and then your being looked at for it. imagine, your shaken in the dead of night. my ears were ringing. i thought i was dreaming. in bed, right next to you. your husband, murdered. hearty wrap around your head, is it? yes. and here s the twist. you are the suspect. it s the worst feeling, thinking you re gonna be blamed for your husband s death. could she have been the killer? or, with someone keeping a secret? he said, what did you do. what did you do? i don t know what to tell you. just of the truth. hello, and welcome to dateline . it s the stuff of nightmares. and a traitor creeps into your bedroom in the middle of the night and opens fire. but for melissa oxley, the bad dream was all too real. she told investigators she d been startled from her sleep to find her husband, ben, dead from a gunshot blast. it seems streams, they thought, that no one else in the house was hurt. including melissa, who was sleeping by his side. stranger still, was
it s a rare thing to do to sit in the jail room just as this, where a murderer confesses chapter and verse. denial is the more common language here. i pulled the trigger but james matlean will he murdered then oxley in his sleep and must live with that for the rest of his day with. and suffered 2011, he told his story in court. it was after the da took the penalty off the table, and james decided to plead guilty. and that s one melissa said sitting in the courtroom, her for the first time about something else james was supposed to kill her to. don asked me if i would kill melissa. i just said yeah. there was a bullet there for
hook, because there was one possibility still. if the da could find hard evidence that dom lied when she was given that get out of jail free card for implicating james it s still an open book for don oxley for murder. if somebody comes today with credible evidence to show that she did in fact go, we can prosecutor. and 2011, done was sent to prison on another offense. she pleaded guilty for using her teenage daughter, brandi, to sell prescription drugs. what she employing you as an assistant in that business? i was driving. yes. don was released from prison in march of 2014. but not to be the mother of alyssa, the one judge terminated her parental rights. both alyssa and were brandy sent to live with melissa. to live a life that they did not know with their biological mom. it was a family, that s a lie that i need. in 2011, having pleaded
guilty to murder, james was matlean being prepared for being sentenced. is there a redemption for person like you? i don t know. i don t expect anybody that i ve harmed or heard to forgive me for would have done. he looked in the lenses you said that. you re talking to them, right? basically talking to melissa. i m sorry. an exchange for his guilty plea, the da agreed to recommend that james could be eligible for parole after serving 24 years. all rise final decision, up to the judge. defense attorney stover made the argument. then melissa took the stand. emotionally the damage you have cost me is almost unbearable.
but i don t think don really wanted ben dead. i don t think don was there. you re trying to hold it all together? all the way along and even now. you have to understand, ben was a good guy. they had their problems, everybody loved him. he didn t deserve to die. so for the time being, it is a he said, she said story. and the da s deal with don? to the dismay of james matlean attorney, may mean that she may never face a murder job. the prosecutor made a deal with the devil, now he ll have to short how far and how she is. deal with the double? well, the da said without don s testimony at the. preliminary hearing, a murder charge against james wind of stock. but don wasn t totally off the