Hey, it's just an errand from the Generation Y where we explore hundreds of unsolved murders and conspiracy theories. This week we're talking about the murder of Hannah Hill. Some people considered it a wrongful conviction, but we always like to follow the evidence and not narratives.

So listen to new episodes of Generation Y Appeal, Apple podcasts, Spotify or The Wonder you join 100 plus in the wonder. You have to listen ad free. I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, our correspondents take us back to their most memorable stories. Now it's Andrea Canning's turn.

Did you know that you needed to move fast? Yes. I will never forget this story because it was a real honest to goodness thriller in Arkansas.

Real estate agent remains missing this evening. The broker who vanished.

We can't find Beverly. She went to show house. You know, I'm texting her and calling her. I can't get any response.

Oh, gosh. What's happened here? Was she in danger? Was someone behind this really hard place?

Please call the police. You can hear how scared she was. I know she pleaded, I know she pleaded. I had hope that we were going to find every love I could feel. The frustration from Detective Alison. This is like a movie. It's chasing this kidnapping. Oh, yeah. Could anyone reach her in time? The emotions are just everywhere. I still can feel the same pain. Did you find her? Is she alive? Tonight, a new look at the client.

In this southern city forever linked to a president and first lady, there was another lady making a name for herself in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her face was in the paper every week. She had a billboard on one of the busiest interstates with her face on it.

As a top selling realtor, Beverly Carter had become somewhat of a local celebrity with her infectious smile. She put house hunters at ease, trusted to find the perfect home she often did.

Beverly was awesome at it. I mean, nobody could do it like Beverly. Good. But there was a downside to her celebrity. This realtor had a target on her back, as she did, and she didn't know it.

For Beverly, being a realtor was more than just closing a deal, was she in the perfect job for her personality? Yes, absolutely, yes.

Her sons, Chad and Carl Jr. and Carl Jr., wife Kim, were always amazed at how much their mom's clients loved her.

Well, one of her clients, she had gone to their wedding and then went to a baby shower. So she just sold them a house. It was a newer client. And I think that that speaks for itself.

She had a nice smile, should beautiful smile, and she had a laugh that that would fill a room.

And she was hands down the most genuine person you ever met. Chad Beverly's youngest son says it was like his mom glowed. She was very radiant. I think that's what spoke out to people, is that confidence and people notice obviously she was naturally beautiful.

It was that natural beauty that caught the eye of her husband, Carl. They met when they were just kids.

She was 16. I was 19. Wow. Where did you meet her? Spandau, Texas.

She was working at a local hamburger joint, Minderbinder Burger. I said, well, that I know I was going to get a wife when I get up there and get me a hamburger. You just knew.

Yeah, like I wrote her a wedding soon followed a quick stop at City Hall with a very small wedding. But she loved me and I loved her we thought would love anyway.

Their young love led to three children, all boys and later six grandchildren. They had their share of marital problems, including money issues and infidelity, but they worked them out. So when their 20th anniversary rolled around, they decided to renew their vows and throw a big party.

I just asked Chris and I were to, would you marry me again if I asked you to? She said. Well, yeah, this is OK, you know, they wanted to renew their love and show everybody, and it was a way for her to get her dream wedding.

Gosh, a few years after that, she got her real estate license and her best friends, Stacy, Brenda and Denise, say it didn't take long for Beverly to build a loyal clientele. Did she sell a lot of property?

She was the top listing and selling agent in 2013. She did over 12 million, which in central Arkansas is very well.

What was it that made her so good at closing the deal? I mean, she just had that magic about her. She had such a bubbling personality that it made you fall in love with the house.

The women worked together in the same office, although they say it often felt more like play than work. We would laugh at anything.

You know how it is when you get with your girlfriends. You know, you talk about things that are personal or things that you find funny. We would tell stories and she had this huge goofy laugh that you could hear all the way down the hall.

Runners coming down the home stretch. As her fiftieth birthday approached, Beverly was determined to get in shape.

She started running, working her way up to five key races. The reason that she started running some at the time was the medals she loved have the medal fascination about the medals.

My favorite interviews in these stories are with the victims, friends and family, because they always paint such a beautiful picture of their loved one. That person really comes alive in a sense. In this case, I could tell Beverly was a lot of fun just by the company she kept her friends, made me laugh so hard when they told me about her plastic surgery story.

You know, she'd had the tummy tuck, but she had also had implants because she'd had a lift. And it was kind of a big joke because when they put the implants in, they were just a little bit larger than she wanted them to be.

They were. And we had oh, we had some big laughs about that. And she was going to go have them reduced because she was like, I mean, they hadn't fallen and they end up here. And it was.

Yeah, but she did look good. Oh, she looked fabulous.

And being a real estate agent, she felt it was important to look her best. On an unseasonably warm September day in 2014, Beverly was easing back into work. Brenda remembers Beverly telling her she was going to show a house not far from her home. The potential buyers were offering cash. She really didn't want to go.

She was tired, but she was hoping that she'd be able to get a fast clothes because if it's a cash clothes, you can also close it quicker.

So this is just kind of an everyday run of the mill showing it's a no brainer. Yeah. Beverly left the office and headed off to show the property to a young couple. She told her husband she'd be home for dinner, but you didn't hear from her.

Carl says he started to worry Beverly had given him the address, so he decided to take a ride over it. She's over there, her car right there. Well, I want to go run there. And I was her car. Beverly was not in the house.

So this is panic time for you.

Yeah, I thought it was weird because Beverly wouldn't leave unless she was in her car. Do you call the police? Yes, instantly.

That call set off a frantic search for Beverly Carter. Where was she?

When we come back, what had happened to Beverly all of a sudden? Beverly takes me bam, bam, bam.

Our phones both started beeping at the same time with text. And she said, I'm sorry, my phone has been dead.

Was this some simple miscommunication? The mystery was just beginning. I still can feel the same pain.

Karl Carter was worried about his wife, Beverly. She had promised to be home for dinner after showing this house not too far away, but it was dark.

Now, she wasn't answering her phone and at the property for sale, her car was in the driveway, but there was no sign of her. Karl says he called the police, then his son.

He says, you know, it's almost nine o'clock. And he says to me, Son, I haven't heard from your mom. Have you heard from her? And, you know, I'm texting her and calling her. And I I can't I can't get any response. And my first thought was that this is just the nature of the business.

To reassure his dad and himself, Karl Jr. and his wife Kim drove over to Beverly's office hoping she'd be there. There was no one there.

I mean, the place is completely black. As the hours ticked by, Beverly's friend Denise couldn't sleep, so she checked her phone.

It was an email from Brenda and I can still see the words that said it is with a very heavy heart that I let you know that we can't find Beverly. She went to show house and she is missing and I still can read that and feel the same pain.

Police and Beverly's family gathered at the property trying to figure out where she was.

How was your dad handling everything? I felt like it was hard to read and he would sneak away from time to time, you know, get some his thoughts then around 1:00 a.m..

All of a sudden, bam, bam, bam. Three, Texas hollered at the officer. I said, come over in.

Beverly takes me word that Beverly was texting, gave everyone hope. I was ecstatic. Like I was like, this is done.

Her phone had died. She got somewhere. It's charged. It's good.

Across town, Beverly's friends, Brenda and Stacey, got texts of their own. Our phones both started beeping at the same time with text. And it I mean, it was like such an eerie feeling. I was just like, oh, my gosh, what was she saying to you today? She said, I'm sorry, my phone has been dead and I just turned it back on. One thing I never knew until I did this story was just how vulnerable realtors can be.

Their job is to meet strangers alone in empty houses. But Beverly and her co-workers, they knew the dangers and had worked out a really clever way to check on each other. They had a secret code.

So red folder was the code.

You have the red folder on one, two, three, Main Street. Brenda was skeptical about Beverly's text messages, so she sent Beverly that special code.

I said, Can you tell me if you left the red folder on my desk and was no response?

The one that I got was out having drinks with friends and I was like going over right here.

The Texan Beverly's husband's phone were just as deflating. They read, yes, sorry, phone been dead and having drinks.

Now, Karl Jr. knew his mom would never go out and not tell anyone. I can't even tell you like to go from this. This she's OK. This is all over to the second. We saw that screen and saw what those text said.

We knew someone was her phone told it fluently and she said she'd been to the patrol division who'd responded to the call, decided they needed backup. Detective Jeff Allison rushed over to the property. Beverly hadn't really been missing for that long.

So why were you called here that quickly? Division showed up and started speaking with the husband and determined that some of the factors in the case were were fraud.

Not only was Beverly's car parked in the driveway, her purse was locked inside. Did you have just a grim feeling right out of the gate that this woman did not disappear voluntarily?

I was hopeful, but if I did have a feeling, yes, we all know police have a lot of technology to work with these days, and it's pretty cool. But sometimes old fashioned shoe leather is the only answer. I remember being really impressed when Detective Allison went old school textbook.

I got it down on the floor and with my flashlight on this dark, you can shine a light on specific angle. You can see disturbances and dust. There were disturbances, but it just looked like somebody had walked through there when he walked out the front door.

He discovered another clue. There was a tire track in the grass. It looked like somebody had pulled up against next to that front door or back into the back door. The neighbor across the street had seen something. Yes.

She looked out the window, saw a black vehicle pulled into the driveway and about 25 to 30 minutes later looked outside, saw a skinny white male with short hair outside of the house with a vehicle back to the front door, put two and two together. That's probably where the tire track came from.

The detective found more to go on in the back of Beverly's car. I found a notebook that she kept with really good information on it that showed a listing for that house.

Was there anything in that notebook that was providing you with with any clues attached to that listing was an email address and phone number.

Did you call it right away? I did not call her right away.

No, he didn't pick up the phone for a good reason. The detective had a theory. I felt that Beverly, wherever she was, she was being held against her will.

If this was a kidnapping, he knew they had to tread lightly with any possible suspects like the couple she'd met at the house. If they were involved, the last thing he wanted to do was tipped them off. And the detective says there was someone else he had his eye on.

Coming up, people were saying, oh, the husband must have had something to do with it. I knew that I was a suspect. What Beverly's husband told me next was hard to get past. He was about to get brutally honest when Dateline continues.

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As the sun rose the next morning, there was still no sign of Beverly Carter, her family and friends were out searching. We had a beautiful eight by 10 color fliers that we were posting everywhere.

Hundreds of people joined search parties all over the area.

Her family, her office, family came together. And we had realtors from all over the state helping us.

Many realtors felt this was personal. One of their own, while out doing her job, had gone missing and agents were already on alert. In recent years, there had been a rise in crimes against real estate brokers across the country, brutal assaults and even murder. How often do you talk about safety?

I mean, we always talked about it, but a lot of times if somebody would call and ask us to go show a house, it was just kind of out of instinct. Sometimes you would jump up and go.

But this was not a last minute showing for Beverly. Brenda says she'd been in contact with the clients for a few days.

She did have some concerns initially because it was it was a man who had contacted her. She want to make sure that the wife was going to be there.

Also, she want to show both at the same time that deal was made that both parties would be there. It made her feel more comfortable that the wife would be with him. And the wife actually got on the telephone and told her, yes, she would be there.

And her friends pointed out the neighborhood where she was showing the house was one Beverly knew. Well, she was very familiar with that area.

Her pastor lived on that street and that street was now a crime scene. News stations helped get the word out.

An Arkansas real estate agent remains missing this evening more than did this become immediately the lead story on every newscast, every newscast, viewers here immediately latched on to it.

Shannon Miller covered the story for NBC affiliate KIRO. She says finding Beverly became a local obsession. People came out in droves looking for her, wondering where could she have gone? Beverly's husband, Carl, even made a televised plea. I just would like to have my wife. He sounded heartbroken, crazy people out here in the world. But not everyone was buying the distraught husband's story. People were saying, oh, the husband must have had something to do with the husband, must have hired somebody.

You know, we all watch a lot of Dateline.

Carl Jr., so worried about his mom now feared his dad could become a suspect.

They were asking questions like, OK, you're the husband and you just went into this home and to search for her, you've gone even up in the attic. Your fingerprints are everywhere. You just completely contaminated our crime scene. What did you do that? And so you could just see their wheels turning.

It was like, oh, no, he was right to worry. Detective Allison brought Carl Senior in for questioning.

Did you put Carl in an interview room? Yes. And treated him like this is somebody we need to take seriously this.

Every time you do an interview like that, it's always best to get into a setting. You're done at the detective's office in an interview room, and I'm giving an interview. So it's it plays on their emotions.

Did you ever consider the possibility that Carl could have paid somebody to do this? Yeah, I thought about it.

Did you know why you were considered somebody that they needed to talk to?

Once I got in there and started questioning me, then I knew that I was a suspect.

As Detective Allison continued to question Carl, he discovered some skeletons.

They were having financial issues. Was there a life insurance policy? Yes. Several thousand dollars. Hundred thousand dollars? Hundred thousand. I don't remember the exact dollar amount.

The detective also learned about other issues he found disturbing. He said, well, did you have any kind of affair? And I said, yeah. I said, did one. OK. An affair is one thing, but what Beverly's husband told me next was hard to get past. He was about to get brutally honest. And as an interviewer, sometimes it's hard to stay objective. Take a listen to what he had to say.

I mean, I've been here one time.

Carl says he got violent with Beverly as she tried to stop him from driving drunk. That's when she got out of the truck.

I'm not going around with the answer. We'll stay here. Then I'm going to go straight into a.

Did you regret it? Oh, yeah.

Like, I felt like petcock if I was I. Honestly, I really need to roll with it.

So did you worry how that would look? No, I didn't worry about it. I wanted to find Beverly. One thing I wanted to find back, really, I should, you know, I hate her and it was that, but. Just one time out of thirty four years, you want to slap upside the head and bat. He says that was many years ago and Beverly never held it against him. She forgave me right then because she knew that I wouldn't want me because of that.

And the other issues Detective Allison had come across, he says he wasn't ready to cross Carl off his list. He had other work to do at this point. He had no idea who those prospective buyers were. The email address and phone numbers found in Beverly's notebook were fake tracking. The couple required more digging, and he had a new clue to follow.

Beverly's cell carrier retrieved eerie photos from her phone taken inside the house just before she went missing. Coming up, she knew something was on what had happened inside that house, a new lead morphs into an all out manhunt, jumps out of a second story window. This is like a movie chase and this kidnapping. Oh, yeah. Detectives searched computer and phone records and data was pouring in. They were hoping it would lead to the missing real estate agent.

Beverly Carter's cell carrier turned over everything on her phone.

And there was one thing that caught investigator's attention, these blurry and dark pictures she took of the house she was trying to sell, not exactly showcase material. And when her daughter in law had a chance to see them, you have a theory about why they're badly taken photos.

You can just tell that it was like quick, just quick. Like she and I knew she knew something was wrong.

She believe Beverly was scared of those potential buyers and was rushing to finish showing the house. It was all bad news. Beverly Carter had now been missing for three days.

I've never felt that kind of loss of control. You feel utterly hopeless and helpless.

You can't do anything. Yeah. What they didn't know was that detectives were about to crack this case wide open, the team that had discovered the buyer's contact information was fake, kept investigating, and they were able to start taking the email address and the phone numbers talking that sending out search warrants and obtaining subscriber information to those email and phone number.

Did names pop up?

Yes, their real names, Aaron Lewis and his wife, Crystal Lowry. Police raced over to put the couple's house under surveillance. This was a very delicate operation.

Yes, we were working with the expectation in the hope that she was still alive.

Detective Alisson says he wasn't sure if the couple was even involved. He first wanted to see what Aaron Lewis looked like. Remember, their eyewitness had seen a skinny white man with short brown hair of the night. Beverly disappeared. They hadn't been sitting there long when suddenly a man matching that description walked out the door, but they didn't approach him.

Were you hoping he might lead you to Beverly? Yes.

Lewis got into his car, and that's when the detective says the plan quickly fell apart. He actually saw us sitting there.

So that's when he started speeding off. He knew you were following him? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he actually went around a 90 degree corner and wrecked and was almost it was out of the vehicle.

By the time we went around the corner and sawing, Lewis was injured.

Police photographed him and rushed him to the hospital. We're not allowed to go back with them while they're getting certain treatment. So the detective is sitting out waiting for the treatment. And when they take Aaron back to get MRI or a CAT scan or whatever they're doing, he decides he's going to leave the hospital. Aaron, Aaron doesn't come back dead. Come back.

Police launched a citywide manhunt, was that one of the first things you did get his photo out? Yes, to the news media. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows you got to get this guy right. And Beverly's life is at stake. Right.

Reporter Shannon Miller remembers her station cut into programming with the breaking news.

Authorities are searching for a man wanted for kidnapping. Beverly Carter, a realtor.

Was the whole city kind of glued to their TV sets as the hunt for this individual was on? Absolutely. So many people knew this picture, knew this face.

We come across people all the time who just love playing amateur detective online from the comfort of their couches. But in this story, some random citizens literally sprung into action, putting their lives in danger to help find Beverly.

I hadn't seen that before. Ben Boyette and Koenen Waters managers at a mortgage company who knew Beverly from real estate deals were at their office discussing the case when something unexpected got them directly involved.

And as we're standing inside of this room, looking out with the window open, Aaron Lewis walks right in front of the window.

Ben immediately called 911 one on one.

Hey, I'm going over there looking for a guy here that was involved in the realtor being kidnapped. And this guy looks like he is nervous. He's out here at a bus stop.

Conan went out to the bus stop to confirm it really was Lewis approached him and he was a little standoffish at first.

I'm a quick conversation about the bus routes in The Times, which put him at ease. And I thanked him for his time. And then I walked away and went back inside and told my colleagues, absolutely, that is Aaron Lewis. Without a doubt.

They spotted Lewis ducking into a Subway sandwich shop. He's caught on a security camera.

And when Lewis left, someone from a distance outside had made the comment, hey, I think that's him. And that's what spooked him. Lewis took off across the street towards this apartment complex, maybe five people chasing.

And we knew we were in different areas. So I we were confident where he was. And luckily for us, as we turned the corner, we saw the police coming in.

When the police get there, Aaron takes off running into an apartment and jumps out of a second story window before he's taken into custody.

Lewis wasn't badly injured in the fall.

This is like a movie chase. And this kidnapping, did it feel like that? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Still, it's sad, but I don't often get to cover stories where there's a chance the victim is still alive. I could feel the frustration from Detective Alisson. He was certain Aaron Lewis knew where Beverly was. He just wasn't sure how he was going to get it out of him.

Coming up, a delicate interrogation begins and Aaron Lewis does have something to reveal. A secret recording.

OK, and Hart, I can't get it out of my head.

How she must have felt just so trapped. I had hope that we were going to find Beverly alive.

You have to. It is what keeps you going when Dateline continues. I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of One Reshow American scandal, we bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history presidential lies, corporate fraud, corruption and sports. In our new series, we look at an accident at a nuclear power plant called Three Mile Island. What began as a series of small technological errors soon ballooned into a crisis as technicians and government officials struggled to avoid a massive spread of radiation.

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Police had a suspect in custody. His name was Aaron Lewis. He was an unemployed truck driver who'd been convicted of petty crimes in several states.

I can remember the feeling when when he was captured, we were just all like, yes, OK, now where is she? Come on, where are you? You know, we're ready to find you.

As investigators focused on Aaron Lewis, they backed off on Beverly's husband as a suspect. Really, your biggest task is to find out where Beverly is.

That was my biggest task and my biggest concern at that time. What was his story? Where was Beverly? He said that he kidnapped Beverly and it was because of money. He said that he found her on the Internet search area so that she was a broker and felt like she had money.

Lewis described in detail what he claimed happened. He says when he contacted Beverly about the house showing, she told him she didn't feel comfortable meeting just him. So he got his wife Crystal, on the phone to say she'd be there, too.

One thing that was clear to me about Beverly was that she she was clearly trying to be careful. She spoke to Lewis's wife. She had followed the real estate guidelines. She did everything right, except for one thing. She was already in the house when Lewis showed up by himself. Imagine they were now alone together. I can't get it out of my head. How she must have felt just so trapped.

Aaron tells me that he had Beverly take photographs of the house with her phone. So that explained why those photos the detective had seen were dark and blurry. Lewis said he'd asked Beverly to send them to Crystal since she couldn't be there.

He said they walked upstairs and when they got to the top of the stairs, he pulled out a flashlight, Taser, and told her that she was about to have a bad day. And she asked, What are you talking about? He said, You're being kidnapped.

Lewis then claimed he had an accomplice and he wasn't talking about his wife who had set up the meeting with Beverly. It was someone else.

He said if anything happened to Beverly Trevor done. Who's Trevor? Trevor is a guy that that Aaron actually lived with for a short period of time. Did this give you some hope that maybe there was an accomplice here and that maybe he did have Beverly?

I had hope that we were going to find Beverly alive. You have to. I mean, that's what keeps you going.

Lewis said the last time he saw Beverly, she was with Trevor and then offered evidence that she might still be alive. Lewis played a recording from his phone and it was chilling.

I really I just want to let you know I'm OK and hurt, too. He says, please, please call the police. I love you very much. It was encouraging, but it only proved Beverly was alive at the time of the recording, the detective told Lewis he needed more than that's when he finally says, well, I'll take you to the last place that she was.

We. That's when we load him up and we start going to Cabot, Arkansas.

Beverly's family prayed this nightmare was about to end.

Did you know that Aaron Lewis was saying your mom was alive? Yes. We knew that after they had him and they were interrogating him, there was a big boost of energy.

When he was telling us he it was like it was so uplifting. We're like, OK, we're about to get her back. It's great. Is everyone just sitting by the phone waiting for the call? We got her pacing. Lewis led Detective Allison on a Nail-biting road trip 30 miles out of town to the last place he claimed to have seen Beverly alive, a shed on the side of the road.

What are you thinking as you're approaching the shed, that there's a really good chance she could be here?

Or are you not so sure hoping like hell she's in there? We go in and she wasn't in there. She had never been in there. Is that that's such a letdown.

Oh, damn about it. It was bad. It was bad. But Lewis wasn't done. He had a captive audience and he knew it. He took the police to a new location, a house about 35 miles away.

And he says, well, this is where I initially took her after abducted her until somebody walked in and it was nothing.

Another letdown. Lavallette, how are you feeling? Like this guy is just taking us on a wild goose chase.

I was so mad that I couldn't drive him back. I had to ride back with another detective.

While Lewis was leading detectives on this wild goose chase, another cop had tracked down this Trever, the man Lewis claimed was his accomplice.

We figured out that he was in the military here in Little Rock, Sergeant in Little Rock Air Force Base. We we did make contact with him, actually interviewed.

And they interrogated Trevor for several hours, then let him go.

He wasn't even in town when this happened. He had an ironclad alibi. Absolutely.

We confirmed through his job, through the Air Force base with their Office of Special Investigation that he was on base that day lies after lies.

There was no accomplice. Neither location turned up anything. Police were running out of options. And then detective allicin thought of one more possibility, a cement plant called Argo's where Lewis had recently worked. I point blank asked him if Beverly was at Argo's and at that point he was looking down at the table. When I said that, he looked up and he just had this stupid look on his face. And so I figured right then that's that's probably where she was at.

Police raced over to the factory hoping to find Beverly alive.

Coming up, another game from Aaron Lewis.

I was so mad, I thought, how dare you try to tarnish our sweet Beverley's reputation? And at last, an answer for Beverly's family. This is how we found Beverly. Four days after Beverly Carter disappeared, police pulled up to this remote cement plant, they frantically searched for the missing real estate agent.

You just now have this gut feeling that that's where she's at. Shortly after arriving, an officer stumbled on something straight out of a crime novel, an elbow sticking out of a shallow grave. It was Beverly Detective Allison went to see Carl.

You never forget the look on somebody's face when you tell them that you found their spouse.

It's hard as to probably the hardest part of this is the only thing I saw. Was she alive? And I know, I'm sure. But she would.

We had worked so hard. I mean, to find her. I mean, we just we really tried to to do do right. It wasn't it wasn't enough.

I know she pleaded. I know she pleaded for her life and to be sent come back to us and for her grandbabies. And I just have to know God is there to comfort her.

Aaron Lewis was charged with murder and kidnapping and his wife, Crystal Lowry, charged as his accomplice. They pleaded not guilty, but his words to reporter Shannon Miller outside the sheriff's office didn't sound like those of an innocent man by Beverly Beverly.

She was a rich broker.

It was just as chilling in person as it was on TV. And then he gets into the car and you're going, what did he just say?

Two weeks later, Shannon interviewed Lewis in jail and he told a vastly different story.

Was he willing to cop to anything?

No, I didn't kill her. I didn't murder her. And anything that did occur was an accident.

Then he tried to say Beverly played a role in her own death. He implied she willingly met him at the house for a sexual hookup that went wrong there with her son in the home.

Just please tell me, in your opinion, how far fetched was this new story about the sexual encounter? Well, it was one hundred percent made up, so it was completely far fetched.

Assistant District Attorney John Johnson was assigned the case. He believed it was a kidnapping gone wrong, but needed help proving it.

In court, he turned to Lewis's wife, Krystal Lowry. I thought from from the very beginning that we would need to flip crystal and it would be important for the case for her to testify.

He made a deal with Crystal. She agreed to testify against her husband and plead guilty to murder and kidnapping in exchange for reduced sentence of 30 years.

It's good for the jury to be able to hear, you know, the back story of what went on in the wive, what went on.

In January of 2016, Aaron Lewis went on trial. The prosecution's star witness, Krystal Lowry, took the stand and told the jury all the grisly details. She claimed it was all about money, not sex.

She said he came up with the idea of kidnapping someone, but she even went so far as to suggest real estate agents.

She testified that she was in class at nursing school when Lewis abducted Beverly.

She got a text from Aaron Lewis saying, look at this or something like that. And it was a picture of Miss Carter bound in the trunk of the car. She said that when she got home, he had brought Miss Carter back to the house.

She told the jury when she got home, Beverly was locked in their bathroom. And what she said next showed how little thought went into this plan. Lewis had forgotten Beverly's purse with her ATM card at the property. So we went back to get it. Crystal says when he got close to the house, cops were everywhere. One even pulled him over. This particular officer just stopped a car that was coming in to say, hey, if you see have you seen just ask questions and put the person on alert.

The officer couldn't have known that Aaron Lewis was the man they were looking for.

Miss Carter was still alive and and he just didn't know it.

When Lewis returned home, Crystal told the jury that's when the couple ran out of options.

She was in the bathroom with Crystal's medication and so that she knew Crystal's name, Beverly had seen too much.

They agreed she had to die and Miss Carter from their house and put her in the back of the car and drove her out to the cement plant. That's when prosecutors believe Lewis did something horrific, he brought Beverley's face and duct tape and let her suffocate. He came home and told Krystal that she was dead and then the heart of the prosecution's case, that recording of Beverly pleading to her husband, they played it for the jury to.

Please, please call the police, and prosecutors argued the recording proved Beverly had been kidnapped and contradicted Lewis's claim of a hookup. So how would the defense explain that tape? Attorney Bill James chose to ignore it.

I was unable to come up with any plausible explanation for that recording that helped us.

Instead, he led jurors in a different direction. Beverly's personal life.

You said this case is about secret lives. What did you mean by that?

In order for our defense to to be correct. She would have to be living a life that was basically secret or at least doing something that other people didn't know about.

Here's where Lewis's story got even stranger. He was no longer implying that he had sex with Beverly. He claims he was out of the house at the time. That I mean, that's what he said. Yes. Lewis said the tryst was between Beverly and Crystal. He said Beverly accidentally died during rough sex.

She died while with all with his wife and that he was only just protecting his wife and trying to cover up for her.

Finally, Aaron Lewis took the stand and told the jury the story about the alleged rendezvous with Beverly and his wife during cross-examination. Prosecutors pounced. They questioned him about every detail, including that one piece of evidence that seemed to contradict his entire story.

Beverly's voice on that tape telling her husband she'd been kidnapped. I have interviewed a lot of defense attorneys over the years and usually no surprise they stick to their defense and often insist their client is innocent. But when I spoke to Aaron Lewis's attorney, he seemed to really distance himself from his client. And it completely caught me off guard.

What he ultimately told the jury was it synthesizer voice and created this tape.

You'll forgive me if that sounds maybe a little silly. Well, you'll forgive me if I remind you that I didn't say it happened. I'm just telling you what the evidence was.

I was just saying what happened in the trial to Beverly's friends and family. Lewis's story was not only preposterous, it was painful to listen to.

We have been victimized over and over again by him. And I was angry that not only that he was able to do it, but that he continued to be able to hurt my mom.

I was so mad because I thought, how dare you try to tarnish our sweet Beverley's reputation.

The verdict was back in less than an hour. Aaron Lewis was found guilty on all counts and given two life sentences, I felt relief. I instantly believe that regarding last year, Aaron Lewis appealed his conviction to the Arkansas Supreme Court, but it was denied Beverly's family. They started the Beverly Carter Foundation raising more than three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to fund programs and develop training materials for real estate agents safety. They've done so much good out of this tragedy.

Her son is the executive director.

It's a blessing for me because I get to to not only raise awareness, talk about safety, best practices, but then I also use that as an opportunity for me to kind of slide in some some great stories about my mom and so kind of keep her alive.

And that's all for now, I'm Lester Holt, thanks for joining us. The Meet the Press Chuck Todd cast, it's an insider's take on politics, the twenty twenty election and more candid conversations with some of my favorite reporters about things we usually discuss off camera. Listen for free wherever you get your podcast.