that's a decision the campaign hasn't made yet but they're going to have to find a way to tackle newt gingrich. republicans, in the establishment of the republican party that you speak to, are terrified of a newt gingrich campaign. hey believe that he could not only lose the republicans the white house at a time wh this is theirs to take, but that he could also lose some seats in the house and the senate, as well. this is a real concern amongst the establishment. >> romney, the only reason he's the outside is because he keeps running and losing. not that he hasn't trie-- tried to get in. as far as gingrich goes, and bold ideas, i think mark is right on that. i think he gets a bum rap on the child labor thing. that kind of idea is really going to be embraced by the conservative wing, which is what he said in boston was, there were kids in inner city schools who never had a job. and only have one parent and they have no idea what the work ethic is like. toss out some of the high-priced union janitors, which get the conservative base -- >> but are u really saying

that the working poor in this country don't have good role models on how to work hard? >> not the working poor. but these are people who are not working and the kids are not working an this gives a chance for e kids to take a broom, work in the cafeteria. it would require -- >> how do you not see that as a kind of great distortion of what's really happening out there? >> this may excite the conservative base but at the end of the day this race will be decid by independent voters o went two to one in 2008 for president obama. -- >> for the nomination. >> if you're sitting in obama's shoes today and his campaign shoes, it's going to be decided by independents. that kind of language will excite independents and conservatives. but the question is whether or not that translates into a general election victory. >> i was only speaking -- >> i think it excites independents. and i asked mr. axle r0d before if they don't want romney to go, they were exciting the base for romneyhis morning with axelrod's comments and what you were showing about no moral core, et cetera. geez. >> it's become -- it seems tat

in the country the sort of general right has shifted from a ream raising of big government to some extent fears about the middle-class being squeezed and problems of inequality. and i think in that context, newt gingrich's comments about the working poor, and poor kids who can only find work if it's illegal, come across as the wrong tone in the country at the moment. thas not where america is at the moment. >> it's what's in people's minds. it would be different -- if people were saying gosh, what are we going to do about this issue? i applaud him for talking about poverty and issues that affect poor people. if that's the answer, if he's the nominee, democrats are strengthened and emboldened, and your point, democrats will win back seats in the senate and may even take the house. >> when we come back, talk about mi romney andome of his difficulties on the campaign [ male announcer ] your hard work has paid off. and you want to pass along as much as possible to future generations. at northern trust, we know what works and what doesn't. as one of the nation's largest wealth managers,

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being questioned by fox news, as we look at the new hampshire poll, with milt romney on top, gingrich at 24%. but this was the major moment for romney being questioned by fox news about flip-flops in his past. watch. >> like the "union leader," your critics charge that you make decisions based on political expediency, and not core conviction. you have been on the both sides of some issues. and there's videotape of you going back years speaking about different issues, climate change, abortion, immigration, gay rights. how can voters trust what they hear from you today is what you will believe if you win the white house? >> well, brett, your list is just not accurate. so, one we're going to have to be better informed about my views on issues. >> do you believe that that was the right thing for massachusetts? do you think a mandate, mandating people to buy insurance, is the right tool?

>> brett, i don't kno how many hundred times i've said this, too. this is an unusual interview. all right, let's do it again. absolutely. >> mark halperin, he's uncomfortable there. >> my simple view of presidential politics. you win when you're controlling your public image and you lose when your public image is a negative. he had a horrible week, not just that interview. but in general he is being characterized as an unprincipaled flip-flopper by joe's paper, by implication -- >> your magazine. >> and the cover of "time," and the cover of "the new york times" magazine. this is his problem to winning the nomination. i think if it's a long fight between him and gingrich and others, i think he'll win. he's got the best organization, the most money, they're on the ballot everywhere, et cetera. if this is a quick strike by newt gingrich, winning iowa, winning new hampshire, or south carolina and florida, the establishment, in the past, would rally to romney. the establishment has no great love for him. they look at that interview and panic and say yes, we don't want newt gingrich at the top of the

ticket, but look at mitt romney. we don't want him, either. he's got to gain back control of his image and be seen as being other than an unprincipled flip-flopper. >> joe, you took a swipe at him as telling him someone who wants to tell you what you want to hear. >> without naming him. but i guess it wasn't that subtle. >> even i got it. >> we had to go back into the files like you guys do on "meet the ess" to whack him this morning. we have a cartoon running of him running aog sled, and he's telling the dog sled, go left, go rit, go left, go right. actually it's not him, it's his father from 1968. he had the same problem of going back and forth. i think the brett behr interview was just a killer from him. he's back on his heels. katty is right. his team has to make the decision what to do with gingrich. because it could really change if iowa or new hampshire don't go for m. >> it's interesting. to some extent you could level similar charges against newt gingrich, that he has changed positions on health care, education, he did that ad with

nancy pelosi on the environment, on climate change. and yet, he -- newt gingrich seems to be immune to these charges. and i think it's, you know, a reflection of how dissatisfied, clearly, the conservative base is with mitt romney. but he has -- newt gingrich has similar issues in his own past but the base ses to be in a curiously willing mood to forgive him those transgressions. >> immigration is one of those issues and last sunday we played a clip from mitt romney on this program in 2007. his advisers were concerned about that. they thought that weidn't show the full context, which shows consisncy, in their view, on that issue. i want to go back on this issue of what to do with illegal immigrants in the country, and mitt romney's -- the full answer to that questn, or at least the full sentence as he was asked about it in 2007 about tim russert. watch. >> those people who have come here illegally, and are in this country, the 12 million or so that are here illegally, should be able to sign up for permanent residency or citizenship.

but they should not be given a special pathway, a special guarantee that all of them get to stay here. for the rest of their lives. merely by virtue of having come here illegally. and that, i think, is the great flaw in the final bill that came forward from the senate. >> but they shouldn't have to go home? >> well, whether they suld go home -- they should go home eventually. in my view, they should have a set period ring which period they sign up for application for permanent residency, or -- or for a citizenship. but there's a set period. whereupon they should return home. >> the question for everybody, is he not consistent, as his team points out, that the fault line in that debate is, whether you should be somehow rewarded for being here illegally? he is saying, then, no. and he says no now. >> i think he's probably where a lot of americans are. i don't know what he's been all over on some issues and all. i have to tell you, i don't think that the american people will punish a candidate for any

high office who, he or she, has matured and thought differently about issues. i'm an exempt am of it. i was opposed to marriage equality three years ago. i have a different opinion on it now because my wife has helped me understand the issue. i've listened to the public dialogue. i was for certain aspects of abortion. i'm now against certain aspects of abortion after learning more about the issue and have been able to explain it. his fundamental problem is that it looks as if it's all motivated by politics. if romney cannot exchain some of these shifts or changes in opinion based on different thought processes, fundamentally rethinking and understanding it, if it's only interpreted political exz ped yensy, he will lose. >> quickly on immigration, is he vulnerable or not? >> in the context of running against newt gingrich i don't think he's vulnerable. gingrich is to his left, whatever romney's actual position is. i think if he's the nominee he may be losing the general election right now because he's been acting as a hard-liner on immigration and the hispanic community does not like it and a

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hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils and that's a huge breakthrough. that's good for our country's energy security and our economy. our final moments, we talked to david axelrod, senior campaign adviser, earlier in the program. he's for the president, of crse, talking about mitt romney and this claim that they've made that he has no core. watch. >> when it comes to his public character, he -- he doesn't have a core. it -- it has nothing to do with his personal life. i honor hispersonal life. i respect his personal life. but this is about how you behave in the public arena. >> but you -- >> obama's getting ready to go negative pretty hard, and pretty personal? >> no matter who is in for republican, they will. mitt romney is a man who has let others define him. the white house has done a very aggressive job. republicans against him are doing a good job.

gingrich will do an aggressive job. it's a real allenge for romney to figure out how to get through this process stronger rather than weaker. >> of course republicans are coming after obama pretty hard, too. to our trend tracker. look what's trending this morning,s you might expect, gingrich topping the iowa polls, as we've talked about. the cain story. and the huckabee forum with republican candidates. overnight. the economy, as well, is such a huge issue. the president's talking about it, and the impact of europe is still a big drain on this economy. >> right, it's not on your trend tracker, david. but if europe falls apart there will be a major impact on markets, on confidence. there will be a big impact on american banks, and a big impact on american exports to euroe. this is something that is outside of the white house's control. but it threatens to seriously impact the 2012 election campaign. they're sending tim geithner to europe this week to try to talk tough to european leaders. but coming from a country that isn't actually able to get much done politically itself, it's kind of hard to say to europeans,ou've got to get your political house in order. >> all right. we'll be watching all of that.

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it all seemed like such a bad nightmare. >> a young mother went for a run and vanished. later, strangled, dumped in a drainage ditch. >> we had a homicide.

we got no suspects. >> who would want her dead? >> i asked him point blank, what have you done? >> her husband did have an affair with her best friend. >> it took place near her home in the closet of the master bedroom. >> a bad marriage. was it murder? finally, on a computer map, one crucial clue. >> it's the most pointed piece of premeditation. >> what happened to nancy the day she disappeared? >> thanks for joining us. i'm lester holt. this story involves a young mother who disappeared one morning. her husband said she went for a run and never came home. it was a puzzling case. it happened in a safe suburban neighborhood. the kind of place where crime had is unexpected. even more unexpected, the tiny clue, buried in a computer that unlocked the mystery. here's keith morrison.

captions paid for by nbc-universal television nothing about that morning made any sense. >> it seemed like such a bad nightmare. this doesn't happen in our happy little world. >> it was a saturday morning in july. the happy little world of sweet and leafy suburb of raleigh, north carolina. a place a young family would aspire to if you were someone like hanna pritchard, for example. >> there's always lots of friend making going on through someone you meet. lots of cookouts and family functions. >> like the one in the neighborhood the night before. so hanna would have heard party stories from her friend nancy cooper. would have. because nancy didn't show up. >> i hadn't heard from her maybe

by like 10:00, i called her house. brad answered and he said, she went for a run. >> nancy was an athlete. had been training for a half marathon. brad cooper was nancy's husband. >> okay, when did she leave? and he told me, i don't know. 6:30 or 7:00. he was like, she's not back? >> weird. if nancy had to cancel their meeting, surely she would have called. hanna cooled her heels. >> at 1:00, the phone rang. and i saw on the caller i.d. it was her house. hey, where have you been? he said no, hanna, it's brad. nancy is still not back. >> now brad was worried. >> so i really started to panic. >> especially when she learned nancy had also stood up another of their friends. they called the local hospitals. no sign of nancy. they called nancy's twin sister krista up in canada. have you talked to her yet?

she went for a run. she hasn't returned and we're very worried about her. can you call us back? >> you know about this kind of stuff. >> you would think. >> krista calls her older brother jeff who is a police officer in edmonton, alberta. >> my first reaction was, okay, she's somewhere. we just need some space or some time. she'll turn up. >> when nancy's parents, gary and donna, heard she was missing they were gripped by something dark and cold. >> gary said to me, donna, this story is not going to have a happy ending of. >> by afternoon, the police were involved. >> all i was told on the phone was that it was a missing persons. >> when detective george daniels arrived, nancy's neighborhood was already filling up with the small army of her panicked friends. nancy's family rushed to cary to join in the search. her husband made a public plea for help. >> if anyone knows anything, i want them to could not tack police with any information they

may have. and thank you to everyone that continues to come out and help out. >> sir, do you have a flier? >> volunteers chased up and down the running trails where she loved to train. they combed the surrounding parks and lakes and woods. but this woman they had grown to love since she and brad moved down from canada. >> the capacity to make her always rather large group of friends feel at home. >> when she walked into a room, that's where people wanted to be. >> she and brad were like a lot of people in cary. having raised their family here and started in another place and time. in their case, calgary, canada. that's where they met back in '98. >> i really liked it. >> as did nancy's younger sister jill. >> this is someone who is warm. genuinely you saw how much he cared for her. >> so brad became a helpful member of the family.

even designed the computer systems. >> they would say i want to meet the guy who did this. he was kind of a legend. >> he was so good that cisco systems invited him to move to raleigh and work for the company. smart guy. >> smart guy. yes. mensa or close, i would say. >> if nancy were to go with him to america, for immigration reasons they had to be married. so in the fall of 2000 they said their vows, an intimate family affair. >> how did she feel about going to north carolina? >> she was a little apprehensive at first. lots of tears at the airport. fear of the unknown a little bit but i think she was excited. >> and a few years later there were two bmws in the driveway, nancy had a vast circle of friends. and brad, a bright future at cisco where he would become an expert in the marriage of internet technology and telephones. one of just 152 such experts in the whole world. best of all, two little girls, bella, born in 2004, katy, two

years later. >> the best mother i've ever seen. she played and played and played. she was so hands-on. >> and now they were putting up missing posters. sunday went by, all day monday. then monday evening someone called 911. >> as the chief of the cary police department, it is my very sad duty to tell you that our search for nancy is over. >> it was a man his dog who found her. lying face down in water at the edge of a storm drain near a housing construction site several miles from the coomer home. >> our investigation is now a homicide. >> now they had to say goodbye. it was a measure of the woman that total strangers joined nancy's family and friends to share in the sorrow. >> i continue to thank a community for the generosity and support. it is overwhelming.

i am one of the luckiest people in the world. i'm a twin. sorry. i have a bond with nancy that no one in the world has. all i have to do to remember her is to look in the mirror. she will always be half of me. nancy, i love you and i always will. >> now of course a homicide investigation was underway. but for detective george daniels, only this could go on. she was strangled. wearing only a sports bra and her diamond stud earrings. no marks on her body to indicate a beating. no struggle, no sign of sexual assault, a rob robbery, it was a puzzle that landed in his lap. >> she wasn't raped or assaulted in any way.

the earrings weren't taken. what was the reason for her to be over here? and then what was the reason for them to do this if nothing was done to her? >> police soon discover possible reasons and a reality much grimmer than the smiling facade. >> she said to me, i don't know what i'm going to do. >> what did happen the day she disappeared? man: my electric bill was breaking the bank.

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home. but why? there were no signs of rape or robbery or that any struggle had occurred. >> we start going back to where we started at saying, okay, let's look at everything again. >> there were reports from people who said they saw a woman who look like nancy running that saturday morning. one man said he watched her for a good 30 seconds, then saw a van make a u-turn to follow her. and there were other report of mysterious vans. friday night, one sped away from a cul-de-sac with no lights on. could any of this be tied to her killer? >> we're not away from anything at this point. everything becomes important. >> like the conversations with nancy's husband brad that weekend of the search. he said they were up until 4:00 a.m. to calm their crying 2-year-old, katie. then he made two trips to the grocery store after which nancy announced she was off to run. >> of course we went to find the video records of him going in and out of the store which we

did in fact find. >> but one of those talks struck detective daniels as odd. when he asked him, did you contact nancy's family? >> he told us no. but it could be because he's frantic about the situation and didn't have time to call them. >> then a little more talking and the detective learned there may have been another reason altogether. nancy and brad were having marital problems. >> he told me the last few months it sealed like they were getting better. when i asked him why, he told me that he had had an affair. >> so daniel tucked that i had the bit away and went on with the search for nancy. but after her body was found, things were different. the cooper house became a crime scene. police in and out, turning the place upside down and daniels kept his ears open. because among nancy's friends and family, people were certainly talking. >> we're getting all this information and we're having to separate what is important versus what's just part of a marriage. >> brad, remember, told

detective daniels that they were getting past the tension his affair had caused but that wasn't quite the story he was hearing from nancy's family and friends. >> she felt very trapped and she did not know what she was going to do. >> the marriage, it turned out had been rocky from the start. brad seemed more married to his job than to nancy. then in the spring of 2007, nancy's close friend heather told her she had slept with brad. so nancy confronted her husband. >> she just wanted the truth so they could fix it and go on. >> and he said that didn't happen. >> for a very long time. >> me and her feel bad about thinking that it happened. >> until months later, it was new years eve day when brad finally came clean. yes, he told nancy, it happened. but he said only once and really it meant nothing. so they went to counseling and that's when nancy heard what she said was the real story. >> brad said to the counsellor, it has been going on for a long time. changes again from this one

night stand to i love the woman. so nancy came away from that and said i'm finished. >> they agreed to split. sell the house. nancy would move back to canada with the girls. then suddenly brad canceled nancy's credit cards, blocked her access to the bank accounts. put her on a cash allowance. >> i recall a time she was in the car with me and she called him and said, you know, i've got $2 and we don't have any diapers. >> nancy couldn't get a job. she had no green card. she began painting a friend's house to earn some extra money. and when she did, brad reduced her allowance. >> she must have been just furious at him. >> furious would be an understatement. >> we tried to help her and she was very proud. she felt guilty. i'm not going to take your money. no, this isn't your job to support me and my kids. >> nancy began locking important papers including the girls' passports in her car. >> i went down in february in

2008 and it was awful. i had never seen nancy stressed out before. i had never seen her raise her voice in the house. she was just miserable. >> miserable, stressed, each day uncertain. a painful struggle, an angry contest. >> she said this is just, i think, a game to show me how difficult it will be. his attempt to force me back into this relationship. >> then as nancy was preparing to move back to canada and with brad's blessing take the girls, one of those moments on which lives can turn. the arrival from nancy's lawyer of a proposed separation agreement. alimony, child support, private schools for the girls. brad would have to travel to canada for his twice monthly visits. he made no downer offer. just told nancy the move was off. >> he saw what he was going to have to pay and all bets are off. >> and then brad got a hold of the girls' passports. found them in nancy's car.

now they couldn't leave and nancy was trap, too. >> but as the father, it is his perfect right to prevent those kids from leaving. >> yes. it is also a way to say if i'm doing half the childcare, then i'm not going to have an alimony issue. >> to get her away from her troubles, nancy's family took her and the girls on vacation. >> how was it at the end when you had to say goodbye? >> heart breaking. i had nancy in my arms in the airport in charlotte. she was sobbing. and she said, mom, i just want to come home. and i'll never forget that day. >> it was the last time they saw her alive. now that she was dead, nancy's family was sured brad had to be involved somehow. but detective daniels knew that the demise of a marriage, bitter though it may have been, did not prove murder. there was a lot more work to do.

>> we should go back and key on the husband. things like that. and we won't walk away from that. at the same time, we're letting the investigation lead us wherever it goes. >> coming up, brad cooper comes clean about his affair with nancy's best friend. >> it took place

in the days after nancy cooper's murder, the police chief in north carolina tried to calm her jittery town. but her message was, well, curious. it seemed to imply the officers knew something more than they were revealing. >> we still believe this is an isolated case. cary continues to be one of the safest places to live in the nation. >> isolated?

how could she know? >> we still have not named a suspect or a person of interest. >> oh, but nancy's family had. the very day krista learned her twin sister was missing, she called brad. >> i asked him point blank at that point, what have you done? where is she? >> she didn't wait for an answer. she hung up the phone. then the day after nancy's body was identified, her family went to court to try to get those two little girls away from brad. >> 1:00 in the afternoon, we had papers in the judge's hand for temporary custody of nancy's children. >> the family acted so fast because according to their complaint, brad's behavior was so disturbing. before she disappeared, they had seen emotional abuse. and they were sure she never went jogging on july 12th. and then after she went missing -- >> he was very stand off-ish and aloof with the family and he didn't contact anybody.

he didn't want anybody around, didn't want any help. it was strange enough to be larling. >> so they feared for bella and katie's safety. >> did you think they were in danger, too? >> if he's in a place that he could do this, that he would bring harm to the kids, the answer to that was absolutely. >> awe million conversations. are we sure that this happened? that at the end of the day you have to live with the fact that if we're wrong, this is way over the line, we did it for the right reasons. as a family, we decided we're going to take that step over the line. >> there was an emergency hearing and the judge determined that the intense scrutiny brad was likely to face during a murder investigation put the children at risk. in late july, the girls went back to canada to live with krista know their slain mother's twin, and heavy husband. >> we are kind of in a hurry. >> but brad, remember, had not been charged with a crime and was not a declared suspect and he fought hard to get his

daughters back. which men three months after nancy's murder, sitting for a videotaped deposition in which brad answered questions under oath about his marriage, his affair and what happened the morning nancy disappeared. were police investigators listening? oh, yes, they were. >> was nancy a good wife? >> i would say so, yes. she was supportive of myself and of the children. very loving and generous. >> but there were two issues. the trouble the cooper's marriage. one was money. the couple had serious debts. >> this last week i looked at the american express card from january 2007 to december 2007. and of that, $27,000 was accredited to nancy's credit card. and mine was $17,000. of that, i think $3,000 or $4,000 was part of our monthly bills. >> it was to rein in nancy's

spending that he put her on a cash allowance. >> how much cash? >> at least $300. >> but nancy said brad was angry that they didn't have more money to spend. >> she referred to me as the budget nazi. i'm sure she's probably said that once or twice in heated conversations. >> the other issue? brad's sexual relationship with nancy's best friend heather. the issue which finally brought the marriage to an end. he called it his indiscretion. >> i had sexual intercourse with heather once. >> it happened sometime in the end of 2004, early 2005, he said. >> where did this sexual intercourse take place? >> it took place in our home, in the closet of the master bedroom. >> did you initially deny the relationship? >> yes, i initially denied it for approximately one year. >> why? >> i thought that if by denying it, it would go away and we could remain as a whole family. >> but when it became time for

the family to split, brad said he found the monthly terms of the proposed separation agreement unreasonable. >> child support, medical, private school, extra activities, kind of added it up. and i ball parked it at over $5,000 tompb 6,000. >> he also explained why he called off nancy's move back to canada. >> i realized that seeing the girls every other weekend would not be sufficient. >> and brad gave his account of the hours before nancy went missing. they were at a party across the street friday night. he left about 8:00 p.m. got the girls ready for bed. >> my girls fell asleep at 9:00 p.m. i probably fell asleep soon after. >> he was awakened at 12:30 when nancy came home. >> when she opened the front door and i heard her come upstairs. >> he was awakened by katie's crying. he took her downstairs, followed by nancy 20 minutes later. ? we tag teamed off and on, trying to keep her calmed down.

>> brad said he made two trips to the store that morning. on the second trip, nancy called hill, he said. he remembers being at an intersection when the call came in. >> do you know what time that would have been? >> i think looking at the cell phone records, i think it said 6:40 a.m. >> when he came back from the store the second time, katie had calmed down, he said, and nancy told brad she was going for a run. >> i took katie upstairs. went in front of my computer. read some e-mails with katie in my lap. >> then around 7:00, he said, nancy left. >> how do you know that she left the home? >> i'm not sure if she said goodbye. either way, somehow i knew she left. the door closed or she said later or something. >> that, he said, was the last time he saw her. three weeks after this deposition, three months after nancy's body was found, in late october, brad cooper was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. so was it something he said?

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he was just the right sort of guy when she found him. bright, quiet, stable. this computer genius so skilled, a multinational powerhouse had sought him out. and now brad cooper was on trial for murder. >> at this time we are ready to

have the opening statements. >> it began this past march, two and a half years after nancy's etss dd. >> nancy cooper never went for a run from her house on july 12th of 2008. >> the prosecutors had their own idea of what happened to nancy, beginning the night before she disappeared. >> we think that she came home from this party and she had said some things in front of him that might have upset him a little bit. and that he choke her, killed her then. >> the theory goes, put her body in the trunk of the car, drove her to that drainage ditch, returned home to manufacture an alibi. why? they started with that shredded marriage, brad's affair. cutting her off financially, stop her move back to canada. she was, nancy friends, said increasingly desperate. >> she said he's breaking me. i don't know how much i have left to fight.

>> she told me when she leapt at night, she slept with her jeans on and the keys in her pocket with the children and the door locked. >> he never beat her. it wasn't physical, said the prosecutors. but he used financial power to exert absolute control. this, they said, was a form of domestic violence. >> she is in this abrasive, rough relationship at that point. he trapped her. he controlled everything about her life. >> wait a minute. nancy's allowance was $300 a week. would a jury think that was evidence of abuse? how do you tell a jury that he's depriving her? >> it is difficult. the facts still remain that there are these signs of control emanating from that cooper household. >> it doesn't matter whether it is a thousand dollars a week or $10 a week. the fact of the matter is that it caused friction between the two of them. >> so the jury heard about that last week of nancy's life. the week of war with brad. but nancy's father on the stand,

prosecutors played the phone message nancy left her parents after she returned home from that vacation with her family. >> on the table, i'm so furious. >> as that last week went on, the fighting escalated. on the friday, the friend testified, nancy was shaking with ang where she revealed brad withheld her allowance that day because she earned her own money painting a friend's house. >> did she tell what you kind of day this was? >> this was an i hate brad day. she said that at least three times that day. she said i hate you, brad cooper, i hate you, i hate you, i hate you. >> describe her demeanor for us, if you would. >> she clenched her fists and spat the words out. >> diana lived across the street. it was her party that friday at which she and brad fought openly. >> her tone at that point was angry but there was a tone of,

you're an idiot. >> brad went home with the girls around 8:00. nancy stayed. on bitterly complaining about brad, even to strangers, like donna lopez. and once in a while said donna, nancy nervously looked across the street to her own house. >> how did you feel when you left that night? >> i was very worried for someone who i didn't know well. i thought i had met someone really, really nice and i told my husband, something bad is going to happen over there. it's really sad. >> so when nancy disappeared, her friend's eyes all turned to brad. after all, they knew about the conflict and jessica adam knew nancy was supposed to be at her house that saturday that 8:00 a.m. to pain. when nancy didn't show up, she called the police. >> i was very concerned. i had seen brad in my house and he was agitated that week. related to the painting.

>> a marriage gone bad is hardly proof of murder. nor was brad's conspicuous absence from her memorial service, nor his apparent lack of interest or cooperation as the police continued in the murder investigation. these were suspicions but there was no physical evidence linking brad to the crime. the prosecutor would say it was because he cleaned the house. he covered his tracks well. but there it was. so what was the best evidence against brad? ironic, perhaps, given the defendant's particular expertise. ? we knew we had this fabricated alibi we needed to address. >> the issue was that phone call the morning nancy disappeared. brad's cell phone registered a call from home at 6:40 a.m. when he went back to the store. proof, surely, that nancy was alive at 6:40. unless, that is, unless brad placed the call himself.

brad is a world class expert in international phone technology. >> if anyone could do that, it was the defendant. ultimately, he had the potential to make that phone call. >> in testimony that was frankly mindnumbing -- >> that leverages something called tapping or j-tapping. this morning on "early today," pole position. now that gop front-runner herman cain is out of the presidential race, who is surging? pricey pileup, a chain reaction crash of sports cars that may be one of the most costly on record. and shiver me timber. pirates show off their skills in the national walk the plank pirates show off their skills in the national walk the plank contest. captions paid for by nbc-universal television hello and good morning.