clients. what happened inside that house? >> i saw a few people in the front entranceway. >> tonight "date line's" own unsolved case squad you takes on the case. >> somebody got paid to commit that murder. >> somebody very close to her. >> i agree. i think it's somebody she knows. >> so full of life, who was behind her death? >> i am will going to find out,t kills me. >> unsolved. the dream house mystery. >> good evening. welcome to "dateline." i'm ann curry. she was 24 and just starting her life as a real estate agent. she thought she had landed the assignment of her dreams, big clients who wanted to buy a million-dollar home. but golden opportunities are not always what they seem. here's josh mankiewicz. just north of seattle and a few short miles from the glittering green playground known as the san juan islands sits a town that knows little of the ugly side of life. where fairies and float planes slip through a fantastic inner harbor. surrounded by grandeur more reminiscent of europe than of north america. it's victoria, british columbia. this is where a girl was born and raised safely in the arms of a large extended family. and many friends who loved her. the young woman they all treasured was lindsay buzi yak. >> she was just a spectacular young woman that was the love of everybody's life. >> her father, jeff. >> she would make friends with everybody and want to be your friend. >> loved by everybody. >> loved by everybody. >> she had plenty of company in that fun-filled life. among her many friends were beautiful young women like nicki burrows. when all of you would get together, what did you do? >> pretend like we were from "sex and the city." >> which one were with you? >> do i have to say that? >> which one was she? >> carrie. >> the organizer. everybody's friend. >> uh-huh. so smart. driven. >> and maybe a little unyou lucky in love? >> i think all of us girls are. >> one with of those who lindsay had loved was this man, matt mcduff. they dated from t2001 to 2006 ad traveled a lot together. >> she was a pretty driven girl. she was folks used on what she wanted to achieve. >> which was? >> she wanted a year, to do things with her life. >> we're not even definitely launching it it for about two weeks. >> lindsay's chosen year was real estate. she was following in the footsteps of her father. >> it was an industry in many ways that was best suited for her. >> she could sell ice in alaska. >> it wasn't selling for her. it was socializing. it was being lindsay. >> and as the end of 2007 approached, both 24-year-old lindsay and her business were beginning to blossom. lindsay was now living with a new boyfriend who was chasing many of the same dreams. his name was jason zaloe, a mortgage broker with a real estate license. what did you feel like when you were with her? >> alive. every time she would walk into a room you would know she was there. she was just always, always happy. >> and in the small island world of victoria, jason's mom shirley was also a realtor, a manager for re/max where lindsay worked. >> she was very focused, really wanted to make herself a yecare in real estate. loved that about her. >> and in late january 2008, lindsay received that call every agent dreams of, a new client on the phone from vancouver y. police would with later describe the call this way. the client said she and her husband were moving to victoria and wanted to look at homes near the city that were in ready ready-to-move-in condition. lindsay rote it all down here in her day-timer. the clients wanted a house with three bedrooms, three baths, and a separate area for a housekeeper. and the client made two statements that would wigrab th instant attention of any real estate agent. the couple needed to buy the house within two widays and the price range they were looking at was in the neighborhood of $1 million. but lindsay told her father and more than a few friends that there was something odd about the clients who spoke english with an accent. >> she couldn't really put her finger on exactly what it was. >> she described it as people like faking an accent? >> yeah. she said, well, it it's kind of spanish but not really. >> the clients were due to begin seeing homes on a saturday, february 2, 2008. it was 5:30 p.m. when lindsay met the couple here, a five-bedroom, four-bath executive home listed at $964,000 in an upscale victoria suburb called sanicht. it was the last place lindsay buziak was seen alive. >> you know, wee hours of the morning i received a call from my ex-wife. she said, have the police been in contact with you? i just said, what the hell is going on? she said, well, i have the worst news ever in the world. lindsay's been murdered. >> soon lindsay's friends heard it, too. >> i didn't believe it. worst phone call of my life. >> former buy friend matt mcduff got a message, and when he returned the call was struck by the news like a hammer. >> i phoned my brother back and his girlfriend answered. she said lindsay was murdered. worst phone call i've ever had. >> lindsay buziak's body had been found after 6:00 p.m. here in that lux home in a victoria suburb, a high-dollar property she was showing to her big-money clients. lindsay had been stabbed to death. who on earth could have done such a thing to a glowing young woman? someone whose life seemed transparently happy? someone who seemed not to have any enemies? police would open the book on a mystery looking for the secrets that could tell them not just who but why. kcoming up -- what happened inside that house? >> i saw a few people in the front entranceway. >> people through the glass? >> yes. >> chilling new details from someone who was there, when "unsolved the dream house mystery" continues. ♪ walk like an angel [ laughs ] ♪ talk like an angel ♪ but i got wise [ grunting ] ♪ you're the devil in disguise [ male announcer ] we put it through over 5,000 quality tests... so it'll stand up to just about anything. the nissan altima. innovation that lasts. innovation for all. ♪ innovation that lasts. innovation for all. hey, you guys. want to try activia's great new taste? isn't this the yogurt that, you know... helps regulate your digestive system. trust me. it is beyond tasty. mmm. this is really good! new best tasting activia ever! ♪ activia [ female announcer ] for when you want your favorite café to be your own kitchen. new stouffer's stuffed melts and soups like creamy tomato bisque served with a three cheese and ham stuffed melt. two café favorites now in one package. new from stouffer's. beautiful victor area, british columbia, was suddenly witness to an outpouring of love and sadness few had ever seen. >> friends hug each other outside as hundreds gather inside to remember 24 year old lindsay buziak. >> one week after realtor lindsay buziak was murdered at an empty million-dollar home she was showing to two new buyers, lindsay's friends and family said good-bye. so many were at a loss of who might have been responsibility for lindsay's death. her father, jeff. >> she was a spectacular young woman. you would want to be part of her life. you would want to be her friend. how could you possibly think you'd want her death? >> the task of unraveling the mystery fell to police in saanich, a victoria suburb that averages about one murder a year. >> it shocked the community, shocked the officers that were investigating it. >> inspector rob mccall led the investigation. backed by a team that included detective sergeant chris horsily. they began by reconstructing the last hours of lindsay's life and the bulk of the clues came from her boyfriend, jason zalo. he told police the couple had lunch together at this restaurant, then they split up. lindsay over to the house she was going to show those eager buyers, jason to take a contract of his auto detailing shop before meeting lindsay at the house to drop off some papers. >> and so i said, i'll come meet you. i'll be 10, 15 minutes or so. and i started driving. then that's when she said to me, okay, i'll see you in a bit. i've got to go. the mexicans are here. >> "the mexicans" was lindsay's shorthand name for the clients who spoke with a strange accent. while lindsay was meeting the couple, this surveil tape shows jason and a friend hopping into jason's range rover at 5:30 p.m. to head for the house. will at 5:38 p.m., jason sent lindsay a text, police said. >> the last text jason sent was, couple minutes away, that text was never opened by lindsay. then 5:41 p.m., 3 minutes after that final text -- >> lindsay's blackberry made a phone call out, and we believe that phone call was made as a result of the attack. >> that was buttons on her blackberry inadvertently being pressed during the attack? >> correct. it was truly a pocket dial baz the blackberry was in her pocket. >> police believe lindsay was murdered between that three-minute time span, 5:38 and 5:41 p.m. jason drove up y minutes later, around 5:45. from his front seat, he says he saw something through the front door of the house. >> it was like kind of smoked glass, and i saw a few people in the front entranceway. >> you saw, what, outlines of people through the glass? >> yes. >> you couldn't tell wihow many people? >> i'd say two. >> outside, jason zalo said he didn't want to appear to be the meddling boyfriend so he pulled out of the cul-de-sac and on to the main road to wait. but after ten minutes or so, he says he got a feeling something was wrong. >> when i texted her, are you okay, and i didn't get a text back, that's what really worried me. >> jason walked to the front door. through the window he saw this, lindsay's shoes lying in the foyer, standard procedure for a realtor showing a house. then jason checked the door and found it locked. it was 6:05 p.m. >> i called 911 to say that my girlfriend is in the house and it's locked and i can't get in and she's showing people houses. in a panic mode, i just told them the address of the house and, you know, come, i'm going to get in the house or break in the house or something like that, to open it up. >> jason boosted his friend over this fence on to the side patio. the friend found an open door, then let in jason who found lindsay's body in an upstairs bedroom. another 911 call came in 6:11 p.m. >> she was just lying on her back, you know, not moving, nothing. so i went straight to her, tried to give her cpr. i felt her skin. it was -- she was already passed away. >> what were with you thinking? >> absolute shock. i remember the police were on the phone and i kept yelling at them saying, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, even though in my mind i already knew she was passed away. >> and in that terrible moment, jason realized that those figures he had seen through the smoked glass of the front door were probably lindsay's killers. but where had they gone? k-9 units were deployed but found no sign of the killers. they had apparently escaped on foot. at the crime scene, police found lindsay buziak dead from dozens of viciously inflicted stab wounds, most to the head and chest. no knife was left, but all the wounds appear to have been inflicted by one person. the first thought for a crime in a million-dollar home, robbery. but nothing was taken. lindsay's purse, watch, wallet, and her money were all left at the scene. investigators also considered sexual assault as a motive, but an autopsy found no sign of it. crime scene investigators found almost nothing in the way of fingerprints, dna, and other physical evidence to work with. every room in the house was empty, and they had been cleaned just before the showing. but as police blanketed the neighborhood after the murder, they did turn up more than one witness who provided key information. they had seen in the fading sunlight of a february saturday lindsay greeting a man and woman as they arrived at the home around 5:30 p.m. >> the witnesses are quite firm in that it appeared to be a meeting, a shaking of the hands. so we're quite satisfied that the people that showed up were not known to lindsay. >> lindsay had been killed, it appeared, by strangers. police concluded it had to be the couple that had set up the showing and had lured lindsay to the scene of her own murder. one witness was able to help police with a composite sketch of the female scene leading lindsay. she's described as white, 35 to 40 years old with short blonde hair. she was also the witness said wearing a colorful dress of white, black, and either red or pink with a distinctive pattern. and more clues to the identities of the killers came from lind's blackberry. stored there, the phone number for the mexicans. detectives traced the phone the killers used to contact lindsay. it it was a cell phone purchased between three and six weeks before the murder at a vancouver convenience store. >> surveillance tape of the sale? >> gone. and unfortunately the phone is a pay-you t pay-to-talk. no registration than quickly online and your phone is up and running. >> while the killers bought the phone weeks earlier, they activated it via the internet less than 48 hours before the murder, making their movements difficult to trace. the phone was registered under the name palo rodriguez. >> the name appears to be fictitious. >> the address that the phone was registered, it's unrelated. it is a an address but it's a business in vancouver. >> vancouver is where the first calls to lindsay were made, confirmed by hits on cell towers in the city. police say perhaps half a dozen calls were made to lindsay. and after the murder? the cell phone was never used again. you're describing killers who are incredibly disciplined and are either very good or just very luck country. >> yeah. very much so. and we're not sure which one. >> they may or may not have known lindsay, but certainly they knew how to carry out a terrible crime and then cover their tracks. could they be professionals? had someone sent them? was there more to lindsay's life than met the eye? detectives began by focusing on those closest to lindsay. the boyfriend and the ex. could it have been one of them? >> i've never seen a teardrop out of his eye. >> police return to the scene of of the crime for a dramatic reenactment. and "dateline's" unsolved case squad goes to work. >> got paid to commit the murder. >> when "dateline" continues. in an up>> in an upypscale, of victoria, british columbia, police believed lindsay buziak had been murdered while showing a mysterious couple this lavish home. but in the first days and weeks after her death, police focused not just on finding that couple but on the emerging idea that this may have been a murder for hire. police and her family began taking a hard look at lindsay herself and her personal relationships. >> there were two theories when i arrived in victoria instantly. >> lindsay's father, jeff. >> what are the two theories? >> two theories, boyfriend or ex-boyfriend. >> either jason or matt. >> or matt. and, josh, i don't care who it is that killed lindsay. i want to know who and i want them punished. >> and, in fact, just minutes after jason zalo discovered lindsay's body on that saturday evening in february 2008, saanich police had a suspect, jason zalo himself, found hunched over lindsay covered in her blood. zalo was handcuffed, taken to the police station, questioned for hours, and asked to give dna samples before being released. days later, police called jason back to the house. >> i'm yelling, lindsay, lindsay, lindsay? >> to reenact his movements the night of the murder shown in this never before released video, the walls of the house still covered with fingerprint powder left by investigators. >> you okay? >> brought back all the memories again and feelings. >> what feelings? >> how you lose somebody so fast, you know. one day you're living with somebody and the next day she's gone. >> but what possible reason might jason zalo to want lindsay buziak dead? he says their relationship was a happy one. but it turns out there's another side to that story. in the last months of her life, lindsay was telling family and friends that she was thinking of breaking up with jason as soon as several real estate deals closed. just six weeks before the murder, in december 2007, lindsay had flown to calgary, alberta, to tell her father that her relationship with jason wasn't working. >> she just said, daddy, i made a mistake. i feel horrible about it. but she said, i can't do it anymore. >> had she told jason this? >> not that i'm aware of. >> the story is confirmed by several of lindsay's friends. but, shortly after she made those statements, lindsay went on an after h-christmas ski tri with jason and family. lindsay's friends said she softened, reconsidered and in her words were trying to make it work. >> there are people out there saying she was getting ready to pull the plugged and move on. any truth to that as far as you know? >> there's none, no. there's no truth to that. >> but what about jason's actions after lindsay's murder? those who saw him claim he was addly unemotional, unlike virtually everyone else. >> came running up y the stairs. >> crying. i couldn't keep myself together. and he -- i didn't see any tears. >> i never seen a tear drop out of his eye. i've never seen a sniffle from his nose. what the hell is with that? >> your behavior after the murder has been described by some people as emotionless. everybody else was shocked. you were fine. >> i wasn't fine. people show their emotions in different ways. >> you have never spoken publicly about the death of your girlfriend. >> no. >> what do you want people to know? >> i want people to know that i love lindsay. i think about her every day. i want this case solved as fast as possible. i had nothing to do with it. >> and jason had a compelling witness on his side, his friend who was with him and who helped him get inside. footprints and fingerprints match their account of what they did at the house. lindsay buziak had been dead for more than two years when wisaanh police granted unprecedented access to "dateline's" case squad, sharing files with our experts. nbc news consultants dwayne instant be, retired homicide detective from washington, d.c. investigated shandra levy's murder, yolanda mcclairy, allen jackson, prosecutor in los angeles, put legendary record producer phil spector behind bars for murder. jason zalo was a suspect for a long time in this case. >> right. >> right. >> you don't think it was jason? >> no. let's not forget, rule number one of committing a homicide? you don't bring a witness to a homicide. he had somebody with him. not that you drive right to the house where the murder took place where you hired or had anything to do with. you don't do that. the dumbest criminals don't do that. >> and a full year after lindsay's murder, saanich police did, in fact, publicly announce that they had cleared xra eed j zalo. so, then, who and why? our team agrees lindsay was specifically targeted in a scheme that was well thought out. >> there's a significant degree of planning in this murder. >> absolutely. >> oh, totally. >> it was optimally designed. >> what went into this? somebody sat around a table like we're doing right now and came up with that plan. >> and that planning paid off, perhaps, even down to this dress worn by the mystery woman, the dress which made such an impression on the eyewitnesss. >> the dress is very unique, and i kind of think it was designed to say -- something they teach in investigator school -- do something out of the norm to draw attention to yourself. look at this opposed to what i look like. >> it may have worked because everybody seems to have this great description of the -- the only thing they remember about the girl is she had blonde hair to her shoulders. >> that's it. >> they explored the theory that the killers may have been hired professionals with specific instructions to express the anger that someone else felt towards lindsay. >> i think someone got paid to go commit that murder. >> and they were told, make her suffer? make it it brutal? >> i believe that. >> i just don't see it that way. i think that what happened inside that house was equal parts opportunity and equal parts panic. she was stabbed so many times over and over and over, repeatedly, multiple stab wounds, that were completely, 100% unnecessary. but i don't see that as sending a message. i don't see that as being personal. >> saanich police continued to investigate whether the motive was personal, and they were not yet done focusing on people who lindsay buz yiak would have described as her friends. coming up -- the other man who had been part of lindsay's life. >> that was her big from "sex and the city". >> could he have had something to do with her death? >> there are people who think that you are involved. >> yes. >> are you involved? hmm, do i wear hats? i could wear hats, if i partook in hat type things (birds chirping) like strolling in an orchard ♪ is this my husband? awesome cool hat, mom oh my perfect kids alright fourteen ninety nine i totally wear hats ♪ is to reproduce every color in the world on tv. introducing quattron quadpixel technology, it adds a fourth color, yellow, to the standard rgb color system, creating a vast array of colors you can't see with your tv's 3 color technology. but, you can see this... wow! oh my. 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[ takei laughs ] of premium roast coffee -- 100% arabica beans. it's so rich, but so just a dollar. on the dollar menu at breakfast. and that's what we're made of. ♪ ba da ba ba ba thais...peggy. whatng usa pris problem, please? peggy? sure...well...suddenly it looks like i'm being charged a $35 annual fee. yes? tell me it's a mistake. yes? are you saying yes or are you asking yes? yes? peggy? peggy? anncr: want better customer service? switch to discover. ranked #1 in customer loyalty. it pays to discover. as police in saanich, british columbia, work to solve the murder of lindsay buziak, they focused on those closest to her, and lindsay's divorced parents seemed to have different suspects in mind. lindsay's father jeff suspected her boyfriend at the time of her death, jason zailo, while her mother told friends she suspected lindsay's former boyfriend of five years, matt mcduff. mcduff watched in disgust as saanich police announced they had cleared jason zailo of suspicion. >> mr. jason zailo is not a suspect. >> i found it really odd. >> because? >> because why wiould they clea somebody? you don't clear anybody until some someone is behind pars, do you? >> mcduff was questioned after the murder. he denied any involvement. you know there are people, lindsay's mother, for example, who think you are involved. >> yes. >> are you involved? >> no. >> did you have anything to do with lindsay's murder? >> no. the mom thinks that because, if it wasn't me, who could have done it, right? she has to vent her anger at somebody, and that happens to be me. >> but it's clear matt mcduff was on lindsay's mind around the time of the murder. in fact, boyfriend jason's mother shirley zailo, a manager at lindsay's real estate firm, says she and lindsay took a walk the day before the murder, and shirley says lindsay, who had at the time less than 24 hours to live, told her this. >> she talked about her ex-boyfriend, that she was afraid of matt. >> why was she afraid of matt? >> i don't think she really got into the details. i guess she was a little disappointed in how matt had treated her throughout their relationship. >> shirley zailo is the only person we spoke with in our reporting who told us lindsay was afraid of matt around the time of the murder. of course, she is the mother of the man who was at one time the prime suspect. and, by the way, police tell us that when lindsay was killed matt and lindsay had been apart for nearly two years, each had moved on to new relationships. and according to police they had no contact for months before the murder. >> matt mcduff does acknowledge that when they were together he and lindsay had a relationship that was at times rocky. tumu tumultuous. >> i don't know what that word means, but i wouldn't go that far, no. >> stormy? >> yeah. real stormy at times, yeah. >> in fact, sources say lindsay called police about matt at least three times but no criminal charges were ever filed. did arguing ever get physical? >> no. >> she never hit you? you never hit her? >> she hit me a few times. that's what she was, feisty. if she was pissed off, you'd know it. >> did you ever hit her back? >> no. she was tiny. she was 100 pounds. i'm 200. if i hit a girl -- no. >> while lindsay zailo say she was afraid of matt, other frendzs have a different explanation of why matt was on her mind around the time of the murder. it was likely, they say, because she was thinking of leaving jason and getting back together with matt. her father says lindsay said as much on her trip to visit him just six weeks before her death. >> she said, daddy, i miss matt so much. she says, i'm really confused. i don't know what to do. it hurt me to see her like that. she knew yit was over, but she hadn't got over it. >> her friends said matt had a hold on lindsay, just like the man known as big had on the star of that tv show lindsay and her friends liked so much. >> matt was her big from "sex and the city." that's what she called matt. >> she called matt mr. big? >> uh-huh. i think just the love she had with him just wasn't the same with jason. >> saanich police tell "dateline" they have no evidence pointing to matt mcduff, no reason to suspect him at all. and that he was at least an hour away from the crime scene at the time of the murder in another area of the island with the family of his new girlfriend, who is now his wife. so where would the motive be? although there is some unique dynamics they had in their relationship, there's been nothing that would say he was involved in any way in this crime. >> what's it like to know that she's gone and you don't even know why? you don't even know the motive? >> that's why we have to find out. it's tough. >> and with police saying the two men who seemed closest to lindsay were apparently not involved in her death, police widened the circle of suspicion. coming up -- a new theory about the case. was she friends with people involved in crime? >> yes. people that she associated with were involved in crime. >> were police getting closer? 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[ female announcer ] over 30 delicious flavors at around 100 calories each. yoplait, it is so good. indulge in yoplait light's two new flavors. triple berry torte and black forest cake. 18 months after lindsay buziak's murder police in the victoria, british columbia, suburb of saanich followed hundreds of leads and served dozens of warrants but seemed no closer to finding this woman, the blonde, 35 to 40 years old, wearing a distinctive dress, witnesses said, who spoke with a spanish accent and who, along with a man described as white and well-dressed, six feet tall with dark, possibly brown, hair, set up a showing with lindsay, met her at the door of this nearly million-dollar home, in february 2008, and then viciously stabbed lindsay to death. the working theory of the crime was a targeted hit carried out by two killers who brought a knife to a real estate showing. but who would with waant to kil young realtor who seemed to have no enemies? it was forcing investigators to think way outside the box. it seems to me that you're really looking for probably at least three people here. i mean, you're looking for the two people in the home that committed that murder and then i'm guessing whoever paid them. >> i think you're absolutely right, and it may be that one of those two people who were at the home is in fact the mastermind behind this and perhaps the money. but i think it it's also equally possible and more likely there's a third or fourth or fifth person involved. >> that's a criminal conspiracy of some significance to wipe out this young realtor. what set of facts possibly fits with that? >> large amount of money, large amount of drugs, considerable wrong done to whoever the financier is behind this. >> saanich police are quick to say being as are lindsay's family and friends, that there's no evidence she was involved in anything illegal. >> she was the cleanest girl you'd ever meet. >> you can't see her getting involved in anything illegal? >> no. >> she worked hard to get her license. she wouldn't risk anything to lose it. >> but the longer her murder went unsolved, the more rumors there were. lindsay was either a witness in a drug case or a police informant. neither is true, say police, but a drug angle has emerged as a leading theory in her murder. is there any evidence that lindsay used recreational drugs? >> no. >> and there's no evidence that she committed any criminal offenses either. >> was with she associated with people or friends with people involved in crime? >> yes. yes, she was. there was an element of people that she associated with that were involved in crime. >> remember, victoria is a relatively small town. and bauecause lindsay & was you and liked to go out to clubs, the crowd she inevitably hung out with would include people who operated on the fringes of the law. so this friend you've known all of your life might end up being your friend the drug dealer. >> could be. >> you might bump into them at a club and some of the theories that we developed over the course of this investigation was simply that she had potentially said the wrong thing at the wrong time or had heard something at the wrong time and caused her this grief. >> in fact, police are now you explo exploring an incident that occurred when lindsay lifted her father. while visiting calgary, lindsay made contact with at least two men, old friends she grew up with. and just a month later, one of those men was arrested in what police called the largest cocaine bust in alberta history. 67 kilos worth more than $6 million. >> someone might have been angry, did a witch hunt take place? and did someone point the finger at lindsay because she happened to be in calgary at the time? >> coincidence because this is a small town or maybe she saw something she shouldn't have seen? >> could go either way. >> if so, we now know it was not true. police say lindsay was not the informant. police recently have floated this idea that she was killed by mistake. >> it happens. doesn't seem very reasonable. >> not reasonable. >> if there's no evidence that they've uncovered that suggests that she was an informant, that she was diming off drug dealers or a cartel or anything like that, then where with's the evidence that the cartel would have she was doing that? it seems like a red herring to me. >> i think her just being there for the weekend to see her father does not add up. she doesn't sell drugs. she's not in their business. >> so the idea this is some impersonal hit being ordered by drug dealers half a country away -- >> makes no logical sense. >> it's personal. >> i don't think it's a drug cartel. >> so what was it? and who was it? coming up -- our team profiles the killers. >> i think it's somebody that she knows. >> a prediction from the unsolved case squad. an admission from police. >> we desperately need some help. >> and a vow from a father. >> i am wigoing to find out, ift kills me. >> and later in our second hour, "taken." he was a sweethearted drummer with big rock 'n' roll dreams. but the music stopped the day he suddenly vanished. >> i can't believe i'm doing this right now. i didn't know what to do. >> a curious disappearance that no one could explain. then across town, another scare. >> i felt the gun do the back of my head. >> a teenager in danger. >> he grabbed me and said, you have to come with me or i'm going to kill you. >> two young lives strangely linked. could police put the puzzle together? it's a race against the clock. a family's most desperate hour. >> i said, i will do whatever i can to help you find your son. >> can they unyou ravel this mystery in time? >> don't you understand? every minute counts right now. february 2010, two years since lindsay buziak's murder. her mother evelyn, who's declined "dateline's" request for interview and maintains her silence in the media since the murder, made a public plea for information. >> having lindsay taken from us has been excruciatingly painful. please call the police so that we can have closure for lindsay's death. >> the family first offered a $100,000 reward. but, with no arrest, the family has dropped that offer. frustration among family and friends has been mounting. do you think the police have done a good job? >> a girl was murdered two years ago and nobody is in jail. they haven't done a good job. >> who would plan a hit on your daughter? >> god, i wish i knew that, josh. i wish i could get my paws on them. >> for the saanich police, the death of lindsay buziak has led down a frustrating series of blind alleys without motives or answers. >> to say that we're on the cusp of a breakthrough would be a lie. we desperately need some help. this is a highly unusual situation for us here in canada to be pursuing this in as public a way as we are, and that speaks to i think our commitment but also, to some degree, our desperation as we grasp for anything we can use to bring these people to justice. >> is the person behind this somebody lindsay knows, or is the person behind this someone unknown to her? of someone s >> someone she knows. >> someone i think very close to her. >> i agree. >> somebody in the same type of business? >> correct. i mean, in the same real estate firm? who knows? >> the man and woman who actually committed this murder, what do you think is in their backgrou background? >> they're going to have a criminal history. more than likely, i would look for violent crimes. it it it's an unusual complexion of a case that they work together, a man and woman, a male and female, working in tandem to commit this violent crime. i'm also not convinced that these were highly polished professionals. the way the crime was committed itself, to me, shows a level of panic, shows a level of unsophisticati unsophistication. >> i call it planned, not necessarily professional. >> planned. will well-planned. >> is there any chance that although the killers were with not known to lindsay they weren't planning on the murdering her until they went in the house together and then, in there, something happened, a fight started, she gets killed? >> and the people pull a butcher knife out of their purse or out of their sock? no. it doesn't seem right. >> there's a chance ever so minute. it's small. >> what needs to happen for an arrest to be made? >> someone needs to come forward. >> yes. >> unfortunately, they have an empty house, very little that was touched. so it is a forensic nightmare. >> this case is not going to be solved based on forensic evidence. this is going to be solved by loose lips. somebody is going to talk about something. >> for lindsay's frendzs, the lack of an arrest have left many too frightened to speak to us on camera. why are you here and so many other people aren't? >> i can't live my life every day knowing that there's somebody out there that did this to her. i can't. i can't. it's not right. it makes me sick that it's two years after this and there's somebody out there that did this to my best friend. >> for lindsay's boyfriend, there's a kind of numbness that won't go away. >> i think about it daily, yeah. >> think it will ever go away? >> no. no. >> and for lindsay's father, there is determination bordering on obsession. there is barely controlled rage. and, finally, there's a vow to defend the daughter he couldn't help on that february day two years ago. >> i'm not going to let her down, josh. the only way i'm going to stop right now finding out who killed her is die myself, and i'll be dying trying. i guarantee you that. >> you're going to find out. >> i'm going to find out. if it kills me. >> the murder of lindsay buziak is still unsolved. we turn now to another story of young dreams interrupted. a talented drummer who was aiming for rock 'n' roll star stardom suddenly disappeared. his parents sensed he was in danger and were forced into a race to find him in time. here's dennis murphy. >> matt landry from the detroit suburbs was just a regular guy, the kid who delivered the pizza you ordered, traveled his world on a skateboard, and cracked up you his friends with jackass-style stunts. >> with matt it was never a dull moment. he was always thinking of something crazy to do. >> but if you wanted to know what made matt landry get out of bed in the morning, it was the music. to his new girlfriend fran chess ka, matt was first and foremost a rocking dude, a ferocious drummer with a basement band of longtime buddies. what kind of stuff did they play? >> stuff that's 200 beats per minute and up. >> and set the volume at 11? >> plus. >> i loved playing with the guy. he was just awesome. he hit harder than any drummer i ever played with. he just kept pushing to go faster and faster. >> born to rock but nonetheless basically a quiet, unassuming guy. at 21, the youngest of five children and still living at home in chesterfield, michigan, with his parents doreen and bob. >> creating music is what he was happiest with. >> they were going to go to the detroit symphony, and it surprised me that he wanted to go. >> the drummer with the heavy metal band, right? >> the drummer with the heavy metal band wanted to go to the detroit symphony with me. >> but this story isn't about the making of the music. matt landry's would-be rise from basement drummer to arena superstar. this is about an unusual crime spree in the detroit suburbs and how that connected to a nightmarish week in august 2009 when matt landry disappeared. saturday afternoon, like most, matt had been behind the drum kit in a practice session with with the guys. >> and we were with playing in mike's basement where we always practiced. >> they had to date only one paying gig in their career, a neighborhood block party, folding chairs and heavy metal. >> yeah. we don't belong here. >> not at all. >> the reviews were mixed. but, like most basement bands, they had dreams. >> we were with just trying to write enough to get an album. >> what was very appreciate in mast's life was his first serious girlfriend, a waitress and, like matt, a lover of all things rock. >> the doors, the rolling stones, things like that. >> these are rock? >> classic rock. >> music and movies. they devoured dvdss, watching them over at fran's house. matt was the shy one. his girlfriend had to take the amorous initiative. >> i just kept invited him over and he kept coming. one time he said, i might have to stay here. i'm, like, that's okay. >> doreen, did you know he had found a serious girlfriend? >> yeah. you know your kids, and when he would talk about fran, his face would just light up. >> so that saturday matt delivered pizzas in his ma's borrowed car because the alarm on his green honda was going off without notice, blaring. after his shift, he killed time until fran got off work at the restaurant. they had agreed to hook up after. >> he's, like, you really want me to come over? i was, like, yes, please. >> after midnight, very early sunday morning, matt's mom was having a restless night. it wasseri thundering and light out. i saw matt walk outside and kind of circled around his car, and i thought, oh, no, matt, careful. you know, his alarm was going to go off and it was almost 3:00 in the morning. >> it was 2:55 a.m. >> so he slowly lifted up the hood of his car and the alarm went off. and he jumped in the car and just went down the street to get out of the neighborhood until it went off. >> he came over and he had a bottle of wine, you know. we had a really good night. >> but maybe an overly festive night. fran woke up sunday sick as a dog. matt attended to her. >> he gave me a hot path, gave me tea and a thermometer. >> showed you a tender side? >> yes. >> then matt phoned his mom. >> is there anything else i should be doing for her? >> i said, no. sounds like you're doing everything. >> there were plans for a backyard barbecue later that afternoon at his parents'. it 0 be a chance for fran to get to know matt's sister's boyfriend, that is if she felt up to it. >> he says, okay. he says, she's going to take a little nap, then when she wakes up we'll come over. i told him, like i tell all of my kids, i said, i love you, matt. and he said, i love you, too, ma. >> matt offered to make a fast food run so fran would have something in her stomach being but she was still hurting and waved him off. >> he said, do you want something to eat? i was, like, yeah. never mind. i'm not going to eat it anyway. >> as matt left to run some errands, fran snoozed, figuring matt would wake her in time for the barbecue. >> i woke up at 5:47 and he called him. he didn't answer. i texted him, waiting for a reply. i fell back asleep. >> she called him twice more. she remembers the exact times, 7:31 and 9:01 and got his voice mail. she was starting to freak. even six hours in you thought something bad had happened. >> right. because he always answers or calls me right back. so i started calling the police stations and hospitals. >> over at the landries' barbecue, the salmon tasted great but matt and fran were no-shows. still, no one thought twice about it. >> i knew she was running a fever, and you don't really feel like doing much, sfaes especialg over to parents' house. >> meanwhile, matt's friends were getting as worried as fran. band mates were used to texting or calling almost hourly. matt had goned m.i.a. i guess you were with all thinking, what could it be? >> yeah. >> christen got in his car and drove down roads matt would have likely drifb that day. >> thinking maybe he slid into a ditch or something. >> by 9:00 that sunday night, chris was concerned enough to call matt's mother. >> he says, well, we can't find him anywhere. we don't know where he is. >> you're starting to get worried? >> yes. i was starting to get worried. >> doreened landry had worked in the banking business for years and knows how to spot patterns of fraud. so she clicked on her computer to check matt's debit card activity. that's when alarm bells started going off. >> what did you see when you logged on to his account? >> i saw three $100 withdrawals, cash, from an atm machine with a $2 fee from a gas station on seven-mile road in detroit. >> what did that all add up to you? >> a few things. number one, what was matt doing at seven mile in detroit? >> seven mile, the northeast side, is an especially rough piece of detroit turf. drug dealing gangs run the streets there, a bleak landscape of burned-out houses and abandoned cars. >> why would matt take out all of his money out of his account? >> matt was careful with his money. it it didn't make sense. >> why would matt use an atm machine with a fee? >> so you don't see matt doing this withdrawal himself? >> no. i was hoping it was him, but just -- wow, that just didn't fit picture at all. >> sunday came to an end, and few people in matt's circle could sleep that night. the next day, one of those same nearby suburbs, a teenager cashing a paycheck would be carried head long into the matt mystery. she got the scare of her young life. >> as soon as i saw the check on the counter, i felt a gun to the back of my head. >> a life-and-death drama at the bank. what could this have to do with matt? questions now about two young lives. . when does it become, where's matt? we've got to find him. >> i'd say monday morning. >> matt landry, a hyper caller and texter had been off the grid for almost a day. matt running silent scared everyone, especially his girlfriend. >> why did you start calling hospitals and police stations when you did? >> because nobody's heard from him. i wanted to know if he got in a car accident. maybe he got a flat tire on the side of the road. maybe he was in a ditch. i don't know what happened. >> the parents bob and doreen landry were getting more anxious by the minute, waiting by the phone. it was monday when they called their local police in chesterfield. an officer came to the house. cops get these kind of reports from families very often, and usually what they say is, he's a kid, give it some time. he's going to walk in the door. is that what he said? >> yeah. he alluded to the fact that, you know, most of the time these kids end up at crack houses and crash there for a few days and they eventually come home. i remember saying to him, i pray to god you're right. i pray to god you're right. >> as the landrys worried inside their house on monday, a few miles south in harrison town shl, a young woman was walked toward the flag star bank. >> i was cashing my first paycheck from a dog kennel. >> new job, first paycheck. >> yes. >> sarah may nard, 19, noticed a young guy in sunglasses on the street definitely checking her out as she approached the bank. it it creeped her out a little but she tried to oig nor him and went directly to a teller's woman. the man in the shades stormed in right behind her as seen in chilling detail on the bank's security cameras. >> i handed them the check. as soon as i set the check on the counter, i felt a gun to the back of my head. >> then all calm and collected he began giving the bank teller instructions. >> what did he say? >> he said, give me $50,000 or i'll kill her. >> you could feel the muzzle of the gun on your head? >> yeah. he pressed it against me hard enough that i was bent over the counter and he had his hand on the back of my neck, too. >> the teller resisted the bandit's demand for $50,000. she said she didn't have that much. the man with the gun continued to tlhreaten sarah. >> so give me $50,000 or she's dead. >> yeah. >> how long did this go on? >> not that long. she ended up opening the drawer and giving him what she did have. >> the robber then let go of sarah and crossed the bank lobby where he grabbed more cash as others hid in fear. but he wasn't done with the pretty blonde who had apparently caught his eye. >> he came back over to me and grabbed me and said, you have to come with me or i'm going to kill you. >> what did you say? what did you do? >> i sat down and said no. >> you sat down on the bank floor. >> uh-huh. >> it was a standoff of sorts. the man had his firepower, sarah her willpower. >> he said, you're coming with me? >> yeah. he tried to pull me. he said, get up or i'm going to kill you. i just sat there. he ended up running to the door. >> he begin with breaking news out of mccomb county. a manhunt under way for a bank robber who hit a flag star bank in harrison township. >> the armed robber had fled. bank employees and customers knew they had literally dodged a bullet. police would say later that sarah, by refusing to go with him as a hostage, had done everything right. >> they give you a lot of credit that you may have saved your life in that moment. >> i was just scared. i didn't want to go with him. just seemed like the best option. >> but that gunman gave the cops chills. a robber, cool, poised, and seemingly all too ready to do whatever it took to pull off his crime. chesterfield pd detective scott blackwell. >> normally robbers come in, pass a note and get the money and move on. this was a violent bank robbery. >> but what did the brazen young robber have to do with matt landry? that connection would have to wait for the story told by a gas station atm and a security camera pointed at it. coming up -- >> i can't believe i'm doing this right now. i didn't know what to do. >> at last, a break in the case. >> yeah. a huge development. bob and doreen, parents of matt, the young man missing for the third day now, could only pray that he would walk in the door. the police told them often kids go off like this and it's something to do with drugs. the parents weren't buying it. >> didn't fit the pattern for matt. >> something innocent would explain matt's absence. >> had hope that it was something crazy, something, you know, he'll show up. >> yes, something that we'd laugh about. >> but just in case it wasn't that, matt's mother and girlfriend, after waiting the required 24 hours, went to matt's hometown police in chesterfield to get an official missing person case going. >> and bob stayed here just in case. he wanted to make sure someone was always here at the house. >> at first, chesterfield pd told the landry s it wasn't their case. they'd need to go to cops in another jurisdiction, roseville some 13 miles south, where fran lived and where matt had last been seen. >> did you get the feeling you were with being brushed off? >> yes. >> it was a nuisance case? >> yes. >> he was, like, go wait in the lobby. >> was the family frustrated? >> i think so. >> but chesterfield detective blackwell was struck by doreen's unshakeable belief with her son's integrity. >> i said, we won't leave you hanging. >> detective blackwell was interesting to read the printout of the suspicious atm withdrawals from matt's account. >> he said the first thing he'll do is, let's find out if this was matthew who did the withdrawals. >> the detective hoping to mind an answer on the security cam video went down to the sunoco in some of detroit's most crime-ridden streets and caught a break. >> the gas station owner, moses rahini, just three days before matt went missing, had bought a new security camera system. the security cam he was replacing had a blind spot in the back where his atm dispenser was. moses opened the carten and set to installing his new security system. it was the weekend. his son said, forget it it. let's wait. >> i said, no. we're hooking it up. >> on the security cam video, detective blackwell was seeing something that filled him with dread. >> someone else is using his card at that point. >> that's correct. >> it's obvious foul play. >> the news didn't surprise me for some reason. i was hoping it it was matt. >> meanwhile, on that tuesday you, back north in the near suburbs, matt's friends and family found out through the county, putting up flyers with matt's face. they checked auto zone stores. maybe he had stopped by one of them for his broken car alarm. fran chess ka was searching, too, checking out dumpsters. >> i was, like, i can't believe i'm doing this right now, searching dumpsters for my boyfriend. i didn't know what to do. >> as she moved south into detroit proper, she saw police cars and flashing lights. she pushed herself through the lights to see what everyone was looking at. it was matt's abandoned car. i was, like, yeah, that's his car. >> big development. >> yeah. huge. >> fran managed to put one of the police officers on her cell with doror rein, matt's mom. >> did they tell you about anything they had found you in the car at that point? >> they mentioned some maps. but matt delivered pizzas, like matt keeps maps in his car. >> by tuesday, 21-year-old matt landry's disappearance had become a tv news story. >> family members have been busy during the last few days handing out these flyers hoping someone will help them find matt. >> in that same newscast, viewers were getting an update on that brazen bank stickup the day before. >> a local teenager and a look of terror that has gripped metro detroit in fear. >> just watching the news, like anyone else, was a police detective from roseville, lieutenant ray blarik . this was a vicious incident. >> yes. >> he watch the security cam pics of the bandit holding a gun to a young female customer. a bad crime but still one he never expected to investigate. >> because it didn't have anything to do with the city of roseville where i am will. it's a couple of jurisdictions over. >> but by the next day, the detective would prove himself wrong. he would be thick in the bank robbery case as well as the disappearance of matt landry. a missing person report he knew virtually nothing about. but dots were getting connected and there was one more to come. coming up -- >> scared to death. would you get someone down here? >> another brazen attack on a bright afternoon. will it shed light on what might have happened to matt? >> you need to get a detective in there now. . just got carjacked. >> lieutenant blarek of the roseville police was at his desk tuesday when the call came in, a carjacking in progress at the walmart down the street. >> he told me to run and i ran. >> he and his fellow officers responded quickly, but surprisingly the carjacked car, the red civic, was still in the walmart parking lot. the vehicle's owner was shaken up but okay. >> he was approached at his driver's door by this suspect. >> the guy displayed a gun? >> yes. told him to get out of the car. >> and why didn't the gunman take off with the car? >> when he got in the car to attempt to drive away, he didn't know how to drive a stick. >> you're kidding. >> no. >> nearby an officer spotted a nervous-eyed man with a bad '70s heavy era afro wig. >> there was a foot chase. the wig falls off. >> a guy who steals a job he can't drive and bolts in jimi hendrix wig may be comical, but he was armed. >> putting his hand in the pocket trying to possibly get the gun out. >> the gun and clip were tossed away during a foot chase when the man was zapped with a taser gun like this one. when the jolts wore off and the man was back on his feet, lieutenant blarek recognized a familiar face, someone he had seen just recently on tv. >> he was standing right there in the walmart lot when i said, that's the bank robber. >> the same bandit who had held a gun to 19-year-old sarah may nard's head and demanded money. >> give me $50,000 or i'll kill her. >> he's violent, involved in two things we know of and who knows how many others. >> could one of those other things be a missing person? just that day, the detective had become aware that doreen landry had reported her son missing. and the lieutenant knew something else. detroit police had just found the young man's car abandoned in a bad neighborhood. he wondered, did the walmart suspect now, in his holding cell, have an appetite for carjackings? had he also maybe stolen matt's car? by then, the abandoned car had been towed to the police station in matt's hometown, chesterfield. the detective called a counterpart there about his hunch. >> i told him, i said, i think it's all relateded. i said, can you get somebody to get in the car without destroying evidence and see if there's anything in there to link the bank robbery to matt landry? >> sure enough, there was. it had to do with the map found in the car. when investigators got a closer look at it, they found an x marks the spot pinpointing the flag star bank which the guy in the shades had robbed and briefly held a 19-year-old hostage. then the lieutenant began filling in the blanks. he figured out the guy who pulled off the bank job was the same guy who carjacked matt landry's honda with matt in it. but he wasn't ready to share his conclusion with matt's parents yet. he had something to do first. at 11:30 tuesday night, the detective and a partner went down to that bleak section of detroit where matt's green honda had been ditched. >> we start looking for matt landry. >> so the question in your mind, lieutenant, is, are we going to find the body of matt landry, or do you suspect finding him bound in one with of these houses? >> i didn't know what we were would find. i was hoping he was alive. >> two other people were searching that same bad neighborhood tuesday night, but they weren't the police. >> this was our first house we looked at. >> two friends of matt's father, bob and chris, had come down to investigate on their own. >> you think your friend's son could be in one of these houses. you know you're going to search until you find him. >> the family friends, amateur detectives, armed with only a flashlight manage to search dozens of homes, many of them burnt-out shells. a local guide challenged them. >> we had to tell him we're working on a case and he believed weer were the police, which was good for us. who knows what he would have tried. >> the two friends, like the cops before them, also went to the sunoco station and got the owner to play them the video of the atm withdrawal made on matt's card. as the friends studied the security cam video, a clerk behind the counter was watching local news. up popped a recap of the bank robbery story. it was a "hey that's him" kind of moment. they swivelled heads from the news clip of the sunglasses-wearing bank robber to the figure on their security cam, just withdrawn the money. bingo. >> we put it together, it was the same guy, same guy who robbed the bank, used matt's atm. >> what's more, the guy behind the counter recognize the person in the atm security cam video, a local street tough who went by the name of ihop. the counter man said he had a rep of being a gang member and violent thief. the friends told the landrys that what they learned, that a kid named ihop seemed to be behind matt's disappearance and the landry s also heard on the nusz that the very same guy was in police custody for the botched carjacking at the walmart. matt's mom called the roseville pd. >> i said, the man you're holding who just robbed the bank, armed robbery, is the same man who used my son's debit card and my son is missing. you need to get a detective in there now to talk to him. >> that detective would be lieutenant ray blarik who just pieced it all together himself. now he needed answers from the man they called ihop. the veteran cop had a few you tricks up his sleeve to get p what he wanted. coming up -- >> definitely 1 of the coldest people i've ever talked to. >> an intense interrogation and troubling new information, an eyewitness on the day matt vanished. >> hurry, hurry! ♪ i thought it was over here... ♪ [car horn honks] our outback always gets us there... ... sometimes it just takes us a little longer to get back. ♪ everyone knows a fee is a tax. you raised some taxes during that period, particularly the property tax as well as a lot of fee increases. as you know, there's a big difference between fees and taxes. but...they're the same. it's a tax. it's a tax. it's a tax. it's a tax. there's a big difference between fees and taxes. fees and taxes are one in the same. if it comes out of my pocket, it's a tax. now he says it isn't true. we didn't raise taxes. what? still doing the same thing, paying out more money. typical politician. definitely. by early wednesday, matt landry's fourth day missing, his parents bob and doreen had put together some facts that scare them to death. the same guy seen on tape using matt's atm card looked to be the man who had robbed the flag star bank. >> when i saw him holding a gun to that girl's head, knowing he was the one who used my son's atm card, i knew it wasn't good. >> and the suspected bank robber, street named i yhop, wa also carrying a gun when he attempted a carjacking at the walmart according to the police. ihop was now at a holing cell at the roseville pd. and the landrys began pressuring police to get immediate answers from him about matt's whereabouts, even though matt's disappearance wasn't officially their case. >> give me back my brother. just give him back. >> sister gina turned up the heat on the internet. >> i actually put on facebook, anyone who can go to the roseville police station, and all these people showed up at the roseville police station at midnight, just to show power in numbers to get them to question him. >> bob and doreen went over to roseville will to talk to the detectives in person. >> you need to get somebody in there right now. don't you understand every minute counts? >> lieutenant blarik didn't need the prodding. he and a partner were itching to question the subject after they returned from detroit after they spent a long night searching for matt with no results. >> we were checking abandoned houses, burned-up garages and alleys. >> seeing nothing? >> no evidence of matt landry at all. >> at 3:35 in the morning, a bone-tired blarik and his partner devised a strategy hoping he would cough something up. >> i was just going to sit there in the chair and say nothing to him. >> in the interrogation room, the other officer peppered him with questions, but ihop was dodging them. >> i had a picture of matt landry inside of my notebook. so when it got to the point where it was obvious that this wasn't going anywhere, i took out that picture and i held it up and i said, we found him. >> reaction from him? >> he saw a ghost. he saw a ghost. >> but not shaken enough to spill whatever he might know about matt landry. >> what are you seeing, lieutenant, when you're right there with the guy? do you see anything in his eyes? >> just a cold, callous, hardless person. he is definitely near the top of the list, if not on top, of one of the coldest people i've ever talked to. >> the landrys headed home from the roseville pd, satisfied at last that the police were seeing their son's disappearance as they were. gina, their daughter, was learning more troubling information about her brother, something she'd picked up on the internet. >> i got a phone call from one of my best friends and she said, gi gina, check your facebook when you get home. there's an important message on there. >> the heads up yu was from a wn she had known in high school. her parents had witnessed on sunday a violent carjacking and it was a green honda. >> 911 police. >> i'm not sure, but it looks like a robbery. they've got a guy cornered over here. >> the previous sunday afternoon, the police in yet another small city near detroit, east point, got a 911 call. the distressed witness was reporting an apparent carjacking and abduction in the parking lot here behind the quizno's sub shop. when the police arrived, the car in question was gone and they weren't sure you what it was they had to write up. the incident went largely unnoticed until matt's sister got tipped to it from a friend online. >> so now you have a lot of very bad information at your disposal. >> i just felt sick when i showed my mom the facebook message, carjacking at quizno's. >> i said, that's the last place matt used his debit card other than the atm. >> i think he's putting him in the trunk. they're beating him up now. hurry, hurry! >> what the 911 caller had seen, in fact, was the abduction of matt landry. >> so there was the missing piece of the puzzle. and as francesca put it together, it all start theed because her concerned boyfriend had decided, on his own, that she, feeling crummy, needed a tlc sandwich to get back on her feet. >> he had mentioned to the girl at quizno's, my girlfriend's sick, i don't know what to get her. will you help me? >> two subs that started a three-day crime spree in the detroit suburb. from the quizno's in east point on sunday you afternoon, spreading ten miles to the flag star bank in harrison township at high noon on monday, and ending eight miles away at the walmart in roseville midday on tuesday. bad news, bad patterns. but matt's family and friends were with still clinging to a sliver of home. >> okay. he's still alive somewhere. he's still alive somewhere. maybe he's yust t ae's just tie. they're holding him at a crack house or something. maybe, maybe, maybe. >> you had a dream. >> i had a dream before he went missing that he was kidnapped. and i found him in a basement tied up to one with of those old-time heaters. >> five days in, a joint police task force had been formed to search those basements and burnt-out homes on detroit's northeast side near where the car had been found. the same suburban police departments who initially couldn't agree on whose case it was now came together for one purpose -- to find matt landry. from chesterfield where matt lived to voroseville where he w last seen and where the walmart carjacking went down and east point where matt had been abducted at the quizno's. >>working with the gang unit in detroit pd. >> yes. >> and they had been going block by block finding not much of anything. >> right. >> then there's thursday. >> yeah. then there's thursday. >> thursday the task force was out in strength, 15 officers banging on doors, issuing search warrants, pressuring gang members whom they have known the suspect known ihop. >> i have a son. i made a promise to doreen that i said, even though it's not roseville's jurisdiction, i said, i will do whatever i can to help you find your son. >> helping, walking mean streets. >> more homes are abandoned than are occupied, and it's a rough you neighborhood. >> that thursday morning, lieutenant blarik had teamed up with fellow roseville detective jim. >> we were coming to dead ends. we walked out of one of the houses, and there was a penny laying in the street. and had the heads up and i picked it up you and had the heads up and i picked it up yp. i said, this is it. >> your luck has turned. >> yeah. my luck turned. a short time after that, we ended up going for a ride. we ended up here. >> it was the first house they checked after blarik had found the lucky penny just minutes before. >> how we got here, why we got here, i can't explain that one. but we got here. >> it was now 10:30 in the morning. >> i see what looks like a little foot path where somebody had gone through there at some point during the summer. i what used to be a porch. i look in, the house is all burned out. i saw some flip-flops here. i stepped in further, and i saw the body itself. >> in the august swelter, the body had decomposed beyond recognition. they knew they had a white male with an apparent gunshot wound to the head. the victim had been wearing jeans and telltale flip-flops. >> that's not the outcome we wanted, but at least he was found. >> the hometown detective scott blackwell rushed over from nearby streets to confirm the finding. >> when i saw this body, i knew it was him. >> detective blackwell's immediate concern was to let the landrys know in the most humane way possible before the immediate media was on to it. he called his chief of police. >> i remember the chief of police coming to the front door. i knew when he walked in. i could tell by the look on his face what he was going to tell me. i didn't want to hear it. after i got done crying, i wanted to take a shower, like it as going to wash it all away. my matt. coming up -- could one man have done this? >> i'm 6'6", 280 pounds. matt could take me out. matt was that strong. >> maybe one man didn't and an anguish withed cry for change. >> i'm pleading with the mayor of detroit. we stayed up late, i'll never forget that wonderful night. >> in a journal she keeps, francesca enshrined her last memories with matt in a song, a reworking of "last kiss" by pearl jam. >> when he's gone, even though he's in my heart, i lost my love, my life that night. >> so when do you guys miss him? >> every second of every day. >> yeah. >> like i miss him any time i touch an instrument or any time i listen to our favorite bands. >> th . >> we identified him on friday. >> matt's decomposed body discovered in a hell hole of a house was positively i.d.'d by the medical examiner by dental records. already under arrest and now charged with a new crime, killing matt, was a man known on the streets of ihop. he gave police the phony name guiles. but he as a 17-year-old. >> born in this country? >> no. born in libya. >> his attorney said he came to michigan to live with relatives, who, according to juvenile court records, neglected him. he then became a chronic failure in the state's child welfare services, fleeing foster homes for a life on detroit's gang-infested northeast side. >> my job here is to make sure that he gets the best and fairest trial he can get. >> state your name for the record. >> he faces a slew of charges, including murder, kidnapping, and carjacking in the landry case, bank robbery in the flag are star stickup, and carjacking in the walmart incident. he's pleaded not guilty to all charges. >> maybe his best shot is ironically the homicide. >> correct. i'm not admitting that my client committed the bank robbery, that my you client committed a carjacking. however, those cases are very strong cases for the prosecution. >> evidently, the bank security cameras apparently showing him brandishing a gun and clues from the walmart, including a discarded gun, don't lie. however -- >> the homicide is not a slam dunk for the government. >> police never found a gun or bullet at the death house that matched the gun they recovered at the walmart. >> nobody can put a gun in his hand. >> he alone has been charged in the walmart carjacking and flag star bank heist. >> they're hitting him now. they hit him in the face. they're beating him up now. >> but there were two assailants that attacked matt at the quizno's according to the 911 caller. matt had been double-dee teamed. an explanation his friends say for why this powerfully fit drummer was taken against his will. >> i'm 6'6", 280 pounds. matt could take me out. he was that strong. >> after his body was found, the task force continued combing detroit for suspect number two. sources squeezed on the street told the cops they should be looking for 16-year-old robert fat daddy taylor. >> we flooded that area and we shut down the drug trade in that area. >> you guys were bad for business. >> oh, we destroyed the business for one week and we made a statement to them. therefore, i believe they made a statement to fat daddy that you better get out of the neighborhood so he ultimately turned himself in. >> taylor was charged with murder and kidnapping in the kizno's abduction. he has pleaded not guilty. the defense is expected to theorize that matt already knew the man when they bumped into each other at quizno's. horseplay ensued and they drove away together. >> they were going to a drug deal and what happened happened. and i don't know what happened. >> any reason to think that he would have known who those guys were with, like a drug purchase gone bad or anything? >> no, sir. we believe it was totally random. totally random. >> wrong place at the wrong time. could have been any one with of us. >> and these detectives have advice for anyone ambushed like that in broad daylight or at night. >> at no time should you allow someone to take you from point a to point b. >> don't go? >> don't go. >> you fight to the death, period. once you're on their turf, it's over. >> young woman at the bank dropped to the floor, i'm not going with you. >> that's what saved her life. >> my flowers are blooming. i'm you de dead inside. just dead inside. >> in the days after she lost her son, a grief-stricken doreen landry went public condemning the burned-out houses in northeast detroit that area gangs call home. >> i'm pleading with the mayor of detroit, that area needs to be cleaned up. it's nothing but a garbage pit. there's thousands of houses in detroit that are abandoned that they live in. >> just raze them, knock them down. >> just flatten them. >> in fact, the detroit mayor has started a program to do just that. the house where matt's body was found is on the list for demolition. the two teenagers charged as adults with matt's murder will be tried consecutively. the first trial is currently under way. doreen expects to be called to the stand in both trials, then become a courtroom spectator, watching and listening to painful testimony. >> i have to. it's the last thing i can do for matthew as his mother. >> to this day, doreen landry is haunted by the whys and what ifs. >> it took one second, literally one second, to end matthew's life. and that one second has literally turned our family upside down. >> matt's funeral service, as that day's program explained, was intended to remember the joy, the laughter, the smiles, and no one would forget on that sad day that matt was also a rocker. >> matthew was a drummer, but he had an acoustic guitar. he would always start "stairway to heaven," and it seemed like through time he would get through a little bit more. he would learn a little bit more of it. i loved to listen to him doing that. and we asked the priest, father, i know this is unusual. i said, but, if you have anyone that could play "stairway to heaven", that would be beautiful. he said, let me see what i can do. >> and so he came up with a group of musicians to honor matt with a song he loved. about a symbolic stairway that he climbed way too soon. >> and it was so beautiful, and it was just perfect. matthew loved it. he would have loved it. >> you can find more information about the matt landry case at