- 6 minutes ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:09Tonight on Dateline...
00:00:11Do not move!
00:00:14It's pulse-pounding footage.
00:00:15Do not move!
00:00:16It's a train. You can't stop it.
00:00:18You're being railroaded.
00:00:19You're like, how do I stop this?
00:00:21Someone with a finger in my face going,
00:00:23you killed your wife.
00:00:26These women had located a body.
00:00:28The woods is very thick and almost impassable.
00:00:31I kept pushing these vines.
00:00:33That's when I saw Emily.
00:00:35There's some sort of cord wrapped around her neck.
00:00:38The question is simple.
00:00:39Is this homicide or suicide?
00:00:41It didn't look like a suicide.
00:00:43This is a murder case.
00:00:44You killed her!
00:00:45No, I didn't, sir.
00:00:47They did this thing to try to rattle.
00:00:48You killed her, she's dead.
00:00:50They searched the house, the attic, the car.
00:00:53They find nothing.
00:00:54Why have the cops fixed on him?
00:00:55It's an easy fix and an obvious one.
00:00:57The first suspect is always the spouse, right?
00:01:00We don't know her journey.
00:01:01We don't know those last minutes.
00:01:03Did you do that, Matt?
00:01:04Did you kill your wife?
00:01:05What do you think?
00:01:07I want to hear you say it.
00:01:08Why do you feel the need for me to say that?
00:01:10I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
00:01:21Here's Dennis Murphy with The Clearing.
00:01:30She absolutely loved the woods.
00:01:33That's something everyone can agree on.
00:01:36Deep in the forest, Emily nourished her soul in the joyous quiet.
00:01:40It's where she found peace and even food for her table.
00:01:45Did she also go there to escape?
00:01:47People here in Westerville, Ohio, still wonder about that.
00:01:51It is a big mystery.
00:01:53I would just love to know the details.
00:01:56What happened?
00:01:57What really happened that night?
00:02:02Take a look.
00:02:04What do you see?
00:02:05For most of us, it's just a snarl of bushes and brambles.
00:02:09Emily Noble saw that and something else.
00:02:11Maybe a salad and a soup for dinner.
00:02:14And herbal tea.
00:02:16She was obsessed with foraging, the art of discovering food in nature.
00:02:20She shared her passion with friends like Celeste Grohn.
00:02:23She had a book that was like four inches, maybe even thicker.
00:02:28And it had every single plant in it.
00:02:31And she could identify what they were.
00:02:34She liked to go out and forage around her neighborhood,
00:02:36which I think is really cool.
00:02:39Emily's friend Crystal Williams bartends at Dick's Den,
00:02:43a music venue in nearby Columbus.
00:02:45One of Emily's favorite hangouts.
00:02:47She was way into live music and she used to love to come here.
00:02:50I've cut a rug with her on the dance floor many times.
00:02:54I would say Emily was very much a free spirit.
00:02:57She just was this little fairy.
00:02:59You know, she just had so much light and energy in her.
00:03:03People were drawn to her neo-hippie, tiny dancer spirit.
00:03:07Friends like Wendy Carney Hatch.
00:03:09Just really cute, really adorable.
00:03:12With dark curly hair and bright eyes and beautiful teeth.
00:03:17Great smile.
00:03:18And when she walked, there was a little, like a little rhythm to her step.
00:03:24It may have seemed that Emily was dancing through life, but it hadn't been easy.
00:03:29She'd survived a lot of crushing sadness over the years.
00:03:33And in 2020, as the pandemic took hold, life got particularly hard.
00:03:38Like so many of us, Emily and her husband Matt were in lockdown.
00:03:43But on Sunday, May 24th, Emily and Matt wanted to get out and celebrate.
00:03:47It was Emily's 52nd birthday.
00:03:50It was also Memorial Day weekend.
00:03:52So they dipped their toes back into the local nightlife scene with a trip to some bars.
00:03:57It was right after the bars reopened from COVID.
00:04:01And they were the only people I had for the time that they were there.
00:04:05They were there for about 45 minutes.
00:04:08Jessica Selfridge was tending bar that night.
00:04:11She had time to observe her only customers.
00:04:13We talked a little bit about, like, COVID things.
00:04:16Like, I had to wear a mask, for instance.
00:04:19And they told me that since it was her birthday, they were going to continue to kind of bar hop
00:04:24a little bit.
00:04:27Emily and Matt got home around 7.
00:04:30Night turned into morning, into afternoon.
00:04:33At 2.47 p.m. on May 25th, Emily's friend Celeste Grone got a call from Emily's phone.
00:04:40So I picked up and I said, hi, Emily.
00:04:44And it was Matt.
00:04:45And he said, is Emily over there?
00:04:48And I said, no.
00:04:49And he said that they were supposed to go to a party in the afternoon.
00:04:55And he hadn't seen her.
00:04:57And she hadn't returned from a walk in the morning.
00:05:01And he was assuming it was a walk.
00:05:04And I said, well, is this normal?
00:05:06And he said, no, it's not normal.
00:05:09And I said, call the police.
00:05:11Celeste jumped in her car.
00:05:13Matt got back on the phone.
00:05:15My wife has been missing all day.
00:05:18Her purse is here with her ID.
00:05:21Her car is here with her car keys.
00:05:24And her phone is here.
00:05:27With his body cam rolling, Officer Rob Hollis of the Westerville, Ohio Police Department arrived at Emily and Matt's home.
00:05:37There was some momentary confusion after Matt came to the door because Celeste was just arriving, too.
00:05:43Matt did a double take.
00:05:45He's like, oh, there she is.
00:05:47You.
00:05:47He's looking at you.
00:05:48Thinking I'm Emily.
00:05:50You look just like her for like a second.
00:05:52Oh, my God.
00:05:53There she is.
00:05:54Okay.
00:05:55Matt Moore.
00:05:56Officer Hollis.
00:05:58Hello.
00:05:58Hi.
00:05:59Celeste.
00:06:00In a matter of minutes, Officer Hollis got most of the story.
00:06:03What's going on?
00:06:04He heard how Matt and Emily had gone out the night before.
00:06:07How they came home around 7 and went to bed early.
00:06:10Matt said he woke up after midnight.
00:06:12I get up in the middle of the night sometimes to go to the bathroom.
00:06:18Mm-hmm.
00:06:19And I don't go back in with her because I don't want to wake her up so I can end
00:06:23up in this bedroom or second bedroom.
00:06:25He told the officer he was noodling around on his phone till the wee hours.
00:06:29Not falling asleep again until around 6 and not out of bed until after 10 a.m.
00:06:35That's when he says he first noticed Emily was gone.
00:06:37He didn't go out to look for her, but said he waited.
00:06:40Waited for hours.
00:06:41I was just waiting for her to tell me when we should go.
00:06:45I'd text her twice and say we're going to the party.
00:06:47She didn't get back to me.
00:06:48He used the phone finder app and learned her phone was still in the condo.
00:06:53He thought maybe she went to the woods nearby.
00:06:56She forages.
00:06:57She goes for walks and she picks wild edibles.
00:07:00That's kind of our hobby.
00:07:02She goes around here.
00:07:05It's a real short walk.
00:07:07It's 15 minutes at the most.
00:07:09A lot of the time I was like, well maybe she's just out doing that.
00:07:12The officer's quick check of the condo revealed nothing in disarray.
00:07:16No surprises.
00:07:17Emily, it turned out, was a housekeeper extraordinaire.
00:07:20That garage was immaculate.
00:07:22The house was immaculate.
00:07:23Uh huh.
00:07:23Yeah.
00:07:24Emily was very neat.
00:07:26She's really meticulous.
00:07:28And she just, this is uncharacteristic.
00:07:30She would never go somewhere and not tell you where she would go.
00:07:32So I see that the bed was made.
00:07:34Did you do that or she did that?
00:07:35That is, is uh, I just noticed that.
00:07:38You're right.
00:07:39I didn't make the bed.
00:07:40She did.
00:07:41That bed was made when I got up to that.
00:07:43I didn't make it.
00:07:45So she was, I'm guessing, here this morning.
00:07:48The officer took off for a few minutes to speak with colleagues outside, then returned with some news.
00:07:54Your neighbor saw her in the garage about between 9 and 10 a.m. this morning.
00:08:00Said she was just standing in the garage.
00:08:02Awesome.
00:08:02When he was leaving, he saw her.
00:08:04She was just standing there.
00:08:05He said hello.
00:08:05She said hello.
00:08:06So we know.
00:08:08She's around.
00:08:09Somewhere around.
00:08:11Okay.
00:08:12Awesome.
00:08:12That seemed reassuring.
00:08:14Maybe the case of the missing Emily Noble would be one big false alarm.
00:08:19She'd come waltzing through that door any minute.
00:08:21Wouldn't she?
00:08:37The town of Westerville, Ohio, was waking up to a brand new day.
00:08:41And Emily Noble was still missing.
00:08:43Her husband, Matt, hadn't seen her for more than 24 hours.
00:08:47And now Westerville PD Detective Steve Grubbs was reading the responding officer's report about the visit with Emily's husband, Matt
00:08:54Moore.
00:08:55On my own, you know, proactively pulled up that report and read the narrative to it.
00:09:00And something about it just didn't sit with me.
00:09:02What made your nose twitch about it, if that's the right word?
00:09:04Yeah.
00:09:04That inner gut feeling, it just felt like something was off.
00:09:10Turns out the neighbor's account of seeing Emily that Memorial Day morning had gotten fuzzy.
00:09:15Now he wasn't so sure when he'd seen her last.
00:09:18Detective Grubbs figured this missing woman story needed a deeper dive.
00:09:22He asked to be assigned to the case and then headed to the condo with some other officers.
00:09:28Has she ever been gone this long before?
00:09:30No.
00:09:31Not at all, I guess.
00:09:33So our next step was this bloodhound to see if we could get a track someplace.
00:09:37By noon, a bloodhound was tracking Emily's scent.
00:09:41The dog led investigators to a gravel drive between two houses just a few blocks away.
00:09:46They knocked on the doors. No one answered.
00:09:50Detectives asked Matt Moore to take them to the nearby woods where Emily liked to walk.
00:09:54Matt actually showed Detective Peachy and I that the area that they would go and forage.
00:10:01Grubbs and two other detectives returned to the spot a little later, looked around,
00:10:05didn't see anything interesting.
00:10:07As police got to know Matt, they also learned more about Emily.
00:10:11Tell me about Emily Noble. Who is she turning out to be?
00:10:14She seemed to be a hard-working woman, worked for the state of Ohio.
00:10:19She worked at the Ohio Department of Medicaid.
00:10:22She and Matt had been married for two years.
00:10:25Matt had worked the tables in a Las Vegas casino before he left that job and moved to Ohio.
00:10:30Matt did not work, is that correct?
00:10:32He did not work.
00:10:33His mother had passed away and left him a sizable sum of money, so he didn't really need to work.
00:10:41The routine. He cooked, she took care of the house.
00:10:45They hung out, drank a bit, sometimes a lot.
00:10:48And when the COVID lockdown took hold, Emily started working from home.
00:10:53But life was rarely easy for Matt and Emily.
00:10:56He died a lot of death in her life.
00:10:58Yes. Yes, she had.
00:10:59She had a husband, right?
00:11:00Yep. She had a previous marriage and ultimately Mark committed suicide.
00:11:05By gun?
00:11:06Yes, sir.
00:11:07Wendy remembers how much Emily loved her first husband.
00:11:10How awful it was when he died in 2011.
00:11:13After Mark passed away, there was, there was a couple years that were pretty dark.
00:11:19She would get just really sad, you know?
00:11:24Emily's parents died a few years later in sudden accidental deaths.
00:11:29Those who knew her say Emily turned to nature to heal herself.
00:11:33Chris Barton, a lifelong friend, said Emily put aside her own sadness by looking out for the people she loved.
00:11:40Thinking about them instead of thinking about what was going on with her, I think, a lot of the time.
00:11:44Gave her something to concentrate on and what if it wasn't, that it wasn't herself.
00:11:49She kept a photo collection of the edible plants she grew and collected, a visual progress report of her devotion
00:11:55to foraging.
00:11:57She often foraged in this woodland park.
00:11:59We took a lot of pictures with our phones and it was just a place you could sit and just
00:12:04let nature be around you.
00:12:06She was a very good photographer.
00:12:08She really liked sunrise and sunset.
00:12:11She loved fog and water, nature, obviously.
00:12:19She took a lot of selfies, so many selfies.
00:12:23Four years after her first husband died, she met Matt and now he was part of the picture.
00:12:29Matt took this one showing him and Emily and his son Joey.
00:12:33This was their family unit because when Matt moved in with Emily, his teenage son did too.
00:12:40Police noticed that Joey was a painful subject for Matt Moore.
00:12:44The morning he reported Emily missing, he mentioned Joey right away.
00:12:48I have a gut feeling right here. It's when my son died.
00:12:53That was a terrible story.
00:12:55By the time Matt and Emily got married, Joey was suffering full-blown schizophrenia.
00:13:00Emily and Matt were doing their best with him, but nearly a year into the marriage, Joey died by suicide.
00:13:07Just 17 years old.
00:13:09He was found hanging in a nature preserve in Westerville.
00:13:13This was the second child Matt lost.
00:13:15The first son was only a toddler when he died of a sudden illness.
00:13:19I can't even imagine...
00:13:21Matt's friend, Arturo Ruggiroli.
00:13:23Tell me about losing Joey and what that meant for him.
00:13:26It was oblivion.
00:13:29There was nothing left of the person who he was for a while.
00:13:35Emily was also devastated by Joey's death.
00:13:38And now she was missing.
00:13:40Talented, complicated, beloved Emily.
00:13:43Westerville police are searching for a woman who has been missing since Memorial Day.
00:13:48Calls poured into the police tip line.
00:13:51Emily seemed to be everywhere.
00:13:52She was at the grocery store.
00:13:54She's at a homeless shelter.
00:13:56She's sleeping under a bridge.
00:13:57She's sleeping in a doorway.
00:13:59The Westerville PD chased down those tips, but nothing led to Emily.
00:14:04They headed to the bar where Matt and Emily were seen the night of her birthday.
00:14:08When I talked to the detective, he told me that she had gone missing and asked me how they were
00:14:14behaving that night and everything like that.
00:14:16They had the kind of banter that was like they were very lovey-dovey one minute and then they would
00:14:22be more so like there was tension the next minute.
00:14:27There wasn't much more to tell, but police did have one solid clue from those bloodhounds.
00:14:33Remember, they tracked Emily's scent to that driveway a few hundred yards away.
00:14:37Was that telling police something?
00:14:39Did she voluntarily get into a car in that driveway and take off?
00:14:43Was she dragged there and kidnapped?
00:14:47All good questions.
00:14:48Maybe police were looking at a stranger abduction.
00:14:51Or maybe the disappearance of Emily Noble had nothing to do with any stranger.
00:14:56Guys, I did not hurt my wife.
00:14:59I did not hurt my wife.
00:15:00I loved her.
00:15:17The Westerville PD was working the case of the missing Emily Noble, tracking down tips following leads.
00:15:24That driveway where bloodhounds lost Emily's scent, detectives went back to the two houses there and interviewed a homeowner.
00:15:30The people that resided there had no interaction with Emily, had not seen or heard anything, and they were ultimately
00:15:38cleared altogether.
00:15:41Dead end.
00:15:42I feel like we were trying to catch a ghost at that point because we didn't know what we were
00:15:47dealing with.
00:15:48You know, is she suicidal?
00:15:50Was she kidnapped?
00:15:52Did she run away with a boyfriend?
00:15:54All viable threads, theoretically.
00:15:55At that point, absolutely.
00:15:57Another viable thread, of course, was Matt.
00:16:00Investigators keyed in on the fact that he didn't even go out looking for Emily before he reported her missing.
00:16:06Didn't leave the house.
00:16:07Didn't do any sort of searching on his own.
00:16:11Just kind of hung out at the house.
00:16:13Police started hearing troubling things from her friends about her marriage to Matt.
00:16:18What is he doing during the day?
00:16:20Drinking.
00:16:21Really?
00:16:23Oh, Emily would get so mad.
00:16:25If he was drinking during the day, she said, do you need to wait till I get home from work?
00:16:31Wait till the bell hits five o'clock?
00:16:32Right.
00:16:33Emily's friend Wendy detected unhappiness in one of those photos from the night before Emily disappeared.
00:16:39She's looking at the camera, kind of steely-eyed, and he looks like he's crying.
00:16:45And I just think that picture's worth a thousand words.
00:16:49Others called the detectives with speculation about darker things.
00:16:53They felt that he was almost controlling.
00:16:56They felt that when Matt was in the picture, Emily was not her normal self anymore.
00:17:01There was never anything specific that Emily said that Matt has done this to me,
00:17:07but it just seemed to be a lot of speculation from the friends that something isn't right with Matt.
00:17:14Two days after Matt reported Emily missing, the husband agreed to sit down with detectives at the police department.
00:17:21This is a voluntary interview.
00:17:23Okay.
00:17:25Obviously, we need to do the best we can to get the full story.
00:17:30Anything you say can be-
00:17:31Detective Grubbs read him his rights, began probing about events before and after Emily's disappearance,
00:17:37and broke the news that John Kramer, the neighbor who said he'd seen Emily the morning she disappeared,
00:17:43now couldn't be sure of the timing.
00:17:45John, his son's backtracking.
00:17:47All right.
00:17:47So, yeah, that's kind of up in the air.
00:17:50And he really said, like, eight to nine, and then he's now saying,
00:17:53I can't-
00:17:54He's saying, I can't swear to it.
00:17:56He said, maybe, maybe not.
00:17:57Could have been Sunday.
00:17:58So, that makes it look bad for me, I guess.
00:18:02They turned to Matt's relationship.
00:18:04He'd handed over Emily's phone, and they'd been going through it.
00:18:08They asked Matt to rate his marriage.
00:18:10So, a scale of one to ten relationship with her,
00:18:13ten being bliss, everyday honeymoon like a honeymoon,
00:18:17and one being can't-
00:18:18Did you read our texts?
00:18:19Can't-can't-can't-can't-can't stand each other?
00:18:20I'm just asking, which-what would you- what would you rate it?
00:18:22It would- it would fluctuate, like a- a sine wave,
00:18:26but we were on since six months it was an eight.
00:18:30The last six months?
00:18:31Absolutely.
00:18:32An eight out of ten.
00:18:34But then detectives shared a text they'd found from Emily to a friend.
00:18:37this was a month ago okay this is this is heavy matt picked a flight with me yesterday and said
00:18:44some awful things i'm not wearing my wedding ring that doesn't sound like somebody who's in a happy
00:18:51relationship my wife texted that to somebody a month ago i i get it i i know i know i'm
00:18:58not
00:18:58going to say that that those things of course there was a roller coaster relationship but it
00:19:02wasn't like anything that was anything you would think that someone would hurt someone over it's not
00:19:08as heavy as you think it is she would be like that at times because of her anger issues it
00:19:16always swung
00:19:17back what about some of the things they'd heard from emily's friends that maybe there was more
00:19:22going on than a burnt out romance one even suggested matt had heard emily there was a time within the
00:19:30the last year where she had bruises on her and this friend hold on don't don't don't i roll yet
00:19:38let me let me get it out where the friend was concerned that you were being physically abusive
00:19:46towards her it never happened oh let him finish i don't know where you're going with this again and
00:19:51again matt insisted he would not harm emily guys i did not hurt my wife i did not hurt my
00:19:58wife i loved
00:19:59her he took off his shirt when they asked and showed them he had no scratches no bruises and at
00:20:06the
00:20:06detective suggestion he agreed to take a voice stress analysis test a type of lie detector the tension
00:20:14in this tiny room was about to explode you killed her no i didn't sir i didn't i didn't you
00:20:21killed her
00:20:37after an hour and a half in a cramped interview room the detectives prepared to give matt a kind of
00:20:42lie detector test called a voice stress analysis test i want you as relaxed as possible
00:20:49with the microphone okay what's up i just i'm just nervous you can just clip that to your
00:20:54detective grubbs told matt a computer would measure the stress in his voice when he answered questions
00:20:59some random some not do you know where emily is no is this the month of may yes did you
00:21:08kill emily no
00:21:09voice stress analysis tests are considered unreliable by many experts still the police told matt the
00:21:16results of his test indicated deception i don't know what happened to emily i don't know what happened to
00:21:21i took it i failed this test i failed it the detectives kept returning to the question at hand
00:21:30what do you think happened to emily i would be guessing but i think she hurt herself how do you
00:21:37think she hurt herself she would say that if she was going to do it she would hang herself
00:21:43emily had been surrounded by suicides so matt was guessing that's what might have happened
00:21:49she would do it where you where she would be easily found they kept pressing him prodding until the pot
00:21:56boiled over you killed her no i didn't sir didn't i didn't you killed her and it was an accident
00:22:03and we
00:22:04need to get this resolved it didn't happen it didn't happen it did happen tell you she's dead
00:22:09how do you where is she i'm what are you talking about that's why we have you here people are
00:22:13saying
00:22:13they have seen her at that point emily was still a missing person gone only two days was it too
00:22:20soon
00:22:20to hit him with the big stuff i don't think so you didn't have evidence that she was even dead
00:22:25not to
00:22:26mention murdered that's correct but we also don't know what we're dealing with and if emily is alive
00:22:32and needs help time is of the essence and we are trying to recover her as quick as we can
00:22:37but there'd be
00:22:39no more talking to matt moore he refused to communicate directly with the police after that
00:22:44interview instead he called his friend arturo when he spoke to me he told me he went and did an
00:22:51interview and by the end of the interview they had accused him of murdering his wife right in his teeth
00:22:57weren't they the way he made it sound was very much of a panic of a fear of i'm looking
00:23:07for help from
00:23:07these people they're accusing me of murder now i don't know what to do i need help help did come
00:23:14pouring in but not for matt we're going to focus on the alum creek area today as may 2020 ended
00:23:21and june
00:23:21began the country was still in the grip of the first wave of covid with millions in lockdown but
00:23:28in westerville scores of people took part in a socially distanced activity that might do some good
00:23:33researches organized by the facebook group finding m noble started by her friend wendy
00:23:40a lot of us became really obsessed with the whole thing i had a lot of time on my hands
00:23:46so i would go
00:23:46to searches and do whatever i could to try to get emily home because she would do that for anyone
00:23:52we will
00:23:52continue this until we we get some kind of closure lisa gordish one of emily's acquaintances from high
00:24:00school signed up to search early on they had a public search that met at the high school where
00:24:06we had graduated from and i showed up and went on that search it was exhausting work but lisa did
00:24:13it
00:24:13again and again even organizing her own searches her sister sherry reynolds joined her it was just this
00:24:20thing that kind of grabs a hold of you and you can't let go it's sort of like what you
00:24:25did in the summer of
00:24:262020 yes yes we'd have probably five six seven people on most searches with us
00:24:33but you know who was not out there on those public searches matt the cops thought that was odd
00:24:40celeste often out searching herself asked matt directly where was he and he said oh no those
00:24:45people hate me he wasn't entirely wrong at that point was he celeste
00:24:50no surprise social media had picked up the story and many posts were negative about matt even cruel
00:24:58comments like this can we all just agree the husband is guilty as f and hope the police act
00:25:04and this and his 17 year old son hung himself almost a year ago my daughter was close friends with
00:25:10him
00:25:10and said matt was an awful father cameron kissel joey's good friend had stayed in touch with matt after
00:25:18joey's death he says matt was far from an awful father and they tried everything to help his son
00:25:24and in the months after emily disappeared cameron says matt was searching in his own way every monday i
00:25:31would get off of work and we would go out searching for emily hanging flyers passing out these business
00:25:38cards he had made brainstorming where she could have been what could have happened matt's brother
00:25:44traveled to westerville to help out so did arturo we held out hope all the way through that this was
00:25:51some kind of mental break perhaps that she needed some time away and she's going to turn up the drumbeat
00:26:00of negative comments in town continued there was even a rumor going around which police heard that
00:26:06arturo and matt's brother had come to westerville not to help find emily but to help matt cover up
00:26:11some nefarious deed this is episode 246 of the vanished after his police interview matt was getting
00:26:19legal advice to stop talking but he did speak to the vanished a true crime podcast about missing people
00:26:25even then he didn't say much i feel horrible because i can't help i can't help find my wife it's
00:26:32this thing i want to they told me to shut up and i can't i can't shut up because i'm
00:26:36just trying to
00:26:36find her if he'd been trying to help his case it didn't work a podcast producer spoke to detective
00:26:42grubbs after she interviewed matt she told the detective she believed matt killed his wife
00:26:48the dark cloud that had settled on matt would not budge
00:26:52and emily's whereabouts were still unknown but that was about to change
00:27:13it was a long hot summer of fruitless searching detective grubbs kept a progress report that
00:27:19reads like a litany of dead ends 11 20 a.m searched the area underneath the bridge on polaris just
00:27:25west
00:27:25of cleveland avenue i traveled to the udf to follow up on a previous tip line call i checked
00:27:31confluence park for noble as the summer waned the tips did too the big searches weren't so frequent
00:27:39but sisters lisa and sherry were still out there searching every week we grew up with a family of
00:27:46puzzle solvers and so once that puzzle was there it became very difficult to stop over that summer
00:27:54the sisters picked up another teammate sue sexton sue was happy to search anywhere and motivated for a
00:28:01particular reason 22 23 years ago this year a neighbor of mine named patty went missing
00:28:07um and to this day she hasn't been found not resolved never resolved this time she hoped it would be
00:28:14different on a late summer day they came across something that looked like evidence it was a ceramic
00:28:19christmas ornament was it connected to emily they sent pictures to emily's family but no one recognized
00:28:25it the family and friends of missing westerville woman emily noble continued their search for answers
00:28:32in september local media covered another big community search for emily another exercise in
00:28:39frustration but with fall coming lisa sue and sherry believe time was running out i was afraid when the
00:28:46leaves started to fall that that evidence would be covered up so i felt this urgency you know we have
00:28:52to go now we have to go now we can't wait so one day in mid-september they decided to
00:28:58go back to where
00:28:58they'd spotted that ornament maybe it meant something and we had talked to detective grubbs the week before
00:29:04that and um he said to us specifically don't be afraid to go someplace we've already gone
00:29:14they showed me around the spot they were intent on researching the first thing we did was look for the
00:29:20ornament after all this time they thought it might still be there
00:29:27lisa you find it remarkably it was here's the little ceramic angel that we found i'll be you found that
00:29:38very piece here it was it was right here on the ground but on that day back in mid-september
00:29:442020
00:29:44they wanted to push past this spot it was getting close to dark yeah it's september it's getting
00:29:50chillier my feet were soaking wet oh um we were tired and i said to sue when we were here
00:29:59before there's an
00:30:00area that goes down over that way that we haven't done yet and before it got dark i just needed
00:30:08to go
00:30:09that way they split up sherry peeled off to check one area sue headed to the creek and lisa headed
00:30:16to
00:30:17a spot she'd noticed before it looked all but impassable even with a bustling four-lane highway just
00:30:23yards away right over there this particular section of woods was thick with branches and vines
00:30:29clearly no one thought to wade in but on that early evening september 16th 2020 lisa gordish did
00:30:36so you're walking and pushing until i come to this clearing and stopped and turned and jumped because
00:30:46there was what i thought was a little girl sitting on her knees facing away from me and i said
00:30:52hi there
00:30:54because i i just was startled that there was another person here with me and then it started
00:31:00to sink in yeah that something's wrong like this isn't what i think it is the small figure was clothed
00:31:07upright with long dark hair and terribly still in one of those split-second moments that seemed to take
00:31:13forever the truth dawned on lisa it had to be emily noble the little that remained of her anyway i
00:31:21made
00:31:21my way back behind that log to have a sense of protection protection my first feeling was really
00:31:30fear she called out to sue and sherry i could tell by the pitch of her voice that it was
00:31:36getting higher
00:31:36and higher and that alarmed me and i i knew something i knew something was wrong and it took me
00:31:42a minute to
00:31:43figure out what i was looking at and i realized that my brain was telling me it was a small
00:31:49skeletal
00:31:49thing but i still couldn't completely wrap my eyes around it so i pushed through just a little bit
00:31:55further that's when i could put it together that i was seeing a smaller skeletal remains tests would
00:32:03later confirm what the searchers knew to be true this was emily noble she wasn't going to let us leave
00:32:10without her you thought there was a spiritual dynamic here huh i think there had to be
00:32:17yeah emily wanted to be found yeah 911 what is your emergency hi um we are searching for emily noble
00:32:27we are in wooded area there's a person here and i don't know if it's a dead body it is
00:32:33a dead body
00:32:41do we need guns or nothing the sun was setting when the police pulled up body cams rolling shock
00:32:47all across the county yeah all this time law enforcement hasn't found it the dogs haven't found
00:32:53you guys searching on a wednesday have found yeah missing emily noble
00:33:03like straight straight ahead we were there quite a long time yeah gave our statements i'm gonna need
00:33:09information from you guys okay all right what were you guys doing back here looking for emily okay
00:33:19what do we got the image of emily's remains is blurred in this police video with more officers
00:33:27arriving the police took stock of the awful scene detective grubbs arrived about an hour later
00:33:34i would say let's keep this dark right now because we're so close at that point are you starting to
00:33:39worry about blowback my goodness she's been here for almost four months and we missed her absolutely
00:33:44it's it it was the blowback is a good word for it but it was almost
00:33:52it was embarrassing because now he knew what lisa sherry sue and everyone else knew after that long
00:34:00summer of searches big and small from downtown columbus to rural areas miles away emily never got very far
00:34:08those houses that's right where she lived and that's where matt moore was that very night when he got
00:34:15the news next he tells us his story my sister called me and she's like they found a body by
00:34:21your house
00:34:21and i was just like what what where
00:34:40yeah lock it down lock this woods down make it as big as we can after emily noble's remains were
00:34:47discovered in a
00:34:48tiny clearing in the woods westerville police officers and emergency responders worked into
00:34:53the night processing the scene that's a uh computer cord that's a usb yep emily's skeletal remains were
00:35:04found in a kneeling position a usb cord suspended from a branch was looped around her neck bones and a
00:35:11water bottle containing alcohol was lying nearby emily it seemed had hanged herself can you imagine
00:35:18her finding her way down to that clearing in the woods and that dense brush and doing what she was
00:35:22a brave person brave extremely brave it was just she had enough matt moore wanted to share his side of
00:35:31the story to tell us of the grief and guilt and terrible sadness he says he felt when emily's body
00:35:37was
00:35:37discovered another apparent suicide emily's first husband matt's son and then emily herself i've never
00:35:47been more in love with a person in my entire life i feel awful that i didn't spend more time
00:35:52thinking
00:35:53about how she felt that that she would do something like this but it would she wasn't sick like joey
00:36:00it was emily from the moment emily disappeared matt was well aware that he was the subject of intense
00:36:07scrutiny that he was seen as a killer he wanted to tell us he's not the bad guy he was
00:36:12made out to be
00:36:12and he wanted to talk about the good times with emily starting with their love story emily and matt
00:36:20were together for the better part of five years they met online it was 2015 he called her but he
00:36:27says
00:36:27she picked him tell me first impressions about you she's an online name to you huh she was yeah this
00:36:34mysterious click right click left kind of dark eye small petite kind of who's that and we we met and
00:36:42we just right immediately she picked me you know how girls they pick you i got picked so i became
00:36:49emily's
00:36:51boyfriend two years into the relationship matt moved back to las vegas the romance apparently over
00:36:58matt says he was focused on joey struggling with his signs of serious mental illness he went from
00:37:04being an amazing guitar player to not being able to play anymore and then he would all of a sudden
00:37:08get
00:37:08better again it's it's a weird it's just it's horrible hearing voices that kind of thing sure yeah by then
00:37:16he was in the hospital when you got someone sick like that i needed help and she just there she
00:37:23was one
00:37:23night she emily she's what on the phone or you're messaging me and just hey what's going on i'm just
00:37:29like hey i need help you want to get married she's like yeah really just as simple as that yeah
00:37:38it's
00:37:38like magic it literally was like magic she knew that offer was sort of you get joey too right yes
00:37:42she knew i was i needed help with joey she knew that's when matt and joey packed up the car
00:37:48and drove
00:37:48east to emily's tidy little condo in ohio as matt tells it the three of them made it work she
00:37:55taught
00:37:55us so much this is the way i want things done here and we did it it sounds like she's
00:37:59charles in charge
00:38:00here she is she ran the show every aspect of it emily has rules and they will be followed they
00:38:05will
00:38:05and it was a good they were good rules we needed it they were structure it was folding laundry loading
00:38:11the dishwasher that was one of his jobs everything then after the dreadful event joey hanging himself
00:38:17matt and emily struggled both grieving matt drank heavily emily saw a therapist fighting anxiety and
00:38:25depression i knew she had her serious problems but it was just i didn't have the bandwidth in my head
00:38:30to deal with her she was suicidal she made it apparent she said she would say it i'm going to
00:38:37kill
00:38:37myself if you leave me that was conversations spoken out i don't know like three times she said it
00:38:42she would just come into the room what triggered that thing because i would just wasn't paying attention to
00:38:46her i think this is this is after joey i think yeah and just like you know what
00:38:51just you gotta leave me be had you ever said i'm out of here absolutely not i was never gonna
00:38:55go
00:38:56anywhere i was so in love with her and i was just i couldn't have made it without her no
00:39:00i needed her
00:39:00did you also love her to death different things needing and loving to death she was perfect
00:39:09that's how matt says he saw the relationship but what about emily matt said some awful remember
00:39:15that text police confronted him with the one emily sent a friend saying she wasn't wearing her
00:39:20wedding ring in fact when her body was found her wedding ring was nearby as matt recalled it was just
00:39:27part of the back and forth of life with emily emily would go from this extreme i'm taking my wedding
00:39:33rings off and then the next day would be right back to everything was fine fine and even fun like
00:39:41the day matt flew a drone inside the condo just two weeks before emily disappeared
00:39:48that's emily laughing in the background and then she was gone and the police refused to believe that
00:39:56he wasn't involved you killed her and it was an accident they did this thing to try to rattle me
00:40:01but there was nothing to rattle because i didn't do anything he says at first he did want to help
00:40:06police find his wife i took a lie detector test why'd you agree to that why'd you agree to a
00:40:10lie
00:40:11detector why would you be afraid of a lie detector test if you don't have anything to lie about i
00:40:14didn't
00:40:14think anything of i didn't know while the police in much of the town had branded him a killer he
00:40:20says
00:40:20he was clinging to hope that emily had decided to take off on her own he even gave ten thousand
00:40:26dollars to crime stoppers so they could offer a reward for information the dogs took them to this
00:40:32guy's driveway and lost her scent in the middle of the road like she had gotten in a car i'm
00:40:36hopeful
00:40:37that's what happened were you a little hesitant to go over to the parking lot at the church and join
00:40:41all the searchers the police yeah you don't join police on searches after you've been accused of
00:40:46murder was this the case that law enforcement had left the station and could not be slowed down yeah it's
00:40:51like a train comes pulling out of there is that what you were feeling yeah like a and you can't
00:40:56it's on a train track it's a train you can't stop it you're like you're being railroaded you're like
00:41:00how do i stop this well they found her maybe that would stop it emily found and it looked like
00:41:08she
00:41:08died by suicide not murder those cruel accusations from the police and the court of public opinion
00:41:14were all behind him right remember you're watching dateline there's more to come for matt
00:41:21right around the corner
00:41:36the question what had happened to emily noble had been answered at least as far as matt moore and his
00:41:43friends were concerned i remember the day they found her body that's that's when things like you know
00:41:49definitely changed because now we knew what happened he was lying on the couch with his hands
00:41:56over his eyes hands over his head because he could he couldn't believe it he didn't want to believe it
00:42:00what details of the the discovery stuck with you uh that she had hung herself that uh it was somewhere
00:42:10she was familiar with that usb cord the kneeling position matt moore says the awful truth was clear
00:42:17to him anyway she put the thing around her neck and she just leaned into it it's a partially suspended
00:42:25hanging looking back on her last day before their birthday night out he wonders if he missed the signs
00:42:32they had taken a drive out to the country we collected spring water on the way back halfway
00:42:37through we stopped it's gorgeous sun shining it's just beautiful day she was a little quiet and when
00:42:43using that word quiet what was different i would say things because i'm a clown to try to make her
00:42:49laugh
00:42:49and she didn't laugh at all she just like looked out the window and now maybe matt thought that discovery
00:42:56in the woods would put an end to all the questions but police were not ready to declare this case
00:43:01closed
00:43:02just seeing her finding remains did it explain what had happened here did it did it tell its story
00:43:07at that point no and it it still didn't seem right it just it's that inner gut feeling that you
00:43:15have
00:43:15it just it seemed like there was more to the story than what we were seeing at this point she
00:43:19took
00:43:19off she went into the woods and she hung herself that's one theory absolutely and you know another
00:43:24theory is that this was staged to look like a suicide the question quickly took shape was it
00:43:31suicide or homicide the only way that we're going to be able to get a better feel for that is
00:43:37through
00:43:37emily's body itself she'd been out in the elements all summer that's correct her remains were mostly
00:43:43bones by then okay there's no going back but if you had found her two days in it would have
00:43:48been a
00:43:48different story absolutely you could have had visible bruising you could have had marks around
00:43:54the neck any defensive wounds you know any other evidence that that could have been there was just
00:43:59gone due to the passage of time emily's friends the ones we spoke to didn't need an autopsy to confirm
00:44:06what they already believed despite what matt had said about emily they were convinced she would never
00:44:13ever end her own life it's just not in her nature to me you know i just don't of all
00:44:19the things that
00:44:20she's been through i can't think of anything that would bring her to do that you know or anybody
00:44:27could drive her over the edge like that you know and remember emily's last night was her birthday
00:44:35friends say she wouldn't harm herself on that day of all days her sister's birthday is the day after hers
00:44:42so they always talked on the 25th because they were the same age for a day and she promised her
00:44:48sister
00:44:49she would not kill herself so i i know she didn't kill herself despite her past troubles many friends
00:44:57say she loved her life too much to end it she was always full of life and love and bubbly
00:45:04and just
00:45:06so much fun detective grubbs was listening to emily's loved ones and their concerns were mirroring
00:45:12his own he knew emily had been ripped up by joey's death but his takeaway emily was dealing with it
00:45:18matt was not she had been seeing a counselor and the most striking thing with that is that
00:45:26she was concerned about matt's mental health after joey's suicide and she was trying to figure out that
00:45:34the best way possible to to help matt through all this so she's telling the therapist he's i'm
00:45:40worried about my guy here yes delaware county assistant prosecutor mark sleeper was looking hard
00:45:46at the emily noble case and noticing even little details remember how the bed was made the morning
00:45:52emily was reported missing so i see that the bed was made did you do that or she did that
00:45:57that seemed
00:45:57to be a clue for investigators they suspected emily never actually got to bed that night
00:46:02because she was already dead i find it ultimately very ridiculous to think that emily woke up that
00:46:09morning after having a nice evening out uh decided to make her bed before she wandered off into the
00:46:13woods to hang herself on the other hand she is a neatnik there's a house that you could
00:46:16literally eat off the floor i mean i i don't think that's totally inconsistent i i i find it in
00:46:22light
00:46:22of all the other evidence to be uh an absurd version of events so if not suicide just because it
00:46:29couldn't be it had to be homicide that notion started percolating through social media and took
00:46:35hold and all of a sudden the facebook page that read finding em noble changed to justice for emily
00:46:41noble matt felt law enforcement was bearing down on him his friends did too the police started following
00:46:48him around everywhere you'd see him on his security cameras they would just pull up and wait right
00:46:53outside of his house at weird hours in the morning and at night he became very paranoid of going
00:47:00anywhere because he i mean he was afraid something was going to happen to him matt moore had every
00:47:06reason to worry put your hands back on your head a takedown in sleepy westerville
00:47:31the westerville police department in a suburban village with tidy houses and manicured lawns
00:47:37takes pride in its community relations and crime prevention steve grubbs had been a full-time
00:47:43detective about two and a half years when he asked for the emily noble case this was his first time
00:47:49leading a homicide investigation police had already searched matt and emily's neighborhood their cars
00:47:56their home all just a short distance from the woods where she was found was there any reason to believe
00:48:01that she had been killed somewhere and then brought to that place no we didn't run up but we you
00:48:07know
00:48:07the condo obviously had been thoroughly searched at that point with no trace of a crime anywhere else
00:48:14detective grubbs operated on the theory that emily was killed in the woods and that matt was clearly
00:48:20the killer even celeste who matt considered a friend had come around to the police point of view did you
00:48:26believe at that point celeste that she was in fact murdered and had not committed suicide and that matt
00:48:32had something to do with it maybe the person who killed her yes i have a friend who is a
00:48:37former
00:48:38homicide detective and she went through the fact that usually when a person disappears
00:48:47the killer is the spouse or someone very close to them
00:48:53put together your theory in one place of what happened to them say from the time they returned from
00:48:58their evening of birthday celebration in the drinks i would suspect that emily might have got a little
00:49:03snippy because sometimes she does you know we're all human and it probably just kind of backfired
00:49:09court of public opinion calls these things pretty quickly i mean we don't need to go to trial we've
00:49:13got it figured out you've done enough of these shows i mean you know the spouse is always a suspect
00:49:17right that's the bias out there yeah for sure does it bleed into official investigations i wonder um
00:49:22i don't think so i mean i think that law enforcement knows that that's a person that they have to
00:49:27look
00:49:28at and either clear or figure out that they've got a real suspect there and um but i don't think
00:49:34that had any impact in in this particular case for now public opinion had to wait in the wings
00:49:40the mechanics of strangulation were about to take center stage i think it's a story going to be told
00:49:46by bones this is going to be an expert an experts duel yeah i think that's fair once the remains
00:49:51were found
00:49:51uh they ultimately ended up with uh ohio state emily's remains were so dried out and decomposed
00:49:58the coroner decided they needed a special kind of examination so he called on some experts at the
00:50:04ohio state university to analyze emily's bones they issued this report which concluded that emily
00:50:10suffered fractures in her neck and her face some old some from around the time of death it's called
00:50:17perimortem trauma a fracture along the nasal bones and the second is the perimortem fracture of uh in the neck
00:50:27no surprise perhaps that the bones in her neck were fractured but a new nasal fracture that was
00:50:32interesting could it have been an old ski accident or car accident or something and it just healed
00:50:37itself no according to the doctors it happened around the time of her death so something she's
00:50:42been beaten about the face that's correct prosecutors sent the report to an emergency physician with special
00:50:48training in forensic medicine his name is bill smock he produced his own report with an illustration
00:50:54concluding that emily noble was murdered this he said was a staged suicide after dr smock's report came
00:51:02back i think it uh confirmed what i what i believe that we had a homicide and it was worth
00:51:07prosecuting
00:51:07is smock the most important development in your case oh he's very important for sure
00:51:13the westerville police also knew this matt's first wife had accused him of domestic violence
00:51:18two decades earlier in las vegas she told police he choked her it was wrong i shouldn't put my hands
00:51:25on her but you know it's a long time ago it was what it was they came arrested me they
00:51:29let me go i went
00:51:30home no charges no no they dropped everything and it wasn't any problem after that we had we had joey
00:51:37there wasn't any violence after that but that old story looked bad 20 years later now armed with
00:51:43those forensic reports the westerville police and prosecutors figured they had what they needed i
00:51:49think that uh there were no other suspects in this universe that could have committed this crime on that
00:51:54timeline on june 17 2021 law enforcement descended on matt moore like seal team six the police video looked
00:52:03like an action movie takedown on a suburban street they were ready for me perfect it's pulse pounding
00:52:21footage yeah it's porn for the blue line crowd it got over a half million views just that alone on
00:52:27youtube
00:52:27all right step on down man i mean here are these guys are body armor tactical weapons you guys could
00:52:31just call me it's kind of a joke right what are you doing what's with all this you know literally
00:52:36you could have just called me and then you were charged with first degree murder two counts of
00:52:45murder and one count of felonious assault with that matt moore was issued a jail jumpsuit and waited for
00:52:52trial more than one year later his fate would hang on the opinion of forensic experts one in particular was
00:52:59prepared to tell the jury that emily's bones proved she was murdered this death is a homicidal death
00:53:08based upon the nature of the fractures in emily's neck
00:53:27on august 17 2022 the courthouse in delaware county ohio was abuzz as tv cameras began covering the trial
00:53:36of matthew moore this is a staged suicide scene i watched as much of the trial as i could stand
00:53:43to
00:53:44when i wasn't there it was just a sad story it was really sad to see see it unfold it
00:53:52had been more
00:53:53than two years since emily noble's disappearance and the case against her husband according to the
00:53:58prosecution was clear emily's bones showed she was murdered and matt moore's behavior gave him away
00:54:05i was dispatched to an address on a report of a missing person sergeant robert hollis the responding
00:54:11officer with a body cam testified the first day hey how you doing he told the jury about his
00:54:17conversation with matt moore how matt actually described the spot where emily would eventually
00:54:22be found right we're on that bridge there's where she likes to go where a lot of the edibles are
00:54:27so
00:54:28literally she that's her walk did you go there today looking for her no i didn't if your wife is
00:54:34missing and you think you know where she is why not just go walk that path emily's loved ones testified
00:54:39of course i was called to the stand tell me about that moment you're here he's there you're looking
00:54:44in his eye what's going on do you see him in the courtroom today i had to look around he
00:54:51he was all
00:54:52shaven and his hair short and dressed nicely yes it wasn't wild mountain mat no it wasn't no i love
00:55:03celeste she was emily's best friend absolutely um it broke my heart when i finally came to realize that
00:55:09she thought i did something to her celeste told the jury that emily seemed just fine a couple of days
00:55:15before she disappeared certainly not depressed and what was emily's demeanor while you guys are together
00:55:22she was very happy while we were together another friend suzanne cavanaugh testified that if emily had
00:55:28a problem it was matt she said he drank to excess and seemed possessive of emily what's more the last
00:55:35time
00:55:35she saw emily there were bruises on her arms did you ask emily about it i did and could you
00:55:44describe
00:55:45for the jury her emotional state based on what you asked her about the bruises very defensive
00:55:59um our conversation became very heated the prosecution continued to build its backdrop story
00:56:06of a marriage in trouble they used text between emily and matt to bolster their theory this is one
00:56:12of the exchanges detective stephen grubbs read to the jury starting with a text from emily it's difficult
00:56:19to impossible to talk with you when you have vodka brain and what was the defense response to that
00:56:24that matthew moore says that is an excuse you are afraid to be confronted with things you don't agree
00:56:29with your intellect is shallow prosecutors showed the interrogation not the part where police accused
00:56:36matt of murder but this part where matt early on seemed to bring suspicion upon himself i want to get
00:56:43this going on because i didn't do it and i want you to find whatever the hell happened to her
00:56:46me too
00:56:47i want i want it to happen detective as you began that discussion with mr moore anything stand out to
00:56:55you about your initial interaction with him yes he stated he didn't do it
00:57:01and you accused him of doing anything in particular at that time no sir the jury heard that matt stopped
00:57:09talking directly to police and didn't participate in the public searches and remember the public
00:57:14speculation that matt's friend and brother helped him in some mysterious possibly nefarious way the
00:57:21prosecutor didn't get specific but he did tell the jury that matt wrote each man a check for five
00:57:26thousand dollars this is a another copy of a check that was uh filled out and signed by matthew moore
00:57:32and who was that check written to arturo rogaroli on day five of the trial the prosecution got down to
00:57:40the
00:57:40all-important science the state's expert amanda agnew director of the skeletal biology research lab at the
00:57:47ohio city university issued the report that jump-started the case against matt moore she concluded there
00:57:54were four fractures in emily's neck bones the hyoid bone um which is um very high in the neck um
00:58:03sort of
00:58:03uh underneath your jaw as well as the um laryngeal cartilages um that surround your your voice box
00:58:14essentially she also testified see those red arrows that emily's nasal bones were fractured around the
00:58:21time of death there was some perimortem trauma um in the or on the nasal bones um and around the
00:58:30nasal
00:58:30aperture or where the nose is on the face say we call the next witness and then came the prosecution's
00:58:37star witness dr bill smock who serves as medical director for the training institute on strangulation
00:58:43prevention he told the jury emily suffered what he called an acute fracture to her face miss emily
00:58:49noble sustained significant blunt force trauma to her face if there is enough force to create a fracture
00:58:56even a small fracture that says there is significant blunt force trauma to the nose and you see that yes
00:59:03his point emily was punched in the face when she died that's certainly not consistent with suicide
00:59:10but the overriding question was did emily kill herself with that usb cord dr smock's answer was no way
00:59:17he used that illustration from his report along with a model to demonstrate the location of those
00:59:23fractured bones they are too far apart he said to have been broken by one thin cord so you've got
00:59:30a significant distance between these four and or two on either side anatomical structure here and here
00:59:40smock testified someone's hands broke those bones in emily's neck not a ligature then he added
00:59:47some details that didn't appear in his original report now in your training and experience have you
00:59:52ever seen the same fracture pattern to a woman weighing less than 110 pounds no ma'am never seen it
01:00:02personally and it's not in the medical literature nowhere in the history of forensic medicine are there
01:00:09fractures like emily had in her neck associated with an incomplete hanging for somebody that's her weight
01:00:14never been reported where is this database where do you go to uh you go to the forensic medical
01:00:20literature do you do you trust that database doctor i do it's the only database that we have
01:00:24ultimately as we sit here today i still believe the strongest piece of evidence is dr smock saying
01:00:29that those quadruple fractures could not have been caused by that ligature this was making sense to
01:00:34friends like wendy she didn't weigh enough to break her own hyoid bones by hanging from a little bush
01:00:41on her knees so at this point you may be wondering experts okay but where's the good stuff that all
01:00:50juries want to hear the dna the blood evidence crime scene analysis maybe a witness or surveillance camera
01:00:57shot nope they had none of that and if you're going into trial with a physical evidence light case as
01:01:04this
01:01:04was you certainly don't want to be opposed by this lawyer she has a fearsome success record in loss caused
01:01:11cases
01:01:12up next diane manashi for the defense detective how are you
01:01:31that matt moore's defense attorney got straight to the point in her opening statement the evidence
01:01:35will show that the state's theory is based on speculation and inferences diane manashi said
01:01:42prosecutors didn't have any evidence that matt moore killed his wife and simply members of the jury
01:01:48their theory doesn't make sense even so matt moore became the only suspect within days of emily's
01:01:56disappearance why have the cops fixed on him what's happened well because it's an easy fix you know it's
01:02:03an easy fix and an obvious one and i think that you can't just focus on on one person right
01:02:08you need
01:02:08to exhaust all possible avenues and suspects and they just didn't do that detective how are you okay ma'am
01:02:14how are you so when it came time to cross-examine lead investigator steve grubbs the defense attorney
01:02:20zeroed in on basic things she said the police failed to do and the shirt that is pictured here
01:02:26was found in the hamper yes ma'am in other words the very shirt matt was wearing on his last
01:02:35night
01:02:35with emily that shirt was that submitted for testing
01:02:44um i don't think it was no investigators never found anything to connect matt to the crime
01:02:50no blood no tissue no fibers and remember the dogs that tracked emily sent here
01:02:56did the investigators drop the ball when it came to following up just want to make sure the jurors
01:03:01know that you never conducted any surveillance with respect to that house that's located where
01:03:06the bloodhounds tracked on two different occasions is that correct that's correct i didn't see in your
01:03:13police report either that you ever requested any cch's or criminal histories on anyone that lived in
01:03:20that house or in and around that area would you agree with me on that that's correct and what about
01:03:28those text messages that emily and matt sent one another prosecutors presented them as proof of a
01:03:33failed marriage evidence of a motive for murder on cross the defense lawyer dug in let me be very clear
01:03:41messages from matt moore's phone do not include the following words let's go through this i hate you
01:03:49correct that's correct i want you dead correct correct that is never in there i am going to kill you
01:03:58correct correct correct i am going to divorce you not in there correct no in fact the one message you
01:04:08did read was where he said if you if you want to divorce me let me know isn't that correct
01:04:18that's
01:04:18as for the very first lead police had the across the street neighbor who said he saw emily on memorial
01:04:26day morning your neighbor saw her in the garage about between 9 and 10 a.m this morning police said
01:04:33the neighbor john kramer later changed his story but when defense attorney menashe sent her own
01:04:38investigator to talk to him the investigator reported that kramer just wasn't 100 certain he saw emily
01:04:44that morning john kramer for the record did not retract his testimony or his statement to police what he
01:04:52said is he can't be positive he's not positive now that he saw her on the morning of the 25th
01:05:00that's what he
01:05:01said when she wasn't going after testimony menashe was picking away at the prosecutor's actions saying
01:05:08they put up evidence without explanation what about those checks what about those checks like those
01:05:16five thousand dollar checks matt wrote to his brother and his friend arturo it's like that expression
01:05:22that we all know when you just throw things up and you see what'll stick and the rumor mill had
01:05:28it
01:05:28to hear the guy from vegas coming in hating and abetting right maybe helping him clean up and move
01:05:32things around you know a good fella coming out there and money transacting over a missing person
01:05:38something weird must have happened but if i was that guy would i have accepted a check
01:05:44in the end arturo says matt was just helping him with his expenses during a tough time
01:05:50one by one the defense attorney went after the prosecutor's witnesses
01:05:54when she crossed emily's friend sue cavanaugh who testified she'd seen bruises on emily's arm
01:05:59and as she made the point the two women were no longer close february of 2019 is the last
01:06:06time you see emily in person is that right yes you're aware that she went missing
01:06:12may 25th of 2020 correct as his attorney chipped away at the state's case matt started to feel that
01:06:22maybe just maybe this would all be behind him soon as you watched her work the case i couldn't work
01:06:29the
01:06:29room i couldn't what were you seeing she there was things i can't be real specific about it but there
01:06:33was things that she would figure out on the fly they would do what they were doing and she would
01:06:38get up
01:06:39there and be like wow that's there's things that um i need to tell her so that she can get
01:06:44up there
01:06:44and argue that point that they just make and she would get up there and she knew exactly what to
01:06:47say
01:06:47i'm like how would she know that that said the defense faced a huge challenge taking on the renowned
01:06:53expert who insisted that emily noble died by manual strangulation after a punch in the face but what
01:07:00if that wasn't what really happened i did not see any skeletal evidence that she was punched in the face
01:07:19emily noble had a lot of friends
01:07:21evidence and almost everyone we spoke to was rooting for the state i was hopeful there would
01:07:26be a conviction i thought he killed her i thought he was guilty and i thought there was enough evidence
01:07:32to convict him they heard the forensic evidence that emily was punched in the face and strangled by
01:07:37someone's hands presumably matt moores you can't punch yourself in the face and then they watched as diane
01:07:45menashi attempted to take apart the prosecution's forensic evidence bit by bit you're only as good
01:07:51as the information you get in court she suggested that the first scientist to handle emily's delicate
01:07:57remains may have damaged them well the bones were soaked in bleach and we know that bleach weakens and
01:08:03whitens bones we also know that the bones were moved everywhere they were moved to the morgue to a
01:08:09cooler to the slab to a cooler to osu if you get the bones that haven't been properly handled and
01:08:15preserved and are more brittle than they should be right you're you're you're getting garbage this
01:08:21is not it's an expression diane menashi likes garbage in garbage out meaning when you put bad data
01:08:27in the pipeline you get bad results so when she got a crack at the prosecution's star witness dr smock
01:08:34have you ever heard the expression garbage in garbage out yes ma'am she suggested all his damning
01:08:40conclusions were based on faulty and certainly not firsthand information you were not at the scene to
01:08:47see how the literature was around her neck correct that is correct there is no one that saw that right
01:08:56well the pictures we don't have and you were not there that is correct i wasn't out there you also
01:09:02were
01:09:03not there and do not know if over the course of four months the ligature began in one place and
01:09:12ended
01:09:13up in the other as the corpse went from a 90 pound woman to being 18 pounds of skeleton you
01:09:20do not know
01:09:21that either because you were not there that is correct once the defense was through with the prosecution
01:09:27witnesses she got started on her own there were only two and this was the one who counted i'm dr
01:09:34heather
01:09:35garvin and where do you work i am a full professor of anatomy at des moines university dr heather garvin
01:09:42is also a board certified forensic anthropologist someone who analyzes skeletal remains to help solve
01:09:49criminal cases she examined hundreds of photos of emily noble's remains and came to at least one
01:09:55surprising case-altering conclusion emily wasn't punched in the face when she died she saw old
01:10:01fractures from a broken nose that had healed years before but found no evidence of perimortem time of
01:10:07death fractures in her face no evidence of perimortem fractures to the cranial facial region i did not
01:10:13see any skeletal evidence that she was punched in the face if you could take out the blow to the
01:10:19face right
01:10:20that was just one more thing to take out of the theory and remember how dr smock demonstrated that
01:10:25a usb cord the ligature could not break those bones in emily's neck well the defense argued he's getting
01:10:32his anatomy all wrong starting with a drawing he used in his report so it was in response to this
01:10:39drawing
01:10:39that you included these images in your report yes because i felt it was misleading misleading she says
01:10:48because the bones that were broken in emily's neck look far apart in this picture and in dr smock's
01:10:54model dr garvin pointed out that's not what the human neck looks like she showed us a 3d printout a
01:11:01model of the throat structure that's very close to real life scale these bones are close together and
01:11:06connected with a membrane dr garvin says given the right circumstances those bones could break with a usb cord
01:11:13if the ligature is going around the neck and puts pressure right here on either side you're going
01:11:21to get bending of the bone and a fracture of the hyoid bone here and the fracture of the thyroid
01:11:26cartilage there dr garvin says no one can say for sure how emily's neck bones were fractured no matter
01:11:32what dr smock says about the medical literature i'm trained at looking at skeletal material and determining
01:11:39what kind of mechanism would cause those fracture patterns in emily noble's case the two fractures
01:11:44on either side appear to occur from some source of compression but you're going to get that same
01:11:49compression whether there's a ligature there or manual strangulation you can't differentiate between
01:11:55them nothing further watching in court matt more says he was still wondering when the proverbial other
01:12:02shoe would drop i didn't know there had to have been something i'm arrested for murder there must be
01:12:08evidence something there must be something that that's there if he was waiting for a moment of
01:12:14truth it happened sort of at the prosecution's closing argument only then did assistant prosecutor
01:12:20mark sleeper offer the state's theory of when and where matt moore killed emily noble emily noble
01:12:26comes home goes on a walk while the defendant's on a long phone call and playing around on his phone
01:12:32after he gets off that there's a 40 minute gap of time where there's no activity on his phone between
01:12:388 42 p.m and 9 23 p.m 40 minute gap defendant knows the place where emily goes to
01:12:47forage
01:12:50knows where he could find her ladies and gentlemen i submit to you that's an opportunity at that time for
01:12:54him to go leave the house and to go confront her in the woods where the physical evidence shows she
01:13:01was struck in the face causing fractures to her nose and she was manually strangled causing four fractures
01:13:10to her neck the prosecution offered no new physical evidence as it laid out its theory of a murder in
01:13:16the woods
01:13:17i heard no no you heard for the first time that the state thinks emily was killed in the woods
01:13:26if the state doesn't know until the end of their case in closing um where they believe uh you know
01:13:32this alleged murder happened i mean if that isn't reasonable doubt what is our justice system has to
01:13:37be better than this was it coming out of the blue late no i think i think the point taken
01:13:42let me just
01:13:43explain it this way so is it possible that the homicide or murder would have occurred inside the
01:13:50condo yes is it possible the murder occurred in the woods yes we didn't have any evidence that said
01:13:57definitively which one of those two places if i had to bet i would bet it happened in the woods
01:14:01i think
01:14:02that makes the most sense given the other evidence so i'm going to say this 24 years over 150 jury
01:14:07trials
01:14:07i've never had a harder closing argument than this because honestly in most i've got evidence to
01:14:14attack this case is totally speculation manashi said police and prosecutors were laser focused on
01:14:23anything that made matt moore look guilty and they ignored behavior that suggested he was innocent
01:14:27not only did he tell police where emily liked to forage he also brought them right to the edge of
01:14:33the
01:14:33woods where her remains were later found if he had killed her why would he have directed police
01:14:38to the evidence he takes them to the exact area and says this is where she forges and then even
01:14:47the
01:14:47state of ohio in their closing argument just now had to concede that you know what he says you might
01:14:53want to go in oh that's a bad fact right and you know why he wouldn't want to go in
01:15:00is it because
01:15:01he doesn't want to find her actually i agree with that you know why he doesn't want to find her
01:15:09because 10 months earlier his son was hanging from a tree in the woods
01:15:18i wouldn't want to go in a wooded area either once the closing arguments ended matt moore's fate
01:15:25was in the hands of the jury matt moore guilty of homicide or no
01:15:43he'd sat in jail for 14 months thinking about how he got to this point the case against him
01:15:50and that question everyone was asking they say you punched her in the face and then put your
01:15:55hands on her throat and manually choked the life out of her and then strung her up in this and
01:16:00then
01:16:00dragged her in the woods 60 feet in the dark and found a branch and did all this weird did
01:16:05you do
01:16:06that matt did you kill your wife what do you think i want to hear you say it why why
01:16:11do you feel the need
01:16:11for me to say that well did you do it this isn't no i mean no there would be evidence
01:16:17of it no wouldn't
01:16:19you think so the case is all made up it's not made up um police do what they do they
01:16:26they're like any
01:16:27other business they look for a crime and it was an opportunity for them to spend money
01:16:37it's the only way i can put it in an easy way i mean i'm you'd have to talk to
01:16:41them but as far
01:16:42as me killing him now i loved her why would i do that after seven days of testimony the jury
01:16:49faced
01:16:49the same question guilty or not oh my gosh i was so eager to hear what the other jurors were
01:16:56thinking
01:16:56because we spoke with three jurors from left to right connie carol and jen they told us that more
01:17:02than half the jury came to deliberations thinking matt was innocent the rest thought he might have
01:17:07killed emily i thought she was a homicide victim you did to me it did look staged matt moore guilty
01:17:16of
01:17:16homicide or no absolutely not carol matt moore did he kill his wife or not if he did he is
01:17:22a mastermind
01:17:23and i just don't think i think he's an average joe but on this they agreed the prosecution's case
01:17:31had problems it was all little pieces and trying to to knit them together into a particular view
01:17:42and i just felt that it was just too um incoherent they had particular problems with the prosecution's
01:17:51star witness it was a stretch for him he was more concerned with giving his resume than trying to we're
01:17:59talking about smock again than to help with the case i felt like he was stretching quite a bit
01:18:05to make some of these assumptions jurors deliberated for a short time on day one then returned the next
01:18:13day you come back that next morning and you do have what i call straw vote you go around the
01:18:17table
01:18:17were you surprised at the result um i think i was a little bit surprised they had a verdict
01:18:25as they filed back into court matt moore took one look at them and feared the worst it's like they're
01:18:32not looking at you it was too quick i was just like they need time to think this through they
01:18:36didn't
01:18:37spend a lot of time doing that so i was just i was i was ready to go you thought
01:18:40that was it that was
01:18:41it i was done verdict on count one we the jury being duly impaneled sworn find the defendant matthew l
01:18:48moore not guilty of murder as he stands not guilty on all three counts murder and felonious assault
01:18:55after more than a year in jail matt moore was a free man
01:19:00i didn't want to cry in in public you know you did you were holding your head in your hands
01:19:05weeping
01:19:06yeah and but i caught myself and i gathered myself up and i was just okay great let's get out
01:19:12of here
01:19:12i was just very very happy for matt and so for me also it was just such a joyous moment
01:19:19at the other table a bitter defeat it was very difficult you were certain he killed his wife yeah
01:19:26still am frankly as for emily's friends celeste didn't see it coming um dumbfounded
01:19:34dumbfounded like how did this happen wendy kind of did i just had a feeling of dread that
01:19:41it wouldn't end in a conviction maybe krista spoke for many based on the evidence presented
01:19:47i wasn't surprised that he wasn't found guilty even though in my in my heart
01:19:53i think he's guilty and it's not just because i'm malicious or anything but i a hundred percent
01:20:02don't believe she would ever take her own life ever
01:20:09with the verdict rendered the judge addressed matt directly mr moore
01:20:15i think from day one everyone's wanted justice for your wife emily but i think the jury has also
01:20:22said justice for emily is not injustice for you despite the jury's verdict emily's death certificate
01:20:30still reads homicide do you think there's a chance that emily noble was murdered i do i do not by
01:20:39matt
01:20:39not by your guy no but i it's it's and i think this goes back to all things are possible
01:20:45and the
01:20:46only thing that that isn't possible and wasn't shown beyond a reasonable doubt is that matt did it
01:20:52matt knows he'll live with some level of whispers and suspicions for the rest of his life the people
01:20:58who were out there think you got away with murder and some of those include the old friends sure and
01:21:02probably some family what do they not get what are they not interested
01:21:08well they i mean they've known me for so long it's just hard for me to believe i'm not a
01:21:11violent
01:21:11person i'm not i don't get upset i'm like really laid back but if they think what they think is
01:21:17because
01:21:17of what the media and police what they're capable of they've manipulated you
01:21:25freedom gave matt a chance to live his life again but also the space he says to grieve for emily
01:21:31i didn't have any time to think about her because i had all this police pressure and community
01:21:37pressure and all this just this weird thing and when he said not guilty and it's just like though
01:21:43all of a sudden emily just i could deal with it i could okay no it's time for emily you
01:21:47know
01:21:48his old life is gone he's broke trying to scrape together a new life and he's angry mostly at the
01:21:55police he's written an e-book called emily a stage suicide in ohio i needed to write my story
01:22:04for me more than anything because i wanted people to know what happened
01:22:11he's back in the las vegas area now far from westerville ohio where most of emily's friends
01:22:17still live and still think about her i miss her laugh and her smile she was just fun to be
01:22:30around
01:22:31everybody was her friend and all of her friends were her best friend i miss her being here
01:22:40i miss her laugh for sure throwing her head back and just yeah
01:22:52she left behind images for her loved ones to ponder exquisite skies her collections of edible plants
01:22:59the wood she loved and her own face gazing back into the camera what was she thinking in the days
01:23:07and weeks before her death years after she went into the woods it's the biggest mystery of all
01:23:18that's all for this edition of dateline we'll see you again thursday at 10 9 central and of course
01:23:25i'll see you each week night for nbc nightly news i'm lester holt for all of us at nbc news
01:23:31good night
01:23:37so
01:23:38you
01:23:38you
01:23:38you
01:23:38you
01:23:38you
01:23:38you
Comments