i d ever seen. reporter: the idea worked. 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 a fence.
and she overheard david mcmannis respond, she had to die. reporter: not very believable, said the defense attorneys. just people making things up, said barr s lawyer we contended that those conversations never took place. snitches.er: some of those i never met a confidential informant that s gonna inform just cause he wants to be a nice guy or a good citizen. there s always something in it for him. reporter: that woman, the star witness found by the cold case team, who said she saw the 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 s 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
case that could be solved. if it had a new set of eyes, it had somebody that could put the case together, connect all of the dots. what requests did you make of them? we wanted to know more about every piece of evidence, every we have to rule out every piece of dna in that house. so it was closing doors, it was excluding other people. reporter: so, that s what these three did, as a large photo of tara kept watch. but, again, there was no dna to help them. all they had really were lingering suspicions about the workmen who went to tara s house the day she vanished. phil barr, the guy who owned the septic tank business, his helper that day, dave mcmannis, and their buddy peewee st. john, but nothing in this huge trove of investigative material proved anything. kurt, we call him the scribe. he organized it in in such a way that it was easier to understand. what had been difficult to understand? it was confusing to the point where you didn t know what we
so it was closing doors, it was excluding other people. reporter: so, that s what these three did, as a large photo of tara kept watch. but, again, there was no dna to help them. all they had really were lingering suspicions about the workmen who went to tara s house the day she vanished. phil barr, the guy who owned the septic tank business, his helper that day, dave mcmannis, and their buddy peewee st. john, but nothing in this huge trove of investigative material proved anything. kurt, we call him the scribe. he organized it in in such a way that it was easier to understand. what had been difficult to understand? it was confusing to the point where you didn t know what we were gonna be able to get into court. the context was in there. you couldn t figure it out because it was a mess. the majority of it was in there, yes. we had to try to do the analysis on it, and that s what took so long. reporter: an awful lot of detective work amounts to reading. thousands of
got home just before 4:00 p.m., tara was gone. they learned tara s last phone call began at 11:49 a.m. ended at 12:05. she d talked to a colleague at the mall jewelry kiosk where she worked. she said she d be by, pick up her paycheck, and go shopping. but first, their landlord had arranged for a septic repair company to drop by the house. so, did tara stay and wait? maybe the owner of the repair company knew something. one of our criminal investigation division sergeants on his way in to work stopped by this guy s house and asked had he been to tara s home. yes, he had. had he seen tara? yes, he had contact with a female there. and, he said, she was perfectly fine when he left the house early that afternoon. reporter: so, assuming that was true, who else came to that little house on the afternoon of october 1st and took away their tara?