she is a very sophisticated, very smart woman. she does not look like she could kill her husband, but ha but thd of the irony of it. >> he was hurt and my mind was racing. i just didn't know what to do. >> reporter: she is compelling, contact vait i captivating, whether you buy her story or not. >> you almost don't believe that it's happening to you. >> reporter: doting mother. third-grade teacher. and to prosecutors, stone cold killer. >> i was handcuffed, read my rights, placed in a police car. >> reporter: the crime? murder. the victim? her tomcatting husband. >> any woman in america? that's just a slap in your face. >> reporter: is she really a woman who could kill? >> my heart would not let me believe it.

>> reporter: drug her own kids so they wouldn't hear the gun? >> her children were drugged, no doubt about that. >> reporter: beauty brutally silencing the beating of a cheating heart. >> i thought that if you told the truth, the truth worked. and it's not working for me. >> reporter: two trials. two juries. two verdicts. tonight, you be the judge. "cause for alarm." >> good evening. welcome to "dateline." i'm ann curry. you just heard the prosecutor call it "a slap in the face to any woman in america," a husband who had cheated on his wife repeatedly, according to friends and family. his wife, a schoolteacher and young mother, was charged with shooting him. and the debate over whether she was guilty or innocent would divide everyone, including the jurors. here's dennis murphy with a "dateline in session" exclusives >> it's a night that you never forget. it was just a terrible night. >> reporter: it was a warm early

june night in jackson, mississippi. elicia hughes had just closed up he'd gone out to with his brother. >> brian had a very erratic schedule so it was not uncommon for him to get home late. so i didn't sit up and wait on brian. >> reporter: that night, june 3, 2004, she put the two girls, one 3, the other four, in the big bed with her. now, after 10:00, she could barely stay awake as she read in the master bedroom. >> it was like i'm in bed, i'm reading a book and kind of started dozing off. >> reporter: then a little after 11:00 she said she heard a pop, pop, pop noise. >> i couldn't even really figure out if it was inside of the house or outside of the house. and then hearing the alarm sound that made me aware that

was -- the popping sound was probably something pertaining to my house. >> reporter: her husband, brian, was known as a security-conscious guy. and the alarm he'd had installed, the kind you have to arm and disarm on entering and leaving, was blaring. >> it wasn't even the thought of dealing with the pops. it was the thought of dealing with the alarm. >> reporter: she got up and looked at the bedroom keypad to disarm the horn, she said, but couldn't remember the code. she started walking down the hallway. >> i'm looking outside and i don't see anything. and then i kind of glanced across the foyer and i see brian laying in the living room, and his back is to me, and he's facing the couch. and the first thing i felt was relief because i thought, oh, he is here. he is at home. he can handle this. and it never -- it did not enter my mind at that point that he was hurt. >> reporter: brian hughes, her 32-year-old husband, was on the

floor near the couch, not moving. the alarm was still going off and the front door was open. >> worse-case scenario i thought that he was intoxicated. and one of his friends had brought him home and just laid him on the floor. and i was, leak, okay, you need to get better friends. so i go over to him, and i'm on the floor beside him. and i'm touching his back, and i'm, like, brian, brian, honey, the alarm is going off. i need you to help me. i need to turn you it off. what' the code? and at the point i realized that he's moaning. and i didn't know what to do. and as i was touching him, i felt blood. and he was there, and he was hurt. and my mind was racing. >> reporter: brian and elicia had met in high school when they

with were 17. he spied her through the door of her classroom and made a point of talking to her, the pretty girl who'd been chosen "miss lanier high." >> he was so outgoing. he was such a people person. and he had a way about him that made you feel important. >> reporter: early on, they were with more friends than a couple. elicia had graduated college, taught a little, then worked in insurance before she and brian finally became engaged. they married in 1999 when they were both 27. brian had served in the air force and for the past few years had been working alongside his dad at the delphi packard plant where he fabricated moldings for the autombile electrical supply company. overtime was good, and brian was pulling in upwards of $60,000 a year. two kids. two paychecks. a single-story ranch with plenty of family nearby, always up for babysitting and backyard barbecues. now, at 11:15 at night, brian was lying on the floor of his home, not passed out drunk as

elicia first thought but riddled with multiple gunshot wounds. >> i did not realize that he had been shot until i was kneeling on the ground beside him. there were some shell casings that i stepped over going into the living room, and i'm just, you know, putting these things together. and you know, i'm figuring out that he's been shot. >> reporter: about then the phone rang. it was the alarm company, someone asking what was going on there. >> help me. help me. >> reporter: as the alarm company notified the police, elicia says she took stock the best she could. husband shot. who and where was the shooter now? do you worry that this guy might be in the house and maybe has even gotten back to where you were with the children? >> i can't remember what i did specifically first.

but i know that i was kneeling beside brian, and i was trying to comfort him. and i was still thinking, oh, god, somebody could still be in the house. and i was looking around, just kind of scanning around the room that we were in. i remember crawling towards the front door and kicking the door shut. >> you thought whoever shot him might be just outside the door still? >> could have been, i didn't know. i closed the door. i locked the door. at some point i remember peeking out the window in the living room. and it was just a lot of back and forth. because i would, like, close the door, go back to brian, peek out the window, go back to brian. >> reporter: brian's mother, pat hughes, was notified by the alarm company that something was wrong at elicia and brian's

house. >> all i could think of is the house is on fire. so on my way i call my brother-in-law, who worked with the fire department. i said, did you hear anything? is brian's house on fire? and then i called my son, and he ran. and i'm driving as fast as i can to get over there. >> reporter: brian's mother got to the front door, but the police would not let her go further. >> one of the policemen at the door told me brian had been shot. so i called his name. and i called elicia's name. she called back to me. and i told her, elicia, don't let brian die. talk to him. hold him. please don't le let me baby die. >> willie jr.,who'd just been dropped off his older brother, arrived within minutes to the confusion in the front yard. >> fire truck in the road. my mother's car, police cars. it's a total nightmare. i just hoped that i was dreaming and i had passed out and went to sleep and was in a deep dream. >> reporter: the emts had raced in with a gurney but walked out with it empty.

brian didn't make it. an officer went to tell elica. >> one of the detectives came into the kitchen and told me that brian's injuries had been fatal. it just seemed that everything just seemed kind of surreal, and i just kept thinking, i didn't know what to do. i didn't know -- i just didn't know what to do. i didn't know whether to sit, to scream, to shout or what, so i just sat. >> reporter: life of the party brian gone just like that. he'd been murdered, apparently, by an intruder who unloaded a gun on him when he opened the front door. >> i just knew he was gone, and i couldn't even wrap my mind

around who could have disliked him muf enough to do that. i knew my two boys had been together, and i thought if somebody followed him home i guess i was just grateful that they didn't take them both. >> reporter: crime scene investigators began their work gingerly because this case was sensitive, almost like a murder in the law enforcement family. willie jr., the brother, was someone they worked with at the crime lab. the victim's uncle vernon is the ranking fire chief and a former arson investigator. >> we met up with a couple of detectives to try to decipher as to what actually had happened. >> because you're a close family member, but you're also a professional crime scene investigator. >> that is correct. >> so you're just trying to put together, what is this little bit of evidence i have? what's the story it is telling

me? >> exactly. >> reporter: the hughes family was clustered in the kitchen. by then aunts, uncles and cousins had arrived. all of them numb from the sudden violence thrust upon them, all trying to comfort the new widow. >> elicia was sitting at the kitchen table saying, wringing her hands, saying, "what am i going to do, what am i going to do?" coming up -- details emerge about the shooting and about brian's secrets. >> we found out that as he got home he was on the phone with ->( music playing )t as he got - a work of art. a finely-tuned machine. a sanctuary. a command center. ( both revving ) a sophisticated sedan. a sports car. together. nissan maxima, the four-door sports car. now lease a maxima for $299 a month for 39 months or get 0% apr financing. you'll love it so much, you'll send your old duster packing. ♪ love stinks!

♪ yeah! yeah! ♪ love stinks ♪ [ female announcer ] swiffer 360 dusters cleans deep into hard to reach places and removes allergens, feather dusters can leave behind. the thick all around fibers trap and lock on contact. swiffer gives cleaning a deep new meaning. exact change, buddy. ♪ love stinks! without my makeup. now, it's no problem. (announcer) neutrogena tone correcting night serum with high performance soy to even skin tone

and active retinol to speed cell turn over. clinically shown to visibly fade brown spots in 14 nights. i even out my skin at night so it looks younger, flawless in the morning. (announcer) neutrogena tone correcting now you can fade and prevent discolorations all day. new tone correcting spf 30. even more freedom to the freest country on earth. so why should you be penalized for talking to someone, just because they're on another network. shouldn't you be able to call any mobile... on any network, at any time? it's a free country. knock yourself out. announcer: introducing the revolutionary any mobile, anytime. now on the sprint network you're free to call 250 million mobile phones nationwide without worrying about the meter running. only from sprint. the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com.

by putting an end to paper medical records, we have ushered health into the digital age. saving lives, sometimes when seconds count. managing chronic conditions. making amazing new discoveries. and, oh yes, saving a lot of trees. kaiser permanente. thrive. >> reporter: the police worked the crime scene at the hughes home late into the night. detective kent daniels raced to the house. >> a patrol officer briefed me on what it was. got a black male. he's in the den area. appears to have multiple gunshot wounds. >> reporter: someone had unloaded a .45 on hughes at

close range. but what caught the detective's eye was the lack of blood where he expected to be, where the gunfire presumably started. did you or any of the crime scene technicians find any blood from, say, the doorway threshold back to where the body was? >> no, no blood. >> reporter: the front door of the house opens into a small foyer. the body lay about five feet away from the door by the couch in the living room. the master bedroom where elicia said she was drouzing is off to the right. the floor tiles inside the door showed no sign of blood spatter, as the detective expected. >> all the blood was right there with the body. >> reporter: the type of weapon used, a .45, ejects bullet casings as it fires. and the crime scene techs had found some both inside and outside the house by the door and in a garden bed by the steps. one shot looked as though it had gone wild and lodged in the door molding. the victim's wounds, all around the arms and torso, six in all, including two to the groin area, told the detective it wasn't a professional hit.

>> that large of a gun was being shot by an inexperienced shooter. that's why the bullets was spread as they were. >> reporter: routinely, when a husband and wife are together in a house and one of them has been shot the to death, the police immediately take a hard look at the surviving spouse. but that the didn't happen on that night at the hughes home. >> the commander of the unit advised us not to talk to her because he felt like she was going through a lot, she was grieving real hard. >> the victim's family were really prominent people all through law enforcement. >> the victim, his sister-in-law works at the state crime lab. then his brother works at the police crime lab. they have an uncle that is the arson investigator for the fire department. >> reporter: so the detective admits, out of respect for the family, the crime scene work was less aggressive than it might have been. investigators sawed out the sheetrock where a stray bullet came to rest, but they didn't do a thorough search of the house.

they did, however, recover what they thought was a small baggie of marijauna. >> some was found on the scene. >> reporter: but detectives never did find the weapon. the investigation headed outside. >> next door neighbor said they heard the gunshot and they looked out. there wasn't nobody, didn't see anything. >> didn't see anybody running out the front door, for instance. >> didn't see anybody running. >> see a car peeling off. >> driving away or anything. >> reporter: over the next few days, the police continued their legwork but without any breakthroughs. and while the police searched for the killer, elicia had to tell her two girls, 3 and 4, that their father wouldn't be coming home. >> that was probably the hardest thing i ever had to do. i told them brian had died and that he had gone to heaven, and there -- he wasn't going to be here with us anymore. >> do you think they absorbed it? >> i know they didn't because there would still be comments

they would make expecting him to pick them up from school, just different things. they were still looking for their dad to come home. >> reporter: brian's family had to say their good-byes at the cemetery. >> i couldn't wrap my mind around burying my child. >> it was like a nightmare. >> reporter: and brian's family would embrace their daughter-in-law in the weeks ahead. what was theirs was now hers. >> i gave her a key to the house and told her when she's on that side of town she could always just come by the house and just be there. >> reporter: the detectives, of course, needed to get elicia's statement about that night down after the shock had worn off, so six days after the shooting she went to the police station for an interview. as she spoke, the detectives wondered why she didn't hear the alarm go off before the pops of gunfire. shouldn't the sequence be reversed, they thought? >> i heard what i heard. i heard it in the order that i heard it. and i did not change it around.

they would ask the question, you know, different ways. and i would answer it according to how they asked it. >> reporter: but the police detectives were also adding to their case file information about the marriage of elicia and brian. did it mean anything that he'd had children before the marriage and was paying child support? >> brian had two children prior to our marriage. >> everyone knew the facts involved in that? >> yes. >> reporter: but when they found out brian had two current girlfriends, they definitely wanted the details. phone logs told them he'd been talking to one of his lovers on his cell phone that very night as he went in the door. >> we found out that as he got home he was on the phone with his girlfriend. >> and that gave you a very interesting lead. >> yes. >> reporter: brian's parents were saddened by the news that he had other women. his father, willie, couldn't help but think back to the day of brian and elicia's wedding, how out in the garden he'd taken them both aside for some pre-wedding counseling from a 30-year veteran.

>> i used that moment to encourage them that if there are any kind of situations that arrive during the marriage and they felt that they could not continue their marriage, to bow out gracefully. >> reporter: and, as it turned out, once you got past the family portraits, brian's happy, go-lucky air, and elicia's beauty, his parents both knew it had been a rocky union for a while. brian had said of his wife looks were deceiving. >> brian told me how mean elicia was. she was pretty, but she's mean. >> mean spirit. >> he told me he was going to move out, and i took off my job and went to where he worked. and he and i sat in the parking lot and cried together. and i begged him not to do it. >> stay with her, try and hold it together? >> yes. >> yeah. >> reporter: as for elicia, she concedes the two of them were in

a rough patch beiut nothing any worse, she thought, than most couples go through. >> i'm not going to sit here and say that, oh, we had a perfect life, perfect marriage, because we didn't. but i thought we had a happy life and a good marriage. >> was your marriage in trouble at that point, elicia? >> there was not any discussions of divorce, of leaving, of separating, or anything like that. we were doing what we were supposed to do as parents. and we were doing what we were supposed to do as a husband and a wife. >> was it a less happy proposition than you thought marriage with brian might be? >> i knew that a marriage would have seasons, you know, seasons of happy bliss and then seasons of hard work.1v%÷ and at this particular time, it was an in-between season. it wasn't, you know, that we were walking around giddy and happy. but we weren't walking around the house arguing and bickering either. it was just an in-between season. >> was brian seeing women on the side, elicia? >> at the time that brian died, i did not believe that he was seeing other people. but brian and i met when we

were 17, and we didn't marry until we were 27. and so there had been instances before where there had been other people in the relationship. so if anyone had asked me, was brian above cheating? i would have said, no, he's not not above it. but if they had asked me the day before he died, was he seeing somebody else? i didn't think that he was. >> reporter: but he was seeing someone. a young woman who had just lost a baby, and the scuttlebutt was that it had been brian's, the same woman he was talking to on a cell phone as he walked into his home that night. remember, brian had been shot six times, what cops refer to as overkill, and it wasn't only the number of bullets that caught the detectives eye, but where they landed. what does that tell you when a man gets shot in the groin? >> that an angry woman did the shooting. >> reporter: did that mean the killer was a spurned lover? as you did what you could do at

the scene and you were putting away your notepad going back to the car, what did you think you had, detective? >> it kind of got in my head that, okay being something not right. either the wife did something here or she know something. >> reporter: whichever it was being the cops were no longer going to be treating elicia as a handle-with-care widow. that kid-glove stuff got in the way of cracking homicides. coming up -- an arrest in the case and another shock for brian's family. >> my heart would not let me believe it. a heart attack caused by a clot, one that could be fatal. but plavix helps save lives. plavix taken with other heart medicines, goes beyond what other heart medicines do alone, to provide greater protection against heart attack or stroke and even death by helping to keep blood platelets from sticking together and forming clots. ask your doctor about plavix, protection that helps save lives. if you have a stomach ulcer or other condition that causes bleeding you should not use plavix.

taking plavix alone or with some other medicines including aspirin may increase bleeding risk, tell your doctor before planning surgery or taking aspirin or other medicines with plavix, especially if you've had a stroke. some medicines that are used to treat heartburn or stomach ulcers, like prilosec, may affect how plavix works, so tell your doctor if you are taking other medicines. if fever, unexplained weakness or confusion develops, tell your doctor promptly. these may be signs of ttp, a rare but potentially life-threatening condition reported sometimes less than 2 weeks after starting plavix. other rare but serious side effects may occur. if you take plavix with other heart medicines, continuing to do so will help increase protection against a future heart attack or stroke. feeling better doesn't mean you're not at risk. stay with plavix. protects against enamel loss by forming a micro-thin shield against acid attack. only crest pro-health toothpastes protect all these areas dentists check most. new crest pro-health enamel shield.

alex, you are the sizzle. joni did the entire crossword. in pen. sizzle joni, sizzle. rick refilled the paper in the copier. both trays. way to sizzle, rick. be the sizzle with mcdonald's sausage mcmuffin with egg -- sizzling sausage, a fresh cracked egg... and melting cheese on a toasty english muffin. sizzle on. ( sizzling ) ♪ ba da ba ba ba so it's a typical morning when suddenly you see built ford tough trucks! the ground starts rumblin' like you just struck oil, and you know what? you did hit pay-dirt cause it's ford truck month. an' leading this herd is the ford f-150. it's not just a truck it's an f-150. and with great power comes great fuel economy. no wonder it was named 2009 motor trend truck of the year. now get 0 percent apr for 60 months or 45 hundred cash back on an 09 f-150. and ford credit is on board to help with the financing. it's truck month! only at your local ford dealer.

seasons had passed in jackson, mississippi. winter become another spring. elicia hughes had sold the ranch house where her husband brian had been shot to death the previous june. she was trying to hold her life together. teaching third grade, caring for her two small girls. she kept after the police about the unsolved case. >> i would show up at the police department and ask them a question about, you know, where are you with the investigation? >> what's going on? >> what's going on? i haven't heard anything. what have you got? >> reporter: but brian's family who had been so close to their daughter-in-law going back years could feel it more than put their finger on it. elicia, they thought, seemed to be turning her back on them, acting colder somehow. the murdered husband's kid brother, willie jr., said he'd always seen a side to elicia that was a little different than the young woman his family had known and loved. he believed his sister-in-law had a deep-down mean streak in

her and now he saw it really coming out, even as he tried to help her. >> the phone calls stopped. the times that you did attempt to contact her, you didn't get a return call. she had become real standoffish. >> well, maybe that was her way of dealing with the tragedy. >> when it first happened, i offered my home to her, asked her anything i can do, wash her car. things that he would normally do for her, i tried to willingly put myself in that position to assist. and instead of her embracing me at all, she kind of pushed back on me and continued to push back. >> reporter: the homicide detective was pushing back, too. there had been some grumbling at the time of the murder about elicia hughes getting off easy during the initial stages of the investigation because of her family connections. but not anymore. the questions in detective daniels' mind at the scene that night, the stuff that just

wasn't adding up, had only become more insistent. the blood. if the husband was shot at the front door, why wasn't there blood on the floor? >> the way the body was positioned and the blood that was there, we knew that the shooting occurred in the den. we knew that from day one. >> why did you think that? >> because of where the blood was, by the body, underneath the body. >> reporter: and it made no sense to the investigators that brian would have failed to disarm the alarm that night before opening the door. and just why would a security obsessed man like brian hughes even open the door after 11:00 p.m. in the first place? brian's family said his home was his castle and you didn't get across the moat unless you gave him warning. not even his father got in unannounced. >> early one morning my dad popped up. he didn't call. and my brother got back into bed. he actually laid back down and some time later he must have looked back out the window and saw my dad was still in the truck.

>> so he really had a thing about it. >> he had a big thing about it. >> you weren't getting in his house unless you followed his rule and called me? >> it was his house. i understood his rules. i respected his rules. i would call him before i left to come his way so it wasn't just like, happy, go-lucky being i'm i'm going to open the door 11:00 at night. >> reporter: then the detective thought there was a major problem with the logic of the story elicia had first told him about being awakened that night. the door's opened. alarm. followed by gunfire. but that's not what elicia said. she told the police she heard the pop, pop, pop, then the l m alarm went off. so the sequence of events here, detective, what do you have to believe has happened for her story to be right? >> for her story to be right is that the intruder came in, the alarm went off, then the shooter shot brian. >> then pop, pop, pop. >> right. >> reporter: and another part of the growing case file was what brian's family regarded as elicia's demeanor that night. as shook-up as elicia was in

that call recorded by the alarm company, brian's family members say that in the hours they were in the house with her, they never saw or heard those kinds of emotions again. you talked to elicia. >> yeah. >> she seemed calm? >> yeah. >> that's kind of unusual. >> it's very unusual. >> reporter: and one of the aunts saw elicia slip off into the bathroom. had she, perhaps, been washing away evidence, the cops would later ask? that night, almost as an after-thought, the police gave her the only forensic test. >> the mobile crime lab investigator did a gunshot residue on her hand that night. >> reporter: so as the weeks went by, in the investigator's mind, there was no question that elicia hughes was a suspect in t her husband's murder. but the victim's family just could not wrap their minds around that concept, that elicia could be the killer of their brian. >> my heart wouldn't let me believe it.

my heart would not let me believe it. i'm at restaurants and the police department come up to me and they say things to me, and i tell them, please not now. i just couldn't take it. i just couldn't take the thought -- >> that she was involved. >> -- that she was involved. i didn't want to believe it. >> reporter: but after eight months of investigating, the gunshot residue test on elicia's hands was finally complete and had tested positive for a trace on the back of her left hand. that missing puzzle piece pushed the case to the next level. >> when we got the gunshot residue results back, we went over everything we had. and the district attorney said you have enough to cut an arrest warrant. >> reporter: elicia hughes, the sweet-faced third grade teacher and mother was charged with the murder of her husband. >> that i did not see it coming. i went to work that day. i received a phone call from my attorney and she said, well, i heard that they have a warrant out for your arrest. and i'm, like, what? and immediately the adrenaline

is pumping and i was really hoping she was joking but knowing that she wasn't. and not knowing what to do. >> did they handcuff you? >> i was handcuffed. i didn't want to be handcuffed in front of my children so we arranged for a meeting place. >> charged with the murder of your husband, brian. >> charged with the murder. >> read your rights? >> read my rights, placed in a police car, and, you know, driven downtown. >> reporter: she was accused not just of a crime of passion but plotting it all out. the charge against her included premeditation. and the authorities believed she unloaded a .45 on him as a remedy for his serial cheating and, what's more being the insurance money she had received would give her a fresh start on the next act of her life. >> the fact that she knew was she was going to get all of this money, plus the fact that he was

doing all this cheating, it's time to get rid of him. >> reporter: on january 3, 2007, elicia hughes went on trial. and the prosecutors, partners stanley alexander and rebecca mansell, thought they had plenty to convince a jury. the philandering husband, the angry wife, no blood where it should be, and an across-the-street neighbor who had looked out and seen no killer speeding away. >> so you had to believe this demure third grade teacher got a .45 and blasted her husband. >> no doubt about it. >> reporter: he's on the phone with his girlfriend. then moments later, he's dead. if there was no one at the door, then the gun is in elicia's hands, argued the prosecutors. >> there is no question that not only the forensic evidence but every other piece or shred of evidence we could put together and the witness accounts, elicia hughes is the only person that had access. >> reporter: and it didn't take the jury of six men and six women almost evenly split on race to see the case just the way the prosecutor laid it out.

they needed only two hours to find elicia hughes guilty of murder. >> we decided it was murder. >> no question? you spoke as 12, huh? >> exactly. we felt that she had planned it and executed it. >> reporter: even the husband's family who stood by her for so long was finally now convinced. the mom and third grade teacher was sentenced to life in prison. bonnie smith was brian's aunt. >> we still couldn't believe elicia could have done that because we loved elicia just like she was my blood niece. i mean, we were very close, and it was just unbelievable. until the trial did i finally make up my mind that she did do it. up until that time, i still had doubts. >> reporter: there was someone else with doubts about the trial. someone whose opinion mattered. the trial judge. the murder of brian hughes wasn't case closed. coming up -- out of prison?

>> i could not figure out how 12 people could think that i was guilty of something that i did not do. >> reporter: was elicia hughes about to get another chance? when "cause for alarm" continues. ferent rates. well with us, it's the same flat rate. same flat rate. boston. boise? same flat rate. alabama. alaska? with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. dude's good. dude's real good. dudes. priority mail flat rate boxes only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship. your hair mixes with pollen and dust. i get congested. but now with zyrtec-d®, i have the proven allergy relief of zyrtec®, plus a powerful decongestant. zyrtec-d® lets me breathe freer, so i can love the air™. (announcer) zyrtec-d®. behind the pharmacy counter. no prescription needed. but put a ring of cheese in the crust and...jackpot! (announcer) introducing pizza hut's new stuffed crust pan pizza.

your favorite pan pizza with a jackpot of melted cheese in the crust. a large one topping is just $10.99. pizza hut. america's favorite for pizza, pasta and wings. so we did a nationwide on your side review. turns out it was more valuable than he thought. we got him the coverage he needed.

it was a good thing we did 'cause a week later his house burned down. being proactive meant a family home could see generations to come. i am carlton ballard and i am on your side. switch to nationwide insurance now. need a lift? hey buddy, i appreciate the ride, you know. no problem. ♪ mind if i take a shortcut?

yeah, sure. ♪ i knew the subaru legacy was the smart choice... what i didn't expect... was the fun. the all-new subaru legacy. feel the love. elicia hughes, the 35-year-old mother of two, was going behind bars for virtually the rest of her life for a crime she proclaimed she didn't commit. she said her husband brian had been shot to death by someone who came to their front door that night. she heard a pop, pop, pop, then found him on the floor.

but the jury believed otherwise. the trial had seemed out of body to her. >> it was very surreal to the point that you almost don't believe that it's happening to you, you know. you just kind of going through the motions that they're directing you to do things and you're just doing them because i didn't know what else to do. >> and it was also very real. it wasn't a movie. because there you were standing before a jury and a judge accused of the murder of your husband saying, jurors, the motivation here is this man had a lot of girl friends on the side. the wife was absolutely outraged. you need to find her guilty of premeditated murder. >> not only did they think that i was angry with brian because he had multiple girlfriends but they also, you know, alleged that i was greedy and i killed him for the insurance money. >> and the jury believed it. >> they believed it. >> you were found guilty and

sent away for life. >> convicted for life. >> elicia hughes was turned over to deputies and put in a prison cell. the comfortable home in jackson, mississippi, was a memory. >> through this whole situation it's always like i can't believe this is happening. i cannot believe that it's gotten to this point. i can't believe it's gotten this bad. i always thought that the justice system worked. and i could not figure out how 12 people could think that i was guilty of something that i did not do. i thought that if you told the truth that the truth worked. and it's not working for me, the truth is not working for me. the system is not working for me and not only was it not working for me, it was almost like it was working against me. >> they processed you into the county jail? >> yes. >> they take away your clothes, your personal things? >> yeah. i grew up pretty sheltered.

i've never had any dealings with the court system, the justice system. never been arrested. didn't really know anything about the inside of a jail. and to go from my life as i knew it to a situation where they take everything that you have on and give you an youtfit that sas "convict" on the back of it, "property of the state," it's just all humiliating. it's degrading. it's hurtful. and i was hurt that this had happened to me for something that i did not do.

>> reporter: her late husband's family, of course, had come to believe she was guilty. didn't understand the crime. didn't want to believe the facts laid out by the prosecution. but it was what it was. >> i'd lost not ohm brian, now i've lost elicia. i guess i was hoping something in that trial would have convinced me the other way. >> so you wanted to be persuaded that there was somebody else at that front door. >> i wanted to. i wanted to. yes. but it didn't happen. >> in the end they settled all your doubts about what had happened. >> yes. >> there was only one person in that house with a gun and it was your daughter-in-law. >> yes. >> we felt good that we had gotten a verdict, a verdict of guilt. so i guess from that standpoint that eased the pain to a degree. >> reporter: but nothing but pain was what elicia was feeling inside a prison cell. she had to find a way out but doesn't every inmate feel that way? >> as hurt as i was by the

system and my situation, i never believed that i was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. i didn't know how long i would have to be there, but for me i couldn't sit there and accept the idea that i was going to be there for the next 30-plus years. >> i'll get a new trial. i'll win on appeal. in every prison, that's how no-hopers talk to themselves to keep hope alive. and elicia hughes was no different. but her fortunes were about to get brighter. she'd only been locked up for a little under two months when the judge issued a ruling that the jury in her case hadn't been as racially and gender balanced as it should have been. therefore, he ruled, elicia hughes will have a new trial. so the young woman who thought she may be leaving prison in a pine box was released. >> reporter: the two prosecutors disagreed passionately with the judge's ruling about the fairness of the jury composition, but he was the one

wearing the robes. so here you are. she's going to get a new trial. >> she is. >> this person that you believed had killed her husband in cold-blooded fashion is out on bond. >> not only did i believe, but that 12 other people believe, 12 other jurors ruled six weeks earlier that she was guilty of murder. >> reporter: the hughes family believed it, too. and now this, another trial. >> when he threw the first verdict out, it just really devastated myself and my family. >> reporter: elicia was out of prison, but she'd have to be back in court to stand trial again in about p eigeight month. the first had only been a dress rehearsal. >> going into the second trial, you know, i was more knowledgeable with the process and what's going to be said about me. so i felt that our chances were better this time because of that knowledge. coming up -- a return to the night of the crime. >> she was ready to get this over with. and he obviously was out catting around. >> reporter: it's mississippi

versus elicia hughes, the sequel. the so why should you be penalized for talking to someone, just because they're on another network. shouldn't you be able to call any mobile... on any network, at any time? it's a free country. knock yourself out. announcer: introducing the revolutionary any mobile, anytime. now on the sprint network you're free to call 250 million mobile phones nationwide without worrying about the meter running. only from sprint. the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com.

the one deal in the neighborhood where you get the real food. because our 2 for $20 features a half rack of our new double-glazed baby back ribs. seasoned and slow cooked to flavorful and tender perfection and your choice of sauces. and our juicy 7 oz. house sirloin. oriental chicken salad, boneless buffalo wings and lots of other choices. who says you can't have it all? get one full-sized appetizer and two real entrees for just twenty bucks. it's 2 for $20. only at applebee's. it's a whole new neighborhood. but i still want to put my best face forward. with crest whitestrips advanced seal, i get whiter teeth that lasts for 12 months. all from one little box, i say that's a pretty good deal. crest whitestrips advanced seal. the no slip white strips.

nail down thirty-nine bucks as the price - for installing stainmaster carpet. - ( rock music playing ) - ♪ oh! - in any house, in any number of rooms. and while we're at it, let's lower prices on over 100 styles of stainmaster. so we can quit tiptoeing around our dreams and get on with turning more of them into reality. - ♪ whoo! are you feeling it? ♪ - more saving. more doing. - that's the power of the home depot. - ♪ oh! right now, get new lower prices on stainmaster, - and the installation, for your whole house, - ♪ whoo! is only 39 bucks. a sanctuary. a command center. ( both revving ) a sophisticated sedan. a sports car. together. nissan maxima, the four-door sports car. now lease a maxima for $299 a month for 39 months or get 0% apr financing.

>> reporter: what had happened inside the home of elicia and brian hughes as their children slept? had an unknown assailant, perhaps an angry lover or jealous husband, maybe even a drug dealer, gunned him down? or had his wife been looking for an insurance payout and a way to put an end to all of his infidelities, as the prosecution told the jury? >> you know what? she got him good. >> ten months after they'd gotten a conviction from a jury, the prosecutors were doing it all again -- calling the same witnesses, introducing the same evidence, but this time before a jury that met the judge's test for fairness. he'd thrown the first verdict out. and there was elicia again sitting at the defense table, looking like a courthouse visitor who'd walked in and inadvertently taken the wrong chair. >> she does not look like she could kill her husband, but that's kind of the irony of it, that anybody in this room is capable of murder. when pushed to a certain point, anybody is capable of it, and it doesn't matter if you're a blue-eyed blond or a beautiful woman that has a master's degree

like elicia hughes. anybody's capable of firing that weapon. >> you believe viscerally she did it. >> elicia hughes is the only person that had access to do it, unless you're going to blame her two daughters, which we know they're not capable of firing a .45 seven times. >> reporter: as they had before, the prosecutors wanted the jury to understand the timeline of events on that night in june of 2004. earlier that evening, elicia's husband brian had gone out to meet his brother, willie jr., at one of their usual hangouts. >> we went to olive garden. that's one of the bars we always met up at, and we just sat at the bar and talked. >> reporter: afterward, the younger brother said they drove over to a friend's house to watch a movie. >> we watched "walking tall." it was just about to end, and he ended up taking me home. he dropped me off and said

we'll talk tomorrow. >> reporter: after he dropped off brother willie, the prosecution says brian didn't go straight home. he stopped by his current girlfriend's. >> after he drops his brother off he goes and sees one of his mistresses. they do not apparently physically see each other, according to the mistress, they just talk on the phone. he sits in the parking lot and talks to her. >> reporter: in the statement elicia gave to police, she said she had called brian's cell phone a couple of times in the course of that evening to ask him when he was going to be home. >> what elicia said was she had been calling brian that night to come home, she wanted to talk to him. it started out as, when you coming home, honey? but at one point she made a statement that said, i asked him real nice, when are you coming home? now, most of the time when you're talking about what you say to people, you don't describe what tenor you put it in. you just say, i asked when he was coming home. but she went out of her way to say i asked him real nice, which

made me think, hey, something's not right. >> reporter: the two prosecutors could easily imagine a frustrated elicia hughes that night, pacing impatiently with a plan all set to spring and no prey. >> i think luring him to come home, that she was ready to get this over with and he was obviously was out catting around. >> reporter: we know after he left the girlfriend's place he swung into a wendy's for a takeout order. a policewoman, who happened to notice brian's car, saw him pull out of the lot. >> when i pulled out of the exxon, he had just pulled out of wendy's, and i noticed the car. i liked it and i pulled behind him. >> from this point on in the timeline the prosecution had an intriguing nugget of evidence, almost an earwitness to the crime itself. the prosecution said that it knew from brian's cell phone that he was still talking to that same girlfriend when he pulled up to his house, and she would later confirm exactly what she heard. >> cell phones have pretty sensitive microphones. she heard him close the door to his car in the garage. she heard him set the alarm on his car. she heard him go into the house. she heard him set the house alarm, the beeping sound when you push the buttons in. she heard him place his food

down, place his keys on the table, and he was on the phone with her right before he died. >> so this cell phone gives you a really pretty tight window. >> absolutely. >> you know how this thing is tick tocking down. you know when he hangs up from the call. >> absolutely. the phone call ends at 11:12. >> reporter: a few minutes later at 11:14, the burglar alarm goes off, according to alarm company records. >> the first entry is the activation of the alarm at that location. >> their time is set by the atomic clock, which is perfect. >> reporter: that's when the adt operator gets ahold of elicia and she reports her husband down and in trouble. >> please help me, please help me. >> ma'am? >> somebody, please help me. >> reporter: even though elicia sounds distraught and emotionally attornemotional ly torn-up, the prosecutors aren't buying it. >> you just shot somebody. this is something new to you. she doesn't do it for a living, so of course we expect her to be emotional. now whether or not it's the emotional fear of being caught or fear that my husband's been

killed, that's the question. i'm hearing her screaming into the phone. usually when people are really afraid and crying, their speech patterns are broken up. hers aren't broken. she's saying what she has to say, and that's it. >> reporter: and the prosecution made sure the jury understood what was implied by the alarm going off at all. it shouldn't have. a, brian would have disarmed the alarm before opening the door, and, b, he would never have opened the door in the first place, as his brother told the jury. jé&eaving you outsi didn't call. >> reporter: brian hughes was security-conscious to the point of being nearly obsessed about it, the prosecution said. >> brian had a history and he had a strong habit of not opening the door from anyone that didn't call first. every family member, every friend that we talked to told us that, hey, if you don't call, you don't get in. >> reporter: and there was something else about that front door lock. there was a dead bolt on the top that could be opened with a thumb latch being but the

doorknob lock could only be opened from the inside with a key, the prosecutor said. >> do you remember on the doorknob part, how was the door locked? i know there was a dead bolt, but was it a push lock or a key lock on the door knob? >> on the doorknob is a key lock. >> so you would have to have a key to unlock the door? >> yes. >> reporter: brian's keys were later found resting on a counter by the living room. think, asked the prosecutor, what the door lock alone tells you you have to believe for there to be a gunman at the door knocking to get in. >> brian would have to go back into the living room, get his keys, come in, unlock the door, not disarm the system which again, brian is not that dumb that he's going to let the system go off and wake up his wife and his two children. so you'd have to believe that he unlocked the door, saw this person with a gun, runs back into the living room, drops his keys back off, comes back into the foyer and let's someone shoot him seven times with a .45

>> reporter: back on the timeline, the prosecution says the first patrol officer arrives at 11:26, 13 minutes they say have elapsed since the alarm has gone off. what was elicia doing? >> she was in the home alone for 13 minutes. >> so within this 13 minutes, she's found the body, she's closed the door. what else does she say she's doing? >> that's a good question, what did she do? >> reporter: prosecutors believe she's using the time to hide the gun and retrieve the shell casings on the floor around the couch to cluster them where they'll suggest an assailant firing from the doorway, staging a scene for the crime techs. >> i think that she is a very sophisticated, a very smart woman. she has law enforcement surrounding her as either family members or close relationships. so it's not like she doesn't know how to do this. >> reporter: the next part of the prosecution's case would be about the ferenz ikz and what people saw in the house that night. wasn't it odd, they thought, that the children slept like

little logs the whole time. coming up -- and what about the murder weapon? where was it? >> she was allowed to leave the home that night. >> was that possible she could have squirrelled it out of the house?

elicia hughes was accused of unloading a .45 on her husband, murdering him as their two children slept in the bedroom beyond. but the prosecution argued that this hadn't been a crime of passion so much as a crime of profit. >> this was not an anger crime. this was a greed crime. and that's what we told the jury. don't look at this like a jealous wife. this is a wife who does not want to lose her husband and standard of living and the only way she is going to keep it is by getting the life insurance money. >> reporter: brian hughes had a life insurance policy that would pay the beneficiary, elicia, about $250,000. and the prosecution was about to run through its forensic evidence from the crime scene to convince the jury that this was a coolly thought-out homicide by

the third grade teacher. it's a story told mostly by blood, where it was and where it wasn't. first, said the prosecutors, forget about brian letting his assailant in through the front door. >> brian hughes never went to that front door. he wasn't shot at the front door. if he had been shot he would've bled. newton's laws of gravity are in effect in mississippi just like in the other 49 states of the union. >> reporter: the prosecution says a .45 handgun is like a cannon. it makes big holes. how come, asked the prosecutor, there's no blood, no spatter, at the doorway where the supposed assailant starts blasting him? >> did you look on the floor? >> yes i did. >> did you look up on the wall? >> yes. >> did you look on the ceiling? >> yes. >> did you see any blood whatsoever? >> none at all. >> was their any blood or any blood droplets anywhere around the body of brian hughes other than underneath his body? >> no. no. >> there was no blood, not a drop of blood trail from that front door to that living room. >> virtually all of the blood at the scene had pooled beneath his body? >> not virtually. all of it.

>> all of it? >> all of it. >> not a drop? >> not a drop out from underneath his body. >> as the medical examiner reviewed the six bullet wounds on the victim, he pointed out that they didn't appear to be fired by a skilled marksman. >> what made you think this was an inexperienced shooter? >> you have multiple different trajectories, different angles. there's only one lethal shot out of six. and they appear to have been inflicted in close proximity to each other. that's not very good shooting in my book. >> he said that the random pattern of the shots seemed to indicate to him a non-sophisticated shooter. >> reporter: and there was one wound in particular, a gunshot to the groin area, that to the prosecutors was the signature of a woman wronged. >> i think it sends a message that i don't like what you've been doing with that area, so let's take care of business. >> reporter: the bullet that went astray and lodged in the door molding was more evidence of a person firing wildly, argued the prosecutors. and, the prosecutors thought,

the where of the wounds on the victim drew a picture of how he was shot. >> the trajectory of all the shots indicates that he was in a sitting or leaning position where they're all going in a downward trajectory. >> reporter: when the police arrived that night, they found bullet casings clustered on the floor by the doorway inside and out, including one in the garden bed. the prosecution argued that elicia had scooped them up and scattered them about the doorway to suggest a front-door shooter who, in fact, didn't exist. >> i think she gets as many shell casing as she can find. she then opens the door and she starts to throw them out. that's why one either rolled or was in the bushes right there by the front door. and then three are nicely, neatly packed right there by the front door as you would open it. >> reporter: and there was something else about those bullet casings. the prosecutor said they were found on the wrong side of the doorway, left when they should have been right. >> i think anybody that knows anything about guns, .45s in

particular, they're going to eject up and back and to the right. there's no .45 made that ejects to the left. do you know of any ejection ports on semiautomatics, .45s, that are on the left? >> no, ma'am, i do not. >> and suppose for a minute said the prosecutors -- that there was a gunman at the doorway, how come none of the neighbors saw him fleeing? the hughes family lived in a ranch house on a street with many others like it, all built on small, average-sized subdivision plots. the gunshots were loud and not a customary sound of the night in that neighborhood. the man across the street testified he looked out his window right away. >> we were awakened by gunshots. i looked out the window and i could see the house across the street because of its lights. >> did you see any people? . >> no, sir, i did not. because the shots were so loud. so, i didn't just only look out that window. i went to my daughter's window. i went to the window at the end of the house. >> he immediately got up, looked out his window, and looked at the house across the street,

which was the hughes home. there were no doors open. there was nothing amiss at the house. >> still none of the evidence so far screamed "gotcha," and if there was an elephant sitting in the room of the prosecution's case, it was the police work done, or not done, that night. it was later ruefully conceded by both the lead detective and the prosecution that elicia hughes and that house should have gone under the microscope that night. but that didn't happen. >> elicia hughes was related to all these people involved in law enforcement, and i think when police got on scene they never would want to think that elicia had just killed her husband. so they did allow a lot of things that would not normally occur. >> it seems that it got a "csi" light treatment. >> exactly. >> reporter: one of the arriving officers admitted she moved some of the bullet casings out of the way of the emts. >> where were the shell cases located that you moved? >> in the hallway. in the foyer.

>> reporter: and the kid-glove treatment that elicia got that night was illustrated by a story. the cops had asked her if she had a gun in the house. they said she said no. but when the officers discovered an empty holster in the bedroom, she changed her story. yes, they did have a gun, a 9 millimeter. >> i explained to her that we found a gun holster in her bedroom and did she know anything about this? >> and what was her response then? >> she said, yes being i know where that gun is. >> so her response changed? >> yes. >> that's important because they asked her, is there a gun in the house? and she said no. and when she showed her the holster, she miraculously remembered being o e remembered, oh, yeah, there's a gun. and she led them to a gun that was in the laundry cabinet. a handgun, but not the murder weapon. but a co-worker of brian's told the jury he did see a .45 in the hughes home just a year before the murder. >> did you know whether or not brian owned any handguns? >> yes i do. >> what type of gun did he own? >> .45. >> do you know where he kept this .45? >> at one time i saw at in his

house in his kitchen higher up in the cabinet. >> did you see it with your own two eyes? >> yes. >> reporter: for elicia to be the shooter, then the .45, the prosecutor said, had to be concealed somewhere in the house. she had 13 minutes to hide it between the alarm going off and the arrival of the first officer. but another police failure, they did only a superficial search of of the house that night. they never did it find the murder weapon, did they? >> no, they did not. i think that weapon did one of two things. either it left with her that night because she was allowed to leave the house that night. >> is that possible? >> to leave with the gun? >> she could have squirreled it out of the house that night? >> god yes. she took an overnight bag with her. she could have put the gun in her overnight bag. or she could have placed the gun in her husband and hid it. you've got to realize no one knows your house like you do. and if their house isn't being searched, then it could be there. >> reporter: but how to explain the trace of gunshot residue on the back of her left hand? it could be regarded as ambiguous evidence, but it was something to the prosecutor not explained by her story of how she cared for her husband that

night as he lay on the floor moaning. >> we asked the officers where did she touch him and they said she touched him on the back shoulder with her fingertips. if you touch someone with your fingertips that's where the gunpowder is. it was on the back of her left hand. that's important because when you hold a gun with one or two hands the gunpowder comes out in a plume and that is how it gets to the back of your hand. >> reporter: what remained to be told to the jury was the story of elicia and brian and his surplus of girlfriends. one of the other women was going to testify she'd lost her soulmate. coming up -- >> did you speak with brian on the night of his death? >> yes. >> a girlfriend on the stand. what secrets would she tell? these days every penny counts with everything you buy.

every head. every bite. every gallon. every shoe. every book. every cereal. well, maybe not every cereal. but every stem. every stitch. every tune. every toy. pretty much everything you buy can help your savings account grow because keep the change from bank of america rounds up every debit card purchase to the next dollar and transfers the difference from your checking to savings account. it's one of the many ways we make saving money in tough times a whole lot easier. the wipes americans trust most to clean and disinfect

are the only wipes with a low-streak formula. clorox disinfecting wipes. tough enough to tackle the germiest messes even on your shiniest surfaces without leaving a streaky trail like other wipes. clorox disinfecting wipes. the wipes you can trust to clean, disinfect and shine. also available in these easy-dispensing designs. if saving money happened as automatically as everything else? at bank of america, it practically does. use the bankamericard power rewards visa credit card and earn rewards like cash back with every purchase. cash you can put into savings.

or even use to help pay down your credit card balance. it's one of the many ways we make saving money in tough times a whole lot easier. announcer: it gives the world fewer smog-forming emissions. it gives you a 50 mile per gallon rating. the 3rd generation prius. it's harmony between man, nature and machine.

the night of the murder brian's family huddled in the kitchen, comforting elicia as the crime scene technicians in the living room began their work. some of those in-laws thought elicia really didn't seem to need that much solace. >> she was crying, but she wasn't hysterical or anything like that. seemed rather calm to me,

especially looking at what had happened. i think my wife and myself and the other family members were probably more hysterical than she was. >> she wasn't hollering or anything, you know. it was like you've done something, you got your hand caught in the cookie jar or something. >> reporter: and in all the confusion that night, someone finally had the presence of mind to ask where the two children were. looking back, it didn't seem to them that elicia had been all that concerned initially about the supposed intruder and her babies. wouldn't you worry that maybe this intruder is still in your house? >> i would. >> if the door is open, your husband's been shot, your babies are asleep in the other room, where's this other person? >> i would've gotten the children out of bed to get them out of the house. but she didn't indicate anything about being concerned about going to get the children. >> reporter: the children, it turned out, had slept through it all, the gunshots, the blaring alarm, the raised voices inside the house, even a saw cutting a

piece of sheetrock out of the wall for evidence. the murdered husband's family wondered if elicia had maybe doped the kids because she knew what she'd planned for that night. was it a sign of premeditation? elicia had visited her stepfather at his pharmacy earlier that evening. >> she did tell us that occasionally she would get medication from her stepfather. we know that. >> reporter: and maria smith a cousin of brian's, testified that she had been on the phone with elicia about an hour before brian came home that night. she said she could hear the two kids in the background very active, raising a ruckus. >> did you hear the children in the background? >> yes, sir. >> what were the children doing? >> it sounded like they were playing. >> reporter: but an hour later being they would be in such a deep sleep that the sound of the .45 wouldn't wake them up nor all the family members and crime scene investigators who descended on the house. the cousin had often babysat for the girls and knew them both to be light sleepers. >> oftentimes my younger sister

would just come in the room and they would wake up. they were not sound sleepers at all. >> reporter: brian's family said the kids never did surface from their deep sleep that night. in the wee hours, they were lifted from the bed still slumbering and carried on shoulders to relatives. >> before we got ready to leave and i tried to wake them up, touching them, kind of pushing them, calling their names. >> and nothing? >> no response. >> and that was unusual in your experience? >> very unusual. >> the children were drugged, and i have no doubt about that. because we had babysat them enough to know their sleeping habits. so to me it was premeditated. >> premeditation, the doping of the children, a step along the way in elicia's plan to stop her husband's chronic cheating, as the prosecutor saw it. they would tell a psychological story about a woman not so much snapping as a spouse tiring of his chronic womanizing and quietly resolving to do something about it. a lethal solution, they would tell the jury, with a large

amount of insurance money on the far side of the messiness. the prosecution called the other woman. >> do you solemnly swear or affirm -- >> reporter: robbi rayford testified that she had been involved with brian for a couple of years at the time of his murder. >> and at the time you were dating him, were you aware that he was married? >> at first i didn't know. >> how far into the relationship were you apprised that he was married? >> about two or three months later. >> after you found out, did you continue to see him? >> yes. >> reporter: she supposedly had been pregnant and lost the child not long before brian's murder. >> about two weeks before he got murdered, you were pregnant and you lost the baby, is that right? >> objection, your honor. >> reporter: and bhiwhile the j wouldn't officially hear as much, it was believed that brian had been the father. >> i felt like he was my soulmate. >> reporter: the soulmate girlfriend, robbi, was the woman who had been talking to brian on

his cell phone that night when he walked in his door. >> did you speak with brian on the night of his death? >> yes. i heard him open the door to the home because i could hear the alarm go like beep, beep, and then i heard him set the alarm back. >> reporter: she told a damning story for elicia about the end of that conversation. brian, she said, had abruptly cut off the call saying, let me call you back, a lover's code of sorts, the prosecution contended. >> what did those words mean to you when he was at home? >> it meant that his wife was in his presence. >> anybody that's ever been in an affair or any kind of situation like that, i think most people do have some kind of code, like, got to go, you know, red code. >> so the girlfriend asks him directly, is she there in the room with you? >> right. >> and he says? >> yes. >> reporter: moments later, brian is dead of six gunshot wounds. the picture snapped together clearly for the prosecutors. brian had already fathered two children before they were married and was paying them child support. now he'd gotten another woman pregnant and wasn't breaking off the affair even after the baby was lost. had elicia reached the end of her rope?

>> i think any woman in mechanic, thatmechani america, that's just a slap in your face. especially if she had known what was going on, which we have no doubt she knew. >> reporter: brian was on the phone with the girlfriend in the living room, though by then, the prosecutors argued, elicia had already made up her mind. >> i believe elicia had planned the killing ahead of time. i think she put the children to bed. she gave them something to make them sleep well. brian comes home. he's on the phone with his girlfriend. elicia walks into the hallway of the living room. when she walked in and the girl asked him, is she standing in front of you, he said yes. of course he hangs up the phone. elicia shoots him six times. the main bullet, the bullet that killed him, went through the back of his hand and into his heart. >> reporter: the next few minutes, they said, were about executing the plan, gathering up the bullet casings, setting off the alarm, and waiting for adt to call so the cover story about an unknown intruder could begin.

the story made sense to the prosecutors, satisfying both forensically and psychologically. a carefully laid plot. you think this was percolating a long time. >> i think she for a long time had been thinking about it. >> the defense was up next. coming up -- the legal battle begins. wife versus girlfriend. who was telling the truth? >> are you thinking, just in terms of strategy, if i do not demolish the girlfriend's story, elicia hughes may be going back to prison? >> yes. "think bigger. take millions of these little bite boxes "full of food, put them up in a hot air balloon, and drop them on people!" that's so stupid! they should just stick to the online coupon. it's just an idea. that looks like more than just an idea to me. you see the balloon, huh? yeaa... go to healthchoice.com to get your coupon and taste for yourself.

they do recommend it to their patients for sensitivity sensodyne iso-active it's new it's fresh it's exciting it's such a different take on a toothpaste it comes in a canister once it comes onto your toothbrush it comes in the form of a gel but as soon as it comes in contact with the temperature of your mouth it bursts into a foam because it's a foam it's able to seek out those nooks and crannies and really get down to help you sooth the nerves the great thing about sensodyne iso-active, it's going to give you all around protection put it in your mouth, brush for two minutes, you're good to go bonus on every single purchase. what you do with it is up to you. what will you get back with your cash back? it pays to discover. new aches and pains, ...and new questions about which pain reliever is right for your body. tylenol 8 hour works with your body, with one layer that dissolves quickly...

...one layer that lasts all day ...and no layers that irritate your stomach the way that ibuprofen can. it's tough on your body pain. not on your body. but i think i might need more help. (announcer) approximately two out of three people being treated for depression still have depression symptoms. (man) i'm on an antidepressant, but i'm still not where i want to be with my symptoms. (announcer) if your antidepressant alone isn't enough, talk to your doctor-- one option your doctor may consider is adding abilify. abilify is fda-approved to treat depression in adults when added to an antidepressant. learn more about abilify. call your doctor if your depression worsens or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens and young adults. elderly dementia patients taking abilify have an increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor if you have high fever, stiff muscles and confusion on abilify,

as these may be signs of a life-threatening reaction. or uncontrollable muscle movements, as these could become permanent. high blood sugar has been reported with abilify and medicines like it. in some cases, extreme high blood sugar can lead to coma or death. other risks include dizziness upon standing, decreases in white blood cells, which can be serious, seizures, impaired judgment or motor skills, or trouble swallowing. (man) adding abilify has made a difference for me. (announcer) if an antidepressant alone isn't enough, talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of adding abilify.

remember, this was elicia hughes' second trial for murder. the facts were mostly the same as the ones that had convicted her the first time, but there was an additional attorney at her defense table, a charismatic courtroom lawyer named dennis sweet. he worked civil cases primarily and had won his clients some huge judgments, but the case before him now wasn't about dollars. it was higher stakes.

about giving the accused her very life back. >> it was a circumstantial case. there was no eyewitness or direct evidence. i thought that there were a lot of holes. i thought that the police work was shoddy and that i thought that she may be innocent. >> did you come to believe, i can't put this gun in her hand? >> yes. >> doing what she's accused of? >> yes. >> you don't always do that with a client. >> no, no. it's far more difficult to represent innocent people than guilty people because you have a fear of losing and this innocent person's sitting in prison. >> reporter: the defense built its strategy around putting brian hughes' lifestyle on trial. a man with an untidy love life and what was believed to be marijuana near his body. who could say, argued the defense, what kind of a person might have been drawn to his front door, him living carelessly like that? angry lovers? a jealous spouse? maybe even a drug dealer? >> the evidence points to other places.

there were several people who had motives stronger than elicia's to harm brian. there was a girlfriend who had a husband, and brian had words with the husband. there was the issue of the drugs and the guy saying he wanted his money and hadn't been paid. >> so you can put several possible type of suspects at the door. >> i think there were several scenarios consistent with other people doing it other than elicia. >> reporter: elicia's statement to police, the one about being wakened to a pop, pop, pop, pop, had been picked apart by the prosecution and presented to the jury as evidence that she was lying. she should have heard the alarm then the pop, pop, pop, pop, but she hadn't said that. but the defense replied, just look at your own experience. >> you're asleep, something wakes you up and you're called to identify everything from your sleep? and then within a minute or less of being woken up by something,

you find your husband dead? and then you come back days or weeks later and are asked to give every scenario or every detail. and she told them, i can't remember the exact sequence. so i don't think it was unusual. >> reporter: as for elicia's demeanor, not appearing sufficiently weepy to satisfy all of her in-laws, defense attorney sweet answered that's not the real picture. >> help. help. >> i don't think it was fair when we had the adt tape where she's just frantic, all right? i think her reaction was more consistent with innocence than guilt. >> reporter: one of the best things the defense had going for itself was the appearance in court of elicia herself. she was never going to take the stand, but just the way she projected herself at the defendant's table wasn't hurting her. attractive, composed, petite. it was hard to envision her wielding a .45. and as for drugging the kids so they wouldn't walk in on her as shi she was murdering their

father, it didn't happen, according to the defense. >> this is a trial. a trial depends on evidence. there was no evidence that she had given them a sedative. there's no evidence that she gave them one thing. >> reporter: the prosecutor had even had the jurors listen to the sound of the saw that cut through a wall that night. >> go ahead. >> reporter: but, as loud as it was, sweet said it was all still meaningless speculation. >> you can go every day and see kids at games asleep. you can be riding in the car, playing your music. child right there in the back asleep. so i mean, you know, the fact that a child may sleep when something's loud is nothing unusual. >> reporter: but the one thing he knew he had to do if he had a hope of winning the case was blunt the testimony of the girlfriend that puts elicia in the room with brian moments before the shots were fired. >> the girlfriend was a problem because if you believed this girlfriend's testimony, elicia hughes was in the room with her husband only minutes before he was killed.

>> are you thinking in terms of strategy, if i do not demolish the girlfriend's story, elicia hughes may be going back to prison. >> yes. >> that big a gamble? >> yes, yes. >> reporter: remember, rayford told the police two days after the murder that brian had ended their call with with "i'll call you back," their lover's code for "wife's in the room." but seven months later, she would tell detectives that she had something else to add to her statement. she hadn't initially mentioned that before she got off the phone with brian she specifically asked him if elicia was standing in front of him, and he had said yes. >> i understand that you said you had a code. and when he said being i'll call you back, that meant his wife was there. but that's nowhere in here. is that right? isn't it right? >> there's nowhere in there where i asked him, is she in front of you? >> this has not been part of her story. >> not part of her story. it appears to me, like, oh, we haven't given you enough to indict elicia? well, let me add a little bit more on to it." >> the defense did have a clear advantage when it came time to

talk about the police work on the case. even the prosecution admitted it had left a lot to be desired. so the defense attorney's message to the jury was clear -- the police don't have much on this woman, and don't believe what they do tell you about her. >> reporter: take the location of the bullet casings, grouped in a phony kind of way on the wrong side of the door way, the prosecution had argued. the defense answered back by getting one of the arriving police officers to admit that she'd moved the casings so the emts could get by with their gurney. >> prior to those pictures of the shell casings being moved, you moved at least two of them, didn't you? >> yes, sir. >> by the time it was over we had them picking up gun casings and moving them and the gurney coming out. they couldn't tell you where those gun casings were. >> reporter: and the prosecution had made a huge deal, a case-closed argument, about the absence of blood around the doorway where brian had presumably been shot by an unknown assailant. the defense challenged that very assumption of a bloody mess. >> where is the proof that the blood was going to splatter? there is none. like on tv, you expect to see

every time a car rolls over it explodes. every time somebody's shot there's splatter. there was no proof that from the nature of these wounds that there were going to be blood spatter there. >> reporter: and was for that piece of forensic evidence that looked bad for the defendant, the trace of gunshot residue on the back of her left hand, to defense attorney sweet the trace of residue they did find was useless as meaningful evidence and was best explained by transference, the accused touching the defendant as she attended to him. >> if someone touches something where all these thousands of residue particles are there they may get some on them? >> yes, sir. that is a way that residue can show up, is through a transfer by someone touching something. >> reporter: it's the nature of a defense lawyer's work to mostly counter punch. let the prosecution give it their best shot, then jab their witnesses in cross-examination with hopes of bruising their testimony. the defense team would do that in this case, but dennis sweet was also going to call to the

stand a witness who hadn't been heard from during the first trial. a witness whose testimony just might change the entire direction of the trial. coming up -- >> i heard some shots and shortly thereafter i heard a car skid away. >> a neighbor's surprise story about the night of the crime. and there's evidence. september e

pause to remember those who died. tonight, a look at the memorials from around the nation. and two more acorn employees fired after they're caught on video giving questionable finaincial advice. the i-team takes a look at the hidden camera footage at the center of a growing controversy.

a new customer wanted to insure his home so we did a nationwide on your side review. turns out it was more valuable than he thought. we got him the coverage he needed. it was a good thing we did 'cause a week later his house burned down. being proactive meant a family home could see generations to come. i am carlton ballard and i am on your side. switch to nationwide insurance now. need a lift? hey buddy, i appreciate the ride, you know. no problem. ♪

mind if i take a shortcut? yeah, sure. ♪ i knew the subaru legacy was the smart choice... what i didn't expect... was the fun. the all-new subaru legacy. feel the love.

>> reporter: the second trial was being argued to a jury of mostly african-american women, meeting the judge's prescription for a fairer jury in the retrial. and now, midway through the second trial, the prosecutor came to the defense with a deal. if elicia hughes pleads guilty to manslaughter, she'll get no more than ten years in prison. a few years served versus life if the verdict went against her again. >> it was very tempting. i spent over six weeks in prison and i knew what prison was like. and for the unknown variable of the second trial, not knowing how it was going to conclude,

ten years where i will still get to be a part of my children's life as opposed to reading about it in a letter or seeing pictures through the mail, it was very attractive to me. but, in the end, there was no way that i could say that i did something to hurt brian when i know that i did not. >> reporter: the prosecution's deal was rejected. so the trial continued, and the defense had a surprise witness, someone whose story hadn't been heard in the first trial at all. this neighbor, who lived across the street from the hugheses, said the night of the shooting she distinctly remembered hearing a car peel away. >> that night i was on the phone with my aunt, and i heard some shots. and it's very unusual for me to hear shots in my neighborhood. shortly thereafter, i heard a car skid away. >> and you heard car tires screech away? >> yes. what i heard, it sounded like a

back out, then skid away. >> she heard a car take off. heard a screech off, right after the shots. >> and you had photos to show of tire marks. >> right. >> reporter: and while the prosecutor would point out if there was any way to know if the skid marks were made that night or even the year before, the defense hoped it had raised some doubt with the jury. >> they never came up with the murder weapon. >> i think that was extremely important there was no .45 what do you think have believe happened? >> that she hid it or got it out of the house. no one saw her outside or around. there's nothing in the bushes, nothing buried. there was nothing, no time for her to do anything with the weapon. and it was never found. and the reason is, the shooter had it and it wasn't her. >> and the defense also attacked the prosecution's theory of the

motive for the murder, that this was really a case about greed, a woman who not only wanted out of a failed marriage, but who wanted to buy a fresh start for herself with the insurance money she'd receive on her husband's death. dennis sweet said, look, she's a third grade teacher who gave up a better paying job in the private sector. clearly not a person driven by money. >> you have a young lady with a master's degree. she's worked hard, nobody's given her anything. she's living the american dream. she has two beautiful children. she doesn't seem to be motivated by money. you know, she was working at an insurance company. she gave up the job, came back and went to teach school. >> took a pay cut, right? >> yeah, pay cut to go teach kids. >> reporter: why kill him for the insurance? just didn't add up. sweet called to the stand the agent who sold brian and elica the insurance policy. she testified she wrote the policy for a prudent amount, just enough to cover the family if either elicia or brian died. >> and was the amount based on a recommendation by you? >> yes, it was.

>> and what was that recommendation based on? >> the financial needs that they would have, that either one of them would have, if something happened to them. what would it take for him to be able to live without her income and vice versa? >> they had an insurance policy. so i guess anytime somebody's dead you can argue it as a motive for them to be dead. in fact, the evidence was that brian and her purchased it together. they bought the insurance policy. it's in place. and she's done nothing about it. been in place for a couple years. >> reporter: could someone had come to the front door that night, just as elicia claimed? she insists she was not the shooter. >> i did not kill my husband. >> you didn't take the gun and shoot him. >> no. >> because he was a run-around. >> no. >> for the insurance. >> no. >> things weren't perfect, but they were okay. >> they weren't perfect, but they were okay. >> reporter: the first jury had taken only two hours to find elicia hughes guilty of murder.

now, with virtually the same set of facts before them, the second jury was about to deliberate the schoolteacher's fate. coming up -- the waiting begins. >> i thought that they should find her not guilty, but you never know what a jury is doing. >> what would the verdict be? irregularity. my commercials didn't convince you? i am definitely a skeptic. actually, my mom convinced me. and i have activia every morning for breakfast. activia definitely helped with my occasional irregularity. activia is clinically proven to help regulate your digestive system in two weeks when eaten every day. chances are someone you trust can recommend activia. take the activia challenge. it works or your money back! ♪ activia! ok, if you're thinkin' about it works or your money back! gettin' a new truck... this is your lucky day. make that month. 'cause it's ford truck month. and that means savings on the best selling trucks 32 straight years. fortunately, luck has nothing to do with getting... a heck of a great deal on a

brand spanking new ford super duty. plus, ford credit is there to help you with the financing. lucky you to get zero percent apr for 60 months or 5000 cash back on an '09 super duty. so, to hit it big on every built ford tough truck... forget vegas. it's truck month! only at your local ford dealer. but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. i'm bill kurtis, and i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. powerful anti-aging therapies that reduce the look of lines and pores, even tone, brighten, smooth, hydrate, and lock-in moisture,

all in one clever little package of total effects. ♪ (whistle blowing) (announcer) with it's huge commercial grade drum high-performance motor and new power wash cycle the maytag bravos cleans your toughest loads proof that only a maytag, is built like a maytag

elicia hughes had been given a rare chance in the criminal justice system, a retrial, a do-over. >> going into the second trial i was little bit more knowledgeable, but i still felt like a cork, you know, bobbing in the ocean, like i was still a victim of the system and that i just never knew what was going to happen from day to day. it was always something, and just when i think it couldn't get worse, it would always get

worse. >> reporter: would she walk free or return to prison for a sentence to be determined but something approaching life? how agonizing is the wait? >> it was bad. and i had friends and church members and everybody was praying that the verdict will come back as it should be. >> reporter: her lawyer sat and waited with her. he knew one jury had already found her guilty and the same thing could easily happen again. >> i was worried when the jury's out. i've been there when they say "guilty" before. i thought that they should find h her not guilty, but you never know what a jury is doing. and it's difficult waiting. >> reporter: and now the second jury would decide her fate. among the 12, they were the forewoman, a city supervisor, a grocery store manager, a clerk, a school aide, an automobile factory manger, a hospital worker, and a factory supervisor. all called to sit in judgment on another person and make an agonizing decision.

>> when it first started, i was thinking, oh, my god, she did kill him. >> she had the motivation. >> yes. >> he was messing around. >> right. >> reporter: they saw the husband as a guy who might have been asking for trouble. who did brian hughes turn out to be for you? >> a young man that loved women. >> liked women more than he should have, you think? >> right. >> so he's not only cheating on his wife. he's cheating on his mistress. >> right. and it just caught up with him, and it cost him his life. >> reporter: but the more they thought about it and the more evidence they heard, the jurors were having a hard time seeing the gun in elicia hughes' hand. >> i couldn't see her killing her husband. . >> grade school teacher, taught third grade. >> yes. i just couldn't see her doing it. >> she did not picture me as the type of woman that would kill her husband because she had found out that he was having an affair. elicia gave me the impression that she was the type of woman that would have said, brian, i can't take any more of this. i'm going to pack my clothes, my kids and i'm going to leave

you. >> reporter: and the jurors did not buy the testimony of the other woman in brian's life, the one who seven months into the murder investigation added that detail to her story, the one where she said she specifically asked eed if elicia was standi right in front of him. this juror didn't understand how come the girlfriend hadn't said that from the get-go. >> the next day after he was killed she didn't mention anything about that. i thought that was very strange. >> reporter: and the jury thought the police work was shoddy. the house not properly searched, the crime scene not tightly secured, those bullet casings moved. >> they picked up, moved a lot of stuff around. they shouldn't even touched a lot of stuff. they moved a lot of shell casing around. >> very poor police work. >> reporter: and the jury wasn't persuaded by the prosecution's argument for a coolly plotted out, premeditated murder. if all they could show by way of evidence for that theory were two sleepy children. not drugged, thought the jurors, just kids. >> i didn't wonder why the

children slept. i have children. and when my children went to sleep when they were little they slept, they slept through a lot of things. >> i mean, kids of that age, once you put them to bed, they're normally asleep. nothing wakes them up. >> reporter: the jurors sifted through the evidence. could elicia's low simmering burn on brian's womanizing finally have reached a boil? did her story about hearing the pops first and then the alarm that night make sense? and what about that trace of gunshot residue on her hand? piece by piece, they came to terms with the evidence. >> i just wanted to make sure that the 12 of us did the right thing. so we read the instructions again. we deliberated and went over the evidence, pictures, looked at the shell casings, pictures of his body, different scenarios of everything that was given to us. >> reporter: remember, another jury of 12 hearing much the same case had convicted elicia hughes of murder. they saw her as a woman who

finally, fed up with her husband's chronic fi landering arction executed a carefully laid out plan and with a generous insurance payout. now, this second jury was finally ready to vote. were you of one mind as jury? >> one voice. >> they're coming back with a verdict. coming up -- >> there was fear. there was hope. >> anxious moments for everyone. there was hope. >> anxious moments for everyone. >> my hands sweat anddo, air life denver took to the air... their night-vision goggles keeping them safe on a perilous flight...

and powering those precision goggles--- is the only battery air life trusts: duracell. trusted everywhere. look for new duracell ultra advanced now with even more power to protect. a sanctuary. a command center. ( both revving ) a sophisticated sedan. a sports car. together. nissan maxima, the four-door sports car. now lease a maxima for $299 a month for 39 months or get 0% apr financing. and added a little fiber? sweet! sweet! (together) sweet! (announcer) now for the first time, a gram of healthy fiber in every packet.

sweet! (announcer) splenda® with fiber. even more freedom to the freest country on earth. so why should you be penalized for talking to someone, just because they're on another network. shouldn't you be able to call any mobile... on any network, at any time? it's a free country. knock yourself out. announcer: introducing the revolutionary any mobile, anytime. now on the sprint network you're free to call 250 million mobile phones nationwide without worrying about the meter running. only from sprint. the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com. how come they separate the hash browns from the rest of the platter? maybe there's just not enough room. or, maybe the hash browns were a little late and no one saved them a seat.

maybe if the platter got a text message... from the hash browns saying they were on their way. or, maybe if the p-- pull up a chair to a mcdonald's breakfast platter: fluffy hotcakes, freshly cooked eggs and sausage off the griddle. with a warm biscuit and hash browns, it's an all-together good morning. ♪ ba da ba ba ba

>> reporter: the courtroom rose as the jury returned with a verdict. you've made your decision. you're coming back in the courtroom. how did you feel? >> i felt very relieved. i felt like i had did the right thing. >> reporter: prosecutor rebecca mansell may have looked composed, but -- >> every time i come down for a jury verdict, you'll never know

that i'm nervous except my hands sweat. and so my hands were just pouring water. >> reporter: the stakes were highest, of course, for elicia hughes herself. >> i was anxious. there was fear. there was hope. there was just a whole bonanza of emotions. >> reporter: the courtroom settled for the reading of the verdict. >> we, the jury, find the defendant not guilty. >> reporter: not guilty of murdering her husband, brian. >> utter relief. great joy. gratefulness. just a whole bunch of emotions that might appear random but they just kind of meshed together and came out as, i

think, a scream. >> reporter: for the prosecutors, it was nothing less than a bone-crushing defeat, made all the more personal by their utter conviction that a guilty woman was walking free. >> i'm not a very teary person usually, but i actually cried when it was all over. it was because i felt so sorry for the family. and i felt like we had disappointed them because 12 people had said, yes, she's guilty of murder, and then we have 12 people that say, no, she's not guilty. i mean, it's so disparate what these two juries had come to and the evidence had not changed. >> she killed her husband and got away with it in the state of mississippi. >> she did. >> you think? >> i know. this is not a "i think" this is an "i know." i know the evidence. there's nothing else that points to any other person other than elicia hughes. and she was lucky. i mean, she got off. and she could literally go screaming down these streets, i killed brian hughes, i killed my husband. and we could never try her again. double jeopardy has attached.

>> and you believe she did it? >> i have no question she did it. >> and you believe she got away with murder then? >> absolutely. >> reporter: remember, this was elicia hughes' second trial. the jurors from her first trial who'd found her guilty were stunned by the second jury's polar opposite verdict. do you think they got it wrong? >> absolutely. >> do you think that somebody decided not on the evidence? >> that's probably the only way that it came out with a not guilty decision, that the guy needed to be killed and she was too nice a person to sentence for murder. >> with two small children to care for. >> exactly. >> that's my thoughts exactly. >> but what does that tell you about our justice system? >> it's too flexible, if that's the case. >> reporter: the second jury couldn't disagree more. they thought elicia hughes was flat-out innocent. so what would you tell the first jury? >> they made a mistake. >> they got it wrong? >> got it wrong. >> reporter: for brian's family being the world had gone upside

down. guilty in january. free in november. can you accept this? a jury of her peers said -- >> no. >> -- you are not guilty. >> within my heart i don't feel that justice was served. i don't care how beautiful she may look. i don't care how smart she may be. she's still a murderer. >> and you believe she got away with murder? >> i believe she got away with murder. >> of your son, brian. >> that's correct. >> in a cold-blooded manner, premeditated, you think. >> that's right. that's right. >> stood above him, >> that's right. that's right. >> stood above him, probably. >> that's right. >> with a .45 and unloaded on him. >> exactly. >> reporter: elicia has moved from the house where her husband was shot to death, but she still lives in the area. trying to erase certain memories and preserve others. she still attends the same church, although she's not teaching anymore. you got your life back. >> yes, i did. i'm definitely grateful for the not guilty verdict. and it did give me the opportunity to live the rest of my life not behind bars. but until the person who

actually committed the crime is caught, you know, i don't feel like i'll have my life back totally the way i want it back. before this whole ordeal, you know, i had a family. i had a husband. i had a job that i liked. and, you know, now everything's changed. >> you're staying in jackson. you're keeping your married name. and yet people have to be looking at you sideways when you're at the grocery, when you're at church. whispers, right? she's the woman who got away with killing her husband? >> i've heard that. but i also hear, elicia, we were praying for you and your family. so my hope in how i make my comfort level okay to venture out into public is that as many people who think negative, i

think that an equalal [captioning made possible by constellation energy group] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> tonight, weç are pausingç o remember the victims of the september 11 attacks. this is a live picture of the tribute of lights in new york city. we will have more on the memorials and just a minute.