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she s starting to lose jobs. it s like all hell broke loose in her head. reporter: but murder? remember, the police went to see dawn just a couple of hours after ben was killed, found her fast asleep. what time did you think you went to sleep? oh, god. i watched the movie the depart departed and i don t know, about 4:00. in fact, she happened to be sharing her bedroom with a 21-year-old family friend named james matlian. we watched a movie and went to bed. yeah, that s her story. that s it. reporter: not exactly a convincing alibi. any more than the obvious fiction that james, the new man in her life, was just a friend. even less convincing, when detective ron elgis learned about a trip to a 7-eleven store, middle of the night, about an hour and a half before the murder. why are they hiding little pieces that s seem insignificant to what is going on? then we started to do surveillance on them. now they re starting to get ....
i pulled the trigger. reporter: but james matlean did not shrink from it. he murdered ben oxley in his sleep and must live with what he did for the rest of his days. i m afraid to deal with what i actually did. reporter: he told his story in court last december. it was after the d.a. took the death penalty off the table and james decided to plead guilty. and that s when melissa sitting in the courtroom heard for the first time about something else. james was supposed to kill her, too. dawn asked me if i would kill melissa. i just automatically said yeah. reporter: there was a bullet there for you. what was it like to hear that? unreal. do you believe that she was in the house that night? i do, which makes me sick. i have a harder time with dawn than i do james, because if it wasn t for her, none of it would happen. reporter: and that s where ....
A heated conversation about ben oxley. james asking dawn if she wants to have him killed. but that s where the stories diverge. dawn remember, says she told james, no, don t do it and fell asleep on the couch. but that s not james matlean s story. she was ecstatic about what was happening. she was happy i was going to kill somebody. you know? reporter: it was after midnight. dawn drew him a diagram of ben oxley s house, said james, so he could find his way to the bedroom. then he went to the 7-eleven, drew $40 out of the atm with dawn s bank card. and then together he said they went to the walmart. dawn waited in the car while james did the shopping, shotgun shells, gloves, a flashlight. she was just very happy about it. i mean, like you would imagine a kid going to disneyland. you know? reporter: but there was a problem. they d forgotten to bring the diagram of ben s house with them. the plan wasn t for dawn to go in the house. the plan was just for me to go in the house. ....
Made him feel rescued. gave him a place to live. he had just been paroled from prison after doing time for stealing a truck. kind of gave me a sense of hope. there was somebody out there besides my mom who cared. reporter: at dawn s house, james discovered what others had, he said, as long as dawn was happy, everybody was happy. and if she wasn t well, then james could not be happy either. she was very, very upset the fact she lost alyssa. reporter: and she went on rants, he said about, ben oxley, a man james didn t know, had never met. but he listened. kind of felt like i was in love with her for a little while. it gave me a sense of feeling wanted. reporter: and then he realized, he said, she d never be happy unless he fixed what was upsetting her. i just wanted to make dawn happy. reporter: so what happened? dawn and james stories begin the same way. february 20th, 2008, night of heavy drinking at dawn s house, ....
And i didn t know how to get in. or where the bedroom was? or where the bedroom was. so dawn had to go inside. reporter: the front door was locked, so dawn took him around back, he said, where a sliding glass door was unlocked. and they eased their way in and walked down the hall. then, said james, dawn pointed him towards the master bedroom. and i turned around and she was going into alyssa s room. going into the room? yeah. she was about half her body was into the room. she said that she was going to take alyssa with her. i said you can t take alyssa. reporter: is this true? remember, alyssa, just 6 years old at the time, told police she remembered seeing someone in her doorway. i just looked out and i saw somebody walking in. reporter: and then, said james, he walked into the master bedroom, saw ben and melissa sleeping in the moonlight. and i raised the gun. ....