watching them. reporter: surveillance video show dawn with james 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 weaned her back there permanently. so there you are still trying to grieve the loss of ben, at the same time alyssa is being pulled back toward dawn? yeah. i lost both of them, truly. reporter: and, well, while the police were watching dawn, they were selling them that real suspect is melissa. she confidently told you it was melissa that committed this murder? yes. reporter: brandy was hearing that from her mother, dawn, you could see was drinking too much, getting duis, spending more than a few nights in jail. they started getting arrested, dawn and james both. we were finding reasons to take them to jail. reporter: and while they had james, they asked him point blank about the murder of
james is not the type of boy who is going to go out and commit a murder in the hopes that dawn will find had acceptable. he didn t do this as a surprise gift. dawn herself declined our request for an interview. her mom, the retired deputy sheriff, has remained in her corn corner. i know that a lot of people believe that. that it was a blatant conspiracy on her part. but i don t think dawn really wanted ben dead. i don t think dawn was there. hold it all together. all the way along and even now. you got to understand, ben was a good guy. they had their problems. everybody loved him.
their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening. life-threa. welcome back to dateline. i m craig melvin. melissa oxley could now breathe a little easier, while still on their radar, detectives no longer considered her the primary suspect in her husband s ben s shooting death. they shifted their focus to another woman in ben s life, someone they believe held a grudge. investigators were about to bring her in for questioning and the story she would tell would send the case in a stunning new direction. here again is keith morrison with while they were sleeping. if you knew ben, there s no way that you d want him dead. i couldn t think of anybody that would want him dead, you know, besides dawn. reporter: dawn, dawn oxley, ben s ex-wife. alyssa s mother. even as more than a local few
did i kill ben? no. do i know who kill ben? no. did dawn kill ben? no. do i know anything about the murder? no. were you and dawn involved in any way in the planning of the murder of ben? no! i m looking new your eyes. i did not kill him! reporter: but that was it. lots of denials. no real evidence. a year and a half had gone by since the murder. it was the summer of 2009. on to our cold case territory. getting there. reporter: then one afternoon, as detective elgis was recovering from a night on the graveyard shift, his cell phone rang. it was dawn oxley. she said she couldn t take it anymore. she wanted to talk. reporter: what were you thinking on the way to see her? it s about time. reporter: the detective drove over to dawn s house. she was inebriateded. i didn t hurt him.
us up saying we don t have any food in the house, can you come and bring us food, there s a problem. reporter: and so when dawn and ben went to court to fight for custody of alyssa, cindy had to tell the truth. i told the judge that dawn wasn t taking care of her kids anymore. they weren t a priority. they weren t a prior or the. they weren t even number five. reporter: when ben won custody of alyssa and more than $200 a month in child support, dawn was devastated. this is her mother sherry rosten a retired deputy sheriff. she would sit in the garage and just bawl about not about not getting her day in court. reporter: this was eating her alive. yeah. it was really taking its toll on her. reporter: dawn started drinking heavily. her teenage son devin watched his mother fall apart. she started to lose jobs. it s like all hell broke loose in her head. reporter: but murder?