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
mastermind and you get the guy whose hand was actually on the knife, and maybe the little fish swim away? that s essentially what happened in this situation. do you think you had a strong case against jill taylor? she was probably the weakest case we would have had compared to all four people that we believed we were involved. reporter: and so in august 2014, the murder trial of daniel blizzard began, with a parade of lawyers, life insurance salesmen, and law enforcement taking the stand before the star witnesses began to appear. he would say, can t wait til the old man s gone. reporter: jill taylor claimed that daniel wanted vern dead, so he could collect the $1.58 million dollar life insurance policy. and, that adriana mendez told her that she and luis were going to go through with the attack. she said, we re gonna do that