>> stephanie lazarus was sentenced to 27 years in life in prison. and they were awarded $10 million, and so ended the case of the detective, finally caught by her own department. >> she almost got away with it. it was almost a perfect murder. when better to do that than a police officer? >> that's all for it this edition of dateline. i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching. every day i was evertold it was unknown.rs. people don't just die. lester holt: she was a loving mother. . dead

crime-fighting prosecutor.in be you are pillar of the community. >> i did what i thought was right. >> then one day, the law was at his door. his wife was dead in bed. >> i remember crying and not believing it. spinouts sudden. suspicious. no evidence of a crime. >> any signs of a struggle? >> no. >> years past. >> he is extremely charming. >> we had the most amazing time. >> a new detective dusts of the old case. >> what jumped out at you? >> my first thought is we missed something. >> the manner of death would be homicide. >> what really happened in the bedroom? >> i wanted to answer all their questions. >> a young mother's death was a mystery but was it a murder?

>> tell me what happened to her to my face. don't give me excuses. a long meandering lifeline feeding industry, towns, >> it runs through the heart of america. a long meandering lifeline feeding industry, towns, and imaginations. the mississippi river gave us tom sawyer and huckleberry finn. samuel clemens, mark twain, grew up in hannibal, missouri. just across the river in quincy, illinois, lived another larger-than-life character. curtis lovelace, small town kid who wanted to be a star and for a time, he was. football champion for the university of illinois. he's in all-american? >> all-american. >> this is what kids dream about. he was living the life. >> absolutely. going to the nfl was a dream of his. >> then he realized grander

ambitions. fighting crime as a prosecutor and serving his country in the national guard and his community in politics. >> i am simoneau wants meaningful work that will make a difference in the lives of people. >> it is what happened in this little house in quincy, and one person in particular, that made curtis really stand out for all the world to see. >> continuing coverage in the murder case. >> right now, the defense is presenting its closing argument to the case. >> big dreams and a mighty river can carry afar or they can drag you under. this is the very strange journey of curtis lovelace, all- american the criminal defendant. let's roll back the years to high school and to the woman who would become the focus of so much speculation. >> cory and i went to high school together. we didn't run in the same crowd.

we had some mutual friends and we did not date in high school. >> back then, curtis was focused more on football than dating. it wasn't until he went to the university of illinois, roughly 200 miles away, and became a star athlete that he truly noticed the girl from back home for the first time. it was during a college break. former classmates bumped into each other in quincy and quickly became an hour to them. cory wasted no time spreading her goodness. >> i'll never forget. i was playing tennis with a friend and cory came over. that's when she told us that kurt was it. >> she went to high school with the new couple. surprised? >> not really. they seemed a great fit and she was very much smitten. >> it wasn't long before cory was telling her mother marty that she had found the one. >> she comes home and were

sitting there. she says, i met the man i am going to marry. >> and she kept her promise. in 1991, just after college, cory and curtis married. he studied law and she worked a small job to support them both. after graduation, they decided to buy a home in quincy. >> they wanted to be in the neighborhood and close by. it made it all the better. we found them a house. >> virtually over the fence. curtis' ambitions drove the young couple. he became a prosecutor in adams county state attorney office and appleton school board politics, winning a seat and serving as president. he even found time to teach a business law class at quincy university. and between the professional milestones, they started a family. first the girl lindsay and then three boys. cory juggled that part of their lives.

how was cory as a mother? >> fantastic. she was a great mother. there wasn't anything she didn't do for those kids. >> her days were filled with diapers, play dates and tantrums. this great mom never forgot how to be a good daughter. in early 2006, her dad john was dying of cancer. that was a major event for all of you. >> that was a major event. >> john's decline. >> four years he fought it. she came every night at 5:00 and saffer like half an hour to visit. that was her time with him. >> warn down with the stress of caregiving, raising four kids, was it any wonder that cory fell ill? it was the weekend before valentine's day 2006. >> she was feeling poorly. >> poorly how? >> flu-like symptoms. throwing up. we thought she had the flu.

>> on monday, the night before valentine's day, cory managed to get the kids valentine cards ready for school the next day. her daughter then 12 remembers cuddling with her mom, watching the winter olympics and the snowboarder shaun white. >> i remember watching him with her. mom, he so cute. is a 12-year-old, that was awesome. >> it's not as if she was bedridden? she was just feeling crummy. >> she was feeling sick. that wasn't common for my mom. even if she was sick, she took care of us and made dinner and did the laundry because that was her role. >> went tuesday, valentine's day dawned, curtis city urged her to take it easy. >> we decided i would cancel my morning class at quincy university in order to get the kids to school. >> dad will be on deck?

dads time to get everybody up and running? >> great. so i canceled my class. helped the kids get ready for school. she did come downstairs to help out with that. >> he said cory is so ill, he had to help her back to bed before driving the three oldest kids back to school with their backpacks stuffed with valentines cards. within minutes, he was back, but the home was now filled with something else. silence. quiet enough to break a family's heart. >> coming up. what had happened in that house? >> as i got closer, i immediately knew something was really wrong. >> so wrong it would tear apart a family and puzzle police for years to come. >> every detective needs to keep in mind there could be a bigger picture. bigger picture.

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dennis murphy: the routine of the house was in a tizzy. because a lot can happen in 48 hours. the routine of the house was in a tizzy with cory sick in bed, it had been up to curtis to get the three oldest kids off to school and now he was back. >> when i arrived home, everything was quiet. i assume cory was sleeping, resting. she hadn't slept most of the night and i was going to leave her alone in order to sleep. >> before looking in on her, he said, he went over his emails in the kitchen then he headed upstairs. >> i needed to take a shower. as i walked up the steps, i looked to the left. the door to our bedroom was as i left it, open. i could see her lying in bed and i could see something from the distance that didn't seem right. >> what made you say that looking back? >> i'm really not sure.

as i got closer, i could see she was pale. she was motionless. i immediately knew that something was really really wrong. >> did you think she was dead? >> i shook her. i called out her name. at that point, i knew that she was dead. >> in that moment, he said, his thoughts turned to his 4-year- old boy larson who was still in the house. >> i needed to get larson out of the house. >> what did you do? >> i grabbed larson. i believe he was in bed and i took them immediately over to his grandparents house. >> cors mount marty answer the door. she remembers her son-in-law standing there with a young boy and saying something nonsensical about her daughter being dead. >> there he is.

i open the door. he said something about people coming or something. i often regretted not putting larson down and running over there. >> she called her son. cory's brother had a dental practice. >> i got a phone call from my mom. something out of the blue. >> cory is dead. >> i just saw her a couple of weeks ago. >> a detective with the quincy police department was assigned to had the death investigation. when he arrived, he went upstairs. he was in the bedroom on the coroner examine the body. >> he tested the body temperature by placing his hand against her abdomen. >> was it warm or cold? >> it was warm. >> what did that tell the coroner? >> he knew the time of death for the body to still be warm was narrow. >> is seen clear that cory's

death had been recent, within the past hour. not certain how or why the woman died, the detective couldn't rule out any possibility including foul play. around the room. any overturned glasses for signs of a struggle? >> no. >> you are seeing a woman who apparently died in her bed? and not that long before authorities arrived? >> that is right. there wasn't a single mark on her other than what appeared to be a skin blemish under her nose. >> and yet, there was something about the position of cory's body that struck him as odd. he thought it would've caused her arms to drop but instead they were fixed in midair, hovering above her chest. >> i was looking for an explanation and i addressed it to curtis lovelace.

i asked if there was a possibility that blankets had been under her arms when he discovered her? >> what did he say. >> no. >> the scene you are seeing is what he saw when he found his wife, by his account? >> yes. >> the detective was able not to get hung up on one strange detail, not this early in the case. >> every detective has to keep in mind there could be a bigger picture. >> a portrait of a woman, portrait of a marriage, filled with details painted in a most unflattering light. >> coming up. a peek behind closed doors. >> you were drinking too much? >> i daughter mourns her mom. >> i remember crying and not believing it. believing it. and they can show off clearer skin and less itch with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, that helps heal your child's skin from within. serious allergic reactions can occur that can be severe.

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dennis murphy: the quincy, illinois detective plus a fragrance boost button. was trying to understand why a 38 year the quincy, illinois, detective was trying to understand why a 38-year-old

woman had died suddenly. as a look for clues inside the home, filled with the clutter of young family life, he noticed one item in particular. a white cup by her bedside. >> i collected unknown liquid that smelled faintly of alcohol from a styrofoam cup. >> the detective asked what was? did he tell you he would like to have a vodka tonic? >> yes. >> and that's likely what was in the styrofoam? >> yes. >> alcohol had been a constant in the home. >> there was alcoholism in our family. there was a ugly side of that. >> you were drinking too much? >> looking back, yes i drink too much. >> cory was drinking too much? >> cory was drinking too much. it was impacting her ability to take care of things at home.

>> he also told the detective that she had been taking falls, sometime out of bed. the detective found at the cory had been battling bulimia. the picture emerging. cory had not been a healthy woman. i know you're listening to the words but your looking at them. why is he telling this and how does he freeze it? what were you seeing? >> it's important. i saw a man answering my questions. >> not being evasive? >> solemn. upset. >> curtis retrace the family steps. >> he saw his wife around the: 15 and took the kids to school. he returned. he found her deceased. >> with that, the detective finished the interview and left. curtis knew his awful day was about to get worse. he had four children ranging in ages from four to 12 to look after. how do you tell the children? >> that was, i think to this day, that's the most difficult

thing i have ever had to do. i believe i called the school's and let them know that i would be on my way. >> lindsay, the only girl was the oldest of the kids. >> i remember being at school and getting the call from the office that i was getting picked up. in my mind, i'm thinking maybe my mom was in the hospital. she didn't feel good and maybe she had to go to the hospital. >> once inside the principato's office, her father broke the news. >> and told me my mom had died. i remember my world crashing down. >> did you say what had happened? >> i am sure i asked. i just remember crying and not believing it. we left. we went to my grandma's house and i said i want to go back to school. and i went back to school. >> the day you lost your mind.

>> that was a normalcy thing. >> in hindsight, she says, maybe the best thing she had done. her favorite teacher had something for her. >> she had a friend who was caring wolf pups. i'm pretty sure they lost their mom. >> what a jumble of things. >> that was the most comforting thing i had done was hold those wolves. >> news of the untimely death was rippling across town. students from curtis's law class for the first outside of the family and authorities to suspect that something had happened. >> this class was outside the classroom waiting for him. >> one of his students was surprised to learn the class had been canceled. later she learned why. >> everyone was in shock. she was a very young 38-year-old and seemed healthy from what everybody understood. it was a huge shock. >> it was said your professor's

wife had died. you didn't know her. >> i didn't know her and i really didn't know him at that time either. >> soon everyone wondered what it caused cory's debt. the coroner noticed some trauma. abrasion on the upper lip and another mark inside that appeared to be a cut. curtis mentioned cory had fallen the days before her death. those falls could have caused that to the lip presumably? >> i wish i knew. but yes, a fall could account for an injury. >> the pathologist noted she had had a lip often caused by heavy drinking. the doctor labeled it undetermined. she doesn't know what killed this woman? >> that was frustrating. she does find a disease of the liver which can be associated with sudden death. >> unusual for a young woman to

die of unknown causes, but it does happen. without more to go on, the detective closed the case. cory's mother marty in shock could barely bring herself to read the autopsy report. >> cory was drinking. we do not deny that. i didn't try to talk to curtis about that. told him it was okay and would be fine. >> as she mourned cory, marty knew her suffering would only -- her husband was dying. >> we had visitation for cory and john sat next to me and it was like he was say good-bye to friends too. he didn't come home from the hospital. spent both losses one right on top of the other. >> yes. >> marty lost a daughter and a husband in the span of a month. she purchased two burial plots even though cory's remains were cremated.

that was a choice the entire family made together. the decision to cremate would be one that would haunt this town for years to come. >> coming up. >> she was different than anyone i had ever dated before. maybe that difference intrigued me. >> curtis moves on, much too fast for some. ome. [ music playing ] hey, flo. cool leg warmers. thanks. they are just for the bus ride to work. they are not part of the official uniform. no tunes today? no. my apartment was robbed last night. took my cable ready tv, vcr, portable cassette player. yup. all the latest tech. if only progressive had renter's insurance like their home insurance. then we could bundle our cars and get the same 24/7 protection. -i think we just invented that. -huh. this is the best day ever. well i still got robbed. well still pretty good day. how do i love thee? well i still got robbed. ...let me count the ways. ♪

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people looked up to and admired. for many years, he had been the guy people looked up to and admired. curtis lovelace, football star, school board president, suddenly a pitiable widower who needed help. >> it was overwhelming. people did come forward. friends and family helping to get the kids to school in the morning so i could go to work and picking them up from school. it's a lot. we came together as a family and did what we needed to do. >> the longtime friend, curtis was stoic in the weeks after cory's death but one time she noticed the mask slip a little. it was a high school reunion that summer. >> they were doing the video montage. cory's picture came up and he said that's my wife. was times like that that made me think that a grieving

husband. >> that's why a few months later she and her friends were surprised to hear that curtis met someone new. that was fast. >> she was different than anyone i had ever dated before. maybe in some ways that difference intrigued me. >> she was erica as in the former student who shut up to the professor's canceled class that fateful valentine's day morning. >> he is extremely charming. anything i needed or wanted, he could take care of, and he did. >> at the time of this interview, erika asked us to alter her appearance to all to death her privacy. she's a 33-year-old single woman. had bumped into her 37-year-old professor at a nightclub not long after cory 's death. >> i felt bad for him so i gave him my number and i told him

there are places he could go that there's people more his age. i thought he was older than he was. >> he stood out of the club. >> he did. quite a bit. >> then it launched into friendship and then love. they started dating six months after cory's death. erika and her daughter from a previous relationship eventually moved in with curtis and his four children. >> it was nice that my child tucked in with the rest of them. we fell into place. >> that's not the way curtis's daughter thought of it. what did you think of erika? >> we did not get along. she arrived as the girlfriend and that's how it was. that i think it was too quickly? yes. adults make their own decisions. >> lyndsay was so unhappy that she picked up and moved in with her grandmother, cory's

mom, a few doors down. after two years of living together, curtis and erika married. she admired how he coached local kids in sports and devoted spare time to his community. they both served in the national guard. he had an outstanding resume. >> he did. i love the fact he was on the school board. that's where my profession was leaning. i loved that he worked with children. he seemed to be great with the children. >> the even bought a new place and moved from the house cory had died. there was domestic tranquility at first, but eventually, erika said she saw a change. >> he would detach once in a while from the whole family. i was left all to myself, and he would hide in the basement and blame it on work. >> she said their mutual silence separated them. then resentment exploded in

loud confrontations. it just wasn't working. >> i believe looking back that was a rebound relationship. a relationship that i should not have done not only for me but more importantly, for my children. >> in 2013, after five years of marriage, curtis filed for divorce. you may think he would've been gun shy about jumping into love again, but not curtis. >> it was surreal. >> this is christine. she had known curtis since high school and took her to the homecoming dance. marriages and careers separated them for a time. >> i wasn't prepared for a relationship. i wasn't looking for anything. >> where were you when your life? >> i was single. >> after reconnecting, they decided to catch up face to face for the first time in nearly three decades. there he is at the door. >> there he is at the door.

i see hurt, my homecoming date standing there. we spent that evening with friends and before we knew it, everyone else had gone. we had the most amazing time. >> i was needing -- meeting the same person i took the homecoming. just more beautiful. more interesting and more kind than i ever remembered. >> it just worked. >> more than six months later on the day after christmas 2013, curtis was once again standing at the altar. this time, the new missis lovelace seemed to have approval from everyone, even daughter lindsay, back to by the arrival of her father's last one. >> she seemed very genuine. i liked she cared a lot about the boys. >> did you think this would be the restoration of the family? after the nightmare of erika x she's making an effort to reach out to you.

>> yeah. i felt our family deserved happiness after everything we had been through. i was hoping it would pan out okay. >> it did go okay. christine kept them running like a swiss train schedule. kids off to school while curtis worked at his law practice in downtown quincy. christine put on her baker's apron. >> i opened a natural pie shop. i was selling out of pies before 9:00 a.m. >> this was a day happy to keep you busy? >> no. >> what your go to pie. >> i love blueberry but i make a mean gooseberry. you name it and i can do it. >> seemed the lovelaces were reborn. lyndsay is back in the family and christine adapted curtis's sons as a room. everything was working. but waiting for the train

wreck, just when things are looking hunky-dory, turned out the train was hurtling down the track at them. >> coming up. a new detective leads to new suspicions. >> what jumped out at you? you? were things listed as suspicious or traumatic findings. robert copley: my first thought was we missed something here. lester holt: when "dateline" continues. i'll be honest. by the end of the day, my floors...yeesh. but who has the time to clean? that's why i love my swiffer wetjet. it's a quick and easy way to get my floors clean. wetjet absorbs and locks grime deep inside. look at that! swiffer wetjet.

dennis murphy: the river rolled. look at that! the barges slid by, and cory lovelace's death rthe the river rolled, the barges slid by, and cory lovelace's death slipped into the past. her mom, marty. >> i sit in the cemetery by myself for a while. valentine's day, i don't do valentine's day. >> cory's husband had remarried, divorced and

married again. in that time, no one questioned the why or how of cory's death. all that changed one day when a man and a room a few blocks of the mississippi found himself with spare time on his hands. >> i was sitting in my office and all of our files are on computer. >> late 2013, almost eight years after cory's death, adam gibson, a newly minted detective with the quincy police department began pulling up old files. >> not looking for anything particular but reading old cases. cory lovelace popped in my head and read the report. >> did the name mean anything to you? >> i knew curtis lovelace because he had been one of our states attorney. >> there wasn't much to read. a statement from curtis, the husband, police interviews with the three older children and the pathologist summary of the

autopsy findings with some photos. you knew what it happened in 2006? >> i knew she had passed away on valentine's day 2006. >> what was a medical examiner's finding? >> it was undetermined. >> what did that mean to you? >> and determined can mean a lot of things. in this particular autopsy, there were things listed as suspicious or traumatic findings. >> the report mentioned abrasion of cory's face under her nose. something the arriving officer had observed that day. the pathologist noticed the cut, what she called a laceration on the inside of cory's upper lip. the detective kept scrolling on and saw something that stopped him cold. electrifying image. the police photos of the dead wife and mother as she lay in her bed. what jumped out at you? >> that her arms were in and unnaturally raised position. her hands defied gravity. >> not supported by anything.

out there like a statue? >> yes. >> using police photos, we created this representation of cory's bedroom. you can see her arms frozen above her body. the final pose had caught the detective's attention years before. a curiosity but he did not assign it real significance. now, at an -- adam gibson did. rigor mortis? the mechanics of rigor mortis go like this, pundit, and human's muscle starts to stiffen but it looked as though her arms and hands were an advanced state thing she likely died many hours before this photo was taken and. remember, curtis said he talked his wife into bed only an hour before finding her dead. it didn't make sense. the detective went to his boss with the old lovelace file. >> my thought is we miss something. >> achieve had been in charge

in 2006 when everyone assume cory had died a natural death. he says he never saw the photos the detective was holding before him. >> that's when i saw the pictures of first-time. >> what did you think? >> i thought this is not natural. the posture of the arms. it appeared to me that rigor mortis had set in. i look at those pictures and i cannot believe that we accepted an undetermined cause of death. >> detective gibson agreed but they had a problem. it's thin what you're working with. notes from a medical examiner from eight years before and a few photos. >> only two slides were taken by the pathologist and passed on. a thin file. >> police went back to the doctor who did the autopsy and asked her to review the case. she did, but she would not

alter her original findings. the next step might've been to order a new autopsy, but that was not possible since cory's family had her remains cremated. the only option was to work with what they had. detective gibson had a suggestion. >> we wanted to have the autopsy reviewed by someone else. a review of the original autopsy done. couldn't be a new autopsy because the body was cremated. >> the chief okay the request to hire a new pathologist to review the notes. the detective had something else in mind. talk to anyone and everyone who had known cory. his first call was to her mom. he told her he wanted to meet. >> he said, can we set up a time, maybe tomorrow? i said scratch what i'm doing this afternoon. i was so nervous about what it was. >> everything old was about to be new again. new and unsettling. >> coming up. >> the thing that struck me

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dennis murphy: cory lovelace's mom had tried hard helps deliver the ultimate clean. to move on after her daughter's sudden death in 2006, cory lovelace's mom tried to move on after daughter's sudden-death. after a phone call and a visit from the detective adam gibson in 2014, she started to wonder. >> a lot of things i shoved away. one of them was why cory had died. >> did you ever suspect foul play in her death? >> no. >> friends started getting call

from the detective. beth remembers his message asking her to call asap. >> when i called the detective and he said we are reopening the case of cory loveless, i was shaking. >> the detective seemed interested in what you could tell him about the marriage. >> correct. >> death and other close friend said cory didn't really talk about her marriage. the detective did something no one had done on the case. he started knocking on doors, talking to cory's former neighbors. >> the neighbors talked about the constant arguing and fighting. >> you were getting a picture that wasn't in focus in 2006? the detective went a step further. he got in his car and drove 100 miles to the university of iowa to talk with someone who would've been an eyewitness to the marriage. >> i am at a get some. i may detective with quincy.

>> lyndsay loveless was in college at her mom eye alma mater when she was summoned to the campus police department to talk with detective gibson. >> i was confused by someone from quincy a driven there. >> the questions didn't clear things up. the detective started talking about her mom and asking about her parents marriage. >> how was your parents relationship? >> they would fight. it was an interesting relationship. >> for the first time, someone inside the family was revealing the turmoil before cory's death. then the detective asked lindy to describe that tuesday when her mother's body was found. >> tuesday morning, before you went to school. >> the answer seemed to take the air out of his case.

hey she was up and walking around. she made breakfast. she was helping us because we had our valentine's day's boxes. >> candid about her parents marriage was supportive of her father's account. cory died minutes after seeing her children off to school and not hours earlier as the detective suspected. if he was disappointed in the answer, he did not show it. he made a request that caught her off guard. >> if you talk to your dad, discuss the fact that i came to talk to you yet. >> what did you think was happening? >> i don't know especially when he said don't tell your father i was here. i went back to where i was living and thought what is going on. then it hit me. >> she realized the detective suspected her father had

something to do with her mother's sudden-death. she kept her promise and did not tell her father about the visit. detective gibson was waiting to hear from the doctor, the assistant medical examiner for the city of st. louis. he had hired her to review the old autopsy report. >> the thing that struck me first looking at the photographs was the position of her arms. >> she said the photo shows cory's body and full rigor mortis. they believed the picture were out of sync. >> i estimate the time of death was 10 to 12 hours prior to her photograph being taken that morning. somewhere around 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 p.m. the night before. >> the night of february 13, not the morning of february 14, is curtis claimed. something is bothered her.

turner thought it appeared altered as if something under the arms was removed. >> why were her hands not resting on a surface, and that surface, whatever that object was that her hands had been resting on, why was it not there anymore? >> she noted the abrasion and the cut inside her upper lip. to her, that suggested something had been pressed against her mouth. >> then seeing the marks around the mouth and inside the mouth suggests suffocation occurred. >> suffocation. abrasion and a time line that no longer fit. turner was convinced cory had not died a natural death. she concluded someone used in object, likely a pillow, to suffocate the woman. left it under her arms and removed it many hours later. >> the manner of death would be homicide.

>> for the detective, the death came down to two competing narratives from two compelling women. one relied on science to explain a murder, and the other relied on memory to describe an ailing mother before she passed away. in the end, the detective believed the science. he believed a crime had been committed. now the chief had a problem at the quincy police department. there were two officers who conducted different investigations of the same case. detective gibson, you believe it was a homicide? >> i do believe that. >> officer, you believe it's a death of natural causes? >> i am now uncertain. what i have heard and been told under the new investigation, i more uncertain than 2006. >> their boss backed both men. he said if there's blame to be had, he will take it. >> you hate to admit mistakes were made and i take full responsibility. i was chief in 2006.

ahead detectives and supervisors working on the case. >> did he get a pass because he was a pillar of the community? >> i don't know that he got a pass. i think he got the benefit of the doubt. >> on a warm august morning, the benefit would evaporate along with the peaceful feelings of a lazy summer day. christine lovelace had been a burned enter new shop baking pies. curtis was meant to stop by with lunch. >> i just knew he was going to be there, and i had a notion he would bring me fried chicken that day. lunch came and went. >> no curt. >> a few blocks away he stepped out of his law office. he was on his way to the pie shop. >> as i was walking to my car, there was a gentle man in a suit waiting for me. >> it was detective gibson, and he was armed with an indictment from the grand jury. he was there to arrest curtis for the murder of cory

lovelace. he said what? >> he said my wife died in 2006. >> what did you think of that? >> not the reaction for what i was expecting. >> curtis lovelace never saw coming. >> told me to put my hands behind my back and he put me in handcuffs? >> what was going on. >> i don't know. i remember hearing murder and using the word wife. i was not aware that there was an investigation. >> you were blindsided. >> totally blindsided. >> because no one had questioned cory's death before. even the police concluded she had died of natural causes. at the pie shop, increasingly anxious christine got a phone call. someone from a local tv station. >> he said, i'm holding a piece of paper. it's an indictment for the first-degree murder for cory lovelace. i immediately said, what?

cory was a murder. >> gave me a word. that day? >> horrifying. >> placed in an interrogation room. >> either talk to the detective and tried to clear this up right there. with the attorney lawyer up? >> coming up. >> i don't remember anything significant. mbering all these . lester holt: when "dateline" continues.

narrator: seven years after the mysterious death of cory lovelace-- be seven years after the mysterious death of cory lovelace. >> i remember crying. >> police reopened the case. >> we missed something. >> curtis who had remarried twice is the prime