>> i'm craig melvin and this is "dateline". >> i got a call saying the house was on fire. the first thing they asked me was who would want to kill you? who would want to murder you? and i just kind of looked at him like, what? i couldn't believe it. was he watching me? >> that fire was set. very calculating. >> years before his wife killed herself. >> yes. he claimed she committed suicide days before she was due to give birth to her first child. >> she was extremely excited

for that baby. she wanted to be a mom. >> this wasn't somebody thinking about suicide. >> exactly. it made me wonder was he a murderer? >> you are trying to prove a murderer with pretty much no evidence. >> correct. >> is he kind of gloating he got away with it? >> he is thinking, well, catch me if you can. we are going to do her and her family justice. we are going to solve this murder. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hello, and welcome to "dateline". meg purk was a young mom to be, over the moon to be having her first child. then, just days before her due date, she died of an apparent suicide. her family struggled to understand why, but in a strange twist, a house fire set decades later would point to a possible answer and put investigators on a trail towards the truth. here is josh mankiewicz with "secrets from the grave". >> wander through any graveyard,

and you will find them, mysteries etched in stone. lives cut tragically short by war, disease, misfortune, and sometimes murder. many who arrested in these peaceful places took secrets to their graves. but some here are mainly awaiting. waiting for someone to take interest and ask questions. as you are about to see, the dead can be exceedingly patient. our story begins on a frigid march night in 2009, with a house fire in stow, ohio. that fire was important. not for what it destroyed, but for what it illuminated. >> 9-1-1, where's your

emergency? >> it's uniondale drive. there is a fire. >> the house, or what? >> the house. >> the caller was a 16-year-old girl who told the 9-1-1 operator that she, her parents, and her younger brother had all escaped, but barely. and her father took the phone. >> i don't really understand. it -- the entire front of our house is just engulfed. >> okay. i'm glad everybody got out. >> that dad was scott purk. you will be hearing a lot about him. purk said his family had been sound asleep when he heard a loud boom. >> it was like we heard an explosion. >> oh, you did? >> yeah. and that's what woke us up. it's real cold at the moment. >> purk said he scrambled to get everybody up and out. by the time the first fire units rolled up, the purk home was a roaring bonfire. firefighters smelled gasoline as soon as they got out of

their trucks. so a call immediately went out to stow police detective ken mifflin. >> when i got there, i saw the fire department still putting out the blaze. someone had taken probably a pipe wrench to disconnect the gas line. and it was blowing out natural gas. it was a very large roaring sound. >> at that point, the gas hadn't ignited? >> no. it could have possibly blown up. the person who said to the fire poured gasoline all the way to the gas meter and on top of the gas meter. >> the idea was fire starts, the gasoline goes to the gas main, and possibly destroys the house, and everybody in it? >> absolutely. >> mifflin found the purk family sheltered at a neighbor 's house, and asked the father, scott purk, to step outside. >> we actually went over to my unmarked detective bureau car, and we sat in my car, where it was nice and warm. >> the first question is, who

would want to burn down your house? who are your enemies? >> exactly, right. scott said he really didn't have any. there was no one he knew that was so angry at him that would want to try to harm him or his family. so, the investigation basically took off from there. >> perhaps it was the warm car on such a cold night, or maybe it was mifflin's warm manner. either way, scott purk was feeling chatty. >> he lost his job about eight or nine days prior to this. things were not going well in his life. >> when asked how he and his wife tammy had spent the evening prior to the fire, purk responded with this little shocker. >> scott and tammy are swingers. and they spent the evening basically apart because scott was at home, but tammy was out with a friend of hers. >> another man? >> another man.

she was dating their sons martial arts instructor, so she spent the evening with him, came home roughly 1:00 in the morning. >> strange, sure. but scott purk was just getting started. >> scott told you tammy brought him to leftovers from the dinner she'd had with the guy she was seeing. >> right. >> this is like, hey, you know, here, honey, here is some leftover orange begun this other guy and i didn't eat. >> right. tammy went to bed first, and scott finished off the leftovers. >> no detail, it seemed, was too small or insignificant for scott purk. >> it was like turning a faucet on. once you turned it on, he kept talking. i kept writing down the answers. >> at times, it was hard to keep up. scott purk kept offering answers to questions the detective hadn't asked.

and there seemed to be so much more he wanted to say. >> what scott purk set next would leave investigators stunned. and wondering if he was more than just a distraught homeowner who liked to gab. coming up -- >> he's doing almost everything he can to make himself sound like a suspect. >> yes, exactly. >> as scott purk keeps talking, suspicion keeps mounting about this house on fire, and a burning secret. >> i was shocked, and it made me wonder, okay, now i need to look into this, and i'm looking at someone who i believe is an arsonists. now, i am wondering okay, is he a murderer? >> when "dateline" continues. ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year ♪ claritin provides non-drowsy symptom relief from over 200 indoor and outdoor allergens, day after day. feel the clarity

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detective can mifflin had never encountered anyone quite like scott purk. as the two of them sat in his car watching purk's home being reduced to ashes, purk kept talking. same things he probably shouldn't have been saying to a cop who already suspected this fire was arson. >> he was heavily in debt and he made no bones about telling us that he had actually figured out if his house actually burned down, he would only all about $70,000 in debt.

>> it's essentially sing hinting i'm not gonna find anything hide anything. you're gonna find out monday. >> right. >> arson for insurance money? too early to say, but a real possibility. >> he videotaped everything in his house. in case there was ever a fire. and he just did it recently and when i asked him how recent, he said, very. recent >> and he was doing almost everything he can to make himself sound like a suspect? >> yes. exactly. >> what was mr. purk up to? a detective couldn't guess. parked down the driveway, well away from the burning home sat the purk family van. cleaned up and ready for a road trip. according to scott, he and his son had been planning to visit family in north carolina. >> and what drew our attention was what he actually packed inside the van. >> i'm guessing it was not stuff you would typically bring on vacation? >> all family photos. cookbooks that had family recipes for generations in

there. to which he could offer no explanation about why those or even in the van. >> it was a few days after the fire at's house that stow's chief arson investigation called detected skin mifflin. >> and he says, you've got to hear this. so, he played me the 9-1-1 tape. >> there's a fire. >> had mifflin heard something on that initial 9-1-1 call from 's daughter. something he wanted light delta here to. during a lull, can scott purk be heard calmly whispering to someone. >> oh, god, you forgot the ferry. >> he's talking about a pet ferret and his tone seem to be more rueful oversight van anguished alarm. >> that was a bit of a flag. leading us to believe that there had been a plan anyways, all along. >> and add in's money woes and

his admission that an insurance payout would clear most of his debt. and like dell with spree saw on the idea of scott purk as an arson lid suspect. oh and mifflin wasn't finished. on the night of the fire, the detective tall lidlel. had casually scott purk had tuck casually added a tantalizing detailed his life story. >> scott just out of the blue says to me, well, his first wife had committed suicide in 1985. she was pregnant, nine months pregnant. >> as if not only is my house in embers but this isn't even the worst thing that happened to be? >> i was shocked and it made me wonder, okay, now i need to look into this. i'm looking at someone who believes in arsonists. now i'm wondering, okay, we'll see a murderer?

>> the two lawmen decided to pursue parallel investigations into scott purk. would lidel take lead on the arson case. mifflin, the suicide. >> you guys know each other and you get along? >> he knows exactly what he's doing. >> we do work very well together. we have a great relationship. >> mifflin his case had the highest hurdles. not only had scott purk's first wife, meg purk by 24 years earlier, but she had died in akron, only a few miles from stow. but a different jurisdiction. what's it like to go to the akron police and say hey, i'm from a much smaller department but i think you've got this case run back in the mid 1980s? >> you had to approach it very carefully, but we have a good working relationship with the police department in akron. and you have to make the phone call. >> instead of waving off this small town detective, the akron cops were willing to help. >> i talked to a detective who

have dealt with in the past. he said, it's not a cold case, it's a closed case. if you want to have -- use your eyes to take a look at it, we'll send you a copy of the report. and he did. >> according to the original police report, meg purk was 24 years old and nine months pregnant on the day she died. >> scott stated that the morning of march 18th, 1985, had meg woken up sick. scott had made a doctor's appointment for her to go see her doctor. >> later that morning, scott said he was taking a bath when he saw meg walk past the bathroom door. >> he gets out of the bathtub, about for five minutes later, and low and behold he sees meg hanging from a rope in the stairwell of their apartment. >> the story is that he cuts meg down and tries to do some cpr? >> yes, once he saw meg hanging, then he grabbed a steak knife from one of the tables nearby and cut the rope, and then he started to do cpr.

so, he calls for ems to respond and meets them at the door when they get their. >> meg's unborn baby, a boy, died at that same day. meg lingered another 24 hours. she never regained consciousness. the detective had nothing he could test or examine. in fact, even the police photos from the scene had been tossed long ago. still, nothing about scott purk's version of the story felt right. >> most women who are nine months pregnant and carry their child full term typically do not commit suicide. that was the first thing. second thing was, he was in the apartment when his wife hung herself and a stairwell of their apartment. most individuals do it by themselves with no one around. >> both of those facts were available to the akron police back in 1985. >> they had their doubts that this was a truly a suicide. however, they just didn't have enough. >> next, the detective examined the original autopsy photos.

what did you see? >> what stood out in my mind from the autopsy photos was on meg's neck there were lines on her neck that looked like a belt mark was on her neck, not a rope mark. >> the detective figured the only way to find out what had actually happened in that apartment in 1985, was to learn all he could about scott and meg purk. >> coming up -- something disturbing about meg 's past. >> there was an on the coffee table and it said that she had i tried to hang herself. >> and something dark from scott's. >> he was an inter burglar. >> then in your burglar? >> he would actually commit burglary dress up as a ninja. >> how many burglaries are we talking about? >> at least ten burglaries. he would come into your bedroom and watch you sleep and then take your wallet or purse off your night stand. >> when "dateline" continues.

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purk's house burned down, police in stow, ohio heard an earful from people who either knew him or knew of him. >> him and his wife are swingers. they go to the holiday inn on route eight, and they have orgies and stuff. >> there is plenty of gossip and speculation and tip calls like this one, but occasionally, there was something new.

>> his wife and child back in the eighties had been hit by a drunken driver. >> remember, purk told the detective his first wife took her own life. now, it seems he told at least one of his former lovers an entirely different story. >> he had told my girlfriend that he went over there and killed the guy, cut him up, and buried him. and she's like, "oh", you know? they had sex, you know what i mean? and then he's confessing. >> the detective, of course, knew better. scott purk's first wife meg and their son died in akron, in 1985. her death was suicide by hanging, according to the coroner's report. 35 years later, meg's memory is still fresh for dawn kracker. dawn and meg were best buds in high school. >> she was quiet. people say she'd remind them of janice joplin, in her hippie kind of bohemian attitude, but she was very much more reserved. she'd come into a room or

something, and people just wanted to be with her. >> meg had been a serious student back then, an amateur poet who managed to get several of her pieces published. >> some of her poetry was a bit dark. >> meg's brother, michael metcalf. >> sometimes about sadness or walls, even death. >> you ever read it and worry about her? >> back then, no, not really. >> dawn, who had known scott since first grade, told the detective he seemed like a model boyfriend to meg. >> he did everything exactly you would expect a good boyfriend to do. he opened doors for her, he took her out, he did everything, you know, you would expect from someone who is interested in somebody to do.

>> though meg was charmed, her family never warmed to scott. when they married in 1981, her family was not invited. >> they didn't run off and eloped. we had a wedding ceremony in the area, and i guess a reception. >> but her family wasn't there? >> she knew how we felt. >> nevertheless, meg over the moon when she learned she was pregnant. as her due date approached, she wrote this letter to her grandmother, a letter she never got the chance to mail. "just think, any day now, you are going to be a great grandmother, and i'm going to be a mother. a mother! it's even hard for me to believe, but i am looking forward to it". those did not sound like the words of someone thinking of suicide. >> she was extremely excited for that baby. and that was one of the things she always wanted. she wanted to be a mom. she wanted a family. >> so, dawn was stunned when,

on march 19th, 1985, she heard meg had been rushed to the hospital. >> and then i get the phone call, and... kind of like the floor drops out from under you. it was a shock. >> who was on the phone? >> scott. >> do you remember anything he said? >> it was, "dawn, i've got bad news. meg tried to kill herself. she's in the hospital. they don't know if she is going to make it". >> she did not. as for suicide -- well, there had been times before she married scott, when meg had spoken of taking her own life. >> there was an incident one time where she locked herself in a bathroom, and said she was going to cut her wrists. this was over at a friends house.

but, you know, after that, she came out, she had not cut herself or anything like that. >> dawn kracker said something similar happened, once went she and meg shared an apartment. >> i came home, and i saw on the floor, and there was a note on the coffee table, and it said she had tried to hang herself using the court from the mini blinds. >> did that note explain why meg wanted to take her own life? >> there wasn't an explanation other than she felt that everybody would be happier if she was gone. >> to underscore his claim that meg had hung herself, mifflin says, scott gave one of her poems to the akron detective investigated her death. >> at the very end of the poem, it says and that she killed herself. >> and, what? maybe that is the equivalent of a suicide note, or reflective of the way meg purk was thinking. >> exactly. >> except, according to family members, that is something meg had written back in high school, and in no way represented her mood in the days before she

died. scott, they felt, was using that poem to promote his own theory, and her family wasn't buying. >> honestly, my first thought is what did he do? >> right off the bat? >> absolutely. >> you know, the investigators were getting information from the family members that nobody could believe that meg had killed herself. >> scott said he couldn't believe it either, and was as shocked as anyone. in fact, he told the detective he was so rattled by his wife's death, that it changed him into a criminal. that's right. on the night this house burned down, amid all the talk of death and debt, and his swing lifestyle, scott purk told the detective he had been a famous burglar. dressed in black, from head to toe, carrying none shocks, and

throwing stores. scott had been so prolific, he'd been nicknamed the ninjas burglar. >> the ninja burglar. >> that was a thing in stow? >> i think in stow and surrounding cities, because he burglarized homes and businesses, and broke into cars, and stole things from cars. >> how many burglaries are we talking about? >> at least ten burglaries, four b and es. he'd come into your bedroom and what you sleep and take your wallet or purse off your night stand. >> once arrested, scott confessed and starting in 1986, did six years in the joint. he used the time behind bars to earn a degree in criminal justice. >> scott fancied himself as a very smart individual, whenever i would talk to him. and i think it was part of his strategy to try and show me how smart he was. >> of course, it was possible state scott purk was not as smart as he thought he was. thanks to his own loose lips,

scott had already made himself the prime suspect in not one, but two criminal investigations. so, imagine the investigators surprise when, in 2010, a year after the purk's house burned down from an arson fire, the same thing happened to another house just around the corner. >> coming up -- >> i got a call in the middle of the night saying the house was on fire. >> another house in flames. >> the gas meter itself was disconnected and was just hanging by the inlet fitting. >> so, the gas is escaping into the air? >> correct. >> was another arsonists at work? >> the first thing they asked me was who would want to kill you? and i kind of looked at him like, what? what are you talking about? >> when "dateline" continues.

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happening. queen elizabeth's granddaughter was outside her coffin and westminster hall on saturday. prince charles surprising mourners waiting in line to see the queen lying and state. civilians have waited up to 16 hours to pay their respects. and ukrainian officials said that they have found hundreds of bodies buried in territory recaptured from russian forces. the mass burial sites was found in easel, a city between the city of kharkiv, and the donbas regions. i'm jessica layton in new york. now back to dateline! back to dateline >> welcome back to "dateline". i'm craig melvin. as his house set ravaged by flames, scott purk made a series of startling claims to detective can mifflin. he and his partner quickly suspected scott words not only

the arsonists, but a murderer. who killed his pregnant first wife, meg. now, a stunning new development was about to add fuel to the fire. back to josh mankiewicz with "secrets from the grave". >> amy remembers well the night her duplex apartment in stow, ohio, caught fire. it was march 27th, 2010. a rare night off for the 24 year old intensive care nurse. >> i was at my boyfriends. i got a call in the middle of the night from a neighbor saying that the house was on fire. we were only about two minutes away, so drove over very fast. >> amy says she jumped out and ran toward the firefighters who were working her half of the duplex. where the worst damage was. >> the first thing that they asked me was, who would want to kill you?

who would want to murder you? and i just -- kind of looked at him like, what? what are you talking about? and then they asked me, don't you smell the gasoline? and that's when i stopped and i realized that that's all you could smell, was the strong odor of gasoline. >> you involved in anything illegal? >> no. >> anything extramarital? >> no. >> anything that's going to make somebody angry enough to make you make them want to do away with you? >> nothing that i could think of at all. >> investigators heard the seam story from the older woman who lived in the other half of the complex. jim lidel was there that night. he says even the landlady was checked out to see if she might have had her own building torched for the insurance money. >> obviously we had to go look at that, at her. she lived nearby, but she was

fine. financially, she was stable and was successful with her rentals. so, she had absolutely no motive for burning it. >> one thing was obvious, this fire was no accident. >> the gas beater itself was disconnected and was just hanging by the inlet fitting. the responding fire crews had a difficult time extinguishing this fire until they were able to shut the gas off. to the meters. >> so, the gas is just escaping into the air? >> correct. >> nothing about that looks like an accident and it doesn't even look particularly subtle. >> no. not at all. >> the scene had all the earmarks of a fire at's house a year earlier. the disconnecting gas lines. gasoline poured around the foundation. everything seemed to match. >> i'm not the brightest bulb in the box. you know? but all of a sudden, the like did come on. [laughs] i realized that the modus operandi, or the emerald, was the same. >> one broccoli? >> correct.

one block away. >> and almost exactly a year before? >> at almost the same time in the morning. >> for the past year, jim had lidel analyze the evidence from the blaze at scott purk's home. he was convinced that fire had been an inside job. and based on what he knew about arsonists, this fire was likely set by the same person. >> it's unusual for them to switch method once they have a pattern that works for them. find something that works. the will do something very, very similar on each of their fires. >> it had to be scott. we took that was also another scott was trying to show us that there is a serial arsonists in the neighborhood, but it wasn't him. because he left on the other side of town now. >> investigators were not fooled. mifflin and went lidel to the apartment complex where the purks had been living says their house burned down. the family car parked outside and still warm on that freezing night reeked of gasoline. >> and then in the apartment, we find a gas can sitting right

inside the apartment and a pair of boots that had fresh blood on them. that is just screaming to us, we have found our guy. >> of course, had scott purk always been their guy. that said, the lawmen were still no closer to actually making an arrest. >> you can't really connect scott to the gas used at either fire? >> correct. >> and nobody saw him, it's the middle of the night. >> exactly. >> so, you have a pretty strong circumstantial case, but not a tremendous amount of proof? >> right. and now we have to dot our eyes and cross our t's, do our due diligence. because he's our guy still. >> coming up -- >> he was pretty confident that it was not a suicide and that this was a murder. >> the death of meg purk, a decades old case, and a bold new strategy to solve it.

>> he looks at me a can just tell that all the color in his face has dreamed right out. he just looked like he had just been a ghost. >> when "dateline" continues. ladies, six minutes please... this is my life. it's not always “picture perfect.” plus i'm dealing with bleeding from uterine fibroids. enter myfembree, a once-daily pill for women with heavy menstrual bleeding due to uterine fibroids. with myfembree, heavy bleeding went down by 84%. serious risks include heart attack, stroke, and blood clots. don't take myfembree if you've had any of these, or have uncontrolled high blood pressure, are over 35 and smoke, could be pregnant, or have or had osteoporosis, liver disease, undiagnosed vaginal bleeding, certain cancers, or an allergic reaction to it. don't use longer than 2 years as bone loss may occur.

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arson case, even for one that seems open and shut. proving a decades old suicide that might actually be homicide? well, that is more a matter of timing and look. in the case of meg purk, the stars aligned in the summer of 2011, one detective ken mifflin walked into the office of summit county ohio prosecutor sherri bevan walsh. >> i actually still remember when detective ken mifflin came to my office, and he was basically asking for my assistance to file a motion to exhumed the body and reopen the case. he was pretty confident it was not a suicide, and this was a murder. >> my guess is you guys have plenty of open cases that are, as of that moment, unsolved? you probably didn't need one in a closed file reopened right away? >> we have, unfortunately, a lot of homicides in summit county, ohio, and we were probably, i would estimate at that time, already working on another 50 homicide cases when the detective from stow came to

us and said, hey, i have a really old case i want you to consider presenting to the grand jury. >> but evidence did the detective have? well, almost none beyond a few old autopsy photos. and a theory of what had happened. the only physical evidence, if any existed, would involve meg purk's body. so, if this case was to go forward, meg would have to be exhumed. >> deciding to dig up a body that's been buried for a long time is not an easy decision. she's got a whole family that was there when she was put in the ground, and they might have their own opinions about

whether or not digging her up again was the right thing to do. >> exactly. it was a tough conversation to have with -- i went and spoke with mixed mom. >> she believed with the rest of the family it wasn't a suicide. >> exactly. and they were very supportive of all of us to do an examination. >> with meg's family on board, the prosecutor asked a court to order her examination. >> we definitely needed the body of meg purk to be exhumed for the medical examiner. >> if the body is not in good shape, could this go forward? >> if it had been too decomposed, it's unlikely this case would ever have been prosecuted. >> while the detective pressed forward, that summer, lidl report up the murder investigations in august 2011 scott purk was indicted for two arson's. the fire in his home, and the one at amy salvage eo's duplex. >> can we show you of photo of scott purk i'd ask if you ever knew him?

>> they did, and i've never seen it before in my life. >> not somebody crossed paths with in your personal life, hospital, anywhere? >> i don't remember seeing him at all. >> the day after the indictment was handed out, jim and another officer staked out scott's apartment. >> and we weren't there maybe 15, 20 minutes at the most and here comes scott's been pulling in. he pulls in front of his apartment. we pull in and block him from leaving. >> two and a half years after the fire at his home, 18 months since the fire at amy's duplex, scott purk was in custody, and based on what he saw inside the van, they feel the arrest was made in the nick of time. >> he's got a cooler full of pop, and on the front passenger seat of his vehicle was his cell phone that had the battery removed so no one could track him. >> suggesting he's about to hit the road? >> we were certain he came back to the apartment to grab a few

clothes and he was going to head out. >> purk was read his rights, and at that point, the man who would literally talk himself into serious trouble suddenly refused to say anything to investigators. after being processed, detective mifflin paid him a visit and delivered a message scott purk probably never saw coming. >> i let him know, you know, we are looking into his first wife's death. he looks at me, and you could tell all the color in his face strained right out, and that's not what he expected. he looked like he'd seen a ghost. >> scott purk was done talking, but the long very body of his first wife, meg, had an astonishing tale to tell. more than two decades after her death. coming up -- >> the bruises on her neck or going their own way? >> yes, and they're not from a rope. >> bombshell new evidence emerges from the grave.

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was scott purk arrested on two counts of arson, but

investigators were determined to add another charge. the murder of his first wife, meg. to cement their case, detectives would need help from an unlikely source, meg herself. back now to josh mankiewicz with the conclusion of "secrets from the grave". >> meg purk and her unborn baby boy were very together in this graveyard. detective can mifflin was certain that meg had taken secrets to her grief. truths which could prove her husband, scott purk, had put her there. in september 2011, just weeks after scott purk's arrest, the remarkably well preserved bodies of and meg her baby son were exhumed. >> it was amazing to actually meet her. it really was. thinking that we are going to do her and her family justice. >> she was holding that baby in her arms in the casket?

>> yes. >> hard to see? >> it was very tough. it really brings everything home. >> a lot had changed since that day in 1985 when this summit county coroner had declared meg 's death a suicide. first of all, instead of a corner, the county now had a bird certified medical examiner. the staff was all new, better trained. forensic technology was much improved. and, thanks to an excellent and bowling job, the marks on meg's body were still there. >> you could still see the belt marks that go across her neck and then down towards her back. >> so the bruises on her neck are going the wrong way? >> yes. and they're not from a rope, the belt market is going down back towards her lower back, which indicates someone's behind you and they're pulling the rope.

they're pulling the belt towards them in a downward direction, to strangle you. >> how was dismissed back in 1985? >> i don't know. >> that second autopsy also revealed other things that were missed the first time, but were no less damning for scott purk. >> they found a bruise in the lower back, which was amazing. >> all those years later? >> yes, and that was scott purk probably using his need to hold his wife down while he is strangling her with the belt. >> to test their theory, investigators went to the actual apartment where scott and meg purk had lived in 1985, with cameras rolling. >> according to the maintenance records there, there had never been any replacement of any other reeling around the stairs. so, all of that was still in its original condition. >> the railing was smooth. no sign anything heavy had ever dangled there. investigators then went to a vacant apartment a few doors down and hung a dummy, roughly the same size and weight as meg from the banister for a few minutes, before cutting it down. [noise] >> well, just that

action alone created several indentations in the soft pine wood that we were tied off to. >> and the first time around, when meg actually died, there were no indentations? >> correct. correct. >> later, investigators use modeling clay and groups of varying sizes to try and recreate the marks they'd seen on meg's body. >> and we could not recreate that ligature mark with rope. >> only a belt or a stripe of some sort, the confirmed, could have made those marks on meg's mega.

>> you think to yourself, we're getting close to the finish line here? >> yes, we are. yes, we are building this case. i think is going to lead to justice for the victim. >> the summit county prosecutor agreed. >> we wanted to make sure that justice was done and we also we're working with a family that never believed that meg purk killed herself. and we wanted to make sure that they got justice. >> all that would have to wait. there was still the matter of the two are since. scott pleaded guilty in both cases. and the judge sentenced him to the maximum, 28 years in prison. in november 2015, scott purk was brought from his prison cell to stand trial for meg purk's murder. he pleaded not guilty. though the case was largely circumstantial, their testimony of the medical examiner who reexamined meg purk's body proved decisive.

>> the medical examiner had some really key findings that showed strangulation and not suicide by hanging. >> and that was never in the original report? >> the original report did not reflect anything about the strangulation mark from a belt. even had markings of the stitching and a belt that the medical examiner was able to find 30 years later that was never noted at all in the initial exam. >> dawn hicks was scott purk's court appointed attorney. >> there was never a time when i thought that he had a role in the death of his winds wife. >> hicks argue that since had meg a history of attempted suicide, and nobody knew what really happened, it was reasonable to conclude that the coroner in 1985 had actually gotten it right. you pointed out to the jury that prosecutors didn't really have any hard evidence. what they had was this wonderful recreation?

>> that's true. yes. >> juries like hard evidence. >> you're absolutely correct. we fought very hard. >> after a six-day trial, the jury found scott purk guilty of murdering meg, as well as tampering with evidence. >> it was almost unbelievable. after all this time, it finally came through. the truth is out. he's guilty. he's going away. >> the judge gave scott purk 15 years to life on top of his arson sentence. we may never know why scott purk murdered meg, or why he mentioned her to the detective mifflin that night, as they watched his house burn. we do know that if he hadn't, meg's secret would likely have remained buried with her. >> i got into this job to help

people, and there's nothing better than making a family happy with an outcome for a case. and in this case, it's beyond happy. it's beyond words. everybody -- they can finally rest in peace that this has been resolved the way it should have been. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline". i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm andrea canning. and this is dateline! >> two men found what they thought was a mannequin. she had would piled on or. no identification! >> we all came together to have identification to identify jane doe. >> there's a passion to try and