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>> to her, that home invasion story didn't make sense. >> i went, what? >> what really happened that night. >> i've had so many nightmares about the attack. >> dennis murphy with twisted. thanks for joining us. i'm lester holt. sometimes we'll tell you a crime story here where everything, the witnesses, the evidence all seem to point in the same direction. well, i want you to pay very close attention to this story. just when you think you have it figured out, hold on. now, there's no doubt there was a crime, a deadly one, but believe me, as you watch, you'll be asking yourselves, who was the real victim? here's dennis murphy. twilight in an iowa farming town. darkness presses in at the windows of a victorian house. downstairs in the kitchen, a crockpot is simmering. upstairs, a young mother runs a bath for her baby daughter. her two older sons huddle by a tv in a bedroom down the hall. suddenly they hear a shout. their mother's cry for help. >> all of a sudden i can hear yelling and then i can hear, you know, running toward the door. i'm really, like, standing there, like, "what's going on?" >> bert pitman, then 11 years old, sees his mother running towards him. >> she's in the door jam, like, trying to get in. and i can see, you know, all of a sudden her just get yanked back by her hair. >> the mother flings the baby into her son's arms and slams the door shut behind her. >> i can hear just rustling around, moving around and her yelling for my help again and then it was the sound of her being choked. >> more than ten years on, the true horror of what happened that december night, of what an 11-year-old boy says he heard and then saw, still haunts the town of early, iowa. a crime -- sudden, vicious and inexplicable, and its impact lingered. the fear. >> i was afraid for myself. i was afraid for my family. >> the pain. >> each and every one of us felt alone, lost, confused. >> and the unanswered questions. just what had happened on that frigid night? >> liar is a tough word in american culture. do you think the kid's a liar? >> absolutely. >> the spasm of violence in an unexpected place happened here at the self-proclaimed "crossroads of the nation." early, iowa, population 500, stands at the junction of two highways and most people drive right on through. but in 1998, two strangers rolled into town from chicago -- tracey and michael roberts. >> they came off as these, you know, big people. they're from chicago. he's from australia. >> seem to be a nice family? >> oh, yeah. >> local realtor mona wehde had heard the gossip about the big city transplants. it was the second marriage for both of them. michael was a computer whiz with plans of investing in a home business and more. >> michael's word to the community is, you know, "i want to help the community, and we're going to grow this community, we're going to build it up." >> tracey kept a lower profile around town. but mary higgins, a farmer's wife, got to know her extremely well. >> she was great, she was fun. she was beautiful. she seemed very educated. she was just a kind of fun person to be around. >> the two stay-at-home moms carpooled and shared easy confidences. sometimes they'd play hooky when they were supposed to be in aerobics class together. >> we'd go to the bar. and we'd have a beer and she'd have a drink, and we'd sit there and we'd talk and laugh. >> mary had also met tracey's husband michael at church. but as much as she liked her friend, she took an instant dislike to the husband. she thought the entrepreneur seemed full of himself. >> he was a huge bragger. he would brag about everything he had and what he was going to get and tracey would look at him and tell him, you know, "now don't do that." >> but he would. someone not put off by michael's swagger was realtor mona wehde. >> i'd help them buy and sell several homes. >> she was impressed by michael's go-getter attitude and his strong religious convictions. did you regard them as friends, personal friends? >> i absolutely did. i would have done anything to help them or assist them. >> the feeling was mutual. michael roberts seemed eager to help mona too. for instance, when she told him her 20-year old son dustin was drifting, struggling to hold down a job and at odds with his parents, michael made a generous offer. >> michael goes, "you know, i could take him under my wing. i could mentor him a little bit and see if i can get him off on a good path." and, you know, he just seemed so sincere about it. and i'm like, "really? wow, that's special. okay." >> which is why what happened on december 13, 2001 and the identity of who had been inside the roberts' home surprised everyone the way it did. no light spilled from the windows of the house where the brutal attack was taking place. inside, 11-year-old bert was frozen, unsure. he heard his mother being choked, but now there was silence. he grabbed a baseball bat. handed his younger brother a pen. told him to use it as a weapon. so, you're the protector. and you're 11 years old here. >> yeah, i mean, the only thing i wanted to do is protect them. >> there bert stood behind a closed bedroom door, clenching the bat, ready to fight back. >> i was just like, "okay, first person coming through here, i'm hitting." like, going out fighting, you know, going to try. >> the boy heard the voices of two men in the hallway. >> they eventually started banging on the door. it felt like they were trying to get in. >> bert says he started cursing at the intruders, using every bad word he could think of. >> and then i could hear all of a sudden another foot set of footsteps in the upstairs start running, and then, eventually i heard, you know, "she has a gun." >> and then the boy heard a series of gunshots. a breathless bert dialed 911. >> my mom -- somebody came to the house and th -- well, they tied her up. >> what the boy was saying sounded like something out of a movie. a first for this small-town police department. >> early rescue, you are needed at 105 west south ave. a michael roberts residence. i'm not really sure what's going on. >> what had happened inside the roberts' home? who was alive? and who was dead? coming up, the picture starts to come together as tracey's mother gets word of the attack. >> he said they're working on her and she couldn't breathe. >> would tracey make it and just who were the mystery intruders? i'm impressed. looks like you got everything under control. we got it all under control here, we're all good, right guys? yeah. yeah, we're all good here. yeah. yep. love you guys. [ dad & kids ] love you bye. 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[ cries ] i'm sorry. and he said they're working on her, that she couldn't breathe. >> tracey was alive, but she was gasping for breath. paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and took her to the hospital. two hours later, another mother came rushing to what was once the home of a friend, but was now a crime scene. >> and there's all these barricades and cars and stuff there. and we just go flying through the barricade. >> local realtor mona wehde was looking for her son dustin. his car was parked in the driveway of the roberts' home, secured now behind crime scene tape. mona says police officers wouldn't let her near it. >> and i looked at them and i said, "is my son here?" and they go, "yes." and i go, "is he dead?" and they go, "yes." >> the body of dustin wehde -- the young man being mentored by tracey's husband -- was sprawled on the couple's bedroom floor. tracey had shot him to death in what appeared to be a desperate act of self defense. did they let you see your son, mona? >> no. >> did they tell you anything about what had happened in the house? >> no. no. they told us to go home. i said, "i want to hold him." and they said, "you can't." >> twelve miles away at the hospital, tracey was finally safe and breathing on her own. investigators' photos captured the ugly red choke marks on her neck and a look of terror in her eyes. what had she endured that night? tracey told us she could not believe it when police told her it had been her friend's son dustin who had attacked her. she had not been able to make out his face in the dark. what did you think when you had a name attached to this? >> it was so hard because at that point i thought the worst of it was behind me. and then -- >> you'd killed mona's boy? >> yeah, that's what i felt bad about. >> that kid that michael was mentoring. >> because i cared about mona, you know? and now she's lost her son. >> from her hospital bed, tracey told investigators a little of what she remembered. how she had been running a bath for her daughter mason when she heard the sounds of the two men at the bottom of the stairs. how they had chased her as she ran to bert's room, her baby in her arms. >> bert says i threw mason. i don't remember throwing her, but at some point she was out of my arms and i was trying to get in the room. >> you were trying to get in there with the children? >> yeah. [ crying ] then i was pulled out. >> that's when one of the men, she said, had started to strangle her with some pantyhose that had been left drying on the bannister. >> i was having trouble breathing. and i couldn't get away. and i was having trouble even twisting out of it. >> tracey says she must have passed out because next thing she remembered was waking up on the floor. she could hear bert cursing at the intruders. this was the moment she knew she had to act to protect her children. she ran for a gun safe tucked next to the bed in the master bedroom. >> i just dove into the room and i just went for the safe. >> she could feel dustin and the other man grabbing at her as she tried to open the safe. even so she managed to punch in the code and open it. she grabbed a handgun and pointed it over her shoulder. but when she pulled the trigger, nothing happened. the safety was on. >> it was such relief when i got it open. and then nothing. >> she pulled the trigger again and this time, she says, the gun fired. >> the thing i remember the most is that it was so loud. and it was so bright. like the flash from the gun was blinding really. >> tracey says she managed to swivel around to face her attackers. she kept firing. are you hearing your assailants scream? >> no, i don't. >> cry out in pain? >> i didn't hear anybody scream. >> what she could hear, when she stopped shooting, was the sound of someone breathing, and then sudden footsteps running out the door. had one of the home invaders fled? tracey edged down the bed. she couldn't see much. the bedroom was hazy with gunsmoke, but she heard her kids calling for her, she said, and she ran to bert's room. >> i opened the door and bert almost took my head off with a bat. and i don't remember having a conversation with them at the time. i remember just being so happy that they were fine. >> both of us are on pure adrenaline, just like trying to just grasp of what just happened, you know. and, you know, "are you okay?" "yeah, yeah, we're fine." >> tracey says she shepherded bert and her younger children into the hallway thinking they were finally safe. but according to both tracey and bert, their nightmare was far from over. the intruder lying shot on tracey's floor was still alive. bert could see it was dustin wehde, the son of his mother's friend, mona. >> he's on the floor. i could see blood around him. and then i can see him start to get up. >> he's moving. >> he started moving. >> was he going to attack tracey again? >> and then i remember that just put me back into like, like "when is this going to end? like when is it going to stop? like just make it stop?" >> tracey says she ordered the kids back into the bedroom and before she knew it, she had another gun in her hand and she fired a warning shot telling dustin to stay down. >> i could hear her yelling at him to stay on the ground, "don't get up. don't get up." >> and then another shot. and then another. and finally dustin was still. there was no sign of the second intruder. tracey's husband, michael roberts, had been out of state on a business trip when the break-in occurred. the questions that might be turning around in your brain. how is she? how are the kids? >> well, there are too many questions. >> reunited with his family at the hospital, michael puzzled over what had happened. >> so the story that is settling in is this incredibly brave mama bear is protecting her cubs against these two home intruders. >> oh, i was very proud of her. and bert. they were my heroes. >> but he simply could not understand why dustin, the kid he was taking under his wing, had apparently turned on him, breaking into his house, attacking his wife and children. that night michael spoke to dustin's mother on the phone. >> mona called me, apologized and asked me to tell tracey that she loves her. >> she believed her son was in the wrong? >> yeah. she told me to say sorry and that she loves her. it was heartbreaking. >> heartbreaking to hear mona's grief and chilling to think what might have happened if tracey hadn't fought back the way she did. michael wondered what or who had driven dustin to such violence that night. coming up -- a town on edge as police search for the second intruder. was it someone from tracey's mysterious past? 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tracey gave an interview to a local tv reporter in the months following the home invasion. >> there's this person who's still out there and as a mother i have a natural instinct to want to protect my children. >> reporter: she gave a description of the second intruder but other than that, police didn't have much to go on. crime scene technicians could find no fingerprints at the scene. no one had seen anyone suspicious fleeing the area that winter's night. >> we're still looking at several different areas. again, we still have no clue who that second party was in the house that night. >> reporter: and, of course, police knew the identity of the attacker who hadn't gotten away -- dustin wehde. the son of tracey's friend, realtor mona wehde. >> i was in shock. i -- i couldn't even think. >> reporter: it was all so hard for mona to hear. her boy dustin, the child she had raised, was not a violent young man. he was just misunderstood. >> i felt that my son was labeled at a very young age and really started getting bullied at a very young age. he was never invited to a birthday party. he never was invited for a sleepover. >> reporter: was there a name for what troubled him? mona had taken dustin from doctor to doctor to get a handle on his social awkwardness, his moodiness. >> everywheres we went there was always a different diagnosis. and i just felt he was very misunderstood as a child. >> reporter: had the troubled young man simply snapped? tracey thought so. she says she had never felt safe around dustin, even when michael had been mentoring him. >> i told michael that i was not -- i didn't like the idea of him being around the kids because when i saw him with michael, his affect was just off. >> reporter: tracey said dustin's mother had once confided in her that she was scared of her own son. >> she complained about how he was physical with his sisters. >> scaring his own sister? >> she specifically said she could not leave him alone with the girls because he would hurt them. >> physically? >> physically hurt them. >> reporter: she said mona had told her that dustin had hit her, too. >> i can't imagine a boy raising his hand to his mother. >> and you believe he did that? >> yeah. she's -- i saw her cry over it. >> reporter: in the hours after the attack, tracey speculated about what had brought the unstable teenager to her home in the first place. had some of michael's collectible guns caught his eye? was it a botched robbery? investigators didn't think so. the intruders had shown no interest in grabbing tracey's expensive jewelry or the cash michael kept in the safe. the one item made off with from the house was an old computer found on the back seat of dustin's car. >> when i heard that the computer was taken, i did think it was strange that a ring that's a lot smaller and has a lot more value which could easily fit into somebody's pocket. why didn't someone just slip the ring off my finger? >> reporter: but if dustin and his mysterious co-conspirator hadn't been looking for loot, what had they been doing? had their mission been even more sinister than anyone first imagined? investigators wondered did someone want to scare tracey or maybe even kill her. but nobody could picture dustin, as troubled as he was, as leading that kind of a vicious assault. who then was the other man in the house that night? finding him could be the key to figuring out who wanted tracey dead. michael roberts had a glimmer of theory, involving some sordid personal history with his wife. incredibly, the home invasion was not the first time tracey had come under attack. >> i was at work and she said, "i'm about to send you a fax. can you make sure you are standing at the fax machine personally? and i hope you'll still love me after i send it to you." >> reporter: four years before, when the roberts had still been living in chicago, tracey had sent her husband a troubling document. it appeared to be the type-written confession of a dentist admitting that he had assaulted tracey, after sedating her during a dental procedure. >> she says she woke up with -- she was wearing like red high heeled shoes that were too small for her. her leg over his shoulder and he was masturbating over her. >> reporter: in the document, the dentist set out the terms for an understanding. he'd agree to seek counselling for his "sexual obsessions" and pay tracey $150,000 in damages. in turn, tracey would promise to keep the incident a secret, even from her husband. >> so, what do you do? i mean you're reading this fax in which your wife is documenting her rape by the dentist? >> what do i do? i'm a husband. i wanted to kill him. >> reporter: of course, michael didn't mean it. he told his wife to call the cops. >> i was just saying she has to call the police. it was rape you know? and -- she wouldn't do it. >> reporter: tracey filed a lawsuit against the doctor instead alleging medical malpractice and a few days before the home invasion they were set to go to trial in a chicago courtroom. >> so, your first solution to this home invasion mystery is the dentist did it? >> of course, that's the first thing i thought of and i was told that the second guy had a chicago accent. >> reporter: investigators now had a solid lead on the identity of the potential mastermind of the home invasion. had tracey's big city past followed her to rural iowa? coming up -- the list of possible suspects is about to grow longer as tracey points the finger at someone else from her past. >> she said he's the one they're going to arrest him. , an injectable insulin that can give you blood sugar control for up to 24 hours. and levemir® helps lower your a1c. levemir® is now available in flextouch® - the only prefilled insulin pen with no push-button extension. levemir® lasts 42 days without refrigeration. that's 50% longer than lantus®, which lasts 28 days. today, i'm asking about levemir® flextouch. 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>> i was -- yeah. of course i did. >> tracey had met her first husband at a chicago teaching hospital. his name was john pitman. he was a medical student and she was a radiographer barely 20 years old. >> he was very much in control, and i kind of -- i really liked that. i grew up in a household with a very domineering, controlling father, so to me, that was what i thought was how it's supposed to be. >> tracey's mother was not a fan of the doctor-husband. >> he never really talked. he was very -- very much almost to himself. and it was hard having a conversation with him and try -- you almost felt like you were dragging things out. >> did he have something to hide? tracey revealed to investigators that her marriage to the doctor had quickly deteriorated. he was a philanderer and a bully, she said. even in the bedroom. she described how the doctor enjoyed tying her to the bed and gagging her. how one time he'd even left her tied up overnight, uncovered and with the windows open. in 1992, the couple separated. they shared custody of their son, baby bert, until one day she reported to authorities that the 3-year-old had blurted out something shocking -- his father had touched him. >> bert is a first one that made a comment. and we weren't sure. so, she took him to a doctor. and it was the doctor who said that it looked like he was abused. >> had the boy been sexually abused by his own father, dr. john pitman, the man who was now tracey's ex-husband? the allegation of abuse became the centerpiece of a toxic, expensive custody battle for the boy, a scrap that was still ongoing during tracey's second marriage to michael roberts. husband number two was furious with husband number one in the months preceding the home invasion. did you think, "wow, she was married to a monster. look what he did to this boy." >> i thought somebody, you know, "this can't be right. how can he still be practicing medicine? and my son -- my stepson had to go through this." tracey's ex, the doctor, adamantly denied the allegations, but when he returned to court once again seeking sole custody of bert, michael, husband number two, couldn't believe it. >> i called him and said, "john, i have very deep pockets. and i'm not going to stop fighting. it's going to get very expensive. why don't you just give up." >> had the warning from tracey's husband goaded the doctor into taking a different approach to the custody battle? had he decided to bypass the family courts altogether by hiring two hitmen to knock off his ex? that was the most likely scenario, tracey told investigators. her first husband could very well be behind the home invasion. the doctor's son, bert, echoed that theory when he was being interviewed by a social worker. >> they're thinking that john pitman has something to do with it. >> to do with those people coming to your house? >> yeah. >> the 11-year-old relived the nightmarish home invasion during the interview. >> i got the bat out, and i was holding it. somebody ran into my room and i put my bat up and they opened the door, but it was my mom and i nearly hit her but missed. i mean, i didn't -- i went like unh. >> bert told it like a story out of a rip-snorting, violent comic book and he and his mom were the heroes. >> she had like pantyhose around her arms and then i had to untie it. >> the villain, he said, was his dad, tracey's first husband, dr. john pitman. it ate at bert that his own father hadn't even called to see how he was doing after the attack. >> if you're actually like a good father, i think in -- if you were worried you would call. >> tracey told the cops the indifference of the boy's father was one more reason that they should consider dr. john pitman a suspect. investigators chased down tracey's suspicion of her ex and asked the local police in virginia where he lived to check out his alibi around the time of the home invasion. mary higgins, tracey's good friend, remembers tracey, at the time, telling her that husband number one was now the prime suspect. >> she said, "well, john pitman's in a lot of trouble," that he's the one, you know. they're -- they're going to arrest him. they're after him. >> but weeks passed without an arrest. tracey was becoming increasingly frustrated, her friend says. some nights she would drive past law enforcement offices to see what was going on. >> she would know how late the county attorney was working because she'd come by and look to see if the lights were on on the third floor. >> tracey feared that if her ex had hired dustin wehde and a mysterious second intruder to stage a home invasion and gotten away with it there was nothing to stop him from lashing out again. the custody battle was still raging in the courts. but while tracey brooded, investigators were showing an interest in another suspect. someone much closer to home. coming up -- portrait of a marriage. the relationship of tracey and michael under the microscope. >> it was just that feeling of this isn't good. this is cold. this is bad. >> when "dateline" continues. cl. fortunately, you've got listerine®. unlike brushing which misses 75% of your mouth, listerine® cleans virtually your entire mouth. so what are you waiting for? 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the lead investigator called tracey to fill her in on his progress. >> we're looking at your ex-husband, we're looking at his attorney. you know, i mean, those are all -- we're looking at everything. >> tracey had told the cops about that nasty custody battle she was waging with her ex-husband -- the virginia doctor. she said her ex certainly had a plausible motive to want her dead but investigators couldn't find any hard evidence linking him to dustin wehde. no phone records. no money trail. it was a dead end. as the weeks passed, another name began to crop up around town. >> a lot of speculation. >> speculation that robyn padgett heard dished up over coffee and eggs at her diner a few blocks from the roberts' home. >> a lot of people wondered if michael had set it up to try to get rid of tracy. >> michael roberts -- tracey's second husband. he had always said he was out of state on a business trip that night, but was he? could he prove it? >> obviously the husband is always a suspect in most cases involving an attempt on a wife's life. >> sac county sheriff ken mcclure, who took over the case in 2003, said investigators had been intrigued by michael roberts from the get-go. who was this australian businessman who had moved from chicago to tiny early, iowa? >> what is the draw, you know? law enforcement officers with careers that have gone on for a while have seen, you know, the criminal element move out of the cities and into the rural areas. so i think you just got to step back and look at that and say, "why are they here?" >> tracey was in conflict. the suspect she wanted investigators to get serious about was her ex, that doctor in virginia, but they seemed just as interested, if not more interested, in her current husband, michael roberts. good friend mary higgins told tracey directly what some people in town were starting to believe about her spouse. >> she came right out and told me she thought it was michael. >> had set up dustin and this other guy? >> yeah. >> and the goal was to do what? >> to kill me. >> mary higgins says the roberts' perfect marriage was all an act. >> you know the difference between somebody who's in love and mad at 'em but still are in love. and that was gone there. it was just that feeling of, this isn't good. this is cold. this is bad. >> and her opinion wasn't just based on a feeling. mary, who often picked bert up at school had heard him tell horrible stories about what was going on at home. >> if bert didn't move fast enough there was always some sort of a harsh punishment. many times bert would come to school without a coat. and it would be below zero, because bert didn't move fast enough in the morning. >> but as the story went, it was an incident in december 2000, a year before the home invasion, that had really exposed tracey and michael's marriage for the facade it was. it began with an argument over finances in the roberts' home office. dustin's mother, mona, watched it unfold. >> tracey comes storming in through the back door and she's just rampaging and yelling and screaming. and michael looked at me and goes, "i'm going to have to excuse you and ask you to leave." >> and then it went nuts. according to this police report, tracey said michael had knocked her down and jumped on her. he had also pulled her hair. >> that's when he put my mom's head through drywall. >> through the sheetrock, huh? >> yeah, her head went through the drywall. >> michael roberts was arrested and spent the night in jail. he later pleaded no contest to charges of disturbing the peace, said he was just trying to restrain tracey for her own protection, but bert told police there was more they needed to know. this boy who had accused his biological dad of sexually abusing him now said he had horror stories about his stepfather too. is he hitting you, giving you the back of the hand kind of thing? >> yeah, i mean, it's -- you know, he broke my nose at one point for not cleaning up horse crap with my bare hands. >> and along with the beatings, he said, there was constant humiliation. >> one of the worst ones was when i was older, just psychologically, i mean, i was like 13 at the time, you know, and he was beating me. and then, you know, i was crying and since i was crying i was a little baby and the little baby needed its bottle. so you know he made me drink out of a bottle. >> are you okay with this? he's your boy. >> i wasn't happy with it. but i found that when i objected, it made it worse. >> bert says his mother remained blind to something that was becoming clearer and clearer to him. it wasn't his biological dad, dr. john pitman, who had plotted his mother's murder. he now believed it was his stepfather. so you think michael your stepfather was involved in this, orchestrated, planned it? >> fully involved. >> looking back, bert thinks michael gave himself away at the hospital the night of the attack. >> just the way he looked at us or the way he reacted to seeing us alive was off. >> as though he didn't expect to see you alive? >> yeah. >> bert thinks michael was posing as a loving, concerned husband, and pointing fingers at the chicago dentist and tracey's ex-husband just to throw the cops off the trail. >> he was trying to have everybody look in all these different directions instead of him. >> isn't it counter-intuitive though that he would stay with your mother. and he does for years. you would think he would find a reason to have his pager go off and leave town. >> if you paid people to kill your family and they failed you don't want to leave because it looks like you did it. i feel like he was waiting for his next opportunity to do it. >> and remember it was michael roberts who had begun nurturing dustin wehde in the year leading up to the attack. dustin's relationship with his own dad had been difficult. >> there just wasn't a lot of connection between the two of them. and i think for dustin that was painful. >> had michael exploited this void to his advantage, becoming some kind of father figure to the troubled teen, grooming him to kill tracey? the lead investigators confronted michael in his home office. >> he looks me in the eye and said, "michael, how much did you pay to dustin to kill your wife? >> michael denied any involvement in the crime. and police quickly established that his alibi -- the out of town business trip -- was rock solid. there was no way that he'd been in the house that night as the second intruder. but that didn't mean he couldn't have masterminded the attack. police asked tracey's husband to take a polygraph. the results, according to the examiner, concluded michael's "truthfulness could not be verified" and "he could not be cleared in this matter." >> the fact that he failed a polygraph, yeah, i had to think maybe he is involved. >> was tracey now living with a man who wanted her dead? how much danger was she really in? don't make up your mind yet. turns out the case had more twists to come. coming up -- the other mom in this story has some questions of her own. questions about the home invasion story tracey's been telling. >> they just plain and simple said, her story fits the evidence. and i'm just like going, no, it doesn't. i all over.chronic, de it just wouldn't go away. my doctor diagnosed it as fibromyalgia, thought to be the result of overactive nerves that cause chronic, widespread pain. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i learned lyrica can provide significant relief from fibromyalgia pain. so now, i can plan my days and accomplish more. 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tracey says she assumed there must be some kind of explanation and waited for michael to tell her about the results himself. >> we get into bed. i'm expecting this is when we're gonna talk, right? he rolls over and goes to sleep. and i'm laying in bed like what's going on here? >> reporter: tracey thought how little she really knew about her second husband and what he was capable of. they'd met online and then gotten married eighteen days after their first face to face meeting. >> who is michael? >> i don't know. i really don't know. i wish i knew. because when we were together, when we were having problems, i honestly still believed that he loved me, you know? >> reporter: tracey started to grapple with the idea that it was michael, her current husband and not dr. john pitman, her ex, who might have been behind the home invasion plot. and the way tracey started piecing it together, michael had motive too. in 2001, the roberts' computer business was in trouble. had michael seen her death as an easy way to get his hands on some cash? after all, they had millions of dollars in life insurance policies. in 2004, nearly three years after the home invasion, the roberts' marriage imploded. michael filed for divorce. tracey filed for an order of protection against him. the sheriff saw the rift between husband and wife as an opportunity. >> when they got divorced really that's where we figured out we would know if michael roberts was involved or not. >> reporter: but the sheriff would be disappointed. as ugly as the roberts' divorce became, it didn't yield any clues about the home invasion. the investigation went cold. and then as suddenly as she'd arrived in small town iowa, tracey upped and left. she moved with her children to omaha, nebraska. new town. new job. she even changed her name. >> in reality, she needed to get away from michael. i mean, he still was harassing her all the time. >> he's not past tense? >> he's still making it -- life -- hard for her. >> reporter: the other mother in this story -- dustin's mother -- was also long-gone from early, iowa. she'd taken dustin's sisters to live in minneapolis after her husband, their father, committed suicide in the cemetery where dustin was buried. >> he went there and he put a bullet in his heart and left a note saying, "i cried every day since december 13th." >> what a stark world you were looking at on your husband's death. >> yeah, it was very horrible. >> how'd you pull yourself together? >> i buried stuff. i hid it, put up walls, closed doors. tried to tell myself it's a horrible nightmare and i'm gonna wake up. >> reporter: the worst part of the nightmare? that she felt so alone. mona was consumed with questions she felt no one else cared about. instead of wondering about the identity of that mysterious second intruder or who'd masterminded the attack, she wanted to know what had really happened to her son that night. >> was there any way you could put him in the house up to no good? >> no. i just said no, no way, no way possible. >> reporter: for starters, mona said her son was not the scary, hair-trigger misfit described by tracey. his mother knew a dustin with a sweet smile masking a little sadness, not a killer. sure, this kid who could entertain his family with goofy elvis impersonations didn't really connect to outsiders. that's why he'd treasured his relationship with the roberts. no way would he have wished them harm. >> they were my friends. they befriended him. dustin was like, "i got a friend. no. he's not gonna go down there and go, "oh, i think i'll kill you today." >> reporter: common sense told mona there was something very wrong with the idea that dustin had been a hitman for hire that night. >> he parked in front of the house. he had no gun. he had no knife. >> reporter: but hadn't dustin ripped off a roberts family computer? they'd found it in his car. >> you're gonna tell me that my son went into the house that was full of dells and gateways and he went upstairs in the corner bedroom and picked up a packard bell obsolete piece of junk. >> it's an old beater computer, huh? >> useless computer. went out, loaded it in his car, packed it in nice and neat, then went back in the house and went upstairs to get killed. >> reporter: mona knew there had to be a better explanation. maybe dustin had stumbled in on someone else trying to kill tracey? mona peppered investigators with questions. >> i kept asking questions and i got funny answers. and they just plain and simple said, "her story fits the evidence." and i'm just like, going, "no, it doesn't." >> reporter: mona knew tracey's story didn't add up but it was a conversation with the town's funeral director that made her think tracey might be deliberately misleading police. that she had something to hide. >> he told me that dustin was shot three times in his underarm, two times in his hip. and at that point, four times in the back of his head. and i went, "what?" >> reporter: the violence of dustin's death overwhelmed her. mona now believed not only that tracey's story of self defense was bogus. not only that her son was innocent of any crime the night of the home invasion. she now believed dustin had been murdered. targeted. >> so, it's an execution he walks into. is that the way you see it? >> totally. she killed him. she killed him. >> reporter: but years after the attack, she felt like there was no one to listen to her. >> you know, i felt like my hands was tied because i couldn't do the investigation. i couldn't do anything. and i was so sad because my son's file was just sitting on a shelf. and i'm like how long is that gonna sit there? will there ever be a day of justice? >> reporter: little did she know that a new investigator was about to change everything. coming up -- the investigator tracks down tracey's first husband. and boy, does he have a story to tell about his ex. >> the next thing i know he comes that way and you're done. >> when "dateline" continues. feel bloated, gassy, toi uncomfortable with gurgling. nothing seems to feel right! and yet another pile of clothes on my bed. so i'm taking the activia challenge. eating activia twice a day for four weeks may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive issues like bloating, gas, discomfort and rumbling. when your tummy smiles, things just feel right! join me and take the activia challenge. it works or it's free. ♪ dannon! introducing olive garden's tuscstart with our unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks for $6.99, then make it a trio by adding 1 of 9 irresistible sides, like our creamy fettuccine alfredo for $2.99. tuscan trios lunch at olive garden. continuing now with our story of a deadly home invasion targeting a mom home alone with her kids. that mom has been called a hero for protecting her children from violent intruders, one of whom she killed. now, questions are piling up about who orchestrated the attack. think you know? well, watch what happens in a head snapping twist, investigators are about to focus on the last person you'd expect. again, here's dennis murphy. for years, mona wehde had quietly watched the woman who had shot her son give interviews. >> i turned around and then fired. >> a time came when mona fired back in the local paper. >> i did put one small little article in the paper. and i just really asked, "why did you kill my son? tell me why." >> the grief and the frustration was taking its toll on mona's family. >> i just felt everybody ripping apart from everybody. i didn't know how to pull them back and i hurt. >> but then, on christmas eve, seven years after dustin's death, mona got a surprising phone call. iowa's division of criminal investigation had given the home invasion case file to a cold case investigator. at last she had a reason to hope. someone else who was suspicious of tracey's story. >> i had a hard time making sense out of it, because i could not get past her original statement. >> special agent trent vileta noticed a number of inconsistencies in tracey's statements to police. basic facts she kept changing, like the number of intruders in the house. another red flag? the crime scene photos. >> why isn't things broken? why isn't things on the cupboards or dressers laying on the floor? didn't make any sense. it looked to me like dustin just got shot and died. >> had tracey been lying about what really happened in the house? and if so, why? agent vileta came to realize he knew almost nothing about tracey, the woman at the heart of the crime. >> what i did is i slowed down. i went back to the beginning really that i could find for her. and that was about 1988. >> 1988. the year tracey married john pitman, the doctor in virginia. after talking to tracey's ex and sifting through court documents surrounding their marriage, the investigator realized that pitman was nothing like the ogre tracey had described to investigators. bullying incidents? the doctor said it was tracey, not he, who had been abusive. in one memorable set-to, he said she pulled a gun on him. >> she turned to me and said, "you're never going to leave this house alive." i was sort of stunned and the next thing i know she disappears into the bedroom and comes out waving a gun. >> tracey fired the revolver into the ceiling and pitman called the cops. tracey admitted firing the gun, told police she'd been contemplating suicide. dr. pitman told agent vileta that wasn't the end of tracey's bizarre behavior. >> i had this sense of dread begin to surround me for about two months. i had really bad dreams of death and coffins and things like that. >> the philandering husband that tracey complained about? hardly. pitman pulled out surveillance logs and photos taken by a private eye that he said proved it was tracey, not he, who had been unfaithful. she had been spotted "kissing" another man in a car and "fondling" another man's "legs and buttocks". >> and that was a real shocker. because it started to look like she almost had a second life that i wasn't aware of. and she hung around with male strippers. and, you know, just all kinds of unsavory characters. >> tracey later told people that it was her first husband, not she, who enjoyed the company of strippers. she also denied having had affairs. but dr. pitman says his private eye warned him he shouldn't take any chances. his life might be in danger. >> he said, "look, you know, she's already shot at you. now the first one always goes in the air. the second one goes over your head. and the third one hits you." >> at the end of the day, tracey's first husband said it was his flat-out fear of tracey that had ended the marriage. not his infidelity and abuse as she'd claimed. but what about the biggie -- tracey's accusation that dr. pitman had sexually abused his own son bert. he said none of it was true and he had a court finding to prove it. >> i have never done anything. no inappropriate touching, exposure, grooming, anything. >> the cold case investigator believed tracey's ex was telling the truth. that doctor who had seen evidence of abuse? she had been wrong, said illinois child abuse investigators who had exonerated pitman back in the day. even more telling, agent vileta thought, was the fact that tracey had let bert move to virginia after her separation from michael roberts. if she believed her first husband was an abuser, why would she send her son to live in his care? tracey roberts and the truth. agent vileta started to suspect that other events in this woman's dramatic life story might not hold up to examination. >> either you have to believe the entire world is out to get tracey, or tracey's a criminal. and she just does bad things. >> agent vileta took another look at the story of the chicago dentist who tracey claimed had raped her. he had signed a confession offering to pay tracey damages, or so she claimed. but the dentist told the cold case investigator that the confession was a forgery. >> he basically said she extorted him. >> it all made the agent wonder anew about tracey's relationship with michael, husband number two. sure, some people around the farming town didn't care much for the businessman, but had he really been abusive to his wife? >> back in 2000, michael had been arrested for that alleged assault on tracey. but he told the investigator that he had actually been trying to protect tracey at the time, not hurt her. >> she started kicking holes through both levels of drywall to the other side, where there was a 220-volt heater. >> he showed the investigators photos he said he had taken of those holes. he said tracey had been about to electrocute herself when he grabbed her and forced her to the floor. as for his stepson's claims that michael had beaten him? did these things happen? breaking his nose? did that happen? >> no. i spanked him quite a few times and made quite a few mistakes as a parent. >> michael admitted he was a stern father, but said he loved his children and had never hurt them . michael also denied harassing his wife after their break up, saying it was the other way around. tracey was the violent one in the family, he claimed. he says she tried to kill him more than once. >> she got me drunk and she rolled me up in a cotton king size cotton sheet, very, very tight. pinned me with baby safety pins and reached underneath or behind the bed and took out a plastic bag and put it over my head. >> she put a plastic bag over your head? >> yeah. >> the way michael tells it, tracey tried to suffocate him. >> she's got her hands holding the bag around my neck and the bag was beginning to get wet from the humidity so even the bad air that was in the bag i couldn't breathe because it would stick to my nose. >> eventually michael says he managed to break free. tracey said michael's story was sheer fantasy, but not long after he filed for divorce. but what about michael's polygraph that had seemed so suspicious to earlier investigators. michael had an answer for that too. he said the lie detector had caught his own squirmish doubt about tracey's story. not that he was the brains behind the home invasion. >> it's hard to answer a question as to, "do you know the identity of the second intruder," if you don't believe there was a second intruder. >> agent vileta had ruled out michael roberts as a suspect. and he started to wonder, you couldn't get two more poles-apart men than tracey's two ex-husbands -- the australian entrepreneur and the virginia doctor, and yet both had similar horror stories to tell about their ex-wife. he believed he had uncovered tracey's true character. >> when she got mad at someone, she wasn't mad at them. she was enraged with them. she didn't want someone to be embarrassed. she wanted them to be destroyed. >> agent vileta was now convinced that much as she'd fabricated her stories about the dentist and both husbands' abuse, tracey had also fabricated her account of what had happened on december 13, 2001. her dramatic description of the break in, of being chased and choked. her firing deadly shots to protect both herself and her children. lies, he thought. but he could not figure out why. the answer, it turned out, was tucked away in the ten-year-old case file. a top secret piece of evidence that was going to break the investigation wide open. coming up -- investigators may have just found the smoking gun if they can figure out what it means. >> i'd stared at that thing for weeks trying to understand it. 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"what did you think about that?" >> the newly elected sac county prosecutor, ben smith, was a captain in the iowa national guard and knew his way around guns. he was immediately skeptical of tracey's description of the shooting. >> you're talking somebody that has said every shot she took from that beretta was either sitting, kneeling, with her eyes closed, with her glasses off. what's the degree of difficulty here? >> probably, you know, army ranger difficulty. >> but it was something else in the file that really intrigued him. a top secret piece of evidence that had baffled investigators for years. >> i stared at that thing for you know for weeks, just reading it, trying to understand it. >> when police had searched dustin's car back in 2001, they had found not just a battered old computer but this -- a pink spiral notebook. >> just sitting in the front seat as if somebody sat up there, you know nice and neat. >> and it was not reported about in the news media? >> never. no. >> the secret six-page document with its scratchy writing, misspellings and bizarre content was hard to read. but the prosecutor quickly realized that it could be the key to the investigation. it began, "one day about 20 years ago. a boy was born into a middle class life." the author was 20-year-old dustin wehde. and there's no question that this is dustin's handwriting. >> it's dustin's, yeah. yeah. he's got very distinct writing. >> the heart of the pink journal -- its core story -- outlined a strange plot. a "mysterious fellow", dustin wrote, had contacted him to carry out a shocking mission -- kill tracey roberts. and the identity of this mysterious fellow commissioning the crime? it was none other than tracey's first husband, dr. john pitman. surely this was the smoking gun that confirmed exactly what tracey had suggested to investigators so long ago. that her first husband, angry about their bitter custody battle, had been behind the attack. but even though dustin had physically written the journal, investigators didn't believe that he had authored it. >> it contained personal information about tracey's ex that he would never have known about. that he had once wanted to be a psychiatrist, not a plastic surgeon. and another remark -- that he liked to play mind games. why would this 20-year-old kid in early, iowa, know any of these details about a doctor named pitman. where was this stuff coming form? >> i mean, you've got one of two things. he's either, you know, clairvoyant or tracey told him to put it in there. >> you think he's being dictated to? >> absolutely. i mean, he's a scribe. >> and the cold case investigator told the prosecutor he had what he thought was proof that tracey had dictated the journal. an e-mail tracey had written him with an eerily similar description of her ex. >> when that e-mail came through and she described john pitman the exact same way that dustin wehde described john pitman, there is no doubt that she was the one that authored the journal. >> so if the journal was a fake, what did that mean? well, this is where this serpentine tale gets really kind of simple -- motive. the prosecutor says tracey staged the home invasion to frame her ex and gain the upper hand in the custody battle over bert. >> here's what tracey's hoping, okay? law enforcement finds this pink spiral notebook. and they find its contents, they read it and they're thinking "holy cow" it's going to raise enough suspicion that they have to spend all this time and energy to go out and interview dr. pitman about this murder for hire scheme, and it's just enough for her to get that into the juvenile court setting to say he's being investigated for this attack. >> he's never going to see that kid again. >> it's a golden ticket. >> and dustin? well, according to this new theory, he was no attacker but collateral damage. one boy dead because of the fight over another. >> he had no life value to her. and she used him. >> and killed him. >> and killed him. >> but how could the prosecutor prove his new theory? it came down to this. investigators had always kept the journal top secret. but if tracey had created it, she obviously knew about it. so if investigators could prove she knew about it, they could prove she had created it. got it? that's why the prosecutor lost it one night when he was talking to tracey's old friend mary higgins. he told her the investigation had been re-opened. >> he said something like, "there's more to this than what people know." and i said, "do you mean that stupid notebook?" and ben just -- he just turned white. >> should mary higgins have known anything about the existence? >> nothing about it. >> of a notebook in this case? >> nothing about it. and i was leaning against the wall to begin with, but i did get light-headed because as far as i was concerned that was it. >> it was the final piece of the puzzle. the moment tracey had slipped up and told someone she knew about the journal. the journal that was supposed to be top secret. the investigator and prosecutor wondered if they had enough for an arrest and they worried what would happen if they didn't move soon because tracey, it turned out, had gotten in trouble with the authorities in nebraska. she'd been accused of forging documents and lying about her identity. the cops had searched her apartment and found a stash of troubling material on her computer hard drive. >> bizarre pornography, pictures of dead people and lots of pictures of guns. evidence of more new identities that she was doing. >> new identities? was tracey feeling the heat? would investigators be able to arrest her before she disappeared altogether? coming up -- tracey gets a big surprise. and so does this story's other mom, mona. >> i was like, unbelievable. because i never thought that that day was going to come. >> when "dateline" continues. for my business. and i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards, even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can. enjoy dinner with dancing. make mealtime more memorable. save $3 on select bags of iams® dog & cat food. at petsmart®. >> reporter: a summer's day in omaha, nebraska. tracey was driving down the highway in her fiance's truck. she had a new man in her life. a new job. a new name. had she finally put the home invasion behind her? then, she noticed the police blue lights in her rear-view mirror. >> the next thing i know, there's a bunch of police cars, and there's men pointing guns at me and telling me to get out of the car. and i kept asking what's this about? and then a man came over and he said i was under arrest for the murder of dustin wehde. >> reporter: ten years after she had told police she'd been attacked by the teenager, tracey was charged with dustin wehde's murder. the news was overwhelming to dustin's mother. >> it was just, like, so heavy. and i was like, "it's unbelievable." because i never thought that that day was gonna come. >> reporter: but that day did come on a mild october morning in ft. dodge, iowa. tracey standing trial for murder as tracey richter, her maiden name. she'd entered a plea of not guilty. rookie prosecutor ben smith sat at his table next to a recently assigned veteran state's attorney, doug hammerand. >> it was such a bizarre set of facts. we knew it would be difficult to show that this was a set up versus a home invasion. >> reporter: at the heart of the prosecution's case was its assertion that dustin was no home invader. mona wehde testified that tracey had actually invited dustin to stop by the house. she had some odd jobs for him and expressly asked him to come alone. >> tracey said, "yeah, we have a whole, whole, whole bunch of copies that we want dustin to make. send him down on his own the next day or two." >> reporter: and he did go. the prosecutor showed the jury a photo of dustin's car parked in plain view outside the roberts' home. >> if he was gonna commit a burglary, it made no sense that he would park his car in the driveway. >> reporter: once inside the house, the prosecution argued, dustin had taken down the dictation for the journal. investigators found a black roller ball pen sticking out of dustin's back pocket, the same type of pen used to make the journal. >> makes no sense why dustin would go in and commit a home invasion with a black rollerball pen in his pocket. it made more sense that that pink spiral notebook was done that day. >> reporter: the pink journal written in dustin's chicken scratch that stated tracey's first husband, dr. john pitman, had hired him to kill tracey. the prosecution decided to clear that up for the jury once and for all. >> did you ever ask dustin wehde to owe to -- set up a plan to kill tr tracey richter or your son bert? >> god, no. >> reporter: because the cops had long believed dr. pitman was innocent of any murder for hire scheme, they'd kept the journal implicating him a secret, thinking whoever knew about it was probably behind the home invasion plot. enter mary higgins, the prosecution's star witness. even though she was testifying for the prosecution, she was still desperate to make a connection with the woman who had once been her friend. >> the whole time i'm in the stand. i wanted to look at tracey. i wanted to see her eyes. i wanted to see if the tracey i knew was still in there. >> reporter: she told the jury about the moment tracey had mentioned to her the journal. >> she said that in the car next to the computer was a pink spiral notebook. >> did she say anything about the pink spiral notebook would prove anything? >> it would prove that john pitman did this. >> reporter: so, there was the foundation of the prosecution's case. the motive -- slime the ex-husband with that pink journal to keep custody of bert. the opportunity -- invite the naive young dustin wehde into her web and then dispose of him. now the prosecution was going to take the jury back ten years to that wintry house and show them how tracey had done it. >> reporter: first they had to clear up what the physical evidence didn't show. tracey's story of a home invasion did not match the crime scene. a series of investigators testified there was no sign of a break-in, no signs of ransacking or an attack. as for her strangulation injuries? this emt who transported tracey to the hospital was skeptical. >> are the marks on the front of the defendant's neck consistent with your experience for someone having ligature marks in a strangulation? >> no, sir. >> reporter: the prosecution argued that tracey had made the marks on her neck herself. it was just one more aspect of her staged home invasion. so, what did the physical evidence show had actually happened in the house that night? the prosecution's last witness was a forensic expert who had analyzed the blood spatter and bullet trajectories to explain the sequence of events. using rookie prosecutor, ben smith as a stand in for dustin, he re-created the shooting in the courtroom. >> there's a wound to the right arm, the lower abdomen, right here on the side, the shoulder right here. >> reporter: just as she had told investigators, tracey had indeed started firing from beside the bed, the expert testified. but then she'd tracked dustin as he'd tried to turn away. and tracey had continued shooting as she moved closer and closer to dustin. >> he is down and going down to the floor. there is a shot number four in the right neck. >> reporter: the expert testified about those final shots fired into the back of dustin's head. >> one of them exits out of the left ear. >> reporter: any one of them could have been fatal, according to the prosecution and it was highly unlikely that dustin could have been trying to get up, as tracey had told police over the years. >> i mean unless he is, you know, is a zombie. i mean, he's got eight bullets in his body. he's got two in the back of his head. >> reporter: the prosecution's expert then explained what the blood spatter evidence showed about the last shot. he testified that tracey had waited up to fifteen minutes before firing a final round into the boy's skull. and it was tracey's best friend, once again, who had something startling to say about this new evidence. mary higgins testified that she'd overheard something disturbing during a visit to tracey's house. bert, who had always publicly supported his mother's account of that night, was confronting tracey. >> we're sitting at a table and bert comes in and bert's extremely agitated. bert starts to hit his head on the table. not to hurt himself, i didn't feel, but out of frustration. and he said, "why did you go up there? why did you go back up there?" and he said, "you didn't have to shoot him. you didn't have to kill him." >> reporter: was there something bert had seen his mother do that terrible night in 2001 which he'd been keeping a secret all these years? what truths could bert tell the jury as he took the stand? coming up -- the heart of the defense's case. what tracey's son remembers about that night. >> he told me my mom and dad had an accident. >> will he stand by his story under cross-examination? unsuspecting men walked in to a mcdonald's and discovered an extraordinary burger with heaps of jalapeños... ...for only two dollars. within minutes, they had also discovered the phenomenon of "economnomnomics" nomnom... nom? nom nom the jalapeño double, try it now for just $2 on mcdonald's dollar menu and more. it's economnomnomcial. ♪ nom...nom...nom... ♪ shield, sneeze, swish ♪ this back to school, there's a new routine ♪ [ female announcer ] kleenex tissues are thick and absorbent. in this lab demo, they help stop moisture better than the leading competitor's everyday tissue. pick some up today. better than the leading competitor's everyday tissue. ♪ ooooohh!!! ♪ what it is, what you want? yeah. ♪ live your life right ♪ make the beat the bump ♪ it's like one for the treble ♪ two for the bass ♪ three for the pretty babies up in the place ♪ the undeniable! ♪ come into the party in a b-boy stance ♪ i rock on the mic ♪ and make the world wanna dance ♪ fly like a dove ♪ that come from up above ♪ i'm rocking on the mic ♪ and you can call me mos love ♪ little homie you can call it what you want ♪ but you can't call it weak ♪ and you can't call it chump ♪ and looking like that ♪ babe you need to call me up ♪ seven eighteen d-a-n-t-e, one what? ♪ oh baby. ooooohh baby! ♪ ooooohh!!! ♪ yeah yeah. yeah yeah. yeah yeah. ♪ >> when was the last time you saw your children? >> the day i was arrested. >> reporter: the stakes were high at tracey richter's murder trial. this mother who could be looking at a future in a prison cell, without her children, says she was being punished for protecting them. >> this is an admirable story for a lot of americans. this is a woman defending her cubby bears at the risk of her own life. >> that's exactly what she was doing. >> protecting them from peril. >> that's certainly what we believe happened that night. >> reporter: tracey's defense attorneys, scott bandstra and karmen anderson didn't want the jurors to lose sight of the woman they believed their client to be a heroic mother. her story certainly seemed much easier to believe than the prosecution's theory of an elaborate frame-up to resolve a custody dispute. >> common sense tells you that you don't plot plan and execute a murder during this hour timeframe when you have three children at home. >> reporter: as for the journal, the defense argued forget about it. it may be a good yarn but it doesn't tell you who killed dustin and is irrelevant to the case, a red herring. >> as far as him going in the home or tracey having him come into home to author this journal, i mean, there is absolutely no evidence to support that. >> reporter: and the testimony of tracey's best friend, mary higgins? garbage, said the defense. >> when she's interviewed in 2002 and 2003, she makes no reference to any journal. mary gave four or five different versions of what she allegedly knew and what she didn't know. >> reporter: let's take it back to basics the defense told the jury. the evidence supported tracey's story of a home invasion, they had argued, but investigators had missed it because of their incompetent police work. >> and that was one of our biggest hurdles in the case was we -- they didn't do what they needed to do. >> reporter: the crime scene had been contaminated from the outset, the defense argued. paramedics had stepped in dustin's blood. evidence had been lost and basic forensics had been botched. >> tracey richter's clothes were not retrieved after the shooting. >> that's correct. >> reporter: the defense argued that tracey's injuries spoke for themselves. they were the marks of someone who had been strangled. the doctor who had treated her at the er said he had never doubted her story. but perhaps the investigator's biggest omission, the defense argued, was in giving up on the hunt for that second intruder. they presented the jury with a possible suspect for that person. someone who had been having an affair with dustin's mother, mona wehde, and had left town abruptly after the attack. >> and you thought it was suspicious that he broke up with you immediately after dustin's death. >> i did. >> you believe he's the second man? >> well, yes, absolutely. >> reporter: and so it appeared did tracey. when the defense's alternate suspect was called to the stand, tracey wept. her body language gasping in effect -- yes! this is the man who tried to kill me and got away. >> was she acting for the jury, karmen? >> i dont believe so, no. >> absolutely not. >> reporter: the man adamantly denied any involvement in the break-in. >> did any time you go with dustin wehde and try to attack tracey richter? >> no. >> reporter: the defense then put dustin wehde -- the alleged perpetrator turned victim -- on trial. according to their portrayal of the long-dead boy, he was an unpredictable young man perfectly capable of lashing out and committing the crime. during the cross-examination of dustin's mother, the defense attorney asked mona about occasions when dustin had lost his temper in the wehde home. >> you were afraid to leave your daughters alone with dustin prior to the death, weren't you? >> i wasn't afraid to leave 'em alone, i didn't like to leave my children alone. >> reporter: he also confronted mona with her son's medical records. >> there were parent child relationship problems, attention deficit disorder and oppositional defiant disorder? >> that's what the report says. [ crying ] >> okay. do you need to take a break, ma'am? >> no. >> reporter: mona told the jury that yes her son had been difficult but not violent. she said she had never told tracey that dustin was a threat to her or her other two children. >> they made dustin look like the bad boy and the violent child and the violent adult. it was horribly hard for me to listen to that. >> reporter: but what about the other boy at the heart of this crime? tracey's son bert. he was going to be the defense's trump card. >> all right, this is a -- a guardian angel right here. and that right there -- is the head of the demon. >> reporter: bert has an elaborate tattoo depicting the home invasion. >> and that's my mom. >> reporter: his mother is pictured as the hero. >> i know for a fact that if my mom didn't do what she did, i would be dead. >> reporter: now, his mother was relying on him to save her from a life behind bars. tracey sobbed as her son took the stand. >> how do you feel about being here today, bert? >> pretty nervous. >> reporter: bert walked the jurors through the home invasion. >> i heard someone coming towards my door. >> and what did you do? >> i still had my bat ready to hit whoever came in first. >> reporter: bert told the jury there was no mistaking dustin's criminal intent. he had a disturbing look on his face. >> angry and threatening. >> and how did you feel when you saw dustin? >> i was very, very, very scared. >> and did dustin say anything to you at that time? >> yes, he told me to stay in the room. my mom was dead and i was next. >> reporter: bert told the jury how he had seen dustin trying to get back up after he'd been shot. >> i thought that the threat was back on. >> were you afraid you were going to die? >> yes. >> were you afraid for your brother and sister? >> absolutely. >> were you afraid for your mom? >> absolutely. >> reporter: there was no doubt about it bert said. his mother had shot dustin to protect him and his siblings. he adamantly denied what tracey's best friend had told the jury -- that he'd been upset with his mother for going back to shoot dustin again. >> do you have a recollection of that ever occurring? >> no, sir. absolutely not. >> reporter: if bert was telling the truth, there was no doubt he had experienced something truly terrifying. something unforgettable. would his memories be enough to convince the jury his mother was his savior and not a killer? coming up -- tracey decides not to take the stand and face prosecutor's questions. but she does answer ours. >> when they looked at the injury to your neck, it looked like a sawing back and forth abrasion. did do you that yourself? >> and then the jury's verdict all aboard cupcake! (girl) where are all the seats... excuse me, excuse me... can i sit here? ahhh... sure. (sigh) i'm maisy and i'm six. hi maisy, i'm tanner. you nervous? yeah, a little. don't be. ♪ ♪ all the goodness of milk, all the deliciousness of hershey's syrup. thlook what i got.p. oh my froot loops! [sniffs] let's do this? get up! get up! get up! get up! loop me! bring back the awesome... yeah! yeah! yeah! with the great taste of kellogg's froot loops. follow your nose! homework is done. baths are taken. i'm impressed. looks like you got everything under control. we got it all under control here, we're all good, right guys? yeah. yeah, we're all good here. yeah. yep. love you guys. [ dad & kids ] love you bye. [ computer beeps ] [ male announcer ] finally a paint that's stain resistant and scrubbable. introducing new valspar reserve. now the colors you love stay the colors you love. exclusively at lowe's. >> reporter: when he was eleven years old, bert pitman heard something monstrous through his bedroom door. a struggle. shots fired. it changed his life forever. >> did your mom know that you had the weight of the world on your shoulders? >> i mean, she knew that -- i mean, it was hard. at that point you either grow up or you fail. >> reporter: now aged 21, he was up on a witness stand trying to convince a jury that his mother was not a murderer. >> if it wasn't for what my mom did, i wouldn't be sitting here today. >> reporter: the prosecution didn't buy it. and they grilled bert pitman on cross-examination. they wanted the jury to know that tracey's son was coming up with dramatic new details he'd never told investigators before. they confronted him with a transcript of his first statement to police from the night of the alleged attack. >> you never said anything about your mom having a choking sound out in the hallway, did you? >> it's not on this. no. >> you never said anything about dustin trying to move and was rocking and trying to get up. >> it's not written down. i don't know if i told him. >> tracey mouthed i love you across the courtroom. what would the jury make of it all. then in a moment of decision, would tracey testify in her own defense? she opted not to. but she did agree to talk to us. >> did you lure dustin wehde over to your house that day and execute him in cold blooded fashion? >> no, no, no. >> reporter: as she dabbed at her tears with a wash cloth and shook in her chair, tracey seemed nothing like a ruthless killer. >> you fired 11 times they say. >> that's what they say. >> and you hit nine times. >> i don't remember firing that many times. i was surprised. >> reporter: tracey didn't waver from her story of that night. she had shot dustin to protect herself and her family. he had been attacking her. she had been a victim, desperate to get away. >> i was in the corner. the person had to follow me into the corner to get to me. you couldn't have gotten more further away in the house and been like in a more defensive position than huddled on the ground in a corner. >> the forensic reconstruction expert described this person retreating from you and that you're the aggressor -- >> no. >> -- shooting at him. >> that's not true. >> and they don't believe your story about being pulled by the legs either. they say if you had done this over the shoulder shot, there would have been traces of gunshot reside on the victim. and they don't see that, so he had to be further away from you as you began shooting. >> i know i was in the corner and the person was coming at me. that i know. i mean, i will take that to my grave. >> reporter: there were other details tracey was less sure of. >> bert says that your hands were loosely bound with pantyhose and he had to untie them. is his memory correct? >> i don't know. >> because this would make it very difficult to understand all the things that you say you do. >> right. >> manipulate the gun safe, with your arms bound like this, get control of the gun. >> well, i don't think they were, i don't recall ever, i don't recall ever saying that they were bound. >> well, you know, i mean were they there or not? >> i wanna say they were more wrapped around my arm. >> reporter: pantyhose, such a strange choice of weapon for a burglar or a hitman. but nonetheless one that caused tracey to blackout or so she had told police. >> when they looked at the injury to your neck, it didn't seem to be the kind of injury that could cause you to pass out. it just seemed to be some kind of sawing back and forth abrasion. did you fake it? did you do that to yourself? >> no, no. that's ridiculous. it's hurtful. i am prone to blacking out. i have very low blood pressure. but i don't know if it was out of fear. i do know i could not breathe. i felt like i could not breathe. >> reporter: even more ridiculous, tracey said was the motive the prosecution had ascribed to her. that dustin had been the fall guy in an elaborate scheme that she had concocted to save her own son, bert from her ex-husband, dr. john pitman. >> did you think you were gonna lose bert, tracey? >> no, i didn't. i honestly never -- that was never a concern. >> reporter: tracey said she had no reason to create the pink journal to try to frame her first husband. in our interview, she said that their relationship at the time of the home invasion was nothing but cordial. but if she hadn't authored the journal, how could she explain those biographical details about her ex contained in the journal? they were the same details that showed up in an email tracey later wrote to investigators. >> there is language in the diary, tracey, that is eerily like language that you used, phrases in an email to the investigator. >> it was the same topic but not the same words. >> isn't that quibbling? >> no, but -- i don't -- i mean -- >> why would dustin be picking up on this if this is his journal? >> oh, i agree with you on that 100 percent. but i'm not -- see, and i'm not the only person that would've known that. i mean, michael knew it also. >> reporter: michael roberts. tracey's second husband. tracey scoffs at her second husband's claims that she tried to kill him. no, she says. he was the would be killer. and the journal was part of his grand scheme to kill her and frame her first husband for it. >> the only person it benefits is michael roberts and it benefits michael roberts because if i died while he was out of town and he was gonna collect you know several million dollars in insurance on me he was gonna be the number one suspect. >> and you think that today? >> no matter what. i think it more today than i ever have. >> reporter: michael roberts watched the trial from across the country in california where he was now taking care of his and tracey's kids. struggling with their questions and what he says is his continued fear of his ex-wife. neither the prosecution nor the defense called him to testify. >> did i conspire with dustin to kill tracey or whatever theory the defense wanted to throw out there? no, i didn't. >> reporter: but there was something michael said he did feel bad about all these years later. something he wanted to say to dustin's mother. >> my apologies to mona and -- and dustin's sisters to have to go through ten years, not only knowing that your son or your -- your brother's been murdered, but has then been demonized. and then i contributed to -- to that when i came to the defense of tracey. and, you know, if any pain, any salt that i put on the wehdes' wounds, i am so, so sorry for that. >> reporter: back in court, dustin's mother waited anxiously. after seven long days of testimony, the jury had started their deliberations. what was a few hours after ten long years of waiting for answers? >> what made you keep goin' forward? everything you had to endure, the death of your son, the death of your husband. >> my girls. i'm like, "they don't have a dad, they lost their brother." i tried to give them everything. didn't always do a good job but i knew i had to be there for them. >> reporter: and her daughters were there for her when the verdict was read. >> we the jury find the defendant tracey ann richter guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree. >> reporter: tracey buried her head in her hands. >> when they read the verdict i thought i misheard it, i did not expect it. >> reporter: her son, bert sat there stunned, expressionless until he too dissolved in tears. a few weeks later, a judge listened to mona's daughters as they explained the price they'd paid for tracey's acts. after all dustin had been not just a son, he'd been a brother too. >> the worst part of all of this is you cheated my brother dustin out of his future. >> as i looked around the room again, i saw my big brother wasn't there. [ crying ] >> take your time, okay? >> reporter: mona's hand shook as she read her statement. >> i can only wish when you hear the sound of your door closing in your cold cell you're haunted by all the pain and misery you have caused to me, my family and everyone else you have used and abused. >> reporter: the judge sentenced tracey richter to spend the rest of her life in prison. mona wehde finally had justice for her son. and what about that other son at the heart of this story. once a little boy huddled behind a bedroom door. listening to the sounds of a killing on a cold december night. >> i know the truth and knowing that she is in prison for something she didn't do, it's tough to move on. >> reporter: bert denies lying on the witness stand. the prosecutor isn't so sure. >> liar is a tough word in american culture. do you think the kid's a liar? >> absolutely. anytime she was in a pinch, he was the alibi, he was the piece of evidence. and i -- it's easy for -- you know, for me to sit on the outside and i see it. it's his mom, man. i would've done the same thing. >> reporter: so, at the end of things, maybe it's really the other way around? for so long, tracey had told this story of a mother protecting her children, but perhaps the real story is the tale of a loyal son protecting his mom. trying, and failing ultimately, to shield her from herself inside a wintry house long, long ago. that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. right now at 11:00, a mother's warning to other parents after a frightening encounter outside a popular children's museum. >> he was specifically targeting young women with young children at a place where women take their children daily. >> right now, philadelphia police have their eyes out for an aggressive panhandler who approached the family and started screaming. good evening. i'm jacqueline london. the worried mother sent her kids running into the please touch museum in fairmount park. george spencer is live there after talking to the victims. you

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