level of detail just sees emotion. >> i will say this, we do not have polling on all this, and not like polling is the most important thing in the world. i am desperately curious about what people believe in the wake of that and how the gender split's happened and all of that. i don't know. i really don't know. i know how it read to me. does " catch us every week night right here on msnbc. she was a person out of a 40s film noir movie. with life full of mystery to match. >> she was a stunner physically. she was able to say jump and the men would say how high. >> married to a wealthy lawyer. >> he always said she has this hold over me. >> but there was someone she seemed even choserer to. >> they bought matching underwear together. >> they shared everything. >> they're eating together, they're sleeping in the same bed together. she's living at her house. >> did they also share a deadly secret? >> it was a lie triangle, and

one of them had to go. >> but was it her idea? >> oh, god, it seemed like a good idea at the time. oh, god. >> or hers? and who would take the fall for evil? >> how deep a hole did you dig? >> the not deep enough, obviously. >> hello and welcome to dateline. attorney larry mcnabney had been living fast and loose, but things were finally slowing down for him. he had a thriving laws practice, a wife he adored and plenty of money. then, a new friend entered the picture and a love triangle took shape. the murder was a who done it including three tangled lives. one of them was hiding a secret identity. but to untangle this mystery,

police needed to know who was the mastermind pulling the strings. here is keith morrison with "poison". >> it was september 11, 2001. just about everybody knows where they were that awful day. like the glamorous trio that was traveling north through california's yosemite national park. even as the rest of the world's attention was focused on new york city, they were intent on their own urgent needs, their desires, their fears, their deadly love triangle. so they probably didn't appreciate the passing wonders, the astonishing cliffs, the water falls, the giant sequoias every more than the one in the back seat through fading eyes saw anything at all. here is one of them. his name was larry mcnabney. and he was a tall, handsome man,

a well known and respected attorney from nevada. a personal injury specialist, made puk made buckets of money, loved the big life, loved being in control. >> there wasn't a hair out of place. there wasn't dust on his desk. his pen was always in the same spot. >> larry's daughter, tavia, was crazy about him and all of his type the a personality, his joy of life, his courtroom presence. >> not an ounce of shyness. he commanded the courtroom. >> i've been a trial lawyer for over 20 years. >> larry's long time friend, fred achison. >> he was a rich man. >> but nobody is perfect, of course. and for all of larry's unquestioned talents, the man carried around with him a raft of corresponding demons. >> i know he had a difficult

childhood. and that the a lot of your personality is shaped when you're a child. >> and as an adult, larry struggled with alcohol and women. he married and divorced several times. >> it was like a void he was trying to fill. and he never could fill it. >> in fact, from time to time, larry had gone on benders and just vanished weeks at a time. and everybody would worry and wonder. sure enough, he would show up again. >> i had a t-shirt made up once, yellow with black letters saying where is larry mcnabney? >> then, finally, larry, well into his 40s seemed to get his act together for real. he set up a new office if las vegas. everything clicked, possibly for an attractive reason, as tavia discovered. >> i went by the office one day and he said i have someone i

want you to meet. he said this is elisa. >> elisa, 17 years younger than larry. and he was in love. >> and he said she's just fun and vie seichus. he said we have a good time. >> tavia didn't stand in the way. she wanted her dad to be happy. >> you welcome the new the person in. it's my dad so i didn't want anything that would inhibit me from spending time with him. >> and he really cared for this woman. >> he did. >> larry and elisa thrived, both personally and professionally. they got married. esa became his office manager. they opened up a firm in sacramento, california. another big success. so they hired a young, attractive college student named sara dutra, the outgoing daughter of deeply religious

parents. who soon became a friend as well as a personal office assistant. and together, esa and larry enjoyed the high life. >> she was into the same thing that larry loved, and style. they went out and bought viper cars together. >> they also shared larry's newest passion, quarter horses. >> larry would show horses and show himself. which fit in with larry looking good and feeling good. >> larry could do more of what he likes. young sara pipd in to help elisa run the business end of larry's law practice. though larry's friend, fred, was a bit of a stick in the mud about it. >> the fact that she took control of his business allowed him to engage in drinking and partying. >> which is not really what larry needed. >> no web didn't need that. because his had appetites would run amuck.

>> so when, after nearly seven years of marriage, larry suddenly dropped out of sight, close friends weren't extremely alarmed at first. after all, larry had gone on drunken benders before. but this time, as days stretched into weeks, it seemed different, extremely odd. ginger miller started working at the law firm as a secretary in september 2001 just about the time larry went missing. elisa kept the business going in his absence, but couldn't seem to settle on what the staff should tell people about larry. >> i was told to tell his kids and different people in his family different things. so i was told that he was golfing or skiing, some place they couldn't get ahold of him at. >> so it was all obvious bs. yeah. and if it was a client, i would have to say he was working on a deposition, he was with a client, he had to fly out. >> larry's kids didn't know what to think. >> and i said to my brother, this doesn't sound right.

why do the stories keep changing? >> october arrived. still no larry. thanksgiving. and december, he was always with family on his birthday. but still no sign of larry mcnabney. >> i didn't get a good feeling. and what i worried about was had something gone wrong and dad was scared and he took off. >> had larry offended the wrong person? tavia had a friend in law enforcement who told her -- >> you have to look at it two ways. either if he's in hiding, he's not going to be happy you found him because, obviously, he's hiding for a reason. or something has happened to him. >> meanwhile, back at the office, ginger was hearing things, worrisome things, until she just couldn't keep it in any more. >> i went to the sheriff's department. i wasn't sure what to do. so i just asked for a piece of paper and i slid it under the window. >> detectives got her note

already and thus figured they should have a chat with elisa mcnabney. but by the time they went looking for her, just like larry, she was gone. >> who exactly what elisa mcnabney and what did she know about her husband's disappearance? the investigation heats up when police uncover the dark secrets in elisa's past. coming up -- >> she was a person out of a 40s film noir movie. she was a stunner physically, but more importantly, she had a control over men that just amazed me. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues every year 790,000 americans suffer from a heart attack.

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by the dawn of 20 02, while the rest of us were getting used to a post 9/11 new normal, it seemed pretty clear that something very abnormal must have happened to that personal injury attorney, larry mcnabney. no one had seen him for five months. he had never been on a benner for this long. now his wife, elasi was missing, too. by this time, ginger dropped off her note at the detective's office. they were talking to employees like sara dutra, the attractive 21-year-old arts student from sacramento state who worked as

an office secretary. she brought her little dog, ralph, with her to the sheriff's office. sara told the detectives that she and elisa had become close friends so she, sara, certainly noticed how erratic elisa became after larry went missing. >> things were starting to not seem right. >> sara confirmed what ginger miller said, that elisa kept changing her explanations for larry's whereabouts. and sara said she saw elisa signing larry's name on checks and day-to-day business transactions. >> i figured she's keeping this business going for him. you know, so he can go play or do whatever he's doing. >> in early january 2002, said sara, elisa planned a trip to arizona to attend a horse show. and in the absence of larry, invited sara to go along. >> i was going to fly down the next day and then she told me

you tickets paid for and all that. >> but when sara got to the airport, the ticket was not paid for. >> thej you called her cell phone number. what did you get? >> this number is no longer available. >> and that was that, said sara. she hadn't heard from elisa since. >> so i actually called ginger. i said, ginger, i'm going to look for a new job. i don't know about you, but elisa is gone. >> stan modesta had handle add number of missing persons cases, so when he heard about the case of larry and elisa mcnabney, he gravitated toward it. >> he's an attorney with a case load and he just disappeared. >> testa began by taking a good

look at elisa. >> she was a stunner physically. everyone said that. but more importantly, she had a control over men that just amazed me. she was able to jump and the men would say how high. >> it certainly seemed true for larry, so said his old friend fred atchison. >> she was controlling him to the extent that she was keeping him away from his family and his former friends. >> did that include the relationship he had with you? >> no question about it. >> you found yourself shut out? >> yeah. so did the larry's daughter, tavia. >> elisa completely cut me out of the picture, and i was devastated. >> but why? why was elisa keeping larry away from his family and friends? >> he called me up once on the phone and said, fred, i don't know who she is. and i thought he meant, well, we don't really ever know who our

spouses are deep down. and he said, no, i don't even know if this is who she is, if her name is what she says it is or anything. >> but then, said fred, larry discovered ample reason to stop trusting elisa. >> he couldn't keep his wallet in his pants. >> he told you that? >> yeah. she would steal money out of the wallet. he had to hide his wallet in his own house. >> turned out she was also stealing from the law firm. >> she had ripped him off. >> for how much, any idea? >> over $100,000. >> rarely told fred about about his troubles with elisa. yet he kept her around. not like he hadn't divorced women before, but not this one. tavia didn't get it. >> he always said she has this hold over me. and i never understood what that meant. >> and larry's comments to fred about not knowing his wife, well, his suspicions turned out to be true. a little research told

detectives that the real woman behind the name elisa mcnabney had a considerable criminal wrap sheet including stolen property, credit card fraud, grand theft. >> she had a way of ingratiating herself with men and using her female charms. and she was very, very good at it .she was a true and true con artist. >> so what elisa just conning larry? surely, thought fred, she wouldn't have done away with him, would she? >> it wouldn't make any sense, even for a dedicated pole cat, to do anything like that because he was the goose that laid the golden egg. it wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. >> it was a farm worker who noticed a flock of vultures drifting above one of these grape fields saw something sticking out of the ground. and soon, a missing person's

case turned into something much, much worse and considerably more bizarre. >> "dateline" returns after the break. >> "dateline" returns after the break. new d-con. so d-licious mice risk their lives for it. now 10 times tastier to mice than the lead competitor. mice love it to death. ♪...from far away. but they ♪honly see his wrinkles.♪..♪ ♪he's gotta play it cool to seal the deal.♪ ♪better find a way to smooth things over.♪ ♪if only harry used some... ♪...bounce, to dry.

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it was february 2002, a remote vineyard up in the central valley. a farm worker checking the outer

reaches of grape couldn't help see the big birds wheeling round and round. something out there. >> vultures were circling. he spotted the vultures, so he went out to see what they were circling. >> investigator javier rams and robert bookwalker worked with the sheriff's department at the time. they were among the first on the scene. >> must have been some dead animal out there. >> i believe he said that. that's what they thought they would fine. >> but it wasn't a dead animal. the leg that was sticking out of the ground was decidedly human. and soon larry's daughter, tavia heard the news. >> i got a call from the sheriff's department. i felt myself get really hot and nauseous. and she said the body they found, the dental records, it was him.

and i remember i never swear and i yelled out this cuss word and i slammed down the phone and i just started shaking. it was a moment in time that i've never felt such anguish. >> and it's still raw even now. >> it is because i thought -- i don't know. i thought -- i guess i was hoping that he was in hiding. >> very fortunate that the body was discovered. now we can move on and investigate it as a homicide. >> tavia's hopes crushed. police had ample proof now, five months after he vanished, that larry had been murdered and left to rot out here in the middle of nowhere. >> there weren't any stab wounds or any bullet holes. >> there were no obvious signs of larry's cause of death. so they looked further and found something very unusual.

>> the medical examiner was able to find out that the cause of death was poison, a horse tranquilizer. >> that was strange. guess this. >> he had been dead for an extended period of 250i78. however, the body had not decomposed with the amount of time we were looking at. >> meaning? >> meaning that it was preserved. kept cold. >> the thing i thought about was where would the person that killed larry have access to a walk-in refrigerator. detectives wanted answers, is and so did larry's daughter, tavia, who sometimes believed she could hear her had father in her sleep. >> when i would go to sleep, i would wake up and i would hear him calling for me to help him. and i didn't know what to do. i didn't understand what was going on. >> sometimes people get a sense of knowing either what or who

was responsible. did you? >> i knew elisa had done something. >> larry's much younger wife, elisa, vanished a few months after she did. now that larry was dead, she was the prime suspect in his murder. >> sheriff deputies and the fbi finally tracked her down. in march 2002 in florida. >> she cut her hair short and changed her name. >> elisa was going by shane and was working at a law firm. >> she was a very smart person. she had i believe a 140 iq. >> she could talk anything into anything. >> right. >> but now that she was finally exposed for the con artist she was and was in custody, elisa decided to tell her story, starting at long last with her legal name. >> l.

a. r. e-n. my middle na is renee, r-e-n-e-e. >> and elisa, where did that come from? change or you just wanted a different name? >> no. i left florida. you know, i mean, i was a fugitive from florida. >> el had isa, or lauren, was from massachusetts and was a mother of two. she was wanted in florida on violation for a burglary and theft charge and had been on the run for nine years, she said. she eventually settled in las vegas where she met larry and by this time change her name to elisa. she told police that she was at the horse show in arizona when she found out police wanted to talk to her about larry. so she took off in her jaguar, drove from state to state.

where did you go at this point? >> just away. >> so with the preliminaries ow of the way, now came the big question. what happened to larry mcnabney. elisa, without hesitation and without even being asked, spilled the beans. >> and did i kill miss husband? yes, i killed my husband. >> there it was. no apology. no evasion. she simply confessed to killing her husband, larry mcnabney. but -- and this was a butt with a capital "b" -- that wasn't the whole story, not even close. wia capital "b" -- that wasn't the whole story, not even close. >> coming up, did elisa have help? >> yes. and i was freaking out. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues copd makes it hard to breathe.

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president trump ordered the fbi to investigate christine blasey ford's claims against

supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. and facebook says no words or credit card information was stolen when its computer network was hacked this week. information on nearly 50 million users was exposed. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. >> larry mcnabey's wife confessed to murdering her husband and bur rying his body. it would have been a straightforward case if not for what she told investigators next. she was a killer already, but did she act alone? >> there is purity to confession, a real cleansing of the soul.

now after months on the lamb, elisa mcnabney was finally in custody and off-loading the secrets of a lifetime. didn't hold back. yes, she killed larry, her husband of nearly seven years, she said. but it wasn't her idea. i said i don't know what i'm going to do. and she said, we have to kill him. and i said, i can't do that. she said? who was this other woman who pushed elisa to commit hurd? it turned out detectives had already talked with her. remember sara dutra, the young secretary elisa's friend who came in with her dog and had been so helpful to detectives after larry and elisa disappeared? now elisa was saying killing larry was sara's idea. >> i never would have thought that up on my own. >> elisa told the story this way. larry was a heavy drinker and

drug user. he was abusive, she claimed, and she feared for her life. one day she said she fieded in her young friends, sara, and sara said there was one thing to do, kill larry mcnabney. now in this three-hour long interview, elisa went into detail after gruesome detail of how she and sara did it. elisa and larry were at a horse show in las vegas and sara flew down to meet them, rather, elisa since larry didn't like sara, said elisa. >> what did you guys decide to do with him? him? >> we said if we kill him, no reason to miss him. >> were you going to do it that way or sometime in the future? >> right then. >> right then and there. >> yeah. >> that was september 9th, 2001. according to elisa, layer had passed out after imbibing a

little horse tranquilizer on his own, for fun. so sara decided, according to elisa, to just give him more. and no one would ever find out. >> oh, god. it seemed like a good idea at the time. but oh, my god, it's so horrible to think of taking someone's life. >> while larry slept, said elisa, she and sara squirted horse tranquilizer into his mouth. but larry didn't die. instead, the next day on september 10, larry got up, showed his horse, and then went right back to bed. >> the next morning, he's, like, lying there and i thought he was dead. so i wake sara up and i say, i think he's dead. and she said no, he's not dead. >> but he was so heavily drugged, he couldn't walk. >> so we went down the street and rented a wheelchair. and i got him dressed and put

him in the wheelchair. we put him in the back seat of the truck and we drove. >> this, by about the way, was september 11th, 2001, everyone else in the known world preoccupied elsewhere. elisa and sara driving north with larry slowly dieing in the back of the truck. >> we stopped in yosemite somewhere and sara got out and started digging a hole, okay. and i freaked out. >> she was controlling the whole event? >> yes. and i was freaking out. i said we can't put him in in respect he's alive. we can't do that. >> so, she said, they drove on. they thought larry would die in the car, but he didn't. so when they finally made it back to elisa's home in sacramento, larry was slipping

in and out of consciousness still alive. >> the sun starts coming out and sara is asleep. so i immediately go up up there and he was dead. >> that was the morning of september 12. >> and sara says, we can't have him lying here. so, you know, we take the sheet that he was lying on and we wrapped it around him. then we took duct tape and wrapped it around him. and he was, like, in a crouched position. and then, in my garage he had this wine refrigerator, you know, like a regular refrigerator, but he kept wine in it. so we took the wines out of it and we took the racks out of it and we put larry in it. >> they stuffed his body in the refrigerator until they decided what to do with it. >> we talked about burying him

in the backyard. we talked about burying him over at my trainer's. we talked about taking him and burying him in the desert. >> but they couldn't quite decide, so they kept larry's body in the refrigerator for three months. then they decided to the take it to las vegas. find some place there to bury it. >> how much does he weigh? >> weighed about a lot. >> i'm having a hard time seeing you two pick up this big guy. >> me, too. me, too. we laid the trainer tire down in front of the fridrefrigerator, backed the jag up close to the trailer tire. and it was only like that much difference. so then we just pushed -- >> off the tire into the trunk? >> exactly. and he was shaped like this, you know? so then we put him in the trunk and he was like this. and we closed the trunk and went up to las vegas.

>> en route to las vegas, with their two dogs in the back seat, larry in the trunk along with two shovels. once there, sara hung out at a hotel with the dogs. elisa went out looking for a brrial place for larry. but when she started digging, she said, the ground was too hard. >> and so i went back to the hotel and told her, i can't do it. and all this time he's in the trunk and the valet is parking us and it's not good, you know? >> so elisa said they drove back to california. and the next morning, at 4:00, she drove out to a vineyard, dug a hole and buried him. >> how doeep a hole did you dig? >> not deep enough, obviously. >> that was elisa's story. and just a few hours after she finished telling it, california detectives hauled in sara dutra, the alleged driver of the whole

plot. and her story? well, it was a little different. coming up, is sara dutra a cold blooded killer or an innocent who was just trying to survive? >> oh, god. i didn't want to end up like him. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues the new concentrated formula... ...gives you 30% more loads. no stretching, shrinking or fading. woolite. cares as much as it cleans. you don't want to live with mom and dad forever, do you? i'm making smoothies! how do i check my credit score? credit karma. don't worry, it's free. credit karma. give yourself some credit.

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encourage you to let the chips fall where the chips fall. do not protect elisa any more. don't protect yourself, either. just tell the truth. >> is she incriminating me somehow? >> sara dutra appeared confused, no little dog to keep her company now. her close friend, el is i a mcnabney confessed to murdering her husband and claimed that sara, just 21 years old at the time, not only helped with the murder, but was actually the driving force behind it. >> what do you think elisa is doing right about now? >> she is lying about what really happened. >> are you a cold blooded killer or are you somebody that got caught up in some stuff and made some mistakes? >> they confronted her with elisa's written confession. >> basically, it says i laren jordan along with sara dutra

planned to overdose larry mcnabney with horse tranquilizer. >> i never denied that conversation would happen but i never dreamt that she would carry it out and take me along with her unknowingingly. >> she's evil and she's trying to pull me down with her because she's been jealous of me. i know she has. >> explain that to me, then. why is she doing this? make me believe it, sara. >> because she's an evil person. anyone that would kill their husband is evil. >> sara dutra broke down and told detectives her side of the story. in this version, it was elisa, not sara, who was the cold blooded killer. it was elisa who ordered sara to bury him in yosemite even before he was dead. >> she said get out and grab the shovel and go check that ground. i said i don't want to do this.

i was -- >> elisa, who was eerily calm when larry finally did expire. >> and he was laying there on the ground. i said what is he laying on the ground for, you know? why is he not laying in bed? and she said he's dead. and i thought oh, my god. he's dead? what do you mean he's dead? >> that was the morning of september 12th after the long and harrowing drive home from the horse show in los angeles, said sara. and through her tears, she told the detectives how larry's body ended up in the refrigerator. >> put him in a sheet. oh, my god. i've never seen anything like this, okay? and she said, okay, grab the sheet. and then we carried him downstairs. and i'm like, what are you doing? we have to call the police.

this is not right. we are not calling the police. if you call the police, you'll be so sorry you did. >> this was the heart of the sara's version. she went along with the whole awful, crazy thing for one reason, she said. she was defendantly afraid of elisa. >> god. i didn't want to end up like him. >> was it possible an innocent, young woman in the tlaul of a con artist and killer? sara dutra seemed so frightened, so emotional. yet, thought the detective -- >> i felt a little bit over the top. >> she was a little over the top? >> yeah. >> i know. >> you mean she was acting, you putting it on? >> i believe so. >> after more than nine hours of questioning, sara dutra was arrested and charged with

larry's murder. it was a classic crime story. two killers, mutual finger pointing. and prosecutors knew she could use each woman's testimony against the other. an easy check mate. that is, until elisa took herself off the board. on march 30th, 13 days after her arrest, a jailer found her hanging by the neck in her cell. a suicide. >> a million questions for elisa. and now that door has been slammed shut. >> and now sara, left holding the bag, would face murder charges alone. coming up -- >> when you try only one defendant, it's very easy, as it was for sara dutra, to point the finger at the one who is not there. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues hydration collection.

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welcome back. sara dutra was behind bars charged with the murder of larry mcnabney. larry's wife, elisa, told decks they killed the attorney together, but insisted it was sara's idea. then elisa committed suicide, leaving sara to face trial alone. sara's defense claimed she was the pawn, forced to commit the horrendous act and it was elisa who was the real mastermind.

which story would the jury believe? here is keith morrison with the conclusion of "poison." >> it was the winter of 2003, more than a year after larry mcnabney was poirchbed with horse tranquilizer. his admitted killer, his wife, elisa mcnabney whose her own defendant the knee. and her alleged accomplice, sara dutra, alone faced the possibility of spending her life behind bars. >> you attended the trial every day. >> yes. 11 1/2 weeks. >> why? >> our da talked to us about the importance of our family being represented, that my dad not being forgotten. >> tavia believed that her father died at the hands had of both elisa and sara. but while sara admitted to being there when larry died and in the days and months that followed, she adamantly claimed she never went to the police because she

was so afraid of elisa and of ending up just like larry. a theory that even prosecutor thomas testa found, well, believable. >> when i first got this case, people in my office will tell you that's exactly what i was saying walking up and down the halls. >> poor sara. >> poor sara. but as i got deeper into the case, i totally turned around with this. but i started with that very mind-set. >> he reviewed the evidence in preparation for trial, he became convinced that sara dutra was, in fact, the woman in charge. >> sara did not like larry. she always accused him of being full of himself, talking about himself all the time, self-centered. she didn't like him. so larry didn't want sara around. sara did not like larry. >> you know, this sounds to me like two people who both love elisa and want each other out of the way. >> that was exactly it. it was a love triangle and one of them had to go. >> sara, said prosecutor t he

sta was was enjoying a very fancy life with elisa and larry was simply in the way. >> if your theory is right, these are two good time girls who have this great relationship and they're living off the proceeds of larry. why get rid of him? she was no motive. >> larry was elisa's golden goose, but elisa was sara's golden goes. and sara was about to be cut out of this whole triangle. larry had just told her two days before he was killed, you know, that he wanted her gone, he wanted her fired . >> so, said testa, it was sara who had the motive to kill larry. sara's lawyer, of course, saw differently. >> it seems like a classic instance of, you know, evil sort of wrapping around a sweet, young little baby. >> at the trial, defense attorney kevin portrayed elisa as a black widow, a

sophisticated con artist who wanted her husband dead. and sara was her innocent and terrified pawn. >> it was the most horrible thing i ever -- i didn't mean to do it, but not because i wanted to. not because i wanted to. i want you to know that. not because i wanted to. >> really? now prosecutor testa introduced ginger miller. remember her, the other secretary who worked alongside sara and elisa? she said in the days and weeks after larry vanished, elisa and sara seemed to feel anything but remorse. >> they're laughing together, they're stopping together, they're eating together, they're sleeping in the same bed together. she's saying at her house. >> they're not really working together, were they? >> they did. they would work maybe two hours a day. >> what did they do the rest of the time? >> shop, eat, go flirt with

boys. >> all the while spending the firm's money, a lot of money. >> elisa got a red jeg war. sara got a bmw. >> maybe more than friends. >> they bought matching underwear together. >> come on. >> no, the first week, they both were like, look what we bought. they were best friends. >> they were blowing through money so fast, they fell behind on rent payments for the law office, got evicted. so they moved the office into elisa and larry's home which can according to ginger now seemed more like elisa and sara's homes. >> up in the rooms, they had no clothes of larry's. the closet was cleaned out. and in the bathroom, hers and sara made the sinks hers and hers. >> like they knew he wasn't coming back? >> well, she said -- they were pretty much moving him out. >> not quite, because all this time, larry's body was still in

the garage, still in the refrigerator. and as for the idea that sara was an innocent child, elisa's puppet, that was nonsense, said ginger. >> everybody knows that she wasn't terrifieded of he. sara had as much say as elisa had in the whole situation. >> but at her trial, sara, the daughter of those devout christians sat quietly at the defense table, a wide eyed innocent. elisa wasn't around to be questioned, so her confession didn't get played. so the case against sara was entirely circumstanceal. >> it's first degree murder. >> yeah. >> but would the jury see it the way he did? after four days of deliberations, the jury found sara dutra guilty of voluntary man slaughter and an accessory to murder, not first degree murder. >> is she not been a young,

attractive, tall blond whose parents were clutching bibles crying in the first row, one wonders if this verdict would have been the same. >> sara dutra was sentenced to 11 years, served 8. and in the summer of 2011, at age 31, she was released. >> it's painful to know that such little time was given for such a horrific crime and one that seemed to premeditated to me and so thought out and so callous to the end. >> sara dutra did not respond to our interview request. and tavia, she told us she had forgiven sara as much for her own sake as anything. will i ever forget what she's done? never. but i don't want to have my whole life be their cruelty and the things they chose to do to him. i'd rather remember the loving

times we had together. and they're not going to take that away from me. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin thank you for watching . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> hopelessness. you know, where did she go? who did she see? i just wantsh to know what happened to my sister. >> a young mother is missing in a case gone cold. >> it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. b >> then detectives had an aha moment moment. to solve the case, they would attorney something you probably use every day -- facebook. >> why don't you establish a facebook account? i a