reporter: we means veronica ord, then almost 14 years old, and her younger brother, paul. and i remember halfway down the road, remembering that i forget my key. but the closer we got to the house, i had seen my sister s car. so i said, oh, okay, cool. you know, i don t i don t need the key. you know, she s home. reporter: then she noticed the door wasn t quite closed. it was closed, but it wasn t latched. like you could just pull on it and the door would open. i remember walking in and oprah was on the tv. what did you assume when you saw the door open and the tv on? i thought maybe she left in a hurry. maybe she went with a friend, you know, and she just didn t close the door all the way. reporter: she was tara, veronica s older sister, not quite 20 then. veronica called out. no answer. she walked through the house, bathroom light was on. i went and looked in the bathroom and then i went in our bedroom and i d seen her purse and everything on top of her
the grand jury indicted both phil barr and dave mcmannis for tara s murder. they were arrested in late 2012, 11 years after tara vanished from her home. dave mcmannis was arrested in maryland, where he grew up, while u.s. marshals mounted a manhunt for phil barr. kinda lost track of him. we were actually then able to to locate phil in the vermont area, very close to the canadian border, where we think he had fled with the intent possibly of of leaving the country. reporter: but the case against the men needed more, and so the cold case team kept investigating. and in 2014, one of them came across a name buried deep in an old file. right after tara disappeared, a next door neighbor told investigators she saw barr and another man at tara s house that day, but she couldn t see much because her view was blocked by
somebody gave it to him. told him that he received that jewelry from phil barr, and phil barr told him it came from the missing girl s home. reporter: phil barr? he was the owner of the septic repair business that had been at tara s house the day she went missing. but, was pee wee telling the truth? would he ever tell the truth? he told multiple different stories. what did he say? he said a little more each time he was interviewed and he would change his story to where to the point where it made him an uncredible witness. he admitted that he had seen the body at some point. it was a little interesting in that that particular area, tara s bones were recovered was within a couple hundred yards of one of peewee s favorite fishing spots. isn t that your connection? that it was a great connection, but mr. saint john was a very incredible witness. reporter: that story about getting stolen jewelry from phil barr? no jewelry from tara s home
and that was, kind of how important was that in the extremely important. she she identified david mcmannis as being at the house with barr. she identified him there at a time when the pickup truck was backed up to the front door. what other reason was that pickup truck backed up the front door other than to take tara out of that house? reporter: we went out to the house to get a better idea of where this woman was sitting and what she could have seen. so, she s sitting right here. wow. so that s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, 10, like maybe a dozen steps away where this truck is parked. yes. so, that s close, yeah. it s very close. huh. so if if the back of truck, it would ve been, how how far from the door? like, right up to the door like that? that s correct. and and in this general area, on the outside track, tire track, was found the hair ribbons. way out here? right out here. okay. so suggesting that they put her in the back
two men coming and going from tara s house could it be she made herself believe this over so much of a time to make sure the bad guy goes away? reporter: dave mcmannis attorney, michael bross, said his view those detectives focused on the wrong man. said phil barr s accomplice must have been peewee st. john, the man who d turned in jewelry three days after tara went missing. there s enough circumstantial evidence to believe that he was involved if not in the murder, but definitely in the complicity to cover it up. reporter: the only thing that dave mcmannis was guilty of, said bross was being a sarcastic guy. the majority of the statements that were made were sarcasm at best. so if he s guilty it s a claim. yeah. and that s kind of an easy out for saying terrible things, isn t it? well, it was inappropriate statements, if said at all. david is known to be a jokester and sarcastic. even during the course of the trial, he would say things that were sarcastic. reporte