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tv   Dateline Extra  MSNBC  May 26, 2019 8:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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he must have loved her more than i imagine or still trying to prove what a man he was or thinks he is. >> that's it for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. thank you for watching the minister called and said, you need to come home. never in a million years do you think you would see your parents' house taped off by that yellow tape. >> inside a nebraska farmhouse, an unspeakable sight. >> i started up the stairs, blood on the walls. >> it was a very brutal crime
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scene, the worst i've ever seen. >> a loving couple dead. was the killer one of the family. >> they arrested matt. >> i said, matt who? he said, my cousin, matt. d, my t >> but this case was not solved. one tiny clue didn't fit. the inscription said love corey. >> who was that? >> that must have been a shocker? >> pretty much sends a chill down your spine. >> i killed someone, he was older, i loved him. >> pretty scary. >> a sinister story. not even it told the whole twisted truth. >> i know what happened and no one will believe me. >> is this really happening? >> i didn't think i could feel so much anger. >> in the dead of night. >> hello.
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welcome to "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. it was an easter sunday tradition and this holiday was no different. they gathered their children and grandchildren in for a big family celebration. later that night, gunshots turned their nebraska farmhouse into a house of horrors. wayne and sharman were dead. had the killer been sitting around the holiday table hours earlier or did police need to widen their search? here's keith morrison. >> it was late, past midnight when the farmhouse loomed up in their headlights. no sign of life. not to them anyway. he hit the brakes. this was the place. they grabbed their weapons, headed for the house. a window unlocked. paydirt.
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the prairie takes on a sweet rolling pitch as it tucks into a nebraska corner, an hour south of omaha. here, the rich black topsoil has grown generations of solid and faithful americans. a tiny remnant of whom have planted themselves in and around a place called murdoch, the sort of place where heads turn when a stranger drives by. and a family's name is carved in the local stone. it was easter sunday afternoon, 2006. a big farmyard, and like every year, and easter egg hunt. >> it was grandma and papa's yard. >> or mom and dad to tammy, who brought her own son like always. >> they found their easter eggs and found their easter basket.
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mom always made every individual easter basket special to that child. >> they were like that, were wayne and sharman stalk. generous steady always there for their children. steve and tammy and andy. >> they were loving parents. >> i don't think they ever missed a game of any of ours. dad would always stop farming to be at a game, similar to mom. >> wayne was a businessman farmer, ran the stockade company and a very successful business it was. wayne owned a thousand acres of land and rental property. and charmin was famous for her cakes. they were church youth leaders and on the school board. >> they were busy people. >> yes. they touched the lives of so many people. >> she was a teacher's aide at a rural school and taught lessons
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also that didn't end in class. >> one thing i always heard from mom was take responsibility for your actions. be responsible. >> she would praise you and just keep pushing you to do better. she always wanted us to be better people. >> then, came that easter sunday, 2006, church services, a big family dinner, that easter egg hunt for the grandkids. their last day on this earth. >> we forgot that one day. my kids remember it. they talk about it all the time. >> i suppose as last days go, that wouldn't be a bad one? >> no, it wasn't. >> andy had missed the easter party, spent the day with his future in-laws but left his young puppy with his parents. >> called my mom and dad on my way home and said am i going to get the dog? no. he can stay here. he'll be fine. sleeps on the porch and we'll watch him until monday morning.
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i'll come get him. >> would history have been different had he listened to his parents? hard to know of course. >> they met me on the deck, on the back of the house. we talked about easter and what they did. they each gave me a hug and i went home. >> as you remember that moment, it makes you feel pretty emotional, doesn't it? >> yeah. yeah. >> the next morning, andy, who was being grilled to run stock hey some day himself drove the half mile to his parents' farm and ready go to work. >> i drove in and went in the shop. dad's pickup was there, i thought was a little bit strange. i'll see if the took mom's car somewhere and looked in the garage and the car was somewhere. picked up the phone in the house and there was no dial tone. that's when my heart kind of sunk that for some reason was a trigger in my mind. >> something was wrong.
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>> something was wrong. i better go upstairs. as i started up this stairs, there was some blast on the walls. i knew it was bad. >> it has to be surreal, a moment like that. does your mind even register? >> no. i think the good lord protects us until i rounded the corner and saw dad laying there on the floor. and it was a horrible thing. >> it was perhaps the central moment in his life so far. nothing would be the same after this. >> what did you do when you found them? >> i never made it past the landing. my cell phone was out in my pickup, and just turned around, went to call for help. >> the ambulance was there in 12 minutes, their first lawman in 20. andy stood outside in shock, calling family without even knowing what happened or what to
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say. >> andy's wife and i work together. she answered the phone call and she didn't even recognize andy's voice. and they've been together for nine years. >> your own wife. >> she came in the back and said, tam, something's wrong. andy just called and said, come quick, dad's laying in a pool of blood. coming up, the stock children face another stunning shock. >> did this really happen? >> in a gravel driveway there was a marijuana pipe and about 10 feet from it there was a flashlight. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. "in the dead of nit" continues.
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the children of wayne and
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charmin stock found something had just happened at their farmhouse. they did not assume the worst. even when they tried to call back, their brother, andy, who was on scene and now wasn't answering. >> around 11:00, 11:30, both kass and i were like, something is really wrong. the minister called and said, you need to come home. i said, i'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's wrong. he said, your mom and dad have been killed. i think i did start screaming. and we headed towards the farm, to be with andy. never in a million years would you think you would see your parents' house taped off by that yellow tape. >> it was a stunning crime. big news throughout the midwest. the stocks the most unlikely victims. wayne, found on the upstairs landing, dead of a shotgun
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blast. wife, charmin, murdered in her own bedroom, a telephone in hand as if calling for help. the county sheriff advised caution. >> right now, this is an unsolved homicide. whether it's somebody local or from another town we don't know at this time. >> who could have murdered way in and charmin stock? why? just a couple of hours after wayne and charmin stock's son discovered their bodies in their rural nebraska farmhouse on easter, 2006, word got around. loh swarmed the scene, neighbors expressed shock in that understated midwestern way. >> they're just typical nebraska farm background people, and you wouldn't expect it. >> andy stock, as you can see in these pictures taken on that very day, stood next to his pickup in utter shock waiting
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for his brother and sister to arrive. he struggled to process it all as his father's words echoed in his mind. >> i'll never forget july of '05, dad and i were working together, we're standing there and he looked at me and he said, son, he said, when it's my day to go, hold your head high, keep living life. i'll never forget that. >> it was all happening so fast. wayne and charmin stock had been gunned down in the safety of their own home, sanctity of their own bedroom. why would anyone want them dead? and who? andy was the last to see his parents alive, found their bodies in the morning, which made him, as bizarre as it sounds, a potential suspect. >> before i even saw steve and tammy, they put me in a car and took me to another town and questioned me in a room.
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>> trying to establish whether or not you were involved. >> yeah. did gunshot residue tests. is this really happening? >> andy stock didn't realize it at the time, investigators were looking hard right at him. after all, he was there, he had opportunity and he may have had motive. he might have had something to gain from his parents' death. why? andy stock was the already designated heir to the stock hey company, which some people might consider a family fortune. as investigators questioned andy, csi units were busily working the crime scene as well. >> it was a very brutal crime scene, one of the worst i've ever seen. >> one of those leading the investigation, david kofu, from
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ane a nearby town an hour away. he was called in to help them. >> what really bothers me, the two people were sleeping in bed and the male shot in the head and crawling way and the female victim holding the phone in her hand and shot in the eye at close range. >> investigators found out quickly how the stock's killers entered the house. a screen had been lifted, window forced open leading into the laundry room. from there it appeared the killer's route might have gone past the easter basket charmin made. bri the look of it, the stocks woke up. wayne tried to get up and shot first in the knee. the gun fired so close to him it left a huge powder burn on the bed. then wayne shot in the head.
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charmin killed, too, trying to call 911. then it became apparent it wasn't just one kill bitter at least two. >> we did the blood pattern analysis we saw a void area at the top of the steps. >> which could only mean one thing. as one of the killers fired at stock from behind, this area called a void area had been where the ear killer had been standing. he and his team found a wealth of information outside of the house. >> it was a big farm operation and a lot of out buildings and complicated by the fact they had an easter egg hunt the day before. >> one print stood out. i saw a print unusual by the flower bed by the front door. >> and beyond the flower bed there was a virtual trail of evidence left by the likely killers. >> in the gravel driveway there was a marijuana pipe and about
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10 feet from it there was a flashlight and those two things were obviously out of place. >> you could sort of imagine a television show, csi. >> right. >> there's a light. too easy. >> but it was -- >> there it was. >> it was there. one thing i knew pretty much right at the beginning i could visibly see blood on the outside of the flashlight. we knew that had to be involved. >> then, a real break through, a newspaper carrier called in to report he and his girlfriend saw something. they had been driving down this country road the middle of the night, about a mile from the stock farmhouse down there, and just here outside this cemetery, they saw a car, just parked here. strange cars just don't get parked on country roads outside murdoch, nebraska, at 3:00 in the morning. it was tan or light brown four-door sedan said the young
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man. what really stuck out was this car later passed them in the same area, same night, this time driving 60 to 70 miles an hour, in a rush, it appeared to get away. investigators now had a number of clues. that car seen by the newspaper carrier, flashlight with what appeared to be blood on it. the marijuana pipe. detectives were probably looking for more than one killer. but a motive? who knew? not a thing was missing. wallets, purses, gun collections, even a safe hidden in the bedroom floor, all untouched. but all that evidence. asking questions to shows closest to the stocks would soon pay off. just a week later an arrest and confession. another shattering blow to the stock family. coming up, stories surface of a long simmering feud between
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the beloved farming couple and their family's black sheep. >> just knowing they hadn't got along very well, i had my own suspicions. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. night" cont ins. also available in hybrid all-wheel-drive. lease the 2019 ux 200 for $329 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. itso chantix can help you quit "slow turkey."
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lease the 2019 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. you never know what life is going[ whimpering ]ou. and from this point on nothing is going to be the same. raising a kid it's not easy. no, no, no. this way buddy. come on. no! gidget could you watch liam? it's like we're his parents. it's like you're the dad and i'm the mom and we're in a relationship. and this is our baby. [ laughing ] well... it's exactly like that! exactly! be the first to discover the secrets. at the fandango early access showing may 25th. welcome back. detectives investigating the shotgun murders of wayne and charmin stock turned up a number of clues.
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blood spatter analysis showed they were looking at two killers and suspicious car the night they were killed. the question remained. who could possibly want to harm the well liked couple. turns out there was one person who had issues with the stocks. he was no stranger to the family. keith morrison with more of our story. >> andy stock was a grief-stricken man and it wasn't long before authorities released him from their list of suspects. as they question the couple's family, another relative's name came up quite often actually. matt livers. he was their nephew. he attended the easter dinner. he wasn't there by virtue of a
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family favorite. instead, livers was something of a black sheep and bounced from job to job never finding his niche. family members said he was slow, different. he had no criminal record but there was, they said, an ongoing problem between matt and the stocks. they described disagreements sometimes as heated. they said charmin had a dislike for matt, the stock's oldest son, steve. >> i think in my head i went to it a little bit knowing they hadn't got along very well. i had my own suspicions. >> two days after the murders. detectives visited matt livers' former employer and rumors he had a temmer and put a watch on him and went through his garbage. this was his house in lincoln, 30 miles from the murder scene. eight days after the bodies were discovered they asked matt to come in and answer some questions. >> you're free to leave at any
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time. >> well, i'm here to cooperate with you, gentleman. >> he was unerringly courteous and dif rengsal to the police officers questioning him. he said he had never been interviewed by police before. >> i don't know. yon. i really don't know why. how, when, where and why, would somebody do this to such good people. very christian people? very loving and likable people? >> livers told them after the big family dinner with the stocks he drove home the half thundershower lincoln, where he stayed all night with his girlfriend, sarah, and sarah's young son, and a roommate. he did admit to having disagreements with his uncle wayne over various family issues, those were minor. >> any problems between you guys? >> oh, years ago we had a tiff.
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but, you know -- >> after five hours of questions, matt livers agreed to take a polygraph. >> do you know for sure who caused the death of wayne stock? >> no. >> if livers was looking to remove himself from suspicion by taking the test, it did not have the scored effect. >> i did not have anything to do with it. >> you did. >> i did not. >> i'm sorry, you did. >> for more hours they locked horns with livers. they said they knew he was lying. >> we've had as many people sitting in that chair that think they're smarter than us and they're not. >> i'm not. i'm dumb as a brick. >> you're not dumb as a brick. you made a mistake and now you have to pay for it.
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why were investigators convinced matt livers was lying. there was a polygraph saying this was the sort of crime made by males who know their victims. how else would they find a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere if they didn't know them. this was the sort of crime that appeared to be very personal, an execution. matt livers rang those bells and rang them loudly. eventually, detectives got quite explicit, telling livers he was heading for death row unless he started giving them what they knew to be true. >> if you don't admit to me exactly what you've done, i'm going to walk out that door and i'm going to do my best to hang your [bleep] from the highest tree and you're done. >> we'll put the olive branch out right now and attempt to help you, okay? >> it was that technique that
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finally produced the desired effects. rough perhaps, yes. but matt livers started confessing. >> and the story he'd tell included a big detail. livers was not alone. coming up, the case snares a second suspect, not just with an accusation but with what appears to be damning evidence. >> that was the real smoking gun. you've got him. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. ad of night" ntinues. what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate... and be better protected from mayhem... like me. ♪
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i'm dara brown. our top stories. right now, president trump is talking with prime minister shinzo abe during the business portion of his trip to japan. the two are expected to discuss trade and north korea and soon holding a joint conference. and the deaths in oklahoma climbs to at least six after it tore through el reno last night
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leaving people dead. more than 200 have been injured throughout the say. now, back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. the grisly double murder of wayne and charmin stock left their family reeling from grief. the stock's family, matt livers were brought in for question, the day after the family was killed? the story matt was about to share would break this case wide open. >> matt livers was grilled for hours in the possible involvement of the murders of his aunt and uncle. now, he was starting to tell them what they suspect instead. >> you have a gun? right or wrong? >> right. >> and you took your gun back to
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your uncle wayne and aunt sharmon's house, right? right or wrong, come on. >> right. >> now that the cat was out of the bag, livers began filling in more of the blanks, how the murder went down for example. >> put the gun to her face and blue it away. and then as i headed out, i just stuck it to him and blew him away. >> and then a bonus. remember how that blood spattered hinting a second killer was involved? now, before they trooped him off to jail, matt livers gave them a name to match the void on the wall. perhaps it's not so surprising in the elation of the moment, detectives had no idea, not a clue that they had just jumped down an "alice in wonderland" rabbit hole. wayne and sharmon's children
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were still reeling from their grief as they buried their parents less than a week after perhaps the most hor realistic murder the little town had ever seen. then, to grief, add shock, andy stock answered his phone and one of the detectives was on the other end of the line with news. they spoke. then, andy called his sister. >> it was about 12:30 at night. he says, tam, i need you to be awake. are you awake? i said, yeah. what's going on? he said, they arrested matt and nick. and i said matt and nick who? >> he said, our cousin matt and nick sampson. >> it was true, matt livers had confessed to the murders of his aunt and uncle. >> but the gun to her face and blew it away. >> and he named an accomplice. 22-year-old nick sampson, a cousin of matt's on another branch of the family tree. >>my husband had given me the
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phone, i was sitting up in the bed. i said, andy, should i be shaking? he said, that's normal. shock. >> but matt livers had been with them for din ear few hours before and said now, he had returned to kill his aunt and an uncle. >> our first reaction was somebody needs to tell grandma. she had just lost her only son and her grandson was being arrested for this. just like us, i don't understand. grandma, none of us understand any of this. >> did it give you any sense that somebody was responsible? did it make you feel any better? >> the police were to move too the next phase of this. i was relieved, i guess, to know they had somebody. >> with livers already in jail, police descended on murdoch to arrest sampson, a cook at bulldog's bar in murdoch. he had a minor criminal record. a guy by his own admission,
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liked to drive too fast. a problem with marijuana as a teenager, done two separate stints in boys homes and now sampson had been printed and processed and like livers questioned on videotape. >> i guess i'll just ask you. >> i think that they think i'm responsible for the murders. >> but nick sampson, unlike his co-defendant -- >> i had absolutely nothing to do with this. >> during three hours of questioning, did not confess to anything. >> if something's left at that house okay, with your dna and/or your prints, how are you going to explain how it got there? >> i'm not cause i don't think you have my dna anywhere near that house. cause i've never been in that house. never ever once in my entire life have i ever been inside their house. >> like livers, sampson agreed
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to take a polygraph but again it wasn't what he hoped for. it showed sampson was deceptive when he denied being at wayne stock's home when wayne was shot. investigators seized on that to ratchet up the pressure. >> you were at the house when he was killed. >> no, i was not. >> your body is telling me otherwise. we need to get down to that. what's going on. >> i honest to do was not at the house when they were killed. >> investigators did not believe nick sampson. after all, matt livers says sampson was behind it and they planned it on their cell phones two days before the murder. so detectives were pretty sure matt livers was telling the truth and nick sampson was lying. >> you were there when he was
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shot. >> i was not there. >> i want you to understand how the system works. >> i do understand. i'm getting framed for something i didn't [bleep] do. >> but it didn't look good for nick sampson. he denied being a marijuana user anymore. but he had had trouble with the drug before and investigators found that marijuana pipe at the scene. when detectives visited nick's grandfather in murdoch, the old man told them month ago nick borrowed a 12 gage shotgun from him, the same gage weapon used in the murders. then investigators executed a search warrant in sampson's home in palmyra. among the items seized under the bed, that 12 gage borrowed from his grandfather and a pair of blue jeans examined by csi chief, david and his team. >> we had a pair of pants that looked like it had blood on it and we tested that and that was positive.
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that was the real smoking gun. you got it. >> then, there was more. remember that car seen by the newspaper carrier parked a mile from to the farmhouse the night of the murders, detectives had found it they believed, a 1997 ford contour owned by nick sampson's brother. it had been cleaned and detailed actually at 5:30 easter monday morning hours after it apparently used in the murders. >> who details a car at 5:30 in the morning? >> that's why they thought it was suspicious. >> wait. it gets even better. the car had been searched for evidence once and nothing found. then csi chief got a call from one of the lead investigators. >> matt confessed he threw the shotgun in the back seat of the ford contour. maybe you can find transfer evidence there, take another look at it. i said, well, maybe we missed it. >> they examined the car again. this time, lo and behold a stain
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was found just below the steering wheel on the dashboard. a stain found by csi chief himself. >> i just took it along that edge and wiped it. i figured that way i wouldn't miss anything and it reacted. >> you got a hit, though? >> i got a presumptive positive, yes. >> before long, tests confirmed what the csi chief found under the dashboard was indeed blood. the blood of wayne stock, the victim. only one way it could get there, carried by livers and sampson. with a confession and now real physical evidence to back it up, many in the community thought, case closed. oh, but they were mistaken. coming up, a piece of evidence that had gone unnoticed, turns the case upside down. is this the ring of truth?
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as april turned to a midwest may, less than two weeks after the murders of wayne and sharman stock, the investigators were in mop-up mode. they had arrested 28-year-old matt livers. he confessed and he named and accomplice, his cousin,
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22-year-old nick sampson. the sheriff's department called in the press and announced one of the most shocking crimes in this part of nebraska in decades was solved. >> people ask us, is this the closure on the case? it's not. another chapter, turning the page. still a lot of work to be done. >> though he was right, the sheriff had no clue just how much work there was yet to be done. for the stock's children, the arrest brought a small measure of relief. at least, they decided, they could try to move on, as they knew their parents would have wanted them to. >> i can hear mom and dad say, tammy, you can let this eat you alive or you can go on and be the best you can be and do what needs to be done, and that is family. so we can dwell on it but we choose not to because that's not what mom and dad would want. >> now, the system could grind
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forward, too, and the system provided defense attorneys for sampson and lifers. >> he said, i told them i did this but i didn't do this. you have to believe me. >> they all say they didn't do it. >> right. i've been lied to as a divorce lawyer. the cynical side of me goes, right. >> yet, they were puzzled, too. there were things that didn't quite add up. both nick and matt and their live-in girlfriends swore up and down on the night of the murder they were at home asleep 25 miles away. nick claimed, despite what the cops believed, he never talked to matt by phone or in person the week before the murders. what? >> the first thing i was concerned about, what was the evidence against nick sampson, regardless whether he did it or not, i need to know the evidence. >> quite by chance, this tiny
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piece of what seemed to be evidence showed up. police missed it the morning after the murder. one sharp-eye'd cop happened to notice it a couple days later. it was this gold ring on the kitchen floor. >> i thought, somebody took it o to wash their hands and fell down and forgot about it. >> at the time, could have belonged to the victim or anybody? >> right. >> one thing people should know about the stock house, nothing was ever out of place. one of the investigators picked up the ring and bagged it and tagged it as evidence. a size 10, a man's ring bearing a message. >> the inscription said, love always cori and ryan. >> who was cori and who was ryan? detectives asked the stock children and none recognized rings or the ring either. >> as lifers was confessing and he and sampson were put in jail,
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one of them kept puzzling over that little ring. on the signed were three tiny letters, aaj. the manufacturer perhaps? yes. turned out to be a place called a & a jewelers, buffalo, new york. >> remember one of the girls in shipping indicated there was a call from somebody in the nebraska police department. >> mary was running what was left of the buffalo office just then. what was left? the place was going out of business. massive layoffs, 200 jobs lost. by the time nebraska cops started calling, mary was one of only three people to clean up the buffalo office and close it down. now, here was this investigator to ask mary to track down a ring the company likely shipped years ago. >> you said, what? you got to be kidding? >> i said it's like looking for
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a needle in a haystack. she mentioned homicide. >> that's when they mentioned the ring and double homicide and the fact nobody else at the company was willing to help. >> she said they made several attempts and no one was willing to assist her. >> she said she would see what they could do. surely they had taken the order, love always, cori and ryan, and shipped it. she went to the warehouse where tens of thousands of back orders were kept. >> i started with number 1, stores 1 through 25. box number 2, stores 25 through 30 you. went through each one? >> yes. until i got to like 108 or 118, i said, this is going to be impossible. >> mary asked for help. had a colleague make a computer grid of the more than 3,000
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stores a & a shipped to across the country, a block of dates, when the ring might have been ordered and cross-matched that with the inscription. >> how long did that process take? >> it took me probably three days and two nights. >> does that seem a little over the top. look for an hour or so and say, i can't find it, that would be that. >> i heard homicide. i heard it was important. >> lo and behold, after three days of searching, suddenly, there it was. >> i got up from my chair and said, bingo, i found it, i found it. >> any specifics what you found on that order form, where it was sent? >> it was wisconsin, i know that. >> wait. wisconsin, not nebraska? actually, it was quite specific to beaver dam, wisconsin, to this walmart store. this is where a girl named cori bought the ring for a boy named
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ryan. it wasn't love always and the ring was soon gathering dust in the cab of ryan's red pickup truck. then, the strangest thing happened. the truck was reported stolen from ryan's farm a few days before off nebraska. >> really nothing more than a standard missing vehicle. >> reporter: jim roarer was then a detective back in dodge county, wisconsin. when the call came in, it suggested some local joy ride, they'd find it nearby. instead, what a surprise. >> our dispatch had received confirmation from a parish down in louisiana that they had the stolen truck. >> reporter: stolen in wisconsin and abandoned way down in louisiana. that's a long way to go. what did you think? >> a couple kids on a joy ride. somebody taking it that needed to get back down south for whatever reason. >> reporter: it wasn't long before they fingered the suspected thieves. there were two of them. the guy was greg fester, age 19,
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with a history of drug use, suicide attempts, anger issues. fester was on probation for weapons and disorderly conduct convictions. >> greg was a little odd. he seemed a bit slow. just didn't seem to grasp things quite as well as a typical person. >> reporter: fester's alleged accomplice was a 17-year-old named jessica reid. a former honor roll student and cheerleader turned troubled teen after a divorce. she'd become mixed up with drugs and, by extension, fester. not exactly master criminals, were they? >> no. not by any sense of the word. two teenagers from wisconsin whacked out on drugs and not knowing what the hell they were doing. >> out of control. >> reporter: but the detective had no idea just how out of control these two had been. or where their jaunts in the stolen truck had taken them.
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and that, a few weeks later, is where the ring came in. that's when roarer got a call from nebraska, heard how that ling turned up at the scene of a double murder, heard how they tracked it back to the walmart in beaver dam and then to cori and ryan and the stolen truck. that must have been a shocker to get that information, to have it cross your desk. >> a huge shocker. that pretty much sends a chill down your spine. >> reporter: what was going on? how were these two teenagers, reid and fester, tied to the murders of wayne and sharmon stock? or were they at all? an interrogation of one of the teens provides a chilling first glimpse of what may have happened inside that farmhouse. coming up -- >> so i freaked out and left because obviously that guy's up there killing somebody. >> when "in the dead of night" continues.
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welcome back. a gold ring found at the wayne and sharmon stock double murder scene led investigators to two wisconsin teenagers, jessica reid and greg fester. why would they have been at the scene of a crime committed hundreds of miles away in nebraska? remember, police had already arrested two men for the killings. but they needed to know, could reid and fester have been involved? with more of our story, here is keith morris. spring arrived. the stock farm turned from brown to green. and wayne and sharmon's children struggled the best they could to put their lives back in place. >> they both wanted us to strive for so much more and said, you know, you can always do better. >> reporter: and so they may not have noticed so much the riddle that sprouted along with the corn. two towns, murdock, nebraska, beaver dam, wisconsin, more than 500 miles apart.
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now united, undeniably, by a single band of gold. that ring sold in a beaver dam walmart and found days after the murder in the kitchen of the stock farmhouse. how did it get there? matt livers never said anything about a ring when he confessed to killing wayne and sharmon stock. nothing about a stolen truck or out of control wisconsin teenagers either. one of whom, jessica reid, out on bail over the vehicle theft, responded to an invitation to visit the wisconsin detective, jim roarer. >> she had to know somewhere in the back of her mind that maybe they know more or want to talk to me about more than just a stolen truck. >> reporter: did she? in fact, as she settled in, young ms. reid seemed to view the police interview as little more than a nuisance to be endured. >> my grandma's coming into town, and i kind of -- i want to do this, but i want to do it a little bit faster. this going to take forever.
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>> reporter: jessica was all of 17. did she wonder why the wisconsin cop was joined by investigators from nebraska? >> i really want to know what nebraska has to do with this? because i don't think we even entered nebraska. >> reporter: didn't go to nebraska, didn't know anything about a gold ring, she said. she and fester just stole a truck, she said, and fueled by pot and massive doses of over-the-counter cough syrup, went off in search of the ocean before running out of gas and money and leaving that pickup truck in louisiana. but then they showed her a picture of a marijuana pipe, which, along with the gold ring, turned up at the stock farmhouse. and jessica reid's mantle began to crack. >> okay. i did steal -- i stole a whole bunch of money from somebody. i don't know who, i don't know where. i just remember stealing a whole bunch of money. yes, we did lose that pipe when they stole this money. >> reporter: reid then blurted it out. at this farmhouse, now
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apparently to her surprise, in nebraska, greg fester sneaked in through a window and let her in the back door. in the kitchen she said she found $500 in an envelope. then she said, they left. and the ring? well, now she admitted finding it in that stolen pickup, putting it on, then feeling it slide off her thumb inside that house. where was all this going? >> coming up, a letter from jessica reid and what she wrote stunned investigators. "i killed someone. he was older. i loved him" when "in the dead of night" continues. is it that obvious? yes it is. you know, maybe you'd worry less if you got geico to help with your homeowners insurance. i didn't know geico could helps with homeowners insurance. yep, they've been doing it for years.
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welcome back to "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. police investigating the murders of wayne and sharmon stock were convinced they had their killers. matt livers had confessed and indicated his cousin nick as an accompli accomplice. but now a teenager from wisconsin admitted she and a friend were also in the farmhouse that night. what connection could the four possibly share? once again, here is keith morrison. >> reporter: jessica reid, one of the two teens from wisconsin who admitted to being in wayne and sharmon stock's home the night they were killed. >> the reason i ask you is that the two people upstairs in their bed were shot to death. >> and you're saying that me and greg did it? >> i'm telling you, you're telling us you're in this house, okay? did you not -- >> oh, my god. i never killed anybody. okay? i really didn't. this is so seriously -- i didn't do it. i took money. that's all i did.
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i swear to god, that's all i did was take money. i don't want to go to jail for murder because i didn't do it. >> reporter: then who did? remember, matt livers had already confessed and named nick sampson as his accomplice. >> tell us who you were with. >> i was with greg. that's all i was with. i was with greg. >> reporter: but wait a minute. she must have known matt and nick. so the investigators showed her pictures. no idea who they were, she said. never saw them before. >> if they did it, i swear to god, they are some dumb people. >> reporter: and then the visiting visitors from nebraska informed her that the electric chair stood ready for her if she refused to cooperate, and jessica reconsidered. >> this guy, i don't know why, but he does look kind of familiar. >> reporter: that's nick sampson, who looked kind of familiar. and from there, as the hours
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wore on, jessica's story shape shifted as did the players time and again. until it evolved eventually into a tale that began easter night at bulldog's bar in murdock, where nick sampson, you'll recall, worked and ended at the stock farmhouse. >> all i remember hearing in this house was, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. and so i was like, that's not good. and so i freaked out and left because obviously that guy is up there killing somebody. i don't want to stick around have to do this [ bleep ] i'm sorry, but i don't know what happened up there. >> reporter: then with that off her chest, jessica looked at the photo of nick the man she claimed was the mastermind of the murder. >> it sounds really dumb, but i wish he wouldn't have been a murderer. >> why? >> he's really hot. why do the hot ones got to be the dumb ones? >> reporter: and with that, jessica reid's well planned day, in fact all of her plans evaporated in a jail cell.
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while detectives focus next on jessica's partner in crime, greg fester. >> conned me into going with her. >> reporter: it was all jessica's idea, said fester, stealing the truck, the ridiculous trip across the country. as for the murder in the farmhouse, that was the guy they met outside bulldog's bar, he said. who squeezed into their stolen pickup truck, led them to the stocks' farmhouse, went upstairs and just started shooting. >> he kind of ran into the room and he -- i heard this scream and he shot again. we all run out of the house. >> reporter: but then, surprise, surprise, fester insisted the man who committed the murders was not nick sampson. wasn't even matt livers, who had already confessed that he was the killer. no, greg fester said, it was some friend he communicated with
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via text message. a guy he called thomas. so a little confusing perhaps, but for the investigators from nebraska, it seemed to be starting to come together. what was their sense of things after that first day of questioning? >> i think sense of accomplishment mainly because we do have confessions from greg and jessica for the homicides. >> reporter: let's go out and have a beer time? >> well, it's a reason to pretty much do a high five. >> reporter: that's just what these investigators did. now with greg fester and jessica reid in jail, detectives set about finding physical evidence to back up their claims. and incredibly, once again, one little thing, not a ring this time, was about to turn the whole business upside down all over again.
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detective jim rohr looked for evidence to refute or confirm the stories told by the team, stories they had witnessed but did not commit the gruesome murders of wayne and sharmon stock on an easter evening six weeks before in murdock, nebraska. rohr went to reid's place, a sort of flophouse routines he called it. >> what we were looking for is anything at all that would tie them to nebraska or any other location they were at during their crime sprees. >> oh, and he found it, all right. here hidden behind a picture frame was this cigarette box. and inside a shotgun shell, 12 gauge, the same gauges used in the murders. and there was more folded up in that little box. this letter apparently meant for greg fester. it said, quote, and this bullet, well, bunny, it's the only thing
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left, and i loved it, but that's something we'll talk about one day. but it's here also because that's something i did for you. me, and for you to love me as much as i love you. that's the end of the quote. when you read the material that you found, what did you think? thinking was so bizarre, that gives you a mind-set of someone we were dealing with. >> then rohr found a notebook. incredibly, with more words penned by jessica reid. "i killed someone. he was older. i loved it. i wish i could do it all the time. if greg doesn't watch it, i'm going to just leave one day and i'll do it myself." >> pretty scary. >> 17 years old. >> what this is telling us is she truly was involved in pulling the trigger on at least one of the people there. >> time for another meeting with jessica. >> you've got some explaining to do, and i'm going to tell you right now, i am at the end of
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this robe on this whole thing between you and gregory. i'm giving you one opportunity and one opportunity alone to come clean with every involvement in this. so you quit dancing around with me, because i know the truth. >> greg blew a guy's head off. and he shot a hole through the lady's face. >> reporter: there, she'd said it. it was greg fester who killed the stocks. but why would she then write that note? >> greg killed someone. he was older. i loved it. i wish i could do it all the time. if greg doesn't watch it, i'm going to leave one day and go do it myself. you're in a lot of trouble, young lady. >> i didn't kill this guy, though! i didn't have a gun! how am i supposed to kill somebody without a gun? i watched greg do it. i didn't kill anybody. i'm not kidding. i did not kill anybody.
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i promise you guys this. >> you know what? 17 years old and you have just thrown the rest of your life away. >> reporter: she tried to explain the words, changed her story again, confessed to firing one gunshot. then admitted something else quite shocking. that she had enjoyed it. >> okay. i'll tell you guys what i did like. i liked the adrenaline of it. >> i know you did it. >> i didn't like what caused the adrenaline rush. but i liked the adrenaline rush. >> reporter: that's a real shocker for you. you don't run into that in this little town too often. >> well, no. and you don't run into it with a young girl either. >> reporter: ballistics tests soon confirmed that the shell found in reid's cigarette box matched spent shells found at the murder scene. the murder weapon, stolen from the same wisconsin farmhouse where reid and fester stole the red pickup truck. blood found on reid's clothes and fester's shoes matched the victim, wayne stock.
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and icing on the cake. dna found on the gold ring and the marijuana pipe matched only fester and reid. both were charged. first degree murder. of course, as all this was happening, back in nebraska, no one outside law enforcement knew a thing. the stock children were certainly in the dark, as they struggled to grip the wheel of their new strange lives. >> we have just lost both our mom and our dad. to lose one is horrible, but to lose both of them. and not have those parent figures that kept this family going. where do we go? how do we help andy with the farm? how do we -- how do we let our children have a normal life? >> reporter: meanwhile, in their cells in county jail, matt livers and nick sampson knew not a wit about these developments. then well into june, defense attorney soucie heard the words that changed everything. >> i got a call saying they've
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arrested reid and fester. up in wisconsin. and we got no details on it at all. >> reporter: but when they did, the lawyers just knew their clients were innocent. >> everything clicked. you knew exactly what the case was at that point. >> reporter: or did they? if the attorneys for matt livers and nick sampson thought their clients were suddenly in the clear, they had some more thinking to do. because now the question was were matt and nick in it together with jessica and greg? coming up -- >> talk to them. present him with do you know these people. >> reporter: and? >> not a clue. >> reporter: maybe he was lying to you. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. let's be honest.
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summer 2006. the arrest 500 miles away in wisconsin of two teenagers with the shock murders of wayne and sharmon stock sow seeds of doubt in the official versions of events. that version had this open and shut case against two local men, confessed killer matt livers and the accomplice he named, nick sampson.
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their arrests trumpeted weeks earlier in banner headlines and news conferences. now, these latest arrests of teens jessica reid and greg fester announced so quietly had many wondering what was the connection among these four alleged killers. >> i called a newspaper reporter. i says, you won't believe this, but they arrested two other people. >> reporter: sampson's defense attorney jerry soucie and livers' attorney julie bear spread the word themselves to local reporters. >> he called me back about three hours later. he says you won't believe this, but i got the arrest warrant from wisconsin. and he said, do you want the read it? i said, oh, yeah. >> reporter: you got that from a newspaper reporter? >> i got that if a newspaper reporter. >> reporter: it didn't come from the prosecutor's office. >> no, it was being sealed. i met him at a bar and for the price of a budweiser, i ended up being able to read the affidavit for the arrest warrant of fester. >> reporter: those affidavits slipped to attorneys by a reporter contained details culled from the hours and hours of police interviews with greg fester and jessica reid. >> greg blew a guy's head off. >> reporter: and told the story of the 12 gauge shotgun.
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the shells, the ring, the marijuana pipe and, most tellingly, that dna. irrefutably linking reid and fester to the crime scene. suddenly, it was all beginning to make sense to those public defenders. remember, they'd been skeptical when their new clients professed innocence, but ever since then, they'd been asking themselves one very simple question, where was the evidence? and in their six weeks of looking for it, they had found, well, none. after all, livers' girlfriend, a woman with an impeccable reputation, insisted matt was home all night with her, 30 miles away in lincoln the night of the murders. the same with nick sampson's girlfriend who swore he never left their house that night. and she passed the polygraph. >> if she would have thought that nick had done this, she would have thrown him under the bus in a heartbeat. there's just no doubt about that.
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>> reporter: then the lawyers went looking for evidence of the phone calls matt described in his confession, calls in which he and nick supposedly planned the murders and the records revealed there wasn't one call, not one between matt and nick in the days before the murder. >> that phone communication never took place. you know, it simply didn't occur. >> reporter: but couldn't they have used, you know, those kind of phones that you can buy that you can't trace? >> that's theoretically possible, but there's no evidence of that. >> reporter: add to that a ballistics test confirmed the gun found under nick's bed was not the murder weapon. the spot on nick's jeans thought to be blood wasn't human blood at all. and now the arrests of these teenagers from wisconsin, two people clearly present at the crime scene, but never mentioned at all in any of matt livers' hours and hours of police interviews. all this led julie bear to head over to the jail to ask matt livers face-to-face about these alleged accomplices, reid and
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fester. >> present him with, you know, this is what's being said. do you know these people? >> reporter: and? >> not a clue. not seen them, never spoke to them. >> reporter: maybe he was lying to you. >> not a chance. >> reporter: it would take another month for copies of those videotaped interrogations of jessica reid and greg fester to inch their way over to the defense attorneys. but when they finally did? more surprises. like this comment during the interrogation of jessica reid. >> i know there was nobody else there. it was just me and greg. that's what happened. i am not kidding. and if no one believes me, then i really want to go back to my cell. >> reporter: there were, she said, no other killers. just her, just greg. and that whole story about meeting nick sampson at bulldog's bar? she made it up, she said, after detectives showed her a picture of the place and asked her if it looked familiar.
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for nick sampson's lawyer, the case was now as good as done. that must be a good feeling. >> no, it wasn't. it was a good feeling to know your client's innocent. it is bad feeling to know your client's still in jail, you can't get him out. the cops are coming up with every other kind of theory they can think of to drag him in. >> reporter: oh, yes. there was, remember, that blood from victim wayne stock found in a car connected to nick sampson and spotted near the murder scene. so the prosecutor wasn't about to drop charges against mr. sampson. and he, sitting in jail, had become suicidal. >> nick was in really, really bad shape. and so at that point, i'm trying to do m.a.s.h. psychiatric holding him together, it's going to work out, it's going to work out. >> reporter: but would it? the summer dragged by followed by a depressing september. and then first week of october, the county attorney nathan cox
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met the press. the murder case against nick sampson was dropped. sort of. >> since there's no statute of limitations on murder, the state reserves the right to refile the charges in the future. >> reporter: hardly the news the stock family expected or wanted to hear. though they handled it with surprising grace. >> it's not for us to judge or, you know, to make a statement on that because we don't know. it was this and then it was that and then it was this and then it was that. >> reporter: but imagine being nick sampson. on that amazing day. >> he was cloud nine. it was incredible feeling. >> reporter: after five months in jail, he was free. >> it was incredible. i'm finally out. >> reporter: but nick sampson, even free, was not carefree, not by any means. some things could never be the same again.
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>> i was constantly looking over my shoulder. seeing who was behind me. you know. >> reporter: so there was a real genuine itch in your back fear that somebody was going to come after you? >> come after me, come after my family. you know? revenge. >> reporter: because around this county in rural nebraska were a great many people perhaps a majority who were still quite certain of nick's guilt. after all, his own cousin matt admitted full out that they both killed those lovely people. >> i was upset, at a loss of why my own cousin could do this to me. >> reporter: why would he do it to you if it wasn't true? >> to make himself look better. just using me as a scapegoat. >> reporter: nick sampson was now off the hook. but what about matt? true, he confessed to the
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murders, but why? coming up, a tape surfaces of what matt said to investigators the very next day. >> i've been just making things up to satisfy you guys. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer.
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i'm dara brown with the hour's top stories. a joint news conference expected soon from president trump and japanese prime minister shinzo abe. the two leaders held meetings
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today focusing on north korea and trade, although the president said serious trade negotiations will wait until after july's japanese elections. at least six people are now confirmed dead from flooding and severe weather in oklahoma. more than 90 injured. officials confirm an ef-3 tornado touched down in the town of el reno. now back to to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. nick sampson was a free man. despite his cousin's statement implicating them both in the murders, prosecutors dropped the charges against them. it appeared nick had been wrongly accused. but if matt lied about his cousin's role in the crime, was it impossible his entire confession was false? matt's lawyer thought so, and she was about to uncover evidence she believed would prove it. here is keith morrison with more
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of our story. the autumn moon in nebraska, that troubled year of 2006, watched over a crop of confusion. nick sampson struggled with the bitterness the long jail-bound nightmare had planted in his soul, while the children of wayne and sharmon stock tried to make sense of the release of the man they had the been told killed their parents. >> it's a difficult situation. none of us are attorneys. none of us are in law enforcement. and you're just sitting there trying to take it all in, trying to figure out, okay, how does this work? why does this happen? >> reporter: hadn't their cousin matt livers confessed? at least he was still in custody. as were those two teens from wisconsin. so it wasn't as if the whole case was falling apart. at least not yet. but if anyone did not feel confused in the october chill, it was defense attorneys bear and soucie, who were as sure as
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the summer day that both nick sampson and matt livers were innocent, despite what matt told police during his interrogation. >> it was just screaming to me false confession. there was every indication in there that there was a problem. >> reporter: what made it look like a false confession? >> as reports start coming in, we start learning that none of the details that matt provides are accurate. >> reporter: something else investigators may not have understood but perhaps should have. matt livers, as his friends and family knew very well was slow. he had a low i.q., at least the sort of i.q. people can measure. in a conversation with authority figures under pressure, matt livers was prone to being led. he was gullible. >> there was a portion of the questioning where they won't let him finish his sentence. they're belittling him. they're screaming at him. they're threatening him with the death penalty. >> reporter: and he believed them when they said those things.
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>> yes, very much so. >> reporter: and one moment stood out. defense lawyers say. when detectives should have realized just how little matt livers understood what was happening to him. here it is. watch what happens when they ask him to be a man and take responsibility. >> you consider yourself a man? stand up. >> he takes them very literally and starts to rise up out of his chair. >> reporter: he's going to stand up. >> he's going to stand up. >> no, be a man, okay? >> reporter: were those detectives even paying attention to the sort of man they were talking to? maybe not. just after nick sampson's release, julie bear received a dvd she'd never seen before. even though she'd asked months earlier as was her right, for all the available material. this is a tape of matt livers in a second interview the day after his confession. once he'd had a chance to regain his equilibrium.
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>> the absolute truth is i was never on the scene. i don't know if nick is the actual person involved in this. i've been just making things up to satisfy you guys. >> reporter: how long was that second tape withheld? and by whom? months and months and months after because he said those things the day after his confession. >> right. >> i don't know that nick is involved in this because we never -- i mean, you can check my phone records. we never talked on thursday or friday about this. and the only reason i picked him out of that crowd was i heard through the grapevine that his brother's car was used. >> what are you telling me this now for? what do you think will accomplish now? >> nothing. i'm just trying to come clean, i mean. >> reporter: now, that was a bombshell. livers' own attorney had never been told by authorities that he'd recanted his confession.
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so basically from the official story, his recantation simply disappeared? >> right. >> reporter: the cass county sheriff's department declined "dateline's" request for interviews or explanations of how this happened or, for that matter, anything else about the case, but in december, 2006, seven months after the murders, prosecution experts finally agreed, too, livers' confessions were deemed unreliable. >> i went over to the jail and matt was in his cell and we told him, you know, it's over. you're going home. and, you know, i probably had the biggest hug from a man that i've ever had in my life. >> reporter: cass county prosecutor nathan cox was, once again, left to make the announcement. >> it's not my intention to try to convict somebody that is not guilty. that's not why i'm in this business.
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but winning isn't the issue. the issue is whether justice is being done. >> reporter: with that, after more than seven months in jail, matt livers was free. >> i'm innocent. i had absolutely nothing to do with this. >> reporter: and the doubters in the town all around him vanished for him in the joy of it all. >> i just went crazy, praise the lord, praise, thank you, thank you, praise the lord type thing. >> reporter: sara was there, of course, to take him home. they are now, by the way, mr. and mrs. livers. >> best day of my life. best day, besides marrying my wife here. sorry. >> reporter: what was it like watching him come out of there? >> oh, it was awesome. it was a relief. it was just great to be able to be with him again and everything. >> it was a wonderful day. >> reporter: but why in heaven's name did he confess in first place? finally now that he was free, we could ask him.
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a lot of the audience watching will say, come on. nobody's going to confess to something they didn't do. especially something so horrible as the murder of your own relative. >> well, they changed their tactics on me. my rear end was going to be in the frying pan. they were going to be going for the death penalty. >> reporter: you're scared. >> yeah. tremendously. i thought if i tell them what they wanted to hear, that i could get to go home. >> reporter: how did nick's name come up? >> they asked me who else was involved and i started just throwing out names. finally when i said nick's name, then that's when they seemed they were happy and believed me. >> reporter: but the damage is done. although they've patched things up a bit, for years matt and his cousin nick barely spoke. >> i think he just wants to forget it ever happened. people give me [ bleep ] about it all the time.
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try and make a joke out of it. but it hurts every once in a while. >> what will it take to convince them that you're an innocent man? >> i don't think anything will. >> you're going to have to live under this cloud for the rest of your life? >> unless i move. but i don't want to move. i love murdock. that's my home. >> reporter: but if it seems strange to you that an innocent man could remain so long under suspicion, imagine how bizarre it was about to become as the accused and the accuser play out a truly disturbing drama we'll call trading places. coming up -- troubling accusations about one of the lead investigators. so you wake up one morning and they say you're a criminal. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. night" cont ins. can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting
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and then there were two in the county jail in plattsmouth, nebraska, that is. only those two teenagers remained behind bars, charged with murdering wayne and sharmon stock. the d.a. had let matt livers and nick sampson go. which to a suspicious family was puzzling. after all, hadn't the head of csi, david kofoed found a blood sample that tied them to the crime? it must have seemed to you as if they were letting two murderers back on the street. >> yeah, that was kind of the way i felt. >> it did seem like they were just letting them go, but i guess nobody knew any different. >> reporter: in fact, some of the investigators remained convinced sampson or livers or both had to be involved somehow. they didn't buy the notion that two drug-addled teenagers just happened to stumble on the place by pure chance in the dark.
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and anyway, fester, remember, said the main shooter, the guy that led them to the farm was a local named thomas, with whom fester had been communicating by phone before the murder. but detectives could find no evidence whatsoever against this thomas or anyone else. and meanwhile, jessica reid kept trying to persuade investigators that nobody else was there besides her and fester, of course. >> i am not lying! if i was lying, i would not still be going on about this. >> reporter: she'd been saying that for months. >> i know what happened and no one will believe me. >> reporter: and though she was right about that, the detectives did not believe her. they still suspected livers and sampson of some involvement. why? remember way back at the beginning of our story, that speck of evidence that csi chief kofoed had found this a car connected to nick sampson and
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spotted near the murder scene? here's the stain right here on the filter paper that kofoed swiped under the dashboard of the car. a second search of the car, by the way. the first by an officer under kofoed turned up nothing. this was blood from the murder victim, wayne stock. how would it get there? it was the fbi that started asking that question. not of livers or sampson. the fbi's investigation was aimed at the local investigators who handled the case. in fact, csi chief david kofoed himself. and after months of digging, the fbi concluded that kofoed must have planted that swipe of blood himself. phony evidence to nail down a shaky case. it was a bombshell. david kofoed, division commander of the csi unit in douglas county, nebraska, was indicted on four federal charges including falsifying records and violating livers' and sampson's civil rights.
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kofoed pleaded not guilty to all charges, defiantly told reporters he'd rather go to prison than resign, even passed the polygraph and was cleared in an internal sheriff's department investigation. so you wake up one morning and they say you're a criminal. >> well, it kind of was like that, but it was more of a long process. and i didn't do it. i just didn't. and it doesn't make any sense. >> reporter: kofoed blamed the stain on accidental contamination. somehow, he said, blood from the victim, wayne stock, ended up on that filter paper probably out at the murder scene and somehow the kit containing that same filter paper was what he later used on the car. but kofoed did admit he broke the rules, failed to log the evidence properly, even misdated the report. >> i did make a mistake. i didn't follow procedures. and that bothers me. and there's no way around that. that was wrong because i'm a boss, because i'm supposed to set the example. >> reporter: it is a little
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disconcerting, though. >> it is disconcerting, but it is also the reason why i say this is ridiculous to accuse me of planting evidence. why would i screw it up? why wouldn't i log the evidence in? why would i make mistakes that point the finger at me. >> a federal jury in omaha heard the case and took just an hour to acquit kofoed of all accounts. but the state of nebraska wasn't satisfied, appointed a special prosecutor and charged kofoed with evidence tampering, and this time after a week-long trial before a cass county judge on what one headline called a dark day for law enforcement, kofoed was found guilty. >> you understand what you're convicted of? >> yes, sir. >> at sentencing, the career law enforcement man stood up and again denied finding any evidence, said the truth would eventually come out. >> i don't believe this is the last in this case for me. i want to continue on.
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but the judge, acknowledging he was moved by letters written by livers and sampson asking him to throw the book at kofoed did just that. >> the defendant has not acknowledged any wrongdoing. does not appear to be particularly remorseful. >> kofoed would serve two years in state prison, and the federal judge would order him to pay $6.5 million to livers and sampson for violating their civil rights. kofoed, who maintained his innocence, said he was broke. >> you can talk about forgetting to write the report, but you don't forget to log in the evidence. he not only forget, but he falsified a lot of stuff on there. it's a bad thing to say it's okay to plant evidence just because the guy is guilty, because how else do you know who is guilty and who is not guilty? >> no matter whom you believe on the blood issue, there are two people who know in living technicolor exactly what happened at the stock farmhouse
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that night. and one of them is about to tell us. coming up, jessica reid on the evil of easter night. >> two people are dead because of me. >> i killed someone. he was older. i loved it. i wish i could do it all the time. if greg doesn't watch it, i'm going just leave one day and do it myself. i don't understand it. >> i hate hearing it. >> when "in the dead of night" continues. continues. everyone's got to listen to mom.
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but there was one person who told as she knew, and she agreed to share the bone-chilling details. here's keith morrison with the final chapter of our story. it's a virtual given in legal circles when it comes to cutting a deal for a lighter prison sentence, the first criminal to the court house wins. in cass county, nebraska, the first to the courthouse was accused killer jessica reid. jessica agreed to plead guilty to second degree murder charges in exchange for testimony against her accomplice greg fester. when it came to him, it seemed prosecutors were certain to seek the death penalty. wayne and sharmon stock aroused terrified from their sleep sanctity of their own bedroom easter sunday night and shot to death in cold blood. if ever a case warranted the ultimate punishment, thought
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many nebraskans, then surely it was this. but to all the mystifying moves by police and prosecutors, add one more. a judge ruled that the county attorney actually missed the deadline to seek the death penalty. first degree murder for greg fester was off the table. before long, a new deal was reached. both fester and reid pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree. and in march 2007, not yet a year since the killings, they entered a courtroom. you went to the sentencing? >> we did. it was the first time we saw them. i didn't think i could feel so much anger and sorrow and sadness. >> i remember thinking i didn't think i could be this mad. >> yes. >> reporter: in the courtroom, jessica reid and greg fester each apologized to the stock family. and then the judge handed down their sentences. for fester, two consecutive life terms plus another 10 to 20 for using a weapon.
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for reid, the first to the courthouse, remember, no break at all. the same sentence. two life terms back-to-back. no parole, ever. and for the stock family, ever graceful and remarkably forgiving people, afterwards? a rare flash of anger. >> i hope they live a miserable life because it's turned our lives upside down. they made the choice to go into that house. mom and dad didn't have a choice. my son, who will never know his grandma and grandpa, doesn't have a choice. >> reporter: what really happened that night? what led two wisconsin teenagers to throw away their lives by so callously killing a nebraska farm couple everyone loved? perhaps only two people in the world know what happened inside that farmhouse and why. and one is now speaking out.
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>> two people are dead because of me. you know? and i'm -- i have a very hard time with that still. >> her demeanor, her presence could easily have been that of a kindergarten teacher. instead, she knows she will die in prison and says she is haunted by what happened in that farmhouse. what was it like to watch those people die? >> hell. >> reporter: and when you see it in your head? >> it makes my heart drop. that's one thing in this world that i can't go back and fix. >> reporter: the truth about that night? here it is, said jessica. she and fester, days without sleep or real food, have been driving aimlessly through wisconsin, iowa, nebraska, breaking into homes along the way. in one, she, too, grabbed a
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shotgun, a .410. so onneers night, there they were, both armed, drugged and wired when they drove down another back road completely at random, and greg said stop at what turned out to be the stock farmhouse. in they went. >> greg was like, follow me real quick. so i followed him and we went upstairs and when i turned around, greg had turned on a light in the room. and i seen this guy laying in the bed. and i said, come on, let's go, let's do something. because there was people there. >> reporter: what was the feeling you had as you said that? >> like panic. it was like craziness like god, what if they wake up. you know? >> reporter: but. >> he just turned and went into that room. the guy had rolled out of bed and they were wrestling with the gun. and i just was like startled and my gun went off. and i have no idea where that shot went.
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>> reporter: sources close to the investigation, though, tell "dateline" there's reason to believe that whether jessica knows it or not, her wild shot may have been the fatal one. that it may have struck wayne stock in the head with evidence of the blast obliterated by another shot from greg fester's 12 gauge. >> then greg shot the guy in the back of the head. and he went back in that room and shot that lady. he ran down the stairs and i ran after him. and that ring that they found -- >> >> reporter: yeah. >> it flew off and i didn't know until like way, way later when they showed me a picture of it. because i knew i lost that ring, but i had no idea where. >> reporter: what was it like in that truck on the way away? >> we didn't say anything. i mean, i started crying at one point and greg just looked at me and he was like, don't do that. you know. >> reporter: but what about those letters? the words found later in that house with reid's belongings, with that cigarette box? words she wrote. boldly admitting to her crimes.
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"i killed someone. he was older. i loved it. i wished i could do it all the time. if greg doesn't watch it, i'm going to just leave one day and do it myself." i don't understand it. >> i hate hearing it because it's just kind of like how everything was portrayed. i hate hearing it. >> reporter: because it was how everything was portrayed? >> because i'm not like that. >> reporter: were you like that at the time? >> no. that was my way of showing greg that i was okay with it. because when he told me not to cry, it was like, what? i'm not supposed to feel bad about this? i mean, how can you have no remorse for this at all? >> reporter: it's all a black hole of regret now, of course, except for she says one good thing she did. she refused to implicate two men who had nothing to do with the
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murders. turned down a golden chance to cut herself a better deal with prosecutors by lying and nailing nick and matt. do you kick yourself about that sometimes? >> no. >> reporter: why not? >> because when i wake up in the morning, i can look at myself and be okay. they're where they should be on the streets because they didn't do anything. and i'm where i should be. you know. >> reporter: a lot of the members of their family believe that they got away with it. what would you say to those people with their suspicions? >> to stop being suspicious. >> reporter: because? >> they weren't there. they had nothing to do with this. >> reporter: but for the stock family, it's just not that simple. can you believe jessica, they ask? they're driven, they say, by a common sense instilled at an early age by their murdered parents. so they still keep asking who and why. who did this? >> i'd like to know the honest
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truth about everything. i hope some day we can all sit down and look at each other and say, were these two involved, yes or no, definitely. was the blood planted, yes or no, definitely. i don't know if we'll ever know those answers, but i hope some day we'll know. >> reporter: matt livers and nick sampson filed lawsuits and the state of nebraska, claiming the evidence was fabricated and withheld. without admitting wrongdoing, the government settled the cases for $2.6 million. the citizen who went way beyond the call to find the critical evidence that saved them shrugs, as if it was no big deal. >> i heard homicide. if it was somebody in my family, i would have wanted the assistance. >> and two defense lawyers still marvel that poor police work almost did their clients in,
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even as the very same cops brilliantly tracked the one piece of evidence that saved them and finally identified the real murderers. a simple gold ring. >> had they not been able to trace that ring to its owner in wisconsin, i'm really afraid we'd have two guys sitting on death row for something they didn't do. and that's all for this edition of "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. ♪ i want it that way... i can't believe it. that karl brought his karaoke machine? ♪ ain't nothing but a heartache... ♪ no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico.
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the neighborhood had everything a burglar wanted to find. private yards, wealthy homes. >> and she had the worst of possible luck in that he picked her? >> yes. >> i'd like to report an attempted break-in. >> a mother home alone. cops race to her front door, as she walks into an ambush in her backyard. >> how does somebody die within a matter of seconds with officers all around her home? >> it's surreal. it was awful. it really just all came crashing down. >> your first thought ot that time? >> it's a burglary gone wrong. >> but the killer, caught red-handed, starts pointing fingers.

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