happened. her boyfriend, a man named thaddeus rice, had dropped the baby down the stairs after tripping over a diaper bag. >> jordan was crying and halee looked at me. i was like, what are we going to do? let's get jordan under control, let's calm her down. and halee put the mom skills into very good use and she is like, it will be okay. he'll pull out of this. he is so strong and all this stuff. >> they did what they could to help. they got jordan some food and went to her apartment to get her some clean clothes. >> we walked in and halee is, do you know what's weird? what? the diaper bag is right there. as soon as you walked in, it's by the couch. it didn't look like it has falling down the stairs. >> you are thinking we might have just caught him in a big lie? >> yeah. >> after two days on life support, jackson died.
>> he texted her that morning after the body's been found saying, are you okay or something to that effect. he knows she's never going to get the message because he threw her phone out the window. >> so you believe he was establishing some type of an alibi. >> he was trying to lay down an alibi at that point. >> detective kruse raised the heat again. >> it does not make a damn bit of sense. >> he tag teamed with other investigators to get isaiah to confess. >> we're trying to find out why you did this. why? >> i didn't -- i didn't -- i would never hurt halee or do anything to her. >> isaiah stuck to his story. it was 3:30 in the morning when investigators finally let him go home. jake says an fbi agent told him to keep clear of isaiah. he didn't know what to think. >> he never has been an aggressor. i've never known him to be that type of way. he's never been temperamental or, you know, violent.
when that happened cell phone data showed isaiah was miles away. >> at the time that her phone came back on and started traveling it was nowhere near isaiah hagan. in fact, he was in a different county. so he could not have been pinging off the same tower that she was. >> reporter: which according to the defense meant someone else had to have halee's cell phone. but the prosecution insisted isaiah had the phone all along. >> it looks like it powers back up at the soccer field, but we've since come to the theory that when you power your phone up, it hits on the last tower that it was on when it powered down, and so, that explains the reason why it looked like it was traveling. >> reporter: is that exact science, or is that the theory? >> that's a theory. but we have found absolutely zero evidence that there was anybody else involved other than isaiah hagan. >> reporter: the prosecution and the police, they believe that she was shot before isaiah left the soccer field, that his alibi doesn't hold up because she was already dead. >> well, that's hard for me to
defining moment for young halee. she was just 12 when she went to a friend's house for a sleepover. >> that night the brother of the girl that my daughter was staying with had a friend stay over, and he was 19. my daughter was 12. he tried to molest her. >> at first halee said nothing to her parents, but when she learned that the man preyed on other girls, the instinct to help led her to act in a way few her age would have the courage to. >> she testified and sent him to prison. after that i think that's when people knew that they could go to halee. she would stand up for the weak. the less fortunate. >> it was no surprise then when halee announced she wanted to continue helping others as a nurse. after high school she enrolled at university of southern indiana. >> it seems like being a nurse
leaving that out is because you know i was scared. >> reporter: he insisted he'd left halee alive and well at the soccer field with her wallet and her phone. but investigators questioned that, too. their analysis showed halee's phone had been in the same location as isaiah's phone hours later when he was long gone from the soccer field. detective kruse pressed isaiah to explain, moving his chair closer. >> and that's why i need an explanation. >> reporter: isaiah's explanations kept changing. >> literally the only thing i can think of is it somehow got left in my car. i saw it. i saw it in the road. i saw her phone. >> he said that it just happened to catch his eye when is headlights hit it. >> he's just driving along and there it is? >> yeah. >> and does he pick it up? >> yeah, so that's what he says in that version. >> are you buying any of this? >> absolutely not. >> reporter: and where was the phone now? isaiah said he'd thrown it out of his car window. but that didn't make sense
they were okay. but halee wasn't answering her phone. and friends told heather she didn't show up to take her exam at the university. >> it's not like her to miss class. not like her to have her phone turned off. >> not like halee rathgeber to go missing. coming up, what had happened to halee. >> are you getting a sick feeling? >> i was sick all morning. it was so much anxiety. >> i just started screaming her name like, my stomach had dropped. and i was like, oh my god. where is halee? where could she be? >> i'm freaking out. i was just like i got to go find my sister, something's wrong. i don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. >> reporter: when "on the outskirts of town" continues. e outskirts of town" continues when you need it most. it's non habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil. new zzzquil ultra. when you really really need to sleep.
seen her. >> jake told police he hadn't seen halee that night, but isaiah had told him where he'd taken her. to a local park, a few miles from the soccer field. >> he told me he dropped her off, and he went on a separate way because she wanted to go there to meet somebody. >> that didn't sound right to jake. >> i feel like he wasn't that type of person to let her be there alone at that time of night. he was way too overprotective. >> something wasn't adding up for you. >> not at all. >> and there was something else that bothered him. jake told police that the isaiah he knew had always been a stand-up guy. but recently he'd heard stories about isaiah stealing from people. >> his roommate was telling me, he owes us rent, he stole my tv. and i said, he did what? >> oh my gosh. so he was on a downward spiral. >> something was going on. >> isaiah had been borrowing money, too. halee was one friend who'd helped him out. >> she mentioned that she had loaned him $600 to pay his rent. >> that's a lot of money. >> but apparently not enough. >> me and halee had been hanging out. she checked her bank account. she's like, i don't have enough money to pay my bills. i don't have enough money to pay rent. i'm like, you work all the time.
like, i just remember just -- i didn't want to exist anymore. >> the family was horrified to learn that halee, just 20 years old, had been murdered with a shot to the back of the head. >> that was the most shocking part. never in a million years would i have thought that someone would shoot my child. like, why? >> as you're processing the most horrific news you've ever had in your life, that your daughter is gone, do you immediately ask these detectives who did this? >> they asked me. >> they asked you? >> who do you think? you know. >> one name sprang to mind immediately. heather blurted it out. >> their eyes just -- they couldn't believe what they were hearing. coming up -- detectives knew that name from another case. halee, knew it too. >> she had said what if they want to talk to me? i'm like, you talk. >> had someone wanted to keep her quiet? >> halee could be poking a
where did your money go? she said it looks like someone took money from my bank account. she pulled up a picture of the check, and it said to isaiah hagan for groceries. and it was $300. >> halee being halee, she said she forgave him after he promised to pay her back. >> take a seat over there. >> three days after halee's death, police decided it was time to talk to isaiah themselves. >> he sat there in this chair, and i sat here. >> what was his demeanor like? this is a big case. this is a young guy. >> almost surprisingly calm. just very, very quiet. and didn't show much emotion at all. >> isaiah told investigators the same story he'd told jake. he'd picked halee up at her apartment and then dropped her off at that local park. >> and she's, like, you can go if you want to, and i was, like, are you sure? like, is everything okay? she's said, yeah, everything's fine. >> what isaiah didn't know was that more than a dozen investigators were watching his
that was important for our family. >> reporter: their other love was sports. isaiah was a gifted soccer player, even scored a partial scholarship to college. >> he talked about wanting to be a teacher and teach athletics. >> reporter: they didn't know much about isaiah's relationship with halee, didn't realize how much she meant to their son until he told them she died. >> he was very, very distraught. >> i mean, his elbows, his hips, his knees, his ankles, everything gave. he was collapsing to the floor, and we caught him. >> reporter: how did you feel? >> i didn't know what to think. i felt sorry for him. and you know, i just had never seen him that upset. i'd never seen him cry like that. >> reporter: but police believed isaiah was a cold-blooded killer who had shot halee from behind, then robbed her. they hauled him down to the station again. >> i can't help you unless you're willing to help yourself. why did it happen? >> reporter: isaiah asked to speak to his mother. donna, the corrections officer,