and he had encouraged her to do this. and she had a flower with her and she d written mike a note. and i guess probably 30, 45 minutes later she came back. and she d been crying. the flower and the letter in particular? those were left at the lake. gone but definitely not forgotten, according to becky mass, denise s friend and co-worker. she loved him like a woman would love your life partner, your soul mate. the official death certificate said mike drowned while duck hunting. but for mike s family and friends, doubts started creeping in, spurred on by little things that just didn t add up. like those waders found six months after mike disappeared. they looked almost pristine. no. huh-uh. something is wrong here. staged? i thought staged because i know that anything left in a lake for any period of time is gonna have algae on it. speculation gave way to suspicion. could mike s disappearance be the result of foul play? enter the wild card, the squeakiest of squeaky whe
other incentive to murder mike. the concern between she and i then became, well, if his body s not found, what s gonna happen with the life insurance? brian admitted to staging the hat found ten days into the search. i was the one that put it in the water during one of my searches on the lake. to kinda confirm that that he had drowned. and for the next sixteen years, brian said he and denise kept a mafia-like oath of silence. it is riveting testimony. this first-person story of taking a best friend out and killing him. there s so much emotion tied into that. i ve heard the testimony numerous times and i was riveted. and you could tell from the jurors, that they re on the edge of their seat. it was strong, emotional testimony. but would it be strong enough to convict? that
first-person story of taking a best friend out and killing him. there s so much emotion tied into that. i ve heard the testimony numerous times and i was riveted. and you could tell from the jurors, that they re on the edge of their seat. it was strong, emotional testimony. but would it be strong enough to convict? that would be for the jury to say. now defense attorney ethan way rose with his goal set upon demolishing the star witness credibility. mr. winchester, you re a murderer, isn t it true? coming up will there finally be justice for mike? we didn t have a slam dunk case. we the jury finds as follows does it come to a matter of jurors? it s he said, she said. pick one. yes. when dateline continues. when dateline continues when dateline continues nths continuous protection
together. they all attended that private christian high school, married their high school sweethearts, and had children about the same time. and then came lake seminole. after a year had gone by since mike disappeared, denise asked patti to take her to the lake. she told me how she had been going to a christian counselor, and he had encouraged her to do this. and she had a flower with her and she d written mike a note. and i guess probably 30, 45 minutes later she came back. and she d been crying. the flower and the letter in particular? those were left at the lake. gone but definitely not forgotten, according to becky mass, denise s friend and co-worker. she loved him like a woman would love your life partner, your soul mate. the official death certificate said mike drowned while duck hunting. but for mike s family and friends, doubts started creeping in, spurred on by little things that just didn t add up. like those waders found six months
with her signs and the billboards everybody and the letters to the editor, and you became famous. everybody called me crazy. but not everybody. police began to take cheryl seriously after years of her struggling to draw attention to mike s case. miss cheryl is a straight-shooter and she tells it like it is. will mickler is an agent with the fdle, the florida department of law enforcement. a top cops agency with statewide jurisdiction. four years after mike went missing, they agreed to take the case. if it wasn t for miss cheryl, this case would have never gotten into the hands of criminal investigators. but mike s widow, denise, didn t appreciate what cheryl was doing. she s upset because she and her daddy said it was an invasion of their privacy. denise s friend, becky mass, in her defense, said denise told cheryl to stop all the noise because it was confusing her daughter. mrs. williams had very