i was woken up by the smell and then a loud noise. my ears were ringing. but at first i thought i was dreaming. the smell? yeah, it was the smell of the gunpowder. as she told it, she looked over at ben. saw by the light of the moon he appeared to have slept through whatever it was. she managed him. he didn t stir. so i was like, ok i ll go check it out. so i walked around our bed and got about halfway down the hallway and realized our front door was open. but you didn t see anybody? no. halfway down the hall, she said, cold air rushing in. she knew something was very wrong. so, she ran back to the bedroom. turned on the light. i went to go wake him up and then, i could see him. yeah. hard to get that one out of your head, isn t it? yeah.
wanted was to have his little girl permanently. he never thought that he could have his daughter. i was like, yes you can. you could. and he did. he won custody. it was him and his daughter. and that s what he always wanted. and then the little household grew. melissa s teenage brother, craig, moved in. and then winter came. the wind. and on february 20th, 2008, the moon rose full over the carson valley. i after dinner, ben, melissa, her teenage brother craig and little alyssa, settled in the dental watch a movie. melissa remembers falling asleep on the couch when she woke up with a. start. thinking i was late for work. it was 2:30 in the morning. i was like, oh i m not late. so i went and got in the bed. crawled in with ben, she said. moonlight on the color covers. warmth inside. about an hour later is when
james matlean did not have an easy star in love life. by the time he was a teenager he was drinking, doing drugs, stealing things. i had pretty much given up any hope on continuing successfully in life. dawn, after her marriage to ben, befriended james. made him feel rescued. give him a place to live. he just been paroled from prison after doing time for stealing a truck. kind of gave me a sense of hope. there was somebody out there who cared. at s house, james discovered what others had. as long as dawn was happy, everybody was happy. and if she wasn t? well, then james could not be happy, either. she was very, very upset at the fact that she lost alyssa. and she went on rents, he said. about ben oxley. a man james didn t know. had never met. but he listen. you felt like you are in love?
looking at. police would already discovered shotgun shells on craig s bedroom dresser. here comes another red flag. is this a possibility? is he faking? melissa, craig and little alyssa, were taken to the sheriff s department. at 4 am. an hour after the shooting. melissa s best friend got a phone call. it was alyssa. and she was just hysterically crying. i m at the police station. come down here, come down here, my dad has been shot. at the time jamie arrive, melissa was already being grilled by detectives. today is february 21 third, 2008. detective elges had questions. lots of them. so many things about this murder didn t make sense. why didn t they take you out? i mean that s what i thought. another thing i don t understand is, why is somebody shoots him, why did you not see anything? i don t know. i honestly don t know. maybe it was the man who ben warned her about, she said. her rough customer who wants
they believe she held a grudge. investigators were about to bring her in for questioning and the story she would tell what s send the case in the stunning new direction. here again is keith morrison with while they were sleeping lee. if you knew ben, there is no way that you would want him dead. i could not think of anybody that would want him dead, besides don. don, don oxley s ex-wife, melissa s mother, even though as more than a few other gossipers pointed suspicious fingers at melissa, ben s best friends told each other. everything in me said that don had something to do with. that. of course, just a few years back, that sort of thing would ve been unimaginable to don s best friends, scott and we sidney graham. not don, the don the force of nature, the center of the room. i don t know is manipulating,