It got physical. she got pregnant. she had an abortion. and the romantic part of their relationship ended a year before denita s murder. they both agreed that it ended in january of 2006. the relationship was over. they both gave the same date, the same incident and reason that it ended. reporter: shannon said she 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.
Jermeir stroud insisted he had no idea that his secret romance might place denita in danger. but detective pate still thought jermeir was not entirely 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 information would 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
Months now? months, months, months. and on one particular occasion she says, you know, i m kind of in fear of my life. i m scared. i don t know what he might do to me. he s shown up at my house. and he has a gun with him at all times. reporter: shannon s co-worker was concerned and wanted to help. it gets to the point that he offered to sell her a gun, which he did. he named the exact model, and tells me that he gave her bullets to accompany the gun and offered to teach her how to use it. reporter: what kind of gun? it was a .38-caliber revolver. reporter: the same type of gun detectives thought denita s killer might have used. you know, wait a minute. i just finished a interview with her five minutes ago and she told me, i never owned a gun. and in that same interview, i asked her, do you think that jermeir is capable of murder? and she said, no, not at all just like that, no, not at all.
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. 12 hours. apologizing. sorry for everything. interesting that he talked to shannon about it but not denita. of course not. she didn t know that there was something he needed to apologize for. reporter: but pate believes all that apologizing to shannon may have jump-started something else. that s where the relationship kind of picked up again. because there were a lot of feelings that were shared. so they start talking again. exactly. reporter: jermeir insisted he and shannon did not become romantic or sexual again. but clearly there was something. he was always there for shannon. if shannon was distraught or wanted to call in the middle of the night, you know, and knew that jermeir was working, she would call him and he would put up with it. maybe he didn t want to be the bad guy? maybe didn t want to b
i guess initially i didn t really take it that seriously. i didn t really think that he was dangerous. he would mask it as concern. reporter: eventually shannon became pregnant, but says she and jermeir ended the romance before she had the abortion. but now her story is slightly different from what she first told detectives. we talked about it. there were some complications, which is why i decided to terminate. reporter: the story is that he said to you i don t want to have a baby with you. and the with you part hit you very hard. no. reporter: that conversation never happened? no. one of the things that popped in my head, based on my recent interactions with shannon, was that maybe she had done something. reporter: shannon and jermeir s differing stories are most in conflict when it comes to the day denita smith was murdered. shannon insists he forced her at gunpoint to take him to denita s