prescription drugs. was she employing you in that business? i was driving, yes. dawn was released from prison in march of 2014. but not to be the mother of alyses a. the judge terminated her parental rights. both alyssa and brandy went to live with melissa who offered them a kind of family life that they didn t know with their biological mom. it was a family. that s what i need. one more thing to do. in 2011, after pleading guilty to murder. is there redemption for a person like you? i don t know. i don t expect anybody that i hurt to forgive me for what i ve done. you re talking to them, right? basically talking to melissa.
what a happy couple they were. a happy family. for her to be my wife is a blessing. that s what you wait for all your life. reporter: what were your plans? to buy a house and to have babies and have a family. reporter: they eventually moved here, a three bedroom ranch in the carson valley looking up towards the sierra nevadas. alyssa spent half her time with ben and melissa. the other time with her birth mom, ben s ex-wife, dawn. but above all, what ben really wanted was to have his little girl permanently. he never thought that he could have his daughter. i was like yeah, you can. you could. reporter: and he did. he won custody. it was him and his daughter and that s what he always wanted. reporter: and then the little household grew. melissa s teenage brother craig moved in. and then winter came. and the wind. and on february 20th, 2008, the moon rose full over the carson
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. 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: is that really all she knew? dawn 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. not yet anyway. coming up, the question haunting this whole case. what s our evidence?
the eyes of the police. because nobody including the public, including the family has had any idea why this would happen. they re all grasping at straws to trying out is this possible, is that possible? reporter: ben s sister was certain that melissa arranged ben s murder and wasn t afraid to make it known around town. she had a following of all these people. it s always the wife, you know? reporter: so did that mean little alyssa just 6 years old so vulnerable was living with a murderer? alyssa began to spend more time at her mother dawn s house and one day while she was there, ben s sister warned her about the stepmom she had come to love. she told me that she thought my stepmom killed my dad that night. reporter: must have been pretty weird to hear that> yeah. i didn t believe it. reporter: you didn t believe it at all?
i started thinking why am i here? something i heard to my left reporter: a sudden noise? yeah. and as i turned and jerked to see what it was, i pulled the trigger. reporter: he ran then, he said, left the front door wide open. caught up with dawn in the truck. reporter: who drove? she did. i started yelling at her when we got in the truck. reporter: the truth, said james matlean, all of it. dawn knows the truth and i know the truth. and that s all that matters. i take full responsibility for what i did. dawn needs to take full responsibility for what she did. coming up, was ben the only one who was in danger that night? reporter: what was it like to hear that? unreal. reporter: one more revelation still to come.