Page 4 - James Matlean News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Sent to prison on another offense. she pleaded guilty to using her teenage daughter brandy to sell prescription drugs. was she kind of employing you as her assistant in that business? >> i was driving, yes. >> reporter: dawn was released from prison in march of 2014, but not to be the mother of alyssa. the judge terminated her parental rights. both alyssa and brandy went to live with melissa, who offered them a kind of family life they didn't know with their biological mom. >> it is a family and that's what i need. >> reporter: one more thing to do. in 2011, having pleaded guilty to murder, ja...

Watching them. >> reporter: surveillance video show dawn with james and her two daughters, brandy, her 13-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and alyssa 7 by this time. that's right. a year into the investigation, little alyssa was back with her biological mom who had then the courts weaned her back there permanently. so there you are still trying to grieve the loss of ben, at the same time alyssa is being pulled back toward dawn? >> yeah. i lost both of them, truly. >> reporter: and, well, while the police were watching dawn, they were selling them that real suspect is melissa. she con...

>> james is not the type of boy who is going to go out and commit a murder in the hopes that dawn will find had acceptable. he didn't do this as a surprise gift. >> dawn herself declined our request for an interview. her mom, the retired deputy sheriff, has remained in her corn corner. >> i know that a lot of people believe that. that it was a blatant conspiracy on her part. but i don't think dawn really wanted ben dead. i don't think dawn was there. >> hold it all together. >> all the way along and even now. >> you got to understand, ben was a good guy. they had their problems. everybody love...

>> sorry. >> in exchange for his guilty plea, the d.a. agreed to recommend that james could be eligible for parole after serving 24 years. final decision up to the judge. defense attorney stover made the argument. and then melissa took the stand. >> emotionally the damage you have caused me is almost unbearable. for alyssa, you crumbled her foundation and everything she knew to be right and true. and as hard as this is to do or believe, i also want you to know that i have found it in my heart to forgive you. >> then james got his sentence. >> the murder charge, you're sentence today life in pr...

He didn't deserve to die. >> for the time being, it's a he said/she said story. the d.a.'s deal with dawn to the dismay of james mat vi an's attorney means she may never face a murder charge >> prosecutor made a deal with the devil. now we need to show how far she is. >> deal with the devil? the d.a. said, without dawn's testimony at the preliminary hearing, the murder charge against james would never have stuck. but dawn wasn't totally off the hook because there was one possibility still. if the d.a. could find hard evidence that dawn lied when she was given that get out of jail free deal for...