thought he knew why. >> i had written some really negative comments. i'd -- i'd been a columnist. and i've really, really been hammering the police. >> you -- you -- you lit out at the cops, huh? >> oh many times. >> reporter: his accusations of the city cops ranged from their failure to get a handle on drug trafficking to only solving a small fraction of crimes. >> the chief of police had emailed me just a couple days before saying, "mike, you don't know how much damage you've done to the morale in the police department," and all this. >> if you're seeing the cops giving you and the family some attitude, you think you understand why. >> that's what i thought. sure. sure. i understood it. yeah. of course, they're pissed at me. [ laughs ] i got -- i got it. >> reporter: but, he says, one of his sons read the police's behavior differently. he thought the police were zeroing in on his father from the get-go. >> he immediately called my brother, his uncle, who is an attorney in reno and said -- "uh uncle bill, kathleen's dead. they think mike did it." >> and my brother got on the phone.