so chuck and darlene's one hope is to see their grandchildren again. >> they don't allow us to see or talk to 'em. >> reporter: anything you'd want to say to them if you could? >> that we love 'em. >> that their mama loved 'em unconditionally. >> reporter: that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> i knew she would never leave her kids in the middle of a hurricane. i always knew it wasn't going to be good. >> crystal was gone, and there were lots of reasons to worry. >> she had numerous lovers, men and women. >> you have both the husband and the boyfriend failing their polys. on the same day. >> what the hell is going on?

>> the answer would have to wait. >> hurricane harvey is moving this direction. >> we're stuck in the house. immediately we went to social media. >> what kind of things did you put? >> pictures of her. her license plate. >> someone knew who she was. willing to trade one night of freedom. >> he said i'm ready to talk. >> let me go home. tomorrow morning i will tell you everything. >> in exchange for the terrible truth. >> he couldn't have her, nobody could. >> hello, and welcome to "dateline." crystal mcdowell was a divorced mom itching to start a new life when she vanished. then hurricane harvey decimated her texas town and brought the search for crystal to a halt. an elite investigator forged ahead, uncovering a series of clues. and as the floodwaters receded,

he discovered the same deadly storm that slowed the investigation had also flushed out crystal's killer. here is dennis murphy with "before the storm." the woman captured on security camera moving ghost-like from one room to the next is 37-year-old crystal mcdowell, a real estate agent from baytown, texas. it's thursday, august 25th, 2017. at 7:35 a.m., crystal gets into her black mercedes coupe and backs out of the driveway. on her way to work, but crystal never makes it. texts, phone calls, and emails go unanswered. when crystal's extended family gathers later that evening to watch a pay per view boxing match, cousin jay cherry says they aren't sure if they should be annoyed or concerned. >> it was the night of the mayweather and mcgregor fight. my whole family is here. my brother comes up to me and is

like, crystal's missing. but in my head i'm like, what? like, you don't -- you're like, find her. >> that doesn't make sense. >> yeah. he's like, no, she's missing. no one's talked to her since 7:00 in the morning. i'm like, that doesn't mean anything. her phone could be broke, these busy, she works a lot. >> crystal's aunt, a local beautici beautician, was also dismissive when her son called to say crystal was missing. >> he said, "mom, have you order cryst crystal's missing?" i'm like, whatever, she's not missing. i text and ask -- hey, babe, how are you? where you at? i waited, blew it off, started watching tv, tried to call her, no answer. that's when i started to worry. >> blessed with a trifecta of looks, smarts, and charm, crystal was a favorite with both her real estate clients and co-workers. her main passion, though, was her two children. >> i love you. >> the love she had for them is

obvious to see. the love for her husband, though, wasn't as strong. after ten years of marriage, crystal split with husband steve mcdowell. but the remodel of her new home ended up taking longer than the divorce. and this is where crystal's life story gets complicated. while she waited to get the keys to a place of her own, crystal continued to live with her now-ex-husband. like i said, complicated. tell me about the divorce. who wanted out? which one of them? >> crystal for sure. >> so she gave him his walking papers? >> yes. >> how did he take it? >> not well. >> so even though they're divorced, they're spending nights together. >> right. right. >> now after 24 hours of silence, the family called the chambers county sheriff's department to report crystal missing. >> any time bwe get a call like that, take it seriously. >> reporter: first up was the mcdowell house to see if crystal's ex-husband had heard from her. >> his immediate response was, you know, did something happen?

is there? ing i should know of? >> then mcdowell threw a curve. he said crystal had a new boyfriend, and there were nights when crystal just never came home. an awkward tale for any recent ex-husband to share. but to deputy hamis, it wasn't so much what mcdowell said but how he said it. >> in a real kind of strange tone of voice. i'm just asking a general question. my instincts were kicking off that -- this whole moment. >> that the husband had sort of a fishy story or response what that you were asking him? >> just the whole mannerism. didn't appear to be acting normal per se. >> that's when deputy hamis asked for back up to help figure out this mess. detective donnie walters got the call. >> the first thing that bothered me was they had been divorced for six months. yet he's still wearing a wedding ring. why? that's not normal -- normal behavior. >> what was his demeanor like as you're talking to him?

>> almost cocky. he put himself out that he was a lot smarter than we were. >> and just like that, the search for crystal slingshotted from a simple well-being check to a possible homicide. which meant looping in da cheryl lee. early on in the investigation, hours into it, when you went around the table with all your investigators, who did you think the suspect was? >> a pissed off ex-husband. when i heard that she was divorced but still living with her ex-husband and that she had a boyfriend, the first thing i thought was, the husband did it. >> but those suspicions seemed less certain after detectives spoke to crystal's boyfriend who struck them as being as off kilter as the husband. >> he was coop ran-- cooperativ but had that air about him. the ex-husband and boyfriend have given suspicion. it was cooperative to a point that it was almost questionable. >> you wondered why they were

being so helpful. >> yes, sir. >> so what was going on? it was certainly suspicious that crystal's ex-husband never reported crystal missing. but the boyfriend whose house crystal stayed at the night before she disappeared, the place where the surveillance videos were recorded, well, he never filed a missing person report either. >> crystal's boyfriend did something else that attracted the attention of investigators -- he gave those surveillance videos to the media before them. coming up -- >> played on cable tv before your guys had seen it. >> that is correct. >> the bottom line is the jeweler was a prime suspect for me. >> and there could be many more. >> she had numerous lovers throughout her marriage, men and women. women.

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baytown is a notch in texas' bayou belt. it's a land of refineries the size of cities. fortunes ebb and flow with the price of crude. in august, twec2017, the price barrel was on the rise. banks were lending, houses were being flipped, luxury items like diamonds were in demand. baytown's oldest and biggest jewelry store rob dozens sop's. paul hargrave managed the storement he was crystal's date the night before she went missing. >> a casual dinner like any of us would have in a nice restaurant over there in houston. >> chambers county sheriff brian hawthorne -- >> her companion, is he a new boyfriend? >> yes, very new. >> he's a guy with a well-known

name. jeweller? >> the jewelry store has been there for 50-plus years. she's had dinner that night and goes home to spend the night at his place? >> that is correct. he told us the last time he had seen her as he was getting in the shower and show had gotten dressed and left. >> that makes him the last person to have seen her alive which puts him in an investigative jam, right? >> it puts him as a person of interest. >> the investigative status was soon upgraded. remember the footage of crystal leaving for work? those videos were recorded at hargrave's home. we know that because he gave us and other news organizations the footage. the sheriff said hargrave didn't give the videos to his investigators, didn't tell them about it -- not at first. >> they released some of the video and pictures to the national media before our detectives had it. >> it's being played on cable tv

before your guys have seen it? >> that is correct. the bottom line is the jeweler was a prime suspect for me. >> but the d.a. had the opposite take when it came to the successful footage. she thought the timestamped videos backed up the boyfriend's alibi. >> all that was did confirm what i already thought. i didn't think he had anything to do with it. i didn't. >> you weren't looking at the boyfriend? >> no. he wouldn't have had a motive. the motive is going to rest with the ex-husband because any logical person is saying, okay, they're divorced, she spend the night with new boyfriend, and she comes home the next morning? and ex-husband's supposed to be okay with that? >> no. i don't care who you are, you're not okay with that. >> so the d.a. was looking hard at the husband while the sheriff was betting on the boyfriend. it had to be one or the other, right? well, maybe not. did i mention that crystal's life was complicated? >> her name is crystal because her parents named her after crystal meth. >> you're kidding. >> no. and her parents both died when

she was 11. they died within six months of each other from aids, from drug use. at one point around 13, she was abducted by a man. and he kept her hostage -- kept her in a chicken coop. >> you're kidding. >> sexually assaulted her. >> how awful. >> she managed to escape. and then eventually ended up down here in baytown with her grandmother and a paternal aunt. >> crystal eventually ended up living with her cousin jade's family, and somehow clawed her way back from the abuse she suffered as a child. which could explain all those photos and videos crystal took with her own daughter. she may have wanted the world to see just how much her own little girl was loved, wanted, and protected. >> when i think of crystal, i think of loving. was very, very loving, and a hard worker. those are the two things i think of when i think of crystal. >> it was jade's parents who

introduced crystal to her eventual husband, steve. >> and my dad has been friends with steve since -- childhood friends since forever, through high school. i've always grown up around steve. >> tell me about steve, who's the guy you remember? >> very childlike, like a big kid. >> and like a big kid, he loved his toys. video games and muscled ford mustangs. >> i remember the day she told me she had met him. she was -- >> tell me that story. >> she was very smitten. i found somebody i love, aunt cindy. he's perfect. he's funny. we talk a lot. and i really thought she had met the man of her dreams. >> and then you met him? what did you think? >> i thought he was the nicest, most passionate, kind person i'd ever met. >> we were always at their house playing, all of us kids were over there. and they're goofy and silly and would go on trips and things like that. >> the trips were a job perk. shortly after her marriage to steve, crystal landed a flight attendant position with express jet. and with her outgoing personality, crystal was soon an

airline favorite. and that's when her life became even more complicated. >> she had numerous lovers throughout her marriage, men and women. >> she was very social. and because she traveled all over the united states with express jet, she had flight attendant friends and pilots all over the country. so there were a lot of players and a lot of different directions that we found ourselves going in the first week. >> if she's been intimate with people here and there you got to wonder, we got an angry husband here, angry wife? >> that is correct. in fact, that was some of the avenue that we were looking at was other angry spouses. >> crystal mcdowell had been missing just two days by the time the chambers county sheriff's office uncovered promising leads to pursue. suddenly, pursuing leads became next to impossible. as little baytown suffered a disaster of epic proportions. >> it was a difficult storm. it really was. i felt like i was on noah's ark.

coming up -- >> kept raining and kept raining. it just kind of changed everything. >> a hurricane puts a homicide case on hold, but not forever. >> immediately we went to social media. >> what kind of things did you put up? >> we put pictures of her, her license plate. ate.

record-breaking, epic, biblical. all words to describe hurricane harvey, meaning it was a storm like few had ever seen. harvey was not only massive but slow moving. once it hit houston and baytown, it weirdly just stopped. >> just kept raining and kept raining. half of the county was under water. 5:00 in the morning and we were doing high-water rescues. >> it seemed no one was talking about a missing woman any longer. the whole community and everyone in it was fighting just to survive. what was the scariest moment for you in harvey? >> well, when the water started coming down my walls and my house, and it was overflowing. and i was watching to see which way it was going come in first, the front door or back door. i've never experienced that before. it just never stopped. >> there were boats actually traveling the roads. the only communication we had was through our phones. thank god our phones were working. >> crystal's cousin, jade

cherry, was stranded in her mom's home with a pair of newborns. >> intwo screaming twins -- i have two screaming twins, four months old, half breast-feeding, half formula. wasn't making breast milk, scared to run out of formula. >> with the entirely county in peril, the search for crystal mcdowell was no longer an investigative priority for the sheriff's office. >> i had no other choice but to divert some of the resources to rescuing our citizens. >> you don't have the manpower, you just don't have the resources for an event like this. >> when you have this kind of a storm and devastation, you could never have enough manpower. >> jade picked up the slack. housebound with twins, she did the only thing she could think of to find crystal. >> immediately we went to social media. >> what kind of things did you put up? >> we put pictures of her, her license plate. >> because her car was missing. >> yes. >> nice car? >> beautiful black mercedes. we're posting and sharing. and i'm just repeatedly like keep sharing it, keep sharing

it, keep sharing it. >> jade was crowdsourcing the search for crystal, and what do you know -- >> i get a text from someone, and it says, hey, jade, if they found your cousin or her car yet, but her car is at motel 6 off 146. i'm like, how do you know that is her car? do you have a picture of it? and she said, my friend posted it on snapchat and was like, wow, like this mercedes about to be flooded. i would be so mad if this was my car. >> jade's friend then forwarded this picture of the car. >> it's just the car and water. and the water is right underneath the license plate. >> and it's crystal's? >> it's crystal's car. i called my dad and tell him the car is at motel 6 on 146. he was like, what? how do you know? i sent him the picture while i was on the phone on and holy

crap, this is her. >> with the roads and field flooded, the family could only get to the motel 6 by boat. same with the detectives with the sheriff's department. >> an air boat was doing rescues to get up to the hotel. >> the motel 6 is going under, too? out on i-10? >> yes, sir. get in the airboat, make a route around the hotel, and there's the car. >> finding the car was a huge break, but one wrapped in a riddle. did she leave the herself or someone les? the keys were in it -- >> come and get it. i want somebody to take this car because something happened. >> a taste i prize, steal me. nobody seemed to have taken the bait. >> well, there was a couple that tried, but the water was too high. >> crystal's car was later towed to a garage where a csi team went through it. forensically what happens in the case? if the crime scene techs were

going to process the vehicle, did they come up with anything? >> nothing. >> that's when "dateline" posted a "missing in america" report, viewed more than 100,000 on line. but the story generated no usable leads. by the time the last remnants of the storm howled out of texas, a week had gone by. with his county in shambles, sheriff hawthorne knew he needed an outside assist on the mcdowell case and put out a call for help. one answered by texas ranger steven jeter. so what do you do? >> ground zero. went back in like nothing had been done before. >> on day one of this investigative reboot, jeter had ex-husband mcdowell sitting in a chair for his first form aal jud -- formal interview. >> i've got to rule you out as suspect. >> he's a cooperative guy? >> yeah, very cooperative. >> he told jeter the same story

he told deputies a week earlier. he hadn't seen crystal since thursday when she left for her date. >> according to him that was the last time he saw him alive. >> you woefully undermat a ranger if you see an elite figure in hat and boots. he went through training on how best to interview a suspect. tell me about what you're seeing as much as what he's saying to you, ranger. >> probably lack of concern or sincere concern. even for what we know as an ex-wife. i asked him, let's take a lie detector test. >> mcdowell said, sure, he'd be happy to. and? >> he failed. >> how badly did he flunk the poly? >> he couldn't have failed any worse. >> which naturally would have made mcdowell the prime suspect -- except that it didn't jibe with everything else jeter was hearing about him. >> from the family members that he had been talking to, you know, they were all in steve's corner. they all thought that steve treated crystal right and was a good person for crystal. >> and all agreed that steven

was an involved and loving dad. according to jeter, crystal's boyfriend, paul hargrave, was the one the family pointed fingers at. >> they didn't know anything about him. he was the boogieman. >> then the boyfriend was brought in for questioning. and he, too, cooperated. handed over those videos, his cell phone, and agreed to be strapped to the polygraph. and? >> failed miserably. >> he did, too? >> yes, sir. >> that's a dilemma. you have the husband and the boyfriend failing the polys. >> both on saturday. >> i'm like, what the hell is going on? i just -- i couldn't believe it. and i thought, well, maybe they're in it together. you know, that really threw us off. really threw us off. >> the skies may have cleared, but that didn't mean any new light was shed on the investigation. everything seemed just as dark and confusing as before. it looked as though the only way to solve this mystery was to find crystal or her body. coming up, caught on camera

-- a rider in the storm. >> when we saw him riding a bike, we said, that's what he did. >> when "dateline" continues. nup with the cooking. but she wanted someone who loves cats. so, we got griswalda. dinner's almost ready. but one thing we could both agree on was getting geico to help with our renters insurance. yeah, switching and saving was really easy! drink it all up. good! could have used a little salt. visit geico.com and see how easy saving on renters insurance can be. 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.

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hello, i'm dara brown. here's what's happening -- in south carolina, senator lindsey graham and his diabetemocratic challenger had a fiery debate. there was a divider as he criticized the white house response to covid-19. on saturday, the preakness stakes. this year's event was held with fans watching from home rather than in the stands. swiss skydiver was the only female horse in the race and only the sixth to ever win the preakness stakes. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline." i'm natalie morales. after crystal mcdowell disappeared, investigators took a hard look at two of the men in

her life. crystal's ex-husband and her new boyfriend cooperated fully with police. both agreed to take a lie detector test. and both failed miserably. authorities were baffled, but a series of revealing clues would soon put the investigation into focus. once again, here's dennis murphy with "before the storm." >> by tuesday, september the 5th, the sky was clear, and the water down. with the break in weather, texans took to ripping up carpets, tearing out drywall, and hauling flooded cars to the salvage yard. but there was flow break in the hunt for -- no break in the hunt for crystal. she'd been missing for 11 days and was now presumed dead. bodies become evidence. >> and she tells her story from the grave. >> you need the remains. >> got to have the remains. >> but where were they? if crystal's body had been dumped in one of the bayous, the

receding floodwaters would have swept it out to the gulf of mexico. nevertheless, a call went out for volunteers. a local group, texas equisearch took the lead. on wednesday, september 9th, more than 100 people worked grids lie foot, atv, and boat. as light waned on the first day, equisearch wasn't hopeful. >> it doesn't look good. it doesn't look good at all. >> while volunteers worked the wetlands in search of crystal, investigator jeter had two men in his cross hairs -- the ex-husband and the new boyfriend. he needed to focus on one or the other. so you started asking questions, who's got a camera? >> that's right. >> he had investigators check businesses near the motel 6 in search of surveillance footage. what it you come up with? >> fortunatelily a lot of people had some. >> almost too much. hours upon hours of footage.

but buried deep within this investigative ore, detectives uncovered gold. images of the man they believed killed crystal mcdowell. the first clip they found was this footage recorded saturday, august 26th, at 6:37 a.m. the outer bands of hurricane harvey are starting to hit baytown. near the top of your screen, you can see the taillights of crystal's mercedes as it's being backed into the hotel 6 parking lot. >> we can see somebody walk from the car. >> five hours later, a different security camera at a gas station next to the motel shows this blue car pull in next to a pump. this one caught the eye of a watchful investigator because it's a rare mustang gt just like steven mcdowell's. he couldn't have had a more distinctive car than a shelby. hard to mistake that vehicle. >> without a doubt. >> the driver who looks just like steven mcdowell, does something odd. rather than pumping gas, he walks toward the motel 6.

>> appears to be looking at his wife's ditched car. >> investigators were now certain mcdowell was the one who ditched crystal's car and did so with the expectation it would conveniently disappear. and the thought no one stole it yet? >> i think that's what went in his head. oh [ bleep ] the car's still here. >> now they had a puzzle to solve. if mcdouwell was acting alone, once he left the car he would have been on foot, miles from his house. >> for two weeks we were like how in the hell did he do this? how did he get back home? >> they pulled footage along all the roads in the area. and they found this virginia of a man riding -- this video of a man riding a bike in the driving rain along the i-10 feared road. the video was timestamped 25 minutes after crystal's car was dropped off. that's when the pieces all fell into place. >> when we got to his house, we saw a bicycle in the garage.

the bike has unique mag wheels. >> then jeter remembered mcdowell's jalibi is he had bee shoppinga this walmart, across the freeway from the motel 6. jeter had the footage pulled. a guy looking like steven mcdowell, dressed in a sweatshirt with a hoodie up, is seen paying cash for a bike with unique mag wheels. it's just minutes after crystal's mercedes was abandoned. >> when we saw him riding a bike, we said that's what he did. he walked across the interstate to walmart, he bought the bike, a red bull, and a pack of cigarettes. >> ironically, the storm that brought the investigation to a halt also led to its biggest break. the floodwaters prevented crystal's car from being stolen, come in turn led detectives to focus on surveillance cameras near the hotel 6. had that not happened, they never would have found these videos of mcdowling. he was a victim of hurricane harvey, too?

>> uh-huh. in more ways than one. >> but when confronted with all this evidence, mcdowell denied it was him. >> no out doubt that's you. want to show you that. i'm guessing you'd like to see that. >> doesn't really prove anything to me because i know it wasn't me. >> mcdowell eventually admitted this footage at the gas station was him. but the walmart clips, no way, he said. by now, investigators were convinced mcdocument was crystal's killer -- mcdowell was crystal's killer. as for the boyfriend, an innocent man who had nothing to do with crystal's disappearance. d.a. leak by then had enough evidence to charge mcdowell with murder, but she believed she needed one more piece of evidence to ensure a conviction. >> i wanted that body. >> why is that important? >> well, it's important for a lot of reasons. it's easier to try a murder trial when you've got a dead body. it just is. but you know -- she deserved to

be found. you know, she serve deserved to found. her kids deserved for her body to be found. her family deserved for her to be found. >> investigators also believed mcdocument knwell knew where th was, but he steadfastly denied any involvement in crystal's disappearance. after an hour of getting nowhere, mcdowell was allowed to go home to his children. but now district attorney leak and ranger jeter had a whole new problem on their hands -- >> i had found some folks that i had interviewed who said he talked about murder/suicide sometime earlier. >> right after the divorce, mcdowell had reportedly threatened to destroy the entire family. >> it was like, i'm going to kill myself, i'm going to kill the kids -- >> you're going to be blamed for the ruination of my life. >> yes. >> now that he was again under stress, leak worried that mcdowell might finally decide to bring his whole world crumbling down around him. coming up -- a prosecutor gets tough.

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worried that steven mcdowell might snap and kill his children along with himself, district attorney cheryl lee turned to an old high school classmate for

help. crystal's aunt cindy. >> cindy, she was good enough to stay close. >> cindy said she felt duty-bound to watch over the kids, just 5 and 8 at the time, as the rangers closed in on steven. >> i told me husband i was going over. he said, i don't think that's a good idea. i'm like, i feel he's going to kill the kids. he's going to kill himself -- >> what was this metro station about? >> protect the kids. i knew if i could stay close, talk to him, that's what hairdressers do best. i mean, keep him calm or try to get him to confess. >> is he frightening you at that point? >> no. i carried a gun the whole time. >> you were at his house? >> yeah. i had a gun on me at all time because i. li -- i felt he was going to snap. the texas rangers were getting under his skin. >> even though, mcdowell returned for further questioning. >> you could see literally he's losing weight before your eyes. >> the rangers laid out the evidence against him -- the

polygraph, the votideos, the li, but mcdowell held tight, would not confess. >> i can't get these kids off my mind that something is going to happen. >> leak put the kids into protective custody with child protective services. once the children were safely secured, leak sent a message to their dad. >> you tell him that we're not letting him see his children until he takes us to the body. and i said, i'm done. i'm done. i said, he's dicking us around. he's like, i'm not telling you where she's at if i can help it. you can't get away with that. you killed her, you don't have the right to do that. now ouch the right you don't h right to leave her where nobody's going to know if she's going to wash up and everyone wondering where is she. >> that night, an exhausted mcdowell asked rangerer jeter and his partner, ranger james holland, to present a counteroffer to d.a. leak. >> he told holland, let me go

home, then tomorrow morning i will tell you everything. i'll take you to where crystal it's at. >> with the verbal agreement, the district attorney and ranger jeter allowed mcdowell to walk out of the sheriff's office knowing it was a risky decision. did you feel at all awaweird ab letting him walk? >> yes, i did. i thought he was going home to ultimately take himself out. >> on the morning of saturday, september the 9th, rangers jeter and holland went knocking on steven mcdowell's door not sure what they'd find. but to jeter's surprise, mcdowell answered the door. >> he said, "i'm ready to talk." >> at 12:45 p.m. he was back in the chair and made good on his promise to talk. mcdowell said he knew crystal had a long string of affairs. >> you confronted her at different times about those affairs. >> yes. i confronted her. she told me it was none of my business. she that's i'm not dominant

enough in the bedroom is what she says. >> pretending to be sympathetic, ranger holland slowly teased out the details of crystal's death. it was slow and brutal. >> were you fighting when that happened? >> yeah. >> is that when she told you she didn't live anymore? did you snap? >> yeah. >> did you mean to service indicate her? >> no. -- suffocate her? i? >> no. >> it just happened? >> i love her. >> how did you suffocate her? squeezed her -- >> okay. like a choke hold or something? did she say anything when that was going on? did she fight? >> she was scared. >> how did you eventually know that she was no longer alive? >> she stopped breathing. >> he wrapped her in trashbags

and hid her body in the trunk of the mercedes. he said he dumped the body the following morning. before he revealed where, mcdowell said he wanted a deal. >> he want the death penalty off the table. >> what's the calculus that your prosecutor has to go through, your d.a.? >> we don't find crystal without his help. >> not going to happen. >> it's going to happen. this isn't a forensic case or a dna case, this is a whodunit. we know whodunit. now take me to where she's at. >> district attorney leak was on the same page. with jeter as her go-between, she agreed to foreknow it tgot penalty. >> we're not going to take the death penalty if you take us to her. he agreed to take us to crystal's location. >> they retraced the route which led to a narrow strip of back bl bla blacktop. would you ever have gone down that road?

>> never. that place was four to five foot under water two weeks earlier. >> at a seemingly random spot, mcdowell said, stop, this is the place. jeter and holland then set off on foot into the thicket. >> within a short period of time, we found what we believed were the remains of crystal mcdowell. there was not much left of her. she was pretty much decomposed. >> steven mcdowell had not only confessed but given up the body. so case closed, right? well, not in texas because a murder defendant here in can claim sudden passion. that the victim somehow played a role in their own death by provoking the killer. income dowel wanted to make that argument before a jury, hoping he could drastically reduce his sentence. >> i can tell a jury, look, if you find this story of sudden passion, then the only thing -- the maximum you can give him is 20. he can get out in as little as two. >> what worried district attorney leak was that there were even some in law enforcement who thought that

this was a sudden passion case. were you under courthouse pressure, law enforcement pressure from this take on the case that this is a poor henpecked guy, and he snapped? >> uh-huh. >> and we're really in manslaughter country here, and why are you going for the full ride? >> because i don't care how henpecked somebody might be or how much they say they are, which in my opinion he was. that was a ploy. it's still no excuse to kill anybody. >> a popular prosecutor who's also a single mom. leak has built a reputation as a fierce advocate for women and children. in this case, she was going to be the voice of crystal mcdowell. >> she was begging him, please stop fighting with me. i've been in an unhappy marriage for ten years. please stop using the kids as pawns. you've used me long enough. please, please, please. i'm tired, i'm exhausted. i can't fight anymore. >> to leak, the killing of crystal mcdowell was a black and white case of premed dated

murder. the big question, would all 12 members of a jury see it that way? coming up -- two shockingly young witnesses take the stand. >> why did you bring the kids in? >> they wanted to talk about it. >> and the jury makes a worrying request. >> i'm like, oh, god, where are nay going with this?

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. as a single mother,

my first job is to care for derek. everything i do is for him. when i moved to this apartment after six months, we need to connect with the world. i use the internet to keep him in the language, because that's the way to connect to my family's traditions. he has to know where he comes from. we need internet essentials. there's no excuse to not get connected. welcome back. steve mcdowell confessed to

strangling his ex-wife crystal. as part of a plea deal, he showed detectives where he hid her body. there was not much doubt he was a killer but could prosecutors prove the murder was premeditated? they were ready to use everything in their arsenal, including stunning testimony from the most innocent of victims. here's dennis murphy with the conclusion of "before the storm." >> after a year of court hearings and motions steven mcdowell finally went on trial for the murder of his ex-wife crystal in june 2019. d.a. sheryl lee made sure she was well armed with evidence depicting the extent he tried to cover up the crime. and later checking on the car to see if it had been stolen. but, the video that really got the court's attention, prerecorded testimony of crystal and steven's two children.

>> why did you bring the kids in? >> i didn't want to. >> tender age. >> i spoke to their guardian and said, look, if you don't think that this is going to be something that they can handle i will absolutely not put them on the stand. it's not worth it to me. they wanted to talk about it. >> it being their mother's murder. the daughter now 7 said she saw it happen. no cameras were allowed in court so we turned to the trial transcript on the daughter's testimony. she told the court, they were arguing about her going with another man and she said, i'm going to take my children with me. then he pushed her on the bed and said no, you're not. then he started putting his hands like that, and demonstrated for the jury putting her own hands over her nose and mouth. the daughter continued. she tried to put her hands up and feet up so dad wouldn't have so much weight on it and then he glanced at me mad and mom glanced tried to say help when

he was done he told me to go in my room and don't tell anyone. damming testimony from a child. the defense tried to undercut contending the daughter had heard about the killing from relatives and made up a story to fill in the blanks. then in rebuttal the defense called their own star witness, steven mcdowell. when he was on the stand did he do himself any good? >> no. >> who did the jury meet. >> they met a conniving, manipulative cry baby. >> through his tears he told a new and strange story about how he killed crystal, nothing more than a freak accident. in the midst of the argument crystal got hysterical and he put her in a bear hug. i just wanted to hug her, stop fighting. i wanted to quit going back and forth because it was going nowhere and i was frustrated, upset and madp his lawyer asked, xaepd next? mcdowell responded she became limp and fell.

>> d.a. leak -- >> he hugged her to death. >> that had not been told before? >> no. >> we are googling it at dinner going how do you hug somebody to death. >> when the case went to the jury, leak thought an outright au quital seemed unlikely but a hung jury was a distinct possibility. >> just one juror, that's all it needs. i thought if one believes his story, you know, we're cooked. >> sure enough during deliberations one of the jurors asked to see mcdowell's confession tape again. >> does it make you nervous? >> always makes me nervous, where are they going with this. >> an hour after rewatching the confession the jury came back with a verdict. guilty. but now came the penalty phase when the jury would decide if this was a premeditated killing or one of sudden passion. >> how stressful was this case for you? >> it was real stressful. when you get a case like this

where you have the perpetrator who can convince even some members of law enforcement that he might have been the victim in all of this, you worry about what's a jury going to think. >> just rattle this thing, you know, forgive the thought, but it's like, how do you not get scene as a hard-ass woman? >> i don't know. >> because you could be judged -- >> absolutely. and i think i am seen like that with a lot of jurors. there's nothing i can do about it. if i tried to be anything different than i am, it would come across as insincere. >> that authenticity apparently resonated with the jury in crystal's case. they rejected the sudden passion argument and found that crystal's murder was premeditated. they sentenced steven mcdowell to 50 years in prison. he is appealing his conviction. and cindy wasn't in court that day. instead, she distracted the kids

with a trip to the multiplex. >> we went to the movie and had a good day. >> the kids went to the movie and dads going away forever? >> exactly. they never asked a question. he got 50 years and it was almost a relief. i'm for the death penalty for this kind of stuff, but it's better than 20 or 2. >> crystal's children are being raised by an old friend whose own parents had once given crystal a home. >> she makes them stay focussed in school, regiments, routines. she truly loves them. she is honored to raise them. >> they are, i mean they're just phenomenal kids. >> as for crystal, leak hopes she will be remembered more as a loving mom than an up by the boot straps survivor of awful abuse. >> she wanted the family she never had, she wanted children, she wanted to love something unconditionally and have somebody love her unconditionally. >> i love you. >> she was still looking for

that love right until the hours before the winds began howling and the waters rose. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales, thank you for watching. first up on msnbc, mixed messages. donald trump, his doctors, and the white house chief of staff sorting through confused timelines, treatments and the condition of the president come from all sides. >> the rose garden super spreader event. more and more coming down with covid-19 after a complete disregard for safety rules. the biden campaign, how it's changing its tone or not, as the president remains hospitalized. details on how the race for 2020 is changing. "saturday night live" is back taking on the first debate with some new twists and

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