dennis murphy: are you hearing your assailant scream? no. dennis murphy: cry out in pain?scream. dennis murphy (voiceover): what she could hear when she stopped shooting was the sound of someone breathing, and then sudden footsteps running out the door. had one of the home invaders fled? tracey edged down the bed. she couldn't see much. the bedroom was hazy with gunsmoke. but she heard her kids calling for her, she said, and she ran to bert's room. i opened the door. and bert almost took my head off with the bat. (crying) and i don't remember having a conversation with them at the time. i remember just being so happy that they were fine. both of us are on pure adrenaline, just, like, trying to just grasp of what just happened, you know? and you know, are you ok? yeah, yeah, we're fine. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey says she shepherded bert and her younger children into the hallway, thinking they were finally safe. but according to both tracey and bert, their nightmare was far from over. the intruder lying shot on tracey's floor was still alive. bert could see it was du

dennis murphy: rest for wendy.enjoyed playing dress-up and who fatally married a stranger till death he did part. craig melvin: that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. sunday, rag ♪♪ ♪♪ >>> this sunday, raging inferno. wind-driven wildfires in the los angeles area burn out of control forcing hundreds of thousands to flee and leaving behind apocalyptic scenes. >> this is one of the most

dennis murphy: but dr. sievers, sometimes spending four hours at a time with julie, ultimately diagnosed a spectrum of food allergies. her beloved shellfish was out. but this doctor was in, in her life, in her affections. we all know a lot of doctors in the course of our life. you've known a lot of doctors you've worked with. what was different about dr. teresa sievers? it's very hard to find someone that truly you feel cares about you as a human. you know, there's something about her caring about my family, about my career, about my life. so you don't find that very often. it means pain relief without surgery, pills, or injections. dennis murphy: so how is it that the dreams of this adored physician and aspiring tv doctor never came to be? well, settle back, because there's a story there in, an exceedingly grim one. go back to june 29, 2015-- another muggy monday dawning in the southwest coastal town of bonita springs, florida. teresa had been away for the weekend for a family celebration up in new york wi

dennis murphy (voiceover): and dustin?s new theory, he was no attacker, but collateral damage. one boy dead because of the fight over another. he had no life value to her. and she used him. and killed him. and killed him. dennis murphy (voiceover): but how could the prosecutor prove his new theory? it came down to this. investigators had always kept the journal top secret. but if tracey had created it, she obviously knew about it. so if investigators could prove she knew about it, they could prove that she'd created it. got it? that's why the prosecutor lost it one night when he was talking to tracey's old friend mary higgins. he told her the investigation had been reopened. he said something like, there's more to this than what people know. and i said-- i don't know why i said it. i don't. i said, do you mean that stupid notebook? and ben just-- he just turned white. i kept saying to him, what? what? and he said, how do you know about a notebook? dennis murphy: should mary higgins have known anything about the existence o

dennis murphy: what had he deleted? a lot of text messages. dennis murphy: to whom?rwood. sirius underwood was by far the one he was in contact the most. what's your thinking? when we first talked to josh, he never mentioned sirius underwood. why would they be lying to us about that? dennis murphy (voiceover): why, indeed? the story told by the phones, the concealed relationship, fed a growing theory of the crime, that they were looking at a long distance killing between ohio and alaska. if that was their case, then technology was going to be as valuable to them as dna or bloody fingerprints. the first big question-- did the killer, assuming he was a man, have a phone on him when he did the shooting? and what tower near the murder scene had the phone pinged off? we had tons of-- and i'm not exaggerating-- thousands upon thousands upon thousands of phone calls that hit all these various towers. dennis murphy (voiceover): in that electronic haystack, a sharp-eyed cop noticed a call around the time they believed brandy was killed. it was made from a number with a 310 ar

dennis murphy: a ghost, indeed.on's home, they found this, disturbing videos he apparently shot as he snuck around the neighborhood. turns out jason scott was as scary a peeping tom as investigators had ever seen. video of someone walking through the woods, videotaping people through their homes in various states of dress and undress, getting ready for work or getting ready to go to bed. this is deeply creepy stuff. absolutely. dennis murphy: the person who knew him best was marcus hunter, the accomplice first arrested with jason scott. but marcus wasn't talking. investigators wondered, was he afraid of jason? another former co-conspirator was telling investigators jason was no one to cross. agent: these guys would say, if i ever got into a fight with jason, jason, you know, wouldn't fight me back. but two weeks later, he-- he'd be the type of guy to come back and burn my house down. dennis murphy: three weeks after his king-for-a-day deal, jason scott was still walking the streets. and investigators knew enough abo

if you really want to tap into your body's innate ability to heal-- dennis murphy: you can still find dr. teresa sievers even today on those youtube videos promoting health, healing, and a good life. she had helped so many, spreading her gospel. tragically, her message, like her life, cut short before she was finished. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." i had to do it. you're dead. rachel brady: ever since i heard it, it's been replaying in my head over and over. [footsteps crunching] it was all very unbelievable. craig melvin: it happened on thanksgiving-- two teenagers missing. i just buried my head into my hands, and i started to cry. craig melvin: where they were and what they did would launch a terrifying case. why did this have to happen here? craig melvin: with a deadly end. nobody's leaving until we figure out what happened. craig melvin: a man at home, alone and afraid. what would you do if you felt in danger? they were really attacking his home. you have a right to protect your home, and to protect yourself. he p

dennis murphy: rest for wendy. the kind young woman who loved animals and enjoyed playing dress-up and who fatally married a stranger till death he did part. craig melvin: that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. sunday, rag ♪♪ ♪♪ >>> this sunday, raging inferno. wind-driven wildfires in the los angeles area burn out of control forcing hundreds of thousands to flee and leaving behind apocalyptic scenes. >> this is one of the most devastating fires i've seen in california. >> what are the questions you're hoping to answer. >> the same ones you're asking. the same ones that people in the streets are asking, yelling about, what the hell happened? >> we'll talk exclusively to california's democratic governor gavin newsom and senator alex padilla. plus expansive agenda. with just one week before he returns to the white house, president-elect donald trump suggests he might use military force to take control of the panama canal and greenland. >> i can say this, we need them for ec

dennis luken: he was a very creative-- matt murphy: super manipulative-- dennis luken: --charismatic-- matt murphy: --handsome-- dennis luken: --charming, intelligent. he was a nightmare to everybody. keith morrison (voiceover): but not to her. to debra newell of orange county, california, the man who presented himself on the dating website, dr. john meehan, anesthesiologist, looked very promising. he was the total package-- a doctor, very intelligent, family man, loved his kids. keith morrison (voiceover): not that attracting men had ever been difficult for debra or any of the women in the family, according to her daughter terra. men kind of flock to them. really? what is it about the women of your family? well, they have really great hearts, and they're pretty decent-looking. keith morrison (voiceover): good women, happy, successful, attractive. i love those bar stools. keith morrison (voiceover): debra owned a thriving interior design firm and a moving company and a silk flowers business. had dozens of employees, certainly no money worries, but she was in her 50s, marriage is behin

dennis murphy (voiceover): josh and sirius are serving their sentences in separate maximum security prisons. brandy's parents are raising her daughter. the family is left with a snapshot album, itself getting older, but the young woman pictured in the pages inside staying the same, never to have her own album of her daughter graduating, getting married. time ran out for brandy on a dark hilltop before she could kiss her daughter goodnight. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. >>> hello. welcome to this special holiday edition of "morning joe." happy almost 2025. we're on tape this hour, bringing you some of our top recent discussions, including one about how president-elect trump is already claiming some preemptive policy victories before even taking office. we spoke to "the washington post" opinion columnist dana mill bank about that. as you point out in "the washington post," the president-elect doesn't take over for six more weeks, but, magically, he has already made america great again. you write in part this, "he has solved the border cris