with a mystery man. she is in the process of having an affair, whether local, long distance, i don t know. reporter: chris jones couldn t tell detectives much else about this other man, who he only knew by the name of edward. i ve just seen their correspondence. sweetie and love you. how do you know about the correspondence? were you able to see some of the texting yourself? yeah. on her phone or? yeah. you must have had concerns about this other man? yes, i did. because he was one of the first names that we had come up with. reporter: detective kemp knew if heather had split town, as her good-bye email suggested, she hadn t driven away in her car. it was still parked in her driveway. you know what kind of car edward drives? i don t know anything about him. i really don t. does he live here locally, obviously, in germantown? no. memphis? do you know? not that i know of. i don t think he lives in memphis.
couldn t reach heather on the phone, and when her cousin diane heard she was a no-show, she headed right over to heather s house in germantown where she saw an encouraging sign. there was relief when i saw the car in the driveway cause i thought she was there. i thought, oh, she s sick. reporter: diane thought heather was probably just sleeping. knocking, knocking, knocking. please answer the door. reporter: but no answer. alarmed, she called heather s mother to bring over a key. soon germantown police arrived, opened the door and went in first. they say, she s not in there. they say, nothing looks disturbed. is that a relief in any way? that she s not in there? no, no. it was terrifying. something is very much wrong. reporter: it was now a missing persons case. detective tony kemp took the lead and did his own walk-through of the house. did you find any signs of something that might have happened in that house? no. i did not see any weapons. i did not see any
reporter: detectives had to find edward another way, so they accessed heather s facebook account and mined it for clues. and there it was, a profile with a last name attached. and what was that name? edward raulerson. reporter: police dialed a phone number they found for ed. he told them he lived 500 miles away in eastern tennessee and agreed to make the eight-hour drive to germantown to be interviewed. detectives wondered had he made the trip once already that week to take heather away? and most importantly, could he tell them where she was now? just because you ve got somebody living 500 miles away does not mean that they didn t have anything to do with this disappearance. reporter: police recorded ed raulerson s interview. during questioning, ed made a potentially important admission. i love her to death. i would do anything for her. you know, one of the detectives asked me, you know, who would she call if she wanted to disappear. i said, me. i d be here in however man
reporter: heather jones had been missing for 24 hours. her loved ones prayed for the best and launched into action. the memphis mother had recently lost 200 pounds with the help of a dance aerobics class. and now her gym friends pasted the after photo she was so proud of all over town. were you putting up flyers? oh, we had oh, flyers. we had flyers. we stopped at restaurants around germantown. reporter: cari, heather s friend and dance instructor, who also happened to be a cop, organized a search party. and we had our backpacks on. and we had good walking shoes. and we had snacks and towels and water. reporter: around lakes, parks, and railroad tracks, cari and the other women searched methodically not knowing what they might find. and i told all the girls, y all be prepared because we might find her, okay? your foot hits something hard and you think, oh, my god, is it her?
i don t know anything about him. i really don t. does he live here locally, obviously, in germantown? no. memphis? do you know? not that i know of. i don t think he lives in memphis. reporter: detectives had to find edward another way. so they accessed heather s facebook account and mined it for clues. and there it was, a profile with a last name attached. and what was that name? edward raulerson. reporter: police dialed a phone number they found for ed. he told them he lived 500 miles away in eastern tennessee and agreed to make the eight-hour drive to germantown to be interviewed. detectives wondered had he made the trip once already that week to take heather away? and most importantly, could he tell them where she was now? just because you ve got somebody living 500 miles away does not mean that they didn t have anything to do with this disappearance. reporter: police recorded ed raulerson s interview. during questioning, ed made a potentially important admissi