Moments after sam was shot. they said, could you describe him? i described him. little did she know a man fitting that very same description had just been arrested. he had approached sheriff s deputies moments after they arrived on scene and confessed to the shooting. the deputy that had him in the back of the patrol car already told us that he made statements that he was the shooter. did you feel like this could be an easy one, case closed or did you think there s got to be more to this story? there s never an easy one. there s always more to the story. the man identified himself as michael minor. detectives mcdonald and szalbirak immediately brought him to the sheriff s office for questioning. he s very distraught but he s willing to talk to us. we were very much ready to listen to him. he outlined for detectives the details of the shooting. he started by insisting it was all an accident. . i never intended to pull that
reporter: as michael documented every aspect of dianne s personal life, poking around her drawers, her refrigerator, even inside her bathroom, police said danielle played lookout. in this text message to michael, danielle wrote, get out of there if you aren t already. getting bad feeling. and he s doing it at the request basically of danielle. reporter: but what detectives found most alarming were the text messages michael and danielle sent each other. reporter: michael minor writes, i want to blow his head off and then put two on her just for good measure. he goes on to say, bang bang, done. i won t, though, because it s wrong. danielle later responded, you would not and could not because that would be illegal. that was definitely disturbing. reporter: in another text danielle referred to her handgun, which she called daisy. she wrote, i am so close to introducing them both to daisy. michael responded, ha, ha, we can do it together. as a date.
Smiley face. in yet another, she wrote, i hate them with every inch of me. revenge will be mine, and it will be very, very sweet. it was very obvious that danielle had some kind of hatred towards sam, that there was that she wanted to hurt him. reporter: and based on those text messages, it seemed clear to detectives that she had persuaded michael to feel the same way. i absolutely think she poisoned michael s mind as far as what sam was. everything he knew about sam was that he was a violent person. he was described to him as a drunk, as a cheater, as a liar. that knowledge came from one person and one person alone. it was danielle. reporter: did you have any evidence as you kept investigating that sam was abusive or violent toward danielle? there was no evidence of that
Danielle. it was like i really found my soul mate. man, it was so thunder bolt. i really had every intention of marrying this girl. he was smitten. i mean, he was totally obsessed with her and in love with her. he went on to say that on the day of the shooting, he decided it was finally time to talk to sam, man-to-man. he wanted to come clean about his love for danielle. he wants to confront sam basically tell him that he s the other man. i concocted this scheme to go up there and tell him you know, yeah, i m seeing your wife. that day, michael said he tracked sam down and found him in the parking lot of diane s apartment complex. he also said he brought a gun because will he no idea how sam would react. he s bigger than me so i just brought my firearm, you know? i intended to go up there and just scare him. but according to michael, his mano-e-mano, with sam
reporter: in the weeks following the funeral, detectives mcdonald and szalbirak continued their investigation. they had their shooter, but they also had lingering questions about whether danielle may have somehow been involved. obviously, one of the first things that comes to mind, the wife has a hand in this. she s linked. she s got to have something to do with it. reporter: and as mcdonald and szalbirak sifted through the evidence, they became more confident they were on the right track. what they discovered stunned even these two seasoned investigators. for over a month danielle had been spying on both sam and dianne. danielle was just totally obsessed with what sam was doing, which went beyond anything that i ve seen before in investigations. reporter: what s more, it appeared to them that danielle had persuaded michael to help her. they had basically stalked them.