i m craig melvin. and i m natalie morales. and this is dateline. i just collapsed. she s dead because she was my friend. first melissa disappeared. where s melissa? that s the million dollar question. i knew right then she absolutely never made it into her house. left behind in her garage signs of a struggle and a strange orange mist, then her boss went missing too. who is he afraid of am. he might have been afraid he s next. he left behind a bigger mess. we three kings be stealing the gold. a missing fortune. ballpark a billion, billion and a half dollars. a missing woman. we have know clue, no leads. some wonder was there a link? this had a twist to it. two crimes, one for money, one supposedly for love, and behind both, a lingering mystery. it s just so ugly and so wrong, and i can t fix it. welcome to dateline. hotshot florida attorney melissa lewis was living large in fort lauderdale dale, but then her seemingly charged life ended
We were like sisters. We had shared so much. I told me they had found her body, and i just collapsed. She is dead, because she was my friend. First, melissa disappeared. Thats the milliondollar question. I knew then that she had never made it into her house. Signs of a struggle, and a strange orange missed. They didnt know what it was. Then, her boss went missing, to. Who was he afraid of . Mightve been afraid that he was next. He left behind a bigger mess. We three kings be stealing the gold. A missing fortune. Ballpark, 1 1 2 million dollars. We have no clues, no leads. Some wondered, was there a link . Two crimes, one for money, one, supposedly for love, and behind both, a lingering mystery. It is just so ugly, and so wrong, and i cannot fix it. Welcome to dateline. Hotshot florida attorney, Melissa Lewis was living large in ft. Lauderdale. But then, her seemingly charmed life ended in tragedy when a body was discovered in a drainage canal. She had been murdered. But who would want
tiny drop of melissa s blood in her car and on a tile in her house. but there were no fingerprints other than melissa s in either place. dna testing would take longer. now the question is, where s melissa? that s the million dollar question at this point. reporter: two days after she went missing, a worker made a gruesome discovery as he was clearing debris from a water pump at a nearby canal. poking around with his rake, huh? guess the first thing that comes to his mind is, ah, it s just a mannequin. then he realizes it s actually a body. reporter: it was 38-year-old melissa lewis. the missing persons case was now a murder investigation. still a whodunit. we have no idea. workers discover lewis body floating in this reporter: the news media quickly picked up on the story. my husband told me. he saw it on the news. reporter: how did how did he tell you? what was the he came to my work and told me. and i just broke down. i couldn t believe it. reporter: po
had better evidence if you had a movie of him killing her. right. reporter: the defense had been dealt a poor hand to play, but attorney bruce fleisher chipped away at each state witness, starting with tony s housemate, the guy with the scrubbing away pepper spray story. the defense said he had 250,000 reasons to make his story up. there was a reward offered. yes. and who offered the reward? scott rothstein. and, how much was the reward in the case? $251,000. reporter: ironically, he never got the reward. the collapse of rothstein s ponzi scheme put an end to that. and as for the prosecution s theory of motive, fleisher argued it was as thin as it was nonsensical. you would think that if you were so enraged that your wife were doing this that you d wanna harm her, and not someone else. reporter: as for debra villegas, defense attorney fleisher surprised everyone when he didn t ask her a single question.
when he got the report, detective kendall couldn t believe what he saw. melissa s iphone had been active ( after the murder and someone had actually gone into her voicemail and played back messages, read texts. we try to make sense as to why he would want to do something like this. reporter: police were dumbfounded that someone wouldn t know that a smartphone was a detective s best friend and police could track them using cell towers. it was either bold or stupid or both. people know this concept of pinging off towers. it s the cell phone is telling the towers, here i am ? yeah. so it s giving us a general vicinity and of an area, where that cell phone communicated. reporter: and the phone records showed that person had been on the move from the believed time of the murder into the next day. how important is the story told by the cell phone? very important. cell phone s almost like someone dropping pieces of popcorn, leaving a trail. reporter: but the trail was a