Dateline NBC - Death in the Driveway

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

Police in a quiet Southern town, find a prominent lawyer brutally murdered and his girlfriend bound in duct tape. Who could have done it? Andrea Canning reports.

I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. He said, Ronnie, I gotta tell you something. Your father's dead. It was not a robbery gone bad, not a burglary gone bad. You had to really hone in on people that had a beef with him. He's known to have a little bit of a temper. He could definitely have a laundry list of people who would want to kill him. I had found out that Melvin had an argument

with a female tenant. Jean worked for Dad. Were they having issues, though? They had been for a while. Her stories did not fit the physical evidence. It's unlike any other murder case that I've ever worked. Just so over the top. This person is still on the loose, you know?

Are we safe? Someone's out there. Yes. Who got away with murder? Yes. I always say with murder? Yes. I always say tick-tock, clock's ticking. You're coming? We're coming.

Here's Andrea Canning with Death in the Driveway. York, South Carolina, a town steeped in American history and Southern manners. Its charm as deeply embedded as the pride of the people who live here. It's a nice Southern town. It's very quiet. It's not the sort of place you'd expect evil to come knocking. My life just changed forever. And these are not the sort of people you'd expect to be victims of a vicious crime. He's a prominent man in a small town. She's a good Christian woman, sweet southern belle. And in the end, what would forever haunt this peaceful place

was the who and the why of it all. Shock. Complete shock. It all started around dinnertime, February 4, 2010, on the outskirts of town at the end of a long, winding driveway. Door County 911, do you need a place to fire medical? It was 7.30 p.m. when the call came into police dispatch. Listen to me carefully. I've been robbed. You got me on?

Between sobs, a female caller described her brutal attack. She begged for help. Oh, please, please, please help me. She begged for help. Police on duty raced through the rainy night, dashboard cam rolling, expecting to investigate a robbery. But what they found had Detective Billy Mumaw's phone ringing as he sat down to dinner. I was called at home and I was told that I needed to come in. There was a robbery that occurred.

When the detective went up the driveway to the back of the house, he discovered a woman huddled in her car. She'd been bound in duct tape. I walked up to the car, and I noticed that she had duct tape around her head. She also still had some duct tape around her wrist. And not more than a few feet from this blue and white suburban, police found a bloodied and lifeless gray-haired man. It was a bit of a shock for Detective Mumma. The victim was someone he knew well. It was pretty surreal. The man on the ground was Melvin Roberts, and everyone knew him. He was a former mayor of York, one of the town's wealthiest businessmen,

and a legendary defense attorney. I'd had a few cases with him. Kind of a stern man, but always friendly. And the woman who called police to the scene was Julia Phillips, Melvin's longtime girlfriend. She was worried that Melvin was dead. She said she didn't know what had happened to him. Investigators at the scene told Julia the devastating news.

Melvin had been murdered. Is that a little jolt, Melvin Roberts is the victim? Yeah, because Melvin's not the type of a person to be a victim of anything. Melvin was the longest practicing lawyer in South Carolina. He had defended both the rich and poor for 55 years. He was so influential, the street where he lived was named after him, Roberts Avenue. A true Renaissance man devoted to his family. He was everything to me. He was my best friend. He was my mentor. Melvin had two sons, David and Ronnie.

He was instrumental in making me into who I am. The three men shared an unusually strong bond. Dad, David, and myself, it was our normal routine to have lunch every day. You all sound thick as thieves, the three of you. Absolutely. The last thing I did every day before I went out was I'd give Dad a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and tell him I loved him. And he told me the same thing every single day. He loved to take me out to the farm.

Melvin's only grandchild, Emily Roberts, recalled how her granddad had a way of keeping his family close. We would always go vacationing in different countries, fishing in Costa Rica for my graduation from college or scuba diving in Bonaire and just really bonding together. It was quite an amazing relationship. And then there was Julia. She and Melvin started dating 10 years earlier. He was divorced, and she had recently been widowed. Did they quickly become a fixture around town? Yes, immediately. He adored her and she adored him. She loves to travel. She's spunky.

She's fun. What he thought was his perfect match. She fit right into this tight-knit family. She was bubbly. She was a good cook. That's plus. Weight of man's heart. That's right. Or a woman. They became a team. Melvin even helped Julia start her own business. He eventually bought her her own store so that she could sell her cosmetics and women's clothing. She opened the store in Gaffney, a nearby town where she had grown up. She called it Julia's.

So she started to become kind of part of the family. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we were really happy for Dad. But now, everything had changed. As investigators worked the crime scene, York Police Captain Tommy Jenkins knocked on Ronnie's door. So he says, Ronnie, I got to tell you something. He said, your father's dead.

And I said, no, Tommy, that's not true. And I said, no, Tommy, that's not true. And he said, no, Ronnie, it's your father. You know, I've known him most of my life, and it's him. Ronnie and his brother David drove to their father's house, hoping it was all a mistake. As you round the curve, you can see all the way up the street, and it's just nothing but blue lights. And that's when you

know that ain't good. As the news of Julia's attack and Melvin's murder spread, so too did fear. If it could happen to this prominent couple, who might be next? Someone came here with the intention to murder him. And then I'm thinking, this person is still on the loose. You know, are we safe? When we come back, police had one thing going for them, a witness. Later that night, still wrapped in duct tape, Julia told detectives the story of Melvin's murder. It appeared to be a robbery gone bad.

He pushed me back down on the ground and he said, if you say anything, I'll kill you. But there was a lot investigators didn't have. This wouldn't be an easy murder to solve. Everything was taken from the scene. There was no cutting instrument, no rolls of tape, no gun, nothing. It was all gone. Detective Billy Mumoff stood on the driveway that cold February night trying to figure out who killed prominent lawyer Melvin Roberts and brutally attacked his girlfriend, Julia Phillips. He got a close look at Melvin's body. Could you tell immediately what had happened? He had a couple of abrasions, one on top of his head, one on the side of his head,

next to his ear. And they were good licks. I mean, somebody lit him up pretty good with some sort of metal object. The detective could also tell that Melvin had been shot at. The bullet had only grazed his ear, punching holes through the back of his jacket. So what killed him? As I'm looking down at him, he also had a zip tie that was wrapped around his neck and it was cinched down pretty good. 79-year-old Melvin Roberts had been strangled. Police quickly searched the scene and spotted their first clue. For prosecutor Chris Hodge, who would handle the case, it was a big one. They were able to find footprints back to Mr. Roberts' house. The footprints were in mud and muddy water, and they still had tread, so that tells us they're super fresh. Investigators believe the footprints most likely came from a man.

They quickly called in the canine unit, hoping dogs could track down the killer if he was still in the woods around Melvin's house. The dogs have picked up on fresh scent. They go out to an adjoining neighborhood where the dog then loses the scent, which implies the person got into a car and took off. And that's where the trail vanished, leaving little else for investigators. Everything was taken from the scene. There was no cutting instrument, no rolls of tape, no empty tape, certainly no zip ties, no gun, nothing. It was all gone. But detectives did have a witness. Maybe she could help solve the crime. Julia was gently escorted away, still wrapped in duct tape. Have a seat for me, Miss Julie.

She arrived at the police station, cold and shaken, with cuts on her arm and elbow and bruises on her hands and face. But despite all the trauma, Julia told investigators she was ready to help find Melvin's killer. She's your best witness at this point. Correct. And at this time, she's our only witness. I can see that man. She took detectives through the details of the attack. It began here, behind Melvin's house, in the large circular circular driveway surrounded by a red brick wall.

She was getting groceries out of the back of her SUV when she realized she was not alone. And that's when a man came and he grabbed me with his hand over my mouth and shoved me to the back of the car and shoved me up the gift card. Then he made a demand. He kept saying, money, money. The next thing she knew, he was tying her up with duct tape. And then he taped up my eyes, my mouth, put my hands together. She said he dragged her 60 feet to the back of the parking area behind the brick wall.

He drug me to the brick wall and he pushed me down. Lying on the wet ground, she soon heard Melvin's car pull up. I could see the car wash and he pushed me back down on the ground and he said, if you say anything, I'll kill you. A short time later, she heard a violent struggle. I thought I heard something like a pipe or something that somebody picked up. A short time later, she heard a violent struggle. Why do you think you heard something sounding like a pipe? I don't know, because I heard it hit the ground.

Okay. And then I heard a shot. You heard a shot? It had to have heard a shot. You heard a shot? It had to have been a shot. After that, Julia didn't hear anything else. She stayed behind the brick wall, hoping the killer was gone, then made her escape. And if the tape hadn't got wet from the rain, I don't know if I'd have gotten it off. With the duct tape loose, she said she was able to use a key to break free.

I never let go of my car key. Julia explained to police she wanted to get help for Melvin, but a part of her knew it was too late. He was laying on that concrete, and I knew that was him. And I knew with my heart that he wasn't alive, but I didn't want to believe it. Still wet and muddy, she told the police she'd stay as long as they needed her. She was just grateful to be alive. She sat at the police station for a good bit into the night. I believe she left sometime 1, 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, something to that effect. A few days went by and the cops were no closer to finding the killer, so they did something unconventional.

I'm driving home. Since Julia was ready and willing, they took her back to the crime scene. I'm pulling my car here. What we believe, if we take her back to the scene, that we could get a more clear and concise picture of exactly what happened. They wanted Julia to show them where her assailant had thrown her in the mud. He placed me in a position like this. Maybe they'd missed clues behind the wall. They also wanted to revisit the sound of that pipe she heard.

Detectives asked her to close her eyes and just listen. They were hoping it might unlock any suppressed memories from that night. She did remember more details about her attacker's voice. Send him with a dialect. You want him there and like I am speaking in English. Detective Mumak continued to gently guide Julia through the crime scene, but she often became emotional. It all seemed to be taking a toll, and Melvin's family worried about her.

I called Julia on several occasions to check on her, and she was shaken up a bit. She was worried that someone was still out there? Yes, to the point that at her store, they would leave the door locked and would not let anybody in until they saw who was at the door. So who could have done this to Julia and Melvin? Detectives were about to discover the number of possible suspects was daunting. Coming up, a man with a lot of friends and a lot of enemies. Put a list together, anything that anyone could have had a conflict with dad about over whatever. How long was the list? There's at least 75 names. Was Melvin's killer on that list?

When Dateline continues. The attack on Julia Phillips and the murder of her boyfriend, Melvin Roberts, looked like a robbery gone wrong. But once investigators took a closer look, the clues at the crime scene told a different story. No money was taken. The money bag that Julia had brought with her had roughly $80 in it. Also, Melvin, I believe he had in the neighborhood of $400 in his wallet still. Prosecutor Chris Hodge believed this was a premeditated hit. We had to figure out who would have any motive. So you had to really hone in on people that knew Melvin and anybody that had a beef with him. That wouldn't be easy because Melvin was no ordinary man. As detectives started looking into Melvin's relationships with people around town,

they learned he had two sides. While he could be incredibly kind and generous, he also had an edge. He had no problem telling you what he thought of you or what you should do or what you could do better. So he's known to, you know, have a little bit of a temper. Police wondered if that temper might have given someone a reason to kill. They also took a close look at Melvin's business dealings. Besides being a defense attorney, Melvin owned multiple rental properties and a used car lot. Police asked Melvin's sons, Ronnie and David, to come up with a list of potential suspects, anyone who might have a grudge. I had all the people who worked for Dad put a list together of clients that he had represented or had a case against him.

Rental properties, evictions, repos. Anything that anyone could have had a conflict with dad about over whatever. How long was the list? It was at least 75 names, at least. He's been an attorney for 55 years. He has made people pay child support who may not want to pay child support. Lose their children, you know, in a divorce. There were people who may want to see harm to your dad, potentially. Potentially. Potentially.

Working from that list, police began knocking on doors and bringing people in for questioning. Detectives also pursued a promising lead from their only witness, Melvin's girlfriend, Julia. They focused on a key detail she'd given them, the killer's accent. Or if he just couldn't speak good English. One of the descriptions that Julia had given us was that it was an Indian type with an accent. That clicked with Detective Billy Mumaw. He'd learned about a couple who had rented a house from Melvin. The husband had an Indian accent and his wife had a nasty fight with Melvin. I'd found out about a week before that Melvin had an argument with a fairly large female tenant.

She had complained that the floor was cracking near the kitchen sink. Melvin told her if she wasn't such a fat ass that she wouldn't be breaking the floor. Those could be fighting words for someone. Pretty strong words for a husband to take and I could see getting pretty upset with that and maybe going overboard. When the detective went to the house to speak to the husband, the man told Moomaw he was at work at the time of the murder. Investigators set out to check his story. Police were also very interested in someone else, Melvin's handyman, Gene Moss. David said he walked in on his dad and Moss having an argument in the office conference room on the night of the murder. Dad had been having some issues with Gene, and so I thought they were in a private conversation. I looked at him and told him, you know, bye, Dad, I'll see you tomorrow kind of thing, and I walked out the door.

It was the last time David saw his dad alive. Gene wasn't doing what Dad wanted him to. Was Gene about to get the boot? Yeah, I thought so. I thought Dad was being a little bit too hard on Gene. You know, Dad, you ought to back it down maybe a notch or two. If you're going to get rid of the guy, I want you to just go and fire him.

Gene was one of the main suspects that we were looking at. Meanwhile, police got a break. They discovered DNA on that zip tie found around Melvin's neck. They immediately started swabbing suspects, hoping to find a match. I have over 80 DNA samples that I've collected from anybody and everybody connected to this

case. Did you interview all those people as well? All those people had been interviewed by me or at least one of the other three to four or five detectives that had assisted with this case. Eighty people? Mm-hmm. Clearly, it would be a tough case to crack. Is it like finding a suspect in a haystack?

In a stack of suspects, probably, yeah. But were they looking in the right haystack? Coming up, a secret kept in a bedroom. We found a lot of empty prescription pill bottles and a lot of pharmacy receipts. Had police also found the motive for Melvin's murder? Four days after his murder, Melvin Roberts was laid to rest in the town he'd called home for the last 60 years. Did it feel like the whole town came to the funeral?

It did, yeah. Everybody was there from all over. He used to go to a guy in York. If you needed to figure something out or you needed help, he wasn't afraid to take on anybody. He never backed down. He always looked out for the little guy. Because I think he always saw himself as the little guy. But as hundreds gathered to say goodbye to Melvin, an odd feeling settled over the mourners. Was it fear? Was it suspicion? Could someone amongst them be the killer? Melvin's granddaughter, Emily, started looking over her shoulder.

Who could this be? How could this have happened? Who would want him dead? Was it putting the town on edge? Yeah, there's a killer on the loose. We've got to figure out who this is. Detectives were working around the clock, trying to narrow down the long list of potential suspects. They learned that the angry tenant who fit the description of the man they were looking for couldn't possibly be the killer. He was at work. Prosecutor Chris Hodge. He had to clock in and clock out and his employer verified the time he was there and that he had not left and stayed until his shift was over so he had an airtight alibi. Then there was

the handyman Gene Moss who'd had an argument with Melvin shortly before the murder. When Detective Billy Mumaw questioned Moss, he said he was at home with his wife. That could be a shaky alibi, your wife. Yeah, there was a phone call that was made to him by another fellow that I interviewed, and he said that he had heard his wife in the background. On the home line?

Correct, and that was just after the murder. Moss was crossed off the list. Detectives were running into nothing but dead ends. They'd spent a lot of time delving into Melvin's life. Now detectives wanted to look for clues in Julia's background. They took a ride 40 minutes west to Gaffney to check out her business. And as they poked around her store, things weren't exactly what they seemed. It started out as a big, fancy store, and then basically had just declined into a thrift store. Perhaps even more concerning to detectives

was the reason Julia's store was failing. Investigators learned Julia had a problem with pills. She was taking money out of the till. She was buying prescription drugs off people off the street. We found a lot of prescription, empty prescription pill bottles and a lot of pharmacy receipts. This was a woman with a serious addiction. She was. But it turns out Julia's financial troubles and pill addiction were no secret.

A few years earlier, Emily said her grandfather had even stepped in to help. He sent her to rehab. And she willingly went? Correct. That must have made Melvin really happy. That he could help change, you know, her life and spin it around to be a positive, yeah. When word got out that cops were asking tough questions about Julia, many around town thought the police were wasting their time.

Everybody thought there was an outside person. There's no way that Julia would kill Melvin. He was the love of her life. And Julia said that was the case right up to Melvin's death. She told police she had planned a celebration for that night. Turns out it was her birthday, and Julia had a few surprises for Melvin. Melvin collected matchbook covers, and she had gotten a few of those and gotten him a present for her birthday.

She also bought Mike's hard lemonade and was wearing special Victoria's Secret underwear. Julia painted a picture of two people in love. How was your and Melvin's relationship? Great. It's sort of a private thing, but, you know, Melvin, to be his age, was physically, you know, active. love. Sure enough, detectives found evidence to back that up. During the investigation, we did locate a few items that suggested that their sex life was quite active. Still, Detective Mumma's radar was up. He thought back to the first moment he saw Julia huddled in her SUV. There was something about the way she'd been wrapped in that duct tape that didn't sit right. The duct tape that went around her hands, it basically looked like

someone, she had held her arms out and it all looked like it was placed on there with care as to not hurt her. So right away you could just tell that this wasn't a typical duct tape wrap? It was odd. The amount of duct tape that was around her feet did not match somebody who would be normally duct taped. It just wasn't enough of it. This got the detective wondering, was there anything else about Julia's story on that fatal night that didn't make sense?

Coming up, a strange reaction to a simple request. Can I get some pictures right quick while we're in the warmth? We're going to use these for Playboy? No. Right there. Boom. I'm like, no. There was, that was totally inappropriate. Did Julia just reveal the naked truth?

When Dateline continues. On the night of the murder, Julia Phillips, the sassy Southern Belle, sat in the police station and was gently asked a routine question. I really don't want to ask it, but I have to ask it. Did you do anything to Melvin? Absolutely not. Still, investigators were bothered by a few things. Besides the way Julia had been gingerly wrapped with duct tape,

Detective Mumam also wondered about the amount of mud on her clothes. During one interview, she said she had been dragged 60 feet and forced face down into the ground. He's taking my face and he's literally pushing it down into this mud. So you would expect mud, like, head to toe? Correct. And basically what we got was if she would have sat down in the grass, her butt and her pant legs at the bottom of the pant legs were muddy like she would have sat down. The police weren't the only ones growing suspicious.

Melvin's granddaughter looked back on something that happened at the funeral home. Julia, who was there with her son Hunter, approached Emily. Immediately she wants to tell her story about what had happened that night. The timing was a bit inappropriate, Emily thought. But more disturbing, Julia's son knew the story better than she did. She tells us that she was, you know, her hands were bound from behind.

And he goes, no, Mama, your hands were bound in the front. It wasn't surprising that Julia might be confused about small details from that violent night. But when detectives went to verify one thing she was crystal clear on, alarm bells went off. Julia had told police she heard a gunshot and said she was nowhere near the gun. But forensic evidence told Mumma a very different story. You did a gunshot residue test the moment I would imagine you got to the police department? Correct. Her hands come back negative. But you found it on her sleeves. If she's 60 feet away behind the wall

and the assailant is shooting him. Gunshot residue is not going to travel 60 feet. An aha moment for the detective. When he added the gunshot residue on Julia's clothes to all the other parts of her story he found questionable, he was convinced Julia wasn't a victim, but the mastermind who arranged and helped carry out Melvin's murder. So three months after that cold, rainy night, police arrested Julia Phillips in the parking lot outside her store and charged her with murder. Probably the best day of my life. My dad called me and said, they got her. Police and prosecutors didn't think

Julia actually killed Melvin, but that she hired someone else to do it. The fresh footprints, that was really how we knew that she absolutely had someone else. Their theory painted Julia as pure evil. The reason she was relatively dry, they surmised, was because she stood under an umbrella watching as her accomplice struck, shot, and strangled Melvin before carefully wrapping her in duct tape. We've always assumed that there was a second person assisting in the actual physical hands-on part of the murder. So who could it be? There was one person who police learned was close to her, had a criminal record, and, like Julia, had a drug problem. Her son, Hunter.

Well, he was a suspect just for the simple fact that he was most likely to help her. Was he kind of a shady character? He was always involved with scams to get his pills. Drugs really drove him? Correct. But Hunter had a solid alibi. He was with a former cop at the time of the murder, 40 minutes away, repairing his home computer. We could not put him in York at the time of the murder.

Hunter was never charged. In fact, investigators couldn't find anyone to charge. And the prosecutor worried that would make this murder-for-hire case a tough one to prove. There is no evidence whatsoever linking Julia to a hitman. That's right, nothing. We tracked her bank records. We saw no exchanges of any type. She kept her phone clean. There were no odd calls.

That was the hurdle that I felt like we faced, having an empty chair. You're trying Julia in the empty chair. After three and a half years working to build a case, in August 2013, Julia Phillips went on trial for murder. The once polished Belle of York was now a shell of her old self, the years since her arrest had taken a toll. But Hodge urged the jury not to be fooled by the frail woman in the courtroom. If you believe that the defendant is guilty of doing one thing, just one thing, on the night Melvin Roberts was murdered, to aid in that murder, then she is guilty. Have a seat for me, Miss Julie.

The prosecutor began by showing the jurors Julia's interviews with police. Hodge wanted them to hear one of the first things Julia said on the night of the murder. There you go. They put a blanket on her and asked if they can take some photographs. Can I get some pictures right quick while we're in the warmth? We're going to use these for Playboy? No. The first thing the woman says, are these going to be used for Playboy?

Right there, boom. I'm like, no. There was, that was totally inappropriate. Hodge built her case, leading to one main question most jurors want answered. What was the motive? Melvin's granddaughter thought she knew the answer to that one. It could be found in Melvin's will. What did he leave her? The building and any car that she wanted from his car lot. The building was worth about $150,000. It housed her store, Julia's. In South Carolina, in a small community, that would take you far. $150,000? The state believed Julia was worried she was never going to see that money. The reason? The relationship between Julia and Melvin was over, said prosecutors, and she knew it. They put a friend of Melvin's on

the stand to back up their claim. He wasn't paying her bills anymore and that he wasn't having anything to do with her. He wouldn't even touch her. And in what prosecutors believed was the final straw, that witness told the jury Melvin had let Julia know he had booked a cruise with another woman. That must have really gotten under Julia's skin. I would think. He made it very clear to her she was being replaced. And it was no coincidence, the prosecutor argued, that Julia had Melvin killed on her birthday. Do you think there's a possibility that this was Julia's birthday present to Julia? Absolutely. Melvin's family now thought so too. Ronnie and David sat in the courtroom every day hoping for one thing. I wanted to hear one word

and I thought you know three and a half years of work comes down to hearing one word. Guilty. Guilty. But would they get their wish? Now it was the defense's turn. They had an explanation for the duct tape, the mud, the gunshot residue. In the end, they said, the state's case was all smoke and mirrors. Coming up, Julia's lawyer takes his best shot, and so does Julia.

Right now. And another twist. Authorities wonder, was there one murder or two? There was enough suspicion presented to me that I wanted the body exhumed. The trial of Julia Phillips had people talking and had Melvin's sons worried. Could Julia's defense team convince the jury she had nothing to do with the murder of her longtime love? Her attorney Bobby Frederick and his wife Joy, a paralegal on the case, said they had no doubt Julia was innocent. We believed in Julia from the beginning. She is kind

and caring and there's no question in my mind that she was in love with Melvin. The defense set out to show the jury a very different version of Julia. Her comments that seemed inappropriate, they argued, were just part of her quirky personality. After the man you love just died, you're going to be making jokes about Playboy. I can tell you that she was traumatized. It's just how she is and it's how she talks. They even told the jury that Julia was weird. Her conversation style is unlike most people. Weird was something to open the jury up to.

She might be weird. She might be inconsistent. But look, you know, she's not a killer. The defense also reminded the jury Julia was a victim. She might be inconsistent. But look, you know, she's not a killer. The defense also reminded the jury Julia was a victim. She'd been attacked. And as she told police, there was a perfectly good reason why that duct tape was loose. And if the tape hadn't got wet in the rain, I don't know if I'd have gotten it off. But wouldn't it have still pulled some skin or some hair? It was raining the night of the incident.

So as it's raining, it's getting wet. It's not sticking as much as it usually does. And since it was raining that night, the prosecution had asked, why wasn't Julia wet and muddy? Easy, the defense said. She was. On the video, you can see her jeans are soaking wet. She's not dry.

She's got mud all over her pants, which was from the rain and the dirt. The defense also addressed the gunshot residue found on Julia's clothes, which seemed to undermine her story that she was behind a wall, 60 feet away from where the gun went off. Julia's lawyer argued that there wasn't enough residue found on Julia to do an accurate test. If this had been the FBI lab, any of our military labs, they could not have testified there was gunshot residue because the number of particles found did not meet the threshold. Julia's defense team

continued to pound home the notion that there was no physical evidence linking her to the murder. And if this was a murder for hire, they asked, where was the killer? They built a case based on motive, not evidence. They want to say to you, we have no idea what happened, but we want you to guess and convince us. That is not how it works. Finally, the defense had to counter the heart of the prosecution's case, motive. The state claimed Julia feared she was about to be dumped and written out of Melvin's will. But her lawyer said they were still a happy couple.

Just look at the lingerie Julia was wearing and the booze she brought with her that night. She picked up Mike's hard lemonade and went to meet Melvin at the house on her birthday. This was supposed to be a hot and steamy night. And the idea that Julia was broke and needed Melvin's money, also not true, said the defense. Julia's lawyer argued her family had plenty of money and was willing to spend it. Her family came and paid substantial attorney fees. Her family is paying her medical bills. Her family is bringing her food, taking care of her, taking her where she needs to go. In the end, the defense decided not to call Julia to testify. Now in her 70s, they said she was

suffering from dementia. And if her behavior towards reporters outside the courthouse was any indication of how she'd be on the stand, Did you know that right now? it was too big a gamble. After seven days of testimony, both sides rested. By the end of the trial, the question was not, is she involved? But how could she not be involved? The jury took less than four hours to reach a verdict. We're all sitting around and everybody's kind of, you know, just killing time. Then Bailiff comes out and he said a verdict's been reached. Did you hurt though? Just kind of?

I thought I was going to throw up. I was almost hyperventilating. Melvin's granddaughter wasn't in the courtroom with the rest of her family when the verdict was read. Her dad called her with the news. He called me. He said, she's guilty. Murder. Julia Phillips, the Belle of York, was now a convicted killer. I was jumping up and down. I remember waking up the next morning, and there was double rainbows. And I just thought, this is awesome. Julia has been called an ice queen, a femme fatale, cunning, greedy, murderous woman. Yes.

It's not really what comes to mind when you just look at her. Right. When you look at her, you think, oh, she's an attractive older lady. Then she opens her mouth. And you can see what's really in there julia's arrest for melvin roberts murder triggered more legal questions for the southern belle julia's stepdaughters from a previous marriage believe she didn't just murder one man but two my father's not here because of her as well. The daughters insist their father, Bryant Phillips, didn't die of a heart attack. They think Julia poisoned him. When the daughters heard about Julia's arrest, they took their suspicions to county coroner Dennis Fowler.

There was enough suspicion that was presented to me that I wanted the body exhumed. Were there concerns revolving around Julia Phillips? There were concerns. Julia denied she killed him and was not charged in that case. Three years after her conviction, in 2016, Julia died in prison. She was 72. For the family, that wasn't the end. Ronnie says the investigation is far from closed. Now we've got to go after the next one.

The family believes there's a hitman still out there and is offering a $10,000 reward to help catch him. Lieutenant Rich Cadell headed up a new investigation team that took a fresh look at the case. We're confident it's going to be cracked one of two ways. Either someone is going to tell us something finally, or it's going to be through digital evidence, via phone records, computer records, or something like that.

Do you feel like you're getting close? I feel like we're closer than we have been. For Melvin's family, only partial justice has been served. I will not give up until we know everybody that was involved. And what that son of a bitch needs to understand is it's going to be a lot easier on them if they come forward instead of police having to find them. I would say tick tock. Clock's ticking. You're coming? We're coming. And we ain't giving up. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Monday at 10, 9 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.