and i m afraid he might use it. reporter: a story of sand, sunsets in fatal attraction. she had so much to give. she would make everyone feel special. reporter: successful at everything except love. then, she found him. she fed said she felt so good in his arms. reporter: he was handsome and crazy about her. there was talk of marriage. and then suddenly there was talk of trouble. she was frightened enough not to go home. she had fear that something would happen to her. reporter: it did. my sister s not answering her phone. reporter: how did love go so wrong? in a surprising twist, it would take not one, but two trials to discover the truth. he wasn t convicted of killing my sister anymore, all of a sudden. hello, and welcome to dateline. who who was a savvy entrepreneur. cut tom toolan his teeth in the financial world. they are connection was instant. but when they re somewhere love cooled, tempers flared and the relationship to the tragic turned. init
feeling a wheelbarrow when suddenly she heard a voice behind her. the voice said is there anyone here is this house, i looked up, and i looked right at him. the man, oddly dressed for nantucket in a hat and long overcoat was inquiring about betts cottage. i said i don t know. something about him bothered her. i knew beth had been seeing someone and i think if she more or less told me, i think it s over. i said i guess this is the boyfriend who came back. he moved towards the cottage door, barbara went to her house to house lunch, but she was an easy. as i said, it was an intuition. barbara said she called beth s brother peter but couldn t reach him, she said she called beth s parents and couldn t reach them either. she knew beth was planning to pick up her nephew before 1 pm, but beth s car would not move.
and then, she noticed the shades in beth s bedroom window had been drawn. i had a bad feeling, i had a bad feeling. she called peter again and this time she reached him. i told him that there was someone in the yard, and i think that it is beth s boyfriend and he just said to me, barbara, lock your door, don t go out, i m calling the police. 9-1-1. he s at her house now, she won t answer her cell phone. it was then that sergeant daniel with a nantucket police arrived at the cottage and with his partner made the discovery. beth lochtefeld s body on the living room floor. it was just weeks after she thought she had found the love of her life and dreamed of a new beginning. for the lochtefeld family, life would never be the same. what did you lose on that day? i would have to say i lost my best friend and confident apart from my wife, she was my closest sibling. we always got along very well. leslie got a call that same day. when you heard the news, how
reporter: beth wanted to introduce tom to her friends on the west coast. was he but she was less than impressed. he was distant and very formal. i didn t understand him. the reporter: trip ended badly. they went in a taxi and he had a temper tantrum. and i guess she said, let us off here, but whatever she said, he turned and he really yelled at her. she said it was a bit scary. reporter: and he was drinking. she said he had eight beers by the time he got on the plane. reporter: bernard says, on the way home, tom asked beth what her friends thought of him. he said something chilling that followed. something that troubled her so much that she told burn it out about it right away. he said, what did she say about me? she said, i thought you were really sophisticated. and he said, under his breath, boy, i really should have been an actor. and she said, that just went right into her gut.
that s when he accused me of being lascivious with a bartender, because i was just having conversation. reporter: they got into a cab to go home and becky says toolan tried to grab her. she didn t wait around. i jumped out and ran. i ran across the street. reporter: and now, four years later, elizabeth beth lochtefeld was in a frightening situation with the same man. but that night, instead of grabbing her stuff from toolan s apartment when she got their, beth stayed. and leslie says that beth later told her that things went from bad to terrible. he got very violent with her that night. he sexually assaulted her. and i think that beth was probably, sort of in a state of it s a confusing thing when it is somebody that you are supposedly close to. who violates you. my guess is that she was probably just in the state of shock. and why she didn t leave that next day, i m not exactly sure.