that was my reaction. >> in addition to facing a murder charge, matt lyerly was eventually charged withi lyerly's daughters, amanda and rebecca posted a video on youtube in support of their dad. in the video, the girls claims that the mother hated her own family and the same spiteful relatives were the primary reason their dad was in jail. for nikki's family, that video was devastating. what they wondered, had happened to those girls in the four years i had been in vermont. >> as far as we can tell, he poisoned them against us, and i can only attribute that to, you know, them living in a house with a master manipulator. >> the notion of matt lyerly as a master manipulator would become a central theme, and his murder trial began in january of 2016. >>, ladies and gentlemen. >>> in her opening statement, prosecutor lisa jones depicted matt lyerly as a couch potato, sponging off his hard-working wife. >> nikki lyerly was the breadwinner, and that family was in debt. up to $300,000 in debt. >> furthermore, john said, matt lyerly tried to control his wife by turning their home into a virtual

>> it was a bittersweet ending for nikki's family, they will likely never see matt lyerly again, but as nikki lyerly's youngest girls left to go back north with their grandfather, it seems just as likely that they would never see them again, either. edge they were my girls but i still love them, to this day. i taught them how to read but i got them ready for school in the mornings. >> you would like to have a relationship with them? >> i would love to have a relationship with them again. i don't know that that they will ever come, but i want them to know that my door is always open. but i don't know that they will ever come. >> one murder, so many victims. >>> that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. ks for wat. we were like sisters. >>> hello. i'm craig melvin, and this sis dateline. >>> we were like sisters. we had shared so much. i told me they had found her body, and i just collapsed. she is dead, because she was my friend. >>> first, melissa disappeared. >> that's the million-dollar question. >> i knew then that she had never made it into h