but if you look at thomas clayton's conduct, he never mentioned michael beard.rd should be an immediate suspect. he never mentioned michael beard to the police. to me there's a reason for that. >> reporter: as they prepared for trial, investigators kept digging. they discovered a flurry of calls and texts in the weeks leading up to the crime. >> clayton was contacting beard saying we have to meet, he was getting him a bicycle. so he was having these clandestine meetings. >> reporter: investigators also pulled surveillance footage from outside tom's business. they believed this was video proof of a conspiracy. that's beard, they say, in a red truck that tom loaned him just hours before the murder. and that's tom following in his green servepro truck. >> we also know that during that time period beard turned his phone off, turned it on, turned it off again. >> reporter: why do you think he did that? >> the inference that would be drawn from that is these guys are not that naive, they know that there's a possibility of being tracked with their phones. >> reporter:

gentlemen, a member of the cree nation, stop-it-at-the-source campaigner for 350.org, please welcome clayton thomasler. [applause] what s up, everybody? [cheers] yeah, yeah. first and foremost, [native words] i want to acknowledge in a good way the indigenous ancestors and indigenous people living here in these beautiful lands,