reporter: detective kemp scanned the recent texts between the two from heather s cell phone, and it appeared that things had heated up even more a few days before she went missing. there was some sexual content that i had noticed. reporter: ed says it was heather who first turned the texting into sexting. what did you think? it was partly that, you know, she was in a highly flirtatious mood that day. i wasn t really quite sure. did you bite? i bit. reporter: detectives wanted to know how much and whether ed was truly willing to drop everything to help heather start a new life in secret. no matter what it took, i would protect her. reporter: ed knew it probably didn t look good to police. i guess me admitting that i would hide her, if that s what she wanted, you know, i can understand them saying that, you know, maybe he s hidden her.
reporter: ed said he heard a man s voice in the background during that call. but whose voice was it? coming up the pieces of the case are about to fall into place. and all those flirtatious texts, turns out they aren t at all what you think. i need to put that out of my mind. i comparison shop for everything to get the best deal. gas is 6 cents cheaper here. sale rack! no! and, for loans, i go to lendingtree.com. i wanted to consolidate my credit cards in to a personal loan to pay them off faster. lending tree made lenders compete for my business and i ended up with a loan that saved me over $9000 and no more credit card debt. i mean $9000! it s a lot of money. lending tree, may the best loan win. of savings and service.
and what was that name? edward raulerson. reporter: police dialed a phone number they found for ed. he told them he lived 500 miles away in eastern tennessee and agreed to make the eight-hour drive to germantown to be interviewed. detectives wondered had he made the trip once already that week to take heather away? and most importantly, could he tell them where she was now? just because you ve got somebody living 500 miles away does not mean that they didn t have anything to do with this disappearance. reporter: police recorded ed raulerson s interview. during questioning, ed made a potentially important admission. i love her to death. i would do anything for her. you know, one of the detectives asked me, you know, who would she call if she wanted to disappear. i said, me. i d be here in however many hours it took for me to get here today. reporter: but, he insisted, heather never made that call. and there was more. ed told detectives he was surprised by the first questio
Away. but that puppy love was something he never got over, even after heather married. were you still carrying that torch? yeah. but i didn t really let it show. i respected heather too much. reporter: around heather s birthday in the spring of 2013, after she had lost all that weight, ed told detectives he reached out to wish her well and got more than a thank you. heather had big news. she and chris had separated. at that moment in her life, she needed a friend. and that was what i was there for. i was there right when she needed me the most. reporter: but ed said that shoulder to lean on soon turned into something more. talking. just, you know, listening to her problems. and then it just, you know, progressed from there. progressed in what way? oh. you know, i m a flirtatious person. and just became flirtatious.
Possibly, you know, have him call you back or what was it? the pertinent matter? it was letting her know that i d discovered that she d been having an affair this entire time. is that who was calling her, the person you suspected? i kind of got that feeling that that s who was calling her. reporter: in fact, it was ed raulerson. i called her. she answered. and immediately i could hear, you know, her and chris kind of arguing. so, she s telling him to get out and he s constantly saying, i need to talk to you. i need to talk to you. i just need two minutes. reporter: and ed said he heard something else come out of chris mouth. he s talking to her. it s a matter of life and death. she asked him, what do you mean, a matter of life and death? reporter: in his interview, chris admitted he and heather continued arguing when she hung up with ed, but he insisted she was alive when he went home. and he said she sent that disturbing good-bye email only after he left.