now they needed to put lloyd s timeline under a microscope. police pulled his phone records, and guess what. his cell never left the hotel that night. so far so good. and the story told by the phone meant he couldn t be an hour and a half south in corning as michele was about to die. so police had to consider others in michele s inner circle. and that included the last known person to have seen michele alive. it was someone who d admitted in a phone call with police to fighting with michele that very night. her middle daughter, karrie. when i got there, we were freaking out. she was yelling and then she got quiet. so i waited for her to come out and talk to me. i know you re upset. but if you can take a breath for me so that i can understand what you re saying a little better. yeah. yeah. okay. i m sorry. sure, karrie sounded distraught. but the officer who first took down her account of that night didn t like what he was hearing. he said right away, something s not right.
good. just cautious about how i approach a car. i don t want to startle anybody. the deceased s ex-husband lloyd, resettled in new jersey, had rushed to upstate new york after michele s body was found. now sitting in a police car he seemed eager to talk. how long s michele lived at the residence over on deloitte? do you know? it s about five years. okay. she bought that after we divorced. he told them about his early relationship with michele. we went away to school together. we did everything together. so i never thought like that, like oh, under some circumstance i ll just walk away. when did you guys divorce? we divorced in august 2012. he explained that while the divorce had been finalized years earlier, their custody issues were far from settled. they were still fighting over their youngest daughter. she wanted to live with me. her mom threw a tantrum. lloyd suggested his ex-wife was unstable. an emotional
custody fights. i was at their house and i think lloyd had just served another petition for child custody of the younger child. and she was frustrated. her life was looking very positive and then this came up again. objective appraisal or friends taking sides? either way, they insisted michele wasn t a frazzled, out-of-control single mom. she was making the best of a bad situation. and dealing with an ex who d demeaned her for years. basically, everything she did was criticized. he made her feel she was really ugly. he made her feel that she couldn t make any right decisions. she was a lousy mother. that she couldn t do anything right. so, homicide versus suicide. on the one hand, a nasty divorce may have given michele plenty of reasons to be depressed and want a way out. but it was a police photo of michele s bedroom that caused investigator heard to think otherwise. you can see where her bed
michele neurauter s mother, jeannie, was still dealing with the loss of her elder child. and atop that grief was a long-standing sorrow. estrangement. michele had abruptly stopped talking to her mom ten years before. i missed her. i loved her. i didn t know what was going on. because we d never had a fight. if we d had a fight and hung up on each other, you know, you get over it. but we did not have that fight. jeannie didn t know exactly what had gone on in michele and lloyd s marriage, but she knew she d never liked him. okay, she can do better than this. why is she what does she see in him? looking back, what makes you say that, jeannie? he was arrogant from the beginning. he was always arrogant. he was full of himself. michele s sister agreed. he wanted to be like oh, i m going to put you in your place. did you talk to her about how things were? with her and lloyd. no. or do you just seal that away? i knew is that a no-go topic? that s a no-go topic.
and i m natalie morales. and this is dateline. something wasn t right at her house. i saw a lot of police cars. that woman was a fighter. she would never leave her daughters. she would never do it. michele ran the home. she was very proud about how she was able to make ends meet. lloyd helped with the kids. they re wonderful girls. they re amazing. the end came much too soon. she s motionless. and i m concerned. there appeared to be a body hanging from a banister. from first look it would appear as though it was a suicide. but then they looked closer. it appeared that there was a struggle. my gut was telling me there s something wrong here. did someone want michele dead? was someone else willing to help? at that point we re shell-shocked. a bond forged in blood. did you cry? we called it the lie and cry conversation.