you can see her arms frozen and death above her body. that final police had caught detective baird s attention the years before. a corrosive-y but he didn t assign any significance. now, adam gives him dead. rig mortise? yes. in my opinion. the mechanics of rigor more disco like this. upon death, the muscles start to stephen. but to the detective, it looks as though cory s arms and hands were in an advanced stage of rigor. meaning, she likely died many hours before this photo was taken. remember, curtis said that he touched his wife in the bed only an hour before finding her dead. it did not make sense to the officer. detective told his bosses about the old lace file. my assumption is that we missed something here. he had been in charge in 2006 when everyone assumed everywhere cory died unnatural death. but he said he never saw this photos that the detective was holding before him. that s when i saw the
seeing a woman has apparently died in her bed. and not that long before authorities arrive? that is right. if i can stress there was not a single mark on her, other than would seem to be a skin blemish under her nose, not a mark. and yet there was something about the position of cory s body did did strike him as odd. he thought death and gravity would ve caused her arms to drop. instead, they were both fixed in mid air, hovering above her chest. i was looking at an explanation for that. and i even address it too curtis lovelace. i even suggested that he may have been under her arms when he discovered her. and what did he say? no. he said the scene that you are seeing was exactly how he had seen it when he had come in. yes. but the detective was careful not to get hung up on one strange detail. not this early in the case. every detective needs to
remember really. i don t know what s in lyndsay s head and in her heart. one day she was happy and then everything changed. reporter: the prosecution still had to explain why the two oldest boys were adamant their mom was alive that morning. parkinson told jurors there was a two-day gap between cory s death and the first police interviews with the kids. ample time he suggested, for the boys to be influenced by their dad. i think the children were confused as to which day. after all reporter: how about coached? do you think that he told him a story? he had custody of the children from the moment of her discovery until thursday afternoon. so from tuesday till thursday afternoon, i don t know what was said. reporter: dr. jane turner, the pathologist detective gibson hired to review the case, took the stand and said science is where the truth lies. she concluded the most reasonable explanation for cory s arms appearing to levitate, is that cory was dead up to 12 hours before
the stand and said science is where the truth lies. she concluded the most reasonable explanation for cory s arms appearing to levitate is that cory was dead up to 12 hours before police arrived on the scene. i viewed this material and reviewed it with the eye of a scientist and what we know about the development of rigor mortis. reporter: what would a jury believe, science, or the words from two of cory s own sons? cory s brother, a dentist, found himself struggling over the conflicting facts. science is my living, you know. i have to believe in that but i also have to, you know, believe in the family at the same time. so i m completely torn. i ve never seen a more difficult case more closely argued. and there doesn t team to be middle ground. there s none. reporter: parkinson urged the jury to focus on the science and one image. cory in her bed, her body in rigor mortis. he said it proved she d died
cut inside her upper lip. to her, that suggested something had been pressed against the woman s mouth. and then seeing the marks around the mouth and inside the mouth all suggest that suffocation occurred. reporter: suffocation. an abrasion. an accepted timeline that no longer fit. turner was convinced cory had not died a natural death. she concluded someone had used an object likely a pillow to suffocate the woman; left it under her arms and removed it many hours later. the manner of death would be homicide. reporter: for the detective cory lovelace s death came down to two competing narratives from two compelling women. one relied on science to explain a murder. the other relied on memory to describe an ailing mother just before she passed away. in the end, the detective believed the science. he believed that a crime had, indeed, been committed. but now chief copley had a little problem back at the quincy police officers who had conducted very different