his appeal is automatic. money is a motive. pride is a motive. love is a motive. money is a motive. pride is a motive. love is a motive. >> it's a tale of love turned lethal featuring an adoring wife, a pageant queen. >> she was a whole lot of gorgeous woman. >> and at center stage, a charismatic guitar hero. >> just charming. you know, everybody loved him. >> he was playing us both for quite some time. >> two women, one man.

a love triangle with sharp edges. >> jim at one point had told me that he wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. >> in this twisted game of hearts, how many would have to pay the price? >> she called and let me know that russ was dead. >> how far would things go? >> i looked in her eyes and i mean, she's evil. she is evil. >> a man hunt would stretch from the northwest down to mexico and run smack into mother nature. >> your suspect is quite literally in the wind. >> he's gone. ♪ love, according to the song writers, is a many splendored thing. ♪

>> financial empires have been built on our annual homage to hearts and flowers. but this story is about people caught in the powerful grip of love's darker side, obsession. it involves talented and beautiful people. >> miss washington. >> smart people, whose obsessions made them do stupid things. passionate people caught in an emotional whirlwind. >> we, the jury, find the defendant -- >> and finally, innocent people who paid the price when those passions ran amok. it all began, of course, on a dark and stormy night. >> they now expect what they're calling a worst-case scenario. >> it was august 2004, friday the 13th. hurricane charley was hammering florida's gulf coast, particularly the coastal city of

punta gorda. >> the message is urgency and safety. >> get to safety and hunker down. >> that night jean huden thought her life was quite literally in shambles. >> i stayed and rode the hurricane out by myself in the house and watched my house come apart around my ears. >> 60 miles to the south jean's husband jim was holed up in a hotel, hiding, not from the storm, but from his past. >> he was scared so he figured he'd get while the getting was good. >> as soon as the worst of the storm had blown over jean says she joined her panicked husband. they ordered pizza and turned on the tv. >> the losses are substantial. >> but jean couldn't concentrate on the hurricane news. the personal storm that was wrecking her marriage and ruining her life took precedence. >> it was the big tensionfest.

we talked and asked a lot of questions, you know? why? what were you thinking? what are you going to do now? >> it was a messy situation, betrayal, deception, dissertion, the usual menu of dysfunction that all too often falls under the category of another woman, but there was more to it than that. much more. a homicide investigation was at stake, one that just days earlier had led detective mark blumberg from the isle of washington all of the way to punta gorda, florida. he was hot on the trail of a potential suspect, and then came the hurricane. >> i didn't think he was going to stick around for us to come back. >> so the hurricane comes and goes and your suspect is quite literally in the wind. >> he's gone.

>> for detective clumber, the twisted trail that led him from washington to south florida began just months earlier just after christmas 2003. a geotracker, a small suv had been spotted in a secluded driveway in a remote section of whidbey island, passenger door open and light on. >> the first thought was suicide, but on initial investigation they couldn't find a weapon. >> standing in the damp, december cold, the detective took stock. the body inside appeared to have been dead for 24 hours. i.d. found in the glove box indicated the dead man was named russel douglas, a ragged hole between his eyes had frozen his age at 32. >> there was a robbery, a whole lot of stuff left behind in the car that didn't make sense.

>> just inside the driver's side door an empty .380 caliber shell casing lay on the floor. the detective thought it was a curious place for a homicide. >> near the end of a dead-end road parked into bushes as though he meant to be there with his car in gear, his emergency brake on and casually dressed in flip-flops. >> sounds like he was there to meet someone. >> that was the only thing that really made sense to us. >> but who? the detective hoped russel douglas' widow brenna douglas might shed some light on that, but that night when he told her the father of had her two children had been murdered the detective says he got a strange feeling. >> i never tried to judge how people are going react when i tell them thing, but her response wasn't what i expected. >> as in not emotional enough? >> she wasn't shocked, at least not visually shocked. it was a bit matter of fact and that did leave us at least wondering when we walked out of the house.

yes. >> and so brenna douglas, as the wives of murdered men often do, became a person of interest, the domestic situation seemed unsettled. >> they were separated. russel was living in an apartment in renton. according to brenna they were trying to work it out and talking about getting back together. >> in fact, the new widow told the detectives that her husband had spent the holidays with her and the kids. >> she said the last time she saw him was the morning of december 26th. he left the house somewhere mid-morning and she thought he was going to run some errands. >> brenna douglas have an alibi? >> she didn't need an alibi at the time we went to talk to her. it was basically a death notification. she was able to answer our questions for us. >> who didn't like russel douglas? nobody could think of someone who really truly didn't like him. >> as winter turned to spring,

the detectives' investigation seemed to be going nowhere, but a routine check of the numbers in russel douglas' cell phone had yielded a tiny clue. >> there were a few phone calls to a number with a las vegas area code and we made a phone call to that number. there was no answer. it went to an answering machine. >> was it a cell phone voice mail or a person's voice? >> it was a cell phone voice mail for a woman named peggy. >> peggy. that's a name you will hear again. the detective made a mental note to have that number traced, but within minutes of hanging up his phone rang. >> and there was a female who said she had gotten a phone call from that number and she identified herself as peggy thomas. explained that she was a friend of brenna and russel douglas. >> peggy douglas told the detectives she'd been visiting

friends over the holidays and explained that she had simply contacted russel in order to pass along a present for brenna. >> she answered all of my questions to my satisfaction. there was nothing about that phone call that made me include her in the suspect list. >> but then again, the detective's suspect list was essentially a blank page. there were no names on it from florida or nevada or new mexico or any of the other places this investigation would eventually lead him, at least not yet. coming up -- the investigation begins close to home. with the dead man's on again/off again wife. >> i said, is he hurting you? is he hitting you? she said, no, he didn't physical. just emotional and verbal. but i hit him a couple times. yu don't want to believe the mother of your grandkids is a suspect. >> but a wife as a person of interest is just the beginning in this cross country tale of love gone wrong. when "dateline" continues. what ?

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♪ ♪ ♪ and everywhere i go ♪ there's always something to remind me ♪ ♪ of another place and time ♪ ♪

♪ of another place and time ♪ [music playing] death never takes a holiday. as a nurse, gail o'neal knows that better than most. ♪ the minute i opened the door, i saw my husband on the phone.

and it was like something hit me in the pit of my stomach and then he said russel's gone. >> gone? gone where? her son's rocky marriage was on the mend. >> is this another drama-filled call from brenna that they had another argument or something and what bob had done was repeated the words that brenna had told him that russel was killed and then all i could do was go sit down and sit there for a while. >> russel's sister, holly, got the same call. she instantly assumed russel's personal troubles were to blame. >> my first thought is that he probably committed suicide so i was in shock and realized i needed to get over to the island for brenna and the kids.

>> an alaskan bush pilot delivered the news to russel's father jim who was in the wilderness hunting and unreachable by phone. >> he said your son's dead. to i had to say, of course, which one? and russel and i mean, he didn't know a whole lot about anything other than he knew it was important to get me out of there. >> russel's brother, matt, was the last to know. he, too, had been out of cell phone range for several days while vacationing in british columbia. >> we drove across the border and my phone had a seizure and it started buzzing for every voice mail message and text message that had been sent and it was matt, call me. matt, call me. matt, call me. >> within days of his death, russel douglas' far-flung family reunited on whidbey island. >> we rallied around brenna. >> we're sleeping on the room. >> she stayed in her bedroom a lot. she definitely seemed to be sad.

>> i ended up taking up the organization of the house, what do we do for meals? >> russel douglas had left behind a lot of unfinished business. the oldest of three children born to jim and gail before they divorced, russel had been a late bloomer, but adulthood intruded early. shortly after he started dating brenna, she became pregnant. marriage and parenthood did little to help him mature. >> i think he was mourning and missing being an 18-year-old who had a lot of dates and drank and went out with the guys and he did a little of that in college, but not a lot. >> russel and brenna fought often over children, money and russel's affairs with other women. >> she'd called me after a really rough supposedly argument and i said, well, is he hurting you? is he hitting you? and she said no, really, he isn't physical. it's just emotional and verbal, but i've hit him a couple of times. >> earlier that year russel had

separated from brenna. he'd taken an apartment near seattle and had a new girlfriend. for his family, the ongoing drama of russel's life was exhausting. >> he stopped talking to, basically, all of us. i think he was so angry with the whole situation he was just saying, i'm cutting off everything. >> but then just after thanksgiving all that seemed to change. russel had recently changed jobs and was close to completing an online masters degree program and as christmas approached russel reached out to family members and told his brother matt that he wanted to reconcile with his wife. >> he said, you know, i think i need to start doing the right things. brenna wants me back. i want her back. i want to be involved in the kids' life. >> then for reasons they could not fathom, their son, their big brother was dead, and the family became defensive when detectives suggested that russel's wife

brenna may have had something to do with his murder. >> you don't want to believe that anybody that you've known for that long or is the mother of your grandkids would ever be a suspect. >> so gail offered to help her daughter-in-law hire a lawyer. >> one of the detectives seemed a little strong armed and i said, you know, you also need to get an attorney for all of your business affairs so let me see if i can find somebody for you. >> the financial picture for brenna and the children was murky. russel and brenna had filed for bankruptcy a few years earlier and though brenna owned her own hair salon in this upscale shopping center. russel had handled the business end of things. if there was a bright spot during those days it was that russel douglas did have some life insurance. >> i think when it comes down to it, he had a total of three life insurance policies, each one a couple hundred thousand dollars, i want to say.

>> in fact, the face value of those policies was more than $500,000. that money would come in handy, particularly since brenna was under pressure to buy the house she'd been renting from a woman who used to work at her hair salon. the landlady's name was peggy. peggy thomas. in those last, dying days of 2003, russel douglas' family had no idea how large that name would loom for them in the months and years to come. coming up, detectives get a call from a mystery man who says he knows who the killer is, but getting him to talk won't be easy. it sounds like he's afraid for his own life. >> he said if i told you what i know the shooter's going to know that i told you. >> when "dateline" continues. i know what it means to have reliable support.

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by the spring of 2004, detective mark plumberg by the spring of 2004 detective mark plumber had been working the phones and knocking on doors for month, but getting nowhere. >> i actually decided to start over and do the entire investigation from step one all over again. >> he had a murder at a good address on his hands and many more questions than answers. what had brought russel douglas to this remote area of whidbey

island on the day after christmas? who put a bullet between his eyes and why? >> we ran out every lead i could run out and none of them connected to russel douglas. >> money, love, pride. talk to homicide detectives and they say any of those themes come up all of the time. >> all of the time. >> any of those themes seem to fit? >> he had several hundred thousand dollars, money is a motive, love is a motive, pride is a motive. >> for the detectives those factors seemed to point in the direction of russel's wife brenna douglas. not only had she been cheated on and publicly humiliated by russel, but she was the named beneficiary of three life insurance policies he'd taken out on himself. the problem was brenna's alibi was solid. there were plenty of people who

could confirm that they'd been with her at the time russel douglas was killed. the detective knew he needed a break, and in july 2004, exactly seven months to the day after the murder of russel douglas, he got one. >> i was actually out canvassing and interviewing again, and i got a phone call that said we had a tip on the russel douglas homicide. >> plumberg's partner on the investigation mike beach took the call. >> he just said hey, i'm calling to see if you have unsolved homicides from december 2003, and i said yes, sir, we actually have two in december of 2003. which one are you referring to? he says the guy who got shot in the head. >> beach said are says he didn't know if the caller was the killer or someone related to the killer, but he knew he didn't want to lose it. >> i'm doing everything i can to keep this gentleman on the phone because at that point he still hadn't given me his name. >> the caller was using an untraceable calling card and on

the phone he seemed nervous. >> he said if i told you what i know the shooter's going to know that i told you. >> that first call lasted more than an hour, but the cops learned neither the name of the caller nor the killer. >> he was still afraid to give us any more information so i'm doing everything i can to gain his trust, just to keep talking to him. >> the informant agreed to call again the next day and this time he was more forthcoming. >> he started telling me that i needed to look for a girlfriend of the shooter that was from las vegas. he kept saying the shooter's where i am. >> the caller told beach that he was a retired air force serviceman and played in a band with the shooter. the shooter, he said, was his best friend. >> i asked him again to call the next day and he said i have to work, but i can call on thursday. i said okay. i'll be here waiting and he almost whispered, the shooter is jim huden.

>> jim huden, in the age of google, that was all the break mark plumberg needed. by the end of the day the detectives knew that jim huden lived in south florida and played in a band and according to the band's website, one of its members was retired air force and so the next time the caller phoned detective beach was ready. >> he was asking me were you able to do anything with what i gave you. i said yeah, i think i'm looking at a picture of you and the phone went quiet and he said you guys are good. >> we're not good. it was simple google searching. at last, the detectives had a solid lead. one that raised plenty of questions. who was this jim huden and why was their tipster so will willing to give him up? the cops knew the answers to those questions. it could not be found in a google search. they would have to fly to southwest florida at a time of year when violent storm clouds

always seem to luck just over the horizon. coming up, was this a case of love turned lethal? detectives learn about an affair between this beauty queen. >> she was a whole lot of gorgeous woman. >> and a guitar man with a dark side. >> jim at one point had told me that he wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. >> when "dateline" continues. sc so you can move more. dr. scholl's. born to move. my mom washes the dishes... ...before she puts them in the dishwasher. so what does the dishwasher do?

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i'm dara brown. here's our top stories. police in sacramento won't charge a man who killed officers. the officers say they thought clark had a gun. but investigators found only a cell phone. and bernie sanders launched his second presidential bid in brooklyn saturday, calling donald trump the most dangerous president in modern u.s. history and promising his campaign is to defeat him. now, back to "dateline." ♪ nearly 500 years ago a middle-aged spaniard came to this part of florida searching for the fountain of youth. ponce de leon never found it, but in 1992 it seems jim huden

did. like deleon, huden was a middle-aged wanderer, but unlike the conquistador, the locals loved jim huden. >> jim was always a happy go lucky, fun guy. >> he was just a wonderful human being. >> very witty guy. just charming. everybody loved him. >> a native of washington state, huden's first fans in punta gorda were customers at his computer store. former mayor marilyn mooney was one of those. >> he was brilliant with computers. in fact, you could go in there and they would build a computer for you. >> but it was huden's band, buck naked and the exhibitionists that made him one of the most popular people in punta gorda. >> tim played keyboards in the band. >> we had two names to decide on. it was buck naked and the exhibitionists or les moore and the contradictions. so we picked buck naked and he came up with both names.

that's the way his brain worked. he was a brilliant guy. >> bill hill, the band's bass player, said huden was a guy that never liked to let wives or girlfriends get in the way of a good time. >> i had a lot of fun. >> safe to say you were his wingman? he covered for you, you covered for him. >> yes, indeed. >> golden oldies like wilson picket's "six, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine." was the bread and butter. lead singer al holland used to perform with the platters. he said that whenever buck naked played people would dance. >> we would pack the place every single friday and saturday night and it would just be one very big party. >> it must have been fun to be a part of the big band in town. >> it was. >> oh, yeah. it was. >> the band was so hot, in pack, that jim huden eventually turned over the computer store to his top assistant jean spender so he

could concentrate on music. >> i kind of pushed him towards doing that because i knew that was his love and that's where he was most happy. >> were you in love with him? very much so. i loved that man very much. >> so much so that in december 2001, after six years of living together, jean and jim got married in las vegas. >> and i was asked by jean if i would walk her down the aisle. >> was she happy? >> oh, yeah. all smiles. both of them were all smiles. >> but the smiles did not last long. in june 2002 jim huden returned here to washington state for the funeral of an old friend, and it was here that fate intervened. a tall, red-haired beauty caught jim's eye. it was the beginning of a love triangle, one that would wreck the lives of all of the people who were involved, and some who were not. the woman in question was peggy

thomas, a whidbey island hairstylist who also dabbled in beauty pageants. >> miss washington, peggy thomas. >> in fact, in 2001 thomas represented the state of washington in a las vegas pageant wing the evening gown competition. leslie burkland got to know peggy thomas a few years earlier when she was just breaking into the beauty pageant circuit. berkland who now appeals on the reality show "big, rich, texas." i still consider myself new to dallas. >> says peggy was working as an auto mechanic at the time. >> you couldn't not notice peggy because she was a whole lot of gorgeous woman would you say she's a typical pageant contestant? >> no. not in 1998. here is this beautiful, volume house is red-head woman and she was a mechanic and she had a guy

kind of job. it just added to her sex appeal. >> though jean says she knew nothing of her husband's budding affair at the time, she did notice that he had returned from his friend's funeral a changed man, secretive, sullen and withdrawn. >> i think jim's sister-in-law had mentioned peggy to me and i didn't put two and two together. she made some comment about them being there at the funeral and it just didn't click so i didn't want to acknowledge it. >> jean says she later found e-mails and letters from this peggy and that the woman even called her home looking for jim, but jean says that jim told her peggy was simply a music contact who could get him gigs in las vegas, worrisome, to be sure, but jean says it was her husband's heavy drinking that really had her concerned. >> he started drinking constantly at home, you know, and drinking to obliterate himself, basically, to numb himself and then he started making trips out west. >> did you, at the time, think that there was another woman? >> no.

i had no idea. >> there is, of course, no cure for willful blindness. but bill hill, huden's faithful wingman knew the truth about those out of town trips because sometimes he'd been along for the ride. >> we came out to las vegas, the reason that he asked me to go was to cover for him. >> he was seeing peggy? >> yes. tell me about jim's relationship with peggy. >> it was all love and kisses. >> really? >> uh-huh. >> more so than with jean who was waiting for him back home? >> yes. >> before long, other band members say that they, too, began seeing the same changes in jim that troubled jean, heavy drinking and erratic behavior. >> he'd go through a fifth of crown royal in a night and one night i'm calling cord changes to the bass player, and he hollers at me in the middle of a song quit criticizing the bass player or something like that

and i hollered back at him why don't you keep your mouth quiet i'm doing my job over here and he shut off his guitar and walked off stage which is about the most unprofessional thing you can do. >> after that, the band's days were numbers and seemingly so were the days of jean huden's marriage, but the drinking and philandering were not the worst of it. >> jim at one point had told me that he wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. >> he told you he had wanted to know that. >> yes. one with of his deep, dark secrets. >> and you say sure, what? great idea, honey? >> i didn't know what to say. >> who would? jean could only guess at what was behind this sudden change. >> he lost his dad when he was, i believe, 10, 11 years old and his mom dated a series of men throughout that were abusive drunks and he saw his mom get beat up many, many times. he wasn't able to do anything and he always swore he would get this guy, the man who mostly beat her has since passed away. >> jean didn't know if something back in washington had triggered

her husband's black moods, but she remained determined to pull him through. >> i loved that man more than life itself at the time. i was so in love with him. i thought he was the one. >> even though he was in the process of treating you like dirt. >> right. i was hoping everything could be salvaged. >> and then came june 2003 when the cold, hard facts of her husband's affair could no longer be denied. jim moved out telling jean he needed a change of scenery for his music. jean knew better. i was, like, you're going back to see peggy and i said get out and don't ever come back again. he didn't want to hear that. he wanted me to be hanging on while he had peggy, as well. >> that moment of clarity, it turns out, was short lived. all that summer while jim huden set up housekeeping with peggy and her two daughters out in las vegas, jean said her husband kept her dangling that he and

peggy thomas were over and he'd soon be home, he told her. and for jean, that was a reason to believe. >> i thought there was some hope. i didn't want to let go. >> and for a brief moment in september 2003 jean looked as if her perseverance would pay off. jim invited her out to las vegas for her 40th birthday. for several days he wined and dined her, but her dreams of a happy ending she says, vanished when her husband turned to her in bed one night and told her he intended to make his darkest dreams come true. there was a man who needed to die. coming up -- >> not the kind of thing a wife wants to hear, but jean has an even bigger shock coming. >> it was like getting kicked in the stomach. life was over at that point. >> when "dateline" continues. seresto, seresto, seresto.

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they say that what happens in vegas, stays in vegas. no one wanted that slogan to be true more than jean huden did, they say that what happens in vegas stays in vegas. no one wanted that slogan to be true more than jean huden did. especially since vegas was where her husband had told her he intended to kill a complete stranger. he wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. nobody's ever said that to me before. >> yeah, me either. >> this was not to be a thrill killing. according to jean, her husband believed murdering the victim he had in mind would be a kind of public service. >> he just said he beat his children and beat his wife and didn't take care of his family and just an abusive -- >> made him sound exactly like the guy jim had grown up with. >> exactly. >> what did jim say he was going

to do? >> he said peggy's friend brenna approached him and she would share the insurance money with him. >> murder for hire. >> yes. >> did you try to talk him out of this? >> i did. i thought he was just talking. i was hoping he'd get over it. >> it had been a tough year for mr. and mrs. huden. the death of a childhood friend had sent jim huden spinning off into a hall of fame-worthy midlife crisis that ran the gamut from alcoholism and adultery to vague notions of murder. >> i just didn't think he would follow through with it. he didn't even know how to shoot a gun. >> by christmas 2003 things hit rock bottom. instead of returning with jean after their romantic reunion in las vegas jim had stayed out west. did you think he was with peggy? >> at that point i thought so, yeah. i knew what was going on, and i knew it was over, and i just --

there was no point in confronting him because he would lie about it anyway. >> abandoned and alone, jean spent the holidays waiting for word from jim. then in early january, jean says her phone rang. her husband was on the line. but jim huden wasn't calling to wish his wife a happy new year. according to jean, he was calling to tell her that dreams do come true. he had killed a man in cold blood. >> he just said it was done, and he's coming back. >> the murder? >> yes. >> what did you say? >> i think i was speechless at the time. i just -- i think i asked if he was okay, and does anyone know or are they after you -- i basically just asked if he was okay. >> your husband had just confessed that he had committed a murder for hire. >> uh-huh. it was like getting kicked in the stomach. i mean i knew life as i knew it was over at that point. >> jean says her husband drove through the night, pulling into their garage in punta gorda

after dark the next day. >> he basically told me how they had lured russel to a certain spot on the island and how he had came out of some bushes and walked up to him and just shot him in the head. and he made it sound like, you know, it was kind of gentle and peaceful and his head just tilted over and he walked away. >> jim had told you that he had this dark secret. that he wanted to know what it would be like to kill someone? >> right. >> did it live up to his expectations? >> no. he said for a few days he felt like a big man and it was exhilarating and he had accomplished something and had rid the world of someone that didn't need to be there anymore. and he started to close in on him and that he wasn't such a big man and he knew he had made a terrible mistake. >> based on what jim told you, did brenna douglas offer any shred of proof that her husband was abusive? or did jim just kind of commit

that murder pretty much on faith? >> pretty much on faith, as far as i knew because i'd come to find out later there were no records of him -- there were no reports of domestic abuse as far as i understand. >> after laying low for a while, jean says, jim gradually started picking up the pieces of his old life in punta gorda. as the weeks passed, jean says she even allowed herself to think that perhaps the ugliness of the past two years was in the past, that is until the april day when a tall red-headed stranger appeared on her doorstep. >> jim was doing a local radio show here in the morning and i was at home and there's a knock on the door and i opened the door and it's peggy thomas standing on my doorstep. >> in that icy instant, jim huden's complicated double life collapsed. as the women talked, jean says, it became clear that both had been lied to.

both believed jim was done with the other and committed to them. >> he was playing us both for quite some time, trying to keep us both apart from each other. >> so there you are with peggy and jim's not there. >> uh-huh. >> for how long? >> not long because i called the radio station and suggested he get home real fast. he stopped the show and came home and peggy and i are sitting there on the couch. >> how did he look? >> not good. >> so what happens at that meeting? >> there was a lot of yelling. >> the two of you yelling at jim or at each other? a little of both. i was yelling at her because she knew he was married. >> and she was saying there was nothing left of your marriage. >> it was a knife in the heart and at that point he needed to make a choice and he said he was going to stay with me. >> although jean says peggy agreed to leave them in peace and return to las vegas, a few weeks later she was back. this time showing up unannounced at a reunion gig for jim's old band, buck naked and the exhibitionists.

hill says the moment he saw her face in the audience he knew it was trouble. trouble because shortly after returning to punta gorda jim huden had told him that peggy had helped him murder a man who reminded jim of someone he'd known as a child. a man who who had allegedly beaten and abused jim's mother. >> he says i would have done him in if he was still alive and he says i found a person that met his description as far as abusiveness, and i says, yeah. and he says, well, i shot him in the head and killed him. >> no chance that he was kidding or not telling the truth? >> i knew he was telling the truth. peggy found a person that supposedly was abusive and it happened to be the the husband of a woman that owned the hair salon in whidbey island, i believe. >> where peggy worked? >> where peggy worked, yes. >> so peggy knew all about this? >> she helped him.

>> for five months bill hill says he struggled under the weight of that confession and then in late july 2004 his conscience finally got the better of him. >> i decided to make my first call. >> your first call? >> to whidbey island. >> to the police. >> yes. to the island county sheriff's -- i felt guilty i was giving up my friend, but i knew something had to be done. >> within days of that call detectives mark plumberg and mike beach were sitting face-to-face with both their tipster bill hill and their suspect, the artist formerly known as buck naked. coming up, the interrogation gets tough. >> you know what you told bill. the guy is falling apart over the guilt he's carrying around because you told him what you did. >> will jim crack or will detectives realize they've got the wrong man?

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for seven months after russell douglas was shot between the eyes, police had little more for seven months after russell douglas was shot between the eyes, police had little more to go on than a corpse and an empty shell casing. with their case in a dead end, whidbey island detectives desperately wanted to believe that bill hill, the tipster who

had led them to florida was something other than a crack pot with an axe to grind. >> when we first landed in florida we met with bill hill, confirmed the story we wanted to meet him face-to-face, obviously. >> what was his mood? >> he was a bit nervous. i think he was still in that mode where he knew he was turning in his best friend. >> once again, bill hill told the detectives what he knew, that his best friend jim huden had told him he'd killed a man in whidbey island and that huden's girlfriend peggy thomas had helped set up the whole thing with the knowledge of the victim's wife. it was a compelling story, but with no murder weapon or any other physical evidence connecting jim huden to the murder of russel douglas, the detectives were no closer to being able to make an arrest. >> the next day we decide we had no cards other than to just go talk to jim huden and say what he'll say to us.

>> after arranging to have a second team of detectives visit peggy thomas simultaneously in las vegas, the detectives drove over to jim huden's house, jean answered the door. >> i showed her my badge and my i.d. and said i was from island county, washington. >> jim was there. >> yes. he was sitting on the couch. he said what's island county washington doing all of the way here in florida? >> oddly enough, he didn't say anything like that. >> the detective didn't beat around the bush. >> i looked him right in the face and i said mr. huden i know you're the man who pulled the trigger and killed russel douglas and his only response was i don't know why someone would say that. i was sure at that moment i was in the room with the man. >> an innocent man would say i'm crazy. >> he never once made a denial of my accusation. >> huden admitted to being on whidbey island with peggy thomas

over the christmas holidays, but denied ever owning a gun. he admitted to having briefly met russel douglas, but said it was only to drop off a present at his apartment near seattle for brenna from peggy. >> i asked if he'd be willing to come down to the police station with us. i said we'd like to get your story on tape. he agreed. >> he's under no obligation to do that. he doesn't have to go anywhere with us. >> do you want a soda? >> i'm fine. if the coffee is ever done i'll have that. >> with tape rolling, jim huden freely agreed to being in washington at the time of the crime, to meeting russel douglas there and to being a lousy, two-timing husband, but that's where jim huden drew the line. >> i'm a son of a -- but no killer. i'm a [ expletive ]. >> for nearly an hour, it covered old ground with few interruptions with detectives in las vegas who were at that very moment grilling huden's

girlfriend peggy thomas. >> peggy was my guide out there? >> i would be surprised if it was any different than mine. >> and he was right, like jim, peggy wasn't giving the police anything in her interview. so detective mike beach decided to shake things up. coming up -- it's peggy's turn to be interrogated. will she give up her lover? >> she said, you know, you're never going to be able to do that to me again. >> and peggy herself, she's off to the next man. >> she's evil. >> and the whole case goes south in mexico. when "dateline" continues. -not this. ♪ -oh, what am i into? mostly progressive's name your price tool. helps people find coverage options based on their budget.