explanation. just two words. words cal harris and his children had waited 15 years to hear. not guilty. when he came back with a not guilty, i was shocked. i was truly shocked. reporter: shocked. overjoyed. and saddened by what he had lost. best years of my life as a parent. i ll never get those years back. reporter: he will also never stand trial for his wife s murder again. exonerated now. and free finally to speak his mind about his terrible 15-year ordeal. from my standpoint personally, i think one of the greatest hypocrisies in our country is our criminal justice system. there is nothing fair about it. reporter: cal did something more than speak out. they filed a sweeping 26-page federal
reporter: i can t imagine. opening presents, playing with the new things you get. reporter: i can t think of a a more ideal place to have christmas. did it feel like that at the time? yeah. reporter: it was here in this patch of paradise, said cal, that he woke up one morning, years ago, to find that his wife michelle wasn t home. she had gone to work the evening before and didn t come back. mary harris is cal s aunt. she didn t know where she was and didn t know what had happened. reporter: woke up and she wasn t there? and honestly he didn t it wasn t something he seemed comfortable talking about a lot. i think it was very emotional for him. reporter: she was gone. gone without warning. her friends distraught. called her cell phone. they called her cheery cell
reporter: cal opened up his house to them. he said look wherever you want. i want it know what happened. that morning, the investigator knew that she had a missing person case on our hands. we thought it would resolve itself speedily. we kept hoping as everyone did that michelle would call her house or call one of her friends and show up. reporter: cal said his aunt mary was completely focused on his four children and had to leave it to others to search for michelle. his thing was, okay, it s time for them to go to school and now it s time for me to pick them up. i have to be sure it is the routine that is normal for them, we will keep them in their routine. reporter: but where was their mother? there was a clue and it didn t look good. michelle s van had been left at the foot of the long driveway leading up to her house out here on that big country lot and the keys were still in the ignition. but where was she?
gary taylor is her dad. he won some dealership thing and they went to switzerland, i think. wow. i mean, there was a lot of perks he hadn t had before. reporter: in august 1990, michelle and cal got married here beside empire lake. a great day. a beautiful setting and very relaxing. not very stressful. just kind of it being a big party afterwards. reporter: the fairy tale rolled on. kids kept coming. they built a house on empire lake and here on their private preserve they were a family in motion. fishing, swimming. skating. michelle and all of it. the kids, of course, grew older. taylor is the oldest. followed by kayla and jenna and tanner. their mom? about her, they have no real memories. been a long time. reporter: it s true. most of your lives. and how old were you? i m not sure how old i was
onto the garage floor, because there is an area three feet by six feet where blood was found. reporter: then, said the prosecutor, cal tried to clean up before he disposed of the body. he then would have taken the car back down to the end of the driveway, walked back up to the house and disposed of the body during the seven hours or thereabouts before he called mrs. thayer. reporter: the defense attorneys tried to swat it all down and cal harris, himself, was adamant he had nothing to do with his wife s disappearance. it s one thing to say, look, i m innocent, i didn t do this but another thing to have so many people accusing you and pointing the finger at you. look. i m not guilty. i didn t do this. i didn t commit this crime. reporter: there was no body, no murder weapon and the defense said the forensics were unconvincing at best but the jurors weren t having it. june