Deidra Griffin

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They were two successful self-starters who eventually found one another.

They had so much in common.

It seemed like the perfect match.

The relationship blossomed.

She found out she was pregnant.

She was overjoyed.

But was the couple destined for a happily ever after?

Or would a brazen attack leave their lives shattered?

Gets in the garage and he never comes back at it.

What follows will not only test the bonds of love, but will raise the question, could this tough-minded businessman have set his own murder in motion?

Or had death been lying in in wait all along.

Make good money, but he didn't pay the best.

And sometimes, you know, some of them get a little angry.

It's nothing I've ever experienced, and hopefully, never will again.

You told me they threatened him.

Every officer we talked to was like, This is something I'll never forget.

You're looking and you see, oh my gosh, this guy has no idea what's about to happen.

Nobody deserves to die like that.

Nobody at all.

July 1st, 2015.

With the 4th of July mere days away, most residents of Baltimore, Maryland are gearing up for local festivities.

But for Wanda Gresham, the coming holiday isn't the most pressing matter at hand.

She hadn't heard from her boyfriend, Lonnie Pei, and they were supposed to be getting together, and she hadn't seen him since June 19th.

She has been calling him, texting him, going by his house every other day, and became concerned enough that she actually called the police.

Just before 8 o'clock p.m., Officers from the Baltimore County Police Department rushed to Lonnie's home to conduct a welfare check.

We don't get very many calls for service.

Back there, you say these are half a million dollar homes.

When they got to the location, the front door was locked.

Unable to reach anyone inside Lonnie's home, they attempt to gain entry through the garage.

One of his vehicles outside in the driveway was unlocked.

So police were able to press a button to open the garage door.

As the door opens, a pungent odor washes over police.

Every officer we talked to was like, this is something I'll never forget.

That smell.

As officers inch forward, they soon discover the source of the stench.

They located a decomposing body.

Officers pull a wallet from a pants pocket and confirm what they already suspect.

The decaying body is that of Wanda's 51-year-old boyfriend, Lonnie Pei.

Lonnie is lying between his two cars and his body is literally covered with maggots.

Based on what they observe, he had been dead for at least a week.

As detectives converge on the scene, the horrific sight presents an array of questions, one more troubling than the next.

They're trying to understand what has happened.

Had he succumbed to a medical emergency, lacked the ability to call for help?

Or was he the victim of a malicious attack?

When we started the body, we worked our way up.

There were several shellcasings around his body.

He was shot several times.

Lonnie Pei was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1963.

Growing up on his grandparents' farm with siblings Leon and Charles, the three brothers led an active life.

It was fun, but it was hard work chucking corn,

doing chores like that, but

it made us learn how to survive and take care of ourselves.

As Lonnie grew older, it was that hard-working upbringing that helped him earn a lucrative living.

He had his own construction business where he had staff and folks working up under him and was able to save up a good bit of money, buy a really nice home in the Randallstown suburb.

He loved to go to work.

I mean, this guy was up at probably four o'clock in the morning getting his day ready for what he's going to do.

Lonnie's long hours on the job left little time for anything else.

He was married twice and also divorced.

He didn't quite make the time that was needed to be the present husband.

He told me he was never going to get married again.

While taking up matrimony again appeared unlikely, Lonnie still showed a healthy interest in dating.

Online was his preferred method to meet women, and around 2012 is when he met Deidre Griffin.

Growing up in Bay City, Michigan, Deidre kept to herself and was encouraged to concentrate on school by her two doting parents.

She was not real outgoing, not a lot of friends.

She was spoiled a little bit.

She got more or less what she wanted.

After graduating high school, Deidre joined the Army Reserve before continuing her education in biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State.

Then in 2007, Deidre's hard work paid off when she landed a prestigious job at the University of Maryland.

She really excelled in her role in healthcare administration and didn't devote as much time in her early years to her social life.

The older that Deidre got, she realized, hey, maybe it's time that I make room for family.

It was then in her late 30s that Deidre jumped into the world of online dating and made a love connection with Lonnie Pei.

She just liked everything about him that he had a good business, had a nice house, nice car.

They made a perfect little cute couple.

They really did.

She had moved in with Lonnie and they would go out and they would go to dinners and everything.

And Deidre really fell in love with him.

In May of 2014, the couple's relationship took an unexpected turn when Deidre made a surprise discovery.

Deidre had endometriosis and doctor had told her you will never get pregnant with all this.

So she went and had the operations.

She was pregnant in three months.

And while the news thrilled Deidre, Lonnie initially wasn't nearly as enthusiastic.

He didn't want no kids.

I know that for a fact.

At 51, you know, got a kid now.

She didn't want to be tied down like that.

They got in a big argument and she literally threw some stuff in the car and drove back to Michigan and said, well, he wants nothing to do with me or the baby.

With Deidre back in Bay City, Lonnie moved on with his life.

Then, to everyone's surprise, he began to have a change of heart about fatherhood.

His family has convinced him that, hey, you don't necessarily have to have a committed long-term relationship with Deidre, but you should make an investment in having a relationship with your child.

And so he does kind of turn a new leaf and flies to Michigan.

In August of 2014, with Lonnie in attendance at the hospital, Deidre gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

Being there for the birth of his son, his whole world turns upside down once he meets his new baby.

He loved his son.

This baby looks just like him as a kid.

And to see himself in the image of this child, that's what changed him.

With Lonnie on board for parenthood, Deidre's dream of them being a happy family was once again ignited.

I think there was a glimmer of hope there for Deidre that he would come and say, I'm taking you, I'm taking the baby, we're gonna live in the house, we're gonna have a wonderful life.

Deidre made at least two trips from Michigan to Maryland with the baby so that Lonnie could be a part of his son's life.

She really wanted to see if they could reestablish the love and the relationship that they once had.

Only after a few months together, they both realized that the spark between them had passed.

It becomes clear to Deidre that...

Lonnie doesn't want anything to do with her on a relationship level.

He only wants the child.

He just fell out of love.

He just didn't want her anymore.

He moved on.

With any hope of reconciliation gone, Deidre retreated to Michigan and focused on raising her baby.

Lonnie, meanwhile, remained in Maryland and ventured back into the dating scene.

He had established a relationship with a woman named Wanda.

coincidentally also meeting her on the same website that he had met with Deidre.

They started seeing each other pretty regularly.

I think they had even taken a trip together.

So this was becoming a very serious relationship.

It appeared that in Wanda, Lonnie may have finally found his one true love.

Then came the horrific discovery inside Lonnie's garage on July 1st, 2015.

He's in the heights, you know, an advanced state of decomposition.

There were numerous shell casings.

Going towards the front of the garage, what it indicated to me was that he was probably almost in this house when he was shot several times.

Coming up, a motive surfaces that casts a suspicious eye on Lonnie's untimely demise.

This thing was so big, it was so heated.

The victim was telling everybody about it.

And does the person closest to Lonnie have the most to hide?

This is a person who had the knowledge of the house, the knowledge of Lonnie's coming and goings, and last one to be able to say she saw him alive.

In June of 2015, 51-year-old Lonnie Pei was celebrating some major changes in his life, chief among them, becoming a new dad.

Man, his face was shining.

Knowing somebody when they

hit the lottery,

that's the look on his face.

Although the relationship with the child's mother, Deidre Griffin, didn't work out, Lonnie had a new love in his life.

Wanda Gresham was the girlfriend of Lonnie Pei.

It was a new budding relationship.

Everything seemed to be going well.

Then, Lonnie's decomposed body was found in his garage on July 1st, 2015.

It was a pretty gruesome sight.

Lonnie had been in the the garage for about 10 days and was in a pretty serious state of decomposition.

There was no weapon at the scene, but there were a number of shell casings on the garage floor, which led to the obvious conclusion that he was shot.

Given Lonnie's wealth, detectives initially theorize that Lonnie may have stumbled upon a burglary in progress.

Yet, the more investigators study the scene, the more that theory begins to crumble.

Everything seemed to be in its proper place.

Didn't seem to be as if anything were missing.

So it didn't appear to be a burglary or something that somebody unknown was in there trying to steal something and then shot him.

Something more was going on there.

Outside the house, detectives make what could be a crucial discovery.

Lonnie had fitted the home with security cameras.

We noticed a camera at the front front door.

We also noticed a camera in front of the garage.

Then in a downstairs basement office, they did find a DVR which was recording surveillance video.

The DVR is transported back to the crime lab to be downloaded by crime lab technicians.

Meanwhile, police turn their attention to Lonnie's girlfriend, Wanda Gresham.

You don't know who's a suspect, who's not.

So we respond to Wanda's house.

She's told that he had passed.

She was visibly upset about it.

According to Wanda, Lonnie had been planning to go to Michigan to see his young son a week earlier.

She told us that the child's mother was Deidre Griffin and that he was supposed to pick up his son on June the 24th and then go back to Michigan on the 30th so he could give his son back to his mom.

Investigators asked Wanda when she last saw her boyfriend.

She said she spent the night on June 18th.

Their plans for the weekend, she told investigators, was to go out and purchase a crib for Lonnie's son and other essentials needed for caring for a toddler for the next five days.

She said she left the victim and went to work and they actually had planned to meet up later, but she said when she didn't hear from him, she just assumed he just didn't want to meet.

She says he was a perfectionist.

He cut his grass every week.

So when she came by on July 1st and she realized his grass had grown way higher than what he would ever allow it.

She says, I knew right then something was wrong.

While Wanda's story sounds credible, detectives know they need to tread carefully.

For all they know, Wanda could be lying to them.

This is a person who had the knowledge of the house, the knowledge of Lonnie's coming and goings.

Last one to be able to say she saw him alive.

While law enforcement looks into Wanda's alibi, Detective Ryan Massey faces the grim task of informing Lonnie's family of his death.

The victim's mother had passed previously.

His father was working and we gave him information that his son had passed and that it was a homicide and we were trying to figure out what happened.

I got a call from my dad.

He just came shit and said it.

He said he did.

And I said, huh?

What?

That's about what you say?

And he said, your brother is dead.

I said, who shot him?

We don't know yet.

You need to come down here now.

So I went to the house.

It was awful.

Once the family has had time to collect themselves, detectives press forward.

Investigators ask if there's anyone they can think of that Lonnie might have had bad blood with.

Did he have any recent run-ins with someone personally or professionally?

I told detectives Lonnie used to hire guys in the city to help him out, you know, cheap labor, make good money, but he didn't pay the best.

And sometimes, you know, some of them get a little angry.

Some of them, they know you got money.

They come at you in the head, trying to stick you up.

That's what we figured happened at first.

His family also offers up another possibility for Lonnie's demise.

And this one holds a deep personal connection.

Investigators learned that Lonnie had been in a custody battle with his former girlfriend, Deirdre Griffin, over their newborn son.

According to family members, it all began shortly after Lonnie and Deidre had broken off their relationship for the last time in February 2015.

Lonnie said, I don't want you on a relationship with my son.

And that's when she was saying, you know, I don't know what he's thinking, but this is a package deal.

It was almost a month.

He hadn't seen his son.

He's calling, asking her, you're going to bring the baby.

You're going to bring the baby.

And she never bought him.

Family members say by March, Lonnie felt like he had no choice but to hire a lawyer and to take legal action.

He didn't want custody of his son, he just wanted to see him.

We just needed sort of a general establishment of custody and parenting time.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

She never thought he would get any kind of custody.

I said, Deidre, this is not 1970.

Men have April rights now when it comes to children.

On June 9th, the presiding judge delivered his ruling.

The judge sort of put his foot down and said, this man deserves time with this child, and that's what we're going to do.

Lonnie was granted visitation with his son for five days out of the month.

According to those who witnessed the proceedings, the decision was a major punch to the stomach for Deidre.

When she came home from that court hearing, she was beside herself.

She was convinced that somehow Lonnie had paid off the judge.

She thought somehow something sinister was going on.

Deidre had concerns, but the concerns didn't go farther than any new mother would have.

She felt that he didn't know how to handle the baby.

He didn't know how to feed the baby.

He had none of the baby equipment that you need.

How does he think?

he can possibly take this baby for five days.

In the end, though, Deidre was left with no choice but to comply with the judge's orders.

She agreed to meet Lonnie at a local police station at the end of June to turn over their son.

The courts had ordered Lonnie would be able to take the baby from Michigan back to Maryland.

And on the date that the handoff was supposed to take place,

Deidre brings the baby to the location and waits.

And Lonnie never appeared.

For detectives, it's clear why Lonnie had never showed up.

Someone had shot and killed him in his garage.

Coming up, detectives consider the possibility that Deidre killed Lonnie to prevent him from being alone with their son.

Every couple has their issues, but no one ever anticipates that one party is going to murder another.

But is there anyone else out there who has a motive to kill Lonnie?

Lonnie called me and told me this guy threatened him.

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It's been 48 hours since police discovered the decomposing body of 51-year-old home contractor Lonnie Pei inside his Maryland garage.

During that time, relatives have alerted investigators to a possible suspect, Lonnie's ex-girlfriend, Deidre Griffin.

Lonnie's father, I think the word he used was a nasty custody battle with Deirdre Griffin, and that certainly piqued investigators' interest.

This custody thing was so heated.

We have to run that out until we can disprove it.

And then you try to pick up another angle.

At 2 p.m.

on July 4th, detectives make a surprise visit to Deidre's home in Michigan.

We just flew to Michigan and hooked up with the Bay County Sheriff's Office.

And they assisted us while we were in Michigan.

We just show up our house on the 4th of July.

They were having a cookout.

People are instantly wondering, what is going on?

Detectives first make contact with Deidre's mother and learn that both she and Deidre had recently been notified of Lonnie's death.

Deidre got a call from Lonnie's stepmom that he had passed away, that it was a homicide, that he had been shot.

Investigators then asked Deidre to accompany them to the local police station for an interview.

We told her we would bring her back.

to the cookout, told her it wouldn't take long.

She seemed surprised.

She was cooperative.

She said, I'll come down.

I'll come talk to you.

And she did.

She rode down with us.

Seated in an interview room, detectives begin to pepper Deidre for information about Lonnie.

We just wanted to get some background about their relationship, how they met, why she was back in Michigan.

because she had lived in Maryland for a period of time and what the dynamics was.

And more importantly, to find out her alibi for the 19th.

Deidre explained that the relationship was basically over.

She did say that she had lived at Lonnie Pay's home for a few weeks during their four-year relationship and did have a key to the home, but that after the birth of her son, she gave it back to him and she no longer had a key to his Baltimore County home.

Detectives also asked Deidre about the recent court battle with Lonnie.

She's informed us that they had gotten to a point that it was so contentious that they could only communicate through their attorneys.

She didn't hide that there was a nasty custody dispute.

She was very forthcoming.

As the interview continues, Deidre drops an unexpected piece of information.

We learned that Ms.

Griffin traveled back to Baltimore for a job interview to work for Johns Hopkins.

She explained that she arrived at BWI airport, she rented a car at the airport, she had the interview, and returned to Michigan the next day on the 17th.

She was very clear that she was in Michigan from the 17th on up through July 4th.

With the interview completed, detectives return to Baltimore to look into Deidre's alibi.

But first, they're briefed by their colleagues who are wrapping up their investigation into Lani's most recent girlfriend, Wanda Gresham.

The gut was that Wanda didn't have anything to do with it.

Why else would she call the police?

Why else would she stick around when the police showed up?

Why would she be calling and trying to figure out what's going on with the investigation?

She wasn't being weird or cagey.

She was very upfront about her plans, what was going on.

She was very helpful.

She went up to headquarters and did numerous interviews.

She was very quickly ruled out as a suspect, given her level of cooperation with the police.

Police also follow up on the theory that Lonnie's death might be connected to his job.

We looked into his business practices, who had he done work for recently.

His business practices were fine.

Nothing happened while he was at work that was of significance that would have led to him being killed in his garage.

With no suspicious business dealings and Wanda ruled out, police begin to dig more into Deidre Griffin's story.

We ain't hit the ground running trying to verify where she went for this job interview, where she stayed at the hotel, how she paid for it, what kind of rental car she used while she was here.

All those things are coming into play to verify her story.

Investigators also continue to learn more about Deidre and Lonnie's relationship.

It's in a conversation with Lonnie's brother, Charles, that a new person of interest emerges.

Deidre's brother, Donnie.

He was definitely in the thought process because we were told that he had a heated conversation over the phone with Donnie.

Lonnie told me that they were arguing, him and the brother, brother threatening.

Lonnie's brother tells detectives that he is unsure of all the the details that prompted the confrontation.

Lonnie and Deja was arguing about something and she told her brother.

So he threatens Lonnie.

Is this merely a case of Donnie standing up for his sister on a phone call?

Or could it have escalated to something more?

Charles says that at the time, he warned Lonnie to be careful.

I'm like, man, you gotta watch your back, yo.

You know what I'm saying?

People don't say things, man.

You gotta pay attention to what people say because sometimes people do it.

And maybe less than a month later, he was dead.

With no way of knowing the validity of Charles' claims, detectives make plans to question Deidre's brother about the alleged confrontation.

As detectives work to find Donnie, they learn that technicians have successfully downloaded the video footage from Lonnie's home security cameras.

We were pretty excited.

I don't have to assume what happened.

I can see what happened.

The camera's the odds where you get to see what happened leading up to his death.

So we're sitting there, we're watching the video.

The surveillance video from Lonnie Pei's home shows his girlfriend, Wanda Gresham, leaving the home at about 6.45 in the morning on June 19th.

About 15, 20 minutes later, you see Lonnie Pei exit the home, get into his car, and leave.

Then we see on the surveillance footage at 1.45 that afternoon, Somebody walks up to the victim's front door.

They enter the residence, looks like with a key.

You see that person enter in the afternoon while everybody is gone.

They enter the location as if they know that nobody's home.

They don't seem to be worried about anybody else.

Being at the location, maybe they knew the victim's work habits, how far away he works, how long he's going to be, and what time he returns from work.

For the next several hours, no one enters or exits the home until approximately 4.45 p.m.

when Lonnie returns home from work, with the unknown intruder still inside.

He exits the vehicle and leaves it in the driveway.

He goes to his mailbox, he obtains the mail, and then he walks into his garage.

You're looking and you see, oh my gosh, this guy has no idea what's about to happen.

Coming up, investigators reconstruct Lonnie's final moments.

And can police identify his mysterious assailant?

The video shows everything.

He is in that house with that person and never exits again.

How long is he alive away in that garage suffering?

Why nobody knows where he is?

It's just awful.

In the summer of 2015, Lonnie Pei's decomposing body was found in the garage of his home in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was shot four times,

one time in particular to his head.

Investigators are zeroed in on two people who they want to interview.

Deidre Griffin and separately, Deidre's brother Donnie, who Lonnie's brother claims threatened Lonnie.

I don't know what happened between them to cause the argument, but whatever it was, it was kind of a situation where it had gotten very deep.

Now, detectives are studying surveillance footage footage from the day of the murder.

The video shows Lonnie entering his home at approximately 4.45 p.m.

Minutes later, the unknown intruder exits the house.

You can't really see the face, but this time they exit, they're carrying a bag and a glove on the left hand.

They have a big floppy hat on.

To me, it looked like they were trying to disguise themselves.

The surveillance video helped investigators determine that he was most likely killed killed around 5 p.m.

on June 19th, 2015.

We see Lonnie come home, and then only about five minutes later, you see the intruder leave.

Armed with the time and day of Lonnie's death, investigators can compare the information to the alibis of Deidre Griffin and her brother Donnie.

So, talk to Donnie.

He told us Maddie was at work on the 19th, and we were able to verify it.

We basically ruled Donnie out pretty quickly and moved to Miss Griffin

on the July 4th interview that the police had with her.

She told detectives that she was, in fact, in Baltimore for an interview for a Johns Hopkins job from June 16th to the 17th.

From what detectives learn in coming days, that story appears to be true.

We verified through Southwest that she, yes, she flew out on the 16th, got here.

and she left on the 17th and she flew back to Michigan.

At this point, Deidre's story is holding up.

Still, something isn't adding up for detectives.

Their next stop is the car rental company that Deidre had allegedly used on her trip.

She'd rented a car at BWI airport.

The police were able to go to that business and find the contract that she signed for renting that car.

They gave me the vehicle she had.

It was a Jeep Cherokee.

And then when I was talking to him, he remembered something stuck out when she was here.

The employee tells Massey that when Deidre returned to the car, she reported something of interest.

He says she says that the tags on the car were stolen while she was in Baltimore City.

That was one of the details she did leave out.

Curious about the stolen license plate, Detective Massey employs a cutting-edge piece of police technology to try and learn more.

Police have these license plate reader systems, and they're on the patrol vehicle and basically is scanning vehicles as the patrol car is driving down the road.

They snap a picture of the vehicle, they snap a picture of the tag and they give you the location where the tag was when the picture was taken.

Detective Massey enters the plate number stolen from Deidre's rental into the system and gets a hit.

Our license plate reader captured that tag.

on the morning of June 19th, about a mile to a mile and a half away from the victim's residence.

Next, police enter the license plate from Lonnie's van and are stunned to discover his vehicle matched up with the same location and time as the other car.

We see the morning he left the victim's tag at 6.55 at Liberty and Marysville.

One second later, the stolen tags that Ms.

Griffin had reported stolen was captured on the tag radar.

Right behind Lonnie as he goes to work on the morning of the 19th, you see a light tan, Chevy Malibu following Lonnie.

What isn't clear is who is behind the wheel of the car.

You could certainly tell it was an African-American female who seemed to be of a short stature.

That's what Deirdre Griffin is, and that was very important that we were on the right path.

With Deidre now at the top of the suspect list, detectives take a deep dive into her cell phone records.

Diedrich was absolutely crystal clear in her July 4th interview that after June 17th, she was in Bay City, Michigan.

When they analyzed those cell phone records, it had her phone being used at a cell phone tower in Maryland, not Bay City, Michigan, at the time of the murder.

Investigators also notice multiple calls and text messages made to a Michigan man named Martin Hodder.

So my partner drives to Ann Arbor to go try to find Martin Hodder to figure out what his angle in this is and why she contacted him once she returned to Michigan.

Hodder tells the detective that Deidre was a friend and had contacted him looking for a favor.

She told him she had to go to Chicago for a job interview and Deidre asked him to rent a car because she didn't have a credit card.

She would give him the cash later on.

Martin seems to be a nice guy and he rents a car from the local Ann Arbor rental place and then actually takes a picture of the car, sends it to her and says, here's the car I rented for you.

It's parked in the parking lot.

When investigators learn what kind of car was rented, another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Marty had rented her a Chevy Malibu.

Detectives know that the exact same kind of vehicle had been following Lonnie the morning of his death.

We realized the Chevy Malibu was the same color as the car when we placed the stolen tag into the tag reader.

So at this point, we know we're getting more evidence to basically say Ms.

Griffin went back to Michigan, made it seem as she was there, and came back and killed Mr.

Pei.

Detectives again comb through Deidre's cell phone records and find a crucial clue.

We noticed that she contacted a storage place probably four or five miles away from Pay's residence.

Detectives go straight to the storage facility and find out that Deirdre indeed has an account there.

But that's not all.

Records show that someone accessed her unit on June 16th and June 18th.

So we're able to then pull the surveillance of the storage unit on the 18th of June.

That's aimed at Deirdre's unit.

As Detective Massey views the footage, a familiar-looking car rolls into the scene.

It's the Malibu that Marty Honor had rented her.

You then see somebody get out of that Chevy Malibu and then start bending down towards the back of the actual vehicle.

It looks like she took a license plate off and then she put a new license plate on.

For Detective Massey, there is little doubt that the person in the video is his number one suspect, Deidre Griffin.

I believe she went to the storage facility on the 16th to place the stolen tags from the Jeep Cherokee in there.

That way she didn't have to transport them to Michigan.

And they were waiting for her so she could put them on the rental car that she got in Michigan.

Coming up.

The evidence against Deidre Griffin is stacking up.

But is it enough?

She tried to think of everything, but obviously people are human.

They make little mistakes here and there.

And detectives race to Michigan and confront their suspect.

If I told you that you were seen in Baltimore on June 18th, is that impossible?

Four weeks after Lonnie Pei's brutal murder, investigators in Maryland believe they're finally closing in on his killer.

And the person they think is responsible is Lonnie's ex and the mother of their child, 41-year-old Deidre Griffin.

You're saying you're in Michigan that your phone is as close to the crime scene as possible at the time of the crime?

That was Kellen.

Confident that they have enough evidence to make an arrest, investigators fly into Michigan and make a surprise visit at Deidre's home.

I was sitting there, and I look out the back window, and there's a policeman with a shotgun.

I'm going, what?

And then all of a sudden, they come in through the front door.

Deidre seemed a little disbelief that we were there and that we were there again.

While Deidre is transported to the police station for questioning, the remaining investigators begin a search of her home.

They found a handgun, a nine-millimeter, in fact, which is the same type of handgun used in this crime.

Police send the gun to to their ballistics experts for testing.

As the search inside Deidre's home continues, another damning piece of evidence is uncovered.

We also found a number of paper targets from a local gun range that were used.

Detectives went to the range and the range staff remembered assisting her with shooting the gun.

The gun range owner explained that he was terrible at remembering customers' names, but remembered people's faces, that he had actually taken a photo of a smiling, seemingly happy Deidre Griffin learning how to fire her gun.

As more and more evidence links Deidre to the crime, police receive one more tantalizing piece of information.

Inside the home, Deidre's sister-in-law, Anne Hill, drops a bombshell.

I told him I know she did it.

I just know in my heart I didn't see her do it.

I suspect all the circumstances just point to her.

Ann tells police that on the day Deidre was scheduled to make her court-ordered child swap with Lonnie, something stood out to her.

You pack bottles, you pack diapers, you pack outfits, you pack their little Bobby chair that you feed them in, and she didn't take any of it when she went to the exchange.

I thought that was very odd.

She remembers him leaving and then within one to two hours coming back and just mentioning mentioning that Lonnie never showed up.

But we were able to develop that she knew he wasn't going to show up because she knew he was dead.

Back at the Bay County Law Enforcement Center, Detective Massey lays it all out on the table for Deidre.

I told her, listen, some things came up about your alibi.

I just wanted to clarify.

When I started telling her the list of evidence, she seemed to be like, okay, just listening.

And like, she went at great lengths to go undetected.

And now I'm telling her how much we've detected her.

I was putting it out there.

Look, this is what we have.

Can you explain it or can't you?

She says she wanted a lawyer and the interview was terminated.

Then we told her she was being arrested.

She was in shock.

I mean, as anybody would be when they're arrested for something like this.

11 months later, inside a Maryland courtroom, prosecutors reconstruct for jurors how they believe the crime went down down and why.

Deirdre had been in a relationship with Lani for about four years.

At some point, they did live together in his home where he was murdered.

She was clearly familiar with the layout of the home and all evidence points to the fact that she laid in wait for two plus hours waiting for Lani to come home.

And he was dead within minutes of entering his home.

And in the end, it ended up being the custody dispute.

The judge ruled, Hey, every month, he gets to take his son to his house, and you can't have anything to do with it.

It all boiled down to she wanted to be in control.

She wanted it to be her way or the highway, so to speak.

And when the judge sort of pulled that rug out from under her, I think that's when she lost it.

When you hear all the evidence in the case, you can tell this wasn't just a heat of the moment.

I'm just going to rush down there in a car and do it.

We in our office, maybe, have never seen more premeditation and planning to go into a murder.

Facing a mountain of evidence, Deidre's defense attorneys do what they can to chip away at the state's case.

There was no physical evidence that Deidre had ever been in that house.

There was no fingerprints.

There was no DNA.

There was no eyewitnesses.

Nothing puts her in the house at the time of Lonnie's murder.

The defense also seizes on the fact that the gun found in Deidre's home was not the one used to commit the murder, a fact that the state is forced to acknowledge.

It was very important that we were clear with the jury.

We did testing and the nine millimeter shell casings in the garage were not fired from the handgun we found.

What she did with the murder weapon, we'll never know.

Could that detail be enough to sway the jury?

On June 10th, 2016, jurors announced their decision.

Deidre Griffin was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence.

The judge sentenced the defendant to life.

Deidre was stoic, but that's how she had been the entire time.

She was not one prone to outbursts, and so she was that way when the verdict was read.

The verdict proves to be a mixed blessing for members of Lonnie's family.

My dad called me up on the job and he said, guilty, she's guilty, got it, he got it.

I said, good, pops, that's good.

But that doesn't bring lonnie back though you know what i'm saying never gonna see him again until i get to heaven even now more than three years after her sentencing deidre's actions still raise disbelief i couldn't understand how someone as intelligent as miss griffin as educated as miss griffin couldn't stop and put her own needs and desires aside and recognize that element for her son's sake recognize the blessing and gift that she had in Mr.

Pei as far as the man that was the father to her child.

Lonnie seemed like a really nice guy, wanted to be right there with the baby, wanted to be in the baby's life.

He rejected her, not the baby.

I know that.

Divorce and custody and these types of battles can bring out the worst in people.

They never thought that she would kill him.

Deirdre Griffin is currently incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.

Deirdre and Lottie's son is being raised by Deirdre's mother in Michigan.

For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.

Deirdre Griffin is currently incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women.

Deirdre and Lottie's son is being raised by Deirdre's mother in Michigan.

On Boxing Day 2018, 20-year-old Joy Morgan was last seen at her church, Israel United in Christ, or IUIC.

I just went on my Snapchat and I just see her face plastered everywhere.

This is The Missing Sister, the true story of a woman betrayed by those she trusted most.

IUIC is my family and like the best family that I've ever had.

But IUIC isn't like most churches.

This is a devilish cult.

You know, when you get that feeling where you just, I don't want to be here.

I want to get out.

It's like that feeling of, like, I want to go hang out.

I'm Charlie Brentcoast Cuff, and after years of investigating Joy's case, I need to know what really happened to Joy.

Binge all episodes of The Missing Sister exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

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