optimistic. sort of. i always felt that this was a case that could be solved. if it had a new set of eyes and had somebody that could put the case together, connect all of the dots. what requests did you make of them? we wanted to know more about every piece of evidence. we had to rule out every piece of dna in that house. so, it was closing doors and excluding other people. you re going to learn from looking in these files so, that is what these three did. as a large photo of tara kept watch. again, there was no danny to help. all they had really or lingering suspicions about the work men who went to towers house the day she vanished. phil barr, the guy who owned the septic time tank business. his helper that day david mcmannis and their body peewee st. john. but nothing in this huge trove of investigative material proved anything. he organized it in such a way that it was easier to
minds do things that normal people wouldn t do. and their solution to that was to kill her. the woman who had been sitting out in the front yard told the jury how the two men had been laughing and joking when they arrived, but later when she saw them backing their truck up to tara s front door, breaking that small palm tree in the process it was almost like they had a mission, that they had a plan and one went straight to the tailgate and put the tailgate down of the truck and the other went straight to the front door. all business. all business. reporter: that, said the prosecutor, is when they cleaned up and took tara s body in a bed sheet, loaded it into the truck, and waited for dark when one or both of them dumped her body in the woods. but to tell that story took two long trials, each peopled by witnesses the jury might not think were very credible. people who supposedly heard bar and mcmannis say things like we raped and killed the
but they attended both trials together. we started this together, we re going to finish it together, no matter what. reporter: and after all that time? in each case, deliberations took less than 90 minutes. the verdicts: guilty. both men were sentenced to life in prison without parole. mcmannis has filed an appeal; barr lost his. i think everybody would agree that but for sharon, neither trial would ve taken place. she fought and fought and fought for justice. reporter: tara s little sister veronica has two children of her own now. they know their aunt tara. they have necklaces with her pictures on it. and my daughter, you would think that she had met her. she dreams about her. never met her, but they love her. that warms my heart.
is now on trial. phil bar owned a septic tank repair business. dave mcmannis was his helper the day tara disappeared. bar used his business a cover for stealing from the homes of unsuspecting customers. and here is what happened, said the state, that 1st of october 2001. tara s landlord asked bar for a rea pair estimate. bar and his helper mcmannis began their work day by smoking crack. around noon, four hours before veronica arrive home from school, the men most likely knocked on the door and tara let them in, unaware they had robbery, not work, on their minds. dave mcmannis was taking the property while bars was sdrathing 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 where he shouldn t have been and she confronted him. and two people with impaired
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. 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 cause 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 she saw the two men coming and going from tara s house? could it be she made herself believe this over so much of a time to make sure the bad guy goes away?