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>> this is scott rothstein, november 16th, monday, 1:43 p.m. >> reporter: he wore a wire and helped convict 26 people involved in his ponzi scheme. and despite his cooperation, in 2010, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. but one big question emerged, speculation about that woman in the firm who'd been killed. >> whether melissa knew about the ponzi scheme is one of those great mysteries. >> reporter: scott had started his ponzi scheme three years before melissa was murdered. >> is it time to take a fresh look at the whole melissa lewis murder? is there something more sinister? >> reporter...

Sterling silver ring, diamond earrings and a $5,000 watch. she also had an expensive prada handbag and an iphone. could very well be a target of some opportunistic grab and run. >> at the point we find her vehicle, we have no clues, no leads, and we don't have any suspects identified. >> reporter: police did find a tiny drop of melissa's blood in her car and on a tile in her house. but there were no fingerprints other than melissa's in either place. dna testing would take longer. now the question is, where's melissa? >> that's the million dollar question at this point. >> reporter: two days af...

Prosecutors were confident they had a solid case against tony villegas, but something happened that threw the whole investigation into freefall. that's because new crimes were about to be revealed. and new questions were about to be raised about who really killed melissa. and in the midst of it all, scott rothstein, like melissa, would disappear. >> coming up -- were melissa and scott rothstein's disappearances connected? >> we three kings be stealing the gold. >> the dark secret buried beneath all these rothstein riches. >> he said if i don't get this taken care of, somebody is going to put a...

Mad at melissa about this? >> yeah. he was mad about the whole situation. >> reporter: oh, and there was one more thing. remember melissa's jacket, the one found in her suv? tests showed tony's dna on the jacket. prosecutors believe tony wiped his nose with it after being pepper sprayed. >> odds of finding an unrelated individual with that profile are rarer than one in 30 billion. >> reporter: you couldn't have had better evidence if you had a movie of him killing her. >> right. >> reporter: the defense had been dealt a poor hand to play, but attorney bruce fleisher chipped away at each state ...

Ruled him out yet? >> not yet. >> reporter: with the list of possible suspects shrinking, detectives shifted their focus to something that might provide their first break in the case. with melissa's iphone missing, detectives put in an emergency request to the phone company to see if it could help track her cell. when he got the report, detective kendall couldn't believe what he saw. melissa's iphone had been active after the murder and someone had actually gone into her voicemail and played back messages, read texts. >> we try to make sense as to why he would want to do something like this. >...