i had to grow up without one. in an instant she was gone. and it changed everything. she dreamed of a career solving crimes, but crime claimed her first. gut wrenching pain! my daughter, please, please don t let this be true! home alone on a sunny afternoon she vanished. we just said, oh my god! isn t this one of her earrings? earrings in the carpet. ribbons on the ground. tire tracks on the lawn. there was evidence of a violent struggle. what had happened? and who was behind it? everything was a mystery. was she still alive? was she not? it tore us apart. for years they demanded answers, a struggle each day. then came the cold case squad with a new bag of tricks. i always felt that this was a case that could be solved. they wanted justice just as bad as we did. as a mother she fought and fought and fought. we just never gave up. don t mess with a mother bear. hello. welcome to dateline. tara ord was just 19. a beautiful young woman with bi
earrings in the carpet. ribbons on the ground. tire tracks on the lawn. there was evidence of a violent struggle. what had happened? and who was behind it? everything was a mystery. was she still alive? was she not? it tore us apart. for years they demanded answers, a struggle each day. then came the cold case squad with a new bag of tricks. i always felt that this was a case that could be solved. they wanted justice just as bad as we did. as a mother she fought and fought and fought. we just never gave up. don t mess with a mother bear. hello. welcome to dateline. tara was just 19. a beautiful young woman with big dreams. suddenly, she vanished. snatched from the safety of her own home. there was little evidence to go on, no witness to reveal who took tara or why. or so investigators thought. it would take years and a team of determined cold case detectives to uncover that long buried clue and the story that would blow this case wide open. here s k
When you re older and but we had a bet going on how long it would be before she got here, because we re we are so close. so we had a bet going, and i think she lasted three weeks? i m gonna stay here on my own. no, i m not. yeah. yes. she got a job. made plans to start college. had already decided that she wanted to be a crime scene investigator. she had her books and everything. yeah. and though sharon s then-fiance keith wasn t officially tara s step-dad, they had a father-daughter sort of relationship. yeah, we were very close. yep. always always hung out together. she would make our famous peanut butter and jelly triple-decker sandwiches we would have. and she would be going to make them all. she was my buddy. and now he didn t know where
Walk down the aisle, that was very sad because my baby girl wasn t gonna be in that wedding party. but she was there. we made sure she was there. we had a big, big picture made up of her. but the anger remained and intense frustration as, year after year, sharon demanded answers and didn t get them. in 2008, almost seven years after tara s murder, sharon appeared in a crime stoppers video, and spoke directly to the killers, whoever they were. i want to know how they wake up in the morning. how do they go on with their life knowing that they did this to a person? don t think for a minute that you got away with this. cuz one day, and i truly truly believe this, that one day, there s going to be a knock at that door, and they re going to be in cuffs. and that s what i that s what i want. nothing came of it. the whole world had moved on, forgotten, apparently. but then, a year later, 2009, punta gorda got a new sheriff. and he thought some of the unsolved cases in town needed a new
Guilty it s a claim. yeah. and that s kind of an easy out for saying terrible things, isn t it? well, it was inappropriate statements, if said at all. david is known to be a jokester and sarcastic. even during the course of the trial, he would say things that were sarcastic. the trials, two of them, dragged on for more than 15 months with delay after delay in a case that had taken more than 15 years to get to this point. sharon and keith s marriage didn t make it that long. but they attended both trials together. we started this together, we re gonna finish it together, no matter what. and after all that time? in each case, deliberations took less than 90 minutes. the verdicts: guilty. both men were sentenced to life in prison without parole. i think everybody would agree that but for sharon, neither trial would ve taken