the verdicts: guilty. both men were sentenced to life in prison without parole. mcmannis has filed an appeal. barr lost his. i think everybody would agree that but for sharon, neither trial would ve taken place. she fought and fought and fought for justice. reporter: tara s little sister veronica has two children of her own now. they know their aunt tara. and they have necklaces with her pictures on it. and my daughter, you would think that she had met her. she dreams about her. never met her, but they love her. that warms my heart. reporter: a few weeks after the trials were over, the prosecutors, detectives and their spouses got together for dinner with sharon, keith and veronica. detective mehl made a presentation.
this, you know? you just hope and pray everyday that she s alive. but it was her. it was tara. enough of the teeth were there to to make a positive identification that it was tara. reporter: by then, sharon and keith were at home, waiting for the results. detective gandy went to tell them. that s never easy, huh? hardest thing you ever have to do. and then when they come to your door with clergy reporter: you see them coming? yeah. then the reality is that s it, you re never gonna see her again. it s so devastating. it s the worst pain ever. she didn t belong out there. reporter: 284 days after tara vanished, they knew, finally, she was never coming back.
reporter: how to explain how a mother feels when her child has vanished and all signs point to something bad? keith, what did this do to her? tore her apart. it s just like watching everything crumble. reporter: though the family appeared to be very close and loving and sincerely distraught, investigators believed they still needed to be looked at as possible suspects. you know it s a cool reality though of the detective business that they start close and widen out, and they always start with members of the family to eliminate them right. reporter: and it winds up tragically and horribly often being somebody very close to them. i actually asked them myself, did you check us out? reporter: what d they say? they said they did. they said, oh, don t worry. we did. reporter: meanwhile sharon and keith pushed through their fear and anxiety and did what they could.
reporter: and, he said, she was perfectly fine when he left the house early that afternoon. so, assuming that was true, who else came to that little house on the afternoon of october 1st and took away their tara? coming up something needed to happen. a frustrated family reaches out to someone new. if you met sharon, you wouldn t tell her no. i looked her in the eye and i told them i would do everything i possibly could to try to help them. a turn in the case was coming. when dateline continues.
i looked her in the eye. i looked keith in the eye, and i told them i would do everything i possibly could to try to help them. reporter: you know, you would ve been perfectly within your rights to look at them and say, look, i m sorry, but that s not what i do. if you met sharon, you wouldn t tell her no. reporter: wow. did they want you to sue somebody or just get information or what? i don t think that their goal was to sue anyone. i think their goal was to find tara. repor a man traveling on a desolate road on the outskirts of punta gorda, pulled over for a pit stop, walked into the woods and saw, not a girl, bones. we actually sat on the steps of the crime scene van while they were out there reporter: out there at the scene? yes, we did. you want to find her. but not like this. you don t want it to be like