dateline. members of the military risk their lives every day. but a high-ranking army officer was dead in her own home and not killed by an enemy of the u.s., but by someone she knew and trusted. here s andrea canning with deadly devotion. reporter: in the hot and dangerous middle east, she held her own in the company of men. a captain and a commander whose devotion never wavered. she inspired people. and that s maybe why she made such a great commander. she inspired her troops. she inspired those that worked for her to want to do well. reporter: she was captain lynn armstrong reister. army veteran debbie moore was one of her best friends. lynn was very intelligent. she knew how to bring out the best in people. i just loved her. she was someone to be inspired by. she inspired people. reporter: she had a big role in the military. very big role, yeah.
welcome back to dateline. lynn reister was murdered in the prime of her life. her brother-in-law confessed to killing her but was he the only one who wanted her dead or was her husband also planning to kill her? here s andrea canning with the conclusion of deadly devotion. to take your wife, the mother of your child and the fact that she was carrying his unborn child. i don t even have the words of how sick what a monster. reporter: roger reister didn t look like a monster when he went on trial for criminal solicitation. but lots of witnesses said he talked about killing his wife to anyone who would listen. well, now 12 jurors were listening. and it took them all of three hours to find him guilty. when you hear guilty my legs went out from underneath me. my lawyers actually had my arms. reporter: roger was sentenced to life in prison. he spoke to us from behind glass at a texas state prison. the prosecutor said in his
but you d be surprised what people will say. reporter: the year after roger s trial, his brother rodney was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. roger still says rodney acted alone. one of the things that s hard to wrap your head around is that rodney had this love for you. he looked up to you. and for rodney to turn on you and say that my brother asked me to kill his wife and i did it out of love for him, why in the world would he make that up? maybe to save his own life. i heard that they were trying to give him the death penalty. and the only thing that he could have done to even save his own life was to say something like that. maybe get a little bit of sympathy as far as why. reporter: but this is a man who loved you. well, if he loved me, he wouldn t have killed my wife. reporter: you do seem though like you re playing the part of victim a little bit by saying, this person made this up. this person made this up. poor me. all these people are lying.
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lynn s. and then i remember lynn telling me that roger had told her that rodney was going around calling her names, you know. calling her vulgar names that she s the reason that he got kicked out, that she s the reason that all these things happened and stuff. reporter: did you see that as a motive? i never thought that that in itself would have been a motive to kill her or that he would have been that angry just because of that to kill her. reporter: why in the world would rodney want lynn dead? i don t think rodney wanted lynn dead. here was a person that was willing to help us in the investigation. and he was very cooperative initially and throughout. reporter: the search for suspects continued. lynn s neighborhood turned up nothing. same with fort bliss. lynn had no enemies there. you couldn t imagine that it could ve happened. it seemed unreal.