from reporters asking if the hartleys themselves were drug runners or if david hartley was working with the cartel. speculation began to swirl that tiffany hartley killed her husband for insurance money or even that tiffany hartley was seeing another man. people still have a hard time believing you. does that hurt you? some days. other days they don t have room to judge. i mean, they don t know me. they don t know my husband. they weren t there that day. so really they have no room to judge me. reporter: with television and newspaper attention still at viral levels, authorities in texas were trapped. they could dispatch all the boats and helicopters they wanted, but law enforcement in mexico was still in charge. and what happened next in mexico showed just how difficult
really was. but before he even passed the channel marker dividing the u.s. and mexican border, speedy made us promise not to raise our camera, not to raise any suspicion and told us there s no doubt how jet skiers would look following this same path, like drug smugglers. only people with jet skis are involved with dope. right. reporter: clearly nervous, colette barely slowed down as we approach the church tiffany and david hartley visited on september 30th. he turned the boat and gave us 30 seconds to take the pictures at the exact spot tiffany hartley said they had stopped. this is the last place they came to at the old guerrero church. they took pictures on the front step, according to tiffany hartley. and they set down this channel to head back and it was able five minutes into their voyage when they were approached by the boats.
i remember when i started as a deputy sheriff back in the 1970s, where this was used for drug trafficking. human trafficking. being used forever. reporter: and lately, even before the hartley s trip to falcon lake, gonzalez says a new threat has emerged. pirates. totally inaccurate. definition of piracy a lot different than when i know it to be. had one robbery on the lake totally. reporter: robert speedy colette who owns a fishing lodge here admits he s been stopped by drug cartel members but he also bristles at news reports of piracy and danger. these reports decimated his business on the lake which he insisted is safe. as long as you know the rules. it happened to me. i didn t run. they boarded. they found out i wasn t a threat, and i was released. never robbed.
that, too, in the eyes of many has made tiffany hartley suspect. people don t see me at night when i go to bed. they don t see me in the mornings when i m waking up. reporter: what would they see? every night i miss my husband. and i i miss laying next to him and kissing him good night. reporter: and for tiffany hartley, those are the kinds of memories that will last. far beyond the questions and speculation that have followed her since that fateful day on falcon lake. i want my why to be answered, and i know i m never going to know why until the day i can ask god.
they did not my wallet was in my glove box. i had $1,100 in my wallet. my clients were pretty wealthy people. plenty of money on them. nothing ever happened to them. reporter: in the air over falcon lake, stacy holland says the texas department of public safety was already advising boaters on falcon lake to be very careful. just a warning to let people know that this threat is out there and it s very real and that we ve had documented cases of pirating. so it s mainly for situational awareness, and, you know, we don t recommend going into mexico on this side of the lake. reporter: tiffany hartley says she had heard about troubles on falcon lake, but she and david had been there once before and things were fine. they never felt that somehow anything could happen. we hadn t heard of anything for a while and we were just there in august. enjoyed three, four hours that day on falcon lake.