keith morrison: but it did. much of it recorded, as you will see, by those electronic beeps and bytes and pixels. just enough to make it a truly puzzling mystery. enough to not quite know what happened to michelle le. one of the things i was so angry about was that nothing made sense. nothing made sense. keith morrison: especially this. same night, 8:56 pm. michelle's nursing instructor, annoyed, baffled, worried by her absence takes a security guard to the parking lot to look for her car. 9:05 pm, michelle's car re-enters the garage two floors below. 9:06 pm it arrives on the third floor. off camera, the nursing instructor sees it, waves frantically. and the car suddenly stops, backs up, races down the ramp out of the garage. but why? alarmed, the nursing instructor calls the police. and the next morning, 400 miles south in san diego michelle's cousin krystine was awakened by a text from michelle's former boyfriend. and he messages me. he goes, hey, just to let you know, we don't know where michelle is. have yo

here again is keith morrison. >>> it's a funny thing about secrets.o long. especially in a little place like moundville. and it didn't take very long for sheriff ellis and corporal boyd to stumble on a secret he scott had been picking. >> while we was at the crime scene scott had had a young lady to come pick up the boys. >> it was only later when the fog of grief lifted that one of teresa's relatives wondered to police who was that woman hanging around the day teresa died? ellis and boyd tracked her down and what they discovered, well, that changed everything. or seemed to. the person they were talking to was scott's mistress. >> she was under the impression that scott was not married at that time. >> what did you make of that? >> we knew that wasn't correct. >> a love triangle, jealous home wrecker kills wife, claims husband? no, not even close. scott's girlfriend thought his marriage was over. his divorce finalized. >> what was her reaction to getting the real story? she must have been upset. >> more hurt than upset because i think she had fallen i

here is keith morrison. >> reporter: our story begins with this mother of a teenage daughter. a woman who had spent most of her life trying to figure out who she was. what was her name? where did she come from? we'll tell you about her long search, her discovery finally of what felt like truth. but as you'll soon see, real truth can be elusive. it can hide. let's begin at the beginning. but at the beginning, all she had was a memory. >> a twin canopy bed with pink ruffles around it, wind of waved over the top of it. >> it was dreamlike really, and for years it was all that felt real in her upside down life. >> it was white. everything matched. >> the closet full of dresses, the dolls, the teddy bears. >> actually, there was a little old-fashioned where you put the baby in the wagon. >> and the reason for those tormenting memories? >> it's a lot of hurt and sadness, sadness for the little girl that didn't have a life. >> for most of her life, the part after that little girl's bedroom, she has been pepper, and the baffling terrifying story of what happened to her, kidnapped, hel

here's keith morrison. >> is everybody out of the house? >> i don't know, but it's on fire. >> the fire in the cottage on addison avenue was hungry, devouring almost everything in the bedroom. >> we'll have fire department on the way. do you see smoke coming out of the windows? >> it's pouring out of the house. >> within minutes, the firefighters knocked it down. the smoke clearing. the sooty water running in the streets. and then as the mop-up began, the word flashed out like something electric. the house was occupied. someone didn't get out. and up through the ashes, a mystery flared like a stubborn ember that glowed and smoldered and demanded an answer. the inhabitants of the rented cottage, as investigators soon learned, were two young, beautiful people. the successful glossy types that you might expect to see on a reality show. their names are paul zumot and jennifer schipsi. jennifer, an ambitious, award-winning real estate agent who lived like a rock star, or so said her buddy roy. >> she's like, i'm knocking them out like dominos. i

sheer keith morrison. >> march 19th, 2009, heavy in montana's plathead valley. something off that night, something wrong. at mary and randy winters house, anxiety spiked. where was she? >> it's hard to explain. >> but a new driver, auto too, just 16, due home at 8:00 from her boyfriend's house. though she wasn't very late, the feeling seeped in. >> i called her starting about 8:05 and no answer. called the house where she was at and they said she had left 15 minutes before that. >> i was thinking she had, you know, went off the road between their house and us. >> not far away, another family was on the road, too. erin thompson was diving her son, caden, home from a school concert. he played the drums. >> i had always attended all of caden's concerts. this was the first one that i didn't attend. i had car troubles. caden's ste jaden thompson. >> my car was in the shop and getting fixed. >> and soon the poison and anxiety seeped under jason's doors through his windows and on to his nerve endings. >> all of a sudden, i realized, what's going on? why are they late?

here is keith morrison. >> reporter: what a time it was. the year he turned up in that crazy little car. what a sweet, impossible, unexpected last chance. that love, that red passionate sin. just for mary ann. it was 1985. and it was magic. and now here she was, 2011, in a courtroom of all places. forced to confess her forbidden love, account for her sins. this grandmother, widow, penitent. what story would she tell? >> the main thing going through my mind is to tell the truth. and let the chips fall where they may. >> reporter: the truth. such a difficult word. especially when it bubbles up from a past which mary ann mcfarland must have believed was buried forever. >> where was your husband? >> he was still in the house. >> reporter: men. trouble was, there were two, which was the one central fact. the inconvenient truth that caused all the trouble. and might have been forgotten had it not been for this inquisitive d.a. and this long, lean cop, jim wallace, looking on so intently. >> this is a case, a true love story. between three people.

here again is keith morrison with a hometown hero and the homecoming queen.sed murderer. dave, now that dave was dead, stories emerged. >> it seemed like she was controlled in my opinion. >> reporter: an across the street neighbor. >> i mean he's there standing there while she's pulling out weeds and washing his truck and he's not lifting a finger to help her. i was like a scared little rabbit. >> i was always a little leery about what was actually going on in the home. >> reporter: this close friend said jane's fear reminded her of another vulnerable creature. >> jane looked like a scared cat, constantly doing like a twitch looking over her shoulder, kind of looking to see if somebody is behind her. >> reporter: and this from jane's former co-worker. >> he was very aggressive. he was very demanding, and when he said jump, she would go how high. >> reporter: how strange it was, she thought, that jane always wore long sleeves, even when it was hot outside. but more disturbing -- >> there were times when she would come in and i noticed on her face it looked swo

here's keith morrison with "smoke and mirrors."o, no, it was hot and it was late, after midnight, september 27th, 2007. >> pretty secluded area next to a forest preserve. >> so it was. and it was clear and dark and still and vacant. here where the deep wood fought back against the decaying suburban sprawl, and then nothing was clear at all. i never cried this violent cry. >> you're experiencing everything but it's not true. >> you're just waiting to wake up. >> it just feels like you're literally in a nightmare. >> yes, still does. the name you'll want to remember is nailah. >> the meaning was one who succeeds. >> this is nailah's mother, maria. >> i wanted her to be successful and she was. she lived her name. >> quite true. as, frankly, have the rest of them in this big family. this is leah, the first born. >> we might need a graph or a chart because it's kind of involved. >> full siblings, half siblings, quarter siblings once removed. that sort of thing. very blended. >> we share one parent. so technically half siblings but that

here's keith morrison with "the interrogation." >> a freak snowstorm. like an omen. smothered the little town in the blue ridge mountains. february 19th, 2003, just before 9:00 a.m. winter or no, virginia was unused to this. the white blanket, a piercing sound. fire alarm. now the snow storm was the last thing on the fire chief's mind. >> the tone went off for fire of occupants possibly trapped inside. ramps everything up to full force. >> the alarm on a quiet street lined with starter homes. >> a lot of kids in the neighborhood. you are running a lot of things through your mind when you go in there? who are the occupants that you're going to have to rescue? >> the fire trucks raced to the home of a recently separated woman named ann charles and her three children. thick black smoke poured from the second story eaves. part of the roof had already burned away. >> we were concentrating on getting up the steps and getting into those rooms that we were pretty sure we had victims. >> neighbors crowded in behind police barricades and one was an 18-year-old who lived up the

here again is keith morrison. >> it was the 23rd of march, 2008.ii, a person of interest in the particularly violent murder of his parents, quite suddenly got out of dodge. >> he was gone. >> a guilty conscience or an innocent man fed up with negative attention from the cops? but detectives back in alameda county, california did not panic. ernie probably didn't know it but an enterprising officer fitted his car, his deceased father's car, with a gps tracking device. >> for the majority of the time we knew where he was. >> and the car plus ernie's regular visits to social media dating sites led the police to a number of young women he, well, met. like the one in new orleans who called the police after a strange night with a man who first told her he was writing a novel about a gambler who is a suspect in his parents' murder. and who then told her his own parents had been murdered. and when she went back to his hotel room, he'd rigged it with bungee cords so if someone came to get him he had a plan to escape. >> he was going to break the window of th

here again is keith morrison. >> chris and cristi hall's three daughters clung together in grief and shock, all through the dismal evening hours of that worst of all days, june 7, 2007. waiting for their father to return from the police station. and they wondered, why was it taking so long? then the phone rang. and they had their answer. >> you know, broken-up words, and he's crying, and we're crying. that was when he said they think i hurt mom. he was very upset. >> but he didn't sound surprised when he said -- >> no, he was crying. he was crying. he was upset. >> very upset. >> but by the time police investigators were questioning chris, remember, they had heard from lindsay patterson. and at the station, chris's version of events in the spa differed in one crucial detail from what lindsay described seeing that first time she period over the wall and into the hall's backyard. >> that specifically, me holding her down in there, there's nothing that took place in that jacuzzi thatould explain that. there was no sex. there was no -- i don't even think we had any contact while we were

here's keith morrison with "under a full moon." >> reporter: she was finished now.ed, wrung out. must have been as she walked away from the incessantly ' chirping machinery and the bleary eyes of the gamblers on holiday from real life who'd called out for her again and again and again. outside in the night, a full moon bathed the great houses of delight and sin in an unaccustomed shade of pale. it was september 29, 2012. at precisely 3:00 in the morning, in a back room of the palms casino, the cocktail waitress named shauna tiaffay inserted her time card in the stamping machine, and set out to break a little rule. shauna had parked her car in the back lot, a practice discouraged because surveillance cameras were unable to track her all the way to her car. still easier this way. quicker. and after all, would a stalker really be waiting for her here, under a full moon? >> it was absolutely horrible. and we felt so helpless. >> it's every woman's worst nightmare. >> we didn't know if any of us were next. >> reporter: it never occurred to shauna to become a cocktail wai

here is keith morrison. >> our story begins with this mother of a teenage daughter. a woman who would spend most of her life trying to figure out who she was. what was her name? where did she come from? we'll tell you about her long search, her discovery finally of what felt like truth. but as you'll soon see, real truth can be elusive. it can hide. let's begin at the beginning. but at the beginning, all she had was a memory. >> a twin canopy bed with pink ruffles around it. kind of waved over the top of it. >> it was dream-like really. and for years it was all that felt real in her upside down life. >> and it was all pink and white. it was -- everything matched. >> the closet full of dresses. the dolls, the teddy bears. >> i actually -- there was a little old-fashioned where you put the baby in the wagon. >> and the reason for those tormenting memories? >> it's a lot of hurt, sadness. sadness for the little girl that didn't have a life. >> for most of her life, the part after that little girl's bedroom, she has been pepper, and the baffling, terrifying story of what

. >> keith morrison, with secrets in a small town. >>> good evening, and welcome to dateline. i'm lester holt. her life ended in mystery on a dead end road, a mother of three who'd gone missing. but it's a sad truth as the sheriff says, even here, where everybody used to know everybody, it's not that way anymore. >> so many different people are moving in from around the world and -- >> trying to escape the crowds. >> escape the crowd or running from something. >> oh, yes, where you have gone, andy griffith, mayberry has apparently up and left us. the sheriff fights real crime nowadays. >> the crime you see here is the same crime you would see in any city, just a smaller version. >> neighbors tend to know more of each other's business than they might in tuscaloosa, for example. which can be a bit of a nuisance, as you're about to see, if you need to keep a secret, especially, for example, if your secret is about murder. >>> to begin with, this thoughtful young woman was just a girl of 17 back in '07 when it things started coming apart in the way things do when parents don't tal

here's keith morrison. >> we know the truth, and we know everything that happened. >> reporter: how do we know what we know? >> emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer. >> reporter: though it is, even if we've seen something. or if we think we have. and thus the question at the heart of the whole puzzle. is this woman right? >> i know what i saw, and i know the conclusion of my story. >> reporter: of course she does. of course she does. so why does this other woman think this? >> she didn't know for sure what she saw. >> reporter: the question, as we say, on which all the rest will turn. why don't we begin here, calimesa, california, riverside county. historic missions, sprawling suburbs creeping out to the rim of mountains around the eastern flank of los angeles. here is where chris and christi hall had come to live out their golden years, though they were far from old when it happened. just experienced with life and each other. >> as far back as i can remember, it's always been chris and christi. they were never thought of as separate. they were a unit. >> reporter: these ar

here's keith morrison. >> reporter: nothing about that morning made any sense. >> it all seemed like such a bad nightmare. this doesn't happen in our happy little world. >> reporter: it was a saturday morning in july. the happy little world suburb of raleigh, north carolina, called carey, a place where a young family would aspire to if you were someone like hanna prittchard, for example. >> there's always lots of friend making going on through someone you meet. lots of cookouts and family functions. >> reporter: like the one in the neighborhood the night before. so hanna would have heard party stories that saturday morning from her friend nancy cooper. would have. because nancy didn't show up. >> i hadn't heard from her maybe by like 10:00, i called her house. brad answered and he said, she went for a run. >> reporter: nancy was an athlete, training for a half marathon. brad cooper was nancy's husband. >> i was like oh, okay. when did she leave. he told me 6:30 or 7:00. she's not back? >> reporter: weird. if nancy had to cancel their meeting, surely she would have called. hanna coole