i m hearing gunshots coming from somewhere around here. reporter: the caller was the apartment s maintenance supervisor, who d been working near denita s unit. when he heard the shot, he d looked up in that direction and he told me he saw a female that was about 5 10 , hair in a ponytail, and had some kind of emblems on her clothing. the young lady that stays over here, she heard it too and she s like upset and shaking and stuff like that. she was covering her face and she went and got into her truck and started driving away. reporter: this woman looked frightened or he said like she was distraught. she had her hands over her face and moving quickly. reporter: like they re horrified by what they ve seen. correct. reporter: so more witness than perpetrator maybe. that s exactly what he thought. reporter: then, according to the maintenance man, the woman got into a burgundy-colored ford explorer which he then followed in his truck.
he pulls up beside her, so they re kind of looking directly at each other, eyeball to eyeball, and she still has her hands over her face. and he says, ma am, did you hear a shot or something? and she shakes her head up and down yes. and he says, where d it come from? and she points her head in one direction and he says, why are you nervous? and she s like, you heard the shot. and he says let me call the police. and then she pulls off and takes off out the complex. reporter: what do you make of that? that s kind of like make the hair on the back of our neck stand up. reporter: so now police called jermeir stroud, who was on his way back home to greensboro, and asked one simple question. do you know anyone that drives a burgundy ford suv? and he said, oh, my god. i m turning around now. reporter: a secret affair. they start having a relationship that actually started kind of like friendly but then turned sexual.
she was loving. she was kind. she was supportive. she embodied everything that was positive and about supporting people. reporter: there was no one who didn t like her? right. she was well respected and well loved. reporter: especially by her fiancé, jermeir stroud, who appeared devastated by denita s death. jermeir didn t say anything. jermeir cried. we all cried. he didn t really say a whole lot. reporter: jermeir and denita had met back in college and became the it couple on campus. they had been dating for a few years. and you know, before i even met him denita spoke very highly of him. reporter: what d she say? like he s a gentleman, he s intelligent. he s active, involved, well-rounded, he s kind, he respects me. he protects me. he s loving. reporter: the perfect guy? the perfect guy.
all accounts a model employee. her supervisors really liked her. she was dependable. she came to work. she did what she was supposed to do, did it in a professional manner. no complaints really. reporter: detective shawn pate also found shannon to be cordial and cooperative as they settled in to discuss where shannon was on the day denita died. pretty calm, easygoing, kind of like us sitting here. i d ask a question. she would give me an answer. what d you ask her? first i asked her about jermeir, whatever. and she admitted that she knew him. and about the relationship that they had. reporter: shannon wasn t shy about corroborating what jermeir had already admitted. they met through work. it got physical. she got pregnant. she had an abortion. and the romantic part of their relationship ended a year before denita s murder. they both agreed that it ended in january of 2006. the relationship was over. they both gave the same date, the same incident and reason that it ended.
and i asked her, what s changed? he still knows where your children are. he still knows how to get to them. he could still hurt them. reporter: and her answer? she just looked at me. everything i ve told you is the truth. but you lied the first time we talked. yes, i did. the second time we talked. the second time we talked i did not lie to you. after i was arrested, i did not lie to you. i told you i didn t do it. that wasn t a lie. i told you that he did. reporter: he was jermeir stroud. shannon s story made him the guilty party, but her story also badly needed to be checked out. that s just a fantastic kind of story. if i m going to dismiss her case i need to make sure i m filling out the dismissal and i put the reasons why. i m not going to do it just because she says she didn t do it. reporter: shannon and her attorney were emphatic that jermeir was the killer and also said that even now, months after the murder, he was making threatening phones calls to shanno