[music playing] hello, i'm andrea canning, andmy mom found her.e." she said it looked like she might

have slipped in the shower. she was in the fetal position in this bathtub. you could see marks on jessica's neck. they said we're going to rule this as a homicide. andrea canning (voiceover): detectives using new technology to view this crime scene in extreme detail. there was no forced entry, no tool marks. there was blood on the couch. who could have done this? they say that usually it's someone close. andrea canning (voiceover): an investigation focusing on friends and family. he brought up his association with a motorcycle gang. he came off as kind of a tough guy. he threatened to take out my whole entire family to get custody of her kids. wow. andrea canning (voiceover): a chilling story of danger and duplicity. we were trying to figure out who did this. he knew the whole time. this is the ultimate betrayal.

hello, and welcome to "dateline." jessica nelson was a hard working single mom who doted on her little boy and kept her loved ones close. then one morning, she was found dead in the house she shared with her son. the discovery left her family shattered, but their ordeal had just begun. detectives would soon discover someone close to jessica was living a lie. here's keith morrison with "evil intent." keith morrison (voiceover): it was 9 o'clock in the morning on the 25th of june, 2015, omaha, nebraska. missy nelson's morning ritual was interrupted by a phone call. it was the bank where her daughter jessica worked. she was an hour late. missy nelson: i was like, what? what do you mean, she's not there? they're like, she's not here, and we've been calling her. and she's not answering. keith morrison (voiceover): thing was, jessica was never late.

missy tried calling her-- no answer. panicked now, she ran to her car. was jessica at home sick? missy nelson: so i was calling her all the way over there. and i was thinking, i don't know where she's at. and then i started to think the really bad things. maybe she was in a ditch somewhere, passed out. maybe she was in a really bad car accident. but you knew it was something bad. i felt something was wrong. so i get over there, and her car's in the driveway, so i'm relieved. and i'm like, ok, she's here. she's not in an accident. but why isn't she answering the phone? keith morrison (voiceover): the door was locked, so missy used her key to let herself in. i walk in, and her house is really dark. i can't find her, and it's like, you know, everything's dark, so i don't know where i'm going. and the bathroom is like the first door on the left. and the door was closed, but i hear water running. and i'm like, ok, maybe she just used the bathroom. i opened up the door, and i turned on the light.

and she was in the bathtub. the water was running. the water was up to her nose. she was laying there like this. she had something in her hand. it was a phone cord. i didn't understand where that came from. i started screaming. i had my cell phone, so i called 911. like, i drained the water, thinking that could help her. but she was already gone. you could tell. i could tell. she was blue. her face was a weirdly weird pattern on her face. it looked checkered. but her body was still like a normal color. i can't imagine that. it was horrible. it's like a nightmare.

i still see it. it's like one of the worst feelings in the world that you can't help your daughter because she's gone. keith morrison (voiceover): by the time jessica's father harry got there-- there was a policeman in the driveway. keith morrison (voiceover): and not far away, he found missy, a wreck, a mess. i hugged her. what's going on? what do we know? don't know anything. keith morrison (voiceover): had she slipped in the shower? he thought that at first, but i saw that mark on her neck and the cord in her hand. and i just didn't think it sounded right. she shouldn't have had her phone charger there. her phone wasn't there. so you didn't know what to think. i didn't know what to think. i was devastated. i wasn't even thinking at that point. keith morrison (voiceover): first responders trained to keep an open mind weren't sure what to think either. it wasn't an obvious homicide. they didn't know if it was a medical emergency because we find people like that that have suffered a stroke or heart attack or something in a similar kind of situation.

so they really didn't know what they had. keith morrison (voiceover): homicide detectives derek mois and ryan davis. i do a cursory walk through the residence. they show me where jessica was at. she's in the bathtub. and oddly enough, her clothes were in the bathtub with her. but not on her. not on her. no, they were laying near her feet. the couch in the living room had blood all over it. so my initial reaction was maybe there was some sort of a medical emergency that occurred on the couch. she had gone to the bathroom maybe to clean herself off and had collapsed and succumbed to whatever medical emergency she was having. there wasn't any-- she had obvious signs of trauma on her body. she had a small bruise on the side of her neck. it didn't look like any sort of a-- could have got it anyway. yeah, it didn't look like she was assaulted. keith morrison (voiceover): but there was something off, too-- didn't quite look right. they decided to treat it like a homicide. because you only get one chance at this. and so if you go in and you go guns blazing,

and you try to rush through things, you're going to miss things. keith morrison (voiceover): the csi people arrived, used a laser scanner to quickly take billions of measurements and create this virtual representation of jessica's house, 3d, so more accurate than any photo. and then they removed jessica's body. and yes, detectives could see homicide was the right call. when we were able to actually look at her eyes, it was fairly evident that there had been some sort of a strangulation and asphyxiation, at the very least, that took place. and one of the things we noted right away is that she had longer fingernails. and one of those fingernails was quite evidently bent back. and we knew that there was a chance then that she had fought back against her attacker. there's potentially dna there. keith morrison (voiceover): the next day, the autopsy confirmed that jessica had, indeed, been strangled to death.

there was a slight ligature mark around her neck, but it was disrupted. and it is almost appeared as though there was possibly a hand-- her hand maybe trying to-- trying to pull-- so the ligature marks were kind of intermittent. keith morrison (voiceover): and one more thing the autopsy revealed-- she'd been sexually assaulted. the first thing that goes through your head is why, how, who. i mean, everybody is a suspect, and nobody's a suspect. that's-- who could have done this? why? did she have any enemies? none that we knew of. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up, the man in jessica's life and their volatile relationship. she would call us, like, every other week. can you come and get me? me and john had a fight. andrea canning (voiceover): and then, did a facebook post put her in danger? missy nelson: she just put out there that she was home alone. and she did it without even realizing. so if anybody was following her, they'd know. yeah.

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keith morrison (voiceover): there's nothing better than a close family and friends who are like family. missy and harry nelson had it-- three kids, kids' partners, grandchildren, until, until the morning they found their beloved eldest child there, jessica, just 28 years old, dead in her own bathtub.

but who was she? detectives needed to know. and so did we. everybody loved her. very bright. both my girls were really smart. very smart. keith morrison (voiceover): jessica was ashley and matt's big sister. she was very outgoing. she just always wanted to have fun, but, you know, the older we got, the more she was kind of like another mom to us. and she would always be there, even if we were fighting. if we needed her, she was there. keith morrison (voiceover): big sister to the whole extended family, her cousins, her close friends, who were more like siblings, her siblings' close friends, who were more like relatives. she was always really nice to everybody. keith morrison (voiceover): laura wonder had been a friend since grade school. laura wonder: she just wanted to have a good time. she was just kind of-- i wouldn't say crazy, but-- - goofy? --she was just kind of goofy. she did whatever she wanted to do. keith morrison (voiceover): and that held true in her choice of men.

her first serious boyfriend was him. with his tattoos and stuff, it was like, he seemed to be something that she would have been into because she had a few tattoos as well. keith morrison (voiceover): his name was john mcdowell. he and jessica were good together and sometimes not. she would call us, like, what, like, every other week. can you come and get me? me and john had a fight, and i'm not staying out here. so we'd drive out there to missouri valley. and a couple of weeks later, she's back out there again. keith morrison (voiceover): a year in, there was still no wedding, but there was a baby, dominick, dom. i just remembered, you know, everyone was so excited, wanting to meet him. she loved him, and i think it was just an instinct she had to be a mother. she wanted to do the best for him she could. and that drove everything else. keith morrison (voiceover): and then one day-- dom was still quite small-- it all seemed to come apart. they were doing ok till he left her a voicemail.

by accident. keith morrison (voiceover): an unintentional voicemail. and the message that was left was, well, bad. very bad. talking to friends. he didn't know he left her a voicemail telling her that he slept with another girl. and then that was it. she was done. whoa. so i helped her move that day. she must have been so upset. she was. she was devastated. to get an accidental voicemail from the guy you-- the father of your baby-- i slept with another woman. kind of bragging about it. keith morrison: ooh. you should have seen the one i was with. keith morrison (voiceover): and that's why jessica elected to be a single mom. better she decided to concentrate on her little boy, the center of her life, dominick. she did everything she could for her son, just to try to do it right. he ain't got to work, pay bills. i have things i want him to have, so i need to pay for those things. and she'd work.

so she worked. two to three jobs sometimes. how does a person even do that? i have no idea. she worked at the first national bank. she liked that job. oh, yeah. she loved it. that was her dream job. keith morrison (voiceover): by then, jessica and dominick lived in a little house on the north side of town. it wasn't very big, but dom had the bigger room. and she's like, well, he has more toys, and his bed has a slide. i'm like, he has a slide? and she's like, yeah, you need a slide. i'm like, yeah, sure, he needed the slide. it was just, she gave everything up for him. he was her world. keith morrison (voiceover): in fact, jessica's last words on facebook the night she died when dom was at his dad's were, i am such a mess when dom is gone. missy nelson: she had lost the remote and thought it was the worst 15 minutes of her life. she was lost without dominick because he could find the remote. keith morrison (voiceover): but-- she just put out there that she was home alone, and she did it without even realizing.

so if anybody was following her, they'd know. they'd know. yeah. keith morrison (voiceover): but of course someone was following her on facebook. maybe quite a few someones, but finding the one with evil intent not so easy. investigators start the search with jessica's ex and soon hear some troubling stories. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up. andrea canning (voiceover): her sister ashley's ex raises eyebrows, too. he threatened to take out my whole entire family to get custody of our kids. wow. andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. incoming dishes. —ahhh! —duck! dawn powerwash flies through 99% of grease and grime in half the time. yeah, it absorbs grease five times faster. even replaces multiple cleaning products. ooh, those suds got game. dawn powerwash.

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welcome back to "dateline." who would want to harm jessica nelson? that question baffled her grieving family. when the vibrant young mom was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in her bathtub, her loved ones wondered if a facebook post had alerted jessica's killer that she was home alone that night. now, investigators were about to drill down on her personal relationships. and at least one of them was complicated. back to keith morrison with "evil intent." keith morrison (voiceover): word of jessica nelson's death spread quickly, if incoherently, among her friends in omaha.

i got a phone call from a mutual friend of ours. and she was so hysterical. i couldn't understand what she was saying. and i thought she said that dom had been killed. so i got off the phone with her, and i called john. and he said they found jess dead. and it was just unreal. you just couldn't believe that. keith morrison (voiceover): laura's friendship with jessica had drifted a bit after high school, but by 2015, it, well, was a little unusual. laura and jessica both had babies with john. laura dated him first, but it was after she broke up with john that her son, christopher, was born. and that was not long before jessica got pregnant. i found out when i was six months pregnant with our son that him and jessica had been dating or had just started dating. keith morrison (voiceover): two women, two children, one man. i wanted to be mad at her, and i couldn't because she was just too nice.

keith morrison (voiceover): anyway, pretty soon, john was no longer in the picture for either of them. and then, as single mothers, laura and jessica reconnected so their sons, half brothers, could bond. our kids met each other, and they got to play together. keith morrison (voiceover): now, her friend was dead. and the father of both their sons was sitting in the police station, answering questions. keith morrison (voiceover): which meant john was the last known person to see jessica alive, except for the killer, unless he was the killer. detectives brought in jessica's family members and friends and questioned them all about john. i think everybody kind of had their own impression of jonathan. keith morrison (voiceover): and some of those impressions were not flattering.

they had these fights over dominick, over custody, over money. jessica was routinely upset with him. keith morrison (voiceover): john seemed to be trying to minimize those issues. keith morrison (voiceover): after a few hours of questioning, they let john go with a warning. he was suspect number one.

and they kept an eye on him as they investigated other men who'd crossed paths with jessica. we were interested in any male party she had recently been introduced to, anybody at all that could have been showing interest in her, communicating that with her via social media or any other means that maybe seemed kind of unwanted. keith morrison (voiceover): detectives looked into his whereabouts the night jessica was killed.

he was nowhere around-- couldn't have been him. thing was, it had to be someone close, someone she knew or trusted, someone with a key maybe. after all, there was no forced entry, but the door was locked when jessica's mother arrived in the morning. and then her family told police about someone who'd been violent toward jessica's sister, ashley, just a few days before the murder. i was going through a divorce. and my ex was not so nice. he threatened to take out my whole entire family and then myself just to get custody of our kids. wow. and the week before that, he had physically assaulted me. he had pinned her on the floor and had left bruises on her arm. keith morrison (voiceover): he'd been arrested, was facing charges for domestic assault. a man had been violent, who threatened family? detectives checked out his alibi for the night of jessica's murder. but they also went looking for anyone else who might have had access to jessica's home, like maybe

some spurned lover. but apparently, there weren't any, spurned or otherwise. everybody when i asked that dating question, they would say that jessica often referred to the only man in her life is dominick. and her other man was her job. and that's all she wanted to concentrate on, was her work and providing for dominick. keith morrison (voiceover): but sometimes jessica had friends over for saturday night gatherings when dom was at john's. and the last one, maybe 10 days before she was killed, came with trouble. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up. you find all kinds of stuff on people's cell phones, i bet you. - oh, my gosh. yeah, absolutely. andrea canning (voiceover): investigators discover odd text messages on jessica's phone. there was just something weird about them. maybe we need to figure out who this person is. andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

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richard louis with a news update. kamala harris and donald trump are barnstorming swing states in the presidential race. candidates will make a stop in north carolina today. harris will also visit georgia while trump visits virginia. the manslaughter trial of former marine daniel penny got underway with defense lawyers saying penny stepped in to protect fellow subway riders when a homeless man began to threaten them. rescuers argue that penny's chokehold was, quote, unnecessarily reckless. for now, back to dateline. then investigators ered there was a party at jessica's house before she was killed. and the list of potential suspects was about to grow.

meanwhile, jessica's friends and family were galvanized by their grief, but could her killer be among them? here again is keith morrison with "evil intent." keith morrison (voiceover): it was a week before they could have a funeral for jessica. a small, sad service for family and friends is what they expected. but it wasn't small, not at all. it was overwhelming just to see that that many people knew her or, at some point, had cared enough to show up and say, hey, we're sorry. keith morrison (voiceover): and some of the young men vowed revenge as they wore their justice for jessica bracelets. her brother, matt. her brother's best friend, also named matt, who once lived with them, who knew jessica like a sister. he was with us throughout the whole thing. like another son.

like another son. just, what do you need help with? people would bring over food. he's there, helping us carry it, carry it in, you know, that kind of thing. keith morrison (voiceover): and there as well helping out, grieving, was john mcdowell, jessica's ex. he may have looked the part of a tough guy, but police had checked his alibi. he could not have been the killer. we were also able to look at his cell phone locations. and they were exactly where he said he was. at no point did his phone ever put him anywhere near jessica's house. keith morrison (voiceover): john did not kill jessica. and when he first learned she was dead? i just felt completely lost. i was instantly trying to figure out how i was going to tell my son that his mother, which that was his world, was no longer here. and i didn't know what to do. keith morrison (voiceover): he tried, but even at jessica's funeral, her son,

then just six years old, didn't seem to comprehend. keith morrison: what was that like for you? it was horrible, especially with her being right there, and he still wasn't comprehending that she wasn't with us anymore. go back to that. keith morrison (voiceover): that was when the detectives were tracking down-- well, they didn't know who. the sister's ex, the guy who'd been charged with assault, had a solid alibi. but what about the men who had attended jessica's small parties? one party in particular. one of her friends invited her boyfriend. her boyfriend invited some of his friends. those friends invited others. so as this get-together kind of went on in the evening, more and more people were showing up to jessica's residence whom she didn't know. what does that do to an investigation when you've got-- it opened our suspect pool up quite a bit.

keith morrison (voiceover): especially after friends told detective mois that jessica thought something illegal was going on at her party, asking them-- keith morrison (voiceover): the answer complicated matters even more. friends told detectives that the man who'd invited the drug dealer also tried at the party to initiate some kind of sexual encounter with jessica. keith morrison (voiceover): so now they had to track him down, him and every male

who attended the party. keith morrison: how long did you spend on this? we spent several weeks. that's all we were doing, is attempting to identify these people, locate them, interview them, and go through the same vetting process as far as getting a timeline and alibi-ing them as everybody else. and we were taking dna samples from every single person we talked to. keith morrison (voiceover): at the same time, they asked one of their tech investigators, nick herfordt, to look for clues in jessica's cell phone. you find all kinds of stuff on people's cell phones, i bet you. - oh, my gosh. yeah, absolutely. but what's actually remarkable about this one, when you say all kinds of stuff, on this one, it was pretty much just one thing on there. and it was just pictures of her son. keith morrison: just kind of stuff. her life just completely revolved around him. keith morrison (voiceover): but there were text messages, too, lots of them, and some were pretty interesting. one of the last people she was communicating with someone was named matt kidder. keith morrison (voiceover): matt kidder? he was the friend more like a son who'd

grieved with the nelson family and was like a second brother to jessica. they'd always had an easy teasing sort of relationship. and so of course they texted each other. but officer herfordt didn't know any of that when the texts caught his attention. there was just something weird about him, just the way that he was-- he would be constantly asking her basically out to do stuff. he would say, hey, do you want to go bowling? and she'd be like, you know what? i got to clean up the house. and then he would be like, oh, well, maybe i can come over and maybe help you clean up the house. and then she'd reply, like, oh, you know what? i'm almost done. don't worry about it. and now i'm really tired, so i'm just going to go to bed, something like that. and it was like this over and over. so i talked to the sergeant who was in charge and said that maybe we need to kind of figure out who this person is. keith morrison (voiceover): jessica's friends and family said that sort of back and forth was quite typical of their relationship. it was just like brother and sister type of thing. you know, he gets smart with her. she gets smart back. and they go on their way.

keith morrison (voiceover): so apparently nothing to see here. but of course detectives had to dig a little. who was this matt kidder, whom the nelsons loved like their own? in the interrogation room, matt opens up to police, revealing that he feels guilty he didn't stop the killer. andrea canning (voiceover): coming up. andrea canning (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. finish ultimate, engineered for the toughest conditions. dry, burnt-on stains, old dishwashers, very hard water. finish ultimate with cyclesync technology helps deliver the ultimate clean. (♪♪) [clears throat] sounds like you need to vaporize that sore throat. vapocool drops? it's sore throat relief with a rush of vicks vapors. ♪ vapocooooool ♪ whoa. vaporize sore throat pain with vicks vapocool drops.

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keith morrison (voiceover): lota murder investigatione. is often a collection of stories, whodunnit stories, yes, but also love, loss, regret. a murder investigation is often a collection of stories -- tion of stories -- the only thing that went through my head is that it really was all my fault because if i would have never messed up and if we would have never split up, then i would have been there to protect her. i think you still feel that way a little bit, don't you? yes, sir. does she intrude upon your thoughts a lot? yes, sir. keith morrison (voiceover): so many stories, witnesses, family, friends of the victim, like matt kidder. keith morrison (voiceover): when detective davis interviewed matt, he encountered a man

still apparently grieving. keith morrison (voiceover): and so davis was sympathetic, and matt opened up, talked about his brotherly teasy sort of relationship with jessica. keith morrison (voiceover): and like brother and sister, he said, they'd sometimes get physical in a playful way.

keith morrison (voiceover): and after jessica was murdered, it was matt who vowed to take revenge and told detectives he felt so guilty for failing to protect her. keith morrison (voiceover): after all, he was at work that evening close by. so he said he struggled with regret even as he tried to figure out what happened. keith morrison (voiceover): whoever did it, said matt, must have been waiting to find her home alone and must have seen her facebook post, the one about her son, dom, being away that night.

keith morrison (voiceover): and maybe, he said, maybe it was more than one guy. keith morrison (voiceover): he knew something about bad guys. he'd spent some time in prison, he said, for something he didn't do-- attempted sexual assault. keith morrison (voiceover): but she lied, he said, a false accusation. and the nelsons supported him. this guy somehow got railroaded over this. so this poor kid had some kind of consensual relationship. and then afterwards, instead of getting in trouble for it, she blamed him and accused him of rape. yep. and i even knew somebody that knew her. and she told me the same thing, that she was always up to no good. keith morrison (voiceover): so after matt got out of prison,

the nelsons celebrated with him and his family. after all, his dad and harry nelson had been best friends for decades, just as he was best friends with jessica's brother. keith morrison (voiceover): after jessica's death, matt provided a sample of his dna and said, of course, he'd been to jessica's house, so if his dna happened to turn up there, well, a perfectly innocent reason for that. keith morrison (voiceover): but if they're looking at him as a suspect, they had the wrong guy. keith morrison (voiceover): no, matt kidder was virtually a member of the family.

keith morrison (voiceover): he couldn't have killed jessica, could he? andrea canning (voiceover): coming up. stunning and heartbreaking, what this woman has to say about jessica's murder. it never should have happened. keith morrison: because you already warned everybody about him. yep. andrea canning (voiceover): what her story will mean for the case. when "dateline" continues. can neuriva support your brain health? mary, janet, hey! eddie, no. frasier, frank. frank? —fred, how are you? —fred! support up to 7 brain health indicators, including memory. check your mail for exclusive neuriva deals! alright, we got your home and auto bundled and you saved hundreds.. oh, that's nice, with the economy and all. what's the economy? [chuckling] where do we start? what isn't the economy? yes. [ laughter ] uh, it's -- it's so many thing.

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welcome back. the search for jessica nelson's killer had turned up no shortage of potential suspects. investigators had cleared her ex-boyfriend, john mcdowell, and several men who went to a party at jessica's house before she was murdered. now they had more questions for her friend, matt. it had been a long road, but investigators were about to hear the truth from a surprising source. here's keith morrison with the conclusion of "evil intent." keith morrison (voiceover): matt kidder, the young man who was like a brother to jessica nelson, like a son to her parents, was sitting in the police station three weeks after jessica's death. keith morrison (voiceover): but by then, the omaha police did see him as a suspect. they knew that matt checked facebook the night jessica was killed, would have seen the post that

revealed she was home alone. they had discovered that matt's cell phone was at or near jessica's place for 17 minutes that night. you'll see where his phone-- keith morrison (voiceover): police tech experts oscar dieguez and nick herfordt. so right now, it's about 11 o'clock. ok. and you're going to see a couple more activations where he's still at work. and right there. and so-- and then all of a sudden, it switches. and that's at her house at that point. yes, that is directly in the area of the house. keith morrison (voiceover): and there was more. the detectives had noticed a crescent shaped cut on matt's hand. could have been made by jessica's thumbnail bending back as she defended herself, and they found his dna under that nail and on the cord she was strangled with. so now detective davis played his hand. keith morrison (voiceover): and matt exploded-- a stream of loud and determined denials.

keith morrison (voiceover): brenda beadle was lead prosecutor. he was narcissistic, and he is a sociopath. and so if you were just watching that interview without knowing the evidence we had, you might scratch your head and go, do we have the right guy? because he was so convincing. keith morrison (voiceover): but police believed they did have the right guy, and they arrested him for the murder of his lifelong friend jessica nelson. keith morrison (voiceover): now it was time to tell the nelsons.

he said we have made an arrest, and we have arrested matthew kidder. and my head hit the table. keith morrison (voiceover): missy and harry gathered the family to tell them. i said, look around. look at everybody here. who is one person that would probably be here, but isn't? and my son, matthew, kind of raised his eyebrows like, oh, my god, no. keith morrison (voiceover): up until that moment, matt kidder had been matt nelson's best friend in the world, the one he trusted implicitly, the one who would never, ever betray them. and here they were. everyone who was there broke down, like just bawling their eyes out. keith morrison (voiceover): as matt kidder waited in the local jail, evidence piled up. he talked to his father on the phone, recorded, of course.

it's changed now from the 169 times he denied being in the house, yelling at the detective very sternly, denying that he was even there. that was big. keith morrison (voiceover): there was more. he got chatty with his cellmate, told him the whole ugly story. this is prosecutor beth beninato. this informant and the details he gave us, they were accurate, from walking into her house, headbutting her, which would explain the blood we saw and the blood patterns on the couch cushions, to the sexual assault itself, to the things that she said, to the injury on his hand and the injury on her finger, to the cell phone charging cord. this informant gave us a view into what jessica went through.

it was about power, control, and i think being rejected by her via text just made him angry. he's a very angry individual. i guess, was that, in a weird way, his turn-on, that the more he's rejected, the more he needs to have that power and control. and it's kind of part of the buildup or something. we think so. keith morrison (voiceover): which brings us to this woman, patricia springborg, the woman who accused matt of rape. remember, he went to prison, attempted sexual assault, but convinced the nelsons she was lying. it was no lie. and when patricia heard about jessica-- that's the hardest thing for me because it never should have happened. keith morrison: because you already warned everybody about him. yep. keith morrison (voiceover): her experience with matt at first was not unlike the nelsons. he wormed his way into our family, and none of us

thought he would do anything like that. so he was actually a friend of your family, too. - yes. - so-- yes. i met him through my oldest daughter. keith morrison: wow. yep. my husband taught him how to drive his truck, you know, things like that, things that you would do if we had a teenage boy. keith morrison: sure. keith morrison (voiceover): and then one day he caught her alone at home. and he grabbed her neck and tried to choke her. and she, fearing he would kill her, stopped struggling and discovered something revealing about matt. from what i could tell and with my situation is, the violence and stuff is what got him. keith morrison: yeah, because when you relented, it obviously wasn't a turn-on for him anymore. keith morrison (voiceover): and if she hadn't given in? patricia springborg: i wouldn't be here. keith morrison: you would have been in jessica's place. yeah. this shouldn't happen to that girl.

[crying] yeah, it shouldn't have. and she's got a little boy. and it just shouldn't happen. that's why after everything that happened, when the prosecutor asked me if i would testify for them, damn right. keith morrison (voiceover): and she did. and there was one more thing. the police had seized matt's laptop when they arrested him. and what they found? well-- you know, you've seen-- i've seen some weird stuff, but nothing like this. it was a lot of rape videos and torture videos. and just, like, the combination of them, i mean, it let us know basically his intent and his mindset because what he ended up doing is basically recreated one of these kind of videos that he likes in real life. in real life. where he stormed somebody, assaulted them, killed them, and then left.

keith morrison (voiceover): matt kidder did not testify, but his defense said all the evidence-- dna, cell phone tracking, the cellmate story-- all had innocent explanations. and besides, they said he wasn't the killer, plain and simple. but the jury deliberated just 41 minutes before convicting matt kidder of jessica's murder. he was sentenced to life in prison. the nelsons, of course, still miss jessica terribly. and dominick lives with his dad, john, now and also with laura and his half brother, christopher. after jessica's death, laura stepped in to help out as much as she could. we were over there all the time with dom and john and the kids all playing together. and it was just one day after the next after the next. and you just fall together. i mean, it's one good thing that

came out of this tragedy. dom has a whole family. and he's so happy about that. and, you know, he says i got a mommy in heaven, and i got a mom here. keith morrison (voiceover): in time, laura and john got engaged, and the nelson family grew by a few more. just one empty place. but you never fill the hole in your life, do you, when you lose a child? no. keith morrison: how often do you think about jessica? missy nelson: every day. harry nelson: every day. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching.