careful lonnie spoke in code. he told me it was time to take the property off the market. another call. i said, i just want to make sure that we are good for closing on property d 16. which is his code. and he agreed, it is time. when you hear that you know, we can go to court with that. yes. he knows that i m not a realtor. then, a surprising thing happened. somebody wanted to call the cops. and it was lonnie! coming up! how many times have you lied to this jury since yesterday morning? none. he had an answer for everything. lonnie, innocent man? well i have been victimized. i m pretty naive. or guilty as charged? you have 14 years to come up with a story. 14 years. 12 jurors were about to decide his fate. when dateline continues!
captain, so we got permission to go inside the exact room he went into, the room you and lonnie were staying in? yes, they learned with the captain, and did not learn much from him except this. there were almost 1500 passengers and crew on board the island escape at the time she went overboard. meaning, potentially, hundreds of possible suspects, for a wide range of countries. those people, those potential suspects they are going to be hard to track down. we wanted to manifest who was fighting to give it to us, then run it against list of sex offenders and anybody with a criminal record. correct. yes. except, they could not get the manifest, so that was a dead and. they had more luck with the autopsy report, he hadn t been able to get a, copy but susan s talents as an investigator and her italian language skills paid off. you are good at, this aren t you? i was able to get the copy. she thought the autopsy report was not definitive, and what was their, pointed away from
hide, and you are going to take this test. he agreed. he was now living in florida. so bill set up the test with a friend named mike, who was also an expert polygraph examiner, he answered 11 questions, including did you kill mickey? did you cause the death of nicki? were you present when nikki was killed? the examiner asked those questions three times, the results were not what bill had hoped for. they came out. he said i have to use the bathroom. and as he walked away, mike said are you in on this? i said, do you want to repeat that again? am i in on? it in on what? he says you know he is guilty. i said is this a joke? he said no. i said he is guilty? i said this is not funny. i m not trying to be funny. so i took a deep breath, that s when it flashes before you, the little things, that you want to overlook. little things like the height of the railing on the island escape, and the realization of how difficult it would be for the five foot three mickey to go off that ba
that he had been the target of a sting operation. and true to form, he went on the offensive. asking his attorney s office to call the police. lonnie never said that he wanted amy nguyen killed. it s only that investigator that can try that. he cut off communication after that? he called me one more time. and he said that tony had misled me about the entire process. he was doing damage control at that point. but unfortunately for lonnie, the damage was already done. prosecutors charged lonnie with solicitation to commit murder. he denied it and said that he had been set up. by a jailhouse informant who was looking to cut a deal. the assistant da, susan price, head waited years for the chance to cross examine lonnie. how many times have you lied to the story since we have today morning? none. you ve been truthful? yes. tell me about cross examining lonnie.
why is it so hard to believe that she was frightened of lonnie? that she lied for him? and that she eventually stopped lying for him him? and told the truth? there is no basis at all for what she is saying to be true. it s fantasy stuff. and the fact that when they investigated the island escape, there is nothing in the room. there s no blood anywhere. there is no evidence of a struggle. there is nothing. where is the evidence? where is it? you know, yes she got killed. but that doesn t mean that lonnie did it. as sergeant don worked with the orange county the is to gather evidence against lonnie. one thing became clear, the island escape was not the luxuries crew ship that nikki had looked forward to. i kind of get the feeling that if you grew up watching the love boat, you probably would not recognize the island escape. you definitely would not. the island escape was a former ferryboat. once he used to transport cars. then later tourists. who were looking to save a