thrill seeking trip chris was about to take to africa, they didn t think anything about it. a few days later, i went sand boarding. it was epic. headed to cape town. then came this email the day after christmas. i m headed back up to the congo, it read. i ll be offline for a couple of weeks. but a couple of weeks turned into a couple of months. his family never got another message and eventually filed a missing persons report. the missing persons investigation revealed some inconsistencies and the possible crime scene was found. reporter: inside the office of chris smith s advertising and marketing firm, investigators say they found blood. dna confirmed it was his. he didn t die in the congo. smith likely died right here and the last person to see him was his business partner. he was just a person of interest at the beginning. reporter: investigators soon learned shin was having financial trouble. they say he was convicted of embezzlement and ordered to pay hundreds of thousand
restitution. he agreed to buy smith s half of the company for $1 million. it didn t happen. rather than pay the agreement it is believed that shin murdered smith in their office. reporter: after a six-hour interrogation police say shin confessed. although his attorney says he still plans to plead not guilty to murder. but what about all those emails? the one smith s family had been getting for months some of them personal in nature? police say shin confessed to writing those, too. he just went to extremely great lengths to cover up the crime scene and keep the family and friends believing that chris was alive. rochl p. reporter: police say he even masqueraded as smith to a reporter whom he emailed repeatedly. he felt his plan was working and he was just going by the seat of his pants and sending emails out. reporter: police still don t have a body. all they have is chris smith s range rover and some clothes found hundreds of miles away in
going to make that problem worse. they re more likely to be hit by lightning. the justice department is investigating south carolina s law. have there been other legal challenges? the justice department has to look at all the different states that are subject to is volting rights act which are most of the states down south and counties down south. a number of groups are filing lawsuits. there s lawsuits in florida, there s lawsuits in missouri, in wisconsin. there will be more lawsuits most lick lycoming down the pipe. this is a hot issue that is only going to get bigger as we get close to 2012 election. hot issue. big problem through the primaries leading up to the election. nice to see you. looking pretty good on skype. thank you. glad it worked out. that s going to do it for us. i m veronica de la cruz. thank you for watching. have a terrific holiday weekend. up next andrea mitchell reports. that is where chris is sitting in the anchor chair. thanks. up next on andrea