Each peopled by witnesses the jury might not think were very credible. people who supposedly heard barr and mcmanis say things. we raped and killed the girl. they re not gonna find her. i m going to kill you like i killed the girl in florida. the girl i killed was 20. one witness testified about overhearing a conversation between barr and mcmannis. phillip barr was saying to david mcmannis, i didn t want to kill her. and she overheard david mcmannis respond, she had to die. not very believable, said the defense attorneys. just people making things up, said barr s lawyer, mark de sisto. we contended that those conversations never took place. some of those witnesses were inmates, too, snitches. i never met a confidential informant that s gonna inform just cause he wants to be a nice guy or a good citizen. there s always something in it for him. that woman, the star witness found by the cold case team, who said she saw the two men coming and going fro
Was found the hair ribbons. way out here? right out here. okay. so suggesting that they put her in the back of the truck and the hair ribbons came loose as they were driving away or putting her there or something? that would be a pretty good explanation. well, well, well. this makes it all the more real when you see how close this must have been. the woman said she didn t actually see what the men were doing, because the cab of the truck blocked her view. but still, this was way more than they had before. finally, 14 years after tara vanished, barr and mcmannis were going on trial for her murder. ltd what had happened at the house that day? a jury finally hears the story. coming up we believe she confronted him. a mother s perseverance had brought the case this far. she fought and fought and would a verdict bring justice at last, when dateline continues. dateline continues
Case together, connect all of the dots. what requests did you make of them? we wanted to know more about every piece of evidence, every we have to rule out every piece of dna in that house. so it was closing doors, it was excluding other people. so, that s what these three did, as a large photo of tara kept watch. but, again, there was no dna to help them. all they had really were lingering suspicions about the workmen who went to tara s house the day she vanished. phil barr, the guy who owned the septic tank business, his helper that day, dave mcmannis, and their buddy peewee st. john, but nothing in this huge trove of investigative material proved anything. kurt, we call him the scribe. he organized it in
Her. and thinking about her where she would have been at my age, now. and the defendants now on trial phil barr owned a septic type repair business. david mcmannis was his helper. the detectives had learned that barr use his business as a cover for stealing from the homes of unsuspecting customers. and here s what happened, said the state, that 1st of october, 2001. towers landlord asked for barr repair estimate. barr and his helper mcmannis began their work day by smoking crack. around noon, for hours before verona cartwright home from school, the men most likely knocked on the door and tara let them in. unaware they had a robbery, not work, on their minds. dave mcmannis was taking the property while barr was couldn t distracting her in the bathroom. we believe she found out. she heard something or saw something that mr. mcmannis was doing, where he was in a place
This after all the time to make sure the bad guy goes away. david but mcmannis s attorney said those detectives focus on the wrong. man and said phil barr s accomplice must of been peewee st. john. the man who turned in jewelry three days after tehran went missing. there s enough circumstantial evidence to believe that he was involved. if not in the murder, but definitely in the complicity to govern it up. the only thing that dave mcmannis was guilty of, was being a sarcastic guy. the majority of the statements that were made were sarcasm at best. that s kind of an easy out for saying terrible things. isn t it? well, it was an inappropriate statement. if said at all, david is known to be a joke stir and sarcastic. even during the course of the trial, he would say things that were sarcastic. the trials, two of them, dragged on. for more than 15 days. with delays after delay, and a