statements, this and that, all were followed up, every one of them. detective mayo traced down a walmart receipt, a minor forgettable purchase but the time stamp cast serious doubt on phil barr s alibi, caught him in a significant lie. that s how detailed we were getting. and then they just happened to run into a guy who said he knew barr and mcmannis and peewee. and he overheard them talking about killing this girl. he heard david mcmannis say we shouldn t have done that girl that way. if i don t get out of town, i m going to spend the rest of my life in jail. fi phillip barr said i ve only seen a body. barr tells him, shut up we re all going to end up in prison. somebody with credibility. better than what we had before. a key problem remained. terrible witnesses.
long trials, each peopled by witnesses the jury might not think were very credible. people who supposedly heard them say things like we raped and killed the girl. they re not gonna find her. i m going to kill you like i did the girl in florida . the girl i killed was 20. reporter: 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. reporter: 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. reporter: some of those witnesses were inmates, too, snitches. i never met a confidential informant that s gonna inform just because he wants to be a nice guy or a good citizen. there s always something in it for him. reporter: that woman, the star witness found by the cold case team, who said