Dateline NBC - Shattered Bonds

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

When Stephen Moore suddenly disappears in New Jersey, his whereabouts remain a mystery until a car erupts in flames in a nearby town, leading to a major break in a case. Andrea Canning reports.

911, where's your emergency? There's a fire right outside of my apartment. I had that intuition that it was going to be bad and then it was. It was highly disturbing to know and see what happened here. They found human remains in a trunk. Did you have any theories as to what might have happened? At that point in time we did not. This whole thing is just getting absurd.

He had his voice recording diary going. He left it for us. Was there more to this story? We saw a garbage can filled with items, a tarp, a rope, a 4x4. Everything you might need for a murder. Exactly. If time is already in motion, you need to do your part.

These are not the same people that the public thinks that they are. You realize how cold this family is. The most sick and twisted case you've ever... Absolutely. Unbelievable. 9-1-1, where's the emergency? There's a fire burning. It may be a car. Think it might be a car?

As a hot August night turned into day, a car burst into flames. The sound of popping tires woke up the neighbors on a quiet street near the Jersey Shore. Is anybody in the car? Can you tell? No one knew how it happened or why. But when those questions were finally answered, a bigger mystery unraveled.

Only four miles from there, but a world away, was a cozy cul-de-sac where the Dorsett family lived. Everyone knew the Dorsetts. There was Thomas, busy with his refrigeration business, but not too busy to lend a hand. Wife Leslie, a school board member, and daughter Kathleen, a kindergarten teacher. Kathleen loved her work, loved her parents, and seemed happy nestled into the neighborhood where she grew up. But she longed for a family of her own.

And then she met Stephen Moore. Could she have found someone more different? Stephen grew up in Southern California, chilling at the beach, taking things easy, according to his friend Cam Graham. Never really held a job, but he always was working. He always would find something to do. Stephen's mom Evelyn says her son wasn't lazy, just laid back. He got by, but he wasn't truly motivated. But if Stephen was serious about anything, it was skating.

We'd go skating on the beach. His friend Missy Queen skated too, but not like Stephen. He took the bronze at the National Speed Skating Competition. He would encourage me to, you know, to skate fast. He'd be way ahead of me. When he wasn't skating, he was happy to go wherever, whenever. Like when his mother Evelyn, a travel agent, invited him to see the world. He was 30-something, free, and he loved his mom.

So why not? He was adventurous. Here I am on an elephant ride. What countries did you take him to? Well, we did most of Asia. He can hear you. His smile is beautiful. Most of Europe, South America. Here we go. Here goes mom. Mom's smoking. She really is. We've had a lot of interesting experiences and had a lot of fun.

I have not inhaled. She hasn't inhaled. Don't inhale. Eventually, Evelyn decided to retire to the Jersey Shore, and she wanted Stephen to come too. She needed his help. So her loyal son grabbed his skates and the rest of his stuff and jumped in his car. It was packed with every single thing that he owned was in that car. It was funny.

He knocked around for a few years, and then one day in 2006, he met Kathleen Dorsett. I knew she was a schoolteacher and that she lived in Jersey and that he was in love with her, and it seemed like he found the one. And if opposites attract, this match couldn't miss. Kathleen Dorsett seemed as grounded as it gets. She had her own house right across the street from her folks, and she was great with children,

as friends noticed when Stephen brought her out to California. They came down and stayed, I think, a week with us. She seemed really nice. They took my kids out and took them shopping and bought some games for them and stuff like that. Stephen started taking life a little more seriously. He got a job at the local Honda dealership and did really well, according to his co-worker and friend Lloyd McCracken. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. He, it's more, he was a team player. You know,

if you needed something, you can always, you can always depend on him. Kathleen was eager to start a family of her own. So about a year after they met, she and Stephen got married. You couldn't believe this was happening. He was so happy. So there he was, Stephen Moore, solid citizen with a steady job, the wife, and the nice in-laws across the street. You know, I'm finally settling down.

You know, I got a family. Besides taking care of his mother, he had somebody else he could actually take care of. And kids couldn't come fast enough. Elizabeth was born about a year and a half after the wedding. Do you remember the day she was born? Oh my God, yes. And I can remember standing at the nursery and he stood there with his arms around me,

crying, both of us looking at her. Kathleen seemed born to be a mother. And Stephen? All of a sudden it all came together for him. And his daughter made a man out of him. That should have been the beginning of the happy ending for Stephen and his wife Kathleen. But in 2010, on a Monday morning in August, Stephen just didn't show up for work.

The guys at Honda called Kathleen. She hadn't seen him since early morning. I knew something was wrong because he's there before me. And he didn't show up. I started calling his phone, but it kept on going to voicemail. His mom Evelyn was taking a little vacation in Maine. Maybe he'd blown off work to join her. Lloyd McCracken doubted it. When I finally got a hold of her, I just said, do you know where your son is? She said, no. And then she started panicking. I called him and he didn't answer.

The Honda folks waited a couple of hours, then called the police. Detective Alvega handled the missing persons investigation. About noon on August 16th, we received a call from the employer of Stephen expressing that he didn't show up for work. Police learned Stephen had loaned Evelyn his own car to make the long drive to Maine because it was newer and safer. He was driving his mom's car until she got back. Maybe he drove somewhere and it was a bad car crash and no one knows where he's at. Where was Stephen Moore? As police followed his trail, they caught a tantalizing glimpse of where he had been. But the question remained, where did he go?

The first clues to Stephen's sudden disappearance. A text from Kathleen. It said, where are you? Everyone is looking for you. And a stop at the store. There was a transaction at a local quick check. Where would they lead? Even investigators could not have imagined that. I've never had a case with so many twists and turns.

As the day wore on, Stephen's work friends grew more worried. A no-show at the dealership, he wasn't answering his phone. Detectives looking for him needed a crash course in Stephen's life. They started with the family he had married into. There was Kathleen, of course, dedicated teacher, attentive mother, the kind who made her own baby food and fretted over every detail of her daughter's care. Did you check into their standing in the community? I knew what and who they were to the fact that she was a teacher and where they resided. Detective Jeff Wilbert learned that Stephen's father-in-law, Thomas, adored his granddaughter and he got along with the neighbors too. We had stories of Thomas shoveling sidewalks and driveways and

if there was a mechanical failure on an air conditioner or something like that, a simple phone call, and Thomas would be there. And Stephen's mother-in-law, Leslie, nearly everyone saw her campaign ads when she ran for the school board. Today, I wanted to introduce myself and tell you who I am and why I am qualified to serve you. Detectives also learned that the Dorsetts often hosted pool parties and barbecues on this little block. Stephen's friend Cam came for a visit.

Her parents lived on the corner right there. So, I mean, it was just like right across the street. But when investigators talked to Kathleen and her parents about where Stephen might be, they weren't much help. Because, as it turns out, Stephen didn't live there anymore. For Stephen and Kathleen, wedded bliss didn't last very long. Detectives learned the marriage went downhill after the baby was born. Kathleen, always driven, was a supermom.

And friends say she made Stephen feel like he couldn't do anything right. He wasn't holding the baby right. He wasn't changing the diapers right. He wasn't putting her down for naps at the right time. You know, just very protective of the child, which is sometimes, you know, mothers are like that at the beginning. So in love with her baby, friends told, mothers are like that at the beginning. So in love with her baby, friends told police how Kathleen hovered over her care. So I was like, hey, you know, it's the hormones and everything going on with her and blah, blah,

blah, just relax and just kind of go with it a little bit and see what happens. But Stephen complained it didn't get better. She wasn't showing him any love anymore, and no, the intimacy, everything was gone. And there was another problem for Stephen. The cozy life across the street from the in-laws had gotten a little too cozy. Police learned that the doting grandparents couldn't stay away. They would just pop in unannounced, not even not just walk in the house at any time. He just kind of felt

that was kind of weird. Investigators learned that Stephen felt so smothered that when Elizabeth was 10 months old, he walked out on his wife and in-laws and moved back in with his mom. The divorce became final just a few months before Stephen disappeared. Cam had to wonder, maybe Stephen just needed to get away. It did cross my mind, you know, when you're going through these things, sometimes you just want to disappear for a little bit and not talk to anybody and kind of get your thoughts together and find out exactly what's going on. But that's not the vibe investigators were getting.

His mother said Stephen didn't sound like he wanted to get away. In fact, he sounded pretty happy the night before he disappeared. He was enjoying an overnight visit with 20-month-old Elizabeth. He called me. He said, we're in our jammies and we're watching cartoons. And I said, sleep tight. I'll talk to you tomorrow. The next morning, he left the baby with Kathleen. Stephen showed up to her house around 7.45 a.m. with their daughter. He drops them off. Kathleen told investigators she hadn't heard from him since, even when she sent him a text. What was the text message she sent to him? She showed me her phone and it said, where are you? Everyone is

looking for you. So investigators ran through all the possibilities. Did he have a girlfriend? No, not that we were aware of. Was he into anything bad? Was he into drugs? Anything that would get him into trouble? No, not that we're aware of. Financial issues? No. But when police looked at his checking account, it showed something. Two debit charges posted on Monday afternoon. I found out that there was a transaction at a local quick check on that date for like nine dollars. And then there was another transaction later on that day at a Chipotle in Eatontown, which is in the same town that he works in. This is after he dropped off his daughter at Kethel. Correct. Correct.

So whatever happened to Stephen could well have happened later on Monday. Another day went by. No Stephen. Then, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, August 18th, a 911 call came into dispatch. 911, where's your emergency? There's a fire right outside of my apartment. A car fire had erupted in a lonely section of Long Branch, New Jersey, not far from the Dorsetts' tidy, peaceful little street. The question, where was Stephen Moore, was about to be answered. I had that intuition. It was going to be bad and it was.

A whole new mystery begins as police uncover a secret diary. This whole thing is just getting absurd. Recorded by Stephen himself. The call went out just after four in the morning. A car had erupted in flames in Long Branch, New Jersey. By the time Detective Al Vega arrived on the scene, he'd already gotten word. The car was Evelyn Moore's, the same one her son Stephen was driving when he disappeared. Detective Vega had a bad feeling. I'm like, gosh, here we go.

You know, I had that intuition it was going to be bad, and it was. During fire suppression efforts, they found unidentifiable human remains in a trunk. It was the body of a man burned beyond recognition. But investigators could make out a tattoo that was identical to Stevens. The missing persons case had just taken a tragic turn. Stephen Moore, devoted father and loving son, was dead. Detective Jeff Wilbert with the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office took charge. The vehicle was parked here, and this is when we picked up the homicide investigation.

And then it took on a whole new direction. It did. Did you have any theories as to what might have happened? No. At that point in time, we did not. One thing was clear. Whoever torched the car had started with the trunk, where the victim was. The rear bumper just completely melted off the rear of the vehicle. Could you tell how the fire was started?

Once you open the trunk and once the body was removed, there definitely was an obvious odor of gasoline. Now that he had gone from missing person to murder victim, investigators had to look at everything in Stephen's life. We spent some time looking into Stephen's background. We learned that Stephen was a competitive speed skater. But his life as a skater turned up nothing. How was he doing at work?

We learned that he was doing really well at work. So investigators took a closer look at Stephen's brief marriage to Kathleen and learned how bad it really got. Friends like Missy Queen thought Kathleen had gone mad with motherhood, like the time Stephen tried to feed Elizabeth a smidgen of sauerkraut. She screamed at him. There's that, you know, you don't feed a baby sauerkraut, you know. That's not baby food. Stephen's divorce attorney, Veronica Davis, said she'd never seen anything like it. She had a list. So she gave him a schedule, a written schedule, an outline, and she wanted him to fill in the blanks. What did she eat today? When did she nap? When did she go to the bathroom? How long did she sleep?

And she would call. Even if he had her for three hours, she would call four times. What is she doing? It was very disconcerting. It was dysfunctional. The dysfunction was seeping into Stephen's life at work. Lloyd McCracken told police how Kathleen would bring the baby over. It seemed just to humiliate him in front of his co-workers. I think it was more of a spite. She would bring the baby in, and he would try to pick up the baby or hold the baby, and she would just take the baby out of his arms, and then it became into a yelling match, and then she would storm out. I just feel like that's all she wanted out of me was just the baby out of his arms, and then it came into a yelling match, and then she would storm out.

I just feel like that's all she wanted out of me was just the baby. He was basically a sperm donor, basically. Yeah, that's how he felt. Investigators learned that even though the divorce was final, the custody battle was never ending. Stephen fought for more time with his daughter, but to his mom, it looked like an uphill battle. He couldn't afford the endless litigation.

Her parents had more money than I did to help him, and so he didn't stand a chance. But his divorce attorney saw him toughen up, deciding when enough was enough. She was issuing all these edicts, and that's when he came to me, panicked. And we did go into court immediately. So Stephen was pushing back and investigators looking at this case took note. Stephen's friends and family believe Kathleen thought she had married a passive go-along guy, but ended up with a man who wouldn't roll over. He had overnight visits and stuff like that. I know that she did not like that at all because she could not control what was happening. Detective Wilbert heard plenty about the custody battle from friends and family,

but then discovered evidence that was both powerful and unique. Stephen had kept an audio diary. He was documenting all the issues that were going on between he and Kathleen. Stephen made this recording about three weeks before his murder. I'm getting very tired of Katie calling me and questioning every move I make. I'm able to take care of our child just as well as she can. It's one of those few homicide cases that when you really want to get into that victim's head and know exactly what's going on, Stephen left it for us. It's always BS, and it's her way or no way.

I just want to be able to spend time with my daughter with no bull. Investigators also heard Stephen standing up for his rights. He recorded one exchange with Kathleen as he was picking up the baby for a short visit. Kathleen was planning to take Elizabeth for a weekend trip out of state against his wishes. Are you still planning on going to Florida? Yeah. Okay, I would like an itinerary. I would like to know what airline you're flying on.

Why? Because it's my right. Okay. And times. Okay, we'll see. Yeah, sure. I'll get them to you. And when are you leaving? Thursday, like I told you. Okay. I'm still not right. This is still not right.

Good for you that it's not right. Investigators could hear Kathleen digging at Stephen in front of their daughter. I know you don't want to go, but it is what it is. It is what it is, my princess. And what it was, was ugly and bitter. But a lot of custody fights are like that, and they don't end in murder. The mystery of who killed Stephen Moore was still a puzzle, but the pieces were about to come together. Police pay another visit to Kathleen. Small talk in the kitchen.

She offered us food, a drink. And a big discovery in the bushes. Make sure the entire crime scene unit gets here as quick as possible. Kathleen Dorsett and Stephen Moore seemed to be at war over custody of their baby. So detectives were surprised to learn that the couple had actually agreed on something a couple of months before Stephen's disappearance. They were planning a move together. Were they moving soon? They were. She said construction was ahead of schedule and that they planned on moving in the next couple weeks. The plan came together after Kathleen announced she was taking the baby and moving with her parents to Florida. Instead of fighting it,

Stephen worked with his attorney to iron out an agreement. The Dorsetts could take Elizabeth to Florida if they took Stephen too. They would get him an apartment and he would only have to pay $600 a month towards the rent and that it would be in close proximity to where they lived and that they would actually give him financial support until he got a job. With this agreement, did Stephen sort of think that things were turning around? I mean, was he okay with it? Yeah, he was hopeful. He was willing to move to Florida. Stephen's friend Cam thought it was a bad idea.

I really told him, no, no, don't do it. I just wouldn't trust him. And in fact, investigators learned the Florida plan wasn't solving the problems between Kathleen and Stephen. His friend said Kathleen was criticizing him more than ever. So Stephen stopped answering his phone so he could save Kathleen's voicemails, just keeping a record in case he needed it someday. I'm going to tell you for the last time, we are following the schedule. We've been following since we got into court.

Investigators heard the hostile relationship reaching the boiling point. Stephen left it for us. He left it for the investigative team. Even leading up 10 days prior to his death, he had his voice recording diary going, and it was very helpful. As police considered the awful problems between Kathleen and Stephen, another key piece of information came to light. Those debit charges that hit Stephen's account after he dropped the baby off? Well, another check with the bank revealed that Stephen made those charges a few days before. Here he is at a Chipotle a few days before he disappeared. That charge he made just didn't show up until Monday.

Once we realized it brought us back to the fact that Stephen was last seen alive in front of Kathleen Dorsett's house that Monday morning. So with all that information, investigators made a beeline back to Kathleen Dorsett and that cozy cul-de-sac. Detective Wilbert began with an update from the medical examiner. I said the medical examiner ruled it as a homicide. Traumatic blunt force trauma was the cause. And I said, you know, do you have any questions? And she said, how am I supposed to respond to this? So calm.

It still wasn't clear where this line of questioning would lead until another investigator pulled Detective Wilbert aside. He'd been talking to the neighbors and they had a story to tell. On the morning of August 16th, they were both woke from their sleep after hearing screams. And in fact, one of the neighbors actually looked out her window, her bedroom window, and she saw Kathleen towards the back of the house. And the neighbor, she inquired, are you okay? What's going on? And Kathleen said, close the window. Screams. On the morning, Stephen disappeared. Later, Kathleen told the neighbors that it was the dog having a seizure Detective Wilbert thought he might be standing at a crime scene

He asked Kathleen if they could search her property Without hesitation, she said, no, that's fine The detective was struck by her nonchalant response But still wasted no time in telling his investigator. Make sure the entire crime scene unit gets here as quick as possible. And while we were waiting for the crime scene unit to show up, she offered us food, a drink, the bathroom. I remember eating grapes with her in her kitchen, and everything was normal. Kathleen also talked about her gardening efforts. They put in some new mulch to spruce up the yard for the upcoming open house, she said.

It was odd, and it was an area of interest. It seemed like she was just trying to make small talk, but when the crime scene investigators showed up, it was one of the first places they checked. One of the forensic detectives put on protective gloves. He had put his hand into the mulch and, in fact, came up with blood on the protected glove. Not a few smatterings, lots of blood, and it tested human. The ex-wife takes a trip to the station. Do you wish to? And then, a stunner on surveillance tape.

It looks like a tarp, a rope, a 4x4. Everything you might need for a murder. Yes, exactly. Someone's caught on camera, and it's definitely not Kathleen. Some home improvement had changed the landscape of the Stephen Moore murder investigation in ways no one saw coming. Crime scene investigators found human blood around some new mulch at the home of Kathleen Dorsett. Detective Wilbert brought Kathleen down to the station, and the chatty woman who'd just been serving him grapes now refused to talk.

Prosecutor Mark Lemieux had the blood, along with the reports of screaming the morning Stephen disappeared, and the bad history between Kathleen and Stephen. But he wanted to nail down the details of the case, so he let her leave the station. We do not charge her yet. And the reason for that is that we wanted to sit back and figure out, was there a more to this story? Two days later, they made a decision.

With police cameras rolling, the investigation team went back to Kathleen's home. I remember walking up to the door, knocking on the door. Thomas had answered it and invited me in. I told Kathleen that she was under arrest for the murder of Stephen Moore. She was handcuffed and she was quickly escorted from the residence. The neighbors watched, flabbergasted, as Kathleen Dorsett, teacher, devoted mother, and daughter of a nice, respectable couple, was arrested for the murder of Stephen Moore. Her father, still standing in her house, was clearly devastated. Who knows what triggered his next move, but very early the next morning, Thomas Dorsett drove to his attorney's office.

He parked there, and it looked like he was taking a nap. Was he really taking a nap? No, when his attorney arrived shortly after 8 a.m., he pulled in, he parked his vehicle next to Thomas Dorsett's vehicle, and then all of a sudden, panic set in. Thomas wasn't sleeping. Thomas had a tube hooked to a 30-pound refrigerant canister, and a tube was in his mouth. Police busted through his truck window and pulled him out. He was rushed to the hospital in a coma. Suicide attempt?

That's what it was. His daughter's arrest may have pushed him over the edge, but police suspected something other than despair caused Thomas to try to kill himself. Like maybe guilt. Detective Wilbert remembers something Thomas did when they arrived to arrest his daughter. As soon as we entered into the residence, Thomas Dorsett removed his wallet from his back pocket as if he was going to turn it over. As if he was...

Exactly. Like, let me get rid of my property right now. He was going to get arrested was what it looked like. Right. But more than anything, the prosecutor focused on the cause of Stephen's death, blunt force trauma and strangulation. What was the significance of the injuries? The significance of that led us to clearly know that this was something more than

just Kathleen being involved. But police still didn't have any hard evidence to connect Thomas to the crime until... It was a phone call that came in from a restaurant owner in Long Branch. This restaurant owner had some videotape, he said, that might be of interest to the investigators. We left the scene where Thomas tried to commit suicide, and we immediately responded to the restaurant in Long Branch. There, they found this security video, recorded Monday, August 16th, the morning of Stephen Moore's disappearance.

It shows two cars arriving, one after another. The first car grabbed their attention. It was Evelyn Moore's. The car Stephen was driving before his death. And there, behind the wheel... We saw Thomas Dorsett driving Evelyn Moore's vehicle and Kathleen Dorsett following Thomas in her vehicle. This is such a moment for you.

It's a breaking moment. Evelyn Moore's car? What was Thomas doing with it? The investigators were sure at the moment the video was taken, Stephen's body had to be in the trunk of that car. An hour later, Thomas returned to the dumpster, this time in his white van. It got better. Thomas Dorsett pulls back into that parking lot area. Thomas is seen wearing protective gloves and discarding a number of items into the dumpster to include a garbage can filled with items. It looks like a tarp, a rope, a 4x4.

Everything you might need for a murder. Yes, exactly. That put Thomas, as well as Kathleen, in the thick of the crime. So when he woke up from that coma, Thomas Dorsett was transferred to the Monmouth County Jail. What do you think happened that morning in that driveway? I think that on Monday morning, a plan was made for Kathleen to have Stephen to go down the driveway to go get some tools from a basement. And as he came down, Thomas was standing behind a bush next to the driveway. And as he came down, he was struck right in the face.

Stephen was bleeding all over that driveway, bleeding into the bushes. And we know that Thomas takes a rope that he throws out later, and he uses that rope to extinguish any ounce of life that Stephen had left. With Kathleen and her father in jail, a court decided that Kathleen's mother, Leslie, wasn't a fit guardian, so Grandma Evelyn, Stephen's mother, got the baby. In the end, the investigators believed Kathleen and Thomas killed Stephen because they wanted him away from the baby and out of their lives. If they had ever made it to Florida, did they have a backup plan for Stephen?

Someone that got close with Kathleen after the murder had told her that one of their plans was to feed Stephen to the alligators down in Florida. It's like it just keeps getting taken to a whole new level. Exactly. It seemed like a slam dunk case, but as Kathleen sat in jail awaiting trial, she didn't sound like a woman facing hard time. On the phone with her mother, she sounded oddly breezy, almost cheerful. Just the beginning of a conversation that got stranger and stranger, there's another crime brewing, a whole new chapter in the tale of Kathleen Dorsett and her family. An underhanded plot and an undercover sting.

They wanted to make it look like some type of medication overdose. Mother and daughter were in for a hit, just not the kind they were expecting. Four months after the death of Stephen Moore, Kathleen Dorsett and her father were in jail awaiting trial for his murder. Given all that, you'd think Kathleen would have been wallowing in despair while she was sitting in jail. That's not how she sounded when she called her mother.

How was the party? How was everybody? Wonderful time. Everybody sent you their regards. Good. Laura, specifically. Oh, really? Oh, good. They talked about the weather. And the cats. And gossiped about a friend's kids. Yeah, she can't take care of them. They're uncontrollable. They're uncontrollable.

Yeah? And they also talked about money. Kathleen, an inmate, suddenly needed a lot of cash. How much can you come up with in cash? I told you. Just a thousand? That's it? That boy of less?

Mother and daughter met in person after that. Then came this cagey call. Something was brewing. the word diabetic. That's it. And the original amount I told you in money, $1,000. That's it. Okay. Feel it?

Someone will meet you there. It's not even going to be someone you know. That someone was this man. I'm Sammy. I'm the guy Kathleen Dorsett hired to kill Evelyn Moore. Evelyn Moore, the grandmother who had custody of baby Elizabeth. Kathleen Dorsett hired to kill Evelyn Moore. Evelyn Moore, the grandmother who had custody of baby Elizabeth. Kathleen Dorsett had set up that I would meet the mother at the Target in Ocean Township.

So on the appointed day, Elizabeth's grandmother, Leslie Dorsett, arrived at the Target with an envelope of cash and Evelyn Moore's address, ready to put the hit on the other grandmother. There she is, looking for Sammy. What's up? Hi. Did she have the $1,000? She provided me a white envelope with the $1,000 cash. How much is in here?

1,000. Cash? Cash. 100, two, three, four. They also provided me Evelyn Moore's address on that envelope. How do you want this done? Looking at the accident? Natural.

Natural? It's possible. They wanted the murder to look like it was natural. Natural. Did they have any suggestions? Poisoning. So, like a poisoning or, you tell me. She was a diabetic.

They told me that Evelyn Moore was a diabetic, and they wanted to make it look like she either died in her sleep, some type of medication overdose, but certainly they didn't want a brutal murder where it would bring attention coming back to them. You also had asked for a photo. Was that provided? It was not. She said that Kathleen Dorsett did not tell her to bring the photo. I thought I told you to have one, Doofus. I did. You did not. Yes, I did. I told you to write this stuff on the back of the picture. That's what I told you.

Nope. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did, Mother. So Mother did as she was told. She got the picture of Evelyn, got back in her car, and headed out to mail the photo to the hitman. However, this hit was never really going to happen, was it? It was not. Why not? Because I'm a detective from the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office.

Not hitman Sammy, but Detective Scott Sammis. It turns out Kathleen's cellmate tipped him off that Kathleen wanted to put a hit on Evelyn. The cellmate said Kathleen was so angry Evelyn had custody, she wanted to have Evelyn killed. So the cops were onto them from the start. Lots of people don't like their mother-in-law, but murder? It was highly disturbing to know and see what happened here. Leslie was arrested with Evelyn's picture in an envelope on the passenger seat. And now Kathleen, already

charged with murder, was also charged with attempted murder. How shocking was it? How did you even find out that this plan was in motion? Did you kill me? Jeff will tell you. I said, Leslie's been arrested for a conspiracy to commit murder. And she said, on who? And I said, on you. Leslie and Kathleen had plotted to kill you. With the murder-for-hire plot revealed, the case against the Dorsetts came together. So three years after Stephen was killed... After Stephen was convinced to retrieve his tools, I took my daughter into my house, knowing all the time my father was back there waiting to kill her.

The Dorsetts had a family reunion of sorts in Monmouth County Superior Court. Kathleen Dorsett, the former schoolteacher, pleaded guilty to those charges of murder and attempted murder. Thomas Dorsett, doting grandfather and good neighbor, pleaded guilty to murder and arson for hire. Leslie Dorsett, former school board member, pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit murder. The goal is to kill Evelyn. Kathleen got 58 years in prison, Thomas got 45, and Leslie was sentenced to seven years. She was released on parole after serving about half her time. Thomas wrote a letter to Dateline to say that Stephen's murder was not planned. It was, he wrote,

the first fight of my life, and Katie was not involved. He also wrote that he and Kathleen took the pleas to save my wife's life. The crazy thing about this is that it all centered around a child, and she so desperately wanted to have this child. And that's what she never thought about. She didn't realize at the end of the day she was eliminating her own ability to be a mom. Did it feel, though, like Kathleen was the ringleader of everything that happened in this family? Absolutely. Definitely. She was running the show.

It was her world, and everybody else was just living in it. Evelyn tries not to think about the Dorsetts. She is so grateful to the prosecution team who solved her son's murder and saved her life. And Scott had my back, literally. What's your nickname for him? He's my hitman. My own private hitman. And Detective Jeff Wilbert has a special place in her heart.

Jeff, I couldn't love him more if he was my son. That's really the way I feel. Mostly she wants to give her youngest son the credit she feels he deserves. What do you tell your granddaughter about her father? What's the most important thing that she knows as she grows up? That he loved her. That he's in heaven and he's looking down. And he'll always be there, loving her.

How you doing, big girl? Hi there. Oh, daddy loves Hi there. Oh daddy loves you. Oh daddy loves you. Yes he does.