Its ridiculous the lies theyre spreading. And matt, he had a theory all his own. Not the first time shes run away, okay. Had nikki taken off and found trouble . Youre thinking someone gave her a date rain drpe drug . A possibility. There was a server tower that could indicate a Live Team Coverage amount of data being stored. What they discovered thousands of hours of tape. Let me out of this room. Absolutely a torture to listen to. And would reveal one shattering truth. I got down on my knees and just started crying. Im lester holt, and this is dateline. Heres Dennis Murphy with the house on sidneys cove. Theres never a good day to search for a missing woman. But this rainy, muggy saturday in the heat of july made an unhappy task all but unbearable. Take some flowers with you. They decided, the friends and family, that theyd all wear red shirts. They got themselves organized in the parking lot of a walmart in lawrenceville, georgia, about an hour outside of atlanta and set out to find any trace of a petite Corporate Executive named nikki lila. Three kids. Wed love to see her home. Amy robinson told reporter that her 44yearold sister, mother of three, was hardly the kind of person who just up and disappear without a word to anyone. Im so worried about my sister, you know, we have no idea where she is or whats happened to her. As fate would have it, the question of where nikki was would be answered soon enough. Even now, five years later, the question of what happened to nikki remains unclear. Im sick of playing your games what is clear from the recording she left behind is that nikki liley lived a troubled ander to wanted life. This is what i live day help n and day out. Keep my mouth shut, my head down, and do exactly whats expected of me. Tell me about nikkis personality. She was very funny. She and i used to laugh all the time. She was very feisty. She would say what she meant. You know, she didnt minutes a lot of words. As sisters, amy robinson and nikki liley were ten years apart. According to amy, they were always close. Boy, you look alike in the old photos. I was thinking maybe youre swapping clothes, but youre ten years apart. We did that didnt stop it from happening. I wore a lot of her handmedowns. By the middle 90s, nikki had been married and the divorced twice. She and her young daughter, alex, were sharing an apartment with amy. We had a good time with that, too. We laughed putting up pictures and stuff. This sounds like a sitcom. Yeah. Oh, yeah. At times it definitely was. Eventually, nikki moved out, remarried, and had two more daughters with her third husband, matt, a new yorker shed met on line. He made my sister latch. You know, we would all laugh. After brief stays in oklahoma and mississippi, nikki and matt returned to georgia and settled into this house on sidneys cove in lawrenceville. Nikki, a wellregarded corporate money person, was the primary breadwinner. Matt, a computer guy, ran a Small Business out of the house. He started going to like government surplus auctions and buying old used computer parts and rebuilding them and selling them on ebay. By this ring when it was amys attorney get married in 2003, her big sis was there serving as matron of honor. I just want to make a toast to amy, my best friend, my co i confidan confidante, my sister, and to the love of her life. To amy and dylan. Then later that night, boogying to, what else, we are family. We are family as the years passed, the sisters remained close. In late june, 2011, amy organized a spa day out for nikki and her three girls. No boys allowed. Were going to have a girls day. Where did you go . We went to get our nails done. Day of beauty . We went and had manicures and pedicures and had lunch. Nikki had her toenails painted pink that day. Though she sometimes had a difficult relationship with her teenage daughter, alex says that day at the spa felt like a turning point. A fresh beginning. Snapshots, everybody looks happy. Yeah. Good girls day out . Yeah. It was fun. Im beyond grateful now that weve done it. Two weeks later, nikki had apparently left home in the middle of the night without a word to anyone. When the family reported her missing two days later, the police advised them there was little they could do. Their response was we dont know where to start looking. Shes not on the 11 00 news every night . No. Frankly, you know, a grown woman having left her house wasnt that interesting a story. 100 people getting together wearing red shirts, theres an interesting story. They covered that. Then the cameras were out . Then the cameras came. And this is what the cameras saw searchers armed with maps literally beating the bushes around nikki lileys subdivision for clues as to what might have happened to her. Keep your eyes open if you see her or anything, definitely call 911. Let them know that you seen her. Every searcher had an assignment. Oh, look, we got blue skies, going to smile on us. Harriet garrett, nikkis mother, had the job of going door to door. Leafletting the neighborhood with flyiers picturing her daughter. Think anybodys home . Well find out. Even though Southern Hospitality may have been in short supply that day call the cops harriet pressed on. Good morning, sir. My name is harriet garrett. My daughters missing. And theyre trying to were trying to get news coverage. Like so many of the volunteers that day, Allison Rockwell wasnt a relative. She was looking for nikki, her coworker. I loved nikki. Nikki was great. She was just such so great to work with. Very smart. Lots of energy. Positive. Wonderful. Just a wonderful person. On the morning of the search, allison recalls that she and another colleague from work, a man named derrick, were running late. That would turn out to be an important twist of fate. 40 minutes late actually. Everyone else had started searching. Were you given a grid or area to look at . Yes. We were given the front of the neighborhood. The very front of the neighborhood on the right. It was one of the last unassigned sections of the organizers search grid. A patch of woods near a busy road. Derrick and i went into the woods together. And i remember having to walk up and go over a large tree. And theres this pile of leaves, and it in the middle of where Everything Else is clear and flat. And my heart is racing a million miles an hour. I go up to the pile of leaves, i was using my boots to move leaves up at the bottom of the pile. As i was doing that, i said, derrick and derrick came over. And he heard the panic in my voice, and he started helping me. And thats when we saw blonde hair. And i screamed this bloodcurdling scream. There was no question . No. When we come back she said, oh, my god. Its her, we found her. Theres her hair. How awful for you. Yeah. A body and a vital clue. The telling factor was the bottoms of her feet were clean. What did that mean . Reporter at first, it was the unnatural way the leaves were clumped that attracted attention. Then it was the hair. And i hear a scream from the woods. You hear a scream . Yeah. And i tore off running into the woods. And then, when i got into the woods, her coworker allison was there. And she said, oh my god. Its its her. We found her. Theres her hair. How awful for you. Yeah. Reporter nique leilis sister amy and her friend alison felt sure the body beneath the leaves had to be niques. It was terrible. I think everybody was a little bit shocked. So i just kind of went into crisis mode and i called 911. Reporter within minutes police, ambulances and news cameras were converging on the patch of woods where the body was found. Niques mother, harriett garrett, says she heard the news when a cop told her shed have to stop leafleting the neighborhood. Someone in the neighborhood had complained. And while he is talking to me, his radio goes off. Its a dispatch. Body has been found. You hear it over the dispatch. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Do you actually go to that place, in that little bit of woods . Yes. Well, i couldnt by the time i got there they already had the crime scene taped up. And i couldnt get any further. Okay. Were going to move back. Were going to move back on down, guys. They had it isolated by that time. But i got to it as close as i could. Reporter soon harriet had niques oldest daughter, alex, on the phone. Do you know its her . Im right here but the police wont let me come, honey. They wont let me through. Im right here where the police are. They wont let me through. Where are you . I just remember fainting or something, but as soon as i came to, i took off running and i ran all the way to where the crime scene tape was. I need to see her. No, you cant. You cant, baby. Of course they wouldnt let me see her. And im grateful that they didnt now. Reporter as niques family struggled to process the news, amy faced the microphones and once again became the familys voice. All we saw was her hair. But so were just waiting for the police to do their job and and well find out more soon. Reporter inside the police tape, investigators carefully uncovered the body of a middleaged female. She was nude, lying face down and tellingly, appeared to have a fresh pink pedicure. Given the decomposition, the heat, the rain, investigators figured the body had lain there for a while. It had been out there several days. Reporter Gwinnett CountyPolice Detective brad everson. No clothing whatsoever. Any obvious injuries to the body . Lacerations . Blunt force trauma . Gunshot, stab wound . Anything you could see . Nothing. And of course at this point theres no theres no identifying documents around it, so theres nothing around where the bodys at that would indicate what happened. Reporter in the way of these things, dental records confirmed what everyone suspected. The body in the woods was indeed that of nique leili. A telling factor was the bottoms of her feet were clean. What does that tell you . Connect the dots for me sergeant. Well, that tells you that she didnt walk out there and put herself in those woods. And she sure wasnt going to cover herself up. Reporter later lab analysis of niques blood revealed Something Else that was odd. There was a high level of the date rape drug ghb in her system. So now youre thinking maybe sometime before this womans death, almost immediately before, someone gave her date rape drug . Thats a possibility. M. E. Also finds semen . Correct. Reporter had nique somehow been abducted, raped and then dumped less than a mile from her home . The detective couldnt say. But in the days before her body was found, while this was still a missing persons case, niques husband matt had told everson something intriguing on the phone. This wasnt the first time nique leili had walked out on him. My wife has a long history of some kind of mental imbalances. Okay . And ive been finding out the past two days everything shes been telling me in therapy all these years has been a lie. Coming up, the nique no one knew. Stories of unstable behavior. This is not the first time shes run away. Okay . And even violence. My father is a witness for her throwing a knife at my face. When dateline continues. Reporter by the time searchers found nique leilis body, Police Detective brad everson already knew bits and pieces of her life story. Hed been working her case since she was reported missing a few days earlier. Id already talked to her dad, talked to her mom, talked to both her sisters, you know, talked to her her oldest daughter. The picture that emerged was of a woman whose life had revolved around her work, her daughters, and her husband matt. He would come sometimes, and do lunch with nique. Did she ever talk about her girls . Yes, yes. She was very proud of all three girls. Yes. Photos on the desk kind of thing . Oh, absolutely. Reporter like most marriages, niques had its ups and downs. Early july 2011, when nique disappeared, was one of the down times. Matt freely admitted that when he talked to the detective the day after he reported her missing. This is not the first time shes run away. Okay . Shes run away and shes been gone for two hours, shes been gone for three hours, four hours one time. Shes gone to work with a bag of clothes and then come back after work. You know, but shes never been gone overnight. So hes telling you this is just the latest of a continuing episode that my wife has . Correct. Matthew, this is detective everson, Gwinnett County police department. Reporter in this telephone call which the detective recorded matt leili said his wife was mentally unbalanced. Shes not very happy with her life. She never felt accepted. Okay . Weve been in and out of therapists. Theres a fear of intimacy. You know, shes got no problem with girls. But when it comes to a male, they are a threat. They are all my all my life guys have used me for sex. Hes just giving you a hose full of information . I have a hard time getting a word in edgewise. She yells at me in front of the kids. She throws things in front of me in front of the kids. And all im doing is sitting there going please stop, please stop, do you remember what the doctor said . Is this the person you want to be . Reporter matt leili said hed even considered getting a court order to protect him from his wife. Now, has she ever been violent . Yeah. Ive got pictures of myself with bruises on me. Ive got a my father is a witness for her throwing a knife at my face. Im 250 pounds, six foot five. Shes 98 pounds soaking wet. Im being beaten up by my wife. Whos going to believe me . Hes telling you that shes bats . Thats what hes saying. Reporter as for the night nique disappeared he stated the previous friday that they had actually gone out to eat and then gone to a movie after she got home from work. We had a great time. We came home. On the way home i said to her you know, hey, you know because i wanted sex, so i said to her you know hey, you know, how about you put on an outfit . I think that might have set her off. He wanted her to put on a little sexy costume of some kind, huh . Correct. That fear of intimacy that i thought she was working on getting over was gone, but apparently that set her off because she picked a fight. Reporter as matt tells it, the fight continued at home and ramped up. Matts father, who was visiting from new york, was just down the hall. When the argument touched on the way nique had supposedly been treating her father in law, matt asked his dad to weigh in. He called his father, matthias, into the bedroom and basically asked matthias to tell nique how he felt about being down there and that matthias came out with a line that he hadnt felt welcome, that kind of stuff, and that nique just reacted to that by basically saying youre he was lying. Reporter then matt said his wife did something off the wall. I mean, holy cow, she rips her shirt off with her [ bleep ] hanging out, no bra, nothing, and says maybe we should just [ bleep ]. Throws her shirt on the floor and then says isnt that what family does . Youre kidding. She flashed her fatherinlaw . Correct. My wife has done some weird [ bleep ]. Thats the weirdest shes ever been. Reporter matt said the dust finally settled in the wee hours of saturday july 9th. Nique in the bedroom, he on his couch in the downstairs office. I wake up about 6 00 to go to the bathroom. The light is on in the bedroom. I can see it upstairs. So i go upstairs to see whats going on. Shes not there. All her stuff was still there. Her car was still there, her keys, her phone. Her purse was still there . Correct. He assumes she had left on foot or assumes somebody had come and picked her up. Reporter matt told the cop it was then that he realized his Home Security system had been turned off. I have a camera system in the house because i sell cameras with the dvr. She always shuts it off when she leaves, when shes pissed off. Because she knows it pisses me off. So thats the first you learn that this place is wired for sound and pictures . Correct. Reporter when nique leilis body was found days later near her home, learning the story told by those cameras became most urgent. Coming up a treasure trove of evidence. Quantify it. What are we talking about . Thousands of hours of material. Just what will it reveal . Its absolutely a torture to listen to. Tonight at 11 cutting down on overdoses by giving people a safe place to use drugs and alcohol. The controversial plan one bay area lawmaker is proposing. Vo and, a restaurant ripped off. Its not about how much money was stolen. But where that money was going that makes it so important for police to find this man. Plus. Sot its very hard to find parking now. Trt 03 and its about to get worse. The looming threat forcing this bay area parking garage to close tomorrow morning. Jess 11pm close tonight at 11. Reporter within minutes of finding niques body, police raced to the leili home about a mile away. What they observed right away was astounding. The Home Security system that matt leili had casually mentioned to detective everson a few days earlier appeared more appropriate to ft. Knox than a house in the burbs. And when you first see the house on the road, you can see all these huge these big cameras on the eaves of the house, both sides. Reporter there were 21 security cameras in all, with a trickedout control room to monitor and record everything. He sounds like a oneman nsa. It was a very low crime area. So it almost boggled the mind as to why he felt he needed quite so much surveillance coverage for the house. Reporter odd, to be sure, an observation to tuck away for later. But the duty that day came first, notification, the officers telling matt leili that his missing wife had just been found dead. The uniformed guys told me that he at one point seemed like he got sick. Reporter matt leili may well have been sick. Sick of talking to the cops, because by now hed lawyered up and wasnt answering any of their questions. So you now have probable cause to get a search warrant. Correct. Correct. Do you think, man, maybe this is going to help us. Maybe these cameras saw and recorded something that tells the story of whats up with nique . That was my hope. Were mainly going for anything in the house that has any sort of memory, be it computers, be it you know, he had a dvr hooked up to his Surveillance System. Reporter the detective knew it would take time to review and catalogue all of that material. So since the police had found no sign of blood nor any signs of struggle in the house, the detective reviewed the evidence he did have, particularly matts claim that his wife was bonkers. Are any of her family members corroborating this emotional instability issue thats raised by the husband . None whatsoever. Reporter this is not a woman off her meds . No. Theyre completely shocked by this version of events that matthew leilis given me. Are any of them suspicious of matt, the husband . Yes. They were all suspicious of matt. Reporter niques daughter alex had lived with her mother and matt until she was 16. And there was plenty shed had to say to the detective. I wanted him to know what was going on in the house. I wanted him to know that i suspected him from the beginning, that my mom would have never left her girls, and i wanted him to know he would restrain her or lock her in bathrooms. Reporter why did he do that . The whole thing with the cameras . Hes just extremely controlling. Reporter still, despite the familys suspicion and the fact that the semen found on niques body proved to be matts, the police didnt feel they had enough evidence to make an arrest. Theres no ankle bracelet on this man . You havent taken his passport . No. Does anybody say, if youre going to be moving around, tell us where youre going to be . Is it that kind of relationship with the authorities at that point . No. Hes theres not really a relationship with us. Reporter what about all that computer evidence, the video files from matts hard drives . They appeared to be useless. After months of reviewing more than a half million video clips, the best investigators could come up with was this. Its a clip of nique leili walking onto the front porch to have a smoke, just after midnight on july 9th, 2011, the day she went missing. After that nothing. What happened after midnight in that house . Exactly. That was that was the milliondollar question. Reporter the video files from midnight until 6 00 in the morning that day were corrupted according to the tech guy who examined them. He could see footage. But what it was it was very disjointed. Most of it was not time stamped. Most of it was not date stamped. So it was not in a manner that you could just go in and click play and just play through everything. Reporter the bottom line . The police had zero. Nada. Zilch. And so with no compelling reason to stick around lawrenceville, matt leili moved back up north to vermont to be closer to his family. That was in february of 2012, almost seven months to the day after niques body was found. Niques stepmother, betty chatham, says that move effectively ended all contact between niques family and her two youngest daughters, amanda 12 and rebecca 9. He was to provide us with telephone number. He was to set up a skype account so that we could talk with the girls. Nothing. Packed up, moved. Reporter five months later, in the summer of 2012, the investigative file passed to cold case detective Sergeant John richter. I was actually in the homicide unit as a corporal when her body was found. Does that stay with you . Yeah, i always say theres certain, you know, theres certain cases that stick with you, and this is one. Reporter at first richter did what all cold case detectives do. He reinterviewed witnesses. When that went nowhere, richter took another look at matt leilis computer hard drives. Do you think somewhere in there is the nugget thats going to get you to the next step in this investigation . I think at minimum we need to redo it just to see if technology had advanced. So i needed a new forensic guy to look at the video or whatever else he can find on the computer. Reporter turns out the techie richter needed was just down the hall. Corporal chris ford had been an i. T. Guy before joining the police force. Richter just came down and said, hey, you mind taking a look at this . So i start looking for what we call lowhanging fruit. Whats easily available . That was where i really started digging through and finding all these audio files. Reporter nobody had listened to the audio files before because investigators were so focused on finding video from the night nique disappeared. And thats just what ford did at first, too. I basically looked at that video in raw format, which is basically computer language. So something was recorded there. Yes, they just wouldnt play. Reporter eventually, ford determined the screwedup files were no accident. Someone had deleted those files and then run a Cleanup Program to clear the database logs. Not once, but twice. The only two times those cleanup jobs were run were the day that she he reported her missing and the day her body was found. Ill never forget the day he comes to my cube and he says, these videos were deleted. This isnt corrupted. And he turns to leave. And i think he just looks back and he says, oh, i got a bunch of audio files that are on there too if youre interested. A bunch of files, quantify it. What are we talking about in terms of, like, hours of material . Thousands of hours of material that date back from 2008, you know, up to 2011. Reporter the audio recordings are probably best described as cringeworthy scenes from a very bad marriage. Thats not what i said and how i said it and dont take my words out of context when we got into that [ bleep ] car [ bleep ] damn, it damn it, damn it, damn it damn it lower your voice its absolutely a torture to listen to because we have a woman who i know is now deceased. And im hearing how shes living for the years preceding her death and how how she is just being beaten down psychologically and and mentally. Reporter it took the detective nearly a year and half to listen to all of the recordings, and by then hed heard more than enough. When he learned that matt leili would be returning to georgia to testify in a civil suit concerning the payout from some Life Insurance policies nique had, Sergeant John richter planned to be waiting. Coming up could investigators have it all wrong . Niques youngest daughters paint a very different picture of their childhood home. It was always happy and loving. Why theyre furious with their moms side of the family. Its just ridiculous the lies theyre spreading. When dateline continues. Listening to music in the shower can help you conserve water, so start your Favorite Song when you get in, and when its done, times up. Youve probably conserved at least ten gallons of water. Saving the environment never sounded so great. Reporter in march 2015 matt leili returned to georgia for the First Time Since hed left the state three years earlier. It was money that brought him back, a Court Proceeding concerning a payout from his wife niques Life Insurance policies. I knew he was coming down. That made me uneasy. It made me feel really creeped out. This is three years later. Mmhmm. What we didnt know was that the whole federal courthouse was actually crawling with plainclothes Gwinnett County police. They were taking him down that day . They were. We had no idea. Reporter Sergeant John richter says the plainclothes cops waited all day for just the right moment to make their move. We get him on the on the outside of the courthouse. Who makes the collar . Hows it go down . Myself and detective washington were there and put the handcuffs on him. Felt pretty good. Reporter niques family knew the feeling. I raised my hands and said, praise god. That was my reaction. Reporter in addition to facing a murder charge, matt leili was eventually charged with Sexual Assault and multiple counts of evesdropping. A few weeks after his arrest nique leilis daughters, amanda and rebecca, posted an edited video on youtube in support of their dad. So girls, tell me what life was like growing up in your home. It was always happy and loving. Most of the time my mom was traveling. My dad was mostly the one taking care of us. Reporter in the video the girls claimed that their mother hated her own family and those same spiteful relatives were the primary reason their dad was in jail. Theyve never liked my dad, and ive been reading things online. Ive been watching the news. And i can see the hatred that they have for my dad. And its just ridiculous the lies theyre spreading. Reporter for niques family that video was devastating. What, they wondered, had happened to those girls in the four years theyd been in vermont . As far as i can tell, he poisoned them against us. And i can only attribute that to, you know, them living in a house with a master manipulator. Reporter the notion of matt leili as a master manipulator would become a central theme when his murder trial began in january 2016. Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Reporter in her Opening Statement to the jury, prosecutor lisa jones depicted matt leili as a couch potato sponging off his hardworking wife. Nique leili was the breadwinner, but that family was in debt. Up to 300,000 in debt. Reporter furthermore, jones said, matt leili tried to control his wife by turning their home into a virtual north korea. With cameras and recording devices everywhere, lenses aimed at them as they sat on the couch and watched tv. You will take a look into this marriage, ladies and gentlemen, in this case. You will hear the voices of nique leili and the defendant in this case arguing. Reporter niques murder, she claimed, was simply matt leilis final act of control. I think they got into an argument, that he wanted to have sex, that he drugs her, that he has his way, that shes loud. Shes not able to resist as much as it progresses. That he silences her. He strangles her. He sits on her. He asphyxiates her to where she cant breathe. Not meaning to maybe . Oh, i think he meant to. I think hed had it. And i think he knew that she was leaving him because she had made it clear she was done. Raise your right hand, please. Reporter the states first witness was niques oldest daughter, alex. Theyd be arguing and he would end up locking her in a bathroom. Shed been shoved down stairs. There were several nights that i would lay up at night and listen to her say please get off of me, get off of me, youre hurting me. Reporter next, niques sister amy told the jury about the constant monitoring at the leili house. We knew that he would record phone conversations that came into or out of the house. Were you aware at any time whether there were ever gps trackers or tracking devices on any types of the phones or the vehicles at the residence . Yes. I knew that he had trackers on niques phone and when alex was old enough to have a cell phone that he tracked her phone as well. Reporter then the prosecution gave the court a flyonthewall look inside the leili home by playing those promised recordings of the couples fights. Let the record show i am now locked in a room again. I dont want to be here. I dont want to have this conversation. Ive asked out of it. Let the record show that shes being an absolute [ bleep ]. Wants her way no matter what. Reporter it was hard to listen to. Bitter screaming matches. Frequently about sex. I know that when we go two days without sex you are going to automatically assume i am on strike mode. No matter what else is happening. Dont touch me sit down if you want to sit down. Im reaching out to you. I dont want to hold you hand right now. Reporter in retrospect, for the prosecution, the recordings seemed to have the ring of prophecy. Your hands around my throat. My hands were not on your throat. I dont care what the [ bleep ] you think. That was my throat they were around. Get it through your head they were not around your throat and stop telling that story like that. Bull [ bleep ]. You threatened to kill me. Reporter the prosecutor said nique leilis best chance for leaving her marriage came 12 days before she disappeared. After yet another argument, nique had called 911. Gwinnett county 911. Yes. My husband wont let me leave the house. My wife my wife is yelling and screaming and just woke up the children. Reporter officers dispatched to the leili home that day offered to help nique leave. But as this still photo shows she wouldnt budge from the front porch. She wanted him to go. He didnt want to go. He wanted her to go. She wasnt going to leave without the girls. And so the argument they were pretty much at an impasse. Reporter two weeks later, nique leili was dead. In a house where practically everything was recorded, the prosecutor claimed it was no accident that the video covering the crucial hours when nique leili went missing was somehow corrupted. The Surveillance System was in fact recording during that time period, is that correct . That is correct, yes. Reporter the prosecutor countered matts claim that nique had somehow turned off the Security System by calling the Police Departments i. T. Guy, chris ford, as her last witness. So detective, in your opinion did an individual have to go in and purposefully corrupt and delete those files . That is correct, yes. Thats the only way that i can explain why out of all the dates and video that i can recover thats the only date range that i cant recover from. Reporter though no one knows exactly what was on that missing video, the prosecutor suggested that it was probably video of matt leili carrying his wifes body out of the house. You heard her. Reporter in closing, the prosecutor let nique leili have the last word. You need to listen to what she says and what she lived. Welcome to my world. You killed me a long time ago. Welcome to my world. You killed me a long time ago. Find him guilty. Because thats exactly what he is. Coming up has the prosecution really proved anything . I think their gut feeling was shes buried this close to the house, its got to have been him. Its what you call a circumstantial case. Yes. And then nique and matts daughter says in her parents marriage matt was the victim. She took a heel and threw it. And i myself had to duck from it. And was it being thrown at your dad . Yes. Vo the looming threat that will cut out hundreds of parking spots in one bay area city starting tomorrow. Vo and, a surge in poisonous mushrooms. Where youre most likely to find them and the deadly risk to your dogs. Next close next. Reporter by early february 2016, the prosecution had rested its cased against matt leili. The husband was portrayed as an evesdropping control freak whod killed his wife during an argument. Leilis defense attorney, tom clegg, insisted that matt leili was, in fact, an innocent man, falsely accused by the state of georgia. They have a theory, and that theory is nothing more than a hunch. It is a guess. Well, if you were to ask yourself questions that might have been posed of you if you were to have gone to journalism school, who, what, where, why, and how, you will find that during the course of this trial the state of georgia will fall woefully short in proving the allegations that they are making against this man. I think their gut feeling was, come on, shes naked, shes buried this close to the house. Shes obviously hidden. Its got to have been him. Thats what you call a circumstantial case. Yes. Reporter the defense attorney concedes he had some difficult circumstances to overcome in this case, beginning with the six hours of missing surveillance camera video from the night nique leili disappeared. Clegg insists his client did not erase those files as the prosecution claimed. The video Surveillance System was shut off at some point in the morning. Matt believes that nique shut it off. He is insistent that he did not shut it off, that the system was shut off by nique. So whatever happened to her, the cameras didnt see it. The cameras did not see it. That is absolutely correct. Reporter as for those audio recordings of the couples screaming arguments, clegg pointed out that most were recorded in 2008 and 2009, two years before nique died. According to the defense attorney, matt made the recordings with the encouragement of a marriage therapist that the couple had been seeing at the time. He is talking, and he is conciliatory in my opinion, he is trying to calm things down and it is impossible to calm nique down. Please dont do this. Please, nique, please. You do not want to do this with me right now. I mean it. You do not want to tangle with me right now. At all. What did i do . Reporter according to clegg, the prosecution cherrypicked scenes from the leili marriage. Highlighting the bad and downplaying the good, bright spots like a 2010 trip matt and nique took to hawaii. They even renewed their marriage vows on that trip. The tapes reflect both of them at their worst. Now, the flip side is when they are getting along well, when they are affectionate towards one another, when they renew their wedding vows in hawaii, they dont tape that stuff. Its always the darkest side of the moon with this marriage . The darkest side, absolutely, yes. Reporter as for the night nique disappeared, the defense tried to show that nique leili was once again acting unstable, behaving erratically. The defense attorney called matts father, matthias, to verify his sons version of that last fight between matt and nique. The one where she allegedly flashed him. She tore off her top and she says, come on lets go. Lets f like a family. Were you expecting any sort of comment like that . Never, i never. Reporter once nique disappeared, clegg said matt leili inquired about having his wife involuntarily committed and even hired a divorce attorney. A man who knows his wife is already dead, he says, wouldnt have done either of those things. He did not really want to divorce her. He wanted to let her know, look, here are your options. You can go get help for yourself, or im going to go forward with a divorce. Reporter the defense wrapped up its case by calling matt and niques two daughters, rebecca, now 14, and amanda, 17. Did you ever see your dad hit your mom . No. Did you ever see any obvious injuries or bruises to your mom . No, sir. Reporter according to the girls, their mother was the one with the violent temper, not their dad. She took a heel and threw it. And i myself had to duck from it. Was it being thrown at your dad . Yes. Reporter on the day nique made that 911 call, amanda said her mother complained about hearing voices in her head. She was pacing back and forth and saying that she was tired of people talking about her behind her back. And my dad asked her who was talking about her, and she said that she was hearing voices and, like, the voices in her head were telling her that people were talking bad about her. Reporter throughout, neither girl made eye contact with their mothers relatives, who hadnt seen them in four years. Whatever affection might once have existed seemed to be gone now. We made our own decision. We dont like that side of the family. So we want to stay away. Its not his him forcing us to stay away from them. Reporter in closing, tom clegg argued that while the state may have proved matt leili unlikeable it had not answered any of those basic journalism questions who, what, where, when, why, or how . In closing, i said, you have heard all of this evidence, the state still cannot answer any of these particular questions. What does that tell you . That tells you they have fallen woefully short of proving matts guilt. Reporter after eight days of testimony, both sides of the family prepared for a long and anxious wait for a verdict. Turns out they didnt have to pace long. After just three hours of deliberation, the jury announced it had reached a verdict. I would ask at this time that you would stand and read the verdict out loud. As to count one, we the jury find the defendant guilty of malice murder. Reporter though not a sound came from nique leilis family, their expressions said it all. Thank you, sir. Reporter before passing sentence, the judge gave matt leili one last chance to have his say. Mr. Leili is there anything you want to say . I didnt do it, and ill be filing an appeal. Reporter with that, the judge asked matt leili to rise and receive his sentence. I am going to follow the states recommendation as to count one and have you sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Reporter it was a bittersweet ending for niques family. Theyll likely never see matt leili again. But as nique leilis youngest girls left the courthouse to go back north with their grandfather, it seemed just as likely that they would never see them again either. They were my girls. I still love them to this day. I taught them how to read, got them ready for school in the mornings. Youd like to have a relationship with them . I would love to have a relationship with them again. I dont know that that day will ever come. But i want them to know my doors always open. But i dont know if that day will ever come. Reporter one murder, so many victims. Thats all for this edition of dateline. Well see you again next friday im lester holt. Thanks for joining us safe place alcohol. The controversial plan one bay area lawmaker is ro next, cutting down on overdoses by giving people a safe place to use drugs and alcohol. Controversial plan one bay area lawmaker is proposing. The looming threat that will cut out hundreds of parking spots in one bay area city starting tomorrow. Now that you put me in this position, even if you dont help me one bit, im going to get it done, believe me dont worry about it. Runs 07 now that you put me in this position even if you dont help me win big, i am going to get it done, believe me. Dont worry. Right now, president elect donald trump kicked off his thank you tour in cincinnati tonight. The news at 11 00 starts now. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. Im jessica aguirre. Im in for raj mathai. On the road and in public for the first time, mr. Trump reconnected with supporters to ni