- 25/06/2025
When 37-year-old Merrilee Cox-Lafferty disappears in Utah, investigators turn to CCTV to track her down. Then her car turns up 300 miles away in Idaho, new persons of interest enter the frame, and Merrilee's disappearance is something more sinister.
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LearningTranscript
00:00My sister has been missing for almost five days now.
00:10She's got a 13-year-old daughter, and we are worth six.
00:14There was more to this than just a missing person's case.
00:18There's no way she's not leaving her daughter.
00:22That was very concerning to me.
00:24We're certain that some type of foul play has been involved.
00:27CCTV played a massive role in this case.
00:31We knew that they were lying because of the CCTV.
00:35All I want to do is find her,
00:37and I want to give you a chance to dig yourself out of the hole.
00:5737-year-old Marilee Cox Lafferty prepares for a 900-mile road trip from her home in California to Utah.
01:16I met Marilee when we were teenagers.
01:19We went to a counseling group together.
01:22She was a misfit, and she was funny, and she was hardworking.
01:28Marilee hopes to rekindle a romance with an old flame.
01:31I knew the person that she was seeing was Rob Willis.
01:35She had known him since she was very young, about 16.
01:40Honey, are you ready?
01:44Marilee's 13-year-old daughter, Shana, is coming with her.
01:48They sure were always together.
01:50Very rarely were they separated.
01:53She was a really good mom.
01:57Marilee wants to build a better future for herself after a lifetime of challenges.
02:01Over the years, Marilee struggled with a bunch of battles.
02:06She was very open about them as well.
02:08She struggled with anxiety and depression and addiction.
02:13She was a severe alcoholic.
02:15They said that she would have died if she wouldn't have quit drinking.
02:19From that point on, after she went through recovery,
02:22I was so proud of Marilee when she had done the work that she needed to do to get sober.
02:27That's a good girl. Come on.
02:29Her service dog, Coco, will be traveling by her side.
02:33She was epileptic.
02:34She would black out and have full-on grand mal seizures.
02:39They had her on a lot of different medications.
02:42So she got Coco a dog that could help if something happened to her.
02:47Marilee was just trying to figure out how she could both live with this condition
02:52and also be the sole provider for her daughter.
02:56That was her number one priority.
02:59The person that reported Marilee missing was her friend
03:25who she referred to as kind of her sister.
03:28Her name is Shawnee.
03:29Does she live here or...?
03:31No.
03:31She lives in California.
03:33She was visiting friends there in Logan, Utah.
03:36I don't know the address.
03:37And you don't know what she was doing here?
03:39She was helping a friend move...
03:41Her friend brought her daughter to me in Idaho.
03:45Shawnee reported that Marilee had a daughter
03:48that had been taken to Shawnee by Rob Willis.
03:51Shawnee was worried about Marilee because she had a past with alcohol and drugs
03:58and she was worried that Marilee had relapsed.
04:00We've got missing persons.
04:06When this was passed to Logan PD, this was given to me to be the lead investigator into the missing
04:11persons case for Marilee Cox Lafferty.
04:13We have somebody that's possibly under the influence
04:17and driving a vehicle on the roadways.
04:21We entered Marilee into a nationwide database for missing persons.
04:25Same thing for her vehicle.
04:28A gold Toyota Camry with California license plates.
04:32We're going to need to get statements from the family.
04:33Detectives speak with Marilee's brother, Daryl, to get more information.
04:41I had spoken with Shawnee.
04:43She said that Rob and Marilee had an argument.
04:47She had taken a handful of Klonopin and Moonshine and left in her car.
04:54Left her daughter and everything.
04:57She would never run off like this.
05:00I immediately felt like there was more to this than just a missing person.
05:03We had heard that Marilee had taken some drugs and alcohol and just disappeared.
05:11Marilee had reportedly been sober for nine years.
05:15After rehab, she never touched anything ever again.
05:19There's no way.
05:20She's not grabbing a bottle and she's not leaving her daughter.
05:24She was very protective of her.
05:27Okay. Thank you for your time.
05:30The thing that really stuck out to me initially was that her daughter
05:33was left behind.
05:35That didn't make a lot of sense to me.
05:37That was very concerning to me.
05:40Investigators focused next on the man Marilee drove to Utah to visit, Rob Willis.
05:46Marilee had come from California with her daughter to visit Rob Willis.
05:51You're in Hiram, which is a town just south of Logan.
05:54Detective Woods, you're Rob Willis.
05:57That's me.
05:59Rob told us that Marilee had come to help him move stuff into his new house.
06:04He said that she had been there on August 17th and August 18th.
06:08She had her daughter with her and her dog.
06:11At some point, they got into an argument about their relationship.
06:16Rob said that Marilee wanted to be intimate with him and he declined.
06:21He and Marilee had been arguing all night and the argument continued in the morning.
06:28They went to Shane's house where they dropped off Marilee's daughter.
06:32Who's Shane?
06:33Rob tells detectives that Shane Miles is his friend and co-worker.
06:37The argument that happened between he and Marilee was outside Shane's apartment in the parking lot.
06:44Marilee had reportedly threatened to drink a bunch of alcohol and take her medication in order to end her life.
06:52He said Marilee was very angry.
06:54She was yelling at him.
06:55Rob and Shane had to go to work and they were going to be late, so they left.
06:59Whose car did you leave in?
07:01Mine.
07:02It's right there.
07:02And they both left for work in Rob's vehicle, which is a green Isuzu trooper.
07:08Rob says he believed that Marilee, her daughter and Coco, would be gone by the time he and Shane returned from work.
07:15After he left Marilee, he clocked in to work at 3.42 p.m.
07:20and he was at work until he got off later that night around midnight.
07:25Rob states that he kept getting text messages from her that were of a harassing nature because she was so angry with him.
07:33When they went back to Shane's house, Marilee's vehicle was gone, but Marilee's daughter was there at Shane's apartment.
07:39They were both very surprised that Marilee's daughter was still there.
07:43The day after Marilee's disappearance on August 19th, Rob took Marilee's daughter up to Idaho to be with Shani.
07:51Look at this.
08:00We noticed that the back window on Rob's vehicle on the driver's side had been broken.
08:06It had glass in the back of the vehicle still, but it was kind of like he had covered it with some plastic sheeting.
08:12What happened to the car?
08:14He said he had backed into a tree while camping.
08:17It happened after she disappeared.
08:19Okay, thank you for your time.
08:26Investigators contact Rob's friend, Shane.
08:29He volunteers for an interview at the police department.
08:32It's very important that we speak with Shane to see what he has to tell us to compare that with what Rob is telling us.
08:38All right, Shane.
08:39So, obviously, the reason we're talking to you today is trying to find out what happened to her, okay?
08:45I agree.
08:45Tell me, tell me what you know about her.
08:48So, I met her on Friday.
08:52She came with Rob.
08:54Shane had not met Marilee until she had come to Utah to visit with Rob.
08:58The second time she, when she comes, she stayed out in the car, but then she got out and she come to my door and just holler, just weird crap, like, you know, F you this, F you that.
09:09And when was this?
09:10This was Saturday.
09:12The last time when she come to my house, she was along, she was outside yelling.
09:15Shane told me that he had told Rob that she can't be acting like that because he'll get in trouble with his landlord and the neighbors.
09:23They both stated that the last time they saw her was in the parking lot outside Shane's house and that they went to work in Rob's green Asusa trooper.
09:31Should you go together?
09:32Yeah.
09:33Did you see Marilee leave?
09:35No, I was in the house.
09:37His story matched Rob's.
09:39Investigators contact hospitals and local law enforcement to check if Marilee is receiving treatment or in custody.
09:47We found that Marilee had not been to any hospitals in the area and based on what we could see, she had not been arrested anywhere in the country.
09:56So we generated a missing persons flyer that we posted on our Logan City Police Department social media.
10:07Detective Woods.
10:09I received a phone call from one of our lieutenants.
10:12Somebody had located a dog that was wandering around Logan City.
10:17And they started getting messages from Marilee's family members that this dog that we had collected on the 18th of August was Marilee's dog, Coco.
10:26That was concerning because her family reported Marilee would never leave her dog.
10:31That dog was always by her side.
10:33Where exactly did you say you found the dog?
10:35That this dog that we had collected was found at TTM Technologies.
10:40TTM Technologies is a company that manufactures electronic components.
10:45There's no real connection to Marilee.
10:47We went to TTM and we asked for a surveillance video.
10:56We knew the dog was on film at about 4.42 p.m.
11:02What we're hoping to find on this camera is how the dog got to TTM.
11:07Hold it.
11:27That's Coco.
11:28We first saw the dog on the camera at 4.42 p.m. on August 18th.
11:35The dog is just running around the parking lot like it was by itself.
11:39We know Marilee shouldn't have been far away from there.
11:42But it didn't seem like Marilee was close by based on the way the dog was acting.
11:51A little bit later, the person that had found the dog, we see them pull up in a vehicle.
11:57And then we see that person pick up the dog and leave.
12:03Investigators review the footage from TTM's other surveillance cameras to trace Coco's movements before she is found.
12:10At 4.24 p.m., we see the dog sniffing around one of the exterior doors close up to the building.
12:19That again.
12:23We still haven't seen anything on camera besides the dog.
12:27And so we keep working backwards to see, is there any more surveillance footage that might show something?
12:32We see somebody enter the frame wearing a dark shirt, walk towards the door, and someone follows right behind them wearing a white shirt.
12:46And as they open the door and enter the building, they both kind of look back.
12:50You can see that it is both Shane and Rob that are on video.
12:54And then just seconds later is when we see the dog follow right behind them.
13:03TTM is where Shane, Miles, and Rob Willis worked.
13:06So it was not suspicious that we saw Rob and Shane on the camera footage there at work.
13:11But what was unusual is that Marilee's dog was also on video in proximity to them.
13:17That information was crucial.
13:20How was the dog located at the workplace for Rob and Shane when Rob had told us that the dog had gone with Marilee?
13:28We start to think maybe Rob and Shane know more information than the weather telling us, and we need to keep looking into that.
13:35Both Rob and Shane told investigators they arrived at work shortly after 3.40 p.m., one hour before Coco is found at TTM.
13:45They didn't leave work at all for the duration of their shift until sometime around midnight.
13:51The investigators review the TTM parking lot footage from 3.40 p.m. to pinpoint Rob and Shane's arrival.
14:02That's them.
14:05At 3.46 p.m., we see Shane and Rob walking through the parking lot towards the building.
14:10Roll backwards.
14:14We then want to see them enter the parking lot to see what vehicle they're in.
14:22So Rob and Shane had told us that they had come to work in Rob's Green Azusa Trooper, but we didn't see in his vehicle.
14:31We jump back.
14:32At 3.46 p.m., we see a black Ford Mustang.
14:39Can't be sure it's done.
14:41Is there a camera on the back lot?
14:45You can follow it on video through the parking lot all the way to the point to where they park.
14:50Play on.
14:59Freeze there.
15:01We could see Shane and Rob exit the Mustang.
15:04When we saw that they had arrived in Shane's Mustang and not in Rob's Trooper, we weren't quite sure what to think of that.
15:13And so we needed to investigate that further.
15:16Because they both told us they were at work and didn't leave.
15:18So we want to watch and see if that's another thing that they're misleading us on.
15:22Fast forward.
15:23We carried on watching it because we knew the dog had arrived at that building.
15:28At 4.06 p.m., we see them leave the parking lot driving Shane's vehicle.
15:46This directly contradicts what they both told us that they had never left work that day.
15:50And so we start to wonder, where are they going?
15:56Approximately 20 minutes after they left work that afternoon, they arrive back in Shane's black Ford Mustang.
16:03They park in a different spot this time, and that spot is not actually on camera.
16:09So we're not able to see them exit the vehicle at that time.
16:12However, within seconds after parking, we do pick them up on surveillance again, walking on TTM property.
16:19But this time, the dog is within feet of them.
16:25It is very, very suspicious that they have the dog, but Marilee's nowhere to be seen.
16:31We have two people that know something that they're not telling us.
16:36We knew they were lying, and we knew that we had to build a case.
16:39On September 1st, we got some information back from Marilee's cell phone provider showing her most recent cell phone locations.
16:53What have we got?
16:55Can you pull that up on a map?
16:56One of the ping locations that we got on Marilee's cell phone was at 1.31 p.m. on August 18th, the day that she went missing.
17:05And it showed in the area of Blacksmith Fork Canyon, which is near Rob's residence.
17:11What about the later ping?
17:12One of the other cell phone ping locations we had on Marilee's cell phone was at 2.16 p.m. in the area of 1700 South, the U.S. 8991 Highway intersection, which is in Logan, near Jane's apartment.
17:28The second cell phone ping was suspicious to us because it was in the city where there is good cell phone service.
17:36It's possible that her phone could have died, but Rob also told us that she had been sending him text messages later in the day.
17:42And so the fact that 2.16 p.m. is her final cell phone ping is, again, another inconsistency with what Rob is telling us.
17:51It made us believe that something was seriously wrong with her.
17:54The feeling I had was something sinister happened.
17:59I believe Marilee was no longer alive.
18:07Our biggest lead at this time would be Rob and Shane.
18:11Up until that point, they've shown that they're not willing to tell us the truth.
18:14They're willing to mislead us on certain things.
18:17So we start to conduct surveillance on Shane and Rob.
18:20Investigators secure permission to attach a covert GPS tracker to Rob's vehicle.
18:27What we were hoping to obtain by placing the tracker on Rob's vehicle were his movements.
18:32Where was he going?
18:33Did he have somewhere that might lead us to Marilee?
18:37That's what we really wanted to know.
18:39On the evening of September 8th, I was contacted by our on-duty patrol supervisor.
18:48He informed me that Marilee's vehicle had been found in Boise, Idaho, near the airport.
18:54We did confirm that her vehicle was located at an extended stay hotel in Boise, Idaho, which from Logan, Utah is about a five or a six hour drive.
19:05When I got that call, it was actually exhilarating because I knew that we had our vehicle.
19:10We had this huge piece of evidence we'd been looking for.
19:13Unfortunately, they did not have surveillance of their parking lot.
19:16We don't know how the vehicle got there or who parked it there.
19:20Some of Marilee's family did live in Idaho, not too far from that area.
19:25And so we thought maybe she had driven up that way because she had family or friends up there that she wanted to visit.
19:32So we talked with Marilee's brother up in Idaho.
19:34When I heard that the vehicle was found, a tinge of hope kind of goes through you.
19:42Like, okay, maybe she was coming back.
19:45Is there any sign of her yet?
19:47But it didn't add up that she would go back to Boise.
19:50She would leave her daughter and her dog even.
19:54And then also not try to get in contact with her family.
19:58No, I haven't heard from her at all.
19:59When she'd come to visit in town, she would visit everybody while she was here.
20:06No one had seen her.
20:07No one had talked to her.
20:11Investigators received data from the tracker they attached to Rob's vehicle.
20:16On September 7th, we saw that Rob took a trip in his vehicle up into the mountains.
20:21That was of interest to us because one of the last cell phone pings from Marilee's cell phone
20:27was near the base of one of the canyons.
20:32Marilee has been missing for over three weeks.
20:34We know there's been no movement on any of her records.
20:38The GPS information gave us that he was in the canyon for approximately three hours.
20:42It can tell us exactly everywhere he stopped.
20:46One of the locations where Rob has stopped at the longest,
20:48I think he was in that area for about 23 minutes.
20:52So following Rob's trip into the mountains, we took our own trip up there.
20:56We found broken glass that looked like it might have been from a vehicle window.
21:02Rob told us he'd gone on a camping trip after Marilee's disappearance into the mountains
21:07and that it was on that camping trip that his vehicle window got broken.
21:11Maybe it did happen after Marilee disappeared,
21:13but maybe it also had something to do with her disappearance,
21:16and maybe this is where she was last seen.
21:18We went and thoroughly searched to see if we could find any sign of Marilee
21:23or any kind of evidence that would lead us to where she might be.
21:29Unfortunately, though, we found no evidence of Marilee.
21:34We know that her phone pinged outside Blacksmith Fort Canyon,
21:38and then shortly after it pinged at 1700 South,
21:42a known route that Rob used, and that it never had activity again.
21:48One of the businesses along that route was a gas station that had surveillance cameras.
21:54Detectives secure CCTV footage from the gas station for August 18th.
21:59They review it at the police department.
22:04The camera angle that we obtained from Maverick
22:07mainly shows their parking lot and their gas pumps,
22:09but in the very top of the camera angle, you can see the highway 165,
22:14and so we're really only focused on that top part of the camera angle.
22:18It takes a lot of manpower to go through hours of video
22:22for what you end up finding is just small sections,
22:26maybe seconds or possibly minutes of video you actually need.
22:37At 10.50, we see Rob's Isuzu trooper travel south.
22:45The driver was wearing a white T-shirt,
22:47which is what Rob was wearing as he entered TTM
22:49to go to work later on that day.
22:52He's traveling towards Hiram.
22:54He lives in Hiram, so it's possible he's going towards his house,
22:58but he's also going towards the area near the mouth of Blacksmith Fork Canyon.
23:04We continue to scour the surveillance video for that morning.
23:13Jump back.
23:16At 2.13 p.m., we see Rob's vehicle on the surveillance footage show up.
23:21This time, it's traveling north on Highway 165 past the Maverick.
23:26Whether Marilee is in the vehicle or not, we don't know,
23:29but we don't see her vehicle at all in the surveillance footage.
23:33We know that Marilee's cell phone pinged at 2.16,
23:37about three minutes north of where we saw his vehicle on surveillance.
23:40We know that most likely her cell phone is in that vehicle.
23:46Punch in on the back of the car.
23:49The quality is not very good, but we're able to see the windows on the vehicle,
23:53whether there's a reflection.
23:54At 10.50, we can see that the window on his trooper is intact.
24:02At 2.13 p.m., when it goes back the other way,
24:05the window looks completely different.
24:07You know, there's no reflection at all.
24:09We're able to see that the window on his vehicle is now smashed.
24:13Rob was lying to us.
24:14His vehicle window was damaged and broken the date of Marilee's disappearance.
24:22What happened to Rob's vehicle?
24:24Why did this window become broken?
24:26In this time frame, how did it get broken?
24:31We know that just shortly after this, within minutes,
24:34Marilee's phone no longer has activity.
24:38We keep watching the surveillance footage to see what else we might find.
24:43Show that again.
24:44And at about 2.55 p.m., we see Rob's vehicle again past the Maverick.
24:52Punch in.
24:55He's traveling south towards his home in Hiram.
24:59We know that he was at work about an hour after that.
25:02We know that Rob most likely will pass through again
25:05on his way back to Logan, where he goes to work later.
25:08At 3.09 p.m., we see Rob's vehicle again travel north past the Maverick.
25:21Go closer.
25:23This time, though, there's something different.
25:25We can see that the driver is not wearing a white shirt.
25:28The driver's wearing a darker-colored shirt.
25:36Stop.
25:38Just a few seconds later, we see a vehicle that looks like a gold Toyota Camry.
25:42It looks like Marilee's vehicle.
25:43And it passes north, almost directly behind Rob's vehicle.
26:00Rob told us that he last saw Marilee and the vehicle in Logan at Shane's apartment.
26:05Punch in.
26:06The thing about that gold Camry that we saw was the driver was wearing a white shirt.
26:12So we were very suspicious that Rob was driving Marilee's vehicle at that time.
26:17The driver of Rob's vehicle was wearing a dark shirt.
26:21We were almost certain that it was Shane driving the vehicle
26:23because we had Shane on surveillance later that day wearing a dark shirt.
26:29So where is Marilee?
26:31We didn't see anything that would indicate there was a passenger in either vehicle.
26:35However, we couldn't be certain just because of the quality of the video.
26:41Marilee has been missing for three weeks.
26:44Her friends and family struggled to come to terms with her disappearance.
26:48It was a constant battle where you knew something was very wrong, very bad,
26:53but you still want to try to convince yourself that this still could be okay.
27:00I was cautious of Rob from the very beginning.
27:04And she had told me about how he was abusive, both verbal and attempts at physical abuse.
27:12Rob didn't sound right and she could do 100% better.
27:15And then when she came up missing, that was just my gut, went straight to that guy did something to her.
27:25At this point in the investigation, we're almost certain that some type of foul play has been involved,
27:31that she's no longer alive.
27:33We had evidence against Rob, but we also had evidence against Shane,
27:37who was most likely to tell us the truth.
27:41Investigators invite Shane to the police department for a second time.
27:47We determined that Shane, if we confronted him with the evidence,
27:51that he most likely would help us with the investigation.
27:55So did you guys take Rob's car to work that day?
27:57Yeah, Rob's vehicle.
27:57Did you ever leave work at home?
27:59No.
28:01Shane again stuck to his story.
28:02They left in Rob's green Isuzu trooper, which we knew was a false statement.
28:07He said that they had arrived at work and they had never left, which we knew was a false statement.
28:13Shane said that he had never known about Marilee's dog or that she even had a dog,
28:18which clearly we knew was a false statement.
28:21I began to show still photos from surveillance video to Shane to confront him about his lies.
28:45Who's vehicle is that?
28:50It's my vehicle.
28:51That's the day she went missing.
28:55Okay.
28:55You're in your vehicle.
28:57See those times?
28:58Those are the times you left work 20 minutes after getting there.
29:02And when you return, Shane...
29:04That's because I go to Paco's Tacos all the time.
29:06You just told me you never left that day.
29:08And when you return, her dog is seen on camera with you and Rob.
29:17It was at this point in time that Shane started to crumble.
29:21I'm trying to be honest with you.
29:23I'm just scared by saying, because I'm scared he's going to do something to me and my kids.
29:28I'm being honest with you about that.
29:30Shane was obviously scared.
29:31I think he was afraid of Rob Willis and what Rob had committed and entangled Shane in.
29:40Shane does admit that he helps Rob move Merrily's vehicle to the Paco's Tacos parking lot just a few blocks west of TTM.
29:48How did he get rid of her car?
29:50What did he tell you?
29:52And Shane, if you had a part in that, you need to be honest with me right now.
29:55I'm not.
29:55I know he took it down somewhere.
29:59I don't know where.
30:00I still needed to know how it got up to Boise.
30:03Shane denied moving into Boise.
30:06Who did you say went with him?
30:07Because you can't take two cars that far.
30:10I already have the car, Shane.
30:12Tell me who it is, Shane.
30:16His name is Jordan.
30:19Jordan?
30:20Mm-hmm.
30:21What's Jordan's last name?
30:22I have no idea.
30:23I've only met him once.
30:24Shane told us that Jordan had been a co-worker with Rob and Shane previously.
30:30And that's how he knew him.
30:32Search the database for anybody named Jordan that fits the description.
30:36He did describe some very distinct and unique tattoos that Jordan had on his face.
30:43He's got a rap sheet.
30:45If it's the profile of somebody else that might have been involved in Marilee's disappearance.
30:50It's important at this point in time that we speak to Jordan.
30:54Because if Jordan took Marilee's vehicle to Boise, I need to know the circumstances behind that.
31:01Police officers detain Jordan and bring him back to the police department for questioning.
31:06Have you ever heard the name Marilee Cox Lafferty?
31:12I have never heard that name before.
31:14She's this missing lady that we've been looking for for about a month.
31:18Do you recognize her at all?
31:20No, not at all.
31:22Never heard that name at all?
31:23No, I don't even know how I'd be even involved with her.
31:27I asked him about his involvement with Rob Willis.
31:39Have you ever been up to Boise with him?
31:41I did.
31:42I took a trip with him up to Boise.
31:47When was that?
31:49Four weeks ago.
31:51How'd you get there?
31:52I drove his girlfriend's car up there.
31:55Okay.
31:56Because right now he's implicated you in a murder.
31:58Implicated me?
32:00By the married car.
32:01That's why I'm trying to figure out how deeply you're involved.
32:05Rob told him it was a girlfriend's vehicle and he was just going to go drop it off for him.
32:10And that Rob would pick him up in Boise.
32:13We knew that Rob was the one responsible for Marilee's death.
32:17And he had used these other people to help cover up his crime.
32:21At that point in time, the only thing I could think about was that we needed to pick up a car.
32:25We couldn't have him out in public any longer.
32:29And all I want to do is find her, let her daughter bury her mother.
32:40And I want to give you a chance to dig yourself out of this hole.
32:43So you want me to get from Rob anything I can get? Is that what you're asking?
32:47I want you to tell me the truth about everything right now.
32:50Telling the truth about what?
32:51About what you know.
32:53I don't know anything.
32:54Rob doesn't tell me s**t.
32:57Detective Woods turns up the heat to get Shane to reveal what happened to Marilee.
33:02Where is she, Shane?
33:04She's here.
33:05Where?
33:06Up the canyon somewhere.
33:08Were you there?
33:09No.
33:10Who was with him when he did it?
33:12He was by himself.
33:14He was with her.
33:16How did he kill her?
33:17Just, I think he beat her to death.
33:21Did he say with what?
33:24He just said he's like this.
33:28At this point, when Shane tells us this, that's our biggest piece of evidence that we're looking for.
33:36Shane led us to a location at Blacksmith Fork Canyon near a pretty remote camping site.
33:43I was very hopeful that this would be the end of the investigation.
33:48Shane said that Rob had taken him up there to the specific point and said she's down there.
33:53He believed that this was a scare tactic, that, look, if you talk, if you tell anybody, this is what's going to happen to you as well.
34:03In the immediate area of the campsite, there was a tree, and underneath the tree, there was a lot of broken glass.
34:10There was also glass embedded in a tree branch that was the same height, relatively, as Rob's vehicle.
34:19Also in this area was a bracelet that had the scorpion charm on it, and I knew that Marilee was a Scorpio, and so I was pretty certain that was her bracelet.
34:29I went downhill.
34:32I'm looking around.
34:33I'm trying to find anything.
34:34When I get the distinct odor of decomposition, I start moving towards what I see as an unnatural rock formation underneath a tree.
34:44We moved one rock, and we could see a human foot underneath the rock pile, and we knew that we had found Marilee finally.
34:50I don't think anyone's ever prepared to come across human remains like that.
34:56Marilee had been in the mountains buried up there for about a month.
35:02Marilee was able to be identified positively by her fingerprints.
35:05Marilee's daughter was staying at my house.
35:12It just told her that they found her, and that she was dead, and she screamed, and she had just curled in a ball, and cried, and cried, and cried, and cried.
35:26It broke my heart so much.
35:28I remember when I got the phone call, that they had found her, and confirming everything that I didn't want confirmed.
35:38That was one of the hardest days of my life, to have to come to reality that she was gone.
35:48I wanted to hold her hand.
35:49I wanted to be a big sister, and I wanted to take it away.
35:52I would have traded her places in a heartbeat, because she fought so hard to be the better person that she was being.
36:02Rob Willis was placed under arrest in Hiram by a SWAT team on the afternoon of September 14th.
36:09I knew I had another large task in front of me in trying to get some sort of confession from Rob.
36:18How much do you care about her?
36:19Not that I was thinking about starting a life with Roof.
36:24Is that before you killed her?
36:26What?
36:28Is that before you killed her, Rob?
36:29I didn't kill her.
36:30You did.
36:31I didn't kill her.
36:32Rob, and we're going to prove it.
36:34I didn't think he would tell me much.
36:37When I tried to confront him, he still deflected.
36:41We found her.
36:42And?
36:43And your DNA is going to be on her, Rob.
36:47I know you killed her, Rob.
36:49I think he just lost control.
36:53When I finally told him that we had recovered Merrilee and confronted him and told him that we knew he was responsible, Rob requested an attorney.
37:02And at that point, the interrogation ended.
37:04Take me to jail.
37:06I'm done.
37:07You can sit down a little bit.
37:08Investigators pieced together the events they believe led to Merrilee's murder.
37:20Rob and Merrilee are arguing about their relationship and then went for a drive and went up into the mountains.
37:25We believe Rob entered the canyon area with Merrilee and her dog in Rob's vehicle.
37:33At some point in time, there is a fight that occurs.
37:36Rob's window became broken.
37:37We're still not certain exactly how Rob killed Merrilee, but it was most likely due to some blunt force trauma.
37:47Rob had then moved a lot of rocks to cover up her body.
37:50Once Rob killed Merrilee, he left the mountains.
37:56He returns to Shane's house and he tells Shane what he did.
38:00So he now has to cover up what happened.
38:03At that point, Rob realized Merrilee's car is at his house.
38:06We then know that him and Shane left Shane's house to go back out to hire him.
38:12They take Merrilee's car, Shane driving Rob's vehicle and Rob driving Merrilee's vehicle.
38:18Rob dumps Merrilee's car at Paco's Tacos with Merrilee's dog, Coco, inside it.
38:24Rob and Shane then drive to work in Shane's Mustang.
38:2720 or 30 minutes after arriving, they left TTM on the way to Paco's Tacos to get Merrilee's dog from the vehicle.
38:38And they arrived back at TTM a short time later now with Merrilee's dog.
38:42And then the next day, Rob took Merrilee's daughter up to be with Shani.
38:48Rob threatened Jordan to get him to cooperate so that Jordan would drive Merrilee's vehicle from Logan up to Boise, Idaho
38:54to dispose of it up there, most likely trying to throw us off the track,
38:59trying to make us think that Merrilee had driven up there to see family.
39:04I think Rob did believe that he was going to get away with it because he had tried to dispose of all the evidence.
39:11We were not able to prove that Jordan intentionally obstructed the investigation by moving Merrilee's vehicle.
39:17With Shane, we knew that he had intentionally misled us and obstructed the investigation.
39:21But we also had a reasonable belief that Rob had threatened his life and threatened him to participate with the obstruction.
39:30Shane was a very key witness to this homicide investigation and directly responsible for our recovery of her body.
39:35Rob never would have told us that.
39:39Jordan Larson and Shane Miles are charged with no crimes in relation to Merrilee's death.
39:44Rob Willis pleads guilty to first-degree felony murder.
39:49He is sentenced to 15 years to life.
39:54CCTV played a massive role in this case.
39:58As soon as we knew that the dog was located on that footage,
40:02we knew that they were lying because of the CCTV.
40:05And from there, we were able to build a case and build it with more CCTV.
40:09Bringing the dog back to TTM was a crucial misstep on his part.
40:13Every day when I see something beautiful in nature, I think about her.
40:30I think about her, you know, wanting to get her camera out and take a picture of it
40:34and to preserve that memory.
40:36I miss talking to her, and I'm so proud to be her brother.
40:47Merrilee was my forever friend.
40:50She came in and made me feel balanced and understood.
40:56I'll never be able to replace her in my life, ever.
41:00She's just one of a kind.
41:06Next time on See No Evil.
41:139-1-1.
41:13There was just a shot fired at the end.
41:15Was it shot?
41:18This was actually a planned out murder execution.
41:22Do you want to tell us the truth?
41:24Surveillance video does not lie.
41:26Start your heart and tell us the truth.
41:33And then you've got to lick, you can have it in.
41:35See No Evil.
41:35And you've got to hit, with my head.
41:37Please watch.
41:39See No Evil.
41:40See No Evil.
41:44See No Evil.
41:50Do you want to tell us a second or two?
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