Dateline NBC - On the Outskirts of Town

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

When a young woman is found dead near a soccer field in Indiana, detectives try to piece together a puzzle that leads them to an unexpected suspect. Andrea Canning reports. Originally aired on NBC on September 28, 2018. 

She was brave. She was incredibly brave. Why didn't I know that she needed me and that she was alone and that she was hurt? Nothing was the same after that. Nothing. They found her in the soccer field, the straight arrow student killed by a single bullet. I just hit the floor. I remember the pain. Every time I talk about it, the pain comes like rushing back. That someone would shoot my child. Like, why? This was a small town whodunit. Oh yeah. We were afraid. What had happened that night was the answer

somewhere in her circle of friends. We're trying to find out why I would never hurt Haley. They came and talked to me with four FBI agents. He's there. He's got a gun. How could it have not been him? Then a secret spills out in court. That's a bombshell. It definitely was. I feel like I had gotten my heart ripped out.

For that mother to get on that stand was absolute silence. A heart-stopping revelation by the last person you'd expect. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with On the Outskirts of Town. I'm miles from my family in New York, but I'm driving, oddly enough, through a place that feels like home. Quaint downtown. The kind of place you feel safe.

This is Newburgh in southwest Indiana. You can see the early days of the Midwest in these historic buildings. Open farmland everywhere. Hometown USA. A place for putting down roots. Turn left onto County Road 475 West. Then your destination will be on the left. And there it is.

What I've been looking for. A gravel lot by a soccer field. A spot to play sports, to hang with friends. Not a place for a young woman to die. It's jarring to think that when a life ends, so much begins. A family's grief, a community's shock. And in this case, right here where I'm standing, a murder investigation. Heather Collins has always been proud of her three girls,

especially her oldest daughter, Haley, who even at a young age was eager to lend a helping hand. There's, you know, so many pictures of her holding the baby sister, you know, and just taking care of them. Yeah, she's always leading the way. My kids, you know, they wanted to feed the bottle and, can I change the diaper? She was the best diaper changer ever. A mother's helper and Sister Emily's best friend. With Haley, she says, she felt safe. She was always definitely what you picture an older sister being like, the big

protective, don't mess with my sisters or I'll come at you type sister. That protective streak continued all through school, even extended to friends, Carly Sollers and Ansley Bowles. She kind of just acted like everyone's mom because she was so caring. She was tall and everybody, all of our friends were so short. And so it was always like she stuck out. She acted like everyone's mom because she was so caring. She was tall and everybody, all of our friends were so short. And so it was always like she stuck out. She would like huddle for us. Mom and all her kids. Yeah.

And so people always like she was the first one that they noticed. The world was kind of like her catwalk. Yeah, pretty much. Beautiful girl. Yeah. I love when I get told that I look like her. It makes me really happy. That's really sweet. But Haley's beauty was more than skin deep. Tattoos, like this one on her back,

testified to her strong faith. I said prayers to the girls every night. Theron Rathgeber is Haley's dad. And at the end of our prayer, the most important line was, and those that are less fortunate than we are. And I think she really grasped that. And drew strength from it, especially in difficult times. One night in particular was a defining moment for young Haley.

She was just 12 when she went to a friend's house for a sleepover. That night, the brother of the girl that my daughter was staying with had a friend's stayover a sleepover. That night, the brother of the girl that my daughter was staying with had a friend's stayover. And he was 19, my daughter was 12, and he tried to molest her. At first, Haley said nothing to her parents. But when she learned that the man

had preyed on other girls, her instinct to help led her to act in a way few her age would have the courage to. She testified in sitting in prison. And after that, I think that's when people realized they could always go to Haley, that she would fix anything and she would stand up for the weak, the less fortunate. It was no surprise then when Haley announced she wanted to continue helping others as a nurse. After high school, she enrolled at nearby University of Southern Indiana. I hear that the girl was constantly buried in a book.

She worked really hard. Where does that come from, to just want to study all the time? I don't know, because I don't have it. She had so much drive and ambition, and she knew what she wanted, and she was going to get it. When she wasn't hitting the books, she was waiting tables at the Texas Roadhouse. That's where she met and started dating Isaiah Hagen, a shy fellow waiter. He seemed really nice to me and he seemed to let Haley do her own thing, which I liked. How did you feel when you saw them together? Did they seem like a good match? Yeah. I mean, they weren't lovey-dovey at all, which I prefer, to be honest.

He joked with us. He actually took an interest in talking to us, which is more than I can say for a lot of guys. The romance didn't last long, though the two remained good friends. Besides, 20-year-old Haley was laser-focused on her schoolwork. On a Sunday in late April 2017, she was home, studying for a big exam the next day. Just hours later, the sun was rising, and Haley's mom Heather was starting her morning. I was reading Facebook, having coffee on a Monday morning, just sitting on my porch, and I scroll across a news article. It was shocking. Police had found a body in a soccer field near Newburgh. It says it's a young female. So I immediately start looking for the younger two

because they're in high school in Newburgh. You just want to make sure. Yeah, I just want to find just as a mom. I just want to make sure everybody's safe. Yeah. I just want to find my kids. Heather found her two youngest. They were okay. But Haley wasn't answering her phone. And friends told Heather she didn't show up to take her exam at the university. It's not like her to miss class. Not like her to have her phone turned off. Not like Haley Rathgaber to go missing. What had happened to Haley? When we come back.

Are you getting a sick feeling? Oh, I was sick all morning. It was so much anxiety. I just started screaming her name. Like my stomach had dropped and I was like, oh my God, where is Haley? Where could she be? I'm freaking out. I was just like, I got to go oh my God, where is Haley? Where could she be? I'm freaking out. I was just like, I got to go find my sister. Something's wrong. I don't know what's wrong,

but something's wrong. Heather Collins couldn't get the news out of her mind. That morning, April 24, 2017, local police found the body of a young, unidentified woman at a nearby soccer field. You know, immediately I'm worried about whose child this is. It certainly wasn't hers. At least, that's what Heather told herself. And yet, she was worried. She couldn't reach her eldest, Haley, by phone.

I called her friend Ansley and said, you know, hey, have you heard from Haley? She's like, I know you have her apartment key. Can you drive over there and see what she's doing? When Ansley did, she saw Haley's car parked outside the apartment, meaning Haley must be inside. Ansley put the key in the front door. I swung open the door. I was like, Haley.

And I just started screaming her name. Like, my stomach had dropped. And I was like, oh, my god. I was like, where is Haley? I was like, where could she be? Around the same time, Haley's sister Emily was driving to work with a friend. Suddenly, a sense of doom washed over her. I'm freaking out. Something's wrong.

Just like out of the blue? Yeah, just out of the blue. Like we were driving and all of a sudden I was just like, you got to turn around. I got to go find my sister. Something's wrong. Like, I don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. Emily posted a picture of Haley on Instagram. If anyone hears from my sister, please contact me. Friends responded, telling her that police were trying to identify a woman found dead that morning. And that's when people started sending me that article.

Oh, gosh. At the time, I was just like, no, like, I get you're trying to be helpful, like, but that's not her. Like, and it wasn't even like I felt like I was in any denial. I just 100% knew that that was definitely not my sister. Meanwhile, Warwick County Sheriff's Detective Paul Cruz was just pulling up to the soccer field to begin his investigation. Officers had already roped off the scene. When you pull up, what do you see here? There's a body. We've got a body laying here with a terrible wound to the head. This is a very desolate area. I mean, I'm sure when people are playing soccer, it's active, but in the middle of the night,

there's nothing around here. This place is just pitch black in the middle of the night. Nearest neighbors, probably a half a mile straight line away, separated by trees and fields. Even at a glance, the detective could tell the woman had been murdered, left to die in agony. The coroner would later cite the cause of death as a gunshot wound. What did it tell you that she was shot in the back of the head? It tells us that she knew and trusted the person she was with. Could you get a sense of her last moments? Unfortunately, the evidence here at the scene showed that she had lived for a while

after being shot. You could see it in the gravel? You could. It almost looked like a snow angel where one of her legs had rubbed back and forth and had rubbed a bare spot in the gravel. And this was odd. Next to the woman lay a blue towel. Other than that, there was little to this crime scene. Did you find a weapon? Did you find a bullet, a casing, anything that might help you? No, we had detectives actually assigned to get on their hands and knees with scissors and cut the grass away looking for a shell casing or bullet or anything. We didn't know who she was. There was no identification, no phone, nothing laying with her at that time to help us identify her. But that mystery would be solved soon enough.

Heather, by now in a panic, called an old friend for help. I contacted a detective I knew from Vandenberg County. I mean, I'm getting chills right now. Are you getting a sick feeling? Oh, I was sick all morning. It was so much anxiety, and I didn't know what to do, and I just kept thinking I'm wrong. She gave the detective Haley's full name and description, and he forwarded the information to the Warwick County Sheriff's Office. Investigators there immediately checked Facebook, where they found Haley's profile and picture. And there was a tattoo visible on Facebook that matched, so we were pretty certain at that point who our victim was. Warwick investigators called Heather Collins and asked to speak with her in person. She walked into the meeting, dreading what they might say.

They said, you know, there's a body found and, you know, we've identified her as Haley. In an instant, your whole world is shattered. Nothing was the same after that. Nothing. Every time I talk about it, just the pain comes like rushing back. Like how awful, and I've never felt so awful. Like I just remember, I just, I didn't want to exist anymore. The family was horrified to learn that Haley, just 20 years old, had been murdered with a shot to the back of the head.

That was the most shocking part. Never in a million years would I have thought that someone would shoot my child. Like, why? As you're processing the most horrific news you've ever had in your life, that your daughter is gone, do you immediately ask these detectives who did this? They asked me.

They asked you. Who do you think, you know? One name sprang to mind immediately. Heather blurted it out. Their eyes just They couldn't believe what they were hearing Coming up Detectives knew that name

From another case Haley knew it too She had said, what if they want to talk to me? I'm like, you talk Had someone wanted to keep her quiet Haley could be poking a hornet's nest If she starts making accusations, she absolutely could have.

When Dateline continues. Theron Rathgeber never thought he'd outlive his own daughter. When they, you know, said she'd been murdered, you know, I went in, you know, to the dark side we all have. I wanted to kill myself because I wasn't there to protect her, you see. It was hard for him to know how to move forward. But even in death, Haley was a comfort to her family.

And the things that have impacted us the most is her tattoo that had a Psalm 46.5. It was, God is within her. She will not fall. He will help her at break of day. It's just so difficult to imagine why any human would do something that horrific to another human being. Detective Paul Cruz looked for answers with grim determination. Haley's murder was not the only tough case weighing on him that April morning. A few weeks before, he and his partner were assigned to look into the suspicious death of a 10-month-old baby named Jackson. When detectives spoke to Heather after her daughter's death, she revealed something that stunned them.

Haley was the godmother of Jackson. So their jaws dropped? Yeah, yeah. Heather told police baby Jackson was the son of Haley's old schoolmate, Jordan. She had got a baby to play with without having to have a baby. But then, a terrible accident. Jackson had fallen down some stairs. Haley rushed to the hospital where Jordan explained what had happened.

Her boyfriend, a man named Thaddeus Rice, had dropped the baby down the stairs after tripping over a diaper bag. Jordan was crying and we like gave her a hug and I looked at Haley and Haley like looked at me and I was like, what are we gonna do? They did what they could to help. They got Jordan some food and went to her apartment to get her some clean clothes. We walked in and Haley's like, do you know what's weird? And I was like, what? She goes, the diaper bag is sitting right there. Like as soon as you walked into the door, the diaper bag was sitting right by the couch. It didn't look like the diaper bag had fallen down the stairs, like what that had said. So you're thinking we might've just caught Thaddeus in a big lie. Yeah.

After two days on life support, Jackson died. Grief-stricken, Haley agonized over whether she should tell police about her suspicions. She had said, you know, what if they want to talk to me? I'm like, you talk, you know? But the more Haley's mom thought about it, the more she worried what might happen to Haley if she spoke out. Thaddeus had a bad reputation around town. Haley could be poking a hornet's nest. She absolutely could have, if she starts making accusations. Now, Haley was dead, and Heather wondered if her fears had come true. Had Thaddeus

killed Haley to shut her up? I just felt like, you know, he was looking at some pretty serious charges. If I had to think of people who had reasons to hurt her, that would have been number one. The day after Haley was murdered, someone sent Heather this Snapchat video. It was Thaddeus brandishing a gun. You got that video, so that must have really heightened your suspicion. Oh, the video was huge. I was positive at that point. He did it. And Heather wasn't the only one pointing the finger at Thaddeus.

Haley's friends knew that she'd gone to see the baby's mom, Jordan, the night she died. There's these messages the night she was murdered where she was messaging back and forth with Jordan, hey, I'm going to go pick up my wallet from your house. Late at night, the night she was killed, so then that was the theory. She went, she told Jordan Thaddeus killed her over it. Investigators decided it was time to find out what Thaddeus and Jordan knew.

Thaddeus refused to talk to them, but Jordan did. We did interview Thaddeus' girlfriend. She said they were home together all night at Thaddeus' brother's house. We checked out the surveillance video from that neighborhood. We were able to see Haley come into the neighborhood when she was there to get her wallet. And we saw Haley leave the neighborhood. But we never saw Jordan and Thad leave. It seemed like Thaddeus had a good alibi.

Heather worried that investigators seemed no closer to making an arrest. I think that the fear was overwhelming. I kept saying, I hope that they make an arrest before her funeral. I don't know how I can stand there and wonder who's hugging me and who's coming through this line. You know, did they hurt her?

But as Heather prepared for her daughter's funeral, investigators were already talking to someone who'd surely be standing in that line of mourners. Someone very close to Haley. You want to take a seat over there? Coming up, video from the night of the murder. Police have a few questions for Haley's friends. So were you thinking, they think I might be involved?

Yeah. Something wasn't adding up for you? Not at all. The young people who had worked with Haley at the Texas Roadhouse were reeling. The shock of her murder, the fear. Waiter Jake Allen was one of them. They were going to have a candlelight vigil at the soccer field where she was found. And I was just about to leave my apartment and go there.

My roommate told me, hey, there's somebody at the door. It looks like a cop. Investigators wanted to talk to Jake about his best friend since eighth grade, Isaiah Hagen, Haley's ex. They asked Jake what he and Isaiah had been up to the night of Haley's death. Police had recovered security camera video from the night Haley died, showing Isaiah picking her up at her apartment a little after 10.30. An hour or so later, he met up with Jake.

They played video games and then went to Walmart, where this camera captured them at about 2 a.m. There was no sign of Haley. So were you thinking, they think I might be involved in Haley's murder? Yeah. Jake told police he hadn't seen Haley that night, but Isaiah had told him where he'd taken her,

to a local park a few miles from the soccer field. He told me he dropped her off and he went on a separate way because she wanted to go there to meet somebody. That didn't sound right to Jake. I feel like he wasn't that type of person to just let her be there alone at that time of night. He was way too overprotective. Something wasn't adding up for you? Not at all. And there was something else that bothered him. Jake told police that the Isaiah he knew had

always been a stand-up guy. But recently, he'd heard stories about Isaiah stealing from people. His roommate was telling me he owes us rent, he stole my TV. I said, he did what? Oh my gosh, so he was on a downward spiral. Something was going on. Isaiah had been borrowing money too. Haley was one friend who'd helped him out. She mentioned that she had loaned him $600 to pay his rent.

That's a lot of money. But apparently not enough. Me and Haley had been hanging out, and she goes, it looks like someone had taken money out of my bank account. And she's like, hang on, I can pull up a picture. And she pulled up a picture of the check, and it said, to Isaiah Hagan for groceries.

And it was $300. Haley being Haley, she told friends she'd forgiven Isaiah after he promised to pay her back. Can I take a seat over there? Three days after Haley's death, police decided it was time to talk to Isaiah themselves. He sat there in that chair, and I sat here.

What was his demeanor like? This is a big case. This is a young guy. Almost surprisingly calm. Just very, very quiet and didn't show much emotion at all. Isaiah told investigators the same story he'd told Jake. He'd picked Haley up at her apartment and then dropped her off at that local park. She's like, you can go if you want to. And I was like, you sure? Is everything okay? She said, yeah, everything's fine. What Isaiah didn't know was that more than a dozen investigators were watching his interview remotely from the next room, and they had proof he was lying.

They checked the park's security cameras, and there was no trace of Isaiah and Haley. Cell phone data showed where they had really gone, to the soccer field where Haley's body had been found. We saw him leave her apartment complex on surveillance video. The cell phones are traveling, hers and his cell phones are traveling together. Okay, so they're definitely together at this point if you go by their cell phones. And they're traveling straight to this location right here to the soccer fields. What happens to the cell phones at that point once they're here? Her cell phone goes dark while they're here and remains dark.

His cell phone stays on, and we see his cell phone leave here and go back to Evansville. Isaiah didn't miss a beat when the detective confronted him with that information. I just, I want to apologize and well at the soccer field with her wallet and phone. But investigators questioned that too. Their analysis showed Haley's phone had been in the same location as Isaiah's phone hours later, when he was long gone from the soccer field. Detective Cruz pressed Isaiah to explain, moving his chair closer. And that's why I need an explanation. Isaiah's explanations kept changing.

Literally, the only thing I can think of is it somehow got left in my car. I saw it. I saw it in the road. I saw it in the road. I saw it in the phone. He said that it just happened to catch his eye when his headlights hit it. He's just driving along and there it is? Yeah.

And does he pick it up? Yeah, so that's what he says in that version. Are you buying any of this? Absolutely not. And where was the phone now? Isaiah said he'd thrown it out of his car window. But that didn't make sense either. He texted her that morning after the body's been found,

saying, are you okay, or something to that effect. He knows she's never going to get the message because he threw her phone out the window. You believe he was establishing some type of alibi? He was trying to lay down an alibi at that point. Detective Cruz raised the heat again. It does not make a damn bit of sense. He tag-teamed with other investigators to get Isaiah to confess.

We're trying to find out why you did this. Why? I didn't, I didn't... I would never hurt Haley or do anything to her. Isaiah stuck to his story. It was 3.30 in the morning when investigators finally let him go home. Chakes, as an FBI agent, told him to keep clear of Isaiah. He didn't know what to think.

He never has been an aggressor. I've never known him to be that type of way. He's never been temperamental or, you know, violent. So you must have had a lot of conflicting feelings because something's bothering you, and yet you don't think he's capable of murder. Right. Coming up, was Isaiah really behind this?

It seems like a leap to go from forging checks to cold-blooded murder. Oh, absolutely. Just inconceivable. All I could do was hold him. When Dateline continues. As his father, I poured everything I could into that young man. And to even be considered to have committed such a heinous act to another person was just inconceivable. Isaiah's father, Wandel Hagen, was dumbfounded when police told him his son was a suspect in Haley Rathgeber's murder. He and his wife, Donna, a corrections officer who worked for the sheriff, said Isaiah had always been a good son. He was pretty shy as a kid.

Good-natured, happy, easy to get along with, eager to please. Everyone loved him. The Hagans said they raised Isaiah to put his faith first. The family went to church several times a week. Their other love was sports. Isaiah was a gifted soccer player, even scored a partial scholarship to college. He talked about wanting to be a partial scholarship to college. He talked about wanting to be a teacher and teach athletics.

They didn't know much about Isaiah's relationship with Haley, didn't realize how much she meant to their son, until he told them she died. He was very, very distraught. I mean, his elbows, his hips, his knees, his ankles, everything gave. He was collapsing to the floor and we caught him. But police believed Isaiah was a cold-blooded killer who had shot Haley from behind, then robbed her. They hauled him down to the station again. I can't help you unless you're willing to help yourself. Why did that happen? Isaiah asked to speak to his mother. Donna, the corrections officer who had brought suspects to these interrogation rooms for years, was allowed to see her son alone.

All I could do was hold him. I just felt extremely helpless. Whatever they talked about, Donna wouldn't tell detectives. Isaiah stopped talking too. But police were convinced they had the right suspect. They charged Isaiah with two counts of murder and one count each of robbery and obstructing justice. But when the trial began in the summer of 2018, prosecutor Michael Perry knew that proving the charges would be difficult. His case against Isaiah was largely circumstantial. This was not a slam dunk.

The prosecution team methodically laid out every piece of the puzzle before the jury. We wanted to show them that Isaiah was the last person to see her alive, that he lied about her cell phone, that he had money problems, that he did a lot of things to cover his tracks. And the prosecution presented perhaps the most explosive piece of evidence they had, what investigators found when they searched the home of Wandel and Donna Hagen. We were able to locate a towel from that home that was actually the same make, the same model of the towel that was located at the soccer field.

And there was something else investigators discovered. Wandel owned several guns, but one of them was missing. Did you think that maybe Isaiah took it? It wouldn't be something that we would suspect because... He didn't like guns. he didn't like guns, was not comfortable around them. The prosecution told the jury that Isaiah owed his father some cash. And on the night Haley died, Wandel sent a text to his son, got the money yet? We do know that he left $210 for his dad the next morning on the counter.

One of the things that seems somewhat weak is the motive. I mean, we're talking about, what, a couple hundred dollars? To just kill somebody for? Right. I've actually prosecuted cases where somebody was killed for far less than that. It seems like a leap to go from forging checks to cold-blooded murder. Oh, absolutely. It's, you know, zero to murder in 3.5 seconds. It's not the usual situation. It wasn't the usual situation because it didn't happen. That's what Isaiah's defense attorney, Mark Phillips, said. He argued

the prosecution had been fixated on Isaiah from the start and had built a case out of guesses, nothing more. We had no physical evidence. They had no gun. They had no bullet. They had no casing. And that blue towel investigators found at the crime scene? The DNA testing they did on that towel showed that none of Isaiah Hagen's DNA was present.

Though there was one thing that was plain to see, Isaiah's lies. Right there in the interrogation video, the prosecution played the entire nine and a half hours of it to the jury. I think any time somebody says something that the state contends isn't true, you have to try to understand the dynamic of where it was said. Phillips noted that detectives questioned Isaiah aggressively for hours. They used profanity, invaded his space, intimidated him. And I'm supposed to believe a stack of s***.

Maybe, he theorized, Isaiah simply lied to make them go away. Were you worried, though, the jury is going to hear lies and that's just going to trump everything else? This guy's lying. Why should I believe him that he didn't kill her? That's a hard one to overcome. But we had no confession, first and foremost. Isaiah never said anything like,

I killed Haley Rathgeber. So if Isaiah didn't kill Haley, who did? The defense pointed to Thaddeus Rice, the man investigators had charged with and later convicted of recklessly killing 10-month-old Jackson. At the time of Isaiah's trial, Thaddeus had pleaded not guilty, but was in jail awaiting trial himself. Had he been worried Haley had evidence against him? She knew information about the suspicious circumstances of Jackson Wheeler's death. He and Jordan were the last two people to see Haley other than Isaiah, we believe, based on the information that we were provided in discovery. And it just seemed curious to us that for some reason they weren't pursued.

And according to the defense, there was other evidence that showed Isaiah could not have killed Haley. After Haley's cell phone stopped sending a signal just before 1130 on the night she died, it had mysteriously turned on about four hours later and pinged off a cell tower near the soccer field. When that happened, cell phone data showed Isaiah was miles away. At the time that her phone came back on and started traveling, it was nowhere near Isaiah Hagan. In fact, he was in a different county. So he could not have been pinging off the same tower that she was. Which, according to the defense, meant someone else had to have

Haley's cell phone. But the prosecution insisted Isaiah had the phone all along. It looks like it powers back up at the soccer field, but we've since come to the theory that when you power your phone up, it hits on the last tower that it was on when it powered down. And so that explains the reason why it looked like it was traveling. Is that exact science or is that the theory? That's a theory. But we have found absolutely zero evidence that there was anybody else involved other than Isaiah Hagan. The prosecution and the police, they believe that she was shot before Isaiah left the soccer field. That his alibi doesn't hold up because she was already dead. Well, that's hard for me to understand because there was testimony by the coroner that he could not determine a time of death.

Haley's friend Carly, who attended every day of the trial, watched with growing uneasiness as the defense poked holes in the prosecution's case again and again. Every day my dad texted me and would ask how the trial went. Every single day I was like, yeah, we're not going to get this conviction. It was that bad. It was that bad. And then, a bombshell. That's putting him wildly.

Coming up. No one saw it coming. A stunning moment in court. Isaiah's mom on the stand. I started sweating. I felt like I had been sucker punched. What would she reveal? That almost doesn't even really happen in TV dramas because it's too hard to believe. Right. Truth is stranger than fiction. As each day of trial passed, Heather Collins became less hopeful.

There was no direct evidence tying Isaiah Hagan to her daughter's murder. No gun, no DNA, no eyewitnesses, nothing to prove Isaiah was a killer. I was at the point where I was prepared for him to be walking the streets. Prosecutor Michael Perry urged patience. We knew that we did not have enough evidence to convict at that point, but that's why you go to the end. There was one person in particular he wanted the jury to hear from, Donna Hagen, Isaiah's mom. The prosecutor had no idea what she'd say on the stand, but he had reason to believe Isaiah had confided in her that day at the police station about the night Haley died.

So the mom takes the stand, in your words, as a reluctant witness. Yes. Would a mother actually reveal something he told her in confidence? Tell us what happened. I don't specifically remember what question was asked, but the answer that she gave was that Isaiah had told her that he had shot Haley and had done it accidentally. And with those words, Donna Hagan turned the trial upside down. Instead of defending her son, she pointed the finger right at him. I mean, that almost doesn't even really happen in TV dramas because it's too hard to believe. Right. Nobody would do that.

Truth or Stranger than Fiction. Isaiah's attorney, Mark Phillips, could not believe what he was hearing. I started sweating. I felt like I had been sucker punched. Had she just torpedoed your defense? Yes. She said something that we couldn't expect, we didn't expect. And as I sat there in that moment, I had no idea how to address it. No one saw it coming. It was probably the first time that everyone in

the room cried. It was an amazing gift. The judge called for a recess and cleared the courtroom. All sides left to absorb the enormity of what had just happened. Heather drove to the soccer field to reflect. She honors Haley by wearing the same tattoo her daughter once had. The prosecutor went home, humbled by a woman's confession. I don't know that I've ever had more faith in the words coming out of somebody's mouth than a mother that would actually say that against her son. You almost look like you're getting emotional. I am getting emotional. I'm sorry. The defense attorney, on the other hand, got straight to work.

He needed a new plan to save his client. When court reconvened, he called Donna Hagan back to the stand. His goal, to show the jury that she couldn't be believed. On cross-examination, she admitted that she believed that if the jury heard that Isaiah said it was an accident, then they couldn't convict him of murder. So you think that perhaps his mother had said these things so that her son could get perhaps a lesser sentence? Well, yes.

The problem is the genie's out of the bottle. Yes. The jury cannot unhear what she said about her own son. How do you now overcome that? Well, I think it goes back to we have no confession, we have no direct evidence, we have no DNA, and we have no other significant piece of evidence that's compelling. And in his closing, he made those same arguments to the jury. But the damage was done. It only took the jury four hours to find Isaiah Hagan guilty

on all four counts against him, including murder. That's the most relief I've felt since it all happened. Because all I wanted forever was just to get justice for her. But the Hagans were angry. They didn't believe Isaiah should have been convicted of the most serious charge against him, murder. I was in disbelief and just devastated. Their pain was compounded when Isaiah was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

And we want him to know that we love him and we're going to be there for him no matter what. We will always love him, regardless what you, anyone else has to say, he's my son as long as I'm living. This is a very special place, you and Haley. Yeah. We came here a lot when she was little. Heather Collins doesn't want to think any more about Isaiah Hagen.

She comes to this park to think about Haley, the good times they had here as a young family, and the woman Haley could have been. I don't think that any of us have come to terms with what happened yet and that she's really gone. You think that she's just going to come walking back in the door to pick up her laundry, you know. Emily finds herself picking up the phone to call her big sister, only to have the sad reality come crashing down, only to be left with one sad, unanswerable question. Why did Isaiah do it? I wonder how he could do something like that and what made him do that. Why was he so desperate to hurt someone so kind?

And there's no one that could say she wasn't the most giving person, so why wouldn't you just ask? Because if you would have just asked her, I'm sure she would have given you the world. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.