a pawn of daniel s? i think they used each other. no question she was involved? not in our minds. reporter: four people were now charged with the attempted murder of vern holbrook. and then the case changed again. in january of 2014, eight months after he was attacked, vern holbrook died from his injuries. it was a sense of relief for him that he didn t have to suffer anymore. but it was really hard, really hard for the entire family to see him not with us anymore. it turned the attempted murder into a first degree murder. a premeditated murder. and it sorta raised the stakes all around? right. reporter: but once again, what seemed to be and what would be wouldn t quite line up. there was one more twist in that long river of lies.
anything to him like that. i mean, what would i be gaining from it? what would you gain? yeah. uh, if vern dies, daniel blizzard as your boyfriend, gets more than a million dollars. well, good for him. that has nothing to do with me. well presumably you might share in that, was the was the thinking. don t you think if i was going to attack somebody that i would go attack somebody worth it!? well, a million and a half dollars is a lot of motive. i don t care about money. i don t get it, why people are so shallow when it comes to money. reporter: jill s story? she didn t want the money. her boyfriend lied to her. the couple that lured vern to the home lied to her. but those claims that daniel blizzard had asked jill to poison vern? well, those according to jill are true. daniel gave you poison? uh huh. i think so. i just dumped it out so do you know what kind of poison it was? mm-hmm. and he said, what? put this in vern s drink? or uh huh.
the premiums? that s correct. all of a sudden i saw that he was fearful of of his life. reporter: to detective perrault, this all added up to motive. 1.58 million reasons that daniel blizzard might want vern holbrook dead. but what was the link between daniel and adriana and luis? i m guessing the holy grail at this point in the investigation would be to find some like provable contact between daniel blizzard and adriana mendez? right. reporter: it turned out the holy grail was only a few blocks away. at the sunshine motel. i went to the motel and they told me that a big white guy would come in occasionally and pay adriana s rent for her. so you get the security video. right. and who is it? it s daniel blizzard. reporter: there he was. a week before the attack, blizzard paying adriana s bill at the sunshine motel. and perrault soon found more. text messages between adriana
helped jill out with a job, and more. that s the kind of man he was. he helps anybody out, it doesn t matter who they are. big heart? uh-huh. huge heart. reporter: and using that huge heart, to help family members or clients was what seemed to keep vern holbrook young. after andrew s mom died in 2007, vern eventually remarried and kept moving whether he was catching fish or closing deals. he was a machine. reporter: vern had tried to slow down even selling his company in 2008 to an ambitious young agent whom vern had trained and taken under his wing, daniel blizzard, who was buying the business with his two brothers. i think that appeal of daniel and his brothers was that it would still be a family and a local business as opposed to becoming a chain. reporter: but vern couldn t stop selling.
Transcripts for MSNBC Dateline 20211219 06:54:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.