help us. they become aspirational. so maybe what the world needs now are some good old fashioned greatest generation types who give more than they take, who think that kindness, tolerance, and sacrifice aren't strictly for chumps. >> according to gilligan, it is the good guys who made our country a little bit better. that is something for you and all of us to think about. all right, boys, thank you for being here tonight. i appreciate it. and remember, you can catch the nightcap again on saturdays at 11 p.m. eastern, right here on msnbc. but for now, we are signing off from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news. thanks for staying up late. i'll see you at the end up late. i'll see you at the end of monday. how to comfort other people. man 1: he was counseling women who were very vulnerable. she needed somebody to talk to. dennis murphy (voiceover): a popular pastor hiding something wicked. i found text messages. "i love you."

"i can't wait to see you." it was like someone just put a hole right through your heart. dennis murphy (voiceover): lust, lies, adultery. was there more? stanley dickerson: there was just blood everywhere. there's something fishy. dennis murphy: you have a pattern of behavior-- james wagner: yes. --of wives who turn up suspiciously dead. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): just how far had this man of god fallen? man 2: he did a lot of things that weren't appropriate. it doesn't make him a murderer. you have a wolf in sheep's clothing. man 3: the sinister minister. dennis murphy (voiceover): the man of the cloth inspiring from the pulpit. and you went away feeling that you've learned something. dennis murphy (voiceover): marrying the faithful. he officiated over my son and my daughter-in-law's wedding. dennis murphy (voiceover): counseling the troubled. he is so good at understanding how to comfort other people. dennis murphy (voiceover): but what if the minister is suspected to be not a man of god at all?

i believe it was all fraud. the minister role. the minister role. i think he was just hiding behind that hat. dennis murphy (voiceover): but rather, a stranger in clerical robes carrying out the devil's business. i believe he preys on vulnerable people. dennis murphy (voiceover): laying on hands where he shouldn't, ministering to more than the soul. and he would basically counsel his way right into their bedrooms. dennis murphy (voiceover): just who was the reverend arthur burton schirmer? reverend schirmer, ab to his friends, was a small town methodist preacher in eastern pennsylvania. he was our friend, our confidant. he was just an all around good guy. dennis murphy (voiceover): daryl cox sang alongside ab for 20 years. he'd seen the fresh-faced young pastor grow into an accomplished and devoted preacher. all of the things that he helped my family with over the years, he was always there. dennis murphy (voiceover): he'd watched his friend, the pastor, raise his music loving family.

ab and his wife jewel even performed together. daryl cox: they sang together many, many times. they were quite the duo as far as duets were concerned in the church. they just seemed like the all-american couple. dennis murphy (voiceover): the couple's daughters, julie and amy. my mom and dad were people who loved each other and took care of each other and just a very close family. dennis murphy (voiceover): but a deep sadness fell over the schirmers in 1999 when ab's wife of 30 years suddenly died. his daughter recalls their father being overcome with grief. he was very lonely. it was a hard year after. he was a sad guy, huh? mm-hmm. very lonely. dennis murphy (voiceover): but life goes on, and their father did, in time, meet someone who had become their stepmother, a recently divorced woman named betty who shared his love for running and the outdoors. they just seemed like they were best friends. i mean, it really seemed-- mm-hmm, best friends. --they had this closeness. i loved betty. dennis murphy (voiceover): and betty was loved by everyone.

her sister tina remembers how she made even strangers feel instantly comfortable. tina fultz: no matter who you were, it was always, hello, and you got a hug. everybody got a hug. dennis murphy (voiceover): and out of everything in her life, betty was enormously proud of her grown son, nate novack. so if first impressions count, what were your first impression of ab schirmer? i knew he was a pastor, so i had respect for him right away. i thought he was a decent guy for my mom. dennis murphy (voiceover): and in fact, it was the reverend, his stepfather, who officiated at nate's wedding at a beach a couple of years later. ab had embraced his new wife's big family, and they him. they were thrilled to see their sister find such happiness after coming out of a long marriage that had soured. betty's mother jean was just delighted that her daughter had found such a fine, upstanding man. he was so nice. you know, we just didn't think there was anybody better than him. dennis murphy (voiceover): with this fresh chapter in his life opening up, ab took a new church posting as the pastor of reeders united methodist church

in the rural poconos of northeastern pennsylvania, about two hours away from his old church in lebanon. nate said his mother was homesick at first. she was upset, i think, initially, just being so far away from not only myself, but also the rest of her family as well. dennis murphy (voiceover): but he says betty found comfort in ab's congregation. the parishioners were happy to welcome her, the always fun and friendly pastor's wife. very lively. very full of energy. always doing something. dennis murphy (voiceover): samantha musante had attended sunday school at the church from the time she was knee high. and she remembers how close the pastor and his wife seemed to be. the church members always said, oh, betty and ab never do anything apart. they're always together. dennis murphy (voiceover): and that's how life passed for seven years, ab, betty, and their new expanded family of yours and mine. but death was stalking the pastor yet again. we came down the road and spotted a vehicle.

dennis murphy (voiceover): it was a warm july night, sometime close to 2:00 am. stanley dickerson and his girlfriend were driving down a deserted country road when they noticed a pt cruiser down off the shoulder, jammed against the guardrail. there was some smoke coming out from under the hood. we slowed up next to the vehicle. but being so dark and with the windows being up on the car, we couldn't really tell what was going on inside. dennis murphy (voiceover): dickerson got out of his car and knocked on the driver's side to see if he could help. the man rolled down the window. it was ab schirmer. he said, i'm fine, but i don't think my wife is. i think my wife is hurt. dennis murphy (voiceover): dickerson asked the pastor to turn on the car's interior light. when he turned it on, there was just blood everywhere in the car. dennis murphy (voiceover): betty was lying in the passenger seat, shivering and covered in blood. the pastor appeared to be in shock, staring blankly straight ahead. stanley dickerson: i said, what were you doing out here, you know? and he said, his wife had some sort of a problem with her mouth, maybe a toothache. and he had to bring her to the hospital.

and that's what he was doing out on that road, you know, that early in the morning. dennis murphy (voiceover): dickerson called 911. they needed an ambulance fast. dennis murphy (voiceover): emts arrived within minutes, and betty was taken to the regional trauma center. her son, nate, away from home on a business trip, rushed to her bedside, totally unprepared for what he would find. it was shocking, huh? she was in very bad shape. yes, i wasn't expecting-- i wasn't expecting her to look as bad as she did. could you even recognize her, nate? no, i couldn't. that bad? that bad. yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): betty schirmer was on life support, and her family was being summoned. coming up. as you touched her hand, her fingers, were you getting anything back?

no. and as i put the picture in her hand, i whispered in her ear that i loved her and hope she can hear me. dennis murphy (voiceover): at betty's bedside, everyone was in tears, but according to her son, everyone except her husband. no crying, no praying or anything like that. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. [fighting scene] —ugh! here we go again —wait there's a red hulk now? excuse me... what do i do about this? —we use tide oxi boost. —it's a life saver. the most powerful clean in any universe. lookin good. thank you. see captain america: brave new world. sleepy. get 0% brain interference for fast non-drowsy allergy relief with allegra. >> it's a no brainer.

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she'd always been there for them. now betty's mom and most of her eight brothers and sisters had gathered at her bedside. she looked all tubes, bandages, and swollen bruising. we were all in shock. and it was just horrible. dennis murphy (voiceover): betty's youngest sister, tina, was at her bedside in intensive care. just two weeks before, they'd celebrated the birthday they shared.

they said their goodbyes after a nice lunch. dennis murphy: do you remember what the last words were? that we have to make sure that we keep doing this every year on her birthday and that she loves us. dennis murphy (voiceover): betty's only son nate got to the hospital as fast as he could, bringing with him a holiday photo of his mom in happier times, mother, son, and the grandson she doted on. nate novack: she looked so happy with all of us together, there on the couch. and i placed that in her hand to hold. as you touched her hand, her fingers, were you getting anything back? no, and as i put the picture in her hand, i whispered in her ear that i loved her and hope she can hear me. dennis murphy (voiceover): a solemn vigil began, a life ebbing away amid intensive care machinery. dennis murphy: how are you comforting one another there? hugging and crying together and holding on to each other,

saying some prayers. dennis murphy (voiceover): at the hospital, betty's husband of seven years, pastor ab schirmer, seemed to the family, at times, oddly distant. at others, overly genial. but perhaps, they thought, he was still in shock. after all, he'd walked away virtually unscathed from the car crash that had left his wife on life support. no crying, no praying or anything like that. dennis murphy (voiceover): but ab's daughter from his first marriage remembers her father was beside himself with grief. he was upset. he was crying. i saw him at her bedside sobbing, sobbing with one of betty's sisters. sobbing, holding on to her. not my betts. dennis murphy (voiceover): according to official reports, the pastor said he'd been doing about 50 in his pt cruiser when the accident happened. a deer, he said, had darted out into the road, and he swerved into the guardrail. betty slammed into the windshield. an arriving officer noted the airbags had deployed. ab told his sister-in-law, tina, betty wasn't wearing her seat belt.

i questioned ab, what do you mean, she didn't have her seat belt on? she always wears her seat belt. she would never be without a seat belt. dennis murphy (voiceover): but betty, moments before the crash, had made the fateful decision to unbuckle her belt, the pastor told arriving officers. less than 24 hours after she'd been rushed to the hospital, she died. nate's mother was gone, the woman who'd built sandcastles with him, who taught him how to ride his bike. nate had loved his mother so much. i was overwhelmed with grief, crying. and i was putting my head on her chest, just hoping to hear something, but there was nothing there. dennis murphy (voiceover): given the pastor's account of a relatively high speed crash and the arriving officers' write-up of the wreck, the coroner ruled betty's death an accident caused by severe head injuries. there would be no autopsy. and ab told nate that his mother had wanted to be cremated. she was actually cremated the next day, very quick. dennis murphy (voiceover): a decision that

surprised her family, but the decision was properly the spouse's. at the funeral director's, ab selected a container for her ashes that caught his eye. he had picked out an urn with a deer on it. a deer. a deer. the deer that sent them into the guardrail and your mother-- supposedly caused the car accident, yes. [bark] dennis murphy (voiceover): odd choice maybe, but nate reminded himself his mother had loved nature. she and ab had jogged together at local parks. ab said she always enjoyed seeing the deer. his administrative assistant of the past two years, cindy musante, helped him take care of the funeral arrangements. her daughter, samantha, who was 16 at the time, remembers it well. the morning of the service, i actually went over early and was helping her with the last minute details. dennis murphy (voiceover): the church was packed as people rose to eulogize the beloved betty. but nothing was heard that day from the pastor ab schirmer.

he sat in the pews and listened. he'd presided over so many funerals, but told friends that this was one he couldn't bear to speak at. in the receiving line, the preacher stood next to his stepson, nate, as the funeral goers each paused briefly to offer their condolences. one of them was cindy. he said, nate, i'd like to introduce you to my church secretary. this is cindy. and he said to me, we have a little inside joke between us at the church here. and he said, i go by ab, and she is known as cd. and then he said abcd. and they kind of chuckled together about it. did you think that was kind of a cozy jokey thing? i just thought that was kind of odd at the time. dennis murphy (voiceover): while nate wondered about the relationship between the pastor and his assistant, cindy's daughter had some questions of her own. she'd noticed her parents drifting apart in the months before the accident. did your mom seem different, samantha?

yes, definitely. she seemed much more distant from my dad. dennis murphy (voiceover): her father, joe, who struggled with alcohol, had steadied himself on the foundation of the church. a skilled cabinetmaker, he'd even made a desk for the pastor's office. dennis murphy: was it fancy? very, very beautiful. it was cherry. had three crosses on the front. dennis murphy (voiceover): but now he was back hitting the bottle. so his demons were after him again, huh? yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): was the growing distance between cindy and her husband, joe, the reason why she and her boss, the reverend ab schirmer, seemed to spend so much more time together? samantha musante: she needed somebody to talk to, you know? what better than your pastor? dennis murphy (voiceover): but samantha would soon wonder whether the pastor's ministering was not so much godly as up close and personal. coming up. samantha plays teenage detective and is surprised by what she finds. i was looking through my mom's phone, and i found text messages.

things like? "i love you." "i can't wait to see you." "you looked really nice today." and, "oh, i'm sorry. that isn't normal." dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ sonya earlene and marcia are among the thousands of real women living with metastatic breast cancer; doing what they love. and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole alone. ibrance may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. both of these can lead to death. tell your doctor if you have new or worsening chest pain, cough, or trouble breathing. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection liver or kidney problems, are nursing, pregnant, or plan to be

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>> just hours after. >> swearing to preserve, protec, and defend the constitution of the united states, donald trump issued an executive order to defy one of its most consequential amendments. >> we are all watching and waiting to see who is going to hold the line. don't miss the. >> weekends. >> saturday and. >> sunday mornings. >> sunday mornings. >> in the weeks after the death of the pastor's wife in a car accident, samantha musante wondered why her mother was spending so much time with her boss, the reverend ab schirmer. what in the world was going on? i was being a nosy teenager. and i was looking through my mom's phone, and i found text messages. things like? "i love you." "i can't wait to see you." "you looked really nice today." and, "oh, i'm sorry. that isn't normal." dennis murphy (voiceover): even at 16, samantha knew it wasn't right for her mother to be trading flirtatious texts with a recently widowed pastor. samantha became little miss fix-it. she decided to set things aright in her family

by confronting her pastor in a kind of roundabout way. using a fake email address, she wrote one of those "i know who you are and know what you're doing" kind of messages. and basically just said that someone knew about what was going on and he was going to-- he should stop or i was going to take it to the church. and at that point, i didn't want to expose anybody. i didn't want to cause an uproar. i just-- i wanted my family back. dennis murphy (voiceover): it didn't take the pastor long to figure out that his assistant, cindy's, daughter was behind the threat. samantha was summoned to a meeting in the pastor's office-- her, the reverend, and her mother. dennis murphy: how tough was that session? very, very difficult because as the child, i had to just keep my mouth shut and say, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. two great authority figures in your life telling you you're out of line. yeah. were they saying that you misinterpreted what that was about? yes, yes, we're just friends. how dare you. dennis murphy (voiceover): samantha didn't believe a word of what she was being told, but she didn't know where to turn

with her suspicions of the affair between her mother and her pastor. and your dad's in the dark, and you know and he doesn't. yeah. at that point, i didn't have any other choice. i wasn't going to tell my dad. i couldn't at that point. didn't have the nerve to break his heart. dennis murphy (voiceover): but she could only protect her dad for so long. when cindy and ab went on a day trip together, joe musante got wind of it. he called me, and he said, what's going on? what's going on with ab and your mother? it's very-- you know, what do i say? and at that point, you know, he's like-- he said, is she in love with him? and i said, i think so. dennis murphy (voiceover): joe waited in the parsonage driveway for them to return and confronted both his wife and ab. samantha's mother came clean, telling her husband while she felt an emotional attachment to the pastor, the relationship had not yet turned physical. she said, all right, yep, i'll end the affair.

and, you know, i'll try and work on things. my dad was trying his hardest to work on things and get the marriage back on track. dennis murphy (voiceover): but joe no longer trusted his wife of 18 years. his sister, rose, found out later that he was monitoring cindy's every move he was tracking cindy's message-- you know, telephone messages, how long she was talking and what numbers she was talking to. dennis murphy (voiceover): and joe didn't like what he saw. dennis murphy: and even though she told him and you that she was going to-- yeah. --put an end to this, there she was, calling him. yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): joe drove his daughter out to the horse barn for a talk. he was having panic attacks. you know, he said, i just don't know what to do. and i was young. i didn't know what to tell him. at that point, he knew that-- i think he knew that things just weren't going to work out. dennis murphy (voiceover): for a man who had struggled with depression all his life, the world was becoming an even darker place. i think at that point, for my dad,

family was very important. and my belief is that he thought my mom was going to leave him. his kids were going to get taken away. and i think without his family, he wouldn't have had any reason to live. dennis murphy (voiceover): the next afternoon, samantha says her mother called her in a panic. the pastor reportedly told cindy joe had called him, threatening to kill not only himself, but maybe samantha and her brother, too. she told me that my dad had taken his gun out of his dresser and taken it to work. dennis murphy (voiceover): samantha says cindy instructed her not to go home that night, that she may be in mortal danger. the 16-year-old didn't know what to think. she had always been a daddy's girl, loved him beyond measure. but she was frightened. and so she obeyed her mom and took refuge at an aunt's house. joe gets home that night, and the kids are gone, and cindy's gone. so he keeps calling cindy and begging her. you know i would never hurt you or the kids. you know that, cindy.

dennis murphy (voiceover): we can only imagine the storms that were thrashing joe's mind on the night of october 28, 2008. alone, brooding, he drove to reeders united methodist church. he smashed a rock into a glass panel of the rear door of the church. then he sat down in the reverend's chair and took out his gun. sat right to that desk that he'd made. that he made. yep. is it possible, rose, he was going to kill the pastor? yes, or at least, threaten him. dennis murphy (voiceover): but the pastor wasn't coming. cindy had reportedly phoned ab to warn him that joe was armed and on the move. ab left town. and so then he went to a motel. because he thought the angry husband was coming looking for him with a loaded gun. right. dennis murphy (voiceover): who knows how long joe musante sat in the pastor's chair before he pulled the trigger? but they found him the next morning slumped. the bullet had gone through his skull and deflected off the upper part of a window frame.

joe's sister knew something terrible had happened when her husband walked into her office that morning. and he said joe killed himself. ugh, what? how could that happen? it was like someone just put a hole right through your heart. and you're just like, ugh. and i just couldn't believe that anything like that could happen. dennis murphy (voiceover): cindy broke the news to samantha and her brother. she said, your dad decided that he didn't want to be here anymore. and my brother said, oh, where'd he go? it didn't sink in. and then i said, wait, what? and she said, your father took his life. at the office in the church? yes, in the pastor's office. what a dramatic statement that is. yeah, definitely the biggest statement he could have made. dennis murphy (voiceover): samantha would learn later her father, in his last hours,

was on the verge of submitting a formal complaint with the church that could get ab schirmer fired. joe musante didn't leave behind a suicide note, but there was something he wanted people to know, especially his daughter. he put his briefcase with all the cell phone records, the contact for the bishop of the church, and his cell phone, and his camera under my bed. so kind of his case he was building against the pastor, huh? yeah, i definitely took it as a sign. you know, figure this out. dennis murphy (voiceover): rose didn't need to see inside joe's briefcase to understand what had happened. she says cindy shamelessly told her about the love triangle the night before joe's funeral. so i watched her face, and i felt like she was a woman that was awakened in some way that had not felt that ever before in her life. she evidently loved this guy. dennis murphy (voiceover): rose could not believe it. this is a pastor. he can't step back and let the two of them work it out?

he can't help himself? i mean, how could he do this? i mean, what's wrong with this guy? dennis murphy (voiceover): the pastor was about to face more than a crime of the heart. i was afraid for other parishioners. they should investigate him to find out if he's done this to other people. dennis murphy (voiceover): rose was about to take up her brother's dying wishes and set in motion an investigation that could not only get ab bounced from the parsonage, but could also potentially put the hymn singing preacher away for a very long time. had he broken not only the seventh commandment, the one about adultery, but the sixth commandment as well, the one forbidding murder? coming up. well, i just think he has no conscience. you know, he has no-- he doesn't care about anything but his own self. dennis murphy (voiceover): rose starts digging into the pastor's past and is stunned by what she discovers. there was these things that make the hair on your back of your neck stand up. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues.

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1-800-403-7539. that's one (800) 403-7539. >> i'm richard lui. >> with the news update. >> president trump has fired. the country's highest ranking military officer, joint. >> chiefs of. >> staff chairman, c.q. brown. the move is part of a major shakeup in the. >> federal workforce. the president said. >> he plans to. >> nominate air force lieutenant. >> general dan cain to replace brown. >> and the board of governors for the. >> u.s. postal. >> service is. >> bracing for. a possible shakeup. >> of its own. the president. >> saying friday. >> that his new. >> commerce secretary. >> will be looking. >> at dissolving the postal service's leadership. and folding the agency into. >> the department. >> the department. >> of commerce. for now. back to cindy musante seemed to be moving on very quickly after the suicide of her husband, joe, in late october of 2008. her family said it wasn't two weeks before she'd packed up his belongings and taken them to the salvation army.

the pastor's assistant was now free to be with the man she loved-- her boss, the reverend ab schirmer. he'd been a widower since losing his wife in a car wreck that summer. cindy's daughter samantha says her mom and ab picked up together just days after her dad's suicide. my mom went away the next weekend to go see him. so it was very difficult to be hurting and have just lost your father and have your mom go off visiting her lover, i guess. that's healing the wounds pretty quickly. yeah, very. dennis murphy (voiceover): joe's sister, rose, a one-time counselor, tried not to judge her sister-in-law, but she was obviously head over heels for the pastor. still, she thought the pastor had a lot of explaining to do, basic things like why hadn't he called the police when joe musante had threatened to kill himself and possibly even his family? anytime you threaten somebody's life or you threaten your own, you're supposed to call the authorities.

you've been a counselor. you've been there. mm-hmm. so i picked up on that. and i thought, jeez, being a pastor, you know, he didn't even do that. dennis murphy (voiceover): instead, rose says, he'd left the desperate husband to spiral out of control. rose was haunted by thoughts of her brother's final hours. he folded. he couldn't stand the pressure. and i felt really bad that he sat in that room by himself because i knew how much his guts were turned inside out. dennis murphy (voiceover): rose was determined to give her dead brother a voice. seven days after joe's suicide, she drafted a letter of complaint to the bishop. he has violated his pledge to be a man of god, she wrote, and asked that the reverend be held accountable for his negligence. it wasn't a witch hunt. it was never, you know, we're out to get you. my aunt simply wanted it investigated. you know, there's something fishy. when a pastor of a church has an affair with one of the parishioners, there's something wrong. dennis murphy (voiceover): a week

later, ab was summoned for a meeting with the bishop. rose says he didn't even try to defend himself. he resigned from the church. and he was a broken man when they left her office. and he was done with the church. that was it. he had to surrender his license. and he had to get out of the parsonage within a certain length of time. and he wasn't supposed to talk to any of the parishioners. he wasn't supposed to make contact with them or anything. he was just supposed to leave. and that was it. dennis murphy (voiceover): but there was one churchgoer he couldn't stay away from-- samantha's mother. months after withdrawing from the pulpit, the one-time reverend schirmer was dropping by cindy's house for dinner. she said, oh, ab's going to come over for dinner. i said, i think i have to work that night. you didn't like schirmer. yeah, i had a lot of hostile feelings. i felt as if my family was invaded. dennis murphy (voiceover): and before samantha knew it, dinners were turning into overnight stays. he started bringing overnight bags. and the overnight bags didn't leave, you know.

that's when panic really set in for me. dennis murphy (voiceover): samantha's aunt rose would later view ab with disgust for spending more and more time with her dead brother's family, seemingly without a thought of the man who had died by suicide at his desk. well, i just think he has no conscience. you know, he has no-- he doesn't care about anything but his own self. dennis murphy (voiceover): but what ab didn't know was that rose hadn't just ratted him out to the church. a few days after she'd mailed that letter to the bishop, she'd made a call to the police. she had a hunch, she told investigators, not about her brother joe's suicide, but about that car accident that killed the pastor's wife, betty. people had sort of filed that away, hadn't they? yeah, i mean-- dennis murphy: that the reverend had lost his wife in a car wreck. - yeah. dennis murphy (voiceover): rose says it was cindy who had originally told her about the accident that killed betty, the pastor's wife. he was taking her to the hospital early in the morning, and a deer ran out and he swerved. and i said, did the deer hit the car?

and she said no. i said, oh. dennis murphy (voiceover): the story of the car accident that killed betty struck her as odd. and the more she uncovered, the more suspicious she became. there was these things that were really disturbing you and make the hair on your back of your neck stand up. dennis murphy (voiceover): one of the cops to receive rose's call was detective james wagner of the pocono township police department, who was assigned to investigate. i immediately thought that i needed to look at this to see if there's any signs of foul play. dennis murphy (voiceover): the patrolman's report seemed cut and dried. betty had died after hitting her head during the car wreck. but the key witness had been betty's husband, reverend ab schirmer, the man the detective was told to take a look at. at the hospital, the pastor had given a vivid account of the crash to a deputy coroner. what's his story as he tells it? he told a very similar story than he told the officer investigating. but he put a major twist on it to try to justify, i believe,

the severe injuries that betty sustained. he made it sound to this corner that that vehicle spun out of control, and betty went flying because she was an unrestrained passenger. well, everybody that drives rural roads can see that as a very plausible story. that is correct. all of a sudden, there's a deer. you try and swerve, and you lose it and a god-awful thing happens. for a coroner who's located 45 minutes away who doesn't know anything about the accident scene itself, that would seem normal. and he's taken down the account of a methodist minister. that's correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): wagner kept digging and discovered in the department's archives a cache of photos from the crash site. when he punched them up on his computer, the detective immediately noticed they didn't match the story told by the pastor. the car was only minimally banged up. the airbags hadn't even deployed. it turned out the officer who had written up the original accident report got that important detail wrong. and the detective wondered why he saw no tire marks on the road. there were no signs or evidence

of evasive maneuvers at all. should have been, and there weren't. and there were not. dennis murphy (voiceover): to his eyes, there was zero evidence in the photos indicating a high speed collision had ever occurred. and yet, betty's injuries had been simply horrific. she'd suffered multiple skull fractures and two huge gashes on her head. it just didn't fit for the detective. there's no way a conscious person sitting in that passenger seat would sustain the kind of head trauma that she did. did you say, this thing stinks? yes, i did. dennis murphy (voiceover): coming up, investigators notice something else odd about the quarters in the car's change holder. the impact was so minor that they didn't go flying out all over the place. so they were just where they'd been. correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): and it wasn't just the coins that didn't seem to add up. james wagner: i got to a photograph of the blood in the seat, and i immediately noticed that this blood doesn't make sense. i had one of those moments where it's, oh, my god. this is it.

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it was hard to believe that this modest church in the poconos had become the setting for a murder investigation. detective james wagner was delving into the schirmers' late night car accident, wondering why pictures of the supposedly high speed crash didn't seem to match the account of the driver, reverend ab schirmer, whose wife, betty, had died. he tracked down the passerby who called 911 the night of the accident to see if he had any further information that might help explain the discrepancies. just by looking at the car from when we walked up on it, there didn't seem to be any real damage. dennis murphy (voiceover): the good samaritan motorist's impressions confirmed what the detective had concluded from the photos. betty's injuries seemed way out of proportion to the minor fender bender she'd experienced. she was shivering. she wasn't really conscious. dennis murphy (voiceover): even at the time, he remembered thinking it strange that the pastor was staring out the windshield, making

no effort to help his wife. stanley dickerson: he made no attempt to get out of the car or really even to speak to her or comfort her, which isn't something you'd expect from somebody who's with their wife who's potentially dying. dennis murphy (voiceover): and even more unusual, detective wagner realized the pastor relied on the motorist to call for help when he could have dialed 911 himself. mr. schirmer had a functional cell phone and never made a 911 call. dennis murphy (voiceover): wagner kept looking at the photos, the stains. james wagner: i got to a photograph of the blood in the seat. and i immediately noticed that this blood doesn't make sense. i had one of those moments where it's, oh, my god. this is it. dennis murphy (voiceover): betty's car seat was spattered with blood, but, the detective thought, it shouldn't have been. if she was initially injured while sitting in the passenger seat, how did it get under her? if betty did sustain a bleeding wound from that particular crash, she would have

been bleeding on herself. there would be a void from her body, her legs, and her butt in that seat. dennis murphy (voiceover): the only logical way to explain the blood on the passenger seat, the detective thought, was if betty had been injured and bleeding before she got into the car. what i saw is that evidence that told me immediately that she was bleeding prior to that crash. that had nothing to do with the deer and slamming into the windshield. absolutely not. dennis murphy (voiceover): could ab have done something so monstrous as to stage a car accident as a cover-up for murder? it was shocking to contemplate. as the investigation was ramping up, members of betty's family were wrestling with the past, reliving betty's final days. things just weren't adding up. betty's son, nate, was bothered by one of the last phone calls he had with his mother. i could tell there was something wrong. i just couldn't put my finger on it. dennis murphy (voiceover): but when he sifted through a box of mementos his stepfather had given him well after the funeral, he found a birthday card

ab had written to betty only a couple of weeks before she died. tucked inside it was a post-it note. nate novack: and the post-it note said, "for all the pain i have caused you, i am sorry. someday i hope you will be free to laugh again, free to soar, truly free." and the word "free" was underlined. some sort of an apology. what's going on? how do you read this? obviously, there was something going on behind the scenes or behind closed doors that no one else was aware of. dennis murphy (voiceover): and betty's family had been taken aback by what they saw as ab's lack of emotion at the hospital. did you see any tears in him that night? never. no. dennis murphy (voiceover): they thought, at times, he'd acted more like a party host than a grieving husband. just out of the blue, just like this, he goes, hey, billy. come on in and see your sister. you know, like they just had a newborn baby or something. dennis murphy (voiceover): and when two months after the accident, tina took ab out to lunch, she was surprised to find her newly widowed brother-in-law so happy. the whole time lunch was going on, he was texting.

he called cindy. he said her name's cd, and my name is ab, and having a good time with that. so did you wonder who this cd, cindy, woman really was? yeah, it was-- he just was having too much fun. dennis murphy (voiceover): two other things stood out for betty's family, things that seemed out of character for their sister. ab's story about betty not wearing her belt just didn't ring true. my mom would always say to me, seat belts save lives. if i wasn't wearing a seat belt, she would always make sure that i put it on before we would go. so did it make sense to you when he said that she was not buckled up? i didn't know what to think because that wasn't like my mom. dennis murphy (voiceover): and then there was ab's decision to have betty cremated. dennis murphy: did that surprise you? it did. my mother chose to be cremated. my sister betts did not agree with it. dennis murphy (voiceover): back in the poconos, the state police had been pulled in to help detective wagner with the case. the team took a second look at the pt cruiser's speed

that night. the pastor had told the responding officer he was traveling between 50 and 55 miles per hour when the crash occurred. but in one of the accident photos, investigators noticed something odd. when they looked at the change holder, they saw that almost all the quarters remained neatly in place. the impact was so minor that they didn't go flying out all over the place. so they were just where they'd been. correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): and an expert in crash reconstruction who looked at the case concluded that the pt cruiser speed at the point of impact was maybe half of what schirmer had claimed. at the time he collided with that guardrail, it was less than 25 miles an hour. this was a lowish speed accident. correct. dennis murphy (voiceover): investigators now believed the pastor had staged the accident to cover up the killing of his wife. so five months after betty's death, one set of investigators asked the pastor to come down to the state police barracks for a talk, while a separate team of officers and crime scene

techs headed for the parsonage to have a look around at the place where ab had lived with betty. dennis murphy: you wanted to hear what he had to say for sure, but as important was putting them under a roof and knowing where he was. correct. we didn't want to compromise anything by him finding out that we were there and searching the parsonage. dennis murphy (voiceover): the cops were about to blow the case wide open. dennis murphy: who do you think he is? a very sick, sick man. you think he's a killer? i do. yeah, i do. dennis murphy (voiceover): coming up, a break in the case. i walked in the back door of that garage. it was unlocked. and i immediately noticed passive blood drops near the post right above the stairwell. and i was shocked. i could not believe it. dennis murphy (voiceover): but turns out there's someone who doesn't think the pastor is a killer, and his opinion may count for a lot more. james wagner: the forensic pathologist said that betty's injuries are what he would expect to see in a motor vehicle collision.

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tablets for just $7. is try ab schirmer, he was the hymn singing pastor who'd preached from the pulpit about good and evil. now investigators wondered if he was the hypocrite of all hypocrites. it's hard to believe that somebody in that position would commit violent crimes such as this. dennis murphy (voiceover): in december 2008, about a month after investigators began reviewing betty's death, they asked the husband, ab schirmer, to meet with them at the state police barracks. he thought he was going to answer questions about the suicide in his church office just two months before. investigators had other ideas. dennis murphy: you get two operations going on. you're bringing schirmer in for a sit-down. correct. meanwhile, you're going to go in a crime tech kind of way to look and see what's happened at the parsonage. - yes. dennis murphy (voiceover): while ab was in an interrogation room, detective james wagner

and a team of crime scene technicians swept into the parsonage at reeders united methodist church, video cameras rolling. they were looking for any evidence that betty had been attacked before she got into the car. ab had moved out about a month before, but they were concerned that he could still get access to the parsonage. they cased the kitchen, the bedrooms, scoured every inch of the parsonage basement, and found nothing incriminating. but what they discovered in the garage, they say, was jaw dropping. i walked in the back door of the garage. it was unlocked. and i immediately noticed passive blood drops near the post right above the stairwell. and i was shocked. i could not believe it. do you say, whoa, time out. you guys got to get in here and check this out. i did. i called one of the troopers who was nearest. i said i had blood here. and they-- we all could not believe that there was visual blood there. dennis murphy (voiceover): and not just one or two blood drops.

wagner could see clusters of blood visible to the naked eye. and it looked to him as though someone had been trying to clean it up. i could see evidence of washed blood. how did it show itself? it looked diluted. it looked, you know, faded from water or clean up efforts. dennis murphy (voiceover): an investigator sprayed the garage with luminol, a chemical that glows when it interacts with blood. they said a ghostly trail of blood appeared, leading from the back door to where the car would have been parked. detective wagner could almost see the crime happening in front of him. you could see betty, already injured, being brought in through that garage door. being brought in that garage door and physically loaded and put into that passenger seat. dennis murphy (voiceover): but just because there was blood on the garage floor didn't mean it was necessarily betty's. state trooper phil barletta, now retired, was also at the scene. dennis murphy: of course, now you have to find out whose blood it is you're seeing. yes. and the blood is documented and then collected for dna testing.

and it comes back from the lab as? betty schirmer's. it's all her blood. dennis murphy (voiceover): but even before they had that lab confirmation, the investigators at the parsonage called the troopers interviewing schirmer, the pastor, to tell them of their breakthrough discovery. as he's sitting across from detectives, you're phoning in and saying, we got blood out here. yes. he first denies that betty ever bled in the garage, that betty ever bled anywhere in the parsonage. but when confronted about this blood in the garage, he comes up with a story about how she cut herself moving wood. dennis murphy (voiceover): schirmer told police betty had helped him move a pile of firewood out of the garage. he said the stack collapsed, and they both scraped themselves, betty so badly that she needed a bandage. and sure enough, the investigators did, in fact, find a pile of wood outside on church grounds. but what they found hidden beneath that pile would only raise more questions about ab's version of events.

coming up, did ab make a freudian slip during his interrogation? james wagner: he subconsciously threw out the statement of putting her in the car, which is what i believe he did. he put her bleeding body into that car. dennis murphy (voiceover): then, another wife and another suspicious accident? there were rumors, all kinds of rumors about her death. dennis murphy (voiceover): investigators dig into the details and make a troubling discovery. james wagner: what i found out was very shocking. the case was left still pending and undetermined with no outcome. dennis murphy (voiceover): when "dateline" continues. >> what position did you play? >> first base. that's what grandpa used to play. >> when our hearing wouldn't allow. >> us. >> to.

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to a pile in the backyard. forensic troopers are meticulously going through it, looking for potential blood evidence. what they find at the bottom of this pile is a stack of newspapers. and the newspapers were dated september 2008. reporter: so help me on that. why is the newspaper important? because betty died on july 15th, 2008. and it's impossible for betty to have helped him move this firewood. betty was dead at the time that that wood was deposited in that location. reporter: investigators believed they had caught the pastor in an outright lie. and there was one more incriminating statement ab made during the interrogation, according to the detective, something so small schirmer possibly didn't even notice it. he subconsciously threw out the statement of putting her in the car. he used that term, i put her in the car, which is what i believe he did. he put her bleeding body into that car.

reporter: investigators told schirmer he was free to go. they were done with him, for now. after seven hours of interrogation, the by then former pastor was apparently rattled. automated voice: next message sent-- reporter: he tried to get betty's sisters, tina and sandy, on the phone to alert them that the police would be calling. the call to sandy went to voicemail. ab schirmer: hi, sandy. it's ab. please give me a call. it's very important, very important that you call me. please? thank you. bye. we called him back and we said, ab, you can't leave a message like this, for heaven's sakes. i said, you've got to meet us. reporter: they met with ab the same day. did you ask him then, did you kill our sister? as soon as we sat down, he asked if we wanted coffee or anything, and he said, sandy, i did not kill your sister. reporter: detective wagner called betty's sisters the day after the interrogation and was surprised to find out that ab had already contacted them. detective wagner: i just thought that was very interesting, that he was already playing

that manipulation game and beating us to the punch, so to speak. reporter: the detective thought ab was certainly acting as though he had something to hide. but as convinced as investigators were that the pastor had staged the car accident to cover up the real cause of betty's death, there were still huge holes in their case. so now you have a theory that betty was killed here on the grounds of the church. did you have a weapon? did you know where? we did not. had no idea where it took place or what instrument might have been utilized to cause those injuries. reporter: and there was a huge setback when investigators brought betty's hospital records to a medical examiner for review. detective wagner: the forensic pathologist said that betty's injuries are what he would expect to see in a motor vehicle collision. reporter: a motor vehicle accident, just as the pastor said. an investigative stumbling block, but there was another lead for the detectives

still to explore. remember, betty wasn't the only wife ab had lost. his first wife of 30 years, jewel, had also died. there were rumors, all kinds of rumors about her death. reporter: the pastor had told some of betty's family that his first wife had died after an illness. he had told me that she had passed away from cancer. his first wife died of cancer? yes. reporter: but other family members heard it differently. they believed jewel had died after tumbling down a flight of basement stairs. i didn't know what had happened down there, and i needed to find out whether jewel's death was suspicious in any way. reporter: kathy siegrist knew the story better than most. a good friend of jewel's, she was in the pews for most of ab's tenure at the bethany united methodist church in lebanon, pennsylvania. how'd the congregation receive him? great. great. they loved him. they loved him. and he was re-instated over and over again.

reporter: and ab and jewel's daughters remember their parents being devoted not only to the church, but to each other. did you see little affections, holding a hand, a-- yes. --soft voice, a caress here and there? yes. yes, definitely. reporter: and their dad adored them. julie and amy remember how he was the one who got them off to school in the morning. he would come in and he'd say, amy, you're soon going to get up. i'd be like, ok. he didn't do that for you. he'd kind of touch me and run. and run. reporter: and yet, beyond their devoted dad, maybe there was a side to ab that his daughters and even most of the church members didn't see. kathy siegrist's husband and ab were bowling buddies. he often would come home and say what a horrible temper he had. really? the reverend ab schirmer? he said he would kick the aisle where the balls come back if he bowled badly. reporter: and it wasn't just the reverend's supposed flashes of temper at the bowling alley that caught the eyes of ab's buddies. kathy says his constant flirting with women slowed the game down. when it was his turn to bowl, he wasn't there.

and they'd have to wait around. that would make the guys upset because it made them later to go home. so the men had a different perspective on ab. yes. well, my father, too, was there, and he would say things are fishy, something doesn't feel right. referring to what, as you look back at it? with ab. and they'd see him with more than one woman there. that was fishy. reporter: and even at church, kathy noticed ab seemed overly attentive to female members of the congregation. in the months leading up to jewel's death, she said there was one woman in particular parishioners were whispering about. kathy siegrist: at that point, one female in the church that you would see him with in a corner, talking while jewel was taking care of everything else in the church. reporter: meanwhile, as kathy saw it, her best friend, jewel, was frozen out of the pastor's affection. kathy siegrist: i never saw anything affectionate from him to jewel.

i don't think i ever saw then kiss. he never hugged her. i don't know if i ever saw him hold her hand, actually. reporter: one disappointment towered over the others. for months, kathy says, jewel had been looking forward to a big 30th wedding anniversary treat, a trip to new york city to see "the phantom of the opera." she'd bought tickets to surprise ab, but when the time came, he announced that he wasn't going. ab had a wedding to officiate. did that break her heart a little bit, when he said i'm not going? i think pretty much. she called me up and she said, i can kick and scream all i want, and he's not going to care and he's not going to come, so will you come with me? sure, i will. reporter: during jewel's favorite song in the broadway show, kathy remembers jewel calling ab so he could listen in, but she couldn't reach him. she tried to call him to see where he was, and to tell him this is the song and this is-- you know,

i wanted you to be here. he didn't answer. and it was later in the evening, and she asked me, do you think that if he did have a wedding and was invited to the dinner afterwards, that he would be home by now? and i just agreed with her, yes, i would think he would be. reporter: was the mouse playing while the cat was away? kathy had her suspicions. did you ever talk to jewel about the things that you were starting to think to yourself were going on with ab? i did not. i did not. i didn't want to hurt her. reporter: but the whole issue of ab's suspected cheating soon became moot. not long after that trip to new york city, jewel was found sprawled at the bottom of the basement steps in the parsonage, a vacuum cleaner cord wrapped around her leg. ab told the emts he discovered her when he came back from running. jewel was taken to the er with multiple fractures to her skull. kathy immediately went to the hospital. how did she look?

terrible. her head was huge, and it was all wrapped up with gauze. you really couldn't have known it was her. reporter: her daughters kept vigil at their mother's bedside. it was horrific. it was terribly shocking. and i guess you knew there wasn't going to be a good outcome. yeah, i pretty much got that feeling. i still prayed for miracles, and-- but yeah, i had that feeling. reporter: there would be no miraculous recovery for the 51-year-old wife and mother. jewel's injuries were insurmountable. julie and amy remember their father falling apart as the decision was made to turn off the life support machines. he and i walked outside, and i remember it was a sunny day. and he said it was a beautiful day, but it was not a beautiful day, and he wanted his wife back. for some reason, that just really sticks out in my mind,

because i think the way-- it was the way it was said. he was just so sad. reporter: jewel was buried and mourned by the congregation. sundays at the church were never quite the same for kathy without jewel behind the organ. she and her sister told ab a few weeks on how much they missed her. kathy siegrist: we talked about how sad it is that she's not there, and we miss all the music and everything that she did. and his statement to us was, well, you're just going to have to get over it. reporter: and the reverend apparently took his own advice. two years later, he decided it was time to move on, a new chapter of his life with a new parish in the poconos and a new wife, betty. kathy met her just one time. kathy siegrist: she was jogging with him, and i was thinking, wow, maybe she's good for him, because jewel didn't like to jog and he found someone that has his likes. but as i walked away, i thought, wow, already?

reporter: yet the rumors about ab's first marriage, the freak fall down the stairs didn't mean much to detective wagner until he called his counterparts down in lebanon with a question-- had anyone there ever inquired about jewel schirmer's death? detective wagner: what i found out was very shocking. they told me that the case was left still pending and undetermined, with no outcome. reporter: and the closer he looked, the more he started to see some chilling parallels with betty's death. what do you think you've got here? this is very surprising for a minister. reporter: what would the story of the autopsy reveal about how jewel schirmer died? coming up. they didn't rule it an accident. they didn't rule it homicide. they ruled it as we don't know. reporter: but perhaps there was one person who did know. when "dateline" continues. ♪ it's native ♪ aluminum-free, 72-hour odor protection

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>> each week, veteran lawyers andrew weissman and mary mccord break down the latest developments inside the trump administration's department of justice. >> the administration. >> doesn't. >> necessarily want to be questioned on any of its policy. >> maine justice new episodes drop every tuesday. go beyond the headlines with the msnbc app. read, listen and watch live breaking news and analysis anytime, anywhere. go beyond the what? to understand the why. what? to understand the why. download the the reverend schirmer's second wife, betty, had succumbed to multiple head injuries in 2008, and investigators were curious to learn that so had his first wife, jewel, in 1999. you have a pattern of behavior-- yes. --of wives who turn up suspiciously dead. yes. reporter: assistant district attorney mike mancuso found the old jewel schirmer case troubling. something about the story just didn't add up. it's weird that this woman, jewel, would, according

to her son, vacuum these steps twice a week, every week, for 14 years, one step at a time, nice and slow. and then she'd not only fall, but suffer 14 different impacts to the head on her way down. reporter: according to the authorities, two hours away in lebanon, pennsylvania, where jewel died, an autopsy had been performed a decade before, after she was said to have tumbled down a set of basement stairs. the forensic pathologist was dr. wayne ross. you did the original autopsy. i did. what was your opinion about what had happened to her? traumatic brain injury. reporter: dr. ross's report told the prosecutor that, even back then, there had been doubts that jewel's injuries, the massive trauma to her head were consistent with the story of a fall. jewel's manner of death had been listed as undetermined. they didn't rule it an accident. they didn't rule it homicide. they ruled it as we don't know. reporter: in fact, the pathologist had been so concerned about his findings that he had suggested authorities

take a closer look. but that never happened. a local coroner-- mistakenly, as it turned out-- told police that jewel had fallen down the stairs after suffering a heart attack. it was a heart attack. they decided to close the investigation. reporter: a decade later, that old case was suddenly very relevant. and later in the investigation, the prosecutor would make an interesting move. he'd asked dr. ross, the pathologist who'd performed jewel's autopsy, to analyze both jewel and betty schirmer's records. there wasn't much for dr. ross to work with. unlike jewel, betty hadn't been autopsied. but cat scan images of her brain had been taken at the hospital. the pathologist would be definitive in his conclusions. the injuries noted to betty schirmer are wholly inconsistent with this low-speed traffic accident, in which no airbags deploy and which mr. schirmer had absolutely no injuries at all. reporter: dr. ross said there were two wounds on the right side of betty's head that could not have been caused in that car accident,

an opinion that became even stronger when he examined these computerized 3d models of betty's skull. these two images here are huge. reporter: dr. ross was convinced betty had been murdered, and brutally so. she's got fractures on the right side of her skull. and directly underneath that, she has swelling and bleeding to her brain. that's a lot of force going through there. reporter: and what kind of murder weapon would the killer have used? dr. ross had an idea. wayne ross: it was my opinion that she had been struck multiple times on her head with a long cylindrical object with a lot of weight to it, a crowbar or something. and he was swinging for the fences, essentially, and hit her hard at least twice in this area, and caused that damage. reporter: and the real stunner, for the pathologist, the injury was eerily reminiscent of that other schirmer case he'd seen so long ago. i mean, it's self-evident. there's two lacerations here. oh my goodness, it looks exactly like jewel schirmer.

reporter: dr. ross compared the two wives' injuries side by side. wayne ross: when you compare the two of them, the similarities are striking. the similarities are to the right side of the head on both jewel and betty, in terms of the lacerations. it's all happening right here. wayne ross: it's all happening-- in both women. it's all happening in the right side of the head, both women. reporter: in death, the doctor thought, they could have been twins. and investigators also found what they believe were other similarities between the two cases, signs, they thought, of a clean-up-- scrubbed bloodstains in the parsonage garage in the poconos and a story of scrubbed bloodstains at the foot of the basement stairs in jewel's case. back in 1999, detectives learned, jewel's brother had been so alarmed by the sight of his sister in the icu that he went over to the parsonage to see just what had happened. he thought the blood had been cleaned up. he confronts schirmer, what happened to all the blood?

and schirmer says, the emts stayed behind and cleaned it up. and he said that's bull. i ran an ambulance. i know that that didn't happen. and schirmer doesn't respond. reporter: investigators thought the other big similarity in the two deaths were the rumors in both about ab's behavior with other women. your opinion is that jewel, the wife, was aware of his infidelities, and-- painfully aware. reporter: and the prosecutor thought divorce could have been a problem for the pastor. michael mancuso: i think it would have been maybe a stain on his reputation. you know, and he was very conscious of his-- how he appeared to others, because remember, he's up on high. he's counseling you. he's everybody's person that is looked up to. so he certainly wouldn't have wanted that. reporter: and when detectives looked at the pastor's computer, they saw that he had a secret life. was it part of a motive for murder, a reason to get rid of not one, but two wives? coming up, a strange pastime for a pastor.

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you have a wolf in sheep's clothing. reporter: for more than a year, a team of investigators had been working to build a case against the former pastor ab schirmer. daryl cox was still singing with the reverend out on the gospel circuit, and said his friend didn't understand why he was being targeted by investigators. ab would tell me they're investigating betty's death. he told me he didn't know why. he said there's nothing there, they won't find anything, there's nothing to find. reporter: but investigators thought they were finding plenty. by now, they were trying to connect the dots between the death of his second wife, betty, and his first wife, jewel, and zeroing in on a motive for murder after they examined the hard drive on the reverend's computer. obsessed with sex. obsessed with it. thousands of porn sites. more than playmate nudie pictures. ran the gamut on all kinds of other perverse behavior. reporter: and seasoned investigator trooper phil barletto says the sheer volume of ab's searches was telling.

he was addicted to pornography, as evident by his computers, addicted to the chase of sexuality. reporter: and as they dug deeper, they found emails indicating to them that ab's sexual targets were not virtual, but sometimes very real female church members. kathy siegrist would tell investigators about ab's suspected affairs during his first marriage to jewel, and detective wagner says there was proof ab had run around on betty, too. detective wagner: he was counseling women who were very vulnerable, for many different reasons, maybe troubled marriage, alcohol abuse, something of that nature. and he would basically counsel his way right into their bedrooms. reporter: investigator wendy serfass says she could see the trail of women extending back for decades. wendy serfass: there was never a period in this man's life where he's not got some woman on the hook. we look back into the '70s and into the '80s,

and it's a constant. you know, you can see the pattern repeating itself over and over again. but even if the pastor was a chronic philanderer, as investigators thought, why was that a reason for killing his wives? it seemed to them he'd been cheating on them for years. why resort to murder? investigators speculated something must have changed. whatever it was, there was a sense betty was a troubled woman just before the car accident. a month or two before her death, there was a noticeable lack of outgoingness with the church that they took note of. reporter: and remember this post-it note the pastor had attached to betty's last birthday card, the one her son, nate, had come upon as he looked through a box of keepsakes, the one that said he was sorry for all the pain he had caused her, but soon she could soar free. how do you read that? it can only mean in the context that there was an understanding that the marriage was at an end. that was datable to her last birthday, which

was the end of june 2008. and she was ashes by july 17th. reporter: but still, they had to wonder. if they believed the pastor had staged a car crash on a dark rural road-- and by now, they did-- then why? maybe, they theorized, the timing had to do with cindy. was betty on to her husband's interest in his assistant? what if she asked the pastor for a potentially career-crushing divorce? he's wrapped up in the aura of the pulpit. he's a man of the cloth. he doesn't want to jeopardize it. and the breakup of his marriage, a divorce, anything nasty affair-wise, he didn't want to tolerate that. reporter: and the prosecutor thought cindy's affections for the pastor were becoming maybe dangerously apparent. michael mancuso: she was infatuated with the reverend. just mentioning his name, a big smile would come across her face. reporter: and two days after betty's car accident

in the summer of 2008, cindy sent her condolences to the pastor, signing her email, love you, the mushy cd. ab replied, love you, too. prosecutor mancuso was also struck by this photo of schirmer he says was taken the weekend of betty's memorial service. you don't see a man who's distraught and devastated, lost and alone. he's smiling there's one photo, in particular, where he was cooking up a load of scrapple. and he has a very self-assured look on his face, relaxed, at ease. reporter: but a few months later, things would get more complicated, on that october night when cindy's husband, joe, shot himself at the pastor's desk, heartbroken that his wife was involved with the reverend. his suicide allowed cindy and the pastor to finally be free together. by going through the pastor's records, investigator serfass tracked what she saw as the couple's increasingly steamy relationship following joe's death. it just-- it seemed to me too sudden.

i don't understand how you-- where did you grieve? like, where was your grieving time? reporter: she said their credit card receipts revealed rendezvous in local hotels. they're having an intimate relationship. we also see then there's hotel stays, overnight hotel stays, you know, things like that. reporter: there were also smoldering emails to each other. cindy wrote, "unimaginable is the only word that even comes close to describing last night. i have occupied this body for 40 something years, and trust me, this is not normal for me." and ab wrote, "am very hungry for you. your body is fantastic." and schirmer even confided in cindy how happy he was now with her. he said his relationship with betty had been missing something. "for the last two years, we did not have sex," he wrote. betty is menopausal, not interested in sex. they were not intimate. he was tired of her. she was no good anymore. so goodbye betty, hello cynthia. that would be the timing, yes.

reporter: and it was not only hello cindy, but hello samantha and her little brother. the children came, too. more than a year after joe's suicide, samantha remembers the pastor being there almost all the time. what was he like around the house? very moody, very kept to himself. didn't want to really be bothered with my brother or i. reporter: rose, samantha's aunt, watching from afar, was distressed by the thought of the pastor living with her dead brother's wife and children. he has my brother's house. and he can be with his son. and he can sleep in his bed. the decisions he's making and his behaviors don't add up, because you just don't do that. reporter: but the new couple was making big plans. later that summer, in august 2010, cindy and ab announced their engagement. daughter samantha was terrified. she called the police, frantic that her mother would become the third late mrs. ab schirmer.

investigators agreed, and decided they couldn't wait any longer to arrest the former pastor. with what they saw as another potential woman at risk, they decided to make their move. on september 13, 2010, detective wagner knocked on the front door of cindy's house. detective wagner: cindy musante's son came to the door. and i asked him where mr. schirmer was, and he said he was in the kitchen. and as i started to approach into the kitchen area, he went out the back door and ran right into trooper maynard. he was trying to make a getaway, huh? it appears so. reporter: but ab schirmer did not resist. he was cuffed and read his rights, charged with the murder of his second wife, betty. the deepest secrets of the reverend schirmer were about to be revealed to all. he would stand trial in a case that would leave a small pennsylvania town abuzz with its ungodly charges. coming up, prosecutors seem to have a strong case. but don't underestimate the defense.

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no. no. reporter: it had been more than four years since amy and julie's stepmom, betty schirmer, had been found bleeding and unconscious in their dad's car. now it was time for a jury to hear the evidence against ab schirmer and decide whether he was a murderer. a lot of the prosecutor's case was circumstantial. there was no murder weapon, no eyewitness, no confession to the crime. but even though the case had its challenges, the prosecutor had won a key victory before the trial had even started. now, the former pastor wasn't on trial for jewel's death, but a judge ruled that the prosecutor could still tell the jury about it and point out the similarities between how she and betty died. blunt force trauma to the head, brain damage, brain dead, injury patterns remarkably similar. it was from the same type of object, a long cylindrical object. this is the deck of cards being turned over again and just replayed out. right. reporter: while the prosecutor would describe for the jury the crushing blows he believed killed both wives,

this trial would focus mostly on betty. all in all, it was tough testimony for betty's family to listen to without going to pieces. just couldn't stop crying. how-- how long did she sit and suffer in pain? reporter: the prosecutor asked the jurors to use their common sense about ab's version of events. he played them these computer animations of the car crash, as reconstructed by experts. remember, ab had told police he'd been traveling at around 50 miles an hour when the accident happened. at 35 miles an hour, the car would completely travel right through the guardrail-- sail through the guardrail, into the woods. correct. reporter: the prosecutor said the accident reconstruction proved the pastor was driving slowly when the car struck the guardrail, too slowly for betty to have been fatally injured, more proof, he argued, that the so-called accident had been staged by the pastor, who'd attacked his wife somewhere else. a bogus wreck would also explain his strange behavior

in the car. no call to 911, no attempt to aid his injured wife. and there was his inappropriate behavior at the hospital, the prosecutor said, like this remark to a nurse. the defendant says what a pretty woman betts was. and then he makes the bizarre statement, and she had a nice ass, too. reporter: the prosecutor declared that the reverend met anyone's test of a sinner on a frequent basis. his computer was weighted down with searches for porn, according to a prosecution witness. one person testified that she'd had an ongoing affair of many years with him. woman: it was just a shock to me. one of them he actually was still sleeping with two weeks after he murdered my sister. reporter: the womanizing, the emotional entanglement with his church assistant-- it all added up to a crumbling marriage, the prosecutor told the jury. and ab, he said, responded the only way he knew how. there's an underlying violence

within him that's well-masked that comes out. reporter: violence that had been mapped out in blood on the floor of the parsonage garage, according to the prosecutor. he had a theory about how the crime occurred. she was beaten in the house, beaten to the point of brain death, unconsciousness. he takes her, he dresses her, he carries her-- she's only about 100 pounds-- out the back door, along the cemetery line, and into the back door of the garage. reporter: and what happened next, the prosecutor says, became increasingly clear when investigators pulled a pt cruiser, the type of car the reverend had been driving, into the garage. they parked the car in place and marked pink dots where blood had been found. later, investigators created this diagram. it shows a trail of blood leading right from the garage door to the car's passenger side. he walks her around the side of the car to the passenger side, sets her down, opens the door, puts her in the car,

then he backs out, he goes off and he concocts his little crash. reporter: but after seven days of testimony, it was finally the pastor's defense attorney's turn to present his case. he's innocent. you think he didn't do it. right. brandon reish told the jury that sometimes accidents just happen, and he argued that some of the prosecution's forensic analysis wasn't based on sound science. the blood evidence in the car, he said, didn't even match the prosecution's version of events. if there was so much bleeding that betty schirmer was loaded into this car after being bludgeoned with a crowbar, there should have been blood sprayed across the entire windshield. reporter: the defense's own pathologist told the jury that betty's head injuries were inconsistent with a blow from something like a crowbar and that betty had suffered internal injuries unique to a car wreck. there's this deep injury to the right lung that can only be caused in a car accident. this is from a chest, the right side of the chest hitting a dashboard.

there's no explanation for that by the commonwealth. reporter: as for the blood on betty's passenger seat, the defense maintained that it wasn't blood from a beating that occurred before she got in the car, as the prosecution charged. when you hear the testimony from the emts who extricated betty, there was a point in time when her head was clearly over that seat, and there was a point in time when there was active bleeding. reporter: and the defense attorney assailed the prosecution's analysis of the blood in the garage. if ab schirmer had, in fact, cleaned up after killing betty, he argued, the pastor would have done a much better job. would he really have left blood drops in the garage for the world to see? you could have really cleaned these up if you wanted to clean these up. they weren't cleaned up. reporter: what's more, he said, the prosecution's experts had exaggerated the amount of betty's blood found on the garage floor. they took luminol photos that were out of focus. misrepresented to the jury what they had. yes. reporter: and the defense attorney argued that investigators had been too quick to discount ab's explanation about betty getting a scratch from the woodpile.

and he said it didn't matter that the woodpile examined by investigators was sitting on a newspaper dated after betty's death. they were simply looking at the wrong stack of wood. mr. schirmer told them to look in the wood line for the wood. they didn't do that. one of the troopers said that he did that. but if you look in the background of his own photo, you can see a wood pile in the tree line. reporter: what's more, the defense attorney maintained that everyone was misconstruing ab's behavior at betty's bedside. ab's own daughters told the jury how it was their father's work as a reverend that accounted for his demeanor that day. he'd been a pastor to many people who'd gone through tragedy. he is so good at understanding how to comfort other people. reporter: they said their father was overcome. we walked with him through the grief. we walked with him through it. we saw him. reporter: and remember that photo of ab smiling while he cooked scrapple just days after betty was gone? it was far from being evidence, the lawyer argued, of his indifference

to betty's death. that's a snapshot. that's not a total picture of the whole time. no. it's taken out of context. reporter: in fact, betty and ab's marriage was strong, argued the defense. the relationship seemed good, and we were able to establish that there wasn't a problem. there were no allegations of violence in that marriage. no. reporter: but remember that post-it note that ab had written to betty, apologizing for pain he caused her and hoping she could soon soar free? while the prosecutor said the post-it showed that the marriage was on the brink, the defense attorney said they were rather the words of a caring husband, one who knew that his job was preventing his wife from seeing her family as much as she'd like. ab schirmer's description of why he put that in there is simply i wanted to express to her that i had caused her hardship and pain by having this job in [inaudible]. you're so far away from your children, your grandchildren.

reporter: bottom line, argued the defense attorney, ab loved his wife and had no reason to want her dead. i argued that there was no motive. made no sense. we talking about a ton of money from insurance or something? there's no life insurance. reporter: and the only thing ab was guilty of, his lawyer said, were some all too human mistakes. but that, in his opinion, was not a motive for murder. and he did a lot of things that weren't appropriate in the case. it doesn't make him a murderer. you'll do the walk of shame, but it doesn't make him a killer? is that the argument? right. reporter: and perhaps the best person to convince the jury of that was none other than ab schirmer himself. he did what defendants don't often do in criminal cases, took the stand in his own defense. the pastor turned his chair to face the jury, perhaps the last opportunity he'd have to preach. he admitted to being a sinner, having an affair, but he denied killing his wife. his daughters watched. how do you think he told his story? i think he did well. he was sincere. he was truthful.

reporter: betty's son, nate novak, was less convinced. i was full of anger. i knew he wasn't telling the truth. reporter: truth, the finding of facts-- that was the jury's job. the time was at hand to see what evolved. coming up, the verdict. but first, the prosecution offers one final clue to prove the pastor was a killer. it's something that mr. schirmer forgot, being a typical male. reporter: when "dateline" continues. fridge. >> it's not. dog food. it's fresh meat. real veggies for my boy. junior. boy. junior. >> what are we doing here? i got this wow skin from olay body wash. it's new super serum: sink into my skin with 5 powerful ingredients. 5 benefits in 1!

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reverend ab schirmer stood accused of a brutal crime, bludgeoning to death his second wife and staging a car accident to cover his tracks. in his closing argument, the prosecutor asked the jury to expose schirmer, the sinister minister. michael mancuso: he's kind of like a predator. and he'll look at people's vulnerabilities and he'll manipulate them, and he'll get in their good graces and he'll play with their heads. reporter: and the prosecutor offered the jurors one final clue he said was a deathblow to the pastor's story. it's something that mr. schirmer forgot, being a typical male. reporter: look closely at the photos of the accident scene, the prosecutor said. his investigator, wendy serfass, had noticed something was missing, something betty would have had with her. wendy serfass: all right, she's going to the hospital. what would she do? she gets dressed, grabs her purse. and i stopped and i said, wait a minute, there's no purse.

reporter: it was a crucial prop, the prosecutor argued, that ab had forgotten to throw in the car when he staged the car accident. but the defense attorney in his final statement told the jurors this was no fake scene. he urged the jurors not to punish the reverend because of his self-confessed sins. murder, he said, was not on that list. brandon reish: they needed to focus, if they were willing, on the forensics, and not be brought into the idea that he's a bad person, and therefore he did a bad thing. reporter: now it would be up to a panel of strangers to decide the pastor's fate. while the jury deliberated, betty and jewel's children waited. ab's stepson was convinced of his guilt. the evidence is just there. it's overwhelming. reporter: but ab's daughters were adamantly convinced of his innocence. they had lost their mother, jewel. would they now lose their father, too? what's happened to your family? do you say why us? do you have self-pity? no, i don't have self-pity. god is good. he's walked beside us through everything, regardless

of what's happened. reporter: ab's fiancee, cindy, waited anxiously, too. so did the prosecutor. i never know what a jury is going to do. you always worry when a jury is out, right? juries can-- reporter: in your line of work, anything. yes. anything could happen. absolutely. reporter: after an hour and a half of deliberation, the jurors had reached a verdict. betty's family took their seats in the courtroom. we're all huddled together in the seats, and we all had our heads down. reporter: then the verdict, guilty of first-degree murder. we immediately hugged. a few of us shouted out and started crying. reporter: for betty's family, the moment was bittersweet. fresh waves of grief for betty's loss and their brother-in-law ab's betrayal. so he was a stranger to all of you. this was deceit right from the beginning, you think now. yeah, i do. sitting at your thanksgiving tables and stopping by, seeing the grandchildren was all a front. i think it was.

sandy, what did ab schirmer do to your family? i think he physically broke our hearts. and poor mom, you know, that daughter. she really cared for that guy. and then it had to turn out to be like this. reporter: on the other side of the courtroom, ab's daughters could not believe it. it was another tragedy, to hear that. i just-- i'm still-- i was just so sad. just cried, devastated. i still hear it in my head, replaying, and-- the verdict. the verdict. and i don't agree with the decision. we know, regardless of what any jury says, that he'd never hurt betty. how are you feeling right now? reporter: the pastor's fiancee, cindy, had no comment for reporters after the verdict.

no reaction at all? reporter: she was still standing by her man. michael mancuso: she still loves him, gives him $600 a month while he's been incarcerated. reporter: samantha musante says her relationship with her mother is strained. samantha, how do you conjure up a new mother/daughter relationship? i love her. it's plain and simple. she's family. you know? she could wrong me in every way possible, but at the end of the day, she's still my mother. you love her. yeah. reporter: but the parent samantha is really living for these days is her late father. she says she dedicates every day to making him proud. everything i do is for him now, you know? i hope he's proud of me. in a sense of getting justice? yeah. going to-- everything. going to school, being successful. anything i wanted to do, he believed i could do it. reporter: samantha says she has found forgiveness for the man who could have become her new stepdad,

but betty's son, nate, wasn't there yet. i don't think i'll be able to say those words. who is this guy, nate? the sinister minister. presented himself as a pastor, pillar of the community, but we all know now there were skeletons in the closet and things going on behind the scenes. reporter: ab schirmer was sentenced to life in prison without parole. his defense attorney appealed the verdict, arguing, among other things, that the death of ab's first wife, jewel, should never have been allowed to be a part of betty's trial. i think the admission of the first wife's-- the circumstances surrounding the death of jewel schirmer really did prejudice the case. what do you have to say to betty's family or yours? reporter: the pennsylvania supreme court denied his appeal. but as the former pastor was being taken off to jail, the prosecutor says he told deputies he felt strangely calm. michael mancuso: and he couldn't understand why he felt so relaxed.

and i mean, i know why he felt so relaxed. you know, he's been carrying this thing with him for many years. you know, these-- reporter: the old bromide, the truth will set you free? --terrible secrets, and he felt that relief. reporter: forgiveness is the provenance of the church. justice is the duty of the state. in 2014, ab schirmer, the disgraced pastor, received an additional 20 to 40 years in prison for the murder of his first wife, jewel. he pleaded no contest, but still insists he is innocent, saying he took the plea to spare his family the pain of a second trial. [gasp!] beak's up! we're trapped by dishes. don't worry. they've got new dawn powersuds. it traps, locks and... removes 99% of grease. so it doesn't get passed from dish... to dish. cleaned and stacked. like ducks in a row. new dawn powersuds. do your dry eyes still feel gritty,

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