dennis murphy: nique s family knew the feeling. i raised my hands and said praise god. that was my reaction. dennis murphy: in addition to facing a murder charge, matt leili was eventually charged with sexual assault and multiple counts of eavesdropping. a few weeks after his arrest, nique leili daughters amanda and rebecca posted an edited video on youtube in support of their dad. in the video, the girls claimed that their mother hated her own family. and those same spiteful relatives were the primary reason their dad was in jail. for nique s family, that video was devastating. what, they wondered, had happened to those girls in the four years they d been in vermont? as far as i can tell, he poisoned them against us. and i can only attribute that to them living in a house with a master manipulator. dennis murphy: the notion of matt leili as a master manipulator would become a central theme when his murder trial began in january, 2016.
dennis murphy: the prosecutor said nique leili s best chance for leaving her marriage came 12 days before she disappeared. after yet another argument, nique had called 911. dennis murphy: officers dispatched to the leili home that day offered to help nique leave. but as this still photo shows, she wouldn t budge from the front porch. she wanted him to go. he didn t want to go. he wanted her to go. she wasn t going to leave without the girls. and so the argument they were pretty much at an impasse. dennis murphy: two weeks later, nique leili was dead. in a house where practically everything was recorded, the prosecutor claimed it was no accident that the video covering the crucial hours when nique leili went missing was somehow corrupted. lisa jones: the surveillance system was, in fact, recording during that time period, is that correct? that is correct, yes.
she s buried this close to the house, she s obviously hidden. it s got to have been him. it s what you call a circumstantial case. yes. dennis murphy: the defense attorney concedes he had some difficult circumstances to overcome in this case, beginning with the six hours of missing surveillance camera video from the night nique leili disappeared. clegg insists his client did not erase those files as the prosecution claimed. the video surveillance system was shut off at some point in the morning. matt believes that nique shut it off. he is insistent that he did not shut it off, that the system was shut off by nique. so whatever happened to her, the cameras didn t see it. the cameras did not see it. that is absolutely correct. dennis murphy: as for those audio recordings of the couple s screaming arguments, clegg pointed out that most were recorded in 2008 and 2009, two years before nique died. according to the defense attorney, matt made the recordings with the encouragement of a marria
that he silences her. that he strangles her, he sits on her, he asphyxiates her to where she can t breathe. not meaning to, maybe. oh, i think he meant to. i think he d had it. and i think he knew that she was leaving him, because she had made it clear she was done. raise your right hand, please. dennis murphy: the state s first witness was nique s oldest daughter, alex. they d be arguing, and he would end up locking her in a bathroom. she d been shoved down stairs. there were several nights that i would lay up at night and listen to her say please get off me, get off of me, you re hurting me. dennis murphy: next, nique s sister amy told the jury about the constant monitoring at the leili house. we knew that he would record phone conversations that came into or out of the house. were you aware at anytime whether there were ever gps trackers or tracking devices on any types of the phones or the vehicles at the residence? yes. i i knew that he had trackers on nique s phone and when alex
seemed like he got sick. dennis murphy: matt leili may well have been sick, sick of talking to the cops. because by now he d lawyered up and wasn t answering any of their questions. so you now have probable cause to get a search warrant. correct, correct. do you think man, maybe this is going to help us? maybe these cameras saw and recorded something that tells the story of what s up with nique? that was my hope. we re mainly going for anything in the house that has any sort of memory. be it computers, be it you know, he had a dvr hooked up to his surveillance system. dennis murphy: the detective knew it would take time to review and catalog all of that material. so since the police had found no sign of blood nor any signs of struggle in the house, the detective reviewed the evidence he did have, particularly matt s claim that his wife was bonkers. are any of her family members corroborating this emotional instability issue that s raised by the husband? none whatsoever. this is not a