All language subtitles for True.Conviction.S02E08.Death.Undercover.WEB.x264-CAFFEiNE

♪

she said she had a break to
get into law enforcement.

I kept pressing her
and she was really secretive.

I remember begging
her not to go.

I just had a bad feeling.

They really didn't
know where she went

or why she would leave,

so they though maybe she
got fed up with her life

and left it behind.

There were so many
potential suspects,

from the time that
she disappears.

What was going
through your mind?

All the bad things.

What did this area
say to you?

Body dump.

As you know, as a prosecutor,

you only get one
shot at these things.

If you don't get it
right the first time...

You're done.

Nicolazzi: My name is
anna-sigga nicolazzi.

In my two decades

as a new york city
homicide prosecutor,

I saw how murder affects lives
far beyond the crime scene.

Let me take you inside
the fight for justice,

for victims
and their loved ones.

This is "true conviction."

-- captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

california's inland empire
lies in the shadow

of the san bernardino mountains,

an hour and a half
east of hollywood.

In 1984,
28-year-old, nancy klinger,

came here to get a fresh start.

But in running away from
a bad marriage back east,

she ran to something much worse.

And for three decades

her brutal murder
remained unsolved.

♪

I've come here to see
how dedicated detectives

and a prosecutor who wouldn't
take no for an answer

finally found justice for nancy

and for a family
devastated by her loss.

Kathy brown was one
of the first friends

nancy made in california.

Kathy, tell me
a little bit about nancy.

She was very personable.

If you walked in to talk to her,

she would just acted like
she knew you forever.

You know, she was very,
very friendly.

She didn't talk
about herself at all.

What did you know about
her life back in ohio?

There was nothing good
back there for her.

That's pretty much all
she really would say.

She really didn't
delve into her past.

She talked about her kids

about how she wanted to
make a better life for them,

that she moved from
ohio to california

to give her a better start.

Nicolazzi: But she struggled
to make ends meet.

Nancy worked as a bartender

so that she could see
her kids during the day.

She had three children
under 8.

Denise, her oldest,
was 7 in 1986.

I do remember she loved us.

♪

and she was trying
to support us,

and I -- as a single mom
myself for eight years,

I know how that goes.

Did she like to joke around?

Yes, she joked around.

She'd tickle my belly, kiss me.

I mean, just normal kid stuff,
you know?

Like I do to my girls.

It sounds like a happy
moment to remember.

It was.

♪

nicolazzi: Nancy had big dreams
for her future.

One of them was pursuing
a career in law enforcement.

Late in the summer of 1986,

she was excited to
tell her friends

that she'd found a way to
make her dream come true.

What did she tell you?

She said she had
a break to actually

get into law enfcement,
and if she did this well,

that it would get
her foot in the door.

And I kept pressing her, what?

And she was really secretive,

and I said,
"what are you talking about?"

and she said, "I met
somebody that's gonna use me

"for undercover operation,
and they can't put it off

or it'll blow the whole
operation," she said.

♪

nicolazzi: The person she'd met
was a customer at her bar.

A man with a badge
who told nancy he needed help.

♪

she said, "this person thinks
I'm gonna be the best at this."

because it was something
to do with child abductions

or child something.

He told her she fit the part.

And I said,
"they just don't do that.

"they don't come and look
for somebody off the street

to do this kinda work."

I said, "no, who is this?"

and she was really secretive,
wouldn't tell me nothing.

She wouldn't give me a name.

I kept asking, "where do
you know this person from?"

"well, it's a friend of
a friend."

♪

nicolazzi:
To san bernardino county

deputy district attorney,
denise yoakum,

it's understandable

why nancy might have
ignored those red flags.

She thought this
was her big chance.

So what exactly was
she supposed to do?

She was supposed to pose
as this officer's wife,

and they were going to go in

and pretend they
wanted to adopt a baby,

and then they were going to
take down this adoption ring.

♪

nicolazzi: Today,
there's just an empty lot

at the spot nancy was to
meet with the mysterious

undercover officer
back on August 29, 1986.

It was a bar called
the vagabond,

about 20 minutes from her home.

Kathy reluctantly agreed
to babysit nancy's kids.

What do you remember
about that night?

Um, I remember begging
her not to go.

I just had a bad feeling.

I don't know why, I was young.

And I remember just, you know,

doing what every kid does,
grabbing their leg, don't go.

You know, crying and she's like,

"it's all right, baby,
I'll be right back."

♪

nicolazzi: But nancy did not
come home that night as planned.

And the next morning there
was still no sign of her.

Worried, her friend tommy thomas
went out looking for her.

What did you do when you sensed
that something wasn't right?

Me and a couple other guys
went to the vagabond bar

and when we got there
we found her car,

but she was nowhere around.

♪

there's her car.

But not nancy.

No nancy.

What about inside her car?

What did you see?

Inside her car was her purse

and I think shampoo.

What did it say to you
when you found nancy's car

and her purse inside?

And it was unlocked.

Uh, something's wrong.

Nicolazzi:
Tommy and his friends

searched the neighborhood around
the bar but found nothing.

So they staked out
her car for the night.

They were hoping
she'd come back to it,

and then they could
find out what happened

and why she had left her
kids longer than a night.

As the night went on,
any trace of nancy?

None.

Nicolazzi:
After giving up hope

that she would return
for her car,

nancy's friends filed
a missing persons report.

♪

tell me some of
the work that was done

to try to get an answer
about where nancy was.

Well, you know, all the usual
steps that cops go through.

The investigators contacted
morgues in various cities

to see if it ran in
unidentified female bodies.

They contacted jails to see
if anybody had been arrested

who fit her description.

They even contacted
the fbi to see if there was

an actual investigation going
into a black market baby ring.

And what'd they learn when
they looked into that?

Nothing.

Nicolazzi: There was no
undercover operation.

It was becoming
more and more clear

that the man that nancy'd met
was not who he claimed to be.

♪

you didn't have the luxury
of surveillance cameras,

and cellphones that can
track our every move,

so really it came down
to what, in many ways,

you still have to rely most on,

good old fashioned
detective work.

Yeah, it's called
being a gumshoe.

And, you know, we didn't have
electronic footprints,

so it was difficult
to track people

unless you were
knocking on doors,

and that's exactly what
the investigators did.

♪

there was no information
other than the bartender

at the vagabond bar had
said she saw a woman

who appeared to be in trouble.

♪

but that's all she could say,

she didn't say what
the trouble was.

What she said was,
by the time she went

to check on the woman
again she was gone.

So while that may
have been nancy,

even that couldn't be
confirmed.

That's correct, yeah.

And if it was nancy,
they had no idea why

she may have seemed upset.

That's right,
there was no conversation.

Nicolazzi: But there was also
reason to think

nancy's disappearance
may not have been

the result of foul play.

When the police arrived
at the vagabond,

nancy's car was gone.

No one could tell investigators
if nancy returned for it

or if something more
sinister was in play.

Adding to
the mystery was nancy's

last minute request
to kathy brown.

She left me a permission slip

in case something
happened to the children,

you know,
in case they got hurt,

gave me a permission slip to
take them to the hospital,

and she gave me their medical
cards and their clothes.

I think there was
an assumption that

maybe she was planning to go
missing for a little while

for some reason.

So nancy disappeared because
nancy'd wanted to disappear.

♪

they really didn't
know where she went

or why she would leave,

so they thought maybe she
got fed up with her life

and left it behind.

They thought maybe she would
come back in a few days,

they just didn't
know what to do.

They also looked at it that
here's this young woman

who may have just
been overwhelmed with life

and taken off.

That's kind of the mind-set.

Nicolazzi:
As police looked for answers,

nancy's three young children

were still with
her friend, kathy.

What did kathy tell you?
Where was your mom?

She tried to play it, well,

she'll be fine
or she'll be back.

I thought maybe
she abandoned us.

I mean, what are you gonna say,
you know?

Tell me, what that was like,

trying to protect them
from what you felt,

but trying to answer
their questions.

Well, it was hard.

They'd cry for their mommy
and ask where their mommy was.

And as a parent, I wouldn't
want anybody telling

my small children,
you know, my worst fears.

What was going
through your mind?

You know, everything was going
through my mind, everything.

All the bad things.

♪

♪

nicolazzi: Nancy klinger,
a single mother of three,

disappeared after
telling friends

she'd been recruited by
an undercover officer

to help with a sting operation.

Police thought
she might have run away,

but her friends
didn't believe that,

especially when they
spotted her car abandoned

with her purse still inside.

By the time police got there,
the car was gone.

No one saw who took it,
but it finally turned up

three weeks later at
a nearby apartment complex.

Officers had hoped it
might contain some clues,

but that hope was
quickly dashed.

So what was
the condition of her car

when police now found
it somewhere else?

Yoakum: Some of it
had been dismantled,

and things were missing.

Did that seemingly
have anything to do

with nancy's disappearance,

or was the car
being taken apart

for people
to either sell parts,

someone tried to steal it
and then put it someplace else?

What did that say to you
in this investigation?

They were taking
the car apart to make money.

So as an experienced
prosecutor,

what did that say to
you about the car?

There was no forenc evidence
to collect at that point.

It'd been handled
by unknown people,

things were missing, it was
no longer in the condition

that nancy had left it in.

So for relevant purposes
of nancy's disappearance,

the last time that her
car could be linked to her

was outside the vagabond bar?
-Yes.

Nicolazzi: The investigation
hit a dead end.

So they're just left with
the missing young mother

with no idea where she'd gone?

Just vanished.

Nicolazzi: For nancy's young
children who already feared

they'd been abandoned
by their mother,

things were about to get worse.

Her friend kathy,
who'd been watching them

since the night
nancy disappeared,

was told to bring
the children to court.

What'd you think
was gonna happen

when you went to
court that day?

I thought they were gonna
issue me temporary custody.

We thought we'd get them in
school, get them settled,

you know, then we'll figure out
we'll go from there, day by day.

What happened?

Next thing I know,
here comes social workers

and two officers.

The ficers stepped in
and pushed us back and said,

"step back, the court's
taking custody."

nancy's kids are screaming,
I'm crying.

It was horrible.

And they just told me
they had to,

because they didn't know
what happened to nancy

and they didn't know
if we were involved

in any way, shape, or form.

[ sniffling ]

I remember just feeling
lost and lonely and...

I had nobody to talk to.

Nicolazzi: 2-year-old bobby was
sent to live with his father,

but denise and her
brother douglas

were handed over to foster care.

What was it like thinking that
she had chosen to leave you?

It was horrible.

Nicolazzi:
The investigation stalled

for almost a year and a half.

It wasn't originally part of
sergeant mike howell's caseload.

But when he heard about it,
his intuition kicked in.

He was sure there had
to be something more

to nancy's disappearance,

so he asked if
he could look into it.

When you looked at
this case folder,

what stood out to you
about it?

Women don't abandon
their children.

It's really out of the ordinary.

And I felt that
law enforcement owed her

to go to bat for her children,

to do what we could do.

Nicolazzi:
So sergeant howell began digging

and found a possible lead to
the mystery man with the badge.

Customers at the bar
where nancy worked

described seeing
nancy talking to a man

who apparently was
flashing a badge.

They helped police
identify him as larry hite.

Was he a police officer?

No, he was not associated with
any law enforcement agency.

He was a security guard.

Nicolazzi: The bar customers
told detectives

they thought he was just
showing off his badge

in an attempt to impress nancy.

Police quickly tracked him down.

Hite admitted that
he did know nancy,

but he said he didn't see her
the night she disappeared.

Was he able to give
them any information

that helped
the investigation move along?

He told them that
the last time he saw nancy

was with his roommate,
william, in his apartment.

Nicolazzi:
Larry's roommate, bill anes,

worked at the same
security company.

When questioned, he also
said that he knew nancy.

Bill said he'd only
met nancy one time,

and hadn't seen her
that night either.

What were police
impressions of bill?

They were concerned.

Bill's behavior when
the police were interviewing him

was suspect,
he wasn't forthcoming.

Nicolazzi:
Prosecutors and investigators

develop a good sense

when someone is trying
to hide something.

It seemed like bill anes was.

Especially when detectives
discovered a key clue

that nancy left behind
the night she vanished.

When nancy left,
she gave some information

to one of her coworkers.

She gave two phone numbers.

One of them came
back to bill anes.

The other one,
we never could identify,

nobody ever answered.

Called it multiple times.

Nicolazzi: Detectives had two
men with badges,

two men who knew
nancy well enough

that she had the phone
number for one of them.

Two potential suspects,
but suspects in what?

Detectives still didn't
know if nancy had left

the vagabond bar by choice,

and they could not
connect either man

to nancy's disappearance.

Both had alibis, they were at
work at the security company

the night she vanished.

So if it's not bill,
if it's not larry, who was it?

Where did nancy go?

Nobody knew,
nobody could find her.

She works at a bar, I mean,

there were
so many potential suspects

from the time that
she disappears.

That's true.

And the investigation days,
weeks passed,

it went to months.

It did, and then it
turned into years.

Was there any more movement
or forward progress

about what happened
to nancy klinger?

Absolutely not,
it just was, uh,

she disappeared off
the face of the earth,

it was just nowhere else to go.

Nicolazzi: Nowhere else to go.

Five words every
investigator fears.

Nancy hadn't been heard
from for nearly two years.

And still no answers for
her family, now split apart.

I've worked on many cases
where the investigations

seem to stall, and there's
nothing more frustrating.

Even more so when every ounce
of your intuition tells you

you're looking at a murder.

♪

♪

nicolazzi: Nancy klinger
had been missing

for nearly two years.

The investigation into her
disappearance had gone cold.

That would change
on March 4, 1988,

when san bernardino county
detective, jim de lapp,

was dispatched to
a remote desert area

to help with a different case.

He had never heard
of nancy klinger,

but he soon would.

A search and rescue team
had been looking for

a suicidal missing person.

And in the process they
came across human remains.

So my sergeant directed
us to go out there.

How would you describe the area
that you were sent out to?

Quite rural, orange groves,
vacant lots,

not a lot of housing
or any businesses.

There was a lot of tall
brush that actually screened

the area from
the road so it wasn't --

the site wasn't readily
available to a casual observer.

♪

♪

certainly is very desolate.

Yes, it is,
this is very remote.

So when you walked
in here off the road,

what do you remember
about what you observed?

Well, you had these dirt paths,
these roadways,

they were a little less weeded,

and then the brush that
was alongside the road

was a little higher and lusher,
it was March of that year.

So it was fairly
green at that time.

And what was it exactly
that was discovered?

The first thing that was
obvious was the skull.

It was out in
the open and from there

we did a spiral
search out from that

and were able to locate
several other bones.

Now beyond the remains,

there were other
things found out here.

Yes, there was.

There were some
articles of clothing

and a left white sandal.

So walking into this
and seeing a skull

and some of the bones
and some personal items,

what did this area say to you,
what did it speak to you?

A body dump.

Was the first thing I surmised.

Nicolazzi:
Along with the bones,

the detective found
a crucial clue

that he hoped would help
him identify the remains,

scattered on
the side of the highway.

De lapp: There was a wallet,
the driver's license in it

belonged to a georgia kittle.

Nicolazzi: The driver's license
had an old address,

but investigators eventually
found georgia alive and well

living in chicago.

She had no idea how
her wallet ended up

on a remote california
roadway alongside a dead body.

♪

so if the remains
and women's clothing

aren't georgia kittle,
who was she?

Well, that's what we did
not know at the time.

It was just the bones there,
obviously there's no way

to do fingerprints
and dna was not established

at that point,

so we had
no point of reference.

-Talking 1988?
-Yes.

Nicolazzi: Dna could not give
investigators an answer,

but old fashioned
police work would.

One of the homicide
detectives was telling me

about these bones, I said,

"hey, I have these
dental records

"of a girl that's missing.

"maybe we should get somebody

to look at these dental
records and see if that's her."

when the remains that
were found were compared

to the dental records of
your missing nancy klinger,

what was the conclusion?

It was her.

♪

nicolazzi:
Nancy's daughter, denise,

was 9 years old at the time
living in an orphanage.

I didn't know the details
of her death, nobody knew.

I just knew that
they'd found her.

What did that do for you,
getting that news?

I don't know if it
gave me the closure

that I wanted or hoped for.

Because there's always some
hope that she would come back.

♪

it was good in a way I guess,

'cause she didn't abandon us.

Now as a prosecutor
over the years,

I've had to have
many conversations

with family and friends
of loved ones lost,

and parts of those conversations
can be very difficult.

Have you ever
thought to yourself,

could I have done something
that may have changed

what happened in the end?

Maybe I could've held her,
not let her go.

Maybe I could've went
and flattened her tires,

who knows.

It's just so sad that somebody
that wanted something good

for her family could come
to such a tragic end,

and we still didn't know
what happened to her.

And we had no answers.

♪

nicolazzi: The investigators
working on the case realized

any more answers would
be hard to come by.

Yoakum:
There had been animal activity,

and the natural elements had
taken a toll on the bones.

I mean, as we know,
those first hours,

maybe a day
or two are so crucial

when they have the crime scene
about potential fingerprints,

any property that may
have been left behind.

You had so long of
a time that went by here.

Were investigators
able to move forward

in their investigation at all,
based on what was left?

They knew it was nancy,
but they still didn't know

what happened to her
or who had done this.

♪

♪

nicolazzi: Two years after
nancy klinger vanished,

her remains were found by
a remote california highway.

It was now a murder case.

A new set of detectives
began digging in,

going back to the very start,
the night nancy vanished.

That included taking another
look at two security guards,

bill anes and larry hite,
who had been seen with nancy

around the time
she went missing.

The men had provided
alibis for each other.

Where did larry say
that he was that night?

Larry said that he had
been at work that night,

and he had relieved bill anes
on the graveyard shift.

So just because someone
says they have an alibi,

police aren't going
to stop there,

they're going to check it out.

Oh, absolutely.

And bill confirmed the story

that larry had
actually relieved him.

Nicolazzi: But as detectives
spoke with anes,

something seemed off.

My partner who had
interviewed bill

described in his report
how sketchy bill was

during the interview,
he's acting very nervous,

and it made all
the indications to my partner,

that he was lying
about the alibi.

Nicolazzi: A detailed check of
the security company's records

proved that intuition
was correct.

Bill anes had lied
for his friend.

Larry hite did not work

the night nancy klinger
disappeared.

His alibi fell apart.

Detective de lapp had some
serious questions for hite,

but there was just one problem.

In 1986,
when nancy went missing,

police spoke to many people,
larry hite being one of them.

Now you go back in 1988,
but he was nowhere to be found.

He's not in the state.

-He was gone.
-Right.

Nicolazzi:
It turned out larry hite

wasn't too hard to locate.

He was in prison.

We ran his name
and date of birth

through national records
and we come up at that point

that he had been
convicted of a rape.

And he was currently
incarcerated in arizona.

Nicolazzi: Hite was serving

a two-year sentence
for sexual assault.

Detective de lapp went to
arizona to question him.

Hite insisted he knew nothing

about any undercover
investigation

into baby adoption rings

and he insisted he had nothing
to do with nancy's death.

Your law enforcement radar,
what's it saying to you

when you're hearing this?

Well, obviously he's lying.

But a lie doesn't make
someone guilty of anything.

Unfortunately, no.

Knowing that someone's
lying is still a far way off

from proving why they're lying.

Correct.

At this point of
our investigation,

we have our interviews with

friends and acquaintances,

we have her unexplained
disappearance

after meeting larry.

The fact that
she was never seen again.

All very circumstantial,

and it just wasn't
enough to take to court.

You know,
as you know as a prosecutor,

you only get one
shot at these things,

'cause if you develop
information later,

now you can't use it.

If you don't get it
right the first time...

-You're done.
-You're done.

Nicolazzi: Detective de lapp
and the other investigators

were sure they were
on the right track.

Even more so when they found
larry hite's former girlfriend,

gayla mathews.

The original investigators
weren't able to track her down,

but now detectives learn
of another connection

between hite and nancy.

That second phone number
nancy had left behind

in case of
an emergency was gayla's.

Perhaps she'd been too
frightened to answer

when police tried calling
her years earlier.

But now, she was ready
to tell them a story

that would finally break
this case wide open.

Larry told her
he was a police officer,

and even showed
her a police badge.

Nicolazzi:
On the day nancy disappeared,

gayla told detectives hite told
her he was going undercover.

She said that larry had told her

he was going to work
with a woman named nancy

and infiltrate a black market
baby adoption ring.

He told gayla he'd be home
at 11:00 that night.

Did he come home at 11:00?

He didn't.

Gayla told the police
that he came home

at 7:00 the next morning.

♪

she said he had blood
all over his clothes

and that he'd been
in an shootout.

He had told her that,
well, things went wrong

and shooting began to start
and it was either me or her

and I had to leave her behind,
referring to nancy.

What about these clothes
that he was wearing?

They got washed.

So our physical evidence,
of course,

went right down the drain.

I mean,
even just hearing it,

I can only imagine how
frustrating

this is, I mean, bells must
be going off it's larry,

it's larry, it's larry.

And as you know,
as a prosecutor,

we can't take that
to a jury,

we have nothing
to tie him to it.

Nicolazzi: At least hite
wasn't going anywhere

while prosecutors and detectives
kept looking for

the connection they needed.

After his release from prison,
he was re-arrested for

anothesexual assault
and sentenced to 19 years.

But he was still refusing
to talk about nancy klinger.

With no definitive connection
between him and her murder,

the case stalled again,

this time for nine more years.

In 2009, larry hite was released
after almost two decades

in prison, still keeping to
himself whatever secrets he knew

about nancy klinger's murder.

It was my 38th year in
law enforcement and this case

still bothered me.

I went to the assistant sheriff
and asked for a favor,

please have the cold case team
work through this case,

it's solvable and I've never
asked for anything.

I ask you to get this done.

♪

nicolazzi:
Another new team of detectives,

another new interview
with larry hite,

perhaps the years had taken
their toll on him,

because this time
his story began to change.

He said that nancy
was involved in drugs

and he was helping her sell
drugs to a man named arnold

and that nancy had gotten
mouthy with arnold.

♪

nicolazzi: For the first time,
larry hite admitted that

nancy was murdered,
but he still insisted

he was not the killer.

As detectives pressed him harder
hite's story changed yet again.

Years of denials evaporated
as he made a stunning admission,

that it was self-defense.

He said he just left her there

didn't know if
she was alive or dead.

Did police in any way believe
him when he claimed that

this was all an act
of self-defense?

No.

He said that she had pulled
a knife from her purse.

♪

her purse was
abandoned in her car.

The prosecutor in me just
kicks in, hearing you say that,

because one of the things that
the prosecutor had to prove

was disproving
his self-defense claims,

and you had gotten
the information that there's

no way that could be true.

That's right.

Nicolazzi: Detectives were
finally getting the answers

they and nancy's family had
been looking for, for so long.

♪

you had this man who
had started by saying

I didn't even see her the night
that she went missing,

to now, admitting that
he was the one who was

with her that night.
-Yes.

And he was the one that drove
her out into that remote area

that you found her
bones almost two years later,

and that he was
the man who did it.

Correct.

He has excluded anyone else.

♪

nicolazzi: 25 years after nancy
went missing,

larry hite
was charged with her murder.

On the official day of
my retire,

larry hite was arrested
for her murder.

Tell me what you remember
when you got that call.

I was actually giving
my retirement speech,

and I was thanking people
that had helped me throughout

my career
when that information came,

and it was probably
the best retirement present

I could have ever gotten.

Nicolazzi: It was also a moment
prosecutor denise yoakum

had eagerly awaited.

I really wanted to get
justice for these kids.

We have a saying in cold case,
for every unsolved murder

there is a victim
without justice,

a family without answers,

and a killer amongst us,
and I wanted to make sure that

we could take care of all three

of those things
during this trial.

♪

nicolazzi: But this case was
far from wrapped up.

Having the probable cause
needed for an arrest warrant

doesn't necessarily give you
the proof

beyond a reasonable doubt
you need for a conviction.

With no physical evidence
connecting hite to nancy,

or to the murder scene,

prosecutor denise yoakum had
a tough road ahead of her.

♪

♪

nicolazzi: More than 25 years
after nancy klinger was killed

in the california desert,

investigators charged
larry hite with murder.

They believed they
finally had answers

about what happened after
hite convinced nancy

that he was a police officer
who needed help with

an undercover operation.

She wanted to get a job
in law enforcement,

and she saw it
as a way to not only

make some extra money
for her kids,

but to get her foot in the door.

Nicolazzi: Nancy never realized
that the man she thought

was a detective was a predator
until it was too late.

She's thinking she's
going on an investigation.

He drives her off
this remote area

and he's going to rape her,

and she resists,

and she's killed

because she resisted.

Nicolazzi: Although hite
confessed that he stabbed nancy

to death, prosecutor
denise yoakum

knew she still faced
an uphill battle

when she walked into court.

So this is the actual
courtroom where you tried

larry hite for nancy's murder.
-It is.

All the hours that you put in,

and the late nights
and weekends,

what was your motivation?

To make sure that
the kids got the answers

that they needed, and that
they knew their mom's life

meant something, that they
knew that they meant something

to their mom.

Now larry hite,
tell me about his demeanor,

as he sat here all
those years later,

as the trial was going on.

Larry was laughing,
joking, snickering,

he didn't have a filter,

he would talk
during the trial,

it was all appeared
to be a joke to him.

Now one of the things that
you learned about larry hite

during your investigation
was that this was not

the first case where he
had committed an assault.

It wasn't.

How were you able to,
if at all,

use that during your
actual trial?

We looked at what he had
done to two other women

in arizona and I looked for
similarities,

in the other two cases
he had the same weapon,

a knife, just like he said
he used on nancy.

I showed that when women
don't do what larry hite wants,

he resorts to a knife.

And that would help
rebuff his defense

that it was
nancy attacking him

and this
was all in self-defense.

Nancy's children were
grown-ups by the time

this trial happened
almost 30 years later.

Tell me what you
remember about them

as you presented this
evidence in court.

After every witness testified,
they were gracious enough

to stay after and tell
the kids how loved they were

by their mom, how she would
have never abandoned them,

how kind she was,
how outgoing and fun she was,

and they got to
hear the truth about

who their mom really was.

It's its own brand of justice,
right there.

It is, it was
the best gift that these

children could have received.

♪

what was that time like for you,
while you were waiting

for the jury's verdict?

I was anxious,
that waiting is tough,

a few hours seems like days.

What was the jury's
verdict in this case?

Guilty. First-degree murder.

I heard a cry
from her daughter, denise,

and it was a cry
I'll never forget,

it was all the pain
that she had

inside of her all these years,
finally came out,

at that moment.

I got up and I went and I
give her a hug and I told her

I'm sorry it took this long to
get justice for your mother.

I talked to the foreman
after the trial,

I walked with him outside,
and he's like I'm glad you

came up to talk to me,
I wanted to talk to you,

I wanted to see how your
life was, and he says,

I want to let you know here
right now, he had no chance.

He wasn't walking out
of that courtroom.

Knowing that this stranger,
this foreman of this jury,

wanted to see how your
life had been,

how did that make you feel?

Good.

It made me feel good
that he wanted justice,

that he felt my pain.

Nicolazzi: At sentencing,
nancy's daughter denise,

couldn't bring herself to
read her victim's impact

statement in court,
so she made a video recording.

I waited 30 years
for this moment

because you took my mom's life
in one violent act,

like the coward that you are

we went into the system where
me and my brothers suffered

every kind of abuse there was.

You threw my mother's body out
there like she was garbage

like she didn't matter.

She mattered.

These are
my mom's grandchildren

that will never get to meet her,

because you took
her away from me.

♪

nicolazzi: On July 21, 2015,
larry hite was sentenced

to 25 years to life in prison,
the maximum,

but he received an even harsher
punishment four months later.

He was murdered by his cellmate.

Hearing that larry hite
would never be able to

hurt anyone again, and had
been taken from this earth

how did that affect you?

I was...Kinda mad.

Honestly, because
I wanted my day to face him,

I wanted to talk to him.

What would you say?

Why? I just wanna know why.

The prosecutor, denise yoakum,
she talked about

the thing that
she could not get past,

beyond your mom's horrible end,
was how that left you

and your brothers and how when
she would work those nights

and all those hours that
it was trying to give you

some sense of peace,
knowing what had happened

to all of you.

Yes.

Hearing that that was her
motivation,

how does that affect you?

Denise has been great.

She's been loving,
she's been sweet

and sympathetic and I think
she even got angry

considering what
we've been through,

after my mom was taken from us,
so all the emotions

that I feel, I think
she felt them with me.

So she not only went
into that courtroom

as strong as she
did for your mom,

but she did it for you.

She did it for us, too,
because she wanted to see

justice done.

♪