-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com a perfect family. a loving young couple with a toddler in tow. >> hi, da-da. >> then gunfire shattered everything. >> it's a gunshot. he's bleeding. >> a husband dead on the couch. and the killer, a robber, intruder. it didn't add up. until the secret slipped out. >> i started to suspect that they were having an affair. >> who was that woman? >> they had champagne delivered. who the hell celebrates a murdered husband? >> a young widow ensnared in forbidden desire. >> i did remember thinking what if they get away with it? along came a spider.

thanks for joining us. i'm ann curry. it was a case that went unsolved for years. with no apparent eyewitnesses and little solid evidence. it involved a devoted husband and father who was shot to death in his own home. it seemed his wife had narrowly escaped the gunman herself. then shortly after the funeral, the questions started. was this widow grieving or celebrating? here's keith morrison. >> she is couning, the black widow. deceitful, as she weaves her deadly web. only the sharpet eye could spot the fault, the clue, the dangling thread. though if that thread were ever pulled, what a frightful unraveling might ensue. los angeles 1998. march 18th, the evening. the home, a comfortable tract

house in north ridge san fernando valley. the tv was on. there was a man on the couch in the living room. a door opened. the spider's sticky track was sprung. >> 911 emergency. operator 682. >> yes, there's a murder here. i don't know what happened. >> okay, ma'am. what happened? >> i don't know. it's my son-in-law. >> the call was from the mother-in-law back from a night at the movies. it's a gunshot. he's bleeding. >> diane bates was distraught. it was she who discovered joel sprawled on the couch dead. >> got shot by a gun? >> he's dead, i think. >> he was shot in the head three times. they weren't fooling around. >> no. >> whoever shot him wanted him dead. >> veteran lapd detective brian mccarton arrived to find a house ransacked. >> quick glance it looked like a home invasion.

>> home invasion? and then another shocking discovery. there was a witness still in the house. joel's wife jennifer was where she almost always was about that time of the evening. an upstairs bathroom bathing a 3-year-old ijacob. >> she gave him a bath. she heard some voices and noise. and she heard what she thought sounded like someone confronting her husband and then all of a sudden shots rang out. >> and so said jennifer she, scooped up jacob from the tub and rushed down the hall to hide in the master bathroom shower. >> she heard some voices and heard people come upstairs. she thought multiple people. >> so maybe these are the robbers. >> she thought now they are going through the upstairs. she heard drawers opening, noise banging, drawers falling on to the floor and then all of a sudden, she said the next thing she heard were the police knocking on the bathroom door. >> so terrified was jennifer that cops had to slide their badges under the door to coax her out. her story supported what

happened. a ransacking upstairs, a violent shooting downstairs. but then investigators learned something else that might also explain what happened. joel was a police officer. >> maybe it was job related. that was an avenue we had to look at also. maybe he arrested someone that was angry enough to do this to him. >> joel had been an officer for the l.a. school district for five years. and one of its most popular. >> joel and i just hit it off and it was like the brother i never had. >> orlando went through training with joel. they were close friends. >> i never saw joel upset. i never saw him have a harsh word. >> a gentle guy? >> very gentle. but firm and would take action when he needed to. >> joel's sister karen. >> joey was the kind of guy that would light up a room. he didn't get upset. he wasn't confrontational. and things would just roll off

of him like water off a duck's back. >> that's joey there on karen's back. he was the baby of the family's four kids. he served in the navy after high school, then came back home and fell for a sweet, perky blond named jennifer fisher. met her roller skating. she was five years younger than he was, but it was love. her very first love. and though joel worried she might some day want to sow her wild oats after all, jennifer seemed to know just what she wanted. she was just 21 when they married. but eager to settle down. and life seemed to be just the way it was supposed to be. >> he had a home. he had a wife. he had a baby. he had a career that he liked. >> how sudden it was whatever the cause. targeted as a cop or robbed to kill by chance. the end was ugly. >> i remember when my mother

told me somebody killed our joey. and i remember i felt like i had lost my right arm and my right leg. i felt they were gone. i felt like i had body parts missing because part of me was gone. >> all night long that first night, the cops combed the house. a visibly shaken jennifer was taken to the nearby police station to provide what information she could. in the hope that it might lead to whoever executed her popular husband. >> obviously, he's a police officer. we will get more pressure from his agency and our agency. but i am still going to put as much effort into that case as i would any case. >> but for the moment, detective mccarthy didn't have much to go on. except, perhaps, for a small discovery near joel's body. tiny pellets suggesting he was killed by a small gauge shotgun normally used for sport hunting. a clue possibly? and then a few days later it was at joel's funeral, of all places. a loose thread caught the

detective's attention like a spider web glinting in the sun. if he pulled that thread, would it tell him who killed officer joel shambraugh and why? coming up -- a grieving widow or a grateful one? >> she was sitting in the limo, and she said thank god that's over with. when "along came a spider" continues.

the morning after. lapd detectives investigating the brutal murder of fellow officer joel shanbrom spent the entire night extracting clues from the chaos of the crime scene. >> we believed maybe we were looking at a home invasion robbery, and that was from her story. >> reporter: her was jennifer shanbrom, joel's wife. she told police what she heard

as she hid, terrified-n that upstairs bathroom. >> well, at first i thought it was just the tv, but i think i heard joel say, "i'm a cop" or "i'm a police officer." >> then you heard a shot? >> yeah. i think i heard the next gunshot, and it was at that point that i realized i'm dead meat. >> she said she ran into the master bathroom in a panic because she thought she was going to be the next victim of these robbers. >> reporter: it struck detectives as important that jennifer told them she heard her husband confront the killers downstairs, just before she heard the gunshots. so mccartin looked carefully at that scene down in the living room. and imagined what may have happened there the night before. >> if you're confronted by people, intruders in your home, you're on the couch, you're going to be up, trying to defend -- get ready, you might have to move or do something, you know, to fend off an attack. >> reporter: but here's where the evidence didn't seem to fit quite right. for one thing, said mccartin, a

policeman at home out of uniform would never reveal he was a cop for fear of making a bad situation worse. and besides, if joel had been shot while confronting his attackers, there should have been blood spatter everywhere. but there wasn't. there was lots of blood, of course, but only on the couch. >> in my opinion he was shot while he was sleeping on the couch. he was on the couch the entire time. >> it was more what, an execution-style killing? >> that's what i believe, yes. >> reporter: there was something else about the place that bothered him, too. sure, it was ransacked, but there was no rhyme or reason to it. robbers turn a baby's bedroom upside down? as they did. what could they possibly have wanted in there? >> we realized that it couldn't have been a home invasion robbery. >> reporter: jennifer must have been mistaken. maybe up there in that bathroom shower stall guarding a baby, terrified, she simply misinterpreted what was going

on. after all, as detectives had long since learned -- >> there's a flow to crimes. there's a crime flow. everything makes sense. everything happens in a sequence. it happens in time, a time sequence. it happens in a chronology sequence. but you get crimes where that doesn't make sense. and that's where i can come in. >> reporter: mark saffarick is a former fbi special agent who consult on the case. he's an expert on analyzing crime scenes, especially ones that appear staged. >> when you see staged homicides, you start to recognize that there's just too much going on. it's just too much activity. like they really want you to believe that someone was in here stealing stuff and searching. but you don't have anything taken. >> no jewelry? >> nothing's taken. >> no weapons, no money? >> nothing. except the murder weapon. >> reporter: and that murder weapon, as revealed by the pellets, was a sport weapon, an unusual type of shotgun. >> so all these little bits and pieces together, we started to

think. that doesn't sound right. >> reporter: which left a rather disturbing possibility. >> when i take on any murder, you start from the closest people to the victim. 90-something percent of all murders are committed by friends, relatives, or acquaintances of the victim. so obviously the first one is the wife. >> say hi, dada. >> hi, dada. >> reporter: so it had to be said. petite, pretty, jennifer shanbrom, now a 28-year-old widow, was nobody's idea of a murderess. still, maybe she knew something or someone that she wasn't revealing or was afraid to reveal? >> within that 24 hours we had our surveillance unit. we decided let's tail jennifer, see where she's going, see who she's meeting. >> reporter: and this was odd. and also a little unusual for a grieving widow. >> she was every day, almost every minute of the day was with matt. wherever she went, matt was with

her. >> reporter: matt? who was matt? he was matthew fletcher, a family friend who had gotten jennifer and joel involved in his financial services business. now he was apparently helping jennifer deal with her loss. joel's sister karen knew matt fletcher and had her own impression. >> he always knew what he was going to do. he always seemed so sure of himself. nothing was ever an issue because he seemed to have an answer for everything. >> reporter: and he seemed to be everywhere with jennifer, including joel's funeral, where russ orlando gave one of the eulogies. >> i love you, joel. >> reporter: dozens of police officers from all over california attended, including lapd detectives who kept a close eye on jennifer. after the service joel's friend russ orlando went to pay his respects. >> i walk up to the limo, bend my head in, pay my respects. and she's crying. i turned around and walked way. >> reporter: finally coming to

terms with her husband's death? later, russ encountered another observer who had a better view into the limo. >> she was sitting in the limo with matt fletcher. and she had put her hand on his knee and said, "thank god that's over with." and then the waterworks were off. >> reporter: could it be? was her public grief a facade? after the funeral joel's family held a somber gathering. but matt and jennifer and her family, still under the watchful eye of a plainclothes policeman, had their own funeral reception. >> they all went back to this hotel. they did the same thing that we did, except for theirs was festive. >> festive? >> yeah, theirs was festive. i understand that they had champagne delivered. to have champagne delivered? i mean, i don't know, it's just -- it doesn't make any sense. i mean, i always thought that champagne is for celebration. and who the hell would celebrate a murdered husband? not me.

>> reporter: it didn't make sense. even if jennifer wasn't actually celebrating the death of her husband and father of her 3-year-old son, even if this was their version of a wake, why champagne? was she hiding some secret knowledge about the crime? did she know who pulled the trigger? or why? coming up -- >> i started to suspect that they were having an affair. >> reporter: a motive for murder? >> they were sending codes back and forth, i love you, i want you. >> reporter: more than a million of them. when "along came a spider" continues.

probably more murders are committed between husbands and

wives than anybody else. a husband killing the wife or vice versa. it happens a lot. >> reporter: so it does. but this particular murder that detective brian mccartin was investigating didn't quite fit the profile. the victim, joel shanbrom, was thought to be happily married. and his wife, jennifer, a bubbly young blond, hardly seemed the type to pull the trigger at point-blank range. yet her story of what happened didn't quite fit what mccartin had seen in the house. and her behavior at the funeral, a little too cozy with that family friend matthew fletcher. >> there's something here. there's something not right. there's got to be something else. >> like, for example, a motive for murder. mccartin into the shan brohms' financial records, and there he found a clue. >> he wasn't making enough money for her. and as we learned, he at times had two or three additional jobs on top of his full-time job just to supplement their income and

keep his wife happy. >> reporter: the shanbroms were deep in debt. joel's $40,000 police salary wasn't coming close to cutting it. especially when it came to jennifer's lavish lifestyle. >> she spent money faster than he could make it. >> jennifer wanteded the biggest house. the top-of-the-line model, the biggest house. >> had to be the biggest? >> had to be the biggest, had to be the best. well, whatever she had, it wasn't enough for her. >> reporter: in fact, less than two years after celebrating this christmas in their brand new home the bank foreclosed. they were forced to move to a rental house. but downsizing and jennifer didn't seem to get along. >> she wanted more and more and more. harder. >> reporter: one of joel's three side jobs was moonlighting as a sales rep for a financial services company. >> that's where the connection between matt, jennifer, and joel first started. >> reporter: ah yes, matt, matthew fletcher.

the man who seemed to know everything and be everywhere. especially when it came to jennifer. >> he worked for a financial advisor type company. and he convinced them to join the company that he was with. >> but he was a pretty smooth guy, right? >> he's like a con man televangelist. i mean, he's good in a crowd. he could sell you the brooklyn bridge. insurance. life insurance. which was part of his financial services business. in fact, it wasn't very long after he met joel matthew fletcher sold him $500,000 worth of insurance, even though joel already had an insurance policy with the police department, $314,000. and then it turned out joel had insurance he didn't even know about. a few weeks before his death detectives discovered his wife, jenks reinstated the policy which joel had earlier cancelled himself. another $300,000. >> the amount of insurance that the coverage he had was high for his income.

actually, three policies that amounted to about $1.2 million. >> reporter: over a million bucks in coverage for a cop making 40 grand? but jennifer and joel had high hopes that their new business venture would soon justify all those numbers. >> and so his goal was to work hard at this business, financial business, and eventually quit the department and go full-time. >> reporter: but in the months before the murder it was jennifer who seemed to be working full-time with matt fletcher. and apparently, it wasn't all business. >> i started to suspect that they were having an affair. >> just by the way they were behaving together? >> yes. i don't even know how to put it into words. but you know when somebody's having sex and you know when they're not. there's just something there. >> reporter: now under surveillance and possibly implicated in a murder, matt and jennifer maintained they were just friends. but their pagers told a very different story. >> they were sending codes back and forth to each other on their pager, "i love you. i miss you. i want you." and this was all within the

first week of the murder. >> reporter: the more digging the detectives did, the more joel's murder looked like an inside job. >> squlefrjennifer, what we lea from her father and other friends, she knew how to use a gun, she was a good shot. she actually bragged to people that she taught joel how to shoot a gun. she had her own gun. >> reporter: those pellets found at the crime scene, remember, came from a shotgun, a hunting weapon. jennifer knew how to use one, and matt fletcher, friends confirmed, owned a shotgun and was known to use it at a local skeet range. >> it didn't take us long to be 100% sure it was them. it wasn't very long at all. >> reporter: it seemed like a solid case. an affair, a clear motive. the shotguns. certainly enough to file charges. so he eventually took the case to one of l.a.'s top deputy district attorneys, jeff jonas. >> there's a lot of cases in l.a. county, and there's x amount of manpower. i've done a lot of

circumstantial cold cases. this was going to take a lot of work. first of all, are you going to take it, and then are you going to expend the manpower to try to put it together? >> reporter: did you hear the sound of brakes coming on? not that deputy d.a. jonas didn't like the case. he did. but he wasn't convinced the evidence was strong enough for a conviction. he told the detectives, keep digging. didn't have enough? i mean, good lord. you had them partying a couple of days after the murder, telling a story that didn't make any sense based on the murder scene. >> that's true. >> you know, obviously having an affair. insurance policies that are too big. that isn't enough? >> we don't have the murder weapon. we don't have any eyewitnesses. we don't have any real physical evidence like dna or anything of that nature that would point to either one of them. it's a tough case. >> and so what first appeared to be a promising case instead joined the long depressing parade of unsolved crimes grinding slowly through the

system. but there was nothing slow about jennifer shanbrom and her lover matthew fletcher. they moved quickly to cash in on all that insurance money. and before long began buying up the luxurious lifestyle jennifer always wanted. coming up -- was this chilling crime destined to become a cold case? >> i do remember thinking, what if they get away with it? >> reporter: or was it about to heat up? >> persistence is the key. i never give up. >> reporter: when "along came a spider" continues.

not enough evidence. too many questions. no smoking gun. a few weeks after joel shanbrom was shot to death in his own living room the investigation into his murder seemed to stall. which made what happened next all the more infuriating for investigators to watch. joel's widow, jennifer, and her constant companion matthew fletcher were not wasting any time cashing in. >> immediately after the murder the very first thing on matt file for everything in

terms of insurance. >> matt was spearheading the collection of all the insurance funds. he would more or less tell these insurance agents what to do and how to do it. and he was very pushy at trying to get the insurance paid as quickly as possible to her. >> reporter: sure enough, within months jennifer's first insurance payout arrived. >> the proceeds of that policy, $314,000, are given to jennifer. she gives half of that to matt. >> reporter: the d.a.'s office requested a hold be put on the remaining insurance payouts. but in june, jennifer and matt, who until now maintained they were just friends, still managed to fund a romantic rendezvous in mexico. >> she said that she and matt officially started dating in june. that's when they started dating. he's killed march 18th. in june she says we officially started dating. >> reporter: then, just four short months later, they got engaged. >> there's a picture of jennifer and matt together, and she looks the happiest that i've ever seen in a picture. and just the whole connotation

of the sinister widow. >> reporter: or the black widow, as jonas had taken to calling her. >> interesting way to mourn the death of your beloved husband. get engaged to the person that helped you perpetrate the murder and then get a three-carat engagement diamond ring, probably with the proceeds. >> reporter: then in hawaii on valentine's day 1999, a month before the first anniversary of her husband's death, widow shanbrom became mrs. matthew fletcher. >> what did that tell you? >> it just bolstered our belief that they lied initially that they were having an affair and that they were both in cahoots together on this murder. >> reporter: first the murder, now the marriage. and the lifestyle funded by a dead police officer's insurance money. while happy couple was skating, joel's family was steaming. why wasn't something being done? >> the father would write letters to the district

attorney's office, trying to pressure them to look at it closer. look at my son's case. you know, let's file it, let's go to trieshlgs let's arrest the people that did this. >> my sister was calling. my brother was calling. poor jeff, he's getting calls from all of my family members. >> reporter: jonas was under pressure from both the family and a massive caseload. an orphan case like this? he could have, perhaps should have, reassigned it down the ladder. but something told him not to. >> i said, you know, what i'll take this personally. but you have to understand, i've got three or four other murder cases backed up. >> by keeping the case for himself jonas at least could ensure that the investigation stayed on the d.a.'s radar. but actually filing charges? getting the case to trial? that, he warned the family, could take a long time. >> i said we've got a great investigator in brian mccartin. you just have to trust us. you know, there's no statute of limitations in a murder. >> reporter: for the next two

years detective mccartin quietly kept compiling the case, reviewing the evidence, interviewing dozens of people who knew joel, sxwrenks matt. >> i think it's persistence, is the key. just don't give up. if you give up, the case will never be cleared. and i have a lot of persistence. i never give up. >> reporter: mccartin also kept track of jennifer and matt, who were living in a secluded townhouse but keeping a low profile. >> she always used the word officially. we're officially a pager and a p.o. box. we don't want anybody to know where we live because the intruders might come to try to find us. >> reporter: but the newlywed fletchers weren't shy about sporting around the neighborhood in their fancy cars, adorned with distinctive license plates. >> one of them said the acronym for "create wealth." and the other said "quit work ' workin'." and he had a motorcycle that had a paint job on the gas tank and on the side with $100 bills, or whatever. all they ever talked about was

money. all that mattered was money. >> reporter: and now, as the second anniversary of joel's murder approached, it seemed like jennifer and matt had indeed committed the perfect crime. >> my father would call me all the time. when are they going to get arrested? what's going on? why haven't they been arrested yet? but i do remember thinking, what if? what if they get away with it? >> reporter: mccartin and jonas needed something to put the black widow case over the top. but what about this? instead of targeting matt and jennifer, wasn't there another person in the house that night? why, yes, there was. >> there was a murder. i don't know what. >> reporter: coming up, the mysterious other witness. was she the key to solving this case? >> when she phoned 911, she knew what had occurred, and she was covering for both matt and jennifer. >> reporter: when "along came a spider" continues.

there's a hard truth at the heart of the justice system. decisions have to be practical. no solid evidence can mean

acquittal. so circumstantial cases often go cold. no arrest, no trial. no justice. but as murdered police officer joel shanbrom's widow, jennifer, and her new husband, matt fletcher, flashed their new wealth, an improbable determination kept the investigation alive. >> i don't remember ever losing hope. i do remember brian mccartin, from robbery/homicide, saying "we will never close this case. we will keep it open until we solve it." >> we'll find out who did this. we'll arrest them. we'll convict them. >> did you really believe that yourself at the time? >> i did. i did. >> reporter: an opinion detective mccartin shared with deputy d.a. jeff jonas. >> and we would periodically meet and discuss the case. and i remember telling him, i said, "jeff, we're probably not going to get much more than this. i mean, this is it. let's let a jury decide." >> reporter: but not just any jury. how about an investigative grand

jury? a kind of legal dry run, to test the case. >> where you can bring in your witnesses, lock them into statements, and there's no defense attorney there to cross them. and then see really how much and what we have and what would an independent body like a grand jury decide or think of everything we have. >> i wanted to get diane bates under oath on the witness stand. >> reporter: diane bates. remember her? jennifer's mother. she's the one who apparently stumbled into the crime scene and then called 911. >> he's been shot. >> reporter: jonas and mccartin had long suspected bates knew a lot more than she was saying about that horrendous night. for one thing -- >> she could never account for at least 20 to 30 minutes from the time that we were able to figure that she got home until the time that she made the 911 call. >> reporter: did she know more than she let on? all along she had supported jennifer's alibi about hiding in

the bathroom during the shooting. and had backed up matt fletcher's contention that he wasn't anywhere near at the time of the murder. but diane bates's story had changed. frequently. and even in this interview with police she had been erratic and inconsistent. >> my first reaction was that he had killed himself. so i said, there's been a murder -- or there's been a shooting or something. >> diane bates must have given nine or ten different statements over the course of this time. all of which were different, inconsistent. >> reporter: jonas was convinced that bates was the key to implicating not only jennifer but also matt, who the d.a. believed was at the crime scene either during or right after the murder. >> when she phoned 911, she knew what had occurred and she was covering for both matt and jennifer. and she was going to cover for jennifer for the rest of her

life. >> it all happened so fast. >> reporter: maybe under questioning bates would slip up and give the prosecution something to work with. but to get jennifer's mother even to tell her side of the story jonas had to grant bates immunity. she would never be charged with any part of her son-in-law's murder. bates took the bait. for three days under the grand ju jury's grilling she refused to implicate matt or jennifer. but to members of the jury her testimony seemed evasive. >> the grand jury has a right to ask questions at the conclusion of your presentation. one of the first questions was diane bates, do you always lie or just in front of the grand jury? >> reporter: then jonas took the grand jury through the couple's affair, their financial motive, the apparently staged crime scene. >> what did that grand jury think? >> oh, they believed we had enough. there was enough to go forward and indict. >> reporter: but not yet. jonas was committed to this now, but his higher-ups wanted more evidence. and who could blame them?

l.a. juries, after all, have become famous for granting acquitals in cases prosecutors believed were solid. and so now for the next two years jonas and detective brian mccartin worked out the details in an effort to make their case juriproof. >> well, you go over everything numerous times, there's got to be something else. and then i'd find this, then i'd find that. add it to my list. >> reporter: but all the while matthew and jennifer fletcher were apparently oblivious, or at least by all accounts unworried. by now they were living in a posh gated community, raising joel's son jacob and their own newborn daughter. just the lifestyle jennifer always wanted. >> she wanted to be a millionaire, as did matt fletcher. when she saw matt fletcher, who is the great deceiver, the great manipulator, and she just bought in hook, line, and sinker. >> reporter: but then it was february 2002, nearly four years

after joel shanbrom's murder. still no smoking gun. the evidence they had was apparently all they were going to get. was it a gamble? jonas spoke to his detective. time to strike. detective mccartin tracked down matt fletcher driving his new mercedes and arrested him. >> he believed that he was beyond the reach of the police, that he was untouchable. he was laughing at what we were doing. >> reporter: the next morning jennifer turned herself in. she was eight months pregnant. matt and jennifer would finally have their day in court. but even after an exhaustive four-year investigation the case was still totally circumstantial. no waerneapon, no dna, no eyewitnesses. >> it's a 50-50 crap shoot. i in my opinion, i believe we have more than enough to convict. whether a jury's going to believe that, i have no idea. >> reporter: and the prosecution would also have to prepare for a big surprise in the courtroom.

a smoothtalking opponent who knew the case even better than they did. matthew fletcher. coming up, a surprising piece of evidence leads to a perry mason moment in the courtroom. >> i said wait a minute, whoever keeps a water bottle in the shower? >> reporter: the trial and the verdict. when "along came a spider" continues.

all rise. >> reporter: here it was. the case that almost didn't make it to court. a case that looked for all the world like a black widow's nearly perfect crime. finally in front of a judge and jury. it had taken some six years to get here. prosecutor jeff jonas was ready to unravel that complicated web of a case. but now found himself facing an unlikely and utterly unexpected opponent. defending matthew fletcher would be none other than matthew

fletcher. >> this trial is about a senseless murder, no eyewitnesses, no weapon, no physical evidence to link myself or jennifer to this crime. our involvement is only in the prosecutor's mind. a made for television imagination. >> matt had this very, very, very inflated opinion of his intellect, of his ability, and of his persuasive talents. >> he thought he was the smartest guy in the room. >> oh, my word. we were all stupid. >> reporter: jennifer's road to court was more complicated. she had her baby in jail, while she awaited trial. all three of her children now lived with jennifer's sister. to help her face the charge of murder she hired an experienced trial attorney named barry bernstein. >> we've heard nothing, not one thing material from these people, except speculation there was an affair, conjecture there was an affair, and changing stories based on gossip.

>> reporter: it was, as one reporter called it, a circus from the moment matt and jennifer entered the courtroom. >> they were as though they were on a picnic together. they would -- they were obviously in separate cells, but once they came together at the counsel table they would joke and talk as though this is nothing, we're just here, you know, and we're having lunch, and then we'll be on our way soon. they didn't realize -- it's like they didn't realize the gravity of what they -- where they were and what they were facing. >> reporter: which was murder in the first degree and several counts of conspiracy and insurance fraud. and for good measure jonas also charged matt with one more crime -- bigamy. it turned out he failed to divorce his current wife before >> people in my office were sort of looking at me like what, are you nuts? you've got a murder case and you're filing a bigamy? i said i'm showing what kind of a person this guy is. >> reporter: for over four months in court jonas presented an exhaustive case, unraveling

matt and jennifer's affair, the murder, cover-up, and insurance conspiracy. >> so that we don't forget throughout the testimony, that's what this case is about. there's no question it's a murder. no question that it was an execution. >> reporter: when it happened on that dreadful night in northridge, jonas told the jury, joel was asleep on the couch. it was jennifer, he said, who, with her 3-year-old in the house, sneaked up from behind her husband and fired the first shot. and then a second. but neither one was immediately fatal. >> was there a third shot? >> my belief is that jennifer panicked after the second shot. that matt finished it off and left. >> why do you believe it was jennifer who shot the first two times? >> because she despised her husband and intended to marry matt fletcher and had fall nen love with him and was willing to

do anything. and he probably had some -- some influence in doing that. >> jonas argued that diane bates arrived unexpectedly either during or right after the shooting. then the cover-up began. the bogus ransacking of the house. matt's escape with the murder weapon. and eventually the 911 call. a theory which, said matthew fletcher, simply missed both the real murderers and their blatantly obvious motive -- to rob the house and if necessary kill anybody who got in their way. >> the people that came there did not come there with the deliberate intention of killing joel shanbrom or any of the occupants of that house. >> reporter: and fletcher, it turned out, was a decent courtroom debater. he presented alibi witnesses, though they couldn't in the end account for his whereabouts right at the time of the murder. still, fletcher insisted the state had it all wrong. joel shanbrom, he told the jury,

was the victim of a home invasion robbery gone wrong. >> they didn't expect joel to be there. they didn't expect a police officer to be there. and upon confronting them and identifying himself as a police officer, that cost him his life. persuasive. and as the end approach, the outcome was at best uncertain. >> i couldn't read the jury. they were all sharp. they stayed awake. some juries fall asleep. i had no idea what they were going to do. >> reporter: nor did jonas. and with closing arguments nearly complete, he felt he needed something else to sway the jury. one night, just before his final rebuttal, jonas took a last look at the crime scene photos, including the bathroom, where jennifer was hiding with her son. and there it was. why hadn't he noticed it before? >> and sitting in the shower stall is this water bottle. the light bulb goes on. i said, wait a minute. whoever keeps a water bottle in

the shower? >> does that trouble you? do you always take a shower with a water bottle? it's half drunk. she had time to get a water bottle but not time to get a gun or a phone? >> that means this whole thing was planned. she's got a boy in one arm and she's running down the hall. she says, you know what? i might be in there for an hour and a half, take it in there because we're going to need a drink. >> reporter: the trial had stretched from march to july. now it was up to the jury. was joel shanbrom killed in a home invasion robbery? or had matt and jennifer committed cold-blooded premeditated murder for insurance money? >> the jury went out. and they went out. and they stayed out. and they stayed out. and they stayed out. oh, god. it was hellacious. it was brutally, brutally hellacious. >> i've never been that apprehensive about anything, worried about what the outcome was going to be. >> i do not allow myself to

believe that a jury is going to let a killer go. i can't -- i can't buy into that, or i'd probably have a nervous breakdown. >> reporter: then finally, after 12 days, a verdict. in a packed courtroom thick with tension. matt and jennifer seemed surprisingly relaxed, even confident. >> happy, jovial. "we're going home today." people were there. actually, her family was sitting in the audience with gifts to give them when they were aquisted. >> we the jury in the above-entitled action find the defendant jennifer fletcher guilty of the crime of murder. >> reporter: the web had come undone. and it showed. matthew and jennifer fletcher were found guilty on all six counts. of murder, conspiracy, lying in wait, insurance fraud. everything. and for matt a seventh count. guilty of bigamy.

>> i don't think we can say anybody's happy today because joey's not back, but now we know that the people who did this terrible thing, who have ruined so many lives, now, god willing, will not see the light of day except for through bars. >> i was very happy. it felt good to finally be done with the case and put two murderers away. they were done. they were gone. >> there's a euphoria, you would think. but by and large, it's a huge void. and the reason is because you can't really celebrate a death. and you can't really celebrate a murder. you're thankful that it's over. you're grateful that the jury did the right thing. >> reporter: 10 months later matt and jennifer were formally sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. the black widow and her mate would spin their poison web no more. >> those two people are serving the rest of their life in prison

because they decided that it was okay to play god and to kill my brother. justice, standing tall and being blind, wasn't going to let that happen. the system works, and justice does prevail. >> the convictions of jennifer shanbrom and matt fletcher are now considered final. their direct appeals are over. both are now serving out their life sentences with no possibility of parole. you can get more information about this case on our website you can get more information about this case on our website at dateline.msnbc.com. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com