Before Dawn

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Speaker 5 I finally got a hold of dad. I was like, what's going on? And he's like, Lisa's been shot.

Speaker 5 I held her hand and I just said, my Lisa, my Lisa.

Speaker 6 Everyone's like, do you want justice? Do you want revenge?

Speaker 7 I just want the truth.

Speaker 10 Lisa Tekel, newly married, pregnant.

Speaker 11 Starting the career of her dreams.

Speaker 6 She always put everybody before she put herself.

Speaker 12 Then one morning, a single gunshot blast rocked the newlywed's home.

Speaker 11 She's been shot! A young husband, out of his mind with grief.

Speaker 9 It was a tragedy.

Speaker 12 But for Lisa's dad, a sheriff's deputy, it was no mystery.

Speaker 13 He was sure he knew who the killer was.

Speaker 16 Go get him now.

Speaker 9 A neighbor with a gun and a grudge.

Speaker 6 I thought they better get to him before I do.

Speaker 13 But some said this couple was having trouble, that Seth had a secret.

Speaker 19 Did he tell you she sent me me some topless pictures?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 8 Others said the real murderer was someone else, right under cops' noses.

Speaker 22 Here's a legitimate suspect that should have been investigated.

Speaker 23 A case unfolding on camera, one that would test three juries, shatter two families.

Speaker 13 Just like somebody hit me in the stomach, and take one final twist.

Speaker 4 That was her biggest secret.

Speaker 11 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 8 Here's Dennis Murphy with Before Dawn.

Speaker 18 The cornfields of Iowa

Speaker 26 are a far piece from Memphis.

Speaker 27 But it was here in Otumwa, Iowa, a baby girl was named after a princess, Lisa Marie.

Speaker 27 Yep, that one.

Speaker 6 As a kid, I was pretty big into Elvis. I knew that my first daughter was going to be Lisa Marie because of Elvis, of course.

Speaker 17 Just as Todd Caldwell hoped, his little Lisa lived up to her big name.

Speaker 6 She was just the life of the party.

Speaker 34 Once she started talking, she hadn't shut up.

Speaker 35 They're divorced now, but Tracy and Todd Caldwell watched their girl grow up all but unstoppable.

Speaker 37 A vivacious, winning team.

Speaker 39 Bowling, Todd, we're not just talking about recreational Saturday night now.

Speaker 6 No, we're talking about the state champion bowler.

Speaker 6 Anything she did, she had to be the best at it.

Speaker 25 Oh, Lisa, look over here.

Speaker 28 Lisa was a teenager when her parents divorced.

Speaker 41 Todd remained an active father to Lisa and his three other children.

Speaker 37 All the while, he was working a stressful and dangerous job as a deputy in the Wapolo County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 45 He found comfort in several ways.

Speaker 46 One was his occasional hobby.

Speaker 48 He'd take out his sketchpad from time to time.

Speaker 50 And then he met and fell hard for a nurse named Amy.

Speaker 26 Before long, he was starting fatherhood all over again with twin daughters.

Speaker 53 This time he was getting lots of help from Lisa.

Speaker 31 She was the twins' default babysitter.

Speaker 6 She was more like a second mom to the twins than a big sister.

Speaker 5 She was just a caregiver to anybody.

Speaker 56 We had a very close relationship.

Speaker 5 Very. I would get into bed with her and we'd watch old episodes of the Golden Girls.

Speaker 58 That's a sweet relationship.

Speaker 5 And she always says that I was Dorothy because I'm such a grouch all the time.

Speaker 59 But

Speaker 5 yeah, that was my favorite time with Lisa.

Speaker 60 I'm so lucky.

Speaker 28 But stepmom Amy put on her enforcer hat when it came to Lisa's teenage romantic life.

Speaker 5 I wanted to know who the boyfriends were.

Speaker 4 I wanted to know who their parents were.

Speaker 5 I was the one that they had to pass the test with.

Speaker 17 The boyfriend who passed with flying colors was a kid named Seth Teckel.

Speaker 24 He came from a long-time local family.

Speaker 17 His grandfather had been the umpteen terms mayor of Ottumla.

Speaker 24 Mom was a social worker. Dad owned a local bowling alley.

Speaker 35 And the bowling alley was where Seth as a young teen began noticing Lisa.

Speaker 24 His dad was her high school coach, and Seth bowled almost but not quite as well as Lisa.

Speaker 35 The two worked part-time together at the lanes.

Speaker 17 They were becoming boyfriend-girlfriend, and that was fine with both their families.

Speaker 58 So you like this young girl?

Speaker 59 Oh, a lot.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 5 She was a part of our family.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 24 The Tecles were a church-going family, and Seth's mom, Lorraine, remembers how the boy's compassion for others shone on a relief mission to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

Speaker 5 He just stood and talked to these folks for hours and hours, and they just became very good friends. And I have a lot of memories like that of Seth.

Speaker 57 Helping people.

Speaker 4 Yep.

Speaker 64 And Lisa wanted to help people too.

Speaker 41 She followed her father into law enforcement, first as a reserve deputy in Todd's Sheriff's Department, and then as a jailer in a neighboring county.

Speaker 6 I told her that she would have my blessings if she wasn't just an average cop.

Speaker 6 I wanted her to be a really great cop because I didn't want to have to worry about you know her inefficiencies maybe endangering her life.

Speaker 62 After years of hearing patrons at the bowling alley joke about when the two of them were going to get married, Seth and Lisa made the inevitable official.

Speaker 19 How do you find out they're going to get hitched?

Speaker 6 Seth actually came to our house and met with us and asked us our permission to marry Lisa.

Speaker 32 Old school, old school.

Speaker 31 After dating for seven years, Seth and Lisa got married in October 2011.

Speaker 29 She was 22, he was 21.

Speaker 6 I just told him that no matter what he did, to take care of her and protect her, and he said, he said he would.

Speaker 17 Lisa's sister, another Elvis namesake, Presley, got much more than a brother-in-law with Seth.

Speaker 5 He was my best friend. I mean, he was just kind of that other person that I could always go to.

Speaker 6 He called me dad. We told each other we loved each other.
We hugged every time we left each other. I mean, I felt as close to him as I did my son.

Speaker 24 For Lisa, it wasn't just gaining a husband. It was having all his buddies come along too.

Speaker 4 A package deal.

Speaker 49 So how did Lisa put up with you guys?

Speaker 68 She was kind of interested in the same things that all of us were. Like she liked to go fishing, she liked to go hunting, she liked to shoot guns.

Speaker 58 Was she okay?

Speaker 32 Better than Seth.

Speaker 56 Sounds like you guys all would have been happy if she were your girlfriend.

Speaker 68 Seth was lucky.

Speaker 65 Lucky for sure.

Speaker 53 But Seth knew it was time to settle down and get a real job.

Speaker 31 Like Lisa, he was drawn to uniformed service.

Speaker 28 He'd signed on as a volunteer firefighter and drew a paycheck as a security guard.

Speaker 66 But his father-in-law, Todd, was helping him get a higher rung on the ladder with a soon-to-start job as a jailer for the sheriffs.

Speaker 5 They were very close. Todd was a big influence on Seth.
That's why I think he went into law enforcement.

Speaker 61 A new job, a young marriage, and now more changes for Seth.

Speaker 28 He was going to be a father.

Speaker 61 They'd picked a name for the unborn girl, Zoe Maria.

Speaker 54 In May 2012, they were halfway through the pregnancy.

Speaker 35 Seth and Lisa, a baby on the way, were starting out their married life in this humble little trailer.

Speaker 39 It was a gift from his dad perched on just a beautiful piece of property.

Speaker 30 It was a kind of starter home while they saved some money for the future. The only apparent cloud in the picture was an escalating feud with an across-the-fence neighbor here.

Speaker 58 There was bad blood.

Speaker 74 It happened at five in the morning.

Speaker 66 A sudden, horrifying sound that shattered two young lives.

Speaker 63 Saturday, May 26, 2012, Memorial Day weekend.

Speaker 16 She's not pregnant. Does she have any medical problems? She's been shot.

Speaker 4 A shotgun blast had ended all the plans of Mr.

Speaker 24 and Mrs. Seth Techle.

Speaker 9 Newlywed, mom-to-be, and now out of the blue, victim of a violent attack, who would want to hurt Lisa?

Speaker 9 When we returned, deputies raced to the scene where the shooter could be lurking anywhere.

Speaker 19 You didn't know somebody could have winged a shot at you.

Speaker 69 Yeah, I mean, that was possible the whole time.

Speaker 77 It was the end of a long overnight shift for Sheriff's Deputy Marty Wonderland, the only deputy on duty in Wapolo County, Iowa.

Speaker 47 All was quiet, and with the first hint of daybreak that Saturday morning, Marty relaxed and turned up the music in his cruiser.

Speaker 39 What's the ragged end of the ship for you?

Speaker 57 Yeah, I'm taking my last little loop around the county and gonna watch the sun come up and go home and go to bed.

Speaker 28 That plan came to an abrupt end around 5:30 a.m.

Speaker 66 when Seth Techle made a desperate 911 call from his house. I've been shot! I'm gonna fing out and get ready for work, and I had a gunshot.

Speaker 45 Dispatch relayed the message to Marty Wonderland.

Speaker 26 The young deputy had never gotten a call like this.

Speaker 78 Have a report of the ladies not breathing.

Speaker 78 I've now been advised ladies have been shot.

Speaker 8 Is your heart pounding a little? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 69 That's an understatement.

Speaker 28 With his car and his mind both doing 90, Marty raced to the house in under 10 minutes.

Speaker 82 He slowed along the rise of the gravel country road and stopped in the driveway.

Speaker 28 He had no idea what he'd be facing.

Speaker 40 His dashboard camera captured the scene as he approached the house.

Speaker 39 Here's how you get in the trailer.

Speaker 56 What do you see right about here?

Speaker 69 You can see Seth Techle up on the porch.

Speaker 57 He's wearing cargo shorts and a belt and you just bent over.

Speaker 8 You know, what's he doing?

Speaker 69 Sounds like he's crying, just sobbing.

Speaker 38 The toughest call of Marty's career was suddenly so much more complicated.

Speaker 46 He knew the grieving husband on the porch, considered him a friend, knew his wife, Lisa, too.

Speaker 29 And her father, Todd, was a respected fellow deputy.

Speaker 28 The unfolding tragedy had just become very personal.

Speaker 58 Deputy, how do you set your brain in compartments where you got to be very professional?

Speaker 88 This is the first time you've had major crime. And yet, it's also people you know.

Speaker 32 It's tough.

Speaker 56 Were you scared? It's okay if you were.

Speaker 69 Yeah, definitely was scared, you know, concerned about a lot of different things.

Speaker 19 You didn't know somebody could have winged a shot at you.

Speaker 69 Yeah, I mean, that was possible the whole time.

Speaker 89 As the only cop at a dangerous, chaotic scene, the possibility of a live shooter still on the grounds, Marty's adrenaline was pumping.

Speaker 27 When he entered the trailer, a paramedic was attending to Lisa.

Speaker 46 She was lying in her bed.

Speaker 90 It didn't look good.

Speaker 31 Marty's only thought was to help her, but he had to secure his rifle, so he ran back to his cruiser to lock it up.

Speaker 69 I got on my radio, and I think I told Dispatch, get 58 out here. Call 58, I don't get off it.

Speaker 72 Badge 58 meant Deputy Todd Caldwell, Lisa's father.

Speaker 56 In hindsight, I wish I wouldn't have done that.

Speaker 8 I wish I would have.

Speaker 69 Well, because I saw a lot of things that morning, and now because of me, because of asking him to, you know, come out there, he's going to... have to live with some of those same images that I do now.

Speaker 91 Todd Caldwell was asleep, but his cell phone was plugged in next to the bed, always ready for a middle-of-the-night emergency call.

Speaker 6 We get a call from a dispatcher who I've known for 20 years, and I can tell that his voice is different.

Speaker 6 And from what I remember, he just said, you know, you need to get out to Lisa's house. She's been shy and isn't breathing.

Speaker 28 Todd's wife, Amy, bolted out of bed.

Speaker 54 Her stepdaughter, her best friend, needed her.

Speaker 5 I kind of left him behind. I didn't put shoes on, didn't put socks on.
I went in my pajamas and drove 90 miles an hour. You know, I'm an ER nurse.
I'm thinking.

Speaker 39 And you're sort of in nurse mode here, too.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm thinking, well, you know, maybe if I get there fast enough,

Speaker 5 there will be something I can do.

Speaker 46 Todd raced behind in a separate vehicle.

Speaker 6 I just repeated over and over, you know, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I just remember that's all I could think and say is, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

Speaker 7 At the scene, Deputy Wonderland ran back to the house and did what he could to help the EMT.

Speaker 69 Started giving Lisa CPR so the paramedic could, I think he was getting like a defibrillator ready.

Speaker 85 But it felt like forever, you know, and I'm asking him, you know, you want me to do CPR still?

Speaker 69 He told me not to.

Speaker 31 There was nothing more to do.

Speaker 50 She was gone, along with her unborn daughter.

Speaker 21 Lisa Marie Techl was just 23 years old.

Speaker 5 I ran in there and you could tell that she was gone.

Speaker 19 So you went into the the bedroom, you saw her.

Speaker 19 Did you tend to her?

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 I held her hand and

Speaker 5 I rubbed her belly and I just said, my Lisa, my Lisa.

Speaker 19 Todd, did you go into the house? I hope not.

Speaker 59 Yeah, I did.

Speaker 6 I went in there and

Speaker 6 I seen her lay in there and I seen the amount of blood that was on the bed and I knew

Speaker 6 from my experience that that was too much blood to sustain life. When I listen to like the tape recording of it, I hear myself bellowing.

Speaker 6 I don't know how to describe it, but I don't even remember doing that.

Speaker 96 It was a heartbreaking scene, but Deputy Marty Wonderland had a job to do.

Speaker 19 End of your shift, your first homicide, so

Speaker 76 you're in the barrel here.

Speaker 84 Gotta start working it.

Speaker 51 There was an immediate lead from of all people Todd Caldwell.

Speaker 46 The veteran cop who had just seen his precious daughter lying dead in a pool of blood said he knew who the shooter was.

Speaker 28 And in a voice filled with rage, he told his fellow deputies to take the suspect down.

Speaker 28 Go get him. Go get him now.

Speaker 99 Coming up.

Speaker 13 Who was Todd Caldwell talking about?

Speaker 12 Turns out there was someone in Seth and Lisa's life who had everybody worried.

Speaker 5 Things were escalating. They were fearful.
I was fearful.

Speaker 15 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 46 Lisa Teckel was dead, murdered in her own bed.

Speaker 89 Her distraught husband, Seth, was outside, shirtless and barefoot.

Speaker 47 When Lisa's little sister Presley arrived, all she could do was try to comfort him.

Speaker 5 By the time I got there, they had stuff taped off. And I went up and I just gave Seth like the longest, seemed like the longest hug ever.

Speaker 56 Your best friend. Yep.

Speaker 72 Seth was inconsolable and acting out.

Speaker 5 I went over to him when I first got there and I tried hugging him. He pushed me away.

Speaker 5 He punched his truck and I said, you know, don't do that, Seth. You know, let me see your hand.

Speaker 67 Todd offered to take Seth back to his house, but Doug Teckel knew this was a moment his son should be with him.

Speaker 60 It was just bad. I mean, he was sobbing and we just hugged and cried.

Speaker 48 Marty Wonderland, working his first homicide, was the first deputy to speak to Seth.

Speaker 4 How's that go?

Speaker 85 You know, I ask him what happened.

Speaker 16 I came running out. I looked in the bench.
I was just laying there.

Speaker 29 Through the overwrought husband's sobbing, a story started to emerge.

Speaker 57 He basically tells me that he was in the shower getting ready to go to work and he hears a gun go off.

Speaker 16 I ripped over the fing shower.

Speaker 16 I grabbed my tail and I came out.

Speaker 16 I didn't see anybody down the hallway.

Speaker 58 So there's been some sort of an intruder.

Speaker 69 Yeah, that's what he's telling me. That someone came in while he was in the shower, shot Lisa, and ran away before he could catch him.

Speaker 6 We'll figure it out, bud. I can't f ⁇ .

Speaker 15 We'll figure it out.

Speaker 67 Lisa's father, Todd, thought he'd figured it out and already had a suspect.

Speaker 67 Go get him. Go get him.
Now.

Speaker 26 Todd's rage was directed at the neighbor on the other side of the fence topped with barbed wire, a 56-year-old disabled Army veteran named Brian Tate.

Speaker 6 I just remember saying, go get him, go get him now, and I thought they better get to him before I do.

Speaker 31 Brian Tate had been embroiled in an escalating feud with his neighbors, Lisa and Seth. Todd knew all about it and was certain his daughter was now dead because of it.

Speaker 19 This is this culmination of bad blood that's been going on for a month's time or more now.

Speaker 61 It started about two months before the murder.

Speaker 79 Seth pulled a dead deer off the road along the property line.

Speaker 67 Brian Tate later tossed the hide onto Seth's property.

Speaker 54 Seth tossed it back, and the battle was on.

Speaker 82 Tate made several calls to the county complaining about nasty acts of vandalism.

Speaker 28 Todd Caldwell responded to one in April, and Tate pointed the finger at his young neighbor.

Speaker 16 I can't forbid for Date. Seth, Seth, tackle.
Seth Tackle.

Speaker 16 Tackle. Tackle.
Yeah, his dad owns Champion Bowl. Okay.
And

Speaker 16 I just, they're good people. Well, they really are.

Speaker 19 Now, this guy, Brian Tate, does he know that you're the father-in-law of the neighbor?

Speaker 6 No, and I don't want to tell him that because I don't want that to affect maybe what he does or doesn't do.

Speaker 19 And he thinks that's the source of his trouble.

Speaker 59 Right.

Speaker 58 Those people over in the trailer property across the way.

Speaker 76 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Well, if you can, let us deal with it.

Speaker 16 You know,

Speaker 16 what if I'm the one that's got a catcher?

Speaker 82 Brian Tate told Todd that dog feces and rocks had been hurled at his home.

Speaker 46 He then showed Todd the evidence.

Speaker 31 He described the vandalism of his home in stark terms.

Speaker 6 He says he thinks these are acts of terrorism. And, you know, kind of a bell goes off, like terrorism is kind of a weird word to use.
And the whole time,

Speaker 6 half the time, I guess, he's sitting there,

Speaker 6 I notice a shotgun laying on the ground.

Speaker 6 You know, and I'm like, oh, that makes me feel like a little bit more. That made a little twitchy.

Speaker 20 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 31 So twitchy that Todd sent a heads-up email warning fellow deputies about Tate, that he might be dangerous.

Speaker 6 I'm thinking, I don't want to be the reason the deputy goes out there and gets hurt. Okay, if you go out there, be careful.
Tate might be 1096, which means mentally, you know, challenged.

Speaker 28 In fact, Tate did have a history of mental illness.

Speaker 46 He'd been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Speaker 31 Seth's mother, Lorraine, a social worker used to dealing with mental patients, was worried and talked to both Seth and Lisa about their neighbor.

Speaker 5 She was terrified. This was when things were escalating.
They thought that they could, you know, handle whatever,

Speaker 5 but they were fearful. I was fearful.

Speaker 26 On May 15th, just 11 days before Lisa was killed, an agitated Tate made another call, complaining that the vandalism, the terrorism, was getting worse.

Speaker 64 Todd responded again, this time accompanied by fellow deputy Don Phillips.

Speaker 57 I'm trying to have a conversation with you, you know.

Speaker 51 I don't want to be yelled at either.

Speaker 57 Well, Well, I'm trying to have a conversation with you and I don't understand why you walked off.

Speaker 16 I'm not a senior voice, Tapp.

Speaker 25 You're right, I am. But I'm wondering.

Speaker 57 Because you're not listening.

Speaker 58 Did you think he was a risk?

Speaker 19 That this is a guy who was capable of flipping out?

Speaker 6 I did.

Speaker 59 I did.

Speaker 31 And now Lisa was dead, and the trailer was a crime scene.

Speaker 61 Marty Wundel, and the first deputy at the scene, already knew all about Brian Tate and had zeroed in on him as his candidate for prime suspect.

Speaker 58 So all the direction is heading across the fence to this guy whose name is Brian Tate.

Speaker 4 It is.

Speaker 71 And police decided it was time to pay a visit to Tate.

Speaker 26 They armored up and got out their long guns, not knowing what their suspect might do.

Speaker 69 If you're ballsy enough to break into a house and shoot Lisa and

Speaker 69 make it back out, you're ballsy enough to do just about anything.

Speaker 99 Coming up,

Speaker 11 cops confront their man.

Speaker 85 I had my rifle out, locked, and loaded.

Speaker 73 On the main street of tiny Agency, Iowa, bad news traveled fast.

Speaker 91 A pregnant woman was dead and a gunman was on the loose.

Speaker 42 Just as quickly, fear took to roost.

Speaker 105 The 23-year-old Reserve Sheriff's deputy was shot and killed at her home in the town of Agency. She was five months pregnant.

Speaker 86 Lisa's murder was the first in the farm town in 15 years.

Speaker 31 Deputy Don Phillips, seen here unspooling crime scene tape, had a personal stake in cracking the case.

Speaker 48 Lisa's dad is one of his best friends.

Speaker 95 Todd and I began the same year at the sheriff's office together. I'd watched Lisa grow up.
I just... reassured him that we'll figure this out.

Speaker 20 We'll find out who did this.

Speaker 39 So whatever's happened here is really within your family.

Speaker 58 The law enforcement family in the county.

Speaker 19 Correct. We're a small sheriff's office.

Speaker 95 We know everybody. We know each other's kids and extended families.

Speaker 64 And they also knew something about that guy next door, Brian Tate. Ever since the first deputies arrived at Sunrise, they'd been peeking across the barbed wire.

Speaker 31 Just how dangerous was this fussing neighbor?

Speaker 64 Were they another shotgun blast away from finding out?

Speaker 31 At one that afternoon, eight hours after Lisa was shot, Deputy Phillips and a team of investigators were ready to confront the neighbor.

Speaker 88 So the decision is made, we got to talk to Brian Tate.

Speaker 95 Yes, he was definitely a person of interest that we need to go talk to.

Speaker 33 Did you put your body armor on?

Speaker 6 Yes, I did.

Speaker 4 Marty Wunderland did too.

Speaker 24 He was preparing for anything, even a shootout.

Speaker 69 We got strapped up.

Speaker 57 We're all ready, ready for business.

Speaker 28 Marty was in the backup car while Deputy Phillips and a partner drew line of fire detail, approaching Brian Tate for an interview.

Speaker 69 He's our prime suspect. It's very possible in all of our minds that he just shot and killed Lisa.

Speaker 33 As the Phillips team walked slowly up to the Tate house, Marty and the chief deputy provided cover in the driveway.

Speaker 57 I had my rifle out, locked, and loaded, had the red dot turned on.

Speaker 69 If things popped off, we were ready.

Speaker 17 Nerves screaming, everyone was poised for battle.

Speaker 24 Everyone but, it turned out, Brian Tate.

Speaker 4 He wasn't armed or belligerent. They could all exhale.

Speaker 95 As we walked up there, he was accommodating, got some chairs out for us.

Speaker 24 This Brian Tate, huh? Brian.

Speaker 95 Brian did, and we sat down in his

Speaker 19 front yard.

Speaker 35 In the front yard, in lawn chairs, his mother and brother by his side, no shotgun in sight.

Speaker 24 So the cops turned on a recorder and started asking questions.

Speaker 56 So you asked him 5 a.m., where were you, huh?

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 26 He said he was in bed in his basement bedroom, sleeping off a higher dose of medication for his schizophrenia.

Speaker 107 I went to bed about 8.30.

Speaker 108 Right after I did, I did.

Speaker 107 Yeah, after mom did. Fell right asleep, didn't hear nothing, didn't get up till 11.

Speaker 62 He said he was still asleep when the shooting must have happened before dawn.

Speaker 8 Tate's mother corroborated his 15-hour sleep alibi, though the cops knew full well that mothers can often be biased witnesses.

Speaker 85 Did you hear anything in the middle of the night last night?

Speaker 107 I was in bed, and normally I would have been up doing guard duty with all this shit that happened, but I'm schizophrenic paranoid.

Speaker 4 Guard duty. The ex-military man called himself a sergeant major and walked the picket on his property line.

Speaker 17 Vigilant ever since his property had been littered with dog feces, his barn pelted with rocks.

Speaker 24 Deputy Don Phillips knew all about the vandalism complaint Tate had filed.

Speaker 35 He and Todd Caldwell were the deputies who'd responded to Tate's house just 11 days earlier. They downplayed his complaints then and thought he was a crank off his his meds.

Speaker 77 You said earlier, Brian, that you'd sit outside here

Speaker 101 at night, yeah. When's the last time you did that?

Speaker 107 It's been a good week or so.

Speaker 107 They don't want me to do guard duty anymore. They want me to get sleep, take more medications.

Speaker 109 You were such a calm, quiet guy until this vandalism started, and then you're just like a different person.

Speaker 107 I was Mr. Nice Guy for a long time.
It done me no good. People took advantage of me, so I'm kind of taking a different approach to life right now.
Being more serious and more not such a nice guy.

Speaker 45 After venting about the vandalism, the 40-minute interview was over.

Speaker 46 But investigators weren't done.

Speaker 21 They'd be back to question Tate again.

Speaker 19 So what did you think you had when you got back in your vehicle?

Speaker 57 We still had a whodone in our mind.

Speaker 35 But Lisa's stepmom and sister had no doubts whatsoever.

Speaker 4 I thought it was Brian Tate.

Speaker 46 But investigators knew they still had to talk talk to the husband.

Speaker 37 When agents scheduled an official interview with Seth for that same day, it didn't sit well with Amy.

Speaker 5 Is this how you always treat grieving husbands?

Speaker 59 And

Speaker 5 I started crying.

Speaker 5 They're thinking they're being so mean to him.

Speaker 6 And we kind of got in an argument because I'm like, they have to do that.

Speaker 61 Would-be cop Seth Techle agreed completely.

Speaker 83 He knew the spouse had to be ruled out.

Speaker 112 He said he was eager to get crossed off the suspect list as soon as possible.

Speaker 45 So he went downtown and instructed his parents, no lawyers.

Speaker 60 Now I remembered saying, Do we need to go get a lawyer?

Speaker 6 He was adamant.

Speaker 5 He said, No, he said, I didn't do anything.

Speaker 8 He said,

Speaker 4 I have nothing to hide.

Speaker 60 Yeah, I don't need a lawyer.

Speaker 18 Was that a mistake?

Speaker 91 Seth had told his story to one familiar face after another at the scene, but now he'd be talking to an elite state interrogator.

Speaker 31 And the tone of the investigation was about to change.

Speaker 11 Coming up, deputies learn that Seth may be hiding something.

Speaker 68 I told them that Seth had a track phone.

Speaker 58 So kind of a secret phone, huh?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 15 When dateline continues.

Speaker 53 Todd and Amy returned home, destroyed, and the longest day of their lives wasn't even half over.

Speaker 6 My remaining kids. I know they were going to be horrified, and I don't even think about myself at that point.

Speaker 37 But Todd was thinking about the son-in-law he loved like his own boy.

Speaker 28 Seth had agreed to go downtown for a formal interview without a lawyer.

Speaker 31 By now, the county deputies had called in state agents from the DCI, Iowa's Division of Criminal Investigation. It became a shared investigation.

Speaker 31 The DCI providing forensic resources and expertise, the deputies offering local knowledge and manpower.

Speaker 46 DCI's Tony Birmingham was lead agent. He handpicked fellow agent Chris Thomas to interview Seth.

Speaker 113 There was no doubt in my mind that Chris was the person that needed to do that interview.

Speaker 114 We only get one shot at it, and we have to be prepared for this to be just information collecting, or we have to be prepared that this could be our suspect.

Speaker 47 So only eight hours after his pregnant wife was murdered, Seth's formal interview with DCI Agent Thomas got underway.

Speaker 31 In the interview room, Agent Thomas was in the white shirt, back to the camera.

Speaker 91 To put Seth more at ease, a deputy familiar to him sat in.

Speaker 16 Good job.

Speaker 98 It started routinely.

Speaker 16 Currently, I work at Job Corps, national security, but

Speaker 16 actually, I just wanted to

Speaker 16 work here in jail.

Speaker 31 Seth had already given his account twice to deputies at the scene, but this would be his first time on videotape.

Speaker 19 His story begins somewhere around 5 a.m.

Speaker 115 Exactly.

Speaker 16 I turned the shower on. I wasn't in there for more than

Speaker 16 five minutes, and I heard this loud noise.

Speaker 102 He said he thought it might be a gunshot, so he jumped out of the shower to check on Lisa.

Speaker 64 He heard her moaning, then made out another sound coming from possibly the back deck.

Speaker 91 He said he grabbed his handgun from the nightstand by the bed.

Speaker 16 I run down the hallway, and I will be honest, I had every intention on shooting whoever it was. I don't see anybody, I don't hear nothing.

Speaker 16 I run back inside, I run into the bedroom, and I said, Lisa, Lisa, are you okay?

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 she's not breathing.

Speaker 102 During the interview, Seth sometimes seemed overcome by emotion.

Speaker 16 I could feel it. I could pretend that I was set to get away from her.
Why can't they still be alive?

Speaker 16 Why?

Speaker 16 Why couldn't I do something to protect the woman that I love?

Speaker 26 The agent asked Seth what he thought had happened.

Speaker 16 Let's go with your theory here that it was true to everybody. I mean, is that a fair colour? That's

Speaker 16 all I know.

Speaker 16 What do you think this person's intent was?

Speaker 16 I don't know. You have to be a complete jackass to walk into somebody's house and shoot them.

Speaker 26 Seth then bolstered the cops' leading theory of the crime so far, that the neighbor, Brian Tate, had shot Lisa.

Speaker 16 Who was the first person that came to your mind? Tate?

Speaker 16 My crazy-ass neighbor who thinks that we're a terrorist?

Speaker 31 Seth went into detail about that juvenile tit-for-tat dispute with Tate that started over a deer hide.

Speaker 118 He suspected Tate tossed it over the fence, so he said he responded in kind.

Speaker 16 I did the immature thing, which I admit, I threw it back on his his property.

Speaker 28 The dispute escalated for several weeks and intensified with the incident in which Tate claimed dog feces and rocks were thrown onto his property.

Speaker 67 That brought Seth's father-in-law, Deputy Todd Caldwell, out to Tate's house for that official visit over Tate's vandalism complaint.

Speaker 16 Todd said that Tate the whole time was sitting on his front porch and he was rubbing a loaded shotgun.

Speaker 46 Seth said he knew the tenor of the visit because Todd had filled him in later.

Speaker 55 His father-in-law also gave him a strong warning: Hey,

Speaker 16 if you're doing anything to his yard, knock it off. If your buddies are doing anything to his yard, knock it off.
Do not mess with this guy. He's off his rocker.

Speaker 16 He's gonna be the next person to shoot a cop. And I said,

Speaker 16 I'm not messing with him. I'll make sure nobody else is.

Speaker 91 The murder weapon hadn't been found, so the state agent asked Seth about the firearms he kept in the trailer.

Speaker 31 Maybe one of those had been used.

Speaker 16 Do you have any guns that are missing?

Speaker 114 I have a look. If one of those guns is used in the homicide, we want to know where it's at.

Speaker 6 Won't you agree?

Speaker 114 So I just asked him to write down the guns that are in his house. He writes them all down.

Speaker 28 Inevitably, the agent turned to the sharp-edged, intrusive questions that all husbands with a murdered wife have to answer.

Speaker 72 Wannabe cop that he was, Seth knew very well what was coming.

Speaker 16 I know I'm obviously probably number one right now. Let's talk about

Speaker 16 people that are in your lives and police's lives. Was there any extra marital affairs going on?

Speaker 18 Seth didn't hesitate.

Speaker 26 There were no other women.

Speaker 49 But out at the trailer, quite unexpectedly, someone was about to put the lie to that rosy marital picture.

Speaker 31 A good friend of Seth's named Colton had walked up to the crime scene tape at the drive.

Speaker 31 He told the deputies and agents there that he was looking to pick up his puppy that Seth had been boarding for him.

Speaker 118 The investigators began peppering the young friend for info about Seth and Lisa.

Speaker 112 A detail that tumbled out surprised them.

Speaker 56 What was the story you told him, Colton?

Speaker 68 I told him that Seth had a track phone.

Speaker 58 So kind of a secret phone, huh?

Speaker 59 Yeah.

Speaker 68 He had been talking to a girl.

Speaker 31 The investigators had no idea where this would lead.

Speaker 64 But the unexpected revelation that there might be a girlfriend in the mix meant that they had to to get on the horn with Agent Thomas downtown and Pronto.

Speaker 28 Seth was still in the interview chair, but he could walk at any moment.

Speaker 99 Coming up,

Speaker 76 more about Seth's secret phone.

Speaker 12 Seems it wasn't just for talking.

Speaker 19 Did he tell you she sent me some topless pictures? Yes. Did you see them?

Speaker 75 Yes.

Speaker 64 Seth Teckel had gone downtown voluntarily, but now his interview had dragged on for a couple of hours.

Speaker 112 His father grew concerned, so he called in a lawyer who said he would bring the questioning to a halt.

Speaker 60 And we had called the sheriff's office and said, We have a lawyer waiting to go see Seth.

Speaker 98 But inside the sheriff's interview room, Seth kept talking away.

Speaker 86 He was oblivious to the fact that the interrogator confronting him was getting real-time bulletins from the crime scene.

Speaker 114 I got a text.

Speaker 31 The text was from a fellow agent at the scene who had spoken to Seth's best friend, the guy with a puppy.

Speaker 114 And this person had told him a story about a girl named Rachel.

Speaker 49 But Agent Thomas held his fire at this point, in part because his information was still limited.

Speaker 66 Seth, however, likely could see the agent reading a text.

Speaker 55 The husband, Father DeBee, who had answered an emphatic no to the question about an affair, then made an admission, perhaps a preemptive strike.

Speaker 16 There is a female from work that I was texting.

Speaker 31 He said her name was Rachel McFarlane, but Seth immediately downplayed her importance.

Speaker 45 He said even Lisa knew about her.

Speaker 16 But I wasn't seeing her, it wasn't anything. It was just, hey, how was your day, type of thing? Wouldn't it be considered sexy? No, no, no, none of that.
Wouldn't even wear anything.

Speaker 16 No, it wasn't any of that. Lisa found out.

Speaker 16 Everything

Speaker 16 was coaching.

Speaker 16 I stopped talking, you know,

Speaker 16 we got over it. We have to be honest about her, okay?

Speaker 16 Anything that you haven't told us yet. No.
And then it's going to add up the way I just told you. Rachel's DNA won't be

Speaker 16 on your clothes or... I've never had

Speaker 16 sex with her. No, nothing oral, nothing like that.
I gave her hugs and

Speaker 16 I've kissed her.

Speaker 83 By now, Seth's father and attorney had arrived and were were trying desperately to end the interview.

Speaker 89 But it was after hours and the outside door was locked.

Speaker 19 Bang, bang, bang on the door, Doug. Is that you?

Speaker 56 That's me.

Speaker 60 That's me.

Speaker 5 They wouldn't stop.

Speaker 4 They didn't come out.

Speaker 27 They didn't have to.

Speaker 63 Remember, Seth was advised by Agent Thomas that he was free to leave any time.

Speaker 17 Everything was legal.

Speaker 74 Lead agent Birmingham, watching Seth on a monitor, simply ignored the commotion outside.

Speaker 113 I did get information that they were wanting to get in and wanting to come in and tell Seth to stop shutting you guys right down.

Speaker 113 Seth is an adult and he has the sole obligation to invoke his right to remain silent or his right to an attorney and no one stopped him from doing that.

Speaker 54 So Thomas kept asking questions and Seth kept answering them.

Speaker 16 She found out and that was

Speaker 16 that.

Speaker 46 Meanwhile, both DCI agents, Birmingham and Thomas, had now learned more complete details from the scene.

Speaker 54 From Seth's best friend, the guy with the puppy.

Speaker 31 The friend, Colton, had explained that Seth was using his special track phone as a steamy hotline.

Speaker 68 I know they were exchanging photos.

Speaker 19 Did he tell you she sent me some topless pictures? Yes. Did you see them? Yes.

Speaker 31 Armed with this information, Agent Thomas decided to show his cards and see what happened.

Speaker 16 We've talked to Colton. Did Colton know about you texting Rachel? Did you tell him about it? Yeah.
This is an ongoing investigation, and it's up to you to be honest.

Speaker 16 There's obviously more to this Rachel thing. She was under the impression that Lisa was going to be packing her stuff up and leaving.
Well, last night today.

Speaker 31 He said he'd talked to Rachel about him divorcing Lisa as recently as the night before at work.

Speaker 16 She just asked if I was going to go through with it, and I said, yeah.

Speaker 16 I mean, I shouldn't have lied, obviously.

Speaker 31 He admitted he liked Rachel's attention, but said he really was just stringing her along.

Speaker 16 We were having

Speaker 26 Lying to Rachel was wrong, he said, but he claimed that lying earlier in the interview was simply a way to spare his grieving father-in-law, Todd Caldwell, the embarrassment.

Speaker 16 This is something that I didn't want Todd to find out.

Speaker 80 The interview had been going on for close to four hours now, and Agent Birmingham was well aware that Seth's father and a lawyer wanted to shut it down.

Speaker 31 Agent Thomas then took a break, leaving Seth inside the room to stew.

Speaker 53 He met with Birmingham, and they decided he had to go nuclear.

Speaker 88 Be confrontational, because the clock is ticking, and if we're ever going to be tough, now is the time.

Speaker 114 Now is the time.

Speaker 16 Here's the deal, okay?

Speaker 16 Facts, right now, these case facts, show us you're responsible for killing your young wife. No.

Speaker 16 No,

Speaker 16 no.

Speaker 16 I can't kill my wife.

Speaker 16 I can't do it. What facts do you have that I killed her listen I've seen Rachel okay

Speaker 16 I know

Speaker 16 what I see when they see her because I see the same thing okay I'm telling you

Speaker 16 if I wanted to be with Rachel I would get a divorce I would not fing kill my wife over something that small you know what right now I guess I don't give a f what happens to me okay I know what happened I know what you're trying to do

Speaker 16 you're trying to get me upset and it's working. Congratulations.

Speaker 106 Upset at this hostile line of questioning, Seth said he'd had enough, got up, and strangely shook Thomas's hand.

Speaker 82 Thanks, sir.

Speaker 16 Appreciate it.

Speaker 67 And then he walked out.

Speaker 31 In the end, what did the investigators have?

Speaker 48 That Seth lied about sex?

Speaker 31 But was it even that? All he admitted to was making out with Rachel.

Speaker 28 And on the big question, he insisted over and over again that he did not kill Lisa.

Speaker 44 Even Agent Thomas expressed disappointment with the outcome of the marathon interview, nearly five hours long.

Speaker 88 Did you felt you'd come out of a 15-round fight?

Speaker 114 It was exhausting. Felt somewhat like a

Speaker 114 failure in some regards. Why?

Speaker 62 We didn't get the full confession.

Speaker 53 Maybe that's because Seth didn't do it.

Speaker 28 Agent Thomas just didn't know.

Speaker 54 But the women in the Caldwell family, without knowing any of Seth's admissions about Rachel, believe with 100% certainty that Seth did not kill Lisa, especially Lisa's sister and Seth's great friend, Presley.

Speaker 5 I was never thinking that Seth did it.

Speaker 92 Only Todd Caldwell was no longer a true believer.

Speaker 31 The cop in him questioned why Seth needed to lawyer up.

Speaker 31 His own investigative instincts also kicked in, though he'd asked his fellow deputies not to tell him anything until they were ready to make an arrest.

Speaker 31 And late on day one of the investigation, they weren't even close.

Speaker 113 I would say at 10 o'clock on Saturday night, May 26th, that neither Seth nor Brian Tate were completely eliminated as suspects.

Speaker 46 At that time, investigators were meeting at the Sheriff's Department Command Center to take stock.

Speaker 73 They knew they had a husband with a possible girlfriend and a maybe crazy neighbor with a vendetta.

Speaker 102 But they also learned by that night there was a missing shotgun.

Speaker 28 What did it all mean?

Speaker 13 Coming up, one piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Speaker 59 Boy, that was a huge development in that case.

Speaker 57 It was.

Speaker 13 And then, another round of heartbreak for Lisa's family.

Speaker 39 So this has got to be just more than your brain can absorb.

Speaker 5 Definitely.

Speaker 15 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 9 Returning to our story, Lisa Teckel, pregnant with her first child, has been killed by a shotgun blast.

Speaker 9 Investigators have quickly zeroed in on two suspects, Lisa's husband, who may have been involved with another woman, and a neighbor who had an ongoing beef with the couple.

Speaker 9 But Lisa's grieving family is only at the beginning of a long legal odyssey, starting with a bombshell arrest and leading up to an explosive secret revealed from beyond the grave.

Speaker 9 Here again, Dennis Murphy.

Speaker 124 It was Sunday, the morning after Lisa Teckel had been shot to death.

Speaker 117 But it wasn't a day of rest for the Techles and Caldwells.

Speaker 53 They had to discuss arrangements.

Speaker 19 One of the saddest words in the language is arrangements. We have to make arrangements.
It must have been unreal.

Speaker 31 Grief-stricken, Todd decided to stay home by himself while the rest of his family and the Techles met in a park.

Speaker 70 Seth was there, but under instructions from his lawyer not to speak about the case, he shared an emotional moment with Lisa's sisters and her mother, Tracy.

Speaker 34 The first thing, Seth grabbed the girls and hugged the girls and said, they think I did it. We all hugged Seth, you know, told him we loved him.

Speaker 42 When investigators finished their forensic work inside the trailer, Tracy, Seth, and his parents went out there to retrieve some of Lisa's things.

Speaker 13 It was very tough.

Speaker 60 I was just amazed the way it looked.

Speaker 58 Crime scene techs have been all over it, hadn't they?

Speaker 60 All over it. I guess I went into dad mode and tried to protect Seth a little bit, and I wanted to cover up the bed.
What was your thinking there? I just didn't want him to see the blood.

Speaker 19 How was your boy dealing with all this in these hours after?

Speaker 60 I think he was just

Speaker 123 shocked.

Speaker 48 That Sunday wasn't a day of rest for the men and women trying to solve the crime either.

Speaker 90 Investigators were focusing on the murder weapon and were working a lead on a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun.

Speaker 53 It belonged to Seth's friend, Lucas Howell, who'd been rooming with Seth and Lisa and had just moved out.

Speaker 37 We showed Lucas this photograph taken of Seth at his home.

Speaker 20 If you look in the upper right-hand corner, Lucas, there's the gun rack.

Speaker 56 Yep.

Speaker 19 Is your Mossberg in that rack?

Speaker 6 Yes, it's a middle one.

Speaker 37 Lucas talked to deputies about the gun on the day of the murder.

Speaker 59 I told them that I hadn't took it with me and it should be there.

Speaker 102 But his 12-gauge wasn't there when crime scene tech scoured the trailer.

Speaker 63 And cops knew another place it wasn't.

Speaker 54 On the list of guns kept at the house that Seth had written out for the DCI agent.

Speaker 31 Investigators felt certain the Mossberg was used to kill Lisa, but a big question remained.

Speaker 9 Where is it?

Speaker 95 That's what we want to know. Where is the gun?

Speaker 37 That same Sunday morning, a team began searching the big, beautiful piece of property where Seth and Lisa were starting married life and preparing to raise a family.

Speaker 64 Deputy Marty Wonderland, working his first ever homicide case, was back at the scene.

Speaker 58 Not too long into the Sunday morning search, over here by this big old tree, what do you hear?

Speaker 84 I hear, we've we've got it, you know, shotgun here, and they were going nuts.

Speaker 67 There was the mossberg in the tall grass about 20 yards from the back door of the trailer.

Speaker 88 Boy, that was a huge development in the case.

Speaker 57 It was.

Speaker 85 I think everyone's, you know, mood doubled or tripled when they found that gun.

Speaker 72 Ballistics would later match the mossberg with a slug that killed the pregnant Lisa.

Speaker 48 Investigators could fill in one big box on their checklist, murder weapon.

Speaker 66 Next, they worked on possible motives.

Speaker 26 Was it a neighbor with a vendetta or a husband lusting after another woman?

Speaker 80 State Agent Birmingham and Deputy Phillips decided to have a talk with Seth's work friend, Rachel.

Speaker 113 We interviewed her on Tuesday, May 29th.

Speaker 125 There's no tricks here. Someone has lost their life.
Two people have lost their life.

Speaker 54 Over the course of two hours, Birmingham and Phillips peeled back the layers of Rachel's relationship with Seth.

Speaker 113 They were having, you know, kind of an ongoing relationship.

Speaker 25 There are sexually explicit text messages.

Speaker 57 There are pictures, sexually explicit pictures sent back and forth.

Speaker 126 We kissed me, but it never led into anything else. He just used to tell me I love you.

Speaker 125 That's about it.

Speaker 17 It sounds like they were making out rather than having sex.

Speaker 59 Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 126 He always used to tell me how pretty I was and how he'd like to be with me. But I always made it clear that he's married and has a wife and he's having a baby and I don't wreck families.

Speaker 31 Rachel told the investigators that Seth she knew couldn't be a murderer.

Speaker 125 Would it surprise you?

Speaker 126 Honestly, yes, it would.

Speaker 106 But Seth was a suspect, and if he did fire that shotgun blast, that would place Rachel at the heart of a murderous love triangle.

Speaker 126 I think that's why I feel so guilty, because I don't want it to be because of me.

Speaker 38 The next day, deputies Phillips and Wonderland were back at the neighbor Brian Tate's house.

Speaker 89 This time, they asked him point blank about the murder of his neighbor.

Speaker 64 We're trying to figure this all out.

Speaker 16 Did he have anything to do with Tate to death? No, I'm not.

Speaker 31 Tate stuck to his alibi, home and asleep after taking his medication.

Speaker 90 Lead agent Birmingham thought he was telling the truth and crossed Brian Tate off his suspect list.

Speaker 56 So you only have one suspect at this point.

Speaker 57 Yeah, one suspect and only one suspect.

Speaker 28 That evening, Lisa's loved ones gathered at a funeral home for the visitation.

Speaker 46 The turnout was impressive and included many of Todd's friends in the sheriff's department.

Speaker 19 Your fellow officers are there, as they would be, you know, baking your ones' show respect.

Speaker 45 The mood inside was somber and uneasy.

Speaker 82 The Caldwells gathered near Lisa's coffin.

Speaker 67 The techles stayed in the back of the room.

Speaker 65 Seth was there.

Speaker 67 His sister-in-law, Presley, will never forget what happened next.

Speaker 5 He actually came up to me kind of in the middle of it. He gave me a big old hug and he said,

Speaker 69 you will always be my little sister and I love you.

Speaker 59 And I was like, I love you back.

Speaker 28 When the last visitor was gone, only the two families remained, still at opposite ends of the room.

Speaker 60 Then I saw the two DCI agents come in and sit down behind me, a couple rows behind Seth and I. I said, is this a

Speaker 60 personal

Speaker 60 visit or a professional?

Speaker 60 He says professional.

Speaker 21 Marty Wonderland was there.

Speaker 57 We asked Seth to, you know, come outside, and we did it quietly, I thought.

Speaker 83 And when they were outside, Deputy Wonderland carried out his orders.

Speaker 102 He arrested his friend, Seth Teckel.

Speaker 53 A fellow deputy put the cuffs on him.

Speaker 47 They releases cuffs, the ones she'd used as a reserve deputy.

Speaker 19 So this has got to be just more than your brain can absorb.

Speaker 5 Definitely.

Speaker 56 Yeah. Little sister, I'll I'll always love you.

Speaker 19 And now he's going downtown. He's about to be charged.

Speaker 5 Yep. I couldn't understand it.

Speaker 5 We wouldn't ever dream or ever understand that it could be him.

Speaker 31 Seth's dream was to drive a sheriff's car as a deputy.

Speaker 73 But now the wannabe cop was cuffed, riding in the backseat, and about to be charged with the murder of his wife.

Speaker 13 Coming up, Seth Teckle goes on trial. But before it even starts, the prosecution suffers a major blow.

Speaker 111 Bad for us, good for them. It's great for them.

Speaker 11 And then, a clue you haven't heard about could change everything.

Speaker 93 I believe it to be the most compelling piece of evidence in the whole case.

Speaker 64 For Lisa Teckel's family, it had been a heartbreaking, relentless week.

Speaker 31 Thursday didn't promise to be any better.

Speaker 46 Lisa's funeral was held at the first Lutheran church in Ottumwa.

Speaker 29 Seven months earlier, Todd Caldwell was at the very same church walking his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.

Speaker 44 Now he'd returned to lay her to rest.

Speaker 31 Lisa was buried in her jailer's uniform.

Speaker 112 A special detail of officers served as pallbearers.

Speaker 46 Law enforcement had come out to honor one of its own.

Speaker 6 Lisa would have thought, you know, this is all for me.

Speaker 20 I was so proud.

Speaker 34 I should have been able to be there and watch her become a mom.

Speaker 34 She was just a joy.

Speaker 39 Mothers shouldn't bury daughters.

Speaker 4 Never. Never.

Speaker 27 After the funeral, the Caldwell and Teckel families turned their attention to the upcoming murder trial of Seth Teckel.

Speaker 29 Lawyers started to plot strategy with the neighbor Brian Tate expected to be right in the thick of it.

Speaker 31 Tate's sister Sherry says he never could shake the feeling that the authorities would come after him.

Speaker 128 He still feels like they're saying he's a murderer. Brian had even seen in the paper that they were calling him a crazy and deranged neighbor.
It just devastated him.

Speaker 38 That summer, Brian Tate tumbled into a downward spiral and never recovered.

Speaker 112 He died in September 2012, just four months after Lisa's murder.

Speaker 8 The coroner would think it was heart.

Speaker 24 Yes. What's the family think it was?

Speaker 129 We think it was heart, a broken heart.

Speaker 31 And now prosecutors Andy Prosser and Scott Brown from the state's attorney general's office worried that a jury might think the deranged, deceased neighbor did it.

Speaker 26 Their plan had been to call Tate as a witness.

Speaker 111 On the theory that the devil you know is always better than the devil you don't, we wanted the jury to see Mr. Tate.

Speaker 37 But now with a trial date approaching, prosecutors had lost a key witness.

Speaker 111 Bad for us, good for them. It's great for them.

Speaker 45 The long-awaited murder murder trial of Seth Tekel was in hometown of Tumwa.

Speaker 94 Ready for the jury, gentlemen.

Speaker 19 February 2013. Can you see yourself going into the courthouse?

Speaker 6 Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 19 What do you two say to one another?

Speaker 5 We've got to stay strong.

Speaker 28 The Caldwells never wanted to believe Seth killed Lisa, but heading into trial, they were all now convinced that he did.

Speaker 41 Even Presley, once his staunchest supporter.

Speaker 5 There's really no other explanation for what has happened.

Speaker 130 When you left the Techl residence, who was there?

Speaker 82 Two prominent families, the Caldwells and Techles, once close in-laws, were now fiercely divided, camped on opposite sides of the courtroom.

Speaker 54 Seth had pleaded not guilty.

Speaker 5 I was like, just look at me, like I want to see kind of in your eyes how you're doing.

Speaker 5 But he doesn't look at you.

Speaker 6 She was like, my best friend.

Speaker 41 Prosecutors called to the stand their emotional trump car.

Speaker 26 Todd Caldwell remembered his Lisa.

Speaker 6 Like everyone would tell me how much Lisa and I are alike and I would just tell everybody that

Speaker 8 she's the best parts of me.

Speaker 67 The prosecution had the burden of proving the charges, first-degree murder and non-consensual termination of a pregnancy.

Speaker 24 What did you think your strongest fact was going forward?

Speaker 58 Strongest part of your story for a jury?

Speaker 111 Probably the most important single piece of evidence was the shotgun.

Speaker 61 Ballistics showed this Mossberg 12 gauge was the murder weapon.

Speaker 83 A firearm that Seth kept inside his house.

Speaker 72 And only he had access to it that morning, prosecutors argued.

Speaker 111 No murderer who wants to kill Lisa Techl comes to the murder scene without the murder weapon.

Speaker 110 We argued the impossibility of his story. Some unknown assailant breaks into his house and kills the wife that he says that he's going to leave.

Speaker 133 Iron Matterson is our next witness.

Speaker 77 Prosecutors called one of Seth's young friends to show the jury, they said, just how deceptive and manipulative Seth was.

Speaker 75 This witness was one of the boys, it turned out, behind all the vandalism across the fence.

Speaker 29 He testified he was just following Seth's orders.

Speaker 130 Told us to

Speaker 7 go mess with his neighbor Tate.

Speaker 19 How are you going to mess with him?

Speaker 60 Fill five-gallon buckets full of dog manure

Speaker 114 and go dump him on his property.

Speaker 79 Remember, Seth had assured his father-in-law and the state agent who interviewed him the exact opposite.

Speaker 16 And I said, I'm not messing with him. I'll make sure nobody else is.

Speaker 50 Looking back, that incident was what turned Todd against Brian Tate in the first place, fixing the idea in his mind that his kid's neighbor was a deranged, maybe dangerous crank.

Speaker 6 I'm going by what Seth had told me about him.

Speaker 52 As for Tate's complaint calls with deputies as captured on Dash Cam video, it became evidence for the prosecution.

Speaker 16 We fixed the heroes, birds, and deer.

Speaker 110 We were hopeful that the jury would see Brian Tate as we saw him.

Speaker 55 And they saw him as an eccentric but harmless man, certainly not a killer.

Speaker 50 Then at last, it was time for the state star witness, Rachel McFarlane, the other woman, to show up and tell her story.

Speaker 62 Did you need the jury to like her?

Speaker 111 We needed the jury to believe her.

Speaker 74 Rachel testified her relationship with Seth started heating up in December 2011, which was two months after Seth got married.

Speaker 134 It became more sexual, asking me to send pictures or,

Speaker 134 I don't know, just showing off my body, I guess.

Speaker 70 On May 20th, 2012, Seth and Rachel met at a nature preserve where they took this selfie to remember their time together.

Speaker 134 I mean, he kissed me, he touched me. He said that we had everything in common and that He had tried working things out with Lisa and they just weren't working and I was exactly what he wanted.

Speaker 71 She said Seth repeatedly told her he was going to divorce his wife.

Speaker 135 Did he say he loved you?

Speaker 132 Yes.

Speaker 51 But Rachel was hedging her bets.

Speaker 7 She told Seth she was also interested in a co-worker named Brandon who just happened to call her during her tryst with Seth in the park.

Speaker 134 He just started getting really jealous.

Speaker 135 And so on the 20th, when he learned that you were communicating with Brandon, he said, what?

Speaker 134 Just give me two more weeks.

Speaker 7 Did you ask him what he meant?

Speaker 134 Just give me two more weeks? Yes, and he just repeated the same statement.

Speaker 31 Six days later, Lisa was murdered in her own bed.

Speaker 111 And here we have a motive that we can understand, love.

Speaker 111 The whole relationship with Rachel was evidence that was like a countdown to Lisa Teckel's death.

Speaker 97 But defense attorney Steve Gardner countered, arguing the motive of an affair falls flat without the essential element, sex.

Speaker 93 Seth Teckel was being accused of murdering his wife for an affair that that he was hoping to someday have.

Speaker 136 You've never had intercourse with him.

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 136 You've never had oral sex with him.

Speaker 97 No.

Speaker 136 Never had your clothes off.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 130 And you kissed a few times.

Speaker 132 Yes.

Speaker 136 Is that a fair assessment of the extent of your romantic relationship with Mr.

Speaker 7 Tecker?

Speaker 132 Yes.

Speaker 53 The defense also didn't accept the state's take on the neighbor as a harmless eccentric.

Speaker 93 The most compelling evidence as to how this occurred involved the neighbor, Mr.

Speaker 135 Tate, that he was mentally ill.

Speaker 61 And according to the defense, dangerous too.

Speaker 71 The defense then hammered home the portrayal of the unpredictable neighbor by using Todd's own complaint summary from that day.

Speaker 19 You're in the awkward situation of being their best witness.

Speaker 59 Right.

Speaker 135 If you believed he could become a danger,

Speaker 135 anyone who should respond to that residence again should use extreme caution.

Speaker 6 That is correct, I did.

Speaker 7 The defense theorized that Tate entered the trailer through an unlocked door and shot Lisa for revenge.

Speaker 31 The key defense evidence that suggested an intruder was a stray peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a baggie left on the back deck.

Speaker 93 There was a sandwich that would not have been there the night before that was there.

Speaker 28 Critters should have devoured it, he argued.

Speaker 70 He told the jury it must have been the killer's snack.

Speaker 93 I believe it to be the most compelling piece of evidence in the whole case.

Speaker 29 It was now up to a jury to decide, but it wouldn't be easy.

Speaker 23 Coming up in the jury room, deliberations and drama.

Speaker 100 He started pounding on the door,

Speaker 100 saying that he wanted out of there, and we were in tears.

Speaker 15 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 31 Back in the deliberation room, wrangling jurors in the Seth Techl murder trial were driving the case into a ditch.

Speaker 19 They stay out and they stay out and they stay out. What are the prosecutors telling you, Dodd?

Speaker 6 That there are some that are guilty and there are some that are not guilty and they're just not agreeing. And I'm starting to get worried at that point.

Speaker 31 Micah Shaheen was on the jury.

Speaker 86 She said one holdout juror in particular was responsible for the stalemate.

Speaker 100 He started pounding on the door

Speaker 100 saying that he wanted out of there and we were in tears, a lot of us, because we knew that we were up against a wall, that nothing else could be done with this person.

Speaker 105 After weeks of testimony and three full days of deliberations, the Seth Techl murder trial came to a sudden conclusion today.

Speaker 55 It was all over.

Speaker 39 The motion for a mistrial is hereby granted.

Speaker 46 The judge declared a mistrial because of a hung jury.

Speaker 88 Hung jury punched to the gut, Andy?

Speaker 4 You ever had one?

Speaker 111 I never had one in almost 30 years.

Speaker 31 Prosecutors immediately decided to retry the case.

Speaker 118 The vote had been 10 to 2 for conviction.

Speaker 6 And, of course, we're disappointed in what happened.

Speaker 82 The Caldwells had lost a daughter and sister, and now they couldn't even get the closure they desperately wanted.

Speaker 97 And they'd have to do it all over again.

Speaker 5 It's hard to know that you're going to have to endure another one.

Speaker 47 A trial date was set for seven months later, October 2013, and trial number two would be heard in a new courthouse.

Speaker 54 There had been a change of venue to the town of Mount Pleasant, making it even tougher on the Caldwells, the daily treks to court, lives disrupted.

Speaker 7 The new courtroom had a distinctive layout that put the Caldwell family directly behind the defendant.

Speaker 5 He's literally sitting right in front of me, like you are.

Speaker 118 Which only made it more frustrating for Presley, who was still trying for any kind of connection to someone she once loved like a brother.

Speaker 5 I'm just staring at him, like, just glance at me, do something. And he doesn't.

Speaker 96 And even more painful for the family was having to sit through again all that heartbreaking testimony and raw crime scene photos of their Lisa and the unborn baby girl.

Speaker 118 Other than the change of venue, Seth Techl's second murder trial played out as a carbon copy of the first. Same lawyers, same judge, same arguments.
A replay of two opposing theories.

Speaker 71 Brian Tate, the other suspect, versus Seth Teckel, the husband with the other woman.

Speaker 124 Rachel McFarland was again the prosecution star witness.

Speaker 115 Here on May 4th of 2012, he sent you a message with a picture of his own smiling face saying, Miss you, Bella.

Speaker 7 Was that a term of endearment that he called you as Bella?

Speaker 130 Yes.

Speaker 115 You sent him a picture of you in either a bikini or your brawn underwear. Is that right? Yes.

Speaker 115 And then he says, well, wish me luck.

Speaker 7 I love you. At 10.51 p.m.

Speaker 115 on May 24th of 2012.

Speaker 115 What was he asking you to wish him well with?

Speaker 134 I believe that he was going to tell her that he wanted a divorce.

Speaker 31 Two days later, Lisa was dead.

Speaker 50 By now, her family had hardened opinions about Rachel.

Speaker 5 I don't think too highly of her.

Speaker 5 I felt like she destroyed my sister's marriage and her life.

Speaker 19 Todd Rachel, huh?

Speaker 20 Actually, I'm maybe not the most popular view.

Speaker 6 I blame her for what part she had to play with Seth. I mean, I think she's kind of been a victim as well.

Speaker 130 He's manning.

Speaker 7 He's up all the time.

Speaker 31 The defense offered the jury the same boogeyman as before.

Speaker 110 The defense went even harder at Brian Tate than they had the first time around.

Speaker 131 He could quickly become volatile and agitated.

Speaker 77 This time, the defense, over strenuous prosecution objections, got Tate's psychiatrist to testify.

Speaker 24 He treated him near the end of his life in a hospital mental health unit.

Speaker 135 When you first saw him, did you find him to be

Speaker 101 paranoid, delusional?

Speaker 133 Yes, sir.

Speaker 101 And was there a general topic of delusion of which he was paranoid?

Speaker 133 He seemed to make reference that there were some governmental conspiracies affecting him.

Speaker 7 After three weeks of trial, a second jury had Seth Techle's fate in its hands.

Speaker 31 And that's when things got deja vu all over again.

Speaker 118 The judge read a note from the foreman.

Speaker 104 We are not going to reach your verdict. What's next?

Speaker 19 Todd, it's happening again, huh?

Speaker 6 Yeah, when I'm thinking, this is two months' worth of trials, and we're right back to the beginning.

Speaker 124 But the judge wasn't ready to give up.

Speaker 86 He told the jurors to keep trying.

Speaker 26 Emotions in the open courtroom were raw, especially on the Caldwell side.

Speaker 51 The jury couldn't help but hear it.

Speaker 34 Presley and I were crying. We weren't crying uncontrollably or anything, but you could hear us, you know, sniffling a little.

Speaker 47 As the jury filed out, defense attorney Steve Gardner rose to scold the spectators.

Speaker 7 Stop the over-the-top outburst, he said, or he'd demand a mistrial in fairness to his client. I do not desire this jury to be influenced.

Speaker 131 by

Speaker 132 the public.

Speaker 49 Now it was the prosecutor's turn to see.

Speaker 110 The defense is making a speech about the Caldwell family trying to somehow influence the jury, which we thought was ludicrous. I squeezed Andy's arm and I said, I'll take this.

Speaker 133 To stand up here and suggest that anyone in the courtroom is making an attempt to intentionally influence the jury is absolute nonsense.

Speaker 75 The courtroom started to settle down and clear, but Seth remained at the defense table, his former father-in-law coiled behind him, ready to pounce.

Speaker 6 I I was just praying, please just let me stand here.

Speaker 106 For more than a minute, glaring, burning a hole in Seth's back, if looks could kill.

Speaker 6 There's just kind of an urge to move forward, not to stand.

Speaker 8 Jump the rail?

Speaker 6 Yeah, God, please don't make me do that. Just let me stand.

Speaker 88 What were you doing in your mind?

Speaker 6 I don't really want to even think of what I was doing in my mind. I just wanted to do something.

Speaker 86 Two hours later, the jurors returned, but nothing had changed.

Speaker 19 This trial is declared unbelievable.

Speaker 75 Veteran prosecutors who'd never had a hung jury before were now 0 for 2.

Speaker 51 Again, the state didn't hesitate.

Speaker 118 Seth Techl would go on trial for a third time.

Speaker 110 Our intent is to retry it.

Speaker 110 That was an easy decision to make.

Speaker 51 Even though the jury's vote was again in favor of conviction, this time 9-3, Lisa's family was starting to have its doubts.

Speaker 5 Is there something that I'm just overlooking? Like, did he not do it? Is there something that they just see and they're like,

Speaker 5 he's not guilty?

Speaker 89 But just when they thought they couldn't suffer any more heartbreak, the Caldwells would be devastated by new findings by a brand new defense team.

Speaker 6 I heard it about a week before the trial, and it just like somebody hit me in the stomach.

Speaker 12 Coming up, the defense comes out swinging.

Speaker 22 We chose to focus on the sloppy work done by the law enforcement. There was absolutely no DNA, fingerprint, confession.

Speaker 127 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 127 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 127 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 127 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 108 Hi there, it's Andy Richter, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast, The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

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Speaker 108 You can also tune in for my weekly Andy Richter Call-In Show episodes, where me and a special guest invite callers to weigh in on topics like dating disasters, bad teachers, and lots more.

Speaker 108 Listen to the three questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 103 Two families, two trials, and so far, no winners.

Speaker 53 But trial number three promised to be different, starting with a new defense team.

Speaker 22 The previous trials were not successes, and Seth came dangerously close to being convicted in each of them.

Speaker 51 State-appointed defense lawyers Roger Owens and Jake Firehelm knew that in two trials, 19 of 24 jurors had voted to convict Seth Techall.

Speaker 7 They didn't like those numbers and decided to head in a different direction.

Speaker 22 We chose to focus on

Speaker 16 the

Speaker 22 sloppy work done by the law enforcement. There was absolutely no DNA, fingerprint, confession.

Speaker 82 Firehelm would argue it was a botched investigation.

Speaker 54 Why would crime scene text do tests to match the slug to the murder weapon, but never check it for fingerprints or DNA that might link it to the shooter?

Speaker 22 Did you test the bullet that was in the chamber that killed this woman? No, we forgot or we didn't do it.

Speaker 59 Whoops.

Speaker 76 Whoops.

Speaker 45 The new defense team had a new story to tell.

Speaker 31 It was all a rush to judgment to blame Seth, who'd been in jail ever since his arrest two years earlier.

Speaker 46 And there was another big strategic shift.

Speaker 41 They would soften the focus on the boogeyman of the first two trials, Brian Tate.

Speaker 121 Our conclusion was, after listening to the tapes of Mr. Tate, that he wasn't the deranged person that they've tried to portray him as being.

Speaker 22 The way he was speaking to law enforcement that afternoon would not seem like the person that would have walked into a trailer home at five o'clock in the morning and murdered his neighbor.

Speaker 46 The defense attorneys made a tactical decision.

Speaker 28 Since recordings of Tate didn't make him look like a dangerous killer, they would not show tapes of him to the jury and they'd roll the dice, hoping the prosecutors wouldn't either.

Speaker 83 The Caldwells and Techles had been put through the ringer for more than two years.

Speaker 41 Their once close relationship had frayed, and now the third trial was pushing everyone to the brink.

Speaker 36 It was an impossible situation, but somehow Todd Caldwell and Doug Teckel managed to find a moment of grace.

Speaker 6 I went over to him and I just said, Doug, I want you to know that I think you're a great guy. I think you're a good person.
Did you really? No matter how this turns out, I just want you to know that.

Speaker 6 And he said, I think the same thing with you, Todd. And I went to shake his hand and he just hugged me and we both just hugged.

Speaker 53 The two fathers then returned to opposite sides of a murder trial.

Speaker 41 July 2014, for the third time, the state of Iowa versus Seth Techl.

Speaker 104 Counsel, are you ready for the jury?

Speaker 21 This time in Davenport, three hours from the first courthouse in the Tumlaw.

Speaker 75 And he took it in.

Speaker 106 The prosecutors once again argued that Seth's story defied logic.

Speaker 110 He would have to be the victim of one of the largest coincidences ever known, and that is he told his girlfriend that he left his wife, and a little less than 17 hours later, some unknown assailant breaks into his house and kills the wife that he says that he's going to leave.

Speaker 58 With a weapon which he hasn't brought with him.

Speaker 110 Correct. With a weapon which he hasn't brought with him.

Speaker 131 I had a Mossberg Model 500 shotgun. A 12-gauge? Yes.

Speaker 29 And Seth prosecutors said had easy access to the murder weapon, the shotgun that his friend Lucas kept in Seth's house.

Speaker 133 Is that the 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun that you left behind at the Technical Residence when you moved out in May of 2012?

Speaker 104 Yes.

Speaker 40 And the prosecutors argued only Seth had a motive.

Speaker 70 They said Seth and Rachel's steamy texts and cell phone photos played like a countdown to murder by Seth.

Speaker 115 It's at 9.20 p.m.

Speaker 135 on the 24th.

Speaker 115 You ask him, do you really want to be with me? And he responds, forever.

Speaker 56 Yes.

Speaker 31 That's May 24th, two days before Lisa's death.

Speaker 89 And in a follow-up text, Rachel asked Seth if he told his wife he wanted a divorce yet.

Speaker 115 And he responds, well, we talked. I told her I wasn't happy, she got mad, then sad, then I slept on the couch.
So hello, Mrs. Resuscitator.
Correct.

Speaker 91 Rachel told the jury that she and coworkers nicknamed Seth Mr.

Speaker 26 Resuscitator because he was a volunteer firefighter who often bragged about his life-saving CPR heroics.

Speaker 115 So he was going to be Mr. Resuscitator and you were going to be Mrs.
Resuscitator? Yeah.

Speaker 75 Then to drive home their contention that Seth chose murder over divorce, prosecutors called a coworker who had been a confidant of Seth's.

Speaker 132 Did you swear or affirm that the testimony?

Speaker 137 I had just expressed that he just needed to either end his marriage or end it with Rachel.

Speaker 131 In saying that he should end his marriage with Lisa Teckle, did he make any comment concerning child support?

Speaker 137 He asked me if I wanted to pay his child support.

Speaker 61 And then the witness recalled another remark Seth made about Lisa.

Speaker 137 He stated that it would be better off if she was in a car wreck and died.

Speaker 49 Prosecutors hoped their third time would be the charm, but the new defense attorneys would come at them with everything they had.

Speaker 37 And that included explosive new evidence.

Speaker 48 This time, it was about Lisa.

Speaker 58 Coming up, you found out the story told by the phone that there is this guy, a co-worker.

Speaker 59 Right.

Speaker 13 Was there another man in Lisa's life?

Speaker 15 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 46 From the day Lisa Teckel was murdered, Brian Tate had been targeted as a suspect.

Speaker 16 Go get him. Go get him now.

Speaker 29 And he'd been exploited by Seth's defense ever since.

Speaker 131 The question that you will have to consider is whether or not the state has proven that Seth Teckel did it.

Speaker 124 New defense attorneys Roger Owens and Jake Firehelm had a completely different strategy.

Speaker 46 They barely mentioned Tate's name.

Speaker 106 Rachel, offered as Seth's motive for murder in earlier trials, was also minimized this time.

Speaker 7 Definitely missing Fireham.

Speaker 31 In cross-examination, Rachel was on the stand for a scant seven minutes.

Speaker 56 TikTok, there's the message on Thursday. Mr.
and Mrs. Resuscitator, blue skies ahead.

Speaker 59 We're a couple.

Speaker 88 What do you do with something like that?

Speaker 22 I tried to be as straightforward as I could with the jury. Who in the world is going to murder their wife to facilitate a relationship that hasn't even turned sexual?

Speaker 136 You're not having any sex with this man, right? Correct. And the only time that you'd ever seen him in person in your whole entire life outside of work was four or five times.
Correct.

Speaker 138 I have no further questions.

Speaker 121 What we wanted the jury to think about her is that you're going to shoot your wife for this.

Speaker 52 Attorneys Firehelm and Owens then went on the attack, characterizing the work of investigators as woefully shoddy.

Speaker 131 The eyes have

Speaker 131 inconsistent, incompetent, and complete.

Speaker 118 The new defense thrust was on what the investigators did not do.

Speaker 63 This state criminalist had to admit they did not test for gunshot residue on Seth Techl.

Speaker 131 How many times do you think you testified in criminal trials that gunshot residue was evidence of the crime?

Speaker 129 A lot.

Speaker 51 But in this case,

Speaker 7 nope, we can't argue it because we don't have it.

Speaker 132 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 131 We'll never know.

Speaker 94 Never know.

Speaker 74 And the defense said it was even more shocking that this state expert had to make a similar admission about the fatal shotgun shell.

Speaker 135 This is the shell that killed Lisa Techner.

Speaker 137 Yes.

Speaker 22 The very shell that killed this woman was never examined by the state. They just said we've we forgot to do it.

Speaker 45 But the centerpiece of the defense case against the cops cops was something else they didn't do they'd been so busy investigating seth who'd been behind bars since his arrest two years before that they never really paid attention to lisa the new defense team would change all that starting with her cell phone and the secrets it held you found out the story told by the phone that there is this guy co-worker right

Speaker 63 it was a bombshell Lisa was having an affair with a fellow jailer.

Speaker 31 Lisa's lover was a married man, a father of four.

Speaker 88 And this is not making out in the back of the car.

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 121 He thought he could be the father of the child. He thought that.

Speaker 31 So they called Lisa's lover, Jason Tennis, to the stand.

Speaker 136 And back in May of 2012, did you know Lisa Teckel?

Speaker 138 Yes, I did.

Speaker 31 Jason testified that the affair started before Lisa married Seth and ended just weeks before her murder.

Speaker 136 Mr. Tennis, at some point, did your relationship with Lisa Teckel become sexual? Yes, it did.
Now, when we talk about a sexual relationship, we're not talking about texting, are we?

Speaker 138 No, sir.

Speaker 136 You're talking about actual sexual intercourse.

Speaker 138 Yes, sir.

Speaker 40 For Lisa's father, the revelation that his daughter had a lover was the cruelest blow yet.

Speaker 6 The first emotion I had is,

Speaker 6 why Lisa? You know?

Speaker 6 And my second thought is, I don't want to tell Amy, because I know...

Speaker 6 He's not going to be happy.

Speaker 19 Does it taint your memory at all?

Speaker 6 Really, what it did for me more than anything is I have so many more questions that I'll never get the chance to ask her. I mean, I love Lisa, and she was a human being.
She made mistakes.

Speaker 96 The graphic testimony about Lisa's affair and how police overlooked it fit perfectly with the defense's theme of a botched investigation and a rush to judgment against Seth.

Speaker 22 Here's a legitimate suspect that should have been investigated.

Speaker 31 Investigators never spoke to Jason while they were building their case against Seth.

Speaker 46 Prosecutors finally contacted him just days before the third trial started.

Speaker 136 So between May of 2012 and sometime in June of 2014,

Speaker 136 no one talked to you, but you didn't talk to anyone about this at all.

Speaker 138 No, sir.

Speaker 124 But prosecutors fought back.

Speaker 116 Jason had an alibi witness, his wife.

Speaker 7 They called her to the stand.

Speaker 133 Do you have any memory, Ms. Tennis,

Speaker 133 as to the whereabouts of your husband on May 26, 2012 at approximately 5 a.m.

Speaker 100 He was sleeping with me at our house.

Speaker 26 And DNA testing on Jason done right before trial also proved he was not the father of Lisa's baby.

Speaker 45 But the defense still believed that raising the story of Lisa's affair and how police never uncovered it would give jurors reasonable doubt about the entire investigation.

Speaker 33 Because this is the big part of your case in trial three.

Speaker 19 Jurors, you're seeing some really shabby police work here in terms of investigation.

Speaker 121 Fell right into our theme, to our theory of the case.

Speaker 66 Testimony in the third trial, streamlined by both sides, took half the time the others did.

Speaker 33 That was another part of the new defense team's revised strategy.

Speaker 43 There had already been five holdout jurors in the previous two trials.

Speaker 87 Now Todd Caldwell worried that the new defense team had produced a cloud of even more reasonable doubt.

Speaker 6 You kind of think, okay, if I was on this side, that's kind of how I would have handled it. They're doing a pretty good job.

Speaker 6 And I'm convinced it's going to be another hung jury. Why wouldn't it be?

Speaker 17 Coming up, Todd and just about everyone else are in for a surprise.

Speaker 104 Has this jury reached a verdict?

Speaker 50 July 24th, 2014, after two agonizing stalemates, this time things were different.

Speaker 118 As Seth Techl walked into the courtroom and sat down, his face showed no expression, no hint of emotion.

Speaker 91 He didn't glance in any direction, not at his family, and certainly not at Todd, his former father-in-law.

Speaker 19 This is the young guy you used to clap on the back and say, I love you.

Speaker 6 Yep, just take care of her. That's all I ask.

Speaker 75 But Todd was staring directly at Seth, hoping to find something, anything.

Speaker 97 Now the moment was at hand.

Speaker 104 Has this jury reached a verdict?

Speaker 101 It has.

Speaker 46 The judge asked the court attendant to read the verdict.

Speaker 91 Lisa's mother could barely contain her emotions.

Speaker 46 Lisa's sister, a bundle of nerves.

Speaker 139 Count one, we, the jury, find the defendant, Seth Andrew Tekkill, guilty of murder in the first degree, and it's signed by the head juror.

Speaker 139 Count two, non-consensual termination of human pregnancy. Guilty of non-consensual.

Speaker 49 The justice system had finally spoken for Lisa and unborn Zoe.

Speaker 23 The counsel requests the jury be pulled.

Speaker 19 And then you hear the words. What do you see?

Speaker 111 The words guilty.

Speaker 6 And I see nothing.

Speaker 6 Not one single emotion from his face.

Speaker 96 The jurors had taken four hours to convict.

Speaker 29 On their way out, several reached across to shake Tracy's hand.

Speaker 46 Presley still had one big question.

Speaker 5 I would love to ask him why.

Speaker 5 There's Seth before May 26th,

Speaker 5 and then there's Seth from May 26th on. And it's almost like I don't know who that is.

Speaker 33 Seth's parents tried to fight back tears.

Speaker 60 It was heartbreaking.

Speaker 31 On the Caldwell side, tears of joy and displays of overwhelming relief.

Speaker 26 There were hugs and more hugs.

Speaker 46 More than two years of pent-up emotions finally coming out.

Speaker 75 The Caldwells then walked across the aisle.

Speaker 7 The two moms embraced, united in tragedy.

Speaker 34 We know this family. I know it's not Doug and Lorraine's fault.

Speaker 34 It's not their family's fault that any any of this happened.

Speaker 43 Todd searched out Doug.

Speaker 7 Only three years before they were all celebrating their kids' wedding together.

Speaker 46 Doug and Lorraine still support their son and say he didn't do what he's now convicted of doing.

Speaker 58 Do you have a whisper of doubt, either of you?

Speaker 32 No, sir.

Speaker 60 None whatsoever. I never have and I never will.

Speaker 6 Everybody's a loser. Nobody wins.
But I will say this. I think Lisa knows somewhere that the system that she wanted to be a part of worked.

Speaker 82 The Caldwells and Techles weren't the only ones with a stake in the verdict.

Speaker 29 Brian Tate's sister Sherry had been waiting for this moment too.

Speaker 129 I started crying. It wasn't tears of sorrow.
It was tears of joy.

Speaker 128 They had finally gotten this SOB.

Speaker 129 I hope he rots in prison.

Speaker 31 Todd still carries the burden of helping to pin the blame on Tate in those awful moments after Lisa's murder.

Speaker 6 I can never tell the family how

Speaker 6 sorry I am that they had to go through what they had to. We're going to have the last word on Brian Tate.
This is an innocent guy that was made a victim by Seth.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 72 A sentencing hearing was held in September 2014. The Caldwells were given a chance to address the court, but talked directly to Seth.

Speaker 140 You know how close Lisa and I was, and you know what you took from me.

Speaker 140 Of everybody in this room, you know.

Speaker 31 Presley, Lisa's sister, walked up to take her turn.

Speaker 50 During all three trials, she desperately tried to make eye contact with Seth.

Speaker 5 Seth was my best friend, my brother,

Speaker 4 who I loved so much.

Speaker 28 Now she finally got what she wanted.

Speaker 82 As she spoke, she looked straight at him.

Speaker 48 And for the first time, Seth stared right back at her.

Speaker 5 I'm going to leave you with one final thought, but I'm no longer your sister, and I no longer love you.

Speaker 46 And then the judge handed down the sentence.

Speaker 24 My name was Caldwell.

Speaker 50 Life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Speaker 64 When it was finally all over, Todd went to the cemetery for a private moment with his oldest daughter.

Speaker 6 I went out there and I just told her that we did it and she could be proud of everybody.

Speaker 28 Todd's been back many times since.

Speaker 54 Lisa's grave is a special, deeply personal place for him.

Speaker 31 He designed her headstone.

Speaker 17 What are the figures in it, Todd?

Speaker 6 The first thing I would do when I started sketching it is I would just draw a heart out. For some reason in my head, it should be in the shape of a heart.

Speaker 6 Second thing I would put in there is a mother holding a baby and Lisa and I had this thing that we would say to each other.

Speaker 6 We'd texted each other and everything and it's from the notebook movie and it's we've always said if you're a bird I'm a bird you know meaning whatever

Speaker 6 whatever you are I am

Speaker 6 so in the hair of this I made two birds in there by the time I got it done with you know we all loved it and it's kind of just kind of bonded like you know hey this is part of Lisa now.

Speaker 11 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 9 Thanks for joining us.

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