- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- My mom found her.
She said it looked like she might've
Slipped in the shower.
- She was in the fetal position
In this bathtub.
- You could see marks on jessica's neck.
- They said, "we're gonna rule this as a homicide."
- Detectives using new technology
To view this crime scene in extreme detail.
- There is no forced entry, no tool marks.
- There was blood on the couch.
- Who coulda done this?
- They say that usually it's someone close.
- An investigation focusing on friends and family.
- He brought up his association with a motorcycle gang.
He came off as kind of a tough guy.
- He threatened to take out my whole entire family
To get custody of our kids. - Wow.
- A chilling story of danger and duplicity.
- We were trying to figure out who did this.
He knew the whole time.
- This is the ultimate betrayal.
♪♪
- Hello and welcome to "dateline secrets uncovered."
Jessyka nelson was a single mom whose little boy
Was the center of her world.
Then, one morning, she was found dead in the house they shared.
The discovery left her close-knit family reeling.
What happened next completely floored them.
Investigators discovered someone in the nelson's inner circle
Was hiding a secret obsession.
Here's keith morrison with "evil intent."
♪♪
- It was 9 o'clock in the morning
On the 25th of June 2015, omaha, nebraska.
Missy nelson's morning ritual was interrupted by a phone call.
It was the bank where her daughter, jessyka, worked.
She was an hour later.
- I was like, "what?
"what do you mean she's not there?"
They're like, "she's not here, and we've been callin' her,
"and she's not answering."
- Thing was, jessyka was never late.
Missy tried calling her. No answer.
Panicked now, she ran to her car.
Was jessyka at home, sick?
- So, I was callin' her on the way over there,
And I was thinkin' I don't know where she's at,
And then I started to think the really bad things.
Maybe she was in a ditch somewhere passed out.
Maybe she was in a really bad car accident.
- But you knew it was somethin' bad.
- I felt somethin' was wrong.
So, I get over there, and her car is in the driveway,
So I'm relieved, and I'm like, okay, she's here.
She's not in an accident,
But why isn't she answering the phone?
- The door was locked, so missy used her key
To let herself in.
- I walk in, and her house is really dark.
I can't find her,
And it's like, you know, everything is dark,
So I don't know where I'm goin',
And the bathroom is, like, the first door on the left,
And the door was closed, but I hear water running,
And I'm like, okay,
Maybe she just used the bathroom.
I opened up the door.
I turned on the light, and she was in the bathtub.
The water was running.
The water was up to her nose.
She was laying there like this.
She had somethin' in her hand.
It was a phone cord, and I didn't understand
Where that came from.
I started screamin'.
I had my cell phone, so I called 911.
I drained the water thinkin' I could help her,
But she was already gone.
- You could tell. - I could tell.
She was blue.
Her face was a really weird pattern on her face.
It looked checkered,
But her body was still like a normal color.
- I can't imagine that. - It was horrible.
It's like a nightmare.
I still see it.
Like, one of the worst feelings in the world
When you can't help your daughter
Because she's gone.
- By the time jessyka's father, harry, got there...
- There was a policeman in the driveway.
- And not far away, he found missy,
A wreck, a mess.
- I hugged her.
"what's goin' on? What do we know?"
"don't know anything."
- Had she slipped in the shower?
- He thought that, at first, but I saw that mark on her neck,
And the cord in her hand,
And I just didn't think it-it sounded right.
She shouldn't have had her phone charger there.
Her phone wasn't there.
- So, you didn't know what to think.
- I didn't know what to think.
I was devastated.
I wasn't even thinkin', at that point.
- First responders trained to keep an open mind
Weren't sure what to think either.
- It wasn't an obvious homicide.
Um, they didn't know if it was a medical emergency
'cause we find people like that, that have suffered a stroke,
Or heart attack, or something-- - mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- In similar kind of situations.
So, they really didn't know what they had.
- Homicide detectives derek mois and ryan davis.
- I do a-a cursory walk through the residence.
Uh, they show me where-where jessyka was at.
She's in the bathtub, and, uh, oddly enough,
Her clothes were in the bathtub with her.
- But not on her. - Not on her, no.
They were laying near her feet.
The couch in the living room had blood all over it.
So, my initial reaction was,
Maybe there was some sort of a medical emergency
That occurred on the couch. - Mm-hmm.
- She had gone to the bathroom maybe to clean herself off
And had collapsed and succumbed to
Whatever medical emergency she was having. She had a--
- There wasn't any obvious signs of trauma on her body.
- She had a small bruise on the side of her neck.
It didn't look like any sort of a injury.
- Could've got it any-any way.
- Yeah, it-it didn't look like she was assaulted.
- But there was something off, too.
Didn't quite look right.
They decided to treat it like a homicide.
- Because you only get one chance at this,
And so if you go in, and-and you-you go guns blazing,
And you try to rush through things,
You're gonna miss things.
- The csi people arrived, used a laser scanner
To quickly take billions of measurements
And create this virtual representation
Of jessyka's house, 3-d,
So more accurate than any photo,
And then they remove jessyka's body,
And, yes, detectives could see homicide was the right call.
- When we were able to-to actually look at her eyes,
It was fairly evident that there'd been some sort of
A-a-a strangulation, an asphyxiation
At the very least, that took place.
- And one of the things we noted right away is that
She had longer fingernails. - Mm-hmm.
- Um, and one of those fingernails
Was quite evidently bent back, and we knew that there was
A chance then that if she had fought back
Against her attacker,
There's potentially, um, dna there.
- The next day, the autopsy confirmed that jessyka
Had indeed been strangled to death.
- There was a slight ligature mark around her neck,
But it was disrupted. - Mm-hmm.
- And it al-- it almost appeared as thought
That there was possibly a hand.
- Her hand maybe trying to-- - yeah.
- Trying to pull, so the ligature marks
Were kind of intermittent.
- And one more thing the autopsy revealed,
She'd been sexually assaulted.
- The first thing that goes through your head is, why?
How? Who? - Yeah.
- You know, I mean, everybody is a suspect,
And nobody is a suspect.
That's-- who coulda done this? Why?
- Did she have an enemies?
- None that we knew of.
- Who would want to harm jessyka nelson?
Turns out her love life was full of drama.
Was the key to solving this mystery hidden
Inside a rocky romance?
Coming up...
- The man in jessyka's life and their volatile relationship.
- She would call us, like, every other week.
"can you come and get me? Me and john had a fight."
- And then, did a facebook post put her in danger?
- She just put out there that she was home alone,
And she did it without even realizin'.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Are you tired, baby girl?
- There's nothing better than a close family
And friends who are like family.
Missy and harry nelson had it,
Three kids, kids' partners, grandchildren, until...
Until the morning they found their beloved eldest child,
Their jessyka, just 28 years old,
Dead in her own bathtub.
But who was she?
Detectives needed to know,
And so did we.
- Everybody loved her, very bright.
Both my girls were really smart. - They all had good times.
She was very smart.
- Jessyka was ashley and matt's big sister.
- She's very outgoing.
She's just always wanted to have fun, but,
You know, the older we got, the more she was kinda like
Another mom to us,
And she would always be there.
Even if we were fighting, if we needed her,
She was there.
- Big sister to the whole extended family,
Her cousins, her close friends
Who were more like siblings,
Her siblings' close friends who were more like relatives.
- She was always really nice to everybody.
- Laura wonder had been a friend since grade school.
- She just wanted to have a good time,
And she was just kinda I wouldn't say crazy,
But she just kinda-- - goofy?
- Goofy. - Yeah.
- She did whatever she wanted to do.
- And that held true in her choice of men.
Her first serious boyfriend was him.
- With his tattoos and stuff, it was like,
He seemed to be somethin' that she woulda been
Into 'cause she had a few tattoos, as well.
- His name was john mcdowell.
He and jessyka were good together,
And sometimes not.
- She would call us, like, what, like, every other week.
- Every week. - "can you come and get me?
"me and john had a fight, and I'm not staying out here."
So, we'd drive out there to missouri valley,
And a couple weeks later, they're--
She's back out there, again.
- A year in, there was still no wedding,
But there was a baby,
Dominick, dom.
- I just remember, you know, everyone was so excited,
Wanting to meet him.
- She loved him,
And I think it was just an instinct she had
To be a mother.
She wanted to do the best for him she could,
And that drove everything else.
- And then one day, dom was still quite small,
It all seemed to come apart.
- They were doin' okay 'til he left her a voicemail.
- By accident.
- An unintentional voicemail,
And the message that was left was, well,
Bad, very bad.
- Talkin' to friends, he didn't know
He left her a voicemail telling her that he--
He slept with another girl,
And that was it.
She was done. - Whoa.
- So, I helped her move that day.
- She must have been so upset.
- She was. She was devastated.
- To get an accidental voicemail from the guy who--
The father of your baby.
- Yeah. - Right, right.
- "I slept with another woman."
- Kinda braggin' about it, you know, kinda.
- Yeah. - Ooh.
- "you shoulda seen the one I was with."
- And that's why jessyka elected to be a single mom.
Better, she decided,
To concentrate on her little boy,
The center of her life, dominick.
- She did everything she could for her son, uh,
Just to try to do it right.
Hey, gotta work, pay bills.
I have things I want him to have,
So I need to pay for those things.
- So, she worked.
- She'd work two to three jobs sometimes.
- How does a person even do that? - I have no idea.
- She worked at the first national bank.
- She liked that job. - Oh, yeah.
- But she liked-- she loved it.
Yeah. - That was her dream job.
- By then, jessyka and dominick lived
In the little house on the north side of town.
- It wasn't very big,
But dom had the bigger room, and she's like,
"well, he has more toys, and his bed has a slide."
I'm like, "he has a slide?"
And she's like, "yeah, he needed a slide."
I'm like, "yeah, sure, he needed a slide."
- Huh.
- It was just she gave everything up for him.
He was her world.
- In fact, jessyka's last words on facebook
The night she died, when dom was at his dad's,
Were, "I am such a mess when dom is gone."
- She had lost the remote and thought it was
The worst 15 minutes of her life
Because she lost-- - she was lost,
Yeah, without dominick 'cause he could find the remote.
♪♪
- But...
- She just put out there that she was home alone,
And she did it without even realizin'.
- So, if anybody was following her, they'd know.
- Yeah. - They'd know. Yeah.
- But, of course, someone was following her on facebook,
Maybe quite a few someones, but finding the one
With evil intent,
Not so easy.
Investigators start the search with jessyka's ex,
And soon hear some troubling stories.
- Right.
- And her sister ashley's ex raises eyebrows, too.
- He threatened to take out my whole entire family
To get custody of our kids.
- Wow.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back.
Jessyka nelson's son was staying with his father
The night she was murdered, and her family wondered
If a facebook post had alerted her killer
That she was home alone.
Of course, investigators wanted to know
About jessyka's personal relationships,
Starting with her ex, john mcdowell.
They had a complicated history,
But he was not the only ex involved
With the nelson family who would come under scrutiny.
Back to keith morrison with "evil intent."
♪♪
- Word of jessyka nelson's death spread quickly,
If incoherently, among her friends in omaha.
- I got a phone call from a mutual friend of ours,
And she was so hysterical.
I couldn't understand what she was saying,
And I thought she said that dom had been killed.
So, I got off the phone with her, and I called john,
And he said they found jess dead,
And it was just unreal.
You just couldn't believe that.
- Laura's friendship with jessyka had drifted a bit
After high school, but, by 2015,
It, well, was a little unusual.
Laura and jessyka both had babies with john.
Laura dated him first,
But it was after she broke up with john
That her son, christopher, was born,
And that was not long before jessyka got pregnant.
- I found out when I was six months pregnant
With our son that, um, him and jessyka
Had been dating or just started dating.
- Two women, two children, one man.
- I wanted to be mad at her,
And I-I couldn't because she was just too nice.
- Anyway, pretty soon,
John was no longer in the picture
For either of them.
Then, as single mothers, laura and jessyka reconnected
So their sons, half-brothers, could bond.
Our kids met each other,
And they got to play together.
- Now, her friend was dead,
And the father of both their sons
Was sitting in the police station,
Answering questions.
Which meant john was the last known person
To see jessyka alive except for the killer
Unless he was the killer.
Detectives brought in jessyka's family members and friends
And questioned them all about john.
- I think everybody kinda had
Their own impression of johnathan.
- And some of those impressions were not flattering.
- Yeah.
- They had these fights over dominick,
Over custody, over money.
Jessyka was routinely upset with him.
- John seemed to be trying to minimize those issues.
- Yeah.
- After a few hours of questioning,
They let john go with a warning.
He was suspect number one.
And they kept an eye on him
As they investigated other men
Who'd crossed paths with jessyka.
- We were interested in any male party
She had recently been introduced to,
Anybody at all that could've been showing interest in her,
Communicating that with her via social media
Or any other means,
That maybe seemed kind of unwanted.
- Mm-hmm.
Okay
[clears throat]
- Detectives looked into his whereabouts
The night jessyka was killed.
He was nowhere around.
Couldn't have been him.
Thing was, it had to be someone close,
Someone she knew or trusted,
Someone with a key maybe.
After all, there was no forced entry,
But the door was locked
When jessyka's mother arrived in the morning.
Then her family told police about
Someone who'd been violent toward jessyka's sister, ashley,
Just a few days before the murder.
- I was going through a divorce,
And my ex was not so nice.
He'd, uh, threatened to take out my whole entire family
And then myself just to get custody of our kids.
- Wow.
- And the week before that, he physically assaulted me.
- He had pinned her on the floor
And had left bruises on her arm.
- He'd been arrested.
Was facing charges for domestic assault.
A man who'd been violent and threatened family.
Detectives checked out his alibi
For the night of jessyka's murder,
But they also went looking for anyone else
Who might've had access to jessyka's home,
Like maybe some spurned lover,
But, apparently, there weren't any,
Spurned or otherwise.
- Everybody, when I asked that dating question,
They would say, um, that jessyka often referred to
The only man in her life as dominick
And her other man was her job,
And that's all she wanted to concentrate on,
Was her work and providing for dominick.
- But sometimes jessyka had friends over
For Saturday night gatherings
When dom was at john's, and the last one,
Maybe ten days before she was killed,
Came with trouble.
- A wild party at jessyka's place
Leaves investigators with a whole new list
Of potential suspects
While a deep dive into her cell phone
Raises eyebrows.
Coming up...
- You find all kinds of stuff on people's cell phones.
I bet you.
- Oh, my gosh, yeah, absolutely.
- Investigators discover odd text messages
On jessyka' phone.
- There was just somethin' weird about 'em.
Maybe we need to figure out who this person is.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back to "dateline secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Who murdered jessyka nelson?
The outgoing young woman liked to have friends over,
But one recent get-together made her uncomfortable.
Now, detectives wanted to track down
Some of those partygoers.
Meanwhile, jessyka's loved ones were about to gather.
Could one of them be hiding a secret?
Once again, here's keith morrison
With "evil intent."
- It was a week before they could have
A funeral for jessyka,
A small, sad service for family and friends,
Is what they expected,
But it wasn't small, not at all.
- It was overwhelming just to see
That-that many people knew her
Or, at some point, had cared enough
To show up and say, "hey, we're sorry."
- And some of the young men vowed revenge as they wore
Their "justice for jessyka" bracelets--
Her brother, matt,
Her brother's best friend, also named matt,
Who once lived with them,
Who knew jessyka like a sister.
- He was with us throughout the whole thing.
- Yeah. - Like another son.
- Like another son, just, you know,
"what-what do you need help with?"
Uh, people would bring over food.
He's there helpin' us carry-carry it in,
You know, that kinda thing.
- And there, as well, helping out, grieving,
Was john mcdowell, jessyka's ex.
He may have looked the part of a tough guy,
But police had checked his alibi.
He could not have been the killer.
- We were also able to look at his cell phone locations,
Um, and they were exactly where he said he was.
At no point did his phone ever put him
Anywhere near, uh, jessyka's house.
- John did not kill jessyka,
And when he first learned she was dead...
- I just felt completely lost.
Uh, I was instantly trying to figure out
How I was gonna tell my son
That his mother, which was--
That was his world, was no longer here,
And I didn't know what to do.
- He tried, but even at jessyka's funeral,
Her son, then just six years old,
Didn't seem to comprehend.
What was that like for you?
- Hmm. It was horrible,
Especially with her being right there,
And-and he still wasn't comprehending
That she would--
That she wasn't with us anymore.
- That was when the detectives were tracking down,
Well, they didn't know who.
The sister's ex, the guy who'd been charge with assault,
Had a solid alibi, but what about the men
Who'd attended jessyka's small parties,
One party in particular?
- One of her friends invited her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend invited some of his friends.
Those friends invited others.
So, as this get-together kind of went on
In the evening,
More and more people were showing up
To jessyka's residence whom she didn't know.
- What does that do to an investigation
When you've got-- - it opened our suspect pool up
Quite a bit.
- Especially after friends told detective mois
That jessyka thought something illegal
Was going on at her party, asking them...
- The answer complicated matters even more.
Friends told detectives that the man who'd invited
The drug dealer also tried, at the party,
To initiate some kind of sexual encounter
With jessyka.
- Now, they had to track him down,
Him and every male who attended the party.
How long do-do you spend on this?
- Uh, we spent several weeks.
That's all we were doing, is attempting
To identify these people, locate them, interview them,
And go through the same vetting process
As far as getting a timeline and alibiing them,
Um, as everybody else.
- And we were takin' dna samples from
Every single person we talked to.
- At the same time, they asked
One of their tech investigators, nick herfordt,
To look for clues in jessyka's cell phone.
You find all kinds of stuff on people's cell phones.
I bet you.
- Oh, my gosh, yeah, absolutely.
But what's actually remarkable about this one,
When you say, "all kinds of stuff,"
On this one, it was pretty much just one thing on there,
And it was just pictures of her son.
- This kind of stuff.
- Just her life just completely revolved around him.
- But there were text messages, too,
Lots of them,
And some were pretty interesting.
- One of the last people she was communicating with,
Someone was named matt kidder.
- Matt kidder?
He was the friend, more like a son,
Who'd grieved with the nelson family
And was like a second brother to jessyka.
They'd always had an easy teasing sort of relationship,
And so, of course, they texted each other.
But officer herfordt didn't know any of that
When the texts caught his attention.
- There was just somethin' weird about 'em,
Just the way that he was--
He would be constantly asking her
Basically out to do stuff.
He would say, "hey, do you wanna go bowling?"
And she'd be like, "you know what?
"I-I-I gotta clean up the house."
- Mm-hmm. - And then he would be like,
"oh, I can come over and maybe help you
"clean up the house."
And he'd-he'd-- and then she'd reply like,
"oh, you know what? I'm almost done.
"don't worry about it.
"and now I'm really tired, so I'm just gonna go to bed,"
Somethin' like that,
And it was like this over and over.
So, I talked to the sergeant who was in charge
And said that maybe we need to kinda figure out
Who this person is.
- Jessyka's friends and family said
That sorta back and forth
Was quite typical of their relationship.
- It was just like brother and sister type of thing.
You know, he'd get smart with her,
She'd get smart back, and they'd go on their way.
- So, apparently, nothing to see here.
But, of course, detectives had to dig a little.
Who was this matt kidder whom the nelson's loved
Like their own?
- Coming up...
In the interrogation room, matt opens up to police,
Revealing that he feels guilty
He didn't stop the killer.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- A murder investigation is often a collection of stories,
Whodunit stories, yes,
But also love, loss, regret.
John mcdowell was innocent,
But he didn't feel innocent.
- The only thing that went through my head
Is that-that it, really, it was all my fault
'cause if I woulda never messed up,
And if we woulda never split up,
Then I would have been there to protect her.
- I think you still feel that way a little bit, don't ya?
- Yes, sir.
- Does she intrude upon your thoughts a lot?
- Yes, sir.
- So many stories, witnesses, family.
[crying]
Friends of the victim like matt kidder.
- When detective davis interviewed matt,
He encountered a man still apparently grieving.
And so, davis was sympathetic,
And matt opened up, talked about
His brotherly teasy sort of relationship with jessyka.
- Okay.
Right.
- And like brother and sister, he said,
They'd sometimes get physical in a playful way.
- And after jessyka was murdered,
It was matt who vowed to take revenge
And told detectives he felt so guilty
For failing to protect her.
After all, he was at work that evening, close by.
So, he said he struggled with regret
Even as he tried to figure out what happened.
Whoever did it, said matt, must have been waiting
To find her home alone
And must have seen her facebook post,
The one about her son, dom, being away that night.
And maybe, he said, maybe it was more than one guy.
- Okay.
- He knew something about bad guys.
He'd spent some time in prison, he said,
For something he didn't do, attempted sexual assault.
But she lied, he said, a false accusation,
And the nelsons supported him.
- This guy somehow got railroaded over this.
- So, this poor kid had some kinda
Consensual relationship. - Yeah, yeah.
- And then afterwards,
Instead of getting in trouble for it,
She blamed it and accused him of rape.
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah. Yep.
- And I even knew somebody that knew her.
- Yeah.
- And she told me the same thing,
That she was always up to no good.
- So, after matt got out of prison,
The nelsons celebrated with him and his family.
After all, his dad and harry nelson
Had been best friends for decades
Just as he was best friends with jessyka's brother.
After jessyka's death,
Matt provided a sample of his dna and said, of course,
He'd been to jessyka's house,
So if his dna happened to turn up there,
Well, perfectly innocent reason for that.
But if they were looking at him as a suspect,
They had the wrong guy.
No, matt kidder was virtually a member of the family.
He couldn't have killed jessyka.
Could he? - Coming up...
Stunning and heartbreaking--
What this woman has to say about jessyka's murder.
- It never shoulda happened.
- Because you'd already warned everybody about him.
- Yep.
- What her story will mean for the case...
When "dateline secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
The search for jessyka nelson's killer
Turned up no shortage of potential suspects,
But most of them had been cleared.
Now, police had more questions for jessyka's close friend,
Convicted felon, matt kidder.
Matt insisted a false accusation sent him to prison,
But investigators would soon discover
The details of that crime felt hauntingly familiar.
Here's keith morrison
With the conclusion of "evil intent."
- Matt kidder, the young man who was like a brother
To jessyka nelson, like a son to her parents,
Was sitting in the police station
Three weeks after jessyka's death.
But by then, the omaha police did see him as a suspect.
They knew that matt checked facebook
The night jessyka was killed-- would have seen the post
That revealed she was home alone.
They had discovered that matt's cell phone was at
Or near jessyka's place for 17 minutes that night.
Police tech experts,
Oscar dieguez and nick herfordt...
- So, right now, it's about 11 o'clock.
- Okay.
- And you're gonna see a couple more activations
Where he's still at work.
And right there, and so--
And then, all of a sudden, it switches.
- And that's at her house, at this point.
- Yes, that is-that is directly near the house.
- And there was more.
The detectives had noticed
A crescent shaped cut on matt's hand.
Could have been made by jessyka's thumbnail bending back
As she defended herself,
And they found his dna under that nail
And on the cord she was strangled with.
So, now, detective davis played his hand.
And matt exploded,
A stream of loud and determined denials.
Brenda beadle was lead prosecutor.
- He was narcissistic, and he is a sociopath,
And so, if you were just watching that interview
Without knowing the evidence we had--
- Mm-hmm. - You might scratch your head
And go, "do we have the right guy?"
Because he was so convincing.
- But police believed they did have the right guy,
And they arrested him
For the murder of his lifelong friend,
Jessyka nelson.
Now, it was time to tell the nelsons.
- He said, "we have made an arrest,"
And we have arrested matthew kidder.
My head hit the table.
- Missy and harry gathered the family to tell them.
- I said, "look around. Look at everybody here.
"who is one person that would probably here but isn't?"
And my son, matthew, kinda raised his eyebrows
Like, "oh, my god, no."
- Up until that moment, matt kidder had been
Matt nelson's best friend in the world,
The one he trusted implicitly,
The one who would never, ever betray them,
And here they were.
- Everyone who was there broke down,
Like just bawlin' their eyes out.
- This is somebody who'd been as close to you
As anybody could be. - Right.
- As matt kidder waited in the local jail,
Evidence piled up.
He talked to his father on the phone,
Recorded, of course.
- It's changed now
From the 169 times he denied being in the house,
Yelling at the detective,
Very sternly denying that he was even there.
That was big.
- There was more.
He got chatty with his cellmate--
Told him the whole ugly story.
This is prosecutor beth beninato.
- This informant and the details he gave us,
They were-- they were accurate
From walking into her house, headbutting her,
Which would explain the blood we saw
And the blood patterns on the, uh, the couch cushions,
To the sexual assault itself, to the things that she said,
To the injury on his hand and the injury on her finger,
To the cell phone charging cord.
This informant gave us a view into
What jessyka went through.
- It was about power, control,
And, I think, being rejected by her via text, um,
Just made him angry.
He-he's a very angry individual.
- I-I guess, well, was that, in-in a weird way,
His turn on, um, that the more he's rejected,
The more he needs to have that power and control,
And that's kind of part-part of the buildup or something?
- Mm-hmm. - We think so.
- Which brings us to this woman, patricia springborg,
The woman who accused matt of rape.
Remember, he went to prison, attempted sexual assault,
But convinced the nelsons she was lying.
It was no lie.
And when patricia heard about jessyka...
[sighs]
- That's the hardest thing for me
'cause it never shoulda happened.
- Because you'd already warned everybody about him.
- Yep.
- Her experience with matt, at first,
Was not unlike the nelsons.
- He wormed his way into our family,
And none of us thought
He would do anything like that.
- So, he was actually a friend of your family, too.
So-- - yes, yes.
I met him through my oldest daughter.
- Wow. - Yeah.
My husband taught him how to drive his truck.
- Mm-hmm.
- You know, things like that, things you--
Things that you would do if we had a teenage boy.
- Sure.
And then, one day, he caught her alone at home,
And he grabbed her neck and tried to choke her,
And she, fearing he would kill her,
Stopped struggling and discovered something
Revealing about matt.
- From what I could tell, um, with my situation is,
The violence and stuff-- - mm-hmm.
- Is what got him.
- Yeah, because when you relented-- - mm-hmm.
- It obviously wasn't a turn on for him anymore.
- Uh-uh.
- And if she hadn't given in? - I wouldn't be here.
- You would have been in jessyka's place.
- Yeah.
It shouldn't have happened to that girl.
- Yeah, it shouldn't have.
- And she's got a little boy,
And it just shouldn't have happened.
That's why, after everything that happened, uh,
When the prosecutor asked me if I would testify for them--
- Yeah. - Damn right.
- And she did. And there was one more thing.
The police had seized matt's laptop
When they arrested him, and what they found, well...
- You know, you've seen-- I've seen some weird stuff.
- Yeah. - But nothing like this.
It was a lotta rape videos, and torture videos,
And just, like, the combination of 'em.
I mean, it let us know basically his intent
And his mindset. - Yeah.
- Because what he ended up doing,
Is basically recreated one of these kind of videos
That he likes in real life. - In real life.
- Where he storms somebody, assaulted them, killed them,
And then left.
- Matt kidder did not testify,
But his defense said all the evidence,
Dna, cell phone tracking, the cellmate's story,
All had innocent explanations.
And besides, they said he wasn't the killer,
Plain and simple,
But the jury deliberated just 41 minutes
Before convicting matt kidder of jessyka's murder.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
The nelsons, of course, still miss jessyka terribly.
The last time we spoke,
Dominick was living with his dad, john,
And also with laura and his half-brother, christopher.
After jessyka's death, laura stepped in to help out
As much as she could.
- We were over there all the time, um,
With dom and john,
And the kids all playing together,
And it was just one day after the next,
After the next, and you just fall together.
I mean, it's, uh, one good thing
That came out of this tragedy.
Dom has a whole family, and he's so happy about that.
You know, he says, "I got a-- I got a mommy in heaven,
"and I got a-- I got a mom here."
- In time, laura and john got engaged,
And the nelson family grew by a few more.
[chuckles]
Just one empty place.
But you never fill in the hole in your life,
Do ya, when you lose a child?
- Never. - No.
- How often do you think about jessyka?
- Every day. - Every day.
- I think about her probably more than anybody does.
Everybody said that she was my mini me.
So, it's like when I look at myself in the mirror,
I see her.
So, I just wanna make her proud, you know,
And be able to carry on without her here.
- That's all for this edition of "dateline secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.