detective mehl made a presentation. she was a fighter and she kept us fighting for her, for you and your family. they ve had the picture hanging in their office for a very long time. and they they passed it onto me. i could look at it now and go, we did it. we did it. you ve given us a new chapter in our life. reporter: the family gave the cold case detectives and prosecutors gifts as well. each was engraved: justice for tara. they put in so much hard work and time and respect, compassion. so we wanna give them a little token of our appreciation and love for everything they ve done.
veronica. detective mehl made a presentation. she was a fighter and she kept us fighting for her, for you and your family. they ve had the picture hanging in their office for a very long time. and they they passed it onto me. i could look at it now and go, we did it. we did it. you ve given us a new chapter in our life. reporter: the family gave the cold case detectives and prosecutors gifts as well. each was engraved: justice for tara. they put in so much hard work and time and respect, compassion. so we wanna give them a little token of our appreciation and love for everything they ve done.
and it was somebody with credibility. be better than what we had before, yeah. reporter: but overall, a key problem remained. terrible witnesses. reporter: meaning detectives spoke with other people who d also heard the men talk about the murder, but they were not the type a jury would likely believe. much of what they d say sounded like drug and booze soaked gossip. there wasn t enough certainly to support charging peewee. but, thought the prosecutor, maybe he could find a way to go after barr and mcmannis. and he had an idea. bring some of the key witnesses before a grand jury just to see who passed the credibility test and who didn t. i ve prosecuted over 100 homicide cases and the complexity, and the amount of information that we had to review to determine if we could prosecute this case was the most i d ever seen. reporter: the idea worked. the grand jury indicted both phil barr and dave mcmannis for tara s murder. they were arrested in late 2012, 11 years after ta
meaning detectives spoke with other people who had heard the men talk about the murder but they were not the type a jury would likely believe. much of what they said sowned like drug and booze soaked gossip. it wasn t enough certainly to support charging peewee but thought the prosecutor, maybe he could find a way to go after barr and mcmannis, and he had an idea. bring some of the key witnesses before a grand jury, just to see who passed the credibility test, and who didn t. i ve prosecuted over a hundred homicide cases, and the complexity and the amount of information that we had to review to determine if we could prosecute this case was the most i d ever seen. the idea worked. the grand jury indicted both phil barr and dave mcmannis for tara s murder. they were arrested in late 2012, 11 years after tara vanished from her home. dave mcmannis was arrested in maryland where he grew up, where
that she had met her. she dreams about her. never met her, but they love her. that warms my heart. reporter: a few weeks after the trials were over, the prosecutors, detectives and their spouses got together for dinner with sharon, keith and veronica. detective mehl made a presentation. she was a fighter and she kept us fighting for her, for you and your family. they ve had the picture hanging in their office for a very long time. and they passed it on to me. i could look at it now and go, we did it. we did it. you ve given us a new chapter in our life. reporter: the family gave the cold case detectives and prosecutors gifts as well. each was engraved: justice for tara.