in miami gardens. from midnight till about 5:00 am, the phone s in one location. reporter: thursday morning, the phone went northeast to fort lauderdale then went further north to pompano beach. shortly afterwards, it turned back towards fort lauderdale. but somewhere along the way, the signal was lost. either the battery died or the killer dumped the phone. all told by thursday, the day after the murder, the phone or whoever had it travelled a distance of about 60 miles. so obviously, who s with that cell phone, was most likely the last person that was with with melissa. reporter: detectives also focused on those five hours the phone was stationary in miami gardens. was the killer home in bed? we have to identify if melissa knows somebody that lives in this area. reporter: does anything come up at that point? no. we have no reason to believe anybody she s dating, anybody she knows lives there. reporter: melissa s family confirmed that. police asked everyone remotely
signal was lost. either the battery died or the killer dumped the phone. all told by thursday, the day after the murder, the phone or whoever had it travelled a distance of about 60 miles. so obviously, who s with that cell phone, was most likely the last person that was with with melissa. reporter: detectives also focused on those five hours the phone was stationary in miami gardens. was the killer home in bed? we have to identify if melissa knows somebody that lives in this area. reporter: does anything come up at that point? no. we have no reason to believe anybody she s dating, anybody she knows lives there. reporter: melissa s family confirmed that. police asked everyone remotely involved in the case and the answer kept coming up no. by now, police had also cleared the ex-husband of melissa s sister. he had no connection to the area either. but when they asked debra if she knew anyone who lived around there, her jaw dropped. she said she did know someone. i was lik
he was charged with first-degree murder. he denied involvement in this. reporter: tony s attorney is bruce fleisher. they sought the death penalty. reporter: police and prosecutors were confident they had a solid case against tony villegas, but something happened that threw the whole investigation into freefall. that s because new crimes were about to be realed. and new questions were about to be raised about who really killed melissa. and in the midst of it all, scott rothstein, like melissa, would disappear. coming up were melissa and scott rothstein s disappearances connected? we three kings be stealing the gold. the dark secret buried beneath all these rothstein riches. he said if i don t get this taken care of, somebody is going to put a bullet in my head. so i feel lighter. try metamucil, and begin to feel what lighter feels like.
the case. $251,000 sg. ironically, he never got the award. the collapse of the ponzi scheme put an end to that. as to it will prosecution s theory of motive, it was as thin as it was nonsensical. you would think if you were so enraged at your wife for doing this, you want to harm her and not someone else. as for debra, defense attorney surprised everyone when he he didn t ask her a single question. he did go after the son, challenging him as to why he sat for so long on this story about his father bad mouthing melissa. you didn t tell your mother about that when you first heard about that, did you. no, i didn t see any relevance. when you spent time with him, things were good. yes. you love your dad. yes. would jurors notice the tear rolling down tony s cheek. so on to the scientific evidence.
judge asked tony if he wanted to testify. closing arguments. prosecutor said all the evidence pointed to tony. the pepper spray. cell phone records and the dna. the jury now had the case. outside the courtroom, debra saw melissa s family for the first time in eight years. all these years later and it was just washed over me like it just happened. you know, that i had caused these people kind of pain that s