trump and senator jd vance have been saying about the federal response. anything that you have heard about federal money going to undocumented immigrants is not true. and so, the administration has been good about rebutting those lies. that's it for me. thanks for tuning in. tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. follow us on x, instagram, tiktok and threads. you can listen to every episode as a podcast for free. just scan the qr code on your screen to follow. our screen to follow. jesse's body was laying in between two houses on his back. it was obvious that this was a homicide.

barri bumgarner: we had several suspects. john short: i just thought his behavior reeked of guilt. an innocent man doesn't act like that. keith morrison: he lied, lied and lied and lied. about sex, sex, and sex. libby sullivan: there are a lot of people that cheat. it doesn't make them a murderer. morley swingle: all of a sudden, this puzzle all came together. patrick rogers: at the end of the day, no one else had a motive. libby sullivan: steve's on the phone, and he's got a gun. he was crying. i said, fight this. this is crazy. keith morrison (voiceover): a college student is murdered. and detectives discover a trail leading uncomfortably close to home. john short: oh, my god. it's going to look bad. keith morrison (voiceover): he could have been sunbathing here in the grass. naked, but for a pair of blue shorts.

his face turned up toward the june sky. was beautiful. it was afternoon by the time someone noticed him, though he'd been lying here still, silent since before daylight. here, among the old rooming houses in columbia, where university of missouri students were winding down their school year. it was june 5, 2004. john short: back then, we were on pagers. keith morrison: sure. of course, i knew my boss's phone number. and it had a 911 behind it. and i was ordered to come to help investigate. keith morrison (voiceover): by the time the news got to detective john short, uniformed cops had strung up their yellow tape, were taking their pictures. keith morrison: what did they see? it was obvious to them at that point that this was a homicide. keith morrison (voiceover): the medical examiner arrived. that's her there, sitting on the left. dr. valerie rao waiting for her turn. when i got to the scene, there were a lot of people

watching what was going on. keith morrison (voiceover): even then, as she took it all in-- the crowd, the yellow tape, the young male body lying there on the grass-- it was quite obvious to dr. rao, this was a deliberate, determined killing. he had a gaping wound on his neck. and the blood was oozing out from there onto his neck. keith morrison (voiceover): she looked closer. the cut across his throat was deep and not quite smooth, as if it had been made perhaps, by a serrated knife. valerie rao: when we turned the body, i could see that the grass adjacent where he lay was blood soaked. keith morrison (voiceover): so much blood, but not exactly where the medical examiner expected it to be. there was no blood on the front of his body at all. keith morrison (voiceover): meaning, what? had to be a reason. she'd work on that. but who was he? no id at all.

just this slender, young man with unseeing eyes. there wasn't a lot known at all. we just know that we had a deceased individual. we were trying to garner information. keith morrison (voiceover): they sent officers around the neighborhood with a picture of the body. did anyone know who he was? as a shocked afternoon deepened into evening, someone did know exactly who he was. the whole time, all day long, i kept having a funny feeling. keith morrison (voiceover): far away in kentucky, over the rural hills and down country roads was a mother named linda valencia. she was eating dinner with her sister and fretting about her son, jesse. linda valencia: i told my sister-- i said, it's so weird that he's not calling me. and she said, well, he's probably ok. she just said, "you know jesse."

keith morrison (voiceover): after dinner, linda's sister dropped her off at her house. and then, it seemed, just a few minutes later. linda valencia: i saw her headlights coming back up the hill to my house. so i went to the door and opened it. and i remember laughing. and i asked-- i ask her if she had missed me so much, that she had to come back? keith morrison (voiceover): but her sister wasn't smiling. i said, "is it jesse?" and she just-- she never answered me. and i remember just backing away, and i just wanted to run. keith morrison (voiceover): but of course, there was no running. not from this. the police wanted to talk to her. they said that they were sorry to inform me that my son had been killed.

and i basically called him a liar, and i said it's not true. keith morrison (voiceover): what's a person to say? to do? deny. deny. her world collapsing around her, jesse's mother fainted. in colombia that june night, crime scene techs busied themselves behind the yellow tape, while more cops scoured the neighborhood. they noticed a nearby apartment door propped open. and so they walked through it, into a mystery that would turn their world upside down. coming up-- from the time jesse was six or seven years old, he told me mom, i'm not going to live to be very old. did he tell you where that thought came from? he never did. keith morrison (voiceover): and later, a surprising friendship that would shock a city.

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miralax works naturally with the water in your body to help you go. free your gut and your mood will follow. for 8 grams of fiber, try mirafiber gummies. for 8 grams of fiber, keith morrison (voiceover): when he was about seven years old, jesse valencia asked his mom to sit down. linda valencia: and he told me, i'm not going to-- i don't want you to get upset, and don't cry. don't get emotional. and this as a little kid now, talking. and he said mom, i'm not going to live to be very old. he said, i'm going to die at a very young age. why would he say that? it's just so strange. linda valencia: it's like he knew. and he told me that for years. and i mean, he was constantly telling me that. because he said he was trying to prepare me for his death.

did he tell you where that thought came from, or why he thought that? he never did. he just said he knew that he was going to die young. keith morrison (voiceover): and now at the age of 23, jesse's awful prediction had come true. his half-naked body found lying in a lonely patch of grass so far from home. linda valencia: i never dreamed that he was going to die that way. keith morrison (voiceover): whatever happened to him, the investigators figured, must have started here behind this open door down the block from the crime scene. it was the door to jesse's apartment. looked like jesse may have flung it open, fleeing his killer. with jesse's body being found away from his home, the bottom of his feet were dirty, he was obviously moving. he was running. running or walking away. we believe, he was headed to a friend's house to get help. because there was a friend of his that lived in that path line from his house to the friend's house. and his assailant chased him.

caught up to him. yeah. attacked him. yes. keith morrison (voiceover): and showed no mercy. details linda could not bear thinking about. she was just 21 when she had jesse. keith morrison: the two of you kind of grew up together, right? linda valencia: yeah, pretty much. from the time he was born, i took him everywhere with me. i wouldn't even go out on dates, unless i took him with me. and everybody accepted it. i can't remember a time that he wasn't with me. keith morrison (voiceover): just the two of them, and then a stepdad and two sisters, and a family farm in perryville, kentucky. a one stoplight town. linda valencia: every store we went into, everybody knew him. everybody was hollering hey, jesse, how are you? even three and four years old, he would just talk your head

off about everything. keith morrison (voiceover): read about everything. knew about everything. linda's nickname for jesse was "college prep." kristin arevalo met jesse on the school bus in high school. kristin arevalo: i think bright is a really great word to describe jesse because of his intellectual brilliance, but also, he just was a real bright light. keith morrison (voiceover): irrepressible. sort of kid who if it was raining would dance in it, or, with kristin, scrawl graffiti under the town bridge. kristin arevalo: jesse just had this real and pure love of life. erin bailey: i can just remember thinking like, this guy is going to do something big. like, he's going to do big things. keith morrison (voiceover): erin bailey met jesse at a school dance. they talked about movies and music. jesse told her he wanted to get out of perryville one day. he tried modeling after high school.

proud he could do that. but, said erin, he was always down to earth. always attentive. he'd get me to sing for him. "ave maria" was his favorite. and-- how would he do that? there were times he would call me like at night-- in the middle of the night-- and be like, will you sing to me? and i'm like, [clears throat] it's 1:30 in the morning. keith morrison (voiceover): but she didn't mind. not really. back then, she was a little bit in love with jesse, even though she knew, she wasn't his type. jesse was gay and proud of it. erin bailey: he loved who he wanted to love, and that's a brave way to be in life. he was really outgoing and outspoken. he was the type of boy that would tell you exactly what he thought. and if you didn't like hearing it, he would try to sugarcoat it a little bit for you.

but he would always tell you exactly how he felt about something. didn't hold back. linda valencia: no, he didn't. and he might have got that from me, but he was always excited about everything. and life, in general, to him was just amazing. he just loved life. keith morrison (voiceover): and linda certainly thought he was brave when jesse packed up the modeling and decided to go to college. first in his family to go. he ended up at the university of missouri, which seemed as far away from perryville as could be. linda valencia: i was happy and excited that he wanted to do that, but i did not want him to go out of state. and i just kept emphasizing to him that it was not going to be a good thing for us to be so far apart. keith morrison (voiceover): no. and now, the worst of her premonitions had come true.

that lovely son of hers, that promise horribly snuffed out. i mean, he was my whole life. and i just couldn't believe that he was gone. keith morrison: can you remember what-- what was it like for you? it was just dread. like, i just wanted-- whoever did this, i wanted, like, them to immediately be apprehended. like, it just was like this feeling of-- urgency. yeah, urgency-- of panic. keith morrison (voiceover): but this one wasn't going to be quick or easy. although, cause of death was perfectly obvious, said the medical examiner. the gaping knife wound in his neck. but other things were harder to explain. valerie rao: usually with knife injuries, one tends to get defense wounds on the hands so you'd get knife injuries on the hands. keith morrison (voiceover): but jesse's hands were unmarked, which made the me wonder,

maybe jesse hadn't been conscious when his throat was cut? they found him flat on his back. if he was that way when the killer cut him, it would explain the lack of blood on his body. if he was standing, then the blood would run down the front of him or the back of him. and if he walked-- walked after he sustained the injury, then there would be blood on the bottom of his feet. there was none of this. keith morrison (voiceover): there was still one puzzling thing, a pattern of angry bruises across jesse's chest and back and under his jaw. we had to think of all the possibilities of how this came about. keith morrison (voiceover): so she sent his fingernail clippings and blue shorts off to the lab for testing. and waited. and the detectives? jesse was-- was kind of a free spirit from what i understand. keith morrison (voiceover): know your victim, investigators like to say. so they started digging, especially into jesse's life

in colombia. and what they discovered was not so much a long list of enemies, but rather, a long list of lovers. coming up-- some guy called in and said this kid was crying inconsolably. keith morrison (voiceover): --tears in the night and persons of interest in the light of day-- john short: ed readily admitted that him and jesse had, had sex on the day before the body was found. eric said something to the effect of, i wouldn't care if he was dead. keith morrison (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. sounds like you need to vaporize that cold. dayquil vapocool? it's dayquil plus a rush of vicks vapors. ♪ vapocooooool ♪ woah. dayquil vapocool. the vaporizing daytime, coughing, aching, stuffy head, power through your day, medicine.

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keith morrison (voiceover): the murder of jesse valencia sent a nasty jolt of anxiety around columbia, missouri. everyone was just so shaken. keith morrison (voiceover): barri bumgarner, a local college professor and crime novelist,

was like a lot of people here, full of questions. there were several articles about, did this happen in broad daylight? why didn't anyone see anything? and people wanted answers. keith morrison (voiceover): so the columbia police department worked with all deliberate speed on the few leads they could find. according to jesse's phone records, the last call he'd made was around 3:15 in the morning. his neighbor-- seen here on nbc affiliate kom news-- said not long after that, he heard arguing coming from jesse's apartment. man: just bumping. just like somebody stumbling and kind of bumping into the wall. like, uh, uh, stop it, you know. keith morrison (voiceover): police found another witness who told them he'd seen something odd during the night. a young man walking barefoot near the crime scene. was he the killer they were looking for? it was about a block or so away, maybe two, from the victim's house. some guy called in and said this kid was crying inconsolably.

keith morrison (voiceover): but who was he? wasn't a lot to go on. so investigators started tracking down jesse's friends trying to piece together a portrait of his life in colombia. he was a junior at mizzou. books on history piled up around his apartment. he had a lot of friends. you talked to a lot of them? talked to a lot of them. you know, hr liked to party, like almost every other college student. keith morrison (voiceover): jesse loved to dance. and one of his favorite places was a local nightclub, where just a few days before he died, he met someone new on the dance floor. an aspiring chef named ed. police asked ed to come down to the station. he readily admitted that him and jesse had, had sex the day before the body was found. keith morrison (voiceover): and jesse's friends said they saw jesse and ed leave a party together just a few hours before jesse was killed. so detective short watched ed very closely in the police

interrogation room when he swore he'd left jesse alive and well on the street outside the party before heading on home. ed said his roommate had seen him coming in. what did you think about him? he was an emotional mess, is how i would describe him. constantly crying. very upset. very scared. the fear of, why am i here? keith morrison (voiceover): did he have something to hide? it was a knife that killed jesse. ed was a chef. he owned a whole bag of very sharp knives. but it was ed's roommate, a man called eric thurston, who really got investigators' attention. eric had his own shady past. a rap sheet for drug possession and stealing and fighting words about the murder. eric thurston and his interview actually said at one point, i could kill somebody, but i have too much faith in humanity, or something to that effect. keith morrison (voiceover): when he talked to police, eric didn't even try to hide his dislike for jesse.

he said something to the effect of, i wouldn't care if he was dead, or i don't care if he's dead. talking about jesse. keith morrison (voiceover): why would he say that to the police? even more suspicious, eric told them he'd left ed at home that night to go out on a date. that would have been around the time jesse was killed. so investigators searched the men's home, took dna samples, and waited. there was this other kid named zev, i think. zev feintuch. keith morrison (voiceover): another lead, zev. a rabbi's son. just 19. jesse's friend said he called zev his "boy toy." police asked him to come down to the station. zev was very quiet, very low key. and he did not appear to be a violent person at all. keith morrison: uh-huh. you know, not that, that can't be hid. keith morrison (voiceover): zev told them he wasn't even gay.

he and jesse were just friends, not lovers or anything. so he had no reason to be jealous or angry. and anyway, said zev, he was at home all night. john short: he said that he got up the next morning and had breakfast with his parents. he lived in his parents' house. he lived in his parents' house, yeah. the only-- one of the questions posed to him was, well, can you get out of the house without your parents seeing you? and he said, yeah, i can. keith morrison (voiceover): phone records showed that zev had tried to call jesse several times that night. and zev failed a voice stress test, indicating he might be lying about something. not admissible in court, mind you, but certainly curious. at this point, just a few days into the investigation, detectives had three persons of interest, but it didn't feel like they were any closer to solving the murder. john short: so every day, we would have what's called our-- we nicknamed it the round table. all the detectives would sit down and discuss the leads they had followed the day before, where we're going, what we need to do.

sometimes those round tables get a little heated. when you end up working 20 hours a day and taking three hour naps four days in a row, people get a little edgy. keith morrison (voiceover): but a hundred miles away from the hurly burly of the police investigation way off in st. louis, it suddenly dawned on a friend of jesse's, he had a clue for the police. something that might actually help crack the case. jesse and i chatted two or three times a week at least. keith morrison (voiceover): patrick rogers had met jesse before he went to college. they'd bonded over indie bands and politics, but mostly chatted online. which allowed you to keep a record of these chats, right? patrick rogers: yes. i realized that i have these chat logs. and that the chat logs say everything. it's timestamped. i knew it was all right there. keith morrison (voiceover): what was all right there?

well, jesse had revealed a secret, a secret lover. he had not revealed a name, but this was something bigger than a name. how would the columbia police department react once they heard that jesse's secret lover was one of their own? coming up, jesse's late night visitor-- he was excited about it. excited? i mean, the guy was coming by on duty. keith morrison (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ when you have moderate to severe eczema, it's okay to show off. with dupixent, show off your clearer skin and less itch. because you have plenty of reasons to show off your skin. with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, you can stay ahead of your eczema. it helps block a key source of inflammation inside the body

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i'm richard with your news update. vice president kamala harris visiting north carolina saturday pledging ongoing support in the aftermath of hurricane helene. at least 223 people died and hundreds are unaccounted for in the destruction wrought by hurricane helene since it made

landfall in florida on september 26th. and former president donald trump returned to the scene of his first attempted assassination in butler, pennsylvania. trump addressed the incident during his remarks and paused far moment of silence to mark the exact time the shots rang out. for now, back to "dateline." ran out. for now, back to "dateline." keith morrison (voiceover): linda valencia was quite familiar with all of her son jesse's relationships. she was rare among mothers. she knew things, intimate things, that mothers don't often get to hear. jesse told her everything. linda valencia: we talked about anything and everything. jesse-- sometimes, jesse would talk to me about things i didn't want to talk about. he had no filter on his mouth when he was talking to me and-- about his life, his love life. his love life. his sex life. anything. i mean, he-- i guess, he felt comfortable because i never once,

told him that i wasn't ok with his life and the way that he was. and your ears felt a little uncomfortable hearing it sometimes. linda valencia: yeah, i was a little uncomfortable sometime. but i mean, i loved it that he was telling me everything. keith morrison (voiceover): so linda had her own ideas about who police should be talking to. and it wasn't the aspiring chef, or his roommate, or the rabbi's son. the detective called me on the phone. she was asking me if i knew of anybody that had anything against jesse. and i told her yes, i do. and i said, he's a cop. keith morrison (voiceover): linda said she didn't know the officer's name. but she told the detective that two months before the murder, she got a call at 2:00 in the morning. jesse was on the other end, excited. he said, mom, i've been arrested. and i said, oh, my god. and he said, well, i was at a party, and it got too noisy

and the cops came. keith morrison (voiceover): jesse, outspoken as always, protested. didn't go over well. linda valencia: and he told me if i opened my mouth again, he was going to arrest me. and i said, do what you got to do, and he arrested me. keith morrison (voiceover): at the police station, said jesse, the officer wrote him a ticket, told him he'd have to appear in court later, and then released him. all of which would have made for a memorable story. but then, a few hours later, jesse called linda again. linda valencia: and he said mom, guess who showed up on my doorstep. and i just said who? and he said that cop that arrested me last night. and i said, so what's going on? keith morrison (voiceover): it was the beginning of jesse didn't know what exactly. it was personal, intimate, and secret. the sort of relationship you instant message one of your best friends about. patrick rogers: in all of the time he spoke with me,

he wouldn't say his name. he only referred to him as colombia's finest. he was excited about it. excited? patrick rogers: he was. i mean, the guy was coming by on duty. he would stop off, they would have sex, and then he'd go back to work. patrick rogers: yeah. and jesse found all that exciting, and i'm seeing this as a bunch of red flags. keith morrison (voiceover): oh, yes. linda said she saw those, too. linda valencia: jesse kept talking about how, when i asked him where he lives, he kind of dances around it. or if i ask him anything about family or anything, he said he's constantly wants to talk about my personal life, but he never wants to talk about his. keith morrison (voiceover): and then, linda said, jesse discovered why. why his secret policeman lover wouldn't reveal anything about his own life. he was married. he said he's married, he has a child, and it's wrong.

and he said, i'm not going to-- i'm not going to see him anymore. i just want him to stay away. so he tried to cut it off. yeah, he tried to cut it off then. he wouldn't be party to someone cheating. and i remember his exact words to me were, "i'm not going to be someone's other woman." and he was mad. and he had every right to be mad. keith morrison (voiceover): and patrick had proof jesse felt that way. it was all there in their online chats. patrick printed them out. brought them to the columbia police headquarters. keith morrison: what was their first reaction when you said i think this is a cop? they didn't seem surprised. it-- i would have expected a bigger reaction. keith morrison (voiceover): that's because just a couple of hours after they identified jesse's body, before they talked to patrick or linda, police had gotten an anonymous tip about the affair.

keith morrison: had you ever investigated a fellow cop before? not for homicide, no. keith morrison: no. do you remember the first thought that came into your head when you realized, i'm going to have to do that? i think my first thought was, we need to get this right. that's the second thought. the first thought. just, oh, my god. it's going to look bad. keith morrison (voiceover): coming up, a witness searching photos for persons of interest has an unexpected close encounter-- he goes, i don't need to look at those pictures. i passed him in the hallway when you walked me over here. keith morrison (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. ♪ ♪ have you always had trouble losing weight and keeping it off? same. discover the power of wegovy®. ♪ ♪ with wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. and some lost over 46 pounds. ♪ ♪

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to show off their skin. with dupixent, the #1 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 such as eye pain or vision changes including blurred vision, joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines without talking to your doctor. show off to the world. ask your child's eczema specialist about dupixent. ask your child's eczema keith morrison (voiceover): on the brow of a hill on the family farm, linda valencia visits her son.

visits the memory still so very raw of the bright spark he was in her life. of the day they told her he was dead. of the day of his funeral. the day they put him in the ground here. linda valencia: i just sat there and just held on to the casket handle, and i wouldn't turn it loose. and there were so many people that came. i mean, look how many people loved jesse. and i had a letter that i wrote him with a picture. and i asked linda if i could just put that in the ground with him, and she said of course. and so my heels were sinking into the mud, and i couldn't stand up. and i was watching one of the most important people in my life be covered up with dirt. keith morrison (voiceover): and she sang

his favorite song for him-- (singing) ave maria. keith morrison (voiceover): one last time. and how do you measure a loss like this? the gap it tears in the lives of people and in the history of things that might have been had he been around. in columbia, missouri, detective short was measuring not lost, but an explosive new lead. a phantom cop. who was he? and then he got word that one of jesse's college lovers, a guy named andy, had seen jesse with the mystery cop up close. john short: they were at jesse's apartment. he says they're in bed together, and he hears a knock at the door. a guy walks in, puts a flashlight on him. he said when he saw the flashlight come on, he could see that it was a police officer. and then he attempted to join-- to have sex with--

participate. --participate with andy. and andy was like, no, i don't want no part of this. keith morrison (voiceover): according to andy, jesse and the officer had sex anyway. and when it was over, the cop had a warning. john short: he looked at both of them and says, you don't talk about this. don't tell anyone. and he left. keith morrison (voiceover): surely, detective short figured this andy would be able to identify the officer. so the detective and his partner brought andy into the precinct and showed him a book of photos, the entire columbia police department. but this was weird. john short: pretty obvious, he's not really looking at the pictures. he's just kind of thumbing through them. and it's pretty apparent to me that he was nervous about me being in the interview room. so i just got up and walked out. keith morrison (voiceover): leaving andy alone with the detective's female partner. john short: he kind of looks through the pictures again. she says, you're really not looking at them. he goes, i don't need to look at those pictures. i passed him in the hallway when you walked me over here. keith morrison: when she came out of that room,

what did she say? she looked at me and she goes, you're not going to believe this. it's steve rios. keith morrison (voiceover): steven rios, a police officer. two and a half years on the force. an up and comer. active in several police charities with, what looked like, an exemplary record. and of course, rios was married. his wife had given birth to a baby boy just four months before. detective short checked jesse's arrest record. and yes, it was steven rios who took him in and issued the ticket. that wasn't all. steven helped guard jesse's murder scene. when he got to the police department the afternoon when the body had been found, he saw one of the sergeants writing jesse's name down, and he says, hey, i know that guy. i arrested him about a month or so ago. well, this sergeant told him to go down there and identify the body. so after identifying the body, he actually volunteered, according to the supervisor, to guard the crime scene.

and he would have known, he shouldn't be there. oh, sure. just having the relationship alone with him, he should have never been involved in the case. so he went and guarded the crime scene. yes. how long was he there? pretty much, most of the evening. didn't mean to kill them. that's correct. keith morrison (voiceover): so steven rios joined the list of people police wanted to take a hard look at. nobody was ruled out. and you were preparing the background before you actually brought him in. - oh, sure. tried to get as much information as we can to confront him with what we knew. keith morrison (voiceover): detective short figured he'd get a couple of days to gather information before rios got wind he was a person of interest in a murder investigation. but for the first of many times, things didn't quite work out as expected. coming up-- john short: he just shows up. says, i need to talk to you guys. keith morrison (voiceover): --rios denies an affair-- john short: when i confronted him that there was a relationship, he said, "what, sex?"

you already knew that was a lie. yes, i did. keith morrison (voiceover): and his wife has a visitor. keith morrison: an officer of the law is having his house searched by other officers of the law. libby sullivan: it was alarming, for sure. keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues. feeling ughh from a backed up gut? ughh. miralax works naturally with the water in your body to help you go. free your gut and your mood will follow. for 8 grams of fiber, try mirafiber gummies.

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xfinity mobile was designed for where you need it most. xfinity internet customers, ask how to get a free 5g phone and a second unlimited line free for a year. keith morrison (voiceover): it was three days after the murder of jesse valencia. detective john short had just found out that the murdered man's secret lover was an ambitious, married, up and coming cop named steven rios. so next thought? the hope that this was just an affair. that the cop was not the killer. john short: i mean, i wasn't personal friends with him. i was a coworker. knew who he was. nobody wants a bad cop. nobody wants a bad cop.

that's a perfect statement. keith morrison (voiceover): but just as detective short was trying to figure that out, who walked in the door? steven rios himself. john short: he just shows up. says, i need to talk to you guys. keith morrison (voiceover): steven said he'd heard rumors a police officer was involved, so he'd come to clear things up. said he'd once arrested jesse, but that's all there was to it. john short: when i confronted him that there was a relationship, he said, "what, sex?" and i said, yeah. and he denied it. you already knew that was a lie. john short: yes, i did. i confronted him with that lie. he breaks down and kind of cries. says, yeah, but only once. and you knew that was a lie. and the problems that i was having at that point, personally, was ok, is he upset and crying because we've just outed him as having a homosexual relationship and he's married and got a child? or is he lying because he did this? keith morrison (voiceover): steven told the detective

he had plenty of witnesses who could prove he wasn't anywhere near jesse the night he was murdered. where was he? he clocked in at 6:00 pm that evening. it was a busy shift. he made a traffic stop. that's him on the dash cam video. then helped out on a shooting investigation across town. said he finished a little after 3:00 am and joined some other officers for a beer up on the roof of the station. then went back inside to go to the bathroom. his entry into the building prior to his departure was at 4:37 am, so that's the only thing we can confirm without a doubt. that's solid evidence, obviously. keith morrison (voiceover): but steven told detective short, he didn't leave just then, but instead, went back up to the roof for a few minutes. and drove out finally around 5:00 am and then went straight home. talk to my wife, libby, he said. so they did.

they don't announce these things, of course. they just knock on the door. and there was libby. surprised? imagine. libby sullivan: most people, an officer shows up at your house, you're immediately on pretty high alert as-- keith morrison: sure. --as one would be. keith morrison (voiceover): steven had already told libby someone he'd arrested had been murdered. but as for the rest of it-- the affair, the fact he was being questioned as a person of interest in a murder-- she didn't know a thing. and the cop at the door said nothing about any of that. instead. libby sullivan: she reassured and said anyone that had contact with the victim, we're talking to all of their spouses. no big deal. what sort of questions did she ask? i think she just asked what time steve got home-- on saturday morning. right. mm-hmm. yeah. keith morrison (voiceover): so libby thought for a minute, then told the officer that grayson-- her four-month-old baby--

started crying early that morning. woke her up. libby sullivan: i remember 5:15. i remember-- i remember looking at the clock. i remember 5:15 in my head. keith morrison (voiceover): libby didn't know, of course-- had no idea-- how her groggy memory would be poked and prodded and parsed. how crucially important those precise minutes would turn out to be. no, she just told the officer that anywhere between five and 10 minutes after waking up, she was in the kitchen warming up a bottle for the baby when her husband walked in. libby sullivan: we made eye contact. i think i said something like, long night? and he said yeah. and he immediately walked to grayson's room and picked him up. and he handed off grayson, and i started feeding him. keith morrison (voiceover): so she told the story, and the cop left. she expected steven would come home then, but he didn't. instead, more cops showed up to search the house.

keith morrison: an officer of the law is having his house searched by other officers of the law. libby sullivan: it was alarming, for sure. keith morrison (voiceover): she wondered, was her husband a murder suspect? they certainly searched the house as if he was. they even examined the shower drain looking for what? blood? other evidence of murder? keith morrison: but the drain didn't come up with anything-- - no, it didn't. keith morrison: --from a crime scene. - no. - no blood. no-- no-- no nothing. keith morrison (voiceover): no blood in his car. no evidence on his clothes. nothing. keith morrison: no sign of a struggle on rios's body, because you looked at him, right? yeah. yeah, they took pictures of him and everything. there was no injuries. keith morrison (voiceover): nor could they find any possible murder weapon in his possession or in his house. the administered a voice stress test-- same one they'd given the rabbi's son. steven passed. libby sullivan: and he said they looked at everything. they've cleared me as a suspect. i'm good. so i think even though i was alarmed,

i thought, gosh, this was a bad day. but it's-- but it's done. it's over. yeah. i mean, i had idea what was coming. keith morrison (voiceover): no, she did not. she had no idea how quickly steven's scandalous affair would hit the headlines. there it was in the morning newspaper the day after he told his wife libby he'd been cleared as a murder suspect. his own police chief telling reporters about his personal relationship with victim jesse valencia. back home with libby, steven finally came clean. libby sullivan: i think his exact words were something like, what was in the paper, he said, it's true. do you remember what you said in reaction to it? i don't think i said much. i think i was just, pretty quiet and in shock about it. keith morrison (voiceover): she was just 21 years old. she just had their baby. and then, in an instant, it dawned on her.

everybody knows. we didn't get to handle that the way a normal married couple would get to handle infidelity. keith morrison (voiceover): steven took a temporary leave of absence. four days after the murder, he told police he was going to visit his father in virginia. they gave him permission to go, but to his surprise, made it clear he wasn't out of the woods, yet. libby sullivan: he was certainly a little agitated. and i think, it was then that he really knew they were still looking at him. something was still going on. so he left. and i went to the grocery store. and when i came home, my sister-in-law ran out of the house. and she said steve's on the phone, and he's got a gun. keith morrison (voiceover): he didn't go to virginia. he went to a walmart near the airport in kansas city. bought himself a shotgun. he was threatening to kill himself.

and i just ran in the house and grabbed the phone. and said, fight this. this is-- your son needs you. fight this. this is crazy. you thought he'd do it. mm-hmm. what comes with that? panic? i don't know if panic's the right word. just, i don't know. sadness? keith morrison (voiceover): libby felt helpless. less than 24 hours earlier, her life was full of promise. and now, was it just gone? she drops to the floor, which i've never seen any of my children do. and she's hysterical. keith morrison (voiceover): libby's parents suzanne and john were there when steven called. suzanne sullivan: and we had called the police department on the other line. and so they knew what was going on. so then they arrived, and they took over talking to him. keith morrison (voiceover): police managed to talk some sense into steven. persuaded him to drive back to suzanne and john's house. though, he still had that gun, which

is why, as cops waited in the driveway, they were armed and ready, just in case. suzanne sullivan: to have police officers in your front yard with guns drawn is not any part of our life. so it was all pretty traumatic and pretty-- john sullivan: overwhelming for us. suzanne sullivan: yeah. yeah. we're in the back of the house waiting to hear gunfire. keith morrison (voiceover): waiting and bracing for steven's next move. coming up, police learned of a possible motive for jesse's murder-- patrick rogers: he said, distinctly, "i'm going to out him to the police chief." keith morrison (voiceover): and later, libby offers a new detail. keith morrison: did you feel like you were being called a liar when you were on the stand? oh, i certainly think i was. keith morrison (voiceover): --when "dateline" continues. (luke) homes-dot-com is a new, elevated home-shopping experience. beautiful design, tremendously rich content, and, my favorite touch, it's the only site

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keith morrison: steven rios must have felt like the walls were closing in on him. armed and threatening to kill himself, the distraught officer was headed to his in-laws house where police were waiting. in-laws john and suzanne prepared for the worst. but instead, authorities led steven into their living room unharmed. suzanne sullivan: we gave him a hug. he's part of our family. and that's-- until that changes, that's what you do. keith morrison: the respite was short lived. investigators had talked to the cops steven had joined for a beer on the roof night of the murder. and they said steven left the building earlier than the 5:00 am time he claimed. police hauled him back to the station. minutes mattered a lot. now as far as what time he got home, initially he said he got home around 5:20, 5:30. keith morrison: that's what libby had told the police, too. so detectives wondered, did steven have time to stop off at jesse's apartment before he got home? we wondered that same thing.

here we go. all right, so we're leaving the police station. keith morrison: first, we drove from police headquarters to jesse's house. all right, it's coming up here on the left. now, this trip from the police station with some traffic, mind you, has taken us just over four minutes. woman: your destination is on the left. keith morrison: then from jesse's house to steven and libby's home. we kept it under the speed limit. stopped at some lights along the way, too. there is the rios house. our total drive time just under 15 minutes, which leaves 20, 25 minutes for whatever may or may not have happened. 20, 25 five minutes for steven to confront jesse, then chase him maybe as far as 200 yards, choke and subdue him, cut his throat, rush back to his car, and drive home.

you are content that he had enough time to go and commit this offense. if he got home at 5:30? yeah, i do. 5:25? sure. 5:20? tighter the time gets, the harder it would be to pull it off. that's for sure. i don't deny that. keith morrison: but even if he could do it, why would he do it? well, maybe the answer was in those online messages between jesse and patrick rogers. patrick rogers: he said, distinctly, "i'm going to out him to the police chief." keith morrison: and if steven knew that, what would he do to stop it? given his suicide threat, he was taken to a mental health center for observation. but when doctors went to check on him, he was gone. a quick manhunt, and there he was at the top of a nearby parking garage. as they closed in, steven rios moved to the ledge. and as television cameras were trained on him,

a police negotiator talked him down. john short: i just thought his behavior just reeked of guilt, to be honest with you. and it was just, an innocent man doesn't act like that. not in my opinion. one of the common allegations people will throw at-- at homicide detectives is that they got tunnel vision as soon as that man got up on that roof and threatened to kill himself. after that, they just didn't think about any other possibility. it was done. john short: that's not true. we could have ignored the rest of the leads from there on out and said, no, we got our guy. but you didn't. no. never. keith morrison: in fact, detective short said his boss made sure to remind the investigative team that steven was just one suspect among many. he used to tell us every day, don't put on your blinders. even if this guy looks like this is the person, we got to still clear everybody else or not. keith morrison: like ed, the aspiring chef. police interrogated him several times. found no motive.

and besides-- i kind of felt for the guy, to be honest with you, a little bit because he just wasn't an emotionally strong person at all. keith morrison: was that enough to clear ed? what about his alibi? his tough guy roommate, eric? he'd gone out that night, remember? around the time of the murder. so we found the individuals that he had gone to. and they confirmed that during that entire time frame, we could account for his whereabouts. keith morrison: what about zev, the son of columbia's highly respected rabbi? zev who denied he was jesse's lover, but failed the voice stress test. police wondered, was he the person the eyewitness had seen crying near jesse's house? so you took this kid's picture out and showed it to the apparent eyewitness, though. mm-hmm. what did that person say? i think he said that he wasn't sure. was there a chance it was zev? john short: i find it hard to believe. to me, it came down to motive, that i didn't-- i couldn't see where there would be motive

on his behalf to do anything. keith morrison: a full week into the investigation, police did not have enough evidence to arrest anyone for the murder of jesse valencia. but that changed when detective short got the dna results from jesse's body. coming up. libby sullivan: i packed up his things. sold our house. did all the things that you would do-- if somebody dies. if somebody dies. keith morrison: a wife moves on, still convinced of her husband's innocence-- he wasn't covered in blood. there wasn't anything in our house. there wasn't anything in his vehicle. it does not make sense to me. keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ stay ahead of your child's moderate-to-severe eczema. 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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for 8 grams of fiber, one month after jesse valencia's murder, steven rios was again being held at a secure mental health facility. libby went to see him now and again, but it was over for them. and she knew it. libby sullivan: i packed up his things. sold our house. sold his vehicle. did all the things that you would do-- if somebody dies. libby sullivan: --if somebody dies. because it was as if-- as if-- i mean, that person that i knew was gone. keith morrison: and then detective short

got the dna results. remember, the medical examiner sent jesse's fingernail clippings to the lab. and under one of them, there it was. just a minuscule speck of it, but unmistakable, steven's dna. problem was, it wasn't the only dna the lab found. ed's dna was under that same fingernail, too. we were not surprised to find ed mcdevitt's dna. ed readily admitted that there was sexual contact between him and jesse. steve said he had not had any contact nor had he seen this individual since like, the 28th or the 29th of the prior month. so we're talking a full week. at least, yeah. keith morrison: for police, the dna results settled it. they charged steven rios with the first-degree murder of jesse valencia. and 10 months later, he stood in a columbia courtroom not in uniform, but in handcuffs.

the trial lawyers should read the classics dostoevsky, tolstoy, dickens. because a good trial lawyer is a master storyteller. keith morrison: so it didn't hurt that the prosecutor brought in from a neighboring county to avoid any whiff of partiality just happened to be a novelist on the side. his name? morley swingle. you need to make sure that every one of those jurors is confident in their soul that this guy is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. keith morrison: of course, swingle told the jury about that dot of dna under jesse's fingernail. but there was more. several of steven's hairs were found on jesse's chest. morley swingle: the expert said that every hair on jesse's chest that had a root, they had tested. they all came back to being steven rios' dna. keith morrison: yes. and the kind of hair it was wasn't the sort that tends to just fall out.

they were limb hairs-- l-i-m-b. hairs from your arm. keith morrison: and here, the prosecutor went out on a limb. he argued, steven must have rubbed off those hairs when he used a common police chokehold called the unilateral neck restraint. that is how steven rendered jesse unconscious, said morley swingle, before killing him. i've been a police defensive tactics instructor for about 30 years. and i was the academy instructor that steven rios went through. i'm going to move in and get underneath his armpit. keith morrison: this is todd burke. the prosecutor called him to the stand to demonstrate the chokehold to the jury. we asked him and detective short to do the same for us. ok, so i'm underneath his arm on this side. i've got him locked up on this side. and then i'm going to push my head into the back of his head and basically, shut down most of the blood supply in and out of his head. keith morrison: and remember the bruises the medical examiner found on jesse's chest and back?

if this was not done properly or he didn't get a grip or jesse was able to fight his way out of it, the first thing that people do is try to shove the person back into the hold, or even striking this way. and that's where the bruising was. so then he goes down on his back. yes. throat's cut at that point. that is the theory, yes. keith morrison: but cut his throat with what? a knife just like this, said the prosecutor. a clip-on knife with a partly serrated edge, which just happened to be quite popular with cops. the prosecutor said steven lied when he claimed he never owned one. multiple officers had seen him with a clip knife. and i put several of them on the stand. keith morrison: why use such a knife on his young lover? the prosecution called to the stand one of jesse's close friends. and she told the same story jesse's online buddy patrick rogers did. i believe that this police officer i've been having an affair with must be a married man.

and the next time he comes over, i'm going to confront him about it. keith morrison: and the friend testified, out him to the police chief. there it was, said prosecutor swingle. a motive to kill. morley swingle: jesse had confronted him. and rios chased him and caught him. choked him until he lost consciousness and cut his throat. and then hurried home and got rid of the knife somewhere along the way. keith morrison: but prosecutor swingle did not persuade libby. because she said she saw steven with her own eyes when he came home. walked calmly through their front door. and so when she was asked to take the stand in steven's defense, she did. i've seen him upset before, where he was clearly anxious or agitated. he was none of those things. he wasn't covered in blood. i know that there wasn't anything in our house. there wasn't anything in his vehicle. and i just do not understand how somebody could

in that time frame not only commit the crime, but clean up after themselves. not leave a trace behind. come home to their wife like everything was normal. it does not make sense to me. keith morrison: after libby testified, steven did, too. he was emotional, impassioned. swore he didn't own the kind of knife that killed jesse. never choked anyone. and time discrepancy or not, he simply drove straight home that night. jesse's mother linda didn't buy it. linda valencia: he's staring at the prosecutor and trying to look him in the eye and answer his questions, but then he averts his eyes. and my daddy always told me that if somebody can't look you in the eye and tell you something, then they're lying to you. keith morrison: it was up to the jury now. who would they believe? coming up, a verdict-- there was never a doubt in my mind. there are a lot of people that cheat.

it doesn't make them a murderer. keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues.

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with a qualifying trade-i. don't wait! call, click or visit an xfinity store today. on the third floor of the boone county courthouse, jurors were holed up deliberating the fate of disgraced cop steven rios. hours passed. linda and libby waited on opposite sides of the courtroom. there are a lot of people that cheat every day, unfortunately, but it doesn't make them a murderer.

i knew he was the one that killed him. and there was never a doubt in my mind. keith morrison: and nine hours later, the jury agreed with linda. steven was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. libby was devastated. the jury came back and said guilty. what was that like for you? i mean, i don't know if there's another word for it, but shock. keith morrison: and that was when local crime novelist barri bumgarner got a call from a friend on the police force. she kept saying you really ought to look into this. says you can't make this stuff up. you just can't make this up. keith morrison: so more on a whim than anything, barri who'd read about the trial in the local paper. decided to send steven rios a letter, see if he'd give her an interview. and he said yes.

so i was having these visions of i want justice for jesse, i'm going to interview rios, and get rios to confess to me. keith morrison: but he didn't. anything but. in fact, what steven said persuaded barri to start all over, to investigate the facts of the case herself. so what-- what is all of this here? what have we got here? this is a binder of interviews, which i also have on recorders. police reports. police reports. police reports. police reports. keith morrison: something like, 400 interviews. a wealth of information about jesse and about steven that the jury mostly never got to see. and somewhere in all that, said barri, she saw a pattern in the lover's liaisons. she said steven would usually show up at jesse's during his shift sometime after midnight. never as late as the time prosecutors said he did on the night of the murder.

why would he go up on the parking garage and have a couple of beers and wait until 4:45 am when he had never gone over there, and he didn't know jesse was asleep, and his wife's at home waiting for him? keith morrison: and remember how jesse talked about confronting steven? said he'd expose him? some of jesse's friends told barri, he enjoyed shocking people a bit. and those stories he told them about confronting steven, about outing him to the police chief could have been just that, stories. what's more, said barri, despite what jesse had told his friends, she could find nothing-- no voicemail, no text, no phone call, even-- to prove the men talked that week at all. so it wasn't like there was a phone call that said, hey you better get over here and make right with this, or i'm going to out you. there wasn't any of that. so for me, the motive and opportunity, it's just-- it's just missing. keith morrison: and when she talked to the jurors, it did not reassure her about their verdict. barri bumgarner: several of the jurors--

five different jurors-- said, well, i just couldn't wrap my head around if not rios, then who? weren't the police right, though, when they said nobody else had a motive? i would venture to say the young man with a rabbi father who didn't know his son was gay, i think you maybe had a similar motive for him. keith morrison: zev, the rabbi's son, had always denied being gay, let alone sleeping with jesse. but barri said jesse's friends told her he'd joked about outing zev to his dad. so was that just a joke? barri wondered if zev might have been that unidentified young man spotted crying in the street middle of the night. the eyewitness was shown a photograph of zev and said, no, i don't think that's the guy. he is shown a high school yearbook picture, is what they showed him. he did not look like the same young man. i saw his picture from when he was 19 from when he was in high school and he looked

nothing like that picture. keith morrison: i asked her, how many times has she interviewed steven? more than 100 she said. is it possible that you've spoken to him too much? that you see the world through his eyes maybe more than is comfortable? i don't think so. do you think he's innocent? i don't think he should have been convicted. you won't go to innocence. i don't think he did it. i don't. i don't think he had time. keith morrison: but that was just her opinion, after all. and then an amazing thing happened. two years after steven's conviction, an appellate court ruled that the jury should not have been allowed to hear testimony from jesse's friend about what he had told her. the business about outing steven. that, said the appeals court, was hearsay. didn't count. steven rios would get a brand new trial. did you think they were just going to release him, let them go? linda valencia: i didn't know what they were going to do.

i had so many people tell me that, oh, he'll get out of it because he's a cop. he's going to get out of it. and i said, not as long as i live, he will not. keith morrison: coming up-- keith morrison: --was steven rios on trial for murder or morality? the prosecution in this case was based around several things, and one of them was the fact that rios lied, lied and lied and lied. about sex, sex, and sex. keith morrison: when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ when you have moderate to severe eczema, it's okay to show off. with dupixent, show off your clearer skin and less itch. because you have plenty of reasons to show off your skin. with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists, you can stay ahead of your eczema. it helps block a key source of inflammation inside the body

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strike -- forecasters predicting another hurricane to hit florida as residence there struggled to recover from helene. tropical storm milton is on its way to becoming a major hurricane in several days,

florida's governor preparing a state of emergency for 35 counties in the third possibles case of bird flu has been identified in central valley, california. no one has been hospitalized in the ritz -- and the risk for now to the public remains low. back to dateline. remains low. back to dateline. of some sacred thing unspoken the day we climbed up from the hollow to jesse's hill, the place where he is buried on the family farm. what did this area mean to jesse? this hill, this spot? this was the-- he would walk out the path from our house and come out here and climb over the fence, and then go over to my mom and dad's. which was over that way. yeah, over that way. keith morrison: it was the place linda came to find her courage for the second trial of steven rios. she was going to need it.

keith morrison: steven rios had a brand new defense attorney. a man not interested in winning any prizes for sensitivity. his name, gillis leonard . gillis leonard: i like to think i'm sort of like jimmy stewart in "anatomy of a murder." just a good old, down home lawyer that just likes to drink now and then, and just likes to do well by people. keith morrison: the defense attorney faced no big surprises. the prosecutor's case was mostly a replay of the trial three years before. ambitious cop desperate to keep his secret kills gay lover. keith morrison: science, the prosecutor promised the jury, would prove it. who else, but the murderer would leave dna under jesse's fingernail, or hairs on jesse's chest? and the crime lab had unmasked who that murderer was.

the profiles from the three hairs are consistent with each other, as well as with the profile from steven rios. keith morrison: but this time around, the prosecutor's case was hobbled by that appellate court ruling. this time, the jury would not get to hear what jesse told his friends about his plans to expose steven. morley swingle: and that was the motive, i believe, and so the jury didn't get to hear that the second time around. keith morrison: still, the prosecutor drove home the essentials. a timeline that fit the murder and the behavior of a guilty man. that threat of suicide and all those lies. the prosecution in this case was based around several things, and one of them was the fact that rios lied, lied and lied and lied. about sex, sex, and sex. keith morrison: instead of hiding from the lies-- keith morrison: --leonard said, so what? gillis leonard: he was a married man with a small baby

at home having an illicit affair with a young boy-- well, a young man. and so yes, your first inclination is to lie. that doesn't make you a murderer. it makes you a liar. one of the investigating officers said when he got up on that rooftop, he was going to kill himself. yes. keith morrison: i knew then, for sure, he was the killer. gillis leonard: so apparently, god, the holy ghost, or jesus christ was in a police uniform and was able to look into steven's heart and know that that's why he was jumping off. keith morrison: the defense attorney hoped that if the jury could look past steven's lies and adultery, they'd begin to see holes in the prosecution's evidence. like the timeline police worked out, sheer fantasy said the defense. look at all that he would have had to accomplish. he would have had to chase this boy down. i don't know whether you've been out to the scene yet-- i have. gillis leonard: --but it's not a short little across the street. you got to go up and over. he had to, quote, subdue him with-- what i used to refer to as-- the secret ninja chokehold. execute him. get rid of the clothes.

clean up. keith morrison: what the defense asked the jury to do was think of the prosecution's theories as something like a work of speculative fiction. consider the neighbor, said leonard. and kind of bumping into the wall. keith morrison: the neighbor who said he heard a commotion in jesse's apartment. man: do you recall telling police officers that you believe that it was any time between 3:30 and 4:30? i gave them a guesstimate, and that was-- that was what i had told them at the time. keith morrison: between 3:30 and 4:30 am, the defense pointed out, at least four people saw steven drinking beer on the police station roof. a gathering that broke up around dawn, according to this detective. i remember making a comment about day breaking. in the far, i guess, northeast sky, i believe, the sky started to lighten up. keith morrison: but hang on a moment. when the defense got to question the medical examiner, she told him the crime

happened before daybreak. man: you believe now that the sun had not come up when mr. valencia had met his end. it was dark, that's correct. keith morrison: if that was true and steven was on the roof until dawn, would that mean he didn't kill jesse? just as fantastical, said leonard, was the prosecution's theory of how steven would have killed jesse. he showed the jury that dash cam video from the traffic stop steven made the night of the murder. might be hard to see, but the defense attorney said it showed there was no knife on steven's belt. in fact, steven said he never owned a serrated clip knife. as for what he called the secret ninja chokehold. in about three to seven seconds. at the end, underneath his arm. keith morrison: todd burke had demonstrated the chokehold for the jury in the courtroom

on the prosecutor. why use yourself? morley swingle: well, what could be more dramatic than the prosecutors choked into unconsciousness right in front of the jury? keith morrison: but defense attorney leonard had his own dramatic demonstration. ok. alan, take your left arm and grab mr. burke's elbow and his arm. keith morrison: he wanted the jury to see jesse would have been able to fight back, to scratch whoever was attacking him. gillis leonard: how do you do that and not leave a scratch? not leave some more skin under the fingernails? not leave some kind of mark? again, there were no marks on steven. keith morrison: and of course, there'd be a bit of steven's dna under jesse's fingernails, argued leonard. they'd had sex. a week earlier, sure, but maybe dna was left over from that encounter. sex could explain the hairs on jesse's chest too, he said. the crime lab had found several hairs belonging to steven on jesse's comforter. gillis leonard: his bed linens were days old,

so he could have easily gotten those hairs rolling around in the bed that him and steven had rolled around in a few days before. keith morrison: and there was one final piece of scientific evidence the defense wanted the jury to consider. remember, steven was not the only person whose dna was under jesse's fingernails. that aspiring chef ed mcdevitt, one of the last people who had seen jesse alive, his dna was there, too. and here was a central theme of the defense. police may have gotten the wrong man. coming up. libby sullivan: it was important to set that record straight. because you believe it to be true. i 100% believe it to be true. keith morrison: libby takes the stand and adds an intriguing twist to her testimony-- libby sullivan: i know that, that clock was set fast. i know that. keith morrison: --when "dateline" continues. ♪ ♪ have you always had trouble losing weight

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ask your child's eczema it had been harder than linda expected to sit through another trial. she hated listening to the lawyers score points over her son's most intimate secrets, his lovers, even his bed sheets. linda valencia: i'd laugh at some of it, and then i would get mad because i did feel like jesse was on trial. you can't say anything about it. linda valencia: and you can't do anything. can't say anything. if there ever was a-- keith morrison: defense attorney gillis

leonard aggressively poked holes in the prosecution's case. he argued steven was the victim of a witch hunt. gillis leonard: i firmly believe that the columbia police department, once they focused on steven, they didn't even bother to go anywhere else. keith morrison: of course, the detectives took issue with that. remember their vow to guard against tunnel vision? well, that was just spin, said leonard. it was obvious from the way investigators had handled their search of ed mcdevitt's apartment, jesse's new lover, the wannabe chef. man: did you find a bag of knives in that apartment? no sir. man: did you secure any-- so you didn't find a bag of knives in the apartment? i didn't. keith morrison: and yet, ed himself said he kept the knives in his bedroom in plain sight. leonard called that halfhearted, sloppy detective work. equally sloppy, according to the defense, was investigator's failure to follow up on what ed's roommate, eric thurston, had told them.

man: did you tell detective short that when ed mcdevitt uses alcohol along with prescription pills, he does become out of control and very violent? yes. keith morrison: remember, eric was the one who'd given ed his alibi. said he'd seen him come home. nonsense, said the defense attorney. how could he? eric had been out on a date at the time. man: so the truth is, you weren't home-- mr. mcdevitt did not come home while you were home. eric thurston: i don't know at this point. i'm not sure at this point. i'm not. i'm not going to give you one way or the other. i'm sorry. keith morrison: the jury got to hear from ed himself when the prosecutor called him to the stand. morley swingle: if i didn't put him on, then he'd be the big phantom that the defense was trying to make sound so terrible. keith morrison: there is no video of ed's testimony, but he told the jury he had never been violent toward jesse or anyone else.

so here comes this phantom, and this phantom turns out to be kind of a shy-- soft spoken. --very very, very clean cut, shy, young man who was devastated. keith morrison: ed did not agree to an on-camera interview. but he told us he did not kill jesse, he had nothing to do with it, and he grieves for him to this day. but of course, there was some one else investigators had considered a person of interest, wasn't there? zev, the rabbi's son. gillis leonard: his vehicle may or may not have been seen in the area. jesse's friends told me that he was breaking up with him. and this kid's first gay love affair, and he was deeply hurt. keith morrison: the defense attorney grilled zev about his relationship with jesse. gillis leonard: mr. feintuch, so isn't it true that jesse was your first alternative lifestyle experience?

you mean, my first gay friend? gillis leonard: no, the first time that you had a gay relationship. no, that's not true. i never had a gay relationship. keith morrison: zev did not deny trying to call jesse the night of his death. gillis leonard: you called him at 12:01. yes. gillis leonard: then you tried again at 1:07. yes. gillis leonard: then it's your testimony you went to bed. yes. gillis leonard: didn't you really just drive over to jesse's apartment about 3:00 am in the 1996 green buick? no. gillis leonard: did you not get out of the driver's side and walk around to his apartment? no, i didn't do that. keith morrison: zev denied it all. he lived at his parent's basement. and if he had taken that car out in the middle of the night, the garage door would have gone up, they would have heard it, and you know. how would we know if they heard it? i guess the--

what, the parents are going to come in and go, oh, hey, on the morning of the murder, our son, who was having an affair with him, we heard the garage door go up and the car leave? keith morrison: on the witness stand, zev's mother was adamant, she swore zev never left the house at all that night. gillis leonard: did you see zev go to bed? yes. gillis leonard: what time was it he went to bed? about 1:30. john short: there's always that mystery man defense. keith morrison: detective john short listened to the defense attorney call his investigation sloppy, incompetent, blinkered. the real story, he said, was far from that. i'm sure you beat the waterfront a lot to see whether there's anybody else who may have-- even a stranger walking by who picked a fight and killed him. john short: this case file turned out to be almost 1,300 pages. we interviewed a lot of people. we got several tips of you might want to look at this person, you might want to talk to this person. we searched them all down.

every one-- every lead was followed up on and completed. nothing and no information or evidence led us to anybody else. keith morrison: but what would the jury believe? the defense attorney had one more ace up his sleeve, libby. by this time, libby was steven's ex-wife, she was in a new relationship, and she wasn't happy to be back in court. i was angry about it. i remember fighting with my parents about it. and just being-- i wanted to move on. keith morrison: she told her familiar story. waking up at 5:15 am to baby grayson's cry. seeing her husband walk through the door without a scratch 5:20 or so. then she volunteered a detail she had told others for years, but did not bring up at the first trial. i know that, that clock was set fast. i know that. keith morrison: libby testified that steven must have arrived home even sooner

than she first told police. so you set your own clock fast. right. keith morrison: so you wouldn't be late for work. mm-hmm. absolutely. how fast? it was-- i would say, it was probably seven minutes fast, usually. keith morrison: which, said the defense, meant steven got home even earlier than police thought and had even less time to commit the murder. he was last seen alive-- keith morrison: prosecutor morley swingle was skeptical. didn't exactly accuse libby of lying, but close. morley swingle: i just wanted to point out what her-- what her previous statement had been so the jury would see that well, she's tried to shorten that time frame a little bit. keith morrison: do you feel like you were being called a liar when you were on the stand? oh, i certainly think i was. for me, it was important to set that record straight. because you believe it to be true. i 100% believe it to be true. you don't think it's your memory is adjusting-- no. keith morrison: --and editing. no. keith morrison: libby's revised timeline, attorney leonard's attack on the police investigation, linda valencia, a grieving mother, hated it.

steven rios, once convicted cop, saw possibilities. and the jury went out and closed the door. coming up-- there was enough reasonable doubt to drive a truck through. keith morrison: --two families await the verdict. and steven rios talks. some people think i'm a killer. some people think i'm not. keith morrison: what will the jury think? when "dateline" continues. feeling ughh from a backed up gut? ughh. miralax works naturally with the water in your body to help you go. free your gut and your mood will follow. for 8 grams of fiber, try mirafiber gummies.

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plus athe jury will nowbutton. retire to deliberate and reach their verdicts. keith morrison: steven rios watched the 12 strangers who would be deciding his fate file out of the courtroom. jurors who had not heard his story. not from him, anyway. he had chosen not to testify. some people think i'm a killer. some people think i am not. you know, i know i'm not. keith morrison: he did speak to us by video link from prison. and he had a lot to say about libby, about grayson, about his once perfect life. what happened that made all this go south? what was the first thing? first mistake? probably crossing paths with jesse. i mean, meeting him. keith morrison: the night he arrested jesse. steven rios: with a lot of people in that circumstance,

they're not very friendly, but he was-- it was like 20 questions. and he didn't have a-- he didn't feel any ill will. but you're a cop. you arrest people before. some of them are very nice. but you made a decision. you said, ok, i'm going to go back there. something might happen. something sexual might happen because i'm attracted and so, obviously, is he. yeah. well, i didn't set out kind of for that end result. keith morrison: no. he said, he only wanted to make sure jesse was ok. the sex was a surprise, he said. it is widely understood that he was enjoying this relationship with you, maybe as much as you were with him, but he found out you were married and intended to confront you about that. so did that happen? no, that never-- keith morrison: well, why would he tell his mother he was going to? why would he tell his friends he was going to?

why would-- why would he say those things to people if they never happened? i-- i have no idea. he never-- me being married never-- never came up. keith morrison: the point was said steven, he didn't know that jesse might have been planning to expose him, so he simply had no motive to kill him. though, he agreed it might be hard to just take his word for it given how he lied to libby, the police, to everybody. had you come forward and said, look, i did have a personal relationship with this guy and laid it all your cards on the table, if you're innocent, why wouldn't you do that? well, if-- well, having a same-sex relationship when you're a married police officer-- well, you know, you're a human being, as well. they do that. well, it's-- it's easy to say now, but it wasn't anything that i was proud of. it wasn't anything that i wanted to reveal to the guys that i worked with.

keith morrison: so he said he did want to hide that from the investigators, but he didn't-- he swore he didn't-- want to hide anything else. quite the opposite, he said. he'd done everything he could to help investigators. steven rios: if you want to search my car, search my car. if you want to search my house, search my house. if you want to clear your name, the way to do that is not jumping off a building. it's staying and telling the truth. wouldn't you agree? so why-- why-- why threaten suicide? steven rios: everything was-- everything was crazy. i was pissed off. and i know people say stay and fight, but the life you had is over. keith morrison: now the question was, would he get it back? libby's parents thought he might. while the jury deliberated, they began making plans for steven for a life outside of prison. we all decided he couldn't stay in columbia.

where was he going to go? didn't have a job. keith morrison: crime novelist barri bumgarner felt confident, too. she had shared some of her research with the defense. was sure he'd made his case. there was enough reasonable doubt to drive a truck through. keith morrison: she was across the street having lunch when the word came, a verdict. man: we, the jury, having found the defendant steven arthur rios guilty of murder in the second degree. barri bumgarner: there was a gasp in the courtroom. jesse's friends cheered, but there was a gasp from a lot of people who were watching it. keith morrison: steven rios was found guilty of second-degree murder this time. he'll be up for parole in 2049. way too soon for linda. it still wasn't enough. i wanted the death penalty. keith morrison: but the prosecutor sees some justice in it. 24 jurors with no dog in the fight

came in and heard this evidence, and it's 24 to zero that the prosecutor has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that steven rios committed this murder. keith morrison: libby still had her doubts. in fact, told us, she'll believe steven is innocent until she dies. it's why she talked to us all these years later. it's why she encouraged her son's trips-- hundreds of miles three times a year-- to visit his dad in prison. we went with him and libby on one of those long rides. he's a young man, now. it's crazy. you're so big. keith morrison: well, you've chosen a pretty interesting path. and i think it's interesting that you say that i've chosen that path because i don't-- you don't see it that way? libby sullivan: i don't feel like it was a choice.

i think if it was a choice, i-- 100%, it would be easier for me if i could have believed that he was guilty sure and moved on with my life and not looked back. keith morrison: and linda has her grandchildren now, said little brayden is a spitting image of jesse. well, they keep me busy. i got a full schedule. but most days, she climbs the steep little hill to the place her jesse will forever be, watched over by the statue of that very maria of the song. here at the start of his favorite path, the one that goes over the fence and through the woods to the barn over there. after jesse's death going through his things, linda found a poem he'd written about this very place. linda valencia: "i remember it, the summer heat, and the long walk down the road, and it's all too familiar as i stroll

down the beaten gravel path. and the indian winds blow through the high corn fields. its youth, escaped from all harm of the unpleasant memories that touched me here. they certainly can't touch me now." keith morrison: the song of a young man trading his past for a better future. it has a different meaning now. i miss him, still. i mean, i think about him every day. every day. every heartbeat. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline."becc! craig melvin (voiceover): a fire chief, murdered.