Dateline NBC - At the Edge of Town

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

When a college student is found dead after a party, his mother is determined to try to find out what happened. With the help of a new friend, she manages to get the case in front of a jury. Dennis Murphy reports on the unexpected twist that no one saw coming. 

Tonight on Dateline. Our intent was simply to find out what happened to Praveen. This is her baby. If somebody beats up your baby, you don't drop it. His body was laying in a little bit of a clearing. This was someone who had a violent encounter. That's my brother. I want anything and everything done for him to get justice.

I said, who beat my baby? We want answers. We want answers. We want answers. He got a legal, swung on me. How do you get in a scuffle with somebody and the next thing you know you're being charged with murder? He knows he hurt my son bad. I believed every word my son said and I still do to this day. A case that was closed, ripped open again.

Several of the jurors were visibly shaken. I could hear crying from the other side. I could hear crying from our side. It was the first time I've ever had this happen. Everybody thinks it can't be their kid until it is. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with At the Edge of Town. Hard by the forelane and yards from the chicken wing place is an unlikely scrap of wilderness in a southern Illinois town. A thicket of vines and brambles, acres of thorns that tear at the flesh. For years, people just sped by without a second look.

But something terrible happened there one cold night in the winter of 2014 that brought a stranger to town. A mother looking for answers about her son. I knew one thing, I wasn't going to stop. No matter how painful the truth turned out to be. Does it hurt you to be back here? Yes. Her heartbreak launched another mother's fight.

I wanted to save my son. I'm a fighter. I'm a mom. And divided an entire community. No matter who you are, no matter where you came from, right is right and wrong is wrong. Few people know this part of southern Illinois better than Monica Zucas. This mother of two children has spent most of her life in these parts. I'd say we're the average small town in America.

Who runs it? That's a hard question. Until something goes wrong, we all do. Welcome to Reality Check with Monica Zoukas. And for years, she hosted a Friday night radio show called Reality Check. Did you touch scandal or city hall, politics? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I like to push the envelope a little bit. So it wasn't unusual for people to send her tips about stories to watch.

That's how this all began in February 2014. I had a random Facebook message from somebody I'd never heard of, and it said, Have you heard about this? And it was a link to a flyer for a missing person. 19-year-old Praveen Varghese, a college sophomore at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Last seen leaving a house party, stepping out into the bitter cold. And I was like, where's this kid at? What caught your interest? Why didn't you think maybe he'd taken an early spring break and gone to Baja? The young man that contacted me was

in distress. He said, this is abnormal. He would not do this. Something's wrong. Monica learned that Praveen came from Chicago, a six-hour drive away. He was the adored middle child of two first-generation immigrants from India. His dad was a respiratory therapist, his mom, Lovely, a nurse. Thursday morning, I woke up with this awful feeling of something heavy in my chest. When the phone rang that night, Lovely expected to hear Praveen's voice. He called home most evenings. But it wasn't her son. It was a police officer. And he said, well, your son is reported missing by his cousin.

I just screamed. Everything changed. That moment, everything changed. So Lovely and her husband drove to Carbondale and met their daughter Priya at Praveen's student apartment. There was no sign of their boy. My parents were just so mentally out of it, and it was just so hard. I just felt like I had to be the one to step up because that's my brother. I wanted to find him more than anything in the world. I just wanted him back. Priya organized busloads of volunteers who showed up from Chicago to help the family search.

They handed out flyers, posted them on telephone poles and in gas stations, desperate for clues. We had no idea what happened to Praveen at that point. Police were searching, too. Jody O'Gwynn is the former police chief. We had 14 canines to help search the areas for him. We had two helicopters up. We had a state police plane. So you weren't blowing this thing off? No, not at all. And then the road ran out. You didn't know where he was, what had happened?

Did not. Did not know where he was. Lovely's family asked the public for help. They offered $15,000 in reward money. This is really the start of a very long journey for you. Yes. A journey that began as a search for her son, but soon became something else. A search for truth and kindness, and finally, justice. Coming up, a first clue from the last person to see Praveen alive. Now we have an area to look

for. But what they discover will tear two families apart. He said, Lovely, you are a nurse, right waited for news of her missing son. Memories crowded out the quiet. Perveen, her chatty, energetic child, was always in motion from the time he was little. Singing. Dancing. Running. He'd made varsity on his high school track team.

His cross-country coach said, I don't know any kid that can run that fast and talk and crack jokes. Personality. Who are we talking about? Just goofy and funny. Always joking and always smiling. Never held a grudge, ever. But his real dream since he was a little boy was to become an FBI agent. The criminal justice program at Southern Illinois University was well regarded. And there was something else the university was known for.

When we looked at the college, my husband said, that's a party college. Party? Party boys, huh? And then he said, which college is not a party college? A party was the last place Praveen had been seen. Did this kid fit into that party crowd, from what you could tell? We had a lot of his friends that told us that he did party with them on a regular basis. Drink until he got sloppy, or how did they characterize him? Well, he did consume alcohol, and there were times that they had seen him drunk.

Including, some witnesses told police, at the party on the night he disappeared. He was kind of creating somewhat of a little bit of a disturbance there and was asked to leave. Praveen's friends expected him to meet up with them at a bar a few blocks away, but he never showed. They didn't see him the next day or the day after that. Finally, four days after he was reported missing, someone came forward with a tip. Praveen, it seemed, had scored a ride after the party. Cops tracked down the driver. His statement was, Praveen seemed to be intoxicated and was unable to tell where it was that he was going.

There had been a fight, and the driver said Praveen had run into the woods at the edge of town. Well, now we have an area to look for. Teams fanned out to search. It didn't take long. His body was laying in a little bit of a clearing. He didn't have a shirt on. He had his cell phone nearby.

Temperature had been 14 degrees overnight. Yes. It looked as though Praveen had frozen to death in the woods. So this is the worst possible news, of course, for the family. Yes. A police officer showed up at Lovely's hotel room door. He said, we found Praveen and I said, is he alive? He said, no. And it turned out he was found in some rough woods, not all that far from the window of your motel.

400 yards from the motel. All those days you were wondering where he was. I think that's always the hardest part for me, just thinking that he was alone and, you know, there wasn't anyone by his side to tell him that we love him. And he just had to die alone in the middle of nowhere in the woods. And she wasn't just sad. She was angry. Priya thought she could hear the police judging her brother. They said he was too drunk to figure out where he was.

College kid couldn't handle the liquor and ended up dead. That's what they said. The police chief held a news conference that same afternoon, seen here on the local CBS affiliate. The difficult terrain and low temperatures are believed to have contributed to Praven's difficulty finding his way out of the wooded area. Monica Zoukas, who had been following the story, watched the presser at a friend's house.

No foul play is suspected at this time. He wasn't injured physically. There were no obvious signs of trauma. And I thought, this just doesn't sound right, though. She was struck by the sight of Praven's mother on TV. Lovely had gone to the scene where her son died. My God, we love him from the bottom of our hearts. When I first saw his mom, it just broke my heart.

And I remember thinking, she's obviously not from Southern Illinois. She's a stranger in a strange land. She does not know this town. I have so many questions, and I'm from here. Monica didn't know it, but Lovely had questions too. When she got back to Chicago, the funeral director handling Praveen's body had disturbing news for her.

He said, Lovely, you are a nurse, right? I said, yes. He said, you need to see him. This is not a frostbitten body. Lovely had seen several dead bodies during her career as a nurse, but she never expected to see her own sons. She was shocked by what she saw, a massive bruise on Praveen's forehead and other bruises on his thigh. His lip was busted up. If a civilian had seen the body, would they have said, I see an injury?

Yes. But Lovely wanted an expert opinion, so she hired her own pathologist, Dr. Ben Margolis, to examine Praveen's body. This was someone who had a violent encounter. Dr. Margolis noted injuries Lovely hadn't seen, including a bruise on Praveen's arm that went all the way to the bone, possibly a defensive injury. Theoretically, if you're stumbling around the woods in the dark and you trip and you hit a rock, could that cause

that kind of injury? That's really not enough. So the more you became familiar with the body you're looking at, did you think this boy suffered a terrible beating? Or I don't know what caused this? If the body was found the way it looked on a city street, you would think that somebody hurt him. But who? Lovely was determined to find out. Coming up. She was completely shattered. She just said, this isn't my kid. Something's wrong. Two mothers united in a common cause. I'm like, boy, there is another mother that's asking the same questions that I have. Praveen Varghese had been found dead in the heart of the woods. Police suspected he'd gotten lost in a drunken daze and succumbed to the cold. His mother thought something far more sinister had happened,

especially after reading the report of her own pathologist. He believed Praveen had suffered blunt force trauma to the head. Blunt force trauma? Yes. Lovely wasn't alone in her suspicions. We've had a situation in southern Illinois that has been kind of disturbing. The same weekend, Praveen's family and friends gathered for his funeral in Chicago. Monica Zuccas was on the radio 300 miles away asking questions about his death.

We have what we believe to be a healthy 19-year-old found dead in the woods. During her show, a mourner who'd been at Praveen's open casket wake sent Monica a text. I just got a text message from a dear friend of Praveen. I went to Praveen's visitation. His face looks like he was beat bad. Someone told Lovely about Monica's show. When I was listening to her, I'm like, boy, there is another mother that's asking the same questions that I have. The two women started talking on the phone every day. I just felt an automatic connection with her and I thought I can tell her anything. Lovely confided in Monica how hurt she was by all the talk of Praveen drinking. She was completely shattered. She just said this isn't

my kid. Something's wrong. Praveen's cousin, Ashley, had already given Lovely his version of events. Was Praveen drinking that night? He was. Was he drinking too much? No. And what of those reports of Praveen's rowdy behavior? That's kind of how Praveen is, like, in general.

Let me smell! Friends and family have posted videos of his boisterous behavior. But if he didn't know I'm in. Yeah, like he's kind of like energetic, you know what I mean? But it was hard for Lovely not to wonder if Ashley was just telling her what she wanted to hear. Until Monica interviewed three other students on her radio show who were at the party that night. This is our second show we've done on this particular issue.

They explained that from what they'd seen, Praveen hadn't been drinking all that much. He was standing, talking to me like I would talk to anybody else. It wasn't like he was leaning on me or, like, couldn't talk or think straight. So if Praveen wasn't that drunk, Lovely wondered how had he ended up lost in the woods. Police had found his body hundreds of yards from the road. You can see them try to retrace his steps in this video.

Lovely walked the route too. What's it like? Very thick and full of thorns and vines. You have to kind of spread it. There was barbed wire too, fencing off some of the woods from the highway. And that's where they found a piece of his clothing? Yep, this is where. A piece of Praveen's T-shirt snagged on one of the barbs.

So the lower strand has got a piece of his clothing. Lovely thought that the rough terrain, the barbed wire, made it unlikely Praveen would have wandered aimlessly into the woods and gotten lost. If he had been lost, why hadn't he just headed towards the cars or used his phone to call for help? And where was the phone? His phone was found just right to his right side. Lovely was more convinced than ever that Praveen's death was the result of foul play,

which is why she was so surprised when six weeks after Praveen's death, the official autopsy report came back and confirmed what police had originally said. Praveen had died of hypothermia. The report did note some abrasions on his body, but said there was no significant trauma. So one report doesn't have so much as needing a Band-Aid. The other's got blunt force trauma. Yes, that's one of the times that I thought,

I'm in the twilight zone. But there was something else in that autopsy report. Something big. No alcohol had been found in Praveen's blood. Didn't that undermine the theory that Praveen had gotten lost because he was drunk? It certainly caught the attention of the police pathologist who wrote, Strangely, tox is negative. No reason for Praveen's bizarre behavior and hiding in the woods.

Did that say something about your attitude towards the investigation? Because it threw out your theory that he was drunk? Well, you know... Surprisingly, he's not drunk? Right. You know, it didn't change, in my mind, didn't change the direction of the investigation. But it was definitely a surprise that there wasn't more of an alcohol level

in his toxicology. Police had a theory, though. Maybe Praveen had metabolized the alcohol as he lay dying in the woods. Lovely didn't buy it. She went back to Carbondale and staged a protest in the town square. We will not rest until we find the truth.

It was the first time she and Monica met in person. And we were just hugging, crying, hugging, crying. They started planning their next move. Lovely said from the beginning, I don't want revenge. I just want answers. And if the answers are that somebody hurt my baby. I want justice. Over the next few months, Lovely and her supporters organized protests and press conferences demanding a new investigation. We are seeking justice that every human being deserves. And a year passed.

Lovely went to pray in the woods where Praveen's body had been found. And she waited. And then suddenly... He released us a report. He didn't call us. He gave it to the press. It turned out the local prosecutor had been investigating behind the scenes. He had consulted new pathologists and convened a grand jury. In his report, he wrote the evidence showed Praveen's death was an accident

caused by intoxication, frigid weather, and poor judgment. He said Praveen was drunk, intoxicated, highly intoxicated. What did the science say? He didn't mention that the tox was negative. Lovely felt as though Praveen's story wasn't being heard, but Monica had an idea about how to turn up the volume. Monica, why did you invest so much of your personal capital? For a young man you didn't know, for a mother you didn't know. I know it sounds cheesy and it sounds cliche, but I'm a mother and there's nothing we won't do for our kids. Coming up, one possible answer to what happened that night.

I was scared for my life. I didn't know what he was capable of. And another mother tells her side of the story. He immediately went lost his life, tiny, soft-spoken Lovely was finding her voice. I am not trying to blame anyone or point fingers. We just demand answers. The investigation appeared to be over, but Lovely refused to give up.

This is not over. No, this is not over. She had filed a lawsuit against the city of Carbondale and its police chief, accusing them of negligence. Twelve days after the Boy's family files a lawsuit against you, you're fired? Is that correct? It was actually over the weekend. So 30 years of law enforcement work goes up in smoke.

Yes, pretty much gutted my career. The city manager said his dismissal was a confidential matter that had nothing to do with any litigation. But the former chief believes he was the scapegoat of a city under siege from Praveen's family. Did you think it was a good investigation, what you'd done to that point? I did. I did think it was a good investigation. I think there were a lot of conscientious people that were working hard. And there was one other person lovely sued. Remember, a driver had given Praveen a ride that night.

He was the last person known to have seen Praveen alive. What's the character of this kid? What did you learn about him? At face value, typical Southern Illinois guy, you know, middle class family. His name was Gage Bethune. Just like Praveen, Gage was 19 years old. Just like Lovely, his mom Penny was also a nurse. Gage was just very laid back. Good kid. Had a lot of dreams and hopes.

Penny says Gage had felt sorry for Praveen walking by in the bitter cold. Didn't have a coat on and asked Gage for a ride, so Gage said yes. She says Gage had no idea Praveen was missing until days later when he saw a story about it on TV. He immediately went to his father and they went and took care of things. The following is a tape statement taken from Gage Bethune. Gage told police he was upset when he heard Praveen was missing. Made me sick to my stomach. The boy didn't show up home. He seemed eager to tell detectives everything he knew. And he came up to my window and said, hey, give me a ride.

So I said, okay, you know, go ahead and get in. It's cold outside, nobody needs to be walking when it's cold. After he got in his truck, Gage said Praveen didn't seem to have a clue as to where he was going. They drove around in circles for 30 minutes. He said they didn't really talk that much. When he was on the phone the majority of the time, trying to get cocaine off somebody. Gage said the talk of drugs made him nervous. He wanted to get home. And I was like, dude, I've told you 10 times to get out

of my vehicle now. And then he starts to get aggressive. And then he just gave me a pop. Gage said he immediately pulled over. And that's when he said things got ugly. He got out of the vehicle, swung on me, self-defense. I moved back, dodged it, and then I hit him. And we rolled down the hill. He was on top, I was on top, he was on top, I was on top. Punches were exchanged. I do know for sure the first hit, I hit him dead square in his face.

Maybe that would explain the bruise on Praveen's forehead. You know, I was scared for my life. I didn't know what he was capable of. Definitely wasn't my race. I'm not used to being around that type of population. At that moment, he said a state trooper had arrived at

the scene, and Praveen had dashed into the woods. Really? That was something easy for police to verify, and they did. had dashed into the woods. Really? That was something easy for police to verify, and they did. Here's the dash cam video. There's no audio, but you can see Gage walking into shot, and the trooper shining his light into the woods looking for someone. The trooper told Gage to head on home before leaving himself. Police hadn't told the family about the trooper, but Monica did after getting a tip. It just haunts me because I think my brother could have been alive at that time. Monica was getting tips about that roadside fight too. Car kids are talking over here. They're

saying that this driver beat this kid up. And Praveen's family thought they had proof Praveen had been scared. A friend of his had been on the phone with him when the incident occurred and told the family what she'd heard. She said it just sounded like someone was running. And he said, don't hang up. Don't hang up. Could that have been a call for help? Lovely was at her wits' end, imagining her son's last hours in the woods and frustrated that the case was going nowhere. And then she got a surprising break because the prosecutor did something Lovely never expected. He asked the judge to appoint a special prosecutor to take a fresh look at the case.

Is this credit to the guy? I know you're not very fond of him as an individual, but that he did this thing? I guess he was, I believe it's God pushing him to do that because the truth still needed to come out. Lovely dropped her lawsuit against the city and the police chief and waited to see what would happen. But half a year went by. I said, that's it. We're going to the city council meeting and I'm going to get eight by ten pictures of Praveen's injuries and I'm going to put it in their face. Any other citizens comments? Yes, ma'am. I took a six hour train ride to be here today and I request your kind attention to me. She didn't damn him to hell. She didn't cuss to me. She didn't damn him to hell.

She didn't cuss him out. She didn't threaten him. She said, please, I just want answers and common courtesy. Then it was Monica's turn. I just want to show you a few images of what we're being told here are not injuries. She handed out photos of Praveen's injuries. One lady excused herself and was like crying. And then this guy was like crying. I thought, oh my God. Their presentation seemed to have an impact. A few weeks later, city officials handed over a copy of the case file.

Lovely and Monica couldn't believe what they found inside. Coming up... It's such a relief. News welcomed by one mother that stuns another. I fall to pieces. Praveen's room has been left untouched since his death. It's a shrine of sorts. Lovely prays there most nights before she goes to bed.

Do you worry about losing your mother in the grief of all of this? Is she so consumed by it? Do you think about devouring her? Because that's my brother. I want anything and everything done for him to get justice. So we have to fight. For Lovely, that no longer meant protests or speeches. It meant hours studying the police case file.

Monica traveled to Chicago to help her. We got dry erase boards. We want to know which officers were here, what they do, who saw what. What he said in his report doesn't match with his. Like, we were pretty awesome. And visitors were not welcome to your war room, huh? Don't touch our stuff. They started to question just how cooperative Gage had really been with the police. Remember, he'd said how badly he felt about Praveen's death.

Maybe sick to my stomach. But it turns out Gage hadn't come forward to the cops of his own accord. about Praveen's death. Maybe six months later, the boy died and shot at home. But it turns out Gage hadn't come forward to the cops of his own accord. It was only after his cousin told police about him that he went to see them. If he was in a fight with Praveen and it was completely innocent, why wouldn't he have called immediately

and said, oh my God, I got in a fight with that guy. Let me show you right where it happened. And here's what they learned from the case file. Gage hadn't talked to law enforcement once or twice. He talked to them three times, and each story was slightly different. We feel that you weren't completely honest with us. His first story was to the state trooper. Gage told him he'd picked up a black hitchhiker walking along Route 13.

He said the hitchhiker tried to rob him and then ran off into the woods. In a follow-up interview, Gage admitted to the cops that that was a lie. No, did the hitchhiker rob me? No. And Gage said there was something else he'd lied to the cops about. Before bumping into Praveen, he'd been at a party trying to score some drugs. I just wanted to know if there's any coke there. Okay. to the cops about. Before bumping into Praveen, he'd been at a party trying to score some drugs. I just wanted to know if there's any coke there. Okay.

But Hadney said Praveen was the one looking for cocaine. The things that we are seeing in here... Speechless. As Lovely and Monica talked about the case live on Facebook, Gage's mom, Penny,

watched with dread. I felt guilty. Why would you feel guilty? Because I didn't do enough to try to save my son, maybe. I didn't speak out enough. Maybe I should have. Penny said her son was no angel. She knew that he drank sometimes. I don't hear you making him sink Gage here, Penny. You're not saying they're never going to hear a bad thing about my kid. I'm a realistic mother. No child is perfect. So there could have been a little bigger in the car. I wouldn't be shocked. I'm not, you know. Gage, she says, was just like any other teenager. That explained his lies to police, too. He thought he was going to get in trouble for the drinking and driving. And Penny may be his number one problem.

The different stories he told the authorities. We've all been 19. Whether or not you've been in trouble or not or in that situation, you've fibbed about something in one way or another. Penny said Gage had been honest when it mattered. He told that state trooper Praveen was in the woods. Penny wondered why the trooper hadn't gone to look for him. So you trooper Praveen was in the woods. Penny wondered why the trooper hadn't gone to look for him. So you put some blame on the officer in that vehicle?

I put most blame on the officer. Why didn't he look for the kid in the woods? Right, when he had been told. Whatever Gage did or did not do that night, his mother says he was certainly not responsible for Praveen dying in the woods. He had done nothing wrong besides got into a scuffle, gave a kid a ride. The special prosecutor thought differently. In July 2017, three years after Praveen's body had been found, Gage was charged with two counts of felony murder. The special prosecutor had a new theory. Check out these tweets that appear to have been posted by Gage. The prosecutor believed that Gage, using a racial epithet, was bragging about hustling people of color. That's what he thought Gage had done to Praveen, not just beaten him, but robbed him. Under Illinois law, if the special prosecutor could prove Praveen died as a result of Gage's blows or a possible robbery, even if he didn't mean to kill him, Gage could be found guilty of felony murder.

It's such a relief. It's a peace of mind. After the charges, Lovely felt as though she could breathe for the first time since Praveen's death. For Penny, it was agony. What do you do? I fall to pieces at first, and then I gather myself up and I hug him and I tell him everything's going to be okay. Derek Hargrave, Gage's best friend, says Gage was terrified. Since Praveen's death, Gage had become the father to a little girl. I've never seen a dude cry until the day before he started going to trial.

I mean, that's a guy that's scared for his life, you know. Praveen had died in the most bitter of winter colds. It was blazing summer when his family and Gage's family stepped foot into the Jackson County courthouse. Did you ever catch eyes with Praveen's mom? I tried, yes. I wanted her to feel my sympathy. But it didn't happen?

No, because by that point, they wanted my son to pay. The prosecutor's case was this. Gage's blows, inflicted during a robbery, had sent Praveen fleeing into the woods where, disoriented from his injuries, he died in the bitter cold. And the prosecutor argued you didn't have to look further than Gage's lies to police to see a guilty man trying to cover his tracks. The prosecutor pointed out the very first question they asked him, other than his name,

he answered with a lie. Gage's defense attorney, Michael Wepsich, came back swinging, arguing Praveen's death was a tragedy, but one of his own making. The problem with Praveen that night was he was poorly dressed for the weather. All he had was a t-shirt and a pair of jeans on. He froze to death. That was the cause of death. That was the cause of death. The defense said Praveen's injuries were hardly life-threatening. If anything, the defense argued, it was the alcohol in Praveen's system that had made him more vulnerable to hypothermia. But what about those negative tox results?

How do you reconcile the scientific finding that the kid was not wrecked? Because he lived for at least three or four hours after he went into the woods. So the body's metabolizing. Absolutely. And yet, how drunk could Pravevine have been if he'd made that phone call to his friend telling her, don't hang up? He's having a sensible phone conversation with that friend in Chicago. He's able to dial his phone. Then he gets his bell rung. Well, you're assuming that this lady wasn't on speed dial, and she was. The defense said the prosecution's case added up to a bunch of nothing. There was no proof of a beating and zero evidence of a robbery.

He said those tweets were posted almost a year before Praveen's death, that they were crude and stupid, but that's all they were, words, and didn't prove anything. They hadn't even been allowed into trial by the judge. What's more? When Praveen was found, he had his wallet on him. He had $24 of cash in his wallet. Then the defense attorney made a bold move. He called Gage to the stand. It didn't go well. Gage's first day of cross-examination was tough. It was tough. Shocked. Miracle. Dream come true. Because Gage did something Monica had never imagined. He admitted punching Praveen and demonstrated to the jurors just how he'd done it.

Lovely said, he said it. He finally said it. I hit him right here. And she's like, that's all I need. Lovely had fought for years to get her son's case heard inside a courtroom After nine days of testimony, it was in the hands of the jury But what happened next surprised everyone Coming up, a verdict, but maybe not an end I've been doing this over 30 years and it was the first time I've ever had this happen. Lovely and her family waited patiently inside the Jackson County Courthouse as a jury decided whether to find Gage Bethune guilty of their son's murder. One hour turned into two, then six, then seven hours of deliberation.

It was about 10.15. We were called back. Get in here, huh? Called back to the courtroom. Jury comes in. Several of the jurors were visibly shaken. They looked like they had been crying. When we sat down, I just touched my son's picture and I always tell him what's going on.

And I hear him saying in my heart, Mommy, we got it. The jury didn't believe the prosecutor's theory that a robbery was behind Praveen's death. So he was acquitted on that count. But they did believe Gage's blows had behind Praveen's death, so he was acquitted on that count. But they did believe Gage's blows had caused Praveen's death, and for that they convicted him of felony murder.

I remember seeing my son had his hand on the table and then he started throwing up. He yelled, Mom, as he started throwing up. He yelled, Mom, as he was throwing up. And all I wanted to do was get to him. I just wanted to help him. And I wasn't allowed to even touch him.

I could hear crying from the other side. I could hear crying from our side. I was numb. I was thankful. I was devastated. Nobody wins. Is it justice? Is justice done? Yes. Yes. Gage was led away. His sentencing set for a later date. He faced 20 to 60 years in prison.

His defense attorney filed a motion for a new trial, but the judge rejected it. I called up. I said, look, I'm telling you something's wrong here. Chicago defense attorney Steve Greenberg believed the whole case had been an outrage from the get-go and offered to work for the Bethune family. When we start letting someone for a fistfight get convicted of murder, that's a real problem. He got the judge to let him file another motion asking for a new trial, arguing, among other things, that the way prosecutors had charged Gage was flawed. The way the indictment was phrased, the jury didn't have to find that Gage ever intended to

cause great bodily harm. They just had to find that he touched the guy. Gage had been sitting in jail awaiting his sentencing. Penny says it was hard to see him there, but harder still was explaining to his daughter why he wasn't coming home. You told his daughter he was at work? I absolutely did. Daddy be back? Yes. She's three. You can't explain something like that to her. Finally, the day of sentencing arrived. Lovely prayed as she made her way to Carbondale one more time, driving the six hours from Chicago, past the woods where her son had died. At the courthouse, she sat in her usual spot. But something seemed odd to her.

Gage wasn't in a jumpsuit. And I asked the prosecutor, why is he in street clothes? Where is his handcuff? And he said, I don't know. I have to figure out. Then she says the judge issued a stern warning to the two families. I want to warn you, one side of this courtroom is going to be very upset. If any of you cannot handle this, you need to leave the room right now. Lovely assumed he meant Gage's family, but she was wrong. Everybody in the courtroom was shocked.

So I've been doing this over 30 years, and it was the first time I've ever had this happen. Rather than sentencing Gage, the judge threw out the verdict and ordered a new trial. He ruled that the evidence had been sufficient to convict Gage, but the wording in the indictment might have confused the jurors. So Gage was a free man, for now. When I saw him walk out and I got to put my arms around him and hold him, it was the most amazing feeling in the world. Gage's best friend says Gage couldn't wait to be reunited with his daughter. She just has like these big old bug eyes, just jumps straight into his arms. And it's one of those Hallmark movie kind of things.

Not for Lovely. She couldn't believe what had happened. I was shocked, disgusted. And I felt like, how can you trust in the justice system anymore? A jury of 12 members found this man guilty, and the judge just turned around and threw it away with no reason. The special prosecutor promised to fight another day. There's never a question in my mind that we proved the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and we're absolutely going to retry this case. But a few months later, he dropped the charges against Gage. He says it will enable him to refile the case when he's ready. There's no statute of limitations on felony murder. If Gage is stopped tonight by a trooper for broken taillight, what will they pull up about him? What

will the trooper learn about him on his computer? They'll learn that he was charged with murder. That hasn't gone away. It'll never go away. Lovely ended up settling her lawsuit against Gage out of court. What she says she really wants is something she thinks he'll never give her. An apology. As for her boy, her Praveen.

I miss hearing him call me mommy. you know. Yeah, I miss hearing his footsteps. But she thinks he would have been proud of her. I believe it was Praveen's spirit who brought us all this way. He wanted us to know what happened to him and who did this to him. And we got it. We know who did this to Praveen. That's all I needed to know. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9,

8 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.