understand. you didn t know what we could get into court. you couldn t figure it out because it was a miss. had to try to do the analysis on it. that s what took so long. an awful lot of detective work amounts to a lot of reading. all were followed up. detective chased down a 2001 walmart receipt, minor forgettable purchase except the time stamp on the receipt cast serious doubt on phil bar s all a all . he overheard them talking about killing this girl. he heard david mcman say we shouldn t have done that girl that way. if i don t get out of town, i m going to spend the rest of my life in jail. phillip said something similar.
reporter: one witness testified about overhearing a conversation between barr and mcmannis. phillip barr was saying to david mcmannis, i didn t want to kill her. and she overheard david mcmannis respond, she had to die. reporter: not very believable, said the defense attorneys. just people making things up, said barr s lawyer, mark de sisto. we contended that those conversations never took place. reporter: some of those witnesses were inmates, too, snitches. i never met a confidential informant that s gonna inform just cause he wants to be a nice guy or a good citizen. there s always something in it for him. reporter: that woman, the star witness found by the cold case team who said she saw the two men coming and going from tara s house could it be she made herself believe this over so much of a time to make sure the bad guy goes away? reporter: dave mcmannis attorney, michael bross, said his view those detectives focused on the wrong man.
scribe. he organized it in in such a way that it was easier to understand. what had been difficult to understand? it was confusing to the point where you didn t know what we were gonna be able to get into court. the context was in there. you couldn t figure it out because it was a mess. the majority of it was in there, yes. we had to try to do the analysis on it, and that s what took so long. reporter: an awful lot of detective work amounts to reading. thousands of pages of reports and witness statements, and this and that all were followed up, everyone of them. detective mehl chased down a 2001 walmart receipt, a minor, forgettable purchase, except that the time stamp on the receipt cast doubt on philip barr s alibi didn t exactly wreck it, but it caught him in a significant lie. that s how detailed we were getting. reporter: and then they just happened to run into a guy who said he knew barr and mcmannis and peewee. and he overheard them talking about killing this