>> you know, harp gone and we miss him and we love him but, you know for her to be put away it helps heal. and julie, she was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison. >> essentially, i'm 42 years old, very true which brought up a question on a lot. >> why did you get pregnant? >> i was such a good parent, and i have the law to give to another child and i ripped the wanted to be able to share that love with my daughter, who i love more than anything in a world. >> julie's father sent into a statement repeating julie said bs claim and saying, the verdict is unjust. we asked, him and julissa tierney, and her friends and siblings, any of them, to sit with the camera and talk about julie. if nothing else to defender. all, declined. >> thank you very much. >> jason harper was 39 when she killed him. and now, julie harper will grow old behind bars, alone. >> that's all for this edition of dateline, i'm craig melvin, thank you for watching! for watching >> i'm craig, melvin and i'm natalie morales and this is dateline. >> it was very surreal. i was reeling from shock that

my parents were gone. >> a beloved couple founde of te along with a lifetime of valuable curiosities that they had collected. >> she was big into civil war, guns, coins, all kinds. >> was there any connection between the memorabilia and the murder? >> the question is who is going to benefit by these two deaths. >> jessica was the only child and she is the sole heir. >> sole heir. >> was there somebody else who stood to gain? >> investigators would discover a clue. >> by far the most important piece of evidence that was in the case. that would reveal a mind-blowing betrayal. >> somebody with a sick mind, that's all i know. >> welcome to dateline. it was a hobby that turned into a passion, collecting.

and they were good at it. amassing a fortune that they kept right there in their home. it is also where their bodies were found and the question was obvious who stood to gain? with the answer to who killed him be that simple? here is dennis murphy with the collector. >> if you travels take you to the ozarks in southwestern missouri, that splendid lake country, you maybe have passed or trout fishing on the mind. or perhaps you are heady to catch the stage shows. but there was no tour guide that would have directed you to this modest home in springfield, missouri and that is a shame, because it was an old curiosity shot that was well worth seeing. floor to ceiling collectibles. valuable stuff everywhere the the eye landed. but still, every object just so. think, quarters. >> anything from coins to arrowheads to, he had probably 10 to 15,000 books. >> they can to golden state, gems.

>> bayonnets from world war i and just all kinds of stuff. a lie cannon. >> but did these collectors who had such a knack for finding treasure have a less discerning eye when it came to sizing up people? did that go towards explaining the dreadful toll in that house on that evening. >> i said that he is off in some way. i don't know. he could be a psychopath or something. it scares me. >> on april 30th, 2014, did they fall prey to somebody that they believe could be trusted? >> i had to be lowered to the ground and i started crying and screaming. >> not those. such good people. why? >> springfield, missouri is called the queen of the ozarks. a churchgoing neighborly city of mid size with good colleges. gary terral grew up poor on a farm not far away and knew

early on that his adult life would be all about education, teaching kids in this classroom by day. the history book in his lap at night. he and his wife, gianna, raised two kids, a girl and a boy who sadly died young of a brain cancer. gan kept the house and sold avon products part-time. they lived in guard and in the same house for almost 25 years and they even designed it themselves. life in missouri was good for the two. >> they love each other very much. daughter jessica remembers how extraordinary closer parents were, joined at the hip. >> if moments shopping, my dad took her to the garden together and they talked on the phone several times a day. if they were apart, they really did everything. >> they really were for the ages? >> yes, yes. >> personalities, gary was the fun outgoing one. >> he was a very jolly man. kind of like a santa claus. >> jan, a little more reserved. >> might take a little bit more

to get to know her, but once she warmed up to you, she was very alive. >> when gary retired as a beloved assistant school superintendent, he suddenly had all of the time in the world to visit civil war battlefields, scour flea markets and pour over his antiques dealers catalogs. but there was a lucrative sideline for his obsession for memorabilia. >> he was big into buying and selling gold and silver. >> gary's brother, larry. >> he constantly collected cohen somebody golden silver. trinkets >> did very well at it. >> did very well at it. he was a good businessman. >> the golden silver went into one of five saves in the house. but the coins in artifacts, many of them museum quality were on display. >> had a lot of rare pieces, lots of indian jewelry that was a very quality pieces that he loved. >> what was his most unusual piece do you think? >> probably would be the walrus tusks that he owned, he had three of those. >> they were rare, 19th century hand engraved scrum shaw and each were worth about $10,000.

>> how would he find these things? >> i'm not really sure, they did go to flea markets and garage sales and things like that. but in any time that i would ask him, where did you get this? >> he would say, oh, in my travels. >> in 2013, jason became one of the family when he and jessica got engaged. and he remembers the walrus tusks as well as the other unusual items in the home. >> it was one of those things -- it was immaculate, everything had a place and he had so much stuff. >> just scan jason lived almost three miles away in oklahoma city. but jessica spoke with her parents several times a day. that all changed on may 1st. >> i had called my mom on my way to, work like i always do. and she did not answer. so i thought, well, maybe she is in the bathroom, maybe she is outside and i called back. and i still didn't reach her.

>> by noon, jessica says that she still could not reach her so that she called the springfield police and asked them to go by the house. >> when the officer did, that what did he report back to you? >> that nothing seemed out of place, they could not see anything inside of the house, all of the doors were secure and absolutely no signs of forced entry or things appearing to be out of place. >> officers had no cost to force himself into the house and left, but jessica said she was still worried, so she and jason took the five hour drive to springfield and they arrived at the house around 7 pm. >> as we were coming around the corner to the house, i hit the garage door button and both cars were in the garage. and that was bad news for you? >> yes.

>> with that imply? >> that there was something terribly wrong. >> jessica called 9-1-1 without ever going past the garage into the house. two officers arrived within minutes. >> they entered the home and then in other officer arrived and then another, and then another, and then another. >> and you are waiting outside? >> we are waiting outside. >> nobody said a word to jessica and jason. and then they noticed police blocking off the area with crime scene tape. >> i kind of grabbed onto the officer and i said what is going on? why are they calling for crime scene tape? >> he kind of help me and said, i don't know what is going on. all i know is there are two people in the house that are deceased. >> coming up, chilling words outside of the house. but they were nothing compared to what investigators would find inside. >> it seems to be an element of personal anger in this thing? this close quartered killing of somebody with a weapon in their hand. >> it definitely seem to be brutal, the brutality involved. >> when dateline continues.

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springfield, missouri, the daughter who asked local police to check on her parents was now being told to bodies were found inside of her parents home. they did not identify them, but jessica said that she knew it could only be her mom and dad. >> i started crying and

screaming. because i knew that it was my worst fear. >> her fiancé, jason, was by her side, trying to console her. >> she was beyond upset. she kept saying i'm sorry, mom i'm sorry mom. >> i have no details, no idea what happened. >> i'm thinking that this is horrible and also hoping that it is like carbon monoxide, something explainable. >> right. right. >> but, inside officers quickly grasp the cold, stomach turning truth. jan and derrick's death were not accidental. >> it was going to be a long investigation. >> detective mcgamus one of the first detectives on the. scene that night, he entered the home through the garage and saw gary first. >> we could see that there was a deceased male in the hallway of the home. >> his pants were pulled down? what did you make of that? >> we didn't know.

the only thing that we could think of, was that he was trying to get away from somebody, that they are grabbing ahold of him. >> or was the killer rifling his pockets for something? a key maybe, a combination? >> and gary's office downstairs, the detectives saw jan. >> she was on the ground, she was lying face down. but it was obvious that there was severe trauma to the back of her head. >> so, was this a violent home invasion? shannon gary had more than half 1 million dollars in the house for the grabbing. so a botched robbery was a likely scenario. and in the garage, please did find strange marks and scratches on a tornado shelter that was also used to say. >> it appeared that somebody had tried to pry the lock open. there were marks that were by the lock on the door of the tornado shelter. >> they did not get inside? >> it did not appear that they did, no. >> that would suggest somebody is looking for something. >> yes. >> but if robbery was the plan, the killer had left the oddball museum strangely intact.

>> nothing appeared tossed or out of place. and the nature of the killings--gary was shot as well as beaten. spoke volumes to the prosecutor assigned to the case, todd myers. >> it seems to be an element of personal anger in this thing, todd? this close quartered killing of somebody with a weapon in your hand. >> yes, it definitely seemed to be personal type killing. just the brutality involved. >> investigators determined jan and gary were likely killed the night before. but search as they might for the murder weapons, the gun, the bludgeoning instrument, officers came up empty handed. but they did discover some unusual evidence. >> around jan's body, there were small white flakes of a substance that were obviously either from the murder weapon, or on the murderous body. there were similar flakes found by the wound to gary's head.

>> so they bagged them and sent them off for testing. >> and the crime scene text uncovered something else that could be a crucial piece of evidence. a discarded latex glove. >> so, a latex glove on the floor jumped out at you? >> totally out of place and from talking with everybody that there is no way that gary or jan would have left that glove. there it was right in the middle of the floor for everybody to see. >> did it belong to the? victims or the killer? nobody knew. >> so, it's collected, you don't know what it means. >> we don't know what it means, it was collected and sent to the highway patrol crime lab. >> they had no idea, no working theory of why the couple had been murdered. but they did have a sequence to the order of deaths. >> it is hard to believe that gary is shot upstairs if jan is still fully functioning and mobile, that she would've not called 9-1-1, would not have tried to intervene in some way. >> speculation tells you she is the first victim. >> she is bludgeoned to death downstairs, gary arrives at some point later.

>> most likely he arrives either while that is ongoing, or the killer is waiting for him. >> but it appears that she would have been the first to have died. >> a big question early on for detectives was understanding their crime scene, how did the killer gain entry to the house? >> there were no signs of forced entry. >> one dose of not been, forced doors are all intact, how did the killer get in? >> only two ways the killer would have gotten in. one would be to have their own access device, whether it's a key, garage door opener. some that would've opened the door up. and then upon leave, and be able to look at that way or to have been let in by the house by either gary or jan. >> it did not appear to the cops to be a random home invasion, but rather that the killer or killers had been somebody that the couple knew. was it a person that gary encountered in his travels? or terrible to think about, was the perpetrator somewhat much

closer to home? was this all in the family? >> i was shocked, really confused and baffled. >> who had a motive to kill the terrells? investigators have at least one idea. coming up. >> she is the person that would benefit here from this crime in terms of getting money. >> she is the only child, from parents that are very well to do. that's going to be looked. that >> when dateline continues. ntinues. volunteering! playing pickleba...! how do i love thee? ...let me count the ways. ♪ love can get a little messy...

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about the head downstairs, the husband shot twice upstairs. and springfield police had determined that this was no rain a break and gone wrong. jan and gary terrells home was filled with valuable items. yeah at first glance, nothing appeared to be have taken. and early supposition was that their killer was likely someone close to them. and nobody was closer than daughter jessica. >> she is the person that could benefit here from this crime? in terms of getting money. >> she had the most to gain. she is the only child, from parents are very well to do. with a lot going to be left to her. >> so she is going to be questioned hard? >> that night, detectives asked jessica and fiance jason down to the station to answer a few questions. cops do not let on that they were talking to them as

grieving relatives, but also potential suspects. the interviewer withheld details about the crime scene. a standard investigative tactic, to see if a subject knows more than they should. even throughout a theory that was not true. a murder suicide. >> one of the things to look at was that one would have entered and injured the other and then maybe themselves. do you think that's a possibility? >> i, dad says mom -- had been super depressed. it is made comments. and my mom called the doctor's office. and i told her that if he said something stupid again, that she needed to call the police. get away from him and call the police. >> as they continued talking, police had another reason to be suspicious of the daughter. she had driven five hours to check on her parents, then did not go inside the house. >> you wonder why she would do that? >> people sometimes they commit

a crime, or know a crime has been committed, they do not want to see the bodies in their, so they call somebody else. >> detectives pressed the couple about their movements that day. what they did or did not do at the scene. had they tampered with that tornado shelter in the garage? >> so you guys did not do anything to try to get inside? >> i mean, i pushed my hand on the handle and it was locked in that was it. >> did you think maybe we're looking at a situation here where we've got to call a lawyer? be careful about what we say? >> i did a little bit. >> but neither jason nor jessica asked for a lawyer. and offered the detective more detail about what was in that tornado shelter that had been tampered with. >> the safe room is full of gold and silver, and gold bars. and i don't even know. >> we don't know what is all in there. >> he has books that are signed by presidents. he has indian peace medals. . >> for investigators, the entire interview was a test. >> how are you going to hold up. are you going to give answers that we can go back and verify?

>> so you intend to sweat them. >> that was the detectives intent. to the degree of, just trying to make sure that we get the truth. >> so had they passed the investigators test? >> detectives let them go, but held on to jessica's car to test it for potential evidence. >> why did they have reason to look in your car? >> i don't really know, i assumed it was because my car was there. >> now jessica had to call family and friends to tell the news about her parents. >> her uncle larry, her father's brother was at his law office when he got the call. >> she said that long and out are gone? >> would you, mean they're out of town? >> said, no, they are deceased. i collapsed on the floor. >> you are a mess? >> i was a mess. the unknown was terrifying. because i did not know what had happened. >> larry was not shocked or average to know that her niece was being looked at as a potential suspect. he was however a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. >> i knew she had to be

eliminated, i understood that. due to the fact she was the only child. she just had to be eliminated. so that the case could move on. and the case did keep moving, but after a full week of investigating, the daughter and fiancé were not eliminated. rather, detectives called them back to the station. this time interviewed separately. jason first. cops by now had figured out that the murders took place the night before the bodies were discovered. so, where exactly were he and jessica then? >> we went to the pizza hut, i don't know, probably 5:30. something like that. then came back and stayed home. >> home, five hours away in oklahoma city. >> do you remember how you pay for the pizza hut stuff? -- >> pretty sure it's on my card. >> you didn't do anything to her?

didn't go into the house, anything like that? everything you tell me is the truth? >> absolutely. >> next, jessica was in the chair. answering questions about her relationship with her parents. >> are they paying any of your billd? >> they pay my at&t bill for my cellphone. pay my car insurance. and i think that is it. >> i'm just going to ask, did you have any ill feelings toward your folks? anything that would have been mad at them for? anything to want to harm them or anything like that? >> no. my parents were my life. >> to better your financial situation or anything like that? >> no. i mean, if i needed something all i had to do was call and ask. >> so you are a suspect? in your parents double homicide. >> yes. yes. >> how do you deal with that? you haven't even buried them yet? >> i wasn't even dealing with it. it was more just going through and say that i did not do it. >> police asked both jessica and jason for dna samples. then they set out to verify their alibis.

>> my boss and i took a trip to oklahoma city and we went to employers, spoke with fellow employees, with jessica's boss and we went to the pizza hut to see if we could see some surveillance video. >> would it all check out? or would an unexpected lead send the investigation in a new direction. >> this was a huge bingo moment. >> it was. >> coming up, gary's best friend offers detectives some clues. including some texts that he said he saw on gary's phone. >> some guy that he had taught in a class. >> did somebody need cash badly enough to kill? >> when dateline continues. i'm your overly competitive brother. check. psych! and i'm about to steal this game from you just like i stole kelly carter in high school. you got no game dude, that's a foul! and now you're ready to settle the score. game over. and if you don't have the right home insurance coverage,

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treasury secretary yellen said that a steep economic downturn if congress fails to raise the country's debt ceiling. just last week, yellen said that the deadline for the u.s. to act that preventative

default could be as early as june 1st. former president trump will not testify in a civil trial brought on by ryan -- writer e. jean carroll, mr. trump's kids -- accused of defamation and is set to begin this morning. now, back to dateline. k to dateline. >> welcome back, from the beginning, the terrell's daughter and soon to be a husband where the main suspects in the brutal murder. but was there someone else who also had a motive? here again is dennis murphy. >> on an early spring saturday in may of 2014, the very day that jessica terrell had planned to go wedding dress shopping with her mother, she was instead burying both of her parents. >> i basically just cried and was constantly ill. >> what's she was growing through at that point was just unfathomable.

she was just broken at this point. >> a funeral service was held at the mountain grove school district, where guy worked for 30 years. nancy was a school board secretary. >> it's just so hard to believe that something so bad, could happen in springfield. and double unbelief that is somebody you know. and my heart has just gone out for poor jessica. >> the outpouring of love and support was a huge comfort to jessica at time when she needed it the most. >> word had gotten out that the cops were looking into her. >> lots of rumors that i did it. >> that is tough to go out every day and say i did not kill my parents. >> and it got very tiring to hear somebody say, well, you need to look at the daughter, she did it, she has the most to gain. >> they did take a hard look? >> they think the daughter killed, to get the money, thinking she is in cahoots with the fiancée.

>> awful. >> you might not of believed it if the circle people didn't believe it. >> my circle was not believing that. >> behind the scenes, police and prosecutors had come to the same conclusion. jessica and jason were innocent. >> everything that jessica and jason were telling the police, the police were able to corroborate and verify it. >> they went through everything, they went through the phone records. alibi was checked out top to bottom. >> it was -- >> when the dna results came back on the latex glove, neither of them was a match. the dna belonged to an unknown male. >> was that it really free? >> yes, we knew we didn't do it, 90 define who did. >> the couple felt they could help the investigation with their own amateur sleuthing. for instance, when jason went back to jessica's parents house for the first time. he noticed something was missing. >> was a display of ivory pieces and multiple walrus tusks with engraved art. they had been moved. >> walrus tusks, are we talking

about like so? >> the big one was about yay= big, the larger one was not where was supposed to be on the other one was not there at all. jason told police that one of gary's prized tusks could be the murder weapon. the source of those mysterious white flakes. and jessica noticed something too. that somebody had been at her dad's desk where he sorted coins. >> he kept them around his desk in coffee cans and bags. and they would be sorting them. or organizing them. >> and a container, with what would have looked like loose parking meter change was missing. its actual value, around $20, 000, according to her dad's records. the killer would have known the value only if he moved in the same antique circles as gary. i decided with the brother suspected. >> perhaps gary went to buy some gold and silver. somebody had set him up and had somebody followed him home or got the drop on him or jan and had robbed and killed him. >> it sounds very plausible. >> that was a big worry i had. >> but as they dug into gabby's

business dealings, no potential suspects emerge. few people had any ideally had any wealth they were. >> he did not show that kind of wealth to people. it was always kept very quiet. the people he would interact with, as far as selling the gold, they were always very reputable type people. >> and because there was no forced entry to the home, larry offered up the very limited list of people that had access to the house. a handful of local contractors. >> i assume that you are asking the garden guy and the cabinet maker, whoever might have been in that house. from larry's list of people to give the dna. >> the same time, officers were reaching out in the couple's inner circle. gary's closest friend was mark porter, a married father of two. a prominent guy around town, and a former school superintendent. >> for us, it is just a wise thing to do. >> he was handsome, he looked good, he dressed good.

when he first came to the district, he drove a jaguar. >> nancy worked with both gary and mark. seem to get along very well. worked well together. i thought that they were friends at school and off of school. >> so mark went down to the police station to talk with investigators. >> all right, mr. porter. it is mark correct? do you mind if i call you mark? >> that's good. >> okay. i just want to kind of touch base with you and talk to you about how you know them, how long you've known them. >> i've known gary probably since, 15, 20 years. he was my assistant superintendent, i was superintendent. >> mark knew a lot about gary's coin business. he had started dabbling in it as well. he told detectives details that suggested a fellow collector could have targeted the terrells. >> he has people all over. i know he goes to hotels, he meeds people. runs ads in the paper. >> according to mark, gary set up one of those meetings around the time of his death.

and it involved a lot of money. >> he was actually going to sell $50,000 worth of gold for cash. it was a buyer that was going to give him $50, 000, that's all i know. >> he also mentioned text messages that he had seen on gary's phone from some other guy. >> gary asked me to read him some of his text messages. there are five from a guy that he had taught in a class i was asking for money. and i have no idea. >> you don't remember, was there a name attached with the text? >> i can't remember. >> remember, gary was shot as well as beaten. could it have been with one of his own guns? >> gary has guns everywhere. gary has guns in every drawer of the house i think. he likes his guns, he loves guns. >> but that mark gave detectives a detail that took him completely by surprise. >> he was supposed to meet me at 8:00 on wednesday and did not show. >> wednesday, the night of the murders. it was the first that police

were hearing of gary having plans that night. what else did the best find know? >> coming up, mark gives a detailed account. one that troubles investigators. >> there were several things about that story that raised some questions. >> when dateline continues. because it's made with greek yogurt so, ice cream, who's lookin' like a snack now? yasso ridiculously better (nathan m) secondhand smoke caused me to have asthma attacks, infections, and lung damage. and i never smoked. (announcer) you can quit. for free help, call 1-800-quit-now >> springfield police were

talking to gary's best friend, mark porter, who suggested

plenty of theories about why terry was killed. he said, garys money was cat nip for all kinds of folks. >> you know, people would, known people who knew he had money, we're always asking. >> then, they revealed something that we didn't know. he and gary had plans to meet at mcdonald's at the night of the murders. >> for the how long do you think we waited on him? >> i waited, probably a good -- i got there probably 7:45, probably 45-minute. >> okay. >> so, the friend said he drove across town to stop by gary's house. >> i went back to the house, knocked on the door, or nothing, he did not. they're so i thought maybe something was wrong. he said,

leave -- go, and he said my, bad i'm in kansas city. so i have no clue. >> mark told detectives that gary had stood him up before, no big deal. so, he went back to his office at ibm to do some work. >> now, there were several things about that story that raised some questions. >> like? >> like, why would you wait 45 minutes for someone and not pick up your phone and give them a call and say, hey. what's up. >> and you forget. >> but, what seemed really strange was that marc porter had just admitted to going to the house the night of the murder, with a story that just didn't ring true. why drive across town if he wasn't all that concerned about his friend missing dinner? >> so, he drives a few miles across town to go knock on the door when his offices across the street, when he doesn't appear that gary is showing up. >> so, he puts himself out of the house? >> he puts himself out of the house, yes. >> inside the interview room, the detective decided, it was time for very. >> just give me a couple of seconds a circle by fair. is there anything, else gonna get you anything? can i get you anything? water? or anything?

>> trying to make sense of it. including this bit of information. gary's brother had told police that, not long, ago mark asked gary for a long. per the request in writing. and not just a little bit till payday. but an eye-popping, $250,000. >> that's the kind of money, if you could get out of the, houses a second mortgage, maybe if you are lucky. >> what did he make? appeared to be considerate even for a heartbeat? >> no, not at all. when he was talking to us about it, he was kind of laughing, and said you know, i don't know where he evenings i would have this kind of money. >> strange, since not only would mark, gary's former boss have has a nice mention of the school former intended. he was currently earning a six figure salary by the end. brother larry, had suggested mark might have a gambling problem. >> i knew he had some sort of bad financial issue. >> when the detective came back to the room, the tone of the interview had changed from putin. >> have you ever asked gary for money yourself? >> only, no, only four, only in trade or buying. >> suddenly, marc porter was in the hot seat. >> so, i was getting information from somebody that told me maybe had a large

gambling debt. that you were asking -- >> no. >> you are asking gary for maybe some assistance with. >> no. >> would that be, false? >> no, that's not true. >> he denied asking for the loan, said the only time he discussed a large sums of money with gary was about a real estate deal. >> because, he's always looking for investment. >> then detectives asked him the question we asked everyone. else would be offer up a dna sample? >> all i ask is just like a cheek swab, i want to ask if you're fine, we could get that done today. >> you know, always. >> okay. >> any reason? >> i don't know the legalities. i don't want to do something that my attorney say i should him. >> why would you not give us a dna sample? >> he's your best friend, we're trying to figure it out. >> he's your best friend, we're trying to figure out everything that we can who brutally murdered your best friends and you're telling us that you're not sure you're gonna give us a dna sample? >> the refusal was in evidence of mark's guilt, so police let him go. but, the investigation suddenly shifted away from the workers

at the terrell home and to ward to mark porter. some detectives want to check out his alibi. what others continue mining other avenues for leads. one cop thought to check the local database of pawnshops to see if any of the missing items from the terrell house had been recently sold. that search led them here to rnk coins. >> tell us how your business ended up being very important in a murder investigation? >> yes sir. >> it was just two days after jan and gary when kelly was working behind his desk. and the guy with the top of points locked in. >> what were you seeing in him? was he okay, was he normal? >> he looked like in the average guy to me. nothing actually stood out about them at all. >> we had dimes, quarters, 56 pieces. and, when you add it up the face value of that stack of money, how much was it worth?

>> he had 1200 and -- 1200 and $10 in face money. >> but, the meltdown value of the metal -- >> i paid him $18,351. >> $18,351. a lot of mine. and, not far off the value of the coins jessica reported missing from her parents home. >> and, when you walked in and stacked's coins, and you did the transactions, your security cameras caught it all. >> sure! >> so, who was it? >> coming up -- how a mcdonald's coffee cup was about to blow the case wide open. >> does your dashboard just light up when you hear that? >> can't even describe the emotion of it. >> and, finally, a family learns the truth. >> i remember falling to the floor. >> when dateline continues. dancing is everything. soccer is the best. but her moderate to severe eczema could make it hard for her. my skin was so itchy. and my outfit was uncomfortable. now, my skin's not as itchy. now we're staying ahead of her eczema.

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now, with the conclusion of the collector, here is dennis murphy. >> detectives finally had a major break in the investigation. silver coins, worth around the same amount as the one taken from the terrell home had turned up in a local coin shop. surveillance cameras called the transactional on video. the man certainly looked familiar, but, if there was any doubt, he left a copy of his i. d.. mark porter. >> yes. >> mark edward porter. this is a real license, this was the actual day.

>> that's when! >> but selling a lot of coins did not prove that marc porter was guilty of murder. remember, mark also had an interest in the queen business. >> the best explanation for that was just simply that these four coins that marc porter had, it was just a coincidence that they happen to be sold the day after the terral was killed. >> still, the police, ibm executive retired school superintendent, and by all appearances, a pillar of the community who is now the prime suspect in the murders of jan and gary terrell. >> i never liked the guy. i didn't trust him. i thought he was something about fake. >> gary's father, larry, always had a bad feeling about mark. , and he was convinced if mark was the killer, the motive was money. >> well, i thought that he was befriending, recruiting and grooming my brother so he could gain access to his money. , and i think over a period of time, he saw jan as an obstacle. >> when jessica heard detectives were looking at mark, she wasn't surprised. >> he didn't show up at the visitation or the funeral,

either one. >> conspicuous in his absence, or was it making too much of a non appearance? >> i think it was pretty obvious at that point that there was something going on. >> and, his former secretary said she hated working for mark porter. and it up putting her job to get away from his. >> i said, he is off in some way. i don't know. he could be a psychopath or something. i said, it scares me. >> did you use that word? >> i did. >> but, what bothered police was his lack of cooperation. >> he wouldn't give dna. he wouldn't take a polygraph. >> after that, the suspicious pawn shop transactions. and, the story about stopping by the terrell house on the night of the murder. >> and, a talk with mark's wife about the night of the killings, only made them more certain. >> she had talked about making a couple of phone calls to mark and, she couldn't get a hold of him. she couldn't get a hold of where he was, what he was doing. >> but, police still needed physical evidence, a dna sample to match to that latex glove found at the scene. so, they hatched a plan to get

one. >> you started tailing mark porter? >> yes. >> car outside the house? >> we had undercover officers who were constantly doing surveillance for weeks, weeks and weeks to somehow obtain a dna sample from him. >> but, nabbing a sample proved more difficult than expected. in all of those weeks, officers continued to come up empty. >> they watched him eat lunch, they watched him get a to go cup, and they were all excited because they thought they were gonna be able to get the straw that he had been drinking his drink with, only to see him pick the straw up and put it into his to go cup and leave with the straw. there was no reason -- >> so, he knew that you guys had eyes on him. >> it is difficult to know what he knew at that time. >> then, three months after the murders, an undercover officer followed mark into an automobile oil chain shop. >> goes inside, mark has a

coffee cup that he had gotten her mcdonald's. he's drinking from the clouds, strikes up a conversation, he just a casual conversation. >> the suspect and the undercover cop? >> the suspect in the undercover cop. obviously, mark has no clue what's going on. as i am speaking with him, mark's car gets done and he gets up and leave, and leaves behind the cops because. >> so police had their sample. >> and less than 24 hours, they had the results. >> it's confirmed, it's a match. >> the same dna from the coffee cup is the dna from the latex glove. >> does your dashboard just light up when you hear that? >> can't even describe the emotion of it that we're going to be able to hopefully bring some resolution to the tyrrell family. >> to excite, are armed with search warrants, they arrested mark porter at his office. >> how do you take that? >> you got the wrong guy, this can't be. >> absolutely not, he said, okay! he turned around, put his hands behind his back. that was the only work.

okay! >> jessica was at work when she got the call. >> two of my very good friends are with me. and they said, he's been arrested. and, i remember falling to the floor and just being so overwhelmed with relief that he was finally caught. >> even the former secretary who didn't like him was horrified. >> i couldn't believe it. i mean, i thought, no! no! >> investigators went back to mark's life and told her that her husband's own story put him at the scene of the crime. >> we really need to help us. >> but when did mike say that he, he was there? >> the time they were killed. >> no! >> yes, ma'am. yes, ma'am. >> okay, still circumstantial. >> we have a man here -- >> and that is why mark porter 's defense attorney seemed ready to argue. mark hired one of the best to plead his case. >> he has a spotless record. five college degrees and has an outstanding past of good reputation. >> at a bond hearing, the defense revealed its strategy. they would argue that there was nothing suspicious about mike's dna inside his best friends house. >> he was a regular visitor to

the house, porter. he would get we gary, they would put on their gloves and handle the old points in the objects. and that is why the glove is there. >> jurors, it's benign. >> do you think that worked as an argument in the real world of corporate interests? >> potentially, yes. >> but, what about that suspicious coin sale. well, there was no way to know for sure that the coins had come from gary's house. >> and, as for the assumption that marc porter was a compulsive gambler, hopelessly in debt. >> you have to wonder whether he got behind with the bookie or the mob. did he owe money to some heavy people? >> that was a theory that we frequently talked about. there was never any evidence that we found that led to that. >> so, the case of a potential death penalty was not--. and when mark hired new attorneys who asked to talk about a plea deal, the prosecution was willing to listen. >> what are we willing to risk?

>> to try to get the death penalty, can we achieve all we need to achieve without the risk of going to trial? >> -- >> there's a chance of a hung jury, you have to do it all again, there's a chance that they come back and--. >> both sides agreed. mark porter pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison. no eligibility for parole until he is 82. >> i am still very shocked, very sad. and i have a lot of relief that mr. porter is finally going to be behind bars for presumably the rest of his life. >> he has to live every day with when he did. every day, he has to think about what he did. , and all of the lives he destroyed. >> you're saying that he has to live all his life with more remorse, but you haven't seen any sign that he has any remorse. >> that is the only bad part. but, he starts to sit there. >> jessica has done her best to move on. in february of 2015, she and

jason finally got married. >> they got married on valentine's day. well it was a great day, it was still very sad. her parents right there. >> larry took its brothers place and walked around the house. >> well, she asked me to give away. and, it should've been my brother's job. >> kind of a bittersweet moment? >> yes, that's true. i didn't feel right about doing it. >> to keep her parents memory alive, jessica has set up a scholarship in their needs. as for that offbeat you seal of a home, it is still there with a loving daughter as caretaker. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i am natalie morales, see you next time. >> i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is dateline. >> it was rough. it was a rough time for the whole community. >> it hit her town like a li