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i m craig melvin. and i m natalie morales. and this is dateline. i just collapsed. she s dead because she was my friend. first melissa disappeared. where s melissa? that s the million dollar question. i knew right then she absolutely never made it into her house. left behind in her garage signs of a struggle and a strange orange mist, then her boss went missing too. who is he afraid of am. he might have been afraid he s next. he left behind a bigger mess. we three kings be stealing the gold. a missing fortune. ballpark a billion, billion and a half dollars. a missing woman. we have know clue, no leads. some wonder was there a link? this had a twist to it. two crimes, one for money, one supposedly for love, and behind both, a lingering mystery. it s just so ugly and so wrong, and i can t fix it. welcome to dateline. hotshot florida attorney melissa lewis was living large in fort lauderdale dale, but then her seemingly charged life ....
bridget, she s gone. there was nothing believable about a perfectly healthy person having a catastrophic fall. this is not an accident. but again,. police close the case. and again, that followed. you get another phone call? it was just absolutely shocking. this one was devastating. this was absolutely devastating. a killer hunting members of a frightened family. and they re the only ones convinced that it israel. this isn t a curse. this isn t a fluke. we were right. we were right the whole time. it was a home filled with joy. holidays, family celebrations. this is where they all gathered. the home was a home of happiness. she s not breathing. doug until the house became the scene of one tragedy. then another. how could this happen twice? to one family? i couldn t reconcile. it and another. it s just, in the realm of the bizarre. how are we going to endure a third death? was the house cursed? it gives me chills when i thi ....
For twenty years, he d worked for florida east coast railways hauling freight. you know, he basically drove a train for a living. reporter: police checked him out on their computer. has he any priors? none. no priors. reporter: detectives went to talk to tony and recorded the conversation. how well did you do you know this your debra s debra s friend? melissa. i know her from her. i ve seen her a few times. you guys ever have any problems, maybe? something like that? never. never. i don t think i ever spoke to her more than two words. do you know if she s had anything to do with what you re going through right now with debra and the divorce? i don t know. and i really don t don t care. i mean i just that wouldn t bother you if she did? oh no. the thing is that i just want to get away from my wife. i just wanna be at peace. reporter: then they asked him the question. did you have anything to do with with melissa s death? no. reporter: but wh ....
Is this woman, melissa, killed because she knew too much? after we think we had this solid, buttoned-up case, we do have the whole scott rothstein ponzi scheme comes into play? reporter: the fbi combed through the detectives files looking into a melissa-rothstein-ponzi link. they spent a week going through every inch of that case to find out if there was a connection to scott rothstein. reporter: with all these messy complications, tony s defense attorney, bruce fleisher, thought about two words, reasonable doubt. a lot of people thought that because of the rothstein ponzi scheme, that he had something to do with the murder of melissa lewis. reporter: and debra villegas was back in the hot seat herself, being grilled by homicide detectives who bluntly asked her about scott, the ponzi scheme and melissa s murder. she had her lawyer with her this time. was melissa aware of anything that scott was involved with? and i m i m gonna use a term the ponzi scheme. no. repo ....
Police investigate whether the murder of a South Florida attorney is connected to a web of fraud, betrayal and more than $1 billion in missing money. ....