Page 7 - Dave Mcmannis News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The state, that first of october, 2001: tara's landlord asked barr for a repair estimate. barr and his helper, mcmannis, began their work-day by smoking crack. around noon, four hours before veronica arrived home from school, the men most likely knocked on the door and tara let them in, unaware they had robbery not work on their minds. >> dave mcmannis was taking the property while barr was distracting her in the bathroom. we believe she found out. she heard something or saw something that mr. mcmannis was doing, where he was in a place he shouldn't have been and she confronted him. and two pe...

I'd ever seen. >> reporter: the idea worked. 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 t...

Case that could be solved. if it had a new set of eyes, it 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 gu...

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 exactly wreck it, but it caught him in a significant lie. >> that's how detailed we were getting. >> reporter: but then they just happened to run into a guy who said he knew barr and mcmannis and peewee. >> and he overheard them talking about killing this girl. he heard david mcmannis say, "we shouldn't have done that girl that way. if i don't get out of town, i'm gonna spend the res...

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, dave mcmannis, and their buddy "peewee" st. john, but nothing in this huge trove of investigative material proved anything. >> kurt, we call him "the scribe." he organized it in -- in such a way that it was easier to understand. >>...