebody directly to the residence. i won't do it by phone. >> for these veteran homicide detectives, it's a part of the job they never get used to. later that night, they met tabitha outside her mother's home. this is always the hardest part. our cameras stayed at a respectful distance and asked her about the items found with the body. >> do you know what kind of sheets your mom has on her bed? have you ever seen something that's like a leopard design? >> yeah. those are my sister's old sheets. >> describe being out here with tabitha, ginger's daughter. >> i think that was the hardest

night because we found a ring her mom would have and we were standing over there and we talked to her. >> that's her ring. unless somebody else is wearing it and they happen to have -- >> no. do you need a hug? it's okay if you do. >> no. >> i have daughters. i'm okay with that. do you have somebody you can go be with tonight? because i don't want you to be alone. >> to be quite honest, i assumed she was dead. >> okay. i'm sorry we got to be the ones to tell you. >> detectives boucher and kisner were now resolved to find justice for tabitha. coming up -- >> he bought these here. >> detectives will find clues that put them directly on the trail of a killer. >> he buys a tarp, bleach and a an axe. ♪ ♪ it's the final countdown! ♪

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it's her ring. >> it was that ring found on the body that finally convinced tabitha that her mother ginger had been murdered. >> do you need a hug? it's okay if you do. >> no. >> they described the ring to me. then i knew, because she had bought that ring, she said it was her marriage with god. >> tabitha says her mom's ring reflected her deep spirituality, a pursuit that had recently led her to explore the new age lifestyle, which took her to new places and led her to new relationships. tabitha, how would you best describe your mother to somebody who has never met her? >> she was very energetic. she was outgoing. she was uplifting. anybody she would meet, no matter what your circumstance, she would encourage you. >> but someone ginger met turned out to be her killer. someone who dismembered her body, disposing of it in a trash

can filled with bleach and cement. >> we're just going to go in to take a look. >> detectives kisner and boucher knew the suspect was still free and they desperately wanted to know who it was. this one had to be more difficult than some of the others. >> to think that somebody could do that to another person, holy cow, it's got to be surreal. this was something you see in a movie but you never expect to actually see. >> see on the job. >> as in the movies, sometimes clues surface at exactly the right moment. it's been 48 hours since ginger's body was discovered. detectives continued to let us stay close as they tried to figure out what happened. >> second night in a row and probably the second night of several more days with very little sleep. >> four hours last night, four hours tonight, maybe. >> maybe. >> a team of csi specialists was still combing through the

evidence and found something important. >> there is some paperwork that we found in the trash compactor. >> okay. >> in ginger's trash was a receipt from a local home depot showing someone bought several items, including many gallons of bleach. could that be somehow linked to the crime scene? and if so, who bought it? back at homicide headquarters, detectives identified the specific home depot where the items were purchased. >> it's that home depot store number 3316. that's the address. that's the date and time. >> you want to go over there? >> yeah. >> what detectives were after was store surveillance video documenting whoever went shopping for items they were now linking to the crime. why is it important to get the receipt? >> lots of the video in town is time-sensitive. unless you are lucky and get to the place in the right time it's

gone. >> then you lose critical evidence. >> right. >> we went to the home depot with them and headed to the back office to meet fellow detective chris bunting and the store's manager. they started by going through the store's records and learned there were a number of purchases made. >> she has all the transactions saved right now. >> these are all the ten transactions? >> yes. this is everything we have for all the transactions on all three cards. there's three separate cards that were used. >> there was good news for the cops. >> it was purchased right here at this store. >> right. >> home depot still had the video from each visit. but would the killer show up on the screen? first, the only person they saw buying anything on the video was the victim, ginger candella. here she is alone two months before her death, where she returned some items and chatted with the clerk.

two days later, she was back. this time, she bought some flowers in the garden section and again, chatted with the clerk at the checkout line. but luckily, there was more videotape showing more of the purchases linked to those receipts. and that's when they saw him. >> on the 6th they come in here together. >> all right. >> a dark-haired man shown here with ginger waiting by the shopping cart while she spoke with the clerk at the return counter. this video was recorded six days before police believe ginger was murdered. but is this man ginger's killer? everything appears normal. the couple looks like any other shopping at the home depot. here they are leaving the store, heading out to ginger's car. these are the last known pictures of ginger candella alive. but it wouldn't be the last trip

the dark-haired man would make to the home depot. one week later, he was back. this time, alone. >> then he comes back alone on the 14th, three separate times. >> if you're a homicide investigator, what he purchased here at the self-checkout line might raise an eyebrow. >> he leaves, he comes back at 14:34, he buys a tarp, bleach and an axe. this is when he's at the register. >> later that same afternoon, the man came back yet again. it was his third shopping trip of the day. >> comes back at 17:54 and he buys a whole bunch more bleach. >> okay. >> and he bought something else. >> what's this 96 gallon cart? >> that is the largest trash can that we sell. >> okay. >> that's what i said, our descriptions are not always

indicative of what the product is. >> i'm sorry, i'm smiling. >> detective kisner was smiling because he couldn't have come across stronger evidence. video of the man wheeling the trash can in which ginger's body was found out to her car. most disturbing, police believe as this video was recorded, ginger had been dead for at least two days. detectives noted how calm the man appeared. >> very nonchalant. doesn't seem in a hurry. doesn't seem upset. >> this is after ginger is killed he's buying all this stuff. does he seem distressed? >> no. >> you can walk us around so we can take a look at all of them, the axe and other things, the tarp. >> they wanted to be sure they could match and document every item he purchased to those found at the crime scene. >> yeah, that's it. >> so they took a walk down the aisles of the home depot. >> maybe her credit card? he bought these here. >> so who exactly is this man on

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detectives have just discovered damning evidence. surveillance video showing a man buying the bleach and trash can used to cover up ginger candella's murder. >> he buys a tarp, bleach and an axe. this is when he's at the register. >> so who is he? one of the first leads would come from ginger's daughter, tabitha. >> my mom made it a point for my sister and i to have, you know, her vital information. >> the family gets into mom's account and sees that her checks are being written out of order which is unusual. >> tabitha knew her mom's bank passwords and after she couldn't reach her, she went online and was immediately suspicious after

seeing certain cashed checks. >> being her daughters, we can look at these and say obviously that they're fakes, that that's not our mother's handwriting. that's not her signature. >> the checks were written to someone she had never heard of. >> there were three checks written to a michael v. lane. >> had you ever heard the name michael lane? >> no. >> and there was more evidence found in ginger's mailbox, pointing to the same person. >> we had a piece of mail here that the post office had delivered. it was a bank statement for michael lane. >> addressed to michael lane. >> yeah. to this house. >> detectives identified this man. michael victor lane, a 37-year-old british national who, according to immigration, had been in the country less than a year. was he the man seen in the home depot video? our cameras were still rolling at homicide headquarters now

three days after detectives caught the case and nearly just as long since they had slept. >> pretty tired today. hard to wake up this morning. >> do a little paragraph of who she is. >> but detectives boucher and kisner knew their suspect was still a free man and they were racing against time to find him. >> when we got this, when we figured out it was a british national, there was a concern for us that, you know, this guy may be gone already. >> i got the guy from interpol that responded back to me. i'm going to give him a little bit of information. >> they began to dig, building a profile of their suspect. >> okay. this is just weird. >> and learned michael lane had left traces of himself across the internet. >> i have a friendly fly. >> like this bizarre video he posted on youtube. >> what's your name? what's your name? why are you here? what's your message? >> he appears soft-spoken and

gentle, almost like he wouldn't hurt a fly. >> i don't know what his game is. >> on other sites, he presented himself as a spiritual healer and ordained minister of the online universal life church where his profile describes him as enlightened. he offered angel card readings, guided audio meditations like this one. >> close your eyes, try to visualize yourself breathing. >> he was a member of dozens of online new age spiritual groups and social networking sites. he went by aliases, calling himself michael bodie and chase seville. most of all, lane made his living as a computer whiz, building websites, which is exactly what he was doing in the months before ginger's murder, when he was living in southern california. it's where he met the reverend danielle hewitt from the temple of light. >> tell me about the temple of light.

>> temple of light is a spiritual wellness center, a place to have a very personal relationship with the divine. >> how did you first come to meet michael lane? >> he came down here from ventura with my friend and said your website really isn't very good, let me redo it for you. >> lane told her he lived all over the world, describing himself as a seeker who had recently arrived in the united states. >> he professed to be associated with a buddhist monastery. >> the more she learned, the more suspicious she became. >> the fact he lived in a hotel, that he had a rental car, that he had very little physical possessions so he was really very transient, there was a lot more to him than met the eye. >> the reverend says she quickly sized up michael lane as a phony. >> your sense of his spirituality? >> nonexistent. it was something he was putting on and he was professing to have interest in. he put himself out as a seeker.

>> six weeks after meeting lane, reverend hewitt fired him and that frightened her. >> our hearts were pounding. i had seen him clench his jaw and the little vein coming out here when things didn't go his way. so i knew he had a temper. >> a few weeks after he was fired, lane attended this self-help conference and book launch called "three feet from gold." here's a picture of him that day, taken with the man who wrote the foreword for the book. it was the same man seen with ginger. he took a picture with the same man. two weeks later, ginger would be dead. what happened between lane and ginger at that conference? do we know? >> not at this point. >> so they just met? >> they just met and started some sort of relationship that progressed to him moving here and moving into her house. >> lane moved to vegas with ginger and was living with her for less than one week when they

met this woman. >> we're marketing a medical device out of japan. >> p.j. launches a health drink. >> it is wetter, healthier water, medical grade water. >> p.j. says lane found her online and called one day describing himself as a real mover and shaker in the holistic healing scene. >> he was a motivational speaker, spiritual healer and was bragging about an aura machine he had purchased. >> an aura machine? >> an aura machine? >> which allegedly did what? >> it reads the energy of a person's heat. >> he said he was interested in her product and brought ginger along to her house to learn more about it. >> i invited them to our demo that night and they both showed up together that night. >> did they tell you what their relationship was? >> it was very unclear what the relationship was. and they did mention that they had met at a conference in california.

i remember thinking as a woman, something's going on with this girl. like she does not know where this relationship stands, she wishes it was more. >> in fact, p.j. says even though lane was with ginger, he was putting the moves on her. >> i was hearing from him in e-mails and facebook constantly, almost every day, if i was online, he would be popping up instant messaging me. >> was he hitting on you? >> yeah. i felt like he was just getting a little too close for comfort. >> soon, lane showed up at p.j.'s house once again, but this time, he was alone. p.j. remembered it was just days before thanksgiving. >> we asked oh, where's ginger. he had said she had business to take care of with her ex-husband in florida. >> but ginger was not in florida. detectives knew by that time, she was already dead. now with evidence found at ginger's house, the forged checks, the bank statement and that surveillance video,

detectives now believed michael lane is the man who killed ginger candella. in fact, police believe as ginger's body sat in the trash can for two weeks, lane continued to live in her house, accessing her bank account, driving her car. all the while, creating the illusion ginger was alive by texting tabitha, her daughter. >> we have people looking for him right now. we have a warrant. >> in fact, when they were at the crime scene, detectives told tabitha if he tries texting again, play along. >> so if he texts, just text back like i said, something like well, i hope you're having fun, i really miss you. >> but there was something else lane was doing at ginger's house. he was surfing the internet, looking for a date. >> so he contacted you. >> yeah. >> coming up -- could this witness lead police to the suspect?

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with the hour's top stories. search crews say they found a life ring and other items in the search for a missing ship. an oil spot was spotted. the 790 foot ship with 33 people on board has not been heard from since thursday when it lost power and took on water from hurricane joaquin. a stay of emergency in south carolina after a weekend of devastating floods. there are six weather-related deaths along the east coast. now back to "vegas homicide." we found some credit card information and whatnot. looks like he's using that still. >> it had been three days since ginger's body was discovered inside a trash can and detectives now had a suspect.

michael victor lane, a self-proclaimed spiritual healer from the uk. lane calls himself michael bodie or chase seville to people he meets on the holistic healing scene and builds websites for them. but detectives find lane has been going by other names, too, on darker online forums. >> he advertises himself for bondage, sadomasochistic websites. >> he digs that? >> he calls himself master mike lane. >> detectives found another piece of evidence linking lane to the murder of ginger candella when they located this trans-gender woman who calls herself deffie. >> he contacted you? >> yeah. >> did he know that you were -- >> yeah. >> -- trans-gender? >> definitely he knew. >> police believe after lane killed ginger, he continued living in her house and that's

when he invited deffie over. >> he picked me up here and we drove to his house. >> you spent the night? >> yeah, i spent the night. >> what deffie didn't know is that as she and lane were inside the bedroom, ginger's body was already in the trash can in the garage and had been there for nearly two weeks. in the morning, deffie said she wanted to go home, got in the car and headed out but soon, she said lane became angry and went after her. >> he did not let me go. >> you started fighting over the keys? >> over the key. >> you take off? >> i took off. >> he chases you? >> yeah. he chased me. i turned around, the car run me over. >> a witness got the license plate of the maroon toyota and an ambulance rushed deffie to the emergency room. >> how long were you in the hospital? >> two days, two nights. >> two days, two nights. detectives tracked down deffie in order to confirm lane was the man she met at ginger's house.

>> we were able to show deffie, is this the person who you had the incident with. she identified him as that person. >> back at homicide headquarters, detectives kisner and boucher were determined to catch lane before he struck again. where do you stand right now as we speak? >> we're in the process of trying to understand exactly who he is and we're very concerned that there are additional victims out there. >> finally, after 72 hours on the case, a break. a big one. detectives got a call from the ventura county sheriff's office in southern california. they had found michael lane. >> they have an address, today they're going out specifically to confirm that address and hopefully find either that car or the car he's using. i told scott if they confirm it, they would like us to come down and give them a little briefing. >> after three days with

virtually no sleep, the detectives drove the 250 miles to california. >> it's day three. this morning, thursday morning, we found out that they had located michael and that he was staying in a hotel room, actually checked into a hotel room with our victim's stolen credit card. >> lane had been staying at this motel 6, parked outside the room was ginger's maroon toyota. >> this is ginger's vehicle taken out of las vegas by michael. the damage on the front end of it is the collision he had with the transvestite deffie and he also switched out the license plates which made it easier for him to hide. >> inside the car, ginger's passport and driver's license. in the motel room, more solid evidence. property belonging to ginger. >> what i figure is we use this table for collecting this stuff.

>> here's all her other credit cards. >> nice. that's her blackberry cell phone that's broken that he stole out of the box. >> like 18 credit cards and three books of checks. >> and where was lane himself? the hunt was over. ventura county sheriff's deputies had arrested lane earlier at the motel room and transported him to police headquarters for interrogation. >> he was arrested for some warrants that we had issued for him regarding the incident with the transvestite that he tried to kill and we have driven down here to ventura, california where we are hoping he will give us an interview. >> sorry it took so long. >> coming up, the detectives finally get their chance to talk to michael lane but does he know what they know? >> where were you staying in las vegas? >> in my friend's house on westfield street. >> all right. who is your friend? >> ginger.

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i mean, that's her blackberry cell phone that's broken that he stole out of the box. >> detectives boucher and kisner

were going full speed for three days with one mission, to catch ginger candella's killer. you are basically working around the clock for days at a time? >> as things happen, one came after another. if the leads come, you got to follow them. >> let's go. >> being a homicide detective means much of the time, your life is not your own. so when you can steal time with your family, you take it. it's memories like these that help the detectives deal with the grisly scenes they face every day. >> this stuff is a release, at least for a little while, i don't have to think about work. >> is it a hard transition for you to go from a crime scene like this to your daughter's basketball game? >> you know, this is what we do. we asked to do this. it's where we want to be. we want to be involved in this. so this isn't burdensome to me to be here because there's purpose. the job serves a real important purpose. >> just ask ginger's daughter tabitha what these detectives meant to her. >> whenever i needed anything, they would call me. i remember detective boucher actually called me and he was at his daughter's ballet recital. i said you know, go. whatever questions i asked at this moment don't mean anything. >> but there was no time for family now. >> it's going to be a long night. >> back in ventura, all those sleepless nights were finally paying off.

the detectives were about to meet face-to-face with their suspect, michael lane. >> we're looking forward to talking to him and maybe getting some more information, because there's two people that know him. one's dead. >> lane was brought into the interrogation room and they began. >> there's an arrest warrant for you out of las vegas for an incident that was involving i guess a hit and run of some sort is what it basically boils down to. we're detectives from las vegas. >> he thought they were here to talk about the possible hit and run with that trans-gender woman, deffie. he had no idea that detectives knew ginger was dead. >> where were you staying in las vegas? >> in my friend's house on westfield street. >> all right. who's your friend? >> ginger. >> all right. where are you from? >> london, england. >> london. specifically london? >> born in london, yeah. >> lane told detectives a bit about himself. >> i have worked in computer companies, i've worked overseas. now my main work is life coaching and healing.

>> how did you get into that? >> i've done it most of my life, studied meditation, studied buddhism, just been around the world learning. >> he said people were naturally attracted to him and ego was beginning to show. >> and immediately started finding people attaching to me and wanting, you know, basically to pay me for my services to help fix things in their lives. >> lane said he was about to enter a monastery when he met ginger. >> i was going to study for six months deep meditation and ginger said can you come over to vegas, because she's got many, many problems which she's now sorting out and going through of her own accord. >> he spoke as though ginger were still alive. >> right now she's in mount shasta at a retreat which i recommended to her so she can find her inner self more. >> could he be trying to make the detectives think he really didn't know what happened? >> she's a spiritually very well

developed. she's writing her book, i'm writing my book right now. so we had a lot in common. we met at a book launch here in anaheim. >> boucher and kisner wanted to know if ginger thought the relationship would lead to romance. >> do you think she thought it was a romantic relationship? >> she was trying to be a little more than friendly which to me, i just had to back off and say i'm sorry, no, this is not working out. >> then they asked him about that car accident with the trans-gender woman. lane said it all began when he came upon a sexual surprise. >> as soon as she was undressing and i realized it was a he is when i got really, really offended and said we have to leave. >> he admitted they argued over car keys but said it was much ado about nothing. >> literally pulled him out the way, grabbed the keys, got back in the car and drove off. >> okay. >> yeah. there was no brutality -- >> he's alleging you kicked him several times in the face. >> no. wouldn't do it.

not in a million years. i'm very easygoing, very passive person. >> easygoing. passive. all this from a man suspected of cutting a woman in half. remember, lane thought police were here to talk about the car accident. he still didn't know they had found ginger's body. but it was time to put the squeeze on michael lane. they confronted him with those home depot receipts for bleach, a garbage can and an axe. >> okay. so you did buy all this stuff? >> yes. >> where was ginger? >> not there. >> where was she? >> out of town. >> but ginger wasn't out of town. and lane knew it. coming up -- michael lane now knows he's cornered. >> you know where we're going with this? you want to tell us? >> i kind of got the feeling. >> what will he do now?

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>> have a seat. >> murder suspect michael lane began to sense that detectives knew more than they were letting on. >> do you know where we are going with this? do you want to tell us? >> i have kind of got a feeling. >> you said ginger wrote you a check for three grand. >> yeah. >> let me point 0 out already name sant g, it's a j. she didn't sign it. >> it is time for detectives to let lane know he hadn't fooled anyone. ginger was found in the trash dumpster with cement and bleach. we need you to explain why she is there. >> resigned lane took off his glasses and gave up.

>> i don't want to make excuses. i will hold my hands and say yes. it's something that i did. i regret and will have to live with for the rest of my life. >> reporter: now calmly, step by step, lane took police through the anatomy of a murder. he said it began in the bedroom where he and ginger agreed to try an unconventional meditation technique. he would temporarily cut off her air supply by pressing on her neck, in essence choking her. >> we decided to do meditation through choking. mild carotid control. temporarily cutting off the blood supply to the brain so she would go in to a status where she was in recommend sleep. >> but for reasons he couldn't explain he says things got out

of control. >> i don't know what possessed or came over me. >> what did you do? >> i got the skillet from the kitchen and whacked her over the back of the head with it. no ideaed what possessed me to do it and did this repeatedly, two, maybe three times. something came over me. i walked in the kitchen. i opened the drawer. did it. >> the police now had their suspect describing the murder in vivid detail. >> how did you react to that? >> couldn't. he's not showing any emotion. if we show shock or disgust or any emotion whatsoever. >> he could clam up. >> it could scare him away. we had to roll like it was nothing. like it was nothing to him. >> she was still breathing. i could tell her life force had

left. her body was going through the motions. >> lane told detectives he stayed in the house with ginger's body for two days. that's when he decided to go shopping at the home depot where he bought bleach, the ax and the 96-gallon trash can. >> i put her in the trash can. by this time i had not -- apart from doing the deed, hadn't done anything to her at all. just through my remedial knowledge of watching movies and "csi" had come across bleach as a skin dissolver remembered that dismembering things makes them dissolve faster. >> reporter: finally what police needed to know is why? what motive did michael lane have for killing ginger? >> he had no explanation. although he admitted to

everything he had no reason for it. >> which is why we wanted to talk to michael lane ourselves. why would anyone commit such a crime? three months after his interrogation, michael lain agreed to speak to a "dateline" producer. >> if you are uncomfort canable in this set up right now, this doesn't have to be here. the microphone doesn't have to be here. none of us have to be here. okay. >> strangely enough, lane claims he's surprised as anyone he could even carry out such an act. >> it is horrible. scary to know that my person is capable of doing such a thing. it's not -- it's almost like a third person or a different character, you know, a role that i played. other inmates here, they say you don't look like the top, the

officers here, you don't look like the type. when they understand the case i've got they go what? wow. you think they are going wow, think of how i am going. >> does he feel remorse? sympathy for the family? >> the two people i would really want to understand why this happened more than myself is her children. it must be horrifying for them. absolutely horrifying. >> michael lane has confessed, but told us that he essentially feels your family's pain. >> he can't feel our pain. there's no way. there's no way for you to feel that. >> prosecutors think the only justice for lane is the death penalty. >> he stuffed her in a trash can and cut in half. >> assistant district attorney. >> the killing itself isn't what

makes the case so compelling. it's what michael lane did to her after he killed her. we have never seen a case where someone went to the lengths michael lane did to destroy and obliterate a human body. >> they are outraged by lane's attempts to deceive tabatha in to thinking ginger was alive while he lived with her body for two weeks. >> by sending texts she was in a retreat trying to find, these were michael lane's words, her inner self, all the while knowing she was in a garbage can, boiling in bleach, severed in half. the jury needs to decide whether he should die for what he did. >> he should have to face the consequence. that is one of the options that's available to the jury. he should have to face that. and though lane has pleaded not guilty his arrogance is on display even as he faces the death penalty. he says he will take whatever

comes. >> my belief system allows me to accept any sentence that has given me. it is different from most people's surprise. run around with their hands in the air screaming, no, no, no. it is down to my judge, jury and peers. it was up to me, sure, no. of course not. that's not the law of the land. it is the old saying you can't do the time, don't do the crime. >> reporter: his lawyers say there's an easier way to settle the whole ordeal. >> is it fair to say if the prosecutor took the death penalty off the table he would plead guilty. >> yes. >> no question? >> no question. >> there could be a lot of time, energy and pain saved if the state could would eliminate the death paenlty. he would willingly spend he rest of his life in prison. >> does he deserve the death penalty? >> he deserves to pay for what he did.

i'm not saying he deserves the death penalty one way or the other. ultimately, you can't take a life and not expect to pay for it. >> there's an indentation. >> reporter: such a horrific crime, carried out in such an evil way it shook even these hardened las vegas detectives. what's it like for you to be here right now in front of this house? >> makes me want to see my family. pretty much. kind of sad, you know. i mean ginger is going about her life for no other reason he kills her. it's kind of for nothing. >> i remember at one point -- it is ironic now.

♪ >> that's all for now. i'm chris hansen. for all of us at nbc news, thank you for joining us. [ phone ringing ] lisa called me on the phone. >> hey, kim. >> she asked me did i want to take a trip with her. >> i told kim that i was looking at expanding my nail business and i just needed to go to thailand. to go and pick up some products. mm-mm.