a voice from beyond the grave. >> there is no way i can go back. >> can she help solve her own murder? >> so surreal. this is something that happens to other people, not to you. >> she was a dancer who married a dashing photographer. they seemed a perfect family until the bone chilling night she went missing. >> you could see the body underneath the snow. >> where was her husband that night? >> my attorney said you don't know the -- >> it seems like it's always the husband, right? isn't that what police usually say? except this time, they were not so sure. >> it's a who done it? i had three viable suspects. >> three possible suspects. the victim also had a boyfriend and he had a wife. >> everyone starts getting question. >> husband, boyfriend, jealous spouse. >> i said something like, i hope she rots in hell. >> so what did happen that snowy white knight? see what you think. because the most important clue of all may be the victim's own voice. >> i knew there was a line to draw. hello and welcome to dateline. stephanie and her husband appeared to have the picture perfect family, they fell in love in the colorado rockies where they settled with their three kids and ran successful photography business. then one frigid night, yale said his wife walked out of their house and never returned. investigators quickly discovered the grieving husband was not the only man in her life. there were three potential suspects. police needed to focus on stephanie's life to figure out who may have caused her death. here's keith morrison with secrets in the snow. we >> it was cold the night it happened so very cold. a night to be inside by a fireplace, tucked under a quilt. not outside in the frigid dark. not way up here, 9000 feet up in the colorado mountains, thick all snow ready thick about november night. 24 below. >> i don't know enough to know exactly what happened, i'm still trying to figure it out. >> what in god's name was his wife doing, walking out in the brutal cold, and what's happened to her? this middle class married mother of three, where did she go? without a word to him, or her friends. >> i can't imagine that this is happening to you and to your friend. >> she was just playing missing. >> yes she was. and it was terrifying, dreadful in the end. and those events were about to prove a shocking lesson about what can remain hidden under a person's skin. >> everybody has secrets of course. stephanie's secrets lived as she did in the skiers paradise. they met at the top of a mountain. bill bill bruner lee was taking photographs of skiing skiers. people have to make a living, and for bill, skiers were. it >> i love to take photos, of buffaloes. but buffaloes don't carry credit cards. >> anyway, it was up there in the mountain -- seem to be conducting some forestry service survey. >> i skied up to her and i said what are you doing, writing parking tickets? >> and she looked up at me and smiled. >> and then she took off her big ski goggles. >> i was stunned and i thought wow she is beautiful. >> they moved in together right away and when they got married, a few years later, they eloped. they jetted off to fiji. it was so, stephanie, said her friend. >> yes that went off and did it. >> they made their home wear dave's foot a brusqueness grew and grew. >> i had several operations in several states across the country. around 25 photographers working. >> stephanie got a job in environmental planning department for the government. they raised their three young children. >> awesome children, the best. >> smile. >> and life, for the bruner family was -- >> fantastic. we traveled, vacationed. >> but it was in her spare moments that stephanie was truly transformed. a ballroom dancer. >> dancing was probably to her wet photography is to me. >> our guest star, bill, -- >> it was her passions, that her old friend bill. >> he knows flamenco. >> stephanie loved to dance. dance was her life. she was alive when she danced. >> hardly surprising then that stephanie and jennifer were close to. >> we started a ballroom dance program together. pretty soon she would be doing back flips. >> but it was dance that led off the whole cascade of trouble. in the fall of 2010, there is an annual fund raiser here in silver throat thorn called dancing with -- locals paired with ballroom pros. >> did you go? >> absolutely. i went to three years of them. the last one i did not go to. >> at a wedding to shoot. >> so he missed the chance to watch stephanie will teach those left footed businessmen the foxtrot, the tango, and so on. which means he also missed what happened that night. >> she coached a number of couples, and in the process she met with a man may name drawn. >> with ron holthaus, a local man, married physical therapist. >> she started working with him and getting to know him and she really did call it a true love moment. >> did he feel the same way about her? >> they really clicked together. >> stephanie was dancing on air. >> she didn't realize there could be love like that. >> a secret from her family, of course. but she told her friends she found her soulmate. >> it was almost odd how she told a number of us that, i just want you to know that i'm very happy. >> but joy and missouri come in pairs, sometimes. as thanksgiving approached, chaos took over what had been a well ordered life. it was a wednesday middle of october when things started piling up. >> horrendous day for her, the. >> he? cause >> she went to work that day and the county laid off 25 people. >> including stephanie. stephanie's troubles and her secrets seem to pile up like the snow. >> she was behaving a little strangely. >> a little unpredictable? >> yes. >> it was thanksgiving week, that cold, dark night. we are not far away from peaceful silver thorn, someone robbed a bank. a very rare thing here. bill was in bed, he said, when stephanie announced that she was going out to clear head. and then didn't come back. the morning, gayle called the silver thorn police. >> i want made a report that -- my wife is missing. >> it was a records that veronica we nicholas took the call. >> he said i got ready ready for school, we've got him ready on the bus, and then i thought i should call you guys. >> stephanie's car was in the driveway and when he called her phone it went straight to voice mail. veronica called stephanie's best friend, jennifer. >> i panicked, this is something that happens to other people, not to you. >> oh but it had happened. as the silver thorn police checked local hospitals, they scoured the neighborhood. >> it seems unbelievable that stephanie had not checked. >> the day became two, and three. and some private secrets were about to become very public indeed. >> where was stephanie? police had a lot of questions for her husband dale, they also wanted to talk to that other man in her life. her boyfriend, ron. coming up. >> i just want to ask straight-up again, not accusing you, do you know where stephanie is right now? >> when dateline continues. ♪) but this is my story. 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(carolers) ♪ we tried to tell him but he paid us a lot... ♪ (husband) it was a lot... ♪ mhmmm ♪ (vo) this holiday turn any iphone, in any condition, into a new iphone 15 pro with titanium, apple tv 4k, and six months of apple one. all three on us. it's holiday everyday with verizon. >> all night, the bitter cold, keith morrison: all night, the bitter cold pried at the windows and licked under the door cried at the windows and looked under the door frames here at the bruner house and silver thorn colorado. certainly not a night to take a walk. and had she heard or suffer did someone else heard her? it was not like stephanie bruner to disappear. >> it seemed more likely that it would be a stranger involved or stephanie herself might have just runoff in despair and maybe hurt herself. >> stephanie's friends and family poured over those last few weeks full of change, secrecy, in turmoil. were there clues? of course, some knew about stephanie's relationship with a new man and how upset she was about losing her job. still, she seemed to be holding the trouble at bay. six weeks before she disappeared, as dale recalled, she suggested a family holiday. >> she said let's go to glen wood springs for the weekend. a classical, wonderful place. >> and it was almost romantic, said dale. just like the old days. but when they came back, she gave him the news. >> she goes, i want to divorce. >> i said, you don't love me anymore? and she said i met this other person. it's not that i don't love you, but i think i have met my soulmate again. >> and just like that, dale's world came crashing down. >> i called her brother, i called her sister's, i called her mom. i said, do you know what's going on? do you know what's happening? >> he talked to her sister, ramona. >> i remember during the phone call feeling really annoyed, like why are you trying to sway me to your side? and then when the phone call and, it i thought, what is steph doing? >> he begged jennifer to say, with something. >> you have to talk some sense into her, you have to make or stay with me. >> did you know this was coming? >> no, not until she told me she was in love with somebody. >> hopelessly in love, she told him. that night she met -- >> i asked stephanie if i should've met with -- >> it was a curiously old-fashioned affair, apparently. stephanie told her friends her feelings were not so much physical as pure. and emotional. but she made it clear to dale that, even though she still loved him, she had no choice but to follow these powerful feelings. and make a life with that new man. >> i said if this is what you want, this is what you want. >> they would share the children, of course. dale the family house, stephanie in a rented condo. the weekend before she disappeared, he helped to move out. >> she asked me to help. isn't that what you do? i didn't follow out of love with her, i still loved her. >> and then, middle of the night, her very first night away. dale says he woke up to a commotion downstairs. it was stephanie. she crawled back into bed with him. >> she had come home. >> wow. >> she said this was all a horrible mistake and that she wanted to move back in. >> and i say, are you sure? she said don't worry everything is fine. >> but now, just two days later, things were not fine. not at all. stephanie was missing. and dale was down at the police department telling officers where he thought his wife might have gone. >> i thought she would go somewhere with her wi-fi, to be on the computer, and my other guest was to maybe she went to ron's house. i didn't know. >> the police interviewed the other man, of course. ron holthaus. >> i just want to ask straight-up again, not accusing you, do you know where stephanie is right now? >> i have no idea. >> ron admitted, he and stephanie had a romantic relationship but he denied the other slept together. >> we never ended up having sex. >> and ron told them something very interesting. that he had ended the affair. it was the night she moved into the condo, she took he told them. he said to stephanie, it was over. >> and i said i'm going to move to florida with my wife. we are going to try to go back to naples and make this work. >> do you have any reason to believe that anything bad may have happened to her? >> that would be my worst fear. >> thanksgiving day came, went, no stephanie. and overstretched local police force called the colorado bureau of investigations. greg saidar was the one who answered the call. he was soon at the river and start at what looked like a lump of snow and rocks. >> you could see the body underneath the snow. >> it was stephanie, hole right. but how did she end up here? the >> dateline returns after the break. learn more at ring.com. c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. learn more at ring.com. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with verizon or t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network. >> it was perplexing, almost, keith morrison: it was perplexing, almost, that a thing so awful could happen that a thing so awful could happen in the midst of such beauty. here in the frigid brushing water of the blue river three and a half days after she had disappeared, they found stephanie nude but for a tie-dye shirt clumped to her body. >> it was just a little bit further beyond that where the water gets calm that we located her. >> just around that second bend there? >> yes sir. >> she hadn't gone far. agent greg saidar -- >> how far from her house? >> off the top of my head, 350 yards. >> the new spread fast. >> today investigators say they have found a body -- >> it was a pretty bad day. >> your heart drops. let's find out what happened to her along with humongous sadness. >> the county corner brook out the news. >> basically we need to tell you something, and i'm like, what? and i just ended up in convulsions. >> but how did she get here? was it suicide, accident, or murder? there is a bridge just upstream from the place they found stephanie's body. dale told police she had often like to walk their. >> she could've been attacked on this bridge and shoved over. >> that was one of our early fears. >> or did she simply commit suicide, jumped in the water, head or head, and that was that. >> that was also another legitimate consideration. >> so that's the puzzle? >> it is. >> until, four days after thanksgiving when the autopsy revealed a curious detail. one that seemed to rule out suicide. >> there was no wounds at all to the soles of her feet. >> what did that mean? >> that certainly means that she did not walk to where we had found her without shoes. >> and just in case there was any lingering doubt, the autopsy also revealed she had taken a blow to the head, and then she had been strangled, but was still alive when she was thrown into the freezing water. the ultimate cause of death was hypothermia and drowning. >> we knew at that point she had been murdered. >> first murder and silver thorn and decades. but who would do such a thing? and why? it was just hours before stephanie took her walk in this virtually crime free cmuty that somebody robbed that nearby bank. so did the robber, later encounter stephanie and then assault and kill her? >> this is where predator could've been hiding out. any number of opportunities at that point. >> still, it was so cold, perhaps too cold, for a lurking predator. >> it is one of those few cases where it's a who done it, if you will. and you have at least three viable suspects. >> anyone of whom had potential motives? >> absolutely. >> it was fronds holthaus the other man who had suddenly dumped stephanie. there was stephanie, ron's wife, who, if she knew about the affair, could've wanted revenge. and then there was dale, dale bruner, the husband. and any one of them, felt the detective, was physically capable of committing the crime. >> her husband, six foot, 200 pound, very athletic guy. and mr. holthaus, a big strong guy. and his wife was a very physically fit woman. >> so she would be outgunned by any one of them? >> i would believe so, yes sir. >> they took ron in for questioning several times. and, again and again, he insisted it wasn't him. >> i screwed up my marriage. i made a mess of my life. >> he admitted that in the last hours of stephanie's life he met her here in this clothing store parking lot, around dinnertime. and it wasn't a happy meeting. >> i was actually telling tell her that it was over. >> he earlier sent her a brief break up email, he said. she insisted on seeing him in person. she was not taking it well at all. >> and then she said, ask me again one more time, but we can make it work. i said, no, we cannot make this work. >> she was still interested in having a relationship with him. >> and didn't want to let him go? >> correct. and i'm sure that he was motivated to not let his wife find out about that. >> which begged the question, where was ron holthaus later that evening when stephanie went for her walk? >> you're saying to me you are at home. you never went out on monday night. >> correct. >> the detective called in ron 's wife, cindy. >> it would not be unheard of for a woman to be very upset that her -- to find that her husband had been seeing another woman. and want to go to significant lengths by eliminating that temptation. >> her alibi? she was home, sleeping right next to ron. >> okay did you know -- do you know for sure if ron was in the house? did he leave at anytime that night on monday night? >> i can't tell sitting up looking at him all night. >> if he was gonna get up and leave would you have told? >> i would've. yes. >> their alibis where each other. detectives kept -- >> how much do you love your husband? >> i'm committed. >> would you do anything for him? >> within reason. would i lie for him? no. look because you know what? he made his bed, he's gotta lay in it. >> for almost a month, detectives went back and forth between ron and cindy and s