lisa s dad, a sheriff s deputy, it was no mystery. he was sure he knew who the killer was. go get him. go get him now. a neighbor with a gun and a grudge. i thought, they better get to him before i do. but some said this couple was having trouble. that seth had a secret. did he tell you, she sent me some topless pictures ? yes. others said the real murderer was someone else, right under cops noses. here s a legitimate suspect that should have been investigated. a case unfolding on camera. one that would test three juries. shatter two families. it s just like somebody hit me in the stomach. and one final twist. that was her biggest secret. the cornfields of iowa. are
are acts of terrorism and, you know, kind of a bell goes off like, terrorism s kind of a weird word to use. and the whole time half the time, i guess, he s sitting there. he s i notice a shotgun laying on the ground. i m like going, that makes me feel a little does that make you feel a little twitchy? yeah, yeah. exactly. so twitchy that todd sent a heads-up e-mail warning fellow deputies about tate. that he might be dangerous. i m thinking, i don t want to be the reason a deputy goes out there and gets hurt. okay, if you go out there, be careful. tate might be 1096, which means mentally, you know, challenged. in fact, tate did have a history of mental illness. he d been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. seth s mother lorraine, a social worker used to dealing with mental patients, was worried and talked to both seth and lisa about their neighbor. she was terrified. this was when things were escalating. they thought that they could, handle whatever. but they were
todd, rachel, huh? actually, i m maybe not the most popular view. i blame her for what part she had to play with seth, but i think she s kinda been a victim as well. he s manic, he s up all the time. the defense offered the jury the same bogeyman as before. the defense went even harder at brian tate than they had the first time around. he could quickly become volatile and agitated. this time, the defense, over strenuous prosecution objections, got tate s psychiatrist to testify. he d treated him near the end of his life in a hospital mental health unit. when you first saw him did you find him to be paranoid delusional? yes, sir. and was there a general topic of delusion of which he was paranoid? he seemed to make reference that there were some governmental conspiracies affecting him. after three-weeks of trial, a second jury had seth techel s
finger at his young neighbor. i can t remember names. seth, seth techel. seth techel? yup. torkel? techel. techel. yeah, his dad owns champion bowl. okay. and i ll tell i just they re good people. they really are. now this guy, brian tate, does he know that you re the father-in-law of the neighbor? no, and i don t want to tell him that because i don t want that to affect maybe what he does or doesn t do. and he thinks that s the source of his trouble? right. those people over in the trailer property across the way? yeah. well, if you can, let us deal with it. what if what if what if i m the one who s gotta catch him? brian tate told todd that dog feces and rocks had been hurled at his home. he then showed todd the evidence. he described the vandalism of his home in stark terms. he says that he thinks these
he grabbed his handgun from the nightstand by the bed. i run down the hallway and i will be honest, i had every intention of shooting whoever it was. i don t see anybody. i don t hear nothing. i run back inside. i run into the bedroom. and i said, lisa, lisa, are you okay? and she s not breathing. during the interview, seth sometimes seemed overcome by emotion. i couldn t do it. i couldn t [bleep] protect her when i m ten feet away from her. why can t they still be alive? why? why? why couldn t i have done something to protect the woman that i loved? the agent asked seth what he thought had happened. let s go with your theory here that was an intruder, right? i mean, is that fair to call that s the only thing i can think of. what do you think this person s intent was? i don t know. you d have to be a complete [bleep] to walk into somebody s house and shoot them.