Dateline NBC - The Undoing

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

After Oregon mother Annastasia “Annie” Hester is stabbed to death in her home, investigators uncover personal details that point to multiple suspects and possible motives. Josh Mankiewicz reports.

I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, a home full of friends, family, and lovers. Which one was a killer? 911, how can I help you? I'm starting to feel it. Do you need an ambulance? Yes! A break-in in the middle of the night, stabbed multiple times. I can see blood everywhere.

It is a horrific crime scene. One of the scariest cases I've ever seen. Annie participated in pirate parties or dungeon parties. So we're way past love triangle here. This is like love trapezoid. Love spiderweb. I ended up cheating on her. I'm not very good at this relationship thing. There was a lot of anger. Love Spiderweb.

There was a lot of anger. It started going like sideways real quick. They agreed to a sum of $10,000 to $50,000 to commit the murder. Any chance that Matthew could have gone anywhere sometime during the night? Oh God, every time he moves, he wakes me up. Somebody left that home to commit the murder. Can you tell who's driving? Nope. If I had known I could have done something, maybe that woman would be alive.

Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The Undoing. It was June 2016, around 3.30 a.m., and a car was roaring down a highway next to the Columbia River. Minutes before, the police detective at the wheel, Aaron Turnage, was, like most of us in the middle of the night, dead asleep. And I got a phone call asking me to respond in. It was an assault that had occurred, and this was likely going to turn into a murder investigation. Detective Turnage lived in Washington state. His job was across the river in the Portland, Oregon suburb of Gresham. And that was the scene of the crime. If I'm getting the call, that means I'm going to be the one leading the investigation. I'm trying to think what I can do today to assist me five, six, eight, 10 years down the road to make sure that we have a successful

prosecution. That's the way the criminal justice system works today. You're thinking about not only investigation, but trial and then eventual appeal. You have to start thinking about that on the front end, because if you don't, you'll never get there on the back end. As it turned out, his thoughts that night foretold the future. And 30 minutes after he'd been startled awake, Detective Turnage arrived at the crime scene, a ground floor unit in the East Park Apartments. Paramedics had already taken the victim to the hospital, a woman in her mid-30s.

Her name was Anastasia Hester, known as Annie. When you get there, what do the first officers who were on scene tell you? They told me that the front door was unlocked, and when they went inside, they immediately saw bloody shoe prints. Carefully, those officers sidestepped the shoe prints. And they could see Annie laying down on the floor towards the rear of the apartment. When police arrive, Annie's still alive. Correct.

So how to get Annie to a hospital without contaminating that certain-to-be key evidence near the front door? Because those footprints say the killer left through the front door. Correct. The determination was made that they're going to take Annie out of the rear sliding door of this apartment. So the next set of responding officers tore down a six-foot wooden fence, and they were able to extricate Annie out and get her out to medical care. It was there, behind the apartment, that the detective saw a back window to Annie's place. On the ground is a cinder block, and it appeared that the cinder block was used to gain access to that elevated window. The window led to the bedroom of a child.

The detective went inside. You see a child's bedroom, but no child. Correct. The initial thought was a kidnapping or an abduction that had occurred. So there was immediate efforts to try to identify who the child was and then try to determine if the child was safe or not. Detective Turnage quickly made some calls. The girl was Alice. She was Annie's daughter and just four years old. That's when we were able to identify that Matthew Hester was her father, and we started looking to try to contact him and find out if he had his daughter. Some good news, they found Matt.

He had Alice at his place in Portland. This was like a custody-sharing arrangement, and that night was Matt's night to have Alice. That is correct. Once you realize that Alice is not in any danger, now what? So now we have to start taking a look at the scene. The apartment had only one bedroom, the little girls. Annie, it turned out, had been found on the living room floor next to a sofa bed,

where by the looks of it, she had been sleeping when she was attacked. It is a horrific and very, obviously very violent crime scene. While you're examining the scene, you get a call that Annie didn't survive. That's correct. Annie Hester had been murdered at only 34. And steps from where Annie had been found on the floor. The detectives saw a knife, a folding pocket knife,

and near the kitchen, two more knives, bigger knives. It looked as if they had once resided in the butcher block in Annie's kitchen. I would guess that in a murder like that, you might expect to find a murder weapon, but not three of them. Correct. It's the only time I've seen it where a killer's went into the kitchen and got two butcher knives to finish the stabbing. It was an assault so savage that a fact the detective would later learn still troubles him to this day. What does it say to you when the murderer tries to cut the victim's head off? The amount of passion and intensity in this crime is very, very unique. The rage, the bloody

shoe prints, the knives, the cinder block. So much evidence to consider. Using the cinder block to take the air conditioner out and go in that way suggests that Annie maybe didn't know her killer, or at least didn't let them in through the front door. I agree, yes. That kind of fights the whole rage-passion angle. I mean, somebody random, less likely to have all this fury against Annie. How so? A murder committed with that much passion, that says personal. But somebody who goes in through a window, that suggests not personal. Yeah, it could be random. You know, maybe they were invited on one day, but not invited the second. So the second day they came in through the window to commit the act of violence. Before long, Detective Turnage left the scene to hold a

briefing with his team at the Gresham Police Department. That's when he heard the recording of the 911 call that had led police to the apartment. The call was not from a neighbor, not from a family member. It came from the victim herself. A 911 call capturing the last words of Annie Hester. When we come back, a desperate and dying Annie begs for help. 911. Oh, I'm so afraid to be in here. Do you need an ambulance? Yes. I don't think there are words

to describe the level of intensity in that 911 call. And the killer leaves a terrifying calling card. Some sort of message? Could have been, that's what we were thinking. Detective Aaron Turnage did not have to go far from Annie Hester's apartment to gather with his team of investigators. The crime scene is only about 10 blocks from the Gresham Police Department. It's in the heart of Gresham. It's close to schools. It's close to restaurants and businesses. This is not a typical place where we see violent crimes erupt in the city of Gresham.

And it didn't take long for news of a murder on uncommon ground to spread across the Portland area. Police say the woman stabbed at the apartments was in her 30s. I was just crying and howling and, you know, just like an animal. Nicole Palazuelos considered Annie her best friend. They worked together at a call center where Annie trained Nicole. You were a little scared of her at first. Yeah, she was intimidating at first because if you didn't do your job well, she would call you out on it. I never met anybody who could do so many jobs at once and do them all well. Annie had always had that take-charge attitude as the big sister in her family.

Her parents divorced when she was just seven. As she grew, Annie developed a reputation for reliability. She worked at an after-school program for children before starting at the call center, where she rose to supervisor. In 2008, when she was 26, she married Matt Hester. He worked as a salesman at a wireless store. Matt loved video games. Half-sister Tanya and sister-in-law Diana say Annie was focused on a more serious game. She had told my husband that he was winning the game of life because he was the first to move into a house, to buy a new car, to get married, to have a kid.

Annie saw this as some kind of competition. Yeah. She felt, being the oldest, that those things should come to her first naturally. And when you feel that way, that's when people settle. Yeah. Annie Hester was not the first woman in history to settle and marry a man her family wasn't crazy about. And, at least for a while, it did work.

She wanted to feel like she was staying with everybody else. And three years into the marriage, Annie finally was. When Annie and Matt had a little girl. Did having the baby live up to the expectation of having the baby for Annie? She was ecstatic having Alice. Her world revolved around Alice. The same could not be said for her relationship with her husband. Less than a year after Alice was born, Matt and Annie divorced,

and Annie became a single mom. She'd always make sure to go and get their photos done for Easter and Christmas. They always had cute outfits and her hair done up. Sounds like she was really devoted to her daughter. Oh, she was. Matt and Annie worked out a peaceful custody arrangement with Alice. And in addition to her nine-to-five weekday job, Annie started a side job as a face painter with her best friend, Nicole. We were working together on the weekends that she didn't have her daughter, and she worked so hard, and she really worked every opportunity that she could to make the extra money. She did such a great job. Along with Annie's life, that all ended early one morning in June 2016.

It was now Detective Turnage's job to find out who'd killed Annie and why. In the first few hours of daylight, officers from the scene were reporting back to the police department with what they'd learned. There were, as it turned out, plenty of potential witnesses. We found multiple neighbors saying essentially the same thing. About 11 p.m., they hear sounds of women screaming. Somebody else hears a thud on the outside of the building directly below. Another witness hears what sounds like a conversation and moaning, and that person actually turned up their bathroom fan and turned on the music to drown out the sound. And four hours later. At about three in the morning, another set of witnesses are hearing a woman screaming, a door slam, a car leave. Okay,

two things from that. One, nobody calls 911. Not one neighbor called 911. Secondly, so this attack took four hours? Yeah, about three and a half. So this isn't just a murder. This is torture. This is torture. And then Turnage finally heard who did call for help. You may well find it wrenchingly hard to listen to. Detective Turnage definitely did. I don't think there are words to describe the level of intensity in that 911 call. That's because the call was made

by Annie at 2.59 a.m. It's a chilling six-minute long cry for help, made shortly after her attacker left those bloody shoe prints behind on the way out. I will be born 1st February. Somebody try. Yeah. Where is this person at now? I'm not here. Do you need an ambulance? Yes. No.

Do you know the name of the person that did this to you? No. When you hear that she doesn't know this person, what's that say to you? I believe there's an amount of surprise. When the attack took place, I know that Annie is sleeping. And if she's taken by surprise, it makes sense to me she can't identify who her attacker is. Are you bleeding a lot? No. attackers. Are you bleeding a lot? At Annie's autopsy, Turnage understood why Annie was in such pain. There were more than 60 stab wounds, some as deep as eight inches. And strangely,

something was carved into her shoulder. It was a V and X and then another V. And that's not a Roman numeral, but that's what it looked like. Some sort of message? Some sort of signature? Could have been, and that's what we were thinking. One of the things that haunts me about this case is just the level of pain

that Annie had to endure for three and a half hours, and still Annie has the wherewithal to fight for herself, call 911, and give out the information to get law enforcement there. It was time for Detective Turnage to start getting face-to-face with those who might know who'd done this to Annie. Coming up, a two-timing ex-husband

is always a good place to start. Will Matt's current wife vouch for him? When Dateline continues. Start close. Close to the victim. That's in every homicide detective's Bible of murder investigation. And since Annie wasn't married, Detective Turnage started with the next best thing. Her former husband, Matt Hester. Matt was 35, but as you can see, he moved as if he were much older. Thanks, he maintained, to some undiagnosed medical problems that had left him in nearly constant pain and unable to work for a living.

When he comes in, how does he strike you? Matt struck me as an actor, and he needed an Academy Award for the acting job that he did when he showed up at the police department that day. And so I guess, obviously I told you at the house that your ex-wife is deceased. But you didn't say how or anything. We'll talk about that in a minute or two. If you think Matt seemed a little disinterested in learning how the mother of his daughter had been killed, you are not alone. Minutes later, another detective told Matt what had happened to Annie and about her 911 call. She said that she had been stabbed. Officers responded down there. She had been injured.

She was transported to the hospital. And she was pronounced dead at the hospital. And at this point, we're investigating this as homicide. Did your ex-wife say anything about having any problems with anyone? I don't talk about her personal life. Okay. Then, as detectives do, they started locking Matt into a story about his history with Annie.

When did you and Ann first meet? We first met in 1999 through a mutual friend. Not long after that meeting, there was a wedding. Not between Matt and Annie. He married someone else. That union lasted just a couple of years. So it was less than two years after his first divorce that, in 2008, Matt, admittedly on the rebound, married Annie.

And then, three years later, in 2011, after Alice was born, this marriage too was dissolving. I don't know if she's any other. I'm not very good at this relationship thing. I'm not good at this relationship thing. Is that kind of candor unusual in a police interview? Particularly when the person you're talking about has now been murdered. It is, yeah. He was good at one thing.

By many accounts, Matt was a loving father to Alice. I love being a dad. And for about two years after the divorce, Matt and Annie amicably shared custody of their daughter. Then in 2014, Matt married for the third time to a woman named Angela. She had children of her own. It wasn't long before a custody and support battle began over Alice. How are your feelings towards Anne? I'm mostly indifferent. I just, I want to deal with her as little as possible. Feelings are one thing.

For the moment, police had more immediate questions. So what were you and Angela doing last night? Sleeping. Okay. Do you know what time you went to bed? I usually get in the bed around 10 o'clock. Okay. And was Angela with you, or was she staying up doing other things? She was with me a bit.

They had four children under their roof. There was Alice, who was there part-time, as well as three children from Angela's previous marriages. Those kids were a handful, Matt said, and he and Angela were worn out. She also hadn't been feeling well. Have a seat right there. In another room just down the hall, Angela was being questioned. Like Matt, Angela told detectives they were in bed by 10 p.m., although she said they were both awake.

Matt scrolling on his phone and Angela watching TV. I was on the verge of falling asleep to some criminal minds. When you guys are sleeping, who gets the inside and who gets the outside? watching TV. I was on the verge of falling asleep to some criminal minds. When you guys are sleeping, who gets the inside and who gets the outside? Matt's against the law. Any chance that Matthew could have gone anywhere sometime during the night? Oh God, every time he moves, he wakes me up. So it's not a possibility. And I sleep like literally right up against him in his arms.

If he would have gotten up out of bed, you would know it. Most definitely. When the interviews were over, Angela and Matt both willingly handed over their cell phones because police said they wanted to download GPS and other information. Matt's alibi is Angela and Angela's alibi is Matt. Correct. That's not much, but it was the middle of the night. So police wondered who else could alibi Angela and Matt the night of the murder.

And it turned out there were plenty of people who could. Coming up. Three's Company. It's complicated. That's a thing in Portland? It was in that house. Because that's kind of weird. It's complicated. That's a thing in Portland? It was in that house. Because it's kind of weird. It's not something you see every day.

In an ordinary household, a husband might offer an alibi for a wife, and a wife might offer an alibi for her husband. And only children, unreliable witnesses for the most part, would be left. But none of that was true in the rather unorthodox household of Matt and Angela Hester. So they had roommates, and you spoke with the roommates? Yeah, we spoke to all the roommates there. All three roommates to be exact. It's like a sitcom, except it's not funny. Yeah, our relationship is a little weird. Roommate number one, Aaron McCraw. It's a good idea to keep your scorecards handy, because Aaron was Angela's husband before she married Matt. Now he's her ex and the father of two of her children. And Aaron was a tenant of

his ex and her next. That's a thing in Portland? It was in that house. Because that's kind of weird. It's not something you see every day. Aaron told police he crashed at Matt and Angela's most of the time, for lack of a better way to put it, when he didn't have a better offer. Lucky for him that the night of the murder, Aaron said he did have a better offer. That is. You were staying at your girlfriend's? I was... You were staying at home? I was not girlfriend's? I was at my girlfriend's.

So Aaron is basically no help to you. He wasn't there. Correct. You might want to remember Aaron McCraw. You'll be seeing his face again. Roommate number two, what does he say? He was out the evening of the murder and that he came home and he saw Matt and Angela laying in their bed. At what time did he see Matt and Angela in bed together? He thought it was around midnight. And it was around 11 o'clock that the first witnesses said they heard screams coming from Annie's apartment. Correct, about 11, 11.15. So, if that roommate's telling the truth, he alibis Matt and Angela at least for the beginning of that attack. And presumably, if they weren't there at the beginning, they weren't there at the middle or end. That's correct.

And there was also a third possible alibi witness. I live with Matt and Angela. A third roommate. Her name? Karina Walters. Karina had been Angela's best friend since high school. After a divorce of her own, even with a decent job, Portland's soaring rent prices had left Karina homeless until Angela invited her to live in their garage. So on the night of the murder, the family's only vehicle, this silver Mazda, was parked just a few feet from where Karina slept. You ever hear them coming and going? Yeah. Like I said, I live in the garage and the garage door

is really thin. So if their car starts up, I don't know if you haven't heard their car. Of course not. It makes this really god-awful rattling noise when it starts up. Okay. And if they were to go anywhere, it would make it. I'm pretty positive it would wake me up, but they never go anywhere. Did Matt leave last night at all? No.

Did Angel leave at all? No. What's more, Karina told police she'd used the bathroom between 3 and 4 a.m. and on the way there, she had to pass by the bed in the living room where Matt and Angela slept. They were asleep. Angela snores. If Angela or Matt were responsible for this and you knew it, I would turn them in in a heartbeat. Okay. You wouldn't protect them in any way? No. In most police interviews, that would be that. Except in this one, investigators kept going and

asked Karina one more question. One informed by some digging police had already done. Are Matt and Angela into threesomes, groupies, girl and girl, guy and guy, anything like that, or is it all pretty normal? It's very normal with them. Most of us have our own definition of what normal is. Annie had her own. I just know that the guy she was seeing was in a relationship

and Ann was in a relationship with both of them, the guy and the girl. So Anne was dating both the female and the man. Correct. The circle of those closest to Annie was widening. And oh yes, there was one more thing that was mentioned. Pirates. Coming up. Pirates love knives. I've heard. And the suspect pool was about to explode. We learned that Annie participated in pirate parties or dungeon parties.

So we're way past love triangle here. This is like love trapezoid. Love spiderweb, yes. When Dateline continues. While investigating the murder of Annie Hester, Gresham, Oregon, police detective Aaron Turnage, soon found himself in a plethora of polyamory. And the more witnesses his team talked with, the deeper police found themselves in the rabbit hole that was Annie's personal life. Because maybe the devil was in the details. One of the things that happens in murder investigations is that everybody's secrets get laid bare. Did anything that came out about Annie shock you? No, I knew most of it already.

She shared plenty of details and information with me that I didn't really need to know, but it's like, okay, cool. She felt like she could tell me pretty much anything, and she told me a lot. Police soon learned Annie explored the full polyamory experience. Multiple relationships, multiple partners. She wasn't shy about it or ashamed. And while investigators did have to explore some previously unheard of kinky fetishes, the primary result of learning about Annie's private life was that detectives had more and more leads to chase down. So she was involved with a couple, a man and a woman, and some other people.

Correct. And she was in that kink world. Correct. And she had an ex with whom she shared a child. So we're way past love triangle here. This is like love trapezoid. This is like love rhombus. Love spiderweb, yes. And you got to talk to all those people.

Correct. The first people on the list? That polyamorous couple with whom Annie had had a relationship. They asked us not to show their faces. They lived 90 minutes south of Portland and were part of a group Annie belonged to and loved. A group that took part in role play as pirates. Honestly, I was unaware that pirate things were a thing. Wait a minute, so they all got together and dressed up as pirates?

They did, and Annie was a part of that. You know, we learned that there are people that live their lives as pirates, so we had to explore that a little bit. And investigators did explore that, keeping in mind how Annie had been stabbed to death with three different knives. Pirates love knives. I've heard. There's a subset of the pirate world that deals with, it's a kink or a sexual world.

So people will take knives and they will use them during sex acts, we learned that Annie participated in pirate parties or dungeon parties. And collectively, when we spoke to all of those people, it was pretty clear Annie was not into the knife play. That became pretty relevant pretty quickly. She had dabbled in it, but it wasn't her thing. What's more, detectives soon learned that husband and wife Annie had been seeing had broken up with her six weeks before the murder. There had been tears, but no hard feelings. That couple had an alibi for the night of the murder. They had an alibi. They were quickly eliminated from suspicion in this case. Detectives were not just looking into Annie's personal life.

They also had to consider where the crime occurred. The killer had entered by scaling a fence, then standing on a cinder block to remove an air conditioner, then climbing into a window in the back of Annie's apartment. Just beyond that fence, there was a sidewalk, a busy road. And on the other side of the road, a heavily traveled path called the Springwater Trail. How long before you guys are out walking the trail? Immediately. It's one of our first searches that we do with a lot of searchers over several days.

The detective wondered, could this have been a random killing, a robbery? After all, on that 911 call Annie made before she died, she'd said a couple of times that she didn't know her killer. Did you recognize this person at all? No. We had thought, like, maybe a transient, or she lived right off of the Springwater Trail. Lots of homeless. This is Karina Walters, Angela's best friend who lived

in the garage at Matt and Angela's place, who told police she would definitely have heard the family's silver Mazda pull away if it had been taken from the driveway the night of the murder. She says the random robber from the trail angle was the prevailing theory over at their place. That was honestly what we thought. The air conditioner had been removed. Somebody came in, killed her, took a bunch of stuff, and left. So was that what had happened? It was a theory the detective had to consider.

This could have been a robbery or burglary gone bad. Annie might have been collateral damage in a robbery. Okay, but a burglar doesn't stab you that many times and carve mysterious letters into you. Yeah, not typically. I would agree. Not typically. Is it outside the realm of possibility? No, it's not. Anything missing from the apartment? Not that we could tell.

All the big stuff that you would go for, the jewelry, the phones, the wallet, the purse, all that stuff was still there. So we were pretty quickly able to rule out the idea of a botched burglary or botched robbery. No one deserves to die the way Annie did. And no matter which trails or avenues detectives explored, they found no evidence that any of the choices Annie made in her personal life or anywhere else had anything to do with her death. Except maybe in one area, her choice of friends. Coming up, Matt issues a challenge to detectives if you thought i did you were charged nope not necessarily a thing to do with her death

about 12 hours after police first interviewed annie hester's ex-husband Matt and his current wife Angela, the couple was back at the Gresham Police Department for a late-night round two. Matt was still displaying difficulty walking from those unexplained medical problems he'd told police about. Detective Turnage thought they represented something other than illness. You're convinced that's for your benefit. He's not actually in pain. I believe it's laying a foundation that he's incapable of committing such a violent act because he can barely move across our waiting room. Sure, Matt and Angela had two roommates who'd alibied them and said they were home during the night of Annie's murder.

That didn't quite do it. To detectives, Matt was still a person of the strongest possible interest. I mean, obviously, we've got to consider all possibilities here. And I'm sure you've seen TV. When we have situations like this, you know, everybody points to the ex-husband did it. I want to help you guys. Because... Sorry.

I think I'm worried about my daughter. I hear you. Matt, if you had anything to do with Ann's death, I need to know about it right now. I did not. I would never do anything that would endanger my child. Okay. and I'm glad to hear you say that because that tells me what kind of parent you are. Is there any reason why I find your DNA involved in that murder scene? No. Detectives asked Matt to take off his shirt,

knowing that if he'd been involved in such a violent stabbing, his body would show some sign of it. They found nothing. Then they asked about those bloody shoe prints, presumably left by the killer fleeing Annie's apartment. Someone who wore a size 9 1⁄2 or 10. Do you know what kind of shoes you have? These are boots. Yeah. What size?

11 1⁄2 wide. Okay. That didn't fit either. Nonetheless, Detective Turnage tried a tactic you may be familiar with, suggesting to Matt that police had more than they really did, and trying to rattle him. I need to let you know that my investigation clearly shows that you're responsible for Ann's death,

and you're involved in it intimately. Well, then you would have charged me. No, no, I wouldn't. If you thought I did, you would charge me. Nope, not necessarily. I had nothing to do with her death. He made the comment in the interview, if you had enough on me, you would arrest me right now,

which I thought was a very, very arrogant comment. So that was a little bit of a red flag for me. Do innocent people say to you, historically, well, if you had enough, you'd arrest me? Not at all. They say, you're crazy. I had nothing to do with this. I couldn't kill anybody. They're strong denials.

Absolutely have the wrong person. They get mad. I would expect anger and frustration. Those are the signs of a truthful person. That told me as the investigator and the detective, I need to dig a little bit deeper and look a little bit more into this conversation. Down the hall, detectives were also questioning Matt's current wife, Angela. She wasn't feeling well, she said, but she was willing to answer questions about Annie's murder.

I'm just going to keep my eyes shut and my head down. Okay. How did it make you feel when you heard about her being killed? Shocked. Non-believing. Extremely sad because Alice had lost her mom. Then, as detectives once again took Angela through the timeline of Annie's murder, she volunteered something that made her interrogators sit up straight. Did you guys sleep well? What happened? Did you get through the night? For the most part, we slept just fine until my dogs started whining. Guess what time Angela said the dogs woke her up? Remember, neighbors heard screams and Annie called 911, all about 3 a.m.

Do you remember looking at a clock? I half opened my eye to look at the clock slightly and see that it was around 3. Okay. Did you actually end up having to get out of bed to let them out? Yeah, I got up, walked downstairs, put their leashes on, took them potty, came back upstairs, put them in their kennels. Mm-hmm. And then I went to go potty and ended up puking and shitting myself at the same time.

Oh, that's horrible. I'm sorry. And that's why I called Matt to help me and he came and helped me. We took a shower to help get the poop off and rinse some of the sweat off of me because apparently I was sweating. So now, according to Angela, they're both showering at, coincidentally, the time the murder was committed. That's not suspicious. No, not at all. And it wasn't suspicious when I spoke to Matt and asked Matt about that. And Matt said he woke up at 3 a.m. and heard her go out and let

the dogs out, but he never got out of bed. Matt didn't remember it, says he never got out of bed. Angela's saying she got out of bed and Matt helped her take a shower, so things just weren't adding up. The focus was narrowing. Annie's polyamorous relationships hadn't generated any murderous rage. Her friends in the pirate community had no intention of making her walk the plank. And this didn't feel like a burglary or something random. Well, thought Detective Turnage, now we're getting somewhere. Coming up, was money behind the tug of war over little Alice? It sounds like Matt and his wife saw Alice as almost like an ATM card. Yeah, a meal ticket.

When Dateline continues. A week after Annie Hester's murder, family and friends gathered to say goodbye at this funeral home in Gresham, Oregon. And among the mourners... We had 10, 12 detectives scattered throughout the property there. Detectives took this video of Annie's four-year-old daughter Alice, there with her stepmother Angela and father Matt. The couple considered by police and by Annie's family to be prime suspects. It had to be strange to see Alice being taken care of by people that

you at least suspected of possibly having some involvement in her murder. It was hard knowing that she was with somebody that we didn't want her to be with, and there was very little that we could do at that point in time, but just hope that she's safe. Inside the chapel, more detectives, including one undercover officer who sat right next to Matt and Angela and who made a game-changing observation. One of the things that the detective noticed on the back of Angela's right hand, she has a about a one and a half inch cut on the, you know, top side of the webbing between the

thumb and the index finger. Investigators who'd so far focused more on Matt now had another direction. Did seeing Angela with that cut on her hand at the funeral change the level of suspicion that she was under? Absolutely, it did. So then what would make Angela angry enough to drive across town in the middle of the night and torture Annie for hours before killing her? And how would Angela, and presumably Matt, benefit from Annie's death? Well, therein lies a tale.

Police soon found out that Matt and Annie had an amicable divorce in 2012 and shared custody of Alice. Matt paid about $200 a month in child support. Two years later, when Matt met Angela and they married, the good relationship continued. Karina Walters, who lived with Matt and Angela. Like, they all had this great relationship all together. Like, we took vacations together. What changed? I'm not 100%, but, like, the only catalyst that I've been able to put together

is that Annie wanted her mom to watch Alice more often, and Matt didn't want to give up that time. That doesn't seem like a huge issue, but it provoked a huge problem. Yeah. So then there ended up being the custody word being thrown back and forth. As often happens, a tug-of-war involving a child ended up in court. Was the custody battle nasty?

It got pretty nasty. It got bad. How bad? Angela soon called Oregon's Department of Human Services to report Annie for child neglect. In response, Annie sent this email to a friend, writing, and I'll paraphrase, I just cannot comprehend what I did to deserve this level of... In my life, I am so done dealing with this... The state found no evidence of neglect. Then Angela started taking a larger role in the child exchanges after Matt suddenly claimed to remember that Annie had abused him during their marriage. That seem reasonable to you? No, it

wasn't. And really what it was, was they were trying to build this case so that Matt could get Alice. Matt stopped paying child support. And Annie, whom friends said had initially sought a resolution everyone could live with, now dug in her heels.

In an email, Annie called Matt antagonistic, uncooperative, and more. As detectives dug deeper into the case file, they discovered one possible reason Matt and Angela seemed desperate to gain custody of Alice. And it was this. Neither Matt nor Angela had a job. Matt said he considered himself a professional parent. He and Angela received benefits from their children. Their children were being diagnosed with various medical conditions which get state benefits or payouts.

So they reap those benefits to the sum of approximately $2,000 a month total, and that is their payment for being professional parents. And if Matt and Angela saw children as a means of earning money, what would gaining custody of Alice mean for them? Well, detectives soon found out the couple seemed to have plans for Alice, too. A court-ordered custody evaluation found that three-year-old Alice was having some trouble adjusting to going back and forth between two households. That's common for children of divorce. Matt and Angela both said they believed Alice's behavioral problems could be related to bipolar disorder. Annie's lawyers suggested in court filings it was all part of a scheme. More children with

disabilities equaled more money from the state. It sounds like Matt and his wife saw Alice less as his daughter and more as almost like an ATM card. Yeah, a meal ticket. I mean, that was the word that was thrown around at the time. In the end, a judge had no doubts about who was the better parent. Six months before her murder, Annie was awarded full custody of Alice. Matt got something too.

A bill. $29,000 in court and lawyer's fees. And about $13,000 in back child support. The total? A little more than $42,000. Did Annie ever expect to see any of that money? Not really because he didn't work. And if things could get worse for Matt, they soon did. In Oregon, one of the penalties for not paying child support is losing your driver's license. Then, a month before Annie's murder, a warrant was issued for Matt's arrest. What was the reaction to that in the house you were living in? A lot of banging and a lot of screaming. And Angela was crying about how the effing courts

didn't know what they were effing talking about and how are we going to pay this. What I thought was weird was Matt's reaction because there was none. There was nothing. He wasn't even, like he wasn't even paying attention. Really? Angela was furious. He was like, whatever. Yeah, that bothered me. This to me was a, was a dad who gave up, who didn't care anymore. Well, if Matt didn't care, Angela seemed to care more than enough for both of them. In fact, the day of the court judgment, Angela made a remark Karina won't forget. At one point, Angela says, if I killed her, nobody would even miss her. Yeah.

And I was like, okay, you're mad, you're angry, I get it. It's inflammatory, it's a stupid thing to say, but it's not exactly somebody plotting a crime. No. I just thought she was mad. Just blowing off steam. No reason for Karina to call police or mention it to Annie. Was there? Coming up, a killer's car caught on camera. No question that's Matt and Angela's SUV.

No question. Somebody from that house left that home to commit the murder and then returned to that home after the murder. Can you tell who's driving? Nope. Gresham Police Detective Aaron Turnage and his team had solid suspicions about Matt and Angela Hester's possible roles in the murder of Annie Hester. They also had no solid evidence.

That was about to change, starting with a search for security video that night around their home just before 11 p.m. Oh, look at that. Their neighbor had a video camera that recorded the street in front of their house, that camera captured a light-colored or silver SUV coming out of the area of Matt and Angela's driveway. There it was. No question that's Matt and Angela's SUV. There's no question. Can you tell who's driving?

We can't tell who's driving, nope. So this isn't like TV where you can blow it up and see exactly who it is. Enhance, enhance, enhance, zoom. No, it's not like television. Still, for investigators, this was astounding because that silver Mazda SUV had a cameo on each of nine more cameras on its way across Portland to the suburb of Gresham. Video cameras essentially captured that car all the way to the driveway of Annie's apartment. The trip took 26 minutes,

putting the silver Mazda at Annie's at 11.23 p.m., right around the time neighbors reported hearing screams. Then, about four hours later, about 3 a.m., the time of Annie's 911 call reporting her attacker had just left. Do you see that silver Mazda returning to Matt and Angela's house? We do. We were able to follow it, essentially, right back to the very first camera that we started with at the neighbor's house.

The driver, as you can see, turned off the headlights before stopping, apparently trying to sneak the Mazda back into its driveway. Well, there go Matt and Angela's alibis. Indeed. What are you thinking when you're looking at that video? I think that I don't know who the killer is, but somebody from that house left that home to commit the murder and then returned to that home after the murder. So then what about that alibi given by Angela's best friend, Karina, who said from her bed in the garage,

she was certain she would have heard a vehicle start up and drive away. I think that when they pulled out, they didn't start the car. How'd you miss it? How did you not hear it? I don't know. How could I have not known? If I had known, I could have done something. If I had even remotely thought, I could have done something. If you had noticed something, it would have been too late. I don't think you could have saved Annie's life. If I had taken those threats seriously, maybe I could have.

Detective Turnage, as you might guess, has a slightly more cynical explanation. I think she was lying to protect her friend. You don't think she could just be wrong? I don't think she was wrong. Karina's statement of the car is loud, I would have heard it leave and it never left, I think that's a blatant lie. We may never know the truth, but with that damning security camera footage in hand, detectives next started combing through Matt and Angela's cell phones,

which the couple had voluntarily surrendered. There they found another clue, this one about the bloody shoe prints found leading from Annie's apartment. And we were able to take a look at some of the pictures in both of their phones. And we saw that on November 8th, Matt sent Angela a Payless Shoes coupon to save money off of a purchase. About an hour later, Angela sent Matt a picture taken at a shoe store, based on the background, and there were two boots in that picture.

We showed the picture to a manager at Payless Shoes, and the manager said, yes, those are Airwalk Myra's, so we know, based on our investigation, that is the tread pattern that we're looking for. Then the manager told detectives something they hadn't expected. And the manager said, that picture was taken at our Clackamas, Oregon location. And the reason we know that is because that's the only store in our district that didn't have the carpet replaced. And that's the old carpet you see in that picture. That Payless store was about 10 minutes from Matt and Angela's apartment.

And the detectives were actually able to walk over and find the exact tile square where this photograph was taken. Detectives pulled records showing that on that day, November 8th, seven months before Annie's murder, only one pair of Airwalk Miras was sold. They were purchased with a credit card. The credit card holder was Angela McCraw Hester. So our investigation shows that Angela McCraw Hester purchased a pair of size 9 1⁄2 Airwalk Myras that is the same shoe design that was stamped at our crime scene in blood. That's pretty good police work.

Solid, it seems. Solid gold, that is. shoe design that was stamped at our crime scene in blood. That's pretty good police work. It's solid, it seems. Solid gold, that is. Especially if you're looking to get a judge to issue an arrest warrant. Coming up. Why am I being arrested, you stupid f***? But what about Matt? At this point, I know he had something to do with it. I can't prove it. When Dateline continues. Detectives had powerful new evidence tying someone in Matt and Angela's household to that silver Mazda caught on camera driving to Annie's apartment on the night of the murder.

And now it looked as if Angela Hester had been wearing the boots that had made those size nine and a half bloody shoe prints. The question was whether anyone had helped her. It sounds as if you can pretty definitively tie Angela to Annie's murder at that point. Absolutely. But not Matt? We don't have anything on Matt at that point. The murder victim is his ex. He's on the hook for 40-something large.

He's just the innocent bystander? Or he didn't know anything? You buy that? Not at all. At this point, I know he had something to do with it. I can't prove it. So investigators kept looking, and the calendar kept flipping. Hello, today is September 5th, 2016,

and this is my weekly writing video log of what I've been up to in regards to writing. Matt had begun posting updates about his life on YouTube. And what he had been up to was exactly what detectives wanted to know. Still, six months, a year, no arrest. Annie's daughter Alice celebrated her fifth birthday in the care of Matt and Angela, the prime suspects in her mother's murder. I was very fearful for Alice. I was also fearful for my own family. I was fearful for myself. I started walking around with pepper spray in my purse and a stun gun and a coup de dame

because I didn't feel safe and I definitely didn't feel like my niece was safe. It's hard to wait and not know and kind of be in that limbo state. That limbo went on because detectives were waiting on DNA results. Nothing had matched Matt or Angela until a lab analyst told police about an advance in forensic technology that made it possible to generate a DNA profile with a smaller sample of material. Bingo. It was in October of 2017 that Detective Turnage was finally ready to make his move. By that time, Matt and Angela had moved their family, including young Alice, 650 miles from the Portland area to a new home here in Pocatello, Idaho. First, though, investigators did some surveillance,

and they noticed the Rocky Mountain air must have had some magical healing powers for Matt Hester. They're going to Costco. Matt is slinging cases of water and soda all over the place without any kind of ailments or issues. In fact, the man who wanted police to believe he could barely walk was caught on camera doing chores like mowing his lawn. And then, on October 4th, law enforcement moved in. Angela Hester was arrested barefoot and in her pajamas. She was charged with Annie's murder, and she did not go quietly. In the car. No! In the car. I have kids that are going to be coming home. Tell me why you're arresting me. In the car. Why am I being arrested, you stupid f***er. I can't sit and talk. I don't want to sleep.

Then at the police station during questioning, Detective Turnage observed a telling clue. Remember, at Annie's funeral, an undercover detective saw a large cut on the back of Angela's right hand. The more we spoke, the more she became focused on what is now a scar on the back of her hand. She is subconsciously massaging that scar as we're having this conversation. And that nonverbal was a telltale sign as to we were talking to the right person.

And I'm going to cut to the chase, okay? You are under arrest for absentee murder. So you're saying that I killed her? Yeah. Okay. I would like a lawyer if that's the case. Okay. All right. Because I didn't. I was at home. By now, detectives knew that wasn't true. Using that new testing method, they'd already matched DNA from Angela to blood left on the knife block in Annie Hester's kitchen and to bloodstains in the silver Mazda. Still, Angela hadn't seemed to understand that DNA had been her undoing. We provided Angela some water during this interview. At the end of the interview, Angela took the water cup and a tissue that she had, and she held the cup by the rim.

She used the tissue to wipe what would essentially be her DNA off and then used the tissue to hold the cup as she threw it down into the garbage can. She's already given you her DNA at that point, right? Correct, but she's had 18 months or 16, 18 months of wiping her DNA and cleaning up her trails, and the switch just didn't flip inside her mind, and she wiped her her DNA and cleaning up her trails. And the switch just didn't flip inside her mind and she wiped her DNA like she'd been doing forever. Not often that you see a murder suspect trying to dispose of evidence right in front of you in the interview room. It's not often. Police had suspected Matt and Angela of murder. Now they had a case against Angela.

Oh, and speaking of Matt, he was at the police station too, shuffling around, as usual, with great effort. I just want to get done so I can get home to the kids. It seems fair to say that Matt Hester had no idea what he was in for. Here's the deal, okay? Our investigation clearly shows that Angela committed the murder against Anastasia. We're not here to discuss if it happened. I don't care what you think.

In fact, you've been under surveillance for the last two weeks by the U.S. Marshals. So we've got you walking across the parking lot at Costco, picking up soda boxes and water bottles, whatever the f*** you were doing. You're not Lincoln. You're not walking with a cane. I'm not buying the fibromyalgia. I'm not buying it. Okay? The detectives pulled out photos of Annie's autopsy. That's her. She's cut to s***.

And they tried to decapitate her. Cut all the way through her jaw. Stabbed all over her face. Carved a Roman numeral on her chest. Using knives to make those numerals felt to police. Like an attempt by the killer or killers to focus investigators on Annie's friends in the pirate community. If that's what it was, it didn't work. And before long, Matt Hester had an epiphany about Angela. From there, Matt folded faster than

the overnight crew at the Gap, admitting that on the evening of the murder, he was sleeping, when sometime around 3 a.m., Angela woke him up. she was just shaking. Okay. Did you ask her what happened to her wife? She agreed? No, I was just getting her calmed down. Wait a minute. He's washing blood out of her hair. Blood's pooling in the bottom of the shower. But at no time do the words, honey, what happened, cross his lips. That is correct.

According to his story. So the next day, the cops knock on your door. They tell you Anastasia's dead. Okay. You know that your wife came home in the day after the murder, Matt admitted cleaning bloodstains from the silver Mazda and lying to police about all of it. He continued to deny any part in the planning of the murder until that story changed too. Who else was involved in this? And this is where you need to think about it because it wasn't you, it was somebody else. Who else was involved in this? And this is where you need to think about it, because it wasn't you, it was somebody else. Who else was involved in this?

She talked about hiring someone. And the name Matt mentioned? Well, it was one that had crossed his wife's lips before. Something about in good times and bad. Coming up, had Angela been shopping for a hitman? Detective Aaron Turnage had just about had it with Matt Hester's evasive answers to questions about who might have helped his current wife, Angela, murder his ex-wife, Annie. Then, about 90 minutes into the interrogation, Matt dropped this. She talked about hiring her ex-wife.

Okay, Aaron?band. Aaron? Yeah. Aaron McCraw. Remember him? Angela's ex-husband. The father of two of her children. And an occasional roommate at Matt and Angela's place. Someone police had already asked about his whereabouts on the night of the murder.

I was not at home. I was at my girlfriend's. It made sense then. Now, police weren't sure. According to Matt, what was the reasoning behind hiring Aaron McCraw to do the murder? Is he a killer? He's not a killer, you know, according to Matt. But he was somebody they knew and trusted and would agree to do it. I can recall that we talked about murder. Matt told police the discussions with Aaron happened months before the murder,

in the thick of the child custody fight over Alice. He said he was able to recall some of what they'd talked about. Just all of them. I recall that the number was around like 50,000. He said he was able to recall some of what they'd talked about. Ultimately, Matt said the plan fell apart because, given their financial situation, he and Angela didn't actually have the cash to hire a killer. And according to Matt, that's the only reason the plan failed. Not that Aaron said, I won't have anything to do with that. Matt threw Angela under the bus on those conversations and said she's the one that did all the talking.

The thing was, nobody really seemed to know if Angela committed the murder on her own. And that gave the detective an idea. Here's what I would like to ask you to do. With Aaron McCraw and his fiancée on their way to Idaho at that very moment to pick up the kids he shared with Angela, the detective asked Matt to get on the phone and get Aaron to talk. We call him, discuss those murder-for-hire plots, meetings, re-driving, what do you need to know, I've got to know what the fellow talks. talk. Matt agreed.

And minutes later. Hey, is Aaron there? Yeah, hold on. Thanks. Okay, what's up? Hey, I don't know if you guys know, but Angela got arrested. I heard you were arrested. No, Angela's the? Hey, I don't know if you guys know, but Angela got arrested. I heard you were arrested.

No, Angela's the one who got arrested. I just got out of the police station. I want to make sure that our story is the same when I go in and talk to them again. So, I'm not sure what you know. Like, did she talk to you at all? I know nothing. You know nothing. No. So, you weren't involved in this at all?

No. Didn't help her drive or anything like that? No. I just want to know if Angela got a hold of someone to help her or if she did it on her own so I know what to tell the cops when they ask me.

Aaron? Aaron. Aaron? Aaron? Yeah. After we hung up, I was going, that's a really weird conversation. I bet he's still in police custody. This is Emily, now Aaron McCraw's wife. And Aaron McCraw. What's it been like to be caught in the middle of this?

It's been very much like being caught in a tornado. Aaron? I'm just trying not to have a PTSD moment at the moment. You don't have PTSD before all this? No. I had panic attacks. That's right. Aaron McCraw says that after that call, police brought him in for an interrogation and a polygraph. And that's what gave him PTSD, for which he says he's been diagnosed and takes medication. I don't remember any of the interview or anything like that in Pocatello. Like, my brain is completely blocked out. You didn't get the PTSD in the military, and you didn't get it from some violent event

in your own life. No. You got it from being asked questions about that murder, just like I'm asking you now. Mm-hmm. The difference is, I'm not threatening to arrest you afterwards. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. You don't remember the call where Matt says to you, remember that time I tried to get you to kill Anastasia? No. But you remember that that didn't happen? Yeah. You never had any conversation with Matt about killing anybody? No.

Okay, I just want to be clear. That's not something that you don't remember. You remember that that didn't happen. Mm-hmm. Aaron, hypothetically, if Matt ever had asked you to kill Anastasia, Annie, what would you have said? Hell no.

And the story walked away. Why would he make that up? Why would he drag you into this? The only thing I can think of is to keep the kids from me. Through this whole process, they've never wanted Aaron to have custody of the kids. So you think this whole thing about you being a proposed hitman is just made up from them? Yes. Detective Turnage does not buy Aaron's denials. I do believe there were conversations between Matt and Angela and Aaron McCraw about the murder. Well, depending on when and how you ask him, Aaron either says that didn't happen or he says, if it did happen, I don't remember it.

And he says he has PTSD from you asking him questions about it. Do you believe any of that? No. You think his PTSD is an act? I do think it's an act, to get away from answering the tough questions. Police admit there is no evidence, none, other than the claims made by Matt Hester that Aaron McCraw talked about hiring on as a hitman to kill Annie. Why do you think they would just take Matt's word? I have no idea.

They did believe Matt. In fact, they think you're lying now. Nothing you can do about that, I guess. No. No. A lot of questions, not as many answers. And so both Aaron McCraw and Matt Hester walked out of the police station as free men. So, the end? Not by a long shot.

Coming up, you know what they say, follow the money. Matt Heston wanted to know how he could get a payout of the $100,000 life insurance policy. When Dateline continues. Angela Hester was under arrest in Idaho, and then investigators served a search warrant and collected from her any evidence they needed for their case. Before long, Angela was on her way back to Oregon in handcuffs on a charge that carried the death penalty. It was one of the most brutal crimes that I've ever participated in in the investigation and prosecution. Prosecutor David Hannon. It was a home invasion, a break-in in the middle of the night. Someone startled from their sleep, stabbed multiple times. It's one of the scariest cases I've ever seen. And not just murder, like torture.

That's how we charge it, absolutely. The amount of violence that Annie had to endure is really unspeakable. Angela was facing a lethal injection. And Matt? Well, he wasn't facing much of a life change at all. In fact, even though he'd admitted to participating in discussions related to Annie's murder, cleaning up blood afterward, and then lying to police, Matt faced only a resisting arrest charge, which was later dismissed,

and he returned to the house he'd shared with Angela in Pocatello. The place was mostly empty. All four kids dumped into foster care, including little Alice. Only their very committed roommate, Angela's best friend Karina, was still there. What's going on with him? Absolutely nothing. He's still sitting in his recliner playing video games? No, he sat on his bed. Played video games the whole time while I worked and worked overtime. I mean, look, if you think he's involved,

then why are you letting him live with you? Because I had my computer on and I was hoping he would say something, so he'd go. And turned out to be all he did was sit in his room. Finally, said Karina, she kicked him out. Matt went to live with a friend in Washington State. As for police in Gresham, they kept working, trying to find evidence tying Matt to Annie's murder. And now would seem a good time to tell you they did find this. A week after the murder, Detective Turnage received a phone call.

It was from a woman who worked at a life insurance company. She said that she'd received a call from Matt Hester, and Matt Hester wanted to know how he could get a payout of the $100,000 life insurance policy that Annie had that he believed he was the beneficiary of. $100,000. Okay, minus the money Matt owed in back child support and legal fees. I'll do the math for you. Matt apparently thought he'd come away with a clean slate and more than $50,000. That's a lot of money if you're in his shoes. A piece of knowledge that somehow eluded Matt was that Annie actually had two life insurance policies, one from work, another personal. Total value of both policies? I believe $125,000. The surprise for Matt?

He was entitled to neither. Who was the beneficiary? Well, when the policy was originally initiated, it was Matt. They were married at the time. But after they got divorced, Annie went in and had it changed. The main one is Annie's mom, beneficiary. The work one of $25,000 was in the had it changed. The main one is Annie's mom beneficiary. The work one of $25,000 was in the daughter's name. And the woman from the insurance company told you that Matt clearly

had not known that he was no longer the beneficiary. Correct. To a suspicious guy like Detective Turnage, the idea that Matt thought Annie's death might get him out of debt felt significant. And together with all the other evidence, what it felt like was motive. And so in June 2019, a full three years after Annie's murder, investigators finally made their move and took Matt Hester into custody. I have no idea what's going on yet, so. If that was true, it might have meant only that Matt didn't yet know the specific charge he'd be facing. You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit

murder, the murder of Anastasia Hester. That is why we're here talking to you. Signature on that line, please, if he chooses to waive your rights. No, I would like a lawyer. We charged Matt for solicitation based on his own admissions that he solicited Aaron McCraw to kill Annie. We had corroborative evidence to that confession based on his behavior before the homicide with his motive and after the murder based on him trying to collect on what he thought was the beneficiary of the life insurance policy, as well as the fact that we knew physical evidence was destroyed, and him admitting to it by cleaning up Angela after the murder. All right, Matt. Thank you so much. It was nice seeing you again.

Matt and Angela Hester would soon be under one roof again. Not at their home. At a Portland area slammer. So now the question was, who'd turn on who? You already know how it goes. First squeal gets the deal. Coming up, who, if anyone, talks first loves a wonderful thing. It's a tight bond.

There's an old saying in criminal law, whoever gets to the courthouse first wins. Meaning, the first one to spill can cut a deal in exchange for cooperation and maybe less time in the joint. So, Matt gets locked up and Angela's locked up. This is the time when one of them rolls on the other, right? Correct.

Matt had pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to murder Annie, as well as to solicitation, in connection with what prosecutors said was a plot to hire a hitman, and to hindering prosecution. Angela had pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated murder. She faced the death penalty. We believed that this was a very strong case that we felt very comfortable taking to trial. The big development came from Oregon's state capitol. Before Angela could be tried, state legislators in 2019 narrowed the crimes eligible for the death penalty. When the legislature changed the murder statute prior to our trial,

our charges did not qualify as aggravated murder when the law changed. It qualified as murder in the first degree. So immediately when the law changed, the death penalty was never a possibility in this case. That was one complication. The other was this. Angela wasn't talking with police or prosecutors about a plea deal or anything else. We actually never had a conversation with her. As for Matt, who was facing only eight and a half years behind bars? I absolutely thought that by the time, you know, Matt's defense counsel read through Discovery, that there would be a conversation. And that conversation would have been, if you testify against your wife, you might knock some years off.

Correct. But when we went to those interviews with Matt, Matt continued to tell obvious lies, things that just defied reality. And we decided that he was not willing to have an honest conversation with us. But he won't roll on her and she won't roll on him. Correct. Love's a wonderful thing. It's a tight bond. And so the first shoe fell in November 2020. If you've been keeping track, it was a size 9 1⁄2. Angela Hester pleaded guilty to murdering Annie. Her sentence, 25 to life. She'll be eligible to apply for parole in 2042, when she'll be 60.

From our perspective, given the brutality of this offense, we felt that the possibility of parole was far more remote than other types of cases. You're going to show up at a parole hearing 25 years later? I hope so. If I'm still walking around on this earth, absolutely. Angela has not responded to our many requests for an interview. However, her best friend Karina still visits Angela in the big house and says that when she asks Angela about the case, she gets this answer. She said she wasn't talking about that. That was between her and God. As for Annie's best friend,

Nicole, she's taken a perhaps unorthodox and sympathetic view toward Angela. I can't believe that Angela would let herself get played like that because, you know, she's a victim here in this too, in a sense. Angela is. Yeah, she did Matt's dirty work, and now her life is ruined as well. I mean, Angela was in Annie's apartment. Angela did the stabbing, but you think it might as well have been Matt's hand on the knife? Absolutely. Angela was Matt's weapon. And Matt? He didn't respond to our requests for interviews either. But he did eventually take a deal, one that did not require flipping on his better half. In August 2021, prosecutors dropped the conspiracy to commit murder charge in an effort to preserve their shot at maybe one day filing murder charges against him

and avoiding any issues with Double Jeopardy. In exchange, Matt pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution and to soliciting Aaron McCraw to kill Annie. A judge sentenced Matt to less than five years in prison. He'll be eligible for parole in March 2023, less than a year from now. It's an outcome that left many feeling as if justice was both delayed and denied. Do you think Matt's getting away with murder here? I really do. He should have also been charged with murder. Detective Turnage still hopes that day will come. You think we've seen the last charges filed in this? I don't think so.

You don't think so or you hope not? Both. The courts have left it open where if we find more evidence, specifically Matt Hester could be charged, you know, with murder, if we find evidence showing that he is responsible for it or knew about it or participated in it ahead of time. You think that's what happened? I think Matt Hester had a lot more to do with this murder than he has let on.

Here's what police think happened that night. After losing the custody case, Matt and Angela were angry due to both the decision and the debts they now owed. Detectives believe they tried and failed to hire a hitman before Angela decided to just do it herself. There's no sign anyone but Angela was in Annie's apartment. So, did Matt or someone else help her, advise her, or drive her across town? Right now, there's no way to know.

As for Alice, the now 10-year-old product of Matt and Annie's marriage, it took years of fighting in court, but Annie's mom was allowed to adopt her. Alice, we are told, is a happy and well-adjusted little girl. And after the parental whirlwind she was caught in, where the lines between love and hate and money were blurred again and again, maybe coming through it in one piece is the best possible news. So we saved it for last. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.