Dateline NBC - Secrets by the Bay

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

Elizabeth Sullivan, a mother of two, suddenly vanishes in 2014. Nearly two years later, her body is found in the San Diego Bay, but medical examiners say she had only been dead for about a month or two. Keith Morrison reports.

Tonight on Dateline. She was free spirited. She just loved life. What were the chances she would ever walk away from that family? There weren't any chances. Liz would have never left her children. The missing persons unit did not see any signs of foul play. I was like, look, you know, I know I'm just a friend.

I just feel that something's wrong. I very, very, very much believed that my friend was in danger. Did you get the impression that you were on a list of possibles? Definitely. Her husband, he was under suspicion basically immediately. There were searches of his home. The husband was cooperative. The boyfriend was not.

Got a warrant for his home, his phone, his computer. This was a very complicated case. Elizabeth mattered. She needed to get justice. A young mother vanishes, and dark secrets begin to surface. I had gotten a call saying, you'll never believe this. They're like, this is it. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Here's Keith Morrison with Secrets by the Bay. It was just a picture. Showed up one day on social media back in 2014. It was an early offering in our Missing in America series. And that bright, open face, the questions that begged for answers. Who was Elizabeth Sullivan? It's completely brilliant. She was almost an unacknowledged genius.

I don't even know how to describe it. It was like this tornado mom that was disheveled and she was flighty and she would talk here and here and go all over the place. They knew her well, these two. And so they knew that

in October of 2014, something very serious was going on. I'd never seen her so nervous. She didn't know what to do. Their best friend seemed to be on the verge of doing something drastic. She was angry. She was

I don't want to call it frantic, but you know, it gives you cold sweats. We needed to know what happened to her. Was she alive? Was she dead? Couldn't know that. There was a story here that we could see. We didn't know then that following the mystery surrounding this woman all these years would take us to places as strange as fiction.

Then again, from the very beginning, ordinary was not the sort of word you'd use to describe Liz Sullivan. Smart, maybe. Funny, perhaps. Vibrant. Well-read. A little OCD. Well, when I first saw her, I thought she was beautiful. And I thought she was fashionista. And we started talking. It was... I just needed to know more. Liz was in her 20s when she met Calandra Duckett, but soon they were like teenagers. It was infectious. Keith, I'll tell you, there were often times where we spent three, four hours, maybe a bottle of wine, getting ready to go out, to never make it anywhere. Thing was, there was something else about Liz.

Her friend Calandra knew and understood. I think that if the world in itself were a little more introspective, we would figure out that we all have a little something and we wouldn't judge others for their little something. Liz's little something was that she had trouble regulating her emotions, which might help explain how tangled her love life eventually became. It might also have explained her unique flair or sometimes manic enthusiasms. She was exploring being a dancer. She was exploring being a dancer. She was exploring being a writer.

And though it sometimes also made her unpredictable or anxious, she wasn't so different, said Calandra. Sometimes you can have a perfectionistic personality that leads people to think that you are disorganized. And in her case? In her case, she was very infectious. that leads people to think that you are disorganized. And in her case? In her case, she was very infectious. Elizabeth had a very eclectic personality.

Liz and Calandra lived near Norfolk, Virginia, the biggest naval station in the country is in Norfolk, in the whole world, in fact. And somewhere in that big cauldron of romantic possibilities, Liz encountered him, her perfect guy, Matthew Sullivan, Minnesota kid in the Navy, knight in shining armor. So then it became a love story. Could you see that little sparkle in her eye that she was, you know, infatuated with the guy? You could see it when they were around each other. They sparked up really quickly. I think she saw so much potential.

Liz saw a lot of potential in everything. Everything had potential. Matt seemed to promise permanence, stability. He wasn't just a handsome face. He was a ticket to something better. What did she see that he could do for her? She saw stability and opportunity, and then possibly a stable, loving relationship

like her grandparents, like, you know, long haul. Oh, but it's a story as old as war. The Navy loves love as much as any institution does, but maybe not so much where it comes to personal matters, like actually spending time with the one you love. Matt was reassigned across the country to San Diego, California, but he just wasn't ready to say goodbye to the most exciting woman he'd ever known. And so a couple of months after they met, Matt proposed, and Liz said yes.

I think they got married so fast because he was having a good time, she was having a good time. It seemed like a perfect match, perfect opportunity. So then things were very busy indeed as they bustled around to get ready for their move out to the big naval base in San Diego. And right in the middle of that preparation, surprise, surprise. She called me and, excuse my French, she was like, holy s***, I think there's a kid in here. Liz was pregnant and a bit overwhelmed. There was this entire period where we could not say stroller because she could not breathe. Couldn't believe it was actually happening to her? Couldn't believe it. Terrifying. Couldn't believe it was actually happening to her. Couldn't believe it. Terrifying.

Couldn't believe it. She was our permanent rock star. She did not see that coming. No, she didn't. A new town to deal with. A new husband. A new baby. But also, some old demons that weren't done with her just yet.

Coming up, sudden news from Liz's husband, Matt. It put her on red alert and freaked her out like nothing. And a concerned call to the police. I was like, look, you know, I know I'm just a friend, but she should have checked in with me. I just feel that something's wrong. Elizabeth Sullivan's story was like that of many a military wife, snatched out of immaturity,

leaving everything behind to follow her husband across the country. The newlyweds left Norfolk, moved to San Diego, but barely had time to unpack before Matt was deployed overseas. She was still pregnant, so it was a struggle being alone. Matt was far, far away when their daughter was born. He came home for long enough for Liz to get pregnant a second time, but soon was away again. Raising her kids in a town and state completely foreign to her, Liz felt isolated. Her only contact with friends and family

was on the phone. She was by herself, you know, so there came a time where she got a little job so that she could meet people, be out in the public, you know. Then one day, Liz walked into an eyewear store where Nathan Character worked. She had this plaid shirt on that was like two sizes too big,

and she was carrying this double stroller. And I was just like, oh, no. I was like, what does this woman want? And she came in, and she was just a flurry, saying, oh, I'm sorry, I don't normally look like this, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we just started talking until the store closed. But she was kind of like a little force of nature that came into your store.

Not a little force of nature. She was a huge force of nature. All right, there you go. Yay! Yes, she was. And complicated, for reasons Nathan would discover himself soon enough. Why did you like her as much as you did?

The first thing that drew me to her was her sense of humor. And she was smart. You know, I liked that she went to school. But eventually... Eventually I really began to love Liz because... I didn't feel that I had to hide anything of myself from her. And she wouldn't judge me because we both knew that we had our flaws. And it was the first person I felt really comfortable admitting stuff like that to, you know?

That's a pretty rare thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, Liz and Nathan confided things, very personal things to each other. Like Liz's marriage. Matt was back, but wasn't going well. She and Matt had moved to Liberty Station, a residential district in what used to be San Diego's Naval Training Center. She got settled into a routine where she was basically a single mother. Matt didn't know the kids and she had a particular

routine and way and that really got disrupted. When he came back. When he came back and was back for a while. And the more Liz and Matt got to know each other, the more they seemed to be leagues apart, said Calandra, when we first interviewed her back in 2020. I remember a very prevalent issue was that Matt did not have a driver's license. So if something needed to be done or someone needed to get somewhere including him to work it was liz

waking up early take him to work she would have to do the grocery shopping if they had appointments that's her also honestly i think that matt was also a disappointment that he lost his good time wife that he thought he was taking to california with him and they both just walked slim into a whole lot of responsibility. But it wasn't just the weight of daily life driving a wedge. She would try to excite him about things. Let's do this. Let's go out here. We have these two daughters.

She saw all these opportunities for her and them. And he was content where he was in life. He didn't really want to explore or do much outside of work, go home, work, go home. Sit in front of the television. Exactly. Have a beer. That's that.

Pretty much, yeah. And that wasn't cutting it for Liz. Well, you know, you ask a guy to step up and he doesn't step up. Must have made her mad. I don't know. I can't say mad. It was frustrating.

I think it was more disappointing. Well, now what? You know, I came out here because you're so responsible and we're about to be responsible together and build this life. And it's me building. And you're not doing much of what you need to do. Right.

On top of that, Matt had just announced that his family, her in-laws, were about to move in with them. He'd already made the arrangement. They were on their way. It put her on red alert and freaked her out like nothing. I'd never seen her so nervous. Matt's mother was coming, and not just her, her partner and Matt's sister too. And Liz did not like them one bit. Told Nathan Matt's mom didn't approve of her or her marriage to Matt. There were qualities in the family members that Liz did not want around her daughters, definitely. When Liz called Nathan, she sounded desperate for a way out of that arrangement.

Did she then ask if she could come and talk through this? Yeah, well, it was, it wasn't an ask. It was, I'm in the car on my way over now. Liz spent the night at Nathan's, venting. And the next day, feeling somewhat better, if still wary, went back home. But when Nathan spoke to her the following day, she sounded tense. She was very hurried to get off the phone. It was like, I have to go, bye.

Done. Before she hung up, Liz told Nathan she'd call him the next day, a Monday. But Monday came and went. It wasn't until I went to work on Tuesday around lunchtime and I still hadn't heard from her. And I knew the plane was going to land with her in-laws. Oh, boy. So that's when I thought it was weird. So he called Matt. Has he heard from Liz? No, no, he hasn't heard from her since yesterday. Matt knew Liz was upset about his family moving in.

They had just arrived that morning and figured she was trying to put off dealing with them. Wouldn't be the first time Liz had gone off on her own without saying where or with whom. She could be impulsive, as Matt and Nathan both knew, but Nathan couldn't shake a nagging feeling that this time there was more to it. And, somewhat reluctantly, he made one more call. I called the police. I stressed the fact I was like, look, you know, I know

I'm just a friend, but she should have checked in with me. I just feel that something's wrong. And the officer kind of blew it off. But then another day went by. And then a third.

Liz's daughters waited. Matt waited. The in-laws settled in. Everybody wondered, where is she? That's when San Diego police put the word out. The young mother of two was officially missing. Coming up. I feel like she's in trouble.

We aren't going to let this go. A public plea from Liz's dad. The missing persons unit did not see any signs of foul play. Was she missing or hiding? She was spotted in a soccer field a thousand feet from her house. When Dateline continues. Three days after Nathan Carriker called the police to report his friend Liz Sullivan was missing, investigators dropped by Liz's house. They met Matt and the kids and the in-laws and took a police-type tour of the place, eyes wide open.

The missing persons unit had looked over it fairly well and did not see any signs of foul play. That's Detective Kim Collier. She didn't know back then how much this case would mean to her. Wasn't even there the day missing persons took their look around. And what did they find? Nothing very illuminating. Liz hadn't taken her car. It was parked in the garage. Some trash and a parking receipt were inside. And next to her car, the usual garage stuff, a big broken mirror and a standalone freezer like this one, which they opened. It was empty. Did they search her room in the house that she shared with Matt? Yes. Outside of it being a little messy,

there was nothing of note. Except, said Matt, one of their suitcases was missing. He felt that she might have left with her computer and her laptop and a phone, but he wasn't sure, but he couldn't find those items. Seemed cooperative, though.

Yes. Matt told the detectives he'd found her private journals, and he turned those items. Seemed cooperative, though. Yes. Matt told the detectives he'd found her private journals, and he turned those over. And something else, it was a pretty big deal. He had discovered that Liz had transferred all the money in their joint checking account, $1,072, to her individual account before she disappeared. So the cops called Liz's credit union, and the people there confirmed there was activity on her debit card after she was reported missing. What did you think when you heard that?

I was very hopeful. I was really excited because that means, you know, Liz was somewhere. She was intact. Still, they posted flyers around town. Her photo was all over the news. 31-year-old Elizabeth Sullivan went missing on October 13, 2014. And that produced a response.

People thought they recognized the woman on TV. She was spotted twice. So she's gone a week, and she was spotted in a soccer field 1,000 feet from her house. Who saw her? It was an off-duty police officer. In fact, an off-duty sheriff's deputy and his wife said they saw and talked to Liz six days after she went missing. They said she appeared disoriented, was looking for her phone, and told them she had slept in the park the night before.

Then days later, another reported sighting, this one near the San Diego airport. But after that, a month passed with no sign of Liz. Matt gave an interview to People magazine, said he was at the end of his rope. I'm running out of fumes right now. I don't know where to look. Liz had left home before, he said, but those times it was just for a night. Not like this. We aren't going to let this go. Liz's dad came from Virginia to help look for his daughter and be with Matt and the girls.

He was interviewed by NBC station KNSD and pleaded with the public for help. I feel like she's in trouble. It can happen to you, and when it does, it gets very personal. And you get a strength like you've never had before because that's my daughter. I'm bringing her home. As San Diego detectives dove into their investigation, they wondered if some people knew more about Liz's whereabouts

than they were letting on. They questioned her friend, Nathan, for one. Nathan, who'd called in the missing persons report. Did you get the impression that they, you know, that you were on a list of possibles? Definitely. How'd they make that apparent? They showed up at my job.

Very awkward. Very, very awkward. And I was short with them and said I could meet them at this time. And we did. And we met. And it was very interrogatory. Didn't they ask you to take a polygraph? Yeah.

What'd you say? Well, I wanted to think about it first. Nathan wasn't the only one police leaned on. They questioned Matt, too, of course, repeatedly. I never heard of him getting a lawyer. In fact, it seemed that he was helpful. Yeah. You know, to the police. Matt told them, go ahead, search his house, which they did several times. And he consented to having both of his daughter's DNA collected just in case the worst happened and they needed to ID a body. Did you ask him to take a polygraph by any chance? Yes. How did he score? Well, he did pretty well. What was his suggestion about what happened to her? He ended up saying that she had just left and walked out with a bag and he didn't know where she was going.

By now, detectives had an idea or two to follow. They'd been looking over those journals Matt had given them. And, well, the things people write when they think no one will look. Maybe Liz Sullivan's life was more complicated than anyone knew. Maybe she didn't want to be found. Coming up, secrets spill out. Liz on a dating app. One day she had Tinder.

And private writings. It was a story about somebody that is missing. Leaves her kids and runs and leaves it all behind. Right. Fiction or fact. It didn't take very long. When San Diego investigators asked family and friends to tell them about the missing Liz Sullivan,

they ran into it right away. She was a complicated person, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. She was very complicated. Complicated? Liz had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which may sound like a big deal, but it isn't so uncommon. Millions of people deal with it.

And in Liz's case, her journals, private, sometimes tortured thoughts, made it clear that for all her spunk and lust for life, she'd been battling deep-seated issues for years. Liz opened up to friends about her drug use, both recreational and prescribed. She took prescription medication like Adderall, but at times she over-medicated. Did she talk much about that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, Liz talked very freely about it. Liz had always been under the care of psychiatrists.

And she had her stash of prescription medication that she needed, but that she also liked as well. And she knew how to work the system to get the medication she wanted. So, kind of partially self-medicated. Yeah, exactly. And when medication wasn't enough, Liz sometimes resorted to alternate ways of finding relief. She was a cutter, so it was a way for her to kind of release any type of anxiety.

What kind of cutting are we talking about? Were they deep cuts, little scratches, what? No, for the most part, they're, you know, superficial wounds. Mm-hmm. Cause you a little pain and have you bleed a little bit, nothing that would send you to the hospital.

She knew that she had problems, and she did whatever she could, and she tried so hard to circumvent those issues that she had. More hurdles than most people. Yeah. When things were going wrong in her marriage, Liz did what she would often do. She wrote about it, as if writing fiction. She showed it to Nathan.

It had some very real actual events in the story. The woman in Liz's story had been rescued from her life's troubles by a man named Brooks, her white knight. They moved to California, a little girl. And then things went bad. I'm a failure. A lifetime movie. A lifetime movie that retained such saccharine sweet maudlin predictability that I left. I left Brooks. I left my little girl and walked out of that nightmare. I walked out of my life.

The parallels to Liz's real life, as Nathan told the detectives, were so obvious. What did you think when you read it? Well, I made it hard because it was a story about what we were dealing with, somebody that is missing, and if she acted out that story in real time, then it would have aligned.

Leaves her kids and runs and leaves it all behind. Right. Maybe. But Liz's story also offered a second possibility. I am so sick of everyone, but mostly, completely, and entirely sick of myself. Maybe everyone is better off in my absence. Did you ever think that suicide was a possibility? It was something that unfortunately was in the back of my mind.

And to those possibilities, add yet another. Months before she disappeared, Liz created an online dating profile. When she got on the app, it wasn't, you know, to be taken seriously at all. She told Calandra all about it. It was a escape hatch for just a couple hours, you know? More of a fantasy thing?

Sure. I'm in this bad spot. I'm going to look at what's out there. Sure. And I believe that when you get in certain situations that affect your self-esteem, sometimes it's easier to have someone else tell you, you know, the things that you need to hear just for that moment. Just for that moment. Nathan thought it was more serious than that. I don't know if I introduced her to this app on the phone or if she found it on her own. I can't remember. But one day she had Tinder

and I didn't judge her for it. Maybe not, but suddenly the investigators were dealing with a big problem. Was she seeing someone? Had she taken off with him, whoever it was? Or did some man do something to make Liz Sullivan disappear? Coming up, new man in her life and possibly new leads in the case. Steven, yep.

Steven was the boyfriend. He had aspirations and goals and he was all the things that Matt wasn't. When Dateline continues. Elizabeth Sullivan had been gone about two months when the missing persons unit asked Detective Kim Collier and her partners to get involved. Thing was, Detective Collier worked homicide cases. And this one? They didn't know exactly what it was.

It really made them worry that this was more than just somebody that had walked away from their life. By then, missing persons had done their searches and talked to the husband, Matt, who told them about Liz's psychiatric issues, told them she could be unpredictable, impulsive. And they had interviewed people who reported seeing her after she went missing and people who said they were just worried.

Like, for example, her friend, Nathan. Was he ever considered a suspect at all? I think the missing persons unit in the beginning might have wanted to bring him in. I never felt that he was suspect, no. You had a feeling about it, an instinct? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it kind of comes with the job. In fact, Nathan, it turned out, was a kind of encyclopedia where it came to Liz.

To him, she'd confided just about everything. I heard all of her life story, everything. And I think she needed somebody to tell it to. She was a full-time mom. And so she didn't have anyone to talk to to let all this out. And over the course of their friendship, Nathan became very familiar with the problems plaguing Liz's relationship with Matt. But he'd also seen them both make a real effort

to mend their marriage. She was raised Catholic, and I remember one instance or one period, she decided, you know what, Nathan, I'm just going to, I'm really going to focus on my family. I'm going to make this work. You know, I've been hard on my husband, but he, you know, provides for me and the children,

and I need to be more appreciative and respectful of that. And I remember her really, really putting her all into it. That was about the time Nathan had them over for Thanksgiving, the year before she disappeared. How were they then? They were doing great. I had never seen them so happy and talking and conversing. It was really good to see them like that. It really was. Then come that Christmas, she came over to the house with the girls, but no Matt. You could see the dynamic had changed already, and it didn't take long. And by summer, Liz was spending time with other men she met on Tinder.

Now, investigators had to expand their list of potential suspects. Who was Marcus Hodges? He was one of the individuals that we know that she had connected with. They'd pulled his record. He'd been arrested for choking his then-wife during an argument. The charges were later dropped. Did that factor into your thinking at all? It was part of the reason we were more concerned.

It played a factor in us paying a little more attention to him. But the Marcus-Liz relationship turned out to have been brief and casual. It was a dead end. Except Marcus wasn't the only one. There was another man, a guy named Stephen Sutton, and maybe he was the real deal. I think that once she found Steve, Steve was kind of it for her and that whatever other contacts she had made during that time were not important to her anymore. As Liz confided to Nathan. Steven, yep. Steven was the boyfriend. What did she say about Steven? She showed me his picture. He was a good looking guy. He had aspirations and goals and like, you know, he wanted to better

himself and he was educated and they could talk and it was all the things that Matt wasn't. Perhaps he was. He was also the last person Liz dated before she disappeared. So naturally, detectives wanted to talk to him. But they had a problem. Steve didn't want to talk to them. The husband was cooperative, and the boyfriend was not. Coming up.

Liz felt bad. She did. True confessions. Liz is forced to reveal her affair. She's about to be caught. Yeah. And so she called me up and she said, what am I going to do? She would not have walked away from those children.

Calandra Duckett knew Liz Sullivan, and she also knew this whole situation just wasn't right. I very much believed, I very, very, very much believed that my friend was in danger. She was not out gallivanting the world, exploring without me, without her girls, without even a phone call. That was not Elizabeth. That was not Elizabeth. That was not her. But more than two months after Liz disappeared, there was nothing, not a word.

Officially, it was still a missing persons case, but really? It was the homicide unit, Detective Collier and her partners, who wanted to talk to Stephen Sutton, the man Liz started seeing before she disappeared. But Steve didn't want to talk to Stephen Sutton, the man Liz started seeing before she disappeared. But Steve didn't want to talk to them. He ended up getting an attorney, so we were kind of done at that point, being able to talk to him without more information.

So they tried to piece together that part of Liz's life without his help and discovered that about a month before Liz disappeared, her affair with Steve imploded in spectacular fashion. I do know that Liz enjoyed being over there with Steve and his roommate, and they enjoyed having her over. The roommate's girlfriend, however, not so much. She saw child seats in the car and assumed, incorrectly, that Liz had left the kids' home alone. And so she called CPS.

I don't want to disparage that young lady's actions because those actions do save someone's life. It just didn't apply to this situation. Too late now. That's what sparked everything, that phone call to Child Protective Services. Yeah, that's getting real now. Yeah.

CPS turned up at Liz's house, asked some difficult questions, but found nothing to indicate she was an unfit mother, except... And then CPS said, well, as part of procedure, we have to notify that we got this call to the other parent. She's about to be caught. Yeah. And Matt was at work at the time.

And so she called me up and she said, this is what happened. You know, what, what, what am I going to do? Nothing left to do, said Nathan. But tell Matt the truth. So that night, Liz told her husband everything. Any idea how he reacted in the moment? Based on his interview, while surprised, I don't think he didn't come across as that bothered by it

because they had been living separate lives in their own home for a couple of years. Separate lives? Matt told the detectives he and Liz slept in separate bedrooms. So he was presenting a marriage where they were both moving on, they just happened to live in the same house. Right. Would that be fair? Yes.

Liz, on the other hand, was wracked with guilt, according to Matt, who said she cut herself using a piece of that broken mirror, as the one investigators saw when they conducted that first search of his house and garage. Liz had cut herself before, but Nathan was afraid this time might be different. Liz felt bad. She did.

She said it was bad with Matthew, and she had cut herself and she thought that she had gone a little too deep. And when I saw her, I mean, she had her arms bandaged. I didn't see the wound, but I was really concerned about it. Steve's reaction to the whole thing? Hard to say because he wasn't talking. When investigators asked him to take a polygraph, he refused.

And that only heightened detective suspicion, so they kept digging. Why did you conduct a search at a lake? There was a search that was done by Search and Rescue, and we had them go out to a place where we knew was close to his home. Close to Steve's home, and a place they knew he had once taken Liz. A team of more than 50 searched in and around the area, and they found something. Something very interesting a shallow grave and in place of a headstone someone had left a high-heeled shoe coming up a mysterious email to steven

was it from liz what did he do with that email? He deleted it. And new revelations about the days before Liz vanished. Did she feel trapped? Oh, gosh, yes, yes, yes, yes. When Dateline continues. It was like something out of a movie. A shallow grave, marked with a high-heeled shoe. Something down there. Or someone.

Maybe they'd finally found Liz Sullivan. The investigators braced themselves, dug up the grave. And it was not her. It wasn't even human. Apparently they had buried an animal, and it didn't have a connection to Elizabeth. It was just weird. They'd found the grave near the home of Steve Sutton,

the uncooperative ex-boyfriend who'd become a focus of the investigation. If he knew anything about Liz's disappearance, he wasn't saying. So Liz's father did what any parent desperate to find a daughter would do. The father was basically kind of begging Steve, I want to know, is there any signs of life? Do you know anything about my daughter? Kept kind of begging Steve. I want to know, is there any signs of life? Do you know anything about my daughter? Kept kind of begging him to provide something.

And through his attorney, he did, sort of. Steve said he received an email from Liz more than a month after she disappeared, but it was from an email account he didn't recognize, badlydrawngirl at gmail.com. Steve wasn't even convinced that whoever he had gotten this email from was from her. So he had asked a kind of coded question. His question, he said, was,

what did Liz give him for his birthday? And Badly Drawn Girl responded, A Gumby Keychain. The answer was correct. So was she still alive and just hiding somewhere? The detectives asked Steve to turn over the email, but he said he couldn't, even if he wanted to. What did he do with that email?

He deleted it. A rather odd thing to do. A bad break for the investigation. Because the badly drawn girl email, if it was real, was just about the only remaining sign that Liz might still be alive. One by one, the others had fizzled out. People who thought they saw her at the park, it turned out they had their dates mixed up.

The money she transferred to her bank account just sat there unspent. The debit card activity that popped up after she disappeared, detectives found out the actual purchases had been made beforehand. Those things did happen, but they happened before she went missing. So that was a huge disappointment.

If Liz was not alive, detectives had to figure out who was responsible. One by one, they cleared Nathan, and then that early suspect, Marcus Hodges. And finally, after months of investigation, Stephen Sutton. After we executed the search warrants at Steve's, he did not appear to be involved. But Steve, said the detectives, had managed to drag out the investigation. I mean, he was protecting himself,

but actually he was making it more difficult for himself. Yeah, I mean, that's your right, but it would have definitely made the investigation. I mean, he was protecting himself, but actually he was making it more difficult for himself. Yeah, I mean, that's your right, but it would have definitely made the investigation easier. And the deep dive into Steve's records wasn't a total dead end. In fact, it kind of opened the door to look more at Matthew at that point. Matthew, the husband.

Because, as they searched through Steve's phone records, they found something very interesting. Multiple text messages from Matt. This is where we start noticing Matthew, who was telling us that he didn't care that much. It becomes more clear that he cared more than he let on. In late September, shortly after Steve and Liz stopped

seeing each other, Matt texted Steve, Liz will need a place to stay soon. I forgot to mention earlier, I work at a hospital if you need help getting that STD cleared up. I guess the best way to put it would be badgering or poking at Steve with text messages. And Matt seemed to know whenever Steve and Liz talked on the phone. Glad you got to talk to her today. And a few days later, good chat earlier. About a week before Liz went missing, Matt texted Steve. Sorry to trouble you yet again,

but I'm going to cut her off financially soon. If you do care, then please take action and support her. As much as he tried after he found out about Stephen, it just didn't get better. So her life was a mess again? Yeah, but more so than it had ever been. Yeah. You know, there's no hiding the problems in the marriage anymore. There's no sweeping it under the carpet. You couldn't pretend. Did she feel trapped somehow? Oh, gosh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Remember the last time she was over at Nathan's when the in-laws were coming and Liz seemed so desperate? Nathan knew it wasn't just about the in-laws. Liz had told him that Matt was physically abusive and she wanted to end the marriage. She contacted a divorce attorney, told her what the problem was, and this divorce attorney gave her a solution to it. It sounded pretty good.

Which was what? Well, because there were issues of domestic violence in the past, Liz would get a restraining order against Matt, but then after that it would be very necessary to begin the divorce proceedings. So she left your place with a plan? Oh, yeah. What were your expectations? That this is all going to work out? Yeah. When she left my place, I, you know, I told her just keep it cool. You know, just wait till you meet with the divorce attorney. I was very proud for really taking control of her life and doing something proactive. Liz spent that following Monday

planning for a future without Matt. And Matt didn't seem to like that at all. San Diego Police, this is Melanie. Hi. I have concerns my wife is trying to take my children away from me. Coming up. There was an article released by People magazine where he was so concerned.

Concerned or calculating Matt Sullivan under the microscope. What were your impressions of him? He always seemed to have an answer for everything. Liz Sullivan wanted out. A few days after she told her friend Nathan her marriage was irretrievably broken, Liz met with a divorce attorney, paid the attorney's fee with her husband's credit card. Remember that parking receipt detectives found in Liz's car during their initial search? It was for a lot near the lawyer's office.

The date on the receipt was October 13, 2014, the last day Liz was seen alive. That same day, investigators later discovered husband Matt made a rather unusual phone call. San Diego Police, this is Melanie. Here's Matt on the phone with 911. Hi, I have concerns. My wife is trying to have me, I don't know, evicted or arrested from my house and take my children away from me. Okay. I mean, she took my personal credit card, used it to hire a lawyer against me.

He said he was worried Liz was going to report him for having gone through her emails and journals. I haven't been served with any papers yet, but I know she's called your department earlier this morning, and I think that's where she's headed now to try to get me detained. About an hour and a half later, Matt called police again after he'd noticed something. And she said that she took all the money out of your shared bank account? I just checked. It's all gone. There's nothing. Maybe 15 cents left.

I'm still here with my children, and I don't know what she's doing. Matt sounded worried. If she comes back and there's some problems, you can call us back when she's doing. Matt sounded worried. If she comes back and there's some problems, you can call us back when she's there. Okay. But Matt never called the police again, and Liz vanished. And quite soon, Calandra noticed odd behaviors.

There was an article released by People magazine where he was so concerned. Yeah. But in that same week, he deleted all posts regarding Elizabeth from Facebook. He unfriended me and several other of her friends. And then he shut off Liz's cell phone. I was irritated because if she was missing and trying to get back, why would you take her service away from her? Then, less than three months after Liz disappeared, another woman moved in with Matt. He first said was just somebody that had come out

that was a mutual friend of theirs and she was simply going to help watch the kids. Watch the kids? Well, it was a little more than that. A lot more. Matt had moved on, really moved on. He switched his Facebook account name, and he stated that he was in a relationship. Oh, I'm done for now. I mean, I'm boo-hoo crying.

I'm just sure that this is not right. Who is this lady? What were your impressions of him, his approach, his demeanor? He always seemed to have an answer for everything. He was a very difficult person to interview because he was very slow in his delivery. But they gradually pulled the tails out of slow-talking Matt. Like, for example, two specific credit card

charges. One of them the day Nathan reported Liz missing. We noticed that he had gone to Ace Hardware and he bought carpet cleaner. What was his answer for it? His answer was that his mother was coming into town and he wanted to get that cleaned up before she got there because it looked dirty.

Perfectly reasonable. Reasonable, but suspicious. The second charge, a month later, more carpet cleaner and a roll of plastic wrap. I don't mean the little kind you use for your kitchen, but like... Big industrial stuff. Yes. Yeah. Did he have an explanation for that? Yes. He said when his mom was coming out that he needed to wrap up some of the things that she had brought and put them in storage. Another perfectly reasonable answer. So for all their suspicion, they couldn't prove Matt did anything. Or that Liz didn't just run off on her own.

And so it went until Detective Collier and her team had exhausted all their leads. And soon... Elizabeth Sullivan, Claudia Leslie Wells, Jahi Turner, Marlaine Quay... Liz's name was another in a long list of missing people profiled by San Diego's NBC7 Investigates. Just names to us, but to family members and friends, they are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. Two years went by. Matt's family moved out when his new girlfriend moved in. And about a year later, the couple welcomed a baby of their own. And time moved on, as if to swallow up the public's memory of Liz Sullivan.

And then one day, Detective Collier was on vacation. Cell phone rang. Office calling. You'll never believe this, but there is a body that's shown up over at Liberty Station. Coming up, a body in the water and fear among friends. I had a friend call me and said,

hey, do you think it could be Liz? And I was like, why? No, no, no, no, no. I screamed. I cried. For days. When Dateline continues. It was October, about a week shy of the two-year anniversary

of Liz Sullivan's disappearance. An off-duty U.S. Marshal went for his usual late-afternoon stroll on a walking path that hugs the San Diego Bay. And it has rocks that kind of cascade down the edges, and the dog, of course, walked over in that direction, was curious about something. As his dog pulled him toward the bank, the marshal saw what looked like some nasty Halloween prank, something stuck among the shoreline rocks. And then he realized there was a body there.

The body was wearing jeans, a knit sweater, and a single brown boot. A big mystery tonight in the waters of San Diego Bay. Police found a woman's body on the shore of the Liberty Station channel. NBC7's Dave Summers is there. I had a friend call me and said, hey, you know, they found a body in Liberty Station. They haven't identified it. Do you think it could be Liz? And I was like, why? No, no, no, no, no. And I went online, I checked where it was, and I was like, oof. It's really close to Liz's place.

Less than half a mile, in fact. They had to use dental records to get a proper ID. And then the search was over. It was Elizabeth Sullivan. to use dental records to get a proper ID. And then the search was over. It was Elizabeth Sullivan. I'm broken. I screamed. I cried.

For days. I had a I told you so moment. I knew it the whole time moment. Why didn't anybody listen to me? Why didn't anybody know her? And know that this wasn't normal? You know, obviously there was kind of that numbness, that shock, and then... Gosh, whoever told me, it's like, well, you know, at least you have some closure.

And I was like, yeah, but now that you have closure, you lost hope. I think I'd rather have the hope than the closure. The autopsy showed Liz tested positive for her prescribed amphetamines, also for fentanyl and cannabinoids, but that's not what killed her. The medical examiner noted a number of elliptical-shaped cuts that seemed to have pierced her clothes, her skin, and her ribs. The cause of death, homicide. Sharp force trauma. Essentially, she had been stabbed with a sharp object

enough to cause damage to some of her bones. Somebody stabbed her again and again and again? Yes. She also had a fractured jaw, so stabbed and beaten. Investigators had long believed Liz did not run off on her own, that she was murdered the very October night she disappeared. But when her body was found, Collier knew immediately that something didn't add up.

I'm like, there's no way she'd be on the water for two years and be in one piece. Sure enough, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy estimated that Liz was killed only one month, two at the most, before her body washed up at low tide. Surprise would be an understatement. She'd been missing almost two years. A whole new puzzle now, which, just like that, jolted the case back to life. So what happened to the investigation after the discovery of the body?

Well, we ran full steam ahead at that point because now we knew we had a murder. So you'd want to talk to who right away? Oh, Matthew. But? He had moved. Three days after Liz's body was found, without a word to detectives, Matt slipped away to join his girlfriend in Maryland. And Detective Collier learned that October 4th, the very morning Liz's body was discovered,

the movers arrived at Matt's house. To pack up his whole house, essentially, and, you know, put it in a container so they could ship it back east. Matt sent his girlfriend this photo with the message, Movers are working. What fascinating timing. Yes. Couldn't quite say it would prove anything, but it certainly was suggestive. It's very suggestive, in my opinion.

Over the years, Detective Collier had been keeping an eye on Matt's Facebook page. And when she saw Matt and his girlfriend were expecting a baby, she figured they might need a bigger place. And it was always in the back of my mind that if they did move out, that I wanted to go in and do a complete forensic examination of their place before it was rented to somebody else. Was that something that could not have been done while he was living in the house? Well, based on the fact that he had allowed us so many consent searches and we didn't have more to go on, it would have been hard to be that intrusive without more probable cause. Now it seemed Matt had left the door wide open. So a few days later, she and a team of investigators set out to search Matt and Liz's home from top to bottom, really tear the place apart this time. And what they found?

Well, well. Coming up. She called me and she sounded frantic. A phone call from Liz becomes a crucial new clue and hidden in the attic, another. You work a case that long, then you're like, this is it. So it was a very good moment for me. They got in about a week after Liz's body turned up in the shallow water of Liberty Station. Got into the Sullivan's now vacant home, that is. A proper search this time.

And right away, they couldn't help but notice. There was an odor in the garage, in our opinions, an odor that should be followed up on. Like the odor of death? Right. A look around did not reveal what caused it, but that could wait. First, detectives wanted to follow a lead they'd found buried deep in the case file. The missing persons unit found out about it, you know, fairly soon. I want to say in the first month, maybe, of the investigation. The story was this. At the very beginning of the investigation, Liz's friend Calandra told police about an alarming phone call from Liz. She called me and she sounded frantic.

They were arguing and she said, this expletive is talking about he's going to kill me. I was half asleep. But I know that I told her, lock yourself in your room. We just have to get to morning. And she said, hold on a sec. Hold on. I think he's coming.

Liz hung up. And Calandra waited to hear from her. Why didn't you call her the next day? I didn't know where he was. If they were arguing and I'm calling her, even if she chose not to answer, the phone ringing could have become an aggregate to the situation. I did not want to make things any worse. She never heard from Liz again. The call sounded ominous, that's for sure. Problem was, Calandra couldn't remember what night it was. And when detectives

got Liz's phone records, there was no evidence that it even happened. There was some confusion for a period of time until later down the road, we discovered she had most likely called Calandra on WhatsApp. So much later, Colliers circled back, asked Calandra for her phone records, and bingo. They revealed Liz not only called Calandra, she called her the night of October 13th, the very same night she went missing, which made one detail Calandra remembered,

potentially very important. I just told her, you know, lock yourself in your room. And that very thing, the cry for help, the advice from Calandra, now became a kind of map for the search in Matt's house, which led them straight upstairs to Liz's room. They swabbed her bathroom door with luminol. It lit up. And then they cut out a section of rug outside the bathroom,

pulled it back, and found a large stain. We ended up forensically examining it with luminol. It lit up too, meaning blood, lots of it. The blood stain from that had to leak into the padding and then be able to go through the padding onto the subfloor.

And the subfloor stain itself was at least a foot and saturated. Though not on the surface of the carpet. It must have been cleaned with that carpet cleaner Matt bought, maybe. The DNA, no surprise, matched Liz. What did you think when you got those results?

I thought, here we go, you know. Or maybe not. When detectives presented their case to the DA, they were told they just didn't have enough. So, Detective Collier got on a plane, flew to Maryland, and knocked on Matt's door. Tell me about that. Again, a very long, painful interview. I mean, at that point, I definitely knew he had the right person.

There wasn't any doubt in my mind, but he didn't confess. Once again, the case had hit a wall, and yet another year went by. Not a single lead, but they couldn't just give up. We all sat down and collectively decided that we wanted to go back in the house because there were some things that we needed more of. During the previous search, they'd noticed some wooden slats in the attic were broken, as if someone had been climbing around up there.

So when they returned in October 2016, that is where they went looking. I started just pulling up all the insulation and the whole attic and making sure that everything was looked under and through. And up in the attic, under the insulation, she found it. A military-style folding knife. What was that moment like? For me, kind of thrilling, because I felt like it definitely meant something.

I mean, it was hidden in a fashion that was not like it fell out of your pocket or something. Could it be that this was the murder weapon? The lab results were conclusive. Liz's blood on the inner workings of the knife and on the handle, a mix of DNA from both Liz and Matt. Detective Collier worked three long years for this. What did you do first after that? Well, I actually cried. You know, you work a case that long.

Then you're like, this is it. So it was a very good moment for me. Yeah. Sorry. It matters. No, no, no. You've become that young woman's

representative on this earth and here was the thing you really needed to defend her, support her, do something. Right.

What did the DA have to say about that? Go get him. So she did. But like everything else in this case, it wasn't quite as simple as she'd hoped. Coming up, Matt Sullivan on trial and the key for the defense, his wife's time of death. Almost two full years after she goes missing. All I have is an allegation that he did something in October 2014 and forensic science saying that she died in 2016. When Dateline continues. News. Have you ever heard the term Minnesota nice? Yeah, of course. Sure. Yeah. That's what he is. This is Marcus DuBose, Matt Sullivan's defense attorney. He's born and raised in a suburb of

Minneapolis, you know, played soccer, did Boy Scouts, went fishing, no sort of run-ins with the law or angry girlfriends, nothing. No sort of early indicia of anything that might lead to the situation that he finds himself in now. Ah, yes, the situation. Five years after Elizabeth Sullivan disappeared, her husband Matt went on trial for murder. Detective Collier had retired by then, but she wasn't about to sit this one out. I was there every day because I wanted to participate because it meant a lot to me. Separate bedrooms, domestic violence, infidelity, financial issues. These are the hallmarks of a marriage in crisis. domestic violence, infidelity, financial issues.

These are the hallmarks of a marriage in crisis. Deputy DA Jill Lindberg told the jury Matt's marriage wasn't Minnesota nice at all, that Matt was a violent man. The key testimony came from Liz's best friends. What was Elizabeth's general tone of voice with you during this time frame when you talked with her? from Liz's best friends. What was Elizabeth's general tone of voice with you during this time frame when you talked with her?

Increasingly submissive. She became very quiet. We whispered a lot. There was a couple instances that she told me that Matthew had become physical with her. Liz called me

and she informed me that Matt you know, Matt had grabbed her, you know, by her shoulders and shoved her against the refrigerator and started screaming at her. And it scared her. And when Liz made plans to leave him, said the prosecutor, Matt killed her. And left behind evidence. The large bloodstain on the carpet, the carpet cleaner, the plastic wrap, the knife hidden in the attic. And on the night she disappeared,

Liz's desperate phone call to Calandra. She said that she and Matt had had some kind of disagreement. It was really serious. And that she was afraid. She said, hold on a sec. And then she said, got to go, quietly. I didn't hear from her anymore. And that was your last conversation with Elizabeth?

Yes. There was more evidence in the form of Matt's own words. San Diego Police, this is Melanie. Hi. Detective Collier and the prosecutor said, go back and listen to the call Matt made to police when Liz disappeared and they noticed something. So in the call, the dispatcher asked what Elizabeth was wearing.

Do you know what she's wearing today? Um, I don't know. She ran out of here in a hurry. I know she's wearing blue jeans, some brown boots. And when Elizabeth's body was found almost two years later, she was wearing jeans and a brown boots. And when Elizabeth's body was found, almost two years later, she was wearing jeans and a brown boot, which tied in exactly with how he had described her

the day he murdered her. My guess is that he got in the bedroom and stabbed her and then cleaned up that bedroom. And I think he put her out in the water hoping that she would just wash out to sea. A circumstantial case, yes, but a strong one. And then Matt's lawyer, Marcus DeBose, went to work on reasonable doubt.

You are not going to see one piece of evidence in this case, ladies and gentlemen, that is inconsistent with the idea of a cutter married to a naval man who has secret life and who made erratic decisions. The prosecution's evidence? There were other quite reasonable explanations, said the defense. Like the blood stain on the underside of the carpet, that could have happened when Liz cut herself and then tried to clean it up. When you pour liquid on a stain, an experience tells you what happens. The stain spreads. So to say that, okay, one way to get a double watermelon-sized blood stain is to bleed a lot. Another way is to take a smaller stain and over time wipe it larger and larger. As for the knife in the attic, it was standard Navy issue.

Nothing suspicious about it. The blood and DNA evidence on the knife, well, that was simple. He goes out, he goes overseas, gets his sweat DNA all over the handle of that knife. He then comes home, and that becomes her cutting tool. And Matt's attorney asked, if Matt had used the knife to kill his wife, why wouldn't he have thrown it in the ocean? I've never killed anybody. I imagine if I did, it would weigh on me. And that trying not to get caught would weigh on me. And one of the things

that I might think to myself is, hmm, maybe I should get rid of the murder weapon. He got Liz's friend Nathan to admit she thought about running away. Did Elizabeth ever express to you her desire to leave her family and to leave her kids? Yes. And what did she tell you about her mindset of wanting to leave her family and leave her kids? She had expressed the fact that she was unhappy in her current life. I believe she just regretted not being able to live her life to the fullest.

The defense seized on that email Stephen Sutton received about a month after Liz disappeared, the one from Badly Drawn Girl, as proof that Liz was alive then. And, no surprise, the defense brought up Liz's mental state, her apparent drug use, her affairs, and said it all led to one conclusion. What, she just walked out of the house according to him? As she had several nights in a row for the past six months or a year. That was the part that is, it's just so hard for people to grasp. You know, your wife just leaves and you don't know where she's at. Well, that's how she had the affairs.

But really, said the defense, Liz walked out for the last time that night in October 2014. How did she, you know, manage to live without being discoverable by anybody through either a cell phone or a bank account or anything? And why she didn't contact her children? There must be some explanation for that period of time is what I'm saying. What could it possibly be? Another lover? Another life that she's building? A life that must have gone on somewhere for almost two years after Liz left Matt. Remember, said Attorney DuBose, when Liz's body was found,

the medical examiner said it appeared she'd only been dead a month or two. Putting the time of death sometime in or about August, September of 2016 to almost two full years after she goes missing. I'm a defense lawyer. I have no burden of proof. All I have is an allegation that he did something in October 2014 and forensic science saying that she died in 2016. The explanation was simple, he said. The prosecution was wrong.

Matt did not kill Liz. Instead, she ran away, an unstable woman fleeing her marriage, who lived on for two more years until she met a violent end at the hands of someone other than her husband. Do you think you had made a good case that you had a pretty good chance or what? Yes. Yeah. I thought our case was well presented. I thought that the reasonable doubt existed at basically every turn. Except maybe for one thing, a rather big one, that detectives found in Matt Sullivan's garage.

Coming up, Matt Sullivan speaks at last. So how do you explain her body washing up on the bay right around where you live? Well, I can't explain it. I really don't know what happened. And the verdict. What would the jury decide? I was actually kind of shaking in the courtroom. For all the evidence stacked up against Matt Sullivan in his murder trial, defense attorney Marcus DeBose was confident because he knew at the heart of the prosecution's case, there was a contradiction labeled with a grim clinical term, the post-mortem interval.

There were two separate medical examiners who examined the body. They both found and then testified to the fact that the post-mortem interval, which is the period of time between the autopsy and what science determines to be the time of death. They both found that that was a 30 to 60 day window. Meaning, according to the condition of her body, Liz was murdered no earlier than the summer of 2016. But the prosecution's whole case was based on the idea that Matt killed her in October of 2014, nearly two years earlier. A big problem, said the defense, and it created a whole big lump of reasonable doubt, to which the prosecutor said...

That did not take into account the possibility that something could have interrupted or delayed the decomposition process. And both the forensic anthropologist and the medical examiner testified that, yes, freezing is something that could delay it. Freezing. You may remember the very first time police searched the Sullivans' home, they found a large freezer in the garage. The freezer was empty.

So what's the explanation? If she's already dead, where would she be? I don't know that we will ever know for sure based on the evidence we have. My personal belief is that she was hidden somewhere else on the property. I think the attic is a likely spot, but then was later moved to the freezer. Prosecutor Jill Lindbergh believed that after Matt stabbed Liz to death and cleaned up the crime scene, he could have wrapped her body in the industrial plastic he'd bought and hid it somewhere for a few days and then stashed it in that freezer for the better part of two years.

To maintain the illusion Liz was alive, Detective Cullier thought, Matt pretended to be her, with that email account Badly Drawn Girl, and emailed her boyfriend. And he might have gotten away with it, said the prosecutor, if he hadn't decided to move out of state, which forced him to finally take Liz's body out of that freezer in the garage and dump her in the bay, leaving behind the stench of death detectives could not help but notice. Quite a story. Who would the jury believe? Defense?

Ask yourself, just in your mind, what piece of evidence points you to the fact that it was frozen in the freezer in the Sullivan garage. Or prosecutor. You know from the evidence that the defendant murdered his wife in their home with that knife, and I urge you to find the news. So did he, or didn't he? I've been questioned by the police department numerous times. My answers have never changed When we spoke with Matt, he was in a San Diego County jail awaiting legal decisions. He insisted he was an innocent man. The police had it all wrong.

The prosecution's freezer theory? Absurd. I've done literally everything I could think of to cooperate with them. The prosecution's freezer theory? Absurd, said Matt. I don't see how I possibly could have stored a body in a house for that many years. Five adults living there. Three children living there. Multiple workmen coming through. Dozens of friends and family members coming through, the police searching the place multiple times without her being found.

So how do you explain her body washing up on the bay right around where you lived on the same day as the movers came to your house, just days before you moved out of the house? It wasn't the same day. Around the same time. I'll give you that. Okay. Well, I can't explain it. I don't, I really don't know what happened. Do you think that somebody was trying to frame you?

Maybe. I don't know. He brought up Liz's cutting the night of the CPS incident as a way to explain that stain on the carpet. I had to bandage her arm up, and it was pretty brutal. I mean, it was gory. Or you stabbed her. I mean, there's nobody to say

which version is true except your story. I don't know why I would have done that. That doesn't make sense to me. I think that the allegation was you did that because you were finally fed up with somebody who had been cheating on you, who you had come to hate. And you had constant fights. And finally, you just lost it and killed her with a knife. No, I see what you're saying, Keith.

I'm just saying, I mean, I was trying to do the right thing. I was trying to invite my family to take care of the kids while we got everything squared away. I don't know why I would have done that. That doesn't make any sense. He simply didn't do it, he said. No, absolutely not. That's crazy. I've never laid a finger on her.

I've never hit her. Nothing like that. You've never hit her? Never once? No. No, no, no, no. I don't do that. I was definitely raised better than that. Well, perhaps he was.

Anyway, not ours to judge. The man's honesty or his actions. That was the jury's job. And it reached its verdict after a little more than a day. We, the jury in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Matthew Scott Sullivan, not guilty of the crime of first-degree murder.

And she read not guilty. Did I miss the guilt? Did she say not? Okay, all right, you know. Not guilty of first-degree murder. But the jury wasn't done. I don't know how to describe it. I was actually kind of shaking in the courtroom, like, please, please.

We have a jury in the above entitled cause. Find the defendant, Matthew Scott Sullivan, guilty of the crime of second-degree murder. Guilty of second-degree murder. Matt was sentenced to 16 years to life. And I was so happy. Elizabeth got justice, and her husband didn't get away with it. It had been a weight to carry around, said Detective Collier, the case that wouldn't let her go.

What memories do you carry around of Elizabeth Sullivan and this story? I bought a necklace for Jill and for myself and for Tammy, who was one of the DNA lab analyst people. And it's what we all carry around with us periodically. Describe it to me, if you don't mind. It is a little leaf, and it says, badly drawn girl, but you never gave up. No, that young woman had the force of life in her, said her friends. The kind of person you couldn't possibly forget. She loved to smile and laugh more than anybody else I knew.

When you were in Her Graces, like, you felt like you were on, like, part of the highest rated TV show ever. Like, everybody wanted to be in your company with her. I miss her terribly. Every time something good happens to me and I want to call her. The last thing that I want at the end of the day is for Liz to come across dry and troubled when there were so many facets to her. She sparkled like a princess cut diamond. You could not take the shine out of her. You just had to know which facet you were supposed to be on to see it shine. That's all.

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.