we finished little pear eight days till christmas. i m so excited. i love you. anna kate. reporter: she still writes her letters even though toni can no longer respond. dear aunt toni, are you enjoying it in heaven? i miss you very much. i read a book about heaven. it must be great. love, your niece, anna kate. reporter: anna kate was 7 when her aunt died. it was sudden, scary and heartbreaking. so she took out an old shoe box, decorated it and filled it with thoughts of aunt toni. now she s dead. now we can t see her again. and our lives will never be the same again. reporter: the ripple effect of toni s death was huge. she was a respected doctor, an ophthalmologist who had a thriving practice first in jackson, mississippi, and later in denver, colorado. a devout christian who sang in her church choir.
i work with nonprofits, that would be churches, schools or hospitals. reporter: harold and toni had even lived apart for two years after their wedding supposedly due to the demands of their careers. harold told people he was a fund-raiser for nonprofits. he had an address, a post office box. he had a business card. and this was his story. reporter: remember, harold had told kim in that undercover restaurant meeting that when haley was born he decided to be a stay-at-home dad for a while. he just didn t want toni s family to know. exciting year. we love you all. and why don t you come out an visit us in denver? reporter: but there was much more to it than that. when fbi investigators dug deep into harold s financial history, they found no tax returns, no pay stubs, no evidence harold had held a job since lynn died in 1995. when he was investigated after toni s death, they could find no evidence at all that he ever made a dime. reporter: apparently everything he ever said
private investigator and former denver homicide detective charlie mccormick to review the case file. he noticed something about harold right away. on face value, he s inconsistent. and that s never a good sign. reporter: for starters, harold told multiple stories about why he and lynn were on that back road in the first place. this guy was all over the map from the get-go. you know, we re going to dinner. be had been at dinner. we left the house at 3:00. we left the house at 6:00. reporter: in the police reports written in the hours and days after lynn died, harold is quoted giving different reasons as to why exactly they pulled over. he contradicted himself on what the tire problem was. was it a flat? was it spongy? was it soft? what caused this to happen? reporter: whatever shape the tire was in, the henthorns apparently tried to change it using jacks that normally used for a boat because harold told the cops the jack that came with the jeep was broken. he couldn t get
things are not right. reporter: tammi says that even though toni seemed to adore her daughter haley, she often gave up mommy time, staying late at the office instead. we would be done. patients gone, staff gone. and she would still be on her computer. but it wasn t work-related. it was playing games. and so we thought, that s so odd. why does she stick around the office? we started to think that maybe she just didn t want to go home and maybe because of harold. reporter: if there was trouble in the marriage toni never said so directly. not to friends, not even to family. todd and rhonda worried maybe she was afraid to say too much. i think he had held control over toni with haley, you know? his parents heard conversation that they weren t meant to hear that he held, you know, divorce over her head. i ll divorce you. yeah. and you won t see haley and, you know, that kind of thing. reporter: that s probably the one thing that would cut the deepest with her. right. repor
all. then saturday afternoon, they set out for rocky mountain national park to go on a hiking trail harold had scouted out a few months earlier. but just about 24 hours in, the perfect weekend turned tragic. 911, what s the address of your emergency? hello, my name is harold henthorn, and i m in the rocky mountain national park. okay. i need an alpine mountain rescue team immediately. reporter: it was just before 6:00 and harold needed help urgently. my wife has fallen from a rock on the north summit of deer mountain. on the deer mountain trail. and she s in really critical condition. reporter: harold told the 911 operator that toni had fallen from the edge of a cliff. we need to be sure that you know my location first. i have really bad cell coverage. okay. okay. i m on deer mountain. reporter: immediately, the park launched a ranger who was also a trained emt, but the only way to get there from the trail