truly felt like a piece of me died, as well. andrea canning: sarah says the committed effort by so many to solve the case is a testament to her mother's character. sarah pagel: she had a beautiful personality that clearly speaks. i mean, so many people care about her today and the efforts that our friends put in over the years. while i kind of felt like collateral damage of some of that, it was for her, and it was for justice for her. and i understand that and appreciate that. and i think that speaks to the type of person she was. [music playing] hello, i'm andrea canning, man: there was a party. there was a uk football player that had been shot. he's killed on his birthday. and i was like, it's who?

that can't happen. why him? andrea canning: no one saw a thing. it's at night. it's dark. nobody knows where the bullet comes from. nothing is making it any easier. if you don't have a motive, it's hard to know which direction to go. we were just never gonna know. andrea canning: but someone knew. she called me and said, i think i know something about a murder. we never could find out why trent was killed because it was something this weird. she became the key. andrea canning: would she also become the next victim? she was scared to death to confront him. she knew what he was capable of. and thus she was terrified. and thus she was terrified. hello and welcome to "dateline."

trent digiuro was a force on the football field, popular, and fiercely loyal to his wide circle of friends. then late one night, the charming athlete was shot dead. his killer left few clues. and the case sat cold, until someone came forward with a stunning secret. what police asked the tipster to do next would make her a target. how much would she risk to right a wrong? here's keith morrison with "the motive." keith morrison: her heart was on fire. lost to her, the canned music, the hum of other voices in the bar. there was only him. they were in the deep end now. and as lovers in the flush of new commitments sometimes do, they confessed their sins of the abandoned path, the worse things they'd ever done, words, just words best forgotten, until they could no longer be ignored.

lexington, kentucky, one year before that night in the bar, a house where students lived. [party sounds] and the music and laughter and chatter of a birthday party swelled and ebbed and drifted in and out of the evening air. it wasn't a huge party. it was just a low-key party with some good friends. keith morrison: they were about to be seniors, the young men who rented the place, who'd hosted the party. and we had a group of guys, four guys that got along extremely well. keith morrison: they were big men on campus. [rhythmic grunting] they played football, the university of kentucky's beloved wildcats. antonio o'farrell was a quarterback. in lexington, kentucky, if you play for the cats, you're pretty much a well-known entity. keith morrison: the birthday boy, 21 years old,

was a true rarity, a wildcats walk on. he had no scholarship, no invitation. he just showed up, tried out for the team. man: let's go! keith morrison: and over three years of hard work, he had earned a starting position. come on. let's go, wildcats! keith morrison: trent digiuro, gentle giant. you know, everybody called him a big teddy bear. he was the great protector of all of our friends. keith morrison: the party was sweet, informal. friends snapped pictures. and evening dawdled into night. it was after midnight when the party wound down. i think we turned in somewhere between 12:30, 1 o'clock. keith morrison: antonio and his girlfriend went to bed. outside, trent and some of the others settled under the light on the front porch. out there, beyond the streetlights was impenetrable dark. inside-- we're already in a faint sleep. and we heard a loud bang. keith morrison: one of the must have slammed the screen door. but, no.

well, within 10 seconds, you started to hear the chaos outside, the screaming, the yelling, the crying. keith morrison: and there was trent, slumped to one side in his chair under the light. trent was bleeding out of his ears and his eyes and his nose and his mouth. and it was-- it was a horrific scene. keith morrison: horrific and confusing. that loud bang had been a gunshot. but from where? somewhere out there in the dark. had someone intentionally fired a gun at their gentle giant, their teddy bear? in their panic and distress, they did not understand. how could they? the nature of the mystery launched here, or who, in a haze of love, may have learned the answer? it was just so senseless. once you've found out why, it was even worse. keith morrison: just who was trent digiuro, the target? we all started hanging out from first grade, six years old.

it's pretty neat. yeah. keith morrison: payton turner and sheryl lee bollinger were his lifelong friends. if you were his friend, you were his friend. and that's all that mattered. it wasn't a group for him. yeah, there was no group. everybody got treated just the same. keith morrison: trent was in fourth grade when he started playing football in his hometown of goshen, kentucky, just outside louisville. by high school, he was captain of the team, had lots of friends. so popular, trent was homecoming king, with sheryl lee his queen. it was pretty special, i mean, just-- oh, my gosh, yeah. -- be part of that and to be voted as that. and then it was especially with trent. keith morrison: when it came time for college, trent set his sights high. he turned down football scholarships to smaller schools. at one point, he says, you know what? i just got to know if i can play in the big time at a division i school. keith morrison: mike digiuro is trent's dad. so he walked on at the university of kentucky, which is in the southeast conference, which is about as big as they come.

and he worked real hard to get to where he was. keith morrison: and trent's teammates saw that hard work. trent had the ability to perform. so while he might have been a walk on, his performance allowed him to endear himself to others very quickly. keith morrison: that july, as trent practiced football and prepared for his senior year, his parents went to lexington to see him and to talk about his future. he was trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life. he was talking about maybe going to law school or business school. did he talk about his birthday celebration? we knew he was going to have some kind of a thing. and then he was supposed to come home that next day to celebrate birthday with us and never made it. keith morrison: no. and a creeping fear washed over the university of kentucky football team. was a killer targeting them? and if so, who would be next? andrea canning: coming up-- i couldn't even believe it. i didn't understand it.

who would murder somebody so wonderful? andrea canning: --the investigation begins. everyone talked. but they didn't see anything. andrea canning: and was there more terror to come? we were so nervous driving down the street at practice, thinking that there might be someone in the woods who wants to take you out. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. [coughing] copd isn't pretty. i'm out of breath, and often out of the picture. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition

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keith morrison: chaos is what there was on trent digiuro's front porch. his friend stood over the body and stared out into the dark with a kind of anticipating horror. you're concerned that there's more to come. you know, that was one shot. is there someone who's going to shoot again? keith morrison: trent was officially pronounced dead at 3:00 am just about the time don evans arrived. evans has retired now, but was a rookie detective back then. this was his first homicide case. what did you find when you got here? there were three young men in this very yard. and they just looked distraught. and they were consoling each other. keith morrison: on the porch, trent's chair was turned over. and evans could see blood and debris left by the ambulance crew. what was your first idea of what appeared to have happened here? you know, when i first walked up it-- i went with what appeared to be the obvious, that someone

had simply walked from the side of the house, fired the shot, and then exited back toward the rear of the house. this is almost like an alley here. so it's like, well, it would provide concealment. take advantage of surprise. yeah. if someone was going to take a shot, that made the most sense. keith morrison: believing the shot came from a handgun, police looked for shell casings. and yet for all they looked, there were none, nor any other evidence. still, detective evans figured there was a party that night. so there were bound to be people who saw something. don evans: my thought was as soon as i get them to headquarters and get them separated, someone's going to tell me what happened. keith morrison: did they talk? everyone talked. but with each and every person that i talked to, they didn't see anything. keith morrison: 80 miles away at 5:00 am, the digiuros' phone rang. it's numbing. it's hard to imagine the feeling. suddenly your life doesn't make sense anymore. it absolutely stops and pivots in an instant.

and then it was kind of, you know, now what? keith morrison: and soon, everybody knew. i couldn't even believe it. i couldn't understand it. who would murder somebody so wonderful? keith morrison: it was about then that the first really useful evidence came back from the medical examiner. bullet fragments were recovered in the autopsy. and the ballistics showed it wasn't a handgun at all that killed trent. it was a rifle, which turned detective evans' first theory upside down. well, the theory about walking up the side of the house and firing the shot-- that goes out the window. --that's probably out the window. the rifle's not designed for a close-range shot. keith morrison: officers canvas the neighborhood. a woman who lived across the street said she awoke to a loud noise. and it sounded like it was right outside her house. so based on that, we actually took one of our marksmen from the police department and ask him, could the shot be made

from here, from this angle? and we literally re-enacted that possibility. keith morrison: did it make sense, the location you found? it did make sense. we didn't eliminate the possibility that something else could occur. but this looked pretty strong to us. keith morrison: so a working theory that trent was shot from across the street. ballistics suggested it was a rifle with a particular and uncommon type of barrel. but who owned it? and why did he or she shoot trent? no idea. the football team entered a world of dread. was some hater targeting the team? was one of them next? we were so nervous. we were so uncertain of what happened that night that it affected our daily lives, driving down the street, at practice, thinking that there might be someone in the woods who wants to take you out. keith morrison: but days and weeks and months went by.

nothing happened. and over time, the fear eroded. but the investigation went nowhere. did you ever get to the place where you thought, we'll just have to live with this uncertainty for the rest of our lives? i would say four years into it, it's like, doesn't make any difference. yeah. not gonna bring him back. it's not going to bring trent back. but still, it's, why did this happen? you're four years in, five years in and really no closer to solving it than from-- you first case. day one. that will make you doubt yourself. keith morrison: and then one day, a particular woman happened to see an anniversary story about the unsolved murder of the football player back in kentucky, a woman who'd once sat in a bar in a fog of love and who now was quite terrified. a break in the case from out of the blue. an ex-lover reveals all, including a motive for murder

almost too absurd to believe. coming up-- this could be the reason that we never could find out why trent was killed is because it was something this weird. andrea canning: --when "dateline" continues. my late father-in-law lit up a room, but his vision dimmed with age. he had amd. i didn't know it then, but it can progress to ga, an advanced form of the disease. his struggle with vision loss from amd made me want to help you see warning signs of ga, like: hazy or blurred vision, so it's hard to see fine details, colors that appear dull or washed out, or trouble with low light that makes driving at night a real challenge. if you think you have ga, don't wait. treatments are available. ask a retina specialist about fda-approved treatments for ga

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keith morrison: it wasn't as if a successful investigation

could somehow undo what happened to trent digiuro. and yet, the lack of any answer year after year seemed somehow to be an insult to all that was good. and they just had to accept it. i think we'd all kind of resigned ourselves as every year passed. we were just never going to know. keith morrison: then it was about five years after the shooting. a local attorney named tom bullock heard from an old friend, a woman. she was nervous, tentative. asked him on the phone, could she reveal what she knew about a crime without saying who she was? she was extremely evasive. she didn't really want to tell me really anything. keith morrison: but she kept calling. finally, she revealed it. she was calling about a murder. did she tell you what murder? she eventually came around to say it was a very high-profile murder. where'd your mind go when you heard that?

i knew which one it was. and then she told him a very strange story, happened in a bar, she said, almost a year after trent digiuro was killed. she was falling hard for a guy. they talked about how much they loved each other. towards the end of the evening, they decided to say, ok, what is the worst thing that you've done? like, let's get this out of the way. let's just get to it, you know, that point in the relationship where you say, [deep inhale] let me hear the worst. keith morrison: and her boyfriend said, i killed trent digiuro. and at first, she sort of sloughed it off, you know. eh, sure you did. didn't believe him? no, of course not. but then he started describing it, you know, exactly how he did it. keith morrison: but she still didn't want to believe it. after all, she'd fallen in love with the guy. so she said she kind of buried it, stayed

with him for another year. but now, years later and single again, she had seen a story in the newspaper about the fifth anniversary of trent's murder, in which trent's dad was quoted, "somebody knows what happened." she started really thinking about it. and it touched her. keith morrison: but she was so frightened of him, she said. she was determined to remain anonymous. they know each other intimately. she knows how he would react to certain situations. keith morrison: yeah. and she was terrified. he certainly would have remembered his conversations with her. if you told someone that you committed a murder, you would certainly remember having told them that. yes. so tom bullock went to detective evans. we agreed that whatever information i would give him would be anonymous because for all we know, the whole thing could have been hogwash.

well, that's sort of tricky, isn't it? i mean, when you've got somebody making an accusation, you have to be able to talk to that person. well, yeah. but at that point, beggars can't be choosers. so gave you a name. so he gave me a name. he gave me the name of shane ragland. keith morrison: shane ragland, the woman's ex-boyfriend. but who was he? didn't take long to find out. shane was the son of a wealthy businessman. just so happened shane attended the university of kentucky at the very same time as trent digiuro. but after college? he didn't do so well. he ran up at least a dozen convictions-- drug charges, multiple duis, and so on. so detective evans went back to attorney bullock. is there any more? can you get me any more? and ultimately, he started talking about a motive. keith morrison: and that's when the whole story took a turn into the twilight zone. he told me that it was concerning shane raglan being blackballed from a fraternity.

what did you think when you heard that? that's a stupid reason to kill somebody. keith morrison: the fraternity in question was sigma alpha epsilon, sae. detective evans looked through sae's records. and there it was, a pledge list with shane's name crossed off. and then it hit. this could be the reason that we never could find out why trent was killed is because it was something this weird. keith morrison: evans went to one of trent's closest friends and asked, had he heard of this guy shane raglan? and he said, shane raglan? and then i could just sort of see it, at that point, on his face, you know. and i let him tell the story. keith morrison: a story about an unpleasant little incident. shane was among the freshmen pledging the sae fraternity. and one day, as they were getting to know the campus-- they went into trent's dorm. and trent was there.

and on the wall was a calendar of some sorority girls. keith morrison: when shane saw that calendar, right away he pointed to one of the girl's pictures. and he bragged that he'd had sex with her. what shane didn't know is that girl was the girlfriend of the president of the fraternity. keith morrison: trent did not like that one bit, got word of the sae president. and that's when shane was blackballed. so at that point, shane's opportunity to be in that fraternity's pretty much over. keith morrison: the motives for murder are many and varied. but this seemed absurd. it was three years after that slight when trent was murdered in cold blood. could it really have festered so long? and if it had, if that was true, they had another problem. and the more that we dug specifically into shane raglan, the more the likelihood that he would get word that he was becoming

a suspect in this case. and if that happens, this anonymous witness was in real danger. keith morrison: evans had no doubt that shane would remember he told an ex-girlfriend about the murder. and what's going to keep him from then going up and eliminating her, like he did trent digiuro? keith morrison: so now evans understood his mystery witness was trying to be brave, but was quite reasonably frightened. how would he ever convince her to take the ultimate risk? she was very hesitant to do it. and she was scared to death to confront him. andrea canning: coming up, setting a trap. andrea canning: but who's going to get caught? andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. my name is brayden.

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hello. i am christina ruffini. here's what's happening. israel says it's retaliation against iran for a missile strike on october 1st has ended. explosions were heard outside early saturday morning local time. the israeli defense forces said they conducted precise strikes on military targets inside of the country. chinese hackers have targeted the phones of donald trump and jd vance, as well as affiliates of the kamala harris campaign. according to sources familiar with the matter. it's not yet clear what data, if any, the hackers may have accessed but the fbi is investigating. now, back to "dateline." now, back to "dateline." rder. the case was ice cold. but detectives had just been tipped off by a woman who said her ex-boyfriend, shane ragland, had killed trent as payback for having him blackballed

from a fraternity. but the woman was insisting she remain anonymous. so to prove their case, investigators would need to earn her trust. once again, keith morrison with "the motive." keith morrison: detective evans knew he had to meet this mystery woman, a woman who was claiming she knew what happened to trent digiuro but was too frightened to talk about it. then finally, with attorney tom bullock playing gatekeeper, they made a deal to at least meet face to face. but any more than that, maybe not. it was like, listen, don't get me involved in this. this guy's dangerous. so until you get handcuffs on him, you can't involve me. keith morrison: but evans knew, even if he did arrest the guy, a mystery woman testifying about something an ex-boyfriend told her wouldn't be enough. i can imagine a prosecutor saying, well, i can't just put her on the stand. some of-- his attorney will come along and say,

she's full of it, you know. - yeah. and in this particular case, it's, yeah, you know what? that in itself is not going to do it, nor should it. we're still in a situation where this has to come from him. keith morrison: him, meaning shane ragland. evans told her they had to find a way to get shane to admit on tape what he did. otherwise, what jury would buy such a ludicrous motive for murder? there was only one way, he told her. she'd have to wear a wire. she wasn't very happy with that, obviously. i should think not. she asked me if i could spell anonymous. keith morrison: but, he said, she came around. she wanted to do what's right all along. she just would like to do that without getting herself killed doing it. keith morrison: but she would only proceed on one condition. i'd have to prove why she was going to be safe. i had to prove how we were going to do this. it wasn't enough for me to say, oh, don't worry. he won't have a gun. we'll look for bulges. keith morrison: so they came up with a plan, gave her a cover story to protect her, a fictitious job, a phony address.

and then, casually, she resumed contact with shane, a few emails, a little flirty at times on both ends. people sometimes hear from their exes, right? i mean, that happens. keith morrison: and finally, the sting. she told shane she'd be passing through the lexington airport on business. and he agreed to meet her. it was in this airport lounge, surrounded by undercover cops and fbi and behind security to be sure shane wasn't armed. keith morrison: they reminisced for an hour or so. keith morrison: and then she went for it.

at that point, he paused. and it's like he knew exactly what she was talking about. keith morrison: saying trent's name was deliberate. we talked to her about that, and let's make sure we know what you're talking about when we play this for a jury later. keith morrison: and she brought up what appeared to be the motive, that fraternity blackballing. keith morrison: was he sensing something? the cops, knowing they didn't quite have what they needed,

not yet, held their breath and listened. he said, are you setting me up? and that's when things got really scary. keith morrison: but she kept her cool. keith morrison: and they did. and then, about 10 minutes later, shane came back with just what the detectives needed to hear. she made him so confident and comfortable that he came back to the subject and left us with what we really needed at that point. it came out of his own mouth.

keith morrison: they picked him up the next day, took him downtown, asked him, was it true what an old girlfriend was telling them? keith morrison: shane denied it all, denied knowing trent, didn't even know where he lived, denied talking about trent with her. keith morrison: so then, his inquisitors fetched the airport recording.

keith morrison: but his denials were to no avail. shane ragland was charged with murder. bail was set, and shane's wealthy father paid it, $1,000,000 cash. so shane was free, pending trial, which was a very big problem for the ex-girlfriend who turned him in. police moved her to a secure location, kept an eye on her. and then, strange things started happening. we got information from our state police intelligence section that there was a hit out on this girl. there were phone calls to her friends that would ask, have you seen her? do you know where she is these days, obviously trying to locate her. keith morrison: and with all that going on, she had to do precisely what she didn't want to do, go public, show herself, and testify. and the world would know that her name was amy lloyd and that she was truly terrified. amy goes public for the first time,

facing her fears and shane. coming up-- andrea canning: --the defense hits back hard. if, in fact, someone had actually told you they had engaged in a killing of another person, and you continue a romantic relationship with them, that seems a bit odd. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues.

life has twists and curls. but you define them and make them bounce. tresemme flawless curls defining mousse. 24 hour. hydrating curl definition. style your life the way you want. ♪♪ tresemme, style your way. welcome back. shane ragland was headed to trial for the murder of trent digiuro.

despite being terrified of the defendant, shane's ex-girlfriend agreed to testify against him. police had moved her to a secure location. but now she had to face them in court, where her crossexamination would take an x-rated turn. here, again, is keith morrison with "the motive." keith morrison: if there was any doubt how seriously police took perceived threats to amy lloyd's security, this put it to rest, amy rushed into court by a swat team. but trent digiuro's dad, mike, knew that if she braved the danger and told her story-- i don't know how a jury could sort of not convict him. keith morrison: but when it came time for trial, then-prosecutor lou anna redcorn was all too aware she was alleging a very hard-to-believe motive. i think i was like everybody else, a little incredulous that somebody would let the fact that they'd been blackballed from a fraternity fester for years

and culminate in killing the person they blamed on blackballing them. keith morrison: mind you they had a bit more than just amy. they had found what they believed was the murder weapon, a 243 weatherby rifle, at shane's mother's house. and at his father's place they found 243 caliber bullets, like these. an fbi expert said testing had linked those bullets to the fragments from the fatal bullet. the defense argued the tests were not reliable science. call your next witness. amy lloyd. keith morrison: and now, nearly eight years after trent was killed, here was the one person who could tell the story. amy lloyd finally revealed herself publicly. though, because she remains frightened even now, we've obscured her image in this video recorded by the court. the prosecution's star witness talked about that night in a bar and shane, according to her, straight-out confessing to murder. he said something how he had--

if i remembered the football player who'd been killed and told me his name-- trent. and told me that he shot him. keith morrison: but prosecutor redcorn knew amy's story had a weakness. and so no choice but to confront it. lou anna redcorn: you did not break off the relationship after he said this to you? no. you didn't go to the police or anything? no, i would-- i just-- i ignored it. just ignored what he had said to you? right. i forgot about it. i didn't want to listen to it. i didn't want to hear it. i didn't want to believe it. keith morrison: why? because she was in love with him, she said. during amy's testimony, the prosecutor played the tape, the sting meeting at the airport. keith morrison: that, said the prosecutor, clear as day, was an admission that he did indeed commit the murder.

how to defend against that? shane's father hired a formidable defense team. guthrie true was one of shane's lawyers. if, in fact, someone had actually told you they had engaged in a killing of another person, and you continue a romantic relationship with them, that seems a bit odd. keith morrison: when the defense cross-examined amy, she knew it was coming-- had to-- an attack on her credibility. but could she have suspected how personal it would be? this from true's co-counsel when amy said she went home with shane that night after he talked about killing someone. weren't aren't you concerned about spending the night with somebody who had admitted to you that he had killed someone else? i blocked it from my mind. i didn't want to-- i didn't want to hear that.

keith morrison: and then a kind of nervous embarrassment filled the courtroom. the defense had gotten access to amy's very personal, very explicit diary, and confronted her with her entries one by x-rated one. we are trying to challenge the credibility of the prosecution's case. and sometimes that gets uncomfortable. keith morrison: this is what amy wrote the day after she said shane confessed to her to murder. april the 30th, the very next day, you make a notation, "made love in afternoon. great day." keith morrison: we have, for the sake of decency, left out the most explicit entries made public by the defense that day. and then may the 3rd was the date that you recorded you took a bath together and made love. [sighs] defense lawyer: right? yes. then it was on may the 7th you notated-- you noted, "great love.

decided i would move in with him in july. perfect." yes. so this man had told you that he had killed someone. you made the decision that you were going to move in with him come july. yes. keith morrison: so was her credibility harmed? there was still, after all, that incriminating airport recording. or was it incriminating? defense lawyer: you never did ask him, though, if he had shot and killed trent, did you? why would i when he'd already told me? and if i said to him, did you kill trent, when he already knew he told me five years ago, he would have-- he would have known that i was there, in fact, to-- defense lawyer: to set him up? --to get him to get him to admit it. defense lawyer: hadn't you rehearsed that? rehearsed what? defense lawyer: what detective evans and others.

don't give him an opportunity to deny that he had shot trent. no. keith morrison: had the defense planted a seed of reasonable doubt? maybe. the jury adjourned to think about it. and trent's friends waited. i've never been so terrified and so scared in my life. it was-- heart's going 100 miles an hour, and you're-- 100 miles an hour. keith morrison: and five hours later-- jury foreman: we, the jury, find the defendant guilty of intentional murder. keith morrison: --guilty of intentional murder. the sentence, 30 years. to know that he was guilty, know that this guy who's sitting there smug and nonremorseful is guilty and found guilty, and, boom, you feel good about that. keith morrison: mike digiuro thought it was done. ok. this is it. he's going to jail. it's over. keith morrison: and amy? she had vanished.

amy was afraid of shane ragland. and we told her that if she testified, we would do what we could to let her have a new identity. and law enforcement helped her get a new identity. keith morrison: and that new identity would be a problem. you talk about something that just blows you away, i mean, i can't even-- couldn't even grasp that. keith morrison: because this case wasn't over, not even close. andrea canning: coming up, a stunning reversal. they know i'm innocent. andrea canning: will there ever be justice for trent? it's, oh, wow, here we go all over again. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues.

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welcome back. amy lloyd felt she had risked her life to testify against ex-boyfriend shane ragland. now shane was headed to prison, sentenced to 30 years for the murder of trent digiuro. but amy was still afraid. so law enforcement gave her a new life and a new identity. then the story took a turn no one saw coming. here's keith morrison with the conclusion of "the motive." keith morrison: it was early spring in kentucky when justice was done for the murder of trent digiuro, thanks, his friends knew, to a woman who faced up to fear and told her story. we've never met amy. and i'm eternally grateful to amy--

absolutely. --for everything that she's done for not only trent and his family, but for us. keith morrison: except there was an appeal. of course, there was-- standard procedure. but what happened was not standard at all. a court reversed the jury's decision. reporter 1: any comment, shane? keith morrison: and shane ragland went home on $1,000,000 bail paid by his dad to wait for a whole new trial. reporter 1: it's been a long time, shane. reporter 2: how does it feel to be outside? you're going home with your father right now. i don't really look at it like that. i look at the long-term goal of fighting a case against me that's fake. it's false. and they know i'm innocent. and so i don't worry about my feelings, creature comforts. keith morrison: why was the verdict thrown out? it had nothing to do with amy lloyd or her explosive testimony or the sting tape recorded at the airport. all that was fine. so what was the issue? the bullet that killed trent. an fbi expert had linked to fragments of that bullet

found during the autopsy to bullets like these that were found in shane's father's house. but after shane's conviction, the fbi realized the test it used was, in fact, bad science and stopped using it. these are things that we've been arguing for years. frankly, shouldn't have been admitted. keith morrison: and the court agreed with the defense. when this reversal happened, what was that like? well, it was a blow. i mean, it was a real blow. kind of an irony, isn't it? it was one of the smaller pieces of evidence. in my mind, yes. when what you thought was done gets undone, what does it do to you? it's, oh, wow, here we go all over again. we've got to go through this yet another time. and the yet another time, we realized pretty quickly, was going to be without some key evidence. yeah. amy lloyd wasn't coming back. keith morrison: no, amy lloyd was not going to testify a second time. that was the deal she made--

testify once, then disappear. there was no way to bring her back because once someone has that level of cover, you can't undo it, bring them back-- and then do it again. --and then do it again. keith morrison: no option but to make a deal. shane got to plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter. and did you, in fact, commit the crime that you are pleading guilty to? yes, i did. keith morrison: which meant that at least he now admitted to firing that fatal shot. and i thought, well, a plea bargain, spends another 10 years in jail-- i'm not too bad with that. keith morrison: oh, but it wasn't 10 more years, wasn't any more years. he got the time he'd already served, five years, plus just three days of house arrest. three more days? three more days. he walked out of the courtroom, went home, and that really chapped my ass. keith morrison: it did help a little, said mike digiuro, when he successfully sued shane in civil court for wrongful death.

the jury awarded him $63 million, later reduced to 33 million. no matter, said mike. he hasn't received a penny, doesn't expect to. but money was never the point. he's never really accepted responsibility for what he did. keith morrison: shane went on with his life. and then a few years later, he was involved in a serious car accident. he's in a wheelchair now and was back in court on an unrelated case. and what about amy, if that's even her name now? how's she doing now? she's living a new life. what'd she do? do you want to tell me anything at all? i'm sorry, but i'm not going to be able to tell you anything about her current life. at all? at all. keith morrison: as for mike, he had a choice, he knew. he could sink into bitterness or-- so where do you put your frustrations over this? well, what has come from all this

is a we consider very positive thing. keith morrison: the trent digiuro foundation has awarded nearly 100 scholarships to walk-on football players and others at the university of kentucky and at local high schools, young people with determination and personal courage, just like trent. you'll never make any sense of his death. but you can make sense of his life. we can make sense of what we've done to commemorate trent, to remember trent, and giving these young folks an opportunity that trent won't have. that's a whole other story, but-- keith morrison: and remarkably, trent's friends remain exceedingly close, even 25 years after that shot in the dark. do you feel like family now? well, they are family. i think it says so much about what trent meant to these kids-- young adults now-- and what they mean to us.

it's been a blessing to us. keith morrison: they all get together and laugh and tell stories and imagine. who would he have become as an adult? and gosh, i'm sure we've been magnificent, just as he was as a teenager. payton turner: i'm kind of pissed that i don't get to meet his wife or meet his kids or-- oh, gosh, i know. --share all the adult things that we've had the opportunity to share with each other. but i think, you know, when i get rid of those, like, base feelings, you know, the underlying feeling is just a gratitude that he was in my life, even for a brief moment in time. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching.