reporter: the piano movers were suspicious. their work order said they were supposed to make a pickup at this house in west omaha on tuesday morning, may 14th, 2013, but no one was home. but when they went to the front door, they observed that the front security door was open slightly. and one of the movers noted a stainless steel handgun magazine lying in the doorway. and they felt that that was of some concern since they weren t getting any answer from the residents to contact 911. reporter: when detective mois and his partner stepped inside they found the body of an older man on the floor. the victim had multiple gunshot wounds and a deep stab wound to the right side of his neck. off to the left you could see the female victim lying in the living room, a large area of blood. it was very clear that there had been a struggle there from all of the blood that was apparent and where it was located on the walls and so forth.
reporter: in the end, the private eye found nothing that the detectives hadn t already studied and discounted. a year after the murders in dundee, the case went cold and most of the detectives moved on to other things. but for the families of shirlee sherman and tom hunter, there could be no moving on. how d you see your dad change? it wasn t like he was depressed all the time or he was himself. it just, there was obviously something kind of, like, you can always see behind someone s eyes that there s something there troubling them. and i think we all had that. reporter: five dreadful anniversaries came and went. the dead were still inexplicably dead, and the case was still unsolved. but through it all, the detective says he stayed in touch with the hunter and sherman families. you kind of hear their frustrations when they call, and they want updates. and they want to be kind of kept in the loop. but, you know, as investigators, you kind of you can t give
that night on, the word housekeeper has been used as shorthand for shirlee as if her job defined her. they re always calling her the housekeeper, and it s she was only there for a couple hours every couple weeks or a week, you know. reporter: to her brothers dan and brad, shirlee was big sis. the family glue after their parents divorced when they were young. she was the one that organized everything. she would call you before somebody s birthday and she would say you know it someone s birthday thursday, or she would get everybody to go in on gifts or she would help with the shopping and that aspect of it is you just don t realize it until it s gone. reporter: for shirlee s children, kelly and jeff, she was the single mom who often worked two jobs and stretched every dollar to make ends meet. we were one of the poorest families in the neighborhood. my mom worked bartending in the evening, cleaned houses during the day. gardening was her specialty. what d she grow?
after garcia was dismissed from creighton. it got him his next job, which he got a month after two months after he left creighton. reporter: for his part anthony garcia seemed bored by it all. cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom, but if they had been, they would have shown what jurors saw anthony garcia napping. he slept quite a bit during the trial. i d say half the trial. you know, and how do you think that that plays off to a jury? reporter: the 2008 case of tom hunter and shirlee sherman was the most straightforward for the defense. there is no direct evidence against my client. there is no smoking gun. there is no dna. it s all pieces and they are trying to put together this puzzle. reporter: on the stand, none of the prosecution s eyewitnesses could i.d. anthony garcia as the man they d seen eight years earlier. as for the silver honda crv, the defense pointed out that not one of them ever mentioned the big spare tire that was on the back of garcia s car
that he was anywhere other than there. reporter: which is not an ironclad alibi, but it s not bad. it s not bad. and sometimes that s just the reality of our work. reporter: that seemed to be the end of the line. dr. belenky had been the investigators last best lead. unwilling to see the case go cold, shirlee sherman s family pooled their money and offered a reward. there were a number of contributions. i think there were some other people contributing as well. reporter: which made it how big? $50,000. reporter: so it was $50,000 in all counting everybody s contributions? yeah. we actually wanted it at $100,000. but they wouldn t allow that cause they thought it would be a bounty, which it was, in my opinion. reporter: when the reward failed to produce a break in the case, they hired a private investigator. part of the motivation of doing that was, we re going to send a signal. we re not going to let it cold case. reporter: you saw it becoming a cold case? wel