reporter: defense team bob norgard and cheney mason were relentless in their cross-examinations of witnesses, starting with the investigators who gathered evidence. 12 bullet casings, for instance, told them nothing about who loaded the guns. with respect to the casings, no fingerprint evidence linking those casings to mr. serrano? that s right. reporter: no serrano fingerprints found anywhere around the crime scene. not a single fingerprint was linked to mr. serrano in that building, isn t that true? none of the fingerprints were linked to him. reporter: the dusty shoeprint seemed to be serrano s shoe size. can you tell me how many shoes there are that match no, i cannot. 2 million, 10 million, 100 million? do you know? i really don t know. this is all part of a circumstantial case. you have to believe each link in the chain to get him to make that footprint in the chair. what is the theory here? there are three men in there, 200-plus pounds each. excuse me
reporter: the prosecutor introduced the gruesome crime scene photos, bullet casings and bodies that accompanied the story that he told the jury about a one-time business partner s homicidal revenge, the bitter loser in a fight for control of the company. and when jurors went to tour the murder scene itself, the prosecution explained its theory of why that ceiling tile had been moved and why there was a dusty footprint on the chair beneath. employees testified that serrano, a gun enthusiast, kept handguns in his office and may have stashed at least one away in the dropped ceiling. same day you see him getting something out of the ceiling is the day you see the gun? yes. reporter: behind the tile, likely prosecutors say where he kept the .32, one of the two guns used that night. there was only one person that we heard about that would have an interest in that ceiling tile and that s the guy that maybe left a gun up there that he don t want the cops to find. reporter: and as f
conceding under defense questioning that the print could have been planted. i had my reservations about it. it made me second guess it. if it s forged, does the case fall apart? that would be the one that the defense was knocked out of the park. and here is this very well-credentialed expert telling you, i don t know. i ve got reservations about it. that would have been strong evidence that he was not in florida. reporter: after seven weeks of trial, serrano s very life hung in the balance. the jurors, still unsure themselves at the end of testimony what side they d come down on. a show of hands question. when the defense sat down in their closing argument to you, how many of you were right on the line and didn t know where you were going to vote? show of hands. this was innocent until proven guilty still until that moment? yes. when we return, the tension in the courtroom as the jury hands in its verdict. all rise, please. when unfinished business when unfinis
the detective s superiors told him to forget about it. so their answer to you was close but no cigar? forget about this one. get on another case. when somebody tells you forget about a case, is that an order that sticks? not really, especially in this case. reporter: but orders were orders and ray got new ones. a re-assignment to miami. but luck followed the detective to miami where a chance meeting with an ecuadorian colonel soon changed everything. ray asked the colonel to convince his government to extradite serrano, and told him why he wanted him back so badly. after he saw the violence and, you know, what nelson serrano had committed, he said, we ll work it out. we ll get him out of ecuador. we ll get him out of ecuador. reporter: and that s just what tommy ray did, with the full cooperation of ecuadorian authorities. when officials there discovered serrano had actually been a u.s. citizen for years, they deported him to america in the custody of detective ray.
and when the fingerprint expert at the state crime lab started processing that 3-year-old parking receipt, a wondrous thing happened for tommy ray s blossoming theory of the case. lynn called up and said, tommy, i ve got some fantastic news. the fantastic news was that we had prints of nelson serrano. reporter: the fingerprint proves that serrano was in florida on december 3rd, 1997, just an hour and a half drive away from erie manufacturing. not in a hotel room in atlanta nursing a migraine. i knew at that point, that was more than enough for an arrest and an indictment against nelson serrano. reporter: and in may 2002, almost 4 1/2 years after the murders, tommy ray finally got his indictment, four counts of first-degree murder against nelson serrano. but there s a problem. you can t arrest him, right? nelson fled to ecuador. reporter: federal officials said the chances of extraditing serrano, an ecuadorian national, would be slim to none.