they saw a woman they believed was nancy running and it was proof, the defense says, that she was alive that morning. she was about 5 9 , good shape. this witness said she reported her sighting to the police after she saw nancy s missing poster. how is it that the next day when you saw the flyer, you believed it was her? because she was so close to me and she had an elongated face. that s what drew my attention. she wasn t the only one. this man said he got a 30-second look at her as he was driving to work. i saw a lady jogging on the right-hand side of the road. jogging towards the bridge. but did the police follow up? not for a long time, said these witnesses. they ignored everybody that believed they saw nancy for three months. same with those suspicious vans, said the defense. it was clear that the police had focused on brad to the
we think she came home from this party and said some things in front of him that might have upset him a little bit and he choked her. killed her then, their theory goes, put her body in the trunk of his car, drove to that drainage ditch, returned home to manufacture an alibi. why? she started with the shredded marriage, brad s affair, cutting off nancy financially, stopping her move back to canada. she was, testified nancy s friends, increasingly desperate. she said, jennifer, he s breaking me. she said i don t know how much i have left to fight. she told me when she slept at night she slept with her jeans on and the keys in her pocket with the children and the door locked. he never beat her. it wasn t physical, said the prosecutors, but he used financial power to exert absolute control. this, they said, was a form of domestic violence. she was in this abrasive, rough relationship at that point. he trapped her. he
the kids fell asleep about 9:00. i probably fell asleep soon after. reporter: he was awakened briefly about 12:30 when nancy came home. when she opened the front door and i heard her come up the stairs. reporter: he was awakened at 4:00 a.m. by katie s crying, took her downstairs followed by nancy about 20 minutes later. nancy and i tag teamed off and on, trying to keep her occupied, calm her down. reporter: he said he made two trips to the store that morning. on the the second trip nancy called him he said. he remembers being at an intersection when the call came in. do you know what time that would have been? i think looking at the cell phone records i think it said it came in at 6:40 a.m. reporter: when he came back from the store the second time, katie had calmed down, he said, and nancy told brad she s going for a run. i took katie upstairs, went in front of my computer, read some e-mails with katie in my lap. reporter: and then, around 7:00, he said, nancy l
she was missing, they were gripped by something dark and cold. gary said to me, donna, this story is not going to have a happy. reporter: by afternoon the cary police were involved. all i was told on the phone it was a missing persons. reporter: when detective george daniels arrived nancy s neighborhood was already filling up with a small army of her panicked friends. nancy s friends, husband brad made a public plea for help. anyone that knows anything, i just want them to contact the police with any information they may have. again, thank you to everyone that continues to come out and help out. sir, do you have a flyer? reporter: volunteers chased up and down the running trails where she loved to train, she combed the surrounding parks and lakes and since she and brad moved down from. when she walked into a room,
me he had had an affair. so daniels tucked that tidbit away and went on for the search for nancy. but after her body was found, things were different,. the cooper house became a crime police in and out, turning the place upside down, and daniels kept his ears open. because among nancy s friends and family, people were certainly talking. we re getting all this information and we re having to separate what s important versus what s just part of a marriage. brad remember told detective daniels he and nancy were getting past the tension that his affair had caused. that wasn t quite the story he was hearing from nancy s family and friends. she felt very trapped and she didn t know what she was going to you. the marriage, it turned out, had been rocky from the start. brad seemed more married to his job than nancy. then in the spring of 2007, nancy s close friend heather told her she slept with brad. nancy confronted her husband. she just wanted the truth so