started with roses and ended in a different shade of red. everything stopped. i was just in shock. we knew that there was somebody bad out there doing something. she was a wife, a mother, a missionary. to me, it sounds like a saint. she probably was. but something had been happening behind closed doors. there is nothing more important to me than you and this relationship. was it love? this was his valentine s day present. or hate? one shot to the head. what was the motive for a valentine s day murder? we had a note that she had written. she was speaking from the grave. that note was powerful. it happened on the least likely day imaginable. a day devoted to love and affection. valentine s day. and it happened to the last people on earth you would expect. a religious family dedicated to god and making the world a better place. we had a break-in. is it going on right now? i don t know. the garage door is open. there is glass from the back do
you will have eyewitness identification, dna, gunshot residue, motive, and they all point to one person. he is sitting right across me. nathan s trial began on july 14th, exactly 17 months after the murder. reporter bo ebenezer covered the trial for nbc s w. ike tv in peoria. or a lot of people anxious for the trial to start? a lot of people were anxious, especially the family. the family wanted to find out what it really happened. jody hughes and jerry brady where the prosecutors who try the case. they said what really happened was a cold blooded execution. ladies and gentlemen burglars commit burglaries. killers execute with a style consistent with what the defendant did. to kill her the moment she walked through the door. the state s theory nathan put his plan into action
testify. at the last-minute, he chose not to. you understand that that is not something that will be ? why did you decide not to take the stand during the trial? i had chosen to testify. prior to trial. but as the state continue to take things out of context, and continue to throw as much much as they could on the wall, hoping that some of it would stick. they had moved beyond what i felt where the facts of the case. i was not going to give them anymore fuel or any more fodder to use. or to misconstrue. but, he wanted to set the record straight with us. insisting that he is innocent. he also wanted to say that the police never looked past him to catch the real intruder in what was a real burglary. the police believe that it was staged. that it just looked to perfect
life. this was just a bad dream that wouldn t? and it kept going on, and on, and on. this just won t and until exactly. nathan is convicted. the trial was big news in town, after all, the defendant was a missionary accused of killing their wife in their home in an upscale neighborhood. things like that just don t happen in peoria. nathan pleaded not guilty. he insisted he would not have done anything to harm his beloved wife. every time there is a difficulty in life, the first person i would talk to would-be denise. and there are several times. there are several times in the first few days after her death, trying to figure out what to do with the children next, i want to grab the phone and call her. she was my support. but need denise was not there to support nathan, because, the state argued, he killed her.
nathan. they made her read out loud another if use of note that nathan center just a month before the murder. i let you down i m sorry, i m not going to make excuses, that would not be fair to you. you deserve someone who respects some un puts a relationship first. for now on i want to do all that i can to be that person. there is nothing more important to me than you in this relationship, i m so blessed to have you in my. life she was in a relationship with nathan and i think that she tried to minimize the relationship. nathan and i know we re making eye contact quite a bit throughout the trial. sometimes when she would not answer a question, or say something that he did not like, he would laugh and throws hands up in the air and disappointment. prosecutor set another piece of evidence that they said proved an affair. a secret that shook the courtroom. it challenged the very core of nathan s defense that denise was at the center of his life, and that he would never hurt her. i