it was very exciting. >> they met in vegas. a professional poker player. >> was making good money. >> a former trapeze artist. she fell for him but didn't gamble on this. >> i could smell the odor of decay and blood. >> married with a child and women in multiple cities.

>> what else is he capable of? >> capable of murder? he had an alibi. >> credit card transactions and phone records of me driving from will ha las vegas. >> could this card hold the key. >> was he a calculating killer or was his lifestyle on trial? >> he made mistakes that doesn't make him a monster. the player. >> welcome to date line extra. in this hour the story of a double murder that was both shocking and puzzling. there were no witnesses and few clues. the victims a respected couple. their son it turned out played poker for a living. could that lifestyle have had something to do with the crime? the case was a mystery until prosecutors looked at blood

stained evidence from the crime scene. could that be the key? it was her first time in las vegas. her first look at that famous strip, its gaudy ciancsee casin darker places where men and black suits hover over the calm of high rolling wishful thinkers. her name was adrian. she was here on business. >> i was excited to go to get to see what this city was all about. >> adrian came to las vegas to plan a medical conference. meeting planning was her business, a rojob. >> probably gone 50% of the time. >> now the job brought her here to a vast casino all alone. exciting but buttoned down

compared to teaching the flying trapeze. >> i went to work for club medand worked for the vacation resort for seven years living all over the world. >> i can't imagine what it would be like having a job where your responsibility is to teach people how to relax and have fun and do it in a wonderful setting. >> it was the best job. >> she learned to embrace moments of fun, new experiences and learn something, too, about how to read people or so she thought. and now here she was april 2006 isy casino observing a craps game. >> gentleman standing to my side turned around and said do you want me to explain the game so he did and we started chatting. like any woman in her mid 30s i looked to make sure he didn't have a wedding ring as she started to flirt and asked if i wanted to go to dinner. i said why not.

>> her dinner date? a man named earnest scherer iii. there was not the awkward silence that sometimes you have in first date. >> ernie, what he called himself, was good looking, college educated, former eagle scout raised in a mormon household. his occupation was rather unusual. he was a professional poker player. >> kind of surprised me that someone with his background would be a professional poker player. >> you did something kind of odd for a while. >> which is why i had no judgment about it. i found it very interesting and he said he was making good money at it. >> ernie explained how he had mastered the skill of cleverly hiding any tells, clues about the cards he was holding. >> he was good at reading people which is very important in the poker world. he kept an apartment in southern california but spent much of his time in las vegas. >> he gambled enough at the

tables. he had high enough status that he got free rooms and free meals, show tickets. >> he seemed to be doing it all rather responsibly saving money for the times when the cards weren't so lucky. >> it was almost like somebody having a sales job that they know sometimes they are going to get a lot of great sales and sometimes they are not. >> she fell for ernie over the next few days of magic time in vegas. they were on the phone every day. there were trips. she hit vegas. he would meet her in places like aruba and mexico. one day ernie told adrian he loved her. >> it was very exciting. >> ernie travelled to north carolina several times, got to know her family, h mother, lynn. >> he was charming and was very comfortable with us and us with him. >> we talked about marriage. we were looking at engagement

rings. >> they actually talked about children. >> the first one was a girl he would love her but he really wanted a boy. >> so it was wonderful. not perfect, of course, what is? ernie's mother did not approve of his poker playing, apparently even though ernie's father loved poker and they often played together. >> he seemed to like his father and respect his father. they seemed to be close. >> so why didn't they want to meet her? it was frankly a little hard to understand. >> how he explained it to me, his mother did not approve of our relationship because i was not mormon and we travelled around together and living a life of sin or whatever. >> scarlett woman. >> when she did meet ernie's dad once it didn't go so well. >> we were in the lobby of caesar's and started to say this is adrian and said i know who she is and turned his back to

me. i don't this go i have ever been so offended in my life. >> by then the bloom had faded. wasn't going to be a marriage or children. >> for probably the last six months of our relationship i think we both knew that it wasn't going anywhere. >> and in february of 2008 they broke it off. so maybe that is why weeks later she didn't hear right away about what happened. >> what kind of problem? >> i don't know. >> didn't hear about the grisly double murder or the one of the victims named earnest scherer. coming up -- was one of the victims the man she had loved? >> it didn't seem like something like that could really have happened to someone i know. >> when the player continues. ♪

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welcome back to date line extra. adrian solomon thought she hit the jackpot when she met and fell in love with professional poker player ernie scherer. they talked about marriage and having children yet eventually their marriage fell apart. weeks after a shocking tragedy and frightening turn of events would put the couple back in contact. here is keith morrison. >> adrian solomon was putting life's pieces back together. her two-year romance with ernie scherer had deflated and failed. a couple weeks later she was in san francisco when her phone chirped, text message from an acquaintance. >> he said i heard about his parents. let me know if there is anything i can do. >> she went online and saw the appalling story. >> and learned that they had

been murdered. it was surreal. it didn't seem like something like that could really have happened to someone i know. >> not her ernie, thankfully, but ernie's parents. murdered. found dead in their own house which was in an upscale country club right across the san francisco bay from adrian's hotel. and now, of course, the house was a crime scene where even the season lead detective was horrified by what he saw. >> it was probably the most gruesome brutal homicide scene i have ever seen. it was march 14, 2008 when the call came in. a country club employee had seen what looked like a body through the scherer's window. >> as i approached the front door of the home i could smell the odor of decay and blood from

quite a distance away. >> and inside was like a war zone. blood everywhere. and the battered bodies of two people who had clearly fought for their lives. >> the bodies had suffered extensive, extensive injuries. >> it wasn't just the odor that told investigators the bodies had been here a while. >> the was a week's worth of newspapers that had been uncollected. >> they narrowed the time of death friday evening march 7 the last time anyone saw them and saturday morning march 8. method of death hard to be sure. no murder weapon lying around but had been hit repeatedly by some sort of blunt instrument and sliced by what must have been a big knife or sword. was it a home invasion robbery? possible judging from the mess. earnest scherer was known to carry cash around. detective mike norton.

>> in the victims' bedroom the drawers had been pulled out, a lot of clothes thrown on the floor. >> reporter: a decorative sword was missing and two status. maybe it wasn't a robbery. >> her purse was present on the kitchen table. there was jewelry. >> in the father's pants pocket there was a large amount of cash. >> $9,000 in cash rolled up in his jeans pocket. >> that was untouched? >> untouched. >> was the crime scene staged to hide something more sinister than robbery? why did they find that odd and obvious pattern of bloody shoe prints but only around the bodies? >> and the shoe prints would go back and forth to each victim and just disappeared. you were thinking how did this person get out? >> easy enough to id. there was an obvious nike swoosh in the middle. it was a nike impact tomahawk,

big maybe close to size 12. but who wore them? who would do such an awful thing? and why? >> in our area we didn't have a husband and wife in their 60s in a multimillion dollar neighborhood killed for no reason. >> investigators poked around the scherer's background looking for enemies with motive and it turned out they had some or at least earnest did. >> ernie was a passionate person and wasn't afraid to let you know how he felt. >> former california state assemblyman knew him for extreme fiscal conservativement for his work with the party. >> he did make people angry but on a political and not personal basis. it was all political. what happened to them was too ugly even for politics. and as for charlene.

>> i don't know anybody who didn't like her. >> here was her friend from the mormon church. >> her confidence, command, good heart, her ability to reach out and help people. >> which she had been doing professionally for decades as an accounting teacher said this colleague at cal state east bay. >> she wanted to help the students with the particular subject area and the class, she wanted to help students with their career and their life. >> so who was responsible? who knew? not a suspect in sight? >> i got my phone out and sent a text message. >> the minute she heard what happened she reached out for her ernie. they decided to meet in san francisco for dinner that night. >> even though we weren't in a relationship anymore we had been friends for a long time. i felt good that i was able to be there for him. he got really upset during dinner. i was just there to be a listening board for him. >> that was that. until a few days later when

ernie phoned again very upset. >> and he said that the cops are starting to harass him a little bit. >> and again adrian calmed him down all normal police procedure. you hear they have to look at family first. so that's just what they were doing. >> but ernie was a mess, asked to see her again. adrian arranged to meet him in dallas. >> she had no way of knowing what was coming. or what that news would do to her. >> it was horrible. i think i started shaking. what was wrong with me that i didn't see this? >> was it about the murder? no. no, it was something else all together. coming up -- revelations about the double life of a man she thought she knew. >> he did it in las vegas, new orleans. >> everywhere he went. >> what else had he done?

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mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. welcome back. adrian solomon and ernie scherer reconnected shortly after the murders of his parents. adrian wanted to lend a sympathetic ear but was about to hear more than she ever bargained for. >> when she learned her ex-boyfriend's parents had been murdered she wanted to be there to support ernie especially now that he said police were harassing him.

>> i know everything about him. we dat for a couple of years. of course, he couldn't have done this. >> she told ernie she could meet him during her business trip to dallas and it was as she arrived when it happened. the moment she will recall for the rest of her life. >> i was in a taxi headed from the airport to the hotel in dallas and my phone rings and it is a detective. >> she listened to him say he was investigating the death of ernie's parents and he had a question. he said i know you guys have broke up but can you tell me how long this affair lasted. >> affair? why did he use that word? >> why would you say that? we dated exclusively for two years. >> you don't know what you're talking about. >> he said you didn't know he was married and has a child? and i was like what are you talking about? i said why would i believe you? >> by the time she hung up the

phone she knew she did believe him. >> all of the puzzle pieces came together in my head. >> suddenly it all made since why he never wanted her to see his apartment or meet his parents, why his dad snubbed her that time in the casino. he had been married all along to a woman named robin and had a young son,ernest iv and every good opinion she had of him and her and her own judgment threw out the window of that dallas cab. >> i am a smart person. we talked about having kids together. he wanted to have a boy. he already had a boy. what is going on? >> things happened quickly and painfully. >> my phone rang and it was him. i said the cops called and so he asked what did they tell you. i said i know you are married. he said it is not a true

marriage. he said let me explain it to you. i was like i don't want to see you. >> he wouldn't. he refused. she met him in the lobby. he tried to explain everything away. >> he couldn't, of course. she sat there half listening, equilibrium gone and a bad feeling. >> i was hurt and angry with him and myself and it was just unbelievable to think that those two years had been a sham. >> yes. and in fact more than one sham, a whole quilt of shams. >> detectives back in northe northern -- >> it seemed like there was another woman he involvement with. >> he said he was recently single.

>> like pamelaicles who responded to ernie's ad in the dating section of craig's list. >> his personality was nice and friendly. >> they made plans to have dinner march 14, 2008. about 2:00 in the afternoon said pamela he called to cancel. >> saying he needed to go home, that his parents house was broken into and burglarized. >>erny's conquest resumed. >> he did it in las vegas, new orleans. >> got lots of responses. >>id that sfriez you? >> i surprised me that he able to form the level of int intimacy very rapidly. >> kimberly olsen was one of them. he formed a very intimate

relationship, met him in september 2008 six months after his parents murder. she was at a casino. >> he said he needed a pretty girl to blow on the dice at his craps table. >> that's a line. >> i fell for it. >> from day one said kimberly their relationship was based on honesty, all the dirty laundry. >> he would tell me stories about his wife and his girlfriend and going back and forth and i told him he was a jerk. i think he knew he made a lot of mistakes. >> he told her about his parents' murder. >> he missed his parents. he would tell me stories about him and his father. he would get teary eyed about it. >> she got to knowerny she said very, very well. >> if you can drive through texas with someone and not want to strangle them in the middle of texas you get to know someone very well. he was really sweet. >> and eventually he moved in

with her. did you grow to love him? >> i cared for him. >> that other woman who had loved him, adrian solomon was struggling. >> if he could lie to me every day for two years, lie to my family, look at rings, talk about having children together, what else is he capable of? >> of course, living a double life doesn't make you a double murderer. those detectives knew that perfectly well, but as they were discovering a cheating heart wasn't the only disturbing thing about this professional poker player. coming up -- turned out he had some other secrets and he was battling some odds. >> he wanted the will. >> when the player continues. ♪

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engagement in afghanistan and south asia. he could announce a troop surge in afghanistan. we will bring you the president's remarks tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. eastern. hollywood lost one of its brightest stars. jerry lewis died at his home in las vegas sunday. lewis was 91 years old. for now, back to lockup. returning to our story. here again is keith morris. >> it was, to say the least, eye opening when detectives encountered adrian solomon and heard her account of the secret life of ernie scherer iii.

this was not some tabloid smack down. his parents were brutally murdered not the sort of thing you would expect from some hormonally hopped up lover boy. encountered lots of the victim's blood but very few clues. >> we were looking for everything, every blood stain and finger prints. >> they found nothing that pointed to ernie. those shoe prints were consistent with a size 12 and ernie wore a 9 1/2 or 10. the csi people found a speck of human dna that did not belong to either ernie or his parents. early on there was only that curious incident just a little odd the day after the bodies were discovered. ernie showed up at the house all distraught insisting entry. no can do. >> he became demanding and cond

sending very quickly which surprised me. >> why did he want to get in so badly? >> he wanted the will. >> he told you that? >> he did. >> his parents' will which investigators found in a desk drawer. >> and the will indicated that their fairly significant estate would be divided equally and that they would receive their inheritance at the age of 30. >> did you determine how old earnest was? >> i did. he would turn 30 in july. his parents were killed in march. >> his father had a couple million invested in real estate. at the time of his death the value of the estate was shrinking along with housing prices. was it even remotely possible he would kill his parents to cash in on an inheritance? the detectives had a look at his

professional situation. you know how some professional poker players claim they win a lot? maybe not. >> we learned he had0 som out thousand dollars in credit card debt and in talk wg different casinos he lost a significant amount of money in the tune of $80,000 to $90,000 in the last year. >> that was not the worst of it. not even close. by march of 2008 when the murders happened real estate was huffing and puffing on its race to the bottom. six months before that they wanted to buy a house in the city of brea but couldn't get a loan. so he borrowed the money from his father, $616,000 but then real estate started tanking so father asked son to go to a bank, refinance and pay back his loan and ernie couldn't.

>> he was frantic trying to refinance his home. >> at the time that they were killed he missed a mortgage payment to his parents for the first time. >> so this is approaching some sort of crisis. >> that's what we felt. >> motive? maybe. investigators told him they wanted to talk. he agreed to come to the station. ernie had an alibi. >> credit card transactions and phone records of m las vegas back tobria. >> night of the murder he was at home in southern california hours and hours away from his parents house. he had driven from las vegas that afternoon, stopped for gas and a bite to eat at a mcdonald's in nevada. and there were credit card records to prove it. he arrived home around 5:00 p.m., fell asleep on the couch, watched a movie on tv and went to bed. wife and son were away, he said.

bright and early the next morning he met his elderly grandfather for a bridge tournament which his grandfather confirmed. detectives had some questions. >> we asked what road did you take to get you home. he was not able to tell us. we asked what television show did you watch? he wasn't able to tell us. >> when they checked his cell phone records they found an unusual gap in transmission right around the time of the murders from the afternoon of march 7 to the early morning of march 8, 17 hours and 46 minutes his phone did not register on any cell phone tower anywhere. >> he was a guy constantly talking on the cell phone. the fact that there is a 17 hour window where he is not using it was definitely suspicious. >> as the suspicions grew just as they felt they might be

closing in on something, ernie scherer iii disappeared. >> following the trail, connecting the dots. police turn up a strange story. >> he asked me if i would do something slightly illegal for $300. >> was it the smoking gun they needed? when the player continues. your big idea... willeoplknow it ans they'll get the lowest price guaranteed on our rooms by booking direct on choicehotels.com?

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isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. great show. here you go. now he's added a new routine. making depositing a check seem so effortless. easy to use chase technology, for whatever you're trying to master. isaac, are you ready? yeah. chase. so you can. welcome back. detectives believed ernie scherer may have had a financial motive to murder his parents but there were two major problems in the case. there wasn't any physical evidence tying ernie to the crime scene and ernie had recently disappeared. >> it was the 23rd of march,

2008. ernie scherer iii, person of interest in a particularly violent murder of his parents quite suddenly got out of dodge skbrmpt the he was gone. >> guilty conscience or an innocent man fed up with negative attention from the cops. detectives did not panic. ernie probably didn't know it but an enterprising officer fitted his car with a gps tracking device. >> for the majority of the time we knew where he was. >> the car plus regular visits to social media dating sites led police to a number of young women he met like the onen new orleans who called the police after a strange night with a man who told her he was writing a novel about a gambler who is a suspect in his parent m's murde when she went back tohis hotel room he rigged it with bungee

cords so if someone came to get him he had a plan to escape. >> he was going to break the window and repel out the hotel room window. >> did she high tail it out of there? >> no. she chose to stay. >> stayed the night. >> she did. >> meanwhile, detective called in reinforcements. before long some of the most boring of all police work paid off. a deputy barred from the local jail from the investigation poured through hours of video taken by a security camera at the country club and there was a red camaro approaching the home at 8:27 p.m. on march 7 and exiting at 12:42 a.m. on march 8 just when the murders were thought to have occurred. a red chevy camaro with a black top. wasn't that the same make, model and color of ernie scherer's

car? looked like his car to a cop's eye. trouble was they couldn't see the license plate or the driver's face. could have been coincidence. even that the car and the other evidence they gathered wouldn't be enough to persuade the d.a. to file murder charges. the cops brought everything they know to ernie's wife, robin. she had been left behind when ernie took off a couple of weeks after the murders. when she saw what investigators had she was not only ready to divorce ernie, she told the police she would help them by attempting the bluff the poker player. >> hi. >> detectives recorded this phone call in which she tells ernie about the video but telling him his face was visible. >> and it looks like you in your

car and they are basically saying you were there friday night. were you in the bay area on friday night? beuse ihought you were driving back home? there is this video that clearly looks like your car. >> a long pause. >> is it from a gas station? >> it's going into the country club area. >> going into the country club area. >> and it looks like your car and looks like you in it. >> you can see the face of the driver? >> yes. were you there? i are you lying to me? >> i understand you're asking the question. obviously, the police are listening to this phone call, i'm assuming.

right? >> i guess, i have no idea. >> and in this game of poker it was hard to say who was playing whom. in the end there was no smoking gun, but was ernie spooked a little? is that why he reached out to adrian solomon with this request. >> i'm hoping we can get back together. he said he was thinking oflg quitting poker if only she would take him back. she was a different adrian now. >> i think i kind of felt more powerful in that conversation than i had with him in a long time because i know that i don't trust a single word that he says. >> meanwhile back in vegas detectives learned that days before the murders ernie scherer made a rather unusual request of this man, his name is david mock. >> he asked me if i would do something slightly illegal for

$300. >> david is a professional piano player in vegas. >> he says i'm looking to get a gun because i'm a professional gambler and i carry a lot of money. i thought i'm not going to do that. >> and investigators discovered ernie also asked david's performance partner to buy him a gun and offered another friend $50,000 to point the finger of spgz towards someone else. if none of it was definitive it looks bad for ernie. nearly a year after the murders the d.a. made the decision to roll the dice. it was february 2009. kimberly olson was at home with ernie. >> there was a knock on the door and he answered the door and there were fbi agents with guns drawn. >> ernie scherer was charged with two counts of murder and kimberly olson thought the whole

world had gone crazy. >> he is a poker play skpr made his mistakes but that is a far jump from being a poker player to murdering your parents. >> back home in north carolina when aid kredrian solomon heard the arrest. >> i believe he could have and for me that was enough. >> the date was set for trial based on evidence. not one piece of evidence connected him to a murder weapon or those nike footprints. they were consistent with a size 12 and he wore a 9 1/2 or 10. and you knew that one of the lines coming had to be a defense attorney was if the shoes don't fit you must acquit. a jury might just look at that. >> that went throughy mind several mes.

>> and then someone noticed that little piece of paper right there. what was that? coming up -- >> that was a shot in the dark. >> absolutely. >> and it hit its mark, a bulls eye. >> i'm thinking that's the ending of the book. >> does the gambler have one more bluff in store? when the player continues. with this level of engineering... it's a performance machine. with this degree of intelligence... ...it's a supercomputer. with this grade of protection...it's a fortress. and with this standard of luxury...it's an oasis. the 2017 e-class. it's everything you need it to be...and more. lease the e300 for $569 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. when heartburn hits fight back fast with new tums chewy bites.

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erne i scherer was charged with murdering his parent pchs the evidence against him was largely circumstantial except for a small slip of paper discovered at the crime scene that could be the key to blowing the case wide open. here again, keith morrison. >> it was september 2010. just months before ernie scherer iii was to go on trial for the murder of his parents. prosecutors pored over the evidence scott dudek had collected. anything else they missed that might help seal the against against ernie? and that's when they saw it. something quite odd. >> they came across a piece of paper that we had collected that had blood droplets on it. >> just one small piece of paper which one of the detectives picked up from the bloody floor of the murder scene a few feet away from the lifeless scene of

his father. it was a warranty card for a baseball bat. that's all it was. no big deal. except when police searched through that house, searched every square inch of it, one thing they did not find was a baseball bat. >> and they just thought it was odd, why would 60-something-year-old people have a warranty for a bat. >> the warranty wasn't just for any old bat. it was for a nike baseball bat. right on the warranty card they couldn't help but see that same distinctive nike swoosh like the ones presented on the floor in blood by the size 12 nike impact sneakers. were they on to something here? >> so they kind of backtracked. they wondered, was there any kind of nike store around where we had them getting gas and a hamburger and they found across the street there was, in fact, a nike outlet store. >> that was just kind of a shot

in the dark. >> absolutely. >> and there it was. a nike outlet store in primm, nevada, just yards from the gas station where he used a credit card to fill his tank and very close to the mcdonald's where he used plastic to buy a burger. this was maybe 12 hours before the murders. possible hitch? ernie did not use a credit card at this or any other nike store that day. so maybe he didn't buy a baseball bat to use on his parents. unless, did he use cash in an effort to hide a purchase at nike? one of the d.a.'s investigators asked nike to check purchase records for march 7th, 2008. and, as they say in vegas, jackpot. at 11:38 a.m., just before ernie used his credit card at the mcdonald's and the gas station, there was a cash purchase at the nike outlet. one pair of size 12 nike impact

tomahawk sneakers, a ripka new baseball bat and junior match soccer gloves. >> i'm thinking, even the most skeptical jury in the world has to realize, put it all together, the book has just finished. that's the end of the book. >> in january 2011, the alameda county prosecutor said that ernest was a narcissistic sociopath who savagely murdered his parents in cold blood. >> he is sheer evil. he thinks he's smarter than everybody. >> reporter: heavily in debt and desperate for money, his house of cards was collapsing before his very eyes, said the prosecutor. and so he killed his parents for the money. for his inheritance. even ernie's own family unanimously turned against him, including ernest scherer sr., ernie's grandfather who took the stand on his 95th birthday to testify against his own

grandson, his namesake. and once again, adrian had a date to see ernie in court. >> they asked you to testify. >> they did. it was overwhelming and terrifying. >> reporter: adrian told the jury about ernie's two years of deception, the double life, all those lies. >> i made it a point not to look at him during the entire time i was in the room and during the entire testimony. >> reporter: was it enough to the jury? ernie's defense jumped to its task arguing that the evidence, the red chevy camaro on the surveillance video, the dead cell phone around the time of the murders, asking his friends to buy a gun, all that could have been simply coincidence. it could be explained away. and besides, said the defense, there was actual physical evidence to prove someone other than ernie committed the crime. that spec of unidentified dna found in the bloody shoeprints at the crime scene. they argued it was just

contamination. but did it point to the real killer? as for the jackpot evidence, the cash purchase of the nike sneakers and baseball bat and gloves? who knows who bought those, said the defense, but it wasn't ernie. those nike sneakers were a size 12 and ernie wore a 9 1/2 or 10. proves he didn't do it, right? and on that point, the prosecution had only this. >> he is very proficient at misinformation and disinformation. and i think that he intentionally bought shoes that were too large for him. >> reporter: ernie took the stand himself. sat out there for the better part of seven days, confident, often smiling and claiming it was his lifestyle the prosecution put on trial. >> he's human. he made mistakes like everybody else does. that doesn't make him a monster. >> would he convince the jury? >> i think it goes back to him thinking, i'm at a table and

there's all kinds of chips on the middle of the table and you know what? i bluff some of the best. these 12 people, they're nothing compared to some of the poker players i bluff. i'm going to give it my best. >> the jury stayed out for 2 1/2 days. we spoke with one of the 12 jurors who deliberated. and an alternate who sat through the case. >> the defense would argue that in a way, the prosecution put this man's lifestyle on trial. i mean, he was -- >> somebody should. >> somebody should? >> yeah. all other things being equal, his lifestyle counted against him. >> but of course, all things were not equal. and though a couple of jurors he held out for a while, in the end it came down to this. >> too many coincidences. way too many. >> because taken by themselves -- >> yeah. >> -- they could be explained. >> they could be. but you put them all together,

doesn't work. >> and so ernest scherer iii was found guilty. two counts of first-degree murder. two consecutive life sentences. no parole. his sistkathryn, daughter of the victims, ske publicly for the first time outside the courtroom. >> it's hard to have to talk about my parents and the loss of them. they're no longer with me at all. just here. >> do you feel justice was served? >> i don't know. it's hard. it's hard to admit that anybody could do something like that. >> and adrian solomon, the one-time teacher of the flying trapeze, the woman who thought she'd learned a thing or two about meeting people, still wonders why she just didn't see it. >> i don't trust my judgment and trust other people are telling the truth. and that's hard. >> when do you think you'll get that back? >> i don't know. every time everything has been getting better but i'm still not

ready to be trusting everyone so easily. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. when i saw her, i lost concept of time. i reached in, pulled her out, and started screaming "help." >> please! oh, my god! wake up! wake up! >> it was the worst seconds in my life. >> how was it possible? >> i would give anything if she were alive today. >> such a sweet young wife and mom. such a shattering death. >> i cried all night long. >> he was downstairs with the kids. she was upstairs in the bath. then it happened. >> please! oh, please! >> how long has she been in