Stay updated with breaking news from Detective filer. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
hi, mom. this woman had gone out to get the mail and disappeared in her pyjamas the case was never closed. it was consuming all of us. the individual was wearing a baseball cap, hoodie with the hood pulled up and large mirrored sunglasses. oh, my gosh, did this really happen? i m like, no, dude, i can t do this. there was a scream. a drop of blood came from her nose. it was like a game. he was a part of this game. we re done with the games. it needs to stop. it needed to stop. michigan snow blankets field and woodland with silent beauty, sometimes encasing ugly secrets hidden beneath, never meant to be disturbed until finally they re revealed and all is made clear. i know a lot of people say, you wanted to find her. yeah, i wanted to find her, but then it was going to become so real to me that maybe you don t want to find yeah, yeah. start with the mother of two who vanished as she stepped outside her door to pick up mail. she wasn t there ....
Unless they re up to, you know, something of questionable activity. reporter: so detective filer asked them if they were positive it was doug stewart, and he got an important admission. neither one of them said they were 100% sure it was doug. reporter: as they now recalled it, even though the man in the hoodie made a payment as doug, he never looked them in the eye, and there was no small talk. then he rushed off instead of waiting for his receipt. filer called the lead detective scott in michigan with his take. i don t think it was him at the lawyer s office. he said, that s great. now we are one step closer to solving the case. reporter: a complicated, clever scheme was coming into the focus for investigators, centering around doug stewart and some mystery man in virginia. these points all represent cell phone towers. reporter: back in michigan, this detective was checking doug s cell phone records hoping to come up with some ....
Custody dispute. the fbi went out to the office and confirmed he showed up and made a payment to them the morning she disappeared. reporter: but detective filer had his own follow-up for the secretaries in what was beginning to look like an outlandish scheme. he had two theories. one, the secretaries could have had a relationship with him and may have been lying to the fbi to cover his tracks. or that somebody posing as doug had come to the law office and made a payment, and indeed it wasn t doug. reporter: the woman described the man they had seen. but this time in greater detail. the individual was wearing a baseball cap, hoodie with the hood pulled up and large aviator style sunglasses. generally people don t come up with hoods and large glasses disguising their appearance ....
To newport news to talk to him. so we just went down there to investigate the disappearance of venus stewart. we didn t know what we were going to find. reporter: shane criger, a detective with the michigan state police, rolled in with his own forensics team. they met up with todd filer, the detective from newport news. together, they all went to doug s apartment. we did not disclose to him at that time that we were from michigan. reporter: michigan police didn t want doug to clam up, or lawyer up. so they let filer, the local cop, do the talking. he didn t seem overly concerned about the disappearance. he felt like she had simply run away and this was some sort of stunt that she was pulling. reporter: filer said he didn t jump to any conclusions. i hadn t made a decision one way or the other whether she had simply run away or she had been abducted. reporter: with a search warrant in hand, detective filer and the michigan officers listened to doug s story, searched the ....
the individual was wearing a baseball cap, a hoodie with the hood pulled up and large, mirrored, aviation-type sunglasses. generally, people don t come in with, you know, hoods up and large glasses, disguising their appearance, you know, unless they re up to, you know, something of questionable activity. reporter: so detective filer asked them if they were positive it was doug stewart, and he got an important admission. neither one of them said that they were 100% sure it was doug. reporter: as they now recalled it, even though the man in the pulled-up hoodie and dark glasses made a payment, as doug, he never looked them in the eye, and there was no small talk. then he rushed off, instead of waiting for his receipt. filer called lead detective scott in michigan with his take. i don t think it was him at the lawyer s office. he said, that s great. now we re one step closer, you know, to solvin the case. reporter: a complicated, maybe even clever, scheme was now coming i ....