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Capital murder. and was sentenced to death. >> to hear the clerk of court say not only your guilty but you're sentenced to death, death, death sent chills up my spine literally. >> but tara's mother opposed the death penalty and asked that thomas' sentence be commuted to life in prison. in 2002 the virginia supreme court gave him life without parole. tara's family realizes that without science her case might never have been solved. >> it was the beginning we thought how in the world your going to solve a case like this and i don't think it would have ever been solved. if it wasn't the police f...

Helton provided to police, they now had enough evidence to get a warrant to search thomas' car. in the trunk they found a pair of sneakers with a herringbone tread pattern. transparencies of the treads were compared with the partial prints on the front of tara's shirt. >> we were able to say that the right shoe submitted by the police department could have made the two fragmentary foot wear impressions present on the shirt collected from the crime scene. >> also in thomas' car were three strands of blonde hair with the roots intact. >> forcibly removed hairs. this means they had a good chance ...

With a story of her own. >> there was a lady who was in her vehicle that had been stopped for a traffic violation, and she knew something about the case. >> i think i know who may have killed her. >> her name was barbara hilton and when she was with police, she told them something she had kept to herself for the past several weeks. she said she knew jeff thomas, and he had been staying at her house at the time of tara munsey's murder. on the night of the murder, thomas returned home visibly agitated. >> what happened? you're all muddy. >> he was dirty, he was muddy, he was upset and he told he...

At some point thomas dragged tara out of the car, shot her once in the chest and three times in the head, leaving his shoe impression on her t-shirt. he pushed her body down the ravine, then smoked a cigarette after ripping the filter off. >> you always break the filter off of cigarettes. >> it's just a habit. i've always done it. >> three of tara's hairs forcibly removed during the fight fell into his trunk as he was getting rid of the evidence. the rifle was never recovered. in march of 2001, jeff thomas was tried and convicted of