their cases were rock-solid against accused shot-caller daniel blizzard and the alleged attacker luis gomez-mongesnd adriana mendez and jill taylor to walk out of jail if the two women would agree to testify against the two men. >> did they ask your permission for this or were they essentially saying this is the way the cookie crumbles? >> we didn't have a choice, but we were made aware that this is what they were thinking of doing. >> reporter: why were those deals necessary? deputy prosecutor alvin gusman. >> it's kind of trying to pick the lesser of two evils on that. >> reporter: meaning, you get the mastermind and you get the guy whose hand was actually on the knife and maybe the little fish swim away? >> that's essentially what happened in this situation. >> do you think you had a strong case against jill taylor? >> she was probably the weakest case we would have had compared to all four people that we believed we were involved. >> reporter: and so, in august 2014, the murder trial of daniel blizzard began, with a parade of lawyers, life insurance salesmen, and law enforcement taking the sta