i said have you changed your locks? and she said no, i'll do it on the way home. and of course she never did. >> but investigators soon learned that in those conversations with her friends, deede had left something out. a detail she mentioned only to her daughter julie. that during that argument, erwin howard had also slapped her. >> i said, "mom, you have to call the police." you have to get a restraining order. and then i remember her asking me not to tell michael. and that she was going to handle this. i remember being torn, okay, this is my mom telling me, i got it. but also thinking, maybe she didn't have it. >> and a few days later it was clear julie was right. the very night her mom went missing, julie got another phone call. this time from erwin. >> i got on the phone and he was like, jules, what is your mom thinking? >> i said erwin, i really don't want to talk about this. i feel like this is between you and my mom. and he was like well, you just need to pray for her soul. i remember thinking it was a little odd, but then, you know what, given his grasp on the english language sometimes, he would say some funny things or get something wrong -- but i just remember thinking that that was an odd comment. >> detective gates now felt erwin howard's motive for killing deede was clear. but proving erwin had the means to kick due to murder was another matter. and erwin maintained his innocence to investigators from the moment he stepped off the plane after returning from bolivia. through the months after, even though he was clearly the prime suspects. and the case against erwin was not without its problems. it's one thing to stalk someone, quite another to kill them. there was no physical evidence
>> i do. >> in which he asked you some pretty basic questions like, what's your name, where you live. pretty ordinary stuff. and then all of a sudden he says, did you have anything to do with her mom's disappearance? >> i think it was more, did you kill your mother? >> and you're what, startled, or angry? >> it was a horrible question him, but i can understand why it need to be asked. >> detectives asked similar questions of julie. next, in attempting to rule out suspects those closest to deede, detectives turn their attention to her ex husband, erwin howard. it turned out that although deede and erwin had been divorced for more than a year at the time for disappearance, friends told police that she had recently invited him back into her life. about six months earlier, deede had been in a car accident. and as she recovered, she needed help with her dogs. deede also apparently felt bad about the pain their divorce
>> i think it was over seven figures. >> seven figures, a lot of murders committed for a lot less than that. >> absolutely. >> who got that money in the event of her death? >> the beneficiaries were her two children. >> and the detective noticed something about the whereabouts of deede's two children, mike and julie at the time of deede's disappearance. >> they're both out of town at the time that their mother went missing. >> why is that significant? why would the reverse be more true? >> i thought if the mother goes missing and it just so happens that mike is gone in san jose, and julie is down in a resort, and it's been my experience that sometimes people dissipate stress after they commit a crime in different ways. some people drink. some people take drugs. and some people leave the area, just to dissipate stress. >> and there was strangely, one more person who just happened to have been traveling near the time of deede's disappearance. her ex husband, erwin howard, had just flown to his home country of bolivia. and erwin was a mechanic who worked for american airlines in l. a.. the common thread in all of these trips? nearby l. a. x. airport. and so, the detective thought, what better place to dump a car? l. a. x. is a big place. lot of parking lots. >> a lot of parking lots and it took a few days. >> you look through all of them? >> everyone. >> no mercedes and no shortage of persons of interest. a lot of people close to deede keller were about to be hugged like old friends.
>> coming up -- detectives were about to get blocked with julie and her brother. >> all the sudden he says, did you have anything to do with your mom's disappearance? >> i think it was more, did you kill your mother? >> when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ whenever heartburn strikes get fast relief with tums. it's time to love food back. ♪ tum tum tum tum tums ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm getting vaccinated with prevnar 20. so am i. because i'm at risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. i'm asking about prevnar 20. because there's a chance pneumococcal pneumonia could put me in the hospital. if you're 19 or older with certain chronic conditions like copd, asthma, or diabetes, you may be at an increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. prevnar 20 is approved in adults
everyone that came into her path. >> deede's best friends, mortgage executive cindy ertman and real estate saleswoman linda dondero. she was good at her job? >> i love working with deede. everybody did. >> she was just so easy to like and wanted the best for everybody. and her clients were very loyal over the years. >> deede was loyal, too. not only to our clients but as a divorce mom to her children, mike and julie. >> i remember my mom explaining to me when is about ten years old that, as you get older, we probably not going to be as close, or you won't like me tweak quite as much. and it never happened. if anything, we just got closer.
deede. i called her on saturday, and she didn't call me back. that was pretty typical. but by sunday, i started getting concerned. >> concerned, too, was doctor julie. she'd talked of meeting her mom that same friday during a layover at l. a. x., as julie headed for cabo san lucas, mexico. >> she's like you know what, i might have an appointment that morning. if i don't, welcome. via text. we will have to coffee. so we would be laid over in los angeles. i didn't get a text, it was a little on. but didn't think much of it. >> deede's son michael was beginning to worry. after he returned from a
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disappearance of el segundo realtor, deede keller, all of l. a.'s south bay seemed to be looking for her, and for her missing mercedes. leading the search, her best friends cindy and linda. a lot of times when people disappear, you get the immediate family working on it, and then everybody else is like, well. >> not in this town. >> we had an army. >> deede's daughter julie rushed back to l. a. from a trip from mexico. >> it was the most surreal experience. >> only to be greeted by suspicion. >> l. a. sheriff's detective jimmy gates had discovered that in the event of their mother's death, julie and her brother mike stood to inherit more than 1 million dollars, so he confronted deede's kids using one of the oldest tricks in the investigators handbook. do you remember in the interview that you did with jimmy gates?
>> concerned, too, was doctor julie. she'd talked of meeting her mom that same friday during a layover at l. a. x., as julie headed for cabo san lucas, mexico. >> she's like you know what, i might have an appointment that morning. if i don't, welcome. via text. we will have to coffee. so we would be laid over in los angeles. i didn't get a text, it was a little on. but didn't think much of it. >> deede's son michael was beginning to worry. after he returned from a business trip to the san francisco area. >> when i called her cell phone, the voicemail was full and that had never happened with my mom. she prided herself on being