>> i don't like to call myself a victim but by your definition, yeah. >> of course there's one person who clearly was a victim. vern holbrook the successful business at the center of a family. did he trust too much? did he know what might've been a coming? maybe, those are tough questions because the truth is, no one wants to believe your business partner will betray you. after all, the idea is that they are just like family. hello, i am craig melvin and this is dateline. >> i am getting ready to leave the house and the phone rings. you can see the area where

heidi was. i am lost for words. it does not make sense. >> a vibrant young woman stalked by a killer. found dead by her boyfriend. >> my brother was devastated. >> the most ominous clue. >> to the left of where heidi's body was, was a number one. >> it was not a break in. nothing was broken, did the killer have a key? a decade leader in a state 1500 miles away, detectives finally got their answer and more questions. >> we knew there was more to the story. >> did somebody closer to home want her dead?

>> you are 99% sure he had something to do with it but there is no smoke and gun. >> one more killer still on the run. >> he knew what he was doing. it does not get worse than that. >> hello and welcome to dateline. they have been living with her boyfriend for about two years. there were whispers of a wedding but those plans were cut short when stephen arrived home to a scene that was both brutal and bizarre. heidi sprawled on the living room floor. who would want her dead and why? here is dennis murphy with indiscretion. >> she was a lovely woman in

her early 20s looking for a clean break. heidi burnett, a pool league ace endured tough times in recent years, now the shots were starting to drop. a steady drop, a boyfriend and talk of a summer wedding in vegas. then it was game over for heidi. someone had made their way into her rowhouse on a thursday night in april in 2000 and killed her in a brutal fashion. >> my girlfriend has been murdered. >> was she shot? >> she is cut. >> any parent that opens the door at 6:00 in the morning and there are two cops standing there, you know it is not good. >> it was a murder case that

was not going to be solved in a few weeks or even a dozen years. the investigation goes stone cold until one day in a matter of hours everything became clear and how strange and terrifying it turned out to be. when donna and walter met at a church social, talk of a family even proceeded the engagement ring. >> he used to scare the girls away by saying he wants 12 children. >> they did not have 12 this roman catholic couple did raised their five in a baltimore, maryland suburb. heidi the only girl in a sea of brothers. >> poor heidi. >> she was not treated like a princess for sure. >> heidi grew up to be a outgoing athletic girl surrounded by friends.

it was a noisy family with strict rules. mass on sunday and no backtalk. >> true that your mom is known to washout a potty mouth with soap? >> i got it. they were very strict. >> as she grew into her teens heidi started to gristle under her parents strict rules, she became the first to leave the family nest, but the grass was not greener, right away reality offered up a deadbeat roommate and a succession of jobs evaporated. yet she could always count on her girlfriends to support her and it was one night shooting pool she caught the eye of a guy holding a pool stick.

kim is stephen's sister. >> the first night they went home together and three days later they moved in together. really fast. >> stephen was five years older than heidi. his sister says she could be quiet and shy but always wanted to be around heidi. in 1998 stephen and heidi moved into this rental townhouse in maryland. stephen's dad says after living together for two years the couple was talking about taking the next step. >> was it your understanding that they were getting hitched? >> yes, that was the plan that never changed. >> heidi got a promotion at the insurance company where she worked. she was finally a 9 to 5 employee after years of

temping. >> she was just getting settled in when things happened. >> strange things, in april of that year someone was trying to break into the townhouse, there was shipping around the lock on the basement door. not long after that discovery a stranger knocked on the door that night saying he was forming a neighborhood block watch, he scared heidi so much she told her friends and described the stranger as african-american with a tattoo. stephen demanded new keys and locks from townhouse management. they were installed in the next evening is when it happened. a officer dispatched to the home saw heidi on the living room floor, her boyfriend laying against the wall cradling her and crying. it appeared she had and

strangled in her throat so severely slashed that her blood dripped through to the basement. then there was something else scrawled on the wall in red lipstick behind heidi's body was the number one. >> coming up a possible suspect. >> when dateline continues. tel show off their clearer skin and noticeably less itch with dupixent. because children 6 months and older with eczema have plenty of reasons to show off their skin. with dupixent, the number one prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, they can stay ahead of their eczema. it helps block a key source of inflammation inside the body that can cause eczema to help heal your child's skin from within. serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. tell your doctor about new or worsening eye problems

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a female police officer was the first on the awful scene. >> she is seeing stephen holding heidi against the wall. >> stephen cook, heidi's live- in boyfriend of two years told the officer he came home that night to find a lifeless heidi in the living room. nonetheless he says he tried cpr. at 8:58 pm he called 911. >> they are on their way. >> homicide detectives arrived later that night. it appeared to them heidi had been strangled, her throat had been deeply cut with a sharp edge, probably a night. >> does a scene like that speak

to you? >> it was a odd scene. in the living room of the house there was no real furniture to speak of. on the wall to the left of her body was a number one written on the wall. we found that to be odd. >> here comes trouble. >> the first few hours left investigators wondering, was this the first signature of a budding cereal killer. or was it something else? >> the house is tossed, ransacked. you have a potential motive of burglary and another motive on the wall of serial murderer. >> walter and donna got a knock on their door in the morning and it was the police. >> through said you have a daughter named heidi and i said

what is the matter? she said heidi is dead. >> it is quite a shock, i started punching myself, i have to wake up from this dream. >> a short time later stephen's sister kim got a knock as well. >> i remember running to the bathroom and getting sick. i could not do anything. >> heidi's boyfriend stephen had been down at the police station being interviewed. officers snapped this photo, his clothes bloody by trying to perform cpr and then cradling heidi's body. >> how much did you know about the victim? >> not a lot, they were in a relationship and the relationship with good. >> investigators say stephen was cooperative, he told them how after his shift ended he

picked up heidi from there job in a car they shared. it was 5:45 pm he thought when he dropped her off at their home. it was the last time he saw her alive he said. the detectives put together a timeline for the boyfriend who ran a bunch of errands after dropping heidi off. a stop at the atm followed by a haircut, a oil change and then a swing by home depot for a plumbing piece needed to repair his sisters sink. he had receipts for everything. >> he has a solid alibi for his whereabouts from the time he left work to the time he calls 911. >> you have to take into account it does not take long to do what he did. that can happen in a matter of seconds.

>> after six hours of questioning stephen went home. his sister remembers him being a wreck. >> i could tell my brother was a mess. he was devastated. i could see it in his face. >> in the days that follow, al and other investigators felt the robbery gone bad wasn't the motive because there was no signs of forced entry. their hopes were dashed when the sample turned out to be useless. >> a mixture of dna from the victim and the suspect. the technology at that time, could not separate it. >> the detective had one suspect he was interested in finding. the suspicious neighborhood block watch person. the one that scared heidi at

the front door and one person of interest with a local butcher. terry worked with stephen's sister at a safeway miles from the house. >> i am thinking he is african- american and may be here is our guy. he is a butcher and heidi is killed with a knife. >> they theorized the connection through stephen's sister. >> did you ever go to heidi's door and knock on it? >> i actually do not even know where heidi lived at. >> the cops were not except the butchers denials and be done with him, there are other reasons to dig deeper including a irregularity on a timecard and a time was changed on one day. >> the day of the murder one of the times is handwritten in. not being able to account for himself.

>> there was something else, heidi said the suspicious block watch person had a tattoo on his arm. >> do you have a tattoo on your arm? >> yes. >> did you kill heidi? >> definitely not. >> investigators were not done with the butcher and stephen remained a suspect as well despite his receipt heavy alibi. at first months go by and then years, more than a decade, no arrests. there would be one advantage to the passage of time, breakthroughs in dna technology and it finally gave police a suspect. who it was shocked everyone. >> coming up, it is always the husband or boyfriend right? that was not where this investigation was going. >> went dateline continues.

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as the years rolled by, the heidi murder case got cold. the detective was frustrated, he was promoted out of homicide but never forgot the case. >> even when he was in another unit he would come back up to the homicide unit and go through the file. he never let it go.

>> heidi's grieving family was trying to get on with their lives. remembering her on her birthday by eating her favorite, shrimp alfredo but family events were hardly the same. >> you could not enjoy the special occasions because you are always painfully aware that she should be there and is not there. >> heidi's boyfriend was trying to move on with his life as well. he married, had a child and landed a steady job with veterans affairs. >> things are looking pretty good for him. >> in 2011, 11 years after heidi's murder, meyer rejoined the homicide unit and once again cracked the file. this time he and veteran detective gary childs got a idea. >> dna technology have progressed and we knew there was a possibility that heidi's

fingernails may contain physical evidence. the thought was to resubmit. >> to their surprise, the criminal database spit out a match. >> i could not believe it. >> the head was not for anybody in her known circle or geography. it was a name off the radar from a state 1500 miles away. >> they tell me it is alexander bennett from colorado. >> baffled detectives started to dig, they called the colorado authorities and learned bennett with the unlikely suspected killer. in his early years he should promise as a opera singer. performing recitals and winning a scholarship to the prestigious manhattan school of

music. after moving back to colorado though he got into smalltime trouble but then he did something crazy. >> he is a talented guy but he had some issues with people he hung with and one was with a friend of his named grant lewis. >> in 2003 bennett and grant lewis had been arrested in a doozy of a scheme. they called 911 and said a friend of bennett's wanted to bomb the courthouse but they went further building a real bomb and planting it in his house. the bomb squad was dispatched and that friend was hauled to the station for a interview. >> they are grilling him hard and one of the detectives let him listen to the 911 call and he recognizes grant boys. >> within days lewis and bennett confessed to the entire thing. building the bomb, breaking into the house and uploading bomb related materials to the

buddies computer to ensure he is arrested. also that friend would notice they made off with his jeep. >> so it is all a hoax, this elaborate giver to plant a explosive device to get him out of the house to steal the car? >> yes. >> alexander was sent to prison and required to give dna. now years later that dna was tying him to heidi's murder in maryland. for prosecutors darren and matt the dna was a enticingly but far from definitive proof. >> it was enough to say it looks like it came from him but we cannot say it was definitively his. >> so the detectives went to work looking for another connection between alexander bennett and the maryland murder. all the usual searches failed but when sergeant meyer had the maryland state police mining

off-line database -- >> i got a phone call from a trooper and he tells me i have alexander bennett, somebody running a want to check on him in 2000. >> three weeks before heidi's murder a officer spotted alexander bennett walking down a baltimore highway. >> when a wanted check is run by a officer it remains in the computer forever. >> detectives meyer and childs hopped on a flight to denver, it was time to meet alexander bennett. >> coming up, a suspects story, a surprise to even the use experienced detectives. >> it is strange. >> went dateline continues. es. , but it can progress to ga,

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on saturday a carnival

cruise ship was taken out of commission after a fire broke out on a exhaust funnel. it comes after two crewmembers died following a accidental steam release on one of their ships. many regions spent the weekend dealing with severe weather. much of the midwest is also expecting to begin the week under the threat of a spring snowstorm. for now, back to dateline. dat. welcome back to dateline. police finally got their first break in the heidi case. a dna match but investigators could not figure out the connection between two people that live more than 1500 miles apart so they hopped on a plane to ask the suspect. here is dennis murphy with indiscretion. >> in january 2012, to

baltimore county detectives flew to denver colorado, the mission, to track down alexander bennett, a man whose dna had been tied to heidi's murder 11 years after the fact. >> the dna is a good piece of evidence that we want to find out if alexander bennett is really a part of this. >> a day after their plane was wheeled down, detective childs was face to face with the target. at first the detective kept it vague, trying to confirm that bennett had been in baltimore at the time of the murder in 2000. he said he was, he spent a month on the streets there after being ditched by friends on the way to a concert. >> that is strange. >> it is strange. >> you cannot remember anybody you stayed with? >> then the detective laid out the reason for the visit.

>> this girls fingernails were taken at the time of death and under her fingernails was you were dna. >> bennett did heavy explanation and it had nothing to do with committing murder. >> he remembers a confrontation he had at a bus stop with a female in baltimore around the time of the murder. >> i got kind of scared because i was trying to fight back and i think i hurt her. >> the detective did not buy it and thought he would use bennett's story to his advantage. he presented bennett with several photographs, this time he was asking a potential killer to identify his victim. could bennett pick out the girl from his fight? heidi's picture was included. >> he knows he cannot give this explanation about this fight and then pick some other girl. so our belief is if we showed

him the photos he will pick her and he does. >> there was one more crucial detail. remember the neighborhood block watch guide that frightened heidi? the one with the distinctive tattoo? >> do you have a tattoo on your left arm? >> when i saw the tattoo on his arm and he picked out the photo i knew it was him. he was the block watch guy. >> they did not have the evidence to book him so they decided to call in bennett's buddy from the crazy bomb plot, grant lewis to see what he knew. >> sorry for shaking. >> he was evasive about his friend's time in baltimore but the detective did not buy his story. because he had the outstanding warrant the authorities arrested him, the next day the detective kept pressing. >> i think you do not want to tell me certain things because you do not want to hurt a

friend of yours. what i am saying is nothing you say hurts him because what is done is done. >> at last grant lewis cracked, he divulged a drunken conversation they had down by the river after bennett got back. >> he said i heard somebody and i said i do not want to know >> that was it, corroboration. 12 years after heidi's murder, alexander bennett was charged. he was extradited to maryland to stand trial. heidi's brother frank got the news from their dad. >> it brings you to chairs because all of that teams flooding back. a great feeling to feel that finally something happened. >> stevens family was relieved as well. there was such a cloud of suspicion around him for so long that news that somebody else had been arrested for his

girlfriend's murder was vindication. >> i was ecstatic. finally. >> it is not stephen cook. >> i was excited for my brother. >> two years later in march 2014, both stephen and heidi's families converged on the baltimore county courthouse for the start of alexander's trial. grant lewis was going there as well, he was flown in to testify. for detectives the idea that bennett killed heidi all on his own never made sense. they held out hope that bennett would come clean but he maintained his innocence. then came the morning of jury selection. >> we are out getting breakfast and gary's phone goes off and he looks down at it and then up at me and he says alex wants to talk. >> here we go.

>> a heart to heart with his mother convinced bennett to spill everything. >> she told alexander if he did this it was time to come clean and jesus would forgive him. >> what they call a come to jesus moment. >> bennett confessed he killed heidi but he did not act alone, he had a accomplice and that person was the state's star witness. >> he and grant lewis developed a idea of being contract murderers. >> so lewis is the brains of the operation? >> a lack of brains. >> lewis had been sitting in a hotel room preparing to testify. detectives brought him in and turned the tables on him. at first lewis denied involvement but as the detective revealed details from alexander's confession he started to open up. >> i did not send him to

baltimore but i know more about this. >> lewis admitted to being involved in a murder for hire scam but bennett was never supposed to kill anyone, only to get the upfront money before turning the person that cleared them to the fbi. >> did you believe that story? >> not in the least. the cuffs went on. >> there was one major detail left, who hired them to kill heidi? >> what really happened the day heidi died? detectives are about to get a first-person account from the killers. >> coming up. >> i was making sure she was alive. >> went dateline continues. because a lot can happen in 48 hours. dermatologist-recommended cetaphil.

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for more than a decade, detectives tried to untangle the mystery of 24-year-old heidi's little murder. on the morning of his own trial alexander unexpectedly confessed to a opportunistic plot. he was a cash for hire hitmen. bennett agreed to a deal, tell the truth to investigators and avoid the possibility of getting sentenced to life in prison.

interviewed by detective childs, bennett laid out the details of heidi's murder. >> grant was discussing about receiving money to kill somebody. >> according to bennett, he and lewis were brainstorming ways to raise seed money for a nightclub so lewis placed a coded message online advertising discrete housecleaning services. >> apparently grant lewis hoped somebody on the internet would understand that to mean they were hitmen. >> bennett says a client did respond and offered 60 thousand to kill heidi. >> i know the person emphasized that it needed to look like a accident. >> lewis is the middleman that

communicated with the client and organized everything. in march 2000 bennett arrived in baltimore from denver and waited for the signal to act. in the meantime he scoped out the victim breaking in the home by tampering with the locks and then posing as a neighborhood watch volunteer. >> it was just the one time. >> on april 20 bennett says he heard through lewis the plan was a go. after getting into heidi's house he hid behind the front door. >> my plan was to get her and make it look like a accident. like snap her neck or something to make it look like she fell down the stairs. >> heidi walked to the door and then it says he pounced.

>> when she came in, she saw me and panicked and i panicked and rushed at her in the front and tried to muffle her screen. i was making sure she was alive, that is when i had the knife to make sure i had cut her throat. >> then bennett said he wiped the place down and then ransacked the bedroom and made heidi's lipstick to make the number one on the wall. after that he fled. >> that is it. >> the detective pressed, who was the client? he showed bennett a photo array of six suspects. >> he immediately separates for

photographs. he is left with two. he takes a couple of moments and stares at them. eventually he says yes this is him. >> i recognize him as the boyfriend. >> bennett picked out stephen. heidi's boyfriend was arrested for first degree murder. >> deep in our hearts we all had a feeling he had something to do with it. >> stevens trial began in june 2015, he pleaded not guilty. glenn it and grow had the task of convincing a jury that stephen was capable of orchestrating a murder for hire. there case hinged on the word of one man alexander in it. >> you really had to believe this guy bennett.

>> he was the star witness against stephen cook. >> bennett told jurors the same story, how he killed heidi. cameras were not permitted but his testimony was taped. he decided to confess because of his faith and heidi's family. >> i want to be a human being. i want to give a family some type of peace. i want to take responsibility for what i did. >> the question still remained, it stephen cook planned heidi's murder, why? according to stephen they were in love and planned to marry. some of heidi's friends testified she was so miserable that she was preparing to leave. >> she asked a friend for a small loan for a easy storage facility to move out. >> the real reason for the murder the prosecutor said,

pure and simple greed, $700,000. two months before her death, they took a hefty life insurance policies on each other. >> to i wonder why the hourly employee at a hardware chain is purchasing almost $1 million worth of coverage? >> they had one car between them, they were not married but they did not have children and they did not have any belongings. >> once they by the policy it is tick-tock. >> heidi had no idea time was running out. no idea what was going to happen when her boyfriend dropped her home. according to investigators stephen knew there was a hired killer in the house. >> he sent the wheels in motion, he knew what was in that house and what he was doing. it does not get worse than that. >> the defense would have the answer for the insurance

policies and everything else. the person to explain it all would be stephen himself. >> coming up, the defense, how strong was the prosecution's case? >> all you have is a confessed murderer's words, that is all. >> went dateline continues. ne but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq is different and may help. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling in ra and psa. relieve fatigue... and stop further joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor

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alexander bennett, the

admitted killer, spilled out a gruesome account of the murder of heidi. stephen cook hired him to kill his girlfriend, the motive, the life insurance payout. stevens defense attorneys conceded nothing, they thought the prosecution had a weak case over all in one big problem in particular. the star witness. >> and had something to gain, a plea deal. >> they were stevens defense attorneys, they said before the man's confession, then it faced life in prison without a chance for parole, once he cut a deal he could look forward to walking free one day. >> he is singing for his supper. >> last time spent in jail. >> the defense argued another glaring whole was the lack of

any physical evidence tying stephen to the time. the computer in the house that stephen and heidi shared was never taken as evidence. >> it is not a digital crime in this case. they did have a fairly new desktop computer and that was never seized. >> we have no idea what that hard drive would have shown. >> nobody can produce the contract. >> not only did they not have computer records they did not have a record of bennett's plane ticket, eyewitnesses that saw bennett and cooked together, not even the murder weapon. >> all you have is a confessed murderer's words. there is not one piece of evidence in the entire trial that points to stephen other than the confessed murderer and use detectives with their belief.

>> when it came to motive they turned the case on its head. this isn't about stephen searching for a contract online, but heidi looking for love on a dating website and finding alexander bennett who surprised her by showing up in baltimore. >> he came here to be with her and she rejected him and he killed her. it made sense with forensics and physical evidence. >> to back up the theory defense pointed to this photo of heidi's keys and bag, if he jumped her as she walked in, how did that door keys and bag end up on a table tidy in another room. >> she was met in the kitchen, not at the front door. >> if prosecutors thought bennett was the foundation of their case, the defense felt

they had a star witness, stephen cook. >> by this time we came to the conclusion it is bennett versus cook, who you believe? >> stephen told the story of finding heidi slumped on the floor in the living room that night. >> i was just crying and calling her name. >> stephen testified the couple were planning on a future together, he was surprised when others said they were finished. >> we heard from other individuals that she was thinking about leaving you. >> i never heard about that. >> they were also planning for kids and that was the reason he wanted a big insurance for

himself. he added that heidi wanted insurance for herself and he never pushed her to get it. >> she asked me if it was all right to get that life insurance and i said fine. >> she faxed over final documents days before her death. it is a fact of the case, even heidi's own brothers cannot quite account for. >> there was persuasive stories she was going to leave and compelling evidence that she was trying to get this entrance policy up and running. she is active in getting it going. >> that is the biggest mystery to date. >> as for the murder, stephen denied ever meeting alexander bennett and said he had nothing to do with heidi's death. >> we heard through testimony that you arranged for heidi's murder on the internet. did you do that?

>> not at all. i had nothing to do with heidi's murder. i am testifying because i want my family and friends and heidi's family and friends to know the truth and for 15 years they have not heard the truth. >> both sides rested, which would the jurors believe? the jury was out but stephen's sister knew the verdict she wanted to hear. after a day and a half of deliberations, that was not the verdict. stephen cook was found guilty of first degree murder, hiring a long distance killer to

murder his girlfriend of the time. >> i could not believe that is what they said. i remember screaming no. >> thank you lord, prayers are answered. it is relief, joy and also sadness. we still do not have heidi. >> grant lewis, was sentenced to life in prison. alexander bennett was sentenced to 30 years as part of a plea agreement, stephen cook was sentenced to life without parole. remember the butcher? police cleared him of any involvement and offered him a apology. >> it is a start. it does mean something.

>> as for heidi's family, their days are all about the kids and grandchildren. parents who believe devoutly in a hereafter, always remember heidi. >> the you talk to heidi? >> i do. >> what did you say? >> we finally got the answers we were praying for. justice will be served. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. thank you for watching. watchin and this is dateline. >> what she saw was a nightmare she screamed and she yelled and she cried. it was terrible. did she fall down the steps. no one was thinking someone did this to her