much or you wanted to salvage half a loaf in this thing? we felt there was no harm giving this jury yet another option of a verdict of guilty. cara s family and friends didn t buy that. we had asked for manslaughter in the first trial and they said, absolutely not, no way. all of a sudden, you turn the tables? because they want this to end. and cara s take on that was, i don t want that, because that means i did it, and i didn t. deliberations began on a tuesday morning. day one passed in silence. no questions from the jury. day two, the same. day three, again. some began to speculate about another hung jury. t.j. donohue and mary patron. reporter: do you think this was going to go down in flames again? absolutely, i did. what could be different this time? team cara tried to keep their spirits up. it was a double rainbow and i took a picture of it and said, good sign, cara, there s a
masking the evidence, the prosecutors said, that paint pointed to cara s guilt. the stiff body was clearly not something that had just happened. the paint being on the floor was something that had just happened. reporter: and now prosecutors played their ace. they called a new witness to bolster their case, someone not heard from in previous trials. do you solemnly swear to reporter: engineer david guillianelli. he really did watch paint dry, conducting dozens of lab experiments. were you able to form an opinion as to that time frame when the paint might have hit the floor? yes. and what is your opinion? within approximately 30 minutes of the time the first responders arrived. reporter: the final coat of a slap-dash cover-up. but motivation. why did by most accounts, the more sensible one of the two, turn on her fiery partner? prosecutors said the seeds were planted some ten months earlier. and they played an audiotape from a contentious court hearing to prove it.
with this. reporter: it was may, 2009. ann and cara had each filed those restraining orders against the other. a district court judge heard them sniping at each other and erupted, threatening to have dcf, the department of children and families, take custody of brianna. if i see that come into this court, i ll be on the phone to dcf so fast, they ll be here before you get out the door. reporter: it was a turning point. because of the judge s warning, each woman now knew that one wrong move could cost them custody of the daughter they adored. so the prosecutors theory of what happened on march 29th. there was a violent fight and ann went down those stairs. whether she was pushed or not, they couldn t say. what mattered, they told jurors, was what happened at the bottom of the stairs. the defendant had to make a choice. call for help. likely face criminal charges. lose her home.
remain silent so it s like, you can t believe it. there s nothing, nothing to point to cara. how could this possibly be the worst possible outcome, how? afterwards, her past your lamented. breanna s clearly lost her other mother now, in a sense. yes. god, where art thou? ann s family was also stunned but pleased. murder one? it s still i m still reeling on that one. it s what we wanted for the last two trials. it was a surprise, but really just an affirmation of everything we had done. this possibility that it could have been anyone else and adhere to the timeline so, what was the jury s thinking? they say they kept running into inconsistencies, beginning with cara s account of discovering ann s body. why didn t she rush to help her? she was a paramedic, so to see your loved one at the bottom
of the stairs, and she could have easily gone down there and started cpr and saved her. she didn t know that she was dead at that time. then that paint. lacy, do you agree there are some time problems between when you believe the time of death is and this paint still being wet? oh, absolutely, you know. what do you make of this? i really, i almost wanted her to admit to spilling the paint just to make sense out of it, because without her spilling the paint, it just didn t make any sense. finally, the matter of premeditation. was this a planned act? cara had her hands around annamarie s neck for up to four minutes. so, that s a long time to reflect and restrain yourself. and they did this great thing where they just timed four minutes. and you sit there and think i can elect to not strangle you at this point, i can remove my hands, is this the thought? four minutes is a long time. we actually held our wrists for four minutes and felt how long. it was a real long time