it was at that moment marshburn was overwhelmed we motion. at that time, i said, baby girl, you re going home. you re going home, baby girl. i m sorry. i get emotional. had you even seen her yet? mm-mm. you just knew. mm-hmm, we just knew. but they had to be sure. so, now the grim task of digging began. we found a little piece of a jacket. when we pulled that jacket back, that s when we stopped. we said, this is her. i mean, this is it. throughout the day, marshburn had been texting fayetteville police about his progress. now, minutes after finding kelli s body, he sent them something definitive and dreadful. a photo, what appeared to be a human bone in the place he s digging. and at that time, we contacted him, said hey, cease and desist on digging. don t do nothing else.
ground. the soil was loose, like a hole had been dug and filled in. it was at that moment, marshburn was overwhelmed with emotion. at that time, i said, baby girl, you going home. you going home, baby girl. so, i m sorry. i get emotional. had you even seen her, yet? uh-uh. you just knew? uh-huh. we just knew. reporter: but they had to be sure. so now, the grim task of digging began. we found little piece of the jacket. when we pulled that jacket back, that s when we stopped. we said, this is her. you know, i mean, this is it. reporter: throughout the day, marshburn had been texting fayetteville police about his progress. now, minutes after finding kelli s body, he sent them something definitive and dreadful. a photo. it appears to be a human bone. a place he s digging. and at that time, we contacted him and said, hey, cease and
everybody rise, please. just over a year later came a measure of justice. are you, in fact, guilty of each of these crimes? yes, sir. facing the possibility of the death penalty, nick holbert pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing kelli in exchange for a life sentence. i wanted my sister. i didn t want her body, i wanted her. and so, i was like, what happens to nicholas holbert isn t going to change what he s done, whether he says he s sorry or whether it doesn t matter. for david marshburn, his remarkable work was done. case closed. justice served. kelli bordeaux was finally home. but he says solving her case left him with mixed emotions. once we got finished, we were depressed. it was a depression like you would not believe, because we went for two years nonstop, kelli, kelli, kelli, kelli.
so, next day comes, we go pick him up, and he s real quiet. he, of course, was nick holbert, who was now back in the forest outside fayetteville. it was may 14th, 2014. two years of searching had now come down to this one sweltering spring morning. but holbert still couldn t remember exactly where he had buried kelli s body and went off searching in a different direction. we re standing there, i m like, darn it, i cannot figure this out. and all of a sudden, i looked over to my left and there s some clearing over here and there s the sun coming down. then, in that very same spot, cass seemed to pick up a scent. all of a sudden he starts crawling to it, like whimpering crawling. and he stops. that was our spot. they carefully pushed a metal rod into the ground.
this morning, detectives with the fayetteville homicide, fayetteville police department homicide unit recovered what we believe to be the remains of private first class kelli bordeaux. by now, kelli s family had gotten the news. matt called me she was at work. he was like, hey, you need to come to mom s now. they found kelli. and i remember dropping the phone to the floor, like i ll be right there. then it s a sense of relief, instead of wondering, what if, what if, what if. olivia called kelli s boyfriend, justin thompson. as soon as she called, i knew they found her. i was just so grateful, honestly. i was just so happy that she was found. i can t say happy relieved? yeah, i guess i was relieved. i was like sad again all over again. now we re going to have to do the funeral thing. two weeks later, they paid their final respects. the funeral in florida was such big news, it was actually televised. aim, fire! kelli bordeaux was just 23.