were waiting for. >> and hannah anderson's exclusive first tv interview. >> in the beginning, i was a victim. but now i consider myself a survivor. >> she speaks out and answers her critics. >> most of them think that i'm not innocent. but i am. >> the rescue of hannah anderson. but first, a "dateline" mystery. >> i could be dead right now. it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> she was a new bride, married just six days. then came that horrible night. >> i see kind of a dark shadow. all i remember was the bright flash of the gun. >> a mysterious man she told police burst into their new home and killed her husband. >> i told him i loved him. >> it's a heartbreaking story. but it was puzzling, too. who was this strange man or was there a strange man at all? >> brand new bride tells a story of some mystery man that's got to set off alarm bells. >> she was somebody we had to look at. >> suddenly, she's the one under scrutiny. >> the detective asked me if i killed my husband. i knew something was coming. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." what really happened in the middle of the night? here's josh mankiewicz. >> albuquerque, new mexico, a mile high city. famous for its annual balloon festival. and the city where a match made in heaven came in 2005 when a friend of katherine bailey's set her up with a man named scott. >> what was it that made your friend think that the two of you would be a good match? >> i'm not sure if it was anything than he was a tall handsome man and she knew that's what i looked. >> scott pierce certainly was tall at 6'8" and more than 350 pounds. he was a gentle soul, trapped in the body of an nfl lineman. the two soon fell in love and nature played an important role in their lives. both, their own good-natured urs and their love of nature. >> what did you like about him besides he was 6'8"? >> he saw the beauty in anything. he would stop to take a picture of anything. >> scott was behind the lens for pictures like these. >> we would make special trips to the desert when the cactuses were blooming. we took a lot of photographs. >> but nature alone wasn't important to scott pierce. he was also nurturing. this big guy also had a big heart. he dreamed of one day becoming a nurse practitioner. >> if i had a plant and it was almost dead and i was like ready to give up on it, he wouldn't let me because there was a chance it could come back. he just wouldn't give up on anything. >> in may 2008, nearly three years after they were matched, scott and katherine who worked in retail, took a big step as a couple. they bought a house in northeast albuquerque. >> this was your first home? >> uh-huh. i qualified for had on my own actually. but with his nursing career finally taking off, we're going to be living okay. >> what appealed to you about that house? >> it looked very homey and gave us more room. we didn't need a huge house. we were both simple people. >> apr month later they were married. >> i scott take you katherine, to be my wife. >> was there a honeymoon coming? >> the honeymoon was going to take a back seat for a while. which was fine. we had a house. we still had boxing everywhere. >> that decision to buy that home at that time on that schedule would one day become a choice katherine and others would examine and re-examine. because that honeymoon the new couple had put off would never come. just six days after the wedding, scott and katherine's new life took a turn no one saw coming. >> he actually stayed up late that night watching a movie. and then came to bed. next thing we know the dogs are barking. i got up, went down the hall. i noticed the back door was open and i thought, it's 3:00 in the morning, i didn't have my glasses on and i thought why would scott leave the back door open? >> so the back door had been open when he went to bed. he probably would have noticed it. >> yes. his routine was to go through the house and check that everything was locked. >> then from nowhere, katherine noticed something strange. >> i see kind of a dark shadow that looks like he's pointing a long pointy thing at me. and i said, scott, stop messing around. >> you thought it was your husband? >> it didn't make sense it would be a stranger in my home. it had to be scott playing a trick. >> tell me about this man with the shotgun, white, black, hispanic. >> a black shadow. that's literally all i saw. then it snapped. this wasn't scott. >> what did you think? >> your mind works very fast. he said get down on the ground. so i did. he said, where is manny? >> i said what, what did you say? >> he said where's manny? and that's when from the corner of her eye, katherine caught sight of her husband. he had woken up to see a man pointing a shotgun at his wife. >> he was charging this guy. >> your husband of six days was coming to your defense? >> yeah. at that point, it was kind of a blur. all i remember was him turning very fast, but i saw the bright flash of the gun. and i think that kind of temporarily blinded me. >> where is the guy with the gun? >> the only thing i can imagine is that he ran out the back door as soon as the gun went off. >> katherine grabbed the phone, called 9-1-1 and said she found scott on the kitchen floor with a gaping wound in his neck. >> did you say anything to them? >> oh, yeah. i told him i loved him. i put my hands-on his face and i told him i loved him. >> he had his hand up on his stomach and i -- >> by the time they loaded him into the ambulance and took him away, you didn't have a lot of hope? >> i wouldn't even say that. i wasn't going to give up hope until somebody told me finally. >> and minutes later at the hospital, someone did. >> i remember the doctor finally walking in and he said so tell me what happened. i said no. is he alive? i wasn't going to play this game. i wanted to know right away. he said no. >> at age 41, scott pierce was dead, six days after his wedding. and just like that, katherine pierce was a widow. what had happened in that kitchen? who was manny? the mysterious man for whom the killer had come calling. and who held the answers to all those questions? >> a whole lot of questions in this case. police were quick to set out to answer them and they started with katherine pierce. when we come back, it's more than her story that's under scrutiny. it's everything. her clothes from that night. her marriage. even a life insurance policy. >> i knew something was coming. >> did she have something to hide? ♪ [ male announcer ] a man. a man and his truck... and a broken fence... and a lost calf. ♪ and the heart to search for as long as it takes. and the truck that lets him search for as long as it takes. ♪ the all-new chevy silverado. the most fuel-efficient v8 in a pickup. strong for all the roads ahead. and i'm here to talk about your bums. these are bum-wipes. do you think that would be quite an interesting addition to your dry routine? yes. so you like using them? i do. because you feel... ultimately clean, i guess. you're welcome to borrow my container. it's new, look at that. would you ever use these? 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[ male announcer ] when it comes to common language we all speak bacon. the very best cuts naturally hardwood smoked. it's unanimous food. it's oscar mayer. a new day dawned in 2008 and as the sun came up, katherine pierce realized she had been transformed. in just six days, she'd gone from smiling newlywed to blood-stained widow. and to a possible suspect in the murder of her husband scott. >> you know when a husband or wife dies, it's very natural for police to at least look at the surviving spouse? >> i knew something was coming. it wasn't unusual. >> and soon katherine was face to face with veteran albuquerque homicide detective mike fox. >> a brand new bride tells a story of some mystery man coming into the house and executing her new husband. that's got to set off alarm bells. >> she was somebody we had to look at. >> tell me about katherine pierce's demeanor. >> she shocked me how well she was able to put it together. >> calmer than you would expect? >> yes. >> detectives had many questions, especially after looking hard at the crime scene and finding something confusing. the killer had dumped out katherine's purse on the back deck. but on the purse, no fingerprints. so was this a robbery gone wrong or was the purse some kind of diversion? >> we knew we were dealing with somebody at that point had used rubber gloves or something like that. >> which says to you what? >> it tells me that whoever was involved was going in there to kill somebody and not leave any evidence behind. >> burglars sken generally do not carry shot guns. >> no. >> if somebody surprises them, instead of shooting them, they just runaway. >> typically, that's what i've seen through my career. >> so even though the fact that katherine's purse was sort of dumped out and searched through, everything about this says planned murder, not planned burglary? >> correct. >> but planned by whom? tell me about scott pierce. anybody didn't like him? >> no. everybody liked him. great guy. nothing bad in his background at all. >> you, no doubt, did your due diligence to find out whether that marriage was as happy as it appeared to be? >> yes. talking to people around them, everything was fantastic. >> but detectives had heard that story before. when they looked deeper, they learned that katherine's husband had a life insurance policy. the payoff was in the mid six-figure range. and she was the beneficiary. when they canvassed the homes nearby, police found neighbors who heard a man and woman talking around 3:00 a.m. detectives wonder had that been scott and katherine. within hours of her husband's murder, they confiscated the clothes katherine was wearing when she said her new husband was gunned down right in front of her. >> police took their clothing to test it. >> everything is evidence at that point. i understood that. >> you weren't concerned? >> not at all. the detective asked me if i killed my husband. >> straight out? >> and i said no. and he seemed fairly satisfied with that. >> but detectives asked katherine to run through her story again looking for inconsistencies. so she went through what happened that night again. just as she did in this video she would later make for her attorneys. >> from here i turned around and there was the person, the tall person standing here. so i said, oh, scott, stop messing around. and then he said, get down on the ground. that's when i knew somebody was in my house that didn't belong. i saw scott standing at the other end of the room. i held up my hand and i said scott, wait. the gun went off. his head was right here. and his neck was blown open, all of this. his throat, everything to back here, it was just -- it was gone. >> did she say or do anything that made you suspicious? >> no. nothing showed that she wasn't telling the truth. but, unfortunately, in her situation i have to go after her as a possible suspect. it's to find out if she is involved, a. and b, if she's not, later on make it so when it goss trial, it's not brought up by a defense attorney who tries to make it look like she's the one that did it. >> but remember, there was something katherine heard on the kitchen floor that night. something that came from that shadowy figure who had held a shotgun to katherine's head before firing the fatal shot at scott. the killer had also asked her a question that would soon become the focus of this investigation. >> he said, where is man yes? >> manie? >> he said where it manny? >> it was a name that meant nothing to homicide investigators. but katherine pierce said she knew exactly who the man was after. now, police were looking for him too. >> so who was this mystery man named manny and could he help break this case? >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in. >> police are getting closer when "dateline" continues. new t. now we have bold new tastes like never before. you like things made by hand. we're now grilling up freshly made egg-whites. you like to cool down. we just added a refreshing new smoothie. you get wrapped up in things. we're introducing new delicious ways for you to eat. there's no one quite like you. now more than ever, there's something for everyone to love at mcdonald's. be in our ad. go to imlovinit.com ♪ [ male announcer ] hurry in for labor day deals like 20% off char-broil commercial series grills at lowe's. ♪ get in on the fun... ...during the petsmart fall savings sale! save up to 20% on thousands of items! including select kong® toys. at petsmart®. do you see the 10% back in points, aw baby, i'm seeing triple again. plus another 10%, plus free shipping? yeah. you're good. this is the member triple play deal. this is sears. anarchy meets order. working with at&t, doctors set up a broadband solution to handle data and a mobility app to stay connected with their business. so they can run the office... even when they're not in the office. where do you want to take your business? call us. we can show you how at&t solutions can help you do what you do... even better. ♪ can help you do what you do... own pancakes part 2 is a hit! i put caramel and bacon, says bobby. i like it when syrup goes down the side, says jenna. and michael was left speechless. build your own pancakes are back for a limited run, only at denny's. it was just a few hours into a sunny saturday morning in albuquerque, june 2008. katherine pierce was in a police car being taken home from the hospital where her husband of six days, scott, had just been pronounced dead. from the start, she had been treated as a suspect in her husband's murder. katherine's story was that a shadowy figure had broken into their home in the middle of the night and had then killed scott. but for some reason, spared katherine's life. detective mike fox was working homicide for the albuquerque police. >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in and was looking for a guy named manny. >> manny, it was the name that was about to break this case. it had to do, it turned out, not just with katherine pierce and her husband, but with the house, the piece of property they had just bought as they began their life together. the couple had moved in just a month before the murder. a month before that question asked by the intruder in the middle of the night about where to find manny. >> you knew who he was talking about? >> yes. i did. >> that's who you bought the house from? >> yes. >> they had moved out how long before? >> almost exactly a month prior. >> suddenly the murder case had moved off of katherine pierce and on to the presumed target that night, a man named manny. it turned out he was known to the albuquerque police and within hours after detectives put out word they were looking for him, manny called police. he offered to come in, sit down and help out anyway he could. >> i'm guessing the first question is who is looking for you that wants to kill you? >> yeah. who would want you dead? >> he says? >> jason skaggs. he's the only one i can think of that would want me killed. >> this is jason skaggs. manny told police he and jason worked together at a roofing company. originally, from california, skaggs was an ex-marine. a former trucker with a minor criminal record. and some of the story manny was telling police added up. at 6'3" and only 200 pounds, jason skaggs matched almost exactly the description given by katherine pierce of a tall, slender intruder. but he was not, as far as police knew, a killer. to detectives, a home invasion that ended in murder seemed to be outside jason skaggs' criminal skill set. >> if he was the guy in katherine pierce's house with the shotgun, he was a rookie. >> that didn't really match up with the gloves and some of the other things that were kind of popping in our heads as somebody that might be more experienced at this. >> the detectives started tracking skaggs' cell phone. >> the cell phone started pinging off of el paso, texas. >> sounds like a guy on the run. >> thought okay, is this guy just heading for mexico? >> but it turned out el paso was just the closest cell tower to elephant butte lake. the campground where jason skaggs was spending the weekend with his wife. and not only did he say it, his employer backed him up. even with what seemed an airtight alibi, detectives brought in skaggs. >> jason, you mind saying your name and date of birth. >> my name is jason skaggs 5/12/73. >> he stuck with his story of a weekend trip at the lake. what police didn't know his wife had been interviewed and show told a different story. detective fox broke that news to jason skaggs. >> at that point, i could see that we had the right guy. >> how can you tell when you have the right guy? >> when a person is cooperating with you, they have a certain demeanor. when you start to turn things on them and start to show what they're telling you isn't the truth and that i know it and you can see a change in the eyes. so it just all starts to unravel. >> you can tell and see that? >> oh, yeah. it's probably the most exciting part of homicide investigation is breaking a murderer with their own words. >> to detectives, it was looking more and more as if jason skaggs had been the man with the shotgun in katherine pierce's home. >> the woman in the house describes you. >> i've never broke into anyone's house. i have never shot anyone in my life. >> by accident -- >> i have never shot anyone in my life, never. i have never shot a human being in my life and i have not broke in anyone's home. >> we're going to solve this. >> you'll find out it wasn't me. it wasn't me. i wasn't in their house. >> police kept hammering away. and that's when jason skaggs changed his story. he said he wasn't the man in katherine pierce's home and he wasn't the person who pulled the trigger on that shotgun and killed scott. but he did know exactly who it was. >> coming up -- >> a duffel bag, a gun and gloves. do these belong to the killer? who was in the house that night? hey love. [off screen] there you are. [speaking german] hi, grandpa! [off screen] give me a kiss! [speaking mandarin] what do you think? do you like it? [off screen] happy birthday! can you see that? [speaking polish] [off screen] did he apologize? [off screen] thanks, micah! [off screen] bye, guys. bye. see ya. oh my god! every day, more people connect face to face on the iphone than any other phone. i miss you. is that first day. everyone'll be stylin' their faves. love that. anyway, what's your first day strategy? this weekend buy more and save more with your jcpenney coupon. come find your first day look. at jcpenney. before william hughes fought in vietnam... and john hughes jumped into normandy... and john anderson hughes served in world war i... and before robert hughes joined the spanish-american war, there were families connected to the belief that freedom was worth fighting for. join us in thanking them at bankofamerica.com/troopthanks. albuquerque police were moving full force in the first 48 hours after the murder of scott pierce. scott's widow katherine returned to the house they had shared to find more than a piece of her heart was missing. quite a bit had been stolen now by that shadowy figure with a shotgun. it wasn't just the life of the man she married less than a week before. it was also the future they had planned together. but gone, too, was katherine's camera, a gift from her husband who had so loved photography. >> of all the things he could have taken, that was actually the best thing because it still had all my wedding pictures on it. i hope he saw the pictures. i hope it sunk in what he just did. >> who had killed scott pierce was still an open question. but police thought they were zeroing in. because remember, katherine said the shadowy figure who had come into the house in the middle of the night was looking for a man named manny who lived in the house previously. when detectives found manny, he said a co-worker named jason skaggs was the likely killer. when questioned, skaggs denied any role in the murder and said he and his wife had been camping april couple of hours from albuquerque on the night scott pierce was killed. but detective mike fox soon broke down that alibi and so in the police interview room, he went after skaggs with a new tactic. >> i mean, you're thinking at that point that that was skaggs saying where is manny? >> yeah, i'm saying whatever part you played in this, a good guy was killed. and you got to feel bad about that. i mean, i got into that they had been married a week, they just moved into the house. if you're a good person, that has to weigh on you. >> whether skaggs was a good person is debatable. whether he cracked under the pressure is not. soon he was singing like akah nary. >> i wanted manny to get hurt and i wanted him arms, legs, things to be hurt or take him a while to recover. >> skaggs said he wanted manny hurt because manny had slept with his wife. skaggs admitted the home invasion was all about jealousy but said he never wanted anyone dead. but jason skaggs also had a surprise for detectives. >> i said, you went in there with a shotgun. he said no i didn't go in there. i had someone else go in there for me. and we're like, what? >> who did skaggs say was his accomplice? >> he said clifton bloom field. >> that name mean anything to you? >> no, the name didn't ring a bell at all. >> but it didn't take you long before you knew a lot about him? correct. this was a serious guy. >> serious and scary. clifton bloomfield was 39, an ex-con who had done prison time for robbery, kidnapping and assault in arizona. after his release, he had moved to new mexico, where he dabbled in acting. here playing a prison inmate in the val kilmer movie felon. >> but bloomfield's new c'eira parentally wasn't working as well as his old one. he was soon arrested and pleaded no contest to a home invasion robbery. bloomfield was now on probation for that crime released from jail less than a year earlier. he had been set free into the custody of a co-worker at a roofing company. a man named, you guessed it, jason skaggs. clifton bloomfield, he was the kind of guy you would send into somebody's house to either beat them up or kill them? >> yes. he physically met the description. he was also tall and slender. >> when police searched bloomfield's home, they found a black duffel bag containing a shotgun, bulletproof vest and a mask. also latex gloves used as police soon learned, by the killer who had dumped out katherine pierce's purs to try to make this murder look like a botched burglary. detectives now believed jason skaggs was telling the truth. it had been bloomfield behind the shotgun. his criminal history fit the crime. he had been convicted of a violent home invasion robbery before. it wasn't long before police tracked down bloomfield and arrested him. >> this is a guy who has done prison time. i would think he's not going to talk. >> i didn't think he would. >> but maybe bloomfield had seen those wedding pictures of scott and katherine on the camera he had stolen. had he also picked up a conscience somewhere on his journey because the hardened con surprised detectives by opening up. >> i was a little shocked. but pleasantly shocked. >> as police would soon learn, clifton bloomfield's version of the truth changed with the new mexico wind. but among the several statements bloomfield gave was an explanation for his mission that night. looking for man any. >> the plan was to kill him. >> if you're going to kill him, does skaggs want to talk to him first or take him somewhere? >> no. he just had one message for me. he said [ bleep ]. tie him up and give him the -- and put a round in him. >> but in the house that night, bloomfield said he realized that the manny he knew from work, bore no resemblance to the 6'8" hulk bearing down him in the dark. >> it wasn't manny? >>. [ whispering ] >> did you intentionally fire or accidentally? >> i don't know. >> he says he was about to leave when scott pierce charged him. true or not, the result was that bloomfield put himself behind a murder as a favor to a friend. except he killed the wrong man. >> this was all just spectacular bad luck. if you had moved into that house a month later, your life would be different. >> it would be very different. >> if your husband were a sounder sleeper, hadn't woken up. >> things could have been different. >> if the guy with the gun had left when he realized manny didn't live in the house anymore. >> yeah. so many things, wrong place at the wrong time. >> bloomfield and skaggs were charged with murder. for detective mike fox and his colleagues, it was a job well done. a case quickly solved. >> scott pierce is murdered early on a saturday morning and less than 48 hours later, you have all the suspects in custody and confessions. >> yes. >> good job. >> came together pretty well. >> case closed? >> that's what we thought. >> they were wrong. katherine pierce was about to learn that the shadowy figure she had confronted that night was one of the most cold-blooded killers her part of the world had ever seen. and her involvement with him wasn't over. >> coming up -- a twist that stuns katherine pierce. >> it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> it would stun the police too. when "dateline" continues. explaining my moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis to another new stylist. it was a total embarrassment. and not the kind of attention i wanted. so i had a serious talk with my dermatologist about my treatment options. this time, she prescribed humira-adalimumab. humira helps to clear the surface of my skin by actually working inside my body. in clinical trials, most adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis saw 75% skin clearance. and the majority of people were clear or almost clear in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. make the most of every moment. ask your dermatologist about humira, today. clearer skin is possible. ♪ [ female announcer ] when your swapportunity comes, take it. ♪ what? what? what? 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[ female announcer ] zero to pizza. pronto. in the weeks after the murder of her husband scott, katherine pierce was still living in the home where he had been killed by mistake. instead of moving out, katherine cleaned up the blood stains and stayed. she says she was determined to face her own fears. >> i began to get up in the middle of the night and kind of walk through the house with the lights off just so i could get that out of my system, so i wouldn't be afraid of it. i walked down the hall without the lights on. i went to the back door, i let the dogs out. >> you walked through the kitchen? >> i relived it over and over and over again. >> and that made it easier? >> if you repeat something over and over and over again, it lessens a little bit every time. >> but katherine was also facing a broken-hearted truth. that she lost the love of her life. >> i had no idea what my future would hold, especially in the romance department. >> you could not conceive of ever finding that kind of love again. >> no, i could not. >> and now the detectives who had quickly closed the case by getting a confession from that armed intruder, clifton bloomfield were about to realize they weren't done with either bloomfield or katherine pierce. >> that's when the crime lab here in albuquerque got a hit on clifton bloomfield's dna. but it had nothing to do with the murder of scott pierce. this was a dna sample left at the scene of a completely different albuquerque homicide. the killing ground was in this neatly kept home in 2007. some six months before the murder of scott pierce. the murders of a couple had been front page news and sparked citywide outrage and fear. they were beloved figures, pioneers in the city's korean american community. they had come to the u.s. in the '70s, worked multiple jobs, raised four successful children and lived the american dream. mr. yi had just retired so they could travel and then they were murdered in their own home. detective mike fox had a personal connection to the case. >> he actually was my neighbor at one point. i would see him out gardening. very pleasant man. >> not a neighborhood where you expect this to happen? >> no. this is another crime where you have a victim that hadn't done anything to deserve it. >> and the crime, detective fox and his colleagues had investigated had been especially vicious. mrs. ye had been beaten and suffocated with a plastic grocery bag. her husband had been beaten to death. but before he died, mr. ye took a swipe at his killer and his dna was found under mr. ye's fingernail. police now now it was the dna of clifton bloomfield. he had not even been a suspect in the murders. >> part of me was shocked but part of me was like, makes sense. the brutality of the murders. >> news that bloomfield had committed two more murders sent a shockwave through katherine pierce. >> i realized that i really could be dead. he could have killed me for fun because i was in the wrong place at the wrong time. >> or because you possibly could have identified him. >> anything. why leave a witness behind? it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> the story gets stranger. before getting the dna hit on bloomfield, albuquerque police and prosecutors had already arrested, indicted and jailed two other men who they believed were responsible for the ye murders. one of the men had even confessed. but the dna of those two men was never found at the murder scene. dna now linked only clifton bloomfield. those results came back from the crime lab just days after the murder of scott pierce. >> my lawyer called me up and said, we found something. it looks like he could have been arrested before he ever killed scott. >> i kind of get the feeling that's when you began to get angry? >> yes. somebody like that, why did it take so long to put him behind bars? >> katherine's lawyers, ben davis and brad hall. >> how long did it take them to test that dna. [. seven months. >> during that time, mr. bloomfield was on the street and one of the things he did was kill scott pierce? >> correct. >> they had seven months to prevent the murder of scott pierce and they chose not to do that. >> carrie brandenburg. >> should they have submitted that dna earlier? >> hindsight, yes. we have limited resources, we had cases that were going to trial that we need dna on and so there's a priority. >> so this was something that fell through the cracks? >> i can't say that it fell through the cracks because that insinuates that something wrong happened. and i can't say that anything wrong happened. the process worked the way it always works. >> but that answer wasn't good enough for katherine pierce. this widow was about to begin a crusade. and clifton bloomfield was about to come out of the shadows. >> coming up -- >> i'm not the monster that they make me out to be. >> haunting words from the killer himself. katherine pierce and you are about to hear his story. ingeniously uses radar to alert you to possible collision threats. and in certain situations it can apply the brakes. introducing the all-new 2014 chevrolet impala with available crash imminent braking. always looking forward. while watching your back. that's american ingenuity to find new roads. and recently the 2013 chevrolet impala received the j.d. power award for highest ranked large car in initial quality. why? well, imagine waking up every morning with a little less hair... then driving to work in heavy traffic. 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>> i guess one of the pitfalls of being a police officer. no one is ever really happy with the police. they always like the firemen better. >> by 2012, katherine's lawsuit was headed for trial. katherine was dreading having to revisit the time of scott's murder. she had already done it once in this video. assembled by her attorneys as they prepared her case. you had moved on a little bit. >> moved on. i don't want to relive it. >> did you feel at all bad suing the police department that brought in your husband's killer in a couple of days? >> no, i don't feel bad. for me, it was more about bringing awareness to what the police are doing or not doing in this case. all i want is for them to do their job all the way through. >> you talked to police and they say, one, we did do our job, we brought those guys in the minute we knew they were suspects. dna is not like it is on television. we don't have an answer in 15 seconds. >> and i do understand that. >> and we got a lot of murders, we do the best we can. we wish we could solve every one, we wish we could close every one right away. but that's not real life. >> and i know the police department or the detectives did not come in and kill scott. i get that. it's not about smearing the albuquerque police department or detectives. it's about giving them more incentive to do their job better. >> just before trial, the city settled with katherine pierce for close to half a million dollars. her attorneys. >> the city admitted no liability in that settlement? >> routine. >> what's that mean to you? that the city settled just before it went to trial? >> you don't pay a lot of money if you didn't do anything wrong, do you? >> although it settled the suit, the city defended the work of its police department throughout what it called a complex investigation. to katherine pierce, it felt like an ending to a sad string of what ifs. what if she had moved into this house a week later? what if scott hadn't woken up? what if the dna from the previous homicides was tested sooner? she had had what felt like a very long run of very bad luck and the connective tissue in all of it was clifton bloomfield. >> i'm not the monster they make me out to be. i'm not perfect either. >> this is clifton bloomfield. in an interview in 2009 given to the albuquerque journal newspaper. >> i've done my share of wrongs. i've done plenty of dirt. >> bloomfield was willing, even eager, to talk about the pierce case to explain what went wrong. >> tell me about what happened. >> i feel bad about what happened there. the pierce case was a tragedy. imagine, in the dark to see -- you tell a person to stop and you have a shotgun in your hand. and they continue trying to grab it from you. >> it's hard to imagine being blase about murder but then clifton bloomfield has committed a lot of them. maybe that's why he tells the story as if he's an observer and not a participant. >> get down on the ground. >> bloomfield's version doesn't quite match with that of katherine pierce. the only other survivor of that night. >> i saw that interview when he exaggerated a lot. he said scott was reaching for the gun. that never happened. i think scott just lunged. he turned and pulled the trigger. i think it was as simple as that. >> tragedy. weak. another tragedy. he was a nurse. tragedy. >> and the list of tragedies clifton bloomfield brought about just kept going. faced with the death penalty in the ye murders, bloomfield cut a deal. he pleaded guilty to murder charges and in exchange for a life sentence, he admitted committing two more killings before the ye's, before scott pierce. the first was a talented designer found strangled in his home in 2005. three days later, the body of an 81-year-old retired school teacher was found beaten and suffocated. >> but he wasn't even a suspect in any of those? >> no. he was good. he wore gloves, he made it so no traces of him would be left behind except when he got scratched. >> suddenly, he's not just the guy you brought in on the scott pierce homicide. suddenly he's what, a serial killer? >> he's his own kind of serial killer. he's not hunting prostitutes or somebody that looks like his mom. >> he just kills and keeps on killing. >> he's just killing for the art of killing. >> how many murders do you think clifton bloomfield has committed for which he's never been charged? >> i honestly couldn't tell you. ten wouldn't surprise me. >> bloomfield declined "dateline's" request for an interview. he filed an appeal of his five murder convictions. jason skaggs pleaded guilty to murder in the pierce case and is serving a 30-year prison sentence. meantime, the da's office in albuquerque freed those two men, the original suspects in the ye murders. one of them settled a lawsuit with the city for nearly a million dollars. the city, again, admitted no liability. and katherine pierce has at last been able to move on. the woman who once thought she would never find love again has recently remarried. fulfilling one of the wishes scott had for her in their brief time together. >> when i was trying to talk about forever in our pillow talk, he said i might not live to be an old person. he said if that happens, i want you to move on and find somebody. wow. what a gift. >> and you did. >> and i did. i could be dead right now. i know that. it's like being given a second chance. so i'm running with it. >> and now, in our second hour, the story everyone has been talking about. the kidnapping of hannah anderson and the daring rescue that brought her home. >> this was a hard time, but if i could get through this, i'm sure i can get through a lot more. two murders, a kidnapping, a massive manhunt. >> give her a chance, run, please. >> tonight, new details about the investigation. he was telling her that he had a crush on her. she was really weirded out by it. >> i heard his name and my heart stopped. >> and the dramatic encounter in the mountains with hannah and her kidnapper. >> there's an amber alert flash and i said, that's the girl we seen on the mountain. >> the remarkable rescue. >> this was the moment that we were waiting for. >> and hannah's first tv interview. >> my mom raised me to be strong. >> she answers her critics. >> most of them think that i'm not innocent. but i am. >> here's dennis murphy with the rescue of hannah anderson. >> the main house was fully engulfed in flames. >> he was gone. and we were missing a child. >> please bring hannah home to us. we all miss you, hannah. we love you so much. >> a man with a rifle and an abducted teenager in his control. moving ever north off the grid in idaho mountains where face wrs few until a party on horseback rode up behind them. >> she had a pure look of fear on her face. >> with one rider sharp observation, showdown time was at hand. >> the next thing we heard was suspect down hard, jackpot, jackpot. >> i consider myself a survivor. way up beyond here in the wilderness country of idaho, there's a river that flows into this one with a nickname that goes back to the days of the explore explorers, lewis and clark. it's called the river of no return. it turned out to be all of that for one james dimaggio who made his last camp near the river of no return and didn't get out alive. his violent story regarded as a double homicide, kidnapping and manhunt as big as the west begins in the foothills of san diego county, california. boulevard, california, not much t
>> we would make special trips out into the desert when the cactuses were blooming. we took a lot of photographs. >> but nature alone wasn't important to scott pierce. he was also nurturing. this big guy also had a big heart. he dreamed of one day becoming a nurse practitioner. >> if i had a plant and it was almost dead, and i was like, ready to give up on it, he wouldn't let me because there was a chance it could come back. he just wouldn't give up on anything. >> in may 2008, nearly three years after they were matched, scott and katherine, who worked in retail, took a big step as a couple. they bought a house in northeast albuquerque. >> this was your first home? >> uh-huh. i qualified for it on my own, actually, but with his nursing career finally taking off, we're going to be living okay. >> what appealed to you about that house? >> it looked very homey, and it gave us more room. we didn't need a huge house. we're both simple people. >> a month later, they were married. >> i, scott. >> i, scott. >> take you, katherine. >> take you, katherine. >> to be my wife. >> was there no honeymoon? >> the honeymoon was going to take a backseat for a while. which was fine, we had a house. we still had boxes everywhere. >> that decision to buy that home at that time on that schedule would one day be a choice katherine and others would examine and reexamine. because that honeymoon the new couple had put off would never come. just six days after the wedding, scott and katherine's new life took a turn no one saw coming. >> he actually stayed up late that night watching a movie and then came to bed. next thing we know, someone burst in. i went downstairs and noticed the back door was open. i thought, it was 3:00 in the morning. i didn't have my glasses on, and i thought, why would scott leave the back door open? >> so if the back door had been open when he went to bed, he probably would have noticed it? >> yes. his routine was to go through the house and check that everything was locked. >> then from nowhere, katherine noticed something strange. >> i see kind of a dark shadow that looks like he's pointing a long, pointy thing at me. and i said, oh, scott, stop messing around. >> you thought it was your husband? >> it didn't make sense it would be a stranger in my home pointing a gun at me, so it had to be scott playing a trick. >> tell me about this gunpoi gun pointing a stick. white, hispanic, black? >> it was a dark shadow pointing something at me. he said, get down on the ground and he said, where is manny? i said, what? he said, where is manny? >> at that point scott had woken up and saw a man pointing a shotgun at his wife. >> your husband of six months was coming to your defense. >> yes. after that it was all a blur. i remember him turning very fast, but i saw the bright flash of the gun. i think that temporarily blinded me. >> where is the guy with the gun? >> the only thing i can imagine is that he ran out the back door as soon as the gun went off. >> katherine grabbed the phone, called 911 and said she found scott on the kictchen floor wit a gaping wound in his neck. >> did you say anything to him at all? >> oh, yeah. i told him i loved him. i put my hands on his face and i told him i loved him. he had his hand up on his stomach, and i noticed it fell. >> so bit time they loaded him in the ambulance and took him away, you didn't have a lot of hope? >> i wouldn't even say that. i wasn't going to give up hope until somebody told me finally. >> and minutes later at the hospital, someone did. >> i remember the doctor finally walking in, and he said, so tell me what happened. and i said, no. is he alive? i wasn't going to play this game. i wanted to know right away, and he said no. >> at age 41, scott pierce was dead, six days after his wedding. and just like that, katherine pierce was a widow. what had happened in that kitchen? who was manny, the mysterious man for whom the killer had come calling? and who held the answers to all those questions? >> a whole lot of questions in this case. police were quick to sit down to answer them, and they started with katherine pierce. when we come back, it's more than her story that's under scrutiny. it's everything. her clothes from that night, her marriage, even a life insurance policy. >> i knew something was coming. >> did she have something to hide? when "a shot in the dark" continues. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta®(eszopiclone) can help you get there. like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. lunesta should not be taken together with alcohol. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as fifteen dollars at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. all right that's a fifth-floor probleok.. not in my house! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! no no no! not today! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! jimmy how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? happier than dikembe mutumbo blocking a shot. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. add resolve deep clean powder before you vacuum. the powder is moist. lifting three times more dirt than vacuuming alone. don't just vacuum clean. resolve clean. or settling for wannabes? stop compromising! new vidal sassoon pro series. care and styling from the original salon genius, created to let you have it all at an affordable price. new vidal sassoon lets you say no to compromise and yes to very shiny... very silky... very sexy... very you. it's salon genius in a bottle! now in your store. new vidal sassoon pro series. salon genius. brilliantly priced. a new day dawned in albuquerque that june morning in 2008. and as the sun came up, katherine pierce realized she had been transformed. in just six days, she had gone from smiling newlywed to blood-stained widow and to possible suspect in the murder of her husband scott. >> you know when a husband or wife dies, it's very natural for police to at least look at the surviving spouse. >> i knew something was coming. it wasn't unusual. >> and soon katherine was face to face with veteran albuquerque homicide detective mike fox. >> a brand new bride tells the story of some mystery man coming into the house and executing her new husband. that's got to set off alarm bells. >> she was somebody we had to look at. >> tell me about katherine pierce's demeanor. >> she actually shocked me how well she was able to put it together. >> calmer than you would expect? >> yes. >> detectives had many questions, especially after looking hard at the crime scene and finding something confusing. the killer had dumped out katherine's purse on the back deck. but on the purse, no fingerprints. so was this a robbery gone wrong? or was the purse some kind of diversion? >> we knew we were dealing with somebody at that point that had gloved up with rubber gloves or something like that. >> which says to you what? >> it tells me whoever was involved was going in there to kill somebody and not leave any evidence behind. >> burglars generally do not carry shotguns. >> no. >> and if somebody surprises them, instead of shooting them, they just run away. >> typically. that's what i've seen through my carry. >> and so even though the fact katherine's purse was sort of dumped out and searched through, everything about this says planned murder, not planned burglary. >> correct. >> but planned by whom? >> tell me about scott pierce. anybody that didn't like him? >> no. everybody liked him. great guy. nothing bad in his background at all. >> you no doubt did your due diligence to find out whether that marriage was as happy as it appeared to be? >> yes. talking to people around them, everything was fantastic. >> but detectives had heard that story before. when they looked deeper, they learned that katherine's husband had a life insurance policy. the payoff was in the mid-six-figure range. and she was the beneficiary. when they canvassed the homes nearby, police found neighbors who heard a man and woman talking around 3:00 a.m. detectives wondered, had that been scott and katherine? within hours of her husband's murder, criminalists confiscated the clothes katherine was wearing when she said her new husband was gunned down right in front of her. >> police took your clothing because they wanted to test it. >> everything is evidence at that point. i understood that. >> you weren't concerned? >> not at all. the detective asked me if i killed my husband. >> straight out. >> and i said no. and he seemed fairly satisfied with that. >> but detectives asked katherine to run through her story again, looking for inconsistencies. so she went through what happened that night again, just as she did in this video she would later make for her attorneys. >> here i turned around and there was a tall person standing here, so i said, scott, stop messing around, and then he said, get down on the ground. that's when i knew somebody was in my house that didn't belong. i saw scott standing at the other end of the room. i held up my hand and i said, scott, wait. the gun went off. his head was right here. and his neck was blown open, all of this, and his throat, everything was just gone. >> did she say or do anything that made you suspicious? >> no. nothing showed that she wasn't telling the truth, but unfortunately, in her situation, i have to go after her as a possible suspect. it's to find out if she is involved, a, and then b, if she's not, make it so that later on when it does go to trial it's not brought up by a defense attorney who will try to make it look like she did it. >> but remember, there is something katherine heard on the kitchen floor that night, something that came from that shadowy figure who held a shotgun to katherine's head before firing the fatal shot at scott. the killer had also asked her a question that would soon become the focus of this investigation. >> he said, where is manny? >> manny. >> and i said, what did you say? and he said, where is manny? >> it was a name that meant nothing to homicide investigators, but katherine pierce said she knew exactly who the man was after. now police were looking for him, too. >> so who was this mystery man named manny? and could he help break this case? >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in. >> police are getting closer when [ female announcer ] now get high speed internet at home on our newly expanded advanced digital network, a connection you can count on. at&t u-verse high speed internet offers more speed options, reliability and wi-fi hotspots than ever. go to our website below to get u-verse high speed internet for just $14.95 a month for 12 months with a one-year price guarantee. it's all the speed you need all at a great price. our newly expanded advanced digital network gives you more of what you enjoy online. and with at&t, our wireless gateway turns your home into a private wi-fi hotspot that connects your wi-fi devices and can even save on your smart phone data usage at home. go to our website below to get at&t u-verse high speed internet for just $14.95 a month for 12 months with a one-year price guarantee. that includes access on-the-go to our entire national wi-fi hotspot network, with over 30,000 hotspots. at&t u-verse high speed internet. now on our newly expanded advanced digital network, a connection your whole house can count on. ♪ it was just a few hours into a sunny saturday morning in albuquerque, june 2008. katherine pierce was in a police car being taken home from the hospital where her husband of six days, scott, had just been pronounced dead. from the start, she had been treated as a suspect in her husband's murder. katherine's story was that a shadowy figure had broken into their home in the middle of the night and had then killed scott. but for some reason spared katherine's life. detective mike fox was working homicide for the albuquerque police. >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in and was looking for a guy named manny. >> manny. it was the name that was about to break this case. it had to do, it turned out, not just with katherine pierce and her husband but with the house, the piece of property they just bought as they began their life together. the couple had moved in just a month before the murder. a month before, that question asked by the intruder in the middle of the night about where to find manny. >> you knew who he was talking about. >> yes. i knew exactly who he was talking about. >> that's who you bought the house from? >> yes. >> they had moved out how long before? >> almost exactly a month prior. >> suddenly the murder case had moved off of katherine pierce and onto the presumed target, a man named manny. it turned out he was known to the albuquerque police, and within hours, after detectives put out word they were looking for him, manny called police. he offered to come in, sit down and help out any way he could. >> i'm guessing the first question is, who is looking for you that would want to kill you? >> who would want me dead. >> and he said? >> he said jason skaggs. he's the only one i know of that would want me killed. >> this is jason skaggs. he and manny worked together at a roofing company. originally from california, skaggs was an ex-marine, a former trucker with a minor criminal record. and some of the story manny was telling police added up. at 6'3" and only 200 pounds, jason skaggs matched almost exactly the description given by katherine pierce of a tall, slender intruder. but he was not, as far as police knew, a killer. to detectives, a home invasion that ended in murder seemed to be outside jason skaggs' criminal skill set. >> if he was the guy in katherine pierce's house with the shotgun, he was a rookie. >> and that didn't really match-up with the gloves and some of the other things that were kind of popping in our heads as somebody that might be more experienced at this. >> detectives started tracking skaggs' cell phone. the cell phone started pinging off el paso, texas. >> that sounds like a guy on the run. >> yeah. is this guy just heading for mexico? >> it turned out el paso was just the closest cell tower to elephant butte lake, the campground where skaggs was spending the weekend with his wife. not only did he say it, his employer backed him up. even with what seemed an airtight alibi, detectives brought in skaggs. >> jason, do you mind stating your name and date of birth? >> my name is jason skaggs, 5/12/73. >> skaggs stuck to his story of a weekend camping trip at the lake. what he didn't know was his wife had already been interviewed, and she told a completely different story of what they had done and when. detective fox broke that news to jason skaggs. >> at that point i could see that we had the right guy. >> how can you tell when you have the right guy? >> when a person is cooperating with you, they have a certain demeanor. and when you start to turn things on them and start to show that what they're telling you isn't the truth and that i know it and you can see a change in the eyes. so it all just starts to unravel. >> and you can tell. you can see that? >> oh, yeah. it's probably the most exciting part of homicide investigation is breaking a murderer with their own words. >> to detectives, it was looking more and more as if jason skaggs had been the man with the shotgun in katherine pierce's home. >> the woman in the house describes you. >> i have never broke sbn into anyone's life. i have never shot anyone in my life. >> i think it was by accident. >> i have never shot anyone in my life. never. i have never shot a human being in my life and i have not broke sbun anyo brokeen into anyone's home. >> we're going to solve this. >> you'll find it wasn't me. i wasn't in their house. >> police kept hammering away, and that's when jason skaggs changed his story. he said he wasn't the man in katherine pierce's home, and he wasn't the person that pulled the trigger on that shotgun and killed scott. but he did know exactly who it was. >> when we come back, this case takes another hairpin turn. just look at what police are about to find. a duffel bag, a gun, and gloves. do these belong to the killer? 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[ birds chirping ] zzzquil™. the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil®. ♪ the simple and easy way to reveal light layers of juicy pineapple and exotic mangosteen. artfully designed to open your home and fill the air with long-lasting fragrance. glade expressions oil diffuser. with glade expressions fragrance mist, a squeeze at the neck of the bottle releases a light mist of fresh cotton and italian mandarin that eliminates odors and fills the air with long-lasting fragrance. glade expressions fragrance mist. albuquerque police were moving full force in the first 48 hours after the murder of scott pierce. scott's widow katherine returned to the house they had shared to find more than a piece of her heart was missing. quite a bit had been stolen now by that shadowy figure with the shotgun. it wasn't just the life of the man she had married less than a week before. it was also the future they had planned together. but gone, too, was katherine's camera, a gift from her husband who had so loved photography. >> of all the things he could have taken, that was actually the best thing because it still had all the wedding pictures on t. i hope he saw the pictures. i hope it sunk in what he just did. >> who had killed scott pierce was still an open question. but police thought they were zeroing in. because remember, katherine said the shadowy figure who had come into the house in the middle of the night was looking for a man named manny who had lived in the house previously. when detectives found manny, he said a coworker named jason skaggs was the likely killer. when questioned, skaggs denied any role in the murder and said he and his wife had been camping a couple of hours from albuquerque on the night scott pierce was killed. but detective mike fox soon broke down that alibi. and so in the police interview room, he went after skaggs with a new tactic. >> i mean, you're thinking at that point that that was skaggs saying, where is manny? >> yeah, i'm saying whatever part you played in this, a good guy was killed, and you got to feel bad about that. i got into that they had been married a week, that they had just moved into the house. if you're a good person, that has to weigh on you. >> whether skaggs was a good person is debatable. whether he cracked under the pressure is not. soon he was singing like a canary. >> i wanted manny to get hurt, you know, arms, legs, things that -- you know, he would be hurt and it would take him a while to recover. >> skaggs said he wanted ma f m hurt because manny had slept with his wife. skaggs admitted the home invasion was all about jealousy but he never wanted anyone dead. but jason skaggs also had a surprise for detectives. >> i said, you weren't in there with a shotgun? he said, no, i wasn't in there. i had somebody else go in there for me. and we're like, what? >> who did skaggs say was his accomplice? >> he said it was clifton bloomfield. >> did that mean anything to you? >> the name meant nothing at all. >> but it didn't take long before you knew everything about him. >> correct. he was a serious guy. >> serious and scary. clifton bloom was 39. he had done time in arizona for kidnapping, rape and assault. he had dabbled in acting in the valuab val kilmer movie "villain." but his new career wasn't working as well as his old one. he was soon arrested and pleaded no contest to a home invasion robbery. bloomfield was now on probation for that crime, released from jail less than a year earlier. he had been set free to the custody of a coworker at a roofing company, a man named -- you guessed it -- jason skaggs. >> clifton bloomfield. he was the kind of guy you would send in to somebody's house to either beat them up or kill them? >> yes. and he physically met the description. he was also tall and slender. >> when police searched bloomfield's home, they found a black duffel bag containing a shotgun, bullet-proof vest and a mask. also latex gloves used, as police soon learned, by the killer who had dumped out katherine pierce's purse to try to make this murder look like a botched burglary. detectives now believe jason skaggs was telling the truth. it had been bloomfield behind the shotgun. his criminal history fit the crime. he had been kwekconvicted of a violent home invasion robbery before. it wasn't long before police tracked down bloomfield and arrested him. >> this is a guy who has done prison time. i would think this is a guy who wasn't going to talk. >> i didn't think he would. >> but maybe bloomfield had seen those wedding pictures of scott and katherine on the camera he had stolen. had he also picked up a conscience somewhere on his journey? because the hardened con surprised detectives by opening up. >> i was a little shocked, but pleasantly shocked. >> as police would soon learn, clifton bloomfield's version of the truth changed with the new mexico wind. but among the several statements bloomfield gave was an explanation for his mission that night: looking for manny. >> if you're going to kill him, is skaggs going to want to talk to him first or were you going to take him somewhere? >> no. he just had one message for him. he said, nobody [ bleep ] someone and survives. >> but in the house that night, bloomfield said he realized the manny he knew from work bore no resemblance to the 6'8" hulk he found bearing down on him in the dark. >> you knew it wasn't manny? [ inaudible ] >> did you intentionally fire or accidentally fire? >> he says he was about to leave when scott pierce charged him. true or not, the result was that bloomfield put himself behind a murder as a favor to a friend. except he killed the wrong man. >> this was all just spectacular bad luck. if you had moved out of that house a month later, your life bob different. >> very different. >> if your husband had not been a sound sleeper. >> things could have been different. >> if the man had realized manny didn't live in the house anymore. >> yeah. some things at the wrong place at the wrong time. >> for detective and his colleagues, it was a job well done. a case quickly solved. >> scott pierce was killed on a saturday morning. and less than 48 hours later, you have the suspects together and in custody. >> yes. >> good job. came together pretty well. >> case closed. >> that's what we thought. >> they were all wrong. katherine pierce was about to learn the shadowy figure she confronted that night was one of the most cold-blooded killers that part of the world had ever seen. and her involvement with him wasn't over. coming up, a twist that stuns katherine pierce. >> it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> it would stun the police, too. when "dateline" continues. lysol believes no toilet is complete, until it's completely clean. lysol toilet bowl cleaner gives you maximum coverage from the rim down to the water line to kill 99.9% of germs. and removes stains better than clorox toilet bowl cleaner with bleach. so if you want to do the whole job, lysol's got you covered. lysol. mission for health. and for an incredibly clean and fresh bowl with every flush, try the no mess automatic toilet bowl cleaner. chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. it smells worse, and it can happen any time -- to anyone! like when i ran to catch the train to work and a draft blew my skirt up and everybody here saw my unmentionables. yeah, and they aren't even cute. hello, laundry day. no... stress sweat can happen to anyone, anytime -- and it smells worse than ordinary sweat. get 4x the protection against stress sweat. introducing new secret clinical strength stress response scent. ♪ introducing new secret clinical strength stress response scent. have given way to sleeping. tossing and turning where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta®(eszopiclone) can help you get there. like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. lunesta should not be taken together with alcohol. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as fifteen dollars at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. so i can't afford to have germy surfaces. but after one day's use, dishcloths can redeposit millions of germs. so ditch your dishcloth and switch to a fresh sheet of new bounty duratowel. look! a fresh sheet of bounty duratowel leaves this surface cleaner than a germy dishcloth, as this black light reveals. it's durable, cloth-like and it's 3 times cleaner. so ditch your dishcloth and switch to new bounty duratowel. the durable, cloth-like picker-upper. in the weeks after the murder of her husband scott, katherine pierce was still living in the home where he had been killed by mistake. instead of moving out, katherine cleaned up the blood stains and stayed. she says she was determined to face her own fears. >> i began to get up in the middle of the night and kind of walk through the house with the lights off just so i could get that out of my system so i wouldn't be afraid of it. i would walk down the hall without the lights on. i went to the back door. i let the dogs out. >> you walked through the kitchen. >> i relived it over and over and over again. >> and that made it easier? >> if you repeat something over and over and over again, it lessens a little bit every time. >> but katherine was also facing a broken-hearted truth: that she lost the love of her life. >> i had no idea what my future would hold, especially in the romance department. >> you couldn't conceive of ever finding that kind of love again. >> no, i couldn't. >> and now the detectives who quickly closed the case by getting a confession by that armed intruder, clifton bloomfield, were about to realize they weren't done with either bloomfield or katherine pierce. >> that's when the crime lab here in albuquerque got a hit on clifton bloomfield's dna. but it had nothing to do with the murder of scott pierce. this was the dna sample left at the scene of a completely differenti albuquerque homicide. >> the killing ground was in this neatly kept home in 2007, some six months before the murder of scott pierce. the murders of pak and sun yi had been front page news and sparked outrage and fear. the yis were pioneers in the korean american community. they had come to the u.s. in the '70s, worked multiple jobs, raised four successful children and lived the american dream. mr. yi had just retired so they could travel. and then they were murdered in their own home. detective mike fox had a personal connection to the case. >> he actually was my neighbor at one point, so i would see him out gardening. a very pleasant man. >> not a neighborhood where you would expect this to happen? >> no. this is another crime where you have a victim that hadn't done anything to deserve it. >> and the crime detective fox and his colleagues had investigated had been especially vicious. mrs. ye had been beaten and suffocated with a plastic grocery bag. her husband had been beaten to death. but before he died, mr. ye took a swipe at his killer. and his dna was found under mr. ye's fingernails. police now knew it was the dna of clifton bloomfield. he had not even been a suspect in the murders. >> part of me was shocked, but part of me was like, makes sense. the brutality of the murders. >> news that bloomfield had committed two more murders sent a shock wave through katherine pierce. >> i realized that i really could be dead. he could have killed me for fun because i was in the wrong place at the wrong time. >> or because you possibly could have identified him. >> anything. why leave a witness behind? it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> the story gets stranger. before getting the dna hit on bloomfield, albuquerque police and prosecutors had already arrested, indicted and jailed two other men who they believed were responsible for the ye murders. one of the men had even confessed. but the dna of those two men was never found at the murder scene. dna now linked only clifton bloomfield. those results came back from the crime lab just days after the murder of scott pierce. >> my lawyer called me up and said, we found something. it looks like he could have been arrested before he ever killed scott. >> i kind of get the feeling that's when you begin to get angry. >> yes. somebody like that, why did it take so long to put him behind bars? >> katherine's lawyers ben davis and brad hall. >> how long did it take them to test that dn snara? >> seven months. >> and during that seven months, bloomfield was on the street, and one of the things he did was kill scott pierce. >> correct. they had seven months to stop the murder of scott pierce, and they chose not to do that. >> d.a. carol landberg. >> should they have tested that dna sooner than they did? >> yes. at the time it was done, it was done. we had cases going to trial that we needed dna on, so there was a priority. >> this was something that fell through the cracks? >> i can't say that it fell through the cracks because that in s insinuates that something wrong happened, and i can't say something wrong happened. the process worked the way it always works. >> but that answer wasn't good enough for katherine pierce. this widow was about to begin a crusade, and clifton bloomfield was about to come out of the shadows. coming up -- >> i'm not the monster they make me out to be. >> haunting words from the killer himself. katherine pierce and you are about to hear his story. when "a shot in the the range of emotion katherine pierce experienced after the mistaken identity murder of her husband scott had gone from devastation to relief when his killers were caught. and then to anger when she realized that if a double murder investigation six months earlier had been handled differently, clifton bloomfield might have been in jail instead of in her kitchen. >> dna evidence could have prevented him from killing scott and it infuriated me. i couldn't believe that such a minor, insignificant detail from a previous murder could have saved scott. >> that detail she's talking about? the dna that linked bloomfield to the ye murders, the dna taken from under mr. ye's fingernail. it sat in the albuquerque police crime lab with no tests being done to identify it for months. the match didn't come until after scott pierce was dead. katherine pierce thought the process had failed her. so she filed a lawsuit against the city of albuquerque, its police department and various detectives, including the man who had helped to quickly solve scott's murder, detective mike fox. >> it's kind of ironic. you find her husband's killer in less than 48 hours and you still get sued for not having found him earlier. >> i guess one of the pitfalls of being a police officer. no one is ever really happy with the police. they always like the firemen better. >> and by 2012, katherine's lawsuit was headed for trial. katherine was dreading having to revisit the time of scott's murder. she had already done it once in this video assembled by her attorneys as they prepared her case. >> you've moved on a little bit? >> moved on because i don't want to relive it. >> did you feel at all bad suing the police department that brought in your husband's killer in a couple of days? >> no, i don't feel bad. for me it was more about bringing awareness to what the police are doing or not doing in this case. all i want is for them to do their job all the way through. >> you talked to police and they say, one, we did do our job. we brought those guys in the minute we knew they were suspects. dna is not like it is on television. we don't have an answer in 15 seconds. >> and i do understand that. >> and we get a lot of murders. we do the best we can. we wish we could solve every one, we wish we could close every one right away. but that's not real life. >> and i know the police department or the detectives did not come in and kill scott. i get that. it's not about smearing the albuquerque police department or detectives. it's about giving them more incentive to do their job better. >> just before trial, the city settled with katherine pierce for close to half a million dollars. her attorneys: >> the city admitted no liability in its elements. >> routine. >> what does that mean that the city settled just before they went to trial? >> you don't pay any money if you didn't do anything wrong, do you? >> although it settled its suit. they worked with the police department throughout a complex investigation. to katherine pierce, it felt like an ending to a sad stream of what-ifs. what if she had moved into this house a week later? what if scott hadn't woken up? what if the dna from the ye homicides had been tested sooner? she had what felt like a very long run of very bad luck. and the connective tissue in all of it was clifton bloomfield. >> i'm not the monster they make me out to be. i'm not perfect, either. >> this is clifton bloomfield in an interview in 2009 given to the albuquerque journal newspaper. bloomfield was willing, even eager, to talk about the pierce case, to explain what went wrong. >> how bad do you feel about what happened? >> me? i feel bad about what happened in the pierce case. what happened in the pierce case was a tragedy. imagine, in a darkened room to see someone and you tell them to stop when someone has a shotgun and they continue trying to grab it. >> it's hard being blase about murder, but clifton bloomfield has committed a lot of them. maybe that's why he tells the story like he's an observer and not a participant. bloomfield's version doesn't quite match that of katherine pierce, the only other survivor of that night. >> i saw that interview and he exaggerated a lot. he said scott was reaching for the gun. that never happened. i think scott just lunged. he turned and pulled the trigger. i think it was as simple as that. >> it was a tragedy. they had been married a week. another tragedy. he was a nurse. the tragedies just keep on going. >> the list of tragedies clifton bloomfield brought about just kept going. faced with the death penalty in the ye murders, bloomfield cut a deal. he pleaded guilty to murder charges, and in exchange for a life sentence, he admitted committing two more killings before the yes, before scott pierce. the first was a talented designer found strangled in his home in 2005. three days later, the body of an 81-year-old retired schoolteacher was found beaten and suffocated. >> but he wasn't even a suspect in any of those. >> no. he was good. he wore gloves, he made it so no traces of him would be left behind except when he got scratched. >> and he's not just the guy you brought in on the scott pierce homicide. suddenly he's, what, a serial killer? >> he's his own kind of serial killer. he's not hunting prostitutes or somebody that looks like his mom. >> he just kills and keeps on killing. >> he's just killing for the art of killing. >> how many murders do you think clifton bloomfield has committed for which he's never been charged? >> i honestly couldn't tell you. ten wouldn't surprise me. >> bloomfield declined "dateline"'s request for an interview. and despite pleading guilty, he filed an appeal for his five murder convictions. jason skaggs pleaded guilty to murder in the pierce case, and is serving a 30-year prison sentence. meantime, the d.a.'s office in albuquerque freed those two men, the original suspects in the ye murders. one of them settled a lawsuit with the city for nearly a million dollars. the city, again, admitted no liability. and katherine pierce has at last been able to move on. the woman who thought she wouldn't find love again has recently remarried, fulfilling one of the wishes scott had for her in their brief time together. >> when i was, you know, trying to talk about forever in our little pillow talk, he said, i might not live to be an old person. he said, if that happens, i want you to move on and find somebody. wow. what a gift. >> and you did. >> and i did. i could be dead right now. i know that. it's like being given a second chance. so i'm running with it. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. from nbc news in washington, the world's longest running television program, this is "meet the press" with david gregory. good sunday morning. the white house and congressional republicans now at odd on two fronts, the battle over the nomination of chuck hagel for defense secretary. it has now been delayed for another week, that vote. $8.5 billion of automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect in two weeks' time if no agreement is reached. we have it all covered this morning and we want to start with a view from the white house. in washington, the job of white house chief of staff is known as the most powerful post in town and there is a new man occupying that seat of power and he is here with us this morning on "meet the press," his first appearance. but who he? how did he get here? denis mcdonough is one of 11 kids and qualification enough in a small town in minnesota. he was a high school football star. he cut his teeth in politics and working in the house for congressman lee hamilton and in the senate for majority leader tom daschle and later for barack obama. when he decided to make a run for the white house in 2008 he tapped mcdonough to be his foreign policy adviser to the campaign. the president announced him as his pick, mcdonough involved in every major foreign policy decision, including the call to get osama bin laden. >> i actually begun to think that denis likes pulling all-nighters. the truth is nobody outworks denis mcdonough. >> here he is. mr. mcdonough, welcome to "meet the press." >> thanks so much for having me, david. >> this is a tough job. you're the fourth one to have it. what is the key, part of your goal for this job as the president has a narrow window? how do you approach it? >> my approach is to focus on something jim baker told me just the other day, actually. reach out to several of the other chiefs of staff in the past and he said as long as you you focused on the staff and not on the chief, you are going to be okay. i'm working with a staff that is excellent. i'm real honored the president has laid this responsibility to me and i look forward to doing it. >> from the expected to unexpected. i was mentioning before we went on the air. the asteroid that came near the united states. this is stuff you got to talk about and deal with in the job? don't you? it is stuff we have to talk about and do talk about, had a a lot of back and forth with our science adviser about this over the last several days. the fact is that we are going to keep working on this and everything else to make sure we are on top of it. >> let's talk about some of these agenda items. first of all, chuck hagel's nomination, it is being held up, the expectation, he will ultimately be confirmed. but bill cullen, former defense secretary, this week said something to politico that caught my attention that underlines the problem hagel has, that will put him in a a difficult position once he gets there. those resentments will weigh around. i think it's tragic what is happening and i think it's shameful. if he is confirmed, is he a weaker defense secretary and is that something that weighs on the president's mind? >> no, he is not going to be a weaker defense secretary. he will be a great defense secretary. he is a leading republican senator.
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[♪...] >> female announcer: this has been a paid presentation for the exhilarate body shaping system brought to you by zumba fitness. >> he said get down on the ground, so i did. i could be dead right now. >> i wish i had look at him. >> a new bride just married for six days. then came that horrible night. >> i see kind of a dark shadow. all i remember was the bright flash of the gun. >> she told police a mysterious man burst into their new home and killed her husband. >> i put my hands on his face and i told him i loved him. >> there is no doubt her story was heartbreaking, but it was puzzling, too. who was this strange man? or, as you may find yourself asking, was there a strange man at all? >> a brand new bride tells the story of a mystery man. >> she was somebody we had to look at. >> now she's the one under scrutiny. her clothes examined. her account questioned. >> the detective asked me if i killed my husband. >> what did happen that night? the truth would be far stranger than anyone knew. >> i'm not the monster people make me out to be. >> i'm lester holt, and this is "dateline." tonight, a shot in the dark. here's josh mankiewicz. >> albuquerque, new mexico. a mile high city famous for its balloon festival. and where a match made in heaven happened in 2005. a friend named bailey set her up with scott. >> what made your friend think you would make a good match with scott? >> i don't think anything, other than he was a tall and hand some man, and she knew that's what i liked. >> he was a gentle soul trapped in the body of an nfl lineman. the two soon fell in love and nature played an important role in their lives. both their own good natures and their love of nature. >> what did you like about him besides the fact he was 6'8"? >> he saw the beauty of anything. he would stop to take a picture of anything. >> scott was behind the lens for pictures like these. >> we would make special trips out into the desert when the cactuses were blooming. we took a lot of photographs. >> but nature alone wasn't important to scott pierce. he was also nurturing. this big guy also had a big heart. he dreamed of one day becoming a nurse practitioner. >> if i had a plant and it was almost dead, and i was like, ready to give up on it, he wouldn't let me because there was a chance it could come back. he just wouldn't give up on anything. >> in may 2008, nearly three years after they were matched, scott and katherine, who worked in retail, took a big step as a couple. they bought a house in northeast albuquerque. >> this was your first home? >> uh-huh. i qualified for it on my own, actually, but with his nursing career finally taking off, we're going to be living okay. >> what appealed to you about that house? >> it looked very homey, and it gave us more room. we didn't need a huge house. we're both simple people. >> a month later, they were married. >> i, scott. >> i, scott. >> take you, katherine. >> take you, katherine. >> to be my wife. >> was there no honeymoon? >> the honeymoon was going to take a backseat for a while. which was fine, we had a house. we still had boxes everywhere. >> that decision to buy that home at that time on that schedule would one day be a choice katherine and others would examine and reexamine. because that honeymoon the new couple had put off would never come. just six days after the wedding, scott and katherine's new life took a turn no one saw coming. >> he actually stayed up late that night watching a movie and then came to bed. next thing we know, someone burst in. i went downstairs and noticed the back door was open. i thought, it was 3:00 in the morning. i didn't have my glasses on, and i thought, why would scott leave the back door open? >> so if the back door had been open when he went to bed, he probably would have noticed it? >> yes. his routine was to go through the house and check that everything was locked. >> then from nowhere, katherine noticed something strange. >> i see kind of a dark shadow that looks like he's pointing a long, pointy thing at me. and i said, oh, scott, stop messing around. >> you thought it was your husband? >> it didn't make sense it would be a stranger in my home pointing a gun at me, so it had to be scott playing a trick. >> tell me about this gunpoi gun pointing a stick. white, hispanic, black? >> it was a dark shadow pointing something at me. he said, get down on the ground and he said, where is manny? i said, what? he said, where is manny? >> at that point scott had woken up and saw a man pointing a shotgun at his wife. >> your husband of six months was coming to your defense. >> yes. after that it was all a blur. i remember him turning very fast, but i saw the bright flash of the gun. i think that temporarily blinded me. >> where is the guy with the gun? >> the only thing i can imagine is that he ran out the back door as soon as the gun went off. >> katherine grabbed the phone, called 911 and said she found scott on the kictchen floor wit a gaping wound in his neck. >> did you say anything to him at all? >> oh, yeah. i told him i loved him. i put my hands on his face and i told him i loved him. he had his hand up on his stomach, and i noticed it fell. >> so bit time they loaded him in the ambulance and took him away, you didn't have a lot of hope? >> i wouldn't even say that. i wasn't going to give up hope until somebody told me finally. >> and minutes later at the hospital, someone did. >> i remember the doctor finally walking in, and he said, so tell me what happened. and i said, no. is he alive? i wasn't going to play this game. i wanted to know right away, and he said no. >> at age 41, scott pierce was dead, six days after his wedding. and just like that, katherine pierce was a widow. what had happened in that kitchen? who was manny, the mysterious man for whom the killer had come calling? and who held the answers to all those questions? >> a whole lot of questions in this case. police were quick to sit down to answer them, and they started with katherine pierce. when we come back, it's more than her story that's under scrutiny. it's everything. her clothes from that night, her marriage, even a life insurance policy. >> i knew something was coming. >> did she have something to hide? when "a shot in the dark" continues. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta®(eszopiclone) can help you get there. like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. lunesta should not be taken together with alcohol. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as fifteen dollars at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. all right that's a fifth-floor probleok.. not in my house! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! no no no! not today! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! jimmy how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? happier than dikembe mutumbo blocking a shot. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. add resolve deep clean powder before you vacuum. the powder is moist. lifting three times more dirt than vacuuming alone. don't just vacuum clean. resolve clean. or settling for wannabes? stop compromising! new vidal sassoon pro series. care and styling from the original salon genius, created to let you have it all at an affordable price. new vidal sassoon lets you say no to compromise and yes to very shiny... very silky... very sexy... very you. it's salon genius in a bottle! now in your store. new vidal sassoon pro series. salon genius. brilliantly priced. a new day dawned in albuquerque that june morning in 2008. and as the sun came up, katherine pierce realized she had been transformed. in just six days, she had gone from smiling newlywed to blood-stained widow and to possible suspect in the murder of her husband scott. >> you know when a husband or wife dies, it's very natural for police to at least look at the surviving spouse. >> i knew something was coming. it wasn't unusual. >> and soon katherine was face to face with veteran albuquerque homicide detective mike fox. >> a brand new bride tells the story of some mystery man coming into the house and executing her new husband. that's got to set off alarm bells. >> she was somebody we had to look at. >> tell me about katherine pierce's demeanor. >> she actually shocked me how well she was able to put it together. >> calmer than you would expect? >> yes. >> detectives had many questions, especially after looking hard at the crime scene and finding something confusing. the killer had dumped out katherine's purse on the back deck. but on the purse, no fingerprints. so was this a robbery gone wrong? or was the purse some kind of diversion? >> we knew we were dealing with somebody at that point that had gloved up with rubber gloves or something like that. >> which says to you what? >> it tells me whoever was involved was going in there to kill somebody and not leave any evidence behind. >> burglars generally do not carry shotguns. >> no. >> and if somebody surprises them, instead of shooting them, they just run away. >> typically. that's what i've seen through my carry. >> and so even though the fact katherine's purse was sort of dumped out and searched through, everything about this says planned murder, not planned burglary. >> correct. >> but planned by whom? >> tell me about scott pierce. anybody that didn't like him? >> no. everybody liked him. great guy. nothing bad in his background at all. >> you no doubt did your due diligence to find out whether that marriage was as happy as it appeared to be? >> yes. talking to people around them, everything was fantastic. >> but detectives had heard that story before. when they looked deeper, they learned that katherine's husband had a life insurance policy. the payoff was in the mid-six-figure range. and she was the beneficiary. when they canvassed the homes nearby, police found neighbors who heard a man and woman talking around 3:00 a.m. detectives wondered, had that been scott and katherine? within hours of her husband's murder, criminalists confiscated the clothes katherine was wearing when she said her new husband was gunned down right in front of her. >> police took your clothing because they wanted to test it. >> everything is evidence at that point. i understood that. >> you weren't concerned? >> not at all. the detective asked me if i killed my husband. >> straight out. >> and i said no. and he seemed fairly satisfied with that. >> but detectives asked katherine to run through her story again, looking for inconsistencies. so she went through what happened that night again, just as she did in this video she would later make for her attorneys. >> here i turned around and there was a tall person standing here, so i said, scott, stop messing around, and then he said, get down on the ground. that's when i knew somebody was in my house that didn't belong. i saw scott standing at the other end of the room. i held up my hand and i said, scott, wait. the gun went off. his head was right here. and his neck was blown open, all of this, and his throat, everything was just gone. >> did she say or do anything that made you suspicious? >> no. nothing showed that she wasn't telling the truth, but unfortunately, in her situation, i have to go after her as a possible suspect. it's to find out if she is involved, a, and then b, if she's not, make it so that later on when it does go to trial it's not brought up by a defense attorney who will try to make it look like she did it. >> but remember, there is something katherine heard on the kitchen floor that night, something that came from that shadowy figure who held a shotgun to katherine's head before firing the fatal shot at scott. the killer had also asked her a question that would soon become the focus of this investigation. >> he said, where is manny? >> manny. >> and i said, what did you say? and he said, where is manny? >> it was a name that meant nothing to homicide investigators, but katherine pierce said she knew exactly who the man was after. now police were looking for him, too. >> so who was this mystery man named manny? and could he help break this case? >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in. >> police are getting closer when "dat it was just a few hours into a sunny saturday morning in albuquerque, june 2008. katherine pierce was in a police car being taken home from the hospital where her husband of six days, scott, had just been pronounced dead. from the start, she had been treated as a suspect in her husband's murder. katherine's story was that a shadowy figure had broken into their home in the middle of the night and had then killed scott. but for some reason spared katherine's life. detective mike fox was working homicide for the albuquerque police. >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in and was looking for a guy named manny. >> manny. it was the name that was about to break this case. it had to do, it turned out, not just with katherine pierce and her husband but with the house, the piece of property they just bought as they began their life together. the couple had moved in just a month before the murder. a month before, that question asked by the intruder in the middle of the night about where to find manny. >> you knew who he was talking about. >> yes. i knew exactly who he was talking about. >> that's who you bought the house from? >> yes. >> they had moved out how long before? >> almost exactly a month prior. >> suddenly the murder case had moved off of katherine pierce and onto the presumed target, a man named manny. it turned out he was known to the albuquerque police, and within hours, after detectives put out word they were looking for him, manny called police. he offered to come in, sit down and help out any way he could. >> i'm guessing the first question is, who is looking for you that would want to kill you? >> who would want me dead. >> and he said? >> he said jason skaggs. he's the only one i know of that would want me killed. >> this is jason skaggs. he and manny worked together at a roofing company. originally from california, skaggs was an ex-marine, a former trucker with a minor criminal record. and some of the story manny was telling police added up. at 6'3" and only 200 pounds, jason skaggs matched almost exactly the description given by katherine pierce of a tall, slender intruder. but he was not, as far as police knew, a killer. to detectives, a home invasion that ended in murder seemed to be outside jason skaggs' criminal skill set. >> if he was the guy in katherine pierce's house with the shotgun, he was a rookie. >> and that didn't really match-up with the gloves and some of the other things that were kind of popping in our heads as somebody that might be more experienced at this. >> detectives started tracking skaggs' cell phone. the cell phone started pinging off el paso, texas. >> that sounds like a guy on the run. >> yeah. is this guy just heading for mexico? >> it turned out el paso was just the closest cell tower to elephant butte lake, the campground where skaggs was spending the weekend with his wife. not only did he say it, his employer backed him up. even with what seemed an airtight alibi, detectives brought in skaggs. >> jason, do you mind stating your name and date of birth? >> my name is jason skaggs, 5/12/73. >> skaggs stuck to his story of a weekend camping trip at the lake. what he didn't know was his wife had already been interviewed, and she told a completely different story of what they had done and when. detective fox broke that news to jason skaggs. >> at that point i could see that we had the right guy. >> how can you tell when you have the right guy? >> when a person is cooperating with you, they have a certain demeanor. and when you start to turn things on them and start to show that what they're telling you isn't the truth and that i know it and you can see a change in the eyes. so it all just starts to unravel. >> and you can tell. you can see that? >> oh, yeah. it's probably the most exciting part of homicide investigation is breaking a murderer with their own words. >> to detectives, it was looking more and more as if jason skaggs had been the man with the shotgun in katherine pierce's home. >> the woman in the house describes you. >> i have never broke sbn into anyone's life. i have never shot anyone in my life. >> i think it was by accident. >> i have never shot anyone in my life. never. i have never shot a human being in my life and i have not broke sbun anyo brokeen into anyone's home. >> we're going to solve this. >> you'll find it wasn't me. i wasn't in their house. >> police kept hammering away, and that's when jason skaggs changed his story. he said he wasn't the man in katherine pierce's home, and he wasn't the person that pulled the trigger on that shotgun and killed scott. but he did know exactly who it was. >> when we come back, this case takes another hairpin turn. just look at what police are about to find. a duffel bag, a gun, and gloves. do these belong to the killer? who was in the house that night? when "a shot in the dark" continues. need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geico's emergency roadside assistance is there 24/7. oh dear, i got a flat tire. hmmm. uh... yeah, can you find a take where it's a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah? yeah i got it right here. someone help me!!! i have a flat tire!!! well it's good... good for me. what do you think? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. ♪ [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] zzzquil™ sleep-aid. 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[ birds chirping ] zzzquil™. the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil®. ♪ the simple and easy way to reveal light layers of juicy pineapple and exotic mangosteen. artfully designed to open your home and fill the air with long-lasting fragrance. glade expressions oil diffuser. with glade expressions fragrance mist, a squeeze at the neck of the bottle releases a light mist of fresh cotton and italian mandarin that eliminates odors and fills the air with long-lasting fragrance. glade expressions fragrance mist. albuquerque police were moving full force in the first 48 hours after the murder of scott pierce. scott's widow katherine returned to the house they had shared to find more than a piece of her heart was missing. quite a bit had been stolen now by that shadowy figure with the shotgun. it wasn't just the life of the man she had married less than a week before. it was also the future they had planned together. but gone, too, was katherine's camera, a gift from her husband who had so loved photography. >> of all the things he could have taken, that was actually the best thing because it still had all the wedding pictures on t. i hope he saw the pictures. i hope it sunk in what he just did. >> who had killed scott pierce was still an open question. but police thought they were zeroing in. because remember, katherine said the shadowy figure who had come into the house in the middle of the night was looking for a man named manny who had lived in the house previously. when detectives found manny, he said a coworker named jason skaggs was the likely killer. when questioned, skaggs denied any role in the murder and said he and his wife had been camping a couple of hours from albuquerque on the night scott pierce was killed. but detective mike fox soon broke down that alibi. and so in the police interview room, he went after skaggs with a new tactic. >> i mean, you're thinking at that point that that was skaggs saying, where is manny? >> yeah, i'm saying whatever part you played in this, a good guy was killed, and you got to feel bad about that. i got into that they had been married a week, that they had just moved into the house. if you're a good person, that has to weigh on you. >> whether skaggs was a good person is debatable. whether he cracked under the pressure is not. soon he was singing like a canary. >> i wanted manny to get hurt, you know, arms, legs, things that -- you know, he would be hurt and it would take him a while to recover. >> skaggs said he wanted ma f m hurt because manny had slept with his wife. skaggs admitted the home invasion was all about jealousy but he never wanted anyone dead. but jason skaggs also had a surprise for detectives. >> i said, you weren't in there with a shotgun? he said, no, i wasn't in there. i had somebody else go in there for me. and we're like, what? >> who did skaggs say was his accomplice? >> he said it was clifton bloomfield. >> did that mean anything to you? >> the name meant nothing at all. >> but it didn't take long before you knew everything about him. >> correct. he was a serious guy. >> serious and scary. clifton bloom was 39. he had done time in arizona for kidnapping, rape and assault. he had dabbled in acting in the valuab val kilmer movie "villain." but his new career wasn't working as well as his old one. he was soon arrested and pleaded no contest to a home invasion robbery. bloomfield was now on probation for that crime, released from jail less than a year earlier. he had been set free to the custody of a coworker at a roofing company, a man named -- you guessed it -- jason skaggs. >> clifton bloomfield. he was the kind of guy you would send in to somebody's house to either beat them up or kill them? >> yes. and he physically met the description. he was also tall and slender. >> when police searched bloomfield's home, they found a black duffel bag containing a shotgun, bullet-proof vest and a mask. also latex gloves used, as police soon learned, by the killer who had dumped out katherine pierce's purse to try to make this murder look like a botched burglary. detectives now believe jason skaggs was telling the truth. it had been bloomfield behind the shotgun. his criminal history fit the crime. he had been kwekconvicted of a violent home invasion robbery before. it wasn't long before police tracked down bloomfield and arrested him. >> this is a guy who has done prison time. i would think this is a guy who wasn't going to talk. >> i didn't think he would. >> but maybe bloomfield had seen those wedding pictures of scott and katherine on the camera he had stolen. had he also picked up a conscience somewhere on his journey? because the hardened con surprised detectives by opening up. >> i was a little shocked, but pleasantly shocked. >> as police would soon learn, clifton bloomfield's version of the truth changed with the new mexico wind. but among the several statements bloomfield gave was an explanation for his mission that night: looking for manny. >> if you're going to kill him, is skaggs going to want to talk to him first or were you going to take him somewhere? >> no. he just had one message for him. he said, nobody [ bleep ] someone and survives. >> but in the house that night, bloomfield said he realized the manny he knew from work bore no resemblance to the 6'8" hulk he found bearing down on him in the dark. >> you knew it wasn't manny? [ inaudible ] >> did you intentionally fire or accidentally fire? >> he says he was about to leave when scott pierce charged him. true or not, the result was that bloomfield put himself behind a murder as a favor to a friend. except he killed the wrong man. >> this was all just spectacular bad luck. if you had moved outf that house a month later, your life bob different. >> very different. >> if your husband had not been a sound sleeper. >> things could have been different. >> if the man had realized manny didn't live in the house anymore. >> yeah. some things at the wrong place at the wrong time. >> for detective and his colleagues, it was a job well done. a case quickly solved. >> scott pierce was killed on a saturday morning. and less than 48 hours later, you have the suspects together and in custody. >> yes. >> good job. came together pretty well. >> case closed. >> that's what we thought. >> they were all wrong. katherine pierce was about to learn the shadowy figure she confronted that night was one of the most cold-blooded killers that part of the world had ever seen. and her involvement with him wasn't over. coming up, a twist that stuns katherine pierce. >> it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> it would stun the police, too. when "dateline" continues. lysol believes no toilet is complete, until it's completely clean. lysol toilet bowl cleaner gives you maximum coverage from the rim down to the water line to kill 99.9% of germs. and removes stains better than clorox toilet bowl cleaner with bleach. so if you want to do the whole job, lysol's got you covered. lysol. mission for health. and for an incredibly clean and fresh bowl with every flush, try the no mess automatic toilet bowl cleaner. chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. it smells worse, and it can happen any time -- to anyone! like when i ran to catch the train to work and a draft blew my skirt up and everybody here saw my unmentionables. yeah, and they aren't even cute. hello, laundry day. no... stress sweat can happen to anyone, anytime -- and it smells worse than ordinary sweat. get 4x the protection against stress sweat. introducing new secret clinical strength stress response scent. ♪ introducing new secret clinical strength stress response scent. have given way to sleeping. tossing and turning where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta®(eszopiclone) can help you get there. like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. lunesta should not be taken together with alcohol. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as fifteen dollars at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. so i can't afford to have germy surfaces. but after one day's use, dishcloths can redeposit millions of germs. so ditch your dishcloth and switch to a fresh sheet of new bounty duratowel. look! a fresh sheet of bounty duratowel leaves this surface cleaner than a germy dishcloth, as this black light reveals. it's durable, cloth-like and it's 3 times cleaner. so ditch your dishcloth and switch to new bounty duratowel. the durable, cloth-like picker-upper. in the weeks after the murder of her husband scott, katherine pierce was still living in the home where he had been killed by mistake. instead of moving out, katherine cleaned up the blood stains and stayed. she says she was determined to face her own fears. >> i began to get up in the middle of the night and kind of walk through the house with the lights off just so i could get that out of my system so i wouldn't be afraid of it. i would walk down the hall without the lights on. i went to the back door. i let the dogs out. >> you walked through the kitchen. >> i relived it over and over and over again. >> and that made it easier? >> if you repeat something over and over and over again, it lessens a little bit every time. >> but katherine was also facing a broken-hearted truth: that she lost the love of her life. >> i had no idea what my future would hold, especially in the romance department. >> you couldn't conceive of ever finding that kind of love again. >> no, i couldn't. >> and now the detectives who quickly closed the case by getting a confession by that armed intruder, clifton bloomfield, were about to realize they weren't done with either bloomfield or katherine pierce. >> that's when the crime lab here in albuquerque got a hit on clifton bloomfield's dna. but it had nothing to do with the murder of scott pierce. this was the dna sample left at the scene of a completely differenti albuquerque homicide. >> the killing ground was in this neatly kept home in 2007, some six months before the murder of scott pierce. the murders of pak and sun yi had been front page news and sparked outrage and fear. the yis were pioneers in the korean american community. they had come to the u.s. in the '70s, worked multiple jobs, raised four successful children and lived the american dream. mr. yi had just retired so they could travel. and then they were murdered in their own home. detective mike fox had a personal connection to the case. >> he actually was my neighbor at one point, so i would see him out gardening. a very pleasant man. >> not a neighborhood where you would expect this to happen? >> no. this is another crime where you have a victim that hadn't done anything to deserve it. >> and the crime detective fox and his colleagues had investigated had been especially vicious. mrs. ye had been beaten and suffocated with a plastic grocery bag. her husband had been beaten to death. but before he died, mr. ye took a swipe at his killer. and his dna was found under mr. ye's fingernails. police now knew it was the dna of clifton bloomfield. he had not even been a suspect in the murders. >> part of me was shocked, but part of me was like, makes sense. the brutality of the murders. >> news that bloomfield had committed two more murders sent a shock wave through katherine pierce. >> i realized that i really could be dead. he could have killed me for fun because i was in the wrong place at the wrong time. >> or because you possibly could have identified him. >> anything. why leave a witness behind? it doesn't make any sense that he left me alive. >> the story gets stranger. before getting the dna hit on bloomfield, albuquerque police and prosecutors had already arrested, indicted and jailed two other men who they believed were responsible for the ye murders. one of the men had even confessed. but the dna of those two men was never found at the murder scene. dna now linked only clifton bloomfield. those results came back from the crime lab just days after the murder of scott pierce. >> my lawyer called me up and said, we found something. it looks like he could have been arrested before he ever killed scott. >> i kind of get the feeling that's when you begin to get angry. >> yes. somebody like that, why did it take so long to put him behind bars? >> katherine's lawyers ben davis and brad hall. >> how long did it take them to test that dn snara? >> seven months. >> and during that seven months, bloomfield was on the street, and one of the things he did was kill scott pierce. >> correct. they had seven months to stop the murder of scott pierce, and they chose not to do that. >> d.a. carol landberg. >> should they have tested that dna sooner than they did? >> yes. at the time it was done, it was done. we had cases going to trial that we needed dna on, so there was a priority. >> this was something that fell through the cracks? >> i can't say that it fell through the cracks because that in s insinuates that something wrong happened, and i can't say something wrong happened. the process worked the way it always works. >> but that answer wasn't good enough for katherine pierce. this widow was about to begin a crusade, and clifton bloomfield was about to come out of the shadows. coming up -- >> i'm not the monster they make me out to be. >> haunting words from the killer himself. katherine pierce and you are about to hear his story. when "a shot in the the range of emotion katherine pierce experienced after the mistaken identity murder of her husband scott had gone from devastation to relief when his killers were caught. and then to anger when she realized that if a double murder investigation six months earlier had been handled differently, clifton bloomfield might have been in jail instead of in her kitchen. >> dna evidence could have prevented him from killing scott and it infuriated me. i couldn't believe that such a minor, insignificant detail from a previous murder could have saved scott. >> that detail she's talking about? the dna that linked bloomfield to the ye murders, the dna taken from under mr. ye's fingernail. it sat in the albuquerque police crime lab with no tests being done to identify it for months. the match didn't come until after scott pierce was dead. katherine pierce thought the process had failed her. so she filed a lawsuit against the city of albuquerque, its police department and various detectives, including the man who had helped to quickly solve scott's murder, detective mike fox. >> it's kind of ironic. you find her husband's killer in less than 48 hours and you still get sued for not having found him earlier. >> i guess one of the pitfalls of being a police officer. no one is ever really happy with the police. they always like the firemen better. >> and by 2012, katherine's lawsuit was headed for trial. katherine was dreading having to revisit the time of scott's murder. she had already done it once in this video assembled by her attorneys as they prepared her case. >> you've moved on a little bit? >> moved on because i don't want to relive it. >> did you feel at all bad suing the police department that brought in your husband's killer in a couple of days? >> no, i don't feel bad. for me it was more about bringing awareness to what the police are doing or not doing in this case. all i want is for them to do their job all the way through. >> you talked to police and they say, one, we did do our job. we brought those guys in the minute we knew they were suspects. dna is not like it is on television. we don't have an answer in 15 seconds. >> and i do understand that. >> and we get a lot of murders. we do the best we can. we wish we could solve every one, we wish we could close every one right away. but that's not real life. >> and i know the police department or the detectives did not come in and kill scott. i get that. it's not about smearing the albuquerque police department or detectives. it's about giving them more incentive to do their job better. >> just before trial, the city settled with katherine pierce for close to half a million dollars. her attorneys: >> the city admitted no liability in its elements. >> routine. >> what does that mean that the city settled just before they went to trial? >> you don't pay any money if you didn't do anything wrong, do you? >> although it settled its suit. they worked with the police department throughout a complex investigation. to katherine pierce, it felt like an ending to a sad stream of what-ifs. what if she had moved into this house a week later? what if scott hadn't woken up? what if the dna from the ye homicides had been tested sooner? she had what felt like a very long run of very bad luck. and the connective tissue in all of it was clifton bloomfield. >> i'm not the monster they make me out to be. i'm not perfect, either. >> this is clifton bloomfield in an interview in 2009 given to the albuquerque journal newspaper. bloomfield was willing, even eager, to talk about the pierce case, to explain what went wrong. >> how bad do you feel about what happened? >> me? i feel bad about what happened in the pierce case. what happened in the pierce case was a tragedy. imagine, in a darkened room to see someone and you tell them to stop when someone has a shotgun and they continue trying to grab it. >> it's hard being blase about murder, but clifton bloomfield has committed a lot of them. maybe that's why he tells the story like he's an observer and not a participant. bloomfield's version doesn't quite match that of katherine pierce, the only other survivor of that night. >> i saw that interview and he exaggerated a lot. he said scott was reaching for the gun. that never happened. i think scott just lunged. he turned and pulled the trigger. i think it was as simple as that. >> it was a tragedy. they had been married a week. another tragedy. he was a nurse. the tragedies just keep on going. >> the list of tragedies clifton bloomfield brought about just kept going. faced with the death penalty in the ye murders, bloomfield cut a deal. he pleaded guilty to murder charges, and in exchange for a life sentence, he admitted committing two more killings before the yes, before scott pierce. the first was a talented designer found strangled in his home in 2005. three days later, the body of an 81-year-old retired schoolteacher was found beaten and suffocated. >> but he wasn't even a suspect in any of those. >> no. he was good. he wore gloves, he made it so no traces of him would be left behind except when he got scratched. >> and he's not just the guy you brought in on the scott pierce homicide. suddenly he's, what, a serial killer? >> he's his own kind of serial killer. he's not hunting prostitutes or somebody that looks like his mom. >> he just kills and keeps on killing. >> he's just killing for the art of killing. >> how many murders do you think clifton bloomfield has committed for which he's never been charged? >> i honestly couldn't tell you. ten wouldn't surprise me. >> bloomfield declined "dateline"'s request for an interview. and despite pleading guilty, he filed an appeal for his five murder convictions. jason skaggs pleaded guilty to murder in the pierce case, and is serving a 30-year prison sentence. meantime, the d.a.'s office in albuquerque freed those two men, the original suspects in the ye murders. one of them settled a lawsuit with the city for nearly a million dollars. the city, again, admitted no liability. and katherine pierce has at last been able to move on. the woman who thought she wouldn't find love again has recently remarried, fulfilling one of the wishes scott had for her in their brief time together. >> when i was, you know, trying to talk about forever in our little pillow talk, he said, i might not live to be an old person. he said, if that happens, i want you to move on and find somebody. wow. what a gift. >> and you did. >> and i did. i could be dead right now. i know that. it's like being given a second chance. so i'm running with it. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for
happened in 2005. a friend named bailey set her up with scott. >> what made your friend think you would make a good match with scott? >> i don't think anything, other than he was a tall and hand some man, and she knew that's what i liked. >> he was a gentle soul trapped in the body of an nfl lineman. the two soon fell in love and nature played an important role in their lives. both their own good natures and their love of nature. >> what did you like about him besides the fact he was 6'8"? >> he saw the beauty of anything. he would stop to take a picture of anything. >> scott was behind the lens for pictures like these. >> we would make special trips out into the desert when the cactuses were blooming. we took a lot of photographs. >> but nature alone wasn't important to scott pierce. he was also nurturing. this big guy also had a big heart. he dreamed of one day becoming a nurse practitioner. >> if i had a plant and it was almost dead, and i was like, ready to give up on it, he wouldn't let me because there was a chance it could come back. he just wouldn't give up on anything. >> in may 2008, nearly three years after they were matched, scott and katherine, who worked in retail, took a big step as a couple. they bought a house in northeast albuquerque. >> this was your first home? >> uh-huh. i qualified for it on my own, actually, but with his nursing career finally taking off, we're going to be living okay. >> what appealed to you about that house? >> it looked very homey, and it gave us more room. we didn't need a huge house. we're both simple people. >> a month later, they were married. >> i, scott. >> i, scott. >> take you, katherine. >> take you, katherine. >> to be my wife. >> was there no honeymoon? >> the honeymoon was going to take a backseat for a while. which was fine, we had a house. we still had boxes everywhere. >> that decision to buy that home at that time on that schedule would one day be a choice katherine and others would examine and reexamine. because that honeymoon the new couple had put off would never come. just six days after the wedding, scott and katherine's new life took a turn no one saw coming. >> he actually stayed up late that night watching a movie and then came to bed. next thing we know, someone burst in. i went downstairs and noticed the back door was open. i thought, it was 3:00 in the morning. i didn't have my glasses on, and i thought, why would scott leave the back door open? >> so if the back door had been open when he went to bed, he probably would have noticed it? >> yes. his routine was to go through the house and check that everything was locked. >> then from nowhere, katherine noticed something strange. >> i see kind of a dark shadow that looks like he's pointing a long, pointy thing at me. and i said, oh, scott, stop messing around. >> you thought it was your husband? >> it didn't make sense it would be a stranger in my home pointing a gun at me, so it had to be scott playing a trick. >> tell me about this gunpoi gun pointing a stick. white, hispanic, black? >> it was a dark shadow pointing something at me. he said, get down on the ground and he said, where is manny? i said, what? he said, where is manny? >> at that point scott had woken up and saw a man pointing a shotgun at his wife. >> your husband of six months was coming to your defense. >> yes. after that it was all a blur. i remember him turning very fast, but i saw the bright flash of the gun. i think that temporarily blinded me. >> where is the guy with the gun? >> the only thing i can imagine is that he ran out the back door as soon as the gun went off. >> katherine grabbed the phone, called 911 and said she found scott on the kictchen floor wit a gaping wound in his neck. >> did you say anything to him at all? >> oh, yeah. i told him i loved him. i put my hands on his face and i told him i loved him. he had his hand up on his stomach, and i noticed it fell. >> so bit time they loaded him in the ambulance and took him away, you didn't have a lot of hope? >> i wouldn't even say that. i wasn't going to give up hope until somebody told me finally. >> and minutes later at the hospital, someone did. >> i remember the doctor finally walking in, and he said, so tell me what happened. and i said, no. is he alive? i wasn't going to play this game. i wanted to know right away, and he said no. >> at age 41, scott pierce was dead, six days after his wedding. and just like that, katherine pierce was a widow. what had happened in that kitchen? who was manny, the mysterious man for whom the killer had come calling? and who held the answers to all those questions? >> a whole lot of questions in this case. police were quick to sit down to answer them, and they started with katherine pierce. when we come back, it's more than her story that's under scrutiny. it's everything. her clothes from that night, her marriage, even a life insurance policy. >> i knew something was coming. >> did she have something to hide? when "a shot in the dark" continues. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta®(eszopiclone) can help you get there. like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. lunesta should not be taken together with alcohol. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. alcohol may increase these risks. allergic reactions such as tongue or throat swelling occur rarely and may be fatal. side effects may include unpleasant taste, headache, dizziness, and morning drowsiness. ask your doctor if lunesta is right for you. then find out how to get lunesta for as low as fifteen dollars at lunesta.com. there's a land of restful sleep. we can help you go there on the wings of lunesta. all right that's a fifth-floor probleok.. not in my house! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! no no no! not today! ha ha ha! ha ha ha! jimmy how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? happier than dikembe mutumbo blocking a shot. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. add resolve deep clean powder before you vacuum. the powder is moist. lifting three times more dirt than vacuuming alone. don't just vacuum clean. resolve clean. or settling for wannabes? stop compromising! new vidal sassoon pro series. care and styling from the original salon genius, created to let you have it all at an affordable price. new vidal sassoon lets you say no to compromise and yes to very shiny... very silky... very sexy... very you. it's salon genius in a bottle! now in your store. new vidal sassoon pro series. salon genius. brilliantly priced. a new day dawned in albuquerque that june morning in 2008. and as the sun came up, katherine pierce realized she had been transformed. in just six days, she had gone from smiling newlywed to blood-stained widow and to possible suspect in the murder of her husband scott. >> you know when a husband or wife dies, it's very natural for police to at least look at the surviving spouse. >> i knew something was coming. it wasn't unusual. >> and soon katherine was face to face with veteran albuquerque homicide detective mike fox. >> a brand new bride tells the story of some mystery man coming into the house and executing her new husband. that's got to set off alarm bells. >> she was somebody we had to look at. >> tell me about katherine pierce's demeanor. >> she actually shocked me how well she was able to put it together. >> calmer than you would expect? >> yes. >> detectives had many questions, especially after looking hard at the crime scene and finding something confusing. the killer had dumped out katherine's purse on the back deck. but on the purse, no fingerprints. so was this a robbery gone wrong? or was the purse some kind of diversion? >> we knew we were dealing with somebody at that point that had gloved up with rubber gloves or something like that. >> which says to you what? >> it tells me whoever was involved was going in there to kill somebody and not leave any evidence behind. >> burglars generally do not carry shotguns. >> no. >> and if somebody surprises them, instead of shooting them, they just run away. >> typically. that's what i've seen through my carry. >> and so even though the fact katherine's purse was sort of dumped out and searched through, everything about this says planned murder, not planned burglary. >> correct. >> but planned by whom? >> tell me about scott pierce. anybody that didn't like him? >> no. everybody liked him. great guy. nothing bad in his background at all. >> you no doubt did your due diligence to find out whether that marriage was as happy as it appeared to be? >> yes. talking to people around them, everything was fantastic. >> but detectives had heard that story before. when they looked deeper, they learned that katherine's husband had a life insurance policy. the payoff was in the mid-six-figure range. and she was the beneficiary. when they canvassed the homes nearby, police found neighbors who heard a man and woman talking around 3:00 a.m. detectives wondered, had that been scott and katherine? within hours of her husband's murder, criminalists confiscated the clothes katherine was wearing when she said her new husband was gunned down right in front of her. >> police took your clothing because they wanted to test it. >> everything is evidence at that point. i understood that. >> you weren't concerned? >> not at all. the detective asked me if i killed my husband. >> straight out. >> and i said no. and he seemed fairly satisfied with that. >> but detectives asked katherine to run through her story again, looking for inconsistencies. so she went through what happened that night again, just as she did in this video she would later make for her attorneys. >> here i turned around and there was a tall person standing here, so i said, scott, stop messing around, and then he said, get down on the ground. that's when i knew somebody was in my house that didn't belong. i saw scott standing at the other end of the room. i held up my hand and i said, scott, wait. the gun went off. his head was right here. and his neck was blown open, all of this, and his throat, everything was just gone. >> did she say or do anything that made you suspicious? >> no. nothing showed that she wasn't telling the truth, but unfortunately, in her situation, i have to go after her as a possible suspect. it's to find out if she is involved, a, and then b, if she's not, make it so that later on when it does go to trial it's not brought up by a defense attorney who will try to make it look like she did it. >> but remember, there is something katherine heard on the kitchen floor that night, something that came from that shadowy figure who held a shotgun to katherine's head before firing the fatal shot at scott. the killer had also asked her a question that would soon become the focus of this investigation. >> he said, where is manny? >> manny. >> and i said, what did you say? and he said, where is manny? >> it was a name that meant nothing to homicide investigators, but katherine pierce said she knew exactly who the man was after. now police were looking for him, too. >> so who was this mystery man named manny? and could he help break this case? >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in. >> police are getting closer when it was just a few hours into a sunny saturday morning in albuquerque, june 2008. katherine pierce was in a police car being taken home from the hospital where her husnd of six days, scott, had just been pronounced dead. from the start, she had been treated as a suspect in her husband's murder. katherine's story was that a shadowy figure had broken into their home in the middle of the night and had then killed scott. but for some reason spared katherine's life. detective mike fox was working homicide for the albuquerque police. >> it didn't quite seem right that this random person just happened to break in and was looking for a guy named manny. >> manny. it was the name that was about to break this case. it had to do, it turned out, not just with katherine pierce and her husband but with the house, the piece of property they just bought as they began their life together. the couple had moved in just a month before the murder. a month before, that question asked by the intruder in the middle of the night about where to find manny. >> you knew who he was talking about. >> yes. i knew exactly who he was talking about. >> that's who you bought the house from? >> yes. >> they had moved out how long before? >> almost exactly a month prior. >> suddenly the murder case had moved off of katherine pierce and onto the presumed target, a man named manny. it turned out he was known to the albuquerque police, and within hours, after detectives put out word they were looking for him, manny called police. he offered to come in, sit down and help out any way he could. >> i'm guessing the first question is, who is looking for you that would want to kill you? >> who would want me dead. >> and he said? >> he said jason skaggs. he's the only one i know of that would want me killed. >> this is jason skaggs. he and manny worked together at a roofing company. originally from california, skaggs was an ex-marine, a former trucker with a minor criminal record. and some of the story manny was telling police added up. at 6'3" and only 200 pounds, jason skaggs matched almost exactly the description given by katherine pierce of a tall, slender intruder. but he was not, as far as police knew, a killer. to detectives, a home invasion that ended in murder seemed to be outside jason skaggs' criminal skill set. >> if he was the guy in katherine pierce's house with the shotgun, he was a rookie. >> and that didn't really match-up with the gloves and some of the other things that were kind of popping in our heads as somebody that might be more experienced at this. >> detectives started tracking skaggs' cell phone. the cell phone started pinging off el paso, texas. >> that sounds like a guy on the run. >> yeah. is this guy just heading for mexico? >> it turned out el paso was just the closest cell tower to elephant butte lake, the campground where skaggs was spending the weekend with his wife. not only did he say it, his employer backed him up. even with what seemed an airtight alibi, detectives brought in skaggs. >> jason, do you mind stating your name and date of birth? >> my name is jason skaggs, 5/12/73. >> skaggs stuck to his story of a weekend camping trip at the lake. what he didn't know was his wife had already been interviewed, and she told a completely different story of what they had done and when. detective fox broke that news to jason skaggs. >> at that point i could see that we had the right guy. >> how can you tell when you have the right guy? >> when a person is cooperating with you, they have a certain demeanor. and when you start to turn things on them and start to show that what they're telling you isn't the truth and that i know it and you can see a change in the eyes. so it all just starts to unravel. >> and you can tell. you can see that? >> oh, yeah. it's probably the most exciting part of homicide investigation is breaking a murderer with their own words. >> to detectives, it was looking more and more as if jason skaggs had been the man with the shotgun in katherine pierce's home. >> the woman in the house describes you. >> i have never broke sbn into anyone's life. i have never shot anyone in my life. >> i think it was by accident. >> i have never shot anyone in my life. never. i have never shot a human being in my life and i have not broke sbun anyo brokeen into anyone's home. >> we're going to solve this. >> you'll find it wasn't me. i wasn't in their house. >> police kept hammering away, and that's when jason skaggs changed his story. he said he wasn't the man in katherine pierce's home, and he wasn't the person that pulled the trigger on that shotgun and killed scott. but he did know exactly who it was. >> when we come back, this case takes another hairpin turn. just look at what police are about to find. a duffel bag, a gun, and gloves. do these belong to the killer? who was in the house that night? when "a shot in the dark" continues. need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geico's emergency roadside assistance is there 24/7. oh dear, i got a flat tire. hmmm. uh... yeah, can you find a take where it's a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah? yeah i got it right here. someone help me!!! i have a flat tire!!! well it's good... good for me. what do you think? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
good evening on this saturday night. we begin with new details after that terror attack in afghanistan. we have now learned that three americans were killed in the deadliest attack on foreign civilians since the start of the war. those three americans killed, two of them working for american university there. the third worker working for the united nations. the taliban is taking responsibility for the attacks, a rare act to go after civilians. afghan security forces rushing to the scene when the attack began after dark and in the light of day what was left, the building there in shambles. we ask how did those attackers get through so many check points in what was typically a very secure neighborhood for americans working there. here's abc's hamish mcdonald. >> reporter: the after math of one of kabul's most stunning recent attacks, but this restaurant is no ordinary target. this insurgent strike is in the heart of the capital, the wealthiest, perhaps even the safest area. 21 people were killed, mostly foreigners including three american civilians. >> we strongly condemn these attacks. it's unacceptable and they must come to an immediate halt. >> reporter: somehow the attackers made their way inside what should be a secure zone. it's dinner time, just after 7:00 p.m., a suicide bomber blows himself up at the restaurant gate and then a fire fight led by two other attackers lasting almost two hours. in the end, the attackers, too, are dead. some of the staff injured themselves. the question is, how could it happen here? security checkpoints mark all of the main routes into this area. part of a so-called ring of steel around central kabul. there are 25 road blocks in total manned by almost 1,000 police officers every day. tributes are flowing in tonight for the three u.s. citizens killed. one worked for the u.n. the other two for the american university. the taliban describes it as a revenge attack for the deaths of afghan civilians. this week the taliban claimed it would regain control of the entire country as soon as foreign forces leave. tonight the state department says the u.s. remains steadfast in its commitment to afghanistan. in truth, most american, british and allied soldiers will be gone by the end of this year and the afghans will be left to fend for themselves. david? >> thank you and welcome to abc. we turn next here on the broadcast to our other major story. you can see the image behind me, what so many families have faced literally in their back yards. you can see the flames right over their rooftop. tonight california is under a state of emergency, reeling from a record drought and the real fire season isn't even here yet. images like this one across the state, this is the black butte lake north of sacramento, no water, just cracked earth. one reason why, these are the sierra nevada mountains last january covered in snow and look at them tonight, bone dry, no snow to melt to keep the land there from becoming dry. from los angeles the pictures from the front lines and here's abc's, aditi roy. >> reporter: parched land, dried up lakes and a winter wildfire, signs of what california officials are calling a drought for the record books. >> we are facing perhaps the worst drought that california has ever seen. >> reporter: unusually dry conditions are fueling what seems like a never ending fire season, the raging flames that pushed more than 1,000 people from their homes this week in the los angeles suburbs now only 30% contained. at the peak of the fire, hilltops look like volcanos, the land so dry it takes just minutes for a blaze to engulf a home, leaving nothing but ash and rubble. >> it was unbelievable. we were up in these hills putting out fires and we could hear it crackling and timber falling. >> reporter: this drought is now covering two-thirds of the state, which is why residents are being urged to cut their water use by 20%. the town of willits has only about a 100-day supply of water. the nearby reservoir is at 17% capacity, bad news for this car wash owner. >> if i have to shut down, that's my livelihood and i won't have an income. >> reporter: at some restaurants you won't get water unless you ask for it. there is some good news though. the lake hollywood reservoir here in los angeles is maintained for emergency use only. local water activists say they are still a long way from using it. david? >> aditi, thank you. to a much different threat in the west tonight, the frightening images caught on tape, the mountain lions in california, another l.a., pets vanishing, some parents keeping their children inside. abc's brandy hitt on the animals putting entire neighborhoods on edge. >> reporter: this mountain lion that has been preying on pets in a neighborhood near los angeles is back. earlier this month a home surveillance camera caught the lion walking around on outdoor area where an 80 pound boxer named rocky was sleeping. the dog was never seen again. >> it's been rough. the family is going through emotions. >> reporter: ten days later the mountain lion returned and attacked the neighbor's dog, duke. >> my dad got up and saw the lion on the stairs. hopped over with the dog in its mouth. >> reporter: this lion had to be tranquilized after roaming through a glendale neighborhood. this mountain lion roamed downtown and police shot this mountain lion. the drought is sending more wild animals into residential areas in search of food and water. >> a lot of kids are in the neighborhood and it's very dangerous to be out there. >> reporter: with highways cutting across lion territory, the park service wants to build tunnels so these big cats have room to roam in what wilderness is left. brandy hitt, abc news, los angeles. next to a medical emergency flight that was nearly a disaster itself. in dallas, a helicopter carrying a patient was struck by a laser injuring the medic's eye and forcing the chopper down. here's abc's susan saulny on the investigation tonight. >> reporter: a sky high rescue ends with an emergency of its own. tonight federal authorities are looking for the person who flashed this medevac helicopter with a laser pointer. a beam of green light like this burned 30-year-old medic michael pruett, one eye so badly burned he was rushed to the hospital. >> you wouldn't think of a little green laser as having the power to bring down an airplane full of people but you could end up killing 400 people. >> reporter: we've shown you before how laser flashes can disrupt flights. look at how a simple $50 laser pointed at a small plane a quarter mile away can obscure the windshield. pilot steve robertson was hospitalized after a cockpit laser attack. >> it felt like i was hit in the face with a baseball bat. >> reporter: some pilots advocate wearing protective goggles but the federal aviation administration does not recommend or require that. >> you take the vision from a pilot, that aircraft's ability to land is compromised. >> reporter: incidents have risen drastically with more than 3,000 cases last year and already 75 just this month. the fbi has launched an anti-terror task force to deal with this. david, pointing a laser at an aircraft is considered a federal crime. next to the flu widespread in 40 states and the toll among the most vulnerable, jumping dramatically in just the past week. we have learned of ten more lost. abc's senior medical contributor dr. jenn ashton tonight. >> reporter: the flu season is in full swing and while it's not too late to get a flu shot, it is unfortunately too late for some of the youngest victims. >> it was just more than her body could handle. it was just more than her heart could take. >> reporter: savannah hardin got sick with the h1 n 1 strain of the flu virus and died nearly 72 hours later. she had not been vaccinated. savannah was just 11 years old. in texas, 13-year-old lydia kizziar who was also unvaccinated lost her life to complications of the flu. but despite the repeated urging of doctors about the benefits of vaccination, one in five parents say they don't give their children the flu shot for fear they will get the flu from it which is a medical myth. >> with the amount of deaths that have occurred from this this year, i would say -- i would get a flu shot. >> sad to hear about these cases. dr. jenn ashton is with us tonight. when you see this dramatic rise in the number in the past week, what does that tell you? >> nothing unexpected. we've expected these numbers to go up and it tells us we are in the middle of a flu season. >> you're a doctor and a mom yourself. you know how busy households are. if you are a parent who hasn't gotten the flu shot for your kids, is there still time? >> absolutely it's not too late. there is plenty of vaccine still available. the flu season goes to the end of march, even april and while it does usually take a full two weeks to get the complete immune protection from the vaccine, some benefits start to kick in right away so sooner is definitely better than never. >> dr. ashton with us tonight, thank you. >> overseas and to a headline in france where the country's de facto first lady is home from the hospital. the woman who lived with president francois hollande published pictures of him with his other girlfriend hidden under a motorcycle helmet. oversees this evening and new reaction to remarks made by russian president putin, telling a group that gay visitors would be welcome at the games but he warned that they should, quote, leave the children in peace. many around the world condemning those remarks. tomorrow morning george stephanopoulos and the exclusive right here, asking putin about his policies regarding gays, olympic security and about edward snowden. george's interview a must see first thing in the morning right here on abc's this week. to another controversy brewing about olympic gays, this time coming from a star of the reality tv show, "the bachelor" seen here on abc and tonight he's already apologizing and trying to explain what he says he meant to say. here's abc's gio benitez. >> reporter: he's the 32-year-old former professional soccer player, now the first latino star of "the bachelor" but tonight he's making headlines when a reporter asked if it would be a good idea to have a gay or bisexual bachelor? >> no. >> why not? >> just because -- i respect them but honestly, i don't think it's a good example for kids to watch that on tv. it's hard. >> reporter: juan pablo sited his upbringing. >> people have their husband and wife and have kids and that's how we are brought up. now there is fathers having kids and it's hard for me to understand that. >> reporter: then he went further. >> there is this thing about gay people that it seems to me, you know, and i don't know if i'm mistaken or not. but i meant, great, you know, i have a lot of friends but they're more pervert in a sense. to me the show would be too strong, too hard to watch on tv. >> reporter: today abc and the production company, warner horizon, responded with this joint statement. juan pablo's comments were careless, thoughtless and insensitive and in no way reflect the views of the network, the show's producers or the studio. juan pablo issued a statement on facebook, apologizing for his comments and saying he has nothing but respect for gay people and their families. juan pablo writes, "the word pervert was not what i meant to say and i am very sorry about it. everyone knows english is my second language. what i meant to say was that gay people are more affectionate and intense and for a segment of the tv audience, this would be too racy to accept." to a moment back in the spotlight, this time in the sundance film festival in utah where mitt romney and his family got a standing ovation. a new documentary revealing a what it's like for a family to endure a presidential campaign and what it's like to learn you've lost on election night. >> reporter: at the sundance film festival mitt romney and his family seeing the documentary mitt for the first time. they have given the director extraordinary access at what it's like to run for the white house and its toll on the family, no matter what side you're on. afterward a standing ovation for the romneys in that theatre. this is what some of those viewers saw, a lighter moment on election night with his family. soon in that hotel room the tone would shift. listen to the update he got on florida as the returns came in. >> right now you're up by 500 votes. >> that's not good. >> reporter: then one of the most difficult moments of any election night for the candidate who must concede. >> what do you say in a concession speech? i wish all of them well. >> reporter: then mitt romney offering his family a first run at the speech. >> no one is listening. >> reporter: then mrs. romney who we reported in the past was the most troubled by the loss in the hotel room, the documentary revealing some of that pain that night. >> what's going on? >> we're writing a concession speech. >> families give up so much to run for the white house no matter what side you're on. mitt premieres on netflix next friday, january 24th. to a different premiere tonight, this one in the nation's capital. bao-bao making her debut at the smithsonian national zoo. the panda can you be delighting thongs of fans this morning who lined up this morning just to catch a peek. she's the first to survive a birth at the zoo since 2005. she is already showing signs he recognizes her name. still much more ahead on "world news" this saturday night. the little league coach suing his own player, a teenager, for more than a half million dollars. who did that player do on the field and news from the coach tonight, what will make it all go away. later tonight a very proud first lady with her aarp card. a dance party at the white house for her 50th, what the guests need to have in order to get in and the surprises for the other first ladies, what they got at the white house for their birthdays, too. ve diabetic nerv. it's hard to describe, because you have a numbness, but yet you have the pain like thousands of needles sticking in your foot. it was progressively getting worse, and at that point i knew i had to do something. once i started taking the lyrica the pain started subsiding. [ male announcer ] it's known that diabetes damages nerves. lyrica is fda approved to treat diabetic nerve pain. lyrica is not for everyone. it may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, changes in eyesight including blurry vision, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or skin sores from diabetes. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. ask your doctor about lyrica today. it's specific treatment for diabetic nerve pain. smoke? nah, i'm good. [ male announcer ] celebrate every win with nicoderm cq, the unique patch with time release smartcontrol technology that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. help prevent your cravings with nicoderm cq. that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. the pain started up and wrapped around to the front. i couldn't play my bassoon because of the pressure that i felt throughout my whole head. the blistering and the rash was moving down towards my eye. the doctors at the emergency room recommended that i have it checked out by an eye doctor. there was concern about my eyesight. when i had shingles the music stopped. so here's to the bride and... [ coughs ] [ all gasp ] [ male announcer ] robitussin dm max now comes in a new liquid-filled capsule. nothing provides more powerful cough relief. robitussin. don't suffer the coughequences. we turn now to the little league matchup playing out in the on the field but in court, the coach taking on his own pitcher, a teenager, for something that happened on the field. here's abc's ryan smith now. >> reporter: he's a great kid. i love the kid. it really hurts me to be doing this. s >> reporter: former little league coach allen beck is taking on a now 14-year-old baseball player in a lawsuit, asking for a whopping $600,000. beck says the player, rounding the bases after a game-winning run scored, celebrated the victory with teammates by spiking his helmet. that helmet, according to his lawsuit, hit his achilles, causing serious injury. also named in the suit, the boy's parents, joe and reagan paris. they say they were blind-sided. >> when the incident occurred, it was not evident to anyone that he had an injury. >> reporter: experts argue beck may strike out with this case. >> it's an assumption of risk that the coach has, the young man celebrating his win, throws his helmet up, that it may land and hurt somebody. >> reporter: despite the lawsuit, beck now says he would give it all up for an apology. >> if they come and apologize and acknowledge, then i would definitely have them, you know, take them off any type of lawsuit. >> the coach saying he would give it up if they apologized. you talked to the boy's dad? >> he's doubtful about this statement. he said he and his boy didn't do anything wrong according to the lawsuit. he feels like this isn't an apology. >> great to have you with us tonight. when we come back on "world news," take a look at these time lapse images early this morning. do you recognize the american city where something is missing tonight? we had a great spot, not easy to find, but worth it. but with copd making it hard to breathe, i thought those days might be over. so my doctor prescribed symbicort. it helps significantly improve my lung function starting within five minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. with symbicort, today i'm breathing better. and that means...fish on! [ female announcer ] symbicort is for copd including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. [ man ] with copd, i thought i'd miss our family tradition. now symbicort significantly improves my lung function, starting within 5 minutes. and that makes a difference in my breathing. today we're ready for whatever swims our way. ask your doctor about symbicort. i got my first prescription free. call or click to learn more. i got my first prescription free. it's been that way since the day you met. but your erectile dysfunction - it could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than 4 hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. when my son was born, i remember, you know, picking him up and holding him against me. it wasn't just about me anymore. i had to quit. 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[ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. our "instant index," what's trending on a saturday night starting with a good-bye to a fixture on the minneapolis skyline. the minnesota vikings' metrodome deflated for good this morning. this time-lapse video showing ten acres of fabric deflating. the demolition will make way for a $1 billion vikings stadium. to brazil tonight and a closer look at that image from mother nature. you might have seen rio de janeiro's statue hit by lightning this week. tonight here though, a look at some of the scars left behind, the statue's right thumb chipped by lightning. the statue gets hit by lightning several times a year. from hollywood tonight, laura linney, delivering a baby boy. a mom for the first time at 49 years old. little bennett is the first child for linney and her husband night and we say congratulations. something we didn't know about the invitation to mrs. obama's 50th tonight. you'll see it yourself. which first lady's birthday did lucille ball show up for? it can help provide the power for all this? natural gas. ♪ more than ever before, america's electricity is generated by it. exxonmobil uses advanced visualization and drilling technologies to produce natural gas... powering our lives... while reducing emissions by up to 60%. energy lives here. ♪ i took medicine but i still have symptoms. 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[ male announcer ] you're welcome. my dad has aor afib.brillation, he has the most common kind... ...it's not caused by a heart valve problem. dad, it says your afib puts you at 5 times greater risk of a stroke. that's why i take my warfarin every day. but it looks like maybe we should ask your doctor about pradaxa. in a clinical trial, pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate)... ...was proven superior to warfarin at reducing the risk of stroke. and unlike warfarin, with no regular blood tests or dietary restrictions. hey thanks for calling my doctor. sure. pradaxa is not for people with artificial heart valves. don't stop taking pradaxa without talking to your doctor. stopping increases your risk of stroke. ask your doctor if you need to stop pradaxa before surgery or a medical or dental procedure. pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding. don't take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding or have had a heart valve replaced. seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if you're 75 or older, have a bleeding condition or stomach ulcer, take aspirin, nsaids, or blood thinners... ...or if you have kidney problems, especially if you take certain medicines. tell your doctors about all medicines you take. pradaxa side effects include indigestion, stomach pain, upset, or burning. if you or someone you love has afib not caused by a heart valve problem... ...ask your doctor about reducing the risk of stroke with pradaxa. [ chicken caws ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum tums! saturday night of dancing at the white house as the first lady celebrates her 50th. tonight what the invitation requires as we also look back at the birthday parties for first ladies before her. >> reporter: the white house tweeting this week, let's dance. the president ready to celebrate the first lady's 50th. this weekend a tweet from the president, happy birthday, thank you for all that you do. here's the invitation that went out for michelle obama's 50th tonight at 9:00. look there at the bottom right, dancing attire required. this week an image of the first lady proud of every one of those 50 years, earning her card from aarp and perhaps looking ahead a bit, she and the president getting a glimpse of their future when the first daughters were away. here's what she told barbara walters. >> you know, barbara, as barack noticed this summer with the girls both in camp, we got a glimpse of our future. just the two of us looking at each other at the dinner table. >> reporter: mrs. obama follows a long line of first ladies which who had a birthday celebrations at the white house. nancy reagan, turning 60, her staff looking on, richard nixon opening up the first family's private quarters to celebrate. >> because it's a special evening we opened up the second floor tonight, the whole family quarters. we can't offer you moon shine or irish whiskey but there is california champagne. watch out. >> champagne for a toast to a first lady. what did mamie eisenhower get for her birthday in 1956? her new portrait given to her right there in the white house library. tonight we don't know exactly who will be there but look who has been invited to white house birthdays before. none other than lucille ball standing across from eleanor roosevelt as tonight another first lady marks a milestone. >> happy birthday, mrs. obama and lucille ball, that's not a bad birthday gift. "good morning america" first thing in the morning. see you tomorrow. good night. we are following breaking news after a water rescue in the bay. we'll take you there live for a breaking news update. a rare dry winter stretches on in california. how it burned the bay area today. >> in less than 24 hours, the niners take on the seahawks. we talk to the fans who are taking over seattle for the nfc championship game. abc7 news at 6:00 starts now. good evening. i'm ama daetz. four people were pulled from the ago.in a water rescue an hour john alston is live from san francisco with the breaking details. jon? >> three good samaritans saved a woman's life after she fell in the water off of torpedo pier. authorities say the woman in heir 30s, touri from taiwan, was taking pictures, backing up, fell off the pier into the water. she was in the water a short period of time. three people jumped into the water, including a former lifeguard from series who has done a number of water rescues in the ocean on the east coast. he jumped in, grabbed the woman, braced himself under the pier. a net was thrown down and the woman was rescued. we talked to the rescuer's brother. >> the girl fell in the water. they called for help. nobody could swim. >> what too you think of your brother? >> he had a broken heel, broken in ten places, ease been recovering. i'm really proud of him. he has medical
Elephant Butte Lake State Park is set to receive a $1 million upgrade this year that will revitalize a few of the site's aging comfort stations, as well as some