stray dogs. the urge to rescue runs deep. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline", i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. she was a person out of a '40s film noir movie. >> with a life full of mystery to match. >> she was a stunner physically. she was able to say jump and the men would say how high. >> married to a wealthy lawyer. >> he always said she has this hold over me. >> but there was someone she seemed even closer to. >> they bought matching underwear together. >> they shared everything. >> they're eating together, they're sleeping in the same bed together. she's living at her house. >> did they also share a deadly secret? >> it was a love triangle and one of them had to go. >> but was it her idea? >> oh, god.

it seemed like a good idea at the time, but, oh, my god. >> or hers? and who would take the fall for evil? >> how deep a hole did you dig? >> not too big. hello and welcome to "dateline." attorney larry mcnabney had been living fast and loose, but things were finally slowing down for him. he had 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 whodunit involving three tangled lives. one of them was hiding a secret identity. but to untangle this mystery, police needed to know who was the mastermind pulling the

strings? here's keith morrison with "poison." >> it was september 11th, 2001. just about everyone knows where they were that awful day. like the glamorous trio that was traveling north through california's yosemite national park. even as the rest of the world's attention was focused on new york city, they were intent on their own urgent needs, their desires, their fears, their deadly love triangle. so they probably didn't appreciate the passing wonders, the astonishing cliffs, the waterfalls, the giant sequoias any more than the one in the back seat, through fading eyes, saw anything at all. here is one of them. his name was larry mcnabney, and he was a tall, handsome man, a

well-known and respebltcted attorney from nevada, a personal injury specialist, made buckets of moisture, loved the big life, loved being in control. >> there was never a hair out of place. there wasn't dust on his desk. his pen was always in the same spot. >> larry's daughter tavia was crazy about him, in awe of his type "a" personality, his joy of life, his courtroom presence. >> not an ounce of shyness. he commanded the courtroom. >> i've been a trial lawyer for over 20 years. >> larry a longtime friend, fred atchison. >> he could open 50 files a month in personal injury litigation, which made him a rich man. >> but nobody's perfect of course. and for all of larry's unquestioned talents, the man carried around with him a raft of corresponding demons. >> i know he had a difficult

childhood and that a lot of your personality is shaped when you're a child. >> and as an adult, larry struggled with alcohol and women. he married and divorced several times. >> it was like a void he was trying to fill, and he never could fill it. >> in fact, from time to time larry had gone on benders and just vanished weeks at a time. and everybody would worry and wonder. and sure enough he'd show up again. >> i had a t-shirt made up once, yellow with black letters saying "where is larry mcnabney?" >> then larry, well into his 40s, seemed to get his act together for real. he set up a new office in las vegas. everything clicked, possibly for an attractive reason as tavia discovered. >> i went by the office 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 vivacious, and she's young, and it's just we have a good time. >> tavia didn't stand in the way. she wanted her dad to be happy. >> you welcome the new person in. it's my dad, so i didn't want anything that would inhibit me from spending time with him. >> and he really cared for this woman. >> he did. >> larry and elisa thrived both personally and professionally. they got married. elisa became his office manager. they opened up a firm in sacramento, another big success. they hired a college student named sarah dutra, the outgoing daughter of religious parents, who soon became a friend as well as a sort of personal and office

assistant. and together elisa and larry enjoyed the high life. >> she was into the same thing that larry loved and style. they went out and bought viper cars together. >> they also shared larry's newest passion, quarter horses. >> larry would show horses and show himself, which fit in with larry looking good and feeling good. >> larry could do more of what he likes while young sarah pitched in to help elisa run the business end of larry's law p practice. just about perfect. though larry's friend, fred, was a bit of a stick in the mud about it. >> the fact that she took control of his business allowed him to engage in drinking and partying. >> which is not really what larry needed. >> no, he didn't need that because his appetites would run amok. >> so when, after nearly seven years of marriage, larry

suddenly dropped out of sight, close friends weren't extremely alarmed at first. after all, larry had gone on drunken benders before. but this time, as days stretched into weeks, it seemed different, extremely odd. ginger miller started working at the law firm as a secretary in september 2001, just about the time larry went missing. elisa kept the business going in his absence but couldn't seem to settle on what the staff should tell people about larry. >> i was told to tell his kids and different people in his family different things. so i was told that he was golfing or skiing, someplace they probably couldn't get a hold of him at. >> so it was all obvious b.s.? >> yeah. then if it was a client, i would have to say he was working on a deposition, he was with another client, he had to fly out. >> larry's kids didn't know what to think. >> and i said to my brother, this doesn't sound right. why do the stories keep changing? >> october arrived. still no larry.

thanksgiving. in 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 had something gone wrong and dad was scared, and he took off? >> had larry offended the wrong person? tavia had a friend in law enforcement, who told her -- >> you have to look at it two ways. either if he's in hiding, he's not going to be happy you found him because obviously 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 just couldn't keep it in anymore. >> i went to the sheriff's department. i wasn't sure what to do. so i just asked for a piece of paper, and i slid it under the window. >> detectives got her note all right, and thus figured they

should have a chat with elisa mcnabney. but by the time they went looking for her, just like larry, she was gone. >> who exactly was elisa mcnabney, and what did she know about her husband's disappearance? the investigation heats up when police uncover the dark secret in elisa's past. coming up -- >> she was a person out of a '40s film noir movie. she was a stunner physically, but more importantly she had a control over men that just amazed me. >> when "dateline" continues. ai. no wonder you rub your eyes hundreds of times a day. but now, relief is just one drop away. introducing pataday® full prescription strength pataday works right in your eyes. right on the cells that make them itch. fast. just one drop, once a day means relief that lasts all day.

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by the dawn of 2002, while the rest of us were getting used to a post-9/11 new normal, it seemed pretty clear that something very abnormal must have happened to that successful personal injury attorney larry mcnabney. nobody had seen him in five months. he'd never been on a bender for this long. did now his wife elisa was missing too. by this time, ginger had dropped off her note at the sheriff's office, and detectives were poking around in the abandoned remains of larry's law practice, talking to employees, like sarah dutra, the attractive 21-year-old art student from sacramento state who worked at the law firm as an office secretary. she brought her little dog,

ralph, with her to the sheriff's office. sarah told the detectives that 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. and sarah said she saw elisa signing 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. >> in early january 2002, said sarah, elisa planned a trip to arizona to attend a horse show. and 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. >> when sarah got to the airport, the ticket was not paid for. >> so then you call her cell phone number, and what did you get? >> nothing. it was "this number is no longer in use. >> i said, ginger, i'm going to look for a new job. i don't know about you, but elisa is long. >> the san joaquin prosecutor had handled a number of missing cases. so when he heard about the case of larry and elisa mcnabney, he gravitated toward it. >> he was an attorney with a caseload, who just disappeared. this isn't someone who is a homeless person who just vanishes and you think maybe 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 who 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 found 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. and, you know, i thought he meant, well, 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'd 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 hadn'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 real 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 through and through 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 polecat to do anything like that because he was the goose that laid the golden egg. it wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. >> it was a farm worker who noticed a flock of vultures 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. >> "dateline" returns after the break. oh... i'm scratching like crazy. you've got some allergic itch with skin inflammation. apoquel can work on that itch in as little as 4 hours, whether it's a new or chronic problem. and apoquel's treated over 7 million dogs. nice. and... the talking dog thing? is it bothering you? no... itching like a dog is bothering me. until dogs can speak for themselves, you have to. when allergic itch is a problem, ask for apoquel. apoquel is for the control of itch associated with allergic dermatitis and the control of atopic dermatitis in dogs. do not use apoquel in dogs less than 12 months old or those with serious infections. apoquel may increase the chance of developing serious infections and may cause existing parasitic skin infestations or pre-existing cancers to worsen. do not use in breeding, pregnant, or lactating dogs. most common side effects are vomiting and diarrhea. feeling better? i'm speechless. thanks for the apoquel. awww. that's what friends are for.

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- veterans, in times of crisis, you've served our country. if you're a vet and you're experiencing any symptoms of the coronavirus, please contact your local va hospital. protecting your health is our greatest duty. it was february 2002. a remote vineyard up in the northern end of california's central valley. a farm worker checking the outer reaches of a giant field of grape couldn't help but see the big birds wheeling round and

round. something out there. >> vultures were circling. he spotted the vultures, and so he went out to see what they were circling. >> investigator javier ramos and lieutenant robert book walder worked with the san joaquin sheriff's department at the time. they were among the first on the scene. >> must be some dead animal? >> that's what he figured he was going to find, just some dead animal out there. >> but it wasn't a dead animal. the leg that was sticking out of the ground was decidedly human. and soon larry's daughter, tavia, heard the news. >> i got a call from the sheriff's department. i felt myself get really 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 down the phone, and i just started shaking. it was a moment in time that i've never felt such anguish. >> it'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, and now we can move on and investigate it as a homicide. >> tavia's hopes crushed. police had ample proof now five months after he vanished that larry had been murdered and left to rot out here 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 found something very unusual. >> the medical examiner was able to find out that the cause of death was poisoning with a horse

tranquilizer. >> horse tranquilizer? >> yes. >> now, that was strange. but get this. >> he'd 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 that it was preserved, kept cold. >> one of the first things that i thought was where would the person that killed larry -- where would they have access to like 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. >> when i would go to sleep at night, i would wake up, and i would hear him calling for me to help him. and 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. sheriff's deputies and the fbi finally tracked her down in march 2002 in florida. >> she cut her hair short and changed her name. >> elisa was 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, la n l-a-r-e

l-a-r-e-n. my middle name is renee, ren r-e-n-e r-e-n-e-e. my last names is sims, si-i-m-s >> and el issa? >> elisa was or laren was from massachusetts and was a mother of two. she was wanted in florida for violating probation on a burglary and theft charge 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 that 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 -- did elisa have help? when "dateline" continues. e it. aleve is proven stronger and longer on pain than tylenol. when pain happens, aleve it. all day strong. how do you thrive while inside? ♪ ♪

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hello. i'm dara brown. here's what's happening. new york governor andrew cuomo signed an executive order to allow independent pharmacists to conduct covid-19 tests. the order also expanded testing eligibility to include first

responders, frontline health care workers, and essential workers. more beaches are reopening in some parts of florida. activities and hours are restricted and proper social distancing is required. the state's governor says the move is justified because numbers are improving within the state. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. larry mcnabney's wife had confessed to murdering her husband and burying his body in a california vineyard. it would have seemed like a straightforward case if not for what she told investigators next. 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. and now after months on the lam, elisa mcnabney, aka laren renee

simds was finally in custody and off-loading 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 and had been so helpful to detectives after larry and elisa disappeared? now elisa was 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

she feared for her life. one day she said she confided 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 decide 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 guys 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 imbibing in 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, said elisa, 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 my truck -- our truck, and put him in the back seat of the truck. and we drove. >> this, by the way, was september 11th, 2001. everyone else in the known world preoccupied elsewhere while elisa and sarah drove north through california with larry slowly dying in the back seat 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 throw him in the hole alive? >> yeah, and i was freaking out. i said we can't put him in there when he's alive. 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. then we took duct tape and wrapped it around him, and he was like in a crouched position. and then in my garage, he had this wine refrigerator, you know, like a regular refrigerator but he ordinarily 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 burying him in the backyard. we talked about burying him at

my trainer's. we talked about taking him to the desert and 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 we closed the trunk and we went to las vegas.

>> en route to las vegas with their two dogs in the back seat, larry in the trunk along with two shovels. once there, sarah hung out at a hotel with the dogs. 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 us, and it's not good, you know? >> 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 him. >> 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. >> when "dateline" continues. people are surprising themselves the moment they realize they can du more with less asthma. thanks to dupixent, the add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma. dupixent isn't for sudden breathing problems. it can improve lung function for better breathing in as little as 2 weeks and help prevent severe asthma attacks. it's not a steroid but can help reduce or eliminate oral steroids. don't use if allergic to dupixent. serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, which is severe. tell your doctor right away about signs of inflamed blood vessels, such as rash, shortness of breath, chest pain, tingling or numbness in your limbs.

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fall where the chips fall. do not protect elisa anymore. don't protect yourself either. just tell the truth. >> was she like incriminating me somehow? >> sarah dutra appeared confused. no little dog to keep her company now. her close friend, elisa mcnabney, had confessed to murdering her husband larry and claimed sarah, just 21 years old at the time, not only helped with the murder but was actually the driving force behind it. >> what do you think elisa's doing right about now? >> she is lying about what really happened. >> are you a cold-blooded killer, or are you -- >> no. >> are you somebody that got caught up in some stuff and made some mistakes? >> they confronted her with elisa's written confession. >> basically it says, i, laren jordan, along with sarah dutra planned to overdose larry

mcnabney with horse tranquilizer. >> no, i'm not denying that conversation couldn't have happened, but i never thought she would have carried it out and taken me along with her unknowingly. she's evil, and she's trying to do this, to pull me down with her, because she's been 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. anyone who would kill their husband is evil. >> 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. it was elisa, she said, who dosed larry with horse tranquilizer, elisa who ordered sarah to bury him in yosemite, even before he was dead. >> she said get out and grab the shovel and go check that ground. i said, i don't want to do that.

>> okay. >> elisa, who was eerily calm when larry finally did expire. >> and he was laying on the ground. and i said, why is he laying on the ground? why is he not in bed? and she said, he's dead. and i said, what do you mean he's dead? >> that was the morning of september 12th after the long and harrowing drive home from the horse show in los angeles, said sarah. and through her tears, she told the 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 we carried him downstairs, and i'm like, what are you doing? we have to call the police. this is not right.

she said, we're not calling the police. if you call the police, you'll 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 and killer? sarah dutra seemed so frightened, so emotional. and yet, thought the detective -- >> i felt a little bit over the top. >> she was a little over the top? >> yeah. >> 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 shut. >> and now, sarah left holding the bag, would face murder charges alone. >> coming up -- >> when you try only one defendant, it's very easy, as it was for sarah dutra, to point the finger at the one who's not there. >> when "dateline" continues.

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welcome back. sarah dutra was behind bars, charged with the murder of larry mcnabney. larry's wife elisa told detectives they killed the attorney together but insisted it was sarah's idea. then elisa committed suicide, leaving sarah to face trial alone. sarah's defense claimed she was the pawn, forced to commit the horrendous act, and it was elisa who was the real mastermind. which story would the jury believe?

here's keith morrison with the conclusion of "poison." >> it was the winter of 2003. more than a year after larry mcnabney was poisoned with horse tranquilizer. his admitted killer, his wife elisa mcnabney, chose her own destiny. and her alleged accomplice sarah dutra alone faced the possibility of spending the rest of her life behind bars. you attended the trial every day. >> yes, 11 1/2 weeks. >> why? why? >> our d.a. had talked to us about the importance of our family being represented, that my dad not being forgotten. >> tavia believed that her father died at the hands of both elisa and sarah. but while sarah admitted to being there when larry died and in the days and months that followed, she adamantly claimed she never went to the police because she was so afraid of elisa and of ending up just like larry, a theory that even

prosecutor thomas testa found, well, believable. >> when i first got this case, people in my office will tell you that's exactly what i was saying walking up and down the halls. >> poor sarah, she's a victim here. >> she's just an aider and abettor. but as i got deeper into the case, i totally turned around on this. but i started with that very mind-set. >> as testa reviewed the evidence in preparation for trial, he became convinced that sarah dutra was in fact the woman in charge. >> sarah did not like larry. she always accused him of being full of himself, talking about himself all of the time, self-centered. she didn't like him. so larry didn't want sarah around. sarah did not like larry. >> you know, this sounds to me like two people who both love elisa and want the other out of the way. >> yes. that is what -- that's it. that's exactly it. it was a love triangle, and one of them had to go. >> sarah, said prosecutor testa, was enjoying a very fancy life with elisa, and larry was simply

in the way. if your theory is right, these are two kind of good-time girls who have got this great relationship, and they're living off the proceeds of larry. why get rid of him? they have no motive. >> larry was elisa's golden goose, but elisa was sarah's golden goose, and sarah was about to be cut out of this whole triangle. larry told her two days before he was killed, you know, that he wanted her gone. he wanted her fired. >> so, said testa, it was sarah who had the motive to kill larry. sarah's lawyer, of course, saw it differently. >> this seems like a classic instance of, you know, evil sort of wrapping around a sweet, young, little baby. >> at the trial, defense attorney kevin klimo portrayed elisa as a black widow, a

sophisticated con artist who wanted her husband dead. and sarah was her innocent and terrified pawn. >> it was the most horrible thing i've ever had anything to do with but not because i wanted to. not because i -- i want you to know that. not because i wanted to. >> really? now prosecutor testa introduced ginger miller. remember her, the other secretary who worked alongside sarah and elisa? she said in the days and weeks after larry vanished elisa and sarah seemed to feel anything but remorse. >> they're laughing together. they're shopping together. they're eating together. they're sleeping in the same bed together. she's living at her house. >> so they were not really working, were they? >> they were. they would get maybe two hours of work done a day. >> what did they do the rest of the time? just party? >> shop, hang out, sleep late, go flirt with boys. >> all the while spending the firm's money, larry's money. a lot of money. >> elisa got a red jaguar. sarah got a red bmw.

>> such close friends or maybe more than friends? >> they bought matching underwear together. >> come on. >> no. my first week they're like, look what we bought. they pulled up -- they both were wearing matching underwear. they were best friends. >> they were blowing through money so fast, they fell behind on rent payments for the law office, got evicted. so they moved the office into elisa and larry's home, which according to ginger now seemed more like elisa and sarah's home. >> up in their rooms they had no clothes of larry's. the closet was cleaned out. and in the bathroom, hers and sarah made the sink hers and hers instead of his and hers. >> like they knew he wasn't coming back? >> yeah, they were pretty much moving him out. >> well, not quite because all this time, remember, larry's body was still in the garage, still in the refrigerator. and as for the idea that sarah was an innocent child, elisa's

puppet, that was nonsense, said ginger. >> everybody knows that she wasn't terrified of her. sarah had as much say as elisa had in the whole situation. >> but at her trial, sarah, the daughter of those devout christians, sat quietly at the defense table, a wide-eyed innocent. elisa wasn't around to be cross-examined, so her videotaped confession didn't get played for the jury. and with no dna, no prints, no trace evidence, no living eyewitnesses, the case against sarah was entirely circumstantial. >> first-degree murder? >> 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 she not been a young, attractive, tall blonde, who 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 callous to the end. >> sarah dutra 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. thank you for watching. . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> hopelessness. you know, where did she go? who did she see? i just want to know what happened to my sister. >> a young mother is missing in a case gone cold. >> it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. >> then detectives had an aha moment. to solve the case, they would attorney something you probably use every day -- facebook. >> why don't you establish a facebook account? i thought, that could actually accomplish a great deal. >> and that's when everything