. >> the victims were katy eastburn, age 32, kara, age 5, and erin age 3. >> after that homicide, atight, i could close my eyes and see the children. >> and her husband gary was an air force captain. he rushed back from training in alabama. >> it is hard to explain. you just stop. the world stops. >> when you looked into his eyes, there was a void there. it tears your heart out. but you have to gather yourself, because you have a job to do. we will find out who did this. >> there was evidence all over that house. they found head hair in ms. eastburn's bed. and they found a pubic hair at the scene of the rape. they found fingerprints a all over the house. they had bloody footprints. they had a semen sample. they were certain that physical evidence would lead them to whoever killed this family. >> after walking through the house, gary eastburn also provided a tantalizing lead. they were going to move to england when he finished train ing in alabama. the family had decided to sell the dog, so they put an ad out in the local fort bragg bee and katy eastburn wrote a letter to her husband

katy eastburn wrote a letter to her husband saying that a nice man came out tuesday night and got the. >> we didn't know who it was, but anybody who had been out to that house, we wanted to talk to. >> outside of the crime scene someone approached investigators with critical information from the night of the murders. >> there was a young male named patrick cone who had been coming from his girlfriend's house at about 2:00 in the morning. he saw a big white dude walking down the driveway. he had blond hair about 6'2" or 6'3" and he had on a members only black jacket, a stocking cap, and he had a mustache. >> they passed on the road and the person said that he he was getting an early start that morning and got into the white chevette and drove off. >> i took pat down to the sbi lab, and they did a composite. and i said, you sure he looked like this? this guy's got a black man's nose and he's got this droopy lazy eye. and he said, that's what i saw. >> six days after the murders, police put out a call for the man who adopted the eastburns' dog. the sergeant who was home for lunch with hi