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i'm craig melvin. it had been a month since stephanie roller-bruner was bludgeoned, strangled and then drowned in a river, just yards from her house. investigators zeroed in on three people of interest. stephanie's boyfriend, ron, who just broke up with. her ron's wife, cindy. and stephanie's husband, dale bruner. and as detectives dug deeper into the bruner marriage, a grill-y secrets emerged that would put dale at the very top of the suspect list. here again is keith morrison with "secrets in the snow". >> it's horrible. i don't even know how to explain having a microscope go into your world. it's surreal. >> there are few secrets in a person's life that can escape the attention of a determined homicide effective. >> everything comes out.
>> didn't look like it. it was summer, 2011. nine months after stephanie's murder when it happened. >> i was coming back from one of my photo shoots and a little unmarked car with a like on flashed and a siren went. and they have gone strong on me. >> dale bruner was charged with second degree murder in the murder of his wife. he pleaded not guilty. posted bond. and was offered a plea deal by the da's office. why did you turn it down? >> because innocent people don't plea. >> besides, now, said dale, it was time to fight back.
>> no, we never had an argument. no argument it was just the facts were on the table. >> what were you guys talking about? >> we were just talking about us. >> within a few weeks of stephanie's murder, the state ramped up the pressure on dale. social services sent the bruner children to live with stephanie's brother in california. >> i'm in a fight with mike tyson with no gloves. and then they're taking my kids away, to? >> dale wasn't completely alone, mind you. some family stayed around. reported back to stephanie sister ramona that dale was truly grieving. >> we kept asking what is dale acting like? what is he saying? unless he some kind of actor that deserves some kind of oscar performance, this guy really seems distraught. >> stephanie's ryan, bill, even moved in for two months to help out. console dale. >> we were just trying to hold dale together. he was having a very difficult time. >> did anyone ever confront dale and say, come on, tell us what happened? >> looked every one of us in the eye and said i had nothing to do with it. i'm innocent. >> can you talk at all about why the investigators are fourth kissing on you? >> i hope they're investigating someone else.
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.
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.
forgotten how terrified she was. she told the story to her friend jennifer just before the murder. >> he strong-arm to her into a corner, choking her, threatening to hit her. he stopped short of hitting her, but he did. there was another time he threw her on the bed and put his knee on her pregnant by the belly. >> how often with this happen? >> you know, there may be three of those incidents. two or three. i don't know, of those incidents that she talked about. >> then there with leah achen, it lifelong friend of dale's. who told the court about dale's reaction when stephanie told him she was in love with another man. >> he just wanted her dad. maybe she would have a heart attack. get hit by a car. i kept telling him, to stop talking like that. >> but did dale really mean that? could he be truly violent? consider this woman, said the prosecutor. an ex girlfriend who dale passed.
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.
love of his life. in a fifth of blind. reach >> dale bruner, strangles her. believes that she's death. takes her to the river and dumps her. >> so, what did happen on the night of the murder? the prosecutor called a child to start the story. dale and stephanie's eldest daughter. the girl who walked into her parents bedroom around 9 pm. >> at ten years old, she can see what happened with specifics. >> out of the view of the media, she told the court she heard her parents arguing, not cuddling, as dale claimed. after which, remember dale claimed stephanie went for a walk to clear her head. in temperatures well below freezing? you've got to be kidding, said the prosecutor. >> his wife goes for a walk and
>> of course, dale and his attorney knew the prosecution would make a big deal with that restraining order stephanie took out after dale spanx of their son. but her decision to ask for that order, said dale, sprang from her own confusion. the affair, the chaos in her life. >> i believe she built a fake little world where i was the bad guy. >> but was stephanie ever worry that dale might get violent? hardly, said the defense. why else which he asked the judge to delay the order until after their little family holiday? >> the judge said, he'd never seen someone have a restraining order then have been say, well, don't enacted yet. not till next week. >> and why would she go away on a yoga retreat and decline this friends offer to babysit? >> can i take care of the kids? she said, no, they're fine with dale. >> and that's because she knew that dale was a threat to her. he wasn't a threat to those children. >> remember how the detective found the house unusually spotless two weeks after the murder? it was, it turned out, family
>> i remember during the phone call feeling really annoyed, like why are you trying to swim me to your side. and then when the phone call and, it i thought, what is staff 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 the 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.