by Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent

It was a perfectly sunny L.A. afternoon, a charming curb-side restaurant right there in the sweet spot of the Sunset strip, lunch with a couple of members of an extremely exclusive club.

And one of them popped up and was across the place — and back — before I quite understood what was up.

"______," she told me, sitting down again.  "He was the guy in the Paris video..."  THAT Paris video.

A friend of hers, apparently.  Or was he?  As we had been discovering, the tight little world inhabited by the people who show up week after week on the covers of tabloid magazines is not quite the bright wonderland lots of us like to imagine.

Behind those velvet ropes, our lunch companions told us, it's a sometimes dangerous world, inhabited not just by the famous or the wanna-be famous, but by dark characters, bottom feeders and bad boys intent on making use of those very faces you see on the tabloids.

Our purpose, when we started, was to look into a terrifying home invasion robbery way up in the nosebleed section of Bel Air. I mean, way up.  Nancy Reagan's neighborhood. Homes so expensive you can't even see them, in there behind their hand built gates, up their hedge-lined private driveways. 

The victim of this robbery is a celebrity himself:  Joe Francis, the man behind a ridiculously profitable moral quagmire called "Girls Gone Wild."  Joe has been flogging his videos - college girls lifting their tops for the camera, playing sex games with each other, etc, etc - long enough to have built a boy's dream of a lifestyle. 

Here is a partial list of Joe's toys:  private jets (two), Bentley, Ferrari, the really nice house, other big house across the country, a place in the Caribbean.... and... friendships with people who are famous.

Like Paris Hilton.  Who says, the second Joe's name comes up, "He's NOT my ex-boyfriend."

But did she know who got into his house one night, tied him up, threatened to kill him, forced him to make a video apparently aimed at making him look gay?

And thus, from our curiosity about a robbery, we found ourselves drawn into the bizarre world of Hollywood night life.

We listened to Paris call herself "like, not that smart." We heard her memory improve remarkably...  after a sandwich.

What's it like behind those Hollywood velvet ropes?

Next time you find yourself in a check-out line and your eye is drawn to some ultra-famous party girl — or boy — splashed on a tabloid cover and you wonder, just for a second, how cool it must be to live in that world... you might remember this simple definition of celebrity life, from an L.A. County prosecutor named Hoon Chun: "Its a jet-set version of high school."

The Paris Hilton tapes previously aired on Dateline in September of 2006. An update of the report is supposed to air this Sunday, March 4, 7 p.m.

This was Tuesday's live blog. These posts were meant to coincide with the broadcast.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

7:55 p.m.
Meet a the guy who thinks he's about to get away it, at least for a few minutes. Mohamed Abdalla walks into our hidden camera house oozing with confidence. Notice how relaxed he is talking with our actress posing as a young teen home alone. Even when I walk out to talk to him, he's got his story all set and he's sticking to it.

Abdalla tells me that he's in real estate and was driving through our area to check on a piece of property he owns. Along the way he notices that the space shuttle is blasting off from nearby Cape Kennedy and pulls over his car to watch. Just a short while earlier, we too had watch the spectacular nighttime launch.

What Abdalla isn't prepared for is that I have not only the transcripts of his sexually explicit conversation with a decoy posing as a 13-old-girl, but also naked photos of himself that he sent online. How do we know it is Abdalla in the photos? As you're about to see, a unique piece of jewelry in the picture matches one that is hanging around the 34-year-old man's neck. So much for the clever story.

8:16 p.m.
In a moment you're going to meet a 22-year-old college student and chemistry teacher named Deepak Bist. This guy drove four hours to get here and after reading his online chat with a decoy who said she was 13, I am wondering what he was thinking about during that long car ride. I guess you could argue that all of these guys should know better, but Bist actually talks about our investigations during his chat. He even tells the decoy he's watched Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" the evening before his chat. This doesn't seem to stop him from bringing a virtual sex kit to his underage liaison.

8:33 p.m.
We may be shooting in Florida, but on this night it is windy and cold. That doesn't stop a 24-year-old amateur boxer named David Wagner from showing up to meet a 13-year-old girl. The boxer starts to leave when he sees me walk into the room. But watch as he decides to come back and answer some questions. He asks me if this is an "open house" as if he were shopping for real estate. It's an open house all right…one in which 21 men would show up during four days last December.

8:46 p.m.
Towards the end of tonight's show, you're going to see a potential predator try to meet a teen in a location besides our hidden camera house. This is a challenge both logistically and technically. We set up several hidden cameras on the beach across the street from our house. The idea is to have a potential predator meet our decoy on the boardwalk connecting A1A and the beach. As you watch our next guest show up, see if you can figure out where we've hidden our cameras and where the Flagler Beach Police are hiding before the arrest.

8:57 p.m.
Next week, we tell you exactly where everything and everyone was and you'll see what happens when a member of law enforcement shows up in our investigation. It's an officer who may have more firepower than the Flagler Beach officers working in this investigation.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

Since we started our "To Catch A Predator" investigations almost two and a half years ago, I have confronted more than 200 men who had sexually explicit online chats with decoys posing as young teens before showing up for a date at one of our hidden camera houses.

Many of the men ultimately admit their intentions and sometimes go into great detail about their online addictions and compulsions that led them to our door.

But every once in a while, I run into someone who comes up with what he thinks is a plausible story-- an "innocent excuse" if you will -- for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Such is the case with the first man you'll meet tonight. He's a 32-year-old successful real estate executive who was chatting online with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. As you'll see, he's a pretty confident guy when he walks into our house. When I start to ask him questions, he says he was in our area checking on some property he owned and had pulled off the road near our house to get a good view of the space shuttle blasting off. In fact, we'd been treated to the same inspiring sight just a short while earlier.

Click the photo for a video preview of the exchange.

Then he tells me he just happened to see our decoy in the driveway, assumed our house was for sale, and figured he'd stop in to check it out. Unfortunately for him that doesn't explain his sexually explicit chat or the naked photos he sent. While there's no face in the pictures to match the man standing in our living room, there's a distinctive piece of jewelry that matches exactly the one he's wearing. That's where his crafty story starts to unravel.

During our investigation in Flagler beach, we're not only prepared for excuses, we're also ready for men who may want to meet at a location besides our house. It presents a technical challenge, but as you'll see, it's one that pays off.

The first part of the Flagler Beach episode airs Tuesday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

Right before our broadcast of 'To Catch a Predator' in Murphy, Texas, we received this blog post from a council member in Murphy, Texas:

Below is my response:

Dear Councilmember,  

Thank you for sharing you concerns about our To Catch A Predator investigation in Murphy, Texas, however I wanted to alert you to a number of inaccuracies in your note to us. Our investigation was conducted along with a parallel investigation by the Murphy Police in a careful, well thought out manner. Each time we conduct one of these operations, we consider the safety and sanctity of the surrounding neighbors. It is our position that the large police presence and the presence of our hidden cameras made this arguably the safest neighborhood in Texas. The investigations will hopefully deter the solicitation of minors online in the areas we work long after our investigations are over.

You suggest that "not one case for sexual solicitation of a minor has been filed in this sting." We have been told by the Murphy police that those filings are underway and will happen soon.

You point out that a bag of cocaine was found near our hidden camera house during our investigation. In fact a minute amount of cocaine was found a block or so away from our house and was turned into the Murphy Police. There is no known link between this cocaine and any of the suspects who surfaced in our investigation. So far as we know, none of the suspects even drove by the spot where the bag  was found in order to get to our house.

You say there were police chases through Murphy without lights. Neither we nor the Murphy police are aware of any police chases. There was an instance where a suspect was followed by an unmarked vehicle into Plano, where he was stopped by a marked police motorcycle. This did not constitute a "chase."

You allege that the arrest warrant served at the house of Assistant District Attorney Louis William Conradt Jr. was somehow invalid or was "expired." There was a typographical error that resulted in the wrong date being put in one part of the document, however, when the judge signed the warrant, the judge corrected the date.

Again, we thank you for sharing your concerns.

***
Editor's note: On November 11, 2006, the City Council of Murphy Texas held a special session to discuss the Dateline investigation in their town. Everyone in the open forum was allowed to have two minutes to speak to the council. Click here for that video.

We've received some positive blog comments from residents of Murphy, Texas as well. Below are a few --

I live in Murphy and spoke at the public City Council meeting and I am proud to say that the people who opposed the sting operation were in the minority. Most of us support the Police Department wholeheartedly and look on this as yet another way that they try to keep our children safe. Murphy is a great place to live -- no city is perfect or completely safe from predators and anyone who thinks there's a city like that is living in a fool's paradise. We need our police to be hypervigilant and aware of the perverts who are everywhere and we can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist because it's too uncomfortable to think about. Our children MUST be educated to keep them safe. And only by bringing child abuse out in the open can it be stopped -- it thrives on secrecy and flourishes when people say "it can't happen here."  --Nina Scott, Murphy, TX (Sent Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:22 AM)

by Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline correspondent

This week, two strange soap operas attracted an audience of millions. On TV, on the Internet, and in print, the sagas played out. And depending on how you see all this, you can choose your own storyline -- women gone wrong, women done wrong, or girls gone wild.

Singer Britney Spears, more than accustomed to headlines for her sexy onstage persona, found her image publicly deep-fried for behavior that could only be described as very troubling. She took a one-day trip to a drug and alcohol dependency center, then she stopped off at an L.A. salon and, seemingly on a whim, she shaved her head. Then, that same evening, she made a pit stop for a couple of tattoos, followed by another spin through the revolving door of rehab after her ex- threatened to take her to court over the kids.

For Harvey Levin of TMZ.com, the Internet encyclopedia of celebrities-in-crisis, Britney needs help. "Her family knows she needs help.  And the world knows she needs help.  And you know what?  She probably knows she needs help too."  

Anna Nicole Smith needed help as well, but she either didn't get it, didn't want it, got too much of it... or got it from the wrong people. That might be the curse of being beautiful, vulnerable, and constantly on the verge of being hugely wealthy. The result was that long, bizarre hearing we all saw unfold in a Florida courtroom.

The model and actress didn't have much of a career, but it wasn't her body of work that was being litigated -- it was her body, the one that made her so famous.

And 13 days after Anna Nicole Smith's death, the local medical examiner warned she was literally decomposing as her companion, her mother, and her ex-boyfriend argued about what would be done with her. It was a hearing awash in both theater and regret with Smith's estranged mother on the stand remembering her daughter's addictions.

She tried taking her daughter to the Betty Ford center. But the former Playmate of the Year didn't last in rehab. 

And so far, the former Mouseketeer seems at best ambivalent.

We talked to author and talk-radio host Dr. Drew Pinsky, an expert on addiction and the nexus between public fame and personal agony.

"People that are driven to be a celebrity, by definition, have very high incidence of what we call, 'cluster-B personality problems,' particularly narcissism," says Pinsky.  "Lots of trauma in childhood, lots of substance and alcohol use.  This predicts, guarantees more addiction and more chaos in their relationships."

So is the common theme here drugs or alcohol? Or maybe fame-- living with it and trying to hold onto it? And don't forget money. Men are lining up to claim the paternity of Smith's infant daughter who may be soon a millionaire.  Britney Spears' hair is for sale on the Internet. It's all enough to make you want to turn your head away...or at least, to tell people you do.

There's a kind of hypocrisy in this country, isn't there?  I mean, people will tell you, "Oh, I can't believe you spend so much of your time following Britney around."  And then the minute there's a story, they want to know about it.  They're clicking on TMZ.  And they're buying the latest magazine.

For Levin, it's not unlike watching accidents. "It's the same principle."

More of my conversation with Harvey Levin:

Mankiewicz: But what's our responsibility here, yours and mine?  We both, to some extent, make our living covering these people, and fueling this interest.

Levin: I mean, I don't apologize for covering it. These are celebrities who court publicity.  They want their lives covered. It's a door they opened. I mean, you can't say to me, "I open the door but I'm having a bad hair day, so this door gets shut today."

And lately, for a young woman who only a couple of years ago was at the top of her game, it's been one long bad hair day.

Levin: I think she is viewed as a dark figure, which she never was before -- a troubled person. She's not this darling anymore.  I mean, honestly, I think it's pretty amazing that Kevin Federline looks like the stable one. These women are not our royalty. They lead lives few would envy.  It turns out that when that door to fame opens, it sometimes opens to a lot of other things as well.

Mankiewicz: It was different when the studios ran Hollywood.

Levin: Totally.  Totally different.

          Mankiewicz: Certain things just didn't get reported.

Levin: Most things didn't get reported.  Hollywood looked like the perfect place, where people had the perfect marriage, the perfect looks, the perfect children, and nobody ever had a substance abuse problem.  And nobody committed a crime.  And everybody was happy, happy, happy.

Now, we get everything we always wanted to know...and so much more. And all of it's a sad, painful, and sometimes embarrassing lesson about our stars, ourselves, and the vapor trail of celebrity.

Even though the life of Anna Nicole Smith was defined by tragedy and high drama, the news of her death still came as a shock.

Controversy and scandal, success and failure trailed Anna Nicole from the moment she came into public view — make that full view — as a Playboy centerfold 15 years ago.  Her sudden and still mysterious death today is a final ironic chapter for a woman who modeled herself after her idol, Marilyn Monroe.

And this week, it may have been one of the strangest court battles you've ever seen: Since the death of Anna Nicole Smith more than two weeks ago a battalion of lawyers has been fighting over her final resting place.

Meanwhile, another fight is raging over the question of who fathered Smith's baby girl, an infant who could inherit millions.

But it was the complex and often colorful court battle over Smith's remains that riveted the nation over the past few days. Click here to read the Dateline report on the legal drama. Click here to read the interesting quotes from Judge Seidlen.

Use the comments section, below, to share your thoughts on the death of a centerfold.

What did you think of the death of Alexander Litvinenko? Share your theories below.

The horrific killing of a former officer in Russia's notorious KGB, Alexander Litvinenko, in November 2006, the radioactive trail that followed, and the international cast of potential suspects made front-page news all over the world.

Now, three months later, while many questions remain unanswered, "Dateline's" Ann Curry reports on the international murder investigation surrounding this man of mystery on Sunday, Feb. 25 at 7 PM, ET.
 
Curry sits down for an emotional interview with Litvinenko's wife, Marina, and investigates the events that may have led to the poisoning of Litvinenko and the events that have followed both in London and Russia.

In addition, the broadcast includes exclusive interviews with the Italian man Litvinenko met in the sushi restaurant and the Kremlin's archenemy, Boris Berezovsky. For the first time, Americans will hear from all the potential suspects involved in the murder.

Read the transcript to the report here.

Click here to investigate the case yourself via an online interactive.

Share your theories here.

This was Tuesday's live blog. These entries are meant to coincide with the broadcast.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

7:54 p.m.
The online watchdog group Perverted Justice had worked before with the Murphy, Texas police Department to catch potential predators before, and received attention in some of the local newspapers. During our investigation here, which took place in the days before elections, the issue of online predators was raised in campaign ads that seemed to run every 10 minutes.

I wondered whether all this would keep men from showing up at our hidden camera house. As your about to see, it did not. 31-year old "sunsetliquid", who works in real estate drives more than four hours from Houston after chatting online with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl home alone. The man talked about kissing the girl all over and giving and receiving oral sex. He even says he could go to jail if he's ever caught doing this.

But, when I confront him with the chat log--his words in black and white-- he claims he thought the girl was 18. He also says that he would never have had sex with the girl; he was just there to visit and take some pictures of her. He does have camera equipment in his car. Watch as he admits to me that he's seen an episode of "To Catch a Predator" and how he thought it was disturbing that so many men would try to meet a teen. Perhaps what will disturb him more is what's about to happen to him when he leaves our house.

8:11 p.m.
You'll see the man I told you about in a previous blog: Eric Rubalcava, who talked about how he wants to have sex with the girl and how he'll kiss her all over. He recognized me and talked about seeing the "To Catch a Predator" series once before. I asked him what he thought about the show. He told me it was disturbing to see men go after young girls, but there he was allegedly doing the very same thing. The difference, he claimed, is that he really wouldn't have had sex with the girl, although he admitted that he might have taken some photographs of her.

8:18 p.m.
It continues to surprise me how comfortable these men are walking into the home of a total stranger. When 40-year old "eearthshine66" walks in, he chats with our decoy who is standing behind a bar in the living room. He wants a beverage but notices there is no ice on the bar. As he continues his discussion with the girl, he walks into the kitchen to get some ice out of the freezer.

What he doesn't know is that while he's chatting away, the girl has left the room and I have gotten into position behind the bar. Watch his face closely as he realizes that his visit is about to take a turn for the worse. We find out "eearthshine66" has a criminal past. When he was 18, he says he was charged with sexual assault. He was later found guilty of fourth degree sexual assault and was put on 2 years probation.

8:29 p.m.
After the commercial break, you'll see that our investigation is about to take a tragic turn. A Perverted Justice contributor has been chatting online with someone calling himself "inxs00." At first he says he's a college student and sends explicit picture of a young man to the decoy posing as a 13-year-old boy. There's a phone conversation between the potential predator and an actor pretending to be the 13-year old. There's talk online and on the phone of getting together for sex. As the encounter continues, it becomes clear that the man on the other end of the conversation is actually 56 years old and holds a prominent position in Texas law enforcement. His phone number comes back to Louis W. Conradt Jr. and when the decoy adds him to his buddy list, the screen name goes from "inxs00" to "louiswconradt."

Late on a Saturday night, Murphy police confirm this is the same Louis W. Conradt Jr. who is an Assistant District Attorney in a nearby county. He'd been a prosecutor for more than 20 years. We'll never know why Conradt abruptly ended his conversations with the decoy and why he apparently started to delete material from a MySpace account, but in the eyes of law enforcement, he'd already committed a crime. That night, Murphy Police began the process of obtaining an arrest warrant and a search warrant for Conradt.

8:44 p.m.
Sunday morning, we know that Murphy Police have contacted the police in Terrell where Conradt lives to assist with his arrest. Dateline producers and I discuss whether it's best for me to stay at the house where more potential predators were scheduled to arrive or go to Terrell and try to get a word with Conradt after his arrest. The fact that a prosecutor had surfaced in this investigation is obviously significant and I chose to go to Terrell for what we thought was going to be a few hours. It ended being a much longer and much more tragic than anyone could have imagined.

As you're about to see, when officers attempted to serve the warrants, Conradt would neither answer the door or his phone. After about 45 minutes, a tactical team arrives and enters through the back. We can't see this, but enough time goes by that after we hear the pop of their forcing the back door open -- we know something didn't go as planned. I wonder to myself if Conradt simply wasn't at home. In a matter of minutes, a police lieutenant comes out and tells me that Conradt had shot himself in the head as officers entered the home.

You're about to see how the rest of the story plays out and why it generated so much controversy. Obviously we'll never know exactly why the prosecutor chose to take his own life and there is no indication he knew he had surfaced in a Dateline investigation. But police believe his tragic decision is related to what's locked inside three computers taken from Conradt's home. As of this posting, the computer manufacturer is still trying to unlock those files and see what was apparently worth dying for.

In the end, 25 men were caught in this operation. They were charged with a felony online solicitation of a minor.  While many said they were innocent, they have not yet had a chance to enter a plea.

Next week, we head to the beach, Flagler Beach, Florida. It may be a small community by the sea. But still, potential predators keep coming. They all end up pleading not guilty, but some come up with excuses you may find hard to believe. You'll also meet a police officer who drove hours to get to the 'To Catch a Predator' house, with a gun in his pocket and an arsenal in his car.

Editor's note: Send us your thoughts, below. We're reading -- and will be responding to some of the blog comments on the community reaction in Texas. Watch this blog for that.

And to those who asked about Texas law, here's a link to how they define soliciting a minor of the Internet.

Preview tonight's upcoming report.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

As our "To Catch a Predator" investigation continues here in Murphy, Texas, we continue to see a trend that amazes me:  men who have heard about our investigations before --  and some who have actually watched them—still show up at our hidden camera house.

Take the case of 31-year old Eric Rubalcava. During the online chat, Rubalcava talked about how he wants to have sex with the girl and how he'll kiss her all over. When he showed up at the undercover house, he had camera equipment in his car and an excuse when he meets me. Rubalcava says he thought the girl was 18, but it's clear from the chat log the girl told him she was 13.

As the conversation continued, he recognized me and talked about seeing the "To Catch a Predator" series once before. I asked him what he thought about the show. He told me it was disturbing to see men go after young girls, but there he was allegedly doing the very same thing. The difference, he claimed, is that he really wouldn't have had sex with the girl, although he admitted that he might have taken some photographs of her. Like 23 of the other men who surfaced in the Murphy investigation, he's charged with online solicitation of a minor.

You'll also meet a man, alleged to have committed the same crime, who made a tragic choice. In two years and nine investigations, we've never experienced anything like this: Louis W. Conradt Jr. was an assistant district attorney in a neighboring county.  Before that, he was an elected district attorney. He'd been a prosecutor for more than 20 years and was well-known in law enforcement circles.  But evidence indicates that on this particular Saturday night, he was having a sexually-explicit chat and sending pornographic photos to a Perverted-Justice decoy posing as a teenage boy. Conradt also had a phone conversation with a decoy.

You'll see how we figured out the person on the other end of the chat is actually Conradt.

He never showed up at our house in Murphy, but in Texas you don't have to show up to be charged with a felony. The online solicitation is enough to get a warrant. And that's exactly what the Murphy police did.

Instead of facing the charges, Conradt chose to take his own life. It is a scenario that stunned everyone there. Precisely why Conradt chose to kill himself, we'll likely never know. We do know this: He didn't want anybody to see what he left behind on his home computer. Police say he put so many locks that local forensics investigators couldn't recover the information. The computers have now been sent to the manufacturer to defeat the locks.

I'll keep you posted.

'To Catch a Predator' airs tonight, Tuesday, 8 p.m. on NBC.

In dramatic display, pop princess Spears shaves her head and gets a couple new tattoos.

Dateline is watching this story. Last year, before her divorce, a defiant Britney spears took on the tabloids in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer.

Weigh in and sound off on her new look (slideshow here.) Can fame drive celebrities over the edge?

 

by Jesamyn Go, Dateline Web producer

After every 'To Catch the Predator' broadcast, the Dateline inbox always gets this question from viewers: Where are the female predators?

"They are out there," one e-mailer wrote. "I find it hard to believe given all the teacher scandals that there are no female Internet predators."

Perverted-Justice has only ever encountered one female predator, according to Del Harvey, who has been a Perverted-Justice contributor since 2004 and who has acted as a decoy in the group's investigations. The contributors use decoy profiles that are of girls and boys, but only men have shown up for meetings with what they thought to be underage teens.

Robert Weiss, executive director and founder of the Sexual Recovery Clinic in California (and who has been featured in one of our episodes), says that while their center treats both male and female offenders, sexual compulsions on the Internet do seem to be a male-dominated thing. "Women, in general, seem to look for relationships and not necessarily sex – although female offenders will have sex with a minor. They're just less likely to seek someone out randomly online."

He adds that men tend to me more visual (which is probably why pornography often factors into potential predators' online chats with decoys), and men tend to be more comfortable with sex detached from relationships.

Weiss also says that in relationships, women are generally less aggressive than men — and that this is also true in this case. "So a 'female predator' needs to cross more social and cultural lines to actually become an offender. But when they reach that point or seek out help, they are generally more troubled and are tougher to treat."

So what makes a 'predator'? For Weiss, a man or woman truly needs help if the desire to have a sexual relationship with an underage teen turns into attempts to do so. Weiss says, "You're not a predator if you have occasional fantasies about underage teens and don't take it further than that. Predators take it to the next step by seeking out images, chats and eventual meetings with kids. Any attempt to make that kind of fantasy into a reality is predatory."

Also, the person must be taking advantage of an inequity of power – due to age or the nature of the relationship. Perhaps this is why for many, including for those us working at Dateline, it is more upsetting to see people like teachers, doctors, and rabbis — people who are expected to protect youngsters — walk into the house.

Weiss hopes the series encourages more people who need help to seek it.  He says that the clinic has received numerous calls from people who, after watching the Dateline reports, identified with the problem and feared they could be potential predators. "There are a lot of things at play for those men — problems that exist and things that happen to an individual — before they end up showing up at the Dateline house," he says. "Compulsive sexual behavior is treatable," he says.

 

The report on 'The Milkshake Murders' first aired Sept. 30, 2006 on Dateline NBC -- and repeats this Saturday, Feb. 17, 8 p.m.

by Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent

Hong Kong was lit up like an X-Box game on double espresso. Green lasers slashing the skyscrapers Kowloon side, red and gold beams rippling off Victoria Harbour. Driving in, craning our necks like hicks from the sticks, looking straight up the facade of the Bank of China cross-hatched with bars of light for umpty-ump stories.

Maybe residents get jaded with their city's nightly sound and light spectacular but even jetlagged and dazed as producer Marianne O'Donnell and I were after a 14-hour slog, we realized that arriving in Hong Kong at night is a "whoa" experience.

But we weren't shop-op tourists. We'd come to Hong Kong to try to make sense of the Pink Milkshake Murder case. That's what everyone there called it.

The detail of the pink milkshake—the one laced with knock-out nasties like date-rape drug—had captivated Hong Kong all through the monsoon summer a few years back.

The concoction had been blended up by an American banker's wife, served to the millionaire investment banker unwittingly, by their child.

(L-R) Andrew and Rob Kissel

Days later, Rob Kissell, was found stuffed inside an oriental carpet in a storage lock-up of his high-rise apartment, bludgeoned to death, said the authorities, by his fashionable wife Nancy. She struck him five times, the cops said, with a decorative metal object, an heirloom piece, a very heavy one.

Pieces of broken skull pierced the banker's brain.

"...blood was everywhere..." Hong Kong reporter Albert Wong would tell me when we talked about testimony from the sensational murder trial that followed.

It was hard to make-up: How behind locked doors Nancy Kissel slept in the same room as her husband's corpse, keeping the household help at bay in their sprawling luxury apartment. "She told her domestic helpers don't bother to clean up the room," Albert remembered, "while she continued changing the linen, changing the rugs, and then eventually wrapping him up in the rug, tying it up and ordering removal men to take it to a storeroom."

The jury would hear from the accused herself about an abusive marriage: drugs, affairs, rough sex. Was any or all of it true?

"It's going to be a Black Rain day tomorrow," someone said. And sure, enough, the next morning the skyline on the Kowloon side disappeared under the blackest skies I'd ever seen. Punctuation points of lightning and claps of thunder.

We had four days to finish our interviews, get our pictures, find the places where key events had taken place.

Then it would be time to get back to the states to wrap-up the second half of our story, the one about the stabbing murder of the Hong Kong banker's brother, back in Connecticut.
Robert and Andrew Kissel, two brothers, the banker and the swindler, millionaire's both, each found dead in the basement.

It was hard not to think that the two must have been born on a Black Rain day.

Check out the "crime files" to this report here.

This was Tuesday's blog during the broadcast. These posts were meant to coincide with what was on air.

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

When I first walked into our Texas house, I thought it was perfect for one of our "To Catch A Predator" investigations. As you're about to see it's in an upper middle class subdivision in a bedroom community of Dallas, easily accessible by several major roads.

The guys have once again outdone themselves with the hidden cameras technology. Everything is set. One of our first visitors never comes into the house and what he does is a new twist for us: He's "dallasbadboy2002" and he's rolling up in front of our house in a big red luxury pickup truck. He wants our decoy to come outside so he can give her a present-- a Web cam so that she can perform for him. Watch closely and you might be able to see that he's apparently got other Web cams in the truck as well…all the while he's got his laptop up and running.

8:10 p.m.
Dozens of men have been chatting online with Perverted Justice decoys posing as young teens and some of their planned liaisons are about to be fulfilled -- men like the 52-year-old you're about to meet who online goes by the name "itnew2me." He's a consultant in the oil industry and he arrives at a house to meet with a 13-year-old girl named Sequoia. Watch now as he tries to weave a plausible excuse for being here. Later in our conversation, he invokes religion. Whatever you think of that as an excuse, get used to it-- you're going to hear it a number of times.

8:33 p.m.
While everything started off smoothly, we soon have some challenges we've never experienced before. Word of our investigation apparently leaks out. A city councilman is riled because the local police chief didn't brief him and some other local politicians in advance. Soon we have neighbors walking up and down the street and a man with a long lens camera taking pictures of everything. It's not the ideal environment for a "To Catch A Predator" investigation. Within an hour, things settle down. Police talk to the folks in the neighborhood. But, as you'll see this will be far from the only difficult situation we'll face in Murphy, Texas.

8:45 p.m.
It's often hard to tell just by looking at them what the men caught in our investigations do for a living. In a few moments you'll meet such a man. He's 54 and calls himself  "stanemac12" when he's online. He's been chatting with a decoy who says he's a 13-year-old boy with very little sexual experience. "Stanemac12" sends graphic pictures and asks the decoy if he wants to play with him. Watch as he interacts with our actor playing the role of the boy.

What do you think he does for a living? Based on his chat, I'm guessing you're not thinking that he's a teacher. And that is exactly what he says he's done for more than 20 years. "Stanemac12" teaches math to middle school students in Dallas, kids who are the same age as the boy he's here to meet. And as you'll see, he's not the only man who surfaces who comes from a surprising profession.  

8:56 p.m. 
So far you've only met about half of the men who showed up at our hidden camera house in Texas. Next week you'll meet the rest: former clergy, a potential predator arrested twice in one week, and an assistant district attorney in a nearby county. He refuses to open the door for police and later pulls out a gun...with deadly consequences.

Let us know what you think about the investigations below.  Click here to read the blog entry on "where are the female predators?"

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

For our ninth "To Catch A Predator" investigation, we're set up in a large brick house in an upper middle class subdivision in Murphy, Texas-- a bedroom community outside of Dallas. It will turn out to be one of the most challenging environments in which we've ever worked.

First off, it's the weekend before election day and one of the most high-profile campaign issues in the race for Texas Attorney General is cracking down on computer predators. In fact as we're putting the finishing touches on our hidden camera house, we see the campaign commercial running virtually every 10 minutes showing an Internet predator being hauled away from his computer by police and put under arrest. If that's not a deterrent, I don't know what is.

But, the next thing we know, Del and Frag from Perverted-Justice are telling us our first visitor is just moments away. He's a businessman who owns, among other things a fast food restaurant. He's not sure about coming inside the house though and instead wants to drop off a Web cam for our decoy so that she can perform a sexually suggestive act.

Just moments before he's due to arrive, there is another challenge. The audio board, the piece of equipment our sound technician uses to control all of the microphones, goes dead. That means we have gone from something like 10 microphones to 2. And the one wireless microphone on our decoy is dodgy at best. As she walks out to the front porch to talk to the potential predator, she is at the outer range of the receiver. As you'll see, we get through it all and ultimately scramble to get another audio board.

But there are more surprises.

For the first time, we have neighbors in the area walk by the house unhappy with the fact that there is an investigation going on. Usually the neighbors are passing chocolate chip cookies to us over the back fence. Here in Murphy, a city council member was apparently upset that the police chief did not inform him of the investigation in advance. He rallied some neighbors to parade outside our house. This obviously would have been an inconvenient time to have one of our guys show up.

Within an hour things calmed down and we resumed. (Police tell us that later, after they gave an explanation as to exactly how the investigation was being conducted, some neighbors who were initially skeptical were more supportive.) In spite of all this, 25 men were caught in our hidden camera investigation. And as you'll see -- they come from all walks of life including some surprising professions.

The investigation in Murphy, Texas airs tonight 8 p.m. Tuesday on NBC. Click here for a video preview of some of the men we met there.

Seven of 20 men in the Harris County, Georgia leg of the 'To Catch a Predator' investigations pleaded guilty yesterday. They were sentenced to prison plus probation.

Click here to read the full story from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

On Dateline Saturday, we reported on the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith. Included in the 3-part report was an interview with Trim Spa CEO Alex Goen, a close friend of Anna Nicole and Howard K. Stern.

In the interview, Goen revealed that Smith's house in the Bahamas was broken into, but that the baby is safe and that Anna's will is in Stern's hands. 

Here are a few more quotes from that interview.

On how Howard is doing
GOEN: First 12 hours or so, he was sobbing non-stop, having difficulty catching his breath.  I mean, and understand he lost his wife.  He lost someone that he catered to for the last, almost 15 years of his life.

On the house getting broken into
GOEN: Thank God Howard was very clever. In fact, when Anna passed, he recognized that Dannielynn could be somewhat unsafe in the house, even though she was in very good care—told the people watching the baby—who are very close friends of Howard's—actually family members—to take the baby to an undisclosed location for safety… He made sure Dannielynn Hope was completely secure.

I found out the house was broken into.  And many, many items have been taken from the house.  And  Howard has to deal with a house that's been broken into-- who knows where that-- the materials are going to end up?  

On the baby
GOEN: She's safe.  And she's at a private location.  And I think the best thing for her safety is to keep it private.... The baby is not a public person, hasn't made a decision to be in the public spotlight.... I'd rather just say that the baby is safe.  Howard is very concerned about the baby.  And Howard called this one right.  He called it right.  You have to say in a very tragic situation he made sure Dannielynn Hope was safe.  And thank God he moved the baby outta the house that got broken into.

Does Anna have a will?
GOEN:  Think about this.  I mean, if the will was at the house and nowhere else, whoever broke in could've had the will.  He did have the will in another location as well.  And there's, I'm sure, other issues along those same lines that he has to deal with. You know, everybody says you should have duplicate set of documents in different locations.  Even lawyers should probably know that.  But I mean, how many people do that?

On suspicions around Howard
GOEN: I just ask that people give him number one, the benefit of the doubt and number two-keep him in their thoughts and prayers.  Just think about how difficult it must be for him. This was a person that was not only a caring person and loving, he went overboard when it came to his care and love and protection of Anna.  So, for there to be an allegation that he could have something to do with this-- I think it's very unfortunate.

Comments from Dateline viewers have been a mixture of suspicion about Stern, frustration with the media, and thoughts and prayers for the late centerfold. Click here to read some of what's been said.

Today, one of the men featured in our "To Catch a Predator" report posted a "mea culpa" on his Web site.

28-year-old Alvin King was seen in "To Catch a Predator" Long Beach last Tuesday.  He  was arrested, although he never entered the undercover house. He was picked up by Long Beach police at a nearby park as he met a decoy pretending to be a 13-year-old girl.  We later learned that he runs a site featuring pictures of women's feet.

He pleaded no contest to one count of an attempted lewd act upon a child, and to  one count of attempting to send harmful matter.

He posted this message on his blog:

I have received quite a few scary messages from people out there; but there have also been quite a few bright spots; from people who understand what it is that I'm trying to say.

"Again, none of this absolves my actions; I know what I did was wrong; But I do want everyone to know that I am not a pedofile. That's not what motivated my actions at all."

For those who have requested - The chat log is on the perverted justice website. I will decline to post a link, as I do not want to send taffic their way (voluntarily).

I'm sorry for what I've done. I regret putting myself in this situation; the rest of my responses will have to be limited on this issue; you are all welcomed to share your thoughts.

For those who are curious, below is the first part of their chat log. The difficult thing about producing "To Catch a Predator" is that it's hard to get across how graphic and disturbing these chats truly are. If you read the transcript below, it's clear that King starts the conversation, knew he was talking to a 13-year-old, is aware of "To Catch a Predator" on NBC, and is the first one to turn the conversation graphic and  sexual.

solepleaser (09/08/06  6:39:36 PM): hello
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  7:26:55 PM): hi
solepleaser (09/08/06  8:50:26 PM): whats up
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:35:37 PM): hi
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:35:54 PM): whats up
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:36:00 PM): nuthin
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:36:04 PM): hang on a sec
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:13 PM): ok....
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:18 PM): you've had me on hold alll day though
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:22 PM): i dont think im interested now
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:36:24 PM): take care
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:36:32 PM): fine
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:44:56 PM): bye
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:45:04 PM): i hate rude inconsiderate women
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:45:32 PM): im not im sorry
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:45:43 PM): where are u from
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:45:55 PM): cali
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:46:03 PM): where in cali
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:46:28 PM): long beach
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:46:36 PM): oh ok
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:46:42 PM): asl?
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:46:48 PM): 28 male carson
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:46:54 PM): kewl
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:47:00 PM): how old are u
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:47:06 PM): 13
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:47:11 PM): 13?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:47:17 PM): yea
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:47:48 PM): hello
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:47:52 PM): hi
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:02 PM): do u have a cam
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:08 PM): no lol 
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:11 PM): :)
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:13 PM): wha u look like
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:21 PM): like a guy :P
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:25 PM): got any older sisters?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:26 PM): lol
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:29 PM): no
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:42 PM): i'd go to jail for hookin up with u :P
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:48:47 PM): huh
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:54 PM): i said...
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:48:59 PM): i would go to jail if i hooked up with u
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:49:08 PM): how come
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:14 PM): b/c i like to suck on toes
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:17 PM): and... ya know
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:22 PM): have girls go down on me...
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:49:23 PM): lol thats funny
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:49:36 PM): and if we hooked up.... that stuff isn't legal :P
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:49:50 PM): wuld u tell on me?
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:09 PM): more like, u would tell on me lol
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:14 PM): what do u look like?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:50:20 PM): i have a pic on my pro
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:45 PM): cool
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:50:48 PM): nice pic
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:50:56 PM): thanx
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:51:19 PM): how tall are u
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:51:36 PM): like 5 2
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:51:47 PM): u like being barefoot I see
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:51:48 PM): :)
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:51:58 PM): how u no?
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:09 PM): your myspace
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:52:24 PM): lol u like feet lol
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:40 PM): yes
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:41 PM): :)
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:48 PM): are u a cop
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:52:57 PM): posing undercover to catch "online predators" ...
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:53:15 PM): no wtf r u talking about
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:30 PM): lol
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:35 PM): don't u watch dateline?
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:54:42 PM): no whats that
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:43 PM): just gotta make sure
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:47 PM): :)
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:54:52 PM): tell me
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:54:58 PM): it's a show on NBC
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:55:11 PM): they take guys to jail for messing around with young girls
samantha_gurl01 (09/08/06  9:55:25 PM): no way hahaha
solepleaser (09/08/06  9:55:41 PM): yes way

This (live) blog was meant to coincide with the broadcast. 

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

7:56 p.m.
I've read some of your blog comments and a few of you asked me if confronting the men who come into our hidden camera houses gets tedious. The answer is no. Not just because I am genuinely curious about what brought the men into our hidden camera house, but also because of the things these guys admit to me.

Take the case of one of the first men your going to meet tonight in Long Beach, Calif. Corye Blagg is a former Marine who works for a computer company in San Diego. Blagg told a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl on line that he wanted to take her virginity in the hot tub. But when I start asking the questions, he says he was just coming over to hang out. He also tells me that this isn't the first time he set up a date with someone he met online, although he says the others were of legal age. He even makes a surprising admission: that one of his dates ended up being a transvestite. He told me that he politely declined the transvestite's offer and scooted out the door and you won't believe what else he's about to admit to me. Later Blagg pleaded no contest to an attempted lewd act on a child.

8:11 p.m.
One of the benefits of working with Perverted-Justice is that because it also conducts online investigations on its own, in some cases PJ has already had contact with a man who later shows up in a Dateline investigation. Such is the case with 29-year-old Farzad Kalantari. Kalantari arrives at our house after a sexually-charged conversation with a decoy posing as a 12-year-old girl. When I confront him he, at first says he thought the girl was 14. Then, he says he was just coming over to teach the girl about the importance of a good education. When I ask if he's ever chatted online with underage girls before he says "no." What he doesn't know is that PJ has already told me about a chat he had with one of its decoys posing as a 14-year-old girl two weeks earlier. This is when his story really starts to unravel. Eventually Kalantari pleads guilty to an attempted lewd act upon a child.

8:21 p.m.
It's still startling to me that more and more of these guys walk right into our house and immediately try to show some sort of physical affection toward our decoy. Watch as 27-year-old Josiah Walker does just that with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl in our Long Beach house. He swoops right in, but when the decoy back peddles and I enter the room, he steps back. We're about to be presented with a challenge though because as I am asking Walker about his obscene chat and he's admitting to me that in fact he had planned on spending the night-- there is another man heading toward our front door. Walker leaves out the back and is arrested by police. Moments later here comes 26-year-old Joshua Larios. Online, Larios had asked a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl to expose herself to her father and her teacher. He's explicit about the sex acts he wants to perform with her. But once Larios sees me, he bolts. And because many of the officers are still in the back of the house, he actually makes it to his expensive Lexus. As you'll see he won't get far. Larios and Walker have both pleaded not guilty to an attempted lewd act on a child.

8:38 p.m.
Sometimes things happen during these investigations that are impossible to predict and that makes it critical for us to think on our feet and react quickly. That's what we do when we hear that 48-year-old Frank Sierras wants to come meet our decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. As it turns out Sierras and Perverted Justice have a bit of a history together.

8:45 p.m.
We've come to find out that Sierras was chatting with our decoy weeks earlier leading up to our previous investigation in northern California. And wait until you get the story on how PJ first came in contact with him. PJ says he solicited one of its decoys two years earlier before any of our To Catch A Predator investigations. (Sierra was never arrested or charged with a crime in that instance and said he was innocent.)

Unlike many of the other men in this investigation though, Sierras didn't want to come to our house. He wants to meet in a nearby park. This is always a tough call because if we hustle hidden cameras, the decoy, and me to the park and he doesn't show up, we could miss other men who will show up at the house. We decide it's worth taking the chance. It takes about 40 minutes to get everyone in position. We were on the lookout for a white SUV, the vehicle he told the decoy he'd be driving. Instead he arrives in a rental car, so we don't notice until the very last second that he's approaching our decoy sitting on a picnic table. We figure he must be the right guy. I head over to confront him and he bolts… right into the arms of the Long Beach Police. Sierras pleaded not guilty in this case but you're about to hear that he has a criminal past.

8:50 p.m.
A final note: Just two weeks after our investigation, officials in California strengthened the laws against adults who target children online. The new laws protect all minors up to the age of 17, and prosecutors say it should now be easier to win convictions in these types of cases.

9:10 p.m.
In our investigation in Long Beach, of the 38 men who were arrested, the district attorney decided to prosecute all but three. Under California law, attempting to have sex with someone under the age of 14 is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.

Of those who were charged, at least 12 of the men have pleaded no contest.  They have been sentenced to probation ranging from three to five years.  And some of those men will be permanently registered as sex offenders.

As our series "To Catch a Predator" continues, next week we'll be setting up a house in the lone star state -- Murphy, Texas. You'll meet men ranging in age from 23 to 63, successful businessmen to unemployed, a middle school teacher, and an assistant district attorney in a nearby county who refuses to open the door for police and later makes a tragic decision.

Most of the men say they really weren't going to do anything, tune in next week and you decide.

Thanks for writing in. Keep the comments coming...

by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent

Long Beach, California is our eighth "To Catch a Predator" investigation in two years. You'd think by now that potential predators would get the message -- not so.

In Long Beach, we saw the second highest number of men in any of our previous investigations. 38 men showed up in three days. 35 of them were charged with crimes including an attempted lewd act upon a child. So far, 12 of them have pleaded no contest or guilty.

We did see something in Long Beach that we didn't see in our previous investigations and it forced us to adapt behind-the-scenes: Some of the men, perhaps having heard about our earlier shows, were afraid to come to the house and instead wanted to meet at a different location.

Take the case of 48-year old Frank Sierras. Sierras had been caught by Perverted-Justice a few years ago allegedly having a sexually charged online chat with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. That was before Dateline's investigations. (Sierras was never arrested or charged with a crime after this first alleged conversation with Perverted-Justice, said he was innocent, and threatened to sue Perverted-Justice for posting a transcript of that conversation.)

Late this summer Sierras surfaced again chatting with a decoy pretending to be a 13-year-old girl during our Petaluma, California investigation.  He never showed up at that house.

He kept chatting with the decoy though, who now told him she was visiting friends in Long Beach. Perhaps because he'd been caught by PJ before, Sierras wanted to meet our decoy at a park near our Long Beach house. We scrambled to set up cameras in and around the park and get our decoy in position. According to the chat log, Sierras discussed driving the girl home – all the way from Long Beach back to northern California, offering to take her to Disneyland along the way.

As you'll see tonight, not only did he drive 300 miles to Long Beach -- he also took several steps to cover his tracks. In the end, it doesn't work and Sierras is arrested, but not before a tense conversation with the decoy and a dramatic confrontation with our cameras. 

Part 2 of the Long Beach "To Catch a Predator" investigation airs tonight, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 8 p.m. Click here to watch Chris' chat with Meredith Vieira (on TODAY this morning) about the upcoming report.

Jesamyn Go, Dateline Web producer

What did you think of Matt Lauer's interview with Miss USA Tara Conner? Does she deserve to keep her crown? How do you feel about her realizations on alcoholism and recovery?

Sound off here.

 

A woman in the midst of a bitter divorce is found shot in the head. Her family is adamant that she was murdered, but evidence suggests suicide. However, when new information is revealed about her husband's past, her grief-stricken family sees their opportunity for justice to be served. This report airs Dateline Saturday, Feb. 3, 8 p.m. on NBC.

Here is Rob Stafford's blog entry from when the story first aired on October 2006.

I covered a plane crash years ago. The scene was horrendous but I did my best to block out my emotions and to report the facts in an accurate professional way. My dad was watching and later said something that was as close as he gets to advice. "Remember there were people on that plane," he said. "People with families." 

I know what it is like to lose someone you love. My brother Chip died 19 years ago when he was 33 years old. My dad still has a hard time talking about Chip. I thought about my brother, my dad and my dad's advice as I prepared to meet the family of Jennifer Corbin, who died in December 2004 — also at the age of 33.

Jennifer was found by one of her young sons in their upscale home in suburban Atlanta. She was lying in bed with a single gunshot wound in her head.  The gun — and divorce papers — were on the bed beside her.  Police thought it was a possible suicide.  But when we spoke with the Barbers,  Jennifer's father and two sisters,  just a few weeks after she died, they wanted to tell the world that Jennifer did not take her life. It was something she would never have done, even if she were unhappily married and facing an ugly divorce and custody battle. They were positive she had been murdered and thought they knew the killer. This is a compelling mystery, but ultimately this is a story of a family fighting for justice for the person they loved.

We met the Barber family again last month just the day after the conclusion of the case surrounding Jennifer's death.

Jennifer Corbin's family: her father (middle), sisters

Their emotions were still raw — as if little time had passed since that awful day a year and nine months before.  This time Jennifer's mother also sat down with us. She had been too distraught to speak publicly when we were there last time.  Now, I think she felt a need to talk. 

Jennifer's mother was emotional yet very eloquent. Her daughter's death left a void that will never be filled, but she felt fortunate to have Jennifer's two adorable sons in her life. Jennifer's legacy is the love and nurturing her family lavishes on those young boys. Even though speaking with us was emotionally difficult for them it seemed cathartic. They really needed to express their feelings for Jennifer. I know how important that is.