a pawn of daniel s? i think they used each other. no question she was involved? not in our minds. reporter: four people were now charged with the attempted murder of vern holbrook. and then the case changed again. in january of 2014, eight months after he was attacked, vern holbrook died from his injuries. it was a sense of relief for him that he didn t have to suffer anymore. but it was really hard, really hard for the entire family to see him not with us anymore. it turned the attempted murder into a first degree murder. a premeditated murder. and it sorta raised the stakes all around? right. reporter: but once again, what seemed to be and what would be wouldn t quite line up. there was one more twist in that long river of lies.
part of washington state. the meet time at the nursery was set, 11:15 a.m. i sent him a message when i got there and he said clients running late. just got here. see you in a bit and about 30 minutes later i sent him a message and said that i was done. and i didn t hear anything. how much times goes by? two hours. did you think of going to look for him? yeah i did. then i thought well no i don t wanna interrupt him if he s with a client. do i regret that every second? yeah, i do. reporter: so terra turned toward home and her husband. vern s stepson, andrew. when she got home she said, y know it s really weird. your dad never showed up and i just told her you know, he probably just got tied up in a deal. reporter: in fact, vern s kids were used to this behavior. he worked more than 60 hours every week because he enjoyed it and because he wanted to help people find a home. reporter: vern was not only the founder and owner of the family business, aspen real estate, h
anything to him like that. i mean, what would i be gaining from it? what would you gain? yeah. uh, if vern dies, daniel blizzard as your boyfriend, gets more than a million dollars. well, good for him. that has nothing to do with me. well presumably you might share in that, was the was the thinking. don t you think if i was going to attack somebody that i would go attack somebody worth it!? well, a million and a half dollars is a lot of motive. i don t care about money. i don t get it, why people are so shallow when it comes to money. reporter: jill s story? she didn t want the money. her boyfriend lied to her. the couple that lured vern to the home lied to her. but those claims that daniel blizzard had asked jill to poison vern? well, those according to jill are true. daniel gave you poison? uh huh. i think so. i just dumped it out so do you know what kind of poison it was? mm-hmm. and he said, what? put this in vern s drink? or uh huh.
he kept wanting to retire, and it would get pushed back. and this wasn t because he was living hand to mouth, he had no money. it was because he loved it. he loved it. he liked being the best at it. reporter: so on that saturday in may when vern missed his meeting with terra, she and andrew simply dismissed it as vern being vern until terra got a phone call that night from chad. he s like, have you heard from vern, something s wrong. he s in the hospital or something you gotta go check. then i like, instantly, i m worried. reporter: terra is a physician s assistant and knew memorial hospital well. she was pointed to the e.r. where a nurse delivered the devastating news. she proceeded to tell me that he had been beaten and that his throat was slashed and that they were getting ready to airlift him to harborview in seattle. reporter: and it happened, she soon learned, at that house vern had been showing to clients.
the premiums? that s correct. all of a sudden i saw that he was fearful of of his life. reporter: to detective perrault, this all added up to motive. 1.58 million reasons that daniel blizzard might want vern holbrook dead. but what was the link between daniel and adriana and luis? i m guessing the holy grail at this point in the investigation would be to find some like provable contact between daniel blizzard and adriana mendez? right. reporter: it turned out the holy grail was only a few blocks away. at the sunshine motel. i went to the motel and they told me that a big white guy would come in occasionally and pay adriana s rent for her. so you get the security video. right. and who is it? it s daniel blizzard. reporter: there he was. a week before the attack, blizzard paying adriana s bill at the sunshine motel. and perrault soon found more. text messages between adriana