reporter: though look at this. marie shot this video that did survive. showing the pastor hawking gold and silver online, apparently while running the church. valuing this coin at over $500. lemme tell you, that s exciting stuff. reporter: was james just a pastor? or part time flim-flam man? so this is where things stood when an anonymous tip came in. crimestoppers. reporter: startling. if true, it would solve the case. and in the tip, it says that james buried her in the backyard. reporter: that s some tip. yeah. i can remember getting that tip and thinking, no way. like, who would who would kill somebody and bury them in their own backyard? reporter: could be bogus, of course. just another false lead. but nesli was hopeful. we brought cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar and we didn t find anything. reporter: nothing? nothing. reporter: no body. so what happened to marie? more months went by.
night with baby grace. it was a few days after they left when jason went to the police to tell his disturbing story. that they had a physical run-in the day that she went missing. reporter: then a piece of luck. before they left, marie s friend kay had asked the pastor and his wife for marie s belongings. they gave her marie s computer. the bad news was it had been erased but i brought it into the sheriff s department for them to take a look. we had our forensic tech reanalyze the computer and it gave us a beautiful copy of her phone download that she had done when she backed her phone up. reporter: wow. but maybe it wasn t so lucky. there were thousands of text messages, but they were an unreadable jumble of symbols and words. this particular coin though look at this, marie shot this video that did survive. showing the pastor hawking gold and silver online, apparently while running the church.
but no, it wasn t clear enough to tell whose it was. then, another thought. hey, let s go pull surveillance video. and of course reporter: you looked at all of it. well, no. the video didn t wor it wasn t working. reporter: oh. during the time that we needed. this case, for sure, was an investigator s worst nightmare. reporter: dead ends everywhere. yes. reporter: and weeks went by. no sign of marie anywhere. time to embrace the thought they d frankly, had all along. and it wasn t a good one. keith and i both no longer believed we had a missing person. we believed we were dealing with a homicide investigation. but what s the hardest homicide investigation you can be given? one without a body. reporter: yeah. and we didn t have marie. reporter: coming up, the startling secret that marie kept from just about everyone. i went up and i put my hand on her stomach and i said what s going on with this?
be could happen out of this is if cummings and these guys put aside 2020 for five minutes and sat what worked in new york, when you turn new york around, what worked and what didn t wor work? democrat leadership never works. some policies work, some policies don t. some people wouldn t be able to vote if that was the case. laura: i think you could come up with five things that worked and five things that didn t. take republican/democrat off the sheet. i agree, yes. laura: it s really hard when you cry racism. it s even harder when there is racism. fortunately we have a president that isn t racist and is afraid to stand up and willing to point out all the flaws happening right now and unfortunately democrat leadership in inner cities are destroying black america. laura: we ve got to go. we will have this curious
reporter: like thieves in the night with baby grace. it was a few days after they left when jason went to the police to tell his disturbing story. that they had a physical run-in the day that she went missing. reporter: then a piece of luck. before they left, marie s friend kay had asked the pastor and his wife for marie s belongings. they gave her marie s computer. the bad news was it had been erased but i brought it into the sheriff s department for them to take a look. we had our forensic tech reanalyze the computer and it gave us a beautiful copy of her phone download that she had done when she backed her phone up. reporter: wow. but maybe it wasn t so lucky. there were thousands of text messages, but they were an unreadable jumble of symbols and words. this particular coin though look at this, marie shot this video that did survive. showing the pastor hawking gold