general? >> i would say let's retire the free meek mill hashtag and make it hashtag justice reform. >> that's all. i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> this is "dateline". when i found out my mom was missing i fought tooth and nail. >> i searched that entire summer, da and i night. i got hypnotized to communicate with my mom to have her tell me where she was. i did everything i could possibly do. >> rachel anderson had one great passion. >> she would have had a child every year if she could have. she just loved being a mom so much. >> with kids at home it was extra scary when someone started stalking her. >> we were talking late at

thie night, and they got real panicked. she said, i think somebody's outside. >> watching her every move. making disturbing calls with a disguised voice. >> it's only a matter of time. >> reporter: suddenly, rachel disappeared and the desperate search began. >> you can see the vastness in all the various places you could conceal a body. >> reporter: months went by. the case stalled. then investigators learned the plot might be bigger and darker than they ever could have guessed. >> this is a tantalizing thread that comes together. >> absolutely. >> reporter: whispers that rachel was the victim of something out of a hitchcock movie, a moment of pure evil. >> a look in his face i described as sateen. >> reporter: and just maybe a second woman in the cross hairs. >> if the stories were true, then you had married a stranger. >> exactly.

>> hello, and welcome to "dateline." the storyu about to hear is an all too familiar tragedy. a woman disappears and the investigators put the men in her life under a microscope. as defense followed clues, the case took a turn to diabolical it could have been ripped from the script of a hollywood thriller. and just maybe it was. here's dennis murphy with secrets of the snake river. >> reporter: in country so beautiful, the wheat and bean fields running up and down the bumps and hollows of eastern washington as far as the eye can see, it's hard to imagine anything rad happening out here. but gaze and listen closely and sometimes you'll uncover secrets

in the shadows. murder and betrayal as close as the stranger sleeping beside you. here a 40-year-old single mom was raising her two young sons. she also had two older daughters. rachel anderson was her name, just 5 foot and a bit. and suzie generalson enjoyed her from the get go. her grown daughters were out of the house. amber -- >> she was my hero. she was my everything. she just had a really fun spirit about her. >> ashley. >> she raised us, gave us everything we needed and taught us everything we needed to know. >> reporter: rachel had been married and divorces three times when by spring of 2009 a new man entered the picture. >> she told me she met somebody, they had gone out on a date, and she was impressed because he wanted to have a blessing over

the food, and she thought that was just wonderful. >> reporter: a publicly christian man with a notorious gangster's last name -- charles capone. >> i asked her out for dinner. we went to dinner. we found each other attractive. >> what made you like her? >> he she laughed. loved life. >> reporter: rachel told her -- about her. he own add a busy repair shop. >> he did services on people's cars at no charge to help people in the community. >> reporter: they were soon regulars at sunday worship. charles found himself with a new business partner. she started helping me with the shop. she had that office turned around and working more efficient will i and saving me unmany in two months. >> reporter: they jumped headlong into a whirlwind romance.

introduce in the may, they eloped in november. they made home at rachel's place. rachel's sons, 6-year-old gavin and 10-year-old aiden lived with them. >> we took the kids fishing. they had never been fishing before. she'd throw on camo and go hunting with the guys. >> reporter: but the thrill was gone not more than a month after the wedding. the couple went their separate ways. a lonely charles moved into his shop for a while until a friend offered them a place to stay. separated but their lives remained curiously entwined. >> we're talking all the time, getting along or not getting along. we could have one phone call that was just enjoyable and then one where we're just going at each other. >> reporter: as winter turned to spring in 2010, rachel and charles did have something to talk about. strange unsettling things were happening to rachel. she told her friends someone was

stalking her. >> we were talking late at night, and they got panicked and said, i think there's somebody outside. >> reporter: then the phone calls. no caller i.d., disgazed voices. >> it's funny, you just don't get it. >> reporter: she gave her friend jennifer the lowdown. what kinds of things were going on? >> phone calls, distorted voices. i know what time you came home last night, what time you left today. just watching her every move. >> it's only a matter of time before we get the cell phone number. >> reporter: charles told rachel he was getting the same kind of disturbing phone calls. and in april it got worse. rachel's vehicle was vandalized more than once. tires slashed, windows broken. charles roll tiered to fix her car even though they were living i part. rachel was pretty sure who was behind the scary nonsense, a guy she had gone out with a few

times and had developed, she thought, an unhealthy thing about her. rachel went to the county sheriff's office and told her story to then captain dan hallie. >> she was extremely frightened. she believed a individual she had dated for a couple of weeks by the name of william slim, he was the one stalking and harassing her. >> when rachel left that day, what was the plan? >> she was going to put together the information she had and we were going meet again that friday. >> did you see her again? >> i talked to her on the phone but never saw her again. >> reporter: not long after leaving the sheriff's office, rachel apply for a restraining order. it was the weekend. the two boys had visitation with their dads. it wasn't until the following monday that people began to realize something had gone very wrong. >> reporter: rachel's daughter amber got a message that her mom hadn't shown up for works if a

medical technician. >> i knew immediately it was bad. >> reporter: she got word to sister ashley. when there was no answer at the door, they called the police. >> there was several people in the front yard. rachel's daughters. and they were frantic. i searched the house looking for any types of evidence. >> nothing, huh? >> no. >> the last time i seen her she said, i think this will end in my death. >> where was rachel anderson? on all-out search uncovers an ominous clue. >> reporter: coming burn the vehicle was left unlock with her purse in plain sight and keys in plain sight. >> what come leaves her purse behind? did. >> it was a bad sign. got to hand it to you, jamie. 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

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rachel anderson's loves ones were -- that monday morning in 2010. >> she would have never left her children. she would not have left her sons, not for a minute, not for a day. >> reporter: investigators had a few bare facts to work with. they knew rachel cancelled the friday meeting with dan hallie about the stalking incidents. detectives could find no activity since a voicemail friday night.

that meant rachel had been off the grid nearly three days. >> i knew there was something very, very wrong. >> reporter: you swung into action. >> i had about 1,000 fliers printed at staples. >> reporter: monday afternoon, law enforcement pinged rachel's cell phone and got a weak echo just across the snake river from her home. >> we got a lot of people out into that field that night. also used a blood hound to do a live search. >> reporter: the search was futile. early the next day, tuesday, captain hallie formed a region missing person task force. what's on the white woboard, th agenda? >> william slim. >> the ex boyfriend. >> other ex-boyfriends, ex husbands. there are a neighbor that had suspicious behaviors. he had asked rachel out on a date and she turned him down. he left town quickly. >> that's suspicious. >> checking hospitals, travel

information. we checked every bus ticket that was sold that weekend. >> reporter: an early lead came when she talked to captain hallie. he had a different suspect in mind when she told him she was divorcing charles. so an early stop was charles' shop. who's the guy you met? >> easy going, cordial. he's being cooperative. >> i didn't have anything to hide. here they come. driving up. i was like, conin. >> charles assured them he didn't have anything to do with the vehicle. >> did you slash her tires? >> no, absolutely not? >> did you break out back windshield? >> absolutely not. >> reporter: he told police he was helping her get to the

bottom of it. >> she tells me about him and we go driving over to his house because there's a pay phone that's right near the house that was one of the pay phones making phone calls to her. >> you thought he was the stalker? ? >> i thought he was involved because he had a huge crush on her. >> charles told investigators he hadn't seen her since friday night to pick up her car. it wasn't ready charles then said rachel left to buy a computer. she couldn't find what she wanted but returned with a six-pack. they drank a few of the beers and she left. >> what's the picture that's coming together for you? >> i'm trying to keep all options open. i'm concerned they might have been impaired that evening and driven aucht road. >> a benign explanation. >> right zblnkt that theory was doused when they located her suv

at a convenience store that doubles as a bus station. >> her purse was left unlocked with her keys in plain sight. it was a bad sign. >> reporter: detectives had to consider another scenario. had pretty 5 foot rachel offered a easy target for an abduction by a stranger unknown? while detectives were going their official thing, rachel's loved ones were widening their search. >> we were handing fliers from here to cofax. east, north, west, south, we were out every available minute. >> reporter: it was as though she had been swallowed up. coming up -- finally a break. police learn there was someone else with charles capone the night rachel went missing but something doesn't at up. >> he provided a time line for

that evening that was different from charles capone's time line. ♪ [ sneeze ] skip to cold relief fast with alka seltzer plus severe powerfast fizz. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working. ♪ oh, what a relief it is! so fast! scrub less with dawn ultra like a workout? it's superior grease-cleaning formula gets to work faster, making easy work of tough messes. dawn is a go-to grease-cleaner throughout the kitchen, too. keep a bottle in the laundry room to pre-treat greasy stains. and keep dawn in the garage to lift grease off car rims. it's even gentle enough to clean wildlife affected by oil. dawn's grease cleaning power takes care of tough grease wherever it shows up. scrub less, save more...with dawn

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rachel anderson, a mother of four vanished and it was the job of captain hallie to find out what happened to her. rachel has not hopped a bus. she's not in an emergency room. you suspect foul play. >> right.

>> absolutely. >> reporter: the investigators start working their way through a list of suspects, starting with the men who wanted to be in rh's life. there was the neighbor who tried to take her out and had been turned down. he had an alibi. that left the old boyfriend named slim, the one rachel was afraid of, but he could account for his whereabouts. >> the former boyfriend was not playing out. you had to follow all the trails. >> absolutely. as the threads started we would follow them as we could, but charles capone was the one that was never a dead end. >> reporter: captain hallie had been suspicious of him since rachel stopped by. she said he tried to choke her. that was a huge red flag. captain hallie advised her to get a restraining order right away against her estranged husband. rachel didn't want to hear that.

>> she was agitated. i'm telling her, it's your soon to be ex, charles, not slim doing this. >> reporter: two days after she vanished the captain's phone rang. >> she called me to tell me she was going to tell charles he's done. >> what did you tell her? >> i said do not go. >> reporter: charles east cot of that night was looking sketchy. the cop's suspicions grew after charles decided to stop cooperating. they suggest maybe you should go downtown, have a more formal conversation. >> on the 21st, that's correct. you don't do that. >> i talked to my attorney. he said have them contact me if they have any more questions. you don't have to go down there. >> reporter: the car mechanic had a secret he knew the police would uncover. it turned out that the publicly pious, pray-over-his-pancakes christian had a past that rachael and her family knew nothing about, a back story that included prison time for bank robbery and assault. but the one-time felon had apparently changed. >> i'm going and doing everything that a normal person does because i always feel like,

okay, i paid my debt, let me go and move on and do something good and constructive. >> reporter: the cops weren't so sure and were now chasing down his friends, including his good pal david stone, a married high school baseball coach and employee at the moscow idaho maintenance department. to the investigators' astonishment, david volunteered that he'd been hanging out with charles and rachael at the garage the friday night she went missing. >> reporter: you got another guy, somebody with information. >> someone with information immediately raises the question, why didn't charles capone ever mention david stone to me during the entire time i interviewed him? >> reporter: three days after rachael was reported missing, the task force detectives sat david stone down and grilled him. >> he provided a timeline for that evening, and it was different than charles capone's timeline. >> reporter: the husband's friend told the cops rachael came by the shop about 5:00 p.m. and waited for charles to finish her car. david stone says he then left to

get some food at an a & w and when he got back to the garage around 8:00, rachael was gone. stone said he drove charles to a local bar, swung by his home for a while, then went out later to pick up charles at the bar. many of the investigators knew david stone and his wife alisa. she worked in moscow city hall as a grants writer. >> who was your dave -- personality, character? >> yeah, someone that was very caring, was a really good step dad, you know, was on the roll tier fire department. >> reporter: charles capone, were they friends? >> yes. >> reporter: did you know rachael? >> i knew her only from church. >> reporter: alisa knew her husband was at the garage that friday night and said nothing seemed amiss. what did he say was going on? >> he said dropped charles off at mingles and there had been some interaction with rachael that wasn't happy and charles said he wanted to have a drink. and so he dropped him off and he was going to go back and pick him up and he'd be home. >> reporter: intriguing perhaps, but the two friends' mismatched stories did nothing to advance

the cops' case. with rachael still missing, there was no evidence an actual crime had even occurred. all they had were their suspicions about david stone and charles capone. so now you got two different versions. >> two different versions. they were supposedly together, but they're telling two different stories. >> reporter: tangled somewhere in the differing accounts, the cops thought, there must be a buried clue about what had happened to rachael. meantime, her heartbroken daughters did what they could to fill the awful hours. organizing searches, building a web page, and pressuring the police. >> their mom meant so much to them, and they did not want this to just become another cold case. >> reporter: the investigation was heading that way until the detectives revisited an early lead. a nefarious scheme, if true, hard to believe that something as evil as that could happen in the palouse. this is a very tantalizing thread that comes together. this is stuff of the movies. >> absolutely. coming up --

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>>yeah. (in japanese) wow, it looks beautiful! >>(in japanese) really?! i really like it. hey there. here's what's happening. covid-19 is giving many americans something new to be thankful for -- the generosity of others. the salvation army in orlando is one of many places providing meals today. the nonprofit group feeding america says food insecurity affects more than 50 million americans. today the partner of wikileaks founder julian assange pled for trump to pardon him. he could face espionage charges in the u.s. now let's get back to "dateline." >> welcome back. i'm craig melvin. rachel anderson was missing.

her husband charles capone and his friend david stone told police they were with her on the night she disappeared but their time line did not match. making investigators suspicious. now a third man was about to start talking and what he had to say was explosive. here again is dennis murphy with secrets of the snake river. >> reporter: the high and low search across the eerily beautiful palouse country for any trace of rachael anderson was turning up nothing. months after her disappearance, detectives were convinced they had identified their prime persons of interest -- rachael's estranged husband charles and his church-going buddy david stone. but the investigation had stalled and was at an apparent dead end. no secret what the biggest obstacle was for lead investigators captain dan hally and detective jackie nichols. >> it's an axiom in law enforcement -- no body, no crime.

>> at this point, we don't even know for sure that we have a death. we believe that in our gut. >> reporter: as the cops dug deeper into the background of the husband's friend david stone, the case suddenly became way more complex. a mind-blowing theory. maybe this wasn't just about one wife, rachael. maybe it was about two. the investigation had led them to the city maintenance yard where stone worked. a fellow employee there had related a conversation he'd had with david stone a while back. >> it surfaces that there had been some conversations between david stone and this individual about a plan to kill stone's wife for $10,000. >> reporter: then stone, the story went, came back sometime later and told the maintenance yard guy to forget they'd talked. he'd arranged a plan "b" for murder. >> and later, that deal was canceled because stone had reached an agreement with charles capone that they would kill each other's wives. >> reporter: i'll kill your wife

if you'll kill mine. this is the stuff of the movies. >> right. >> it is. absolutely. >> reporter: to be specific, a 1950 alfred hitchcock thriller titled "strangers on a train." in the movie, two strangers each agree to commit a murder for the other. did capone and stone each agree to do in the other's wife? could that be? do you believe it? >> i think there was something to it. >> i definitely think there was. >> reporter: mrs. stone is alive and well and among us. did you talk to her? >> yes we did. >> reporter: boy, what a table conversation, huh? >> we wanted her to know that she was potentially in danger herself. >> reporter: you get some devastating news, but you continued to share a house with him, huh? >> i did. i remember many times when i would question david and say, something's not right. >> reporter: david stone was able to convince alisa that the cops had dreamed up the murder plot story as a way to put pressure on him to turn him against his friend. and putting pressure on that

friend, charles capone, is what happened next. he'd been found in possession of a gun, a big no-no for a former felon. capone was placed in the county jail while awaiting federal charges on a firearm violation. in a cell, the visiting detectives had his full attention. >> and i get this interesting visit from dan hally and jackie nichols. nichols. >> and i essentially opened it up with today, charles, you're going to tell me you killed rachael and where her body is. his response was, well, you only got one of those right, but i didn't kill her. >> reporter: if charles didn't kill her, who did? the investigators landed hard on david stone, the only other person known to have been with rachael that night. >> and we confront him with, stone, we know you got blood on your hands. his response was he just sat back and he said, i need a drink of water. never denied it. but that's when -- then he wanted his attorney after that. >> reporter: with no reason to hold him, david stone was free to go home to wife alisa, the woman cops fear he wanted dead. but not charles.

he was about to be put on ice. five months after rachael disappeared, he pleaded guilty to the federal firearms charge and was sentenced to almost three years. so capone wasn't going anywhere, but still the task force investigation focused on him and stone appeared to be at a dead end. the missing woman's daughters were in limbo, too. >> it just went on for years. years of one nightmare. >> reporter: as happens, rachael became old news, and the case receded from the headlines. fresh cases demanded the attention of detective jackie nichols. no problem. she took to looking for rachael on her days off. >> as you look around here, you can see the vastness of the countryside here and all the various places that you could conceal a body. >> reporter: and going up in the mountains, coulees and gorges. >> mountains, ravines. we even did some searches based on psychic visions and dreams. >> reporter: oh really? rachael's family at as much of a dead end as the cops also turned desperately to the supernatural.

>> we did some pretty extreme things to find her. i even got hypnotized once to try to communicate with my mom not alive to have her tell me where she was. >> reporter: the hunt for the slightest trace of rachael continued for years. meanwhile, david stone was on the street and by 2013 his fellow suspect buddy charles capone was about to be released from jail. >> we said, now is the time. we have to charge these guys. we have to charge them both. >> this case wasn't going to get any better. >> reporter: the idaho latah county prosecutor agreed, and on may day 2013, three years after rachael vanished, david stone and charles capone were charged with her murder. they pleaded not guilty. >> everyone please rise. >> reporter: in the preliminary hearing prosecutors laid out their theory of the crime, producing that maintenance yard worker who told the story about charles and david's alleged you'll kill my wife, i'll kill yours plan. stone's wife alisa hung on every word.

frightening connections were being made in her head, and with that came the sudden awful awareness that the sheriff's officers may have been right after all. her husband did want her dead. she immediately filed for divorce. >> the pieces all came together for me. >> reporter: and there's this account of him going to a coworker and saying, i'll give you 10,000 bucks if you'll kill my wife. you. what do you think of that story, that he was soliciting someone to kill you? >> yeah, i'll never know. >> reporter: this is beyond marital deceit. >> oh, yeah. >> reporter: if the stories were true, then you had married a stranger. >> exactly. >> reporter: who is dave stone? >> it's a mystery to me at this point. >> some of the things that came up in that preliminary hearing, i look like a monster. and i'm not. coming up -- david stone tells a chilling tale of what he says happened the night rachael disappeared. >> i said what the [ bleep ] are

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>> reporter: almost four years after that weekend rachael anderson never came home, her family believed they might finally get some answers. police had arrested her estranged husband charles capone and his pal david stone in

connection with her death. but in september 2014, it was only charles capone in the latah county courthouse facing a murder charge. >> we are convinced that you will find the only possible verdict, finding the defendant charles capone guilty of first-degree murder. >> reporter: as the trial opened, the state's case had zig-zagged another unpredicted turn. the maintenance yard worker had backpedaled on his murder-for-hire story and wouldn't testify to it. so now the jurors wouldn't hear of the juicy "you kill my wife, i'll kill yours" plot. but rather, a straightforward and nonetheless terrifying story of a lousy marriage turned fatal. county prosecuting attorney bill thompson and then-deputy prosecuting attorney mia vowels knew they had their work cut out for them. >> our approach was convince the jury through the evidence not only that rachael was dead, but there's only one person in this world who could have been responsible for it, and that's charles capone. >> reporter: what was the

biggest hill to climb in this? >> because we didn't have a body, it was mostly a circumstantial case. >> reporter: mia vowels took the lead and called a parade of witnesses to convince the jury that rachael was indeed dead. her ex-husband dennis plunkett had missed a call from her at 8:09 that friday night. >> and that was the last contact i ever had with her. >> reporter: rachael's two sons testified they'd never seen their mother again after that friday. >> have you seen your mom since? >> no. >> reporter: to show jurors just how nasty charles and rachael's divorce was, they played back some of those eerie stalking phone calls. >> it's funny. you just don't get it. >> very concerned for her safety and well-being. >> reporter: captain dan hally testified that the defendant had been behind those head-game calls all along. capone even admitted as much to him. >> he told me that he had been involved in the stalking and harassment. >> yeah, i know she was afraid. >> reporter: ashley and amber, the daughters, recounted the terror of their mom's ordeal.

>> she had the feeling like her life was going to end, a dreadful feeling. >> reporter: the prosecutors zeroed in on charles' character. jennifer norberg recalled what her friend's neck looked like after charles allegedly attacked rachael four months before she disappeared. >> i observed that she had some red, dark-colored marks on her neck. >> reporter: then prosecutors produced a business neighbor, an actual eyewitness, who saw charles arguing with a woman outside his auto shop that fatal night. >> she jumped out of the car, flailing her arms right up into his face. >> raise your right hand to be sworn, please. >> reporter: so far the testimony was all appetizers before the prosecutors' main course. their head-snapping all or nothing star witness, none other than charles' good buddy, david stone. no longer a co-defendant for murder. now the man pointing the accusing finger. >> s-t-o-n-e.

>> reporter: stone's journey to the witness stand began a year earlier during that preliminary hearing when capone whispered something to him. >> charles leaned over to me and said, you shouldn't even be here. and i thought, how right you are, you son of a bitch. >> reporter: a shaken stone listened to the state's mounting case against him and decided he wasn't going to take the fall for charles. >> the prosecution did a real good job in making me out to be a monster, and i'm not. >> reporter: they told you something like, we know there's blood on your hands here. >> that was probably one of the things they said. >> reporter: in cop talk, they flipped you. they flipped you against him. they were going to give you consideration in exchange for your story. >> the cops had nothing to do with me telling the story. >> reporter: stone says there was no deal with the cops, rather his pastor convinced him to come clean. >> throughout numerous visits, we prayed in closing prayer that the truth would set me free. >> reporter: maybe so, but the prosecution counted on his

testimony to put his former friend away for a long, long time. >> do you know the defendant, charles capone? >> i do. he's sitting next to mr. monson. >> reporter: once on the stand, stone set off on his tale about the events of friday, april 16, 2010. >> i was inside the shop, and i -- i'd heard a noise. >> what kind of noise? >> kind of like a thud outside or a bang or just something kind of loud. >> reporter: when he looked outside, a struggle. >> i came around closer toward the back side of rachael's car. rachael was on her back, and charles he was on top of her strangling her. >> was rachael moving? >> very little. >> what did you say? >> i said, what the [ bleep ] are you doing? and he turned around. he looked at me. had a look in his face i had described as satan. and he told me shut the [ bleep ] up. get a hold of myself. you're in this with me now.

i know where your family's at. >> why didn't you intervene at this point? >> fear. >> what were you afraid of? >> i'm just -- i'm watching somebody kill his wife. i don't know what he's going to do to me. >> reporter: the two men moved rachael's body into the shop. david stone testified they ditched the loaner vehicle rachael was driving at the convenience store bus depot near her home and then returned to stone's garage. after that, stone said he went to his job site and rounded up some old truck tire snow chains, like these. they wrapped up rachael's body. >> once we placed rachael across the chain, then we rolled her also in the chain. >> reporter: then, he said, the two put rachael's trussed-up, weighted-down body into his suv. with david stone at the wheel, they drove south and onto the red wolf bridge over the snake river. >> he just said, stop! i put the durango in park. got out. opened the hatch.

we pulled rachael out. went to the side of the bridge and threw her over the side. >> reporter: prosecutors interrupted stone's narrative to play for jurors a recording made at the bridge. >> he was pulling the package out, and i assisted him, and we proceeded to the side of the wall here and threw the package over the side. >> and what was in the package? >> the body of rachael anderson. >> reporter: into the fast moving river, never to be seen again. what would the jury make of this man giving them such critical evidence? the play-by-play of the crime itself? you know they're going to hate this guy. >> that's the reality of the case. >> reporter: did it matter whether the jury sat in moral judgment of your star witness, mia? >> no. they won't like that he didn't intervene and that he helped dispose of her body, but that doesn't change the fact that he witnessed what he did. >> reporter: as the state

rested, it looked ironically as though its star witness would prove to be the best thing the defense had going for it. david stone. would the jury believe a word he said? coming up -- the other man at the center of this case. charles capone takes the tough questions from us. >> reporter: this whole thread of this thing, i'll kill your wife if you'll kill mine, did that happen? >> when "dateline" continues. this week on "the upper hands"... special guest flo challenges the hand models to show off the ease of comparing rates with progressive's home quote explorer. international hand model jon-jon gets personal. your wayward pinky is grotesque. then a high stakes patty-cake battle royale

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you may find yourselves in a quandary as to what actually happened. >> reporter: charles capone's defense team had to convince the jury that their client hadn't strangled his estranged wife, rachael, and tossed her body into the snake river with the help of his friend david stone. charles had maintained his innocence. >> this is -- this just can't be what's going on in life right now. i can't be at this point right now sitting here with -- with a guy from "dateline." >> and the guy from "dateline" is here because of what is believed to have happened by the authorities on that friday night. his attorneys' strategy was threefold -- discredit the buddy's damning eyewitness testimony, sow reasonable doubt about the state's evidence, and offer alternate suspects. right off the bat they suggested to the jury that there was another person who just might have had a hand in rachael's disappearance. maybe that infatuated one-time boyfriend, william slemp. slemp died before the case came

to trial, so the defense attorney asked daughter amber what she knew about him. >> did you also, in your conversation with your mother, consider another person as being the suspect? >> yes. >> and was that william slemp? >> yes. >> reporter: and was the boyfriend perceived as a menace? the defense produced a request for a restraining order against slemp that rachael had filled out. during cross-examination the defense got detective jackie nichols to concede another connection between rachael and slemp. >> i recall seeing letters from william slemp. >> reporter: after seeding the thought with jurors that maybe someone other than capone did it, the defense team turned its sights on the cops. all the things they hadn't found in their investigation. for starters, there was no physical evidence recovered at charles' garage. >> you didn't see any signs of a struggle outside? >> that's correct. >> reporter: and when cops recovered rachael's vehicle, there were fingerprints, but not capone's. >> they didn't match anybody that was in the system. >> reporter: but attacking the evidence wouldn't be enough.

>> everyone may be seated. >> reporter: just as for the prosecution, the defense case lived or died on the credibility of david stone. during a grueling, day-long cross examination, charles' lawyer attacked david stone's veracity and his motives. david claimed he helped dispose of rachael's body and then kept quiet all those years because he was in fear of his life from charles, and yet they continued to pal around. >> why did you keep that contact every day? >> well, i'd kind of like to know where someone's at if i'm concerned about my safety. >> reporter: capone's lawyer suggested that david stone was only out to save his own neck. >> and were you hoping for some leniency? >> and still am. >> reporter: hour after hour, the lawyer hammered away at david, who'd easily admitted to lying his way through any number of police interviews. >> did you feel that your word might not be real good? >> i mean, based on the fact that i had been lying for 3 1/2 years, wouldn't you? >> reporter: in the defense close, it came back again to

a central question. could the jury believe david stone? >> at the end of the day, what stone is telling you, it can't be true. there is no physical evidence of any foul play anywhere at or near that shop. >> reporter: charles capone declined to testify in his own defense. >> and you feel comfortable in that decision? >> yes, sir, i do. >> reporter: prosecutor bill thompson had the final word for the state. >> rachael's gone forever. he ensured that her body, her physical essence, is also gone forever. but we can't let that allow him to escape responsibility. >> reporter: after seven days of testimony, the case went to the jury. let me ask you that cut to the chase question. on friday that night at the garage, did you get her down on the ground? did you throttle your wife and kill her? >> i can tell you honestly, no. it's a lie. it's been portrayed as stuff that absolutely didn't take place. i've done many things, you know, that i'm not proud of, you know?

paid my dues, moved on. you know, tried to be a better person. >> reporter: this whole thread of this thing, i'll kill your wife if you'll kill mine, did that happen? >> i can't answer that for you right now. >> reporter: you can't answer. >> i can't. >> reporter: capone says he's made mistakes along the way, but did not kill rachael. >> i don't have that in me. i wanna care about people. i want to love on people. i don't want to take somebody's life. you know, one officer says i'm a sociopath and i have no heart and i don't care. i haven't suffered from this. yeah, okay. >> reporter: are you a sociopath? >> no, i don't believe so. i've seen my share of psychologists and stuff like that, and i think i'm pretty normal. i mean, i'm just like most men. i just make poor decisions. >> charles was on top of rachael strangling her. >> reporter: does why he tell the story in court that he does? because he sinks you. >> because he's going to get charged with solicitation for murder. how much time was he gonna do for trying to hire somebody to kill his wife, you know? wouldn't you have tried to get out of that? >> reporter: it took the jurors nine hours to decide whether they believed david stone's story.

there was a verdict. rachael's family and friends were called back to the courthouse. >> when the jury came in and we stood there, it seemed like for an eternity. >> madam clerk, if you would read the verdict of the jury. >> you know, our hearts were pounding. >> is the defendant charles anthony capone guilty or not guilty of murder in first degree? >> reporter: the clerk read the jury's verdict. >> guilty. >> it was like this weight just was lifted from everyone. >> reporter: rachael's daughters had waited 4 1/2 years for this day. so you hear the words, huh? >> mm-hmm. it's just bittersweet. >> reporter: you're not getting your mom back at the end of this. >> no. all this is protecting other women and children from being harmed by him. >> reporter: charles capone was sentenced to life without parole in february 2015. david stone, who pleaded guilty solely to failure to notify authorities of a death serves three years behind bars.

he was released july of 2016. >> i want to apologize for to rachael's family. >> reporter: when we spoke with stone, he expressed remorse for what he had done. >> it's a day that i think about every day, and i will the rest of my life. if i could change it, i damn sure would. >> reporter: why didn't you go get your phone and call 911? you knew you had just witnessed a murder. >> i froze. and all the way up to that point, i thought he was my friend. >> reporter: did you solicit a hit on your wife? >> never. >> reporter: did you want her dead in those days? >> no. >> reporter: so where does this story come from? >> that's a good question. >> reporter: david stone's former wife alisa still doesn't know for sure if he wanted her dead. i bet there are very few people on earth that could put themselves in your shoes and even understand what you've been through, alisa. >> you know, i've been through a lot, but nothing compared to what rachael's family's been through. i don't think my pain is comparable to what her daughters and sons have been through.

at all. >> reporter: ever since the day in november 2013 when david stone gave his horrific tale to the cops, there have been intensive searches made of the snake river below the red wolf bridge. captain dan hally enlisted multiple agencies, including the coast guard and volunteers with specialized sonar to help. but the depths of the swift-moving snake have yet to surrender rachael's body. is she gone forever? >> i know we're not going to give up. >> hopefully we might still find her remains. >> reporter: for the justice system, it's case closed. but for those rachael left behind -- >> you know, there's no true justice. doesn't bring her back. >> reporter: is there a new chapter opening up for you? >> it's just begun. because when i found out my mom was missing, i fought tooth and nail. so did ashley. that's what we did. and so at this point, it feels

like the fight is over. the grieving process for me has just begun because there's nothing left to fight for. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. venus was my friend, my coworker. she was family. it just makes you sick thinking about it. it's like, you want to know where she is, but at the same time, you do not want to know. >> hi, mom. >> this woman had gone out to get the mail and disappeared in her pajamas. >> the case was never closed. >> it was consuming all of us. >> the individual was wearing a baseball cap, hoodie with the hood pulled up and large mirrored sunglasses. >> oh, my gosh, did this really happen? >> i'm like, no, dude,