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, and
sister jaime couldn t bring herself to be in the courtroom. i don t know what to believe if i did but that s the hard thing. and you just don t know what to believe. and i i really don t want to think that my brother did anything terrible. reporter: but dustin jasper the victim s brother was there on most days, grabbing a bench seat within good stare-down range of the accused, doug. he never made eye contact with me. i think he s too ashamed. reporter: but on the stand, shame didn t seem to figure into the bold-as-brass story about doug that ricky spencer was telling the jury, how after the first run to michigan was a bust, doug called ricky again. and he said, hey dude, it s done. i killed her and her dad. and i was like, what? and he says, no, i m just kidding. and i told him that wasn t funny. so he said he was kidding and you told him it wasn t funny? yeah. reporter: ricky s second day on the stand as the star witness. prosecutor mcdonough picked up his
reporter: doug found a job as a truck drive and home was on the ninth floor of this building. she wanted to live in a always a dream of hers. reporter: things were okay? it was the best year of our marriage, the best year of our reporter: but doug and venus problems ran deeper than anything an amusement parring ride would paper over. a year after making the move, venus had had enough and suddenly bolted for her parents place in michigan. doug was left alone in virginia, more than 700 miles away. big surprise to you. very big surprise. reporter: two months later, a chilly monday morning started like any day at venus parents house. her mom went to work, her dad was sleeping and venus and the kids were slowly getting up. at 8:00 venus s father was groggy. he was startled awake. i heard the girls being loud out in the front room. i thought, why isn t venus quieting them down? she knows
yeah. what if this happened to your sister? you close with them? yeah, i m pretty close with them. what if someone took your sister? be upset. you d be upset, wouldn t you? yeah. that is what s going on with venus family. they re right now going, we need closure to this. we really do. you need to help us with that. because you are part of this game now, but not our main concern whatsoever. reporter: the detectives sensed ricky was ready to come clean. like shane said, if if we thought that you were you were a main player in this, do you really think we d be dealing with you like this? absolutely not. so my first question to you is did he tell you he was gonna kill her before this happened, before you went down there? what did he say? he needed to take care of business up in michigan. reporter: finally, ricky sighed and started to unspool his story, a spellbinding thriller involving doubles and deception with doug stewart as its mastermind. what was the b
okay, did he say why? to hide her? to hide? or to get rid of her. lieutenant christiansen called detective scott back in michigan. they d broken it. he s our guy. and mike s reaction was something to the effect of holy cow. reporter: mike scott, who d preached patience with the prosecutor before, immediately dispatched officers to apprehend doug stewart. trooper aaron steensma was part of the team that tailed him to this convenience store. we just walked in and said, douglas stewart, you re under arrest, and he turned around and placed the hand cuffs on him. were you surprised? absolutely. absolutely. i thought it was a mistake, and i d get an apology. reporter: doug had told police from the beginning he thought venus skipped out on him and his kids, after his arrest, he said it again to detective scott. i got very upset. i told him, i said, i ve worked with you