of a prominent doctor couple. >> no fingerprints, no dna. oh, god, what the hell do we have here? >> reporter: winter on the great plains can be long, bleak and brutal. so, in march, when winter briefly releases its grip for a day or two, even the trees seem to raise their limbs in celebration. march 13th, 2008 was one of those days of cautious jubilation in omaha, nebraska. 61 degrees, and a light velvety breeze. 11-year-old tom hunter, wore shorts and a t-shirt to school that thursday. it was a little after 3:00 when tom, seen here on a security camera, got off the bus in the leafy dundee neighborhood and headed home to play video games, as he did nearly every day. it would be hours before tom's father returned home, but the house was not empty. 57-year-old shirlee sherman, who scrubbed and polished the hunter home on thursdays, was still there. by sunset, both tom hunter and shirlee sherman would be dead, murdered by a killer who was just getting started. who did it, and why were questions that would eventually take omaha detectives all over north america and would take more than five years to answer. >> this one stood out, obviously, because of the brutality for one. >> reporter: detective derek mois, was working 3:00 to 11:00 that day. the 911 call came in from tom hunter's dad, dr. william hunter. >> dr. hunter had come home, found shirlee sherman and his son deceased and would call 911. >> anything unusual about that call? >> there wasn't a lot of emotion shown, but he is a doctor. he is a pathologist. >> and he's seen a lot of dead people. >> and he's seen a lot of death, and it was i think to use a word clinical. >> reporter: the detective and his partner were immediately dispatched to the hunter's stately home in dundee. >> nice part of town? >> it is. it's -- it's an older neighborhood, middle to upper class homes, very quiet. it's not a place where we have a lot of violent crime occur in our city. >> reporter: even now, nine years later, detective mois still remembers the coppery scent of blood that hit him when he stepped across the threshold of the hunter home. >> there's a heavy metallic kind of humidity in the air almost. you almost feel its presence if there is a lot of it and there was a lot of it in the hunter household. >> reporter: to the left of the front door, in the dining room off the main hallway, lay the body of the boy, tom hunter. >> he's lying on his face. his hands are down at his side. there is a fair amount of blood around his head. >> reporter: and down the hall, the body of the housekeeper, shirlee sherman. >> she was found laying face down with a large amount of blood underneath her, a stainless steel handle of a kitchen knife protruding from the right side of her neck. >> reporter: both victims had been killed in the same way. and oddly enough, there were no signs of struggle. no fingerprints, no bloody footprints. >> was this person careful or just very lucky? >> could be both, you know? it -- it's not like tv. not every crime scene is gonna yield fingerprints. not every crime scene is gonna yield dna, or trace hairs, or those types of things. >> anything stolen? >> didn't appear to be, no. >> reporter: in fact, the only things out of place were the knives. >> the knives came from inside the house. >> they did. >> unusual for a killer to show up planning to do murder and also planning to find the murder weapon at the crime scene? >> not necessarily. >> reporter: by all accounts, dr. hunter was still in a state of shock when police took him downtown for questioning. >> when i came in, shirlee was right there in the hallway between the back door and the front foyer. so the first thing i -- you know, i just said, "where's tom?" i think i yelled, "tom." >> do you have any idea who or why somebody would do something like this? >> honestly, i've been just racking my brain. i mean, i -- we live a peaceful existence, uh, almost ridiculously simple. >> reporter: dr. william hunter, known as bill to friends and colleagues, ran the pathology residency program at nearby creighton university. his wife, claire, also a doctor at creighton, was in hawaii that day attending a conference. her husband had to break the awful news to her from the police station. >> how is your wife? crushed? is she going to be okay? >> she has a work mate that's with her. >> so she's not alone? >> no. >> that's -- that's -- that's good. >> reporter: the hunters had four boys, two grown, one in college and tom. jeff, a student at the university of nebraska in lincoln at the time lived closest. he says it was about 8:00 that night when he happened to check his phone. >> i had all these missed calls from friends, family. so obviously i knew something was up, and i couldn't get a hold of my dad, couldn't get a hold of my mom. one of my friends called me, and he told me to call my brother. >> it was your older brother. >> yeah. >> what did he say had happened? >> just somebody killed tom, and i need to go find my dad, talk to my dad, get to omaha. >> how long a drive is that? >> it's, like, 45 minutes. >> reporter: those miles between lincoln and omaha seemed longer than usual that night. it's hard for jeff to remember exactly what happened when he got home, who told him what or when. >> that whole thing is a blur. i didn't sleep at all that night. next thing you know, you're constantly trying to figure out what's going on. >> you lived in that same house in which this all happened, right? >> yes, whole life. >> reporter: now jeff's mind was filled with thoughts of what had happened there and of his brother, tom, who was eight years younger. >> he was kind of a smart aleck. he, you know he was growing up with three older brothers. he -- he was a smart kid. he knew a lot. and he just, i mean, he always had something to say for everything. >> what was he up to in his life then? >> he went to a science magnet middle school -- elementary combined with a middle school, and he really liked science. he was always outside playing. so that was his big thing. >> well, he was a big gamer, wasn't he? >> he was. but more times than not, he would be outside with neighborhood kids. >> reporter: but it wasn't the neighborhood kids that fascinated the cops. tom had a lot of friends he'd never actually met in real life. they were people he knew from the anonymous world of online gaming. it was those relationships that detectives wanted to know more about. when we come back the investigation begins. >> does he play around on chat rooms or anything like that that you might be nervous about? >> curious conversations online. >> he interacted with people all over the u.s. >> a mysterious stranger and another murder. where would this winding trail of clues lead? >> a crime like this doesn't happen in dundee. it sent shock waves right away. ♪ ♪ protect your pets from fleas and ticks with frontline plus for dogs and frontline plus for cats. its two killer ingredients work fast and keep working all month long preventing new flea infestations on your pet. frontline plus. the number 1 name in flea and tick protection. lwho treats yourselfa diyby treating your yard.ht. we do it right, too. with the right plants for your region. so, you stay a step ahead of spring all season long. ♪ you know reliable support when you have it, and that dependability is what we want to give our customers. at comcast, it's my job to constantly monitor our network. prevent problems, and to help provide the most reliable service possible. my name is tanya, i work in the network operations center for comcast. we are working to make things simple, easy and awesome. >> reporter: the hunter house was eerily still when detectives arrived. >> reporter: the only sound, music from a video game in the basement, which seemed to add a haunting soundtrack to the violent and disturbing scene. >> it had appeared that thomas was in the process of playing an online game on his xbox and could see he had his pop and his chips in front of a chair right in front of the tv probably like a lot of kids after school every day and the game itself had timed out but the music was playing kind of ominously in the background. >> reporter: during bill hunter's interview with police investigators. they got straight to the point, >> does he play around on chatrooms or anything that you might be nervous about? >> i mean, i don't know. he's on, his -- the only chatroom that i know he's on is whyville. >> whyville, it turns out, is a popular online game and chatroom that attracts preteens. that wasn't all. tom's xbox, which allowed him to play and speak to other gamers online was a concern. detectives wondered, if tom might have inadvertantly come into contact with an internet predator. >> we knew that he had a number of contacts and friends online through not only his xbox but his personal computers as well. >> and those people are essentially in many cases anonymous. >> to some extent, yeah, they are. >> so, they might be kids, or they might just be saying they're kids. >> correct. and that's what we would come to find out, that he interacted with people all over the u.s. in some cases outside of the u.s. through these interactive sites. >> did you or anybody in your family ever worry that tommy was meeting people online or just talking to people online through the gaming community, people maybe you didn't know about? >> that didn't really come up till after the fact when we started thinking maybe that was something that could have happened. but prior, no. >> and you didn't know who those people were and he didn't either. >> no. >> reporter: detectives determined tom hunter had interacted with close to 50 people online on a regular basis. thomas hunter was 11 years old. did he disclose that in his gaming activities? >> no. in fact, in some instances, we would come to find out that he portrayed himself as somebody who was older. >> which in turn could end up play nothing this. >> yeah, absolutely. >> reporter: it would take months to track down tom's online contacts. more pressing was what detectives were hearing from the neighbors. several said they had seen a stranger walking near the hunter home late that afternoon. >> tell me about the person neighbors described. >> an olive-complected male who was heavyset dressed in a collared shirt. some describe a jacket, possibly like an ill-fitting suit with a shoulder bag. and several people would correlate that individual to a silver honda crv. >> they identified the actual make of car? >> yes. >> that all seems pretty helpful. >> very. the same individuals would describe that that vehicle was missing a front plate. but they would describe the rear plate as kind of a white background with dark lettering and kind of describe a multiple-colored sunset or kind of a pastel sunset. >> so it's not a nebraska plate. >> out of state is what our feeling was, yes. >> reporter: based on nieghbors' descriptions, police produced this sketch and four days after the murders asked the public for help. >> we received hundreds of phone calls about people knowing somebody who resembled that sketch and each one of those leads had to be given some degree of consideration. >> reporter: reporter todd cooper covered the story for "the omaha world herald." >> dundee is a nice neighborhood in omaha. it's an affluent area. doctors and others. not mansions but stately homes. crime like this doesn't happen in dundee. and so it sent shockwaves right away. >> more about the computer use -- >> reporter: while the murders in dundee dominated the news, investigators were taking a second look at a less publicized crime. months earlier, there had been another murder not far from dundee. in this one, an elderly female had been bludgeoned and stabbed in the neck. >> we had knives that were used from her residence in her murder. so, we had similarities in that weapons were taken from her home and used against her and left at the scene. >> but you had somebody you liked for that. >> the detectives that investigated that case had identified a suspect very early on. somebody who was a family member of hers whom she had had a falling out with. >> and who didn't seem to have any connection with the hunters. >> none whatsoever. >> reporter: there comes a time in every homicide investigation where detectives have to focus on the victim's family and friends. as far as the detectives knew, the hunters were a well respected family. >> anything come out about the hunters that you didn't know? gambling problems? family problems? >> no. there wasn't some gigantic ghost in the closet that made us think, "oh, well, there is our motive right there." nothing like that. >> reporter: since bill and claire hunter were both doctors at creightion, he a pathologist, she a cardiologist, detectives wondered if someone at the hospital might have had a motive to harm them. >> do you have any patients that are upset with you? >> not as far as i know. honestly. >> how about your wife? >> i don't know. i mean, usually not. >> reporter: everyone handles grief differently. after their youngest son was murdered in their home, the hunters seemed to want nothing more than to be left alone. >> we're kind of a private family, so we're not too keen on talking with media. >> reporter: on the other hand the family of shirlee sherman, the other dundee victim, desperately wanted to keep the case in the public eye. >> we wanted the publicity. >> you really wanted this to be solved? >> yeah. >> oh, yeah. >> hell, yeah. >> reporter: they had their own ideas about who the killer might be, and the more they talked, the more detectives wondered if perhaps shirlee sherman had actually been the intended target. coming up -- a secret in the sherman familiar supply she hated him because of what he had been doing to me. >> and a think person of interest. >> immediately there's a buzz. could it be him? like, could it have been him? >> when "dateline" continues. it's not the highlight of fatherhood. but i'd rather be here with my little man than anywhere with migraine. "i am here." and i aim to say that more. aimovig... a preventive treatment for migraine in adults... reduces the number of monthly migraine days. for some, that number can be cut in half or more. the most common side effects are pain, redness or swelling at the injection site and constipation. aim to be there more. talk to your doctor about aimovig. ♪ >> reporter: as a building contractor brad waite spends a lot of time in his truck. >> reporter: he's haunted by the possibility that at the very moment his sister, shirlee sherman, was being murdered in march 2008, he was driving by, close enough, perhaps, to have heard her scream. >> i basically almost drove by hunter's house, and so it would have been at 4:00 that afternoon. i'd had no idea shirlee was working there that day. >> reporter: later that night, brad says he heard about the two murders in dundee on the 10:00 news. even then he says he didn't know his sister was a victim. that news came later, in a phone call from his brother, dan. >> danny called me. it was at 11 -- at 11:30 that night and told me what happened. >> reporter: dan waite says from that night on, the word "housekeeper" has been used as shorthand for shirlee as if her job defined her. >> they're always calling her the housekeeper, and it's -- she was only there for a couple hours every couple weeks or a week, you know. >> reporter: to her brothers dan and brad, shirlee was big sis. the family glue after their parents divorced when they were young. >> she was the one that organized everything. she would call you before somebody's birthday and she would say you know it someone's birthday thursday, or she would get everybody to go in on gifts or she would help with the shopping and that aspect of it is -- you just don't realize it until it's gone. >> reporter: for shirlee's children, kelly and jeff, she was the single mom who often worked two jobs and stretched every dollar to make ends meet. >> we were one of the poorest families in the neighborhood. my mom worked bartending in the evening, cleaned houses during the day. >> gardening was her specialty. >> what'd she grow? >> everything. eggplant, tomatoes, five different varieties. >> feeding me was probably expensive so she'd make her own spaghetti sauce. she canned her own cucumbers and made pickles out of them. >> reporter: after a lifetime of hard work on her hands and knees,jeff and kelly say their mom had cut back. the hunters were among the few clients she had left. >> so, she wanted to clean just a couple houses that would allow her to pick up the grandkids from school in the afternoons and spend time with them. >> reporter: spending time with the grandkids, it turns out, was relatively easy to do. >> she lived right next door to me. >> so you saw her all the time? >> every day. and she talked me into buying this house so she could see her grandchildren. >> reporter: the situation was convenient, but kelly says it was hard to have any privacy. her mother knew everything, who came, who went and who stayed the night, and now the plot thickens. >> i was dating a married guy. >> let me guess. your mom didn't approve. >> no, not at all. we had an explosive relationship. >> meaning? >> meaning things got broke. >> reporter: kelly says that relationship became so tempestuous, so difficult that shirlee got involved and actively tried to keep the boyfriend away. >> at one point in time she was thinking about getting a restraining order, mainly for my daughter's sake. she would tell me, "he can't come over." and i would sneak him in. one time she come walkin' around my house with a hammer in her hand and saying, "i want his blood on this hammer." she hated him that bad because of what he had been doing to me. >> reporter: in spite of that, kelly stuck with the man, got pregnant and had a baby with him. >> and it got uglier from there. she actually started the process of getting my house out of my name. >> so that she could keep him out of the house? >> right. >> reporter: after shirlee died, what had been a very private and embarassing family feud became fodder for public speculation. todd cooper, the reporter, says that starting on day one, kelly's boyfriend was a person of interest. >> immediately the name of the boyfriend of shirlee sherman's daughter came up. there was a buzz. could it be him? like could it have been him? coming up -- >> his name came up again and again. >> a doctor under the microscope. >> he had had some trouble during his time at creighton university. he was just a little bit more boisterous. humira patients, you inspire us. the way you triumph over adversity. and live your lives. that's why we redesigned humira. we wanted to make the experience better for you. now there's less pain immediately following injection. we've reduced the size of the needle and removed the citrate buffers. and it has the same effectiveness you know and trust. humira citrate-free is here. a little change can make a big difference. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. here's to you. with a lot of other young couples. then we noticed something...strange. oh, could you, uh, make me a burger? 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"who could have done this?" >> reporter: detectives returned to the theory that either dr. bill hunter or his wife dr. claire hunter might have been the intended victim. between the two of them, they figured, bill hunter's position at creighton made him the more likely target. >> he basically oversaw all the students that were going through this pathology training program at creighton university. and if there was disciplinary action to take, he would be the individual, among others, you know, to have a direct impact on those students' lives. >> reporter: so, potentially a lot of suspects there. >> potentially yes. >> reporter: so, the detective went to the pathology department at creighton and started asking questions. >> were there any individuals interacting with these folks at the time this occurred that you believe could be responsible for whatever reason? if there is a potential motive, what do you think it might be?" >> reporter: the detective says one name kept coming up, dr. michael belenky. how many times did you hear the name michael belenky? >> i can't give you an accurate answer as how many. but his name came up again and again. >> reporter: dr. belenky was a former resident who'd had left the pathology program and threatened to sue creighton a year before the murders at dr. hunter's home. >> he had had some trouble during his time at creighton university, but they weren't unlike other people's troubles. but he was just a little bit more boisterous about his -- i guess his perceived treatment by creighton university and some of the staff there. >> reporter: dr. belenky told detectives he'd been working in pittsburgh on the day of the dundee murders. pittsburgh's like 900 miles from omaha, so -- >> correct. >> reporter: you're not driving that in a day. >> correct. >> reporter: presumably you're not doing that without air travel. >> right. >> reporter: and air travel's something you can check. >> right. we knew he was on the schedule. i believe we knew he had logged into his e-mail account at that facility that day. >> but nobody actually saw him at work. >> right. but there was nothing to show that he was anywhere other than there. >> reporter: which is not an ironclad alibi, but it's not bad. >> it's not bad. and sometimes that's just the reality of our work. >> reporter: that seemed to be the end of the line. dr. belenky had been the investigators' last best lead. unwilling to see the case go cold, shirlee sherman's family pooled their money and offered a reward. >> there were a number of contributions. i think there were some other people contributing as well. >> reporter: which made it how big? >> $50,000. >> reporter: so it was $50,000 in all counting everybody's contributions? >> yeah. we actually wanted it at $100,000. but they wouldn't allow that 'cause they thought it would be a bounty, which it was, in my opinion. >> reporter: when the reward failed to produce a break in the case, they hired a private investigator. >> part of the motivation of doing that was, we're going to send a signal. we're not going to let it cold case. >> reporter: you saw it becoming a cold case? >> well, we felt it was becoming that way. >> reporter: in the end, the private eye found nothing that the detectives hadn't already studied and discounted. a year after the murders in dundee, the case went cold and most of the detectives moved on to other things. but for the families of shirlee sherman and tom hunter, there could be no moving on. >> how'd you see your dad change? >> it wasn't like he was depressed all the time or he was himself. it just, there was obviously something kind of, like, you can always see behind someone's eyes that there's something there troubling them. and i think we all had that. >> reporter: five dreadful anniversaries came and went. the dead were still inexplicably dead, and the case was still unsolved. but through it all, the detective says he stayed in touch with the hunter and sherman families. >> you kind of hear their frustrations when they call, and they want updates. and they want to be kind of kept in the loop. but, you know, as investigators, you kind of -- you can't give them what -- they're looking for answers from you that you can't give them, you know? >> reporter: tough for you guys, too, because i'm sure you want to keep working on this. meanwhile -- >> yes. >> reporter: your boss is saying, "here's another case." and another one. and another one. >> yeah. and that's why it went to the cold case unit. >> reporter: and that's how it stayed until may of 2013. the breakthrough moment came in brutal form, yet another double homicide in omaha. for detectives who'd been at the hunter home five years earlier, this one felt uncomfortably familiar. >> it was like, oh, my gosh. this could very easily be related to the dundee homicides. coming up -- >> this was just a lightning bolt. >> had the elusive dundee killer struck again? >> this is the same guy. >> this is the same perpetrator, yes. >> when "dateline" continues. ow. that's why we graduated to tide pods sport. finally something more powerful than the funk. tide sport removes even week-old sweat odor. it's got to be tide. and relief from symptoms caused feel the clarity of non-drowsy claritin by over 200 indoor and outdoor allergens. like those from buddy. because stuffed animals are clearly no substitute for real ones. feel the clarity. and live claritin clear. today, life-changing technology from abbott is helping hunt them down at their source. because the faster we can identify new viruses, the faster we can get to stopping them. the most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. life. to the fullest. >> reporter: the piano movers were suspicious. their work order said they were supposed to make a pickup at this house in west omaha on tuesday morning, may 14th, 2013, but no one was home. >> but when they went to the front door, they observed that the front security door was open slightly. and one of the movers noted a stainless steel handgun magazine lying in the doorway. and they felt that that was of some concern since they weren't getting any answer from the residents to contact 911. >> reporter: when detective mois and his partner stepped inside they found the body of an older man on the floor. the victim had multiple gunshot wounds and a deep stab wound to the right side of his neck. >> off to the left you could see the female victim lying in the living room, a large area of blood. it was very clear that there had been a struggle there from all of the blood that was apparent and where it was located on the walls and so forth. >> reporter: her arms and hands were covered with defensive wounds, and there was a deep gash on the right side of her neck. beside her lay two kitchen knives. for derek mois and his partner, it was a jolt of electricity and a big hit of deja vu. >> we were like, "this is something here. we have, you know, it would seem a connection." >> reporter: this is the same guy. >> this is the same perpetrator, yes. >> reporter: that's a pretty big moment. >> it was, very. >> reporter: just as before, nothing was stolen, and the killer left no fingerprints or bloody footprints behind. but these victims had obviously put up a fight. the additional gun parts found near the front door and the nine millimeter gun clip with nine bullets remaining seemed to be proof of that. what do you make of the gun parts in the doorway? >> what it told me was that there had been a struggle for that gun. why would that magazine be ejected from the gun? that shouldn't happen in the course of normal firing of a handgun, but it made sense if you're struggling over that gun. >> reporter: this is not a faulty gun. this is a fight over control -- >> this is a fight. it was a violent struggle, a violent encounter. >> reporter: the victims looked as if they had been dead for a day or two. detectives still didn't know who they were. but as they stepped outside, headquarters called. >> one of our sergeants was doing research on who the homeowners to that location were. and she had identified roger brumback, a doctor at creighton university and was employed within the pathology department. so now we have a second victim from the same office and the same specific pathology training program that we had in the 2008 case. >> reporter: dr. brumback would have been a colleague of dr. hunter's. >> yes. >> reporter: no question they would have known each other. >> no question. >> reporter: it had been more than five years since the killings in dundee. but the creighton connection was lost on no one, least of all the families of the 2008 victims shirlee sherman and tom hunter. >> we saw it on the news and these people say it was dr. roger brumback was head of the pathology department at creighton university. whoa. >> i recognized that name right away. and the fact that it was another pathologist from creighton killed with a knife, i automatically assumed it was related. >> reporter: roger and mary brumback were both 65. in researching their final hours, reporter todd cooper learned the couple had last been heard from at about 2:00 p.m. on mother's day. >> one of the first things we found out about was the facetime conversation between both brumbacks and their daughter. and they were roaring with laughter at one point. so much that the daughter took a screenshot of the conversation. that's the kind of stuff that humanizes this, that makes -- you realize that this was just a lightning bolt in the middle of an otherwise normal mother's day. >> reporter: carol brumback, roger's sister, also spoke with her brother that afternoon. then two days later, a family member broke the awful news. >> well, he said, "roger and mary were murdered." and i said -- i said -- i said, "what are you talking about?" and he said, "they were murdered." >> reporter: what goes through your mind? >> you know, i had no idea. i had no idea, you know, what had happened. >> reporter: carol couldn't imagine who might want to kill her brother. although well off, she says he and mary had lived modestly. he was a bookish man, she said, a man who loved science and research. in fact, carol says that while still in college, roger identified a new species of monkey. >> a south -- south american owl monkey. and submitted a report on it. and actually, it was named after my brother. >> reporter: there's a brumback monkey? >> yeah, the brumback monkey. >> reporter: eventually roger's career took him from pediatrics to pathology and academic administration. he became chairman of the pathology department at creighton in 2001, a job he held literally until the day he died. so, tell me about his marriage to mary. >> i just kind of knew that that was a match made in heaven. >> reporter: and they seemed really happy? >> they were absolutely happy. i mean, mary just -- she did everything. i think she did a lot of editing for a lot of roger's publications. >> reporter: shortly before the murders, roger had announced that he'd be retiring in june. he and mary planned to move back east. in fact, that's why the piano movers had come to the house that morning. now, a town known for its steaks and insurance companies was once again buzzing with talk of murder. >> and there was absolutely no doubt at that point who was being targeted. it was killing, just this sinking feeling of oh, man, he truck again. coming up -- a new look at an old suspect. >> called our office and said are you guys going to need to talk to me again. >> and a new target. >> we have two crimes and potentially there would have been another. >> was another doctor in the crosshairs? >> reporter: sometimes detective ♪ ♪ ♪ protect your pets from fleas and ticks with frontline plus for dogs and frontline plus for cats. its two killer ingredients work fast and keep working all month long preventing new flea infestations on your pet. frontline plus. the number 1 name in flea and tick protection. check your free credit scores at creditkarma. here's to progress. >> reporter: sometimes detective work is a lot like shooting pool. you play all the angles. make the easy ones first and save the money ball for last. in the case of the omaha killings, the basic facts stood out like bright balls on a billiard table. two double homicides five years apart. both in the homes of high ranking doctors in creighton university's pathology department. each victim stabbed through the carotid artery with medical precision. the next question? well, that seemed about as obvious as the ten ball in the side pocket. the last best potential suspect in the 2008 murders was now top of mind for the 2013 case, dr. michael belenky. but get this, before detectives could get around to looking him up, something truly astonishing happened. >> after the brumback murders, he called our office because he had heard about the murders and said, "are you guys going to need to talk to me again? >> reporter: he called you? >> uh-huh. i don't remember exactly what he said, but he made comments that he was glad dr. brumback was dead. >> reporter: "i'm glad he's dead?" >> yeah, he made a comment to that effect, yes. >> reporter: that almost sounds like somebody's boasting about this? >> it could be, yeah, and, again, the same detectives turned right back around and started going through the same process. let's find out where dr. belenky was on mother's day 2013. >> reporter: turns out dr. belenky was living in the northwest, dividing his time between vancouver and washington state at the time of the brumback murders. when detectives reinterviewed him, they wondered if they were missing something. could their primary person of interest have somehow slipped in and out of omaha undetected? >> reporter: any indication that he was in omaha? >> none. none. >> reporter: for his part, belenky told the cops he had nothing to do with the omaha killings, in fact, he denies ever saying he was glad dr. brumback was dead. in the end detectives had to scratch dr belenky off their list. back to the drawing board. if the suspect wasn't michael belenky, detectives figured it had to be someone else with creighton connections. >> we knew that we had to look at everybody in the pathology department, all of the staff, everybody there. >> reporter: that means there are, what, maybe a thousand, a couple thousand persons of interest all going in different directions? >> yeah. >> reporter: four days after the brumback murders, this investigation got one more jolt. another pathology professor from crieghton reported that around 2:19 p.m. on mother's day someone had tried to force their way into her house, setting off the burglar alarm. fortunately, dr. channda bewtra and her husband were out for a mother's day lunch at the time. >> it made that theory of ours even stronger. that now we have two crimes, and potentially there would've been another had they been home. >> reporter: this is what dr. bewtra told nbc affiliate wowt-tv. >> we get there, there was no damage. nothing was missing. everything was as it was. >> reporter: a week after the brumback murders, omaha police chief todd schmaderer named a special task force, dedicated to solving all four murders. >> i understand the fear and uneasiness in our community right now. i could feel it this morning when i spoke to employees of creighton university and legion health creighton hospital. please know this, law enforcement is doing everything in our power to solve these crimes. >> that tank force consisted of homicide detectives, agents with the fbi from our local omaha office assigned, and investigators with the nebraska state patrol. >> reporter: so, this is a full-court press? >> yes. >> reporter: so, investigators, once again, dove into the creighton personnel files looking for someone else who might have harbored a grudge against doctors hunter, brumback and bewtra. you'd already been down this road before. and you'd looked back, what, a couple of years? >> yeah. now what was different is we were going to go back and pull the records from i believe we started in 2000 to 2013. >> reporter: how many of you were sitting there reading files? >> there were 21 of us assigned to the tank force, and i think at some juncture almost all of the detectives would get assigned files from creighton. >> reporter: in those personnel files were several names that looked promising. those who were nowhere near omaha on mother's day were eliminated, but a couple of weeks after the brumback killings, detective mois says, his boss handed him a three-ring binder from 2001. this one was thicker than the rest. >> and what i took away after reading that file from front to back was that, in my mind, there was enough information contained in that file that it made a very real possibility that there was a motive to want to harm dr. hunter, dr. brumback or dr. bewtra by that individual. coming up -- >> reporter: before arriving at creighton, it seemed anthony garcia had been well on his way to achieving the american dream. from a working class background in southern california, he had finished medical school and embarked on what should have been a long and lucrative career. but then, for some reason, his life began to be lit in large measure by the bridges he burned along the way. he'd been dismissed from other residency programs, fired from some jobs and several states had denied him a medical license. >> it would appear that every time that dr. garcia would apply for a place of employment or licensure as a physician in another state, creighton university would get notification of that because they would get a request to verify dr. garcia's time that he had spent there. >> and creighton would respond, usually dr. brumback or dr. hunter, "yeah, he was here. he was dismissed. he didn't do a good job." >> right. >> and so that kept coming back to haunt dr. garcia, that experience -- >> right. >> -- at creighton. how many times did that happen? >> i want to say at least seven or eight different times. >> reporter: to mois, professional failure and the need for revenge could be a powerful motive. now, the detective needed to know if garcia had the means to commit murder. smith & wesson sd9 nine millimeter shortly before the brumback murders," well, obviously that's very significant to us. >> the magazine you found in the brumback home would fit a smith & wesson sd9. >> yeah. >> reporter: now, he needed to know was whether anthony garcia was in omaha on mother's day, 2013. with little to go on, the detective decided to follow the money. >> i wanted to find out where he had active credit cards and/or banking, checking accounts. >> reporter: and once again, the detective found an answer. a credit card issued to anthony garcia had been used twice in the omaha area on mother's day 2013. the first charge was around 12:30 p.m., at casey's general store just outside omaha. this is store video of garcia buying beer. the second was two hours later, at a chicken joint in west omaha called the wing stop. the wing stop is about a mile from dr. bewtra's home. >> i was able to get a receipt for that that showed it at 2:26. well, i knew that dr. bewtra's alarm on her house had gone off at 2:19. and that was about a mile away from the restaurant. >> so your thinking is he tries to get into the bewtra house. he can't do it. >> correct. >> he leaves, maybe knowing he set off the burglar alarm, drives about a mile to this wing restaurant and -- >> he makes a purchase, and we would come to find out that while he was sitting at that location, he was searching for where dr. brumback resided. >> reporter: based on those factors, investigators became convinced anthony garcia was their man. >> you felt some urgency to arrest dr. garcia quickly. >> yes. >> because? >> we knew that he was a very real danger to anybody that he could have perceived that had wronged him on some level, and we also had learned through those search warrants by the indiana state police that shortly after he returned to terra haute after the brumback homicides, that he had purchased another firearm, another handgun. >> reporter: in july 2013, investigators were ready to make their move. one team of detectives was sent to indiana to arrest anthony garcia. another flew to california to simultaneously search his parents' home. it was all supposed to be a coordinated operation, but on the morning of the planned arrest, the indiana team suddenly discovered their suspect had put them behind the eight ball. coming up, manhunt. >> they're going 100 miles an hour. ♪ stand up to chronic migraine with botox®. what if you had fewer headaches and migraines a month? botox® prevents headaches and migraines before they even start. botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. botox® injections take about 15 minutes in your doctor's office and are covered by most insurance. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life- threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. with the botox® savings program, most people with commercial insurance pay nothing out of pocket. text save to 27747 to check your eligibility, then talk to your doctor. >> reporter: two months after dr. roger brumback and his wife mary were murdered in their home, omaha detectives flew to indiana, ready to make an arrest. their target was a former creighton med school resident, dr. anthony garcia. the detectives had arranged to have a s.w.a.t. team and forensic technicians on hand in terre haute when they made the arrest at garcia's home. but once their plane landed, that plan changed. >> after we landed in indianapolis on sunday afternoon and turned our phones back on, we would observe that all of a sudden, dr. garcia's cell phone is no longer in terra haute, and he was mobile, and he was traveling south through illinois, which gave us obviously some concern. >> because you thought he was headed where? >> well, we didn't know exactly. it was possible that -- that he would return the next day. so, we kind of put our plans on hold, hoping that he would return to his residence and we would effect his arrest at his residence. >> reporter: fortunately, two fbi agents who'd been working with the task force were closer to illinois. they eventually found garcia at a hotel off the interstate. >> our hope was that in the morning he would get up and go home, and we could grab him there. but that morning, of course, when the fbi agents got up, he again was on the move and headed south. >> they missed him. >> they missed him. >> and now he's truly in the wind. >> yes. >> reporter: reporter todd cooper would later learn that for three hours all agents had to go on were pings every thirty minutes from garcia's cell phone. >> they were going 100 miles an hour. the next ping comes in a half hour later, and he's behind them. so, now we u-turn, and we speed back, and they're scanning the southbound lanes, and they finally find him tucked in behind a semi. and, you know, the wave of relief that must have come over them. >> reporter: with the help of illinois state troopers, garcia was finally pulled over. although it was only 8:30 a.m., he had a blood alochol level twice the legal limit. >> the trooper said that his breath smelled of booze, and then when he went to -- had to relieve himself, that that smelled of booze, as well. >> reporter: garcia was arrested on the spot for driving under the influence. from his car police recovered a cell phone, a .45 caliber pistol, 50 bullets, a crowbar and a sledgehammer. >> he told cops later that he was on a road trip to new orleans but had no luggage. and then the most chilling thing to me was in that backseat was an lsu lab coat and a stethoscope. >> reporter: investigators knew garcia had been fired from lsu shreveport in 2008. was he on his way to confront doctors there? only anthony garcia knows. he clammed up when omaha detectives tried to talk with him. >> we introduced ourselves as detectives from the omaha police department and that we were investigating homicides in our jurisdiction, and mr. garcia immediately asked for an attorney. >> that's it? >> and that's it. i mean, at that point as an investigator, i can't continue questioning. >> reporter: later that afternoon, omaha police chief todd schmaderer stepped before the cameras to make the announcement that his city had been desperately waiting to hear. >> arrested this morning was dr. anthony joseph garcia for four counts of first degree murder and use of a weapon to commit the murders. >> reporter: for the families of roger and mary brumback of tom hunter and of shirlee sherman, the arrest was very welcome news. >> i'm at walmart with my kids, and danny calls me and says, "they made an arrest in the case." and i think i forgot about 20, 30 items on my grocery shoppin' list 'cause i was, like, real happy. i just -- the carton, rushed out of the grocery store and wanted to go home and watch the news. >> reporter: with anthony garcia's arrest, jeff hunter says he and his parents felt as if they could finally stop looking over their shoulders. >> i mean, for five years they were super paranoid because that -- i mean, for all we knew, for all i always thought about was someone was still trying to find my dad because that was always my hunch, that someone was after either my mom or dad. >> reporter: investigators dispatched to anthony garcia's home in terre haute, indiana, saw the outward signposts of success. the house sat on a quiet street with a ferrari in the drive, but inside the house was practically empty. bare rooms, bare closets and barely any food. in the living room, detectives found a table stacked with financial documents, mortgage information and insurance policies. anthony garcia was broke, his home facing foreclosure. >> well, it appeared to us that he had made some deliberate attempt to kind of lay things out so people could get his affairs in order. and we see those things as homicide investigators when you investigate suicides. >> so, wherever he was headed when you arrested him, maybe that was going to be his last journey anywhere. >> that was our thought, that that was going to be his end game. >> reporter: in addition to the documents taken from garcia's home, investigators had to go through all the data collected from his electronic devices, cell phones, tablets, computers and his icloud account. >> you could see from his financial records that he was regularly going to alcohol stores, that he was spending a lot of time at gentlemen's clubs in and around terra haute. he was not working regularly, so it looked to us collectively like his life was -- was falling apart. >> reporter: hardly what garcia's parents had envisioned for their son when he was growing up in southern california. anthony garcia's father fred worked for the postal service. his mother estella, a nurse, had been born in mexico. it was a proud moment, they told reporters, when in 1999 the eldest of their three children graduated from medical school. >> there's a great, poignant moment where frederick garcia and anthony pile his belongings, what little he has, in a rattley old van and drive across the country from california to upper state new york to start his medical career. how proud he must have been at that moment. >> reporter: what started as the american dream was turning into something unthinkable. if convicted of murdering four people, dr. anthony garcia, now 40 years old, faced the death penalty. his alleged motive, revenge for getting bad job recommendations. coming up -- >> woke my wife up. we got a murder case and got to find a sitter for the kids. >> a husband and wife defense team. big city lawyers with a few big surprises. >> there were so many other people with mean, motive and opportunity that could have committed this crime. >> when "dateline" continues. >> reporter: as the father of four, bob motta appreciates a placid night of slumber. but on tuesday, july 16th, 2013, he woke up at 4:00 a.m. unable to sleep, the chicago area criminal attorney checked his office voicemail. that's when he saw that someone from california had left him a message -- >> the guy starts out, well, my brother got arrested down in southern illinois tore a dui. and i'm, like, "dui? i'm not driving down there for a dui." within the next minute he says, "but it sounds like what they're actually arresting him for is murder," so then obviously my interest was piqued. >> reporter: it was a stroke of luck. anthony garcia's family had been cold calling lawyers looking for someone to defend anthony. bob motta was the first to call back. it was 2:00 a.m. california time when he got anthony garcia's brother on the phone. 30 minutes later, bob motta was retained to handle his first murder case. >> i go upstairs. i wake my wife up, who is my law partner, alison motta. and i'm, like, "we got a murder case. we gotta get up and go to jackson county. you gotta find a sitter for the kids." >> reporter: when anthony garcia's extradition hearing came up the next day, the mottas, mr. and mrs. were seated at the defense table. >> you are basically consenting to the authorities from nebraska to take you back to that state to deal with these charges. do you understand that? >> absolutely understand. >> i'm not going to answer any questions with regards to his state of mind at this point. >> reporter: the mottas brought in bob's father, robert motta sr. as co-counsel. back in the '70s, the senior motta represented a clown-turned-serial-killer named john wayne gacy. >> i had never tried a case with my dad, and he's towards the end of his career and he'd always said to me, "if you get a juicy murder, that give me a call. i'll try it with ya." and i called him half expecting him to be, like, "nah, you know, i'm too old. i don't wanna do it." and he was onboard immediately, so -- >> this ended up being that case. >> that was that case, right. >> reporter: dr. anthony garcia insisted that he was innocent. but the mottas were concerned that extensive press coverage of the murders was giving potential jurors only one side of the story. >> they needed to hear that there were so many other people with means, motive, and opportunity that could have committed this crime that makes much more sense than somebody waiting 13 years to, you know, murder somebody that they knew for a very short period of time. >> reporter: in pretrial hearings, the mottas battled with prosecutors as if they were rival mma fighters. todd cooper remembers being in the judge's chambers one day when bob motta started shouting at prosecutors. >> there was a hearing where the mottas appeared by telephone, and he was shouting, screaming. the judge started pounding on the handset yelling, "shut up. shut up," into the -- into the microphone. i mean, that -- that's a pretrial hearing. >> i mean, we were seen as the chicago lawyers who came in, stormed in and, you know, outlaws. you know, they didn't like us at all. >> might it be easier to just list the people in omaha that you did not offend? >> you know, feelings -- when it comes to a death penalty case -- just don't come into play at all. you know, i mean, any lawyer that says they're worried about hurting people's feelings when another human being's life is at stake, again, they should probably get out of the business. >> reporter: in the beginning, the mottas say anthony garcia was actively involved in his own defense. they say that changed over time as court delays stretched his time in pretrial isolation from months to years. garcia lost a lot of weight and bob motta says his client's mental health deteriorated. >> the fact that he was in solitary confinement for 3 years, 23 hours a day, you know, mentally, no one can withstand that. >> reporter: prosecutors who were also concerned about garcia's mental state asked the judge to order a lengthy psychiatric evaluation. in the end garcia was found competent to stand trial, and a date was set for april 2016. then this story took a most unexpected turn. >> thursday or friday before that monday start of jury selection, alison motta says to us and to two local tv stations, "we have dna tests that prove that our guy was not at the hunter-sherman scene." >> reporter: alison motta spoke with wowt-tv via skype. >> their physical evidence and their dna evidence establishes undeniably, unmistakably and without doubt that the murders were committed by two people and not anthony garcia. >> reporter: the claim was based on what the mottas believed to be a potential match between some unidentified dna found on shirlee sherman's bandana and some dna taken from a suspect in another case. >> they are taking alleles from dna, bits and pieces, and coming up with a theory that never made it to trial, but she throws it out there on the eve of trial, and prosecutors are incensed, and it really chapped the judge. >> reporter: the judge took it as a clear attempt to send information to potential jurors that the state's case was suspect. as a result the trial was postponed again, and the judge effectively kicked alison motta off the case. >> the judge denies her application to practice in the state of nebraska, very controversial move. >> it was just i spoke to the public, and that put, you know, information that could've, you know, been information to potential jurors, and that violated the pretrial publicity rule. >> reporter: the mottas wanted to fight alison's removal, but what their client anthony garcia apparently wanted was a trial. when the mottas appealed over his objection, anthony garcia completely stopped talking with his own lawyers. >> he'd deteriorated mentally, coming into the trial to the extent where he really hadn't -- i mean, he didn't say one word to us. this guy's mental state at that point was just gone. >> reporter: it was september 2016, eight years after the first of four omaha killings when dr. anthony garcia finally got his day in court. on hand to see it were the victims' families who'd waited the longest. >> my main thing is i needed to see the man who did it and determine for myself if he did it. coming up, the trial begins with a lucky break. >> all of a sudden you get handed the murder weapon. >> yeah, that was a gift. >> and a bombshell witness, a former stripper with a revealing story. >> she said i only date bad boys. >> and i said, well, i'm a bad boy. years after the murders of thomas hunter, shirlee sherman, and roger and mary brumback, anthony garcia finally faced a jury. there to witness it all, friends and family of the victims. thomas hunter's mom claire hunter, who had been staying out of the public eye, and shirlee sherman's brother dan were two of the first people outside the courtroom. >> it's been eight years. you know? it's been going on for a long time. a lot of this stuff's a blur. >> reporter: douglas county attorneys don kleine and brenda beadle had been prepping this case for more than three years. you prosecuted all four murders. >> yeah. >> you ever think about, "maybe we should just take the last two. that's easier? >> sure. that was a discussion that we had many times but the evidence, i think, would still come in. especially with the 2008 case. so, it seemed like the most logical thing was, if we're gonna do these, let's do 'em together. >> reporter: their theory was whoever killed the brumbacks also killed thomas hunter and shirlee sherman. prosecutors summed up their case in a word, revenge, and they pointed to something they found on garcia's tablet. >> one of the searches was just an interesting quote that had the word revenge in it, so we were interested to know where that came from, and it's easy to find when you google it. >> reporter: it was a quote similar to one in shakespeare's play "the merchant of venice." >> if you harm me, shall i not revenge? >> not often does "the merchant of venice" come up in a murder trial. >> never before in my career, >> but that's your motive. >> sums up the case. that's our motive. yeah. >> reporter: they argued that garcia killed because he was angry about his termination from creighton and that it prevented him from being accepted into other programs to which he later applied. >> as he continues to try and have some sort of a career, it follows him. every time he tried to get into a different program or licensed somewhere, this creighton thing pops up. >> reporter: and prosecutors said items found in garcia's home indicated that he was trying to destroy traces of his troubled past. >> there's this trash bag sitting in the sink, a chemical odor emanating from that, and it's all these papers in there. in these papers after they're dried out is the termination letter from dr. brumback and dr. hunter. handwritten notes. >> and there's something about putting tape on your fingers? >> tape on your fingers. >> park your car somewhere else and walk to the location. >> buy common shoes. >> buy common shoes. >> sort of a list that a killer would make. >> yes, it is. >> reporter: prosecutors said the two sets of murders, five years apart, correlated with garcia's career struggles. the first in 2008 came two weeks after he was fired by lsu-shreveport. the second, in 2013, followed another round of unemployment and financial troubles. >> he's trying to get jobs at temporary agencies. he's having financial issues. his home is going to foreclosure. >> reporter: but they argued that garcia's original target on mother's day 2013 was dr. chhanda bewtra, a professor at creighton who had written him bad evaluations. >> she was somebody that he really thought was too hard on him, was the cause of his termination to begin with, and he really had some animosity towards her. >> reporter: two days before the attempted break-in, prosecutors said anthony garcia used his phone to look up dr. bewtra's address. analysis of a scant bit of dna evidence taken from a doorknob at the bewtra home showed there was a significant chance that either garcia or a male relative of his had tried to break in. >> when that doesn't work because they're not home, he then goes to wing stop, right up the road, and goes to plan b where he searches for the brumbacks' address. >> reporter: this receipt shows his location at wing stop around 2:26 p.m. at 2:57, they said, garcia used his cell phone to look up dr. brumback's home address. as for the gun used in the brumback killings, prosecutors argued the gun parts found at the brumback house fit a gun later found alongside a highway about 20 miles from garcia's home. that gun was missing a crucial component, the barrel, meaning a test bullet couldn't be fired, however, what was left was licensed to anthony garcia. >> all of a sudden you get handed the murder weapon? >> right, yeah, that was a gift. i think it was divine intervention, yeah. >> reporter: the 2008 dundee case, however, had no physical evidence. what it did have was eyewitnesses. several described seeing a silver honda crv with an out-of-state plate. this is a picture of the car anthony garcia owned in 2008 when he was living in louisiana. it's a honda crv. >> the thing that was noticeable was it was silver. the people noticed it as a type of suv or crv. >> and they mentioned out of state plates. >> out of state plates, right. >> reporter: there was also that description of the man people saw near the hunter home that day. an olive skinned man wearing a baggy suit. >> they were all seeing the same person, the same vehicle and the location. >> you're convinced that's not somebody who's lost and eventually finds their way outta there. >> oh, no, it fits. and that's the person that did this crime. and it fits with anthony garcia, also. >> reporter: tying it all together, prosecutors called a bombshell witness, a former stripper named cecilia hoffman. hoffman told the jury that four years after the dundee murders, garcia made a shocking confession to her. she told the cops about it in this audio recording. >> i remember he said it was a long time ago, he said, i killed a young boy and an ole woman. i said why? i said, why would you kill a young boy and an old woman and he said "they had it coming." >> of all the pieces that we didn't have in the 2008 case, that was a big piece. >> reporter: prosecutors said hoffman had nothing to gain by publicly talking about her past life. >> she had two children. she had moved on in her life, and didn't want to go back in time, but she did. >> reporter: but why would garcia make that confession to her? hoffman said garcia, who was a regular at the strip club where she worked, wanted more than a lap dance. >> he was trying to impress her because she was trying to keep him at arm's length saying, "you know what, he was getting too serious." >> and she said, "i only date bad boys," or something like that -- >> right. "you're too good for me. i only date bad boys." and he said -- his response to her is, "well, i'm a bad boy. i once killed a young boy and an older lady." >> reporter: prosecutors thought it was just what they needed to show garcia's guilt and weave all their evidence together. >> you know, one piece by itself probably isn't enough. but you put all those pieces together, and it's a very good case. >> reporter: after 12 days, it was now the defense's turn. they would tell a different story, one that attacked the very foundation of the prosecution's case. coming up, a candid look inside the defense team. >> shut up. >> raw and real. >> you want real life? you're getting real life. you're flies on the wall, man. >> reporter: for the lawyers defending anthony garcia, it seemed the best defense was an all-out offense. >> i'm not trying to ask somebody out to the prom. you know, i'm trying to defend somebody, and i'm going to use everything in my arsenal. >> reporter: for lead attorney, bob motta jr., that meant challenging or debunking everything jurors had heard from prosecutors for the past two weeks. >> there were so many inconsistencies with the way that they said that it went down that it just never came together for me that he was guilty. >> reporter: in a rare move, the defense team allowed "dateline" inside their private strategy sessions. >> we need to talk about our strategy on direct. >> reporter: it was a raucous group with alison motta -- >> shut the [ bleep ] up! >> reporter: serving as a passionate advisor. robert motta sr., the voice of experience. >> are we missing something? >> reporter: and local attorney jeremy jorgenson and an assortment of researchers sweating the details. the team rented a home out in west omaha, not far from the dundee nieghborhood. it was there that they plotted strategy. the first order of business? knock down the theory that anthony garcia killed two people in 2008 and two more in 2013 out of revenge. >> we've got to get rid of her stupid quote. >> who? what quote? the shakespeare quote, shall i not revenge or whatever. >> reporter: according to the defense team, anthony garcia had no motive to kill anyone. >> what's wrong with the prosecution theory that anthony garcia blamed the people at creighton for everything bad that had happened to him since he left creighton and the idea that when people would check out his resume, they would inevitably get back to creighton and they'd get a bad report about him. >> the problem with the state's theory is that anthony garcia would've been unaware of those communications. they don't let people in on those communications. >> reporter: on the other hand, they pointed out, dr. hunter had actually handed garcia this short letter of recommendation after garcia was dismissed from creighton. >> it got him his next job, which he got a month after -- two months after he left creighton. >> reporter: for his part anthony garcia seemed bored by it all. cameras were not allowed inside the courtroom, but if they had been, they would have shown what jurors saw anthony garcia napping. >> he slept quite a bit during the trial. >> i'd say half the trial. you know, and how do you think that that plays off to a jury? >> reporter: the 2008 case of tom hunter and shirlee sherman was the most straightforward for the defense. >> there is no direct evidence against my client. there is no smoking gun. there is no dna. it's all pieces and they are trying to put together this puzzle. >> reporter: on the stand, none of the prosecution's eyewitnesses could i.d. anthony garcia as the man they'd seen eight years earlier. as for the silver honda crv, the defense pointed out that not one of them ever mentioned the big spare tire that was on the back of garcia's car. >> it's big as all get out. i mean, it's enormous. >> and nobody said anything about that? >> never one mention of it, which to me indicated that it wasn't my client's vehicle. that's the more likely answer. >> reporter: the 2013 brumback case was more complicated for the defense team beginning with the fact that anthony garcia had been in omaha on the day of the murders. >> how do you explain your client being back in omaha and searching for the addresses of one person who was killed and one person whose house was nearly broken into? >> i don't know. do we -- that's a tough question. i mean, you're dealing with digital forensics. >> reporter: ultimately the defense argued that because an investigator downloaded garcia's iphone data on to his personal phone, the evidence was open to tampering. >> you've got a cop who's downloading what seems to be the most critical piece of evidence onto his own iphone. >> so it might have been a cop who did that search and not your client? >> i'm not going to suggest that anybody, you know, specifically typed the name in. i'm just going to say that the way that the state presented the case and, in particular, that piece of evidence was not exactly truthful. >> reporter: the defense attornies spent a lot of time talking about the gun found on the side of the road and the ammo magazine at the brumback house. >> in light of the fact that we have the very damaging magazine evidence, we want to cloud it up by talking about a bunch of [ bleep ] that doesn't matter. >> hey, you want real life? you got real life. you're flys on the wall, man. edit it out, dude. i am who i am. >> reporter: in court the defense argued prosecutors could not prove a link between gun parts found at the brumback house and the gun that was licensed to anthony garcia. >> the parts found in the house are parts of a weapon that went through a catastrophic failure. the parts of our client's gun that were found on the side of the road showed no evidence of a catastrophic failure. >> and although it's the right kind of gun to have committed the murders, it's not necessarily the gun. >> right -- >> one of the right kinds of gun. >> you can't fire a test bullet from the gun, right? >> no. >> reporter: the chicago based defense team worked late into the night while keeping a close eye on their beloved cubs who were in hot pursuit of a world series title. >> it's the top of the second. cubs have men on first and second. it's one out. >> reporter: it was during these sessions over lunch -- >> there's no point in showing had of cards that don't need to be shown. >> reporter: during breaks and at their rental home that the defense team planned and prepped their expert witnesses. >> this really boils down to interpretation and every single lab can interpret something differently. >> reporter: the dna evidence linking garcia to the bewtra break-in they said was flawed. and the prosecution's timeline for the brumback murders was suspect. >> the state's window for when this had to occur because of where they had our guy at certain times through cell phone records, it had to occur sometime between 3:15 and 4:00, maybe 4:15. >> reporter: according to the defense, the brumbacks were killed later, maybe around midnight, long after anthony garcia had left omaha and headed for home. >> our pathologists made it very clear that because of the rigor mortis, the conditions of the bodies, the homicides didn't happen when he was in omaha. >> reporter: in the dundee murders, perhaps the biggest hurdle for the defense was the testimony of former exotic dancer cecilia hoffman. >> cecilia hoffman's statement was -- was huge. >> reporter: remember, she's the woman who quoted garcia as saying -- >> he said, i killed a young boy and an old woman. >> reporter: but here's the thing, hoffman later said to a private eye hired by the defense that she remembered very little from that time. bob motta hammered at hoffman's credibility on cross-examination. >> the concept of that is just so insane to me, that this guy who's gotten away for essentially murder is now gonna confess to a stripper that he knows that there's no way is ever gonna hook up with him and that's your come-on line? "oh, yeah, i killed people. i killed an old lady and a young boy." i don't know. >> reporter: after three weeks both sides summed up their cases for the jury and hit all the familiar themes, then they placed anthony garcia's fate in the jury's hands. coming up, a toast from the defense before the verdict. what would the jury do? >> seeing my brother cry, seeing my mom cry, seeing the district attorney cry was a tough moment. >> reporter: sometimes justice is not what happens in a courtroom but rather what comes out of it. on the day lawyers finished their closing arguments in the anthony garcia murder case, a lot of people showed up to see what kind of justice would come out of courtroom 316. among those waiting were the families of tom hunter, of shirlee sherman and, yes, of anthony garcia. it was late afternoon when the jury got the case. then the waiting began. huddled on benches outside the courtroom were reporters and spectators, the family and friends of the victims. >> reporter: prosecutors retreated to their offices for what they hoped would be a short wait. but the defense was ready to blow off steam. the mottas and their entourage settled in at a local bar several miles from the courthouse. the jury would be out for awhile, they thought so they feasted and toasted one another. >> cheers. >> here, here. >> reporter: then as the sound system began to play the opening chords of the rolling stones song "sympathy for the devil," bob motta said something he wanted everyone in the bar to >> here's my song and this is apropos. >> you went out for drinks and we were there for that. "sympathy for the devil" comes on the sound system and you say -- hey, that's the -- that's our theme song here. that's what we're going for. that's what you wanted. sympathy for the devil. >> when i looked at the case that the state presented it was pretty obvious to me they saw her sleeping client as the devil. so, yeah, i thought it was apropos. i thought it was appropriate. not because i think he's the devil. because they sure did. the state absolutely thought he >> the jury deliberated till 9:00 p.m. that first night and all of the next morning. tension ratcheting up with every tick of the clock. >> we felt confident bit but you don't know. >> at 1:00 in the afternoon, word began to spread. the snir had a verdict. >> i thought that the verdict would be good. but you don't know until you hear it. >> reporter: lining up alongside the families of shirlee sherman and thomas hunter was the garcia family. >> they were very respectful during the trial. i will say that. i mean, they didn't -- they didn't ever say anything -- >> right, like some -- some families turn it into a war -- >> rate, yeah, there was none of that. >> reporter: once everyone had crowded inside, the verdict was announced. guilty on all counts. >> i just breathed a sigh of relief. you just feel that rush of emotion. >> reporter: it was a moment a long time coming for shirlee sherman's brothers brad and dan and her son jeff. reaction to the verdict? >> relief. lots of relief. >> you guys feel better? >> i think my sister deserved that her killer be brought to justice. >> reporter: jeff hunter was sitting with his mother and brothers while that verdict was read. in that moment of joy and gratitude, he says, he thought of his little brother, tom, a kid who never had the chance to grow up. >> it just gets me thinking what -- where he would be now and what he'd look like now, what he'd talk like, what he'd be doing. >> reporter: the most emotional moment came later that afternoon behind closed doors when the victims' families met privately with the people responsible for bringing this case to an end. >> we basically gave 'em a round of applause when they came in because they did a hell of a job. >> tough to be there, or you were glad you were there? >> my family, we're not really emotional, so seeing my brother cry, seeing my mom cry, it's hard and seeing the district attorney cry, it was a tough moment. >> reporter: while garcia's defense team faced a gaggle of cameras outside the courtroom. >> in terms of what we did, we did the best we could. >> reporter: anthony garcia's parents who'd spent much of their life savings on their son's defense spoke briefly with reporters. >> rough for everybody. i know it's difficult for the other families too, but it's very difficult for us too at this time. >> reporter: one last set of victims. >> he never once turned around and looked at 'em. not once. >> i felt sorry for his parents. i did. i saw his dad's head down a number of times and you kind of in your mind, you don't know what they're thinking but obviously you could tell they were saddened greatly. >> like a weight lifted off your shoulders. there's not that constant cloud hanging over that everybody wants to talk about, things like that. just more open, better spirits. >> when they read the verdict the deputies were taking him away and alison motta was trying to convince the deputy or talk him into letting him speak to his parents because he'll never get to speak to them again. what about all the other victims here that can't speak to shirlee or thomas or roger or mary. i'm craig melvin. >> and this is "date line." >> my mother called and says, "michelle's dead." how is that possible? >> a young mother found brutally murdered. her little girl left to wander in her mother's blood. police had a suspect and they say he had a motive. >> we had an intimate relationship. >> we ended up having sex. >> but could they prove he was the killer? >> it was a circumstantial case. >> except for that witness. the girl who left those footprints.

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