brutally murdered. her little girl left to wonder in her mother s blood. police had a suspect and they say that he had a motive. we had an intimate relationship. ended up having sex. could they prove he was the killer? it was a circumstantial case, except for that witness, girl who left those footprints. they will never know what cassidy saw and what she did not see. maybe she could not tell detectives who the killer was, but maybe she did not have to. the fact that cassidy was spared, would that mean anything to a jury? person who killed the mother cared about cassidy. hello, and welcome to dateline. michelle young was married to her college sweetheart, four months pregnant with her second child when the unthinkable happened. the young mother was beaten to death in her own bedroom. the investigation would quickly bowl a troubled marriage. but her husband was away on business. and unraveling this complicated case would take years. here is keith morrison with
Dispatched to chatted oaks. the outskirts of raleigh, north carolina. here because of the 9-1-1 call from this placed on birch leaf drive. i think my sister is dead. tell me what happened ma am? i have no idea, oh my god. the caller was meredith fischer, she had just discovered on the floor of the master bedroom the savagely beaten body of her elderly sister, 29 year old michelle young, a woman who in death, was about to be famous. listen to me mom, i m going to tell you what to do but you need to calm down. there s blood everywhere? yes. listen to me, ma am is she breathing? i don t think so. have you checked? michelle? she s cold. okay. two and a half year old cassidy who had crawled out from underneath the parents bed just feet from where her mother lay. cassidy s voice, chattering to her aunt was caught. she s got boos everywhere? had cassidy witnessed the murder? awakened, alone, to find this.
and at parties, said fiona child s, jason s x rated tricks were famously over the top. i never observed it myself, i would just hear about it and he would expose himself and do what he would thought was funny tricks. and i was always just rather embarrassed for michelle. he never settled down, it was as if he was still living the single life and that he had never bought into the marriage and put all of that meant. in october 2006, when michelle was four months pregnant, jason became deeply involved with another woman. and not just any woman. michelle money was one of michelle young s friends from college, one of those charlie s angels. in an early october, days before his third wedding anniversary, jason flew to florida to see michelle money. testifying that they both knew it was wrong.
Suddenly that camera is pointing straight at the ceiling. same camera? same camera. it s tampered with yet again. if that was jason young s work, is it possible he did make the 340 mile round trip? could he have killed his wife and cleaned up his daughter all in seven and a half hours without ever being seen? to find out investigators played a hunch. they visited every gas station along the route, showed jason s photo, talked to the night clerks, and came across a woman named gracie. in a tiny place called king, north carolina she took one look at that photograph and recognized it instantly. he was the foul mouth customer she said, who came storming into the store to complain that the pumps were locked. what time was it? 5:40 am, murder of the murder. there was an altercation between the two of them. so you d have a reason why she would remember him, opposed to
First time. jason s own story. the second trial began in february of 2012. this time howard cummings let led the prosecution. hoping to use jason s own words to convict him. but first, prosecutors called that night clerk at the gas station, gracie, who had remembered jason complaining about the locked pumps. when he came in to pay, he started cussing and raising cain. what time did this happen? five, 5:30 in the morning. a time when jason said he was at the hotel. then prosecutors had new witnesses and new testimony. wanted jurors to hear about cassidy, whose bloodied footprints, they contended, made her a silent witness to murder. when i got to cassidy i said what are you doing? daycare workers took the stand.