released from jail after being locked up from that parole violation. if holbert was happy, david marshburn was thrilled, because now he could deal with him face to face. just a day after his release, marshburn holed up at the house where holbert was staying. i ve never talked to a killer. have you? i work for dateline. were you worried he would kill you? i didn t fear him because i don t fear anybody. nobody is big or gad enough, it s the man upstairs i m worried about. so it s more like, i want to get this right, i want to solve this. and if you do one thing wrong, it turns to hell. marshburn took a deep breath and knocked on the door. he answered the door. i said, hey, nick, i m david
it was justin f. case. honorable justin f. case. just-in-case. did he believe it? he believed it to a point, but then he threw it back at me after looking at it for five minutes, and he said, no, they ll just take it back. marshburn thought that wasn t exactly the reaction of an innocent man. now he was fully convinced nick holbert had killed kelli, but he needed to get holbert to reveal where he buried her body. how can i get to be his friend? i had to say some crap i just didn t believe, but i had to do it to play the part. marshburn bought holbert countless meals, beers, even hired him to do odd jobs, slowly becoming a bff. or maybe more of a frenemy. but marshburn said he paid a high price as he practically
i didn t know how i was going to get it out of him. by this time police knew about david marshburn s investigation. did you take david marshburn seriously? he wanted to come and befriend nick holbert. what did you think of that? we told him to go for it. he had common sense. we were okay with him trying to befriend him. marshburn is a private eye, not a police officer. unlike a police officer, he could try tactics that were unorthodox. a few months after they met, marshburn told holbert they were ready to cut a deal if he confessed. he even presented holbert with this very attractive plea bargain agreement. it would be manslaughter and he would get three or four years and he would go to a mental hospital. the so-called deal was completely bogus. i put a fake judge on there.
seen with kelli. everything kept coming back to nicholas holbert as the prime suspect. so investigators dug into holbert s background and discovered something rather disturbing. he was a registered sex offender and served time in a penitentiary for that. it certainly was a red flag, the fact that he had a prior sex offense and he is the last person that s seen with kelli. that was very, very concerning to us. the da didn t have any evidence to arrest holbert for kelli s disappearance, but he did discover holbert was violating the terms of his parole. he was a prior sex offender, and he was not registered properly and he was placed in jail. sex offender nicholas right where detectives wanted him. now they could watch holbert, see if he blabbed to a cell mate about what happened to kelli. they also questioned him twice, even took him back to froggy bottoms to jog his memory, but holbert stuck to his same, though sometimes inconsistent story.
just like slams on the brakes, in your life you can t do anything. i honestly didn t think we would ever find her. really? what was going to change? but little did justin know things were about to change. up in fayetteville, private investigator david marshburn had befriended nick holbert, the prime suspect in kelli s disappearance. marshburn was working practically 24/7 to get a confession, chasing every clue holbert dropped. we go talk to him and then we d go out and try and figure it out. we knew we were going on wild goose chases. we had to do it. i mean what else you got? marshburn needed to turn up the heat on holbert and had an idea. nick was always worried law enforcement was watching him. that was his achilles heel? uh-huh. so i knew it was a weakness. which marshburn exploited by