daughter. and we got it. >> what do you want to say to david pietz now? >> david, i hope -- i hope you find it in your heart to be sorry. because if you don't, you'll burn in hell forever. >> three weeks later, david pietz returned to court for his sentencing. presiding judge michael haden expressed disgust that david had strangled his wife, who trusted him. >> i don't know what was going through her head as she looked into the face of the man she thought she loved as he took her life away. accordingly, the sentence will be -- >> judge haden sentenced david pietz to 18 years in prison, the maximum time allowed in this second-degree murder case. before her daughter's convicted killer was led away, nicole's mother had this to say. >> i've let david take my life for the last seven and a half years. but i'm not going to anymore. david, i forgive you. i'm not going to allow myself to let you rule my life anymore. >> but gayle says she would still like to ask her former son-in-law a final question. >> i wish david would tell me why. and how could he ever harm such a nice person. i mean, nici was -- was such a good person. >> the hardest question, always the "why?" the coldest fact, the young woman gone too soon. that's all for now. we were going to go where ever the case is. one of the most extraordinary cases in lapd history. >> we're not in kansas anymore. >> a newlywed murdered months after her wedding. >> as she walked away, she gave me a big smile, and i relived that smile for years. >> and all that time the killer

was hiding in plain sight. >> no indication he was ever spoken to? >> no. >> then a new detective took a look at an old lead and a person no one would have ever suspected of murder. >> we are going to end this. >> was suddenly suspect number 1. >> perfect murder, almost. >> hello and welcome to date line. she was a new bride married just three months. then she was murdered. what happened to her was a mystery for decades. partly becausebreak-in gone bad, but when police finally reopened this case, they discovered it wasn't a burglar, but a suspect whose trail lead to their own front door.

february 2nd, 2009, he arrived before dawn at the station. >> i was tired. >> he hosted a super bowl party the night before and the beer had flowed freely. >> that seemed to be a good day to spend the day was having a cup of coffee and getting caught up on my reading. >> a couple of asprin. >> a couple of asprin maybe. >> he reached for a file that had been sitting on his desk for months. shot to death in her condo just a few miles from where he worked. >> one of the worst, most horrific crime scenes i have seen. this woman met a horrible ending. >> and just as troubling, she was murdered a generation ago, february 1986. meaning the odds of catching her killer were slim to none.

memories fade, evidence has to be relocated. so it's an uphill battle. >> uphill battle doesn't begin to describe it. but the case file he opened on that monday morning would lead him on the case of a lifetime and shake the foundation of the lapd. it dates back to 1986 and the battle for the truth of the parents of a young bride. >> we miss her every day. >> it doesn't make any difference what day it is. it's a pain that's always there there's no cure for. >> who would want to kill sherry. she was hard working, caring, and popular with her co-workers. trained as a nurse, sharon was director of critical care at a large local hospital.

>> so we have implementing the people difference program. >> it was a devastating day. she was 29 years old and just in the prime of her career. >> she was her boss at the hospital and had originally hired her. we couldn't believe it first of all. it was like, how could someone do this? people crying. people upset. the hospital was like a tomb. so the loss was palpable. she had just been married three months earlier. were they happily married? >> unusually so. >> but just months after the wedding, john found sherry sprawled dead on the floor of their home. he might seem a likely suspect, but john was cleared almost immediately. the lapd focused instead of

evidence that this was a burglary that turned violent. >> this was no accident. multiple shots fired. shotted fired at very close range. >> she has reviewed court records and media reports on this case. >> we return with her to the actual apartment where sherry was found murdered to try to understand what happened. >> police think maybe the killer just walked in the open front door. >> they didn't find any forced entry so they're assuming that the front door was open and that the killer just walked right in. >> right here is where there's confrontation. >> there appears to be a struggle here. not just a struggle, but we also have shots fired at this point. we have one shot that clearly goes straight through the backslider and we have another shot that went through her and then back out through the slider also. >> so she's now wounded and

tries to get back downstairs. >> that's correct. she's bleeding profusely and she's very wounded and she gets down these steps and she's trying to either go out the door or make it to the alarm box where there's a panic button. at that point we believe she went down in this area due to the fact that you could see marks in this as well as broken fingernails from her hands. >> so there's a tremendous fight going on on the floor. >> yes, the killer is dragging her back into this area and then the killer takes a vase and hits her in the head with it knocking her out and then grabs a blanket, muzzles the gun and does a contact shot into the victim. >> so that's an execution. >> that would be correct. >> as for a motive, it seemed to be in plain sight, just a few feet from sherry's body. >> they found a vcr and disk player stacked up by the front

door. >> as if somebody was about to steal them? >> yes. given the indication that this was a burglary gone wrong. >> there was no sign of the murder weapon, but detectives did recover two .38 caliber slugs and there was something else that caught detectives attention. >> on the inside of sherry's left arm they found a bite mark. a crime scene analyst at the time went ahead and swabbed for any possible saliva that could belong to her. >> saliva that could contain dna for whoever bit sherry. this was 1986. years before dna testing technology would arrive. so back then the dna wasn't much help. but the swab was carefully packaged and bundled with all the other evidence. for now, detectives didn't have

much else to work with. no eyewitnesses. no usable fingerprints. no clear motive except the theory that this was a botched burglary. >> by the level of violence that occurred, the theory was that it was a man or possibly two men that had entered the residence to do a burglary or home invasion, murdered the victim to cover up the crime, and then fled. >> gone wrong because sherry somehow surprised them. they panicked, shot her, and then fled. the theory seemed to make sense. especially since she had no apparent enemies. certainly no one that would want to kill her. or, so they thought. >> went to her office and said if she couldn't have john nobody could. >> when date line continues. noby

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the year was 1986. crack was hitting los angeles and the city of angels had become a violent place. the murder rate would hit 831 killings that year. nearly three times the amount 30 years later in 2016 and the lapd was stretched very thin. >> this was a time when homicide was booming in los angeles.

>> he's a best selling author that had written several books about the lapd. >> you had the proliferation of high powered weapons. you had the gangs that were expanding and crack cocaine hitting the streets. all of these forces creating a tremendous homicide rate and detectives were overwhelmed. >> now in february of that year, cops had their hands full with a crime in the sittings sprawling san fernando valley. she had been brutally beaten and shot in her own home. no suspects and few clues. then a possible lead. she was a consultant for nbc news. >> another woman was approached in her residence by two males at gun point. also involved a home invasion robbery situation. so police early on thought there was a possibility that these two

men might have something to do with the murder. >> a composite sketch was released of the two men, but still, no prints, no eyewitnesses, and no murder weapon connecting them or anyone else to her murder and the dna collected at the crime scene was useless, at least right now. police collected it anyway, why? >> if you know there's possible evidence on anything, you're not going to leave it behind. so it was great forethought to recover it. >> detectives scoured the condo and the entire complex. the only thing stolen was from the garage, sherry's car and that was recovered just a mile away from the crime scene with the keys still in it. the only other thing, sherry and her husband's marriage license. it seemed an odd thing to steal,

but that wasn't the only thing that struck her family and colleagues as strange, the crime was especially violent for a burglary. >> it just seemed a little like overkill. >> her boss at the hospital had to review sherry's autopsy report for insurance reasons, and she was struck by what she saw. >> i thought, wow, she really put up one heck of a fight. which wasn't really surprising. she was tall, athletic, and i'm sure wouldn't go down easily. >> the lapd theory back then was that there were two men robbing the house so they're presuming she would have fought with two guys. did that sound like sherry? >> that didn't make sense to me. if there were two men and they had a gun, that just seemed a little weird. >> because she wouldn't be in a fight with two guys who were

armed. >> i wouldn't think so. >> what about with a woman. >> i think she would have taken on a m woman standing. >> we'd just really like to know what happened. >> her parents never thought it was a burglary. they knew that just weeks before the murder, she had several strange encounters. one as she dined at a restaurant and thought a woman was watching her. >> she said she has eyes that can see right through you. >> scary eyes. >> there was also a run-in at the hospital where she worked. >> she went to her office and said if she couldn't have john, nobody could. >> most terrifying, an encounter in her own home. and by now, she knew who the mystery woman was. >> she heard a noise and she looked up and there was john's ex-girlfriend. >> how did she get in the house? >> we had no idea.

>> john's ex-girlfriend appeared to be stalking her. yet she never mentioned the woman's name to her parents. instead, she told them not to worry. >> she told me, i want to see if i can't work this out myself. >> that conversation happened during a dinner celebrating her 29th birthday. afterward, her parents took her to the airport. >> as she walked away, she turned and gave me a big smile. and i relive that smile for years. >> less than three weeks later, she lay dead. they insist that early in the investigation, they told the lead lapd detective about her troubling encounters with john's ex-girlfriend. >> i told the detective not once, but probably 15 to 20 times and he said, the trouble

with you is you have been watching too much tv. >> coming up, old evidence offers new clues. >> the suspect made it appear to look like a burglary. they staged it to mislead the initial investigation in 1986. she was executed. >> when dateline continues. s ex >> when dateline continues

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brutal 1986 slaying of nurse and newlywed killed in her los angeles condo. the trail kept getting colder. they offered to have the saliva sample tested for dna. they'd even pay for it but the lapd declined. >> they said we don't have a suspect. if we had a suspect and we have their dna, then we'd have something to match. >> and the case sat for another decade. >> but then, in 2004, the lapd's newly formed cold case unit was conducting dna tests on unsolved cases and one of them was this one. it took two months to find that saliva sample buried in a refrigeration unit. the envelope was tattered, the label torn, the vile was poking out but the saliva was still

inside and the dna was just enough to blow this case wide open. >> in that lab report it indicated that the suspect that had bitten her during the struggle was actually a female. >> a woman. not two male burglars as the original detectives had suspected all of those years. but it would take a few more years before investigators began to understand what that crucial dna test result meant. it was now 2009. and the case was cold once again. 23 years it sat with no apparent leads, no suspects, and no answers for the family. then came that monday after the super bowl when jim started picking through that old case file and made a remarkable discovery. the dna test that had been conducted on that bite mark back

in 2004. >> once the department realized a woman was involved, why did it take four years until you picked it up? what was the department doing in the interim? >> from what it appears, investigators may have followed the initial theory of this crime, that, in fact, it was a particular. >> and that there was a woman involved in the burglar. >> that there was a woman involved in the burglary. looking back in hindsight it was an opportunity that may have slipped through our hands as an organization. >> but now he took a closer look at the crime scene photos and began to develop his own different theory. remember, she was shot at point blank range after a violent struggle. and despite the stereo equipment stacked by the front door, very little was actually stolen. >> the suspect made it appear to look like a burglary. they staged it to mislead the initial investigation in 1986. she was executed. >> in other words, someone had wanted her dead. so now he dug deeper through the

file looking for names, female names. >> we had five women that would have had access to her and perhaps at least some of them may have had a motive to harm her. three of them we eliminated almost immediately for insufficient motive. but there's still three left. one was a co-worker. >> a woman named deborah. this person of interest was later replaced by her in an official capacity and problems followed almost immediately after that. >> so there was bad blood between them. >> there was a motive. >> deborah had moved to northern california. he asked local law enforcement there to watch her and secretly try to snag a sample of her dna. in the meantime, he learned more about the second woman. he contacted her former husband, now remarried and living in san

diego. he explained he had been involved in a dating relationship with stephanie lazarus. >> that was the other name still on the short list of suspects. he pressed him for more on their relationship which started when they were both students at ucla. they dated on and off until john got engaged to sherry. >> you're convinced that the relationship that john had with stephanie overlapped with the relationship he had with his wife. >> we know from john that there was at least on one occasion where he was engaged that he was intimate with stephanie lazarus. there was a love triangle and stephanie had deep feelings for john rutton and may have had a motive to harm sherry. >> was sherry's killer a scorned lover, or a jealous co-worker? >> we had two women on the list who in our opinion had a motive to harm her.

>> deborah the nurse and stephanie lazarus. >> correct. >> a few weeks later, cops in northern california tracked down deborah and secretly scooped up a sample of her trash which contained dna. it was sent to the crime lab in la for analysis and 72 hours later came an answer. >> she was not the donor of the dna profile from the bite. >> that left just one possible suspect. number 5 on the list. john rutton's ex-girlfriend stephanie lazarus. >> we came home and there was a message on our phone from a detective that they wanted to talk to us. and i thought, oh, yeah, right. i thought it was just another false hope. >> he said that they were opening the investigation. >> he was upset with me. he was sort of like detective, where have you been for the last two decades. >> and now he explained it all.

how he told detectives back in 1986 that someone was stalking his daughter sherry. a woman with crazy eyes. the ex-girlfriend of sherry's husband. he had never known that the girlfriend's name was stephanie lazarus, but he did know something else about her. something very important. and by this time, the detective knew it too. >> he was very cautious of what he said, but he said that we'd be hearing more from him. >> he had ample reason to be cautious because he learned that stephanie lazarus wore the same badge he did. >> we now have a los angeles police officer as a person of interest in a murder case. >> and you thought i've bitten off more than i can chew. >> we're not in kansas anymore. that changed everything. >> coming up, a top secret investigation as detectives go after one of their own.

>> we would never leave a paper trail of what we were doing. she worked our unit. >> when dateline continues. our. >> when dateline continues

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told investigators about several run ins she had with her husband's ex. now a cold case detective was focussing his attention on that very same woman that also happened to be a member of the lapd. here's more of the smoking gun. >> for two decades the lapd had but one narrative for her murder. she was randomly killed by two men during a botched burglary. now science had rewritten the script and this once cold case was suddenly almost too hot to handle. the prime suspect, an lapd detective named stephanie lazarus. but as jim went back through the original murder book, he found almost nothing on lazarus, even though she was the exgirlfriend of sherry's husband. >> no indication she was ever spoken to? >> no. >> there was just one notation

of the official crynology. they had written stephanie lazarus lazarus p.o., as in police officer. >> no paper trail. >> she seemed to be someone above suspicion. >> she had grown up in southern california. a tomboy of sorts. loved sports. she attended ucla where she played basketball. it was during her college days that she met and dated john rutton, long before he and sherry got married. after graduating in 1982, she surprised her family by joining the lapd. this when only a hand full of women entered the force. >> i was very proud of steph. it was a cool thing. >> she quickly rose through the

ranks from patrol office to detective. she was popular, friendly, and well regarded. he assignments also included project d.a.r.e. a drug prevention program named at kids. she was twice named detective of the year. later she worked at internal affairs investigating other officers for wrong doing and corruption. her personal life was good too. in 1996, lazarus got married to another lapd detective. together they adopted a baby daughter. life both at home and on the job never seemed better. >> she was a happy person. she loved what she did for work. she loved her husband. loved their life. >> but in 2009, this high achieving cop became the focus of a homicide investigation. jim and his team of three detectives had to be mindful that lazarus had many friends on the force. her husband worked at the same

station. >> we were going to work behind closed doors. we were going to work after hours. we would never leave a paper trail of what we were doing. >> they even gave lazarus a code name. number 5. and contrary to police procedure, they decided not to tell lapd headquaters that their new suspect was a fellow detective. >> you're doing that to protect her or your investigation from her? >> dual purpose. it would protect the integrity of the investigation and if she was not involved, then nobody would ever know about it. >> four cops skirted department rules to investigate one of their own. >> it was a difficult phase of our careers. she was one of us. she worked our unit. worked side by side with the people around us. >> but he and his three fellow detectives didn't waiver. they methodically built a case by exhaustively reviewing the

original files and interviewing her friends and family. it became clear to them that stephanie lazarus had the means, the motive, and the opportunity. she seemed obsessed with john and jealous of his new wife. was she the same person with the scary eyes who had been stalking sherry? it seemed to add up. especially when he considered this, her purse and all it's contents stolen during the crime were recovered soon after the murder except for one item inside. >> the only thing to this day that was never recovered was john and sherry's marriage certificate. >> after three months of intense secretive investigation, his team needed one last piece of evidence that would either clear detective lazarus or incriminate her. >> we needed a sample of her dna. our investigators were not cut

out for undercover surveillance work. >> so he finally brought lapd's internal affairs detectives into the loop hoping they could close the deal by somehow secretly obtaining lazarus' dna. she was tailed for days as undercover cops waited for her to leave some small piece of herself behind. finally at a retail store, it happened. she ordered a soft drink and drank it. a trace of her saliva was on the straw, which she then tossed in the trash. it was more than enough for testing. two dna samples, separated by two decades. 48 hours later, jim got a call from his supervisor. >> it was real simple. he just said, it's a match. >> good feeling? bad feeling? both. >> surreal. that moment. that call. i'll never forget it. >> but stephanie lazarus was still free and had no clue that

after 23 years, her very own department was on her tail for murder. detectives wanted to speak with stephanie to elicit a statement, perhaps a confession, but they'd have to do it without revealing how deeply implicated she was in the murder. so another secret plan was hatched. this time to get stephanie's side of the story. and all of it would be captured on tape. >> stephanie lazarus is asked to help in an interrogation only to discover she's the suspect. >> coming up -- >> i mean, come on. coming up - >> i mean, come on

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june 5th, 2009 started routinely enough for lapd detective stephanie lazarus. she took the train to union station in downtown l.a. reporting for her normal shift at police headquaters in parker center. after arriving, stephanie was told to meet with two detectives. a man she didn't know from lapd's elite robbery homicide division to help them interrogate a suspect involving stolen art work which was her beat as a detective. so lazarus went down to a secured area in the basement to meet with her two colleagues in a small interview room. because it's part of the jail, all cops that enter here are required to give up their arms. unarmed and unsuspecting, she didn't realize she was being recorded by an undercover camera. >> hi. >> have a seat. >> and that's when detectives

revealed that this conversation wasn't about art. >> do you know john rutton? >> john rutton? >> how long did you guys date? >> i mean, are you guys -- is this something -- you said i was going to interview somebody about art. >> detective lazarus seemed uncomfortable and vague in her answers. especially when detectives asked about sherry. >> i may have talked to her. i -- >> talked to her at a hospital, maybe. >> yeah. i may have -- you know, i'm thinking back now, you guys are bringing up all of these old memories. >> detectives turned up the heat. >> did you have a fight with her? >> fought? >> no. >> did you ever duke it out with her. >> no, i don't think so. >> you'd remember that, right? >> yeah, i would think so.

>> most of us can remember without much difficulty the number of fistfights we've had over the course of our lives. but while detective lazarus at one point answers no if she remembers attacking sherry or being attacked. at other points she can't recall whether that happens. >> that just doesn't sound familiar. what are they saying? so i fought with her, so now -- getting the jump, so i fought with her so i must have killed her. i mean, come on. >> after about 45 minutes, lazarus realized she was the prime suspect in sherry's murder. >> now you're accusing me of this? is that what you're saying? >> we're trying to figure out what happened, stephanie. >> well, i was, you know -- i'm just saying, you know, do i need to get a lawyer? are you accusing me of this? >> minutes later, it came to an end that must have been as familiar as it was uncomfortable for all of them. >> i know, you guys have to do

your job, and i guess i'm going to have to contact somebody. >> that's fair. >> because i know how this stuff works. >> and then stephanie lazarus was read the same words she herself had read to hundreds of suspects over the years. >> stephanie, you know you have the right to remain silent, do you understand? >> yes. >> and for just a moment, you can see the handcuffs placed on her by her fellow officers. >> i'm in shock. i'm totally in shock. >> word of lazarus's arrest travelled fast to tucson where the detective was standing by to deliver the news. >> tell me what you said? >> you were right, folks. you folks were right. and i apologize that it took us over two decades to give them that closure. >> do you feel better? >> the most gratifying moment of my career. >> i was extremely happy.

i said, i feel like i knew it all along. >> back in l.a., the lazarus family also got the news. >> well it was numbing. >> i'm guessing that one of the things you said or thought was, they got it wrong somehow. this is a mistake. >> absolutely. >> some error has been made here. >> this is going to be cleared up by the end of the day. >> didn't happen. >> didn't happen. >> stephanie lazarus didn't go home that day after her arrest. bail was set at $10 million, much higher than most murder cases. the judge considered her a flight risk citing the strong case against her. and for the lapd, it was a bittersweet day. a 23-year-old cold case they believed had finally been cracked. but the prime suspect worked right beside them. for the family, stephanie's arrest was a vindication. but it also brought back their bitter memories of the original

lapd investigation. >> i think it was because she was a police officer, so they just figured that they would cover this one up. >> the family hired prominent l.a. attorney john taylor that filed a lawsuit against detective lazarus and also the lapd claiming the department deliberately ignored clues that pointed to a fellow officer. >> the earlier missteps of lapd weren't missteps. they were intentional conduct, intentional ignoring of evidence, and beyond just being sloppy or lazy. >> the fact that they didn't close the case, and that they didn't listen to the family, those two things are not evidence of a cover up. >> it wasn't that they didn't close the case, they didn't do anything to create a case. >> he says that in 1986, the detectives were protecting stephanie lazarus. >> they actively covered up the

identity of the person who committed this crime. >> the lawsuit alleging a cover up was dismissed in 2011. charlie was then the lapd chief and he spoke with us about the case. >> i can accept somebody that's unable to solve a crime that's solvable. i cannot accept somebody that covers up an individual involved in the crime. and i have absolutely no indication that that's what happened here. >> there's nothing to suggest they deliberately looked away from stephanie or that that was just a road they didn't even want to go down. >> i think it was lack of ability. not a deliberate intentional act to exclude stephanie. >> in february of 2012, nearly 26 years to the day since sherry's murder, stephanie lazarus would have her day in court. a chance to clear her name and reputation. a chance to show that dna

evidence isn't always right. and that the los angeles police department had it all wrong. >> coming up, did the lapd have it wrong? >> stephanie went to . the guys are getting married. i tell him not to call me. >> we the jury, find the defendant. >> when dateline continues. small town or big city? small town. methodists...or mules? mules. how's this? signed?! no way. nobody knows thrill seekers like we do... barnes & noble the cold and flu fightings. machine. you put in your machine. press the button to brew up powerful relief. to defeat your toughest cold and flu symptoms fast. new theraflu powerpods. press. sip. relief.

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that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. welcome back. there was a lot of stake all the trial who extraordinarystood ac murdering sherry. the defense said it was tainted. what would the jury believe. here is josh with the conclusion of the smoking gun. >> it took 26 years to get here. a generation of false leads. missed opportunities. a family's frustration. a police department nightmare.

then executed her. covered it up by staging a burglary. linda deutsche of the associated press covered the trial. >> the opening statement by the prosecutor was quite dramatic. and he came up with a theme, which was that the case was about a bite, a bullet, a gun barrel, and a broken heart. that kind of resinated in the courtroom. >> the jury saw journals police seized from her home. detailing how upset she was when she learned john was engaged to someone else. >> her date book was also introduced. could explain why there was no

forced entry to the condo. and on the day of the murder, then patrol officer happened to be offduty. the ammunition used in the shooting was the same tag issued by the happened said prosecutors and was the same caliber of the offduty weapon. dna was certainly the center piece of the case. shows she was there. without the dna, they could not have placed her at the condo.

insisted it had been mishandled. >> the vile was protruding rather than being inside the envelope and sealed in order to protect the integrity of the evidence. you can't rely on the scientific results. >> overland also said hair, blood, fingerprints found at the crime scene did not come from him. as for the weapon that fired the fatal shots. insisted there are other types of guns besides stephanie's that could have fired those bullets. as to motive, the defense argueds no evidence that stephanie was obsessed with her husband, john. quite the opposite. >> john was still calling her. stephanie went to tell him, look. you are getting married. i tell him not to call me. >> after five weeks, it was up to the jury.

they had waited a lot longer than that. >> do you feel confident. >> as confident you can be with a jury. you never know what a jury is going to do. >> good afternoon. >> we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant, guilty of the crime of murder of sherry. we further find the murder was of the first degree. the day the family thought would never come, finally did. as their attorney john taylor explained. >> the family is overwhelmingly relieved that again, their suspicions and today's verdict reflects and confirms the identity of the person who killed their daughter and the intent with which she did it. it's a tremendous relief. >> for the family, their wife, daughter, sister, and once decorated detective was now a convicted killer. >> we really did not expect this

result with the state of the evidence. and the way mr. overland presented the case. it's devastating. >> for the happened, a cold case was finally solved with painful side effects. >> i'm very pleased. it's bitter sweet. i'm thrilled that the conclusion has been reached and some form of justice has been brought to a family that has grieved for far too long. we would have much longer this not be a los angeles police detective. this is a tragedy on a bunch of levels. this is not something we're proud of in that we had a los angeles police detective involved here. >> stephanie was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. as for wrongful death civil lawsuit they filed, they were awarded $10 million. and so ended the case of a detective finally caught by her very own department.

>> she almost got away with it. >> almost a perfect murder. >> who better to do that than a police officer. that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm natalie morales. thanks for watching. you know when they tell you your life passes before your eyes. you think about everything that happened in your life and you wonder, am i ready to die? >> he was a hollywood stunt man. this was no hollywood stunt. >> this is a hit. >> shot four times and left dying on the floor. somebody definitely wanted him dead. >> but who? and why? >> you'll meet a lot of possible suspects. >> oh, my gosh. >> including his ex-wife, an actress once married to movie mobster, but she had