and stephanie's husband, dale bruner. nto the bruner marriage, a grill-y secrets emerged that would put dale at the very top of the suspect list. here again is keith morrison with "secrets in the snow". >> it's horrible. i don't even know how to explain having a microscope go into your world. it's surreal. >> there are few secrets in a person's life that can escape the attention of a determined homicide effective. >> everything comes out. absolutely everything. >> and dale and stephanie it turned out had their share of secrets. but the weird thing, one chilly morning, six weeks before stephanie was murdered. as stephanie told her friend, jennifer. >> she heard spanking. she told me she counted at least eight spanx before she got up the stairs and down the hall to the kitchen. >> my boy was acting out far beyond the norm. i said, come on. >> that was a wednesday morning. stephanie was furious about the spanking and stormed off to work and that very day was laid off from her county job. and then, still upset with dale, steph

. >> we the jury find the defendant, dale bruner, guilty of murder in the second degree. >> dale bruner was also convicted of two counts of sexual assault and sentenced to a total 112 years in prison. an appeals court vacated the sexual assault convictions. and in 2018, bruner's sentence was reduced to 48 years. >> it is a perfect storm. i'm going down with the ship. >> stephanie's friend jennifer was driving when the verdict came in. >> i was in my car, yeah. parked on the side of the road. crying like a baby. >> and like others who knew stephanie, she wishes now she'd taken her friends secrets more seriously. >> i beat myself over it every day. about how i should've done this or should have done that. >> and almost good marriage, with one deadly flaw. >> a lot of stephanie's close friends and families didn't even know what was going on. maybe a couple of events over the years. it only two, three and she's dead. >> and so, said her friends, take some advice in warning. don't hide the secret. >> that's why i'm talking about it now. and hopefully just one woman will have the courage to s