Dateline NBC - The Dream House Mystery

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

24-year-old Lindsay Buziak was just starting out as a real estate agent and thought she landed the assignment of her dreams -- clients who wanted to buy a million dollar home. But golden opportunities are not always what they seem. Josh Mankiewicz reports in this Dateline classic. Originally aired on NBC on September 17, 2010.

They fancied themselves as the girls from Sex and the City. Which one was she? Carrie. The organizer. Everybody's friend. But TV fantasy turned real-life mystery when the friend everyone loved was murdered. I didn't believe it. There's somebody out there that did this to her. Stabbed to death in a luxury million-dollar home. Shocked the officers that were investigating it

there were plenty of possible leads the boyfriend i text her are you okay and the ex are you involved and two curious big money clients what happened inside that house i saw a few people in the front entranceway. Dateline's own unsolved case squad takes on the crime. Someone got paid to go commit that murder. Somebody I think very close to her. I agree. I think it's Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with the Dreamhouse Mystery. Just north of Seattle and a few short miles from the glittering green playground known as the San Juan Islands, sits a town that knows little of the ugly side of life.

Music Where ferries and float planes spin through a spectacular inner harbor. Surrounded by grandeur more reminiscent of Europe than of North America, it's Victoria, British Columbia. This is where a girl was born and raised safely in the arms of a large extended family and many friends who loved her. The young woman they all treasured was Lindsay Buziak. She was just a spectacular young woman that was the love of everybody's life. Her father, Jeff.

She would make friends with everybody and want to be your friend. Loved by everybody. Loved by everybody. She had plenty of company in that fun-filled life. Among her many friends were beautiful young women like Nikki Burrows. When all of you would get together, what'd you do? Pretend like we're from Sex and the City. Which one were you? Do I have to say that? All right, and which one was she? Carrie. Everybody's friend. So smart, driven. And maybe a little unlucky in love? I think all of us girls are. One of those who Lindsay had loved was Matt McDuff.

There's love. They dated from 2001 to 2006 and traveled a lot together. She was a pretty driven girl. She was focused on what she wanted to achieve. Which was? Well, she wanted a career. She wanted to do things with her life. We're not even definitely launching it for about two weeks.

Lindsay's chosen career was real estate. She was following in the footsteps of her father. It was an industry that in many ways was best suited for her. She could sell ice in Alaska. It wasn't selling for her. It was socializing. It was being Lindsay. And as the end of 2007 approached, both 24-year-old Lindsay and her business were beginning to blossom. Lindsay was now living with a new boyfriend who was chasing many of the same dreams. His name was Jason Zalo, a mortgage broker with a real estate license.

What did you feel like when you were with her? Alive. Every time she'd walk into a room, you would know that she's there. She was just always, just always happy. And in the small island world of Victoria, Jason's mom, Shirley, was also a realtor, a manager for Remax, where Lindsay worked. She was very focused, really wanted to make herself a career in real estate, and loved that about her. And in late January 2008, Lindsay received that call every agent dreams of.

A new client was on the phone from Vancouver. Police would later describe the call this way. The client said she and her husband were moving to Victoria and wanted to look at homes near the city that were in ready-to-move-in condition. Lindsay wrote it all down in her day timer. The clients wanted a house with three bedrooms, three baths, and a separate area for a housekeeper. And the client made two statements that would grab the instant attention of any real estate agent. The couple needed to buy the house within two days,

and the price range they were looking at was in the neighborhood of one million dollars. But Lindsay told her father and more than a few friends that there was something odd about the clients who spoke English with an accent. She couldn't really put her finger on exactly what it was. She described it as people, like, faking an accent? Yeah. She said, well, it's kind of Spanish, but not really. The clients were due to begin seeing Holmes on a Saturday, February 2nd, 2008.

It was 5.30 p.m. when Lindsay met the couple at a five-bedroom, four-bath executive home listed at $964,000 in an upscale Victoria suburb called Saanich. It was the last place Lindsay Buziak was seen alive. You know, the wee hours of the morning, I received a call from my ex-wife. She said, have the police been in contact with you? And I just said, what the hell's going on? And she said, well, I have the worst news ever in the world.

Lindsay's been murdered. Soon, Lindsay's friends heard it too. They didn't believe it. It's the worst phone call of my life. Former boyfriend Matt McDuff got a message, and when he returned the call, was struck by the news like a hammer. I phoned my brother back and his girlfriend answers and says, Lindsay was murdered.

It wasn't the worst phone call I've ever had. Lindsay Buziak's body had been found after 6 p.m. in that luxe home in a Victoria suburb, a high-dollar property she was showing to her big-money clients. Lindsay had been stabbed to death. Who on earth could have done such a thing to a glowing young woman, someone whose life seemed transparently happy. Someone who seemed not to have any enemies.

Police would open the book on a mystery, looking for the secrets that could tell them not just who, but why. Coming up, what happened inside that house? I saw a few people in the front entranceway. Chilling details from someone who was there when Dateline continues. Beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, was suddenly witness to an outpouring of love and sadness few had ever seen. Friends hug each other outside as hundreds gather inside to remember 24-year-old Lindsay Buziak. One week after realtor Lindsay Buziak was murdered at an empty million-dollar home she was showing to two new buyers.

Lindsay's friends and family said goodbye. So many were at a loss to explain who might have been responsible for Lindsay's death. Her father, Jeff. She was a spectacular young woman. You would want to be part of her life. You would want to be her friend. How could you possibly think you'd want her dead? The task of unraveling the mystery fell to police in Saanich, a Victoria suburb that averaged about one murder a year.

Shocked the community, shocked the officers that were investigating it. Inspector Rob McCall led the investigation, backed by a team that included Detective Sergeant Chris Horsley. They began by reconstructing the last hours of Lindsay's life, and the bulk of the clues came from her boyfriend, Jason Zalo. He told police the couple had lunched together at this restaurant. Then they split up. Lindsay over to the house she was going to show those eager buyers.

Jason to take a contract to this auto detailing shop. Before meeting Lindsay at the house to drop off some papers. And so I said, I'll come meet you. I'll be, you know, 10, 15 minutes or so. And I started driving. And then that's when she said to me, okay, I'll see you in a bit. I got to go.

The Mexicans are here. The Mexicans was Lindsay's shorthand name for the clients who spoke with an accent. While Lindsay was meeting the couple, security tape shows Jason and a friend hopping into Jason's Range Rover at 5.30 p.m. to head for the house. At 5.38 p.m., police say Jason sent Lindsay a text. The last text that Jason said was just a couple of minutes away. That text was never opened by Lindsay.

Then at 5.41 p.m., just three minutes after Jason sent that final text Lindsay's BlackBerry made a phone call out and we believe that phone call was made as a result of the attack. That was buttons on her BlackBerry inadvertently being pressed during the attack? Exactly it was a it was truly a pocket dial because the BlackBerry was in her pocket. Police believe Lindsay was murdered during that three-minute time span between 5.38 and 5.41 p.m. Jason drove up minutes later around 5.45. From his front seat, he says he saw something through the front door of the house. It's like kind of smoke glass when I saw a few people in the front entranceway. You saw what, outlines of people through the glass?

Yes, yeah. You couldn't tell how many people? I would say two. Outside, Jason Zalos said he did not want to appear to be the meddling boyfriend. So he pulled out of the cul-de-sac and onto the main road to wait. But after 10 minutes or so, he says, he got a feeling something was wrong. When I text her, are you okay? And I didn't get a text back.

That's what really worried me. Jason says he walked to the front door and through the window saw Lindsay's shoes lying in the foyer. Standard procedure for a realtor showing a house. Then Jason checked the door and found it locked. It was 6.05 p.m. I called 911 to say that my girlfriend's in the house and it's locked and I can't get in and she's, you know, showing people houses. In a panic mode, I just told them the address of the house and, you know, come, I'm going to get in the house or break in the house or something like that to open it up. Jason boosted his friend over a fence onto the side patio.

The friend found an open door, then let in Jasonason who found lindsey's body in an upstairs bedroom another 9-1-1 call came in at 6 11 p.m she was just lying on her back you know not moving nothing so i went straight to her try to give her cpr i felt her skin It was, she was already passed away. What were you thinking? You know, absolute shock. I remember the police were on the phone, and I kept yelling at them, saying, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, even though in my mind I already knew that she was passed away. And in that terrible moment, Jason realized that those figures he'd seen

through the smoked glass of the front door were probably Lindsey's killers. But where had they gone? Canine units were deployed but found no sign of the killers. They'd apparently escaped on foot. At the crime scene, police found Lindsey Busiak dead from dozens of viciously inflicted stab wounds, most to the head and chest. No knife was left, but all the wounds appear to have been inflicted by one person.

The first thought for a crime at a million-dollar home, robbery. But nothing was taken. Lindsay's purse, watch, wallet, and her money were all left at the scene. Investigators also considered sexual assault as a motive, but an autopsy found no sign of it. Crime scene investigators found almost nothing in the way of fingerprints, DNA, and other physical evidence to work with, every room in the house was empty and they'd been cleaned just before the showing. But as police blanketed the neighborhood after the murder,

they did turn up more than one witness who provided key information. They had seen, in the fading sunlight of a February Saturday, Lindsay greeting the man and woman as they arrived at the home around 5.30 p.m. The witnesses are quite firm in that it appeared to be a meeting, a shaking of the hands. So we're quite satisfied that the people that showed up were not known to Lindsay. Lindsay had been killed, it appeared, by strangers. Police concluded it had to be the couple that had set up the showing and had lured Lindsay to the scene of her own murder. One witness was able to help police with a composite sketch

of the female seen meeting Lindsay. She's described as white, 35 to 40 years old, with short blonde hair. She was also, the witness said, wearing a colorful dress of white, black, and either red or pink, with a distinctive pattern. And more clues to the identities of the killers came from Lindsay's Blackberry. Stored there, the phone number for the Mexicans. Detectives traced the phone the killers used to contact Lindsey. It was a cell phone purchased between three and six weeks before the murder at a Vancouver convenience store.

Surveillance tape of the sale? Gone. And unfortunately, the phone is pay-to-talk. There's no registration other than quickly banging a name in online and your phone's up and running. And while the killers bought the phone weeks earlier, they activated it via the internet less than 48 hours before the murder, making their movements difficult to trace. The phone was registered under the name Paolo Rodriguez. The name appears to be fictitious. The address that the phone was registered also appears to be unrelated.

It is an actual address, but it's a business in Vancouver. And Vancouver is from where the first calls to Lindsay were made, confirmed by hits on cell towers in the city. Police say perhaps half a dozen calls were made to Lindsay. And after the murder, the cell phone was never used again. You're describing killers who are incredibly disciplined and are either very good or just very lucky. Yeah, very much so. And we're not sure which one. They may or may not have known Lindsay, but certainly they knew how to carry out a terrible crime

and then cover their tracks. Could they be professionals? Had someone sent them? Was there more to Lindsay's life than met the eye? Detectives began by focusing on those closest to Lindsay. Coming up, the boyfriend and the ex. Could it have been one of them? I've never seen a tear drop out of his eye.

Police return to the scene of the crime for a dramatic reenactment. And Dateline's unsolved case squad goes to work. I think someone got paid to go commit that murder. When Dateline continues. In an upscale, leafy suburb of Victoria, British Columbia, police believed Lindsay Buziak had been murdered while showing a mysterious couple a lavish home. In the first days and weeks after her death, police focused not just on finding that couple, but on the emerging idea that this may have been a murder for hire, police and her family began taking a hard look at Lindsay herself and her personal relationships. There were two theories when I arrived in Victoria instantly.

Lindsay's father, Jeff. What are the two theories? The two theories is boyfriend or ex-boyfriend. Either Jason or Matt. Or Matt. And Josh, I don't care who it is that killed Lindsay. I want to know who. I want them punished. And in fact, just minutes after Jason Zalo discovered Lindsay's body on that Saturday evening in February 2008, Saanich police had a suspect, Jason Zalo himself, found hunched over Lindsay, covered in her blood.

Zalo was handcuffed, taken to the police station, questioned for hours, and asked to give DNA samples before being released. Days later, police called Jason back to the house. I was yelling, like, Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay. To reenact his movements the night of the murder, shown in police video. The walls of the house still covered with fingerprint powder left by investigators. You okay? Yeah. Okay.

Brought back all the memories again and feelings. What feelings? How you lose somebody so fast. You know, one day you're living with somebody, and the next day she's gone. But what possible reason might Jason Zalo have to want Lindsay Buziak dead? He says their relationship was a happy one. But it turns out there's another side to that story. In the last months of her life,

Lindsay was telling family and friends that she was thinking of breaking up with Jason as soon as several real estate deals closed. Just six weeks before the murder, in December 2007, Lindsay had flown to Calgary, Alberta, to tell her father that her relationship with Jason wasn't working. She just said, Daddy, I made a mistake. I feel horrible about it. But she said, I can't do it anymore.

Had she told Jason this? Not that I'm aware of. The story is confirmed by several of Lindsay's friends. But shortly after she made those statements, Lindsay went on an after-Christmas ski trip with Jason and his family. Friends say Lindsay then softened, reconsidered, and in their words, was trying to make it work with Jason. You know there are people out there who say that she was getting ready to pull the plug and move on. Any truth to that, as far as you know? There's none, no. There's no truth to that.

But what about Jason's actions after Lindsay's murder? Those who saw him claim he was oddly unemotional, unlike virtually everyone else. Running up the stairs. Do you remember grabbing the banister at all? I was crying. I couldn't keep myself together. And he, I didn't see any tears. I've never seen a tear drop out of his eye.

I've never seen a sniffle from his nose. What the hell's with that? your behavior after the murder has been described by some people as Emotionless, you know everybody else was shocked You were fine. I Wasn't fine people show their emotions in different ways. You've never spoken publicly about the death of your girlfriend? No. What do you want people to know?

I want people to know that I love Lindsay. I think about her every day. I want this case solved as fast as possible. I had nothing to do with it. And Jason had a compelling witness on his side, his friend who was with him and who helped him get inside. Footprints and fingerprints match their account of what they did at the house. Lindsay Buziak had been dead for more than two years when Saanich police granted unprecedented access to Dateline's unsolved case squad, sharing information from the files of an open case

with our experts. NBC News consultant Dwayne Stanton, retired homicide detective from Washington, D.C., investigated Chandra Levy's murder. Yolanda McCleary, retired crime scene investigator in Las Vegas and a model for the character on the hit series CSI. Alan Jackson, former prosecutor in Los Angeles, put legendary record producer Phil Spector behind bars for murder. Jason Zalow was a suspect for a long time in this case. Right.

Right. It wasn't Jason. You don't think it was Jason? No. And look, let's not forget, what's rule number one of committing a homicide? You don't bring a witness to a homicide. He had somebody with him. The perfect alibi is not that you drive right to the house where the murder took place that you't bring a witness to a homicide. He had somebody with him.

The perfect alibi is not that you drive right to the house where the murder took place that you hired or had anything to do with. You don't do that. The dumbest criminals don't do that. And a full year after Lindsey's murder, Saanich police did in fact publicly announce that they had cleared Jason Zalo. So then, who and why? Our team agreed. Lindsay was specifically targeted in a scheme that was well thought out. There's a significant degree of planning in this murder. Absolutely. Oh, totally.

It was artfully designed. Work went into this. Someone sat around a table like we're doing right now and came up with that plan. And that planning paid off, perhaps, even down to the dress worn by the mystery woman, the dress which made such an impression on the eyewitnesses. The dress is very unique, and I kind of think it was designed to say,

something to teach in investigative school, do something out of the norm to draw attention from yourself. Look at this as opposed to see what I look like. And you know what? You're absolutely right. And it might have worked because everybody seems to have this great description of a skirt. They remember the skirt. But the only thing they remember about the girl is that she has blonde hair about up to her shoulders. That's it. Our team also explored the theory that the killers may have been hired professionals

with specific instructions to express the anger that someone else felt towards Lindsay. I think someone got paid to go commit that murder. And they were told, make her suffer, make it brutal? I believe that. I just don't see it that way. I think that what happened inside that house was equal parts opportunity and equal parts panic. She was stabbed so many times, over and over and over, repeatedly, multiple stab wounds that were completely 100% unnecessary. But I don't see that as sending a message. I don't see that as being personal.

Saanich police continued to investigate whether the motive was personal. And they were not yet done focusing on people whom Lindsay Buziak would have described as her friends. Coming up, the other man who'd been part of Lindsay's life. That was her big from Sex and the City. Could he have something to do with her death? When Dateline continues. As police in Saanich, British Columbia worked to solve the murder of Lindsay Buziak, they focused on those closest to her. And Lindsay's divorced parents seemed to have different suspects in mind.

Lindsay's father, Jeff, suspected her boyfriend at the time of her death, Jason Zalo. While her mother told friends she suspected Lindsay's former boyfriend of five years, Matt McDuff. McDuff watched in disgust as Saanich police announced they had cleared Jason Zalo of suspicion. Mr. Jason Zalo is not a suspect. I found that really odd. Because? Because why would they clear somebody? You don't clear anybody until somebody's behind bars, do you? McDuff was questioned after Lindsay's murder. He denied any involvement. You know there are people, Lindsay's mother, for example,

who think that you are involved. Yeah. Are you involved? No. Did you have anything to do with Lindsay's murder? No. See, the mom thinks that because if it wasn't me, who could have done it, right? She has to vent her anger at somebody, and that just happens to be me.

But it's clear Matt McDuff was on Lindsay's mind around the time of the murder. In fact, boyfriend Jason's mother, Shirley Zalo, a manager at Lindsay's real estate firm, says she and Lindsay took a walk the day before the murder. And Shirley says Lindsay, who had at the time less than 24 hours to live, told her this. She talked about her ex-boyfriend, that she was afraid of Matt. Why was she afraid of Matt? I don't think she really got into the detail. I guess she was a little disappointed in how Matt had treated her throughout the relationship.

JOHN DEMUTH, Shirley Zalo is the only person we spoke with in our reporting who told us Lindsay was afraid of Matt around the time of the murder. Of course, she is the mother of the man who was at one time the prime suspect. And by the way, police tell us that when Lindsay was killed, Matt and Lindsay had been apart for nearly two years. Each had moved on to new relationships. And according to police, they'd had no contact for months before the murder. Matt McDuff does acknowledge that back when they were together, he and Lindsay had a relationship that was, at times, rocky.

Tumultuous? Yeah, I don't know what that word means, but I wouldn't go that far, no. Stormy? Oh, yeah, stormy, yeah. Real stormy at times, sure. In fact, sources say Lindsay called police about Matt at least three times, but no criminal charges were ever filed. Did arguing ever get physical? No.

She never hit you, you never hit her? She hit me a few times. That's just what she was, she was feisty. But if she was pissed off at you, you'd know it. You ever hit her back? No. She's a tiny girl, you know, 100 pounds. I'm 200, if I hit a girl, they'd be...

No. But while Shirley Zalo may claim that Lindsay was afraid of Matt, many of Lindsay's friends have an entirely different explanation of why Matt might have been on her mind around the time of the murder. It was likely, they say, because she was thinking of leaving Jason and getting back together with Matt. Her father says Lindsay said as much on her trip to visit him just six weeks before her death. She said, Daddy, I miss Matt so much. She said, I'm really confused. I don't know what to do. It hurt me to see her like that. She knew it was over, but she hadn't got over it.

Her friends said Matt had a hold on Lindsay, just like the man known as Big had on the star of that TV show Lindsay and her friends liked so much. That was her Big from Sex and the City. That's what she called Matt. She called Matt Mr. Big? Mm-hmm. I think just the love she had with him just wasn't the same with Jason.

Saanich police tell Dateline they have no evidence pointing to Matt McDuff, no reason to suspect him at all, and that he was at least an hour away from the crime scene at the time of the murder, in another area of the island with the family of his new girlfriend, who is now his wife. So where would the motive be? Although there's some unique dynamics that they had in their relationship,

there's been nothing, nothing that would say that he was involved in any way in this crime. What's it like to know that she's gone and you don't even know why? You don't even know the motive that's why we have to find out it's tough and with police saying the two men who seemed closest to lindsey were apparently not involved in her death police widened the circle of suspicion coming up a new theory about the case.

Was she friends with people who were involved in crime? Yes. People that she associated with were involved in crime. When Dateline continues. In the 18 months after Lindsay Buziak's murder, police in the Victoria, British Columbia suburb of Saanich investigated hundreds of leads, served dozens of warrants, but they seemed not much closer to finding the blonde woman,

35 to 40 years old, wearing a distinctive dress, witnesses said, who spoke with a Spanish accent, and who, along with a man described as white and well-dressed, six feet tall with dark, possibly brown hair, had set up a showing with Lindsay, met her at the door of that nearly million-dollar home in February 2008, and then stabbed Lindsay to death. The working theory of the crime was a targeted hit, carried out by two killers who brought a knife to a real estate showing. So who would want to kill a young realtor who seemed to have no enemies? It was forcing investigators to think way outside the box. It seems to me that you're really looking for probably at least three people here.

I mean, you're looking for the two people in the home that committed that murder, and then I'm guessing whoever paid them. I think you're absolutely right, and it may be that one of those two people who were at the home is in fact the mastermind behind this and perhaps the money. But I think it's also equally possible and more likely there's a third or fourth or a fifth person involved. That's a criminal conspiracy of some significance to wipe out this young realtor. What set of facts possibly fits with that? Large amount of money, large amount of drugs, considerable wrong done to whoever the financier is behind this. Saanich police are quick to say, as are Lindsay's family and friends,

that there's no evidence she was involved in anything illegal. She was the cleanest girl you ever meet. You can't see her getting involved in anything illegal? No, no. She worked hard to get her license. You can't see her getting involved in anything illegal? No, no. She worked hard to get her license. She wouldn't risk anything to lose it. But the longer her murder went unsolved, the more rumors there were.

Lindsay was either a witness in a drug case or a police informant. Neither is true, say police, but a drug angle has emerged as a leading theory in her murder. Is there any evidence that Lindsay used recreational drugs? No. And there's no evidence that she committed any criminal offenses either. Was she associated with or friends with people who were involved in crime?

Yes. Yes, she was. There was an element of people that she associated with that were involved in crime. Remember, Victoria is a relatively small town. And because Lindsay was young and liked to go out to clubs, the crowd she inevitably hung out with would include people who operated on the fringes of the law. So this friend that you've known all your life might end up being your friend the drug dealer. Could be. You might bump into them at a club,

and some of the theories that we developed over the course of this investigation was simply that she had potentially said the wrong thing at the wrong time or had heard something at the wrong time and caused her this grief. In fact, police explored an incident that occurred during Lindsay's last visit with her father. While visiting Calgary, Lindsay made contact with at least two men, old friends she grew up with. And just a month later, one of those men was arrested in what police called the largest

cocaine bust in Alberta history, 67 kilos, worth more than six million dollars. Someone might have been angry. Did a witch hunt take place? And did someone point the finger at Lindsay? Because she happened to have been in Calgary at the time. Coincidence because this is a small town or maybe she saw something she shouldn't have seen? Could go either way. If so, we now know it was not true. Police say Lindsay was not the informant. Police have floated this idea that she was killed by mistake. It happens.

Doesn't seem very reasonable. Not reasonable. If there's no evidence that they've uncovered that suggests that she was killed by mistake? It happens. It doesn't seem very reasonable. Not reasonable. If there's no evidence that they've uncovered that suggests that she was an informant, that she was diming off drug dealers or a cartel or anything like that, then where's the evidence that the cartel would have that she was doing that?

It just seems like a red herring to me. I think her just being there for the weekend to go see her father does not add up. She doesn't sell drugs. She's not in their business. So the idea that this is some impersonal hit being ordered by drug dealers half a country away. Makes no logical sense. Whatever the motive is, it's personal.

No, I don't think it's a drug cartel. Coming up. So what was it? Our team profiles the killers. I think it's somebody that she knows. When Dateline continues. February 2010, two years since Lindsay Buziak's murder. Her mother, Evelyn, who's declined Dateline's requests for an interview

and maintained her silence in the media since the murder, made a public plea for information. Having Lindsay taken from us has been excruciatingly painful. Please call the police so that we can have closure for Lindsay's death. The family first offered a $100,000 reward, but with no arrest, the family has dropped that offer. Frustration among family and friends has been mounting. Who would plan a hit on your daughter? God, I wish I knew that, Josh. I wish I could get my paws on them. For the Saanich police, the death of Lindsay Buziak has led down a frustrating series of blind alleys without motives or answers. To say that we're on the cusp of a breakthrough would be

a lie. We desperately need some help. This is a highly unusual situation for us here in Canada to be pursuing this in as public a way as we are. And that speaks to, I think, our commitment, but also to some degree our desperation as we grasp for anything that we can use to bring these people to justice. Is the person behind this somebody Lindsay knows, or is the person behind this someone unknown to her? Someone she knows. Somebody, I think, very close to her. I agree. I think it's somebody that she knows.

Somebody in the same type of business? Correct. I mean, in the same real estate firm? Who knows? The man and the woman who actually committed this murder, what do you think is in their background? They're going to have a criminal history. And more than likely, I would look for violent crimes. It's an unusual complexion of the case that they work together, a man and a woman, a male and a female working in tandem to commit this kind of violent crime.

I also am not convinced that these were highly polished professionals. The way that the crime was committed itself, to me, shows a level of panic, shows a level of unsophistication. I call it planned, not necessarily professional, but planned. Well planned.

Is there any chance that although these killers were not known to Lindsay, they weren't planning on murdering her until they went in the house together and then in there something happened, a fight started, she gets killed? And the people pull a butcher knife out of their purse or out of their sock? No, it doesn't seem right. If there's a chance, it's ever so minute. I mean, it's small. What needs to happen for an arrest to be made?

Someone needs to come forward. Yeah, agreed. Unfortunately, you have an empty house. You have very little that was touched. So it is a forensic nightmare. This case is not going to be solved based on forensic evidence. This case is going to be solved by loose lips. Somebody's going to talk about something. For Lindsay's friends, the lack of an arrest has left many

too frightened to speak to us on camera. Why are you hearing so many other people aren't? I can't live my life every day knowing that there's somebody out there that did this to her. I can't. I can't. It's not right. And it makes me sick that there's somebody out there that did this to my best friend. Two years after her death, Lindsay's boyfriend told us there was a kind of numbness that wouldn't go away. I think about it daily. Yeah. You think it'll ever go away?

No. Yeah. You think it'll ever go away? No. No. And for Lindsay's father, there was determination bordering on obsession. There was barely controlled rage. And finally, there was a vow to defend the daughter he couldn't help on that February day. I'm not going to let her down, Josh. The only way I'm going to stop right now finding out who killed her is die myself and I'll be dying trying. I guarantee you that. You're going to find out.

I am going to find out if it kills me. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.