wo i'm really getting old. [laughter] yeah, the beautiful memories. i can't just feel sadness in my heart, you know. life is too short. keith morrison: so you don't let the sadness in? eduardo valseca: no. you have to find excuses for being happy every day instead of bringing excuses not to be happy. that might be the secret of life. yeah. [music playing] [dramatic music playing] (crying) i've had so many nightmares about the attack. and i remember, like, when is this going to end? like, just make it stop. mary higgins: there was a home invasion. i'm yelling at mom. and i can see her just get yanked back by her hair.

mary higgins: she said she reached in for the gun. she fired it. bert pitman: he's on the floor. i could see blood around him. so the story is this incredibly brave mama bear protecting her cubs. i was very proud of her. it was such a bizarre set of facts. mona wehde: --said her story fits the evidence. and i am just, like, going, no, it doesn't. so it's an execution he walks into. is that the way you see it? totally. she killed him. i was defending my family. and that's all i could keep thinking about. dennis murphy (voiceover): twilight in an iowa farming town. darkness presses in at the windows of a victorian house. downstairs in the kitchen, a crockpot is simmering. upstairs, a young mother runs a bath for her baby daughter. her two older sons huddle by a tv

in a bedroom down the hall. suddenly, they hear a shout-- their mother's cry for help. all of a sudden, you know, i can hear her yelling. and then i can hear her, you know, running towards the door. i'm literally, like, standing there like, what's going on? dennis murphy (voiceover): bert pitman, then 11 years old, sees his mother running towards him. bert pitman: she's in the doorjamb, like, trying to get in. and i can see, all of a sudden, her just get yanked back by her hair. dennis murphy (voiceover): the mother flings the baby into her son's arms and slams the door shut behind her. bert pitman: i can hear just rustling around, moving around, and her yelling for my help again. and then it was her-- the sound of her being choked. dennis murphy (voiceover): nearly 20 years on, the true horror of what happened that december night, of what an 11-year-old boy says he heard and then saw, still haunts the town of early, iowa-- a crime, sudden, vicious, and inexplicable. and its impact lingered.

the fear-- i was afraid for myself. i was afraid for my family. dennis murphy (voiceover): --the pain-- each and every one of us felt alone, lost, confused. dennis murphy (voiceover): --and the unanswered questions. just what had happened on that frigid night? liar is a tough word in american culture. do you think the kid's a liar. absolutely. dennis murphy (voiceover): the spasm of violence in an unexpected place happened here at the self-proclaimed crossroads of the nation. early, iowa, population 500, stands at the junction of two highways. and most people drive right on through. but in 1998, two strangers rolled into town from chicago, tracey and michael roberts. they came off as these, you know, big people. they're from chicago. he's from australia. seemed to be a nice family? oh, yeah. local realtor mona wehde had heard the gossip about the big city transplants. it was the second marriage for both of them.

michael was a computer whiz with plans of investing in a home business and more. michael's word to the community is, i want to help the community. and we're going to grow this community. and we're going to build it up. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey kept a lower profile around town. but mary higgins, a farmer's wife, got to know her extremely well. she was great. she was fun. she was beautiful. she seemed very educated. she just was kind of a fun person to be around. dennis murphy (voiceover): the two stay-at-home moms carpooled and shared easy confidences. sometimes they'd play hooky when they were supposed to be in aerobics class together. mary higgins: we'd go to the bar. and we'd have a beer. and she'd have a drink. and we'd sit there, and we'd talk and laugh. dennis murphy (voiceover): mary had also met tracey's husband, michael, at church. but as much as she liked her friend, she took an instant dislike to the husband. she thought the entrepreneur seemed full of himself. he was a huge bragger. he would brag about everything he had, and what he was going to get. and tracey would look at him and tell him,

you know, don't-- don't do that, but he would. dennis murphy (voiceover): someone not put off by michael's swagger was realtor mona wehde. i'd helped them buy and sell several homes. dennis murphy (voiceover): she was impressed by michael's go-getter attitude and his strong religious convictions. dennis murphy: did you regard them as friends, personal friends? i absolutely did. i would've done anything to help them or assist them. dennis murphy (voiceover): the feeling was mutual. michael roberts seemed eager to help mona, too. for instance, when she told him her 20-year-old son, dustin, was drifting, struggling to hold down a job and at odds with his parents, michael made a generous offer. michael goes, well, you know, i could take him under my wing. and you know, i could mentor him a little bit and see if i can get him off on a good path. and you know, he just seemed so sincere about it. and i'm like, really? wow, that's special. ok. dennis murphy (voiceover): which is why what happened on december 13, 2001, and the identity of who had been inside the roberts home

surprised everyone the way it did. no light spilled from the windows of the house where the brutal attack was taking place. inside, 11-year-old bert was frozen, unsure. he had heard his mother being choked, but now there was silence. he grabbed a baseball bat, handed his younger brother a pen, told him to use it as a weapon. so you're the protector, and you're 11 years old here? yeah, and the only thing i wanted to do is protect them. dennis murphy (voiceover): there bert stood behind a closed bedroom door, clenching the bat, ready to fight back. and i was just like, ok, first person coming through here, i'm hitting. like, going out fighting, you know? i'm going to try. dennis murphy (voiceover): the boy could hear the voices of two men in the hallway. they eventually started banging on the door. it felt like they were trying to get in. dennis murphy (voiceover): bert says he started cursing at the intruders, using every bad word he could think of. and then i could hear, all of a sudden, another set of footsteps in the upstairs start running.

then eventually, i heard, you know, [bleep],, she has a gun. dennis murphy (voiceover): and then the boy heard a series of gunshots. a breathless bert dialed 911. dennis murphy (voiceover): what the boy was saying sounded like something out of a movie-- a first for this small town police department. dennis murphy (voiceover): what had happened inside the roberts home? who was alive, and who was dead? coming up, the picture starts to come together as tracey's mother gets word of the attack. (crying) he said, they're working on her, that she couldn't breathe. dennis murphy (voiceover): would tracey make it? and just who were the mystery intruders? when "dateline" continues.

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police cars were racing towards this victorian home, officers wondering about the fate of the people inside-- tracey roberts and her three children. there had been reports of a violent break-in and a shooting. dennis murphy (voiceover): 20 miles away, tracey's mother was also wondering about her daughter. tracey was late picking her up for her grandson bert's basketball practice. then the phone rang. it was bert, sobbing. anna richter: he just broke out in tears, and was crying hysterically on the phone. it was really hard to understand him. and he said that someone was shot in the house, and someone went running out. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey's mother jumped in her car and raced down country roads to the house. she says a policeman stopped her from going inside. said i can't go in there because it was a crime scene. and i said, i want my (choking up) daughter, see how she is.

i'm sorry. and he said, they're working on her, that she couldn't breathe. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey was alive, but she was gasping for breath. paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and took her to the hospital. two hours later, another mother came rushing to what was once the home of a friend, but was now a crime scene. and there's all these barricades and cars and stuff there. and we just go flying through the barricade. dennis murphy (voiceover): local realtor mona wehde was looking for her son, dustin. his car was parked in the driveway of the roberts home, secured now behind crime scene tape. mona says police officers wouldn't let her near it. and i looked at them, and i said, is my son here? and they go, yes. and i go, is he dead? and they go, yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): the body of dustin wehde, the young man being mentored by tracey's husband,

was sprawled on the couple's bedroom floor. tracey had shot him to death in what appeared to be a desperate act of self-defense. dennis murphy: did they let you see your son, mona? no. did they tell you anything about what had happened in the house? no, they told us to go home. i said, i want to hold him. and they said, you can't. dennis murphy (voiceover): 12 miles away, at the hospital, tracey was finally safe and breathing on her own. investigators' photos captured the ugly red choke marks on her neck and a look of terror in her eyes. what had she endured that night? tracey told us she couldn't believe it when police told her it had been her friend's son, dustin, who had attacked her. she hadn't been able to make out his face in the dark. dennis murphy: what did you think when you had a name attached to this? it was so hard because at that point, i thought the worst of it was behind me. and then-- you'd killed mona's boy, the-- yeah, that's what i feel bad about. --the kid that michael was mentoring. because i cared about mona, you know? and now, she's lost her son.

dennis murphy (voiceover): from her hospital bed, tracey told investigators a little of what she remembered, how she'd been running a bath for her daughter, mason, when she heard the sounds of the two men at the bottom of the stairs. how they had chased her as she ran to bert's room, her baby in her arms. bert says i threw mason. i don't remember throwing her. but at some point, she was out of my arms. and i was trying to get in the room. you were trying to get in there with the children? (crying) yeah. and then i was pulled out. dennis murphy (voiceover): that's when one of the men, she said, had started to strangle her with some pantyhose that had been left drying on the banister. i was having trouble breathing, and i couldn't get away. and i was having trouble even twisting out of it. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey says she must have passed out because the next thing she remembered was waking up on the floor. she could hear bert cursing at the intruders. this was the moment she knew she had to act

to protect her children. she ran for a gun safe tucked next to the bed in the master bedroom. i just dove into the room. and i just-- i went for the safe. dennis murphy (voiceover): she could feel dustin and the other man grabbing at her as she tried to open the safe. even so, she managed to punch in the code and open it. she grabbed a handgun and pointed it over her shoulder. but when she pulled the trigger, nothing happened. the safety was on. there was such relief when i got it open, and then nothing. dennis murphy (voiceover): she pulled the trigger again. and this time, she says, the gun fired. the thing i remember the most is that it was-- it was so loud, and it was so bright. like, the flash from the gun was blinding, really. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey says she managed to swivel around to face her attackers. she kept firing. dennis murphy: are you hearing your assailant scream? no. dennis murphy: cry out in pain? i didn't hear anybody scream. dennis murphy (voiceover): what she could hear when she stopped shooting was

the sound of someone breathing, and then sudden footsteps running out the door. had one of the home invaders fled? tracey edged down the bed. she couldn't see much. the bedroom was hazy with gunsmoke. but she heard her kids calling for her, she said, and she ran to bert's room. i opened the door. and bert almost took my head off with the bat. (crying) and i don't remember having a conversation with them at the time. i remember just being so happy that they were fine. both of us are on pure adrenaline, just, like, trying to just grasp of what just happened, you know? and you know, are you ok? yeah, yeah, we're fine. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey says she shepherded bert and her younger children into the hallway, thinking they were finally safe. but according to both tracey and bert, their nightmare was far from over. the intruder lying shot on tracey's floor was still alive. bert could see it was dustin wehde, the son of his mother's friend, mona.

he's on the floor. i could see blood around him. and then i can see him start to get up. he's moving? he started moving. dennis murphy (voiceover): was he going to attack tracey again? (crying) and then i remember that just put me back into, like-- like, when is this going to end? like, when is it going to stop? like, just make it stop. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey says she ordered the kids back into the bedroom. and before she knew it, she had another gun in her hand. and she fired a warning shot telling dustin to stay down. and i could hear her yelling at him to stay on the ground. don't get up. don't get up. dennis murphy (voiceover): and then another shot, and then another. and finally, dustin was still. there was no sign of the second intruder. tracey's husband, michael roberts, had been out of state on a business trip when the break-in occurred. dennis murphy: god, the questions that must be turning around in your brain-- how is she? how are the kids? there were too many questions. dennis murphy (voiceover): reunited with his family at the hospital, michael puzzled over what had happened.

dennis murphy: so the story that's settling in is this incredibly brave mama bear is protecting her cubs against these two home intruders. oh, i was very proud of her and bert. yeah, they were my heroes. dennis murphy (voiceover): but he simply could not understand why dustin, a kid he was taking under his wing, had apparently turned on him, breaking into his house, attacking his wife and children. that night, michael spoke to dustin's mother on the phone. mona called me, apologized, and asked me to tell tracey that she loves her, and-- she believed her son was in the wrong? yeah, she told me to say sorry, and that she loves her. it was heartbreaking. dennis murphy (voiceover): heartbreaking to hear mona's grief, and chilling to think what might have happened if tracey hadn't fought back the way she did. michael wondered what or who had driven dustin to such violence that night. coming up-- mary higgins: living in early, most of us don't lock our doors. a lot of us, in fact, can't lock our doors.

we were-- we were nervous. dennis murphy (voiceover): --a town on edge as police searched for the second intruder. was it someone from tracey's mysterious past? she said, i'm about to send you a fax. and i hope you'll still love me after i send it to you. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

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(crying) i've had so many nightmares about the attack. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey roberts, in her sleep, relived the terrifying night of the home invasion. her mother says she was falling apart. she did not want to go in the house. she was afraid to go in the house. it was very uncomfortable in there. dennis murphy (voiceover): uncomfortable and uneasy described a great many residents of tiny early, iowa, in the days following. i was told there was a second man, and that he hadn't been found. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey's best friend, like many other people in town, worried about her family's safety. mary higgins: living in early, most of us

don't lock our doors. a lot of us, in fact, can't lock our doors. we were-- we were nervous. dennis murphy (voiceover): where was the second intruder? tracey gave an interview to a local tv reporter in the months following the home invasion. there's this person who's still out there. and as a mother, i have a natural instinct to want to protect my children. dennis murphy (voiceover): she gave a description of the second intruder. but other than that, police didn't have much to go on. crime scene technicians could find no fingerprints at the scene. no one had seen anyone suspicious fleeing the area that winter's night. we're still looking at several different areas. again, we still have no clue who that second party was in the house that night. dennis murphy (voiceover): and of course, police knew the identity of the attacker who hadn't gotten away-- dustin wehde, the son of tracey's friend, realtor mona wehde. i was in shock. i couldn't even think. dennis murphy (voiceover): it was also hard for mona to hear. hi, ma. mona wehde (on video): hello.

dennis murphy (voiceover): her boy, dustin, the child she had raised, wasn't a violent young man. he was just misunderstood. i felt that my son was labeled at a very young age, and really started getting bullied at a very young age. he was never invited to a birthday party. he never was invited for a sleepover. dennis murphy (voiceover): was there a name for what troubled him? mona had taken dustin from doctor to doctor to get a handle on his social awkwardness, his moodiness. everywheres we went, there was always a different diagnosis. and i just felt he was very misunderstood as a child. dennis murphy (voiceover): had the troubled young man simply snapped? tracey thought so. she says she had never felt safe around dustin, even when michael had been mentoring him. i told michael that i didn't like the idea of him being around the kids. because when i saw him with michael, his affect was just off. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey said dustin's mother had once confided in her that she

was scared of her own son. she complained about how he was physical with his sisters. scaring his own sister? she specifically said she could not leave him alone with the girls because he would hurt them. physical things? physically hurt them, yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): she said mona had told her that dustin had hit her, too. i can't imagine a boy raising his hand to his mother. and you believe he did that? yeah, she's-- i saw her cry over it. dennis murphy (voiceover): in the hours after the attack, tracey speculated about what had brought the unstable teenager to her home in the first place. had some of michael's collectable guns caught his eye? was it a botched robbery? investigators didn't think so. the intruders had shown no interest in grabbing tracey's expensive jewelry or the cash michael kept in the safe. the one item made off with from the house was an old computer found in the back seat of dustin's car. tracey: when i heard that the computer was taken, i did think it was strange that a ring, that's a lot smaller and has a lot more value, which could easily fit into somebody's pocket--

why didn't someone just slip the ring off my finger? dennis murphy (voiceover): but if dustin and his mysterious co-conspirator hadn't been looking for loot, what had they been doing? had their mission been even more sinister than anyone first imagined? investigators wondered, did someone want to scare tracey or maybe even kill her? but nobody could picture dustin wehde, troubled as he was, as leading that kind of vicious assault. who, then, was the other person in the house that night? finding him could be the key to figuring out who wanted tracey dead. dennis murphy (voiceover): michael roberts had a glimmer of a theory involving some sordid personal history with his wife. incredibly, the home invasion wasn't the first time that tracey had come under attack. michael roberts: i was at work. and she said, i'm about to send you a fax. can you make sure you are standing at the fax machine personally? and i hope you'll still love me after i send it to you. dennis murphy (voiceover): four years before, when the roberts had still been living in chicago, tracey had sent her husband a troubling document.

it appeared to be the typewritten confession of a dentist admitting that he had assaulted tracey after sedating her during a dental procedure. she said she woke up with-- she was wearing, like, red high heel shoes that were too small for her, her leg over his shoulder. and-- and he was masturbating over her. dennis murphy (voiceover): in the document, the dentist set out the terms for an understanding. he'd agree to seek counseling for his sexual obsessions and pay tracey $150,000 in damages. in turn, tracey would promise to keep the incident a secret, even from her husband. dennis murphy: so what do you do? i mean, you're reading this fax in which your wife is documenting her rape by the dentist. what i'm going to do. i'm her husband. i wanted to kill him. dennis murphy (voiceover): of course, michael didn't mean it. he told his wife to call the cops. i was just saying, she has to call the police. it was rape, you know? and she wouldn't do it. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey filed a lawsuit against the doctor instead, alleging medical malpractice.

and a few days before the home invasion, they were set to go to trial in a chicago courtroom. so your first solution to this home invasion mystery is, the dentist did it. of course it's the first thing i thought of. and i was told that the second guy had a chicago accent. dennis murphy (voiceover): investigators now had a solid lead on the identity of the potential mastermind of the home invasion. had tracey's big city past followed her to rural iowa? coming up-- dennis murphy (voiceover): --the list of possible suspects is about to grow longer as tracey points the finger at someone else from her past. she said, he's the one. they're going to arrest him. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

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hi i am frances rivera with the top stories. countries across the world

have begun ringing in the new year. paris the son of the summer olympics. spectators were treated to fireworks. in the italian capitol, thousands gathered outside the coliseum with handheld laser pens as fireworks reflected off the coliseum walls. happy new year from all of us at msnbc . for now, back to dateline. dateline. she said she was sure of it. in a recorded phone call to police, tracey said fear was taking over her daily life. michael, her husband, was making her wear a panic button outside the house. dennis murphy (voiceover): and she was racking her brains trying to figure out who wanted to harm her. dennis murphy (voiceover): investigators had a number of possible suspects in their sights,

among them that chicago dentist who tracey claimed had assaulted her a few years before. but he didn't appear to have any ties to dustin wehde. a much more promising lead was someone tracey told the cops would be happier to see her dead than alive-- her ex-husband. dennis murphy: did you love him? yeah, of course i did. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey had met her first husband at a chicago teaching hospital. his name was john pitman. he was a medical student, and she was a radiographer, barely 20 years old. tracey: he was very much in control. and i kind of-- i really liked that. i grew up in a household with a very domineering, controlling father. so to me, that was what i thought was how it's supposed to be. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey's mother was not a fan of the doctor husband. he never really talked. he was very-- very much almost to himself. and it was hard having a conversation with him and try-- you almost felt like you were dragging things out. dennis murphy (voiceover): did he have something to hide?

tracey revealed to investigators that her marriage to the doctor had quickly deteriorated. he was a philanderer and a bully, she said, even in the bedroom. she described how the doctor enjoyed tying her to the bed and gagging her, how one time, he'd even left her tied up overnight uncovered and with the windows open. in 1992, the couple separated. they shared custody of their son, baby bert, until one day, she reported to authorities that the three-year-old had blurted out something shocking-- his father had touched him. bert is the first one that made a comment. and we weren't sure, so she took him to a doctor. and it was the doctor who said that it looked like he was abused. dennis murphy (voiceover): had the boy been sexually abused by his own father, dr. john pitman, the man who was now tracey's ex-husband? the allegation of abuse became the centerpiece of a toxic, expensive custody battle for the boy, a scrap

that was still ongoing during tracey's second marriage to michael roberts. husband number two was furious with husband number one in the months preceding the home invasion. do you think, wow, she was married to a monster? look what he did to this boy. i thought somebody-- you know, this can't be right. how can he still be practicing medicine? and my son, my stepson, had to go through this. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey's ex, the doctor, adamantly denied the allegations. but when he returned to court, once again seeking sole custody of bert, michael, husband number two, couldn't believe it. i called him and said, john, i have very deep pockets. and i'm-- i'm not going to stop fighting. it's going to get very expensive. why don't you just give up? dennis murphy (voiceover): had the warning from tracey's husband goaded the doctor into taking a different approach to the custody battle? had he decided to bypass the family courts altogether by hiring two hitmen to knock off his ex? that was the most likely scenario tracey told investigators. her first husband could very well

be behind the home invasion. the doctor's son, bert, echoed that theory when he was being interviewed by a social worker. dennis murphy (voiceover): the 11-year-old relived the nightmarish home invasion during the interview. dennis murphy (voiceover): bert told it like a story out of a rip-snorting, violent comic book. and he and his mom were the heroes. dennis murphy (voiceover): the villain, he said, was his dad, tracey's first husband, dr. john pitman. it aided bert that his own father hadn't even called to see how he was doing after the attack. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey told the cops the indifference of the boy's father was one more reason that they should consider

dr. john pitman a suspect. investigators chased down tracey's suspicion of her ex and asked the local police in virginia where he lived to check out his alibi around the time of the home invasion. mary higgins, tracey's good friend, remembers tracey at the time telling her that husband number one was now the prime suspect. she said, well, john pitman's in a lot of trouble, that he's the one, you know? they're-- they're going to arrest him. they're after him. dennis murphy (voiceover): but weeks passed without an arrest. tracey was becoming increasingly frustrated, her friend says. some nights, she would drive past law enforcement offices to see what was going on. mary higgins: she would know how late the county attorney was working because she'd come by and-- and look to see if the lights were on on the third floor. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey feared that if her ex had hired dustin wehde and a mysterious second intruder to stage a home invasion and gotten away with it, there was nothing to stop him from lashing out again.

the custody battle was still raging in the courts. but while tracey brooded, investigators were showing an interest in another suspect, someone much closer to home. coming up, portrait of a marriage-- the relationship of tracey and michael under the microscope. it was just that feeling of this isn't good. this is cold. this is bad. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. speaker: who's coming in the driveway?

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ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last. feel the power of contrast therapy. ♪♪ so you can rise from pain. icy hot. on medicare? living with diabetes? progress is having your coffee like you like it. the freestyle libre 3 plus sensor is covered by medicare for more people managing diabetes with insulin. this is progress. ask your doctor today. ♪♪ tracey roberts said she'd been attacked in her home by her friend's son, and she had killed him. tracey: (crying) i was defending my family because the worst fear for me was that i would lose one of my kids, or someone would die. and now, she's lost her son. and that's all i could keep thinking about. dennis murphy (voiceover): but who had caused dustin wehde to be in that house in the first place? the lead investigator called tracey to fill

her in on his progress. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey had told the cops about that nasty custody battle she was waging with her ex-husband, the virginia doctor. she said her ex certainly had a plausible motive to want her dead. but investigators couldn't find any hard evidence linking him to dustin wehde-- no phone records, no money trail. it was a dead end. as the weeks passed, another name began to crop up around town-- a lot of speculation. do you need menus today? dennis murphy (voiceover): --speculation that robin padgett heard dished up over coffee and eggs at her diner a few blocks from the roberts home. a lot of people wondered if michael had set it up to try to get rid of tracey. dennis murphy (voiceover): michael roberts, tracey's second husband. he had always said he was out of state on a business trip that night. but was he? could he prove it? obviously, the husband is always a suspect in most cases involving

an attempt on a wife's life. dennis murphy (voiceover): sac county sheriff ken mcclure, who took over the case in 2003, said investigators had been intrigued by michael roberts from the get-go. who was this australian businessman who'd moved from chicago to tiny early, iowa? what is the draw, you know? law enforcement officers with careers that have gone on for a while have seen, you know, the criminal element move out of the cities and into the rural areas. so i think you've just got to step back and look at that and say, why are they here? dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey was in conflict. the suspect she wanted investigators to get serious about was her ex, that doctor in virginia. but they seem just as interested, if not more interested, in her current husband, michael roberts. good friend mary higgins told tracey directly what some people in town were starting to believe about her spouse. she came right out and told me she thought it was michael. had set up dustin and this other guy? yeah. and the goal was to do what? to kill me. dennis murphy (voiceover): mary

higgins says the roberts' perfect marriage was all an act. you know the difference between somebody who's in love, and mad at them but still are in love. and that was gone there. it was just that feeling of, this isn't good. this is cold. this is bad. dennis murphy (voiceover): and her opinion wasn't just based on a feeling. mary, who often picked bert up at school, had heard him tell horrible stories about what was going on at home. if bert didn't move fast enough, there was always some sort of a harsh punishment. many times, bert would come to school without a coat. and it would be below zero because bert didn't move fast enough in the morning. dennis murphy (voiceover): but as the story went, it was an incident in december 2000, a year before the home invasion, that had really exposed tracey and michael's marriage for the facade it was. it began with an argument over finances in the roberts home office. dustin's mother, mona, watched it unfold. tracey comes storming in through the back door.

and she's just rampaging, and yelling, and screaming. and michael looked at me and goes, i'm going to have to excuse you and ask you to leave. dennis murphy (voiceover): and then it went nuts. according to this police report, tracey said michael had knocked her down and jumped on her. he'd also pulled her hair. that's when he put my mom's head through drywall. dennis murphy: through the sheetrock, huh? bert pitman: her head went through the drywall. dennis murphy (voiceover): michael roberts was arrested and spent the night in jail. he later pleaded no contest to charges of disturbing the peace-- said he was just trying to restrain tracey for her own protection. but bert told police there was more they needed to know. this boy, who had accused his biological dad of sexually abusing him, now said he had horror stories about his stepfather, too. is he hitting you, giving you the back of the hand kind of thing? yeah, i mean, it's-- you know, he broke my nose at one point for not cleaning up horse crap, you know, with my bare hands. dennis murphy (voiceover): and along with the beatings, he said, there was constant humiliation.

and one of the worst ones was when i was older. it just psychologically-- i mean, i was, like, 13 at the time, you know? and he was beating me. and then, you know, i was crying. and since i was crying, i was a little baby, and the little baby needed its bottle. so you know, he made me drink out of a bottle. dennis murphy: are you ok with this? he's your boy. i wasn't happy with it. but i found that when i objected, it made it worse. dennis murphy (voiceover): bert says his mother remained blind to something that was becoming clearer and clearer to him. it wasn't his biological dad, dr. john pitman, who had plotted his mother's murder. he now believed it was his stepfather. so you think michael, your stepfather, was involved in this, orchestrated it, planned it? fully involved. dennis murphy (voiceover): looking back, bert thinks michael gave himself away at the hospital the night of the attack. just the way he looked at us, or the way he reacted to seeing us alive was off. as though he didn't expect to see you alive?

yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): bert thinks michael was posing as a loving, concerned husband, and pointing fingers at the chicago dentist and tracey's ex-husband, just to throw the cops off the trail. he's trying to have everybody look in all these different directions instead of him, you know? isn't it counterintuitive, though, that he would stay with your mother? and he does, for years. you think he would find a reason to have his pager go off and leave town. i mean, if you paid people to kill your family, and they failed, you don't want to leave. because it looks like you did it. i feel like he was waiting for his next opportunity to do it. dennis murphy (voiceover): and remember, it was michael roberts who had begun nurturing dustin wehde in the year leading up to the attack. dustin's relationship with his own dad had been difficult. there just wasn't a lot of connection between the two of them. and i think for dustin, that was painful. dennis murphy (voiceover): had michael exploited this void to his advantage, becoming some kind of father figure to the troubled teen, grooming him to kill tracey? the lead investigators confronted

michael in his home office. he looked me in the eye and said, michael, how much did you pay to dustin to kill your wife? dennis murphy (voiceover): michael denied any involvement in the crime. and police quickly established that his alibi, the out-of-town business trip, was rock solid. there was no way that he'd been in the house that night as the second intruder. but that didn't mean he couldn't have masterminded the attack. police asked tracey's husband to take a polygraph. the results, according to the examiner, concluded michael's truthfulness could not be verified, and he could not be cleared in this matter. the fact that he failed a polygraph, yeah, i had to think maybe he is involved. dennis murphy (voiceover): with tracey now living with a man who wanted her dead, how much danger was she really in? don't make up your mind yet. turns out the case had more twists to come. coming up-- dennis murphy: was there any way that you could put him

in the house, up to no good? no. i just said, there's no way, no way possible. dennis murphy (voiceover): the other mom in the story has some questions of her own-- questions about the home invasion story tracey's been telling. they just plain and simple said her story fits the evidence. and i'm just, like, going, no, it doesn't. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. type 2 diabetes? discover the ozempic® tri-zone. i got the power of 3. i lowered my a1c, cv risk, and lost some weight. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. and adults lost up to 14 pounds. i lost some weight. ozempic® isn't for type 1 diabetes or children. don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles.

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it had been nearly a year since the home invasion, but investigators seemed no closer to solving the case. michael roberts persuaded his wife, tracey, to go on "the montel williams show," a last, desperate appeal for clues. he convinced me that if we went on it, because it was taking it to a more national level, that someone could come forward, and it could be a lead. we believe that there's somebody that still knows something.

and so we're appealing to-- we're appealing to people, if they know something, to call. dennis murphy (voiceover): on television, with their hands clasped, michael and tracey looked like a team. but inside, tracey says, she'd been starting to have her doubts. someone called, and they very kind of snidely said to me, oh, did your husband tell you he failed his polygraph? dennis murphy (voiceover): flunked a lie detector? tracey says she assumed there must be some kind of explanation and waited for michael to tell her about the results himself. we get into bed. i'm expecting this is when we're going to talk, right? he rolls over and goes to sleep. and i'm laying in bed like, what's going on here? dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey thought how little she really knew about her second husband and what he was capable of. they'd met online, and then gotten married 18 days after their first face-to-face meeting. dennis murphy: who is michael? i don't know. i really don't know. i wish i knew. because when we were together, when we were having problems,

i honestly still believed that he loved me, you know? dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey started to grapple with the idea that it was michael, her current husband, and not dr. john pitman, her ex, who might have been behind the home invasion plot. and the way tracey pieced it together, michael had motive, too. in 2001, the roberts' computer business was in trouble. had he seen tracey's death as an easy way to get his hands on some cash? after all, they had millions of dollars' worth of life insurance policies. dennis murphy (voiceover): in 2004, nearly three years after the home invasion, the roberts' marriage imploded. michael filed for divorce. tracey filed for an order of protection against him. the sheriff saw the rift between husband and wife as an opportunity. when they got divorced, really, that's where we figured out we would know if michael roberts was involved or not. dennis murphy (voiceover): but the sheriff would be disappointed. as ugly as the roberts divorce became,

it didn't yield any clues about the home invasion. the investigation went cold. and then as suddenly as she'd arrived in small town iowa, tracey up and left. she'd move with her children to omaha, nebraska-- new town, new job. she even changed her name. in reality, she needed to get away from michael. i mean, he still was harassing her all the time. he's not past tense? he's still making it-- life hard for her. dennis murphy (voiceover): the other mother in the story, dustin's mother, was also long gone from early, iowa. she'd taken dustin's sisters to live in minneapolis after her husband, their father, took his own life in the cemetery where dustin was buried. he went there, and he put a bullet in his heart, and left notes saying i cried every day since december 13. but what a stark world you were looking at on your husband's death.

(voice breaking) yeah, it was very horrible. dennis murphy: how did you pull yourself together? mona wehde: i buried stuff. i hid it, put up walls, closed the doors, tried to tell myself it's a horrible nightmare, and i'm going to wake up. dennis murphy (voiceover): the worst part of the nightmare, that she felt so alone. mona was consumed with questions she felt no one else cared about. instead of wondering about the identity of the mysterious second intruder or who'd masterminded the attack, she wanted to know what had really happened to her son that night. dennis murphy: was there any way that you could put him in the house, up to no good? no. i just said, there's no way, no way possible. dennis murphy (voiceover): for starters, mona said her son wasn't the scary hair-trigger misfit described by tracey. his mother knew a dustin with a sweet smile masking a little sadness, not a killer. sure, this kid who could entertain his family

with goofy elvis impersonations didn't really connect to outsiders. that's why he treasured his relationship with the roberts family. no way would he have wished them harm. they were my friends. they befriended him. dustin was like, i got a friend. no, he's not going to go down there and go, oh, i think i'll kill you today. dennis murphy (voiceover): common sense told mona there was something wrong with the very idea that dustin had been a hit man for hire on that night. mona wehde: he parked in front of the house. he had no gun. he had no knife. dennis murphy (voiceover): but hadn't dustin ripped off a roberts family computer? they'd found it in his car. you're going to tell me that my son went into the house that is full of dells and gateways, and he went upstairs in the corner in a bedroom and picked up a packard bell, obsolete piece of junk? it's an old beater computer? useless computer-- went out, loaded it in his car, packed it in nice and neat, then went back in the house and went upstairs to get killed?

dennis murphy (voiceover): mona knew there had to be a better explanation. maybe dustin had stumbled in on someone else trying to kill tracey. mona peppered investigators with questions. i kept asking questions. and i got funny answers. and they just plain and simple said her story fits the evidence. and i'm just, like, going, no, it doesn't. dennis murphy (voiceover): coming up, tracey roberts under scrutiny. a new investigator tracks down her first husband. and boy, does he have a story to tell about his ex. and then next thing i know, she disappears in the bedroom, and comes out waving a gun. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

dennis murphy (voiceover): mona wehde's son dustin had been shot dead. and she knew tracey robert's story didn't add up. but it was a conversation with the town's funeral director

that made her think tracey might be deliberately