grid of the more than 3,000 stores a & a shipped to across the country. a block of dates when the ring might have been ordered, and cross matched that with the inscription. how long did that process take? it took me probably three days and two nights. reporter: does that seem a little over the top? i mean, you can look for an hour or so and say, i can t find it, sorry, and that would be that. i heard homicide. i heard it was important. reporter: and lo and behold, after three days of searching, suddenly, there it was. i got up from my chair and i said, bingo. i found it. i found it. reporter: any specifics about what you found out on that order form, where it was sent. do you remember that? it was wisconsin. i do know that. reporter: wait, wisconsin? not nebraska? actually, it was quite specific. the ring was sent to the town of beaver dam wisconsin to this walmart store. this is where a girl named cori bought the ring for a boy named ryan.
chance, this tiny piece of what seemed to be evidence showed up. police missed it the morning after the murder. one sharp-eyed cop just happened to notice it a couple of days later. it was this gold ring on the kitchen floor. i thought somebody took it off to wash their hands and fell down and they forgot about it. reporter: but at the time it could have belonged to the victim. it could have. reporter: except one thing people should know about the stock house, nothing was ever out of place. so one of the investigators picked up the ring, bagged it and tagged it as evidence. it was a size 10, a man s ring, bearing a message. the inscription said love always, corey and ryan. they wanted to find out who was a ryan and who was cori. reporter: who was cori and who was ryan? they asked the stocks children, nobody knew anybody by those names. didn t recognize the ring either. but as they were arrested and put in jail, one of kofoed s
however, she mentioned homicide. reporter: and that s when mary martino heard about the ring and the double homicide and the fact that nobody else at the company seemed able to help. she said she had made several attempts and no one was willing to assist her. reporter: so mary martino said she d see what she could do. certainly her company would have taken the order, made the ring, inscribed it love always, cori and ryan and shipped it, but where? mary went to the warehouse where tens of thousands of back orders were kept. so i started with just box number one, stores 1 through 25. then box number two, stores 25 through 30. reporter: and you went through each one? yes. until i got to like 100 and i believe it was 108 or 118 and i said, this is going to be impossible. reporter: so mary asked for help. had a colleague make a computer
evidence was. reporter: then quite by chance, this tiny piece of what seemed to be evidence showed up. police missed it the morning after the murder. one sharp-eyed cop just happened to notice it a couple of days later. it was this gold ring on the kitchen floor. i thought somebody took it off to wash their hands and fell down and they forgot about it. reporter: but at the time it could have belonged to the victim. it could have. reporter: except one thing people should know about the stock house, nothing was ever out of place. so one of the investigators picked up the ring, bagged it and tagged it as evidence. it was a size 10, a man s ring, bearing a message. the inscription said love always, corey and ryan. they wanted to find out who was a ryan and who was cori. reporter: who was cori and who was ryan? they asked the stocks children, nobody knew anybody by those names. didn t recognize the ring either. but as they were arrested and
this is where a girl named cori bought the ring for a boy named ryan. but it wasn t love always, and the ring was soon gathering dust in the cab of ryan s red pickup truck. but then the strangest thing happened. the truck was reported stolen from here on ryan s farm just a few days before the murders of wayne and sharmon stock in far off nebraska. really nothing more than a standard missing vehicle. reporter: jim roarer was then a detective back in dodge county, wisconsin. when the call came in, it suggested some local joy ride, they d find it nearby. instead, what a surprise. our dispatch had received confirmation from a parish down in louisiana that they had the stolen truck. reporter: stolen in wisconsin and abandoned way down in louisiana. that s a long way to go. what did you think? a couple kids on a joy ride. somebody taking it that needed to get back down south for whatever reason.