tchen and at the route the bullet took when it left rob fischer's gun. >> we know the entry wounds and the exit wounds on lee. we know where -- >> reporter: and you've got the hole in the wall behind him. >> correct. and we have the hole in the wall behind him. and so those holes don't lie. >> reporter: no, and the story they told the angle of the bullet, meant, investigators believed that lee could not have fired the gun himself. and once rademacher looked at the expert's report, he said, the fuzzy story of what happened that boozy night finally came into sharp focus. >> what we do know is what the blood tells us and what the trajectory tells us, and where things were found inside the home. and when you start putting all the pieces together, you only get one explanation and that's murder. >> reporter: and then it was a fine may morning, and rob walked out of his house to go to work.

>> i was in the driveway, and i saw people running up at me with both sides with guns pointed at me. at first, i didn't recognize them as law enforcement. i wasn't thinking of law enforcement. and so you -- you -- you -- kind of your -- my split second initial reaction is, you know, "i'm bein' attacked." >> reporter: and, in a way, he was not by thugs. by cops. >> they put me down on the ground. and, you know, handcuffed me. >> reporter: and then rob fischer was carted off to jail, and extradited right away to arizona and charged with second degree murder. >> my phone rang. i answered the phone. it was detective brooks. he said, "i just wanted to tell you that we've arrested rob fischer. that we have rob fischer in custody." >> and that was almost like disbelief, like finally, like we waited 490 days from the date of the accident to the day that he was charged.

>> reporter: he -- you know, maintains that they were good friends and that he had nothing to do with it. >> i just believe that the evidence -- they finally accumulated enough evidence to support that he's the one that was responsible for my brother's death. >> reporter: finally! some satisfaction for lee's family in buffalo. but when word of the arrest raced around rob's circle of friends, not a single one of them could believe it. like fellow attorney chris miller who was appalled, she said. >> absolutely the last person in the world. i mean, if you told me these 20 other people did it -- yeah, okay. uh-huh. but not rob. not the rob i know. not our rob. he didn't do it. >> reporter: somebody made a big mistake, said chris.

and as a former sheriff, she ought to know. >> reporter: but aren't the law enforcement officials and officers just trying to get at the truth here? >> possibly. but even wanting to get out of the truth doesn't prevent you from making mistakes. i mean, i saw it when i was a sheriff. >> reporter: from his jail cell, rob found a phoenix-based defense attorney a man named dwane cates. >> i liked robert from the second i met him. i only got to talk to him through a piece of glass. and -- he struck me from the very beginning as somethin' different about robert. somethin' from my normal -- normal clients. >> reporter: and once cates heard about the case against his new client, he made his opinion very plain. >> i don't think robert fischer should ever have been charged with a crime. >> reporter: why not? >> based on the evidence. there is absolutely no evidence that he killed lee radder. >> reporter: cates got rob released on half a million dollars bail but rob was ordered to stay put in arizona. that's where we talked to him as he waited for his trial. something odd, during that time as rob's new attorney and his friends left to his defense

belinda said nothing. a silence rob's friend chris couldn't quite understand. >> i'm not really sure what's going on. >> reporter: curious? >> very curious because i would be shouting from the mountaintops right now on what i believed one way or the other. and i don't think she's shouting or even whispering to anyone -- >> reporter: but there were reasons for that, said belinda. for one thing she had no idea whether or not she might be charged too. were you afraid you were gonna be arrested? >> oh, sure. you're just in knots all day long. just don't know what to expect. and -- you know, you think, "if they're -- if they think rob's capable of this --" rob, like, this super good guy, then they -- for sure think i'm capable of it. do you sort of -- sort of find yourself building a wall around -- >> oh, for. >> reporter: yourself? >> sure. >> reporter: yeah. >> for sure. >> reporter: very cautious about what -- >> oh. >> reporter: you say, about who you talk to, about. >> everything. everything.

>> reporter: as for lee's family in buffalo, according to belinda, they hadn't been close for years, and after the memorial, she said all she got from them was outright hostility. no, said belinda, there was nothing good about this for her. either her husband committed suicide a very bad thing or he was murdered by her own step father. she found that last bad option very hard to believe. but as time went on she began to think maybe the prosecutor knew something she didn't. they wouldn't arrest him if they didn't have some evidence -- >> and where i -- you know, i was brought up that we believe the police officers, we believe that -- my grandfather was a police officer. rob was a police officer. like, they don't just charge people. it -- he had -- he had to have done it. >> reporter: coming up. rob fischer's trial begins with a bang as the prosecution contends that blood evidence at the scene leads to only one

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>> reporter: it was the morning of november 6th, 2013, a wednesday, when prosecutor jay rademacher rose in the phoenix courthouse to present his murder case against rob fischer. >> this case is about a cover-up. >> reporter: lee radder's family

watched from the gallery, hoping, three years after lee's death, for justice. >> will we ever find out what happened? truthfully, i don't know. do i want somebody to pay for his death? yes, most seriously, because he didn't deserve to die. >> reporter: at the defense table, rob fischer was confident there was simply no case against him. >> i've never heard a theory. i've never heard a motive. i've never heard anything. >> reporter: that was about to change. point number one, said the prosecutor: lee radder's death was clearly not a suicide. >> lee loved his family, especially his girls, lee would have never done something like this inside of his home. >> reporter: evidence of that? this is lee's childhood best friend. who told the jury that lee never got depressed about money. >> one of his favorite sayings to me that i've tried to be motivated by is just "adam, you

can always make more money." >> reporter: and, remember that email? the one that came in late at night after which lee called his business partner apparently upset? maybe he wasn't. the very man lee called told the jury that lee did not sound suicidal at all. >> he was happy. he said he had family over. he was going to go have a couple cocktails and he would call me tomorrow. >> reporter: the prosecutor called belinda to the stand, too. later she told us she wanted to testify, but was not happy to be a state witness. still, she told the jury that, though lee did fret a little about the email he received that night that he was otherwise the same old lee. >> just like a regular night. >> nothing was different? >> not that i recall. >> reporter: "so lee had no reason to commit suicide", said the prosecutor. no, the only possible explanation was that he was murdered. >> see, the physical evidence, the blood, the trajectory, all

of that, that doesn't lie. murder explains all of it. >> reporter: his theory: as lee radder and rob fischer sat at the kitchen table drinking vodka into the wee hours of that morning, something must have happened. something that so aroused rob, he went and got his gun, and came back, and shot lee through the right eye, and then panicked, and went about staging the scene. >> the science doesn't lie, people do. >> reporter: so, forensics. the arriving officer told the jury how he got suspicious when he saw the gun still wrapped in lee's dead hand. >> to me, it appeared that it was placed in his hand. >> reporter: a very important first discovery, the prosecutor told us. >> how is gravity not taking its course, from either pulling lee's body forward, or allowing that gun to drop out of his hand? >> but it doesn't really work with robert putting the gun in his hand either, does it? i mean, why would a cop, for example, put the gun in his hand that way, with the thumb

through? this is an ex-cop we're talking about. >> an ex-cop that's drunk. "but", said the prosecutor, "not so drunk that he wouldn't know who his son in law was. when he made that 911 call, that was pure theater. >> the defendant knew that was lee on the ground, but he's trying to cover up a murder. >> reporter: "there was more," said the prosecutor. rob did something any ex-cop should know you don't do: he disobeyed a direct order. >> he said, "hey i am a retired police officer." i said, "okay, just step away." he said i'm gonna wash my hands and i said, "no, don't wash your hands." >> reporter: but rob washed his hands anyway. the prosecutor showed the jury the pictures from the scene that seemed to prove that rob lied about being in the guest room bedroom asleep when the gun went off. the neatly made bed and those two glasses in the kitchen with ice were still fresh in the wee hours of the morning. >> did you find it odd that there was ice in the glasses at

5:15 in the morning? >> yes. >> reporter: "but the key piece of evidence", said the prosecution, "was the story told by the blood at the scene." there was blood on the pants rob was wearing that, when examined, certainly looked like rob had been sitting very close to lee when the gun went off. and there was blood on the floor which, said the state, proved rob was involved. >> mr. fischer moved mr. radder's body and manipulated the -- area to make it look like mr. radder had sustained a shot and -- and fell backwards. >> reporter: the prosecution's blood spatter expert, rudy acosta was his name, demonstrated how, in his opinion, lee's body would have slumped forward in the chair after the gun went off, not backward the way his body was found. meaning, rob must have moved lee's body.

>> i believe -- i think he just dragged him onto the ground. >> reporter: "what's more", said the expert, "as rob moved around the body, he left his footprints in lee's blood." >> footprints tell me that he obviously stepped in the blood. when the origin of blood happened, the left foot was in the blood, obviously saw that. we show there's an interruption of blood, at least, more than one. >> reporter: but, as we heard the state's case, we couldn't help but wonder, was some of it guesswork? did it really amount to proof that rob shot lee, or walked around in the blood in order to move lee's body? we challenged the prosecutor on that. >> so, but -- those footprints don't show culpability though? >> they show movement. >> they show movement, yeah, but that's all they show, right? i mean, he may have been surprised by -- he may have been sitting there. he shoots himself, he gets up, walks and doesn't necessarily mean that he's manipulating the scene just because his footprints are there. >> you keep coming up with these possibilities. >> well, so do you. >> i don't come up with

possibilities. i have the physical evidence that supports the state's theory of this case. >> reporter: "so", said the prosecutor, "the forensics said: murder even though -- there's no evidence of a disagreement between the two of them. there's nothing like that. >> no. >> reporter: "but that wasn't the issue," said the prosecutor. "hard evidence was." >> murder is supported by the blood evidence, by what the me testified by the blood experts. murder is supported by common sense and gravity in this case. >> reporter: oh, but of course it wasnt quite that simple. there was another possibility altogether as the jury was about to hear. coming up. >> the defense presents evidence that rob simply could not have pulled the trigger. >> his fingerprints weren't on the gun. his dna wasn't on the gun. >> and argues that the blood

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>> reporter: rob fischer's attorney, dwane cates, has stood up for a long parade of clients over the years many of them guilty as sin. but this case? this was different, said mr. cates. >> innocent people are the hardest to represent. i don't sleep at night representing innocent people. because losing's not an option. >> reporter: rob's supporters, including fellow attorney and good friend chris miller, travelled to phoenix for the trial. >> what's your expectation of the eventual result here? >> i believe that rob will eventually be found not guilty. >> ladies and gentleman, this case is all about whose finger was on the gun the night that lee radder died. rob didn't have any motive to shoot lee, and lee certainly had some reasons to commit suicide. >> reporter: wait, he did have reason to commit suicide? yes, said rob's attorney. this time, lee's life was

spinning out of control. >> there's no money coming in and lee doesn't know what he is going to do. >> lee's friends had no idea how bad it was, said cates. tens of thousands in loans and, unpaid credit cards. $15,000 owed to the irs, another $25,000 still owed to a former employer. >> no doubt that we, you know, had some financial troubles ahead of us. >> reporter: belinda was a state witness remember, but, she told the jury that lee, with his $100,000 life insurance policy, told her, joking or not that he was worth more to her dead than alive. >> he would say that numerous times over his life. >> reporter: then, that night, december 29th. he got that email, remember and excused himself from the table to take a call from his business partner. you'll remember that business partner told the prosecutor lee seemed to be in good spirits at the end of the call. but, he also had to admit that

when the conversation started, lee was not happy. >> how was he acting? >> he was kind of upset. >> the jury never got to read the email -- no one seems to have a copy. but lee showed it to belinda that night she said. >> something about he had introduced these two companies together and he was being squeezed out of it. >> well, he was a frantic. he felt betrayed that two companies were trying to cut him out of the deal. >> also, said the defense, lee had been exaggerating, for everybody, the size and value of the deal. this man is from the company "igt" with which lee was hoping to make his multi million dollar deal-of-a-lifetime. and he testified he told lee there wasn't going to be a deal. >> did you tell him no? >> yes. i need somebody who has distribution centers worldwide. so he was told him no, that that was not going to happen. >> he communicated that clearly to lee, and lee was tellin'

everybody that there was this big deal pending. and-- and that was-- >> living a lie. >> and-- and it was all about to come crashing down on him. lee radder was worth more dead than alive. he knew it. for some reason he couldn't bring himself to tell his partners and his friends that this big deal wasn't coming. >> reporter: so, the defense theory of what happened? after all those drinks with lee, rob passed out. right there -- at the kitchen table. >> blackout starts-- starts as a unblock blackout meaning he has no memory. it's like nothing writes to the hard drive. >> reporter: but lee kept right on drinking and drunk and discouraged, he went and found the gun he knew rob always travelled with, and turned it on himself, and pulled the trigger. and then, at the sound of the gun, rob was startled into a confused conciousness and merely assumed when he spoke with police, he must have been in bed. >> imagine you're still drunk and someone is lying on the

floor in a puddle of blood with a gun in their hand. you look down, you are in your pajamas, you're barefoot, and you're standing in the hall facing away from your bedroom. wouldn't your first thought be geez, i must have been in bed? >> reporter: later, when he sobered up, said rob, he realized he must have been at the table with lee. >> what is it about you that should make us think that you aren't the sort of person who-- you know, might have been showing lee the gun, and you're, you know, both five sheets to the wind. and-- and it went off accidentally and killed him. >> whether we're drinking or not, i don't believe that i would ever be so irresponsible as to introduce a gun to that environment. that's-- goes against my core being. >> reporter: the defense called this doctor, an expert in alcohol abuse, to explain some of rob's strange behavior. around the time of the 911 call, rob's blood was three times over

the legal limit. >> in my opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty he was in a blackout. >> reporter: which certainly explained not recognizing lee, said the expert. as for the big deal the state made about rob washing his hands when the officer told him not to. >> have you ever told a drunk friend to do something? it's kinda like herding cats. >> i know, but he's a lawyer and an ex-cop. >> right. he's an extremely drunk lawyer and excop. >> reporter: but -- what about the forensic evidence? the very heart of the state's case? the state's expert remember told the jury that the law of gravity dictated that the gun should have dropped out of lee's hand as soon as he fired a bullet into his head. but the defense medical expert produced statistics showing that guns actually remain in the hands of suicide victims 25 percent of the time. >> have you ever seen the gun stay in the hand of somebody that committed suicide? >> yes, sir. >> reporter: in fact, said attorney cates, it would have been almost impossible for rob, from where he had to be sitting in the kitchen, to shoot lee and

produce the actual route the bullet followed. >> rob would've had to have gone something like this in order to have done it. >> reporter: then attorney cates attacked directly the state's blood spatter expert. >> you didn't know how mr. fischer, in your theory, picked up mr. radder, but you demonstrated it here today? >> correct. yes, that was just one of many possibilities. >> and that was not in your report? >> the way in which he picked him up? >> yeah. >> yes, that's not in my report. >> he would say one thing and then on cross-examination i would ask him and he'd say, "well, i really don't know how it happened." >> you have -- you really have no idea what happened to the chair -- other than it was moved? >> how that chair gets from point 'a' to point 'b' no, i don't know. >> you don't know how mr. fischer picked up mr.

mr. radder, correct? >> yes, it's assumption. there's too many variables. >> after my cross-examine and redirect of that witness, i thought we won the trial. >> reporter: still,the confident cates wasnt done making his case-- he called his own blood spatter expert too who looked at the very same evidence that was the backbone of the state's case and said there was no doubt in his mind the state had it wrong -- this is a self inflicted gunshot wound. >> reporter: finally, said defense attorney cates, the case came down to one crucial question. whose finger was on the trigger of the gun? cates put the question to the state's crime analyst. >> you at least said you couldn't exclude mr radder correct? >> that's correct >> that's because there were portions of this print that matched portions of mr radder's print? >> there was, yes. >> reporter: and the person whose prints did not match -- was rob fischer. >> his fingerprints weren't on

the gun. his dna wasn't on the gun and lee's was. they didn't find any fingerprints that matched rob fischer anywhere on the gun. >> well, what did that say to you? >> lee was the last one that handled the gun. dwayne cates, lee radder shot himself. true? up to the jury to decide that. their turn now. >> reporter: coming up -- jurors find themselves torn -- >> we were a hung jury for the first two days. >> reporter: and then -- >> have you reached a verdict? >> yes ma'am. >> reporter: the news that would rock this traumatized family all over again. >> my attorney called me, and said "are you sittin' down?" when dateline continues.

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>> reporter: it was december 2013, when the murder case jury. rob said he felt at peace then. or at least, as much as a person could be given. anyway, he knew, he said, he knew that he didn't deserve to

be hauled off to the slammer. >> i knew i should be going home. and so -- i was hopeful that the jury would've seen it the same way. >> you had to be doing some strategic thinking too if this, if that. so what was in your head? >> i did feel very confident. >> reporter: no surprise, the prosecutor read the tea leaves rather differently. >> i knew when the jury was going back with this case that they had enough information to come to the right conclusion. and they were gonna realize that, murder explains all the evidence. >> reporter: practically everybody thought it would be over soon including rob's attorney. >> i thought they'd be back in a couple hours with a "not guilty" verdict. >> reporter: didn't happen. the hours ticked by as the jurors apparently wrestled with something. one day became two days. two became three. >> yeah, you had to be thinkin', "what -- what are they talking about back there." >> exactly. >> reporter: well, in fact they

were very divided when they started. three jurors spoke to us after and told us. >> we were a hung jury for the first two days. we were a hung jury. >> reporter: why? >> i did not find the state blood's expert that credible of a witness. >> reporter: but. >> i don't think lee would have killed himself. i don't think he had that personality. >> reporter: as the debate went on in the jury room outside, lee's new york family was desperate for a guilty verdict, so the world would know their lee didn't take his own life. didn't do what the defense said he did. lisa radder. >> i want to put my head down on my pillow at night saying that was a terrible, terrible thing that happened, and no, my brother did not commit suicide, that his life was taken by somebody else. and that will give me closure. >> reporter: and then? it was december 19th. it just happened to be rob's 53rd birthday. word came that there was a verdict. rob and company hurried to the

courthouse hoping for a birthday present from the jury. >> please be seated. >> what did you see when they walked in? >> they didn't look at me, which as a lawyer, i know is not a good sign. >> have you reached a verdict? >> yes, ma'am. "we the jury find the defendant as to count one second degree murder: guilty." >> reporter: guilty. rob fischer stared straight ahead, stunned. in the gallery, lee's family and friends quietly sobbed. they had their justice. the prosecutor took his victory in stride. >> were you surprised at all? >> no. >> a lot of people around -- in the courtroom were. >> depends on what side of the aisle you were sitting on. >> yeah, but -- you were not surprised at all?

>> i wasn't surprised for the fact that i thought we did an excellent job in educating the jury on the scientific evidence in this case. and that they could only come to one conclusion and that was murder. >> reporter: and indeed, said these jury members, it was the science that persuaded them in the end. >> i think we were educated a lot on like the trajectory of the bullet, how blood spatter and the gun, everything. i think we were educated enough to make a decision. all of that convinced me of his guilt. >> reporter: the consequences, in a situation such as this, are immediate. rob fischer was handcuffed and led through a door that led to the county jail. >> i wanna say it's a little surreal. >> reporter: and then he was installed in a temporary cell while he awaited a sentence of something like 25 years in prison. >> the thought of spending the next, in essence the rest of my life, in confinement was very difficult to try to process. >> reporter: belinda wasn't in court to hear the verdict, but she certainly did hear about it, and was shocked. >> i was at the gym, and joy, my

attorney, called me and said, "are you sitting down?" because, you know, everybody that knew information they really thought that he was going to be found "not guilty." >> reporter: but she herself, as she told us in a separate interview, didn't know what to think or who to believe. >> i -- i didn't -- i don't know -- hon -- i'm 100% honest, i -- i don't know what i wanted. i really don't. i don't think that there was a verdict either way that would have been what i wanted. >> reporter: certainly wasn't what dwayne cates wanted. how had he so misread that jury? >> i was perplexed. i had no idea how they could have come to that conclusion given what the evidence in the case was. >> reporter: but give up? "no," said rob's attorney, "he could not, would not, do that." still, any chance that a new

chapter would be added to this story was very remote indeed. unless, well we shall see. coming up... dwane cates gets a bold idea. >> that's gotta be such a long shot. >> absolute long shot. she sees more than "mom," she sees determination. we do too. for nearly 40 years, we've designed an education for people just like you. learn more at phoenix.edu. to feel this special... you need to

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>> reporter: it was christmas again.

in lee radder's family, a difficult season ever since what happened during that christmas holiday in 2010. but now rob fischer was a convicted man, and the new york branch felt the kind of consolation that comes with the belief that justice has been done. >> do you think about him a lot? >> about rob fischer? no. i try not to put him in my mind at all because i don't want -- i don't want hate in my system. >> reporter: out west, belinda was a mess of contradictions. and of course she had to tell her daughters. the eldest, then 12, took it hard. couldn't grasp that her papa had killed her father. >> my daughter finally asked me about three days later if the verdict had come back, and i said, "yes." and she just looks at me, and i just started crying. and right then she knew. >> that that was her papa. >> uh-huh. she wants to have a connection

with him, but yet she doesn't wanna talk to him. so i think she struggles with that, and maybe feeling like she's not being loyal to her dad in some way. >> reporter: belinda had been leaning on her father and step mom for support since lee died. her father, jerry dupre, is a psychologist. he loved his son-in-law lee very much, he told us. but he was convinced the jury got it wrong. >> my wife and i are both 30-year clinicians, okay? we knew that lee committed suicide, and we -- from the get-go. >> really? >> yes. >> what made you think so? >> lee was a salesman, and there's a lot of false bravado to that process. a good man, he cared about belinda, he cared about his children, but a lot of false pride. when that collapses, there's nowhere for it to go. >> reporter: which is exactly what defense attorney dwane cates had argued all along. an argument that clearly failed

to persuade the jury, but dwane cates wasn't ready to say uncle. not him. because he was convinced an injustice had been done. >> so what can you do about it? if you believe a jury has reached really the incorrect conclusion, and it's an injustice, what can you do about it? >> well, the first thing i do is file a motion for new trial. >> reporter: so as rob fischer endured clausterphobia and despair in his temporary cell over at the maricopa county jail, cates went to work to try to get the guilty verdict tossed. he had to file his motion ten days after the trial ended. he worked around the clock and straight through the holidays. >> you know this was my christmas vacation. okay? was writing this motion. >> reporter: cates based the motion for a new trial on two central complaints. number one, an allegation of prosecutorial misconduct, accusing the other side of using unfair language during the trial and unfair tactics even before it started.

>> they played hard with the discovery. getting us discovery. getting us notes after i do the interview instead of before the interview. >> they could have been more forthcoming. is that what -- >> yeah, i -- >> you're saying? >> you know, the practice of law doesn't have to be as hard as it was in this case. >> reporter: so there was that. a common complaint though which, frankly, doesn't often go anywhere. but, something else, too. cates argued that the jury's verdict was contrary to weight of the evidence, which is a pretty big deal and also a pretty big stretch. >> the judge can re-weigh the evidence, because the judge was there. the judge got to see all the testimony. got to hear all the witnesses. got to -- got to see everything that happened in the courtroom. >> that's gotta be such a long shot, though, because judges look at jury verdicts all the time and they say, "well, the jury -- you know, they looked at the same evidence, they made their decision and that's the way the law works." >> absolute long shot. >> reporter: cates put it into his motion almost as an afterthought really, hoping against hope that the judge would see what the jury apparently did not -- that the state's blood expert's testimony

didn't add up. dwane cates had been around for quite a while so he knew he was tilting at windmills. appeals of that sort almost never succeed. almost never. >> absolutely. it was a hail mary pass. but i felt confident in it. >> reporter: the prosecutor submitted his own brief, denying any misconduct and standing by the evidence and his case. then -- >> so then what, you sit back and wait? >> absolutely. >> how was rob doing in the mean time? >> rob was in jail, so i don't think rob was doing very well. >> reporter: in his cell, rob fischer, lawyer that he is, figured out the timing of the thing. first the judge would hear the arguments, then spend some time working on her ruling. so that first week, he didn't even think about it. same the second week. it was then rob started to worry. cates would visit him periodically. >> did you get a chance to talk to him much? >> i did. and -- and it was hard. i hated to go see him in jail. >> what had happened to this

man's life? same business as you. successful attorney in a different type of law, but just the same. what had happened to that life of his? >> it was gone. imagine, keith, somebody that -- somebody -- the police walk in the door right now. they put you in handcuffs and they lock you up. and -- and you lose everything. you lose your house, you lose your business, lose your career. it's all gone. boom. in an instant it's all gone. >> reporter: but of course in an instant, lee radder's life was gone, forever. what prison term would atone for that? that was also up to the judge. but from her, as the date for sentencing approached there was not a word. coming up -- >> i'm like, "really? does that happen?"

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>> reporter: as 2014 began, rob fischer was holed up in a cell at the maricopa county jail, waiting and waiting for the judge's ruling on the motion for a new trial. one day at a time through all of january then february. and then, it was the 28th. rob was due in court in a week for his sentencing hearing. and that's when dwane cates came

to call. >> i asked him, you know, "so did we hear anything?" he goes, "well, before we talk about that, let's talk about next friday's hearing." >> i told him that you know, that he's gotta get ready. >> then he looks at me with a big grin and says, "it's not a sentencing hearing, it's a bond hearing." >> because you're gettin out of jail. >> reporter: it was stunning. overwhelming. >> i was ecstatic, i was elated, i was thrilled. >> reporter: and dwane cates felt like he'd just won the lottery. >> it very rarely happens that a judge will step in and on the weigh and reweigh the evidence and say the jury just plain got it wrong. >> reporter: remember, cates made two arguments for a new trial. the first an allegation of prosecutorial misconduct was rejected by the judge. his second argument the total long shot. was that rob's conviction wasn't supported by the evidence.. and what do you know? the long shot the hail mary

succeeded. and caused the judge to throw out the verdict. i'm gonna read a little bit of it here. the detectives' opinion that the defendant staged the scene by manipulating lee's body is not supported by the physical evidence, lacks credibility and is sheer speculation. the dna and fingerprint evidence are completely inconsistent with the verdict. sheer speculation. have you ever heard that from a judge before? >> yes, but -- >> reporter: but -- >> it's nice to hear it when it's, you know, on the other side. i mean and it was sheer speculation. >> reporter: the judge was particularly scathing about the state's blood expert. she said he was guilty of a "fatal flaw" when he tried to decipher those bloody footprints because he wrongly interpreted the prints as facing the opposite direction. and the judge said, all but wagging her finger, that he backtracked and repeatedly provided inconsistent testimony on the stand. >> that was their key witness. i mean that was the key to their case. and -- and he was not credible. >> reporter: and so one chilly night in march 2014, rob fischer

walked out of the county jail and into the arms of his lawyer. the guy who took a chance on the long shot. >> its been a long road, rob's out, he's tired. >> reporter: later, rob fischer told us about those dreary days cooped up in jail. dreary days and worse. you're an ex-cop, which adds to it. >> right. >> reporter: how did that complicate your life? >> well, it they put me in protective custody locked down for 23 hours a day. >> reporter: the judge's ruling that freed rob was a body blow for the prosecutor. and so the state has appealed to a higher court. arizona's cour of appeals, asking it to reinstate the verdict and send rob to prison. lee's new york family is waiting to see what will happen told us the decision is in god's hands and we have to believe that true justice will prevail. and jurors were they unhappy

that their verdict was thrown out? let's say the feelings at least of these three were mixed. >> i was upset at first. >> why do we have a jury in place if she can just overturn our verdict just like that? but also again, she knew more of the story than we did. >> reporter: and one of them, at least. >> i felt a sense of relief because i felt like i had arrived at my conclusion too hastily. >> reporter: belinda radder couldn't get her head around the judge's ruling when she first heard about it. >> i'm like, "really? this -- i mean -- does that happen?" i had never even heard of that. >> reporter: so now belinda is dealing with the second of those two bad options of hers. that her husband did commit suicide. but at least, maybe he wasn't murdered after all. >> i got a text from my dad after he read it. and he just said, "there's no

doubt. rob didn't do this," that lee committed suicide. i guess there's just no denying it now. >> reporter: well, i get it now. it's like you've -- you've been through -- a roller coaster of different kinds of grief, right? >> yeah. >> reporter: and with this kind of grief comes guilt that belinda is trying to work through. >> why didn't i do anything to stop it? what if i had only said this, or if i had only done something to make that different, for him to still be here, for him to know how important and that the money didn't matter. >> reporter: she is also beginning to rebuild her life. the money from the life insurance policy was eventually paid out.

and belinda, a nurse remember, now works with alzheimer's patients. deeply satisfying work she told us. and meanwhile, she hopes, she said, that the relationship with her stepfather, rob will be renewed. do you see your daughters having a relationship with rob in the in the future, or you for that matter? >> i hope so. >> reporter: that's a one step at a time sort of thing. >> yeah. yeah. >> reporter: and rob fischer? he's back in california now, trying, from scratch, to put a new life together and build up a family law practice that imploded and died when he was charged. >> we've lost our home. we are living, you know, at the good graces of close friends. i joke with my wife that it's like we're 17 again and we're startin' over. >> reporter: this time, perhaps, with a slightly less trusting view about the system of justice to which he's devoted his life as a policeman and lawyer.

besides, he is well aware that his personal journey through the justice system may not be over. the arizona court of appeals could still overturn the judge's ruling and send him to prison. and even if the higher court agrees with the judge's ruling, the prosecutor could still come after rob and re-try him. >> the state of arizona's taken two years out of my life and i refuse to let them take any more time. so we are going forward in our life as all this is behind us. >> reporter: as for liz radder, "the grandma from new york", she knows she said that one day she'll get a call from the grand-daughter she hasn't spoken to for so long. >> someday i will. someday i'll when she gets older and understands life, she'll talk to me again. >> reporter: but for now belinda devotes herself to keeping her daughters' memory of their father alive. that big happy fast talking larger than life

man who blew into her life and then left it much too soon. >> we send him birthday cards, we send him father's day cards. they, you know, write 'em up, and we put eight million balloons on 'em so they don't get stuck in the trees, 'cause we had that happen once and they send 'em up to their dad. so yeah, he's still very much alive in our house. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thank you for joining us.

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