Finding Venus

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Speaker 8 Venus was my friend, my co-worker, and she was family.

Speaker 8 It just makes you sick thinking about it. It's like you want to know where she is, but at the same time, you do not want to know.

Speaker 9 It's the dramatic new ending to an eight-year mystery.

Speaker 10 She was a good mom. She was a real good mom.

Speaker 11 The case was never closed.

Speaker 8 It was consuming all of us.

Speaker 14 The young mom who walked out the front door and was never seen again.

Speaker 15 This woman had gone out to get the mail and disappeared in her pajamas.

Speaker 16 We might have a crime scene here. The hair in the back of my neck stood up.

Speaker 14 It's a stunner of a case.

Speaker 9 And the plot right out of the movies.

Speaker 18 The individual was wearing a baseball cap, hoodie with the hood pulled up, and large mirrored sunglasses.

Speaker 20 I'm like, no, dude,

Speaker 21 I can't do this. It was like a game.

Speaker 22 He was a part of this game.

Speaker 9 What happened the day Venus vanished?

Speaker 11 That's the missing piece to the case.

Speaker 24 You believe she's alive? I've got to believe she's alive.

Speaker 9 Tonight, a chilling new discovery solves the mystery at last.

Speaker 8 We were done with the games. We were done hurting.
It needs to stop. It needed to stop.

Speaker 14 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 26 Here's Dennis Murphy with Finding Venus.

Speaker 28 Michigan snow blankets, fields, and woodland with silent beauty.

Speaker 31 Sometimes encasing ugly secrets hidden beneath, never meant to be disturbed, until finally they're revealed and all is made clear.

Speaker 34 I know a lot of people say, well, you wanted to find her. Yeah, I wanted to find her, but then it was going to become so real to me that.

Speaker 7 Maybe you don't want to find her. Right, right.

Speaker 35 It's both things in a way.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 29 Start with a mother of two who vanished as she stepped outside her door to pick up mail.

Speaker 36 She wasn't there.

Speaker 37 And I was walking back into the house. There was limestone gravel

Speaker 41 all over the sidewalk and there were bare spots right down to the dirt in the driveway and it looked like a struggle had taken place an awful confrontation that she herself had predicted she had a conversation with my dad the day before the day before the night it happened and she says

Speaker 43 i think he's gonna come kill me this is the night before the night before she just felt it i mean i don't know if you have an idea somehow when you know when your your time's is up.

Speaker 40 She said, Dad, when I'm dead and gone, you remember this conversation.

Speaker 37 The next day, she was gone.

Speaker 30 It was a mystery, a disappearance that would take two investigators years to finally unravel.

Speaker 11 I think it becomes kind of personal. It's just how we do business.
We don't leave those little pieces unturned.

Speaker 51 A fiendishly complicated crime set in rural western Michigan kept the rumor mill churning for eight years.

Speaker 13 Where was she?

Speaker 29 This victim of a murderous scheme in which an Xbox Live gamer had detectives seeing double.

Speaker 56 It's country out here.

Speaker 6 Cornfields everywhere, two-lane roads.

Speaker 26 And it's where a cheerful kid named Venus was growing up with her family.

Speaker 51 The youngest child of Larry and Therese.

Speaker 27 Venus, a goddess to her mom, even before she was born.

Speaker 12 I dreamed about this beautiful little girl with big dark eyes.

Speaker 60 And when she came out,

Speaker 26 when I looked at her, I said, there's Venus.

Speaker 12 I can't even tell you how much I loved her. I can't even describe the love.

Speaker 31 But was Venus a little more trusting than she should have been?

Speaker 63 It was her naivete that always troubled her parents.

Speaker 37 She came home one day and told us that she'd met this guy and that he had secretly confided in her that he was mafioso.

Speaker 59 Well, then later we found out he worked at McDonald's and he was just embarrassed to tell her that, but she believed him.

Speaker 57 In 2002, Venus was 24 and ready to go out into the world.

Speaker 32 A soon-to-be college graduate with a degree in criminal justice.

Speaker 24 She wanted to be an officer of the law. And then she found out that she doesn't like guns, so that didn't work.

Speaker 58 What did work, and instantly, was her attraction to a guy named Doug Stewart.

Speaker 45 Venus had a friend from work, Jamie Hess, who knew that Venus had a soft spot for guys in uniform.

Speaker 31 And Jamie's brother Doug was a Marine.

Speaker 8 We set up the first date. There was probably three or four of us couples.
We went out to a movie.

Speaker 24 They hit it off really well so well that soon after hello my name is the two had become inseparable what did you see in her duck she was smart she was articulate she was beautiful some people i guess would call it love at first sight and four days later we were married pretty fast pretty fast a lot of people would go on a second date before getting hitched i think we made it to our second that's about it so i think the third date was marriage to say that venus's parents were a little surprised by the turn of events events is an understatement.

Speaker 37 She showed up and she was married and we were dumbfounded.

Speaker 63 All very sudden, but Dustin Jasper, Venus's older brother, got along okay with his new brother-in-law.

Speaker 30 They both liked outdoorsy stuff.

Speaker 43 I mean we went hunting together, went fishing together, and we've always had a pretty good relationship.

Speaker 66 It was a year after their quickie wedding that Doug left the Marines to keep his bride happy.

Speaker 24 I was looking at deployments and other different things, and she had this fear that I was going, something was going to happen to me. So she wanted me to get out of the military in 2003.

Speaker 58 So in 2003, Venus and Doug began civilian life together.

Speaker 51 They moved into this house in Schoolcraft, Michigan, not far from where they both grew up.

Speaker 71 Venus worked in a bank and dug at Appleby's and Pizza Hut.

Speaker 13 A year later, a daughter came along.

Speaker 72 Then in 2006, a second baby.

Speaker 24 Venus hoped and prayed for two little girls. I hoped and prayed for two healthy babies, and we both got our wish.

Speaker 63 So did Venus like being a mom?

Speaker 43 Oh, she loved being a mom. That was like her number one priority.

Speaker 59 But stay-at-home mom wasn't in the picture for Venus, not right away.

Speaker 63 They were too reliant on her check from the bank, since she was the family's bigger breadwinner.

Speaker 35 So you became Mr. Mom?

Speaker 24 Absolutely.

Speaker 24 And it was

Speaker 24 the best years of my life.

Speaker 6 When he kicked back, Mr.

Speaker 42 Mom enjoyed his Xbox.

Speaker 65 Thanks to the game's game's live feature, he would talk in real time to other first-person shooters far and wide.

Speaker 26 They blew up stuff together and became fast friends.

Speaker 51 He spent so many hours wandering the virtual world, he stopped looking for work in the real one.

Speaker 26 The marriage began to crack.

Speaker 51 Arguments led to timeouts, separations, and shared custody arrangements.

Speaker 60 He was very immature.

Speaker 21 And Venus just, she wanted to be a mom.

Speaker 26 Then Venus had an idea for a fresh start.

Speaker 24 She wanted to move to Williamsburg, Virginia, Miami, Florida, or Houston, Texas.

Speaker 35 Why did she want to go to such far-flung places?

Speaker 24 She said, well, Florida, there's Disney World. And Houston, there is SeaWorld and Six Flags.
And Williamsburg, there's U.S.

Speaker 24 Bush Gardens.

Speaker 75 Sorry, Mom, end video. Give me a pile.

Speaker 35 And Newport News turned out to be the place.

Speaker 76 That was it.

Speaker 24 Newport News put us smack dab in the middle of everything that we wanted.

Speaker 35 So she's thinking about the kids, huh?

Speaker 24 Specifically about the kids. She said, if I want our kids to grow up, don't you think that we should give them excitement and fun every day? And you said?

Speaker 74 I can't argue with that because I would love nothing more.

Speaker 75 Wow, this place is gorgeous. Isn't that

Speaker 75 there's the carousel? I told you.

Speaker 29 If the home videos from 2009 are to be believed, the move from Michigan to Virginia was work.

Speaker 53 Doug had found a job as a truck driver and home was an apartment on the ninth floor of this building.

Speaker 24 She wanted to live in a skyscraper. It already's been a dream of hers.

Speaker 56 So things were okay if you look back at maybe.

Speaker 24 Things were better than okay. They were better than it was the best year of our marriage, the best year of our life.

Speaker 77 But Doug and Venus' problems ran deeper than anything an amusement park ride could paper over.

Speaker 51 And before long, there were screaming arguments again.

Speaker 80 And a year after making the move, Venus had had enough and suddenly bolted with the kids to her parents' place in Colin Township, Michigan.

Speaker 52 Doug was left alone in Virginia, more than 700 miles away.

Speaker 44 Big surprise to you.

Speaker 24 Very big surprise.

Speaker 47 Two months later, April 26th, 2010, a chilly Monday morning started like any day at Venus's parents' house.

Speaker 83 Her mom went off to work.

Speaker 71 Her dad was sleeping, and Venus and the kids were slowly getting up.

Speaker 84 Then, about 8 a.m., Venus's dad, also a truck driver, was groggy from a late shift on the road.

Speaker 57 He was startled awake.

Speaker 36 I heard the girls being really loud out in the front room, and I thought, why isn't Venus quieting them down?

Speaker 40 She knows I'm in here asleep.

Speaker 85 He got up to see what was going on.

Speaker 71 Venus wasn't in the house, but her cell phone keys and purse were.

Speaker 67 He immediately called 911.

Speaker 77 She's just not there?

Speaker 77 Yeah.

Speaker 24 Is there a vehicle missing or anything?

Speaker 86 No.

Speaker 10 No, I'm

Speaker 9 scared.

Speaker 36 And

Speaker 36 outside, I look for.

Speaker 46 She wasn't there either.

Speaker 68 Venus, wearing nothing but her thin pajamas, had vanished.

Speaker 25 Where had she gone?

Speaker 9 When we come back, the search for Venus begins.

Speaker 60 That's frantic.

Speaker 87 I just kept calling over and over.

Speaker 9 Where is Venus? Signs of a struggle and signs of trouble.

Speaker 16 We might have a crime scene here. I think the hair in the back of my neck stood up.

Speaker 15 This woman had gone out and disappeared in her pajamas.

Speaker 88 The disappearance of Venus Stewart, the mother of two, in April 2010, was the first big story that reporter Danny Carlson covered for NBC's affiliate in Western Michigan, Wood TV.

Speaker 15 Left her purse, left her phone, left all of her identification, left everything.

Speaker 51 Venus's father, Larry McComb, made the 911 call that morning.

Speaker 73 The vehicle is here, her kids are here, and she is gone. Okay.

Speaker 18 Have you tried calling her or anything?

Speaker 73 Yeah, we can't get hold of her.

Speaker 26 Larry also called his wife, Therese, who was already at her restaurant job.

Speaker 56 Her co-workers tried to calm her down.

Speaker 60 And they said, oh, she probably just would have run a block. And I just looked at her, but I said,

Speaker 60 get a grip. My daughter doesn't do that stuff.
And I said, I'm out of here. And I ran out the door and I was sick in the hallway home.

Speaker 46 By then, Trooper Aaron Steensma of the Michigan State Police was on scene.

Speaker 89 Whenever a young adult goes missing, police customarily asked the family to wait 24 to 48 hours for things to shake out.

Speaker 88 But right away, the officer suspected this might not be someone who had taken a hike of her own volition.

Speaker 90 I didn't know exactly what we had, you know, after speaking to the McCombs and just what I saw.

Speaker 16 It's like, we might have a crime scene here, so that's why we cornered it off and got additional units.

Speaker 30 Venus's dad showed Trooper Steensma the patch of his gravel driveway that was scuffed up.

Speaker 68 The father also pointed out a pink hair tie on the ground and something else he hadn't spotted earlier.

Speaker 39 It was a tarp cover

Speaker 37 piece of plastic wrapping with the barcode on it.

Speaker 37 I didn't realize what it was or anything. I just told him, that's out of place.

Speaker 39 And so

Speaker 39 he put a rock on it so the wind wouldn't blow it away. And

Speaker 37 they have people, I guess they're crime scene specialists that gather evidence.

Speaker 28 Crime scene techs were able to lift what they believed was a fingerprint off the plastic wrapper.

Speaker 66 That wrapper was for a tarp sold at Walmart.

Speaker 63 But Officer Steensma was most troubled by what he heard from Venus' parents.

Speaker 33 Just a week prior, their daughter won custody of her two daughters.

Speaker 16 I think the hair in the back of my neck stood up like, you know, after speaking in the Macombs.

Speaker 54 By this time, Mike Scott, one of Western Michigan's top detectives, had had been brought up to speed by Officer Steensma about the marriage on the rocks.

Speaker 91 And as he put it, it didn't look good.

Speaker 35 And there was a history between them, wasn't there?

Speaker 91 Yes, there was.

Speaker 35 So you certainly want to talk to this husband.

Speaker 91 Doug? The first thing we want to do was find him.

Speaker 13 Where was he right now?

Speaker 35 You knew that he was living in Virginia.

Speaker 91 Yes. Newport News.

Speaker 57 The day Venus went missing, Mike Scott and Venus's mother repeatedly dialed Doug's cell phone.

Speaker 87 That's frantic.

Speaker 87 I just kept calling him over and over again and said, Doug, where is Venus?

Speaker 42 Finally, Detective Scott reached him that night.

Speaker 93 What did he say to you?

Speaker 91 That he had been in Virginia all day.

Speaker 35 You're in Virginia receiving this call, huh?

Speaker 24 Yes, I'm about 20 minutes away from my apartment. And he goes, Doug, your wife's missing.
And my first reaction is,

Speaker 24 is my wife pulling something? And I said, well, by missing, are you saying that she...

Speaker 24 Is she just missing from the house or is she missing?

Speaker 24 What's going on? Fill me in. He goes, well, I can't do that at this time.

Speaker 13 Where were you today?

Speaker 91 He gave me a couple of vocations where he was to support that he was in Virginia, one of those being at his lawyer's office in Newport News, Virginia.

Speaker 24 And he said, okay, well, can your lawyer verify? I go, no, my lawyer wasn't there. When I went in, it was just the two secretaries.

Speaker 79 Detective Scott asked the local FBI to run down Doug's story, and agents did.

Speaker 54 It checked out.

Speaker 79 Two women on the lawyer's staff confirmed it.

Speaker 47 They said they saw him come in that day.

Speaker 15 A bit shocking when they said, well, we've checked it out and he has an alibi.

Speaker 30 So what were the investigators to do?

Speaker 42 The parents were adamant in their belief that Doug had come and snatched Venus away.

Speaker 30 To corroborate their theory, they described for investigators the fights of plenty their daughter had had with her husband Doug.

Speaker 42 But eyewitnesses were putting him in Newport News, Virginia, more than 700 miles away.

Speaker 29 And there was surveillance camera video in his apartment building, in his garage, and of his car to back up his story.

Speaker 69 How could Doug be in two places at once?

Speaker 56 That wasn't possible, was it?

Speaker 9 Coming up, a mysterious man by the lake.

Speaker 35 You're getting citizen calls.

Speaker 56 Yes.

Speaker 35 People saying, I saw a funny-looking guy over at the lake the other day.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 9 And had Venus gone missing before?

Speaker 24 Came home, she wasn't there. My kids weren't there.
I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 9 When dateline continues

Speaker 32 The year before Venus Stewart went missing, she'd found religion.

Speaker 6 Every day, a brand new chance to say, Jesus, you are the only way.

Speaker 32 Her brother Dustin was the devout one in the family, and he was thrilled when Venus was baptized in 2009 at the age of 30.

Speaker 26 In the first days after her disappearance, Dustin would need his faith to believe she'd be found soon and alive.

Speaker 52 But he also still had hope in his own theory that Doug was holding her hostage.

Speaker 43 I figured it was another desperate attempt of his to try to get her back

Speaker 43 since she wasn't having contact with him and stuff, and he probably wanted to try to manipulate her and coax her into coming back to him.

Speaker 97 So we just stay on the fence.

Speaker 64 But police feared the worst and began looking for a body.

Speaker 95 They searched miles of rolling farm country and thick wooded areas throughout western Michigan.

Speaker 8 Helicopters came out.

Speaker 37 Yeah, yeah, the helicopter came out.

Speaker 36 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 12 And they were

Speaker 38 dogs. You get a lot of water around here.

Speaker 60 We live around the river, so, you know, that's all it's around us is lace.

Speaker 52 Immediately after her disappearance, lead detective Mike Scott had zeroed in on the obvious, the husband.

Speaker 52 But when FBI agents verified Doug's story that he'd been in Virginia, Scott had to start thinking bigger picture.

Speaker 35 A woman goes out the front door in her pajamas and never seen again. Someone would be rightfully fearful.
Is is there somebody crazy on the loose abducting people?

Speaker 63 Absolutely.

Speaker 35 And you're getting citizen calls.

Speaker 56 Yes.

Speaker 35 People saying, I saw a funny-looking guy over at the lake the other day.

Speaker 51 Yes.

Speaker 100 Now police are looking for this man. Two witnesses spotted him at nearby Adams Lake the night before Stewart disappeared.
He was wet and approached the witnesses for a cigarette.

Speaker 102 I mean, right now with this case, we have so few clues to go on.

Speaker 102 We're not going to discount anything.

Speaker 47 Police dredged that chilly lake after reports of the soaking wet man by the water's edge.

Speaker 6 They worked around the clock but found nothing.

Speaker 91 It was miserable conditions. I didn't hear anybody complain once.

Speaker 58 Doug Stewart was not involved in any of the searches.

Speaker 71 When Detective Scott reached him that Monday night, April 26th, he was in Virginia and he remained there.

Speaker 69 A weekend, he gave a reporter from Wood TV a telephone interview.

Speaker 103 Now that the timeline has gone so far, I'm getting very worried and very concerned.

Speaker 26 Despite their ceaseless marital battles, Doug insisted he still cared about her.

Speaker 103 I don't know what is next, to be honest with y'all.

Speaker 103 Just keep watching the news and pray and hope for the best.

Speaker 71 But he was also still bitter about losing his kids in that custody showdown just two weeks before. So his take on her disappearance was a unique one.

Speaker 99 He wasn't upset, he said, because he believed Venus was a runaway mom.

Speaker 24 My theory, my wife pulled another fast one. She ran off, couldn't handle the commitment of

Speaker 24 the situation she was in with the children by herself.

Speaker 70 The way Doug saw it, this was no different than that time two months earlier when Venus had suddenly and surprisingly bolted with the kids.

Speaker 24 I came home. She wasn't there.
My kids weren't there. My dog wasn't there.

Speaker 47 Doug says he thought Venus had disappeared that day, too.

Speaker 24 It started getting a little dark. I started getting worried.
I kept calling her cell phone, but she didn't respond or pick up the phone.

Speaker 24 I got very worried. I called the police and said, hey,

Speaker 24 I'm very worried. My wife isn't home.
This doesn't like her.

Speaker 24 I don't know what to do.

Speaker 55 Newport News detective Todd Filer.

Speaker 18 Doug tried to file a missing person's report.

Speaker 85 But police told Doug not to bother.

Speaker 4 Venus had been to the station herself earlier that day to file a complaint against him.

Speaker 99 When police refused to look into it, she decided to take off for Michigan with the kids and the dog, effectively ending the marriage.

Speaker 18 The police police officers informed him that, you know, she was not missing, that we knew where her whereabouts were, and that she was not coming home.

Speaker 47 Now it was early May, and her parents and Michigan authorities were certain Venus was really missing this time and in serious danger or worse.

Speaker 52 And even though Doug had an alibi, Michigan police went down to Newport News to talk to him.

Speaker 105 So we just went down there to investigate the disappearance of Venus Stewart. We didn't know what we were going to find.

Speaker 80 Shane Krieger, a detective with the Michigan State Police, rolled in with his own forensics team.

Speaker 55 They met up with Todd Feiler, the detective from Newport News.

Speaker 4 Together, they all went to Doug's apartment.

Speaker 105 We did not disclose to him at that time that we were from Michigan.

Speaker 2 Michigan police didn't want Doug to clam up or lawyer him, so they let Feiler, the local cop, do the talking.

Speaker 18 He didn't seem overly concerned about the disappearance. He felt like she had simply run away and this was some sort of of stunt that she was pulling.

Speaker 81 Feiler said he didn't jump to any conclusions.

Speaker 18 I hadn't made a decision one way or the other whether she had simply run away or she had been abducted.

Speaker 95 With a search warrant in hand, Detective Feiler and the Michigan officers listened to Doug's story, searched the apartment, and seized his computers.

Speaker 18 He was very cooperative. He told us about all the computers that were in the house.

Speaker 78 The Michigan cops, who knew all about the bad blood between Doug and Venus, were looking for any trace of her, dead or alive.

Speaker 25 And what were you expecting to do and hoping to find there?

Speaker 105 We knew we wanted to search his apartment for her clothes because that's the last thing she was seen in. We wanted to try to find her clothes if possible.

Speaker 35 Any signs of Venus being around that apartment or?

Speaker 105 No, nothing.

Speaker 71 But the forensic investigators kept looking.

Speaker 81 Then they went outside to search Doug's truck, still hoping to find a sign of Venus or any other helpful lead.

Speaker 80 The truck was an absolute mess, the debris from a disordered life.

Speaker 85 But there, amidst the french fries, plastic lid, and bits of crumpled-up paper, was an unexpected clue.

Speaker 82 Once it was analyzed, the investigation would shift into another gear.

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 91 When he called me, he said, Are you sitting down?

Speaker 9 A tiny piece of paper is about to provide a very big break.

Speaker 55 Ten days into the investigation, the search for Venus Stewart and whoever abducted her was now heating up in two states, Michigan and Virginia.

Speaker 78 In Michigan, police were trying to develop the few clues they'd found outside her parents' house.

Speaker 70 The fingerprint they'd lifted at the scene was still waiting for analysis at the state crime lab.

Speaker 31 And then the plastic wrapper for a tarp that police believed had been used in Venus's abduction.

Speaker 69 Detectives were running down its barcode, looking for where the tarp came from and who bought it.

Speaker 91 It looks like it had been recently purchased from Walmart, but we didn't know which Walmart.

Speaker 13 That wrapping ends up at what you believe is the murder scene.

Speaker 35 Yes.

Speaker 108 Yeah, I think that's the best place too, that north side.

Speaker 49 Venus's two daughters stayed with their grandparents in Michigan while friends and family searched for the girl's mother.

Speaker 108 She's around this area somewhere.

Speaker 95 Venus's Aunt Mary organized the search groups, and even when she wasn't out looking, she kept a shovel in her car so she could rush over to help dig anywhere, anytime.

Speaker 108 You look for anything that's out of place. If the ground has been dug up even a year ago, you're going to be able to tell.

Speaker 95 More than 700 miles southeast in Newport News, Virginia, investigators were also searching.

Speaker 70 After nothing had jumped out at them in Doug's apartment, the special forensic unit began combing through his truck.

Speaker 36 The truck looked like a sty.

Speaker 105 The truck was in disarray, yes. It had not been cleaned.

Speaker 96 Scraps of papers, old french fries, and crumpled up receipts.

Speaker 85 It looked like leftovers from a college road trip.

Speaker 78 But all this dirt was about to become pay dirt.

Speaker 70 One smudged receipt suddenly got the forensic team's attention.

Speaker 105 They were able to locate a receipt in there for the purchase of a tarp, a shovel,

Speaker 105 gloves, and a hat.

Speaker 70 They couldn't believe their eyes or their luck.

Speaker 105 We thought they were joking, because who leaves that in their truck? But inevitably, they weren't kidding. They had the receipt.

Speaker 35 Maybe your biggest single piece of evidence? This crumpled, tossed away receipt.

Speaker 75 Yes.

Speaker 78 An investigator on the forensic team immediately called Detective Scott back in Michigan.

Speaker 91 When he called me, he said, are you sitting down?

Speaker 35 And in all the garbage, there's this receipt, huh?

Speaker 13 Yes.

Speaker 7 A hat,

Speaker 91 some gloves, a shovel, and an 8x10 tarp. And that was the item that we were looking for because the rapper found the Macomb residence was for an 8x10 tarp.

Speaker 35 And where was the receipt from?

Speaker 85 It was from a Walmart, specifically the Walmart in Van Wert, Ohio, about two hours southeast from where Venus disappeared.

Speaker 82 But not one of the Walmart's Michigan investigators had checked out.

Speaker 105 Well, I doubt we would have found that purchase had we not had the receipt.

Speaker 91 The date on the receipt itself was smudged. We didn't know when these items were purchased.

Speaker 91 The investigators began contacting the Van Wert Walmart store to try to determine the date, and we learned right away that those items were purchased the evening before Venus Stewart went missing.

Speaker 13 Now, Van Wert, Ohio is not near Michigan.

Speaker 35 It's not near Newport News. What's going on with the Walmart in the state of Ohio?

Speaker 91 It's in direct route between Newport News and Michigan.

Speaker 52 But the feds had proof Doug had been in Virginia when Venus disappeared. So how did the Ohio receipt get there?

Speaker 2 Detective Scott and prosecutors John McDonough and Chuck Herman, meeting in their war room, suspected someone else was involved.

Speaker 78 But if that was true, they had no idea how.

Speaker 82 That didn't matter to McDonough, then the youngest elected prosecutor in Michigan, who was itching to arrest Doug right now.

Speaker 109 I said, all right, we got him. Let's go.

Speaker 93 Let's charge him. This is it.

Speaker 109 Let's charge him now.

Speaker 99 It didn't happen.

Speaker 83 Cooler heads prevailed.

Speaker 109 I had to listen to Chuck and Detective Scott telling me, calm down, let's get everything ready to go.

Speaker 78 Fact was, the investigation was still missing key evidence, not least a body, a major hole, maybe even a case buster for any would-be prosecution.

Speaker 50 Do you say, let's go slow?

Speaker 35 Nobody's going anywhere.

Speaker 93 Let's see where this takes us.

Speaker 91 Right. I still felt there was more to be done to tie up any loose ends and put this case together better.

Speaker 98 Mike Scott, working his last case before retirement, knew the biggest loose end was discrediting Doug's I Was in Virginia alibi.

Speaker 88 So he asked the detective from Newport News to keep digging.

Speaker 18 This case became a top priority for me.

Speaker 47 Todd Feiler, who had kept an open mind when he first interviewed Doug in his apartment, was now skeptical.

Speaker 18 It's lucky for us that that receipt was not in some landfill somewhere between here and the state of Michigan.

Speaker 53 So Feiler went back to the law office where Doug had been spotted the day Venus disappeared.

Speaker 62 The local lawman had some follow-up questions to ask, ones the FBI had left off their list.

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 18 The individual is wearing a baseball cap, a hoodie, and large mirrored aviation-type sunglasses, almost disguising their appearance.

Speaker 9 Doug in disguise to visit his lawyer? That seemed downright strange.

Speaker 9 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 53 One One month after Venus went missing, her father, a truck driver, had a heartbreaking journey to make.

Speaker 98 By then, Doug had moved out of the couple's Newport News apartment and returned to Michigan.

Speaker 67 So Larry McComb headed south.

Speaker 37 The people that ran the apartment complex where she lived called us and they said,

Speaker 37 There's all kinds of stuff like

Speaker 37 the kids' toys, pictures.

Speaker 36 Would you be interested?

Speaker 40 And I'll send them to you.

Speaker 37 I said, I'll come and get them. And I went down and got all the girls' toys.

Speaker 37 I got all the pictures that I could find.

Speaker 39 It was very painful.

Speaker 47 He found comfort, though, from Venus's neighbors.

Speaker 37 Because I saw where my daughter lived, and everybody in the complex was so supportive.

Speaker 36 Nobody liked Doug, and everybody loved Venus and the girls.

Speaker 42 And back in Michigan, there was a court proceeding taking place, but not the kind that Venus's family wanted.

Speaker 75 Come on, Doug, where is she?

Speaker 114 You're a disgrace for the Marines, but...

Speaker 115 The preliminary hearing today, as Doug Stewart works to get custody of his two young daughters.

Speaker 25 Strange as it seems, the court is still going ahead with this whole custody issue.

Speaker 111 Yeah.

Speaker 37 And Doug's dragging us into court, trying to get his girls back.

Speaker 36 And

Speaker 40 there was no way he was getting custody of those girls.

Speaker 84 Doug's claim was that he's the father, he's around, but the mother isn't.

Speaker 81 So he should have custody of his children, not Venus' parents.

Speaker 47 Hanging over the hearing, of course, was the strong suspicion by the family and protesters that Doug was the reason why his children were motherless.

Speaker 99 Venus' father didn't pull any punches.

Speaker 40 I asked him if he'd murdered anybody lately,

Speaker 40 and it was just something that popped out of my mouth.

Speaker 78 The judge scheduled another hearing for three weeks later, but in the meantime, denied Doug custody and even visitation rights with his young daughters.

Speaker 53 Relieved. I feel

Speaker 52 While the court was delaying a final decision on the children, detectives in Michigan and Virginia were stepping up their investigation.

Speaker 62 In Newport News, Detective Todd Feiler now suspected Doug's alibi was part of some ruse.

Speaker 96 What with the Walmart receipt in his truck saying Ohio as in Area Code 419 when Doug had been telling everyone Virginia?

Speaker 18 Michigan State Police told us Doug had gone to his lawyer's office

Speaker 18 to make a payment on the pending child custody dispute. They stated that the FBI had gone out to the lawyer's office and confirmed that he had showed up and made a payment

Speaker 18 to them the morning that she disappeared.

Speaker 71 But Detective Filer now had his own follow-ups for the secretaries in what he was beginning to think looked like one pretty outlandish scheme.

Speaker 107 He had two theories.

Speaker 18 One, that the secretaries could have possibly had some sort of relationship with him and may have been lying to the FBI to cover his tracks

Speaker 18 or that somebody posing as Doug had come to the law office and made a payment and indeed it wasn't Doug.

Speaker 77 So the women described again the man they had seen that day but this time in greater detail.

Speaker 18 The individual is wearing a baseball cap,

Speaker 18 a hoodie with the hood pulled up, and large mirrored aviation type sunglasses.

Speaker 18 Generally people don't come in with you know hoods up and large glasses disguising their appearance unless they're up to, you know, something of questionable activity.

Speaker 64 So Detective Feiler asked them if they were positive it was Doug Stewart, and he got an important admission.

Speaker 18 Neither one of them said that they were 100% sure it was Doug.

Speaker 96 As they now recalled it, even though the man in the pulled-up hoodie and dark glasses made a payment as Doug, He never looked them in the eye, and there was no small talk.

Speaker 52 Then he rushed off instead of waiting for his receipt.

Speaker 95 Filer called lead detective Scott in Michigan with his take.

Speaker 18 I don't think it was him at the lawyer's office. He said, that's great.
Now we're one step closer

Speaker 18 to solving the case.

Speaker 62 A complicated, maybe even clever scheme was now coming into sharper focus for investigators, centering around Doug Stewart and some mystery man in Virginia.

Speaker 105 These points all represent cell phone towers that...

Speaker 62 Back in Michigan, Detective Krieger was checking Doug's cell phone records, hoping to come up with some answers.

Speaker 92 What jumped out at you? Anything obvious?

Speaker 105 The biggest part was three or four days just prior to Venus' disappearance, there were numerous calls, between 7 and 15 calls per day,

Speaker 105 to and from Doug from one particular number.

Speaker 79 A constant phone mate, but the detectives also noticed a gap.

Speaker 95 The day before Venus went missing, the cell phone was turned off.

Speaker 4 Didn't go back on until the next night.

Speaker 105 And then all of a sudden, the calls start coming back to and from this same number.

Speaker 35 So the question becomes, who's at the other end of this phone call, huh? Right.

Speaker 85 It was quick work finding out who the phone pal was.

Speaker 83 The calls were traced to the small town of Bear, Delaware to a young man named Ricky Spencer.

Speaker 71 Ricky was a college kid living in suburbia with his parents.

Speaker 35 You're checking to see if he's got any offense reports, if there's a sheet on him. Sure.
He's coming up clean. Yep.

Speaker 105 His dad has his own veterinary clinic. They're well-to-do.
The mother and father are both extremely caring. He has siblings.

Speaker 70 It didn't make sense.

Speaker 77 Why would a college kid from Delaware have anything to do with an older ex-military man from Michigan and Virginia?

Speaker 99 In mid-June, eight weeks since Venus went missing, Michigan Detective Krieger and his lieutenant Chuck Christensen decided to find out.

Speaker 85 They got in the car and headed east.

Speaker 81 Destination, Bear, Delaware.

Speaker 53 Would the man on all those phone logs hold the key to what happened to Venus Stewart?

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 105 We've got a guy who I believe is of interest. We did not want him to know we were coming.

Speaker 9 Police pay a surprise visit to this mystery caller, and he's got a head-spinning surprise of his own.

Speaker 86 How do you know Doug Stewart?

Speaker 79 Two months in, here's where things stood in the investigation into the disappearance of Venus Stewart.

Speaker 58 The Western Michigan mother of two had gone out to the mailbox in her pajamas one morning in April 2010 and hadn't been seen again.

Speaker 71 Investigators suspected her estranged husband Doug was behind it.

Speaker 96 His once solid alibi that he'd been elsewhere was now on shaky ground.

Speaker 47 Cops theorized that he maybe had a stand-in in Virginia so he could sneak off to Michigan.

Speaker 88 But could they prove it?

Speaker 70 To find out, Detective Shane Krieger and Chuck Christensen drove from Michigan to an upscale neighborhood in Bear, Delaware to question a college kid named Ricky Spencer.

Speaker 105 We've got a guy who I believe is of interest. He's making a lot of calls to Doug.

Speaker 117 He looks a lot like Doug.

Speaker 105 He could pass for Doug.

Speaker 70 On June 21st, 2010, the detectives made an unannounced visit to this house where Ricky lived with his parents.

Speaker 105 We did not want him to know we were coming.

Speaker 35 Just knock, knock, knock. Correct.

Speaker 63 Ricky's sister and mother came to the door.

Speaker 118 I explained to them we needed to talk to Ricky. We thought he might have some information to help us out on a case that we were working over in Michigan.

Speaker 68 At the barracks in an interview room the two cops appraised Ricky.

Speaker 62 20 years old, polite, clean-cut.

Speaker 86 How do you know Doug Stewart?

Speaker 19 Through Xbox Live, through Xbox Live?

Speaker 113 He told the detectives they'd been friends in the virtual world, playing shoot-'em-ups and talking long distance for a year and a half.

Speaker 4 Then they met face to face for the first time during Ricky's spring break from college on April 1st, 2010, April Fool's Day.

Speaker 71 Ricky said he was invited by Doug, a man 10 years his senior, to stay at his place in Newport News.

Speaker 52 Ricky was there for a week.

Speaker 119 He went to Bush Gardens

Speaker 19 one time for like a day

Speaker 120 and we were trying to go to the clubs but I'm not 21 yet so. Oh you're not 21 yet?

Speaker 121 No.

Speaker 120 Okay okay.

Speaker 121 And then we just played, we played Xbox.

Speaker 123 I mean he was a chill guy but it was just awkward, you know?

Speaker 119 Yeah.

Speaker 19 because he's like

Speaker 121 close to his 30s, and I'm like, my 30s.

Speaker 86 When's the last time you saw him?

Speaker 119 By spring break,

Speaker 16 it might be in the beginning of April.

Speaker 120 Okay.

Speaker 88 But the detective suspected that wasn't true.

Speaker 67 By then, they'd stitched together a solid timeline of the Ricky Doug communications based on cell phone logs.

Speaker 31 On April 25th, the morning before Venus disappeared, Ricky's cell phone pinged in Bear, Delaware.

Speaker 105 The last call he made before shutting off his phone was to Doug Stewart.

Speaker 67 Then they both turned off their phones, except Ricky briefly turned his back on.

Speaker 52 Good for the investigation, bad for Ricky.

Speaker 105 His phone hit off a tower just north of Doug's apartment later that morning.

Speaker 93 So he's not in Delaware.

Speaker 35 He's all the way down in coastal Virginia.

Speaker 56 Correct.

Speaker 71 Ricky then told the detectives that he'd recently learned from Doug that something happened to his wife.

Speaker 119 He was like, Ricky, she's missing.

Speaker 120 Like, what, dude?

Speaker 19 Because he was telling me, like,

Speaker 123 she does weird stuff, like weird stunts.

Speaker 52 Was Ricky still covering up for both Doug and himself?

Speaker 88 Lieutenant Christensen thought so.

Speaker 81 He tried to shake him up, taking a turn as the bad cop.

Speaker 122 I'll be blunt.

Speaker 86 Doug Stewart abducted and killed his wife.

Speaker 121 Okay.

Speaker 118 We also know that somebody went into a legal office down there in Newport News, Virginia to pay a legal bill for him.

Speaker 117 We also know that you were down in that apartment.

Speaker 120 Yeah, I was

Speaker 86 on the 25th of April.

Speaker 86 On the 26th of April?

Speaker 16 No, no, no.

Speaker 121 That was only on Scrum Brace.

Speaker 29 He was reluctant to admit the truth,

Speaker 71 but he was starting to distance himself from Doug bit by bit.

Speaker 119 I googled his name again,

Speaker 119 and I saw some weird

Speaker 119 like

Speaker 119 they found like a receipt of something

Speaker 119 from a different state close to Michigan.

Speaker 19 I was like what the

Speaker 120 at that point I was like I'm not talking to this guy that's weird

Speaker 62 so Detective Krieger put on his good compact soothing supportive sympathetic You're probably thinking wow am I gonna get in trouble for this?

Speaker 124 What am I gonna do? I didn't know any of this was gonna happen. You know what I'm saying? But the f it is I know and I don't think you were involved in the planning of that.

Speaker 109 I think it was more him

Speaker 124 and you just kind of got caught up in something. You realize after the fact, whoa, this is way over my head.
I don't want any part of him doing this anymore. You got a couple sisters, right?

Speaker 76 Okay.

Speaker 124 What if this happened to your sister?

Speaker 111 You close with them?

Speaker 120 Yeah, I'm pretty close with them.

Speaker 124 What if somebody took your sister?

Speaker 37 You're upset.

Speaker 126 You'd be upset, wouldn't you?

Speaker 122 Yeah.

Speaker 86 This is what's going on with Venus's family.

Speaker 105 They're right now going, we need closure to this.

Speaker 109 We really do.

Speaker 76 You need to help us with that because

Speaker 124 you are part of this game now, but not our main concern whatsoever.

Speaker 80 The detective sense Ricky was ready to come clean.

Speaker 118 And like Shane said, if we thought that

Speaker 118 you were a main player in this, do you really think we'd be dealing with you like this?

Speaker 86 Absolutely not. So my first question to you is, did he tell you he was going to kill her before this happened, before you went down there? What did he say?

Speaker 120 Take care of business,

Speaker 120 Michigan.

Speaker 3 Finally, Ricky sighed and started to unspool his story, a spellbinding thriller involving doubles and deception with Doug Stewart as its mastermind.

Speaker 118 Coming up, Mike's reaction was something to the effect of holy cow.

Speaker 9 Ricky Spencer's story brings a dramatic break in the case.

Speaker 69 Were you surprised?

Speaker 28 Absolutely.

Speaker 9 When dateline continues

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Speaker 9 Returning to our story, young mom Venus Stewart went out to get the mail one morning and vanished.

Speaker 15 This woman disappeared in her pajamas.

Speaker 16 We might have a crime scene here.

Speaker 9 Police zeroed in on her husband, Doug, but he was seen on surveillance cameras thousands of miles away.

Speaker 18 A baseball cap, a hoodie with the hood pulled up, and sunglasses. Where was he? I don't think it was him at the lawyer's office.

Speaker 9 This would be a case like no other.

Speaker 105 We've got a guy who I believe is of interest.

Speaker 117 He looks a lot like Doug. He could pass for Doug.

Speaker 9 Stunning revelations spill out in court.

Speaker 97 There was a scream.

Speaker 125 A drop of blood came from her nose.

Speaker 9 And now, a whole new chapter in this eight-year story.

Speaker 93 This is going to be a big, big moment. Correct.

Speaker 9 Detectives are about to solve the final mystery at last.

Speaker 8 You want to know. You want to know where she is.
But at the same time, you do not want to know.

Speaker 9 Here again, Dennis Dennis Murphy.

Speaker 32 The investigators hit Painter with this kid Ricky, who summed up the end game that Doug had recruited him to play a crucial role in.

Speaker 86 What was the business he said he needed to take care of?

Speaker 120 The

Speaker 120 cost of his wife.

Speaker 43 Okay, did he say why?

Speaker 123 The hire?

Speaker 118 The hider?

Speaker 120 To get rid of her.

Speaker 29 Lieutenant Christensen called Detective Scott back in Michigan.

Speaker 59 They'd broken it.

Speaker 118 He's our guy, and Mike's reaction was something to the effect of, holy cow.

Speaker 63 Mike Scott, who'd preached patience with the prosecutor before, immediately dispatched officers to apprehend Doug Stewart.

Speaker 30 Trooper Aaron Steensma was part of the team that tailed him to this convenience store.

Speaker 44 We just walked in and told Douglas Stewart, you're under arrest, and he turned around and placed the handcuffs on him.

Speaker 111 Were you surprised?

Speaker 28 Absolutely.

Speaker 24 Absolutely. I thought it was a mistake and I'd get an apology.

Speaker 52 Doug had told police from the beginning he thought Venus skipped out on him and the kids. After his arrest, he said it again to Detective Scott.

Speaker 24 I got very upset.

Speaker 24 I told him, I said, I've worked for you from day one. I do not know where my wife is.

Speaker 76 Teresa, how did you learn that Doug had been arrested?

Speaker 12 The state police came to the house and told us.

Speaker 87 The same day they told us Venus was deceased.

Speaker 55 Police had declared her dead, even without finding her body, and prosecutors were preparing to file a first-degree murder charge.

Speaker 71 But as Doug Stewart got ready to stand trial for murder, Venus' family trials were far from over.

Speaker 26 February 2011, a courtroom in Centerville, Michigan in St.

Speaker 63 Joseph County.

Speaker 130 People of the state of Michigan versus Douglas Stewart.

Speaker 51 It had been nearly a year since Venus Stewart disappeared in her pajamas. Her husband, Doug, was now on trial for her murder, even though the body was never found.

Speaker 51 A fundamental fact of the defense's case.

Speaker 30 Doug pleaded not guilty and said he was surprised he was even arrested.

Speaker 116 This is my opening statement.

Speaker 29 The responsibility for prosecuting Doug Stewart fell to babyfaced John McDonough.

Speaker 28 Douglas Stewart caused the death of Venus Stewart.

Speaker 69 Seated at the defense table, Doug Stewart, wearing casual guy sweaters and sweater vests.

Speaker 76 Courtroom demeanor. What did you see, John?

Speaker 109 He was very good at kind of presenting himself as kind of the all-American guy. It was very bizarre because we would go into chambers.

Speaker 109 He would talk out loud like he was one of the guys and you're on trial for murdering your wife. And none of this seemed to affect him one bit.

Speaker 30 As the prosecutor began his case, his opening witnesses focused on April 26, 2010, the day Venus vanished.

Speaker 46 State trooper Aaron Steensma, first on the scene, testified that he believed he was looking at a crime as soon as he talked to Venus's parents.

Speaker 90 I pulled in the driveway and I was met by a female who was hysterical and crying.

Speaker 109 And what did you do next?

Speaker 90 She told me that he took her, he took her, he took her.

Speaker 17 Early on, McDonough wanted the jury to meet Venus's parents, to see them as the stable, decent, and loving people they were.

Speaker 52 Venus wasn't some kind of wild child bad mother.

Speaker 109 Was it

Speaker 28 odd that your daughter would have left her children alone?

Speaker 40 It was more than odd. It was something that would not happen.

Speaker 72 After sketching out the last day that things might ever be normal for Venus's parents, the prosecutor turned the clock back 24 hours and moved the scene from Michigan to northwest Ohio.

Speaker 88 April 25th had been a chilly night in Van Wert, Ohio, and the man who walked in the front door of the Walmart was easy to remember according to the Walmart security officer.

Speaker 99 Despite the weather, he was wearing a loud shirt and flowery Hawaiian shorts.

Speaker 123 That's the customer entering right here in a a striped shirt.

Speaker 123 And there he is right here.

Speaker 109 What is this a clip of?

Speaker 123 This is Associate Rebecca Hill with the customer following her.

Speaker 63 Jurors watched intently as the video showed Doug marching through the aisles.

Speaker 46 At the defendant's table, the accused knew what was coming next.

Speaker 32 An inventory of the items he bought that night.

Speaker 88 He picked up a shovel.

Speaker 64 gloves, a tarp, and a hat.

Speaker 109 Can you tell what's in his hand?

Speaker 20 This This appears to be a shovel and the tarp in his left hand.

Speaker 68 The clerks at Walmart had no trouble remembering the customer.

Speaker 132 Most people weren't wearing shorts at that time.

Speaker 63 Donna Stiffler, a cashier in the lawn and garden section, remembered approaching the customer who looked like he was going to a luau.

Speaker 132 I said, welcome to Walmart. Can I help you?

Speaker 132 And the first thing I think he asked for was

Speaker 131 lime.

Speaker 93 Why would he ask for lime?

Speaker 22 You throw lime on anything that's decaying, it almost acts like a baking soda wood to absorb odors.

Speaker 69 Donna told the shopper, sorry, they didn't sell lime.

Speaker 17 She said he grunted and kept on moving.

Speaker 25 Minutes later, he was back at her register to check out.

Speaker 109 Do you remember what that person bought?

Speaker 132 A tarp, shiny shovel, silver.

Speaker 20 I

Speaker 116 duct tape

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 74 gloves.

Speaker 116 Did you see that person in the courtroom today?

Speaker 116 Yeah.

Speaker 109 Was that...

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 133 Could you point him out and describe what he's wearing?

Speaker 133 I'm so nervous.

Speaker 116 What is he wearing?

Speaker 74 A white vest.

Speaker 132 I remember his eyes more than anything else.

Speaker 28 You could tell.

Speaker 109 that she was just terrified of this guy. My God, I sold this guy these things that helped him kill his wife.

Speaker 28 And there was something else that tripped Doug up, a credit card blunder.

Speaker 6 Before he went to Michigan, Doug bought a throwaway cell phone called a trackphone that normally assures anonymity.

Speaker 59 Except, as you can see Doug's swiping here, he's just bought it with a credit card that created an electronic receipt revealing the phone's unique ID.

Speaker 50 That made the phone and Doug's movements easily traceable.

Speaker 24 He didn't think we would find these track phones that he had.

Speaker 35 Master criminals don't save receipts and buying credit cards.

Speaker 109 Absolutely not.

Speaker 17 Krieger could then follow the path of that particular track phone through GPS technology, just as if it were a personal cell phone.

Speaker 35 Using the phones, how close can you get him to his wife's driveway?

Speaker 105 Pretty close.

Speaker 105 Within

Speaker 105 five to seven miles.

Speaker 26 But by now, something else put him even closer.

Speaker 28 Old-fashioned forensics.

Speaker 29 Remember the smudge on the plastic tarp wrapper found outside Venus's parents' house?

Speaker 28 It was a fingerprint.

Speaker 68 Turned out Doug Stewart's fingerprint, placing him at the scene of Venus's disappearance.

Speaker 42 Prosecutors believed it was damning evidence.

Speaker 35 You swear to tell the truth? Yeah, I swear.

Speaker 45 But to close the deal, they'd have to put on the stand the college kid imposter with a head-spinning tale to tell.

Speaker 25 Would it be too incredible to be believed?

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 20 Is it this where I want you to come in, Ricky?

Speaker 20 I want you to be my alibi.

Speaker 9 Ricky Spencer lays it all out, a plan to murder.

Speaker 21 It was like a game.

Speaker 22 He was a part of this game.

Speaker 28 And the rest of the evidence that you hear.

Speaker 67 Chief Prosecutor John McDonough called on his star witness, who in the course of two days would tell one of the most mind-boggling stories ever heard in the St.

Speaker 17 Joseph County, Michigan courtroom.

Speaker 133 Please call your next witness and we'll have him sworn in.

Speaker 104 He's called Ricky Spencer.

Speaker 68 Ricky, now 21, seemed like a young boy in a grown-up world.

Speaker 27 His dress shirt, not his customary T, ran big in the sleeve.

Speaker 116 How do you know Mr. Stewart?

Speaker 20 I met him on Xbox Live, December of the 8th.

Speaker 133 How often did you play Xbox Live with Mr. Stewart?

Speaker 20 Anywhere from six to ten hours.

Speaker 111 A day?

Speaker 20 Yeah, on a daily basis.

Speaker 21 This was his life.

Speaker 22 Some people might sit and read, and he played Xbox.

Speaker 26 Even though he'd never met him, Ricky told the jury he felt a strong tie to the former Marie.

Speaker 109 Would you say he was your best friend?

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 20 He called us brothers from another mother.

Speaker 134 Brothers from another mother?

Speaker 109 This was his idol.

Speaker 109 Probably one of the very few people he had social contact with.

Speaker 51 Doug and Ricky met in person on April Fool's Day in 2010, nearly a month before Venus disappeared.

Speaker 57 Doug was living alone and had invited Ricky down for spring break.

Speaker 30 Surveillance camera footage showed Ricky in Virginia.

Speaker 20 We can party, you can drink, and I can help you with your papers.

Speaker 29 Ricky testified that for the first three days, they went to the Bush Gardens Amusement Park, played Xbox Live, and drank.

Speaker 13 They hung out like frat brothers.

Speaker 27 On day four, the prosecution asserts that Doug got down to business.

Speaker 20 He's like, hey, Ricky, I want to tell you something.

Speaker 19 It's really important.

Speaker 19 Let me finish before you interrupt me.

Speaker 29 Ricky Ricky testified that Doug began to vent on his estranged wife, Venus.

Speaker 59 Ricky said Doug was portraying Venus as an abusive, even dangerous mother to his two girls.

Speaker 41 That wasn't true, but Ricky didn't know that.

Speaker 99 Doug then told Ricky he needed to do something desperate.

Speaker 20 He was

Speaker 20 telling me that he was going to go kill his wife.

Speaker 131 When he was telling you this, what were you thinking?

Speaker 19 I was just shocked.

Speaker 20 I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Speaker 111 Okay.

Speaker 20 He's in, this is where I want you to come in, Ricky.

Speaker 20 I want you to be my alibi. Just pretend to be me and live in my apartment.

Speaker 27 Ricky's immediate reaction was an emphatic no.

Speaker 74 I was like, no, dude.

Speaker 20 I don't want to hear anything about this.

Speaker 20 And he didn't talk about it for the rest of the

Speaker 20 rest of the day.

Speaker 23 But Doug kept at it over the next two days.

Speaker 79 Despite everyone else's portrait of Venus as mom of the year, Doug pushed negative Venus stuff on Ricky, telling him how she smacked around their older daughter.

Speaker 109 How did that make you feel?

Speaker 19 I felt bad for him.

Speaker 20 He was saying like, if only, you know, someone could be my alibi.

Speaker 74 I'm like, no, dude,

Speaker 20 I can't do this.

Speaker 30 Doug kept ratcheting up his stories of abuse, concluding with the most graphic one. Venus had tried to choke one of the girls.

Speaker 19 Ricky, if I wasn't there at that moment,

Speaker 20 Kim I would have died.

Speaker 109 He again asked you to help him kill his wife?

Speaker 111 Yes.

Speaker 109 And what did you say?

Speaker 74 I said, okay, dude,

Speaker 20 I'll be your alibi.

Speaker 42 Ricky caved, and according to the prosecution, Doug had a plan ready to go.

Speaker 29 He took his recruit to a nearby park for a crash course in how to get away with murder.

Speaker 20 He asked me, like, Ricky, if you're trying to kill someone and you don't want any evidence, what do you use? And I told him, well, not a gun because it leaves evidence.

Speaker 20 And he says, right, not a gun, so what is it? Not a knife because that leaves evidence. And he says, right, not a knife, so what is it?

Speaker 19 Doug said you need to choke somebody.

Speaker 26 And right there in the park, Doug demonstrated on Ricky his military chokehold.

Speaker 19 He gets me in that headlock for two seconds.

Speaker 20 He puts me down and

Speaker 20 I'm like out of breath. He says that if you do that to somebody for 10 seconds, you know, they pass out, you do it for over 30 seconds, they're no longer alive.

Speaker 51 Doug coached Ricky to be aware of surveillance cams.

Speaker 53 To pull off this double vision ruse, Ricky would need to wear sunglasses, a cap, and a hoodie pulled up and over.

Speaker 30 Ricky returned to Delaware to wait for Doug's signal.

Speaker 51 It came on April 15, 2010.

Speaker 30 Doug drove up from Virginia, Ricky from Delaware, and they met at a gas station in Bethesda, Maryland, outside the nation's capital.

Speaker 30 That's where Ricky said Doug gave him the things he needed to turn into Doug.

Speaker 13 His clothing, cell phones, keys to his car and apartment, and a credit card.

Speaker 109 What's that a photograph of?

Speaker 97 This is the parking space area where I met with Doug Stewart.

Speaker 76 Where did you go?

Speaker 134 I went, I drove to Virginia.

Speaker 109 Where did Doug tell you he was going?

Speaker 97 To Michigan.

Speaker 109 What was he going to do there?

Speaker 97 He didn't say kill his wife, but he said to take care of business up in Michigan.

Speaker 125 But I knew what he meant.

Speaker 63 Sure enough, surveillance cam pictures taken April 15th show Ricky easing into Doug's life in Newport News.

Speaker 51 He parked in Doug's garage as instructed and hung out in Doug's apartment.

Speaker 90 This is a lobby in Virginia.

Speaker 20 This is between 10 and 11. Here's me with the hoodie, piece of paper, sticking out of my pocket, the Wendy's bag.

Speaker 46 With Doug's credit card, Ricky had bought a double cheeseburger and fries at Wendy's.

Speaker 109 Why did he want you to use the credit card there?

Speaker 97 To make it look like he was in Virginia.

Speaker 26 Somewhere deep down, prosecutors wondered, did Ricky, a little slow on the uptake, think that this was all pretend?

Speaker 22 Act like you're me. Don't look at the camera.
Keep your head down. You know, wear this sweatshirt.

Speaker 21 And it was like a game.

Speaker 22 He was a part of this game.

Speaker 9 This was Ricky's little mission.

Speaker 27 But the mission, Mortal Mission 1 in Game Box Speak, had gone amiss.

Speaker 26 Doug had to hit the reset button.

Speaker 84 On his way to Michigan, he'd been pulled over in the wee hours by a state trooper in Ohio who said he was weaving lanes.

Speaker 98 The traffic stop was irrefutable proof that he wasn't in Virginia.

Speaker 97 I got a phone call from him that said, you know, the plan's off, and I was relieved to hear it.

Speaker 28 But Doug wasn't ready to call it quits after one bump in the road.

Speaker 68 He kept on talking.

Speaker 135 Hey, Ricky, I want to try doing this again. I told him I didn't want to.

Speaker 19 It was like a one-time deal, and I didn't want to do it the first time.

Speaker 51 But then, according to Ricky, Doug upped the pressure.

Speaker 51 He told Ricky, if he didn't get on board with the original plan, he was going to wipe out everyone. A massacre.

Speaker 19 Instead of just making it look like she disappeared, he was talking about going in there and killing anyone that was inside the house

Speaker 97 besides his kids.

Speaker 109 So, what did you do next?

Speaker 19 I told him, Okay, dude,

Speaker 19 we'll do it again. I'll be your alibi again.

Speaker 27 There would be a Mortal Mission, too.

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 125 A drop of blood came from her nose.

Speaker 9 A virtual world turned suddenly, violently real.

Speaker 14 And a spellbound courtroom hears the most harrowing part of the story.

Speaker 125 Because he was going to go

Speaker 125 to barrier?

Speaker 9 When dateline continues.

Speaker 109 Do you recognize the person in that photograph?

Speaker 63 Doug Stewart was on trial for murder, but his sister, Jamie, couldn't bring herself to be in the courtroom.

Speaker 8 I don't know what to believe if I did.

Speaker 8 That's the hard thing, and

Speaker 8 you just don't know what to believe. And

Speaker 8 I really don't want to to think that my brother did anything terrible.

Speaker 89 But Dustin Jasper, the victim's brother, was there on most days, grabbing a bench seat within good stare-down range of the accused, Doug Stewart.

Speaker 43 He nearly made on contact with me. Like he's too ashamed.

Speaker 46 But on the stand, shame didn't seem to figure into the boldest brass story about Doug that Ricky Spencer was telling the jury.

Speaker 27 How after the first run to Michigan was a bust, Doug called Ricky again.

Speaker 97 He said, hey, dude, it's Don. I killed her and a dad.

Speaker 6 I was like, Wait, what?

Speaker 135 And he says, No, I'm just kidding. I told him that wasn't funny.

Speaker 109 So he said

Speaker 109 he was kidding, and you told him it wasn't funny?

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 52 Ricky's second day on the stand as the star witness.

Speaker 89 Prosecutor McDonough picked up his questioning with Ricky's description of mission number two: the assault on Venus Stewart.

Speaker 109 Did you attempt it again?

Speaker 44 Yes, we did.

Speaker 23 It was deja vu all over again.

Speaker 55 This time, Sunday, April 25th.

Speaker 19 I went down to Virginia.

Speaker 74 He's heading up back up to Michigan.

Speaker 51 Later that day, Ricky said he made a call to Doug's boss, pretending to be Doug under the weather.

Speaker 135 And I said in a sick voice, like,

Speaker 16 hey, Bobby, this is me, Doug.

Speaker 6 I'm feeling like you.

Speaker 90 I can't get to work.

Speaker 28 He said, all right.

Speaker 19 So Doug didn't have to come to work on Monday.

Speaker 31 Monday would be Venus's last day alive, as Ricky would explain in his chilling story of duplicity and death.

Speaker 23 It began, the prosecutor said, with Doug in a field across from Venus's parents' house.

Speaker 109 He parked there with his truck, kind of watching things, I'd say, probably 500 yards from Venus's parents' house.

Speaker 72 Doug called Ricky at 7 a.m.

Speaker 17 from a track phone and gave him his instructions.

Speaker 19 Ricky, I want you to leave anywhere from 8 to 8:15,

Speaker 125 nothing later.

Speaker 68 Doug then sneaked up close to the house, police said, hiding behind this woodpile.

Speaker 63 Back in Virginia, Ricky was establishing the alibi.

Speaker 117 Do you recognize that photograph?

Speaker 97 It's me leaving the apartments on the 26th.

Speaker 95 His next instructions were to wait for Doug's call.

Speaker 77 That came just before 9 a.m.

Speaker 117 What did he say?

Speaker 135 He said, okay, dude, it's Dawn.

Speaker 19 I was kind of shocked to hear that. I said, what happened?

Speaker 97 He said that he...

Speaker 19 Called Venus's parents' house in Michigan and said that he was the mailman. He had a package for her and she came outside just like that.

Speaker 26 Ricky's virtual world had turned real.

Speaker 63 Game over,

Speaker 27 he was displaying emotion on the stand for the first time.

Speaker 27 Doug was showing nothing.

Speaker 19 And he uh jumped out and

Speaker 97 he said that there was a scream, she screamed once, and that tried putting up a fight, but he was able to uh get in that uh

Speaker 5 headlock.

Speaker 125 And

Speaker 125 a drop of blood came from her nose

Speaker 125 and

Speaker 97 that was it.

Speaker 125 I asked him if it was worth it and he said it was to

Speaker 134 protect his kids and give them some type of future

Speaker 6 and

Speaker 134 he told me that

Speaker 125 he told me that

Speaker 134 he was gonna

Speaker 125 call me later

Speaker 125 because he was going to go

Speaker 125 to barrier.

Speaker 35 Did he understand the consequences, Ricky?

Speaker 22 I think when it was over, it finally hit him. This really was a homicide.
Someone actually died here. It's not on the Xbox.
It's not somebody blowing up, cartoon figure.

Speaker 22 It was a real person.

Speaker 89 Later Monday, Ricky continued in a supporting actor role.

Speaker 71 He went to Doug's lawyer's office dressed in the hat, hoodie, and sunglasses.

Speaker 113 Doug told him to make a payment to one particular secretary.

Speaker 134 He said that she's not all there in the head, and that just hand her the envelope, say who you are, and tell them that you're in a hurry and

Speaker 125 tell them to mail you the receipt.

Speaker 55 Did you do that?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 27 Later that day, Ricky and Doug drove to their meeting spot in Maryland to exchange clothing, cell phones, keys, and the credit card.

Speaker 50 They talked briefly.

Speaker 29 Ricky piped up to express a newfound fear.

Speaker 97 I was asking, hey, dude, are you going to kill me?

Speaker 135 And he said, you know, no.

Speaker 21 I said, good, because if you did, that would suck.

Speaker 135 And then he asked, why did I ask that?

Speaker 97 I says, because I know what you did.

Speaker 109 That was the first thing that came to my mind. Why in the heck didn't Doug kill this kid? Why did he leave this witness out there for somebody to find?

Speaker 13 The prosecutors fully expected their case with the jury would rise or fall on the shoulders of Ricky Spencer.

Speaker 35 And yet you got to worry on cross-examination whether the defense is going to rattle his cage and undo him.

Speaker 9 That's always a worry.

Speaker 22 He probably could hold his own, but we didn't know.

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 8 Quite honestly, his testimony was just so bizarre.

Speaker 14 Was his a true tale or a tall one?

Speaker 9 Ricky Spencer's story under scrutiny.

Speaker 104 What evidence do you have that Venus Stewart is dead?

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Speaker 101 I turned off news altogether.

Speaker 110 I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything.

Speaker 117 It's the rage bait.

Speaker 136 It feels like it's trying to divide people.

Speaker 18 We got clear facts.

Speaker 58 Maybe we could calm down a little.

Speaker 126 NBC News brings you clear reporting.

Speaker 25 Let's meet at the facts.

Speaker 106 Let's move forward from there.

Speaker 126 NBC News, reporting for America.

Speaker 104 Guesswork.

Speaker 74 If you think about anything in this case, I want you to think about the word guesswork.

Speaker 72 In its opening argument, the defense asked jurors to pay close attention to a prosecution case that had no victim's body and no eyewitness who saw the defendant in Michigan, much less killing his wife.

Speaker 74 I believe at the end of this case,

Speaker 74 the prosecutor is going to ask you to guess.

Speaker 17 After Ricky Spencer's riveting testimony, anticipation was building.

Speaker 69 Would the defense be able to rock the wild story from the so-called double?

Speaker 72 The defense lawyers, Jeff and Kimberly Schroeder, the married and highly regarded team, were poised to attack more than Ricky's testimony.

Speaker 77 They were going after his character, too, and the deal they claimed he'd made for leniency with the prosecution.

Speaker 137 My defense, my story, had to do with Ricky evading life in prison, Ricky being an accomplished liar.

Speaker 46 Cross-examination strategy number one was to muss up the clean-cut young man image he projected from the stand.

Speaker 68 They started with the X-rated screen name, the tag he'd picked for himself when he played Xbox Live.

Speaker 9 Ricky, your gamer tag is dark boot,

Speaker 69 isn't it?

Speaker 44 Um, yes, that's correct.

Speaker 21 What's a book?

Speaker 97 Uh, it means a bunch of uh guys.

Speaker 63 Ricky explained to the jury the overt and very explicit sexual connotations of his online name. The defense wanted the jury to look at Ricky as an unsavory young man without a moral compass.

Speaker 137 And if you believe his testimony, he decided to help commit murder rather than

Speaker 129 deciding to call the authorities.

Speaker 35 Of course, you don't want the jury to believe that story, but there is a moral issue that hangs over the testimony here.

Speaker 61 Right.

Speaker 35 This guy could have thrown a wrench in the works and stopped it.

Speaker 51 He could have. He could have done the right thing, but elected not to.

Speaker 137 If you believe his testimony, and I think that's one of the reasons why his testimony is not believable.

Speaker 28 Evidence that Ricky could be shifty with the truth?

Speaker 68 He'd already admitted in direct testimony that he'd lied to his parents about what he was doing over spring break.

Speaker 109 Did you want them to know that you were going to visit Mr. Stewart?

Speaker 26 Uh, no.

Speaker 109 Why?

Speaker 19 Because it seemed kind of strange to go meet up with somebody that you played Xbox Live with who's a lot older than you.

Speaker 63 But the defense took a mostly hands-off approach with challenging Ricky on all those very detailed recollections of his story.

Speaker 63 What he did which day in Virginia, what he bought with a credit card, which security cams he played to.

Speaker 6 The defense stance was, jurors, a lot of detail here, but it's all a fantasy from a young man trying to save his own skin.

Speaker 116 Thank you. It's all I have here.

Speaker 63 After only 20 minutes of less than explosive cross-examination, they got him off the stand.

Speaker 8 Quite honestly, his testimony was just so bizarre.

Speaker 35 It's a strange story, isn't it?

Speaker 8 It's a very strange story.

Speaker 28 A story spun, says the defense, so Ricky could cut a sweetheart deal with the prosecutor.

Speaker 31 In return for his testimony, Ricky would not be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but he would enter a plea to a lesser charge.

Speaker 137 I think that he was coached many, many times to give the testimony in the way that he gave it.

Speaker 35 He was taught to become a good witness, you think?

Speaker 137 I think so. I think that he had to do a good job.
You know, if he didn't bring the case home for the prosecutor, it's my belief that he thought he would be facing those charges.

Speaker 44 The defense called no witnesses.

Speaker 111 Defense rests, and we're we're ready for closing arguments.

Speaker 27 Doug Stewart didn't take the stand, but he did sit down with Dateline for an interview.

Speaker 24 After hearing everything that I've heard, everything that I've seen, I still haven't seen anything showing me that my wife is hurt. She's harmed.

Speaker 68 So what did he make of the star witness, the sensational testimony of Ricky Spencer, his young Xbox buddy?

Speaker 24 I don't understand any of his testimony on the stand. I mean, he got locations right as far as he came down.
He was on spring break.

Speaker 79 Why does Ricky come down?

Speaker 24 He mentioned to me, well, I got spring break coming up from college and I'm coming down there with Bush Gardens with some friends. April 1st, I got a phone call and he goes, well, I'm almost there.

Speaker 24 I said, almost where? And he goes, I'm almost to your apartment.

Speaker 35 He just showed up. Now the guy's in your apartment and you're the host and he's sort of the uninvited guest.

Speaker 13 Is that what's happening?

Speaker 24 I felt comfortable enough with him that I was like, okay, I guess, yeah, you can stay here.

Speaker 35 So the story that he would tell authorities and then testify under oath to in the court, almost like a spy movie plot. None of that stuff is true.

Speaker 24 The whole idea of hurting my wife or doing any of that stuff is very strange and very weird. None of that is true.

Speaker 59 In his closing statement, Jeff Schroeder hoped he could convince at least one juror that without a body, there was reasonable doubt.

Speaker 25 What evidence of that kind in this case do you have to demonstrate to you that Venus Stewart is dead?

Speaker 66 So what about all those purchases at Walmart?

Speaker 27 Doug Stewart seen walking the aisles in loud floral shorts.

Speaker 30 They asked rhetorically: Would a man about to commit a murder be so dumb as to call that kind of attention to himself?

Speaker 123 Is he trying to hide things?

Speaker 131 He's wearing Hawaiian shorts,

Speaker 116 asking people where things are. Does that sound like somebody who's gonna use it in a crime?

Speaker 58 And he bought a shovel, the defense attorney noted.

Speaker 2 So, what?

Speaker 116 What evidence have they shown you that a shovel was used

Speaker 116 in the killing of Venus Stewart?

Speaker 116 They haven't.

Speaker 58 Schroeder summed it up for the jury.

Speaker 29 He claimed the prosecutor had an illusion of evidence, a circumstantial case woven together with Ricky Spencer's tall tale.

Speaker 116 They've tried to make you think they have all this evidence, but they don't. And they haven't proved their case.

Speaker 90 And you have a duty to do.

Speaker 116 And that's to find Doug Stewart not guilty.

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 24 You believe she's alive? I've got to believe she's alive.

Speaker 9 What would the jury do?

Speaker 111 The clerk will read the verdict.

Speaker 49 A verdict.

Speaker 9 And a whole new chapter in the mystery.

Speaker 8 He showed up to the door.

Speaker 61 He

Speaker 8 said that it was part of the case.

Speaker 11 The case was never closed. That's the missing piece.

Speaker 9 When date line continues.

Speaker 59 March 11th, 2011, the jury had been deliberating.

Speaker 68 Was Doug Stewart responsible for the murder of his wife, Venus?

Speaker 43 I dream about her a lot, thinking that she's still alive, and I'm hugging her, you know. And then I wake up and reality hits me.

Speaker 24 You believe she's alive or not? I've got to believe she's alive.

Speaker 24 If she's not, I...

Speaker 24 don't think I can handle it. I don't think my kids can handle it.

Speaker 56 If she's alive, that would be incredibly cruel, what she's doing.

Speaker 111 I could never forgive her.

Speaker 133 On the record, the people versus Stewart, the jurors indicate they've reached a verdict.

Speaker 51 The moment had arrived.

Speaker 58 Venus's brother and mother knew a guilty verdict would be small consolation, but they wanted to hear it anyway.

Speaker 46 A few feet away stood the accused, eyes blinking, face twitching.

Speaker 111 The clerk will read the verdict.

Speaker 101 Members of the jury find Douglas Harry Stewart as to count one guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.

Speaker 32 Guilty.

Speaker 27 Jurors clearly believe the star witness Ricky Spencer's story of being the alibi and the double.

Speaker 68 But they also determined that Doug's fingerprint found at the crime scene on the plastic wrapper was powerful evidence.

Speaker 50 It's a scheme.

Speaker 35 It's a conspiracy. There's only one other person that knows what's going on, and that's Ricky.

Speaker 93 Is he lucky to be alive, in your opinion?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 105 He made the case for us.

Speaker 13 And if

Speaker 105 Doug had killed him, it'd be very difficult to prove this case without Ricky.

Speaker 51 Outside the courtroom, the young prosecutor, John McDonough, hugged Venus's mother.

Speaker 109 I was so happy to be able to reach out and say to her, you know, we got him. We promised you we would do it, and we did it.

Speaker 12 What difference does it make?

Speaker 60 My daughter's not here.

Speaker 12 That's all I could think about. Venus isn't here.

Speaker 27 Sweater vest gone, shackled at the legs and hands, Doug wasn't giving an inch.

Speaker 127 I'm innocent. I did not do these crimes.

Speaker 58 His story, rejected out of hand by a jury that needed only three hours to convict him, was nothing if not consistent.

Speaker 67 Dateline found that out in our interview the month after the verdict at the St.

Speaker 54 Joseph County Jail.

Speaker 35 You're saying you didn't do it and you don't know where she is?

Speaker 24 Absolutely not.

Speaker 28 The judge saw it differently.

Speaker 133 I'm sentencing the defendant to life in the Michigan Department of Corrections without without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 26 Doug Stewart was sentenced to life without parole.

Speaker 28 And Ricky, after testimony that swayed the jury, was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, a conspiracy to commit manslaughter, and was sentenced to one year in county jail.

Speaker 6 Venus's family didn't think that was enough, not by a long shot.

Speaker 43 He could have saved my sister.

Speaker 43 He could have let the authorities know they could have been waiting for him

Speaker 43 at my parents' house and it had been over.

Speaker 26 The killer was put away for life. But for two detectives in Michigan, the story of Venus Stewart wouldn't be case closed until they found Venus's remains.

Speaker 61 But where to look?

Speaker 73 Maybe do we want to split up and have a group on this side and have a group on this side?

Speaker 30 The search picked right up back again in this vast countryside of woods, fields, and farms.

Speaker 13 Two lawmen driven.

Speaker 50 So why pursue it?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 11 the case was never closed.

Speaker 11 The criminal part, yes, but because her body was never located, that's the missing piece to the case, was that we were never able to locate her.

Speaker 26 And Venus's family waiting and hoping for closure.

Speaker 130 It's not too late for Doug to do the right thing.

Speaker 130 He can repent for his wrongdoing.

Speaker 43 Tell us where my sister's body is.

Speaker 30 Four years after the trial, Lieutenant Christensen and Detective Peterson of the state police decided to call on Doug in prison.

Speaker 48 Maybe he'd be willing to tell them more now.

Speaker 129 Our first strategy when we went to the prison was to simply go and and talk to him and see if anything had changed.

Speaker 138 That was back in 2015.

Speaker 129 And I know we both felt after our meeting that

Speaker 129 he was hostile. He was still hanging on to the fact that he had nothing to do with it.
He was still trying to do it.

Speaker 48 Wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted.

Speaker 93 Somebody else did it. I'm not your guy.

Speaker 31 He's still holding on to that.

Speaker 129 He's holding on to that so much so that when we walked out of the room, we both had the conversation that I don't think he's ever going to give it up.

Speaker 41 Doug was no help.

Speaker 33 So detectives decided to reinvestigate an old rumor, one that had buzzed through the community for years.

Speaker 30 It had to do with a barn owned by Doug's sister, Jamie, the same sister who'd introduced Doug and Venus years ago.

Speaker 26 Jamie had poured a new concrete floor in her barn right after Venus had gone missing.

Speaker 27 And what was the question you had for her, Doug?

Speaker 11 I told her that there was a tip that

Speaker 11 Venus had been buried. and was underneath the concrete in her barn.
She immediately knew what I was talking about.

Speaker 11 She was aware of those rumors that were in the community, and she was real emotional about it because it always kind of weighed on her mind, Div, what if he could have actually done it?

Speaker 79 Do you remember that? Were you expecting anyone?

Speaker 61 No.

Speaker 8 No, not really.

Speaker 8 But he showed up to the door. I knew he was there for Doug.

Speaker 6 He wanted, excuse me, he wanted to go over the concrete.

Speaker 8 He said that it was part of the case.

Speaker 13 Investigators had chased this lead before, but now they were armed with new technology, a ground-penetrating radar that could see through concrete.

Speaker 31 These rumors are going on for years, aren't they?

Speaker 8 Oh, yeah. Sister's got Venus buried under her barn, and we're going to follow dad in the pickup truck.
They're sure

Speaker 8 he was going to dig her up and move her. And, you know, yeah, it was hard.

Speaker 42 She knew full well there was nothing in that barn but compacted soil.

Speaker 51 And sure enough, the radar revealed nothing.

Speaker 59 But that didn't mean Jamie believed her brother was innocent.

Speaker 8 I had an old employer that I had that i i ran into grocery shopping and she goes do you think you did it and i just kind of

Speaker 8 you know and she's like in your heart

Speaker 6 do you think you did it

Speaker 61 yeah

Speaker 8 i do

Speaker 50 a heart that was also heavy with guilt the responsibility she felt for introducing her brother doug to venus back then that does go through your mind

Speaker 8 you know thinking geez if i never introduced him this would have never happened you know but we also wouldn't have

Speaker 8 Oh, for years.

Speaker 30 So the day the detective showed up at her doorstep, it was as though she'd been waiting all these years for just this kind of visit.

Speaker 28 She wanted to show the detective some rumpled pages of writing.

Speaker 11 She mentioned to me that she'd had this letter in her purse and she pulls it out and it's, I mean, obviously you could tell that it had been there for seven years and it was to Venus's mother, Therese.

Speaker 93 And never delivered?

Speaker 11 Never delivered. She said she didn't, just couldn't get herself to deliver it.
She was afraid of the rejection.

Speaker 30 But now, by reaching out, making the first move, the convicted killer's sister would set in motion a sequence of events leading to the unraveling of the last mystery in the case.

Speaker 58 The sister and the victim's mother would unite and work together to find Venus.

Speaker 94 Coming up.

Speaker 8 I wanted her to have Venus back. I wanted everyone to stop hurting.

Speaker 9 Where was Venus? After all these years, would they finally learn the truth?

Speaker 8 You want to know. You want to know where she is, but at the same time, you do not want to know.

Speaker 30 Pummeled with guilt that just wouldn't go away, Jamie, Doug's sister, wrote two letters, one for her two nieces, one for Venus's mom.

Speaker 35 What was the message, Jamie?

Speaker 8 Told her how terrible we felt, you know, what what Doug had done, and that, you know, Venus was my friend, she was my coworker, she was family.

Speaker 8 And basically, I just wanted to be a family again, missing out on those last eight years of these girls growing up. And

Speaker 8 I missed that. I missed eight years.

Speaker 41 So, when Detective Peterson knocked on her door that day, Jamie asked him for help in reconnecting with Venus's mom, Therese.

Speaker 30 He set up a meeting at his office.

Speaker 57 Does this begin with words or kind of wary glances at one another?

Speaker 8 I was just a blabbering, blubbering blubbering fool. I mean, I just sat there and just cried profusively, and I was there to tell her I was sorry for what my brother had done.

Speaker 8 And here she comes across the room and gives me a big hug and tells me she's sorry for what my brother did to our family, which just...

Speaker 49 Where were you coming from philosophically at that point?

Speaker 35 Was this about forgiveness or?

Speaker 10 She didn't do nothing to be forgiven for.

Speaker 10 You never done anything to be forgiven for.

Speaker 26 The building of family bridges was too late for Venus' dad, Larry.

Speaker 4 Cancer had taken him six months earlier.

Speaker 66 But the two families, at odds for years, were now talking again, doing their best to reconnect and heal.

Speaker 27 Doug, in the meanwhile, was sitting in his cell, still insisting he had done nothing wrong.

Speaker 8 You know, he complains about being in there and how terrible it is, but guess what?

Speaker 2 We're all out here living it.

Speaker 56 His sister had had enough, and she told him so.

Speaker 8 I wanted her to have Venus back. I wanted everyone to stop hurting.

Speaker 8 And that's the approach that it took. It took going to Doug and telling him

Speaker 8 we're done, we're exhausted.

Speaker 24 Once he found out that we were talking and were friends, then the jig was sort of up because he had lied to her, he had lied to me.

Speaker 51 With his appeals exhausted and his family applying pressure to reveal where the remains were, detectives went back to see Doug.

Speaker 28 Seven years after the trial now, his stance had changed.

Speaker 129 I didn't sense the anger that was there from our prior meeting.

Speaker 118 We spoke in hypotheticals about

Speaker 138 if you work with us,

Speaker 138 can you bring us to the location of where she's buried?

Speaker 51 A few months and a couple of visits later, Doug, a lifelong gamer, was ready to play.

Speaker 32 He made demands for his cooperation.

Speaker 129 When we spoke to him, though,

Speaker 138 he had a specific list that he gave to us in terms of what he would like for consideration.

Speaker 7 So I will take you guys to the body, but I want this stuff on my list.

Speaker 118 Hypothetically, I could take you to the body,

Speaker 138 but I would like to have these items for me.

Speaker 31 On his list, Doug wanted to teach in prison, join the canine program, and be permitted to attend his parents' funerals when their time came.

Speaker 26 And one more request for his unit, a gaming console.

Speaker 58 And not just any, he wanted no substitutes and Xbox.

Speaker 56 You're kidding, that's where this whole thing started.

Speaker 49 The Xbox game?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 42 He wanted one for inside.

Speaker 129 Specifically mentioned Xbox because they were being used throughout the country and some of the other prisons.

Speaker 31 The Michigan Department of Corrections said yes to most of his requests. An Xbox for the unit was already in the works anyway.

Speaker 49 Detectives went to see Doug again.

Speaker 26 They delivered what he.

Speaker 129 I told him specifically, this is the time right now. If you want to do this, we're going to do it.
If you not want to do it,

Speaker 39 We're out.

Speaker 129 We're done.

Speaker 28 Detectives say he took a long pause and then...

Speaker 11 He started out, I believe, by saying, you know, I didn't kill her at home.

Speaker 11 That's kind of where the narration started, where he described getting to the house and calling her from the house that morning.

Speaker 11 That when she came out is where he attacked her and began to put her in like a chokehold.

Speaker 29 Doug says she passed out and he put her in the bed of his truck.

Speaker 33 He then drove to a wooded clearing he remembered from his teenage years.

Speaker 32 There he said Venus revived and they argued before he stabbed her.

Speaker 28 Detectives weren't sure they believed the details of his story, but were struck by the fact that Doug showed no signs of remorse as he laid out the grisly details.

Speaker 11 I didn't see a whole lot of feeling there.

Speaker 11 There's a little bit of emotion right at that moment where he describes where he takes her life.

Speaker 45 Next, Doug needed to reveal the site where he buried the body eight years before.

Speaker 29 He quickly zoomed in on and pointed to a spot on a Google map.

Speaker 11 It's a dirt road in the southern portion of Kalamazoo County, right at the entrance off of this dirt road to a soybean field.

Speaker 24 Very wooded.

Speaker 29 So you could dug out, you got him here in shackles and you're walking through the site?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 27 How certain was he that this was where he had disposed of the body?

Speaker 138 Positive.

Speaker 59 He knew it. This was positive.

Speaker 7 No doubt in his mind.

Speaker 54 This police video shot in October 2018 shows Doug in shackles leading the detectives through the thick brush.

Speaker 136 But this was the biggest open area.

Speaker 47 Without hesitation, he pointed to the place where they should dig to find his wife's remains.

Speaker 136 I walked right in through here and everything, there was so many stumps, tree, and debris. Like where she's standing, there was so much debris that could it be where this was the open spot.

Speaker 37 And then you started to dig.

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 68 What's he doing the whole time that you're digging?

Speaker 29 Because it takes you an hour or so to

Speaker 11 talk with him up here in the clearing there and had him away from it.

Speaker 11 I think you could tell he really didn't want to be near it where it was actually taking place, but he knew that we had to keep him here just to confirm that we were in the right spot until that point.

Speaker 13 And it was the right spot. After about an hour and a half of digging and sifting, the years-long search was over.

Speaker 63 The remains were positively ID.

Speaker 57 And detectives reached out to Venus's mom and Doug's sister, whose rediscovered friendship had led to this moment.

Speaker 8 You want to know? You want to know. You want to know where she is.
You want to know what he did, but at the same time, you do not want to know.

Speaker 2 No. You don't.

Speaker 34 I don't want to know the particulars. No.
I never do. I would never want to know that.

Speaker 30 The family had a burial service for Venus in December 2018.

Speaker 48 The bond between the two families, once sundered, has been growing stronger every day.

Speaker 71 How do you describe your relationship?

Speaker 26 I say she's like my daughter.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Jamie, you agree. Yeah, I agree.
Yeah.

Speaker 26 Yeah. We can be a family and we enjoy each other's company.

Speaker 34 We go.

Speaker 10 She loves the girl so much.

Speaker 42 And the kids have a joint family.

Speaker 93 Now, that's the important thing to raise around.

Speaker 90 Yes, yes.

Speaker 26 Several cold winters later, the mystery of the missing Venus Stewart has finally been put to rest.

Speaker 26 But memories of a loving mother, a daughter, and a friend will be kept alive by those who hold the story of Venus close to their hearts.

Speaker 40 She was my best friend.

Speaker 10 I never went a day without talking to her.

Speaker 111 Never.

Speaker 10 The girls missed.

Speaker 34 They missed out on a really good mom.

Speaker 93 Is she alive in their memory?

Speaker 10 Oh, yeah. I talk about her all the time.
We all do. Yeah.

Speaker 30 As for Doug Stewart, the gamer, his decision to finally confess and give it up changes nothing in his sentence.

Speaker 48 He and his new Xbox will be in prison for the remainder of his life.

Speaker 41 That's all for now.

Speaker 9 I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 2 Terms apply.