Page 40 - Michael Beard News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Sit down. >> i keep doing it. i keep sitting down and getting back up. >> i say calm him down and say, "calm down. sit down. relax." and just tell him, "hey we just need you to stick around becau we have talk to you, try to find out what happened here." >> reporter: but to find out what happened, they'd have to go to another house where one of the county's top lawmen was about to perform one of the most difficult interviews of his career. >> it took me, personally, a long time to get to work through in my own mind. it stayed with me quite awhile. coming up -- a child witness. >> she observed...

I mean, the witnesses that see him at the poker game, we know where he was all night. >> reporter: that's not the end of the story, though. >> that is not the end of the story. >> reporter: not the end of the story because there was something investigators just couldn't get around, the daughter's story. her description of the killer, it was powerful evidence they couldn't ignore. and so just hours after the murder -- >> defendant was remanded in steuben county jail without bail. >> reporter: they arrested kelley's husband tom clayton and charged him with murder. >> reporter: how can you arrest...

Tom. >> even if he came forward and said, "i want to testify now," he had lied so many times. he had lied at his own trial. >> beard had changed his story so much at his own trial that he wouldn't have been a credible witness. >> reporter: tom and his lawyer pounced on that, telling reporters that beard acted on his own. >> this is purely mr. beard's doing, what we do know is that mr. clayton had nothing to do with the death of his wife. >> reporter: and tom's lawyer didn't stop at michael beard. he went after the investigators. he said they had tunnel vision when it came to his client. >> he ...

Investigation. >> reporter: and in fact, investigators never found evidence that tom paid beard for a hit. >> reporter: as far as tom clayton, there was no conversation overheard. there was no money exchanging hands. you couldn't even use the confession from michael beard. so, there were a lot of things you didn't have. >> right, but if you look at thomas clayton's conduct, he never mentioned michael beard. everybody says, "michael beard should be an immediate suspect." he never mentioned michael beard to the police. to me, that's -- there's a reason for that. >> reporter: as they prepared for...

Of information, something about a big payment beard was expecting to get from tom. $10,000. the investigators confronted beard. >> at that point, he was just defeated. i looked at him and said, "$10,000, is that why you killed kelley?" and he looked at me and said, "yes." >> this was your big moment? >> that was the -- that was the win. >> reporter: michael beard was arrested for murder. and tom, already in custody, was now accused of orchestrating the crime. but tom's newly-hired defense attorney wasn't having it. >> he wants to be reunited with his children. he frankly is grieving the loss o...