what are these things anyway? he says they're these little falcons. he goes they watch over the dead, jimmy, he goes they do. >> what if someone asked you to risk your life? >> what if i get shanked, what if i get killed. >> to go undercover into one of the country's most dangerous prisons. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> to help catch a killer. >> she had such a zest for life. >> young girls were being murdered.

>> i can't imagine sending my daughter off to school and never seeing her again. >> and investigators needed help to get a confession. >> you wanted to plant a snitch? >> yeah, exactly. >> but this snitch was different. he was already a convicted hood. >> if anybody could pull it off, he would probably be the one to pull it off. >> if it worked, he could win his freedom. if it didn't, he could lose his life. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> least you thought. >> that's what i thought. why would anyone volunteer to spend months behind the bars of a federal prison for the criminally insane?

what if it was a convict's one chance of escaping a ten year sentence and walking out of prison a free man? but before he would be sprung, he had a job to do in that special and especially dangerous prison. getting in was the easy part. getting out alive was much harder. two enemies who didn't trust each other faced off across a table. one of them in handcuffs was a clever con named jimmy keene. the other, a hard charging prosecutor. >> in court he called me the john gotti of kankakee. >> the prisoner was worried sick. the prosecutor that convicted keene and put him behind bars suddenly wanted to talk, a top secret meeting, no less. what more could he do to jimmy? >> he was the last person i expected to hear from. he was my biggest fear. >> but keene's fears went off the chart when the prosecutor, larry beaumont, slid an accordion file his direction. on top was a grisly photo of a dead girl. >> flip the next page, another

young dead mutilated girl. i am thinking whoa, wait a second. >> he is probably thinking at this point you're about to charge him with something else. >> yeah, because you know, i had be rough on him in the initial prosecution. >> jimmy was in the dark. he had no idea the crazy scheme beaumont had in mind. >> he says jimmy, listen, he says this is something that we have another person on, he has killed many, many young women, and i personally think you're the one that can help us with this. >> this turned out to be an investigation to try and catch a suspected serial killer. beaumont, an outside the box thinker, believed this convict, jimmy keene, was the one who could somehow crack the case, taking on a unique and deadly mission. >> i realized how serious it was and also realized the danger of it. >> what he couldn't know was how such a dangerous mission would change his world and the person he was forever.

if this all seems fodder for a hollywood movie, brad pitt would agree. the mega star who was benjamin button, then money balls billy bean is interested in playing none other than jimmy keene. >> brad pitt likes the fact that this guy jimmy keene risked his life to try to find what he could find. >> clearly this guy is one of a kind. charismatic, con seated, courageous and complicated. from an early age, had personality, charm, cockiness that made him dream a hollywood star might one day want to play him in the movies. his first big brush with fame came on the football field. >> everybody called you the assassin. >> in football. >> that was a good thing i take it. >> yes. i was taught by my dad at a young age, if you don't hit that guy first, he is going to hit you first. >> a superstar athlete and

mr. popularity in high school, jimmy seemed to have it all as a big fish in the river city of kankakee, illinois, a blue collar town south of chicago. >> i was most valuable player, i was captain of the team every year that i played. >> jimmy grew up in the shadow of his father, big jim, a giant of a man who was a cop, fireman and hero to his son. >> he is my best friend, you know, my backbone in pretty much everything i did. >> but all of keene's grand potential would be put in peril by a terrible choice he made as a teenager. he began selling drugs. he started small, pedaling bags of marijuana in this kankakee park, then expanded to cocaine. at the tender age of 17, he moved to chicago where the business and profits exploded. he was now a big fish in a bigger pond. lake michigan to be exact. he was his own in crowd, fast cars, faster women, and souped up living.

>> all the hot spots, nightclubs, owners i was in tight with. i would come in and have carte blanche every place i went to. >> were you feeling invincible? >> there was a point there was invincible feeling. >> did your pop know what you were doing, did he suspect? >> he didn't suspect until much, much later. >> it would be a rude awakening for his dad and jimmy that day in 1996 when jimmy was just relaxing at one of his chicago homes. >> all of a sudden kaboom, the whole door blew off the hinges, they come flying into the house, all of the dea, fbi and locals came in single file line with automatic weapons, pointed at me freeze, get on the ground. >> he had been caught in a drug sting, spearheaded by a hard nosed federal prosecutor, larry beaumont. >> we scooped him up in an operation that i ran, we called it operation snow ploy.

>> in court, beaumont showed keene no mercy. >> he was coming at you on all fours? >> oh, god, he was a bulldog. >> jimmy was convicted and slapped with a ten year sentence. >> it was a pretty stiff sentence. i knew he didn't expect ten years in that case. >> your father was in the courtroom. >> right. i knew i let him down, probably one of the biggest ways you could let somebody down. >> keene's future was bleak. he faced ten years away from his glamorous life, the fast women, the fancy cars, the big bucks. in 1998 just when all hope seemed lost, his old nemesis, beaumont, came to him with an offer of freedom, attached to that accordion file he slid across the table. in return, keene would have to agree to risk everything and become an undercover informant in one of the roughest prisons in the country, the maximum security lockup in springfield, missouri. it was a psychiatric prison with

both hardcore killers and the criminally insane. >> these people all have life sentences, they're all in there and they're crazy lunes and have nothing perfect to do than hurt you or kill you just for fun. >> if he accepted beaumont's offer, keene's target would be a suspected serial killer, a mysterious man in a van. coming up, every picture tells a story. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up, refused to look at the picture. >> when "the inside man" continues.

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several years before jimmy keene's arrest and conviction, his drug business was booming and his personal life as he tells it was nonstop fun and games. there are a lot of hot clubs here in the '90s. this is a place you were doing business as well? >> worked and played, yes. it was a good time. >> back then, he had no idea about the danger lurking 150 miles south and a life style away that would change his life forever. rural, tranquil illinois is where they were raising their 15-year-old daughter jessie and two other children, far removed from big city crime.

>> everybody knew who everybody was, so they were more conscious of what was going on usually. you could count on somebody to get after your kids if they needed it. >> in 1993, jessie was a high school sophomore devoted to home and family. >> jessie was really very much of a home body. so one bike ride up the road and back, she was done. then she would be watching "gone with the wind." >> one monday in september, jessie went out for a bike ride. but just minutes later, her sister noticed jessie's beloved bike down on its side in the middle of the road. >> not on the side of the road, middle of the road. she would put the kick stand up, never lay it down. immediately went down there, there's the bicycle. it is like i knew something was wrong. >> deputy sheriff gary miller was dispatched to the scene. >> the more we learned about the family and the girl's background, we just didn't feel she was staying away by choice.

>> the haunting image of a bike tipped over and abandoned terrified all of the investigators and of course jessie's family. >> i mean, you never lose hope for them not to come in. you still hope, but we knew she wasn't just going to walk away. >> after six weeks, jessie's parents' worst fears were realized. her body, beaten and sexually violated, was discovered in a corn field. >> it can never be easy telling a parent their child is dead. >> no, it wasn't, but at least we were able to tell them this is her, she's gone. we were able to erase all doubts. >> gary miller had a murder case to solve and it was now a federal case involving prosecutor larry beaumont as well, since jessie's body had been found across the illinois state line. for the next year, miller did lots of leg work, but to no avail.

>> every day you get up, are you thinking about this case? >> oh, every day. >> what have i missed? >> exactly. i know this case shook him from the beginning. he would check all leads that would involve all girls and run them down. >> then in late 1994, miller's persistence finally paid off. a man in a van had been reported chasing two teenager girls in jessie's hometown of georgetown. he traced that to larry hall from wabash, indiana, a three hour drive from georgetown. >> heartbeat picking up? >> thinking yeah, this has to be checked out. >> he learned hall was a gung ho union re-enactor that liked to fight fantasy battles. he immediately drove to wabash to interview hall who wasn't saying much. miller showed him a photo of jessie roach. >> when i put the picture down, he flinched, raised his arm up, turned in his chair and refused

to look at the picture. >> convinced larry hall was hiding something, miller became obsessed with making a case against him. days later, back in illinois, miller turned up a huge lead. he found witnesses who vividly remember hall from a revolutionary war re-enactment in the georgetown area the very weekend before jessie was abducted. to them, hall stood out for his bushy muttonchops side burns, but also for playing a soldier who was fighting the wrong war. >> he was wearing a civil war uniform and he had a civil war hat. >> at a revolutionary war re-enactment. >> exactly. >> armed with this new information, deputy miller returned to wabash for a second crack at hall. this time, he pressed his suspect harder, stressing that hall's fellow re-enactors had seen him near georgetown. >> he came along to the point he

said well, i go to so many re-enactments, i could have been there and don't remember because i go to a lot of them. >> he was giving more ground. >> right, yeah. >> miller sees the opening and kept at it. finally he said hall came clean and confessed that he abducted, sexually violated, and strangled jessie roach to death. >> how much detail did he give you about the killing of jessica roach? >> very good detail, what he actually did and what took place. >> not only that, miller says larry hall confessed to other killings, including a co-ed from indiana wesleyan university. >> he did say he was there. >> deputy miller didn't know much about tricia, he called on the local indiana police handling that case. but when marion detective jay kay and other indiana cops arrived, hall was suddenly

telling a much different story. he denied confessing to any killing, including jessie's and tricia's. what's more, he claimed it was all a misunderstanding about disturbing dreams he had. >> he takes me to a location in my dreams i strangled her and left her here. we searched the woods and area and never found anything. >> the indiana cops familiar with hall were not at all surprised by his actions. some of them like jay kay thought hall might be a wannabe, a pretender that gets his kicks confessing to crimes he didn't commit. >> is it possible he's simply obsessed with these cases but not involved? >> there's no doubt in my mind he does follow these cases, that he does read and is attracted to cases all over the country, you know, so the question does come is he a wannabe? >> deputy sheriff miller and prosecutor beaumont, however,

felt certain they had a real killer on their hands, a serial killer with a unique m.o. he would prey on young women and kill for real. >> the fbi were discovering girls missing at these various areas at the time larry hall would have been there. >> but the only case for which prosecutors had sufficient evidence was jessie roach's. larry hall was arrested in connection with her death, even though he denied making that confession to miller. hall went on trial in 1995. >> as a prosecutor, what's the best card you're holding? >> we had a statement, his confession, said he did it. >> beaumont called deputy sheriff miller to the stand to testify that hall had indeed admitted that he abducted and killed jessie after he spotted her with her bicycle. >> she was walking her bike at that point. >> miller testified that in his

confession, hall gave him a detail that only the killer would know, that jessie was not riding her bike but walking it, a safety precaution the roaches insisted she follow on their narrow road. >> that was never in the press that she was walking her bike that day. >> right. >> when you heard that, did that give more credence to the story? >> oh, yeah, that just sealed it for me, i knew, i knew that he was the one. >> a jury unanimously agreed. it took just three hours to convict larry hall. but prosecutor beaumont believed this was just the tip of the iceberg. he felt certain hall was a serial killer and now he had to find a way to prove it. so he began investigating tricia reitler's abduction, a case that wasn't his for a family he didn't know. >> i can't imagine sending my daughter to school and never seeing her again. >> and he came up with an outside the box scheme to get hall, which would risk the life

of that charismatic convict he had just put away for dealing drugs. jimmy keene. >> what happens when i have to deal with crazy killers and stuff, what if i get shanked, what if i get killed, am i going to survive this. coming up, a get out of jail free card with a price. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> least that's what you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> when "dateline" continues.

people typically don't admit murder, sexual assault and murders to police officers unless in fact they probably have done it, so it was clear we felt he was responsible for the tricia reitler disappearance. >> she had such a zest for life, and she walked in the room and everybody knew she was there. >> tricia reitler, a 19-year-old psych major at indiana wesleyan university was on the way to becoming a family counselor. >> her goal was to put families back together again. >> then in march, 1993, donna and gary reitler got that late night phone call every parent dreads. a cop from marion, indiana was on the line. said do you know where tricia is. in my heart i knew something was drastically wrong. >> tricia walked to an off

campus super market and never returned to her dorm. now nearly 20 years later, her parents are still waiting. >> you purchase a cemetery plot. >> yeah. >> no headstone. >> not until we find her. >> and we have no answers, and somebody out there, that's what eats at me, somebody out there has that answer for us. >> tricia reitler wasn't even prosecutor beaumont's case, but he was deeply moved by her parents. >> that was always a horrible crime to me. i knew about the facts of the case, and about the family. i didn't know the family but read about them, newspaper articles, accounts of them asking for help. >> beaumont felt certain that suspected serial killer larry hall was responsible. not only did hall live 25 minutes from indiana wesleyan, he had been identified chasing two co-eds there a week after tricia went missing. so in the summer of 1995, a month after convicting hall for jessie roach's murder, beaumont was leading a search for tricia. it was in those same indiana backwoods where hall had told indiana authorities he dreamt he killed and buried tricia.

>> i wanted to feel like i did everything i could to see if we could find her body. >> but after two days searching in sweltering heat and humidity, tricia's body didn't turn up. >> we couldn't find anything. doesn't mean it wasn't there. >> then beaumont decided to try something completely different. >> i came up with the idea of putting somebody in the prison cell with him to see if we could get him to tell us what he did with tricia reitler. >> you wanted to plant a snitch. >> exactly. >> they didn't think you were crazy? >> most people did think we were crazy. i was able to convince them we should do it anyway. >> enter jimmy keene, the drug dealer beaumont had just convicted and sent to a low security prison. why did he stick out in your mind? >> i knew he was kind of a con man, he was smart. i knew if anybody could pull it off, he would probably be the one to pull it off. >> he said you have been trained in martial arts and you can go

into a dangerous environment many can't and protect yourself in environment like that. >> in return, beaumont offered jimmy freedom. first, jimmy would have to exact more than a confession. >> i told him unless we found the body, he would get no credit. no body, you get nothing. >> jimmy was skeptical, he was a drug dealer, not a criminal profiler. he knew this was a mission impossible. he said no. but then fate intervened. jimmy's dad suffered a stroke. weeks later, frail and sickly, he came to visit jimmy. >> my dad was in a wheelchair. this was big jim, the man that was super man to me my whole life. we cried through the window for awhile and he talked. he didn't know about the offer. nobody knew. >> jimmy realized he had a one time only opportunity to fix the mess he made for himself and get out while his dad was still alive. >> as soon as we were done with the visit, i called my lawyer, said tell beaumont i'm going to take him up on his offer. >> the mission was on.

so on august 3rd, 1998, federal marshals escorted jimmy into the psychiatric prison. >> once they stepped out the door, i was on my own. >> jimmy's cover story was that he was a convicted weapons runner whose 40 year sentence pushed him over the edge and landed him in the psych prison. a psych prison filled with killers. his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, couldn't protect him, nor could his outside lifeline, a female fbi agent who visited as his girlfriend to monitor his progress. >> i did have a hot line to her, too, if i got caught in a dangerous situation, i could get a hold of her. the deal was, they would have me out in 24 hours. >> they had your back. >> they had my back. >> least that's what you thought. >> that's what i thought. >> when keene's mission began, it was all about him, his shot at freedom. he had few feelings, if any, about tricia reitler or her family. all he wanted was to get in and

out with tricia's location and as fast as possible. day one, breakfast in the mess hall. jimmy zeroed in on larry hall. >> i was waiting with my tray, look over, there he is, 20, 25 feet from me, sitting there all by himself. it felt like a magnet was compelling me to come to him. finally i bumped shoulders with him on purpose. >> jimmy explained he was a brand new inmate needing directions to the library. hall obliged. >> kind of slapped him on the shoulder, said thanks a lot, i appreciate that from a cool guy like you. >> after that, they occasionally talked. but the next step came when jimmy was invited to join hall's breakfast club. >> this in the prison system, that's a big thing of who you're invited to have your breakfast with. >> keene thought he was making progress. but then prison politics got in the way. >> i left out of the chow hall one morning and a few big muscular guys came up to me, said hey, old man wants to talk

to you right now, right now he wants to talk to you. >> the old man was celebrity mafiosi, known as the godfather who used to wander new york city in his bathrobe, pretending to be nuts. >> he goes hey, boy, what's wrong with you, what's wrong with you. what are you hanging around them baby killers for? he goes you hang with us from now on. he goes you hang around those people, maybe somebody comes up, puts a knife in your back. he would be at my cell early morning, jimmy, get up, get up, we're going to play bocci. i said what about breakfast? he said we will play first. >> it was taking up his valuable time, making it hard to talk to hall. then he learned hall's favorite show was america's most wanted. so one saturday night in the tv room, jimmy would make a daring move, putting his body on the line, just to gain larry's trust.

coming up, jimmy's new best friend shares a nightmare. >> it was probably the hardest thing i've done in my life to listen to this kind of stuff and not just rip him apart. >> when "the inside man" continues.

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by fall of 1998 after several months in missouri's toughest federal prison, jimmy keene could have won a popularity contest. he charmed everyone just as beaumont knew he would. he even won over some convicts with his lending library of pornographic magazines. and he managed to play indicate

the chin and mob faction by day while circling his prey, hall with one on one bull sessions at night. >> talked about normal things, hung out. made him feel like i was wanting to be his friend. >> but it wasn't fast enough for keene who feared someone might recognize him and blow his cover. >> if you went by the fbi's technical terms, i was pretty much staying on pace. but from my point of view of being in this place, it was starting to get very hard. >> on the outside, the mission mastermind, larry beaumont, could only sit and wait for secondhand news on how this crazy scheme of his was going. >> were you pacing the floors waiting for updates during this? >> i don't know if i paced the floors, but i was eager to get updates. i had information they were starting to trust him, they were talking, that kind of thing. >> but beaumont had absolutely no idea a breakthrough moment

arrived. it was a saturday night. keene and hall were in the prison's tv room, watching "america's most wanted" again. >> here comes a big prisoner, big muscular, buff guy. he walked to the tv, turned the channel. hall looks at me, quietly mumbles under his breath, hey, that's not right, i was watching that. i thought this is a prime opportunity for me. >> jimmy, a martial arts expert who continued working out in prison was ready for this moment. he got up and changed the channel back. >> he jumped up, slobbering all over. you turn that channel again i'll rip your hand off, you don't touch that tv, going on all crazy and stuff. turns the channel, sits back down. i just looked at him, i turned the channel again. he jumped up, starts cussing at me. i finally threw a particular cuss word at him that i knew would set him off. as soon as i did, he took a wild

hey maker swing as me, i kicked him through two or three rows of chairs and beat him to a pulp. >> hall had a ring side-view of that event. after ward, he staunchedly defended him as retaliator, not instigator. >> i became his new best friend and hero. >> jimmy could sense his heroics brought him closer to hall. he was ready to make a bold move. in the prison library, jimmy figured out a strategy to draw hall out on tricia reitler. >> i noticed he was reading his hometown newspaper. and that was really important eventually for me to crack into his psyche. >> even though the goal was tricia's body, jimmy decided to ask first about something already public knowledge. hall's conviction in the jessie roach case. jimmy fibbed his mother lived near wabash and read about jessie's case and other stories involving hall.

>> she gets that newspaper from that hometown where you're from. i said all the newspaper stories say you killed multiple women. >> that was a big risk though. >> it all was a big risk. i said larry, i don't care what you're in here for, be honest to me, that's all. tell me what happened. i'm still going to be your friend no matter what. i said i had girls do me wrong in my life, i understand how girls can get under your skin and be bothersome to you. >> jimmy pressed hall about roach. at last, hall began to open up recalling that september day in 1993. >> he was driving a back country road, seen her walking her bicycle. >> hall then told jimmy exactly how he abducted and killed jessie. >> you must have been revolted. >> oh, god, lester, it was probably the hardest thing i've had to do in my life, sit there, pretend to be his friend, to listen to this kind of stuff, and not just rip him apart.

but i knew what the mission involved, i knew what was at stake for me, i knew what was at stake for the people's families, still trying to find their daughters. >> a major transformation was taking place. jimmy was starting to care about more than just himself. and now he was determined to squeeze the most crucial confession out of larry hall and not just for himself, but for the family of tricia reitler. >> i started thinking i don't know where this is still going to lead, how long this is going to take, but something is now happening. >> coming up. a disturbing discovery. has jimmy keene solved the mystery of the missing girls? >> i go what are these things anyways. >> he said they watch over the dead, jimmy, they do. >> and coming up next friday on "dateline."

jimmy keene's five months of hell, five months making nice to a killer he despised finally paid off. hall had described in gruesome detail how he murdered jessie roach. >> i open that door, he's feeling that he can trust me enough now. >> but jimmy felt he needed to wait a bit before going for the goal line. >> how did you brooch tricia reitler? >> i had to slowly keep prodding, i didn't want him to think i was carrying on. >> he plotted the next move. days later, he thought the time was right. he tried that hometown newspaper ploy again. >> i said the newspapers say you killed this girl from the college over here.

i says what happened there? >> jimmy couldn't be sure how hall would react. had he been too blunt, too direct? no. it was all clicking. according to jimmy, hall began to open up about tricia and said he drove his van right up to her that day he saw her outside school. >> he said he tried to kiss her and when he did, she started fighting very violently. he said she was a very strong girl and she fought stronger than anybody fought before. >> did he admit it? >> he said he had killed her and he knew he had done it again, these are his words, that he knew he had done it again, and he said he went way out in the woods and buried her way out in the woods. >> hall gave a general location for tricia's body, near a river in indiana. but jimmy needed more specific information. luckily, he seemed to stumble into it a few nights later when he spotted hall inside the prison woodshop, a restricted area.

>> there's nobody at the door, no guards or anything. i went in there, and as i came up from behind him, he had all these little different statues lined up, 10, 15 of them maybe. i couldn't tell what they were at first. as i got closer, i noticed he had a big map laid out. he drove on the map, folded it fast, slid it to the side of the table. i go what are these things anyway? he said they're these little falcons, they watch over the dead, jimmy, they do. >> and they look like? >> a good size chess piece. >> jimmy had a strong feeling his wood carved falcons and map were journal keeping by a serial killer. >> that map had little red dots over it of illinois, indiana, wisconsin. you would look down at this map, you could see all the little spots are burial spots where he's got somebody. >> all those months of dangerous, painstaking work paid off. jimmy had cracked the case. mission accomplished. >> once you see the map, the falcons, you want to tell the fbi about it, right? >> i did. i went to the hotline i had for the fbi girl. i called. i got some type of voice recording, it was after hours. >> so jimmy left a message for his fbi contact to come get him, the map and the falcons.

>> i did. i went to the hotline i had for the fbi girl. i called. i got some type of voice recording, it was after hours. >> so jimmy left a message for his fbi contact to come get him, the map and the falcons. his freedom and the answers to tricia's parents' prayers were now just hours away. >> i was elated. i felt i wrapped this up. >> you're expecting troops to come marching in. >> expecting troops to come marching in. didn't quite work that way. >> what he couldn't know was his fbi contact didn't get his voice mail, and his one inside contact, the chief psychiatrist, was on vacation. >> then you got full of yourself, didn't you. >> i did. i went back to my cell, was happy. 24 hours they said they would have me out of here, i got what they need, this was it. i went across to his cell there. >> impulsively, jimmy decided he

couldn't leave prison without giving his fake friend a piece of his mind. >> the repulsiveness i felt through the whole time i had to stay being his friend, the disdain and dislike i had for him, i thought it was good for me to unload on him, tell him what i thought of him and who he really was. i said i'm going home tomorrow, larry. i said you're a crazy killer. i started calling him everything you could think of. >> with that, jimmy returned to his cell and waited to be released. >> you're going home the next day, you think, and things take another turn. >> about 5:30 in the morning, hear some little lady in a white doctor smock come walking in. >> it was hall's psychologist, and she was furious jimmy blasted her patient, turning him into an emotional wreck. >> she told the guards, grab him, throw him in the hole. they put me in the hole, keep me in there. i am not worried. thinking so what. fbi will be here, they told me 24 hours, they'll have me out of here.

>> morning turned into afternoon turned into evening. the cavalry hadn't arrived. this was hard time at its hardest. >> you can't see if it is day or night because you're in the hole. you can tell what time of day it is by the meal. >> breakfast lunch dinner. then breakfast, lunch, i am thinking where are these guys. my thoughts were they did me wrong. they got what they needed, got the info, pulled the rug out from under me. >> while jimmy was wondering where they were, beaumont was looking for him, too. >> we were like where could he be? he is in prison for god's sakes. >> they lost you. >> they lost me. >> but had they also lost their best chance at finding the body best chance at finding the body of tricia reitler? proposition 11 solves two issues.

first, it continues to pay paramedics while we're on break. second, it ensures the closest ambulance can respond if you call 9-1-1. vote yes on 11. "look what she's accomplished... she authored the ban on assault weapons... pushed the desert protection act through congress, and steered billions of federal dollars to california projects such as subway construction and wildfire restoration." "she... played an important role in fighting off ...trump's efforts to kill the affordable care act." california news papers endorse dianne feinstein for us senate.

california values senator dianne feinstein proposition 11 "proposition 11 is a vote to protect patient safety." it ensures the closest ambulance remains on-call during paid breaks "so that they can respond immediately when needed." vote yes on 11. larry beaumont successfully snuck informant jimmy keene into springfield prison in 1998. he just didn't expect to lose him there. >> goes off your radar. >> yeah, disappeared. couple weeks we didn't know what happened to him, trying to find out, we were getting frantic. >> two weeks later, only after keene's psychiatrist returned from vacation did they finally find jimmy. >> i knew the fbi was there, and she kept apologizing, kept saying i am really sorry,

something happened with the message. >> at last, investigators got to search the woodshop and hall's cell, but by then, the map and falcons, items jimmy believed could lead to tricia, were gone. >> what were you thinking telling larry hall you're out of here and dressing him down? >> people wouldn't understand the mounting pressure, that kettle is ready to boil over at any time, you know, and it felt good to unload on the guy. >> the problem as i see it, you've unloaded on him, he knows you're against him, but nobody has that map. >> right. i am disappointed i didn't wait another day or two at least. i should have waited a few more days. i wish i could have done more for them, but i did all i could do. i feel in my being i did all i could do. >> meantime, the people that would benefit the most from a successful mission, tricia's parents, only learned about the secret operation ten years later in 2008 when the story came out

in a playboy magazine article. the reitlers are thankful for jimmy's courage and corroborating details he said he got from hall, but they're furious he blew his cover before finding their daughter. >> why would you have been so close. >> yeah. >> and then give it up like you did. >> i try not to dwell on that at all because it eats at me and it's very hard to deal with that he was that close. >> jessie roach's parents find small consolation in that jessie was the victim that tripped up hall. >> if something good could possibly come out of losing jessie, it's the fact that he is in prison and he will never get released. >> hall, 49, remains in federal prison with no possibility of parole. in recent years, he actually has made more murder confessions to reporters and investigators.

>> i sincerely believe that there are young girls out there somewhere who are alive today because larry hall is in prison. >> do you think he killed before? >> i think he killed before and i think he would kill again. >> jimmy did tell beaumont that hall had killed again, but there was no documentation. it was just jimmy's word. so to be sure, the prosecutor made him take a lie detector test and jimmy passed with flying colors. >> he was telling us the truth, so bottom line is we had further information that larry was responsible for tricia. >> a grateful beaumont decided to reward him with full credit for his brave undercover work, releasing him from prison, and scrubbing his criminal record clean. >> from his perspective, he expected to get nothing. from our perspective, of course, he spent time in the looney bin with this guy, going through this whole process. >> for 15 years, jimmy had been the only one to see those falcons that hall said watched over the dead.

>> problem is we never got them, they disappeared, we don't know what happened to them. >> you've never seen the falcons? >> no. >> show you a picture. that's one of the falcons. >> "dateline" took pictures of a falcon when we met larry hall's twin brother. he said larry carved that falcon in the woodshop at the springfield prison, then mailed it to their mother. i showed a photo of that falcon to beaumont and jimmy. >> what's it like for you to see that after all these years? >> it's definitely bizarre, but it's also reassuring to me, lester, i'll tell you why. now these falcons backs everything i said. that's exactly what it looked like. >> after becoming a free man in 1999, jimmy got to spend five more years with a father he idolized before big jim passed away. and he's kept his nose clean, not wasting his incredible opportunity. >> he sees the hall experience as something that gave him a second chance at life.

>> he's done well in real estate and co-wrote a book, "in with the devil," that tells jimmy's compelling story of redemption. he says he is working on several hollywood projects, most notably, the movie version of his book, academy award winning producer of "the departed" owns film rights. and brad pitt is interested. >> but jimmy is especially proud he says his book re-energized some cold case investigations, several targeting hall in indiana and wisconsin. at least one near a civil war re-enactment site. investigators dug up locations where hall spent time over the years and found articles of women's clothing and a belt modified with wooden handles, all sent out for dna testing, but cold case detectives following fresh leads still haven't developed enough evidence to bring charges.

there would be no cold case files open if it wasn't for me. i did a good deed and did a lot of good things, that's where i feel the redemption comes in. i have done something good for the things i did wrong. i am being followed. there are threats on my life. i know we're in danger. i know we are. it's a riveting mystery that started in a place of glamour. >> it became a destination for frank sa gnat ra. >> and ended in a case of murder. the wealthy heir to this legendary hotel dead. >> he was my father. he is the only father i ever knew. >> now police said she was next. someone in the shadows gunning for her.

>> my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. >> so, who was behind all this? plenty of suspects and plenty of motives, anger, jealousy, greed. someone had 10 million reasons to kill. >> we look back and said, my god, i couldn't believe what i saw. >> you're not going to believe it either because in this case, there is a final terrifying twist. >> i see them with a crowbar. >> will you see it coming? and this is "dateline." tonight, family affair.

>> if ever there was a little girl lost, it was maya bod. >> from when i was little, i was always in the way. >> she survived a mother/daughter relationship quite unlike any you've ever heard. >> my mother is like trying to hug a cactus. you will eventually get hurt. >> and if the intersection of blood and money intrigues you, pull up a chair and stay awhile because there's plenty of both just ahead in this story. >> it's really an amazing, unusual, frightening story. >> what ended so badly in a darkened hotel room with the curtains drawn, has its beginnings really in the warm sands of south florida.

♪ not the south beach of today with its hot bodies and pulsating dance clubs. that's all a marketing reinvention of a much-older miami beach. no, we need to go back 50 years or more when caddies with tail fins were pulling into the newest, glitziest hotel on the east coast. the fountain blue. >> miami should be a great city. >> a hotel wheeler dealer ben novak built it and they came. steven gaines wrote about it in his book "fool's paradise". >> it became a destination for the major stars who were performing at the fountain blue and lots of movies were shot there as well. >> novak was the king. he found a queen in a former coca-cola model named bernice with her beauty and effortless charm, bernice turned out to be the perfect host es to greet the celebrities, gangsteres and just plain guests who made the fountain blue the scene of the

day. king ben and queen bernice lived in a penthouse suite. then along came their prince, ben novak jr. >> he was a spoiled kid. he was a brat. >> ben jr., don't call him benji would be trotted out to shake hands of the likes of the jfk then back up to the hotel elevator. >> the kids who came to the birthday party, were complete strangers to him. just kids who were passing through the hotel. >> the friendless, lonely boy lost himself in the fantasy world of batman. the superhero became an obsession. even as an adult, ben jr. was still amassing a floor to ceiling collection of batman memorabilia. he bought an old bat mobile. just as the rat pack faded away, so too did the fountain blue. by the late '70s, miami beach was regarded as a stale place for old people. ben novak sr. lost the hotel to

bankruptcy and died not long afterwards. the son, ben jr., all grown up now, stayed in the hospitality business and made his mark. >> he created a company ran out of his home here that organized conventions in big hotels. like his father, he was a hard-nosed businessman. and in time, he was grossing $50 million a year. and like his father, he needed someone like his mother to mix and mingle with the clients. he found that woman in a lady from ecuador. her name is narcy and she had a little girl named may. >> my mother is a lot of fun. you know, she definitely partied. >> when ben jr. met her, she was partying for tips as a stripper in a sleesy miami club, supporting herself and her little girl. >> she did very well with it, i guess?

>> she did very well. my mother is a survivor. she adjusts to pretty much anything. >> narcy left behind her stripper pole to marry ben jr. she felt like excess baggage. she was dispatched to boarding school at the age of 8. >> did you feel you had been shipped off? >> kind of. >> you had a tough childhood. >> best thing is that it's over. >> ben jr. and her mother lived in a $2 million ft. lauderdale estate with a boat out back. his elderly mother bernice lived not far away. but may, the stepdaughter, was never going to be a rich man's trust fund kid. she grew up tough and hard, estranged from her mother, paying her own way with bar tending and waitressing jobs. she had two children young and sweated the bills. it was the grandchildren that ultimately thaws some of the ice between mother and daughter. >> she may have been a horrible mother, but she was the best

grandmother. she did everything with them. >> and ben jr. warmed to may. the one time lonely prince belatedly seemed to recognize a kindred spirit in lonely negligented may. >> she saw me as his daughter and i saw him as my father. he had no children of his own. >> ben, after his own stunted childhood, finally found in his grandchildren some kids who wanted to play with all his batman stuff. >> he did a lot of the grandfather things with them. a lot of, i think, why we saw so much of each other was because of those two boys. >> when she was in her late 20s, ben jr. asked may to become part of his very successful convention organizing business. she would work alongside her mother and his mother bernice. it had taken 20 years, but they were finally becoming a family. >> you know, when i actually became older and got into the business, he was always there, guided me and showed me how to do things. >> then sadness. in the spring of 2009, bernice in her late 80s slipped and taken a nasty fall getting out of her car.

she struggled to the house and died. may thought the time had come. for years ben had been asking her to consider becoming his legally adopted daughter. she thought it would be the perfect father's day gift for him. >> i started thinking, bernice had just passed. and it would be something nice for him, you know, to be like, okay, you do have a daughter. because i do feel like i am his daughter to this day. so it never got legally changed. all the paperwork is still on his desk. >> it never got attended to because of the brutal event three months after bernice's passing. ben, narcy and may were putting on a big convention in hotel in new york. just after 7:30 sunday morning, july 12th, 2009, the last day of the convention, hotel security got the urgent call. something very bad had happened in one of the suites. a 58-year-old man had been found

bound and bludgeoned to death in the bedroom. ben novak jr., the one-time prince of the fountain blue had been murdered. so then, who might want ben novak dead? place, the xfinity xfi gateway.

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one of the suites had become a homicide scene. sergeant terry wilson from the local police would lead the investigation. >> i couldn't believe what i saw. i went in the room and there was the victim, hog tied on the floor. and it was a bloody mess. >> what does that tell you? >> this was a targeted individual. >> was it true that his eyes were also gouged out? >> yes. yes. >> sergeant wilson learned that the victim was ben novak jr., a name that meant nothing to him. the murdered man's wife and stepdaughter had been escorted to a nearby hotel room so investigators could take their statements. the wife of 20 years, narcy, told sergeant wilson that her husband had been up all night working on convention details and didn't go to bed, she thought, until about 6:30 in the morning. she then gone downstairs around 7:00 a.m. to oversea getting

breakfast organized for the convention guests. >> could you verify for instance that the wife was indeed at the breakfast by a security camera. >> yes. we did have our own video confirm what she was saying. >> the stepdaughter, may abad who managed the company money on these road trips confirmed her mother's story of coming down to pitch in with breakfast. >> i was thinking, there is a lot of people. there is 2,000 people down here. i'll take any help i can get. >> after the breakfast rush, narcy says she called her husband up in the room, no answer. >> then she comes back up around 7:30 or o so and finds him. >> yeah. >> she told the detective she tripped over the body, bolted 23r9d room shrieking for help. >> our security guard was holding narcy at the end of mr. novak's feet and narcy was continuing to lunge towards the body, howling and screaming at the top of her lungs. >> when narcy told police about the timeline of the. >> her card was used to get in the room from 7:40, but just after midnight -- >> no activity up to that point. >> no activity opening to go into the door. that right away tells you that then the door opened from the

inside. >> if narcy had been downstairs helping with breakfast, and no key other than the wife's had opened the door since midnight, who then had admitted the killer or killers? an early on mystery. may meanwhile had been summoned by the hotel manager to her stepfather's suite. >> i asked them, what happened? and they're just like he's gone. you know. and i'm like, what do you mean he's gone. try -- go do something. >> the hotel guards wouldn't let her in the room. >> one security officer was talking to another once. he said it's a blood bath in there. >> a blood bath that sent her mother into hysterics. >> she is emotional, whaling, tears? >> she is throwing herself on the floor. then she said, i think they're after all the convention money. it had to be a robbery. they know we carry a lot of money.

somebody must have been watching us. >> unusually ben novak's convention business ran on cash, bags of it. the exhibiters would turn over their dollars to the stepdaughter may and her assistants on site. this weekend they had taken in more than $100,000. now, that money wasn't being kept in a hotel safe behind the front desk. rather, it was stashed in closets, under the beds of the staff members. question, had an insider who knew how they had gone about their business decided to rip off the company by torturing ben to cough up the cash? >> they had around 110,000 in cash. >> you're in motivation country right now, right? >> we're trying to figure out, what's going on. >> they didn't get anything from him. so of course i'm scared. you know, not just for myself but for the staff. >> and if someone had been roaming the hotel hallways with money and murder on their mind, there were 2,000 potential suspects. a detective's might mare. >> we decided we were going to

down load the locks of the entire hotel. >> you're kidding? with the comings and going of every guest. >> 450 rooms. it took him two weeks to do it. >> the hotel was bristling with security cameras, but unfortunately for the investigators none in the hallway outside the murder room. one of the first things the cops did was round up all that cash and get it stored in the hotel safe until the bank's opened in the morning. then sergeant wilson posted a guard at the hotel room being shared by the mother and daughter. before that sunday night was over, the two women would have another round of questioning with the detectives. >> if they totally grill med. you get mad. so of course i was fighting back. >> they were asking you the questions, did you do this? >> correct. you know, one of the cops told me, we have to ask these questions. i'm like, do you have to get like right here and ask the questions? >> a veteran west chester county detective named alison had joined the investigation and led some of the questioning. >> may, the daughter, what did you make of her?

>> pretty much i got the feeling that she was being honest with me, but you never know. people are deceptive. >> the p kos went through narcy's story once again. hoping for some overlooked detail or investigative nugget. >> she is a grieving -- all of a sudden widow. >> exactly. we need that information. she's the last person that saw mr. novak. >> narcy told detectives there was something of value missing, a gold bracelet that spelled out ben's name in diamonds. an expensive rolex watch was still on the bed lying in a pool of bed as well as an unexplained broken stem from a cheap pair of sunglasses. and then there was the matter of her husband's huge batman collection and a rare comic valued at $43,000 he was planning on selling that weekend. >> batman might have a motivation for murder, his passion in life. >> uh-huh. >> he had a valuable comic and somebody else wanted it. >> correct. >> wanted the value of it. >> correct. >> sunday was over.

on monday, the cops would hear about the novak's tie me up sex games. on monday, when mother and daughter started to go for one another's throats. coming up -- >> they should have been united in grief. instead, there would be a feud sparked by a single troubling moment. >> i'm sitting there, my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute. >> when "dateline" continues.

♪ who had bound, gagged and bludgeoned to death ben novak jr.? >> it was overwhelming. to see it and just thinking, oh my god. >> in this case, the detectives thought vikt mology would play a big role. figuring out his friends and families, his enemies. >> this is the address here. >> detective alison along with detective terry wilson would eventually piece together an unflattering family portrait. >> we didn't know an affair, domestic, just a random act. >> they cobbled together the story of ben jr., the wealthy

>> on the monday after the sunday morning murder, police took narcy and her daughter to the morgue to identify ben jr.'s bo dpi. that's when may started to get the creeps about what had happened. watching her stone-faced mother watch. >> i'm throwing up in a garbage can. detectives are right there and everything else and we all turn around and she is just staring at him. there was no emotion at all from her. >> that monday, late into the night, narcy and her daughter we

are interrogated by the detectives. >> i should have been there. and i wish i got killed with him. >> detective alison broached the sensitive subject of the sex life. with the male detective out of the room, detective alison managed to win narcy's trust. narcy confided that ben was into bondage. >> and when he let you tie him up, does he like his hands behind his back or in front? >> he likes his hands at the back because -- >> hearing he had been tied up in the homicide, did you think, is this a sex game gone wrong? >> we brought it up to her and i confronted her with that during the interview. >> ben is found in a way that he enjoys sexually -- >> no, no, no, no. when i left ben -- >> uh-huh. >> he was not tied up. >> i just found it odd that the way he finds pleasurable he is killed in the same way. >> because she was the spouse, the questions for narcy got sharper as the night wore on. was she in on the murderer? >> if i'm being asked if i let anybody in, no i don't let them in. >> all the while may had been outside eves dropping on her mother's interrogation, getting chills. >> may said to me that somebody told her it was a blood bath. i don't remember anything blood. blood is red. >> just listening to her talk to detectives, nothing was making sense. >> when she heard her mother describe tripping over the body and reaching down to touch ben, alarms went off.

she had seen her mother shortly after that. >> i'm looking at her and there's no blood on her. >> in a scene that was described to you as a blood bath. >> as a blood bath, correct. i'm looking at her from head to toe -- >> you don't see any evidence. >> i don't see any evidence on you. >> what are you thinking? >> my suspicions are growing and growing by the minute and i'm thinking that i am this horrible human being thinking that my mother could do anything like that. >> for 14 relentless hours, homicide detectives tried to pin back nar vi novak's ears, grilling her as though she master minded her husband's murder. >> did you have anything to do with your husband's death. >> no. >> she never ate anything. she never drank anything. and she never went to the bathroom. the detectives would come in, question her, she would just keep flowing, nothing phased her. >> question, had ben hired a

kingky escort girl to tie him up? narcy scoffed at the idea and told the detectives to tone it down. >> i want you have compassion, please. have mercy. if there is an electrical chair and i'm a suspect, give it to me right now. put me out of my misery. i want to die. >> shortly after 9:00 p.m., detective alison brought up the idea of a lie detector test. >> i take a hundred lie deck te tors, i do whatever you want me to to. >> at this point i'm hoping i am completely wrong. if she passes, i'm going crazy in my own head. >> may also agreed to be polygraphed but then narcy got cold feet about taking hers. >> and the daughter is saying to her daughter, what is wrong with you. why don't you just take the lie detector test? what's the problem? >> the mother finally agreed to the polygraph. may would pass her test but -- >> how did the lie detector test go for narcy?

>> it didn't go well. >> she flupged it all the way through. >> yes. >> when the cops were finally done with the two of them for the night, may confronted her mother. >> i asked her to her face -- >> what, did you have something to do with this? >> i did. i got in her face and they had pictures of like the crime scene and stuff and i smacked them in her face. >> you think your mother killed ben jr.? >> i think she definitely had something to do with it. you know, i didn't think she did it herself personally. >> the cops had only started to peel back the many layers of the novak family story. there was still so much about these people they didn't know. turns out, there were a few things may herself didn't know. but when we come back, she is about to find out. >> i see my mother coming at me with a crowbar. >> when family affair continues. ♪

the cops were going through hours of hotel security cam footage looking for what, they weren't exactly sure. the footwork team of a homicide investigation was under way. >> we're leafing the doors open as far as we're concerned. everything is on the table until the investigation stalls or someone is arrested. >> the body of the ben novak jr. was with the medical examiner. mother and daughter attached now by blood only returned to florida separately. may had her own agenda, telling the cops she would help them any way she could.

he knew he didn't have enough to charge her with her husband's death, at least not yet. she had an alibi for the assumed time of the murder. the case against her was circumstan shall. then out of nowhere, an unanimous letter fluttered on to the desk of a detective 1,000 miles away from the crime scene. miami springs, florida,

investigators, gary personally knew nothing of the ben novak case and his department wasn't involved. >> there's people obviously that heard the name and knew about him, the fontainebleau and all. i wasn't one of them. i didn't know anything about it until i talked to detective wilson in new york. >> the letter, written in spanish, was nothing less than a blueprint to the murder. naming names, siting motivations. >> this is shocking and it could be a big break. >> sergeant wilson up in west chester couldn't wait to see it. >> whoever wrote this letter obviously had information, inside information. >> looking back, that letter had the whole story. the greed, inheritance, the obstacles in the way of the inheritance. >> the facts in that letter were on the money. >> here is the gist of the letter. it claimed narcy's brother had hired thugs to kill ben novak jr. sergeant wilson and his team paid an unannounced visit to the brother at his place in philadelphia. >> we apparently had caught him off guard and he told us to sit down and he would be more than

happy to answer any questions we had. as we sit down, we sit at this kitchen table and on the kitchen table is littered with papers. >> wilson and another detective spied something atop the heap. >> there's west earn union receipts. this is all out in the open. this is too good to be true. like pinch me. and we're holding a conversation with him trying to not focus on the table because we don't want to draw attention to it. >> when narcy's brother briefly left the room, sergeant wilson's partner furiously copied down, names, dates and receipt numbers. why would narcy's brother, bus driver, just scraping by be wiring loads of money to one particular person in miami? >> one of the names on the receipt is garcia, right? >> alejandro garcia. >> sir name of garcia in -- >> yes, sit. >> they began running it all

down. and security cameras picked up narcy's brother wiring the money in philly. no luck in getting pictures of this garcia guy picking up the money. so they moved on to the brother's cell phone records and found frequent calls to a woman in miami. turns out the phone belonged to garcia's ex-girlfriend and he had been using it. they talked to her. >> the big break came she said he had a defective eye. >> a garcia with a bad eye. the data base search was narrowed. >> now we have some sort of physical description to see if this individual was arrested and lo and behold he was. >> garcia with a bum eye pops up. >> and that's him. >> and we get a photo. >> now the detectives were on a roll. with alejandro's garcia mug shot before them, they rerack the security tapes before the day of the murder. >> this is the main entrance. here they come.

>> bingo. there was garcia in the dark shirt with somebody else. his exboyfriend said he always wore sun glasses to protect his bad eye but he wasn't wearing them on that day. >> you see the two of them walking very fast out. alejandro with the bag. alejandro doesn't have his glasses on anymore. >> with the broken frame which is are now -- >> well, apparently as the victim reacts to assault, he hits alejandro in the face, breaking the glazs. the glasses fall on to the bed. >> they rewound the tapes even further back to the first day of the convention and there they were again. garcia, in sunglasses and a yellow shirt and the other guy casing the hotel. in one chilling scene, they check out their future victim, ben novak jr. in the lobby. >> and in less than 48 hours, they're going to murder this guy. >> in less than 48 hours they're going to murder this guy. >> the second man is ided as joe gonzalez of miami. wilson and his team had two targets and started with the apparent leader, garcia. >> we started to hunt him down. >> the miami hunt didn't take long.

garcia was picked up on an outstanding warrant. the new york cops braced him. garcia denied ever being in new york. >> we saw video in the hotel. security camera. >> detectives had some surprises to smoke out their one-eyed suspect. they showed him stills from the security cam footage. garcia and his suspected accomplice in the hotel. the capper was a tape recording of a phone call between the detective and narcy's brother. in the call, narcy's brother sounding all cooperative says he wants to help the cops and gives him the name, alejandro garcia as a person good for the murder. garcia listens silently as the brother threw him under the bus. >> he told me who did the murder. he told me you, you did it. >> he denied being the hit man in that interrogation, but the message was clear. get on board now, confess, or take the fall.

>> he will be booked on charges of murder. >> meanwhile, the evidence against narcy's brother was piling up. cell phone records showing him near the hotel on the morning. evidence providing a get away car. >> the street boss was handling everything going away with narcy's brother. >> and who was the boss of bosses? with a $10 million motive, there was only one answer for the cops. narcy novak had ordered the hit on her husband. >> obviously he reported to narcy or worked at the direction. >> what started as a small su bushen village investigation was now a multi-state conspiracy case. the decision was made to let federal prosecutors take the complex conspiracy to trial. testify against narcy and her brother or go away to prison for what would likely be life sentences.

the two confessed to being the hit men in a murder for hire scheme. then garcia shocked the prosecutors. there was something else. a second murder they didn't know about. and if they didn't act fast he said a third was on the way. coming up -- >> just who was in the cross hairs? >> there was a hit out on me. >> this detective's personal quest to save this daughter in danger. when "family affair" continues. ♪

the two hit men had confessed, admitting to killing ben novak jr. they claimed ben's wife narcy and her brother paid them to do it, but still no charges had been filed as police continued to investigate. then the hit man, alejandro garcia dropped a bomb shell. he claimed he also killed someone else on orders from narcy and her brother, almost a year earlier. and he had gotten away with it. the murder for hire, none other than ben novak's 87-year-old mother bernice, the one-time queen of the fontainebleau died three months before ben in what florida cops and the medical examiner ruled an accidental death. a slip and fall getting out of her car. >> how did he kill her? >> he had a monkey wrench and he took what appeared to be a baseball swing and hit her several times to the head. >> garcia said he got paid $600 for the job. but why kill ben's 87-year-old mother. because in ben's will in place at the time, if he died first, his mother, not his wife narcy would be the primary beneficiary. but with bernice dead, there was

nothing standing in narcy's way. >> had they not tried to kill ben and succeeded in killing ben, they probably never would have been caught. >> and there was more. when detectives arrested garcia, they learned still a third murder would be in the works. someone else provided for the in the will. narcy's daughter, may. >> she was in serious payroll. >> i always believed she was, i couldn't prove it to anybody. when we sat down with garcia and learned that there was a hit out on may, that became concerning. >> a battered photo of may was found in garcia, the confessed hit man's wallet. he was told, she would be the next job. >> well, may freaked. she needed to move apartments asap. and told federal prosecutors she didn't have the money. the feds told her they would get

her the money but the paperwork would take time. detective allison didn't think there was time. >> and here came a moment of big moral dilemma for you as a person and officer. >> yes, it was hard. >> i decided to give her the money and tell her to move. >> your money from your bank account. >> yes. >> the west chester detective loaned may $5,000 of her own money. may promised to pay her back. when prosecutors learned of it, they removed detective allison from the case. the defense,ed that they admonished would call it buying witness testimony. >> i can't sleep at night. >> i am very grateful to her because if i didn't move when i did, i wouldn't be here today. >> almost a year after ben's murder, narcy was indicted and walked before the cameras of america's most wanted. she and her brother were charged

with racketeering and conspiracy for two murders, witness tampering and a host of other charges. >> the plot that led to the death of ben novak was a family affair. >> when the trial got under way in federal court, garcia, the hit man, testified in ice cold detail how he killed ben novak jr. >> how did they get into the room? >> narcy opened the door and let them in. >> prosecutors argued that morning there was a small window of opportunity for narcy to let the hit men in and direct the assault on her sleeping husband. >> the victim is in bed. they get right in position. they signal. one, two, three and then boom. then the assault starts. >> they're banging him in the head. >> they hit all over the head, the ribs, i mean, brutally. >> the two hit men use small hand weights to pummel ben. narcy looked on. >> then there is a point in time where i guess he's making sounds, moans and she tosses a pillow in to keep him quiet. >> did they say that narcy tells them to cut out his eyes. >> she did.

>> at mid trial the case against narcy's brother was solvent. a long trial of credit card receipts and cell phone records connected him to the hit men. but for narcy, it was primarily the hit man's word against her's until the jury heard about narcy's secret cell phone. on the morning of the murder, garcia testified that narcy called her brother while they waited at a gas station near the hotel. >> narcy makes a call from that phone at 6:39 in the morning to say come on in. >> the coast is clear. >> coast is clear. that becomes huge because it's her calling her brother to say bring the killers in. >> that puts her right atop the plot of the conspiracy. >> there's yet another twist. would you be surprised to learn that there was another woman in the story, a person named rebekah bliss. >> you're looking mighty sexy today.

he put her up in a nice waterfront apartment and told bliss he was going to leave his wife for her. narcy, the story goes, learned of the affair and called bliss, saying if i can't have him, no one will. six months later, he was dead and without eyes to ever look at another woman. >> this case was about money and it was about narcy not wanting to be replaced. >> when defense attorney howard tanner put on his case, he zeroed in on the hit men's credibility and their motivation in testifying. he also attacked their allegation that narcy was in the room during the murder. >> they themselves stated they would do anything to help themselves. in my book, they would have been willing to lie. >> is narcy in the room? >> absolutely not. >> how about the disturbing direction she allegedly gives them, gouge his eyes out sh. >> it didn't happen. >> narcy's daughter may could have been involved in the murder so she and her sons could inherit ben's estate. if narcy novak disappear, she and her children take under the will.

those are facts. >> so that's the defense? >> jurors consider who is going to get this money here and it's not just narcy novak, it's the daughter here, may. >> there was an incomplete investigation done in this case. i'm not claiming that anyone else committed this murder. the defense here is that narcy novak did not commit this murder. >> detectives concluded that may knew nothing about ben's will until well after the murder. >> i didn't even know that my name or the boy's names were in this will. >> after a nine-week trial, narcy and her brother were found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy in the death of ben novak jr. and his mother bernice. they were acquitted of only one charge, involving the theft of ben's diamond bracelet. for the crime that conspirator's almost got away with it, it carried a mandatory life sentence for both. >> the best part was that bernice could finally rest in peace. >> after the verdict, narcy

spoke with telephone with "dateline" from praise. she would never done anything to harm her husband's ben and was innocent of all the charges. sergeant terry wilson and his team of detectives, the prosecutors won their case with some big assists from may abad. now her mother is gone and will spend the rest of her life in prison. >> she didn't see what she had in front of her. she had her daughter. she had two grand kids that totally loved her. and now she has nothing. >> and greed and some amount of jealousy presumably is driving this. >> absolutely. no matter what, i love my mother. she was my mother. she had grand kids that adored her, that would have done anything for her. and they did. and she just threw it all away. threw it all away for money. >> if you go to miami beach, the fontainebleau is still there. all spruced up with a new lease on life. and may has a fresh new outlook on the rest of her life, too. >> come here, buddy.

>> a new little guy in her life, a son. she named him ben after the lost prince. the name sake he never got to meet. that's all for now. thank you for joining us. welcome to "kasie dc." i'm kasie hunt. we're live every sunday from washington from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. tonight, terror strikes again at the american consciousness. 11 people slain in a mass shooting at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh. plus, 14 bombs shipped around the country to past presidents, members of congress, cnn, and liberal activists. we'll have the latest on the investigations, but also talk about how we got to this moment in our country.