reporter: in a town with zero degrees of separation, paige birgfeld s disappearance and murder impacted many here. if they didn t know paige personally, then they were in on the search or were a potential witness or knew somebody who was or, in the worse case, they knew one of the possible suspects. so when the trial finally got underway, the town s attention was very much focused on this courtroom. we re on the record, 1432, mr. jones reporter: but the trouble began before a single witness could be called. ron beigler was angry, wound up. the new district attorney dan rubinstein was set to call paige s first husband. he was a key witness, but was afraid he might actually attack jones in the courtroom because beigler had actually threatened to kill him.
Detailed text transcripts for TV channel - MSNBC - 20190617:06:11:15
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Detailed text transcripts for TV channel - MSNBC - 20190617:06:21:30
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he was a key witness, but was afraid he might actually attack jones in the courtroom because beigler had actually threatened to kill him. and indicated that he wanted mr. jones to be found not guilty so that he could kill him and feed him his genitals, although he used a different word than that. reporter: proceedings ground to a sudden halt. beigler was hauled before the judge. if you have any outbursts or you do anything in an attempt to harm anybody in the courtroom, that will result in serious consequences. i think it was overexaggerated. taken out of context. all right. sarcasm may be taken out of context. reporter: chastened, but still insisting it was all a misunderstanding, beigler took the stand and testified about his last day with paige. we talked about me moving into her house in grand junction. we talked about her quitting that business. which business? the adult entertainment business. did you give her reasons why you wanted her to quit? mm-hmm.
you wanna add cause he had to fight that battle constantly for years. oh, i think you hit it hit it right on. reporter: meaning they were ready to pick up jones, but d.a. hautzinger was not. why didn t you decide to pull the pin on lester ralph jones? i didn t have a body. and that was the defining absolutely, that was really i mean, there are lots of no body cases that go to trial. not a lot of no body cases where the victim has a double life and has been lying to her family and friends. because of her double life the possibility that a defense attorney could throw out there that she ran off with some rich client and is living on a beach in brazil or something reporter: and as the years passed, paige s story went from the front of the paper to being filed away on microfiche. where was she? they were about to fipd out, and it would transform the case. now we need to make a critical decision.