Original subtitles

It was just a real quick, out-of-the-dark shot,

and then it was over.

He did not see it coming.

A shot from the dark.

It was absolutely terrible.

There was half of his head missing.

It's something that I don't think I'll ever forget.

A secret lurking around every corner.

This mystery woman shows up at the house

who reported, "hey, I'm having car trouble."

We see a text message that says,

"you didn't see me, and I didn't see you."

He said that he had no weapons.

So why is he walking around with a shotgun shell

in his pocket?

Her immediate response to me was,

"I want my lawyer."

That tells me she's hiding something.

Yes, you have an alibi,

but could they be trying to protect each other in some sort

of bigger and nefarious action?

The truth will be revealed.

The DNA matches... It's on the bus stock,

on the trigger, and on the handle.

If there was one aha moment

in the entire investigation, that's it.

Every day in North America,

dozens of people are murdered.

The key to solving the toughest of these homicides

lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.

To crack the case,

detectives must reconstruct that critical time line,

the minutes and hours containing evidence

that can help unlock the mystery

and catch the killer.

Bluffton, south Carolina...

A lowcountry town brimming with southern charm.

Bluffton is a coastal town with a lot of emphasis on

outdoor activities,

water activities, and then, of course, fresh seafood.

Although there's only 20,000 or so who live

in bluffton, tons of people come in, and that's tourism.

I mean, it's... the hospitality industry is big.

It still has that small-town feel

where everybody seems to know everybody.

We were actually just recently nominated as

the safest city in the state of south Carolina.

But one Autumn evening,

bluffton's reputation for safety is shattered.

The 911 call came in at 1:10 A.M.

On October 28, 2015.

Police rush to the scene of the crime.

The victim was sitting on a couch, so he's sitting up.

He is slumped over to the side slightly,

but his legs are crossed.

If not for the obvious wound that he had on his head,

you'd think he'd fallen asleep there, you know,

passed out or something.

There was a entrance wound on the left side

of his head and an exit wound on the right side

with half of his head missing.

There was brain matter scattered across the wall.

The victim is 33-year-old restaurant owner,

Jonathan cherol.

John appeared to be very well-liked,

um, in the community,

very outgoing, very friendly.

Jonathan, by all accounts, was kind of

the all-American, good-looking guy.

He was a businessman, pretty charming,

the ladies liked him, he had a lot of charisma.

Tasked with investigating Jonathan's murder

are detective baker odom and captain Joseph babkiewicz.

I was on the force for about 10 years

when this happened,

but it was only my second homicide,

so it was fairly new to me,

and it's something that I don't think I'll ever forget.

As detectives survey the crime scene,

they aim to get a snapshot of just how the attack went down.

One thing that we noticed is

the two shotgun shells that were on the ground,

so we knew two shotgun shots were fired.

One hit our victim, John cherol, in the head.

The other one went off into the garage.

The absolute devastation

caused by a shotgun could be

the objective, because a pellet-based round

works like shrapnel and covers a large area,

meaning that if you weren't a crack shot, you could still

probably cause some serious damage

if you were just in the ballpark.

You've got a small treeline or some shrubs that

really separate your backyard from the fairway

and that provide the perfect cover

and concealment for someone who wanted to spy or,

in this case, murder somebody.

To find Jonathan cherol's killer,

investigators will need to

piece together the last 24 hours of his life.

He was holding on to a cellphone

that he never dropped after he got shot,

which we thought was unusual.

The first thing that comes to my mind

is that he did not see it coming.

It seems very clear at that point that it

was just a real quick, out-of-the-dark shot,

and then it was over.

The sniper-style attack perplexes detectives.

We're all kind of a little baffled by

what's going on here.

Is this a targeted thing?

One of the first things that we're thinking is, well,

we're gonna figure out everything about

John's background,

who might have had issues with him.

Detectives start building their time line

by speaking with the man who was with Jonathan when he was shot

right off the bat, we want to speak with gene.

Gene tells them that on Tuesday,

October 27th, Jonathan was hanging out with friends

from about noon to five o'clock.

Gene is working that day.

He gets off work at 11:35 P.M.,

and he goes to Jonathan's and arrives around midnight

that night.

So a 12:53 A.M.,

Jonathan on the back porch, he's shot and killed.

His buddy gene says, "I'm out of here."

He goes to run in the house, gene reports

that he looks kind of where the shot came from

or where he thought it came from.

He didn't see anything.

He didn't see anybody, but it was dark,

and he was probably running for his life.

Gene immediately yelled for John's roommate,

Rupert, told him that John had been shot,

and he ran and called 911.

As it turns out, Jonathan's roommate,

Rupert, was sleeping when the shooting occurred

and didn't hear a thing.

Detectives asked gene if he was aware of

anything unusual transpiring over the course of the night.

According to what Jonathan told gene,

around 10:53 P.M.,

a strange female just happens to pull into his driveway.

This mystery woman shows up at the house who reported,

"hey, I'm having car trouble,"

and so we went out to try to help her.

This mystery woman tries to kiss Jonathan,

which he finds very strange,

and he told gene he didn't know the woman.

Jonathan tells gene that she tried getting

into the house, and he wouldn't let her into the house,

and she eventually got back into the car,

was able to start her car, and go on her way.

There is no question in my mind that this

could potentially be related to Jonathan being shot.

Detectives canvass the neighborhood,

hoping to find information that will lead them to

the mystery woman.

As it turns out, John's house is also very close

to one of the exits of the neighborhood,

and at that exit, and just like all the exits for

this neighborhood, they have security cameras facing into

the neighborhood and facing out of the neighborhood.

Police officers grab security footage, and they,

in fact, find that there was a mystery woman who showed up

at John's driveway,

but the mystery gets deeper at that point,

because body language doesn't support

the fact that Jonathan and this woman didn't know each other.

It is clear from the video that John knew this woman

and that she was an acquaintance

or possibly a friend of his.

So now you have gene, who reports that

Jonathan was freaked out by some mystery guest,

but then you have video that clearly shows

that the mystery guest wasn't a stranger at all.

Who's lying? Did Jonathan lie to gene for some reason?

Or did gene make that whole thing up for investigators?

Was gene involved?

Detectives are hunting for their first suspect

in the sniper-style murder of Jonathan cherol,

a mystery woman with car trouble

who he appears to have received on his driveway.

At this point, what we know about

this mystery woman is on the security camera,

we've got a blond Caucasian woman, you know, slight build.

You know, you wouldn't be able to pick her out of

a mug shot based on the security footage,

you know, it's nighttime and all that stuff,

but you can still see enough to be able to get a pretty good

idea of who this might be if you were to then see them later.

We know that this mystery woman arrives

at Jonathan's house around 10:53 P.M.

Later, around 11:43, she backs out of the driveway

and leaves the house.

But then something curious catches

detective babkiewicz's eye.

As I'm watching the video,

I watch it further to the time that the 911 call came in,

and we see the same vehicle drive slowly past

Jonathan's house at 12:43 A.M.

The first thing on my mind is me

and my team have to find out who this female is.

Investigators run a check on the vehicle

and learn that it belongs to a local woman...

Colette Collins.

Colette Collins...

Not someone necessarily you would think would be a suspect.

She's got no criminal history. She's a mom.

She's got a pretty good job, her husband runs a local business

in bluffton, so she doesn't really fit that profile

who would be involved in such a gruesome murder.

But Colette's car is linked

to the scene of the crime.

Detectives summon her to the station for questioning.

My first impression of Colette is that she seemed very calm.

If she was involved with this murder,

she seemed very comfortable with it,

and she was prepared to answer any questions we had.

The detectives asked how she knows Jonathan,

why was she there, why was she driving by his house?

And she says that she and her husband are friends with him.

They had met at one of his bars and became friends,

and she really describes them as very close friends.

She seems like she's trying to help the police

with the investigation,

and she is actually upset about the fact that something

has happened to her friend.

Detectives question Colette about her whereabouts

the night of the murder.

She tells US that she had been working at her job that night,

which is a country club in the nearby area.

We know that Colette arrives at Jonathan's place

around 10:53.

So, of course, the next question is why are you at

the house at, you know,

at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night?

Why are you driving by?

She says that her husband, Sam,

struggles with addictions, with drugs and alcohol,

so they have a dry house,

but she likes to enjoy her wine

or her alcohol every now and again,

and so she describes that

on this particular night, she'd gone out,

got herself a bottle of wine, and was riding around bluffton

drinking her wine

and just happened to drive down Jonathan's street.

Colette's story that she was out driving around

aimlessly burning fuel,

guzzling white wine behind the wheel,

I mean, it's just so bizarre that it

has a certain ring of truth to it.

But what detectives aren't buying is Colette's

story that she just happened to pop in on Jonathan.

So as they start aligning the facts,

they see her drive by his house,

they see the interaction where obviously they knew each other.

She's out drinking. It's late at night.

The automatic assumption, or at least interest, would be,

you know, there may be a little more to

the relationship.

But Colette denies any kind of romantic entanglement with

Jonathan, she says, "we're all just friends.

"In fact, my husband and he are best friends.

I'm kind of the third wheel, if anything else."

Colette claims that after drinking and driving

around in the car and dropping in on Jonathan,

she simply went home,

arriving around one o'clock in the morning.

Colette tells US that Sam is upset that she's been drinking,

and they have some words about that,

but it wasn't anything significant,

and that that pretty much is the end of her night at that point.

To confirm Colette's story,

detectives reach out to her husband, Sam.

Sam's got this very, very pronounced lamp.

He's walking with a cane

and initially seems very, very cooperative.

Sam tells US that he got shot.

It appears that it was a drug deal gone bad.

He actually took a shot almost directly to his knee,

and he's got a permanent limp for the rest of his life.

It messed him up pretty good.

Sam pretty much verifies

Colette's story that yes, they're all friends.

No, there's no affair going on.

Yes, she rolled in drunk.

He had been home all night watching TV.

They got into a big fight, and then they went to bed.

Sam was home all evening,

and if Colette arrived home at 1 A.M.,

that means she would have been driving at

the time of the murder with no opportunity to kill Jonathan.

And seeing no motive for her to kill their close friend,

detectives remove her as a suspect.

We didn't have a... a... Any indication as to why

this happened, really.

Didn't have any indication as to who it might have been.

It was just this, you know, wide open, going all these

different directions, trying to find which

thread do we go with as far as where the suspect is.

With no new leads to go on,

detectives circle back to focus on what they do know.

So at this point in the time line,

you've got gene, who claims he saw everything

but wasn't involved.

Then you've got this guy, Rupert,

who apparently was asleep inside the home but didn't hear

anything, didn't see anything.

Could they be trying to protect each other

in some sort of bigger and nefarious action?

Thomas: Sometimes the killer will put themselves

at the scene, to deflect their own guilt

and involvement and put the suspicion

or focus onto somebody else.

As they investigate possible motives

for gene and Rupert,

detectives discover that Rupert had

a reason to want revenge on Jonathan.

As it turns out, not only are Rupert and Jonathan roommates,

but his family had invested pretty heavily in some of

Jonathan's interests, and they lost their shirts in the deal.

Losing a lot of money is not

easy for people... that could make some enemies.

So again, as you're looking at

the kind of execution shooting it was,

is this guy or his family involved?

Police bring Rupert in for questioning,

and he admits there was bad blood between his family

and Jonathan.

There were some allegations that money was

missing and that John had potentially been taking

money from the business.

Losing money

and theft could be a motive for murder.

Detectives put Rupert's and gene's timelines

to the test,

hoping this will shed some light on whether they are

telling the truth or spreading lies.

Rupert tells police that he got home around 3 P.M.,

that John and a friend of his were there.

They had dinner around 7 P.M.

He went to bed shortly thereafter.

Around midnight, he wakes up,

walks outside because he hears John and gene outside

talking, goes out there, you know, smokes

a cigarette and talks to them for a few minutes.

He then goes back inside

and lays back down, and he had fallen asleep again.

Detectives compare Rupert's story with gene's.

Police are able to confirm that gene was at work

until 11:35 and that he arrived at Jonathan's

around 12, but that does not eliminate Rupert

and gene as suspects at this point.

With no way to eliminate

gene and Rupert through their timelines,

detectives test the men's hands for gunshot residue.

We tested both their hands for gunshot residue

to see if they had fired a gun recently,

and both of them came back negative.

With gene and Rupert cleared,

detectives dig into Jonathan's personal life

looking for someone with a motive for murder.

Jonathan likes the attention of the ladies.

The ladies liked to give him that attention.

He's not that discerning whether or not

the ladies have someone else in their lives,

and word is around town that, on more than one occasion, that

may have caused a bit of drama

in his life when husbands and boyfriends who didn't care for

the fact... surely Jonathan had to know that playing with fire

probably is not the best choice, you know, if you're going to

mess around with someone else's woman,

you're going to get people irate at you,

and jealousy is a big motivator.

If your wife, your girlfriend's stepping out on you, not only

are you angry at her,

but then you're also saying that guy is the reason

she left me.

This guy is a guy we need to have a conversation with.

Detectives theorize that the murder of

Jonathan cherol could be a crime of passion

and reorient their investigation to

examine jealous husbands and boyfriends.

Gene told police that, in particular,

there was one woman, Annie,

who John was friends with, as well as gene.

Annie had come to John and told him that her boyfriend had

beaten her up and that

she was scared of him and that he was very jealous of

her relationships with other people,

um, especially John.

Annie agrees to come in for an interview.

We talk to her, and she opens up about her boyfriend, patton.

If she really is going to John for comfort

and patton found out about it,

and he has this incredibly violent streak in him,

patton could potentially be our suspect.

When detectives investigate further,

they learn that patton has an airtight alibi for the night

of the murder and wasn't in the area.

With little to go on in Jonathan's personal life,

detectives turn their investigation

to his professional connections.

In 2015, John started a business

with another restaurant owner.

He's a good-looking, successful businessman,

but that's the surface... Underneath, the businesses,

not so financially stable.

There were a lot of people that Jonathan had

lost money for that had maybe some shady dealings with.

As a psychologist, I think it's

common for people to have different facades.

We may have our personal one or our work one,

but sometimes where we get into trouble is when these

facades don't tend to mesh well or they're in conflict.

So in this case, it may be possible that Jonathan's image

that he wants to project as a promising restaurateur

and standup guy is now being threatened,

which might lead him potentially into a decline in terms of

his standing in the community.

Jonathan may start to get desperate.

He may look for solutions that he ordinarily wouldn't,

and so this may have been the case.

He got deeper and deeper into

a cycle that he couldn't get himself out of.

Detectives investigate

Jonathan's new business partnership with

husband and wife, Shirley and clive.

Shirley and clive,

business associates with John, I had a rough falling out.

That gave US some possible motive

that could potentially lead to the killing of John.

With Shirley and clive in their crosshairs,

detectives call them into the station for questioning.

They tell the police about

their business relationship with John.

Shortly after they entered into this agreement,

there were allegations of misappropriation of funds from

Shirley and clive about John.

Shirley's business had been around for awhile,

was very successful.

They merged, and all of a sudden, everything folds,

and all this money is gone,

and so Shirley has seen this business that was

doing great,

now it's gone, and her life is ruined now.

John's desperate for money,

and it's well known that desperate people are prepared

to take risks that they otherwise wouldn't,

and when you're prepared to take those risks,

you can't necessarily control that outcome.

The flip side to that is, if you're responsible or have

a hand in making somebody else desperate,

like Shirley and her husband, that can come back full circle.

Shirley and clive had a motive to kill Jonathan,

but did they have the opportunity?

When detectives question Shirley and clive

about their whereabouts when Jonathan was murdered,

they say they were at home from 9 o'clock P.M. until

7 o'clock A.M., when they went to work.

During the time of the murder, I was with her.

She was with me.

So it creates a very frustrating thing.

Yes, you have an alibi, but it's not unheard of that

a married couple would lie for each other.

So it just creates another layer of, okay, they're alibied,

but we can't rule them out.

Detectives ask Shirley and clive if they own

any guns... under pressure,

the couple makes a reluctant admission.

Turns out, they own a shotgun.

Here's pieces falling in... Police say,

"hey, maybe we got 'em."

They take the gun, the bring it to ballistics.

But when the results come back,

detectives are surprised by what they learn.

The shotgun did not match the ballistics on

the shells that were found at the crime scene.

Because of that, we were able to

eliminate both Shirley and clive as suspects.

With their leads dried up,

the investigation hits a wall.

Heat really is getting turned up on the investigators.

They keep coming up with dead end

after dead end, alibied suspect after

alibied suspect, you've got a gruesome murder

in a small town, a small tourist town.

You know, there's answers that have to be found,

because it's starting to take a toll

on a small community that doesn't deal with murders

every single day.

Still believing the murder could be connected to

Jonathan's business failings,

detectives dig deeper into his finances.

He owes a lot of people a lot of money,

because he was begging from Peter to pay Paul,

and so now the walls start closing in.

If you're getting money from here and here to pay this guy

and you understand how debt works,

all of a sudden, that whole game is gonna end.

That whole game is gonna stop,

and everyone at the same time is gonna have their hands out,

and that could create a serious issue

for somebody who owes a lot of people

a lot of money in a small town.

The deeper detectives dig,

the more they learn that Jonathan's

complicated money issues weren't restricted

to his business dealings.

Jonathan was in great debt because

he has some type of drug problem.

John was into the use of anti-anxiety medication

and potentially some other drugs, as well.

The deeper he got into trying to

be successful with the restaurant business,

the deeper he got in with his issues with pills and drugs,

and all of a sudden, he's got this habit.

It's a serious problem.

I can't even begin to imagine what was going through

Jonathan's life personally, late at night,

when the demons come where he spends all day being

this super charismatic ladies man and having fun,

and I'm sure he was, and spending other people's money,

but he had to have been cognizant that... that

stuff was coming down, husbands are getting more aware,

the boyfriends are getting more aware,

the bills are coming due, his business is closed.

He probably was feeling like his whole world,

this whole big castle that he created,

is slowly crumbling down upon him.

When investigators probe Jonathan's

cellphone records for clues,

they make a shocking discovery.

The last text that he gets is, "shoot his ass.

I don't give an f anymore."

That number that he had been texting,

we got a search warrant for that, as well,

and determined that it belonged to Josh.

Just is... wouldn't necessarily call him a regular,

but we see him more than we'd like to, you know,

with the police department,

and he's been in and out of jail a few times,

mainly small level narcotic stuff.

Josh is questioned by detectives

at the local detention center.

Between 12 and 5, Jonathan and Josh were running errands.

We know from 5 to 7,

both Josh and Jonathan were at

the house, and they were playing video games.

And then Josh leaves.

Josh's phone records confirm he was nowhere near

Jonathan's house at the time of the murder,

but he does offer up information

that could lead to a new suspect.

Josh told US John was going from drug dealer

to drug dealer to whoever who would

supply him until he got so far into debt

that he wasn't able to repay them.

Did he borrow the money from the wrong person

who said, "hey, it's time to pay up,"

and he didn't have the money to pay up?

Could that be a motive?

Could that have led up to his ultimate demise?

While investigating Jonathan cherol's murder,

police have uncovered a history of business debts,

a pill addiction, and unpaid tabs with drug dealers,

and now his friend Josh

is providing more information about him.

The cops learn from Josh that he now owes all kinds of

drug dealers, all kinds of bad guys, money,

so desperate man requires desperate measures.

He comes up with this grand plan.

Johnson thought Seth was an easy target,

because Seth had a limp to him,

and so he set up a robbery at his house.

He figures that if he takes Seth out, not only

does he erase his debt with Seth,

but he steals Seth's money, and he pays off all

the other dealers... problem solved, no fuss, no muss,

I think plans that Jonathan may have had seem

to US, on the face of it, as completely implausible,

but you know, when you're involved in

a drug culture or subculture, that's inherently violent.

Jonathan's young, he may not have fully understood

the extent of the danger he may have been putting himself in,

but also people evaluate that danger differently when they're

under the influence of substances or they're desperate.

It makes you consider options

that maybe you ordinarily wouldn't have.

Detectives need to track down this Seth person

as soon as possible,

but they only have a first name to go on.

So cops then turned to Josh again and say,

"okay, who's Seth?"

Who is this guy that Jonathan felt that

he could take out and solve all his problems?

So finally, Josh says, "I don't know who Seth is,

"but I know who he's married to.

Colette Collins."

Now, if Seth is married to Colette,

that must mean, obviously, that Seth is code for Sam.

And that's absolutely a moment

where we're like, okay here...

This is a big piece right here.

We just got handed something that...

This is going to absolutely cement the direction

we're going in, finding the guy that killed John.

Sam and Colette Collins,

the couple who claimed to have been

close friends with Jonathan both have alibis.

But knowing Jonathan had planned a robbery and attack on

Seth, also known as Sam, detectives

shift their focus back to the couple and pay a visit to

their home.

There are several bulletholes in the house,

both that appeared to be entering in

the house and exiting to the house.

So at some point, there was

a shootout that occurred over at the house.

When we get a little more detailed in questioning,

Sam eventually does say something happened,

and as I asked him more, if he... if he thought

that John was involved, he says that John was over

at the house, was acting weird,

and then John left.

A short time later, these guys come

up to Sam's house and try to Rob him,

so he did suspect John of

setting the whole thing up.

He said he wasn't mad at John for it and that he just

wanted to go after the people that robbed his house.

So police then ask Sam, all right,

if you knew that Jonathan was in all this trouble,

if you knew that he owed a bunch of drug dealers,

why didn't you tell US last time we talked?

And Sam said, "hey, the guy's my best friend,

I'm gonna protect him."

But detectives aren't buying Sam's story.

At that point in time,

I immediately think he's got the strongest motive

out of all our suspects to kill John cherol.

But our thought was how is he making it 100 yards from

the street down to the house, shooting the shotgun,

and then getting away in time?

Because he... He's got this limp.

And that puts Colette Collins right in

investigative suspicion central.

As this man is getting shot, Colette is driving by

his house... I'm sorry, but it is not

a galactic leap to put those two things together.

Detectives theorize that Colette could have been

the shooter and Sam the mastermind

and haul them both down to the station for questioning.

They start with Colette.

Colette doesn't tell the police about

this home invasion that had occurred just a month prior.

In fact, when asked about the gunshots in the walls

in the house,

she tells police that they were there when they, in fact,

moved into the house.

When detectives push Colette for information about

Jonathan's murder, she clams up.

Her immediate response to me

after speaking with her was,

"I want my lawyer. I want my attorney."

That tells me she's hiding something.

With Colette stonewalling them,

detectives lean on Sam.

We asked him if he'd be willing to give a DNA sample,

and he very readily said,

"absolutely, I've got no problem with that,"

and he gives US a DNA sample.

But when police ask Sam about any guns in his home,

his entire attitude changes.

Sam tells law enforcement that

he does not have any guns in the home,

and the police then ask Sam if they can search the home.

And at that point, Sam asked for a lawyer and says, "no."

With Sam and Colette refusing to talk,

detectives have little to go on to get

a search warrant for their home.

Search warrants are among the most

effective tools in securing evidence

and can make or break cases.

So when you don't get a search warrant, that sort of leaves

investigators on their heels,

and you have to sort of improvise.

One of the best substitutes in lieu of a search warrant

and which can actually get you enough evidence to get

the search warrant is through good,

dedicated surveillance.

Detectives regroup as the investigation

into Jonathan's murder hits a roadblock.

This investigation is pressure on

myself and my team... We were getting

pressured by people from the town.

They want this case solved.

They want to know that there's not

a killer running around town,

and number one is pressure from the family.

We want to give closure to that family as quickly

as possible and catch the person responsible

for their son's death.

But then detectives finally catch a break.

A patrolman

had issued a traffic stop on a vehicle driven by Sam Collins.

The officer ends up searching

the vehicle, because he smelled weed.

He does find some drugs in the car,

but in Sam's pocket is a shotgun shell.

Sam had already told US that he had no weapons.

So why is he walking around with a shotgun shell in his pocket?

A 12-Gauge shotgun shell,

the same type of round that was used to kill Jonathan.

But that's not the only discovery

the officer makes.

When Sam steps out of the car,

no cane, he has a limp,

but it's not nearly as pronounced as it was the day

they came in and talked to US.

And so now we're thinking, well, he was puttin' on an act.

And if he was putting on an act, why was he putting on an act?

If there was one kind of

aha moment in the entire investigation, that's it.

Sam is booked on drug possession

charges and taken to the county jail.

The shotgun shell in his pocket is enough for

investigators to get their search warrant

for the Collins home.

We find a metal safe, and

the first thing that goes through our mind is the shotgun

that was used in this crime scene is in that safe.

We've got our case solved. We've got the murder weapon.

It's inside this safe.

We asked Colette to open the safe,

and she says she doesn't remember the code.

We call a locksmith out.

Takes him about an hour to open up the safe.

And when he opens it up,

it's empty... we do not have a murder weapon.

Detectives get a search warrant

for Sam and Colette's phone records.

So we've got 12:53 A.M.,

John is shot and killed on his back porch.

Then at 2:24 A.M.,

we've got this text message from a phone

used by Sam Collins to an unknown individual

tellin' him that he's returned his shotgun.

And then we go on, and we see a second text message

that says, "you didn't see me, and I didn't see you."

Detectives are closing in on Sam and Colette Collins

as the prime suspects in Jonathan cherol's murder

and focus on tying them to

the scene of the crime through text messages

Sam sent about a gun.

This says a couple of things.

It puts Sam with a shotgun.

Guy's killed with a shotgun.

But the bigger thing it does is it destroys

his entire alibi, because, remember, he had said,

"I was at home. My wife came home drunk.

"We fought, and we went to sleep.

I don't know what happened to this guy."

Well here by his own cellphone record,

he's out dropping a shotgun off at a buddy's house.

Who was this person? Where is this shotgun?

And we need it is what's going through

police's mind at this point.

Detectives trace the unknown number to a friend

of Sam's by the name of William

and go to ask him some questions.

William tells them about his relationship

with Sam and Colette Collins.

He had known Sam for

a number of years through the construction business.

Sam had asked William to borrow a gun.

He told William that he was concerned for his safety.

He thought somebody was maybe trying

to harm him or his family.

William did not think anything about it,

so he let Sam borrow a shotgun about a month or a few weeks

prior to the murder of John cherol.

Williams says, "you're welcome to take it.

"I haven't shot it since he came back.

I just put it away."

We got excited, but we didn't get too excited.

We submit the gun to the laboratory,

and the ballistics came back

a match to the shells found at the crime scene.

This is the moment for law enforcement

where it all comes together.

We then submit it for DNA,

and the laboratory said,

"the DNA matches Sam Collins."

It's on the bus stock, on the trigger, and on the handle.

We all just screamed. We were excited.

Based on the physical evidence that's there

and the time line from the video footage,

the security cameras, we can put Colette right in front of

Jonathan's house at the time of the murder.

Detectives now have solid proof that Sam had

the means and the opportunity to kill Jonathan.

But what about the motive?

John was interested in obtaining drugs,

and he knew that

Sam had anxiety medication and different pills,

and he was in debt to Sam for about $1,200,

and that's why he was murdered.

Detectives are now able to piece together

the final 24 hours of Jonathan's life.

Around 10:53 that evening,

Colette shows up and talks to John,

hangs out with John until about 11:45.

Gene shows up at about midnight, once gene's there,

him and John are hanging out, having a good time.

Also, around midnight, Colette came home intoxicated.

Sam asked her where she had been,

and she told him she had been a John's house.

Sam was angry.

He thought that John had taken money from him,

that John was trying to

kill him and that John had something going on

with his wife.

And at that point, he grabbed his gun

and told his wife to drive him to John cherol's house.

Colette didn't know that he was gonna kill Jonathan.

He told her that he was gonna scare Jonathan.

You see them drive through

the neighborhood, pass John's around 12:43.

12:53, Sam gets out of the car to go through the woods

to walk up and shoot John.

At 12:54, this is when Colette picks up Sam Collins.

And he tells Colette, "hey, I just shot Jonathan."

Now this little piece of information now

implicates Colette as an accessory after the fact.

She's just, you know, innocent,

never done anything wrong,

but yet she helped cover up a murder.

Colette and Sam are both charged

with the murder of Jonathan cherol,

but based on her husband's confession,

Colette's conviction is reduced to accessory after

the fact, and she receives

the maximum sentence of 15 years.

On October 18, 2017, Sam Collins is convicted of

first-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years

in prison.

I guess the biggest thing for me and what made

me want to convict the two of these people was their lies

and manipulation really got under my skin,

and it's unfortunate that it resulted in the death of

Jonathan cherol, who could have had

a productive, successful life.

Timelines were always important

in a murder investigation, period.

You've got to put people and players and suspect in place.

In this case, there was a lot more for cops to go on

than just the word and the time line verbally of

suspects and witnesses.

There was a digital time line.

The cops were able to, once they had the information

put together, video cameras, text messages,

all those play into the time line that narrowed in,

honed in, destroyed the alibi

of the two suspects and ultimately cleared this case.

The thing with John is that all of

his friends loved him.

They were all very broken up about John's death, you know,

I mean... I mean, John made an impact on people and,

you know, he got addicted to these anti-anxiety medication,

and it spiraled out of control.

But that doesn't mean he's a bad person.

I'd been in investigations for eight years,

and it was by far the best feeling

in the world to solve this case.

I've dealt with some really bad cases,

but for some reason, this one touched home the most,

because it happened in the community I live in,

it happened in the community I serve,

and it doesn't happen that often.

And there was tremendous pressure on my entire staff,

and every single one of my investigators Rose up to

the occasion, and we were able to

give a grieving family some closure,

and that was the greatest reward we could have had.