Narrator: A summer of fun turns into a season of mystery
when a teenage girl disappears from a small michigan town.
Cindy: She was vibrant.
She was a little on the wild side.
Pam: We're thinking somebody just snatched her up.
There was just no way she ran away.
Gina: She had just vanished into thin air.
Narrator: Police have no shortage of suspects.
Scott: He basically had no alibi
for where he was when she disappeared.
Gina: He said I know her friends are lying.
We're gonna get the truth out of them.
Who refuses to take a polygraph
and then skips town if they're not guilty?
Narrator: But when dark secrets come to light...
Scott: She told police she knew
where the body was buried.
Pam: I think that had to have been
the worst moment of her life.
Narrator: The truth is more twisted
than anyone imagined.
Scott: I think he took her out there,
showed her the hole in the ground,
and then she started to fight.
Cindy: And something went terribly wrong.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: It's a crisp October afternoon
in southwest michigan.
But the peace of the perfect fall day is shattered
when police arrive at a farmhouse
and officers pour into the backyard.
Gina: Police got a tip
that a body may be buried on a farm.
It was a wooded area next to the lake
under a wood pile.
Narrator: After digging for hours
and not finding anything,
officers decide they need mechanical help.
[♪♪♪]
det. David: It was starting to get dark,
I made contact with a person I know
who has a backhoe and he came out there.
Scott: The idea is you wanna be as delicate as you can
and-- and he would move a couple inches of dirt
and then he would start again and he would move
another couple inches of dirt.
Gina: Eventually, that backhoe
snagged on something red.
And so they stopped digging and went to check it out.
And it was a piece of clothing.
Scott: And a small portion of body came with it.
Obviously, you hope
that you're not gonna discover the body
of an innocent young girl...
That had been murdered and buried
but it had been ongoing for two years
and I think everybody in the community
and everybody in law enforcement anticipated
it was gonna turn out this way.
[♪♪♪]
gina: Niles, michigan is right across
the indiana border from south bend, indiana.
Pam: I've been there for 43 years in the same house.
I wouldn't wanna live anywhere else.
Gina: Back in 1993, niles was a small town.
Midwestern vanilla sort of place.
There's not a lot going on there
but it is close to a lot of places.
[laughter]
cindy: We live a half an hour away
from lake michigan,
so in the summertime when school gets out,
we love to go to the beaches a lot.
We love to have a lot of outdoor activities,
cookouts, camping, and things like that.
Narrator: For one of the town's teenagers,
15-year-old becky stowe,
this summer is especially magical.
Cindy: Becky was vibrant.
She was a little on the wild side.
I mean, she was very adventurous.
When she was younger, like, I would say around 10, 11,
she was more like a tomboy.
She played baseball and things like that.
And then as she grew a little older,
she started to wear more makeup,
doing her hair more,
painting her nails, things like that.
Rob was the big crush that summer,
the guy that she told me that she was dating.
She was excited and happy to have a boyfriend.
Gina: Rob was this popular,
clean cut football hero, good-looking guy.
He was in the popular crowd.
And becky was not.
She was more one of the rebels.
Todd: She was head over heels for him.
During the summer of '93, it was the time
that becky's best friend jaclyn and I
had just gotten together and started dating.
We would spend a lot of time with becky.
The three of us did a lot of stuff together.
Gina: Becky lived with her mom, diane,
who is a single mom.
And her mom's boyfriend steve.
Both of them worked in factories.
Becky's sister cindy was 11 years older,
so becky was alone
a lot of the time when her mom was at work.
I don't think it bothered her.
I think she had a very independent streak
and was pretty good at taking care of herself.
Narrator: Although she is close to her mother,
there's been tension the last few years
since becky became a teenager.
Cindy: My mom and becky clashed from time to time.
Becky was a typical teenager.
Becky liked doing her own thing.
Gina: Back in the '90s,
the menthol cigarettes meant
you were one of the cool girls
and becky smoked a pack a day of newport.
Teenagers, they think they're invincible,
they know everything.
Their parents are old-fashioned
and, you know, are just trying to control them.
Like most other teenage girls,
she had arguments with her mom.
And she would tell her mom's boyfriend,
you know, you can't tell me what to do.
Very typical sorts of teenage things.
Cindy: When steve first moved in,
he was being a father figure for becky.
But steve would come across as bossy to becky
and becky didn't like that
and they would butt heads at times.
It was rough.
She did confide in me how rough that was.
Todd: They had a lot of tiffs,
a lot of yelling matches.
I never saw anything really serious
but she got upset about it a lot.
Narrator: On July 12th, 1993,
tempers are threatening to boil over again.
Becky says she wants to go and sleep over
at her best friend jaclyn's place for a while
to let things between her and steve simmer down.
And her mother diane agrees.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Becky arrives at jaclyn's place
and calm is restored.
The following day, jaclyn and her boyfriend todd
head out for some alone time, returning a few hours later.
Todd: There was no one at the house.
Becky had recently been there we could tell
because the mirror was still fogged up
when she got out of the shower.
She had left us a note
saying that she had gone to talk to rob.
Narrator: Becky's boyfriend rob lives just a mile away.
And becky often walks to his house.
Todd: A little while later the phone rang
and it was rob.
And he asked jaclyn if--
if becky was there.
And...
Jaclyn said, "here.
We thought that she was with you."
he insisted that he had not seen her all day.
And jaclyn hung up the phone and she said,
"well, that's just really strange."
gina: At that point, they realized
her keys were there,
her wallet was $60 in babysitting money.
She smoked a pack a day.
Her cigarettes were still there.
She hadn't taken any clothes.
Like it just didn't make sense
that if she was gonna go off somewhere
she wouldn't bring some of her things.
Narrator: Jaclyn starts calling around
to friends and family.
When becky's mother diane hears the news,
she heads over.
She and jaclyn drive around town but no one's seen becky.
Diane was calling all of her sisters
and everybody in the family.
That's how we found out.
Narrator: Then, diane phones the police
and reports becky missing.
Scott: When police start an investigation
for a missing person, the first thing to do
is go to who's the last person
they had contact with.
And what was the last conversation is.
You know, police came, they talked to us.
It was very surreal.
Narrator: Officers asked todd and jaclyn
if becky had shared anything with them
which might explain her disappearance.
They mentioned the note about meeting rob.
But then jaclyn has one more thing to add.
Jaclyn knew what nobody else knew.
And that was that becky stowe was pregnant.
[♪♪♪]
scott: In over 25 years,
I've never had any law enforcement agency
consult with a psychic.
Gina: They all said
she was never gonna be found alive.
Todd: She was rather desperate.
We all were desperate by that point.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Becky stowe has vanished,
leaving behind a note that she was going
to visit her boyfriend.
The detectives searching for her
have just learned that the 15-year-old is pregnant.
Gina: In 1993,
becky had her first boyfriend rob.
Scott: Rob leamon was a year ahead of her in school.
He was an athlete.
He was in the popular group.
He was a good-looking young man.
And first time in her life
somebody like that paid attention to her.
And I think that was life changing for her.
Gina: Becky lost her virginity to him.
She would put a little star in her calendar
every time she and rob had sex.
And by that time,
rob and becky had had sex six times.
When becky missed her period,
she told jaclyn.
Pam: She had gone to the kmart store there
and had bought a pregnancy test.
And her and jackie
went over to burger king right there
in the same lot and she did the pregnancy test
and that's when she found out.
Todd: It was early on. She wasn't showing.
She told me that it was rob's kid.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: But when police bring rob leamon in
for an interview,
he tells detectives that he and becky
weren't seriously dating.
Pam: I do remember the comments
about him dating becky.
That he's going on the other side of the tracks
dating somebody that was way beneath him.
Rob had actually been dating somebody else
during the school year.
Gina: Becky was, kind of, you know,
the girl on the side
while rob's girlfriend was in new york for the summer.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Rob admits to the detectives
that becky told him she was pregnant
and that he was the father.
He also admits that he asked her to get an abortion.
But he says he didn't see her the day she disappeared.
Scott: Rob said he had not had contact with her.
That they were supposed to meet.
They didn't meet,
that he didn't know where she was at
and didn't know what happened.
Gina: Rob was very easily
able to account for his whereabouts that day.
He had done a landscaping job.
Then he went and talked
to his friend gary for a while.
Then he hung out with his mom.
And then he went to his job as a bus boy.
The police checked with all of those people.
Gary said he had seen rob.
Rob's mom said she had seen rob.
Scott: He said that he was at work.
And we checked that out and that was verified.
Said that he hung out with his cousin.
And we checked that out and that was verified.
So he had an alibi.
This is not the kid that you pick out
going, "okay, that kid's a troublemaker or a liar."
we didn't have any reason to doubt
that he was telling us the truth.
-[birds chirping] -[♪♪♪]
narrator: Still, investigators ask rob
to take a polygraph test.
Det. David: He passed the test.
They reported him as being truthful,
that he had no involvement in becky's disappearance.
Scott: So then we're like, "okay, well then
that really does set rob aside."
narrator: As the detectives consider the case,
they can't rule out the possibility
that the person responsible for becky's disappearance
is becky herself.
[♪♪♪]
gina: Becky was pregnant.
And she was really excited about it.
Todd: From what I understood,
rob had asked her to get an abortion.
And initially she thought maybe
she could do that
but I think she just changed her mind
and she just felt like
she wanted to keep the child.
Det. David: Not uncommon that a 15-year-old
becomes pregnant.
And they all handle it in different ways.
And she may have taken off and ran away.
Scott: You're 15, you don't have a job,
you don't have an education, you don't have any way
to take care of a kid because you're still a kid.
And so I think becky was concerned
that no one else was going to be
as excited about this pregnancy as she was.
Narrator: Still, becky's friends
find it hard to accept she would just run away.
[♪♪♪]
pam: You know, like I said, she left her purse,
her cigarettes, her everything there at that house.
And so everybody said something's happened to her.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: The theory that becky had run away
because of her pregnancy seems even weaker
when detectives break the news to her mother diane.
Pam: When diane heard that she was pregnant,
she-- she-- she was-- would've been supportive.
She was that way.
Scott: She was upset by the fact
that becky hadn't come to her and told her.
But she knew there was tension between the two of them.
Narrator: Diane tells detectives
about the arguments at home
but they quickly rule out
any connection
between diane herself
and becky's disappearance.
Gina: Becky's mom was at work.
So she wasn't a suspect in her disappearance.
Narrator: But it doesn't escape the investigator's notice
that becky's mother isn't the only person
at home with whom becky has sometimes struggled.
Todd: There was some tension between becky
and her mother's partner steve.
They-- they didn't really get along very well
and-- and I think maybe he was one of the reasons
that she wanted to get out of the house for a while.
Their interactions were tense, sometimes almost hostile.
Narrator: What detectives learned
from becky's friends
about the situation inside
becky's home leads them
to take a closer look at steve.
Scott: That scenario where you have
a live-in boyfriend,
teenage daughter,
teenage daughter becomes pregnant,
when law enforcement looks at it,
we're looking at it through that lens
of going why don't you go to mom or you don't go
to mom because perhaps the father is not robbie.
What's going on between mom's boyfriend
and teenage daughter?
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Days after 15-year-old
becky stowe vanishes in niles, michigan,
police are asking questions about the relationship
between the pregnant teenager
and her mother's boyfriend steve.
Gina: So the police went to question steve
about his whereabouts on July 13th, 1993.
What they found out was that he
had not been at work that day.
He said that he wasn't feeling well.
He stayed home and no one had been there with him.
He was just home alone.
Scott: So he basically had no alibi
for where he was when becky disappeared.
Gina: Diane was convinced that steve
had nothing to do with becky's disappearance
because he was her longtime boyfriend.
She trusted him. She loved him.
Narrator: Police placed a surveillance team on steve
hoping it might lead to a clue to becky's whereabouts.
Meanwhile, becky's family and friends are doing
everything they can to drum up clues on their own.
Gina: Diane needed the singular purpose
of her life to find her daughter.
She's nagging the police almost every day.
What are you doing to try to find becky?
She and her family are putting missing persons fliers
up all over town.
Cindy: We were making posters, posting them on grocery stores,
restaurants, utility poles,
and putting them out on people's cars
in the parking lots.
Rob and all of her friends
were part of the search team.
We searched every place.
Pam: We're thinking somebody just snatched her up.
There was just no way we thought she ran away.
So we just started putting out fliers and doing everything
we could to help diane figure out how to find her.
Todd: It was the talk of the town.
The community was well-aware that she was missing.
Cindy: Niles is a small town
and we had a lot of people that kept
saying, well, I've seen becky over here or over there.
Just places that they thought
that they had seen someone
that looked like her.
And it was never becky.
Narrator: Days turned to weeks.
And although many tips come in,
nothing comes of them.
Becky's loved ones refused to give up.
Todd: We drove all around southwest michigan,
northern indiana
talking to mutual friends,
going to places that she liked to go to.
Just came up completely empty-handed.
Gina: Diane would just go around town and look for her.
Diane would, like, drive to abandoned houses
and look through the windows and try
to go inside and see if becky was in there.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Despite the cloud of suspicion over him,
diane's boyfriend, steve,
seems increasingly
engrossed in the search,
and he begins insisting that becky's friends
are hiding something.
Gina: Steve was convinced that some of becky's friends
knew what had happened to her.
One time, he even woke up in the middle of the night
and said to diane, "I know her friends are lying,
we're getting the truth out of them,
we're gonna figure out what happened."
[♪♪♪]
todd: Becky's mother did contact me.
One day, she showed up at my house,
completely hysterical.
And she asked me if she could look in the trunk
of my car and look at my basement,
and I let her do it,
I let her looked everywhere she wanted to look.
I totally understood where she was coming from.
It was just something that she felt
that she had to do,
she was leaving no stone unturned.
She was rather desperate.
We all were desperate by that point.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: After weeks of surveillance,
the police have seen nothing
connecting steve to becky's disappearance.
But they aren't ready to clear him,
so they asked him to take a polygraph test.
[♪♪♪]
scott: Originally, he said, "oh, yeah, I'll do that."
and then the next thing you know, we get a contact
from his attorney that says, uh, he's not doing a polygraph.
[♪♪♪]
scott: That usually means you don't think you can pass it.
Why can't you pass it?
He's not at work like he's supposed to,
there's tension between him and becky,
he's indicated he's angry with her,
and he has no alibi.
So, that keeps him at the top of our list.
[♪♪♪]
pam: And it got really bad between him and diane
because she was mad at him and he was mad at her.
Cindy: They were fighting over that.
If he knew he was innocent and didn't do anything wrong,
go ahead and take the polygraph and clear your name.
[♪♪♪]
cindy: He made himself look very suspicious.
[♪♪♪]
pam: And, uh, it wasn't too long after that
that he pretty much packed up and left.
Gina: So, one day diane gets home
and steve is just gone.
They've been in a relationship for 12 years
and suddenly he's cleared out.
She didn't know what happened to him.
And he was just gone.
Scott: He couldn't have done anything else to make himself
look more guilty than the way that he was behaving.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Michigan detectives looking for missing 15-year-old
becky stowe have growing questions about
her mother diane's boyfriend, steve.
But three months after becky vanished,
steve has apparently disappeared too.
[♪♪♪]
pam: He just took off.
And I know diane was totally upset about it.
Todd: I heard that steve disappeared
which, kind of,
reinforced my idea
that maybe he has something to do with it.
And some of his behavior throughout,
it just seemed so bizarre.
Steve, instead of taking the polygraph,
moved out of the house.
Well, for us, that just keeps ramping it up.
Gina: Who refuses to take a polygraph,
gets a lawyer, and then skips town
if they're not guilty?
[siren blares]
narrator: Police immediately begin searching for steve.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: But he proves adept at keeping under the radar.
[eagle screeches]
narrator: Months go by with no sign of him.
And still no sign of becky.
[♪♪♪]
scott: There were at least 20 or 30 times
that we put together searches, cadaver dogs,
the whole bit, to go out to some location
that she was allegedly buried,
and wouldn't find anything.
So yeah, this went on for months,
and months, and months, and months.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: The not knowing is mental torture
for becky's mother.
Pam: With diane also being, uh, by herself,
I think it was worse for her.
She's, you know, stayed in that house,
she didn't wanna leave, she didn't wanna go anywhere
because she was afraid that she'd miss,
you know, miss becky.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Desperate for answers,
becky's mother, diane, reaches out to anyone,
anywhere who might provide a fresh clue.
Cindy: My mom contacted several psychics
about where becky was.
So, I mean, you grasp at anything.
Gina: The thing that they all said the same
was that becky was dead, and they were looking
for her body,
but she was never gonna be found alive.
[♪♪♪]
scott: In over 25 years I've been a prosecutor,
I've never, um, had any law enforcement agency
consult with a psychic.
In this case, um, because, again, we had gone
on for over a year and a half
and we were coming up empty.
And the decision was made to consult with a psychic
that had assisted law enforcement in another case.
[♪♪♪]
scott: The psychic had pictured an industrial kind of area,
and then she also indicated there was water nearby.
[♪♪♪]
scott: She also indicated railroad tracks.
There's a couple of them that run through cass county.
It was interesting,
um, it wasn't specific enough
for us to pin down.
It didn't break the case.
[♪♪♪]
gina: I don't think diane ever believed
that becky was dead.
I think, as a mother, she thought
that if becky was dead, she would feel it.
[♪♪♪]
cindy: I feel that my mom was hoping becky
would just walk in the front door
at any given time
and it'd all be over.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: An agonizing year and a half goes by.
Then, diane's tireless efforts appeared to pay off.
One of her volunteer searchers
has found something suspicious in a field.
[♪♪♪]
she got a call that there were bones
out at this particular farm
and she, you know, put together
her team of volunteers.
Gina: And so they started digging up that patch
of dirt and found bones.
They called the police and it turned out
this poor farmer had just recently buried
his deceased dog and they were dog bones.
[♪♪♪]
scott: If you put yourself in her position,
you'll move heaven and earth to find your kid.
So I don't-- I don't blame her a bit.
But at that point, by the time we hit that 20,
21, 22 months mark,
we were running on empty.
And we still met regularly to go, "okay.
Is there something we can circle back and do again?
You know, do we need to find steve and harass him some more?"
we found nothing that would indicate
that steve was involved
in anything inappropriate with becky,
or that he had anything to do with the disappearance.
What else can we do?
[♪♪♪]
narrator: With no new leads, becky's case goes cold.
Then, in October 1995,
the phone rings in the cass county sheriff's office
and everything changes.
The woman on the other end of the line
claims she knows exactly what happened to becky stowe
two years earlier.
Scott: We couldn't believe it.
It was angela snyder.
The ongoing steady girlfriend
of robbie leamon.
[♪♪♪]
pam: It just makes me sick to my stomach
to think that she went through that at 15 years old.
[ sighs ]
cindy: He was evil, and he was manipulative,
and he planned this whole thing out from the beginning.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Becky stowe has been missing
in michigan for two years.
But now, a witness has come forward,
claiming to know what happened to the teenager.
Gina: In 1993, before she disappeared,
becky had her first boyfriend,
rob.
Scott: At that time, angela snyder
was robert leamon's ongoing, steady girlfriend,
except for the time he was sleeping with becky
during the summer of '93.
Narrator: Police cleared rob as a suspect
early in the investigation.
Scott: He was, you know, a good kid,
he hadn't been in trouble before.
He was involved in school, he was involved in sports.
So when he said, "hey, I was at work,
um, I didn't see her." and then we checked it out,
and it-- and it-- it checked out.
So then it must be somebody else.
Narrator: But now, angela drops a bombshell
on the investigation.
She tells detectives she knows that rob leamon
killed becky stowe.
She claims that he admitted it to her
and she's been too frightened
to reveal the awful secret until now.
Scott: We said, "when did he tell you this?"
seventeen months before she told us.
And, of course, we're like "so you've been carrying
this information for 17 months
while her mom, every single day,
is out looking for her daughter,
and all of the law enforcement
has been looking for her for two years?"
and I never got a good answer for why.
Narrator: Then, angela drops another bomb.
She claims to also know where becky's body is buried.
Scott: She said becky's body was out
on a farm owned by robbie's uncle.
It was a wooded area next to the lake
on the end of his farm, and it was under a wood pile.
That's pretty specific.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: On a cold October morning,
investigators arrive at the farm
and start digging near a log pile in the backyard
but it's tough going.
Det. David: I made contact with a person I know
who has a backhoe and he came out there.
[backhoe engine revving]
det. David: After some scoops by the excavator,
there was some clothing and body parts
that came up on the bucket.
Scott: It was easy to recognize,
it was a pelvic bone and a thigh.
Narrator: The officers believe they have found becky stowe.
They gather around the burial site
and offer a prayer.
Det. David: In one sense, it's gut-wrenching to see,
in the other sense, you feel a sense of relief
because it's probably becky.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: The bones are taken to the medical examiners
where the forensic team checks the teeth
against becky's dental records.
They are a match.
But because of decomposition,
the medical examiner is unable to determine
the cause of death.
Gina: The body was so decomposed
they couldn't find medical evidence
of the fact that she had been pregnant.
Narrator: Detectives sadly bring becky's mother diane,
the news she's been dreading for two years.
Pam: I think that had to have been
the worst moment of her life.
[♪♪♪]
it was horrid.
Cindy: My mom called me on the phone and said,
"you need to come over.
They found becky."
I was like, just,
[ gasps ] I was just shocked.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: The missing person's case
has become a homicide case.
And rob leamon is the prime suspect.
Detectives are surprised
when he agrees to speak with them,
and they're stunned when with no hesitation,
he tells them the story of what happened
the day becky died.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: He tells them he picked becky up
and drove her to his uncle's farm
so they could spend some time together.
Scott: He said they got into, uh, a little bit of an argument.
[♪♪♪]
scott: Robbie began to describe what, in effect,
was a wrestling match where he was behind becky,
had his arms wrapped around her head.
And they kind of rolled around,
and something popped in her neck.
It was sort of minimizing,
sort of a pseudo-accident explanation?
That doesn't work like that in real life.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: The investigators find rob's story
hard to swallow, even more so when rob's cousin
tells them he helped rob dig the hole the previous day.
Scott: His cousin is learning-impaired,
and so he didn't connect the dots on what was going on.
[♪♪♪]
scott: After that interview,
rob leamon was placed into custody
and then charged with open murder.
[♪♪♪]
when we found out
that robert had been arrested,
it was kind of a bit of relief
because we had spent
a couple of years
looking and hoping and...
Sighs: And, um...
That's pretty stressful.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Although he was only 16
at the time of the murder,
a judge rules that rob leamon will be tried
as an adult because of the severity of the crime.
As the trial date approaches,
becky's family must deal
with another shocking revelation.
Forensic testing has determined that becky's death
was even more cruel than they had imagined.
Pam: It was awful.
Cindy: Something went terribly wrong.
Narrator: In January 1997,
rob leamon goes on trial for the murder of becky stowe,
his pregnant girlfriend, four years earlier.
[♪♪♪]
scott: We did attend the trial
that was held in cassopolis, michigan,
which is even smaller than niles.
It was quite a major event.
Pam: I even wrote down every word
that was said in that trial.
It was something I felt like I had to do
because I didn't wanna miss anything,
as far as what he was saying
and what was being said.
Narrator: Rob sticks to his story
that becky's death was accidental.
But prosecutors tell the jury
the evidence suggests something else.
Scott: I think he took her out there,
showed her the hole in the ground
and said, "do you understand how serious I am
about you getting an abortion?"
[screams]
scott: And then she started to fight.
She was strangled,
to the point where she lost consciousness.
And then put in the hole.
She might not have died instantly from being strangled.
Becky stowe was buried alive.
Pam: Absolutely the hardest thing to hear
was that her heart could've still been beating
when he threw her in that hole.
I mean, that just makes me sick to my stomach,
and to think that she went through that at 15 years old.
[ sighs ]
it's just horrible.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Rob's lawyers point out
that he was just a teenager.
He passed a lie detector test
and he had an alibi.
His time card shows he was at work
the day becky went missing.
[♪♪♪]
rob was evil.
And he was manipulative,
and he planned this whole thing out from the beginning.
When they found out that rob had someone
clock him in and out at work for an alibi?
It was just so sick,
his cousin helped him dig the hole
the day before, and, uh, it's just unreal.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: After three weeks of testimony,
the jury delivers its verdict
on January 29th, 1997.
Cindy: When the jury came back with the guilty verdict,
we were just shedding tears.
Overwhelming feelings of just, it's over.
We have justice for becky.
[♪♪♪]
cindy: And it was an overwhelming feeling.
[♪♪♪]
narrator: Rob leamon is sentenced to life in prison.
[♪♪♪]
scott: Becky stowe died because she had a crush
on a kid, and she fell in love with him,
she slept with him, she got pregnant.
And this kid, out of all of the people
she could've picked,
was a homicidal sociopath.
And when faced with a choice of being embarrassed
that he slept with her or killing her,
he chose killing her.
[♪♪♪]
cindy: Rob taking my sister's life just...
[ sighs ] just destroyed my mom's life, literally.
I mean, she had such major anxiety over it,
um, she cried so much.
Now, we know the truth though, it was not steve at all.
But she never saw him again.
[♪♪♪]
cindy: I have a poem I wrote for becky.
Why did god give you wings so early to fly?
Now I see you only in my dreams.
I know you're in god's loving arms,
shining like a beam.
So fly, my angel, fly,
up in the heavens so high.
[♪♪♪]