and that indeed will take us off the air tonight and for this week. with our thanks for watching, on behalf of all of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, have a good weekend. good night. > i was completely baffled at how this could have happened! i didn't know anyone who wished anna any harm! nobody! >> she was stunning. model-like. she had that personality, that happiness from within. >> she found ana irresistible. >> i see her, my angel of light. >> i called her my muse. >> reporter: and showered her with money. >> $46,000? >> yes, sir. >> is he some kind of sugar daddy? >> that's what it appears to be. >> she's lying on the ground

blood coming out of her mouth. >> who would do this to her? >> reporter: so many men in her life, so many potential suspects. >> hez trying to get into her bank accounts, her e-mails. >> he's a beneficiary of a large sum of cash it's someone we're going to look at. >> we were confident he was going to be our guy. >> reporter: of all the places a beautiful, bright, young russian might end up, frisco, texas might not make your list. but that's where anna kichatova went. and it was here she found what

she was looking for. love and success, along with men and women who found her, well, fascinating. >> i met anna after church one afternoon. i was delighted to meet someone who was more, worldly and sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill, suburban american you meet. >> we just had that connection. i cannot describe it in words. i don't think i have words to describe what i -- we felt. >> reporter: like a blossom to bees, the sweet-natured anna attracted a circle of admirers. >> safe to say you had a crush on her? >> you could probably say that, yeah, at some point. >> i don't think she ever had a problem. everybody loved her. well, maybe not everyone. >> reporter: so many people would soon become potential suspects, when someone's love and admiration, turned toxic and deadly. somewhere in that circle of

fans, danger was waiting. but if anna saw it coming, she kept it to herself. >> and so she'd listened to your really deepest secrets but she wouldn't -- >> she did. >> give you any of her own. >> no. >> reporter: her friend donna was able to glean a little about anna's exotic past. >> i knew that she was ethnically russian, but born in kazakhstan, and i knew that at some point the family had moved to st. petersburg. where she, i believe, got a degree in economics at the university. i knew she married when she was fairly young and had her son igor. >> reporter: the marriage didn't last long, and the husband dropped out of the picture so there was anna, in her late 20's, with a little boy to support. she wanted a better life, and she made her move when she met an american tourist named bob moses, who'd been invited to visit her english class.

he was 19 years older. >> she seemed real nice, real friendly. and had a great smile. and so i just said, you know, "would you like to have lunch?" >> reporter: the answer was yes. lunch turned to dinner, one thing led to another. >> after i left, we communicated. we emailed. before finally, you know, said, "hey, i'd like you to come over. you know, and you know, possibly we have, you know, relationship here together." >> reporter: it was october, 1998. >> she came without her son. she told me she wanted to kinda, you know, check things out before she brought her son over here. so she was here. and you know, we got married in december of that year. >> reporter: two months later, igor came to united states, and suddenly bob had a family. >> reporter: the one-time bachelor was smitten with his young wife and his new four-year-old son. >> little boy. you know-- you know, runnin' around, have fun, you know, he was fantastic. >> reporter: bob formally

adopted igor. >> he was my son. you know, i -- you know, i wouldn't consider him anything else. >> reporter: and he meant it. in 2002 fate dealt the family a sucker punch when igor suffered what could have been, a catastropic health crisis, cancer. but with bob's help he pulled through. >> i care about that child. so ah, we did everything possible. >> reporter: they recovered from the setback with igor, and life picked up in frisco, an ambitious little city outside of dallas. bob worked in sales, anna landed a job as a data analyst at the university of texas/dallas. where she met jayshree bihari. >> she came and she met with me and we clicked instantly. >> what made you guys click like that? >> i was new, so she came over and told me about who all are there, in the office and took me around. you know, we met people and we went out for lunch. so it was really nice of her to make me feel very comfortable.

>> reporter: anna clicked with a lot of people. like john wiorkowski, a professor at the university, who worked just upstairs from anna. >> she wanted to learn about quantitative methods, that's my specialty, so it just sort of hit, you know. good, good buddies. >> reporter: anna was big on self-improvement. she was taking a course in public speaking, when she met jerry caspell, and he joined her crowd of admirers. >> we used to kinda tease each other. i said, "you used to be my enemy. you were from a communist country." and she thought that was pretty funny, yeah. >> reporter: in donna ross, anna found a kindred spirit. once a professional ballet dancer, donna now teaches dance in frisco. >> she was very passionate about some of the same things i was passionate about. we went to the dallas symphony, we went to the dallas opera, we went to texas ballet theater. >> reporter: as anna's world got bigger, her life with bob began to wither. the marriage that had survived a child's illness faltered over time, and anna surprised

everyone when she asked bob for a divorce in 2012. for igor's sake they parted as friends. and anna was again on the lookout for a nice guy. which brings us to michael stodnick. >> michael is a very attractive, very intelligent, soft-spoken young man, about anna's age. he is a professor at the university of dallas. >> reporter: and anna's new man. good looking, age appropriate, a mild-mannered business professor. so with a nice new boyfriend and a good job, anna moses was once again moving on up, until the day in january of 2015, when she didn't show for work. michael said he couldn't get in touch with her, so he contacted police. they went to check on her.

>> and so when you get a welfare check call, what do you normally expect to find? >> usually go to the house and find, you know, somebody there who didn't wanna talk to the person who's trying to find them. or you know, they've gone somewhere and just not told somebody. >> but this was different. >> yes, sir. >> coming up -- what was going on with ana? police were about to uncover a troubling clue. >> that's when we discovered some shell casings in the garage. >> one alarming discovery and feet away another. >> i observed her lying on her back. i saw what appeared to be a bullet hole in her scarf. a bullet hole in her scarf

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and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. >> reporter: it was late morning, january 14th, 2015, when anna moses' neighbor, david stafford, thought he spotted trouble across the street at anna's house. >> and had my blinds open. and i noticed that police officers came. and were knocking on the -- the

door. so i came out and asked what was going on. and they said that they were following up on a well check. >> reporter: anna's boyfriend, michael stodnick, had called police to say he was worried. he said he'd gone to her house the night before to pick her up for a date, but she didn't answer the door. and now her colleagues were saying she hadn't shown up for work. frisco sgt. jay reim was one of the officers checking the home. >> no signs of any type of forced entry, anywhere. >> reporter: which means, also, you don't really have any excuse to go inside. >> correct. yeah, we didn't -- we didn't have any reason to go kick in somebody's door because there didn't seem to be anything out of the norm. >> reporter: the doors were locked, so sgt. reim asked some officers to find anna's 20-year-old son to help them get into the house. igor was by then a student living at the university where his mother worked. they show up with the son and the key and the alarm code. you gettin' any kind of a read

off the son? >> i didn't talk to the son. he sat in the car. >> reporter: and that's where igor waited while police went into his mom's house. a member of sgt reim's team was wearing a body camera. >> the first thing we wanted to see if -- is if the car was there. so we walked in. and as you walk in, two of my guys went in the garage, looked. said, "hey, there's no car." >> reporter: but then they looked down. and what they saw was beyond bad. anna moses, whose sunny presence had touched so many lives, was lying dead on the garage floor. >> i was standin' in the laundry room. and like, "is she -- is she deceased?" and they were like, "yes, she is." >> trauma? >> blood out the mouth. >> so we did a quick protective sweep of the house to make sure nobody else was inside, and then we came out and locked the door. that way we kept the -- the scene pristine for the -- crime scene and -- and detectives to arrive. >> reporter: investigators were there within minutes. one of them was reuben mankin of the texas rangers.

>> my initial observation was just from coming in through the foyer was -- that it was a clean house. then i made a beeline for the -- the laundry room, which was -- >> reporter: wait one sec. "clean" meaning didn't look like she'd interrupted a burglary? >> that's correct. that's correct. >> reporter: i mean, there was no stuff missing, drawers pulled open? >> right. >> reporter: something else was telling -- on the floor of the garage was anna's purse, which still held $300. and nothing else seemed to be missing, except anna's car. ranger mankin surveyed the scene with lead detective brian tschudy. >> that's when we notice some shell casings in the garage. um, just multiple shell casings. >> reporter: the casings easily identified the murder weapon as a .22 -- and a careful look at anna's body told them a little more. >> i observed her to be lyin' on her back. she was heavily clothed -- still wearin', you know, her jacket and a couple of scarves. i -- i saw what appeared to be a bullet hole in her -- in her

scarf that was wrapped around her neck. and that's when i observed a hole in her neck. >> reporter: so she was killed presumably by somebody who got into the house and waited for her in the garage? >> possibly. yeah. or, um -- she opens the garage door, she pulls in and somebody runs in there, shoots and kills her and takes the car. >> reporter: all right, so -- so an alert goes out for the car, right? >> correct. >> yes, sir. >> reporter: there were so many scenarios under consideration. this didn't feel like a burglary or a carjacking. the medical examiner outlined anna's cause of death. >> he was able to document that she had been shot six times. >> reporter: they found a seventh bullet in anna's clothing that hadn't penetrated. in fact, it fell onto the examining table. the deadly bullet wounds were close together. someone had shot her in the chest, and then in the back. so this is somebody who was probably not too far away from

her? >> correct. yeah. >> reporter: and fired a bunch of times? >> correct. >> reporter: the trajectory of the bullets suggested anna had gotten out of her car, perhaps seen her assailant, and started to turn away. >> she doesn't go down with those three rounds. and that's where you have the -- the followin' -- barrage of bullets on her back, um, that are square in her back. >> so, like, if we startle you and the door's right there -- >> yeah. >> -- and you go to turn to run to that door, you're gonna catch it left to right. >> reporter: there was something else -- and it was, at the very least, odd. anna may have been shot seven times, but police found eleven shell casings at the scene. and no sign of the other four bullets. did crime scene ever find the other slugs in the walls or the floor, anywhere? >> no, sir. >> no, sir. >> reporter: that's kinda weird. >> yeah. >> reporter: right? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: so now the

detectives turned their attention to the circle of people who knew and loved anna moses. among them could be a clue -- perhaps even a suspect -- and detectives would begin with the person she loved the most. coming up -- police tell ana's son igor about his mother's murder. >> was she in one piece? >> have you ever heard someone respond like that? >> never. d like that? >> never on what matters most. and your health is key to that. centrum supports your body with vitamin c and zinc to help maintain your immune system today and into the new tomorrow. centrum. honey, did you hear about these new geico savings? mom? you'll get an extra 15%

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>> reporter: the bullet-riddled body of 43-year-old anna moses had been found in her garage in a suburb of dallas. now sgt. jay reim had the difficult task of breaking the news to her only child. >> we needed to notify the son. >> he's right there at the curb. >> he's at the curb. so we couldn't not tell him anything. >> reporter: after helping police get into the house, 20-year-old igor moses was waiting outside, sitting in a car. >> what's your name? >> igor. >> igor? i'm jay. >> hi. >> reporter: sgt. reim's body-cam was switched on, but as you can see, it wasn't framed properly. his words, however, were direct and to the point. >> there's really no easy way to -- to tell you what's going

on. >> okay. >> okay? um -- your mom is deceased. >> mm-hmmm. >> okay? um, so right now, we've got to do a lot of things to try to figure out how -- why -- >> mm-hmmm. >> -- uh, what's going on. >> reporter: you've done that kind of notification before, haven't you? >> a lot. >> reporter: and they're not pleasant. >> no. worst thing to do. >> reporter: was this one different? >> it -- it was different in the response that i received. >> reporter: in fact, there was basically no response, according to reim. just a blank stare. did he cry? was he emotional? >> not at all. >> reporter: their conversation, if that's what this was, continued. >> is your mom's car usually here? >> yeah. >> okay. >> is it not here? >> no. >> reporter: that's when igor asked a question that seemed to come totally out of left field -- >> is she in one piece? >> yeah. i mean, i -- i -- i don't know exactly. and then that -- that's what we gotta try to figure out. >> reporter: "is she in one

piece?" have you ever heard anybody respond like that? >> never. >> reporter: to a death notification. >> never. >> reporter: but it wouldn't be the only response that left sgt. reim scratching his head. >> so i'll let you talk to a detective and -- and we'll go from there, if you're good with that. >> i do have class. even though i know that's kind of insignificant at the moment. >> okay. yeah, i think -- i think you can get an excuse for that. >> reporter: igor never made it to class that night. instead, he was brought here to the frisco police department for a formal interview. investigators had already been briefed about his odd reaction to the news of his mother's death. later, he'd tell her friends he didn't want to have a funeral for her. and also this -- that whoever had killed anna moses should be forgiven. igor said he was in class the night his mom was murdered. but after interviewing him for five hours, investigators were still wondering about his unusual reaction. especially when they learned that right after the interview, that very same night, igor was in the gym playing a game called wally-ball with friends. by no means did he seem to be

grieving. >> just kinda added to us needin' to dig a little bit deeper and find out, you know, what was goin' on. >> reporter: this is, what, hours after his mother's been found dead? >> that's correct. >> reporter: and when detectives did dig deeper, they discovered what could be a motive. anna had a $750,000 life insurance policy with just a single beneficiary -- igor. >> he's a person of interest. igor being the direct beneficiary of a large sum of cash, yes, that's someone we're gonna look at. >> reporter: not long after anna's body was found, her friend, donna, read the awful news on facebook from a posting by another friend. that had to be terribly shocking to hear that she'd been killed. >> completely. completely, because i didn't know anyone who wished anna any harm.

nobody. i just -- i couldn't imagine it who didn't love anna? >> reporter: and who'd hate her? >> exactly. >> reporter: donna said she could not picture igor as the killer. >> never. never. never. i just know igor is not capable of murder. >> reporter: and another friend, jayshree bihari, remembered how close anna and igor always were. >> she just adored him. her son was like the center of her life. >> reporter: what did she tell you about her son? >> you know, she just said that, "i want him to pursue his passion, which is in music." and she would always go to his concerts. >> reporter: igor played guitar in a christian rock band, combining two big interests -- music and religion. he was studying speech pathology at the u.t. dallas, the same school where his mother worked. >> she used to even wash his clothes on weekends and when he

was at the dorm. >> reporter: he's in college and she's still doin' his laundry. >> yes. she will take all his clothes, wash them. iron them. get him some food, homemade food and stuff like that. >> reporter: the last time donna saw anna, anna couldn't contain her excitement about travel plans she'd made with igor. >> she was telling me about her wealthy aunt giving her money so she and igor could go on vacation, and she was really looking forward to that. >> reporter: but as much as anna's friends believed in igor, they still weren't sure what to make of some of his statements. he said that whoever had done this should be forgiven. >> we all noticed it and thought it was unusual. but igor in the last year had become fanatically religious. >> reporter: day one of the investigation, and igor was just the first of the men in anna's life police wanted to talk to.

the list would be long. and on it would be some names that would qualify as secret admirers, relationships anna moses had never shared with even her closest friends. >> we cast a broad net. >> reporter: including her ex-husband. clearly, he's gonna be at the top of the list of people you wanna interview? >> correct. >> coming up -- detectives talk with bob moss and leave with more questions than answers. >> did y'all ever fight? >> i mean we had disagreements. >> i did not think this was going to be something easy to solve. s was going to be something easy to solve. the other issue. 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 8 million dogs. nice. and...the talking dog thing? is it bothering you? no...itching like a dog is bothering me.

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hello. i'm dara brown. here's what's happening. new york governor andrew cuomo gave schools a green light to reopen. the final decision to resume in person instruction will be handled at the local level and plans for reopening must be

approved by the state. and the unemployment rate fell by 10.2% adding only 1.8 million jobs last month as businesses in many parts of the country were forced to close for a second time due a surge in coronavirus cases. now back to dateline. ne >> reporter: law enforcement 101: on any murder, talk with the ex. but this time, ranger mankin and detective tschudy were also messengers, arriving at bob moses's house with some bad news. >> i mean, they come at midnight, you know, you -- somethin's happened. and i said, "well, what happened?" >> is my son ok? >> your -- your son's fine. but -- >> some -- somebody else? >> well, that's what we want to talk about. >> reporter: the investigators, who were recording their

conversation, preferred to tell bob about anna when they all went to the police station. but his peristence forced their hand. >> tell me what happened here. ok, "well, something happened to anna." what happened to her? >> anna's dead. >> what, what? what are you talking about? >> anna's dead. >> when. how -- how -- how is that possible? >> reporter: the cops, who at that point hadn't revealed how she died, noticed that bob, unlike igor, had a strong response. >> his reaction seemed appropriate. >> he was upset? he was emotional? >> yes. >> my first thoughts were for igor. he's like 20 years old at this time. he just lost his mother. and they told me that he knew, he, you know, knew about what had happened. >> reporter: bob agreed to follow the cops to the frisco pd in his car for a more formal interview. on their way to the station, the ranger can be heard telling his partner that bob had passed the

credibility test. >> seemed genuine. >> reporter: one a.m. in a little room downtown. already a long day for mankin, whose back is to the camera, and tschudy, at the table, facing bob. >> we're tryin' to figure out what happened. and, uh, maybe -- when's the last time -- you saw her, spoke with her? >> what do you mean, what happened? i mean, i don't -- >> we have -- we have good reason to believe that anna was murdered. >> oh, my god. >> yeah. >> no. god. how -- how would something like that happen? how would that happen? >> do you know of anybody who would want to harm anna? >> no. i mean, why would somebody want to harm anna? >> reporter: the detectives needed to nail down bob's timeline for the evening anna was murdered: tuesday, january 13th. >> i wasn't really doing

anything yesterday. you know, watching tv more than anything else. >> reporter: bob's alma mater, ohio state, had won the national championship monday night, and he said he spent the next day reveling in post-game celebrations and commentary on tv. and, he said, one of the three men he shared his house with could vouch for him. >> who was at home yesterday whenever you were at home? >> um, well, the guy who was there -- right there -- ken. >> ken. >> reporter: bob said it was cold so he never ventured outside until around 7 pm when he drove to twin peaks, a nearby restaurant. police would confirm that on security video, spotting bob wearing his red ohio state jacket. what seemed to matter the most to bob was his son, who needed him now more than ever. >> i should go see igor. you know, i should really go -- see him and talk to him and see how he is. >> from talking to him on the

phone -- a couple hours ago, he seemed all right. >> all right? >> yeah. >> how can he be all right? he can't be all right. >> reporter: as the ex-husband, investigators, of course, asked about the broken marriage. bob and anna divorced two years before anna was murdered. >> did y'all ever fight whenever y'all were married? >> i mean, we had disagreements. i mean, that's kinda, why we're divorced. i mean, we just-- we're kinda like, opposites in some ways. >> reporter: the investigators asked bob if he owned guns, and he said "yes, five of them." three were .22-caliber, the kind of weapon that killed anna. bob readily agreed to let police search his home and take his guns and ammunition. >> we're gonna have to get 'em analyzed. >> bob even provided a dna swab, right on the spot. >> this is a q-tip, a big long q-tip. so i want you to go ahead and rub it on your left cheek.

left. >> we use this evidence in -- to help rule you out. >> ok. >> reporter: after being interviewed for about an hour, bob left to find his son. >> when he and i were together. i was, you know, really upset about it. >> reporter: and they never stopped supporting each other. soon, bob and igor moved into anna's house to grieve together. it was another example of the affection for his adopted son that had always impressed anna's friends. >> bob was essentially the only father that igor has ever known. >> and when igor was sick bob definitely delivered? >> was incredibly, kind, and loving and caring to igor when igor was suffering with, ah, cancer. >> there was a little seven-year old boy has-- really, really rare form of bone cancer. >> reporter: everything bob did was to protect igor even the divorce. anna and bob kept it secret for months -- until igor could finish high school.

then they made sure it was amicable -- also for igor. >> she said that "he will be coming often to see igor and we are-- we'll be on friendly terms." >> bob also came by the house to do handyman repairs. >> she knew if she called somebody it was gonna be very expensive. and i was like, "well, i can fix it." >> reporter: after interviewing anna's ex-husband and son, police were ready to widen their investigation. more men were on the radar. >> i did not think this was gonna be somethin' easy to solve. >> reporter: and the next man up, anna's current boyfriend, would do something bob and igor didn't do. he lawyered up. >> coming up -- >> he raised the question should i get an attorney about the time we started asking for dna. >> the boyfriend would do something else, too, something truly bizarre. after talking to police he talked to himself.

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>> reporter: police and texas rangers were working overtime investigating the murder of anna moses. the upwardly mobile, russian immigrant's pursuit of the american dream, had ended in a hail of bullets in her suburban garage. anna's car was missing. cops suspected whoever killed her had taken it. twelve hours after anna's body

was found. >> one officer's was drivin' through the neighborhood, and he got a hit on the plate. >> i get a phone call from patrol, advising they located anna moses' car just a couple streets away from her house. >> reporter: the officer on the scene told detectives tschudy and ranger mankin he could see what appeared to be a bloodstain inside the car. >> how many bloodstains in all did you find inside the car? >> three areas where blood was located. the seat bottom, the seat back, and the center console. >> what else did you find in the car? >> a red bull can and a weathered cigarette butt. >> did anna moses smoke or drink red bull? >> not to our knowledge. >> reporter: anna's car was towed to the crime lab where csi techs worked it over. they found no useful fingerprints. the cigarette butt, energy drink can, and bloodstains were all sent for dna testing. results could take weeks or even

months. meantime, cops had a killer on the loose. investigators were following anna's electronic footprints, reconstructing her last day alive. >> we had some camera footage that showed her leaving the college at approximately 5:07 p.m. we also got, some footage from, one of the schools nearby, and a taco bell as well. >> she was buying food? >> correct, correct. both were en route to coming back home. uh, she was also captured on a camera, in this neighborhood, and that was at 5:49 p.m. >> so if you believe that she was killed pretty much right after she got out of her car, then around 6:00 seems a plausible time? >> that's correct. >> reporter: while the forensics were being collected, an old-fashioned shoe leather investigation was underway. cops were looking hard at the

men in anna's life. starting with her official boyfriend michael stodnick, who had a date with anna the night she was killed, and who reported her missing. detectives invited stodnick downtown and grilled him about his whereabouts the night of anna's death. >> and the boyfriend's alibi is, "i was there at the scene of the murder. i just couldn't get in and i didn't know she was there"? >> right, right. well yes. >> he said he was at um grapevine elementary, getting his daughter's grades. >> reporter: stodnick answered all their questions, but a couple of things left the cops wondering. during the interrogation, he asked if he should get a lawyer. and then later, he did. >> anna's son igor, talks to you freely, doesn't hire an attorney. her ex-husband bob talks to you, doesn't hire an attorney. her boyfriend, however, does. that make you sit up and take notice? >> he does raise the question, "should i get an attorney?" it's right about the time we

start askin' for dna. >> reporter: stodnick did eventually provide a dna sample, but that didn't put questions about him to rest. because when the cops left the interrogation room, anna's boyfriend had a private and animated conversation, with himself. >> i have no idea. did i [ bleep ] up? am i overreacting? >> reporter: strange if not downright suspicious. it definitely didn't help his standing on the cops' hit parade of suspects. anna's dear friends, still shell-shocked from the news of her death, were drawn into the investigation. >> what did you know about this guy she was going out with, michael? >> when she started going out with him, she called me to say, "hey, um you know, i've found somebody who i'm seeing." i said, "oh, that's very nice.

i'm so happy for you." >> did she tell you anything else about him? >> no. she just said that, "he seems to be, like, a nice person and, uh i'm happy." >> reporter: jayshree had never met anna's boyfriend michael. and most of anna's other friends didn't know her ex-husband, bob. retired ballerina donna ross, who had danced with the joffrey ballet in new york, was one of the few who knew both men. she found bob lacking in the social graces, someone who didn't always recognize the audience he was playing to. >> i hung out with the movers and shakers, the glitterati of manhattan. and for someone to relate to me, as though i were somebody, in a little, small, provincial town in texas, it was pretty insulting. >> and here you were, being sort of looked down on? >> uh yes. he said, "well --" as he pulled up his bermuda shorts, "if you'd ever been to new york city you'd

know about the subway." that was one of the -- >> wrong -- wrong thing to say? >> yeah, bob did not feel good unless he was putting someone else down and trying to elevate himself. >> tell me about michael? >> well michael is very low-key, very kind, very sensitive. >> sounds like you approved of michael a lot more than bob? >> oh, absolutely. yes. i mean, michael is 20 years younger than bob. much more handsome, much more intelligent, much more successful, much more accomplished and much wealthier. what's not to like? >> and yet, anna and michael did not get along perfectly, did they? >> oh no, there was lots of -- of squabbling. >> reporter: it was dawning on anna's friends how little they really knew about this enigmatic russian woman.

>> in this picture it's me and anna. jayshree today, treasures the gifts anna gave her. like this matroyshka, the famous russian nesting doll. but she also wonders. >> explain to me how you were among her closest friends. >> uh-huh. >> you called her your soul sister. >> i did. and she was. >> and yet there was so much of her life that she didn't tell you anything about. >> yes. >> she never told you. >> no, no. she was very good at dodging things. >> reporter: that was dawning on investigators too. >> when did it become clear to you, that anna moses had parts of her life that she wasn't sharing with anybody else? >> i think through the interview process with friends, family and the people that knew her, it seemed like she had her life compartmentalized. and that certain types of people, she would let into this section of her life, and other types of people she would let closer and give 'em more detail.

>> reporter: as her friends and the cops continued to peel back the multiple layers of the late anna moses' singularly opaque love life, she was starting to resemble a real life matryoska. beautiful, intricate, and with a lot unseen. and, detectives were just beginning to tally anna's legion of admirers around the greater dallas area. coming up -- one of those admirers a poet who insisted he was just good friends with ana. jenally when men describe a woman as their muse and they're writing poems about her there's more going on there than just poetry. when dateline continues. when dateline continues. dateli. your knowledge of victorian architecture really paid off this time. nah, just got lucky. so did the thompsons. that faulty wiring could've cost them a lot more than the mudroom. thankfully they bundled their motorcycle with their home and auto. they're protected 24/7.

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it's the first and only oab treatment in its class. myrbetriq may increase blood pressure. tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or have a weak urine stream. myrbetriq may cause serious allergic reactions, like swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, or trouble breathing. if experienced, stop taking and tell your doctor right away. myrbetriq may interact with other medicines. tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. common side effects include increased blood pressure, common cold or flu symptoms, sinus irritation, dry mouth, urinary tract infection, bladder inflammation, back or joint pain, constipation, dizziness, and headache. looking for a destination that isn't always the bathroom? ask your doctor if myrbetriq is right for you. and visit myrbetriq.com. >> reporter: winston churchill referred to russia as, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

texas homicide investigators looking into the murder of russian immigrant anna moses were finding the same thing. michael stodnick, her boyfriend who put himself at the scene of the crime, told cops how he met anna. >> she was on match.com. i believe they met through match.com. >> reporter: anna's hard drive revealed he wasn't her first. on match.com, anna had page after page, eleven to be precise, of winks, postings by men who'd admired her photo. and, it wasn't just cyberspace keeping cops busy. lovely anna had plenty of flesh and blood admirers, including jerry caspell, who'd met her years earlier. >> we met at toastmasters. >> which is a speaking club? >> it's for public speaking and leadership, and she was working on her english, of course. and, i kinda tried to help her.

>> it sounds as if there was very quickly a connection between the two of you? >> yeah we got to be pretty close friends. she asked me for example to help her with her resume. >> you said keep writing dont forget. >> reporter: jerry, who is married and works for a medical equipment company, is also a poet and songwriter. he says anna encouraged his writing and eventually helped edit a collection of his poems. >> she always raved about poetry. and she said, "i can be your muse." and that's what struck me. i said, "yeah, you can be my muse." what guy wouldn't want a muse, particularly an attractive russian one? >> so i called her my muse. she thought that was great. >> maybe i'm very cynical here, but i do work for "dateline." >> yeah. >> generally, when men describe a woman as their muse, and they're writing poems to her or for her or about her.

there's more going on there than just poetry, or at least the man hopes there is. >> yeah. well, there wasn't. it was a deep, deep friendship. i loved her like i would love a sister. >> i'm gonna read you an excerpt of a poem you wrote. "a soft touch to heal my sad soul when it aches. whispered words soothing my heart when it breaks." that's the kind of poem that guys write about their girlfriends. >> yes, maybe it is. uh, she inspired me to write things like that. >> reporter: anna may have been merely jerry's muse, but she was careful to conceal their relationship from her husband, bob while they were still married. >> she made sure i wasn't there if he was coming over or something like that. >> sounds like she was trying to avoid the two of you meeting. >> yeah, that's what it seemed like, and i was fine with that.

>> could a reasonable person, an investigator, look at the e-mails and texts between the two of you and conclude that maybe there was -- >> sure. >> something extracurricular going on? >> sure, i got it. >> reporter: investigators were in the midst of their own musings about that relationship, and had some questions for jerry, like whether he had any guns. the poet told them he owned a .22 for target shooting, the came caliber as the weapon that killed anna. and jerry says he was learning things as well. >> i met some of her friends as they were preparing for the memorial, they started talking about her boyfriend. and i said, "i don't know about any boyfriend." so that was quite, quite odd. >> she -- she'd never mentioned michael to you -- >> i never, ever, knew about him until the memorial. >> reporter: and now there was someone else on the cops' radar. remember that neighbor, david

stafford, who noticed the police activity outside her house? he was extraordinarily helpful in providing details about anna's love life to detectives. >> i would see one guy. he was around you know for a while and then all of sudden i would see a -- another guy maybe three, four, five months later. um, and then, um, she started dating a third guy. >> reporter: the curious neighbor explained to us how he knew so much about anna's private life. >> you know by sitting here i can see you know everything that went on across the street. and cars driving by and -- and stuff like that. >> reporter: but, he told us he wasn't that interested in the pretty russian divorcee whose dating life he so carefully chronicled. not his type, he said. >> i had never asked her out, no. i mean, she's from a foreign county. she was russian. and her english was with a very heavy accent.

and i'm just not attracted to any woman like that. >> reporter: after anna's body was found he had visitors. >> ranger mankin and i went over to mr. stafford's house and uh sat down and talked with him. >> reporter: the neighbor told them he was on a long conference call in his home office at the time anna was killed. >> did he fill in any gaps on the timeline? did he hear any gunshots? >> not really. he didn't hear any gunshots. >> that neighbor seemed to know quite a bit about her. >> yes, he did. and we -- we made note of that, that he knew an awful lot about her routines, as far as who she was dating, who she had dated. >> reporter: tschudy and mankin invited the neighbor downtown for a longer conversation. at the station, david stafford added his dna sample to the investigators growing collection. coming up -- what could you tell about ana's relationship with

john? >> they were friends, very good friends. >> yet another person of interest. for ana he was a friend with benefits. financial ones. professor admits they dated briefly. i'm not sure what dated means, but i mean is he some kind of sugar daddy? >> that's what it appears to be. >> when dateline continues. be. >> when dateline continues people used to care. heck, they'd come all the way out here just for a blurry photo of me. oh, that's a good one. wait, what's that? that's just the low-battery warning. oh, alright. now it's all, "check out my rv," and, "let's go four-wheeling." maybe there's a little part of me that wanted to be seen. well, progressive helps people save when they bundle their home with their outdoor vehicles. so they've got other things to do now, bigfoot. wait, what'd you just call me? bigfoot? ♪

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anna had been found murdered. the suspects from the poet to the boyfriend who talked to police and then himself, but police are about to make a dramatic discovery. >> when you find a letter in russian, you don't know whether that's going to be a great clue or a shopping list.

>> spoiler alert. not a shopping list. who does the clue point to? >> we were pretty confident he was going to be our guy. >> reporter: as homicide investigators struggled to solve the murder of anna moses, their list of suspects grew longer. >> we have people of interest during this, and there was certainly a lot of them. >> reporter: anna's life proved full of men who seemed to deserve a second look. there was her son, igor, who stood to collect $750,000 in life insurance. her ex-husband husband, bob, divorced but still in the picture. her soulmate, jerry the poet, who called anna his muse. her boyfriend michael, who admitted he went by anna's home the night of the murder. and that attentive neighbor david, who kept curiously close

tabs on anna. but wait. there's more. her colleagues pointed detectives toward another special friend of anna's. >> coworkers indicated that she had a close relationship with dr. wiorkowski. >> reporter: dr. john wiorkowski is a vice provost at u.t. dallas. anna took one of his classes. >> i knew her for about six years. but then about three years or four years ago, what she was doing coincided with something i was doing. so we worked together more, so that's how it sort of -- sort of became friends. she liked music, i liked music. >> reporter: before long, anna and the married professor were spending time together outside of work. as the professor told it, they became even closer around 2012 when anna's marriage hit a rough patch. the two met most mornings for tea and sympathy. >> i would come down around

10:00 and um, uh -- just see how she was doing. and then she -- she would -- we would, you know we might talk about music, or lots of times she was trying to improve her english. >> he would go visit her probably twice a day while she was at work. >> reporter: you guys both married? >> yes. >> yes, sir. >> reporter: your wives be okay with that kind of mentoring relationship between you and somebody else -- >> probably -- >> reporter: -- visiting her twice a day and having coffee? >> probably not. >> reporter: lawmen learned that later, while anna was still married to bob, the relationship evolved into a romance. the professor said he ended their fling ended after he concluded the 30-year age difference was simply too much. they went back to being just friends. but clearly for anna, this was friendship with a benefit -- for her. one more fiscal than physical. the professor was quite generous with his time and his money,

even after the romance was supposedly over. how much money did he give anna? >> $46,000. >> reporter: $46,000? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: a man is gonna give $46,000 to a woman that he spends a lotta time with, works with seems attracted to, but there's nothing going on between them? >> i think he's liking to pay, um -- to see the -- the happiness that -- that -- that it brings to people's life. >> reporter: anna used some of the money to bring her mother from russia for a visit and to pay igor's college expenses. and the cash kept flowing. the professor gave her another $6,000 just days before her murder. and almost all of this, like so much in anna's life, stayed on the down-low, at least with her friends. what could you tell about anna's relationship with john wirkowski? >> they were friends, very good friends.

>> reporter: during the investigation it came out that john and anna had dated for a while. >> really? >> reporter: yes. surprising? >> yes. very. i didn't know that. >> reporter: there were secret relationships that were known apparently only to her and maybe one other person. >> mm-hmm. >> reporter: it's like there were two annas or four annas. >> mm-hmm. and i see where she's coming from because, you know, i know our cultures are like that. i know that people don't share things. >> reporter: the professor explained anna was essentially his personal charity. the cops wondered about his motives. when a man is interested in a woman, basically bankrolls her, gives her 40-something,000 dollars and nothing happens, she's not interested in him or she says you're too old or you realize you're too old, that can make some guys pretty angry.

>> absolutely. obviously we needed to keep >> maybe he hoped she would gain some interest into him. >> reporter: when they burrowed deeper into anna's finances, investigators found about $111,000 in her bank accounts, money cops thought her university job couldn't have provided. and the professor's generosity accounted for less than half of that. so all that money begged a lot of questions. >> reporter: was somebody else giving her money? >> i have no idea about that. ah, this is new to me. if she had asked me, i would given her money. if she was in need, i would have given her money. >> reporter: the unaccounted for cash was just another piece in a puzzle that already featured more characters than a hollywood caper. >> this is a good whodunit case. we didn't know a lot at that time, and we had to rely on the investigation and the crime scene and evidence to point us

to who did it. coming up -- where would that evidence lead? the answers would surprise even anna's closest friends. >> there were all kinds of things in anna's life that she didn't tell anybody about. >> she did not. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues - [cashier] 67. - sorry. - wait, have you heard about goodrx? goodrx finds free coupons to help you save up to 80% on your prescriptions. - wow, i had no idea. - [announcer] goodrx, stop paying too much for your prescriptions. she said it was like someone else was controlling her mouth. her doctor said she has tardive dyskinesia, which may be related to important medication she takes for her depression. td can affect different parts of the body. - [narrator] in today's trying times, we're here to help you manage td. visit talkabouttd.com for a doctor discussion guide

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♪ >> reporter: the many heart-broken friends of anna moses crowded into her memorial service ten days after her murder. jerry played this song. he wrote it just for her. ♪ we don't know what we'll do without you we could never doubt you to brighten up our day ♪ ♪ we can't think of anything

about you that doesn't make us feel so glad you've come our way ♪ >> reporter: it was time to say goodbye, except for many of her friends, who were saying hello because many were meeting each other, even learning about each other, for the first time. >> there were all kinds of things in anna's life that she didn't tell anybody about. >> she did not. >> there were relationships that were not known by her closest friends. >> mm-hmm. >> reporter: jerry says he didn't even know who anna's ex-husband was until well after the service. >> he got up and talked about meeting her for the first time in, i think, st. petersburg. and he started crying, and it wasn't until maybe a day later that i talked to one of her friends and they said that was

bob. >> reporter: bob says he had a hard time holding it together. >> at the memorial service when i spoke about her, i was extremely emotional. in fact, i had to have somebody bring a tissue because it was so upsetting to me to talk about this. >> reporter: anna's son igor also managed to speak, but it wasn't easy for him or for anyone. they shared their grief that day, their memories, but on another level, they were also sharing a few suspicions. donna knew the odds. anna was probably killed by someone close to her. and that someone could have been at that very service, putting on a show, you know, the fact that somebody cries on the stand or at a funeral or so on and so forth, well, of course. i mean, if they've just committed a crime and-- and--

yes, they can still cry. >> grief does not imply innocence. >> no, absolutely not. >> reporter: in the days that followed, detectives would consider the cast of characters who had reveled in the glow of the anna moses starlight, and then mourned her passing. and some began to drop off the list of suspects. including anyone she might have recently met from online dating. >> so anna did have a match.com account. but she hadn't been on it or actively searching or looking, to our knowledge. and that's verified through the match.com records. >> so at least from match.com, she wasn't dating anybody except the boyfriend. >> correct. >> reporter: and the first real suspect was one of the first to be cleared. >> igor, the son, not terribly interested in helping law enforcement says he didn't want a funeral for his mother, says whoever did this should be forgiven, and he's the beneficiary of a $750,000 insurance policy. >> yes, sir. >> reporter: but, given that police believe anna was killed around 6:00 p.m., igor had a

good alibi. >> where was igor when she was killed? >> in class. >> how far away? >> it's about a 45-minute drive. >> you're convinced he was there in class? >> yes, sir. we spoke to classmates. >> reporter: as for igor's odd reaction at the news of his mother's death, friends told police that igor is just that way sometimes. no one who knew him doubted igor was devastated. >> and you've got a neighbor across the street who helpfully keeps very close tabs on anna moses? >> yes. >> okay. the neighbor was nearby, quite nearby when the murder happened. >> the neighbor is home. >> on a conference call. >> and you can prove he's on the conference call. >> yes. >> reporter: so police ruled out the neighbor. but what about the boyfriend michael? he was supposed to have had a date with anna that night. but detectives say he couldn't have committed the murder. they confirmed he was attending an event at his daughter's school. >> we got the boyfriend signed

in, and he's also on video at the school, grapevine elementary. >> too far away. >> too far away. >> reporter: as for that strange conversation michael had with himself? >> did i [ bleep ] up? >> reporter: in the end, police figured it was just shock, another odd twist in a case full of them. but there were still other people who had spun through anna's orbit and then shed tears at her memorial. did one of them have a reason to turn on her? that question continued to nag at police as they narrowed the search for her killer. coming up, a surprise discovery turns this investigation inside out. >> there was a locked draw eric and inside the locked drawer was a letter in russian. >> will it lead investigators to the truth? >> we were pretty confident he was going to be our guy. t he was going to be our guy.

hello.

i'm dara brown. here's what's happening after two days of closed door meetings. they have failed to reach a coronavirus relief package. on friday night president trump said he'll issue executive orders if the impasse continues. and as presidential candidate joe biden ends his v.p. search, governor whitmer flew to meet him. she's on the short list as his running mate. now back to "dateline." >> reporter: the professor and the poet, it's no sitcom title. this was deadly serious. both were among anna's most ardent admirers, and both were still under suspicion. >> you got a couple of guys who are sort of in the shadows. john the professor and jerry the poet.

the professor gives her $40,000 and gets back in return, we don't really know what. and the poet thinks of her as his muse. have i got that about right? >> yes. >> yes. >> reporter: did police have questions about them? absolutely. but days later investigators came to believe both men were nowhere near anna's house when she was murdered, based on witnesses and, interestingly enough, the same alibi. >> the professor is where? >> on the tollway. >> the poet is where? >> on the tollway, driving. >> reporter: investigators had eliminated a lot of suspects, but they had. found their killer. they needed a break. and two weeks after the murder, they got one. a mysterious message from anna herself, in essence, from beyond the grave. >> a search warrant was conducted on anna moses's office at ut-dallas and, um, there was a locked drawer. and inside the drawer was a letter in russian. >> reporter: straight from a cold war spy novel. but where would it lead?

>> we had to get an fbi agent to come translate the letter for us. >> you don't know whether that's going to be a great clue or just a shopping list. >> right, right. >> reporter: the note was a mixture of russian and english. in any language, it was a bombshell. it was in her own handwriting, written apparently during divorce proceedings two years earlier. anna was telling a lawyer about a threat from her husband bob. a convoluted one, but a threat nonetheless. >> basically the letter translates that bob was going to kill himself and blame anna and write a letter to igor blaming anna to get igor to hate anna. >> all of this presumably in some way of convincing anna to stay with bob. >> yes, sir. >> reporter: if true, it was a bizarre blackmail attempt that put a more sinister spin on bob's claim of an amicable divorce.

>> so that letter really kind of gave you a window into what was really happening in that marriage. >> right. if you're suicidal, you're homicidal. that's a real quick switch. >> reporter: that gave detective tschudy and ranger mankin a powerful reason to re-interview bob. but fearing he'd lawyer up, they lured him back to the frisco pd, by saying they had information for him on anna's estate. >> thanks for coming up, bob. we appreciate it. >> reporter: once inside the cramped interview room, the investigators immediately changed the subject to bob's shaky alibi for the day of the murder. terns out his roommate could not vouch for him or his timeline as bob had said he would. >> i know it's been a couple of weeks, but if you can remember. >> right now i have a hard time telling you what i did yesterday. i've been so distraught.

>> i'm sorry, but that is -- that is vague. >> i'm not trying to be vague. it's just i don't have details for you because there's no details. i was sitting there watching tv. i didn't look at my phone and go, okay, it's 2:00 and i'm watching tv. i wasn't keeping track of time. >> reporter: he was selling. the cops weren't buying. >> you understand this is a murder investigation? >> i absolutely understand, okay. >> so, anna was murdered. >> i -- yes. >> so when i get this, i mean it's not like a baseball was stolen out of some store. >> right. >> everyone else is bending over backward to accommodate us and now we're catching i don't know, i don't know, i don't keep track of every minute of every day. >> i don't. i can't tell you where -- where i was at 2:00 yesterday. >> reporter: but in bob's first interview at the police station, he did remember going to twin peaks around 7:00pm. the problem is the police think anna was killed an hour before that. >> you see on camera, walking

in, sitting down at the bar. >> okay. so maybe if he comes in at 7:00, he left home at 6:45? >> yes. >> yes, sir. >> that's still plenty of time to have been at anna's house and commit the murder? >> correct. >> correct. >> reporter: while investigators were focused on bob's alibi and catching a killer, bob wanted to talk about, well, just about anything else like his guns the cops took to examine. >> my guns, can i get those back? >> reporter: the cops said bob changed the subject anytime he felt cornered. >> bob never asked us one time about the killer, how the investigation was going, any leads, but he did ask about the will. >> reporter: anna's will, that was the hook that brought bob to the p.d. >> i did have a couple of questions. we're looking to see if anna has a new or newer will. >> what did the old will say, do you know? >> well, basically, i gave my stuff to her. she gave her stuff to me. >> but anna restructured her will and didn't tell him? >> bob didn't even know that igor was the beneficiary. bob at that time thought that he was the beneficiary on the will. >> reporter: so maybe bob thought he would be the one cashing in anna's $750,000 life

insurance policy. it was money police said he desperately needed. >> he's in over his head financially. anna moses wasn't even cold and in the ground by the time robert moses moved back into the house. so as we're looking at the investigation, who's benefiting from anna's death? >> reporter: investigators were smelling the oldest of motives. >> it was all about the money. >> you think bob moses essentially killed his wife by mistakenly thinking that he was going to get a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? >> it was a targeted murder. either he was going to be the beneficiary or he could manipulate igor to get access to that money. >> reporter: and now cops were eager to confront the man with a motive. they went in for the kill. >> we either think we're sitting across from a monster or somebody that had a lapse in judgment. >> me? no. absolutely not. >> why not, bob?

>> okay. i don't know what you're talking about now, but it sounds like you're accusing me of something. >> we're -- we're fact-finders, okay? >> good. i hope you find the facts. >> you're making it hard for me to find the facts, bob, because you can't tell me [ bleep ]. >> you know what? i'm done -- i'm done talking to you guys. i'm done talking to you, okay? because i don't know everything i did that day, and you're trying to twist all this around now. >> reporter: with that, bob strode out of the room, but not out of suspicion. >> do you guys think you have your man? >> we were pretty confident that he was going to be our guy. >> reporter: on february 26th, 2015, six weeks after anna was gunned down, bob moses was arrested. it was his birthday. he'd spend it behind bars, facing a charge of murder, and that's where we interviewed him.

>> did you kill your wife? >> no, absolutely not. i would never hurt anna. coming up, bob moses goes on trial, facing a prosecution witness who claims he terrified anna. >> she said, can i come to your house? i'm afraid -- [ indiscernible ] >> when "dateline" continues. e >> when "dateline" continues with this one little nexgard chew comes the confidence, you're doing what's right, to protect your dog from fleas and ticks for a full month. it's the #1 vet recommended protection. and it's safe for puppies. nexgard. what one little chew can do. whatintroducing the new sleepld? number 360 smart bed... now temperature balancing, so you can sleep better together. can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. can it help with snoring? i've never heard snoring. exactly. no problem ...and done. will it help me keep up with mom? you got this.

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>> reporter: it was october, but it felt like summer as the texas sun shone over the collin county courthouse, almost two years after anna moses was murdered. >> all rise. >> reporter: inside the courtroom, bob moses, the man who brought anna to america and who loved and cared for her and her son, was charged with her murder. >> anna was a sweet woman, and you're going to see that. >> reporter: prosecutor cynthia walker began to lay out her case for the jury.

>> anna had been shot six times. to the chest, one in the throat, and three in the back. >> reporter: telling them the evidence would point to anna's ex-husband. >> and the killer in this room is robert moses. and there will be no doubt in your mind. >> reporter: walker was promising a strong case, but what's a prosecutor to do about all those men in anna's life? she knew the defense would try to cast them as alternative suspects. no shortage of potential persons of interest here? >> anybody who's going to be in a circumstantial case where there aren't any witnesses, you start looking aet people and you say who are the people closest to her. you know, boyfriends, friends, anybody that's had any sort of relations to her. >> reporter: so, in an unusual move, walker decided to preempt

the defense and call those men as her own witnesses. she began with anna's boyfriend, michael stodnick, who said he was intrigued by anna the day they met. >> she was an amazing woman. um, she was incredibly intelligent, very well spoken, extremely kind, and just someone i knew i wanted to get to know right away. >> reporter: the prosecutor showed michael a photo of anna. >> this is how you want to remember anna, is that correct? >> yes. >> is she a beautiful woman? >> she is. >> reporter: and she asked him straight out -- >> did you kill anna? >> no, i did not. >> reporter: she asked the same of the others -- the neighbor across the street. >> did you kill anna? >> no. >> reporter: the poet. >> did you have anything to do with anna's death? >> no. >> reporter: the professor. >> did you have anything to with anna's death? >> no. >> reporter: everybody can be alibied, not just by their own words but by subsequent investigation. >> yes. >> reporter: except bob moses. >> except bob moses. he was very general, very vague.

>> reporter: with the frisco p.d. detective on the stand, walker played bob's interviews with police. >> what did you do from the time you woke up? >> i mean, i probably took the dog for a walk. >> reporter: remember, bob said he'd been at home most of the day and into the evening. but on the stand, bob's housemates all said they couldn't vouch for him. >> do you ever remember seeing bob moses in the house? >> i would say no. i was rarely in the house. >> so, on january 13th, you don't remember -- >> i don't remember seeing him at all. >> reporter: the prosecutor said bob's whereabouts couldn't be confirmed until he appeared on that restaurant video at 7:00 pm. the texas ranger told the jury anna was killed an hour earlier. >> i knew she had left work, her office, around 5:00. >> reporter: he mapped out her final trip using videos from the security cameras on her route, including that video from a neighbor's camera right near anna's home. >> she was captured one more time as she was traveling north on charleston. >> reporter: even though the

time stamp says 6:59 p.m., police determined it was actually 5:49 when anna's car drove by. >> did you have an idea of when anna was -- when you believe about the time she was killed? >> based on the fact that she's checked her mail because the mail is strewn underneath her, it's loose, i believe it's soon after she arrives there inside the garage. >> reporter: the police theory, at about 6:00 p.m., bob shot anna seven times. six bullets found their mark. he then spread four other shell casings on the garage floor, took anna's car, parked it a few blocks away, and tossed in the cigarette butt and the can of red bull. in a weird way, you ended up with too much evidence. i mean, there's all this stuff that is there at the actual scene of the murder and then later in the car, you know. >> that didn't make any sense.

that's right. it made it feel more like this was designed to sort of throw off the investigation, put something else out there to say it could be somebody else. >> reporter: but cynthia walker said it wasn't somebody else. she told the jury bob had been nursing a long-simmering, murderous rage that bubbled to the surface on january 13th, 2015, and that anna may have seen it coming. the evidence came from one of anna's russian friends. >> i think we'd become good friends just from the beginning. >> reporter: she dispelled the notion that bob and anna's relationship had been amicable and told the jury about a harrowing night about two years before the murder. >> in the winter of december of 2012, did you receive a phone call from anna one day? >> yes. >> reporter: anna and bob were still married. anna said she had locked herself in the bedroom. >> did she appear to be upset and crying? >> yes.

she told me that she called the police. and she said, can i come to your house? i'm afraid he will kill me tonight. >> reporter: so far, the case was all circumstantial, but the state was about to present evidence that it said pointed directly at bob moses and only bob moses. when investigators first tern viewed bob the day after anna's murder, they saw something. >> noticed that he had a cut. that he had a bandage that was covering a wound on his right hand. >> reporter: investigators remembered that bandage when they saw those blood stains inside anna's car. >> and i observed what appeared to be a red crimson stain on the seatback of her car. >> reporter: blood stains on the

right side of the driver's seat, and a wound on bob's right hand. >> is this another stain that i am circling right now? >> yes, it is. >> reporter: and when this dna analyst testified, the prosecution thought it was game, set, match. she told the jury those stains were a mixture of dna. anna's, of course. it was her car. but the other person? he was sitting at the defense table. >> obtaining that mixture profile was one 1.22 sextillion times more likely if the dna came from anna moses and robert moses than if the dna came from two unrelated, unknown individuals. >> reporter: translation? it was bob moses' blood, and that second interview with police, he had no explanation for it. >> is there any reason why your blood would be inside of her car? >> not that i can think of, no. >> reporter: the prosecutor told the jury that what pushed bob over the edge on that january night were some of the oldest reasons in the book of murder -- not just money, but jealousy and envy. >> she lives in this beautiful house. she's dating this nice, wonderful man.

and then you have robert moses who's in debt, who's having to live in another house with other men in a small bedroom. who benefits from her death. >> right after her murder, the defendant moved into her house. he is going through her finances, he is trying to get into her bank accounts, her emails, trying to determine, you know, what her finances are. >> the evidence points beyond a reasonable doubt to the man, the killer, who is looking at us right now, robert moses. >> reporter: now, the defense was ready to pounce. two attorneys, both of them former prosecutors, were about to try to rip the state's case to shreds. and they would be asking the jury to consider this simple question. who ate the quesadilla. coming up, the defense brought to you by taco bell.

bob's attorney says says a fast food wrapper at the scene calls into question the prosecution's time line. >> if the quesadillas, she had to have been killed a couple of hours later. if the killing happened two hours later, then bob moses is sitting in twin peaks in the video. >> when "dateline" continues. video. >> when "dateline" continues xeljanz can reduce pain, swelling, and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections. before and during treatment, your doctor should check for infections like tb and do blood tests. tell your doctor if you've had hepatitis b or c, have flu-like symptoms, or are prone to infections. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra may increase risk of death. tears in the stomach or intestines

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>> reporter: bob moses insisted all along that he was innocent. he had not killed his ex-wife. >> were you violent toward your wife? did you ever hit her? >> i would never hurt anna. i would never hurt any woman, okay? >> reporter: and in a north texas courtroom, defense attorneys toby shook and cody skipper argued the state got it wrong. >> the only side that's gonna to be left standing at the end of this is going to be this one right here. >> reporter: skipper said bob wasn't an angry ex who killed anna for money. he was the victim of an inept investigation. police were sloppy, the defense suggested, and missed big clues.

remember, cops concluded this wasn't a robbery. but the credit card anna used at taco bell wasn't in her purse. >> i'm pulling out the wallet so the record's clear. point me to where you indicated that anna moses had a missing credit card? >> you probably aren't going to find it. >> give me a page where that's mentioned. >> don't have it. >> a paragraph. >> don't have it. >> her credit card was missing from the purse. and there's no one who knew that in this entire investigative team until they were asked on the witness stand. >> reporter: it was shoddy police work, he told the jury, as was the theory that all the unexplained evidence was planted by bob to throw off the cops. >> what do you make of the extra bullet casings at the crime scene? >> they never sent any detectives across the street to see if any projectiles had struck a fence, a car, a house.

>> you mean out the open door of the garage? >> out the opening door. the shooting could've happened while that door was open. and the projectiles could've gone out and struck something. but they admitted they never bothered to look. >> reporter: and that can of red bull? police said it was a red herring but the defense said it was another red hot clue with no follow-up. >> they test it for dna, and it comes back to an unidentified male. p not bob moses. not any of the other suspects they listed, and certainly not anna moses. >> reporter: shook argued dna on the can could have led investigators to a whole new suspect. but he said police focused only

on anna's ex. >> they had in this case classic tunnel vision. bob moses was a suspect after the first day and anything else that came up, they didn't pay attention to. >> reporter: the defense also tried to knock down the testimony of the friend who said anna was afraid of bob. >> and she said, "can i come to your house? i'm afraid he will kill me tonight." >> reporter: bob's lawyers pointed out that call was two years before the murder. and after the divorce, anna and bob remained on good terms. >> you knew bob was coming over the house and still fixing things, repairs and picking up igor? >> yes. >> she wasn't telling you when bob comes and fixes the water pipe that's leaking, you know, she's afraid of him, was she? >> no. >> reporter: then the defense tried to blow up the prosecution's timeline, saying that video from anna's neighbor was hardly definitive. >> the only thing you can tell this jury about that car was that it's a sedan, right? >> yes, sir. >> make? model? color? do you have any information on that? >> no, sir. >> reporter: so maybe that wasn't anna, driving by that camera just before 6:00 p.m.

the defense reminded the jury of the last proven stop anna had made that day when she pulled up to that taco bell drive-through at 5:37 pm. and they asked, "who ate that quesadilla?" >> just the package is found in the trash next to her body. >> so she ate it or the killer ate it. >> she ate it or the killer ate it. >> reporter: the defense called their own forensic expert. >> it's my opinion that that if she had eaten the quesadilla, chicken quesadilla ten minutes prior to dying, that i would still be able to see chicken and other identifiable parts of that that quesadilla in her stomach. >> reporter: but there was no mexican food in anna's stomach. >> if she ate the quesadillas, she wasn't killed at 5:55 pm. she would have had to have been killed a couple hours later at a minimum. >> reporter: and if the state's timeline was off, then bob moses was in the clear. >> if the killing happens two hours later, well, then bob moses, he's sitting in the twin peaks on video. okay? we know where he is. we're not sure where all these other people are.

>> reporter: if the timeline's wrong, said the defense, the alibis of all the other potential suspects fall apart. the telltale quesadilla was never found. if the killer ate it, presumably his or her dna might be all over that wrapper. >> you could have skin cell dna on that. you could have touch dna and you could have fingerprinting on that. >> reporter: skipper asked the lead detective about that. >> you didn't submit that taco bell trash for touch dna, correct? >> correct. >> you didn't submit it for latent prints, correct? >> right. >> reporter: the defense portrayed bob as the victim of half-baked police work. but there was another victim the jury was about to hear from. someone who had not only lost his mother, but could now lose his father too. in a hushed courtroom, the defense called their star witness to the stand. >> my name is igor moses.

>> reporter: igor told the jury how he felt about his mother. >> igor, you loved your mother greatly didn't you? >> yes. >> miss her. >> yeah. >> reporter: and igor said he had no doubt his father was innocent. >> i do not believe my father killed my mother. >> reporter: it turned out igor was bob's biggest supporter. he said there was only one reason his dad had returned to living in anna's house. >> following my mother's death, my grand mother and i both asked my dad to move back into the house. >> reporter: and igor said his dad's actions had nothing to do with greed. >> was he trying to get the money from you? asking you to give him money from the account that he could -- that he could have? >> no. >> reporter: igor even tried to discredit the state's strongest evidence against his father, bob's blood in anna's car. >> is that the car we're talking about? >> yes, that's my mom's car. >> reporter: his dad, he said,

had often driven that car, and that blood stain on the driver's seat was hardly fresh. >> yeah, that one's been there for quite a long time. >> do you know how long? >> i mean, since high school, i # would imagine. >> there's no way to tell how long his blood was in that car? >> no. >> no. no. they can't -- they couldn't age the dna. they don't know when the blood was -- was put there. the -- the dna folks could not tell them how old that blood was. >> reporter: even more important, there was no evidence putting bob in the garage where anna was murdered. bob's guns were tested. none fired the fatal shots. and the murder weapon was never found. >> no witnesses. no dna or prints or security video at the crime scene. there's nothing tying him to her body. >> no. >> reporter: shook offered that to the jury. >> why didn't you find the blood anywhere in that garage? why department you find it on her clothing, his blood?

it doesn't make sense. >> reporter: this case said the defense was far from a slam-dunk. >> you don't have answers at the end of this case. all you have are questions. >> reporter: and the final question was, who would the jury believe? coming up, the questions and the answers. >> we department know who did the crime. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues

>> reporter: the jury had heard the whole tangled tale of friends, lovers, a son, an ex-husband, and the woman they all said they loved and adored. jurors sat through seven days of testimony and heard more than forty witnesses, all to answer the question, did bob moses murder his ex-wife anna in a jealous rage? lawyers made their final appeals.

the defense said the state's whole case was weak, based on poor police work. >> this investigation, which you rely on to make your decision, is incomplete, it's inconclusive. don't let the fact that anna moses, an innocent woman, was murdered, and i've got to bring someone to justice for her. don't let them guilt you into that. >> reporter: prosecutor cindy walker wasn't having any of it. >> ladies and gentlemen, the only guilt, no one's guilting you into anything. the only guilt that belongs anywhere is with that man right there, robert moses. everything points to him, it points nowhere else. >> reporter: the prosecutor didn't want jurors to lose sight of why they were there. so she made sure a photo of anna was always on display. >> this is anna. she was a beautiful woman. >> reporter: now it was up to those six men and six women to decide if bob moses stalked, and shot his ex-wife in her garage that january night. they deliberated for eight hours

that first day and went home for the night. the next day after their morning coffee, they told the judge they were ready. >> madam foreperson, i understand the jury's reached a verdict, is that correct? >> yes, your honor. >> if you would, please hand that to the bailiff. defendant, go ahead and rise. the state of the texas versus robert arthur moses, "we, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder as charged in the indictment." >> reporter: bob moses got life in prison. in the back of the courtroom, anna's friends thanked prosecutors and police. >> i was happy that i could bring them a little bit of justice. >> reporter: at the defense table, bob was left alone with his thoughts. igor who'd supported his father during the entire case was not in the courtroom. donna thinks the jury got it right. >> it's very sad that bob would not only ruin and destroy anna's life. he's also destroyed his own.kí

>> reporter: jayshree says the verdict was a relief for anna's inner circle. >> all her friends were crying. all her friends were crying. i mean, we didn't know what to do to stop the crying. >> reporter: as for bob, even after the very death, he insisted he was innocent. >> i'm appealing because i think, you know, obviously the verdict is 100% wrong. >> reporter: bob chose not to testify at his trial, so we took this opportunity to ask him some questions in jail that he did not face in court. >> how could your blood get in her car? >> because i was over there working around the house. there's small little stains, okay, that could've been there for -- coulda been there a week, a month, it could've been there six months. >> who'd want to kill her? >> i don't know. i have no idea. it doesn't make any sense to me at all. if you look at all the actual

evidence that's out there, okay, first of all, they said that it wasn't a robbery, okay? but if you go through what happened in court, you will find out that they completely missed that, okay? >> i didn't do this. and the person that did is still out there. and the frisco police department have given people a false sense of security over this. >> reporter: the day after the verdict, jayshree went to anna's favorite restaurant. >> i went and sat there and had my protect fast right there at the table where i met her last. so just feeling her presence and in a way, saying, "okay. there is a closure now." i believe in life after death, so i'm hoping to see her sometime. >> reporter: donna remembers the little moments, like anna's russian accent and her trouble with the pesky nuances of american english. >> she used to say, "then this afternoon, i go store." and i'd say, "but anna, go to the store." "oh, it's not necessary. why to the? it's so silly. it's not necessary. i go store." >> reporter: and anna will continue posthumously in the

role of muse to jerry the poet. >> she isn't a dream. she is as real as can be. i knew it the moment her wings covered me. she flew from afar and awakened new sight, and only i see her, my angel of light." i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." this was an insane world i was living in. i did what i had to do. >> what if you were ripped away from your family? >> you live in fear. it changes you. >> kidnapped by a killer. >> i came out of that just really messed up. >> held for years as a prisoner. and what if prosecutors never believe you? >> bobbi parker was not the