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: so what about all those purchases at walmart? doug stewart seen walking the aisles in loud, floral shorts? they asked rhetorically would a man about to commit a murder be so dumb as to call that kind of attention to himself? is he trying to hide things? he s wearing hawaiian shorts asking people where things are. does that sound like somebody who s going to use it in a crime? reporter: and he bought a shovel, the defense attorney noted. so what? what evidence have they shown you that a shovel was used in the killing of venus stewart? they have not. reporter: schroeder summed it up for the jury. he claimed the prosecutor had an illusion of evidence, a circumstantial case woven together with ricky spencer s tall tale. they ve tried to make you think they have all this evidence, but they don t. and they haven t proved their case.
couldn t, like, believe what i was hearing. okay. and he said, this is where you come in, ricky. i want you to be my alibi, just pretend to be me and live in my apartment. reporter: ricky s immediate reaction was an emphatic no. i was like no dude. i don t want to [bleep] here anything about this. and he didn t talk about it for the rest of the day. reporter: but doug kept at it over the next two days. despite everyone else s portrait of venus as mom of the year, doug pushed negative venus stuff on ricky, telling him how she smacked around their older daughter. how did that make you feel? i felt bad for him. he was saying, like, if only, you know, someone could be my alibi. i m like, no, dude, i can t i can t do this. reporter: doug kept ratcheting up his stories of abuse, concluding with the most graphic one venus had tried to choke one of the girls. ricky, if i wasn t there at
asserts that doug got down to business. he s like, hey ricky, i want to tell tell you something, it s really important. let me finish before you interrupt me. reporter: ricky testified that doug began to vent on his estranged wife venus. ricky said doug was portraying venus as an abusive, even dangerous mother to his two girls. that wasn t true, but ricky didn t know that. doug then told ricky he needed to do something desperate. he s telling me that he s going to go kill his wife. when he was telling you this, what were you thinking? i was just shocked. i couldn t, like, believe what i was hearing. okay. and he said, this is where you come in, ricky. i want you to be my alibi, just pretend to be me and live in my apartment. reporter: ricky s immediate reaction was an emphatic no. i was like no dude. i don t want to [ bleep ] here anything about this. and he didn t talk about it for the rest of the day. reporter: but doug kept at it over the next two days.