way over the line. we did it for the right reasons. the judge determined that the intense scrutiny that brett would likely face during a murder investigation put the children at risk. in late july the girls went back to canada to live with krista, their slain mother s twin and her husband. brad had not been charged with any wasn t even a declared suspect and he fought hard to get his daughters back. afterwards, i thought about it. reporter: which meant three months after nancy s murder sitting for a videotaped deposition, in which brad answered questions under oath about his marriage, his affair and what happened the morning nancy disappeared. so, were police investigators listening? oh, yes, they were. was nancy a good wife? i would say so, yeah. she was supportive of myself and of the children, very loving and generous. reporter: but there were two issues that troubled the cooper s marriage, one was
it s really bad. so, when nancy disappeared, her friends eyes all turned to brad. after all, they knew about the conflict and jessica adam knew nancy was supposed to be at her house at eight a.m. that saturday to pay. when nancy didn t show up, she called the police. i was very concerned. i had seen brad in my house and he was agitated that week. related to the painting. as a marriage gone bad, it s hardly proof of murder. nor was brad s conspicuous absence from her memorial service, nor his apparent lack of interest or cooperation as the police sought in the murder investigation. these were suspicions. but there was no physical evidence linking brad to the crime. the prosecutor would say it was because he cleaned the house. he covered his tracks well. but there it was. what was the best
regarding the laptop evidence. a new trial was ordered. but while awaiting his second trial, cooper pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to approximately 12 to 15 years. and nancy? there s a black granite bench in the cary park the place she once ran, her adopted town s way of remembering. the cooper girls bella and katey are growing up in canada with nancy s twin sister and her husband jim. their cousins were with them the day we came to call. and for the adults, bittersweet. so sad nancy s not here seeing it. absolutely, that s the tough part for me. what do they understand about mother and father? we told them that mother nancy was killed by a bad man,
to earn extra money. when she did, brad reduced her allowance. she must have been furious at him. furious would be an understatement. also tried to help nancy and she is very proud, she would feel guilty. i m not going to take your money. this isn t your job to support me and my kids. nancy began locking important papers including the girl s passports in her car. i went down in february 08 it was awful. i had never seen nancy stressed out before. i never seen her raise her voice in the house. she was just miserable. reporter: miserable. stressed. each day uncertain, a painful struggle, an angry contest. she said, this is just, i think, a game to show me how difficult it s going to be. it s his attempt to force me back into this relationship. reporter: then, as nancy was preparing to move back to canada and with brad s blessing take the girls, one of those moments on which lives can turn,
knew everything she had done. we had the billing to know how much texting she did or didn t do. we knew her friends. the idea the police might have inserted the google map search on brad s computer, they couldn t have, said detective daniels. none of the people that work for me or work in the department would have had the knowledge to go in and do something like that. reporter: the defense charged that police ignored those possible sightings of nancy and mysterious vans for months. the defense was thinking that jury wasn t listening. the police indicated that they followed up with every one of those people. as for john pearson, whose indiscretion with nancy should have made him a suspect, at least according to the defense, he had an alibi. on that friday night, pearson spent the night with heather. very same woman behind brad and nancy s breakup. at the beginning of the case still, as the long trial finally wound down, the defense hammered home its claim that