he voluntarily answered them. he had been released from prison in the past. reporter: so you haven t ruled him out yet? not yet. reporter: with the list of possible suspects shrinking, detectives shifted their focus to something that might provide their first break in the case. with melissa s iphone missing, detectives put in an emergency request to the phone company to see if it could help track her cell. 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
eight years after the murder, tony went on trial. tony, the defendant in this case. prosecutor argued that tony, fuelled by a jealous rage, waited in the bushes for melissa to come home. followed her in the garage and launched a brutal attack on his wife s best friend. it s a hands on, personal murder. it takes time, it takes premeditation and why, because she was a friend. but the residue of pepper spray all over the garage was evidence that melissa had fought back and some had apparently gotten on the killer. tony s house mate testified the night of the murder he saw his roommate scrubbing his arms. he said he got pepper spray on him and his hands were burning and itching. then an expert on cell phone tracking told the jury tony had both melissa s phone and his own
reporter: it was 38-year-old melissa lewis. the missing persons case was now a murder investigation. still a whodunit. we have no idea. 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: police called the victim s best friend, debra. when they told me that they had found her body, i just collapsed to the ground. reporter: your friend melissa was dumped into a drainage canal. this beautiful, wonderful person who was nothing but kind. reporter: when the medical examiner s report was completed, it showed she had been strangled. that is such a personal thing to do to somebody, to have to look them in the eyes and do that. reporter: an up-close and personal killing. no question.
2010, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. but one big question emerged, speculation about that woman in the firm who d been killed. whether melissa knew about the ponzi scheme is one of those great mysteries. reporter: scott had started his ponzi scheme three years before melissa was murdered. is it time to take a fresh look at the whole melissa lewis murder? is there something more sinister? reporter: detective brian kendall now had a whole new problem with his fairly straightforward case against tony, the jealous train engineer. is this woman, melissa, killed because she knew too much? after we think we had this solid, buttoned-up case, we do have the whole scott rothstein ponzi scheme comes into play? reporter: the fbi combed through the detectives files looking into a melissa-rothstein-ponzi link. they spent a week going through every inch of that case to find out if there was a connection to scott rothstein. reporter: with all these messy complications, tony
2010, he was sentenced to fifty years in prison. but one big question emerged, speculation about that woman in the firm who d been killed. whether melissa knew about the ponzi scheme is one of those great mysteries. reporter: scott had started his ponzi scheme three years before melissa was murdered. is it time to take a fresh look at the whole melissa lewis murder? is there something more sinister? reporter: detective brian kendall now had a whole new problem with his fairly straightforward case against tony, the jealous train engineer. is this woman, melissa, killed because she knew too much? after we think we had this solid, buttoned up case, we do have the whole scott rothstein