Brumback Case News Today

There to witness it all, friends and family of the victims. thomas hunters mom claire hunter, who had been staying out of the public eye, and shirlee shermans brother dan were two of the first people outside the courtroom. >> its been eight years. you know? its been going on for a long time. a lot of this stuffs a blur. >> reporter: douglas county attorneys don kleine and brenda beadle had been prepping this case for more than three years. you prosecuted all four murders. >> yeah. >> you ever th...

"we have dna tests that prove that our guy was not at the hunter-sherman scene." >> reporter: alison motta spoke with wowt-tv via skype. >> their physical evidence and their dna evidence establishes undeniably, unmistakably and without doubt that the murders were committed by two people and not anthony garcia. >> reporter: the claim was based on what the mottas believed to be a potential match between some unidentified dna found on shirlee shermans bandana and some dna taken from a suspect in an...

She a cardiologist, detectives wondered if someone at the hospital might have had a motive to harm them. >> do you have any patients that are upset with you? >> not as far as i know. honestly. >> how about your wife? >> i dont know. i mean, usually not. >> reporter: everyone handles grief differently. after their youngest son was murdered in their home, the hunters seemed to want nothing more than to be left alone. >> were kind of a private family, so were not too keen on talking with media. >> ...

In the neck. >> we had knives that were used from her residence in her murder. so, we had similarities in that weapons were taken from her home and used against her and left at the scene. >> but you had somebody you liked for that. >> the detectives that investigated that case had identified a suspect very early on. somebody who was a family member of hers whom she had had a falling out with. >> and who didnt seem to have any connection with the hunters. >> none whatsoever. >> reporter: there co...

>> reporter: in the end, the private eye found nothing that the detectives hadnt already studied and discounted. a year after the murders in dundee, the case went cold and most of the detectives moved on to other things. but for the families of shirlee sherman and tom hunter, there could be no moving on. >> howd you see your dad change? >> it wasnt like he was depressed all the time or he was himself. it just, there was obviously something kind of, like, you can always see behind someones eyes t...

Who did that search and not your client? >> im not going to suggest that anybody, you know, specifically typed the name in. im just going to say that the way that the state presented the case and, in particular, that piece of evidence was not exactly truthful. >> reporter: the defense attornies spent a lot of time talking about the gun found on the side of the road and the ammo magazine at the brumback house. >> in light of the fact that we have the very damaging magazine evidence, we want to cl...

That he was anywhere other than there. >> reporter: which is not an ironclad alibi, but its not bad. >> its not bad. and sometimes thats just the reality of our work. >> reporter: that seemed to be the end of the line. dr. belenky had been the investigators last best lead. unwilling to see the case go cold, shirlee shermans family pooled their money and offered a reward. >> there were a number of contributions. i think there were some other people contributing as well. >> reporter: which made it...

And danny calls me and says, "they made an arrest in the case." and i think i forgot about 20, 30 items on my grocery shoppin list cause i was, like, real happy. i just -- the carton, rushed out of the grocery store and wanted to go home and watch the news. >> reporter: with anthony garcias arrest, jeff hunter says he and his parents felt as if they could finally stop looking over their shoulders. >> i mean, for five years they were super paranoid because that -- i mean, for all we knew, for all...

State of mind at this point. >> reporter: the mottas brought in bobs father, robert motta sr. as co-counsel. back in the 70s, the senior motta represented a clown-turned-serial-killer named john wayne gacy. >> i had never tried a case with my dad, and hes towards the end of his career and hed always said to me, "if you get a juicy murder, that give me a call. ill try it with ya." and i called him half expecting him to be, like, "nah, you know, im too old. i dont wanna do it." and he was onboard ...

>> and nobody said anything about that? >> never one mention of it, which to me indicated that it wasnt my clients vehicle. thats the more likely answer. >> reporter: the 2013 brumback case was more complicated for the defense team beginning with the fact that anthony garcia had been in omaha on the day of the murders. >> how do you explain your client being back in omaha and searching for the addresses of one person who was killed and one person whose house was nearly broken into? >> i dont kno...