Dateline NBC - The Killing in Cobb County

Episode Date: July 15, 2020

In this Dateline classic, a story of obsession boils over into a brutal crime. Right away, one woman said she knew what happened. Yet, it takes years to bring the alleged killer to trial with a verdict that was far from the end of this case. Andrea Canning reports. Originally aired on NBC on November 29, 2013.

He's a monster. He's evil. He's pure evil. He is that character in those horror movies. He hid in the shadows. A killer in a mask. He's clearly a brilliant individual. A brilliantly scary individual. His target, a doting young mob. She was a gorgeous strawberry blonde who loved her son more than anything in the whole world. She was so scared. He struck once. Would he kill again? And would she be next?

You're just so shattered and hurting so bad. Imagine being hunted in your own home, held a virtual prisoner, your children in danger from a man with a blueprint for murder. I was terrified. Tonight, she will face down evil and come forward with a new revelation that will make your jaw drop. What I did was wrong. There are no words. I have everything to lose. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with the killing in Cobb County. A new attraction can be so exhilarating, but not always. Sometimes attraction turns into a

dangerous obsession. Lottie Spencer says she knows all about that. He'd show up at my job. He would show up at the store. No matter where I went, he would be there. Lottie says she had a stalker, a teenager who got into her house, into her car, and worst of all, into her head. I wouldn't go out to the mailbox without a gun. I was terrified. He had total control over you, it sounds like. Pretty much.

Lottie could feel it in her bones. Something bad was coming, and she felt powerless to do anything about it. I knew that he was watching, and then, I just, I mean, here it comes again. Life used to be much simpler for Lottie in the fall of 1995 she moved to Cobb County Georgia just north of Atlanta she lived in this house with her daughter Christina this is an upper scale neighborhood me and Christina were always outside and my life was really good I was really happy their downstairs neighbors were Carmen Smith and her son Nick. Five-year-old Nick had sparkling blue eyes and a million-dollar smile, just like his mom. Kristen Horan is Carmen's sister. She was a gorgeous strawberry blonde, feisty, very outgoing young woman

who loved her son more than anything in the whole world. They were just like two peas in a pod. It was a Monday afternoon, the week before Halloween. Nick and Christina got off the school bus and walked home together. Cobb County Prosecutor Jesse Evans. First thing they did was go downstairs to see if they could find Nick's mom. Her car was there. She should be there. While Christina stayed by the door, Nick went mom. Her car was there. She should be there. While Christina stayed by the door,

Nick went inside. Someone was there, but not his mom. Nick turned the corner and he saw something move across the bedroom down the long hallway. It was a dark figure wearing gloves and a mask. The stranger suddenly stabbed Nick and left him for dead. As he's laying there on the floor, he actually sees his perpetrator run from the house. Christina began really freaking out. She was terrified. Christina ran upstairs to her apartment to get help. Her babysitter, Catherine, was there with her boyfriend, Scott. They hurried downstairs.

Christina started walking towards this lighting glass door and I grabbed her shoulders and I stopped her and I said, don't touch anything. The glass door was smeared with blood. The scene inside was unspeakable. Somebody said, oh my gosh, there's Nick. And you could see him through the window on the floor in a pool of blood.

I said, get out of here, go down the street. She said, what are you going to do? I said, I got to get that boy out of there. I'm not leaving without that boy. Scott grabbed an axe from the garage for protection, then dropped it when he realized how desperately Nick needed help. He wasn't breathing at the time. I smacked him a few times and nothing happened.

And so I started screaming at him and started smacking him harder and telling him he wasn't going to die today. And all of a sudden, he kind of bolted up. At that point, I said, you're alive. Scott picked up the little boy and bolted from the house. He squeezed Nick tightly against his chest, trying to staunch the bleeding. He was running and he was yelling down the street, call 911, call 911. He's left up. Call 911. Lottie was at work when she got a frantic call from her daughter.

She was hysterical. She was saying that Nick was hurt. And I drove home as fast as I could. I was screaming for Christina and Nick, but they weren't there. Lottie didn't see Carmen either, but when police officers arrived at the scene, they made a terrible discovery. The vivacious flight attendant and devoted single mother was dead. She'd been strangled. Carmen Smith was just 30 years old. You're just so shattered and hurting so bad. And you're so thankful that your daughter's alive. But then you feel so bad. What happened to Nick and Carmen?

Carmen's sister Kristen and brother-in-law Jim barely had time to process the news about Carmen before learning that Nick was fighting for his life. They rushed to be at his side. We went straight to the hospital. You must have been thinking, how could someone stab a five-year-old, your nephew, approximately 18 times? That's a monster. Exactly. I won't ever forget walking into that hospital room.

Sorry. But yeah. And then you have to come to grips with reality. And it was a grim reality. After emergency surgery, Nick was in critical condition. He looked so little, so fragile in his hospital bed. You never think that you can be touched by something like this when you've got the perfect family.

He'd been stabbed 18 times and had lost a dangerous amount of blood. But he survived. Nick was going to make it. It was nothing less than a miracle. There was no easy way to tell him about his mom, but he had to know. All these years later, Nick remembers it like it was yesterday. My dad and my aunt told me that my mom didn't make it, and I mean, I didn't really understand it then. I still don't really understand it. It was such a senseless act.

Nick and his family could only grieve and wonder why. But back at the apartment, now a crime scene, a chill ran through Lottie. She told police she could explain exactly what happened. I told them that I had somebody that had been stalking me, and it was my belief that he was the one behind what happened to Nicholas and Carmen. Who was this man in the mask who had killed a young mother and tried to kill her son? He's pure evil. He's a monster. When we come back, a haunting story of Hunter and Hunted.

He has always told me that he can get away with the perfect murder. His plan was in the making. It is a haunting memory, impossible to forget. It definitely changed my life, of course, completely. So I remember it pretty well. Now in his 30s, Nick Smith was only 5 years old when a masked man stabbed him 18 times and killed his mother. While recovering in the hospital, Nick was told his mother was gone. Do you remember your mom?

Not as well as I wish I did. Most of my memories are just stories I've been told from other people. Carmen's sister Kristen and her husband Jim helped raise Nick. Bedtime stories were often about his beautiful mother. She was very athletic. She was in swimming and basketball, softball, track. And she was in the homecoming court, prom queen. She dated, you know, the football player. She was a cheerleader. I remember her liveliness. She was very vivacious, very beautiful, and very fun. You know, she had Nick fairly early in life and

did a great job of working and providing for Nick at the same time. Do you just feel robbed that you never got to experience all those things a mother and son get to experience together? Definitely. A lot of people in my family say that I act just like her. I just know that she was a happy person. A happy life that ended in an appalling act of violence. The police officers who discovered Carmen's body got an immediate, emphatic lead from her upstairs neighbor, Lottie Spencer.

Did you know immediately who had done this? Who had committed this? I knew. Lottie was certain it was the work of a teenager named Waseem Dacre. Waseem and Lottie had a history. She said it would explain the hideous attack. She told detectives her story. Things had started so innocently, don't they always? I met him at the paintball field, paintball so we just met by being teammates on the same team

Lottie was the captain of her team kind of a den mother to the other much younger players especially Wasim a Georgia Tech student 12 years her junior he didn't have anybody else that he could open up and talk to

or share his thoughts and feelings with so you felt kind of like a big sister to him. That's exactly how I felt. Dacre was a bit of a loner. He latched on to Lottie, started calling her at work, at home, and wouldn't stop. I told him that, you know, I have a life and you're just taking too much of my time. And then he would cry and then I knew that there was a problem. What was a nuisance at first,

Lottie says, quickly escalated. Her phone started ringing off the hook up to a hundred times a day. Why didn't you just stop talking to this person? I should have. I felt really sorry for him. I really didn't want him to get into trouble. It sounds so crazy. But maybe that also says about you that you're a good person. Or a very foolish person. Foolish, Lottie says, because Dacre's stalking became bolder, increasingly bizarre. He just started flipping out, yelling on the top of his lungs that he's going to get me and slit my daughter's throat in front of me.

And I would come home from work and there would be a pair of my underwear on my doorknob or a few days later a bra. What message is he sending with that? Look at me. I'm getting into your place and getting away with it. There's nothing you can do to stop me. Another time I came home early and went into my bedroom and there was Waseem Daker naked wearing garter hose and a garter belt, looking at himself in my mirror. This is any woman's worst nightmare.

Lottie says things reached a tipping point when, once again, Dacre threatened her and her daughter, this time while brandishing a knife. He has always told me that he can get away with the perfect murder. His plan was in the making. Finally, Lottie decided to let the justice system take over.

Dacre was arrested in August, but released on bond. A judge ordered him to stay away. He didn't and was arrested again in September. This time he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. Prosecutor Jesse Evans. He's got some severe issues with obsession. I don't think that he has the ability to feel compassion for other people. He's clearly a brilliant individual.

He's also a brilliantly scary individual. While Dacre was hospitalized, Lottie packed up and moved to the house in Cobb County, about 20 minutes north of Atlanta, where Carmen and Nick lived downstairs. So you moved to try and escape him? Mm-hmm. In October, on Friday the 13th, Waseem Dacre was released from the hospital. Less than two weeks later, Carmen Smith was dead.

And now Lottie Spencer was overwhelmed with guilt and anger. Basim Dacre is evil. He's pure evil. He's a monster. And that's what Lottie told police. She said her stalker must have been the one behind the attack on Carmen and Nick. But why? Dacre was obsessed with Lottie. He'd never met or even spoken to Carmen. Or had he? Lottie thought she knew the answer. A phone call she says Dacre made to Carmen's phone a few days before the murder. It was Friday the 20th, and like Dacre's style, the calls started coming in, and the phone got put off the hook, and then I could hear her phone ringing. Carmen answered, then hung up abruptly. What was said? Nobody knows.

Carmen told her sister and brother-in-law that the call was from Lottie's stalker. She said, I'm going to go get a hammer and put it next to the bed. And I remember laughing, thinking, if that guy decides to get in the house, he's in trouble. But you really never think that it would go to where it went. We had talked about her packing some stuff and coming to stay with us for a while. Lottie says seeing Carmen's reaction to Dacre's call was heartbreaking, and she did what she could to help her neighbor feel safe. The only entryway from within her dwelling was this sliding glass door, and so we just barricaded the door with some wood.

She was so scared. She was shaking and just, she was so scared. Just three days later, that glass door was open and smeared with blood. And Waseem Dacre was the lead suspect in a horrible crime. Coming up, evidence at the scene of the crime. There was a broken knife blade and hair and fiber evidence that was recovered off of Carmen Smith's body. Will it be enough to catch the killer? He was getting away with murder.

He's getting away with exactly what he told me he would. When Dateline continues. Just three days before she was killed, Carmen Smith told family and friends she'd gotten a call from Waseem Dacre, the man who'd been arrested for stalking her neighbor. It was the strongest allegation yet, connecting the victim to the suspect. Investigators tipped off about that call by Lottie, now closed in on Dacre. Did you execute a search warrant on his house that night? We did.

John Dawes is a homicide detective with the Cobb County Police Department. In his room, we found a piece of paper with the address where this crime occurred. We found a torn up letter that was his words to Lottie Spencer. Dacre's torn up letter to Lottie was hateful and threatening. Prosecutor Jesse Evans. He specifically talks about having plans and backup plans to exact revenge on Lottie. And the worst part about the letter is he gets to the end and he says, but I'm going to let you live. I'm going to get revenge on you, but I'm going to let you live. To police and prosecutors, this wasn't just a rant.

It looked like a blueprint for murder. Now they tried to link Dacre to the crime scene. Some of the important evidence that we start with is the hair and fiber evidence that was recovered off of Carmen Smith's body. There was a broken knife blade. It was a fairly clean crime scene other than that. Carmen had small puncture wounds on her back and terrible bruising, suggesting a ferocious struggle. She had been not only tortured and murdered, but she had been undressed at some point and redressed. At Carmen's bedside, the hammer she'd wanted for peace of mind never touched as she fought

for her life. Not far away was the suspected murder weapon, a piece of rope. Crime scene technicians dusted for fingerprints and collected blood samples. The evidence was sent to the state crime lab for analysis. The lab tests kept coming back without the physical evidence that we needed that linked him to the dead body of Carmen Smith, that's when we knew that it may always be a circumstantial case. And the circumstantial part of the case was just too weak to make an arrest. Prosecutors still believe Dacre was the only viable suspect in Carmen Smith's murder

and the stabbing of her son Nick, but they didn't have the evidence to prove it. The investigation stalled. So Waseem Dacre walked away from the murder. He walked away from the murder, but not from some accountability. The police felt like they had a viable way of charging him with aggravated stalking. Dacre was arrested and charged with stalking Lottie Spencer. There are multiple witnesses, friends of hers, friends of his, that actually observed firsthand some of the stalking

activities that were occurring at her apartment, either by hearing the phone, hearing him knock on the door at all hours of the night, seeing him come by. Dacre was convicted in September of 1996 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. It was the close to the worst chapter of Lottie Spencer's life, but it wasn't a happy ending. Did you feel like you had some peace in your life again when he was behind bars? No. I mean, because he was getting away with murder. He's getting away with exactly what he told me he would. He needed to pay for what he did to Carmen. After the trial, Lottie decided to leave Georgia to try to start over. Nick Smith went back to the same school and the protective embrace of his family.

I kind of just went back into the normal routine. I think that was the best way that I could have dealt with it. And I think my family did a pretty good job of trying to keep my life as normal as possible. And during the next 10 years, Nick's life did finally return to normal. But in 2006, Dacre was released and moved nearby. All the terrifying memories of the masked man wielding a knife came rushing back. Police decided to provide security to keep Nick safe. We would have a cop sit outside of our house at night,

and we had cameras installed in my house and on the outside just as a precaution. Lottie says she was also looking over her shoulder. Tell us about the day that he got out, that he was a free man again. just as a precaution. Lottie says she was also looking over her shoulder. Tell us about the day that he got out, that he was a free man again. Not a good time. Were you waiting every day for the phone to ring or that bang on the door? Yeah, I was starting to unravel again.

Coming up, the fear begins all over and so does the push for justice. You had your smoking gun. Absolutely. It's another trial for Waseem Dacre. And just look who's addressing the jury. After 10 years in prison, Waseem Dacre was a free man, but still a suspect in the murder of Carmen Smith

and the stabbing of her son, Nick. He was still terrorizing you in some ways. Just the fact that he was out was kind of terrorizing. He is that character in those horror movies. He's like your worst nightmare. After his release, Dacre got a job and moved to suburban Atlanta. He was a free man and enjoying life.

Here he is skydiving and loving it. Jackie, no! Dacre's freedom galled homicide detective John Dawes. The Carmen Smith murder was now officially a cold case. To Dawes, Dacre was the one who got away. Does a case like this haunt a police department? Absolutely, because these cases go home with you in your mind. But for years, Dawes couldn't do anything about it. Absolutely, because these cases go home with you in your mind.

But for years, Dawes couldn't do anything about it. And then, just by chance, he was sent to a DNA training seminar in 2008, a random assignment that would change everything. Back in the mid-'90s, very, very little at all could be done with the hair except, to say, the color of the hair. Now, when there's any tissue from the root on the 90s, very, very little at all could be done with the hair except, to say, the color of the hair. Now, when there's any tissue from the root on the hair whatsoever, it takes just a minute amount of tissue to come up with a full-profile DNA. It's called nuclear DNA testing, and Dawes immediately thought of Carmen Smith. Carmen was a strawberry blonde, and he remembered the short, dark hairs recovered from her body,

not hers, under layers of bedding. I felt it was invaluable evidence if there was enough tissue on that hair that was underneath her sweater. Dawes brought one of those dark hairs to a DNA lab in Texas and waited. It was almost 15 years after Carmen Smith's murder when the call came in. There was a match. They have identified Wasim Daker's hair, him and only him, to the exclusion of all others, on the dead body of Carmen Smith at the time she was found. You had your smoking gun.

Absolutely. I got a call from Detective Dahls. I was very happy, but it was really hard for me to have to go back and tell the story of the things that he did. Lottie dreaded the thought of testifying in open court in front of Dacre, but she knew there'd be no avoiding it. Dacre was arrested and charged with murdering Carmen Smith and stabbing her son Nick. His trial started in September of 2012. Prosecutor Jesse Evans was there for the state. Evans argued that Dacre was a violent stalker

and that his obsession with one woman led to the murder of another. You can't get inside the mind of a psychopath and figure out why they chose to kill. Some people are just mean. Evans said Dacre had left a trail of destruction, and those critical hairs. The whole case saw advances in DNA technology prove positive that defending Waseem Dacre is a kill. Defending Waseem Dacre was Waseem Dacre. Initially, I want to point out a couple of things. There's three principles of law that I want to give you. Before he took over his own case, Dacre had been represented by an experienced father and son team, Michael and Jason Tredaway.

They were still advising him and believed the state's case was vulnerable. They had no case without those hairs. That's why they didn't go forward initially. They didn't have a case, and they knew it. Their advice to Dacre? Focus on those hairs and don't obsess about Lottie. This case had to be defended by attacking the science of the state's case. But Dacre couldn't seem to let go. His focus from the start was his relationship

with the state's star witness. I've been in her bed. I've been in her sofa. It was a romance, Dacre said, intimate in every way. Lottie insisted that was not true. Some of the things he said had to be just really beyond frustrating, that saying you two had a sexual relationship. You know what, there was no relationship, so there's nothing, you know, more that I can say about that. Did he ever try and do anything like kiss you or, you know, since he's so in love with you? Never once, never once tried to kiss me or anything. When Dacre finally turned to those hairs, he called on Dr. Greg Hampikian.

The prominent DNA expert challenged the state's key evidence, the nuclear DNA test matching Dacre to Carmen Smith that was done on the root tissue of a single hair. The problem, Hampikian says, is none of the hairs recovered from the crime scene had any roots. There were hairs taken from the body, and they were all clearly indicated on the reports as having no root. That's something you could do with the naked eye, and of course, the expert at the time used a microscope. Are you 100% sure the original hair had no root? The records all state that. So somehow it arrives at this laboratory and it's a hair with a root. There's real problems with that piece of evidence. It was a serious challenge to the state's key piece of evidence.

And Dacre once again connected the evidence to Lottie Spencer, a liar, he said, who had ruined his life in the most treacherous way. And they would never have seized those hands if she had made all these false allegations against me. She derailed the murder investigation by making all these false allegations. For Lottie, all of the fear and hurt from her darkest days came rushing back every time Dacre mentioned her name. He was enjoying it, like he had control again.

And that made me feel, like, really weak. Jesse Evans asked the jurors not to focus on Lottie and to think about another woman when they started their deliberations. Carmen Smith's body was laid to rest, but I assure you it was not in peace. After he took his seat, Prosecutor Evans was anxious, uncertain what the jury would do. We were really holding our whole case together with two hairs, two hairs from the victim's body. And if there's a plausible explanation for how those hairs come back with his DNA results, if there's an explanation for that, our case is no longer viable. It took the jury just three and a half hours to reach a verdict. We, the jury, found the defendant, Waseem Dacre, guilty as to count one, malice, murder.

Guilty of the murder of 30-year-old Carmen Smith. You know, you go all these years thinking that he got away with it, and he didn't. At Dacre's sentencing, the state called just one witness, Nick Smith, who was determined to face his attacker one last time. I just kind of had to not let him defeat me, in a way. When Marcin Dacre took my mother's life and stabbed me, my life was put on hold. Nick struggled to hold back tears.

No longer will someone other than me control my life and interrupt my thoughts. He's finally caught, and I'm finally free. I love you now. I never wanted to use what happened as any sort of crutch or let it get in the way. I did the best I could to that if she was still here, I think she'd be proud. The judge then delivered Dacre's sentence, life in prison plus 47 years. But a defiant Dacre refused to sign the documents for his sentence. It's typical of a coward that you would act the way you're acting.

And that's what you are, a coward. Case closed. Justice for Carmen and Nick Smith. And the victory Lottie had wanted so badly. But the story was far from over. Something happened at the end of the trial that would come to haunt Lottie. Something that would lead her to realize there was still unfinished, an unbelievable business in her saga with Waseem Dacre. Coming up.

A final verdict? Yes. The final chapter? Not even close. A stunning confession is about to turn this case around. I couldn't let it go. I have a conscience. I have to live with me. When Dateline continues. Take him back. Waseem Dacre had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. It looked like he was out of Lottie Spencer's life, finally and forever. It was very emotional, but just so good. So very good. Do you feel free? Finally free? I feel like a lot of weight has been lifted, and I'm going to close this chapter and just go on with my life in a positive way.

That was Lottie in 2012. She told us she had closed that chapter, but it turns out she didn't, not by a long shot. In fact, within a year, she had turned this story completely upside down with astonishing revelations. We sat down with her again to hear her new version of things. So did not expect to be sitting here talking to you again? No. It's a major turn of events. Yes, there has been. It all began with a bombshell. Mr. Dacre and I had a consensual sexual relationship. Yes, Lottie now says in the mid-90s she had an ongoing sexual relationship with Waseem Dacre. That he wasn't really her stalker. He was her lover. It was something she had flat out denied for 17 years.

If what you're saying is true, you lied to the district attorney. You lied in open court to the jury. You lied to me. There are no words to describe just how very morsel I am. What I did was wrong. I am taking 100% full responsibility for what I've done. The damage I have caused this man and his family is, there's nothing I can do to take it back. Nothing.

Lottie now says she lied under oath about the sex and about many of the stalking charges she'd made against Dacre. Did Waseem threaten you? Never. Your life? No. Did he threaten anyone's life around you? No.

Are you in love with Waseem Dacre? No, I never was in love with Mr. Dacre. And you're not today? No. But Lottie says even though she and Dacre were in a relationship, she still feared him, and until recently, genuinely believed he was a murderer. I was terrified of him. That was no lie.

Those emotions were real. I've had the nightmares. I've lived in that fear. She says that fear drove her to lie to put Dacre behind bars. But the euphoria she felt after the verdict started to sour. She couldn't stop thinking about something prosecutor Jesse Evans said during the trial. I learned during the closing arguments that Carmen's lifeless body was wrapped up in five layers of bedding, and I was shocked. And I started to get pretty scared at that moment because I had given Carmen two blankets just before her death.

They were blankets that Lottie now says she and Dacre had slept in together. Mr. Dacre used those blankets on a number of occasions. I mean, he was welcome in my home and we were friends and he'd spent the night and clearly I knew that his DNA could have been on those blankets. Remember, Carmen had been found under several layers of bedding. If one of Lottie's blankets was among them, it could explain how Dacre's hair got on Carmen's body. This isn't a maybe. This is a woman who's risking perjury charges,

who's turning against her own self-interest. This is a woman who can explain this evidence. You have to take this seriously. Dr. Hampikian, who had been a paid expert witness for Dacre, continued working on the case for free in his role as director of the Idaho Innocence Project. He believed Lottie's story was a game changer. Now there's a logical explanation of how the hairs got there. This is one of those places where you just have to shake the system and say, wait a minute, this is so obvious. He didn't get a fair trial. I couldn't let it go.

I have a conscience. I have to live with me. So Lottie decided to come forward. And after filing several affidavits with the court, Judge Mary Staley granted Dacre a hearing for a new trial. But Jesse Evans wasn't buying Lottie's new story. That's because while he was preparing for Dacre's hearing, he believed he'd found that story's real source. There's a real issue here. Something is going on behind the scenes that we weren't aware of. Coming up, another revelation. Inside a prison cell, 4,000 pages of secrets. Do you think Waseem Dacre is

manipulating Lottie from prison? For almost two decades, here's how Lottie Spencer talked about Waseem Dacre. Waseem Dacre is evil. He's pure evil. He's a monster. But now, she calls him a victim. You know what? I messed up really bad. It's despicable. Lottie's reversal

was astonishing. After Carmen Smith's murder, she built a new life, living as a single parent in a new home. But when she recanted her testimony, she put all of that at risk. How worried are you right now that you could go to jail for perjury? I'm very worried. I know that I'm facing prison time. And there will be severe penalty for what I do, and I don't want to be ripped away from my little boy. I have everything to lose. A year after Dacre's conviction, the hearing began on the motion for a new trial.

Dacre, again representing himself, called Dr. Hampikian, the DNA expert, to the stand. If a man sleeps in the blanket, can his hair transfer to the blanket? Yes. And if a man has sex in the blanket, can his hair transfer to a blanket? Yes. Dr. Hampikian laid the scientific foundation, but Dacre's chances really hinged on Lottie. Next witness. A hush came over the courtroom as a nervous Lottie made her way to the stand and swore to tell the truth. Just prior to Carmen Smith's murder, I gave her two blankets, blankets that I knew that you used in my Roswell apartment. She acknowledged having a sexual relationship with Dacre, and then Lottie's old list of Dacre's abuses started to topple like dominoes. Did the defendant ever threaten you with a handgun?

Never. Did I ever physically threaten to kill you or harm you? Never. Did I ever steal your bras, panties, or hang them on your doorknob? No. There are going to be people who will see this and think you're lying now and that you were really telling the truth before. What reason do I have? I have everything to lose.

I'm doing it because this is right. In a bristling cross-examination, prosecutor Jesse Evans portrayed Lottie as a troubled, unreliable woman. Did you admit to us that you had some mental issues that you were dealing with? I said I was suffering anxiety and depression. Evans' next move was stunning. He presented evidence that he said explained Lottie's incredible reversal. Letters confiscated from Dacre's prison cell. 4,000 pages

of correspondence between the convicted murderer and the woman who testified against him. I sent him daily devotions, Bible verses, encouraging cards. I sent him a lot of information, case files. I actually feel like I'm his personal secretary in a way. It turns out Lottie has actually been helping with Dacre's appeal. He's been giving her research assignments. She looks up cases, prints documents, mails them to prison, and then waits for his next request. Do you think Waseem Dacre is manipulating Lottie from prison? There's no doubt. By sending those letters to him, a convicted murderer, a sociopath, she's opened the door.

She's allowed him an opportunity to get back into her life, and we already know that he has a history of manipulating her. Is he manipulating you right now into doing exactly what he wants? Absolutely not. This is a repentant woman who is very remorseful and very sorry for what she has caused. But Evans says those letters tell another story. He says Lottie knew about the bedding and hair evidence long before Dacre's murder trial started and never said a word about giving any blankets to Carmen. It wasn't until after she started secretly communicating with the defendant that she then made this broad assertion that, well, I had given some blankets to Carmen. The problem with that is that I challenged her on it.

Describe the blankets. Tell me which ones they were. She couldn't remember. So there's no smoking gun or smoking blanket in this case? Absolutely. I don't think there are any blankets. I don't think there's any evidence of that. On the stand, Lottie not only recanted her testimony from two trials, but described the incredible lengths she's willing to go to help set Dacre free. So you believe so strongly in this,

you applied for a second mortgage to help in Wasim's defense, and you even took out a life insurance policy with naming Wasim as the beneficiary? My daughter is the beneficiary. She would get a third, my son would get a third, and Dacre would get a third. But yeah, I would mortgage my house, and I would hire him the best defense that he could possibly get. Despite all of Lottie's efforts, the fundraising, the correspondence with Dacre, the legal research, Judge Staley didn't buy her new story. She rejected Dacre's motion for a new trial. The right results were reached for the right reasons.

I know that we've reached for the right reasons. I know that we've done things the right way, and I feel confident in the defendant's guilt. The ruling included a harsh rebuke of Lottie. The judge said she lacked credibility, and her new testimony appeared to have been concocted by the defendant. But Lottie seems unbowed, ready to carry on her fight. Somebody needs to stand up and say,

wait a second, justice was not served in this case. And on that point, Lottie's not alone. Jason Treadway, Dacre's shadow attorney during trial, agrees. The circumstances of how Dacre's hair came to be on that bedding, what kind of more pivotal evidence could there possibly be? I believe the man deserves a new trial. How can you believe anything Lottie says, though, now? I think when you have a man's liberty and life at stake, you have to believe what she says. How can you at least not allow 12 different people to hear her version now

and let them decide if it's true or not? They were an unlikely couple when they met, and were even more unlikely partners when Lottie sided with Dacre after his conviction. Are you ever going to give up on Wasim? Are you in this till all appeals are exhausted? Yes. I played a role of an innocent man being falsely convicted for crimes he did not do. I've got to make it right. I have no doubt that Wasim Daker is a cold-blooded killer and that justice has been served with his conviction. I certainly hope that the Supreme Court agrees. If they disagree, guess what we do tomorrow? We try Wasim Daker and

we get him convicted based on our evidence. It doesn't matter what Lottie says. This case is about Carmen. This case is about Nick. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.