Dateline NBC - While They Were Sleeping

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

In this Dateline classic, Melissa Oxley wakes up to find her husband, Ben Oxley, shot in the head next to her. No one in the house sees or hears anything. Who could have committed this brutal murder? Keith Morrison reports. Originally aired on NBC May 4, 2012.

At first I thought I was dreaming. I went to go wake him up and then I could see him. Hard to get that one out of your head, isn't it? Yeah. Horrible. Knowing the person that you love is dead and then you're being looked at for it. You've got the wife, you've got a small 6-year-old child

and you've got a 15-year-old boy in the house and you've got everybody saying they don't know. Like, a ghost has done this. A ghost. That's what it feels like. Did Melissa do it? I mean, she could have. She's the wife.

She was laying in bed with him. It doesn't make sense that she wasn't shot. Why don't they take you out? You're right there. That's the right time. We started to do surveillance on them. Now they're starting to get worried because they think we're watching them. This is a case built on lies and deception.

I said, what did you do? What did you do? Oh no, no. Just the truth. It's the worst feeling thinking that you're going to blame it for your husband's death. It was cold the night the full moon rose. February cold, in the desert valley that spilled down from Reno, Nevada. And in that moonlight all silver pale, the wind in the dead of night,

worried at the gray ends of winter grass, quipped and cried up the driveway, round the corner of the house, whistled past the unlocked door. Something evil afoot, something here, inside. When the moon peered through the window and into the master bedroom. A little after three in the morning. It's really, really bad. What's really bad? My husband.

Strange, the things that happen to people under a full moon. Good people, not so good people. Under that moon that night, it was hard to tell which was which, who was who. This is a case built on lies and deception and a cat and mouse who knew what it was. But the story, when it began back in 2005, was about love, or what certainly felt like it. In fact, fair to say it was two kinds of love. There was what happened to Ben when he met Melissa. As soon as he met Melissa, he was something I'd never seen. Just, you know, just for no reason he'd call her and say, I love you. He was a changed man. He was happy. Absolutely. He was happy. Melissa really made

the difference. And if anybody would have known, his best friends would have Cindy and Scott Graham. Ben was family. I mean, he was family. And then there was Ben's other love. Brightest thing in his life. The one good thing that came from his first marriage, Alyssa. Everybody said that he loved me more than anything, and I think it's true. Quite true, of course. So there was a little jockeying at first, two women, one man, even if one of the women was just three. Our first date, Alyssa was there. We were eating, and I was just trying to talk to Ben and kind of get to know him.

And she's like, Alyssa's like, don't talk to my dad. I remember meeting her. I didn't really like her. She was talking to my dad. More than talking to him, as it soon turned out, Ben and Alyssa moved in together just a month later, the sort of thing a three-year-old finds hard to understand. She said, I love you, and I said, don't talk to my dad that way. But as we said, it was a love story.

Ben for both of them. As Jamie Harge, as the friend and future bridesmaid put it, He was truly her best friend, and he was the best dad. That was his priority, was to take care of her. And one September day in 2006, as the sun was setting into the Sierra Nevada mountains, Ben and Melissa got married. The ceremony at nearby Lake Tahoe. Melissa was a glowing bride. Alyssa, the little flower girl. It wasn't just Melissa and Ben getting married. It was Melissa marrying

Alyssa too. Seriously? They made a particular ceremony of it. Alyssa, will you promise to share in the love of this family? If so, will you please say, I will? I got her a little bracelet and had it engraved, letting her know that I will always love her as my own and gave it to her that day. And from that moment on Alyssa called Melissa mom. How did it make you feel? Happy. Very happy. Oh what a happy couple they were. A happy family. Just for her to be my wife, man, it's a blessing. That's what you wait for all your life. What were your plans? To buy a house and have babies and have a family. And eventually they moved here, a three-bedroom ranch in the Carson Valley, looking up toward the Sierra Nevadas.

Alyssa spent half her time with Ben and Melissa. The other time with her mom, Ben's ex-wife Dawn. But above all, what Ben really wanted was his little girl, permanently. He never thought that he could have his daughter. And I was like, yeah, you can. You could. And he did. He won custody. It was him and his daughter, and that's what he'd always wanted. And then the little household grew.

Melissa's teenage brother, Craig, moved in. And then winter came, and the wind. And on February 20, 2008, the moon rose full over the Carson Valley. After dinner, Ben, Melissa, her teenage brother Craig, and little Alyssa settled in the den to watch a movie. Melissa remembers falling asleep on the couch, waking up with a start. Thinking I was late for work. It was like 2.30 in the morning. And I was like, oh, I'm not late. So I went and got into bed. Crawled in with Ben, she said.

Moonlight on the covers, warmth inside. About an hour later is when I was woke up by the smell and then a loud noise. And my ears were ringing. At first I thought I was dreaming. A smell? Yeah, it was the smell of the gunpowder. The gunpowder smell. Mm-hmm. As she told it, she looked over to Ben, saw by the light of the moon he appeared to have slept through whatever it was.

She nudged him. He didn't stir. So I was like, okay, I'll go check it out. So I walked around our bed and got about halfway down the hallway and realized that our front door was open. But you didn't see anybody. Nope. Halfway down the hall, she said, cold air rushing in. She knew something was very wrong. So she ran back to the bedroom, turned on the light.

I went to go wake him up, and then I could see him. Yeah. Hard to get that one out of your head, isn't it? Yeah. Hard to get that one out of your head, isn't it? Yeah. And thus her call to 911, and the detective who rushed over to find out what happened, and discovered that he could not tell. You've got the wife, you've got a small six-year-old child, and you've got a 15-year-old boy in the house. And you've got everybody saying they don't know what happened.

How did everyone else survive that night without a scratch? The investigation begins, and Melissa is at the very center. I'm asking you to help me solve the problem. Okay? I'm asking you to help me solve the problem. I was just confused and shocked, because at this point I still feel like I was asleep. On February 21, 2008, at 3 o'clock in the morning, Melissa Oxley called 911. Okay, so there's gun noise like a gunshot? Yeah. I turned on the light to wake up my husband and he was really, really dead.

It certainly was. Ben Oxley had been shot point blank in the head. And yet Melissa, lying in bed right beside him, was unharmed. She ran then into Alyssa's room to check on her and call 911. And, of course, Alyssa, then six years old and completely unaware of what had just happened, asked to see her father. Boy, I want to go see my dad. I want to go see my dad. And I just told her, you can't go see your dad.

It was a little after 3 a.m. when Detective Ron Elgis got the call. Do you remember getting that call? Yeah, because I was sleeping. He woke up fast to a very big problem. The killing just didn't make sense. Appearing like a ghost has done this. No evidence, no weapon. Everybody in the house says, I don't know.

A ghost? Yeah. That's what it feels like because you have no idea. How was it possible Melissa hadn't seen the person who'd shot Ben? She'd been lying right next to him. Why was she unharmed? That's kind of a test. Your little red flags start popping up.

You start thinking, okay, this doesn't seem right. And had Craig, Melissa's teenage brother, truly slept through the whole thing as he claimed? I opened my eyes and right in my face was a bunch of barrels from a machine gun. It was police guns he was looking at. Police who had already discovered shotgun shells on Craig's bedroom dresser. Here comes another red flag. Is this a possibility? Is he faking? Melissa, Craig, and little Alyssa were taken to the sheriff's department. At 4 a.m., an hour after the shooting, Melissa's best friend Jamie got a phone call. It was Alyssa, and she was just hysterically crying. I'm at the police station. Come down here, come down here. My daddy's been shot. By the time Jammie arrived, Melissa was already being grilled by detectives.

Police station is 221-08. Detective Elgas had questions, lots of them. So many things about this murder didn't make sense. Why don't they take you out? You're right there. That's the way. The other thing I don't understand is why somebody shoots him when you don't see anything.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it was the man Ben warned her about, she said. A rough customer who once dated Ben's ex-wife Dawn and apparently threatened to kill both Dawn and any man she'd been with. Was the story true? Just to be safe,

Detective Elga sent officers to Don's house where they woke her up, sleepy but unharmed, and discovered that the man in question was hundreds of miles away when the murder happened. So, again, the questions were for Melissa. Sometimes people know more than they want to tell a sheriff. And I don't really need it all. I don't know.

Alyssa was six by this time, was the only person who remembered seeing anything unusual, and she told the detective right away. Well, I stepped off the sleeper. I woke up and heard this creak after I saw someone walking in. And then I just went back and... Do you know who they were? She saw a shadow in her doorway looking at her, and then the shadow left. She went back to sleep, and then Melissa came in and grabbed her and was talking to 911.

The detective discovered the bullet that killed Ben was a number 8 birdshot. Same ammunition they discovered in Craig's room. And so, the question to Craig... I apologize for doing it, but I have to. Did you kill Ben? No, I did not. And sure enough, when they tested Craig for gunshot residue or blood cast off, he was clean.

Could not have fired that gun. And so, back to melissa this is really a huge bad thing but it's this stuff that i have Dad, no. Understand that I'm not blaming you. I'm asking you to help me solve the problems. The questions I have. Okay? Because there was blood on Melissa and gunshot residue. Oh, no.

Just the truth is all I'm hoping you're giving me. Oh, no. Melissa's friend Jamie was there when she came out of the interrogation room. I mean, Melissa just dropped to the floor when she saw me. And she had a little bit of blood on her. She just said, I didn't do this. And I know you didn't do it. But Jamie knew there were others,

and not just the police, who were very suspicious of Melissa. She's the prime suspect. She's the wife. She was laying in bed with him. It doesn't make sense that she wasn't shot. Did Melissa do it? Well, geez, I hope not, but, I mean, she could have. Why wasn't she shot?

I thought, if she did commit the murder, she's going to make a mistake. You can only live that lie so long. A new clue. What police believe might be a reason for murder. A $400,000 life insurance policy. She had the motivation to want this to happen. Melissa Oxley was just 27 years old and already a widow. Her 36-year-old husband, Ben, shot dead while he slept in bed right next to her.

As far as she could tell, said Melissa, the shooter managed to break into the house, walk right into the master bedroom, shoot Ben without harming her, and leave not a trace of evidence behind. The case boggled Detective Ron Elkis's mind. Is there something that doesn't like him? Is this a murder for higher pay? Is this, you know, what could this be? Melissa's closest friends believed her when she insisted that she had nothing

to do with it, that in fact she'd lost the love of her life and that now she and those around her were probably in terrible danger. Because you don't know

who did it. You don't know if they're going to come back for Melissa if Melissa was supposed to be in that. Melissa, meanwhile, tried to be a source of comfort for her six-year-old stepdaughter, Alyssa. The little girl's father had been her world,

leaving her now in a world of chaos. I didn't sleep, couldn't sleep. Just getting into a bed after that happened. I didn't want to. So where would you sleep? On the floor. And if the pain and suffering of losing her husband wasn't hard enough, Melissa was a lead suspect.

And not just in the eyes of the police. Because nobody, including the public, including the families, had any idea why this would happen. So they're all grasping at straws to try to figure out, is possibly that possibility? Ben's sister was certain that Melissa arranged Ben's murder and wasn't afraid to make it known around town. She had quite a little following of all these people because it's always the wife, you know. So did that mean little Alyssa, just six years old, so vulnerable, was living with a murderer? Alyssa began to spend more time at her mother Dawn's house. And one day, while she was there, Ben's sister warned her about the stepmom she'd come to love. She told me that she thought my stepmom killed my dad that night.

It must have been pretty weird to hear that. Yeah, I didn't believe it, but... Didn't believe it at all? But if Alyssa didn't believe it, others did. And before long, they had more ammunition because of something else Detective Elgus discovered. A $400,000 life insurance policy. It sounds a lot like she had the motivation to want this to happen. And once again, Melissa found herself answering difficult questions.

I didn't even know it was an insurance policy. I guess I was sort of naive to it. We were looking at it for retirement. But while the investigation went on, the insurance company held back any payments. Well, the whispers went around. It was shocking, really. Ben had been dead just, what, a few months? And Melissa was dating already.

It was soon, sort of. what, a few months? And Melissa was dating already. It was soon, sort of, but it was like, if I didn't do it then, you almost would get stuck in this rut of never doing it. I would have just kind of hung up the towel and been done. Put on a black dress and be a widow the rest of your life. Yeah.

Detective Elgus, of course, was keeping track and trying not to be judgmental. She has to do what she needs to do to heal. Doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention to what was going on. But as months passed and Elgus scratched away at the few paltry leads that went anywhere at all, a certain clarity began to emerge. Despite his own early suspicions and those of others, hard evidence against Melissa just didn't materialize.

In fact, said Elgus, he couldn't help thinking... She probably didn't do it. She was so startled, she went into a fight-or-flight response and just jumped out of bed. And then went to a normal reaction, which is what's going on. And that's when she discovers he's... Then she discovers he'd been shot. But there was another reason

Melissa dropped down the detective's list of suspects. And that reason was a certain someone else who, it became clear, did not like that love story we told you about. Not one bit. I said, what did you do? What did you do? And she said, what do you mean, what did you do? What did you do? And she said, what do you mean, what did I do? You've known me all these years and you would think that I would do something like that?

And I said, absolutely. A whole new theory of the crime, with a whole new list of suspects eager to share secrets. I said no. I said no. No, no, no, no, no. If you knew Ben, there's no way that you'd want him dead. I couldn't think of anybody that would want him dead, you know, besides Don. Don. Don Oxley. Ben Oxley's ex-wife. Alyssa's mother. Even as more than a few local gossipers pointed suspicious fingers at Melissa, Ben's best friends told each other.

Everything in me said that Don had something to do with that. Of course, just a few years back, that sort of thinking would have been unimaginable to Dawn and Ben's best friends, Scott and Cindy Graham. Not Dawn. Dawn, the force of nature, the center of any room she was in. I don't know if it's manipulating or what, but everybody agreed with Dawn. As long as Dawn was happy, then we're all happy. But after five years of marriage, neither Ben nor Dawn was happy, and the marriage went up in flames. Ben had cheated on Dawn. I could see that

this probably wasn't going to be something that she was ever going to get over. Dawn, changed after that, said Cindy, didn't seem to want to act like a parent anymore. She met a guy and she would stay the night at his house. I mean, when her kids are calling us up saying, we don't have any food in the house, can you come and bring us food? There's a problem. And so when Don and Ben went to court to fight for custody of Alyssa, Cindy had to tell the truth. I told the judge that

Don wasn't taking care of her kids anymore. They weren't a priority. They weren't even number five. When Ben won custody of Alyssa and more than $200 a month in child support, Dawn was devastated. This is her mother, Sherry Roston, a retired deputy sheriff. She would sit in the garage and just bawl about not getting her day in court. This was eating her alive. Yeah. It was really taking its toll on her. Dawn started drinking heavily. Her teenage son, Devin, watched his mother fall apart. She's starting to lose jobs. It's like all hell broke loose in her head.

But murder? Remember, the police went to see Dawn just a couple of hours after Ben was killed, found her fast asleep. At what time did you think you went to sleep? Oh, God. I watched a movie that departed and descent and, I don't know, about four. In fact, she happened to be sharing her bedroom with a 21-year-old family friend named James Matlian. We watched a movie, Went to Bed. Yeah, that's our story.

That's it. Not exactly a convincing alibi, any more than the obvious fiction that James, the new man in her life, was just a friend. Even less convincing, when Detective Ron Elgis learned about a trip to a 7-Eleven store, middle of the night,

about an hour and a half before the murder. Why are they hiding little pieces that seem insignificant to what is going on? And then we started to do surveillance on them. Now they're starting to get worried because they think we're watching them. Surveillance photos show Dawn with James Matlian and her two daughters, Brandy, her 13-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, and Alyssa, seven by this time. That's right.

A year into the investigation, little Alyssa was back with her biological mom. With Ben dead, the courts had slowly weaned her back there permanently. So there you are, still trying to grieve the loss of Ben at the same time as Alyssa's being pulled back toward Dawn. Yeah, the loss of both of them, truly. And while the police were watching Dawn, Dawn was telling her children, including Brandy, that the real suspect was Melissa.

She confidently told you that it was Melissa who committed this murder? Yes. Brandy was hearing that from a mother, Dawn, who she could see was drinking too much, getting DUIs, spending more than a few nights in jail. They started getting arrested. Dawn and James both. We were finding reasons to take them to jail.

And, well, they had James. They asked him point-blank about the murder of Ben Oxley. Did I kill Ben? No. Do I know who killed Ben? No. Did Dawn kill Ben? No. Do I know anything about the Ben? No. Do I know who killed Ben? No. Did Don kill Ben? No. Do I know anything about the murder? No. Were you and Don in any way involved in the planning of the death of Ben? No.

I'm looking you in your eyes. I did not kill him. But that was it. Lots of denials. No real evidence. A year and a half had gone by since the murder. It was the summer of 2009. On toward cold case territory.

Get in there. Then one afternoon, as Detective Elgus was recovering from a night on the graveyard shift, his cell phone rang. It was Dawn Oxley. She basically said she couldn't take it anymore. She wanted to talk. What were you thinking on the way to see her? It's about time.

The detective drove over to Dawn's house. She was inebriated. I'm done hurting. But she had quite a story to tell. About James. About how he offered to murder Ben. The night Ben died, he said, no or never. And I said, no. I said, not today. Don't do it. No. I said, no. hours later she said james woke her up from a sound sleep and told her ben was dead but that

she said is all he told her, all she knew. She's pretty confident that James had something to do with it. I know I know. But was that really all she knew? Dawn, remember, had a 16-year-old son named Devin, who, detectives learned, was at home and listening in the hours before Ben Oxley was murdered. So if anyone could confirm Don's version of events, surely it would be Devin.

But he wasn't talking. Not yet, anyway. The question still haunting this entire case... What's our evidence? Was there any proof against anyone? Prosecutors were about to make a deal. Do you want to talk about this case? You know I do.

Finally, the story of Ben Oxley's murder, bit by bit, was leaking out. But could Dawn's version of me believe that she had nothing to do with it? Here's what Dawn's mother, Sherry, thought. I can see her sitting there saying, God, I wish he was dead. And I can see James going, you want me to go kill him for you? And her going, whatever. It was more of a disbelief than an affirmation. That's the story Dawn told, too, that she did not want James Matley to kill her ex-husband.

Do you want to talk about this case? You know I do. Okay. It was now the fall of 2009. Dawn was in jail for a DUI and agreed to talk in more detail about the night of Ben Oxley's murder. And he said, do you want me to go do that? I'm sitting there going, are you serious? Are you kidding me?

All I know is he was on the phone. He was asking me if I wanted him to go take care of Ben, and I was saying no. And then she went to sleep, she said. And the next thing she knew, James was back. He woke me up and he said, it's done. I was totally drunk and then turn around and now I'm waking up out of a dead sleep. And I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? He said, the cops are going to be here. Seriously, right now, you're telling me the cops are going to show up at my house because my ex-husband's dead. And she did not take part. She swore, not at all. I didn't drive. I was not.

I didn't. I did not go anywhere. I did not plan this. I did not want Ben dead. So, truth or fiction? There was no solid evidence either way, or that James Matlian killed Ben Oxley. Only Don's story. At which point, the assistant district attorney, Tom Gregory, decided he needed her help.

You love to get everybody involved in the case. But there's a reality in many cases that sometimes you need the help of one of the people involved to get the main person. And so Don Oxley was offered a limited immunity agreement. Cooperate with the prosecution, testify truthfully against James Matlian, and you won't be prosecuted. A sort of get-out-of-jail-free card. Why go ahead and make that deal with her so soon? You had her statement. Why not hold off for a while and be patient, and then you can get them both?

Let's say we don't do the deal with her, and we go out and arrest him. What's our evidence? Dawn signed the agreement, and James Matlian was charged with first-degree murder. But the end of the story? Oh, no, not even close. The truth had been hiding, but it was itching to come out. Young Devin, remember him, Don's son? Devin finally decided it was time to reveal what he overheard the night of the murder. My mom was like, I want Ben to die. I just want him dead.

Yada yada. And James said, I'll go out and kill him right now. You know, you just say the word, I'll go out and kill him. And you know you just say the word I'll go out and kill him and she was like a broken record she was just like I want him dead I want him dead sound like a woman who was shocked when the murder happened but there was more it was after that when James Matlian told his attorney Ken Stover it was time to tell the whole story I could tell he was telling the truth and over the course of 15 months, he's always told the same story. So now comes another story, James's story. Not a love story this time. Nobody could believe that I did what I did. I've never been a violent person.

James Madlian did not have an easy start in life. By the time he was a teenager, he was drinking, doing drugs, stealing things. I had pretty much given up any hope on continuing successfully in life. Dawn, after her marriage to Ben, befriended James, made him feel rescued, gave him a place to live. He'd just been paroled from prison after doing time for stealing a truck. It kind of gave me a sense of hope that there was somebody out there besides my mom who cared. At Dawn's house, James discovered what others had. He said, as long as Dawn was happy, everybody was happy. And if she wasn't, well, then James could not be happy either.

She was very, very upset at the fact that she lost Alyssa. And she went on rants, he said, about Ben Oxley, a man James didn't know, had never met. But he listened. It kind of felt like you were in love with her. Yeah, for a little while. It gave me a sense of feeling wanted. And then he realized, he said, she'd never be happy unless he fixed what was

upsetting her. I just wanted to make Don happy. So what happened? Don and James' stories begin the same way. February 20th, 2008, night of heavy drinking at Don's house, a heated conversation about Ben Oxley, James asking Dawn if she wants to have him killed. But that's where the stories diverge. Dawn, remember, says she told James, no, don't do it, and fell asleep on the couch. But that's not James Matlian's story. She's ecstatic about what was happening. She was happy that I was going to kill somebody, you know. It was after midnight. Don drew him a diagram of Ben Oxley's house, said James, so he could find his way to the bedroom. Then he went to the 7-Eleven, drew $40 out of the ATM with

Don's bank card, and then together he said they went to the Walmart. Don waited in the car while James did the shopping. Shotgun shells, gloves, a flashlight. She's just very happy about it. I mean, like you would imagine a kid going to Disneyland, you know. But there was a problem. They'd forgotten to bring the diagram of Ben's house with them. The plan wasn't for Don to go in the house. The plan was just for me to go in the house. And I didn't know how to get in the house. Or where the bedroom was. Or where the bedroom was. So Don had to go inside.

The front door was locked. So Don took him around back, he said, where a sliding glass door was unlocked. And they eased their way in and walked down the hall. Then, said James, Don pointed him toward the master bedroom. And I turned around, and she was going into Alyssa's room. Going into the room?

Yeah, she was about, half of her body was in, into the room. She said that she was going to take Alyssa with her. I said, you can't take Alyssa. Was this true? Remember, Alyssa, just six years old at the time, told police she remembered seeing someone in her doorway. And then, said James, he walked into the master bedroom,

saw Ben and Melissa sleeping in the moonlight. Then I raised the gun. That's where everything in my mind that should have happened three or four hours ago happened. I started thinking, why am I here? Something I heard to my left. A sudden noise. Yeah. And as I turned and jerked to see what it was, I pulled the trigger.

You ran then, he said, left the front door wide open, caught up to Dawn at the truck. Who drove? She did. I started yelling at her when we got in the truck. The truth, said James Matlian. All of it. Don knows the truth, and I know the truth. And that's all that matters.

I'm taking full responsibility for what I did. Don needs to take full responsibility for what she did. Was Ben the only one who was in danger that night? What was it like to hear that? Unreal. One more revelation still to come. You're right over here. It's a rare thing to sit in a jailhouse room such as this while a murderer confesses chapter and verse.

Denial, the more common language here. I pulled the trigger. But James Matlin did not shrink from it. He murdered Ben Oxley in his sleep and must live with what he did for the rest of his days. I'm afraid to deal with what I actually did. He told his story in court in December 2011. It was after the DA took the death penalty off the table and James decided to plead guilty.

And that's when Melissa, sitting in the courtroom, heard for the first time about something else James was supposed to do. Kill her, too. Dawn asked me if I would kill Melissa. I just automatically just said yeah. There was a bullet there for you. What was it like to hear that? Unreal. Do you believe that she was in the house that night?

I do. Which makes me sick. I have a harder time with Dawn than I do James, because if it wasn't for her, none of it would happen. And that's where Melissa Oxley and James Matlian's attorney, Ken Stover, firmly agreed. Only half a measure of justice, since Dawn was protected by that immunity agreement she signed with the DA. James is not the type of boy who's going to go out and commit a murder in the hopes that Don will find it acceptable. He didn't do this as a surprise gift. Don declined our request for an interview,

though her mom, the retired deputy sheriff, remained in her corner. I know that a lot of people believe that, that it was a blatant conspiracy on her part. But I don't think Dawn really wanted Ben dead. I don't think Dawn was there. You're trying to hold it all together, all the way along and even now. You're trying to hold it all together. All the way along and even now.

You've got to understand. Ben was a good guy. They had their problems. Everybody loved him. He didn't deserve to die. So, it was a he said, she said story. The prosecutor made a deal with the devil. Now we just need to show him how far in hell she is.

Deal with the devil? Well, the DA said without Dawn's testimony of the preliminary hearing, the murder charge against James would never have stuck. In 2011, Dawn went to prison on another offense. She pleaded guilty to using her teenage daughter Brandy to sell prescription drugs. Was she kind of employing you as her assistant in that business? I was driving, yes. Dawn was released a few years later.

She died in 2021. Both Alyssa and Brandy lived with Melissa, who offered them a kind of family life they didn't know with their biological mom. It is a family, and that's what I need. So what kind of punishment did James Matlian deserve? In exchange for his guilty plea, the DA agreed to recommend that James Matlian be eligible for parole someday. Is there redemption for a person like you? I don't know.

I don't expect anybody that I've harmed or hurt to forgive me for what I've done. You looked in the lens of it as you said that. You're talking to them, right? or hurt to forgive me for what I've done. You looked in the lens of it as you said that. You're talking to them, right? Basically talking to Melissa. Sorry. The final decision on his sentence was up to the judge. Defense attorney Stover made the argument.

Life with hope, Judge. And then Melissa took the stand. Emotionally, the damage you have caused me is almost unbearable. For Alyssa, you crumbled her foundation and everything she knew to be right and true. And as hard as this is to do or believe, I also want you to know I have found it in my heart to forgive you. And then James McLean got his sentence.

The murder charge, your sentence to life in prison. Life without parole, ever. Afterwards, the little girl in the middle of the family drama turned to Melissa with a remarkable request. Alyssa asked to meet with James and was ushered in to

see him before he was whisked away. I told him that I decided to forgive him and that I wanted him to have hope. And she wept then, tears of forgiveness,

of lingering grief for her father. If he's looking down and watching you, what would he think about his daughter? I think he still loves me and that I'm doing much better than I was at my other house. Do you miss him? Yeah, I miss him a lot.

You're a pretty strong kid, aren't you? Yeah. More than a decade has passed since something evil tore apart a family. But time has helped the healing. Alyssa has gone off to college and Melissa remarried. And has a son. Where will you keep Ben? It will always be in my heart.

He'll never be forgotten. But we do have to go on. We still have to be here and live day-to-day life.