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I'm Lester Holt and this is datelined there were two shots in the dark then a thousand and one questions in the light of day and one one emergency to save my way.

Why would anybody want to shoot? That makes no sense to me. He was there in the room with Jan when this happened. Do this.

The word divorce being thrown around. The evidence tells a story. It doesn't support what you're telling us. There's another person here that could have done this. And it's Jeremy. I got questions for you about a girl that you may be seeing. Bailey. Yeah, I know. That would be a motive for murder. He was a concern. I don't know how we ever will get closer to this.

I guess you just still think bad things will happen in a small town to good people, and it didn't. Here's Keith Morrison with Far from Spider Lake. It was this was where happiness left happiness and memories and desire the wishes of dreams just out of reach. Its name is Spider Lake, one of those thousands of lakes that filled up the rocky gouges the glaciers left behind. Maybe that's why they sparkle the way they do, why this one in Minnesota spread out every which way and here near the tip of its northern arm is the Spider Lake Resort.

Family cabins by the day or week calls itself one of northern Minnesota's best kept secrets. Secrets, the word that will certainly apply to what you're about to hear one way or the other.

I went with them a couple of times up there, that being Chris and Jan Cruz. This is Jen's sister. OK, they would like to go fishing.

You stay at a cabin, just relax. It was just quality time together. And they did. They both enjoyed being there. The fact they had a fantasy that Chris and Jen a dream to live here all the time, to buy this resort and make it uniquely their own, that was brought up a lot. Yeah. John's dad, Terri, could see how they loved being here about every evening, Jim and Chris addict the out and Jan liked to take pictures of the lagoon and the wildlife along the lake and the sun sets off on the lake.

That was the kind of life they would have liked and if they owned it, said John's mom, Mary Jane Froogle. Jan could use her accounting skills to keep the place in business.

And Chris, Chris is very much an outdoors person. Jan is a people person with the people coming in and out all through the week and keeping them all content, happy, busy, all of those things.

Chris's brother Josh would have worked out good for Chris and Jan because Chris is a really good handyman construction guy. He's going to take care in the resort and grand pretty business smart, but what a fiddle would have.

Until until the events of the summer of 2015. By the time all this happened, Chris and John Cruz had been married for two decades, had lived here in a tiny place called Brewster, Population 473 in the rural southwest corner of Minnesota. The good, apparently happy marriage, a happy life, what they had was what I hope to have someday. I loved our family. Isaach, their eldest, was 20 then.

His sister, Bailey, was 15 that summer.

That was the year's spring of 2015 when Isaac's parents discovered that Spider Lake Resort was for sale and the buzz of excitement filled the house.

Did you ever fantasize about the family owning that place? Absolutely. When I found out that they were talking about buying it, I was starting to look for my line of the work up in that area. And I thought it'd be really fun to help Owen and help work out on the resort. That's the sort of place it becomes multigenerational, too. I mean, you can look forward to an association with it for your whole life. Yep.

So come August, Chris and John drove the six hours from Brewster to Spider Lake to engage in some serious negotiating. And there were obstacles. Of course, there were as Jan told her sister, Kay, it was just a timing with Bailey having a couple of years left in school.

So it wasn't that she yes, she did want to buy it. There was just a lot that went into that whole decision.

Mostly, of course, the money Jan, the bookkeeper ran the numbers they offered as much as their bank would allow. But it wasn't enough, was it, Jan, who faced it first so they'd have to move on? Chris would never own the resort. He'd set his heart on what they said to each other on the long drive home is not recorded, nor is what happened two nights later, middle of the night. And John and Chris Cruz's bedroom.

Nine one one emergency my to me, Jim, had been shot. I said, OK, I'll be there. Am I going to the hospital? Mom was quiet.

I said she's going to be OK, right? She is going to be OK. I said, no, she was dead. And I think I just kind of collapsed on the floor and screamed, why would anybody want to shoot?

It doesn't make any sense to you. It doesn't makes no sense to me. No, I know what you might be thinking, but maybe it wasn't that at all. When we come back, it turns out two shots were fired, one at Chris's side of the bed, there was a hole through the wall of the bedroom.

And so it appeared one round had been fired and missed. And was this a sign of a possible intruder? I've noticed a broken window in the bedroom downstairs.

What happened to Jan Cruz in the early morning hours of August 19th, 2015 was dreadfully obvious at first look, as Chris Cruz told the 911 operator nine one one emergency family that shot my wife, Jan had taken the fatal shotgun blast to the chest while in bed beside her own husband, Chris.

Someone shot your wife who shot?

Yeah, I don't know. We were asleep when I heard a bang got to be shot. How open that door is wide open as Chris called 911.

He checked on 15 year Old Bailey in a downstairs bedroom. She had heard the gun, of course, but she was unhurt. Then the rush of first responders and police and terrible emotions. Chris and Bailey huddled in the garage of deputies, secured the scene.

And then, as Don was approaching, Chris himself, spread the news to the family. He called his son Isaac off in South Dakota.

He said the mom had been shot and he didn't really know how to tell me that. And I just said, OK, I'm packing my stuff. I'm on my way. Did you know that she was had she was dead assumed, I guess, and assumed it wasn't good from the tone of his voice. He called his in-laws, Terry and Mary Jean Pigman. Chris called us early morning and was extremely broken up. I couldn't understand what he was saying.

I could tell he was in tears, which wasn't a usual thing for Chris. Pretty, pretty stoic. And he's telling me she didn't make it. We lost her. I didn't protect her.

But of all the people in the world, and especially this tiny world, Brewster, Minnesota, population 473, why would Jan need protecting? Why would someone shoot her? The least likely murder victim? She was just a very, very true and very genuine person. She just enjoyed spending time with her family and her kids and her husband.

And when she interacted with people, it was real, like she cared and you wanted to spend time with her.

Isaac, a young man of few words, said a lot with a little. She was pretty amazing. I was probably a pain in the ass growing up, but she was always really nice about it and understanding. Jan's always been outgoing, friendly. She was the one that brought soup to somebody that was sick. Jan had run a daycare in their home years earlier, but time of the murder had a front office job in a local plant. And here's the thing.

Sir John's younger sister, Vonne, she was just a regular person, uncontroversial. Nobody didn't like her.

She's great. Just a good person. Love to Quilt's with her neighbors, loved her family. That was definitely very important to her.

She'd never see her children get married or welcome grandchildren into the world or be with Chris in Spider Lake.

And so to say her family was in a state of shock would be to profoundly understate the feelings of that awful morning. Unaware of the activities of this man, I believe I received a call about 3:00 a.m., Derek Woodforde is a senior special agent with the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the BCA in southern Minnesota.

I know most of the local investigators, when they have a violent crime or homicide or death investigation and need assistance, they call me.

So he got dressed and drove to Brewster. And before dawn, Agent Woodforde was staring intently at the carnage and Chris and Jan's bedroom. What I found was the victim on a backboard. She was deceased. What was the nature of her of her injury?

It was a shotgun slug that had entered of the lower right shoulder and exited out her back.

Was it your sense that she would have died very quickly? We want to know, obviously. Was it right away or could it have been minutes? And I spoke to the medical examiner and he had thought that she could have stayed alive for three to five minutes after the injury.

It was as he approached that bedroom and Woodforde found two spent shotgun shells right outside the door.

Obviously, those I don't pick up at that point, they'll stay for crime scene team to process. But I noticed they looked to be 12 gauge shot shells that were spent. Two of them. Two of them. So two shots, two loud shots. One obviously hit Japan, but the other one, there was a hole through the wall of the bedroom. And so it appeared one round had been fired and missed. It went through the headboard along the wall where their heads would have been laying, and then it went out the wall of the house outside.

Well, that was strange, given where the bullet holes were looked like the person sleeping on the side of the bed closer to the door would probably have been hit.

Would it be possible for him to have been lying in the bed beside Jan and not be hit by whatever this bullet was? It went flying past. I thought that bullet could hit him prior to going through the headboard.

Preliminary, of course, but he thought about it as he looked around the house. Nothing obviously missing. This did not appear to be a robbery, but had somebody broken in, I've noticed a broken window in the bedroom downstairs.

Could somebody have gotten through the window that way? Someone could have got through the window. It was broken and opened, but it had rained pretty heavy off and on. And so the ground was wet. There was a little bit of dirt or a leaf that had blown in, but there were no money footprints below that window.

So probably no entry through the window.

But somebody was in here not to rob, not to rape, but to kill.

Jan crews in cold blood. Why would anyone want to do that? Derek Woodforde got in his car, drove to the local sheriff's office, someone he needed to talk to right away. No idea then how often they'd be talking or how confounding their conversations might be. Coming up, what the hell is the matter with people where you stood in the doorway of my bedroom and shot my wife, an enraged husband, with his family apparently under attack in their garage, burned down, and he had said that he was concerned could have been part of now Jan being shot.

When Dateline continues.

This is Senior Special Agent Derek Woodforde with the Minnesota bureau Criminal Apprehension. The man sitting with Agent Derek Woodford in the county sheriff's office was Chris Crews. And this is how they began these perplexing interviews. The investigators repeated efforts to match what they had seen to what they were hearing in here.

Our task to in a way, as we watch and listen to, Chris, many interviews and those of the others to try to piece together what happened to Chris's wife, Jan, who made it happen and why. Chris, first off, we understand that you're here voluntarily. We just want to find out what happened.

What happened, said Chris, was confusing. He was in bed, asleep, curled up in the way he always slept with Jan.

If you stand looking at the bed, I sleep on the left. Right.

He described it as kind of like spooning, like where she's laying on her side and he's laying on his side, kind of next to her. I guess his the front of his body would be alongside the back of her body.

What do you remember happening in the evening when you're in bed?

Just the baby that was that, you know, get up and and start setting up. And she said, oh, my God. But, my God, I didn't even know what happened. It's a little bit later, back down into the bang.

But as Woodforde knew, there were two loud bangs, two shotgun blasts, said, you heard a bang.

Did you? Did you hear just one? It was one bang. And it's like, what the hell you and you set up? And I could smell something. I thought. We are here again and again on fire. What fire? That was two months earlier, said Chris. In June, just before he and Jan and the family were due to depart for their annual trip to Spider Lake.

Their garage had burned down and he had said that he was concerned. Was it the same or could have been part of now Jan being shot at the time, said Chris.

The insurance inspector said it looked like the fire may have been deliberately set, but by whom? Nobody could say.

His last comment to us was lock your door, lock your garage doors.

Interesting, but it was something else about the fire story that occurred right away to Agent Woodforde.

It was concerning to me because a fire in a garage smells a lot different than a spent shotgun shell in a house. He would know that when he does a lot of trap shooting and hunting. And so he would know the difference between a shotgun and smoke from a house or a garage fire. Woodford made note of that and went on with his questions. What happened after Chris heard what he said was a single loud bang and saw that his wife had been shot and she's talking to.

But it is because he was not very much.

Oh, my God. And I tried later back down in bed and relax. I got my phone call and came back. It was late Christmas. And this is obviously going to be hard for you to discuss. And we're trying to get we're trying to get a 12 gauge shotgun shell laying in the back of my door, my bedroom. What the hell is the matter with people?

What are you stood in the doorway of my bedroom and shot my wife, who I don't understand that everyone reacts to disaster, grief, stress in different ways.

But though Chris was clearly distraught, Woodford was listening very carefully to the words he was using descriptions of the incident that Woodforde already knew were not accurate.

But you heard one bang and then do you see anything or anybody? That you don't see anybody. So OK.

And then you she said as she stood up for a minute or two, we both got up and said, What the hell was that and what did she say?

She just said, Oh, my God, Chris seem to be saying that Jen was shot as she was lying down in bed. And then she sat up and then there was not.

That was girl, you're toilet in the bedroom late on a Tuesday. Did you did you see where what had happened to this child was full of blood, they later backed down on the bed and.

You got you got to get my ball and come back down, Bailey.

But if he did layer down, thought Wolfert, surely his hands would have been covered in blood and they weren't.

Did you try to help revive your dad? Really? I knew it wasn't good. Then I was worried for Bailey if it's a condition of my life.

But you didn't see anybody hear anything? No, nothing.

I ran downstairs to the back door was wide open.

Did he have any idea who that might have been? No, not at that time. Because he didn't see anybody, didn't hear anything but that one shot and then just noticed the back door being wide open.

But the idea that a stranger had walked in and killed John and just walked out again didn't make sense.

In fact, that morning, after nothing about the murder of a loved local in a tiny hamlet in the middle of America made any sense at all. Coming up, teenage tensions and maybe troubles over Germany in the nineteen ninety deal, does Germany get along with your mom and dad? They don't know that he comes over. Actually, he didn't want me to date him because he is that much the.

We cannot begin to imagine or possibly describe the shock and grief that descended that first morning on John's parents, Mary Jane and Terry Pigman, to pick up the phone and hear from their son in law that their daughter was dead.

And he, Chris, have been taken to the sheriff's office for questioning. We threw on some clothes and went out there when we first walked in.

And the first thing they were concerned about was how we found out that he was there. The next thing out of their mouth was all, you know, 85 percent of the time this was done it.

And at that point I felt, okay, I know where you guys are going with this and why I felt like telling them you're full of it.

I mean, we've never felt he was the one that did it. No, they didn't. And so right after that first interview with Agent Woodforde, Jones parents invited Christian Bailey to move in with them. That's where Chris's brother Keith found them later that first day.

You know, we've never really been an emotional family and we don't wear our emotions on our sleeves, I guess. But I remember looking at Chris and I had never seen Chris was devastated as he was. I mean, he was in complete and utter shock.

How did he look? That was different. What his eyes were welled up. He was kind of boiling on his bottom lip a little bit and just kind of shaking his head back and forth. I'd never seen him so devastated ever. Bailey was there, too, of course, also a mess earlier at the sheriff's office. She'd had her turn to tell the investigators what she saw and heard early that morning wasn't quite the same story as the one her father told.

Well, both Chris and Bailey have hearing deficits. Bailey said she heard loud and clear, not one, but two shots.

I heard like two big bangs. So I don't know if I should get out of bed or just stay in bed and breakfast in bed. And I talk to my mom like questionmark, say, you know what I was going to do and I could hear from them. Yeah. And then I text my dad and then I saw him come downstairs. It was like two thirty when I heard that. And I could hear my dad like upstairs yelling and I heard my mom down or something.

I don't know. So I know what was going on. So I just stayed in bed. What was your dad yelling? What the hell? And then some guy was in his house. We can put you out of the house. You can tell that he's walking out of his room. I don't know what he was yelling then. I was kind of just lost it.

So Bailey, who had a digital clock by her bed, had just put the murder at like two thirty. Chris called 911, wanted to 39. Might be an issue. Why the delay, Bailey?

What do you think happened? I honestly have no idea. Who do you think would want to hurt your mom? Not that I know of. You know, what happened to your mom?

Did someone tell you that you said that she got shot. So how did you find out she died?

I actually thought she died until I was sitting in the garage.

And he told me, of course, those deputies were right when they told Bailey's grandparents that a significant other is quite often the prime suspect in cases like this. So they had to ask, what did Bailey know about her parents marriage?

They get along good, has a disagreement, but it's nothing huge disagreements about, oh, my mother wants me to quit smoking. And then about Kevin, they both just out to get that. So you I yell at each other. They get along really good if you ask me.

So, OK, so then no problems. When did this resort start?

We've been going since I was little, a little. And then my dad always been on the road up there.

So here in the sheriff's office it was Bailey and told the investigators how she worried about the resort at Spider Lake.

It was making her anxious.

She said, I've been kind of locked up because my parents want to buy up and just kind of a good time for me to move. So. So when you say worked up, what does that mean?

I get stressed out about, like, moving because I don't really know what I want to do. So plan was that me and my mom would stay with my grandpa so I could finish school and graduate here, and then I'd go up in the summer and help out at the school. So I didn't I just kind of worried about that to help her cope.

And he said she confided in her friend, an older boy named Jeremy Majerus. He'd been coming around to see Billy quite a lot that summer. He used to come down by things.

So you didn't feel like you want to move?

Well, yes and no. I kind of mixed feelings about it. So, OK, I play hockey here and everything, so.

OK, when did one last time Jeremy came over yesterday. How old is he. Nineteen ninety. You know. Are you guys dating. No. What's your relationship with Jeremy and this friendship. Does Jeremy get along with your mom and dad.

They don't know that he comes over. Actually he came in one night. So we're going to talk to my mom and dad because they're home and we can't tell them that we like each other. And my mom and dad didn't want me to date him because that was all the people that's going to have to give me a resort.

They couldn't afford an apparent arson fire in a garage and an unapproved, maybe inappropriate older boy in their daughter's life.

There were issues in this home and a kid who needed talking to Jeremy Majerus. Coming up, have you guys kissed? No, we haven't yet. I don't want to go too far with that right now because she's younger than me.

Nothing that sounds suspicious until Jeremy mentioned something else.

She said they were in some pretty good arguments. Who was her parents? Her mom and dad when Dateline continues.

What happened in the Cruz house here in tiny Brewster, Minnesota, was a truly terrible thing, the loss of that woman, Jan Cruz, a genuinely tragic event, made even more so because it just seemed pointless.

Why would somebody go into the house, shoot some sleeping woman? That didn't make any sense. So did she have any enemies who would want your dad?

No, that was a question that we asked often was who would have wanted John dead? And we could not find one person that didn't like Jan or that thought she wasn't a good person.

There was, however, that young man, Jeremy Majoras, the not quite boyfriend unapproved by Bailey's parents. Passions can run high in a situation like that.

Jeremy's place, his family's farm, that is, was a 20 or 25 minute drive away from the Cruz house. Deputies drove out to talk to him, recorded the conversation.

I got questions for you about a girl that you might be seeing. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. You mean her hang out a lot. We can ask, talk and talk and talk and talk. So as the deputy, when was the last time he talked to Bailey or communicated at all with Snapchat this morning, she said, I'll talk to you later.

Something bad has happened, so I'm kind of scared for her.

Jeremy said he met Bailey while helping out with the high school marching band. He had graduated but continued to volunteer. And somehow during those bad practices, he and Bailey had grown close. It was all very innocent, he said, but they really, really liked each other. So we just kind of just friends right now. I told her when we're older, maybe we can pursue something different. But right now, you know, I'm 18. She's 15.

You got to be careful with that. So there you go. Boyfriend, girlfriend. I mean, not really, because we really don't do anything. Boyfriend, girlfriend do. I mean, we talk more or less. Well, you know, you don't like my girlfriends go out on dates and they go out and do all the kissing and stuff like that. We don't do that. Really. I mean, really. I mean, you don't do it really or you do it.

We don't date you guys kiss. No, there's no we haven't yet. I don't want to go too far with that right now because she's younger than me. So, you know, be careful with it, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, I've talked to my pastor about it and he's like, you got to be careful if anybody even thinks you've done anything, I can get a lot a lot of trouble.

So they just talked to Jeremy and the deputy asked, what about lately to snap me a couple nights where she said they were in some pretty good arguments about this because it was her parents, her mom and dad.

Jeremy said the arguments, according to Bailey, were about trying to buy the Spider Lake Resort, and she hates them yelling at each other.

But they had some pretty good music. Hey, calm down. They're arguing about this. It's a lot of money in there. Her mom was is very, very, very, very, very, very, very nervous about spending all this money on a resort.

So Bailey was having trouble dealing with all that, said Jeremy.

She obviously hates it. Like she's made it very apparent to me that she will literally put her headphones on and turn music loud. They've been having a tough time with it because her dad really, really, really wants this to go through. This is his dream.

Was it true what Jeremy was saying?

Bailey hadn't said anything like that when she talked to investigators a few hours after her mother was killed. So the very next day, they brought Bailey in again to ask about her parents. First, they didn't tell her they've been talking to Jeremy where they have had some disagreements about this.

Not that I know of, no, no disagreements.

Then they told her about the Jeremy interview and he said that you told him that your parents do argue about the resort or have an argument every once in a while.

But I think it's wrong to discuss it because you know what to do. My mom and dad, when they had their disagreements, it wasn't like arguing at all. No big deal. I really yelled about everything.

And then she painted a slightly different picture of what had been going on at home. Things have been difficult lately.

There was that upsetting garage fire. But also Jen had a hysterectomy. Chris had his appendix out. And then on top of it all, they were trying to figure out the whole resort deal.

You're talking a couple of months they've had. Yeah, I'm pretty tense. Yeah. I mean, at least is far more tense than normal. Yes, very much so.

So once again, they asked Bailey what happened the night her mother was shot, what she heard from her bedroom, one floor below her parents room.

We asked Bailey, did you hear anybody running out of the house or or moving around? And she said she only heard one set of steps from upstairs. And that was Chris. He was the only one that was moving around upstairs. She did not hear anybody else.

Now, what does that mean and what would it mean when paired with CSIRO reports now coming in about curious little particulars of the crime scene? Coming up, a fortunate missed shot or was it a suspicious one? We do like a trajectory with our crime lab. So there's there's a whole range. If we look at the trend, the way that round travels, looks like you're going to get hit with that around. The way people say goodbye and tell you a lot about the community and about the person they gathered for the funeral, for John Kruse, the visitation was the Lutheran church, and there were people lined up down the block waiting to get in because Jan was so liked and respected in the community.

Old Town was probably pretty upset. Yes, she lived here all of her life. So she knew a lot of people. They had good things to say about her.

And so there was a respectful pause.

And then a couple of days later, Chris Crews was once again of the sheriff's office, the senior special agent Woodforde. I want to show you some photos.

Some things had been bothering Woodforde, like why Chris said he'd only heard one gunshot when obviously there had been two.

And what we got is we got two 12 gauge slugs. One of these you saw in one of these you didn't see. Is that correct? Correct. You said you heard one shot, OK. And then did you say that because that's what you heard or did you just see the one shell? I heard one for definite shot.

But that first slug, the one he said he did not hear Agent Woodforde explain to Chris that one would have hit him had he been lying in bed beside John as he said he was.

We'd do like a trajectory with our crime lab. So there's there's a whole right.

She's laying here. You're laying here on your side. If we look at the track, the the way that round travels, looks like you're going to get hit with that round. Been asking that question. This actually this round actually doesn't hit anything.

This is a mess, go through my house.

So, I mean the width to the mattress to that trajectory so that there's going to be both of us.

Do you think someone tried to shoot you and then missed and then shot her? I don't know.

Why would anybody then Agent Woodforde told Chris that the autopsy revealed that Jan was actually sitting up when she was hit with her right arm, stretched out toward the shooter.

In fact, her right hand was grazed by the shot to me, almost like she saw it coming.

Yeah. And so that was a concern based on what Chris had told me the first time that she was shot when they were laying down.

What this shows is that she's not laying down during during this this this shooting, OK? That she's not on her side after you think about it. Well, you're what you were saying, that you have your arm under her, OK? You have your arm under her. Why she shot.

Know what we were sleeping here, Chris seems to alter the narrative. Says he awoke to find his wife sitting up beside him.

She was she sat up before I did. How do you know that?

Because she was when I was laying there, she was up and then I got up. I mean, it was the shot you the first round you said you didn't get up on. No. So it woke me up boy in there the first round. Woke you up, I'm assuming.

So was this man changing his story? I did not know she was shot during the light on. You told me.

You said he stood in the doorway of my bedroom and shot my wife. Why do you tell me?

Did I say he I you said you didn't see anybody. So who's here? If I said he meant nothing and then doorway. Why do you think it was the doorway and there was an empty shopping shell right in the doorway of my bedroom.

Then Agent Woodforde asked Chris again about what he heard Jen say that night. I'm sure she said, Oh my God, before she gets shot, you hear? Oh, my God, yes. OK, so you're awake. Yes. Then you hear a gunshot. Yes. So if you're awake, you hear a gunshot. Who shot her? No idea Chris was not under arrest, of course, though he had to know he was under a microscope.

So the answers he was giving was he just confused what was going on here.

Coming up, his wife was bleeding to death. So how did Chris come away so clean by laying her back down to your blood on your hands? I don't know. I have no blood on my hands, but I knew I had was on my forearm when Dateline continues.

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That's LifeLock dotcom slash dateline to save twenty five percent off. Wonderings, even the rich, gives you a behind the scenes look at some of the most infamous family dynasties in modern history in their new season, the house of Versace, three siblings, Gianni, Donatella and Santo, build one of the greatest fashion labels the world has ever seen. But after the brutal murder of Gianni Versace, the fate of his global fashion empire was left up in the air with his killer on the loose and a manhunt underway.

He was Donatella who took on the task of rebuilding the brand with the weight of the fashion house, a success placed squarely on her shoulders, Donatella faced scrutiny from all sides, fueling a drug addiction and casting doubt on her ability to succeed. To explore the complexities of one of the most famous family businesses, listen to one season of Even the Rich on Apple podcasts, Spotify or the Wonder App. Senior Agent Derek Woodford was all too familiar with the worst of human behavior, very aware, too, that he was talking to a grieving husband, but aware also that grieving spouses and relatives and friends are fully capable of the most determined mendacity when hiding culpability for the worst thing they've ever done.

So he and his fellow investigators were certainly not finished with Chris crews and things that seemed to them odd.

I noticed that throughout the night. And what I want to call you never spoke to jail. No words of encouragement. Hang on, baby.

I said something when I went to get the phone.

You remember what you said? Did you say hang on or.

Have we played this part of this over and over? Well, this patch does ask you, is she responding? You said no, she's dead. I wasn't there.

She you know, I'm just asking you, what how did you make that determination? What did you see? What were you hearing that? Was she making any noises at that point? Nothing. Just laying there. And how could you tell that when I look back in the doorway? She was. So you did go back up after everyone? No one. No. I think one time you guys have been married, what, 20 years in October.

You love your wife very much. OK, and so you will look at her. And how do you why do you think that she's gone? Why do you think that she died? Just laying there. Moving to was an up. And is it possible that she could still have a heartbeat?

They didn't go back, I didn't Chris said he was lying right beside his wife when she was shot and is Woodfork new Jan bled rapidly and profusely. Yet somehow there was surprisingly little blood on Chris. It didn't make any sense to Woodforde. We believe with the amount of blood at the scene, we felt there should have been blood on Cruz, especially because Chris said he wasn't just lying beside John. He actually laid her down flat on the bed after she was shot.

How did you let her down?

I want to say my left hand was just going to wake up on her shoulder area in the back by laying her back down. Do you have blood on your hands? I don't know. I don't have no blood on my hands.

Don't blood I knew I had was on my forearm, no blood on his hands, but an odd mark on the front of his shirt from how he describes being in bed with Jan.

We were trying to figure out where that mark came from because it didn't make sense from just by laying next to her in bed, more like something was imprinted on the shirt.

Not like it was blood spatter. Right. Like that. Right.

This is a hard object, probably of some kind. What we're getting at here is this is what we call a pattern stain. It's something that had blood on it, that had some substance to it, and it was placed up against you. Whether it was placed up or are you leaning up against it, there's really nothing in that scene that would have to be from your hand.

What would have been on? You said you've touched her very short, very late. And the only thing Jan had on was a T-shirt and shorts.

So where would that unbloodied come from? I don't know, I mean, I didn't realize I even had blood on my shirt until you pointed it out, despite what some people like to claim, it can be quite hard to tell if the stranger sitting in front of you is lying or telling the truth.

But in this case, said the investigators, what Chris was telling them wasn't adding up.

The evidence tells a story.

And what it looks like is it doesn't support what you're telling us. And it actually it's the contrary is it would almost appear that I didn't do this.

They hooked up Chris to a polygraph. The test revealed deception. They told him.

And then Chris offered up a possible suspect.

The name Lisa come into my head. And I don't want to tell you that because I k and I talked about it. It's part of me. And I don't want to steer anybody to believing anything, you know.

Lisa, who was Lisa? Coming up, a possible lead, we had gotten further information that she had maybe had some friction with Jan and Jeremy says this was not a happy family. Bailey had told him they had mentioned the word divorce. People talk, and in a town like Brewster, everybody knew about the murder of John Cruise, everybody had opinions. And when the investigators heard about was that one of John's neighbors, a woman who lived just down the block, might have been nursing a grudge.

We had gotten further information that she had maybe had some friction with Jan. This woman, Lisa, had apparently been upset about Jan shutting down the daycare center. She had been running because her son went there.

She found out Jan was quitting daycare. And she said something about, I thought we were friends. You did this. You can have the word to tell me and about, you know, went on and on. Kay thought it was said something about you guys have everything.

And it wasn't like she and her husband didn't have access. They have a key to our house. They they feed our dogs. So, of course, the investigators talked to Lisa. They found her at work.

They tended her fortieth birthday party last year, OK? And that was for her. And it's perfect. Anyway, the daycare incident was practically ancient. History didn't make sense. She was not involved. They looked at other people to other possible suspects.

We had interviewed over forty people, some people multiple times. They even took a hard look at two of Chris's own brothers. But they and all the others were cleared. All but one, almost a year after the murder, investigators went back to Jeremy Majoras, the not quite boyfriend possible motive as old as first love Chris, Jeremy had told them, was really the one stopping him from dating Bailey.

So the investigators had to consider maybe Jeremy tried to take revenge on Chris and shot Jen by mistake. Jeremy had already admitted he sneaked into C Bailey in her house many times that summer, unbeknownst to her parents, and he knew if they bought the Spider Lake Resort, they'd be taking Bailly hundreds of miles away from him. So where was he the night of the murder?

Initially he had told investigators that he did not leave his house that night, but that was a lie.

And then in further talking with Jeremy, he had admitted to us that he did leave the house to to go check on Bailey and was concerned about her.

His story Bailey had texted him after she heard those two shots. And there was indeed a text, one word, Jeremy, that alarmed him, he said. So he drove to Brewster, texting her along the way, asking her what was wrong. But when he arrived, Bailey Street was filled with emergency vehicles. So he returned home. Kind of something he should have told you right off the bat.

Yes. And we had how did he explain that?

What he had indicated to us is that based on everything that had been going on at the Cruz residence, his dad had told him that he thought he should stay out of it and not get involved, thus not telling us that he left to go to Brewster that night after Bailey had texted him. Jeremy took a polygraph.

He also showed deception, but not about where he was. Jeremy Sware know the deception he told them was something else. He didn't tell them earlier, he said, because Bayley swore him to secrecy. It was about the state of her parents marriage. Which was what?

Which was that? Bayley had told him they had mentioned the word divorce, divorce.

Chris never mentioned that. In fact, he said he and John got along well when the divorce word came up, or does she say like a couple of weeks before months? OK, so just just as they were talking and their talk, aside from talking to arguing, the arguing, the fighting and the divorce didn't come out until they were literally shouting at each other. And that's when John was crying. Chris is mad all the time.

And he told them something else about Bailey. If she gets crying about her mom, she said her dad didn't do it. Her dad didn't do it. Like she's trying to convince herself. Yeah, that's the way it sounds, because it's not like, you know, when someone says, no, they didn't do it, but she didn't. She says it over and over and over and over and over and over and over. She'll say it like ten times in a row crying.

That's because Bayley had told him she was scared that he might have been involved. She said, Jeremy, I'm scared Dad did something that could have could have got mom killed. That's exactly what she said. Was he making all this up to protect himself or was this devastating evidence against Chris?

Coming up, Chris points his finger at Jeremy. Could you think of a reason why he would want to do that again? And I looked in the way for a relationship, but then a discovery that points right at Chris. Another child panelist's was your target within the shop.

Yeah, when Dateline continues. The letters turned up a year and a half after the murder. It was Chris Crews who found them, offered them up to investigators, disturbing letters said Chris sent purportedly by Jeremy Imageries to Bailey. But Chris had an idea it might have been creepier than that, given this phrase in one of them. Love you, Dr.. Chris had a concern that maybe Jeremy's dad had been writing some of these letters to Bailey. I followed up on that and that was not the case.

They were simply Jeremy's love letters, said Woodforde, nothing more. But Chris was not satisfied, might Jeromy be Jan's killer?

He wondered, could you think of a reason why he would want to do that or what his reason would be again? And I would in the way for a relationship.

And that's and that's because of that initial conversation, was it was OK with Jeremy saying you're not going to date Bailey at this point. Did Jeremy seem upset about that or how was his reaction at that? I know. I mean, that's the last time I really seen him. But did he himself really think Jeremy killed John? Could I say? I think he did this.

You know, and after four interviews with Jeremy, Agent Woodforde came to the same conclusion. Lies or. No, Jeremy didn't do it. That conclusion was bolstered by Jeremy's father, who said he was up watching TV with his son when John was shot 25 miles away and saw that Jeremy text just after it came in. But if Jeremy was out of the picture, Chris wasn't. In fact, the day Chris turned in those Jeremy letters, Agent Woodforde steered the conversation back to a question he had not been able to resolve.

I'm trying to put you you're in bed with Jen. I'm trying to put you there because a lot of the evidence just looks like you weren't in bed and you didn't have any blood on your legs or anything on your shorts. And I'm wondering why that was the case.

The implication was impossible to miss, especially after they found the murder weapon and Chris, his own construction company, shop a minutes drive from the house. Bailey, remember, had said she heard gunshots, quote, at like two thirty and Chris called nine one one to two. Thirty nine was nine minutes enough time to stash the gun. I actually drove that at speed limit to the shop and back and taking account it would take a minute to go into the shop.

It was only three minutes and Woodforde broke the gun used. Chris, I'm trying to figure out, you know, why that is. I mean, it's the gun that the gun that shot down was. It was your 12 gauge. We didn't shop. Yeah, you know that. I can believe that. Well, the reason I say that is we had we obviously do forensic testing on the gun and then remember the shells that were found and India's on that.

You got my mind racing, but his mind made out of race for long, even though they were clearly suspicious of him, they still had more investigating to do. So Chris was free to go. And nothing happened for months. For years, the whole family tried to let it go as they settled into the hard business of learning to live without Jack and without knowing who killed her, except that they were sure it wasn't Chris.

There's nothing to think that Chris had any involvement in this.

Nobody could fake anything that much and not slip up.

What's more, they all said they never saw Chris get violent or be mean to Jack, ever.

I mean, they truly love each other. And we never had a harsh word about Jan ever the same again towards Chris.

So maybe they just never know who killed Jan.

Did you have an expectation that this was just going to go away and they'd never find out who did it?

We were emotionally set that this no one would be brought to justice in this world. It'd have to be by God and that they'd have to answer to. So it wouldn't happen here.

And then in March, twenty nineteen three and a half years after the murder, something did happen. The county attorney's office decided to take the case to a grand jury and that grand jury indicted Chris Cruz for first degree murder. To his family's utter dismay and insult to injury, they could have simply asked him to come down to the police station and arrested him there, but they made a big scene.

It was actually about a block from where I work, you know, guns drawn. And that was just totally blown. I mean, I didn't understand that at all once he got arrested.

I mean, we all came together as a family and figured out what we had to do to help get an attorney lined up.

That would be Tom Hagen and his associates, Steven Groshen. This would be their first ever first degree murder trial.

I got a call, I believe, on a Friday night late. Chris just got arrested. He didn't know what was going on. He did understand how this happened. And they couldn't understand it either. They went through the evidence looking for an answer, but couldn't find one, painstakingly going through the videos, painstakingly going through the interviews when he spoke to law enforcement. He seemed to be to be very truthful and just trying to be extremely helpful. And his stories was fairly consistent throughout.

But Assistant County Attorney Brian Holford said Chris was not only not consistent, there were serious problems with the stories he told.

The thing that I remember sticking out to me the most upon watching the version of events as described by Mr. Cruz was the difficulty that I was having making sense of exactly how this would have occurred without him seeing or being able to offer any description of the supposed perpetrator.

So in other words, did his stories make sense?

You know, as a prosecutor, you always think about how it's going to make sense to a jury. And it's not necessarily important what I think or even what the investigator thinks. But what is the average person in Noble's county going to think about this? The impression I walked away with that was that I didn't believe it would make a lot of sense to the average person in Noble's county. Wouldn't a jury of those average people was impaneled in late January 20, 20?

But what's an average person anyway? Can you ever really know what average people will do? Coming up, the prosecution's case, the word divorce being thrown around either is killed by the first shotgun blast or he's covered in blood and Mr. Cruz was neither. This was clearly a premeditated murder. I'm always looking for ways to make my home life easier and more efficient, and it's a bonus when something makes it more fun to. That's why I love having smart bulbs connected to Alexa.

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Get ten dollars off a two pack of singlets. Smart color changing light bulbs only at Amazon.com slash Dateline. This offer is available for a limited time. So now's the time to get your home set up with smart lighting. That's ten dollars off a single light bulb to peek at. Amazon.com slash dateline. Amazon.com slash dateline. Prosecutor Braiden over at a story for the jury in the trial of Chris Kroons, a true story, he told them, and pretty simple, the killing of Jan Cruz was an inside job.

Nothing had been missing from the house.

And so this was clearly a premeditated murder committed by the one person in the position to do it, said the prosecutor, the husband, Chris Cruz. Evidence? Well, for one thing, he told the jury there were all those hours of police interviews for love. He said inconsistencies he played for the jury.

The version of events changes over time, and it also does not appear to be possible based off of the physical evidence. So break that down a little bit.

He gave a similar version in the first two interviews. Jan was asleep or lying down when she was shot.

But the Army's report clearly established that she had her hand outstretched in the direction of the assailant, which, of course, meant that she was awake and saw the person who did this to her.

It was only after the autopsy report was explained to Chris, the prosecutor said that Chris changed his story and said Jan was sitting up when she was hit.

As for that first bullet, the one that plowed through the pillows, the headboard, the wall, could you see any way where he could have been lying in that bed beside her and not be touched by the passing slug?

The description that Mr. Cruz gave of their sleeping position, in effect, spooning with Jan, that they were lying in the center of the bed and he had his arm underneath her and they were facing away from the door so that the door to their back, it would not have been possible for him to be in that position without being killed by the first gunshot.

Anyway, he said the pillows on which Chris said he had been lying there filled with tiny fragments of the slug that went through Jan.

And yet Mr. Cruz did not have any scratches or pieces of metal in his face during his first interview with police, which was later that morning, and it wasn't just led on and in his below, the crime scene team counted 15 to five droplets of blood that were in the position that Mr. Cruz claimed to have been in at the time that the gunshot went off.

So magically these blood drops would have gone through him and landed on the mattress of the bed or on the pillows without touching him.

What I argued to the jury was that depending on his position in the bed, he either gets blood or bullet. He either is killed, killed by the first shotgun blast or he's covered in blood. And Mr. Cruz was neither, which meant, said the prosecutor, that Chris could not have been in bed as he said he was when those shots were fired. Holford also pointed out steps Criss did not take, he did not arm himself, despite there being a firearm in the bedroom.

He did not barricade the back door. He did not help Jan. He did not attempt first aid or to try to stop the wound from bleeding, did not hold her hand or to try to comfort her. He indicated that he went to the doorway and quickly looked at her and decided that she was dead and then he left her there.

This said the state was the murder weapon, a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun as determined by a forensic scientist at the nationally accredited state investigative agency, the BCA. She said that because she had to analyze seven 12 gauge shotgun found in Chris's home and shop on this specific one. She first did a test with just two shells, not the usual three or four based on those two first test fires.

It was not immediately apparent that that the 12 gauge shotgun was the gun.

In fact, she indicated in her notes it might not be the murder weapon.

She then went back and performed additional test fires to see what she could find out. And it became obvious that that was, in fact, the firearm that had fired the two shot shells that were found at the scene.

All part of the testing protocol, Holford said, given all the weapons she had to process, forensic scientists don't complete tests with a goal of convicting or acquitting any specific person.

And so the conclusion which was reached and the only conclusion has to be verified by other scientists there at the BCA.

And it was so this was the murder weapon, he told jurors, and it had been found just a minute's drive away in Chris's shop where he must have put it before calling nine one one. The shotgun was found in a way that it was propped up against the wall and it was the only shotgun in the house or the shop which was not put away or in a case.

But why would Chris do it? Why would he kill the only woman he had ever loved? Maybe, said the prosecutor, maybe it was this Spider Lake resort, the dream he could not let go.

And she said they could not afford, even if they sold all they owned, sell his house, sell his shop, sell his business, cash out retirement accounts, you name it.

But about 36 hours before the shooting, Chris alone presented another offer. It was much more than the five hundred fifty thousand Jan and Chris thought they could offer if they sold everything. In fact, Chris's last offer was one hundred fifty thousand more than that, which just happened to be the amount of insurance on Jans life.

The defense admitted in their opening statement that Mr. Cruz had in fact offered seven hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of this resort, which I found to be important because Mr. Cruz had previously denied under oath, ever making that offer.

And then there was the secret, he said that secret Bailey entrusted to Jeremy, the secret he'd spill to investigators and testified about at trial that her parents were fighting more than ever, that she had heard the word divorce being thrown around and that she had asked him not to tell the police.

But there was something very unusual about this trial. Almost everyone in the spectators gallery supported Chris, believed fervently that he was innocent, including witnesses like Jan's sister, Kay, a grand jury.

She indicated that the marriage between Mr. Cruz and Jan was not overly affectionate.

At trial, she testified that it was affectionate and one baby up on the stand was asked about the secret.

Jeromy revealed she indicated that her parents arguing would not be something that a 15 year old would pay attention to. And so she denied that that had occurred.

But Bailey did confirm that even though she's a heavy sleeper and hard of hearing and slept without her hearing aids, she definitely heard two gunshots. She told the jury a gunshot was pretty loud. You'd have to be on the other side of town to not hear it. So Prosecutor Holford was confident.

But any time you have a case where the family of the victim does not want it to be. Prosecuted and and they maintained from the morning of the murder that Mr. Cruz could not have been involved in this case. That was a concern of ours. Was it something the jury could see as well? Coming up, the defense as investigators rush to judgment.

From the beginning, they had one suspect. It was Chris. So who do they say the killer could be? Jeremy Magennis when Dateline continues. They were a confident pair, the lawyers who came to defend Chris Cruz, despite never before defending anyone charged with first degree murder, Tom Hagen and Stephen Groschen. Their biggest objection to the state's case, two words. They said tunnel vision.

From the beginning, they had one suspect. It was Chris. I don't think that they looked any further.

Besides, they said Chris was not so inconsistent during his many hours of police interviews.

In my opinion, the foundation of what took place remained the same. It was it was approximately the same story. He was in bed.

He heard a shot. He popped up and from there then he went and grabbed his phone.

That portion never changed. And of course, any one story would change a little given from a dead sleep. You get woken up by gunshots and you look over and you see your wife is bleeding. I think it's reasonable to believe the fact that you're not going to remember everything clearly. I mean, the memory is a yeah, it's an amazing thing. But I think one thing that everybody's found out is that it does remember everything the same every time you talk about it.

How do you explain how he didn't hear or see or find any evidence of an intruder in the house?

It's a small home and it wouldn't take somebody, you know, more than just a second to get out of that house and to hop in the car and to take off.

Even the forensics were off. They said like the string that was put up to calculate the path of the first bullet.

If you saw the photograph that actually has a dip in the string, they didn't pull the string tot when they were doing the measurements, which to the defense expert meant this.

There's room in the bed for two people. And that first shot to miss. Is there a ton of room? No, be upfront about that. But there was room for the shot to miss him, and that's the testimony we brought out at trial.

Why would he not have had more blood on him? My opinion is after he heard the shots, he got out of the bed fairly quickly.

And as for Chris, hearing only one shot when there were two. He thinks that first that's the one that woke him up.

He has a recall hearing it, you know, but he certainly recalls here in that second shot when he called my one one, why didn't he go back and tend to his wife and see how she was trying to do CPR? She was probably alive for a few minutes.

And I think that's one of his regrets, is that he didn't go back and do more. But I think his attention turned quickly to his daughter, who's downstairs and trying to figure out if anybody's in the house to make sure his daughter's fine. I think he realized fairly quickly with all the blood that it was a fatal wound.

Chris, lawyers fought the evidence that Chris's own shotgun was the murder weapon. They emphasized the state expert first thought it wasn't before concluding after more tests that it definitely was. But that seemed pretty subjective.

They told the jury, our expert, who was very credentialed, had reviewed the evidence. He concluded the answer was inconclusive, meaning you can't say this isn't the gun. You can't say this is the gun.

And the lawyers strongly challenge the prosecutors claim that after shooting John, Chris quickly drove the gun to a shop before calling 911 one they were critical of the investigators saying they should have gone back to Bailly to confirm the time she said she heard the shotgun blasts.

What Bailey stated was it happened around approximately 230. Law enforcement never cleaned up what time it took place. They never came back and said it was closer to 30. Was it closer to 240 during the trial?

Four and a half years after the shooting. Under cross-examination by her father's lawyer, Bailey agreed she probably heard those shots closer to two. Thirty eight a.m. Remember, Chris is nine one one call. Was it two thirty nine?

So there's really not this eight to nine minute. Block it with the timeline, the timeline, the timeline.

I mean, it was tight and really was a resort at spiderlings. Such a huge issue, such a motive.

Why would you murder someone you were going to start a resort with now is going to start the resort by himself and never to me was a sound motive of what took place, because the reality of it was is he needed Jan to run the resort with him.

Of course, he didn't have to present a possible alternate suspect, but they did.

There's another person here that could have done this.

And it's Jeremy Majoras, Jeremy Majerus, who, by the time of the trial was still with Bayley was her boyfriend. And yet the defense went there, said maybe Jeremy did it.

Why would Jeremy want to kill Jan?

Part of the motive would have been Bayley leaving town and moving up north for the cabin, and then she would have less interaction with Jeremy. And I'll I'll be the first to tell you. Do I think it's a strong motive? No, I don't. Does it make more sense than Chris's? In some ways, it actually does much more.

Jeremy was on the record lying to investigators. His story changed. It was never consistent. It never made sense. And that's the part that I think was the big red flag for us.

Jeremy eventually admitted he did drive to Brewster after the shooting. He said after Bayley texted him. But what if he actually got there earlier? Suggested the defense attorneys got in through that broken basement window, ran upstairs aimed to kill Chris, but missed and hit Jane before running out the back door. The theory, however, was problematic. Police, it looked hard at Jeremy and pulled him out and barely didn't think Jeremy did it either.

That's correct. That must have been extremely awkward.

She was in a bad predicament either way. On one hand, she has her father up for murder. And the other hand, you have a lawyer saying. You know, there is as much evidence or more evidence that Jeremy committed this murder than your dad did, and she was in a no win situation, what was an attentive jury to think about that?

Well, coming up, the verdict. It wasn't easy. One guy was not going to give up and the judge said there is no hung jury. You will keep at this until you're done. And Chris Cruz speaks and is everything, miss. Just smile and the sound of her voice.

The courtroom was crowded. I sat through every day of that trial, every available seat filled mainly by family and friends of the victim, and all were here to support the man accused of killing her. But it make a difference. And it's 10 p.m. on the ninth day of the trial, the jury left the courtroom.

Alex MacGraw was the foreperson throughout the whole trial to see the support from Jan's side of the family for Chris was very telling. And we found out that he lived with Jans parents for a full year after this happened. So if that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what to us right away. Alex took a poll.

I think there was like five or six of us right away that were not guilty and there was two or three undecideds and the rest were firm that that he did it, that he was guilty.

So then Line-by-line, they debated the evidence, even performed a sort of re-enactment to juror Amber Anglia's minus the actual bullets.

Of course, we actually reenacted the scene on the tables. We pushed them all together and we took the pillows and we had two people on the bed. But after hours of talk and debate, it looked like it was going to be a hung jury.

One guy was not going to give up and the judge said there is no hung jury. You will keep at this until you're done.

It went quickly after that. And finally, end of the second day, they re-entered the courtroom and that was nerve racking.

We prayed for the best and we knew the truth that it wasn't.

Chris and the jury found Chris Cruz not guilty.

I was actually kind of surprised at how much they were lacking in foolproof evidence when they said not guilty. I remember vaguely like squealing.

It was it was absolutely wonderful because I just I mean, we were all just cheering and hugging each other all the way to the world was off my shoulders.

I think I hugged everybody in that courtroom before I got out of there, including the man from whom the clouds were suddenly lifted.

Chris Cruise, you know, you can't I don't know how to put that into words. It's hard finding words for things sometimes. Yeah. One of the last five years been like for you, it's been a rough five years. Unimaginable.

And now finally he could face his family and the world as an innocent man vindicated. Except after the verdict, the county attorney issued a statement saying, well, they respected the jury's verdict.

They firmly believed after a long and thorough investigation that Chris did indeed kill his wife.

As of this point, there are no other suspects and there are no other leads in the investigation of Jans murder.

Not even Bailey's boyfriend, Jeremy Majoras, just know, said the prosecutor.

He is someone who was concerned about confessing to texting while driving, trying to make Jeremy Jaris the perpetrator here is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Even the defense attorney who pointed the finger at Jeremy didn't. Here with us. I'm not going to insinuate or say that, you know, Jeremy did this.

I mean, I'm not going to do that.

So where does it all leave, Chris Crews not in a very good place. I'm frustrated these days. I'm mad now. The way this was handled, it's upsetting to hear the prosecutors can say the jury was wrong, they made the wrong decision. Chris is the guy. They don't know how they can say that. They feel they put any effort into this.

So now the family, your question hangs in the air like a bad smell.

I would like to talk to Jeremy. Would you ask him what would you say to him? Like, know what?

Why he said the stuff about me that he did. I yeah. I got lots of questions.

You could ask Jeremy those questions. After all, Bailey and Jeremy, both of whom declined the opportunity to speak with us, are still a couple. But it's a difficult topic, one Chris has not yet broached with his daughter, Bay. And I have still never to the day discussed what she has seen her what she knew.

It's not an easy thing, you know, to talk about, he said. Maybe we can talk about it today. Tomorrow. Ten years from now, whenever you're ready, yeah, and we have never talked about that night, it's been awful hard.

Five years very hard on Bailey, and so they remember Jan, all of them do, even as they cannot help but be angry at the people who accused Chris of killing her.

My sister loved her husband and we should never have. We had to go through that trial ever. There was no grounds for that. And had they done their job and looked at the facts in front of them, we would have never been in that courtroom for that reason.

To make matters worse, to put us all through this. How this could be. Now there are only memories. This is everything. I'm just watching. Are you ready for work in the morning? I miss my have a good day kiss and.

Hey, honey, when I come home from work, Mr. Smile and sound of her voice, a. At the end of the best. And Spider Lake Resort, that magical place they'd hope to own someday. Did you ever go back to Spider Lake?

Yeah, we go back every year yet and we take a vacation in June. I go back in September, Jan's birthdays, the 24th September. She loved everything. And so, in a way, he still takes her with him out here on Spider Lake.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.