reporter: she couldn t connect the dots that put him in that garage with her friend. absolutely not. reporter: maybe senseless to the wife, but those dots were starting to connect for detectives. they eventually shared their suspicions with debra and how the evidence of the travelling iphone pointed to tony. i remember that i couldn t stand up. i wasn t able to stand on my feet. reporter: melissa s murder was devastating and frightening for everyone at the law firm, especially it seemed for scott rothstein. only the week before, rothstein was toasting melissa after making her partner. now, he was helping her family with funeral arrangements. melissa s aunt, lynn haberl, spoke at the church memorial. i could look out from the podium and see a sea of lawyers out there. reporter: including scott rothstein? including scott rothstein. reporter: who actually paid for the funeral. he actually paid. he came to the funeral home and paid for everything. reporter: three days
we three kings be stealing the gold. reporter: in the end it would be the largest ponzi scheme in florida history. how big did it get? ballpark, $1-1.5 billion. reporter: and then halloween eve, 2009. more than a year had passed since melissa s murder with tony villegas still sitting in jail awaiting trial, and another twist to the story. scott rothstein has disappeared. reporter: unlike melissa, scott was not a murder victim. but he was a fugitive, a bernie madoff figure on the run. he had left the country in a private jet for morocco with $16 million in cash and his collections of watches and jewelry, fleeing after learning unhappy investors had gone to the fbi. one month later, he was back in florida, but not under arrest. what no one knew was that scott had cut a deal with the fbi to act as an informant. this is scott rothstein, november 16th, monday, 1:43 p.m. reporter: he wore a wire and helped convict 26 people involved in his ponzi scheme. and despite his cooper
reporter: later that afternoon, the jury sent out a note. verdict. as the verdict was read, debra sat with melissa s family, consoling her niece. tony villegas is guilty of murder in the first degree. reporter: tony s face was blank. before sentencing, melissa s aunt, lynn haberl, addressed the court and said directly to tony. we forgive you because we must and release you into god s hands for all eternity. reporter: sentencing was immediate. sentenced to spend the rest of your natural life in a florida state prison. reporter: after tony was led out of the courtroom, melissa s family went to his people and hugged them, then all cried together. my heart broke for them. it is a legacy for their family. reporter: melissa s own legacy is something called the garden of reflection. before her murder, she worked for victims rights, and raised money to build it. now, her name is inscribed there, too. the victim, as prosecutors told
before the defense rested, the judge asked tony villegas if he wanted to testify. is it your wish to testify or remain silent? silent, sir. reporter: in closing arguments, prosecutor tate said all the evidence pointed to tony. the pepper spray, cell phone records, and the dna. there is not one other person on the planet earth that could leave the dna on this jacket. reporter: the defense reminded jurors that the pepper spray evidence was weak, and that both phone records and dna results could be manipulated. the pieces of the puzzle do not fall into place, because reasonable doubt prevents them from falling into place. reporter: the jury now had the case. outside the courtroom debra villegas saw melissa s family for the first time in eight years. all these years later and it just washed over me like like it had just happened. you know, that that i caused these people a kind of pain that s unimaginable.
evidence, the cellphone first. lawyer fleisher found a mistake in a chart the state s expert had used. was the expert analysis, in fact, sloppy? if you re such a hot shot expert right. and reporter: how does this error creep in? and he said, well, it was a mistake. reporter: the same went for the dna evidence, attack the credibility of the analysis. the defense said the dna results, returned within a few days, were rushed through the police lab because of rothstein s connections. attorney fleisher also suggested there could have been cross contamination to tilt the scale so the results pointed at tony. our goal was to educate the jury on the rothstein connections, and the rothstein influence. reporter: had meddled with the physical evidence? contaminated it maybe? we can only speculate. but when a man is as powerful a guy as as rothstein was, people would think that they could do things. they could conjure up dna. reporter: and use it to frame tony villegas.