one of our moms was gone. her kids needed her, and we and our kids needed to know that if someone's mom is missing, people are going to work hard to find her. >> paige was a soccer mom who knew how to kick it up a notch. >> stunningly beautiful. almost a little bit intimidating at first. >> then she vanished. >> i said if she's missing, you're dealing with a crime. she never would have not come home to her children. >> two men became immediate suspects. her first husband. >> he was the last person who spoke to her. >> and her second. >> she said that she was afraid

of him. >> was it one of her exes or was there someone else who would want to harm paige? turns out this mother of three had a double life. >> she was fooling so many people that were close to her. >> a parallel existence where paige went by "carrie" and carrie took risks. >> quite obviously it's dangerous. >> had that danger turned deadly? to uncover the truth, they would comb miles of desert and every inch of one woman's complicated past. >> we were trying to find her and we weren't going to stop until we found the truth. >> i'm lester holt, and this is "dateline." here's keith morrison with "the secret life of a soccer mom." >> reporter: the news spread like the morning sun across grand junction in the high desert on colorado's western fringe.

as inexplicable and frightening as the burned car, the tossed wallet, the vanishing. it was june 28, 2007. over the mountains, in denver, four hours away, frank birgfeld was driving to his office. phone rang. >> voice on the phone says, this is somebody with the mesa county sheriff's office. and he said, are you paige's dad? and i said, yep. and he said, did you know she's missing? >> reporter: barbra campbell got the call from her husband, hans, who told her. >> paige is missing. what do you mean she's missing? >> reporter: andrea land got the news in an e-mail. >> it said paige is missing in the subject line. i knew something horrible had to have happened because it didn't make any sense that she would be missing. >> reporter: no way for even a best friend to prepare for such a thing. nor any way to understand just how much of it was going to be a mystery. how much they did not, could not

know about the life and disappearance of paige birgfeld. or what they'd be called on to do to bring her home. >> stunningly beautiful. one of those women that was almost a little bit intimidating at first if you were, you know, your more average mom. >> reporter: andrea land and the other young mothers of grand junction could have been forgiven for feeling a little envy. paige had the look, the money, the big house on the hill, three attractive kids. but no, it wasn't like that. not at all. >> the way she talked, the way she acted, the way she treated you, everything about her was just so wonderful. ♪ taking care of kids now every day ♪ >> reporter: barbra campbell and andrea and paige were members of grand junction's mom's club international, kind of a social and support group for young, stay-at-home moms. >> woo!

>> reporter: once a year they'd throw a spring fling, a sort of put-on prom for moms. what with fancy clothes, red carpet entry and a pretend reporter throwing fashion questions. >> tell us who you're wearing. >> reporter: paige was always the star, of course, and this year the party was held at her home, which made it a very special event. >> most of us did not live in a home that large. she was just so down-to-earth and humble about it that once you got over the artwork on the walls and how, you know, beautiful home it was you almost forgot that you were in this really very high-end home. >> so the winner is -- drum roll, please -- paige birgfeld. >> she was so comfortable hosting people that made it made anybody there feel comfortable. sometimes you meet someone and you just instantly have a good feeling about them. you're going to be friends with them. it's just going to be an instant

match. that's what i had with paige. >> reporter: and then that call. the sheriff told the birgfelds that after meeting a friend on thursday afternoon paige simply didn't come home. leaving her three children alone with a baby-sitter. as they drove from denver to grand junction, paige's parents tried to understand what was happening. >> well, as we started out, i don't know that i was very tense or i thought of the worst. i guess, gee, i wonder where she is. i hope she's -- but as the drive went on, it became more and more anxious, more and more tight, more and more. >> and i would be calling the kids on the home phone just saying, we're going to be there, you know, and trying to sound reassuring. >> reporter: the kids were alone because their father was long gone by then.

rob dixon had once been an emergency medical technician but had stumbled into some sort of family fortune whispered to be worth millions, drove a yellow ferrari. in a town full of pickup trucks. but money that comes easy can also leave that way. in rob's case, according to paige's dad, one bad investment after another. >> when you're a big deal, when you're flying high, when you're a big guy around town and you go from there, the drop is a long, long way. >> reporter: and so money problems led to marriage problems. and paige and rob divorced, and he moved out of state and started working as an emt again while paige did her best to maintain the status quo for the three kids. kept them in their huge house with the mortgage to match, close to six grand a month. >> it had a gigantic mortgage.

and she was trying to hang on to keep the kids in that place. >> she would just sit and ponder how can a single mom with three kids make enough money to stay in the house that her husband used to support? >> reporter: paige launched several businesses, sold cooking products for a company called the pampered chef and slings for carrying babies. and she taught dancing classes for little kids. anything to turn a buck. >> i have to tell you, entrepreneur wise, she was innovative. >> she just tried to keep her mind open to anything that would allow her a flexible schedule to still be with her kids and keep them at home. >> reporter: divorced woman. three kids. a heavily mortgaged house. first question, was there a chance paige birgfeld simply walked out on her life? >> we talked about, boy, sometimes i just want to run away. and she said, you know, i never feel that way.

i never want to run away. even if i did want to run away just to get away from here, i'd want to take my kids with me. >> there was no way she would leave without her children. they were her life. >> if she needed to hide, she would have found a way to do it with them. >> reporter: so what, then? what happened to paige? her friends, her parents didn't know what to do or where to look. and then, it was the morning of the third day. another phone call. somebody found paige's car. >> and it clearly had been burned. >> the discovery of the torched car was a disturbing clue, but it hardly answered the question of what had happened to paige. when we return, one of the last to see paige was her first husband. turns out, their relationship was anything but ancient history. >> women know when another woman is suddenly in love with somebody. you could tell.

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sunday night, the 1st of july. the grand junction fire department was called to an industrial parking lot. a little red car was on fire. by the time they got there whatever was inside was ash. frank birgfeld heard about it next morning, roared over there, and it was hers. it was paige's car. that morning frank gave the first of what would be many, many interviews. >> paige virtually vanished thursday night.

certainly this isn't a situation where paige left on her on volition. it would never would have happened and all her friends would quickly say that. so something has happened. while we don't know what, we were hopeful when we found the car things would fall into place, and maybe they will. >> reporter: this interview, though, was one frank just couldn't get through. >> you know, it occurred to me i haven't cried in a long time. i've learned how to do that. >> reporter: and it wouldn't be the last time. but it was the beginning of something, a father's journey to bring his lost daughter home. the last person known to have seen paige the day she disappeared was a new love interest who was actually an old love interest. her first husband ron beigler. >> he adored her. they had dated her last year of high school. >> reporter: she dropped out of

college to marry him. >> and he wrote her poetry. if anyone wants to know the path to a woman's heart. and he's very sweet but shy. >> reporter: did you like him? what did you think of him? >> we did. but he was not a wage earner. >> he had made the statement somewhere along the line he thought he had married up. and he probably did. >> reporter: their marriage came undone pretty quickly. but now, a decade later, after her divorce from the once-wealthy rob dixon, paige started seeing ron beigler again. >> women know when another woman is, you know, suddenly in love with somebody. and you could tell that she was, you know, in love and giddy and happy. >> reporter: in fact, she was with ron beigler just hours before she vanished. with him all day. biegler spoke to us in 2007 soon

after paige's disappearance. >> we were sitting outside down by the river. it was very familiar. and, you know, i brought some pictures. you know. and we just sat there and relaxed and enjoyed the day and the weather. >> reporter: and that night, after their romantic picnic -- >> she called me before i got home to see if i made it back into denver. and then we had a brief conversation, you know, not too brief, but -- and i expected to hear from her later that night after she got home. >> reporter: instead, silence. and when he called her next morning, friday, his call went to voice mail. >> hello. you've reached the home offices for brain dance, pampered chef and maya wrap baby slings. please leave a message and i'll get back to you within the next few days. >> reporter: he called again and again, he said, ever more worried. next morning saturday he called the sheriff's department.

and four days after paige vanished, the search was on as volunteers turned a family's chaotic tragedy into a community project. paige's dad was there every day greeting a small army of volunteers. >> thanks for helping us. >> reporter: an outpouring of support that was, for frank, simply overwhelming. >> you know it's just really tough. for people to give of themselves to that degree, i just -- >> reporter: paige's 8-year-old daughter, eager to sticks for volunteers like barbra campbell. >> when we were first told that we could help with the searches it seemed strange. just didn't make sense what we were doing. was there a reality that we hadn't accepted possibly? >> reporter: they were desperate to find her. and they dreaded what they might

find. >> one of our moms was gone. and her kids needed her, and we needed our friend. and our kids needed to know that if someone's mom is missing, that people are going to work hard to find her. >> reporter: and then, days in and miles away, a driver pulled off the road on lonely stretch of highway 50 south of grand junction to check his tire pressure. and as he stepped out of his truck, a piece of litter caught his eye. it was a blank check trapped in the roadside weeds. the name on it? paige birgfeld. coming up -- as the search continues, the focus shifts to paige's second husband. >> she said that she had to call the police a few times and that she was afraid of him.

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it was a pure fluke that the truck driver stopped to check his tires at the very spot be lying near an isolated stretch of highway. and the driver just happened to see it. no fluke what happened next though. one of the sudden flock of searchers who descended along that road was paige's good friend andrea land. >> making my way back west along >> reporter: one of paige's checkbooks. >> and it just hit us like a ton of bricks. it was an awful feeling of dread, thinking how did this get

here? why is it here? what does it mean? >> reporter: so was paige's abductor just sloppily getting rid of evidence or was he trying to mislead searchers or did paige herself toss the contents of her purse out the window like a trail of so many breadcrumbs? so the search continued, on horseback, on atvs, on foot. they peered under bushes. they walked miles of desert brush in 100-degree heat. they dragged the murky gunnison river through the canyon floor. nothing. during a short break in the search frank showed us a little sanctuary paige had built amid a stand of cottonwoods near her house. >> this is kind of life where it just stopped. it just stopped, and she vanished. >> reporter: then one day, said frank, he suddenly thought there she is. thought he'd spotted paige, shaded by the trees, playing

with her children. >> and then i realized it was my daughter-in-law and her son. so you just all of a sudden plunge when you go from it was a dream to, boom, she's not here. >> reporter: paige's most recent ex-husband, rob dixon, came back to town to look after the kids and help out with the search. and his reappearance stopped volunteers in their tracks. because of the stories paige told while they were married, many thought him the most obvious suspect. >> he was always screaming and yelling and using bad language. it was very psychologically demeaning and difficult for her. >> she said that she had to call the police a few times, and that she was afraid of him. >> at one of the birthday parties rob actually started to blow up on her and just got

really upset with her. some problem with the internet. i said, if he gets that upset over something that minor in his life, i can't imagine how he gets if something actually really makes him mad. >> reporter: in the fall of 2004, during the dark days of the couple's financial collapse, paige called 911. >> 911, where is your emergency? >> my husband and i were in a fight, and he was supposed to watch my children while i went to work. and he said that i would come home and find them all murdered. >> reporter: police were dispatched but apparently found no crime had been committed because no charges were ever filed. attorney scott robinson represented rob dixon in the months right after paige's disappearance. >> the physical evidence made clear that what paige said happened simply did not happen. >> reporter: that is not what paige's friend barbra campbell believed, not after this.

>> she said that she knew that rob was coming back and that he was going to do something. and i was floored. i thought -- >> reporter: that must have been very strange to hear that. >> it was a staggering conversation. and a couple days later she was missing. >> reporter: phone records indicated dixon called paige at 7:42 p.m. the night she disappeared. didn't look good to paige's friends. but, whoever took paige could not have been rob dixon. couldn't have been. because that phone call at 7:42 p.m. pinged off a cell tower in philadelphia, 2,000 miles away. with rob dixon in the clear, what about paige's first husband ron beigler? >> he was actually the last person who spoke to her. >> reporter: dan rubinstein is a prosecutor with the mesa county

district attorney's office. >> so obviously, an ex-husband you want to look at. >> reporter: but when he last spoke to paige at 8:57 p.m., beigler was in denver, a four-hour drive away. >> we got a lot of information from him, and we were able to eliminate him as a suspect fairly early on. >> reporter: beigler told detectives everything he knew about paige, including what she told him she was going to do after that picnic of theirs. a secret late-night business trip. business trip? well, investigators couldn't find paige birgfeld, but they found her secrets. that business of hers was about to rock the whole town. coming up -- a revelation that would blow the case and the suspect list wide open. >> paige was living a double life. >> and then investigators recover paige's date book and an

unnerving clue. >> the four days surrounding her disappearance were pulled ouy planner. e in return. ♪ usaa. we know what it means to serve. get an auto insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life. when i'm out in the hot sun, i know how to hydrate on the inside. but what about my skin? coppertone sport sunscreen puts a breathable layer on your skin to help keep it hydrated by holding in natural moisture while providing protection from harmful uv rays. game on. coppertone sport. i try hard to get a great shape. this... i can do easily. new benefiber healthy shape helps curb cravings. it's a clear, taste-free daily supplement that's clinically proven to help keep me fuller longer.

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a missing person case can be a complicated affair, far more than a typical homicide investigation. all that speculation, conjecture, uncertainty. and so in the search for much-needed clues, investigators pried open paige's carefully guarded private life, sniffed out her secrets, asked very personal questions. and that's how paige's first husband ron beigler spilled the beans. that day they met for their picnic? when paige left, ron knew. she was going to work. >> she told me she was going to go visit a client and maybe two. >> reporter: client? what kind of client? didn't take but a minute for the cops to find the evidence right there on the internet. a website called models, inc.,

where an attractive young woman named carrie advertised her services. tired of chopped meat showing up when you ordered filet mignon, she wrote. affluent clients are lavishing in delightful sessions. "carrie" of course, was a pseudonym. the woman in question was, in reality, a mother of three, a member of the mom's club, paige birgfeld. >> paige was living a double life. >> reporter: divorced from her once-wealthy husband, with a houseful of kids and a massive mortgage payment, paige found another way to supplement her income. and after a late-night meeting of the mom's club, she told her friend barbra campbell what she had in mind. >> she had decided to go into an escort business. >> reporter: somehow, said barbra, paige made it seem normal. >> she was very smart. she had thought it out. so she kept it at the level that she was comfortable, that fit

with her decision and her lifestyle. >> reporter: but andrea land said she knew nothing about paige's night work. >> i felt like whatever escort circumstances were happening that they probably weren't as lascivious as it was being made out to be. it was very hard for me to believe that she would want to have sex with men for money. >> reporter: but she did. according to this investigative report, paige would charge up to $1,000 a session. and here's an online review of her services by a client named dennis. her picture does not do her justice. she's a sexy goddess. i'm in love and wish i could see her every day. rating 4.0 out of 5 stars. carrie is simply a very gorgeous woman. a little bit pricey. if you have the money, she's worth every dime. that review was posted just three days before paige vanished. you can imagine how these

revelations hit paige's mom and dad. they just couldn't believe it. >> if i had known about it, i definitely would have tried to use whatever persuasion i had to turn her away from it. i mean, if nothing else, quite obviously, it's dangerous. >> reporter: but while paige's parents didn't condone her business, they said, they understood her motives. >> she was doing what she had to do to keep life as normal as possible for the children. >> reporter: the news spread, of course. pretty soon most people in town knew. >> there were people who wrote to the paper and said horrible things. like why are we spending all this time looking for a dead hooker? >> reporter: dirt spread, said andrea, by those who didn't even know paige. >> we knew her heart. we knew who she was every day with us and with her kids. and if anything, it only put us into hypervigilant defend-her mode and made us all want to get

out there and talk about what a good person she was as much as possible. >> reporter: a much bigger problem, though, was that paige's secret life made an already complicated case far more difficult to solve. >> that's the sort of business people who are clients don't want to admit. they don't want to come forward. because these are the sorts of things that are sensationalized in the media, they break up marriages. >> reporter: besides paige's former clients had to know, they weren't witnesses as much as potential suspects. >> one of the key pieces of evidence found in the vehicle was her day planner. one of the things that we figured out when we looked at that day planner, was the four days surrounding her disappearance were pulled out of the day planner. which told us that whoever it is that thought there was evidence in that car important enough to be burned also thought there might be evidence in that day planner important enough to tear out. >> reporter: so investigators pulled paige's cell phone records for those days. and, according to this investigative document, they put together a list of eight possible suspects. both ex-husbands were on that

list. but investigators had already cleared them. so that left six of paige's clients, three of whom she was planning on seeing the night she vanished. one of those on that list was a man named lester ralph jones, a client of models inc. that's him standing in the shadows by his front door. on july 7th, nine days after paige disappeared, the cops conducted a search of jones' house. a week later they were back. but they didn't arrest him. not even a month later, when police search dogs got a hit in the charred mess of paige's car. >> they found the cadaver scent in the back seat of the car. and in the front seat of that car, they found mr. jones' scent. and that was despite the car being set on fire. >> reporter: interesting. also, it so happened jones worked in a repair shop right across the street from the parking lot where paige's burning car was found.

then the dogs were taken out to that spot on highway 50 where the contents of paige's wallet were found. >> what we refer to as to the trail of breadcrumbs where the checks, business cards, other identifying information were scattered, they followed that to a turnout called bridgeport road and followed down bridgeport road where the dog kept repeatedly jumping into the river indicating that ms. birgfeld's scent was down by the river there. that very well could have been the location where she was killed and then placed in the back seat of the car where she left the cadaver scent. >> reporter: then the dogs were given lester ralph jones' scent, and they followed the same path exactly. a big break in the case like that was very hard to keep secret. >> at one point i was told they had enough information that they would be able to convict ralph. >> reporter: but no arrest, and so summer slipped to fall. the volunteer search finally petered out.

the command post was closed. paige's parents rented an apartment in town so they could carry on the search alone. >> this is my life now. i really wish i could get into a different line of work. >> reporter: even offered a $15,000 reward, no questions asked. >> it's about 100 days, and if she's out there we need to find her. and if this will help stimulate that, so be it. >> reporter: the reward produced no useful tips. nonetheless, frank stayed on in grand junction for a whole fruitless year searching. >> at some point, you have to say do i want to stay here doing this or is it time to go pack to denver? >> reporter: what was it like on the way back to denver as you realized you were leaving for good? >> i would say kind of a heaviness to it, that somewhere she's back there and i'm leaving.

>> reporter: at least the police were still at it, though very slowly. their problem? there was one other suspect. one they just couldn't clear. a man who, on the night paige birgfeld disappeared, seemed obsessed by her. coming up -- investigators learn that paige called a disposable tracfone shortly before she disappeared. >> we were able to identify the precise store, time, and register that that tracfone was purchased. >> evidence that would tip the scales towards one of the two remaining suspects. it works differently. when added to another alzheimer's treatment, it may improve overall function and cognition. and may slow the worsening of symptoms for a while. vo: namenda xr doesn't change how the disease progresses.

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lester ralph jones had been a leading suspect in paige's disappearance since the early days of the investigation. everybody in town knew that. but hard another possible suspect in the case, another former client of paige's. george coralluzzo. >> he was that obsessive kind of person. he would've had the potential if he was drinking or on drugs to hurt somebody. >> reporter: megan napper's ex-husband was coralluzzo's friend and business partner. so meghan got to know him. he was friendly and upbeat at first, said meghan, but pretty soon -- >> you get to the point where you don't want to be around him because you're afraid that something could happen. >> reporter: like jones, coralluzzo had no solid alibi. he was in town when he called paige over and over again, 19 times the day she disappeared. the last time at 8:13 pm.

two days later, he suddenly showed up at meghan's doorstep. >> george came to our house in a panic. he said that the reason why he hadn't talked to us recently and the reason why we hadn't seen him or been in contact was because his family had been beheaded on the turnpike in new jersey by a semi. >> reporter: beheaded? >> beheaded. the biggest story ever. this big, big giant explosion of a story that was so catastrophic that he knew would get me to jump in and just be like, oh, what do you need? i'll do anything for you. >> reporter: so you helped him leave town? >> i did. he wanted to get right out of here. he did not want to be around. >> reporter: and then, a few days later, meghan was watching a local news report about paige. >> the first time i saw that newscast i was like, george did it. i'm like in my head -- >> reporter: come on. >> no. instantly, just clicked. >> reporter: mind you, coralluzzo was in new jersey by the time paige's car was torched, said prosecutor rubenstein. >> and we have good corroboration of that. >> reporter: but he was certainly in grand junction when paige went missing. and that beheading? now, that was a full-fledged

lie. so police continued to investigate coralluzzo as well as jones, who couldn't account for his whereabouts the night paige disappeared nor when her car was set on fire across the road from where jones worked. >> some other interesting things that were found in the car was the seat was pushed all the way back. and so we had one of our employees at the sheriff's office who is the same height as ms. birgfeld sat in the seat in the position it was and was unable to touch the pedals. mr. jones is about 6'5". >> reporter: and jones had spent three years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting an ex-wife, who told investigators jones took her out to the desert against her will threatened to kill her. a scenario strikingly similar to how cops believe paige was murdered. oh, and one more thing. one of the last calls paige made

the night she disappeared was to a disposable-type tracfone. >> this tracfone made only five phone calls in its entire existence. and all five of those phone calls, four of them were made to ms. birgfeld. and one of them was made from her back. >> reporter: the phone's number wasn't registered to any specific person making it difficult to trace. difficult, but not impossible. >> we were able to identify through records at tracfone the precise store, time and register that that tracfone was purchased. >> reporter: which was at this walmart in grand junction where the store's security cameras picked up a man believed to be mr. jones purchasing that tracfone. >> we also found packaging from a tracfone with that same make and model in his trash at work, which is about 500 yards from where the vehicle was found burning. >> reporter: now that was a preponderance of evidence that in any other case would have been enough to get an arrest

warrant, but not in this case. months and then years went by, no arrest. it was beyond a lot of people in town who couldn't help but hear the rumors and wonder why the man was still free as a bird. in fact, said prosecutor rubenstein, the reason was quite simple. coralluzzo. try as they might, they simply couldn't rule him out. >> we still needed to figure out the alternate suspect issue with mr. coralluzzo. >> reporter: anyway, there were other problems. >> most other murder cases or missing person cases where you have evidence like this, we probably would have filed. but given the double life she was leading with this escort service, you know, this escort business that she had presented us a lot of problems in the investigation. >> reporter: a defense attorney might well ask how many men were there really in paige's life? the defense might also ask how do we know there was even a

murder? >> how do you go in front of a jury and say believe beyond a reasonable doubt not only that she's dead but that this particular person is responsible for it when you don't have a body. >> reporter: and for five long years what happened to paige birgfeld remained an unsolved mystery. and then, in 2012, some hikers walking in a dry creek bed coming up -- at last, the evidence that would push prosecutors to charge one of their two suspects. >> and that's when we finally made the decision that we think we had enough. ♪ ♪ we all want to see our kids grow up strong. and when you buy your vitamins at walgreens,

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grand junction, colorado, has been a boom and bust sort of place over the years. cattle were big here once, then oil shale developers moved in and abruptly out again. it's wine country now. but what has remained constant is the rugged beauty that calls to rafters and bikers and hikers. like the group trekking through wells gulch on march 6, 2012. and pretty soon, paige's dad got another one of those phone calls. this time it was a local reporter. >> and he said, did you know they found paige's remains this morning? and he asked if anybody had called me. and i said, you're the first one.

>> reporter: truth be told, so many years had passed nobody could say for certain at the moment if the remains were paige's, but it was the right area, just a few miles south from where the contents of her wallet were found. and paige's dad just knew. >> and we really think the searchers were here. to miss it, you know, it's like, darn, how did that happen? >> reporter: dna tests soon confirmed what everyone already suspected. it was indeed paige's body. investigators believe she'd more than likely been buried back in 2007 and only recently unearthed by a heavy spring runoff. >> most of the larger bones were contained in one specific area. her skull and mandible as well. and then the smaller bones had washed down where the primary part of her bones were found there was some duct tape indicating that she was probably bound and gagged in some fashion. when we found her remains, the case sort of broke open again. and we, you know, decided to follow up, relook at the

evidence. >> reporter: so with a fresh set of eyes investigators once again tried to fashion a case against jones or coralluzzo. but when detectives set out to question him, they discovered he was dead. drowned the year before in a swimming accident. still, for paige's murder to be solved, investigators still had to make a case for either coralluzzo's guilt or his innocence. but doing that without the ability to question him meant going back and slogging through seven years of reports, interviews and statements. >> thousands and thousands of pages of discovery. watch video interviews and figure out, what does this mean, what can we prove? >> reporter: and it was two years after paige's body was discovered, while wading through that mountain of material, an investigator stumbled on an overlooked piece of evidence that would change the whole case. it was security camera video

showing coralluzzo shopping at a local market right around the time paige disappeared. so they figured if he was shopping, he wasn't killing paige. finally evidence establishing coralluzzo's alibi. >> and that really firms up the timeline given by him and others as to how we know he couldn't have been involved. >> reporter: meaning lester ralph jones was the last suspect standing. >> we gathered at least six or seven prosecutors from this office. we had maybe 15 people from the sheriff's office. we had people from the colorado bureau of investigation that gathered and everybody presented what they had. and that's when we finally made the decision that we think we had enough. >> reporter: jones was arrested november 2014 for paige's murder. 7 1/2 years after she was first reported missing. but the story is still not fully told. >> the cause of death is unknown.

we really don't know whether or not he strangled her. we don't know if he smothered her. we don't know if he drowned her. >> reporter: and we don't know if jones did it at all. he's pleaded not guilty to the charges. his case has yet to go to trial. >> he's innocent until proven guilty. these are only allegations at this point. and all the judge has found is that there is probable cause to allow us to present this to a jury. >> reporter: a jury that no doubt will hear from the defense team about that other suspect george coralluzzo. may hear from meghan napper. >> i have talked to the defense. >> reporter: are you prepared to testify? >> i am prepared to testify. i feel for paige's father. i feel for her children. but even though they have evidence for lester ralph jones, it would really disappoint me that they have the wrong guy. >> reporter: paige's friends have a different concern. all the dirt that's bound to be unearthed at trial. >> it's going to get ugly, and i know it will. but it's up to the few of us

that can do this to keep talking about who she really was and what a wonderful person she was. >> reporter: but until the trial. >> this is just another turn the page for another chapter. this isn't -- i keep hearing people say, you'll get closure. i haven't seen that at the end of the tunnel. >> reporter: no. because, in spite of everything, what frank birgfeld wanted, what he still wants with all his might but cannot have is to take his daughter home. >> we've never been able to get her remains back on the so-called belief that her remains are needed for evidence in the trial. as far as i know, she resides right now in a cardboard box in the coroner's office. >> reporter: so what could they do? they had a memorial service. and at the top of the service card they pointedly stated,

there has been no interment as she remains with the mesa county coroner. so added now to that swirl of painful emotions bitterness. >> i think it stinks. >> reporter: hard for parents to comprehend that the child they raised is practically speaking just one more item of evidence in a murder case. >> the defense has a right to contest the evidence. the defense has a right to check it out for themselves. i know the family's frustrated, but we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. our choice was to give up the possibility of ever prosecuting somebody for murdering his daughter or to give the remains back. and we decided it was just too important that we hang onto them. >> reporter: so while on a trip to grand junction to attend yet another pretrial hearing, the birgfelds made a detour under a hard gray sky to the place where paige was found. >> this is a hard spot for me. this is a hard spot.

>> reporter: some of the volunteers who searched for paige put together this little ad hoc memorial. and so their daughter's place of remembrance is the burial plot her killer chose. a place where she was left all alone for so long. that's all for this edition of "dateline." we'll see you again sunday at 7:00, 6:00 central. i'm lester holt. for all of us at nbc news, good

now at 11:00 a tragedy devastates a family. one child killed by a runaway motorcycle his father and brother