in how he helped solve nick's murder. you've still got his back, don't you? >> absolutely. >> i guess that never ends. >> no. >> that's all for this edition of dadeli"dateline." i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> this is "dateline." >> something wasn't right at her house. i saw a lot of police cars. that woman was a fighter. she would never leave her daughters. she would never do it. >> michele ran the home. >> she was very proud about how she was able to make ends meet. lloyd helped with the kids. >> they're wonderful girls. they're amazing. the end came much too soon. >> she's motionless, and i'm concerned.

>> there appeared to be a body hanging from a banister. from first look it would appear as though it was a suicide. >> but then they looked closer. >> it appeared that there was a struggle. my gut was tellin' me, "there's somethin' wrong here." >> did someone want michele dead? was someone else willing to help? >> at that point, we're shellshocked. >> a bond forged in blood. >> could you cry? >> i might. >> we call it the lie and cry conversation. >> betrayed by blood. >> what are you hoping for? >> some conversation between the two of 'em about the death. >> we have an investigator look at the video, and he goes, "i don't like what i'm seein'." >> are you theorizing the darkest scenario? >> yes, we are. >> evil. mellow. welcome to "dateline." michele and lloyd nigh rider were high school sweethearts who tied the knot two years later

and had three daughters. their marriage didn't last but they remain devoted to their girls. then michele was found dead in her home. at first, police suspected suicide. but soon the case took a chilling turn. at the heart of this mystery was a betrayal too twisted to be true, except that it is. here's dennis murphy with "the ultimatum." >> reporter: the long road to prima ballerina. the dreams of thunderous bravos, the cascade of roses begins for the youngest of dancers in a ballet school of tu-tu'ed ten-year olds. stretching, stressing. >> very disciplined. >> reporter: an athletic discipline of concentration and body control. learning poise under pressure. >> it took a lot, especially when we were young, to stick with it. but, it was worth it. >> reporter: a ballet academy in upstate new york was where mina raj got to know her friend karrie neurauter. >> i met karrie when she was

eight. she was very sweet, very bubbly personality. >> reporter: both of them were 'girly' girls but wanted to grow up to be like their dads. >> our dads were both engineers. so we were both gonna become engineers and be professional ballerinas on the side. >> reporter: and everyone could see that karrie was very close to her dad, lloyd neurauter. every saturday he'd not only drive his daughter to class in corning, new york, he'd stay to help out. >> he was the only father there that was bringin' the kids in the morning at that time. >> reporter: mina's mom, cynthia, would see him on those saturdays but rarely his wife. >> instead of doin' the -- the children's hair at home, he would always sort of bring them there and brush their hair out and -- and put these buns together. >> with some skill and art? >> um, yes, and -- and he -- he definitely enjoyed the admiration of the other mothers around him. >> reporter: as their daughters rehearsed for the annual "nutcracker", cynthia and another friend, rose coluccio, became friendly with lloyd.

>> lloyd was, i would say, eccentric. always um, the center of attention. >> of course, we eventually asked about his wife and he said that saturday was really her days off. >> reporter: lloyd's wife michele had a full plate of her own. she had a master's degree in literature but chose to be a full-time mom, home-schooling their kids and taking an active role in charity work. here she is making thanksgiving dinner for the needy at their local church. >> it would be really odd to have thanksgiving at home. just us and not be here. thanksgiving is celebrating with the community, giving back. >> reporter: michele had met lloyd in high school. her mom jeannie remembers a teenage boy who was smitten from the first date. >> i think she thought he was intelligent, and she could have intelligent conversations with him. >> so maybe a peg above the other kids in the school yard or her circle? >> yes -- yes. >> reporter: the high school sweethearts married when michele was just 20. they'd later settle into a

farmhouse in upstate new york and have three girls, karrie, the middle child. michele's younger sister, also named karrie, admired her so much. >> tell me about your sister as a mom. >> she always, like, wanted the best for her girls. she was always very supportive because of course when i had children, i asked her all my questions and looked up to her. i always looked up to her. >> reporter: though they lived coasts apart, michele's sister and her husband were close with the nieces. >> the oldest one really bonded with kevin. and karrie and i very much bonded. >> reporter: but, as with so many people, the neurauter family ran into lean times, diminished prospects, during the great recession. lloyd moved out-of-state to find work as an engineer. >> what happened is lloyd -- it was a tough time in corning, new york, and he took a job in new jersey. >> reporter: michele stayed behind with the girls out in the

country in corning, but, the separation put a strain on the marriage. and, in time, michele and lloyd divorced. >> she was always positive. gonna make the most of everything, and then one day, out of the blue, she called me and said, "we're divorced." "okay." >> right. it was very random. >> reporter: after the divorce, michele sold the farm, and the kids split up. the oldest went to live with her dad in new jersey, while karrie and the youngest daughter stayed in corning with mom in a new house. but the divorce was hard on everyone. karrie and her mom sometimes butted heads. the arguments could get heated. >> she was living with her mother, finishing high school, but it got more and more strained as the years -- as she approached her senior year. >> reporter: by late august 2017, karrie, the onetime ballerina, had left home and was a sophomore at rit in rochester. her younger sister still lived with their mom. it seemed like a typical monday afternoon when a family friend came by the house to pick up the

youngest for swim practice. but something looked very wrong. he called 911. >> she's motionless, and i'm concerned. >> reporter: the friend said he glimpsed a shadowy female figure on the stairway. >> so she's just standing there, not moving? >> kinda hard to tell. it's dark. >> reporter: something very dark had happened in that house, and when the curtain was pulled back, it would reveal a monstrous story, like something out of a greek tragedy with an ending no one could fathom. >> this is absolutely ghoulish. >> yeah. coming up -- >> there appeared to be a body hanging inside the door. hanging from a banister. >> and somebody was missing. >> no 14 year old was discovered. >> so where is this child? >> that was one of the first concerns. >> when "dateline" continues. here? nah. ♪

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>> reporter: august 28, 2017, police officers responded to the home of divorced mom michele neurauter. a friend of hers had called 911 to report a disturbing sight. >> there appeared to be a body hanging inside the door, about 15 to 20 feet, hanging from a banister. >> reporter: corning police chief jeff spaulding says his officers got in and found the body -- a woman with a rope tied around her neck. it was michele. apparently a suicide.

>> from first look, yes, it would appear as though it was a suicide. >> reporter: no reason to think not, huh? >> no. >> reporter: officers searched the home. they found no suicide note, and the house was empty. daughter karrie was away at college. but the youngest, who lived there with michele, was nowhere to be found. >> no 14-year-old was discovered. >> reporter: so where is this child? >> that was one of the first concerns. >> reporter: it turned out the youngest was actually with karrie at school in rochester, 100 miles away. police learned that when karrie called them herself after a friend gave her the shocking news. >> they called and told me that my mom killed herself? >> yeah, we are -- we are looking into it. can you give me any insight into what might have happened? >> i don't know. i decided to go home. >> reporter: karrie told police she had stopped by the house that night. >> when i got there, my mom started freaking out. >> in karrie's words, they had a fight. her mom went yelling and screaming. >> reporter: karrie told investigators she stormed out of

the house, taking her teenage sister with her. not all that unusual. police learned that raised voices in that household were, sadly, routine. a bad divorce with kids caught in the middle. this is, as they say, a house that's known to law enforcement? >> yes. >> reporter: there'd been -- over the years, been, what, 911 calls to the location? >> uh, probably in the course of two or three years, a dozen -- a little more than a dozen calls. >> reporter: so, chief, i'm thinking even with this brief history you have, the fragmentary history of trouble inside the house, mother/daughter, somethin's goin' on, it does maybe give you an explanation of why she's a death by suicide. >> exactly. >> reporter: investigators also got in touch with michele's ex-husband lloyd, who lived in new jersey. he was rushing to upstate new york to be with his daughters. >> the last time i spoke with her, i couldn't even say. >> reporter: lloyd told a detective by phone he wasn't completely surprised to hear the news. he said that despite her cheery demeanor michele had actually contemplated suicide in the past. >> from before we were married,

she made, uh -- she made suicide plans with high school friends. and that was something that alarmed me way back then. >> reporter: police continued to process the scene, while michele's body was taken to the medical examiner for autopsy. what is she finding? >> the words again, "consistent with suicide," are used. >> reporter: in a round of phone calls, michele's sister out in california got the news about the suicide. when you first heard that, did it make sense in any kinda way to you, that -- maybe she'd gotten in a bad place and -- >> i mean, i knew that she had been fighting with the girls. i -- i really thought, like, maybe she had a bad moment. >> reporter: then she had to relay the awful news to their mom. >> she said, "michele died." and i said, "no, she didn't." i said no, "no, she didn't, that's a lie and don't say that." i said, "don't tell -- don't tay -- say that." >> reporter: the friends back in corning could hardly take it in. michele -- gone.

and by her own hand. >> my mom called me. she didn't want me to see it online or on social media, before she hear -- i heard it from her. >> reporter: and you went to see her? >> i did. i went home. it was so shocking. >> reporter: as funeral arrangements began, michele's friends were haunted by a request she made just months before her death. >> she said, "well, promise me that if anything ever happens to me, that you'll look out for my daughters." and then i reassured her, naively perhaps, that she was gonna live a long life. but she was pretty persistent. and so, i said, "okay." and we left it like that. >> sorry. she got me with that story. [ crying ] >> reporter: but even in their grief there was confusion, and doubt. the friends thought the michele they saw in her final days was anything but suicidal. what were her plans? was she forward-looking?

>> constantly. we were always workin' on what was next. >> reporter: that wasn't where she was in her life? >> i'd say she's a fighter, right. that woman was a fighter. on saturday morning, when the rest of us would be lounging around in our sweatpants, she'd say, "it's a good day. we're gonna get up. we're gonna get dressed and we're gonna make the best of it." >> reporter: even if michele were suicidal, they just could not see their friend hanging herself like that, in a way that her daughters could find her. >> i started googling means that females use for suicide. and i think it was -- what i could find was around 9% of females will actually hang themselves. the most popular option by far is pills. >> reporter: but michele's mood and statistics aside, they kept coming back to that lack of a suicide note. >> michele had a masters in english as well as an mba. she was a prolific writer. michele would have written a note of explanation. so once there was no note, i think --

>> right. right. >> yeah. we decide something's wrong. >> reporter: little did they know exactly how wrong this would all turn out to be. coming up -- maybe it wasn't suicide. apparent suicide. did that make any sense to you? >> >> my gut was tellin' me, "there's somethin' wrong here. >> maybe it was murder. >> didn't seem consistent to hanging. it looked like scratch marks. maybe she's pulling at whatever is around her neck trying to get it off. you could see her bed was pushed out of place. it appeared that there was a struggle. >> when "dateline" continues.

>> reporter: police were investigating the hanging death of michele neurauter as a possible suicide. but they still needed to know more about her final weeks and days. >> investigator volpe? >> yup. hey, how are ya? >> good. just cautious about how i approach a car. i don't want to startle anybody. >> reporter: the deceased's ex-husband lloyd, resettled in new jersey, had rushed to upstate new york after michele's body was found. now, sitting in a police car he seemed eager to talk. >> how long's michele lived at -- at the residence over on dwight? do you know? >> it's about five years. >> okay. >> she bought that after we divorced. >> reporter: he told them about his early relationship with michele. >> we -- we went away to school together.

we did everything together. so, i never thought like that. like, "oh, under some circumstance i'll just walk away." >> when did you guys divorce? >> we divorced in august, 2012. >> reporter: he explained that while the divorce had been finalized years earlier their custody issues were far from settled. they were still fighting over their youngest daughter. >> she wanted to live with me, and her mom threw a tantrum. >> reporter: lloyd suggested his ex-wife was unstable. an emotional wreck. >> michele was screaming and furious. i know of that from past behaviors that there was an occasion where michele was having a tantrum, that she would open the door and scream things down the stairs and then slam her bedroom door, and did that so many times she actually broke the doorframe from doing that. that she was just completely out of control. >> reporter: but lloyd admitted his information was secondhand. he'd heard the stories from his children. >> i don't even know if she was

seeing anybody or who else she was doing things with. she really pushed me out of her life. >> reporter: lloyd spoke with police for over an hour. as the interview ended he had a question. when could the kids retrieve their stuff? >> in case i could pass a word, is there any idea when the kids get can get into the house to look for -- >> yeah. we're working on that too. >> reporter: if it were a simple suicide, the investigation wouldn't take long. but new york state investigator eric hurd, who was among the first on the scene, thought, "not so fast." >> my gut was tellin' me, "there's somethin' wrong here. >> reporter: it wasn't just cop intuition. there was physical evidence in his experience inconsistent with a suicide. starting with the position of the thin nylon rope on michele's body. >> the way that it went around her chin did not seem consistent with a hanging. >> reporter: he noticed wounds on michele's head, too. >> on her face you -- you see it looks like scratch marks. like maybe she's pulling at whatever's around her neck, tryin' to get it off. >> reporter: and then there was

michele's friend rose. she'd rushed up to the scene with something urgent to say. >> apparent suicide. did that make any sense to you? >> no. >> she had told me. she's like , "i know her. she's friends with me. she would never do this to herself. we were just with her the other night. we were havin' a great time. she wouldn't do this." >> it's not exactly evidence, but it -- it's a piece. >> it's not evidence at that point. >> reporter: and when police formally interviewed the friends, they got a different picture of michele and the divorce. they said lloyd was the crazy one. relentlessly badgering his ex-wife with dragged out custody fights. >> i was at their house, and i think lloyd had just pet --served another petition for child custody of the younger child, and she was frustrated. her life was looking very positive, and then this came up again. >> reporter: objective appraisal, or friends taking sides? either way, they insisted michele wasn't a frazzled, out-of-control single mom. she was making the best of a bad situation, and dealing with an ex who demeaned her for years.

>> basically everything she did was criticized. he made her feel she was really ugly. he made her feel that she couldn't make any right decisions. she was a lousy mother, that she couldn't do anything right. >> reporter: so homicide vs. suicide? on the one hand, the nasty divorce may have given michele plenty of reasons to be depressed and want a way out. but it was a police photo of michele's bedroom that caused investigator hurd to think otherwise. >> you can see where her bed was pushed outta place. >> reporter: he spent hours poring over the pictures. >> lookin' at the wall and kinda zooming in, you can see things that maybe not are visible to the naked eye. >> didn't jump out at you at the time? >> didn't jump out at first to everybody. but it -- it looks like we see somethin' that looks like blood on the wall. so that was concerning. >> reporter: blood on the wall, and a bed out of place. to hurd it pointed to only one scenario. >> it appeared that there was a struggle. >> reporter: he believed michele had been attacked.

the suicide scene staged. at the house there was no sign of forced entry, nothing taken, and investigators theorized that a random intruder wouldn't bother arranging such an elaborate scene. >> an unknown intruder, the one armed man, doesn't figure in here either. right? >> no, we never thought -- never thought that. >> reporter: no, they thought someone close to michele had to be responsible. >> so what do we do now is the question. huh? >> yes. >> reporter: it was time to go looking for suspects. >> coming up: investigators start with the obvious suspect, ex-husband lloyd. and he had an alibi. . coming up, he said he had been to rochester to help his daughter move into college. stayed in the hotel all night long. >> i think i have every receipt for the last seven days. >> michele liked to save things, too. >> could the mystery be solved from beyond the grave? >> i started finding screen shots of texts.

my daughter documented everything. >> what was the narrative picture of what happened in her life. >> that she was constantly emotionally abused. >> when "dateline" continues. you're not welcome here! get out of my face! hpv can cause certain cancers when your child grows up. get in its way. hpv can affect males and females... and there's no way to predict who will or won't clear the virus. but you can help protect your child by taking a first step. the cdc recommends hpv vaccination at age 11 or 12 to help protect against certain cancers. hey cancer! not... my... child. don't wait... talk to your child's doctor about hpv vaccination today.

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hello am i'm dara brown. senate judiciary chairman lindsey graham says on saturday evening. the confirmation hearings will begin october 12th. one month before the election. his announcement came shortly after prept president trump officially announced judge amy coney barrett will be his choice for the supreme court. she smashed glass ceilings. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline."

i'm natalie moralemorales. a detective spotted signs of a struggle in michele's bedroom. now investigators suspected her death was staged to look like a suicide. they were eager to have another chat with michele's ex-husband lloyd. meanwhile, a distraught family member was about to get a startling view into michele's final years. here again is dennis murphy with "the ultimatum." >> reporter: michele neurauter's mother jeannie was still dealing with the loss of her elder child. and atop of that grief was a long-standing sorrow -- estrangement. michele had abruptly stopped talking to her mom ten years before. >> i missed her, i loved her, i didn't know what was going on because we had never had a fight. if we'd had a fight, and hung up on each other and you know -- you get over it. but we did not have that fight. >> reporter: jeannie didn't know exactly what had gone on in michele and lloyd's marriage, but she knew she'd never liked him. >> my husband and i are like "okay she can do better than

this. why is she -- what does she see in him?" >> and looking back what -- what makes you say that jeannie? >> he was arrogant from the beginning. he was always arrogant, he was full of himself. >> reporter: michele's sister agreed. >> he wanted to be like, "oh, i'm gonna put you in your place." >> did you talk to her about where-- how things were with her and lloyd? >> no. >> or do you just seal that away -- >> no, i knew -- >> is that a no-go topic? >> that's a no-go topic. >> reporter: michele's family says lloyd's my-way-or-the-highway attitude extended to the way he disciplined the children. the doting ballet dad wanted his girls to be a little too en pointe. >> he kinda raised his kids with a military bearing, huh? >> yes. i mean, they had to -- he would snap his fingers and they'd line up, and they would stand there like little soldiers. >> he would make them kneel with their nose to the wall, hands behind their heads, like they were being executed. >> i'm sorry? for a minor household infraction? >> yeah, like, for nothing sometimes. he would just be mad at them.

>> reporter: after michele's death, jeannie flew out to the east coast to be with her granddaughters. that's when she finally learned just how bad things had become for michele. it was all there in her daughter's journals and boxes of court papers. >> i started finding court documents, and i started finding screen shots of texts. my daughter documented everything to death. >> what was the narrative picture that had come together for you, of what had happened in her life? >> that she was just constantly abused, emotionally abused -- um >> by her husband, lloyd? >> uh-huh. yes. >> and you'd believed that he'd ganged up the children against her. >> uh-huh, yes. michele's mother read how the unhappy marriage turned into an unhappy divorce. >> he was taking her to court >> reporter: the acrimony between lloyd and michele had been well known to michele's friends for years -- they'd seen it up close. if her death was a murder, the history of that marriage and divorce told them exactly what happened.

>> when asked at the scene what i thought, my answer was, "i think he did it." >> the husband. the ex. >> uh-huh. absolutely. >> no problems. >> reporter: the very same lloyd who had calmly and clearly volunteered so much information to investigators. >> she was just completely out of control. >> demeanor, what are you hearing in the? >> oh, he was very cooperative. >> would you like me to move up a little? >> no, you're fine. >> are you sure? >> i'm fine. >> reporter: police had reason to believe michele died sometime after midnight saturday going into sunday. so the question: where was lloyd? >> tell me the way-- you came up. >> sure. to go to rochester. >> reporter: he'd told police he'd driven up from new jersey to rochester to help karrie move into her college apartment. >> she couldn't fit everything in the car, so i had totes back in princeton that i had to bring. >> so when i arrived on saturday, i went to the apartment and i unloaded my car and her stuff-- >> her, karrie's apartment. >> yeah, karrie's apartment. >> reporter: and then he said he spent the night in a nearby

hotel. >> 11 to 7 you are in your hotelish? >> yes. >> by yourself? >> yes. >> he said he had been to rochester to help her -- his daughter move into college. spent the night in the hotel. stayed in the hotel all night long. >> reporter: lloyd said he drove home the next day. and only returned to the corning area after michele's body had been found. he could account for all of his movements. >> i think i have every receipt for the last seven days. reporter: now they needed to put lloyd's timeline under a microscope. police pulled his phone records, and guess what? his cell never left the hotel that night. so far so good. and the story told by the phone meant he couldn't be an hour and a half south in corning as michele was about to die. so police had to consider others in michele's inner circle. and that included the last known person to have seen michele alive. it was someone who'd admitted in a phone call with police to fighting with michele that very night-- her middle daughter, karrie.

>> when i got there, my mom started freaking out. and she was yelling and-- and then she got quiet so i waited to see if she would come out and talk to me. >> i know you're upset, but if you can take a breath for me so that i can-- can understand what you're saying a little better. >> yeah, yeah-- okay. i'm sorry. >> reporter: sure karrie sounded distraught. but the officer who first took down her account of that night didn't like what he was hearing. >> he said right away he's like, "something's not right. >> what was he referring to? >> karrie specifically was not tellin' the truth about what happened that night. >> reporter: coming up -- you could see she's at the house for two hours. longer than we anticipated her to be there. what was karrie hiding? >> the younger sister says, "i get woken. it sounds like somebody's in the house attacking my mom." her sister comes in the house, tells her we got to leave. mom's upset. she's really mad. we got to go back to rochester. you're coming with me. >> reporter: when dateline continues. family they can use l.

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>> reporter: here's a truism -- cops don't like to be lied to. especially cops investigating an unsolved death like that of the corning mom, michele neurauter. especially if they're suspicious that the victim's 19-year-old daughter is the one doing the lying. in a statement to investigators, karrie, the middle child, admitted she had arrived at her mother's house just shortly before her death.

>> she had initially told us that she -- um got there and had a fight with her mom and she left. so she led us to believe this was a 15 or 20 minute stay at her mom's house. >> reporter: the thing was, her cell phone records said otherwise. >> you can see that she's at the house for about two hours. a lot longer than we anticipated her to be there. >> reporter: so was karrie hiding something about what happened after that argument? those who knew her best never considered karrie to be anything but honest. family friend, rose, was one of the first people to speak with karrie after michele was found. >> we just sat on the phone together for about a half hour and just cried. >> reporter: and mina said there was no way her smart and kindhearted friend would have played any kind of role in a murder. >> i could never -- um -- picture her being violent. >> reporter: but police had a different take. they remembered there being turmoil in michele's house. all those calls to police years earlier. had that shouting finally boiled over -- ending in murder? and there was an ear-witness, of sorts.

karrie's kid sister, the 14-year-old, had been sleeping downstairs. she told a detective she remembers hearing screams. >> the younger sister says, "i get woken. it sounds like somebody's in the house attacking my mom." >> she used that word? >> yes, she did. and then her sister comes in the house, tells her, "we gotta leave. mom's upset. she's really mad. we gotta go back to rochester. you're comin' with me." >> reporter: karrie's story was way out of whack. as hard as it was to wrap their heads around it, the detectives were coming to believe that the college student daughter may have murdered her own mother. unthinkable. >> this is her mother. you know, i just keep comin' back. this is the mother. >> the mother. her own mother that to me was the most chilling part of this whole thing. >> reporter: but if it were true, the young woman was too petite, they thought, to have pulled it off alone. >> there's no way that karrie could've physically carried out the act. if it was to be homicide, she would've needed some help. >> reporter: but from whom? they naturally looked to those closest to karrie, and who was closer than her dad, lloyd -- going all the way back to those ballet school days.

cops also knew that lloyd had been in the area that weekend, helping karrie move into her college apartment. >> any more detail you can tell us about things, obviously it's helpful. >> reporter: but what about his apparently iron-clad alibi, backed up by his cell phone records, that he never left his hotel that night? >> from 11 to 7 you are in your hotel? >> yes. >> all right. >> reporter: investigator hurd sent a colleague to spool through the hotel security cam footage. >> he goes, "i don't like what i'm seein'. it looks like that dad and karrie left together about 10:00 that night." >> reporter: what was that? the dad and the daughter together? leaving? and when they fast-forwarded the hotel security video, there was lloyd neurauter seen again walking through the parking lot at 6:30 am., more than eight hours later. >> are you theorizing the darkest scenario, that the dad and daughter are in on this thing together? >> yes, we are -- >> that's a monstrous theory. >> yes, it is. >> reporter: the authorities held their cards close to the vest.

none of their suspicions leaked out. steuben county district attorney brooks baker was consulted as investigators got search warrants so they could tap father and daughter's cell phones. >> where are you now, sweetie? >> i'm still down at the denny's rest stop. >> what are you hoping for? >> what we're hoping for is some conversation between the two of 'em, about the death, about money. >> hi. >> hi, sweetie. sorry i didn't get your call right away. >> and? >> we didn't get much. >> reporter: investigators decided to ratchet up the pressure, what's called, in cop talk, "tickling the wire." >> hi, is this karrie neurauter? >> yes, this is she. >> we'd have an investigator from corning p.d. call karrie and say, "hey, i wanna talk to you." and the hope is that will get a conversation going between lloyd and his daughter. >> i didn't know if you had time to meet up with me, i know it's break time and i didn't know what your plans were. >> yeah, would we be able to talk on monday? >> okay. >> reporter: with her wire tickled, would karrie take the bait and call her father with the latest? she did exactly that. >> hi, sweetie.

>> hey, i just got off the phone with officer whatever from the corning police department. he called and told me i just like to meet with people face-to-face as well. >> you know i -- i'd like you to not do that if you can avoid it. tell them "i'm sorry i've got a counseling appointment back in new jersey tonight. i've gotta get to my counseling appointment." and tell them this has been really hard on you. >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> could you cry? >> i might. >> we call it the lie and cry conversation, because it's when all our hackles kind of went up. >> he's telling his daughter to lie. >> he's telling his daughter to lie to the investigator. lie to him. and -- and by the way, if that doesn't work, can you cry? >> you cry and say, "i'm sorry, i have to go." god, it would be nice if it was then just over. >> that would be the dream. >> well, that's really all i got to suggest right now. >> reporter: by now investigators had a working theory of the crime. that it was probably not the dad helping the daughter, but the reverse. that dad, they theorized, was

the mastermind. but authorities lacked hard proof of anything. they needed more. after two more months of tapping the phones, they decided showtime had arrived. they would simultaneously appear unannounced to interview both karrie and lloyd in separate locations and confront the two directly. in late january 2018, like commandos synchronizing their watches, they swooped down. in new jersey, two fbi agents appeared at lloyd's workplace. he agreed to meet with them in a conference room. the agents gave him an update on the case. >> the medical examiner has determined it to be a homicide, not a suicide. >> oh, my god. >> and in conjunction with that, i want to ask you, if karrie had something to do with her death? >> no, i just don't think karrie has it in her to kill another person. >> can you think of something? whether it was things get out of hand, she gets in a fight, it's

a self-defense thing. i mean, can you see that happening with karrie? >> it's hard to imagine, but can i picture it? i can't. >> and instead of jumping' and sayin', "no, this is my daughter, she wouldn't do something like that" -- >> but can i picture it? >> it's the longest pause in the entire time he talks. >> i can't. >> so, he's not poppa lyin' protecting his cubbies here? >> no, he's -- he's -- how do i sort of toss her under the bus kind of thing? >> reporter: lloyd had to know the walls were closing in. still, the interview ended with handshakes. >> well, we appreciate you sitting down with us and interrupting your day and everything. >> well, my goal is to help. >> reporter: the agents allowed lloyd to leave after his very bad day at the office. then they tailed him and listened in as he phoned his daughter. >> how are you? >> not great. >> i'm not great either.

>> reporter: 250 miles away in syracuse, new york, daughter karrie had also been confronted by police. and she, too, had had a very bad day. what did she tell her inquisitors? coming up -- oof one staged suicide, would this one be real? >> there he is on the ledge. >> he's gonna jump. he's got his phone. and he wants to talk to his daughter. >> when "dateline" continues. at carvana, we have only one standard when it comes to the quality of our cars: the highest. it's why only 1 in 10 cars we look at qualify to sell on our site. if it's been in a reported accident, we won't sell it. and at our state-of-the-art facilities our ase certified mechanics roll up their sleeves and get to it.

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>> reporter: karrie neurauter, who'd always been on script about the night her mother died, said they'd had a fight, she'd left. end of story. but now she sat in a room with new york state investigators determined to get the truth. >> can you tell us what you observed, what you remember? >> reporter: karrie quickly caved and admitted she'd lied. her dad had been there with her. >> who went in the house first? >> my dad went in the house -- well, we went into the house at the same time. >> okay. >> and then -- wait, no. that's a lie. i'm sorry. i went in the house and like scoped it out, i guess. >> reporter: and there was more. >> my dad went upstairs in my mom's room and then she was like, "what are you doing, why are you here?" and she was yelling, she was like, "why, why?"

>> reporter: then it started to tumble out, the nightmare story. she told investigators her dad, drowning in alimony and child support payments, had given her an ultimatum -- him or her mom. >> it was something along the lines of, um -- you know, he's out of money. he can't pay rent. he can't pay for stuff. basically he was going to kill himself or there was this way to make it so he wouldn't kill himself which was killing my mom. >> reporter: why at the crossroads did she decide to help? she says she saw no other alternative. >> when did you guys first discuss that it was supposed to look like a suicide? >> um, the first time he told me about this. >> reporter: then she told the investigators what her father did. >> then he was going to put a towel in her mouth so she'd be quiet. and then put the rope around her

neck and strangled her. >> reporter: karrie's job was to disable any security devices and to distract her younger sister, asleep downstairs, totally unaware of what was going on. >> yeah, she woke up. so i had to take her out. i was freaking out. i didn't know what was going on. i'm like, "oh, my god." and then i put her in my car. >> now we have the framework of the story together now. >> i mean, what a bombshell in the rooms and the ears that are listening to this thing. >> at -- at that point, we're shellshocked. >> reporter: at last the authorities had enough to arrest lloyd. he'd left work in new jersey, seemingly unnerved by his chat with the fbi, and authorities had tailed him as he drove to the top of a five-story parking garage, got out of his car, and sat on a ledge. apparently suicide seemed a better option than prison. >> and there he is out on the ledge. >> reporter: on the ledge? >> five stories down into concrete, threaten to kill himself. >> reporter: so, he's gonna be a jumper? >> he's gonna jump. he's got his phone, and he wants to talk to his daughter.

>> reporter: after a 90-minute negotiation, a homicide detective tackled lloyd and put him under arrest. back in new york, authorities read his daughter karrie her rights, too. murder charges for both. michele's mom, across the country, was in disbelief. >> i just said, "no, not karrie, not karrie, please not karrie." >> reporter: the friends in corning couldn't absorb it either. him, of course -- but her, too? the little ballerina they'd watched grow up now charged with murder. >> that's the unbelievable part. >> we love this child. >> reporter: as time has passed, michele's friends are starting to learn of a family's brainwashing. of a controlling father who poisoned his daughters' minds with the drip, drip of a phony story that went on for years -- that their mother was no good. crazy. that they'd all be better off with her out of the picture. a father's manipulation that went all the way back to ballet class days and probably earlier. >> what flashed back to me was

that time i saw a seven-year-old karrie standing front and center, shaking. and i personally believe it was this accumulation of control. and i -- i felt that she had been brainwashed. >> reporter: and looking back, michele's mom is now certain it was lloyd who was behind the unexplained rift with her daughter. >> i think that he'd already started alienating her, man -- manipulating her mind. >> reporter: putting a false narrative in her head about who she was and who her people were? >> i have often called him jim jones. >> it's almost cult leader-esque, what he has done to karrie and his -- and her sisters. >> reporter: it appeared that father and daughter would be tried together. both entered pleas of not guilty. but as the case moved forward, karrie was in her cell, removed from her father. and it was as though the spell was broken. karrie flipped and decided to testify against her father. >> at what point does your dad first approach you with this plan?

>> reporter: now she gave a second, even more detailed, confession -- and prepared to be the star witness at her father's murder trial. and a new wrenching detail -- she had helped move her mother's dead body. >> we dragged her around the corner and he tied the rope to the -- to the one prong of the banister and lifted her up and put her over -- [ crying ] -- threw her over the side. sorry. >> no, that's okay. >> reporter: but her dad's trial never happened. lab results came back showing the ex-husband's dna was all over michele's bed clothes in that house he claimed never to have been inside. in october of this year, 2018, lloyd neurauter pleaded guilty to murder one. >> i was stunned. he gave it up. he told us exactly what happened. >> reporter: lloyd gave a full statement, owning up to being the master manipulator that friends and family said they'd witnessed all along. >> he described the process by which he would abuse michele in front of his girls, belittle

her, convince them that she was insane, that she was dangerous. he's a narcissist, the world revolves around him. his password to his -- to all of his accounts was "all my girls love me." >> reporter: oh, you're kidding. >> that's -- no, that's how he operated. ultimately, that power led karrie to say yes because, you know, dad says it -- it's so. if dad says it's so, it must be so. he was sentenced to life without parole. >> any last words lloyd? >> reporter: district attorney baker has allowed karrie to plead to a lesser charge of manslaughter which carries a -- she was sentenced one to three years. the d.a. sees the daughter as a victim, too. >> you want to be sympathetic because she's a sympathetic character. she deserves sympathy for where she was. but she's still guilty of murder, and that's -- that's the -- and justice has to happen. >> reporter: and friend cynthia can't shake that emotional conversation she had with michele just before she died -- the one where she promised to take care of her daughters. "if anything happens to me --" >> yeah. that came back very strong for me.

>> reporter: so cynthia makes weekly visits to see karrie in jail, keeping a promise and trying to help a bewildered young woman find her way through this. >> she's very remorseful. she misses her mother very much. and she has said that her mother would know what to do right now. "she would know how to help me." >> reporter: still grieving over the death of her daughter, michele's mom is now facing another kind of sorrow -- coming to terms with this unthinkable crime and the granddaughter who said yes to a father's deadly ultimatum. >> she is a human being. she's still a child. she might be considered an adult but i hear the child. >> reporter: and yet she killed your daughter. >> and she killed my daughter. she's a victim. i struggle with this. i struggle. i ask michele -- i say, "michele, what do you want me to do? what do i do with this child of yours?"

and i honestly believe that my daughter would want her to be accepting responsibility for what she did, and she is. i don't know if i forgive her, but i understand her. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. this is "dateline." >> she was brave. she was incredibly brave. why didn't i know that she needed me and that she was alone and that she was hurt? nothing was the same after that. nothing. >> reporter: they found her in the soccer field. the straight arrow student killed by a single bullet. >> i just hit the floor. >> i remember the pain. everytime i talk about it the pain comes rushing back.