Page 14 - Dave Mcmannis News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> "they're not gonna find her." >> "i'm going to kill you like i killed the girl in florida." "the girl i killed was 20." >> reporter: one witness testified about overhearing a conversation between barr and mcmannis. >> phillip barr was saying to david mcmannis, "i didn't want to kill her." and she overheard david mcmannis respond, "she had to die." >> reporter: not very believable, said the defense attorneys. just people making things up, said barr's lawyer, mark de sisto. >> we contended that those conversations never took place. >> reporter: some of those witnesses were inmates, too, snitc...

Had somebody that could put the case together, connect all of the dots. >> what requests did you make of them? >> we wanted to know more about every piece of evidence, every -- we have to rule out every piece of dna in that house. so it was closing doors, it was excluding other people. >> reporter: so, that's what these three did, as a large photo of tara kept watch. but, again, there was no dna to help them. all they had really were lingering suspicions about the workmen who went to tara's house the day she vanished. phil barr, the guy who owned the septic tank business, his helper that day, ...

Where you didn't know what we were gonna be able to get into court. >> the context was in there. you couldn't figure it out because it was a mess. >> the majority of it was in there, yes. we had to try to do the analysis on it, and that's what took so long. >> reporter: an awful lot of detective work amounts to reading. thousands of pages of reports and witness statements, and this and that all were followed up, everyone of them. detective mehl chased down a 2001 walmart receipt, a minor, forgettable purchase, except that the time stamp on the receipt cast doubt on philip barr's alibi didn't e...

The grand jury indicted both phil barr and dave mcmannis for tara's murder. they were arrested in late 2012, 11 years after tara vanished from her home. dave mcmannis was arrested in maryland, where he grew up, while u.s. marshals mounted a manhunt for phil barr. >> kinda lost track of him. we were actually then able to -- to locate phil in the vermont area, very close to the canadian border, where we think he had fled with the intent possibly of -- of leaving the country. >> reporter: but the case against the men needed more, and so the cold case team kept investigating. and in 2014, one of t...

They're separated now, but they attended both trials together. >> we started this together, we're gonna finish it together, no matter what. >> reporter: and after all that time? in each case, deliberations took less than 90 minutes. the verdicts: guilty. both men were sentenced to life in prison without parole. mcmannis has filed an appeal; barr lost his. >> i think everybody would agree that but for sharon, neither trial would've taken place. she fought and fought and fought for justice. >> reporter: tara's little sister veronica has two children of her own now. >> they know their aunt tara. ...