-Melissa was like a hero or someone you looked up to
And couldn't, you know, wait to be like.
-Melissa just loved to help people
And see the good in people.
And I didn't think that there was anything wrong.
-A wife and mother found dead in her bed.
-She's facedown.
Mouth and face in the bed. Nobody sleeps like that.
-Was the cause of death family genetics?
-When melissa's mom was 22,
She died of this rare blood disorder.
-Or was it at the hands of someone she loved?
-Melissa was infatuated with james.
He was the bad boy.
-We've been together 16 years.
We're a good couple.
-When you have a love triangle, you have to look at everyone.
-Lying, spying, and the hope for love leads to
A killer relationship.
♪♪
She's an emt. He's a volunteer fireman.
And after 16 years together and two kids, melissa
And bill henderson's roots run deep
Within the close-knit town of lawrenceburg, indiana.
But this proud family and everything
They built unravels in June 2005
When melissa, a loving mother and hometown hero, is found dead
By her husband.
-My daughter's been asking me, "what happened to mommy?
What happened to mommy?"
It's been about two weeks now, close to two weeks,
And we have no answers.
♪♪
[ line ringing ]
-Bill henderson -- he had come home
With his good friend darin laird
And they found melissa henderson.
-She was stiff, cold to the touch.
-Bill was shaken, so darin makes the 911 call.
-Paramedics rush to the henderson home,
But it's too late.
Melissa is pronounced dead at the scene.
♪♪
-I've never seen a child as happy as melissa.
She had the most awesome giggle.
And it just made you happy to hear it.
-Melissa ammons grows up in lawrenceburg, indiana,
The only child of high school sweethearts
Joe and linda ammons.
But tragically, their time together
As a family is cut short.
-When melissa's mom linda was 22, she died.
Something triggered this rare blood disorder,
And she started bleeding internally.
Within a week she was gone.
Melissa was three at the time.
-The loss of her mother is devastating.
But that doesn't keep melissa from living her best life.
-Melissa's four years older than me.
We were more like sisters more than we were cousins.
We did everything together.
Melissa was like a hero or someone you looked up to
And couldn't, you know, wait to be like.
-Like most teenagers, melissa starts dating in
High school, looking for a connection.
But aside from one boy she was infatuated with,
They all fizzle before graduation.
Then she meets bill henderson.
-Melissa and bill met through a mutual friend,
And there was a spark, and she fell in love with him hard.
She was 18, he was 19,
But he already had a job in building maintenance
At the cincinnati airport.
He was funny and he would always make her laugh.
And you could see she really, really loved him.
-In 1991, melissa turns 20
And marries bill in a summer wedding,
Surrounded by family and friends.
-They both were ecstatic.
And then a year and a half later, in 1992,
Victoria was born.
And katie came right after that.
-Oh, my gosh, melissa was the best mom.
She lived for those girls.
-Bill was a great father. He was always there for them.
I mean, they were a perfect little family.
♪♪
-But that perfection is shattered
When the 34-year-old mother of two is found dead.
Lawrenceburg p.D. Secures the scene,
And the case is quickly assigned
To the dearborn county sheriff's department.
Meanwhile, just minutes after he found his wife's cold body,
Bill shares the devastating news with melissa's family.
[ telephone rings ]
-The phone rang in the middle of the night
And it was my brother-in-law,
Melissa's father,
And he told me that melissa was dead.
-I remember my sister called my house and said, "she's gone."
And I said, "what? What do you mean she's gone?"
She said, "they found melissa dead in her bed."
-I just remember.
My mind was going back to this is that little girl...
[ sniffles ]
...Who brought such joy to everybody.
-I was dumbfounded.
I mean, just devastated.
-And so I woke my mom up and we went down there.
The police were there, the coroner's van was there.
-When we arrived to the scene, we were advised
That there was a female, melissa henderson, 34 years old,
That had been found deceased by her husband,
Bill, and his friend darin laird.
-And we learned she had had two daughters,
An 11-year-old, a 12-year-old.
-However, on the night prior,
Melissa dropped them off at a friend's house
To spend the night, so they weren't home.
-At that point, bill was being comforted,
Consoled by family, friends outside.
-It was decided barry was going to interview bill,
And we needed to get a statement from darin.
-The police take bill and darin back to the station
Where they can be interviewed in a controlled environment,
While the detectives speak with melissa's
Shell-shocked family at the scene.
-Melissa's family, especially her maternal aunt pattie,
She believed it was quite possible
That she could have had an acute medical event.
-The first thing I thought about was,
"did anybody tell the coroner about how linda died?"
-So we told detective bridges,
Well, her mom died at a very early age
Because of some weird tragic thing.
Could that have been what it was?
-'cause she's right about the same age.
I couldn't imagine that it was foul play.
-Nevertheless, the detectives begin to process the scene.
-Inside the house, we noticed the back door is unlocked.
As I walk into the bedroom, in the bed I see melissa.
She's laying in a diagonal position, facedown.
It was just odd that she would be found in a position like that
Unless it was a manual strangulation.
Because nobody sleeps like that.
That's not a comfortable way to sleep or relax,
Mouth and face down in the bed.
But we've seen plenty of people
Die of certain medical conditions,
So had to keep that in mind.
Also, I hadn't seen any ligature marks or any other marks
On her that were indicative of manual strangulation.
Then we noticed melissa's fingernail was actually broken
On her left hand.
And we found that fingernail on the floor next to the bed.
I mean, how does that fingernail find its way off the finger,
Chipped and broken, and then the floor and not in the bed?
So that's a struggle.
That was collected and swabbed for dna.
Now we were leaning towards homicide.
But again, not ruling out a medical event because stroke,
Blood clot, seizures.
Those can be pretty violent that could be something
That puts that fingernail there.
So this case could go in either direction.
-When I went to lift her up, I heard like a gurgling noise.
-We're still wondering, well, what's the manner of death here?
-It's hard to investigate a homicide
When you don't have evidence that she was killed.
-There's some kind of medical explanation for this.
-This is going to complicate things.
-It's now just after midnight, Saturday, June 18th,
And the death of 34-year-old melissa henderson
Remains a mystery.
Her family thinks a rare blood disorder might be to blame,
But the detectives suspect homicide.
Hungry for answers,
They head back to the sheriff's department to speak
With the two people who found melissa's body,
Her husband, bill, and his best friend, darin.
-Bill's statement is he was coming home
From seeing about a strip and floor job,
A waxing job on a church in hebron, kentucky.
He'd explained that it was just a side gig,
The flooring job.
He said they came to the henderson home together.
He described the home as being dark,
Which was was a little odd
Because melissa would typically be going to work.
He says he's calling for melissa, can't find her.
Goes into the bedroom.
During the interview,
I didn't know exactly what to think of bill.
His affect was pretty blank. It was void.
-Down the hall, darin is relaying
The same series of events to detective vance.
-Darin was a good friend of bill's.
He seemed to be telling the truth.
You could tell he was upset that
Something had happened to melissa.
-Now, just in case this turns out to be a homicide,
I need to know exactly the events of bill henderson's
Day prior to melissa's death.
Bill henderson tells me he and melissa,
They actually cross paths.
He's heading out for this flooring job
In hebron, kentucky, and melissa,
She's coming home from her regular shift at the casino
And everything is okay.
He says he just keeps driving
And he passed his turn for hebron, kentucky,
And he winds up driving to berea.
Berea, kentucky, is not a short trip, so that didn't make sense.
-He was telling us he had gone a few days without sleep
Because he'd been working so much.
He'd had an episode that put him in the hospital.
And he did have proof of that. He was still wearing
The hospital identification at the time.
-So turns out this guy's got a stressor in his life.
And I want to know what's going on.
Like, why is he having a medical event on the exact day
That his wife is found dead?
What is the medical event?
What brought that along?
-Back in the other room,
Detective vance wants to know more about bill and melissa.
-During those interviews with bill and darin,
There was nothing to point to
Them being responsible for melissa's death.
-After speaking with the detectives for nearly two hours,
Bill and darin are free to go.
But before bill leaves,
He shares his heartbreaking task ahead.
-Oh, the girls were inconsolable.
I mean, melissa was their whole world, and so they were lost.
It was so hard to watch them have to go through that.
-While bill henderson talks to his daughters,
Detective vance heads to the grand victoria casino
Where melissa recently began working as an on-site emt.
Perhaps someone there has information
That can help the investigation.
-We had already been thinking we have a homicide here.
So I made contact with the indiana state police officers
That were assigned to the casino
And advised them I'd be coming down to get some background
On melissa.
Upon arriving, the officers said that there was an individual
That had came to them saying that he needed to speak to me
Because he had some information.
At that time we had an interview.
He said that he was a floor supervisor
In the table games section of the casino operations.
And then he told me
That he had been having an affair with melissa.
♪ -hours after melissa henderson is
Found deceased in her bedroom,
Investigators don't know yet how she died.
But an interview with a mystery man at the casino
Where melissa worked piques their interest.
The man tells detective john vance
He was having an affair with melissa.
But was the married mother of two really living a secret life?
-He said his name was james mccracken.
James explained that he was currently married.
But he had known melissa years before.
They had dated when they were in high school.
-Melissa was infatuated with james back then.
He was the bad boy, wearing the leather coat kind of guy.
And her stepmom was like, "stay away from him. He's bad news.
I forbid you to see him."
-It really broke her heart
Because she really, truly believed that
James was her one true love.
-They fell out of contact with each other for years,
And when she started working at the casino,
It didn't take long for them to start having feelings again.
And they rekindled a relationship.
James told me that they had been intimate only one time,
Three weeks prior.
-The investigators aren't sure what to make of james mccracken.
He was quick to confess to his affair,
But is he telling the detectives the whole story?
If so, the investigators may have just found
A motive for murder.
-When you have a love triangle, you have to look at everybody.
The spouse is always a suspect.
But obviously, the lover, mr. Mccracken,
Is also a suspect here as well.
Because maybe melissa was threatening to end it
Or threatening to reveal it to his wife.
That would be a reason to kill someone.
So you just got to make sure you look at all the possible angles.
-James told me that the last time
He had seen melissa was on the night prior.
He had talked to her at work.
And on the morning of melissa's death,
He said he got off work
And went to the hardware store
To get a piece of cable fittings.
Then he went to his ex-wife's house.
-James had been married before,
And he said he was doing work for his ex-wife.
-He was there to help her fix her cable tv.
Afterwards he came home to his house
And he was there with his wife
Until going to work at the casino.
♪♪
-Later that afternoon, Saturday, June 18th,
The investigators receive the coroner's
Preliminary autopsy report,
And the results are jaw-dropping.
-Given what we had seen so far
And what we had heard about the affair,
Giving someone motive to harm melissa,
We expected the cause of death was going to be homicide.
-The coroner at the time didn't give an official statement,
But he told us that the cause of death was undetermined.
That was concerning.
-It took the wind out of me.
This is going to complicate things.
-It's hard to investigate a homicide
When you don't have evidence that she was killed.
But the coroner was able to show that the time of death
Was between 10:00 a.M. And 1:00 p.M.
-Also during the autopsy,
The pathologist found something else pretty significant to us,
Which was seminal fluid inside of melissa henderson.
Now, given that fact,
I wasn't ready to rule out sexual assault.
Just because we didn't find any evidence of assault
Doesn't mean that it didn't happen,
So I have to consider that yes,
This could have been a sexual assault,
And that seminal fluid found
May not match bill henderson or james mccracken.
-The seminal fluid was collected to be tested along with the dna
From under the broken fingernail.
-One theory -- bill and melissa had sex.
Day prior, day of. It's quite the possibility
But why wouldn't he give us that information
When I actually interviewed him?
Now, james mccracken told detective vance
They were intimate several weeks prior.
Seminal fluid is not going to be found in a person
Several weeks later.
So, if that is his seminal fluid, now he's lying to us.
-What you have is a jigsaw puzzle.
It's not until you have that last piece
That you have the whole picture because until then,
Something could be different than what you actually thought.
-Sunday, June 19th,
Two days after 34-year-old melissa henderson
Is found dead in her bedroom.
The detectives still don't know the manner of death,
But they do know the time of death,
Which they'll use to test the alibis
Of their two persons of interest -- melissa's husband,
And melissa's lover.
-Bill told us that he left melissa that morning about 9:30,
Which was before the time frame given by the coroner.
And he drove clear down to kentucky
Where he had proof that he had been in the hospital.
-Going through his timeline,
He said he passed out at this campsite
And someone had called an ambulance for him,
And that was confirmed.
I showed up to the local trauma center there in berea
To collect his medical records.
They said it was just like an anxiety attack.
It's almost a two-hour drive to berea, kentucky.
He's not even in the state at the time of death.
So it's a pretty good alibi.
Now we got to look into james mccracken.
-James had told me that on Friday,
June 17th, around 10:00 a.M., he went to the hardware store.
-If he was telling the truth, during the time of death,
That put him far away from the crime scene.
But we need proof of that.
-Both bill and james appear to have solid alibis,
Which begs the question:
Was melissa's family on the right track?
Did she die of natural causes?
-I still didn't think that it was foul play.
I thought there's some kind of medical explanation for this.
-From the medical standpoint we had to keep that in mind.
Until that full autopsy report comes back,
We just didn't know.
-But once the autopsy is completed,
The cause of death is still inconclusive.
So melissa's body is released to her family,
Who plan her funeral for June 22nd,
Five days after her death.
But that morning, before the service begins,
The investigators are summoned to the funeral home.
-The funeral director had noticed things
While they were preparing her body
That they didn't think was normal.
-Melissa had some marks on her body.
-You could see there was bruising,
Bruising about her neck.
-Originally, during the autopsy,
You really couldn't see these marks on melissa's neck.
-But through the process of the embalming,
They're plain, right there for us to see.
-Now it was clear to us that's a manual strangulation.
And we were able to photograph these marks
So we could capture that evidence before it disappeared.
-The detectives rush the photos to the coroner's office
To assist with his report,
And as melissa's friends and family arrive
At the funeral home,
The evidence is hard to miss.
-We were crying and upset.
And I remember bill was sitting with victoria and katie.
They were completely devastated. Um...
I mean, you're losing your mom, age 11 and 12.
I don't know that they ever got over it.
I don't know how they ever would.
-And it was an open casket and you could see the hand marks,
The bruising on her neck.
-I just remember thinking to myself,
"this is not natural."
You don't bruise here after you die of natural causes.
-You couldn't deny it then. That was it.
Something in my gut told me right then
That there's more to this.
Something -- something's wrong.
-Now suspecting foul play,
Melissa's aunt pattie wants to find out
If there is more to melissa's death
Than what the investigators have told her,
So she turns to the local media, reaching out to tv journalist
Deborah dixon.
-I went to speak to deborah dixon,
Because she was a victims advocate.
She went after people and found out the truth.
-That was not unusual to have someone in a family
Call and say, "we know she didn't die naturally.
Can you help us?"
So two weeks after melissa's death,
I did what I always do -- go knock on the door.
And that's when I met bill henderson.
-When I went to lift her up, I heard like a gurgling noise.
-We went into the bedroom to have him
Re-enact how he found her.
-It freaked me out. I let go.
I ran through here, ran into the other room to call 911.
And I couldn't do it.
So a friend of mine had called 911 for me.
-But it was just weird. It was like a performance.
And when I was interviewing him,
I'm thinking, "this man was not mourning."
-Me and my wife, we were like the brady bunch
With all the ki-- without all the kids.
We got along. We were -- we were a good couple.
-It was just an instinct or a feeling that he was lying
And covering something.
-Possibly. It could be. Like I say, I wasn't here.
I don't know what happened.
I really feel that she died of a natural cause myself.
-So after that interview,
I went to the dearborn county sheriff's office
And said, "you guys have to see this."
-One of the things we found interesting
About that interview was
He says exactly what darin laird said
During his initial interview with detective vance.
-We were like the brady bunch with all the ki--
Without all the kids.
-Is it a coincidence that both bill and darin reference
The brady bunch while describing the henderson family dynamics?
Or is it a tell-tale sign of a well-rehearsed story?
-We believed that was pretty compelling evidence
That bill henderson and darin laird
Had certainly tried to create an impression that was false.
-We knew bill and darin were good friends.
But we thought that darin knew a little bit more
Than he'd let on.
Is he that good a friend or is he a co-conspirator?
So we did speak with darin laird again.
And I said, "if I can prove that you're lying,
You're gonna go to jail."
-They leaned on him pretty hard.
And he did come clean.
-This marriage was falling apart.
-Was james mccracken lying to his wife or is he lying to us?
-We got the dna results back from the seminal fluid,
And that was the shocker.
-It's been two weeks since melissa henderson
Was found dead in her home
And the detectives suspect her husband, bill,
May be hiding something about their marriage.
So they put bill's best friend, darin laird,
On the hot seat
Until he finally reveals the truth.
-Darin finally told me bill was worried
That melissa was seeing someone else on the side.
Just two days before they discovered melissa deceased,
Bill and darin actually followed melissa.
-Darin stated that they had seen her leave from a bar
With james mccracken in his truck.
And they followed them to a local park
That was along the river.
-And he said they actually parked up on the hill
And surveilled them with binoculars.
From what darin told me,
They clearly see the contact
That was occurring between melissa and james.
So there was no question
That bill henderson knew about the affair
Before melissa's death.
-But what else does bill know? To find that answer,
They'll need to drill even deeper into
Bill and melissa's marriage.
-We needed a real witness to know exactly what
The situation was like at home.
Bill was there but he's not gonna talk about it,
And melissa's dead.
So we brought the children in and interviewed them.
They had witnessed arguing and that bill and melissa
Had been talking about getting a divorce.
Victoria henderson even knew of james mccracken.
I mean, she was 12,
But she had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
Melissa was starting to find happiness
In this new relationship with an old high school sweetheart.
And melissa was ready to move on.
-This isn't the brady bunch family.
This marriage was falling apart.
-Now we did have motive with regard to bill.
We believed he killed melissa
Because he wasn't going to have her leave him.
But I have to be able to prove it.
-The investigators continue to build their case against bill,
And since melissa was buried following the initial autopsy,
They are granted permission to exhume the body
For a second autopsy.
And on August 22nd, two months after melissa died,
They finally receive the official autopsy report.
-At that point, the coroner's office said
It was strangulation,
Which was consistent with how we believed she had been killed.
-Also we got the dna results back from the scrapings
Of the fingernails and the seminal fluid.
-Under the fingernails, we had bill henderson's dna.
-But james was a match for the seminal fluid
That was found in melissa.
-That was the shocker
Because james told me that the last time
He'd been intimate was three weeks prior.
The seminal fluid wouldn't have been there for three weeks.
-The investigators now have dna evidence
From both bill and james,
And it proves that james was intimate
With melissa far more recently than he originally claimed.
Is he also lying about his alibi?
-Obviously when people lie,
That makes you suspicious as to why they're lying.
So he had to be interviewed a second time.
-Now james told me that yeah, him and melissa
Had been been intimate the day prior to melissa's death.
-James explained he lied because he had told his wife
That affair was over a long time ago, weeks ago,
So he lied to us because he had to lie to his wife.
-Then james had found the receipt from the hardware store.
-The time stamps on the receipt
On the day of melissa's death showed
That he couldn't have been in lawrenceburg
At the time that melissa had died.
-So we were able to clear james mccracken.
-The investigators now turn their full attention to bill,
But his alibi seems rock solid.
According to his hospital records, bill was in kentucky
When melissa died,
Which would make it impossible for bill to be the killer.
But the detectives decide to dig a little deeper.
-Within days of melissa's death,
We go to some of the local businesses,
Start pulling some video from their security systems.
Now, we did delve into that surveillance video
To locate bill's truck and to corroborate bill's comings
And goings on Friday, June 17th.
Luckily, there's a convenience store right on the corner
In arch street where the henderson home is located.
-They had surveillance footage,
And you could see the cars that pass by.
And detective bridges found bill's car.
Bill was driving off when he said he did -- about 9:30.
-It appeared that it's actually going towards kentucky.
Now, I'm wondering, how much time is gonna lapse
Before I see it again?
Within minutes, he comes back.
Same truck. Boom, there it is.
♪
-The detectives investigating the murder
Of melissa henderson have uncovered critical new evidence
Against her husband, bill --
Surveillance video of him driving his truck towards
Home when he said he was on his way to kentucky.
Suddenly, the air is out of bill's alibi.
-That puts bill back into the area during that time frame
Of when the pathologist said she died,
Between 10:00 a.M. And 1:00 p.M.
-That footage proved that his alibi was false.
The truth was he could have killed her
Before he left for kentucky.
And now we have motive and opportunity connected to him.
It all starts to come together.
-The investigators now have a theory as
To what happened on June 17th.
-I think there was a confrontation that morning.
She told him it was over.
She was filing for divorce, and he lost it.
-It wasn't just a heat of the moment,
Passion-related murder because he actually left.
He had time to think about this affair,
And get angry and come back.
-I think it was "if you're not loyal to me,
Then you're not going to live."
-And then there was the fingernail.
The sign of some type of struggle.
-And as far as bill's alibi goes,
I think he just drove to get out of there.
Like he just killed his wife and he doesn't know what to do.
And at some point he has an anxiety attack.
Somebody else is calling an ambulance for him.
Now he's going to the hospital.
He's got a hospital band that shows when he was there.
So I'm not so sure he was thinking about trying
To find an alibi,
But he stumbled into one pretty good.
-At that point bill was arrested
And booked for the murder of melissa henderson
-On July 30, 2007, two years after melissa's death,
Bill henderson stands trial for her murder.
After two weeks of testimony,
The jury only needs 10 minutes to reach a guilty verdict.
-It was just so sad
Because it was a lose-lose situation all the way around.
There wasn't -- there wasn't any win here,
Other than the fact that bill has to pay.
It didn't change anything.
You still had to go on without her.
The girls had to live their life without her.
-And then the sentencing came up
And they said, "do you have anything else to say?"
And bill says, "I did it. I didn't mean to.
It was in the heat of passion. I blacked out.
I don't know what happened and I did it."
-I mean, it just was unbelievable.
There was no remorse, no emotion, no nothing.
The only thing he was sorry for is that he got caught.
-At the end of the day,
He's a cold-blooded murderer and he got what he deserved,
65 years, which was the maximum sentence.
-[ voice breaking ] he took one of the best people in the world
Away from this world.
She didn't deserve that.
-I want people to remember
Not that she was killed by her husband
But how much she loved
And how much she cared for everything and everyone.
First and foremost, those girls.
-To see victoria and katie,
It reminds you of why she was here
And maybe that was her purpose.
-Victoria and katie have worked hard to make a good life.
They are in a good place. They're happy,
And that's all any mom ever wants for their kids,
Is for them to be happy.
And hopefully melissa knows that.
-Melissa henderson had a bright future ahead.
Her new career was just beginning.
She loved her two daughters.
And freedom from a loveless marriage
Was just on the horizon.
What she didn't know is that the person
She built a family with is the same person who betrayed her,
Ultimately twisting a once happy marriage into
A killer relationship.