middle of the night. haunted for more than two decades, he would make a chilling discovery that would unlock this mystery. now you know the whole story. yes, sir. everything kind of clicked. it s just so unbelievable. i knew he was telling his mom s story. hello and welcome to dateline. aaron fraser was only 3 years old when his mom left the house, never to be seen or heard from again. police soon learned that aaron may have witnessed the unspeakable, the murder of his own mother. the boy would become a man before the whole truth was revealed. and though memories faded, the evidence pointing to the killer couldn t stay buried. here s dennis murphy with she never left. she d been gone from his life, unaccounted for, for more than 20 years. his mother, bonnie. it was odd to be the one that found her. because you d spent a lot of your life looking for her, right? yes, sir. there s a poignant video of the mother and child s last christmas morning toget
true? oh, yeah. the statement that he gave. i tell people all the time, i d say you either believe him or you don t. and that would be the question to tear apart bonnie s family. believe the boy or not. some relatives like mike s own aunt and uncle were persuaded by the child. your nephew is a killer? i know for sure he did bonnie, he killed bonnie. all the evidence was there. but mike also had two unlikely defenders. bonnie s mother and father. bonnie s mom had been in the room for parts of aaron s interview. although she wasn t there when the social worker said he made the most disturbing statements. he actually tells the social worker daddy shot mommy. oh. no. and he saw blood on her middle section. i don t think he made the statement. aaron s statement wasn t recorded. wasn t required back then. more than anything else patty said she just didn t think mike was capable of hurting her daughter. detective robbie hinson knew he couldn t make an arrest based on t
their 3 1/2-year-old boy. the crime was committed in the presence of the victim s family member, to wit, her son aaron. and that finding exposed mike to a harsher sentence. life in prison. he is appealing his conviction. after decades waiting for this verdict, there was relief tempered with sadness. it was a little bit hollow, you know, hearing the guilty, because i was expecting like oh, i m going to be elated, you know, and just be like yes. and that s not what i felt like. i still just wanted to collapse. and it was still empty because she s still not here. what went through you, through your head and your stomach? it was just a sense of relief. after all this time and my story and the people who didn t believe me and the people who did believe me. it was just all brought together. and it was finally going to be the end of the story. mike was sentenced to life in prison. and even after that
her purse in the dumpster at the red roof inn and y all need to get out here. a maintenance man had come upon the purse in a dumpster behind the airport motel. inside were bonnie s i. d., keys, credit cards, and more than $1,000 in cash. bernie and evann got to the motel just before 9:00 a. m. mike was already there. by the time we got there mike and his dad, john, were in a room. the detectives were there. and they had her purse on the bed and they had everything laid out. mike, the husband, seemed perplexed by the amount of cash on the bed. he s like, what in the hell is she doing with all this money? given a wad of money like that not taken, robbery was quickly ruled out. i requested them to bring another dumpster right now, because we thought maybe bonnie was in a dumpster where they found her purse. so you re thinking foul play
memories later testified to. had the child, now a grown man, really seen something as terrible as all that? this is a boy s story like few others. go back in time to january 1993 in jacksonville, florida. it s just after the holidays, and there s an argument going on inside that modest starter home on dolphin avenue. the young wife, just 23, is restless, the story goes, and she walks out the door. the phone rang early the next morning in the bedroom of eva and bernie haim across town. a funny question at that hour. did they know where bonnie was, the wife of their nephew, mike? we got a phone call from a police friend of ours. and he knew mike and bonnie. he said where s bonnie? we just found