- Female narrator: An unlikely pair finds love
in the pacific northwest.
- Deena: He was a nurse, and she was a nurse's aide,
and it just bloomed from there.
- It was sort of like the storybook wedding.
They were pretty happy.
- [sirens blaring]
- narrator: But the fairytale ends when something evil
befalls the remote washington wilderness.
- Her sweatpants had been pulled down to her knees
and theres a lot of blood around.
- Narrator: As investigators take a closer look
at this rural community,
they uncover a disturbing family dynamic.
- Mark: She essentially controlled his life,
ran his life, told him what to do, when to do it
and how to do it.
- They were unnaturally close.
- She was terrified that something
was gonna happen to her.
- Shawn: She told me that if anything should happen to her,
this needed to go to the police.
- Mark: She wanted to humiliate and embarrass her even in death.
- [gunshot]
- ♪
♪
- narrator: July 18, 1998. Kapowsin, washington.
It's a tranquil summer night in this remote community
just south of tacoma.
But at 8:59, the peace is shattered
when the sheriff's office receives a desperate call
from 27-year-old daniel carlson.
- He says, "I found my wife, she's covered in blood,
"I don't know what happened.
"please send help, send the police,
there's something wrong."
- narrator: Officers and first responders race
to the secluded location.
- It takes them about 13 minutes, uh, to arrive.
They can see that there is a woman on the couch,
that there's a lot of, uh, blood around.
- The victim, lisa carlson, a young mother,
had been found in her residence.
Police arrived and they found her husband there,
uh, daniel carlson.
- Mark: They don't really know what they have here,
but they don't want it contaminated any more
by daniel's presence.
So, it's standard procedure to remove people,
who are in the scene, out.
- Narrator: While emts render aid to lisa,
officers calm down her husband and ask him to recount
what happened.
Dan says that he was at work when he received
a disturbing call from his mother,
who lives just up the road.
- His mom is telling him, "look, your twin boys
"have walked up to the house here, and I've been trying
"to reach lisa on the phone, and I can't reach her.
"I've called repeatedly.
So I think you should go check and see what's going on."
- narrator: Dan says when he arrived home,
he found his wife of four years
unresponsive and covered in blood.
- Mark: Police don't really know what they have here.
Of course, dan is the person that finds lisa,
so the investigators have a lot of questions for him
on him and on lisa and their relationship.
- Narrator: Lisa dahm was born in 1971
in san diego, california, the elder of two children.
- Lisa grew up, uh, as a military brat.
Her father was army.
She spent a lot of her youth moving around
from military base to military base.
- Narrator: When lisa's nomadic family finally settled
in tacoma, washington,
lisa was able to really come into her own.
- Shawn: She had a great presence.
She was sharp, sharp wit, um,
and she did not suffer fools lightly.
So yeah, she--she was amazing.
- Narrator: After high school, lisa decided to pursue a career
in healthcare.
- Shawn: She was tough as nails on the outside.
But once you got to know her,
there was a tenderness and a caring within her
that really, you--you gotta have to be a good nurse.
- Narrator: After getting her certification,
lisa took a job as an aide in a nursing home.
There, she met 22-year-old dan carlson.
- He was a nurse and she was a nurse's aide,
and she needed a ride home one night.
And that was the beginning of their relationship,
and it just bloomed from there.
- Narrator: On the surface,
lisa and dan couldn't be more different.
- I met dan in sixth grade camp.
He was a great kid.
He was a little shy, a little bit off-kilter.
Dan was the quintessential virgin.
He had had no experience whatsoever with anybody.
But he gets to nursing school and he meets lisa,
and he goes, "I was doing everything I could
to get her attention."
- barbara: They say that opposites attract,
and I think that in the case of lisa and dan,
that has to be it.
Dan was quiet, and perhaps his obvious adoration of lisa
was attractive to her.
- Dan is very friendly, hard worker;
he was extremely efficient in his job.
Obviously, he was a caring person.
I thought he was a great guy.
- Dan and lisa dated for about a--a year,
and then, uh, decided to get married.
- Narrator: Shortly after the couple married in 1994,
they both transferred to the rainier rehabilitation center,
a home for disabled adults, where dan's father, daryl,
worked as an attendant counselor,
and dan's mother, carol, worked in housekeeping.
- Dan seemed to have a very good relationship
with both of his parents, they seemed very close.
- Dan and carol were very, very tight at work
and would meet quite frequently.
- Narrator: Working with each other on a daily basis
brought the entire family even closer together,
and soon enough, they were welcoming new additions
to their tight-knit unit.
- About a year after dan and lisa married, uh,
she was pregnant and she had twin boys.
'course everybody was very happy about that--
the parents and grandparents on both sides of the family.
- Shawn: Lisa as a mother was amazing.
She was a doting mother.
She was extremely protective of her children.
She loved those children, absolutely, dearly.
They were without a doubt her heart and soul.
- Narrator: After the birth of their sons,
lisa and dan were forced to make a difficult
financial decision.
- Shawn: She had decided to be a stay-at-home mom
because twins are expensive.
The cost of two kids at daycare would've just been absolutely
economically unfeasible for them.
That forced them to be a one-income family.
- Rebecca: Unfortunately, they immediately had
financial problems.
They had accumulated ten credit cards and a lot of debt.
- Narrator: As the couple watched their last penny
slip away, dan's parents reached out with an offer.
- His parents started floating the idea of having them move out
to live in kapowsin, which is very, very pretty,
but very, uh, thinly populated.
- Rebecca: Dan's mother, carol, invited them to come
to their property, where they'd put up another mobile home
for the couple and their children.
So, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
- Narrator: The couple moved out to the carlson homestead
in September of 1997.
While dan worked to get the family's finances
back on track, his parents stepped in to help
with the twins.
- Dan and lisa filed for bankruptcy, finally,
to try to get on their feet, get rid of all the--the debt
they had from credit cards and school loans.
- We talked a lot about his, uh, plans that he had
for the future, he was really focused on his family.
- Narrator: But on July 18,
the carlsons' future is ripped out from under them
when lisa is found covered in blood
inside their mobile home.
- Rod: Mrs. Carlson had been shot,
and there were multiple shots that she had received:
Two shots were to the head, and one to her chest.
She's dead.
- Narrator: Homicide investigators are immediately
summoned to the residence,
and waste little time getting to work.
- Mark: So the detectives, when they arrive, they walk in,
they immediately see lisa is on the couch.
She is, uh, lying with her head on a pillow
that is up on the end of the couch.
Her lower half is covered with a blanket.
- Rebecca: When police take the blanket off of lisa,
they see her sweatpants had been pulled down to her knees
and they're kind of inside out.
- Mark: Additionally, in lisa's left hand,
she has an electronic controller.
This is attached by wires to--it's a sex toy.
The television is on, set to the vcr.
- The tape in the tv was a xxx-rated, you know,
pornography tape.
- Your first take on this is that she was engaged
in masturbatory activity, autoerotic activity,
watching a pornographic tape,
and she was killed while she was in that position.
- Narrator: Coming up, a possible motive is uncovered.
- Drawers are pulled out and then dumped,
basically, upside down.
- It looks like maybe it was a burglary gone wrong.
- Narrator: But the evidence suggests something
far more sinister.
- A neighbor reports seeing this white car
that he didn't recognize headed down the road
towards lisa's house.
- Barbara: You could see marks from where the hair
and her blood had been dragged along the back side of the sofa.
- ♪
- narrator: On July 18, 1998,
investigators in kapowsin, washington,
are on the scene of a gruesome homicide.
Dan carlson says he found his wife, lisa, shot dead
in the couple's remote mobile home.
- Mark: It's clear, at least from their understanding
before the autopsy, that she has two gunshot injuries
to her head and one up on the upper part of her left chest.
- Narrator: A bizarre crime scene has thrown investigators
for a loop.
- Lisa's body is on the couch in the living room.
She's kind of splayed out in a kind of awkward pose.
- Mark: She's got a sex toy in her hand
and there's a pornographic video in the vcr.
- Narrator: Detectives begin scouring the trailer for clues.
- Police are searching mostly for the weapon.
Police cannot find the gun,
and that's key to building a case.
- In their search of this crime scene, they identify,
locate and recover three .22 long-rifle shell casings.
They're also looking around the house to see
what's the level of disturbance in this house.
In the master bedroom and in the master bathroom,
drawers are pulled out and then dumped, basically, upside down.
- It looks like the house has been ransacked, trashed,
you know, maybe it was a burglary gone wrong.
- Narrator: But upon further examination,
investigators find evidence that points elsewhere.
- There were many items of value that were clearly in plain view
that were not taken.
- The tv wasn't taken, the computer wasn't taken,
the stereo wasn't taken, lisa's jewelry wasn't taken.
There's nothing missing at all
and there's no sign of forced entry at all.
- Narrator: In light of the puzzling crime scene,
investigators turn back to lisa's husband
in hopes that he can help bring some clarity
to the situation.
- When you have a homicide, the spouse or boyfriend
or girlfriend is always gonna be the very first people
that law enforcement are gonna look at.
- Narrator: Dan tells police that his wife had gone out
in the morning and was supposed to be home
in time for him to leave for work at 1:30.
- Mark: Daniel reports that she's late,
that she doesn't get home 'til about 2:15,
and he immediately takes the car and then heads off to work.
He says he leaves around 2:20 in the afternoon
and gets to work around 3 o'clock.
- Narrator: Dan says he was supposed to work until 10:30,
but at 8 p.M., he received a phone call from his mother,
carol carlson.
- He got a call from his mother that the twins had walked up
to her place all by themselves
and that she couldn't reach lisa on the phone.
Carol assumed that lisa was sleeping.
Dan told police he left work early to go home
to check on lisa.
- Mark: He says he comes through the front door...
He sees lisa right there and she's covered in blood.
He goes immediately to lisa; he takes her pulse.
He then goes to the phone and he calls 911.
You want to know: Are there people that
had it out for lisa?
Was there anybody following her, stalking her?
Did she report being harassed by anybody?
All these questions get asked and the answers
to all those questions are no.
Everybody liked lisa, she didn't have any enemies.
- Narrator: Without any leads to go on,
detectives turn the scene over to crime scene investigators
and begin canvassing the neighborhood.
When they're doing a neighborhood canvass,
they do identify a neighbor that lives down the lane
from the carlsons who reports seeing this white car
that he didn't recognize, but had headed down the road
towards lisa's house.
- Rebecca: Any unknown vehicle would really stick out
in this area because everybody knows everybody.
Everybody knows what everybody drives,
and you'd know if there was any vehicle
that didn't belong there.
- Narrator: Could the driver of this suspicious vehicle
be lisa's killer?
- Police put out an all-points bulletin,
looking for this white van.
- Narrator: As investigators continue the canvass,
they follow up with lisa and dan's closest neighbors--
dan's parents: 52-year-old daryl
and 47-year-old carol carlson.
- Daniel's parents' home was about 150 yards
from their home through a very, very heavy forest,
couldn't be seen from their house.
- Mark: Carol has been home all day long
and she said she never heard anything
until, in her time estimate, at 5:45 p.M.,
the twins show up on her front door,
but lisa's not with them.
The twins had never-- according to carol--ever come up
to the house by themselves.
- Rebecca: The twin boys, who were just three years old,
said that their mommy was sleeping.
- Carol reported that she was a heavy sleeper and she thought,
"well, I'll just call her and, you know, try to wake her up."
- rebecca: She telephoned lisa,
got the answering machine a couple of times,
left two, you know, fairly irate messages saying,
"wake up, lisa," and "where are you?"
- narrator: As carol tells her story,
detectives can't help but ask a curious question.
- If the twins have come up to your house
and they've never done this before,
shouldn't that make you concerned?
Most people would then have gone down to check on lisa
to see what's going on.
- Carol's explanation was that she wasn't welcome.
- Narrator: Carol says that the problems started
when she and her husband let the financially strapped couple
move into their spare trailer rent-free.
- Rebecca: When you live near your in-laws,
and you're indebted to them for a place to live,
they sort of feel that they have the right to drop in,
and dan's mother, carol, did drop in a lot.
- Lisa did not appreciate this. Not even a little tiny bit.
And that was a source of friction.
- Narrator: Carol says that lisa had mistaken
her well-intentioned help as meddling.
- Carol says, "I didn't wanna create any problems
by going down to the house myself."
- narrator: As detectives wrap up with the carlsons,
their radios crackle with an urgent message
from the crime scene:
Csi has encountered additional problems with the evidence.
- From doing blood spatter analysis
of the high-velocity spatter on the couch and on the wall,
the position in which lisa was shot
indicates that she was sitting up on the couch,
in the center of the couch, and not where she was found.
- The entry wounds, they were all from left to right--
all three of them-- and from up to down.
Also, on the back of the couch, one could see that there was
a hair swipe pattern from the bloody hair.
So she was moved from the position where she was shot.
- Mark: There's this pornographic tape in the vcr
and the vcr is on.
So, if she's actually watching this tape,
I would expect to find the remote within easy reach,
likely on the couch next to her, but it's not there.
This was a very poorly staged crime scene.
- Rod: It was a massive screw-up on the people that staged it.
It didn't fit the narrative whatsoever.
- Rebecca: Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to set up
a scenario that made lisa look bad.
- Mark: There was a very strong attempt here
to humiliate lisa.
Humiliate her in death, humiliate her as a person,
humiliate her as a mother.
Now, who would do that? Would a stranger do that?
A stranger doesn't care, they have no connection to lisa.
- Narrator: Coming up, an unexpected love affair
is exposed.
- Police want to know if there'd been some kind
of lover's quarrel.
- Mark: What's his relationship with lisa?
Was there a jealousy component?
- Narrator: And a new piece of evidence reveals
telling statements.
- She decided to secretly tape-record a conversation.
- ♪
- narrator: Investigators working the murder
of 27-year-old mother of 2, lisa carlson,
have uncovered inconsistent evidence
suggesting a doctored crime scene.
- Rod: When it's a stranger-to-stranger type thing,
or it's a home invasion, they don't move bodies
and pose them such as this.
So, this immediately puts it into some intimacy with somebody
somewhere very close to her
that she's had contact with before.
- Narrator: Investigators don't need to look far for someone
who fits the bill: Lisa's husband, dan,
is still on the scene, and when detectives ask him about
the recent state of his marriage, he drops a bombshell.
- She was planning on leaving him and taking her kids,
taking the two boys and moving away.
- Narrator: Dan tells police that their marital issues
coincided with their financial woes.
- They realized that their marriage had deteriorated
and there was probably no going back.
- Barbara: They hadn't decided what to do
and they couldn't afford to be divorced.
They were just kind of trapped. Or felt trapped.
- Rebecca: The two of them had an arrangement:
They would continue to live at the mobile home,
both of them, with the children,
but that they were informally separated.
- Lisa slept in the bedroom. Dan slept on the couch.
Um, they were not sexually intimate and, according to dan,
hadn't been intimate for 18 months,
so this was really a very stressful relationship.
- Narrator: Dan says that the relationship became
even more stressful when lisa started seeing
dan's childhood friend, shawn mckillop.
- Mark: He was initially daniel's friend.
He developed a relationship with lisa,
first a platonic friendship relationship.
But the longer they were together and the more time
they spent together, I think that the romance developed
between shawn and lisa.
- Narrator: While dan is their immediate focus,
shawn is now on the radar as a potential person of interest.
- Mark: It's clear: Dan has to be ruled in or out.
The first thing police have to do is establish whether
dan actually has an alibi or not.
- Rebecca: Police confirm that dan was at work that day,
that he was late arriving at work and left early.
The police decide fairly early on that dan didn't have
a big enough window of time to have killed lisa
and staged the murder and ransacking of the house
before he left for work.
There just wasn't time to do all of that.
- Narrator: After speaking with dan,
detectives turn their attention to his wife's
new flame, shawn mckillop.
- They have to understand, what motivations does he have?
What's his relationship with lisa?
Was there a jealousy component?
- Police want to know if there'd been some kind
of lover's quarrel, perhaps, between shawn and lisa.
- Narrator: Early the following morning,
detectives arrive at shawn's apartment for a chat.
- Shawn: The police showed up at my front door
at about 6 o'clock in the morning on the 19th of July.
They flashed their badges, and I was in shock.
- Narrator: Shawn sits down with detectives
and openly admits to his love for lisa.
- Shawn: Lisa and I were friends almost immediately.
Dan did a lot of working, so I'd hang out with lisa
and the kids.
Lisa and I maintained a friendship.
And then after they split up-- and I'd known they split up--
I absolutely fell in love with her.
It wasn't like we were planning it,
it just sort of happened.
She was waiting for the bankruptcy to hit.
That was why they were staying together still.
- Mark: The bankruptcy was just coming to a close.
So, once the bankruptcy was finalized,
that would essentially have released lisa from
all of the debt that they had accumulated,
and I think would have put her into a position
to then file for divorce.
- Narrator: Although shawn sounds smitten with lisa,
detectives can't just take his word for it.
- Shawn: They said, "well, can you account
for your whereabouts in the last 24 hours?"
so, of course, I go to my computer.
I said, "I can not only account for them,
I can give you the chat logs."
my background is it.
That afternoon, I spent several intervening hours
on a number of bulletin board systems online.
- Narrator: After shawn is effectively cleared
as a suspect, he tells investigators that he might
be able to shed some light on lisa's final hours.
- On July 18, the morning that, uh, lisa was killed,
she'd spent the night at shawn's.
- She'd come out the night before
and we'd spent time together,
and she looked at me and she says, "this is it.
"after dan goes to work today, I'm leaving.
"I'm gonna pack up the kids and I'm out.
"and then you and I are gonna-- we're gonna go to your father's
and we'll--we'll get out of here."
- shawn had family in arizona, and it seemed to be a place
where they could relocate and start over.
- Shawn: I said, "great, let's go!"
she told me she loved me.
The last thing I saw...
Was a smile on her face as she drove off.
- Narrator: Shawn suspects that dan would not have been
happy to hear about lisa's impending plan.
- I'm begging her not to say anything to dan.
"just wait for him to leave and leave.
"don't give any heads up, don't give any warning,
because if you say anything, it's only gonna cause a fight."
- narrator: Shawn explains that dan had become
uncharacteristically volatile in recent days.
- Shawn: Dan, according to lisa,
was becoming more and more violent.
According to her, he'd slam things or throw things.
He'd hit her a couple times.
He, uh, of course was verbally and emotionally abusive.
He had started going down a darker road.
- Narrator: Not only does shawn tell detectives about
dan's alleged abuse, but he also seems to have proof.
- After dan had put his hands on lisa's neck,
she decided to secretly tape-record a conversation
with him about it.
- Shawn: When lisa came to me with this tape,
she told me that if anything should happen to her,
it needed to go to the police.
Apparently, he admitted hitting her.
- Rebecca: During that conversation, lisa asks dan
to never hurt her again.
He promises never to hurt the children,
but he doesn't say anything about hurting her in the future.
- Narrator: Police are positive that dan would not have had
enough time to kill lisa and stage the crime scene
before leaving for work, but shawn suspects
that dan didn't act alone.
- My thoughts immediately went to carol.
She ran that family with an iron fist.
I know that dan
would do and say
just about anything if carol asked him to do it.
- Narrator: Coming up, detectives uncover
a mother's deadly obsession.
- She was looking through the windows
and trying to spy on her.
- Shawn: She'd made a comment, "everybody thinks that I'm this
"meek and mild, timid, little lady,
but I can be one real mean bitch if you cross me."
- ♪
- narrator: Less than a day after the death
of 27-year-old lisa carlson,
her boyfriend, shawn mckillop, tells police that lisa's
estranged husband, dan, and his mother, carol,
are likely behind lisa's murder.
- Carol's relationship to dan is unnaturally close.
- Mark: Everything that daniel did was through his mother.
She essentially controlled his life, ran his life,
told him what to do, when to do it and how to do it.
Carol had no respect for lisa.
She thought that her son should never have married lisa.
- Shawn: Lisa always thought carol was pushy.
Once they moved out to kapowsin,
the pushy became downright manipulative.
She complained that carol was starting to spy on her,
was starting to break into the house,
was starting to rummage through her belongings.
- Narrator: According to shawn,
things only got worse when the twins came along.
- Carol would call the twins her babies.
Now, sometimes grandparents do that,
but it seemed that carol really
looked on these three-year-olds as her children.
- Shawn: I do remember at one point there was an argument,
and carol tries to pick up one of the kids,
and lisa pulls the kid back and says, "that's my child."
and carol says, "don't you dare touch my baby."
and lisa goes, "that's my child. You are the grandparent,
you will touch them when I say you can touch them."
- narrator: Shawn tells police that lisa became convinced
that carol was plotting against her.
- Lisa knew that something was really getting bad and, uh,
she kept her curtains shut because she knew carol
was looking through the windows.
- Narrator: Shawn says that if carol found out
that lisa was planning on taking the kids to arizona,
she might have spurred dan into murderous action.
- Carol is absolutely a master manipulator.
She'd made a comment when I was like 17, 18 years old:
"everybody thinks that I'm this meek and mild,
"timid little lady, but I can be one real mean bitch
if you cross me."
- narrator: Based on shawn's statement,
detectives execute a search warrant at carol's house
on July 22.
Although they don't find a murder weapon,
they discover something of great interest
in the investigation.
- Rebecca: They do find a journal
that carol's been keeping.
She was basically spying on lisa.
- They were almost like reconnaissance.
Times and dates,
"lisa's doing this, lisa's going here."
they were almost like surveillance.
- Rebecca: Carol kept a record of lisa's shortfalls,
and not--not cooking, not cleaning the house,
not taking good care of the kids.
The purpose of carol's journal seemed to be information
that would eventually bolster dan's arguments for custody
for the children.
- Narrator: Reading from carol's journal,
police realize carol wasn't just a passive observer.
- Carol's notebook tells a lot about her relationship
with her son.
She encourages dan to think poorly of his wife.
Her anger towards lisa was down in black and white.
- Narrator: But it's the most recent entries
that truly shock investigators.
- Rebecca: After lisa was murdered,
she even made a note about if her son was arrested,
how much time might he serve.
- Narrator: Although the circumstantial evidence
is overwhelming, investigators need something
more concrete in order to make an arrest.
Detectives hope a conversation with lisa's mother, donna dahm,
might help.
On July 29, donna confirms that she too was aware
of lisa's tumultuous relationship with carol and dan.
- Lisa, she told her that dan was acting crazy and weird.
She was terrified that something was gonna happen to her.
- We were begging her to get out of there as quickly as possible,
but lisa said that she couldn't yet.
- Narrator: Lisa's mother tells police that she had been
so worried, that she called her daughter every afternoon.
But on the day of the murder, lisa never picked up.
- Lisa's mother called and left a message
on the answering machine wondering where lisa was
and trying to reach her.
- Narrator: Detectives pull the tape from the answering
machine for evidence, hoping it might help narrow down
lisa's time of death,
but when they listen to the tape,
they make a curious discovery.
- When the police took the answering machine
to study it, there were carol's two messages basically ranting
at lisa to wake up, but nothing from her mother.
- Mark: There would have been no reason--logical reason--
for the phone call that lisa's mother had left
to not have been on that recording with carol's messages.
So, that tape was sent off to the fbi lab.
The fbi lab determined that the message
that lisa's mother had left on the tape had been erased
and the messages that carol left had been recorded over the top.
- The answering machine had been tampered with.
- Narrator: There is only one person who investigators
suspect had the motive and opportunity
to tamper with lisa's answering machine.
- Police believed it would have had to have been carol,
had gone on and erased donna's voicemails to lisa and then
had made sure her own voicemails were there.
- Mark: I don't think carol could take the chance that
somebody else's message could be on there
that could then essentially timestamp her into a much,
much tighter box.
- Narrator: This newfound evidence gives investigators
a stronger sense as to the likely roles both dan
and carol played in lisa's murder.
- Mark: In my view, dan was probably
the shooter in this case.
Dan admits to buying a .22 pistol,
but the disposition of that pistol,
it all becomes very fuzzy.
He said he traded away to somebody.
"um, who did you trade it to?"
"uh, I can't remember who it was."
"when did you trade it?" "oh, it was a while ago,
I don't really remember the date."
I just think that's all so curious.
- Rebecca: Police finally concluded that the mastermind
of all this was carol.
- I feel very confident that carol was the one involved
in doing all the staging.
She really hated lisa, so she wanted to humiliate her
and embarrass her even in death.
- Narrator: Coming up, could this murderous pair
get off scot-free?
- Just because you have an arrest, doesn't necessarily
mean you're gonna have a conviction.
- In my view, this was
essentially a travesty of justice.
- ♪
- narrator: Investigators strongly believe that
lisa carlson was murdered by her estranged husband, dan,
and his mother, carol.
However, investigators hold off on making any arrests...
For now.
- We wanted to make sure that we had everything we needed
before swearing out charges against them.
And that took a fair amount of time.
- Narrator: After solidifying their case
for nearly three years,
prosecutors finally decide it's now or never.
- Barbara: What finally led to their arrest was a meeting
with law enforcement where we sat down for several hours,
we couldn't think of anything outstanding that we thought
at that time could build a stronger case.
We were ready to go and we should go for it, and we did.
- Narrator: On July 20, 2001, detectives arrive
at the rainier rehabilitation center in tacoma
to arrest dan and carol carlson.
- Kirby: I found it hard to believe that he had done this.
It was so out of character for him of--
with the person that I had known.
- Narrator: Both dan and carol carlson are charged
with first-degree murder and face the possibility
of life in prison.
- Shawn: The emotions that were running through my mind
at that point were hesitant elation.
Just because you have an arrest, doesn't necessarily mean
you're gonna have a conviction.
- Narrator: On February 3, 2003,
the joint trial begins.
In opening statements, prosecutors allege that carol
was the mastermind behind the plot to kill
her daughter-in-law.
- Mark: Lisa was gonna take the boys, move out of state,
and carol would not see the babies again.
So, I think that's what put this whole thing in motion.
- Narrator: Prosecutors argue that carol couldn't carry out
the murder on her own.
- Mark: I think she involved dan in the homicide.
"you've got to do this part.
"and the only way that you're gonna be able to keep your boys
is if we get rid of lisa."
- narrator: Prosecutors believe that on July 18, 1998,
dan and carol were ready to execute their plan.
- Carol was there in the morning to visit dan
before lisa ever got home.
- Narrator: When lisa arrived to take care of the kids,
dan asked to have a chat about their impending divorce,
but the moment lisa sat down on the couch,
dan pulled out a .22 and shot lisa three times.
- [gunshots]
- narrator: Then, dan headed off to work while carol came by
to take over.
- Mark: Dan committed the homicide,
but everything else was carol: The staging of the crime scene,
the ransacking of the bedroom, of course,
bringing the children up to her house,
I think that was all her.
Clearly, she's the mastermind.
- Narrator: The defense argues that investigators overlooked
a key piece of evidence: A mysterious white car seen
driving near the carlsons' home on the day of the murder.
- Barbara: Whether or not there was a white vehicle
in the neighborhood that afternoon is unproven.
There's never been a time, never really been any specific
descriptions other than a white vehicle.
It's just one of those things that I think no one
will ever really know.
- Narrator: After nearly two months of testimony,
the prosecution finally rests its case.
- The jury was out for a very long time,
and they came back and convicted them both.
The court sentenced them to 37 years, which
for individuals who had not previously been convicted
of any felony crimes at all, was a high sentence.
- Shawn: I felt justice had been served.
I felt sad for the boys.
I felt...Disgust for carol.
- Narrator: But justice for lisa is short-lived.
In may of 2006,
the appeals court makes a critical decision.
- Rebecca: The case is overturned,
all on the basis of the search warrant
of carol's property, which turned up her journal.
The police at the time did not have the correct search warrant.
They didn't have the legal right to take her journal,
which a lot of the case had been built on.
So the verdicts were thrown out.
- Mark: The pierce county district attorney's office
was prepared to try them again.
And I was prepared to testify again.
- Narrator: But before dan and carol step foot
in front of a new jury,
the case takes an unexpected turn.
- It was very close to a second trial when, um,
I was notified that there would be no trial,
that their--a plea agreement had been reached.
- Rebecca: Dan pled to second-degree murder
and then received a reduced sentence of 23 years.
Carol pled guilty to second-degree assault
and sexually tampering with a body.
She was sentenced to nine years.
- Shawn: I was disgusted at how little carol
was going to receive.
I knew full well that with time served,
it meant she was probably going to get out fairly soon.
That didn't feel right.
- Mark: Carol basically got out with time served.
In my view, this was, uh,
essentially, a travesty of justice.
- Narrator: Now, lisa's family is forced to accept
the disheartening reality that no only is lisa gone,
but one of her suspected killers is enjoying her freedom.
- Kirby: The situation is extremely sad.
It's not something that you can really wrap your heard around
and make sense of.
- Shawn: I think about lisa all the time.
Her smile. Her laugh.
Her infectious personality.
She was a wonderful person.
- ♪