year. which brings our week here to a close. that is our broadcast for this friday night. thank you so very much for being here with us. have a good weekend. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. she was a person out of a '40s film noir movie. she was a stunner physically. she was able to say jump and the men would say how high. >> mare teed a wealthy lawyer. >> he always said she has this hold over me. >> build but but there was one she seemed even closer to. they shared everything. >> the eating together, sleeping in the same bed together. >> did they also share a deadly secret? but was it her idea?

or hers? and who would take the fall for eval? >> how deep a hole did you dig? >> not deep enough, obviously. ♪ hello and welcome to "dateline." things were finally slowing down for him. he-a thriving law practice a wife he adored and plenty of money. then a new friend entered the picture. and a love triangle took shape. the murder was a who done it incloouding tangled lives. one hiding a secret identity. but police needed to know who is

the mastermind pulling the strings. >> like the glamorous trio traveling north through yosemite national park, even a as the rest of the world was focussed on new york city, they were intent on their desires, their fears, their deadly love triangle. so they probably didn't appreciate the giant water falls and the giant sequoias, skbm than the one in the backseat, through fading eyes, saw anything at all. here is one of them, larry mcnabneya well respelkted attorney from nevada.

he loved the big life and loved being in control. >> his pen was always in the same spot. >> larry's daughter was crazy about him. his joy of life, his court room presence. >> not an ounce of shyness. he commanded the court room. >> i've been a trial lawyer over 20 years. >> larry's long-time friend, fred achenson. >> he was a rich man. >> but nobody's perfect, of course and the man carried around corresponding deemens. >> i know he-a difficult child hood and that a lot of your personality is shape whd you're

a child. >> and, as an adult, larry struggled with alcohol and women. he married and divorced several times. >> it was a void he was trying to fill and he could never fill it. >> in fact, from time to time, he's gone on benders and vanished for weeks at a time. and everybody would worry and wonder and he would show up again. >> i-a t shurlt made up once saying "where is larry mcnabney?" >> but then he seemed to get his life together for real, everything clicked. possibly for an attractive reason. >> i went by the offices one day and he said i have someone i want you to meet. he said this is elisa. >> elisa, 17 years younger than larry.

and he was in love. >> and he said she's just fun and vivagss and she's young and it's just dags we have a good time. she didn't stand in the way. she wanted her dad to be happy. >> we welcome the new person in. it's my dad so i didn't want anything inhibiting me from spending time with him. >> and he really cared for this woman? >> he did. >> both thrived personally and professionally. they got married, she became his office manager. they opened up a new business. so they hired a young, attractive college student. the out-going daughter of deeply religious parents who soon became a friend, as well as a personal and office assistant. and together, elisa and larry

enjoyed the high life. >> she was into the same thing larry loved and style. and they went out and bought viper cars together. they also shared the same passion, quarter horses. >> which fitd in with larry looking and filing good. >> larry could do more of what he liked while sarah pitched in to help at larry's law office. just about perfect. though larry's friend was a stick in the mud about it. >> the fact she took control of his business allow him to engage in drinking and partying. >> which is not what larry needed. >> no, because his appetites would run amuck. >> so when, after nearly seven years of marriage, larry suddenly dropped out of sight,

close friends weren't extremely alarmed at first. afterall, he's he'd gone on drunken binders before. ginger miller started working at the law firm, december 2001, about the time he went missing. elisa couldent setonal on what the stat should tell people about larry. >> i was told that he was golfing or skiing. someplace they probably couldn't get ahold of him at. and if it was a client, i would have to say he's working on a deposition -- wawas with a client and-to fly out. >> i thoods # to my brother this doesn't sound right. >> october arrived. still no larry. thanksgiving and december he was always with family on his

birthday. but still no sign of larry mcnabney. >> i didn't get a good feeling. and what i worried about was-something gone wrong and dad was scared and he took off? >>-larry offended the wrong person? octachbia-a friend in law enforcement. >> either if he's in hiding, he's not going to be happy you found him because he's hiding for a reason. or something's happened to him. >> meanwhile, back at the office, ginger was hearing things, worrisome things, until she couldn't keep it in anymore. >> i went to the sheriff's department. i wasn't sure what to do so i asked for a piece of paper and slid it under the window. >> detectives got her note and figured they should have a chat with elisa mcnabney and then as

they went looking for her, just like larry, she was gone. who exactly was she and what did she know of her husband's disappearance? coming up. >> she was person out of oo '40s film noir movie. she was a stunner physically and more importantly she-a control over men that amazed me. >> hat amazed me. >> hey mr. jones ♪ find great gifts for everyone on your list this holiday, ♪ everybody... with low prices and free shipping on millions of items at amazon. ♪ of a lifetime. it's "progressive on ice." everything you love about car insurance -- the discounts...

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. by the dawn of 2002, it seemed pretty clear something abnormal must have happened to the successful personal injury attorney, larry mcnabley. he's never been on a bender for this long. by this time ginger-dropped off her note at the sheriff's office and detectives were poking around, talking to employees, like the art student from sacramento state. she brought her dog, ralph, with her to the sheriff's office.

she said she and elisa had become close friends and so she, sarah certainly noticed how erratic elisa became after larry went missing. >> things were starting to not seem right. like, you know, elisa wouldn't come to work all the time there, you know? >> sarah confirmed what ginger miller said, that elisa kept changing her explanations for larry's whereabouts. she saw elisa signs larry's name on checks and day-to-day business transactions. >> i figured she's keeping this business going for him. you know, so he can go play or do whatever he was doing. >> in early january 2002, said sarah, elisa planned trip to arizona to attend a horse show. in the absence of larry, invited sarah to go along. >> i was going to fly down the next day and then she told me, you know, your ticket's paid for and all that. >> but when sarah got to the airport, the ticket was not paid

for. >> you called her cell phone number and what did you get. >> nothing. it was this number is no longer in use. >> and that was that, said sarah. she hadn't heard from elisa since. >> i called ginger and i said, ginger, you know, i'm going to look for a new job. i don't know about you, but elisa is gone. >> thomas tess at a was a san joaquin -- when he heard about the case of larry and elisa mcnabney, he gravitated toward it. >> he was an attorney with a case load who just disappeared. this isn't someone who's a homeless person who just vanishes and you think they took a greyhound and went to nevada. >> he began by taking a good, hard look at elisa. >> she was a person out of a '40s film noir movie in that she was a stunner physically, everyone said that, but more

importantly she had a control over men that just amazed me. she was able to say jump and the men would say how high? >> it certainly seemed true for larry, so said his old friend, fred atchison. >> she was controlling him to the extent that she was keeping him away from his family and his former friends. >> did that include the relationship he had with you? >> no question about it. >> you find yourself shut out. >> yeah. >> so did larry's daughter, tavia. >> elisa completely cut me out of the picture, and i was devastated. >> but why? why was elisa keeping larry away from his family and friends? what did she have to hide? >> he called me up once on the phone and said fred, i don't know who she is. you know, i thought he meant we don't really ever know who our spouses are deep down. and he said, no, i don't even know if this is who she is, if her name is what she says it is or anything. >> by then, said fred, larry had

discovered ample reason to stop trusting elisa. >> he couldn't keep his wallet in his pants. >> he told you that? >> yeah. she would steal money out of his wallet. he had to hide his wallet in his own house. >> turned out she was also stealing from the law firm. >> she had ripped him off. >> for how much? any idea? >> over $100,000. >> larry told fred all about his troubles with elisa, and yet he kept her around, not like he hasn't divorced women before, but not this one. tavia didn't get it. >> i mean, he always said she has this hold over me, and i never understood what that meant. >> and larry's comments to fred about not knowing his wife, well, his suspicions turned out to be true a little research told detectives that the reel woman behind the name elisa mcnabney had a considerable criminal rap sheet, including stolen property, credit card fraud, grand theft.

>> she really had a way of ingratiating herself with men and using her female charms, and she was very, very good at it. she was a true and true con artist. >> so was elisa just conning larry? surely, thought fred, she wouldn't have done away with him, would she? >> it wouldn't make any sense, even for a dedicated pole cat to do anything like that because he was the goose that laid the golden egg. it wouldn't make sense whatsoever. >> it was a farm worker who noticed a flock of eventualtures or buzzards drifting above one of these grape fields. saw something sticking out of the ground. and soon a missing persons case turned into something much, much worse and considerably more bizarre.

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it was february 2002, a remote vineyard in central valley. a farm worker couldn't help but see the big birds wheeling round

and round. >> he spotted the vultures and so he went out to see what they were circling. >> investigator javier ramos and bookwalleder work would the san joaquin sheriff's office at the time. they were among first on scene. >> that's what he thought he was going to find a dead animal out there. >> but the leg that was sticking out of the ground was decidedly human. and soon, larry's daughter, tavia, heard the news. >> i felt myself get hot and nauseous and she said that the body they found, the dental records, it was him. and i remember i never swear and i yelled out this cuss word and i slammed the phone and i just started shaking. it was a moment in time that

i've never felt such anguish. >> that's still raw even now. >> it is because i thought -- i don't know. i thought -- i guess i was hoping he was in hiding. >> very fortunate that the body was discovered. now we can move on and investigate it as a homicide. >> tavia's hopes, crushed. police had ample proof five months after he vanished that larry had been murdered and left to rot out in the middle of nowhere. >> there weren't any stab wounds or any bullet holes. >> there were no obvious signs of larry's cause of death, so they looked further and find something very unusual. >> the medical examiner was able to find out the cause of death was poisoning with a horse tranquilizer. >> horse tranquilizer? >> yes.

>> now, that was strange. but get this. >> he had been dead for an extended period of time. however, the body had not decomposed consistent with the time frame we were looking at. >> meaning? >> meaning it was preserved, kept cold. >> one of the first things i thought, where would they have access to a walk-in refrigerator large enough to hold a human body? >> detectives wanted answers, and so did larry's daughter, tavia, who sometimes believed she could hear her father in her sleep. >> i would wake up and i would hear him calling for me to help him. i didn't know what to do and i didn't understand what was going on. >> sometimes people get a sense of knowing either what or who was responsible. did you? >> i knew elisa had done something. >> larry's much-younger wife, elisa, she vanished a few months after he did and now that larry

was dead, she was the prime suspect in his murder. sheriffs deputies and the fbi tracked her down in march 2002 in florida. >> she cut her hair short and changed her name. >> elisa was not now going by the name of shane ivaroni and was working as a paralegal at a florida law firm. >> elisa was a very smart person. she had, i believe, 140 iq. >> she could talk anybody into anything? >> right. >> but now that she was finally exposed for the con artist she was and was in custody, elisa decided to tell her story, starting at long last with her legal name. >> my whole name is laren. l-a-r-e-n. l-a-r-e-n. my middle name is rene, r-e-n-e-e. >> okay. >> my maiden name was sims, s-i-m-s.

>> and elisa, where's that coming from. >> no, i left florida. you know, i mean, i was a fugitive from florida. >> she was from massachusetts and was a mother of two. wanted in florida for violating probation and had been on the run for nine years, she said. she eventually settled in las vegas where she met larry and by this time had changed her name to elisa. she told the police she was at the horse show in arizona when she found out police wanted to talk to her about larry. and so she took off in her jaguar, drove from state to state. >> where were you headed at this point. >> i didn't -- just away. >> so with the preliminaries out of the way, now came the big question. what happened to larry mcnabney? elisa, without hesitation and

without even being asked, spilled the beans. >> and did i kill my husband? yes, i killed my husband. >> there it was, no apology, no evasion. she simply confessed to killing her husband, larry mcnabney. but, and this was a "but" with a capital "b," that wasn't the whole story, not even close. coming up, the rest of the story. did elisa have help? >> and i freaked out. >> she was going to -- >> yeah, and i was freaking out. drivers just wont put their phones down. we need a solution. introducing... smartdogs. the first dogs trained to train humans.

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i'm dara brown. president trump off to florida for the holidays after signing $1.4 trillion in spending bills. and facebook is following twitter's lead, removing

hundreds of fake accounts from groups it says originated in foreign countries. both companies have stepped up to tackle misinformation ahead of the 2020 election. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline". i'm craig melvin. elisa mcnabney was a killer all right, but did she act alone. here again is keith morrison with "poison." >> there is a purity to confession, a real cleansing of the soul. now after months on the lam, elisa mcnabney, aka laren sims,

was offloading the secrets of a lifetime. didn't hold back yes, she killed larry. her husband of nearly seven years, she said. but it wasn't her idea. >> i said, i don't know what i'm going to do. and she said, we have to kill him. and i said, i can't kill him. >> she said? who was this other woman who pushed elisa to commit murder? turned out detectives had already talked with her. remember sarah dutra, the young secretary elisa's friend who came back with her little dog who had been so helpful after elisa disappeared? now saying that killing larry was sarah's idea. >> i never would have done it on my own. >> elisa told the story this way. larry was a heavy drinker and drug user. he was abusive, she claimed and feared for her life. one day he divided in her young friend, sarah, and sarah said

there was just one thing to do, kill larry mcnabney. now in this three-hour long interview elisa went into detail after gruesome detail of how she and sarah did it. elisa and larry were at a horse show in los angeles, she said, and sarah flew down to meet them, or rather, to meet elisa since larry didn't like sarah, said elisa. >> what did you guys decided to do with him. >> we said if we -- if we kill him, nobody's going to miss him. >> were you going to do it, like, that day or some other time in the future? when were you planning on doing it? >> right then. >> right then and there? >> yeah. >> that was september 9th, 2001. according to elisa, larry had already passed out after embibing a little horse

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

>> this was september 11th, 2001. everyone else in the known world preoccupied else wear, while elisa and sarah drove north through california with larry slowly dying in the backseat of the truck. >> we stopped in yosemite, somewhere in yosemite. and sarah got out and started digging a hole and he was alive, okay? and i freaked out. >> she was going to say throw him in the hole alive? >> yeah, and i was freaking out. i said we can't put him in there, he's leave. we can't do that. >> so, she said, they drove on. they thought larry would die in the car, but he didn't. so when they finally made it back to larry and elisa's home near sacramento, larry was slipping in and out of consciousness, still alive. >> and then when 6:00 in the morning rolls around, the sun starts coming up, and sarah sleeps late, you know?

and so i immediately go up there. and he was dead. >> that was the morning of september 12. >> and sarah says, well, we can't leave him lying here. so, you know, we take this sheet that he was lying on. and we wrapped it around him. and then we took tape and wrapped it around him and he was in a crouched position. and then in my garage he had this wine refrigerator, you know, like a regular refrigerator? but one he kept wine in. we took the wine out of it and took the racks out of it and put him in it. >> they stuffed larry's body in the refrigerator while they decided what to do with it. >> we talked about bigger him in the backyard, we talked about bigger him at my trainer's. we talked about burning the body. >> but they couldn't quite decide, and so they kept larry's body in the refrigerator for three months. and then they decided to take it to las vegas, find someplace

there to bury it. >> how much does he weigh? >> he weighed a lot. i'm having a hard time seeing you two picking up this big guy. >> we laid the trailer tire down in front of the refrigerator. opened the refrigerator door, laid the trailer tire down. slide him out, put him on the trailer tire, and then back the jag up really close to the trailer tire. and then it was only like that much difference. so then we just pushed. >> off the tire into the trunk? >> exactly. and he was like, shaped like this, you know? so then we put him in the trunk. and he was like this. and he closed the trunk. and we went to las vegas. >> en route to las vegas with their two dogs in the backseat, larry in the trunk along with

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

cold-blooded killer or an innocent who was just trying to survive? >> god. i didn't want to end up like him. that they don't need to. i think dentists will want to recommend sensodyne rapid relief because it's clinically proven to work in 3 days. which means for patients that they get relief very fast.

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don't protect elisa anymore and don't protect yourself. just tell the truth. >> she claimed sarah, just 21 at the time, not only helped with the murder but was the driving force behind it. >> what do you think elisa's doing right about now? are you a cold-blooded killer or are you somebody that got caught up in some stuff and made somemistakes? >> they confronted her with elisa's written confession. >> it basically says i, along with sarah dutra, planned to poison larry mcnabney with horse tranquilizers. >> i'm not denying that

conversation took place. she is evil. she's trying to do this. she's jealous of me. i know she has. >> explain that to me then. why is she doing this? make me believe it, sarah. >> because she's an evil person. >> sarah dutra broke down and told detectives her side of the story and in this version it was elisa, not sarah who was the cold blooded killer. and elisa who ordered sarah to bury him in yosemite, eve beenfobeeen before he was dead. >> elisa who was eerily calm

when larry finally did expire. >> when he was lie ogen the ground i said why is he lying on the ground? why isn't he in bed? and she said he's dead. >> that was the morning of september 12th, after the long and harrowing drive home from the horse show in los angeles. and through her tears told detectives how larry's body ended up in the refrigerator. >> she put him in a sheet. oh, my god. i've never seen anything like this, okay? and she said, okay, grab the sheet and then grab him downstairs. i said, what are you doing? we have to call the police. this is not right. she said, we are not calling the police. if you call the police, you will be so sorry you did. >> this was the heart of sarah's version. she went along with the whole

awful crazy thing for one reason, she said. she was deathly afraid of elisa. >> god, i didn't want to end up like him. >> was it possible an innocent young woman in the thrall of a con artist. she seemed so frightened, so emotionally, and yet, thought the detective -- >> i thought a little bit over the top. >> she was a little over the top? >> yeah. >> i know. >> you mean she was acting? putting it on? >> i believe so. >> after more than nine hours of questioning, sarah dutra was arrested and charged with larry's murder. it was a classic crime story, two killers, mutual finger pointing, and prosecutors knew they could use each woman's testimony against the other, an easy check mate, that is, until

elisa took herself off the board. on march 30th, 13 days after her arrest, a jailer found her hanging by the neck in her cell, a suicide. >> a million questions for elisa. and now that door has been slammed shot. >> and now sarah, left holding the bag, would face murder charges alone. >> coming up. >> when you try any one defendant, it's easy to point the finger at the one who's not there. at the one who's not there. find your breaking point. then break it. every emergen-c gives you a potent blend of nutrients so you can emerge your best, with emergen-c. oh, come on. flo: don't worry. you're covered.

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welcome back. sarah dutra was behind boors, choo charged with the death of larry mcnabney. elisa insisted it was sarah's idea, then elisa committed suicide. sarah's defense claimed she was the pawn, forced to commit the horrific act. and elisa was the mastermind. rs for here's the conclusion of

"poison." it was the winter of 2003 more than a year after larry mcnabney was killed with hoers tranquilizers. and her alleged accomplice, sirau dutra, alone faced the possibility of life behind bars. >> so you attended the trial every day? >> yes, every day. our attorney talked about the importance of our dad not being forgotten. >> although sarah admitted to being there in the days and months that followed, she adamantly claimed she never went to police because she was so afraid of elisa and ending up like larry.

>> when i first got this case, people will tell you that's what i was saying. poor, sarah. but as i got deeper in the case, i totally turned around. but i started with that very mindset. as he reviewed the evidence, he became convinced that sarah dutra was, in fact, the woman in charge. >> she didn't like sarah. she accused him of being self centered. so sarah didn't -- lair au -- larry didn't want sarah around. that's exactly it. it was a love triangle and one of them-to go. >> larry was simply in the way.

>> if your theory is right they've got this great relationship and living off the proceeds of larry, why get rid of him? they have no motive. >> he was elisa's golden goose and sarah was about it to be cut out of the whole triangle. larry just told her two days before that he wanted her gone, fired. >> so it was sarah who-the mote toov kale # kill larry. sarah's lawyer, of course, saw it differently. >> this seems like the classic instance of evil wrapping around a sweet one, little baby. >> he portried elisa as a black widow who wanted her husband dead and sarah was her innocent

and terrified pawn. >> i did it but not because i wanted to. i want you to know that. not because i wanted to. >> really? now prosecutor testa introduced ginger miller, remember her? the other sec retear who worked along side sarah and elisa. she said that elisa and sirau seemed to feel anything but remorse. >> so they were not riley working, were they? >> shop, hang out, sleep late, go flirt with boys. >> all the while spending the firm's munnee a lot of money. >> sirau got red bm where. >> such close friends or maybe

more than friends. >> they bought matching underwear together. no, my first week and they were best friends. >> thigh were employeeing through money so fast they fell behind on rent payments, got evicted. so they moved the offices into lisa and larry's home, which now seemed more like elisa and sarah's home. >> in the rooms they-no clothes of larry's. they made the sinks hers and hers. >> like they knew he wasn't coming back? >> yeah, pretty much. >> well, not quite because all this time, remember, larry's body was in the garage, still in the refrigerator. and as for the idea sarah was an innocent child, elisa's puppet,

that was nonsense said ginger. >> everybody knows she wasn't terrified of her. sarah had as much say. >> until trial sarah sat wide-eyed and innocent. her videotaped confession didn't get played for the jury. with no dna, no prints, no trace evidence, no living eyewitnesses the case against sarah was entirely circumstantial. first degree murder. >> first degree, yeah. >> but would the jury see it the way he did? after four days of deliberations the jury found sarah dutra guilty of voluntary manslaughter and accessory to murder, not first degree murder. >> had not she been a young attractive tall blonde whose parents were clutching bibles, crying in the first row one wonders if this verdict would

have been the same. >> sarah dutra was sentenced to 11 years, served 8 and in the summer of 2011 at age 31 she was released. >> it's painful to know that such little time was given for such a horrific crime and one that seemed so premeditated to me and so thought out and so callus to the end. >> sarah did not respond to our interview request. and tavia, she told us she'd forgiven sarah as much for her own sake as anything. >> will i ever forget what she's done? never. but i don't want to have my whole life be their cruelty and the things they chose to do to him. i'd rather remember the loving times we had together. and they're not going to take that away from me.

>> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thoong i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> no. it can't be. it can't be. he was so big in my life. the fact that anything bad could have happened to him, it didn't make sense to me. >> glamorous, good looking, golden, the dashing hollywood movie executive. >> he was more like a movie star in real life. >> just so charismatic. >> perfect southern california family. >> he completely dropped off the face of the earth. >> a baffling di