Having an affair. Where was she. There was just no answer. Nearly 30 years, 60 investigators, and it all kept coming back to one elusive suspect. He just calmly said, i know how to get rid of a body so it can never be found. It was basically a nowornever situation. Hello and welcome to dateline. When Kathy Heckel disappeared, the police didnt know if they were dealing with a missing Person Case or a Cold Blood murder. Decades later, a young detective who was a young kid when kathy vanished dusted off the old files. Investigators couldnt solve her case then. Could he help solve it all . Here is Josh Mankiewicz with she didnt come home. Time can be like a river, a long stream of events rushing by. Most barely make a ripple. But a few, like the sudden loss of a close friend, a child, or a parent, have a way of circling back upon us in a ceaseless loop of memory and regret. Thats the way its been for John Heckel and his sister Alicia Talbot ever since that completely normal morning in 1991
lunch. where was she? there were just no answers. reporter: nearly 30 years, 670 investigators. and it just kept coming back to one. he just very calmly said, i know how to get rid of a body so it would never, ever be found.” we were just a heartbeat away from losing a witness, to not having a case. it was basically a now-or-never situation. reporter: welcome to dateline. when kathy heckel disappeared, police didn t know if they were dealing with a missing person s case or cold blooded murder. and the investigation grew cold. decades later, a young detective who was just a kid when kathy vanished dusted off the old files. investigators couldn t solve her case then. could he help solve it now? here is josh with she didn t come home. reporter: time can be like a river. a long stream of events rushing by. most barely make a ripple. but a few, like the sudden loss of a close friend, a child, or a parent, have a way of circling back upon us in a ceaseless loop
For two full days, and john heckel feared the worst. kathy heckel would never on this earth abandon those two children. trooper caldwell still didn t know if he was working a missing persons case, an abduction, or a homicide. then on the evening of the third day, investigators got a big break. they found kathy heckel s car parked behind the local hospital. the keys were missing. i think they recovered one print. but i don t know that it was ever identified. it was from the exterior of the car. investigators were now pretty sure that someone, possibly her killer, had moved kathy heckel s car to the hospital parking lot. and then the case hit a dead end. days turned to weeks. those weeks stretched into months. kathy heckel was somewhere in the wind. we had cadaver dogs come down
Kathy heckel s husband john was no exception. we did consider that john may have known that his wife was having an affair and that he may have taken some action on his own. did you feel like you were ever a suspect? never worried about it. i knew they were trying to find where kathy was and what had happened, and if that included questioning me, i have no problems with that. at some point somebody said to you, we believe she was having a relationship with some other people. was that shocking to hear? it was surprising, because that wasn t the way kathy was. in his interview with trooper caldwell, john heckel said he d noticed a change in his wife s demeanor in recent weeks and wondered if she might be having an affair. he was emotional. there s times when john and i just sat together with my arm around him and he would cry. he was concerned about his wife. and i felt very bad for the man. john heckel s alibi checked out. and police found no evidence he d paid anyone t
after breaking for the weekend, the jury returned on monday morning, rested, but still deadlocked. there was one juror in particular who was voting for acquittal originally, who couldn t get over the fact that he thought the prime suspect should be john heckel. over and over, jurors reviewed and discussed the evidence. then just before 3:00 that afternoon, jurors notified the judge they had reached a verdict. it was a nervous moment, absolutely. i i was nervous. and we were all holding hands. on the charge of first degree or premeditated murder, the verdict was not guilty. then in what seemed to be a compromised decision, the jury found groves guilty of third-degree murder, which is legally considered a spontaneous act in the heat of the moment. you look at groves during that time?