the answer, for only love can. conquer. picket lines and picket signs. don't punish me with brutality. talk to me, sister, so you can see what's going on, what's going on? what's going on? what's going on? hell, what's. >> going on? only love can conquer hate if marvin gaye could get there, can we? you can see more of our special here@msnbc.com slash. ari, here@msnbc.com slash. ari, thanks for watching msnbc. [music playing] hello, i'm andrea canning, and this is "dateline."ddiny as beauty and the beast, lived the good life till that strange, terrible day. jason page: he found her at home. a barbell was across her throat. andrea canning: dead. a tragic, freak accident.

or was it? leah frazier: i'm like, the weight machine? she doesn't lift weights. andrea canning: a home gym mysteriously turned deathtrap. a husband suddenly turns suspect. hello, and welcome to "dateline." it's the case of a fit, young woman who died suddenly. her friends and family were told it was a freak accident in a gym, the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. equipment does, at times, malfunction, but so do relationships. here is dennis murphy with the beauty and the beast mystery. dennis murphy: the images are fuzzy on that old home video of the wedding reception, but anyone who was there remembers the event vividly. the bride all in white, and the groom? he's the dance partner in the goofy beast costume. kind of a strange way to begin a marriage,

some guests murmured. beauty and the beast. but then, it was a union that would end strangely, a last dance still more than 10 years away at that point. lisa the bride, of course, had no idea what was in store for the two of them. she glided about with her signature 50,000 watt smile. you can't fake a smile like that. that was just her. dennis murphy: lisa had been a single mom raising her small son, when she joined her sister for a rare girls' night out at a fort wayne, indiana dance club. there in the den, a big guy, a bodybuilder, he said, small talked her and slipped her his business card before lisa's party called it a night. in the car going home, lisa pulled out the business card and showed it to her sister, christine. it said, jean-claude van damme lookalike. you're kidding? no. and i said, you're not gonna call that guy, are you? but she remembered him, hadn't she? yes. dennis murphy: not only remembered him, but was soon dating and being pursued by the guy

from the club who turned out to be scott pattison, who worked in construction. within a year, they were married. lisa's mom, lucy rich. lucy rich: she came in on a white carriage hose. very beautiful, and she was so happy that day. she was very happy. i'm scott pattison i'm the groom here. this is my wife. dennis murphy: as you left the wedding that night, lucy, how'd you feel about your daughter? i was happy for her. dennis murphy: the newlyweds set up housekeeping in central indiana. he eventually became a self-employed roofing contractor, and she the go-getter marketing manager at a local mall. her son, dillon, from a previous relationship, grew to call scott dad. growing up, i didn't really have a fatherly figure. i slowly and surely called him dad. dennis murphy: and 13 years on, all were living a comfortable life together in a nice, big house with acreage out in the country. there were vacations in the caribbean,

soaking in hot tubs, snorkeling with the stingrays, island-hopping. scott liked that people thought of him as a good time guy. mr. big. if you knew scott, then you would know that he wanted everything to be the biggest and the best. dennis murphy: and he kept up on his fitness regimen. the former bodybuilder didn't want to slide into flab. he kept after lisa to stay in shape with him, and her best friend from the mall, a woman named leah frazier, became lisa's workout buddy. leah frazier: lisa was always conscious about what she was eating, how she was exercising. she would do aerobics. she would do the stair stepper. dennis murphy: scott installed a few pieces of gym equipment in the basement of the house. a treadmill, a tanning bed, and a weight machine. it was there that something catastrophic had happened on the morning of july second, 2009. and now scott was in his truck racing for help, calling 911.

as scott sped through summer cornfields, his wife, lisa, was in the back of the cab in very bad shape as he told the dispatcher. scott would say later he'd gone downstairs just before noon and found his wife straddled face-up on the exercise bench with the barbell weight crushing her throat. paramedics intercepted scott's truck minutes from the hospital. a police car followed behind, dash cam rolling. doctors could not revive her, and at the age of 36, lisa pattison was gone. how could any of the friends and family adjust to vibrant lisa with that beaming smile being just a memory now? she was always in good spirits. she was always smiling.

she was just an amazing woman through-and-through. dennis murphy: dillon had been up early that morning off to the job site, where he was helping his stepdad and his crew. it had been the quickest of goodbyes to his mom. my last words to her was that i loved you, and she said the same thing back. dennis murphy: and now suddenly, they were all gathering at the hospital. dillon got the news from his dad. i just lost it. i-- the one person i depended on my whole life was gone. dennis murphy: lisa's mom, lucy rich, was taken in to see her daughter's body. i just walked around her body and just kept-- i couldn't believe she was gone. dennis murphy: lisa's best friend from the mall, leah frazier, was likewise enormously saddened. i've lost probably my best friend. someone who made me a better person. someone who was good. dennis murphy: because lisa had been in her prime and sound health, her death was categorized as unattended, which meant

that the police would take a look before it could be ruled an accident. but what else could it be? a woman home alone working out. a husband who comes back to the house for lunch only to find such a ghastly scene in the basement. it couldn't be anything but an accident. could it? andrea canning: coming up. police do some investigating, and something just doesn't make sense. he's turning down 911 help? it had a red flag to me. yes, it did. some things make your nose twitch? yes. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. still have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis... ...or crohn's disease symptoms after taking... ...a medication like humira or remicade? put them in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief with rinvoq. check. when flares tried to slow me down,... ...i got lasting remission with rinvoq. check. and many were in remission...

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scott explained what had happened. how he'd come home from work to shower and eat lunch before an afternoon doctor's appointment for his bad back. lisa had taken the day off. he said, he lifted the weights off and started cpr. as an ex-first responder, he'd been trained in that but said he couldn't revive her. another officer, crime scene investigator, jason page, with the state police, was now assigned to document pattison's truck and examine lisa's body. he found a bruise on the woman's neck and an abrasion on the left shoulder. seeing those injuries, jason, did it explain to you what had happened? you take it at face value.

her husband stated that he had found her at home. a barbell was across her throat. those injuries seem consistent with that story. dennis murphy: signs were pointing towards an awful accident. some clean up paperwork to do and on to the next case. still, the detective whose case it was, detective davis, elected to bring scott down to the station that afternoon for a formal videotaped interview. the interview began with a more detailed accounting of scott pattison's day. he'd gotten up, he said, at quarter to 5:00 in the morning, kissed lisa goodbye, and made a run to the landfill north of town. he got back home around 6:30 in time to meet his stepson, dillon, and an employee, who then all headed out to the job site together. he said, he called out for lisa, but she didn't answer.

music from downstairs told him she was working out. 10 to 15 minutes went by, he said, before he actually headed downstairs to discover her. >> what kind of. >> bar was it? >> the bench press? >> weightlifting bar. >> weightlifting bar. >> so bench. he said, he lifted the bar off lisa's neck, felt for a pulse, then tried giving her cpr on the bench. as he was backing out, he told the detective he called 911. as he was backing out, he told the detective he called 911.

he said, when he saw the ambulance, he rolled down his window and pulled over to the curb. maybe that's what happened? at that time, yes. we didn't know. dennis murphy: but there was something about the way scott had acted that wasn't passing the detective's smell test. he's turning down 911 help. it had a red flag to me. yes, it did. some things make your nose twitch? yes. dennis murphy: then scott was asked about the state of his marriage. they'd been married for 13 years, scott said, but just a few months ago, they'd filed for divorce. an affair, but he insisted the relationship with

the other woman was over. in fact, the divorce with lisa was on hold. he said, they'd had a change of heart and had been trying to work things out. ok. so there's something else we're gonna look into. dennis murphy: after taking the statement, investigator page made a physical check of the husband. noting no fresh injuries on his face, arms, or hands. routine stuff. then the officers headed out to the pattison home. the crime scene agent's camcorder documented a house in pristine condition. there were no signs of forced entry, nothing to suggest a struggle. they did note two security cameras mounted on the exterior stone facade. but they checked the recorder in the garage, and the dvd tray was empty. we didn't get lucky here? didn't get lucky. dennis murphy: downstairs in the workout room, they found the weight bench. it wasn't a freeweight system as they'd imagined, but rather something called a smith machine. a professional gym-type device, where the weight bar rides up and down

two fixed cylindrical rails. the barbell weighed about 105 pounds with weights attached. investigator page took a close look at the apparatus to see if it supported scott's story. he talked us through the analysis he performed that day. yes, this is the weight bench from the pattison home. page noticed two things right away. when he laid down on the bench as it was set up, the bar lined up not with his chest, the correct alignment for lifting, but rather with his neck. so if you complete the lift, it would align with the body in this fashion. bar on the throat. that matched scott's story. investigator page also made note of a circular smudge on the center of the bar itself. had that spot been left by lisa's neck? it looked like body oil to me or perhaps sweat. would that mean you suspected that this part of the bar was making contact? it appeared that-- it appeared to be that with me. that fit with the husband's account, too. when investigator page tried the machine, it appeared to be in working order.

he couldn't make it fail accidentally, and once in use, the bar felt fairly easy to re-rack and secure using a hook and holes along the frame. and you complete your repetitions. and once you're complete, you rotate your wrists, and these hooks engage. but maybe something important. two safety stoppers, which would have afforded a lifter extra protection, were resting unused at the bottom of each rail. when these are engaged, it gives you an added layer of safety. that's all cool if they're in place, but if they're not in place, you don't have that protection. no safety stops. if the bar had slipped while in use, it could have plummeted onto lisa's neck with bone-breaking force. this will fall down like a guillotine. ka-thunk? yes. theoretically, could it be a fatal accident? oh, yes. i would certainly consider it fatal. dennis murphy: there it was. perhaps lisa's death happened just as scott had said. certainly nothing jumped out and screamed homicide.

still, an important voice hadn't been heard from yet, and that was the medical examiner. his autopsy could prove to be crucial. it was. the medical examiner uncovers a small clue, one almost invisible to the naked eye, but it could have a big impact on the case. coming up. getting that information at that moment, had the case changed for you? absolutely. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. covid-19? i'm not waiting. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid is an oral treatment for adults... with mild-to- moderate covid-19 and a high-risk factor for it becoming severe. it does not prevent covid-19. my symptoms are mild now, but i'm not risking it. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid must be taken within the first 5 days of symptoms... and helps stop the virus from multiplying in your body. taking paxlovid with certain medicines can lead... to serious or life- threatening side effects or affect how it... or other medicines work, including hormonal birth control. tell your doctor about all medicines, vitamins,

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>> are so for these first 100 days, y dennis murphy: 36-year-old lisa pattison was dead, but detective, mike davis, and crime scene investigator, jason page, were not sure yet what kind of case, if any, they had. on the suspicious side of the ledger, lisa's husband, scott, had raised red flags when he declined emergency services help as he raced with his wife to the hospital. likewise, what he said about that drive in a recorded interview raised eyebrows. i wouldn't think someone would refer to their loved one as a body, when you're not even sure-- you're claiming she's not even dead yet. dennis murphy: still, maybe it was just a freak accident. a first pass look at the weight bench lisa had been on when she died suggested an accident was plausible. and at the autopsy, the medical examiner didn't find anything to explain a sudden death, nothing like a stroke or heart attack. lisa had been in good health.

very healthy 36-year-old woman who worked out. dennis murphy: but the autopsy did provide a quite unexpected finding, something that now made the investigators very troubled. lisa had died not from a sudden, crushing blow to the neck, the guillotine effect, but rather from a slow neck compression, as if the barbell had rested on her throat and gradually cut off her air supply. you were testing the machine at the house. when you let go of that bar, it was a real, convincing thunk on the bench. oh, yeah. and you would have seen that in the autopsy here? i would expect-- there would have been crush-- jason page: fractures. - crushed bones? perhaps even her neck. did not find that? no. did not. dennis murphy: what had happened to lisa pattison that morning? we know that her neck wasn't crushed. her spine hadn't been fractured. she didn't have an aneurysm, didn't have a stroke, didn't have a heart attack. we didn't know what we had. dennis murphy: meanwhile, the people who knew lisa best were wondering what in the world she was doing on the weight bench in the first place. christine smith knew her sister liked to work out,

but lisa was a treadmill girl, not a weightlifter. she was doing treadmill, doing more aerobic stuff. dennis murphy: and the dead woman's best friend from the mall, leah, knew very well that lisa couldn't lift heavy things, not with a neck injury she'd suffered a couple of years earlier in a minor car accident. even the holiday ornaments in the mall storage room were too much for her. i did the lifting. i did the boxes. i did the carrying up. i'm like, the weight machine? she doesn't lift weights. then there was the elephant in the room since lisa's death, a subject that her friends and family didn't feel comfortable even putting words to. and that was how they felt about scott all the years that he'd been married to lisa. impressions of him that ran from self-centered jerk to nasty drill instructor. now that circle of lisa's friends were asking if scott had something to do with that so-called accident in the basement. lisa pattison: there he is. asleep. gosh.

dennis murphy: he was lisa's husband, but the rest of the family didn't get it. he'd long been an awkward fit to that. but i have no tin foil. dennis murphy: at holiday gatherings, they couldn't help but notice how tough he was on lisa's son, dillon. the stepdad bossed him around like a raw recruit and meted out harsh punishments for the slightest misstep. dillon recalled what scott ordered him to do one winter, when the boy neglected to take out the morning mail. it was 6:00 am in the morning, and he actually said, take your clothes off. leave your underwear on, and you're gonna go walk out to the mailbox. i had a great mom, but i always wanted a better fatherly figure. dennis murphy: now, when it came to his mom, scott could put on the charm. give me a hug. well, he said, don't be getting jealous. oh, for pete's sake. dennis murphy: but to lisa's mother and sister, scott never measured up. i wanted her to be with someone that totally respected her and loved her with all their heart.

and i didn't see that with scott. dennis murphy: it wasn't a big, dark, family secret that lisa and scott had been crashing into the rocks for a while. he was having an affair, and lisa found out. they talked divorce. when lisa visited her sister at her home in virginia about a month before she died, without saying as much, she telegraphed that the marriage was over. sister christine acted as lisa's financial advisor. she said, well, i need to make some changes on my life insurance policy, and when she said that to me, i knew that she was getting ready to leave. and how much was the policy for? $450,000. dennis murphy: lisa wanted her policy, which named scott and her son as co-beneficiaries, quietly switched to dillon alone. christine mailed the paperwork for lisa to sign but hadn't gotten it back by the day lisa died. the day after lisa died, the family met near the mall, where she used to work. scott had gotten wind of the policy change.

he pulled his sister-in-law aside and asked insurance questions. he's asking me, basically, did she sign it? he wants to know if he's off the policy? right. dennis murphy: back at the wabash county sheriff's office, crime scene investigator, jason page, was still puzzling through the autopsy results. death by slow pressure to the windpipe rather than a bone-breaking, catastrophic plunge of the weight bar. and we're left with this neck compression. it's just like a slow neck compression. dennis murphy: then the medical examiner came up with an additional finding, and it would be as significant for investigator page as it was minute. on her back, from her neck down to her waistline, he noticed what appeared to be petechiae. dennis murphy: petechiae, minuscule bruises hardly visible to the naked eye. not just on the back of lisa's neck, where pressure had been applied by the bar, but down her back and along her waist as well. what could have caused that? jason page: that troubled him.

perhaps somebody straddled her and sat on her chest or her torso at the time of death. dennis murphy: straddling her? but she'd been home alone working out. the all-but-invisible bruising wasn't enough for the pathologist to officially rule lisa's death a homicide, but it did set a fire under the investigators. getting that information at that moment, had the case changed for you? absolutely. you were now following a homicide? yes. dennis murphy: a theory of homicide, but the case was mostly innuendo. they needed to come up with hard evidence they could show to a prosecutor. they needed a lucky break, and as it turned out, one was a phone call away. andrea canning: coming up. there's been plenty of attention on that weight bench, but it's another piece of equipment that just might crack this case. i got goose bumps. i'm like, oh my goodness. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues.

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how sometimes things fall into your lap from the most unexpected places, and that's what happened in the middle of july, 2009. lisa had been dead for a couple of weeks. detective mike davis had been at his desk preparing subpoenas for the pattison case, when he took a call from the manager of a local burglar alarm company. he told the detective that one of his salesmen had just gotten off the phone with a customer, who'd had some questions about how his home video surveillance system worked. the customer was scott pattison. did the cops want to know something more about all of this? detective davis said, indeed they did, but then he explained how they'd been out to the pattison house and had checked out that video setup. and noticed when he popped the tray on the recorder that there was no dvd. no dvd, no pictures, right? well, detective davis almost fell out of his chair when he heard what the burglar alarm man said next. he said, well, you don't need one. it records to a hard drive, and my mouth just opened up.

dennis murphy: a hard drive. the detective got a warrant and screamed over to the pattison house, where the recorder perched still untouched in the garage. what a video festival the detective was about to have. this is july second, 2009. this is looking from his garage to the side here. dennis murphy: the unblinking camera documented scott's run to the landfill at 5:00 am. then its motion detectors came alive again an hour and a half later as he got back home to hook up with dillon and his employee as they headed out to the job site. the camera was showing the same thing scott had previously talked to the detective about. so he's a good storyteller? good accounting of his day at this point? sure. dennis murphy: and then, scott's timeline went haywire. remember, scott had told the cops, he didn't get back to the house that morning till 11:30, just a few minutes before he came upon lisa in trouble. but what did scott's surveillance system

have to say? a completely different story. who's the head? that was mr. pattison, scott pattison. no question? no question at all. and the time was what? mike davis: 8:32 am. dennis murphy: not 11:30, 8:32 am, and scott pattison is walking in the door. you and other officers are looking at it for the first time. what do you say to one another? holy cow, he really did it. he really killed her. dennis murphy: fast-forward around 10:00 am. there's scott again, this time in a change of clothes, a t-shirt and shorts, talking into a cell phone outside the garage. zap forward again, 11:40. scott has changed again back in work pants. then at 12:10, he's on the move. his pickup truck backs into frame, and off he goes to the hospital with lisa in the back seat. when wabash county prosecutor, bill hartley, laid eyes on the video, he knew he finally had a case. i got goose bumps. i'm like, oh my goodness. dennis murphy: in september, 2009,

a grand jury convened, and a week later, scott pattison was indicted for murder. detective davis handcuffed scott at his mom's house and escorted him to the wabash county jail. reporter: anything to say, scott? i'm not guilty. dennis murphy: the state of indiana versus scott pattison went to trial in late october, 2010. the key, prosecutor hartley told the jury, was the timeline, and scott's own security camera video was the star witness against him. no cameras were allowed in court, but the proceedings were audiotaped. hartley had brought the weight bench into the courtroom and planted it right before the jury. crime scene investigator, jason page, demonstrated for the panel how lisa should have been able to wriggle out from under the barbell given that she was in good health, and the weight hadn't thunked down on her throat with bone-breaking force.

a demonstration he later repeated for "dateline," first securing the hooks. how much effort do you have to expend to get these hooks to catch again? just have to be able to take your wrists. and then you're out of trouble? you're out of trouble. yes. or failing that, the investigator says, lisa could have used her shoulder to shimmy off the bench to the side. could you wriggle out from under there? yes, i could. you do it like this. but if someone had been straddling over her, sitting on her chest and preventing her from re-racking that bar? you're in a very bad way. you're in a bad situation. dead within 30 seconds would you guess? or at least unconscious within 30 seconds? i don't want to speculate, but i don't think it'd take very long. dennis murphy: if the government's theory that scott had straddled his wife and killed her was correct, the question arose for the jury. why do it? the prosecutor said money wasn't a small thing for scott, and divorce would have cost him. bill hartley: he owned some nice trucks and this business, and he was probably

concerned that he was gonna have to split some of that up with lisa. dennis murphy: then there was the business about being dropped from lisa's insurance policy. his share? a quarter of $1,000,000 windfall. but investigators had excavated another rich mine of clues, and that had to do with the other woman that scott had admitted to having an affair with. the jury heard scott claim it was all over by the time of lisa's death. but the prosecution responded that it wasn't, not by a long shot. and the real headline-grabber was that the other woman was a prominent person in the community, the former chief of staff to the mayor of marion, indiana. a woman named stacy henderson, the wife of a local police officer. in exchange for immunity, prosecutor hartley put henderson on the stand, and she testified that she was still involved with scott on the day lisa died.

to underscore the point in bold strokes, the prosecutor introduced scott's phone records. the logs reveal that on july second, the day of lisa's death, scott and stacy, who was away on vacation, exchanged no fewer than 130 text messages. plotting those lovers' calls and texts on a timeline, and you see that not only is stacy the person on the receiving end of scott's 10:00 am call seen on that security cam video, but she's also getting a text message from scott that's three characters long, while he's at the wheel driving his dead or dying wife to the hospital. to me, that was huge that here he is driving his wife to the hospital, but he's got the state of mind to think about his girlfriend and send her a text message. dennis murphy: so there it was. a divorce in which scott would likely lose part of his business, a life insurance policy

from which he'd gain a bundle, and a continuing relationship with a girlfriend, with whom he seems still very much involved. add up the circumstantial pieces of this puzzle, hartley said, and lisa's death was no accident. it was now the defense's opportunity to chip away at the case. reporter: scott, do you have anything to say? no, not this time. reporter: did you kill lisa? no, i did not. reporter: how can you prove you're innocent? time will tell. andrea canning: coming up. at trial, the defense comes out swinging. there was no physical evidence that proved to me that scott pattison murdered his wife. andrea canning: when "dateline" continues. upset stomach iberogast indigestion iberogast bloating iberogast thanks to a unique combination of herbs, iberogast helps relieve six digestive symptoms to help you feel better. six digestive symptoms. the power of nature. iberogast. ooo! our car's value went up! the power of nature. maybe we should track all our cars' value on carvana?

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peacock. understand more with peacock. understand more with msnbc. dennis murphy: in wabash, indiana, the scott pattison murder trial was riveting stuff. a bizarre alleged murder weapon, damning security cam pics thought not to have been recorded, and a prominent other woman on the receiving end of a blaze of calls and texts from the accused on the day of the wife's death. now the defense, led by veteran attorney, stanley campbell, had a small mountain to climb. the team started with the illicit girlfriend, stacy henderson, a fling, the defense contended, not a romance for the ages. there was no evidence that mr. pattison was thinking about killing his wife, or that he was going to kill his wife for this other woman. dennis murphy: so what about that flurry of text messages?

just routine chit-chat, henderson told the prosecutor, and the three character texts sent by scott as he drove to the hospital? that was benign, too. simply, she suggested, scott's way of signaling to someone he loved that he was under duress. the phone call at 10:00 am, him to her and seen on the surveillance video, was, henderson said, more of the same. just checking in on each other's day so far. as for the divorce, maybe it was on hold just as scott had told the cops. a retainer fee for lisa's attorney had been returned to her bank account, and about scott being taken off her insurance policy, the defense claimed scott knew nothing of that until the son, dillon, told him hours after lisa had died. not being the husband of the year with any of this kind of evidence.

but nothing to say that he was a killer? nothing to say he was a killer, no. so if you're the defense, what do you do about the weight bench? the defense team maintained that the police had never understood the difficulty of getting out from beneath its grip. sure, a fit state trooper could wriggle out from beneath 105 pounds, but what about lisa, someone not used to working out with weights? maybe she was overtired or disoriented. plus, accidental asphyxiation is not unheard of on these kinds of machines. the defense had referenced a case in iowa of a young boy there working out alone, very similar kind of equipment. he suffocated, an accidental death. and in that iowa case, the safety stops had not been secured in place. just as they hadn't on the pattison machine. the defense moved on. it would call its own expert witness, a medical examiner from kentucky

named dr. greg davis, to give a counter explanation for that minute bruising with a funny name, the petechiae. you thought maybe it wasn't petechiae at all? that's correct. dennis murphy: after reviewing the autopsy photos, dr. davis concluded the bruises weren't petechiae caused by someone straddling lisa when she died, but rather bruises that occur naturally when blood pools after death. purple areas of discoloration that can be easily mistaken for petechiae, but they're actually caused by a different mechanism. dennis murphy: and the same witness offered a different picture of the murder scenario. had scott pattison indeed been on top of lisa pressing that bar down onto her throat, dr. davis said, he would have expected to see more significant damage to her neck. i would expect to see a fracture of that cartilage right here, the adam's apple. more injury. and the defense introduced a new theme. they talked to the jurors about a toxicology report that showed that lisa had what the defense characterized as a dangerous cocktail of drugs

in her system. particularly a diet drug that's known to sometimes produce side effects like fainting spells and irregular heartbeats. lisa, the defense said, had three times the therapeutic amount of that drug in her system. she's already exerting herself, heart pounding. that could tip her over the edge, and at that point, the bar comes down on her neck. it could take anywhere from just a few seconds at that point for unconsciousness to occur. that quick? that quickly. dennis murphy: the conclusion from the expert witness? lisa pattison's death is not a homicide, but one of an undetermined cause. there was no physical evidence that proved to me that scott pattison murdered his wife. dennis murphy: but what about the defense's biggest obstacle? that damning surveillance cam video? they conceded that scott had lied to the police about not coming home till 11:30 in the morning. his rationale, said the defense, was that scott knew right away that husbands

with suddenly dead wives always look suspicious in police eyes. so he simply panicked and made the bad choice of lying about his timeline. but a liar, argued the defense, isn't a killer. the fact that he was there doesn't necessarily mean that he was responsible for her death. you know, as a lot of people look at this case, they ask themselves the question they might have asked of richard nixon. why didn't you destroy the tapes? well, maybe the answer is that if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have any concern or fear about what's gonna be on the tapes. dennis murphy: and by the way, wouldn't you think that lisa, fighting for her life, would have been able to put some scratches or marks on scott? and there were none. add it all up, the defense concluded, and you've got reasonable doubt. the prosecution's case? little more than theory and speculation. so the case went to the jurors. they took a straw poll and were surprised to find themselves split seven to five.

andrea canning: coming up. that's a big gap. it was huge. andrea canning: the jury conducts its own experiment with the weight bench. could that help them reach a verdict? when "dateline" continues. my moderate to severe crohn's symptoms kept me out of the picture. now i have skyrizi. ♪ i've got places to go and i'm feeling free. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me.♪ and now i'm back in the picture. feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi helped visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. and with skyrizi, many were in remission at 12 weeks, at 1 year, and even at 3 years. don't use if allergic. serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur. before treatment, get checked for infections and tb.

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was finally in the hands of the jury. either they believed the defense's version, that lisa pattison's death on a weight bench was a horrible accident, or they were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant killed his wife by suffocating her with a barbell. upstairs in the jury room, tense deliberations began. it was like, game on. it's time. you've got-- it's your decision. we spoke with four from pattison's 12-member jury. their first order of business? a straw vote. foreman, larry vaughn, was stunned by the results. seven to five, and that shocked me. that's a big gap. it was huge. dennis murphy: seven guilty, five not. for those in the guilty camp, the pivotal piece of evidence, they say, was the surveillance tape. scott at home when lisa died, then lying about his day to the police. but those voting not guilty, like juror dan ford, weren't convinced. ok, that makes him a liar, not necessarily a murderer.

dennis murphy: the jurors did agree on one thing, mistress stacy henderson. to the jury's eyes, scott pattison was still very much smitten. one of the questions was, are you still in love with scott? and when she said, no, and i watched scott's reaction, he was devastated. dennis murphy: but as for those petechiae bruises the prosecution thought so critical to its case, for the jury, not so much. the petechiae just didn't do it for me either way. granted, it was there. very hard for us to see. dennis murphy: as the jurors debated, the absence of evidence placing scott in the workout room with his wife kept them locked in a near-even balance. there was no smoking gun, no witness that saw this happen. it depended on us making what we thought was the right decision. dennis murphy: eight hours of deliberations, however, swayed one side to agree with the other. word came down that a verdict had been reached. lisa's sister, christine, held hands with family in the first row, praying.

and i just kept envisioning the word guilty in my mind. it's got to be guilty. dennis murphy: guilty as charged. lisa's family couldn't hold back the tears. we just couldn't stop. we were just weeping of relief. dennis murphy: scott hung his head when the verdict was read and remained silent, stone-faced as he was escorted back to jail. reporter: scott, do you have anything at all to say? jurors said the foremost factor that bridged the divide was an experiment they conducted in the courtroom. they asked the judge if they could re-examine the weight bench. one of the female jurors agreed to play lisa. they wanted to know how easy it would be for her to wriggle out from beneath that bar. it wasn't two seconds, and she was out. and then we said, ok, one of you ladies straddle her, and let's do the same thing. and she couldn't move. dennis murphy: lisa pattison had died on a hot july morning.

now on a cold december day, scott pattison was sentenced. the judge cited unusual harm to lisa's son, dillon, in giving scott an enhanced sentence of 60 years. scott left the courtroom defiant and pledged continued silence. reporter: scott, do you have anything to say? wise man needs-- know to keep his mouth shut, so that's what i'm gonna do. dennis murphy: scott declined "dateline's" request for an interview. the beauty from all those years ago is gone, and the friends and family who toasted them are left to reflect on whether her life's companion really was the beast in more than just costume. was the last face she saw that of her husband looming over her, easing that bar down onto her throat? i hope not. i hope not. i hope that's not the last thought she had of someone

that she loved. someone that she thought loved her. someone that she was loyal to. dennis murphy: in the months following lisa's murder, her son, dillon, had to come to terms as best he could with that terrible day and the man he once called, dad. do you believe scott pattison murdered your mother? i do. pressed that bar into her throat? yes, sir. why? greed. money. stuff that really means nothing in the end? stuff that means nothing. dennis murphy: dillon, by all accounts, is doing well. with the steady support of friends and his mother's family, he's doing his best to navigate life without his guiding star. the worst part is not hearing, i love you from her, and not hearing her words of encouragement. hey, you're an awesome kid. i love you. keep up the good work. dennis murphy: what's he stolen from you? my precious lisa.

just her smile. she would call me every morning and say, hi, mom. he took that away from me. so. and just our whole family. it's not complete without her. dennis murphy: there will always be an empty chair at the family table. only images of the smile and memories remain. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." she was crying and crying. i said, what's wrong? and she says, debbie's dead. we all wanted to believe that it was an accident. there's no possible way he could do this on purpose.