here is dennis murphy with, the farm. >> council bluffs, iowa. in a small courtroom the new and final scene of a four-yearlong drama was playing out. >> count one murder in the first degree the defendant did with malice aforethought with premeditation kill shirley carter. >> it's a case that ripped the stitches out of a close-knit family. >> shattering ribs and perching holes through her long and heart. surely carter, shot twice with a deer rifle in the little homestead corn fields that she shared with her husband of 50 years, bill carter. in pleasant hill, iowa, so much of the rhythm of life is set by the seasons, turning the acreage, planting the seed, and then ringing in the harvest, corn, and so emotionally. so, that june morning in 2015 dawned with no particular omens. they surely carter and her husband bill started their day as they always did, with coffee at the general store. >> they went to coffee every morning, to casey's, that was a ritual. >> after coffee, and saying hello to neighbors, they bounce back down the gravel road to home. b

here's dennis murphy with "what they saw. " >> got it? i think you're good to go. >> all right. thanks for sitting down with us. >> you're welcome, thanks for having me. >> did you take a butcher knife and plunge it into ciara's neck and kill her? >> no. >> while the kids were waiting outside? >> absolutely not. >> that did not happen? >> no. >> credibility. the reliability of years-old memories. there's a lot of that ahead, because this is the story of a murder. june 8th, 2012. columbus, georgia. it was an apartment maintenance man who found her. she'd been stabbed to death upstairs in the bedroom. in the kitchen sink, a butcher knife. the victim was ciara ingram, a 28-year-old nurse and mother. her good friend kendra smith said she hadn't been answering her phone for days. >> at first i thought, you know, why didn't i go down there? well, i knew something was wrong. >> police would later estimate ciara had been dead in her apartment for nearly a week. >> i think -- i think i was so distraught she was gone that i don't really think that at the time i put a lot of thought into l

here's dennis murphy with "at the edge of town". >> yards from the chicken place is an unlikely scrap of wilderness in a southern illinois town. a thicket of vines and rumbles. acres of thorns that tear at the flush. four years, people just sped by without a second look. but something terrible happened there one cold night in the winter of 2014. that brought a stranger to town. a mother, looking for answers about her son. >> i knew one thing, i wasn't going to stop. >> no matter how painful the truth turned out to be. does it hurt you to be back here? >> yes. >> her heartbreak launched another mother's fight. >> i wanted to save my son. i'm a fighter. i'm a mom. >> and divided an entire community. >> no matter who you are, no matter where you came from, right is right and wrong is wrong. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> few people know this part of southern illinois better than monica's lucas. this mother of two children has spent most of her life in these parts. >> i think for the average a small town, america. >> who runs it? >> that's a hard question. u

here is dennis murphy with "shannon's story." >> the portraits, the snapshots, the videos, i documented her life. >> the photographer dad, the camera professional who captured every moment of his daughter's life. >> she loved life. she wanted to do everything. >> these parents didn't know back then how difficult it would be one day to look at these memories. >> when i want to remember her voice, i put on a video. >> that's probably the hardest is hearing her voice. >> i'm shannon melendi, welcome to our special segment on the -- >> when i look at that video, it's definitely a sweet memory. i look back at how just innocent we were. >> shannon was someone that wanted to live. >> but then came that phone call way back in march 1994. shannon melendi's little sister monique was just 13 years old. >> and i received a phone call from her roommate. >> shannon was midway through her sophomore year at emory university in atlanta. monique answered the call at their childhood home in miami, and on the other end of the line was athena, her sister's college roommate. >> athena was very distraught, an

here is dennis murphy with "at close range". >> winter comes early and stays late in north western new york. the farmlands told by amish and that families are encased in snow and ice for months at a time. but in those plays of frozen stillness. the hottest of passions, boiling jealousy came to call one day. and tiny climber, southwest of the county, still shaking off the shock of it all. joe gerace was the sheriff of chautauqua county. >> clymer, never. >> it began quite simply. the new school superintendent in town went missing one weekend just a few weeks into the school year. september 2012. keith reed, 51 years old, was a longtime educator who had landed in the sweet spot of his professional career. the up until then school principal had applied for the top administrative job in the clymer district with his brother kevin urging him on. >> it's school out in chautauqua county called clymer. i don't know whether i should apply there. i said, you know, apply. >> you might think a close knit community like clymer would be standoffish to newcomers. but parents and students quickly embra