. >> reporter: eddins assigned one of his most experienced prosecutors, angela mason, to work on it.t optimistic, either. >> i was certainly vulnerable in that i did not have a body. >> i also was vulnerable with the tanya element, that people thought she could be a suspect. >> reporter: and then three years after marie disappeared the most amazing thing happened. marie's computer yielded to a new forensics program, and out spilled in crimson blushing clarity text messages between marie and james. >> "i love you. i love you so much, and getting graphic details of what he wants to do with her." >> kinda pornographic. >> pornographic. even to the point that they were sending pornographic photos with each other from the church. >> reporter: some things are hard to un-see. we'll spare you. oh, and most important? everything stopped the day she disappeared. >> no credit cards, no phones, i thought that was strong evidence that she was in fact dead and not in fact missing. >> reporter: and her last conversation with a family member was -- >> she wanted out of the circumstances she was in.