When they said hold on, shannon said hello, and the phone went click. i asked jermeir. i said, did you make that call? and jermeir said, yes, i did. why did you make that call? i wanted to know where she was. reporter: so he suspected? so he told me that he did think she was capable of doing it. he tells me that he did make that call to make sure she was at work. this is before we said anything about a burgundy suv. but there was nothing in the past where she ever indicated that she would do harm to denita. that doesn t add up. reporter: why would jermeir need to know shannon s whereabouts just after he found out denita was killed? investigators considered a variety of scenarios. but whatever it was, jermeir wasn t volunteering much. sometimes when you tell people, you know, a lie of omission, that s still a lie, some people, you have to ask the correct question to get the answer you re looking for.
Heard him arguing, him yelling at someone. i got out of the car, started up the sidewalk to the breezeway, and i heard a gunshot. reporter: moments later, said shannon, jermeir rushed past her and got in the driver s seat, which would explain how gunshot residue was found there. he got out of the driver s seat by sliding up over the back seat and got into the back seat and just told me to get in. i got in the driver s seat and i started to leave. reporter: she says that s when she encountered the maintenance man who, according to shannon, didn t see jermeir hiding in the back seat. soon after they left the apartment complex and drove back to greensboro. i kept asking him what happened, what the problem was. what had happened. i was crying. he was yelling at me. she wasn t rehearsed. and she wouldn t rush to answer a question. it was i d ask a question. she d give it a moment. she d respond.
Didn t think jermeir was capable of murder and insisted she didn t even know denita smith. then detective pate zeroed in on the last time shannon was in durham, the city where denita was murdered. she says she s never been to durham. i ask her about owning a gun. and she tells me that i ve never owned a gun. i can t stand guns. i m scared of them. i said okay, i can understand that. a lot of people feel that way. reporter: and as for where she was on that chilly january morning? she told me she was at a doctor s appointment with one of her children. that was easy to check out. her supervisor was on scene. and she did tell her supervisor that she was taking her child to reporter: shannon s story seemed to add up. maybe she wasn t the distraught woman the eyewitness saw leaving the scene of denita s murder, 50 miles away from where shannon lived and worked. detective pate was just about out of questions. and then an interesting thing
Forthcoming. jermeir would tell me the truth, but you had to ask it. he wasn t volunteering anything? absolutely not. reporter: they interviewed jermeir both at the greensboro pd and over the phone. and each time a little bit more informiowould emerge, including what happened after he and shannon ended their romantic relationship. following their breakup, about a year before denita s murder, jermeir said he went on a church retreat. there his pastor encouraged him to apologize to anyone he had wronged. so jermeir called shannon. he said i apologize in great detail about everything that he s sorry for. he said, i was on the phone for 12 hours. my cell phone went dead. i charged it i mean, had it plugged in. and we talked until i fell asleep.
Not too long to make me think she s making something up. and in the back of your mind, even though you may not want to admit it, we knew jermeir had did this. yes. reporter: wow. that s a story that sort of fits all the facts and exonerates her. it does. reporter: and in it, shannon is not guilty. exactly. so when she s telling this story, i m thinking, wow, this actually sounds pretty decent so far. but then i think, wait a minute. wait a minute. wait a minute. back up. reporter: pate raised an obvious question. if shannon had a story that proved her innocence, why had she waited so long to tell it? when i asked her, where was this story when i arrested you? her exact words were, he had threatened my children in the past. i was scared for their safety. he knew how to get to my children. and i asked her, what s changed? he still knows where your children are. he still knows how to get to them. he could still hurt them. reporter: and her answer? she just looked a