when officers first rushed through his front door. this guy s drinking, there s firearms in the house. so he must have shot her. reporter: why couldn t it be exactly that simple? this wouldn t be the first time that mixing alcohol, an argument and a handgun led straight to a prison sentence. conrad told us what he told police. it isn t that simple. sure, he and heidy had been drinking and, yes, they had been arguing, but he said neither was an explanation for what happened. i could have upset her with some of the things i ve said or the way i acted with not being attentive, you know, to her. i know i do that sometimes when i drink. i don t pay a lot of attention. you know? reporter: this still doesn t seem like grounds for a gigantic fight. no. it got to the point where i think she was i upset her. i was really i just know she
reporter: as for the location of the gun itself, that, too, was suspicious. that gun s how far from heidy? oh, i would say eight feet, ten feet maybe. it s far enough away that it wasn t a normal if she shoots herself and falls to the ground type of thing. reporter: next morning they ask conrad to come to the station for more questioning. they can say whatever they want. but i did not hurt my wife. and i know that. bottom of my heart, i did not hurt my wife. reporter: heidy s family thought otherwise. after finally learning from police the details of how heidy died. the minute i heard how she died, i knew he did it. sounds like he had a temper, and he was very intoxicated, and he did something that perhaps he didn t plan? i just knew he did it. reporter: detective wallace next pored over conrad s statements to police about what happened that night. as wallace saw it, conrad s
reporter: as you will learn, truer words may never have been spoken. what had happened in that house? coming up i m asking him, conrad, what s going on? he said, i don t know what happened. everything was just different answers and different theories, different little things. a search for answers and a race to save heidy. this is not happening. this is really not happening. i really don t understand any of this. this is so crazy. when as night fell continues. when as night fell continues.
what happened here? i was utterly confused. so many different stories about what might have happened. he said many things that night. maybe someone could have shot something at the house. at one point he said that it was 80% suicide. police had their own theory. i thought, oh, man, there s something going on here. we don t see a lot of women that commit suicide naked. conrad s stories were not adding up. but something else wasn t adding up either. a key piece of evidence. we went to the house, and we walked in and we think, a-ha! would a mistaken measurement send an innocent man to prison? or free a guilty one? we thought it was over. we thought this was settled. one suspect, so many stories. only one of them could be true. something s going to break, and when it does, the truth s going to be known. as night fell. hello and welcome to dateline
so you felt pretty good? yes. there was enough there there. conrad was having a difficult time. eight hours later, no verdict. hold up your hands. you re not wearing handcuffs. you re not in custody. i m free. this time he got the verdict he wanted, not guilty. conrad kept saying did they say not? did they say not? he grabbed my arm and said are you sure? i was giggling and crying at the same time. it was weird. on the other side of the aisle, tears of a different kind. i was in shock. my heart sank.