i will do this to to free our dad of these accusations. reporter: on a beautiful blue sky day, the remains of elizabeth ratliff were exhumed from their resting place in texas. ratliff s bodies reporter: julia sims, of nbc s raleigh-durham affiliate, wral-tv, has been covering the story since the beginning. and the bells started tolling right as they started pulling that casket out of the the ground. hmm. a lot of people were very antsy about that, about what they were gonna find. reporter: her body was driven to north carolina where it would be studied by the same medical examiner who d ruled kathleen peterson s death a homicide. there was a risk here wasn t there? if you opened that coffin and found that the authorities in germany had been correct in ruling it a death by natural causes. we just decided that it needed to be done. roll the dice, basically. exactly. reporter: the detective peered through a morgue window as the top was pried off elizabeth rat
hard to use the crank to get the casket to open. once it was raised you could see part of elizabeth ratliff s face and hair. it was remarkable. reporter: they were stunned. the body was practically intact. her fingernail polish was still on. her dress was still perfectly in place. reporter: the m.e. took a closer look at the injuries to elizabeth s head. she was finding lacerations, deep gouges in the scalp. seven of them. seven lacerations. you could black: it was amazing count them. it was uncanny. the lacerations were very similar to the ones that had been perpetrated upon kathleen peterson. and in her findings, she made a decision that ms. ratliff had been had been murdered. reporter: investigators thought they d hit pay dirt. in death, they thought kathleen peterson and elizabeth ratliff could have been twins. i m just thinking that, that my case is getting a whole lot better. reporter:
again, i didn t start it. but i finished it, as i always do. the other inmate involved in the fight is kevin russell. have a seat in that gray chair. both men are taken to the infirmary for examination. how are you feeling, man? are you all right? talk it over, man. you don t hit females! obviously you heard him say that about hitting the girl. any truth to that or is he just making up stuff? no. me and my old lady got in a little scuffle. i held her back from hitting me and that s what that s all about. after the investigation and another hearing, ratliff and russell both get 30 days in disciplinary segregation. 30 days. it will be 80 days i ve done this whole entire trip. that s more than half my time i ve been here. so do you see a pattern developing here, david? i got an anger problem, i guess.
each fight i have been in, i have not started it. walker, daniel, i m back! as ratliff begins his next 30 days in segregation, jail officials allow us to leave him a digital camera to record his thoughts. what s up? i swear, they hand out 30 days like [ bleep ]. 30 days. i don t care. i don t care what anyone says or how hard or how tough man i m [ bleep ] telling you it hurts. i m telling you, man. these walls start to talk to you in your [ bleep ] mind, man. god put me in here for a reason, you know. shape me up. drove him to craziness.
direction. it s a crazy story. i know it can touch some people and help some people. i think he s proud of me for doing it. my concern was that i would have some of his cell mates in the program and i didn t want them to go back and harass him in any way, shape or form. but this is what i do. stop getting locked up and it won t be an issue. still awaiting trial on unrelated charges of leaving the scene of an accident in which his passenger was badly injured and criminal sexual conduct for his alleged involvement with an underage girl, ratliff has had problems both innd out of jail. he says everything went wrong three years earlier after his father went on a spree of violence. he murdered missy s mother, shot and wounded missy, and then took his own life. this right here is my mom and dad in florida. what do you think when you look at that picture of your parents, happy together? only good things, you know. the good days, when everyone got along and that s a great picture of m