investigators suspected kathy heckel may have been murred. no body and little evidence the case went into a deep freeze for decades. kathy's family had never been able to sake the chill of their inconceivable loss. but now a new detective was about to turn up the heat. here again is josh mankiewicz with "she didn't come home." >> reporter: for more than twenty years, kathy heckel's children lived with a feeling of unfocused fear. >> it's an unsettling feeling that -- an unsettling feeling of fear that essentially something great in my life can be taken away at any moment. >> and you think that can all be traced back to your mom? >> absolutely. >> absolutely, yeah. >> reporter: for their father john, those were years spent struggling to let go and move on. >> i talked to kathy a lot about it. >> what do you say to her? >> just talk, just ramble on. >> and you just start talking to her out loud? >> yeah. something'll come up that'll remind me of something we did. >> reporter: law enforcement had not forgotten kathy heckel. in the summer of 2013