worried because they think we re watching them. surveillance photos show dawn with james matlian and her two daughters, brandy, her 13-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and alyssa, 7 by this time. that s right. a year into the investigation, little alyssa was back with her biological mom who had then the courts slowly weaned her back there permanently. so there you are still trying to grieve the loss of ben at the same time as alyssa is being pulled back toward dawn. yeah, i lost both of them truly. reporter: and while the police were watching dawn, dawn was telling her children including brandy that the real suspect was melissa. she confidently told you it was melissa who committed this murder? yes. reporter: brandy was hearing that from her mother, dawn, who she could see was drinking too much, getting duis, spending more than a few nights in jail. they started getting arrested, dawn and james both.
but she had quite a story to tell about james. about how he offered to murder ben. the night ben died, he said now or never. and i said no. i said not today. don t do it. no. i said no. i said no. no, no, no, no. reporter: hours later, she said, james woke her up from a sound sleep and told her ben was dead. but that, she said, is all he told her. all she knew. so you re confident that james had something to do with it? i don t know. reporter: but was that really all she knew? dawn, remember, had a 16-year-old son named devin, who detectives learned was at home and listening in the hours before ben oxley was murdered. so if anyone could confirm dawn s version of events, surely it would be devin. but he wasn t talking.
yada, yada, and james said, i ll go out and kill him right now. you just say the word i ll kill him. she was like a broken record. i want him dead. i want him dead. sound like a woman who was shocked when the murder happened? but there was more. it was after that when james matlean told his attorney ken stover it was time to tell the whole story. i could tell he was telling the truth. over the course of 15 months he s always told the same story. reporter: so now comes another story. james s story. not a love story this time. nobody could believe that i would do what i did. i had never been a violent person. reporter: james matlean did not have an easy start in life. by the time he was a teenager, he was drinking, doing drugs, stealing things. i had pretty much given up any hope on continuing successfully in life. reporter: dawn, after her marriage to ben, befriended james.
that sometimes you need the help of one of the people involved to get the main person. reporter: and so dawn oxley was offered a limited immunity agreement, cooperate with the prosecution, testify truthfully against james and you won t be prosecuted. a sort of get out of jail free card. why go ahead and make that deal with her so soon? you had her statement. why not hold off for a while and be patient and then get them both? let s say we don t do the deal with her and we go out and arrest him. what s our evidence? reporter: dawn signed the agreement and james matlean was charged with first-degree murder. but the end of the story? oh, no, not even close. the truth had been hiding but it was itching to come out. young devin, remember him? dawn s son? devin finally decided it was time to reveal what he overheard the night of the murder. my mom was like, i want ben to die. i just want him dead.
being grilled by detectives. 2-21-08. reporter: detective elgis had questions. lots of them. so many things about this murder didn t make sense. you were right there? the other thing i don t understand is why somebody shoots him and you don t see anything. i don t know. i honestly don t know. reporter: maybe it was the man ben warned her about, she said, a rough customer who once dated ben s ex-wife dawn and apparently threatened to kill both dawn and any man she had been with. was the story true? just to be true, detective elgis sent officers to dawn s house where they woke her up, sleepy but unharmed, and discovered the man in question was hundreds of miles away when the murder happened. so again, the questions were for melissa. sometimes people know more than they want to tell the sheriff. and i really need it all. i honestly don t know. i don t know.