have wild mood swings, and they knew she had a diagnosed mood disorder. reporter: did they tell you that she was bipolar? yes, told me she was bipolar. she had been taking medication, and was off of her medication, probably because of her giving birth to the child. reporter: but there was another prescription bottle too. and then they also showed us a bottle that was empty, you know, that maybe alluding to the fact that she had taken medication and was going to use it to hurt herself. reporter: the day she left? james told the detectives he was so worried about her state of mind, he stayed home from work to keep an eye on her. james says that she was acting up. and he didn t want to let marie take the baby. reporter: he was afraid the baby might be harmed or something. right. reporter: then, late that afternoon, said pastor james, marie said she was tired, went to lie down, tanya took the baby out shopping so marie could rest. the pastor said he waited around for a bi
the intrusion of an odd idea in one of the sermons of pastor james flanders. what do you think we d experience? reporter: when he mentioned a couple of verses in the old testament that seemed to approve, somehow, of polygamy. he wanted to justify his relationship to everybody else through a biblical sense. reporter: so he went to the old testament and and pulled up those few lines that suggest polygamy. that s correct. reporter: a trial balloon? if it was, it quickly imploded. and the very practical polygamy in the home of the pastor stayed carefully under wraps. so if the news got out of the to the rest of the church, did tanya worry about what might happen there? that s what she was covering up. she had to protect james and protect their that was their world. reporter: did she do something to marie, to protect james? two months after marie disappeared the detectives got permission to look at the cell phone records of all three of them. would they prove tanya was
the cell phone tower information put her away from the area. reporter: no. nowhere near marie. so then they checked the cell towers for james phone, and what do you know. when marie sent that mass text message saying she was leaving town, both her phone and the pastor s were pinging off the same cell tower two blocks from his house. and when marie s mazda was dropped at the airport? we ve got james flanders cellphone touching towers near the airport. why would his phone be near the airport? reporter: well, either james innocently drove marie to the airport, and neglected to reveal that, or he drove her car there to cover up a crime. no way to prove it either way. so they were stuck again. which is when jason, the youth pastor, remember him? out of the blue jason came to call. he had something the detectives needed to hear, he said.
the pastor and his church sacrificed their own needs to send money to the victims of katrina. and when marie carlson needed help, they took her in too. it s what pastors do for their congregation. reporter: but now? i m left with a missing person who s just vanished off this earth. reporter: a week and a half after marie vanished, or drove away, or whatever she did, the detectives went calling on the flanders. who said they fully expected marie would return soon. this wasn t the first time she took spur of the moment trips, they said. never to the point where she had to be reported to law enforcement missing, though. she came back. reporter: although the flanders told the detectives they were quite worried about marie s state of mind. they noticed a downward spiral. reporter: that she was going into a depression or something? she might be going into a depression state, yes. reporter: thing was, said the pastor and his wife, marie could
baby and james, all for herself. that s what this member of the inner circle believed. but i did i hear that from marie, that marie wanted james? reporter: did tanya strike back somehow? fight for her marriage by getting rid of marie? listen to how church members quoted tanya s words. she basically was like, james would never be able to do that, but i could. and that was shocker? yeah. i told him, you re not capable of killing her. but tanya leans over and goes, well he couldn t, but i could. so wouldn t that lead you to, like a bloodhound, direct to tanya? she certainly would have a motive. she would. reporter: tanya now the only mother figure in grace s life. did she know more than she was saying? did she do something? did someone in the church have a confession to make? coming up, a confrontation in the congregation.