Dateline NBC S32E05 The Footprint at the Lake H 264

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Transcript

00:00:10The last thing I said to her, uh, I'll see you later, and it just tears me up, because I

00:00:19didn't tell her good night, I didn't tell her I love her.

00:00:24This is a sinister scene. It is. We see footprint and blood on the floor. We see handprints. It was

00:00:32pretty evident that there was some type of struggle.

00:00:39She's a beloved teacher, and now she's been murdered. We had no idea what was happening. Three people in this

00:00:45family were within the household while this murder was going on.

00:00:48Somebody would have heard something. Nobody did. How could you not hear screaming if she's being attacked?

00:00:54Asked what everybody thought. They fingerprinted us. Did you have anything to do with your mom? Did you kill your

00:00:59mom?

00:01:00They asked my siblings that. Obviously asked my dad that. I did not hurt my wife. I was waiting for

00:01:06the cuffs to come out.

00:01:07Somebody came in. They knew what they were after. Somebody out of control and a rage. Never seen anything like

00:01:13it or never heard of anything like it.

00:01:14A mother and teacher murdered in a crime no one heard, no one saw. With a twist no one could

00:01:22predict.

00:01:22I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

00:01:33Here's Andrea Canning with The Footprint at the Lake.

00:01:45Like most small towns in North Texas, the people of Olney spend their Fridays cheering on the high school football

00:01:51team.

00:01:54And the Olney Cubs need all the help they can get.

00:01:57At one point, we were ranked number three in the state for the longest losing streak.

00:02:04But win or lose, there was one cheerleader who never gave up on them.

00:02:08Teacher Manuela Allen.

00:02:10Do you remember Mrs. Allen in the stands?

00:02:12Yes, ma'am.

00:02:12With her cowbell?

00:02:13I would hear that over the band sometimes.

00:02:18Morgan Wilk was on the team.

00:02:20Yeah, everyone loved Mrs. Allen.

00:02:23That's why what happened to Mrs. Allen was so devastating, so bewildering.

00:02:29It was Sunday, July 7th, 2019.

00:02:32Manuela's husband, Peter, also a teacher, says he was awake surfing the web in the living room with the TV

00:02:37on.

00:02:38A little before 9 a.m., his teenage daughter, Kiara, popped into the room.

00:02:43Kiara comes to me and says, Dad, where's Mom?

00:02:47I'm like, well, what do you think? She's in the bedroom.

00:02:50Probably.

00:02:51Well, she says, Dad, the door's locked.

00:02:52So I was like, well, go through the garage and check on her.

00:02:55Their house has an unusual layout.

00:02:58There's a second door to the bedroom that's attached to the garage by way of a small laundry room.

00:03:03Kiara went around to check.

00:03:05And she goes, yeah, there's blood all over the place.

00:03:08Blood.

00:03:09A lot of it.

00:03:10But no Manuela.

00:03:12So what are you thinking?

00:03:14Nothing.

00:03:14My mind was blank because I had no idea what could have possibly occurred.

00:03:18Not only was Manuela gone, so was her car.

00:03:21Peter says the only thing that made sense in that confusing moment was that maybe his wife

00:03:26had driven herself to the emergency room.

00:03:28Did she cut herself really badly?

00:03:30And what in this room could she possibly have cut herself on?

00:03:33So you're thinking she's been injured.

00:03:35Yeah, she somehow injured herself.

00:03:37And she's driven herself to the hospital?

00:03:39Yes.

00:03:40Peter and his daughter raced to the local hospital.

00:03:43Manuela wasn't there.

00:03:45Once back home, he called the police.

00:03:479-1-1, where's your emergency?

00:03:49Uh, I don't know how to describe it.

00:03:52My wife is missing and there's blood all over her bedroom.

00:03:57Minutes later, an officer from the Alney Police Department arrived, body cam rolling.

00:04:02Morning, Mr. Allen.

00:04:03Good morning.

00:04:05What's going on this morning?

00:04:06I have no idea.

00:04:08Uh, my wife's gone.

00:04:11Her car is gone.

00:04:13My daughter comes and says, hey, Dad, where's Mom?

00:04:16And I go, well, I guess in the room, sleeping.

00:04:18And she goes, well, no, the door's locked.

00:04:21I slept on the couch.

00:04:22Car's gone.

00:04:23So she goes through there and locks it.

00:04:24She comes up and says, Dad, there's blood all over the place.

00:04:26Okay.

00:04:27And I have no idea.

00:04:28You have your ID with you, Mr. Allen?

00:04:30Yeah.

00:04:31The officer followed Peter inside.

00:04:33Okay, go ahead and step out here.

00:04:35Go ahead and come out here.

00:04:37Usually her keys are hanging right there.

00:04:39Okay, let's go ahead and go out to the living room.

00:04:41And you say you looked in the garage and the car's gone.

00:04:43Well, the car that would be parked right in front, yeah.

00:04:46Chose to be a wide Arcadia.

00:04:48Pass the information along for officers to look for it.

00:04:52Are you in full panic mode?

00:04:55No.

00:04:56That's not my personality.

00:04:58But there's blood in the bedroom.

00:05:00Your wife's missing.

00:05:01Her car's gone.

00:05:02Absolutely.

00:05:03Aren't you thinking something really terrible has happened?

00:05:06Of course.

00:05:07But I don't freeze up.

00:05:08I don't lock up.

00:05:09I stop and try to reason through the situation.

00:05:13Peter Allen served in the military, dealt with explosives.

00:05:16He's not one to panic.

00:05:19Patrol Sergeant Dan Burback of the Yonge County Sheriff's Office was next to arrive.

00:05:23Hey, what's going on?

00:05:24This is him.

00:05:25This is his daughter.

00:05:26I made contact with Mr. Allen, who's in the living room with his daughter, Kira.

00:05:31I asked them to step outside to get him outside of the house.

00:05:35And then I find out that their son, Darian, is still upstairs in his bedroom.

00:05:40I need y'all to go ahead and step out here on the porch.

00:05:43And I proceed upstairs to go get Darian.

00:05:45What's Darian doing when you get upstairs?

00:05:47He's on his video game with a set of headphones on, still playing a video game.

00:05:53He has no idea.

00:05:53No idea.

00:05:54What's happening in the floor beneath him.

00:05:57Right.

00:05:58Darian was almost 20 at the time.

00:06:00The sergeant told him to head downstairs.

00:06:03I was like, why?

00:06:04And the sheriff was like, well, we can't answer any questions right now.

00:06:07And I was like, well, can I at least get dressed?

00:06:10Put on some clothes.

00:06:11They were like, no, you got to get out of the house.

00:06:13Just have a seat.

00:06:15Mom, your mom's missing, okay?

00:06:17They were like, yeah, we can't get a hold of her either.

00:06:20Like her phone's just off.

00:06:23Don't know where she is.

00:06:23And we've tried looking around.

00:06:25When's the last time you saw her?

00:06:26Last night.

00:06:28Probably about 9 or 10.

00:06:30Hey, can you ping a phone?

00:06:33We're already attempting to locate her.

00:06:36So I checked both hospitals here and didn't find anything.

00:06:41Peter, the military guy who said he had nerves of steel and had been a green beret, was now on

00:06:47the verge of cracking.

00:06:49Oh, I'm worried it ain't to work for it.

00:06:50One of the few times in my life I've ever been actually scared.

00:06:52One of the only few times.

00:06:54But I can't let that fear grip me because I've got to find my wife.

00:06:58What on earth had happened to Manuela Allen?

00:07:02There are drag marks through the garage, pushing the drug, out the back door.

00:07:22Lieutenant David Wilk happened to be driving through the tiny town of Olney that Sunday morning.

00:07:27You're probably thinking to yourself, this is just going to be a, you know, a slow day, typical.

00:07:32Yes, that's what I'd like to have on a Sunday.

00:07:35He worked for a neighboring county, so he hadn't heard about the police activity at the Allen residence.

00:07:40I came through Olney and saw the crime scene tape up around Mr. and Mrs. Allen's house.

00:07:45So I pulled over and talked to one of the city officers that I know and said, asked him what

00:07:50was going on.

00:07:51Is everything okay with the kids?

00:07:52What are you told?

00:07:54I'm told at the time that Mrs. Allen was missing and it doesn't look good.

00:07:59The news was upsetting and personal.

00:08:02He knew Mrs. Allen, knew the entire Allen family.

00:08:05Mr. and Mrs. Allen were both teachers in the school district.

00:08:08And the kids, we knew, I knew them through my children.

00:08:14Lieutenant Wilk's son is Morgan, the student and football player from Olney High School.

00:08:18Morgan thought the world of Mrs. Allen.

00:08:21She was always laughing.

00:08:22I've never seen her have, like, a bad day.

00:08:25Manu, as she was called, grew up in a Bavarian village in southern Germany.

00:08:30In college, she came to the United States to study English.

00:08:33And that's when she met Peter.

00:08:35My wife was strikingly gorgeous, just beautiful.

00:08:39I seen her walking up the stairs.

00:08:41And even though that was almost 30 years ago, I can tell you she had a red t-shirt on

00:08:46with biker shorts that were multicolored, beautiful blonde hair.

00:08:51You two fell in love in this short period of time.

00:08:53And it was enough for her to uproot her life and move to America.

00:08:56God graced me.

00:08:58God blessed me.

00:08:58I, I, yes.

00:09:01Manu encouraged him to become a teacher.

00:09:03He taught math.

00:09:04She taught German and English.

00:09:06They rounded each other out at home and at school.

00:09:09If you wanted the truth, the hard, cold truth, you came to Mr. Allen.

00:09:13If you wanted the hard, cold truth told you in a very gentle and loving way, you went to Mrs.

00:09:18Allen.

00:09:19There was this one kid every day, give her a hug.

00:09:22Every day.

00:09:22Aw, she's one of those teachers.

00:09:24Yes, every day.

00:09:25She would always have a smile on her face.

00:09:27Your mom sounds very playful, sense of humor.

00:09:30Oh, yeah.

00:09:31You could usually hear her on the other side of the hallway in between classes, just cracking

00:09:36up with other kids.

00:09:37She was loud.

00:09:38But she was also very caring.

00:09:42In addition to caring for the kids at school, Manu and Peter had four children of their

00:09:47own, Kiara and Darian, and also Melanie, a recent high school graduate, and William, the eldest.

00:09:54Manu liked looking out for the teenagers who seemed to need it the most.

00:09:58She was accepting of all people.

00:10:14That included students like her daughter Melanie's boyfriend, a football player who struggled

00:10:19at school and at home.

00:10:21Peter remembers a time the boyfriend showed up at his door in the middle of the night.

00:10:25My wife is the one who said, yeah, let him stay.

00:10:27So we had taken him in when he needed it.

00:10:29She cheered him on the same way she rooted for the rest of the Olney Cubs.

00:10:33One story that I absolutely love is Manu cheering them on with her cowbell.

00:10:38I hate that.

00:10:39I love it.

00:10:41You weren't the one sitting next to her going, ow.

00:10:44I lost half my hearing because of that.

00:10:48Because both of the Allens were teachers, they had summers off.

00:10:52And in the summer of 2019, Peter, Manu, and their daughters had spent three weeks visiting

00:10:57Manu's family in Germany.

00:10:59They'd been home for a few days.

00:11:01And then it was that Saturday night.

00:11:04Peter says he had some drinks and laid down on the couch.

00:11:08She came in, gave me a kiss goodnight, said goodnight, and went to bed.

00:11:14Now it was morning and Manu was gone.

00:11:16In her place, blood.

00:11:19And investigators were trying to make sense of what they were hearing from the family.

00:11:23If you'll stay here, I'm going to just kind of walk around.

00:11:27As we enter into the kitchen, we see footprint and blood on the floor.

00:11:33And then as we start working our way towards the bedroom, we see handprints that appear

00:11:38that the person holding onto the doorjamb was drugged back towards the bedroom.

00:11:43It was pretty evident that there was some type of struggle.

00:11:46Across the hallway, there was blood on the carpet.

00:11:48There was more blood on the door.

00:11:49We get into the bedroom, and we see a large pooling of blood at that location.

00:11:56He noticed that Manu's bed was bare and the sheets were missing.

00:12:00And in the adjacent laundry room, there was a clue on the floor.

00:12:04Bloody streaks.

00:12:06There are drag marks through the garage where she was drugged out the back door.

00:12:10Like a body's being dragged?

00:12:11Like a body's being dragged, yes.

00:12:13As he surveyed the scene and spoke to the family, the investigator just knew.

00:12:18This missing persons case was not likely to end well.

00:12:21And everyone in that house was going to have to start answering questions.

00:12:26I'm going to tell you if something sinister happened and there's somebody involved there.

00:12:46Manu Allen was missing, and her home was a crime scene.

00:13:00The Olney Police Department needed help, and it came by way of Michael Schraub of the Texas Rangers.

00:13:05I was actually at church, and I received a call regarding a missing person.

00:13:12Any other details, or just please come on over here?

00:13:14I was told there was a whole lot of blood at the scene.

00:13:16They just felt it was a very suspicious circumstance.

00:13:20While other rangers went to assist the sergeant at the house,

00:13:23Ranger Schraub headed to the sheriff's office to meet the family.

00:13:26I just wanted to get a baseline story from everybody so that we would know where to go

00:13:32after we investigated the scene itself.

00:13:38Manu's daughter, Kiara, was just one day shy of her 16th birthday.

00:13:42In a near whisper, she told the ranger about the night before.

00:13:46She said she'd come home late from her boyfriend's house.

00:14:02Peter actually opened the door, let her in, and then she went to her bedroom,

00:14:07and then started FaceTiming with her boyfriend that she had just left.

00:14:10And she described just basically falling asleep with FaceTime running.

00:14:13I woke up at 8.45, and I just got ready to go to the gym,

00:14:20and I went to go put my clothes in the washing machine,

00:14:23and I'd go to my mom's room because I had to go there to get to it.

00:14:27And the door was locked when I tried to go in there, and, I mean, usually it's not locked.

00:14:32So I went and asked my dad where she was, and he looked really confused,

00:14:36and he just told me to go check her out through the garage.

00:14:42Then Kiara explained how she went through the other bedroom door and saw the bloody mess.

00:14:46She also saw a knife.

00:14:48I picked up a pocket knife on the ground to see if there was blood on it.

00:14:52From the investigation standpoint, of course, you're like, don't pick it up.

00:14:55Of course.

00:14:56That's the last thing you want to do.

00:14:57Any movie anyone's watching, you scream at the TV, don't touch the knife.

00:15:02But it's information I needed to have.

00:15:04So what had happened in that bedroom?

00:15:07Kiara said she had no idea.

00:15:09She hadn't heard a thing.

00:15:11That was very odd to me because her bedroom literally shared a wall with the master bedroom.

00:15:17It does seem like if there was a violent struggle, someone would hear something.

00:15:21The only thing I could think of on that is, I don't know how Kiara was,

00:15:25but I know a lot of teenagers can sleep through anything.

00:15:35But what about the husband, whose own story put him right down the hall?

00:15:39At the sheriff's office, Peter repeated what he'd told arriving officers.

00:15:44How he'd spent the night on the couch.

00:15:46He said that was normal for them.

00:16:01And like his daughter, Peter said he didn't hear anything unusual coming from the bedroom all night.

00:16:07The living room couch, where he slept, is down the hall from the bedroom.

00:16:10You would think, in that situation, somebody would have heard something.

00:16:14Nobody did.

00:16:15By this time, District Attorney D. Peavey and Assistant DA Philip Gregory had been out to look at the scene.

00:16:21There was so much blood, you had to have heard something, and it was just concerning to everybody involved.

00:16:27Where Mr. Allen was sleeping on the couch was within 20, 25 feet of a major crime scene.

00:16:32This is not a large house.

00:16:34I was just completely taken aback by that.

00:16:37I really did not know how to take that at the time, but facts were unfolding.

00:16:42The story sounded far-fetched.

00:16:44So naturally, the ranger started asking questions about the state of Peter and Manu's marriage.

00:16:49Was she involved with anybody else?

00:16:51Did you suspect that?

00:16:52Or were you involved with anybody else?

00:16:54Did you suspect that?

00:16:55My wife is an old-school Roman Catholic from Germany in the very end.

00:17:01That's where we just were for the 30 weeks.

00:17:03Goes to church every Sunday?

00:17:06No.

00:17:07I mean, I'm a man, so I'm a dog.

00:17:09I look, but I don't touch.

00:17:11I'm married.

00:17:11No.

00:17:13He also asked about Manu's relationship with their four children.

00:17:16Any particular conflict with any of the kids?

00:17:19My children?

00:17:20Yeah, your children.

00:17:21My children would never touch my wife.

00:17:23Okay.

00:17:23And my wife, I don't know if this is to sound right, but she's now built like a tank.

00:17:28You know, she could beat that.

00:17:30Somebody, if she, if she, if she, if somebody came in, I don't know what happened, but if

00:17:36somebody came in, she'd put up one hell of a fight.

00:17:39I'll tell you that.

00:17:41But before the ranger could probe any deeper, there was a knock at the door.

00:17:46There'd been a discovery.

00:18:08After learning his friend Manu was missing, the lieutenant from the county next door, David

00:18:13Wilk, joined the search.

00:18:14He was asked to check a popular swimming hole north of Olney called Lake Cooper.

00:18:19Why Lake Cooper?

00:18:20Maybe because that's where folks would go to get away from town.

00:18:25That's the only thing I can come up with.

00:18:30Right as he pulled up to the lake, he spotted something.

00:18:34A white SUV.

00:18:35The same type of car as Manu's.

00:18:38As soon as I came on to the lake, I could see it across over here, parked right about

00:18:42here to my left.

00:18:44So the SUV was here.

00:18:46Could you tell if she was in the SUV?

00:18:48At first, no.

00:18:49I had to get out and check.

00:18:51Wilk switched on his body cam.

00:18:53Walked up there and there was nobody in or around the vehicle.

00:18:57Does anything look suspicious with the vehicle?

00:18:59The way it's parked, the damage it had, and how it's high-centered, and then there was a brown

00:19:04smear on the left side of the vehicle that looked like dried blood.

00:19:08This was a surprise to the lieutenant.

00:19:11He hadn't been told about all the blood back at the house.

00:19:14Now you're thinking this could be a crime scene?

00:19:16Crime scene, yes, ma'am.

00:19:17Somebody got hurt or whatever.

00:19:20So I call in the tag number.

00:19:2128 is going to be Texas Lincoln Sam Victor.

00:19:25Verify it with our dispatch in Archer County.

00:19:27That it is?

00:19:28It is the one.

00:19:29It is her car.

00:19:29The one they were looking for, yes, ma'am.

00:19:31Do you just start looking around?

00:19:33Like, is she somewhere in the vicinity?

00:19:35Yes, ma'am.

00:19:35That's what I'm thinking.

00:19:36Maybe somebody, maybe there was a medical issue or something.

00:19:39So I start looking around, and over here between these trees, I see what looks like material

00:19:44cloth, sheets.

00:19:47And I walked down this little path right here up to the barbed wire fence, made a left,

00:19:53and that's where I found Mrs. Allen.

00:19:55Oh, my gosh.

00:19:57Underneath those trees.

00:19:58Manuela Allen was dead, her body wrapped in her own blood-stained bed sheets.

00:20:05You know Mrs. Allen.

00:20:07Yes, ma'am.

00:20:07How chilling is this that you're now seeing a body that you know in your heart is her?

00:20:13At this point, I'm more concerned.

00:20:16First, I got to protect the crime scene.

00:20:23Archie Cannon is here.

00:20:24Stop this.

00:20:25Hey, this is going to be the one he's looking for.

00:20:30What?

00:20:31It's just heartbreaking because you know what's next.

00:20:33You know that what the family doesn't know, they're about to know.

00:20:36Yes.

00:20:36And that the kids are about to have their hearts broken.

00:20:39All the hope they had is gone.

00:20:40Within minutes, Texas Rangers were on the scene, as was Sergeant Burbeck.

00:20:45What had been a missing persons case that morning was by afternoon, a homicide.

00:20:51This investigation is rapidly unfolding.

00:20:53Very rapidly.

00:20:54We have two crime scenes now.

00:20:57Manu had been stabbed and shot, her body partially covered.

00:21:01The killer took the time to take plants or yucca plants and cover her face with them.

00:21:08Investigators also noticed this, a footprint in the mud next to their victim's vehicle.

00:21:13And a few feet away, another clue.

00:21:16One of the investigators came across a bicycle track in the dirt leading away from where the car was parked.

00:21:23Your killer could have left on a bicycle.

00:21:25Correct.

00:21:26Find that bicycle, find your killer.

00:21:28Correct.

00:21:30Down at the sheriff's office where Manu's husband was being interviewed, Ranger Schraub was asked to step out of the

00:21:35room.

00:21:36I'm going to get you a bottle of water because I know you're about to be getting thirsty.

00:21:40That's when the ranger learned Manu's body had been found.

00:21:43How does the interview change then when you now have this information and you have to walk back in to

00:21:49see Peter and continue?

00:21:52At this point, I had to tell him, you know, his wife had been murdered.

00:21:55But at the same time, I didn't know if he was the one that did it.

00:21:57So it's a delicate situation because are you dealing with a victim in this situation or are you dealing with

00:22:03a murderer?

00:22:07They have found her vehicle.

00:22:10Where?

00:22:11It's in a neighboring county and there's a body next to it.

00:22:16A dead body?

00:22:18But we haven't confirmed 100% that it's heard, but considering the circumstances, we believe it is.

00:22:30We have people, I think there's going to be a criminal investigation.

00:22:33Yeah.

00:22:34No s***.

00:22:36So your house is going to be part of the crime scene?

00:22:42Of course, Manu's children had to be told as well.

00:22:45Shraub offered to do it, but Peter said he wanted to break the news himself.

00:23:00By now, the Allen's son, William, and daughter, Melanie, who'd been out of town, had joined Darian and Kiara.

00:23:06They were waiting in a room down the hall.

00:23:09I walked in there, I had them all, I called them all, my kids over, I gave them all a

00:23:14hug, I held them, we all held each other, and I said, they've just told me your mother is dead.

00:23:20Manu is dead.

00:23:21That's the most difficult thing a father would ever have to do.

00:23:35Ranger Shraub was watching the scene unfold.

00:23:38I kept the video running because I wanted to be able to look at those reactions.

00:23:42Interesting.

00:23:43Because we didn't know who was responsible for this.

00:23:46They broke into the house and attacked your mother while she was sleeping.

00:23:54They found the car and they found your mother.

00:23:56They have dead positive ideas.

00:24:01They all started crying.

00:24:03My youngest daughter, Kiara, kind of collapsed on the floor.

00:24:11Did you see any of the family members acting unusual or anything that struck you from that video?

00:24:19It did.

00:24:21I immediately noticed that her son was kind of away from everybody else.

00:24:27Darian, the son police had found playing video games in his room.

00:24:31What would his story be?

00:24:33In the very beginning of the interview, he was visibly shaking, which concerned me.

00:24:56Darian Allen remembers it like it was yesterday.

00:24:58The moment his father told him and his siblings their mother had been murdered.

00:25:04I was so crushed that I didn't know how to emotionally react.

00:25:10I didn't start crying.

00:25:13I just stopped doing anything, really.

00:25:18Like this isn't happening?

00:25:20Yeah.

00:25:20It was just like all the air just got sucked out of me and just there's nothing.

00:25:27It's like this is not real.

00:25:31Darian sat alone on the floor while his dad and siblings comforted one another.

00:25:35I definitely thought it was odd.

00:25:36At the time, it was something that I noted to myself personally that I thought was strange.

00:25:42Was he considered a suspect at all, a person of interest?

00:25:46Yeah, at that point, everybody in the house was definitely a person of interest.

00:25:49He would have been one of them, along with Kiara and Peter.

00:25:53Ranger Schraub pulled Darian aside to talk in another room.

00:25:57What's your name?

00:25:58Hey.

00:25:59His body camera's still rolling.

00:26:01In the very beginning of the interview, he was visibly shaking, which concerned me that he may have something to

00:26:06do with it.

00:26:07Oh, why?

00:26:07Just that reaction, I have to then decide, is he visibly shaking because his mother was murdered that day and

00:26:15the emotional stress and everything, or is it because he had something to do with it?

00:26:19He asked Darian where he'd been the night before.

00:26:22Darian told us the same story he told the ranger.

00:26:24He got home from a friend's around 1130.

00:26:27He couldn't sleep and spent the entire night awake in his room.

00:26:30What are you doing in your room?

00:26:32I was just playing video games, just hopping from one to the other, take a break, eat a snack, try

00:26:37to fall asleep.

00:26:39Just kept going back in a little cycle of play, eat, attempt to sleep.

00:26:44What was going on that night that you...

00:26:46I honestly couldn't tell yet.

00:26:48I just couldn't sleep.

00:26:51I just felt off.

00:26:54He says he heard a rustling coming from the kitchen sometime between 3 and 5 a.m.

00:26:58I thought it was my dad, like, rifling through the silverware.

00:27:03It was just kind of like the clanking of metal, and I was like, oh, well, he's awake, getting himself

00:27:08a snack, so didn't think anything of it.

00:27:11Was that the only thing you heard?

00:27:12Yeah, that was it.

00:27:13If there was a violent struggle in that small house, you would think that you would hear something.

00:27:19Yeah, you would think in that situation somebody would have heard something.

00:27:22Never seen anything like it or never heard of anything like it.

00:27:25Darian told the investigator he and his mom were close, but they didn't exactly see eye-to-eye on his

00:27:30future.

00:27:31Was she on to you about getting a job or really just...

00:27:34No, she was just helping me out.

00:27:38We kind of have a little disagreement because I don't want to go to college, but she wants to go

00:27:44to college.

00:27:46The ranger noticed a mark on Darian's hand.

00:27:49What did you do to your hand up there?

00:27:51This?

00:27:51No, the blister.

00:27:53Mowing the yard.

00:27:54He described the blister was for mowing the yard and so forth, which I guess could be understandable,

00:27:59but a blister could also be left from stabbing somebody, potentially, and the knife rubbing on the inside of your

00:28:05hand.

00:28:05Do you have anything to do with your mother's knife?

00:28:09Do you know who did?

00:28:13The ranger also spoke to the other Allen kids.

00:28:1621-year-old William was on his own, no longer living in the house.

00:28:20Any idea who might be responsible for this?

00:28:23No, but I wish I did.

00:28:24I don't know anyone.

00:28:25You wouldn't want to hurt him.

00:28:26Okay.

00:28:28He also spoke to Melanie.

00:28:29She was 18 years old and had just graduated from high school.

00:28:33You're in college?

00:28:34I'm about to show.

00:28:35Okay.

00:28:36Melanie was away for the weekend with friends the night of the murder.

00:28:39Who would you think that might be responsible for it?

00:28:42I obviously have no idea because everyone loves my parents.

00:28:49I don't know who would do something like that.

00:28:53It was late in the day when the whole family was allowed to leave the sheriff's office.

00:28:57Their house was still a crime scene.

00:28:59They had nowhere to go.

00:29:01Their whole world in pieces.

00:29:04Everything got just not even flipped upside down.

00:29:07It was like just shoved in a box, box shaken, and then just thrown it everywhere.

00:29:12And you're just left to kind of pick up the pieces and try to put it back how it was.

00:29:17But some pieces are missing.

00:29:19Some are destroyed.

00:29:20And you just, you're not given a guide on how to do it.

00:29:25The family spent the night at a friend's Airbnb.

00:29:29By the next morning, Manu's murder was rocking the town of Olney and all the kids who'd loved her as

00:29:35a teacher.

00:29:36It was just like, almost like a tornado went through Olney.

00:29:39Everyone was all confused.

00:29:41We don't know what's going on.

00:29:41Was everyone instantly scared?

00:29:44Scared, in shock.

00:29:46Like, why would we go for Miss Allen?

00:29:50Students, parents, football fans.

00:29:52Everyone in law enforcement knew their town would never be the same.

00:29:56It hits you more in a small community when something happens.

00:30:00Because if you don't know that person, you know someone that does know that person.

00:30:05It just has a ripple effect.

00:30:09Olney is small-town America.

00:30:12You know, you've got the potential of a killer still running around in the streets.

00:30:15So you're feeling the external pressure from the community to get it done.

00:30:19And then you have the internal pressure as an investigator or a prosecutor to make sure it's done right.

00:30:27And the more they looked at the evidence, the more convinced they were that Manu's killer was someone close to

00:30:32her.

00:30:33There was no sign of forced entry.

00:30:34Someone was either inside or they knew how to get into that house.

00:30:37Correct.

00:30:38Yeah, somebody knew what they were doing and where they were going.

00:30:41They even knew where Manu kept her car keys.

00:30:44Usually her keys are hanging right there.

00:30:47Investigators saw a trail of bloody footprints that led right from the bedroom to those keys in the kitchen.

00:30:52The keys were always kept by the refrigerator.

00:30:55And that would have been something that would have been known to the family.

00:30:59The day after the murder, the medical examiner performed the autopsy.

00:31:03She had been stabbed like 47 times.

00:31:06There had been strangulation involved.

00:31:08She had also received stab wounds to the back of the head, which just seemed very, very violent.

00:31:16So she's been stabbed dozens of times, strangled, shot in the face.

00:31:22Forgive my choice of words.

00:31:23Why the overkill?

00:31:24It's personal.

00:31:26Whoever did this was very angry.

00:31:29The clues at the lake where her body was dumped reinforced that idea.

00:31:33Manu knew her killer.

00:31:35The effort that was taken at the scene where she was covered and then plants were put on her, that

00:31:41all took time.

00:31:42And typically, somebody that has no vested interest in the victim is not going to take that time to do

00:31:49those types of things.

00:31:51So who would do that?

00:31:53Investigators thought they had a pretty good idea.

00:31:56Because back at the house, the evidence seemed to be pointing toward one person.

00:32:01Okay, why would somebody put on your socks and kill your wife?

00:32:06I have no idea.

00:32:24From the moment they set foot on the Allens' property, investigators had a hunch about who was responsible for what

00:32:31happened there.

00:32:32The husband.

00:32:35I actually pulled Officer Clark to the side and told him, I said, I think that we might be dealing

00:32:40with our suspect.

00:32:41Peter.

00:32:41Yes.

00:32:42He's probably going to be our number one suspect.

00:32:44Mm-hmm.

00:32:44Why did you feel that way?

00:32:46From experience and dealing with different crime scenes in the past, it felt like the information that he was giving

00:32:52us was trying to throw us in a different direction than what had actually occurred.

00:32:57The coroner let investigators know that Manu had defensive wounds on her hands.

00:33:01This had not been a quick struggle.

00:33:04How could you not hear your wife screaming if she's being attacked?

00:33:08Sounds crazy.

00:33:09That's what everybody thought.

00:33:11Five days in, investigators asked Peter to come back down to the sheriff's office.

00:33:16I started the interview by Jason Shea of Peter Allen.

00:33:20Going into this second interview, did you think Peter was probably guilty?

00:33:24I thought it was a good possibility.

00:33:26Yeah, absolutely.

00:33:27What is the strategy this time?

00:33:28We tried to just put a little more pressure on him.

00:33:31Another ranger actually did that interview at my request.

00:33:34The goal there was to see what type of reaction he gave.

00:33:38I feel a lot better today.

00:33:39The conversation was friendly at first.

00:33:42Peter opened up about how hard things had been since the murder.

00:33:45You want me to do some plants?

00:33:47You good?

00:34:00And he made it clear he wanted whoever was responsible to pay.

00:34:04I want them caught.

00:34:05Oh, and that's me, will you, too?

00:34:07I want them dead.

00:34:08The ranger walked him through his whole story again.

00:34:11When was the last time you saw your wife?

00:34:15Well, I laid down and went to sleep about night.

00:34:17They talked for hours.

00:34:19I said, well, just go around through the garage.

00:34:21I had one drink during the day.

00:34:23I slept on the couch.

00:34:25I never thought something like this could happen.

00:34:27And then...

00:34:28And I'll be honest with you, Peter.

00:34:30And we've been sitting here for probably four or five hours right now talking.

00:34:33I think there's more to it than what you're telling me.

00:34:38I didn't do this.

00:34:39Just listen to me.

00:34:41There were so many details the ranger thought were suspicious,

00:34:44starting with Peter's assumption that his wife had cut herself and driven off to the hospital.

00:34:49We hauled ass to the emergency room at Olding.

00:34:54Normally a person I thought would have called 911 and reported the scene that they found.

00:35:00But no, it did not make sense.

00:35:02Yeah, because like, you must be thinking, I mean, wouldn't she wake up her husband and say,

00:35:07I've hurt myself.

00:35:08I need help.

00:35:09Can you drive me to the hospital or can you call 911?

00:35:12Yeah.

00:35:13You knew whoever left that blood was not alive because that is too much blood.

00:35:20It was even more far-fetched because Peter said he was a Green Beret who'd seen fatal injuries.

00:35:25You knew that too because of your training.

00:35:28I didn't know that too.

00:35:30I thought my wife was hurt and I was hoping and praying she was hurt.

00:35:35Nobody wants to think that their wife has been murdered in their house while they sit in the living room.

00:35:41What kind of a man do you think it makes me feel like knowing that I was sitting in there

00:35:46while some a** was in there killing my wife?

00:35:50As Peter went over the details of that night, there was something else that didn't make sense.

00:35:55I heard it start to go up and then all of a sudden I didn't hear anything more.

00:35:58He said that morning, around 5 a.m., he heard his wife's car.

00:36:02I was thinking maybe my wife went to Alsup's to get the coffee or something.

00:36:07I don't know.

00:36:08Would she usually get up at 5 and go get coffee?

00:36:12Every once in a while she would get up and go get milk, but that didn't make sense because we

00:36:16had just been shot from the day before.

00:36:18Right.

00:36:19None of this makes sense to me.

00:36:23None of it.

00:36:25Why would Peter hear that and not a violent murder in progress?

00:36:28In this second interview, Peter did recall hearing something in the house that night after all.

00:36:35A thump.

00:36:35I heard a little thump, but I thought it was my son coming down from upstairs.

00:36:40And that was it.

00:36:42I thought, whatever, that's got to be daring.

00:36:46They also pressed him about some other details, like the footprints leading straight from the bedroom to the kitchen.

00:36:52Peter would know where his wife kept her car keys.

00:36:54People don't go straight in the house and know exactly where your keys are at to steal the keys either.

00:37:01I know that doesn't make sense either.

00:37:03And then, there in the interview room, the ranger had a surprise for Peter.

00:37:08They had found a sock in the bedroom covered in blood and thought that sock matched some of the killer's

00:37:14footprints.

00:37:14Turns out, it was a specific kind of compression sock Peter wore.

00:37:20The person who did this did not break into your house and put on your socks and kill your wife.

00:37:28It didn't happen.

00:37:30Hey, Peter.

00:37:32I did not hurt my wife.

00:37:35I don't, I cannot explain this.

00:37:39I don't know what happened.

00:37:41Okay.

00:37:42Why would somebody put on your socks and kill your wife?

00:37:46I have no idea.

00:37:49Wearing your socks.

00:37:51Yeah, wearing my socks.

00:37:52It makes no sense.

00:37:53It didn't make any sense.

00:37:54They sneak into your room, put on your socks, kill your wife, go get the keys where nobody knew except

00:38:01for you and your kids,

00:38:04and leave without letting anybody, without anybody hearing it.

00:38:09It makes no sense at all.

00:38:10I have no idea.

00:38:13I did not harm my wife.

00:38:16What do you make of Peter and his answers and his demeanor with the pressure that's being put on him?

00:38:22Peter often brought up, you know, past military training.

00:38:27So I wasn't sure if he was just covering up what he had done, was able to stay calm and

00:38:33collected as he had been trained to do in stressful situations, or if he was an innocent party.

00:38:39When this thing comes to the head and a jury believes you stabbed your wife 46 times, they're going to

00:38:49put you in the electric chair.

00:38:52I did not do it.

00:38:53Did you feel like his denials, his answers, his answers seemed genuine?

00:38:57I did not know at that point.

00:38:58I'm innocent, and I know it, and my kids know it.

00:39:02And if I lose, I lose.

00:39:06If you put me in the electric chair, I lose my kids.

00:39:09My kids lose their father.

00:39:11But at least I go down, knowing that I didn't do this and had nothing to do with this.

00:39:20After more than five hours, Peter was free to leave.

00:39:24You let him go.

00:39:25Yeah.

00:39:26Part of our judicial system is if you don't have enough, then you have to let him go.

00:39:30So that's what we did, and we kept digging and kept going forward with the investigation.

00:39:36Turns out, someone else close to Peter was going to do some investigating, too.

00:39:41I sat on the couch, and I had Darian going to the back to his mother's bedroom, and I said,

00:39:46Scream at me.

00:39:47Scream as lies as you can.

00:40:05Manu Allen had been dead for five days when her husband Peter walked out of his second marathon interview with

00:40:11police.

00:40:13Are you feeling like I'm suspect number one here?

00:40:15Yeah.

00:40:17I was waiting for the cuffs to come out.

00:40:19They're just turning up the heat on you.

00:40:21Oh, yeah.

00:40:23They tried.

00:40:24I didn't care if they thought I was a suspect, because I expected them to think I was a suspect.

00:40:31It only made sense.

00:40:33The one who it usually is is the spouse.

00:40:35So I fully expected that.

00:40:37Word spreads that your dad might have done this.

00:40:40How were you all dealing with that?

00:40:42It was very, very irritating, because it was just all over Facebook and social media,

00:40:49people saying I was husband, daughter.

00:40:54Hell, there was people I know and had worked part-time jobs with who were saying it was me.

00:41:01Why were people saying you did it?

00:41:03I don't know.

00:41:04I really don't.

00:41:05The one I remember is hearing a friend tell me, one of his co-workers said that it was me.

00:41:11Just, I don't know.

00:41:12I guess I always gave him a weird vibe or something.

00:41:15But it wasn't just town gossips making wild guesses.

00:41:19Peter's close friend, Verl Wolverton, is a former police chief who knows a thing or two about homicide investigations.

00:41:26And like Peter, he's retired military.

00:41:29He knows what kind of training Peter's had.

00:41:32He has certain capabilities.

00:41:34You're thinking he might have done this?

00:41:36I'm thinking maybe something will happen.

00:41:38In my line of work, I've seen people that are very devoted to each other suddenly have problems.

00:41:44Verl drove down from Arkansas to help the family.

00:41:47He found Peter on the front porch.

00:41:49He was just talking about how they took her from me.

00:41:52You know, how I failed.

00:41:53I mean, he was into his shame.

00:41:58Feeling the way you're feeling, did you ask him?

00:42:01Did you have anything to do with this?

00:42:03The next day, I said, Peter, you're my friend.

00:42:05I'll support you.

00:42:06You know, I loved your wife.

00:42:07I love your kids.

00:42:08And I said, I got to know.

00:42:12And what did he say?

00:42:14He was face to face with me.

00:42:15He says, I did not do this.

00:42:17Like the Rangers investigating the case, Verl had a hard time believing that Manu was killed in the house and

00:42:23no one in the family heard a thing.

00:42:26The house is two stories, five bedrooms and two bathrooms packed into just 2,000 square feet.

00:42:32He decided to run a test and asked Darian to help.

00:42:35I sat on the couch and I had Darian going to the back to his mother's bedroom.

00:42:40I said, scream at me.

00:42:41I yelled as loud as I could.

00:42:43They were in the living room.

00:42:45They didn't hear anything.

00:42:47At best, they just heard like a little bit.

00:42:50And then we switched it around.

00:42:51And I mean, I'm 30 years younger than them.

00:42:54And I have a little better hearing and it wasn't loud.

00:42:58I wanted to hear it for myself.

00:43:01First, Verl showed me the bedroom.

00:43:03You're actually standing where Manu failed.

00:43:07So this is where the blood was?

00:43:09Yeah.

00:43:09Right here?

00:43:10Then I went down the hall.

00:43:12About 20 steps later, I was in the living room.

00:43:14This is Peter and Manu's living room.

00:43:16And back then, the couch was situated right here.

00:43:19We've also set the TV to the exact volume that it was in those early morning hours when this happened.

00:43:25Then Verl, still in the bedroom, yelled my name over and over again.

00:43:30Andrea!

00:43:32Not hearing anything.

00:43:35Andrea!

00:43:37Nothing.

00:43:39Not even a peep.

00:43:41I was a little skeptical because this is not such a big house.

00:43:44And I figured you would definitely be able to hear if somebody was screaming.

00:43:48It's very quiet back here.

00:43:50You've got to understand that the construction of the house, there's, this is a board-on-board construction.

00:43:55And the layout of the house makes it just nearly impossible to communicate through those rooms.

00:44:01So, thinking like a former police chief, Verl now wondered, if not Peter, then who?

00:44:08Verl agreed with the investigators that the attack was personal.

00:44:12You're thinking this is targeted?

00:44:13Yeah.

00:44:14I'm thinking that somebody...

00:44:14Whoever did this knows this family.

00:44:16Somebody came in, somebody knew the family, they knew what they were after, and they completed their mission.

00:44:23That's what was very disturbing about it.

00:44:26And something in the blood trail caught Verl's eye.

00:44:29To him, it seemed the killer had paused for a moment outside of one of the kids' bedrooms, Melanie's.

00:44:36I'm going, okay, Melanie knew these people.

00:44:38Went right past Kira's door.

00:44:40Melanie knew these people because they went to her door.

00:44:44Verl urged Peter to be patient with the investigation.

00:44:47His question was, why aren't they looking for this person?

00:44:50And I said, look, they have to go through a process.

00:44:53There's a process that must be maintained for the integrity of the case.

00:44:56I said, if you're going to get it right, you have to be looked at.

00:45:00You know your dad better than anyone.

00:45:02Was there any part of you that was thinking, could my dad have done this?

00:45:07I had never once, not for a second, thought it was him.

00:45:13In fact, Darian and his father were leaning on each other for support and protection.

00:45:18Lock the doors, sleep with a gun.

00:45:21You're kind of always a little paranoid.

00:45:23Was there that feeling that, like, what if this person comes back or they want our whole family?

00:45:29Yeah, there was always that feeling.

00:45:31From the very first day, as soon as we got back to the house, my dad and I went and

00:45:35made sure every window was secure.

00:45:38We put three-inch screws through the wooden window trim into the sills.

00:45:43Made it into a fortress.

00:45:44Yeah, made it into a fortress.

00:45:46Things for the Allen family were either about to get much worse or much better.

00:45:52Because investigators had found a new witness, someone who'd been on his way to Lake Cooper the morning Manu was

00:45:58killed.

00:45:59He just asked the worker, hey, have you seen anything unusual this morning?

00:46:02And the worker actually said, you know, matter of fact, I did.

00:46:20Darian Allen plays it over and over again in his mind, the last time he spoke to his mother, Manu.

00:46:28The last thing I said to her was, I'm going to go.

00:46:39I'm going to go to my friend's house.

00:46:41I'll see you later.

00:46:42And it just tears me up.

00:46:44Because I didn't tell her goodnight.

00:46:47I didn't tell her I love her.

00:46:49Yeah.

00:46:51Well, you don't need to say it.

00:46:52Yeah.

00:46:53She knew it.

00:46:54Right?

00:46:56And I'm sure you've said it a million times.

00:46:59Oh, yeah.

00:47:01Now, it was up to Texas Ranger Michael Schropp to figure out who killed her.

00:47:06I often tell people, you know, it's like a thousand-piece puzzle.

00:47:09You're never going to get the puzzle all the way completed.

00:47:12But you have to put enough of it together to where you know what's in the picture.

00:47:16Evidence from the house was still being tested.

00:47:18Fingerprints, footprints, and possible DNA.

00:47:21What I felt like at that point was that if Peter had something to do with it, then something

00:47:26would come up, as far as the physical evidence go, confirming that he had something to do

00:47:32with it.

00:47:33And don't forget, there was evidence from the other crime scene as well.

00:47:37Remember that bike track at the lake next to Manu's car?

00:47:41Investigators talked to a witness who had been by Lake Cooper that very morning.

00:47:44He just asked the worker, hey, have you seen anything unusual this morning?

00:47:48And the worker actually said, you know, matter of fact, I did.

00:47:52While I was out here this morning, I saw a bicycle go by on the road.

00:47:56And he said, I never see bicycles out here at that time on Sunday morning.

00:48:01Wow.

00:48:01This is potentially a really lucky break here.

00:48:04Oh, potentially, yes.

00:48:05Did your witness get a good look at who was on the bicycle?

00:48:09No, they just had a bicycle going down the road at a distance.

00:48:14The rangers' next move was to check the bikes in the Allen family's garage.

00:48:19No, the tires looked like they even matched what was found at the scene.

00:48:22So we didn't believe that any of those bicycles had anything to do with it.

00:48:26As suspicious as they'd found the stories from the people in the house that night,

00:48:31investigators had to consider a different scenario.

00:48:34It had to do with something everyone in town knew about the Allens.

00:48:37Peter is a gun collector.

00:48:39Did you think to yourself, maybe given Peter's extensive gun collection that people know about,

00:48:46maybe this was some type of burglary gone bad?

00:48:49Absolutely.

00:48:50When you looked at all the guns he had and everything,

00:48:54that's often a target of thefts and burglaries is people stealing guns.

00:48:59And I don't think he was shy about talking about his gun collection either.

00:49:03It could be worth a lot of money to someone if they broke in and stole a bunch of guns.

00:49:08It could be.

00:49:08The ranger knew the family was just back from summer vacation in Germany.

00:49:12Maybe a burglar thought they were still away.

00:49:15Then they discovered, oh my, you know, she's here.

00:49:18And Manuela, you know, startled them.

00:49:21And, you know, the violence started at that point and they killed her.

00:49:25This could, in fact, be a stranger despite the level of rage.

00:49:29Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you have to leave everything or keep an open mind.

00:49:34In fact, there'd been a gun burglary in town just that summer.

00:49:38My friend's dad, his house got broken into and a couple of his firearms and some money had gotten stolen.

00:49:44So this could be a target.

00:49:45Yeah. I mean, everybody knows that he's kind of a collector of firearms.

00:49:49The sheriff's office started sifting through leads related to that break-in.

00:49:53And a name popped up, Corey Taylor.

00:49:56Who is he?

00:49:57He's a troubled young man. He's got some run-ins with the law.

00:50:02Just small town, struggling kid.

00:50:08Woo!

00:50:09This is a video investigators pulled from Corey's Snapchat account.

00:50:13Corey was 17 and went to Olney High School.

00:50:16What can you tell us about Corey Taylor?

00:50:18So we had, like, kind of like athletes, band, and then other kids.

00:50:24He wasn't in football. He wasn't in band. So he's kind of off on his own.

00:50:29And he was kind of quiet.

00:50:30Was he known to be a troublemaker?

00:50:32Maybe a little troublemaker. He was one of those kids.

00:50:34Like, I'm not going to do my homework. I don't need to be in school type stuff.

00:50:38I was contacted by the investigators and asked to go to Olney and pick up Mr. Taylor and bring him

00:50:45to the sheriff's office for an interview.

00:50:48Sergeant Burback drove to an apartment building where Corey was staying.

00:50:52As he approached the stairwell, something caught his eye.

00:50:55Underneath the stairs is a little storage area, and I see a bicycle that is stored in that little cubby

00:51:03hole.

00:51:03The tread on the bicycle looked like it could have created the impressions that were at the lake.

00:51:09Now, lots of people have bikes, but...

00:51:12It was a long shot. I mean, I looked at it, and it just kind of, the light bulb went

00:51:17off.

00:51:17Yeah, there's something, you're feeling something here.

00:51:20Possible, yes.

00:51:21Find that bicycle. Find your killer.

00:51:25Was this the bike investigators had been looking for?

00:51:42Sergeant Dan Burback arrived to pick up Corey Taylor, the teenager investigators thought might be involved in that gun burglary

00:51:49in town.

00:51:49So I go ahead and knock on the door, and Corey comes to the door.

00:51:53Does he look surprised, or is he acting funny?

00:51:57Nervous, but not surprised.

00:52:00Of course, the first thing the sergeant wanted to know about was that bike he'd seen under the stairwell.

00:52:05I asked him who it belonged to.

00:52:07And was it his?

00:52:08No, it gave me the name of Julius Mullins.

00:52:11And who's Julius Mullins?

00:52:13To me at that time, I had no idea. I didn't know him.

00:52:17The sergeant may not have known that name, but if you went to the Olney football games, you'd know number

00:52:21three.

00:52:22Julius Mullins was a running back on the Cubs.

00:52:25Was he the kind of guy that you wanted on your team?

00:52:27Yes.

00:52:28That you knew he was going to give it his all and back you up?

00:52:31Yes, he would always have your back, and he would run every play you asked him to.

00:52:34He would get it done.

00:52:35Did you go to all the games?

00:52:36Oh, yeah. I played varsity football on that same field, and to go there and watch him was definitely a

00:52:44proud moment.

00:52:45A proud moment, says Julius' dad Adrian, for a kid who'd had plenty of struggles.

00:52:51He was super hyper. I mean, I know a lot of people say their children have ADHD, and just his

00:52:57focus on stuff, it was almost none, you know.

00:53:01It was kind of just flying everywhere.

00:53:04Adrian says he and his wife made every effort to get Julius' help.

00:53:09He says they got a mental health treatment, but in middle school, Julius got in trouble and spent time in

00:53:14juvenile detention.

00:53:16By sophomore year, he was struggling with his grades, but was excelling on the football field.

00:53:22He also had a girlfriend.

00:53:24Remember, Manu and Peter's daughter dated a football player?

00:53:27That was Julius Mullins, that same kid Manu Allen had taken under her wing at school.

00:53:32She definitely was in his corner and wanted to help him any way she could.

00:53:37She was definitely a good influence for him.

00:53:40His dad recalls the relationship with Melanie was an intense first love.

00:53:44I think he might have been too caught up in the relationship.

00:53:47As young love, that will happen.

00:53:50Right.

00:53:50After about a year of dating, they broke up.

00:53:54Kids at school recall that was intense, too.

00:53:57Did he take it hard?

00:53:58I think so, because at the beginning of the year, super nice, you know, sat up, would always talk.

00:54:06Towards the end of the year, he kind of sat back in his chair, had a hood up, kind of

00:54:11more quiet, and I was like, that's different.

00:54:14After that, he just kind of hung out with the wrong people.

00:54:19He started drinking.

00:54:20He started drinking.

00:54:21I knew he was smoking marijuana.

00:54:23He was skipping school a lot.

00:54:26And it got worse.

00:54:28He had gotten charged with marijuana possession, and I told him that I couldn't have that around the other kids.

00:54:38His dad gave him an ultimatum.

00:54:40Straighten your life out and go to school, or find a new place to live.

00:54:44You're laying down the law now.

00:54:45Right.

00:54:46I tried to focus him on how he could, you know, keep on track, but he wasn't taking me.

00:54:54He didn't adhere to my advice, you know.

00:54:57So Julius crashed where he could, sometimes sleeping in the high school gym, sometimes staying with Corey.

00:55:03Now Sergeant Burback was looking at his bicycle under the stairs and reporting back to the Rangers.

00:55:10I call investigators and ask them if they want me to bring Mullins in with Corey and tell them about

00:55:15the bike.

00:55:15And they said, yes, absolutely, go get him.

00:55:19And so I went back, I asked him to accompany me to the sheriff's office.

00:55:24The Rangers were about to talk to both Julius and Corey.

00:55:28First of all, if you didn't stand, you're not under arrest or anything like that.

00:55:31First, Corey told police that he knew nothing about the murder, said he'd never even been inside the Allen house.

00:55:37You've never been in there?

00:55:39None to 13 years ago other than all of me.

00:55:41I've only, I've barely even talked to Melanie.

00:55:43By this time, the Rangers knew Corey's friend Julius was Melanie's ex, knew he had a connection to the Allen

00:55:49family.

00:55:50So the conversation quickly turned to Julius.

00:55:53So what has he told you about Miss Allen going missing?

00:55:59He hasn't really said anything to me, but it's weird how, like, he didn't even cry or nothing.

00:56:05And he supposedly was real close with Melanie's mom.

00:56:09So, I mean, I would cry if I was, I mean, any closer because all I, I mean, she was

00:56:16real nice to me in the hall, so.

00:56:18Then Corey said something that really got their attention.

00:56:22They started bringing guns to my house.

00:56:24And he scared me and my grandma.

00:56:26How did he scare you?

00:56:27He just acts a little iffy.

00:56:29Corey ends up telling me he had brought guns to his house.

00:56:34And so that, that piqued our interest as a potential, you know, could have been a suspect in this, trying

00:56:41to steal Peter's guns.

00:56:42Do you think Julius had anything to do with it?

00:56:45He might have something to do with it because, I mean, he's, he's been in the house.

00:56:50He knows what it looks like.

00:56:51He probably knows where everything's at.

00:56:54That was the story from one teenager.

00:56:56Maybe his friend did it.

00:56:58What would the other one have to say?

00:57:01Melanie, I was like, I still love you.

00:57:03I would never do something like that to you.

00:57:20Julius Mullins had been close with the Allen family, close with his teacher, Mrs. Allen, and head over heels for

00:57:26her daughter, Melanie.

00:57:28He'd come over, he'd eat, and he'd, he was allowed to go into her room as long as the door

00:57:33was open.

00:57:33Yes, I'm old. I have rules in my house.

00:57:36Truth be told, Peter wasn't crazy about Julius as a boyfriend.

00:57:40We both thought he was very nice, seemed like a decent enough, nice enough young man, but an idiot.

00:57:48But if you try to break up your children's relationships with somebody that you know is not right with them,

00:57:54it just pushes them together.

00:57:56And this is, so we just pulled back and stayed out of it, let her figure out this on her

00:58:03own.

00:58:04Darian remembers that after the breakup, Julius had been trying to get back together with Melanie.

00:58:08She said she'd received some weird messages from Julius.

00:58:13They were just basically along the lines of him begging her to take him back and wanting to talk to

00:58:19her and still be with her and whatnot.

00:58:20But she just didn't answer him.

00:58:24Then, after Manu's murder, Julius reached out again.

00:58:28He was trying to be the one to comfort her, but, I mean, she wasn't going for it at all.

00:58:36She found it odd.

00:58:39Odd because Melanie had a bad feeling about her ex.

00:58:42She'd initially told police she had no idea who could have killed her mother.

00:58:53But the next day, she went back to police to tell them she did have an idea.

00:58:57Maybe it was Julius.

00:58:59She wanted investigators to know her ex-boyfriend claimed he'd been in a gang and that he had an obsession

00:59:05with knives.

00:59:06Melanie actually suggested that he may have had something to do with it as well.

00:59:09But, you know, again, we're talking about an ex-boyfriend situation, and you don't know how much weight to put

00:59:17into that.

00:59:18Peter had also mentioned Julius to investigators.

00:59:25But in those early days of the investigation, they were looking hard at Peter.

00:59:33Despite those two tips, they hadn't gotten around to tracking Julius down for an interview.

00:59:38But now, after investigators found his bike, Julius was in an interrogation room, and the rangers had plenty of questions.

00:59:46Tell me about Ms. Allen.

00:59:49She's probably one of the people that's actually helped me the most.

00:59:53She was, like, basically kind of like my other mom, because she, like, helped me out with stuff.

00:59:59She told me to get my s*** together.

01:00:02She was a really nice lady.

01:00:04But when it came to Melanie's father, Julius knew Peter didn't like him much.

01:00:09Was there any type of beef between you and her parents at all?

01:00:14No.

01:00:15The only type of beef, I think, was just between me and her dad, because I was dating her.

01:00:20So how long did you and Melanie date?

01:00:23Uh, I think about a year and a couple months.

01:00:31Julius, I wanted to do a breakup.

01:00:33She said she wanted a break, and then I was like, okay, I was like, I'm fine with that.

01:00:39Julius conceded the breakup had been hard, and he admitted he wasn't completely over it by the time he and

01:00:45Melanie texted about her mother's murder.

01:00:48She was like, my mom's murdered, and I was like, what do you mean?

01:00:51And then she said, my mother's blood all over the floor, and the ring was sick.

01:00:56And I was, I was like, I was shocked.

01:00:58Like, it hit me like hard.

01:01:00He told the Rangers he was aware that Melanie was suspicious of him.

01:01:03She'd already lashed out by text.

01:01:06She was like, a murderous bastard killed my mother.

01:01:11And then she was like, she said all these other things, like, towards me.

01:01:16She was like, was it you?

01:01:18Was it you and a friend, huh?

01:01:19I was like, did y'all plan this?

01:01:21But I, like, I wanted to, like, look at her and be like, are you serious?

01:01:26Who do you think did this?

01:01:31I really don't know.

01:01:34Is there a daughter torn up pretty bad?

01:01:40You want me to be honest with you, Julian?

01:01:42Yes.

01:01:44They think you did it.

01:01:46Yeah, I know.

01:01:47She texted me, and she thought that I did it, and I told her.

01:01:50I was like, Melanie, Melanie, I was like, I still love you.

01:01:54I would never do something like that to you.

01:01:57But like the investigators, Melanie knew the killer had to be someone familiar with their home and family.

01:02:03That stood out to the DA when she saw their text exchanges.

01:02:07Melanie's a sharp little girl because she inquired of him, hey, did you do this?

01:02:12Because you knew where my mom's car keys were.

01:02:16And the footprints that went into the kitchen, the bloody footprints, went straight to the car keys and out the

01:02:23door to the car.

01:02:23So what we'll do here in a minute is I'll get your DNA.

01:02:27Julius willingly gave up his DNA, and the rangers released him.

01:02:32But it turns out they wouldn't have to wait for the forensic test to come back from the lab.

01:02:36That very afternoon, Ranger Schraub went to collect the bicycle and ran into Julius.

01:02:41I asked him to let me see the bottom of his shoe.

01:02:45And then I was like, that looks like that shoe matches the footprint that was out at the lake as

01:02:49well.

01:02:50They quickly determined the footprint at the lake matched Julius' shoe.

01:02:55And the tire track?

01:02:57It matched his bike.

01:02:59With all that, I felt like I had enough.

01:03:02And I wanted to present this information to a judge and see if they agreed with me.

01:03:08The judge did.

01:03:10Julius was placed under arrest and brought back to the interview room, this time in handcuffs.

01:03:16Do you just go into this hoping for a confession?

01:03:19Oh, I always want a confession, as long as it's true.

01:03:22Yeah, I absolutely went in and hoping that Julius would confess to me on what he did

01:03:29and tell me the truth about all the circumstances surrounding it.

01:03:33We know that you were out there, but not only that, but we know your shoes were out there.

01:03:40And not only that, but we know your bison was out there.

01:03:45But everything's already starting to point towards you.

01:03:48Julius was quiet at first.

01:03:51Why you're not giving us a little more information?

01:03:54I don't know.

01:03:56You want to talk about this somewhere else besides this room?

01:03:59Is the camera keeping you from talking?

01:04:03Just tell me how it happened and how you got to go on it.

01:04:07After 30 minutes, Julius wanted a break.

01:04:10Can I talk to you, sir?

01:04:12Yeah.

01:04:13I think if you watch the interview where he pulled Julius outside so Julius could smoke a cigarette outside,

01:04:19and you could tell that at that point in time Julius was at a breaking point.

01:04:26Sure enough, after a cigarette, they sat down with Julius in the police break room, and he began to confess.

01:04:32They killed her f***ing ace in there.

01:04:36How does he go from, you know, denying to, I did it?

01:04:40I think he realized that he was caught at that point, and he just didn't have anywhere else to go.

01:04:58Julius described how he used a knife to stab Manu over and over again.

01:05:26Then he said he dragged her out of the house into her car and drove her to the lake.

01:05:31How did you get her to her final spot?

01:05:34I had to drive her.

01:05:35You had to drive her? How did you do that?

01:05:37Put a blanket underneath there and carried the blanket.

01:05:40So you shot her right there?

01:05:42I didn't even know if I hit her or not. I just pulled the trigger and it ran.

01:05:46Yeah.

01:05:47What did you cover her up with?

01:05:50I don't know what they call them. Two little spiky plans.

01:05:54Julius was formally charged with Manu's murder and booked into the county jail.

01:05:59I had my man right there.

01:06:01But the biggest question was, why?

01:06:04It turns out Julius had an answer for that.

01:06:07And what he had to say brought investigators right back to where they started.

01:06:13They told me here's what's going to happen.

01:06:32Adrian Mullins had just come home from work when his son Julius called with alarming news.

01:06:37He was being questioned by investigators.

01:06:40What's going through your mind?

01:06:42It was just like my stomach was in my chest, you know?

01:06:44Yeah.

01:06:45It was hard to breathe.

01:06:46What are you thinking it's about?

01:06:47I assumed it had to do with Manuela, but I don't know to what extent.

01:06:52The extent would soon become clear.

01:06:55I didn't know that he had confessed until he got a lawyer.

01:06:59And then he told you?

01:07:00Yeah.

01:07:0118-year-old Julius Mullins is charged in connection with the murder of the mother of four.

01:07:06When Peter Allen learned that Julius had confessed to Manu's murder, he says all he could think

01:07:11about was revenge.

01:07:13You were going to go into that jail and kill Julius?

01:07:16Oh, yes.

01:07:17That's intense.

01:07:19It's the truth.

01:07:20And my youngest daughter said to me,

01:07:23Dad, don't do anything that will get you taken away from us.

01:07:26We've already lost Mom.

01:07:28We can't lose you too.

01:07:30And I realized that she was right.

01:07:34Even though Melanie had raised the alarm about Julius early on,

01:07:38her brother still had a hard time absorbing the news.

01:07:40I was very shocked, very surprised.

01:07:44I only really remember being around him once at the house.

01:07:47How did Melanie take this, that this was her ex-boyfriend that she had broken up with?

01:07:52She took it very, very hard.

01:07:55It was really hard on her.

01:07:57The last person I would have thought really was Julius.

01:07:59I was just like, why?

01:08:01Why Miss Allen?

01:08:02Why Julius?

01:08:03Why just a bunch of whys?

01:08:05He's the guy that, you know, backed you up on the football field.

01:08:08Yeah.

01:08:09It all didn't make sense.

01:08:10But investigators had a theory that might make sense of it.

01:08:14All along, they'd suspected that more than one person had been involved that night.

01:08:18I thought it was improbable or not likely that a single person could move Miss Allen away from that house

01:08:28with her family asleep in the house and nobody know.

01:08:32So from the moment they brought Julius into the room in handcuffs, they repeatedly suggested he hadn't acted alone.

01:08:38I think you may have been helping somebody out.

01:08:40They asked him again.

01:08:42He's just the old person responsible for this?

01:08:44And again.

01:08:45I don't think you're 100% responsible for this.

01:08:48Julius, who else was involved?

01:08:49Who else was involved Julius?

01:08:52Eventually, Julius told them someone else was involved, a name that didn't surprise the ranger at all.

01:08:58He ended up claiming that Peter Allen put him up to it.

01:09:02Peter, Manu's husband, the initial suspect.

01:09:06Yep.

01:09:07How did Peter find you to get you involved?

01:09:12Well, it was at Allsup's.

01:09:14Allsup's, the town convenience store, right down the street from the Allen house.

01:09:19Julius said he ran into Peter there hours before the murder.

01:09:22He told me to get in the car.

01:09:25So I was like, all right.

01:09:27We have the car.

01:09:28He pulled out a gun.

01:09:30Locked the doors.

01:09:32They're everywhere.

01:09:33Like, right here.

01:09:34And my gate can tell him.

01:09:36He told me.

01:09:37He was like, I'm only going to tell you this once.

01:09:41And he said, if you tell anybody else, I'm going to kill your entire family.

01:09:46He claimed that when he sat down in the car, that Peter pulled him close to him and stuck

01:09:52a gun up to him and told him, you're going to kill my wife.

01:09:58He told me he left that.

01:09:59He unlocked that window.

01:10:00And he told me, here's what's going to happen.

01:10:02You're going to go in there.

01:10:10You're doing what's right.

01:10:12What did he tell you to do after you got in there?

01:10:15He told me he left a butterfly knife.

01:10:23On the counter, that's what I would have to use to kill her.

01:10:27He told me exactly what to do.

01:10:29He told me to go for her head.

01:10:31And Peter, he was awake.

01:10:33He was just sitting there on the couch.

01:10:35He watched me do it.

01:10:37He couldn't see you from there, right?

01:10:40In the bedroom.

01:10:40He knew I was there.

01:10:49Did he say why Peter wanted him to kill his wife, given that everyone said that they

01:10:53had a good relationship?

01:10:56Peter didn't tell him.

01:10:56He just told him to do it.

01:10:57You made a bad decision.

01:11:02You couldn't make a better decision.

01:11:04You make what?

01:11:05Wake her up and tell her that her husband just f***ed a big f***ing damn gun to my chest

01:11:08and told him to f***ing kill her?

01:11:10I don't know.

01:11:12I wish you would have called us.

01:11:15He said he was going to kill my f***ing family if I did that.

01:11:18And I f***ing believe him.

01:11:19He's a Green Beret.

01:11:21Toward the end of the interview, the ranger took Julius outside for another cigarette

01:11:26and went over parts of the story again.

01:11:28Let me make sure I got this right.

01:11:30So after he made contact with you at Allsup's, you left Allsup's, went to the car, stayed there

01:11:36for like, honestly, I sat there and I was thinking of ways that I could not do it.

01:11:45Because I wanted to believe that he was wrong and he wouldn't do what he said he was going

01:11:50to do to my family.

01:11:53But me knowing him and how many guns he had.

01:11:56Investigators have the story and it seemed the husband may have been involved after all.

01:12:02Just one problem.

01:12:03I did not believe Julius' story at all.

01:12:07We got a chance to ask Julius ourselves.

01:12:11I feel like there's something you're not saying.

01:12:13I feel like there's more to this story.

01:12:29Melanie's ex-boyfriend had admitted it was him.

01:12:32He was the person who'd sneaked into the Allen house, stabbed Manu to death, and dumped her

01:12:38body by the lake.

01:12:40He'd also implicated Manu's husband Peter in the plot.

01:12:44Investigators didn't make that part of the confession public right away.

01:12:48Instead, they worked to nail it down.

01:12:50I told Julius, I said, if you're telling me the truth, then I'm going to be able to prove

01:12:57it.

01:12:58I'm going to find the evidence to prove it.

01:13:00There was plenty of evidence to prove Julius was the killer.

01:13:04Julius' fingerprints and DNA were in the house and in Manu's car.

01:13:09They also found surveillance video from a bank.

01:13:11And there was Julius on that bike, coming home from the lake early that morning.

01:13:16But prosecutor D. Peavy saw problems right away with the teenager's explanation for why

01:13:21he did it.

01:13:22It seemed just like he had been caught and he was grabbing at straws.

01:13:27Did you have any involvement in your wife's murder?

01:13:31Did you threaten Julius and tell him to kill your wife?

01:13:35It had nothing to do whatsoever with my wife ever being touched, ever being harmed, anything.

01:13:41My wife was my soulmate.

01:13:44She's the one who gave me a heart.

01:13:46He's the one who took it away.

01:13:49Sure enough, a little investigating proved Julius' story about Peter was riddled with

01:13:54holes.

01:13:55There was no evidence to support it.

01:13:58No surveillance video of a meeting outside the convenience store.

01:14:01No telephone calls or social media communication between the two of them.

01:14:05Remember that bloody compression sock that investigators hammered Peter about?

01:14:09Turns out, it had Julius' DNA on it.

01:14:14But didn't Julius need help moving the body?

01:14:17Maybe not.

01:14:19I did know that he had been a football player and I know that adrenaline can play a role in

01:14:30these sorts of things.

01:14:31When all the lab reports came in, the results seemed clear to the investigators.

01:14:35With regard to Peter Allen's involvement, there was no physical evidence whatsoever that linked

01:14:42him to this murder.

01:14:44The only person that really tried to link him to this murder was Julius Mullins.

01:14:49Why would Julius say you're involved if you weren't involved, if he's already admitted

01:14:55to doing the killing?

01:14:56One thing about the human condition, we always try to make excuses for what we've done.

01:15:01Very few people will actually take responsibility.

01:15:05Investigators spent months trying to figure out if anyone else helped Julius and came up empty.

01:15:11They found no evidence that Corey Taylor was involved.

01:15:14But he and Julius did admit to committing that gun burglary at another house.

01:15:19Manu's murder case never went to trial.

01:15:22Julius pleaded guilty to murder and was given a 55-year sentence.

01:15:27As part of the deal, he promised to tell the truth about what happened.

01:15:30He agreed to tell us the story as well.

01:15:33Why did you want to do this interview?

01:15:36To try to give the family and people who have questions about why it happened some closure.

01:15:47I've interviewed the Allen family.

01:15:48I've interviewed your father.

01:15:51He loves you unconditionally.

01:15:53They're all in so much pain.

01:15:57And the biggest question that they have, Julius, is why?

01:16:02Why did you do this to Manu?

01:16:07I got scared when I went into their house.

01:16:13It wasn't with the intent to hurt anybody.

01:16:15He had guns, and that's what I was going there to get.

01:16:18What you're saying is, the why, is a burglary gone bad?

01:16:24Yes, ma'am.

01:16:26Other people believe that this was revenge, that, you know, for the breakup with Melanie, that you were trying to

01:16:32get back at her.

01:16:33I wouldn't, I wouldn't do something like that to try to get revenge because I had already made my peace

01:16:41with that.

01:16:43It would never be, and that's kind of where I left it.

01:16:47Take us through that night.

01:16:49What exactly happened?

01:16:50I rode on my bike, and I went through the garage window.

01:16:59Then I started, I kind of started looking for guns.

01:17:06There was, I found one in the bedroom, in the cabinet.

01:17:13By the time that I had gotten it out, I had jarred the desk a little bit.

01:17:20It woke up Miss Allen, and...

01:17:24She sees you.

01:17:25Yeah, she sees me, and I was kind of frozen for a minute, and I saw a butterfly knife on

01:17:31the dresser, and I got scared.

01:17:36And I jumped on top of her, and I just started stabbing her.

01:17:40Why grab a knife just because she saw you?

01:17:43She, she knows you.

01:17:46I just...

01:17:46This is not a really bad scenario if she finds you in her room.

01:17:50It's not great, but if you haven't done anything, I mean, it's...

01:17:54Why pick up a knife?

01:17:58I, I didn't know.

01:17:59I don't know really why I did that.

01:18:01I just, I got scared, and...

01:18:05Thinking about being in my other placements, I just didn't want to go back.

01:18:10He's referring to the time he spent in juvenile detention.

01:18:13You're thinking in that moment, in that split second, I'm going to pay for this.

01:18:17I'm going to, they're going to send me away somewhere.

01:18:19Yeah.

01:18:20Adrenaline took over, and I just...

01:18:24I don't know.

01:18:26This is a woman who cared about you, who welcomed you into her family.

01:18:29Where's that rage coming from?

01:18:31I'm not sure.

01:18:34Yeah, I just made the wrong choice.

01:18:37I mean, you know, it's one thing to say I made the wrong choice,

01:18:39but this is stabbing a woman 47 times.

01:18:42I mean, this is evil.

01:18:45Yeah, I agree with you.

01:18:48Julius admitted the whole story about Peter's involvement was a lie.

01:18:53I was alone.

01:18:54It was just me.

01:18:55Even after the fact?

01:18:56No one helped you dispose of the body?

01:18:59No, ma'am.

01:19:01Why did you blame Peter in the beginning and tell that story that Peter threatened your family

01:19:06and that you did this because you were afraid for your family's lives?

01:19:11I have no comment.

01:19:13Are you sure you want to leave that, this interview on that note?

01:19:18That you're saying no comment to anything involving Peter?

01:19:20I guess I will say this, then.

01:19:22I was trying to get a lesser case.

01:19:25Lester time.

01:19:27By implicating Peter?

01:19:29You were trying to get a deal?

01:19:31Are you sure that's it?

01:19:34Yep.

01:19:35Peter, I'm sorry for making you seem like the bad guy throughout the situation.

01:19:38What do you want to say to the Allen family?

01:19:42You have destroyed their lives.

01:19:47Yes, I did.

01:19:52There's no amount of apology that can change or bring her back.

01:20:00She did not deserve what I did to her.

01:20:04And I'm sorry that I ripped y'all's family apart.

01:20:10And you can look me in the eye and say that you've told me the truth today and there's nothing

01:20:15more to this?

01:20:16Yes, ma'am, I can.

01:20:17I would give my life to bring her back.

01:20:22Julius's dad said that not a day goes by that he doesn't wonder if he could have done more.

01:20:27And as painful as it's been for him, he's well aware that there's another family whose grief is far worse.

01:20:33I just, there was no way for me to say I'm sorry.

01:20:37Did you try? Did you say sorry?

01:20:39I did.

01:20:40I had the florist get some flowers that were, that were German flowers.

01:20:46In the mornings when I was on my way to work, I would stop out front and I would just

01:20:52bring one up and put it on her porch.

01:20:55How did they feel about that?

01:20:56They didn't like it.

01:20:59And I stopped immediately.

01:21:00But I just wanted them to know that I was thinking about her and thinking about them and their loss.

01:21:10Manu's family lives with that loss every day.

01:21:13You still have your days when you hurt really bad inside.

01:21:18And you can't tell your kids because you're dead and you have to keep that.

01:21:28You, you, you can't put that stress on your kids.

01:21:31For the most part, I think all of us are healing.

01:21:36Melanie is just struggling.

01:21:37Do you all try to tell her this is not your fault?

01:21:40I've told her many, many times.

01:21:43I've hugged her while she's crying.

01:21:46Just told her that Melanie is not your fault.

01:21:49Like, none of this, none of this is on you.

01:21:53Like, she doesn't deserve any of the blame.

01:21:55She doesn't deserve all of the guilt that she's feeling.

01:22:00For Peter, the guilt can be overwhelming, too.

01:22:04I'll never move on.

01:22:05I can move forward.

01:22:07And the best thing I can do is learn to forgive myself for failing as a husband.

01:22:14Why do you think you failed your wife, though, if you didn't even know what was happening?

01:22:19Because it's my house and that's my job.

01:22:22Did I know it was happening?

01:22:24No.

01:22:25Well, the other part of me inside says you failed as a husband, as a man.

01:22:29I have to learn to forgive myself for that, or I won't be able to help my children.

01:22:34And right now, my children are my biggest priority.

01:22:38Children were always Manu's priority, too.

01:22:41Whether as a mom, a teacher, or their biggest cheerleader.

01:22:46And these days, she would be especially proud of her All-Knee Cubs.

01:22:51After her death, the hapless football team started to do something unprecedented.

01:22:57When?

01:22:58I would still hear a cowbell.

01:23:00So maybe it was a real cowbell, or maybe it was just imagination of hearing a cowbell.

01:23:05But I would still hear a cowbell.

01:23:06I love it.

01:23:08Because it means she's still there.

01:23:09My wife is still there.

01:23:11She's still there.

01:23:15That's all for this edition of Dateline.

01:23:17We'll see you again Thursday at 10, 9 central.

01:23:20And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News.

01:23:24I'm Lester Holt.

01:23:25For all of us at NBC News, good night.

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