her uncle's unhappy. i'm sensing an underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." else is clear and flat. my heart is racing a million miles an hour.

i was using my boots to move leaves. and that's when i screamed this blood curdling scream. craig melvin: nique leili, a corporate exec who made time for romance and her three daughters. she was the best mom. craig melvin: then she disappeared. dozens joined the search. we need nique to come home. craig melvin: then they found her. oh, i need to see her. no, you can't, you can't, baby. craig melvin: launching a mystery that would divide this family. i suspected him from the beginning. craig melvin: one daughter thought her step dad matt did it. launching a mystery that would divide this family. one daughter thought her stepdad, matt did it. the others said no way. and matt? he had a theory all his own. >> not the first time she's runaway, okay? >> now you're thinking, somebody gave her a roofie?

>> that's a possibility. >> there is a server tower that would indicate a large amount of data being stored. >> what would they discover in thousands of our of tape? >> it is a torture to listen to. >> and would reveal one shattering truth. >> i got down on my knees. and started crying. dateline. nikki lyerly was juggling family life, and a thriving ly career, when suddenly, she vanished. detectives turned to those closest to her for information. then, they discovered something unusual. nikki's last months had been recorded on camera. could that footage lead detectives to her? here is dennis murphy, with, the house on sydney's cove.

>> reporter: there's never a good day to search for a missing woman. but this rainy muggy saturday in the heat of july made an unhappy task all but unbearable. >> tics and fires with you. >> they decided they would all wear red shirts printed up pencils organized in the parking lot of a walmart in lawrenceville, georgia, about an hour outside of atlanta. then they set out to find any trace of a corporate executive named nikki lyle. amy robinson told reporters that her 44-year-old sister, was hardly the kind of person who would up and disappear without anyone. >> as fate would have it, the question of where nikki was would be answered soon enough. even now, the question of what

happened to nikki was unclear. >> i'm sick of playing your games. >> what is clear from the recording she left behind, is that nikki lyerly lived a n troubled and tormented life. >> day in and day out, keep my mouth shut, head down, and do exactly what is expected of me. >> she was very funny. she and i used to laugh all the time. she was very feisty. she would say what she meant. she didn't mince words. >> assist these, and he robinson and nikki lyerly were 10 years apart. they were always close. >> you to look-alike in the old photos. i was thinking, maybe are swapping each other's clothes but of course you are 10 years apart. >> that didn't stop that from happening. i wore a lot of hand-me-downs. >> nikki had been married and

divorced twice, and she and her young daughter, alex, or sharing an apartment with amy. >> we had a good time with that, typically just laughed, putting pictures in the apartment and stuff. >> this sounds like a sitcom. >> yeah, at times, it definitely was. >> eventually nikki moved out, remarried and had two more daughters with matt lyerly, a new yorker she met online. >> you know, we would all last. >> after brief stays in ft oklahoma and mississippi, nikki and matt returned to georgia, and settled into this house on sydney's cove in lawrenceville. nikki, a well-regarded corporate money percent was theh primary breadwinner. matt, a computer guy, ran a small business out of the house. >> he started going to government surplus option auctions, and buying these big pallets of old used computer parts, and then, you know, rebuilding them and selling them on ebay. >> when it was amy's turn to get married in as2003, her big sister was there, serving as matron of honor.

>> i want to raise this toast to amy, my best friend, confidant, sister, to amy and alan. >> as the years passed, the sisters thremained close. in 2011 amy organized a spa day out with the girls. >> no boys allowed. we are going to go have a girls day. >> beauty at the spa? >> we got mannys and petty's t and went and had lunch. >> nikki had her toenails painted pink that day. though she had sometimes a difficult relationship with her teenage daughter, alex says that day at the spa silica turning point, a fresh beginning. >> everyone looks pretty happy. >> good girl day out. >> it was fun. beyond grateful now that we had

done it. >> two weeks later, nikki apparently left home in the middle of the night without reporting a word to anyone. police advised them there was little they could do. >> their response was, we don't even know where to start k looking for >> she is not on the 11:00 news every night? >> no. friendly, a grown woman leaving her house was not an interesting story. hundred people getting together wearing red shirts, now there is an interesting story. so they covered that. >> then the cameras were out? >> then the cameras came. >> and this is what the cameras saw. searchers, armed with maps, literally beating bushes around nikki lyerly's subdivision, for clues as to what might've happened to her. >> keep your eyes open, if you see her. >> of researcher had an assignment. >> period garrett, nikki's mother, had the job of going door-to-door. leafleting the neighborhood

with pictures of her daughter. even though southern hospitality may have been in short supply that day. harriet pressed on. >> good morning, sir. my name is harriet garrett. my daughter is missing, and we are trying to get some news coverage she was looking for nikki, her coworker. >> i love nikki. nikki was great but she was such corrections are great to work with lots of energy, positive. just wonderful. >> on the morning of the search, allison recalls that she, and another colleague fromd work, a man named derek, were running late. that would turn out reto be an important twist of fate. >> 40 minutes late. everyone else have started searching. >> are you given a grid or an

area to look at? >> we were given the front of the neighborhood, the very front of the neighborhood on the right. >> it was one of the last unassigned sections of the organizers search grid. a patch of woods near a busy road. >> derek and i went into the woods together. is this pile of leaves, and it is in the middle of where everything else is clear and flat. and my heart is racing 1 million miles per hour. i go up to the pile of leaves, i was using my boots to move leaves at the bottom of the pile. as i was doing that i said derek and derek came over and heard the panic in my voice and he started helping me. that is when we saw blonde hair. and i screamed.

this bloodcurdling scream. >> there was no question? >> no. >> coming up, she said oh my god, it's her, we found her. >> there is her hair. >> how awful for you. >> yeah. >> a body, and a vital clue. >> the bottoms of her feet were clean. >> what did that mean? ha when dateline continues. when d. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia,

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and i hear a scream from the woods. at first, it was the unnatural way the leaves were clumped that attracted attention. then, it was the hair. >> i hear a scream from the woods. >> you hear a scream? >> yeah. and i tore off running into the woods. and then, when i got into the woods, her coworker, allison, was there, and she said oh my god, it's her. we found her. there is her hair. >> how awful for you. >> yeah. >> nikki lyerly's sister, amy, and her friend, allison, felt sure the body beneath the leaves had to be nikki. >> it was terrible. i think everyone was a little bit shocked. so i just kind of went into crisis mode, and i called 911. >> within minutes, police, ambulances and news cameras were converging on the patch of woods where the body was found. nikki's mother, harriet guerin said she heard the news when a cop told her she would have to stop leafleting the neighborhood. >> someone in the neighborhood had complained. and while he is talking to me,

his radio goes off. it's dispatch. the body has been found. >> you hear it over the dispatch? >> yes, sir. >> do you actually go to that place in the woods? >> well, by the time i got there, they already have the crime scene tape up and i couldn't get any further. >> we are going to move back on down, guys. >> they had it isolated by that time, but i got to it as close as i could. >> soon, harriet had nikki's oldest daughters out on the phone. >> did you know it was her? the police won't let me come, honey. they won't let me through. i'm right here where the police are. they won't let me through. where are you? >> i just remember, fainting, or something, but as soon as i came to, i took off running. and i ran all the way to where

the crime scene tape was. they wouldn't let me see her, i'm grateful that they didn't, now. >> as nikki's family struggled to process the news, amy faced the microphones, and once again became the families voice. >> the only thing we saw was her hair. so, we are just waiting for the police to do their job, and we will find out more, soon. inside the police tape, investigators carefully uncovered the body of a middle- aged female she was nude, lying face down, and tellingly had a fresh pink pedicure. given that the composition, the heat and rain, investigators figured the body had lain there for a while. >> it had been there several days. >> gwinnett county police detective brad garrison. >> any issues with the body, anything you could see? >> nothing.

and of course, at this point, there is no edification around it, so there is nothing around where the body is at that would indicate what happened. >> in the way of these things, dental records confirmed what everyone suspected. the body in the woods was, indeed, that of nikki lyerly. >> the telling factor was the bottoms of the feet were clean. >> what does that tell you? >> she didn't walk out there and put herself in those woods and she sure didn't cover herself up. >> something else odd, there was a high level of the date rape drug ghb in her system. >> so now you are thinking, almost immediately before her death, someone gave her date rape drug? >> that is a possibility. >> and you found semen? >> correct. >> had nikki been abducted, and

raped before being dumped back near her home? detectives can say. but nikki had told her friend madison something on the phone. this was not the first time nikki had walked out. >> my wife has a long history of some kind of mental imbalances. okay? and i have been finding out, because, two days has been a lie. >> coming up, -- >> it's not the first time she's runaway, okay? >> the nikki no one knew. >> my father witnessed her throwing a knife at my face. >> when dateline continues. ne which is why downy does more to make clothes softer, fresher, and better. downy. breathe life into your laundry. when i was diagnosed with h-i-v, i didn't know who i would be. but here i am... being me. keep being you...

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dennis murphy: by the time searchers found nique leili's body, police detective brad everson already knew bits and pieces of her life story. he'd been working her case since she was reported missing a few days earlier. >> reporter: by the time searchers found nikki lyerly's body, police detective brad emerson already knew bits and pieces of her life story. he had been working her case since she was reported missing a few days earlier. >> i had already talked to her dad and her mom and both of her sisters. you know, i talked with her oldest daughter. >> the picture that emerged was of a woman whose life revolved around her work, her daughters, and her husband. >> he would come sometimes and do lunch with nikki. >> did she ever talk about her girls? >> she was very proud of them.

>> photos on the desk? >> absolutely. >> like most marriages, marriage had its ups and downs. met freely admitted that when he talked to the detective the day after he reported her missing. >> she has run away and she has been gone for two hours. she has been gone for three hours. four hours one time, she has gone to work with a bag of clothes and then come back after work, you know, but she has never been gone overnight. >> he is telling you, this is just the latest of a continuing episode that my wife has. >> correct. >> in this telephone call which detectives recorded, matt said his wife was mentally unbalanced. >> she's not very happy with her life, she's never felt accepted, okay? have been in and out of therapists, there is a fear of intimacy, she has no problem with girls but when it comes to a male, they are a threat.

all my life, guys have used me for sex. >> is just giving you all this information. >> i have a hard time getting a word in, edgewise. >> she yells at me with the kids and on doing is saying, please stop. this is the person you want to be? >> matt said he even considered getting a court order to protect him from his wife. >> has she ever been violent? >> yeah. i have pictures of myself with bruises on. my father is a witness to her throwing a knife at my face. i'm 250 pounds, 6'5". i'm being beaten up by my wife. is going to believe me. >> he's telling you that she's bats? >> that's what he saying. >> as for the night nikki disappeared -- >> he stated that they had gone out to eat and gone to a movie, after she got home from work. >> had a great time. we came home, on the way home, i said to her, hey, you know,

how about you put on an outfit? i think that might've set her off. >> he wanted her to put on a sexy costume of some kind? >> correct. >> the fear of intimacy that i thought she was working on getting over it was gone, but apparently that set her off, because she picked a fight. >> as matt tells it, the fight continued at home, and ramped up. matt's father, visiting from new york was just down the hall. matt asked his dad to weigh in. >> he called his father, matthias, into the bedroom. and basically asked matthias to tell nikki how he felt about being down there and matthias came out with a line that, he hadn't felt welcome, that kind of stuff, and nikki just reacted to that by basically saying he was lying. >> then, matt said his wife did something off-the-wall. >> she rips her shirt off.

hanging out. no bra, nothing. and says -- throws her shirt on the floor and then says, isn't that what family does? >> she flashed her father-in- law? >> correct. >> my wife has done some weird -- that is the weirdest it has ever been. >> nikki on the bedroom, and he on his couch in the downstairs office. >> i wake up about 6:00 to go to the bathroom. the light is on, in the bedroom. i can see it upstairs. so i go upstairs to see what is going on. >> all her stuff is still there. her car was still there. her keys, her phone, her purse was still there. he assumes that she had left on foot that somebody had picked her up. >> matt told the cop it was then that he realized his home security system had been turned off. >> had a camera in the house because i sell cameras, she always sets it off when she leaves. and she's mad, because she

knows i met. >> that the first you learn this place is wired for sound? >> correct. >> when nikki lyerly's body was found, days later, near her home, learning the story told by those cameras became most urgent. coming up, a treasure trove of evidence. >> quantify it for me. >> thousands of hours of video. >> what would it reveal? >> it is a torture to listen to. >> when dateline continues. ne so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. [♪♪] if you're only using facial moisturizer in the morning, did you know, the best time for skin renewal is at night? olay retinol24 renews millions of surface skin cells while you sleep. wake up to smoother, younger-looking skin with olay retinol24. (vo) if you have graves' disease... ...and itchy eyes, the truth may be even more uncomfortable.

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hours top stories, the u.s. security security over arends retaliatory attack over the weekend. the u.n. secretary-general called for peace amidst rising fears of escalation in the region. and we are hours away from the start of jury selection in the sorts criminal hush money trial for former president trump. trump, who has pled not guilty to 34 felony counts says he intends to take the stand in this case.

for now, back to dateline. dat. nique leili was dead. and now her husband was telling police that this seemingly happy mom was violent welcome back. and craig melvin. nikki lyerly was dead, and now, her husband was telling police that this seemingly happy mom was violent, and often mentally unstable. investigators were about to get a better view into that home than they would ever imagine. here again is dennis murphy, with the house on sydney's cove . >> reporter: within minutes of finding nikki's body, police raced to the lyerly home, about a mile away. what they observe right away was astounding. the home security system that matt lyerly had casually mentioned to detective emerson a few days earlier appeared more appropriate to ft. knox them a house in the burbs. >> when you first see the house in the road, you can see all of these cameras on the eaves of

the house, both sides. >> reporter: there were 21 security cameras in all, with a tricked out control room to monitor and record everything. >> he sounds like a one-man nsa ? >> he was in a very low crime area, so, it almost boggled the mind as to why he felt he needed quite so much surveillance coverage for the house. >> aud to be sure. and observation to take away for later. but the duty that came first. notification. the officers telling matt riley that his missing wife had just been found, dead. >> told me that at one point, seem to get sick. >> matt lyerly may well have been sick of talking to cops, because by now he had lawyered up and was not answering any questions. >> you now have probable cause to get a search warrant. >> correct. >> rethinking man, maybe these cameras recorded something? >> that was my hope. we are mainly going for,

anything in the house that has any sort of memory. the computers, be it dvr hooked up to surveillance system. >> detectives knew it would take time to review and to catalog all of that material. so, since the police had found no sign of blood, for any signs of struggle in the house, the detective reviewed the evidence he did have. particularly matt's claim that his wife was bonkers. >> were any of her family members corroborating this emotional instability issue raised by the husband? >> none whatsoever. >> this is not a woman off her meds? >> no, they are completely shocked by this version that matthew is giving me. >> or any of them suspicious of matt, the husband? >> they were all suspicious of matt. >> nikki's daughter, alex had lived with her mother and matt until she was 16. and there was plenty she had to say to the detective. >> i wanted him to know what was going on in the house. i wanted him to know that i

suspected him from the beginning, that mom would never have left her girls, and i wanted him to know, he would restrain her and lock her in bathrooms. >> why would he do this? the whole thing with the cameras? >> he is extremely controlling. >> despite the family suspicion and the fact that the semen found on nikki's body proved to be matz, the police did not feel like they had enough evidence to make an arrest. >> there's no ankle bracelet on this man, haven't taken his passport, does anybody say, if you are moving around, tell us where you will be? is it that kind of relationship with the authorities? >> there is not really a relationship with us. >> what about the evidence, the videophiles from matt's hard drives? they appear to be useless. after months of review of more than half 1 million video clips, the best that investigators could come up with was this. it is a clip of nikki lyerly walking onto the front porch to have a smoke just after midnight on july 9th, 2011. the day that she went missing. after that, nothing. >> what happened after midnight in that house?

>> exactly, that was our question. >> the videophiles from that they were corrupted, according to the tech guy who examined them. >> we can see footage, but it was very disjointed, most of it was not timestamp or date stamp, so it was not in a manner that you could just go in and click play and just play through everything. >> bottom line, the police had zero, nada, zilch. and so, with no compelling reason to stick around lawrenceville, matt lyerly moved back up north to vermont to be posted to his family. that was in february of 2012, almost 7 months to the day after nikki's body was found. nikki's stepmother, betty, says that move effectively ended all contact between nikki's family and her two youngest daughters, amanda 12 and rebecca nine. >> he was to provide us with a telephone number, he was to set up a skype account for us to

talk with the girls. nothing. packed up, moved. >> five months later, in the summer of 2012, the investigative file past the cold case detective sergeant john render. >> i was in the homicide unit, as a corporal, when her body was found. >> does that stay with you? >> ever say, you know, there certain cases that stick with you, and this is one. >> at first, richard did what all cold case detectives do. he reinterviewed witnesses. when that went nowhere, victor took another look at matt lyerly's computer hard drives. >> did you think somewhere in there is the negative that's going to get you to the next step in this investigation? >> i think, at a minimum we need to redo it, just to see if technology had advanced. so i needed the forensic guy to look at the video, whatever else he could find on the computer. >> turns out, the tech he needed was just down the hall. corporal chris fourth had been an i.t. guy before dining the joining the police force. >> so, and start looking for

low hanging fruit. what is easily available, and that is where i really started going through it and finding all these audiophiles. >> nobody had listened to the audiophiles before because investigators were so focused on finding video from the night nikki disappeared, and that is just what ford did at first, to. >> i looked at that video in raw format. something was recorded there but they wouldn't play. >> four determined the screwed up files were no accident. someone had deleted those files, and then run a cleanup program to clear the database logs. not once, but twice. >> the only two times those cleanup drives were run were the days that he reported her missing and the day her body was found. >> i will never forget the day he comes to my cuban says these videos were deleted. think he looks back and says, i've got a bunch of audiophiles on their, too, if you're interested. >> what are we talking about, in terms of hours of material? >> thousands of hours of material that date from 2008 up

until 2011. >> the audio recordings are best described as cringe were the scenes from a very bad marriage. >> that's not what i said and how i said it and don't take my words out of context. -- >> lower your voice. >> it is absolutely a torture to listen to. we have a woman who we know is now deceased, and i am hearing how she's living for the years preceding the death, and how she is just being beaten down, psychologically, and mentally. >> it took the detective nearly 1 1/2 years to listen to all of the recordings. by then, he had heard more than enough. when he learned that matt would be returning to georgia to testify in a civil suit concerning the payout from some life insurance policies nikki had, sergeant john richter planned to be waiting. could investigators have it all wrong? nikki's youngest daughters paint a picture of their mother's inner battles.

she is hearing voices telling her that people are talking bad about her. >> and why she is furious with her mom's side of the family. when dateline continues. datel. . it's time you had a proven choice to help restore what's yours. opzelura is the first and only fda-approved prescription treatment for nonsegmental vitiligo proven to help repigment skin over time. restoring what's yours. it's possible with a steroid-free cream that you can apply yourself. opzelura can lower your ability to fight infections including tb or hepatitis b or c. serious lung infections, skin cancer, blood clots, and low blood cell counts occurred with opzelura. in people taking jak inhibitors, serious infections, increased risk of death, lymphoma, other cancers, and major cardiovascular events have occurred. the most common side effects were acne and itching where applied. repigmentation is possible.

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♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. ♪ dennis murphy: in march, 2015, matt leili returned to georgia for the first time since he'd left the state three years earlier. in march of 2015, matt lyerly returned to georgia for the first time since leaving the state, three years earlier.

it was money that brought him back. the court proceeding concerning a payout from his wife, nikki's current life insurance policies. >> i knew he was coming down. that made me uneasy. it made me feel really creeped out. >> this is three years later? >> yes. what we didn't know was that the whole federal courthouse was crawling with plainclothes gwinnett county police. >> they were taking him down? >> they were. we had no idea. >> sergeant jon burton says the plainclothes cops waited all day for just the right moment to make their move. >> we have him on the outside of the courthouse. >> who was there? >> myself and detective washington were there. we put the handcuffs on him and it felt pretty good. >> nikki's family you the feeling. >> i raise my hands and said, praise god. that was my reaction. >> in addition to facing a murder charge, matt lyerly was eventually charged with sexual assault, and multiple counts of eavesdropping. a few weeks after his arrest, nikki lyerly's daughters, amanda and rebecca posted a video on youtube in support of their dad. in the video, the girls claims

that the mother hated her own family and the same spiteful relatives were the primary reason their dad was in jail. for nikki's family, that video was devastating. what they wondered, had happened to those girls in the four years i had been in vermont. >> as far as we can tell, he poisoned them against us, and i can only attribute that to, you know, them living in a house with a master manipulator. >> the notion of matt lyerly as a master manipulator would become a central theme, and his murder trial began in january of 2016. >>, ladies and gentlemen. in her opening statement, prosecutor lisa jones depicted matt lyerly as a couch potato, sponging off his hard-working wife. >> nikki lyerly was the breadwinner, and that family was in debt. up to $300,000 in debt. >> furthermore, john said, matt lyerly tried to control his wife by turning their home into a virtual north korea, with

cameras and recording devices everywhere. lenses aimed at them as they sat on the couch and watch tv. >> you will take a look into this marriage, ladies and gentlemen, you will hear their voices, of nikki lyerly and the defendant in this case arguing. >> nikki's murder, she claimed, was simply matt lyerly's final act of control. >> i think they got into an argument, that he drugs her, he was to have sex, she is loud, and that he strangles her. he strangles her, he sits on her, he associates her, to where she cannot read. >> not mean to, maybe? >> i think you meant to. i think he knew that she was leaving him because she had made it clear that she was done. >> the states first witness was nikki's oldest daughter, alex. >> he would end up walking her in a bathroom, she would be shut down stairs but there were

several nights that i would lay up at night and listen to her say please get off of me, get off of me, you're hurting me. >> next, nikki sister, amy, told the jury about the constant monitoring of the lyerly house. >> we knew that he would record phone conversations, that came into or out of the house. >> were you aware at any time, if there were ever gps trackers are tracking devices on phones are vehicles of the residence? >> yes. i knew that he had trackers on nikki's phone, and when alex was old enough to have a cell phone, that he tracked her phone, as well. >> then, the prosecution gave the court a fly on the wall look inside the lyerly home, but playing those promised recordings of the fights. >> let the record show that i am now locked in a room, again. i don't want to be here, i don't want to have this conversation. >> let the record show that she is being an absolute -- and once her way no matter what. >> it was hard to listen to.

bitter screaming matches, frequently about sex. >> i know that when we go two days without sex, you are going to automatically assume i am on strike no matter what is happening. don't touch me. sit down if you want to sit down. i don't want to hold your hand right now. >> in retrospect, for the prosecution, the recording seem to have the ring of prophecy. >> get your hands off my throat. >> and care what you think of that is my throat they were around. >> stop yelling like that. >> he tried to kill me. >> the prosecutors said nikki lyerly's best chance for leaving her marriage came 12 days before she disappeared, after yet another argument, nikki had called 911. >> my husband won't let me leave the house. >> yelling and screaming just look at the children. >> officers dispatched offered

to help nikki lyerly leavitt is the still photo shows, she wouldn't budge from the front porch. >> she wanted him to go. he didn't want to go, she didn't want to leave it at the girls, so they were at an impasse. >> two weeks later, nikki lyerly was dead. in a house for practically everything was recorded, the prosecutor claimed it was no accident that the video covering the crucial hours when nikki lyerly meant missing was somehow corrupted. >> the surveillance system was in fact recording during that time period, is that correct? >> that is correct, yes. >> the prosecutor countered matt claimed nikki had somehow turned off the security system by calling the police departments i.t. guy as her last witness. >> so, detective, for your opinion then, did an individual have to go in and purposefully corrupt and delete those files? >> that is correct, yes but that is the only way i can explain why that is the only

date range i cannot recover. >> no one knows exactly what was on that missing video, the prosecutor suggested that it was probably video of matt lyerly carrying his wife's body out of the house. in closing, the prosecutor let nikki lyerly have the last word. >> you need to listen to what she says, and what she lived. >> welcome to my world. you killed me a long time ago. >> welcome to my world. you killed me a long time ago. find him guilty. coming up, has the prosecution really proved anything? >> this is what you call a circumstantial case? >> yes. >> nikki and matt's daughter say in their parents marriage,

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by early february 2016, athe prosecution had rested. its case against matt leili. the husband was portrayed as an eavesdropping control freak, who killed his wife during an argument. by early february 2016, the prosecution had rested its case against matt wiley. the husband was portrayed as an eavesdropping control freak who

killed his wife during an argument. wiley's defense attorney, tom clayton insisted that matt lyerly was, in fact, an innocent man, falsely accused by the state of georgia. >> they have a theory, and that theory is nothing more than a hunch. it is a guess. if you were to ask yourself questions that might have been posed of you, if you would have gone to journalism school, who what, where, why, and how. you will find that during the course of this trial, the state of georgia will fall woefully short improving the allegations they are making against this man. >> i think their gut feeling was, come on. she's naked, she's very this close to the house, she is obviously hidden, it's got to be him. >> that's what you call a circumstantial case? >> yes. >> the defense attorney concedes he has some difficult circumstances to overcome in this case, beginning with the

six hours of missing surveillance camera video from the night nikki lyerly disappeared. he insists his client did not erase those files as the prosecution claimed. >> the surveillance system was shut off at some point in the morning. matt believes that nikki shut it off. he is insistent that he did not shut it off. that the system was shut off by nikki. >> what ever happened to her, the cameras didn't see it? >> that is absolutely correct. >> as for those audio recordings of the couples screaming arguments, he pointed out that most were recorded in 2008 and 2009. two years before nikki died. according to the defense attorney, matt made the recordings with the encouragement of a marriage therapist the couple had been seeing at the time. >> he is talking, he is conciliatory, in my opinion, he is trying to calm things down, and it is impossible to call nikki down. >> please don't do this. please. >> you do not want to do this with me right now. i mean it. you do not want to tangle with

me right now at all. >> what did i do? >> according to clay, the prosecution cherry. scenes from the lyerly marriage, highlighting the bad and dumpling the good, like a 2010 trip they took to hawaii but they renewed their marriage vows. >> the flipside is is currently are getting along well, when they are affectionate towards one another, they don't take that stuff. >> it's the darker side? >> absolutely, yes. >> as for the night nikki disappeared, the defense tried to show that nikki lyerly was once again acting unstable, and behaving erratically. the defense attorney called matt's father, matthias, to verify his son's version of that last fight between matt and nikki. the one where she allegedly flashed him. >> she tore off her top, and says come on, let's go, let's

act like a family. >> are you inspecting any sort of comment like that? >> never. never. >> once nikki disappeared, matt lyerly inquired about having his wife involuntarily committed. and hired endorse divorce attorney. a man who knows his device was already dead would not do either of those things. >> he wanted to let her know, look, here are your options. you can go get help for yourself, or i'm going to go forward with a divorce. >> the defense wrapped up its case by calling matt's two daughters. >> did you ever see your dad and your mom? >> no. >> did you ever see any obvious injuries or bruises? >> no, sir. >> according to the girls, their mother was the one with the violent temper, not the

dad. >> she took a heel and through it, and i had to duck from it. >> was it being thrown at your head? >> yes.'s on the day nikki made that 911 call, amanda said, her mother complained about hearing voices in her head. >> she was pacing back and forth, saying that she was tired of people talking bad about her behind her back, and my dad asked her who was talking about her, and she said that she was hearing voices and the voices in her head were telling her that were talking bad about her. >> throughout, neither girl made eye contact with the mother's relatives, who had not seen them in four years. whatever infection might once have existed seem to be gone now. >> we made our own decision, we don't like that side of the family, so we want to stay away. it's not him forcing us to stay away from her. >> in closing, tom clegg argued that while the state may have proved matt wiley unlikable, it had not answered any of those

basic journalism questions. who, what, when, where, why, or how. >> in closing i said, the state still cannot answer any of these particular questions. what does that tell you? that tells you that they have falling woefully short of proving matt's guilt. >> after eight days of testimony, both sides of the family prepared for a long and anxious wait for a verdict. turns out they didn't have to pay so long. after just three hours of deliberation, the jury announced it had reached a verdict. >> i will ask at this time if you stand and read the verdict out loud. >> as to count one, we, the jury, find the defendant guilty of malice murder. >> though not a sound came from nikki lyerly's family, their expressions said it all. the judge asked matt lyerly to rise and receive his sentence. >> i will follow the state's recommendation to have you sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

>> it was a bittersweet ending for nikki's family, they will likely never see matt lyerly again, but as nikki lyerly's youngest girls left to go back north with their grandfather, it seems just as likely that they would never see them again, either. edge they were my girls but i still love them, to this day. i taught them how to read but i got them ready for school in the mornings. >> you would like to have a relationship with them? >> i would love to have a relationship with them again. i don't know that that they will ever come, but i want them to know that my door is always open. but i don't know that they will ever come. >> one murder, so many victims. that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. ks for wat. we were like sisters. hello. i'm craig melvin, and this sis dateline.