Could anyone imagine that the mention of the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway locks, which opened big ship traffic from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Oc
Now listen, since the village of Saranac Lake is unique in the state of New York as the only incorporated village that has within its boundaries in three town
and everyone starts looking like a nail. feels to me like maybe there are a lot of people you might want to be talking to at the office. >> yes. the list was very long. >> a lot of them had petty grievances, like a safety inspector named james lapan. >> it's just we never got along is the thing. >> lapan told investigators nick had given him a hard time for parking his car in a restricted area and had accused him of using a personal tablet computer during working hours. >> anybody you know that wants to kick his ass? >> kick his ass? no. >> reporter: maybe not over a parking spot, but then detective garcia started learning for herself about the other part of nick's life. this was a guy who made a lot of women angry. >> yes. >> his second ex-wife once
fit on that gun. what's more, investigators found carpet fibers in the back of the lapan family vehicle that matched both fibers found in nick's garage and the cut-up rug in nick's bedroom. and there was this. >> in the master bedroom closet on a very, very top shelf, detectives noticed a pair of work pants that looked like they had blood on them. >> that same day, james lapan was arrested while carpooling to work. in the driver's seat was, of all people, jessica stillwell. she said she was giving him a ride. four days after nick's murder, newly minted homicide detective jennifer garcia, had made an arrest. how did that feel? >> pretty good. pretty good that i had gotten the right person for this crime. >> maybe. but this case still had to go to trial, and james lapan still had an alibi, that is, until a lifetime movie changed everything. >> coming up -- >> she calls and says, i've got a new story to tell. >> a lie told in fear.
smokey was found in the backyard. did james put him there, and was he able to pacify the dog based on help jessica provided? we wanted to ask jessica about all of that. she declined to be interviewed. if she committed a murder or played a part in committing a murder, she's getting away with it. >> we cannot find any evidence. >> or -- >> yeah. >> -- she's not guilty? >> correct. >> as for serena and james and their covenant marriage, it's over now. they divorced in 2019. but serena still worries about what effect james might still have on her and her children's lives. you ever going to be free of this guy? >> when god hits his off switch. >> james lapan will most likely be in prison when that happens. he was sentenced to life. he's filed an appeal. kristy, who says she waited 40 years to meet nick, now faces the rest of her life without him. >> he'll always be my superman. i'll always love him. that will -- that doesn't change. >> and even in the midst of mourning his brother, john morelos takes some comfort in how he helped solve nick's
going to believe this. i just dealt with that guy a few months ago. >> john's friend owned a machine and fabrication shop. he said james lapan had come in looking for a tool, one he could use to fix a silencer. he's repairing a silencer. >> correct. >> just a couple of months before your brother's murdered with perhaps a silencer. >> correct. so i contact the detectives, gave them the information. >> detective garcia obtained a search warrant for james lapan's home. in his garage, her team found 18 boxes of. 45 caliber ammo, all with the distinctive five-star stamp. they also found two spent shell casings that matched the ones found at nick's house. so the same gun fired the bullets at the crime scene and a couple of casings that you found in lapan's garage? >> yes. >> inside the house, investigators didn't find the gun itself, but they did find this empty box for a para-ordnance black ops combat. 45, which they believed was the murder weapon. the search warrant also turned up an empty box for a silencer that would
with powerful, easy-to-use tools power e*trade makes complex trading easier react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity my asthma felt anything but normal. a blood test helped show my asthma is driven by eosinophils, which nucala helps reduce. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. nucala is not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala. >> welcome back. james lapan
>> it's just we don't -- we never got along. >> jeff johnson said just 11 days before the murder, lapan had come to him with a complaint about nick and with it, a warning. >> he said that if i don't handle it, he has his own way of handling things and just bolted right out of my office. >> you knew the name james lapan. >> i did. >> nick had talked about him as somebody he'd had problems with. >> yes. >> but not being afraid of. >> no. >> detective garcia now interviewed lapan again at marana aerospace. he told her he spent the sunday before the murder with his family and said he and his wife went to bed around 9:00 and got up around 5:00 a. m., which would have been an hour after nick's
>> yep. >> you get some sense that james enjoyed humiliating you like that? >> absolutely. i think it was a power thing. >> serena cooked dinner for her husband and his lover and listened to james and jessica talk about nick morelos. >> it was all demeaning and hateful stuff. james used to pick on her and poke at her about why don't you go back to your -- go back to nick? you guys were such a couple and a thing. go back to nick. >> so there was some jealousy there? >> definitely. >> now james lapan's only possible hope at trial was serena and her statement to police that her husband was asleep next to her when nick was killed. >> you wouldn't try to be covering up for him for anything? >> no. >> okay. >> but now a little bit of drama was about to spawn a lot
that, i'm like, oh, you're replaceable, but not like i -- it's not like i can say it, you know, because at that point -- >> and if you had said it, what would have happened? >> i don't want to know. so i don't know want to know what would have happened. so then it became an issue of pick your battle. and the battle i picked was protect the children. >> which is why, she says, she turned a blind eye to her husband's affair with jessica. even when james invited jessica home for dinner. what kind of hostess did your husband expect you to be for jessica? >> the same hostess as anybody else. if they're invited over to dinner, i'm going to be cook -- i'm going to be the one cleaning up the kitchen. >> for your husband's mistress?